Huh. Knew I forgot to post something today…

It’s pretty-much impossible for “300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE” to be as good as it’s trailers have been, right?

Hey guys. Just a head’s up, I’ll be working my butt off all weekend on panels at Boston’s ARISIA scifi/fandom convention. Only had one yesterday evening, but I’ve got 13 more spread out between Saturday and Monday. Here’s where/when to come look for me:

SATURDAY:
11AM “Man of Steel, Plot of Kleenex?” (Otis Media 442)
4PM “DC Comics: The New 52” (Adams Comics 382)
5:30PM “Enders Game” (Paine Media 513)
7PM “Why Do So Many YA Franchises Bomb Onscreen?” (Paine Media 458)
10PM “Remembering Roger Ebert” (Paine Media 458)

SUNDAY:
10AM “2013 Games Consoles: The Review” (Adams Gaming 176)
1PM “The Year In Marvel Comics” (Adams Comics 565)
2:30PM “Star Wars: What’s Next?” (Paine Media 471)
4PM “State of the Star Trek” (Otis Media 469)
5:30PM “Marvel Cinematic/TV Universe” (Burroughs Media 262)
7PM “Up, Up And Away With Superman!” (Adams Comics 570)

MONDAY:
10AM “Race and Identity In Fandom” (Burroughs Communities 548)
1PM “Transformers: A 30 Year Retrospective” (Otis 139)

So, yeah. If you’re already at the Con or were considering swinging in for a day-pass, you can show to these times/places and watch me either work panels or collapse from exhaustion – whichever comes first 🙂

Yikes.

Everything I’ve heard regarding the production of the “MAN OF STEEL” sequel – both stuff that’s widely known and not-easily-confirmed insider gossip – has added up to one conclusion: They don’t know what they’re doing. Not in an incompetent way, in a “We haven’t really settled on what this movie is” way. It’s fairly clear that they had a definite plan in place well before “MOS” ever came out, that that plan involved a new Batman showing up, and that they were already working on it to some degree as the first film was rolling out in theaters.

What’s equally clear is that Warner Bros. had a Karl Rove on Election Night 2012 reaction – in slow motion – in regards to “MAN OF STEEL’s” performance, which they’d forecast as a huge moneymaker and a game-changing fanboy lovefest. Instead? A hit, but not an “AVENGERS” or even an “IRON MAN 3.” The audience? Bitterly divided… between “ruined forever!!!” and merely “deeply flawed” – hardly anyone, as far as the pop-culture tea-leaves are concerned, thought it was great.

As a result, whatever the Big Plan was for the sequels and tie-ins has been getting revised on the fly (cameos expanded to supporting characters, plans to split the production in half with the second film being “JUSTICE LEAGUE,”) as the studio and filmmakers try to figure out what it is the audience actually wants to see since “More ‘Man of Steel” has become clearly not the answer.

Added to all that: The film had been scheduled to hit mid-Summer 2015 – just two month’s after “AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON” – as part of a cluttered field what was already making that year a blockbuster bloodbath waiting to happen. So it’s only a little bit surprising that Warner Bros. has bitten the bullet and moved the film almost a full year ahead to May of 2016. For the kind of money involved, that’s a really big deal… but it’s probably the best news that could’ve possibly hit the project. Now they can, potentially, work out a functioning screenplay instead of whatever half-rewritten mess they’d been working from thus far (on the down side: David Goyer is moving with the movie.)

I wonder how much playing release-date tic-tac-toe contributed to this decision. Across town from WB, Disney is still having problems with “STAR WARS: EPISODE VII” (the buzz: nasty power-struggle between J.J. Abrams and LucasFilm boss Kathleen Kennedy for control of the franchise.) They’ve already moved the film once, from the series’ traditional May release date to XMas 2015, and I’d been hearing some say they’d be better going all the way to the following May. The only thing really stopping them was that Big Boss Disney had already staked May 2016 for “Untitled Marvel Project” (presumed to be either “DOCTOR STRANGE” or an unannounced character possibly spinning-off directly from “AGE OF ULTRON”) and that they’d promised shareholders they’d meet a 2015 target. Disney would almost certainly have moved the Marvel project to make room for “EPISODE VII,” but now they’re blocked. This stuff is simply Byzantine, after awhile.

