Club Jade

HBO’s A Game of Thrones adaption has announced casting for many of the major roles since we last checked in. But the one making the most waves online since Sean Bean is the news that Lena Headey will play Cersai Lannister, the ambitious wife of King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) and a main foil of the series. Headey is plenty familiar to genre fans from her turn as the title character in The Sarah Conner Chronicles and as Queen Gorgo in 300. (Or maybe even 2005′s The Brothers Grimm, as seen at right.) Here’s hoping she can pull it off.

Other familiar faces include Jennifer Ehle (Pride and Prejudice ’95) as Catelyn Stark, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (New Amsterdam, Virtuality) as Cersei’s brother Jaime Lannister, Iain Glen (Kingdom of Heaven) as Ser Jorah Mormont, and Tamzin Merchant (The Tudors) as Daenerys Targaryen. Check out George R. R. Martin’s blog for more on the younger actors.

• SyFy. Warehouse 13 is setting records for the recently remonikered network; the show’s sixth episode was the most-watched series telecast in the channel’s history. It beat out… Episode five of the same series! Huh. In less hopeful rumors, they’re reportedly considering a cooking show. ‘Imagine greater’ indeed.

• MTV. Their Rocky Horror remake is “on hold,” (phew) but they are looking to reinvent Teen Wolf. Okay…
• Disney/Marvel. Has the New Mouse Order claimed its first victim?
• Supernatural. Creator Eric Kripke hedges around ending the series. Err, story. Err… Buffy lives?
• The Vampire Diaries. The CW is promoting their upcoming vampire drama with blood drives around the country.
• Just for fun. io9 has captured many of 30 Rock’s salutes to the genre.

Well, if they are announcing Star Tours at the D23 Expo on Sept. 13th, it’s going to be in the shadow of fallout from today’s huge news: What the mouse plans to do with Marvel Entertainment. And what this means for Universal Studios Orlando, which is currently operating several rides based on Marvel properties? (ETA: Nothing.) Will we be seeing Marvel weekends? All this and more as things develop…

ETA: Lots of laughs on Twitter with #badmarveldisney.

Insight is a collection of action figure photographs by Hasbro’s Gianni Lopergolo, who is living with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Hasbro is selling the collection – which features mainly photographs of their Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and Marvel lines, to help raises funds for his family and others suffering from the disease.

Did Marvel took that one guy’s rant on woman and comics- Remember, the one that unleashed a furious response from the female comicsphere – a little too much to heart? Check out an upcoming mini-series, Marvel Divas, as announced by Dude-in-Chief Joe Quesada:

“The idea behind the series was to have some sudsy fun and lift the curtain a bit and take a peep at some of our most fabulous super heroines. In the series, they’re an unlikely foursome of friends–Black Cat, Hell Cat, Firestar, and Photon–with TWO things in common: They’re all leading double-lives and they’re all having romantic trouble. The pitch started as “Sex and the City” in the Marvel Universe, and there’s definitely that “naughty” element to it, but I also think the series is doing to a deeper place, asking question about what it means…truly means…to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns. (And I mean both the super hero industry and the comic book industry.) But mostly it’s just a lot of hot fun.

There’s some hope that the execution could turn out better than it sounds – the writer, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, is on the staff of HBO’s Big Love, a show that has sympathetic portrayals of women in a society that pays even less lip-service to equality than comics. But with an introduction that uses words like ‘naughty’ and ‘hot fun,’ the backlash is likely to be very loud.

This would actually be kind of hilarious if it wasn’t rather sad… Marvel has apparently decided that the trick to getting girls to buy their merchandise are… Chibis and cosmetics. And yes, they actually use the term ‘female product.’ Seriously!

“Since our core customer has always been guys, we need to be very careful when we introduce female product so that we don’t alienate our core,” said Paul Gitter, president of consumer products, North America, for Marvel Entertainment Inc. “What we have found through testing is that we haven’t alienated them, which gives us the OK to move forward with female product.”

Yes, god forbid they alienate the menfolk.

Points for trying, I guess, but isn’t there some kind of middle road here? Do they really have to go over to the hearts-and-pink-things side – or define ‘female’ as ‘preteen’ – to get women to buy merchandise? (Via Maggiesox, who has her rant on.)

Rebelscum has a couple of galleries from Toy Fair… Not much EUish from Diamond Select. (Though their Jedi Luke looks nice.) The real gems, as usual, come from Hasbro and their comic packs. There’s a bunch of Clone Wars stuff I can’t even begin to catagorize… And a Marvel-era Luke and Lumiya! (Removable head? How apt!)

