The Past Week: Natalie Portman Declines THOR 3 Role, Netflix gets GODZILLA Anime, Malin Akerman May Join RAMPAGE

The Past Week: Thor: Ragnarok, Godzilla, Rampage

If you’re like me and grew up on monster movies and video games, then the past week must have been as exciting for you as it was for me. Netflix made a big announcement about its plans to stream a most unexpected project involving one of cinema’s biggest (pun definitely intended) monsters, and an experienced character actress is currently being eyed for a prominent role in an adaptation of a much-beloved video game property. Of course, we also had our share of baffling news this past week, but for now, let’s focus on the good news.

Netflix To Stream Planned Anime Godzilla Film

10 years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that Godzilla would once again be the face of a film series with the potential to rival the biggest franchises around. True, the King of the Monsters had already appeared in more movies than most characters ever will at that point, but the critical failure of the first attempt at an American Godzilla film in 1998 meant that the Big G (as fans like myself are wont to call him) would be mostly relegated to theaters in his native Japan and TV’s belonging to fans willing to wait years until his movies hit the bargain bin at Wal-Mart.

Today, however, we are looking at not one, not two, but three movies featuring Godzilla since the successful debut of Legendary Pictures‘ Godzilla and the equally well-received Shin Godzilla from parent company Toho. Although it will be some time before we get to see Godzilla: King of Monsters and Godzilla vs. King Kong, Toho is already working on an anime film following the studio’s most famous star as he makes his destructive way through the world of the future. Set for release later this year, Netflix will handle distribution of the production around the world once it finishes its initial theatrical run in Japan, meaning that Godzilla fans will have something to whet their appetites until 2019.

Malin Akerman Being Considered As Villain For Rampage

Of course, another big part of my childhood was Rampage, the Midway monster game series that started off as an arcade game before moving onto various video game consoles, including the Nintendo 64, Playstation, Gameboy, GameCube, and Wii. Having been around as long as it has, you would think that a movie adaptation would have been in the works a long time ago, but it looks like somebody – in this case, New Line Cinema – has only recently decided to pick the franchise up for the big screen.

In any case, we already have an idea of who might play the film’s villain: none other than Malin Akerman, Watchmen‘s very own Silk Spectre. Although the story admittedly wasn’t what made gamers keep coming back (it was smashing cars and destroying buildings that did that), it is worth noting that the villain of the first game (which we can only assume the movie is based on), the evil chief of the ScumLabs company that accidently created the monsters, was a male. The human protagonist, one Dr. Betty Veronica, was a woman however, so perhaps the character is an amalgamation of sorts of these two characters.

Natalie Portman’s Absence In Thor: Ragnarok Explained

Although many gave Natalie Portman grief for her role in the Thor series, I was among those who enjoyed her performance as Dr. Jane Foster. Yes, after, say, Black Swan, it wasn’t quite the apex of artistry that one might have otherwise expected from Portman, but she was more than serviceable as the human love interest of the dimension-crossing Asgardian.

So it was somewhat irritating to hear that the character has been most unceremoniously axed from the final installment of the series, Thor: Ragnarok. As Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige explained, the scientist had what appears to be an uneventful break-up at some point between the film and its predecessor, Thor: The Dark World. So basically, not only do we not get to see Jane in the final film, but we also don’t get to see the events that explain her absence from said film. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still planning on seeing the movie (although expectations aren’t exactly high after seeing The Dark World), but I find it hard to believe that this was the best Marvel could come up with when trying to excise a character it, for lack of a better phrase, got bored of.