In some ways it’s hard believe that The Birth of a Nation is finally coming to theaters. Nate Parker’s directorial debut film made waves way back in January at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and we’ve been itching to see it ever since. The film was also highlighted because its praise came at the height of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy regarding the Oscars. It seemed early on that The Academy would have at least one film they could hold in their back pocket to help cover some ground when it comes to the lack of diversity in their nominations. However, The Birth of a Nation has somewhat fizzled out a little bit due to a few different factors. For one, as the film has seen more film festivals, critics have been a little harder on the film in their reviews. The more and more reviews that come out, it appears that Parker’s direction is reflective of a first-timer at the helm. Secondly, and speaking of Parker, his rape allegations have sparked further controversy. This may or may not hurt the film at the box office, however it will have significant awards ramifications. This is just my opinion, but I’m not certain that The Academy will be eager to vote for The Birth of a Nation given the discussion around Parker’s scandal. That said, if the film is good enough on its own, I would hope that would be enough for voters, but history has proven otherwise.

It’s been rather heartbreaking to see how things have developed for The Birth of a Nation. Given our current cultural landscape, this film could have reverberated in some really powerful ways. The film itself still may offer some relevant conversation, but I’m curious as to how much of it will be stifled due to its external mayhem. Even if the film is flawed, as it appears to be, I would hope people could look past Parker’s personal life and receive the film for what is. I don’t expect The Birth of a Nation to be on the same level as 12 Years a Slave, but our social landscape right now is ripe for this material.

Looking at the film on its own, it sounds great on paper. The story of Nat Turner is inspiring and tragic all at the same time. The film also stars Parker, as well as Jackie Earle Haley, Armie Hammer, Dwight Henry (who was amazing in Beasts of the Southern Wild), Aunjanue Ellis (who is underrated as an actress), Esther Scott and many more. Everything about this film looks great fundamentally. The big question is whether or not Parker is effective as a director. Can he take such rich material, with a robust cast, and do something resonate with it? We’ll find out the answer to that this weekend.

No matter how this film turns out, one thing is for certain. The Birth of a Nation has arguably the best movie poster I’ve seen all year. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it is the best I’ve seen, personally. Wow.

Are you excited for The Birth of a Nation this weekend?

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Here’s what else you can expect at the box office this weekend:

The Girl on the Train

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
The Greasy Strangler (limited)
Blue Jay (limited)
Voyage of Time (limited)

The Fantastic Four first debuted over fifty years ago in 1961. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the duo wanted to do something different with the super-hero genre. They did things uncommon at the time, such as making the team a family, having one of the characters (The Thing) have unattractive powers, they were celebrities and in their first several appearances they didn’t have any sort of costume. The series would go onto be hugely popular, kick-starting what is now the Marvel universe. The adventures of Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, The Human Torch and The Thing, would continue under dozens of writers and artists over the years and the team would evolve and become more successful.

Stan and Jack’s work on the series is still considered one of the best today and is as one of the longest uninterrupted runs in all of comics. For over one-hundred issues they produced the book monthly, adding characters till popular today such as Dr. Doom, the Black Panther, Galactus, the Skrulls, the Silver Surfer and countless others. The heart of the Fantastic Four franchise has always been discovery and family. The team aren’t likely to proactively fight crime and instead combat situations arise as they explore new locations, worlds and ideas. The group’s membership has changed from time to time, but has focused mostly on the main four, with the children of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman becoming main characters.

Like any popular super hero franchise, it’s going to spawn adaptions. The first Fantastic Four animated series debuted in the 1960s produced by the Hanna-Barbera company. Another show would follow in the seventies (notoriously lacking the Human Torch), then again in the 1990s and the mid 2000s. The first live action film is the infamous 1994 film by B-movie legend Roger Corman. The film was only made in order for the studio to keep the licence and only ever released as a leak. With the modern popularity of super hero films, two movies would be released in the 2000s; Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The films would be modest successes but the squeal made less than the first, despite costing more. A reboot of the series was released in 2015 and was met with negative reviews and was less successful than the other films.

