Category: News

Will Smith will return as Robert Neville in a prequel to I Am Legend.  The movie, based on the classic Richard Matheson novel, did well enough at the box office, earngin $584 million worldwide, and in home entertainment sales to merit revisiting the bleak world of the near-future.

Director Francisd Lawrence is expected to return to the Warner Bros. film announced yesterday. Akiva Goldsman and James Lassiter will also be back as producers. D.B. Weiss (The Game) will provide a new script that will likely deviate further from the novel.

In a surprising move this week, DC has pulled the plug on its Minx line of young adult graphic novels. What does it mean? We examine that , plus:

• Harry Potter courts Imax
• Want to host a Star Wars House Party?
• Margaret Cho talks comics she loves and TV she does

Starting Saturday, ComicMix Radio will be broadcasting direct from the floor of 2008 Baltimore ComicCon. Look for special extended broadcasts here both Saturday and Sunday. No matter where you are, your free pass to the con starts when you  Press the Button!
 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via or RSS!

Disney announced at their major presentation on Wednesday that they have accelerated the production of Cars 2 and have rescheduled its launch to 2011.

John Lasseter told the rapt audienced that the idea for the story developed as he did worldwide publicity for the first film.  The international settings got him to wondering how the Cars themselves would react to the exotic locales. Mater and Lightning McQueen will be in a global road trip as a result.

Additionally, a series of shorts, Mater’s Tall Tales, will be produced by Pixar in additional to the full-length theatrical sequel. The shorts will first be seen on the Disney Channel and will front feature films in movie theaters.

Cars, released in 2006, earned $462 million worldwide, but despite middling reviews, became a merchandising bonanza for the studio.

As a result, look for a 12-acre Cars Land at the revamped California Adventure in Anaheim, California.  The attraction is scheduled for 2011 opening in time for the film.
 

Given the success of Pirates of the Caribbean, other pirate films were expected to come roaring onto screens but surprisingly few have gotten out of development.  The first to actually make it to the cameras may be the DreamWorks production of Blackbeard, a biopic of Edward Teach.  Mania is reporting that Bourne Supremacy director Paul Greengrass is likely to sign on to direct.

The screenplay is by David Franzoni (Amistad) which Variety has reported would take a more real world view of buccaneers complete with their treacherous ways.  Pat Croce, who wrote Pirate Soul, about the 1690-1730 era, was on board along with producer Barry Josephson.

According to Mania, the plot goes something like this: “Edward Teach is in the employ of Britain’s royal navy and fought for the queen in the War of Spanish Succession.  During that time he had a protégé who served with him as his first mate.  When Britain withdrew from the war in the early 1700’s, many men of the royal navy were disavowed.  Teach, feeling betrayed and without a country to call his own, turned to piracy.  With many of his disavowed sea fairing comrades, he took a ship and using his honed skills and intimate knowledge of the navy’s shipping routes and pots, began exacting his revenge.

“Becoming an increasing threat, the British navy directed Teach’s old protégé, now a captain, to hunt down Blackbeard and put an end to his tyranny.  For the most part the story will be based on some truth but the protégé subplot is completely made up and, if successful, will be used again.”
 

The fourth and final week of the auction to raise funds to restore Jerry Siegel’s childhood Cleveland home has begun. The auction runs through 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2008.

After two weeks, the $50,000 goal was met and exceeded.  At the conclusion of week three’s auction, organizer Brad Meltzer reported that more than $70,000 has been raised. “In every city I’ve been to, people are throwing in a few bucks, completely unprompted,” Meltzer told Comic Book Resources. “This is the week that will decide the extent of the work we do on the house. So even if you don’t bid on the walk-on part in Heroes, thanks to all who buy a shirt or donate even ten bucks to the cause. It all matters.”

The Glenville Development Corp. has scheduled September 27 as the day they clean the Siegel homestead on Kimberly Avenue. Volunteers are being sought to rake, sweep, plant flower bulbs (in red, blue and yellow of course) and paint and make small repairs to porches and the exterior of some houses.

The top money-earner has been the $14,101 bid for an illustration by Jim Lee to depict Superman and the auction winner. (more…)

Note: Click here for last week’s mystery!

Autopsy Report: "The Ghost Network"

A man named Roy is having visions of terrible accidents and attacks before they happen, including the mystery of Flight 627. When he has these "feelings," he needs to draw the visions in order to get them out of his system. His latest premonition involves a man gas-bombing a bus that suspends all the passengers in an amber-like substance. Olivia Dunham and the Bishops investigate and learn that someone was trying to obtain an item from one of the passengers, secretly an undercover FBI agent. Olivia meets with the agent’s handler, who seems distraught over the agent’s death and goes to see her body.

The Bishops, meanwhile, meet with Roy. Walter discovers that Roy is tapping into something called the Ghost Network, a theory he and Massive Dynamic founder William Bell devised that there were certain wavelengths that information could be transferred on. Roy was a test subject of theirs, and was injected with a metal compound that turned him into a receiver of this top secret intelligence network. His premonitions occur because he intercepts the transmissions agents use on the Ghost Network.

Walter jerryrigs a way for Roy’s visions to be translated in spoken word rather than through illustration. In doing so, Roy picks up a signal suggesting that the dead FBI agent’s secret item has been found and is being exchanged at Boston’s South Station. Olivia figures out that the woman’s FBI handler must have removed the item from her dead corpse. She intercepts the handler, who is then shot by the other man in the exchange before throwing himself into the path of a moving train. With the culprit dead, Olivia obtains the sought after item and hands it over.

Meanwhile, Agent Phillip Boyles secretly meets with Massive Dynamic representative Nina Sharp. Phillip is irritated that Nina is trying to steal Olivia away from his agency. He nonetheless hands her an item, presumably the same item that Olivia recovered. Nina later takes the item to a scientist. The scientist is performing experiments on a very interesting test subject: a sedentary Agent John Scott, Olivia’s supposedly deceased ex-lover.

  (more…)