Zack Snyder Reveals Who Was Going To Play Darkseid In The DCEU

Zack Snyder Reveals Who Was Going To Play Darkseid In The DCEU

As time goes on, Zack Snyder’s original vision for Justice League seems to get clearer with each passing revelation. There’s been quite a bit of information that’s come out about what was supposed to happen in the film that eventually became the final product released, and a lot of that information was about potential franchise villain Darkseid. We’ve learned so much about this character, from what his function would have been in the Justice League films to what he would have looked like; and now, we know who would have played him - actor Ray Porter.

Best known for supporting roles in shows like ER and Justified, Porter was going to play the Justice League baddie who was supposed to raise hell towards the end of the first planned film, only to come back in the planned Justice League 2 later. Zack Snyder confirmed this casting through social media, as he posted a photo of Ray Porter, along with captions merely stating, “He’s the man. For Darkseid.”

If the DCEU had stuck to its originally intended path, Darkseid was basically the Thanos of the Justice League story run, as he was searching for an equation that would allow him to control all sentient beings. References were baked in throughout the series of films contemporary to Justice League, with lines and renderings of Darkseid’s visage that have been pointed out by Zack Snyder through his official Vero account. Ray Porter being drafted into the Justice League mix as the actor who would be his cinematic avatar only further confirms that not only was the two film structure scrapped pretty quickly, but the Snyder Cut just might be out there. For reference, take a look at this photo of Porter, below:

Though it may surprise people that Porter’s long-locked look would be chosen for a character that typically is seen with a helmet covering a bald head, Justice League probably would have used some sort of motion capture process to bring the character to life. So Ray Porter could have put on the standard bodysuit with ping pong balls or whatever rig that Zack Snyder would have used to get the look right, and that hair could have been secured and eliminated from the film. Though that hasn’t stopped people from joking about the character taking a rather Aquaman-like approach to his looks, despite the fact that Darkseid is some serious business in the DCEU.

A formidable villain in the DC Comics universe, Darkseid was someone that was being talked about quite heavily ever since the initial clues were placed within Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. With Bruce Wayne dreaming of a nightmarish apocalyptic future, and a massive field with the Omega symbol burned into it, the pump was primed for this villain’s eventual usage towards the end of Justice League’s first part and his eventual full-on baddie status in Justice League 2.

With a fandom further calling for the release of the fabled Snyder Cut, further drips and drabs of information towards the original vision for Justice League’s defunct two-parter seem to only stoke those fires. Whether we’ll get that cut and what further information will come out about the original two part structure of the Justice League film in the future is something that’s open ended, but intensely intriguing.

However, as it stands, Justice League’s final cut is on home video at the moment, with Shazam! being the current DC Comics film in theaters. Though for the record, Ray Porter would make a hell of a relative for Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, should the DCEU want to retain him.

Apparently Netflix Promoted A New Jurassic World Spinoff Too Early

Apparently Netflix Promoted A New Jurassic World Spinoff Too Early

Netflix’s algorithm is a funny thing: Between its random sub-genre recommendations such as "absurd opposites-attract comedies" and "dark revenge sci-fi & fantasy," you never know what you’re going to discover while scrolling through the streaming service. Recently, a couple of subscribers noticed a potentially unannounced Jurassic World title while they were in the mood for watching some dinosaur movie goodness. Take a look:

As you can see in the recent tweet from @nsjstuff, the title Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous came up on his search results. According to MovieWeb, after he tweeted this out, fans did some digging and found that Universal had filed three trademarks for this title on entertainment, toys and games in December 2018. While the project has not been officially announced, the studio does already have ties with Netflix and has discussed plans to create more programming around the blockbuster properties.

Netflix has already collaborated with the studio in the past for LEGO Jurassic World: The Indominus Escape, so another project about the Universal property with this newly revealed title is likely on the way as well. The studios also have a Netflix Fast & Furious animated series centering on the adventures of Tony Torretto -- teenage son of Vin Diesel’s Dom -- coming later this year called Fast & Furious: Spy Racers.

Universal’s animation studio has additionally worked with the streaming giant in the past to release a children’s television show based on their highly-successful How To Train Your Dragon franchise. The studios’ previous dealings lead us to believe the upcoming Jurassic World title will also be an animated series or film targeted to a younger audience. Perhaps about a summer camp at the problematic park getting out of hand?

If you look up “Jurassic” on Netflix now, as I just did, the upcoming title no longer appears. Looks like the streaming giant realized its mistake and took down the title from showing up. Maybe Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous is still in early development and not ready to be announced by the studios.

