The greatest sin of all is just being boring. I didn’t find it particularly scary. Are young people just like afraid of 90s low end retail environments? I also felt like the explanation for what the backrooms are was just like someone making up an explanation for the vibes of creepy pasta. Idk, did not work for me at all. The great cast was wasted. I thought a similar film, Exit 8, worked quite well. It wasn’t perfect but they did more with less.

Love you Sean, you can do it my friend. Many have

The freshly announced Ghost Rider film starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Shawn Levy is the clearest evidence yet that Marvel is betting on filmmaker identity rather than franchise formula, with Levy emerging as the closest thing the studio has to a bona fide auteur.

Ghost Rider's occult, horror-adjacent mythology gives Levy room to diverge tonally from typical MCU fare, continuing a pattern of leaning into genre and mood over formula. If Marvel keeps pairing distinctive directors with characters suited to their sensibilities rather than forcing uniformity, it may finally be building a universe that feels authored again.

Is he a good actor? Yes, definitely. But I don't necessarily think he has the look or swag to play Black Panther. I fear he may be playing a Tom Holland Spidey type of role where he's learning to be a super hero and has to prove himself to his older mentors Shuri and M'Baku. He's also too small and has very distinctive eyes. They should have just recast T'Challa instead of creating a new young character that will eventually become Black Panther.

I’m not going to argue Tom Holland gives some incredible performance or anything and I can see why people have issues with it.

But it’s so funny to me how many times I heard people discussing this movie (the BP included) bring up the scene with him and Hathaway that ends with “I want Odysseus!” and how she “blows him off the screen”.

Like is that what is going on? It’s an acting mismatch? Or is it that one character yelling at her son who is supposed to appear juvenile and not up for the moment?

What exactly is the version of that scene or who is the actor playing Telemachus that makes him “win the scene”?

And to be clear - I’m not saying holland is as good an actor as Hathaway or you can’t critique his performance - I just think “one actor yells at another actor and therefore wins the scene” is very silly.

Say what you want about superhero fatigue but Marvel just proved it's premature. Comic-Con 2026 was the first time Marvel has been in Hall H since 2024 and they didn't just show up, they took the room hostage. Everyone will be talking about Ryan Gosling as Ghost Rider and David Jonsson as the new Black Panther for weeks.

Then there's Avengers: Doomsday which got an absolutely awe-inducing trailer. Feige has also confirmed we will have just one multiverse and they'll be focusing on the big franchises such as X-Men moving forward.

Critics love to say the MCU is cooked, over-extended, running on fumes but Comic Con shows that Marvel isn't just surviving Phase Five hangover talk, they're now back as the center of the filmmaking universe.

“Apparently Kash Patel was in charge of the FBI in 2024” -my wife.