Lucasfilm outlines ongoing plans for STAR WARS

In a major article for Vanity Fair, the creatives at Lucasfilm have outlined their plans moving forwards for the Star Wars franchise. The franchise has had mixed fortune recently, scoring a major international hit with TV series The Mandalorian but also two box-office disappointments with Solo (2018) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), and TV series The Book of Boba Fett which had a mixed reception.

During the article, Lucasfilm confirm the release schedule for their upcoming TV shows, with Obi-Wan Kenobi launching on 27 May and Rogue One prequel show Andor hitting screens a few weeks later, before the end of summer. The Mandalorian Season 3 will arrive late this year or early next, with Ahsoka being a confirmed 2023 release. The Acolyte, a show set during the "High Republic" era about 100 years before The Phantom Menace, is likely to appear in 2023 or 2024.

Lucasfilm are also developing a new project, which so far only has the code name "Grammar Rodeo" (a Simpsons reference). The show sounds like Star Wars: Stranger Things, with a group of four children who get swept up in events following the fall of the Empire. The show is reported to have a "Amblin coming-of-age adventure" vibe from the 1980s. Director Jon Watts, who helmed the recent Spider-Man Homecoming trilogy, is in charge alongside writer Chris Ford.

In terms of feature films, it appears that the new focus is on Taika Waititi's Star Wars movie, which is in pre-production and will be Waititi's next project once Thor: Love & Thunder launches and he gets his commitments to that out of the way. That could potentially be a 2024 release. Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron movie was delayed a while back due to commitments to Wonder Woman 3 and Cleopatra, but Jenkins cleared Cleopatra by transferring it to another director. Rogue Squadron will be Jenkins' next film once the third Wonder Woman movie is done, possibly for 2025.

Marvel Cinematic Universe head honcho Kevin Feige agreed to brainstorm and produce a Star Wars movie a while back, but he's so busy with the MCU that that project has been back-burnered. Likewise on hold is Rian Johnson's Star Wars trilogy. Johnson has committed to his Knives Out franchise and a Netflix deal, which puts a Star Wars return a long way off. Left unspoken is the mixed critical reception to Johnson's film The Last Jedi, which may have discouraged his return to the franchise altogether.

The Knights of the Old Republic movie, rumoured heavily a couple of years ago, and the rumoured Lando Calrissian TV show, are also left completely unmentioned.

The article addresses potential issues with the Star Wars franchise moving forwards: most of the projects reiterate on eras and things we have seen before. Only The Acolyte seems to be set in a new time period distinct from the prior settings, and even that is apparently going to eventually be setting up The Phantom Menace (I suspect a Darth Plagueis appearance). The article also suggests that the failure of Solo has been blamed on recasting Han Solo rather than its release date or franchise fatigue. This has driven the decision to use CGI to resurrect classic characters rather than recasting, which I think is the wrong conclusion to draw from that. The "deepfake" technology is getting better all the time, but it's still not at the point where classic characters can be restored to the screen convincingly. Even if it could, it feels like that's feeding into the desire to keep Star Wars permanently stuck revisiting the same time periods, characters and concepts.

The mixed reception to Star Wars projects which have tried to go in new directions seems to have resulted in a lot of conservatism in these new projects, which is a shame. The problem with the sequel trilogy wasn't that it was trying to go in new directions, but that it starting off not doing that (with the highly retro and fan-servicing The Force Awakens), then did that only semi-successfully (in The Last Jedi, half of the best Star Wars movie bolted onto half of the most pointless) and then reversed course again and made a complete pig's ear out of the situation (in The Rise of Skywalker). A Star Wars project which did go in genuinely new directions with a coherent plan in place from the start and was genuinely well-written I think would have every chance of success.

Forthcoming Star Wars Projects

• Obi-Wan Kenobi: Disney+ streaming series, 27 May 2022
• Andor: Disney+ streaming series, late summer 2022
• The Mandalorian Season 3: Disney+ streaming series, late 2022/early 2023
• Ahsoka: Disney+ streaming series, 2023
• The Acolyte: Disney+ streaming series, 2023/2024
• "Grammar Rodeo": Disney+ streaming series, tbc
• Taika Waititi-directed Star Wars movie, tbc
• Rogue Squadron: feature film, tbc
• Kevin Feige Star Wars movie: on hold
• Rian Johnson Star Wars trilogy: on hold

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS spin-off WELLINGTON PARANORMAL hits the UK next week

New Zealand TV show Wellington Paranormal, a spin-off from What We Do in the Shadows (the film, not the TV show, although the TV show is also a spin-off from the film and co-exists in the same universe with the movie and the spin-off), finally arrives in the UK and Ireland on Monday, via Sky TV and NowTV.

