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MAY 2 |
THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS Turns 63
In 1961 it was the worst movie ever released in the U.S.A.!
But that's a highly competitive field and it lost that emblem a long time ago. Never-the-less, this movie once occupied such a lowly perch and reviewer Kelly Parks forced himself to watch THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS out of sheer masochism.
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Like It Or Not, May Is Marvel Month So Let's Get To It:
X-MEN 2 is Old Enough to Legally Drink
A quarter Century ago, New Line Cinema's BLADE opened the door for Marvel movies. When it did, Columbia Pictures stopped sitting on their hands and finally committed to their SPIDER-MAN property. To top Sony's Columbia, 20th Century Fox finally roused from their moribund business model: their decade plus of fence sitting on their X-MEN property, and tried to shove as many X-Men through that doorway as possible. Columbia has one Marvel Superhero, we've got a whole school of them!
The first X-MEN, in 2000, led by a cast of TV show and character actors, was a surprising smash hit. Let's make that sequel!
Holy shit! Columbia Picture's much delayed SPIDER-MAN (2002) is a smash! Sony is rushing forward on the sequel!
Will director and co-writer Bryan Singer make lightning strike twice with X-MEN 2?
Plus -
SPIDER-MAN 2 is 20
Hollywood Press: OMG! Despite the troubled production BIG TIME troubled production of THE CROW (1994), its a smash box office hit! THE MASK (1994), too!
20th Century Fox: OMG! Marvel's BLADE (1998) is a smash box office hit! Could this be the dawning of the age of the Super-Hero movie? We're sitting on a Marvel property, aren't we? Let's rush it into production!
Sony Pictures: OMG! 20th Century Fox's Marvel property, X-MEN is a monster box office hit! This will gin up anticipation for our SPIDER-MAN!
Hollywood Press: OMG! BLADE II (2002) is a hit!
Hollywood Press: "OMG! After 9/11 delayed the release of Marvel's SPIDER-MAN over at Columbia, it's now a monster box office hit! We thought for sure that 9/11 would have killed the Super-hero movie!
Hollywood Press: OMG! X-MEN 2 is a hit!
Yes, the new millennium ushered in the era of Super Hero box office mania and everybody who had a Marvel property was rushing their originals and sequels into production.
Warner Bros., which had their DC properties, stayed out of the fray thanks largely to their own super hot franchises of THE LORD OF THE RINGS and HARRY POTTER. Meanwhile, Stan Lee was hitting all of the Comic Conventions on his "I Told You So!" Tour!
By 2004, Marvel was ascending and Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN 2 hit the screens.
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IRON MAN Turns 16
By many accounts, Universal Pictures and the producers who owned Marvel's HULK franchise, didn't stand by Marvel icon Stan Lee and his Marvel Comics Universe.
He's an old man. His concepts are obsolete and outdated. Today's cosmopolitan movie goer wants to see superheroes through the eyes of a director who really knows his way around 19th century romance and Jane Austin period pieces! Besides, ignoring - for the sake of argument - recent box office smash hits like BLADE, X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN, and X-MEN 2, there's just not enough comic book fans to bring boffo box office to a Superhero movie: Especially one where a scientists turns himself into a monstrous green ogre! It's 2003! Audiences are getting burned out on Superheroes, yo!
No, a movie about a scientist that Jekyll and Hydes into an unstoppably violent gargantua called HULK, calls for a light, nuanced touch and tender emotional subtlety.
So when Universal's misbegotten HULK crashed and burned at the box office, UP threw in the towel and declared it would be at least 10 years before they could try a successful reboot. Stan Lee, Ari Arad, and Kevin Fiege brought the Production Development together almost immediately, went from Development to Pre-Production the following year, finished shooting by year 4, and released it in year 5 with the box office hit, THE INCREDIBLE HULK.
All of this was the launch pad that took the nascent Marvel Comics Universe (MCU) from Universal to Paramount Pictures. Because before the release of the far more successful THE INCREDIBLE HULK in June, 2008, Stan and company began their Marvel One-Two punch in May with the release of IRON MAN.
Finale -
HAPPY HORROR THRILLER BIRTHDAYS TO -
By E.C. McMullen Jr.
Writer Angeline Hawkes (THE COMMANDMENTS, THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, THE SWAN ROAD, BLOOD ALONE, INFERNO: TALES OF HELL AND HORROR) is 53.
Visit her at Angeline Hawkes.com.
