Tonight! A Discovery star gets engaged, Rian Johnson has words for diversity haters, and Disney Plus is doing just fine on this fiftieth edition of Multiverse Tonight!
Welcome to the scifi edition of Multiverse Tonight.
Episode fifty, pretty snazzy. I thank all of you watching and listening.
So, have you started watching Disney Plus? What was the first thing you started watching? Probably the Mandalorian. Not me. I watched The Black Hole. Pretty decent sci fi movie for the era. It does what a lot of those movies did in the seventies. Starts with an overture over a black screen before starting the scene like 2001 A Space Odyssey and Star Trek The Motion Picture. It has sort of a draw your own conclusion type of ending. Wonder why Disney hasn’t considered rebooting it?
Anyway, I think Disney Plus is pretty decent for the price, but I do think they need to add a last watched feature to the starting page. Some of us don’t sit down and watch things from beginning to end. I tend to treat things i stream like books, I pick it up, watch it for a while, then put it down.
Anyway let’s get to the news…
Star Trek
The original Star Trek Animated Series will be leaving Netflix in December. According to the info page for the show on Netflix it’s quote available until 12/01/2019. This will be the first Star Trek show to no longer be available on Netflix. Most likely CBS will be bringing it to CBS All Access and the show is also available on Amazon Prime. Star Trek The Animated Series ran for 22 episodes and for many fans acts as Season Four of the original series. It was also the first Trek series to win an emmy, as it received the Emmy for Outstanding Entertainment Children’s Series in 1975.
While we’re on the subject of Trek animated series, it’s been awhile since we’ve heard anything about the new one. Star Trek Lower Decks is due out next year and comic book dot com talked with voice actor Jack Quaid, who will play Ensign Brad Boimler on the show. Quote “We’re in the middle of recording that now. To get to be a part of that world, in any way, is so cool. That show is just, it’s very different from Harvey Girls. It’s way more adult, but it’s so hilarious and surprisingly sweet and very Trek. Fans of Star Trek will get little inferences and things that we sprinkled throughout the show, but also, I think it’s very accessible for people who don’t know a ton of lore as well. It’s just like a fun show in space.” unquote. Harvey Girls Forever was the actors first voice acting role.
Lower Decks is expected to arrive sometime in 2020.
Congratulations are in order to Star Trek Discovery star Anthony Rapp who tweeted the happy news that he is now engaged to fellow actor Kenneth Mitchell, who has portrayed several Klingon characters on the series. Rapp tweeted quote “So something happened tonight,” “I asked Ken if he would marry me and he said yes. I am so very happy and I’m so very thrilled to share this news.” Rapp plays the first openly gay series regular in a Star Trek show.
Congratulations to the happy couple, Discovery returns in 2020 and season two is now out on Bluray and DVD.
Discovery actor and comedian Tig Notaro recently spoke with Space dot com. About being in sci fi roles in Discovery and the sci fi movie Lucy in the Sky, she said that she didn’t seek out these sci fi roles but felt quote “…open to that world. “It’s very different,” “I like it, I like being a recurring role on “Star Trek” … I’m not looking to become a full cast member but I enjoy the world, and I enjoy the cast and crew, and I think what I have going on is kind of perfect.” unquote She was a fan of the original series as a child saying quote “I did follow ‘Star Trek’ when I was a child, the original series … obviously I’m more familiar with Discovery now, but I love being a part of it, if just simply for the ability to tell people I am on ‘Star Trek,’ it’s really fun to be able to say that.” unquote
She also told space dot com that she might enjoy playing characters that work in space, she’s not sure that she would want to go to space herself. Saying quote “I think it’s really exciting and terrifying,” “If I could be in space, I would like to just be teleported; I don’t know that I would want that actually takeoff and journey to outer space.”
“I was just talking to my wife about that; she has absolutely no interest in being in outer space. I don’t think were gonna run into ‘should we go, should we not go?'” “I would bring my sons. I really think they would be interested.”
