Marvel Entertainment

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      In Australia, Hollywood Stars Have Found an Escape From the Virus. Who’s Jealous?

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyIn Australia, Hollywood Stars Have Found an Escape From the Virus. Who’s Jealous?Dozens of international film productions have been lured to the country, where cases of the coronavirus are few. In turn, actors have found almost paradise.Chris Hemsworth is filming “Thor: Love and Thunder” in Australia.Credit…Getty Images for The Critics Choice AssociationMarch 10, 2021Updated 4:52 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — In the photo posted to Instagram, the actors Chris Hemsworth, Idris Elba and Matt Damon, all wearing 1980s-style sweats, embrace. They are maskless. Touching. Happy, even. The caption reads: “A little 80s themed party never did any harm!”Their fans, indignant, peppered the post with comments. What of the pandemic? Social distancing? Masks? We are still, after all, suffering through a pandemic that has all but crippled the travel industry and blocked most people from casually taking off for vacation in paradise.But the Hollywood brigade was in Australia, a country that has effectively stamped out the coronavirus, allowing officials to ease restrictions for most gatherings, including parties (with dancing and finger food). As a result of the near-absence of the virus, plus generous subsidies from the Australian government, the country’s film industry has been humming along at an enviable pace for months compared to other locales.Australia has managed to lure several Hollywood directors and actors to continue film production. In effect, many celebrities, including Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa McCarthy, have found freedom from the pandemic there.As one person wrote on Mr. Hemsworth’s Instagram post: “Before you comment, remember that not everyone lives in America.”Though the quickened pace of vaccinations in the United States has raised hope of returning to some semblance of normalcy by the summer, the country still leads the world in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths. Movie theaters reopened only last week in New York City. Some fans are cautiously creeping back, while others are still wary of contracting the virus.But thousands of miles away, many stars who appear on the big screens can be seen frolicking, or filming, on location in Australia. (Mr. Hemsworth is himself a permanent fixture — he moved back to Australia in 2017 after several years of living in Los Angeles.) In the United States, where hundreds are still dying every day, some fans have looked on with envy.“These Hollywood stars have been transported to another world where the problems of this world aren’t,” said Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University in New York. He added that the temporary exodus from the United States revealed a further crumbling of the myth that Hollywood was the endgame for celebrities.Village Roadshow Studios in Gold Coast, Australia.Credit…Bradley Kanaris/Getty ImagesAustralia has become the “hip place” where “fabulous people want to go,” Professor Thompson said. “When you’re trying to be a star, you’ve got to go out to the West Coast to make your bones.” When you become “a really big star,” you buy property somewhere exotic, like Australia, he added.“It definitely feels like a time machine,” Ms. Portman, calling in from Sydney, told the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in December. “It’s so different, all the animals are different, all the trees are different, I mean even the birds, like, there’s like multicolored parrots flying around like pigeons,” she added. “It’s wild.”A spokeswoman said the government had helped 22 international productions inject hundreds of millions into the local economy. Paul Fletcher, the federal minister for communications, said, “There’s no doubt it’s a very significant spike on previous levels of activity.”But even as celebrities preen and pose on social media, some Australians grumble that the country’s strategy for stamping out the virus has left tens of thousands of citizens stranded overseas. Several tennis players and 2021 Australian Open staff were allowed into the country for the tournament. And now, they say, Hollywood’s rich and famous are turning up during the pandemic, angering critics who see a clear bending of the rules for those with money and power.