In 2015, the Daredevil TV series premiered on Netflix, following 12 years after Ben Affleck brought Matt Murdock to life in the Daredevil movie. Now in 2026, Charlie Cox’s Matt and Vincent D’Onofrio are still going strong as the Man Without Fear and Kingpin, respectively (amidst other familiar faces), thanks to the revival Daredevil: Born Again, which is exclusively streaming on the 2026 TV schedule with a Disney+ subscription. However, the original Daredevil series was first conceived as two movies, and creator Drew Goddard explained why that plan changed.

Goddard, who most recently wrote the film adaptation of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, addressed his past Daredevil work while stopping by Happy Sad Confused, as part of the press rounds for the 2026 movie release. He recalled spending time with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige shortly after the company gained the Daredevil rights back from then-20th Century Fox, saying:

Marvel movies have always been geared to appeal to the wide demographic possible, hence why almost all of them have been rated PG-13. It was only in 2024 that the franchise finally delivered an R-rated flick in the form of Deadpool & Wolverine, so going into such territory in the early 2010s with Daredevil would have been a no-go. Maybe if Fox had managed to get a Daredevil reboot off the ground, that now-defunct studio could have pulled it off, as it would go on release the first two Deadpool movies and Logan in the mid-late 2010s, all R-rated.

As for Drew Goddard’s original pitch for two MCU-set Daredevil movies, they basically ended up being what was depicted in the Netflix series’ first two seasons. As he explained:

Daredevil kicked off a run of more adult-oriented TV programming at Marvel, including Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher and The Defenders miniseries. So while some may disappointed we never got another Daredevil movie, one could argue that going with the Daredevil TV show’s existence was more meaningful to the superhero media landscape. Besides, along with Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock anchoring Daredevil: Born Again and also popping up in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Echo, that version of the character also got a little bit of big screen time thanks to his cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home. There are even rumblings he may appear in Spider-Man: Brand New Day this July.

Keep following along with Matt Murdock protecting the MCU’s New York City from the machinations of Wilson Fisk as new episodes of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 premiere Tuesdays on Disney+. Season 2 is also bringing back Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones, and Season 3 began filming earlier this month. The 2003 Daredevil movie can also be found on the Mouse House’s streaming platform.

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Project Hail Mary. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk – or perhaps instead opt to read CinemaBlend's spoiler-free Project Hail Mary review.

When it comes to the changes made adapting Project Hail Mary for the big screen, I understand the vast majority of them. There is simply too much material in the book for it all to be realized on screen, and that means that screenwriter Drew Goddard and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller had to make some notable cuts. But while I get simplifying the docking procedure for the Hail Mary and the Blip A and eliminating the sequence where Antarctica is purposefully bombed to slow the cooling of the planet, there is one major alteration that I was not only surprised to see, but I think is a detriment to the telling of the story: the third act crisis with Grace's food supply.

For those who either haven't read the Andy Weir-authored novel or simply need a refresher because it's been a minute since you did, let's start with a quick rewind…

Grace's Food Supply Is A Major Problem In The Final Chapters Of Project Hail Mary

As is repeatedly noted in both the book and film versions of Project Hail Mary, Grace's trip to Tau Ceti is designed to be a suicide mission, and that has an impact on the ship's inventory. The movie addresses this with a conversation between the protagonist and Rocky about Hail Mary's Astrophage fuel supply (the alien is able to solve the problem because of extra Astrophage available aboard the Blip A), but there is no mention in the adaptation about how much food he has available, and that's a huge deal in the source material.

Because both Yao and Ilyukhina die during the trip, Grace has three times the amount of solid food he would otherwise have when he arrives at the Hail Mary's destination – but even with all of that extra nourishment, there isn't enough to last the long journey back to Earth. He also can't eat Rocky's food from Erid, as it is filled with toxins that would kill him. The only solution he has for nutrition is what he refers to as "coma slurry," which was supplied to him when he was unconscious during the initial journey and has a taste he compares to aspirin.

Not wanting to risk going back into a coma, Grace opts for trying to live off the slurry on his way back home after he and Rocky part ways… but then the Taumoeba leak happens. Both the book and the movie depict this crisis: the protagonist is forced to choose between returning home or simply sending his findings back to Earth while he goes to find and save his friend. The end result is the same in both versions, but because the film never features any kind of discussion about Grace's food supply, the stakes are very different and the character's atonement for past sins isn't as powerful on screen as it is on the page.

In The Book, Grace's Trip To Save Rocky Is A Chosen Suicide Mission With Proper Redemption For The Apprehensive Astronaut

At the end of the second act in Project Hail Mary, a recalled memory changes everything that we know about the character. While Grace spends most of his mission under the impression that he sacrificed his life to try and save Earth (the ultimate hero move), the reality is that he was a coward who had to be drugged and dragged on to the ship after the scientist lined up to be on the crew and his backup were killed during an accident. By the time he figures out the truth, he is too invested in the work to do any kind of protest.

This, of course, is vitally important to keep in mind when it comes to the choice he makes between going to Earth and saving Rocky – but the fact that the food issue isn't brought up in the movie makes the decision far different from the book. In the adaptation, Grace is depicted merely giving up his chances of seeing his home planet again; in the source material, he comes to terms with dying so that he can save Earth, Erid, and his best friend, as even the coma slurry supply is going to eventually run out.

But it's not a sad ending. When Grace re-finds Rocky and explains that he has no chance of survival, his friend again gives him a lifeline: while he will soon run out of human food and can't eat Eridian food, one thing on his ship with nutritional value that he can eat is Taumoeba. It doesn't prove to be the healthiest meal plan, and it results in him being a bit sickly for a time, but it keeps him alive until he gets to Erid, and when he gets there, scientists are eventually able to provide him with a proper protein-rich diet of what he calls "Me Burgers": burgers with meat synthesized from his own flesh.

Is the novel's ending a touch grosser than the movie's? Most definitely. But I also think it is much more effective in executing a redemption for Grace because of the simplicity of the one-to-one comparison: in two instances he is presented with the moral choice to sacrifice himself for the greater good, and while he fails in the first instance, he makes proper amends in the second.

To be sure, adding this material from the book to the movie would have made it longer, and at 156 minutes, Project Hail Mary is pretty damn long as it is. With that being said, I definitely find this particular cut in the adaptation process to be surprising and to the detriment of the movie, and should we someday see an extended cut come together (which we saw happen with Ridley Scott's adaptation of Andy Weir's The Martian), I'd be hopeful to see that stuff put back in.

When Andrew Garfield was still playing Spider-Man and there were plans for that Spidey film series to expand into a cinematic universe, The Martian’s Drew Goddard was tapped to write a Sinister Six spinoff. However, Sony ended up cancelling it, the other spinoffs and the next two Amazing Spider-Man movies in favor of partnering up with Marvel Studios to bring Tom Holland’s Web-Slinger into the MCU. While The Amazing Spider-Man 2’s underperformance obviously factored into this decision, Goddard has revealed another reason Sinister Six went by the wayside that shockingly involved the FBI.

Goddard has been making the press rounds for his newest movie, the Ryan Gosling-led Project Hail Mary, which opens on the 2026 movies schedule this weekend. During his interview with Variety, the filmmaker was asked about films he’s worked on that were scrapped, and he pointed his focus on Sinister Six:

For those who don’t remember, Sony Pictures Entertainment was hacked on November 24, 2014, with everything from future film plans to personal information on employees being leaked online. Then on December 16 of the same year, the group responsible for the hack, known as the Guardians of Peace, threatened to take terrorist action if the Seth Rogen and James Franco-led comedy The Interview was released in theaters. Sony ultimately scrapped the wide release and made it available to purchase or rent digitally, and U.S. intelligence officials later determined that the North Korean government was involved in the hack.

I can only imagine how surprised Drew Goddard was to one minute be working in his office on the Sony lot, and then the next seeing the FBI swarm in response to the hack. No doubt that ruined his productivity for the rest of the day. Alas, the bigger deal for him ended up being Sinister Six being scrapped as part of the fallout from the hack. Had things gone according to the original plan, the sextet of Spider-Man villains would have snagged the cinematic spotlight for themselves in December 2016.

Instead, the setup for the supervillain team’s formation at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was left unresolved, though at least Andrew Garfield got to reprise his Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home. While it remains to be seen if Tom Holland will ever face the Sinister Six, we will see him clash with baddies like Scorpion and Tombstone in Spider-Man: Brand New Day on July 31. We’re also getting small screen Spider-Man action in May with the Prime Video subscription-exclusive Spider-Noir, which will include villains like Electro and Sandman.

Anyone with a love for reading knows that there are some books that cement themselves firmly onto our book-loving souls, the characters existing in full color in our imaginations, the stories inspiring genuine emotions, creating lasting memories for all the ups and downs, and twists and turns they took us on. Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary is one of those books for me. As a fan of The Martian (the book and the film adaptation), I devoured Project Hail Mary when it was released, and have re-listened to the audiobook since then. I'm beyond excited about and hopeful for the film adaptation of the 2021 sci-fi thriller.

Honestly, Project Hail Mary is the movie I’m most anticipating amidst some huge films listed on the 2026 movie schedule, not to mention one of the most anticipated book-to-screen adaptations on my mental I-Cant-Fracking-Wait list. So to say that I’m thrilled to know that a trailer is finally here would be an under. statement. Just what to directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller have in store for us with this adaptation? Watch the full Project Hail Mary trailer above.

If you haven’t read the book, the basic premise of the story is that the world is in big trouble, and main character, Ryland Grace, finds himself awakening on a spaceship on a mission for one last attempt to save the planet. How he got there and what he has to do is all part of what unfolds in the story. Now that we've seen the trailer, I'm going to talk in a bit more detail about the book and what we've been shown. That includes vague spoilers, but only in response to the footage.

Below is the poster released by Amazon MGM Studios on Friday, and then we'll get into what the trailer shows us!

What the Project Hail Mary trailer reveals

The trailer reveals Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, who is very much not an astronaut. This is relevant because he's being tasked to go on a last-chance "Hail Mary" mission to save the planet.

Seeing Gosling insist on his lack of qualifications for space exploration to Sandra Hüller's politely serious character is exactly the kind of humor I loved in the book and anticipated from Gosling in this performance. But the trailer doesn't stop there, as we also get glimpses a world in danger of extinction due to a dying sun, the plan to try to fix what's happening, and of Ryland Grace, a non-astronaut school teacher, looking very bearded and disoriented as he wakes up on the space ship.

And in the final minute of the nearly-3-minute preview, we see him meet a fellow space explorer, who he decides to call Rocky. Yup, the cat's out of the bag there, folks, which isn't super surprising. But the trailer leaves plenty unseen as it relates to Ryland's new friend, which I'm grateful for. We get a peek at Rocky's hands as Ryland attempts to show him how to do a thumb's up, but the rest is left to our imagination (and I kind of hope it stays there until March 2026, but we'll see).

While this is the first time most of us see any significant footage from the Project Hail Mary movie adaptation, it won’t be the first time anyone’s seen footage. CinemaBlend’s Jeff McCobb and Eric Eisenberg were fortunate enough to be in the room at CinemaCon when Amazon did their presentation for their upcoming slate. Eric’s a fan of the book, and you can tell by his glowing response — “my excitement has reached extreme levels” is literally one of the things he said after seeing the footage — that he’s optimistic about the movie, to say the least. I'm not sure if the trailer above is the same footage shown at CinemaCon, but either way, I can appreciate Eric's enthusiasm firsthand now!

Is It March 2026 yet?

As a fan of the book, I was already planning to see Project Hail Mary. And with an impressively high 4.5 rating on GoodReads (especially considering there are more than 800,000 ratings logged for the book), I’m willing to bet there are a lot of other book fans who will be lining up for it. But I'm beyond excited now that we've gotten a look at the movie.

Project Hail Mary hits theaters on March 20, 2026.

Writer and director Drew Goddard has previously said he's a one-film-at-a-time kind of filmmaker, and with his incredibly captivating crime thriller, Bad Times at the El Royale, now out in theaters, excitement for his next project is running high. His name has been attached to Deadpool spinoff X-Force for some time, and making his mark on a superhero team-up lead by the Merc with a Mouth is an intriguing undertaking for Goddard. It looks like he can't wait to delve into it, with these words:

In the sometimes-tiresome superhero genre, Deadpool was a unique gem that dazzled viewers in a refreshing way, mixing raunchy comedy with vigilantism and heartfelt romance. It seemed like a one-of-a-kind, one-in-a-lifetime kind of release until Logan, and then Deadpool 2 recreated the same sort of magic. Next, Drew Goddard wants to do the same with an ensemble superhero film, which so far seems like more of an extension of Deadpool 2 as Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin and Zazie Beetz are all said to reprise their roles as Deadpool, Cable and Domino, respectively.

However, while early reports point to production starting this month, right now, plans have been delayed due to the Fox/Disney merger, and Goddard isn't sure when it will get moving again. In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the writer/director showed his genuine excitement to work with the main cast and work with a property that has a special freedom to stray away from the typical genre tropes and deliver varying tones laced throughout it. Goddard found the surprising heartfelt moments in Deadpool to be the secret weapon of the film.

X-Force would draw from the '90s comic book series of the same title, which Drew Goddard admits he loved and still has quite a few issues stored away in his garage. The series positioned itself as an edgier X-Men, as the team formed by Cable use a more black ops approach to crime fighting. Goddard has, of course, taken on Marvel properties before. He created the first Netflix-Marvel television series, Daredevil, and he also previously wrote a Sinister Six film which never saw the light of day when Sony started teaming up with Marvel after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed.

With the incomparable Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool at the center and the Bad Times at the El Royale writer/director helming, X-Force looks like it would certainly be something special. With a different eye on X-Force compared to the Deadpool franchise, the spinoff could easily set itself apart from the others movies while still feeling part of the same universe.

Check out Drew Goddard's impressive and enthralling film, Bad Times at the El Royale in theaters now.

The following story will contain spoilers for Drew Goddard's Bad Times at the El Royale, a movie you should experience with as little knowledge as possible. We'll avoid as much as we can, but maybe bookmark this and then come back after you saw it!

