THR is reporting that director Seth Grahame-Smith has departed upcoming film THE FLASH due to “creative differences.” It seems that the DC Expanded Universe is following the Marvel Cinematic Universe in more ways than one.
The director, who is known for the novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, was working off his own script, adapted from the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The LEGO Movie) screenplay. Warner is reportedly retaining this version of the screenplay.
THE FLASH will star Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash, who cameoed in this year’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. It is due to be released on 16 March 2018, following Suicide Squad (2016), Wonder Woman (2017) and Justice League Part One (2017).
Grahame-Smith is not the first Warner director to leave a DC project, with Michelle McLaren previously leaving Wonder Woman for similar stated reasons, to be replaced with Patty Jenkins, who in turn had left Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World for the same reasons.
Yahoo has debuted the first trailer for BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, the R-rated animated adaptation of Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s classic and controversial graphic novel. It will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on 2 August 2016.
How far the animation was going to push some of the themes of the story can be seen in this early trailer, promising one of the most faithful and disturbing Batman films to date. It features the voices of Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne/Batman.
After the massive success of Furious 7, James Wan’s directorial future has been secured. The Hollywood Reporter brings the news that the Australian director has secured AQUAMAN and ROBOTECH franchises for Warner and Sony respectively.
The Conjuring 2: The Endfield Experiment will be Wan’s next film, with AQUAMAN likely to follow with a script by Kurt Johnstad. It’s part of DC’s shared universe of films that began with Man of Steel, and continues with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice next year. AQUAMAN is set for a release on 27 July 2018 following Suicide Squad (2016), Wonder Woman and Justice League Part One (both 2017).
According to the source, studio president of creative development and worldwide production, Greg Silverman, added: “The AQUAMAN film will be a major tentpole picture for us and James’s span of work has proven him able to take on any manner of project, bringing his incredible creative talent and unique voice to the material.”
ROBOTECH is based on the US/Japanese animated series of the 1980s, an adaptation/reworking/combination of Japanese anime series The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA.
After an embarrassing leak of the trailer yesterday, Warner has been quick to release an official version of the highly anticipated first trailer for BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE. As expected, it continues pictures of the titular characters doing stuff.
The swiftness of the release mirrors a similar incident when Disney responded within hours of the first leaked footage from Avengers: Age of Ultron. Unfortunately, Warner don’t have Hydra to blame this time around. However, no aggressive actions against James Franco films were taken, and nor should they be. We just really want to make that clear for those of your interested in vigilante justice.
A lengthy explanation isn’t needed for a film that joins Snakes on a Plane and Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda as films with narratively concise titles. Unsurprisingly for a film from Zack “Snack” Snyder, we see icons of superheroes operating with the lights out. As it promised, it deals with the fallout of Superman’s destruction of downtown Metropolis, and the world’s reaction to this. As this deals purely with visuals, like many of Snack’s productions and promotions to date, it is difficult to get a sense of exactly what the film is actually about. Plus, if this is any indication, the other “Justice League” members are likely to have a peripheral role at best within this film. Also: is Batman being voiced by James Spader?
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE is released on 25 March 2016 in the US, and 25 March 2016 in Australia.
While Australians patiently wait for the release of The LEGO Movie on 3 April, some 56 days after its initial release in the US, the unsurprising news arrives that a sequel to the massive hit has already been scheduled by Warner Bros. Pictures. On 26 May 2017, the second LEGO movie will drop, and builders around the world can rejoice.
Impressing critics and audiences alike, The LEGO Movie has already earned over $200 million worldwide, spending several weeks at the top of US box office, with pundits expecting it to spend a third week at #1 in the US.
While there is no word as to whether directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller will return to the fray, Jared Stern and Michelle Morgan are set to be on screenplay duties for the sequel.
Random Fact: The word “LEGO”, from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means “play well”. Additional Fact: If you say Legos, and not the correct plural of LEGO, then you will be taken out and shot by the High Council of Something or Other.
So builders get your bricks ready, there will be a whole new set of minifigs ready to collect over the next few years. We can imagine then that the Australian release will be sometime in 2019, then?
We’re ready to brick ourselves in excitement, because The LEGO® Movie is almost here! Directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, it stars Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie and Charlie Day, with Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman.
