Tagged: Justice League

George Miller Remains ON ‘Justice League’

News
December 3, 2008

A Kennedy Miller Mitchell representative has told Dark Horizons that their report of George Miller no longer being attached to Warner Bros.’ Justice League film was inaccurate.

The website ran the report from a fan who said he saw Miller on Australia’s Sunrise Morning Show and provided quotes. Garth Franklin dutifully reported the news which just about every genre-related website, including ComicMix, also ran. Apparently, Miller did not appear on the show and the normally reliable source appears to have misled the site.

All the rep would say for the record is that both JL and Mad Max are being “worked on” without elaboration. Warner Bros. has had issues getting the JL made, first with tax-related issues for filming in Australia and then with a refocusing on their super-hero franchises in the wake of Marvel’s summer successes with interconnected threads creating the Marvel Universe on screen.

International Animation Award Nominees Named

News
December 2, 2008

The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, announced nominations for its 36th Annual Annie Awards, recognizing the year’s best animated features, TV productions, commercials, video games and short subjects and a host of individual achievements. DreamWorks Animation leads the way with a total of 27 feature nods, including 17 for Kung Fu Panda, followed by Walt Disney Animation Studios, which received 9 nominations, and Pixar with 8.

Nickelodeon leads the way with 12 television nominations.

The Annie Awards will be handed out at a ceremony on Friday, January 30, 2009, at UCLA’s Royce Hall in LA.

http://www.annieawards.org

Animated Feature

Bolt – Walt Disney Animation Studios
Kung Fu Panda – DreamWorks Animation
$9.99 – Sherman Pictures/Lama Films
Wall-E – Pixar Animation Studios
Waltz With Bashir – Sony Pictures Classics/Bridgit Folman, Les Films D’ici, Razor Films

Animated Home Entertainment Production

Batman: Gotham Knight – Warner Bros. Animation
Christmas Is Here Again – Easy To Dream Entertainment
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs – The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Justice League: The New Frontier – Warner Bros. Animation
The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning – DisneyToon Studios

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George Miller Confirms He’s Off ‘Justice League’

News
December 1, 2008

On the Australian morning television show Sunrise, director George Miller told the viewing audience he was no longer attached to Warner Bros.’ stalled Justice League film.

In a report at Dark Horizons, “Miller indicated that if the project does get going again, he expects that it’ll be recast as ‘the studios seem to want bigger stars in their super-hero movies now.’

Miller also acknowledged his Mad Max sequel script was rejected by actor Mel Gibson but remains hopeful they will team for a film project in the future.

Since a big report in August that Warner was reconsidering their DCU properties, there has been little official news as to which hero will step before the cameras next. The likeliest candidate remains Green Lantern with a finished script now in the studio’s hands.

Director Lauren Montgomery Discusses ‘Wonder Woman’

News
November 29, 2008

After her successful co-directorial debut on Superman Doomsday, Lauren Montgomery takes full command of the helm for Wonder Woman, the next entry in the popular series of DC Universe animated original PG-13 films. Warner Premiere. The video event is due out on March 3, 2009.

Montgomery has directed an origin story for Wonder Woman that remains true to the title character’s various incarnations while setting the tale in more modern times to allow greater accessibility for a wider audience. Working alongside producer Bruce Timm, Montgomery has brought to life Michael Jelenic’s entertaining script with an impressive balance of explosive action and well-timed humor. A talented artist with a lifetime of experience devoted to drawing and animation, Montgomery is proud to give Wonder Woman her first feature film treatment.

Warner Premiere provided the following conversation with the director.

Question: You’ve gone from directing one-third of Superman Doomsday to helming the entirety of Wonder Woman. What’s that progression been like for you?

Lauren Montgomery: It’s mostly in scale of responsibility. On Doomsday, it was all about my one section of the film. Now, it’s everything from background design and color to character design and camera angles, helping select the voices for the cast and approving every storyboard for the entire film. So (she laughs) it was all a lot harder. It’s been an incredible learning experience, it’s probably the most hands-on I’ve ever been on anything, and it’s really prepared me for more of those responsibilities in the future.

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The Stories That Informed ‘Batman R.I.P.’

News
November 26, 2008

“Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible …a…a…”

As if in answer, a huge image of a Caped Crusader flashed across a movie screen. Across monitors throughout space and time and other dimensions.

“It’s an omen!” each man, alien and other-dimensional imp declared. “I shall become a Batman!”

One of the attractions of Batman was, it’s often been said, the fact that a kid could actually imagine growing up to be the Caped Crusader. No one was ever going to grow up to be Superman but with an extensive training regimen (and a hefty bank account) …well, anything’s possible. Overlay that with the spirit of mainstreaming and conformity of the 1950s and you end up with a universe where there seemed to be a Batman knock-off on every corner and planet.

In 1964, editor Julius Schwartz found his arm twisted into taking over the flagging Batman titles. He immediately ditched the extended Batman family and the increasingly prevalent space alien stories for a more contemporary angle grounded in the real world. And as the years rolled on, Schwartz and company refined their approach and gradually, permanently put the Dark back in their Knight.

