For The Love of Comics

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In a newly released featurette, Watchmen director Zach Snyder talks about the main characters of the movie and comic and discusses some themes of the story, including what being a superhero does to you.

Also, if you think about it, we get to see some of the key scenes of the movie.

Watchmen Exclusive

Damn, this movie looks pretty.

Let’s just hope that Fox backs off of their current plan to delay the release and the studios settle soon.

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This just popped up on my feedreader and, after sharing it with a few friends, has already elicited some very strong responses that can’t be reprinted even here, so you know they’re bad.

Federal Judge Gary A Feess issued a ruling earlier today (now yesterday for me, Wednesday the 24th) stating that “Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the ‘Watchmen’ motion picture.”

Here’s the article from the Los Angeles Times:

LOS ANGELES — In a surprise ruling, a federal judge in Los Angeles said he intended to grant 20th Century Fox’s claim that it owns a copyright interest in the “Watchmen,” a movie shot by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures and set for release in March.

The decision was disclosed in a five-page written order issued on Wednesday. Gary A. Feess, a judge in the United States District Court for Central California, said he would provide a more detailed order soon.

Fox has been seeking to prevent Warner from releasing the film. The superhero adventure, based on the “Watchmen” graphic novel, is being directed by Zack Snyder (who also directed “300”) and has shaped up as one of most eagerly anticipated releases for next year.

A Warner spokesman, Scott Rowe, declined to comment on the ruling and the studio’s plans.

At an earlier hearing, the judge said he believed that issues in the case could be settled only at a trial, which was scheduled for late January. On Wednesday, however, Judge Feess said he had reconsidered and concluded that Fox should prevail on crucial issues.

“Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the ‘Watchmen’ motion picture,” the ruling said.

Fox acquired rights to the “Watchmen” graphic novel in the late 1980s for the producer Lawrence Gordon, but eventually dropped its own plan to make a movie from its story, about the underside of life for superbeings.

Mr. Gordon later pursued the project with Universal Pictures, and then with Paramount Pictures, before shooting it with Warner and Legendary under an arrangement that allows Paramount to distribute the film abroad.

In ruling on Wednesday, Judge Feess advised both Fox and Warner to look toward a settlement or an appeal.

“The parties may wish to turn their efforts from preparing for trial to negotiating a resolution of this dispute or positioning the case for review,” he said.

It seems fairly obvious to me that it’s in the best interests of both Fox and Warner Brothers to work out a settlement and release the film, but many fans are going to be very nervous over the holidays.

Update: MTV’s Splash Page pointed out something that had slipped under my radar. Fox and Warner Brothers have also been arguing over the distribution rights to the 1960’s Batman TV series - Fox wants to release them on DVD, WB has been blocking them. Perhaps a potential benefit to their settlement will involve WB finally allowing Fox to release those DVD’s.

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Continuing their Dark Knight Oscar push, Warner Brothers has begun circulating “For Your Consideration” ads for Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker.

I’m telling you, we old-school geeks are going to be known as visionary trend-setters!

Technorati Tags: Warner Brothers, The Dark Knight, Oscar, Heath Ledger, Joker, Best Supporting Actor

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Warner Brothers has begun pushing The Dark Knight for best picture by placing “For Your Consideration” ads in trade papers and across the internet in attempts to sway Oscar voters.

Dark Knight For Best Picture!

Imagine - a comic book adaptation winning the biggest award of the year.

Fellow geeks, validation is at hand.

Technorati Tags: Oscars, Warner Brothers, The Dark Knight, Batman, Best Picture

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In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, President of Warner Brothers’ movies division Jeff Robinov
confirmed the rumors of a planned reboot for the Superman franchise, presumably along the lines of what Marvel did with Incredible Hulk. Here’s the key paragraph:

Warner Bros. also put on hold plans for another movie starring multiple superheroes — known as “Batman vs. Superman” — after the $215 million “Superman Returns,” which had disappointing box-office returns, didn’t please executives. “‘Superman’ didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to,” says Mr. Robinov. “It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned.” “Had ‘Superman’ worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009,” he adds. “But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all.”

Also of interest is Rabinov’s stated goal of having DC provide two of the six to eight tentpole films that Warner has in the pipleline by 2011 and following Marvel’s plan of establishing individual characters in solo films before creating a team blockbuster like Marvel’s planned Avengers and Warner’s stalled Justice League of America and the aforementioned Batman vs Superman, which apparently had received more consideration than I imagined.

According to the interview, Warner plans to release four DC movies in the next three years, including another Batman movie, the Superman reboot, and movies featuring two unnamed heroes. Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow/Supermax movies are all said to be in development.

