Movies

Brie Larson Confirmed to Play Captain Marvel

It’s official. Brie Larson, fresh off of her Academy Award winning performance in Room, will suit up as Carol Danvers, a/k/a Captain Marvel, the Earth’s Mightiest Hero, for the Marvel Studios movie of the same name. Captain Marvel will be the 21st movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the first to place a female hero as the primary lead.

Captain MarvelLarson is a top indie actress with an amazing resume, but she also dipped her toes in the comic book world by playing the femme fatale “Envy Adams” in the cult classic Scott Pilgrim vs the World based on the comic series by Brian Lee O’Malley.

While Captain Marvel doesn’t debut until 2019, fans may not have to wait that long to catch sight of Marvel’s premiere female superhero. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is up in 2017, and Danvers gets her powers from an encounter with the alien Kree — so a cameo with Marvel’s intergalactic misfits is not out of the  question.

Additionally Avengers Infinity War: Part 1 comes out in 2018. In the comics, Danvers has been a core member of several Avengers’ teams over the years. Introducing her in Part 1 would be an excellent way to raise awareness of the character leading into her solo film.

So while Captain Marvel may not be released for three years, there is an pretty good chance that we will get to see the titular hero much sooner.

 

Wonder Woman Trailer Debuts at SDCC – and It Is Awesome!

Warner Bros. debuted the trailer for next year’s Wonder Woman during their massive presentation in San Diego Comic Con’s fabled Hall H. Director Patty Jenkins talked to the standing-room only crowd about how important the character of Wonder Woman was as a superhero and an icon.

Wonder Woman, starring Israeli actress Gal Gadot, follows the Amazon as she meets pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine)  and follows him back to man’s world in an effort to bring peace in the midst of World War I. Wonder Woman opens in the summer on 2017 and we simply cannot wait.

How Angry Male Nerds Are Ruining the Internet

There are three Ghostbusters: the original, the remake, and the “childhood ruining” version that only exists in the minds of misogynistic internet trolls. The second it was announced, a small but vocal contingent of so-called “real fans” has been rooting for the new Ghostbusters to fail, and doing their best to make sure that happens.

For a while, the cloud of testosterone-fueled hatred was amorphous and vague. It had nothing to give it form or measure its power. Then the first trailer came out.

The admittedly mediocre first trailer for Ghostbusters (2016) became the most “downvoted” video in YouTube history, approaching one million dislikes. Contrast that with the 2015 reboot of the Fantastic Four, which deviated horribly from the classic source material, bombed with critics and audiences alike and is widely regarded by even its own director to be a colossal failure. It  has around 20,ooo dislikes.

Two percent of the hate heaped on Ghostbusters.

Walt Hickey, over at statistics site FiveThirtyEight has been tracking the Ghostbusters hate. There are angry people (mainly men) who will angrily tell you all of the reasons that the female-led reboot is awful — sight unseen — while angrily denying that gender has anything to do with it.

But it’s really hard to argue against math. Hickey analysed the demographics of both viewers and “raters” of the movie on the IMDB. His findings?

* This number is actually growing as more reviews from people who actually saw the movie have poured in.

So men are rating the movie very negatively, and nearly five times as many men have rated the film as women. Assuming the film brought in equal number of men and women to theaters — or more likely more women than men — this means that the review sample is way off.

The movie is not succeeding or failing on its own merits. Like the  trailer before it, it appears that a group of men who never actually saw the movie have decided to downvote it into oblivion.

This is not an new phenomenon. It actually builds on Hickey’s earlier IMDB analysis that showed:

Men Are Sabotaging The Online Reviews Of TV Shows Aimed At Women

Once again using IMDB because it actually breaks down reviews by the reviewer’s gender, Hickey analysed shows with more than 10,000 reviews listed. He found that the more popular with women a show was, the more men showed up to trash it with a “one” — the lowest rating possible. The reverse was not true.

FiveThirtyEight Chart

 

So what is happening? We are experiencing a demographic shift in media that follows trends in the United States as a whole. Although we have a long way to go, comics, television, movies and video games have ceased to exclusively cater to the white male demographic. Not every story is designed specifically for their tastes. Not every story is told from their point of view. Just most of them.

We are asking men (and white men in particular) to do what everyone else in society has done for a long time. Follow a story on the screen that is not about someone like you. Put yourself in another person’s shoes.  For a very few, this intrusion of diversity into domains they previously held as their own infuriates.

To paraphrase a quote I can no longer source, “They have confused the loss of absolute privilege with genuine oppression.”

