Avengers: Doomsday Could Make a Billion in Its First Weekend, Plus My Takes on Dune 3, Lanterns and Batman Part II

I think Avengers: Doomsday will make a billion dollars, and I think it will make a billion in its first weekend. I'm not feeling the Dune heat this time around. I really love the Dune movies, but Doomsday is difficult to distract from.

It's a slow week for news, so I took questions on everything from Batman Part II villains to the fully AI generated movie heading to theaters. Later in this piece I also explain why I think the lack of a Lanterns season two announcement is not a good sign.

VisionQuest arrives with double episode drops, and I will break it down weekly

There is a Marvel Television panel at New York Comic Con tomorrow. I don't know if they're going to have any news, but I wonder if they're going to play the first episode of VisionQuest, because reactions are allowed tomorrow. The social media embargo lifts at 5:45 p.m. If there is any news out of the panel, I'll cover it on Friday.

I will be doing weekly breakdowns for VisionQuest, and it's going to be crazy. They announced that the first three weeks will be two episode drops, and I think the episodes are about an hour each. I think it still drops at 3:00 a.m., though I haven't heard anything about what time it drops. I hope it completes the Wanda trilogy. WandaVision was incredible, so was Agatha, and I'd like to see at least Billy, Wiccan, show up.

I've been filming reviews for Avatar: Seven Havens, but I can't say what my verdict is because I'm under embargo. I've already seen the first six episodes, and I'll probably do a spoiler review when it's done. Because it's on Paramount Plus, I don't see myself doing a weekly, and I don't know if there's enough to cover. I covered Korra weekly, but this is a different type of show. Next week I plan to review Whalefall. I'll review Street Fighter for sure, and I'm very excited for it. I might review You Can See Everything after the weekend.

I still think James Gunn's choices with female characters are not great

One question pushed back on my view that James Gunn is not good at writing women, pointing to Lois Lane, The Bride and Nebula. I think Nebula's best stuff was not written by him; I think it was in the Avengers films. I think he can do a good job. I don't want to fight with James Gunn. We've already fought so much, I've been proven right to a large degree, so I'm going to take the high road.

I would just say that sometimes his story points and what he does with female characters is not great, but I'm open to him having grown. I wouldn't have him write Wonder Woman, and I don't know why he would want to. Some of his female characters turn out pretty good, but think about how poorly Gamora worked out, and Gamora is a very similar type of character to Wonder Woman.

That said, I do think Gunn wrote the best Superman ever, with an asterisk, since I'm not a huge Superman fan. He created a Superman who managed to be relevant and modern while holding on to the qualities that made him famous in the first place. That's really hard to do in the jaded world we live in, and he deserves credit. As for Batman and Wonder Woman news, I would think they'd wait until Man of Tomorrow comes out. Gunn is clearly pushing, and understandably he wants to keep his job, but I wouldn't let him officially put new irons in the fire until we see how that performs.

I'm against binges because nobody talks about shows like Carrie

Carrie dropped on time, and I really am against binges because nobody talks about the show. No one is talking about Carrie, which is a shame, because Carrie is great. In the same spirit, I don't think HBO should mess with its strategy. One episode a week is the deal, and as someone who covers shows, it's greatly appreciated.

I'm very excited for the Harry Potter series and plan to cover it weekly for sure. I'm expecting a deeper dive into the story. I was shocked by how much I learned about Mildred Pierce when I saw the novel adapted as a miniseries versus the movie I know so well, and I'm hoping for that kind of experience. It's pretty far away, around the holidays, and I think it would be great if it played from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

On games, I'm new to that world, and I think games and film are very different industries. A game has different needs to fulfill, like its interactive quality and how people expect to spend time with it. I do think the toxicity in fandom circles has definitely spilled into movies and TV. I wish I could get access to games in advance, because I feel like I'm going to be so far behind, but I'm going to try to do Grand Theft Auto because it's an iconic generational game.

The fully AI generated movie is something I won't even look at

I saw that a fully AI generated movie is coming to theaters. I'm not even willing to see it, and I won't even look at the trailer. "I have a real problem with art created by a machine. I think that is the antithesis of art." I agree with the Pope on this one.

Trailer reactions came up too. It's unfortunate that studios have discouraged them so much, and I think that's why fewer and fewer people do them. They were so much fun, and if I can get a handle on my schedule, maybe I'll do more. It would have to be an act of love, because they're almost impossible to monetize at this point. I know some people put them behind a paywall, but I don't want to put any of my content behind one.

Digger is still my favorite movie of the year, despite its C+ CinemaScore

Someone asked why reviewers pushed people not to see Digger in theaters. I think reviewers are well intentioned for the most part, or at least I'd like to think so. I think they're mindful of people's time and money, and they genuinely feel the movie is bad. I think the movie is absolutely brilliant and worth seeing, but it's hard to argue with the numbers and that C+ CinemaScore.

Digger is still my favorite movie of the year, but I'm not sure I'd put it at number one on my list, because I have to be realistic about how it's being received. On awards, some people have seen Artificial, and I saw Andrew Garfield shoot to the top of some best supporting lists, so maybe he's going to win next year.

Dune 3 will probably land around where the first two did

I think Dune 3 is going to do very well on premium screens and IMAX, but I'm not sure about regular screens, particularly going up against Doomsday. I think it will probably perform somewhere around where the first two did. This isn't a billion dollar franchise, and Doomsday is difficult to distract from. The Odyssey, I thought, was close to two billion last I looked, and there's no way Dune makes that much.

