Streaming service Paramount+’s 2021 release Infinitehas elements of Fast & Furious, Doctor Strange, Bloodshot, Captain America: Winter Soldier, New Mutants, The Adjustment Bureau, and Mortal Kombat. Lots of tropes are blended into this expensive, giant, sci-fi action fantasy mash-up. Infinite isn’t as good as any of these movies, but if you subscribe to Paramount+ you’ll find worse ways to spend a few hours.
The biggest surprise is Infinite is not derived from an existing property like a video game or comic book. At the center is Mark Wahlberg as a man named Evan McCauley, raised to believe he was schizophrenic (a la Moon Knight) only to find he is part of a supernatural truth where 500 people have the power to recall their reincarnated pasts, and he’s one of them–only he doesn’t remember.
Spider-Man: No Way Homeis coming to DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K in two weeks, arriving April 12, and now available on “Early Access” Vudu, Movies Anywhere, and Prime Video. The movie trailers last year already revealed the return of the best of the Spidey villains (including arguably the best of all Marvel Comics villains) with the incorporation of earlier Spider-Man movies’ Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin, Alfred Molina as Doctor Otto Octavius, Thomas Haden Church as Sandman, Jamie Foxx as Electro, and Rhys Ifans as Lizard. But there are plenty more reasons to get this movie for home viewing–it’s available for pre-order on physical media now here at Amazon.
So for those who haven’t seen it yet (it didn’t approach the Avengers: Endgame box office so we know they’re out there), is it worth seeing, and how about the special features on digital, Blu-ray, and 4K?
Dread. That’s what you’ll feel in the first two episodes of Netflix’s new series, Archive 81. And it only gets worse (or better?). It’s about a man repairing destroyed videotapes. So immediately you’ll think it could be like the supernatural horror of The Ring. It’s about a small community of isolated people. So is it like Wicker Man or The Stepford Wives? It has a freakish cult, so is it another take on Rosemary’s Baby or Devil’s Advocate or Midsommar? You Should Have Left, Vacancy, 1408, and other recent creepily surreal voyages will come to mind, but it’s certainly suspense and definitely a thriller. But how much horror lies ahead and how chilling will it get? Is it a throwback to 1970s mainstream horror or trash B-movie slasher horror, or based on real-life horror, like The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel? Is it more possession or body swapping like Fallen or Skeleton Key or Intruders or Get Out? Science fiction like The Man in the High Castle? Surreal supernatural fantasy like Doctor Strange? Weird rituals like Eyes Wide Shut or The Watcher in the Woods? Or is it The Lost Room or John Carpenter’s The Prince of Darkness?
Everything is related. That’s what you’ll learn if you watched this year’s superhero movies, beginning with Black Widow, threading into Hawkeye. Loki and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings wove their way into the coming Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness and even if you haven’t seen Spider-Man: No Way Home yet, you know from the trailers it, too, ties into the Multiverse with the appearance of Doctor Strange. And we won’t say how, but if you decided to skip it (and it’s been available in different forms via theaters and digital home release for weeks now), Venom: Let There Be Carnage finally connects Sony’s Marvel world with the giant MCU you know from Disney (another big connection to tie the four corners of Marvel together this month if you’re paying attention). Sure, we may have thought the Sony tie was going to happen in WandaVision, when Sony X-Men’s Quicksilver showed up on Wanda and Vision’s doorstep, but for whatever reason it didn’t happen. The real deal finally began in the sequel to 2018’s Venom(reviewed here). Yes, everything is connected. But that’s not the only reason to make sure you watch Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
Just as Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has been a great relief to fans of the character after so many years of just not getting it right, moving upward to replace Tony Stark as leader of the new Avengers, Sony Pictures seems to be bringing it all crashing back down to earth. Earth of the past. Or that’s how it looks in the latest trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home, with the full pantheon of villains–ghosts of Spider-Men past–make their way into the Multiverse of Madness, revealing the true leader of the Avengers is probably Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange.
With an MCU Phase IV release schedule in chaos, and nothing but peeks and false starts last year, Marvel fans are more than ready for the first trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home, which officially arrived late yesterday after an apparent leak earlier in the day. It was originally scheduled to premiere in theaters last month. We won’t know until December if we’ll see the movie this year, but at least it confirms its set-up for the second Doctor Strange movie, Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness, and will lay the grounds for the possibility of a host of cameos, which could include characters from the animated hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Spider-Man has been Marvel’s #1 superhero for nearly 60 years because he’s a great character teens and adults can relate to, and because Spidey fights some of the best villains in all of comics. As expected Alfred Molina will reprise his character Doc Ock from Sony’s 2004 movie Spider-Man 2, as will Jamie Foxx as Electro, last seen in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. These leave open the likelihood of at least cameos from former Spidey actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. But the best addition may be the return of Willem Dafoe as one of Marvel Comics’ best villains, Green Goblin, last seen in Spider-Man 3. Wouldn’t it be great to fit in a cameo of Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, or even the first live-action Miles Morales?
What will be the sixth appearance Tom Holland as Spider-Man (since this takes place right after his fifth appearance in (Spider-Man: Far From Home) looks like it has the potential of being as fun as his past appearances, more Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, more Jon Favreau as Happy, Zendaya as MJ, and the rest of Peter’s school friends returning. Plus Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange and Benedict Wong as Wong. And music again by composer Michael Giacchino.
