Author: Robert Greenberger

Joe Johnston knows how to direct adventure films but watching his growth as a director has been a pleasure. His first offering, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was a visual effects feast, thanks to his training at Industrial Light & Magic. He followed up in 1991 with his first comic book adaptation, Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer and while the movie is far better than the critical reaction or box office would indicate, it still lacked that certain spark of delight for a summer blockbuster. Over the intervening years, Joe has continued to direct films that has shown steady growth as he has more subtly integrated effects with characterization with the family friendly Jumanji and the heart-warming October Sky. It was all good training as he took on what has become his highest profile project yet, Captain America: The First Avenger.

Clearly, he has learned his lessons as the critics – both mainstream and geek alike – have raved over the film while the $65 million it earned over the weekend proves he delivered a film people wanted to see. There were many obstacles challenging Johnston so that he managed to overcome them with aplomb is quite impressive. First of all, he had to turn a brief origin story from Captain America Comics #1 into a story that was plausible for modern day audiences. He had to fill it with winks and nods to the comics continuity that has been built around that Joe Simon & Jack Kirby tale of a man being turned into a super-solider. Then there was all the spadework that was required to prime audiences for the next installment in the Marvel Film Universe, next summer’s The Avengers.

Joining me for the Saturday matinee were two neighbors who only knew the character by name so while I sat there geeking out like the rest of you over the little touches, they were thoroughly satisfied with the story from beginning to end. (I had to spend dinner annotating it for them which was a fun test of memory.) (more…)

Marvel Studios has reacquired film rights to the characters of Blade and The Punisher according to Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada. He announced this during his Cup O’ Joe panel during Comic-Con International, but cautioned the audience that this did not mean either was being put into active production.

As a result of these acquisitions from New Line Cinema and Lionsgate, respectively, this leaves the X-Men, Ghost Rider, and Fantastic Four franchises still under 20^th Century-Fox control while Sony continues to produce Spider-Man films. A Ghost Rider sequel with Nicholas Cage returning as Johnny Blaze is in the works while a reboot of the FF is in pre-production. X-Men: First Class performed so well this summer sequels are already on order.

Marvel has indicated that as the first cycle of films based on their best known heroes chugs along, the focus is shifting to their lesser known characters, most likely leading off with Doctor Strange and Edger Wright’s Ant-Man. At present, none of these projects have been given release dates meaning they are far off.

At the Marvel Television panel conducted by their VP Jeph Loeb, it was shown that the ABC pilot for Alias Jessica Jones continues to move through the production process, and would include Luke Cage in the supporting cast. Cloak & Dagger is also in development for ABC Family.

2012 will see The Avengers on May 3 followed by Amazing Spider-Man over July 4 weekend with 2013 already ticketed to screen Iron Man 3 and Thor 2. Beyond that, the calendar and options remain wide open even though lead actors including Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Samuel L. Jackson are signed for multi-picture deals. Evans, for example, has a nine picture deal with Captain America and The Avengers only covering two of the nine.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night played for about three weeks in the spring and is being released Tuesday by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Blu-ray. In an exclusive conversation with ComicMix, director Kevin Munroe talked about the experience.

Munroe first came to attention with his revival of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, released in 2007 as TMNT and is absolutely no stranger to comics. “Yeah, I think I started with Sgt. Rock and then the European titles which I read growing up on the east coast of Canada. I read Tin Tin, Lucky Luke, Asterix then discovered Plastic Man, “he said.

An avid comic book fan, Munroe became an artist and found work storyboarding episodes of Nickelodeon’s Hey Arnold! before scripting and producing ABC Family’s Christmas special Donner. Comics weren’t far from his mind, though as he wound up writing Dark Horse Comics’ El Zombo Fantasma, with Dave Wilkins. His other comics work includes Olympus Heights from IDW.