Merchandise is ripe for the Fantastic Four. Any item you can think of, the team have had it. Toys, books, clothing, bedsheets, lamps, posters, confectioneries, albums and more have all been released based on the FF. Various video games have been produced in the past, with notable example being the 1997 release for the Playstation. Both of the 2000s films had video game tie-ins. You can play as the Fantastic Four until your heart is content today with online slots provided by Coral based on the team. The Fantastic Four have made numerous other appearances in video games, being playable in both Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, MMORPG Marvel Heroes, Lego Marvel Super Heroes and more.

The Fantastic Four have been around for over half a century and with all the ups and despite the downs, they’ll easily be around for the next half.

We all knew it was coming, right? Last week Disney announced that they would be joining forces with director Jon Favreau to create a live-action adaptation of The Lion King. Well, as you’ll hear on Episode 189, we couldn’t let that news slip through the cracks on our show. Despite being in the middle of our Harry Potter Movie Series, we needed to discuss this further. So, for the first time since Episode 5 all the way back in 2013, we decided to forgo our Top 3 segment, making #189 the first show since then to not have some sort of list segment. And it was totally worth it.

For a little bit of context, I’m a *huge* fan of The Lion King. It was a big piece of my childhood and I would still argue to this day that The Lion King is one of the best animated films of all-time. It perhaps *is* the best animated film of all-time. Simply on principle, this news is alarming. However, my biggest questions are more fundamental. If this is supposed to be live-action, but it’s executed with heavy CGI in the same vein as The Jungle Book, isn’t that still technically animated since there are no human characters? Also, how are you going to replace the iconic vocal performance from James Earl Jones? Should you just re-cast him? And don’t even get me started on Hans Zimmer’s Oscar-winning score. How are they going to replicate the music of this film, which is itself a significant piece of cinema history?

Laying all of that aside, there is reason to be hopeful for this project. First of all, Disney seems to have their heads on straight with all of their properties. Of course this is subjective, but if you ask me, Disney Animation, Marvel, Star Wars and these live-action remakes have mostly been great, with only a few misses here and there. Meaning, Disney has all of their arms working in unison right now. As for the live-action remakes, Cinderella, The Jungle Book and Pete’s Dragon, have all been solid re-imaginations. I haven’t seen the Alice in Wonderland films but I hear awful things about them. Maleficent was disappointing as well, but outside of those two, I’ve really enjoyed what Disney has been doing with their live-action remakes.

And that brings us to Beauty and the Beast, which is another animated film I hold very close to my chest. In fact, Belle is my favorite Disney Princess. Now, I understand that the marketing for these remakes are going to pander to what people love about the original animated films, but the teaser trailer and images have absolutely captured the spirit of Disney’s original Beauty and the Beast. All of the evidence suggests to me that Bill Condon’s film will 1000% render the heart of that story while visually regurgitating what we love so much about Beauty and the Beast aesthetically. I am so excited for that film and love the direction that film is heading at the moment.

If Beauty and the Beast lands for me, coupled with my already love for The Jungle Book and Cinderella, I may actively be in favor of a remake for The Lion King. At the end of the day, I still have questions and the very idea makes me nervous, but the evidence says to me that I shouldn’t be at this point. If you’re like my co-host Brendan, and you didn’t like The Jungle Book or Cinderella or Pete’s Dragon, then I sympathize with your more severe hesitations. However those films did land for me pretty hard, and I’m a big fan of Favreau’s work. If he brings the same kind of enthusiasm and vision to The Lion King as he did with The Jungle Book, that only adds to my potential excitement for this project.

What about you though? Where do you sit on all of this?

Listen to more of our thoughts on Episode 189 below:

This weekend on Episode 189 we’ll be discussing Peter Berg’s latest film, Deepwater Horizon, starring Mark Wahlberg. Berg is clearly not the best director working today, but he has made some entertaining films over his career. Friday Night Lights is legitimately a very good film, if you ask me, and it’s easily Berg’s best film to date. In fact, I’d go as far to say that it’s one of the best football movies I’ve seen. However, after that Berg’s filmography becomes rather interesting. Personally, I’m a big fan of Lone Survivor but I’m willing to admit that the final act of that film is a big mess. I’d argue the first two acts of Lone Survivor are riveting and emotionally very stirring. It’s subjectively some of my favorite filmmaking from Berg. Additionally, the first half of Hankcock is also fun to watch. On Episode 181, I actually had drunk Hancock as an honorable mention when we discussed movie villains. I love Will Smith in the first half of that film in his hysterical drunk-rage. The second half of Hancock is ridiculous and flawed to say the least, but the first half is entertaining enough and laid the foundation very well for that premise. The Rundown has some fun moments as well but the rest of Berg’s resume after that is mediocre at best.

