According to Variety, Jerry O’Flaherty will be directing the CGI adaptation of The Thundercats:

O’Flaherty had been looking to make the leap into movies and was considering several projects, even live action.

But the “Thundercats” story appealed to him, as well as the fact that vidgames are increasingly incorporating lavish animated sequences that mimic pics, making a toon a much easier transition.

“It feels like a natural thing for me to step into,” he said. “Games have come so far now. The last four years of my life have been about bringing the energy of filmmaking into the videogame experience.”

O’Flaherty is an interesting choice and you do have to wonder how his inexperience when it comes to Hollywood will help/hurt him.  I’m sure a lot of Scud fans will be quick to point out Rob Schrab as an example of how difficult it is, but I always like to point out Kevin Munroe – who directed TMNT – as an example that it is fairly easy as long as you stick with your core audience.  O’Flaherty is jumping from being the art director of Gears of War – where the majority of players grew up in the ’80s – to doing a movie of a show most of them probably watched, so he isn’t jumping across a sea when it comes to his audience.

All-in-all, I’m glad this is happening and not the nightmarish “updated” Thundercats TV show that was planned where Lion-O’s son was running around with something strapped around his arm that looked like it belonged in Yu-Gi-Oh.

Are you as hyped about the Thor movie as I am? Well, The Guardian has an article where Matthew Vaughn details his week and it turns out the movie has been priced at a staggering $300M as it is currently scripted:

In truth, I did not treat him very well as I forced him to work for the whole weekend – he is the writer on Thor, my next film, which I am directing with Marvel. The weekend was a success – we finished the script and celebrated with an ’88 Palmer, and I was feeling good and ready to tackle the necessary evil of film promotion.

[...]

My phone has just rung. Marvel loves the script. The only problem is that it has been costed at $300m and they ask how I am going to reduce it by $150m. I think I prefer being asked what it’s like working with De Niro.

Exactly how much CGI did he have planned?  Either way, I’m really looking forward to this, and you should be too.

The Daily Telegraph has an article about Hugh Jackman training for the Wolverine movie:

Jackman, who was best man at Ryan’s wedding to Zoe Pingley-Pullen earlier this year, has hired his mate to prepare for his role as Wolverine – with the big budget film to begin shooting at Fox Studios at the end of November.

The buffed-up buddies, whose friendship dates back to Jackman’s days as a student at NIDA, were spotted slogging it out on the treadmill at Fitness First Kings Cross bright and early yesterday morning.

Note to Ryan – if the size of Huge, sorry Hugh’s pecs are anything to go by, you’re doing a sterling job.

Aside from the fact that Hugh is now “Huge” there are other indications that this movie is going to rock faces.

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Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Maxwell Lord is going to be the bad guy in Justice League. Since EW hasn’t posted this article on their website, I managed to find a neat summary on CBM.

The plot is starting to sound more-and-more like The OMAC Project and Sacrifice… mostly because it is heavily based off it. Maxwell Lord, OMACs, and Brother Eye – Brother Eye was originally reported as “Red Eye” but that appears to be a goof in what was leaked. Aquaman is also confirmed in the bios that EW gave:

Superman – A.k.a. Clark Kent, news reporter. The morally upstanding Man of Steel battles Batman and has more to worry about than kryptonite.

Wonder Woman – A.k.a. Diana of Amazonian princess. Revered by the other supers for her beauty and ass-kicking abilities.

The Martian Manhunter – A.k.a. J’onn J’onzz, detective. His power to read minds comes in handy as the villain engages in some nifty mind control.

Green Lantern – A.k.a. John Stewart, architect. Designed the Hall of Justice. His emerald power ring shoots beams of energy.

Batman – A.k.a. Bruce Wayne. The most human in the bunch is mistrustful of others, which leads to quite a few problems for the clan.

Flash – A.k.a. Barry Allen, cop. The most enthusiastic superhero, Flash is happy just to be included, but his ravenous appetite leads to trouble.

Aquaman – A.k.a. Arthur, the Atlantean King. Not a fan of humans, Aquaman is more interested in helping his fellow heroes than lending a hand to land dwellers.

The choice of Barry Allen is interesting, considering that Wally West is what most people are used to and he is the current Flash.  But whatever.  I can’t wait for Superman to go nuts.

XSI Base has an interview with Ben Proctor, the special effects guy behind Transformers and Superman Returns. In this interview it is revealed there was an unused sequence in Superman Returns where the Man of Steel returns to Krypton:

Sadly, much of my work on Superman Returns never ended up in the final film, because at the last minute a big introductory sequence where Superman returns to the shattered remains of Krypton was dropped to help keep down the running time. But at any rate, I worked on a variety of elements for this lost sequence, including the destroyed planet itself and both the exterior and interior of a large crystalline ship which has carried Supes from earth. The interior was fully built and photographed as a translucent, glowing set which I’ve only seen in one photograph in the Art of Superman Returns book. Bryan Singer’s group has made noises about including the lost sequence in a sequel film, and I sure hope they do that so I can see how it turned out! Also cut from the release was a scene where teenage Clark Kent discovers the hidden remnants of the Kryptonian space pod which brought him to earth as an infant.

