A longtime showbiz journalist and fan's thoughts on comic books, movies and other cool stuff.

Month: January 2009

Insiders spill ‘Watchmen’ history and how the ‘Shazam!’ movie died

Two interesting comic book movie tidbits. First, an open letter purportedly from Lloyd Levin, partner of the producer at the heart of the “Watchmen” legal dispute, Larry Gordon. Llevin writes about trying to get a “Watchmen” movie made for many years and criticizes Fox’s claims as opportunistic. To wit:

From my point of view, the flashpoint of this dispute, came in late spring of 2005. Both Fox and Warner Brothers were offered the chance to make Watchmen. They were submitted the same package, at the same time. It included a cover letter describing the project and its history, budget information, a screenplay, the graphic novel, and it made mention that a top director was involved.

And it’s at this point, where the response from both parties could not have been more radically different.

The response we got from Fox was a flat “pass.” That’s it. An internal Fox email documents that executives there felt the script was one of the most unintelligible pieces of shit they had read in years. Conversely, Warner Brothers called us after having read the script and said they were interested in the movie – yes, they were unsure of the screenplay, and had many questions, but wanted to set a meeting to discuss the project, which they promptly did. Did anyone at Fox ask to meet on the movie? No. Did anyone at Fox express any interest in the movie? No. Express even the slightest interest in the movie? Or the graphic novel? No.

Then, screenwriter John August explains on his blog that the “Shazam!” movie he had been writing is dead in the water and explains from his P.O.V. how it all went down.

In retrospect, I can point to two summer Warner Bros. movies that I believe defined the real issue at hand: Speed Racer and The Dark Knight. The first flopped; the second triumphed. Given only those two examples, one can understand why a studio might wish for their movies to be more like the latter. But to do so ignores the success of Iron Man, which spent most of its running time as a comedic origin story, and the even more pertinent example of WB’s own Harry Potter series. I tried to make this case, to no avail.

Amazing Spider-Man #583 to have Obama variant cover

I swear, when was the last time anyone wanted to put a real-life president on the cover of a comic book? I don’t think it’s ever happened, but I could be wrong.

I definitely will try to snag one of these when they come out Jan. 14.

Goyer says WB has a lot of DC movies “on hold”

In an interview with IESB, writer-director David Goyer says all the DC Comics adaptations he’s working on — including “Supermax/Green Arrow” and “The Flash” — are treading water while the studio decides the best way to handle such movies:

“A lot of the DC movies at Warner Brothers are all on hold while the figure out, they’re going to come up with some new plan, methodology, things like that so everything has just been pressed pause on at the moment. It was the double header of both Iron Man and The Dark Knight coming out, so more than ever I think they’ve realized, I think DC was responsible for 15% of Warner Brother’s revenue this year, something crazy like that, so they realized that comic books, it’s become a new genre, one of the most successful genres.”

It’s gratifying to see the success of “Dark Knight” linked back to DC, but I still think this is the wrong approach for Warners to take. Developing big strategic plans like that is difficult, time consuming and tends to create more problems than it solves — if a plan agreeable to all parties is even worked out. They have to not be afraid to pull the trigger and risk making mistakes. Marvel’s already gone through that phase — “Daredevil,” “Elektra,” “Fantastic Four,” “Hulk” — and have come out on the other side better for it. I really wish that, especially with the likes of “Green Arrow” and “Flash,” that the studio would hire an up-and-coming director with a good take on the material, give him anywhere between $80 million and $100 million to make the pic, and then get out of the way.

Comic du jour: FX #1 (March 2008)

This is a bit of a throwback to the days of simpler comic book superheroes that I picked up recently in a bargain bin, mostly out of curiosity to see what John Byrne’s drawing. The story by Wayne Osbourne tells the tale of Tom Talbot, a kid about 10 to 12 years old who mysteriously acquires a superpower that lets him pretend up any effect he wants. Taking the superhero name FX, he and his pal Jack test out the powers against a renegade gorilla.

This story began as a commission Osborne wrote and paid Byrne to draw, with the result getting picked up by IDW. This very much falls into the fairly rigid interpretation held by Byrne and the fans at his forum of “what superhero comics should be” and undeniably does evoke the kinds of stories comics told back in the days when the only place to get them was the spinner rack and every issue was somebody’s first. Byrne’s art remains clear and strong, even as it reflects the somewhat more cartoony nature of his recent work.

At the same time, FX is too much of a throwback — too simple and simplistic – to make much of a mark in today’s market. Just because this kind of tale worked once, doesn’t mean it still resonates with the same force, especially as kids are increasingly exposed to more choices and more sophisticated fare than ever before. The result is little more than a nice bit of well-constructed nostalgia that has all the relevance of a “Leave it to Beaver” revival.