Take a look at the first trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home:
Two movie trailers in and it still is difficult to understand what Eternals will be about. It still looks like a cross between X-Men: Apocalypse,Jupiter’s Legacy and Inhumans. The final trailer from Marvel Studios for the third movie of Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (on the tail of both Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) doesn’t look like any other Marvel movie. Eternalshas a cast of familiar names–the central character fan-favorite actress Gemma Chan, who wowed us in Humans and Shetland, and created a great villain in Raya and the Last Dragon. She also played a friend turned enemy in Captain Marvel, as the alien Minn-Erva. And it features actors most wouldn’t think to cast for an MCU movie, like Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, and Kumail Nanjiani. But the strange takeaway from the first trailer (seen here) and second (and final) trailer is it doesn’t look like any other Marvel movie–there’s no hook, no exciting or funny element to reel in viewers after such a successful Phase III.
It looks like a cross between Jupiter’s Legacy and Inhumans. The first trailer from Marvel Studios for the third movie of Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (on the tail of both Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) doesn’t look like any other Marvel movie. Eternalshas an A-list cast, the central character fan-favorite actress Gemma Chan, who wowed us in Humans and Shetland, and created a great villain in Raya and the Last Dragon. She also played a friend turned enemy in Captain Marvel, as the alien Minn-Erva. So Marvel must be taking a leap of faith that audiences don’t assume this is the same character in disguise–Captain Marvel did have its share of shapeshifters. (Maybe this is an indicator Marvel would be willing to bring back Chris Evans as Johnny Storm?) The movie features Academy Award winners Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie and Oscar-nominated Kumail Nanjiani. But the strange takeaway from the first trailer is it doesn’t look like any other Marvel movie–there’s no hook, no exciting or funny element to reel in viewers after such a successful Phase III.
It was only a year ago here at borg we were discussing some of the projects expected to arrive in 2020. That didn’t happen, but a pandemic later and some juggling by the execs at Disney and we seem to have a realistic schedule for the projects we’ll see in 2021. So let’s gather some excitement for Marvel superheroes heading our way, at least from the first looks at these shows we’ve seen via their movie and series trailers. What does it look like we’re going to actually see in 2021 via streaming Disney+ or Vudu streaming? As Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues with the final episodes of WandaVision on Disney+, next up will be The Falcon and the Winter Soldier starting on Disney+ March 19. Probably the most eagerly awaited of all Marvel projects since Spider-Man: Far from Home is Black Widow, delayed and delayed some more, now expected to arrive May 7, probably for a theater run and a pay version via Disney+. Which leaves the six episode mini-series Loki, also expected to arrive in May, via Disney+. The common link? All of these feature characters and storylines still heavily anchored to Phase III of the MCU, and all are an opportunity to tweak the past via time travel or a changed past to allow for new characters and new storylines.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is expected to arrive in theaters June 25, and Shang-Chi: The Legend of the Ten Rings has a July 9 premiere date, but Disney hasn’t issued a trailer for either yet. As a bonus we’ll throw in the trailer below for the animated series What… If? which doesn’t have anything but a 2021 projected Disney+ series launch date, and the trailer for Morbius, a Sony production tying into the MCU–at least via a cameo by Michael Keaton as Vulture, the villain from Sony’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. It’s now slated for a January 2022 theatrical premiere. Although an Eternals movie is expected around Thanskgiving and another Spider-Man movie could slip in around Christmas, all the other Phase IV projects have been pushed out beyond 2021–the next movies featuring Doctor Strange, Thor, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Fantastic Four, and TV series featuring a new Hawkeye, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Guardians of the Galaxy (a special), Secret Invasion, Ironheart, Armor Wars, and a Wakanda series.
Two of the three most famous genre Jareds take center stage in the latest trailer from the Marvel universe. Academy Award winner Jared Leto(Suicide Squad, Blade Runner 2049) stars as Dr. Michael Morbius and Jared Harris(Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Fringe, The Expanse) as an undisclosed mentor, possibly Jack Russell. Morbiustakes place in the Sony side of the Marvel universe. Not yet taking the plunge to become a full-on Marvel Cinematic Universe entry now that the Disney/Sony deal is done, a trailer appearance by Michael Keaton as Vulture reflects a straddling of the franchise. Keaton’s character was the villain of Spider-Man: Homecoming, the first Spider-Man movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Morbiusappears to have been filmed in the dark lighting of the earlier horror/superhero-verse film Venom, which featured another historic tie-in character from the world of Spider-Man. Morbiuswill be released this summer a few months in advance of a Venom sequel.
Not to be confused with the Dr. Morbius of Forbidden Planet, this is the sci-fi/Dracula hybrid–the “living vampire”–created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane in the pages of Marvel Comics in 1971. Comic greats like Don McGregor and the late Rich Buckler and Steve Gerber would work on the Morbius stories over the years–a doomed hero drawn to look like actor Jack Palance. Over the years the character would rub shoulders with Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Doctor Strange, and Blade, but most notably Spider-Man. Elements of the trailer look like the stuff of Doctor Strange, Venom, and Deadpool, and this is obviously a character from the world of Stan Lee.
The original Morbius in superhero costume from the pages of Marvel Comics.
The film co-stars Doctor Who’sMatt Smith, Fast & Furious’s Tyrese Gibson, and 6 Underground’sAdria Arjona.
Could this be an entry point for new Blade, Ghost Rider, or Carnage movies? Take a look at this first trailer for Morbius:
