Next Avengers Animated film

The fifth animated film project from Marvel Studios is a breaking new ground rather than redefining existing storylines. The first two films, Ultimate Avengers I and II, were awkwardly based both on classic and ‘Ultimate’ versions of the Avengers while attempting to develop a kind of synergy between the two. The follow ups, Iron Man and Doctor Strange, are more character-centric big budget films.

In a recent interview with iF Magazine, Senior Vice President of Creative Development Animation Craig Kyle had the following to say:

“I would definitely look at it as an extension of those films. We’ve done two of them, so if you look at it that way, this would be ULTIMATE AVENGERS 22. The story is well down the line and it would be after the AVENGERS had many journey’s and faced many foes. They’ve really come to a point in their lives, at this stage, where there a lot of other younger heroes in their world, and they’re thinking “before we lose our lives in battle or die of old age, we should settle down and enjoy a slice of it ourselves.” Not that they stopped their heroics, but they would have settled down to some degree and focused on having families, and unfortunately one of the greatest threats they ever faced was Ultron. The history of this coming film, in the final time they faced him, he defeated them — all of them. And before he could cut his way through these heroes and to their offspring, they were whisked away and hidden from them and had been living in a protective bubble, unknowing of what happened to their parents and how they are and the fate that awaits them in the outside world. What you get is an environment, where Ultron has been in control of the world for over a decade and has been rebuilding it in his image and he does find those children to finish what he started over 15-years ago.”

The ‘Next Avengers’ film takes place far in the future and while the visual above and concept sound kid-centric, one of the chief influences cited by the production team is the dark vision of the Marvel Comics future Earth X. Protected by their patriarch and teacher Tony Stark, the young Avengers are eager to prove themselves in battle against the insanely powerful villain Ultron. Taking place in a future where the classic Avengers are aged phantoms of themselves, these young Avengers view themselves as the only hope in striking back against the evil robot conqueror.

The short trailer included on the Doctor Strange animated DVD seems to indicate that despite the fact that the heroes are kids, the film will take risks at telling a darker story than the audience will be expecting.

The next two animated projects are rumored to be The Mighty Thor and Hulk Smash, but Next Avengers may be the first attempt at developing an original film.

The Nightly News

Ranking high in many a ‘year’s best comics’ lists this year is a surprise to many. The Nightly News published by Image Comics has taken the independent comic book world back to basics.

At a time when many of the top creators have developed their own independent projects only to end up working on projects for the big two (Marvel and DC Comics), it’s heartening to see a creator producing a sophisticated and innovative storylines that are entertaining while confronting them by making them think twice about the media.

Professional graphic designer Jonathan Hickman recently talked to ComicBookResources.com about his background in creating comics in an interview that anyone interested in working in the comics field MUST read.

A visual fest of graphic design, the series has been collected in trade paperback form.

Be sure to check it out.

Recommended

The Nightly News

More Incredible Hulk images

I know I’m cashing in any hope of ever earning a ‘cool club’ membership by saying this, but I like the Ang Lee Hulk movie.

I know, I know… poodles are silly, Hulk looked like Skrek and Nick Nolte was off the hook and over the top, but I still respect and appreciate how the film boldly attempted to bring a Marvel Comics character forward and modernize the comic book ideas into a sophisticated blockbuster movie.

That said, it failed to do what many fans wanted, which was to replicate the Hulk 1970’s TV show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. I hate that show. Nothing against Bixby, Lou or fans of the program. The Hulk TV series brought many a new reader to comics and did more to spread the mighty name of Marvel Comics than any other comic book-related project before or since (except perhaps for the Superman radio show), but… it puts me to sleep. Seeing David (Bruce) Banner take on odd jobs and a green-painted Lou Ferrigno tear apart drywall in slow motion is not exactly compelling entertainment for me.But like I said, I like the Ang Lee film, so what do I know?

In any case, it looks like those fans clamoring for a return to ‘greatness’ are being heard. As you can see from the above still, the Incredible Hulk sequel is building very consciously on the imagery of the classic TV series, something that will no doubt resonate with fans.

(in the opening sequence to the TV series featuring Banner hooked up to a device not dissimilar to the one Ed Norton is sitting in above)

That does not, however, mean that the new movie won’t suck.

Recommended

The Incredible Hulk - The Complete First Season

(not so) Secret Skrull Invasion

Ever since their first appearance waaaay back in Fantastic Four #2, the Skrulls have been nothing but trouble.

