JUN 22 | EDITION #3 - Read Time: 12 minutes

Hello people - hope everyone’s had a great week so far. Oh, me? I’m still job searching, in the midst of helping my fiance put the final touches on our wedding (which is next week) and stress-drinking diet cokes. Moving on.

The Flash fucking tanked. A streamer signed an exclusive contract that’s worth more than LeBron’s Lakers deal. Secret Invasion released. There's a missing submarine that's causing a national crisis. The Zuck accepted Elon's cage match offer. Let’s talk about it.

Highlights:

• The Flash & DCEU discussion

• The great Kick migration

• TUDUM - Netflix event

• Secret Invasion Episode 1

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The Franchise Report

Content updates from our favorite IPs

🌌 From A Galaxy Far, Far Away

There’s not much Star Wars news this week, so here’s George Lucas while filming The Phantom Menace wearing a t-shirt with a negative, hilarious Star Wars review from the New Yorker. Enjoy.

🦸‍♂️ Cape Shit

Marvel

Secret Invasion

Most of the day 1 discourse about Secret Invasion has involved the opening credits, which were generated by AI instead of hiring actual artists. The director Ali Selim said they did this on purpose because he thought AI fit the themes of the show, which I understand. The outrage is overblown, but warranted.

The pilot episode was solid. A shit load of exposition, but I think it was necessary to set the plot with the Skrull invasion. I could also do without the “you’re too old for this” type of dialogue directed at Fury every other sentence, but I’m hoping that was to set the general tone of the show and we’ll move on.

If I had to guess, the ending will probably be a bait-and-switch, but it shocked me and I’m glad they’re seemingly trying to push things a bit. Episode 2 will likely be key for how good this series can be moving forward…looking forward to next week.

Various Marvel News

• Marvel Studios is skipping Hall H at SDCC this year. What was once the mecca of franchise announcements is reduced to ash.

• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has crossed $500M at the box office. Another W.

• Spider-Verse creator Chris Miller shared the behind-the-scenes of THAT cameo. Love how they lit this.

• Two new Spider-Man films got announced by Sony - November 8, 2024 and June 27, 2025 (live-action). Riding the wave lol.

• Marvel Studios have officially claimed the rights to 'The Incredible Hulk’. The film that was once owned by Universal can now be found on Disney+. Unsure if this means we’ll get any Hulk movies in the future.

• Last week I talked about the Stan Lee documentary - and this week we have a thick statement from Neal Kirby, the legendary Jack Kirby’s son. Creative ownership is a massive issue with these comic characters and I appreciate Neal for fighting for his father’s credit.

DC

The Flash

Tom Cruise lied to me.

The Flash was released last week and it’s clear that this is going down as one of the biggest tank jobs of all time. There are a trillion reasons for this (overhype, early screenings, 3 different studio regimes changing concepts, etc.) but at the end of the day…this movie was mid.

They made $61M in their 4-day debut - which is less than competing Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and The Little Mermaid made in just their 3-day debut. You can’t come out and have dozens of high-profile people calling this the best superhero film since TDK and not have it deliver. Critically and financially, a failure.

The story and characters were…fine? It relied too heavily on nostalgia and quips. Ezra did a decent job, but I had no reaction to Keaton’s Bruce. Sasha was solid as Supergirl, but she didn’t get much to do here. The highlight was Barry and his mom, but it was few and far in-between.

The CGI was horrible, and not just in that scene. It looked entirely half-baked and took me completely out of the film. You know it’s bad when your director is trying to say that it was intentional and making up some bullshit BEFORE the movie is even officially released…come on man lol.

You can feel that it was touched by endless executives with no real vision or care for the property. I just did not enjoy my time with this - it felt empty and left me with no desire to ever touch or think about this again.

2.5 stars. Letterbox review here.

Other DC News

• Matt Reeves The Batman universe has a spinoff called The Penguin coming to Max in 2024. The official logo was released and it matches the vibe perfectly.

• The first Batman film under James Gunn’s new DCU, Brave and the Bold will be directed by Andy Muschietti, who just completed The Flash and is known for the latest films in the IT franchise. Not my favorite after seeing his recent work. L.

• Batman: Caped Crusader is an animated project coming to Amazon Prime that skews to an older audience. Matt Reeves, Bruce Timm and J.J. Abrams are listed as creatives behind the project. This is all I ever wanted.

🎥 The Rest

• At the Netflix TUDUM event, we received our first look at the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series, and I’m hesitant. TLA is one of my GOATs and I firmly believe it should stay an animated property. Pair that with the fact that the original show creators dipped during production and started their own Avatar Studios with Paramount…we’ll see.

• Nolan vs Cruise continues. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part 1 will only get 1 week in IMAX theaters, due to Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER controlling the entire IMAX footprint for 3 weeks. I KNOW Tom is mad af.

• We got our first look at ‘Dumb Money’ - the film based on the GameStop Reddit stock chaos. The cast is kind of nutty with Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Anthony Ramos and Seth Rogan…why am I excited for this?

• Linda Hamilton is joining the final season of Stranger Things. She'll fit the show perfectly.

• We’re getting a Director’s Cut of John Wick 4…YESSS.

• The second season of The Bear is releasing today and it’s confirmed that Will Poulter will appear in an episode. YES, CHEF.

• Spielberg, Scorsese and Thomas Anderson teamed up like the Avengers and are having an emergency call with Warner Brothers about the mass leadership layoffs Turner Classic Movies had. Love this.

• We’re getting a Formula 1 film that stars Brad Pitt and Damson Idris directed by Joseph Kosinski. In.

• Happy 7-year anniversary to one of the greatest episodes of TV ever - ‘The Battle of the Bastards’.

• JAWS was released 48 years ago - here’s a thread from All The Right Movies. Some incredible information here. Must read.

The Gaming Industry

What’s new in the world of gaming & esports

The great Kick migration.

Kick has been shitting on Twitch recently and plays the social game perfectly, but this move truly puts them in there with the big boys. Massive streamer xQc has signed a record-breaking $100 MILLION DOLLAR, 2-year non-exclusive deal with Kick Streaming. This is batshit. To put it in perspective, this would be the 12th largest sports contract ever, per year. Here’s his announcement video.

Kick’s most notable separator is the 95/5 creator revenue split and it's hard to argue any creators that make the switch. Twitch keeps fumbling the bag and Kick keeps cleaning it up. I mean, look at this lmao. They claim that they had over 1 million sign-ups since the xQc announcement, which is absolutely JUICED. We might be witnessing a true competitor to Twitch’s throne.

Other News

• Tfue has announced that he’s retiring from content creation. I understand it’s difficult to feel bad for someone who's made millions playing video games, but I feel for a guy that’s depressed and lost himself. Hope he finds his way back to the scene when he’s ready.

• Goodbye to the best boy, a 13-year-old Blue Heeler named Einstein. The stray dog turned industry hero, who did mo-cap for ‘Cain’ in Red Dead Redemption 2, has passed away.

• XDefiant has an Open Session from June 21-23 - it looks like a fun arena shooter that the industry desperately needs.

• Congrats to the NY Subliners who won the 2023 COD League Championship. This is their third time being season champs.

• A Christian streamer (lol) has been accused of attempting to match with children to discuss religion with them. Ultimate weirdo behavior. Weaponizing children for religious content.

• A COD Challengers (minor league of CDL basically) player was caught cheating and was banned live during the LAN championships. Karma.

• Real-life boogie bomb.

Weekly Rant

The DCEU Discussion

The DCEU is officially dead. Bury it.

Something about Man of Steel spoke to me. Zack Snyder and this movie were my gateways into the film world. From normal content consumer to obsessive. From 2013 on, I dove into the film process, cinematography, casting, leaks, rumors, script writing, etc. I was hooked. It’s why I’m doing this today.