“Everyone knows there’s a separate set of rules, it seems, for everyone that’s a celebrity or has money,” said Daniel Tusia, an Australian who was stuck overseas with his family for several months last year. “There are still plenty of people who haven’t been able to get home, who don’t fall into that category, who are still stranded,” he added.In an emailed statement, the Australian Border Force said that travel exemptions for film and television productions were “considered where there is evidence of the economic benefit the production will bring to Australia and support from the relevant state authority.”A year ago, Tom Hanks, Hollywood’s everyman, made all-too-real the threat of the pandemic when he and his wife, Rita Wilson, tested positive for the coronavirus in Queensland, Australia, while he was filming an unnamed Elvis biopic. Their illness made personal a threat whose seriousness was only beginning to become crystallized at the time.The actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles last year. They tested positive for the coronavirus in Queensland, Australia, about a month later.Credit…Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut by May, Australia appeared to be on track to quashing the first wave of the virus, and the soap opera “Neighbors” became one of the world’s first scripted TV series to resume production. The federal government has committed more than $400 million to international productions, which, together with existing subsidies, provides film and television producers with a rebate of up to 30 percent to shoot in the country.More than 20 international productions, including “Thor: Love and Thunder,” a Marvel film starring Mr. Hemsworth, Mr. Damon, Ms. Portman, Taika Waititi, Tessa Thompson and Mr. Bale; “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” a fantasy romance starring Mr. Elba and Tilda Swinton; and “Joe Exotic,” a spinoff of the podcast made following the popular Netflix series “Tiger King,” starring the “Saturday Night Live” actress Kate McKinnon as the big-cat enthusiast Carole Baskin, are all either in production or set to be filmed in the coming year.Ron Howard is directing “Thirteen Lives,” a dramatization of the 2018 Thai rescue of a soccer team from a cave, in Queensland (the coast of Australia makes a good stand-in for the tropics). And later this year, Julia Roberts and George Clooney are set to arrive in the same state to shoot “Ticket to Paradise,” a romantic comedy.Though a number of American stars have landed in the country for temporary work, some like Ms. McCarthy, originally in Australia to work on “Nine Perfect Strangers,” have decided to stay on to shoot other projects, said those in the industry. “Oh, the birds!” she gushed in a YouTube video. “I love that I’ve seen a spider the size of my head.”Others, like Zac Efron, appear to have settled here permanently.Zac Efron has been spotted all over Australia.Credit…Lucy Nicholson/ReutersHis Instagram is flush with Australiana: Here he is in a hammock, in the red-earth desert, appearing to participate in an Indigenous ceremony or wearing the Australian cowboy hat, an Akubra. Last year, Mr. Efron even got what an Adelaide hairdresser described as a “mullet,” a much-maligned hairstyle popular in Australia.“Home sweet home,” he captioned one image of himself in front of a camper worth more than $100,000.Chances are the stars will keep showing up. They’ve been spotted camping under the stars, heading out to dinner sans masks, and partying (yes, like it’s 1989). Mr. Damon said in January that Australia was definitely a “lucky country.”But locals in Byron Bay — the seaside town that in recent years has been transformed from hippie to glittering — have complained that the influx of stars in the past year has irreparably changed the town.“The actors and the famous people are the tip of the iceberg,” said James McMillan, a local artist and the director of the Byron Bay Surf Festival. He added that the large cohort of production crew member from Melbourne and Sydney was pricing locals out of real estate.“It’s definitely changed more than I’ve ever seen it change in the past 12 months,” Mr. McMillan, who has lived in Byron Bay for two decades, added. “People have got stars in their eyes.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      ‘WandaVision’ Fills In Gaps in Marvel History