Their first ever story involved the weirdly pointy-eared aliens impersonating the ever-loving FF as to sew distrust in the minds of the general population. This story must have stuck in the bald pate of Marvel darling writer Brian Michael Bendis and editor-in-chief Joe Quesada since it forms the backbone of the upcoming major cross-over ‘Secret Invasion.’

In recent issues of the New Avengers, the team decided to come to the aid of sometime costumed crusader Echo who was taking on the Japanese underworld single-handedly in her guise of the martial arts expert Ronin. This lead Echo to discover that every underworld crook was under the thumb of the Hand, now lead by former Daredevil heart throb and failed movie project, Elektra. After the Avengers arrived to rescue Echo, the inescapable slug fest ensued, ending in the surprise slaying of Elektra at Echo’s hands. Adding to the surprise was the shock and horror that it was not Elektra at all but a pointy-eared Skrull masquerading as Elektra.

This caused nothing but worry and dismay as our heroes rushed home to the States as they thought over the past year and the Civil War that pitted hero against hero. Was it all a Skrull plot to divide the heroes? Was Tony Stark (chief architect of the superhuman registration act) a Skrull? Before they were even in American airspace, the question of who was and wasn’t a Skrull had become so great that no one was sure who they could trust anymore. And besides, what was a Skrull doing disguising itself as Elektra anyway?

Rumored to be the holy grail of continuity error solutions, the Secret Invasion storyline could explain away weird behavior in characters, undo deaths and bring back characters in various forms. So far, Marvel has stated that Tony Stark is absolutely NOT a Skrull… but is that just a red herring to put readers off the scent?

When the invasion finally begins, the heroes will already be divided and distrustful of each other… making the victory of the evil Skrulls that much more assured. But as many a Marvel reader knows, our heroes do best when against impossible odds.

Doctor Who Extra

Co-creator of The Office Ricky Gervais has wanted to do a Doctor Who episode on his program Extras for ages but hasn’t managed to find an open spot that would work for the sci-fi hit until just this year.

For those unfamiliar with the program, Extras follows Gervais as he works through a series of lousy extra parts in film and TV. Along the way he encounters glamorous stars such as Patrick Stewart and Daniel Radcliffe who are presented as foul-mouthed insane celebrities drunk on power.

Oddly the result is much more like the old or ‘classic’ Doctor Who in that the Doctor solves the problem with science rather than his magic wand.

Too bad we didn’t get to see Gervais and Tennant ‘off-screen’, huh?

Recommended

Extras - The Complete First Season
Extras - The Complete Second Season

Doctor Who good news/bad news

This year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Voyage of the Damned, enjoyed 13.8 million viewers and a 55% share of the TV audience, the highest ratings the series has had since 1979 when his lord Tom Baker reigned.

Any Doctor Who fan watching the DVD fun fact trivia track could tell you that the average classic series episode brought in around 8 million without a pop idol guest-starring or a ‘captive’ Christmas audience. And it would take some very inventive mathematics to show how many possible TV viewers Doctor Who was shooting for in ‘79 versus ‘07, but never mind.

In related news, the program (which takes place on a spaceship Titanic) offended both survivors of the actual Titanic disaster and Christians who viewed the depiction of the Doctor as a savior offensive (clearly they missed out on the Season Three finale featuring a faerie prince Doctor restored due to the faith of a planet funneled through mind-controlling satellites).

In response to this, producer Davies was quoted as saying:  “The series lends itself to religious iconography because The Doctor is a proper saviour… He saves the world through the power of his mind and his passion.”

Additionally, Millvina Dean, the last living survivor of the Titanic disaster felt snubbed, saying “I lost my father and he lies on that wreck. I think it is disrespectful to make entertainment of such a tragedy.” The BBC assured the public that “no offence was intended. Voyage Of The Damned is set on a space ship called The Titanic and not a boat.”

I yearn for the days when the program was attacked by Mary Whitehouse for being ‘too violent’ for children. Honestly,  to screen a program on Christmas Day and deify your hero is one thing, to stupidly stand by it as accurate is a whole other can of crazy.

I know that Davies is a very open atheist, but if he’s going to rally his fist against religion on Christmas, I’d rather see an intelligent statements on the subject like his superb mini-series with Chris Eccleston ‘The Second Coming.’

But it brings in the viewers, so what do I know?

Batman’s XMas Carol

Every Christmas as I sit and unwrap presents or tuck in to another helping of turkey, I think to myself that I’m very lucky to enjoy all of this hearty food and gifts and glad tidings. Surrounded by family and a heated home, safe and cozy from the cold wintry outdoors.

But each year I pause and think of the less fortunate, like Batman.