Chris Hemsworth is a major player in Drew Goddard's Bad Times at the El Royale. But I can't tell you who he plays. Or even how he's involved in the story. Because he's the culmination of a couple of different journeys that don't get resolved into the pivotal act three. But we DID ask writer/director Drew Goddard why he wanted Hemsworth for this project, and he elaborated:

What does Billy Lee do? I really don't want to tell you. Images like the one featured above suggest that Billy Lee likes to walk around in the rain with his shirt unbuttoned. That he looks like Chris Hemsworth, and enjoys the perks that come with that. He's a persuasive guy, with a specific agenda. And the fact that the current Thor took to Billy Lee is... well, it's mildly disturbing.

Chris Hemsworth played a significant role in Drew Goddard's debut feature film, The Cabin in the Woods. In it, Hemsworth played the stereotypical jock -- except, he really WASN'T that, and when he started playing up those traits, it allowed the stoner in the piece to realize that something was off. Hemsworth and Goddard know how to bend a genre to fit their storytelling needs, and they do so once again in the sinister Bad Times at the El Royale.

Here's Drew Goddard, opening up about working with Chris Hemsworth once again:

Drew Goddard's Bad Times at the El Royale is in theaters as we speak, and while there are a lot of good reasons to go to a theater nowadays -- from Bradley Cooper's magnificent A Star is Born to Damien Chazelle's stoic First Man -- you haven't seen anything like El Royale on the big screen in a long while, and I really recommend you give this one a shot. Once you do, come back and let us know what you thought of it... and of Hemsworth, specifically.

Back when the Amazing Spider-Man film series was still going, Sony was planning to release several films to turn this franchise into a cinematic universe, Sinister Six being one of these movies. But once The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed and Sony teamed up with Marvel Studios to bring the Web-Slinger into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sinister Six was shelved. Four years later, Drew Goddard still looks back fondly at his time writing Sinister Six and notes that perhaps there will come a day where his movie becomes a reality. In Goddard's words:

The movie-making world is indeed volatile, especially when it comes to the superhero genre. Sony was so sure that the Amazing Spider-Man continuity was going to grow, and less than half a decade later, Tom Holland's Spider-Man is one of the most important characters in the MCU. So even though Sinister Six has been gathering dust, as Drew Goddard mentioned to THR, perhaps his script might be dusted off at some point if enough things change.

Whether or not Drew Goddard's Sinister Six movie ever sees the light of day, seeds have already been planted for the super villain team to possibly introduced into the MCU. In the Spider-Man: Homecoming mid-credits scene, Mac Gargan, better known in the comics as The Scorpion, found Michael Keaton's Adrian Toomes, a.k.a. Vulture, in prison and mentioned he and several others on the outside wanted to get revenge on Spider-Man. So perhaps in a third MCU Spider-Man movie or beyond, this sinister group of six villains will officially band together.

Then there's Sony universe of Spider-Man characters, which kicked off last weekend with the release of Venom and will include movies like Morbius and Kraven the Hunter. Given that there's been no official announcement of Spider-Man, whether he's played by Tom Holland or a brand-new version, being involved in this particular franchise, it's difficult to imagine how a Sinister Six movie could work without the Wall-Crawler being present. Then again, perhaps the story could be adjusted to work with a different hero, like Silk or Miles Morales.

The Spider-Man saga will continue when Spider-Man: Far From Home spins its web in theaters on July 5, 2019. For the Drew Goddard fans out there, his latest directorial endeavor, Bad Times at the El Royale, is now playing in theaters.

The following story contains massive spoilers about the ENDING of The Cabin in the Woods. Stop reading now if you haven't yet seen the movie, and seriously, go see that movie!

Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods doesn't really lend itself to sequels. Spinoffs, maybe. But by the end of the film, the massive experiment being conducted in a secret laboratory that's meant to appease the gods with sacrifices has failed. And the gods are rising. Still, sequels are the norm in horror franchises, and the death of the leads usually doesn't matter (think how many times Jason or Freddy have been killed on screen, and they just keep coming back). But when asked about a Cabin in the Woods sequel, Goddard shot the notion down, explaining:

Drew Goddard is out promoting his new movie, Bad Times at the El Royale, an unconventional crime noir centered around a handful of fascinating and mysterious characters. And El Royale is EXACTLY the type of original and fresh-voiced stories that Drew Goddard should be doing instead of cranking out Cabin in the Woods sequels that undercut the original film. He basically gives Fandango the perfect answer as to why he and co-writer Joss Whedon didn't try to extend the story of the original film. They came up with the perfect ending. Leave it at that.

Of course, Drew Goddard leaves the door open, telling Fandango:

The one idea that seems like it could work would be a spinoff movie that focuses on a different laboratory in another country. We saw hints of other "games" being played on unsuspecting horror victims, and new stories could be told in that fashion. But again, knowing the ending of The Cabin in the Woods, we'd all be working toward the inevitable. Do you agree? Or do you want to see a sequel in this universe, no matter what? Vote in our poll.

This poll is no longer available.

When the first trailer for Drew Goddard's Bad Times At The El Royale dropped earlier this year, it gave us a wild look at one of our most anticipated titles of the fall season - leading us to ponder a million questions about the film's mysterious characters and plot. Now the second preview for the movie has arrived, and while we're still not entirely clear on what's happening, what we do know is that Jeff Bridges gets to deliver what is unquestionably one of the best lines of the year. Give it a watch below!

It may be cynical as all hell, but "Shit happens, get the whiskey" is probably now on track to become a motto for many all across the internet. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that it's delivered by one of the greatest actors alive while dressed up as a priest sporting some clear fighting wounds. That bit of dialogue alone has us totally sold on Bad Times At The El Royale, but it's worth noting that the film looks all-around amazing beyond it as well.

The second film from writer/director Drew Goddard, the new film is set at titular El Royale hotel in Lake Tahoe - a facility that happens to be split right down the middle by the state line separating California and Nevada. On one fateful, rainy night, seven strangers find themselves seeking lodging at the establishment... but what keeps things opaque is that each of them is holding on to a secret that could wind up changing the lives of the others. Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson, Cynthia Erivo, Nick Offerman, Cailee Spaeny, and Lewis Pullman populate the brilliant ensemble cast, and we couldn't be more excited to see what each of them brings to the show.

The film is only the second directorial effort from Drew Goddard, who previously brought us The Cabin In The Woods all the way back in 2012. He's certainly kept busy since then - creating the hit Marvel Netflix series Daredevil, serving as a producer on the phenomenal NBC series The Good Place, and earning an Oscar nomination for writing Ridley Scott's The Martian - but we've been eagerly anticipating his return to the helm of a feature. Amazingly Bad Times At The El Royale only began production back in January - giving the project only about 10 months between the start of filming and its release - but it looks like the thing is coming together perfectly.

Thankfully, we won't have to wait too much longer to see the finished product, as 20th Century Fox will have Bad Times At The El Royale in theaters on October 5th. And if that wait is just too much for you, be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend as we will soon have interviews for you with Drew Goddard and castmembers, including Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, and Dakota Johnson.

With Deadpool 2 now out in theaters, audiences are terribly excited for the Merc With The Mouth's future on the big screen -- and that will next happen in writer/director Drew Goddard's X-Force. Unfortunately, we don't really have an expected arrival yet, with 20th Century Fox not announcing a release date just yet, but now we know when Goddard will start work on the blockbuster in earnest. I asked the filmmaker about balancing the project with his most recent directorial effort, and he told me,

I spent the first few days of this week in Lake Tahoe as part of a press event for Bad Times At The El Royale, and it was at the end of my interview with Drew Goddard that I asked about the status of X-Force. The director's sophomore film is notably coming together extremely fast -- it started production in January and will be in theaters in October -- and it turns out he hasn't had a ton of time to dedicate towards thinking about his first big comic book movie. It's all for the best, however, as it turns out he's not big on juggling projects.

Drew Goddard has had some experience already working in the world of superhero adaptations, though there have been a few hitches along the way. After providing some advice to Joss Whedon about the characterization of Loki in the making of The Avengers, he had his first real opportunity to contribute to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the Daredevil series on Netflix. He is still credited as the creator, and wrote the first two episodes, but in the midst of development he left to work with Sony on their Sinister Six film -- planned as a spin-off from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. That particular franchise wound up abruptly ending, with Spidey swinging back to the MCU, and that idea went on the shelf, but in late 2017 he was hired by Fox to helm their long-awaited X-Force movie.

Outside of comic book features, Drew Goddard has kept himself extremely busy since making his directorial debut with The Cabin In The Woods, with his greatest achievement being the Academy Award nomination he earned for writing 2015's The Martian. That being said, Bad Times At The El Royale will be only the second movie he's directed, arriving more than six years after his brilliant meta horror film. That certainly supports his sentiment regarding being a "one-movie-at-a-time kind of guy," though fans are still incredibly hungry to see what he will do with Deadpool, Cable, Domino and more in X-Force.

While we don't yet know how long we'll have to wait for the arrival of X-Force, there is plenty of Drew Goddard's work coming soon. The amazing NBC comedy series The Good Place, which he contributes to as an Executive Producer, is beginning its third season on September 27th. And as mentioned, on the big screen we will soon get to be entranced by the star-studded Bad Times At The El Royale, starring Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Nick Offerman, Cynthia Erivo and more. Fox will have it in theaters on October 5th, and be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more from my interviews!

Drew Goddard has already demonstrated numerous times how talented a film and television screenwriter he is, but in 2012, he showed off his directing chops with The Cabin in the Woods, which was met with critical acclaim. Six years later, Goddard's second directorial effort, Bad Times at the El Royale, is on its way, and if the first trailer is any indication, it's going to be one of the weirder theatrical offerings this fall, though still entertaining.

Set in 1969, Bad Times at the El Royale sees six strangers visiting the El Royale hotel, which rests right on the border line separating California and Nevada. Our lineup of players includes a priest, played Jeff Bridges; a vacuum cleaner salesman, played by Jon Hamm; a sister criminal duo, played by Dakota Johnson and Cailee Spaeny, respectively; a down-on-her-luck singer, played by Cynthia Erivo; and a charismatic cult leader, played by Chris Hemsworth. Then there's the hotel's concierge, played by Lewis Pullman. But at this trailer shows us, the El Royale is not a hotel where you'll be able to kick back and relax, and it's definitely long since passed its glory days. Each of these characters, who have their own dark secrets, will face a night of hell, and I fear not all of them will make it out alive.

As you can tell from the preview, Bad Times at the El Royale comfortably rests in the thriller genre, and judging by the footage shown, there won't be any shortage of dramatic moments, be it within the hotel itself, directly outside the property or from that armored car robbery teased at several points. That said, by far my favorite part of the trailer is this hilarious snippet of Chris Hemsworth doing that funky dance. Was anyone else reminded of Oscar Isaac showing off his moves in Ex Machina?

Starting out as a writer for TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alias, Drew Goddard made the jump to movies with 2008's Cloverfield, and his writing credits since then have included World War Z and The Martian. He's also writing and directing the upcoming X-Force movie, but before that, we'll see how his second time overseeing things behind the camera goes with Bad Times at the El Royale. Looking to be equal parts crazy and intense, it will be interesting to see how this bizarre story unfolds on the big screen.

Along with the previously mentioned actors, Bad Times at the El Royale's cast includes Russell Crowe, Nick Offerman and Mark O'Brien. The movie hits theaters on October 5, putting it in competition with Venom and A Star is Born that opening weekend. If you're interested in learning what other movies are coming out later this year, look through our 2018 release schedule.

UPDATE: During my interview with Chris Hemsworth, he mentioned that both Russell Crowe and Dakota Fanning were going to both be in Bad Times At The El Royale. It turns out, however, that Hemsworth either misspoke , as while Crowe is in the film, Fanning is not. Instead, it's Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson that will be in the movie. The article, as originally published, remains below.

Drew Goddard made an incredible splash when he made his directorial debut with The Cabin In The Woods -- but we've been patiently waiting for his sophomore effort ever since. He's certainly done some amazing work since 2012 (not limited to the Oscar nominated script for The Martian, creating the Marvel/Netflix's Daredevil series, and producing/helming episodes of The Good Place), but we've been patiently waiting for him to direct a second feature. That will finally come together this year with Bad Times At The El Royale, and not only will the movie star Chris Hemsworth and Jeff Bridges, as previously announced, but also Russell Crowe and Dakota Fanning.

I sat down with Chris Hemsworth this past weekend during the Los Angeles press day for his upcoming film, 12 Strong, and it was during our conversation that his reunion with Drew Goddard came up (Hemsworth having starred in Cabin In The Woods). Talking about the ensemble that the project is bringing together -- including himself, Jeff Bridges, and Pacific Rim Uprising actress Cailee Spaeny -- the Australian actor also confirmed two previously unannounced additions. Hemsworth didn't provide any details regarding the roles that Russell Crowe and Dakota Fanning will be playing, but just their established talent alone makes them exciting additions.

News about Bad Times At The El Royale broke back in August of last year, when Chris Hemsworth and Jeff Bridges were signed on as principals. Described by Hemsworth as a "'60s noir thriller," the official line on the story has it centering on a group of strangers who find their fates intertwine at a Lake Tahoe hotel. Presumably all of the names announced thus far are part of that grouping, but we'll just have to wait and find out exactly is driving everyone when more details about the film become available.

For his part, Chris Hemsworth told me that didn't hesitate when he was offered the chance to work with Drew Goddard again. The star is just coming off an incredibly busy streak that saw him bounce from the productions of Thor: Ragnarok to 12 Strong to The Avengers: Infinity War/Avengers 4 (not to mention press cycles for the first two), but evidently crazy exhaustion was no match for his excitement. Speaking about Bad Times At The El Royale, Hemsworth explained,

Based on the description, Bad Times At The El Royale sounds like it is going to be a very tight movie scale-wise -- which is good, because it looks like it will be coming together on a fast schedule. During our interview, Chris Hemsworth mentioned that production will be stretching from March to April, and 20th Century Fox is scheduled to have it in theaters on October 5th of this year. That leaves about five months for the movie to move through both production and post-production, which isn't a whole lot of time... but hopefully it's all the time that it needs.

We'll keep you updated about the latest news regarding Bad Times At The El Royale -- and be sure to not only stay tuned for more from my interview with Chris Hemsworth, but also for his new based-on-a-true-story war film 12 Strong, which will be in theaters January 19th.

