Superheroes!

[EgonSpengler]

[...]I will see Ant-Man and the Wasp at the theater sometime in the next week or so while I just got around to seeing Justice League on HBO last week. I just expect enough from one to justify a trip to the theater while the other is less compelling to me.

I still haven't seen Ant-Man & the Wasp - a friend tells me it's pretty good - but last weekend I watched about 15 minutes of Justice League before I decided there were other things I could be doing instead.

That Titans trailer has me a little concerned.

Speaking of train-wrecks, season 2 of Iron Fist premieres on September 7th. Random bits from the SDCC presentation, from around the web - mild spoilers, if you want to go into it ice-cold:

Spoiler :

• One writer said the SDCC preview footage featured Colleen Wing and Misty Knight.
  
• Alice Eve is playing Typhoid Mary.
  
• io9 says the fight choreographer is the guy who did Black Panther. Honestly, I don't remember being wowed by the choreography in that movie, but it had a lot going on visually.
  
• The Steel Serpent logo has featured in the marketing material.
  
• The io9 article cited a flashback to K'un-L'un of Danny and Davos wearing masks. Green and grey, respectively? The article didn't say, but I hold out hope. The same article notes that Danny seems to have been inspired by his encounter with a certain Man Without Fear.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Nathan Fillion at SDCC, asked about rumors he could play Booster Gold:

He's a great character. He's such a dufus. I could do that.

Screen Rant notes that a Booster Gold movie is in development:

The last update on the project was that it was still in development, despite the lack of updates it has received. Thor's Zack Stentz is writing the script, with Greg Berlanti - the man behind the Arrowverse - set to produce the film and possibly even direct.

If you've never seen it, here's that magnificent fan-film from several years ago, casting Fillion as Hal Jordan in a fake trailer for a Green Lantern movie.

 

[BenitoChavez]

This counts as a superhero trailer! I liked Unbreakable. I haven't seen Split yet but it got good reviews. Maybe this will be good. But then again it is Shyamalan so who knows.

 

[Cutlass]

There's a trailer out for Aquaman. It doesn't look promising.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I wasn't wowed by the Aquaman trailer, either. It appears to rely too heavily on CGI, which I think is tricky. That video linked above notes that the action scenes in the Warner Bros. DC superhero movies lack a sense of mass, which can only be exacerbated by an underwater setting.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Sorry about beating that same tired DC/Marvel drum, but if you were tasked with writing an adaptation script for a movie which source material would you rather work with, Aquaman comics or Namor the Sub-Mariner comics? For the record, I was a comic reading geek and I'm not even sure Aquaman ever had his own book. I will have to check the interwebz after I post this to find out. Has anyone here ever actually read an Aquaman comic? More importantly, were you inclined to read a second one?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Sorry about beating that same tired DC/Marvel drum, but if you were tasked with writing an adaptation script for a movie which source material would you rather work with, Aquaman comics or Namor the Sub-Mariner comics? For the record, I was a comic reading geek and I'm not even sure Aquaman ever had his own book. I will have to check the interwebz after I post this to find out. Has anyone here ever actually read an Aquaman comic? More importantly, were you inclined to read a second one?

Aquaman definitely had his own series. I never read either character's books very much, though, so it's kind of a *ahem* wash for me. If Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox goes through, I think they'll own the Sub-Mariner as part of the Fantastic Four license. I was a fan of Iron Man, Captain America and Daredevil back in the day, but I wouldn't have picked Ant-Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy as good movies/series. Like any adaptation of a book or older movie or television show, the source material has no bearing on whether the movie or series is any good. I think if I was going to film an adaptation of a book, or a remake of a movie or television show, I'd pick something that was a nice idea, that either wasn't executed well the first time around, or is kind of dated (Blade; Battlestar Galactica).

The Sub-Mariner would be a good choice for a character arc much like Frank Castle's from season 2 of Daredevil, introduce him as a villain-who-kind-of-has-a-point, then give him his own story as the protagonist.

Aquaman trivia: Jason Momoa actually studied marine biology in college.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's funny that you mention Ant-Man. The Atom is the only character I can think of off the top of my head where I look back more fondly on a DC character than I do on their "Marvel equivalent."

 

[EgonSpengler]

It's funny that you mention Ant-Man. The Atom is the only character I can think of off the top of my head where I look back more fondly on a DC character than I do on their "Marvel equivalent."