I also wonder if this will lead to any major cast or crew defections. Henry Cavill has really nothing else as major going on (ditto Gal Gadot), but Ben Affleck had another prestige-project movie scheduled to start after he was done shooting this – would he walk and hand back his Batman money to keep that commitment? They’ve been aggressively pursuing certain actors (The Rock, Jason Momoa, possibly Denzel Washington) and characters (Green Lantern, AquaMan), are any of those commitments solid enough for this to not displace anyone? Goyer’s script was already getting a rewrite by Affleck’s pal from “ARGO,” does he move on? Is this room enough for the Nolan Bros. to wash their hands of the DC movies at last? Hell, does even Snyder maybe depart to make room for someone to helm both movies? There’s a lot that can happen here.

Shabby Reboot.

ALSO: “RAZE.”

“Holy About-Fucking-Time-Bat-Time, Batman!”

I’ve maintained for awhile that one of the reasons the Adam West “BATMAN” still hasn’t gotten a fair shake even though Dark Age comics’ need to use it as a whipping boy has faded into memory is that it hasn’t been widely available to buy or watch outside of scattered reruns. A lot of people have really only seen the theatrical movie spin-off, which is fun but doesn’t really capture how sly, clever and subversive (both of the material and of 60s pop-culture) the show actually was underneath all the surface-level camp.

Well, this year that can finally start to change: It has just been announced (via Conan O’Brien, of all people) that Warner Bros. will bring “BATMAN: THE COMPLETE SERIES” to DVD in 2014! Granted, now we have to wait for the other shoe to drop and see which music rights or celebrity estate will innevitably keep certain episodes from appearing either in edited form or altogether… but most is definitely better than nothing. Yay!

J.J. Abrams Presents “STAR WARS: EPISODE VII – RETREAD OF THE JEDI”

CORRECTION: Originally wrote that RDJ’s contract only has one more movie, which was incorrect – he has two left until he has to renew.

Short Version: LATINO REVIEW, who’ve been to Marvel/Disney this decade what AICN was to Warner Bros. in the 90s, reports that the superhero hitmakers are talking to Johnny Depp for DOCTOR STRANGE.

Marvel Studios is on top of the world right now, Hollywood-wise. They’re a hit-making machine – the branding/franchise/cross-promo model that the entire rest of the industry now wants to emulate – but they also manage to do so while making fanboys squeal, mainstream audiences cheer and critics go “Huh. That was pretty good, actually.”

But they’re also staring down the barrel of their first big existential crisis: Robert Downey Jr’s contract runs out after two more movies (presumably, “AVENGERS 2 & 3.”)


Let’s not pussyfoot around it: All the Marvel movies so far make money, but the ones with Iron Man tend to make twice as much. Yes, Marvel made RDJ an A-lister, but he’s still the sole A-lister in their toybox – the only (lead) actor in their Cinematic Universe more famous than the character. But since they’ve only got him for two more appearances at his current rate and will want those appearances to be “AVENGERS” sequels*, they’re either going to have to hand him the biggest paycheck ever or settle for expensive cameo appearances while he pivots toward finding the post-Marvel project that’ll make his career-rebirth story complete by turning him into “Academy Award Winner Robert Downey Jr.”

Marvel does not want to spend that kind of money. They are the cheapest, corner-cuttingest outfit in the business right now. So if keeping an A-lister is going to cost more than casting the nets for another A-lister – maybe one who’s hit a bit of a rough patch recently – then casting the net is what they’d be overwhelmingly more likely to do. Enter: Johnny Depp.

Real talk: Once you get over the ringing sounds of Tonto-speak leaping out of your subconscious at this prospect… this is least surprising thing that Marvel could announce other than “Stan Lee will probably have a cameo.” Marvel is now a Disney brand. So, more or less, is the blockbuster-starring “funny hat” version of Johnny Depp. Disney and Depp both know that audiences are sick of Jack Sparrow, and want a new PG-13 action/fantasy franchise to work with – that’s what “LONE RANGER” was supposed to be.

