Author: Glenn Hauman

Starz and Sony sign multi-year deal

Starz and Sony sign multi-year deal

  • News
  • January 13, 2009

Starz Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment have signed a multi-year extension of their existing agreement which grants Starz the exclusive pay TV rights to all Sony Pictures theatrical releases into the next decade.  Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Under the deal Starz has the exclusive pay TV rights to exhibit the Sony Pictures films on all of its platforms.  Additionally, Starz continues to have the rights to interviews with talent and use behind-the-scenes material from Sony’s releases that can be aired on its services while the films are in theaters.

Films under this deal should include The Grudge 3, 2012, and The Green Hornet. It’s unclear to me if this will affect movies that Sony is only listed as distributing, like Dan Milano’s Me And My Monster;  Flash Gordon, due out in 2010; and Spider-Man 4, due out in 2011, or films that they’re helping to fund, like Tintin. As we know more, you’ll hear more.

John Barrowman writing ‘Torchwood’ comics

John Barrowman writing ‘Torchwood’ comics

  • News
  • January 13, 2009

Via Kevin Melrose at Robot 6:

Actor John Barrowman is teaming with his sister Carole E. Barrowman and artist Tommy Lee Edwards on a comic strip for the next issue of Torchwood magazine.

Barrowman, as viewers of Doctor Who and the spinoff Torchwood know, plays Captain Jack Harkness, a time-traveling former con man who becomes leader of Torchwood.

The comic, which will appear in Issue 14 of the bimonthly magazine, “sees Captain Jack facing a deadly threat on a remote Scottish island, where people are disappearing one by one … To his horror, Jack starts to suspect he may know who ­ or perhaps more specifically what ­ is responsible.”

The previous issue featured a comic by Jack Staff creator Paul Grist. You can catch glimpses of Grist’s art on the magazine’s Facebook page.

Issue 14 will be available in the U.K. on Feb. 19, and in the United States on March 17.

As for me, I’m calling up John Workman, who’s been lettering all of Tommy Lee Edwards’s stuff lately, and see 1. if he’s lettering this, and 2. if we can get a peek if he is.

‘Watchmen’ settlement getting closer?

‘Watchmen’ settlement getting closer?

  • News
  • January 13, 2009

Ah, the post-holiday slump. Retailers are retrenching, publishers are getting ready for announcements at NYCC– some days it seems if it wasn’t for Watchmen news, we’d have no news at all. Luckily, we keep getting more of that.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fox and Warner Bros. are letting it leak that they are “close” to reaching a settlement in their dispute over rights to Zack Snyder’s Watchmen movie that will allow Warners to release the film as planned on March 6th.  Lawyers for Fox and Warners met Monday in the chambers of Federal Judge Gary Feess.  Warner Bros., which has already spent at least $150 million to produce the Watchmen movie, has evidently dropped its request that Judge Feess move up the January 20th injunction hearing.

 

What’s the best sign of progress? Commercials. Warner Bros. rolled out TV ads for the movie this weekend, still sticking to the March 6th release date– ironically, on the Fox network’s Sunday’s season premiere of 24.

‘Lone Justice: Crash’ debuts today on ComicMix — for free!

‘Lone Justice: Crash’ debuts today on ComicMix — for free!

  • News
  • January 12, 2009

From the creators of the Harvey-nominated EZ Street comes a hero for the ages, in the thrilling pulp adventure Lone Justice: Crash!

Lone Justice: Crash! is the new graphic novel from the Harvey award nominated team of Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley.  It’s the sideways sequel to the Harvey Award nominated EZ STREET graphic novel, also perpetrated by the Tinnell and Wheatley team. Why sideways? In EZ STREET, the central characters Scott and Danny Fletcher are attempting to create a graphic novel.  And LONE JUSTICE: CRASH! is the graphic novel they create.

 

More Obama comics

More Obama comics

  • News
  • January 12, 2009

First Savage Dragon went in with the endorsement. Spider-Man followed up with the inauguration appearance. Then Mad. Now we have the upcoming Captain Action #5 from Moonstone, where the hero actually becomes Obama.