I liked Batman more than Moon Knight, The Flash more than Quicksilver, Green Arrow more than Hawkeye, Doctor Fate more than Doctor Strange, Catwoman more than Black Cat, Killer Croc more than The Lizard, and Swamp Thing more than Man-Thing. Zatanna-Scarlet Witch was a wash. The Vigilante vs The Punisher and Darkseid vs Thanos were also draws. But the big one: I liked The New Teen Titans just as much as The Uncanny X-Men. I literally didn't know another person who read Teen Titans, but everybody was into The X-Men.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I liked Batman more than Moon Knight, The Flash more than Quicksilver, Green Arrow more than Hawkeye, Doctor Fate more than Doctor Strange, Catwoman more than Black Cat, Killer Croc more than The Lizard, and Swamp Thing more than Man-Thing. Zatanna-Scarlet Witch was a wash. The Vigilante vs The Punisher and Darkseid vs Thanos were also draws. But the big one: I liked The New Teen Titans just as much as The Uncanny X-Men. I literally didn't know another person who read Teen Titans, but everybody was into The X-Men.

I missed Moon Knight completely somehow. I equate Batman more with Daredevil or Spiderman...and, no contest. The Flash I'll grant as more interesting than Quicksilver, but that could be revisionist since I really like the current TV version a lot...a lot more than I remember liking the comic. Green Arrow was just an adjunct filler in Green Lantern books as far as I could tell, where Hawkeye was in Avengers books so automatically superior, though I probably read as much Green Lantern as any DC title.

Putting Teen Titans on par with X-Men is frankly bizarre, but I respect you for admitting it. That may make it possible for you to get help.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I missed Moon Knight completely somehow. I equate Batman more with Daredevil or Spiderman...and, no contest. The Flash I'll grant as more interesting than Quicksilver, but that could be revisionist since I really like the current TV version a lot...a lot more than I remember liking the comic. Green Arrow was just an adjunct filler in Green Lantern books as far as I could tell, where Hawkeye was in Avengers books so automatically superior, though I probably read as much Green Lantern as any DC title.

Putting Teen Titans on par with X-Men is frankly bizarre, but I respect you for admitting it. That may make it possible for you to get help.

The first Moon Knight series, by Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz, was pretty good. Sienkiewicz was one of my favorite artists back in the day. He also did the "Demon Bear" arc in The New Mutants (on which the upcoming movie looks to be based) and Elektra: Assassin.

I think an adaptation of that first Moon Knight series would be a natural fit with the darker, more violent Netflix shows, except for the fact that his origin story and persona are things that we've seen too many times lately. Any writer for a Moon Knight show would have to work hard to emphasize the character's unique qualities to avoid being seen as just another Batman clone. He had some good villains - Druid Walsh, Bushman, Scarlet, Black Specter - and Daredevil made a guest appearance (as did Doctor Strange, but I'd fall out of my chair if any of the movie characters appeared in any of the Netflix shows).

I guess I hadn't thought of Daredevil or Spider-Man as analogues or contemporaries of Batman. I suppose Batman and Spider-Man were the iconic, "flagship" characters of their respective publishers (both had several concurrent titles back then, iirc). I would pick Batman over Spider-Man, but Daredevil was probably my favorite character back in the '80s, and I would rate him above Batman.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Shazam trailer looks promising. A little bit of Big in there. Someone was talking about Big in a podcast I listened to recently. I haven't seen it since, er, probably since it was in theaters. I wonder how well it holds up?

 

[CKS]

30 years later, I find it hard to ignore that Josh is a child involved with an adult. And he doesn't act like an adult, so Susan's involvement is pretty creepy.

 

[EgonSpengler]

30 years later, I find it hard to ignore that Josh is a child involved with an adult. And he doesn't act like an adult, so Susan's involvement is pretty creepy.

I wonder about that, myself. Back then, I was only a little older than Hanks' character, so of course I saw the story from the kid's point of view, and the notion of getting involved with a hot 20-something woman was a fantasy I could relate to (it was kind of fun to see the actress in Weeds all those years later). But looking at it today, from the adult's perspective... yeah, I dunno. There are a ton of movies from the '80s that I'm half-curious, half-scared to watch again.

 

[Zkribbler]

I'm not even sure Aquaman ever had his own book.

He did. There was little for him to do. I remember one episode where he performed dentistry on a shark.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Warner Bros. is looking at Jodie Comer to play Black Canary and Alexandra Daddario to play The Huntress. I adore Comer in Killing Eve. I feel like Daddario is too pretty and soft for The Huntress, who I've always imagined to be kind of hard-looking. But, heck, I would have said the same thing about Charlize Theron before she became one of our best action-movie actresses, so what do I know..? I don't know how good an actress Daddario is. I haven't seen her in anything.

