Have Marvel *AND* Warner/DC's movie plans been revealed and/or challenged... in Albuquerque?
Hey there! Now that we've all survive The Holiday, here's a new one from the "Probably-Nothing-But-Maybe-Everything" file...
AICN has confirmed that a local newspaper, The Albuquerque Journal, ran a story Christmas Eve about some New Mexico area filmming going on for "The Avengers." The print-only version of the story offhandedly - as though the writer believed it to already be common-knowledge - described the film's plot... and if what they printed is true (unsourced and as-yet unconfirmed) it's not only a HUGE reveal for "Avengers" but could also be an impending preview of the all-time biggest, longest-running "feud" between comics' biggest companies spilling over into Hollywood.
Article and possible-spoilage HERE, details after the jump:
Okay. The article describes the movie thusly: "'The Avengers" script will blend 'Iron Man', 'Thor', and 'Captain America: The First Avenger' story lines as the Avengers battle with two alien races, the Skrulls and the Kree."
For those unfamiliar: The Skrulls and The Kree are aliens in the vein of Original Star Trek (think Klingons and Vulcans, roughly) who both started out in Fantastic Four but quickly became "everybody's problem" universe-wide. Skrulls are oldschool pulp-style Little Green Men (though sometimes not so little) who can shape-shift to disguise themselves as people or animals; Kree are super-advanced and look mostly human, save that the "important" ones come in blue. The two races are in a state of perpetual intergalactic war, which infrequently spills-over onto Earth. Such a spill-over was the subject of the first major multi-issue Avengers epic, "The Kree-Skrull War." (Which you can find in trade for not much cash here and there, and is a great "intro to superhero epics" book, incidentally.)
The Skrulls being in the movie wouldn't be a huge surprise. They're THE big alien-invader threat in Marvel continuity, and a (significantly-less-interesting) version of them were the "big bads" of the first volumes of "The Ultimates" - the grim n' gritty Avengers reworking that's purportedly been serving as a rough outline (though thankfully not in terms of design or characterization) for Avengers movie-setup. They also typically figure in the backstory of That POSSIBLE SPOILER from "Captain America" that was shown to Comic-Con audiences. FWIW, I'm very much "with" the school of thought that says a huge threat in the vein of an alien invasion would be the best concievable basis for the world's first cross-continuity superhero movie-epic; so I'd love to see The Skrulls.
But this is the first I've heard anyone ever mention The Kree being in any movie. There's a reason for that: They haven't been particularly "important" for years. So why drag them into what's already a filled-to-bursting project? Other than to get free-press by giving people like me nerdgasms, I mean.
Well, I can think of at least TWO. You may want to get comfy...
The Kree's main connection to the Marvel Universe is through the character of Captain Marvel - actually a Kree warrior named Mar-Vell (yes, really.) Captain Marvel is unique among longrunning Marvel characters in that his books have remained in publication consistently despite the fact that he's never been very popular - the Jim Starlin's work on the character in the 70s and 80s was excellent and attained a cult following, but that's about it. So why does he still exist at all? Trademark protection.
Short Version: In the 40s, Fawcett Comics published books built around an incredibly popular character also called Captain Marvel. How popular was he? At the time, he was MUCH more popular than his predecessor, Superman (fun fact: Captain Marvel, aka The Big Red Cheese, could actually fly, instead of merely jumping high, before Superman could.) In fact, it's been argued (rather persuasively) that the character would've remained bigger than Superman right up to today... except that DC Comics sued Fawcett (and many others) arguing that various superheroes were ripoffs of Superman. Fawcett lost, stopped published Captain Marvel books and ultimately went out of business. In the 60s, Marvel Comics noted that the now-defunct Fawcett's trademark on the (still-recognizable) name "Captain Marvel" had run out; and they quickly created the Mar-Vell character in order to snap it up.
Okay, Maybe Not-So-Short Version: In the 70s, DC bought the publication rights to Fawcett's characters and added them to their universe, creating a copyright-law boondoggle: While DC owns the copyright on the Marvel Family characters, Marvel owns the Captain Marvel name (for legal reasons I don't fully grasp, DC can call them Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel etc. in dialogue inside the books, but can't use the word "marvel" on the covers or ANY advertising or merchandise) - meaning that for almost 30 years DC has owned one of the most potentially-profitable superhero characters ever created (seriously, read up on his mythos. Captain Marvel is a family-blockbuster waiting to happen) but are effectively banned from promoting or advertising him. Instead, the "franchise" is marketed under the much less marketing-friendly name "Shazam!," reffering both to a wizard who gives Captain Marvel his powers and a magic-word that activates them, while Marvel Comics must continually publish some form of a "Captain Marvel" character in their own universe in order to prevent the trademark from lapsing back to DC.
Anyway, over the last few years Warners/DC has been getting more aggressive about promoting their Captain Marvel outside of the comics, most-notably in a truly awesome Justice League episode and a recent DVD Movie. And they've been trying to get a movie off the ground for years. If they did, this long-standing "fight" over the name "Captain Marvel" goes Hollywood: Even if the posters have to call it "Something Something of Shazam!" or whatever, a big hit movie could re-establish The Big Red Cheese as the One True Captain Marvel at least as the buying public is concerned - making Mar-Vell even more irrelevant than he already was.
BUT! If The Kree were to actually turn up in "Avengers" - or any Marvel Films project, really - that could potentially mean they're looking to get their Captain Marvel into theaters first. Is this an indicator of that? Could Marvel Studios be looking to cock-block Warners/DC by slipping Mar-Vell into "Avengers?" It'd certainly be an amusing turn of events.
ON THE OTHER HAND...
Mar-Vell also had a distaff counterpart (aka "girl version"), Ms. Marvel, who turned out to be more popular than him and has become an Avengers-family fixture over the last decade and change thanks to a revival by fans-turned-writers. Quick primer: Mar-Vell's human ladyfriend Carol Danvers gets Mar-Vell style superpowers from a Kree-related accident and becomes what amounts to a Marvel-version of Wonder Woman. For the longest time she was mostly remembered for a truly asinine story in Avengers #200 where she was kidnapped, raped and impregnated with a clone of her supervillain rapist - which then speed-aged into an adult that she fell in love with (really); and for being the character whom power-absorbing X-Men villainess-turned-hero Rogue took her flight and strength powers from.
Marvel has been promoting the hell out of a restored-to-proper-stature (they've been trying to walk back from Avengers #200 for decades now) Ms. Marvel by making her a mainstay of the newer Avengers teams; and it seems to have paid off for them in terms of a saleable character. At this point the "Avengers" movie lineup is pretty-much a sausagefest save for Black Widow; so maybe The Kree are a way for famously female-friendly writer/director Joss Whedon to get another Marvel Lady into the franchise? That actually sounds more likely...
Of course, there's also the THIRD option: That the person writing the story for the Alburquerque Journal googled a bunch of Avengers-related stuff for the article and the Kree/Skrull stuff got mixed in by accident, have nothing actually to do with the movie, and I've just wasted a shitload of your and my time.
Happy post-holidays!
AICN has confirmed that a local newspaper, The Albuquerque Journal, ran a story Christmas Eve about some New Mexico area filmming going on for "The Avengers." The print-only version of the story offhandedly - as though the writer believed it to already be common-knowledge - described the film's plot... and if what they printed is true (unsourced and as-yet unconfirmed) it's not only a HUGE reveal for "Avengers" but could also be an impending preview of the all-time biggest, longest-running "feud" between comics' biggest companies spilling over into Hollywood.
