Tagged: Hero

Stan Lee to Produce ‘Hero’ for Showtime

  • News
  • November 13, 2008

Stan Lee will executive produce a television adaptation of Hero for Showtime according to Variety. The novel was written by Perry Moore and was released in 2007, telling the story of an “up-and-coming super-hero who struggles to hide his secret identities.”

Moore is writing the script for the hour long series and will also serve as an executive producer along with Hunter Hill.

Hero joins a growing list of pilots announced by the premium cable network, including yesterday’s Camelot.

Lee last worked in television, producing and hosting two seasons of Who Wants to Be a Superhero? for the Sci Fi Channel.
 

Sony in Talks to Co-Finance ‘Tintin’

  • News
  • November 3, 2008

tintin-6981505When last we left Tintin, he and Snowy were facing an uncertain future as the famed directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson wanted to turn his graphic novel adventures into at least two live-action films.  The forces of corporate evil, though, saw to it that DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures were split asunder, leaving financing for the films up in the air.

Sony, like a white knight, has ridden to the rescue.  According to the scribes at Variety, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Paramount Pictures are now discussing terms to allow them to co-finance the digital 3-D films together.

The hero, created by Belgian artist Georges Remi (a.k.a. Herge), had first thought that Universal Studios, new home to DreamWorks would partner up to ensure audiences around the world got to thrill to his exploits.  Instead, Universal balked so Paramount told Spielberg and Jackson they would front the full $135 million budget in exchange for better profit-sharing terms.  Now it was the directors’ turn to balk forcing Paramount to seek assistance.

The Sony-Paramount deal would be the first film only and would grant Sony international distribution rights while Paramount would retain North American rights in addition to distribution deals in selected English-speaking countries.

While the cash has begun tof low once more, there remains concern over production commencing, as planned, in the fall.  Thomas Sangster, the human selected to portray the teen hero, left the project.  Spielberg remains optimistic they will recast, shoot and still make their 2010 release date. Jackson would then direct a second film.

Although DreamWorks is now no longer a participant, the principal players remain somewhat enmeshed in their lives.  Jackson has delivered The Lovely Bones to DreamWorks which Paramount will release in 2009.

Review: ‘Captain Action’ #1

I know way too much about comics. Far more than is healthy. But there are, understandably, a few characters here and there that I either know very little about, either because I never really came across them or I did but found them terribly uninteresting and so dismissed them, soon forgetting what I had learned.

[[[Captain Action]]] happens to be such a character. I remembered he first appeared in the 1960s, wore a costume that resembled a futuristic police officer’s with a chest symbol that reminded me to recycle, and was based on an action figure. And that was it. I remembered nothing else. So when I was asked to review the first issue of the new Captain Action series, on sale today, I thought “Perfect. I can truly look at this as a first-time fan and objectively judge if this would be interesting to someone who has no previous knowledge of the character.”

I read it and found it to be a strange mix of too much information at once and not enough.

We begin with a [[[Superman]]]-like character called Savior. His narration explains who he is and reveals that he secretly blew up a place called A.C.T.I.O.N. Directorate. On page two, we find out that half of what we just read is a lie. This is not Savior, but a person disguised as Savior. This is our hero, Captain Action, who crashes into a statue of his father and proceeds to unleash a massive information dump on the readers in a very awkward monologue.

Apparently, there was once a hero called Captain Action (the original guy from the 1960s). The shape-shifter we’ve just met is his son, the new Captain Action, who has the ability to look like other people and copy their abilities, but only for a short time. Exactly how long he can disguise himself and how long afterward he has to wait before he mimics someone again is not made clear.

The new Captain Action wanted nothing to do with the life of a super-hero, despite his powers, but now feels forced to act since his father was killed by a group of super-heroes that an organization called A.C.T.I.O.N. had “created” to defend the Earth. What “created” means is not fully explained. The new Captain Action informs us that these heroes, Savior included, were somehow turned into sleeper agents, thus why they went rogue later. Exactly how they became sleeper agents is not explained, though a group called Red Crawl is blamed. Apparently, Red Crawl was defeated long ago and everyone believed they were dead, except for the original Captain Action. Now they’re back and causing trouble.

(more…)

Marvel asks, ‘Are you Ready?’

  • News
  • October 9, 2008

Over the last two days, Marvel has been sending out graphics asking, "Are you ready to hero up?" and "Are you ready to villain up?"

Given the art styles, we can only surmise that some new youth-oriented project is in the offing.  The art is certainly cute and polished.

Any guesses?

‘Steve Canyon’ TV Series to DVD

  • News
  • October 2, 2008

Steve Canyon is a classic comic strip hero, created by Milton Caniff.  Since his debut in 1947, the hero was a mainstay until Caniff’s death and the strip’s cancellation in 1988.  Interestingly, there was little merchandising done with the character through the years with the notable exception of being part of the personas to be played by Captain Action in the 1960s and the short-lived NBC live action television series from 1958.

Being the series;’ 50th anniversary, the Caniff Estate has authorized a complete restoration and collection of the 34-episode series on DVD. The estate even established a blog to keep fans updated on progress.

