Author: Robert Greenberger

‘Star Trek: Countdown’ Begins in January

  • News
  • October 21, 2008

IDW has released details about the prequel comic book miniseries leading into next May’s Star Trek reboot. Entitled Star Trek: Countdown, it will focus on Nero, the villainous Romulan played by Eric Bana and said to be seen at the film’s beginning set in Trek’s present before the time travel elements kick in and we see the familiar crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise unite for the first time.

The miniseries will be written by Mike Johnson (Superman/Batman) and Tim Jones from a story crafted by Trek director J.J. Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.  Art will come from Italian draftsman David Messina who has previously drawn for IDW’s Trek line.

Countdown launches in January and will run for four monthly issues with the trade collection already announced for April 29, just a week prior to the May 2 release of the feature film.

“[Star Trek: Countdown] is about how you connect the Next Generation era to our continuity, inspired by when we last saw Mr. Spock in ‘Unification’,” Orci told TrekMovie.com.

“I can assure you that we all (IDW and Bad Robot) are at work in order to be faithful to the spirit of Star Trek!” Messina enthusiastically posted at the site. “…and believe me, you can’t imagine how huge and picky is our ‘pre-production’ work for this book! Mike and Tim are great Star Trek fans, while even if I’m not a Trek’s guy, I’m a really great lover of Sci-Fi… I really hope that you’ll like our book, we are at work on it with great passion.”

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Female Black Panther to Debut in February

  • Uncategorized
  • October 21, 2008

whoisthenewblackpanther-1322101The Washington Post, this morning, broke the news that Marvel intends to cancel Black Panther and reboot the series with someone new in the totemic Panther outfit.  This time, though, it will be a woman.

The timing of the relaunch is clearly tied to Black History Month, February 2009, and current writer, Reginald Hudlin, will be back. No artist was named.

Hudlin told the Post, "Over the course of 40 issues [over three years], we … really defined the character in a way that hadn’t been done before. … Having done that, you go: "How do we up the stakes?" Marvel is great about doing really shocking changes to their character — they don’t believe in just keeping everything as status quo."

Introduced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in Fantastic Four #52 in 1966, T’Challa was the first prominent black character in the Marvel Universe and was a popular supporting player until he received his own series in Jungle Tales in the 1970s.  The current title was first written for the Marvel Knights imprint by Christopher Priest before Hudlin took over.

Under Hudlin, the Panther married Storm from the X-Men and has defended his country of Wakanda from foreign and intergalactic invaders.

He has been challenged to be the Panther in the past but this time the change appears more than cosmetic. "There will be another after him," Hudlin said of T’Challa. "In the same way that he became the Black Panther because his father was assassinated and died before his time, the same could happen to T’Challa."

Marvel’s editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada, told the paper, "It was a very cool idea. Especially thinking about the legacy of the character," he says. "The fact that this is sort of a part of the Wakandan religion, and their royal family. It was a neat approach to the Black Panther, and I think it will add a wonderful twist to everything."

"Honestly, my entire run on the series has been controversial. Which is great," Hudlin added. "All the writers I admire are hotly debated online, and I feel like I’m always in great company in that situation. But more importantly, it means that people care about the book."

"That’s one of the goals I set: to broaden and diversify the comic book audience," Quesada said. "We’re breaking that gender barrier." Of course, this is far from the first time a prominent hero has been replaced by a female version dating back to the 1980s.

T’Challa will live on in animated form as his series remains scheduled to air on BET, where Hudlin recently resigned as head, in 2009

Spike Delivers Scream 2008 Awards

  • News
  • October 21, 2008

Tonight, Spike will air their Scream Awards, which were handed out on Saturday night. In case you’d rather watch something else, here is a full list of winners:

THE ULTIMATE SCREAM                                                                             
The Dark Knight   

BEST FANTASY MOVIE
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

BEST HORROR MOVIE   
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

BEST SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE
Iron Man

BEST TV SHOW
Dexter

BEST SUPER-HERO
Christian Bale as Batman; The Dark Knight

BEST ACTOR IN A FANTASY MOVIE
Heath Ledger; The Dark Knight
 
BEST ACTOR IN A HORROR MOVIE OR TV SHOW OR TV SHOW
Johnny Depp; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE
 WALL-E; WALL-E
 
