On this episode of Nerd & Tie we deal with the ongoing move of our production studio, mourn the passing of Adam West, go through the highlights of E3, discuss the changes coming to Pokemon Go, review the confusing situation surrounding the Venom movie (and how it MIGHT still be MCU adjacent), and consider Wizard World’s money problems.
There are a few technical difficulties in the video too, but at least the audio version is largely clean?
This episode of Nerd & Tie was sponsored by Ohio Kimono
One of the stranger things that’s been happening is that Sony has been moving forward with the “Sony Marvel Universe” films, based around Spider-Man characters… minus Spider-Man. I mean, envisioning a Venom movie without Spider-Man is pretty strange, right? Well, the two franchises (which also includes the Black Cat and Silver Sable movie Silver and Black) aren’t going to be so far apart apparently.
Maybe.
In an interview with Marvel’s Kevin Feige and Sony’s Amy Pascal, Pascal seemed to confirm that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man could show up in the spin-off movies still.
[BREAKING NEWS] Amy Pascal confirm Black Cat and Vanom movie will pass in the same universe of "Spider-Man: Homecoming pic.twitter.com/qfAKOulqwE
This is, of course, completely contrary to Feige’s previous statements where he said the Venom movie wouldn’t be in the MCU. Of course, since Feige seemed a little surprised in the interview, maybe this was news to him too.
The remake of the classic 1990 film Flatliners has it’s first trailer, and it’s as spooky as you’d expect. For those unfamiliar, the premise is simple: a group of medical students decide to experiment with near-death by purposefully “flatlining” and then reviving themselves. What starts out as thrilling then turns dangerous — because believe it or not, Death doesn’t like being messed around with.
The remake has an amazing looking cast, which features Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton, and Kiersey Clemons. Of course, any cast list that starts with Page and Luna would have looked fantastic no matter whose names appeared afterwards.
So this one’s a little late because I had a power outage last night. I did get to watch the conference eventually though and here’s what went down.
Throughout the entire presentation, Sony went all out with the theatrics including starting off with a sitar band and a waterfall. This heralded that we’re getting a new Uncharted game, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. After that, fake snow fell in the theater to go with the Horizon Zero Dawn expansion, Frozen Wilds.
Then there were zombies onstage to go with Days Gone.
Monster Hunter World looked amazing, as did the second Shadow of Colossus HD remake. Marvel vs Capcom Infinite was short and sweet and Call of Duty: WWII surprised no one.
Then they moved on to their VR block, showcasing games for the PSVR. These included Skyrim, a space platformer called Starchild, a psychological thriller called The Inpatient, fishing game Final Fantasy XV: Monster of the Deep, Bravo Team, and a platformer puzzle game called Moss. The last few items shown were their big pretty games including God of War 4, Detroit: Become Human, and Destiny 2.
Last but not least, Sony showed new footage of the Spider-Man video game that’s been in development for a while, which features the playstyle of the Arkham games but the definite feel of the web-slinger.
If you’d like to know more, go ahead and watch the restream here.
On this, the one hundredth episode of Nerd & Tie, our heroes give our review of DC’s Wonder Woman movie, discuss how said film was banned in Lebanon, celebrate 40 years of Star Wars, and continued to get confused by the ongoing progress on Sony’s Venom movie. Then we take on the con scene, where ColossalCon forced Colossus Con to rebrand, and Phoenix Comicon narrowly avoided tragedy.
Earlier this year we learned that Sony was making a Silver Sable and Black Cat movie. This is, of course, all part of the studio’s bizarre efforts to build a Spider-Man based shared universe sans actual Spider-Man.
Well, the project is moving forward, no matter how strange. The Hollywood Reporter reports that the director’s chair has been filled by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Prince-Bythewood is probably best known for writing and directing The Secret Life of Bees. The movie also apparently has a title now — Silver and Black.
I’m really not sure what I think about this thing. I mean, yeah – it’s a superhero film with women both headlining and directing. I’m all for that. What I don’t understand is the logic of pairing these two characters, as it’s not like they’re closely associated with each other.
Of course, doing things logically has never really been Sony’s thing.
So I know Spider-Man has seen a lot of reboots in the last two decades, and even though I want to complain about that, each Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer has us more and more hyped. We now have the final trailer for the film, and… well… yeah.
It looks pretty great.
This trailer again focuses on Peter pushing against the limitations Stark has put on him. I mean, when you can stop a bus with your bare hands, it’s hard to be okay with something called the “training wheels protocol.”
Spider-Man: Homecoming comes to theaters July 7th.
So Tom Holland has been officially cast as a young Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie adaptation. Based on the Naughty Dog video game of the same name, the film will act as a prequel to the game series.
The movie is going to be based on a cut scene from the third game, where a young Drake encounters Sullivan for the first time. Sony has been trying to make this movie for a while, and while a lot of names have been attached to the director’s chair. There’s no one currently attached to direct, but Charles Roven, Avi Arad, Alex Gartner and Ari Arad are producing.
Tom Holland, of course, is currently running around the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Spider-Man, and will star in the Sony produced Spider-Man: Homecoming later this summer. He’s a solid actor, so it will be interesting to see what he does with this character.
No one was expecting it when Sony announced it’s Venom movie, so it makes sense that no one was expecting who will end up starring in it. Its been announced that none other than Tom Hardy will be playing Eddie Brock in the upcoming film.
Venom will be an R-rated film meant to launch a shared universe based around Spider-Man characters (that will somehow not feature Spider-Man). Separate from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, where the current film Spider-Man resides, it’s expected to be darker — and by all accounts confusing as hell.
Honestly, Hardy is a phenomenal actor, but even his casting isn’t quite enough to get me excited about this project. Maybe I’m wrong — maybe this will end up being phenomenal. With Sony’s current track record though, I’m not giving them good odds.
Last week we reported that NBC had cancelled freshman time travel drama Timeless. Well someone must have altered the timeline after that, because this weekend series creator Eric Kripke tweeted out that the series had been, in fact, saved.
As for how this happened, The Hollywood Reporter claims that Sony (who actually makes the show) offered to take more of the burden of production costs going forward. The cancellation of a bubble show like Timeless wasn’t surprising, but series with the same ratings often get renewed too. Sony absorbing more of the costs makes keeping the program on the air a much more profitable affair for NBC, and tipped the scales just enough in Timeless‘s favor.
And frankly, with that first season cliff hanger ending, I’m glad we’re going to get more.
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