Daddy? When I grow up can I be like you?

Ok, let's talk film. If you were M. Night Shyamalan today, you would not have fingernails. You would have chewed off all of your fingernails by now. So, I doubt Mr. Shyamalan has any fingernails left, they are all completely gone. Why? Well the reviews are coming in regarding his new film called The Happening. The first reviews are mixed at best regarding his film. He needs good reviews. He actually needs superior reviews. That's the only way he's going to save his reputation.

Yet I don't believe that the Media wants to save his reputation. I think the reviewers out there are very happy hating Shamyalan. One reviewer states, "Shhht. Don't say it out loud, but we actually kinda liked M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie . . ." That's from James O' Ehley from the Sci Fi movie page. But this kind of review makes me thing that a lot of reviewers are thinking this. They want M. Night to fail. They want to hate his films cause it gives them so much to pun about.

I mean what do movie writers do anyway? They pun. Look at all the Sex and the City articles. Lots of "Sex" in theaters. Secrets of "Sex". Any film that is released, is written in articles with pun attached. I hate it. If you read this, well the one person that reads this, you will notice I don't pun at all. Unless I think it really clever. But the reviewers out there are dying to write, "Signs say Happening in not Happening" They are dying to write this about him. It's sick I know, but these are the mentality of the reviewers. I can't even think of half the puns they will do. They are probably too many to name. And I am not dumb enough to think of half of them.

Yesterday, I wrote how Marvel was looking to replace Jon Favreau on Iron Man 2. And just today, a day after I said it, IESB has an article on Marvel not wanting to renew Jon's contract. How do I know this ahead of time? These people as so predictable. I know that they don't want to continue with Favreau. They think the new Iron Man franchise will be as profitable with a better director. This particular article doesn't say that. It says that they don't even want to pay Jon the standard director's fee.

That I understand. Why should Marvel in their minds, pay a standard fee for someone they bought dirt cheap into a franchise they didn't even expect to do as well as it did. I guarantee you that the Execs at Marvel did not expect Iron Man to do that well. If they expected it to do well, they would have given it a better release date. They would have given it the Hulk's release date if they expected to do the numbers it did. But the tables have turned here and they don't know how to act. Iron Man is doing the Hulk's business and Marel has no idea how to act. They are running around the office in hysterics because their entire franchise agenda has shifted.

Soon it will be two for the price of one...

So what are they gonna do now? Well I will tell you. The main reason they have not rehired Jon is because the sequel film to both franchises will be inclusive. They will make one big sequel instead of two separate sequels for Iron Man and the Hulk. If you stayed past the closing credits to Iron Man, you would have seen Samuel Jackson, telling Downey Jr's Tony Stark about the Avenger Initiative. Which apparently includes multiple superheroes. So Marvel is simply waiting for the Numbers to roll in before they make their next move. They are waiting for Huge numbers for the Hulk so that they can justify and sequel. Right now, they are hoping for Huge numbers. Notice I didn't say Hulk size numbers, I don't pun.

They are waiting for these numbers before they greenlight any sequel. What will most likely happen is that the Hulk will under perform at the box office and Marvel execs will have to do two separate sequels. They will involve each other in the sequels, but not be inclusive. They will hire a true action director who does not care about actors like Favreau does and you will have a heavy action Iron Man 2 missing the heart of the first one. This is true my Filmfans. Sad.

Louie Letterier, the director of the Incredible Hulk says that the initial cut of the film is 70 minutes longer than what is going to be on screen. Well I say, IS THAT ALL? 70 minutes seems nothing. I have heard of the initial cuts of some films to be in excess of 5 hours in length. The reason why it is down is mainly for pacing. Pacing is very important to a film. The pacing of a film keeps us interested. Some of the best paced films can be in excess of two hours, yet can seem like it flys by in a hour. Examples are, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, Saving Private Ryan. These films speed by because they are paced very well.

Well Louie says here that the scenes that were cut were no good. I say, well why do you want to include them in the Blu Ray? I think because they don't suck. They must be pretty good. Here is where Marvel could have saved themselves. They could have made an epic film out of it. We would have sat through it. We sat through Pirates 3. That was tedious. How cool is it to know that a superhero film is going to be 2 and 1/2 hours long? I would think "Wow they actually have something to say." Include at least 30 min into that and give us an epic film. Why don't they do that? Cause they are chicken. They don't want to take a chance and give us a large epic film

The execs want to do what they have been doing for years and give us a WHAM BANG experience. That's safe for them. We as an audience want a risk like that. We want a 2 1/2 hour Hulk that is decent. We beg for it. The numbers are there for long films. SATC is 2 1/2 hours. Pirates and Transformers are equally as long. The highest Grossing film of all time, Titanic, is 3 hours long. Length does not matter. It can only help them at this point. A 1hr 57min Hulk is humdrum. A 2 1/2 Hour Hulk is something I would be intrigued in. A week from now execs will be asking themselves what went wrong. Hopefully they will just look at themselves in the mirror. Until Tomorrow, let's talk film!