——

Not sure what director Marc Webb’s reboot offers that’s much different than the three that came before, but that’s probably the idea. No sense in fixing what isn’t broken.

(more…)

It’s the sequel everyone’s been waiting for.

No, not quite. But at least it’s not “Next, Next” or “Season of the Witch: Fall’s Back, Baby.”

“Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” is coming our way in February, and that means Nicolas Cage is out to make amends for the pedestrian origin film. The newest trailer suggests he may have done just that.

Sure, the laugh lines still lack the pop of a Grade A Superhero flick – “Spider-Man,” to name just one. But the action is intense and the special effects might just make up for a co-star (Violante Placido) who looks pretty lost on a movie set.

Superhero films, even the sub-standard models like “Green Lantern,” make coin, period. So it makes fiscal sense to try another “Ghost Rider” film on for size. The character isn’t like your standard cape bearer, and that grinning, flaming skull is one cool vision.

The real question is whether Cage can summon enough of his wacko side to balance out that bony exterior? If so, he may have brought the “Ghost” franchise back from the dead.

Come July 3, 2012, Andrew Garfield will be forever known as either the Amazing Spider-Man or the sap who ruined a perfectly good reboot.

Can the British actor, who previously appeared in ‘The Social Network’ and ‘Never Let Me Go,’ spin a web, any size, that catches thieves, just like flies? And what about Henry Cavill, another relative unknown tapped to play the lead in ‘Man of Steel’ hitting theaters in 2013?

Sometimes looking into an actor’s past can reveal plenty about their future prospects. And, in the case of those cast in superhero franchises, there’s a lot riding on just how heroic they can appear on screen.

So let’s recall how other actors prepared for their super close-ups and what happened once they tugged on those unforgiving tights — or, in the case of George Clooney, poured themselves into an uncomfortable cod piece.

(more…)

As they moved into the 70s the world of comic books began to change again.

Superheroes were no longer the perfect ubermen of the DC universe, they now struggled with real human foibles as they tried to do the right thing and use their powers for good. The other main change that Marvel introduced was heroes growing and aging. Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man, went from high school to college and then moved into the real world, eventually marrying.

Under the covers though, there was an alternative comic industry. One aimed not at the kids of Middle America, but rebelling against the Comics Code and  unable to be sold in most stores. This underground comic scene grew out of the counterculture movement of the 60s. Many revolved around drugs and sex, but others addressed hot button social issues and music. Robert Crumb became the poster boy for this movement, along with his  Zap comics, joined by Gilbert Shelton’s Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

The major advent of the 70s was the start of specialty comic stores. Until then, the majority of comic books were sold in convenience stores and off magazine racks in super markets. Many alternative type characters joined the cannon of superheroes including anti-heroes like The Swamp Thing and the new Ghost Rider. Social issues were addressed openly in mainstream comics, including drug use and inner city tensions.  The other major arrival was the graphic novel. While there were certainly book length comics as far back as the turn of the century, it wasn’t until the mid-seventies that they started referring to themselves as such and the term entered the lexicon. Will Eisner’s “A Contract With God and other Tenement Stories” is credited with popularizing the term.

(more…)

Ed. Note: Part two of this excellent series runs tomorrow at the same time. — J.N.

I will come right out and admit it. I am a geek. I am a hardcore geek. I revel in many different realms of geekdom. Amongst the fields where I am most comfortable with my geekdom is in comic books. I’ve been reading comics books since, well, I could read. During my early childhood, comic books were just entertainment, something to do when waiting at the supermarket whilst my mother shopped or to pass the time in line at the barber. There were the piles of Archie and Richie Rich comics that my grandparents stocked up on for the times a dozen grandkids would descend upon their house for summer vacation. In the end, I didn’t really care about comics themselves, just the ten minutes it would take me to read through whichever one was at hand. There was no appreciation of story arcs or pacing, art work and coloring, dialogue and continuity, all of these things were foreign concepts.

