Shooting Pym Particles

If you can find this, read it!

Latino Review reports that Marvel had pretty much got it's ducks in the row for the making of an Actual Ant-Man movie.   Edgar Wright already showed his test footage at 2012 San Diego Comic-Con on the same panel where Marvel announced it's next set of film leading up to Avengers 2.   Oddly enough there tend to be two things that signal the forward motion of any project, the announcement at San Diego and a Latino Review scoop.  Latino Review is one of the few news sources that have been spot on with Marvel movie updates, so this is a strong indication that this movie is, in fact happening.

Another juicy bit of information is that shooting could begin in the summer of 2013, which works with Edgar Wrights schedule to wrap up shooting of the eagerly awaited "World's End" - the last part of what is known as "the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy" (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz then World's End) in the spring of 2013.  If all goes right Marvel, who usually releases two movies a year, will release three movies in 2014 - Thor:  The Dark World, Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. 

For those who are not aware, Ant-Man and his wife/girlfriend/partner (depending on the story being told) were Avengers from the beginning and pretty much is in every version except the last movie.   Many would ask if such a character who is obscure to the general public could make it on the big screen, one could remind those asking that this was asked about Iron Man and Thor, and this worked out okay.   Lets see where this goes and hope for the best.

Media Marvel

Avengers Assembled

According to Deadline, Marvel is in talks to develop a live action TV series connected to the Avengers movie but without the actual characters from the blockbuster but using other characters from the Marvel universe.  According to every report there are several unspecified ideas floating around the talks, so what this will be has a "wait and see" stamp on it so far.

This history of most comic super groups, especially the big two Justice League and the Avengers have rotated members more then a WB teen-angst semi-soap series rotates sleeping with each other.   Other minor characters within the highly known super groups have had varying success, most utter failures.  But what doesn't work in comic might work in a small screen format.   Most Fanboys are saying that a show styled in the form of a procedural cop drama might be the ticket, like NYPD Blue, or The Shield - with human characters in the forefront and Super Heroes only as a backdrop.

On the animation front Marvel is also developing a new cartoon series called Avengers Assemble which will include the actual characters from the movie.   Avengers:  Earth's Mightiest Heroes, has been running for two season so far but could end to make way for the new one.   (Though it would be interesting if they had both cartoons running.  After all Iron Man Armored Adventure runs on the same cable channel as the Avengers.)

Let The Knee-Jerking Begin

Beware Cartoon Guns

In the wake of the Aurora, Colorado shooting, Warner Brothers has announced it plans to "tone-down" the violence in the upcoming "Beware The Batman" cartoon.  According to Variety, "an unspecified number of alterations were made to some designs and situations on the series to minimize the amount of weapon imagery deemed too realistic." They plan to do things like make guns with square nozzles so they look more science fiction then realistic.  Yes, that's obviously the problem, cartoon guns.   Somewhere someone did statistics on the number of shootings caused by the guns being fired at Johny Quest and Haji.  It should go right up there with the stats on the number of mice who went after cats with frying pans after viewing a Tom & Jerry marathon.

It is inevitable that such a horrible tragedy such as the Aurora, Colorado shootings would spark a lot of conversations, some ranging from heart-felt grief to actual reporting of facts.  Others are completely stupid, such as the NRA and their legion of gun-nuts campaigning to put a gun in everyone's hands so everyone in the theater could get a chance to shoot, or the conspiracy theories with the government plan to have a complete nut job go and kill citizens so they can take guns from babies and people wearing Elmo costumes.  No reaction is more irksome then entertainment studio reactions to these things.  At least the NRA and conspiracy theorists are crazy - they have an excuse.   Studio reaction range from silly to just all out idiotic.  Changing guns in movies to walkie talkies or delaying shows with season finales that have some kind of gun play in them, or making cartoon guns fire lasers doesn't do anything but make a general audience go, "This is just. . .dumb."   It would be better of these studios would, oh let's say, donate money to the families to help defer funeral or medical costs - but this is said realizing we're talking about the same entity that will change guns in a cartoon while making a deal for eventual movie rights to the tragedy they claim forced them to change the gun in the first place.

