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Disney Teams Up With Guillermo Del Toro – is this how Dr. Strange will appear?

  • News
  • September 11, 2009

Put the pieces together: Guillermo Del Toro was talking with Neil Gaiman about doing a Dr. Strange film as far back as February 2008. Now Del Toro is cutting a deal with Disney… and Disney now owns Marvel, which of course is the home of the good Doctor. Sounds like the stars are aligning… but we already had a recent animated Doctor Strange…

Press release via Nikki Finke: Disney Toons Up With Guillermo Del Toro Under “Disney Double Dare You” Label

Anaheim, California — September 11, 2009 — The Walt Disney
Studios, in collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro
(“Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Hobbit”), is launching a new production label
called Disney Double Dare You, to create new animated films full of
chills and thrills for audiences of all ages, it was announced today at
the D23 Expo by Dick Cook, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. All
films will be produced under the guidance of del Toro, who originated
the concept and the design of DDY and who will also direct certain
projects. The first project in development for the new label is called
“Trollhunters,” an original del Toro story which he will produce.

Commenting on the announcement, Cook said, “Guillermo is a brilliant
and visionary filmmaker, and we’re excited to be launching this new
label with him. His knowledge and appreciation for Disney films, along
with his penchant for creating worlds of fantasy, presented a great
opportunity for us to explore a whole new genre of filmmaking for
moviegoers of all ages. We have admired Guillermo’s imaginative
approach to filmmaking for some time, and now we’re proud to be working
with him to create films full of imaginative delights and lots of
thrills at the same time.”

Del Toro added, “As a director, I love to take audiences into
fantastic new worlds and provide them with some anxious moments in the
process. It is part of the Disney canon to create thrilling,
unforgettable moments and villains in all their classic films. It is my
privilege for DDY to continue in this tradition. To partner up with The
Walt Disney Studios, with the support of Dick Cook and John Lasseter,
is to belong to a storytelling partnership that I admire deeply. It is
a true honor. I look forward to coming up with fresh and original
stories that will take Disney films in a whole new direction. The
emphasis is on fun, and we have some great ideas already on the
storyboards.”

Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth received six Academy Award® nominations
in 2007, including one for his original screenplay, and went on to win
three awards. That film also received a BAFTA Award for Best Film not
in the English language. His other directing credits include “Hellboy,”
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” “The Devil’s Backbone,” “Cronos,” and
“Mimic,” among others. Del Toro is currently directing back-to-back
feature film adaptations of the Tolkien classic, “The Hobbit,” for
release in 2011 and 2012.

(Hat tip to Arne Starr for the art, and Patrick Dempsey for the modeling.)

Review: ‘Harper’s Island’ on DVD

The notion of one of the major networks producing a limited run murder mystery was certainly intriguing. For thirteen weeks, we were going to watch members of a wedding party get offed, one by one, while trying to figure out who dunnit. Clearly, the network had high hopes for Harper’s Island, slotting it in on Thursday nights and promoting it heavily.

After three weeks, the show’s ratings were weak and the critical drubbing it received prompted them to dump the show on the less important Saturday nights, usually reserved for reruns or failed series. I recorded the first few weeks but before watching the episodes, I shrugged when I saw the show was essentially dumped. Unlike the victims, I received a second chance when the 4-disc DVD arrived from Paramount Home Video. The set, now on sale, works well watching the story unfold without commercial interruption and without waiting a week between installments.

The Island is where the rich summer and where the residents resent the wealthy and of course, the couple to be wed represent both sides of the equation. Henry’s best pal, Abby, returns to the island for the wedding, her first visit since the grisly murders that occurred years before, claiming her mother and causing a rift with her father, the sheriff. As the bridal party and extended family turn up for the festivities, a new series of murders begin, shaking Abby to her core.

Over the course of the series, we watch one person after another die in imaginative ways that speak more to the Freddy and Jason school of crime than your typical serial killer. You’re left to wonder what the victims might have in common or why these new deaths were happening. Meantime, the sense of foreboding permeates the island, paralyzing one and all.

On paper, it’s a cool idea. The execution, though, is where the series veered from clichéd to over-the-top and clearly, another draft was required. The Townies versus the Rich theme is a stereotype the producer make no effort to vary from to keep interesting. People go through the motions of resentment or envy and that’s a shame. The wedding party is largely a group of ciphers with barely any personality to distinguish one from another. There are exceptions, including the desperate Malcolm who does several questionable things throughout and totally misses his chance for romance. (more…)

The Point Radio: FRINGE Season Two – So?

