Michael Keaton's the Bat again and George R.R. Martin is making pages... are these the end times?
Might be. Might be.
Yes, I will happily accept Michael Keaton suiting up as Batman again, thank you.
Thirty years ago this week, I was driving across America with my high-school buddy so we could conquer Hollywood. It’s funny how much of our pop culture from that moment has come back around again recently. I remember I was crazy about Twin Peaks at that point, and halfway through our trip, we stopped at a motel and watched the crazy cliffhanger season finale for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and we were smack-dab between the two Batman films with Keaton, curious to see what the sequel might be. I never thought we’d get new Twin Peaks, much less have it turn out so well, and while I didn’t ultimately like Picard, I’m happy to see them take the swing. So, yeah, I guess I’m optimistic about the idea of Keaton once again playing the part. He looks great, he’s been crushing it lately, and it feels like a fun way to play with alternate worlds in a Flashpoint movie.
DC’s biggest problem as a film unit so far has been the way they constantly seem to be reacting to other studios’ success. It’s like they get impatient because they know that they’ve got all of these characters that they own and all these great stories they’ve told with those characters, and they want to get right to them. But they get lazy about the set-up, and that’s what ultimately gets your audience involved. I will never understand the decision to kill Superman for the vast majority of your Justice League movie. It seems insane to me. And while I think there’s plenty of room for a movie where you play with alternate timelines and different dimensions, it feels like they’re jumping the gun with Flash starting there instead of giving us a film where we get to know who Barry Allen and what his life looks like.
Flashpoint has already been used as the backbone for a major run of episodes on the Flash television series, so maybe the studio figures anyone who likes the character has seen the show so they can just skip all of that when it comes to the movies, but that seems like lazy storytelling to me. Flashpoint is all about Flash running so fast he goes back in time and changes something key to his life, then returning to the present where the entire world has been altered because of those choices. I’m not worried about the audience getting the general idea. After all, Into The Spider-Verse did it spectacularly, and they were able to introduce some wild riffs on the basic character. But why did that work? Because we’ve had three different movie Spider-Men in live-action already, and the audience gets it. They’ve seen enough riffs now on Parker’s origin and the way different actors play each of the touchstones in Parker’s life, and that gave the Spider-Verse filmmakers carte blanche to bend and break the basic template as much as they wanted. I’m sure Warner Bros looks at the success of that film and thinks how easy it will be to make their own version, and the casting of Michael Keaton is a huge step in the right direction. If they throw in Clooney and Kilmer and Bale for cameos, they could have one of those movie moments everyone has to see. But if you’re talking about the bigger picture, it feels like Flashpoint pretty much says everything you need to say about Flash in one fell swoop, and I’m not sure that’s the way you launch a character. It feels much more like the way you wrap one up.
I’m glad to see the Hamilton trailer finally drop, and it looks pretty much exactly like I thought it would. I’ve seen people theorizing about why Disney decided to move this thing up a full year and release it streaming instead of making money off of it, and I understand why people would be suspicious. It’s Disney. This isn’t a company that willingly leaves any money on the table. In this case, my guess is that they have test-screened this film and there’s probably a ceiling to how much people want to watch a home recording of a theatrical show. Even a great one. I love the way this looks, and considering the way my own theatrical date with Hamilton got side-lined by the coronavirus this spring, I’m glad to finally have a way to see the show. But I’m sure there are people who expect this to be a “movie,” and when they realize it isn’t, they’re just not going to be as engaged. That’s fine. The Hamilton faithful are going to watch this thing 1000 times, and Lin-Manuel Miranda just defused the only lingering controversy by addressing the film’s PG-13 rating. He explained that he had to alter two lines in the show since the MPAA only allows you one use of the word “fuck” in a PG-13 film. Otherwise, he promises that every note and every word of the show will be intact, which was a big question for me. I’m so used to the way original cast recording albums condense shows that I just expected the film to do the same. It really does sound like the point here was to create a record of the special experience they had with this cast and this production, and I am glad they did it. Theater is such a exclusive art form, by its very nature, and when you have a production that’s as acclaimed as this, I’m glad to have a way for more people to see it, and I wish more productions would do this at the end of their theatrical run.