Article and possible-spoilage HERE, details after the jump:
Okay. The article describes the movie thusly: "'The Avengers" script will blend 'Iron Man', 'Thor', and 'Captain America: The First Avenger' story lines as the Avengers battle with two alien races, the Skrulls and the Kree."
For those unfamiliar: The Skrulls and The Kree are aliens in the vein of Original Star Trek (think Klingons and Vulcans, roughly) who both started out in Fantastic Four but quickly became "everybody's problem" universe-wide. Skrulls are oldschool pulp-style Little Green Men (though sometimes not so little) who can shape-shift to disguise themselves as people or animals; Kree are super-advanced and look mostly human, save that the "important" ones come in blue. The two races are in a state of perpetual intergalactic war, which infrequently spills-over onto Earth. Such a spill-over was the subject of the first major multi-issue Avengers epic, "The Kree-Skrull War." (Which you can find in trade for not much cash here and there, and is a great "intro to superhero epics" book, incidentally.)
The Skrulls being in the movie wouldn't be a huge surprise. They're THE big alien-invader threat in Marvel continuity, and a (significantly-less-interesting) version of them were the "big bads" of the first volumes of "The Ultimates" - the grim n' gritty Avengers reworking that's purportedly been serving as a rough outline (though thankfully not in terms of design or characterization) for Avengers movie-setup. They also typically figure in the backstory of That POSSIBLE SPOILER from "Captain America" that was shown to Comic-Con audiences. FWIW, I'm very much "with" the school of thought that says a huge threat in the vein of an alien invasion would be the best concievable basis for the world's first cross-continuity superhero movie-epic; so I'd love to see The Skrulls.
But this is the first I've heard anyone ever mention The Kree being in any movie. There's a reason for that: They haven't been particularly "important" for years. So why drag them into what's already a filled-to-bursting project? Other than to get free-press by giving people like me nerdgasms, I mean.
Well, I can think of at least TWO. You may want to get comfy...
The Kree's main connection to the Marvel Universe is through the character of Captain Marvel - actually a Kree warrior named Mar-Vell (yes, really.) Captain Marvel is unique among longrunning Marvel characters in that his books have remained in publication consistently despite the fact that he's never been very popular - the Jim Starlin's work on the character in the 70s and 80s was excellent and attained a cult following, but that's about it. So why does he still exist at all? Trademark protection.
Short Version: In the 40s, Fawcett Comics published books built around an incredibly popular character also called Captain Marvel. How popular was he? At the time, he was MUCH more popular than his predecessor, Superman (fun fact: Captain Marvel, aka The Big Red Cheese, could actually fly, instead of merely jumping high, before Superman could.) In fact, it's been argued (rather persuasively) that the character would've remained bigger than Superman right up to today... except that DC Comics sued Fawcett (and many others) arguing that various superheroes were ripoffs of Superman. Fawcett lost, stopped published Captain Marvel books and ultimately went out of business. In the 60s, Marvel Comics noted that the now-defunct Fawcett's trademark on the (still-recognizable) name "Captain Marvel" had run out; and they quickly created the Mar-Vell character in order to snap it up.
Okay, Maybe Not-So-Short Version: In the 70s, DC bought the publication rights to Fawcett's characters and added them to their universe, creating a copyright-law boondoggle: While DC owns the copyright on the Marvel Family characters, Marvel owns the Captain Marvel name (for legal reasons I don't fully grasp, DC can call them Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel etc. in dialogue inside the books, but can't use the word "marvel" on the covers or ANY advertising or merchandise) - meaning that for almost 30 years DC has owned one of the most potentially-profitable superhero characters ever created (seriously, read up on his mythos. Captain Marvel is a family-blockbuster waiting to happen) but are effectively banned from promoting or advertising him. Instead, the "franchise" is marketed under the much less marketing-friendly name "Shazam!," reffering both to a wizard who gives Captain Marvel his powers and a magic-word that activates them, while Marvel Comics must continually publish some form of a "Captain Marvel" character in their own universe in order to prevent the trademark from lapsing back to DC.
Anyway, over the last few years Warners/DC has been getting more aggressive about promoting their Captain Marvel outside of the comics, most-notably in a truly awesome Justice League episode and a recent DVD Movie. And they've been trying to get a movie off the ground for years. If they did, this long-standing "fight" over the name "Captain Marvel" goes Hollywood: Even if the posters have to call it "Something Something of Shazam!" or whatever, a big hit movie could re-establish The Big Red Cheese as the One True Captain Marvel at least as the buying public is concerned - making Mar-Vell even more irrelevant than he already was.
BUT! If The Kree were to actually turn up in "Avengers" - or any Marvel Films project, really - that could potentially mean they're looking to get their Captain Marvel into theaters first. Is this an indicator of that? Could Marvel Studios be looking to cock-block Warners/DC by slipping Mar-Vell into "Avengers?" It'd certainly be an amusing turn of events.
ON THE OTHER HAND...
Mar-Vell also had a distaff counterpart (aka "girl version"), Ms. Marvel, who turned out to be more popular than him and has become an Avengers-family fixture over the last decade and change thanks to a revival by fans-turned-writers. Quick primer: Mar-Vell's human ladyfriend Carol Danvers gets Mar-Vell style superpowers from a Kree-related accident and becomes what amounts to a Marvel-version of Wonder Woman. For the longest time she was mostly remembered for a truly asinine story in Avengers #200 where she was kidnapped, raped and impregnated with a clone of her supervillain rapist - which then speed-aged into an adult that she fell in love with (really); and for being the character whom power-absorbing X-Men villainess-turned-hero Rogue took her flight and strength powers from.
Marvel has been promoting the hell out of a restored-to-proper-stature (they've been trying to walk back from Avengers #200 for decades now) Ms. Marvel by making her a mainstay of the newer Avengers teams; and it seems to have paid off for them in terms of a saleable character. At this point the "Avengers" movie lineup is pretty-much a sausagefest save for Black Widow; so maybe The Kree are a way for famously female-friendly writer/director Joss Whedon to get another Marvel Lady into the franchise? That actually sounds more likely...
Of course, there's also the THIRD option: That the person writing the story for the Alburquerque Journal googled a bunch of Avengers-related stuff for the article and the Kree/Skrull stuff got mixed in by accident, have nothing actually to do with the movie, and I've just wasted a shitload of your and my time.
Happy post-holidays!
Worst. Idea. Ever.
hat-tip: BAD
EA Entertainment, one of the most-powerful (and most-despised) entities in the video-game world is getting into the movie business - setting up a feature film based around one of their popular game series.
"But Bob... EA mostly makes licensed sports titles at this point - how can they make a movie out of any of those!?"
Answer: "The Madden Curse." No, really.
For those of you lucky enough not to be dialed-in to the annual spectacle of EA's yearly raking-in of full-priced profit off what amounts to a roster update, every year a new NFL player is selected to grace the cover of "Madden NFL." As one would expect from this unholy mashup of hardcore-gaming and hardcore-sports-fanaticism, a whole mythology has sprung up around what the cover appearance does to a player's "luck" - specifically, people think Madden cover-spots are "cursed" and that career-diminishing disaster will strike those unlucky enough to be chosen.
According to The Wrap, that's where the movie comes in: A "former Madden video-game champion" (so... a gamer as opposed to an actual player?) comes out of retirement because somehow HIS image has wound up somewhere on the box, and "the curse" is now coming for him. Apparently, it's a comedy.
Joy.
EA Entertainment, one of the most-powerful (and most-despised) entities in the video-game world is getting into the movie business - setting up a feature film based around one of their popular game series.
"But Bob... EA mostly makes licensed sports titles at this point - how can they make a movie out of any of those!?"
