Super Bowl Trailer Round Up! IRON MAN 3, FAST & FURIOUS 6, THE LONE RANGER And STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Since my beloved New England Patriots got their asses handed to them by the Baltimore Ravens in this year's AFC Championship game, I had only two interests in this year's Super Bowl: tasty food and funny commercials.  Thanks to my wife's love of theme cooking, I spend last night gorging myself on Baltimore crab cakes, Louisiana gumbo, and sourdough bruschetta, along with an assortment of beers, chips, dips and cookies.  I thought this year's crop of Super Bowl commercials were only okay, with my favorite probably being the whispered wanton destruction of a library, courtesy of Oreo.  Thankfully there were a number of ads for some highly anticipated flicks, so let's break it down.

IRON MAN 3

The first entry in Phase Two of Marvel's cinematic universe is supposed to be more of a standalone sequel, as opposed to the tiresome universe-building efforts of Iron Man 2.  (Then again, there's also a rumor, fueled by pictures of an upcoming toy, that at the film's end Tony Stark will don the white Deep Space Armor and blast off to meet the Guardians Of The Galaxy, but even if that happens I expect it to be after the credits.)  Shane Black has taken over directing duties from Jon Favreau, which excites me in ways you can't believe.  We only caught 30 seconds during the big game last night, but there was a URL pointing to "an extended look," and that's what I'm featuring here, because more is better.  I'm already going though Marvel withdrawal, so this can't get here fast enough.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Probably my most anticipated movie of the summer.  (It trades places with Pacific Rim on a weekly basis.)  While the first movie has some serious second act story issues, those mostly stem from shooting during the writers' strike so my hope is that the script will be a little tighter for this go-round.  This spot is short, so it's a lot of what we've already seen.  Two things of note: the shot of the Enterprise seemingly falling to its doom has generated a bit of buzz, but I find it hard to believe they'd blow up the damn ship inside of two movies.  Secondly, we get a new line of dialogue from Benedict Cumberbatch, declaring that he's "better" at "everything", which practically screams "I'M A GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SUPERHUMAN!"  If it turns out that he's not playing Khan, I declare this marketing campaign to be the greatest cinematic shell game of all time. (Sidenote: you can currently purchase tickets to an advanced screening on May 15th through the Star Trek Into Darkness mobile app!  I've got mine...)


FAST & FURIOUS 6

On the one hand, I can't believe this franchise is still alive.  On the other hand, did you see Fast Five?  It was FANTASTIC.  They've thoroughly transformed the series from "douchebags drag race in silly neon cars" into "Ocean's 11 with stunt driving."  Also, they've added The Rock into the mix, and that's never a bad thing.  It looks like the whole crew is back, plus the return of Michelle Rodriguez's Letty character, who was thought killed in the fourth movie.  I hope this series progresses to the point that we get Fast & Furious In Space.

THE LONE RANGER

Hey look, Armie Hammer's in this movie!  And in the title role no less!  You'd never know it from the marketing to date, including this poster which bizarrely crops out his left arm.  Up till now it's looked less like The Lone Ranger and more like The Adventures Of Tonto And His Wacky Horse.  That said, I'm slowly warming up to this film.  The last few Pirates movies were bloated and terrible, (I tried watching the fourth one on my flight home from LA last weekend and it was so tremendously boring that I gave up halfway through.) but maybe a change of scenery will light a fire under Gore Verbinski.  Hammer feels like a guy who deserves his own fun adventure franchise, even if he is playing second fiddle to Johnny Depp on the down low.

There were a few other spots, including World War Z and Oz The Great And Powerful, but they were fairly underwhelming.  These were the four that really jumped out at me.

Anyway.  Football is dead.

Long live hockey.

Lone Ranger Theatrical Trailer...Is A Trailer.

I still don't know what to make of Disney's big screen version of the Lone Ranger.  They seem to be going out of their way to connect the dots with the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, (The skull and crossbones with no words is such an odd choice.) although the tone seems a little all over the place.  The stark, color-drained palate and the ragged, dusty production design is a great choice for an old-school western, but then you've got Johnny Depp spouting one-liners and a horse in a tree.

