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WIRE Buzz: Legends of Tomorrow returns with new trailer; Marvel ends TV contracts; more
The CW's Legends of Tomorrow spoofs Star Trek (and several other famous TV formats) in our first look at the meta second half of the Arrowverse show's fifth season. Our heroes will continue to contend with the Loom of Fate, a mythical device that can literally rewrite all of reality.
The back half of the season finds the C-list heroes of the DC universe still zipping around time and space as they try to mop up the most evil baddies in all of history who have escape from Hell.
Take a look at the extended trailer below:
Legends of Tomorrow returns tonight at 9 p.m. EST.
Season 5's second half was delayed last month amid the coronavirus pandemic. Titlted "Zari, Not Zari," the episode was written by Morgan Faust & Tyron Carter and directed by Kevin Mock.
The current pandemic has prompted Marvel to end its overall television deals with showrunners Steven Lightfoot (The Punisher) and Paul Zbyszewski (Helstrom), writes The Hollywood Reporter.
With little to no productions taking place amid the health crisis, studios are laying off or furloughing employees in an effort to save budgets that continue to shrink. While Lightfoot and Zbyszewski had contracts with Marvel, the company is able to invoke "force majeure," a fancy legal term that means a party can breach a binding agreement if said agreement is hindered by an unforeseen event.
A deadly pathogen that's brought the planet to its knees counts as such.
Lightfoot could have been working on more projects with Marvel, but his last official involvement with the studio's television branch was on Punisher, which was canceled last year (along with all the other Marvel Netflix series) after running for two seasons.
Zbyszewski, on the other hand, is still working on Helstrom, a Hulu show about a pair of siblings — Daimon and Ana Helstrom (Tom Austen and Sydney Lemmon) — who are the children of a famous serial killer. Using their past trauma as a force for good, the duo tracks down evil beings. Zbyszewski, who also wrote and produced for ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., will reportedly guide the show (which wrapped physical production before the pandemic hit) through post-production.
Helstrom was simultaneously picked up with a Ghost Rider show starring Gabriel Luna, but that project was scrapped as Marvel began to set its sights on MCU-related TV programming. Jeph Loeb abdicated his role as head of television, as Kevin Feige was promoted to Chief Creative Officer.
Aside from holdovers like Helstrom, MODOK, and Hit Monkey, all small screen Marvel entertainment will now tie into the big budget movies.
Scheduled to arrive in August (although it'll probably be pushed since its European production didn't have time to finish before Covid-19), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier kicks off a slew of MCU originals on Disney+ such as WandaVision, Loki, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, and What If...?.
As the first American director to helm an Eon-produced James Bond movie, Cary Fukunaga has quite the chip on his shoulder. You'd think he wouldn't want to make too many waves in the long-running franchise, but you'd be wrong. Before the story for No Time to Die was formalized, the filmmaker had a pretty bonkers idea, which he recently relayed to Interview Magazine.
"I swear to god, I had an idea that this movie could all be taking place inside the villain’s lair from the last film," he said. "There’s this scene where a needle goes into James Bond’s head, which is supposed to make him forget everything, and then he miraculously escapes by a watch bomb. And then he and Léa blow up the place, and go on to save the day. I was like, 'What if everything up until the end of act two is all inside his head?'"
Fukunaga refers to the scene in Spectre where 007 (Daniel Craig) is tortured by iconic Bond baddie Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz).
The sequence (seen above) came under fire for being a little too fantastical since James should have died — or become catatonic at the very least — from tiny needles drilling into his skull. It felt a little out of place for the modern franchise, which opts for more realism when compared to previous installments. Nevertheless, the idea of Bond entering a hallucinatory state as a result of his torture is actually kind of genius and would've gone a long way in subverting fan expectations. It also shows that Fukunaga was feeling the vestiges of his mind-bending Maniac miniseries for Netflix.
Delayed by the coronavirus, No Time to Die arrives in theaters Wednesday, Nov. 25.
The movie marks Daniel Craig's final time playing Bond.
