Over on The Movie Reporter IESB.net, they’re reporting that a Venom movie spin-off from the underwhelming Spider-Man 3 is in the works, to the point that discussions have been had with talent.
Rights issues will probably be a factor, as Venom appeared in a Sony film — but since discussions have apparently been had, and Marvel Studios has an individual agreement with the WGA (still on strike!) I have to figure that Marvel is the one moving forward. Sony Pictures, as far as I’ve read, does not have an agreement with the writers.
Actor and Academy Award nominee, Heath Ledger was found dead at his Manhattan home Tuesday morning. Details are sketchy thus far and no cause of death has been announced, but drugs are believed to be a factor.
He was found dead in his bed in one of his residences in Soho by his housekeeper at 3:35 PM ET today. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ they believe it was not a crime, adding that prescription pills were found near his body.
According to NYPD a masseuse arrived at Ledger’s apartment and was let in by a housekeeper. When Ledger didn’t answer his bedroom door, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened it and found him unconscious. They attempted to wake him; when they couldn’t, they called 911. (source)
Head to Zed’s Dead for the full write-up.
Over on the Watchmen Production Blog, director Zack Snyder has released some of the storyboards for the upcoming Watchmen film.
It’s good to see he’s using panels from the actual work, as the comic is very cinematic in scope already — I can believe that very few changes are needed to translate.
I can only hope this movie is as faithful a translation as 300, also directed by Snyder, because whether you liked it or not it was a faithful translation of the comic.
Publicity for the Dark Knight is popping up everywhere. To wit: Wizard has an interview with director Christopher Nolan. Nolan has some good things to say about the whole thing, but is very praising of Heath Ledger:
It’s nothing like we expected at all, which is just fantastic. It’s very hard to describe and very hard to pin down. He’s just got an incredible range to the voice and the way in which he uses it. It goes from being quite high-pitched and eccentric to having these sort of moments of extraordinary anger and power where you just feel this guy’s anger at things. He’s very charismatic, but really quite frightening.
Over on sister-site Zed’s Dead (movie reviews. no anal rape) there’s a write up with thoughts on the Ledger vs. Nicholson Joker debate. Of which I wasn’t really aware there was one.
My thoughts are kind of simple. Tim Burton created a Batman that had a bit of camp left in it — a holdover from the Adam West TV show, if you will — and Jack Nicholson portrayed that Joker with panache and flair. There was a lot of camp present in the series, although the second movie was way more guilty of it than the original.
Christopher Nolan’s Batman is darker — more of The Dark Knight Returns than POW! BIFF! BAM! – and plays more of the psychological fears of Gotham and the hero (I submit that Bruce Wayne is not the “secret identity,” but just a mask that Batman wears in order to gather information for his “true” identity — vis a vis, the Bat.)
Nolan is on record saying that Dark Knight is taking its influences from the darker sides of the Batman mythos — with special emphasis on the Joker from The Killing Joke. Heath Ledger is playing that Joker to a “T” in the trailer. Insane, yes. Psychopathic, yes. Perhaps a bit over-the-top, but not a criminal that is going to pump the place with laughing gas while he marches in to the soothing sounds of Prince.
If you partook of the disappointing I Am Legend adaptation in the theaters, you’ve seen this — but if you were spared that atrocity, here is the link to the Dark Knight trailer that was shown before that stomach-punch of a movie:
To me, this isn’t what the Joker was in the previous movie (Jack Nicholson in Batman, of course) — this is the Joker as it should be — dangerously unhinged, psychotic, unpredictable and totally sociopathic.
You be the judge.
Chalk me up as one of the ones that enjoyed Thomas Jane’s take on the Punisher for the last movie; I was disappointed when he bowed out from the Punisher War Zone movie currently in production.