This information does show that Netflix and Universal are in fact working together to create more content about the famous dino park that has sprung a $5 billion global grossing franchise since Steven Spielberg’s classic debuted in 1993.

Besides Jurassic World’s future presence on the streaming platform, Universal Studios is also gearing up to unveil its Jurassic World - The Ride revamp this summer with newly created dinos, scenery, and storyline updating the 23-year-old classic ride. The third installment of the big-screen Jurassic World franchise is also underway for summer 2021 release.

Until then, no need to search for what’s next on Netflix, just check out these great movies coming to the streaming site this April.

.

Matthew Vaughn Reveals His Scrapped Plans For Man Of Steel 2

Matthew Vaughn Reveals His Scrapped Plans For Man Of Steel 2

Although the DC Extended Universe franchise is moving forward with numerous movies, including The Batman, The Suicide Squad and Aquaman 2, one character who’s still languishing in limbo is Superman. While he was resurrected in Justice League and looked to have a bright future ahead of him, other than making a neck-down cameo appearance in Shazam!, there’s been no movement on Kal-El’s cinematic future.

Naturally one way he could return is in Man of Steel 2, and at one point Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn was reportedly in talks to helm that sequel. However, Vaughn has now said that the movie is “officially” no longer happening.

That doesn’t bode well for Henry Cavill’s future as Superman, as it was reported (but not officially confirmed) last year that he was hanging up the red cape. However, Vaughn did provide some details on what his Man of Steel 2 would have looked like, and it borrowed elements from the Superman movie he pitched in 2008.

As Matthew Vaughn explained to Polygon, Matthew Vaughn and comic book heavyweight Mark Millar came to Warner Bros in 2008 with an idea for a cinematic Superman story that would launch a trilogy which would have been, as Millar once called it, “a massive, uplifting, hopeful thing.” But Vaughn’s Superman movie also would have been incredibly different than what’s come before, as it sees Kal-El growing up on Krypton.

The first movie of this proposed trilogy would have taken place almost entirely on Krypton and focused on Jor-El and Krypton’s impending destruction. However, these events would have happened later in the timeline, allowing Kal-El to reach adulthood on Krypton, learn about Earth there and then have to reckon with his loyalty to both planets.

Given how Man of Steel began with the more traditional Superman origin story, with Kal-El being sent off Krypton as an infant and the planet exploding soon after, then obviously a Matthew Vaughn-directed Man of Steel 2 couldn’t have been a direct adaptation of his Superman pitch from last decade and still fit within DCEU continuity. So unless the plan was for this movie to be set outside that franchise, I’m curious about what ideas Vaughn would have carried over.

Perhaps Man of Steel 2 would have seen Superman departing Earth and going on an adventure elsewhere in the galaxy, as the DCEU has yet to deeply delve into its cosmic roots yet. Henry Cavill had expressed interest in having Brainiac be Man of Steel 2’s main villain, and in the modern era, he’s usually connected to Krypton’s history. That said, perhaps taking that kind of creative approach would have resulted in Man of Steel 2 feeling too similar to the Syfy series Krypton.

In any case, Matthew Vaughn directing Man of Steel 2 didn’t work out, although he’s not opposed to the idea of still working in the DC Comics realm, saying “it’d be hard to say no” if he was given the opportunity to direct a new Superman movie. At one point Mission: Impossible - Fallout director Christopher McQuarrie was also in consideration to helm Man of Steel 2, but that also fell through.

So for now, Superman is still sitting on the proverbial shelf, and we’ll have to wait and see if Henry Cavill ever gets to play him again or if a new actor will don the ’S’ shield, whether it be in a DCEU-set movie or a standalone story. For now, you can keep up to date with what the DCEU has coming down the pipeline with our handy guide.

4 Months After People Walk Out Of Holmes And Watson In Theaters, It's Topping DVD Rentals

4 Months After People Walk Out Of Holmes And Watson In Theaters, It's Topping DVD Rentals

Last Christmas was a great period for films. We had superhero adventures like Aquaman and the amazing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. There were beautiful family movies like Mary Poppins Returns and even Bumblebee. However, one movie that did not belong in this category was the Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly comedy Holmes and Watson.

Based on both the reviews and the box office, Holmes and Watson was a travesty of a movie, one of the worst in recent memory that had viewers literally walking out of the theater before it was over. And yet, four months later, the film is now at the top of the rental charts.

Movie rental company Redbox has released its rental charts for the week ending April 14, and quite surprisingly, Holmes and Watson finds itself at the top of the charts when it comes to physical disc rentals, and in the number two slot for digital rentals, behind Clint Eastwood's The Mule.

