Legendary Entertainment considering legal action over move of DUNE and GODZILLA VS. KONG to HBO Max

Legendary Entertainment, the production company behind Denis Villeneuve's Dune and Adam Wingard's Gozilla vs. Kong, is considering legal action over Warner Brothers' unilateral decision to simultaneously release both films on its streaming service, HBO Max.

As related last week, Warner Brothers have decided to simultaneously release their entire 2021 slate of films on the streaming service, citing the difficulties in getting audiences back in theatres as the vaccination process rolls out for COVID-19. With the estimated time to vaccinate the entire population of the world extending well into 2022 (if not later) and vast numbers of people refusing to be vaccinated, Warner Brothers believe disruption to cinema releases will continue for the foreseeable future. Simultaneously releasing their slate of films on a home streaming service for a premium charge is seen as a way of overcoming the problem.

However, in the case of Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong, Warner Brothers are the distribution partners and have only part-financed the film, so only partly owe them. In the case of Godzilla vs. Kong, Legendary hold 75% of the rights and WB the other 25%, although this appears to include a distribution veto. Legendary was approached by Netflix several months ago and offered a $275 million distribution deal to debut the film on their service. Legendary were apparently keen, as it would recoup the $160 million production costs almost immediately. However, Warner Brothers refused to consider the move and vetoed it. Legendary asked for a counter-offer from WB to host the film on HBO Max, but WB refused to negotiate. Legendary were taken by surprise by last week's announcement, as apparently they do not believe that WB has the legal right to unilaterally put Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong on their streaming service without Legendary's permission and without offering restitution to Legendary and to the talent involved.

Director Denis Villeneuve is also apparently extremely disappointed with the movie of Dune to streaming, believing the film should be seen on the big screen first. There is also apparently some confusion amongst Warner Brothers partners, who believe that films releasing near the end of 2021 like Dune, when mass vaccination should be in full swing, are much less likely to suffer the impact of the COVID epidemic than films released in 2020 and early 2021.

It's likely that Legendary and Warners will come to an agreement, especially since other directors like Christopher Nolan have blasted the move, believing it will damage the cinema industry further.

Man of Steel

Man of Steel is, technically, the first on-screen reboot of the Superman mythos since 1978's Superman: The Movie. Produced by the Christopher Nolan, written by David Goyer and directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen), it's an attempt to bring the moral ambiguity and 'grittiness' of Nolan and Goyer's Dark Knight trilogy of Batman films to the Superman franchise, and set up a new shared universe of films based on DC comics characters.

Things start promisingly with a visit to Krypton, depicted as something between Avatar (the Cameron movie) and Dune, with a mixture of ultra-advanced technology and feuding nobles. Russell Crowe plays Jor-El, here depicted as a scientist trying to save his world from imminent destruction but, in typical Russell Crowe style, is also capable of laying waste to entire platoons of soldiers single-handedly. Crow runs afoul of Michael Shannon's General Zod during a coup but still manages to blast his infant son (eventually a capable and reasonably good Henry Cavill) into space before the planet explodes. Zod and his cohorts are sentenced to eternal imprisonment in the Phantom Zone, which works out about as well as it ever does.

The infant Kal-El arrives on Earth and is found and raised by Kent family near Smallville, Kansas. Kal-El aka Clark's crazy powers and abilities soon manifest and his human parents (ably played by Kevin Costner and Diane Lane) are soon spending their time running around quashing rumours that their son is a space alien and instilling him with noble human values. Clark attempts to lie low in a number of fairly innocuous jobs but his tendency to rush into dangerous situations to rescue people soon attracts the attention of a reporter, Lois Lane (Amy Adams). Clark discovers a Kryptonian ship which he can use with technology from his own crashed vessel to create an interactive AI based on his father's personality. This allows him to learn about his heritage, but also sends out an automated SOS which lures Zod and his crazy crew to the planet. Cue a lot of carnage as showdown follows showdown until the film climaxes.