Here’s to hoping, right?

The big news this week was that Jessica Biel was in talks for the role of Wonder Woman in the Justice League of America movie. Well, now EW.com is reporting that the actress passed on the role:

EW has learned that actress Jessica Biel has decided to pass on playing Wonder Woman in Warner Bros. live-action adaptation of Justice League of America. The former 7th Heaven star had been in early talks to play the Amazonian princess. She’s currently shooting the drama Powder Blue with Forest Whitaker.

I’m not all that disappointed. While Biel is gorgeous, I don’t think she’d make a good Wonder Woman. There are also rumors that Victoria Hill is wanting to play Wonder Woman, and I think she “looks” the part more than Biel.

In other casting news:

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Justice League of America has been getting a lot of attention lately, and I’m hoping it will be better than the campy ’90s movie that was made. So far, all we really have are confirmations that the movie will be made, who the director will be, and who might play whom in the movie.

Well, UGO has received a leaked script:

Ever since the JLA movie was announced people have been wondering what the storyline for the film will be about. What unites these diverse heroes to join together? Are there any villains from the Superman or Batman movies that will make their appearances? Finally we have some answers to give you today thanks to a deep cover source that’s read the script for Justice League of America and provided us with answers to some of our questions.

That is better than anything else and I don’t know why this hasn’t received a lot of attention yet. You better believe there are spoilers after the jump.

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Transmission-X is one of my favorite sites out there so I thought I’d take a second and plug their new podcast:

In addition to its daily schedule of free comic strips, Toronto-based webcomics collective Transmission-X is set to launch a weekly video broadcast, entitled TX-TV, beginning Friday September 28 on YouTube and iTunes. TX-TV will present the creative professionals of the Transmission-X collective in candid situations as they struggle to conceive and assemble their comic strips while balancing industry commitments and a fiery studio group dynamic.

Each episode will run approximately 5 minutes in length and will spotlight Transmission-X strips, in-studio creative struggles, round-table discussions, comic con footage and more, and feature all the members of the Transmission-X collective and guest professionals from throughout the comic book industry.

You can check out their YouTube by clicking here.

The Standard is not known for comic book movie adaptation news. Instead, it is known as a source of information for Pan-Asian businesses. So, it was kind of surprising to see them reporting that the next Batman movie will be filming in Hong Kong:

Workers and residents in Central and Western should be prepared for chaos when Batman arrives in Hong Kong in November, a district councillor warned yesterday.

Kam Nai-wai, of the Central and Western District Council, also warned residents to prepare ear-plugs as the producers intend to use a helicopter in the late hours of the day.

Oh, I get it. The most interesting part is that they’ve given a bit of the plot away in the process:

Kam’s warning followed a district council meeting yesterday at which the distributors for The Dark Knight, a sequel to the hit movie Batman Begins, outlined how the caped crusader intends to move from Gotham City to fight his enemies who are gathering in Hong Kong.

So … The Joker is in Hong Kong for some reason?

IESB is reporting that Tom Welling is out of the running to play Superman in the Justice League movie:

But, I’ve got some further info to share. I was waiting to get final verification this week before I broke the bad news and I’ve gotten it. I really wanted my readers to hear it from me…Tom Welling is completely out of the running for Superman.

We first heard this from the same source that first confirmed him to us, I then confirmed it with 3 other studio sources. I am asking for an explanation but they have not been able to give me one quite yet.

Does this mean that Routh is a shoo-in? They aren’t sure, and frankly I hope he isn’t. I mean, other than the fact that Routh kind of looked like Reeve he really had no redeeming qualities in the last Superman movie.

Quick note: Both AICN and SHH have posted more pictures from the Hulk 2 movie set. If you are the artsy type, this photoblog has some awesome pictures of the set.

My friends give me volumes of crap for recommending Hellboy to them in 2004. I say it was a fairly faithful adaptation and they just hated it because it probably didn’t have enough explosions and nakedness in it. But, I’ve always included Hellboy in my Top 10 Comic-to-Movies list (#9).

Even though the Hellboy 2: The Golden Army script was previously leaked, IESB.net managed to review an updated script. The verdict?

HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY by Guillermo del Toro had me with the first line of dialogue written in the script. There’s nothing really special about the line spoken by a SHADOWY FIGURE-it was a case of not what you say, but how you say it, because the description for the first line stated it was subtitled from the Elvish.

More spoilers after the jump…

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MTV has an entry about how D.J. Caruso wants Shia LaBeouf to play Yorick in the Y: The Last Man adapation. (Anyone else remember when MTV was music videos and VJs with big hair and not movie rumors?)

With Caruso and Shia LaBeouf’s already-established working relationship (“Disturbia” and the upcoming “Eagle Eye”), does the director already have his “last man”? “This is funny, but unbeknownst to me: Shia was already chasing this part prior to anything,” Caruso said. “I haven’t talked to him yet about it because he’s off shooting ‘Indiana Jones 4,’ but Shia is the right type and the right personality because you want to have the humor, but you also want to have the seriousness. So we’ll talk about it when we get there.”