Another trailer I was surprised and delighted to see was for Foundation, Apple TV+’s adaptation of the classic Asimov novels. I am shocked to actually see footage from this thing. That means it’s real, right? Someone finally went and did it. We’re getting a third Dune adaptation this year, which seems like at least two too many, but I’m optimistic it’ll be worthwhile on its own. I’m just tired of seeing certain things done over and over without some of SF’s biggest titles ever getting their turn. There is so much great stuff out there that has never even been developed, and so many dead-end attempts at certain titans that it feels like they’re impossible. For the very first time, and even with a COVID-19 shutdown of production, I actually feel like I’m going to see Foundation. That is one of those “I never thought I’d actually see it happen” book-to-film projects, like Stranger in a Strange Land or A Confederacy of Dunces or Geek Love. I’m not saying that I automatically think this will be a slam dunk just because they’re doing it, but I know how many people have tried and failed over the years, and it’s certainly not for lack of talent or brainpower. This looks like a big swing, and I’m willing to show up and support the ambition at the very least.
David Goyer’s the showrunner, which brings me to my next point. I just saw Regal Cinemas tweet this about their line-up for their proposed re-opening on July 10:
This comes on the heels of Warner saying they’re going to open Inception on July 17th as a “reward” for Christopher Nolan fans before they release his new film, Tenet, on July 31st.
I understand that Christopher Nolan is Mr. Theatrical Experience. I agree with him that there’s nothing better than a beautifully-projected film on the biggest possible screen. But at what point does it feel like his name is being used like a goddamn bludgeon to guilt me back into the theater too early? I like the Batman films, but I don’t hold them sacred the way it seems like some fans do, and putting those films in theaters, followed by Inception, followed by Tenet, doesn’t just ask theatergoers to take a chance on theaters again. It asks them to go to see five longer-than-average films in a theater inside of a month, and it asks it of an audience that already has a fantatial devotion to the filmmaker in question. Nolan fans are both very dedicated and uber-serious, a delightful cross-section to try to deal with reasonably. That’s a whole lot of trips to a theater, as many times at the theater in a month as some employees. That’s a huge ask, and an arrogant ask, and while I’m sure it wasn’t Nolan specifically who pushed for all of these, it adds up to an ugly association with a moment of enormous uncertainty.
I get it. Tenet’s basically the breaking point for the theatrical year. Either it opens or that’s the ball game on any kind of salvaging of the summer season, and if that happens, who knows when movies will actually be confident enough to re-open? If I were Nolan, I would strongly consider if he wants to be the poster boy for a possible spike in infections. Everything we’re learning about COVID makes it sound like theaters are a real risk. He doesn’t want to go the drive-in route, and why would he? I think the only responsible choice is postponement, and I’m astonished that we’re talking about something that’s about a month away. We just hit a record high of new cases in Los Angeles yesterday. I’m not remotely ready to risk my girlfriend’s health or my son’s health for any filmmaker, Christopher Nolan included.
More importantly, though, what kind of contractually-obligated burn-off bullshit is that Bloodshot booking by Regal? “Our favorites”? Yeeeeeeeeesh.
DANIEL LARUSSO’S BIG MOVE
Have you seen Cobra Kai?
If the answer is no, I don’t blame you. YouTube has attempted to establish a foothold as a provider of scripted entertainment and it just plain didn’t work. That’s not what YouTube is. That’s not why people use YouTube.
Over the years, I’ve written repeatedly about how little I care for nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia. I understand its pull, but I also think it’s constantly used to sell crap to people in a familiar wrapper, and that’s made me hate most things that lean on it. When Cobra Kai was announced, I thought it sounded terrible, and I’ll admit it: I judged it because of where it was being released. How could anything that could only get released on YouTube be any good?
John Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald took the Karate Kid films and used them to build a whole new story about the baggage that we pass down generationally and the room there is for growth when we allow ourselves to see a story through someone else’s eyes. William Zabka was one of the most iconic villains of the ‘80s, to such a degree that he didn’t really have a career as an adult, and watching the way the show has completely recontextualized Johnny Lawrence is nothing short of amazing. I think Ralph Macchio’s done great work on the series as well, and I like that the series leans just as heavily on the young cast as it does on the adult cast members. Both Johnny and Daniel LaRusso have kids of their own now, and the show definitely illustrates the way all of the choices made by the grown-ups ripple through the lives of their children. It’s that rare show that feels like it was made for all ages without feeling like it’s a compromise for either the older or younger viewers.
