Geek Sheets - Fourth Week of October

by Steve “Truck-a-saurus” Monnich, GGR’s Rogue Squadron Commander

Welcome one and all to this week’s edition of the Geek Sheets! Boy it has been an interesting week in the world of productions news.  We have delays, cancellations and surprise guests on various TV and movie properties that will make for a whirlwind of conversation across the geek-o-sphere!  We are currently sitting in that soft spot just after the summer blockbuster frenzy yet not-quite all the way into the Holiday season of content, so news tends to be more of the technical and procedural nature.  However, for the savvy and thoughtful fans with which GGR is replete, these somewhat mundane and bland news blips can open the door for wild and reckless speculation.  And granted, we on GGR Pirate Radio, our weekly podcast you should totally check out, talk about dozens of topics and only hit on a small percentage of our guesses, but hell if we all don’t have a fun time playing a game of “Jump to the Most Awesome Conclusions!”  We always have room for more on that bandwagon, so check out these news clips below so you can be prepared for our upcoming podcast yourself!

Wonder Woman 1984 Release Date Pushed Back

Originally slated to come out close to this time next year, the highly anticipated follow up to the smash success Wonder Woman has been given a new release date out in June of 2020.  Typically when we see shuffling around of film release dates, it’s typically in service of avoiding direct competition like we saw with Batman V Superman moving to avoid competition with Captain America: Civil War. However, looking at the November 2019 slate, the only real competition would be 3 weeks into its run when Frozen 2 comes out which would be competing for the young female audience.  Both November 2019 and June 2020 had a Fox owned Marvel film scheduled that will almost certainly be cancelled due to the pending acquisition, leaving 1984 to compete with a planned new Pixar film in June.  The other question left by this move is what now becomes of the Flash movie that was originally planned for this release spot? As the DCEU adapts to its constant fan reaction and casting changes, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the various projects.

Sweet Christmas! Luke Cage is Cancelled

Mere days after the announcement that Iron Fist would not be renewed for a third season, news broke that the same fate has befallen the far more popular series of Luke Cage.  While typically cited as “really good, but not quite as good as Jessica Jones or Daredevil”, the show maintained a high level of acting and storytelling that roped in new and pre-existing fans of the character.  This news has fanned the flames of the speculation that Disney perhaps is putting some pressure on Netflix to chill with the Marvel characters in an effort to reabsorb them under the House of the Mouse in time for their new streaming service. Others maintain the decision making was under the same logic that gave the axe to Iron Fist in so much that neither show had won a tremendous amount of awards and while a quality show, the cost to benefit ratio didn’t warrant an investment into a future season.  We will have to wait and see if any more information come out about a future show such as Daughters of the Dragon or Heroes for Hire to be announced to make sense of this disappointing news.

George Lucas Hangs Out with Favreau

This is either amazing or devastating news depending on what camp you ascribe to, but George “Jar Jar is a funnier character than we have ever had before” Lucas was on site with John Favreau on the set of the new Star Wars live action show.  Now of course this was a photo shared on twitter, not some press statement confirming George was writing or producing or doing anything other than showing up on Favreau’s birthday as a special guest, however the idea that conversations and ideas weren’t shared about the project is rather unlikely.  Coupling this with the prior news that an A-list roster of directors would be working on the first season and we have a lot to look forward to in terms of the minds crafting the nature of this program.  Hopefully Lucas can add a little touch of his Star Wars magic to the concept and then drift back and let some masters of their craft polish up the specifics, which worked out extremely well in a movie you may have heard of called The Empire Strikes Back.  The show Rebels was praised for its use of original concept art as its inspiration for the look and feel of the show, and a similar level of paying homage to the original image of the show crafted by Lucas and then injecting it with an adrenaline boost from current artists could really make this show into something special.

So there you have it Refugees!  I just handed you a big pile of lighter fluid soaked kindling, so please do me a favor and light that speculation fire ablaze!  I personally find the topic of fan speculation and detective work fascinating, and it leads beautifully to the meta-topic of where does artist ownership end and fan ownership begin (a question I and World’s Strongest Man and Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest 3 time champion Mike “Gravedigger” Lunsford” have discussed on a few occasions).  If stupid bathroom humor jokes interspersed with topical geek news stories and the commentary there of is your cup o’ tea, then you have found your home!  Until next time, I’m Steve Monnich and don’t be a juicebag!