Rob Zombie is the new James Gunn

No, I'm not going to rip on James Gunn again today -- I am only going to refer to past instances of me ripping on him.

And this time it's got a Halloween theme of sorts, at least.

It seems like every couple months I have to come on here and whinge (to use the Australian word) about MovieWeb and the twice- or thrice-weekly emails it sends me compiling the latest "stories" written for the site. I put "stories" in quotation marks because my biggest complaint about these "articles" is that they are about stupid things like casting speculations that are based in no reality except maybe something some fan tweeted, or some random thing some actor said they would "love to do." Because he's so active on Twitter and loves talking about himself, James Gunn has appeared in an inordinate number of these MovieWeb stories over the years.

Lately, though, it's Rob Zombie getting all the attention.

If you didn't know, Zombie is making a version of The Munsters. I know because MovieWeb has mentioned it ... (pauses to count) ... 137 times.

Here we go:

6/10/21: "Rob Zombie Reveals Munsters Logo, Confirms he's Directing"

6/19/21: "The Munsters Movie: Rob Zombie and Butch Patrick Celebrate with a Ride in the Koach"

7/15/21: "Rob Zombie is Building an Exact Replica of The Munsters House for his Movie"

7/17/21: "Rob Zombie Reveals The Munsters Bedtime Wardrobe Designs for Herman & Lily Munster"

7/22/21: "All of Mockingbird Lane is Being Built for The Munsters, Rob Zombie Shares His Plans"

7/24/21: "Herman Munster Design Teased by Rob Zombie for The Munsters Movie"

7/24/21: "WWE's Kevin Nash Wants to Play Herman Munster in Rob Zombie's Munsters Movie"

9/25/21: "The Munsters Mockingbird Lane Lives Again Thanks to Rob Zombie"

10/2/21: "The Munsters House Looks Ready to Move Into as Rob Zombie Continues Set Construction"

10/14/21: "Rob Zombie is Back on The Munsters Set to Unveil Finished 1313 Mockingbird Lane"

10/21/21: "Rob Zombie Reveals First Look at The Munsters Reboot Cast"

Not 137. But 11 different times in the past four months and change, including two different "articles" on the same day back on July 24th. For a movie that does not even have a possible release date listed on IMDB. 

October 2022 would be a logical guess ... which means we really might get to 137.

James Gunn continues to not stop talking about himself

This marks the fourth time I have complained about James Gunn on my blog.

That's too much. Even I know that. 

But it's the first I've written about him in three years, so you know, I have to catch up new readers on my thoughts.

As I wrote about here, here and here, Gunn loves the sound of his own voice. Or the sound of his own thumbs on his phone. He wants to be the topic of conversation and so he comes forward with "newsworthy" bits of information that sites like Movieweb will break out into their own non-news articles. If I didn't subscribe to Movieweb I might not be half as annoyed by him as I am.

In the third one of those posts, though, I talked about how Gunn had finally been "hoisted on his own petard" -- and I just noticed I spelled "petard" wrong. (Embarrassing. I've fixed it.) Twitter was the platform Gunn had been abusing as a social media hound and attention whore, and then Twitter started abusing him by producing old tweets in which he joked about pedophelia. He was fired from his gig as director of Guardians of the Galaxy - Vol. 3. 

This did shut Gunn up. For a while.

But he's baaaAAAaaack. 

If it had been just one story I'd heard from this week, I would have kept these thoughts to myself. Gunn can come back out of his hole now, as he is director of both the upcoming The Suicide Squad and of the eventual movie from which he was fired, the third Guardians of the Galaxy. Which itself was probably more than the deserved.

And the first "story" seemed fine as promotional accompaniment to The Suicide Squad, in which he talks about how the movie "saved his life" (puh-LEEEEZE) because of its timing, as it was offered to him when he was licking his wounds over the Twitter pedophelia controversy. (I mean, it probably did save his life, but the self-pity involved in that comment is nauseating.) 

But then another bit of non-news without a non-news peg -- again courtesy of Movieweb -- came along today, and I just can't keep these fingers from typing. 

Today Gunn wants to tell all of us how he is "probably done" with the MCU after Guardians of the Galaxy - Vol. 3.

First, I don't care. You care a lot more about the future of your career than we do, James.

Second, look at the big man trying to reclaim the upper hand over the company that fired and then re-hired him. I guess once you're almost done with the new movie (not sure how far along he actually is) you can start biting the hand that feeds you, even if that hand also temporarily withdrew your food. (Because of something you did, don't forget.)

Third ... just shut up for Christ's sake.

Now, I have to say, in reading what Movieweb chose to single out from his New York Times interview in support of The Suicide Squad, this seems a lot more like a Movieweb writer desperate for content than James Gunn taking to the airwaves to give us his unsolicited thoughts on himself. I should know by now to blame the writer, not the subject, when it comes to Movieweb. 

But the fact of the matter is, no other director out there is so consistently quoted by Movieweb talking about himself as Gunn is. And after awhile, it seems like Narcissus is seeking out those reflective surfaces in which to preen at himself.