Poor poor Batman. 

Cinematic Titanic movie details!

The first project from Cinematic Titanic was released at midnight on 12/22/07, the first release from the fellas behind MST3K.

Details from the official website below:

We’re really proud to announce that the first Cinematic Titanic DVD is available for sale! It’s been a fun and busy three months and I really hope you like it. Buy it now!

Click here to find out all about how you can get it.

First, some background about the film we chose…

Originally titled “Brain of Blood” for theatrical release and “The Creature’s Revenge” for television, it was shot in 1971 and somehow perfectly catches the spirit of the seventies-schlocksploitation zeitgeist. Once we found out we had a chance to obtain the rights to this find, we became kinda obsessed.

We began negotiating with Sam Sherman, one of the film’s producers and story creator, who’s a really nice man with a great sense of humor. Once Sam realized what we were intending to do to “Brain of Blood”, he granted us permission to license it, with the proviso that we change the name of the feature to avoid confusion in the marketplace with the original, unTitanic-ed version. This is such a great looking film, with so many unbelievable situations, it was an easy decision to oblige Sam’s wishes, and so we came up with the title “The Oozing Skull”.

Watch the trailer here!

Cinematic Titanic 1: “The Oozing Skull” was first performed as written in the studio. It was then performed live at Lucasfilm and and ILM. Once we got Cinematic Titanic on its feet in front of a live audience, we were amazed by the response. All of us being former stand-ups, we realized that we were performing the jokes differently in front of a living, breathing audience– we were changing the way we delivered our lines, and also adding lots of extra material. In those two performances, enough new and better material evolved to warrant another pass at the film. This became a sort of an emergency fire drill for our production team, headed by Stoney Sharp and Tim Ford, but they seized the challenge with great aplomb. Yeah, it’s late, but we think it’s worth it.

So, that’s the dealio. This idea of doing the material live was a happy accident, not designed into our creative path, but we know it made the product better by performing in front of our fans. It was the perfect push we needed to figure out the pilot for Cinematic Titanic.

Also, for the time being, this feature is only being made available as an actual DVD. We found out in the eleventh hour of negotiating with Sam Sherman that only the DVD rights are available right now, with the ‘download to burn’ rights becoming available in the spring. Sorry about that chiefs. Our survey indicated that four out of five of you prefer DVD anyway. But this download thing– We suspect there’s a future to it.

So that it’s for now. We’re very happy and can’t wait for you to see Cinematic Titanic 1: “The Oozing Skull”.

The Cinematic Titanic: Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, and J. Elvis Weinstein.

Suddenly I feel like it’s Christmas!

New Dr. Who producer announced

I can’t believe I missed this, but a new producer for the hit BBC Wales sci-fi series has been chosen to take over from Russel T Davis in the program’s fifth series.

Piers Wenger will work on the fifth series of Doctor Who and also take over as head of BBC Wales drama in January 2009 when current boss Julie Gardner steps down, MediaGuardian can reveal.

A BBC spokeswoman said no final decision had yet been made on Davies’ role on the show from 2009.Davies and Gardener will continue to work on Doctor Who for the next 18 months, overseeing the fourth series which is currently in production and is due to air from the spring of next year, as well as three specials for broadcast in 2009.

Gardener will also continue to executive produce the next runs of Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures before she leaves BBC Wales.

Full details here.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Finally unveiled, here’s the trailer for the eagerly awaited sequel to the hit comic book movie Hellboy. Everyone from the first film (including the sleazy government liaison played by Jeffrey Tambor) is back in this action-packed film that builds on the successes of the first horror/super hero flick.

Joining the team and seen briefly in the trailer is fan favorite character Johann Krauss, a ball of ectoplasm stick in a diving suit. Introduced by Guy Davis (one of my  all time favorite comic creators), Johann is a great addition to the quirky monster/hero team.

Comic creator Mike Mignola describes the film’s premise as being more concerned with folklore than pulp:

It’s not Nazis, machines and mad scientists but the old gods and characters who have been kind of shoved out of our world. I kind of equate it to the whole American Indian situation. The Indians were shoved onto reservations. You had your old, wise Indians who said, “You know, this is the way it is. We can’t fight anymore. We just have to accept our fate.” You then have your Geronimo character saying, “Or we could just kill the White Man.” That’s kind of the situation we have in the film. We have our elf characters resigning to the way things are and then there’s one saying, “Or we could take the world back.” The main difference is - what if the Indians had a nuclear warhead? The elves have their equivalent of the weapon that is too terrible to use. What if this guy decided to use it?

Trailer
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