The X-Men movie franchise is branching off in several different directions, one of those being the R-rated path that was first paved by Deadpool last year. While Deadpool 2 will primarily serve as another way to spotlight the Merc with the Mouth, it will also introduce Cable and Domino, two of Wade Wilson's fellow X-Force teammates in the comics. Longtime fans of the team of militant mutants can take comfort knowing that an X-Force movie is also on the way, and word now is that The Martian's Drew Goddard has been tapped to direct the blockbuster and more.

20th Century Fox has reportedly hired Drew Goddard to write and direct the upcoming X-Force movie. This will mark his third time directing a movie, following 2012's The Cabin in the Woods and the upcoming Bad Times at the El Royale. Once the latter movie is in the bag, then Goddard will shift his attention to X-Force. Deadline also reported that both Deadpool and Cable will be among the movie's leads, which many fans expected given their history with the team.

Drew Goddard had built a solid resume of movie and television work like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, Cloverfield and The Martian, but his journey to overseeing a superhero project has been bumpy. He was originally the showrunner for Netflix's Daredevil, but he departed the TV series and passed along those duties to Steve DeKnight (Goddard is still credited as an executive producer and for writing the first two episodes). Goddard was also hired to write and direct the Sinister Six movie, but he eventually left that project, and the spinoff was later cancelled after Sony decided to scrap the Amazing Spider-Man series in favor of bringing the Web-Slinger into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He got his foot back in the superhero door when he started helping Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick write Deadpool 2, and presumably that's what helped him score the X-Force gig. State of Affairs' Joe Carnahan was previously attached as the X-Force writer, but with Goddard now on board, it's unclear if any of Carnahan's material will be kept.

No official X-Force plot details have been revealed yet, but the movie will keep faithful to the comics by following a team of mutants that goes on black-ops missions and is willing to take more aggressive action towards its enemies than the regular X-Men are willing to do. With both Deadpool and Cable as two of the main members, as well as Domino likely (but not confirmed) to return, there are still a few spots left to be filled on the cinematic X-Force team, so stay tuned on which mutants Drew Goddard decides are worthy of recruitment.

Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates on how the X-Force movie is coming along, and in the meantime, you can look through our guide about other X-Men movies are in development.

UPDATE: Ryan Reynolds is refuting that Deadpool 2 has a new writer, saying that Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are still writing the screenplay. This story is still developing.

Original story follows below.

It's not exaggerating to say that Deadpool was one of the biggest superhero movie successes last year. Thanks to its comedic originality, not only did it receive a lot of accolades (including Golden Globe nominations), but it also collected over $780 million worldwide off a $58 million budget. With a performance like that, it's no wonder 20th Century Fox greenly a sequel. Ever since the official Deadpool 2 announcement was made, Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have talked about the sequel like they've been working on it, but news just broke that apparently someone else is now tackling the script: The Martian's Drew Goddard.

According to Collider, Drew Goddard is currently working on the Deadpool 2 script with Ryan Reynolds, a.k.a. Deadpool himself. No reason was provided for why Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are no longer tackling it, and it's unclear just how far they made it into the story before Goddard and Reynolds took over. This is the second major creative change to occur with Deadpool 2, as Tim Miller exited directing the sequel last year and was replaced by John Wick's David Leitch. Goddard was also eyed as a directorial candidate before Leitch snagged the job.

It's hard to imagine Deadpool 2 without the finalized story having been composed by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Those two labored on Deadpool for years as it languished in development hell, and a significant amount of that movie's success was due to their comedy chops. Even though Drew Goddard and Ryan Reynolds are now taking over the writing process, hopefully at least some elements of Reese and Wernick's Deadpool 2 work will remain intact, rather than this being a page one rewrite-kind of deal. Fortunately, that latter option is unlikely since the sequel is expected to hit theaters in 2018.

As far as Drew Goddard goes, the man has plenty of experience in the sci-fi, fantasy and horror realms, having written Cloverfield, World War Z, The Martian and The Cabin in the Woods (which he also directed). On TV, his credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias and Lost. This also won't be Goddard's first time in the world of superheroes, as he wrote the first two episodes of Netflix's Daredevil and was originally supposed to be the showrunner. He was also set to direct a Sinister Six movie for Sony back when the Amazing Spider-Man series was still going, but that was scrapped.

No official plot details for Deadpool 2 have been announced yet, but the blockbuster will introduce Cable and Domino, two longtime allies (and occasional adversaries) of the Merc with the Mouth's from the comics. It's also been confirmed that Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Dopinder the cab driver will return for the sequel.

Stay tuned for to CinemaBlend for more updates on Deadpool 2 as they come in, and in the meantime, let us know what you think about Drew Goddard taking over as writer in the comments below.

Meanwhile, The X-Force Movie Has Taken A Big Step Forward

The Flash may be The Fastest Man Alive, but his first solo theatrical movie is having trouble moving forward. Earlier this year, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter's Seth Grahame-Smith departed as director of The Flash, but he was soon replaced by Dope's Rick Famuyiwa. Unfortunately, on Monday it was announced that Famuyiwa exited the project due to "creative differences" (supposedly he wanted to do an edgier take than what Warner Bros and DC wanted). Now The Flash has lost two directors, and with only a few months to go until principal photography is set to begin, they need to find someone soon and, like the eponymous hero, they need to be fast.

While The Flash's situation behind the scenes is definitely troubling, we've come up with a list of candidates who would be worthy successors to Famuyiwa. They all come from different backgrounds, but they have what it takes to pick up the pieces and move forward to make this DC movie the best it can be. First up, let's start with someone who assisted DC's biggest rival in a time of need...

Adam McKay

Most of you know Adam McKay through his collaborations with Will Ferrell, like Anchorman and Step-Brothers. However, he does have some superhero experience under his belt thanks to re-writing the Ant-Man script with Paul Rudd. McKay is expected to also tackle the Ant-Man and the Wasp story, but as far as we know, that's the extent of his involvement. The Flash would be the prime opportunity for him to helm his own superhero movie, and if necessary, he can make adjustments to the script. For those who think McKay's body of work is too goofy for him to be a serious Flash contender, you need to check out his 2015 hit, The Big Short. That Academy Award-nominated movie proved he can handle a drama infused with comedy, which is something The Flash is expected to be.

Drew Goddard

Drew Goddard has waited a long time to fully oversee a superhero project. He was originally the showrunner for Daredevil and wrote the first two episodes of Season 1, but he left before shooting kicked off. He was also supposed to direct the Sinister Six movie, but after Sony scrapped the Amazing Spider-Man universe in favor of bringing a new Wall-Crawler into the MCU, that project was axed. Given his experience with science fiction, ranging from writing episodes of Lost to penning The Martian, The Flash would be an excellent movie for him to put his skills to work. After all, Flash is one of the more sci-fi heavy corners of the DC universe thanks to The Rogues, the Speed Force and more.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon has spent most of his career in Hollywood as a second unit director, but he recently stretched his muscles as the man in charge helming 2014's The Town That Dreaded Sundown and 2015's Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. He would hopefully bring the same comedy-drama elements from that second movie to The Flash. Remember, just because one hasn't directed a blockbuster before doesn't mean they're not capable of delivering a good one on their first attempt. That was the case with Rick Famuyiwa, but because of his work on Dope, Warner Bros felt he would be a good fit for the Scarlet Speedster (for a time). The same could work for Gomez-Rejon, as long as he remembers to inject those quieter personal moments so the characters feel more real.

Lexi Alexander

Punisher: War Zone may not be the most beloved superhero movie, but many Punisher fans believe it was better than Frank Castle's 2004 movie and felt closer to the source material. The movie's director, Lexi Alexander, recently jumped back into the live action superhero game when she directed the Arrow episode "Beyond Redemption" and the Supergirl episode "Truth, Justice and the American Way." She was also one of the names tossed out for directing Wonder Woman years back. It's about time Alexander receives a second chance at helming a cinematic superhero tale. If you follow her on social media, you know she's a "think outside the box" kind of person, so ideally that means she would bring a unique flair to the Scarlet Speedster's first solo adventure.

Ruben Fleischer

From what we've learned so far, The Flash is aiming to be a lighter action movie, more similar to Suicide Squad than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Well, when it comes to that kind of tone, Ruben Fleischer would be in his wheelhouse. He has plenty of experience in the action-comedy realm from directing Zombieland (and its upcoming sequel) and 30 Minutes or Less. He also explored the world of organized crime through Gangster Squad, so helming a superhero movie would be an interesting step from there. As seen in Suicide Squad and the Justice League preview, this version of Barry Allen is more humorous, so you need someone who can effectively expand on his charm, as well as make sure the other characters have interesting personalities.

F. Gary Gray

F. Gary Gray has been directing movies since the 1990s, with his resume including Friday, The Italian Job and Law Abiding Citizen. However, the last few years have been particularly kind to him. Following the enormous success of Straight Outta Compton, he was tapped to direct Fast 8, which hits theaters on April 14, 2017. Needless to say he's on a role, so Warner Bros and DC would be wise to snatch him up for The Flash. He'll be hot off overseeing a high-octane adventure, and his other credits prove he knows how to make an exciting movie, which The Flash needs to be and then some. All this being said, if Gray is hired, Warner will need to delay blockbuster's principal photography, because currently its launch date overlaps with Fast 8's post-production period and press promotion.

Edgar Wright

Most of you reading this list know that Edgar Wright's past experience with superhero movies hasn't been great. In 2006, a few years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe launched, he boarded Ant-Man as its director, but in 2014, he departed the movie over "creative differences." It's understandable if he would be hesitant about trying his hand as another movie in this genre, but The Flash would nonetheless be an excellent opportunity for him. Not only is Wright more than capable of directing a funny movie, but he's also a comics fan, which is a nice bonus. Plus, look at his 2010 movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It was frantic, funny and unique. That's what The Flash will be like...but with less absurdity. Things didn't work out with Marvel, but maybe Wright would have better luck at DC.

The movie world is still in shock at the revelation that Tim Miller will no longer be directing Deadpool 2. But, as the old adage goes, the show must go on, which is why various filmmakers are already being linked with the coveted position. It had previously been speculated that John Wick's David Leitch was in pole position for the job, but now two further names have been added to the short-list in the shape of Drew Goddard and Magnus Martens.

Deadline were quick to insist that while David Leitch is still the favorite for the Deadpool 2 directing gig, 20th Century Fox also wanted to meet with a few more filmmakers to hear what their visions for the blockbuster would be. First on this list was Drew Goddard, who earlier this year was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenwriting efforts on The Martian, an accolade that ultimately went to Adam McKay and Charles Randolph for The Big Short.

Drew Goddard's work as a screenwriter has been hugely impressive, as he's scribed on the small-screen for the likes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, Lost, and, most recently Daredevil, which he created. He also has some inpressive film credits, like Cloverfield, The Cabin In The Woods, and World War Z, plus The Martian.

Goddard has been looking to move into feature film directing for quite a while now, having helped to executive produce 10 Cloverfield Lane, as well as directing the pilot of The Good Place for NBC, too. In fact he was originally supposed to oversee the Amazing Spider-Man spin-off Sinister Six for Sony, only for Marvel to come in, reboot Peter Parker and add him to their universe.

Meanwhile, Magnus Martens has been earning rave reviews for his work on Luke Cage for Marvel over on Netflix, which earned him the right to pitch his vision for Deadpool 2. The Norwegian director has overseen episodes for the likes of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., Power, 12 Monkeys and Banshee, too, while his 2014 Norwegian action film, Jackpot, is currently being remade with Will Gluck directing and Mila Kunis starring.

For the time being at least, though, David Leitch remains the front-runner to replace Tim Miller in the Deadpool 2 hot seat. After working as a stuntman in Hollywood for over 20 years, David Leitch made the leap behind the camera with 2014's John Wick. Roundly and rightly adored because of its high-octane action, John Wick made $86 million and a sequel was soon green-lit.

However, David Leitch has decided just to return as producer on John Wick: Chapter 2, leaving solo directing duties to Chad Stahelski, who he shared them with on the original. Instead, David Leitch moved onto The Coldest City, an action thriller set in Berlin on the eve of the Wall's collapse, which stars Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman and Sofia Boutella. The Coldest City will be released on August 11, 2017.

We can expect an announcement regarding Deadpool 2 very soon, because 20th Century Fox will want to quash any fears over its production, while they'll also want to get cameras rolling pretty pronto ahead of its release in 2018.

When a team as effective as writer Drew Goddard and director Ridley Scott make a film as successful, and as artistically rewarding, as The Martian, naturally a follow-up effort is a possibility. However, that doesn't always mean going back to the well, as Scott, Goddard, and some of their other collaborators from this year's Best Picture nominee have decided to go out west and tell the tale Wraiths of the Broken Land.

Also tagging along for the new literary adaptation that Goddard will find himself at the pen of is The Martian's studio home, 20th Century Fox, as well as producers Simon Kinberg, Michael Schaefer, and Aditya Sood, so at least behind the scenes, it's almost a proper family reunion. The story of Wraiths of the Broken Land has been summed up by Deadline in their write-up as the following:

Naturally, it shouldn't surprise you that S. Craig Zahler, the writer/director of Bone Tomahawk, is the author that cooked up this story of violence and vengeance in 1900. Zahler has been a hot commodity in Hollywood as of late, with his Kurt Russell horror / western vehicle making enough of a splash to land him the gig of rebooting the Puppet Master series, as well as putting Wraiths of the Broken Land on the radar for those eager to get in on the fun. No cast or production date have been set, which means that there's plenty of time to try and convince others involved with The Martian, as well as folks from Ridley Scott's own personal stable of reliable actors.

Right out of the gate, we're hoping that Matt Damon himself just might sign on for another Western adventure, his first since 2010's True Grit. Considering how well Damon worked with Drew Goddard's dialogue and Ridley Scott's direction, it's too good of a prospect not to imagine the three hard at work on Wraiths of the Broken Land. Though S. Craig Zahler's novel is markedly darker than Andy Weir's space-faring drama with comedic overtones, it's not at all out of the wheelhouses of Damon, or Goddard and Scott for that matter. At the very least, the film will be handled by a group of professionals who know how to handle settings with prolonged exposure to sun and copious amounts of sand.

