The most amazing month ever (ok, six weeks, ever)
October 2014 will probably be remembered in the annals of geek history as some sort of watershed time. There has been a flurry of events and announcements and other related business that make the last six weeks a mecca for geek/fanboy/fangirl/ whatever the hell you want to call yourself, just not “Nerd” like most media label us. If you’re having trouble keeping track – good ‘ole uncle Cultural Junkdrawer has put together a timeline of everything that has kept you awake at nights furiously scribbling about in your blog or twitter account (105 followers and only three are bots that you know of).
I’m extending the run to mid-September because the momentum just started then, and because I want to (hey, it’s my column); all dates should be right unless I just couldn’t nail down the exact day, or I didn’t want to.
September 13th – Doctor Who – Peter Capaldi’s 12th (give or take) Doctor finally hits his stride with the chilling, brilliant, warped “Listen”. The first episode that you can’t imagine any other actor as The Doctor doing. Sure, it screws with some details of cannon but the emotional punch and sheer bold storytelling on display make “Listen” defining and unforgettable. Speculation on who will play Doctor Strange narrows to Benedict Cumberbatch, Joaquin Phoenix and Joseph Gordon Levitt.
September 16th – The big man “Godzilla” lands on home video with over thirty extra minutes of Gareth Edwards emulating Spielberg’s JAWS. Also a deleted scene where Godzookie gets messily devoured by a MUTO.
September 18th – Fox fires the newest volley in its beef with Marvel studios by greenlighting another movie based on a marvel character; the Deadpool movie is officially announced (TAKE THAT MARVEL!). It is starring Ryan Reynolds, the leading man behind such hits on alternate earth #2479 as Green Lantern, R.I.P.D, and the Highlander reboot (Alternate Earth #2479 has a considerably lower standard for filmed entertainment but ever since the great war with the subterranean lizard people things haven’t been the same culture wise). Aside from Fox wanting to keep its death grip on the word “Mutant”, fan reaction to the test footage could’ve been a deciding factor. I know you’ve seen it before but this is a pretty cool way to spend a minute and a half of your life that doesn’t include a video with Bonnie Rotten…
September 19th – CBS makes a series commitment to Supergirl produced by the team behind the underrated “No Ordinary Family”. Casting for the show wonders if they can find large breasted blondes to audition in Los Angeles.
September 22nd – “Gotham” debuts on Fox. Fans are literally split down the middle (one Batfan – Lester P. Needermeyer of Butte, Montana’s head actually exploded when he found out that Bruce Wayne was twelve in the series instead of the canonical eight years old. Nobody at his insurance adjuster’s job noticed him not showing up for work for three weeks). “Gotham” marks the first live action versions of Harvey Bullock, Crispus Allen, and Renee Montoya, which should be more notable if it wasn’t for a section of fanatics screaming “That’s not how I’d do a Batman prequel!” Fox has picked up the back nine for “Gotham”, by the way. So keep pulling out that hair, kids, it ain’t going anywhere. If you want to be really pissed at me read my previous Junkdrawer defending Gotham here.
September 23rd – Disney infinity 2.0 Marvel Superheroes is released. Thousands of grown men buy it “For their nephew.”
September 24th – “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” returns for its second season giving a tease of “Marvel’s Agent Carter”, brings Absorbing Man into the MCU, makes Reed Diamond creepy as Daniel Whitehall, Lucy Lawless’ character is a one and done, gives Skye bangs but keeps Talbot’s terrible quais-mullet/dead badger thing. Sure, it looks like Joaquin Phoenix is locked for Doctor Strange but other names keep popping up like Jake Gyllenhall, Johnny Depp, and any actor that can rock a goatee and mustache.
September 28th – The characters of Disney’s money making machine “Frozen” show up in the season premiere of “Once upon a time…” Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Sven, the rock trolls, and even Marshmallow appear. Only fan favorite Olaf the snowman is missing due to an extended commitment playing Willy Loman in a Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman”. Neighborhoods across the nation steel themselves for massive roving gangs of Elsas asking for candy on Halloween.
September 29th – October 5th – Guardians of the Galaxy becomes the highest grossing domestic movie of 2014 surpassing Captain America – The Winter Soldier. Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter reportedly almost drowns while frolicking in a swimming pool filled with gold coins, Scrooge McDuck style.
October 6th – A big day. The woefully underserved Star Wars fandom got “Star Wars Rebels” on Disney XD. The first Lucasfilm/Disney collaboration to drop has its eye on solid action set pieces, grumpy droids and plenty of Easter eggs for hardcore fans including a character taken from Ralph McQuarrie’s first pass at Chewbacca, Imperial inquisitors, and an episode featuring a toy your dad might’ve talked about; the Imperial troop transport.
But Honey, it was only $1200 on eBay, MINT CONDITION!
Fire up a big pot of coffee and get an assload of pastries ready; Showtime announces a new Twin Peaks series for 2016. Released from the restrictions of network television the new Twin Peaks no doubt will be chock full of sex and violence, close up of eyeballs glancing nervously around, a midget clown laughing in slow motion cross faded with someone having a seizure near a bonfire, and Henry Winkler playing a homicidal psychopath. Granted this is all speculation but if you’ve ever seen one of Lynch’s F’d up movies you know I’m not far off.
October 7th A lotta heavy stuff going down two days before NYCC. Sony sends an edible arrangements basket (the one with the chocolate covered pineapple spears) over to Marvel with a message “How are things going? Good here. Wanna have Spiderman cameo in your movies?” That’s how it went down, so I’ve heard. Bleeding Cool finally gets to a Chris Claremont interview from another site from months ago and discovers that Marvel has decreed “No more Mutants!” for the X-titles. This is a result of Marvel wanting to keep new characters out of Fox’s hands (TAKE THAT FOX!). Fox responds by greenlighting movies for the little known mutants Maggott, Cypher, and that purple Thundercats reject who could make sounds like a cat (BALL IS IN YOUR COURT MARVEL!).