It’s a good time to be a comics fan.

Technorati Tags: Warner Brothers, DC Comics, Jeff Rabinov, Movies, Superman

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Ladies and Gentlemen, New York Magazine blogger Lane Brown is trying to engage in an activity commonly known as “starting some shit” by encouraging Harry Potter fans - angry with Warner Brothers over The Halfblood Prince’s delayed release - to try to take out Watchmen fans disgruntled over Fox’s suit to block the release of the Watchmen film.

If the multitudes of ticked-off Harry Potter fans really wanted to bring Warner to its knees, we’d suggest they focus on stymieing the protests of the weaker, lesser-in-number Watchmen fans, thus allowing Fox’s copyright suit to continue apace.

What Lane Brown fails to realize is that Watchmen fans are not necessarily weaker or lesser in number, we are just quieter. We are also commonly older, disappointed in life, idolize ultra-violent anti-heroes, and - with Fox’s threat to block our obsession’s release - have very little to lose.

Does that really sound like a group of people you want to fuck with?

I love me some Harry Potter, but the first robe-wearing, ridiculous-spectacle-sporting, wand-waving punk who steps to this is getting an owl shoved up their ass and then getting shoved up Lane Bryant’s ass.

I’m just sayin’.

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, Watchmen, Fox, Warner Brothers, New York Magazine, Lane Brown

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I found out about this article in the Hollywood Reporter via a post on Ed Brubaker’s blog today and have since seen it spread all over the place. I refuse to continue the cliche of saying Sleeper is being “woken up”. It’s almost as lame as all of the “Holy Unoriginality, Batman!” tripe that goes around.

Anyway, in case you’ve been skipping the blogs and interwebs all day and I have the honor of being the first thing you read today, Sam Raimi and Tom Cruise are apparently trying to set up a film adaptation of Ed Brubaker’s Sleeper series at Warner Brothers, with Cruise “loosely attached” to star. With luck, someone else won’t already have the rights and Warner Brothers will actually be able to release the movie, should it actually be made. The general caveats apply, of course. Buying options to or “setting up” adaptations does not necessarily mean that the film will be made and Cruise may not actually star, but having the names of Raimi and Cruise attached definitely don’t hurt the odds of seeing Sleeper in theaters.

Brubaker mentions this in his blog post, but it bears repeating that Hollywood Reporter got one thing wrong - Sleeper is not a spin-off of either WildC.A.T.S. or Gen13, it merely features some characters that also appear in those series.

Finally, I have no idea why the sentence “Sleeper sees Raimi and Donen continuing their company’s superhero, which began when they recently set up the superhero story “The Transplants” at Disney.” made it past the copyeditors.

Technorati Tags: Ed Brubaker, Sleeper, Sam Raimi, Tom Cruise, Warner Brothers, Movies

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Image via Wikipedia Nicki Finke is reporting on Deadline Hollywood that Warner’s motion to dismiss Fox’s lawsuit over the Watchmen movie has been denied. The judge has ruled that there is merit to Fox’s claim that they retain at least partial rights to any Watchmen film adaptation and thus Warner Brothers did not have the right to adapt the movie without them.

While this is obviously a blow against the WB and Fox has requested an injunction against releasing the film, Warner Brothers reminded us in a released statement that this has yet to be decided. The judge has only ruled that Fox has satisfied the requirements to file the lawsuit, not that they’ve won the suit.

Read Finke’s entire, exhaustively detailed article here.

Technorati Tags: Warner Brothers, Fox, Lawsuit, Watchmen

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Image via Wikipedia

This starts with a rumor that I totally missed - Comic Book Movies reported last month that Warner Brothers may be considering a reboot of the Superman franchise based on how well Incredible Hulk performed at the box office. I would think that Warner Brothers would give more weight to how well Batman Begins performed as a franchise reboot, but perhaps WB realizes that neither Superman nor anyone else can be as cool as Batman.

Regardless, fast forward to last week, where Mark Millar was quoted in an interview with the Daily Record in the UK as saying he may be working on that Superman reboot:

“Since I was a kid I’ve always wanted to reinvent Superman for the 21st century.

“I’ve been planning this my entire life. I’ve got my director and producer set up, and it’ll be 2011. This is how far ahead you have to think.

“The Superman brand is toxic after that last movie lost Û200million, but in 2011 we’re hoping to restart it.

“Sadly I can’t say who the director is, but we may make it official by Christmas.

“But fingers crossed it could work out, that would be my lifetime’s dream.”

