IP Picks🔎: Pirates, Plunder and Politics . . . Oh My! A Fresh Take on a Legend
âž• An overlooked real-life 'Bonnie and Clyde' thriller from the '30s, a winking slasher thriller & a public domain gem
Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along.
We’re gonna jump right into the picks this week. It’s been pretty quiet on the IP front news-wise, but the picks this week are fabulous. It’s amazing how the chaos in Washington just seems to suck the oxygen out of all the other, non-political news — that includes both business news and potentially adaptable journalism.
Speaking of business news: A quick reminder that those tariffs that Trump keeps threatening to put in place on Canada and Mexico will have significant effects on the publishing business. Yes, a last-minute reprieve was announced yesterday, delaying the punitive measures for another month. But here’s something worth thinking about: The US imported $2B worth of paper last year, most of it coming from our neighbors to the north. Add to that the fact that most comics are published in Canada and lots of traditional books are published in China (another tariff target). In other words, brace yourself for price hikes on your favorite reading material as well as those made-in-China e-readers and smartphones (they’re getting slapped with tariffs as well). Fun times.
On to this week’s picks, which are heavy on period stories (three of the five). I know there’s a bias against period in the marketplace, but it always strikes me more as a bias against mediocre period. The strongest options like these will always find suitors. The full lineup:
A period action-adventure with a fresh take on a famous pirate tale
A true-life drama/thriller about an overlooked gangster from the 1930s that’s Bonnie and Clyde with present-day grifter vibes
A fun horror romp in the vein of Scream
A procedural with both drama and laughs about a washed-up cop investigating the murder of birthday-party entertainer, Chuckles the Clown
A coming-of-age drama springing from an American classic that’s in the public domain
