Welcome to Respawning’s Film & TV Club! The purpose of this is to get a bunch of us together every Wednesday and allow us the chance to chat shit about whatever takes our fancy in the world of Films & TV!
This week we’re starting the year off with a bang! We’re going to briefly discuss our most anticipated movies for the first half of the year and a topic of much discussion at the end of last year – the Disney/Fox takeover. We’re just going to let everyone know what we think of the move and what our hopes are for this combined movie universe!
Javier
My most anticipated movie for this year (and for the last 5) is Avengers Infinity war, as i’m sure it will be for a lot of people. I literally cannot wait for this movie and would do almost anything to watch it now, including taking a punch from Hulk. I am an avid Marvel fan and have been a big MCU cheerleader since day one, the hype for this one is unreal and I hope to god it lives up to expectations. I’m also excited to see what the MCU do with the black panther standalone and have a lot of faith that this is going to be a fantastic movie.
As far as the Disney / Fox takeover is concerned, i’m excited. A part of me can’t actually believe that this has happened as it was talked about for such a long time as a rumour and all of a sudden BAM! I personally don’t hate the X men series currently ongoing but i really wouldn’t mind a rebooted universe at all, and we all know that the F4 need a massive save. My only concern is deadpool and X23 as these are characters i want to see carry on and they really don’t need a change (although they need to reboot Wolverine now anyway). I hope that they can create a sub brand called the MCU: Marvel Knights or something where they can keep the mature characters. It would be fun to see Deadpool being constantly censored by disney but taking the piss out of it!
Joe
In terms of films, I’ve been admittedly a bit out of the loop the last year; I’m not hyper-invested in DC or Marvel’s films, so my pool of anticipated films is rather shallow – That being said, I seriously cannot wait for Solo: A Star Wars Story to hit local theaters; whilst I haven’t yet had a chance to see The Last Jedi, Han Solo was always one of my personal favourites in the original trilogy, so I’m really darn interested in seeing how Disney handle his personality and character in this dedicated spinoff!
Speaking of Disney, it’s interesting to see them swell larger and larger into an even more colossal force in the entertainment industry; the future is certainly exciting for Disney, however I just hope that they don’t abuse the acquisition to dominate creativity at the peak of the market…
Luke
I see a lot of Marvel love coming from Javier up above here and thought I would have to add to that – without a shadow of a doubt my most anticipated movie this year is Venom. From what I can see it literally has everything I could ever want in a film…. Okay I mean Tom Hardy. For reals though – Venom has always been my favourite character in my favourite line of comic books so this one was always going to be top of my hype list the year it came out.
Other than this I am really looking forwards to the Tomb Raider reboot even though I know for a fact it will just suffer from the ”Video Game Movie curse” and end up being shit… Whatcha gonna do.
I am stoked as hell for the Disney takeover I look forwards to hopefully seeing the Xmen come inside the MCU and I look forwards to seeing who plays the new Wolverine now… Also Xmen in Kingdom hearts? Just kidding.
James
The first couple of months of the year is usually a pretty decent time for films, typically followed by a drought until Summer comes along for the larger blockbusters, so January and February is typically a time of year I love going to the cinema. The film I’m most looking forward to seeing is Phantom Thread, the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie starring Daniel Day Lewis in what is apparently going to be his last on screen. The pair of them helped to create one of my all time favourite films There Will Be Blood, so I’m well and truly anticipating this getting a UK release. In addition to this, Three Billboards Outside Of Ebbing Missouri looks to be a really great film, and an adaptation of one of my favourite Sci-Fi novels of recent years Annihilation is getting released soon, made by the Director of Ex Machina, so I’m very intrigued as to how well this film lives up to the novel.
Regarding the Disney/Fox takeover, unfortunately I don’t have a particularly strong opinion on the matter. It’ll be good to finally have the potential for a decent Fantastic Four movie after so many sour attempts, and I am curious to see what they do now that they finally have X-Men. It just all feels like a conveyor belt of films they’re pushing out at the moment though, some are better than others, but its not something I can feel too excited about.
Salman
I really don’t care about the whole Disney and FOX thing that much since I don’t really remember a lot of the IP’s that FOX owns. But whatever comes out that looks cool I will happily watch. Is Spawn possible now? If so then yea, that.
Besides that I’ve just been watching some anime. I recently saw Yuri on Ice!!! which was pretty okay and totally not gay at all. No sir, not one bit of homo here. And I’m going to start watching Made in Abyss soon due to a friends recommendation.
Oh yea, I also watched The Room again, so there’s that.
Will
Disney effectively absorbing another titan of the industry frightens me. Soon, they’ll own effectively the entire entertainment industry. I fear for the future of my children. What will our corporate overlords indoctrinate them into thinking? What will happen to the freedom of ideas in a world where all popular media is monetised by a single mega-corporation?
I am truly terrified.
But yay, Deadpool in the MCU amirite?