… shortly thereafter, in a post to his messsage board:

“… In the interests of clarity (because I’m sure this will be picked up somewhere) a very well known American action director heard about my love of Superman, approached my and asked me to team up with he and his producer to make a pitch for this. We’ve been talking for several weeks now and, if this is going to happen, we’ll know by Christmas. He has huge pull at WB so fingers crossed. But this is nothing more than a huge US name pulling me into his fold and making me part of a package.”

The next day, he backed down a little more:

“Again, I can only stress that isn’t news, lads. It isn’t an offer from WB or anyone. It’s just a big name action director who got in touch and asked me to join he and a producer we both know well to pitch for it. This guy is a big deal at WB so there’s a little hope. But this ain’t a news item until it happens. And it’s not even close to happening yet.”

So what’s the story; is this a legitimate possibility that Millar doesn’t want to jinx, or was he just talking out of his ass again?

Technorati Tags: Movies, Superman, Reboot, Mark Millar, Warner Brothers

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Below is the official WB Press Release for Batman: Gotham Knights.

For those who are not nearly as obsessed with Batman as I am, Gotham Knights is supposed to bridge the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight with several animated stories from top Anime directors, serving a purpose similar to the Animatrix DVD that supplemented the Matrix trilogy.

If you hate anime or animation in general, you’re probably quite safe skipping this, but you risk my accusations of lacking a soul*, just so ya know.

Anyway, here’s the press release:

Full Batman: Gotham Knight Press Release
Source: Warner Home Video
February 25, 2008

Here is the official press release from Warner Home Video about Batman: Gotham Knight:

DC Comics, Warner Premiere, Warner Home Video and Warner Bros. Animation have collaborated to create a unique Batman experience in Batman: Gotham Knight. The all-new, original movie will arrive July 8, 2008 on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Order due date is June 3, 2008. The original movie will also be available OnDemand and Pay-per-View as well as available for download on the same day as release date, July 8, 2008.

Batman: Gotham Knight is a fresh and exciting new entry into the Batman mythos, spinning out of a 40-year history in animation including the Emmy®-winning Batman: The Animated Series, widely considered a pivotal moment in American animation. A cross section of distinguished creators, award winning producers, and acclaimed writers weave six interlocking stories that reveal Bruce Wayne’s journey to Dark Knight, each with stylish art from some of the world’s most revered animation visionaries.

Batman: Gotham Knight was headed by an impressive list of directors who have brought their distinctly different anime styles to the classic Batman character. The production was divided among three renowned studios – Studio 4ºC, Production I.G and Madhouse – and included the truly inimitable visions of directors Shojiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka, Yasuhiro Aoki and Toshiyuki Kubooka. With stories written by several of the most talented writers of film, comic books, and animation, including Academy Award®-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson (A History of Violence), David S. Goyer (Batman Begins), Emmy®-winner Alan Burnett (Batman: The Animated Series), Jordan Goldberg (Associate Producer, The Dark Knight), and award-winning comics writers Greg Rucka and Brian Azzarello, Batman: Gotham Knight presents thrilling new adventures of Batman that spotlight several of Gotham City’s most dangerous villains, including the fearsome Scarecrow, the freakish Killer Croc and the unnerving marksman known as Deadshot. Batman: Gotham Knight is produced by Emma Thomas (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), Michael Uslan & Benjamin Melniker (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), Toshi Hiruma and Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series).

Batman: Gotham Knight will be available on DVD for $24.98 SRP. There will also be a 2-disc Special Edition DVD available for $29.98 SRP which contains additional bonus features. All the content from the 2-disc Special Edition DVD will be available on Blu-ray Disc for $34.99 SRP.

Batman: Gotham Knight DVD will feature incredible extras including:

“A Mirror for the Bat: The Evil Denizens of Gotham City” - A stimulating documentary covering Gotham City’s most nefarious of characters, combined with a look into the symbiotic relationship Batman shares with his enemies.

“Sneak Peek: Wonder Woman” - DC Universe animated original movie
Audio Commentary - Featuring the filmmakers of Gotham Knight.

Widescreen (1.78:1)

5.1 Dolby Digital

The 2-disc Special Edition DVD will feature even more incredible extras including:

“Batman and Me a Devotion of Destiny: The Bob Kane Story” - The comprehensive chronology of the remarkable life of the creator of Batman.

“Batman: The Animated Series” Bonus Episodes - Bruce Timm selects his favorite episodes from Batman: The Animated Series.

“Batman: Gotham Knight explores an exciting moment between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight,” said Paul Levitz, DC Comics President and Publisher, “and takes our fans on a very different visual trip through Gotham and Batman’s life. We’re extremely proud of this project, and look forward to adding to the momentum our DC Universe Animated Original Movie program has been building.”

