Deadpool's Going To Flop

Here's a bold prediction for you. I don't think Deadpool is going to do very well at the box office. It's not that I think the movie looks bad or anything, or that I hope it's going to do poorly, I just have this feeling in my gut that it isn't going to do well. On twitter the other day I predicted that it would open at like $25 million, then drop the next week to, oh lets say 15 million and by the end of it's theatrical run it will have made somewhere in the range of $70-90 million.

Ok so, flop might not be completely accurate (I'm only a paragraph in and I'm already waffling on my attention grabbing headline, look at me Buzzfeed!). I can't find official numbers but I've read that the budget for Deadpool is shockingly low. Let's say the movie only cost $40-50 million to make and it earns $90 million domestically is that a hit? Kick Ass had a budget of $30 Million and it made exactly $97 million domestically and that seem to qualify as a hit and spawned a sequel. Kick Ass 2 on the other hand cost $30 Million, made $60 Million and is considered a flop. In other Ryan Reynolds related projects, Green Lantern had a $200 million budget, made $219 million and is considered a HUGE flop.

The lesson learned is that Hollywood is weird and I'm pretty sure they do all of their accounting using puka shells and Uno cards.

I guess if my point is that I have no idea what the expectations for Deadpool are, but I have a feeling it's not going to hit them. It's certainly not going to be the key to Fox's dreams of replicating the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

New Xbox by Christmas 2013?

Ars Technica is reporting that Microsoft will be launching a new Xbox by Christmas 2013. The whole thing is still mostly whispers and rumors but at first glance it passes the smell test. The 360 went on sale in 2005 and 8 years for a console is a pretty long run. Sure, I feel bad for all the kids that are bound to get one this Christmas but my guess is most owners have gotten their money's worth by now.

So what's going to make you and I want to buy one? The long standing rumors have the Xbox 720 or 360.2 coming bundled with the Kinect hardware. It'll have wi-fi built in and will probably have Blu Ray and 3D capability like the Playstation 3 does. But none of those things are going to get me to dip into Logan's college savings for one.

I'm sure the graphics will be better, storage will be higher. However multiple rumors have the specs being less than groundbreaking. The Ars Technica article states a rumored $299 price tag, which would put some credence to the idea that the technical specs might end up a tad underwhelming. Graphics cards and high performance memory cost cash money and if Microsoft is sticking to $299 you can bet they're not giving away caviar at fish bait prices.

That's not to say games won't look and play a hell of a lot better on the next generation of consoles. Battlefield 3 and Skyrim already look pretty poor when compared to their PC versions, Far Cry 3 barely even looks like the same game. Newer, prettier versions of Call of Duty and Madden will sell a boat load of units all on their own.

Anyway, what other new bells and whistles will the Xbox 360 part deux will have? I'm hoping for support for more than 4 controllers. The old PS2 multitap used to allow for up to 8 people on NBA Live or FIFA and it was awesome. In the same vein I would be interested to see support for more than 2 people on kinect. Also the controllers should have screens like the Dreamcast VMUs did.

I'd love to see a DVR built in, but that would require some sort of cable card/tuner hardware integrated and that'll probably cost too much. I'm guessing you'll see an expansion of channels like ESPN3 and MLBtv. Also there's no way you won't be able to play farmville or any of your other stupid facebook games on it. Everything will be networked with all your other Windows 8 devices and there will be lot more talk about the cloud.

The fan and disk drive had better be a lot quieter. If it's supposed to be the hub of my home entertainment center it needs to be silent. Also I'd appreciate it if it didn't red ring me half an hour into Red Dead Redemption II.

Let's talk Star X-Wars Men

Or more specifically the rumors surrounding the upcoming X-Men and Star Wars movies.

First the X-Men. X-Men: First Class was sort of a weird movie. It was the prequel that was kind of a reboot. If you ignore X-Men 3 and Wolverine, it works as a prequel. If you accept that while both those movies suck, they are indeed part of the original X-men movie universe, it's a straight up reboot. It just doesn't work with those two crapfests no matter how hard you try to shoehorn it in.

So where does that leave its sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past? Well, Bryan Singer just announced that the majority of the original cast is onboard, plus Ian McKellen and Jean Luc Picard, and the current rumor (straight from the tweet of Rob Liefeld) is that Hugh Jackman is also in talks to appear. It would seem that Fox is perfectly happy pretending that X3 and Wolverine never existed. Hugh Jackman has already said that the Wolverine sequel is supposed to be a stand alone story that doesn't tie in with any of the other films. Personally I'm fine with the decision to cut bait. No sense in building on the awful decisions made in X3 and Wolverine.