The show is set in Wellington, New Zealand and follows the hapless adventures of Minogue and O'Leary, the two easily-hypnotised cops who play a role in the original film. Minogue and O'Leary's close brush with the vampire and werewolf gangs of Wellington makes them ideally-suited to head up a new supernatural investigations unit headed by Senior Sergeant Maaka. Their investigations lead them into encounters with a body-hopping demon, an alien invasion, ghosts, creepy clowns, zombies and a sentient fatberg. Familiar faces from What We Do in the Shadows also crop up from time to time.

The series is executive produced by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, who also writes, directs and script edits. The first three seasons will be available from Monday 5 April on Sky TV and NowTV in the UK. The series is also launching soon on The CW in the USA, with each episode available on HBO Max the day after initial transmission.

The What We Do in the Shadows series recently began filming on its third season (delayed due to COVID), with a view to it airing on FX in the USA and the BBC in the UK later this year or early next.

Lucasfilm confirm a large number of new STAR WARS projects

Lucasfilm have confirmed they have a large number of new Star Wars projects currently in development. As with Disney's recent slew of announcements about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Star Wars news focuses primarily on television.

The exception to the TV news was the formal confirmation of the next Star Wars feature film. Rogue Squadron is scheduled for release on Christmas Day 2023 and will be helmed by Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins. Jenkins' father was a US fighter pilot who flew F4s for the US military, making the appointment appropriate. Jenkins' video and the logo both show a Rebellion-era T-65 X-wing, suggesting the film will be set around the time of the original trilogy or maybe shortly afterwards.

The only other movie news was confirmation that Taika Waititi would be helming a Star Wars movie. Nothing was revealed about the content other than it is "fresh" and unusual, hinting that Waititi will be bringing his signature comedic slant to the franchise. This isn't Waititi's first space rodeo, since the director previously helmed an episode of The Mandalorian in its first season.

The TV show news was divided between things we knew about and new announcements. Andor began shooting two weeks ago and sees Diego Luna return as Rebel spy and intelligence operative Cassian Andor, and will depict his adventures in the run-up to the events of Rogue One. Genevieve O'Reilly also returns as Mon Mothma. Obi-Wan Kenobi is due to start shooting shortly and will be set on Tatooine ten years after the events of Revenge of the Sith and nine years before the events of A New Hope. The film sees Ewan McGregor return to the role of Obi-Wan. Curiously, it will also see Hayden Christensen reprise his role as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, presumably in flashback sequences or maybe visions of some kind.

The Clone Wars is getting a sequel series in the form of The Bad Batch, focusing on the members of Clone Force 99, a group of discontented Clone Troopers, in the months and years following the fall of the Old Republic. Another animated series, Visions, will feature 10 anime-inspired short films from Japanese animation studios, whilst A Droid Story will focus on R2-D2 and C3-PO getting into scrapes with a new character.

The Mandalorian is getting two spin-off TV shows which will be set in the same timeframe. Ahsoka will pick up with Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano and follow her adventures, possibly using the World Between Worlds as a narrative device. Rangers of the New Republic sounds like it will be a more original idea focusing on the people helping build up and extent the New Republic's influence.

Lando is a spin-off show focusing on Lando Calrissian (natch), but it's unclear if this will be a show focusing on Billy Dee Williams's older version of the character or Donald Glover's younger version, or perhaps both (with the former framing flashbacks to the younger).

Most intriguing is The Acolyte, a show set during the High Republic era. This era is the focus of a new series of novels and comics set in a time period 400 years before the prequel movies, and it'll be intriguing to see what the TV series will add to the experience.

Lucasfilm also confirmed their first two non-Star Wars projects since the Disney acquisition have been fully greenlit. The fifth Indiana Jones movie will start shooting in the spring with James Mangold directing, whilst the Willow TV series will start shooting in March in Wales.

