Updates on the Jeremy Latcham DC Studios era
• No info on the plan for Superman
• Ana Nogueira removed from Wonder Woman, contract termination
• Significantly scaling back social media, Marvel Studios-like promotion strategy
• Not much interest in smaller projects
RAMAYANA has officially crossed the $100M mark at the global box office.
It is the first international film outside China to hit the century mark this year, surprisingly ahead of GODZILLA MINUS ZERO.
Going by the thundering success of #Ramayana , I won’t be surprised if all the earlier names from Valmiki onwards will be forgotten and only Namit Malhotra’s will remain .. Actually all this noise about why it’s being called Namit Malhotra’s “Ramayana” is just an unimaginably stupid outrage . The same people would have screamed if the roles were reversed , that is if a man named Namit Malhotra had written the original epic thousands of years ago and a man named Valmiki made the film today. The ownership question is actually both a distraction and a abstraction
The real reason #Ramayana has survived for centuries isn’t because of its extraordinary plot points. It’s because the core conflicts in it are so realatably human and play out in almost every family from then to now
Jealous wives. Sibling rivalry. Blind loyalty to a parent or authority figure. Betrayals within the household. The destruction caused by ego, status, and the need to be seen. These aren’t mythological aberrations .. They are daily life. That relatability is what keeps people emotionally invested, not the fact that someone can fly or lift a mountain.
This is exactly why The Godfather became a cultural phenomenon. Nobody watches Francis Ford Coppola’s film for the technical details of underworld operations . They watch it because it shows the same family dynamics .. loyalty, betrayal, the cost of power, the corruption of ideals within a closed system that people can and do recognise from their own lives.
We don’t call it “Mario Puzo’s novel that Coppola happened to film.” The same logic applies here.
Cinema has always worked this way with inherited stories. We say Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, not Shakespeare’s. We say Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, not Tolkien’s. We say Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, not Shakespeare’s Macbeth. We say Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
In India, people say Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas or Bhansali’s Padmaavat, even though the source material is far older.. The name attached to the film is the name of the person who made the material into a specific experience that exists in a particular time, with particular choices, technology, and above all a particular point of view.
Everything is constantly interpreted and adapted and so Calling it Namit Malhotra’s Ramayana doesn’t erase Valmiki. It simply acknowledges the person who took the trouble of taking the ancient material and turning it into a film that exists right now at this moment for all of us like every major adaptation in literature or cinema did the same. The outrage around the name is less about respect for the original and more about the refusal to accept that a actual living person is making it
One who understands this, and is clear about whose version it is, isn’t diminishing the Ramayana , but is doing what an adaption has always done , which is to reflect the people who did it.
Francis Lawrence says he has renewed hope for CONSTANTINE 2 now that James Gunn and Peter Safran are out from DC Studios.
"The people that were at DC were an impediment to us making it."
Lawrence says the Keanu Reeves sequel has a script and would go Hard R.
(Source: Collider)
saying the film lacked pop culture impact when this song was everywhere the entire summer and there was a massive wave of hope around the world is insane
James Gunn and Peter Safran's short-lived era spearheading DC Studios was less than super, writes Variety's @OwenGleiberman:
"When you look at who Ellison has chosen to replace Gunn and Safran, there's a clear directive there: Jeremy Latcham is a Marvel veteran who, by his own description, now leans toward a faith-based vision, one that's wholesomely heroic and upbeat.
In other words, say goodbye to any vestige of the James Gunn "edge." But if the Gunn edge had truly won an audience, we might be having a different conversation. Taken together, his moves and decisions gave him a (barely) passing grade."
Read the full column: https://t.co/rq4gzZLRQd
Henry Cavill has addressed the possibility of returning as Superman amid the DCU shakeup:
"Look, there's lots of fantastic storylines. There's always a lot of opportunity... I would never say never no."
(via @screenrant)