The original 3D computer animated story follows Emmet, an ordinary, rules-following, perfectly average LEGO minifigure who is mistakenly identified as the most extraordinary person and the key to saving the world. He is drafted into a fellowship of strangers on an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant, a journey for which Emmet is hopelessly and hilariously under-prepared.
Chris Pratt stars as the voice of Emmet. Will Ferrell stars as the voice of his primary adversary, President Business, an uptight CEO who has a hard time balancing world domination with micro-managing his own life; while Liam Neeson voices the president’s powerful henchman, known as Bad Cop/Good Cop, who will stop at nothing to catch Emmet.
Starring as Emmet’s fellow travelers are Oscar® winner Morgan Freeman as Vitruvius, an old mystic; Elizabeth Banks, as tough-as-nails Wyldstyle, who mistakes Emmet for the savior of the world and guides him on his quest; Will Arnett, as the mysterious Batman, a LEGO minifigure with whom Wyldstyle shares a history; Nick Offerman as a craggy, swaggering pirate obsessed with revenge on President Business; Alison Brie as a sweet, loveable member of the team, with a powerful secret and Charlie Day, as the spaceman Benny.
Directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller also wrote the screenplay, from a story by Dan Hageman & Kevin Hageman and Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, based on LEGO construction toys. It will incorporate some of the LEGO world’s most popular figures while introducing several new characters, inviting fans who have enjoyed the brand’s innovative toys and hugely popular video games for generations to experience their visually unique LEGO world as never seen before.
The LEGO® Movie, the first-ever, full-length theatrical LEGO® adventure, from Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures, opens in Australian cinemas on April 3, 2014. The poster set below are the hi-res versions from the US release on 7 February 2014.
Monsters from the deep fighting giant robots: it’s the stuff that our wildest dreams are made of. We just don’t remember them having this much terrible dialogue.
[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Pacific Rim (2013)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]
To say Pacific Rim had been a long time coming would be an understatement as big as Guillermo del Toro‘s robotic toys. Having last sat in the director’s chair all the way back in 2008 with Hellboy II: The Golden Army, various fits and starts on aborted versions of The Hobbit and At the Mountains of Madnesskept him behind the scenes on dozens of other productions in the meantime. Finally arriving amidst a plethora of dark apocalyptic nightmares that have peppered the cinematic landscape this year, del Toro wears his mostly Japanese influences on his sleeve in a familiar mecha story. Yet with super-robots this big, we don’t want to be the ones to tell them they aren’t very smart.
Del Toro and Travis Beacham’s (Clash of the Titans) screenplay cobbles together the larger motifs of giant robot fiction and Japanese giant monster (kaiju) films in laying down the back-story for their monster mash-up. Indeed, they generically name their monsters this universe Kaiju, creatures that mysteriously appeared out of a portal in space time deep beneath the titular Pacific Rim. The beasts rampaged through cities until humans built the giant robotic Jaegers (“Hunters”) to push them back. However, as humanity’s final days approach, former Jaeger pilot Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) is called out of retirement by commanding officer Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) to pilot the machines for one last-ditch effort. Yet first he and fellow wannabe pilot Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) must overcome their inner demons before they can fight the very literal outer kind.
Pacific Rim comes crashing through the narrative landscape like the giant beasts it depicts, readily shattering similarly sized goliaths but paying scant attention to the finer details around it. On the big end of the scale, Pacific Rim is unsurpassed, eliciting cheers of joy from inner and outer geeks who have wanted to see a live action Macross or Evangelion since childhood. In design and form, the creature and robot fights are unparalleled, dwarfing even the similarly large-scale Transformers series in sheer action scope. What separates this film from the Michael Bay series is a constant connection to the humans around them. With humans inside the robots, the stakes are instantly higher and there is genuinely someone rather than something to cheer for.