As soon as we have any more information about Wraiths of the Broken Land's progress, we'll bring you up to speed as soon as we have any updates.

Movies are weird. The movies themselves are entertainment. They’re artistic creations designed by people with stories to tell and messages to convey. However, you only get to tell that story if a business believes that enough people will pay enough money to see you tell it. But, maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Could it be so simple that the best story will make the most money? One writer thinks so.

World War Z was a movie whose production has become famous for its difficulty. Eventually Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof were called in during production to rewrite parts of the script. The entire third act was reshot. It made World War Z much more expensive than originally planned. However, the movie became a tremendous hit, bringing in more than half a billion dollars at the global box office. According to Drew Goddard, in an interview with Creative Screenwriting, this was not a coincidence. He surmises: 

It seems like the most obvious thing in the world but, as Drew Goddard says, a lot of times it just doesn’t happen like that. Studios see additional expenses as cutting into eventual profits, as opposed to being a way to actually increase those profits down the road. Instead, many films that have production issue are just thrown out to audiences to recoup whatever costs they can, rather than having the time taken to fix the problems.

However, most of the examples that we have where studios allow the filmmakers to take their time and make the movie right sees success. Peter Jackson spent years in preproduction on The Lord of the Rings before a single frame was shot. The director has said himself that the reason The Hobbit trilogy is not as good is because he did not have that extra time.

J.J. Abrams has credited the injury to Harrison Ford for making Star Wars: The Force Awakens a better movie. Much like Goddard says, it gave Abrams the chance to take a step back and reevaluate things, due to the forced pause in production.

Is it all that simple? Will just taking the time to make the best product result in the financial success the studio requires? Let us know your thoughts.

Leave it to The Martian fans to use science and math to figure out one of the book’s (and the movie’s) most tantalizing mysteries. Obviously, Andy Weir’s story takes place in the future, though the novel, and Sir Ridley Scott’s movie, never specified in which year the narrative takes place. Well, that was unacceptable for a select few who adore the tale of Mark Watney, and they finally figured out the exact date in which The Martian takes place.

Reddit user Lee_Ars started heating up the conversation three months ago, pointing out that including Thanksgiving in the story – as a catalyst for Watney’s eventual potato farm – was a significant clue. As Ars writes, he interviewed Weir, who explained that once readers could lock in on a year where the transfer orbits to Mars worked out in such a way that it allowed the crew of the ARES III to actually celebrate Thanksgiving on the surface of the Red Planet, then the entire story of The Martian could be backtracked from that starting point until you discovered the actual date.

As it turns out, the answer has been out there, waiting for fans to dig it up. On his own Facebook page, Andy Weir posted (in January) that a Martian fan named Kenny Ray was able to "back-calculate the actual dates from information in the book," and received a signed copy of The Martian for his deductive skills. Weir writes:

Obviously, The Martian had to take place in some futuristic frame, as NASA hasn’t yet figured out how to send manned missions to Mars (and after seeing this movie, they might want to scrap any programs that will try to make such missions a reality). But Weir, Ridley Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard seemed to go out of their way to avoid including any references in the film that would date the material. In fact, the most successful running joke in The Martian is the enduring power of disco music… an audio gag that would be funny in any decade.

Audiences have responded in kind to Sir Ridley Scott’s The Martian, opening the sci-fi thriller to a whopping $55 million and setting the film up for a possible run through the end-of-year awards season. Did you see The Martian yet? Now that you know when the story takes place, see it again and look for clues that might have divulged this 2035 date.

Ridley Scott’s The Martian has been nearly universally praised for its smart and fantastic approach to sci-fi – centering on a character who has fun while solving life-threatening problems with science – but the film also truly has a wonderful pop culture sensibility. Throughout the film, various nods and mentions are made to films and television shows, not only helping to pepper the adventure with humor and wit, but also making the characters appear more human and relatable. It’s an intelligent and perfectly utilized tool, and a particular aspect that’s worth celebrating.

Read on for five great pop culture references from The Martian!

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains many, many spoilers for The Martian. If you haven’t had the opportunity to see the film just yet, we recommend clicking away to another one of our wonderful articles.

Happy Days

To kick things off, let’s talk about the reference that actually winds up becoming a little callback joke. The Martian first establishes a connection with the classic sitcom Happy Days as Mark Watney watches it while trying to come up with some kind of way to produce water for his potato crops. It’s towards the middle of the movie, however, that the TV classic comes back to provide movie-goers with a big laugh. It’s requested by NASA that Mark use the Pathfinder camera to take a picture of himself, and the astronaut/botanist ultimately decides that the best pose to go with in the double thumbs-up Fonzie look. It’s one of the many moments in the movie that really lets the audience appreciate just how fantastic Watney is as a character, and become emotionally invested in his survival. You can’t help but love a guy for being this silly while also stranded all alone on the surface of Mars.

Lord of the Rings

The Martian has many sequences and lines that we will be remembering for a long time, but the moment that has the real potential to go down in geek history is Project Elrond. A name chosen to reflect the fact that the operation and talks about it are being kept secretive, the scene is not only a perfectly nerdy reference to The Lord Of The Rings, but also gets bonus points for actually having Sean Bean involved (the actor having been featured in Peter Jackson’s live-action adaptation of the Council of Elrond in The Fellowship of the Ring). Ridley Scott actually wanted to cut this part out of The Martian because he actually felt it was too silly, but a Fox executive told him that it should stay in because it’s funny. So while things usually move in the other direction, in this case I guess we should say thank you, nameless Fox executive!

Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Zork II

In The Martian, it’s the geeks who are the true heroes of the story, and pretty much every aspect of that phrase is celebrated in the film. This even extends to geeks who never really managed to move on beyond video games of the 1980s, and continue playing titles such as Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Zork II. While searching for a hexadecimal translation chart so that he can better communicate with NASA, Mark Watney comes these two games loaded into a laptop belonging to Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara) – and even he can’t help himself making fun of her nerdery. After their initial reference, neither get mentioned again in the rest of the movie – though given the amount of time passes without us seeing anything that’s going on, we do hope that Watney spent at least some of his time on Mars both beating and mastering every level of them.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Most of the references noted here are pretty blatant and obvious, so hopefully you’ll bear with us as we take a tiny little trip over to stretch-town. As any die-hard Whedonite would quickly and happily point out, The Martian screenwriter Drew Goddard got his start in Hollywood working as a writer on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and there’s a moment in the film when fans can catch what seems like it may be a very tiny nod. Specifically, towards the end of the movie we hear a situation described as being "five by five" – arguably the catch phrase of Eliza Dushku’s character, Faith. It’s entirely possible that this bit of dialogue is utilized by the Ridley Scott movie in more of a "NASA speak" capacity, but the expression has so much resonance amongst Buffy fans that it’s hard not to hope that it’s a nice little allusion to Goddard’s past.

Iron Man

Matt Damon has said that he doesn’t really have a ton of interest in becoming a comic book superhero – outside of a Christopher Nolan-made Daredevil adaptation - but Ridley Scott’s The Martian does provide him the opportunity to play Iron Man for just a little bit. In the film’s final big action sequence, Mark Watney finds himself with just one more little problem that he has to solve before making his way back to Earth – and it involves him needing to cut a hole in his space suit and fly through nothingness towards a floating, waiting Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain). It’s a moment that comes after declarations of being the first to colonize Mars, and being the first ever real space pirate, but one could argue that Mark declaring his plans to become Tony Stark’s heroic alter-ego is one of his most prideful moments.

The following contains spoilers for The Martian, so bail now if you still have not seen the film!

Andy Weir made sure that he set the tone for The Martian right off the bat. The first lines of his 2011 novel about an astronaut stranded on Mars are, "I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked." And yet, if you were one of the many who caught The Martian over the weekend, you didn’t get to hear those famous lines come from Matt Damon’s mouth. Did you wonder why?

We sat down with Drew Goddard, screenwriter of Ridley Scott’s The Martian, back when the movie made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. And shortly after my screening, I had multiple friends email me asking, specifically, if that line opened the film. It doesn’t – as you likely know – so I asked Goddard why he didn’t open his film that way. As much as he loved the optimism found in those opening words, Goddard had a very good reason for not using them, explaining:

That doesn’t mean Matt Damon doesn’t get to swear. In fact, his exasperated delivery of "Fuck you, Mars" might be my favorite joke in any film this year.

In a recent interview with HitFix, though, Andy Weir admits that he was "a little bummed" that Mark Watney (Damon) didn’t get to utter the famous line in the film, even if he understood the editing choices. Opening the movie with Damon in that situaion would have required an overhaul. Some things just work better on the page.

The Martian got off to a red-hot start at the box office over the weekend, opening to a massive $55 million, which just missed setting a new record for an October opening. We expect it to continue to play well in the coming weeks. If you haven’t seen it yet, rectify that situation immediately!

How on Earth (no pun intended) does one write a screenplay like The Martian, where the majority of your story is set on an alien landscape? How, in addition, does a screenwriter attack a story where the lead character is all alone on a planet for 95% of the film?

These are but a sliver of the obstacles facing The Martian screenwriter Drew Goddard as he sat down to adapt Andy Weir’s best-selling novel for Sir Ridley Scott to direct. Goddard’s no slouch at the keyboard, having scripted episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias and Lost, as well as the feature films Cloverfield and The Cabin in the Woods (the latter of which, he directed). We were able to speak with Goddard at the Toronto International Film Festival about his experiences working on The Martian (a movie we LOVED), and this is what we learned:

Writing Scenes Set On Mars Wasn’t As Hard As You’d Think

One reality that struck me repeatedly while watching The Martian was that it physically looks like Sir Ridley transported Matt Damon to the Red Planet to capture the scenes that he needed. They actually filmed in Jordan and Hungary, but when I sat with Goddard, I wondered if having an alien location as his necessary backdrop affected him when he started to write. I mean, did he know how Ridley Scott would be able to film something that looked enough like Mars that the audience would believe him? Goddard told me:

Goddard admitted that he does think of the budget before he writes the screenplay, and if it looks like thye won’t be able to afford exotic, martian locations, he might start thinking about ways to cleverly get around the visual obstacle. Thankfully, one of the reasons why The Martian is so fantastic is because it LOOKS great. And we believe that Matt Damon is all by himself, on an alien world.

Being A Lonely Writer Actually Helped Him Understand The Material

While we’re on the topic of being by yourself, Drew Goddard and I talked about the process of writing, and how it’s a solitary "sport." This mindset actually helped him understand Mark Watney (Matt Damon), the stranded astronaut who is left behind after a Mars missions goes sour, and must figure out how to survive for a VERY long time while he waits for NASA to rescue him. Goddard told me:

That feeling of isolation, and of joy when a connection is established, is very important to the vibe of The Martian, and it’s yet another aspect that Drew Goddard and Sir Ridley Scott got right when adapting Andy Weir’s novel.

He Wishes He Could Have Directed This One Scene

Before Sir Ridley decided to make The Martian his latest feature, Drew Goddard was on the hook to make Weir’s adaptation his anticipated follow-up to The Cabin in the Woods. It wasn’t meant to be, I suppose, but I was certain that Goddard had at least started mapping out a few visual sequences in his brain. I asked if there was a particular sequence in his screenplay that he wished he had the opportunity to direct, and he opened up:

He’s referring to a scene late in the movie where Matt Damon’s character has to complete a difficult task, and the sequence – like a lot of The Martian -- is set to a catchy disco track… in this case, Waterloo by Abba. Goddard’s eyes light up as he talks more about his approach to it, saying:

Remember Drew Goddard when you get to the Waterloo scene in The Martian, which opens everywhere on Friday, Oct. 2.

Next year, David Ayer's Suicide Squad will introduce audiences to a new form of the comic book movie, centering a plot around a team of characters who are primarily known as villains instead of heroes. Of course, this isn't actually the only film in development to tackle this approach, as Drew Goddard has spent years trying to make a movie about Spider-Man's primary villains joining together to take down the web-slinger, forming the Sinister Six. Because Suicide Squad is coming out next year while Sinister Six remains in the development stages, you might think that Drew Goddard might be a little disappointed about the DC Comics film's release - but that isn't really the case. Why? He was taught to expects that someone in Hollywood will always be working on stuff similar to his own.

We've been hearing Drew Goddard talk about his Sinister Six movie a lot recently - as he's been on the press tour promoting The Martian - but it was while talking to IGN that he addressed comparisons between his movie and David Ayer's. Asked how he felt when he heard the news that Suicide Squad would be moving forward, the Cabin In The Woods writer/director explained,

"Cosmetic similarities" is actually a great way to describe the relationship between Sinister Six and Suicide Squad, because while the movies both do focus on teams of supervillains, that's pretty much where the similarities end. In the former, the antagonists are brought together through their shared hatred of Spider-Man and their aim to kill him, while the latter focuses on a team of incarcerated criminals who are forced into black ops work in exchange for reduced sentences.

But even beyond the radically different plotlines, Drew Goddard also sees another key difference between Suicide Squad and his Sinister Six movie: tone and vision. Because while both stories may be coming from the same medium, they're being brought to life by two very, very different filmmakers. Or as the Daredevil series creator put it,

Despite the fact that Sinister Six was being developed as part of the now-defunct Amazing Spider-Man franchise, the project is still alive and kicking, with Marvel Studios keeping it in the mix as a possible future direction for the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the wall-crawling hero. Right now the film doesn't appear to be on any kind of development schedule, and no release date has been announced, but hopefully we'll hear more about it soon.

In the meantime, Suicide Squad will be arriving in theaters August 5th.

After the shit show that was Ben Affleck’s Daredevil, the "man without fear" returned to Hell’s Kitchen for Netflix’s first Marvel original series from Drew Goddard. As it turns out, though, we could’ve gotten another big-screen adaptation. In a new interview, the series showrunner opened up about why Daredevil made the move from feature film to Netflix original.

Goddard wrote the screenplay for Ridley Scott’s The Martian, and it was while out promoting this film that IGN caught up with him. After the conversation turned its attention to Daredevil, Goddard revealed that he spoke with Marvel "a couple years ago" about making a Daredevil movie. These talks ultimately led nowhere, which ended up working out for him because Netflix ended up being a better home for the character.