Answer: "The Madden Curse." No, really.
For those of you lucky enough not to be dialed-in to the annual spectacle of EA's yearly raking-in of full-priced profit off what amounts to a roster update, every year a new NFL player is selected to grace the cover of "Madden NFL." As one would expect from this unholy mashup of hardcore-gaming and hardcore-sports-fanaticism, a whole mythology has sprung up around what the cover appearance does to a player's "luck" - specifically, people think Madden cover-spots are "cursed" and that career-diminishing disaster will strike those unlucky enough to be chosen.
According to The Wrap, that's where the movie comes in: A "former Madden video-game champion" (so... a gamer as opposed to an actual player?) comes out of retirement because somehow HIS image has wound up somewhere on the box, and "the curse" is now coming for him. Apparently, it's a comedy.
Joy.
Is THIS the story of the Spidereboot?
Comicbookmovie has what most are calling a not-terribly-reliable post up supposedly outlining the Spider-Man Reboot. Hopefully phony, because it's pretty terrible - reading like nothing so much as John Byrne's "Spider-Man: Chapter One" debacle.
Details (potential spoilers - if they can be called that) after the jump...
The important stuff, briefly:
- No described "origin" scene, but it's a reboot anyway: high-school setting, new status-quo, loads of flashbacks adding to the backstory, but he's already Spider-Man as it opens.
- One "named" baddie, Lizard, but references and teases about others. Nels Van Adder and Norman Osborn are onhand but not "powered" as yet.
- New "mission statement" for Spider-Man involving solving cold-cases.
- Flashback-driven "B-Story" involving, as reported previously, Peter Parkers dead parents. The piece is vauge, but they seem to be either spies, cops or some sort of activists.
- Flashbacks and sequel-tease finale set up Osborn as already being the "man behind the curtain" of all the badness, much like he's been over the past decade of comic continuity.
- Y'know that stupid, ill-advised "twist" they always end up adding to hero/villain relationships like in Burton's Batman, Daredevil, Spider-Man 3 etc that NEVER works? Yeah, it pulls a version of that.
All or most of this is almost-certainly fake... but whaddaya want, it's a slow news week.
Details (potential spoilers - if they can be called that) after the jump...
The important stuff, briefly:
- No described "origin" scene, but it's a reboot anyway: high-school setting, new status-quo, loads of flashbacks adding to the backstory, but he's already Spider-Man as it opens.
- One "named" baddie, Lizard, but references and teases about others. Nels Van Adder and Norman Osborn are onhand but not "powered" as yet.
- New "mission statement" for Spider-Man involving solving cold-cases.
- Flashback-driven "B-Story" involving, as reported previously, Peter Parkers dead parents. The piece is vauge, but they seem to be either spies, cops or some sort of activists.
- Flashbacks and sequel-tease finale set up Osborn as already being the "man behind the curtain" of all the badness, much like he's been over the past decade of comic continuity.
- Y'know that stupid, ill-advised "twist" they always end up adding to hero/villain relationships like in Burton's Batman, Daredevil, Spider-Man 3 etc that NEVER works? Yeah, it pulls a version of that.
All or most of this is almost-certainly fake... but whaddaya want, it's a slow news week.
Don't Ask Don't Tell Repealed
It's a Christmas miracle! Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats actually did something!
The bill still needs to be signed by the President, after which there will be a (likely lengthy) process of the administration's military leadership "certifying" that servicepeople will not be unduly effected by it (read: if you're in the army/navy/etc you'll be taking a tedious "sensitivity training" course and checking off some paperwork sometime next year) and after THAT 60 day waiting period - but eventually it will be, for the first time in American history, possible for gay and lesbian citizens to serve openly in the armed forces...
...you know, like they do almost everywhere ELSE in the civilized world. Hey, America? Remember when we used to do this stuff early!?
Three things stick out about this to me:
1. John McCain, you're cool-points are hereby taken away. You don't get the be the one decent Republican anymore.
2. Joe Lieberman... it seriously kills me to have to say this, given how long I've had to count you as very close to a literal enemy... but you did good here. You may take a small portion of the cool-points formerly belonging to your friend Senator McCain - subject to immediate revocation the second you open your mouth about video games again, of course.
3. It looks like maybe Scott Brown isn't going to run for president in 2012, after all. Brown is the Republican senator from Massachusetts who made big news by sweeping into Ted Kennedy's former seat. He did so partly by feigning in the direction of the make-believe "libertarians" in the Tea Party, then promptly having absolutely nothing to do with them the minute he won. It's been widely assumed he's planning a presidential run in the future, and that he may opt to do it sooner than later if Victoria Kennedy (Ted's widow) challenges him for the seat next election.
What's significant about that is that any smart political operator (and Brown, an ambitious guy, has plenty of those working for him) knows that A.) any gay-rights victory is going to fuel MASSIVE outrage in the Republicans' religious-nutcase base and B.) any Republican candidate who wants to make it out of the primaries needs said religious-nutcases to like him. So either Brown (who's made no secret of his social-liberalism) is hopelessly optimistic about the likely relative-intelligence of voters two years from now OR he's gonna bide his time and let his good buddy Mitt Romney be the "RINO" that Palin and Huckabee team up to curb-stomp in the 2012 primary, thus ensuring a teabagger-approved candidate and a 2nd term for Obama.
The bill still needs to be signed by the President, after which there will be a (likely lengthy) process of the administration's military leadership "certifying" that servicepeople will not be unduly effected by it (read: if you're in the army/navy/etc you'll be taking a tedious "sensitivity training" course and checking off some paperwork sometime next year) and after THAT 60 day waiting period - but eventually it will be, for the first time in American history, possible for gay and lesbian citizens to serve openly in the armed forces...
...you know, like they do almost everywhere ELSE in the civilized world. Hey, America? Remember when we used to do this stuff early!?
Three things stick out about this to me:
1. John McCain, you're cool-points are hereby taken away. You don't get the be the one decent Republican anymore.
2. Joe Lieberman... it seriously kills me to have to say this, given how long I've had to count you as very close to a literal enemy... but you did good here. You may take a small portion of the cool-points formerly belonging to your friend Senator McCain - subject to immediate revocation the second you open your mouth about video games again, of course.
3. It looks like maybe Scott Brown isn't going to run for president in 2012, after all. Brown is the Republican senator from Massachusetts who made big news by sweeping into Ted Kennedy's former seat. He did so partly by feigning in the direction of the make-believe "libertarians" in the Tea Party, then promptly having absolutely nothing to do with them the minute he won. It's been widely assumed he's planning a presidential run in the future, and that he may opt to do it sooner than later if Victoria Kennedy (Ted's widow) challenges him for the seat next election.
What's significant about that is that any smart political operator (and Brown, an ambitious guy, has plenty of those working for him) knows that A.) any gay-rights victory is going to fuel MASSIVE outrage in the Republicans' religious-nutcase base and B.) any Republican candidate who wants to make it out of the primaries needs said religious-nutcases to like him. So either Brown (who's made no secret of his social-liberalism) is hopelessly optimistic about the likely relative-intelligence of voters two years from now OR he's gonna bide his time and let his good buddy Mitt Romney be the "RINO" that Palin and Huckabee team up to curb-stomp in the 2012 primary, thus ensuring a teabagger-approved candidate and a 2nd term for Obama.
Jessica Jones to TV?
Sez Variety, Marvel/ABC are turning Brian Bendis' seminal new-millenium mature-audiences Marvel series "Alias" into a TV series. For obvious reasons, it's been retitled "AKA Jessica Jones."