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October Comics Sales Soften

News
November 20, 2008

As the economy went into free fall, ICv2 notes that October sales have shown some slippage. From their just released list of the top 25 titles, just two showed signs of improvement over September sales. One was Amazing Spider-Man #573 which featured the faux-Stephen Colbert for President cover while the other was Batman #680, the penultimate chapter to Batman RIP.

Despite somewhat stagnant sales, the dollars sold in to comic stores were up a “robust” 9% compared with a year ago, according to the industry watchdog. September and October were the first positive months for comic sales since January. Of course, more titles were retailing last month at $3.99, rapidly becoming a standard, as opposed to last October. ICv2 did note that the unit sales for the title charting in the 300th position was 4200 compared with 3000 just twelve months ago which they interpret as a sign of overall industry strength.

Graphic novel sales showed an increase of just 5% compared with last October. Combined with comic book sales, that creates an 8% total increase.

The site notes that the company crossovers, Secret Invasion #7 (154,675 copies) and Final Crisis #4 (115,666 copies) took the first two spots on the list. Marvel had seven of the top 10 and 17 of the first 25 with DC taking the balance. IDW’s G.I. Joe relaunch and Angel: After the Fall were the first non-Top Two titles to crack the top 100 list coming in at 65th and 66th place. This further cements IDW’s fourth place standing among comic book publishers, after Dark Horse and now ahead of Image.

In graphic novels, DC’s Joker by Brian Azzarello, took first place with an estimated 17,000 copies sold, also nabbing the top spot for dollars earned. Marvel’s best seller for the month was the Marvel Zombies trade paperback, which likely hit the top Marvel spot given its three variant covers. Wile Watchmen slipped from first place to sixth, its 6000 copies remains impressive given its age.

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‘Wonder Woman’ DVD Details Released

News
November 18, 2008

Warner Home Video has announced a March 3, 2009 release date for its direct-to-DVD Wonder Woman film. It will be released in what has rapidly become a standard pattern for genre offerings:a Single Disc DVD for $19.98, 2 Disc Special Edition DVD for $29.98 and Blu-ray Disc for $34.99. The animated original movie will also be available OnDemand and Pay-Per-View as well as available for download day and date. Originally, the DVD had been announced for February release but was delayed a few weeks for unspecified reasons.

From clips ComicMix was shown, it’ll be well worth the wait.

Produced by the multiple Emmy Award winning animation legend Bruce Timm, Wonder Woman is an origin story and features a stellar celebrity voice cast including Keri Russell (Waitress, Felicity), Nathan Fillion (Firefly), Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2), Virginia Madsen (Sideways), Rosario Dawson (Sin City), Oliver Platt (The West Wing) and David McCallum (NCIS).

Wonder Woman begins on the mystical island of Themyscira, where a proud and fierce warrior race of Amazons resides. They have raised Princess Diana, a daughter of stunning beauty, extraordinary strength and incredible fighting prowess. Diana possesses a host of super human powers granted to her by the gods and goddesses of Olympus and her strength and stamina are unparalleled. When Air Force fighter pilot Steve Trevor crash lands on the island, the rebellious and headstrong Diana defies Amazonian law by accompanying Trevor back to civilization. Meanwhile, Ares (the God of War) has escaped his imprisonment at the hands of the Amazons and has decided to exact his revenge by starting a world war that will destroy them all. It is up to Princess Diana to save her people and the world by using her gifts to become the ultimate Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman: 2 Disc Special Edition and Blu-Ray versions will feature collectible packaging as well as 185 minutes of incredible bonus features such as:

• Wonder Woman: A Subversive Dream – She is one of the pillars of DC Comics. We examine why Wonder Woman is important in the grand scheme of the DC Super Heroes and how her raw strength and power helped define a new generation of empowered women, who realized that their gifts of intellect and strength were just as powerful as their male counterparts.

• Wonder Woman The Daughters of Myth – The riveting documentary historically defines the meaning of the Amazons and how this links in with the evolution of the Wonder Woman character from comics to screen.

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The Theory of Webcomics: A DC Wiki?

News
November 16, 2008

A few weeks ago, I discussed the usefulness of active, available archives for webcomics. Archives provide huge amounts of free content to draw in new readers; and they prevent continuity lockout by providing a way to easily go back and refresh your memory of previous events. With print comics, especially before the advent of everything getting collected in trade paperbacks, there really wasn’t a way to avoid that — which is a lot of why Silver Age stories needed to be as self-contained as they were.

Nowadays, people who are flush with cash can always go buy a TPB collection of stories they missed or forgot. Who the heck is this character in the latest issue of Ultimate Spider-Man? The editor’s note says he first appeared back in Ultimate X-Men #17. All it takes is one trip to Amazon.com, several days for delivery, and then reading time, and I’ll be caught up enough to understand what’s going on in the comic currently in my lap.

Of course, those of us with rent bills to pay have to make do with the lower-cost option: The internet. There are lots of choices to catch up on, say, DC Comics continuity: The DC Wikia, the Justice League Library, Heroes Wiki, and heck, even granddaddy Wikipedia itself.

