After being indoctrinated by NBC’s Constantine TV show and the Vertigo/DC comics, Nick and Andrew attempt to conquer the 2005 film starring plain-toast Keanu Reeves as Nick’s favorite ‘Master of the Dark Arts.’ They fail.
The dynamic duo cover this week in Geek news, from further Mallrats 2 casting news to the first trailer for 007’s latest adventure, SPECTRE. Our heroes also tackle The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt before, you guessed it, jumping into further Avengers: Age of Ultron talk.
Sorry it’s late this week. We try. Because there really is more than “Do or Do Not.”
After missing a week…. After a one week Hiatus (TV shows do it!), Nick and Andrew are back with a vengeance… and a killer theme song.
The main topic of the day is DC and NBC’s ‘Constantine,’ but before heading to spoiler territory there, our heroes talk the new ‘Avengers’ and ‘Daredevil’ trailers, breaking ‘Star Wars’ news, and the possible horrors of building too many “Cinematic Universes.”
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…Except for when Nick and Andrew’s work schedules get in the way.
Marvel Studios and Netflix have assembled as a super-team to create four Marvel shows. The first is ‘Daredevil,’ set to premiere all ten episodes on April 10th.
Ben Affleck in 2003’s ‘Daredevil’ film.
(Side-note: Marvel & Netflix also plan on spinning the four heroes from their four respective shows into a fifth show featuring Marvel’s lesser knon, Earth-bound superhero team: ‘The Defenders.’)
As anyone who saw the original 2003 ‘Daredevil’ film starring Ben Affleck knows, that movie was terrible (listen to Andrew and I rant about it on this podcast). So I assumed the character was equally terrible. Worst than terrible possibly; he’s a blind man whose superpower is sight!
Similarly, over a decade ago I initially assumed Batman was an awful character after witnessing the horror that was ‘Batman & Robin.’ But Nolan’s movies completely altered my perception of the Dark Knight and now I consider myself a sort of “Batman Scholar.”
Daredevil oversees his Hell’s Kitchen; his own personal Gotham.
Now I can see that Daredevil’s true power is that he can see in the dark as he sees everything through sonar (more-or-less). The superhuman hearing that allows said sonar sight also gives him an advantage when sneaking around criminals or listening in from afar.
Daredevil can hear through walls!
If you boil Daredevil down again (especially after viewing the trailer) he is basically Batman with the “Bat-Sonar” seen in the finale of ‘The Dark Knight.’ Minus the wealth and nickname, “World’s Greatest Detective.”
This ‘Daredevil’ trailer does seem to have a lot in common with Nolan’s Batman films… which is actually a great choice for the character. In a world where lighter heroes like Superman (‘Man of Steel’) and the Fantastic Four (‘FANT4STIC’) are getting overly dark movies in a reaction to ‘The Dark Knight’s success, Daredevil is a character who deserves that grittiness.
Doesn’t this all look familiar? Hunting bad guys around shipping containers. Disappearing in the shadows. Only, NOW WITH PARKOUR!
It’s no surprise that this MCU version of ‘Daredevil’ is drawing from the source material ‘The Man Without Fear’ graphic novel by Frank Miller. Frank Miller, who also wrote the graphic novel ‘Batman: Year One’ which served as the basis for ‘Batman Begins;’ both in scenes and tone.
Further proof is in the Costume. Rather than the “Devil red” suit Ben Affleck had to wear, the MCU’s Daredevil wears a black ninja-looking-getup with his eyes covered (because he doesn’t need to see! See?). This look was established by Frank Miller in ‘The Man Without Fear.’
Daredevil does indeed have a lot in common with Batman, lamenting about his corrupt city and jumping around rooftops, taking out bad-guys from the shadows.
I’m already on-board for anything MCU (except for ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D which lost my attention in season one), but this trailer finally makes me believe that ‘Daredevil’ can (and hopefully will) be awesome…
…Because he is Marvel’s equivalent of my favorite hero of all, The Batman (let’s not get into Tony Stark territory here).
While Matt Murdock (Daredevil’s secret identity) is just a poor lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen, Bruce Wayne is Gotham’s “drunk” playboy billionaire. But you know, other than that they’re the same.
Watch the trailer now and see if you agree!
You got Charlie Cox playing Matt Murdock/Daredevil and, most importantly, Vincent D’Onofrio playing Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin. A role played by Michael Clarke Duncan previously in the film.
Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk. The Kingpin.
There’s a lot to take in here, so we’ll cover that later. We do have 3 months until the show bows on April 10th.