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘WandaVision’ Fills In Gaps in Marvel HistoryThis week, the series drew from many other Marvel shows, movies and comics. Here’s a breakdown of some of the key references.Elizabeth Olsen, left, and Kathryn Hahn in “WandaVision.”Credit…Disney+Feb. 26, 2021, 5:52 p.m. ETGrief and personal loss fill in gaps in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Friday’s episode of “WandaVision,” the eighth of the season and, at 48 minutes long, the longest to date. Titled “Previously On,” it is the installment that most clearly ties the show’s events to other Marvel movies and TV shows, like “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”At the same time, it is an origin story for the disorienting sitcom world that much of “WandaVision” has inhabited. Through a series of extended flashbacks, the tortured superheroine Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) relives the traumatizing events that led her to transform the contemporary New Jersey suburb of Westview into the Hex, a TV-addled neighborhood that she has surrounded with a mysterious energy dome and cut off from the outside world.More often than not, Wanda’s flashbacks suggest that she is consistently motivated by the death of her loved ones, especially the loss of her parents, Iryna and Olek Maximoff (Ilana Kohanchi and Daniyar) and her brother, Pietro (Evan Peters). “Previously On” also hints at what motivates Wanda’s witchy rival, Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), whose antagonistic behavior in “WandaVision” contrasts with her cryptic but benign personality from earlier Marvel comics.Here are some of the key comic book and movie references in this week’s “WandaVision” episode. Major spoilers follow.Agatha Harkness’s Salem Witch TrialsThe episode begins by flashing back to Salem, Mass., in 1693, when Agatha was confronted and almost burned at the stake by a coven of witches. Evanora (Kate Forbes), the group’s leader and Agatha’s mother, accuses Hahn’s villainess of betraying her fellow spellcasters. This flashback parallels the beginning of Vision and the Scarlet Witch No. 3, when the aggrieved members of Salem’s Seven, Agatha’s coven, successfully burn her alive. (She had previously revealed to the Fantastic Four the location of New Salem, a secretive witch community, in Fantastic Four Annual No. 14.)Beyond that association, Agatha Harkness is otherwise distinct from how she’s depicted in the comics: She casts a spell on and destroys her mother and her fellow witches, a jarring change from the comics’ general narrative that also immediately announces this week’s focus on revisionist history.Wanda’s Parents and the Unexploded BombWanda first revisits the death of her parents, Iryna and Olek, which happens when the American military destroys their Sokovia hometown, Novi Grad, with bombs manufactured by Stark Industries. Wanda’s parents were first mentioned in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” and in that movie she and her brother, Pietro (played in that movie by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), blame the industrialist turned superhero Tony “Iron Man” Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) for their parents’ death, which leads them to ally with the megalomaniacal robot Ultron (James Spader).Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”Credit…Jay Maidment/Walt Disney Studios Motion PicturesWanda also relives another moment that is mentioned, but not shown, in “Avengers: Age of Ultron”: During the bombing of Novi Grad, she and her brother were pinned under rubble for two days, waiting for one of Stark’s bombs to detonate. In “Previously On,” we learn that the bomb never exploded because Wanda defused it with her “chaos magic” powers. This unexploded bomb resembles the drone missile that was sent into the Hex by the superhero-regulating government agency S.W.O.R.D. (or, Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Department) in “On a Very Special Episode …,” the fifth episode of “WandaVision.”HYDRA, the Mind Stone and Loki’s ScepterAfter revisiting her childhood Novi Grad home, Wanda remembers when she, as an adult, volunteered to be a test subject for deadly experiments that were conducted by HYDRA, a Nazi-like terrorist organization that served as the main villains in most of Marvel’s recent movies as well as the “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” TV series.Wanda recalls and expands on the post-credits scene from “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” when she and Pietro were imprisoned by the HYDRA leader, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. (Strucker’s name might ring a bell with “WandaVision” fans: There’s an ad for Strücker brand wristwatches in the show’s second episode.)In the comic book tie-in “Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude — This Scepter’d Isle,” Strucker and his men explain how, just before the “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” post-credits scene, they gave the Maximoff twins superpowers using a magical scepter that they swiped from the Norse trickster god Loki (played in the films by Tom Hiddleston).Loki’s staff also connects Wanda with her android husband, the Vision (Paul Bettany), since the scepter’s reality-altering powers come from the same Mind Stone that Ultron used to give life to the Vision in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” This