If you’re like me, you’re still high on last week’s reveal of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. If this has shown me is that HBO Max could be the home of properties to find a rebirth to give the streaming service content to match the likes of Disney+ and Netflix.
King Arthur
2017’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was one of the biggest bombs of that year tapping out of the box office at $146 million worldwide on a $175 million budget and when you add marketing Warner Bros lost as much as $153 million.
It was the killing blow to Guy Ritchie’s fantasy epic in what was a six-movie arc.
The first problem was this project had issues during the whole production and extensive reshoots with the major issue being this film costing $175 MILLION. It seemed like WB at the time liked pissing money away.
Three years on things have changed at both the studio and with Ritchie. With the need for content, WarnerMedia could see this as a potential mini-series similar to the cracking Gangs of London. Meanwhile, Ritchie is on a new high with the billion-dollar success of Aladdin and this year’s release of this best movie since Snatch, The Gentleman.
I am very happy to admit that I really enjoy what the British filmmaker did with the legendary story by adding his sensibilities and thought Charlie Hunnam did brilliantly in the lead role.
Hunnam also seems to do a redo during an interview on SiriusXM (via Indiewire) by Andy Cohan stated “I’d like to go back to King Arthur because there’s a lot of things went wrong during that and a lot of things were out of our control.
“I just don’t think we ended up matching the aspiration – we just didn’t quite make the movie we wanted. The idea was that if it was a success, we would’ve made several of those films, and I’m really captivated by the Arthurian legends and I just feel like we really missed an opportunity to tell a long-form story” added The Gentleman star.
He added there was a reason for the disaster: “There was a piece of miscasting that ended up crippling the central storyline that’s actually not in the film anymore.”
In other interviews Hunnam revealed there was a three-hour cut of the film.
While I’m not demanding Ritchie get his cut of the film because the work would be too much, instead move forward with continuing to tell his story and we can finally see Idris Elba play Merlin as once rumoured.
Given a chance, this could be the property WB/HBO could be used to replace the Game of Thrones gap and give it the $15 million an episode budget the network provided to the final season of the fantasy epic.
Ritchie can executive produce the series and direct the first couple of episodes before handing the reigns over.
The Nice Guys
The Nice Guys is one of the most underrated comedies ever. It got so little love it is crazy why not as it had two cracking leads, a wonderful story and brilliantly directed.
In case you haven’t seen it (currently on Amazon Prime in the UK), the film is set in 1970s Los Angeles about a pair of private eyes investigating a missing girl and the mysterious death of a porn star.
It has my favourite performance from Ryan Gosling, who is comedic gold, and Russell Crowe clearly had a ball with Shane Black’s script and the filmmaker returning to his buddy cop background.
Every time I see someone talking about it, it’s always the same response of love and laughter, then followed by asking about a sequel.
It’s just a crime that the film made just over $11 million during opening weekend and a worldwide box office total of over $62 million on a $50 million budget (via Box Office Mojo).
For this reason, a theatrical release sequel isn’t financially possible. Still, a follow-up on HBO Max is possible, especially on the previous budget or even less and Black would again smash it out of the park.
Additionally, HBO films recent movie Bad Education is superb and picked up by the network for $20 million, so WarnerMedia isn’t worried about costs.
The fanbase love has only grown since the film’s 2016 release, and I’m sure Gosling and Crowe would be up to reprise their roles. We could see more from the films MVP Angourie Rice, who nearly stole the film from the two leads.
As for a premise of the sequel, it could be set around the turning of the 1980s. As the private eyes have been working together of several years and Crowe’s Jackson Healy is nearing retirement.
Whatever Black created fans would flock to it.
Scooby-Doo
I’ve written in the past on The Bear Cave why I believe Scooby-Doo is ideal for a live-action adaptation on HBO Max.
I will continue to bang that drum for as long as possible as it has all the elements of being a hit show and bring in Millennials as this is the demographic that grew up watching the cartoon on weekends eating cereal and saw the original live-action movies.
It would also hit that CW crowd to sign up and I’ve always used Riverdale as a template but use previous incarnations of the characters as a focus point like Mystery Incorporated for the episodical nature and Be Cool with the use of humour.
If HBO Max gives it a slightly bigger budget compared to the CW teen drama for VFX, then we could see a decent show.
If you want to find out more about my idea of an HBO Max Scooby-Doo series, click here.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E
I started with Ritchie, I’ll end with the British filmmaker as one of his underrated films was this reboot of the classic 60s show.
It got a fairly decent reception from critics and fans who saw the film or caught up on TV shows or home entertainment, sadly I’m part of the problem at the moment as I haven’t yet, which is why it didn’t make money to command a sequel.
At the worldwide box office it ended on slightly over $107 million on a $75 million budget and Warner Bros understandably couldn’t greenlight a film that flopped five years ago.
However, a sequel could work for the WarnerMedia’s streaming service as it could get more eyes then it would’ve done then in theatres. While they say their original projects will have significate budgets, they could make a sequel of less than the original production budget.
With big names like Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer and Alicia Vikander returning and Ritchie serving as an executive producer would help with the publicity.
The Bear Cave 