In speaking about the move to Netflix, Goddard said,

Since the first Iron Man, Marvel’s cinematic universe has been pegged as a family affair, one that appeals to a wide range of audiences, and an R-rating would certainly detract from that. Netflix, meanwhile, is its own entity of sorts. But there was another major hangup in preventing a movie version: as Goddard explained, Marvel is all about going big with alien invasions, world-changing events, and the like. The character of Matt Murdock, on the other hand, isn’t about fighting spaceships, but instead focuses on the small-scale objective of keeping his neighborhood clean. His vision for the character wasn't going to fit as a Marvel movie in the MCU.

At the end of the day, it was a smart move. Although Marvel and Netflix initially announced four standalone series (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist) and one crossover miniseries (The Defenders), the success of Daredevil prompted both parties to greenlight a second season. The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal will portray Frank Castle/The Punisher, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation’s Elodie Yung will play assassin Elektra (first played by Jennifer Garner in the Ben Affleck film). Stick (Scott Glenn) will also return for a three-episode arc in season 2 on a mission that Matt wants no part of. Deborah Ann Hall, Rosario Dawson, and Elden Henson will reprise their roles.

Daredevil will be hitting up New York Comic Con next month, and though it’s unclear if we’ll be getting any new information on season 2, there will be a lookback on the best moments from season 1. If anything, though, the cast of Jessica Jones will appear on stage for the first time during the convention. So there's that.

It seems like 20th Century Fox’s Gambit movie can’t catch a break. First there was initial trouble trying to find a director to make it. Then there was some drama with Channing Tatum, and stories suggesting that he would possibly leave the project. And then just a few weeks after that whole deal was settled, we got news that director Rupert Wyatt has decided to drop the film and move on to other endeavors. This means the studio is now rushing to find a filmmaker to take his place… so we’ve decided to help out with a few suggestions of our own.

There are many things to consider when thinking about a possible director to make Gambit. It’s a filmmaker who should know how to shoot interesting and kinetic action, but you also want somebody who could find the proper tone to get the right amount of drama. And some experience shooting in New Orleans, and being familiar with the region doesn’t hurt either. We considered all of this in pitching possible replacements for Rupert Wyatt at the head of the film.

Joining me for this fun bit of speculation is my good friend Silas Lesnick from ComingSoon.net/SuperHeroHype/Most Craved, who has some very pitches for directors that you probably didn’t even come close to considering. Enjoy the show!

When Spider-Man joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe earlier this year, the deal cancelled Sony's plans for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 - but interestingly it only managed to delay the Sinister Six film that was announced as being in development. Many fans have wondered how this could be, as the script was written for Andrew Garfield's version of the wall-crawler, but now screenwriter Drew Goddard has explained the situation: the story was always intended to have the character step out of his own life and in to a separate adventure.

Goddard has been doing a lot of interviews recently in promotion of The Martian (which he also wrote), and it was while talking with io9 that the filmmaker discussed the functionality of his Sinister Six movie - both how it would have operated, and how it still could operate. Explaining his personal vision for the film, he said,

What may strike some fans as odd about this quote is that it runs in contrast to things we've previously heard about the direction of the Sinister Six movie. About a year ago - when The Amazing Spider-Man franchise was still a thing - star Andrew Garfield was quoted saying that Spidey's role in the future blockbuster is "kind of immaterial." This led fans to believe that the villains would be the stars of the show in Sinister Six, but apparently that's not the case. Said Goddard,

For those unfamiliar with the comics, the Sinister Six is a group of villains featuring six of Spider-Man's greatest foes, all of whom come together for a plan to destroy their web-slinging nemesis. The roster has changed many, many times over the years, but the first incarnation included Doctor Octopus, Electro, Kraven The Hunter, Mysterio, Sandman, and Vulture. It was never officially revealed what the team would have been in the Amazing Spider-Man franchise, but there is evidence out there to suggest that the unit would have included Green Goblin, Kraven, Mysterio, Vulture, and Doctor Octopus (the sixth spot potentially belonging to Rhino, Electro, or even potentially The Lizard).

Hopefully we'll get to see Drew Goddard's Sinister Six movie some day - but it doesn't sound like it's happening any time soon.

It’s been seven years since Cloverfield wowed audiences with its rough and tumble camera approach and reel after reel of devastation. And while some of you might think that too much time has passed for a sequel to be made, its writer Drew Goddard isn’t adverse to such a film. However, he insists that if it was to made, it needs to be on their terms, and in the right spirit.

Speaking to MTV at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Goddard is in attendance to help promote The Martian, which he wrote, he was asked about the chances of a Cloverfield 2. And while his passion for the franchise was clear, his respect for it was just as prevalent, which is why they’re proceeding almost a little bit too cautiously. Goddard explained:

And while Goddard’s sentiment that everything doesn’t need to be a franchise is cute, it’s also one that I’m sure Hollywood executives would wholly disagree with. In fact, just after Cloverfield turned its relatively low $25 million budget into the worldwide box office sum of $170.8 million, Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot Productions would have immediately pined for a follow-up.

Previously, Cloverfield director Matt Reeves admitted that he was seriously intrigued about making a Cloverfield 2. In fact, he believed that they could have focused on the same alien invasion of New York, but just from a different perspective. Speaking to Coming Soon.net all the way back in January 2008, Reeves pointed out that a particular scene on the Brooklyn Bridge, which saw Hud’s (T.J. Miller) camera capture another guy filming the tragedy, had inspired him. Remember this scene?

However, as the years have rolled on, Cloverfield 2 seems to have been put on the back-burner by everyone involved. Drew Goddard followed up writing and directing the excellent The Cabin In The Woods by writing World War Z and The Martian, as well as scribing TV’s Daredevil.

Meanwhile, Matt Reeves is now a firm part of the rebooted Planet Of The Apes franchise, having directed Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, while he’s currently working on War Of The Planet Of The Apes. J.J. Abrams appears to have fallen off the face of the earth though, and he’s absolutely, 100%, not working on anything that every single cinephile in the world is pant-wettingly excited for. Honest.

Last year, when Daredevil was on its way to becoming one of Netflix’s best shows, creator Drew Goddard abandoned the series to jump on board Sony’s feature take on the villainous Sinister Six spinoff. That movie has yet to move forward beyond his script, and there were rumors swirling around the Internet that Goddard and Marvel were on different pages, and not everyone was happy. But Goddard has not only dismissed those rumors as false, he also confirmed that he’ll be involved with Daredevil once again for Season 2.

Here’s how The Martian screenwriter described his relationship with the entertainment giant to Collider, and where he’s at with Daredevil.

To me, it seemed like the “right fit” for Marvel, at least at that point, was keeping Goddard on Daredevil as its showrunner. His scripts for the first two episodes were adapted beautifully by Phil Abraham, and one has to wonder how Goddard would have changed them up had he been involved as a director as well. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored everything that the replacement showrunner, Spartacus mastermind Steven S. DeKnight, put forth, and I can’t help but think that he’s a major reason why Daredevil’s fight scenes were so memorably amazing. In that respect, maybe it was better that Goddard had to step away.

Season 2 will say goodbye to DeKnight, as he’s moving on to other projects, and the show will now have showrunners in Season 1 writers Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez. Goddard says that his relationship with the duo is still strong, and that he still provides consulting to them when necessary.

Goddard is the kind of creative mind who puts a lot of thought into the things he’s writing – which is one of the reasons why Cabin in the Woods was such an amazing movie – so even if he isn’t completely enveloped in all things Daredevil for Season 2, at least his fandom-fronted mind is being utilized when necessary. So long as rumors of animosity between him and Marvel remain untrue, we can probably look forward to seeing him tinkering with parts of that universe for years.

Daredevil Season 2, which will feature the highly anticipated live-action TV debut of The Punisher, will premiere on Netflix at some point in 2016.

Should The Cabin in the Woods get a sequel? I asked Drew Goddard, and he told me that, in all honesty, his opinion changes daily.

Drew Goddard directed The Cabin in the Woods in 2012, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Joss Whedon. The immensely clever meta horror film deconstructed the clichés of the genre while setting five archetypal characters in the cabin in the woods, without telling them they were part of a much larger experiment. Those who love Cabin adore it. (Full disclosure: It was the No. 1 movie on my year-end Top 10 the year it came out.) So when I sat down with Goddard at the Toronto International Film Festival, I asked him if he and Whedon had ideas for The Cabin in the Woods 2. He told me:

I’m equally torn. As much as I loved The Cabin in the Woods, I wouldn’t want Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon revisiting the storyline for the sake of squeezing sequel money out of their clever premise. Cabin wasn’t a massive hit, but it made enough money ($66M internationally) to warrant a sequel. Critics dug it (it has a 91% Fresh grade), but we’ll feverishly turn on a sequel if it strikes us as lazy. Real talk here, people.

Now might be the time to strike, though. Joss Whedon has ended his Marvel duties. And after The Martian, Drew Goddard’s resume has a number of potential projects on the horizon – from Cloverfield 2 to Robopocalypse -- but they could be shelved in favor of Cabin in the Woods 2. Now all they need is that one big idea that motivates them to move forward. Let’s see if it happens.

As news broke that Marvel and Sony had come to terms on a partnership for a rebooted Spider-Man movie – breaking ties with Marc Webb’s two-picture series – some of us wondered if Drew Goddard would be given a chance to direct the new, standalone Spidey flick. Goddard had been working on a Sinister Six spinoff for Sony (building off the material Webb had created), and he also served as creator and writer on Netflix’s marvelous Marvel TV series Daredevil. From the outside, it seemed like Goddard deserved a shot at helming the as-yet-untitled movie, but today, he told he isn’t directing the movie because his ideas for the character were drastically changed, and he didn't have new ones.

Drew Goddard is in Toronto for the annual film festival. He’s promoting his work on Sir Ridley Scott’s The Martian, which Goddard adapted from Andy Weir’s novel. But when we spoke, I also asked him about his time with the web head, and why he isn’t helming Marvel and Sony’s 2017 movie. He explained to me:

That makes sense. Drew Goddard, Marc Webb and Sony were far enough down the creative path so that, when Marvel factored in and forced Spider-Man to shift gears, it wouldn’t be easy for him, as a screenwriter, to rework his Sinister Six material to fit a new Spidey series. They wouldn’t match, and starting over from square one probably sounded like madness for Goddard.

He remains a huge fan, though, telling me:

In addition to his writing skills, Drew Goddard also directed the exceptional Cabin in the Woods, so experience probably wasn’t an issue. Instead of Goddard, though, Marvel and Sony went with Cop Car director Jon Watts, and newcomer Tom Holland in the role. We still think Drew Goddard deserved a shot, but now we know, from his own mouth, why it isn’t happening.

Joss Whedon is exhausted from his work on Avengers: Age of Ultron. The last thing he needs right now is to get hit with a massive lawsuit for one of his past films. Three years after The Cabin in the Woods hit theaters, Whedon and the film’s distributor, Lionsgate, have been served with $10 million lawsuit for infringing on intellectual property.

Peter Gallagher (not to be confused with the actor) is the author of a book called The Little White Trip: A Night in the Pines. According to The Wrap, the suit he filed with the U.S. district court claims The Cabin in the Woods is “virtually identical” in a number of ways, including “plots, stories, characters, sequence of events, themes, dialogue and incidents.” 

Whedon co-wrote the script for the film with director Drew Goddard, telling the story of a group of teens who travel to a cabin in the woods, only to discover that they’re part of an elaborate, horrific monster-based government program. Meanwhile, Gallagher states his book features the same structure, citing the five characters between the ages of 17 and 22, the names of the two girls (Julie and Dura), the cabin with the murderous previous owners, and outside forces manipulating the the kids for a “real-life horror show.”

The film starred Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchison, Jesse Williams and Fran Kranz as the group of friends. Critics praised The Cabin in the Woods for its clever spin on the horror genre and presenting cliched tropes in new and interesting ways. In addition, the big reveal, involving a prison of monsters (that werewolf, especially), Sigourney Weaver and bloodthirsty gods of chaos, proved to be worth the wait. 

According to the author’s note in digital copies of The Little White Trip, which Gallagher released for free as an e-book, he wrote the book in 2005, published it in 2006 and registered the title with the Writers Guild of America in 2007. Afterwards, he began selling “thousands of copies” on the streets, including the Venice Beach Boardwalk, the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Santa Monica in California. Gallagher claims in the lawsuit that he sold 7,500 copies over the course of two publishing runs. 

Neither Lionsgate nor reps for Joss Whedon have responded to the suit, which also names Drew Goddard. This development comes just a couple weeks before Whedon’s highly anticipated Avengers: Age of Ultron hits theaters on May 1. We'll have to see how this all plays out, though it's worth noting the timing of the lawsuit and the fact that it took Gallagher three years to formally file. Sorry, Whedon, but it looks like you won't be retiring from the Marvel universe quietly. 

Yesterday’s report that Cabin in the Woods helmer Drew Goddard would both be writing and directing the new solo Spider-Man movie for the MCU set fire to the rain of fanboy nation. Before Marvel and Sony came to an understanding, Goddard was reportedly attached to the planned Sinister Six movie, and fans were all too pleased to hear that he was on track to stick with the web-slinger. However, new information reveals that the search for the new Spider-Man director is far from over.

While The Wrap confirms that Goddard is contention, to say that he has landed the coveted gig is pre-mature. Bolstered by information from studio insiders, the trade reports that Goddard is one of "several others" being considered, and that he hasn’t even met with Marvel yet. On the other hand, he is planning on having talks with them, and multiple sources peg him as the front-runner.

The trade didn’t reveal which other names were being considered for the job just yet, but Goddard is beloved by his fans and he's an excellent choice to lead such a venture. He’s been involved in the Daredevil universe, working on Marvel and Netflix’s first series in their Defenders series. From what we’ve seen so far of the rated "PG-16" streaming show, Charlie Cox looks pretty spectacular as the Man Without Fear, and Vincent D’Onofrio couldn’t be more perfect for the role of Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin. It seems like this is a superhero property that Goddard just gets, and fans no doubt want to see him bring a similar edge to the Spider-Man universe.

