Green Lantern looks bright

WonderCon has featured Green Lantern heavily and yesterday's Green lantern movie panel showed off four (nearly complete) clips from the movie. Apparently fan reaction is good. One of the new posters is shown above. Personally, I think that the costume looks fantastic. Look at the way the energy is pulsing around his chest, even peeling away in some places. An entirely CG costume was a very brave decision that, I think, has hit the nail on the head.

I think that this is shaping up to be a great comic book movie, especially if everything that Geoff Johns (DC's Chief Creative Officer) has been saying on twitter is true. Very excited for June - think that I'll make a trip to Bradford to watch it at the IMAX!

Update:

The first clip begins with the title "Sector 2018" and we see Abin Sur using some fancy light-based controls on his ship and communicating with Mark Strong's Sinestro, who is telling him about a planet that's been destroyed by Parallax, but before getting too far into the conversation, Abin Sur is attacked by Parallax--we can't see it too clearly but it looks like a large yellow head with sharp teeth--and he gets seriously injured before flying away in his glass cylindrical spaceship.
The second clip has Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan finding Abin Sur's spaceship in the water and he runs out to try to save the being he sees in there. He wades out and pulls Abin Sur out of the ship and carries him to the beach, making a joke about having to get him to a hospital where they have purple blood. After giving Hal his ring and telling him to use it with the lantern in his spaceship, Abin Sur dies and his body transforms into some sort of grey substance.

The third clip has Hal with the lantern and ring back at his place. He places the lantern on a table and then slips on the ring, following the instructions to insert his hand and recite the oath, but the only oath he remembers is the Pledge of Allegiance, so he tries a variation on that, but the lantern rejects it, pushing him away with a green blast. Suddenly, Hal knows the oath that's required and he recites it as the ring glows and he's transported into the sky with a green hue surrounding him, out into space away from earth and the Milky Way and towards the planet OA. When he lands, he's in his full Green Lantern suit and mask and he tries to act cool like he belongs there by strutting around. He's called over by Tomar-Re, voiced by Geoffrey Rush, who is basically the OA welcome wagon, and Hal is surprised that he can understand the creature in front of him, and Tomar Re explains that the ring is translating and that it can also create a mask or not depending on whether Hal's identity needs to be kept secret.

The last clip has Sinestro addressing the massive Green Lantern Corps collected to warn them about Parallax having killed four of their members. This is a giant open space filled with Green Lanterns with a giant Green Lantern symbol behind Sinestro, and this is probably the scene that's going to have the biggest fanboys soiling their trousers because there are so many of the great Green Lanterns we've seen in the comics over the years and probably more than a few easter eggs. We don't know enough of their names by heart to expound at length about who we saw, but we did see a very familiar robotic GL and possibly even an Alpha Lantern in there.

Source: DailyBlam

Marvel and DC announce Submariner/Aquaman crossover

Apparently the new ongoing series will feature the Kings of Atlantis sitting side by side on twin thrones to rule the seas.
New writer May Dupp says that the pair will begin as reluctant partners, but the tension might lead to some interesting developments, hinting at the possibility of a relationship.
"All dead characters will be brought back to life by the time we get to the inevitable marriage" she says.
The series begins May 2132.

Source: AprilFools

Batman Movie franchise after Nolan

If you've been following my twitter feed, then you know that after The Dark Knight Rises the Batman movie franchise will be rebooted. Produced by, yet seperate from, Chris Nolan.

The question is where to go?
In my opinion, another origin story would be redundant. Bring in Robin. Not Grayson, not Todd. Tim Drake.

Keep the stigma of Batman and Robin distant with a Robin that mainstream audiences aren't familiar with, but that still plays the familiar role (albeit with a modern edge).

In 2002/3, I began to write my own screenplay for a Batman movie which would feature the death of Jason Todd and how that affected the relationship between Bruce and Tim. I included Dick as an after thought and had made notes upon how to include him more fully in the next draft. I stopped writing it purely because Batman Begins was announced, but now that we are in a Batfilm-void situation again (or soon will be) should I have a bash at rewriting?

