‘Kick-Ass’ Starts Shooting Shortly
One of the surprise hits for Marvel this year was Kick-Ass, the series from Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. In addition to sell outs and multiple printings, it was optioned for a film prior to the first issue hitting the stands this past winter.
The movie, to be directed by Stardust’s Matthew Vaughn, stars Nicholas Cage and as the would-be hero, 18-year-old Aaron Johnson (Angus, Thongs & Snogging). While in Australia promoting Angus, he told Moviehole he goes from Down Under to Canada to begin shooting in a few weeks.
"Next week I’ll be in Toronto. I’m still trying to get my head around it. I just came back from New York actually where I was doing an independent film. I’ve gone from one side of the world to the other. My head is going crazy. I woke up this morning and said ‘Where am I?’ I looked out the window and saw the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and I’m like ‘Wow! How did I end up in Australia?’. Have you ever seen that film Jumper? It’s like I’m in Jumper."
As the teen turned costumed crimefighter, he won’t be required to do a lot of stunt work compared with the other members of the cast. "There’s a younger girl in it. [Chloe Moretz, Dirty Sexy Money] and Nicolas Cage do a lot of the fighting. I don’t do much fighting – I get my faced kicked in a lot though. She goes around with a samurai sword cutting people’s heads off. It’s very violent obviously. It’s going to be quite a crazy one. I play an American comic book nerd so it’s very different from the sex god roles".
The movie has been adapted by Jane Goldman who previously worked with Vaughn on adapting Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’s graphic novel to the screen. The film will also star Lyndsy Fonseca (Desperate Housewives) and Omari Hardwick (Saved). A 2009 release date is anticipated.
Competing Sherlock Holmes movies will be racing to see who can get before the cameras faster. Guy Ritchie (Rocknrolla)’s version already has Robert Downey, Jr. on board as Holmes but now Russell Crowe says he wants to play Watson. He was quoted in Australia’s Daily Herald as indicating this desire although an anonymous source was cited. 
Meantime, also in Australia, Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia was quoted by Showbiz Spy indicating his desire to play a decided adult Boy Wonder. "I always thought I would make a great Robin. I would love to be Christian Bale’s sidekick in Batman," he told the reporter. "Even when I was younger I never wanted to be Batman." Of course, director Christopher Nolan has already said for years now that his film version of the Caped Crusader will never feature a Wonder – boy, teen or adult.
As reported across the web and in today’s New York Times, Brad Meltzer has launched a campaign to raise funds to renovate and preserve the boyhood home of Jerome Siegel, co-creator of Superman. Starting today, a four week auction of items will begin with winners gaining original artwork, VIP seats to the Colbert Report, walk ons in comic books, novels and even an episode of NBC’s Heroes.
Today, Google will be launching their version of a web browser. Dubbed Chrome, it is said to be an open Source construct which began with the needs of today’s web users being taken into consideration. To make certain we understand why this is different than IE, Opera, Safari and Firefox, they hired Scott McCloud to produce a 35-page 
Warner Home Video has announced a sixth DVD box set in their Looney Tunes Golden Collection series. The new set will be released on October 21 with 60 classic, fully re-mastered and restored cartoons, presented in their original un-edited format. Most of the shorts in the collection have never been available on DVD before.
WizardWorld Texas, to be held at the Arlington Convention Center November 7-9, has named John Cassady its Guest of Honor. Cassady, currently drawing The Lone Ranger for Dynamite Entertainment, has made his name on titles including Astonishing X-Men and Planetary.
Warner Bros. has given a green light to a Jonah Hex script from Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank). "Pre-production will begin January 2009 before principal photography gets underway in March 2009 in either Louisiana, Georgia or Arizona,” the producers told 
The summer box office ended anemically although The Dark Knight did as expected, and sailed past the $500 million domestic box office mark. By doing so in just 45 days puts it on a faster pace than the #1 champ, Titanic. With $11 million for the four-day weekend, the film stands at $504,696,000. Add in the $416,700,000 from foreign receipts and the film has earned Warner Bros. $919,121,000 (this despite our report that it’s tanking in Japan).
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced the box set of the eleventh season of The Simpsons will be unveiled on DVD on October 7.
