The Week In Geek: Wonder Woman Defeated Again, Tom Welling At Marvel? Dexter Season 6 & More!

David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman Series Is Dead….Again. 

As I write this, it appears that after all the online drama of the past few months, NBC will not be picking up David E. Kelley’s pilot for Wonder Woman after all. This production has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride for the past few months, ever since David E. Kelley announced he was producing this series back in October of last year. Then in December, NBC said they passed on the concept, only to change their mind like a week later and order it anyway. Then the script leaked, and was met with nearly universal derision from fans. And yet still, every move that NBC made in regards to this pilot made headlines, from the casting of Adrianne Palicki to the reveal of her costume, to the outcry over that causing the execs to change her outfit to something more classic. No other pilot this season made as many headlines or caused so much controversy, and as they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity. This looked like a shoe-in to get to air if ever there was one. 

But then the pilot test screened this past week, and reaction was mixed to bad. One comic book fan actually got to see it, and gave a review on his audio podcast to talk in detail about it. While he said he didn’t hate it (he really liked Palicki for example) he didn’t have much other kind things to say about it, saying all the overly stereotypical “chick stuff” that was in the original pilot draft was mostly gone, and then the pendulum swung way too far the other way, with Wonder Woman now torturing men in interrogations and killing thugs in a fight (with a pipe through the throat!) It was clear from this fan’s perspective that David E. Kelley just didn’t know who Wonder Woman was supposed to be at all. 

Despite all my very vocal criticism of this show on this site, I will admit to having very mixed feelings about the show not making it. After ten plus years in development as a film, then getting this close to being a television series, it just seems now that the Wonder Woman property is cursed. And with the show now not being picked up, even after an expensive pilot was shot, this will just reinforce the notion among Hollywood execs that Wonder Woman is a toxic property, and use this as an excuse not to pursue this as a feature film or series ever again. My fear is if we do see a live action Wonder Woman in the next decade it will probably be as the token chick in a JLA movie, and that’s it and that’s all. And that just is not good enough for a long time Wonder Woman fan like me. 

Having said all that, I have a sneaking suspicion this may not be the last we have heard of this; with all the headlines this pilot made during production (and not just on geeks sites like this, but everywhere) I would not be surprised if the CW decided to pick this sucker up from NBC. The CW originally passed on it, sure, but that was due to the pilot being too pricey for them. Well, the pilot has been shot now and exists, and with all the buzz the show generated online, not to mention the fact that Wonder Woman is a far better fit for the CW than NBC on any given day, I could really see this happening over there. Especially since the CW has no buzz worthy new shows for next year, and is co-owned by Warner Brothers who in turn own Wonder Woman. When it comes to the wild, strange trip this version of Wonder Woman has had in getting made, nothing would surprise me at this point. 

Tom Welling To Go All Marvel On Us? 

Now that Smallville is ending after ten long seasons, fans are wondering if this will be the last we see of star Tom Welling, aside from charging too much money for signatures at future comic conventions. Well, it appears that Marvel Studios are eyeing him for some kind of a role in a future property, although they are not saying for what. It would be a nice publicity coup for Marvel, to get an actor who achieved fame for infamously not playing DC’s most famous super hero for ten years to end up playing one of theirs.  As for what the role would be, don’t expect It to be a starring role or anything. The folks at Marvel are too smart to mis-cast Welling as Dr. Strange or Ant Man or anything like that, so my bet is they are looking at him for a future supporting role in  The Avengers 2 or something like that.  I think it would be brilliant to cast Welling as Simon Williams, AKA Wonder Man, only to have him get killed off rather quickly (in the comics, Wonder Man has died and come back more times than Jean Grey) Wonder Man would be a small but juicy role for him and fun wink at the geek audience. 

  New JLA Line-Up? Yeah, Not So Fast….

Hey, remember a couple weeks back I mentioned that rumors were circulating that the Justice League of America comic, in an effort to create some much needed buzz and sales for the book, was getting a new all star line-up? One with the classic heavy hitters as well as characters like Cyborg and Starfire? Well, the source of those rumors appeared this week, and it was none other than a preview page from DC’s Free Comic Book Day issue teasing Flashpoint. The Free Comic Book day issue was shipped to comic book stores quite a while back, so local store owners have been able to sneak a peek at was inside and start making guesses and spreading them around the internet as fact.While this image still might indicate what the JLA will look like after Flashpoint, it is probably just a cool group shot. Nevertheless, I hope we do get a Justice League like this one soon. Make it happen DC. 

Dexter Adds Two New Faces For Season Six 

One of my absolute favorite shows these past few years, Showtime’s serial killer drama Dexter, is adding to new high profile guest stars to their upcoming sixth season. First announced this week was Colin Hanks, known for his roles on Roswell and Peter Jackson’s King Kong, not to mention his role in life as the son of Tom Hanks. His part is said to be that of a man named Travis (not sure if this is a first name or a last name) who is a “highly intelligent artifacts expert, who is linked to a series of grisly murders in Long Beach (oops!) …I mean Miami. The idea of an artifacts expert sounds kind of Indiana Jones-ish, but knowing Dexter, he will probably end up being a serial killer too. Also joining the cast is Mos Def, who will be playing a hardened ex-con who finds religion (funny how that always happens) and yet still finds himself surrounded by death. Ok, doesn’t it kind of go without saying that he is surrounded by death, I mean isn’t everyone on this show surrounded by death?  

Hopefully the additions of Hanks and Mos Def will be more like the awesome addition of John Lithgow as the Trinity Killer in season four, and less like the lame Miguel Prado character played by Jimmy Smits in season three. The thrust of season six is said to be that of Dexter and his seemingly unknowing sister Deb,which is interesting as the actress who plays Deb was actually married to title actor Michael C. Hall until recently. So what better way to make the newly divorced couple even more uncomfortable than being giving them a whole lot more screen time together next season? What a bunch of jerks these Dexter producers are. Having said that, the friction is no doubt going to make for some awesome tense performances, so as a fan this can only mean good things for me.

Jodorowsky’s Dune To Finally See The Light Of Day…In A Way

Ten years before David Lynch’s maligned big screen version of Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic Dune was brought to the big screen, another quirky auteur was going to bring his vision to cinemas. Cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s version of Dune would have been the single most ambitious and expensive sci-fi movie to date, and this was a good three years before both Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind made science fiction a hot commodity again and Hollywood dared to sink real money into genre films. The movie was set to be ten hours long, have a soundtrack by Pink Floyd and have roles for Mick Jagger and artist Salvador Dali of all people. It was all kind of insane, and likely doomed from the start, but now the whole story of this film that almost happened is going to be told in a new documentary being produced right now.

Titled Jodorowsky’s Dune, this new documentary from filmmaker Frank Pavich is chronicling the two year effort by Jodorowsky and his team of then mostly unknown artists, all of whom went on to be huge influences in the sci-fi movie genre. Among the team were H.R. Giger, who famously designed the iconic xenomorph in Alien, Dan O’Bannon, who wrote Alien and Total Recall, French comic book artist Jean “Moebius” Giraud, who worked on The Empire Strikes Back, Tron and The Fifth Element, and Chris Foss, who worked on Alien and Superman: The Movie. The movie has already completed interviews with Jodorowsky, Giger and other surviving members of the original team, as shooting is now going on in Europe, before moving production  this summer to the U.S. Many have long considered Frank Herbert’s novel to be unfilmable, or at least unfilmable with any large degree of success, and this new film might give us some real insight into just why the heck that is.