Disney has released the first poster for next summer’s Maleficent starring Angelina Jolie as the Sleeping Beauty villain. The trailer for the movie will be released tomorrow but until then you can stare at this poster and wonder just what she is hiding under that costume.
It’s children. The answer is small African children.
Disney ended all speculation today by announcing that Star Wars Episode VII would release on December 18, 2015. It will be the first Star Wars movie to not open in the summer. Keeping with the times it will release in 3D (yay?) so expect a lot of lightsabers coming at the screen.
Recently J.J. Abrams asked Disney to delay the movie until 2016 but got a no from the Disney executives so this seems to be the closest thing Abrams would get. The director has teamed up with The Empire Strikes Back writer Lawrence Kasdan to take over the script from screenwriter Michael Arndt to get the project back on track. The new release date also makes sure that Disney’s eggs aren’t all in the same basket with The Avengers: Age of Ultron opening in May 2015. Now with Episode VII in December Disney should rule the year at the box office.
It doesn’t have to match the quality of the original films, just be better than the prequels. Please.
Hey how about some more news about a summer movie releasing in 2015 that will have people complaining. The fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie will begin filming next year and now the title for the film has been revealed by directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales or as I will be saying when I buy a ticket “can I get one for Pirates 5?”.
Believe it or not I did not hate Pirates 4. After the bloated feeling of the third installment it was nice to have a singular adventure with Capt. Jack Sparrow. Johnny Depp is always entertaining and I will keep going to see the Pirates movies as popcorn fun.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales releases on July 15, 2015.
We all know that Disney has promised that Star Wars Episode VII is coming in 2015. They even said as much at their D23 conference. Everyone automatically assumed that the return of the legendary franchise would take place in May, which is its normal tentpole month.
Maaaaybe not.
Badsass Digest is reporting from multiple sources that Disney may, in fact, release Episode VII in December of 2015, possibly in the middle of the month.
Merry Sithmas to us. ( I feel bad for that…I apologize)
The reasoning is sound for Disney to want to do this. With filming set to begin early next year, it only leaves J.J. Abrams and crew a little over a year for shooting and post work including special effects, etc. For a film the size of Star Wars that is not a very big window. So Disney is reportedly looking to push the date to December to afford Abrams more time to make the film right and not feel rushed.
This also would get it out of the huge sharknado that is the summer of 2015 which will see the release of Avengers 2, Batman/ Superman, Pirates of the Caribbean 5, Jurassic Park IV and more.
Right now this is the biggest of rumors (thus the name of the article), but there are rumblings that J.J. Abrams is considering dropping out of the next film in the Star Wars saga.
The reason: his family.
Abrams has been very vocal about not wanting to shoot the film in England and be away from his family for so long, but Disney has put the kabosh on any argument and said that England is where it is happening. This has put Abrams in a bit of a bitter place and may have him thinking about leaving the project.
Like I said before, these are complete rumors. One would think Abrams would and should have known the commitment in taking on such a large movie.
Last month Disney shuttered LucasArts and laid off 150 employees effectively ending the company’s 30 year history. Now Disney has struck a deal with EA to bring future Star Wars games to consoles and other platforms. The closing of LucasArts was definitely a sad day in the video game world, but this should excite fans of the galaxy far, far away because it means that all of EA’s studios like Bioware, DICE, etc. can now develop new Star Wars titles.
All I ask is that I get a proper KOTOR III….or revive Battlefront.
“The Walt Disney Company (DIS) and Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) today announced a new multi-year exclusive licensing agreement to develop and publish globally new games based on Star Wars characters and storylines.
Under the agreement, EA will develop and publish new Star Wars titles for a core gaming audience, spanning all interactive platforms and the most popular game genres, while Disney will retain certain rights to develop new titles within the mobile, social, tablet and online game categories.
“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. “Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise. The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.”
Twentieth Century Fox’s inability to get another Daredevil feature film off the ground has cost them the rights to the character. Full rights now revert back to Marvel giving them the ability to move forward with a new movie.
Marvel has not gone on record saying that a Daredevil film is in their future plans, but with a character as well-known as The Man Without Fear there is no way he will sit dormant for long. This is also exctiting because now there is another character that can be involved with other Marvel characters at Disney including The Avengers.
Now let the dream casting begin! Leave your favorites below in the comments.
And by a lot of Star Wars, I mean a metric shit ton of Star Wars.
Disney announced today at CinemaCon that they plan on releasing a Star Wars film every year beginning with Episode VII in 2015. They would alternate years with a movie in the new trilogy and one of the standalone films the next summer.
J.J. Abrams is hard at work with pre-production of Episode VII which we will just call The Phantom Nerfherder for now and screenwriters Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinburg are rumored to be working on one or more of the stand alone films which are shrouded in even more mystery than Episode VII.
Now I love me some Star Wars, but damn Disney. Every year? No matter how big the property is there is going to be a saturation point and people will stop caring. The prequels did enough damage to the legacy of Star Wars so let’s pull back the reins a bit. Star Wars movies are an event. If we get one every year for at the very least next six years beginning in 2015, people (like me) could get very tired, very quickly.
Honestly I would rather get to play 1313 and get a new trilogy.
Well it appears the honeymoon is over for Lucas and Disney. Shit got business real today when Disney laid off 150 employees at LucasArts and said that it would become a “licensing model” and stop internal development and publishing. Effectively this means that Disney just killed LucasArts, makers of games like Rebel Assault, Rogue Squadron, Jedi Knight, Shadows of the Empire and Battlefront.
Here is the official statement from Disney:
“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games,” LucasArts parent company LucasFilm said in a statement. “As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”
This news especially sucks for Star Wars: 1313 and First Assault which were essentially cancelled. Since LucasArts will be used in name only for future Disney/Star Wars releases these two in house games will most likely never see the light of day.
It has been a joy ride so far between Disney, Star Wars and fans with high hopes of the new trilogy directed by J.J. Abrams, but this is not going to go over well in the already cynical nerd community. I know Disney is a business and honestly will not give two shits about how fat guys like myself feel about this, but I know that I was looking forward to 1313, more so than any Star Wars game in a very long time and have a little bitterness that it may never surface. I also feel bad for those 150 people that lost their jobs today. Hell, you would think that LucasArts would be a safe place to work after the Disney acquisition. Your job is the job of making Star Wars for a digital medium. If that is not safe, what is?
It looks like Star Wars Episode VII is going to be a full blown reunion. Mark Hamill has already talked about his possible involvement and Latino Review has reported that Harrison Ford is set to return as Han Solo (insert shot first joke here). Now Carrie Fisher is confirming that she will be returning to the galaxy far, far away. She is the first of the three stars to announce this themselves.
Now we just have to keep her off the crazy train for three more years so this movie can get made. That is easier said than done, but where there is a will, there is a high priced Disney employee whose job it will be to follow her around 24-7 to make sure she doesn’t go off on a Wookie sized bender.
And let’s put all of our fanboy expectations into perspective. When Episode VII releases in a few years this is not the Leia of you childhood dreams when you would go hide in a closet.
Example:
We won’t be getting this.
We will be getting this.
Perspective.