It wasn’t until I was about thirteen that a classmate of mine showed me that comic books were a world of their own. He had boxes and boxes of carefully stored books, each one in an individual bag with a cardboard backing to keep the spines straight. He was able to tell me about which stories were worth following, why Marvel characters were better than DC, and showed me where to go to get the best deals. I was hooked. From then on, I spent every spare penny of pocket money and any other money I earned on comic books. Throughout my high school years, I bought thousands of books, all still in their individual bags with cardboard backs, alphabetized, and organized by publisher.

The genre has changed dramatically since I started following it back in the 80s. It is, to some extent, still dominated by the two major players, Marvel and DC, each of which has its own diehard adherents, but there is now a plethora of thriving independent publishers, each one pushing the envelope in both art and with storytelling. More importantly the consumers have evolved. The geeks who grew up in the 80s, downtrodden and ridiculed by the jocks are the engine that drove the technological revolution of the 90s. They now find themselves hitting middle age flush with success at being the new arbiters of cool and that cool is the geekdom that they grew up loving; comics.

(more…)

The summer is young, and already two MARVEL comics properties – “Thor” and “X-Men” – have barnstormed into theaters to excellent reviews and boffo business (“Thor” slightly underperformed domestic expectations, but still has made nearly half a billion in worldwide receipts). And coming in July, the star-spangled avenger himself, Captain America, will at last get his own big-budget showcase.

More MARVEL madness looms next summer, with a reboot of “Spider-Man,” possibly another “Wolverine” (if the sequel’s Japanese production can get back on track after this year’s tsunami temporarily derailed it), and of course, MARVEL’s piece de resistance, “The Avengers.”

The Avengers represents the apex of MARVEL’s long term strategy for its movie properties: Each character will have their own series, as well as make guest appearances in other character’s movies. And all will join forces in the Avengers’ own series, bringing Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow, and others together as a team, just like in the comics.

One of the great joys of reading MARVEL comics has always been the shared universe these characters inhabit; seeing them team up or face off in each other’s books made for a thrilling reading experience. That MARVEL is trying to replicate this phenomenon in the movies is daring, to say the least, and maybe unprecedented. (more…)

In an early review of Spider-Man 3, Britain’s Times Online reviewer infamously wrote:

Also disappointing is the inability of the director, Sam Raimi, to end the romp without a fleeting shot of the American flag. The Stars and Stripes just happens to be fluttering behind Spidey as he makes his triumphal return to honour, probity and good honest fist-fighting.

I thought of this review the other day after I’d exchanged a few notes with a reader (I certainly can’t call him a fan) who contacted me at my public email address. The guy was unhappy with my treatment of Muslim terrorists in one of my recent novels, and what started as Pee-Wee Herman-level “I know you are, but what am I?” schoolyard taunts quickly devolved into anti-Semitism. I’m part of the Zionist plot, see, and the plot of my book was just a plot within that larger plot.

So what do my Zionist leanings and Spider-Man’s fluttering Stars and Stripes have to do with Remo Williams, that old Eighties action flick? To begin with, Remo Williams isn’t just the title of a 1985 film, produced by Dick Clark and distributed by now-defunct Orion. Remo is also the main character in nearly 150 Destroyer novels (26 of which I’ve had a hand in writing). It’s okay if you didn’t know that. Aside from a quick opening title credit to series creators Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, much of what makes Remo The Destroyer was jettisoned for the movie.

While the original Remo Williams didn’t do well at the box office, it has picked up a cult following through home video and cable. I’ve gotten mail from fans who’d enjoyed the film for years before finding out the books even existed. And if my mailbox is any indication, pretty much everyone who came to the books via the movie agrees with us old-time fans: None of us can believe Hollywood did such a lousy job adapting the characters to the screen. But in our current age of endless updates and reboots comes some fresh cinematic hope, and if things work out Remo will soon be starring in a brand new motion picture adaptation brought to the screen by Sony and some of the folks who gave us Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Hopefully this time it’ll be the real Destroyer we see, a goal best achieved by not ignoring or re-imagining what’s made the book series a success. (more…)

Actor Chris Tierney, dressed in the iconic Spider-Man superhero costume, teetered on the edge of the set piece representing the Brooklyn Bridge.  After a dramatic moment, Tierney leapt out toward the audience, just as Director Julie Taymor had choreographed.  The rope attached to his back was meant to hold the actor in a launch-like position, like a cinematic freeze-frame effect.  But, last night things did not go as rehearsed.  The cable attached to the actor’s back detached and the 31-year-old “aerialist” plunged at rapid speed through the stage floor.  Moments later, Jennifer Damiano, the actress playing Spidey’s love interest, Mary Jane, screamed in horror… real-life horror.  Her fellow cast-member had just seriously injured himself in an accident that could have, and should have been prevented.

