Space Cowboys and Multiverse Spider-Man? Oh My.
Cowboy Bebop and Spider-Man: No Way Home excites fans.
Two highly anticipated projects received updates yesterday and I’m here to break them down for you.
Cowboy Bebop
Based on the iconic 1998 anime series from director Shinichirō Watanabe, Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop is trying its darndest to make me believe it will be good. There are a lot of pieces in place that certainly help. The series will star John Cho as Spike, Mustafa Shakir as Jet, and Daniella Pineda as Faye. They’ve also picked up the original series composer Yoko Kanno. She composed music from some of my personal favorite anime series like Escaflowne and Macross Frontier, among a plethora of other titles. I’m glad that Netflix understands how important her contributions were to the success of the 1998 anime. Anime doesn’t have a great reputation for making the leap from the animated medium to live-action. Ghost in the Shell, Dragon Ball Evolution, and the American version of Death Note are some that come to mind. Notably, Alita: Battle Angel is an accurate recreation of the manga and is what adaptations should strive for. There is a lot that Cowboy Bebop has to live up to, but I’m hopeful now. I’d be satisfied if they could come as close as their Witcher series. That isn’t asking for too much right?
Cowboy Bebop is planned to launch on Netflix on November 19th.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Acting as the third stand-alone story in the Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man series, Spider-Man: No Way Home sent the internet asunder other the weekend. First, was the leaked trailer that fans were squinting online to see. Then, right after the CinemaCon reveal of the trailer during Sony’s press conference, it was launched onto the internet in full. In the trailer, the story picks up from the previous Spider-Man entry with the world now knowing that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. That makes life a little difficult, so Peter needs to find a way to change time itself. That means that Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) must enter the picture. Messing with time comes with consequences and in this case, villains from previous Spider-Man movies are finding their way into the current timeline. In the trailer, we see Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock who last appeared in Spider-Man 2 that starred Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man. That was seventeen years and two spider-man actors ago for those keeping score at home.
While it’s fun to bring back all these old characters, I’m kind of tired of Spider-Man myself. I love the character and the stories, but there have been so many different entries in the last few years. I imagine that Sony can’t go a year without calling on the web-crawler to save their box office bottom line. Regardless I hope everyone who is looking forward to it finds plenty to enjoy with the latest trailer.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is launching exclusively in theaters on December 17th.
Links
Is there any conflict in Ted Lasso? That’s the question now that backlash has begun on the feel-good series. Meghan O’Keefe looks into whether the series deserves the online reputation it’s gotten for Decider.
For Vulture, Eric Vilas-Boas examined the last act of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Thrice Upon a Time. I talked about the movie last week, but Vilas-Boas does an excellent job explaining how Anno brought closure to the series.
I'm eager for more Spider-men. I'm hopeful that this one will be better than Far from Home, though.