Film Bits: ‘Deadpool 2’ Drops Insane First Teaser

‘Deadpool 2’ Trailer Paints a Happy Little Picture

It’s time for the onslaught. The lead up to 2016’s Deadpool brought with it a marketing blitz like no other before it. Irreverent. Quirky. Ubiquitous. It worked, of course. Wildly. Which means they’d be fools not to mimic the techniques for Deadpool 2. Though we’re still about 8 months out from the superhero sequel, Fox has been lowkey marketing the movie for months now—almost a year if you include the bizarre “pre-credits sequence” tacked on to this year’s Logan—with onset photos and character reveals. Now things have kicked into high gear with a trailer, of sorts, for the new movie. The new video finds Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) lampooning Bob Ross, and mostly features the character making adolescent jokes about “whacking it off” while painting. That is, until, the video “experiences technical difficulties” and cuts to a brief teaser for the upcoming sequel. Little is revealed but we do get some idea as to the look of the film, which is being helmed this time by John Wick co-director and Atomic Blonde director David Leitch. It certainly looks like an action movie, that much we can say for sure. We’re bound to see more (much, much more, if history has anything to say about it) in the coming months, but, for now, this is a solid first taste. Deadpool 2 is expected on June 1, 2018.

(20^th Century Fox)

Hugh Jackman Goes Huge for ‘The Greatest Showman’

Hugh Jackman’s post-Wolverine life is looking pretty showy. His upcoming musical biopic of P.T. Barnum is set to take Christmas by storm. Fox released the second trailer for The Greatest Showman and it looks about as bombastic as you’d expect for a musical about Barnum. Featuring music from the award winning lyricists behind La La Land, Jackman’s long-gestating passion project pulls out all the stops in its hopes to bring a little more magic to the Christmas season. The Greatest Showman co-stars Zac Efron, Zendaya, and Michelle Williams and hits theaters on December 20.

(20^th Century Fox)

Amazon Wins Bidding War to Produce ‘Lord of the Rings’ TV Series

I don’t mean to remind you of just how old you’ve gotten recently, but it’s been 14 years since the final chapter of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, hit theaters. Is that long enough time to warrant a new adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien series? Amazon is betting that it might be with their recent commitment to produce a new series based on Tolkien’s works for their Prime streaming service. Amazon reportedly paid the Tolkien estate upwards of $250 million just for the rights to produce the show, though what it will eventually be is up in the air. The new series is said to be a prequel to the Lord of the Rings series, which gives them some options. There are some legal entanglements to still work through, however. Tolkien wrote quite a bit of mythology for the series and, due to ownership issues, much of what was written as part of Middle-Earth’s history is not up for adaptation. Will they be delving into the already written history or use that as a jumping off point to craft original stories? At this point, no one really knows. We’ll keep you posted on updates as they’re available.

(Deadline)