  • Uncategorized
  • September 11, 2009

The Fox hit series FRINGE is days away from beginning it’s second season, and we start our exclusive talk with the stars as JOSHUA JACKSON explains why the show isn’t X-FILES, but actually more like FATHER KNOWS BEST. Plus DC drops their own bombshell, The Legion may get Paul back and what does it mean for the rest of us? And just how cool is that Nano, anyway!

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Review: ‘Logicomix’, the Sorrows of Young Bertie, and the Great Quest

  • Uncategorized
  • September 11, 2009

logicomix22-9966939Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou
Bloomsbury, September 2009, $22.95

Despite the modern framing at the end of this book arguing about whether or not this was a tragedy or a happy ending by bringing computers into the whole thing to support the side of happy, which puts a pimple onto something that is quite near-perfection otherwise, I will say that this is, in the imperfect vernacular, freakin’ awesome.

Being an Aristotelian and Thomist (Thomas Aquinas, 13th C.), mainly an Ethicist and Metaphysician, though I am acquainted with modern philosophies, they are not my favourite dance floor. I am neither adept at nor a fan of analytical philosophy – where they turn premises and sentences into symbols like mathematical equations. So I am absolutely gobsmacked that three Greek guys and one Italian-French chick got a hold of Bertrand Russell (19th-20th C. Logician, Mathematician), and not only made this titled noble Welshman from Cambridge comprehensible, but a sympathetic human character.

How did these wacky geniuses – Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos, and Annie DiDonna – manage this great feat in all their fabulous geekitude? Very simply. They went straight to the heart of what makes Philosophy philosophical. It is the human quest. Every Philosopher is on it and always has been for nearly 3000 years.

Philosophers are, as a general lot, idealists. They are insane enough to dare to view the best and then to try to find a way to get there, through the Labyrinth, past the Minotaur, and give us mere mortals a map by which to follow along (maps being symbols of reality). The story is framed by our authors as they try to write this book and get it published and, just like their philosophical hero, they got turned down in their initial efforts, but persevered ‘til you have what is now before you.

The artwork is sweet, gentle, old-fashioned, nostalgic, very well-suited to this story starting in Victorian times and running through both World Wars, in Britain and across Germany, Austria, and Belgium. It’s approachable and easy on the eyes, but never talks down to the reader or the material – this is not Russell for Dummies. This is Russell for honest seekers who really want to understand him and his related colleagues but just aren’t wired for 360+ pages of symbols to indisputably prove that 1+1 = 2.

(more…)

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Bob Greenberger on being in Paul Levitz’s office on Wednesday

  • News
  • September 11, 2009

paul-levitz-dc-3816246Want to know what was going on in Paul Levitz’s office on Wednesday? Bob Greenberger was there:

I had no inkling that going to DC Comics for meetings today would prove
a stroke of lucky timing. While meeting with Chris Cerasi on a project
we’ll talk about in a day or two, I received a call from DC’s President
and Publisher Paul Levitz. He heard I was around and could I stop up?

Bob also takes the time to talk about the changes Paul’s departure means for DC Comics Entertainment:

DC has lost its last guardian. He was the last executive to have the
power to prevent misguided interpretations of the characters that
remain the building blocks for the company. The freelancers have lost
someone who has been scrupulous in seeing to it they get every nickel
they’re entitled to and helped craft the first royalty plan and creator
participation plan. His depth of knowledge of the company’s history and
much of the character histories will be gone from the halls, forcing
the company to compensate him every time they need to pick his memory,
which will no doubt continue to happen long after the transition is
gone.

The time may have come for the change but not all change is for the
better.  Personally, I suspect Paul will be fine, happily reading at
his leisure and writing some good, solid stories heavy on plot and
character. DC will be a far different place in the months ahead and
there’s no guarantee what will come next. Paul, like the rest of us,
will have to sit and watch from the sidelines.

NYCC and NYAF Sitting in a Tree

  • News
  • September 10, 2009

We just received word that next year’s New York Anime Festival and New York Comic Con are going to co-locate, with both conventions taking place October 8-10, 2010 in the Jacob K. Javits center in Manhattan. The full press release with all the details is after the jump, but here’s a highlight:

“Our decision to co-locate NYAF
with NYCC is the final installment of a strategic plan to place and
sequence our pop culture events in a manner that best serves the needs
of our fans and exhibitors,” notes Lance Fensterman, Vice President of
the Reed Exhibitions Pop Culture Group.

“We are launching the Chicago
Comic and Entetainment Expo (C2E2) in April 2010, and we have moved
NYCC to a permanent October date, thus providing a spring and fall
balance to these two key events which will remain in place as we move
forward.  Rather than create a third date for NYAF, it was decided a
co-location would be better for anime fans, professionals, exhibitors,
and partners.  We spoke to attendees and exhibitors of both shows
before making this decision, and everyone agrees that this will provide
an opportunity for both shows to further grow and prosper.”