The storyline is, in principle, a good idea. The film avoids any mention of Lex Luthor or Kryptonite, and the use of Krypton, Zod and Jor-El as an AI are all good notions that give the story a personal investment for Superman whilst allowing the origin story part of the narrative to flow into the actual present-day storyline. Unfortunately, this doesn't work out in practise. The film's first hour, just under half the total running time, is overwhelmed by backstory and exposition. The Krypton sequences with Russell Crowe are pretty good, with a strong visual identity and Crowe - easily the best performer in the movie - doing some excellent work, grounding the fantastical landscapes and events in more relatable issues of family. Michael Shannon is a bit thuggish and lacking in nuance as Zod (especially as the film goes on and he gets more shouty), but he has credible motivations and presence. The Krypton sequence is imaginative and involving, but also overlong.

Once on Earth, the film becomes a confused morass of flashbacks (many of them pretty pointless) and present-day story. Kevin Costner is very good as Superman's human father, right up until he gets what is, by a considerable distance, the stupidest, most pointless and most unconvincing death scene in the history of cinema. The overwhelming stupidity of this sequence, not to mention that it was completely unnecessary, may be the film's lowest point. Some individual sequences such as Superman saving the crew of an oil rig or learning to fly by first jumping really high (a nod to early versions of the character who couldn't fly at all, only jump miles at a time) are much more successful. Amy Adams's Lois Lane, who soon enters the story, is also really good. She plays Lois as a smart, intelligent reporter in her thirties who is more plausible than other takes on the character. Crucially, she is also aware of who Superman is from the off. This is an obviously different take on the character relationship, avoiding the whole 'wears glasses as a disguse' cliche, even if it makes no sense whatsoever (Perry meets Superman but later falls for the old 'glasses' trick hook, line and sinker). But still, points for trying on that score. More disappointing is that Adams and Cavill don't really have much chemistry, and their eventual romance is utterly unconvincing.

The film continues to try hard to succeed: Zod's plans for Earth are actually somewhat logical and make sense. They also give hope to Clark that one day Krypton can live again, which should lead to greater moral confusion over what is the right thing to do. But this never happens: Clark decides early on to defend Earth no matter the cost and never budges from that, making these attempts to complicate things fail outright.

This leads into the film's climactic action sequences which are, on the whole, highly disappointing. The action sequences are over-indulgent and seem to go on forever. They also frequently lack context or conviction: seeing two invulnerable beings fight one another knowing they can't hurt one another makes for zero tension. The CGI is also flat-out terrible in these battles, rather bafflingly since Krypton is so impressive at the start of the film. The character-replacement CGI is unconvincing, the placing of the actors' faces on CGI bodies is amateurish and some of the flight and movement CGI is worse than the twelve-year-old original Spider-Man movie. Usually in 2013 the very least you can say about an otherwise terrible movie is that the effects are good, but Man of Steel can't even manage that right. The final battle also indulges in some dubiously lingering shots of collapsing skyscrapers with hundreds of people in them (or about to be squashed by them) which makes for uneasy viewing in a Superman feature.

Man of Steel (**) shows hints of a fertile imagination and originality (mostly in the opening act set on Krypton) whilst showcasing a few good performances, but these are soon buried by inane dialogue, terrible action sequences, poor CGI and a total collapse in logic at several key points in the film. Man of Steel is not only not very good, but even manages to make Superman Returns look like a capable and competent film in comparison. Overall, not recommended.

The Dark Knight Rises

Whilst Batman Begins were merely a successful superhero movie, its sequel, The Dark Knight, was a bona fide phenomenon. The movie was both critically acclaimed and hugely successful, making over a billion dollars at the box office. Director Christopher Nolan hesitated over making a third film, worried it could not possibly live up to expectations (especially given that the tragic death of Heath Ledger meant that the Joker could not return). Ultimately he decided to embrace the challenge and has delivered a - somewhat - satisfying resolution to his take on the Dark Knight.