Yet like many of its kin, Pacific Rimmistakes slapstick and cliché dialogue for human interest. To dismiss the need for character development on the basis that it’s “just a robot movie” is too easy, because there really wasn’t any need for the film to be this dumb. Case in point are the supporting characters of Dr. Newton Geizle (Charlie Day) and Gottlieb (Torchwood‘s Burn Gorman), a pair of bumbling scientists who mirror Jeff Goldblum’s archetype from Independence Day, providing misguided comic relief in the pursuit of the “magic bullet” that will save the day. Heavyweight Elba is saddled with one clunker of a line after the next, culminating in a flight-deck speech that will inspire you to have a quick nap before the final battle. Also, in a $180 million budget, would it have been too hard to find two actual Australians to not murder the accent between fights?
Cherry picking tropes from Top Gun, ID4 and countless Japanese monster movies, Pacific Rimmay be the ultimate Western take on the kaiju genre, but it sadly lacks in any originality. Visually stunning, it’s sure to please pure adrenaline fans. It’s not simply that the film is derivative of the giant robot films it loves dearly, it just doesn’t match them in any way. From a director that has endeared us to monsters in Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth, it’s a shame that he can’t infuse his humans with anything other than cookie-cutter emotion.
Pacific Rim is released in Australia on 11 July 2013 from Roadshow Films.
Roadshow FIlms, the local distributor, has sent through a press release confirming what we probably already knew: their Superman film Man of Steel will be presented in 3D where available. It is released in Australia on 13 June 2013.
Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures announced today that director Zack Snyder’s upcoming action adventure Man of Steel will be presented in 3D in select theaters, as well as in 2D and IMAX®, so fans of the iconic superhero will be able to experience the much-anticipated movie in their format of choice.
Snyder stated, “The film is going to be a visually exciting experience in all formats: 2D, 3D and IMAX. Anticipating how audiences today embrace 3D, we designed and photographed the movie in a way that would allow Man of Steel to captivate those movie goers, while respecting fans who prefer a more traditional cinematic experience. We’ve taken great measures to ensure the film and the story come first, and 3D is meant as an enhancement.”
The film stars Henry Cavill in the role of Superman/Clark Kent, alongside three-time Oscar® nominee Amy Adams (“The Fighter”), Oscar® nominee Michael Shannon (“Revolutionary Road”), Academy Award® winner Kevin Costner (“Dances with Wolves”), Oscar® nominee Diane Lane (“Unfaithful”), Oscar® nominee Laurence Fishburne (“What’s Love Got to Do with It”), Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Harry Lennix, Michael Kelly, Richard Shiff, and Academy Award® winner Russell Crowe (“Gladiator”).
Man of Steel is produced by Charles Roven, Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan and Deborah Snyder. The screenplay was written by David S. Goyer, from a story by Goyer & Nolan, based upon Superman characters created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster and published by DC Entertainment. Thomas Tull, Lloyd Phillips and Jon Peters are the film’s executive producers.
Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Legendary Pictures, a Syncopy Production, a Zack Snyder Film, Man of Steel. This film will release in Australia on June 13, 2013.
As reported back in July this year, Warner is prepping their comic book movie collective Justice League for 2015. Now LA Times is reporting that plans for Justice League can now go ahead following their legal victory against the heirs of Superman co-creator Joseph Shuster, who wished to claim a 50% stake in the Kryptonian’s takings.
The planned film would team-up Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman alongside other DC Comics characters, but there is no word on whether they would involve characters from existing DC films to date. The intention, says the source, is to spin-off films from Justice League if it is a success in summer 2015. It will be the same season as The Avengers 2, so it is definitely going for ambitious plans.
To date, only Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy, which concluded this year with The Dark Knight Rises, have been successes for the studio in the last decade. Superman Returns and last year’s Green Lanternwere critical and box office disappointments, so much is riding on Justice League if they hope to salvage the same degree of success as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
On the small screen, DC has had more success with series Smallville and this month’s ratings success with CW’s Arrow, focusing on sometimes Justice League member Green Arrow. We can only dream of his inclusion in a Justice League film, although Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and The Flash all seem to be the most likely candidates.
Frank Miller’s classic tale of The Dark Knight comes to life in this wonderfully faithful rendering. This ain’t your daddy’s Batman.