BEST ACTRESS IN A HORROR MOVIE OR TV SHOW
Liv Tyler; The Strangers

BEST VILLAIN
 Heath Ledger as The Joker; The Dark Knight

BEST ACTRESS IN A FANTASY MOVIE OR TV SHOW
Angelina Jolie; Wanted

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE
 Gary Oldman; The Dark Knight

THE HOLY S***! SCENE OF THE YEAR
-he Big Rig Flips Over; The Dark Knight

MOST MEMORABLE MUTILATION
Bitten By Vagina With Teeth; Teeth

BEST SCREAMPLAY
The Dark Knight; Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan & David S. Goyer

BEST SCREAM TO COMIC ADAPTATION
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight

BEST SEQUEL
The Dark Knight

BEST DIRECTOR
Christopher Nolan; The Dark Knight

BEST REMAKE
Halloween

BEST ACTOR IN A SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE
Robert Downey Jr.; Iron Man

BEST ACTRESS IN A SCIENCE FICTION OR TV SHOW MOVIE OR TV SHOW
Milla Jovovich; Resident Evil: Extinction

BEST F/X
The Dark Knight

BEST COMIC BOOK
Y: The Last Man

BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE
 The Dark Knight

BEST COMIC BOOK ARTIST
Gabriel Ba; The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite

BEST COMIC BOOK WRITER
Grant Morrison; Batman, Final Crisis

MOST SHOCKING COMIC BOOK PLOT TWIST
The X-Men Disband After Professor X Is Shot In The Head By Bishop; X-Men

BEST LINE
"I believe whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger" (The Joker); The Dark Knight

Seth Green Wants to Direct ‘The Freshmen’

  • News
  • October 21, 2008

"I’m gonna direct The Freshmen, which is a comic book that my friend Hugh Sterbakov and I created", Seth Green told Moviehole.  "We have two graphic novels in the marketplace, and we conceived it as a feature.  But that’ll be the movie that I direct."

"It is kids – it’s Revenge of the Nerds meets X-Men.  It’s kids in their first year of college, their first days of college, leaving the nest for the first time, awkwardly discovering their own identifies, trying to cast off all the things that have been placed on them throughout their scholastic career, and define their own identity in college.  And these kids are – you know, because of the overflow of the enrollment, they’re put into the science building, where they don’t even have permanent housing. And, you know, now this is a makeshift group they’re supposed to be best friends with, and they find themselves at a fraternity party where they are the butt of every joke and humiliated beyond their imagination.  And then they go back to the dorm and kind of mull over the notion of being trapped in this place for the next four years.  And then they are the victims of a scientific event, which gives them borderline useless superpowers.  So now in addition to being these outcasts of the outcasts, they are additi
onally alienated, with a physical deformity."

The Top Cow series debuted in 2005 and has since seen two six-issue miniseries which have both been collected plus a Yearbook and most recently a Summer Vacation Special. Despite its success as a comic book, Green recognizes that he’ll need some help getting this turned into a film.

"You know, it’ll probably need a studio for release.  My estimation is to make this movie the way we want to make it, we’ll need independent financing.  But the nice thing about independent financing is, you know, a small-budget film is $35 million these days.  And that’s about what we’d need to make it".

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‘Oliver’, ‘Pinocchio’ the Next 2 Out of the Disney Vault

  • News
  • October 20, 2008

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment is reaching into its vault for more anniversary editions.  Coming February 9, Oliver & Company will be available in a two-disc special edition. Overlooked by the snash success of The Little Mermaid, this was really the beginning of a new cycle of animation when things dramatically improved for the studio.  Based on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, the vocal cast of Billy Joel and Bette Midler signaled new times for the studio.

Oliver will come with a behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of the movie, as well as the classic Disney short "Lend a Paw," a look back at other animal characters in Disney films, and more. Suggested retail price for the DVD is $29.99.

