So as you might have heard, DC and Warner Brothers’ Justice League opens in theaters tonight. Your film editor has made the executive decision to pass on this one, because I sat through this and this and this and sorry, life is just too short. (Spend that two hours on Mudbound instead, and thank me later.) But several of my colleagues in the critical community are burdened with the obligation to see it anyway, and in spite of the best efforts of Rotten Tomatoes (partly owned by Warner Brothers!) to keep its score secret until the last possible second, the word is out that this one is terrible too – maybe not as terrible as Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad, but certainly much more terrible than Wonder Woman or, y’know, other good movies.
Thus, you can understand why WB might want to change the subject – something along the lines of, “Oh uh hey, how about our other big franchise that you love so much because it reminds you of other things you love?” Yes, they’ve released a bunch of promotional… stuff for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. They emailed it to us and everything!
So, let’s see, what do we have here? Ah, well, there is a “static image,” i.e., a shot of movie’s entire cast, Photoshopped together as if they were all hanging out together and just posed for pic:
And while in theory that’s exciting, it’s mostly just serving as a reminder that, oh right, at the end of the first one, Colin Farrell was revealed to be Johnny Depp, which is about the worst casting downgrade this side of Jamie Kennedy in Son of the Mask. I mean, just look at him.
I want to see it so much less now! That seems like the opposite of what this stuff should do.
Anyway, what else do we have? Ah, this is in bold and italics, must be important: *If you are printing or posting the static image we kindly ask you please include the title treatment*. Oh, jeez, we don’t wanna cross Warner Brothers, here is the “title treatment”:
Hey, look at that! It’t the title of the movie, in a fancy font! With the date it comes out, which is (squints) 365 days from now.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE: They have also sent us (and tweeted) a “motion image with title treatment”! What the hell could that be? Let’s find out!
Ewww fancy, they put them together!
Anyway, there ya go, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, out literally a year from now! Mark it down!