by Shane “Spider-Menace” Hnetka
So your favourite movie won a bunch of awards including best original score. What’s the best way to honour the film’s achievements? Well, if you’re Warner Brothers and the movie is Gravity, you re-release it on Blu-ray and include the Silent Space Edition, a version of the movie without the soundtrack. Not sure if that’s how director Alfonso Cuarón actually wants his film presented or if it’s really worth buying it again. I think I’ll just keep my current Blu-ray and watch the film with the mute on.
Doing Whatever A Spider Can
Sony finally reached a collaborative agreement that will bring Spider-Man back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Back” might be a bit strong — the deal lets Sony keep ownership and creative control of Spidey, but now Marvel gets to use the character in their movies. Amy Pascal, the disgraced former head of Sony, will co-produce the films with Marvel’s Kevin Feige. Still, I can’t see Sony putting up much of an argument when Marvel decides what they want to do with the character, so here’s hoping we’re in for something better than the web-slinger’s last three movies.
Still, this is a big win for Marvel, who sold Spider-Man’s movie rights back in 1999 for $7 million dollars (at the time Marvel was bankrupt and trying to get back on its feet). Sony’s made $4 billion on the franchise to date so they’ve sure gotten their money’s worth.
Marvel has already shuffled around their movie slate to make room for Spidey, which means there’s a strong chance ol’ Web-Head will make an appearance in next year’s Captain America: Civil War, before he appears in a new movie of his own (albeit with possible guest-appearances by other Marvel characters) in 2017. The possibilities are wide open now.
Quest For Better Movies
On Feb. 17, the 1981 “movie” Caveman gets a high definition release on Blu-ray thanks to Olive Films. Caveman was a lame comedy starring Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid and Shelley Long as cave people. They fight dinosaurs, talk in cave-gibberish the entire film and look for prehistoric love.
What I find funny is that another 1981 film about Neanderthals that features no dialogue is NOT on Blu-ray. The award-winning Canadian feature Quest for Fire is sadly not available in high definition yet. But a crappy Ringo Starr comedy is.
Studios priorities are messed up.
Shane Hnetka is a Regina film and comic book nerd. He writes Dog Blog’s weekly “Sunday Matinee” column at prairiedogmag.com.