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https://nerdist.com/article/wiccan-series-would-complete-mcu-harkness-tv-trilogy/
Patti LuPone has no filter. She also has neither the time nor the need for BS. So when she says Agatha All Along showrunner Jac Schaeffer told her the show won’t have a second season, we know the Broadway legend is telling the truth. Normally that kind of news would bum us out because we loved the series, but not this time. It means Schaeffer is free to do something unique on television. Just like Agatha All Along served as a sequel to her first MCU series WandaVision, Schaeffer can now make the first-ever TV trilogy with a show focused on Wiccan. And considering what we know about both his comics and MCU story, the series could make this Harkness Trilogy a full, satisfying circle.
“I don’t do second seasons.” That’s what Patti LuPone said Jac Schaeffer told her about potentially returning to Agatha All Along. Schaeffer also told LuPone she passed on doing more WandaVision, even though Marvel Studios wanted another season. Schaeffer said she only does “one-offs” because “there’s too much to write.” That doesn’t mean she has to say goodbye to her MCU witches, though. She certainly didn’t after WandaVision.
Schaeffer followed up her first Disney+ MCU series with a de facto sequel that worked as its own standalone show. Agatha All Along had direct, meaningful connections to WandaVision, but it featured an a different main character, tone, and purpose. That kind of sequel series is what Agatha All Along set up in its final moments. The show ended with Ghost Agatha going off with Billy Maximoff to find his missing brother Tommy. Whatever happens next to the MCU’s witches is about Billy, not Agatha, just as whatever happened to Agatha after the Hex fell was about her and not Wanda.
That’s exactly the show Schaeffer should make next. A Wiccan series would tie into its predecessors in meaningful ways yet it could also be something new. It would be the third part of an MCU Harkness Trilogy. Each installment would serve itself and be part of a bigger cohesive story, like a classic movie trilogy.
TV spinoffs are not like movie sequels. Cheers and Frasier are two of the best sitcoms ever, but no one thinks of Frasier as a sequel. It was a spinoff. (The recently cancelled Frasier reboot/sequel was even less connected to Cheers.) Even when a series leads to multiple spinoffs as part of a larger universe, like The Walking Dead, the new shows aren’t operating together the way a cohesive film trilogy does. The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, and Lou Grant are not bound together the way A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi are. Even anthology series that exist in the same universe and timeline and have direct connections don’t work that way. True Detective has through lines, but it is not equivalent to The Dark Knight trilogy.
TV can deliver shared cinematic worlds like the Arrowverse, Star Trek, and The Defenders, but those aren’t created or connect the way film series do. No one would equate those shows with movie series like Back to the Future or The Matrix. Mostly because it’s never really been something anyone could do. TV’s traditional episodic structure and typical sandbox-style storytelling makes that all but impossible. The modern television format of fewer episodes with a tighter, season-long major arc doesn’t easily lend itself to recreating the kind of connected stories you can tell with a film series, either. You can focus on a different major story every season, the way shows like Mad Men or The Wire did, but those are still self-contained shows. They would never be confused with a film trilogy and they shouldn’t be.
The only person that has done something similar to Schaeffer on TV is what Vince Gilligan did with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. His shows were intimately connected and interwoven, but told very different stories following very different lead characters in a very different manner. (Though not nearly as different as WandaVision and Agatha All Along told theirs.) But even Gilligan didn’t attempt a third show. The closest he came was the underwhelming El Camino sequel, a movie whose existence makes a compelling case against applying this film format to TV.
Schaeffer’s big advantage is the length of Disney+ MCU shows. WandaVision and Agatha All Along run 18 episodes combined. Breaking Bad alone had 62. With dramatically fewer episodes to worry about Schaeffer can tell a tighter, more movie-like story with each of her shows. She did exactly that with both WandaVision and Agatha All Along. Now she can do so with her next main character, Billy Maximoff. Agatha All Along ended by setting up the beginning of his story, where him and his goals are the focus. His brother Tommy found a body just like Billy did when the Hex collapsed. Billy, with the help of ghost Agatha, is now going to go off and find him, a story set up at the end of both WandaVision and Agatha All Along. It’s also the type of journey his comic counterpart is very familiar with.
As viewers learned, Wiccan is an immensely powerful witch. And despite never getting his own standalone series (him and his boyfriend Hulkling have co-headlined a short run), he’s been a major figure in some important Marvel Comics storylines. One of those included doing the very thing his onscreen counterpart is setting out to do: look for a missing family member. Only instead of his brother, comics Wiccan went looking for his powerful mom, the Scarlet Witch. She’s a major character who just so happens to be missing in the MCU right now.