After the Sam Raimi films ended on a low note with the Venom-infused Spider-Man 3 and the Amazing Spider-Man movies from Marc Webb didn’t thrill Marvelites as Sony hoped, it’s high time that one of the most popular comic book heroes of all time gets another solid adaptation. The first Spider-Man from the historic joint venture between Marvel and Sony will hit theaters on July 28, 2017, but the web-slinger will first make an appearance in one of the MCU movies beforehand. The obvious choice would be Captain America: Civil War, which already has Chris Evans’ Cap, Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther in a war between superheroes.

Though neither studio would confirm this assertion, there’s a lot of work to be done beforehand. In addition to finding a director, they also have to choose a new Spider-Man. Despite popular opinion, I don’t believe Andrew Garfield was a bad choice for Peter Parker. That said, he won’t be coming back to the universe moving forward, and The Wrap reports the new Spidey will be "high-school-aged." Reports on Reddit claimed that The Maze Runner star Dylan O’Brien was locked in the role, but that has since been debunked.

Keep your heads up, Spidey fans! All will be revealed in time.

Now that Marvel and Sony are working together on Spider-Man, we’re slowly learning more about what to expect from the next phase of his cinematic life. It was reported earlier today that Drew Goddard may write and direct the next Spider-Man solo film. Goddard was originally set to helm the Sinister Six spinoff film that was supposed to be released in late 2016, but now that the Amazing Spider-Man series is deader than Gwen Stacy (too soon?), both studios evidently think he would be a good fit for the new iteration of the Wall-Crawler. If this deal is finalized/made legit, he will follow in the footsteps of Sam Raimi and Marc Webb, as well as be able to return to the MCU after leaving the Daredevil series.

With a new director also comes a new creative direction, and with this announcement also came hints of what we might see for Spidey’s solo film in 2017. Here are five big things you can expect from the rebooted Spider-Man, from his age and standing in the superhero community to the people he’ll be fighting.

5. No Origin Story

Twice now moviegoers have seen Peter Parker be bitten by the genetically altered spider and deal with the strange abilities that came after. Not this time. Much like Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is giving us an established Caped Crusader, the new Spider-Man film will skip over his origin and assume that the story exists "from the beginning, taken as a given." It’s been implied that Marvel will be moving away from origin stories in the future, but even if that’s not true, Spider-Man’s origin is as well known as Batman and Superman’s at this point, so there’s reason to retread this ground only five years after we got the last retelling of it. However, it might be a good idea for the movie to include a flashback or two of Peter with his Uncle Ben. Seeing the spider bite him again would be tedious, but there’s nothing wrong with showing the audience where Peter gained his moral compass.

4. He's In High School

That’s right, folks, Peter Parker won’t be heading to college anytime soon. Like the Amazing Spider-Man series, this version of Spidey will still be in high school. It was previously rumored that Sony is looking for a younger actor to play the Wall-Crawler, and said actor will apparently "grow into the role" which could extend to multiple trilogies. If it seems weird to have a high school-aged actor as an established (if somewhat inexperienced) superhero, just remember that the comic books did it for the first several years of Spider-Man's existence. As a more recent example, in the Ultimate universe, Peter was bitten by the spider at age 15, so he had approximately 2-3 years before graduating to make a name for himself. This Peter Parker may still have a little time before he pursues higher education, but he can still be decent at the crimefighting business.

3. He May Fight Iron Man

When Spider-Man reportedly debuts in Captain America: Civil War, he’ll be sharing screen time with Captain America and Iron Man. The following year, apparently Iron Man will return to tussle with Spidey in his solo film It hasn’t been revealed what would be the reason for the two of them fighting, but since this is post-Civil War, it’s possible that Spidey is now on the anti-superhuman registration side, and he tussles with Iron Man to avoid being captured. If this conflict is as big as it was in the comics, the aftermath is going to change the MCU, and Spider-Man may have to deal with pro-registration heroes following his every move. Regardless, once his fight with Iron Man is finished, this will lead to the Web-Slinger auditioning for a certain group…

2. He's Not An Avenger... Yet

Although Spider-Man has teamed up with many superheroes over the years, he’s only been a regular member of the various Avengers teams for less than a decade. In the MCU, Spidey will start out working on his own, but he has aspirations to become one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. By this point, superheroes have been around for a couple years, so it stands to reason that the Avengers wouldn’t let just anybody into their team. Because of his young age, the heroes might be hesitant to let him join, for for Peter, joining the big leagues is extremely important, so he’ll likely do whatever it takes to get them to accept him. The Avengers looks good on a superhero resume, and that would also mean we’d get to see Spidey in the Avengers: Infinity War movies.

1. The Sinister Six Is (Still) Coming Together

It was reported soon after the Marvel/Sony deal that Sinister Six, unlike the Amazing Spider-Man series, had not been cancelled, but simply delayed. This new information now states that Spider-man will tangle with the Sinister Six in his solo film, with the possibility of the team getting their spinoff still in the cards. Because this version of Spider-Man has been around for a bit, he’s had time to build a rogues gallery, so his enemies joining forces isn’t too farfetched. However, it’s one hell of a way to start of a new series by having the hero fight six villains as opposed to the usual one or two, so it will be interesting to see how this film pits them against Spidey without making it too overpowering. As for the roster, it might be wise for Marvel and Sony to use villains that haven’t been seen yet on film. Scorpion, Mysterio, Vulture, Kraven the Hunter, Shocker, Chameleon... there are plenty to choose from. There’s no need to see another version of Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus this early in the game. Right?

The search is still on to find a a new, young actor to take on the role as Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but today it looks like a different major puzzle piece has fallen into place. New reports are suggesting that the 2017 untitled Spider-Man movie may have found its writer/director, and if the source can be believed, it's none other than Cabin in the Woods filmmaker Drew Goddard.

This story first appeared over on Latino-Revew, with an inside source telling them that Goddard is now attached to make the new film - though The Wrap seems to say that he is currently only in talks rather than being officially attached. If made official, the Spider-Man movie would be only the filmmaker's second feature, though he has had an extensive career on both the big screen and the small - having also previously worked as a writer on television shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, Lost and on the movie Cloverfield. This would be his first foray into big blockbuster filmmaking, but his past work is great enough for us to have full confidence in his abilities.

As I wrote about earlier this year when the landmark deal between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures was first announced, Drew Goddard is a rather perfect choice to helm the new Spider-Man movie. He first established a relationship with Marvel back in November of 2013 when he signed a deal to serve as showrunner for the Netflix series Daredevil, and while he ultimately left that gig, he did so because Sony had hired him to helm the Amazing Spider-Man spin-off movie The Sinister Six. As a result of this, Goddard is the only filmmaker out there currently who has (albeit brief) experience with both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Spider-Man. As such, he is a natural fit.

At this point, the details of Spider-Man's future within the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a bit unclear, though we do expect that the whole situation will start clearing itself up in the coming weeks/months. This is because the web-slinger is set to make his Marvel debut in Captain America: Civil War, which will be starting production this spring. Obviously this means that an actor needs to be found soon, but reports have said that the studio is looking to attach a director for the 2017 Spider-Man movie before they settle on a star to play the character - which means that we can perhaps expect those two official announcements to come close together.

You can be sure that we'll be keeping a close eye on this situation, and keeping our fingers tightly crossed that the new Spider-Man gig is Drew Goddard's to direct. In the meantime, what do you think about the choice?

Earlier today, I put together a list of 10 talented young actors who would be suitable candidates to play the latest incarnation of Spider-Man in the Marvel Studios/Sony Pictures team-up movie. I wrote about a large variety of possible stars, ranging in age, background and nationality, and I could honestly see any of them landing the extremely exciting part. But while there are many performers out there who could potentially take the part, there is only one director the two studios should be looking at to make the new solo film: Drew Goddard.

While perhaps not a household name just yet, Goddard is a filmmaker fans will recognize for his close relationships with both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Amazing Spider-Man movies over the last few years. It was in November 2013 that he was first hired as the writer and showrunner on Daredevil - the first collaboration between Marvel Studios and Netflix - and it was about one month later that Sony brought him aboard to start developing a script for their Sinister Six.

Unfortunately, it was about six months after that when things started to get a bit chaotic. Sony pushed up the timetable for Sinister Six, which forced Goddard to hand over the reins of Daredevil to Steven DeKnight. Now, Daredevil is on pace to debut in April, and Goddard is left standing at the helm of a project that may or may not ever happen. After going through all that, one might argue that Marvel and Sony kind of owe Drew Goddard a superhero project to call his own.

Even beyond simple retribution, however, there is a very easy case to be made for Drew Goddard to direct the new Spider-Man movie, as he is the only filmmaker to have worked with both Marvel and Sony in the past – proving that both see him as a talent they believe in and trust. In the spirit of the newly formed partnership between the two companies, wouldn’t it be ideal to find a director who sits in that exact position? It’s even worth noting that Goddard’s connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes back even further than his work on Daredevil, as he actually worked closely with Joss Whedon on The Avengers, insisting on helping his friend with the characterization of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki in the film (which, of course, went on to be one of the best elements of the feature).

That just leaves the question of whether or not Drew Goddard actually possesses the talent and ability to helm the new MCU Spider-Man movie, and the answer is yes. He not only has a tremendous resume writing for the small screen – including shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and Lost - but his 2012 directorial debut The Cabin In The Woods is a rather genius bit of narrative that demonstrates Goddard’s crafty directorial eye (especially in the explosive and ridiculous third act). Goddard has proven himself as a great storyteller and a filmmaker to watch, and Marvel and Sony should trust him with the future of the wall-crawling web-slinger.

At this point in time, there is no better director out there better suited to take control of the next generation of Spider-Man than Drew Goddard, and in the immediate wake of the Marvel/Sony deal it would be smart to establish him at the helm. He has the talent, he has the background, he knows the right people, and the companies owe him the opportunity. What’s there to think about?

When last we saw the amazing Spider-Man on screen, he was swinging a hubcap at a charging, mechanical Rhino (Paul Giamatti) in the waning moments of Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The wall-crawler’s future seemed clear. He’d next be called into action to fight and defeat The Sinister Six, a villainous squad born out of OsCorp’s laboratory. Plans, though, were in flux for some time but now seem to be snapping back into place, suggesting an upcoming Sinister Six shoot.

Some of this might have to be taken with a grain of salt, for reasons I’ll happily explain. But a Twitter user named @ThatBlueHood posted messages that stated that The Sinister Six would be shooting in Vancouver. No time frame was given, only the knowledge that a "dude who worked on Planet of the Apes … requested S6 stuff for research" and "said it was happening."

Great! Except, here’s where things start to get mysterious – as only stories tied to Spider-Man’s cinematic future can. The Tweets are gone. And not only that, the whole USER has been deleted! But, ComicBookMovie captured the initial Tweets, and a response to one of them remains on Twitter… so you know they were online at one point.

Why on Earth would the Tweets be deleted AND the user totally removed from Twitter? That’s extreme, when it comes to protecting the possibility of a sequel that has been rumored to exist for some time. Because Drew Goddard’s name has been attached to a Sinister Six movie for several months. And even recently, we ran an unusual marketing image for what appears to be a Sinister Six film.

Do you know what needs to happen? Like, today? Sony needs to stage a massive presentation – Kevin Feige-style – and lay out its plan for Spider-Man on screen. Tell us who will be in Sinister Six (if it’s actually happening). Tell us if Spider-Man is part of that story, and who might play him. Explain when we might get The Amazing Spider-Man 3, or confirm that the hero could go to Marvel in time for the third Avengers movie. Because the uncertainty is driving the true fans (you know, those of us who actually loved The Amazing Spider-Man 2) insane.

It seems that rumors which supposedly confirmed the long-awaited arrival of Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been premature. When a recent Latino Review report cited details of an alleged deal that would finally see Marvel Comics’ wayward wall-crawler cross over studio lines from Sony, it was seemingly the news that both hardcore comic book and casual movie fans had been waiting to hear for years.

However, a representative from Sony had some rain to pour on this parade and is telling Comic Book Resources that those fans need to slow their roll. According to the unnamed Sony rep, the report merely cites an "old rumor" with "no validity whatsoever." Whether those two short statements will be the final word on the possibility of Spidey assembling with The Avengers is difficult to say. Last year’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was meant to be a watershed moment for the studio’s Spidey movie franchise. The film took a classic, tragically-beloved storyline from the comic book canon and built around it what looked to be an expanding menagerie of miscreants to keep Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man busy for at least two more films. (Which Sony were all too quick to greenlight even before TASM2’s release.)

As if that wasn't enough, Sony was confident enough to subsequently announce plans for a spinoff film focusing on villainous super-group, the Sinister Six and a separate solo outing for iconic antagonist, Venom. It would seem that the message could be interpreted as Sony saying, "Take your Marvel Cinematic Universe and shove it." A message could even be interpreted from the fact that Sony pulled out the director’s chair and scriptwriting duties for Sinister Six to Drew Goddard. The director and writer/producer for genre television standards like Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel will also serve as a writer/producer on the upcoming MCU-set Daredevil television series. It’s certainly a smart choice, and a good effort to nab someone who actually knows what they’re doing with this genre. It also seems to imply that Sony may have been looking for their own Joss Whedon to sit in the center of the new movie universe they are attempting to build.

Unfortunately, I would venture to say that the damage is already done, since the brand perception for Sony’s too-quick-to-be-rebooted Spider-Man films has been irreparably tainted. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, while full of cherry-picked moments of awesomeness and pure pathos, was the cinematic equivalent of an old-school MySpace page full of animated gifs of dancing babies and air-humping Stormtroopers. It had the unmitigated gall to try and cram the introduction of The Green Goblin, Electro, The Rhino, AND one of Spidey’s most heartbreaking tragedies into a single dramatic piece. The universe-building aspect was quite apparent, but the result was something that flowed unnaturally and the film’s $202.8 million domestic total was certainly lower than expectations. (Although foreign markets added another $506 million.)

The version of Sony’s game plan that we know of publically is one where The Amazing Spider-Man 2 needed to be a hit. It wasn't, really. Plus, the fate of the spinoff films remain in a constant state of flux. So, it will be interesting to see what Sony's next move will be. Will they keep on trucking by themselves out of pride? Or will they finally concede that negotiating a deal with Marvel is the best option for making money and pleasing fans?

