Category: Every Comic Eventually Gets Adapted

“Fantastic Four” Furlough: Feasible or Flummery?

The rumors that circle through the comics industry span the sublime to the ridiculous.  Some, like the death and/or return of major characters turn out to be spot on, but some make the annual spate of April Fools posts seem tame and rational. (How many times has Dan Didio supposed to have been fired by now?)

The latest hot topic, posited by the gang at Bleeding Cool, claims that Marvel Comics has plans to suspend publication of their Fantastic Four titles, both standard and Ultimate, for an indeterminate period of time.  Not due to poor sales, or pursuant to a planned relaunch, but because the comics provide too much publicity for 20th Century Fox’s film adaptations, and by shelving the titles, interest in the characters would plummet to the point that the next film would tank, and Fox would finally relinquish the rights to the characters, opening the door to a true Marvel-led reboot.

(more…)

Are We at Peak Superhero?

Mark Harris at Grantland points out that we might be hitting the mass media equivalent of the 90’s comic glut:

Even as they dominate the box office, comic-book movies are approaching a moment fraught with peril. If one definition of a bubble is that everybody with an investment to protect insists that it isn’t a bubble, then we should probably take as a warning the breezy assertion of Marvel’s chief creative officer, Joe Quesada, that “We’re not the Western … The sky’s really the limit for us, as long as we as a collective industry continue to produce great material.” But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and try out a more specific definition: A bubble reaches its maximum pre-pop circumference when the manufacturers of a product double down even as trouble spots begin to appear.

That, I would argue, is what has happened in the last month, in both movies and television.

via Are We at Peak Superhero?

There’s a reason why we called our category for media versions of comics “Every Comic Eventually Gets Adapted”.

“Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” closing $60 million in the red

a_610x408-5417218

Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark will end its Broadway run on January 4, with expected losses of $60 million, the biggest loss ever in Broadway history. New York Magazine has a breakdown on the show’s costs, both financial:

$1,300,000: Weekly production budget

$2,940,000: Gross for the week of December 25, 2011, the highest one-week take for any show ever

$621,960: Gross for the last week in September 2013

and human (five people with major injuries, including one person who required amputation).

Most disturbing to me: they spent more money on props and puppets for the show than Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko has ever seen from the creation of Spider-Man.

Tickets are available now, heavily discounted if you know where to look and are willing to brave Christmastime crowds in Times Square.

via A Monetary Autopsy of Spider-Man — Vulture.

Netflix Commissions 4 Marvel Series Leading to The Defenders

david-slade-exits-foxs-daredevil-6386840Marvel’s cinematic Avengers will be joined on the smaller screen by The Defenders, the culmination of four series just commissioned by Netflix. Luke Cage, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist were announced this by Variety morning as each receiving thirteen episode commitments. The linking device is that all four series will be set in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen, which, in the comics, has been Daredevil’s base of operations dating back to the 1970s.

This rumored set of series was revealed without naming producers, writers, showrunners or casting but would be expected to debut some time in 2014. The announcement did not acknowledge if this quartet of series will be set in the same reality as the film series. If so, it would also connect these shows to ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Netflix has received great attention thanks to their original series, a move now being imitated this month by Amazon Prime and soon by Hulu and YouTube. Their House of Cards was the first internet series to receive an Emmy nomination and will be back for a second season in the winter. The pay channel’s Orange is the New Black is their most watched original series and will also be back for a second season, as will their Hemlock Grove.

Since Jeph Loeb was added as a VP for filmed material, Marvel has filled in a vital gap with live-action television, something they seemed unable to crack. Beyond these four, and the subsequent Defenders teamup project, Marvel has been said to be eyeing a Peggy Carter spinoff based on the short film with Haylee Atwell that was attached to the home video release of Iron Man 3. Other series apparetly also ebing pitched to other networks.

Disney’s Marvel movies will move from Starz to Netflix after the current dea for the studio’s output expires in 2015, just in time for The Avengers 2.

DC Entertainment aso has numerous television series in development, mostly at their co-owned CW network with the Flash expected for the 2014-15 season. Fox is also developing a Gotham City series featuring young James Gordon, long before Bruce Wayne first dons the cape and cowl.

Is Jim Starlin gearing up for a lawsuit over Thanos?

Jim Starlin has offered proof that he created Thanos, leading to speculation that he may launch a lawsuit against Marvel Comics.

The writer and artist has posted an early concept drawing of the Mad Titan from before he began working at the publisher, reports The Beat.

Interest in the character is growing following his cameo in The Avengers movie, the speculation of an upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film and the announcement of a Thanos: Son of Titan miniseries from Joe Keatinge and Richard Elson.

“This is probably one of the first concept drawings of Thanos I ever did, long before I started working at Marvel,” Starlin wrote on his Facebook page. “Jack Kirby’s Metron is clearly the more dominant influence in this character’s look. Not Darkseid.”

“Both D and T started off much smaller than they eventually became. This was one of the drawings I had in my portfolio when I was hired by Marvel. It was later inked by Rich Buckler.”

Marvel is reportedly struggling to find records relating to the period in the mid-’70s when Thanos debuted in its comics.

“This is the second film that had something I created for Marvel in it – the Infinity Gauntlet in Thor being the other – and both films I had to pay for my own ticket to see them,” Starlin previously said.

“Financial compensation to the creators of these characters doesn’t appear to be part of the equation.”

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks