Tagged: Frank Miller

Rough Cut of ‘The Spirit’ Completed

  • News
  • June 30, 2008

spiritposter-4746720The always worth reading Variety Bags and Boards blog has an update on the upcoming The Spirit movie, adapted by Frank Miller from Will Eisner’s cherished comics series.

We recently spoke with "The Spirit" producer Deborah Del Prete, who says a green-screen cut of the film has been completed and has everyone very excited about the results. The production is now waiting as more than 1,800 VFX shots are coming in from San Francisco-based house The Orphanage. … Expect to see some new footage from the film at Comic-Con …

This shouldn’t do anything to ease concerns some fans have expressed that The Spirit is going to follow the visual cues of 300 and Sin City, both of which relied heavily on green screens and special effects. But at least we’ll soon be able to see some actual footage and judge for ourselves.

Meanwhile, four new posters have been released for the film, each featuring one of the femme fatales from the Frank Miller-directed film. Head over to Yahoo! to hear the actresses speak the lines. Can’t say I’m thrilled to see the "keep the mask on" line reappear after All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder #7, but it should work better with The Spirit than Batman.

The posters, available right here, are of the various female characters in the film, including those notorious femme fatales.

The Fragile Nature of ‘Geek Cred’

  • News
  • June 24, 2008

Beware the power of words, folks. Over at Cinematical, the movie news site’s resident "geek beat" contributor Elisabeth Rappe has taken a comment I left on one of her recent posts and turned it into a full-blown column, titled "The Touchiness of Geek Cred."

In the column, Rappe discusses the Survivor-esque mentality of geekery and the first time she realized that niche-culture gatherings like comic and science-fiction conventions weren’t the friendly grounds she expected them to be. The ever-present drive to cull the herd and create a higher place on the social ladder is in full effect just as much inside the niche cultures as outside, she observes.

For geeks of the feminine persuasion, the environment is even more cut-throat, according to Rappe:

As a female, I find I have to prove myself even more. The first time I went to ComicCon, I fell into a casual conversation with a guy about the comic book movie spin-offs. I mentioned that I really wanted to see the eventual Wolverine, and he sneered: "You just want to see it because you’re a girl, and Hugh Jackman is hot!"

"Hey," I replied tartly. "Wolverine is the best at what he does, and what he does isn’t very nice."

"You know the catchphrase. I take that back."

Well, thanks. This is something a geeky girl runs up against often, and it is useless to fight it. Men can see Catwoman for Halle Berry, girls cannot see 300 for Gerard Butler. Frankly, I do it too. One woman I was friends with joined my online movie community solely to talk about Butler. She was horrified when the fanboys called her on it. But I too was aghast. "You can’t just go in and talk about hot guys – you have to talk about Frank Miller first! You have to prove yourself a geek!"

Head over to Cinematical for the rest of the column.

Rappe’s observations reminded me of a recent post here on ComicMix, in which I mentioned that I have yet to read any of the Harry Potter books and narrowly escaped a nasty tar-and-feathering by readers.

‘The Spirit’ Movie Release Date Moved Up

The Cinematical crew are reporting that Lionsgate is moving up the release date for Frank Miller’s adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit from January 16 of next year to Christmas Day (December 25), 2008.

Here’s the new tale of the tape for The Spirit:

So instead of going up against Mall Cop, starring Kevin James as a wacky security guard, and the Notorious B.I.G. biopic, The Spirit will face off against Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories, the supposedly ultra-heartwarming Marley & Me, The Tale of Despereaux, and the aftershocks of Twilight and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen the trailer for The Spirit yet that debuted at New York Comic Con, here it is:

 

 

Frank Miller: Comics ‘Strip-Mined’ by Movies

  • News
  • April 25, 2008

The Los Angeles Times just had a story about the boom in comics-to-film. In a recent six-week stretch, some 22 comics properties were optioned, the paper reported.

That includes Locke & Key, the supernatural thriller by Joe Hill for IDW (cover at right). While this is great news for many and illustrates the growing popularity of comics, not everyone is looking at the boom with rose-colored glasses.

"It’s accelerating because right now it’s fashion," says Frank Miller, who created the graphic novels behind "Sin City" and "300," and whose early-’80s series "Ronin," about a reincarnated samurai battling evil in a futuristic New York, is being adapted by Joby Harold ("Awake") for Warner Bros. "I think we can expect it to calm down. Comic books have always been this vast mountain range that gets strip-mined and left behind."

The main point of the story, though, is that one reason so many comics are adapted is that comics and graphic novels are substantially easier to read than screenplays. Miller calls screenplays the "single [worst] story form" and "unreadable."

New Images from ‘The Spirit’ Revealed

  • News
  • April 11, 2008

IGN just posted some of the first images from the upcoming The Spirit movie. Judging from the photos, the movie stars (in order): Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank Miller and a green screen. Exciting! Or not.

Here’s one of the images:

Honestly, it looks like Jackson was on his way to emcee the ESPYs and wandered onto the Sin City set. Nothing about this evokes the feel of Will Eisner’s The Spirit, but I suppose it’s too early to say for sure.