This is actually really interesting... but a betting man would have to lay money against it actually working out.
Okay, here's the thing: The keyword when talking about Marvel or DC characters, even "sideline" ones like Jessica Jones, is insularity. Continuity-driven "universe" comics are insular to the point that certain characters can only exist within them.
Quick example: Batman works on his own. You can yank his origin, m.o. and "look" out of connection to anything else in his or anyone else's books and "Batman: The Concept" is still unique and holds up. On the other hand, The Punisher - demonstrably - doesn't. Taken on his own - devoid of connection to anything else in the Marvel Universe - Punisher is just Mack Bolan in a funny shirt, another one of a thousand wronged-urban-vigilantes clogging up the cineplex and Popular Fiction shelf. What makes Punisher interesting as a concept is putting someone like that in the Superhero realm; having a no-nonsense gun-toting vigilante suddenly show up in a world where crimefighting otherwise takes the form of guys in colorful spandex bonking crooks on the head and dropping them off at Police HQ. He's a genre-commentary character. Metafiction.
So is Jessica Jones.
For the uninitiated, the hook of "Alias" has Jones as a minor/mostly-forgotten (re: retconned into existance) Silver Age superheroine who quit the biz after a particularly horrific encounter with a supervillain (kidnapping, imprisonment, sexual-assault and mind-rape - "Alias" was a mature-audiences-but-still-in-continuity book) who presently works as a private eye. It was a damn good book, and she's remained a pretty solid character over the last decade in a broad story-arc of her "re-integrating" into the costumed-heroine life.
In other words, she's another genre-immigrant a'la Punisher: "What's it like for a standard-issue (if gender-inverted) Spillane-style bitter/jaded/self-hating/scarred gumshoe character to operate in the same world as Spider-Man etc?" That's pretty much the whole appeal of the book: Having this more "real" character type as a fresh perspective on the usual superhero stuff, and alternately seeing various superpowered types filling the roles of "old buddy," "best galpal," "last-minute booty-call," etc. Take all the Marvel Universe trappings away and, however well written, and there's not much to differentiate her from, say, Olivia Benson or Kate Beckett, just off the top of my head?
So the question becomes: Exactly how far do they carry this? Would a network "go-ahead" with a prime-time series built around a hard-bitten, all-business female lead... who's prone to bumping into (and on semi-regular speaking-terms with) caped-crusaders, aliens and all manner of costumed oddities? ABC/Disney and Marvel are under the same roof now, so they could do it and even use (some) of the "real ones" if they did... but would they? "I'm looking into an assault case. Suspects include an unemployed construction worker, a car salesman and a 7'10 Russian hitman dressed like a rhinocerous." I'd watch it, but would it ever get to air? Or will it just be a Marvel-branded "lady detective" show?
This is actually really interesting... but a betting man would have to lay money against it actually working out.
Okay, here's the thing: The keyword when talking about Marvel or DC characters, even "sideline" ones like Jessica Jones, is insularity. Continuity-driven "universe" comics are insular to the point that certain characters can only exist within them.
Quick example: Batman works on his own. You can yank his origin, m.o. and "look" out of connection to anything else in his or anyone else's books and "Batman: The Concept" is still unique and holds up. On the other hand, The Punisher - demonstrably - doesn't. Taken on his own - devoid of connection to anything else in the Marvel Universe - Punisher is just Mack Bolan in a funny shirt, another one of a thousand wronged-urban-vigilantes clogging up the cineplex and Popular Fiction shelf. What makes Punisher interesting as a concept is putting someone like that in the Superhero realm; having a no-nonsense gun-toting vigilante suddenly show up in a world where crimefighting otherwise takes the form of guys in colorful spandex bonking crooks on the head and dropping them off at Police HQ. He's a genre-commentary character. Metafiction.
So is Jessica Jones.
For the uninitiated, the hook of "Alias" has Jones as a minor/mostly-forgotten (re: retconned into existance) Silver Age superheroine who quit the biz after a particularly horrific encounter with a supervillain (kidnapping, imprisonment, sexual-assault and mind-rape - "Alias" was a mature-audiences-but-still-in-continuity book) who presently works as a private eye. It was a damn good book, and she's remained a pretty solid character over the last decade in a broad story-arc of her "re-integrating" into the costumed-heroine life.
In other words, she's another genre-immigrant a'la Punisher: "What's it like for a standard-issue (if gender-inverted) Spillane-style bitter/jaded/self-hating/scarred gumshoe character to operate in the same world as Spider-Man etc?" That's pretty much the whole appeal of the book: Having this more "real" character type as a fresh perspective on the usual superhero stuff, and alternately seeing various superpowered types filling the roles of "old buddy," "best galpal," "last-minute booty-call," etc. Take all the Marvel Universe trappings away and, however well written, and there's not much to differentiate her from, say, Olivia Benson or Kate Beckett, just off the top of my head?
So the question becomes: Exactly how far do they carry this? Would a network "go-ahead" with a prime-time series built around a hard-bitten, all-business female lead... who's prone to bumping into (and on semi-regular speaking-terms with) caped-crusaders, aliens and all manner of costumed oddities? ABC/Disney and Marvel are under the same roof now, so they could do it and even use (some) of the "real ones" if they did... but would they? "I'm looking into an assault case. Suspects include an unemployed construction worker, a car salesman and a 7'10 Russian hitman dressed like a rhinocerous." I'd watch it, but would it ever get to air? Or will it just be a Marvel-branded "lady detective" show?
Water For Elephants
"I'm-sure-it's-profound-in-context title?" Check. "Old-man-recalls-golden-age-of-bygone-cultural-relic" plot structure? Check. Young man of promise fleeing for "real world" in quirky/semi-seedy profession? Check. Love triangle with broken-blossom and possessive husband? Check. Best actor in ensemble playing the bad guy? Check. "Based on the acclaimed novel?" Check. This is what people mean when they say Oscar Bait is it's own genre.
Question for people who read the book: Is the lead guy mute and/or non-speaking? Or are they avoiding Pattinson's (up to this point, anyway) famously-wooden delivery by simply not showing him talking hardly AT ALL in the movie he STARS IN.
Y'know what's kind-of funny? If Waltz wasn't in the trailer, it would totally look like the hero was fighting over the girl with the horse.
Question for people who read the book: Is the lead guy mute and/or non-speaking? Or are they avoiding Pattinson's (up to this point, anyway) famously-wooden delivery by simply not showing him talking hardly AT ALL in the movie he STARS IN.
Y'know what's kind-of funny? If Waltz wasn't in the trailer, it would totally look like the hero was fighting over the girl with the horse.
Berlin man CURED of HIV
hat-tip: Gizmodo
You may wish to take note of your immediate surroundings, as this may end up being one of those "where were you when _____?" dates. Doctors in Germany have, evidently, cured a man of HIV.
The technique? In brief, they obliterated his entire immune system with chemotherapy, they replaced it with a new one using stem cells from a donor who had been born with nigh-total immunity to HIV. It's a radical procedure, which most patients don't survive, but this guy did.
I was in my house, editing a video, incidentally.
You may wish to take note of your immediate surroundings, as this may end up being one of those "where were you when _____?" dates. Doctors in Germany have, evidently, cured a man of HIV.
The technique? In brief, they obliterated his entire immune system with chemotherapy, they replaced it with a new one using stem cells from a donor who had been born with nigh-total immunity to HIV. It's a radical procedure, which most patients don't survive, but this guy did.
I was in my house, editing a video, incidentally.
Tree of Life trailer
A NEW Terrence Mallick movie?? But it hasn't even been a decade yet! Man, he's really pickin' up the pace...