Given his work with Dark Horse, Munroe found himself in consideration for the director’s chair at a fortuitous time. “That was happenstance,” he admitted. “I heard of the project, while doing my own project for Dark Horse. I saw they had just done the first issue of the American edition of Dylan Dog and I picked it up. The series had everything I liked about comics.”

His fan interests certainly informed his career choices and he’s perfectly happy finding ways to adapt comics to the screen. “I think comics are such rich world and it’s just so easy to do,” Munroe explained.  “I’m a fan on a visceral level. I like how active it is to read a comic and see the pacing and hear the voices in your head. Personally, I get a kick out of it. Where are the best stories being told? In comics. Who has the best characters? They take their time; create an entire world and mythos.” (more…)

Italy’s Dylan Dog is interesting in that it is one of the first foreign comics adapted by Americans for the big screen. With the video release of the little seen feature film coming July 26, we were given to consider the foreign comics we know as readers and may have never seen the film versions. The first adaptation of Dylan Dog was a homegrown effort, 1994’s Dellamorte Dellamore (known in English as Cemetery Man or Of Death and Love) from director Michele Soavi.

Other countries have tried their hand at adapting their homegrown comics as films, with about the same level of fidelity and success as most American attempts. For example, there the dreadful 1966 movie based on Peter O’Donnell’s brilliant Modesty Blaise. Not to be outdone in awfulness, America tried their hand at a prime time series, starring Ann Turkel. The 1982 ABC pilot aired and got some reasonable reviews but Americanizing it robbed the show of its charm. The direct-to-video My Name is Modesty, released in 2004, was far worse.

America didn’t do any better with Britain’s beloved Judge Dredd. Danny Cannon and Sylvester Stallone share credit for ruining a wonderful concept with their ham-fisted 1995 feature film.

Italy’s Danger: Diabolik was turned into a 1968 feature film from horromeister Mario Bava based on the Italian comic character Diabolik, a 1962 creation by Angela and Luciana Giussani. The film is noteworthy simply because it was bad enough to be used as the final episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

More iconic was the 1968 film from director Roger Vadim, based on Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella. Starring Jane Fonda, it was psychedelic and campy and tremendous fun. Maybe that’s why attempts at a remake have stalled; hitting those notes is a trick most filmmakers today struggle with. John Philip Law deserves credit for appearing in both Diabolik and Barbarella in this year, showing his agent had no taste.

Maybe they should just faithfully adapt the source material much as the successful series about everyone’s favorite Gaul, Asterix, who has starred in 11 films since 1967.

They all could have taken lessons from Japan which pays a lot more fealty to the source material when adapting manga to anime or film to manga. A prime example is the seven films based on Lone Wolf and Cub. The first screened in America in the 1980s under the title Sword of Vengeance, just as comics fans were being introduced to First Comics’ editions of the classic tale. Shogun Assassin, also shown in the US, took the first film and a chunk of the second and for people unfamiliar with the concept, as I was when I screened it for Fangoria, it was eye-opening.  Known as the Baby Cart series, they launched in 1972 and remained revered.

Of course, Belgium’s Tin Tin will take his turn this winter but that’s a story for another day.

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers presented their 2011 Scribe Awards during Friday’s Comic-Con International Acitivities. The winners announced by co-found Max Allan Collins are:

Best General Original Novel: [[[Saving Grace: Tough Love]]] by Nancy Holder
Best Speculative Original Novel: [[[Warhammer: Bloodborn: Ulrika the Vampire]]] by Nathan Long
Best Adaptation: [[[The Wolfman]]] by Jonathan Maberry
Best Young Adult Novel: [[[Dungeons & Dragons: Aldwyn’s Academy]]] by Nathan Meyer

This is the second time Long has won a Scribe for his work in the Warhammer franchise.

Also, the IAMTW gave their Faust Award to Peter David, naming him a Grandmaster, following in the footsteps of Alan Dean Foster, Keith DeCandido, and William Johnston. David was grilled by Collins for a lively discussion in front of a packed room.