Tag: Scarlett Johansson

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Kevin Feige Says Marvel Studios Moving Away From 6-9 Picture Deals; Similar To Ones Samuel L. Jackson & Scarlett Johansson Made During Phase One

In the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the studio was trying to make sure they were landing actors on the cheap and to sweeten the pot Ike Perlmutter assumed that giving actors contracts consisting of six to nine film commitments would off-set the low pay (Chris Hemsworth earned only $150K for Thor) they would get on the first round of feature films (television and streaming wasn’t even considered back then).

One of the biggest Marvel deals made was when Samuel L. Jackson signed on to play Nick Fury in at least nine films. Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige has revealed to The Hollywood Reporter during an interview to promote Black Widow that they’re moving away from those extensive deals from the Phase One era.

“That got a lot of attention way back when, with I think [Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans] and Sam Jackson. It varies now. It varies, project to project, cast to cast. Really, what we want are people that come in, are excited to be in the universe, are excited at the opportunity to do more things, as opposed to being locked into contractual obligations,” the studio head told The Hollywood Reporter.

Interestingly enough, Jackson and Hemsworth are working on new projects as Johansson is expected to end her MCU run with Black Widow after reportedly earning an impressive $15 million ($5 million more than she got for leading Ghost In Shell) for the solo outing releasing on Friday.

BLACK WIDOW – In Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, the movie stars Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff. Florence Pugh stars as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

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James Gunn Reveals Universal Rejected His ‘Creature From The Black Lagoon’ Remake After The Success Of ‘Dawn Of The Dead’

Many know James Gunn thanks to directing credits on projects like Guardians of The Galaxy and his upcoming DC Comics film The Suicide Squad, but made waves because of his writing work on the hit Zack Snyder-directed zombie flick Dawn of The Dead, a remake of the classic George A. Romero movie.

During a fan Q&A on Instagram, James Gunn (taking a break from the filming of Peacemaker) revealed that in the wake of Dawn of The Dead’s success in 2004 he tried to get a Creature From The Black Lagoon remake (based on the 1954 film) that was ultimately turned down by Universal Pictures.

“I tried to do Creature From The Black Lagoon right after Dawn of The Dead, but they didn’t want me to do it,” James Gunn said when responding to a fan question on Instagram.

Remake plans at Universal go back to the early 1980s with various directors getting in the mix such as John Landis (An American Werewolf In London), John Carpenter (The Thing, Memoirs of An Invisible Man), Peter Jackson (The Frighteners, King Kong), Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters), and Guillermo del Toro (Crimson Peak, Blade II).

More recently, the studio had directors Breck Eisner (The Crazies, The Last Witch Hunter, The Expanse) and Carl Rinsch (47 Ronin) attached at various stages. Back in 2015, there were rumors from The Tracking Board that actress Scarlett Johansson was wanted for a lead role with a script from Jeff Blitz, Gary Ross, Tedi Sarafian and Paul Schering.

After plans for their Dark Universe collapsed, there was chatter that the Universal was considering to continue with a Black Lagoon remake, but concrete updates haven’t been announced.

CREATURE FORM THE BLACK LAGOON – Remnants of a mysterious animal have come to light in a remote jungle, and a group of scientists intends to determine if the find is an anomaly or evidence of an undiscovered beast. To accomplish their goal, the scientists (Antonio Moreno, Richard Carlson, Richard Denning, Whit Bissell) must brave the most perilous pieces of land South America has to offer. But the terrain is nothing compared to the danger posed by an otherworldly being that endangers their work and their lives.

While Universal was twiddling their thumbs with those remake plans, Guillermo del Toro made his own creature feature for Searchlight Pictures, The Shape of Water, that ended up becoming a commercial success and landed Oscar statues for Best Picture and Best Director.

James Gunn would go on to direct Slither and Super before getting hired by Marvel Studios to help launch their successful Guardians of The Galaxy franchise. He recently completed work on The Suicide Squad that has an August 6 release date and will begin shooting Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3 before the end of 2021.

SOURCE: JAMES GUNN

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‘Black Widow’: New Trailer Finally Gives Us A Glimpse At Ray Winstone’s Dreykov

Marvel/Disney has released some new promotional material for Black Widow as the Scarlett Johansson flick had been given a new release date of July 9, 2021. We get another trailer and a first-look at Ray Winstone’s General Dreykov with Taskmaster in that new footage. The villain is the head of The Red Room, the program that molded Natasha into a Russian assassin.

BLACK WIDOW – In Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, the movie stars Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff. Florence Pugh stars as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff.

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‘Black Widow’ Officially Heads To Premier Access & Theaters On July 9th – ‘Shang-Chi’ Delayed To September 3rd

In an official post by Marvel Studios on Twitter, the studio announced that Black Widow is getting another delay to further in the summer. As it will take Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings’ theatrical release spot on July 9th and will also be able to purchase on Disney+’s Premier Access for an extra fee.

They aren’t saying how much they’ll be charging for Black Widow, but the last couple of movies such as Mulan and Raya have cost $30. There is a possibility Disney+ might ask for even more than that given it’s a Marvel Studios project.