A Disney+ Wiccan series, telling its own story in its own way with its own lead character, just as Agatha All Along did, could also see Billy (and possibly Tommy) looking for their mother. And that would bring Schaeffer’s Harkness Trilogy full circle, the fitting ending for any multi-part series. It began with Wanda creating the Hex and Agatha coming to find her. Now instead of working against a Maximoff witch, Agatha can support the Scarlet Witch’s children to find the woman who binds all them and their stories together. (Which would also provide a bonus of servicing the MCU at large.)
Jac Schaeffer doesn’t want to do another season of WandaVision or Agatha All Along. Yet she left major questions about her witches unanswered, as though she’s not done with them yet. We hope she’s not. And we hope she continues telling her magical story in a way that would be unlike anything that’s ever been done on TV before. She can help a studio that built an empire adapting the best concepts of television serialization for movies do the opposite. Marvel could bring the best of movie serialization to television. And, with apologies to the great Patti LuPone, that would be even better than a second season of any TV show.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist willing to walk the Witches’ Road. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post Why a WICCAN Series Should Complete the MCU’s Harkness Trilogy appeared first on Nerdist.
Patti LuPone has no filter. She also has neither the time nor the need for BS. So when she says Agatha All Along showrunner Jac Schaeffer told her the show won’t have a second season, we know the Broadway legend is telling the truth. Normally that kind of news would bum us out because we loved the series, but not this time. It means Schaeffer is free to do something unique on television. Just like Agatha All Along served as a sequel to her first MCU series WandaVision, Schaeffer can now make the first-ever TV trilogy with a show focused on Wiccan. And considering what we know about both his comics and MCU story, the series could make this Harkness Trilogy a full, satisfying circle.
“I don’t do second seasons.” That’s what Patti LuPone said Jac Schaeffer told her about potentially returning to Agatha All Along. Schaeffer also told LuPone she passed on doing more WandaVision, even though Marvel Studios wanted another season. Schaeffer said she only does “one-offs” because “there’s too much to write.” That doesn’t mean she has to say goodbye to her MCU witches, though. She certainly didn’t after WandaVision.
Schaeffer followed up her first Disney+ MCU series with a de facto sequel that worked as its own standalone show. Agatha All Along had direct, meaningful connections to WandaVision, but it featured an a different main character, tone, and purpose. That kind of sequel series is what Agatha All Along set up in its final moments. The show ended with Ghost Agatha going off with Billy Maximoff to find his missing brother Tommy. Whatever happens next to the MCU’s witches is about Billy, not Agatha, just as whatever happened to Agatha after the Hex fell was about her and not Wanda.
That’s exactly the show Schaeffer should make next. A Wiccan series would tie into its predecessors in meaningful ways yet it could also be something new. It would be the third part of an MCU Harkness Trilogy. Each installment would serve itself and be part of a bigger cohesive story, like a classic movie trilogy.
TV spinoffs are not like movie sequels. Cheers and Frasier are two of the best sitcoms ever, but no one thinks of Frasier as a sequel. It was a spinoff. (The recently cancelled Frasier reboot/sequel was even less connected to Cheers.) Even when a series leads to multiple spinoffs as part of a larger universe, like The Walking Dead, the new shows aren’t operating together the way a cohesive film trilogy does. The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, and Lou Grant are not bound together the way A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi are. Even anthology series that exist in the same universe and timeline and have direct connections don’t work that way. True Detective has through lines, but it is not equivalent to The Dark Knight trilogy.
TV can deliver shared cinematic worlds like the Arrowverse, Star Trek, and The Defenders, but those aren’t created or connect the way film series do. No one would equate those shows with movie series like Back to the Future or The Matrix. Mostly because it’s never really been something anyone could do. TV’s traditional episodic structure and typical sandbox-style storytelling makes that all but impossible. The modern television format of fewer episodes with a tighter, season-long major arc doesn’t easily lend itself to recreating the kind of connected stories you can tell with a film series, either. You can focus on a different major story every season, the way shows like Mad Men or The Wire did, but those are still self-contained shows. They would never be confused with a film trilogy and they shouldn’t be.
The only person that has done something similar to Schaeffer on TV is what Vince Gilligan did with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. His shows were intimately connected and interwoven, but told very different stories following very different lead characters in a very different manner. (Though not nearly as different as WandaVision and Agatha All Along told theirs.) But even Gilligan didn’t attempt a third show. The closest he came was the underwhelming El Camino sequel, a movie whose existence makes a compelling case against applying this film format to TV.
Schaeffer’s big advantage is the length of Disney+ MCU shows. WandaVision and Agatha All Along run 18 episodes combined. Breaking Bad alone had 62. With dramatically fewer episodes to worry about Schaeffer can tell a tighter, more movie-like story with each of her shows. She did exactly that with both WandaVision and Agatha All Along. Now she can do so with her next main character, Billy Maximoff. Agatha All Along ended by setting up the beginning of his story, where him and his goals are the focus. His brother Tommy found a body just like Billy did when the Hex collapsed. Billy, with the help of ghost Agatha, is now going to go off and find him, a story set up at the end of both WandaVision and Agatha All Along. It’s also the type of journey his comic counterpart is very familiar with.