The Lucasfilm release schedule is as follows:

Film

• Rogue Squadron (25 December 2023)
• Untitled Taika Waititi film (2025)
• Indiana Jones 5 (tbc)

Television

• The Bad Batch (2021)
• Visions (10 episodes, 2021)
• Andor (12 episodes, early 2022)
• Obi-Wan Kenobi (6 episodes, 2022)
• The Acolyte (tbc)
• A Droid Story (tbc)
• Ahsoka (tbc)
• Lando (tbc)
• Rangers of the New Republic (tbc)
• Willow (tbc)

Star Wars: The Mandalorian - Season 1

Seven years after the death of the Emperor and Darth Vader, the galaxy is in a precarious state. The New Republic is trying to unite the galaxy again under a democratic banner, opposed by areas where remnants of the Empire still hold sway, but many worlds have become lawless. A Mandalorian warrior finds himself serving as a bounty hunter, taking on commissions to survive...until his latest contract changes everything.

The Mandalorian represents a historic moment for the Star Wars franchise. After forty-three years, it is the first live-action, ongoing TV series in the franchise's history, something people have dreamed of seeing since 1977. For having such weight on its shoulders, it is surprisingly low-key.

The show has a tight focus on the central character, played by Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, Narcos), who (almost) never takes his helmet off and is a taciturn warrior. With only a blank helmet to emote through and relatively rare bursts of dialogue, Pascal does a sterling job of giving his character an identifiable motivation, gravitas, charisma and dry humour. The supporting cast, from Carl Weathers (Predator) as the Mando's erstwhile boss, director Werner Herzog as a villain and Gina Carano (Deadpool) as a former Rebel shock trooper turned reluctant ally to the Mandalorian, are also excellent.

The show has a really interesting filming style, with a strong use of both location filming and virtual sets which have been taken to the next level, using techniques developed on showrunner Jon Favreau's recent Disney live-action movies. For the most part these are brilliantly realised, giving the show a sense of realism and scale that almost no science fiction TV series has ever achieved before. What is interesting is also how restrained the show is: this is  a space Western, mostly set on dusty frontier worlds and in seedy cantinas, with shady backroom deals going on which threaten to explode in violence at any moment. The visual effects and battle sequences are also, obviously, exceptional, and the end credits for each episodes are works of art on their own merits.

The structure of the series is also refreshing. In the last year or so it's felt like there's been a slight backlash to constant serialisation as several high-profile shows have retreated from stretching single stories over dozens of episodes to instead mix self-contained narratives with continuing subplots. After this worked well in The Witcher and before it did in Tales from the Loop, The Mandalorian does the same here. Continuing threads run through the season as the Mandalorian tries to survive and protect a mysterious alien child he finds on one of his missions, whilst also dealing with a series of crises-of-the-week. These include defending a village on a planet from attack by mercenaries and helping rescue a prisoner from a prison transport. Eventually there is a reckoning, hinting at a more serialised second season, but the story unfolds much more organically this way. The producers are also happy to have some of the episodes be quite short and focused, wrapping up in 40 minutes rather than dragging out to more than 60 without enough story to fill that time.

Weaknesses are few: the fifth episode is a bit forgettable, I guess, and there's perhaps an overreliance on some staple Star Wars tropes (an audible grown can be heard as they tap the Tatooine well once again), but the execution is otherwise superb, with great writing, direction and effects.

Season 1 of The Mandalorian (****½) finally gives us the live-action Star Wars TV show fans have wanted for forty years, and does an exceptionally good job of it. It is available to watch worldwide now on Disney+. Season 2 of The Mandalorian concluded shooting before the coronavirus pandemic began so will hopefully hit its October 2020 release date.

Taika Waititi signs with Lucasfilm to direct and co-write a STAR WARS film

After months of discussion, it's now been confirmed that Taika Waititi will co-write and direct a new Star Wars film for Lucasfilm and Disney.

The film will be co-written with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917, Penny Dreadful). Waititi will begin work on the film once production wraps on his MCU movie Thor: Love and Thunder, which has a tentative release date of 11 February 2022 (pandemic permitting).

Waititi has already dipped his toes into the Star Wars universe, having worked as a director on the first season of The Mandalorian. Waititi is much in demand, also working as a producer and director on What We Do in the Shadows, recently wrapping his latest feature Next Goal Wins and developing an Akira movie for Warner Brothers, although it's likely that this will now move to another director given that this news keeps Waititi busy likely for the next four years or so.

