It was just a few days ago that I reviewed some of the upcoming comic book movies coming our way this Winter; well, not even a week after posting my thoughts on this there has been something new come down the pipeline: a brand new (and much longer) Spirit movie trailer has been released onto the interweb by Lionsgate studios, the studio behind Frank Miller's movie opus.
I have to admit that this is the first trailer that has even got me remotely interested in seeing this movie. The previous trailers felt choppy as if they were promoting an unfinished product. This newer trailer is most definitely a much fuller or complete trailer, giving me enough material to start and form an opinion on how the movie might end up visually. The new trailer still has abit too much red and black and blue and black effect going on for my liking, but at least it doesn't seem so much like Sin City redux now. Some of the fight scenes may end up being quite different in spirit (sorry) then those of Sin City. As well, the characters are more distinct in this trailer; I now have a better handle on the character of the Spirit, as well as on the character of the Octopus (the lead villain of the film as played by Samuel Jackson).
Anyway, here below is the trailer for you to watch and judge for yourself.
Oh, one more thing: I complained before about the music to the teaser trailer being too much of a steal from the Untouchables movie. Well this time they ditched that music (thank God) and went with something sounding at least less like a steal if still not wholly original - the music now sounds more like something out of the Sin City movie.
28.9.08
Some future Marvel movie odds and ends
It has recently come to my attention that there are a number of Marvel movie-related odds and ends floating around out there on the interweb, most of which have developed (if not been put to rest) within the last few weeks.
One thing is the whole 'Will Smith as Captain America' rumour doing the rounds recently; apparently an actor named Derek Luke, involved in the latest Spike Lee movie, Miracle at St. Anna, was quoted as saying that he understood that Will Smith, who will next be starring in the Seven Pounds movie , had been offered the role of Cap by Marvel studios. This got more than a few Marvel fanboys underwear in a twist for whatever reason: I suppose for the same reason that some hated the idea of Nick Fury being a black man when that happened in the Marvel Ultimate comics universe (and look how well that eventuallyturned out, getting Samuel Jackson to appear in the Iron Man movie, eh?).
Anyway, this rumour was dispelled rather quickly from different sources, including by representatives of Marvel comics as well as by Will Smith himself in a brief interview outside a recent movie premiere. Apparently he laughed off the suggestion claiming that that was the first he had heard of this rumour. For the full details and video on this, check out splashpage.mtv.com .
Another thing that I found interesting was the fact that the two screenwriters behind the very successful Iron Man movie, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, confirmed that they are definitely not back for the sequel (that will be penned by Justin Theroux). That in itself is not news, however it is news to me that they are in negotiations to be handed the writing reigns to another upcoming Marvel project, and that projects like the way off in the distance - yet still upcoming Avengers movie are on the table. I have to think at this point that having those two on board for such a flagship movie as Avengers could only be a good thing. This too can be followed in more detail at splashpage.mtv.com.
The last thing - and more of a trivial thing than newsworthy, is the tidbit that I read that claims that Best Buy will be releasing the DVD reissue of the 1998 Nick Fury / SHIELD tv movie that starred David Hasselhoff on the same day as the DVD/Bluray release of the Iron Man movie. That is funny, but smart marketing for selling something that would probably otherwise have next to no market value. Smart move.
One thing is the whole 'Will Smith as Captain America' rumour doing the rounds recently; apparently an actor named Derek Luke, involved in the latest Spike Lee movie, Miracle at St. Anna, was quoted as saying that he understood that Will Smith, who will next be starring in the Seven Pounds movie , had been offered the role of Cap by Marvel studios. This got more than a few Marvel fanboys underwear in a twist for whatever reason: I suppose for the same reason that some hated the idea of Nick Fury being a black man when that happened in the Marvel Ultimate comics universe (and look how well that eventuallyturned out, getting Samuel Jackson to appear in the Iron Man movie, eh?).
Anyway, this rumour was dispelled rather quickly from different sources, including by representatives of Marvel comics as well as by Will Smith himself in a brief interview outside a recent movie premiere. Apparently he laughed off the suggestion claiming that that was the first he had heard of this rumour. For the full details and video on this, check out splashpage.mtv.com .
Another thing that I found interesting was the fact that the two screenwriters behind the very successful Iron Man movie, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, confirmed that they are definitely not back for the sequel (that will be penned by Justin Theroux). That in itself is not news, however it is news to me that they are in negotiations to be handed the writing reigns to another upcoming Marvel project, and that projects like the way off in the distance - yet still upcoming Avengers movie are on the table. I have to think at this point that having those two on board for such a flagship movie as Avengers could only be a good thing. This too can be followed in more detail at splashpage.mtv.com.
The last thing - and more of a trivial thing than newsworthy, is the tidbit that I read that claims that Best Buy will be releasing the DVD reissue of the 1998 Nick Fury / SHIELD tv movie that starred David Hasselhoff on the same day as the DVD/Bluray release of the Iron Man movie. That is funny, but smart marketing for selling something that would probably otherwise have next to no market value. Smart move.
20.9.08
The Winter comic book movie slate: Scanty - but interesting.
Well, the comic book movie Summer of 2008 is truly behind us now and I suppose it is time to start contemplating the crop of movies awaiting us over the Fall and through to the Winter months of early 2009.
There is not a plethora of comic book based films scheduled for over the Winter months but we won't be totally devoid of comic-based celluloid entertainment.