Nothing bad is happening here. We are just entering a world where not every single film, comic or video game is created to pander to the interests of socially awkward white men. That’s actually a better world. They just need to put on their big-boy pants and deal with it the way everyone else has for decades.

To be fair to them, I imagine it must hurt a lot more to have your “childhood ruined” when you never grew up in the first place.

Felicity Jones Sees Her ‘Rogue One’ Action Figure for the First Time

Gwendoline Christie (Captain Phasma) inducted Rogue One‘s Felicity Jones into a very exclusive club when she gave Jones her very on action figure of  her character, “Jyn Erso,” from the upcoming Star Wars film Rogue One during Star Wars Celebration in London on Friday, July 15th.

“This is actually the very first toy being revealed from Rogue One,” Christie continued. “It’s not as good as mine.  But, you know, it’s great nonetheless.”

Although she likely knew it was coming, Jones was visibly pleased when the figure was unveiled. “She’s got a pretty cool ‘Han Solo’ gun-belt,” she beamed.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opens on December 16, 2016

Jyn Erso action figure for “Rogue One: A Star Wars Series”
Jyn Erso action figure for “Rogue One: A Star Wars Series”
Jyn Erso action figure for “Rogue One: A Star Wars Series”

Elizabeth Banks Was ‘Too Old’ to Play Mary Jane Because She Was One Year Older Than Toby Maguire

Kirsten Dunst s Mary Jane Watson
Kirsten Dunst s Mary Jane Watson

The role went to Kirsten Dunst, who was six years younger than Maguire, instead.

In a recent interview with GlamourUK, Elizabeth Banks revealed that she had auditioned for the role of Mary Jane Watson in Sam Raimi’s well-regarded Spider -Man starring Tobey Maguire. Banks confirmed that she lost the part because she was “too old.”

Banks said,

I screen-tested for the role of Mary-Jane Watson in the first Spider-Man movie, opposite Tobey Maguire…Tobey and I are basically the same age and I was told I was too old to play her. I’m like, ‘Oh, okay, that’s what I’ve signed up for.’

Elizabeth Banks as Betty Brant
Elizabeth Banks as Betty Brant

Banks did get another role in the eventual trilogy: the minor part of Betty Brant, J. Jonah Jameson’s secretary. But the brutal casting decision sheds light on the very real problem that women are only considered for love interests if they are considerably younger than their costars. If you’re the same age as the leading man? You can be a frumpy secretary with a bad haircut.

X-23 Is in ‘Wolverine 3’ and Might Be the New Wolverine

Hugh Jackman has made it clear that Wolverine 3 is his last appearance as the world’s most famous mutant, and it looks like the studio might be preparing us for what comes next. A new batch of set photos from the upcoming movie have leaked to the website Just Jared, giving us what may be our our first glimpse at Laura Kinney a.k.a. X-23, Wolverine’s female clone, who has long been rumored to be in the film.

Wolverine 3 set photos courtesy of Just Jared
Wolverine 3 set photos courtesy of Just Jared
Wolverine 3 set photos courtesy of Just Jared

The photos show a young girl, bloodied but apparently fine, accompanying a grizzled Wolverine and meeting with a much older Professor X. This lends some credence to the idea that elements of the Old Man Logan storyline from the comics will be worked into Wolverine 3. And whether that blood is someone else’s or if she just heals really fast, both theories point to a possible X-23 sighting.

Adding fuel to the fire, That Hashtag Show found a casting call from Wolverine 3 studio 20th Century Fox way back in January.

X-23
X-23

Code Name: Zoe

12-to-15 year-old girl

A pound puppy, raised in captivity in a time of battle, without support systems of a normal childhood. She has no family and until now, has never left the compound in which she was born. She has an authentic intensity – Her expressions & body language speak volumes, without words.

Once released in the outside world, everything is new, every experience and every image a first. This does not mean everything is wonderful or wondrous. Some thing she sees (things we might regard as conventional) may scare her or anger her and things we may find interesting may bore her.

She has not been instructed in many social conventions – she can eat like an animal. She studies and often mimics people’s behavior. She has a high IQ, but is also a temperamental, impulsive and feral creature that can raise genuine mayhem.

She is a girl that has never been kissed. Looking for a real girl – not made up or done up. Also with genuine edge, not made up or put on.

Martial arts or gymnastics experience preferred but not necessary – but actress must be extremely physical and able to improvise scenes without necessarily resorting to speech. Do not play it “cute.”

