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Green Lantern Stuff

The Trailer

Last year, the trailer for Ryan Reynold’s Green Lantern. Forgive me but that is such a fucking awesome casting decision, seriously. Obviously we know that Reynolds can handle the comedic nature of Hal Jordan, but after last year’s awesome Buried we also know he can MORE than handle the much needed drama as well. Anywho, just in case you missed the trailer, check it out below:-

To be honest, I can completely understand anybody being put off by that trailer. Anybody who knows next to nothing about Hal Jordan/Green Lantern that is. If you’re a Green Lantern fan, that trailer should be the fucking second coming. The awesome blend of Jordan’s wit with the majesty of Oa (the Green Lantern Corps planet) and Jordan’s inner turmoil (“The one thing a Lantern should be is fearless…that isn’t me). It seems I was right all a long. Reynolds is perfect. The trailer may not seem quite epic enough, but then you have to remember this was released last year, very early days. And the producers have been quoted as calling it “A new Star Wars“; that’s a pretty fucking bold statement to make. Trust me, it’ll be awesome.

Superman: The Man of Steel (reboot)

Nolan & Snyder

Whether you’re a Marvel Fan, DC or don’t really give a fuck, you have to give in to the sheer fact that Superman is the godfather of superheros, and certainly the most Universally recognizable. I love all the Superman movies (yes, even Quest for Peace), but when the Christopher Reeve/Brandon Routh movies started out, it was back in the days when Superman was deemed a “simple farm boy” who saved the world from natural disasters…thus the general movie goer has the impression of Supes being quite “gay”. About 30ish years ago, DC completely turned the Superman character around, and started to portray him as more of an indestructible God like being who punches holes in the Moon and battles titanic creatures like Darkseid and Doomsday in devastating fist fights.

Thus, Warner Bros have come to the decision to reboot the movie series completely. That means a total overhaul, everything including John Williams infamously amazing soundtrack will be scrapped. This is a Superman for today’s new generation. A Superman that punches motherfuckers in the fucking face.

The first thing Warner Bros did was take on board their favourite genius Christopher Nolan (director of Batman Begins/The Dark Knight, Inception & Memento) as producer. Nolan’s job is to spearhead the entire project. And his first task was to find a director. Many, MANY people were considered, including Darren Arronofsky (Requiem for a Dream), Duncan Jones (Moon), Ben Affleck (fucking Ben Affleck) and Matt Reeves (Cloverfield). In the end, Nolan chose controversial visionary Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen). I say controversial because people tend to either love Snyder or hate him. The general idea is that he is all style and no substance. I’m sorry but if you think Watchmen has no substance, then you have no right being a movie/comic book fan. Fact is Snyder is perfect for this reboot. If there’s anybody to perfectly portray the current version of Superman, it’s Snyder.

Casting

As with the director, Nolan and Snyder scoured for months to find their Superman. It seemed this was the first role they wanted to get out of the way. Which is the best way forward. First, employ your main character, and then the rest of the cast can be built up on the strengths of that actor. This is the best way to cast a film with such a prominent main character as Superman.

Many actors such as Brandon Routh (who starred in the previous movie Superman Returns), Tom Welling (of Smallville fame – seriously, as much as I love Smallville…fucking keep Welling in Smallville, he has no place in an actual Superman movie), Joe Manganiello (True Blood), Patrick Wilson (Night Owl in Watchmen), Sam Worthington (Avatar), Matthew Goode (Ozymandias in Watchmen), Armie Hammer (the Winklevoss twins in Social Network) were all rumoured to be auditioning for the titular role.