The last Hunger Games did not do well, but the new one looks pretty good to me. I'm curious whether it also performs only moderately, in which case they'll have to rethink it. Someone predicted it would break 800 million, and the last one came nowhere near that. I saw that Resident Evil is doing so well in China. 400 million would be incredible, and we'll have a good picture Sunday of how it's doing in China and Japan.

On why horror rarely gets big budgets, I think the whole appeal is that Hollywood can spend very little and make a lot, and you have to be an IP to get more. Resident Evil cost 80 million, and I think 20 million of that went to Zach Cregger, but that's still very high for a horror film. I think it would be very exciting if Christopher Nolan did horror after The Odyssey. There's your big budget horror movie.

Batman Part II could feature Mr. Freeze, but I'm only guessing

I'm not sure who the villain is in Batman Part II. Part of me wonders if it's Mr. Freeze, with the shaved head, and maybe Sebastian Stan is Mr. Freeze, which I would have mixed feelings about. I don't know if Scarlett Johansson would be Poison Ivy or Nora Fries. Victor Zsasz seems like a weird choice for Stan, but Matt Reeves thinks outside the box with Batman villains, so it's hard to tell. On the delay, let's just send our positive thoughts to Matt Reeves.

I'd love Robert Pattinson as the official DCU Batman, but he recently said in an interview that he doesn't think that's a good fit, so I think it's very unlikely. I don't think the Ellisons will try to bring back Christian Bale. If Batman Part II works for Stan and Johansson, Robert Downey Jr. jumping to DC would be ridiculous; he has already jumped back into Marvel. And I think the ship has sailed on Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Thomas Wayne Batman. Right when he had the heat from The Walking Dead, maybe, but I don't think he's as popular as he was.

No quick renewal is not a good sign for Lanterns season two

I'll be honest: the fact that a second season was not announced on the Monday after the final episode is not a good sign. I would have thought it would be announced then, and it makes me feel like maybe it won't happen. It has such a definitive ending that it feels like one and done, and many of us now don't want any more of it.

I didn't mind making it darker and taking it in a different direction, but the treatment of Hal was really unforgivable. Someone suggested to me that Chandler made Hal too likable. He's so great, and he's so likable, and I've seen people call it the best casting since Robert Downey Jr., which is very high praise indeed. Damon Lindelof and Tom King bring quality ideas, but I think they went a step too far this time. I'm not sure it's an Elseworlds story either, because then how are you bringing in Aaron Pierre to Man of Tomorrow? I think the tweet attributed to James Gunn was fake, and if it were Elseworlds, I think you'd have seen that addressed in official interviews.

Movie math takes hours. It starts at 11:00 a.m. when the information drops and is usually done around 6:30. Part of me is kind of glad Lanterns is done because it made my Sundays so long. I had a great time, but I need a break. Meanwhile I'm very worried about Clayface. I heard there were no Easter eggs, but I hope they sprinkled some in, and I hope I can tell you it's good.

Star Wars and Narnia face tough questions, and I'm interested in what happens with Bond

The apathy toward Star Wars is sad. Let's see how Starfighter looks, but I think it's going to be really hard to reverse this. I'm very worried that Greta Gerwig's Narnia is going to skew too female, and it needs to be something for everybody. I would have liked Ryan Coogler to be in charge of Storm's debut, but it's not going to happen.

I'm interested to see what they do with Bond. I don't think Nolan goes back to a franchise unless it's Bond, but now Denis Villeneuve is doing it, and he's going to do a Nolanesque Bond. "Everyone's just doing their take on Nolan's Bond except for Nolan." I would have rebooted DC hard, Universal definitely needs to try again with its Monsters, and taking The Matrix to the small screen is not a bad idea. I'm glad they're moving on to new creatives because clearly the Wachowskis don't have any good ideas left for it. Fast and Furious doesn't need a full reboot, but I think it's time for the next generation, with Dom kind of there as a mentor.

I think Bradley Cooper's G.I. Joe and the Ocean's prequel are much more commercial. When his last Oscar play failed to even get nominations, I'm sure he realized he needed traction at the box office. I wish Ryan Murphy would slow down a little, since it's been a minute since he produced something really good. I think Bella Ramsey has to pivot, and good for her for going on The Traitors in the UK, which is doing incredible viewership.

The Ellisons benefit most from the merger

What David Ellison has accomplished is pretty incredible, and he obviously benefits the most from the merger. Whether he can keep it going is another question; the stock dipped a little yesterday because of the debt. On whether famous actors could open a landmark studio, that's what United Artists was, but I honestly feel it takes too much capital. I think instead you're seeing AMC willing to release any movie that has its own funding, and maybe people will take advantage of that.

Why do so many finales fail to stick the landing? Sometimes creators have written it before they find out how people react. But I think too many creators make what they personally want with very little regard to what everybody who needs to support the show wants. And on a planned Fred Astaire movie his family objected to, I don't think you need the approval of the person to make a movie about them.

Blue skying keeps my motivation going

I've talked before about the importance of blue skying: going for a walk, reading a comic or seeing something not related to work. Even if those little moments last 30 minutes, they keep the spark lit. It also helps that I'm very interested in what I do. I know not everybody has that luxury, so I'd urge you to find something you enjoy in what you're doing.

For Halloween, last year I saw the New York Philharmonic do Psycho, and it was incredible. This year they're doing Get Out, a phenomenal film, but I don't remember the score well and never thought of it as a Halloween movie, so I'm skipping it. If you're going to Disneyland Paris, make a reservation at the Walt Disney restaurant on Main Street and ask for a window table. In Italy, beware the fried seafood. And one person told me my industry knowledge helped them land a job at United Talent Agency, which is a very good agency. I'm honored.

Do you think Doomsday will really make a billion dollars in its first weekend?