News, buzz & rumours
RUBY RISES
Following her turn in The Meg, Australian actor Ruby Rose has been cast to play Batwoman in a new CW series, a big deal for numerous reasons, like the fact that she’s playing the first openly gay superhero on TV. Because literally everything fandom-related is met with misery from antisocial nerds, however, the announcement saw geeks chase Rose off of Twitter. “Where on earth did ‘Ruby is not a lesbian therefore she can’t be Batwoman’ come from — has to be the funniest, most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read,” she wrote in her farewell message to the website. “I came out at 12? And have for the past five years had to deal with ‘she’s too gay’ how do y’all flip it like that? I didn’t change. I wish we would all support each other and our journeys.”
JACK’S OFF
Coming from the opposite side of the debate, Disney cast posh British comedian Jack Whitehall as their first openly gay character in their upcoming Disneyland tie-in film The Jungle Cruise. The move has been greeted with extreme criticism, since Whitehall does not identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. According to early reports from The Sun, Whitehall will play a gay man who is “hugely effete, very camp and very funny.” It sounds like a bad idea, to be sure, but so does the whole project — there hasn’t been a lineup to get on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland for decades, so why turn it into a movie now?
OSCARS FOR ALL
Instead of merely doling out awards to movies about the magic of moviemaking magic, the Academy Awards are expanding to include “outstanding achievement in popular film.” That means handing out awards to blockbuster films that are enjoyed by people who aren’t stuffy cinema nerds. It’s a controversial move, to be sure, but at least they’re trying to shake things up. Unfortunately, it’s too late for us to enjoy the phrase “Oscar-winner Minions.”
GUNN DONE
Before he was the architect of Disney and Marvel’s wildly successful Guardians of the Galaxy series, James Gunn was one of the transgressive trolls behind Troma. The cult-adored D-list movie house hired Gunn to write films like Tromeo and Juliet, and he worked well within their shock humour realm. Recently, however, some alt-right trolls dug up some ancient, off-colour pedophilia jokes from Gunn, resulting in a firing from Disney. Gunn had already apologized and disavowed his distasteful attempts at comedy, and the entire Guardians cast have voiced their support for the director and writer.