The B-Reel is where I comb the internet for television and film news, and collect the best bits all in one place. I do this so that you don’t have to. Now, on to the news.
Guardians of the Galaxy was the biggest movie of the summer, but it hasn’t left the news just because the summer’s over. Oh no, GotG is still very much making its presence known. Now Marvel’s third highest grossing film with an astounding $732,671,720 worldwide take, it has recently been released in China, and is doing phenomenally well there, despite some subtitle snafus.
Well, Marvel is far from finished in cashing in, and will be releasing another version of the hit soundtrack that lasted 2 weeks at number one on the billboard chart to become the year’s 10th biggest seller, this time as a limited edition cassette. We’ve had a digital edition, CD, vinyl, and deluxe vinyl, but now Marvel, in coordination with Hollywood Records, will be releasing Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 on cassette on November 28th in the US, with a classic mix-tape handwritten look. It will be extremely limited, only on sale until December 31st, or supplies run out. It will only be available at select independent record stores partnered with Record Store Day. This is sure to sell out fast, and probably wind up at a very high price on eBay pretty quickly as well.
BUT, that’s not all the GotG news. How about some sequel news direct from James Gunn himself? The writer/director who has become the talk of the town was very chatty during Variety‘s Entertainment & Technology Summit on Tuesday, joking, “It’s going to be a really surprising open. What happens is all the characters are killed in the first 10 minutes, in really horribly brutal fashion.” He mentioned that all five original Guardians will be back, probably not meaning the ORIGINAL Guardians, but the ones from the first film, as well as unspecified other characters, some of whom may be joining the team. He seemed very excited about the sequel, saying, “I spent all day on Aug. 1, the day the first movie was released, writing Guardians 2, and I was finally able to let go of the last one and begin the second one. I always saw this as a universe, not just as one story.” Expect a lot of plot points from the first film to be explored and expanded upon, and many secrets explained. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (tentative title) will be released on July 28th 2017 in the US.
Arrow has become must-see TV over its previous two seasons. The showrunners know how to please the fans with Easter eggs and obscure character cameos, and this season is no different. It has been announced that coming in for a three episode story arc in episodes 10, 11 and 12 is the larger than life Vinnie Jones, playing the stone-faced Danny “Brick” Brickwell, “a ruthless gang leader who brings Star City’s government to its knees. He’s known as “Brick” on the streets because he’s been shot dozens of times but never put down”.
Though it’s still quite some time away, news of Suicide Squad is coming in fast and furious. Although he can’t reveal too much yet, screenwriter/director David Ayer tells Empire “I can say that it’s a Dirty Dozen with supervillains. Then I can ask the question, ‘Does a movie really need good guys?” Ayers’ passion for the project is palpable, being his first time delving into a more fantasy-like setting than his previous films. “I think there’s something incredible about the comic genre and technology has finally caught up with pen and ink to render these fantastic worlds in a way that feels believable and visceral to audiences”. DC/Warner Brothers’ Suicide Squad drops August 5, 2016.
Adam McKay spoke to Collider recently about Ant-Man, mentioning, “We added some new action beats. I grew up on Marvel Comics so the geek in me was in heaven that I got to add a giant action sequence to the movie; I was so excited. So we did, we added some cool new action. There’s a lot that’s already in there from what Edgar did, there’s a lot of dialogue and character still in there.” He’s been working closely with the film’s lead, Paul Rudd, adding “We just shaped the whole thing, we just tried to streamline it, make it cleaner, make it a little bigger, a little more aggressive, make it funnier in places—we just basically did a rewrite. Edgar had a really good script. But we just had a blast, and Rudd was just so much fun to write with. I walked away saying, ‘Hey, you and I gotta write a script together.” Ant-Man infests theaters on July 17th 2015.
