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Which promising movies fell shortest of expectations?
When we first heard the news that J.J. Abrams had been hired by Disney to continue the adventures of Luke Skywalker and company as the director of Star Wars: Episode VII, we were almost beside ourselves with enthusiasm. After all, as the director of Star Trek (2009), Abrams proved that he could revitalize a classic sci-fi franchise while remaining true to its core concepts and respectful of its legacy. Added to that the fact that Abrams will be shooting from a script written by Academy Award-winner Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) and Episode VII is bound to be the greatest Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi, right? We'll see. We're keeping our fingers crossed, but gearing down from "enthusiastic" to "hopefully optimistic."
Studios don't set out to make bad movies, yet they churn them out each and every year. Sure, most bad movies are doomed from the get-go, be they saddled with a bad script, a director who lacks vision, a cast made up of eye candy instead of actors, or some combination thereof, but even movies that seem to have everything going for them can still turn out to be dreadful. A movie about cowboys fighting aliens starring Indiana Jones and James Bond directed by the man who brought us Iron Man? Sounds awesome! Too bad Cowboys and Aliens turned out to be just another one of those movies that should have been great, but ultimately left us feeling unsatisfied and disappointed.
You've griped about them to your friends, now tell us which movies you found to be the biggest disappointments, the ones that simply failed to live up to expectations.
Rate the Top 10 Most Disappointing Movies >>
Posted 01.25.13 by BrentJS -
Comic book legend Stan Lee first started working for Marvel Comics in 1939, back when it was still known Timely Comics, eventually co-creating Marvel's most enduring characters, including the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the Avengers, to name a few. Still going strong at 90 years old, many might be surprised to know that Lee hasn't worked at Marvel Comics for years, as he is still seen as a figurehead for the comic book company. Lee continues to field questions and comments on Twitter, where he has a huge following, and continues his association with Marvel through his many cameos in Marvel movies.
Lee made his first onscreen cameo in the 1989 TV movie The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, and would go on to appear in 2000's X-Men, all four Spider-Man, 2003's Daredevil and Hulk, both Fantastic Four movies, 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand, both Iron Man movies as well as 2011's Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger and last year's The Avengers (but not, inexplicably, 2003's X2: X-Men United or X-Men: First Class). Lee's entire, chronological cameo history has been compiled into a single video (via Mary Sue), including most of our ten favorites (sorry, Mallrats doesn't count) and excluding Lee's voice over work from Marvel's animated series.
watch the video >> Posted 01.09.13 by Ryan -
2012 is going to be filled with plenty of movies for comic book fans to devour; but May's superhero team-up of The Avengers is clearly one of the most anticipated. With the first (and only) trailer released in October, the recent arrival of a German-dubbed trailer and a Russian-dubbed trailer, each only revealing snippets of new footage (but new footage nonetheless) was a welcome addition to Marvel's fervent fanbase.
The start of 2012 sees the reveal of a new international poster for The Avengers, which is mostly comprised of drawn poses taken from a promo poster released last June and a promo image released last August.
see the full poster and read ruffalo's comments >> Posted 01.03.12 by Ryan -
Marvel Studios' upcoming adaptation of The Avengers will be the third appearance of the character of the Hulk, and will have the third actor playing the Hulk's alter ego, Dr. Bruce Banner. When Mark Ruffalo was cast in the role after Marvel decided not to use Edward Norton again, Ruffalo referred to the role as "my generation's Hamlet" while also revealing that he would be the first actor to also play the Hulk in motion capture. But that may not be the only change the Hulk sees in The Avengers.
While attending the 2011 Comic-Con, Marvel president of production (and producer of the Marvel Avengers movies) Kevin Feige told The LA Times that the Hulk "will be as different as The Incredible Hulk was from Ang Lee’s Hulk in terms of its look and design."
how will the hulk change? >> Posted 07.27.11 by Ryan -
Turns out director Joe Johnston wasn't satisfied with the same ol' same ol' to explain why Benicio Del Toro is waxing all hairy and toothy in The Wolfman. Nope, no simple stroll-on-the-moors, random-wolf-bite, go-wild-at-moonrise for Toro's Lawrence Talbot. Instead, a family curse has been thrown into the mix, all the better to generate a piquant sense of doom even before Larry manifests an irrepressible urge to howl.
The curse that trips its way through the branches of a family tree is a great means to get to an audience's gut. We are, after all, consigned to what we're handed by our forebears, and whether such inheritances stem from genetics or upbringing, most of us have a vested interest in seeing if a protagonist can escape his/her own destiny. Pushing into the background our own concerns over those pentagram-shaped birthmarks on our hips, we started checking out all the ways that filmmakers have managed to bequeath their characters the gifts that keep on giving (and that rank as a bit more dire than thinning hairlines or thickening bellies).