Okay, now I myself will shut up about Gunn ... for at least three more years. 

I'm tired of hearing about Zack Snyder's Justice League

This new Justice League better be good.

I suppose there's a lot riding on it. I suppose it's not just a lark. I suppose it could change the whole direction of a studio's most profitable revenue stream, the superhero movie, for Warner Brothers.

But boy am I tired of hearing about it. 

Here's a quick survey of headlines just from emails I receive from MovieWeb, which is not my only source of movie-related news, meaning this is only a slice of the news I've been exposed to. (I don't delete any of these because I'm hoarder, making this search a lot easier.) To be clear, I didn't actually click on the link to read more than one or two of these:

"Darkseid Officially Revealed in Justice League Snyder Cut" - 6/20/19 - This was before anyone was talking about re-releasing the movie, just more scraps of non-news from this site based on things like a director showing a piece of cutting floor footage.

"Zack Snyder Proves Snyder Cut Exists with New Evidence and Official Runtime?" - 12/7/19 - Starting to sound more official? No, this is still just MovieWeb blowing smoke. But hang on, we're getting there.

"Zack Snyder Cut of Justice League Officially Being Released in 2021" - 5/23/20 - Okay, finally some real news. And the six-month intervals so far are certainly acceptable. But wait, it starts to get more ridiculous. Just a few days later:

"Martian Manhunter Teased in New Synder Cut Justice League Photo" - 5/28/20 - Yeah, this is the bread and butter of this geek-focused entertainment news outlet. Whole articles about deep cut comic book characters most people have never heard of.

"Darkseid Arrives in Zack Snyder's Justice League First Look" - 5/30/20 - Just two days later, we're on Darkseid again. This email blast also included two separate stories about Henry Cavill that also had Justice League tie-ins.

"Zack Snyder's Justice League Cut is Making One Big VFX Change" - 6/10/20 - Oh, they waited ten days this time.

"First Darkseid Footage Revealed in Zack Snyder's Justice League Teaser" - 6/20/20 - WHAT IS IT WITH DARKSEID? Ten days again. That's five stories in less than a month.

"Zack Snyder's Justice League Transforms Superman into the DCEU's Greatest Hero" - 7/23/20 - Better than Wonder Woman? I doubt it. They gave me a month to breathe this time.

"Zack Snyder is Happy to Finish His Justice League Cut for Free" - 7/30/20 - At least this non-news is a story of a human being being decent.

"New Snyder Cut Footage Arrives, Full Justice League Trailer Drop this Saturday" - 8/22/20 - I suppose the release of a trailer qualifies as actual news.

"Zack Snyder Loves the Violent Vigilant Beatdown in The Batman Trailer" - 8/29/20 - Technically not about Justice League, but I'm including it because I like to shake my head about the stories that boil down to "People say stuff about other stuff." I've complained about this before. 

"Zack Snyder Wanted Carla Gugino as Catwoman in the DCEU: - 11/14/20 - Ditto. (You can tell my search word was "snyder" rather than "justice," which would have brought up a million social justice emails.) But hey, they somehow took a three-month break here. My only conclusion is that I deleted those emails.

"Zack Snyder's Justice League Will Be Released in Early 2021, According to Warner Brothers" - 12/5/20 - Now we're back on track. But this is only a slight variation on the earlier release story.

"Zack Syder's Justice League May Get an R-Rated Theatrical Release" - 12/17/20 - Interesting enough. But you an see how this accumulation of headlines is starting to burrow into the annoyance center in my brain, can't you?

"Zack Snyder's Justice League is Officially R-Rated for Violence and Batman F-Bombs" - 2/6/21 - Again, interesting enough, but I'm done with this. 

"Jared Leto Returns as Joker in Zack Snyder's Justice League First Photos" - 2/11/21 - Oh no, now a concrete reason not to look forward to it. 

Fortunately, that was six days ago and there has not been another. Yet. (Though I did spare you a couple other "what Zack Snyder said, what he would like to say or do, what movie he would like to make" stories along the way.)

The movie comes out on March 18th, which likely means the stories will just intensify from here.

It's possible I could do this same kind of analysis for any big superhero or other geek-focused movie coming out. MovieWeb does not need an excuse to write about something, and might create their own news related to an upcoming movie if they thought it suited them. I could see them writing a story called "Fans Say They Would Like to See Zack Snyder's Justice League Cut Released" after themselves creating a poll asking this question.

But it sure is a lot of oxygen for a movie that stunk the first time and that I can't imagine people are all that excited about revisiting, except for the hype surrounding it.

Snyder got to make his own unfettered version of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and it was scarcely better liked than Justice League, if at all. Actually, it was not better liked, as the former received a mere 28% on Rotten Tomatoes' to the latter's 40%.

Still, I suspect the hype has worked and that fans will want to see this, if not in the theater (as it will surely be released here in Australia) then on HBOMax, where it will be very easy for them to pause as much as they want over the course of the (gasp) 240-minute running time.