Japanese ‘Watchmen’ trailer, more lawsuit news

First, the very cool Japanese trailer:

Second, it looks like all will be decided by the judge in the “Watchmen” legal dispute between Fox and WB. Again, as a non-lawyer, I’ll defer to other sites to tell you what it all means.

Off the shelf: Path

“Path” ($12.95, Com.X) is essentially a chase story of the Wile E. Coyote vs. Road Runner variety. Story opens with a bang as a talking rabbit on the run from some crocidogs meets an elephant — and the two team up on the run to an unexpected point of destiny for them both. This comes from Com.X in England, and is written and “artworked” by Gregory S. Baldwin in a nice, cartoony style that evokes Sam Kieth’s work on the excellent old “Maxx” series.

Most of the story involves various chases and close escapes that are done well and come into focus with an unexpectedly touching point right at the end. It takes a while to get there, but it’s quite worth the relatively short trip.

The artwork is essential to the telling of this tale, and it’s all done in what looks like pencil drawings with gray tones added via the computer. The tones give the book a nice overall look, but often doesn’t have enough variation in shades, leaving too many panels and pages looking like a gray wash. I wish this book had been done in color, as it looks like the interiors are published in a “rich black” — or sepia, I guess — in which faint bits of color seem to be trying to edge their way in to the images.

Third Planet RIP

I’m a bit late to this, but my former comic shop, Third Planet in Torrance, has closed down. This article (which is on the Contra Costa Times site, but was originally done for the Daily Breeze), has all the details. Apparently, even the fixtures are for sale if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

I shopped at Third Planet when I first came to California in 1996. I was living in Redondo Beach and working at the Breeze and Third Planet was not only the closest comic shop, but the best at the time in that part of Los Angeles. I last visited the store around 2000, after it had moved from its first location near the Del Amo mall to PCH and as I was moving north and east into the belly of the beast that is Los Angeles. It will be missed …

Watching the ‘Watchmen’ legal battle is confusing

I’ve taken a look at the documents filed in the “Watchmen” film rights legal dispute and the judge’s recent summary judgment in favor of Fox and find myself fascinated by it all. (Filmesq.com is a great resource for all this.) I have no great insights on this, but I still think the film will come out March 6 as planned. I imagine delaying the film would damage the property and reduce the anticipated profits each side is trying to lay claim to. And as new info comes out, it gets harder to blame one studio or the other (I think doing so is counterproductive), so let’s just hope the judge or the parties can work out some kind of quick resolution to this.

The most astounding thing is that the studios and all their attorneys somehow missed something as important as the rights the judge has ruled Fox still retains in the project. It seems too much was taken at face value and not double checked — a huge embarrassment for both sides. I can’t wait to see the more detailed ruling. And I drove past the Roybal Building in downtown Los Angeles where the hearing will be held and found myself tempted to try to check out that upcoming hearing …

Comic du jour: The Flash #309 (May 1982)

First in what I intend to be a regular series looking at various individual comics of yesterday and today.

This is a pretty typical comic from a period not remembered as especially good for B- and C-list titles. Still, there’s almost always an element of charm to be found in such comics — and this is no exception.

Written by DC workhorse Cary Bates, the story involves an alien who comes back in time from a future in which the superheroes have become legends. Pleased to find the heroes really did exist, he kidnaps Flash and attempts to extract his speed energy by force. Flash escapes and, during a mind-link, learns the alien has the best of intentions — he needs the power to save his world from an alien threat. So Flash takes him back in time a bit further to the day he got his powers so the chemical soup Barry Allen was doused with could be analyzed and duplicated on the alien. The alien gets the Flash’s powers and goes back to his time to fight the alien. Flash tags along to make sure everything goes OK, but the monster is too tough, forcing the alien Flash to sacrifice his life to stop it. In the process, he resparks interest in the ancient superheroes and Flash goes back to his own time.

Carmine Infantino does the pencils on this issue and give it that special flair only he can deliver. As a kid, I didn’t like Infantino’s art on the “Star Wars” series because it didn’t capture the likenesses of the actors very well. But I came around on that, thanks to Infantino’s graceful and unique artistic talents. A lot of Infantinoisms are on display in this issue, too, from the design of the alien space ship, to his inimitable faces peeking out from the hyper-sketchy speed lines, the soft features of the alien’s face, and of course the Infantino hands! There are some drawbacks too: The unfortunately phallic imagery of the cover (duck, Barry!); a story told almost completely in thought balloons and the occasionally excessive looseness of the art.

