And we’re back again with our (at least) daily announcement of a reboot, sequel, prequel; this time word comes from NY Mag’s Vulture that Fox’s Regency Enterprises is moving forward with Mr. & Mrs. Jones, a pseudo-prequel to the 2005 action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith which spawned the paparazzi’s even more intense obsession with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. However, the flash to the past will not feature Pitt and Jolie, but rather is sort of an origin story of a similar but differently named couple, showing how a pair of twenty-something spies are set up as a fake married couple when they graduate agency training. How fun.
As much as I enjoyed Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this feels cheap to me. Mr. and Mrs. Smith didn’t know they were spies when they were married, so that added a decent level of comedy to the fun action. All this concept does is set up a fake marriage between spies, likely with the idea that they’ll really fall in love, but have marriage problems while working undercover. Seems like a lot of the potential for some humor is already going to be covered by Tina Fey and Steve Carell in Date Night, the only difference being trained spies vs. innocent civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course there’s the chance it could turn out all right (mostly dependent on who they actually cast in the project), but I can’t help but find more than the intended similarities between this concept and Vulture’s reference to Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.
Obviously, the real motivator here is money, and not only making it, but spending less of it to get this made. A real sequel bringing back Pitt and Jolie with lots of expensive action would be quite the costly endeavor. But you’d think with as much as the studios love to bank on safe tentpoles that will draw in a crowd, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (which raked in $478 million worldwide) with Jolie and Pitt would be well worth the cost. But this is just another in Hollywood’s trend of extending familiar titles, without all the expensive familiar faces, for better or worse. Stay tuned to see who will be playing Mr. and Mrs. Jones in this. Anyone interested?
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Two new novels this month are based on motifs from Homer’s great poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Alan Cheuse reviews Ransom by David Malouf and The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachery Mason.
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As expected, there’s a lot of big Captain America news hitting the web this weekend because director Joe Johnston is finally out talking to press. In addition to all the details we learned about the movie yesterday, over at CHUD they’ve confirmed with Johnston himself that The Invaders, a WWII superteam that Cap and Bucky are a part of, will be in the movie, too. In fact, “they’ll be in the entire second half,” Johnston told them. It was first rumored last year that The Invaders might make an appearance but now we know they’re officially involved. So does that mean we might see up to “nine costumed characters” in this movie total?
The Invaders are a group of WWII superheroes first created in 1975. In addition to Cap and Bucky, they’re made up of other various characters like the Human Torch, Toro, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and the Silver Scorpion. What it looks like they’re doing in Captain America is creating The Invaders, instead, out of a group of European characters, hence why Kevin Feige said last year that The Invaders would give them “an opportunity for much more international casting.” Johnson also told CHUD that The Invaders will have six members, so if you add Bucky, Cap, and Red Skull, that means nine costumed characters (or just seven?).
I’m glad we’re starting to this much more about The First Avenger: Captain America. I’m happy that they chose to go with the original WWII storyline to begin with but now hearing that they’re going all out to make this the irreplaceable Captain America movie is awesome. I think Marvel is sparing no expense with every new movie they work on. As in, Iron Man 2 they’re already going all out with, Thor we’ve heard that they’re going all out (and its got a great cast), and now with Captain America, it sounds like it’s the perfect origin story (and intro to The Avengers). Feige knows what he’s doing and I’m excited to see The Invaders as well.
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Attorney David Dow has made his career on arguing on behalf of inmates sentenced to death. Many of his clients have died — most of them were guilty. In his new book, The Autobiography of an Execution, Dow argues that they should have been sentenced to life rather than death.
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