The first of these films to come oue way will be the new Punisher movie, The Punisher: War Zone (December 5th). This film has been haunted by problems from the beginning; Thomas Jane, star of the previous Punisher movie, turned down the gig for the sequel after reading the script. You know it can't be a good sign when someone who was content to be in the last Punisher movie thinks that this next one suffers from a bad script! To be fair though, it is possible that the script was cleaned up somewhat by the time shooting started.
Speaking of shooting (no - I'm not going for the obvious pun here), the film supposedly suffered from some delays during shooting due to the harsher than expected weather conditions at some of the Canadian locations. Must have been anywhere East of British columbia, lol.
The most recent controversy surrounded the clash between the studio behind the film (Lionsgate) and director Lexi Alexander. According to various sources, Lionsgate recently started to reconsider the more graphic nature of the film and had considered having the film edited down to a possible PG-13 rating after seeing how successful Batman:The Dark Knight had been with a similar rating. In other words they wanted to take some of the more graphic punishment out of the upcoming Punisher movie. A PG-13 Punisher? Not what you would expect, and apparently neither did Alexander. After refusing to edit the film to get the tamer rating, Alexander supposedly disassociated herself from the project and refused to take part in any promotion of it this past Summer. Whether fences have now been mended is not entirely clear. I think it is safe to say that a PG-13 rating is likely all that the Batman and Punisher films would have in common.
The next slated release with a comic-booky theme would be The Spirit movie(December 25th), directed by Frank Miller. This film, at least from the early trailers, looks to be strongly influenced by Sin City which is no surprise considering Miller was involved as a producer on the former project. I'm sure that visually it will be at least interesting considering it boasts some fetching Hollywood eye candy, however the trailers so far have not done much for me(it doesn't help that the early trailers even reused the theme from the movie The Untouchables). I guess that so far the movie doesn't have me thinking much about the classic Will Eisner comic book character of the Spirit as much as it does Sin City. We shall see with this one, I guess.
The last of the scheduled Winter comic book movie releases would be the highly anticipated (well at least in comic fandom circles) Watchmen movie (March 6th). This film is directed by Zack Snyder. Aat various times going back a few years, this project had different names associated with it, including Brazil director Terry Gilliam. Sometimes many of us thought that this was just a film that was never supposed to get made. The interesting thing about this film right now is the recently green lighted lawsuit by Fox studios against the makers of the film, Warner Bros. The suit basically claims that Fox never totally surrendered the rights to the Watchmen movie which they had from back in the eighties through the nineties. I expect the suit to pretty much turn into a cash grab. In addition, there is supposed to be a release of an animated DVD about a week before the Watchmen movie which will tell the pirate side story from the original comic series.
There you go, it doesn't look to be as crazy a season for comic book movies this Winter as it did this past Summer, but we will still have a couple of films to watch out for over the coming months.
There is not a plethora of comic book based films scheduled for over the Winter months but we won't be totally devoid of comic-based celluloid entertainment.
The first of these films to come oue way will be the new Punisher movie, The Punisher: War Zone (December 5th). This film has been haunted by problems from the beginning; Thomas Jane, star of the previous Punisher movie, turned down the gig for the sequel after reading the script. You know it can't be a good sign when someone who was content to be in the last Punisher movie thinks that this next one suffers from a bad script! To be fair though, it is possible that the script was cleaned up somewhat by the time shooting started.
Speaking of shooting (no - I'm not going for the obvious pun here), the film supposedly suffered from some delays during shooting due to the harsher than expected weather conditions at some of the Canadian locations. Must have been anywhere East of British columbia, lol.
The most recent controversy surrounded the clash between the studio behind the film (Lionsgate) and director Lexi Alexander. According to various sources, Lionsgate recently started to reconsider the more graphic nature of the film and had considered having the film edited down to a possible PG-13 rating after seeing how successful Batman:The Dark Knight had been with a similar rating. In other words they wanted to take some of the more graphic punishment out of the upcoming Punisher movie. A PG-13 Punisher? Not what you would expect, and apparently neither did Alexander. After refusing to edit the film to get the tamer rating, Alexander supposedly disassociated herself from the project and refused to take part in any promotion of it this past Summer. Whether fences have now been mended is not entirely clear. I think it is safe to say that a PG-13 rating is likely all that the Batman and Punisher films would have in common.
The next slated release with a comic-booky theme would be The Spirit movie(December 25th), directed by Frank Miller. This film, at least from the early trailers, looks to be strongly influenced by Sin City which is no surprise considering Miller was involved as a producer on the former project. I'm sure that visually it will be at least interesting considering it boasts some fetching Hollywood eye candy, however the trailers so far have not done much for me(it doesn't help that the early trailers even reused the theme from the movie The Untouchables). I guess that so far the movie doesn't have me thinking much about the classic Will Eisner comic book character of the Spirit as much as it does Sin City. We shall see with this one, I guess.
The last of the scheduled Winter comic book movie releases would be the highly anticipated (well at least in comic fandom circles) Watchmen movie (March 6th). This film is directed by Zack Snyder. Aat various times going back a few years, this project had different names associated with it, including Brazil director Terry Gilliam. Sometimes many of us thought that this was just a film that was never supposed to get made. The interesting thing about this film right now is the recently green lighted lawsuit by Fox studios against the makers of the film, Warner Bros. The suit basically claims that Fox never totally surrendered the rights to the Watchmen movie which they had from back in the eighties through the nineties. I expect the suit to pretty much turn into a cash grab. In addition, there is supposed to be a release of an animated DVD about a week before the Watchmen movie which will tell the pirate side story from the original comic series.
There you go, it doesn't look to be as crazy a season for comic book movies this Winter as it did this past Summer, but we will still have a couple of films to watch out for over the coming months.
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