Recap August 18 - 24

Yoo hoo, shitheads. It’s been a crazy busy week with lots of news, so let’s get right into it shall we?

New Mortal Kombat 11 DLC Characters

As has been the tradition for the last 10 years or so, all of us who are stupid enough to pay full price for a new Mortal Kombat game are treated to new characters through the form of paid downloadable content! You see, if we just held off for a little bit for the complete Komplete edition of the game, we’d not only spend far less money, we’d actually even get all of the characters too! I sit here bitching and moaning like I’m not gonna drop the coin to be able to play with Spawn. Yes, you heard me correctly…Spawn! Unfortunately, it’s not the 1997 movie version of Spawn, but it’ll do. We’re also getting old Terminator – no doubt a tie in with the upcoming, Jim Cameron directed sequelboot to T2, which I guess is kinda cool if you’re into kicking ass with a grey bearded T-800. And speaking of movie tie-in characters, I guess we’re getting the Joker, but we are immensely disappointed that it’s not the upcoming Joaquin Phoenix version. I mean, the movie just got a R-rating for gruesome violence so it sounds like that version would be right at home here in the MK universe, but instead we’re getting this really lame, safely played version. I’m sorry, but wouldn’t the character be more at home in the Injustice series that’s literally built off of the Mortal Kombat engine with the sole purpose of being a fighting game made exclusively for DC characters? I don’t know about all of this. In games past we’ve gotten some pretty fantastic bonus characters, from Leatherface, Jason & Freddy, to Alien and Predator. Those felt a lot more at home to the Mortal Kombat games than most of these new characters, with the exception of Spawn. Hopefully the next wave of character releases is a bit stronger…

The Battle for Spider-Man

So the big cheeses at Disney and Sony are engaged in a pissing contest over Spider-Man. With the renewal of their deal with Sony looming overhead, Disney has decided they aren’t making enough money off of Spider-Man, with only 5% of the box office draw + full merchandising rights while Sony takes the rest of the box office and pays production costs. So they approached the folks at Sony with what they believe to be a more fair deal of splitting the production costs and the box office profits evenly. Sony declined this proposal, understanding the money they stand to lose from it, probably hoping that Disney will approach them with something more favorable in the negotiations. I’ve heard speculation from people claiming that Sony probably thinks it can make more money creating its own new Spider-Man franchise, but that would be stupid on their part and they know it. The fans have really embraced Tom Holland for the most part and likely wouldn’t respond well to a fourth Spider-Man, and Disney would hardly drop one of Marvel’s most popular characters, even more so since most of the original Avengers lineup has bowed out after Endgame. It’s very likely that this is all a series of negotiating tactics, with Sony knowing that they can get more out of Disney than what was offered, and Disney knowing that without Spider-Man their new plans for the MCU will likely fall short of their potential. I think that if cooler heads prevail on both sides Disney will get their Spider-Man and a slightly more favorable deal, and Sony will get their blood money.

Finally, A Sequel to The Matrix! (Zach has some repressed Memories)

The 1999 sci-fi hit The Matrix is now a a staple film in the cyberpunk genre. Many fans, myself included, enjoyed its exploration of existentialist themes in a post-apocalyptic future where technology has run amok and the lines between what’s real and what’s a simulation are obscured for all but a select few. It had always struck me as a shame that they never followed up on it, it seemed like it was set up perfectly for sequels. I find it strange that they’ve waited until 2019 to put one out, I think that early or late 2003 would have been good times, but oh well. I believe Keanu was busy starring in two subpar to crappy unrelated sci-fi films that year. The next thing that has me scratching my head is that they’re calling this sequel Part 4… An obvious nod to the unreleased Spaceballs 3: The Search For Spaceballs 2. I had no idea that The Watchowskis were such Mel Brooks fans! Anyway, so far not much is known about the film other than Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are expected to return.