“It’s fun, I’m proud to be a part of it,” “My sons, they think I actually work in space because whenever I go off to Toronto to film ‘Star Trek,’ I always tell them I have to go work on the space rocket “
Would you like a small statue of Captain Spock in your home? Sideshow and Darkside Collectibles Studio are set to release a one to three scale museum statue of Captain Spock as seen in Star Trek II The Wrath of Kahn. The statue is the spitting image of Lenord Nimoy as his iconic character circa 1982.. It’s 25 inches tall in the iconic monster maroon Starfleet uniform. The statue is made in polystone resin with life like skin details and is limited and individually numbered. Orders are being taken now and it will whip in the fourth quarter of 2020. But be prepared to open your wallet wide, it’ll cost you $1299 or $146.13 a month on a payment plan.
Star Wars
Some people took issues with Star Wars The Last Jedi and the amount of diversity in the casting. Because how dare a galaxy far far away has more than one woman and more than one person of color in any kind of prominent role. If this is you, than Rian Johnson has some strong words for you. While speaking at a live event for WIRED while promoting his new movie Knives Out with Chris Evans, he said quote “If someone’s responding to diversity negatively, f— ’em,” Chris Evans responded to that quote “If anyone didn’t like the movie, I’m not saying that’s why they didn’t like it… It wasn’t surprising at all to me, I grew up as a Star Wars fan. And I grew up- I was in my twenties when the prequels came out and this whole idea that it’s all been sunshine and roses and suddenly everybody’s yelling at each other is baffling to me.” Rian than added quote “And I feel like people care deeply about Star Wars, and every single person has a slightly different version of what they think Star Wars is. And so much of the fun of it is arguing about it. Since we were kids, right? On the playground, you’re yelling at your friends about who would win in a fight… It’s part and parcel about the passion of being a Star Wars fan.” Unquote Maybe we should take a page from Frozen and Let it Go?
With the Rise of Skywalker on the way, there’s sure to be more trolls bashing Naomi Ackie, who’s in the movie as a character named Jannah. She however did get some advice about it from someone who got bashed alot Kelly Marie tran. Kelly gave the new Star Wars actor some advice. Naomi shared that advice with Metro quote “I think watching the experience of Kelly Marie Tran and talking to her, I got a lot of inspiration from her about how to grow a thicker skin when it comes to people’s opinions of not just your work, [also] who you are,” “There’s a difference. That’s a challenge but I’m fired up. I feel good about it ultimately.” unquote
The ramp up for The Rise of Skywalker is in high gear. Daisy Ridley talking with Adoro Cinema about a scene that left her and the crew visibly moved. Quote “There was a scene that touched me a lot,” Ridley told Adoro Cinema. “It was our last day shooting in Jordan and the natural light was fading. And it was so exciting. It was just a short scene, we filmed very fast, but the crew was shaken in a way I had not seen before. And I thought, ‘My God, if this is people’s immediate reaction when the scene isn’t even ready, imagine what it will be like to see it in the movies, with the John Williams soundtrack and all that.’” unquote As to what that scene was I guess we’ll have to wait however, you remember the scene from the trailer with her in dark robes and a double bladed red lightsaber, Daisy did discuss that scene saying quote “That scene was filmed in England in November,” “There were huge water cannons and it was really, really cold. Everybody literally soaked. It was hard, but it was also amazing because the scene caught the immediacy of the reaction.” unquote
Carrie Fisher’s death was heartbreaking. But what might be even more heartbreaking was the plan for Leia that was supposed to occur in the Rise of Skywalker. According to Carrie’s brother Todd Fisher, she was to go full Jedi. Todd, speaking with Yahoo Entertainment said quote “She was going to be the big payoff in this final film,”“That’s what the intent was. She was going to be the last Jedi, so to speak… People used to say to me, ‘Why is it that Carrie never gets a lightsaber and chops up some bad guys?’” unquote A final storyline for Leia was created for the final movie in the Skywalker saga using deleted scenes from The Force Awakens. The Rise of Skywalker comes out in a month.