For a hero who is already known for becoming Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, Aquaman, the Phantom, The Lone Ranger, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Sgt. Fury, Steve Canyon, and the Green Hornet, putting Obama in that pantheon is pretty darn awesome.

Madagascar Penguins double up at Nickelodeon, The Life and Times of Tim renewed

Madagascar Penguins double up at Nickelodeon, The Life and Times of Tim renewed

  • News
  • January 12, 2009

At the Television Critics Association meeting on Friday, Nickelodeon announced that they were giving the go-ahead for 26 additional episodes of the computer-generated animated series The Penguins of Madagascar, for a total of 52 episodes.  A Nickelodeon and DreamWorks Animation co-production, The Penguins of Madagascar is set to launch on the network Saturday, March 28 at 9:30 PM.  The series will air regularly Saturdays at 10 AM starting April 4.

Remember, boys… cute and cuddly…

In other animation news, HBO renewed the animated comedy The Life and Times of Tim for a second season.

‘Torchwood: Children of Earth’ to air near simultaneous in US and UK this summer?

‘Torchwood: Children of Earth’ to air near simultaneous in US and UK this summer?

  • News
  • January 12, 2009

In a somewhat off-the-usual track for news of this type, Michael Jensen at AfterElton.com cornered BBC America president Garth Ancier and asked him about Torchwood: Children of Earth, and Ancier dropped a few tidbits:

He didn’t yet have a firm air date as BBC America is waiting for the BBC to finalize their date, but he was fairly certain that it was going to be the first part of this summer, possibly late June or early July. 

He also said that not only would BBC America air the five episodes on consecutive nights as they are doing across the pond, but that they would also air in th U.S. the same day as they did in the U.K. meaning American audiences will have almost no lag time in seeing the series. (The U.K. is five hours ahead of the east coast of the U.S meaning the delay should be about that give or take). Ancier said the series might also air in High Definition, a first for BBCA.

Nice catch, Michael!

(By the way, the image is from the marvelously warped Torchwood Babiez.)

24 tickets per day per theater for ‘Spirit’? Ouch!

24 tickets per day per theater for ‘Spirit’? Ouch!

  • News
  • January 11, 2009

In the middle of a weekend movie recap article with the fascinating headline "Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson Spanked by Clint Eastwood" we come across these horrible statistics:

From Friday-Sunday, the broken-down Spirit sold about 24 tickets a day at each of its theaters.  The above stat brought to you by highly speculative movie math: take the weekend per-screen average ($515) divide by three, and then divide by the average ticket price ($7.20).

My city screams, indeed.

Braintrust question: who will be brought low?

Braintrust question: who will be brought low?

  • News
  • January 11, 2009

John Kenneth Galbraith’s dictum about the end of financial euphorias states that a previously omnipotent figure from the boom must be dethroned in the bust.

So who is that going to be in the comic book world? Who was invincible in the past that’s going to going to get knocked off him perch in the not-too-near future?

Discuss in the comments.

ComicMix Politics: Obama’s Mad, Caroline Kennedy, and Editorial Cartoons with closing papers

ComicMix Politics: Obama’s Mad, Caroline Kennedy, and Editorial Cartoons with closing papers

  • News
  • January 11, 2009

A quick wrapup of the mix of comics and politics:

* Obama meets Spidey. Yeah, yeah, everybody’s covered it by now. But most people haven’t seen Mad Magazine asking what Barack Obama will do during his first 100 minutes in office. Indecision 2008 has the sneak peek. Hint: lots and lots of cigarettes in the Rose Garden.

* And while we’re on the subject of Obama, one of his biggest boosters was Caroline Kennedy, who’s currently under consideration for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. And Caroline Kennedy’s been in comics a lot longer than most.

* Editorial cartoons are getting endangered, with newspapers beginning to fold up shop. Tom Spurgeon has a very informative write-up (boy, that’s redundant) on the problems at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and what that means for comics.

You can now go back to watching Meet The Press.

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