Heading into a more modern comic era, Legacy’s Darth Krayt and an Imperial Knight who I believe is Sigil Dare, plus Kyle Katarn and Beefy the Vong (probably not his real name,) above. (Based on a late Tales storyline?)

Here’s the Hasbro press release and official images. And here is their Star Wars presentation, shedding a little more light on their offerings… Including a Wal-Mart exclusive Corran Horn figure!

UPDATE: A report on the Turbo Tank and more photos from StarWars.com.

The Beat highlighted some interesting dialogue out of the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference:

Ira Rubenstein (Marvel): But Dave, I think there’s a difference. No one can write about Spider-Man or X-Men except for us.

Dave Roman (Nickelodeon Magazine:) I disagree.

Stuart Levy (Tokyopop:) Totally.

Rubenstein: Those are our characters. How could someone else write another Spider-Man story?

Roman: Because fan fiction is becoming so powerful. I’ve seen the power of fan fiction. Working at Nickelodeon, there are people out there doing ‘Avatar’ comics that are soooooo much better…

Rubenstein: But that’s like saying YouTube is a real entertainment channel. It’s not.

Roman/Levy/like five people in the audience: It is.

Rubenstein is not only a VP, he’s the VP of Marvel’s Global Digital Media Group. Which means that knowledge of the various internet subcultures would be, I’m guessing, a part of his job. And you know what fanfic fandom is full of? The great untapped audience of women. It’s true for the generally boy-tastic Star Wars fandom, and I don’t doubt the numbers are similar for Marvel properties. And no guys, it’s not all an exploration of Iron Man/Captain America slash. (Though some of it is. Deal. Hell, use it. A panel or two of awkward dialogue will get you buzz. And that means sales. Because shippers are crazy. Trust me: I used to be one.)

On the one hand, I know some folks (in Star Wars fandom) who avoid fanfic because “it’s not the real story;” On the other hand, I’ve known dozens, if not hundreds of people for whom fan fiction is nothing less than the driving force of their fandom activity. And you know what that means? Interest. Pageviews. Sales. See, all those people who will sit there are bitch about the latest storyline? At least some of them are going to actually buy it, even if only so they can write a thousand-page epic on how things should have gone.

As for the Youtube bit… Sheesh. I can understand not knowing about fanfic, but Youtube? But here’s a tip: Fan fiction and Youtube are free. And in this economic climate, that means they are some pretty fierce competition. Know them, know their appeal. The fanfic community might not be as much of a usable resource as Youtube, (Buzz!) but it’s still an audience. You can’t afford ignorance.

• Extreme geekitude: Wired.com introduces the internet at large to the Toy and Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.

• Alcohol: I’m not sure I can approve of Skittles-infused vodka.
• Blast from the past: The ten ultimate components of a geeky eighties childhood. I’m sorry to say that He-Man (well, She-Ra) was my very first obsession. And yet, Star Wars was ‘boy stuff.’ Go figure.
• Gaming: A look at pregnancy in video games.

ILM vet to direct Captain America movie. Marvel has signed Joe Johnston (Hidalgo, The Rocketeer) to helm The First Avenger: Captain America. Johnston got his start as an effects illustrator and designer on Star Wars, and also worked on ESB, ROTJ, Raiders, Temple of Doom, Willow, and Young Indy.

• Breaking news from the the forbidden planet of Omega 3: A new Star Trek trailer will be debuting on Quantum of Solace this weekend, but AICN has a description. We do get some new posters, but they’re nothing too exciting.

• Why you do this? We’re not going to get to see Professor Trelawney lobbing crystal balls at Death Eaters because Emma Thompson is picking the Nanny McPhee sequel over Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Not even a quick cameo? Ms. Thompson, why do you hate fun?
• Just imagine the theme song. Beyonce wants to be Wonder Woman. She’s certainly a woman who knows how to dress like something out of a comic book.
• What remains of the X-Men: A synopsis of the Magneto prequel has leaked.
• Much ado about Temeraire: Peter Jackson options Naomi Novik’s Empire of Ivory and Victory of Eagles. (He already has the first three.)

• Collecting: Times Online‘s money blog has a list of the top ten Star Wars collectibles – some old, some new. Cinematical has all the pictures.

• Lists: Filmcritic puts Leia at #5 on their ten best female action heroes.
• Expanded Universe: The EU Cantina is reviving their Book Club this summer with the Republic Commando series.
• Blogs: Don’t talk to Darth Vader before he’s had his coffee.