Story supposedly concerns dual narratives; one spanning the life of a typical American family, the other spanning the life of Earth - as in, the planet. Yeah. So, "The Fountain" but grounded in early-60s Suburbia. He's supposed to have ordered up a bunch of FX sequences involving Dinosaurs... wonder why they aren't in the trailer? Don't tease me, Mallick...
Story supposedly concerns dual narratives; one spanning the life of a typical American family, the other spanning the life of Earth - as in, the planet. Yeah. So, "The Fountain" but grounded in early-60s Suburbia. He's supposed to have ordered up a bunch of FX sequences involving Dinosaurs... wonder why they aren't in the trailer? Don't tease me, Mallick...
Favreau off "Iron Man 3"
Yeah, I know I'm late. Busy time of year.
Anyway, as everyone already knows by now, Jon Favreau has bowed-out of directing "Iron Man 3."
Certainly not great news, but hardly surprising - both sides were very upfront about not getting along during the production of the sequel (re: Marvel Films insisting on the plot being reworked in order to stress Avengers/Thor/Cap continuity connections) - and probably the best thing for most involved: Favreau already has two big actioners on his plate with "Cowboys & Aliens" and Disney's big tentpole "The Magic Kingdom" (think "Night at The Museum," but in DisneyLand); while Marvel will hardly find itself short of less-expensive action directors looking to take a swing at it.
What it DOES highlight is the now-apparent fact that Marvel has decided to run their movie studio more-or-less the same way you run a comic book company; i.e. the policy seems to be: "These are OUR characters. You (directors, writers, actors, etc) can play around with them to an extent - but at the end of the day we have an editorial plan about continuity and where they need to end up."
On the one hand, you can see how that'd be stifling to some filmmakers. On the other hand... maybe it's the best way to handle project(s) like this, especially given the "fandom first" approach Marvel keeps taking on these things. They seem more interested in getting movie versions of the comics onscreen, as opposed to having their material serving as "outlines" for filmmakers to make new entities out of, basically. I mean... imagine if someone from, say, Hasbro had been able to veto Michael Bay in the planning stages for "Transformers?"
Anyway, as everyone already knows by now, Jon Favreau has bowed-out of directing "Iron Man 3."
Certainly not great news, but hardly surprising - both sides were very upfront about not getting along during the production of the sequel (re: Marvel Films insisting on the plot being reworked in order to stress Avengers/Thor/Cap continuity connections) - and probably the best thing for most involved: Favreau already has two big actioners on his plate with "Cowboys & Aliens" and Disney's big tentpole "The Magic Kingdom" (think "Night at The Museum," but in DisneyLand); while Marvel will hardly find itself short of less-expensive action directors looking to take a swing at it.
What it DOES highlight is the now-apparent fact that Marvel has decided to run their movie studio more-or-less the same way you run a comic book company; i.e. the policy seems to be: "These are OUR characters. You (directors, writers, actors, etc) can play around with them to an extent - but at the end of the day we have an editorial plan about continuity and where they need to end up."
On the one hand, you can see how that'd be stifling to some filmmakers. On the other hand... maybe it's the best way to handle project(s) like this, especially given the "fandom first" approach Marvel keeps taking on these things. They seem more interested in getting movie versions of the comics onscreen, as opposed to having their material serving as "outlines" for filmmakers to make new entities out of, basically. I mean... imagine if someone from, say, Hasbro had been able to veto Michael Bay in the planning stages for "Transformers?"
Arrr!
Below, trailer for "Pirates of The Carribean: On Stranger Tides;" the film that will answer the burning question: Can the franchise survive without that last sliver of pretense that it's anything other than a semi-annual showcase for Depp's Jack Sparrow schtick?
THOR. Trailer. Watch.
It's mostly the footage from Comic-Con with the more spoilery stuff taken out and VASTLY improved FX and color-correction, but I'm definitely feelin' it:
The absolute best thing of it, as far as I'm concerned, is that Mjolnir (the hammer) comes off both very plausible and very badass as a weapon - it can't be easy to make what's basically a "boomerang hammer" work in live-action, but Brannagh etc seem to be pulling it off. I'm psyched to see how it plays to a theater.
Well played, Marvel. Now bring on Cap!
The absolute best thing of it, as far as I'm concerned, is that Mjolnir (the hammer) comes off both very plausible and very badass as a weapon - it can't be easy to make what's basically a "boomerang hammer" work in live-action, but Brannagh etc seem to be pulling it off. I'm psyched to see how it plays to a theater.
Well played, Marvel. Now bring on Cap!
It's Hammer Time (sorry...)
The expectation is that the first trailer for "Thor" will be in front of "Tron: Legacy" next week, but Marvel has already let the first teaser poster out of the bag.The big question hovering over "Thor" has been how, exactly, they plan on selling the most bizzarely-premised superhero yet put to film (in brief: The Viking God of Thunder comes to Earth, takes up crimefighting, makes friends with Iron Man and Captain America) to a mainstream audience that generally hasn't heard of him. Whereas Hulk and Captain America are already familiar (or recognizable, at least) and Iron Man is fairly self-explanatory ("Oh, he's got armor. I get it."), Thor is Lee/Kirby nerd-weirdness personified: "Wouldn't it be awesome if creatures from Norse Mythology showed up here and now and started busting stuff up?" is an instant-win pitch... to the audience that's already going to see this. How do you get everyone else excited? The answer appears to be: gradually.
The start black background says "whatever this is, it's serious." The high-contrast black and white says "hey, weren't Sin City and 300 awesome!?" The eye-line direction from the head (beard, Jesus-hair) and armored-arm says "LOTR, Braveheart, Gladiator, 300 again" ending in the hammer that says "wait... he has a HAMMER? That's... new." And then the color-popped red cape says "Superman? Oh! It's a superhero... with armor and a hammer? So... Super-Gladiator?" The hope, one assumes, is for people to be mildly intrigued enough to go "Ooooh, that's what that was!" when they see the trailer not long afterwards.
The start black background says "whatever this is, it's serious." The high-contrast black and white says "hey, weren't Sin City and 300 awesome!?" The eye-line direction from the head (beard, Jesus-hair) and armored-arm says "LOTR, Braveheart, Gladiator, 300 again" ending in the hammer that says "wait... he has a HAMMER? That's... new." And then the color-popped red cape says "Superman? Oh! It's a superhero... with armor and a hammer? So... Super-Gladiator?" The hope, one assumes, is for people to be mildly intrigued enough to go "Ooooh, that's what that was!" when they see the trailer not long afterwards.
untransformative
Below, the teaser for "Transformers 3: Dark of The Moon." (seriously?)
So... I'm confused. Why is the music telling me that Apollo 11 finding Transformers on The Moon is some kind of big surprise? I'm not going to go back and watch it to check, but didn't they establish that The Decepticons' spaceship had been crashed up there for some time in the 2nd one? And wasn't the Transformers already being "among us" for a few thousand years the "big idea" of the first one?
So why the big "BUM BUM BUMMMMM!!!!" on the unconscious robot? None of the movie Transformers look anything like themselves, so it's not like it can be a fanservice character-reveal thing ("he" seems to have old-man features, so fans are already speculating on Alpha Trion or Unicron, of course.)
So... I'm confused. Why is the music telling me that Apollo 11 finding Transformers on The Moon is some kind of big surprise? I'm not going to go back and watch it to check, but didn't they establish that The Decepticons' spaceship had been crashed up there for some time in the 2nd one? And wasn't the Transformers already being "among us" for a few thousand years the "big idea" of the first one?
