The Week In Geek: Superman/Batman Movie In The Works? Ridley Scott Returns To Bladerunner, & More
Are We Getting A World’s Finest Team Up Movie?
There is a lot of speculation about what is going to happen to the Batman franchise after The Dark Knight Rises is released and Christopher Nolan is finished with his Batman trilogy. According to ThinkMcFlyThink.com, it appears that Warner Brothers is resurrecting the idea of a Batman/Superman team up movie.
Those of you readers who’ve been around awhile know that a Batman/Superman team-up was once going to be Warner Brother’s way of reviving both the Batman franchise (after the disaster of Batman & Robin) and Superman (after Superman IV, and frankly just years of being away from movie screens at that point). A script was written by the screenwriter of Seven, Andrew Kevin Walker, and Wolfgang Peterson was set to direct. As usual with Warner Brothers and their DC super hero properties, they got cold feet at the last minute (see also: Joss Whedon’s Wonder Woman, David Goyer’s Flash, George Miller’s Justice League movies). Wiser heads prevailed ultimately, and Warner decided to re-launch Batman on his own with Batman Begins, as well as Superman. But now with Nolan’s Batman series coming to a close, what to do?
It is no secret that Warner Brothers was hoping to build towards a Justice League movie with Green Lantern, much as Marvel is doing with Avengers. But with that not working out as hoped, it looks like their new first steps at universe building are going to be teaming up Batman and Superman instead. They are hoping to get Christian Bale to reprise his role as Batman, and are prepared to offer him a shitload of money to do so, but are aware that he will likely say “No way” without Nolan involved. Superman will almost certainly be played by new Man of Steel Henry Cavill however.
The studio is supposed to be taking two separate directions with the project, one with an older Kal-El mentoring a new Batman, and another with an older Batman mentoring a new Superman freshly arrived on the scene. Depending on who they get to play Batman will determine which version of the movie gets made. I just wanna know why they can’t just be around the same damn age like they are in the comics? The soonest we could see this is 2014, as Man of Steel doesn’t come out till 2013.
Ridley Scott Returns To The World Of Replicants
Ok, this had to seriously be the WTF geeks news of the year. Remember last year it was reported that a Warner Brothers subsidary company called Alcon Entertainment was looking to produce “prequels and sequels” to Ridley Scott’s classic 1982 Science Fiction film Blade Runner? Fanboys everywhere gagged. Blade Runner is widely considered THE greatest science fiction film ever made, topping many lists from genre magazines like Total Film and Empire. Making a sequel just sounds…blasphemous. And it isn’t like Ridley Scott would have anything to do with something like this, right?
Well, this week Alcon Entertainment announced that Ridley Scott would return to the world of Bladerunner, nearly thirty years later, to direct another feature.
Here’s what is known: Harrison Ford will almost certainly NOT be back. I think after watching him sleepwalk through Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we’re all ok with that. Talking to the LA Times, producer Andrew Kosove had this to say:
“In no way do I speak for Ridley Scott. But if you’re asking me will this movie have anything to do with Harrison Ford, the answer is no. This is a total reinvention, and in my mind that means doing everything fresh, including casting.”
I suppose that with Ridley Scott returning to the world he created in Alien thirty plus years later with his forthcoming Prometheus, his returning to the world of Blade Runner should not be so surprising really. There are a lot of rumors going around that Ridley Scott has a lot of ambitious original ideas for science fiction films that he couldn’t get financed, so he presented them as sequels (or in the case of Alien) prequels to his now classic films, and he instantly got a greenlight, since the studios only want to greenlight tentpoles movies that are name brands these days. If that is what he’s doing, then he’s a smart cookie, and a sneaky one at that.
Strange to think that nearly thirty years ago, the original Bladerunner bombed so badly that it sunk the Ladd Company, the group that financed it. Thirty years later, Blade Runner is a “brand name”, not to mention a classic. Funny how things work out. Unless you’re the Ladd Company.
Bradley Cooper Ditches The Crow
Casting Bradley Cooper as gothy undead rocker Eric Draven for the remake of The Crow had to be one of the worst casting choices I’d ever heard. There is something so fratty and douchey about him, he is not very rock n’ roll. Like, at all. Apparently, Bradley Cooper agrees, as he dropped out of the project this week. Apparently, now circling this remake are equally terrible choices Channing Tatum and Mark Whalberg. Have the producers of this new Crow movie ever even see the original, or read the original comic? All I can think of is this sounds like some kind of parody. Every single one of these guys is wrong for this movie. Here is hoping this project ends up dying a quiet death. And unlike Eric Draven, doesn’t come back.
Lone Ranger Shitcanned By Disney
In a surprise move this week, Disney cancelled their upcoming new take on The Lone Ranger, which was set to star Johnny Depp as Tonto and The Social Network’s Armie Hammer as the title character. The reason, apparently, was that the budget had soared to $250 million dollars. Yes, you read right: $250 million dollars… for a western. Yeah, I don’t blame Disney for this one. At all.
Budgets are spiraling out of control on these summer tentpole movies, and it makes it very difficult to make a profit on some of them, even when they are massive hits. This new take on the Lone Ranger was to have a twist on the mythology, with the Lone Ranger and Tonto fighting off Werewolves in the old west (The Lone Ranger fires silver bullets you see… so someone had the bright idea to bring in werewolves; in related news: studio execs have picked up that Twilight is popular). Still, werewolves or not, there is no reason why what is still essentially a western needs to cost that much. Disney must have looked at the slick looking movie versions of Thor and Captain America that only cost them around $150 million each, and realized there is zero reason that Gore Verbinski can’t do the exact same. This project might spring back to life, if Disney can lower the budget, but until then, the mouse house has put their foot down.
Captain America 2 Tidbits
Earlier this week, screenwriters for Captain America, Chris Markus and Stephan McFeely, have revealed just who they would want to see in an upcoming sequel. It looks like longtime Captain America partner from back in the 70’s, The Falcon, might be introduced in a Cap 2, as well as Peggy Carter’s niece (or cousin, depending and who is writing that particular Captain America comic book) Sharon Carter, who was an agent of SHIELD and long time Cap love interest…. before she shot him! Here is what they had to say in an interview with NBC:
“We want both of them! Sharon is meaty, almost to a point where you get a little uncomfortable because her relation to Peggy has shifted over the years, as time has passed. She’s the sister, she’s the cousin, she’s the niece. You have to walk a fine line there because it does seem like you’re dating your girlfriend’s daughter. Falcon is awesome. We can’t play with time so much to have Cap go back to Harlem in the ’70’s and clean up the streets, but it would be awesome to go straight up, like, ‘Shaft’ with Cap and the Falcon.”
Will a Cap sequel have room for both characters, and a chance for Bucky to return as the Winter Soldier? Marvel Studios has been pretty good at juggling big casts, so it is possible they could make all these characters work in one movie. Time will tell.
