This week, we’ve got Avengers on the brain. Not only did the first major trailer arrive for the superhero smorgasbord Avengers: Infinity War, slated to premiere in May 2018, but we also got some serious insight on how the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe will fundamentally change following the second film, the fourth in the Avengers lineup, coming in 2019. In short, somebody gonna die, leave, or plunge into exile in some form or another, and the arcs of some of our favorite Marvel goodies will effectively come to an end on screen. (Until their characters are rebooted with different actors, of course.)
We’ll be digging into our predictions for just who will go (Chris Evans, Robert Downy Jr., and Mark Ruffalo are all fairly safe bets given their contract situations), who will stay, and how the next slate of 20 (!) Marvel films to follow 2019’s judgment day will evolve.
While that will no doubt eat some serious screen/commute time for today’s podcast, we’ve got plenty more to discuss, not the least of which is the latest creature feature from one Guillermo Del Toro, The Shape of Water. While your hosts have yet to see the film (there are rumors of a DT holiday party taking place last night), our reviewer Rick Marshall got an early look at what he calls “an old tale with a bizarrely beautiful del Toro twist.” The film has been heralded as the Mexican director’s best work since his breakthrough film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Marshall says the performances from lead actors Michael Shannon, Doug Jones, and Sally Hawkins alone are enough to justify the price of admission.
In other weird films premiering this weekend, James Franco’s The Disaster Artist, a biopic about the making of one of the worst films ever made, is also getting killer reviews. In fact, there are a host of films in theaters this week above the 90 percentile line on Rotten Tomatoes, including the two we mention above, as well as the wider release of Frances McDormand’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing. Add in Pixar’s visual feast, Coco, and continued screenings of Thor: Ragnarok, and it’s a great time for fans of entertaining, critically acclaimed films to hit the theater. In other words, that’s all of us.
Also this week, we’ll be discussing the new Hulu superhero series, The Runaways, Black Mirror season 4 teasers, Jurassic World 2 news (hint: The news rhymes with Shmoldblum), a first look at the big screen adaption of A Wrinkle in Time, and much more.
So tune in and hit us up live at 2 p.m. PT today, or take us along for the ride with our podcast version by following the links at the top.