With all of that said, while Berg isn’t a director I get up for, he is someone who knows how to conjure entertaining scenes that can move you at a basic movie level. Deepwater Horizon is a film that on paper should serve Berg well in that manner. My major concern for that film, is that the story behind it is more than action and silly humor. Deepwater Horizon is a tragic story that left behind huge ramifications. There is serous drama here that should be depicted with diligence. Is Berg capable of handling that well? Sure, but I’m a bit dubious.

The other concern is Mark Wahlberg. Now, I’m a big fan of Wahlberg, however I haven’t seen serious Wahlberg in awhile. He was serviceable in Lone Survivor, but as stated above, this story will need to feature a different Wahlberg. I’m sure Wahlberg’s personality will seep through in the beginning, but can he carry the film’s emotion by the end? I don’t know yet, especially given the trajectory of his career over the last five years.

For what it’s worth, I’m a fan of this combo on paper. In theory, this could work with the pieces it has. Would I have chose them to tell this specific story? Not at all, but this could still work. I haven’t read any early reviews but have heard some rumblings that it’s not bad, which is promising. So here’s to hoping that all of my fears are put to rest this weekend. What about you? Are you excited for Deepwater Horizon?

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Here’s what else you can expect this weekend at the box office:

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Masterminds
Queen of Katwe (wide)
American Honey (limited)
Denial (limited)
A Man Called Ove (limited)

For the better part of two years now, there’s been growing buzz about Guy Ritchie’s ambitious plan to launch a six-film franchise delving into Arthurian legend. But beyond the pure scope of the project and the cast of the first film, we’ve known very little about what Ritchie had in mind. But an exhilarating trailer dropped at Comic-Con this summer, and it gave us our first real look at King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword, the series’ first film that’s set to premiere in March. Here we’ll comment on a few observations from that trailer.

It’s All About The Visuals

Sure, the cast is exciting and most any King Arthur-related story makes for a compelling narrative. But it’s hard to watch that trailer and come away with any impression other than that Ritchie is looking to emphasize visual wonder in a big way. He plays with camera angles (the opening shots look as if they may have been filmed on GoPros), has nymph-like creatures blending in with trees, and shows off breathtaking scenes of English countryside and medieval castles. Everything, from the shade of the sky to the glinting metal on knightly costumes, looks gorgeous.

There Is No Idyllic Camelot Here

A page full of interactive bingo rooms at Gala’s online bingo gaming site includes a game that’s simply called “Castle.” Essentially an online bingo hall, the game depicts a picturesque animated castle on a hill, complete with high turrets, red cone-shaped rooftops and waving flags. But why are we mentioning this? Because it’s just about the only idyllic interpretation of a castle you can find in modern entertainment. Think about it: on Game Of Thrones castles are dark, partially ruined, and flawed; in Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur film they were minor outposts, and Camelot didn’t exist; even in fantasies like Snow White And The Huntsman, castles are foreboding, not welcoming. And it looks as if Guy Ritchie will continue this trend. While the glimpses of castles in this trailer are pretty magnificent, they’re far from the stuff of storybooks or fairy tales, which likely speaks to a grittier take on Arthurian legend.

Is This A Full-On Fantasy Film?

Antoine Fuqua came about as close as anyone could to turning the King Arthur legend into a real-life period piece, given that it is in fact a legend. His 2004 film presented Arthur as a sort of Roman general defending a remote outpost of the Empire. But generally speaking, no Arthur story is a real period piece, and because of this it appears Guy Ritchie has seen fit to infuse his medieval world with a strong does of fantasy. As a similar recap of the trailer by Inverse put it half-sarcastically, the film appears as if it might take place in Tolkien’s Middle Earth, given the presence of massive (we’re talking mansion-sized) elephant beasts and the aforementioned tree nymphs. Then again, it’s worth noting that when we see some of these things in the trailer, we’ve just heard Arthur state that he’d been dreaming. It remains to be seen if the fantasy beasts actually appear in the film, o
r simply in Arthur’s head.

