This week, King Kong takes on another beast in Disney’s much anticipated (and seemingly unnecessary) Beauty and the Beast live-action remake. While we’re not all that interested, it seems the rest of the living world is, as the movie is currently on track to beat Warner Bros. Batman v Superman film for the biggest March opening of all time. It’s also getting solid, if not glowing, reviews.
The rest of the box office this weekend is similarly steeped in mediocrity, including another somewhat unneeded return to the well in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting 2 — which is doing better than we’d anticipated in critics’ eyes — and the James Gunn-produced thriller The Belko Experiment. While the latter film, about an office that gets locked down in a kill-or-be-killed psychological experiment, looks like the most intriguing, it’s actually getting panned pretty hard, grabbing a 44 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Our advice this week? Step back to Kong: Skull Island, or grab yourself some awesome and see Jordan Peele’s horror masterpiece Get Out.
Elsewhere in the world of entertainment, news of a new reboot hat we really wish wasn’t happening hit the web. That’s right, we’re talking about Warner Bros.’ plan to reboot The Matrix, with Michael B. Jordan being eyed to star. Now, Jordan is one of our favorite up-and-coming actors (solidified by his work in Creed), but this is one of the worst reboot ideas we’ve ever encountered, right up there with Total Recall and Roadhouse, starring Ronda Rousey. (Whatever happened to that movie, anyway?). We’ll discuss exactly why this is a horrid idea, including the fact that that what made this movie franchise work was its cinematography and intriguing character work, not it’s rather cliché messianic storyline.
Updated 3-17-2017 at 4:54 p.m. PST: While news of the film’s potential reboot ran rampant after THR’s report, Zak Penn took to Twitter today to clear things up. “Can’t comment yet except to say that the words ‘reboot’ and ‘remake’ were from an article.” Penn tweeted. “Do I want to see more stories set in the universe of the matrix? Yes. Because it’s a brilliant idea that generates great stories,” Penn continued. While nothing official has come from the studio, it appears Warner Bros. is looking to play around more in the Matrix sandbox, potentially creating more stories within that cinematic universe similar to X-Men spinoffs like ‘Logan,’ and ‘Deadpool,’ according to Penn. This is good news for fans of the groundbreaking franchise who were angered to hear it might be reworked. You can listen to our malcontent about the idea on today’s show, and now share in our warm, fuzzy feelings now that we know this madness won’t come to pass.
Another Hollywood get-rich-quick scheme revealed this week is the reboot of The Fly, which, for those of us who know our transmogrifying-monster lore are aware, has already been rebooted. The iconic ’80s film starring Jeff Goldblum and directed by David Cronenberg was a reboot of an arguably even more disturbing 1958 film directed by Kurt Neumann. While this particular reboot has more potential than The Matrix reboot scheme, it’s sad to think that Cronenberg’s strange, disgusting, and fascinating little love note to the original will be stomped all over by a big-budget blockbuster. But what do we know?
In other news, SNL is having one helluva ride this year, courtesy of one of the easiest political targets this side of Richard Nixon (we’ll let you connect the dots on this one). The series is enjoying its best ratings in 25 years (when it had one of its biggest all-star casts in its 40-plus year history), and is parlaying its big ratings into some intriguing new prime time slots. The show will go live nationwide for its last four episodes, meaning it will premiere on the West Coast at 8:30 p.m. PT, while Weekend Update will also be spun off this summer for four prime time episodes.
Also this week, Netflix has pulled its five star rating system for a thumbs up (apparently, no one besides us was rating movies), Neil Gaiman’s upcoming American Gods series on Starz gets an intriguing first trailer, Wonder Woman’s third trailer is revealed, Aziz Ansari’s Master of None gets a second season, and James Gunn announces the inevitable third installment of Guardians of the Galaxy is a go. Oh yeah, and without a director, a cast, or a finished script, Sony Pictures’ Venom movie is a go for 2018? We’re not sure how that works out, but sure.
We’ll be discussing all this and more on today’s show, so join us live today at 2 p.m. PT, or take our podcast along by subscribing via one of the links above!
