Did You Hear? is a weekly examination of headlines in the entertainment industry and a take on what they could mean for the future of the industry and (often), the little geeky bubble that we occupy!
The Avengers: Doomsday Script isn’t Finished, but They are Shooting?
I’m going to start this out by stating with my full chest that I blame the Mission: Impossible franchise for this. There has always been controversy surrounding the Tom Cruise-led franchise with sticking point after sticking point arising with every additional installment. Several movies ago (I confess, I can’t remember the title or the plots to any of these movies), it became a public secret that Mission: Impossible movies just shoot a bunch of stuff and cobble a movie together on the fly.
This is an incredibly expensive and incredibly irresponsible way to make a film.
It gobbles money away from potentially smaller, more unique productions for the sake of chasing a franchise’s perceived selling power.
I’ll tuck my soap box away now … only to state that per The Hollywood Reporter, it now appears Disney and Marvel Studios are adopting a similar approach to their filmmaking in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Another open secret in the world of the modern studio system is that Marvel, DC, Universal and other big budget genre projects are shot, reshot, reshot, and reshot to death. The result is more often than nothing a movie like Captain America: Brave New World. That movie ought to have been a slam dunk. Anthony Mackie is a bonafide star, Sam Wilson is a tremendous character, Captain America is a popular brand, Marvel Studios is a financially solvent production entity. Yet, when you watch the final product it is increasingly clear which scenes were shot two weeks before the release date resulting in low quality visual effects from VFX houses we know can do better and muddy plot points which twist the core story being laid out in whatever pieces of the original script survive.
And don’t get me starting on Joel Kinnaman’s shifting hair style and facial hair throughout the first Suicide Squad movie which put the shooting scheduled purely on display. This isn’t a drag against Kinnaman who I think does a wonderful job as Rick Flagg. I, personally, find his lack of inclusion in any DC Films projects a great loss. But, the hair doesn’t lie!
In an interview given by Rebecca Romijn to The Hollywood Reporter during the most recent San Diego Comic-Con the actor talked about reprising her iconic role as Mystique and just how involved in Avengers: Doomsday she is likely to be.
The Hollywood Reporter on X (formerly Twitter): “At THR’s suite at #SDCC, #StarTrek: Strange New Worlds’ Rebecca Romijn talks about what it was like returning to the role of ‘Mystique’ for #AvengersDoomsday pic.twitter.com/BTCNKcUmwS / X”
At THR’s suite at #SDCC, #StarTrek: Strange New Worlds’ Rebecca Romijn talks about what it was like returning to the role of ‘Mystique’ for #AvengersDoomsday pic.twitter.com/BTCNKcUmwS
One has to imagine with her role as Number One on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds straddling these two massive franchises with complex shooting schedules hasn’t been a walk in the park.
It appears Romijn knows about as much about her aforementioned shooting schedule as we do:
“[I’m] not quite sure. The script hasn’t — they haven’t finished writing it. It’s been very, very fun, and we don’t know yet. They keep everything very close to the vest themselves in an effort to keep everything under wraps.”
… she told THR before going on to add:
“I cannot confirm nor deny that I have read the entire script.”
Let me tell you from my personal experience: this is a media trained answer for No. She did have some interesting insights into stepping back in the blue “suit” as it were:
“It was very surreal to be with my old cast as well as a new cast. I had crazy dreams while I was there for a large chunk of shooting. Like, really kind of regressive dreams. It was very strange, my brain was really trying to organize. Like, wow, this is a character I played 25 years ago, 20 years ago. Yeah, [it was]very surreal.”
“Oh, I know her very well. I went back in with full ownership of her. It was very nice to go back and play that character, ‘cause I had imposter syndrome in the very beginning. I thought, maybe at the very beginning, I was just cast because I happened to be the model who was available to play Mystique at that moment. I mean, I auditioned and I got the role, because when you’re very young, you’re like, Do I deserve to be here? And I did not have that going back this time. It was a very different experience.”
Coming from the perspective of a performer, I can’t imagine the confusion and stress Romijn or any of her fellow actors may feel reprising these roles and not having the full picture as to what that entails. She is joined by Patrick Stewart’s Professor Charles Xavier, Alan Cumming’s Kurt Wagner (the character I am most excited to finally see come back, if you were wondering!), and just about every other big name in the Hollywood system who has ever played a Marvel-branded superhero – per a major announcement made in March of this year.
This confusion brings to mind the now iconic Portals scene from Avengers: Endgame. Yes, it was cool to see all of our favourite characters on screen together fighting Thanos for the first time. Whilst at the same time, it was painfully obvious almost none of them were in the same room at the same time. The cynic in me fears Avengers: Doomsday is going to take this problem write large at what is guaranteed to be a 2.5 hour+ run time. The perpetual optimist in me hopes post-production is more well organized than production appears to be.
Time will tell!
