Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

I find it difficult to blog today, because no matter what news I can dig up on the entertainment sites, it will ultimately pale in comparison to yesterday's earth-shattering announcement that The Walt Disney Company had purchased Marvel Comics. Still, the biggest news story of the day does come courtesy of the comic distributor, as 20th Century Fox announced, via Variety, that they will be starting production on a re-boot of the Fantastic Four franchise, with Akiva Goldsman being named as producer. The story apparently confirms that Disney is going to honor the deals that Marvel had made previous to yesterday's merger. Still, you almost have to wonder, as much as any of us like the comic book versions of the superhero team, if a great cinematic incarnation is even possible. Of course Tim Story's recent Fantastic Four films seems great in comparison to the Roger Corman-produced 1994 version, but it still didn't make the waves that such Marvel fare as Spider-Man, X-Men or Iron Man generated. It still gives us a reason to be excited, no matter how terrible it will be, and a reason to hope that it will turn around for the heroes. Oh, the reason for that particular picture accompanying the article today, coming from Marvel Zombies, I included because it went with the big story, but also because it brings up another question of Disney's acquisition, can the family friendly company really produce something as senselessly gory as Marvel Zombies? One of the many questions.

On to some more links of the huge Disney/Marvel story, my favorite Cinematical author, Elisabeth Rappe has attempted to calm some of our fears through her Geek Beat column, including some reassurance in the form of quotes from Joe Quesada's Twitter account comparing it to the relationship betwixt Disney and Pixar. Also, MSNBC has a story up giving us Stan Lee's first public thoughts on the deal, which he believes is great. The article also gives a decent link to Lee's other business with Disney, a motion comic he wrote entitled Time Jumper to be available on the iPod and debuted at this past San Diego Comic Con. So after a collective deep breath, maybe the scare is settling. Or maybe at 86 years of age, Lee was brainwashed by the enchanting anti-Semite conglomerate with promises of a trip to Space Mountain.

In further comic-to-film news, according to Variety a DC property I'm not very knowledgeable of, Deadman, will be brought to the screen courtesy of producer Guillermo del Toro and to be directed by Danish director Nikolaj Arcel, whom after looking over his IMDb isn't that known to me either. The character has always seemed fascinating to me, despite my lack of knowledge, added with the fact that anything del Toro touches turns to gold, will keep me looking out for this one.

Also, The Hollywood Reporter announces that Robert Downey, Jr. will star and Jon Favreau will direct a big screen adaptation of the graphic novel Cowboys and Aliens. Also, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, screenwriters on the other little Downey/Favreau collaboration Iron Man, wrote the initial screenplay, which was later given a script-tune up by producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman of Star Trek fame. Haven't heard of the comic? Well, no problem because Cinematical gave us the great link to DrunkDuck.com, a site for reading webcomics where you can read the entire thing online for free. I know what I'm doing for the rest of the night.

Finally, ComingSoon has the first look at Raja Gosnell's CGI The Smurfs with the teaser poster debut. Kind of bland, but enjoy.