However, just earlier this week, Nolan and Snyder officially found their Superman in little known British actor Henry Cavill (pictured below). Warner Bros always said from the go that they would prefer to hire a relatively unknown actor for the role, someone that they could make a career for. And when you look at past Supermen (George Reeve, Christopher Reeves, Brandon Routh, Tom Welling) what exactly where they before playing Superman? Nothing basically. The casting of Cavill makes me VERY happy. I’ve been worried about the casting for a while now (I certainly didn’t want to see Matthew Goode in the role), but now I’m at ease. I know the role is in good hands. Just LOOK at him, he’s fucking perfect. If you want to know his acting chops, he was in the miniseries The Tudors and is starring in up coming Mickey Rourke action fantasy movie Immortals.

Story wise, I really hope (since this movie will most likely be an origin story) they go with Superman: Birthright. It has all the fantastical elements that make Superman awesome: a personal journey, a heroic reveal, Lex Luthor with an evil plan, a titanic battle with otherworldly beings. Brilliant. As for the look of the movie, it looks like they’re going with very recent graphic novel Superman: Earth One. This is another origin story, but a very dark almost emo storyline. Admittedly, I don’t like Earth One that much as I feel they took to many liberties to modernise Superman’s origins. He spends half of the novel moping around complaining “BAAAWW, I HAVE ALL THESE POWERS BUT I DON’T WANT TO USE THEM, I WANNA BE NOOOOORMAL!” That’s not Superman. Where Earth One does succeed however is in its artwork. It’s simply stunning, and the reinvented “look” of Superman I really dig. Muscular, but not Arnie, slightly darker costume but still retaining it’s “classic” feel…perfect.

The Dark Knight Rises (sequel to Batman Begins & The Dark Knight)

Title & Shizz

It’s been an awesome few months for Batman fans. First, Christopher Nolan confirmed he was indeed going to return to his saga of The Bat. Then he confirmed that this would be his LAST Batman movie, and close the story off for good, turning his saga into a definitive trilogy. Then he announced the title would be The Dark Knight Rises. I’m not sure I like the title, I’ll be honest. The reason I’m not feeling it is that it connects too much to The Dark Knight, almost as if it’s entirely dependent on it. Kind of like Warner Bros are screaming “LOOK! IT’S A SEQUEL TO THE DARK KNIGHT! THAT MOVIE MADE A FUCKLOAD OF MONEY!!”

Don't freak out. As awesome as this poster is, it's just a fan poster made entirely for fun.

Pretty much anyone who knows me knows that I thoroughly believe Batman Begins to be a much better film than The Dark Knight. Especially as a comic book adaption. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Dark Knight; but as a comic book movie it kind of falls a little flat in my eyes. There’s nothing in the movie that makes it feel truely comic book-y. Batman Begins on the other hand contains all the majesty of a true comic book movie: a journey of discovery to a mysterious land (R’has Al Ghul’s temple), fantasy-esque villian (scarecrow), futuristic city landscapes and features (the monorail, the neon lights etc). The Dark Knight pretty much got rid of all these elements. The part of the monorail was destroyed at the end of Begins, but that doesn’t mean the whole thing was destroyed, but in The Dark Knight the monorail has all but disappeared. The Dark Knight is essentially a crime drama where one of the cops dresses as a bat and the main gangster wears clown make up. Also think about this…it has but ONE action sequence. Yeah, the chase in the middle, that’s the ONLY action scene. The “fight” scenes are too darkly lit and often obstructed with strobe lights to the point where you can’t see what’s going on and can’t follow each punch and kick. Batman’s supposed to be the world’s greatest martial artist so the fact that you NEVER see him kick someone in a fucking Batman movie is a pretty peculiar sign. It’s my view that The Dark Knight Rises should go back to the tone and style of Batman Begins, the film is a lot more epic, has a fantasy but realistic vibe, and the fight scenes are much better. What title would I have gone with?…Gotham City. It’s simple but effective and it has bags of character. After the events of The Dark Knight (the world believes Batman to be the villian), an obvious plot point in the next film is going to feature Batman turning the city itself into the hero. That’s why this title (Gotham City) rules.