Going into the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony seemed to be extremely confident about their Marvel Comics future. In fact, they were so confident that they bared their ambitions possibly a little too much by announcing two more Amazing Spider Man sequels, as well as Venom and Sinister Six spin-off films in the near future. However, once The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released to a less than amazing film market, Sony's plans started to change rather quickly. First, there was word that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was being moved back in favor of Sinister Six. Now, someone out there thinks that the future of the Sinister Six is finished before it even started.

That someone, unsurprisingly, is Umberto Gonzalez (aka "El Mayimbe") of Latino Review fame. Just when you thought Sony was safe, Mr. Gonzalez tweeted the following out to the world this morning, with little to no explanation:

That's a pretty bold statement. So what does Mr. Gonzalez have to back up his egregious claim that the Sinister Six are going to be covered in cobwebs? Nothing yet. Absolutely nothing else on his recent Twitter feed refers to the project, nor does he address the multitude of followers asking for further information. The tweet went out, the mic was dropped, and that's all he wrote.

But then, you look at the behavior of the Marvel Universe outside of the Marvel Studios nucleus. After all, Michael B. Jordan was recently reported as saying that The Fantastic Four is being changed "on the fly," and even Marvel Sony collaborator Alex Kurtzman seems to be vague about just what's going on in the post Amazing Spider-Man 2 world of Sony. There's a lot of troubling things that seem to be brewing at the two houses that are pitting Marvel franchises against their own family, and it's fair to say that the climate is an uncertain one.

Marvel Studios has been as busy as Marvel Comics has been with shaping its universe. With this strong example acting in the market, Marvel Sony and Marvel Fox seem to be lagging way behind by comparison, and without a strong game plan. Could Umberto Gonzalez's tweet be a sign of things to come? It's even money at this point. While his tweet wasn't a stone cold lock of the century, it is a sign that even industry reporters are starting to wonder just how the outer rings of the Marvel Universe are going to cope with the devastating competition that Marvel Studios is waging against opposing forces from outside (such as DC Comics) and within.

Here's hoping we still get that sweet sounding Sinister Six movie, which is currently unscheduled for release.

Marvel fans continued to reel with the news on Saturday that Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard was exiting Marvel’s Netflix series based on Daredevil, with a new showrunner taking over. The initial belief was that Goddard’s departure meant trouble for the television program. But maybe this means production is ramping up on Sony’s Sinister Six movie, instead.

That bit of new was buried in the THR report on Goddard’s exit, saying that he would transition from Marvel over to Sony, and start prepping the Sinister Six film, for which he has been hired. The trade says Goddard will stay on as a consultant on Daredevil, suggesting less of a "split" and more of a rearranging. In fact, Marvel moved former Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum Steven S. DeKnight as the new showrunner for DD, leaving Drew Goddard room to move on to his Spider-Man duties.

And with good reason. We have written at length about Sony’s need to shake up the stasis surrounding the current Amazing Spider-Man franchise. Though the latest installment of Marc Webb’s series has banked an impressive $640 million worldwide, it is stalling out around $179 million domestically, and reviews (outside of this Web site) have been unkind. When we spoke with Marc Webb on the Amazing Spider-Man 2 press circuit, he made it known that he was unsure if The Amazing Spider-Man 3 would arrive before Drew Goddard’s Sinister Six movie. Goddard’s exit from Daredevil seems to imply that this will be the next Spider-Man movie up to bat for Sony.

Back in April, we reported that Drew Goddard’s Sinister Six was circling the idea of shooting in January. At the time, it was suggested that the Sinister Six team would consist of Doc Ock, the Vulture, the Green Goblin, the Rhino, Kraven the Hunter and Mysterio. Marc Webb later came out and said that he’d like Kraven for his third Spider-Man movie. Maybe that goes on the backburner.

Here’s what I think – and keep in mind, this is all off the cuff (but coming from an informed location). I think the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 did just enough to give Drew Goddard a launch pad for his Sinister Six. We have Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) assembling a small team. We saw Paul Giamatti’s Rhino in action. I think we’ll see a group forming in Goddard’s movie, and then Kraven will show up in Webb’s third Spider-Man movie to "hunt" the OsCorp creations. That is a storyline being played out in the video game adaptation of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and it makes too much sense not to follow it on screen.

Maybe Drew Goddard’s exit from Daredevil doesn’t suggest problems with Daredevil. Maybe it means a massive greenlight over at Sony. Maybe the June 10, 2016 release date reserved for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 goes to Drew Goddard’s Sinister Six, instead. Maybe Spider-Man’s super group may be coming together sooner rather than later.

There's some definite shuffling going on at Marvel recently. Earlier, we learned that Edgar Wright was exiting the anticipated Ant-Man feature film, and now comes word that Drew Goddard has stepped down as showrunner from Netflix's Daredevil series. While Goddard heads over to the feature side to work on Sony's Sinister Six, Spartacus showrunner and former Buffy the Vampire Slayer writer Steven DeKnight is in talks to take over Daredevil.

Got all that? Wright's off Ant-Man, Goddard's off Daredevil and on Sinister Six, DeKnight's on Daredevil. But who's on first?!

THR has confirmed that Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is stepping down as showrunner from Netflix's planned Daredevil series and is set to write and direct Sony's villain-focused Spider-Man spinoff Sinister Six. Meanwhile, Steven S. DeKnight is said to be finalizing a deal to board the Daredevil series. UPDATE - Marvel just confirmed, so it looks like it's official.

From the perspective of a Spartacus fan, or anyone who loved DeKnight's work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Dollhouse, his arrival at Daredevil is exciting news. And it's well worth noting that DeKnight not only has experience running a fantastic TV drama -- if you haven't seen Spartacus, it's going to start airing on Syfy next month! -- but he's also a Joss Whedon alum, which should be comforting news, especially in light of Drew Goddard's departure as showrunner. Goddard, who penned the first two episodes, will remain with Daredevil as executive producer.

Last we heard, the 13-episode Daredevil series -- the first of a handful of planned Marvel series lined up for Netflix -- was supposed to begin production in New York this summer. Whether or not this showrunner shift will affect the schedule remains to be seen, but from Marvel's announcement, we should expect to see Daredevil on Netflix sometime in 2015. Netflix and Marvel are also planning series centered on Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones.

Since THR's report broke, Steven DeKnight tweeted the following...

And he has also stated that he's deeply honored to be a part of it.

Fans of DeKnight from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spartacus and his other series have been waiting to see what the writer would do next. He had a sci-fi drama for Starz in development as of last year, but there hasn't been any update on Incursion in a while. At this point, it may be safe to assume Incursion isn't going forward, or at the very least, that it's been put on the back burner as DeKnight moves on to handle Daredevil for Netflix.

Director Drew Goddard knows his comic books, and Hollywood is now really starting to take advantage of that fact. First it was revealed back in November that he would be the man in charge of writing the upcoming Marvel Studios Netflix Daredevil series, and then - exactly one month later - it was reported that he was going to work with Sony Pictures to write the script for the upcoming Sinister Six movie. Now word has come down that Goddard is not only scripting the blockbuster, but also in talks to helm it.

This news comes to us via Deadline, which says that a contract has not yet been signed between the filmmaker and the studio, but that they are "nearing a deal." Goddard has been rumored to get the directors chair since December, but apparently he has now being seen as Sony's number one choice. The project still doesn't have a release date set, but the film will definitely be coming out after The Amazing Spider-Man 3 - which won't be in theaters until June 10, 2016. Basically, we're going to be waiting quite a while for this one.

Goddard doesn't have a ton of experience in blockbuster filmmaking, but there are many, many good reasons why this news should excite comic book movie and Spider-Man fans. Back in 2012, Goddard finally saw the release of his long-delayed horror movie The Cabin in the Woods (his feature directorial debut) and the film was an absolutely genius piece of work that wound up being my favorite movie of the year. In case you're not familiar with the movie, you can watch the trailer below.

It's also important to note that The Cabin in the Woods was co-written by Goddard and The Avengers director Joss Whedon, and that the two have been collaborators for years. Goddard's earliest work in Hollywood was as a writer for both Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, and he even had appearances in both Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and Whedon's black-and-white big screen adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing.

The Sinister Six is being planned by Sony as the Spider-Man franchise's response to The Avengers, with the film's titular group consisting of six incredibly powerful villains who plot the death of the webslinger.. A lineup has not yet been announced, but footage from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and series spin-off news suggests the team will consist of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan), Rhino (Paul Giamatti), Vulture (?), Dr. Octopus (?), and Venom (?).

Are you excited that Drew Goddard may be the director put in charge of The Sinister Six? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

>

Around this time last year, I wrote a piece on the casting for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, suggesting that Marc Webb wouldn’t add actors like Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti and Chris Cooper unless he planned to keep them around for multiple films. At the time, given the amount of world-building happening in the current superhero genre, it appeared that Webb and Sony were thinking beyond the obvious sequel. They were mapping out a larger cinematic universe. Webb retweeted the column (for which I’m thankful) with the message, "Think bigger… "

Nearly one year later, we finally know what he means.

Sony just revealed plans for multiple Spidey spinoffs, including a Venom feature and films showcasing the Sinister Six. If anything, this news just confirms speculation many of us had after the latest ASM 2 trailer broke. I mean, Webb isn’t going to be allowed to include Doctor Octopus arms and Vulture wings unless the studio has plans to put them to good use. There’s a difference between a clever Easter egg, and a tease that needs to be followed through upon. Six is coming. We just don’t know when.

There was one name that caught my eye in the announcement by Sony today, and it has me salivating for the potential of future Spider-Man stories: Drew Goddard. He was mentioned alongside Spidey screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who already have collaborated on Spider-Man 3 and 4. But Goddard, from what we knew, has his name attached to another Marvel superhero… one who fought alongside Spider-Man often in the comics.

Daredevil.

Goddard was hired to oversea a "Man Without Fear" series for Marvel on Netflix. By adding him to the braintrust of writers who are overseeing the future of the Spider-Man film franchise, doesn’t it make sense that the two Marvel heroes would team up? The Daredevil series is supposedly taking place in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, so having Spidey drop by to help take down mutual threats would be easy enough. And Spidey and Daredevil have teamed up in the comics numerous times, notably when Frank Miller was in charge of old Web head’s books.

Obviously, it would be a contractual headache to overcome the obstacles necessary to get Spider-Man and Daredevil on the same page. Sony owns the right to Peter Parker and his masked alter ego. Marvel got the rights to Daredevil back. But we are seeing franchise sharing all over the place, whether it’s Paramount selling Indiana Jones to Disney or… well, Star Wars going to Disney, as well. OK, so Disney owns everything. But as we look at the landscape of the post-Spidey-spinoff news, I think the presence of Goddard in both Spider-Man and Daredevil’s creative universe’s could mean that the man who helped redefine the horror genre with The Cabin in the Woods could deliver a spectacular team-up movie somewhere down the line! Do you agree?

When it comes to making comic book movies nowadays, the mantra for just about every studio out there is "be like Marvel." The Marvel Cinematic Universe, which ties together multiple superhero franchises into one large world, has been a revolutionary creation in blockbuster filmmaking, and as a result we will soon see Batman and Superman teaming up for the first time in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel sequel, and eventually have both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four co-existing. This process is a bit trickier for Sony Pictures, as the studio currently only owns the rights to the characters directly related to Spider-Man, but today proves that they are doing what they can.

The studio has issued a press release announcing that they have brought together a five-man screenwriting team that will expand the Spider-Man Cinematic Universe and will result in films about both The Sinister Six and the fan-favorite villain/anti-hero Venom. In addition to Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who first worked with the superhero writing the screenplay for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the studio has also worked out deals with Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon and Drew Goddard. Pinkner is best known for his work on shows like Lost, Fringe and Alias; Solomon's most recent credit was the magician action flick Now You See Me; and Goddard is best known for his collaborations with Joss Whedon - which includes the film The Cabin in the Woods. Together they will create "a franchise brain trust to expand the universe for the brand and to develop a continuous tone and thread throughout the films."

Kurtzman, Orci and Pickner are all going to be working together to write the screenplay for The Amazing Spider-Man 3, and right now the studio hopes that Marc Webb will return to complete the trilogy as a director. Then Kurtzman, Orci and Solomon will be getting to work on a solo Venom movie that Kurtzman will direct as his sophomore effort (his first being the family drama People Like Us). Goddard will be the man directly responsible for The Sinister Six, and in addition to writing the script the studio is also considering him as the director.

What makes this news extra interesting is how it overlaps personnel from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Last month it was announced that Goddard will be serving as the showrunner for Marvel Studios' upcoming Daredevil television series that will be a part of the studio's deal with Netflix. That deal likely won't fall apart, as it's directly mentioned in Sony's press release. I suppose the studio recognized his wealth of comic book knowledge and wanted him to play for their team as well.

The Amazing Spider-Man 3, which already has a release date of June 10, 2016, is going to go into production next fall, but how the schedule will play out for Venom and The Sinister Six seems to be a bit up in the air. It's also hard to say what this means for The Amazing Spider-Man 4, which was announced back in June for a May 4, 2018 release date.

Until we learn more about Sony's exact plans for the Spider-Man universe... how are you feeling about this new development? Are you confident in the writers that have been hired? Are you excited by the idea of Venom and Sinister Six movies? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

At this year's San Diego Comic-Con writer/director Joss Whedon revealed that he actually turned to his frequent collaborator Drew Goddard for advice when he was constructing the Loki scenes in last year's The Avengers, but now Goddard is ready to take on a much bigger position in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Following up on last week's news that Marvel Studios has struck up a deal with Netflix to create four new television series, The Wrap is now reporting that Goddard is now in talks to be the man put in charge of scripting the show based around the blind superhero known as Daredevil.

Goddard is best known for his work alongside Whedon, having scripted episodes of both Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel in addition to directing and co-writing The Cabin In The Woods, but the filmmaker has a long list of credits outside of the Whedonsphere as well. On the small screen he worked with J.J. Abrams on both Lost and Alias, and in 2008 he scripted the ound footage monster movie Cloverfield. Most recently he was called in to try and help rescue the end of World War Z by completely re-writing the movie's third act (which worked out well based on critical reaction). He also wrote the adaptation for the upcoming sci-fi epic Robopocalypse that Steven Spielberg is attached to direct - though at this time it looks as though that movie is still years away.

