News Bites: Jedi and Other Knights

It’s Friday morning, time for your weekly tidbits of the news. This week there hasn’t been a lot of solid news, but the rumor mill is in full swing with some mighty big possibilities. If any of the rumors are true, there’s apt to be some serious divides among fan-bases as they try to sort out how they feel about some of this.

Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams are planning to adapt Juliet Macur’s upcoming book Cycle of Lies, about Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal. No release date is mentioned, though with typical production times, it’ll probably be out in about two years, which will be about two years after the last person stops caring.

Speaking of Abrams, he may be directing a major science-fiction film set among the stars… and no, I don’t mean Star Trek. According to The Wrap, J.J. Abrams has been selected to direct Star Wars: Episode VII. Which, if true, means all that infighting among sci-fi fans about which franchise is better is about to get a whole lot muddier. (Note, however, that there have been a lot of “confirmed” directors attached already who were debunked within a few days, so until this comes out in the form of an official press release, it may not be a given, especially as Abrams denied wanting to direct the film last November.) EDIT: That press release has now arrived.

Also largely in the “rumor mill” stage, Latino Review cites “sources” as saying the characters have been chosen for Justice League. There will be a core team of five in the film, with the possibility of cameos for other characters. Those five? Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern. As these are probably the best known members of the J.L.A., it makes a certain amount of sense.

All six actors to play James Bond in film will be on stage together at the Oscars. This will take place during Adele’s performance of the Skyfall theme song (nominated for Best Original Song). So there will be at least one cool thing about this year’s Academy Awards — actually, two, considering this implies they’re actually going to play the nominees for Best Original Song instead of doing 10-second clips like they have the last few years.

In a move sure to upset absolutely nobody — except perhaps all the fans of the film — the Weinstein Company is moving forward on a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, based on author Wang Du Lu’s Silver Vase, Iron Knight. The director currently in talks for the film is Ronny Yu, best known in the U.S. for Freddy vs. Jason and Bride of Chucky. This may be the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.

“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke.”
– Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, 1851

Building the Justice League

One of the pieces of news coming out of San Diego Comic-Con was the not-altogether-surprising announcement that Christopher Nolan, director of the “Dark Knight trilogy” of Batman movies would not be participating in Warner Brothers’ upcoming attempt to bring DC Comics’ Justice League of America to the big screen. That Nolan would step aside shouldn’t dismay fans too much, as realistically there wasn’t much chance of him taking it on to begin with, and the tone he set with his Batman movies would not necessarily fit Justice League anyway. Rather, fans should probably take heart in the fact that Warner Brothers is still moving forward on the project, which a few weeks ago was announced to have Will Beall assigned to write the script. Beall’s only theatrical work so far is this year’s Gangster Squad, but this doesn’t necessarily bode ill for the film; after all, on the other side of the fence, X-Men was written by three writers with a total of one writing credit to their name (and that almost ten years before).

The question that comes to mind is exactly what does Warner Brothers need to do in order to make Justice League a success? Not just what do they have to do with the movie itself, but what do they have to do beforehand? Fans have been speculating on the film since before Marvel’s The Avengers came out, and after that blockbuster success, speculation has only been heightened. Comparisons will be inevitable. Considering the Nolan Batman films have been the sole unqualified successes that DC Comics movies have had in the past decade, Warner Brothers needs to get their act together. They need to put out a stellar film in order to be considered a worthy competitor, and they need to get their franchises stable before it comes out. While they can use a successful Justice League movie as a springboard to launch some of the franchises, they need to have at least some of them in good shape on their own first, to get people interested. They don’t necessarily have to have any Nick Fury-style hints towards the future in their films, but there have to be at least a few successful DC superhero films before Justice League hits, if for no other reason than to ensure that some of the characters and their current film portrayals are established with the audience in advance.

Weekly Weblinks: Moonrise and Marvels

It’s Friday morning (at least if I actually schedule this correctly this week!) and so it’s time once again for the Weekly Weblinks. Every week I select a handful of blog posts that I’ve enjoyed reading, and feature them here to spread the word and help build the community. This week’s selection of blog posts includes a couple reviews of newly-released movies, an in-depth look at Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematography, and more.

Also included are a few tidbits of news, which this week mostly consists of superhero movie rumors, as well as the latest from our favorite corporate nutcases at Hasbro, so read on!