Author: Robert Greenberger

Brett Ratner is no stranger to bringing pop culture icons to the screen.  After all, he directed the third X-Men film and is attached to bringing Valiant’s Harbinger to the screen.  He’s even handling the big screen adaptation of the video game God of War. But…Guitar Hero?

Ratner told MTV News, "I would love to do a Guitar Hero movie, if Activision would ever let me. I’m trying to convince them. It could be about a kid from a small town who dreams of being a rock star and he wins the Guitar Hero competition."

Ah, something unpredictable and surprising.

Meantime, the newest iteration of the global phenomena, Guitar Hero: World Tour, complete with microphone and drum kit, will be unleashed this fall in the $200 price category.
 

Just shy of its 29th anniversary, today Lynn Johnston completes her run on For Better or For Worse.  The comic strip, though, isn’t going away nor is it exactly going into reruns.

Instead, Johnston is going back to the beginning, when the strip debuted on September 9, 1979 and is cleaning up her art and dialogue.

She’s been reaching an end point for some time now and has repeatedly revised how she intends to carry on once the storyline ends.  One thing has remained certain, she wanted to bring the characters full circle so John and Elly are now the grandparents and Michael’s children are about the same age as he was when the strip first arrived.

"All of September will be brand-new material," Johnston explained to The Washington Post. "In October, it will be [a ratio of] 50-50. The color Sunday comics will be all-new material. . . . I think it will be 50-50 for the first year, at least."

Johnston continues to work in her Toronto studio although does so after recently separating from her husband, an act she says now frees her. "I really wanted to be happy as a couple and make everything right, but things became more stressful. . . . It made me look again at my career. I thought I would now be a retired woman with my Tilley hat and sitting on a cruise ship and going to the Galapagos," Johnston said.

(more…)

With Heroes returning for season three on September 22, NBC has released official descriptions of the first two hours.

Here’s NBC’s description of "The Second Coming": "The first chapter of Volume 3: Villains kicks off moments after shots rang out, as the shocking identity of Nathan’s (Adrian Pasdar) assassin and the reasons why the Texas press conference had to be cut short are revealed–immediately throwing Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Matt (Greg Grunberg) into unexpected, uncharted territory.

"With his powers partially restored, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) decides a visit to Claire (Hayden Panettiere) could give him a boost. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) are charged with safeguarding a family secret that could split the planet apart and discover that the path to a grim future starts with shady speedster, Daphne (guest star Brea Grant).

"In New York City, thanks to Maya (Dania Ramirez), Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) makes a startling breakthrough that could change the world–or just destroy his. And who is Tracy Strauss?"
  (more…)

Apparently, Japanese audiences are more interested in the works of Hayao Miyazaki than Bob Kane and Bill Finger. The Dark Knight is performing under expectations in Japan with just $8.7 million in box office receipts after three weeks based on figures at Filmjunk.com.

Compare that with the $93.2 million Miyazaki’s Ponyo on the Cliff has earned in just four weeks.

Film critic Chika Minagawa suggests, "The story is very pessimistic. It has a dark and gloomy texture that Japanese movie fans do not find appealing in a ‘comic hero’ film… Japanese movie fans expect such films to be fun and action packed, for the hero to be attractive, for the villain to be loud and outrageous, and for the movie itself to be easy to understand and light."

The Dark Knight will break the $900 million worldwide gross receipts benchmark over the weekend and is likely to break the $500 million domestic mark in September, although possibly fall short of the $550 million Warner Bros. estimated.
 

The expected anime-to-live action parade continues in the wake of last year’s success with Transformers.  The stalled Voltron film was picked up by Relativity Media, grabbing it from New Regency which had been trying to mount the production. Latino Review now reports that Max Makowski has been signed to direct the film.  Makowski is not known for his genre credits but instead directed Taboo in 2002 and is attached as director for the feature film version of Kung Fu.

Word is, Relativity intends to use the green skin/CGI-heavy (and cheap) approach that worked so well for 300.

The film was first optioned back in 2005 by Mark Gordon and by the end of 2006, suddenly über-hot screenwriter Justin Marks delivered a screenplay. New Regency got interested last August based on the Michael Bay Transformers mega-hit. After spending a year on the project, New Regency gave up and put it into turnaround with Relativity snatching it up on August 18.

A 2010 release is expected although that is merely speculative given the lack of cast and shooting schedule.
 

My Toons is a website featuring all manner of animated works from amateurs to the classic days of animation.  They have just partnered with Vuze, one of the new online video hot spots to offer a MyToons Cartoon Classics channel featuring Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons from the Fleischer Studios.  No Koko cartoons as yet, but you can’t go wrong with this sampler of terrific cartoons.

The deal will have My Toons creating additional fare for the website in the months ahead including international fare and HD offerings.
 

“Superheroes in Asia” is the theme for eleven films to unspool at the Pusan Festival in Seoul, Korea. The event, running from October 2-10, will also feature other themes including "Ani Asia! A Leap of Asian Feature Animation 3”, “Romanian New Wave” and “2008 Asian Omnibus Collection”

According to the festival’s website, “It seems that Hollywood created super heros like Superman and Spider-Man are the only superheroes who protect our planet from the evil forces since we have gotten used to Hollywood blockbusters too much, but there are many unknown superheroes who are working double shifts for the world peace every country in Asia. Through 11 Asian superheroes in 11 films, audiences understand how the new Western genre ‘Superhero’ was introduced in historical, political, cultural and social part of Asia, and traces its transformation into Asia’s own superhero. Asian superheroes will bring not only the peace of the world but also clues about the modernization of Asia.“

Among the films will be director Bhandit Thongdee’s Mercury Man, described as a Thai take on Spider-Man; Yuri Abdul Halim’s Cicak-Man, Malaysia’s first superhero effort; and India’ s Rakesh Roshan-driected Krrish.