As viewers learned, Wiccan is an immensely powerful witch. And despite never getting his own standalone series (him and his boyfriend Hulkling have co-headlined a short run), he’s been a major figure in some important Marvel Comics storylines. One of those included doing the very thing his onscreen counterpart is setting out to do: look for a missing family member. Only instead of his brother, comics Wiccan went looking for his powerful mom, the Scarlet Witch. She’s a major character who just so happens to be missing in the MCU right now.
A Disney+ Wiccan series, telling its own story in its own way with its own lead character, just as Agatha All Along did, could also see Billy (and possibly Tommy) looking for their mother. And that would bring Schaeffer’s Harkness Trilogy full circle, the fitting ending for any multi-part series. It began with Wanda creating the Hex and Agatha coming to find her. Now instead of working against a Maximoff witch, Agatha can support the Scarlet Witch’s children to find the woman who binds all them and their stories together. (Which would also provide a bonus of servicing the MCU at large.)
Jac Schaeffer doesn’t want to do another season of WandaVision or Agatha All Along. Yet she left major questions about her witches unanswered, as though she’s not done with them yet. We hope she’s not. And we hope she continues telling her magical story in a way that would be unlike anything that’s ever been done on TV before. She can help a studio that built an empire adapting the best concepts of television serialization for movies do the opposite. Marvel could bring the best of movie serialization to television. And, with apologies to the great Patti LuPone, that would be even better than a second season of any TV show.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist willing to walk the Witches’ Road. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post Why a WICCAN Series Should Complete the MCU’s Harkness Trilogy appeared first on Nerdist.
Michael B. Jordan stars in Sinners, the highly anticipated upcoming film from director Ryan Coogler is only a few months shy of its April 18th release date. It was originally set to hit theaters March 7th, but fell victim to a shift in Warner Brothers filming schedule. Coincidentally, two Robert Pattinson flicks got bumped as well including Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 being moved to March 7th and The Batman: Part Two catapulted to 2027, a move that upset many fans as they agree is simply too long of a wait (that’s fair, given the first installment released in 2022, making this a 5 year gap).
Coogler recently sat down with influencer and film enthusiast Juju Green, better known on social media as Straw Hat Goofy, to further dive into details about his fifth feature length film. This was a solid move on Coogler’s part because, up until now, very little was known about Sinners other than Jordan doubling as a set of twins and that there were subtle hints that a vampire storyline might be intertwined. The choice to paint the picture himself and reveal the details he wants audiences to know rather than allowing viewers to run with narratives is respectable. The cherry on top is the choice to select a Black creator to sit down with, given these opportunities aren’t as abundant as they may be for creators of other ethnicities. Let’s take a look at some tidbits Coogler gave us during the interview.
Green: “There’s been a lot of speculation since people started first hearing of this film.
What it’s going to be about, what is the supernatural element? We knew that it was supernatural, but we didn’t know exactly what it is. A lot of us were thinking vampires, can you kind of clue us in… there’s theories, but there hasn’t been an official statement from you or otherwise…”
Coogler: “Our film, Sinners, it’s a unique one and it’s kind of genre bending, it’s genre fluid… there are vampires in the film, but it’s really about a lot more than just that. It’s one of many elements, I would say and I think we’re going to surprise people with it. Vampires are in it [but its] so much more… it’s all about a lot more.”
Green: “This period in African-American history is deeply intertwined with supernatural elements. Did you dive into any specific research or did you already kind of have the foundation and knowledge to kind of tackle this off?”
Coogler: “This film was heavily researched. We went really hard to make sure that the only ‘make believe’ in the film is the supernatural. So we wanted the world to be extremely tactile in the same way that we approached our other films.”
Green: “We’ve seen many actors playing dual characters in the past, but in this case, Michael B. Jordan is playing twins. Are these characters meant to represent two sides of the same coin? And how did you both tackle the challenge artistically, logistically?”
Coogler: “Yeah man, it’s unique in that they are identical twins, but they are two different people. It’s not as simple as two sides of the same coin in that there’s a dynamic that exists with identical twins that’s kind of known. And we had twin consultants on this movie… they were able to consult and work with Mike just on the mindset of sharing a womb with somebody and growing up with them and how unique of a dynamic that is. But at the same time, not making it a caricature.”
Green: “So what would you say to audiences to encourage them to experience Sinners in theaters?”
Coogler: “The movie was made to be seen with a crowd and with people that you don’t know. And we’ve had a chance to show it with a few people and it’s always been really rewarding. I think that horror films, specifically in Black culture, we known for talking to the screen…. and this film was made for that. This was made to be talked to.”
