James Bond: Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult Shake Up the Search for 007 as a Decision Draws Near

Happy Wednesday, folks!

A quick correction — Mido Hamada is voicing Khalis the Mummy in Season 2 of Creature Commandos. I messed up on Monday, but now I’m seeing everyone report that “Miko Hamada” has been cast, and that’s not right, either. Hamada is an Egyptian-German actor whose credits include American Sniper and 24. I apologize for the regrettable error, one that could’ve been easily prevented if people in Hollywood bothered to communicate anymore. Sigh…

Anyway, as predicted, everyone has now posted their “I Knew What Was Happening at DC All Along” stories, in which James Gunn and Peter Safran have been blamed for everything under the sun.

Gunn made mistakes, as you would expect a social media-addicted director-turned-rookie studio head to do. However, it’s pretty unfair to throw the Batman of it all in his face, as his hands were all but tied due to the success of Matt Reeves’ The Batman. The fact is, the character was all but off-limits while Reeves toiled away on the sequel, which took longer than expected. By the time Gunn was finally getting ready to cast his Batman, it was too late, and the rug was pulled out from under him.

Gunn was truly in a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, because had he introduced a new Batman in the middle of Pattinson’s run, it could’ve affected interest in The Batman Part II, which is the last thing anyone wanted.

I both was and wasn’t surprised to learn via Puck that Skydance plans to level Gunn’s DCU and start over entirely, making Man of Tomorrow something of a lame duck next summer. Some are even speculating it will be dumped on HBO Max, which is a wild proposition that I hadn’t even considered, and I hope it doesn’t come to that.

It should, given that Gunn’s Superman still cleared $600 million, and Skydance needs movies next year. If we were talking about another Clayface, I could see it, but Man of Tomorrow is too big to write off or dump on streaming.

David Ellison and Co. already have their work cut out for them within the creative community, due to certain perceptions — perceptions that surely weren’t helped by telling Gunn and Safran they were safe and announcing them as part of the Senior Leadership team, when the whole time, Ellison was secretly negotiating with Marvel alum Jeremy Latcham on the DL.

I understand this is a business, as do Gunn and Safran, but it’s a special kind of business that runs on a special kind of trust. Ellison’s word is supposed to mean something, and now that he has proven it doesn’t, he may need to rebuild trust within the industry — rich coming from me, I know.

The way I see it, canceling a global theatrical release for Man of Tomorrow would be another mistake, though I could certainly see the studio pulling back on unnecessary marketing expenses, which are plentiful when it comes to these movies.

I believe Gunn has final cut on Man of Tomorrow, but part of me wonders whether Ellison could nix Adria Arjona’s introduction as Wonder Woman — what’s the point of introducing Arjona’s Diana if she won’t be continuing as the character?

Ellison could ask Gunn to cut her from Man of Tomorrow and then recast her as Wonder Woman in the DCU that Latcham has been tasked with building — unless, as my podcast co-host John Rocha suspects, Ellison would prefer a white Wonder Woman.

Regardless of how that situation plays out, I don’t really understand the logic of getting rid of David Corenswet as Superman when he’s about to headline Skydance’s big Christmas Day release, Mr. Irrelevant.

The same goes for Lanterns star Aaron Pierre — DC should feel lucky to have this guy!

There seems to be some confusion about the fate of DC’s Lanterns series based on a misread of a Variety article — the internet’s specialty, by the way — but I don’t think the show has necessarily been canceled. 

Of course, the longer the wait, the worse it bodes for that series, which managed to find an audience on HBO and held onto it over the course of the season. 

I just don’t love the spin I’m seeing, where all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Yeah, Superman did okay, but it didn’t have any cultural impact,’ which is a fair criticism. But is that the rubric we’re judging movies by now, or do the goalposts keep moving, for some reason? If it’s just about money, then yes, Superman could’ve done better — much better — but it did just fine.

The same goes for Clayface, where, seemingly overnight, the conversation has become about whether it will “break even theatrically.” Not just “break even,” but specifically theatrically.

I mean, it all depends on the marketing spend, but for argument’s sake, let’s take the high side on production ($44 million) and the low side on marketing ($34 million) — that’s $78 million, all-in. The movie would need to gross $156 million to break even theatrically. 

Right now, Clayface is at $110 million, and it may get to $125-$130 million, but it almost certainly won’t get to $156 million. The thing is, movies aren’t greenlit solely as theatrical propositions. Downstream revenue is part of the equation. And between streaming rights, cable TV rights, etc., it’s unlikely that WB will lose money on Clayface. 

In other words, it’s a single, basically. Even if you generously called it a double, Ellison fired Gunn and Safran because he can’t afford those DC release slots to yield singles and doubles. They need to yield triples, home runs, and the occasional grand slam.

Yes, singles and doubles are better than strikeouts like Supergirl, but they’re unlikely to win you the World Series, and that’s what Ellison is playing for — all the marbles. He wants to win, and if DC is batting clean-up for Team Skydance, it needs to be putting up Barry Bonds-type numbers, not Ichiro numbers. He batted for efficiency and got on base a lot, but singles and doubles won’t cut it in the big leagues of Hollywood.

All of this feels like Ellison trying to justify the call to fire Gunn and Safran, and I think there are plenty of ways to justify it without dragging the slate, because with the exception of Supergirl, the output wasn’t the problem.

The problem was the development slate, Gunn’s ego, and his refusal to report to Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein. That’s what did him in. He refused to play ball like a team player.

Gunn also wielded enormous power, particularly on social media, and I think Team Skydance felt threatened by that and didn’t want to have to contend with it. 

Latcham is much, much cheaper than Gunn and Safran, and he’ll get with the Skydance program.

If he doesn’t, he won’t be around long.

Because even King Jeremy kneels before King David.

I’m off to check out the new Nicholas Hoult movie, How to Rob a Bank, even though I already know how, thanks to the magic of the movies.

Tonight’s top story concerns the James Bond franchise, which is searching for its leading man. Hoult is among the finalists alongside four others, though it sure seems like the field is wider than we think (wink wink).

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