Captain Marvel Originally Featured Even More Music

Captain Marvel Originally Featured Even More Music

Thanks to movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther, we are increasingly seeing more attention being paid to the soundtracks in Marvel movies. With the franchise's latest entry, Captain Marvel, set in the 1990s, that provided an opportunity for the film to incorporate a bunch of classic songs to evoke that decade, and the film did just that. But Captain Marvel originally featured more music, as the film’s editor Debbie Berman explained:

I think almost every single scene originally featured a different song! It’s part of the process to try a variety of options, and see what was true to the era, but also what resonates the most in that moment -- be it emotionally, tonally or comedically. It’s through a lot of trial and error, and it took us, as a team, quite a while to get to the place where it ultimately landed, but I feel really happy with the end result.

With an entire musical era to pull from, the filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, and editor Debbie Berman, tried way more songs out than ultimately ended up in the final cut. You might think that some of the more obvious choices were decided on from the start, but it sounds like almost every scene went through a change in song choice during the editing process.

So there are whole musically different versions of Captain Marvel that existed at one point before things were switched up. As far as why different songs were cut or replaced, Debbie Berman said that they wanted to evoke the era and add to the feel of Captain Marvel as a 9'0s film, but the songs also had to inform the story and what a particular scene was going for, be it establishing tone, conveying an emotion or adding comedic effect.

This also shows what a daunting task the filmmakers and Debbie Berman faced when editing this film together. The embarrassment of riches of '90s music must have been both a blessing and curse. There are so many great songs to choose from, but the songs couldn’t just be someone’s Spotify playlist of favorite '90s songs, no matter how tempting it was, because they had to work for Carol’s story and the intent of the film.

As Debbie Berman told ET, that meant a lot of trial and error to see how each and every option worked. That was quite the time consuming process and I imagine some favorite songs had to get nixed along the way. One song might work on one level, but not on another. Or it might fit better somewhere else or not fit with the adjacent scenes. Even song choices that seemed perfect could get axed when they tried another song that was even better.

It sounds like an arduous endeavor, but hey, at least they got to listen to a bunch of great '90s music along the way. However, Captain Marvel was missing an epic theme and I'd argue some of the song choices were a bit on the nose, but it sounds like the music really resonated with people, or at least made audiences want to hear more.

According to Billboard, the 13 songs featured in the film saw a 464% gain in sales in the U.S. from March 7-10, Captain Marvel’s opening weekend. Songs like Hole’s “Celebrity Skin,” Nirvana’s “Come As You Are,” and No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” all saw jumps in sales coinciding with the film’s release.

Captain Marvel is now playing. Check out where we rank it in the MCU and what questions we still have about the character before Avengers: Endgame.

Apparently Robert Downey Jr. Didn’t Want To Do Tony Stark’s Last Big Line In Avengers: Endgame

Apparently Robert Downey Jr. Didn’t Want To Do Tony Stark’s Last Big Line In Avengers: Endgame

The following story contains massive spoilers for Avengers: Endgame. Stop reading now if you haven’t yet seen the movie.

It was the very last scene that Joe and Anthony Russo shot for Avengers: Endgame. For all that they know, it might go down as the last thing they ever filmed in the MCU. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), staring at Thanos (Josh Brolin) and snapping his fingers, reducing the Mad Titan and all of his minions to dust.

It was a reshoot. And according to the brothers, it almost didn’t happen. During a recent conversation the ReelBlend podcast had with Joe and Anthony Russo about the making of Avengers: Endgame, they revealed how the pivotal shot came about … and how it almost didn’t happen. Let’s start with Joe Russo, who told ReelBlend:

It’s an interesting story. I had dinner with [Robert Downey Jr.] like two weeks before we were supposed to shoot it. And he was like, ‘I don’t know. I don’t really want to go back and get into that emotional state. It’ll take… it’s hard.’ And crazily enough, Joel Silver, the producer, was at the dinner. He’s an old buddy of Robert’s. And Joel jumps in and he’s like, ‘Robert, what are you talking about? That’s the greatest line I’ve ever heard! You gotta say this line! You have to do this!’ So thank God that Joel Silver was at dinner, because he helped us talk Robert into doing that line.