Picking up eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham City is now virtually crime-free thanks to laws passed in the wake of Harvey Dent's death. Batman (who took the blame for Dent's death) has disappeared, with Bruce Wayne now living in seclusion. Commissioner Gordon, guilt-ridden by both keeping the secret of Dent's insanity and death and Batman taking the fall for it, is planning to retire. Suddenly, the city is plunged into chaos by the arrival of Bane, a former member of the League of Shadows who is planning something audacious. Wayne is forced to don the mask of the Batman once again...

Drawing on elements from the comics - most notably the Knightfall arc - Nolan has created yet another story in which Wayne's character is dragged through the wringer. From the start we know this is not going to be as dark as the previous movie: the title and the thematic direction of the movie are both about redemption. Wayne is haunted and trapped by the decisions he made previously and cannot move on, despite entreaties from Alfred to do just that. When Wayne Manor is robbed by a clever thief, Selina Kyle, Wayne is reinvigorated and gets back in the game, just as the true threat from Bane becomes apparent.

The Dark Knight Rises is driven by Nolan's typically intense direction and some exceptionally good performances. After being a bit lost in the mix in the previous film, Christian Bale brings his A-game to this movie and forms its heart. As usual, Michael Caine gives excellent support as Alfred and Gary Oldman continues to be brilliant in every scene. However, it's the newcomers which really impress. Anne Hathaway is particularly excellent as Selina 'Catwoman' Kyle, with an angst-ridden character that rivals Batman (though with a superior line in caustic humour). Joseph Gordon-Levitt is also superb as the police officer determined to live up to Batman's ideals, whilst French actress Marion Cotillard does great work as Miranda Tate (really impressing in a small role). Unfortunately, Tom Hardy's impressively physical work as Bane is undercut by a somewhat unconvincingly campy vocal performance. Intermittently disturbing, Bane's voice veers too much from the unintelligible to the ludicrous to be truly effective.

As usual, there are both great action setpieces and a laudable focus on characterisation, with several of the most powerful scenes in the movie being dialogue exchanges between Wayne and Alfred, or Wayne and Gordon-Levitt's Blake. Nolan also overcomes The Dark Knight's biggest issue, its dodgy pacing, by making the story in Rises bigger and giving more work to do to the supporting characters. Still, whilst the story is paced better it's still very long at just under three hours and the movie can't quite sustain interest consistently over its full length.

Where The Dark Knight Rises runs into problems is the underlying conflict of the whole series, namely how well Nolan's more realistic take on the franchise can mesh with its sillier excesses. Nolan's dedication to keeping it (relatively) real is stretched thin in the latter part of the film as the situation gets increasingly ludicrous and some contrived double-crosses and plot twists not so much dent disbelief as completely shatter it. After two movies spent dodging cheese and corn, Nolan can't quite keep up the dance any more and there are some groan-inducing lines and moments as the movie draws to its climax.

The Dark Knight Rises (***½) is a decent ending to the trilogy, with excellent performances and atmosphere let down by the decision to embrace cliches rather than subvert or challenge them. The ludicrously bombastic score doesn't help either. However, Nolan has still managed to deliver the best third entry in a superhero franchise of all time and the movie remains extremely entertaining. It is on general release in the UK and USA right now.

The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins was an interesting take on an established character and franchise. Batman has always been one of the most morally complex 'superheroes' out there and Nolan used his movie to explore the psyche of Bruce Wayne in a manner that Tim Burton's earlier movies barely touched on. However, it was let down by a relatively unimpressive pair of villains, a weak ending and far too much stuff being shoehorned into the plot, resulting in bloat. For all of that, it was still an impressive film.

The first film ended with the establishing of the alliance between Lt. Jim Gordon of the Gotham City police department and Batman, and the beginning of a crime spree by a shadowy figure known as the Joker. The second movie picks up a few weeks or months later, with the Joker rapidly becoming public enemy number one and Batman's attempts to locate and defeat him being unsuccessful, especially as his crimefighting crusade is becoming complicated by the emergence of ham-fisted copy-cat vigilantes. However, a new district attorney, Harvey Dent, has made it his business to bring down Gotham's criminals and after a series of major successes against important gangs and crime bosses, Bruce Wayne begins to let himself think that maybe he won't have to be Batman forever.

