Random Thoughts

Compared to ‘Rebel Moon: Part 1,’ Netflix has really cut down on ads for Zack Snyder’s ‘Part 2’ sequel, which is set to hit the streamer later this month. After the disappointment of the first one, there’s been much less of a push in marketing for the sequel and, also, much less enthusiasm from movie fans.

That hasn’t stopped Snyder in continuing to do interviews. In a recent chat with Empire, Snyder isn’t only talking about ‘Rebel Moon,’ but also revealing that a “Sucker Punch” director’s cut is now top priority for him.

   It never really got finished correctly. Even the [originally released] director’s cut is not really the correct cut. It’s really just an extended version […] I have the footage already shot: they just have to let me put it together. We ask every now and then. We have to ask again. I think there has to be a window when no-one’s got the movie.

For his “Snyder Cut” of “Justice League,” Warner Bros gave Snyder $70 million to shoot and edit additional footage. The filmmaker hopes that will also be the case here — he wants to reshoot Sucker Punch’s final scenes. “I think it’s good [if] I can get those guys, Emily [Browning] and Abby [Cornish] and the crew back in,” he said. “Some reshoots would be amazing.”

Earlier in the fall, Snyder had mentioned that the critically panned “Sucker Punch” deserved its own “Director’s Cut.” In fact, he admitted that he’d already started working on it.

I’m sure there are some of the more hardcore Snyder fans who are dying to see this, but does the world actually need another version of “Sucker Punch”? I just can’t see anything good coming out of it.

The hugely divisive 2011 fantasy-action movie grossed just $89 million worldwide. It starred Emily Browning as Babydoll, a woman sent to a mental institution who starts fantasizing about a heist to escape imprisonment. The fantasy sequences were damn-near unwatchable.

Snyder has said that there was studio interference when he made “Sucker Punch” and that Warner Bros insisted on it being more “commercial.” However, is there actually a good movie hidden in there? I highly doubt it. This is a movie that includes an imaginary brothel where singing and dancing take place. Added to the mix are dragons, aliens, and a World War. It’s as bad as it sounds.

“Sucker Punch” has been celebrating its 20th anniversary by having an assortment of screenings all over the country. There’s a small cult following for this one, but not enough to spur another #ReleaseTheSynderCut phenomenon ala “Justice League.”

EXCLUSIVE: Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry are cooking up two new projects with Netflix.

Deadline can reveal that the pair have two non-fiction projects in production at the streamer. They form part of the overall deal that her and husband, Harry, The Duke of Sussex, signed with the company in 2020 via their Archewell Productions banner.

The first series will see The Duchess, otherwise known as Meghan Markle, celebrate the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining, and friendship.

It will be produced by Sony Pictures Television’s The Intellectual Property Corporation, which is behind series including Hulu’s The D’Amelio Show and A&E’s Leah Remini: Scientology & the Aftermath.

Selena + Chef’s Leah Hariton will serve as showrunner with Michael Steed, who has helmed episodes of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction and Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, directing.

Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex and Chanel Pysnik will exec produce for Archewell Productions alongside Hariton and Aaron Saidman and Eli Holzman for IPC.

It comes after Meghan launched her new business venture American Riviera Orchard.

The second series follows the world of professional polo. Shot primarily at the U.S. Open Polo Championship in Wellington, Florida, at The USPA National Polo Center, the series will explore the world of the sport, which is known primarily for its aesthetic and social scene. It will pull the curtain back on the grit and passion of the sport, capturing players and all it takes to compete at the highest level. Prince Harry has been known as a keen polo player and is often photographed playing internationally.

The series will be produced by Boardwalk Pictures, the production company behind series such as Netflix’s Chef’s Table, Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? and Sex, Love & Goop.

Miloš Balać, who has worked on FX’s hit docuseries Welcome to Wrexham, will serve as showrunner.

Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will exec produce alongside Pysnik for Archewell Productions, with Andrew Fried, Sarina Roma, and Dane Lillegard exec producing for Boardwalk Pictures and Balać and Ian Samplin also exec producing.

Both untitled shows are in early stages of production.

It is the pair’s latest projects at Netflix; the Harry & Meghan docuseries from the couple launched in December 2022 with six episodes. They also made Live To Lead, an interview series featuring the likes of Greta Thunberg and Gloria Steinem, and Harry’s Heart of Invictus documentary series launched last year

Netflix content chief Bela Bajaria recently said that they have a “bunch” of projects in development including a movie and a scripted series.

