Real Tragedy vs. Reel Tragedy: A History of Films Released in the Shadow of Non-Fiction Horror

For much of the last six months, many hardcore Star Trek fans have been somewhat annoyed that the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness has been marketed as a somewhat generic grim-n-gritty 'dark sequel' focused not on space exploration but on Kirk and his crew pursuing a seemingly unstoppable super villain (Benedict Cumberbatch).  I've jokingly referred to the marketing as Skyfall Into The Dark Knight, but the irony is that Paramount may now be regretting their 'sell this to generic action fans' approach.  If, and this is a big "if", the perpetrator behind Monday's Boston Marathon attack turns out to be a domestic terrorist with a grudge against allegedly tyrannical government forces, how will Paramount handle their prime summer tent pole, which has been centered around a domestic terrorist with an apparent grudge against Starfleet blowing up populated areas?  This is sadly not the first time we've had this kind of discussion.  But it's worth noting that it's having to happen with increasing frequency.

Summer Movie Marketing Challenge: Tease, Don't Spoil!

Iron Man 3 gets a photoshop poster spectacular!

I was holding off on posting those lovely character posters for Iron Man 3 because I wanted to put them all in one post, with the presumption that Rebecca Hall would get her own poster as well.  Alas, Hall is a no-go both for her own poster as well as even getting billing on the main IMAX poster.  That is a bit odd as her character in "Extremis" is basically a co-lead while Guy Pearce's scientist um... it's a small part in the original comic book arc.  I'll let others discuss the usual gender boilerplate here (expanding the guy's role while seemingly minimizing the female character's role, keeping the women on the poster to no more than one, etc.), and merely point out that this is basically a giant mash-up of several prior character posters smushed into one image, which may remind fans of the Batman Forever poster campaign from 1995 (with the five character posters copied and pasted into the theatrical one-sheet).  At least no one is unleashing exploding farts like the last time around...  Anyway, since they are apparently done for now, I'm including the rest of the solid Iron Man 3 posters after the jump, including the general theatrical one-sheet.  Iron Man 3 opens overseas on April 25th and April 26th but not until May 3rd in America.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson

Dumb parent worries: Will my kid get spooked by PG-13 trailers like After Earth in front of PG-rated movies like Oz?

I made an offhand joke a couple days ago about all of the big summer release trailers being dropped online and presumably into theater this week.  I'm taking my daughter to see Oz: The Great and Powerful tonight and I'm curious to see which trailers are attached to PG-rated Disney family adventure.  Obviously The Hangover part III is probably not going to make an appearance.  But what about the more mainstream PG-13 entertainments like Iron Man 3 or After Earth?  So will the first 15-20 minutes or so of my daughter's moviegoing experience consist of a series of trailers for big summer releases that she can't see?  Will I have to explain that "No, sweetie, *this* Iron Man movie is for adults."  I've had to do that before, like when when she spotted the DVD of Snow White and the Huntsman at Best Buy, and I always feel like an idiot when doing so.  The other thought that comes to mind is a 12 year old news story, one which I gave little thought to at the time.  

Iron Man 3 gets a final and frankly terrific trailer...

I'll add commentary later today.  But for the moment, this looks like a pretty terrific action thriller that just happens to be a superhero threequel.  It's good to see that the bad guy isn't just targeting Stark this time around, and this may in fact dive head-first into the politics that the second film only skirted around.  Could this finally break the curse of the comic book part 3?  Share your thoughts below...

Scott Mendelson

Iron Man 3 gets a creative and compelling Super Bowl tease.

This is the first piece of marketing we've seen since the teaser back in October, and it's actually a nice deviation.  The extended version (which only includes about 20 seconds of additional footage) is mostly stuff we've seen from the theatrical teaser while the remaining thirty seconds sets up without ruining a major action set piece.  I actually watched both Iron Man films over the last couple weeks and I have to say they have both aged very well, even the second one which is still flawed mostly in its messy third act and its weirdly kid-friendly tone when it comes to its poorly-developed villainy.  There's not much more to say, other than the set piece in question looks terrific and kinda scary (for no particular reason, the idea of being sucked out of an airplane, especially while still strapped to a seat, has always been kinda disturbing to me).  From what we've seen, it looks like Happy is the film's big death, but other than that I hope that Marvel and Disney show a little restraint especially as they actually have action sequences to market, as opposed to the last film which had just two major set pieces from which to cull footage.  I'm sure we'll get another trailer, probably attached to Oz: The Great and Powerful on March 8th.  But for now I'm glad about how little I know about the actual story, even having read the comic arc that it's loosely based on.

