State Of Play: November 2020

Hopefully, this finds everyone well and that you're keeping safe and sound in these interesting times.

Following on from our round-ups in June and October, here's a current round-up of where things stand regarding the release schedule for several big movies. I'll give the usual caveat: this schedule is accurate as of today (Thursday 26th November). This is, of course, always subject to change. 

• Wonder Woman 1984 - after a lot of speculation, it's been confirmed that the superhero sequel will still be in cinemas in the US on December 25th (where they are open) but will also be available via streaming service HBO Max on the same day. It's also been announced that international territories will have the film from December 16th (where possible) and China will have it in theatres in December 18th. 

• Soul - Pixar's latest movie (with the voices of Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, and Angela Bassett) will also be released on December 25th via Disney+

• The star-studded Agatha Christie adaptation Death On The Nile and the Ryan Reynolds comedy Free Guy have both been removed from the schedule 

• Coming 2 America: Amazon Prime has finalised acquisition of worldwide rights to Coming 2 America. The long awaited sequel to the 1988 comedy classic starring Eddie Murphy will be released to subscribers globally on March 5th 2021. The report states that the deal is worth around $125m (roughly £97m).

• Godzilla Vs. Kong: There are rumours that the monster movie crossover starring Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, and two giant CGI monsters beating seven bells out each other might forego a cinema release and go to streaming. Apparently, Netflix offered $200 million for the movie, according to in The Hollywood Reporter, though WarnerMedia blocked it and are in talks to bring the film to HBO Max. The film is slated for a cinema release on May 21st 2021.

• Dune: Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have delayed the release of Dune, the big-budget sci-fi epic from director Denis Villeneuve. It is now slated for a cinema release on October 1st 2021

• The Matrix 4: This fourquel, directed by Lana Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, has been moved up the schedule a few months; it will now hit screens on December 22nd 2021.

• Black Adam and Minecraft: The Movie have been removed from the schedule.

• The Batman: with the shifting of Dune to 2021, the latest iteration of the Caped Crusader has been bumped to March 4th 2022.

• Fantastic Beasts 3: This threequel will now hit screens on July 15th 2022, with Mads Mikkelsen taking the role of Gellert Grindelwald (after Johnny Depp stepped away from the franchise earlier in November)

• The Flash: Ezra Miller's speedster will now come to the screen on November 4th 2022. 

• Shazam: Fury Of The Gods: this superhero sequel is now planned to be released on June 2nd 2023.

* * *

Below is the current release schedule for the next few years; obviously all of them are due to change if circumstances continue or change.

2020

December 25     Soul (Disney+)

December 25     Wonder Woman 1984 (theatres and HBO Max)

2021

February 12     The King's Man

February 26     Everybody's Talking About Jamie

March 5     Ghostbusters: Afterlife

March 5     Coming 2 America (Amazon Prime)

April 2             No Time To Die

May 7     Black Widow

May 28     F9

June 18     In The Heights

July 2     Top Gun: Maverick

July 9     Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings

July 30     Jungle Cruise

October 1     Dune

October 15     The Last Duel

November 5     Eternals

December 10     West Side Story

December 17     Sony/Marvel Spider-Man 3

December 22     The Matrix 4

2022

February 11     Thor: Love And Thunder

March 4     The Batman

March 25     Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

July 15     Fantastic Beasts 3

November 4     The Flash

2023

June 2     Shazam: Fury Of The Gods (Shazam 2)

Revlew: Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (UK Cert 12A)

Let's be fair, the Harry Potter movie franchise is an absolute juggernaut. Eight movies, all expertly written, directed and acted. So the production team are obviously hoping that lightning is going to strike twice with the first of five films in the Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them franchise. 

Written by J.K. Rowling, produced by David Heyman and directed by David Yates (who directed the last four Harry Potter films), Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them sees magizoologist Newt Scamander- author of the titular Hogwarts set text- in New York in 1926, having to hunt down a few of his errant creatures that escape whilst negotiating the hostility of a No-Maj (muggle/non-magical) society and the machinations of a very dangerous dark wizard: Gellert Grindlewald.  

Eddie Redmayne exudes a very lovely eccentric edge as Newt. If he wasn't already an Oscar-winning actor with a major franchise ahead of him, I'd suggest he submits this to the Doctor Who casting office in case they need to start looking for Peter Capaldi's replacement. There is a very Doctor-ish feel to Newt- slightly out of step with other humans, very focused on his own little world and with a dimensionally transcendental piece of apparatus (it's no exaggeration to say that Newt's suitcase is bigger on the inside).  

Katherine Waterston is similarly strong as demoted Auror Tina Goldstein who arrests Newt for being an unregistered wizard and then gets drawn in to his quest to reclaim his missing creatures. Threatening to steal the show, however, are Alison Sudol as Tina's mindreading and flirty sister Queenie and Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski, a No-Maj cannery worker and aspiring baker who gets his suitcase swapped with Newt's and also gets drawn into a world he never knew existed. 

The rest of the cast are pretty good too: Samantha Morton is chilling as the dead-eyed fanatic Mary Lou Barebone, leader of the Second Salemers who call for wizards and witches to be destroyed. Ezra Miller is similarly good as her adopted son Credence, a young man with more than a few secrets of his own. It's odd to see an actor with the profile and presence of Jon Voight in a film like this, but he only has a glorified cameo as a newspaper magnate so doesn't bother unduly. The only dud note is Colin Farrell, who I just can't take seriously, especially as he's supposed to be the Head of Magical Security at MACUSA (the Magical Congress of the United States of America).

Visually, as you can imagine, the film is just stunning. Everything from the steam liner that Newt disembarks from at the very beginning to the sweeping grandeur of the MACUSA headquarters and the world within Newt's suitcase is just sublime. A quick trip to a magical speakeasy also provides scale but it's also in the smaller scenes- Queenie magically making a strudel, for instance- where the production design and the visual effects shine. The magical beasts, too, are similarly wonderful.  

This is a 12A so it's not all cutesy- there's some quite dark stuff within there, not least a murderous force created by a magical being suppressing their magical ability. There's child abuse, lost loves, a rather unpleasant near-death experience for one of the main characters and a resolutely downbeat moment in the rain (which, I don't mind admitting, I teared up to). There are glimmers of hope towards the end but you don't half go through the wringer to get there. 

This might sound like a bit of an odd complaint to have about a film called Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them... but I really could have done with there being more beasts. There are some wonderful set-pieces involving Newt trying to catch a Niffler (a kind of avaricious platypus, attracted to shiny things) and also trying to catch an escaped erupment (a large and horny cross between a hippopotamus and a rhinoceros) in Central Park. But the film almost treats these as side-shows, instead focusing on the political situation with the No-Majs versus MACUSA and the ever-growing threat of Grindlewald. I don't know whether they felt it would just be a series of set-pieces strung together with a flimsy plot if it was just Newt turning up trying to find things- nothing more than a big-screen version of Pokemon Go, perhaps?- and perhaps it might not sustain five films. 

This slight niggle aside, I found Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them to be a very strong start to the franchise and I look forward to seeing more.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Tez