Welcome back to The Collider Pop Culture Review, in which Collider’s weekend editor Vinnie Mancuso wakes up only slightly hungover on a Saturday to rate the week’s biggest stories in film and television on a scale from 1 to 10. (1 is soul-crushingly bad, 10 is mind-blowingly incredible.) This week: Doctor Strange is reportedly rising from the ashes to get a sequel, The Mandalorian added some highly interesting new cast members, Godzilla: King of the Monsters still looks 100% dope AF, and a new Titans trailer sees Batman just murdering everyone. 

'Doctor Strange' Sequel in Development

Rating: 6, or "Strange Days Have Tracked Us Down" 

Because Disney does not give one, single, solitary fuck about preserving the cliffhanger ending of Avengers: Infinity War, reports have started rolling in of a Doctor Strange sequel in development with Scott Derrickson returning to direct and Benedict Cumberbatch reprising his role as the master of the mystical arts who can manipulate anything except for a steady American accent.

Before we dive into the pros and cons of another Doctor Strange movie, let's take a brief moment to mention how absurdly fascinating Marvel Studios is as an entertainment monolith that just straight siphons money into its gullet No. Matter. What. The Russo Brothers straight up disintegrated half the known universe like a bunch of out of control Boba Fetts, breaking thousands upon thousands of fandom hearts in the process, and then Marvel just like, announced a whole slate of movies starring all those dead people. (See: The Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer). And it doesn't matter! Nothing matters! A comet could strike this Earth and bring about the fall of humankind on March 7, 2019 and Captain Marvel would still open to $50 million on March 8, 2019. If Chris Evans sent a personalized hand-written note threatening the lives of my loved ones if I went to see the new Captain America movie I'd say my farewells and fire up Fandango because blood is thicker than water but not adamantium. I do not know the solution, or if it's even technically a "problem" per se, but I think eventually we'll have to reckon with the fact that Marvel is basically someone who keeps committing incredibly obvious crimes but still remains in the highest possible position of power, something that sounds really familiar right now but I can't quite figure out why.

Anywozzle, a Doctor Strange sequel, same director, same-Berbatch. The first movie is such a middle-of-the-road MCU entry that trying to voice an actual, passionate opinion on it is like getting riled up about oatmeal. Oatmeal's fine. I'd rather eat dozens of other things, but oatmeal's fine. Doctor Strange isn't outright offensively bad like Thor: The Dark World, but the MCU has gotten so much more playful with things like Thor: Ragnarok and Ant-Man & The Wasp that Strange's meh-ness sticks out that much more. It's especially a shame with a character like this, who used to give out-there artists like Dan Adkins and Steve Ditko reasons to turn comic book pages into magic mushroom freakouts. The word "Strange" is right there in the name! Derrickson's first go-around was more like Doctor Tame (uh-thank-you, please send $15 for that A+ joke to this address.)

But the character did come into his own eventually, especially in the back-half Dormammu stuff and in Infinity War. If Marvel can find a legit way to bring Steven Strange back from the Dyson dust-vacuum then I'm down to at least bargain with a sequel.

'The Mandalorian' Officially Announces Cast

Rating: 8, or "Zog The Great and Powerful"

I've been consistently pumping my fist with joy from the moment it was officially announced that Werner Herzog and his vampire-ass face and voice will officially be joining the cast of Jon Favreau's live-action Star Wars series, The Mandalorian. Things like food, water, and basic human contact have been replaced with a fierce need to hear the director of Grizzly Man say the phrases "Mandalorian armor", "Tatooine", and possibly "Ewok." I do not care about the context. He can say them one after the other while staring straight ahead at the camera and into the audience's soul.

Of course, there's other pretty big casting news coming from a galaxy far, far away, including confirmation that Pedro Pascal will lead the series alongside Hollywood's foremost angry wrinkled old person Nick Nolte, plus the addition of Carl Weathers (dope) and Breaking Bad highlight Giancarlo Esposito (doooooope).