So do I believe that Marvel wants Depp for the part? Of course, because I believe Marvel would like any name actor to take any part – and I know they’ve talked to him before about possibly voicing Rocket Raccoon and a few other parts. But, realistically, Johnny Depp as a wizard who does elaborate hand-gestures and shouts made-up magic gibberish while futzing with a big floppy cape and tumbling through (inevitably) 3D/CGI surreal landscapes? It’s like he was born for it.

My question: If “DOCTOR STRANGE” – which will, presumably, join “ANT-MAN,” “THOR 3,” “CAPTAIN AMERICA 3” and maybe some yet-to-be announced projects like “MS. MARVEL” for Phase 3 – is going to become, in addition to a Marvel project, as Disney/Depp joint… is it even a question that the very next offer will be to Tim Burton to direct? And before you ask: I doubt Marvel would make any overtures to Gore Verbinski, who’s notorious for spending too much money and triggering delays. Again, fans my recoil at the thought, but Burton’s (aesthetic) sensibilities are rather uniquely well-suited to this particular character, and Disney can likely still pop a raging-semi thinking about how much money the Depp/Burton team made them on that godawful “ALICE IN WONDERLAND” thing.

This would not be my first or ideal choice for this… but I don’t hate this. If this is how it was to go down, I can see it working.

*P.S. Pure conjecture: I’d say the odds are pretty good that Iron Man doesn’t make it out of “AGE OF ULTRON” with Tony Stark still in the suit. As is, he’s supposed to have soft-retired from being Iron Man at the end of his own third movie, and if the movie version of Ultron is – as many expect – a rogue Stark creation (everyone’s guess is “Evil J.A.R.V.I.S,” I want him to turn out to be “Evil Dummy;”) it’d make sense for Stark to either be killed, crippled or otherwise incapacitated doing whatever it takes to destroy a villain he’s sort-of responsible for. They’ve already announced that Don Cheadle will be in the film as War Machine/Iron Patriot, and it’d be well in keeping with the spirit of things and the history of the character for him to take over the Iron Man identity after that. They don’t have to make more “IRON MAN” movies after that if they don’t think audiences will turn out for a non-RDJ actor, but it’d give them somebody on-deck to wear the suit for, say, a “ressurect and/or rescue Tony” plot in “AVENGERS 3.”

When Marvel announced that Paul Rudd was the lead in Edgar Wright’s “ANT-MAN” without giving the character a proper name, people just kind of assumed he was playing a version of Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man, and not Hank Pym, the originator of the role. Now that appears to be official, as newly-minted Golden Globes winner Michael Douglas has been cast as Pym.

This was sort-of expected anyway: Pym is a difficult character, in that he’s been kept prominent through connections to other more important figures but writers have consistently struggled to find anything to do with him (outside of having him change power-sets and secret-identities like pants) since the Marvel Universe isn’t really hurting for super-scientists and Bruce Banner, Tony Stark and Mr. Fantastic are all kind of more popular. Eventually an overzealous artist overdrew a scene of Pym lashing out at his wife (“The Wasp,” who has the same shrinky-powers but also has wings and is a lady) and “wife-beater” became a running fandom gag and his defining characteristic for decades now.

Wright has described the film as a “heist movie.” In the comics, Lang was a reformed burglar who “borrowed” Pym’s Ant-Man gear to pull a job to save his sick kid; Pym let’s him keep the gear and the name provided he only continue to use it for good – which, once balance, actually qualifies as sensible decisionmaking on Pym’s part. Variety briefly “mis-reported” that Douglas was actually playing the villain in the film, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Pym was the antagonist for the movie, or became one (he will likely not, it’s already been stressed elsewhere, be the creator of Ultron for “AVENGERS 2.”)

Realized I didn’t post it here before (busy month for me) but here’s a movie panel from MAGFest mainly stocked by cool cats from That Guy With The Glasses and Chez Apocalypse that I wound up getting invited to join at the last minute – literally, I saw the group hanging out and went to say hello, they asked if I was on the panel too, I said no, they said I should be, so I did:

http://blip.tv/play/AYOZ+lgC.x?p=1http://blip.tv/api.swf#AYOZ+lgC