Category: News

After breaking the news via the Washington Post, Marvel has finally begun to reveal some of the details behind the Black Panther revamp coming in February.  T’Challa, the reining Panther, seems to be replaced by a mysterious female.  Now, Marvel says T’Challa’s fate is tied to events in the aftermath of Secret Invasion and connected to Dark Reign, 2009’s new crossover event.

The first issue will be extra-sized and will carry variant covers including one in their 70th anniversary series.

A sneak peek and interview with artist Ken Lashley has been posted at Marvel’s website.

Hudlin told the Post, "Over the course of 40 issues [over three years], we … really defined the character in a way that hadn’t been done before. … Having done that, you go: "How do we up the stakes?" Marvel is great about doing really shocking changes to their character — they don’t believe in just keeping everything as status quo."

Under Hudlin, the Panther married Storm from the X-Men and has defended his country of Wakanda from foreign and intergalactic invaders.

  (more…)

Keanu Reeves told MTV that the live-action adaptation of the popular Cowboy Bebop will take “Asteroid Blues”, the first episode and expand it into a feature. “We’ve got the rights, we’ve got a writer,” Reeves said. “He’s putting together a scene outline.”

Reeves and producer Eric Stoff acquired the rights via 20th-Century Fox in a deal announced over the summer.

The series was one of the early anime hits in the 1990s and gained a cult following for the 26 episodes, created by Shinichiro Watanabe and Keiko Nobumoto, which were produced and aired on Cartoon Network. Bandai Entertainment released the entire series and anime film Bones on DVD. It has made frequent appearances on top anime lists both here and in Japan.

“It’s got a Western quality, a Western film noir aspect to it,” Reeves said. “It’s got so much style to it, and that’s part of its appeal. That kind of Old West, bordertown, low-tech science fiction aspect.

“I think that would be a production designer’s dream. I think you just need a good production designer.”

The series, set aboard the spacecraft Bebop, is heavily influenced by American jazz music and cowboy themes.  It debuted in 1998 and reached America in 2001.
 

Torchwood producer Peter Bennett told Digital Spy about 2009’s Torchwood: Children of Earth.

"Basically from a concept, we wanted to go down the children dilemma route,” he said of the title. “Because this storyline is a subject that’s going to affect all the children of Earth, it was a natural title to come up with.”

As for the actual plot, Bennett explained, "It’s different to every other year. It’s not a story about spaceships, but it’s about a government that did a deal with aliens back in the ’60s, and they’re now dealing with the consequences of that deal when the sins of their past come back to haunt them."

The biggest change is that the third season is a mere five episodes, to be broadcast across consecutive days. "Having done 26 standalone stories, we kind of wanted to take this series to another level and by making it one story over five nights, we feel we’ve done that. It’s big, it’s epic, and it’s very different.

“Telling one story has also given us the opportunity to have one director across the whole series, Euros Lyn, who’s been incredible and taken the show to a new level."

The script was produced by James Moran, John Fay and Russell T Davies, which also deals with the team in the wake of losing two of their own at the end of season two. "We sort of bring in Gwen’s husband Rhys (Kai Owen),” the producer said. “He was always on the fringes anyway but he takes a much more active part in the storyline now. And we’ve got a new young lady who helps the team – I wouldn’t say she’s part of the team but she kind of helps them out. She’s played by a new actress called Cush Jumbo, who’s a very pretty young lady and who I’m sure is going to go on to bigger things.

“Also we’ve got new characters, people like Peter Capaldi, who’s fantastic as the government middle man caught up in the storm, Liz May Brice as a covert government agent and Paul Copely as a damaged man."

While air dates have not been announced, spring seems likely based on Bennett’s comments regarding the series’ current status.

"We’ve just started our second week of post editing and we’re in a position to have a look at our first episode. We’ve just shown our executive producers the first cut version of the first episode and this week we’re hoping to show them the first cut of the second episode. It’s a very very tough post schedule. We’ve only got one director, but we’ve got three cutting rooms running simultaneously and he’s literally running between all three. We have to deliver the whole thing, with all effects and music, by March. So to do five one-hours is a real tough schedule, particularly because we’ve got so much amazing material. I’d guess we’re two thirds of the way through and the last third is a struggle – but a nice struggle."

