20th Century-Fox has launched their website for X-Men Origins: Wolverine with the newly released trailer and a countdown clock. You can sign up for e-mail updates as the promotional machine gears up for the movie’s May 1, 2009 release.
Nickelodeon has created their own Comic Book Awards, inviting fans to come vote in eight different categories during the entire month of December.
The categories include Best Hair, Best Guest Character, Cutest Comic Character , Best Comic, Favorite Manga, Grossest Thing in Comics, Favorite Fantasy Graphic Novel and Favorite Comic Strip. Nominees are an eclectic choice culled from comics, comic strips, graphic novels, and pop culture. Our toughest choice was for best hair, without Wolverine in the mix. We opted for Veronica Lodge.
The winners will be announced at the website on March 17 and appear in the April issue of Nickelodeon magazine.
Producer Lauren Shuler Donner told Indie London that X-Men Origins: Wolverine is “very good. I’m very pleased with it. It’s very much an origins story. It’s very much in the tone of the first X-Men.”
As for the next Origins project, she said, “We have a great script on Magneto. I’ll tell you the honest truth… I’ve made four movies this year and I was so busy that I didn’t at all talk to the studio while making Magneto because I couldn’t have done it. And David Goyer, who wrote and is going to direct it, also did another movie. So now, he’s done with his and I’m done with two of mine, so when I get back that’s my first order of business to say: ‘Come on, let’s go and make Magneto’.”
Friday, Day One at Wizard World Chicago and it’s the Marvel Ultimates Panel featuring Brian Bendis, C.B. Cebulski, editor Bill Rosemann and moderator Jim McCann. As Rick Marshall previously reported about the "Mondo Marvel" panel, this particular panel was also relatively light on earth-shattering announcements. It also had some technical problems at the beginning which prevented the slideshow from working. So, to start the panel off, Jim McCann dove right into it with a couple of announcements and then some Q&A while they waited for the slides.
First up, Rosemann announced, "No, we do not know when Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk will come out." Bendis also announced that Ultimate Spider-Man is "not cancelled," that "everything is connected" and that there will be an Ultimate Spider-Man Annual which will focus on Peter and MJ’s "physical relationship."
According to Bendis, "It was the hardest sell I ever had. I just thought that remembering my glory years of 15 and 16 that it’s an important issue. Not having dealt with it felt false to me. It’s gonna be drawn by David La Fuente." The book is double-sized and will be out in October.
At that point, the kinks were finally worked out and the slides started. Fans of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe were then treated to several slides featuring, among other things, upcoming covers for issues of Ultimate Origins featuring Captain America, Magneto and Hulk as well as a few pages of the actual Cap origins issue itself. There was also an alternative Origins cover featuring "Cap’s butt" as drawn by Gabriel del Otto.
Also, slides from Ultimatum showing the Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, Namor, and the Ultimates 3 cast of the Ultimates featuring Black Panther and Captain America next to each other on the slide. This slide highlights, according to Bendis, an "organic but massive disaster" which happens to the Ultimate Universe. The disaster will be seen in Ultimate Spider-Man.
Then, once the slides were done (which took about five minutes) it was back to the Q&A which, as you may expect, pretty much became the Brian Bendis show as the vast majority of the questions were directed to him. Some of the highlights of the Q&A follow but it started off with Bendis’s explanation of his thought process when the Ultimates universe was being created.
The first issue of Marvel’s big [[[Secret Invasion Summer Extravaganza Skrullfest ’08]]] (or whatever they’re calling it) is here, and there’s just too much to talk about for it to fit in my Weekly Haul reviews roundup. So let’s break this one down between the good, the bad and the ugly. And, be warned if you haven’t read it, spoilers lurk below.
The Good:
First, let me just say how happy I am that Marvel let Brian Michael Bendis continue his partnership with Leinil Yu, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites. His art has a uniquely nervy feel, and it would’ve been easy for Marvel to peg someone more “safe” for their big event. And while I like Yu’s work better when it isn’t inked, his inked work in [[[Secret Invasion]]] is still quite good.
Another strongpoint is the barrel-full of action, making this issue the complete antithesis of the yawner of an opener to House of M
I also got a kick out of the little details Bendis wrote in. For instance, every Skrull reveal is foreshadowed throughout the book by the art. Every character who is shown only in complete black outline somewhere in the issue turns out to be a Skrull. Well, aside from Sentry and Wolverine, who haven’t been outed yet.
The Bad:
ABC is announcing a commitment to Lost for another three seasons, according to the New York Times. “We have always envisioned Lost as a show with a beginning, middle and end,” executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse said in a statement, which was released over the weekend to The Hollywood Reporter and to the rest of the news media on Monday. “By officially announcing exactly when that ending will be, the audience will now have the security of knowing that the story will play out as we’ve intended.”
This assumes, of course, that no cast member becomes suddenly unavailable due to death, contract disputes, or long-term incarceration.
After the current season the remainder of the series will play out in three 16-episode stretches, with each season’s episodes being broadcast over consecutive weeks without interruption. By spreading the remaining episodes over three seasons instead of two, however, the network and its ABC Television Studio unit, which produces the show, will ease the production requirements, which in the past have resulted in the show’s convoluted broadcast schedule. Think of it as a Sopranos thing.
Of course, with a shortened schedule, we have to ask: Does this mean Damon Lindelof will now have enough time to finish writing Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk?
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