Bajaria didn’t disclose what any of these projects were but last year the duo, who run Archewell Productions, acquired the screen rights to Carley Fortune’s Meet Me At The Lake novel to turn into a movie. It tells the story of a couple who meet in their thirties, and deals with themes of childhood trauma, including losing a parent in a car crash, mental health challenges and post-natal depression.

All of this comes after Deadline revealed in February that Meghan signed a new podcast deal with Lemonada Media, the company behind Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The move will see her launch a new podcast series and Lemonada will also distribute her previous Spotify series Archetypes to all podcast platforms.

"The first series will see The Duchess, otherwise known as Meghan Markle, celebrate the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining, and friendship."

UltimateMarvel wrote:DC of Sucker Punch is expected from Snyder but it's been so long now that it's best to leave it alone. I think I only watched that movie once and the women are the only thing I remember it.

The timing from Meghan is not great but why are they in the entertainment business to begin with. They are already rich.

Rusty wrote:Need a favour from Netflix users. Since you're all in the US (I'm assuming), can you search your Netflix for the series Longmire?

Reading the latest update in the Heels thread about Netflix licensing it to possible continue it, I remember they did the same thing with Longmire. It got cancelled and Netflix picked it up and gave it two more season.

Unfortunately, at least here in Australia, it only stayed on Netflix for a couple of years after the series concluded, and hasn't been streamed since. Neither on Netflix or any other service.

Just curious if that was just for the non-US licensing, or if that included the US as well?

WyldeMan wrote:

All six seasons of Longmire never left Netflix here and in fact not only is it still available on Netflix but it's on Peacock too. Though I don't know if its available outside of the US, I feel like you've told me before that it isn't.

Rusty wrote:The Heels update just made me think of it, but you're right, I'm sure I've asked about it before because I just realised I own the series on iTunes.

Shit like this is why I've started buying physical media again. I don't trust these streamer pricks. Studios just don't care about licensing outside the US. Unless it's a massive show (GoT, etc), they usually just sell to the best bidder and let them deal with it.

Some of my favourite recent shows have all disappeared from streaming here. Most of them are either iTunes or nothing. Longmire. Strike Back. Fringe. The Shield. All gone.

WyldeMan wrote:I harvested my first bag of the year of homegrown lettuce yesterday and today I planted 14 buckets of potatoes.

Our weather has been utter shit and we even had a freak hail storm on a mostly sunny 51 degree Mid-April day.

I'm so behind on all of my planting because of this constant nonsense in 2024.

In another two weeks or so I'm gonna plant another 15 tater buckets.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Cool! That's a lot of potatoes, isn't it? Weather has been nice all week here, low to high 70's.

I've heard because of the Solar Eclipse, Cicadas are coming out earlier than expected in some parts of the country. I don't know if that's something you need to worry about.

joey con carne wrote:I watched Kung Pao Panda 4 this past weekend. That was a surprisingly good movie.

Hope your tater crops do well this year. I am debating my tomato plants.


Audit is over. Financials have been issued. And now Q1 is closed. Let the good times roll.

joey con carne wrote:Yeye Jack Black is still the voice of Po and surprisingly I did not hate Aquafina doing the voice if Jian.

I started replaying Hard Reset on PC. Good shooter game.

Speaking of taters, I bought a meatloaf and mashed pre-made dinner from Costco and god damn it was it so delicious. I have noticed Americans hate meatloaf. Why is that? It is like eating hamburger with some veggies in it. Just something I observed is all.

WyldeMan wrote:

I haven't seen Akwafina since the firstt time she worked with Jack in Jumanji The Next Level.

I do hate Meatloaf. It's always disgusted me. I also hate vegemite. And Peanut butter.

Soo I think it’s a common trope that modern Americans hate it because it’s THE dinner from the 1950s. When people rebelled for the next 30 years, it was the meal that represented everything people were moving against. As a food, though, meatloaf is delicious when it’s done right. I literally made one tonight and I’m 31.

joey con carne wrote:Seriously! what is up with the meatloaf hate?

I googled it and reddit user Googlyeyes183 says

Soo I think it’s a common trope that modern Americans hate it because it’s THE dinner from the 1950s. When people rebelled for the next 30 years, it was the meal that represented everything people were moving against. As a food, though, meatloaf is delicious when it’s done right. I literally made one tonight and I’m 31.