Star Wars Obi Wan Kenobi Writer Hossein Amini thinks that making a series instead of a movie was the right idea. Amini talked with Discussing Film about the upcoming series. Quote “I think because of what we were speaking about before, the situation is so complex both for him personally and in a way, the state of the galaxy, you sort of need time to explore it and to be honest there are loads of other stories within that period as well, it’s quite a few years,” “There is so much going on between [Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope] that hasn’t been explored. The idea of being able to go into a character journey plus the politics and plus all the vastness of the empire and what’s going on is exciting just because it feels like a proper period of history and sometimes that is hard to do in two hours. Sometimes with two-hour movies there is always an imperative for the action and the plot to move particularly fast and quickly and to go from action sequence to action sequence and there are many more aspects to storytelling that I find interesting.” unquote
No word yet on when the series will come to Disney Plus.
Disney CEO Bob Iger on the latest investor earnings call says that a lot of guests are holding off on visiting the Disneyland and Disney World until the Galaxy’s Edge is fully opened. There is one more e-ticket attraction coming to the Star Wars themed attraction, Star Wars Rise of the Resistance. It will open up in December at Disney World and on January seventeenth at DisneyLand. However even with the lower attendance at the parks it’s still been a good year at the Disney Parks. They’ve seen an eight percent increase in revenue.
Speaking of Mr. Iger, on that same call he announced that the Star Wars films will be taking a little break with Iger saying that their current thinking is that Marvel and Star Wars are more than just movie franchises. Of course, it’s not like they’re gonna stop making content, there are 3 Star Wars series in production.
Geek
Can a third Fantastic Beasts movie be what’s needed to keep the Harry Potter film franchise going? Warner Bros announced that the third in the Fantastic Beasts franchise will start filming this spring. The third one is expected to put more of a spotlight on Jude Law’s Dumbledore with more action at Hogwarts. The movie will also take the story to Rio de Janeiro. Warner Bros still plans on making five movies in the Fantastic Beasts series. The third will hit theaters in November of 2021.
The Halo series at Showtime has added three new actors. Danny Sapani, Olive Grey and Charlie Murphy have all joined the show based on the videogame. Sapani will play Captain Jacob Keyes a dedicated military man, war hero and caring father who finds himself working alongside his daughter and his ex wife.
Grey will be playing Dr. Miranda Keyes, a brilliant UNSC Commander who is trying to learn the technology, language and culture of the Covenant and Charlie Murphy will play Makee an human who was orphaned and raised by the Covenant and shares their contempt for humanity.
The series, which began filming in Budapest this month, has a nine episode commitment from Showtime and is scheduled to air on the first quarter of 2021.
The Wheel of Time series on Amazon has casted Michael McElhatton , he will play Tam al’Thor the adoptive father of protagonist Rand al’Thor. Michael is best known for his role as Roose Bolton on Game of Thrones.
Wheel of Time stars Rosamund Pike and Josha Stradowski. No premiere date has been announced.
Even before the launch of Disney Plus, Disney was doing quite well for itself. In its fourth quarter earnings call the studio reported total revenue of 19.1 billion exceeding analysts estimates of 19.04 billion. Toy Story 4 and Aladdin did well for the studio and even losses on it’s Fox inherited films like Ad Astra, the art of racing in the rain and Dark Phoenix were partially offset by income from tv and streaming. The stock closed up after the launch of Disney Plus. By the way, I must note that I hold a little piece of stock in Disney.
Amazon has given an early renewal for it’s Lord of The Rings series…the show has just begun pre production in New Zeland. The head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke has confirmed to Deadline the news that the second season is already in the works during the company’s holiday party at the H Club in Hollywood. Amazon has had the rights since 2017.
The Hollywood Reporter has reported that the Chris Pratt led sci fi thriller The Tomorrow War will come out Christmas 2020. The movie is being produced by Skydance Media and Paramount was previously known as Ghost Draft. The movie is set in a future where humanity is losing a war against aliens and in order to turn the tide of the war, scientists have begun drafting soldiers from the past. The movie also stars Betty Gilpin and JK Simmons and is being directed by Chris McKay.
