This Week In Podcasts

We have some cool stuff coming this week:

• Tuesday on The Backlog Files, Adam will go through the games already reviewed for the Pokemon ranking to assign them star scores.
• Wednesday on Beware of Spoilers, Adam will discuss Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
• Thursday on Beware of Spoilers, Adam will discuss the 9th episode of X-Men ’97
• Friday on Beware of Spoilers, Adam will discuss The Bad Batch in its entirety.
• Saturday on Beware of Spoilers, Adam will discuss the finale of The Girls on the Bus

This schedule may be added to as screening times for the end of the week are announced. We are also moving in on a final schedule for Tribeca coverage so an announcement will be coming in within the month.

Winners From The Indie Space

As we await the Cannes Film Festival in two weeks, there are still a few domestic festivals that have wrapped up recently. The San Francisco International Film Festival ended last weekend, however the awards were announced after recording so here are the winners.

• Global Visions Award: Great Absence
• Documentary Feature: Sugarcane
• Bay Area Documentary Feature: Seeking Mavis Beacon (Check out our review here)
• Narrative Short: Bogota Story
• Documentary Short: The Medallion
• Animated Short: La Perra
• Audience Award For Narrative Feature: The Teacher
• Audience Award For Documentary Feature: Agent of Happiness

Cannes is the biggest event this month but there is also the Seattle Film Festival starting later this week and they have a great lineup. On top of the imminently releasing Babes and I Saw The TV Glow, they will also be screening Bob Trevino Likes It, Agro Dr1ft, Sing Sing, In A Violent Nature, and Porcelain War. Meanwhile the Brooklyn Rooftop Films will be starting over the course of the next few weeks with Opening Night on May 17th. This series of shorts includes Bug Diner which took home awards at both SXSW and Sundance.

Story 1: Sony Makes $26 BILLION Offer To Buy Paramount

Hands down the biggest story of the week was Sony and Apollo making a $26 billion offer to buy Paramount, a studio that was rumored to be up for sale a few times over the last year or so. This would move Sony from the fourth place position in market share behind Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers, to the third place spot and give Sony a massive trove of IP to work with. This buy out would also likely be less contentious than Disney buying 20th Century Fox back in 2019 since Sony does not own any terrestrial television stations like both Disney or Fox did at the time.

To be clear, industry consolidation is bad for consumers as it limits choice and is bad for the industry as it typically leads to layoffs and will limit the number of options a filmmaker has to sell a film. That said, Paramount has been in a weird situation for the past few years so a change in leadership may be better in the long-term for what is under their umbrella. Arguably their biggest success is in television with CBS and Nickelodeon, however if Knuckles is the largest streaming title for Paramount+ in a world where they were the exclusive home for several new Star Trek shows and the expanded universe out of Yellowstone, it does beg the question about how many people are actually watching their new content. This would also give Sony a massive foothold in the streaming space, something they currently do not have.

That said, I don’t exactly trust Sony to handle this treasure trove of IP well considering Sony’s past track record with the IP they do own. Outside their collaborations with Marvel Studios for Spider-Man movies, they have shown a systemic ineptitude when it comes to handling their franchises. Ghostbusters has not been great, anything Spider-Man-adjacent that hasn’t had Feige’s fingerprints on it or been animated has been awful, and Men In Black has been on ice since their last entry crashed and burned. I don’t think giving them Transformers will miraculously improve the franchise and the continuing dysfunction could just serve to keep things from improving.

Of particular interest however is this affects the first party video game market since it is unclear if Sony will allow some of their major IPs to go multi-platform if they make adaptations. This acquisition would give Sony franchises like Transformers, Mission: Impossible, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, anything Nickelodeon produced, and Star Trek. I’m not saying that this is likely to affect anything currently in production (it’s unlikely that they backtrack on making The Last Ronin multiplatform at this point) or that we are likely to get Sony Santa Monica working on a Spongebob Squarepants game, but opening up something like Star Trek or Transformers to Sony’s first party developers could produce fantastic games.

Story 2: Disney Releases The Trailer For Mufasa

We now have our first look at a movie slated for release in a particularly crowded December and it looks more interesting than it should be. Of course, in this case I am talking about Mufasa: The Lion King which is a prequel about, well Mufasa from The Lion King directed by Barry Jenkins.

Here’s the thing about the “live-action” remakes (this isn’t live-action to be clear, it’s photorealistic animation), they work best when they aren’t 1-to-1 remakes of the original. Films like Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, and Aladdin have ranged in quality that really only ever caps out at “fine” while the ones that take more drastic liberties with the source like Christopher Robin, Cruella, and Maleficent have been of higher quality. Since Mufasa is telling a somewhat original story and playing fast and loose with the canon (specifically the lineage of Mufasa and Scar and their familiar relationship), this could be something special. I also implicitly would trust Barry Jenkins with my life, let alone delivering a good movie.

Story 3: Super Nintendo World To Open At Epic Universe In 2025

I’m surprised we haven’t talked about this on this show but Universal is opening a third theme park down in Orlando next year. For those who don’t know, Universal has two parks down in Orlando currently, Universal Orlando and Islands of Adventure. They have been working on a third park called Epic Universe that will open next year. This park will have themed areas based on How To Train Your Dragon, the Dark Universe (the Universal Monsters), the Ministry of Magic from Harry Potter, and an east coast version of Super Nintendo World.

We’ve already gotten information about the hub world named Celestial Park and the Isle of Berk so this week information was unveiled about how Super Nintendo World would work and, well, it’s kinda what we expected it would be. This section will have three rides, one is an augmented reality Mario Kart experience, one is a family friendly Donkey Kong-themed dark coaster, and one is a Yoshi-themed ride where you look for multicolored eggs.