“Batman: Gotham Knight is a perfect example of the type of release that Warner Premiere is becoming known for and that audiences are hungry for,” said Matt Bierman, Vice President, Production, Warner Premiere. “With incredible production values, a top-notch creative team and compelling, iconic characters from the DC Universe, Batman: Gotham Knight really raises the bar in the Direct-to-DVD arena and we’re proud to be a part of this production.”

“To date, over 13.5 million units of Batman animated titles have been sold and we are thrilled to release Batman: Gotham Knight, the next installment of the DC Universe animated original movies, which will be a hit with Super Hero and comic book fans alike,” said Amit Desai, WHV Vice President, Kids and Sports Marketing.

Batman: Gotham Knight Marketing Support

Batman: Gotham Knight will be supported by a massive media campaign including primetime TV spots, national print and online coverage. Marketing support will also include strong promotional support as well as a grassroots viral campaign.

DC UNIVERSE ORIGINAL MOVIES

DC Comics, Warner Premiere, Warner Home Video (WHV) and Warner Bros. Animation (WBA) began the production and distribution of “DC Universe,” a series of original, animated PG-13 movies in July 2006. This original made for DVD movie is part of the DC Universe series of animated PG-13 films written and directed by acclaimed comic book creators and animators and featuring recognizable talent. WHV will be the exclusive worldwide home entertainment distributor for all DC Universe movies, which will include a slate of 2-3 action-packed films per year. Superman Doomsday and Justice League: The New Frontier were the first DC Universe original animated movies. Other DC properties with films in development include Justice League, Green Lantern, Flash and Wonder Woman.

BASICS

Street Date: July 8, 2008
Order Due Date: June 3, 2008
Languages: English, Spanish
Subtitles: Spanish

Run Time: 75 minutes

Aspect Ratio: Widescreen (1.78:1)
Audio: 5.1 Dolby Surround Stereo
Color / Closed Captioned
Rating: PG-13

Batman: Gotham Knight (DVD)

Price: $24.98 SRP / No MAP
UPC: 085391123323

Batman: Gotham Knight (2 Disc Special Edition DVD)

Price: $29.98 SRP / No MAP
UPC: 0883929011155

Batman: Gotham Knight (Blu-ray Disc)

Price: $34.99 SRP / No MAP
UPC: 085391179511

About Warner Premiere:

Warner Premiere is Warner Bros. Entertainment’s new direct-to-consumer production company focused on the development, production and marketing of feature-length content, as well as short form digital content for the growing home entertainment market. Warner Premiere is committed to being at the creative forefront in the evolution of quality product in the direct-to-DVD business and the digital space, creating material that exemplifies the commitment to story, production and brand equity for which Warner Bros. is known.

About Warner Home Video:

With operations in 90 international territories Warner Home Video, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, commands the largest distribution infrastructure in the global video marketplace. Warner Home Video’s film library is the largest of any studio, offering top quality new and vintage titles from the repertoires of Warner Bros. Pictures, Turner Entertainment, Castle Rock Entertainment, HBO Home Video and New Line Home Entertainment.

About DC Comics:

DC Comics, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, is the largest English-language publisher of comics in the world and home to such iconic characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Sandman. These DC Super Heroes and others have starred in comic books, movies, television series (both animated and live-action) and cyberspace, thrilling audiences of all ages for generations. DC Comics’ Web site is located at www.dccomics.com.

BATMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics. (s08)

About Warner Bros. Animation:

Warner Bros. Animation has been producing award-winning original animation since 1930, when it released its first cartoon, “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub.” Since then, Warner Bros. Animation’s characters have set the standard for innovative, quality animation. Producing for network and cable television, online, home entertainment and feature films both domestically and internationally, Warner Bros. Animation is highly respected for its creative and technical excellence, as well as maintaining the studio’s rich cartoon heritage. Warner Bros. Animation also oversees the creative use of, and production of animated programming based on classic animated characters from the Hanna-Barbera and DC Comics libraries. Warner Bros. Animation is one of the most honored animation studios in history, garnering a grand total of six Academy Awards®, 35 Emmy® Awards, the George Foster Peabody Award, an Environmental Media Award, a Parents’ Choice Award, a Humanitas Award, two Prism Awards and 20 Annie Awards (honoring excellence in animation).

*Actually, that’s total BS; your soul is safe. I’m not a huge anime fan, either, but I enjoyed the Animatrix and there’s no way I’m missing out on Gotham Knights.

Technorati Tags: Movies, The Dark Knight, Gotham Knights, Warner Brothers, Press Release

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