Author: Robert Greenberger

Apple has announced that Warner Bros.’ The Dark Knight is the most downloaded film of the year from its iTunes store. The movie is not yet available but pre-orders have pushed it to the top of the charts according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The iTunes list also says Gossip Girl was the television series with the most Season Pass orders at $39.99 a season. Family Guy, South Park Uncensored, Grey’s Anatomy and Mad Men round out the top five.

Apple said the top songs this year are "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis and "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay. The latter’s album by the same name is the year’s best-selling album download.

Here’s the top 10 movie list and tell us if you’re surprised. We’re not.

1. The Dark Knight
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3. Twilight
4. The Incredible Hulk
5. Iron Man
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
7. Wanted
8. Hancock
9. Sex and the City
10. Kung Fu Panda

As November sweeps end and the holiday lull sets in, the networks have begun modifying their line-ups for the second half of the season.

ABC

Nathan Fillion’s Castle will arrive on March 9 with his crime novelist character coming to the aid of Manhattan’s finest when a copycat uses his novels as inspiration. It’ll lead into the spring season of Dancing with the Stars meaning it will be heavily promoted and sampled.

The revamp of Rob Thomas’ Cupid arrives March 24 with Bobby Cannavale and The Spirit’s Sarah Paulson in the leads.

Meantime, Life on Mars takes over the Wednesday at 10 spot as previously reported but when its season ends; it will be replaced with The Unusuals as of April 8. The crime series stars Amber Tamblyn (Joan of Arcadia) as a cop in the homicide division.

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When Zack Snyder took footage from The Watchmen around the world, he told journalists in every city that the film was clocking in at 2:43 and would like remain in that range.  He and his wife Deborah confirmed to Sci Fi Wire that the film is actually getting a tad shorter.

"We’re getting really close," producer Deborah Snyder told the website. "We’re at two hours and 35 minutes."

Director Zack Snyder added: "The movie’s pretty long … compared to 300, which was an hour and 58 minutes. The director’s cut [of Watchmen] is about three hours and 10 minutes long. It has even more than the theatrical version as far as the detail that gets even closer to the graphic novel."

Snyder also said, "The Black Freighter version of the movie that we’re working on — which has the ins and outs of the Black Freighter comic book woven through it, with an animated version of the Black Freighter — will be about three hours and 40 minutes.  So there’s a huge epic version of Watchmen, which will probably come out after the movie’s theatrical release, for hardcore [fans]."

The film remains on schedule for its March 6 release.

A Kennedy Miller Mitchell representative has told Dark Horizons that their report of George Miller no longer being attached to Warner Bros.’ Justice League film was inaccurate.

The website ran the report from a fan who said he saw Miller on Australia’s Sunrise Morning Show and provided quotes.  Garth Franklin dutifully reported the news which just about every genre-related website, including ComicMix, also ran. Apparently, Miller did not appear on the show and the normally reliable source appears to have misled the site.

All the rep would say for the record is that both JL and Mad Max are being “worked on” without elaboration.  Warner Bros. has had issues getting the JL made, first with tax-related issues for filming in Australia and then with a refocusing on their super-hero franchises in the wake of Marvel’s summer successes with interconnected threads creating the Marvel Universe on screen.

December 17 marks a historic moment for Vertigo as its flagship title Hellblazer reaches issue #250 — the first ever Vertigo title to do so. Vertigo has assembled some of the most celebrated creators in the industry, to ring in this milestone issue with five unique stories set in London during the holidays. It is also being billed by Vertigo as an excellent jumping on point for lapsed or new readers.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS:

Dave Gibbons is best-known for the iconic look of the best-selling Watchmen— one of Time Magazine’s 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. Gibbons’ story “Happy Fucking New Year” takes Constantine from a museum theft to a human sacrifice.

China Mieville has written stories for McSweeney’s and Hellboy; he is the author of 5 novels. His story “Ash” explores the real angels of Christmas.

Peter Milligan, author of Shade, the Changing Man and X-Statix will be taking over as the ongoing Hellblazer series writer with the next issue. His story in issue #250, “The Curse of Christmas”, follows a ghost trying to unravel the mystery of what killed him.

Brian Azzarello, acclaimed Chicago author of 100 Bullets, and Joker returns to the pages of Hellblazer. His story “All I Goat For Christmas” explores the myth of the Chicago Cubs curse.

Jamie Delano, the first ongoing Hellblazer writer (#1-24, 28-31, 33-40, 84) is back. His story “Christmas Cards” takes Constantine to a high stakes poker game.

Sean Phillips is best-known for his art in Sleeper, WildC.A.T.s, and earlier issues of Hellblazer.

Giuseppe Camuncoli’s work has appeared in Swamp Thing, Batgirl Secret Files, and Spider-Man.

Eddie Campbell is best-known for collaborating with Alan Moore on the acclaimed graphic novel From Hell and his work as writer/artist on Bacchus.

Rafael Grampa has provided illustration for Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Diesel, and ESPN-NBA Sports.

David Lloyd is best-known for illustrating the seminal work V For Vendetta; this is his third time drawing the John Constantine character.

The School Library Journal named eight graphic novels in its list of 30 adult titles that “will appeal to high school readers and provide a bridge into the vast world of adult publishing.”  The selected books had to have been published between September of 2007 and November of 2008, and were chosen by SLJ’s Adult Books for High School Students Committee made up of librarians from public and school libraries who work with teens in a variety of rural, urban, and suburban settings across the U.S. and Canada.

The eight graphic novels on the list include Lewis Trondheim’s pirate saga Bourbon Island (First Second), Lynda Barry’s What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly), Andrew Helfer’s Ronald Reagan: A Biography (Hill and Wang), Akira Hiramoto’s Me and the Devil Blues (Del Rey), Mat Johnson’s Incognegro (Vertigo), G. Willow Wilson’s Cairo (Vertigo),  Marc-Antoine Mathieu’s The Museum Vaults: Excerpts From the Journal of an Expert (NBM ComicsLit), and Howard Zinn and Paul Buhle’s A People’s History of the American Empire (Henry Holt).

Hiromoto’s Robert Johnson biography was the only Manga title on the list.

Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men) has given up his plans to direct an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches and has decided to produce it instead. Stepping in to direct the stop-motion film will be Hollywood’s busiest man, Guillermo del Toro.

Cuaron told England’s Empire magazine, “Well I am involved with Guillermo del Toro, but as a producer, not director. I think it started because I’ve always wanted to do a version of Roald Dahl’s very naughty ‘Uncle Oswald’. So we were talking to Lucy Dahl, when we got onto the subject of The Witches. Then Guillermo wrote this amazing screenplay really quickly. It won’t be like the original Nicholas Roeg version, which was a beautiful film — because Guillermo wants to do it completely in stop- motion animation. I’m excited about it- I really hope we can put it together.”

The 1983 novel was turned into a 1990 live-action film directed by Nicolas Roeg and starred Angelica Huston in the tale of a young boy trapped in a hotel during a convention of witches. Given the subject matter, it’s no surprise the charming story appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number twenty-seven.