Nick has to make his first edit. After an event that shall remain anonymous, Nick has to cut out part of the show… For the first time… Ever.
Nick and Andrew discuss recent ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Jurassic World’ trailers, slipping into ‘Mission: Impossible” talk and even Bradley Cooper conversation. And then there’s that edit… you’ll know when it happens, but never why.
Nick and Andrew discuss the trailer for the ‘Fantastic Four’ or… ‘FANT4STIC’ as Fox is calling it. Talk shifts to Disney’s plans for the ‘Indiana Jones’ franchise, whether or not they include Chris Pratt. And how can they not visit topics relating to other superhero films like ‘Justice League Dark’ and the future of Matt Ryan as John Constantine?
Nick and Andrew begin their discussion, dissecting the latest, 2nd ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ trailer (what a surprise!) before moving onto the “Oscars Game.” Basically, Nick tries to guess the Academy Award nominees with little help from Andrew. The best episode yet! For real. Would I lie to you?
Nick and Andrew honeypot/honeydick you into the world of Breaking Geek. They discuss the excellent film, ‘Blue Ruin,’ and come back around to ‘The Interview’ before launching into comic book movies and TV shows including Marvel’s teasers for Netflix’s ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Ant-Man.’ Also, an update on the DC Cinematic Universe (DCCU) and ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ franchises.
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No, I don’t mean the 2003 film ‘Daredevil’ starring Ben Batfleck as the title hero. 2015’s ‘Daredevil’ is a brand new show, officially part of the the Marvel Cinematic Universe, by Marvel Studios. Fox made the original film but let the rights slip back to Disney/Marvel, allowing the pros that brought us ‘Captain America: Winter Soldier’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ to create and execute the first of five planned Netflix shows.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) hasn’t had much luck on TV, especially when you compare it to DC’s successful ‘Arrow,’ ‘Flash,’ and ‘Gotham;’ all shows that look like they will be around for a few seasons. My personal favorite, ‘Constantine’ is the most enjoyable, as though it can get dark as hell, the tone is closer to that of a Marvel movie than the aforementioned darker DC shows or the new DC Cinematic Universe (the DCCU) kicked off by Zack Synder’s overly dark ‘Man of Steel.’
Meanwhile, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ clings to life and is a complete disappointment when compared to the rest of the MCU, or even Fox and Sony Marvel films like ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘X-Men.’
‘Agent Carter’ may be great (the premise sure is), but I have yet to watch it (I think I’ll hop on Hulu+ following this post) and haven’t seen any TV ratings yet.
Though we have yet to see any real footage from Netflix’s’Daredevil,’ one would expect the gutsy “online network” that brought us ‘House of Cards’ to deliver a more cinematic product with a much higher budget than ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ The former should also feel less constrained by network television standards than the latter.
And ‘Daredevil’ is just the beginning of a run of MCU Netflix programming that could eclipse DC’s thus far successful television efforts.
Here’s the poster.
Following the 13 episode ‘Daredevil’ series starring Charlie Cox as Daredevil/Matt Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio as Kingpen, Marvel and Netflix will release ‘AKA Jessica Jones’ starring ‘Breaking Bad’s Krysten Ritter as the title character and Mike Colter as Luke Cage. Seeing as how the two are an item in the comics, Mike Colter will play Luke Cage in ‘Aka Jessica Jones’ before he gets his own show, ‘Luke Cage,’ next. Following that we get ‘Iron Fist’ which has yet to be cast, followed by an ‘Avengers’-esque series called ‘The Defenders’ that brings all four characters together for an ensemble superhero team.
Basically, Marvel has focused their TV efforts on an MCU of Netflix’s own; one that could lead to appearances of the characters on ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ which desperately needs more superheroes and even a possible team-up in ‘Avengers: Infinity War,’ Part 1 or 2.
Thus far, we have only seen this Frank Miller look of the costume, not the red horned costume used in 2003’s ‘Darvedevil’ film.
This does raise the question, where and if these shows exist within ‘Phase 2’ or ‘Phase 3.’ Being a part of the MCU means they have to fall somewhere. I would guess that somewhere is ‘Phase 3’ as we won’t see Daredevil on the big screen helping with the sadistic Ultron. But IT DOES come out before ‘Age of Ultron’ and ‘Ant-Man,’ the latter ending ‘Phase 2.’ Maybe some plot points do feed into either film and are a part of Phase 2?
We’ll know more on April 10th when Netflix drops all 13 episodes of Marvel Studios’ ‘Daredevil;’ the next frontier of superhero shows.
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