No further information has been provided about the film, such as a setting or timeframe. It's also unclear if this will be the same movie that Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige will be producing, although given Waititi's solid relationship with Feige this is is possible.

Lucasfilm still have a release date of 16 December 2022 pencilled in for their next Star Wars movie, originally the film to be written and directed by Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss. With them moving to Netflix to develop a new television series and both Waititi and Rian Johnson (who had a movie trilogy in development with Lucasfilm) busy with other projects before they can get back to Lucasfilm, it's probable that this date will no longer be hit and we'll be lucky to see a new Star Wars movie much this side of 2024.

Akira fans may be sorry to see Waititi likely depart their project, since he was planning a faithful adaptation of the original manga set in Japan, but can take solace from the 4K remastered set of the original film, which is due to hit shops in Japan any day now.

Taika Waititi in talks with Disney to helm STAR WARS movie

Lucasfilm and Disney have opened discussions with director Taika Waititi on helming a Star Wars film.

Disney already has a productive relationship with Waititi, who is credited with achieving a major franchise turn-around after directing Thor: Ragnarok (2017), not to mention playing the role of Korg in both Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame. Waititi has also directed an episode of the well-received TV series Star Wars: The Mandalorian and voiced a droid character, so has already dipped his toes in the Star Wars universe.

Waititi, who presumably never sleeps, is also an executive producer on the comedy TV series What We Do in the Shadows and is basking in the glow of success of his latest movie, Jojo Rabbit. He's also just finished directing another small-scale movie, Next Goal Wins, and is in pre-production on Thor: Love and Thunder, which is expected to start filming in the summer for release on 5 November 2021. Waititi may fit in some more TV work before then as well.

As a proven and fan-popular pair of hands, Waititi is a good choice to helm a Star Wars movie. It's unclear if this would be the Kevin Feige-produced stand-alone film which is currently in development at Lucasfilm, although this would make sense given Waititi and Feige's strong collaborative bond. There's also the Rian Johnson-helmed trilogy still in development at Lucasfilm, although Johnson reportedly would be directing at least the first film in that series himself.

If Waititi does sign on, it likely means the end of his Akira live-action project. Waititi had put the project in active development and successfully developed a script which restored the Neo-Tokyo setting and predominantly Japanese cast (the previous draft had been set in New York instead), but it sounds like the studio was having cold feet and Waititi bailed to make the new Thor movie. If Waititi rolls from that into Star Wars, thus puts Akira off until sometime in the middle of the decade at best.

Whatever the case, Lucasfilm need to get a move on if they want to release a new Star Wars movie in 2022. Originally that was going to be the David Benioff/D.B. Weiss-developed film, but their departure for Netflix has left a production gap which Lucasfilm are anxious to fill.

Taika Waititi to direct THOR 4, AKIRA put on hold

In a surprise move, Taika Waititi has confirmed that his next project will be a follow-up to his 2017 movie Thor: Ragnarok, rather than his live-action take on Akira that Warner Brothers had fast-tracked for a May 2021 release.

Waititi was in the middle of meeting Japanese actors for the key lead roles in Akira (presumably Tetsuo and Kaneda), so the decision to pivot to Thor 4 is surprising. However, according to the Hollywood Reporter's sources there were some concerns over the currently in-development script, and by putting Thor 4 first, Waititi is giving the script more development time. This seems to have been confirmed by the fact that Warner Brothers is still keen on having him direct, so have put the film on hold until Thor 4 is done rather than looking for another director. The power Waititi has over the project is notable in that he apparently convinced the sceptical studio to cast Asian actors, re-set the film back in Neo-Tokyo (several previous iterations of the script relocated the action to a futuristic New York) and mount the film as a multi-part project, all of which seems to remain in play.

Waititi's next projects for release are Jojo Rabbit, a smaller-scale movie starring Scarlett Johansson, which is due for release in October, and several episodes of The Mandalorian, the Star Wars live-action show debuting on Disney+ in November. Waititi may also helm an episode or two of the second season of What We Do in the Shadows, the hit comedy based on his 2014 movie of the same name (he helmed three episodes of the first season), depending on other commitments.

Disney and Marvel likely put significant monetary incentives in front of Waititi to helm Thor 4, especially given that the movie may also function as a stopgap Guardians of the Galaxy film (given the events of Avengers: Endgame) which Disney may find desirable given that James Gunn will not be able to start work on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 proper until 2021 (for a likely 2022 or 2023 release at the earliest), given his commitments to the new Suicide Squad movie.