BONUS FEATURES

Games & Activities
• All-New Game

Backstage Disney
• The Making of Oliver & Company
• Puss Café – A delightful animated short starring Disney favorite Pluto and friends
• The History of Animals in Disney Films – A Disney animated featurette
• Return of a Classic – A look at the 1996 theatrical re-release of Oliver & Company

Bonus Short
• Lend a Paw— Pluto rescues a kitten and saves the day in an Academy Award® (1941 Short Subject -Cartoon) winning animated short. 

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Terence Howards Claims Ignorance Over Firing

  • News
  • October 20, 2008

Terence Howard was interviewed on NPR recently and he addressed, for the first time, his removal from Iron Man 2.

"It was the surprise of a lifetime," he said. "There was no explanation. [The contract] just…up and vanished. I read something in the trades implicating that it was about money or something, but apparently the contracts that we write and sign aren’t worth the paper that they’re printed on, sometimes. Promises aren’t kept, and good faith negotiations aren’t always held up."

Maybe it’s something personal.  Maybe it’s something professional.  Or maybe we’ll never know but it sounds pretty darn final to us.
 

‘W.’ Feels “Payne’

  • News
  • October 19, 2008

Max Payne is the first video game-inspired movie in a while and it did something its predecessors failed to do, capture the number one spot in its first weekend and get reasonable reviews.

The film opened with $18 million in tickets sold, according to Box Office Mojo. It was clearly the number one film for the weekend, with Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua clawing onto second place with $11.2 million in its third week of release.

Oliver Stone’s much-talked about W., starring Josh Brolin and a well chosen cast, opened in fourth place, collecting just $10.55 million Washingtons. "For me, an Oliver Stone film about George Bush doesn’t necessarily scream big box office," Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers told the Associated Press. "A film like this is very tough to gauge, but this is exactly what I thought it would do."

In third place was the debut of the civil rights-era film, The Secret Life of Bees, taking in a respectable $11,050,000. Rounding out the top five was Eagle Eye, adding an additional $7,343,000 in its fourth week, bringing its total to $81,335,000.

The other newcomer was Sex Drive, which took in just $3,566,000. Films in their second weekend slid by about half with Body of Lies taking in $6,880,000 and Fox’s Quarantine    scaring up just    $6,300,000. City of Ember, which looks great, seems to be turning away audiences and took in just $1,725,000.

As fall settles across the country, clearly diversionary films are in order.  Payne could have easily played over the summer but is the dose of fresh air people want as they tire of the economic nightmares and political mud slinging.  Clearly, high minded efforts such W. and Bees may be Oscar bait but they may be too serious today.

Movies that have okay word of mouth and marquee names seem to be hanging on but none are doing spectacularly well or poorly. The freshest of the bunch, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, has garnered a nice buzz, is diversionary and was produced on the cheap so its haul of  $26,707,000 after three weeks means its almost at the breakeven point which is good news for Sony.

The Dark Knight is just about out of gas and its worldwide total stands at $990,869,000  so breaking the billion mark will be tough as it sheds screens in favor of holiday fare.

Review: ‘Incredible Hulk’ DVD

025195039918-z-incrdcrfu-21-2312374Ang Lee’s [[[Hulk]]] film failed because he spent too much time on the Jekyll/Hyde aspects, the very ones that inspired Stan Lee.  After all these years, people wanted to see the Hulk leap and smash things.  When he leapt, we cheered, but there just wasn’t enough of it.

Director Louis Leterrier achieved a far better balance in this year’s [[[Incredible Hulk]]] which builds on the mythos while firmly settling into the new Marvel Cinema Universe. He wisely covers the obligatory origin materials during the title sequence and then gives us a story.

Unfortunately, the story just wasn’t as gripping as we had hoped.  The film, arriving Tuesday on DVD, is largely the Army hunting the Hulk as Bruce Banner searches for a cure.  While that worked fine in the 12-page [[[Tales to Astonish]]] stories, it’s not nearly enough for a feature film.  The biggest problem with Zak Snyder’s story is that the Super Soldier formula that is now linked to the Hulk and the Abomination is clearly able to turn people into weapons of mass destruction and all the military sees is a weapon.  Not a single person in uniform saw it as anything else and frankly, we’ve seen this theme before and done better elsewhere.