Holmes and Watson was something of an epic flop. Quite frequently, a movie that is panned by critics is still able to put up some decent numbers at the box office, but that wasn't the case here. The film holds an 11% rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes and has an only slightly better 27% score from the general audience.

Not only did a lot of people who saw it not love it, but not all that many people actually saw it. The film only made $30 million domestically and barely broke $40 million globally, on a reported budget of $42 million. The film was officially a box office flop, though it's possible the movie might be able to find its way to breaking even thanks to rental numbers.

Clearly, those who did not bother to go see Holmes and Watson on the big screen are willing to give it a shot with a rental. Redbox physical rentals can cost less than $2, which means if you pick up something you don't like, you're not out much.

Rentals in general are done by people who want to give a look to something that they missed in theaters. While the Redbox top 10s published by Media Play News do include those bigger films like Aquaman and Bumblebee, the lists are largely populated by movies that didn't make a smash, like Second Act, and Instant Family, in addition to The Mule and Holmes and Watson.

Of course, it has to be said that just because people are renting Holmes and Watson, doesn't mean any more people are actually liking it than they did the first time around. It's also hard to say how many people are actually watching it. Physical DVD rental may not be dead, but we have no idea how many people in absolute numbers are actually taking the time to go to a kiosk to rent it.

Still for a movie like Holmes and Watson, any good news should be celebrated.

Looks Like Bond 25’s Script Is Getting Help From Killing Eve’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Looks Like Bond 25’s Script Is Getting Help From Killing Eve’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Another chapter of the James Bond franchise is closing soon. Barring some last minute change, the still-to-be-titled Bond 25 will mark Daniel Craig’s last mission as 007, so it goes without saying that this movie will need to stand out and wrap things up with a bang. To improve the likelihood of that happening, Killing Eve creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been recruited to polish Bond 25’s script.

Last September, following the departure of director Danny Boyle and writer John Hodge from Bond 25, longtime James Bond franchise contributors Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were brought in to rework the upcoming movie’s script. However, when making a major motion picture, sometimes it becomes necessary for another writer or several to join the proceedings. Scott Z. Burns hopped aboard in February to work on the script, and now Phoebe Waller-Bridge is picking up where he left off.

According to The Observer, Daniel Craig specifically requested for Phoebe Waller-Bridge to bring “her wit and quirkiness” to the Bond 25 screenplay. Craig is reportedly a fan of the other TV series she created, Fleabag (which just concluded its second and final season in the U.K.), and felt that she could do a good job with livening up Bond 25.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge has recently been in New York City performing a stage version of Fleabag, and while in the Big Apple, she met with Daniel Craig about polishing the Bond 25 script to add more humor and the kind of “offbeat style of writing” she’s known for. So while the story as a whole doesn’t sound like it’ll be overhauled, tonally Waller-Bridge will be making some adjustments.

This marks the second major cinematic franchise that Phoebe Waller-Bridge gets to contribute to. Last year, she appeared as L3-37, Lando Calrissian’s droid partner in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Waller-Bridge’s other notable credits include The Iron Lady, Goodbye Christoper Robin, Broadchurch and Crashing.

Phoebe-Waller Bridge working on Bond 25 is the latest step in this movie’s long journey to rolling cameras, but assuming the changes Phoebe Waller-Bridge are met with approval, then production should finally begin in a few weeks. Cary Fukanaga of True Detective and Maniac fame was brought in to take over as director from Danny Boyle, who exited the project due to creative differences.

Aside from Daniel Craig reprising James Bond for the fifth and final time, Bond 25 will also see the return of Lea Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann, Ben Whishaw’s Q, Naomie Harris’ Eve Moneypenney and Ralph Fiennes’ Garteth Mallory, who succeeded Judi Dench’s character as M. No new characters have been announced yet, although Rami Malek is being eyed to play the villain.

Originally set for release this November, Bond 25 was pushed back to February 2020 and is now scheduled to hit theaters on April 8, 2020. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates on its progress, and don’t forget to look through our 2019 release schedule to learn what’s headed to the silver screen a little sooner.

The Lion King Official Trailer Adds Some Humor To Simba’s Stunning Savanna

The Lion King Official Trailer Adds Some Humor To Simba’s Stunning Savanna

The Lion King is one of the most popular animated movies Disney has made to date. It's almost a foregone conclusion it will be one of the studio's most popular remakes. A brand new trailer for the CGI spectacle is now here, and while it contains a lot of epic moments you'll remember from the original, it also provides us with some laughs, in the form of fan-favorite sidekicks Timon and Pumbaa. Check it out.