I guess if there's a real reason to cheer this, it's not Snyder trying to correct the record on the movie Joss Whedon tried to salvage but probably ended up making worse. It's that the reason Snyder had to quit the movie before post-production was finished was because his daughter committed suicide. That's an awful thing that you would not wish on anyone, and definitely not on a person who is guilty of nothing more than being a glorified hack. (Though I do love Dawn of the Dead and Watchmen.) 

If releasing a new cut of Justice League helps Snyder get over his grief, perhaps even providing closure on the darkest period of his life, then more power to him.

And I want monkey butlers and a swimming pool filled with vodka

There are endless examples of headlines that should not pass for headlines in 2020 as journalism continues to die a slow and painful death. But that doesn't mean they are all without value, or that we really even need to count them as journalism. Sometimes a headline is just a headline.

There's enough of the old school in me, though, that I feel like the existence of a headline itself confers additional importance, not to mention parts of the story beyond what is conveyed in the headline. You should not be able to read the headline and know the whole story.

And so it is that the website MovieWeb provides a considerable challenge for me.

On the one hand, I like movie news (though don't consume as much as I once did) and I like the way MovieWeb presents its information. I get an email from them a couple times a week that contains about eight headlines, probably one or two of which I will actually click into. These are unabashedly geek oriented, with minor cast announcements in upcoming superhero films and sometimes speculations about remakes or adaptations being in the works. I've got my complaints about these and I feel like I've made them before on this blog, though I can't remember exactly when. But at least these things qualify as news in the broadest definition of that word.

What I'm about to discuss does not, I think, qualify as news in any sense.

Here was a headline from this week's email:

Where to start with this?

Let's start small with my journalistic hangups and click maximization concerns. The headline tells the whole "story," such as it is, and the subhead provides additional context. There's really no reason to click into this "story." If I were one of the advertisers on the subsequent page, I'd be pissed.

But I wouldn't have written the post just for that. No, it's the utter non-newsworthiness of the story that has inspired me to put fingers to keyboard today.

Why do I care if Finn Wolfhard wants to play a part that, as far as I know, does not exist, in a movie that, as far as I know, does not exist?

Sure, making a movie about a young Ben Solo is certainly one way Disney could take their property, but I haven't heard anything about it. And if it's not even at the script stage, it doesn't seem particularly likely that Wolfhard would be the right age to play the character when a movie actually went into production. He's already 17 now, though he did just turn 17 in December. I guess it depends how young they want this young Kylo Ren to be.

But what galls me about the story is not that Wolfhard said he was interested, but that MovieWeb picked it up as a story. Wolfhard can say whatever he wants on Twitter, which is, indeed, where he said it. I don't need 1/8th of my twice-weekly MovieWeb email devoted to it, though.

Because I like to cover my bases, I did indeed click into the story, which gives me a bit more context for it. Wolfhard was replying to fans suggesting he would make a good younger version of Adam Driver, and in fact, there have been memes out there that imagine him as a young Ben/Kylo (before morphing into Alan Rickman's Severus Snape, or so I'm told). Almost as though he felt like he were forced to comment, Wolfhard suggests he would love to play the role.

The article does, then, dutifully acknowledge that no such project exists, several times. So it's not the actual writer of the story who is hyping something he knows does not exist. If anything he seems to gently chide Wolfhard for forcing him to write a story about him, which I suppose would also be a shot at his own editors who demanded such a story. However, he does also mention that Marvel is producing a comic book series about young Ben Solo, which, nowadays, is as sure a path to the cinema as any.

What I guess I'm saying is that this whole thing is not totally off base and no individual person deserves scorn for ushering it into my eyeballs. I guess I'm really criticizing the age we live in, in which random Twitter comments provide the basis for entire "news" stories, and where someone's idle thinking out loud about their wants and needs is considered "newsworthy" in some broad definition of the word. Especially when those thoughts are so obvious. I mean, who wouldn't want the fame that went along with joining the Star Wars universe? I'm sure Anthony Hopkins would want to play a young Kylo Ren if you asked him to.

The reason I wrote this piece is also due to the accumulation of such stories over the years at MovieWeb. Since I don't delete my emails and can easily filter my inbox by searching the word "MovieWeb," I've gathered together a number of other egregious examples of this phenomenon that got me to this point:

There are other examples that are more egregious, but I got tired of looking and besides, you get the idea.

Maybe it just bothers me that MovieWeb is trying to do the work that these actors' agents should be doing. Actually, if I were someone in the position to cast these people, I'd be annoyed that they "went to the media" about these things instead of directly to the studio. It would almost specifically make me not want to cast them. You do cast them, and you seem too predictable by half.

I suppose instead of isolating this phenomenon, I should lump it in with other things MovieWeb does that bother me, like writing stories about fan art that puts a familiar face on an iconic character, or advertising the existence of new Funko Pop action figures for famous movie characters. (Or, in one case, for Guy Fieri.) In my research for this post I was also reminded of the time they told us about a particular movie chain switching from Coke to Pepsi.

Then again, this is a collection of ephemera by geeks for geeks, and if I'm reading it, I guess it's an admission that I'm just the kind of geek they are writing for.