Actor Ari Lehman (FRIDAY THE 13th [1980], THANXGIVING, HELL-EPHONE, TERROR OVERLOAD, THE GIRL [2011], HOUSE OF FORBIDDEN SECRETS, EASTER SUNDAY, DEATHWOODS, CHEERLEADER CAMP: TO THE DEATH, BITE SCHOOL, THE BARN, PI DAY DIE DAY, CAMP KILLER, TERROR TALES, SCARRED, SILK SCREAM, LEAF BLOWER MASSACRE 2, CLOWN MOTEL: SPIRITS ARISE, THE LURKER, EASTER HOLOCAUST, CARNAL MONSTERS, SLUTTY THE CLOWN, APPETITE FOR SIN, THE DEMENTED, THE BLACK BOOK, CLOWN MOTEL 2) is 59.
Writer Stephen Mark Rainey (DARK SHADOWS, FUGUE DEVIL, THE LAST TRUMPET, BALAK, LEGENDS OF THE NIGHT, OTHER GODS, THE LEBO COVEN, THE GODS OF MOAB, BLUE DEVIL ISLAND, THE NIGHTMARE FRONTIER, THE MONARCHS, AMERI-SCARES WEST VIRGINIA: LAIR OF THE MOTHMAN) is 65.
Visit him at Stephen Mark Rainey.com.
Actor David Suchet (REILLY: ACE OF SPIES [TV], THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN, Agatha Christie's THIRTEEN AT DINNER [TV], Agatha Christie: POIROT [TV], DEADLY VOYAGE [TV], A PERFECT MURDER, DRACULA [2006 - TV], AMERICAN ASSASSIN, HIS DARK MATERIALS [TV]) is 76.
Actor Alicia Ziegler (LAKE PLACID 2, WOLF TOWN, RISE OF THE DINOSAURS, DEADLY REVENGE, HIDE AND GO SEEK, THE EX NEXT DOOR, ROMEO AND JULIET KILLERS) is 43.
Look for Alicia in the upcoming 2023 Thriller, ECHO BASE.
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|
MAY 1 |
May 28: 4DM will Release Psychological Thriller
THE EXECUTION
And -
FRIDAY THE 13th Part 2 Turns 43
It was meant to be nothing more than an "also ran". Producer Sean S. Cunningham had the poster before he had the script. In fact before he was sure what the story was going to be. All he knew is that he wanted to copy John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, which meant a mysterious maniac hacking barely legal kids.
Except John Carpenter's movie was practically a sequel of Bob Clark's BLACK CHRISTMAS.
Would a copy of a copy work? It's not as sharp as... well... the original.*
Though Cunningham had the low budget of Clark and Carpenter's indie slashers, he also had something the other two directors didn't have: the big studio clout of Paramount Pictures. And that, kiddies, is part of the reason that we still have FRIDAY THE 13th Part 2, today.
*Michael Keaton in Multiplicity.
Plus -
X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE
To the suits at 20th Century Fox's utter surprise, the first X-MEN was a far bigger hit than they anticipated. Then X2 was a bigger hit than that. Well if there was one thing 20th Century Fox despised in the 1990s and early 2000s it was producers, writers, and directors increasing their value (and so their paycheck) in the world with Fox properties.
Fox soon made things unbearable for their hit director so he left, leaving a hole that Fox suits at that time didn't know how to fill and didn't care. We saw this contemptable lack of care throughout the young millennium's Golden Age of Marvel movies. Everyone from Disney to Columbia Pictures figured out how to make a winning Marvel movie. Only 20th Century Fox threw themselves off of a cliff, nearly every single time they made one.
X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE was no exception.
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HAPPY HORROR THRILLER BIRTHDAYS TO -
By E.C. McMullen Jr.
Actor Julie Benz (DUE OCCHI DIABOLICI aka TWO EVIL EYES, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER [TV], BAD GIRLS FROM VALLEY HIGH, SATAN'S
SCHOOL FOR GIRLS [TV], ANGEL [TV], SHRIEK IF YOU KNOW WHAT I DID LAST FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH, TAKEN [TV], HALO 2 [Game], A FATE TOTALLY WORSE THAN DEATH, 8MM2, SAW V, DEXTER [TV], PUNISHER: WAR ZONE, HELD HOSTAGE, ANSWERS TO NOTHING, A GIFTED MAN [TV], DEFIANCE [TV], CIRCLE, HAVENHURST, V.C. Andrews' HEAVEN, FOSTER BOY, NOCTURNE) is 51.
Actor Ariel Gade (DARK WATER [2005], INVASION [TV], AVP:R, METEOR [TV], SOME GUY WHO KILLS PEOPLE, THE EX NEXT DOOR) is 26.
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