Compare that description to a description of X-23 from from Wikipedia:

Cloned from a damaged copy of Wolverine’s genome, X-23 was created to be the perfect killing machine. For years, she proved herself a capable assassin working for an organization called the Facility. A series of tragedies eventually led her to Wolverine and the X-Men. She attends school at the X-Mansion, and eventually became a member of X-Force.

All New Wolverine - art by Michael Cho
All New Wolverine – art by Michael Cho

In the comics, x-23 is currently the All-New Wolverine; a title she claimed to honor Logan, the original Wolverine, after he was killed in combat. Knowing that Jackman is not coming back to the role, Wolverine 3 may be the studio’s way of passing the torch in a similar fashion, establishing the new, female Wolverine in the same movie that the original passes away.

And one more tidbit that points us in this direction, director/producer Brian Singer, the architect of the cinematic X-Men universe, revealed back in an interview with Fandango back May that he was interested in bringing the” female Wolverine” to the screen for a planned X-Force movie.

“I have discussed that with the studio. I actually initially pitched the X-Force and the female [Wolverine].”

Add all of this together, and it looks very, very likely that X-23 will make it to the big screen, and that there is a pretty decent chance she will also inherit the title of Wolverine from Jackman’s Logan as he exits the franchise.

We could not be more excited.

Wolverine 3 hits theatres on March 3rd, 2017.

 

‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Continues Disturbing Trend of Whitewashing Asian Characters

14-year-old Italian-America Michael Barbieri has been cast in the the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming, and if Internet reports are to believed, he is either playing the character of Miles Morales’ best friend Ganke from Ultimate Spider-Man or a character based on Ganke. It’s worth noting at this point that Ganke’s full name is “Ganke Lee” and that in the comics he is a heavyset Korean-American.

Doctor Strange by Steve Ditka
Doctor Strange by Steve Ditka

This follows on the heels of the decision to recast the traditionally Tibetan “Ancient One” in Doctor Strange with Tilda Swinton, who is possibly the whitest person on the planet. (I mean that in a good way. Honest.) The official reasoning was that this was a different Ancient One who happened to be Celtic. That’s fine, but the net result is still that they took a role that has been Asian for more than 50 years and reframed it to give it to a white actor — albeit a very talented white actor.

It is also worth noting that there is a fairly compelling theory that Dr. Strange himself was supposed to be Asian. Steve Ditko drew him with slanted, heavy-lidded eyes for the first few issues until someone decided he was definitively white, then those features vanished.

Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi
Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi

Similarly, it was announced that the role of Major Motoko Kusanagi in the big-budget live-action adaptation of the Japanese manga and anime classic Ghost in the Shell would be played by Scarlett Johansson. Reports surfaced that the studio asked for screen tests of digital technology that would allow them to make Johansson look “more Asian” on screen after the fact. The studio denied those rumors, but currently it is speculated that she will be simply referred to as “Major” to avoid the awkwardness of having a Danish-Polish-Russian American actress answer to a very Japanese name. It’s a lot of work to try and make Johansson fit the part, but producers opted to go that route, instead of, ya know, casting an actual Japanese woman.

Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'
Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’

White actress Mackenzie Davis played Korean American Mindy Park in The Martian. Before that Emma Stone was cast as part-Asian, part-Hawaiian Allison Ng in Cameron Crowe’s flop Aloha.  The entire cast of Asian American characters from the real-life story of 21 were replaced by white actors. Most of the cast of The Last Airbender movie were recast as white. The list goes on and on — back to Mickey Rooney’s incredibly racist portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and beyond.

The standard justification that Hollywood executives use to rationalize this behavior away is to state that there are no Asian actors who are large enough box-office draws to risk putting them in a major role. Hollywood has a tendency to recast even minor Asian roles like Mindy Park as white

Add that to the reluctance to cast Asian actors in roles unless they are specifically written as Asian, and Asian actors have very limited opportunities to prove that they are capable of opening a film. Someone needs to take a risk and cast Constance Wu as the lead in a romantic comedy. I’ll be there opening night. I promise.

Whether you are casting a white person to play an Asian character or rewriting an Asian character to make it white, you are doing a disservice to an minority population that is horribly underrepresented in Hollywood. The last time an Asian American was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress was Merle Oberon in 1935 — an woman who lied her entire life and told people she was from Tasmania to hide her Indian heritage. No one knew she was Asian.

Something needs to change. As it stands right now, Asian actors can’t even get cast as Asian characters in Hollywood. At the very least Hollywood should have the  decency to act ashamed.