Things are looking very, very good for the final superhero movie of 2016: Doctor Strange is generating some extremely positive early reviews ahead of next week's opening in the U.S. (It's already out in other countries, so avoid spoilers online, if that's something that you're concerned about.) That also means we can close out our scorecards and start looking ahead to 2017. Actually, you know what? Let's just do that right now.
Surprising news broke this weekend that director Tim Miller is no longer attached to the sequel to this year's Deadpool, reportedly because of creative differences with Ryan Reynolds. Quite what those differences may be are the subject of much speculation, with one rumor blaming Miller's desire to cast Kyle Chandler as time-traveling cyborg Cable, while another suggests that Miller wanted to go all expensive and pretentious for the second movie, while Reynolds wanted another cheap, dirty hit like the first. Expect the he-said, he-said to play out for awhile, but in the meantime, the Internet already has an idea who could replace Miller in the directorial chair.
Why this is villainy: Losing one of the key creative voices of a megahit movie is never a good look, and throws the sequel into a speculative limbo that can't be good. It'll be interesting to see how quickly a replacement is found, and who it ends up being.
How best to celebrate Wonder Woman's 75th anniversary? With a new look at Gal Gadot's incarnation of the character from Justice League, of course. Director Zack Snyder, if you could do the honors:
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The release of the image coincided with Wonder Woman being named as an honorary ambassador to the United Nations supporting the organization's push towards global equality for women and girls. Gal Gadot and Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins were present at the ceremony announcing the character's new position, even though protests from UN staff raged outside, upset at her "overtly sexualized image." No, really.
Why this is super: We have to admit, we love the way Wonder Woman is becoming increasingly high-profile ahead of the movie's release. After three quarters of a century of playing also-ran to the boys' club of the DC universe, maybe she's finally getting her due. Although maybe we should wait until Wonder Woman and Justice League to know for sure that she's in good cinematic hands.
The first movie isn't even out yet, but already Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson is talking about a follow-up, and he's looking to another much-beloved superhero sequel for inspiration. "What made The Dark Knight so great was that the origin story of Batman had been well-told, and then it was time to bring in a villain where you really got to go deep," he told website Den of Geek. "It was a more visceral experience, I'd love to be able to do that for Doctor Strange." Wait, does this mean we should expect Doctor Strange 2 to be called Sorcerer Supreme and be roughly twice the length of any sensible movie?
Why this is super: Jokes aside, it'll be interesting to see which Strange villain Derrickson chooses to focus on, Dark Knight-style. And also whether or not Benedict Cumberbatch (or, for that matter, Marvel Studios execs) would be happy about a follow-up shifting away from the titular hero.
Speaking of the Dark Knight, Ben Affleck has been talking about working on the upcoming solo Batman movie, and it certainly seems like he's taking his job as co-writer/director seriously. "Last night I spent [time] working on the script. I’m in full-on 'trying to get it right mode,'" he said during an IGN interview promoting his current The Accountant. "It’s not the kind of movie that you can fail quietly at. You have to really be sure that I have something that I feel really confident about before we go forward."
Why this is super: On the one hand, it's good to see that the movie doesn't seem to be headed towards being artistically compromised just to hit a release date. On the other, now we're very, very curious what Ben Affleck's idea of Batman done really, really right is. This is, after all, a man who apparently thinks that The Accountant is an acceptable title for a movie—and switches from second-person to first-person at the drop of a bat.
A couple of weeks after we first saw Mera, Aquaman's future love interest, Aquaman director James Wan has opened up about the meet-cute love/hate relationship the two will have in the hero's 2018 solo movie. "It starts off initially with them not quite clicking with each other," Wan explained, "but then as the story progresses as they learn to try and work together, they get closer and closer. I think those stories are always such a great place for a filmmaker like myself to have fun with my actors. Their chemistry is going to be epic. I know it. Because their emotions are not to be messed with, and neither are they."
Why this is super: It is, of course, easy to misinterpret this kind of comment, but the notion that there's a romance subplot to the Aquaman movie seems both surprising and charming. Maybe it's too much to hope for this to be Moonlighting with superheroes—and yet, that's exactly what we're doing right now.
