It’s just about six months until the December 13th release of the second installment in The Hobbit trilogy and we’ve got our first poster for the film. Poor Bilbo. He knows going through that door is just as dangerous as it looks, yet he’s going to do it anyway and none of us can stop him.
(via Kotaku)
If you don’t notice the lack of leading lady superheroines on the big screen, then you’re not paying attention. We get movie after movie about guys like Iron Man and Thor but hardly anything of the other sex. You can point out movies like Elektra and how several women were part of the X-Men films, and you wouldn’t be wrong – however, it’s not exactly balanced. Joss Whedon agrees.
While doing an interview with The Daily Beast, he responded to a question about the lack of female superheroes in film with the following:
Toymakers will tell you they won’t sell enough, and movie people will point to the two terrible superheroine movies that were made and say, You see? It can’t be done. It’s stupid, and I’m hoping The Hunger Games will lead to a paradigm shift. It’s frustrating to me that I don’t see anybody developing one of these movies. It actually pisses me off. My daughter watched The Avengers and was like, “My favorite characters were the Black Widow and Maria Hill,” and I thought, Yeah, of course they were. I read a beautiful thing Junot Diaz wrote: “If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.”
The Hunger Games is definitely setting the right tone, and there is possibly a Ms. Marvel movie on the horizon but it’s not enough. It strikes me as utterly ridiculous that there have been a bajillion Superman movies and not a single Wonder Woman one. How does that happen? Though I share Whedon’s frustration and I’d love to see the landscape change, I don’t think we’ll see an instant change. Over time though? I’ve got my fingers crossed.
Nintendo doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to turning their video game franchises into movies. Remember 1993′s Super Mario Bros? Yeah, you get the idea, but if this fan-made version ever made it to theaters, it might be worth watching. Link’s Shadow was created by the folks at Corridor Digital and it’s just a brief scene, but it features great costuming and some impressive fight choreography. Imagine how much more amazing this idea would look with a Hollywood budget to back it up.
See the video after the break…
Fans of the long-running comic series Fables have been teased with big screen adaptations before, but now it looks like it’s actually happening. They’ve got a director, a writer, and producers—and that’s promising. Nikolaj Arcel will direct, and Jeremy Slater is signed on to write. David Heyman (producer of the Harry Potter movies) and Jeffrey Clifford will produce.
If you’re not familiar with the story created by Bill Willingham, you should know it’s fabulous. It’s about a core group of fairy tale characters who were forced to leave their home and reside in secret in New York City. The setting is rich, and the characters are fascinating. It was almost a movie in 2004 and a TV series in 2008, so let’s hope it gets off the ground this time.
This illustration includes images of famous fictional vehicles from cars to trucks to RVs. It was created by artist Scott Park who has really paid attention to the details. All together there are 77 different vehicles in the image. I’m particularly fond of the Arrested Development stair car and the Batmobile.
Click on the image for a more detailed look.
(Scott Park’s Tumblr via Jalopnik)
The guys at How It Should Have Ended are back with their take on Iron Man 3 and it answers a lot of the pesky questions we all had at the end. Of course, if the movie had happened this way it would have been over pretty fast, but it would have been way cooler with the Batman part. Yeah, Iron Man and Batman share a beautiful moment together.
See the video after the break (spoilers, naturally)…
The Daleks are one of the most recognizable evil aliens from Doctor Who, and now they’ve invaded the movies! These posters for classic films like The Shining, Singin’ in the Rain and Mary Poppins have lost their famous leads only to have them replaced by Daleks. They’re the work of artist Anthony Naylor aka Tone who puts up a new Dalek themed comic everyday on his Daily Dalek blog. It’s not just the images, but the title and text that have been redone to make these Dalek movie posters perfect.
See more Dalek movie posters after the break…
The Harp Twins are identical twin sisters Camille and Kennerly who both play the electric harp. The two have recently recorded a beautiful version of the Doctor Who Theme and now they’ve put on Starfleet uniforms to bring us the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Kind of makes you want to break out those DVDs and sip a cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot.
See the video after the break…
Filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky once planned to make an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune. The director was going for a grand story if not so much a faithful adaptation. He worked on the project for two years in the 70s (before Star Wars showed science fiction could be really successful at theaters), gathering the likes of H.R. Giger, Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, and Orson Welles to work on the film. It sadly never made it to completion. However, now you can check out a documentary about the unfinished project.
Jodorowsky’s Dune by director Frank Pavich shows what could have been. You get interviews with the people involved in the movie, storyboards, and even some animated sequences. The Hollywood Reporter saw the documentary at Cannes and had the following to say:
Never troubled by anything resembling modesty or irony, Jodorowsky claims that he planned Dune as “the most important picture in the history of humanity”. In one of many unwittingly comic slips, he freely admits he never even read the novel and happily rewrote the ending: “I was raping Frank Herbert,” he grins, “but with love.” According to his colorful account, the project came together via a series of almost mystical encounters with the “spiritual warriors” he required to realize his world-changing vision.
It sounds like it would have been something to see. At least we’ll eventually be able to watch the documentary.
Wolverine will be hitting screens in the US on July 26th which is still months away, but there’s a new trailer to keep you happy in the meantime. It’s got Wolverine at his bare-chested, adamantium-clawed best along with plenty of ninjas and a giant samurai who are out to kill him. You know, typical stuff for good old Logan.
See the trailer after the break…
