Fanboys Anonymous

Welcome to another edition of WEEK IN GEEK here at Fanboys Anonymous—a rundown of some of the events, news and stories that went down over the past few days in the geek culture spectrum.


Here are some of the topics I felt like voicing my opinions about:

Battletoads E3 Trailer

The music is classic. The animation reminds me of Earthworm Jim (not the biggest fan of that, but at least it's going to stand out). That original game was HARD and I wonder what the difficulty for this one will be in comparison.

Beast X-Men Spin-off Leaked Screenplay

I haven't read it (no time), but the X-Men: Fear the Beast script was put out there and supposedly revolves around Beast fighting Wendigo with Mr. Sinister being a manipulator behind the scenes.

You know what? The movie would have sucked, but the idea is pretty damn neat, especially if someone could tweak the concept some more to include Alpha Flight (Sasquatch) and more like that. It could work as a good episode of a new animated series or something.

Hunger Games Prequels Coming Soon

Basically, the studio was like "Crap! We need another hit, but we don't want to risk anything. Let's just do more Hunger Games stuff, cause that worked."

We don't need it.

Shang-Chi Casting Rumors

Supposedly, Ludi Lin (Zack Taylor from the Power Rangers reboot film) could be Shang-Chi, and Donnie Yen could be a mentor of sorts to him.

I'm certainly not knowledgeable about Shang-Chi, but I think Ludi Lin has a lot to offer, and I like the idea of this casting duo.

1985 Horror-Themed Spider-Man Movie Idea

Apparently, director Tobe Hooper pitched an idea for a Spider-Man film (basically in name only) in 1985 that would have seen Peter Parker (as an ID photographer, for some reason) being experimented on by a Doctor Zork, who bombarded him with radiation to turn him into an eight-armed spider creature (kind of like Man-Spider). Peter would be suicidal after turning into this monster, and he would fight the other creations that Doctor Zork made, rather than being their leader.

This is awful in so many ways. It doesn't even seem like it would come off as a good What If story for a one-shot comic, let alone a film, let alone the first movie adaptation of Spider-Man. It's almost like it was pitched by people who have never once heard of Spider-Man and just assumed that the story, from its name, was about a literal spider man. By that rationale, let's do a Batman film where Bruce Wayne is turned into Man-Bat, and an Iron Man film where Tony Stark is converted into solid iron in robot form or something. Yeesh.

Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films weren't perfect (although I maintain the best one was the first one, not Spider-Man 2, which I know is an unpopular opinion) but at least they were like 95% representational of the character and its spirit. The same even goes for the Marc Webb ones. This is just an entirely different level of WTF where, somehow, even the James Cameron idea looks better in comparison.

The King's Man

That will be the title of the Kingsman prequel. I like it a lot. It definitely gives off a vibe of being a foundational sort of thing, like how Johnson as a surname could be derived from "John's son" and whatnot. Very cool. Hopefully, this is as good as the first movie and not underwhelming like the second.

Luke Skywalker is a Force Ghost?

Mark Hamill recently spoke at the premiere for Child's Play, saying he gets to come back for Episode 9 as a Force Ghost, and people are acting like that's in the slightest bit a surprise. Of course that's what will happen. We have tons of previous material that point in that direction. If he said he WASN'T going to be a ghost, then that's what would be news.

Josh Gad is Not The Penguin in New Batman Movie

Of course he isn't. Just because he's heavy doesn't mean he should be Penguin. I hate when people do that with fan casting. It's just like when people say the only candidates to play Lex Luthor are people who are already bald, or Mary Jane Watson can only be played by a redhead instead of someone who just dyes her hair red. Think more on it. Josh Gad never would have been a good Oswald Cobblepot.

Batman Receiving Walk of Fame Star

Among the honorees for the 2020 Walk of Fame, Batman, the fictional character, will be receiving a star. How has that not happened yet???