—–

Actors’ Equity Association, the theatrical actors union, has finally stepped in and pulled its members from the production until significant changes are made to the show’s special effects.  The show’s press representative has announced that they plan to re-open Wednesday night, but insiders say it will be difficult to make that deadline.

Broadway professionals who are accustomed to dealing with Actors’ Equity Association on a regular basis have been wondering when the union would finally step in and perform the fundamental role they have always claimed to play: protector of the safety of their members.  In an era where producers are forced to hire full-time massage therapists for chorus dancers and must pay hazard premiums to actors who perform on a raked (slanted) stage, it is an outrage that Mr. Tierney was the fourth actor to sustain an injury in this ill-conceived stage extravaganza. (more…)

Fans of a certain costumed web-slinger have been dismayed by a string of recent developments which have threatened to bury the crime-fighter’s sterling reputation under a mountain of kitsch and banality.

First, there was the departure of director Sam Raimi and his crew from the lucrative Spider-Man movie franchise. Raimi had helmed three episodes of the block-buster series that has earned an estimated $1 billion worldwide. And despite what many fans felt was a lack-luster third movie, there was never any doubt that Raimi – a Spider-Man fan from way back – perfectly translated to film the heart of the Spider-Man universe, which was always the character of Peter Parker and his relationships with the women in his life, especially Aunt May and long-time love Mary Jane.

Despite his spectacular success, however, Sony studios didn’t trust Raimi to make his movies the way he wanted, and reportedly made life so miserable for him that he walked. Instantly, the studio announced that they would be rebooting the franchise with a new director and crew, sending Peter Parker back to high school and re-casting the story with trendy young actors and promising (sigh) that the new Spidey will be delivered in 3D.

Great.

This lamentable focus on youth and style over story and character is not limited to Spider-Man, of course. Raimi’s first two Spidey films may have been shot in 2D, but the characters were so well written and acted that the story felt 3D. But never mind. Like everything else, the new Spidey must be targeted to teens and tweens, who don’t know from story and couldn’t care less about plot (witness the Twilight abominations). (more…)

Marvel recently announced that their heroes would start acting like heroes again. So what were they doing, running crack houses?

After seven years of grim and grimmer story lines, including a superhero “civil war” that pitted Iron Man against Spider-Man and the death of Captain America, Marvel Comics will usher in a more optimistic “Heroic Age” approach in May.

“Heroes will be heroes again,” says Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada. “They’ve gone through hell and they’re back to being good guys — a throwback to the early days of the Marvel Universe, with more of a swashbuckling feel.”

What does “swashbuckling,” which refers to pirates, have to do with heroism? Quesada went on to explain that Captain America, Iron Man and Thor would be working together again instead of acting like foes. Suddenly, WTF? appears over the scene like the Batsignal. How does working together make them heroes exactly? In the “Dark Reign” series of stories at Marvel last year, a bunch of Super-villains led by Norman (Green Goblin) Osborn had taken over the Avengers and were “working together,” trying to kill off the real heroes. Under the guise of helping people. How progressive. But that’s not very heroic. (more…)

In that classic issue of Spider-Man #50, the cover blazed that question as the reader stared at an image of Peter Parker, head down, walking away from the enlarged ghostly image of Spider-Man. Inside, a panel showing his suit in a garbage can was lovingly recreated by Director Sam Raimi in the film Spider-Man 2.

Director Sam Raimi

What made the Spider-Man movies some of the best superhero adaptations ever was that Sam Raimi was a fan who knew the comics, translated them faithfully. But more importantly, had the style and panache to breathe life into those stories on the canvas of celluloid.