The notion that Emil Blonsky is a soldier towards the end of his career, with nothing to lose, and therefore more than willing to become the Abomination is a nice way to integrate the character from the comics to the film.  But, he’s as single-minded as everyone else in the story, which is a shame.

Penn’s script lifts the Mr. Blue character from Bruce Jones’ celebrated run on the title but reveals him to be Dr. Samuel Sterns, and frankly, I just didn’t buy their connection or the way Sterns suddenly switches from dedicated scientist to Colin Clive in [[[Frankenstein]]]. The fact that in the comics Stearns evolves into the Leader complete with big green head means he’s around should the movie franchise continue so hopefully he’ll be rounded out.

As presented, Leterrier’s film is pretty much A to B to C with pauses for Hulking out and destroying things until the climactic fight in Harlem.  I’ve certainly seen worse, but had hoped for something better considering [[[Iron Man]]], released just weeks prior, showed that serious issues could be addressed through fantastic means.
 

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Interview: Bryan Talbot on 30 Years of ‘Luther Arkwright’, Part Two

  • Uncategorized
  • October 19, 2008

Yesterday, we began chatting with British creator Bryan Talbot about the creation of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, now celebrating its 30th anniversary. Today, we look at the remastered edition and more.

hofe-frontispiece-mid-1-7304433CMix: You actually went back after 20 years and did a sequel, Heart of Empire, but that doesn’t seem to resonate in the same way.  How do you view it today?

BT: I’m very proud of the story and the way I  told it. I wasn’t interested in repeating Arkwright. I wanted to use the sequel to tell a different story in a different way. Perhaps, if I do another Arkwright, I’ll go back to experimental mode and just let rip. Any sophistication in the storytelling techniques of Heart of Empire is beneath the surface, not in your face. It shouldn’t be consciously visible.

CMix: Luther Arkwright has endured and you even adapted it for BBC radio with a Pre-Doctor Who David Tennant as the lead.  Was it easy to adapt?

BT: I didn’t adapt it. They used their own scriptwriter. I sent a list of suggestions as to how they could make it work better as audio but when I eventually met the writer, after it was produced, they hadn’t passed the suggestions along. I still quite enjoyed it though. David Tennant and the other actors were great, the music and sound FX were fine. My only criticism is that it was too faithful to the original. Most of the dialogue was my speech balloons word-for-word. While these work fine on the comic page I feel that they should have made them more naturalistic for the spoken word.

Big Finish have also bought the rights to adapt Heart of Empire and Tennant has agreed to reprise his role as Arkwright but they’rehaving to fit into his now busy schedule.

CMix: There’s been talk for years about a film adaptation. What’s taking so long?

BT: That’s the film industry for you. Things seem to move at a glacial pace.

There’s always something supposed to be just about to happen, some big name writer’s become involved or a big production company is desperately interested but nothing seems to actually happen. Hollywood people seem to suffer from verbal diarrhea. About a year ago a producer got in touch with me to say how passionate he was about The Tale of One Bad Rat and how he had a director on board who loved it and so forth. I’ve never heard a thing from him since.

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‘Sarah Connor’ gets Full Season Order

  • News
  • October 19, 2008

After all the hubbub in recent weeks, it’s somewhat of a surprise to see Fox quietly announcing the full-season pickup for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Just last week, the show was given a sign of hope when additional scripts were ordered but now the full complement of nine episodes have been ordered bringing the full season total to 22.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Monday night series has seen only modest ratings in a tough time slot. Just 5.7 million viewers saw the most recent episode which sounds like a lot but in television terms is not.

Details will be formally announced Monday.  Speaking of tomorrow, the show’s blog has a post from Denise Thé, who wrote the episode and says, “’The Tower’ is the first of our episodes to be directed by a woman – the very talented Tawnia McKiernan. In the episode, Cameron fights a female Terminator – our first female-on-female Terminator fight. It’s a knock down, blow-your-hair back, jab-your-eye out (literally) fight scene. Be sure to watch closely – the arm and leg twists are not special effects! It’s also the first peek at The Turk since Samson and Delilah. The first insight into Weaver’s relationship with her daughter, Savannah. And at long last… the first time we address the mystery of who killed Sarkissian.”
 

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