Movies

With Cowboys and Alien on the way to becoming areal live movie starring move stars like Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig and directed by Jon Favreau, Platinum Studios is on its way to being a real live content provider, and so ICM has signed up to rep them, Deadline reports.

With Comic-Con's rise in the popular imaginaion over the last decade, we've heard many folks mutter over the years "I need to write a screenplay about Comic-con!" If you have been working on such a script, it is time to quietly set it aside and start working on that oil spill comedy you had been pondering. In keeping with the times, Comic-Con will be the subject of a geekumentary by Morgan Spurlock (Super-Size Me) following the fan's journey of seven con attendees. But Spurlock's not going it alone, because that would be too much for any man.

Some pissing and moaning this week about the fact that Marvel/Deisney will be shooting the Captain America movie in the UK instead of the US. The reason? Oh, budget and so on.

Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, probably the single greatest event in the history of nerddom. STAR WARS might have been new and cool and funny and fresh, but EMPIRE was all that AND sad and tragic and shocking and filled with the kind of terror and awe that the greatest storytelling inspires. From the frozen beauty of an icy horizon studded with AT-ATs, to the steaming green swamp where Luke Skywalker begins his archetypal but unique hero's journey, to the crimson horror of the carbon freezing chamber, to the primal red and blue of the final battle between Luke and Vader, no SF blockbuster has ever captured the imagination so cleanly and completely. It was grown up in an unself-conscious way that nothing to do with Star Wars would ever be again. (Almost certainly because it was the last one that producer Gary Kurtz would in involved with; after EMPIRE it was George Lucas all the way.)

The young people of today can hardly be expected to understand the impact that Tim Burton’s Batman had on movie-goers in the summer of 1989. The general audience of 1989 knew Batman only as the campy, self-conscious, broad-daylight superhero of the Adam West TV show. Nothing in movies prepared viewers for this radical re-thinking of the character, the weird darkness of the themes, the dense, oppressive production design or Jack Nicholson’s performance as The Joker. All of it was alarming, electrifying stuff back then. (Of course, it was all familiar territory for people who had read The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke, but that’s another story.)

More leaks from the set of GREENLANTERN, this time, via Splash Page, Ryan Reynolds in his mocap suit. Aside from noting how fit Reynolds...

Some dude was walking by the Green Lantern movie set in new Orleans and totally got lucky with this photo of Peter Sarsgaard as villain Dr. Hector Hammond. In the comic, Hammond is one of those guy--with-a-giant-deformed-head--who-rides-around-in-a-chair types who are so prevalent these days, a problem caused by a run-in with a meteor back in the day.

That's more or less what Matt Zoller Seitz is saying in this widely-quoted Salon piece : The comic book film has become a gravy train to nowhere. The genre cranks up directors' box office averages and keeps offbeat actors fully employed for years at a stretch by dutifully replicating (with precious few exceptions) the least interesting, least exciting elements of its source material; spicing up otherwise rote superhero vs. supervillain storylines with "complications" and "revisions" (scare quotes intentional) that the filmmakers, for reasons of fiduciary duty, cannot properly investigate; and delivering amusing characterizations, dense stories or stunning visuals while typically failing to combine those aspects into a satisfying whole. As Iron Man 2 is poised to become the biggest opening ever, it's worth revisiting the genre and pointing out that as movies -- like movies with themes and acting and set pieces that aren't fights and so on -- the genre has gotten as formulaic as the wifebeaters all of Marvel's heroes wear. We'd slap Seitz on the wrist for conflating "comic book" with "superhero" in the above quote -- and while we can't argue that SUPERMAN RETURNS and Ang Lee's HULK were the most daring attempts at a larger meaning, they still weren't all that...successful.

Joining the elite three-time (Stardust, Kick-Ass) club for comic book movie directors, Matthew Vaughn has signed on to direct X-Men: First Class after a lot of back and forth. Bryan Singer was originally on board to direct but he pulled out due to scheduling -- the helmer of the first two X-flicks will stay aboard as producer. Vaughn had been rumored for a while -- he was originally scheduled to direct the third X-men movie before pulling out at the last moment himself, leaving Brett Ratner to have his way with the franchise.   

Things That Should Not Be? or The March of Progress? [via Jackie Chan ]

While we're all talking IRON MAN 2 right now, a look into the crystal ball revelas that a year hence we'll be all yakking...

Another Icon comic is Hollywood bound, Michael Fleming reports, as INCOGNITO, the supervillain vengeance caper by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, has been optioned by by Fox. Peter Chernin and Circle of Confusion's David Engel will produce and the screenwriter attached is playwright Robert Schenkkan.