week, Agatha suggests that the Mind Stone significantly “amplified” Wanda’s psychic powers, which would have “otherwise died on the vine.”The Snap: S.W.O.R.D. HeadquartersWhen Wanda remembers retrieving the Vision’s body from S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, TV news tickers in the lobby announce “families reunite” and “[celebrations] for the returned.” This alludes to a cataclysmic event from “Avengers: Infinity War” known as “The Snap.” That was when the philosophically inclined alien warlord Thanos (Josh Brolin) halved the world’s population simply by donning his all-powerful Infinity Gauntlet and snapping his fingers.This means Wanda took the Vision’s body some time after “Avengers: Endgame,” which was when Wanda and her teammates undid the Snap’s effects.Paul Bettany as the Vision in “Avengers: Infinity War.”Credit…Marvel/DisneyThe Vision’s Vibranium BodyDuring Wanda’s visit to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, the S.W.O.R.D. director, Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg), explains that the Vision’s body must be destroyed because he is “one of the most sophisticated sentient weapons ever made.” That’s because the Vision’s body is made of Vibranium, an alien element that crash-landed in the African nation Wakanda (the main setting of “Black Panther”) during a meteor shower and was subsequently developed into an indestructible metal — it is used in some of the Marvel world’s most sophisticated and highly sought after technology and weaponry, including Captain America’s shield. Ultron created the Vision’s body in “Avengers: Age of Ultron” using Vibranium stolen by the deranged and questionably accented South African arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis).The Snap: LagosEagle-eyed viewers will also note that Thanos’s fateful snap is subtly referenced twice this week. The first time is on a Westview mural advertising something called “Snap,” which can be seen briefly after Wanda uses her superpowers to transform the town into a sitcom fantasy. That same mural also mentions the Nigerian city Lagos, a reference to a scene from “Captain America: Civil War” when Wanda accidentally destroyed a building full of Wakandan civilians while trying to disarm a bomb.The Vision’s New LookThe real Vision comes back to life during a mid-credits scene this week, but he doesn’t look the way he used to. He was destroyed twice in “Avengers: Infinity War”: first by Wanda, who was trying to stop Thanos from taking the Vision’s Mind Stone, and then by Thanos, who later used the Infinity Gauntlet to travel back in time and steal the stone.Outside of Westview, Hayward reanimates Vision’s body using the chaos magic that rubbed off on the drone missile back in Episode 5. Comics fans might recognize the Vision’s new off-white costume from West Coast Avengers No. 45, when an international team of spies deleted the android’s old personality and redesigned him after he, under the influence of the evil supercomputer I.S.A.A.C., tried to take over the world.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Television

      Managing Movie Superheroes Is About to Get a Lot More Complicated

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesDC Films, led by Walter Hamada, plans to release movies featuring DC Comics heroes like Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman at a much faster pace.  Credit…Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesSkip to contentSkip to site indexManaging Movie Superheroes Is About to Get a Lot More ComplicatedWalter Hamada, who runs DC Films, is overseeing a dizzying number of projects, part of a swarm of comics-based stories coming from Hollywood.DC Films, led by Walter Hamada, plans to release movies featuring DC Comics heroes like Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman at a much faster pace.  Credit…Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyDec. 27, 2020, 5:05 p.m. ETLOS ANGELES — Walter Hamada is not a typical superhero wrangler.He doesn’t have a booming, fanboy-in-chief personality. His modest home office, at least as it appears on Zoom, is light on the usual cape-and-cowl collectibles. Hollywood was not even his first calling: He set out to be a mechanical engineer.As the president of DC Films, however, Mr. Hamada, 52, manages the movie careers of Wonder Woman, Batman, Cyborg, the Flash, Superman and every other DC Comics superhero. And the new course he has charted for them is dizzying.The most expensive DC movies (up to four a year, starting in 2022) are designed for release in theaters, Mr. Hamada said. Additional superhero films (two annually is the goal, perhaps focused on riskier characters like Batgirl and Static Shock) will arrive exclusively on HBO Max, the fledgling streaming service owned by WarnerMedia.In addition, DC Films, which is part of Warner Bros., will work with filmmakers to develop movie offshoots — TV series that will run on HBO Max and interconnect with their big-screen endeavors.