A timeline for Thor 4's release date is likely to be announced this weekend at the San Diego Comic-Con, where Marvel will outline their movie projects for the next few years.

Akira fans don't have too much to complain about, however, as the original creator is working on a brand-new anime adaptation of the original manga for television. Unlike the 1988 movie (which is also getting a Blu-Ray and 4K remaster for release next April), this new adaptation will faithfully cover all six graphic novels and over 2,000 pages of the story. The original film, released before the manga was complete, had to heavily compress the story to fit into two hours.

It is also possible that the new anime - which we'll be lucky to see before 2022 or thereabouts - will further interest in the live-action movie, which Warner Brothers has taken into consideration in the decision to bench the film whilst Waititi is busy at Marvel.

Taika Waititi to direct AKIRA for release in 2021

Warner Brothers have confirmed that Taika Waititi will be directing the long, long-awaited live action version of Akira. The film also has a release date: 21 May 2021.

According to Waititi, he wants to go back to the original manga series (published today as six graphic novels) rather than the 1988 anime film, which truncated the story considerably. This suggests that the film will only be adapting the first part of the story, not all of it. Waititi also wants to return the film to the setting of Neo-Tokyo with Asian actors, whilst previous live-action proposals have moved the film to America or Europe. It is unclear if this is still the plan, but hopefully so.

The 1988 film played a huge role in expanding the influence and popularity of anime in the West, building on the previous success of Voltron and Macross (in its heavily and controversially-adapted guise as Robotech) and kickstarting a huge explosion in the popularity of Japanese animation in Europe and the United States. That said, although the film is rightfully praised for its still-stunning and beautiful visuals, its storytelling (condensing some 2,530 pages of the manga into two hours of screen time) could be very rushed and confused.

Leonardo DiCaprio, a long-term fan of the original movie, is producing the new film.

The news means that Marvel's hopes for Waititi to return to direct a Thor 4 in the relatively near future have been thwarted, putting that potential project off until late 2022 at the earliest.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Thor - Ragnarok

Thor, God of Thunder, returns home to Asgard with a mighty artefact and discovers that things are...amiss. Soon he finds himself imprisoned on the remote planet Sakaar along with his redoubtable half-brother Loki, pitched into fighting in a gladiatorial arena for the amusement of millions. Back on Asgard, the realm (and its eight fellows) stand in mortal peril due to the return of Hela, Goddess of Death. Thor must find a way of escaping Sakaar, returning home and averting Ragnarok, the end of everything.

By 2017 the Marvel Cinematic Universe had become a smooth conveyor belt churning out superhero action blockbusters, now up to three a year, reliable as clockwork. If it's a tribute to the powers behind this multi-billion dollar mega-franchise that they've never produced a truly awful movie (even Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World are watchable, if mediocre), it's also damning with faint praise to realise they've never produced a single stone-cold for-the-ages classic either. After seventeen movies up to this point you'd expect at least one of them to be a genuine stand-out, but nope (The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 come close but ultimately no cigar). There is a Disney-Marvel formula and whenever they've hired a director who seemed in danger of putting too much of their own spin on things or adopting a more experimental approach, that director has gotten with the programme or been fired (such as the fate of Edgar Wright on Ant-Man).

From that perspective, Marvel's decision to hire New Zealand director Taika Waititi for the third Thor movie seemed a bit crazy. Waititi is a free-wheeling comic genius, the director of movies such as Boy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and, most hilariously, What We Do in the Shadows, a crowd-funded Spinal Tap with vampires. His approach to his films relies heavily on actor improvisation and experimenting with different ideas on set, ideas which seem antithetical to a $180 million CGI action fest where every scene is storyboarded to within an inch of its life a year before shooting starts. Indeed, when Phil Lord and Christopher Miller adopted the same approach to the Han Solo Star Wars prequel movie, they were fired. Watching Thor: Ragnarok, it's clear that Marvel stuck with Waititi for the simple reason that, as much as Waititi had made his mark on this film, Marvel had also made its mark on Waititi: this is very much a Standard Marvel Movie with the same basic structure and story beats that we've seen sixteen times before, just with a couple more genital jokes than usual that get thrown into the mix.

