Thor hits this coming weekend. It’s going to do, I believe, a great deal of coin. Based on the track record of Marvel Studios, my hope is that it will be an entertaining ride through Smacking Things With a Large Hammer Land. However, I’ve had this gnawing feeling of dread that I haven’t been able to put my finger on…at least, not until today. Today is the day that my premonition finally manifested itself completely–and if you think about it, it only makes sense. It’s this: Hollywood interprets box office success or failure in weird ways. And reacts in even weirder ways. And some of those ways are…less than pleasant. So my vision, filled with terrible consequences, entailed the following, ranked by how likely they are to happen. I want you to brace yourself. Because all of these are feasible. And some, mayhap all, will come true. So spake the prophecy.
[ad#rightpost]7. First up a basic one: for Thor 2, an attempt at a viral video featuring a very stoned Heimdall, going on and on about a double rainbow bridge.
6. Asgard High. Yes, I know there’s Brat-Halla already, but you know somebody wants to do what amounts to a version of Skins in which characters can throw lightning. Plus, there’s that rival private school called Olympus Academy that they’re constantly fighting with… Dustin Diamond will play Loki, the vice-principal.
5. Wanting to go with a more female godly idea and also aiming to seem “green,” one cable network will develop and shoot at least six episodes of Gaea, P.I. in which the earth goddess poses as a human woman and decides to fight crime, along with a small potted talking cactus named Victor voiced by Seth Green. I honestly didn’t even think about Seth’s last name when I thought about him for the cactus. You simply have to believe me.
4. Ratatoskr & Friends. The squirrel who runs around the World Tree gets his own animated series in which he and his friend Edda the Eagle and Nid the Dragon try to keep Steve, Loki’s pesky pet honey badger, out of trouble.
3. In a moment of almost comical confusion, a bidding war will erupt over the rights to make a film of Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn, simply because it has the word “Grecian” in it. Once they realize the poem is in the public domain, two studios will each release an “urn” film within months of each other. In my vision all I saw was one was called “The Sosibios Caper” and the other was simply called “ODE! 3D.” Oddly, both starred Brad Pitt.
2. Once Jason Momoa gets done with Conan 3D, it’s inevitable that he will want (i.e. be talked into/convinced with coin) to remake another Schwarzenegger classic, this time Hercules in New York. Yes, in 3D. Apparently, the rights to the film were recently auctioned off, so I’m sure remake rights went with it. Apparently Lionsgate must have snagged it, because they posted it in its entirety here. I won’t do that to you. Instead, a zany trailer:
Instead of Arnold Stang, in the remake it’s Tracy Morgan. And directed by Adam McKay (Step Brothers).
And the number one unintended consequence of Thor making an Asgardian crapton of money this weekend…
1. Michael Bay signs to direct Hagar the Horrible. Starring John Goodman as Hagar and Mads Mikkelsen as Lucky Eddie.
And don’t say these things are impossible. In your heart you know they’re already in the works. Just be glad someone who cares about you was the one who broke the news to you.
