Spider-Man: No Way Home has just recorded the second-largest opening weekend at the US box office of all time (behind only Avengers: Endgame). Within just eight days of release, it’s not only become the highest grossing Spider-Man film, but also Sony’s highest grossing film ever – in the midst of a pandemic.
In a world of studio-filmmaking almost exclusively compiled of re-makes and an endless parade of superheroes and franchises, there’s something refreshing about The Last Duel and House of Gucci.
by Auden Chamberlain It is difficult to find any piece of work since 1965 in the science-fiction genre that does not bear a debt to Frank Herbert’s seminal novel Dune. Perhaps the most notable example would be the desert landscapes and “spice mines” of Star Wars (1977), but clear influence can be felt almost anywhere – from Fallout to Game of Thrones. It’s perhaps that legendary status that means Dune has been such a difficult nut for Hollywood to crack, despite its obvious popularity. How do you make something fresh that’s been aped countless times in countless ways? Attempts have been made previously: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s infamously fell apart, leaving a young and precocious David Lynch to pick up the pieces. His effort, released in 1984, came together in such a way that Lynch wanted to remove his name from the credits, and is something he considers a “huge, gigantic sadness in [his] life”. An admittedly terrible adaptation of the book (and one that Lynch contends he had no creative control over), it is still an …
Written by Auden Chamberlain It feels almost impossible to imagine the backlash Daniel Craig’s casting as James Bond received thanks to his blue eyes and blond hair, for these very features now feel almost intrinsically linked to the character. Craig’s Bond feels less like an incarnation to be replaced as his predecessors and more like his own distinct character. From his origin in 2006’s Casino Royale, we followed him through a set of interweaving plots over 15 years before reaching the grand conclusion: No Time To Die. Whereas previous Bond’s would simply go on a self-contained mission, this era was perhaps modernised by the connections each entry would have to the previous, and whilst it was this very method that helped make Craig’s Bond the cinematic icon he is, it also fills the series with a layer of convolution. It doesn’t feel unfair to say that No Time To Die was left with the burden that is its predecessor: Spectre. A dull, joyless drag that commits the ultimate sin of sequel: rendering what came before …
Leicester Student Magazine 