Structurally, the film is a bit of a mess. Typically, a film's opening will establish the premise and backstory of what's going on, either by itself or through entertaining plot action. Ragnarok's opening takes in a planet that looks like Hell with scenes set in Norway, New York and on Asgard and a completely pointless Doctor Strange cameo before the story really even kicks in. Once it does, we follow two plot strands, one with Team Thor on the planet Sakaar trying to escape from the Grandmaster, and another on Asgard as it comes under attack from Hela and the established B-cast from the previous movie (led by Idris Elba's Heimdall) try to hold her off until Thor gets his act together. This would be fine, except that the Sakaar interlude goes on way too long, leaving the resolution on Asgard to take place with almost indecent haste.

There are, however, some strong benefits to this approach, most notably that the ending is fast-paced, punchy and wrapped up with a minimum of fuss, which is a bit of a relief from way too many recent big movies with huge, CG-drenched endings that go on forever (hi, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2). The downside is that the Sakaar sequence is a bit interminable. Jeff Goldblum's Grandmaster is funny, but he's never really a serious threat, and the apparently "serious" character stuff as Hulk undergoes some much-needed character evolution (if you're wondering why and how he can talk rather than just being an irrational force of destruction, that gets explained) could have been wrapped up much more quickly than is the case. As usual Tom Hiddleston steals the show as Loki and Tessa Thompson makes for a compelling new protagonist as the hard-drinking Valkyrie who, refreshingly, doesn't end up as anyone's love interest.

The scenes set on Asgard are briefer, but they do feature a surprisingly excellent subplot focusing on Karl Urban as Skurge. Skurge's character arc is relatively brief and straightforward, but Urban does outstanding work with very little material, confirming his position as the single greatest supporting actor on Planet Earth at this time (get this man back as Judge Dredd, stat!). Of course, it goes without saying that Cate Blanchett relishes her performance as the evil Hela, chewing scenery and unleashing villainous dialogue with absolute conviction.

The film has developed a reputation as a comedy, even the first outright comedy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which is a bit of an exaggeration. There's a lot of funny lines and some characters like Korg (a CG rock monster voiced by Waititi himself) are pure comic relief, but there's also quite a lot of death and destruction (the film is called Ragnarok, after all) and a few grim moments. The comedy stuff is fine and there's a few belly laughs here and there, but the trailers definitely give away almost all of the funniest moments which is a bit of a disappointment.

One of the biggest successes in the movie is how Waititi handles effects. He's never handled a CG extravaganza on this scale before and his grasp of visual imagery is striking. Some of the scenes, particularly a flashback to a charge of horse-mounted Valkyrie warriors, are beautifully composed. There's a hell of a lot of moments in the film which would make for great paintings or desktop wallpapers.

Ultimately, Thor: Ragnarok (****) emerges as the best Thor movie to date and the funniest film in the MCU, but it's also dramatically challenged, coming perilously close on occasion to reducing Thor to pure comic relief. Although Thor has an comical side to him, it should never be allowed to overwhelm the grandiose, Shakespearean aspects of his character. Waititi does skirt that at times, but just about manages to hold it together so Thor emerges as the mighty hero he's always been teased as in the previous movies. Thor: Ragnarok is fun, funny, well-acted and has some breathtaking visual moments, but its pacing and structure feels a bit off: the film has a messy opening and saggy middle before it pulls things together for a strong, brisk finale that sets up The Avengers: Infinity War.

Note: the original version of this review was published in 2017.

Two new TV series confirm the existence of a shared WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS universe

Cult 2014 movie What We Do in the Shadows, which brought the genius of Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi to a worldwide audience (leading to the latter's involving in directing Thor: Ragnarok and working on the new Star Wars TV show), has now spawned an entire related universe, with two TV shows already in production and a sequel movie in the planning stages.

First up is New Zealand-based Wellington Paranormal, which follows hapless cops Kyle Minogue and Officer O'Leary as they investigate weird goings-on in the Wellington area. Minogue and O'Leary appeared several times in the movie as the easily-hypnotised cops constantly getting involved in the vampires' misadventures. A first season of 13 episodes has already aired and a second season has been commissioned for 2019. So far an international distribution deal has not been signed, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this showing up on Netflix or Amazon before too long.