Finally the role Jaden Smith was born to play!
Claremont reveals this is why we haven’t seen a new mutant he created called “Overwrought Exposition Man”. DC comics scores another TV hit when The Flash debuts to fan swooning and begrudging critical acceptance. A week later DC and Warner brothers announce a Flash movie with Ezra Miller (sorry Grant Gustin) cast as the Scarlet Speedster proving that DC is a total honey badger when it comes to managing their properties. As NYCC gears up speculation about who will play Doctor Strange reaches critical mass now that Joaquin Phoenix is officially out. Front runners include Benedict Cumberbatch and Jake Gyllenhaal, somebody from “Game of Thrones” is probably considered too.
October 8th – Arrow comes back for season 3, still no Pinball Wizard in the rogue’s gallery.
October 9th – 12th – NYCC 2014. Nothing happens at all.
October 10th – Coming as a complete surprise to absolutely no one a “Guardians of the Galaxy” animated series is announced.
October 12th – Proving that Gordon Ramsay doesn’t have a monopoly on misery and eating “The Walking Dead” season 5 debuts with 17.3 million viewers. Marvel announces it is cancelling The Fantastic Four comics. “This has nothing to do with that wretched abomination of a movie that Fox studios is vomiting onto movie screens never”, a representative for Marvel announced at NYCC. The representative added “Your move, ass-hats!” Fox gave no response but did announce that they greenlit movie adaptations of Dragonman, Red Ghost, and Golden Oldie, and plan to have a cartoon called “Mole Man babies” out next spring. (HAHA! Soon my plan will be complete! Announces Fox executives while rubbing their hands in malicious glee).
October 13th – Marvel announces that Robert Downey Jr will play “A substantial role” as Iron Man in Captain America 3: C—- W–. Details of the deal with RDJ to re-up as Iron Man include paying him upwards of one billion dollars, someone dressed as Mickey Mouse continuously throwing rose petals at his feet, Canada… yes… Canada and, a front of the line pass to Space Mountain.
October 14th – As of this date Guardians of the Galaxy is the #1 movie in China. Disney got around the Chinese cultural blockages of foreign movies by telling them Groot is a Juniperus Convallium (trust me, if you’re a horticulturist that’s funny). The Doctor Strange movie is still looking for its lead. Names mentioned in “Eye of Agamotto – A blog of all things STRANGE” as possibly playing the Sorcerer Supreme still include Benedict Cumberbatch and Jake Gyllenhall, but now also include Tom Hardy, Keanu Reeves, Jon Hamm, Ryan Gosling, Colin Farrell, Ewan McGregor, Justin Theroux, Matt Smith, one or two cast members from True Blood (I can’t remember which), a newly slimmed down Zack Galifianakis, Oprah Winfrey, Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister, Kermit the frog, any able bodied man of voting age, and (casting him would guarantee me not seeing the movie) Ethan Hawke.
October 15th – DC movies announced that we’re stuck with Batfleck till at least 2020. Here are the other movies they announced:
2016, March – Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice – this one has been talked to death, get over it.
2016, August – Suicide Squad – The dirty dozen of DC, and what better way to introduce a host of DC villains to movie goers than by killing them off right away.
2017, June – Wonder Woman (Ha! We’re more diverse than Marvel!)
2017, November – Justice League Pt 1: The quest for more money (because all no-brainer tent pole movies are broken into two parts now).
2018, March – The Flash: don’t sweat the TV show, you can’t have too much Flash.
2018, July – Aquaman: Shut-up! He’s F’n bad-ass! Want him to sic a great white on you?
2019, April – Shazam: Who cares who plays Billy Batson, we smell what the Rock is cooking!
2019, June – Justice League Pt 2: It worked for the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”!
2020, February – Cyborg: We’re still more diverse than Marvel!
2020, June – Green Lantern: hope the taste is out of your mouth finally.
All dates are written in stone unless “Dawn of Justice” (more like Yawn of Justice – the Editor) doesn’t make the equivalent of Russia’s GNP. If that happens Warner Brothers might consider scrapping everything and just doing another Batman reboot.
October 16th – Renowned writer of “Cultural Junkdrawer”, Michael Colbert, celebrates his 45th birthday. I went to LEGOLAND here is a pic of me in my Luchador mask fighting a Lego mummy.
El Burrito Grande will make salsa outta your ass, amigo!
October 17th – “X-Men: Days of Future Past” hits home video featuring an extended scene between old and young Xavier where, after a long pause, Old Xavier points to his bald head and says “When?” Marvel denies X-Men even exist. Fox discovers a loophole in their deal with Marvel and greenlight fifteen movie adaptations of different hostess snack cake ads.
October 23rd – The first trailer for “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is leaked. There hasn’t been this much fapping over a robot since Hajime Sorayama’s first art book.
CAPTION – Go on, you know you want to… just hydrate after, ok?
October 24th – “Constantine” debuts on NBC. “Supernatural” fans look up from their Wincest slashfic and wonder what’s up with Castiel.
October 30th – Marvel Studios announces that they will be launching a reality show called “Can you be Doctor Strange?” to premiere on ABC.
Who knows what the next six weeks will hold for geeks across the world, frankly I need time to catch up on stuff on my DVR and my heart can’t take all this excitement. So no announcements of a Gleek the space monkey movie, please. Let all this simmer for a bit, please.