Interesting take. So why do you hate it, Wylde? What makes it disgusting? To me, it's basically eating a giant beef meatball and I fucking love meatballs.

I may have had Vegemite before when I was little and just didn't know it. I've seen photos and videos of vegemite consumption and I can almost swear I've had it based on what it looks like. I did like what I am thinking of so now I need to find Vegemite and have some.

joey con carne wrote:Seriously! what is up with the meatloaf hate?

I googled it and reddit user Googlyeyes183 says

Soo I think it’s a common trope that modern Americans hate it because it’s THE dinner from the 1950s. When people rebelled for the next 30 years, it was the meal that represented everything people were moving against. As a food, though, meatloaf is delicious when it’s done right. I literally made one tonight and I’m 31.

Interesting take. So why do you hate it, Wylde? What makes it disgusting? To me, it's basically eating a giant beef meatball and I fucking love meatballs.

I may have had Vegemite before when I was little and just didn't know it. I've seen photos and videos of vegemite consumption and I can almost swear I've had it based on what it looks like. I did like what I am thinking of so now I need to find Vegemite and have some.

Rusty wrote:Where most people get it wrong with Vegemite is how they eat it. It's a spread, not a dip. I've seen people (Americans) try it for the first time and they just eat it straight off a spoon. Don't do that.

Whether you're spreading it on bread or some kind of cracker, ensure you have at minimum 50/50 butter to Vegemite ratio. You can have more butter than Vegemite, but never have more Vegemite than butter. It's a lesson learned over years of experience

joey con carne wrote:Are the turbonerds at blu-ray dot com freaking out about this news?

Studio mergers are becoming the new face of Hollywood. In 2022, Warner Bros. merged with Discovery; three years before that, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox in 2019, and now Sony is reportedly in a joint bid with Apollo Global Management to buy Paramount.

According to the reports, Sony and Apollo haven’t officially submitted a bid to acquire Paramount, but Tony Vinciquerra, the studio’s chief executive, is actively in conversations with Apollo investors to offer cash for shares of the studio. This means Sony would be “in effect taking the company private through a joint venture.”

If Sony goes through with the acquisition of Paramount, there’s a good chance this could change the landscape of movies as we know it. Sony would probably take over Paramount’s operations and rebrand the studio as a sublabel underneath its own media umbrella. This would also mean Paramount’s umbrella would fold into Sony, with the studio adopting networks like Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, CBS, and Paramount+.

If Sony moves forward and acquires Paramount+, this will be an interesting change as Sony is currently the only big entertainment studio without a streaming service. The acquisition of Paramount’s successful IPs, such as Top Gun, Yellowstone, Spongebob Squarepants, and the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, likely looks very enticing to Sony Picture Studios.

Interestingly, the report that Sony is looking to take over Paramount comes not long after Paramount signed a deal to merge with Skydance Media. Skydance is the production company behind major big-budget blockbuster features like Top Gun: Maverick, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. If Sony and Apollo move forward with their plans, Sony will likely acquire Skydance Media as well.

But Sony isn’t the only company eyeing Paramount Pictures. Last year, reports surfaced describing how Warner Bros. Discovery was looking to suck Paramount up into its media empire. Whether this is still something Warner Bros. Discovery is still considering is unknown as no further reports have been disclosed since then.

No matter what happens, Paramount’s popularity is good news for day traders who own shares of the company’s stock. After Sony’s interest in Paramount was announced, Paramount shares soared 12 percent.

Whether or not Sony takes over Paramount, or if Warner Bros. Discovery or any other studio does instead, there is still a clear trend of studio mergers in Hollywood. This trend is indicative of a broader trend toward consolidation within the entertainment industry, which will likely change the movie landscape going forward. Fewer major players mean more centralized control over content creation, distribution, and IPs, which could lead to a more homogenized entertainment landscape, with fewer independent voices and a smaller pool of diverse content.

Additionally, mergers and acquisitions, like the possible Sony-Paramount merger, often result in corporate restructuring and management changes, which could impact filmmakers, creatives, and employees working within the acquired studios. Shifts in leadership, priorities, and company culture may influence the types of projects greenlit and the creative freedom granted to artists.

We’ll have to wait and see exactly how this Sony-Paramount merger will affect the movie landscape in the future.

Source: GFR

WyldeMan wrote:Some dude lit himself on fire on live tv in protest outside of Trump's trial in NYC....

joey con carne wrote:Are the turbonerds at blu-ray dot com freaking out about this news?

