Hey folks. Escape to The Movies should be up in the regular place and time later today, though I’ll be otherwise engaged to post it here on the blog(s). Either way, here’s the live-stream of the main panel theater from The Escapist Expo.

My appearance schedule as of now looks like this (all times EST):

3pm Friday – Q&A
9am Saturday – “I’M MAD ABOUT X”
10:30am Saturday – PS4/WiiU/XBox speculation/debate
12pm Saturday – BIG PICTURE QUIZ SHOW
3pm Saturday – Q&A
4:30pm Saturday – NO RIGHT ANSWER Escapists Debate
6:30pm Saturday – COSPLAY CONTEST (I’m a judge)
1:30pm Sunday – Top 5 Geek Movies of 2013
3pm Sunday – Q&A

We basically didn’t hear a damn thing about this most recent reboot of the Jack Ryan franchise ever since they locked the cast and started shooting. That’s not a great sign, but there also wasn’t any word of anything going “wrong” with the production – so it’s likely that the film is simply just as milquetoast, generic and middling as it looks in this first trailer, which was only just now released. Did they figure that Tom Clancy’s death at 66 was the last and only chance they were going to get at people being somewhat interested in this project?


http://movies.yahoo.com/video/jack-ryan-shadow-recruit-trailer-210023496.html?format=embed&player_autoplay=false
This one was directed by Kenneth Brannagh (now, amusingly, billed as “THE DIRECTOR OF THOR!”), who will next helm the live-action “Cinderella” for Disney. Looks like somebody liked that taste of studio-blockbuster honey when they finally got it. I’d like to know who told Chris Pine this was a good career bet, though – “Sexy Young Replacement Reboot Guy” isn’t something you’d want to be typecast as, lest your name turn into a punchline about movie reboots (“They’re doin’ King Kong again. Chris Pine will be the monkey.”)

To be honest, it could look A LOT worse… but am I the only one who can’t summon up anything beyond a giant bucket of WHO CARES? What about this is supposed to look like anything other than a weaksauce copy of stuff we’ve already seen in “Bourne,” the recent Bonds, etc? It doesn’t even look as novel a variation on Clancy-esque right-wing paranoia-porn as “24” was over a decade ago.

Yes, I’m still onboard. How thrilled does Orlando Bloom look to be back in this? “Good news, guys! Apparently I still exist!”

SCHLOCKTOBER begins. Enjoy.

Fun Fact: In the actual movie business, shorts like this (re: semi-narrative ‘demo-reels’ for treatments of an existing property) get produced all the time as a way for a filmmaker to pitch their project (or why they’d be good for a specific project.) It’s called “Proof Of Concept.”

This isn’t that – this is a “Proof We Can Do Big FX/Action On a Budget” from Rainfall Films (that’s Rileah Vanderbilt, wife of “Frozen” and “Hatchet” helmer Adam Green as Diana). But if it were… I can certainly imagine WORSE ways to try and get Warner Bros. to pull the trigger on this franchise. “Girl Thor by way of ‘300” might be a bit on the literal side – or maybe “make it look like how Zack Snyder might do it…” was the goal – and it feels one dramatic can-opening away from being a Mountain Dew SuperBowl ad, granted; but if I’m Warner Bros. this is a movie I’d want on my schedule.

“That’s just a tomato.”

Whenever I think about the state of video-game movies, I have to keep reminding myself that Spawn, Steel, Barb Wire and Howard the Duck all got big feature-film adaptations before Spider-Man did. With that in mind, here’s the first trailer for the next very, very important gaming franchise to rate it’s own movie, “Need For Speed;” which appears to feature Aaron Paul as the less interesting version of the guy from “Drive.”

Y’ever see “student films” made by bro’s who switched to Film Studies their sophmore year because their buddy showed them “Boondock Saints” and they thought they’d found their creative calling?

Well, I have – and they all have this same basic music and narration. So I understand if no one else finds this trailer gut-bustingly hilarious; but this looks like the first great comedy of 2014 to me. Can. Not. Wait.

Wow, that didn’t even take a day.

Effectively right after “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” had its premiere, Deadline landed the “exclusive” news that Warner Bros. is developing a comic-movie spin-off series of their own from “Mentalist” creator Bruno Heller. Surprising absolutely ZERO living humans, the DC franchise being spun-off… is Batman.

The title: GOTHAM. The pitch: The exploits of Commissioner Gordon in pre-Batman Gotham City… so, “Law & Order”/Criminal Minds”/”CSI”/etc but (presumably) with Batman villains.

Y’know what? That’s actually a really good idea – and you can tell that Warners thinks so as well by the network in question: This is going to Fox instead of traditional DC-series home The CW, which indicates that Warners is confident that people might actually want to watch this show. Fans and pros alike have been talking about bringing Batman back to live-action television for awhile* (real talk: Between the Adam West show, “The Animated Series,” both “Justice League” runs and “The Brave and The Bold;” episodic television seems to be where this character works best); and this is a great way of doing that without “lowering” their now Affleck-fronted cinematic cash cow to TV.

The big question, one imagines, is whether or not this will attempt to establish some kind of connection with the still-murky history of the new version of Batman set to debut in “Superman vs. Batman” – where they’re already talking up the idea that he’ll be a kind of grizzled “veteran” superhero in contrast to Superman’s relative-newbie status. Not long ago that would’ve been an easy “no, Warner Bros. doesn’t care about that;” but it’s sounding more and more like the new Flash who’ll be showing up on “Arrow” next season is meant to be part of the eventual “Justice League” feature, so who knows?

Continuity aside, one has to wonder what the setting for this is going to look like: James Gordon traditionally meets Batman either in middle-age or as an otherwise older man (he’s a Commissioner, after all); so “before Batman” is a pretty long stretch of time. Will they go younger, with Sexy Fresh-Out-Of-The-Academy College-Age Officer Gordon learning the ropes? Middle-aged Detective Gordon? Older Gordon who’ll meet Batman “any day now?” Maybe it’s telling that Deadline’s story only specifies that Batman won’t appear – does that mean Bruce Wayne could? If so, it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of logistical possibility to get Ben Affleck to throw on a three-piece suit and pull a sweeps-week cameo as “carefree playboy Bruce Wayne,” hanging out on the periphery of this or that investigation while series regulars make unintentionally-ironic comments about his physicality, sleeping-habits, etc.

We’ll see. Incidentally, “S.H.I.E.L.D.” was good. Solid, good cast, sharp writing that only occasionally feels a little too Whedon for it’s own good. Feels like almost every important character had two separate introductions – one for “this is X!” and one for “is it true about X’s ominously-alluded-to mysterious backstory?,” which would feel like too much ambition anywhere else but makes sense here. I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow, so stay tuned.

*Young Bruce Wayne was supposed to become a part of “Smallville” at one point, but the character and storyline were rewritten into Oliver Queen instead once the run-up to “Batman Begins” got under way.

You’ll find out what I thought of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” tomorrow. Until then, here’s a REALLY fortuitous “leak” that hit YouTube right around the same time the series was hitting TV. It offers more-or-less the first look at Ultron (SPOILER: He looks like Ultron.)

Hiroshi Yamauchi, 1927 – 2013