(via Blog@)

Frank Miller on ‘The Spirit’, Actors and Movies

  • News
  • February 28, 2008

Over at the official site for Frank Miller’s upcoming film The Spirit, the director has posted a new entry on the site’s production blog. Among the topics Miller discusses in the entry are more details about the film itself, the filmmaking process and his feelings towards actors.

At the blog, Miller describes the filmmaking process as "fun, thrilling and glamours as all hell. It’s also as hard a line of work as you can find." He also counts himself lucky to be working on the film and with so many talented actors, referring to himself as "one lucky S.O.B." He also goes on to thank "all the people who dragged me into this crazy business."

Having worked on a few film sets in my time as well I can tell you Miller’s observations about the process are pretty much spot-on. Making movies is often grueling, arduous, time-consuming, soul-sucking work that demands more of you than you ever thought you could give. Still, it can sure be fun much of the time.

There’s a saying in Hollywood that i’ve alway thought was appropriate: "The worst day on a movie set is still better than the best day working at a bank." I’m sure Miller would agree.

The Spirit hits theaters January 19th, 2009.

 

 

Eight Comic Books to Read Before You Die

  • News
  • February 22, 2008

Just in time for the opening of WonderCon in San Francisco today, the online arm of the San Francisco Chronicle, SF Gate, has decided to put out its list, a comics "mix tape" as they call it,  of the "Eight Comic Books to Read Before You Die."

Posted by Peter Hartlaub, the list includes many notables in the comics world such as Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman and their works — which are probably considered classic must-reads by most comics fans already.

In addition, the list also features one or two other works traditional comics fans, those who usually confine themselves to one or more Marvel or DC titles featuring spandex-clad heroes, may be less familier with. Books such as Jeff Smith’s Bone and Y:The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan, although successful and well-known to many in the comics community, are perhaps not as well-known to the masses as the X-Men, Spider-Man or Batman.

Here, then, is the list of what the folks at SFGate think you should read, and in the order you should read them, before you die. Hopefully, you’ve already had the pleasure of discovering some of these works. Maybe after reading this list, you can discover a few more.

Y: The Last Man: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli

Swamp Thing by Alan Moore

Marvels by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross

Bone Volume 1: Out From Boneville by Jeff Smith

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller

I’m pleased to say that, besides Bone, I’ve read all the books on this list and am a particular fan of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last man. Of course, now that I’ve read this list, I can never, ever read Bone. That is, unless I’m ready to die. 

What comics would be on your list?

Mike Richardson Announced as Stumptown Fest Guest of Honor

  • News
  • February 20, 2008

The Stumptown Comics Fest, an annual celebration of comics and cartooning art in Portland, Oregon, recently announced that it has chosen Dark Horse Comics founder and head-honch Mike Richardson to be its special Guest of Honor at this year’s event.

Festival organizers chose the accomplished (and extremely tall) Richardson for many reasons, some of which are detailed in the events official press release announcing Richardson’s selection:

Under his direction, Dark Horse has gone from a tiny startup during the black-and-white boom of the ‘80s to the biggest independent comics publisher in the nation, featuring such talents as Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Neil Gaiman, and the late comics legend Will Eisner, and revolutionizing the industry’s approach to licensed properties through innovative Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Conan, and Aliens/Predator stories.

The Fifth Annual fest will be held on April 26th-27th, 2008, at the Doubletree Hotel Lloyd Center in Portland. To find out more info on the Stumptown Comic Fest, a great event showcasing some exceptional art and artists, check out its official site. 

Happy International Creep Like a Ninja Day!

  • News
  • December 5, 2007

Yes, International Creep Like a Ninja Day! From the same sorts of people who brought you International Talk Like A Pirate Day, only instead of dressing in flamboyant clothing and making loud "Arrrrr!" noises, you spend the day being very very silent and dressing in black. Of course, we all know pirates and ninjas are mortal enemies…

piratevsninja-6090122

So let us honor the ninja and their constant forays into comics– for without them, Frank Miller would only be able to lift from noir films instead of kung-fu flicks, and then everybody else in the industry would have even left to lift from.

P.S. We were going to include a picture of everyone’s favorite comic book ninja babe Elektra here, but we couldn’t find any that were really of her– all we found were pictures of a Skrull pretending to be her. Damn you, Brian Bendis!

Frank Miller Gets Sent Up

  • News
  • October 22, 2007

There are a lot of people who owe a LOT of their careers to parodying Frank Miller. Exhibit A: Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Now, sadly, it looks like the movies are following suit.

We are not particularly proud to present Meet The Spartans, starring (left to right) Carmen Electra, Diedrich Bader, and Kevin Sorbo. Brought to you by the same people who bring you Scary Movies, I suspect that the only surprise in the film is what you see in this photo: that Diedrich Bader actually has a six pack.

We’re going to just recommend you save the price of a ticket and ninety minutes of your life and go watch United 300 instead:

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