Scott Mendelson    

Watch/Discuss: Iron Man 3 gets a solid, but rather similar-looking teaser, as Tony must save himself yet again.

That I'm not a fan of the new armor's color scheme is a minor point.  I'm still bitter that they switched Mario's color scheme in Super Mario Bros. 2 almost 25 years ago.  But while the footage looks good and the stakes seem higher this time around, I can't help feeling a sense of deja vu.  Is this not the second sequel where a diabolical villain decides to teach Tony a lesson in humility by tearing his world apart, just as Tony himself is going through a mental/emotional crisis?  Or more to a point, is this not the third Iron Man  film where Tony basically has to use his toys and his brains to basically save himself and/or his company from destruction?  We see a quick flash of Guy Pearce, reminding us that we're basically seeing The Mandarin (played by non-Asian actor Ben Kingsley) tossed into the "Extremis" story arc.  The most interesting moment is what is apparently a possibly mortally wounded Happy Hogan, as he's certainly a likely candidate for a major death who's absence won't screw up the franchise too much.  Since Favreau arguably doesn't want to stick around forever watching other people take on his franchise, it's a good bet he doesn't survive this chapter.  Anyway, Shane Black's Iron Man 3 opens in the US on May 3rd, 2013. As always, we'll see.  Now it's your turn.  What is the chance that Iron Man 3 can become the first truly *good* part 3 in comic book film history?   

Scott Mendelson

Iron Man 3 gets a teaser poster and a synopsis.

The trailer drops tonight at midnight, so I'll try to have it posted tomorrow morning.  Anyway, here is the first teaser poster, with the synopsis after the jump.

Scott Mendelson

Press release: Disney announces boatload of Disney/Pixar/Marvel release information...

I'll let you decide what is newsworthy versus what is not.  Of course it would have been more newsworthy had Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier *not* gone the 3D route, but there you have it.  I'd be shocked if Guardians of the Galaxy and the newly announced Ant Man (my daughter will be excited as she's a big fan of The Wasp) don't go the 3D route as well.  The sad news is the removal of Phineas and Ferb from the summer 2013 schedule to parts unknown in 2014.  That can't be a good thing, right?  Anyway, the whole load of newly dumped info is after the jump.  The field is now yours. Oh, and just for fun, here's the newly released synopsis for the rather epic-sounding Thor: The Dark World.

In the aftermath of Marvel's Thor and Marvel's The Avengers, Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos... but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.

Scott Mendelson

Less is more. Why Marvel's decision to increase Iron Man 3's budget by $60 million may not be a net-positive.

This is old news, but it broke while I was busy and I suppose the release of the first official still is as good a time to discuss this as any.  Despite commentary running up to the release of The Avengers swearing that Shane Black's Iron Man 3 would be a scaled-back and character-centric affair, it now appears that the eye-popping success of The Avengers has changed the template over at Marvel.  The film's budget of $140 million has now been raised by a whopping $60 million, so that it will now cost $200 million assuming everything gets done on time and on schedule.  Instead of promising a low-key character drama loosely based on "Extremis", Iron Man 3 is now intended to be the biggest Marvel movie yet!  Iron Man 2 cost $200 million and still felt incredibly small-scale and the $140 million Captain America was the only pre-Avengers film that actually felt 'big'.  It's not that money can't buy quality or anything obvious like that, it's the idea that money wrongly applied and/or given to a film purely because it can be sometimes does more harm than good.

In a film-culture seemingly entitled to spoilers, simple concealed narrative become "PLOT TWISTS!"

Under normal circumstances, this post would require a 'Spoiler Warning(!)'.  But what I'm discussing aren't some shocking plot twists or stunning third-act reveals, which is kind of the point.  This Friday finally brings about the US release of Ridley Scott's Prometheus.  A major part of the marketing campaign has centered around its somewhat cryptic beginnings, the idea that Fox wasn't revealing the whole film in the trailer as is often the case.  This in turn led to speculation that there was some plot twist being held in reserve, be it a specific connection to the Alien franchise or some kind of stunning third act reveal.  We've seen this game before, as Paramount successfully sold the idea last summer that Super 8 had some kind of climactic reveal and/or plot twist.  Without going into spoiler-y details, this is not true for either of the above films.  Prometheus certainly has some narrative threads that haven't been revealed in the marketing, while other pretty major details have been blatantly spoiled because they contained 'money shots'.  But at the end of the day, and this is not a criticism per-se, Prometheus unfolds in a somewhat predictable manner, as did Super 8.  What's interesting is that in this day and age merely not revealing the entire narrative arc and/or every money shot in the film qualifies as 'hiding plot twists'.

