The Movie Paradise

I enjoyed the latest installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, The Fate of the Furious. I didn't think it was as good as Fast Five or Furious 7, but I did get a kick out of it for what it was. It definitely delivered on the insane stunts and crazy action sequences that the other movies gave us; it just felt a little emotionally hollow to me. You can read our full review here. But even if you aren't the biggest fan of the series, you at least recognize that it's incredibly commercially successful. The Fast and Furious franchise has become a billion dollar franchise, which is insane to think about. Furious 7 made $1.5 billion dollars at the worldwide box office, making it the sixth highest grossing film of all time. Now, I never expected The Fate of the Furious to reach those numbers. Furious 7 was coming off of the recent passing of Paul Walker, and that definitely boosted the box office, among other reasons. But this is a hot property, and The Fate of the Furious was…

With Ridley Scott hard at work on his Alien prequel films, between Prometheus and now Alien: Covenant, there was also the prospect of an Alien 5, written and directed by Neill Blomkamp. A long time ago, Blomkamp released concept art of the film, which rewrote much of the events of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. With his new film, fan-favorite Aliens characters Newt and Hicks would still be alive (as they were killed off in Alien 3), and would return alongside Sigourney Weaver's character of Ellen Ripley. The concept art all looked fantastic, and Weaver was incredibly excited about the project. However, Scott put it on hold, as he wanted to finish his prequel movies first. However, Scott recently talked about potentially four more movies, equaling to be two trilogies (you can read about that here). With this, the question lingered as to when Scott would finish his movies and allow Blomkamp to do his film. I personally wanted to see Alien 5 more so than another prequel trilogy by…

Welcome to this week's The Movie Paradise Nerd Round-Up. Essentially what we do here is we take a look at all things nerdy. We break down everything in the world of nerdom, ranging from superheroes to Star Wars and every other geeky thing in between, and analyse the smaller bits of news that weren't big enough stories to necessarily warrant an entire article, but are still significant and important. Perhaps it's casting news, a contract detail, a set image, or something else that's more on the minor side, but is definitely worth checking out. Then we have a little bit of fun with some movie-related videos and clips. It's a time and place for all of us unabashed nerds to come together and talk about the things that we love so much. So, without further ado, let's get started with this week's Nerd Round-Up. 
The News

While it was recently announced that James Gunn would return to write and direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (which you can read about here), …

I didn't get a chance to see World War Z in theaters, but I did see it later when it came to Netflix. What I saw was the director's cut, and maybe it was because it was the director's cut, but I really liked it! It was a great zombie film, and I didn't understand why the reactions were simply mediocre. Again, perhaps the theatrical cut was lacking and the director's cut was a major improvement, I'm not exactly sure, but I really enjoyed World War Z. And for years now we've been hearing about the prospect of a sequel. For the longest time, it was slated to come out in 2017. Obviously, that isn't going to happen. But it didn't seem like anything was actually happening with the sequel, until it was revealed that the studio was having talks with David Fincher to direct. Considering Fincher's last big budget experience was Alien 3, which he has personally disavowed as one of his films, I couldn't see Fincher wanted to jump back in with the big f…

**Spoilers for Split, if you have not watched the film yet**
I don't think there's been a person who has given M. Night Shyamalan more sh*t than me. I absolutely loved The Sixth Sense, and it's one of my all time favorite movies. I thought Unbreakable was good, but not nearly as good as The Sixth Sense. And I haven't liked a movie of his since. The Visit was a step in the right direction, but I didn't think it was tremendous or anything. And for the longest time, I thought Split was going to be awful. The trailers were fine, but I think I (perhaps unfairly so) held a prejudice against Shyamalan. I was expecting Split to be the next The Last Airbender or After Earth, and instead we got a really great movie. I thought Split was really good, and probably Shyamalan's best work since Unbreakable, funny enough. When Split's twist happened, and it was revealed to be within the same universe as Unbreakable, I freaked out in the theater! I couldn't believe what …

To me, it's a shame that not more people liked Jurassic World. I actually really loved that movie. It was a perfectly realization of what a real-world "Jurassic Park" would look like. It would be a lot like Disney World, but with, you know, dinosaurs. I thought all of those elements were fantastic, and perfectly executed. Did it, when everything erupted into chaos, feel a lot like Jurassic Park? Yes, but it's a f*cking sequel! Of course it will have shades of that. Is it as good as the original? No, but I never expected it to be. For me, Jurassic World accomplished pretty much everything I wanted it to. But no one could have predicted how big of a movie it was going to end up being. Jurassic World slayed at the box office, becoming the fourth highest grossing film of all time with $1.7 billion dollars. No one saw that coming! And since 2015, when World came out, I've been looking forward to seeing the sequel. Colin Trevorrow left so he could be available to do a…

With the rebirth of Star Wars in the form of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, December has become the month dedicated simply to Star Wars. Sure, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films owned December when they came out, as did Titanic and Avatar, but it's Star Wars that has made December an event month for film. Every year now, we're getting a new Star Wars movie (whether an episode or a spin-off) in December. 2015 was The Force Awakens. 2016 was Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. And this year, we'll have Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Now, 2018 will break the mold a bit. The still untitled Han Solo spin-off film will be coming out in May of that year. For awhile, it looked like it might move to December, especially with Avatar 2 moving out of that month (and two years later, mind you). However, Han Solo remains in May. I understand why May is an appealing date for Star Wars. All of the Star Wars movies prior to The Force Awakens came out in May, so there&…

The first Kingsman: The Secret Service was a surprise hit for me. I went in looking forward to it, but I was really surprised by just how much I loved it. It was brutal and violent, with endearing characters. It was just so much fun. And how awesome was that church scene? It has to be one of the greatest action sequences recently put to screen. It was fantastic. So, naturally, I've been rather excited for the sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle. However, we know practically nothing about it. Matthew Vaughn has returned to direct, and that's probably the center of my excitement for the film. If it was anyone other than Matthew Vaughn directing this movie, then I don't think I would really care about it at all. Because he infused so much of his own style into it, I think Vaughn is really the only one who could pull off a sequel. And really, this movie has gone completely under the radar. We have heard nothing about it, which is surprising considering the cast. You have Jeff…