At least Armie Hammer actually speaking in this trailer.  I still say he's a great choice for the character, and at this point I'm more curious to see how his relationship with Depp plays out.  There was early word that this Lone Ranger would essentially be a dumb, good-looking guy while Tonto would be the real brains of the operation, similar to Michel Gondry's take on The Green Hornet.  I don't really see that in this footage, but who knows?

I seem incapable of processing any thoughts about this movie without the constant reminder that, at one point, it was going to feature mystical Native American werewolves.  Now I'm honestly starting to wonder if that might not have been more fun.  (I know, I hate myself for just for typing that sentence.)

Disney's LONE RANGER Trailer Is Thankfully Werewolf-Free

I'm not sure which is more ridiculous, that headline or the actual necessity of that headline.

As you may recall, Disney had previously halted production of their Lone Ranger adaptation, citing a $250 million price tag due largely to the presence of Native American-inspired werewolves.  Eventually they pared down the budget and ditched the lupine element and now we've got our first look at former Josh Pence-facial-surrogate Armie Hammer as the titular masked hero.

I'll say this much: Gore Verbinski certainly knows how to spend money.  It looks like we're gonna see every penny  of that "smaller" budget on screen next year.  Also, a whole lot of Depp.  Seriously, I know it's just a teaser but it seems weird not to hear one word out of the title character while you're trying to set up a franchise.

To be honest, this trailer doesn't really do anything for me either way.  I'm surprised at just how unremarkable (good or bad) the footage really is.  Yeah it looks polished, but at the moment I kind of don't care.

This feels like a Teflon movie.

UPDATED! Now With Werewolves! Lone Ranger Files For Bankruptcy

UPDATE!  Mystery solved.  Seems that someone remembered that the Lone Ranger used silver bullets, so naturally that meant there should be werewolves in this movie.  Thus Verbinski's inability to bring the budget under $200 million.  Apparently the werewolves were to be tied in closely to Native American mythology, in which the film was to be firmly rooted.  Despite the title, Depp's Tonto would have been the real lead (we've heard this for a while) and apparently Depp wanted to play him very seriously, essentially the antithesis of the flamboyant Jack Sparrow.  While that at least makes some semblance of sense, it doesn't make the idea any less terrible.  I feel like I should send Jon Favreau a thank you note, as the box office failure of Cowboys & Aliens is now almost surely what brought this project to a screeching halt.

In case you didn't know it, the economy is somewhat struggling these days and Hollywood is not immune to that struggle.  First the Guillermo del Toro-produced, Tom Cruise-starring, H.P. Lovecraft-based At The Mountains Of Madness crumbled.  Then the Ron Howard-directed, Javier Bardem-starring, Stephen King-based Dark Tower series fell.  Now Disney's Jerry Bruckheimer-produced, Gore Verbinski-directed, Johnny Depp-starring adaptation of The Lone Ranger has toppled off his horse.

Honestly, color me shocked.  Despite Pirates 4 being a huge steaming pile, it's still made Disney an official metric crap-ton of cash worldwide this summer, so I would think that the Mouse House would bending over backwards to make this thing happen.  Disney cited a $250 million price tag as the main reason, but that sounds like a crock to me.  Seriously, how does a Lone Ranger movie cost that much money?  A western action/comedy with Depp as Tonto to Armie Hammer's Lone Ranger?  There's no way there was a heavy effects budget, and they it's not like Hammer was drawing a huge paycheck.  

I think there was some kind of other monkeywrench in the gears here (weak script?) and then Disney saw Cowboys & Aliens crash and burn and the Magic Kingdom decided to cut bait.  It's a shame, because casting Armie Hammer as the somewhat dim, good looking masked cowboy hero sounded more than a little brilliant.  There's still a chance that Verbinksi and company regroup and bring the project elsewhere, but I wouldn't hold my breath.