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Marvel’s hopes ride on Fantastic Four reboot

and Pascal continues to shape his image of a thoughtful, emotionally intelligent man that fuels his popularity. “I am not original by any means when it comes to human decency,” he told reporters in Paris, adding that treating people and himself with respect was “a human thing and I think a very, very basic and beautiful standard to live by.” Previous versions of the Fantastic Four franchise from the Marvel stable – which includes X-Men, the Avengers, Iron Man and Spider-Man – have been resounding flops. A 2015 remake made just US$168 million (RM708 million) at the global box office. Variety magazine reported that the latest incarnation “succeeds where earlier attempts have faltered – and good thing too, since the studio has a lot more riding on this franchise now.” Marvel movies would earn “upwards of US$1 billion at the box office” at their peak, “but they have lost steam of late”, the magazine noted. Marvel has struggled this year to score with audiences, with its biggest releases Thunderbolts* and Captain America: Brave New World struggling for acclaim. Screen Daily said the new Fantastic Four was “underwhelming” which “falters due to a lacklustre plot that fails to find a new angle on a familiar superhero story”. – AFP doting dad,

AMERICAN-CHILEAN actor Pedro Pascal stars as a stretchy Earth saviour in Marvel’s latest blockbuster The Fantastic Four: First Steps , which releases worldwide this week and will test the appetite for more superhero films. After wielding a sword in Gladiator 2 and a gun in The Last of Us , the 50-year-old plays the elastic Mister Fantastic alongside the character’s wife, the Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), his best friend the Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and his brother-in-law the Human Torch (Joseph Quinn). The film is set in a retro-futuristic New York and is hoping to do better than previous reboots of the franchise which have struggled at the box office. The plot sees Mister Fantastic and his wife overwhelmed with joy at a long-hoped-for positive pregnancy test before their lives are upended by news that Galactus, a galactic Godzilla-like character who devours planets, is heading for Earth. While such apocalyptic threats are nothing new in the Marvel universe – or in previous Fantastic Four films – the pregnancy storyline is a rare twist in the world of superheroes. “Motherhood is something that you can incorporate in all areas of your life, it affects every area of your life in a beautiful way,” Kirby told journalists at a recent press event in Paris. In his double role as superhero

Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera gestures during a photocall on the day of the opening ceremony of last year’s festival. – REUTERSPIC

Showcase in Venice

H OLLYWOOD stars, Oscar-winning directors, Asian heavyweights and European auteurs will vie for top honours at this year’s Venice Film Festival, all looking to make a splash at the start of the awards season. Running from Aug 27 to Sept 6, the 82nd edition of the world’s oldest film festival will showcase a rich array of movies that spans psychological thrillers, art-house dramas, genre-bending experiments, documentaries and buzzy studio-backed productions. Among the leading A-listers expected to walk the Venice Lido’s red carpet are Julia Roberts, Emma Stone, George Clooney, Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Andrew Garfield, Oscar Isaac, Cate Blanchett and Amanda Seyfried. Netflix returns A who’s-who of global directors will also be premiering their latest o Big names vying for top honours at premier film festival

Venice, including Stone for her role in Poor Things in 2024. Fighters and families Stone returns to Venice this year, teaming up again with Poor Things director Lanthimos in an offbeat satire Bugonia . The indie icon of US cinema, Jim Jarmusch, will be showing his Father Mother Sister Brother , a three-part tale exploring fractured families with a cast that includes Blanchett, Vicky Krieps, Adam Driver and Tom Waits. Another US film getting its first outing at Venice is the MMA fighter biopic The Smashing Machine , starring Johnson and Blunt, and directed by Benny Safdie. A very different biopic is The Testament of Ann Lee – a musical take on the life of the radical 18th-century Shaker leader, which stars Seyfried and is directed by Norway’s Mona Fastvold. European auteurs are well-represented, with Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia, starring Toni Servillo, selected as the festival’s opening film, while Hungary’s Nemes presents the family drama Orphan and France’s Francois Ozon showcases his retelling of Albert Camus’ celebrated novel The Stranger . – Reuters

pictures at the 11-day event, including US filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow, Jim Jarmusch, Noah Baumbach and Benny Safdie, alongside top Europeans Yorgos Lanthimos, Paolo Sorrentino and Laszlo Nemes, and Asia’s Park Chan-wook and Shu Qi. Netflix, which skipped Venice last year, returns in full force this year with a trio of headline-grabbing titles, including Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein , a new take on the classic horror tale starring Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth. Baumbach’s comedy-drama Jay Kelly , starring Clooney, Adam Sandler and Laura Dern, is also in the main competition and on the Netflix slate, alongside the geopolitical thriller A House of Dynamite , with Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson, and directed by Bigelow, who won an Oscar in 2010 for The Hurt Locker. Venice fires the starting gun for the awards season, with films premiering on the Lido in the last four years collecting more than 90 Oscar nominations and winning almost 20, making it the place to be seen for actors, producers and directors alike. In the past nine editions of the Oscars, the award for Best Actress or Best Actor has gone eight times to the protagonists of films first seen in

(From left) Pascal, Moss-Bachrach and Quinn attend the world premiere of the movie. – AFPPIC National Ballet of Japan makes UK debut with Giselle

THE National Ballet of Japan performed in Britain for the first time on Thursday when artistic director Miyako Yoshida’s production of Giselle opened at the Royal Opera House in London. First performed in 1841, Giselle tells the love story of a young peasant girl deceived by a nobleman. The London show runs until Sunday. Born in Japan in 1965, Yoshida came to Britain as a 17-year-old ballet

student, going on to make her name there in the 1980s and eventually dance with the Royal Ballet. Since 2020, she has been in charge at the National Ballet of Japan, also known as the New National Theatre Ballet, Tokyo. “Coming back to London, it is always nice, but bringing the company with me is so special,” Yoshida said of the ballet ensemble, which formed in 1997 and has 75 dancers. – Reuters

Dancers from the National Ballet of Japan. – PIC FROM INSTAGRAM @NATIONALBALLETOFJAPAN