Joon-ho, Spidey, Final Destination: Weekly Round Up

23rd March 2020

Joon-ho, Spidey, Final Destination: Weekly Round Up

Alright guys, how are we all doing in self-isolation? I hope the stress of the current climate isn’t getting you all down. I am currently at home trying to figure out things to do with my kids that will keep them entertained while my partner heads off to the hospital to play her part in fighting the war! So, while it’s not movie related, I want to begin this week’s round-up of movie news with a wholehearted thank you to all the incredible people working on the frontlines of this thing at the moment to ensure that the rest of us are going to be okay. Aren’t they all incredible!?

Anyway, full disclosure; movie news is pretty sparse this week, which… well, I’m sure you can understand why. But nonetheless, there are some smaller stories we could take a look at.

For now, while many productions have shut down and halted altogether due to the current situation, studios seem to be optimistically hoping things will get back to normal not before long. To that end, Tom Holland (the Spider-man actor, not the Child’s Play director) is still planning on beginning shooting for his third solo-outing as Spider-Man.

Details remain slim on the ground regarding the plot, and we don’t even yet know who will be appearing as a villain, but we do know Holland will be starring alongside Zendaya, who will be returning to play MJ, and that it’s likely J. K. Simmons will return to reprise his role as J Jonah Jameson.

Holland has said this week that the film is going to be “absolutely insane”, so we can take from that what we will. Sony still have this film scheduled for release in July of 2021, but of course things are very much up in the air at this point in time.

Did you know that last Tuesday marked the 20^th Anniversary of the original Final Destination film? Bet you didn’t, did you!

Well, I did. I actually think Final Destination is an underappreciated classic. As a film it managed to find a way to bring a unique spin to the tired slasher subgenre, at the same time that glossy teen horror movies were becoming rather irritatingly meta in the wake of Wes Craven’s excellent Scream.

The sequels would of course lean into the OTT Omen style death sequences, but the original, for me at least, remains a chilling, taught, and well made little horror with a truly frightening villain, and I genuinely do wish it got a little more love as a film on its own merit, rather than simply being recognized as the start of an, admittedly silly especially in later instalments, franchise.

This week we learned that screenwriter’s Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan are now currently developing a sixth entry into the series, and producer Craig Perry revealed this week that the film is going to “take place in the world of first responders: EMTs, firemen and police… These people deal with death on the front lines every day, and make choices that can cause people to live or die.”

It’s an interesting angle to take the franchise, especially considering every other movie thus far has focused almost exclusively on college students. I’ll be interested to see what this new take on the property will bring, but then… like I already said, I genuinely do think the original is super underappreciated, so maybe I’m biased.

Parasite director Bong Joon-ho has been discussing what project he might want to take on after that movie’s surprise (but much deserved) worldwide success.

Joon-ho is no stranger to genre hopping; this is the guy, after all, who made dystopian sci-fi movie Snowpiercer, monster movie The Host, and action adventure movie Okja, but this week he revealed he is interested in taking on what might be his most significant genre shift; a musical!

But not just any musical, mind you. This is a Joon-ho musical and he gave us some idea of what that might look like. He explained “characters would be singing and then think, “Oh my God, fuck this, this is too cheesy,” and stop suddenly. There are amazing musical films, like Singin’ in the Rain. But when I watch them, I feel very embarrassed and start blushing. So it would have to be… different”.

The prospect of a Bong Joon-ho musical is about as intriguing a prospect as you can get, so sign me up for this one.

Okay, so since we’re running a little short on the word count this week, due to the lack of news (I could talk about the Cats butthole edition, but… er… I don’t want to) I’ll use this as an opportunity to also plug my own little movie news.

If you’re stuck inside and feeling low during the pandemic, missing the communal experience of watching movies with others at the cinema, then my new Facebook group, Shut In Cinema, might be the solution! We’re getting together online for pre-arranged screenings of films available on various streaming services and watching them as a group at the same time, using social media to chat about the films either during or after.

We’ve only done one screening so far (we watched the excellent Uncut Gems via the Netflix Party extension and discussed it in the group) but it was fairly successful. I’m going to be honest two screenings as week, while others in the group are also arranging their own screenings. Feel free to join us if you’re interested. Together, we’ll get through the coming months.

Keep safe everyone. I hope you’re all doing okay. Stay inside and look after yourselves! Hopefully we’ll have some more news for you next week, but I’ll be back one way or another!

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