It’s hard to believe, but 2017 is halfway over, and what a strange year it has been so far at the movies. Defying the traditional movie calendar, February and March provided blockbusters and surprises, while May and June (were it not for Guardians Vol. 2 and Wonder Woman) would have been a bleak cinematic wasteland. More than ever, the international box office has supplanted the U.S. as the measure of a film’s success. For an example you need look no farther than The Fate of the Furious. The eighth installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise made a respectable $225.4 million at home, but a whopping $1.013 billion overseas. Whatever a film’s gross, its long-term legacy lies in its quality, and we’ve already had some fantastic movies. Here are my top five:
Hugh Jackman’s first film of his post-Wolverine career will be a routine to his roots: musicals. An unknown song and dance man before becoming a household name thanks to his iconic portrayal of Wolverine in the X-Men films, Jackman will be headlining the big holiday musical of 2017. With the songwriters of La La Land, will The Greatest Showman, starring Jackman as circus legend P.T. Barnum be able to duplicate that film’s success? Jackman’s only Oscar nomination was for leading the cast of the big screen adaptation of Les Miserables, so this is familiar territory, the only question is can a first-time director deliver? The first trailer looks very promising. Co-starring Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, and Zendaya, The Greatest Showman will open Christmas Day. Read more below from Coming Soon.
Inspired by the imagination of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman is an original musical that celebrates the birth of show business & tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
The Greatest Showman is directed by exciting new filmmaker, Michael Gracey, with songs by Academy Award winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land). Hugh Jackman produced The Greatest Showman alongside Laurence Mark and Chernin Entertainment. Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Jenny Bicks (Rio 2, Sex and the City) and Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Beauty and the Beast) wrote the screenplay.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has officially announced that it will release on 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray James Mangold’s blockbuster Logan (2017), starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, and Stephen Merchant. The two releases will be available for purchase on May 23.
Touting an R-rating, allowing fans to finally see Logan’s legendary berserk rage unleashed, Mangold brings a visceral and gritty realism to the story, based on one of Marvel Comics’ most popular characters. In the near future, a weary Logan (Hugh Jackman) cares for an ailing Professor X (Patrick Stewart) in a hideout on the Mexican border. But Logan’s attempts to hide from the world and his legacy are upended when a young mutant (Dafne Keen) arrives, being pursued by dark forces.
In addition to nearly 90 minutes of original content, including deleted scenes and a behind-the-scenes documentary, the Blu-ray will also include Logan Noir, a black and white version of the film that gives the acclaimed story an all-new look.
“During production of LOGAN I took many black and white photographs and noticed how striking and dramatic our gritty settings and characters appeared in monochrome,” said Mangold. “The western and noir vibes of the film seemed to shine in the format and there was not a trace of modern comic hero movie sheen. Then, while editing, Fox and I started posting some of the black and white stills online and fans also began to respond enthusiastically, many hoping that they would get a chance to see the finished film in carefully timed, high contrast black and white. Well. Sometimes hope becomes reality.”
To celebrate the release of Logan Noir, Alamo Drafthouse will be bringing the film to the big screen in all of its monochromatic glory for one night only starting at 8 PM EST on Tuesday, May 16th. The event screenings will also be accompanied by an exclusive, live streaming Q&A featuring director James Mangold. Attendees in every location of the screening will be able to participate in the live discussion with Mangold via Twitter using the hashtag #askalamo. Los Angeles fans will also get the chance to see Logan slash through the big screen as Alamo Drafthouse and Fox co-present LOGAN NOIR with American Cinematheque for a screening at the Egyptian Theatre. Tickets for all screenings are available now at drafthouse.com/logannoir.
Special Features:
Logan Noir – black and white version of the film
Audio commentary by Director James Mangold
Deleted scenes with optional audio commentary by James Mangold (Blu-ray only)
Making Logan – behind-the-scenes documentary (Blu-ray only)
Seventeen years ago, comic book movies were a dead genre. In 2000, the first X-Men movie was released and jump-started a renaissance of adaptations. The franchise succeeded in no small part because the most popular X-Man: Wolverine, was cast to perfection. Hugh Jackman was an unknown. He’d done more musicals on-stage than movies on-screen, but from the moment we saw saw him cage fighting in a bar, he owned the Wolverine in a way that no actor perhaps has ever fully become linked with a fictional character (Bond and Connery and Downey Jr. and Iron Man being the only comparisons I can come up with). Logan is Jackman’s 9th film as Wolverine and his last. The film that bears his name is a nearly perfect Wolverine story. Unlike the PG-13 Logan that had to be leashed for the team films, this is the Wolverine from the comics, and yet, this a Wolverine unlike we’ve ever seen. It’s unremittingly grim, wonderfully acted, violent and gritty, redemptive and tragic. After all, Logan’s was a story that was never going to end well. Continue reading Movie Review: Logan (2017) *Farewell, Hugh, and Thanks”→
Hugh Jackman is done playing Wolverine. As Logan continues to do well at the box office, it seems so weird to think that we’ve seen Jackman as the X-Man for the last time. Perhaps only Sean Connery as James Bond has so indelibly taken a popular culture character and married it to his own identity. For 17 years, Jackman embodied the character from the first time we saw him cage fighting in a bar in X-Men to his farewell in Logan. Not too shabby for a song and dance man.
X-Men was most people’s first exposure to Jackman, but his talents are far from merely dicing people in super hero films. He’s a consummate Broadway actor; an old-fashioned song and dance man, as I said. He’s hosted the Tony Awards on four occasions; winning an Emmy for one of the shows. He most famously got to put his musical gifts to use on screen as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables; Jackman’s only Oscar nomination. He’s an outstanding dramatic actor, you need only watch The Prestige and Prisoners back-to-back to see the amount of range he has. His good nature also makes him a gifted comic actor, which I think has been best shown in the underrated Real Steel and Eddie the Eagle (where, yes, he is playing Wolverine as a ski jumping coach, but it WORKS!). It’s always possible that a payday or Ryan Reynolds stalking him to be in a Deadpool or X-Force film could give us another Jackman as Logan turn, but his career is far from over just because he’s said farewell to his most famous alter ego.
