As of January:

1. He said numerous times that he'd play Obi-Wan if given the chance.
2. He's sporting a Kenobi-beard at the Golden Globes and working out as if preparation for a new movie that needs him to be all action-y while sporting a Kenobi-beard.
3. Stephen Daldry is in talks to direct.
4. Liam Neeson wants in.

It's happening, it's just not "official."

 

The Sicario sequel is without the firsts director. It seems to want to go for a more darker, morally ambiguous action movie. If they can pull it off, it looks like it'll be great.

 

Ewan McGregor will rock up to a press conference in full Kenobi regalia, only to tell everyone "I haven't been approached, and I've heard no official word. But I'd be interested."

Un/fortunately, he does tend to rock the Kenobi beard now and then as himself. I'm trying not to get my hopes too high.

 

One of the "Upcoming 2018" movies I was really looking forward to, New Mutants, has been pushed back to 2019. This sucks.

But not as much as the Amazon Jack Ryan series is going to. It's clear from the trailer that they didn't even read the dust jacket summary, much less any of the novels, just like that Shadow Recruit nonsense.

I'd see an Obi-wan movie starring Ewan MacGregor twice opening day. I'll see Solo out of obligation, but my heart won't be in it.

 

I mean, it looks like it's completely missing the point of the first film in favor of doing a "Passion of the Christ 2: Jesus Strikes Back" so it'll probably be terrible.

And I'm not sure how you get more morally ambiguous than the first film anyways. Well, I guess you can say that no, the CIA aren't totally terrible and the Way on Drugs isn't a complete shitshow ?

 

I'm not convinced about Solo.

Making it distinct is good, but where Rogue One managed to be a Star Wars' version of a war film, this trailer makes it more like a generic s-f film with Star Wars' elements.

It's the main actor that will make or break this film.

He doesn't even need to be convincing in playing a younger version of Harrison Ford's Han Solo as long as he manages to make the audience like his own take on this character. The trailer suggest he may have trouble with both of these things.

 

Oldman is better.

 

I wouldn't say that they haven't read the source material just yet. The "I can't get on a plane, I'm an analyst! I don't interrogate people, I write reports!" followed by Greer saying "Get on the fucking plane" anyway, that is pure book!Jack Ryan. I'm going to withhold judgement on that until I see it, which can't come soon enough.

 

I'm so pumped for Solo. It doesn't even matter that Ehrenreich has the voice and mannerisms of a 13 year old boy. Nothing will pull me off the hype train. NOTHING.

 

I sincerely hope they follow the books as much as possible.

Seeing an analyst go all the way to President...

Yeah I'm hoping for that.

 

Sign me ALL the way up.

 

Fucking same.

I've been hyped for every Star Wars movie that came out (first one I saw at the theater was Phantom Menace) and I never left disappointed.

I don't know anything about the new actor for Han, but I can't wait to see what he brings to the table, hopefully his performance is as good as it can be!

 

Saw Darkest Hour yesterday. I was freezing my balls off since I dressed for -2deg and it got to -10, so I decided to just walk into the cinema and choose anything that looked like something interesting in order to thaw. Choice came down to Darkest Hour and another Jumanji movie. Since I'm a big, responsible adult (yeah, right) and Churchill seems like an interesting fellow, I choose the first one.

I've enjoyed it and the two hours passed surprisingly quickly, but... there wasn't much to the movie, truth be told. There's nothing bad about it, except perhaps the focus on UK to the exclusion of everything - Dunkirk for example was one of the key pieces in the movie and could use some more background information as I feel it has been misrepresented. I don't think the presence of the French there was even mentioned and they made up a third of the 338k troops rescued, with the French covering the Allied retreat to the very end, and instead we get a lot of screen time about a group of four thousand Brits stuck on a suicide mission in Calais. Granted, it showed Churchill's feeling of responsibility about sacrificing them for a chance of a successful retreat elsewhere to continue the fight, but... I don't know.
But aside from Churchill's continued rejection of reality that, with a large serving of luck, turned in his favor and of course a few excellent speeches, there's not much else. In truth, I barely learned anything about Churchill himself from a movie about him. It's just somewhat odd.

I have no idea what should be in a movie about Churchill, mind you, but it could definitely use some more insight into the changing mood of the country and the Allies in general, which could fit nicely if you trimmed out about ten minutes of Halifax staring in silence at the camera every third scene.

I dunno. Mixed feelings. Probably different for a Brit, but alas, I'm just a dirty continental.

 

So, the first teaser for Venom was released earlier, and...I get that it's a teaser, it's only recently finished shooting, so the CGI won't be anywhere near finished, etc etc. But there's absolutely nothing about it - other than one brief shot of some sludge in a jar, and of course the title - that suggests it's a Venom film. Given the emphasis on the word demons in the voiceover, and the way the editing seems to suggest Tom Hardy has psychic powers, if I'd seen it in isolation I'd probably assume that it was something along the lines of Carrie, or Stranger Things.

 

What if that's how they plan the movie to be? 90 minutes of generic s-f as a build up with 10 minutes of Venom.

Finding the film's budged would say a lot about what could be expected from it, but I couldn't find any mentions of it.

 

It's by the director who did Moon and supposedly a spiritual successor so I'm hyped.

Then again, he also did Warcraft and Source Code so I'm a bit wary as well

 

Warcraft was ehhh, but Source Code is dope.

 

Zowie Bowie is a fantastic director, even if Warcraft was eeeeeeh indeed. He didn't have much to work with though, there specifically.

 

I still don't understand where Venom will stand in regard to the MCU, or how they plan doing his story without Spiderman.