So why the big "BUM BUM BUMMMMM!!!!" on the unconscious robot? None of the movie Transformers look anything like themselves, so it's not like it can be a fanservice character-reveal thing ("he" seems to have old-man features, so fans are already speculating on Alpha Trion or Unicron, of course.)
"Justice" Is Coming (UPDATED)
hat-tip: io9 and Bleeding Cool
How utterly, perversely, delightfully, horrifyingly-wonderfully appropriate is it that - a mere day after it was re-affirmed that "Green Lantern" would be holding fast to Warner Bros. resolute continuity-phobia by deleting a planned Superman cameo - we now have visual evidence of... this?
Yes, "Justice League: A Hardcore Parody." Not a hoax. Not a dream. Not an imaginary story. Possibly NSFW pics and further observations after the jump...
Two things - okay, two other things - jump out at me immediately about this:
Firstly, the obvious: Because WB/DC simply doesn't have the balls (sorry) and/or vision for it, this will now go down (sorry) as by-default the BEST live-action movie version of "Justice League" ever. Seriously, mark it: The first time we'll have ever seen Superman, Batman, Robin, Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman chilling in the Hall of Justice (Watchtower?) in live-action is in a porno spoof. Hell, also by default: "Wonder Woman's" outfit (anybody recognize the performer?) is now the best live-action version of itself, too.
Second: The most surprising thing, for me, is that it's being billed as a "Justice League" spoof rather than a "SuperFriends" spoof. Is that officially the way the "mainstream" knows this arrangement of characters now. Again, memo to WB/DC: This franchise is well-known enough that they're making major-market porn of it - pull the damn trigger already.
Third... yeah, I've gotta say it:The lack of at least one more female character here is kind of a letdown, no? (see update) Obviously, there'll be more "too" this than what appears to be this one bit (it looks like a relatively expensive production, and those are usually longish - sorry) but still; "straight" porn without any girl/girl is like pizza without crust. Hell, this is probably the ONLY genre where it wouldn't be difficult to cast Power Girl...
UPDATE!
Earlier report, also from Bleeding Cool, has the cast list. I won't post the whole thing, but suffice it to say it's something of an "all-star cast" if you follow the industry - or, rather, have a familiarity with the myriad entries in the "cheeky sex industry documentary" subgenre of HBO etc. productions. That's Evan Stone (late of the "accidental football broadcast" scandal) in the Batman getup, for example.
Also onhand but not (yet) pictured: Jenna Presley as Lois Lane, Amber Rayne as Harley Quinn (not the live-action debut of the character, thanks to the "Birds of Prey" show), Tommy Gunn as "The General" and, yes, RON JEREMY (!) as THE PENGUIN (!!!) Catwoman and Zatanna round out the female cast.
This may end up being hysterical. The weak-ass title needs to go, though - or maybe it needs a subtitle... "Crisis on Intimate Earths?" "DP One Million?" "52... +17?" "Kingdom Come?" Anyone else got any?
How utterly, perversely, delightfully, horrifyingly-wonderfully appropriate is it that - a mere day after it was re-affirmed that "Green Lantern" would be holding fast to Warner Bros. resolute continuity-phobia by deleting a planned Superman cameo - we now have visual evidence of... this?
Yes, "Justice League: A Hardcore Parody." Not a hoax. Not a dream. Not an imaginary story. Possibly NSFW pics and further observations after the jump...
Two things - okay, two other things - jump out at me immediately about this:
Firstly, the obvious: Because WB/DC simply doesn't have the balls (sorry) and/or vision for it, this will now go down (sorry) as by-default the BEST live-action movie version of "Justice League" ever. Seriously, mark it: The first time we'll have ever seen Superman, Batman, Robin, Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman chilling in the Hall of Justice (Watchtower?) in live-action is in a porno spoof. Hell, also by default: "Wonder Woman's" outfit (anybody recognize the performer?) is now the best live-action version of itself, too.
Second: The most surprising thing, for me, is that it's being billed as a "Justice League" spoof rather than a "SuperFriends" spoof. Is that officially the way the "mainstream" knows this arrangement of characters now. Again, memo to WB/DC: This franchise is well-known enough that they're making major-market porn of it - pull the damn trigger already.
Third... yeah, I've gotta say it:
UPDATE!
Earlier report, also from Bleeding Cool, has the cast list. I won't post the whole thing, but suffice it to say it's something of an "all-star cast" if you follow the industry - or, rather, have a familiarity with the myriad entries in the "cheeky sex industry documentary" subgenre of HBO etc. productions. That's Evan Stone (late of the "accidental football broadcast" scandal) in the Batman getup, for example.
Also onhand but not (yet) pictured: Jenna Presley as Lois Lane, Amber Rayne as Harley Quinn (not the live-action debut of the character, thanks to the "Birds of Prey" show), Tommy Gunn as "The General" and, yes, RON JEREMY (!) as THE PENGUIN (!!!) Catwoman and Zatanna round out the female cast.
This may end up being hysterical. The weak-ass title needs to go, though - or maybe it needs a subtitle... "Crisis on Intimate Earths?" "DP One Million?" "52... +17?" "Kingdom Come?" Anyone else got any?
innevitable
The moment Summit decided it was going to bite the bullet and release Jodie Foster's "The Beaver" - aka "The Mel Gibson Unlikely Comeback Vehicle," it was all but innevitable that folks would do THIS to it's trailer...
...which doesn't make it any less hysterical. Well done.
(Watch the real trailer HERE for comparison.)
...which doesn't make it any less hysterical. Well done.
(Watch the real trailer HERE for comparison.)
Why Political Movie Journalism Sucks: Example #1,349,227
Here's the tempest-in-a-teapot quote attributed to Liam Neeson by the Daily Mail, pertaining to how - if at all - he (Neeson) "squares" the Christian background underlying the "Narnia" movies - in which he voices Aslan, essentially Christ in the form of a talking lion - with his own outlook:
"Aslan symbolises a Christ-like figure but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries." (emphasis mine.)
Pretty cut-and-dry, right? And note the specific use of the qualifier "for me" (twice in the actual article) to specify that he's speaking of his own interpretation of the character as opposed to projecting onto the books or their author.
So... how was this "reported" by Andrew Breitbart's right-wing "Big Hollywood" site?
"LIAM NEESON: C.S. LEWIS WAS WRONG, NARNIA BOOKS ALSO ABOUT MOHAMMAD"
Lesson over.
"Aslan symbolises a Christ-like figure but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries." (emphasis mine.)
Pretty cut-and-dry, right? And note the specific use of the qualifier "for me" (twice in the actual article) to specify that he's speaking of his own interpretation of the character as opposed to projecting onto the books or their author.
So... how was this "reported" by Andrew Breitbart's right-wing "Big Hollywood" site?
"LIAM NEESON: C.S. LEWIS WAS WRONG, NARNIA BOOKS ALSO ABOUT MOHAMMAD"
Lesson over.
Will There Be Multiple Villains in The SpideReboot?
I'll say one thing for Sony Pictures' ill-advised, deeply-unnecessary "Spider-Man" reboot: It's actually been fun for everyone to get to play detective again. Feels like old times.
Some of you may be too young to recall this (or you're old enough but didn't care, either one works) but prior to - well... prior to "Lord of The Rings," pretty much - movie studios didn't go kissing movie-blogger ass when it came to "geek" projects. In fact, they hid them from view as much as possible, generally regarding fandom as a collective blight whose concerns had to be dodged and "dealt with" in order to get a finished product to The Masses. There were no "accidental leaks" to geek sites, no info-dumps at Comic-Con, no nuthin'. The reporting on upcoming films was more like crowd-sourced crimesolving - fans and "spies" on sites like AICN or Corona pouring over blurry set-photos and scraps of casting-call sheets to try and determine what was going on.