For some, Batman will always be the camp 1960s version portrayed by Adam West, and this was something DC Comics was highly aware of coming out of the decade. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, there was a conscious effort on the part of the publisher to move away from this image, aided partly by Neal Adams and his realist approach to the artwork. Returning characters like the Joker to their homicidal roots, this culminated in two seminal events in 1988. The first of these was Alan’s Moore’s The Killing Joker, in which the Joker shoots and paralyses Commissioner Gordon’s daughter Barbara (aka Batman). Only months later, DC did the unthinkable and killed off Robin in A Death in the Family. Both of these stories were foreshadowed by Frank Miller’s 1986 graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, completely reinventing the Bat for a more cynical generation.
It has been 10 years since Bruce Wayne (voiced by Peter Weller) hung up his cape and cowl as Batman, and Gotham City is a hotbed of lawless 1980s decadence. A gang known as the mutants rules over the city, with the police and their Commissioner Gordon (David Selby) unable to do anything about it. His body weathered by the passing years, Batman comes back to the city when it needs him the most, and to face the Mutant Leader that terrorises the city. He’s not alone, with the young Carrie Kelly (Ariel Winter) aiming to be the next Robin.
Effectively adapting the first two chapters of Miller’s original work, this is an incredibly faithful and unbelievably satisfying translation to the screen. This may be somewhat jarring to viewers unfamiliar with the original text, as like Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1986-1987), it is very much a product of the decade that birthed it. Modern viewers will also immediately see the influence that the book had on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012), borrowing much of the set-up, a number of pieces of dialogue and ultimately the explosive finale. Yet writer Bob Goodman and Jay Olivia don’t attempt to update this one iota, retaining the hairstyles, Mutant language and cultural references of the book that inspired it. It’s a little surreal watching it all come to life, but also a giddy geek thrill as the Dark Knight returns against a lightning illuminated sky.
Another aspect that takes some getting used to is Peter Weller as Wayne/Batman, as DC have conditioned us to Kevin Conroy’s voice for the last few decades. However, the older actor adds a weary weight to the much older Batman, gravelling his way through some iconic lines. Visually, the film captures the right mixture of shadowy and sinister Gothicism alongside the more outlandish aspects of 1980s pop culture. The talking heads on television add splashes of garish colour that echo Miller, Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley’s original artistic vision. Similarly, they sound exactly as fans would expect them too. Indeed, it is only David Selby as Gordon that seems to be going through the motions, a minor weak link in an otherwise top-notch voice cast.
With Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Part 1, DC continue to prove that they have mastered the art of animated adaptations. Standing as a bookend to the recent animated film of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, DC have achieved in direct-to-DVD animation what their cinematic universe seems unable to pull together. The only real disappointment is that this is only half of the story, leaving us hanging just as an essential character comes back to Gotham. Yet that film will also require a great tonal shift, as Miller begins to delve into his musings on the nature of modern fascism with Superman and other DC characters going head-to-head with the Batman. We can’t wait for the second half to emerge in 2013.
The Disc (★★★½)
The wonders of modern HD ensure this to be a high quality product, albeit not quite the mind-blowing transfer we’ve come to expect from modern animation. Yet it is still top-notch, and a quality example of non-theatrical animation. The sound design is quite immersive, using the DTS-HD Master Audio well, almost going pound for pound with its big-budget brethren. Christopher Drake’s score, which does borrow somewhat from Hans Zimmer’s scores for Nolan, is bombastic and keeps the tone at the right level throughout.
Where the disc is disappointing is in the bonus features department. Of the original material, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Digital Comic is very brief, showcasing a single chapter from the book, and not the easiest to read on the screen. Her Name Is Carrie…Her Role Is Robin (12 minutes) looks at the first female Robin in context, and the importance of female superheroes more broadly. It’s a superficial piece, but it does contain interviews with Grant Morrison, Michael Uslan, Bruce Timm, but crucially missing out on any input from Frank Miller himself. Batman and Me: The Bob Kane Story (38 minutes) is documentary on the creator of the character, repurposed from a 2008 DVD release, but it does include a chat with Mark Hamill and Stan Lee for some reason. There are two episodes of Batman: The Animated Series (the “Two-Face” double), along with some trailers for other DC and Warner animated titles. The Sneak Peak at Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 (8 minutes) doesn’t include any footage, just animatics and storyboards, but there are a number of interviews with creators that are more interesting in many ways.