That’s incredible that the sequence of Tony’s snap, and the perfect line delivery, is a reshoot that the brothers didn’t originally have during the initial production. They always knew they needed a reply to Thanos. But it took them a few tries before they landed on the right reply. As the brother recalled to ReelBlend:

Anthony Russo: Originally when he snapped, he didn’t say, ‘I am Iron Man.’ The idea came up while we were in post production. Our editor, Jeff Ford…

Joe Russo: We were sitting on our editorial, and we were reworking that sequence, and Thanos says ‘I am inevitable.’ And we were like, ‘We need a response to that. What is the response to that?’ And our editor said, ‘What about I am Iron Man?’ And we were like, ‘That’s it!’

Anthony: We must shoot that, we have to shoot that!

I knew this story when I went back to see Avengers: Endgame for my third time. And sure enough, knowing this, it looks like a reshot scene, though you’d never know unless you knew to look out for it. It’s such a monumental moment of sacrifice, a tragic and heroic act that redefines the legacy of Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And it’s the idea callback to the final line of Jon Favreau’s first Iron Man movie.

As it turns out, though, the logistics of the reshoot also turned into an historic callback. As Anthony Russo elaborated to ReelBlend:

And we did that shot at a studio in Los Angeles called Raleigh Studios. And the stage that we shot that shot on was adjacent to the stage where Robert Downey Jr. screen tested for Iron Man.

Chills. Goosebumps. Nerd tears.

You have to listen to all of the amazing stories like this one, told by Joe and Anthony Russo on our ReelBlend podcast. This one is truly special, if you are a Marvel fans.

Having the Russos on ReelBlend was an amazing accomplishment for us, and we are thrilled that they took the time out of their incredibly busy schedule to talk about the making of the biggest film in our lifetimes. The movie continues to destroy at the box office, setting new records left and right. And now we know some incredible behind-the-scenes trivia facts about the making of, and we hope you enjoyed it.

ReelBlend is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean O’Connell, Kevin McCarthy and Jake Hamilton. Find it on your normal podcast portals, and give us a subscribe if you liked what you heard here today.

Ben Affleck Will Direct, Write, And Star In Ghost Army

Ben Affleck Will Direct, Write, And Star In Ghost Army

Earlier this year, Ben Affleck noted that while he wasn’t sure what project would be the next he’d attach his directorial stamp to, he was keen to get something up and running by the end of the year. Looks like that search is narrowing down pretty quickly, as Affleck’s name is in the news today as potentially directing, as well as writing and starring, in Universal’s long developing film Ghost Army.

Based on a book/documentary on a crucial piece to the World War II war effort, Ghost Army would be about a specific group of warfighters: namely, a squadron tasked with fooling the Axis armies into thinking that Allied forces were greater than they actually were. Through creative means of deception including inflatable tanks, convincing sound effects, and fake intelligence, it was a secret directive that recruited notables like designer Bill Blass and photographer Art Kane into its efforts.

The project sounds like a dream come true for Ben Affleck fans, as his skill set for telling true stories about diplomatic fakery was proven back in 2012, with the Best Picture winning film Argo. So if anything, Ghost Army feels like a spiritual prequel to that film, as it’s another case of the U.S. Government enlisting the best and brightest creative minds to turn the tide of an international conflict.

It would be a welcome return of Affleck’s writing/directing efforts, as he’s been out of action in those respects since 2017’s unfortunate flop Live By Night. But with his acting chops still moving along, most recently in Netflix’s Triple Frontier, one third of the equation is already raring to go with the challenges that Ghost Army will present.

It’s a moment that has been long awaited for Ben Affleck, as when Variety grabbed the scoop, they also reported that he’d been looking to set up camp with Ghost Army for quite some time. But now, it looks like his scheduling has timed out just right with Universal’s intent for the project, allowing all to move forward.

That being said, it’s still up in the air as to when exactly Ghost Army will start marching into production, as Affleck will still need to do some rewrite work on the film. This is after a script originated by Shazam! writer Henry Gayden, as well as a rewrite by True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto.