Ray Stevenson of HBO’s Rome fame has taken on the skull-shirted mantle and recently spoke to Wizard Magazine:
This is in no way to be seen as ‘Punisher 2,’ or even ‘Punisher 3.’ “It’s going full-on for the Garth Ennis and Tim Bradstreet take on Frank Castle. We’re staying very, very true to the authenticity of the comic books. The whole look of the film, the mise en scene, has that light and dark, harsh sodium colors. Frank Castle is definitely the predator. Not to take away from anything Tom Jane has done, and I think that movie stands up on its own, but my take will be different. It’s a newer, darker version.
And the director, Lexi Alexander, also spoke with Wizard — and during the course of the interview, she addressed one of the biggest concerns fans of the book had about the first movie and the upcoming sequel:
Well, it’ll definitely be a hard R. Luckily Lionsgate has been great about that. They haven’t given me any guidelines in terms of violence. I think that they’re a really good studio to make a violent movie with. I really like violent movies.
When they first announced Iron Man as a movie, my first thought went to Johnny Depp. Why? Because Tony Stark is a quirky sunuvabitch, and Depp does quirky. And Depp looks as much like Stark as anyone else, except one person; the one that got the role.
Then the announcement was made: Robert Downey Jr. would be Stark/Shellhead. I thought, “Damn, that’s perfect!”
Remember, Tony Stark is an alcoholic that struggles with his addictions while trying to do the right thing — even in today’s Marvel Universe, where Stark is reviled by a lot of fans, he’s still doing what he thinks is the right thing.
Downey shows why he’s the perfect choice over at Wizard today, with an interview about the upcoming feature:
I could say that we’re similar. He’s in better shape, he’s smarter, and he’s probably a lot more quintessentially manly at the end of the day than I am. It’s not like I use a different voice or something. It’s just I’m an American guy and a citizen of the world, and there’s plenty of role models for that stuff.
I think that when someone has had a fundamental change—they’re not just trying to backpedal and make it seem like, ‘I’m going to rehab again. Everything is fine. I’m fine, but I’m still clubbing tonight’—by the time that you’ve seen the light, by the time you get out of Dodge and start doing the right thing, you really don’t relate to the person that historically people still say you are…But I get it. In a way that’s why it’s ideally suited for me and I’m ideally suited for it.
In the News has a decent bit with Christian Bale — who, as we all know is Batman in the upcoming The Dark Knight feature, as well as a wonderful portrayal of Bats/Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins — in which the cowled star tells that he really wasn’t a Batman fan, believe or not.
“I’ve never found him to be intriguing at all. Whereas these graphic novels depicted him as really being by far the most fascinating character. So I feel like we gained that back with ‘Batman Begins.’ Now we’ve made him a character of substance, I have no problem with him competing with someone else. And that’s going to make better entertainment and a better movie, which is great. I don’t mind if everybody tries to chew up the scenery!”
Elsewhere (at Digital Spy), Michael Caine attempts to ease any fears about Heath Ledger’s Joker performance:
Heath plays him like an absolutely maniacal murderous psychopath. You have never seen anything like it in your life. He is very, very scary. I turn up every month or so and do a couple of bits then go back to London. I had to do this bit where Batman and I watch a video which The Joker sends to threaten us. So I’d never seen him, and then he came on the television in the first rehearsal and I completely forgot my lines. I flipped, because it was so stunning, it was quite amazing. Wait until you see it, it’s incredible.
This movie and Iron Man are the two movies I am really looking forward to next summer. I’ve been skeptical if Ledger can pull off Joker . . . and really, until the big screen is filled with the Bat-signal I won’t know. But hey, Caine likes him!
Interesting stuff on the Dark Knight movie, upcoming. The viral marketing is getting kind of nifty.
Meanwhile, the viral sites keep buzzing, including clues from an email which lead you here, and if you reset your computer’s clock to 7:38 AM (the time “Taffyface” was killed, according to the Gotham Times, you can open the vault and look inside. Oh, and there’s four more viral sites you can poke at: Gotham USD, Gotham Cab, Acme Security Systems and The GVA Foundation.
This comes courtesy of Comic Book Resources.