Of course, this is only the beginning of the story. Batman, Dent and Gordon form an unofficial alliance to bring down and defeat the criminals of the city, but the Joker reacts by forming his own alliance of the various criminal elements against them. The result is an escalating series of complex, doublecrossing traps and counter-traps by both sides. The stakes are raised, lives are lost, and Gotham is brought into utter chaos as a result. And two men's souls and morals are caught in the balance.

The Dark Knight is a fiendishly clever film which works on a thematic level that superhero movies have rarely operated at before. For this reason, the movie has already been hailed as the most important superhero movie to date, elevating the genre to a new level of credibility (possibly having the same effect on the genre that 2001 had on science fiction or Lord of the Rings on fantasy films). It's hard to argue entirely against this: The Dark Knight is a movie of impressive ambitions, but whilst from an artistic perspective it may indeed be worthy of the hype bestowed upon it, its role as entertainment accordingly suffers in several key areas.

Much has been made of the late Heath Ledger's remarkable performance as the Joker. Taking on a role that Jack Nicholson had made memorable in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie was a challenge, but one that Ledger rose to by simply making his Joker an insane agent of chaos, an enigma, rather than a loud clown with a detailed (if unoriginal) backstory. The Joker gets no backplot here, nothing to make him sympathetic on a human level. He is a psychopath and a monster, one that Ledger portrays with brilliant intensity and some excellent comedic timing. However, his role in the film appears misleading. The heart of The Dark Knight is the war for the soul of Harvey Dent, and in that story the Joker is a catalyst. The Joker's significant amounts of screentime eat into the more compelling story of Dent (an almost-equally impressive performance from Aaron Eckhart), who is absent from the plot for long periods of time and his inevitable late-film transformation is not really given enough time to be fully convincing.

A more basic problem is that the movie is too long, and several major climactic set-pieces take place some considerable time before the end of the movie. Hollywood CGI whiz and blogger Mojo has advanced a theory that The Dark Knight actually is an amalgamation of two films into one, and if the Joker and Dent strands had been separated (perhaps by having the Joker's antics and his late-movie plot involving two ferries, which come out of nowhere, as one film and the fall of Dent in another) both would have been stronger. As it stands, the latter third of the movie feels considerably less-developed than the rest, and the series of apparently-but-not-quite final moments in the movie begins to challenge Return of the King at times for its frustration.

Performances are universally excellent. Eckhart and Ledger get special nods, but supporting hands from the first movie Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and especially Michael Caine all give excellent performances. Caine in particular impresses, with Alfred's experiences as a soldier giving him a moral authority that he uses to convince Batman to do the hard thing at times, paying off in a spectacular moment when Batman makes precisely the opposite decision to what the audience expects. Similarly, after a relatively minor role in the first movie Oldman steps up as Gordon and makes him a credible threat to the city's criminals. In a busy movie, Freeman's character of Lucius Fox even has time for an amusing subplot in which he discovers a Wayne Enterprises employee who has figured out where a chunk of the company's revenue is going and why. Maggie Gyllenhaall, taking over the Katie Holmes role from the first film (thankfully, as Gyllenhaal is a much better actress), also impresses. Christian Bale does good work as Wayne/Batman, but in a movie of stand-out performances from even the secondary cast, Bale merely settles for being pretty good.

The Dark Knight (****) is an effective, impressive and dark film with stand-out acting and an interesting thematic arc, but occasionally it lacks focus and has some scripting and pacing issues. It is definitely one of the better superhero movies of recent years, but I'd hesitate about calling it the best. What is does do, however, is aim for something much higher than most superhero movies even think about achieving and if it falls short, it remains an impressive ambition. The film is available now on DVD in the UK and USA, and alson on Blu-Ray in the UK and USA.