Welcome to Fantasy Island …of Horrors. The trailer for the Blumhouse and Sony Pictures big screen version of Fantasy Island has arrived. The movie will be a supernatural horror film will follow Michael Pena’s Mr. Roarke who makes his guests secret fantasies come true…but then their fantasies become nightmares and the guests have to solve the mystery of the island if they want to save their lives. The movie stars Lucy Hale, Maggie Q, Austin Stowell, Portia Doubleday, Jimmy O. Yang, Ryan Hansen and Michael Rooker round out the cast.
The movie arrives on my birthday, Valentine’s Day.
NBC’s The Good Place is going out with a bang. The Good Place will have an extra long 90 minute farewell which will include an extended episode has well as a post show special with the full cast and hosted by Seth Meyers on January 30th.
Disney has moved back the release date for Fox’s Kingsman prequel The King’s Man back seven months from February 14th to September eighteenth, 2020, The Mathew Vaughn directed film stars Ralph Fiennes and looks at the origins of the world’s first independent intelligence agency.
Well that brings us to the end of another sci fi edition of Multiverse Tonight
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Thanks for watching the scifi edition of Multiverse Tonight, we will be back in two days with the comic book edition, Now please exit the universe in an orderly fashion. Good Night!
Multiverse Tonight is a production of Half-Baked Genre Productions. Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved.
Tonight! The She Hulk show gets a pickle rick of a writer, Titans goes for another season and The Batman movie hires some villains all that and more on this comic edition of Multiverse Tonight.
Greetings and welcome to the comics edition of Multiverse Tonight. Episode 51
Still playing Luigi’s Mansion 3 on the Switch. Still going good, although I’m slowing down.
Can you believe we’re already in the end of November? Just a short hop , skip and a jump to the end of the year. At least we have some new Rick and Morty to watch.
Marvel
Disney Plus’ She-Hulk has found a new writer in Rick and Morty writer Jessica Gao. Jessica won an Emmy for writing the Pickle Rick episode. This is the first development for the show since it was announced at D23. This comes after the news that Jeremy Slater, who developed THe Umbrella Academy for Netflix will be overseeing the Moon Knight series. Could the hiring of Jessica Gao show that She-Hulk will have or of a humorous bent?
Marvel head Kevin Fiege in an interview with Bloomberg news told the outlet that the Disney Plus Loki series will directly tie into doctor Strange and the multiverse of madness. It;s not the only Disney Plus series to tie into the movie as WandaVision will as well. The six episode Loki series won’t be out until 2021.
Marvel studios might be doing well today. But the recession almost killed it before it got started. In order for Marvel Studios to get off the ground, in 2005, MarveI needed a huge loan. It got 525 million from Merrill Lynch. It was good timing, in 2008, the great recession happened and that money would have dried up. Talking with The Hollywood reporter’s Scott Feinberg , Kevni Fiege confirms the fact that Merrill Lynch wouldn’t have been able to provide that funding saying quote “That’s a good question I hadn’t thought about. We wouldn’t have gotten the loan afterwards, you’re probably right,” unquote . why? Simple. Merrill Lynch was a casualty of the recession after losing 51.8 billion in the subprime mortgage catastrophe. The company ended up being sold off to Bank of America.
Now here we are almost a decade and a half later and Marvel has billions of dollars.
Zachary Levi was almost Starlord.James Gunn, the maker of the Gaurdians of the Galaxy movies confirmed the fact during a q and a on instagram stories. According to Mr. Gunns answer to the question about Zacary Levi being considered, James Gunn wrote quote “Yes. And he was amazing,“”So when Peter Safran, the producer of Shazam, came to me asking about who would be good as the character I strongly suggested Zach. I’ve been told by Peter and the DC folks that’s what got the ball rolling. But I think it was #zacharylevi’s immense talent that did that.”