This Arthur Is Every Sassy Badass

The Inverse write-up compares Charlie Hunnam’s interpretation of King Arthur to Tyler Durden, suggesting that this is basically a medieval Fight Club. Indeed, there are plenty of shots of hard-nosed, bareknuckle street brawling that give pre-pulling-the-sword-from-the-stone Arthur an intriguing new look. But there are shades of other famous characters in this Arthur as well. His coolness under pressure is reminiscent of Daniel Craig’s James Bond. His sassiness under interrogation is almost Will Hunting-esque. His costuming and swagger call to mind a medieval Xander Cage. Granted this is all coming from a three-minute trailer, but it all says a lot about a new brand of Arthur.

It’s All About Arthur

The cast is full of big names, with the likes of Jude Law and Eric Bana headlining, and well-liked supporting actors Djimon Hounsou, Michael McElhatton, and Aidan Gillen have roles as well. Even David Beckham reportedly has a small part. But with the exception of Sir Bedivere (Hounsou), none of Arthur’s famous knights seems to be a part of this first adventure. They’re being saved for future films, which, as we can further interpret from the trailer, means this is a sort of origin story: how Arthur went from street fighter to (presumably) king.

All in all this is a pretty crazy trailer, and one that’s going to continue to build excitement about Ritchie’s ambitious project heading into 2017. And yet at the same time, it’s fair to say that even with nearly three minutes of footage, we have no idea what’s coming.

This weekend on Episode 187, we’ll be discussing Antoine Fuqua’s new film The Magnificent Seven. This film is, of course, a remake of John Sturges’ 1960 film of the same name, which in itself was a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 Japanese-language film Seven Samurai. It’s easy to question why Fuqua’s remake needed to happen, but for as iconic as Sturges’ version is, this narrative is ripe for a modern re-telling. It’s the classic anti-bullying story that is easy to relate with for many of us. It has also been 56 years since The Magnificent Seven hit the big screens, meaning this story could be new to a lot of young faces out there. Personally, I’m not against remakes if there is a clear vision and purpose for the film. Based off of the marketing for Fuqua’s version, I can see seeds of that in the imagery. We’ll see if that is really the case come this weekend.

Modern technology could benefit this new re-telling as well, which is easily one of Fuqua’s biggest strengths as a director. I’m not the biggest fan of his storytelling, but there’s no question that Fuqua is a stylistic director that knows how to handle a camera. His films are always visually appealing and I have no doubt that he will, at the very least, upgrade this story from a visual perspective.

Another reason to be excited for The Magnificent Seven remake is this cast. The film stars Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke in a Western setting. Um…hell yeah! Additionally, we’ll see the likes of Vincent D’Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Peter Sarsgaard and Haley Bennett. Good God, that is a wonderful cast. This film *should* be a lot of fun given the talent involved with this film. Even if the film is disjointed narratively, and given Fuqua’s history that wouldn’t surprise me, it should at least be very entertaining.

Perhaps the biggest reason that I’m personally excited for Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven is that it is the last score we’ll hear from the late-great James Horner. Apparently, Horner was so inspired by Fuqua’s vision that he wrote the entire score before his fatal crash last year, before the film was even shot. Of course, given how creative projects are always evolving, the score needed some updates but I’m so curious to hear what Horner had in store for this film. I’m specially excited given how iconic Elmer Bernstein’s score is for Sturges’ 1960 version. Regardless of how it ends up, I’m betting that it will be sentimental on some level. I love Mr. Horner and may he continue to rest in peace.

For those that are automatically discounting The Magnificent Seven remake-remake, I don’t blame you. Did this *really* need to happen? Probably not. Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is one of the most legendary foreign-language films we’ve ever seen and Sturges’ remake is as good as it gets when re-imagining a classic piece of cinema. In theory, there is no way that Fuqua’s version will hold a candle to those two films. However, the pieces are there on paper, we’ll just have to see how the film delivers its execution.

What about you? Are you excited for The Magnificent Seven this weekend?

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Here are other films you can expect to see this weekend at the box office:

Storks
Queen of Katwe (limited)
The Dressmaker (limited)
Goat (limited)
My Blind Brother (limited)