Seeing Ben Affleck come back to writing and directing with Ghost Army is something exciting for fans, as his recent departure from the DCEU felt like a bump in the road for his recent career. Now all that has to happen is for Kevin Smith to write a reunion between himself and one of the characters Affleck played in his View Askew-niverse, or for Warner Bros to greenlight The Accountant 2, and all will be right with the world.

Ghost Army has no production start date specified, or release date in mind. If you want to see what 2019 has on offer for eager moviegoers, you can take a look at our 2019 release schedule and find your next night at the movies!

The Avengers: Endgame Trailer Has Us Obsessing Over Everyone's Hair

The Avengers: Endgame Trailer Has Us Obsessing Over Everyone's Hair

The final trailer for Avengers: Endgame has arrived, and it definitely didn't disappoint. While most of the film's plot remains a mystery, Marvel Studios revealed new glimpses of the surviving heroes, and the world Thanos left behind after he snapped his fingers and wiped out half the galaxy's population. The final trailer actually answered a few long standing questions, while inspiring countless others. But it's various characters' hairstyles that I'm obsessing with, as they seem to be teasing a variety of exciting plot points. Let's break down all the biggest coiffures in Endgame.

Black Widow's hair is an extremely fascinating aspect of the the Avengers: Endgame marketing, and one that has puzzled the fandom since the first trailer arrived. Widow had a short cut in Infinity War, dyed blonde presumably to keep her under the radar as she traveled the world with Captain America and Falcon. But with Thanos winning and half of all life eradicated, the Endgame trailer reveals that Widow doesn't appear to be worrying much about her appearance.

The passage of time from Infinity War to Endgame can be seen through Natasha's hair, as it grows quite a few inches since the last time we saw her. What's more, her natural red hair is growing out, leaving only the tips of her hair remaining blonde. There was already some debate about whether or not her hair was CGI'd in the last trailer, so it should be interesting to see how the timeline(s) all shakes out when Endgame finally hits theaters.

Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton is rocking his own unique look, as he's seemingly left Hawkeye behind him, and taken on the new mantle of Ronin. Clint was noticeably missing during the events of Infinity War, as he and Scott Lang were put on house arrest after the events of Captain America: Civil War. It's currently unclear what happened to him to make him the far more deadly Ronin, but smart money says at least part of his family faded to dust.

It looks like Black Widow will be the one to track her old S.H.I.E.L.D. buddy down, and hopefully help him return to the light side of the force. The trailers for Endgame show him dispatching enemies with a sword, rather than Hawkeye's trick arrows. But he ultimately appears with a new suit along with the rest of the Avengers, so hopefully his crazy hair cut and murderous alter ego don't stick around for long.

Captain Marvel is the most recent addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with her solo movie currently raking in the money at the box office. Fans have been eager to see how Carol Danvers will interact with the rest of The Avengers, and explain where TF she's been for the past few decades. Because Earth's Mightiest Heroes could have used the help during Infinity War, as well as conflicts in New York and Sokovia.

Brie Larson's character seems to have grown her hair out in the many years since she became Captain Marvel. While Carol Danvers hasn't aged a day, she seems to be rocking a new do and possibly some highlights. Her longer cut debuted in the Captain Marvel mid-credits scene, which was shot by the Russo Brothers and should appear in the final cut of Endgame.

As a reminder, you can check out the final Avengers: Endgame trailer below.

Does anyone else have chills? Moviegoers have been waiting a year since Avengers: Infinity War arrived in theaters, and shattered expectations and hearts with its devastating twist ending. Smart money says that the surviving characters will find a way to reverse Thanos' snap, although they might not all make it out of the conflict alive.