This movie should spare no expense with stunts, martial arts choreography, and practical effects. I don't know if he'd consider being a stunt coodinator to be a demotion after moving on to directing, but I'd love to see David Leitch work on the action scenes. Leitch directed Atomic Blonde, and was stunt coordinator for John Wick and The Bourne Ultimatum, for which he won a SAG Award.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I was filling an hour with random television, and whatever it was I decided to watch was due on in about five minutes. Flipping to the appropriate channel I was rewarded with the grand finale fight scene from an episode of Batman, circa 1968. Hilarious. The only parallel that struck me was Keystone Kops, or maybe a pie fight scene from Three Stooges. How times have changed.

Relating to the topic of whether Big, thirty years later, would be cringe-worthy, right at the start of the "fight" someone (Batgirl? Robin? I wasn't paying attention at that point) pushes Catwoman, who stumbles backwards into a basic beat cop/bailiff type, who grabs her by the wrists. There were at least five cuts to hissing snarling Catwoman, arms stretched out and up by the wrists and squirming ineffectively in the dominant male grip. That was it for the female "super villain" for the duration. I can't even imagine the outcry such a scene would draw if shot today, but at the time it was just part of the campy nature of the show.

 

[Cutlass]

Daddario is one of the few actresses who can naturally fill out a superheroine's costume. So she's got that going for her. Action scenes don't matter that much, that's what stunt doubles and CGI is for.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Daddario is one of the few actresses who can naturally fill out a superheroine's costume. So she's got that going for her. Action scenes don't matter that much, that's what stunt doubles and CGI is for.

Yeah, she's a stunner. I actually think she's a little too good-looking for the role. I've always imagined The Huntress as having some scars and hard edges.

I disagree about the action scenes, though. Lately, there's been a direct correlation between the use of CGI and bad action movies. It's hard to tell whether better filmmakers use less CGI, or use it better (that is, make it less obvious), or more CGI actually makes movies worse. It could be that poor filmmakers are more prone to using CGI, as a kind of crutch. I also think that the direct involvement of some stars in their own stunts can return amazing results. In Atomic Blonde, for instance, the filmmakers had to literally stop Charlize Theron from doing even more of her own stunts and fights. Notably, the studio couldn't get insurance (or, more likely, didn't want to pay the increased fees) to cover the scenes where Theron's character jumps off the balcony and the scene where she goes down the stairs (I bet there was some contract language with the stunt people, too). Theron did all of her fight scenes.

One website posted a synopsis for the film, although I can't tell how legit it is:

After splitting up with The Joker, Harley Quinn and three other female superheroes – Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya – come together to save the life of a little girl (Cassandra Cain) from an evil crime lord.

...and another website says the villain will be "Gotham City mob boss and Batman foe Black Mask", with whom I'm completely unfamiliar:

Created by Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake, Black Mask made his first appearance in the comics in August 1985’s Batman issue #386. The Black Mask is a brutally sadistic kingpin in Gotham City’s criminal underworld who has a fixation with masks.

In DC Comics Black Mask is the criminal alias of Roman Sionis, who murdered his wealthy, status-obsessed parents to take control of the family corporation, then lost everything when he proved to be a terrible businessman. Seeking revenge on the people he blamed for his own failures — particularly Bruce Wayne and Wayne Enterprises — he returns, hidden behind an ebony black mask, at the head of a gang called the False Face Society.

So it sounds like they're making some changes to the character of Cassandra Cain, if this report is accurate (big grain of salt for now, I guess). I haven't seen any mention of Montoya being The Question, in relation to this movie. I wonder if they might go with the Vic Sage version of The Question first.

 

[Cutlass]

There's a lot of improvement in some movies from reducing CGI. But it's a superhero movie, which even more than a spy-action movie, special effects are going to be a part of it. But that doesn't necessarily mean the actor themselves. There's always professional stunt people for those things. And it is even possible to blur the difference between CGI, the actor, and the stunt double, quite a bit.

I remember a number of years ago, after the run of Buffy ended, Michelle Trachtenberg had a movie role as an ice dancer. She trained and did a lot of it herself, a professional skater did other parts, and where necessary her face was superimposed over the professional skater's face.

Charlize Theron may be fairly athletic. But Scarlet Johansen is not. And yet there was no real problem with her action scenes in a number of movies now. And none of the women who have played Catwoman have been particularly athletic. And the whole point of casting Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy was that she was not athletic, but rather small and pretty. And you know how that worked out, even with the far more limited budget of second tier network TV.