Now Star Wars. I really haven't felt up to blogging about all the Star Wars crazy Star Wars rumors that have been flying around since Disney purchased the rights. Every day there's something new and it's exhausting. The big big rumor right now, that seems like it's almost confirmed is that Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, X-Men: First Class) dropped out of the X-Men sequel to direct the as yet untitled Episode VII.

Also being rumored is that Lawrence Kasdan (Empire Strikes Bake, ROTJ, Indiana Jones) has been hired to write co-write episode VII. Of course he's the 5th writer I've seen everyone on the internet jump all over so who knows on that one.

As far as rumors that sound smart enough to be true, it's been reported that Disney is looking to take the Marvel Comics shared universe approach to the new Star Wars films. Meaning that characters introduced in the previous movies (ie Dengar!) and the new films (ie Jorus C'Baoth!) would be spun of into new films as indirect sequels. Again, not sure how this is considered a rumor. I mean this is the whole point of Disney buying Star Wars in the first place. They're not going to remake the originals, nerds would literally storm the magic kingdom.

Oh hi there Wasp in Iron Man 3

Fire up the speculatron, rumors are flying fast and furious today that Stephanie Szostak will be playing Janet Van Dyne, aka the Wasp, in Iron Man 3. Hit me with your best shot The Mary Sue:

First: Szostak is one of the top-billed cast members, which indicates that her character is going to have a larger role than the absolute lack of information Marvel has released about her so far would indicate.

Second: The mysterious Roger Wardell tweeted that “When Stephanie Szostak’s role is for Iron Man 3 is announced, fans will go crazy.” Wardell has made a habit of tweeting “Insider News” related to the Marvel films, and while he’s not that credible a source ScreenRant notes that he tweeted about the Falcon being in Captain America: The Winter Soldier before it became official. A tipster at ComicBook.com has also claimed that Szostak is playing the Wasp.

Third: Marvel’s given us a lot of information about Iron Man 3 so far, from tons of new armor designs to hints about the final battle. They’ve got to have an ace or two up their sleeve as far as surprising fans is concerned. ‘Tis the Marvel way.

Four: It’s already been rumored that Ant Man, a.k.a Hank Pym, will make an appearance in the Iron Man 3 post-credits sequence. Since Ant Man is the Wasp’s partner and, later, husband, introducing them both in Iron Man 3 would make sense.

Ok, that's far from conclusive evidence but since my post about Joseph Gordon-Levitt being the Joker in The Dark Knight Rises got tons and tons of hits, I'm just going to go ahead and pretend this is fact. It makes sense, Black Widow was introduced in Iron Man 2, why not introduce another Avenger in Iron Man 3? Plus the Wasp is a founding member of the Avengers she kinda got hosed by being excluded from the movie Avengers.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Robin now

Even though I'm still positive Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be playing the Joker in The Dark Knight Rises, the buzz on the interwebs this weekend is that he's going to be Robin.

Both Christian Bale and Chris Nolan have gone on record saying that Robin will never appear in any of their Batman movies, but I could see this. Anyone that's ever read a comic book will tell you there's a big difference between campy Batman TV show Robin and the real Robin (be he Tim, Dick, Jason, Stephanie or Damian) we all know and love. Adding Robin doesn't put you in the Schumacher zone automatically. Fighting crime dressed up as a bird isn't anymore goofy than doing it dressed up as a bat. I think Robin's image outside of nerdom could use a little bit of rehabilitation, I'd get a big kick out of seeing him in The Dark Knight Rises.

So there you go, I completely endorse the thing I read on the internet that's totally not going to happen.

Joseph Gordon Levitt will play the Joker

Ok so remember how the other day I said Chris Nolan was trolling all the net nerds by waiting so long to cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a completely original character in the Dark Night Rises? Well I was wrong, not about the trolling part. He's still trolling us net nerds but the JGL isn't playing an original character, he's playing the Joker.

Supposedably Levitt is playing a beat cop named John Blake, but don't you see. JOhn blaKE, take out all those stupid middle letters and you're left with Joke. Not convinced? check out the cartoon below, the name on that report card the Joker steals is John Blake.


See? I rest my case.