Yearly Archive: 2008

Garth Ennis’ The Boys is moving forward a film project but it appears adapting his Preacher series is too controversial for the screen, be it big or small.

Comics Continuum broke the story from screenwriter Mark Steven Johnson that the current management at HBO has shied away from the television incarnation.  He was told “the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial.”

The Vertigo series, co-created with artist Steve Dillon, ran from 1995 through 2000 and was an exploration into the relationship between man and God, among several other topics.  It was an award-winning project now collected into a series of trade collections that continue to sell well.

A feature film version, possibly starring James Marsden (Superman Returns, Enchanted), has been in the works as an independent feature from View Askew Productions. Rachel Talalay (Tank Girl) was attached to direct with Samuel L. Jackson interested in portraying the Saint of Killers.

HBO stepped in and announced it would develop the series for their pay cable channel in November 2006 with Daredevil writer/director Johnson attached with director Howard Deutch. Johnson initially indicated he saw each issue of the comic as an episode of the hour-long series. He reversed that position and was working with Ennis on crafting new stories when the network pulled the plug.

Lionsgate releases the first season of the CW’s Reaper on November 4.  The amusing show with Bret Harrison and Ray Wise comes as a box set featuring all 18 episodes plus the usual assort of bonus materials including deleted scenes and commentary with cast and crew.  The five-disc set will retail for $39.98.

Reaper features a slacker who discovers his soul was sold to the devil and now has to become Hell’s bounty hunter (while similar to the film Ghost Rider, they’re unrelated). The CW intends to bring the second season to the screen for mid-season.

With Freddie Highmore on board to voice Astro Boy in the Warner Bros. CGI reincarnation of the classic anime series, one has to wonder what role Kristen Bell will play.  She has recently been linked to the project along with Nicolas Cage, Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland, Eugene Levy and Nathan Lane. The movie is due out in spring 2009.

The 1963 animated series from the legendary Osamu Tezuka is being recreated by director David Bowers and screenwriter Timothy Harris.

Meantime, Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel, comes up from under the sea to lend her voice as Barbie to Michael Keaton’s Ken in Toy Story 3. The film, coming June 18, 2010, of course reunites voice actors Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as the toy’s owner, Andy, moves on to college.
 

After rumors began swirling late last week, Publisher’s Weekly now confirms that Virgin Comics has closed. The SoHo offices have been shut down, the staff let go and principals Sharad Devarajan, Gotham Chopra and Lance Leiberman have not returned attempts by the media to get details.

Virgin Comics has issued the following statement:

"Virgin Comics announced today that it will be reorganizing its operations and closing its New York office to consolidate in an LA base.

"The Company is currently working with management to restructure the business and will release its future plans in the next few weeks.

"Sharad Devarajan, CEO, said, ‘We remain excited about the business and partnerships we have built through Virgin Comics and are working towards a restructuring that properly takes the business forward. The decision to scale down the New York operations and concentrate on core activities is due to the current macro-economic downturn and is in no way a reflection on the dedicated and valuable employees we have had the privilege to work with.’ "

The comic book publisher launched a collaboration between Gotham Entertainment and Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.  Previously, Gotham had been handling translating and selling major American publishers’ titles to India.

In 2006, the company began publishing three lines of comics, largely written and edited in America with art handled by studios in India.  One line created new characters based on Indian mythology whole the other lines offered high profile talents such as director John Woo a comics venue for their creations.  Just under two dozen collected editions of the choicest material are currently in print.

Their goal, in addition to selling comics, was of course to sell movie versions and they have managed several options, most recently their one-shot The Virulents.

Virgin also entered into a partnership with Sci Fi Channel to use comics as backdoor pilots for cable channel.  Mike Carey’s The Stranded debuted in print back in January and is in active development with Carey writing the pilot script.  The recently announced Superbia from Jordan B. Gorfinkel and Lisa Klink is not expected to go forward.

Despite big names from Stan Lee to Grant Morrison to Garth Ennis being associated with the line, the titles never gained traction with the fans and tastemakers.  Their large presence at Comic-Con International this past July may have been too little too late.

Gotham Entertainment, based in Bangalore, is expected to remain in operation.

Virgin Comics is another in a long line of start-ups that have failed to succeed in either the direct sales comic book market or crossover to mass market readers.  Their Shakti line was not dissimilar to CrossGen’s own universe while their Director’s Cut imprint seemed modeled on Tekno Comics’ model of using Big Name people to bring in curious readers.  The lack of a successful marketing campaign and inability to get readers excited about the material contributed to the line’s failure.