Levi responded to the post on his Instagram saying quote”And brother, it means the absolute world,” “Thanks for seeing that in me, and sharing that conviction with others. It helped literally change my life. I hope we get to work together at some point soon.” unquote
In another universe, it was so. Anyone up for universe hoping?
The Tokyo burglar nicknamed The Ame-zing Spider Man may have been caught. According to the site FNN.jp, a Mr. Hiroki Horiguchi was arrested on November first for allegedly breaking into a rooftop office in the Tokyo neighborhood of Shinjuku. The 26 year old man allegedly than broke a window, got in and got out with 66,000 yen which is approximately six hundred five dollars american.
Because of the techniques and methods used, they thought that he has the serial burglar dubbed the Ame-szing Spiderman. The burglar had a thing for scaling buildings to get access to his targets. The reason he was called ame-zing is this. All the robberies took place at night that a rainstorm or typhoon took place. Ame is japanese for rain.. The Ame-zing Spider Man is suspected of at least a dozen burglaries.
DC
The CW has officially given the fifth season of Legends of Tomorrow it’s premiere date.
According to a report from Deadline, the show will return on Tuesday January 21st
After Arrow. Their will be a special edition of the show on the fourteenth that will tie into the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover.
We also got word that the last series finale of Arrow will be a two hour affair on January 28th. The first hour will be a finale preview with the last episode following that.
While we’re on the CW verse The Flash star Danielle Panabaker announced that she and husband Hays Robbins are expecting their first child. Danielle announced it via instagram with a photo of herself eating breakfast with the caption eating for two with a winking face emoji. According to a report a report from People magazine, the couple will welcome their child in the spring of 2020. Danielle and Hays got married back in 2017.
Author Neil Gaiman, speaking with Radio times gave an update on The Sandman series that’s being made for Netflix. He told the program quote “There are three of us, showrunner [Allan] Heinberg, [David S.] Goyer and me, and we’ve just finished writing the first episode, and plotting and breaking down the first two seasons, so we’ll see what happens next.” unquote. No second season has been officially greenlit and no word has come forth on casting, production or release dates.
DC Universe and Warner Bros Television have officially announced that Titans will be coming back for a third season. The series debuted on the streaming service in 2018 and is currently in the midst of it’s second season. The second season has seen the team of young heroes face off against Deathstroke. The third season will arrive in the fall of 2020.
California is still suffering from fires if you’ll remember my interview with Orville Producer Tom Costantino, that interview had been delayed from the week before due to a fire that caused his family to be under a voluntary evacuation order. Now Deadline reports that the warner Bros lot had to be evacuated as a precautionary measure after a small brush fire broke out in the hollyWood Hills near the studio.
The Barham fire started near 3694 North Barham Blvd. Which is just about a half mile from the
Warners studio lot, around 152 in the afternoon of Saturday November 2nd. Luckily by 510 pm that day the Los angeles fire department reported that forward progress had been stopped. By that point the fire had burned 34 acres in the hills between Burbank and Universal City.
Speaking of Warner Bros, the studio has announced that it’s updating its logo. The logo is a now elongated blue shield with the letters WB on it. It harkens back to how the logo looked in the 1930’s. The new logo will begin appearing on the companies productions starting in early 2020. If you’d like to look at all the different variations on the wb logo I’ll have a link to a site that has a detailed history of the different permutations of the iconic logo.http://annyas.com/screenshots/warner-bros-logo/
We got some Batman casting news. First off The Batman director Matt Reeves confirmed on twitter that Andy Serkis will play the role of Alfred Pennyworth. He joins Robbert Pattinson has Batman, Jeffery Wright as Commissioner Gordon, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot, newcomer Jayme Lawson will be playing a new character named Bella who is a grassroots political candidate running for office …or is that a ruse and she’s playing Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl and Paul Dano from There Will be Blood has been cast as Edward Nashton aka The Riddler
It looks like it’s truly the end of the line for Batman’s father figure slash butler. Alfred Pennyworth. DC has confirmed that he was indeed killed by Bane. His death will be explored in Batman: Pennyworth R.I.P. a new one shot by James Tynion the fourth and Peter J Tomasi with art by Eddy Barrows and Eber Ferreira. Here’ s the description quote “Alfred Pennyworth served the Wayne family for decades—even through the terrible loss of the Dark Knight’s parents. His shocking death at the hands of Bane is the only event that could possibly compare to that fateful night in Crime Alley, and it leaves Bruce at a similar crossroads. If Alfred was the glue that held the Bat-Family together, how will Batman deal with that all falling apart? And if the Caped Crusader is to be truly alone, he might either hang that cape up once and for all…or double down and carry on with this vengeful quest forever.