According to TV Shows on DVD, work is nearing completion and the prototype package art was recently released. Plans now call for the series to be released in three volumes with the first due out on November 18 (same day as the 75th anniversary DVD collection of The Lone Ranger). Sales are limited to the website at present with no other retailers involved to date.

Volume one will contain the first 12 episodes starring Dean Fredericks as the Air Force plot and adventurer for $24.95.  The second and third volumes will each follow some 60-to 90 days later and the blog says the episodes are being collected in their proper order for the very first time. The final volume will include as an extra the original unaired pilot plus a custom slipcase to hold all three sets.

‘The Superest’ Gains Book Deal

  • News
  • September 26, 2008

The Superest by Matthew Sutter and Kevin Cornell will move from web to print in an illustrated book to be published by Kensington. The strip is described as a world of “colorful super-heroes, where each hero’s dominant (often quirky and humorous) power serves to supplant his nemesis, although the same power acts as his Achilles heel when battling the successive super-hero.” No publication has been announced.

Spielberg Gets Tintin First

  • News
  • August 28, 2008

Despite rumors coming from Hergé Studios, The Hollywood Reporter says Steven Spielberg remains set to direct the first of a project trilogy of films featuring Brussels’ Tintin. Hergé had said on Tuesday that Peter Jackson was moving ahead of Spielberg prompting both Jackson and Spielberg camps to deny the fact.

The first film, written by Doctor Who’s Stephen Moffat, remains Spielberg’s next directorial gig according to DreamWorks which is producing the movie along with Jackson. Jackson, set to helm the second installment, remains committed to completing post-production on The Lovely Bones for Paramount before turning his attention to co-writing the two-part adaptation of The Hobbit for director Guillermo del Toro.

The European comic book hero will be brought to life through motion capture CGI, with Thomas Sangster set to play the teen hero opposite Andy Serkis who plays the grizzled Captain Haddock.

Moffat’s script is said to combine elements from The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure, the first two books from Herge, produced in the early 1940s.
 

New “Conan” Film Fast-Tracked By Lionsgate

  • News
  • August 14, 2008

The Hollywood Reporter notes that Lionsgate is so keen on pushing a new Conan film into production that they’ve hired two sets of writers to draft parallel scripts for the film. No director has been attached to the film at this point, but sources close to the project have said that the intent is to reinvent the franchise based on Robert E. Howard’s stories of the famed barbarian.

Currently, Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain are writing one script for the project, while Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer (Sahara) have been writing another script.

THR reports that Paradox Entertainment president and CEO Fredrik Malmberg, who is producing the Conan film along with Boaz Davidson, Joe Gatta and Avi Lerner of Millennium FilmsMalmberg, recently explained that the project is a "fast-tracked movie" and that "Lionsgate felt the process was enhanced by having a second team come in and do a script."

As for the decision to return to the film franchise that began with 1982’s Arnold Schwarzenegger portrayal of the character:

"Fans expect (these types of movies) to be more true to the source material," Malmberg said. "There’s no reason there couldn’t be a Conan movie every two years. He’s almost like Batman: He’s a dark hero. He’s a hard hero. He has to be badass, but we also have to like him."

(via ICv2)

Onion: ‘Al Gore Places Infant Son in Rocket’

  • News
  • August 1, 2008

From the Onion:

EARTH—Former vice president Al Gore—who for the past three decades has unsuccessfully attempted to warn humanity of the coming destruction of our planet, only to be mocked and derided by the very people he has tried to save—launched his infant son into space Monday in the faint hope that his only child would reach the safety of another world.

"I tried to warn them, but the Elders of this planet would not listen," said Gore, who in 2000 was nearly banished to a featureless realm of nonexistence for promoting his unpopular message. "They called me foolish and laughed at my predictions. Yet even now, the Midwest is flooded, the ice caps are melting, and the cities are rocked with tremors, just as I foretold. Fools! Why didn’t they heed me before it was too late?"

Al Gore—or, as he is known in his own language, Gore-Al—placed his son, Kal-Al, gently in the one-passenger rocket ship, his brow furrowed by the great weight he carried in preserving the sole survivor of humanity’s hubristic folly.

"There is nothing left now but to ensure that my infant son does not meet the same fate as the rest of my doomed race," Gore said. "I will send him to a new planet, where he will, I hope, be raised by simple but kindly country folk and grow up to be a hero and protector to his adopted home."

Read the rest right here.

SDCC: Darren Aronofsky to Direct ‘Robocop’

  • News
  • July 27, 2008

The long-rumored reboot of Robocop at the hands of director Darren Aronofsky was made official this week, Variety is reporting.

The previous trilogy is going to get a reboot, and apparently the idea is  to take the mecha-lawman story and make it more noir-influenced. Personally, I was hoping for an Old Western.

From the article:

Darren Aronofsky has signed on to direct and David Self is penning a new installment about the hero whose tagline is "part man, part machine and all cop."

"RoboCop," which is being fast-tracked for a 2010 release, becomes the first potential tentpole to come together since Mary Parent took the reins of MGM in March. Aronofsky’s involvement has been one of the worst kept secrets, with rumors rampant in the blogosphere that "The Fountain" helmer was eyeing the project.

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