But you know where you can’t go to figure out what happened in that recent issue of Batgirl you missed, or that Green Lantern plot point from 1988 that recently cropped up? DCComics.com.

Now, don’t get me wrong: If you want to see artwork previews, or check the list of everything that’s in print, or get a short graphic bio of most of the characters, DCComics.com is the place to go. But say you haven’t been following Trinity and want to catch up. If you go to the forum and ask for the best place to do so, they’ll point you to Wikipedia.

Of course, Marvel’s website already has their own version of the wiki and it’s pretty nifty, too.

So here’s my suggestion to DC: You need a wiki. You’ve got an army of fans just aching to show how much they know about the characters and storylines, as evidenced by the other wikis that crop up everywhere. You need accessible utilities that’ll help build a bigger audience, especially among younger people, who don’t have the continuity knowledge to get into most recent titles. You need to drive traffic to your website as effective advertising for your products, and keep people at your website, rather than shunting them off to an outside source. And you’ll want all of this to be under your nominal control.

Here’s how you do it: Acquire the Wikia content (I don’t know the legal channels, but I’m sure you could find them). Hire a few of your most OCD fans (and a couple of the ComicMix contributors come to mind) as moderators. Set a few ground rules (no spoilers for this month’s books, no speculation, no flaming), and let the fans go from there. Link in the original stories, history of the DC and other online content you currently have, and have the last line of the wiki entry for each ongoing book or characters be a link to a preview of the next issue. Heck, if you set up creator/author/artist pages right, you can have an “subtle” way of linking fans of one book to things that they would also want to buy.

Also, everything that currently in print? There should be a “Buy It Now!” icon. Not a tiny, blend-in-to-the-background “Subscribe to your favorite comics” down at the bottom of the page. That’ll also be really easy to transition to digital pamphlets when the time comes and the color ebook readers are ready.

Just because classic print comics and “webcomics” as I define them are different animals, doesn’t mean they can’t take lessons from each other about what works in terms of monetizing web content.

(On the odd chance someone official reads this and goes ahead with this idea, I’d also love to see a Showcase volume of my dad’s work from the 70s and 80s, particularly ‘Mazing Man. Also, a pony.)

Marc Forster to Direct ‘World War Z’

News
November 16, 2008

Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster has signed to direct World War Z for Paramount Pictures. The movie will adapt Max Brooks’ novel about “a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission [who] interviews survivors from countries all over the world, 10 years after the [zombie] crisis, to gather a first-person post-mortem on a war that obliterated every country on the map”, according to Variety. The adaptation has been written by J. Michael Straczynski with Brad Pitt’s Plan B is producing.

"The genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the 70s like All the President’s Men," Forster told Variety.

The studio optioned the book in 2006 for Pitt. Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks and the late Anne Bancroft. He first came to attention as author of 2003’s The Zombie Survival Guide. He’s also acted on shows like Roseanne and has done voice work on Batman Beyond and Justice League.

CW Drops Plans for ‘Graysons’

News
November 7, 2008

Fans can breathe easier now.

The CW has dropped its plans for The Graysons, which would have dramatically altered the character of Dick Grayson in stories set before he became Robin the Boy Wonder. According to Variety, Warner Bros. Pictures president Jeff Robinov rethought the premise and decided it didn’t fit in the company’s overall plans for its DC Comics super-heroes.

With Smallville likely in its eighth and final season, the CW network was seeking a replacement series and settled on Dick Grayson. The reimagined premise, announced on October 1, saw him growing to his mid-teens and still performing with his parents, the renowned trapeze act, the Flying Graysons. Rather than call him Dick, he was also renamed “DJ”, all of which set off alarms throughout comic book fandom.

"Warner Bros. TV never had 100% clearance," one executive told the trade.

Robinov had told The Wall Street Journal back in August that the studio wanted to create a more cohesive plan for the DCU, largely after it faltered to keep up with Marvel which this year introduced connected elements between its Iron Man and Incredible Hulk films. Among those decisions was halting the Justice League film and possibly rebooting Superman, going with a darker approach.

Christopher Nolan, talking about directions he might go with a third film in his Batman franchise, dismissed adding Robin at any time but word had it that he never gave his blessing to the CW series. The idea that having Batman in theaters and Robin on television was considered by some executives to be a mistake. They also thought Smallville might have had something to do with Superman Returns’ poor box office. Clearly, none of them saw the film.

The Graysons, as a result, did not fit with the plan at all.

"The studio has opted not to go forward with the development of The Graysons at this time as the concept doesn’t fit the current strategy for the Batman franchise," the studio said in a statement. "Warner Bros. Television is currently working on several replacement options for the CW."

Tagged: Justice League

George Miller Remains ON ‘Justice League’

International Animation Award Nominees Named

George Miller Confirms He’s Off ‘Justice League’

Director Lauren Montgomery Discusses ‘Wonder Woman’

The Stories That Informed ‘Batman R.I.P.’

October Comics Sales Soften

‘Wonder Woman’ DVD Details Released

The Theory of Webcomics: A DC Wiki?

Marc Forster to Direct ‘World War Z’

CW Drops Plans for ‘Graysons’

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