Anton Yelchin, the actor who will complete James T. Kirk’s away team on the upcoming Star Trek film by taking up the mantle of Pavel Chekov, recently opened up about taking the role in this interview with SuperHeroFlix.

It is weird being on a set where a lot of the actors, myself included, have no idea what a turbine engine is. Or what it might do when it explodes. You are looking at a green screen that is supposed to be a battlefield. But nothing is going on. It is fun. It really puts you into the frame of mind that you are making a movie. I had this feeling that I was on a big film. It is the old classic idea of what a film set is supposed to be.

The actor went on to discuss whether the original Chekov, Walter Koenig, has stopped by the set to give him any advice.

I was worried and freaked out that he would come on set and not like me. Then he would say may accent is awful.

Star Trek is scheduled for a December 2008 release.

This is the second of the “Graphic Classics” series I’ve reviewed for ComicMix, and Mark Twain has essentially the same strengths and weaknesses as Bram Stoker. It’s exceptionally wordy and takes a while to read, since it incorporates big swaths of the original Twain stories as narration or extensive dialogue. I’m not sure if there’s a good way to avoid this in an adaptation into comics form; anyone who spends that much time working on a particular story will be doing so, presumably, because he really likes that story, and so he’ll want to get as much of the text in as possible. But comics with lots of words per page read slowly and can come across as just heavily-illustrated fiction, so it’s a tough line to walk.

All of the pieces in Graphic Classics: Mark Twain are wordy, and not all of them are equally successful, but the general result is entertaining and not just educational – it’s not just a book to give to your young nephew who doesn’t like reading “real” books, but something to read and enjoy yourself. It’s edited, like the whole series, by Tom Pomplun, and, like the Stoker book I saw a few months ago, is a second edition of a book published earlier. The cover is by George Sellas, illustrating a scene from the leadoff story, an adaptation of Twain’s Tom Sawyer Abroad.

Yes, Tom Sawyer Abroad. It’s instructive to remember that our age isn’t the first one in which creators cranked out ever-less-exciting sequels to well-loved stories – we may have Live Free or Die Hard and Final Crisis, but the 19th century had not only Tom Sawyer Abroad but its even more anemic sequel, Tom Sawyer, Detective. Abroad is far below the level of Huckleberry Finn, or even the original Tom Sawyer, but it’s a decent 19th century boys’ story, if you ignore its pedigree. Editor Pomplun adapts it here into a typically wordy Graphic Classics script, and Sellas illustrates it with a cartoony style with very precise lines that look computer-drawn. The story is silly, and it’s odd that Graphic Classics chose such a minor Twain work to anchor their book, but it’s fine for what it is. (more…)

Action-film star Jason Statham recently commented that he was involved in at least one meeting related to a Sub-Mariner feature film, and that he’d be more than happy to portray the big-screen counterpart of several comic-book characters.

According to this interview with IESB, the Transporter star "took a meeting" for Sub-Mariner, but expressed some uncertainty about his ability to fill the Marvel hero’s, umm… tights?

"I don’t know if I’d look right running around in a tight speedo with wings on my ankles," said Statham.

Along with expressing a desire to play The Hulk (but deferring to upcoming Incredible Hulk star, Edward Norton), Statham threw his name into the mix for a proposed remake of The Crow, the 1994 film whose star, Brandon Lee, met a tragic end while filming.

That was a good movie with Brandon Lee, although that was years ago. So if that one comes my way, bang! You know, there’s so many comic book movies out there and most of the time there’s only a handful of people who can do them any justice. Hopefully, they’ll come my way for one of them.

SciFi Wire is reporting that The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus director Terry Gilliam could be looking to actor Johnny Depp as a potential replacement for deceased actor Heath Ledger, who died during the filming of Imaginarium.

Quoting the British tabloid The Sun, SciFi Wire reported:

"There is a point in the film when Heath falls through a magic mirror," a studio source told the paper. "He could change into another character after that, and that is where Johnny would come in. It’s a weird, fantasy, time-travel movie, so Heath’s character could easily change appearance. It would be a poignant moment. Johnny’s not working at the moment, so everyone is praying he will do it."

As one astute ComicMix reader pointed out, this is only the latest in filmmaking troubles for Terry Gilliam. Depp was also involved in one of the director’s most notable film fallouts, a project initially titled The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Gilliam’s tumultuous experience with Quixote was later documented in the film Lost in La Mancha – a great film for anyone who wants a behind-the-scenes peek at how a series of unfortunate events can completely derail a big-budget film.