All will be revealed when Avengers: Endgame hits theaters April 26th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Aladdin Box Office: Disney Opens Big On Memorial Day As Brightburn And Booksmart Struggle

Aladdin Box Office: Disney Opens Big On Memorial Day As Brightburn And Booksmart Struggle

Dumbo, who? Disney rebounded from that movie's disappointing opening early this year, finding a whole new world of money with Aladdin. The 2019 live-action remake is making good use of Memorial Day weekend, and it's expected to make over $100 million just at the domestic box office alone by the time the four-day holiday is over. There wasn't much magic at the box office for anyone else, with Aladdin leaving everybody in the dust, including the three repeats just behind it -- John Wick 3, Avengers: Endgame, and Detective Pikachu. You have to head down to #5 to find the first other newcomer in Brightburn, followed by Booksmart.

Check out the full top 10 chart from the domestic box office. The results below are just for the usual three-day Friday-to-Sunday tally, and more money will be made Monday to finish out Memorial Day weekend.

If Aladdin can reach $110 million on Monday, that will make it one of the top five Memorial Day openings ever, per Box Office Mojo stats. It seems to be trending toward the higher end of the initial estimates for its opening weekend box office. That said, there's no chance it will take the #1 Memorial Day weekend spot from the reigning champion, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which nabbed $139 million in its four-day debut.

Aladdin has already made more than $120 million at the international box office, for a current worldwide total of $207.1 million. It should easily pass Dumbo, which only has a current domestic total of $112,701,413 and a worldwide total of $348,096,055.

Speaking of Dumbo, though, it got a boost from Aladdin's opening. It actually just missed the top 10, placing #11 with a $1.046 million weekend. That's a +238.2% jump over its 18th place finish last week. Sometimes it seems like Disney is stacking these releases too close together, but as we saw from Captain Marvel when Avengers: Endgame came out, the releases don't cannibalize each other so much as give the previous film a nice ticket boost.

John Wick 3 was the top dog last week, finally dethroning Avengers: Endgame as #1 title on the weekend charts. They are both still toward the top this weekend, along with Detective Pikachu, which left the indie newcomers struggling for air. Brightburn is a superhero movie, but not a big studio comic book movie. It was made on a shoestring budget, so that $7.5 million isn't exactly a failure, but does it bode ill for the potential to continue the story from here? Same with Booksmart, which is one of the best-reviewed films of the year. It's earning raves, but only $6.5 million at the box office.

It's always tough to be a small film out there, but especially around a big holiday weekend like this. Brave of them to even try to take on Aladdin, John Wick, and Endgame with some counter-programming. But would another time of year have been more advantageous?

Looking ahead, next week is going to be another monster at the box office -- literally, with Godzilla: King of the Monsters ready to take your money. Rocketman will also open to try and claim the non-blockbuster crowd.

Who took your money this weekend and why? Poll time.

Olivia Wilde ‘Stole’ An On-Set Rule From Martin Scorsese In The Making Of Booksmart

Olivia Wilde ‘Stole’ An On-Set Rule From Martin Scorsese In The Making Of Booksmart

When taking on an intimidating new endeavor, it’s always helpful to take inspiration from those who are the best at what they do. After all, their methodology clearly results in success, and mirroring that methodology theoretically should result in mirrored success. This is something that is regularly seen in the movie world when filmmakers are preparing to make their first feature, and it’s a tradition that Olivia Wilde continued in the making of her directorial debut, the upcoming comedy Booksmart.

Specifically, she took a page out of the playbook of one of the greatest filmmakers of all time: Martin Scorsese. The two had the opportunity to collaborate in recent years working on the HBO series Vinyl (which Scorsese co-created and Wilde starred in), and that experience proved to be motivating for the actress-cum-director in the making of Booksmart. Speaking during a Los Angeles press event earlier this week, Wilde revealed that she borrowed an on-set tactic from the Oscar-winner, which was that all scripts and sides were not made available to the stars during production. Said Wilde,

I stole that rule from Martin Scorsese. I worked for him, and I was blown away by what happens when actors are not allowed to bring sides on set because it means that they are free to create, and with a very short schedule - like we had 26 days to shoot the film - I needed them to be ready when they got there to just play.

A script can often function as a safety net for actors, as they can look back on the material to remember specific lines, or it can help them find the proper emotion for a given moment in a larger story – but Olivia Wilde apparently wasn’t interested in letting her stars have that backup system. Instead, she felt it was more important for the cast to exist in the moment while cameras were rolling, and while it almost certainly led to deviations from what had been written, she felt that the freedom the environment provided was ultimately more important.

