Marvel Studios Touts Year’s Successes
Marvel Studios Chairman David Maisel told investors at Merrill Lynch that their debut this year was” arguably the most successful" in modern history. He touted facts and figures for the smash success of Iron Man and coupled it with the so-so performance of Incredible Hulk to show their dominance. While claiming Iron Man is the 21st top grossing film in domestic history, adjusted for inflation, it’s actually 113th.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, he has compared their 2010 Thor film as akin to The Lord of the Rings. At present, no director or cast has been attached.
Maisel also indicated the films will continue to seed characters and threads from film-to-film comparing it with the Star Wars films as opposed to the organic manner in which Stan Lee populated the Marvel Universe. The cameos were "a taste of what’s to follow."
While announcing nothing new, he reiterated the planned 2010 releases for Iron Man 2 and Thor and the 2011 releases of The First Avenger: Captain America and The Avengers. He made no mention of the other films rounding out the 10 films Paramount agreed to co-finance including Ant Man.
Nor did he make mention of Sony’s competing 2011 release, Spider-Man 4, or 20th-Century Fox’s Marvel properties including next year’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
"And with our track record, we can normally keep those release dates pretty clean," Maisel noted. He also indicated the advance scheduling allows them to line up premiere licensing and merchandising partners. He pointed to the forthcoming theme parks in Dubai and South Korea as partnerships aiming the studio and its characters for global domination well into the 21st century.
Also yesterday, actress Eva Mendes pooh-poohed the notion of a Ghost Rider sequel, telling MTV, "No, I think Ghost Rider had its moment. I don’t know about a sequel, but I don’t think it needs one. I was so proud of it. It was fun…but I think it’s done…but look, hey, if it’s Nicolas Cage again – I’ll do anything with him."
Seth Green chatted with 
Though Star Wars fandom is full of disagreements and divisions, most of us fanboys are in agreement about a few things: Jedi, lightsabers and force powers are awesome. Anything Timothy Zahn writes is going to be better than anything Kevin J. Anderson writes. And Lucas probably would have had a better script for The Phantom Menace if he’d hired a seven-year-old to write it.
Charles Kochman was recently named Executive Editor of Abrams ComicArts, a new imprint at Harry N. Abrams. The publisher rewarded Kochman with the promotion and imprint in recognition of his successful efforts to celebrate comic books and graphic storytelling with best-selling books. Kochman, a former book editor at DC Comics, joined Abrams several years back and has published a wide variety works that have garnered reviews and award nominations starting with Mom’s Cancer. His Diary of a Wimpy Kid has earned a place atop The New York Times best seller list and merited national acclaim.
The first book I edited with Mike was a Back to the Future movie storybook, adapted by Bob Fleming. In addition, we published books on licenses like Photon, The Bionic Six, and An American Tale. I also got to write many coloring and activity books, including ones on dinosaurs, unicorns, and the Universal monsters. It was good training. The dinosaurs coloring book actually hit the B. Dalton bestseller list for some reason, which shocked all of us, including our president. I still have the note he sent me where he wrote “Holy shit! Bravo!” on a copy of the list.
You can tell the summer is over just by looking at the box office gross chart and see that the cool films have arrived and we’re in a lull as people focus on school and the arrival of the fall television season.
I love dogs. Most of my life, I’ve had at least one dog and often times two. Some have been wonderful, smart creatures and some were just thick as a brick. All were good companions and I have specific stories relating to each and they are bright in my memory.
The Cartoon Network has announced that the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars will debut on Friday, October 3 at 9 p.m. The first night will feature a one-hour special, kicking off the cable network’s Friday night block of new programming. The first hour that night will be offering a sneak peek at their new Secret Saturdays. The following week will be the new schedule with The Secret Saturdays (premiere episodes); Star Wars: The Clone Wars; Star Wars: The Clone Wars (premiere episodes); Ben 10: Alien Force (premiere episodes).
Several additional DVDs have been announced of late and here are some of the highlights we suspect you’ll appreciate:
It’s a good thing for this column that I listen to NPR. I don’t know if I’d have the number of column topics that I’ve had without it. This time I was listening to a debate between a former college/university president and the head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The topic was whether the drinking age should be lowered to 18. I like to think I would have been more Pro on the topic back when I was 18 myself, but the fact was in those days I was so square I was cubed.
The Dark Knight surpassed Star Wars twice this weekend. First, it firmly grabbed second place on the All Time Box Office charts with a total now estimated at $471,493,000. Its weekend take of $16,790,000 also surpassed the debut of the CGI-animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars which managed a so-so $15,505,000. The film received mixed reviews and little in the way of anticipatory buzz so its performance over the next week or two will be telling.