BLACK WIDOW – In Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, the movie stars Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff. Florence Pugh stars as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff.

Marvel also announced on their website that Shang-Chi is moving to September 3rd but there isn’t word if Eternals will be moving from it’s spot on November 5th.

Additionally, Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has received a new release date, now arriving on September 3, 2021. Simu Liu stars as Shang-Chi, who must confront the past he thought he left behind when he is drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization. The film’s cast also includes Tony Leung as Wenwu, Awkwafina as Shang-Chi’s friend Katy, and Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan. Additionally, Fala Chen, Meng’er Zhang, Florian Munteanu and Ronny Chieng appear in the upcoming movie, which is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton.

Below is a new Black Widow poster with the July release date on it.

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‘Black Widow’: Disney CEO Bob Chapek Reaffirms May Theatrical Release

Yesterday, Disney had a shareholders meeting and CEO Bob Chapek said again that Marvel’s Black Widow solo film is sticking to it’s May 7th release date. Never mentioning a hybrid release on Disney+ for the Marvel Studios flick, something fans have been hoping since a full year ago.

The film directed by Cate Shortland takes place between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War before the death of Natasha in Avengers: Endgame, the idea is that the Black Widow mantle is going to be handed down for future films and shows. Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova is also returning for the Hawkeye series set to begin airing on Disney+ in late 2021 but the size of her role hasn’t been confirmed.

BLACK WIDOW – Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

SOURCE: DISNEY

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‘Black Widow’: Marvel’s Kevin Feige Reportedly Opposed To A Hybrid Release

Yesterday, Disney CEO Bob Chapek reaffirmed their plan is to keep Black Widow as a theatrical release. A new report from Variety is suggesting that Marvel Studios president and Marvel chief creative officer Kevin Feige is opposed to the spy flick heading to Disney+ or given a hybrid release.

Here is that tidbit from Variety.

According to insiders, that’s partially because Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige, the lead architect behind the meticulously constructed Marvel Cinematic Universe, was opposed to a hybrid rollout. Having produced many of the studio’s highest-grossing movies, including Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Feige’s opinion certainly carries considerable weight at Disney. But that doesn’t mean the powers that be can’t eventually convince Feige to change his mind — or overrule him completely.

It’s debatable if the film will even stick to it’s current release date of May 7th as plenty of other spring and summer movies are being pushed to the fall and early 2022. Seeing the Marvel flick bumped to later in the year sounds like what will happen at this point as they’ve been simply delaying previously.

BLACK WIDOW – In Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

SOURCE: VARIETY

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‘Black Widow’: Disney CEO Bob Chapek Insists Marvel Movie Still Heading To Theaters

Despite consist demand from Marvel fans, it doesn’t look like Disney is going to be dumping Black Widow on their streaming platform Disney+ at this time. Disney CEO Bob Chapek reiterated the studio’s position from December where they reaffirmed the Scarlett Johansson spy flick would indeed be released in theaters as planned. This statement coming from Disney’s quarterly earnings call where many had expected to hear plans to finally release Widow on streaming as it’s coming up on being delayed for a full year soon.

Our good friend Nicholas Whitcomb aka Whos Nick was listening to the Q1 earnings call yesterday and was able to tweet this out about the comment made by Bob Chapek. However, things are fluid and another possible release date push is likely coming given the amount of studio films that have already exited the winter/spring.

Disney has had plenty of opportunities to pivot from their theatrical plans for Black Widow over the last year and didn’t seem to be terribly swayed by the HBO Max day-and-date announcement. It likely doesn’t help that Wonder Woman 1984 reportedly is going to lose Warner Bros. over a $100 million because of it’s dismal box office performance.

We’ll have to wait to see if they ultimately push the release to the fall or finally cave-in with a hybrid model releasing the film earlier.

It’s current release date is still set for May 7th.

BLACK WIDOW – In Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

SOURCE: DISNEY

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Kevin Feige Not Sure ‘Black Widow’ Will Ultimately Become Disney+ Exclusive & Phase 4 Films Weren’t Affected By Pandemic

Ever since movies started going to streaming, Marvel fans have assumed that Black Widow would be thrown onto Disney+ like recent films such as Mulan (Premiere Access) and Soul (free with subscription), with Disney debunking that theory over and over. Most recently at the Disney Investor Day presentation, Marvel’s Kevin Feige reaffirmed that Black Widow would be released in theaters on May 7th as of mid-December.

Deadline has asked about the chance of Black Widow heading to Disney+ instead of hitting it’s May 7th theatrical release. His response seems to be both vague and politically neutral as it does appear to be that the distribution of the movie is truly out of his hands and really up to Disney at this point.

FEIGE: “If I had a crystal ball, I’d look into it and tell you. I don’t. All I can tell you is that for the past three years since Bob Iger brought me into his office and talked about a streaming platform that would become Disney+ and asked us to start working on programs for it. Our long lead plan was to have the MCU and the storytelling woven between weekly episodic big swings on Disney+ and into the feature big swings in theaters. It’s my great hope that that continues. Don’t ask me week by week what is going to happen in this world, I have no idea and don’t want to guess. Everything we’ve done at Marvel Studios has been based in ‘Ok, if everything goes perfectly, here’s what we’d like to do.’ And until this past year, things have gone remarkably well. And it’s my hope that the world gets back on track and we all get back into theaters, and that people will see and experience week by week for the low monthly fee of Disney+ of what we’re bringing there, and then be excited to get together with people again in real life and sit with strangers and share an experience on the big screen.”