Rusty wrote:I pretty much only stick the the Australia sub-forum over there - and the NBA thread - but it's been doom & gloom for Aussies lately. A lot of bigger chains have stopped selling physical media, whilst some just stuck to DVD's as Blu-Ray never really took off here.

I'm sure I've ranted about it on here before, but we get the short end of the stick. There's a thread over there that lists all the films that get a Blu-Ray release in US and Europe, whilst Australia only gets DVD.

Having Amazon Prime has never been a better investment for Blu's. The free expedited international shipping is worth it alone. I just got the entire Friday Night Lights Blu boxset from Ammy UK, to my door in under a week, for $80.

joey con carne wrote:

Amarzon for blu’s? But what about slips? Omg you might not get slips or might get a cracked case through the post.

You’re playing with fire, man.

Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets’ Becomes First Album to Get One Billion Streams on Spotify in a Single Week

Spotify announced Wednesday that Taylor Swift‘s “The Tortured Poets Department” has become the first album in the app’s history to pick up a billion streams in a single week. And it did that with still a couple of days left to go in the seven-day period in question.

The previous high-water mark for most album streams in a week belonged to Swift’s last all-new release, “Midnights,” in October 2022. Spotify did not release a specific figure when it announced at the time that “Midnights” had broken the record, but observers adding the numbers through publicly available Spotify data at the time estimated the figure to be in the 700,000s.

That “Tortured Poets” is setting new Spotify records five days into its run is not a surprise. Previously, the DSP had announced that the album had surpassed 300 million streams in just its first day out.

Overall sales-and-streaming figures won’t become official till the chart week wraps up at the close of day Thursday and Luminate reports results on Sunday. But projections are that the new album will easily surpass 2 million in album-equivalent units, which would be the highest numbers by far for any album since Adele released “25” nine years ago.

Luminate and Billboard reported that “The Tortured Poets Department” had already become the bestselling vinyl release in a single week in the modern era by selling 700,000 LP copies in its first three days of release, with four days left to go in the week. That number is the highest since accurate records for sales began to be collected by SoundScan in 1991.

As far as Spotify alone goes, the service has reported several record-breaking feats for Swift since the album came out, prior to Wednesday’s billion news.

Several single-day records were announced by Spotify after the album’s first day in circulation. The single “Fortnight,” which features Post Malone, became the most-streamed song in a single day in Spotify history on its first day of release. “Tortured Poets” similarly set a record at that time for the service’s most-streamed album in one day, and Swift became the artist accruing the most streams in a day for Spotify.

WyldeMan wrote:I watched Scargiver Part II because I wanted to punish myself by seeing if Snyder could make an even shittier film the second time around and he did!!! 

The endless slo-mo is INSANE! There's even a scene featuring all band of warriors and villagers harvesting grain in slo-mo for over five minutes in the opening half hour!!! It was hilariously mental. 

Every scene was somehow worse than the one before it and by the end I truly felt dumber having sat through it. 

Thank you Zack Snyder for making a funny sci-fi spoof ala Space Balls that will keep myself and the internet laughing for a very very long time.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Where did she find the time to do another album? I thought she was busy going all over the world on her Eras Tour?

I just finished watching it. I can't believe he slo-moed the harvesting. What was even the point of that?

There were some cool shots in the battle at the end but that's all the positives I can think of.

The story with the princess didn't go anywhere and we didn't get any answers on what she is or what makes her special.

I thought this movie was going to be the end but they left it open for a third one. Since they released them not too far apart I assumed it was a complete story.

WyldeMan wrote:My current working theory is that T-Swift funded her very own Cadmus Labs with her billions of dollars. There are almost definitely multiple Taylor's running around simultaneously conquering the world but nobody knows because one of those clones possibly the same one that wrote Argylle also handles the wet work to silence any whistleblowers. Which is also how one of them is currently on her Eras Tour. Clones man. Clones. Dozens and Dozens of Taylors... 

WyldeMan wrote:Snyder will slo-mo absolutely anything! He's somehow more boring than Terrence Malick's long lingering shots of wheat and or grass blowing in the wind for ten minutes at a time.

Ever since the first movie, I kept thinking they'd reveal that because Snyder is a totally unoriginal Star Wars hack that Sam would eventually be revealed to be Princess Issa with a memory block. Which is why the ridiculously named robot Jimmy is always watching over her. They'll likely spend one or two more Netflix movies eventually getting to that exact reveal years from now.