Then there’s the backup feature, an 8-page Dr. Fate story written by Martin Pasko and drawn by Keith Giffen and Larry Mahlstedt. This feels like the last of several parts, and I was pretty much lost as to what was going on. But Giffen showed his chops on the art, which was polished, compelling and fresh in the way that a lot of stuff from this era seemed at the time. I also love the use of color holds — line art printed using only the red, blue or yellow plate — to create a unique look that’s both archaic and still pretty cool even by today’s standards.

As always, there’s plenty of interesting ephemera in an old comic: The inside front cover ad for the first “Swamp Thing” movie; house ads for the debut of new series Saga of the Swamp Thing and Firestorm; and a letters page with a rare DC statement of ownership that puts The Flash’s 1981 average paid circulation at 92,151 copies — good enough for a top ten ranging in the direct market these days.

Finding a home in my brain for “The Spirit”

“The Spirit,” which adapts Will Eisner’s beloved strip and features the solo directorial debut of Frank Miller, is by pretty much any common standard a complete flop. After two weekends in release — one of them an extended holiday weekend — the film has grossed about $18 million domestic and $3 million international. The reviews have been savage.

But what’s been sinking in with me since I saw it sometime last week was how similar watching this movie is to reading a Frank Miller comic book. Yes, it’s jarring and over-the-top and falls short in telling a story the way moviegoers expect, but it’s also fascinating to watch Miller put his style up on the screen so completely untouched. Doing so also puts Miller’s flaws on display. The same was true in “Sin City,” where the telling of three stories in one film emphasized their similarities in a way reading the comics one at a time did not, though the overall result was a more conventional film.

But “The Spirit” fits right into Miller’s recent work. Since “The Dark Knight Strikes Again,” Miller’s work has polarized fans as he stripped away the elements that grounded his work in the real-world milieu most fans prefer in favor of an unapologetically primal pulp style. Miller has largely abandoned superheroes as a vehicle for expression, going for the gut reactions evoked by pure sex and violence. In some cases, such as All-Star Batman, this goes so far against the audience’s expectation for comics (and the movies based on them) to plumb the hero’s soul and to establish their actions as occurring in the real world. “The Spirit” is much the same — Miller’s happy to have his hero beat up bad guys and make femmes fatales swoon because that’s his job. The villains, similarly, have little to no motivation beyond their fueling their own basic urges for power, money and sex. (Though it is interesting that Miller used the same formula Marvel does for its movies by connecting the origins of the hero and the villain.) The result is a story that lacks the depth commonly expected of comic books and movies in favor of the gut-level reactions to Miller’s intentionally provocative depictions of sex and violence. Miller’s love of breaking taboos is, in its way, admirable, even as I sometimes wish he’d get past pushing those buttons for their own sake.

The visuals are the one part of the movie that even the reviewers will admit are impressive to look at. Some of the things that are the most jarring in a movie — such as the scene with the Octopus and Silken Floss wearing kimonos — would work just fine in a Miller comic book. The background that changes from glowing red to a rising sun image, and the cartoonish figure of Samuel L. Jackson chopping a henchman in half with his samurai sword are so Miller-esque you can imagine the panels and the layout of the page with ease.

The way Miller sticks to a comic-book style of storytelling — especially at the start of the film, with its dense first fight between villain and hero and minimal exposition — reminds me of the dense, quick-action start to many a comic book. While readers can follow a story at their own pace and re-read panels or pages as needed to catch up, film and its audiences are much less forgiving. Given the way Miller slaps the audience around in the opening 20 minutes or so, it’s no surprise that viewers and critics gave up on finding a way into this bizarre, hyper-kinetic world.

By now you’ve probably guessed that I’m working up to saying I admire the film in a strange way — and I do. This is a film that is so comic-booky through and through, that it’s a taste that’s as refined and difficult to acquire as the most continuity-intensive superhero comic book series. This is a film made from and for the purer fringes of the comic-book culture and esthetic — and it is about as far from the standards of mainstream moviemaking and its audiences as you’re likely to get. I do lament that Miller’s vision of The Spirit completely overwhelmed the charm and wit of Will Eisner, but it’s been obvious from the first that that would have to wait for another time.

So is the movie bad? From almost every conventional standpoint, the answer is yes. But the parts of my head that really enjoys the occasional Heavy Metal story because it has nudity and violence, or Howard Chaykin’s “Black Kiss,” or the extreme violence of Simon Bisley’s artwork, and secretly cheers even the most childish of Miller’s anti-censorship rants, finds a lot to like in “The Spirit” — and is glad it got made.

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