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: Game of Thrones is going to end on a pants-shittingly large battle scene, Ridley Scott is working on a Gladiator sequel, Ewan McGregor has been cast as Birds of Prey's Black Mask, and James Cameron will be making Avatar films long after any of us are dead. 

'Game of Thrones' Will End With an Absurdly Large Battle Scene

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Image via HBO

Rating: 8, or "Saving Theon's Privates" 

To this point, the biggest battle to take place on HBO's Game of Thrones was a sweaty bastard child's Herculian struggle against the sexual urges he felt for his aunt, followed closely by "The Battle of the Bastards", the season six episode where I'm 95% sure director Miguel Sapochnik brought a bunch of stuntmen and horses out to a field and killed them for real. Or there's "The Spoils of War", the season seven Lannister v. dragon tilt that demonstrated how hilariously mismatched a bunch of bearded STD-ridden soldiers are against a flying fire-beast and an army of horse-warriors who all look like Aquaman's more jacked cousin. You also have "Hardhome", a one-sided slaughter north of The Wall that concluded with The Night's King like on step away from making a jerk-off motion at Jon Snow across a corpse-strewn tundra. For the seafarers among us, we have the high seas ending to "Stormborn", with Pilou Asbæk's Euron Greyjoy demonstrating what Captain Jack Sparrow would look like if he was hooked on cocaine and 30 Seconds to Mars instead of rum.

What I'm saying is that Game of Thrones has already put on the biggest battle scenes in TV history, but according to Peter Dinklage the final season's Dead v. Living showdown will put all that nonsense to shame.

"It makes the Battle of the Bastards look like a theme park," the actor said of a set-piece that took the returning Sapochnik more than 55 days to finish. Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss apparently took a break from announcing that slavery drama that HBO would like you to forget about to significantly expand the show's Winterfell set, where the Night's King will presumedly roll up on his bitchin' ice dragon with an army of the undead to laugh at Jon Snow for doin' incest. Also to enslave all of humanity. The order is unclear.

Look, I trust this show by now not to mess its action pieces up; HBO is giving each episode a budget higher than the entire six-season existence of Girls combined, and while Thrones has occasionally stumbled with things like "having characters row off to fucksville for five seasons" or "making Daenerys sit in a pyramid and talk about saving a city that is actively trying to murder her on a daily basis", but the one place it has never, ever stumbled is a good old-fashioned battle.

The one thing I am truly worried about is this timing. Season 8 is comprised of six episodes, and one has to assume this Hodor's dick-sized battle will take up the majority of one, leaving five episodes to wrap up...so, so much. I wouldn't be surprised if we learned who eventually ended up on the Iron Throne in a mid-credits "Where Are They Now?" card like the end of Animal House.

Ewan McGregor Cast as 'Birds of Prey' Black Mask

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Image via DC Comics

Rating: 5, or "Damaged-Free" 

With a bulk of the attention focused on Ben Affleck cross-fitting his way out of the Batman suit, Henry Cavill and his Mortal Kombat-ass Witcher hair hanging up the Superman costume, and Joaquin Phoenix's Joker still, apparently, last I checked, existing as a movie that's actually getting made, one of the most low-key exciting projects in the works at Warner Bros. is the R-rated girl-gang team-up Birds of Prey. We knew Margot Robbie would reprise the role of Harley Quinn and director Cathy Yan quickly filled out the cast with Mary Elizabeth-Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and Rosie Perez. Now, we know exactly whose villainous ass the Gotham City vigilante crew will be kicking: Ewan McGregor, playing the role of Roman "Black Mask" Sionis.

Once upon a time Heath Ledger taught the world to never judge a comic book casting by its cover, but woo boy does Ewan McGregor not have a comic book villain face. Look at that loveable boyishly charming Scotland-native piece of shit, I just want to do him a favor out of the kindness of my heart. Fuck him and his earnestly kind smile and twinkling eyes. Black Mask more like Kindly Ask. I can't picture Ewan McGregor playing a retched Batman villain crime lord, is what I'm saying here.

But McGregor is a fantastic actor, for sure, and I'd love to be proven wrong by what he brings to the role. The character himself is kind of bland. He's one of those comic book characters whose whole "thing" is in his name, like "I'm Black Mask and I'm wearin' a Black. Mask." Sometimes the mask is melted on to his skull like a Paddywax scented candle gone horrifically wrong. Sometimes Roman just has a penchant for wearing spooky masks. Could go either way here.