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Imperiex has always been a bit of a mixed bag to me. For starters, he looks like a badly cross-dressed version of Granny Goodness to me – and Granny Goodness is a step away from looking like a man to begin with. But Our Worlds at War was a great storyline that came out of Jeph Loeb when he was a great DC writer and wasn’t making Marvel fanboys tear their hair out (hey, Wolverine is a Lupine).

What does this have to do with Legion of Super Heroes? Why, Imperiex is going to be in the premiere! I’ve never really followed the series, but after reading the press release for the premiere I might just have to start watching this show.

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Warner Bros did an amazing job making sure that Superman – Doomsday didn’t get leaked to the internet a month before release. Screeners are sent to reviewers around that time and they usually get “misplaced” and end up on your local newsgroup/torrent site. Well, Superman – Doomsday didn’t get pirated until the 16th!

… and now that it has been released on DVD it isn’t exactly enjoying amazing reviews. The biggest complaint from fanboys is that it doesn’t follow the graphic novels well enough. The biggest complaint from critics is that it feels hollow.

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As you know, Frank Miller is writing and directing the movie adaptation of The Spirit and if All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder is the zenith of Miller’s current writing talent… I really look forward to this movie. IESB.net has an article where they managed to snag a sneak peek at the audition sides. What is a side?

Sides, for those of you that don’t know, are the scenes from the script that actors read for their auditions. Often times the dialogue is wildly different from what ends up on the screen. Consider this mouthful that Mark Hamill had to get through back in 1976 as he auditioned for the title character in The Adventures of Luke Starkiller: “… Fear is their greatest defense… I doubt if the actual security there is much greater than on Aquilae or Sullust, and what there is most likely directed toward a large-scale assault.”

Good enough? Onward to what the movie might be like!

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Video Business has a really interesting look into how Sony is planning on marketing the DVD/Blu-ray Disc release of Spider-Man 3. Apparently they are putting a lot of money into marketing the movie online and are going to make the push to get more people to pick up Blu-ray players.They are also going to advertise the movie in non-traditional manners:

The studio said it expects to generate 8.5 billion impressions through its own advertising and tie-ins with Papa John’s pizza (a $3 coupon on 10 million pizza boxes and TV, radio print and online ads); Pringles Potato Crisps ($5 mail-in rebate promoted on 3 million packages); Jolly Time Pop Corn ($10 rebate promoted on 3 million packages and in print ads); and Nutella (Spidey collectible in more than 1 million jars, supported by print ads).

Hell yeah, Spidey on my Nutella. Call it Ve-Nutella, the symbiotic version of Nutella that makes you dance and cry in a really hollow manner.

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Empire Magazine has an interview with Matthew Vaughn about the Thor movie, and he reveals some great info:

“Marvel were so surprised to see this other side of me with Stardust,” recalls Matthew Vaughn of his initial meeting to discuss his vision for the God of Thunder. “They actually said to me, ‘You are going to make Thor more macho? Right?’ Well, don’t worry – Thor’s not going to be wearing a dress”.

Vaughn seems to get the difference between Norse Thor and Marvel Thor:

“My only concern initially was that it’s another fantasy film [after Stardust], but it’s different in the sense that it’s a superhero film set in the world of fantasy. You’ve got Thor and Odin and it’s set in Asgard – it’s not going to be like Lord of the Rings or even Narnia. I think it’s important to keep it comic book. We’re not doing the Thor of Norse mythology. We’re doing the Marvel Thor.”

I don’t care what anyone says, Stardust was a great movie. I’m glad Vaughn is doing Thor and isn’t afraid to bring some fantasy elements into the comic – the idea of it feels really Kirby-esque.

One of these days I’m going to meet Ang Lee. I’m going to thank him for making me finally enjoy Sense and Sensibility and for making Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon … then I’m going to knee him for making the last Hulk movie where Hulk spent most of his time weeping rather than smashing. But set pictures from the next Hulk movie might make me knee him a little less hard.

Apparently Marvel has learned from past mistakes and has devoted a large section of the next Hulk movie to smashing. RoninKengo has set pictures from the Hulk being shot in Toronto and things get smashed:

On my way home from work today I snapped some pictures of the Hulk set being readied for filming on Yonge Street in Toronto. It was awesome seeing Yonge Street done up like a Hulk-Smashed version of Harlem. Thanks to Rajiv for a few of the pictures.

This is exactly what a Hulk movie should be: smashing and more smashing. A Freddie Prinze Jr reference and I’ll go watch it at least twice. More pictures over at RoninKengo’s blog. Another set is floating around here.

Plus, Lou Ferrigno is making a cameo in it.

Lately there was a lot of hoopla over whether Paddy Considine would be playing Jigsaw in the next Punisher movie. Well, AICN has confirmed (via Paddy’s forum) that he won’t:

It all means jack anyway. The original choice for Jigsaw dropped out, then they offerered it to me. I’m very dubious because the other films looked shite. Then whoever is responsible said that their original choice has decided to do it, therefore pulling my offer. The only blessing was that I didn’t waste an hour of my life reading the script. That be the way of the film world. And for the record, I thought GREEN STREET was a gigantic mess. Lucky escape.

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