WIRE Buzz: New Mutants, Bill & Ted set to lead restarted box office; Witcher's Jaskier trailer; Power Pack

For the first time in half a year, there will be major releases out in U.S. theaters. Two major markets (New York and California), among others, still have safety regulations preventing theaters from reopening, but other states are enabling Hollywood to have its first significant box office weekend since March. What’s going to be there? Of course, genre flicks.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The New Mutants (filmmaker Josh Boone’s beleaguered X-Men film from not only pre-coronavirus times, but pre-Disney/Fox times) and Bill & Ted Face the Music (the reunion of Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves in the iconic time travel franchise) are set to dominate the releases.

The third Bill & Ted film looks to have a simultaneous release in more than 1,000 theaters and on premium VOD (a more expensive rental cost for a new release), giving those not willing to risk a theatrical visit a chance to see the movie upon release. New Mutants, however, is just going theatrical, planning to hit more than double Bill & Ted’s booking: over 2,400 locations.

That puts the Disney superhero film on track for around $7-10M for the weekend, THR’s analysts say—though since nobody truly knows what audience turnout will look like (and most theaters are still limited in capacity due to social distancing), it’s still a pretty heavily hedged guess. Disney isn't saying what it expects New Mutants to collect in terms of the film's North American debut. Box office analysts, however, are eyeing a weekend launch in the $7 million to $10 million range.

However, neither genre film will match the numbers done by Chinese blockbuster The Eight Hundred, which looks to add to its $160M+ total over the next weekend.

Next, fans may have seen the behind-the-scenes trailer for the upcoming Witcher documentary from Netflix focused on the streaming series, but they haven’t seen it from one very particular point of view. That’s because Jaskier, Geralt of Rivea’s roguish comic relief bard and otherwise pestery musical accompanist,  has released a trailer of his own for the doc...focused on himself.

Complete with old-school trailer voice and plenty of puns, Jaskier’s trailer for Making The Witcher might be better than the original.

Take a look:

Putting the “lute” in “absolute talent” is a line so great it warrants picking up the instrument. The streamer’s adaptation of the Andrzej Sapkowski franchise (helmed by showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and starring Henry Cavill) is already on the way to a second season, so fans will have plenty to dig into soon.

Making The Witcher does not yet have a release date.

Finally, with The New Mutants finally dropping this weekend, it's time for filmmaker Josh Boone to look to the future. He's already helping out with the Stephen King adaptation The Stand at CBS All Access, but what about something a little more in the comic vein? What about Marvel's Power Pack?

Speaking with Screenrant, Boone indicated that the comic featuring Alex, Julie, Jack, and Katie Power would be a dream project of his to tackle. He did teen mutants, so kid superheroes should be the next logical step. “I think like a kids' Marvel movie would be awesome, with the aliens coming and all the dueling alien races, giving them their powers and all that," said Boone." That would be so much fun.”

Where better to start than the Power Pack? "Really, my favorite thing that I read every issue of to my daughter when she was growing up was [Power Pack]. I do love Power Pack.” Maybe this is influenced by Kevin Feige noting that Power Pack plans were in the works back in 2018?

Would you want a Power Pack movie?