Well, given that Sony seems to know they've got a guilty-until-proven-innocent item on their hands, it makes sense they've been old-school tight-lipped about it. Hence, everyone's been dusting off the magnifying glasses for old-fashioned gumshoe work - with a Google-age twist, of course....
Take, for example, this Hollywood Reporter story about the casting of Peter Parker's parents. A blurb item to anyone else, but to seasoned film-geek detectives its... well... still a blurb item, yeah - but a blurb item that MIGHT shed light on what form the film may take.
See... it doesn't really come up much inside or outside of the comics, but in addition to all his other issues Peter Parker IS technically an orphan - his birth parents died when he was a baby, leaving him in the care of (Uncle) Ben Parker and his wife May. The obvious question: WHY bother casting established actors to play two characters who depart the story entirely while the title character is still in diapers? It's not like they have a bunch of extra money on this thing (it's an $85 million "quickie" at last count) to blow on fancy cameos... so is this an indication of some sort of radical reworking of the origin story?
FWIW, in the original continuity i.e. when they were first introduced, Peter's parents turned out to have been (I shit you not) high-level top-secret international super-spies framed for treason and killed in the field. I honestly have no recollection as to whether or not that's been retconned away yet, but if THAT'S in this new movie I am prepared to change my entire anticipatory stance right-here, right-now.
Slightly more-likely scenario: The (very) early claims that most of the reboot's story was being pulled from "Ultimate Spider-Man" still hold true. "Ultimate" Peter Parker's dead-dad was a famous scientist whose miracle cancer-cure ultimately becomes - sigh... Ultimate Venom.
Brief sidebar: This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine - when someone is adapting some long-running franchise and decides to "streamline" things by cramming everyone's backstories together into a ginormous coincidence-ball. See: Joker killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, Dr. Doom was up in space with The Fantastic Four, Kingpin killed Jack Murdock, despite history being altered James T. Kirk randomly "bumps into" every single important buddy he's suppsoed to have, etc. This happens all the damn time, and it's ALWAYS fucking annoying as hell.
Incidentally, Ultimate The Lizard is also tied-in to Ultimate Eddie Brock's transformation into Ultimate Venom. Because everything ties-in to Venom. Because the primary goal when making any translation of "Spider-Man" into another medium or continuity is always, for some reason, to move more merch surrounding a middling 90s/"Dark Age" evil-doppleganger character who hasn't been interesting since his first arc ended. Egh.
But the REAL "zuh?" in the article turned out to be the casual dropping of a secondary villain name: Irrfan Kahn as "Van Atter." Who? Well, quick-digging by responders at Chud, BadassDigest and others turned up the likely answer in record time: Nels Van Adder, aka "The Proto-Goblin." A forgotten one-and-done baddie from a "flashback" story, the idea is he was the gineau-pig for the serum that later turned Norman Osborn into The Green Goblin. It made him look like Carnage with a blonde wig, because this was the 90s and every "creature" character wound up looking "like Venom/Carnage but with a ______." Coincidence? Someone's idea of a cutesy fanboy reference?
Assuming for a moment that the most-likely scenario (cute, ultimately-meaningless in-joke) doesn't pan out, this would be my... nerdy "theorizing," I guess:
1.) Peter's dad, Curt Connors, Van Atter will scientists/employees/whatever whose work and/or backstories are connected to the various experiments/accidents that ultimately create Lizard and Spider-Man. I wouldn't be surprised to see some version of Eddie Brock in there, too (Ultimate Eddie Brock's dad, Ultimate Edward Brock Sr., worked with Ultimate Peter's Dad on creating Ultimate Venom, so there's that.)
2.) Norman Osborn will either be a character in the film or frequently mentioned, and whatever stuff Connors/Van Atter/whoever are doing that turns him/them/whoever into Lizard/whatever will be heavily implied to set-up Green Goblin as the heavy of the sequel, a'la "that new guy with a flair for the theatrical" from the end of "Batman Begins."
3.) Whatever else may or may not happen, Venom WILL be teased, referenced, alluded-to and all-but assured to be "coming if you let us have a sequel or two!" That one isn't even a guess, it's a damn innevitability.
Eh... anyway, we'll know more once they start shooting the bloody thing.
Some of you may be too young to recall this (or you're old enough but didn't care, either one works) but prior to - well... prior to "Lord of The Rings," pretty much - movie studios didn't go kissing movie-blogger ass when it came to "geek" projects. In fact, they hid them from view as much as possible, generally regarding fandom as a collective blight whose concerns had to be dodged and "dealt with" in order to get a finished product to The Masses. There were no "accidental leaks" to geek sites, no info-dumps at Comic-Con, no nuthin'. The reporting on upcoming films was more like crowd-sourced crimesolving - fans and "spies" on sites like AICN or Corona pouring over blurry set-photos and scraps of casting-call sheets to try and determine what was going on.
Well, given that Sony seems to know they've got a guilty-until-proven-innocent item on their hands, it makes sense they've been old-school tight-lipped about it. Hence, everyone's been dusting off the magnifying glasses for old-fashioned gumshoe work - with a Google-age twist, of course....
Take, for example, this Hollywood Reporter story about the casting of Peter Parker's parents. A blurb item to anyone else, but to seasoned film-geek detectives its... well... still a blurb item, yeah - but a blurb item that MIGHT shed light on what form the film may take.
See... it doesn't really come up much inside or outside of the comics, but in addition to all his other issues Peter Parker IS technically an orphan - his birth parents died when he was a baby, leaving him in the care of (Uncle) Ben Parker and his wife May. The obvious question: WHY bother casting established actors to play two characters who depart the story entirely while the title character is still in diapers? It's not like they have a bunch of extra money on this thing (it's an $85 million "quickie" at last count) to blow on fancy cameos... so is this an indication of some sort of radical reworking of the origin story?
FWIW, in the original continuity i.e. when they were first introduced, Peter's parents turned out to have been (I shit you not) high-level top-secret international super-spies framed for treason and killed in the field. I honestly have no recollection as to whether or not that's been retconned away yet, but if THAT'S in this new movie I am prepared to change my entire anticipatory stance right-here, right-now.
Slightly more-likely scenario: The (very) early claims that most of the reboot's story was being pulled from "Ultimate Spider-Man" still hold true. "Ultimate" Peter Parker's dead-dad was a famous scientist whose miracle cancer-cure ultimately becomes - sigh... Ultimate Venom.
Brief sidebar: This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine - when someone is adapting some long-running franchise and decides to "streamline" things by cramming everyone's backstories together into a ginormous coincidence-ball. See: Joker killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, Dr. Doom was up in space with The Fantastic Four, Kingpin killed Jack Murdock, despite history being altered James T. Kirk randomly "bumps into" every single important buddy he's suppsoed to have, etc. This happens all the damn time, and it's ALWAYS fucking annoying as hell.
Incidentally, Ultimate The Lizard is also tied-in to Ultimate Eddie Brock's transformation into Ultimate Venom. Because everything ties-in to Venom. Because the primary goal when making any translation of "Spider-Man" into another medium or continuity is always, for some reason, to move more merch surrounding a middling 90s/"Dark Age" evil-doppleganger character who hasn't been interesting since his first arc ended. Egh.