The first two-thirds of the very rough first draft can be read on the Writing Showcase page or downloaded directly here.

Let me know what you think, shall I give it a rewrite and send off a sample?

Gary Oldman reveals The Dark Knight Rises secret ending

Ah, word play, tricked you here thinking that I had the leaked ending to TDKR?
Well, you'll never see one, because Nolan has intentionally left it out of the script. That's right, the ending has been written in Nolan's head, not on paper. That's how seriously he is taking secrecy on this flick.



Source: Slash Film via arkhamcity.co.uk
or Batman on Film

Green Lantern actors talk special effects

Not much info here, but a couple of lines about the upcoming movie. Empire obviously asked Mark Strong if he'd seen a rough cut yet. It's things like this that made me stop reading Empire - of course he hasn't! He's an actor and it's three months away. That's another month or so to finalise effect shots, firm up a rough cut and screen test leading another month to do the final edit and record the score before the printing and distribution process begins.
Anyway, looking forward to the movie. Very pleased to have War of the Green Lanterns to tide me over until June.

With only three months before Green Lantern is scheduled to debut in theaters, long-time fans of the DC Comics character are anxious to see footage featuring the finalized effects for the film. The first trailer, which premiered last November, was met with mixed reactions; and there is currently no official date as the release of the second trailer or even theatrical posters. Ryan Reynolds -- who recently was named the 2011 CinemaCon Star of the Year -- briefly commented about his role in a project with such heavy-handed computer generated imagery to Variety.com:
"On a movie that's coming out on a size and scale like this, you realize how insignificant the actor is. I'm an important cog in a very large machine

"I was on a greenscreen stage with a hundred other crew members...and it's those people whose efforts created what will later be known as the film."
Mark Strong plays the alien hero Sinestro in the film, and acts as a mentor to Reynolds' Hal Jordan. Though he tells Empire Magazine he hasn't seen a full cut of Green Lantern yet, he has high hopes for the final product:
“I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve seen the artwork and if they can get that right, it’ll be astonishing. It's very similar [to his other CG heavy film John Carter Of Mars] in sense that they’re like trying to make a jigsaw puzzle with two thirds of the pieces missing because so much of it is CGI. As Andrew Stanton says, ‘I’m not in post, I’m in principle digital photography.'
"On Green Lantern two thirds is on Earth and a third is in space. All my stuff is in space, so all my scenes were in a big green room."
Green Lantern, directed by Martin Campbell, stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Mark Strong, Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Robbins and Angela Bassett. The film is scheduled to hit 2D and 3D theaters June 17th, 2011.

Source: DailyBlam

Amy Adams cast as Superman's Lois Lane

After all that pish a few months ago about no Lois in Zack Snyder's Superman reboot,  here she is.

I think that Amy is a fantastic choice - partially because I had never thought of it! The age is spot on, so we won't see a repeat of the Bosworth paradox and she definitely has the acting chops. She's been bubbling under for a good few years now and here is her push into superstardom.

Great news. With Costner locked in as Pa Kent, I hope that this is just the start of the casting news heading our way.

This just in — three-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams will play journalist Lois Lane in Hollywood’s revival of “Superman.”