Here, then, we offer up Family Be Damned: Top 10 Cursed Movie Characters. Warning: You might want to consider DNA screening afterward.
Posted 02.12.10 by reelz -
For someone about to turn 87 (Dec. 28), Stan Lee sure gets around. Not that this is news to anyone who’s been to a Comic-Con in the past decade or watches talk shows with any degree of regularity. From what we can gather, the only thing Lee loves more than adding exclamation points to his comics is appearing on-screen.
While his appearances used to be limited to what he could talk himself into, Lee's been seemingly everywhere this decade — ever since the explosion of Marvel properties being adapted into movies. Well, everywhere for about 15 seconds a movie.
With all the talk surrounding his upcoming cameo in Iron Man 2 (and an almost-for-certain appearance in Spider-Man 4), we decided to take a look back at his best appearances so far. Check out Our 10 Favorite Stan Lee Cameos.
Posted 12.03.09 by reelz -
After the box office disappointment of his last movie, Taking Woodstock, director Ang Lee is apparently looking to adapt an award-winning novel from Canada next. Averaging one feature every two years since The Hulk in 2003, Lee said that his next project "is two years ahead," but he told Digital Spy that he has a story in mind.
I think I'm going to do Life of Pi. A little boy adrift at sea with a tiger. It's a hard one to crack.
Written by Yann Martel and originally published in 2001, Life of Pi tells the story of Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel, a young Indian boy stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a Bengal tiger named "Richard Parker." The British edition of Life of Pi won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction the year after its release, and M. Night Shyamalan (The Happening), Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men), and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (A Very Long Engagement) have all been attached to direct the adaptation at one point or another in the past. Lee said that he hasn't done any casting yet, but he is currently working on a draft of the script.
I think I've cracked the structure of the movie and I'll figure out how to do it later. How exactly I'm going to do it, I don't know!
Posted 11.03.09 by BrentJS -
A few days ago we reported Hulk actor Edward Norton's views about returning to Marvel Movies. Now we have the video clips of the extended MTV interview.
Posted 09.28.09 by reelz -
The LA Times caught up with Louis Leterrier on the set of his upcoming Clash of the Titans, where The Incredible Hulk director talked about The Avengers and the upcoming Marvel movies. The French director revealed that he wants to make another Marvel movie, but Leterrier seemed uncommitted to making The Incredible Hulk 2.
Well, so far, no. I am contracted to do one more film with Marvel so when I'm done here with [Titans] I will go back to say to them, "Guys you need me? Is there something I can do?"
Leterrier explained that making The Incredible Hulk took its toll on him.
Hulk was such a challenge. It was to reboot something and follow [the Ang Lee-directed 2003 Hulk] movie that was absolutely adored by part of the fan population and then absolutely hated by another part. It was complicated for me. I wasn't sure what to do with that history. I did my Hulk but it was not easy. If I do another Hulk film it will always be compared to the Ang Leething, and my first one … if I come back I'd love to do another superhero, something different that I can really put my touch on.
So if Leterrier isn't willing to direct the next Incredible Hulk, what movie would he want to direct?
I would love to do the Avengers film. I'd love to work with Marvel again. I loved working with them. I like [Marvel President of Production] Kevin Feige, he's a good guy and a fan. I love him. I feel really good at Marvelbecause they are people my age who are obsessed with movies and comic books. We talk about the same things. And they are not the nerd army — they like when you change something [away from Marvel canon] if there's a good reason, they're open to new things. Kevin is smart about movies and he takes risks. I would work with him tomorrow. But it has to be the right project.
But directing The Avengers isn't all Leterrier wants. He outlined a much larger dream for The Avengers that surely had Feige and his fellow Marvel executives talking.
I'll tell you my real dream: To work with [First Avenger: Captain America director] Joe Johnston and [Thor director] Kenneth Branagh and Jon Favreau and make like a triptych. We do four movies. We release them one a month for the summer. Or even every two weeks or three weeks. And the whole summer would be Avengers summer. So we do it the way they make television shows. One story arc but told in installments by different directors. So all of the directors that touch part of the Avengers world would do a part; wecould make the movies shorter, maybe less than an hour and a half, and we use the same sets and save Marvel money. I would love to sit around a table with all of them a kick around the story. That's my dream.
Posted 08.11.09 by Ryan -
Our pal Frosty over at Collider.com tells us that the Hulk sequel starring Edward Norton will feature a grey-colored Hulk. For those of you who fear this is yet another example of Marvel honcho Avi Arad screwing up a franchise, it should be noted that this is not without precedent, as the grey-colored Hulk has a long history in the comic book.
Another rumor -- that Hulk's trademark Daisy Dukes will be replaced by a pair of wrinkle-free Dockers -- has yet to be confirmed.
Posted 04.23.07 by reelz