What makes this particular situation a little extra special, though, is that while Booksmart does feature some veteran adult stars - including Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte, and Jason Sudeikis – most of the ensemble is made up of younger actors (some of whom are making their feature film debuts). This in mind, you’d think that Olivia Wilde’s borrowed approach from Martin Scorsese might be seriously intimidating, but evidently that wasn’t the case.

Instead, as Wilde explained, they apparently weren’t flustered by that aspect of the experience at all – which came as a bit surprise to the first-time director:

What was amazing is this cast is so brilliant that that was no big deal. I think there's much more experienced actors who would've been terrified by that rule, and they were like, 'No problem; watch me work.' So I'm very, very proud. I think half of the brilliance you see in the movie, if you see it, it's because of the energy they brought that day, and they're looseness, and they're will to give it their all.

Based on a script by Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, and Katie Silberman, Booksmart centers on a pair of intelligent high school seniors (Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein) who start to feel a level of regret about their lack of high school partying when they realize that many of their more fun-oriented classmates still managed to get into good schools. They make the decision to subvert their reputations by attending an end-of-the-year blowout and letting loose for the first time in their lives – and it winds up leading to a fun adventure involving all kinds of strange roadblocks and weirdness along the way.

The film debuted earlier this year at the SXSW Film Festival, earning great reviews and heaps of buzz, and it won’t be long until audiences nationwide have the chance to see it for themselves. Booksmart will be heading into wide release next Friday, May 24th, so be sure to check it out, and stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more about the movie.

First Sonic The Hedgehog Trailer Gives Him Wild New Powers

First Sonic The Hedgehog Trailer Gives Him Wild New Powers

Studios have continued to try and crack the code of turning video games into movies the way they have with comic books and the result has been films with a lot of different looks and styles. Now, we have one of the most popular video game characters ever getting his first big screen adventure and it's...interesting, to say the least. Check out the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog and see what the blue speedster can do in a world of humans.

Of course, the movie starts showing off just how fast Sonic is, that's his whole gimmick, but here Sonic apparently can move so fast that he goes full Quicksilver in a sequence where the world around him appears to be standing still. Even Sonic doesn't usually go quite that fast.

In addition to that, we see a sequence where the famous gold rings that Sonic collects in the video game can apparently be used as portals that transport Sonic's human friends from on place to another. i guess now we know why he picks so many of them up.

Sonic is a character born in the 1990s and that vibe permeates the trailer. Possibly not more so than in seeing Jim Carrey's version of Dr. Robotnik, which is born from a very old school Jim Carrey performance. It feels like something out of an Ace Ventura movie and to be honest, I can get behind that. It's certainly not the version of Dr. Robotnik I was expecting, and I'm not sure what it means to the film as a whole, it may not really work, but if you're a fan of old school Jim Carrey, it's nice to see.

For those fans a little thrown off by Carrey's look, the end of the trailer gives us a version of Robotnik more in line with the classic video game version, though how one becomes the other we don't know.

For fans of the classic video game, there are plenty of fun references in the trailer. The Paramount logo is scene surrounded by gold rings. James Marsden's police officer is a resident of Green Hills, a reference to the first level of the original Sonic the Hedgehog video game. Even the film's tagline about every hero having a "Genesis," is a cute reference to the Sega video game console on which Sonic had his best adventures. Possibly his only good ones.

The plot of the film is a bit vague based on the trailer. Sonic needs to "save the planet" though it's not clear here from what. Robotnik appears to be chasing Sonic, not the source of whatever Sonic is trying to save us from so what that is we don't really know.

Sonic the Hedgehog fans were more than a little concerned when the first posters came out for the new film. The character's look was a little disconcerting. I'm not sure this trailer is going to alleviate anybody's fears. It's a little over the top and Sonic still looks, odd. Having said that, Sonic has been portrayed as being full of attitude in pretty much all of his incarnations so this isn't all that out of line even if it seems a bit much.

Sonic the Hedgehog hits theaters in November.