What do you think? Can these two conventions join hands and sing in harmony? And even more, what does this do to the plans of Wizard with their convention in New York planned for the fall?

(more…)

Crazy Sexy Geeks Mini Episode: Tim Gunn and Phil Jiminez on ‘Models Inc.’

  • News
  • September 10, 2009

crazysexygeeks1-4926937Here’s a segment of an interview we conducted
with Tim Gunn during a signing he and writer/artist Phil Jimenez did at Midtown Comics last night for the new Marvel comic Models, Inc.

Coming soon: more interviews with Tim Gunn and Phil Jiminez, along with Rob Zombie, Edward James Olmos, Sheri Moon Zombie, Emma Caulfield and the American Gladiators!

The Apple story that didn’t happen (yet) to make it a full-blown comics apocalypse

  • News
  • September 10, 2009

Apple didn’t announce this yesterday, as many people were expecting.

If it had been, the comics industry as we know it would be completely changed in less than two weeks.

On the other hand– Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, is also the largest shareholder of Disney. Which now owns Marvel. Which makes comics that would be perfect to display on any hypothetical Apple Tablet.

Hang on tight, folks. The ride does not get slower.

paul-levitz-dc-3816246

‘Paul is dead’ and other reactions to the DC Comics restructuring

  • News
  • September 10, 2009

paul-levitz-dc-3615037It’s ironic that on a day that many people in the world are talking about the Beatles in one form or another, people in the comics industry are asking if Paul is dead.

Certainly, you don’t see this amount of coverage of a man’s life until his funeral. It reminds one of Twain: “They say such nice things at a man’s funeral that it’s a shame I’m going to miss mine by only a couple of days.” Paul Levitz has had many, many nice things said about him. Mark Evanier may have the best post placing Paul’s place in historical context so far:

DC and Marvel could not now interface with Time-Warner and — assuming the deal goes through — Disney if they had not evolved from hot dog joints into real businesses.

Many have taken credit for that evolution, including some who fought it until it became inevitable and a few who resisted even after that time. Among those who honestly do deserve great credit is Paul Levitz.

Kurt Busiek also sums up:

Paul has been at the forefront of just about every industry
development of the last couple of decades, and has been key to how the
industry’s shaped itself over those years. Shifting from a
periodicals-only business to a strong backlist-oriented business with
trade paperbacks and hardcovers, adding imprints like Vertigo, creating
new opportunities for creators and for creator ownership, seeing that
DC gave a fair (or at least fairer) deal to the creators who originated
the concepts that turned up in DC-based movies, from Arkham Asylum and
Lucius Fox to Robin’s motorcycles (yeah, because they called Chris
O’Donnell’s ride the “Redbird” in one of the movies, Paul Levitz saw to
it that Chuck Dixon got money) and more, Paul was an important part of
a huge number of changes that DC’s seen, and that the whole industry’s
seen. Some of them big changes everyone’s noticed, some of them
behind-the-scenes stuff few people know about.

Heidi MacDonald, another one of us who toiled in the vineyards under Paul, said: “Paul is one of the smartest, kindest people I’ve ever worked with. He changed comics for the better in such vast ways that it’s hard to imagine where the industry would be without his stewardship. I wish him all the best.”

Marv Wolfman said: For years now, Paul has talked about retiring someday soon and
returning to writing, his first love. For that reason alone I am so
happy for him because I know that’s what he deeply cares about and has
been wanting. As readers, we are in for some major treats. I
can also say, without fear of rebuttal by anyone who is in the know,
Paul is probably the best, the smartest, the most creative and the most
moral Publisher the business has ever seen. Most fans have no idea how
important Paul is, not only to DC, but to the entire industry. I have
often said, and mean, that without Paul there very well might not be a
comics industry today. I am not speaking in hyperbole. I am being
literal; I mean exactly what I wrote.

And I’m fond of Rich Johnston’s comment: I asked Keith Giffen what was up with Ambush Bug. He told me “He’s taking Paul’s job.”

One more thing that I’ve been told that I haven’t seen mentioned: Paul contributed tremendous numbers of comics to Len Wein when he lost his collection in the recent fire. Huge numbers.

So now what? Me, I’m just waiting for those great Legion stories… hey, and what is it with guys who write Legion going on to become head honchos at comics companies? Paul Levitz, Jim Shooter with Marvel, Valiant and Defiant, Mark Waid at BOOM!… what makes it such a prerequisite?

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