Nervously Excited for these Upcoming Movies

The movies that you get your expectations up for are the ones most likely to let you down. The following films I await with bated breath.

Community

From season 2 of the show Community had a goal of "6 seasons and a movie." Eight years after the show ended, a movie is finally in production. Should it be though?

A running plotline in the show was that Annie (Alison Brie) and Jeff (Joel McHale) had romantic feelings, but never actually got together because Jeff considered Annie too young. Well Brie is now 40 years old, so surely they're not going to claim Annie is too young anymore. But also, it would be kind of sad if Annie has been celibately holding a torch for Jeff for all these years. But what are they going to do, not address their romance?

In the show's lore season 4 is known as the "gas leak year." That is, below par due to the absence of creator Dan Harmon. However, in season 5 the show seemed to really struggle as limp explanations were offered as to why the study group was still together after they had graduated (part of what makes college a special part of your life is that it is temporary). Cast members departed and storylines became repetitive. None of these issues are going away for the movie.

The format change alone will cause challenges. In a series a character could be in the background for an episode if the story didn't call for their involvement. In a movie though everyone is expected to get a chance to shine. And Community had a large supporting cast, some of whom only got a few lines a season. Yet those appearances could be fan favorites. You want to include them, but you also don't want to appear to be just checking off boxes on a fan service list. Its a balancing act, and I'm not sure it can be pulled off, but I hope it can.

Blade

Do you know the glyphs in the original Blade movies? The tattoos that signify which vampire house you belong to. I have one of those tattoos, that's how big a Blade fan I am. (Or as Community referred to it, "The fantastic vampire kickboxing movie.")

Did you know that in the original ending of Blade the villain Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) turned into a giant blood monster? They had to change it because test audiences lost interest when Dorff was no longer present. I have a hard time seeing an MCU movie pulling back on special effects to focus on characters.

Blade (1998) was perfectly cast, from the leads to the supporting actors. An attempt to do Blade with another cast was already tried, and it didn't work.

And gory! Blade should be a blood fest. And Blade needs to be able to comment on how "Some mother fuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill." If we get a Blade with happy meal tie-ins, then you can know that it has failed without even watching.

All that said, every MCU movie seems to make about a billion dollars, so they must be doing something right.

Red Sonja

Red Sonja is my fandom. I've written before about this movie to be, about the previous movies, about the character, about cosplayers, and in one of my most popular articles, cyberstalked the Red Sonja VP of Merchandising.

There have been numerous failed attempts to bring Sonja back to the big screen. Robert Rodriguez announced his plans to cast Rose McGowan as Sonja in a remake in 2009 at San Diego Comic-Con and released some cool concept art. However, Rodriguez last film, Grindhouse, was a flop (apparently becoming a cult film counts for little). Moreover, studios didn’t believe that Rodriguez’s girlfriend could carry a big budget film. It appears that McGowan had an injury that would have kept her from holding a sword anyway. These are the same reasons why Rodriguez’s plans for a Barbarella remake never amounted to anything.

In 2011 producer Avi Lerner announced "We will definitely shoot Red Sonja in between Conan and Conan 2. We already chose the director: an English guy called Simon West." But then the Conan reboot bombed and Red Sonja and Conan 2 didn't happen.

In 2015 it was announced that Christopher Cosmos would be writing a script.

In 2016 there were rumors that X-Men director Bryan Singer was developing an R-rated Red Sonja TV series.

In 2017 it was again announced that there would be a Red Sonja movie, with Millennium Media "fast-tracking this project." In 2018 they announced Ashley Edward would be writing the script.

Annnnnnd then in 2019 the headlines read "Bryan Singer’s Next Project Collapses." That project being Red Sonja. This time the film got shelved because Singer got Me Too'ed. We lost the movie and that jackass lost a $10 million dollar payday because he couldn't keep his hands to himself.

By 2021 the project had picked up steam again with Hannah John-Kamen cast as Red Sonja, to be directed by Joey Soloway and written by Dacilio Costa.

Then in 2022 John-Kamen dropped out, saying it was because of scheduling conflict, but also possibly because of the racist backlash to her casting. Director Joel Soloway was out to.

But this time the whole project didn't collapse! The lead role went to Matilda Lutz and they actually shot the movie in 2022!

Lutz was willing to put in work for the role, reportedly gaining 13 pounds of muscle. And she had started in Revenge, a gore filled rape and revenge movie. This parallels Red Sonja's infamous origin story. Though thankfully that won't be in this film as the director has said “I have no interest in fictional women who use [rape] as an engine of motivation,” she says. “It’s not a strong motivation. She’s just a human being in the world of femininity.”

That director being M. J. Bassett, who was probably a better choice than Soloway since she's actually directed some action films. In fact she directed Solomon Kane, a character created by Robert E. Howard, who was also the creator of Red Sonja.

So yeah, I've been waiting for this movie for years, I can't wait to see it, and it will obviously, 100% live up to my expectations.

I mean, Sonja is supposed to be tall and have big boobs... but it's fine. It's fine. IT'S FINE.