I’m going to be honest, this was the least interesting deeper look for this park because we had seen a lot of this already. Super Nintendo World already exists within two different forms, one in Japan and one at the Hollywood park. The big deviation would have come had they done something Legend of Zelda or Metroid themed, but this just looks like what we already have. I am curious about the Dark Universe because the two areas we have already seen use a level of immersion into the areas that one would expect from Disney, not so much from Universal. I’m also curious as to if this park will be expandable to include more stuff in the future, something Disney does fairly often in their parks and Universal most recently did with their massive Harry Potter expansion.

Story 4: Netflix and Greg Berlanti Working On A Live-Action Scooby-Doo Series

This is one of those stories that I debated putting on here because Greg Berlanti has a bit of a spotty track record when it comes to adapting existing IP that’s not a DC comic book but it appears that Berlanti is once again partnering with Netflix to produce another live action adaptation of a beloved IP.

If I’m being honest, saying “spotty” feels dismissive since he definitely has more hits than misses. When you look at shows he actively developed like Everwood, Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, You, Legends of Tomorrow, and Superman and Lois, he does have a solid track record than the shows that are just worked on by his production company. Even then, there are definitely more hits than misses with shows like Blindspot, Riverdale, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Prodigal Son, The Flight Attendant, Black Lightning, and The Girls on the Bus outnumbering the misses. Still, it is easy to point to a misfire like Powerpuff which was never released to say this would be bad but it’s probably best to wait and see until we get casting and an actual synopsis.

Story 5: Starfield Receiving Major Update In May

Here we are eight months out from the release of Starfield on PC and Xbox Series X/S and we are finally getting the Quality of Life updates that should have been in the game since day one. These updates include a performance mode to play the game at 60 frames per second, improved maps on the surface and an improved fast travel system, new difficulty options, and more ship decor options. They also teased further updates coming in the future including a ground-based ship for land traversal.

Honestly, these improvements may get me back into the game since, despite our glowing review, the biggest criticism were the problems that will be addressed by this update. For our full review, click here.

The Call Sheet

This is a new segment starting this week where we talk about the big acquisitions and attachments to projects as they are announced. This will typically be actors, directors, and writers being attached to existing projects. Here what was announced last week:

• Coda director Sian Heder will adapt the hit novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow for Paramount.
• Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer have both signed on to star in Michael Sarnoski’s The Death of Robin Hood.
• Zazie Beetz and Elizabeth Debicki have both signed on to star in This Blue Is Mine from Iuli Gerbase.
• Simon Farnaby (Wonka)’s next family film The Magic Faraway Tree has signed Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy.
• Rosamund Pike has joined Now You See Me 3.
• John Carney’s next film Power Ballad has landed Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas as the leads.
• Janelle Monae and Missy Elliot have joined Pharrell Williams’ untitled upcoming musical project.
• Paul Walter Hauser has joined The Fantastic Four in an undisclosed role.
• Louis Leterrier has signed on to direct the upcoming science fiction/horror film 11817.
• Robin Wright will star in and direct The Girlfriend for Amazon which will also star Olivia Cooke and Laurie Davidson.
• Ben Schnetzer joined the upcoming film about the creation of Bumble. Lily James also stars.
• Flesh of the Gods will star Kristen Stewart and Oscar Isaac in what is described as an 80s vampire thriller from the director of Mandy.
• Andrew Haigh will direct Universal’s upcoming Leonardo Da Vinci biopic.
• Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Henry Winkler, and Don Johnson have all signed on to lead Encore from Simon Curtis.
• Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder will produce Checkmate for A24.
• Travis Knight will direct Sony’s upcoming Masters of the Universe film slated for 2026.
• Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks will star in Better Sister for Amazon.
• Neal McDonough has joined the second season of Tulsa King.
• Gemma Arterton has signed on to lead Storm Witch from David Blair.
• Carla Gugino will play Vivien Leigh in The Florist.
• Jeff Bridges will return for Tron: Ares.

This Week At The Box Office

Unfortunately, The Fall Guy has underperformed but here are the results from this past weekend at the box office.

• The Fall Guy: $28.5 Million
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace: $8.0 Million
• Challengers: $7.6 Million
• Tarot: $6.5 Million
• Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire: $4.5 Million

Coming To Theaters This Week

It feels like it hasn’t been that long since it was announced but Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes comes out this weekend. Wes Ball directs this continuation of the Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy that stars Freya Allen and Owen Teague.

Coming To Physical Media This Week

The only major release on DVD this week is the French film The Taste of Things, which got a wide theatrical release in the United States back in February. This film is probably most famous for being France’s select at the Academy Awards last year for the Best International Feature category instead of Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall due to Triet’s open criticism of Macron and the state of the current government in France. The Taste of Things did make the short list but did not get nominated.

First Impressions: The Acolyte

We are a little under a month away from the release of Lucasfilm’s next Disney+ show The Acolyte, which is set about 100 years before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and appears to be about the rise of the Sith in the leadup to the Skywalker Saga. This weekend we were given two new looks at this show including a trailer released Saturday morning and an extended look attached to the Episode I theatrical re-release.

The keys here is that it appears that The Acolyte is going to lean into some of the interesting metaphysical origins of The Force, especially since Ach-To appears to be featured heavily in both trailers. The other key is that they are really putting a lot of attention on the action and making sure the fight choreography is top-notch. I’m very interested to see what this show could be and there is perhaps the most potential in this when compared to some of Lucasfilm’s other projects.