We’ll have to see what Disney ultimately decides to do as they’d lose hundreds of millions of dollars if they simply put the film on the service for free such as Warner Bros. putting Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max and Mulan may have scared Disney to use Premiere Access again for such a costly film as it was restricted to Disney+ subscribers later revealed as not the success people had first thought.

The pandemic is getting increasingly worse in the United States and United Kingdom, despite the slow distribution of multiple COVID-19 vaccines. Theaters being a viable option in May or over the summer is increasingly looking less likely, but what Disney does with their massive Marvel movies remains to be seen.

BLACK WIDOW – In Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

According to Feige while speaking with The New York Times, the pandemic may have delayed some of the release of the shows by a weeks. Their film lineup apparently hasn’t been affected in any significant way.

FEIGE: “If the run we had in 2018 and 2019 had gotten disrupted this way, in the buildup to Endgame, it would have been a bigger headache,” he said. “With these projects, it worked well,” he went on, adding that the debut dates for the TV shows were shifted only “by a matter of weeks.”

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES & DEADLINE

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‘Black Widow’: Disney Reportedly Still Not Interested In Dumping The Marvel Flick On Disney+

In the wake of WarnerMedia’s shocking announcement that 17 films in 2021 will be heading to HBO Max with a new day-and-date model, there had been continued fan speculation that Disney would announce something similar to that with their own 2021 lineup of films. However, multiple outlets have repeatedly suggested otherwise and another tidbit from the New York Times is claiming that despite what WarnerMedia is planning to do, Disney will not be throwing the Marvel Studios film Black Widow on the streaming service.

And some of Disney’s biggest movies will continue to receive exclusive runs in theaters before arriving on the company’s streaming services. For instance, contrary to widespread speculation, Black Widow, a much-anticipated Marvel spectacle, will remain on Disney’s theatrical release calendar for May 7, the people with knowledge of the presentation said.

This would likely mean that films such as Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings and Eternals will be spared from Disney+ dumps as well. We’ll ultimately know more later today thanks to the Disney Investor Day event which should shed some light on the roll-out of Marvel films in 2021 and beyond.

Fans have been feverishly trying to convince Disney to place Black Widow on Disney+ since the film’s original delays earlier in the year due to COVID-19, however, the company seems to be realistic after their experiment with Mulan on Premier Access (asking subscribers to pay $30 while the film is now free this month) turned out to be more of a let down.

It was recently confirmed that Florence Pugh will be reprising her Black Widow role of Yelena Belova in the Hawkeye series that is currently in production. The show will focus on Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton working alongside his new protege Kate Bishop played by Oscar nominated actress Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, Bumblebee).

BLACK WIDOW – In Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES

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Marvel Studios Reportedly Delaying Release of ‘Black Widow’ Again – Will It Take ‘Eternals’ Spot In February?

The blockbuster delays don’t seem will be stopping anytime soon as Variety is mentioning something we’ve all suspected since the summer that Black Widow isn’t likely going to be released on November 6th as previously planned, and foresee another delay is coming. 

Disney will likely delay Black Widow, the superhero adventure from Marvel that was slated to open on Nov. 6, according to multiple individuals with knowledge of the situation.

The solo flick takes place between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. 

Unlike the Disney+ shows Black Widow has been completed for months and it really comes down to the recent fumble with the release of Tenet by Warner Bros., which saw some healthy returns overseas all things considering but a dismal $9.4 million opening weekend and a $6.7 second weekend for the Christopher Nolan. A key reason by Warner Bros. quickly moved Wonder Woman 1984 from October 2nd to December 25th, it’ll also signal other 2020 movies to jump ship. 

While theaters are open audiences are opting not to return along with smaller capacities it is almost impossible for studios to make decent box office domestically and moving stuff into 2021 is just the smart play. 

Fans have also been championing the Mulan model of dumping Black Widow on Disney+’s Premier Access, however, it doesn’t look like that faired well for Disney as the film didn’t make a lot of money in comparison to a traditional theatrical release and given its budget they’re likely not happy with the results. It’s was potentially due to the restricted access to the pricey $29.99 film was relegated only to Disney+ subscribers. The service skews younger than most would like to admit and given the economy, it’s a huge ask for people to spend that kind of money on a single film. 

There is also the matter of Scarlett Johansson’s backend deal that would be completely erased if the film doesn’t get a theatrical release, that would see the actress possibly lose millions.

It wouldn’t be the first move for the Marvel flick as it had been originally planned as a May 1st release before the pandemic crushed the spring and summer movie season. Moving the action flick to the Eternals spot of February 12th, 2021 seems to be the more bankable date they’ll use given that Disney hasn’t even started to promote Eternals it allows them to slide Black Widow in that date.