The Week In Geek: Man of Steel News Galore, The Crow Returns, & Iron Man In Disneyland?
Man of Steel News Galore
Seems I miss a week of this column, and I miss what seems like a hundred stories regarding this project. You have probably heard by now that not only has the excellent Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire) been cast as General Zod, but his female (still uncast as of this writing) side kick is the comic book’s Phantom Zone villainess Faora instead of Ursa from Superman II. Which, to be fair, is a difference in name only, they were essentially the same character. Also revealed last week was what seems to be the official synopsis for the movie, and it seems to be based heavily on writer Mark Waid’s Superman origin re-telling from 2003, Birthright.
A young reporter named Clark Kent roams the world covering various news stories. When he is compelled to use his secret powers to intervene in a crisis in West Africa, he returns to Smallville to learn more about his origins and the hero he was born to be.
Hmmmm…..West Africa, returning to Smallville to discover his roots…all of that is straight out of Birthright. Having said that, Zod (nor any other evil Kryptonians) were used in that story, so this isn’t going to be a straight up adaptation. In terms of the look of the film, it was reported this week that the look of Krypton will differ from the cold crystalline world presented in Richard Donner’s movie-verse, and look a lot like Coruscant in the Star Wars movies (which, in turn, looks a lot like the sci-fi cities of the 1930’s comics of the golden age, so there is a nice cyclical thing going on here) The last MOS rumor of the week involves a very different looking Fortress of Solitude being in the film, but just how different remains to be seen. Is it too much to ask for the giant gold key?
The Crow Rebooted…Or Maybe Not?
After a string of terrible sequels, and an equally lame television series, it now seems that James O’Barr’s The Crow is getting the reboot treatment. While that isn’t shocking, the choice of who is going to play brooding, sexy and undead goth rocker Eric Draven IS pretty shocking. It appears that Bradley Cooper, Mr. All American (and sort of/kind typecast as the douchey bro type) is set for the part. Sometimes casting against type can work (two notable examples being Michael Keaton as Batman and Tom Cruise as the Vampire Lestat) but for the life of me, I just can’t imagine Cooper as Draven.
Baut s it turns out, this project might not even get off the ground, if the Weinstein Company has anything to say about it. They claim they have the rights to this franchise, not Relativity Media, who are behind this reboot. So of course the Weinsteins are doing their best to put a stop to it, via their lawyers. So while all this legal wrangling goes on, maybe Bradley Cooper will realize what a bad idea this is and play another comic book character, one more suited to his looks….the Flash maybe? I know it has been suggested before, but he would be perfect for that one. But the Crow? Um yeah, not so much.
Details On The Star Trek Series That Could Have Been Emerge
Back in 2005, Paramount Studious it seemed finally ran their precious Star Trek franchise into the ground with the cancellation of Enterprise after four underwhelming seasons. We all know what happened next: The Paramount higher ups decided to let Trek lie low for a bit, then returned it in the form of JJ Abram’s awesome 2009 movie reboot. But before Trek came back in theaters, there was a pitch that might have brought the series back to the small screen in a very different form.
In 2006, Bryan Singer and his colleague Robert Meyer Burnett (director of Free Enterprise and producer of many a special features on many of the beloved geek DVDs that you probably own) both hard core life long Star Trek fans, pitched a series to Paramount called Star Trek: Federation: Set in the year 3000, nearly 600 years after the times of Picard/Sisko/Janeway, Federation would have been a vastly different series from most Trek. Trekmovie.com got the exclusive details on their pitch, and here are some highlights from what would have been the premise of the show:
- Earth’s humans have become “fat and happy” but this has led to complacency where humans are “giving up exploration for incremental colonization and focusing more on the rightness of their own cultural view over all others” Many younger members of the UFP have left, eschewing this “human-centric” Federation. Vulcans have been disengaging from the Federation and have reunified with the Romulans, spending most of the last 3 centuries focused on creating a new “joined society” overseen by two “quasi-religious clerics who rule according to logic and what is best for their unified peoples, combining Romulan Machiavellian politics with Vulcan logic. The Klingons have undergone a “massive reformation” moving away from their Viking-like brawling to become a “civilization of warrior mystics” akin to the Tang Dynasty), now flying “sleek” and “serene” ships and while they maintain diplomacy with the Federation they have returned to expanding the Empire via conquest. Starfleet has been reduced to a “mere peace-keeping force” protecting fringe worlds from aliens and from fighting each other, with starships are old and spread out too thin. Amidst all this turmoil, and new deadly threat from beyond the Milky Way appears, known as “The Scourge.”
All of this turmoil is just the set-up to the series. A motivated admiral commissions a new USS Enterprise to be built, the first ship to be called “Enterprise” in over 300 years.To the general population of the galaxy, the mission is a traditional return to the era of exploration and discovery, but the real mission is to find and stop the mysterious Scourge, and to save the Federation. While I agreed ultimately with Paramount’s decision not to go forward with a new television series and focus on a movie instead (after 18 years and 4 series, eight years of those with overlapping Trek shows, the franchise needed a break from television screens) Trek needed something to excite casual fans and normies about the property again, which is what the JJ Abrams reboot did. But eventually, this movie series will end, probably after a third movie, and by then it would have been ten years since Trek graced our televisions in anything but re-runs. When that time comes, I seriously hope Singer and Burnett pitch this series again, it has the potential to be the most interesting Trek series since the last few seasons of DS9. Trekmovie.com has more details on this pitch, and hopefully this will at least become a book series or comic book one day if not a tv show. You can check out the details here
Batman Year One to be followed by The Dark Knight Returns?
We all know that the next direct to DVD movie from DC Comics/Warners Animation is an adaptation of Frank Miller’s Batman Year One, set to come out towards the end of this year. But already rumors are swirling that next year’s follow up to Miller’s classic will be none other than The Dark Knight Returns. For those of you wondering how Frank Miller’s epic series will be condensed down to 70 minute running time, then worry not…it seems that DKR will be DC’s first movie to be split into two seperate films…and it might also even be rated R (another first for DC animation) The voice cast was announced this week for Batman Year One, which includes genre actors like Katee Sackhoff and Eliza Dushku in the part of Catwoman. Batman will be played by Ben McKenzie, with Gordon being played by Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad. And seeing as how DKR is the spiritual book-end to that story, there is a strong possibility the voice cast will remain the same for both projects. I imagine official news of this will break at San Diego Comic Con, probably at the premier of Batman Year One. And for the record, I would like to cast my ballot for Chloe Moretz as Robin.
Iron Man to Come to Disneyland? Maybe…
File this one under serious “capital R” Rumor for now, but it seems that Disney is making one of their first moves in bringing their Marvel Comics properties to the theme parks. Long being one of the attractions at Disneyland that no one ever goes too, Innoventions, a showcase for new technologies, is a hold over from the 1998 half assed Tomorrowland re-do that is slowly being phased out at the Magic Kingdom. However it seems that Innoventions might soon be getting an Iron Man makeover, and is going to become the “Stark Expo,” as seen in Iron Man 2. Iron Man is one of the few Marvel characters that is A: famous enough to the mainstream, at least now, and B: fits into Tomorrowland’s theme. Considering how much Tony Stark’s father was based on Walt Disney, it seems only fitting if this comes to fruition.