Batman: Pennyworth R.I.P. celebrates the life of one of the most important people in the history of Gotham City, while also addressing questions about what’s next.” The issue comes out on February 12th, 2020.
Geek
So you’re watching Disney Plus and your bring up the Simpsons and are dismayed that they’re being presented not in their original aspect ratio of 4:3 but in the zoomed in 16:9 ratio. Well you’re cries of anguish has been heard. Disney in a statement said quote “We presented “The Simpsons” in 16:9 aspect ratio at launch in order to guarantee visual quality and consistency across all 30 seasons. Over time, Disney+ will roll out new features and additional viewing options. As part of this, in early 2020, Disney+ will make the first 19 seasons (and some episodes from Season 20) of “The Simpsons” available in their original 4:3 aspect ratio, giving subscribers a choice of how they prefer to view the popular series.” unquote During season 20 was when the show went to the 16:9 aspect ratio of today.
We talked a few minutes ago about how Warner Bros has looked to the past to update their logo. Now Deadline reports that Warners is bringing back Rin Tin Tin, the German Shepard that was credited with saving the studio in the 1920’s.
Matt Lieberman, who wrote the upcoming animated movie Scoob and the animated Addams Family movie will be writing the new movie. The movie will be made with Andrew Lazar’s Mad Chance productions along with rights holders Sasha Jenson and Jeff Miller. Apparently the plan is to make the dog the John Wick of dogs. A hero elite military dog on a covert mission to stop a large scale attack. So if John Wick saw the dog got killed, Does Rin Tin Tins humans get killed?
HOcus Pocus 2…is probably something we don’t need. However since it’s gonna get made let’s check in on where it is. The Hollywood Reporter asked Sarah Jessica Parker about it. Asking if she knows anything, she said quote No, I don’t know. There has never been a conversation ever in our lives. Someone just asked me on Instagram, and I said: “We all said we’d love to someday.” But that’s the extent of the conversation. I’ve been asked so much recently about this — it’s a seasonal question… it’s appropriate! Unquote The reporter than added an addendum to the answer in the article quote [When asked, “Any chance of a sequel?” last week on Instagram, Parker responded: “We have all said yes. Now we wait.”] unquote
Sin City is coming tv thanks to Legendary TV. The producer has struck a deal with author Frank Miller to adapt the series of comics into a tv series. The studio is currently looking for a distribution deal and they are close to a deal with Robert Rodriguez who directed the feature film version. The deal with Frank Miller also calls for an animate prequel as well. Frank Miller regained the film and tv right to sin city just last year.
The People’s choice awards have come and gone. And Avengers Endgame won Movie of 2019. And Action Movie of 2019. Robert Downey Jr. walked away with Make Movie Star of 2019. Zendaya won Female Movie Star of 2019 for SpiderMan Far From home,Tom Holland won Action Movie Star of 2019, The Live Action Aladdin won Family Movie of The Year, Beyonce won Animated Movie Star of 2019 for The Ani-live action lion king. Stranger Things won Show of 2019 and Drama Show of 2019. Millie Bobby Brown won Female TV Star of 2019. Outlander won Binge Worthy Show,and Shadowhunters wn Sci-Fi/Fantasy show
So let’s look at this past weekend’s box office.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/
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