What is objectively great about the news is that it's a villain who has never gotten any live-action screentime before. In a filmmaking world that is currently pumping out Jokers at the same rate it shoots Martha Waynes in the face, that is a terrifying black-skull breathe of fresh air. If WB won't answer any of my letters demanding Kate McKinnon play a gender-swapped Riddler, I suppose this is the next best thing.

 

'Gladiator 2' Is in the Works

Image via DreamWorks

Rating: 4, or "I Will See You Again, But Not Yet...Okay, Now" 

I'm never going to be out here telling Ridley Scott what he can and cannot do. That man made Alien, which means he could probably straight-up bare-knuckle punch my child in the face and my initial reaction would be "Ripley is such an iconic character, sir." But if I could nudge slightly in a different direction I'd probably mention that the news that Gladiator 2 is in the works from screenwriter Peter Craig is bad news dot what dot gov. I mean, okay, it's not bad, but it's certainly weird, considering it's been eighteen years since the original Gladiator, a movie that concluded with the titular gladiator dying and walking through an endless cornfield into the afterlife.

Listen, I get it, all Hollywood wants these days are reboots, sequels, and comedies starring Kevin Hart as a tiny yet highly irritable man. Those are the only three genres left and I doubt Kevin Hart would even fit in a Gladiator costume, so I respect Scott's hustle. But the most recent dives back into his filmography has been a mixed bag. Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049—which counted Scott as a producer—was an immersive visual feast that not a ton of people went to see. I know for a fact Harrison Ford didn't sit through all two-and-a-half hours. Then there's Prometheus and its sequel Alien: Covenant, both directed by Scott, which worked overtime to explain that every tantalizing mystery from the Alien films was mostly the work of hairless alien department store mannequins and crews of scientists that never learned the rule about touching alien goo without any gloves on.

But hey! This could be fun. The original Gladiator was a Roman blast-and-a-half, and we're either going to A) Reboot the whole thing, possibly anthology-style, B) Follow a different character, most likely Djimon Hounsou's Juba but also possibly Spencer Treat Clark's noodle-armed Lucius, or C) Follow Russell Crowe into the damn afterlife like Kratos from the God of War games to enact sweet, violent revenge on the gods who wronged them, all of whom are played by Tom Hardy wearing various lengths of prosthetic beards.

These Might Be the 'Avatar' Sequel Titles

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Rating: 2, or "Just Let Go, Jack" 


EXT. POST-APOCALYPTIC CITY - NIGHT

Fire. All is fire and ruin. The remains of what used to be New York, or London, or Los Angeles or anywhere has been reduced to burning rubble and ash. The sky is orange. Something horrible happened here, and recently. 

From the wreckage, a lone ENTERTAINMENT BLOGGER emerges, his face dusty, his ironic Revenge of the Sith t-shirt soiled and torn. Hungry eyes scan the wasteland and find only death, heat, and a lone copy of Entertainment Weekly on the ground. He picks it up - 

JAMES CAMERON, skin permanently dyed blue, graces the cover. The date: 2067. The headline: "Cameron Announces Avatar Chapter 16: The Wind-Slappers"

A single tear rolls down the blogger's face as he starts composing a post in the dirt with a stick. 


James Cameron is going to be making Avatar sequels until you, me, humanity, and Earth itself is dead, is the point of what I'm doing here. Last week, Fandango announced the alleged titles of the next four installments in Cameron's otherworldy franchise, which should keep him busy enough for me to have to explain to my grandchildren what a goddamned N'Avi is. The titles:

Avatar: The Way of Water

Avatar: The Seed Bearer

Avatar: The Tulkun Rider

Avatar: The Quest for Eywa

I do almost have to respect how indecipherably specific and Zelda-like they get as they go on, I'll say that. And it's not like I don't understand why these are happening; the original Avatar made ungodly sums of cash because you had to pay like $50 to see those state-of-the-art effects, plus Tumblr hadn't quite bloomed yet and people had to watch humans have hair-sex with forest monsters somehow. Milk that cash cow, Hollywood, milk it right through its oddly erotic alien dreadlocks.

Equally funny is that there is no confirmation that those titles are legit, proving that it's incredibly easy to just make up Avatar sequel titles.

Avatar: The Trek for Rippled Sunlight. 

Avatar: The Maltash Tamer.

Avatar: Cratan's Wake

I'm just making these up. Just combine a part of the forest with a noise you make while throwing up tequila sunrises. It's fun!