The 36-year-old star got the news on Sunday from director Zack Snyder, who phoned her from Paris, where he was promoting his just-opened film, “Sucker Punch.” There had been a crush of Hollywood interest in the lead female role in the Warner Bros. project but Snyder said that after meeting with Adams, she was the clear choice to take on a character that dates back to 1938 and has long represented the strong, professional woman who can hold her own against any man – even if he can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
“There was a big, giant search for Lois,” Snyder said. “For us it was a big thing and obviously a really important role. We did a lot of auditioning but we had this meeting with Amy Adams and after that I just felt she was perfect for it.”
Snyder declined to discuss the precise prominence of Lois in the story or any plot details about the film but he said the role is “a linchpin” to the project and that he considers it essential that Lois — an FDR-era creation – arrives on screen in 2012 with contemporary appeal and spirit.
“It goes back to what I’ve said about Superman and making him really understandable for today. What’s important to us is making him relevant and real and making him empathetic to today’s audience so that we understand the decisions he makes. That applies to Lois as well. She has to be in the same universe as him [in tone and substance].”
Adams has shown an affinity for finding the plucky but pitch-perfect center of old-school roles; in the cartoonish ”Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” she brought a surprising amount of yearning emotion to the role of a simplified Amelia Earhart and she won rave reviews for the role of Giselle in “Enchanted” and its sly send-up of Disney princess traditions that date back to “Snow White,” which premiered just six months before Lois Lane hit newsstands in the pages of Action Comics No. 1.
Adams is coming off an Academy Award nomination for her work in ”The Fighter,” the David O. Russell film that took her into far darker territory; she played a bartender named Charlene who is fire-tested and fierce in her love for a down-but-not-out boxer portrayed by Mark Wahlberg. The film earned an Oscar win for Christian Bale, who played Wahlberg’s deliriously drugged-out brother, and he will be in the other big superhero film of 2012, “The Dark Knight Rises,” which will see Bale back in the cowl of Batman.
The big breakthrough for Adams was “Junebug,” which premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, where Adams won a special jury prize for her performance. The star’s other notable credits include ”Doubt,” Julie & Julia,” “Sunshine Cleaning,“ “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” and “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Later this year, she will be seen in both “On the Road” (an adaptation of the famed Jack Kerouac novel) and in Disney’s new Muppets film.
In the still-untitled Superman film, Henry Cavill will play Clark Kent and the Man of Steel. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane are set to play the Kents, the adoptive parents of the last son of Krypton.

Source: LATimes

An open letter to DC editorial

Dear DC Comics,

         To say that I have been a Batman fan all my life is barely hyperbole, as some of my earliest memories involve watching my heroes Batman and Robin on the TV and then pretending to be them with my friends at playgroup (preschool). Anyone who knows me closely knows of the time that I tried to go to school with my Superman costume (including cape) on under my normal clothes, they know how traumatised I was when my sister sat on Batman, breaking off his leg, and more recently, they see my array of DC Comics t-shirts on a nearly daily basis (my wife now recognises the Sinestro Corps symbol).
        Unfortunately, I am writing with a complaint. Since the end of Batman RIP we have been suffering with a group of books that work really well with each other and a lead book that feels disjointed and distant from the rest. This separation felt small at first, but has grown larger month by month. Batman & Robin started out well, but by the time we got to the Blackest Knight arc, it had moved to the bottom of my reading pile. When Bruce's Batman turned up to save the day in B&R#16, I groaned. This should have been great, but Dick and Damian needed saving by a character who had been external to that story arc because no thought had gone into how they could have solved the problem themselves. How is that going to make any sense to people who just read trades? Printing a message like "Oh, by the way, you also need to go and buy Return of Bruce Wayne for this book to make sense." just doesn't cut it.
         Whilst I understand that changes need to be made to push a series forward and provide new challenges, I think that the Batman Inc idea would have worked fine without Grant ripping off the end of Ironman. Bruce Wayne is too careful to let such an obvious link to Batman be made (especially not by himself!). Now we have a fairly obvious Bat family/Wayne family connection that even the slowest fictional journalist could surely put together.
         Yesterday, I actually put my copy of Batman, Inc. #4 down in disgust without finishing it. I have never done this with a comic before, so I waited until I could stomach it and finished it off. Awful, truly awful. What was the point of getting rid of all these things that didn't work in Crisis on Infinite Earths, only to have one man drag them back into continuity? Honestly, I've had all I can take from Grant Morrison. I could put up with messing continuity, as well as other writers and artists, around if the stories were full formed and coherent. Instead we are treated to half-baked ideas and segues that lead nowhere. Sticking prefixes like 'hyper-' or 'meta-' onto words doesn't make one a genius; lets make sure that it works as a story before trying to show how clever we think we are.
         I suppose what I am trying to say is, please edit Grant Morrison. If he turns in his work late, then dock his fee. If it's late then he isn't giving you or the artists time to do your jobs. I'm sure that all it would take sometimes is someone asking "Where is this going?", saying "I don't think that ____ would do that." or pointing out "Grant, this doesn't make sense." for the stories to find a more natural flow. This then results in a much lower quality product and less satisfying stories. Most of all, it makes the readers feel like they are being jerked around. If he can't take the criticism, then that is his problem. If the stories don't make sense, then that is yours.  He may produce strong sales, but if things continue to spiral out of control they way they are then not even Batman will be able to save the title.