The not-so subtle negative messaging in Jessica Chastain's Iron Man 3 character description.

The big casting news from yesterday was the announcement that Jessica Chastain is being sought for a major role in Iron Man 3, joining Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley, and (allegedly) Andy Lau alongside the various returning cast members (basically every surviving character from the first two films save for Sam Rockwell).  The cast listing for the other *male* actors primarily described their occupations and/or role in the story (Kingsley is the villain, Pearce is a 'sinister scientist', Lau is 'a scientist').   But the actress is being touted not just as a scientist but as "a sexy scientist every bit as smart as Tony Stark".  Because despite winning raves in seven films last year, with countless award nominations to go along with it, Ms. Chastain can't just be described as a scientist.  Oh no, she has to be a hot piece of ass who despite being (gasp!) a girl is as intelligent as Mr. Stark.

The movie or the marketing? Will going from Paramount to Disney help or hurt Marvel Studios' upcoming films?

It is a clear case of quitting while you're ahead.  Paramount pulled off another $65 million+ opening weekend for another Marvel property, this time with the somewhat more questionable Captain America.  Despite opening in the middle of summer and without the IMAX advantage, Captain America still opened with almost identical numbers to Thor's debut last May ($100,000 more as of this writing).  And that's all she wrote for the three-year long distribution relationship between Marvel Studios and Paramount.  Thanks to a deal whereby Paramount basically sold the distribution rights to any Marvel characters they had dibs on (The Avengers, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, etc) to Disney for $115 million late last year, the fate of the ongoing Marvel movie mythology rests with The Mouse House.  As you recall, Disney bought Marvel Studios for $4 billion just under two years ago, but many of the most popular Marvel properties (X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, etc) belonged to other studios.  Disney grabbing back Paramount's key properties was a major step in bringing the Marvel universe under one studio roof (and likely the last step for awhile, as I imagine that Fox and Sony will keep rebooting or remaking their respective properties until doomsday).  But for now the question is simply: Will the Marvel Studios film universe suffer without the seemingly unbeatable Paramount marketing team?

Yesterday's News Today: Jon Favreau off Iron Man 3.

We all saw this coming from as far back as mid-summer 2008, when Marvel basically played hardball with Jon Favreau in regards to financial compensation for Iron Man 2. Favreau wanted more money and a 3-year gap between films. He got the raise, but he only got two years between films. By all accounts, Marvel micromanaged the sequel into the aimless, pointless, glorified backdoor pilot that it now remains (Mickey Rourke allegedly acting like Marlon Brando on set probably didn't help either). So with Favreau having enjoyed general creative freedom with Cowboys and Aliens and now all set to tackle a fantasy film based on the Disney World theme park entitled The Magic Kingdom, it was only a matter of time before it was confirmed that yes, Favreau would not be finishing up his would-be Iron Man trilogy. What does it mean? Does it mean anything at all?

Why did Paramount sell off distribution rights for Avengers and Iron Man 3 to Disney for a mere $115 million?

Just how much money trouble is Paramount in these days? Or, just how bad is Thor and/or Captain America? Or is Paramount in the middle of a major change in the kinds of films they make? The Wall Street Journal reports that Paramount plans to sell the distribution rights to The Avengers (due May 4th, 2012) and Iron Man 3 (just announced for May 3rd, 2013) to Disney for just $115 million. As you all know, Disney bought Marvel Studios for $4 billion a year ago, but we were told it would be a good-long while before Disney had the distribution rights to the characters they really wanted, the ones held by Fox (the X-Men, Daredevil, Fantastic Four) and Paramount (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, anyone associated with the Avengers), and Sony (Spider-Man). Well, Paramount just gave up its stake for a measly $115 million. Paramount will still distribute and market the 2011 summer tentpoles Thor and Captain America, but after that, it appears that Paramount's role in the Marvel universe is pretty much done.