But the REAL "zuh?" in the article turned out to be the casual dropping of a secondary villain name: Irrfan Kahn as "Van Atter." Who? Well, quick-digging by responders at Chud, BadassDigest and others turned up the likely answer in record time: Nels Van Adder, aka "The Proto-Goblin." A forgotten one-and-done baddie from a "flashback" story, the idea is he was the gineau-pig for the serum that later turned Norman Osborn into The Green Goblin. It made him look like Carnage with a blonde wig, because this was the 90s and every "creature" character wound up looking "like Venom/Carnage but with a ______." Coincidence? Someone's idea of a cutesy fanboy reference?
Assuming for a moment that the most-likely scenario (cute, ultimately-meaningless in-joke) doesn't pan out, this would be my... nerdy "theorizing," I guess:
1.) Peter's dad, Curt Connors, Van Atter will scientists/employees/whatever whose work and/or backstories are connected to the various experiments/accidents that ultimately create Lizard and Spider-Man. I wouldn't be surprised to see some version of Eddie Brock in there, too (Ultimate Eddie Brock's dad, Ultimate Edward Brock Sr., worked with Ultimate Peter's Dad on creating Ultimate Venom, so there's that.)
2.) Norman Osborn will either be a character in the film or frequently mentioned, and whatever stuff Connors/Van Atter/whoever are doing that turns him/them/whoever into Lizard/whatever will be heavily implied to set-up Green Goblin as the heavy of the sequel, a'la "that new guy with a flair for the theatrical" from the end of "Batman Begins."
3.) Whatever else may or may not happen, Venom WILL be teased, referenced, alluded-to and all-but assured to be "coming if you let us have a sequel or two!" That one isn't even a guess, it's a damn innevitability.
Eh... anyway, we'll know more once they start shooting the bloody thing.
a political cartoon
Why? Because there's no smug, hacky, creatively-bankrupt art form I won't try my hand at, that's why.
Pass around as you see fit.
Oh, and for the smarties: I quite aware that the "Gadsden Flag" dates prior to 1776, and that it wasn't flown at the Boston Tea Party, and that said original Tea Party was in 1773.
Pass around as you see fit.
Oh, and for the smarties: I quite aware that the "Gadsden Flag" dates prior to 1776, and that it wasn't flown at the Boston Tea Party, and that said original Tea Party was in 1773.
Creationists to build $150 Million monument to stupidity in Kentucky
Because, apparently, a 30-story billboard reading "WE ARE TOO DUMB TO LIVE" would be too ostenstatious...
Incidentally, YES this is getting built via tax breaks, to the tune of over $37 Million. The outcry from Tea Party conservatives about this massive waste of taxpayer money has been... um... oh, wait. There hasn't been any.
Huh.
Incidentally, YES this is getting built via tax breaks, to the tune of over $37 Million. The outcry from Tea Party conservatives about this massive waste of taxpayer money has been... um... oh, wait. There hasn't been any.
Huh.
BREAKING: "Uncharted" movie to infuriate "Uncharted" fans! Rest of world to remain indifferent!
One step forward, two steps back.
As I may have mentioned, the prospects for David O. Russell and Mark Wahlberg's "Uncharted" movie are chiefly hampered by the issue of an "Uncharted" movie being a very bad - to say nothing of breathtakingly-redundant - idea. But it seems they've found a way around it: DON'T base the movie around the "Indiana-Jones-if-he-was-a-total-douche" premise of the games. Well, that's kinda-sorta-maybe good news...
Now for the bad news. The premise they'll be replacing it with: "What-if-the-guy-from-National-Treasure-was-a-total-douche." Nathan Drake will apparently be reimagined as one of an extended family of well-connected treasure-protectors, with Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci reportedly being sought to sign on as Drake's rascally dad and uncle.
Sez Russell about the film's setup:
"This idea really turns me on that there's a family that's a force to be reckoned with in the world of international art and antiquities ... [a family] that deals with heads of state and heads of museums and metes out justice," he said."
Well, that ought to go over well...
As I may have mentioned, the prospects for David O. Russell and Mark Wahlberg's "Uncharted" movie are chiefly hampered by the issue of an "Uncharted" movie being a very bad - to say nothing of breathtakingly-redundant - idea. But it seems they've found a way around it: DON'T base the movie around the "Indiana-Jones-if-he-was-a-total-douche" premise of the games. Well, that's kinda-sorta-maybe good news...
Now for the bad news. The premise they'll be replacing it with: "What-if-the-guy-from-National-Treasure-was-a-total-douche." Nathan Drake will apparently be reimagined as one of an extended family of well-connected treasure-protectors, with Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci reportedly being sought to sign on as Drake's rascally dad and uncle.
Sez Russell about the film's setup:
"This idea really turns me on that there's a family that's a force to be reckoned with in the world of international art and antiquities ... [a family] that deals with heads of state and heads of museums and metes out justice," he said."
Well, that ought to go over well...
Culture War 2.0? Gee, who could've seen THAT coming...
From now on, when people ask me "Bob, how come a guy like you who calls himself something close to a libertarian is so dismayed by the rise of the Tea Party and the not-unrelated return of Republicans to power in the U.S.Senate?"; THIS is my answer.
I anxiously await the explanation of how getting rid a video-piece from 1987 that's been hanging without incident in the National Gallery since October became a vital component of improving the economy, or stimulating jobs, or whatever it's being called this time...
Incidentally, I'm sure someone is champing at the bit to dress me down about how this is "about" wasteful government funding of the arts, NEA, NPR, etc. Please save your breath. Whether or not The State should be funding creative works is a cute little freshman year poly-sci debate topic, but here in the real world we know there will ALWAYS be some level of state-funded art/media. It's always existed, it always WILL exist, pretending otherwise is right up there with privatized-sidewalks in the realm of psuedo-Objectivist fantasies that will never come true. Deal with it.
This isn't about art-funding, it's about the mask dropping sooner than expected on the "New" American Right. For over a year now people have been proclaiming that the "new" conservative-uprising was about taxes, spending, government-size, etc. It's NOT about religious-idiocy this time. It's NOT about God Guns n' Gays this time. It's NOT about fetuses and family-values this time. It's NOT just the Angry White Men again. It's NOT just the same backward-looking superstitious anachronistic flat-earther creationist anti-intellectualists as before sneaking back in with a fresh coat of paint.
Yes it is.
Welcome back to the Bad Old Days. Can't wait to see what The Faithful will get up to next...
I anxiously await the explanation of how getting rid a video-piece from 1987 that's been hanging without incident in the National Gallery since October became a vital component of improving the economy, or stimulating jobs, or whatever it's being called this time...
Incidentally, I'm sure someone is champing at the bit to dress me down about how this is "about" wasteful government funding of the arts, NEA, NPR, etc. Please save your breath. Whether or not The State should be funding creative works is a cute little freshman year poly-sci debate topic, but here in the real world we know there will ALWAYS be some level of state-funded art/media. It's always existed, it always WILL exist, pretending otherwise is right up there with privatized-sidewalks in the realm of psuedo-Objectivist fantasies that will never come true. Deal with it.
This isn't about art-funding, it's about the mask dropping sooner than expected on the "New" American Right. For over a year now people have been proclaiming that the "new" conservative-uprising was about taxes, spending, government-size, etc. It's NOT about religious-idiocy this time. It's NOT about God Guns n' Gays this time. It's NOT about fetuses and family-values this time. It's NOT just the Angry White Men again. It's NOT just the same backward-looking superstitious anachronistic flat-earther creationist anti-intellectualists as before sneaking back in with a fresh coat of paint.
Yes it is.
Welcome back to the Bad Old Days. Can't wait to see what The Faithful will get up to next...
