Because Hollywood Wants To Squeeze Every Last Drop Out Of A Popular IP

Asking existential questions in the 'Guardian'(at least the columnist is appropriately named):

 

There was once a time when Hugh Jackman Wolverine cameos made a sort of sense. Bursting out of a cell in full Weapon X gear, massacring half a bunker, then vanishing, in 2016’s otherwise pretty forgettable X-Men: Apocalypse. Telling potential recruitment team Magneto and Professor X to, er, go fuck themselves while propping up a bar in 2011’s X-Men: First Class. Even popping up via archived footage from X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2018’s Deadpool 2. These were cameos we could accept: quick, self-contained sideshows that understood the sacred rule that such things ought to be fun and brief. They also arrived at a time when Jackman didn’t yet carry the weight of 25 years of audience investment.

And hadn't just kicked his long term wife to the curb for a younger model. 

Last week, in an appearance on the BBC’s Graham Norton Show, Jackman revealed that he has banned himself from saying no to future appearances as the surly mutant. “I am never saying ‘never’ ever again,” he said. “But I did mean it when I said ‘never’, until the day when I changed my mind. But I really did for quite a few years, I meant it.”

Because now he needs to pay the alimony?  

Cameo Wolverine has been done to death, and the only reason for him to make an appearance in Marvel’s next major episode would be if he was somehow pivotal to its events.

Marvel are moving on, though. 

There’s an argument that the more Marvel leans on Jackman for cheap dopamine hits, the less power he has left. Each new appearance devalues the last.

Ever diminishing returns is a Hollywood trope, isn't it?  

These Aren't The Films And TV I Grew Up With...

Foster revealed how she had also challenged pervading gender stereotypes in her own family.

Talking about raising her children, whom she had with her former partner Cydney Bernard, and now raises with her wife, Alexandra Hedison, she said: “There was a moment with my older one when he was in high school, when, because he was raised by two women – three women – it was like he was trying to figure out what it was to be a boy.

“And he watched television and came to the conclusion: oh, I just need to be an asshole. I understand. I need to be shitty to women and act like I’m a fucker.

“And I was like: ‘No. That’s not what it is to be a man! That’s what our culture has been selling you for all this time.’”

Really? I grew up with pretty wholesome tv and films, where this decidedly was not the norm. Where masculinity was something noble, protective. I grew up with 'Lassie', 'Champion The Wonder Horse', 'Skippy The Bush Kangaroo' on TV, and films like 'A Matter Of Life And Death', 'The Guns of Navarone' and 'Shane'. What has changed?

And should Foster perhaps be looking in the mirror to find out? 

Of Course It Is, Sweetie...

The star of Netflix's much-talked about 'Queen Cleopatra' docudrama says the furore over her casting as the Egyptian ruler is 'fundamentally racist'.#

Pulling out the RaceCard™ is the automatic reflex, after all... 

Adele addressed the the high-profile criticism around being a black actress playing Cleopatra, saying: 'It would be naive of me to say that I didn't expect anything at all, but I didn't expect the scale of it.

'And I think it's distressing for anybody to receive any level of abuse, let alone the scale and the nature of what I've received, which is fundamentally racist, all of it.

'People are talking about the wrong things. Yes, we don't know where her mother was from or her paternal grandmother, but also the show is about so much more than the question mark over her race.'

You don't get to dictate what people talk about. And by casting you, that's what the makers of this show have done. No-one else did it. So you're perpetuating it. 

'If you watch it is a very small part of the conversation really, this is about the fullness of who this woman was and she was a human being and she shouldn't be reduced to her race any more than I should or anybody should.'

You've guaranteed it, actually. 

Adele also talked about the support of Hollywood actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who narrates the series and is its executive producer.

'She is an African Queen and I feel like it just couldn't be more pertinent and important that she's the figurehead of this. She's an icon.'

She's not African, she's not a queen either. What she is, is a Hollywood elite who knows exactly what she's doing to get her show watched. That it'll be for the wrong reasons matters not a jot, does it? 

Yes, But That's Exactly What Exactly What They Want To Prevent...

A row over Disney changing the words to a classsic song for the remake:

Someone else wrote: 'It makes sense that the villain say those things. Maybe instead of changing the lyrics, teach kids to think and reflect about those topic so they can develop critical thinking.'

Oh dear me, no. That will never do.... 

"Gissa Job!"

Hollywood figures are calling for...

Roast swan? A pet yak in their trailer every night? 

...more diversity in hair and makeup departments on sets, after Black actors came forward about their experiences of racism including being told there was no budget to cut hair of their type.

Oh...apparently, this is a thing now. Racist hairstyling. Who knew? 

Camille Friend, a top stylist who has worked on Black Panther, Tenet and Captain Marvel, said hair stylists who don’t know how to work with Black hair should not be working on film or TV sets.

Even if the show has no black actors? 

Friend also believes the actors’ union needs to make the necessary changes as they hold much of the power. “[The Screen Actors Guild] is a very powerful union and they have the power to change the rules for their actors of color,” she said.

“They can require Black actors to have a say in who is hired for hair and makeup departments, including barbers. This should be a requirement.”

Let me guess - one of those people they'd then insist on would be...you?