Ben Child
The Guardian
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Ben:
Is DC’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom a superhero movie out of time?
On the surface the forthcoming sequel looks capable of knocking everyone’s head off, but rumours of reshoots and walkouts suggest otherwise → Read More
Is Tom Cruise’s plan to keep making action films into his 80s a Mission Impossible?
The 61-year-old Hollywood star said he wants to emulate Harrison Ford’s longevity – here’s to the next 20 years of swashbuckling stunts → Read More
The arrival of a new Superman can’t distract us from The Flash’s dim box office
James Gunn’s Superman Legacy will star David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan, and the fate of the flagging DCU – possibly the comic book movie era itself – may depend on its success → Read More
The Flash’s box office struggles are a mess of DC’s own making
The cash has been counted: The Flash is officially a flop. So is its star Ezra Miller to blame? Or have we all just had enough of major studios’ middling, comic-book cash-ins? → Read More
All hail Darth Shannon – the Star Wars villain we’ll never get to see
Currently co-starring in The Flash, the actor Michael Shannon has revealed he turned down a role in Star Wars because it was ‘mindless entertainment’. Does he have a point? → Read More
Just as we’ve fallen in love with digi-Luke, is Mark Hamill really retiring from Star Wars?
Now we’ve seen de-aged, youngish, CGI-assisted Luke, surely this is the opportunity for the moisture farmer turned Jedi Master to return to the centre of the galaxy far, far away → Read More
Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom? Does the MCU multiverse mean anything can happen?
The Iron Man star nearly played the role 20 years ago in Fantastic Four. Will the movie’s reboot see the latest ‘almost was’ become an ‘is’, following Nicolas Cage’s Superman? → Read More
Is Nicolas Cage finally getting his turn in the Superman suit?
He lost out when 1989’s Tim Burton-helmed Superman Lives was canned, but The Flash, Warner DC’s first venture into the multiverse, could see the actor finally do his thing in the red cape → Read More
Is The Creator the first (or last) in a new wave of sci-fi movies about AI?
The trailer for Gareth Edwards’ new film shows humanity being outsmarted by AI – and is released just as our overlords-to-be are rearing their terrifying heads → Read More
AI is coming for Hollywood scriptwriters – this is how they are going to do it
Artificial intelligence mashups of Lord of the Rings, Pixar and Wes Anderson are amusing novelties, but how long before the robots are generating whole screenplays – and can we be sure they’re not already? → Read More
The Dune: Part Two trailer is here – but how many more films will we get?
This first look at the forthcoming Dune sequel pulls us back into the strange sandpit. But how much farther into Frank Herbert’s psychedelic universe is Denis Villeneuve likely to venture? → Read More
‘One of the best superhero movies ever’: can The Flash live up to the Twitter hype?
While Marvel’s noisy blockbusters have reshaped cinema, DC has mostly churned out turgid epics that succeed only in sending you to sleep. Will Ezra Miller’s high-speed hero offer anything new? → Read More
Are we right to be nervous about the new Lord of the Rings movies?
Elijah Wood has expressed his ‘surprise’ over plans for new movies of Tolkien’s fantasy classic – but they couldn’t be any worse than the book-butchering Hobbit trilogy → Read More
Star Wars: the cinematic empire prepares to strike back
After the disastrous Rise of Skywalker, Lucasfilm’s mighty franchise is on the way back to the big screen, fortified by its TV triumphs in recent years → Read More
Can the Joker musical or Superman save the world from ‘superhero fatigue’?
DC supremo James Gunn has admitted superhero fatigue is ‘very real’ and ‘just watching things bash each other’ is not much fun. What will that mean for his high profile projects? → Read More
Tan, teal and aliens – has Wes Anderson really made a sci-fi movie?
It might seem an unlikely outing for the arch-eccentric, but the geeky innocence of 1950s America is the perfect fit for all the trademark kookiness, stilted dialogue and wide-eyed whimsy → Read More
Hits and myths: why has Hollywood abandoned ancient Greece?
Tolkien-inspired mythology has taken over our screens while a treasure chest of epic fantasy tales lies unused → Read More
James Gunn must usher in nothing less than Superman’s big-screen second coming
The Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director and DC Studios CEO has turned his focus to the company’s ultimate hero. But will anyone ever fill Christopher Reeve’s 45-year-old red boots? → Read More
Could Everything Everywhere All at Once write a new future for Hollywood?
Will the Daniels’ absurdist sci-fi pave the way for genre films to win Oscars … or is this just a glitch in the multiverse? → Read More
Grogu, this is your destiny! Is it time to bring The Mandalorian to multiplexes?
As Lucasfilm prepares to reveal the plan for the next phase of Star Wars movies and lure fans back to the big screen, the epic Disney+ series could be just what they are looking for → Read More