Rumor has it, in their “infinite wisdom,” the execs at Sony decided that John Malkovich was too old to play the villain the Vulture in the new movie that was planned. They wanted all kinds of changes to the script and they wanted the film to come out in 2011. Raimi, having had a third villain forced on him in the last film, decided he couldn’t maintain the quality under that schedule and left the project. Taking the cast with him. (more…)

Just before Christmas rumors began to leak out of Hollywood that Sam Raini’s Spider-Man 4 had run into trouble.  Nonsense, came word from Sony; the production is only on “holiday break,” all is well in Spidey-Land, and your favorite web-slinger will be swinging into your local multiplex on May 6, 2011 as planned.  

What a difference a new year makes.  Apparently, those rumors were true after all:  Variety is reporting that sources from Sony confirm that the production is on hold, perhaps indefinitely, and that a May 2011 release is now unlikely.

The reason?  It seems there are deep and perhaps intractable differences between Raimi and the studio regarding the quality of the latest script, the structure of the proposed plot, and even the choice of villain for this fourth outing.  Raimi is said to be keen on the Vulture, with John Malkovich to fill the bald baddie’s bird suit.  The studio, however, reportedly fears that the Vulture – an elderly character in the comics – is a poor choice of villain for a tent-pole, summer franchise film.  It’s unclear whom the studio would prefer, but clearly they are angling for more ‘hip’ than ‘hip replacement’ to bedevil Peter Parker’s alter ego. (more…)

If you think the national news media is biased, spend some time rummaging through the world of entertainment news. Today’s L.A. Times piece about the marketing of “G.I. Joe” has an especially priceless whopper:

Yet overseas, where big action films often earn 60% or more of their ticket sales, rah-rah American sentiment doesn’t play well. So those references have vanished from the advertising.

The Great Lie told by Leftist Hollywood and the media who shill for them is that in order to make money the likes and dislikes of an “international” audience must be considered, and international audiences loathe Americanism.

Let’s see how that’s working out with some overseas numbers for a few “big action films.” (more…)

I’ve packed my car with books and posters to sell at the San Diego Comic-Con. As a comic-creator this is a mandatory part of the business that’s both fun and productive. It’s our journey to Mecca without all that obnoxious stoning and calls to the end of Israel.

In case you’ve been in an Afghanistan cave for the last thirty years, comics are big business. Comics to film projects are in demand at least partially because of the pre-visualization aspect of the medium. Fantasy is an expensive and risky genre and comics offer the cheapest glimpse into the depiction of on-screen events before one dime is spent on production.

Though the medium is gaining visibility, comics aren’t new. They’re simply words combined with pictures that communicate a sequence of events. They’re actually very similar to the silent film where an actor speaks, then his words appear onscreen to read. We’re Chaplin like that. But my favorite part of the medium is due to it’s power, and I love me some power.

What took James Cameron 200 million dollars to communicate on film with “Titanic” or his up-and-coming “Avatar” one could do for 20k in comics. You don’t get the sound, movement or music but the actual story, lighting, acting, character development the logos could be depicted by one man on the cheap. Can’t get your “Star Wars” made for 150 million? With a small group comprised of one writer, one artist and one colorist, we could depict events from the desserts of Uncle Owen’s vaporator farm to the Death Star without resorting to overseas funding. That’s power. (more…)

My buddy and fellow Big Hollywooder Christian Toto penned a “Top 5 Superhero Moments” over at his blog which has inspired my own.

I only steal the best. Ask my wife’s first husband.

–

1.  Superman (1978) – Superman Saves Lois and Catches the Helicopter: “You’ve got me? Who’s got you?” The genius of this moment is that director Richard Donner makes you wait for it. There’s forty minutes of mythology and story and teases until finally, finally he hits you with the awesome. The special effects still convince, the score still makes you want to tie a bath towel around your neck and “fly” through the house (Right? Don’t leave me hanging), and in the ensuing decades this moment’s only gotten better because of my growing appreciation for just how fabulous Christopher Reeve is in the title role and in knowing that Margot Kidder as Lois Lane was one of the most perfect pieces of casting ever. (more…)