Considering Aquaman 2 (aka Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom) I did wonder if the movie would not defy the trend of franchise failure. After all, the first Aquaman film was relatively well-received, this only the second film in the sequence (in contrast with characters of which the public had had…

Not long ago I remarked the rather miserable quality of the advice that we tend to get about writing and editing. …

Just recently the expectation had been that three Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) would be coming out in 2024 — Deadpool 3, Captain America 4 and The Thunderbolts, with at least one of them snagging that first weekend in May that for decades has been monopolized by the MCU. …

When Disney took over Lucasfilm it was clear that what the management hoped was that it would turn the Star Wars universe into a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)-style hit machine, putting out multiple blockbusters a year. This was probably always a longshot. There was a profound difference between the shared…

There has been plenty of pessimism about Captain Marvel 2 in recent weeks — as many an analysis of the available data shows, apparently for excellent reason. Films made from the longtime templates for blockbusters in our era — like big-budget high-concept franchise-based sci-fi action films — have been flopping…

There were adaptations of old TV shows into films before the 1990s — as in the late 1970s when, amid the Hollywood studio executives being stunned by the success of the George Lucas project they had all sneeringly rejected, Paramount made its contribution to the stream with a big-screen version…

As a biographical film about a historical personage Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer seemed an unpromising commercial prospect to me even before I learned how unconventionally structured it was (that at least at a glance it was a “weirdo art film”). As a result I did not think it likely to match…

Considering Mel Brooks’ more successful works one is likely to see most highly praised the two movies of his annus mirabilis of 1974, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, while 1968’s The Producers is highly regarded. Still, other films of his, if not enjoying that level of acclaim, still seem to…

Just as was the case with the upcoming Hunger Games prequel Five Nights at Freddy’s was not on my radar until very recently, and I had even less idea as to what to make of it than I did Hunger Games — this being an original film rather than part…