Devil's Rights

The clock is most certainly ticking on 20th Century Fox’s rights to Marvel’s handicapped super-hero, Daredevil.   They have a script by Brad Caleb Kane – noted writer of cult TV fan favorite “Fringe.”  David Slade was the director attached to the project earlier this year, after giving the disturbing Hard Candy, the Comic-to-Film 30 Days of Night, the highly profitable The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, an episode of Breaking Bad and the Pilot for the failed series Awake - bowed out of the project to take on David Fuller's upcoming Hannibal TV series.  David James Kelly, another up and coming writer, is reported to have been brought in to do some re-writes and no new director has been announced yet.  With the clock ticking and Disney lawyers circling them like flying monkeys stalking Dorothy, 20th Century Fox has to hurry up and get this project green-lit or the rights to Daredevil (and the Fantastic Four) will revert back.  A movie studio in a rush to put out a movie?  What could go wrong?

Sexy White

CW announced at the Arrow panel during San Diego Comic Con 2012 that Kelly Hu will be playing villain China White in the upcoming series.   China White was introduce in the late 1990’s in the Green Arrow:  Year One mini-series.  The insanely sexy Ms. Hu is no stranger to playing comic or pop culture roles.  She play Lady Deathstrike in X2:  X-Men United, s frequent voice contributor is Seth Green’s Robot Chicken, has a small role in the 2005 Dark Shadows TV movie, voice several video games including Star Wars:  Knights of the Old Republic II, Command & Conquer:  Red Alert 3, Ninja Black and the Afro Samuria video game.  Not to mention her voice can be found in some of the most popular cartoons and direct to DVD animations including The Spectacular Spider-man, Young Justice (she currently voices the villain Cheshire), Phineas and Ferb and Green Lantern Emerald night.   Her movie and TV credits range from China Beach and Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan to Vampire Diaries and Hawaii Five-O.   One things for certain, many geek fingers are crossed for the success of the show – and with Kelly Hu gracing the camera it at least give a lot of men a really excellent reason to watch.

As It is Written, So Shall It Be Fantastic

The studios who currently have the movie rights to Marvel properties are rushing to make sure they beat the deadline for the “use or lose” clause in them – mostly because they know the Disney/Marvel is waiting in the wings to snatch them back.  20th Century Fox took time to announce at San Diego Comic Con 2012 they have a writer and director for the Fantastic Four reboot.  Hot young director Josh Trank, who made everyone that hates “found footage” flick open their mouths and insert feet with the critical and box office success “Chronicles” has been tapped to bring the famous Marvel family to life again, and along with him is writer Jeremy Slater who, if the story is true, will be pretty much cutting his writer’s baby teeth on this project.  No  release date announced, nor cast nor filming schedule yet, but giving the green light to these things certainly helps keep the property squarely in the hands of someone else other than Marvel Studios and the empire that Walt built.

Legendary Monster

HELL YEAH!!!!

Godzilla is getting a reboot. . .again.   At the 2012 San Diego Comic Con Legendary Pictures wowed it's panel attendees by showing a teaser of an upcoming Godzilla movie complete with destroyed city and a hint of a big ass monster fight.  This time Gareth Edwards, British special effect wizard turned director who gave us 2010's indie cult favorite "Monsters", is attached to the project.  Like James Bond and Harry Potter, Godzilla is a character that keeps coming back - even when killed (which, ironically, is also true of James Bond and Harry Potter).  The first movie, Gojira, premiered in Japan in 1954 out of Toho Company Ltd and got an American adaption (or adoption, depending on how you see it) in 1956.  Between 1954 to 2004 there have been 27 movies, a short indie animation, several comics, and a couple of Saturday mourning cartoons.  Godzilla is a Pop Culture Icon and household name, since pretty much everyone knows the monster, its famous scream, the fire breath and it's bad attitude thanks to the miracle of syndicated television, VHS rentals and DVD sales. 

One thing that is clear from all the reports is that Legendary Pictures is running as far away from Roland Emmerich's 1998 attempt that generated almost as much hate as Phantom Menace. 
While the Legendary movie will most likely feature a CGI generated Godzilla, according to anyone with a blog or a Facebook page who attended the panel, we are getting "THE" Godzilla and not an overgrown iguana thing with no fire breath who took someone telling it to go screw itself to a highly questionable next level - a truly "WTF were they thinking" moment in movie history.  There hasn't been any word of a release date, and there's still some casting to be done, but this project looks like it's moving full speed ahead and the results and reactions should be interesting.