Film | by by shane “Surprise Sci-Fi” hnetka
I was amazed that Deadpool, of all films, was nominated for Best Musical or Comedy at this year’s Golden Globes. It didn’t win, but it was weird seeing it up there. So far, Deadpool has received 35 award nominations ranging from the Producer’s Guild of America to MTV. Strange and cool. So when’s Regina going to get its Deadpool statue?
The Mysterious Trailer
A24 has released a lot of interesting movies since it was founded in 2012, including Under The Skin, The Lobster, and The Witch and Green Room. In early January, the studio released a trailer for an interesting-looking upcoming film. In a brilliant bit of promotion, there’s no title, director’s name, or recognizable actors. A24 has the movie listed as “Untitled” on its YouTube account.
In this era when everything is instantly spoiled, it’s kind of weird when something slips through the cracks. That said, filmmakers and studios seem to be embracing the “secret movie thing” more — last year, 10 Cloverfield Lane came out of nowhere, as did a surprise Blair Witch movie.
The current theory is that this might be director Shane Carruth’s (the brilliant Primer, Upstream Color) new sci-fi movie. Carruth has apparently been working on a movie for A24. If it is, that would be awesome.
Needless to say, whatever the movie is, it has a lot of people’s attention at the moment. With all the movies coming out all the time, that’s pretty impressive.
Two Steps Back
Warner/DC has been trying to create its own cinematic universe to match Disney/Marvel’s. The results haven’t been too good. Last year’s entries, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad made money but critics and many fans trashed them. Those films’ flaws were concerning enough that the studio put talented comic book writer Geoff Johns in charge of DC’s film division. Sounded promising — Wonder Woman looks like it might be good.
And then DC announced the writers for the Green Lantern Corp movie. One of them is David S. Goyer.
For those unfamiliar, Goyer is the idiot responsible for the Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice screenplays. He’s credited for the “story” for Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, but we all know Nolan was more responsible for the scripts than Goyer. Left on his own, Goyer writes stuff like the crappy horror movie The Unborn.
If Warner and Geoff Johns were really trying to right the sinking ship, they probably shouldn’t bring back the writer who punched holes in the hull.
Shane Hnetka is a made-in-Saskatchewan film and comic book nerd.