Tag: joss whedon

Posted on

The Avengers smashes at box office

The cumulation of Marvel’s multi-film strategy is proving to be the most successful yet: The Avengers‘ $200.3M opening weekend has soared it past Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 for the biggest opening weekend of all time. (Potter still holds the record for biggest opening day.)

Word-of-mouth is playing a big part – the film only dropped 13% from Friday to Saturday, and it’s getting a rare A+ rating from CinemaScore participants. And:

“It’s not playing like just a superhero film,” says Dave Hollis, Disney’s executive vice president of distribution. “It’s playing like a huge, accessible-to-everyone, all-quadrant picture.” To prove Hollis’ point, Disney is reporting that the PG-13 superhero flick was split 50-50 between moviegoers under the age of 25 and those over 25. And while men outnumbered women, it wasn’t to an extreme extent; men made up 60 percent of the film’s audience.

Everyone loves a superhero movie! Or maybe just Joss Whedon, who will certainly have his pick of offers now.

Posted on

And the rest: Wonder Woman, BSG: Blood and Chrome, Angel, and Damon Lindelof loves Raiders

Wonder Woman: Erika Peterman demands a Wonder Woman movie on the CNN Geek Out! blog. The co-founder of Girls-Gone-Geek.com addresses different theories as to why we haven’t gotten one yet: lack of a good story? Finding the right costume? Having an action movie led by a female? Casting for the perfect Princess Diana of the Amazons?

Battlestar Galactica: There’s talk that the upcoming BSG prequel series, Blood and Chrome, may end up a web series instead of airing on Syfy. Because they need more airtime for paranormal researching wrestlers. Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome focuses on a young William Adama during the first Cylon war.

Comics: Angel, the vampire with a soul, returns to Dark Horse Comics with this week’s release of Angel & Faith #1. For the past few years, while Dark Horse and Joss Whedon had been busy with Buffy Season Eight, IDW Comics and Joss Whedon had been publishing stories in the Angel franchise, including Angel: After the Fall and several Spike arcs. Now the Buffyverse is re-united back under Dark Horse as Angel and Faith team up to fight evil after the tumultuous events of Season Eight.

Raiders of the Lost Ark:Damon Lindelof (of Lost and 2009’s Star Trek) writes a love letter to the perfect movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and describes when he last peed in his pants.

Posted on

And the rest: Anne Hathaway is The Dark Knight Rises’ Selina Kyle; X-Men prequel blitz begins

And the catsuit goes to… Warner Bros. announced today that Anne Hathaway has been cast as Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. Reaction has been mixed, but I’m willing to wait and see. (Remember when Heath Ledger was cast?) Earlier rumors claimed there’s a second female lead yet to be cast as well.

Also revealed is that Tom Hardy will play Bane, one of Batman’s newer (well, 1993) foes. Unlike Hathaway, whose performance is bound to be judged harshly against Michelle Pfeiffer’s take on the character (among others,) Hardy has much less baggage to overcome. Bane’s only film appearance thus far was in the much-derided Batman and Robin as a henchmen to Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy.

X-Men: First Class. DC not your thing? Hero Complex visits the set of the X-Men prequel, which stars James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as the young Professor X and Magneto. (Lingering question: Will January Jones actually convince us she’s not Betty Draper, budding supervillain?) There are another couple photos at /Film. And lastly, check out the teaser poster at AICN.

Buffy. Joss Whedon talks to Entertainment Weekly about the Season 8 comics. Warning: Massive spoilers. If you don’t risk them but still feel like getting depressive about something, Blastr has seven Whedon projects we’ll never see, almost all of which look better than Dollhouse.

Harry Potter. Another round of spoil-or-not: A pivotal death scene is being changed for Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Or, see Alexis Liddell’s concept art for ‘The Three Brothers’ sequence in Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

A Game of Thrones. There’s been so much news on the HBO adaption over the past few weeks that I can’t keep up, but one thing you don’t want to miss is the latest teaser.

Posted on

Buffy reboot? In other news, no original ideas left

You’ve probably already heard the collective cry of anguish from worshippers of The Whedon, but let’s make sure you’re caught up.  Yes.  Hollywood is planning a reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Okay.  Stop laughing.

Okay.  Don’t stop laughing.  Joss has responded in his typical Whedeonesque fashion in an e-mail to E! Online:

This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths—just because they can’t think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself.

Personally, I hope he goes for that reboot of Batman entitled:  The Dark Knight Rises Way Earlier Than That Other One And Also More Cheaply And In Toronto.

Posted on

Something shiny for the Serenity fans out there

Not only did the fifty-six page Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale hit comic book stores last week (and mine is on back order), delving into Book’s past, everyone in the ‘Verse get a small treat this week: Dark Horse and USA Today have an 8-page comic, Serenity: Downtime up – today just has the first four pages, but the story will continue tomorrow. Joss and Zack Whedon scripted the book on Shepherd Book, while Zack flies solo with the story for ‘Downtime’.

Posted on

SDCC: Saturday (and some Friday) roundup

Someone got stabbed with a pen in Hall H this evening; There’s a report from San Diego’s NBC affiliate and Comic Book Resources and Entertainment Weekly are on the case. (Harrison Ford is not a suspect.) The rumors have been flying over Twitter, including allegations that seat-squatting (a common practice) was a factor.

Posted on

Browncoats: Redemption is a fanfilm with a cause

Star Wars fans are familiar with the sad time of little official activity.  (Remember the Dark Times?)

So Bart tells us that some Browncoats, not ones to sit around and wait for the occasional awesome comic, are making their own story to bide the time called Browncoats:  Redemption.  In order to avoid painful imitations of beloved characters, they’re creating an all new crew.

And to keep this in the spirit of Browncoats, they’re going to be collecting for charity, including:  Equality Now, Kids Need to Read, Dyslexia Foundation, the Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center, and the Marine Corps – Law Enforcement Foundation.

Good luck to them!