Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Wildcard Wednesday || The Dawn of Phase 3 (and Justice)

Greetings everyone and thank you for stopping by for another edition of Wildcard Wednesday! A lot has happened between my last post on July 8th; most of it coming from San Diego Comic-Con 2015 with trailers galore for the ultimate DC and Marvel fans. For this week's blog, I would just like to go over what we can expect from our favorite superheroes next year and I am also going to give a little recap about Ant-Man and my thoughts about the film.

2016 is anticipated to bust the block throughout the year with a whopping 7 scheduled releases from DC and Marvel:

  • February 12: Deadpool (Fox)
  • March 25: Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice
  • May 6: Captain America: Civil War
  • May 27: X-Men: Apocalypse (Fox)
  • August 5: Suicide Squad
  • October 7: Gambit (Fox)
  • November 4: Doctor Strange
(Sinister Six was scheduled to release in 2016 prior to the recent news of Marvel and Sony co-producing a rebooted Spider-Man film, so that is currently pending)

I know that Star Wars isn't within the Marvel or DC universe, but since it's being released in the middle of December, it will technically be a 2016 film. Star Wars is arguably one of the biggest franchises is movie history. Given the fan-base has been waiting for a sequel like this to come we can expect huge numbers from Episode VII, setting a bar for Batman v Superman to inevitably beat. I mean c'mon...Batman and Superman are obviously the most popular superheroes ever. This is the first time they will be featured in a live-action film, they've got to beat the record by a landslide right?

Deadpool is a relatively new character. Although he was introduced in 1991, his unique personality and connection to the comic-book readers has created a huge cult; convincing Marvel to have his own film. That preview from Comic-Con brings a lot to the table. The origin story and his crowd-pleasing personality already has me excited to watch his movie.

For the X-Men franchise, Bryan Singer has done an amazing job cleaning up the mess made from X-Men: The Last Stand and essentially rebooting everything with Days of Future Past. Now that all the X-Men are back, their ultimate super villain Apocalypse is lurking around the corner. He is an ancient mutant known to be the first to carry the mutant X-gene. He has the power to control molecules, which allows him to change his form, enhance his strength and size, regenerate limbs, and he has the capability of virtually all physical superhuman powers.  If you're a Dragonball Z fan, imagine Apocalypse being like Cell. That's what the X-Men have to face. However, it's not like Wolverine can just kick Apocalypse in the stomach, he spits out an android, and then he is powered down a level. It ain't gonna happen like that.

I'll be honest with you, I don't follow DC as much as I know about Marvel, but the Suicide Squad looked pretty interesting as well. Since I'm being honest, I'm mostly curious to see Jared Leto play the Joker. I'm assuming that's why they inserted his piece last in the Comic-Con trailer. He looked pretty awesome. Similar to how he looks in Arkham Asylum. I believe we also saw a glimpse of Batman intruding with the Squad's plans so we'll see how the Batman v Superman aftermath keys into the story there.

We haven't gotten a lot of news about Gambit and Doctor Strange, but there's obviously still a lot of time in between for a little teaser to be released.

Now...two huge storylines from DC and Marvel's franchises come to the big screen. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will loosely follow Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and their meet-up in Gotham. On the other side, we have the famous Marvel Civil War storyline where the U.S. Government passes a Superhuman Registration Act. Those who oppose the act are led by Captain America and those who support the act are led by Iron Man. A major component in the story is Spider-Man/Peter Parker. As far as the box office goes, I think Batman v Superman will blow away the records previously set by the first Avengers film and Age of Ultron. Sorry, Cap...you've got enough on your plate to worry about box office numbers with your Civil War and all...

Alrighty. Last thing I wanna talk about is Ant-Man. Where do I start...I really enjoyed the film. I would give it a B+ with its solid character development and including important origin stories that fill in the background of the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym and the passing of the torch to Scott Lang. You might hear from people that they didn't like Ant-Man because it was slow and there wasn't a lot of action. These are the kinds of people who are spoiled with action-packed films and don't enjoy filling in plot points and character development. You cannot come into this film expecting it start off fast like how Age of Ultron did. It's a new character. An original Avenger...that shrinks down to an ant-sized man. What more can you expect?

That is all that I have for you this week. Lots of trailers. Lots of speculation. Lots of anticipation. 2016 will be about the beginning of Marvel's Phase 3 in the MCU vs. DC's start of the Justice League. Even though they are 8 years behind, I believe DC can easily make up ground if and only if the rest of the League can shine in their stand-alone films. I'm excite. Are you?!







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