How this game is played now:
Step 1: Release prototype/screentest version of something you know fans will nitpick no matter what, let them tear it apart.
Step 2: Shoot actual show with final version, as it will now look “better” no matter what.
Step 3: Cancel poorly-concieved show after half a season anyway because this was still a terrible, terrible idea.
See more at GotCeleb
…and THAT little piece of Movie-Executive-to-English translation is really all anyone can reasonably take away from this Hero Complex piece on Warner Bros. honcho Jeff Robinovs vague, non-commital intimations of a “Justice League” movie. In fact, from now on you can use THIS as your “Avengers” indicator-light: If people from Warner Bros. are tossing “JLA” non-news to the fanboy-press, it means the insider-buzz is good for Marvel’s big-scale team-up experiment and they’re makng ready to hit the ground running on their logical “me-too.” If they slip back into the “our characters are bigger, they have to stay seperate” party-line, that means they’re thinking “Avengers” is an overreach.
The fact of the matter is, Warner Bros. is in a state of outright PANIC as far as their “tentpole” positioning goes. The annual gaurantee of a “Harry Potter” cash-deluge has been carrying the studio for the last decade – that’s an ETERNITY in executive years – comes to an end a few months from now. The year after that, the other cash-cow, Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” movies, wraps up with what Nolan’s camp has openly called a “definitive” ending. And after that… they’ve got NOTHING in the way of garaunteed, reliable income.
Robinov and others have been saying for a year now that the plan is for a string of non-Batman DC superhero movies to take Potter’s place, but thus far either WB are the best secret-keepers in the studio system (spoiler: they aren’t) OR the “we don’t know what to do with anyone who isn’t Batman” rule remains firmly in place: The buzz on “Green Lantern” has been iffy-to-negative from day one, and the ONLY reason “Superman” is coming together so fast and attracting so much name talent is that Warners is working/spending like MAD to get the thing made before a big chunk of the rights switch over to Siegel & Schuster’s estates after the most recent court decision.
The article also mentions “rebooting” Batman after “Dark Knight Rises,” which is sort of a given – though one hopes they just mean getting a new actor/director/style and not a full on “let’s make the origin story AGAIN” like Sony is doing for Spider-Man.
Don’t get me wrong – a JL movie is a fine idea: Far and away the best move WB coluld make, both in terms of their (probable) need for an answer to “Avengers” and also as a kind of proving-ground for future franchises: “People seemed to like runs-fast-man, give him a movie!” I just don’t expect them to actually go through with it anytime soon… unless people come out of “Captain America” RAVING about the innevitable “Avengers” tease; in which case it’ll have a green light before Sunday’s numbers even come in.
In which I explain Captain Marvel. Both of him.
http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.5.swf
Here’s what’s happening on the other blog:
http://v.giantrealm.com/saf/272828ab50091da6eb1ae85133def12ae9a44eb4
EXTREMELY pleased with how this came out – the “meat” part in the middle came together pretty cohesively, the improved greenscreen worked out and that whole final “bit” cut together better than I was expecting it to.
Trailer for “Future X-Cops,” which doesn’t seem to be (officially) available on U.S. DVD yet. Evidently, Hong Kong has decided it’s time to start kicking our ass at superhero movies…
The director is Wong Jing, who also did an infamous unlicensed “Street Fighter” movie called “Future Cops” back in the 90s. Incredibly, the films seem to share the same basic plot AND star Andy Lau!
So says Hero Complex.
Unless director Zack Snyder suddenly decides to his literalist-translation leanings off for this one – i.e. the new “Superman” movie doesn’t look like a Superman comic beamed, unfiltered, from page to screen – it would seem Adams is carving out an interesting niche for herself as a living embodiment of female pop-mythology icons (re: The Disney Princess in “Enchanted,” the “Iconic” version of Emilia Earhart in “Night at the Museum 2,” now this.)
I’m given to point out that this is VERY good casting, ditto the earlier announcements of Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Johnathan and Martha Kent – though I anxiously await The Internet correcting me on that point given the irrefutable evidence that Zack Snyder is Satan because there wasn’t an octopus in “Watchmen” 😉
Takeshi Miike – ’nuff said. Bow your heads, mortals…
Steve Head and John Black graciously invited me back to the Post-Movie Podcast this week to talk “Sucker Punch,” a DVD box-set of Andy Sedaris “classics” and the impending Blu-Ray of “Scarface.” SPOILER WARNING for the plot/ending of “Sucker Punch.”
Listen to it HERE.
Get the PMP on iTunes HERE.
“The Three Musketeers” – now featuring all the slo-motion aerial kung-fu, retro-futuristic steampunk flamethrowers/gun-turrets and (what appear to be) Final Fantasy-style airships Dumas surely always intended. In 3D.
Paul W.S. Anderson: The master of making ACTUAL movies that look like fake movies from parodies about how shitty movies are getting.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 