Comic Book Movie Roundup

A few Comic Book Movie tidbits for this sorta early Wednesday morning...

NEWS: Justice League movie back on track for '09 release
REACTION: Oh, fuck a duck. I thought the strike had killed this thing but apparently not. The fact that they're already done with their rewrite that they need frightens me because from all indications, it needed a lot more work than that. On a side note on this project, some dude from Mad Max was cast as the Martian Manhunter - don't know if that's good news or not. I'm scared that we might get another X-Men 3 at best or another Batman & Robin at worst.

NEWS: Favreau to helm Avengers?
REACTION: At WonderCon last weekend, Jon Favreau cracked during his Iron Man panel that if the movie does well enough, he might get to direct Marvel's upcoming Avengers movie. See, that news makes me feel ten times more confident in the Avengers movie than in the Justice League... which is totally fucked because I'm much more of a DC guy than a Marvel guy. A JL movie is like a fanboy's wet dream and it looks to be turning into a soaking nightmare while the Avengers movie looks better and better as Marvel smartly builds towards it. I still think they need to do a Captain America solo flick before jumping into the Avengers but hey... that's just my opinion.

NEWS: Deathstroke in The Dark Knight?
REACTION: This rumor got started a couple of weeks ago when at a toy show someone snuck a shot of a Deathstroke toy from the upcoming Dark Knight toy line. The figure design was apparently approved by Nolan himself which made fanboy hearts aflutter. Problem is that with all the rumors regarding the movie, no one ever stumbled upon this one. Today's addition to the rumor is that Anthony Michael Hall is playing Deathstroke which really just sounds like someone making an educated guess to me since AMH has been signed on to the film for a while but no one knows what role he is playing. There was talk earlier that he'd be doing an Edward Nygma cameo to set up a Riddler appearance in the third [or beyond] flick much like the Joker card teaser at the end of Batman Begins. While I dig the Deathstroke character and find it intriguing what could be done in a Nolan Batman world with him, I find this one hard to believe unless it's just an Easter Egg for fans like Mr. Zsasz was in Begins.

NEWS: SHAZAM! is a go
REACTION: During the Get Smart panel, director Peter Segal announced that SHAZAM! would be his next flick. The guy sounds like he "gets" his source material and that can usually produce very cool results. It's an interesting film to tackle and I just hope he doesn't try to get too cute with it. This one will have a very thin line to tread between serious drama and over-the-top. Good luck, sir! Oh, and the best news on this one... The Rock's been approached to play Black Adam which may be the best idea in ages.

As a bonus, I'm tossing in a pic from the new Hulk movie and one from the upcoming Wolverine solo flick as well... enjoy! [NOTE: Hopefully these pics stay up longer than the GI Joe pics that got relocated right after I posted them.]








[MORE NOTES: I decided to go re-find the GI Joe pics for you guys... and I found a new one as well. Enjoy!]

Meet General Hawk - doesn't look quite right to me.


The lovely Baroness


And the not-so-lovely Duke... which won't embed in the post for some weird reason so go check it out HERE