Yours,
Chris, a concerned fan, aged 26

Welcome to the Decade of DC: DC Comics foothold on Cartoon Network

DC Comics have had a long standing success in animation, from Fleischer's 40's Superman to the Emmy Award winning 1992 Batman The Animated Series and beyond to the original animated movies. Now DCEntertainment are branching out further under the banner of DC Nation at Cartoon Network. DCE's Chief Creative Officer, Geoff Johns, has mentioned different media types including CGI, traditional 2D animation, stop motion and live action 'to suit the character'.
It looks like DC are really upping the ante. They have the best selling (and rated) comicbook movie and videogame. They are lining up a reboot of Superman and a sequel to this Year's Green Lantern. The comicbooks themselves are going strong, with some titles the best they have ever been. The animated properties have been excellent since the 90s and they are expanding on their strengths.
It's taken a couple of years for the effects of the DC Comics-->DC Entertainment reshuffle to truly be felt, but 2011 is shaping up to be the start of something special.
Welcome to the Decade of DC.

Press release:

Debuting in 2012 as a multi-platform franchise, DC Nation will be the exclusive home for original DC animation properties. Backed by the production, publishing and marketing resources of Warner Bros., DC Entertainment and Cartoon Network, DC Nation will be an on-air and online programming block populated with event programming, interstitials, exclusive behind-the-scenes of theatrical production and an insider look into the world of all things DC.

“DC Nation on Cartoon Network will be the first-ever dedicated broadcast destination to showcase the depth and breadth of the DC Universe,” said Diane Nelson, President of DC Entertainment. “We and our partners at WBTV are thrilled that fans will be able to immerse themselves in DC’s phenomenal stories, experience a wide spectrum of amazing characters and stay up-to-date on the latest happenings of the world’s greatest superheroes and their creators, both on-air and online.”

Source: DC The Source

Really, more delays on Batman, Inc. ?!?!

Am I the only person waiting for DC to say 'No' to Grant Morrison?

The delays behind [Batman Inc.] are a combination of slowness on Grant and Yanick’s part. Yanick does all of his work on a digital pad and his art process requires a whole lot of lead time that Grant Morrison just doesn’t give him. On the Saturday morning, Grant had just e-mailed Yanick 12 pages of script for issue #5 when Yanick’s deadline for the art is in 1 week…so yeah, expect some more delays for issue 5 unless they get a fill-in artist.

—ComicBookDaily.com’s David Diep, reporting from this past weekend’s Wizard World Toronto convention, on what he learned about the future of DC’s flagship Bat-book, Batman Incorporated—presumably straight from artist and con guest Yanick Paquette himself.

A look at the solicit as posted on DC’s website shows that the book is scheduled for release on April 20. But the company still has it running with a J.H. Williams III cover that was actually used on issue #3 when it finally came out two weeks ago, likely because that issue was originally supposed to come out in January and thus had an “iconic” cover as part of that month’s line-wide cover gimmick, which was obviously no longer in effect. Issue #5 is now slated to run with the cover you see above, also by Williams…who is himself the co-writer/co-artist of the even more delay-plagued Batwoman. On the other hand, the company just signed the prodigiously talented artist Chris Burnham, who made a splash as the co-artist of the climactic Batman & Robin #16 and was already on board to draw Batman Incorporated #4, 6, and 7, to an exclusive contract. So there’s still some joy in Gotham after all.

Source: CBR

Abin Sur crashes onto the net

Temuera Morrison as Abin Sur in June's Green Lantern.

Source: DailyBlam