Little did I know that I’d be on a long, awful journey - witnessing a studio that relentlessly sabotaged the entire vision that Snyder established. His original world-building for the rest of the Justice League members deteriorated. There was major studio pushback as WB leaders wanted to move towards the tone of the successful MCU - throwing away the mythological, larger-than-life vibe that set them apart.

The director’s cut of Batman V Superman banged IMO, though I know that’s controversial. Wonder Woman was an extremely solid film, but the subsequent films all began to slowly fade.

Justice League happened. Snyder decided to step away from the process due to some tragic events and immense stress, and the studio utilized this time to soft-fire him and completely reshoot the film with Joss Whedon. It was a fucking studio meddled abomination.

Aquaman was released the next year and made a ton of money, but the direction felt off. We started to get a bevy of films that didn’t really connect or tell a cohesive story (Suicide Squad, Shazam, Birds of Prey, etc.) and we could all tell we were witnessing the end of this run.

Luckily the impossible happened. Years later, WB allowed Snyder to restore his original take on the Justice League and helped him release his own cut, the 4-hour Zack Snyder’s Justice League - it was cathartic. The cliffhanger of Darkseid preparing his army and the Knightmare sequence mystery will always haunt me.

Fast forward a couple of years, I found myself sitting in the theater for The Flash - and I felt nothing. Watching the saga end like this felt bizarre. We had a great cast and a great original vision. I cared about the world, the characters, the storytelling and the artistry. I invested my energy in it.

But while watching The Flash, I felt nothing. Nothing. I have no excitement for any remaining ties in the old DCEU. There’s no soul. No vision. That was all taken by a shitty studio with a short vision that was afraid to be different.

Scorsese has almost fulfilled his prophecy, one DCEU film at a time.

Quick Hits

👨‍🍳 Weekly Ranking
This is largely a DCEU edition, so let’s rank the movies before this era is officially over. Man of Steel supremacy. Argue a wall.

💣 Random

• Phil Lord confirmed that Hobie and Pavitr’s handshake was the same one that LeBron and Wade had in Miami. Culture.

• Zuck seemingly accepted Elon’s cage fight offer. Please god.

• Paul Mescal getting yoked for Gladiator 2. It’s over for us, boys.

• The NBA Draft is today and the #1 pick Victor Wembanyama is massive. Look at him holding a fucking baseball lmao.

• The Titanic tourist sub that went missing was controlled by a Logitech gaming controller. How does this even work???

• Akira Kurosawa dripped out. Must see.

• Jennifer Lawrence is appearing on Hot Ones this week - I will be seated.

• Add stunt work to The Oscars. These dudes are psychos.

📹 Video of the Week
This was a really fun video from BizlyChannel. Heavy nostalgia and great breakdowns - highly recommend throwing it on during your next meal.

�� Read of the Week
The End of The DCEU: The Flash Closes a Flawed, Fascinating Era of Comic Book Cinema by Ben Travis at Empire

🖌️ Community Artwork
Love this cover art from Sebastian Fiumara.

📽️ Trailer Recap

• DUMB MONEY | Offical Red Bank Trailer

• Rebel Moon | Behind the Scenes and First Look

• ONE PIECE | Official Teaser Live Action

• Barbie | Kicking off Summer

• Heart of Stone | Official Trailer

• Squid Game: Season 2 | Cast Announcement

• They Cloned Tyrone | Official Trailer

• Outer Banks Season 4 | The Pogues

• Avatar: The Last Airbender | Live Action First Look

• Challengers | Official Trailer

🤝Brand Collaborations

• Fortnite x Nike - Was only a matter of time.

🐦Tweet of The Day
KING TIMMY.

👀 Keep An Eye Out

• Jun 22 | The Bear Season 2

• Jun 22 | Skull Island

• Jun 23 | Asteroid City

• Jun 23 | Past Lives

• Jun 23 | No Hard Feelings

• Jun 28 | Secret Invasion Episode 2

• Jun 29 | The Witcher Season 3 Part 1

• Jun 30 | Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”

Would love to meet some of you and get some feedback for the newsletter. Too long? Too boring? Love it? Feel free to reach out and yell at me.

See you next Thursday!

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