Iron Man 2 news continues to leak out with Latino Review reporting that Tim Robbins may be signing on to portray Howard Stark, father to Tony, a man whose legacy was extolled in the first film.  In other comments, producer Jon Favreau hinted that Howard Stark may have had something to do with the super soldier formula which would further link Iron Man to 2011’s First Avenger: Captain America.
 
“Jon [Favreau] wanted to get a good actor because he didn’t think the guy who played Howard in the last film could carry such an important scene,” the site noted.

They also report that our speculation that casting notes meant Natasha Romanov, a.k.a. the Black Widow, was expected appear to be true.  Not only that, the site says Clint Barton, the carny turned criminal Hawkeye will also appear. Both were introduced in Iron Man’s Tales of Suspense days so screenwriter Justin Theroux continues to mine the early material from Stan Lee and Don Heck.

NBC ordered 13 episodes of the horror anthology series Fear Itself, but aired only eight of the episodes last summer. Ben Silverman, Co-Chairmen, NBC Entertainment told iF Magazine in late July, “No we’re not taking it off.” But that is exactly what they did with five episodes shot and unseen.

FEARNet has announced that the aired epsidoes wil be available on their website and their VOD service.

One of the episodes already available is "Eater," directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator). This installment stars Samantha Moss (Mad Men) as a rookie cop who must spend her first night in the precinct watching over a serial killer, coined "The Eater". When her fellow cops start acting bizarre, she quickly learns that no one is who they seem.

The ratings were lackluster, trailing behind CBS’ Swingtown, which is why Silverman admitted the series was on the “bubble” regarding a second season. Obviously, the bubble burst.

“We’re really happy with the numbers,” Silverman said at the press tour. “On a relative basis it did better than Studio 60 last year at one-quarter of the cost and that was a big reason we put it on. It was a marketing vehicle for motion picture studios, in the summer, when they’re desperately looking for platforms to reach their consumers and Thursday nights have always been the home of the big movie marketers. That’s why we put that show in there. Also by being produced in Canada, by letting the DVD rights go to our partner, we’re able to get that show at 1/8th the price we pay for a show like Heroes.”
 

Drawn to be Wild discussed the changing image of women comic characters on the BBC’s Radio 4.

BBC News previewed the piece by providing a look at how females have changed through the years in animation, comic strips and comic books, both in the UK and America. They first begin with Betty Boop, the reining queen of animated vamps up to Jessica Rabbit.

Boop, popularized in a series of cartoon shorts from the Fleischer Brothers Studios, “was the first character in animation history to fully represent a sexual woman. She regularly wore short dresses, high heels and a garter belt and was an object of affection for many men.”

“Frequently topping the polls as the greatest female cartoon character and celebrating her 20th anniversary this year is Jessica Rabbit, the animated femme fatale of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, who risks all to help her man. Rabbit was about as sexy as a cartoon character could be, but a look at some of her predecessors and their trademark devices shows that every creation had their own unique appeal.” (more…)

Rob Zombie has, not surprisingly, signed on direct a sequel to his remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween. He and Dimension Films have stressed this will not be a remake of Halloween 2. 

Production is gearing up so H2 can be shot starting in March and readied for release in October according to Variety.

“The new film picks up right as the first remake ended, following the aftermath of Michael Myers’ murderous rampage through the eyes of the sister he hunted,” said the trade.

Zombie initially told the studio that he wasn’t interested in coming back, despite the remake’s $60 million haul last year.

"I was so burned out. (But) I took a long break, made a record and I got excited again," Zombie said. "Now, we’ll be hauling ass, and that’s the problem making a movie called Halloween‘ If you come out Nov. 1 or after, nobody cares. If it was called anything else, I’d be fine."

Zombie is also at work on other films incluiding the animated film The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, based upon his comic book series, The Adventures of El Superbeasto. He’s also directing the live action Rob Zombie’s Tyrannosaurus Rex for Dimension.