“With every movie that we’re looking at now, we are thinking, ‘What’s the potential Max spinoff?’” Mr. Hamada said.If you thought there was a glut of superheroes before, just wait.To make all the story lines work, DC Films will introduce movie audiences to a comics concept known as the multiverse: parallel worlds where different versions of the same character exist simultaneously. Coming up, for instance, Warner Bros. will have two different film sagas involving Batman — played by two different actors — running at the same time.The complicated plan involves a sharp increase in production. Last year, Warner Bros. made two live-action superhero movies, “Joker” and “Shazam!” In 2018, there was only “Aquaman.” All three were smash hits, underscoring the financial opportunity of making more.For various reasons, including creative misfires and management turnover at DC Films (Mr. Hamada took over in 2018), Warner Bros. has badly trailed Disney-owned Marvel at the box office. Over the last decade, Warner Bros. has generated $8 billion in worldwide superhero ticket sales, including $36 million from “Wonder Woman 1984” over the weekend; Marvel has taken in $20.6 billion.Gal Gadot and Chris Pine in “Wonder Woman 1984,” which arrived to $16.7 million in North American ticket sales over the weekend, the best result for any movie since the pandemic started.Credit…Warner BrosSuffice it to say, Warner Bros., which invented the big-budget superhero movie in 1978 with “Superman,” has been under pressure to get its act together.Disney has succeeded in part because its divisions collaborate in a way that siloed Warner Bros. never has. But that is changing. AT&T mandated greater cross-company synergy when it took over WarnerMedia in 2018.“In the past, we were so secretive,” Mr. Hamada said. “It was shocking to me, for example, how few people at the company were actually allowed to read scripts for the movies we are making.”More than ever, studios are leaning on pre-established characters and brands — especially if their corporate parents are building streaming services. HBO Max has 12.6 million subscriber activations. Netflix has 195 million. How do you delight Wall Street and quickly close the gap? You start by putting your superheroes to work.This month, Disney announced 100 new movies and shows for the next few years, most of them headed directly to its Disney+ streaming service, which has 87 million subscribers. Marvel is chipping in 11 films and 11 television shows, including “WandaVision,” which arrives on Jan. 15 and finds Elizabeth Olsen reprising her Scarlet Witch role from the “Avengers” franchise.Warner Bros. has at least as many comics-based movies in various stages of gestation, including a “Suicide Squad” sequel; “The Batman,” in which Robert Pattinson (“Twilight”) plays the Caped Crusader; and “Black Adam,” starring Dwayne Johnson as the villainous title character.Television spinoffs from “The Batman” and “The Suicide Squad” are headed to HBO Max. WarnerMedia’s traditional television division has roughly 25 additional live-action and animated superhero shows, including “Superman & Lois,” which arrives on the CW network in February.Robert Pattinson in “The Batman,” which is scheduled for release in theaters in 2022.Credit…Warner Bros. Entertainment, via Associated PressSony Pictures Entertainment has its own superhero slate, with at least two more “Spider-Man” movies in the works; “Morbius,” starring Jared Leto as a pseudo-vampire; and a sequel to “Venom,” which cost $100 million to make in 2018 and collected $856 million worldwide. Sony also has a suite of superhero TV shows headed for Amazon Prime Video.And don’t forget Valiant Entertainment, which is turning comics properties such as “Harbinger,” about superpowered teenagers, into movies with partners like Paramount Pictures.Superheroes have long been Hollywood’s most reliable moneymakers, especially when sales of related merchandise are included. (Wonder Woman tiara for cats, on sale for $59.50.) But how much speeding spandex and computer-generated visual effects can audiences take?More than you think, said David A. Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research, a film consultancy. “If the stories are well written and the production values are strong,” he said, “then there will be little sign of fatigue.”Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Warner Bros. involves the recent prioritization of HBO Max. “The risk is, will watching these movies first on television degrade the entertainment experience, and later the value,” Mr. Gross said. “For an individual movie, there is no more profitable business model than a successful theatrical release — creating the biggest pop culture event possible. It’s the locomotive that pulls the entire train: merchandise, theme park licensing, other income.”On Friday, Warner Bros. released “Wonder Woman 1984” in North America, where it collected $16.7 million. Citing the coronavirus pandemic (only 39 percent of cinemas in the United States are open), the studio simultaneously distributed the film in theaters and on HBO Max. Warner Bros. will release its entire 2021 slate in the same hybrid fashion.WarnerMedia provided only vague information about the sequel’s performance on HBO Max, saying in a news release that “millions” of subscribers watched it on Friday. Andy Forssell, WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer general manager, said the movie “exceeded our expectations across all of our key viewing and subscriber metrics.”So far, “Wonder Woman 1984” has collected $85 million worldwide, with $68.3 million coming from cinemas overseas, where HBO Max does not yet exist. The film, starring Gal Gadot and directed by Patty Jenkins, cost at least $200 million to make and an estimated $100 million to market worldwide. It received much weaker reviews than its series predecessor.Toby Emmerich, president of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, said on Sunday that he had “fast-tracked” a third Wonder Woman movie. “Our real life Wonder Women — Gal and Patty — will return to conclude the long-planned theatrical trilogy,” Mr. Emmerich said.Mr. Hamada rose to power through New Line, a Warner Bros. division that mostly makes midbudget horror films and comedies. Among other achievements, he worked with the filmmaker James Wan and others to build “The Conjuring” (2013) into a six-film “world” with $1.8 billion in global ticket sales. (“The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” arrives in June.)“A lot of times in studio meetings, executives just repeat buzzwords, and it becomes a joke,” Mr. Wan said. “Walt always brings something constructive, useful and important to the table. He talks to me in a language that I understand.”Mr. Hamada and Jason Momoa, the star of “Aquaman,” which was the lone superhero movie from Warner Bros. in 2018.Credit…Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesWhen Mr. Hamada arrived at DC Films in 2018, the division was in urgent need of stability.Two terrifyingly expensive movies, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016) and “Justice League” (2017), both directed by Zack Snyder, were deemed almost unwatchable by critics. Ben Affleck, who played Batman in the films, wanted to move on, complicating sequel plans. At the same time, filmmakers were developing other DC movies that had nothing to do with the existing story lines — and, in fact, contradicted some of them.Mr. Hamada and Mr. Emmerich had two options: Figure out how to make the various story lines and character incarnations coexist or start over.The answer is the multiverse. Boiled down, it means that some characters (Wonder Woman as portrayed by Ms. Gadot, for instance) will continue their adventures on Earth 1, while new incarnations (Mr. Pattinson as “The Batman”) will populate Earth 2.“The Flash,” a film set for release in theaters in 2022, will link the two universes and feature two Batmans, with Mr. Affleck returning as one and Michael Keaton returning as the other. Mr. Keaton played Batman in 1989 and 1992.To complicate matters further, HBO Max gave Mr. Snyder more than $70 million to recut his “Justice League” and expand it with new footage. Mr. Snyder and Warner Bros. had clashed over his original vision, which the studio deemed overly grim, resulting in reshoots handled by a different director, Joss Whedon. (That didn’t go well, either.) “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” now four hours long, will arrive in segments on HBO Max in March.At least for now, Mr. Snyder is not part of the new DC Films blueprint, with studio executives describing his HBO Max project as a storytelling cul-de-sac — a street that leads nowhere.The multiverse concept has worked on television, but it is a risky strategy for big screens. These movies need to attract the widest audience possible to justify their cost, and too much of a comic nerd sensibility can be a turnoff. New actors can take over a character; James Bond is the best example. But multiple Gothams spinning in theaters?“I don’t think anyone else has ever attempted this,” Mr. Hamada said. “But audiences are sophisticated enough to understand it. If we make good movies, they will go with it.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More