The trailer gives us a couple of new voices compared to the last one. Previously, the only voice we heard was James Earl Jones' which, considering he was in the original film, was something of a cheat. Now we hear Chiwetel Ejiofor for the first time as Scar. It's certainly a very different voice than that of Jeremy Irons, but no less menacing. We also get to see, but not hear, other characters like the hyenas, Nala, Zazu, and, of course, Simba himself.

Then, at the end, we hear Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen for the first time, as the voices of Timon and Pumbaa. The pair are performing a chorus of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," which I guess means this is our first chance hearing any of the music in The Lion King, even though this probably wasn't the song people were waiting for.

Timon and Pumbaa sang the same song in the original Lion King as well, and seeing what we've seen before is pretty much what this trailer is all about. While some of the dialogue that we hear in the trailer isn't identical to lines from the original, many of the images are. We see Scar telling Simba to run away, and the hyenas chasing him as he does. We see Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa, walking along together in single file profile, one of the most iconic images from the animated classic.

While people certainly have fond memories of the original version, and are going to want to see their favorite parts in the remake, I certainly would like to see a little something different in the remake that will set it apart from the original, not simply have it be a complete retelling of the story as we already know. There's still plenty of space for such things to fit in between the scenes we love, and the classic moments are going to be what draws in a lot of the audience, but it would be nice to see something a little new in the trailer.

Either way, The Lion King is almost destined to be a hit. It will be the third Disney remake of 2019 following the recently released Dumbo and the upcoming Aladdin, but with a movie as popular as this one remake fatigue seems highly unlikely.

The new Lion King arrives in July.

Triple Frontier Was Surprisingly Popular With Female Viewers

Triple Frontier Was Surprisingly Popular With Female Viewers

Looking at the trailer for a film like Netflix’s Triple Frontier, you might think that the film would play best with a more male demographic. The action/drama hybrid has a lot of kinetic action that people would more typically associate with a movie suited for a guy’s night out. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth, as one of Triple Frontier’s producers, Alex Gartner, clued us into the fact that the film was a surprise hit with its female viewers as well.

During a recent chat with CinemaBlend, Gartner and his Atlas Entertainment colleagues/fellow Triple Frontier producers Charles Roven and Andy Horwitz touched on the film’s reception. And while the film’s impressive reach to women isn’t a total surprise, Alex Gartner further explained why he felt the film did so well with that side of the aisle:

[Triple Frontier] also played incredibly well with women. I mean, it always tested well with women. … I think that the great cast we managed to assemble drew them in, but then they really responded to the movie. I think that’s another positive of having Netflix as our partner and our platform, because I think it reached a lot of people, and maybe people who, based on the genre, might not have been reached as quickly. I found it really personally satisfying.

So not only did the absolute mountain of handsome co-stars like Oscar Isaac and Ben Affleck draw female viewers into Triple Frontier, but according to Gartner, the easy access of the film to Netflix subscribers also helped. That definitely checks out, as the numbers from the film’s first month of release showed that 52 million households took the plunge into money-snatching madness that co-writer/director J.C. Chandor had provided them.

It’s not hard to see why either, as it’s the basic model that makes Netflix originals so successful in the first place. If you already have a subscription to the service and you randomly spot a brand new movie that shows Oscar Isaac leading a group of fellow war vets into a jungle heist of epic proportions, you’re already hearing the platform’s trademark “badump” before you even know you’ve clicked on Triple Frontier’s thumbnail.

That sort of expedience isn’t lost on the Atlas Entertainment gang, as Alex Gartner also expressed as much during this same conversation. In addition to his remarks about having an overwhelmingly positive female audience for Triple Frontier, Gartner also praised Netflix for allowing this sort of lightning fast audience feedback as follows:

It’s really interesting having a movie of scale really supported by Netflix premiere on their service, and I think [producers Charles Roven and Andy Horowitz] also got so much feedback, so quickly. So many people saw it so fast, and that was really really sort of satisfying to get that kind of feedback that quickly, and to have it be like Andy said, really positive feedback.

So while the filmmaking process for a Netflix Original film may not be different from that of a traditional studio release, the response time is certainly accelerated once a film such as this launches. Whether your film is a flop or a hit on Netflix, the word travels fast and the internet never forgets, which is even better in the case of Triple Frontier.

As the public response was quite enthusiastic to the film, particularly in the female demographic, one has to wonder what sort of projects will be inspired by such a surprising scenario. That’s left for the future to decide, but it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that more of the same could be on our way in the near future.

For now, you can catch Triple Frontier, if you haven’t already, by streaming it on Netflix.