Daredevil, whose alter ego is the blind attorney Matt Murdock, was first introduced back in 1964 and was created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett. Due in part to the character's disability, he has superhuman senses and sensitivity and is a skilled fighter in addition to being a clever detective. In the movie world, unfortunately, the character is best known for the Mark Steven Johnson-directed Daredevil, which was a big critical flop when it was released back in 2003.

While initial reports said that the Netflix shows wouldn't start airing until 2015 - which is the same year as Whedon's The Avengers: Age of Utron - weirdly The Wrap's report says that the new Daredevil series "will kick off next year" (though it's possible that they just mean that's when cameras are scheduled to start rolling). In addition to The Man Without Fear, the other characters getting their own Netflix shows include Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones - all of whom will come together for a miniseries based on the superhero team known as The Defenders.

Do you think that Goddard is a good fit for Daredevil? What showrunners would you like to see become attached to the other upcoming series? Let us know what you're thinking in the comments below!

There are a couple of different ways that one can watch Marc Forster’s World War Z when the movie finally opens in theaters on Friday, June 21. You can challenge it to live up to your lofty expectations if you happened to read Max Brooks’ source novel (which tells its story in a completely different fashion). You can attempt to enjoy it as a large-scale, apocalyptic summer popcorn thriller. Or you can analyze it scene by scene to see where the “old” version of Forster’s movie stops and the “corrected” version begins.

It’s possible you aren’t aware of this, but Forster’s production endured a very difficult, rocky and tumultuous schedule that – according to reports – led to costly reshoots, multiple rewrites, and a new ending that fixed the previous conclusion (which wasn’t working). If that side of the movie’s existence interests you, your “Bible” will be the Vanity Fair cover story from earlier this year that documents several of the problems the movie endured.

But with the movie approaching, The Huffington Post quotes a source about specific scenes that were altered. Consider waiting if you haven’t yet seen World War Z and want to remain unspoiled.

Still with us? Here's the “dividing line” between the initial film Forster worked on and the reshoots – most of which were penned by the trio of Damon Lindelof, Drew Goddard and Christopher McQuarrie. Reports say that the original ending of the movie, which involved a large-scale zombie battle in Russia, didn’t work. And so the minute Pitt’s character boards an airplane in Jerusalem, the new ending kicks in – including the chaotic mid-air attack that you can see in most of the film’s trailers:

HuffPo confirms, “Everything starting with [Pitt’s character Gerry] Lane entering the aircraft, including every incident on the flight, was written by Goddard and Lindelof.” The rewrites also get credit for a completely different ending, which builds more suspense than a digital Russian battle likely would have generated.

But that’s not all. The HuffPo story says that certain scenes spotted in the trailers also were rewrites, including the opening of Pitt and his family at the breakfast counter watching news reports about the outbreak, and a couple of slower-beat character moments involving phone calls and conversations that give a nice reprieve from the zombie action.

There will be a ton of discussions over the next few days and weeks as to whether or not the corrections helped Z enough to succeed at the box office. I believe that the movie works very well in its current state, and I prefer the ending that exists now versus the big battle one we won’t be able to see (unless it’s on a DVD at some point in the future). Either way, this behind-the-scenes insight is priceless, and probably will get curious folks into the theaters to see where Z has been stitched together like a rag doll.

If you paid any attention to Cinema Blend over the last year, you’d know that Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods was adored around these parts. As a result, seeing Goddard secure a second directing gig is very interesting news indeed. That it’s taking him to another planet entirely is pretty fricking amazing.

The Wrap reports Goddard is in negotiations to write and direct an adaptation of author Andy Weir's The Martian for Fox and Genre Films. The novel was originally released as an e-book, but has since been bought out by Crown Publishing, a subsidiary of Random House, and will see a hardback release in 2014. A theatrical film based on the film could do quite a lot to improve sales.

The titular Martian is a man stranded on Mars who needs to figure out how to survive on the planet long enough for his return trip back to Earth. The source calls the film “a cross between Apollo 13 and Cast Away,” which is in no way a vague way of saying, “Tom Hanks might have something to do with this.” With films like Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity and Sebastián Cordero’s Europa Report hitting theaters this year, it’s a good time to be a fan of original space thrillers.

Goddard’s other credits include the scripts for Cloverfield and Steven Spielberg’s Robopocalypse, which was recently put on hold. The writer/director also touched up parts of the script for Marc Forster’s upcoming World War Z. Goddard definitely seems like the right kind of filmmaker for this material. I wonder they’ll find a cabin on the moon…

Drew Goddard had a monster-sized hit earlier this year with The Cabin in the Woods, a film adored by the horror-geek culture that made a comfortable $63.9 million worldwide. Fans expecting him to strike out with something wildly original for his next project might have to settle for this, instead.

Deadline reports that Goddard, and not his Lost colleague Damon Lindelof, is the one who took the latest pass at penning a new ending for Marc Forster’s World War Z, which stars Brad Pitt as the survivor of a zombie apocalypse. The site claims Lindelof “cracked a potential new ending of the film,” which had to commit to expensive reshoots to repair what apparently wasn’t working. But with Lindelof wrapped up in other projects, Goddard stepped in to actually pen the script rewrite.

That doesn’t mean it’s ready to shoot, however. Deadline adds that Christopher McQuarrie might be brought in to punch up Goddard’s pages. The studio reportedly is high on The Usual Suspects writer and the work that he did on Jack Reacher with Tom Cruise. But Cruise could want McQuarrie to touch up Doug Liman’s All You Need is Kill, which he plans to shoot once he wraps the sci-fi thriller Oblivion.

All of this sounds bad for World War Z, though if we’re being honest, a reshot ending isn’t the end of the world if it makes the finished film better. And bringing in idea guys like Lindelof and Goddard is a fantastic plan, so long as you give them the time to figure out how to properly conclude a meaty story. Deadline says Forster will be shooting the new scenes for World War Z, which moved its release date back to June 21, 2013.

This doesn’t sound good: Buena Vista has moved Steven Spielberg’s anticipated adaptation of Robopocalypse from the choice July 4 weekend slot in 2013 to an April 25, 2014 release date, according to Box Office Mojo.

Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard adapted Daniel H. Wilson’s novel for Spielberg to direct. The story takes place in a not-so-distant future where robotic technology is prevalent in our society. Then war breaks out when the machines that run everyone's daily lives turn against their owners. As Spielberg described it earlier, "It’s a movie about a global war between man and machine. I had a great time creating the future on Minority Report, and it’s a future that is coming true faster than any of us thought it would."

What could be the reason for the delay? We’re just speculating here, but Robopocalypse sounds like it needs to be a effects-heavy blockbuster that will require a lot of time (and money) to pull off properly. Perhaps Spielberg felt he’d be rushing the process to hit a July 3, 2013 window? The director also might be knee-deep in post-production on his Lincoln biopic, with Daniel Day Lewis, and likely hasn’t stopped to give Robopocalypse a second thought … also bad news for a blockbuster that’s going to need a good deal of shepherding.

I also wonder if this means Spielberg will shoot Robopocalypse in 3D, and needed the time to do it properly. He dabbled in the technology with Tintin and claims to have had a ball.

But do you know who's probably thrilled by this news? Universal, who now gets to release Despicable Me 2 with little opposition. That is, if no other studio decides to move forward or back to claim a piece of the valuable July 4 weekend. Are you listening, Warner? Wouldn’t Pacific Rim make for an excellent July 4 release? Or maybe Fox wants to drop The Wolverine in that slot? The possibilities are endless.

It occurred to me last night as I left the theater that I’d underestimated just how much I was going to enjoy the new horror film The Cabin in the Woods. The trailers and critics have been hyping it up over the last few weeks. People said it was great, which is partially what motivated me to get to a midnight screening last night. But even with my expectations set almost unreasonably high, I found myself leaving the theater with a ridiculous grin on my face, and so much to say about the movie.

Rest assured, there isn’t so much as the hint of a spoiler in this article. In fact, there’s no specific character or plot discussion mentioned. All you need to know about Cabin going into it, is that it’s a horror film full of violence and laced with comedy. If the premise alone hasn’t sold you, here are five reasons to see it in the theater this weekend.

1. Critics haven’t oversold it... yet, anyway.

I say this at the risk of over-selling the movie, myself, however, between my love for Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, added to every positive thing I’d heard about the film since its debut at SXSW, I thought for sure my expectations would be far too high to be met. The Cabin in the Woods really was the most fun I’ve had in the theater in a long time. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I left the movies feeling quite as entertained and satisfied.

2. This is a movie-theater movie.

I’ll be among the first to gripe about the cost of seeing a movie in the theater these days, and express my appreciation for Redbox, Netflix, Amazon On Demand and any other significantly less expensive alternative to movie-watching. However, The Cabin in the Woods is a movie-theater-movie through and through. It’s less about how great it looks (though their are some truly excellent big screen moments) as it is about sharing the experience with a theater full of people, many of whom, based on my own experience during last night’s midnight screening, will be gasping, laughing and cheering right along.

3. The trailers haven’t spoiled it.


There are ways to spoil this movie, but much of what’s “spoil”-able isn’t in a “twist” or some major character development. By yesterday, I felt like I’d seen too much of the film from the trailers already, however Cabin is as much about the story and the horror as it is a series of great moments, be them scary, funny, intense or just surprising. On an individual level, any of the moments featured in the trailer could technically be considered spoilers, and yet, they don’t detract from the movie as a whole when factoring in the context and built up momentum of the film. The trailers sell the movie well, but they barely scratch the surface of what Cabin has to offer.

4. Your friends haven’t spoiled it yet.

As mentioned previously, Cabin is full of great moments, many of which will likely have people talking about the film in the days or weeks to come. I could rattle off five or six one-word references to the movie that would likely earn a smile from anyone who’s seen it. It’s really that kind of movie. Of course, I wouldn’t do that as I wouldn’t want to spoil the experience for anyone, but others might not be so considerate. If they like it as much as I did, they’ll want to talk and laugh about it with their friends, and you will too. Save yourself the anxiety of having to cover your ears when the subject comes up and check it out this weekend.

5. This movie deserves a great opening weekend at the box office.

I generally prefer not to obsess over box office numbers, as dollar signs aren’t always a good indication of the quality of a film. With that said, The Cabin in the Woods is a movie well worth the cost of a ticket, and it’s truly worthy of a successful opening weekend. I’m actually tempted to go see it again, but that’s less about contributing more money to the box office as it is already wanting more. I also have a feeling Cabin may be layered with moments easily missed in a first viewing, especially as laughter may have drowned out a line or two.

The Cabin in the Woods is an answer to the argument that there’s nothing good in the theaters these days. The movie delivers, and it’s a whole lot of fun to see surrounded by friends, horror fans and other enthusiastic movie-goers up for a night of scares and laughs. If you think it looks good. Don’t wait. See it this weekend.

Forgive us, Joss Whedon, if we’re not quite ready to let you move on to your little Avengers movie just yet. There will be plenty of time for that in May. Right now, we’re focusing on The Cabin in the Woods, the insanely clever horror-comedy that Whedon co-wrote with director Drew Goddard.

We’ve been on the Cabin bandwagon for weeks now, hosting preview screenings, offering prize packs, and reporting from the frontlines of the film’s world premiere, which was held in Austin at the South By Southwest film festival.

It was there that I was able to sit down with Whedon, one on one, and pick his brain about the film’s efforts to flip the genre on its head. We danced around spoilers as best as possible, In fact, we’ll run another piece with Whedon next week that digs deeper into the mythology of Cabin and elaborates on some of the geeky twists. For now, here’s the “safer” version, but still tread lightly if you want to go into Cabin with a clean slate this weekend:

From the stage at the Paramount Theatre, in a moment of candor, you admitted to the crowd that this was a difficult movie to make. We were talking about fan-fiction, and the endless possibilities that format brings up. We can imagine anything that we want, but to watch you guys actually pull it off in this age of cautious studios, it’s exhilarating. So when you say it was difficult, what presented the biggest challenges? Was it the sets, the plotting?

No, we had Martin Whist (Super 8, Cloverfield) doing our sets, and he really got exactly what we were going for. The spaces, themselves, are kind of simple. It’s more about what they evoke more than anything else. The evoke something very classic, a feeling of, “I recognize this, but I don’t.” It’s that fine line.

Logistically, though, the third act of this movie has a brain aneurysm. Things go positively ba-noo-noos. There are a lot of things people are watching on the screen, and we had to shoot everything they are watching. I was doing second-unit [direction] as well as producing, so I had the experience of spending more than three hours on a shot, and then get to say, “Congratulations, guys! We just shot 1/50th of a shot. The movie is designed to have more than you can catch while you are watching it. The white board is probably the most fun Drew and I had the entire time. It was like, “What’s actually on the white board? What will we get to show?” That’s not always the same thing, mind you. But making that list, and how it went, I’ll never forget that experience. It was so much fun.

Well, the movie is so much fun. Without talking too much about the roles Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins play, I’d like to talk to you about the humor in the screenplay, because they both seem to understand how your dialogue should be delivered.

We wrote the parts for them. We wanted those guys. And we were shocked and appalled when they agreed to do them. [Laughs]

Because they don’t normally do genre work like this?

Right. We knew that Richard was about to be nominated [for an Oscar] for The Visitor. And Bradley I’ve known for years because we went to the same college, at different times, and he’s just one of those guys. I knew his rhythms because I’m a West Wing maniac. But neither of them are ever like, “Hey, can we be the two guys in that horror movie about killing kids?” That’s not on their dream list of projects. But both read the script, and they do have an extraordinary chemistry and a great energy. They’re veterans. Bradley will be very pissed that I said that! “Somebody just described me as a Hollywood veteran! When did that happen?” But they’ve been in the game, you know? And they were always excited to do the work that’s right in front of them.

It’s possible, though, that this experience has ruined them. They’re upstairs telling press that this proves artists with an original voice should be left alone to create. They’re throwing around names like David Chase and Alan Ball.

They should. They should also have Van Gogh and Dickens in there. [Laughs]

You know, the thing is that we had a very weird experience in that Drew and I were left alone. Sometimes it would be like, “Where is everybody? Why did everybody go? I don’t know how to produce! I’m so frightened.” But we shot exactly what we wanted, and the movie that we made is exactly the one that we thought of when we’d say, “Wouldn’t it be fun to make this movie?”