Netflix may have a virtual landslide of content, but if they decide they’re going to get behind Cobra Kai, they could easily push it to the same kind of pop culture prominence they’ve accomplished for Stranger Things, and to much of the same audience. I applaud YouTube for letting the producers take the show elsewhere after two very good seasons. If they couldn’t get traction with this show, then clearly they’re just not going to figure it out. With Cobra Kai at a home where it actually fits, there’s a chance for this thing to take off in season three, and it deserves it.
AND FINALLY…
The patron saint of Biting Off More Than You Can Chew, George R. R. Martin, has evidently had a very productive quarantine.
I have enormous empathy for Martin. I have an entire book that I need to rebuild because I hated the first version of it so intensely, and I’m not really sure how to do it. Every time I work on it, it feels like a weight on me. But I know I can get through to the other side of things. I’m just not quite sure how to do it. When I hear Martin say he’s had a real breakthrough, I want to believe him. He seems honest about the way he’s changed as a writer, how he can’t hit anywhere near the pace he used to hit, and that is relatable to me. I think of the way I wrote screenplays in my early 20s and I can’t even remember how it felt to crank out fifteen or twenty pages at a blast. There were times writing for HitFix or Ain’t It Cool where I was turning out massive word counts every day and every week, and I have no idea how I kept that pace up as long as I did.
I’m excited to see Martin get his next book finished if only to finally have a way to see what he had in mind for his characters compared to what the television show eventually did. Whatever it is, it’s going to be a very different thing, and it may go some distance toward healing the part of the fandom that felt let down by the way the series wrapped up, or by the series as a whole. Like Harry Potter, I think the adaptation is admirable in many ways, but also leaves plenty of material on the table for anyone who ever wanted to take another run at it. Once Martin finishes his story (I have faith), there’s a good shot it will be a very different story than the one that the HBO series told, and I’m guessing they won’t be able to resist taking another shot at it in some other way. It was too big a sensation and too controversial an ending.
In the end, it shouldn’t matter what the TV show did. Martin’s the storyteller here, the primary storyteller, and even if it ends up being ten years between books, that’s what it took for him to be able to climb that mountain.
I’ll climb the mountain again for you guys tomorrow because I had a bunch of stuff I didn’t quite make it to today. Lots to talk about this week.
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Love, love, love Cobra Kai. Man.... I was hoping it would be pretty good in a fun way when I saw the first trailer for the show a couple of years ago. You know, where you know it's not great television, but it's a fun time with characters you loved? The 90210 reboot/relaunch thing was that, for example. It was 6 episodes of fun times with actors playing versions of themselves trying to get a 90210 reboot together, and because I was 10 when 90210 debuted in 1990, I am the No. 1 target for them. I had fun watching those 6 episodes and I'd love to see more, but as fun as it was it wasn't great television. I believe Cobra Kai is great. Cobra Kai didn't just provide fun. It provided pathos and upended expectations in a way that was brilliant. It's amazing you mention Stranger Things along with it Drew, because I feel about CK the same way I feel about ST.
I'm all-in on Keaton coming back as an older Bruce Wayne, and while I agree with what you say Drew, I'm all-in on Flashpoint. The nature of Flashpoint allows DC to largely reset the main film universe without erasing what went before in the same way Ezra Miller's cameo during this CW season's Crisis on Infinite Earths showed that all these worlds are or have happened. All these DC movies or DC-related movies happened and they're connected through the multi-verse. The Reeves-Routh Superman happened. The 1990 Flash TV Show happened and those characters went on to live and have adventures for 30 more years. Smallville, probably even the amazing Animated Series... it's all part of the multi-verse. I think it gives DC amazing story-telling capabilities. I just hope they use them well and remember to bring hope to balance the darkness.
"Nolan fans are both very dedicated and uber-serious, a delightful cross-section to try to deal with reasonably." I count myself a fan of Nolan and his films but this is so damn true.
Any other time I'd be up for doing a run of his films once a week on the big screen in order from start to finish, but right now? Hell no.