Next in rotation is a more direct TV version of the movie, also called What We Do in the Shadows. Production of Season 1 is already complete and this should air on FX in the States in early 2019, with Netflix or Channel 4 likely to pick up the UK transmission rights. What We Do in the Shadows is set in New York City and stars Kayvan Novak, Matt Berry, Nastasia Demetriou and Harvey Guillen. Despite early reports that the TV show will be a remake of the movie, it's actually an all-new story with a new cast of characters. The events of the TV show are set in motion when a minion of the old vampires of Europe arrives in the New World to see how the vampire conquest is going after 400 years, only to find they haven't managed to get off Staten Island. Shenanigans ensue.

Waititi and Clement are also developing a sequel to the movie. Called We're Wolves, the film will catch up on the wolf pack established in the first move and explore their lives in a similar mockumentary style.

Clement and Waititi have confirmed (albeit possibly with tongue firmly in cheek) that they see the movies and TV shows as all taking place in one big universe (possibly Waititi's exposure to the Marvel and Star Wars universes coming through there) and there's a chance characters from the original movie may show up in both TV shows in some capacity.

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS spin-off TV show gets a trailer

Wellington Paranormal, the spin-off TV show from Taika Waititi's cult classic movie What We Do in the Shadows, has just had its first trailer arrive.

The TV series follows the misadventures of Wellington police officers Mike Mongue and Karen O'Leary (played by the actors of the same name). In What We Do in the Shadows they were the police officers who kept showing up whenever the vampires got into shenanigans and had to repeatedly hypnotise them to forget about what was going on. The show picks up on the idea that the police officers have finally twigged that something weird is going on and start investigating events more thoroughly.

Waititi and his collaborator Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords, Legion) are producing the new series. Some fans are hoping to see them cameo in the series, although they are busy with other projects in Hollywood.

Meanwhile, FX has ordered 10 episodes of an American remake of the movie in the form of a TV series, to star British comedy stars Kayvan Novak and Matt Berry. Waititi and Clement have also confirmed they still want to make a sequel to the movie, provisionally entitled We're Wolves and focusing on the werewolf pack from the original film, and are waiting for a gap in their schedules where they can do this.

Waititi is reportedly being wooed by Lucasfilm to make a Star Wars movie, whilst also consulting with Marvel on a potential sequel to Thor: Ragnarok or another movie in the MCU.

Taika Waititi in line for STAR WARS job

Star Wars franchise boss Kathleen Kennedy has said that she is interested in hiring Taika Waititi to direct a future instalment of the space opera franchise. Waititi has delivered a major, successful blockbuster for Marvel in the shape of Thor: Ragnarok and it's no surprise that Lucasfilm (also owned by Marvel's owners, Disney) are interested in seeing if they can sign him up as well.

However, it seems an odd match. Waititi has a laidback, humorous and improvisational style, noting that many of the funniest moments on Ragnarok emerged out of the cast and crew just playing around on-set. This is similar to the approach adopted by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord on the set of Star Wars: Solo, which so horrified Kennedy that she fired them and drafted in Ron Howard to finish the picture. Waititi himself has seemed dubious about tackling the franchise, noting it's less whacky and is less tolerant of changes in tone than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He even said, "Lolz, I like to complete my films. I'd be fired within a week."

Still, it'd be interesting to see what Waititi could do with the franchise, especially one that can occasionally be a bit too Poe-faced for its own good at times.

Thor: Ragnarok

Thor, God of Thunder, returns home to Asgard with a mighty artefact and discovers that things are...amiss. Soon he finds himself imprisoned on the remote planet Sakaar along with his redoubtable half-brother Loki, pitched into fighting in a gladiatorial arena for the amusement of millions. Back on Asgard, the realm (and its eight fellows) stand in mortal peril due to the return of Hela, Goddess of Death. Thor must find a way of escaping, returning home and averting Ragnarok, the end of everything.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become a smooth conveyor belt churning out superhero action blockbusters, now up to three a year, reliable as clockwork. If it's a tribute to the powers behind this multi-billion dollar mega-franchise that they've never produced a truly awful movie (even Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World are watchable, if mediocre), it's also damning with faint praise to realise they've never produced a single stone-cold for-the-ages classic either. After seventeen movies you'd expect at least one of them to be a genuine stand-out, but nope (The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 come close but ultimately no cigar). There is a Disney-Marvel formula and whenever they've hired a director who seemed in danger of putting too much of their own spin on things or adopting a more experimental approach, that director has gotten with the programme or been fired (such as the fate of Edgar Wright on Ant-Man).

