Film | by Shane “Professor HneX” Hnetka
Peter Jackson has a cool-looking documentary coming out this month. They Shall Not Grow Old commemorates the 100-year anniversary of the First World War’s end. Jackson’s doc digitally restores and colourizes war-era footage and from the trailer, it almost looks like it was shot yesterday. It’s a step up from those awful old Turner colourized movies.
Deadpool Gives No Bleeps
Fox recently moved its Christmas blockbuster, Alita: Battle Angel, from Dec. 21 to Feb. 14, which leaves an important holiday slot open. What will Fox release to compete with Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Universal’s Mortal Engines, Paramount’s Transformers movie Bumblebee, Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns and Warner’s Aquaman?
Why, they’re going to re-release Deadpool 2. Yup.
And this isn’t the original theatrical version. It’s not even the longer, raunchier “Super Duper Cut”. Nope! This is a new, swearing-reduced, practically family friendly iteration of Deadpool 2.
I guess Fox didn’t think Alita could handle the Christmas competition.
Anyway, I’m not sure who would take their kids to even a censored Deadpool 2 — especially with better family films playing. But you never know. I’m just worried it might actually make money, which Fox’s new owners, Disney, might see as a reason to make Deadpool PG — permanently.
Rising From The Ashes
Speaking of Fox franchises: the first trailer for X-Men: Dark Phoenix is out and at first glance, I couldn’t help but think, “Hmmmm. This looks a lot like X-Men: The Last Stand.”
There’s a reason for that and his name is Simon Kinberg.
Kinberg, who wrote and directed X-Men: Dark Phoenix, has been scripting and producing X-Men films for years. He wrote the screenplays for X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse. This is the first movie he’s directed, though — X or otherwise.
Kinberg says he wants to make amends for the disaster that was X-Men: The Last Stand, which bungled Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s classic Dark Phoenix storyline and derailed a strong franchise for years. So I guess in a way this new movie is kind of a remake. Hopefully it doesn’t suck like The Last Stand did.
We’ll find out next June, when X-Men: Dark Phoenix hits theatres.
Shane Hnetka is a made-in-Saskatchewan film and comic book nerd. Read his daily web-only column 31 Days Of Horror: 10 Years of Fear every day in October on Dog Blog.
