It’s a good time to be a genre film nerd, and not just because the biggest movie of the year is opening this week. As excited as I am for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, I’d be lying if I said I weren’t even more excited for a film that comes out in February (of all months): The LEGO Batman Movie. In today’s Movie Morsels, we’ve got an extended TV spot for what looks to be the most purely entertaining Batman movie ever made. Plus, we have the latest on the sequels to Jurassic World and Avatar, a new image of Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s Vulture, and more!
The LEGO Batman Movie
Most TV ads for movies are brief affairs, offering little more than what we’ve already seen in corresponding trailers. But this is not so the latest TV spot for The LEGO Batman Movie. Sure, the first half of its almost two-minute-long video recycles footage from the animated epic’s latest trailer, but the second half gives us more of Zach Galifianakis’s Joker, as well as the other members of the Dark Knight’s rogues gallery, and the Justice League! So strap yourself into your Batmobile (provided it has, y’know, a seat belt) and enjoy!
Jurassic World 2
With director J.A. Bayona in the midst of doing press for his upcoming A Monster Calls, our friends over at Coming Soon took the opportunity to ask him about his next creature movie, the as-yet-untitled sequel to Jurassic World. The filmmaker explained that, in the wake of the most politically minded year our country has experienced in recent memory, his film will possess a strong political component…
“I think there’s a lot of that in the new Jurassic. I think there’s a lot of possessiveness towards our creations. I think it’s very interesting where the new movie is heading. It’s so different from the other films, it talks a lot about the moment we live in right now. It’s darker… but at the same time it’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s a blockbuster, you have Chris Pratt, it’s a great adventure, but it’s very interesting the way the film is darker than the other ones.â€
Avatar
And speaking of A Monster Calls, Coming Soon also asked one of the film’s stars, the Queen of Quality Screen Science Fiction Sigourney Weaver, about these rumors we’ve heard that James Cameron has been shooting pieces of his Avatar sequels over the last few years…
“I think what he’s been doing is trying to develop the technology,” says Weaver. “We’re going to do all four simultaneously, so I think he’s trying to make sure that he has really done all the groundwork so when he really starts these four we’ll be able to hit the ground running. So I don’t think he’s actually… he IS experimenting. I don’t know if any of that would end up in the movie ’cause it’s not actually any of the story, but I’m sure he’s trying to figure out how to photograph an animal in this situation, things like that, so on the day he doesn’t have to waste time finding that out.â€
As for whether or not she’s seen the Avatar sequels’ scripts, Weaver remarks, “I’ve read three of the four scripts and if you liked the first one hold onto your hat. It is so ambitious and it is so moving. Nothing like it.”
Consider our hats held, Ms. W!
Spider-Man: Homecoming
After its magnificent first trailer arrived last week, many of us have been wishing for another look at Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s villainous Vulture, as played by Michael Keaton. Well, lo and behold, our wish has been granted with an image of the character’s action figure! Weirdly enough, this actually fills me with more optimism than what we’ve seen of the winged menace in action, since the details of his suit are more visible, and indicate he’ll have a cool retro Rocketeer vibe to his costume. Though I gotta admit, I’m still missing the feathers of his classic comic-book incarnation…
EXCLUSIVE First Look at @Hasbro‘s @SpiderManMovie Vulture Action Figure @Marvelhttps://t.co/o26aonoP2E pic.twitter.com/X4cPVCJ31y
— Comic Book Resources (@CBR) December 9, 2016
[Twitter]
An Inconvenient Truth 2
Finally today, Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth has, sadly, never been more relevant than it’s been lately. So the time is plenty ripe for a sequel, which will make its debut the opening night of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, in The New Climate section, “the festival’s first-ever program built around a specific theme,” with Gore himself in attendance. The film will also open in theaters across America in 2017, where it will hopefully expose plenty of folks to a crisis that we can solve if we only set our minds to it.
What do you think of today’s to stories? Let us know below!
Featured Image: Warner Bros.
Images: Universal, 20th Century Fox, Participant Productions
