The Week In Geek: The Shining Part 2?? Justice League-Doom, the Avengers, Mortal Kombat & More

The Shining 2 Coming Soon?

No, not a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s classic film, but a sequel to Stephen King’s original 1977 novel is coming, some thirty five years later. It would follow Jack Torrance’s son Danny (and presumably Tony, “the little boy who lives in his mouth”) into adulthood. The novel is tentatively called Doctor Sleep – and features a Danny, now aged 40, working at a hospice for the terminally ill in upstate New York. He is technically an orderly at the hospice, but his real work is to help make “crossing over” somewhat easier for the patients with his “Shining” abilities. And that’s when things get a little bat shit crazy, as Danny will be forced to deal with a group of psychic vampires. Here is how King described it at a recent event:

“I knew that there were bad people in this story that were like vampires, only that what they sucked out was not blood but psychic energy from special people like Danny Torrance,” King said. “And I came to realize these people were called The Tribe, and they move around a lot…They all have these kinda pirate names, because pirates is sort of what they are.”

Say what you want, but I could see this being kinda cool, despite the fact that everyone online is shitting on this idea already. And what I’m gonna say next might be a little controversial, but I don’t think the original novel of The Shining is that great as to be untouchable. It’s a decent read, don’t get me wrong, but it has some really lame stuff like the topiary animals coming to life,  and it ends with the Overlook Hotel exploding for fuck’s sake.  Kubrick took the raw elements of King’s novel and made something way more terrifying out of them. The book is fine, but has no subtlety. The movie on the other hand, is a masterpiece. As long as they don’t attempt to make a sequel to Kubrick’s film, I’m more than fine with the continuing adventures of Danny Torrance in novel form.

Justice League Doom Re-Unites JLU TV Voice Cast

The late Dwayne McDuffie’s final script featuring the DC Comics characters has been officially announced as coming out early next year this week; Justice League Doom will be the latest straight to video DC animated film from the Bruce Timm factory. It will be loosely based on the Mark Waid JLA storyline Tower of Babel from around a decade ago, where Ra’s al Ghul broke into the Batcave, stole all of Bruce Wayne’s secret files on how to defeat his JLA teammates should the need arise, and used it against them one by one. Instead of Ra’s this time though, it will be the Legion of Doom who are the main antagonists instead.

What makes this movie special to long time DC Animated Universe fans is that this particular feature reunites almost all of the voice cast from the television DCU as created by Bruce Timm. Kevin Conroy returns as Batman, Tim Daly reprises his Superman The Animated Series role, and most of the original Justice League cast returns as well, including Michael Rosenbaum as the Flash, Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman, and Carl Lumbly as J’onn J’onzz. Nathan Fillion is Green Lantern Hal Jordan, replacing the animated series GL John Stewart, so no Phil Lammar this time sadly. Somebody’s always left out of these reunions. I mean, how many replacement Jan and Cindy Brady’s were there over the years??

The Justice League Unlimited animated series ended in 2006 after 91 episodes, but ever since then fans have been clamoring for a continuation of some kind. While there have been many animated DC Universe movies, even some featuring the Justice League, all have used different voice actors and character designs than their earlier DCAU counterparts in an effort to set them apart. Seeing as this was McDuffie’s last work on these characters ever, it would have been nice to make this a full fledged coda to the animated DC Universe and use the Timm-verse versions of these characters one last time. In any event, DC fans and fans of McDuffies will have something to look forward to when Justice League: Doom hits early in 2012.

Mortal Kombat Returns To Theaters

As one of the few video games to make the successful transition to movies, it makes sense that Mortal Kombat is the latest series to be getting the reboot treatment. Back in January of last year, it was reported that Warner Bros. was mulling over the possibility of making a new Mortal Kombat movie and hired a writer named Oren Uziel to write the script. Then the following June, director Kevin Tancharoen, along with Uziel, made an unofficial viral short film as a way of getting people excited about a potential reboot.  The short film then led into the web series Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, once again written by Uziel and directed by Tancharoen.  Now the web-series has finally brought about the reboot to being a reality. Reports are that New Line Cinema  has picked up the movie and plans to start shooting next year.  As only seems fair, Uziel will write the script and Tancharoen will direct it. It seems New Line hopes to have this in theaters in 2013 to coincide with the new Mortal Kombat video game coming out that year. Highly doubtful is that any of the original cast members will be returning…sorry all of you Michael Jai White fans out there.

Welcome to the Jean Grey Institute For Higher Learning

As part of the fallout of this year’s mutant crossover event X-Men Schism, we’ve known for awhile that Wolverine was setting up his own team of X-Men apart from Cyclops’ group on the island sanctuary of Utopia. The moral conflict behind the Schism story is that Wolverine doesn’t believe in putting children in danger until they are fully trained adults, and let’s just say Cyclops is a lot more flexible on what he believes “combat ready age” is.

Now this week Marvel revealed that as part of the fallout of Schism, Wolverine is going back to Westchester County N.Y. to open up the “The Jean Grey Institute For Higher Learning,” and setting himself up in the Prof. Xavier role. This an interesting switch up that defies long time reader expectations for both characters, with former goody goody Scott Summers as the militant separatist and Logan as the more disciplined headmaster looking over a bunch of kids; and yet given the past several years of X-Men stories, it is one that makes sense. But… if this is the Jean Grey school and not the Xavier School, shouldn’t Wolverine’s team be called The J-Men and not the X-Men? Just sayin’.

The Avengers Make Their Checkout Aisle Debut

It is a right of passage for super hero movies these days to make their big mainstream debut to the masses on an Entertainment Weekly cover, usually utilizing some really bad photoshop, and having everyone in an awkward pose. This week, it was the Avengers’ turn at bat. This pic would have way more impact if we hadn’t already seen a million spy pics and videos on the set all summer long of the Avengers cast in action. And what’s with Mark Ruffulo’s “I’m angry” face?? What is Thor staring off at, and why does Chris Evans look like he really, really has to pee? I have no doubt the final product will be great, but this cover is pretty uninspiring really.