Casting the Villians

The Dark Knight Rises has had as many casting rumours as Superman: Man of Steel. The first was the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Tennant, Johnny Depp, Hugh Laurie, James Franco, Leonardo DiCaprio and Doug Jones all being considered to play The Riddler, but then that was shot down by Nolan making is adamantly clear The Riddler was not going to play a part in the film. Other villians said to definitely not feature are Penguin, Crock and Mr Freeze because they were all deemed to “unrealistic” for Nolan’s style of film making. Which is fair enough, I can do without Mr Freeze forever after the abomination that was Batman & Robin.

Well last week, Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros officially announced the casting of two of the film’s villains. The first was venom-fueled meat-head Bane, to be played by Tom Hardy (the British Forger in Inception). That’s the first sign of The Dark Knight Rises’ recipe for fucking success. Hardy is PERFECT for Bane. Disagree? Have you ever seen/heard of his breakthrough role Bronson? Well, check out this clip:

That bald guy beating seven bells of fuck out of the other guy? That’s Tom Hardy. I know, amazing isn’t it? Beefy without being cheesy, macho without being ridiculous. He is simply the perfect Bane. This is honestly one of the single best casting decisions I’ve ever seen in a comic book movie. Also, the promise of Bane gives me a thought…that this movie will contain one hell of a one-on-one bust up. In fact, in the Batman comic book series Knightfall (Batman: Knightfall wikipedia link) Bane eventually broke Batman’s back and he was paralyzed for a large amount of time. During the healing process a guy named Jean-Paul Valley was forced to take up Batman’s role. But he was a very violent rage-filled fighter, who’d rather just kill than arrest, which naturally tarnished Bruce Wayne’s reputation. This led to the resignation of Bruce’s butler Alfred. Eventually Bruce healed and fought Jean-Paul and beat him, he then also had a rematch with Bane and beat him as well. Knightfall would make a fucking epic movie. It’s also recently been confirmed that Inception star Joseph Gordon-Levitt is playing an as-of-yet unnamed role in the film. Could this be Jean-Paul? He would certainly be perfect. My ass is literally boiling. Seriously.

The second villain confirmed to be in the film is Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman). This could be seen as a peculiar choice, considering Catwoman isn’t exactly a realistic villain. But if you look at the original announcement, Nolan never refers to her as “Catwoman” and just “Selina Kyle”. I like this decision. She could just be a nameless warrior. Also, in the comic, Selina Kyle is actually the daughter of Falcone (the mob boss that Batman defeated in Batman Begins). This could give rise to a story of revenge. Playing Selina Kyle is Anne Hathaway. Now…before you start saying “OMFG THAT’S AWFUL SHE CAN’T ACT FOR SHIT!” First of all, shut the fuck up; she is a good actress. Second, you’re forgetting that everyone said the exact same thing about a certain Heath Ledger, and look what happened there. Basically Christopher Nolan is in a position now where he could cast fucking Gary Barlow as The Riddler and nobody could say shit because of what he did with Heath Ledger/The Joker.

Thor

Trailer

If you haven’t seen the trailer for Thor yet, then check it out:-

Addmitedly I don’t know that much about Thor. The trailer does look pretty badass though. Also, it’s directed by Kenneth Brannagh…but then again his Frankenstein movie wasn’t exactly amazing. However, the cinematography is what grabs me the most: gritty and grounded one minute and then full of majesty the next. Very cool. Also Anthony Hopkins as Odin = fucking epic.

I just hope it doesn’t end up being another 2 hour trailer for The Avengers like Iron Man 2 was.

Dylan Dogg: Dead of Night

Trailer

The trailer for the Brandon Routh starring gothic comic book movie Dylan Dogg: Dead of Night has also just been released:-

I’m not sure how I feel about this one. I love Brandon Routh, but to me this just looks like a poor man’s Constantine, and that film wasn’t exactly amazing itself.

So there you go, a plethora of comic book movie news. There’ll be plenty more coming (albeit in snippets next time rather than one big article). I realize this was kind of DC-biased, but what you gonna do? Moan and groan? Bite me.