11 weirdest movie coincidences of 2018
When you see as many movies in a year as Yahoo Entertainment does, you start to see patterns emerging between different films. Last year, for example, we noticed multiple movies that involved poisoned mushrooms, John Denver tunes and novel uses of fruit. And 2018 was another prolific year for coincidence-spotting; here are 11 of the unexpected similarities we noticed between some of the year’s biggest movies.
Tubthumping
Most people slip into a bathtub in search of relaxation. Emily Blunt, on the other hand, puts that particular fixture to more unconventional uses. In the hit horror movie A Quiet Place — directed by her husband, John Krasinski — the actress seeks refuge from angry alien critters in her farmhouse bathtub in one of the film’s most intense moments. There’s a big bathtub scene in Mary Poppins Returns as well, but fortunately for Blunt, it functions as a portal to a magical underwater world rather than a hiding place from hungry monsters.
Game of thrones
Hail to the king? More like, fight the power. Both Aquaman and Black Panther — the highest-grossing 2018 titles for DC and Marvel, respectively — feature mano a mano duels where the reigning rulers of Atlantis and Wakanda are challenged by absurdly muscular usurpers. In Aquaman, our hero, Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), takes on his half-brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), only to run away to fight another day. Meanwhile, Black Panther‘s villain, Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), challenges and defeats his crusading cousin, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), in single combat … although that victory proves temporary.
Game, set, rematch
Black Panther wasn’t the only movie where Michael B. Jordan had to go to a Round 2 in order to defend his title. In Creed II, Adonis Creed narrowly avoided losing the heavyweight belt to Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu) on a technicality, and then faced him again in a rematch. Unlike Killmonger, Adonis walked away from that second fight with his life.
Super Cage returns
Nicolas Cage has always been a superhero to us, but it’s no secret that his attempts to become an actual big-screen superhero have been mixed at best. Besides his never-made Superman movie, Cage starred in two less-than-stellar Ghost Rider outings. This year, he got his second crack at invading the DC and Marvel universes, and now we never want him to leave. First, the hilarious (and sadly underseen) Teen Titans Go! allowed him to live out his Man of Steel dreams. And Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse took advantage of his acknowledged affinity for Humphrey Bogart by casting him as the grim and gritty Spider-Man Noir.
Fridging fiascos
Even as comic books are trying to put the bad old days of fridging female characters behind them, some comic book movies are still employing this outdated trope. Deadpool 2, for example, opened with the murder of the Merc with a Mouth’s girlfriend, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and the fan outrage on Twitter eventually led Ryan Reynolds to publicly admit that their criticisms were “fair.” (The PG-13 cut of Deadpool 2, Once Upon a Deadpool, includes a new scene that addresses the controversy directly.) Pacific Rim Uprising committed the equally grievous offense of killing off the breakout character from the original film, Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako Mori. That’s one of many reasons why moviegoers left Uprising out in the cold.
Why so serious?
Michael Banks and Christopher Robin are two of our favorite Disney children, so imagine our shock when they both grew up to be depressive old dudes. In Mary Poppins Returns, the elder Michael (played by Ben Whishaw) is a grieving widower who is in serious danger of losing his family’s home. Meanwhile, Winnie the Pooh’s old pal (Ewan McGregor) went through the wars — he’s literally a World War II veteran — and emerged as a withdrawn wage slave to a capricious corporate master. At least both movies end with Michael and Christopher reclaiming some of their childhood joy, thanks to the return of their former nanny and stuffed-with-fluff bear, respectively. Still, it’s strange that this supposedly family-friendly double bill makes growing up look like the worst thing ever.
Pop goes the pop star
As an actual pop star, Lady Gaga is famous for constantly changing her look. But when Gaga’s A Star Is Born alter ego, Ally, undergoes an extreme pop makeover at the insistence of her manager, it winds up driving a wedge between her and her life/creative partner, Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper). In Vox Lux, Natalie Portman’s Celeste similarly benefits from and is trapped by her glam pop star image, which was birthed out of a traumatic childhood experience. If Gaga and Portman go on tour together, we’d buy all the tickets.
Falling slowly
In the back-to-school comedy Night School, Rob Riggle unwisely tries to clear a gap in his high school’s roof and plunges to the ground, injuring his back. The much-younger star of Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, Mid90s, Sunny Suljic, has to make a similar leap in order to impress his fellow skater boys. Despite the added speed of a skateboard, the result is the same, as he crash-lands on an outdoor lunch table. Seriously, kids … don’t try this at home or at school.
Nobody loves Joe … except Taylor Swift
In real life, Joe Alwyn has been going steady with Taylor Swift for two years now. But onscreen, he seems to be less of a catch, at least when he’s in period garb. To be fair, Margot Robbie’s Queen Elizabeth is totally into Alwyn’s Robert Dudley in the historical drama Mary Queen of Scots. Too bad that Robert is supposed to marry Elizabeth’s cousin, Mary (Saoirse Ronan), and she rejects him without a second thought. Flash-forward two centuries to the era of Queen Anne, and Alwyn does successfully walk down the aisle with Emma Stone in The Favourite. Their wedding night, though, is a hilarious case study in non-passion.
Sonic underground
Sega’s speedy hedgehog will be starring in his own feature film next year, but he made cameo appearances in a pair of 2018 blockbusters. Sonic was one of the many, many pop culture references included in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s parade of geekery, Ready Player One. He also popped up among the video game citizenry populating the Disney sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet.
The magical nanny diaries
When the grown-up Banks children worry that their family is beyond repair, super-nanny Mary Poppins works her magic to put them back together again. As an exhausted mother in the terrific Tully — which reunites the dynamic duo of Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman behind the camera — Charlize Theron also comes to depend on the kindness of a vaguely supernatural night nanny, played by Mackenzie Davis.
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