Listening to Coogler dance around the true plot twists and turns makes me even more excited to not only experience the film, but to do so on the biggest screen possible with the most crisp audio because it’s sure to have a captivating score. Jordan is joined by a talented group of actors including: Hailee Steinfield, Jack O’ Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo, Omar Benson Miller, Li Jun Li, and Lola Kirke.
The trailer that released today gave more of a glimpse into what we can expect, and to be honest, the marketing team should have kept it in the vault. It’s a remarkable sight from beginning to end and further fuels excitement, but it gives away too much. For starters, we see Hailee Steinfield appear to be turned into a vampire as blood drips from her mouth. Knowing the genius that runs through Coogler, it’s quite possible this was intentional to throw us off and won’t actually be part of the film (much like the fake shots the Russo Brothers added to the Avengers: End Game trailer). While the extended trailer and interview with Coogler gave us a sneak peek at what to expect, anything is possible, but one thing is for certain: we WILL be seated when it hits theaters April 18th!
The post Michael B. Jordan’s ‘Sinners’: What We Know So Far appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
Several times I’ve tried explaining why I love sports media even though my general sentiment towards sports generally speaking is “it’s alright.” I suppose it really just comes down to the fact that sports media makes it really easy to follow and subsequently get invested in a specific narrative. You have an easy entry point, you have a very curated look at their training and their life, and you get a significantly more cinematic vantage for all of the major competitions.
So of course, when Prime announced that they were streaming a biographical sports drama about Anthony Robles, a wrestler who was born without a leg, I knew I was going to watch it and more likely enjoy it. And I can say that my expectations were met and even, at moments, exceeded.
In its opening scene, Unstoppable does something really clever and immediately starts with Anthony (Jharrel Jerome) at the high school state championships. His coach Bobby Williams (Michael Peña) telling him to focus on the match at hand and not the recruiters for University of Iowa watching the match. And Anthony, even missing a leg, manages to secure the win. Goldenberg knows how to generate hype. The wrestling match is easy to follow even as someone who hasn’t watched the sport in a decade or change, and Anthony’s skill is on display. It’s the type of match that would capstone a shonen arc, and it’s opening the movie.
And even as Anthony takes his victory lap, this victory seemingly has an asterisks. He only manages to get one scholarship off from Drexel University that would take him out of state from his mom and half-siblings (something his step-father is more than okay with). The University of Iowa, the best school for collegiate wrestling, has absolutely no interest in him at all. While he has proven himself, it’s still not quite enough, and Anthony eventually decides to walk on to Arizona State to stay close to his family even though Coach Shawn Charles (Don Cheadle) tells him that it would be a difficult and arduous path to get on the team.
What follows in Unstoppable is a deft sports drama that spans about four years in two hours. All of the classic sports tropes about the underdog having to work harder are in play, and it just works out. And then it has all of the classic feel good biographical tropes as well. This is not a knock on the movie. The movie executes on this perennial story beats exceedingly well balancing Anthony’s training and dedication as an athlete and his tumultuous home life. Bobby Cannavale plays Rich Robles as a very familiar abusive step-father with plenty of venom and vitriol, and Jennifer Lopez plays Judy Robles, a loving mother who managed to raise an inspiring son in spite of various tribulations. You’ve heard all of this before I’m certain. It’s still worth watching.
Jharrell Jerome, whose previous credits that I was familiar with include the super surreal I’m a Virgo and a brief, yet critical voice in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, was a fantastic leading man and absolutely magnetic. He truly sold the physicality of the role (at least from an untrained eye) and the emotional gravitas as well. You could see the grit and determination. You could feel the disappointment at the various setbacks and the elation at that various hard-fought victories. He anchored the movie perfectly, and it certainly helped that he had a great cast to play off of.
My personal favorite interactions were with the coaches. I loved how Michael Peña’s Bobby Williams remained a positive influence and source in Anthony’s life. I loved watching Don Cheadle’s Shawn Charles come to understand and respect Anthony as a person an athlete, also managing to shake up the ice cream zen koan trope and use relevant parables throughout the film. The parts showcasing Anthony’s home life weren’t quite as engaging, but they never overstayed the welcome.
By the time the credits rolled and the montage explaining what happened after to the actual Anthony Robles and Robles family after the events of the movie (it’s a sport drama so you can probably predict how it ends), I was nodding my head in approval. Did it to anything particularly innovative? Not really, but everything it did was solid and as balanced as Anthony Roble on the mat.
And honestly, if I get my athlete in training and athlete in competition scenes and I can understand why the elements of both are impressive, I’m pretty happy as a sports media fan. If you have Prime, Unstoppable is definitely worth the 2-hour runtime.
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