But holy dead mother of Anakin Skywalker, Werner Herzog is going to be in a Star Wars series. What a time to be alive on this slowly-melting garbage Earth. I truly cannot wait for Herzog's monologue about, like, zee only true Force being zat force which pushes the human mind into a dark unknowability both dark and endless. I cannot stress hard enough to Jon Favreau that nothing Werner Herzog says in The Mandalorian has to make any sense whatsoever.

New 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' Trailer

Rating: 8, or "Show-Show-Godzilla" 

I am in actual, sensual love with the second trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, a.k.a a two-and-a-half minute assurance that the human characters in this film mean ten tons of diddly-squat compared to the ancient Kaiju stars who are about to cause ungodly amounts of property damage for our entertainment. The only thing keeping me from legally marrying this King Ghidora poster is my severe jealousy issues mixed with his three heads. (Plus a few California marriage laws.)

But seriously, the roll-out of the second modern-day Godzilla film has been masterful. I actually really enjoy Gareth Edward's Godzilla, but there's no denying the film's meditative pace, withholding the big guy's appearance for as long as possible while we watched Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch make out with each other. And the first trailer for King of the Monsters was gorgeous, but also rightfully kept the main event imagery mostly to teases and brief glimpses. So right at the moment that people were like, "Okay but is this franchise ever going to have monster fights in it" Warner Bros. released a trailer that is 99% monster fights intercut with two seconds of Millie Bobbie Brown being like, "Holy shit would you look at that monster fight going on over there."

I'm a big believer in variety in movies. Not every film needs to be every thing at every time. When I went to see ROMA, I was satisfied with beautiful imagery and cinematography even if there wasn't much to the plot. When I watch Westworld, I go in knowing there's going to be more clues and red herrings than logical answers. When Guillermo del Toro announces a new project, I just kind've expect that it's not actually going to happen because movie studios are filled with cowards who won't pay several million dollars to build a life-sized Cthulhu. Every project has its "thing," is what I'm saying, which is why I'm truly not asking for much out of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, other than several scenes in which one massive primordial monster wails another massive primordial monster square in the dick. Bonus points if the after-credits scene is King King showing up, doing a height check next to Godzilla, and walking back out of the movie like Grandpa Simpson.

 

'Titans' Season Finale Trailer

Rating: 3, or "The Killing Joke" 

I've only been sporadically checking back in on DC Universe's Titans since I gave the first three episodes a, ahem, less-than-positive review, which inspired several, ahem, passionate and very normal fans to seek out my personal Facebook page and call me names that I cannot legally print here. I've dropped back in occasionally, and while I genuinely love the show's take on The Doom Patrol—Brendan Fraser's Robotman for life—I can overall confidently say Titans is Not For Me. (And that's okay! If that makes you Mad Online, take a moment!) Adding to this feeling is the recently-released trailer for Titans' season one finale, which sees Batman returning to Gotham City to straight up murder the ever-loving fuck out of his entire Rogue's Gallery.

I'm not really much of a comic book stickler; when Bruce Wayne wanted to get a tad more homicidal in Batman vs. Superman, I was cool with it. His job is very stressful! Making it eight years in that environment before you start killing is impressive! So it's not the murder itself I mind, it's DC asking me to watch shots of a dead Joker facedown on a car hood set to music so moody Trent Reznor is like "hey, come on" and not laugh for several minutes afterward. What is this? Yes, even I, a noted dumb-dumb, know there's the possibility for head trickery when Raven's dad Trigon is hanging around. But is even that twist worth an episode where Batman is just rage-killing people and even possibly saying swear words while he does it? Is that fun? Are we having fun in that scenario?

(I will admit that I kind of love the image of The Riddler being like "What gets wetter and wetter the more it driesI" and Batman just calmly stabbing him in the face.)

Anyway, I loved Aquaman. In theaters December 21st!