From that perspective, Marvel's decision to hire New Zealand director Taika Waititi for the third Thor movie seems a bit crazy. Waititi is a free-wheeling comic genius, the director of movies such as Boy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and, most hilariously, What We Do in the Shadows, a crowd-funded Spinal Tap with vampires. His approach to his films relies heavily on actor improvisation and experimenting with different ideas on set, ideas which seem antithetical to a $180 million CGI action fest where every scene is storyboarded to within an inch of its life a year before shooting starts. Indeed, when Phil Lord and Christopher Miller adopted the same approach to the Han Solo Star Wars prequel movie, they were fired. Watching Thor: Ragnarok, it's clear that Marvel stuck with Waititi for the simple reason that, as much as Waititi has made his mark on this film, Marvel has also made its mark on Waititi: this is very much a Standard Marvel Movie with the same basic structure and story beats that we've seen sixteen times before, just with a couple more genital jokes than usually get thrown into the mix.

Structurally, the film is a mess. Typically, a film's opening will establish the premise and backstory of what's going on, either by itself or through entertaining plot action. Ragnarok's opening takes in a planet that looks like Hell with scenes set in Norway, New York and on Asgard and a completely pointless Doctor Strange cameo before the story really even kicks in. Once it does, we follow two plot strands, one with Team Thor on the planet Sakaar trying to escape from the Grandmaster, and another on Asgard as it comes under attack from Hela and the established B-cast from the previous movie (led by Idris Elba's Heimdall) try to hold her off until Thor gets his act together. This would be fine, except that the Sakaar interlude goes on way too long, leaving the resolution on Asgard to take place with almost indecent haste.

There are some benefits to this approach, most notably that the ending is fast-paced, punchy and wrapped up with a minimum of fuss, which is a bit of a relief from way too many recent big movies with huge, CG-drenched endings that go on forever (hi, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2). The downside is that the Sakaar sequence is a bit interminable. Jeff Goldblum's Grandmaster is funny, but he's never really a serious threat, and the apparently "serious" character stuff as Hulk undergoes some much-needed character evolution (if you're wondering why and how he can talk rather than just being an irrational force of destruction, that gets explained) could have been wrapped up much more quickly than is the case. As usual Tom Hiddleston steals the show as Loki and Tessa Thompson makes for a compelling new protagonist as the hard-drinking Valkyrie who, refreshingly, doesn't end up as anyone's love interest.

The scenes set on Asgard are briefer, but they do feature a surprisingly excellent subplot focusing on Karl Urban as Skurge. Skurge's character arc is relatively brief and straightforward, but Urban does outstanding work with very little material, confirming his position as the single greatest supporting actor on Planet Earth at this time (get this man back as Judge Dredd, stat!). Of course, it goes without saying that Cate Blanchett relishes her performance as the evil Hela, chewing scenery and unleashing villainous dialogue with absolute conviction.

The film has gotten a reputation as a comedy, even the first outright comedy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which is a bit of an exaggeration. There's a lot of funny lines and some characters like Korg (a CG rock monster voiced by Waititi himself) are pure comic relief, but there's also quite a lot of death and destruction (the film is called Ragnarok, after all) and a few grim moments. The comedy stuff is fine and there's a few belly laughs here and there, but the trailers definitely give away almost all of the funniest moments which is a bit of a disappointment.

One of the biggest successes in the movie is how Waititi handles effects. He's never handled a CG extravaganza on this scale before and his grasp of visual imagery is striking. Some of the scenes, particularly a flashback to a charge of horse-mounted Valkyrie warriors, are beautifully composed. There's a hell of a lot of moments in the film which would make for great paintings or desktop wallpapers.

Ultimately, Thor: Ragnarok (***½) emerges as the best Thor movie to date but also the weakest Marvel film released this year; it may in fact be the weakest Marvel movie since Age of Ultron, which is a little bit disappointing. It's still fun, funny, well-acted and with some breathtaking visual moments, but it's lacking in the serious dramatic stakes and the film has a messy opening and saggy middle before it pulls things together for a strong, brisk finale that sets up next year's The Avengers: Infinity War. The movie is on general release in the UK and Europe now, and opens in the US in a few days.