Exclusive: HBO Passes on 'V for Vendetta' Script From Pete Jackson, DC; May Redevelop IP With New Writer

Happy Thursday, folks!

A quick reminder before I get started today — I have a MERCH STORE! I’ve got hats, sweatshirts, t-shirts, stickers, and more! Heck, I can make you InSneider-branded anal beads, if that’s what floats your boat. Click on the link above and be the coolest-looking person in your next Zoom meeting.

Anyway, I’m back in Los Angeles following three weeks in Boston with the family, and not more than eight hours after I got home, I was in a movie theater watching Olivia Wilde’s The Invite, which lived up to the hype and proved to be an absolutely devastating portrait of love and marriage. The final 15 minutes hit me like a punch in the gut, and I sobbed through the entire credits. Bravo, I say!

The adapted screenplay by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack is an absolute lock for an Oscar nomination, and the performers will all be in the conversation as well, though I must say… I was most impressed by Wilde, which is not something I thought I’d say. Everyone was excellent, but she blew me away with her work both in front of and behind the camera. It’s a remarkable comeback following the muddled mess that was Don’t Worry Darling. I can’t wait to see what Wilde does next…

Anyway, this morning, I saw Deadline report that Spider-Man: Brand New Day is looking at a domestic opening between $180 million and $190 million, per (useless) tracking services, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Right now, the new Spider-Man movie is actually poised to open between $225 million and $245 million, but that figure is steadily rising. Could Brand New Day somehow top the $260.1 million that Spider-Man: No Way Home opened to in 2021? Yes, possibly...

I think that Stranger Things star Sadie Sink is a significant draw here, and while the terminally online have a good idea of who she’s likely playing, I have to commend Sony and Marvel for maintaining the mystery officially, at least as far as the film’s marketing goes. There’s a curiosity factor in play here that rarely exists when it comes to comic book movies, whose trailers tend to give away everything but the cameos, and I think people are going to want to scratch that itch.

Likewise, I think people are curious as to what this movie is really up to, and what it’s ultimately about. It’s wild that I, Jeff Sneider, film reporter extraordinaire, am in the dark on that front. I’m open to being pleasantly surprised regarding the story, though it wouldn’t surprise me if this movie had no story, like so many other Marvel movies.

I do think there’s a bit of comic book movie fatigue out there, but naturally, the quoted “experts” are all wrong about why. I recently saw one quote about how Gen Z doesn’t care about comic book movies, but I think the performance of Brand New Day will show that they do care about comic book movies — they’re just a more discerning audience than Millennials. So despite that fatigue, there actually is pent-up demand for real comic book movie events, which Brand New Day certainly qualifies as.

Likewise, I think that The Odyssey coming out two weeks before this movie is both a benefit and a drawback. On one hand, I think a hit like The Odyssey gets people excited to come back to a movie theater. If people have a good experience, they typically try to repeat that experience. However, I worry that the proximity of Brand New Day’s release to The Odyssey could hurt the new Spider-Man movie — not that the franchise hasn’t overcome competition in the past en route to setting box office records. I’m just trying to explain why Brand New Day might not open to No Way Home numbers.

Keep in mind that audiences were frothing at the mouth to return to theaters after more than a year of being cooped up at home due to the pandemic, and No Way Home gave people the excuse they needed to finally get off their couches and brave the real world again — at least to some extent.

Will Tom Holland’s fourth solo outing as Spidey feel a bit “been there, done that,” or will audiences see it as a vital prelude to Avengers: Doomsday, which is slated to release its first trailer later this month following its debut at San Diego Comic-Con? We’ll see in just a few short weeks… when Holland’s stock will be sky-high in the wake of his turn as Telemachus in The Odyssey.

And now for something that isn’t “odd to see” at all here at The InSneider — another exclusive! And a DC Studios one, at that. But only premium subscribers can continue reading.

What are you waiting for? An invitation from the Queen? This is it, my friends…

Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.