Why Disney is pulling back on Marvel
Why Disney is pulling back on Marvel
And beloved animated movie getting live-action remake
What to know
Disney is correcting the Marvel and Star Wars saturation issue… “You can have 10 mediocre shows or you can have five great shows.” Exactly. Marvel and Star Wars are two of Disney’s most important assets, and it raced to flood the zone with new content from each in recent years for the sake of Disney+. Well now, ballooning costs and decreasing brand quality have finally caught up to the Mouse. Bob Iger is significantly slowing the rollout of Marvel shows—only Loki and Secret Invasion will hit Disney+ this year (good!)—while Star Wars will once again get back in theaters (note: its announced shows aren’t going anywhere). Ask any Marvel fan and they’ll tell you that the MCU has been oversaturated as of late, and any Star Wars fan might opine for the days when new Lucasfilm stories felt like a major event. By narrowing franchise focus, Disney will get the double bonus of cutting costs and once again pleasing fans with a stronger product. 🐭
How to Train Your Dragon live-action remake coming to theaters 2025… Disney isn’t the only studio willing to live-action-ify its animated classics. DreamWorks has a library—OK, a handful—of beloved movies it too can wring out for cash. I’m coming across as cynical here, but I’m actually quite excited for this. How to Train Your Dragon rips and its original writer-director, Dean DeBlois, is returning to helm this live remake. (I once said the flying sequences were better than Avatar’s — 2009 me had opinions.) So why not? This could actually be good. 🐉
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How did NBC’s Night Court reboot become a hit?… Did you know Night Court is pulling in ratings twice that of Abbott Elementary? So what’s the secret sauce to its success? It turns out, people still watch linear TV and love things that are familiar. The Daily Beast also credits Big Bang Theory alum Melissa Rauch as a possible factor behind the show’s success. She pitched the reboot and likely lends subtle star power. All of the women from Big Bang have now gone on to great post-hit success. Court is in session… at night! 👩🏼⚖️
Quantumania becomes the Marvel’s second-ever “rotten” movie on RottenTomatoes… After Eternals. Yeah, reviews for Ant-Man 3 are mixed to say the least, and this isn’t going to do anything to turn around the narrative that the MCU is past its peak. 🍅
Johnny Knoxville lets slip the next season of The White Lotus might be in Japan… It turns out Knoxville is good friends with Mike White, who knew! But I think we did know that season 3 was going to be somewhere in Asia. 🇯🇵
Will Netflix go the way of Blockbuster?… Interesting opinion piece about the dilemma facing Netflix as it tries to turn a profit despite enormous content costs and user churn. Something’s gotta give. 🍿
Roku’s revenue was flat last quarter but the Roku Channel reached 100M viewers… That second stat seems significant and yet another sign of the encroaching FAST revolution. 📡
Paramount+ grows to 77M subs, increases prices… Paramount+ is slowing becoming a real player in the streaming wars, but it like all the others has to do something to make money. 🏔
Scream VI eyes franchise best opening weekend… That’s pretty impressive this many years and sequels in — but that’s what you get when you cast Jenna Ortega. 👻
Starsky & Hutch series reboot in the works at Fox… Of course, didn’t you see how well Night Court is doing? 📺
A remake of Breaking Bad is coming to South Korea… Which according to Google translates to 브레이킹 배드. 👨🏻
Rebel Wilson says her Pitch Perfect contract said she couldn’t lose weight… The late ‘00s were not as progressive as we though. 🎤
Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t like the he has a reputation for dating younger women… Bro, then date older women. 🤦🏻
Ryan Seacrest exiting Live With Kelly and Ryan, Marc Consuelos replacing him… Seacrest out. 🌅
Avatar: The Way of Water dominates Visual Effects Society awards… Water, wet. 🌊
What’s new
Red Rose — Feb 15 | Netflix horror series | 🍅 100%
Full Swing — Feb 15 | Netflix golf docuseries | 🍅
Animal Control — Feb 16 | Fox sitcom | 🍅 71%
Sharper — Feb 17 | Apple TV+ drama film | 🍅 60%
Hello Tomorrow! — Feb 17 | Apple TV+ comedy series | 🍅 33%
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania — Feb 17 | Marvel in theaters | 🍅 51%
Returning: Wu-Tang: An American Saga s3, The Upshaws s3, Star Trek: Picard s3, Animaniacs s3, Carnival Row s2, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver s10
What to watch
TV Trailer: Lucky Hank — March 19 on AMC
Created by Aaron Zelman and Paul Lieberstein, starring Bob Odenkirk, Mireille Enos, Sara Amini, Diedrich Bader, Suzanne Cryer, Olivia Scott Welch, Oscar Nunez, Kyle MacLachlan, Tom Bower, Chris Diamantopoulos, and Cedric Yarbrough.
Hey, this looks pretty good! Not in a Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul way, but in a Fleischman Is In Trouble kinda way. I’ll forgive AMC for making this look more dramatic than it probably is, as its trying to attract the Breaking Bad crowd, but the sad comedy tone comes through anyway. And it’s always nice to have a character drama about regular people that doesn’t involve crime, drugs, hospitals, court rooms, violence, or the supernatural. Double that seeing Paul Lieberstein’s name (Toby/a writer on The Office). Bob Odenkirk might not get as much recognition or hype for this as he did for Saul, but he seems to be having fun and digging his teeth into a new character study. Let’s hold out for the reviews, but I’m optimistic on this.
For all past ‘what to watch’ recommendations, see the full list here!