Nicolas Cage, Aaron Johnson and Lyndsy Fonseca will star in Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of the hyper-violent comic by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.

The Marvel/Icon series follows high-school nerd Dave Lizewski, who reinvents himself as a superhero.

Eighteen-year-old British actor Johnson (The Thief Lord, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging) stars as Dave, while Fonseca plays the object of his infatuation. Cage is an ex-police officer who wants to bring down a drug lord, and has trained his daughter — Chloe Moretz (Dirty Sexy Money), cast earlier — as a lethal weapon.

Last week it was announced that Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad) will play Red Mist, the son of a mobster who tries to discover the main character’s identity.

Related: Slashfilm matches photos of the actors with images of their characters.

New Fullmetal Alchemist anime series is in the works

Despite earlier suggestions to the contrary, studio Bones will announce tomorrow that a new Fullmetal Alchemist anime series is in the works.

The official word will come via the wraparound jacket band for the 20th volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s hit manga, due out Friday in Japan.

Rumors began circulating earlier this summer about a sequel to the hit series when a list of Bones’ animation staff members leaked online. The spreadsheet, which the studio said was fake, contained references to sequels for Fullmetal Alchemist and Darker Than Black.

The FMA sequel reportedly will be based more closely on the manga, from which the original anime diverged fairly early on in the series.

The Ticker

• Led by the blockbuster Dark Knight, Hollywood studios are heading for a $4 billion summer domestic box office — just about matching last year’s record haul. That’s despite lower attendance. [Reuters, via The Washington Post]

• Robert Downey Jr. says his starring role in Guy Ritchie’s Holmes – it’s based on a forthcoming comic by producer Lionel Wigram — will be “bad-ass”: “In the real origin stories of Sherlock Holmes, he’s kind of a bad-ass and a bare-knuckle boxer and studies the rare art of baritsu [fictional martial art created by Doyle for the final Holmes story, 1901's The Adventure Of The Empty House]. If you look baritsu up, they can’t even really tell you what it is, so it gives us a lot of leeway.” The movie begins shooting on Oct. 6 in England. [Premiere]

• Rumor mill: Is Ghost Rider 2 back on? [Slice of SciFi]

• What went wrong with the second season of NBC’s Heroes? [Time Out Chicago]

Critic David Bordwell takes a lengthy, smart and fascinating look at why superheroes movies are all the rage these days:

Shock and awe in presentation. The rise of the multiplex meant not only an upgrade in comfort (my back appreciates the tilting seats) but also a demand for big pictures and big sound. Smaller, more intimate movies look woeful on your megascreen, and what’s the point of Dolby surround channels if you’re watching a Woody Allen picture? Like science-fiction and fantasy, the adventures of a superhero in yawning landscapes fill the demand for immersion in a punchy, visceral entertainment. Scaling the film for Imax, as Superman Returns and The Dark Knight have, is the next step in this escalation.

Go read the whole thing. It’s really worth your time. (hat tip: Sean Collins)

Just when it looked like the Watchmen “trailer effect” was subsiding, the collection of the 1986 miniseries jumped five spots to No. 13 on USA Today’s bestseller list — which may be the highest-ever position held by a graphic novel.

Two weeks ago the trade paperback reached No. 15 on the book chart, the same spot held in April 2007 by the 16th volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket. I can’t recall a comic performing better than that, but if anyone has a better memory for these things, please correct me.

USA Today’s chart tracks all genres and formats of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.

Fueled by the release of the trailer for Zack Snyder’s adaptation, sales of the Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons collection have skyrocketed. To meet increased demand, DC Comics has printed an additional 900,000 copies of Watchmen since the teaser’s debut on July 17. That means the book will have a print run of more than 1 million copies this year.

Related: Andrew Steven Harris takes a look at the legal fight between Fox and Warner Bros. over the Watchmen adaptation, and provides my favorite headline of the week: “The world will look up and say, ’sue us.’ And I’ll look down and whisper, ‘okay’.”

Hollywood Insider discovers what most of us already know: Fanboys are in revolt over 20th Century Fox’s legal brawl with Warner Bros. over the movie rights to Watchmen.

Some are even threatening to boycott Fox films like The Day the Earth Stood Still and, yes, even X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Of course, we know that won’t happen: Come May 1, they’ll be lined up to watch a sideburned Hugh Jackman pop his claws.

But what of the idea proposed by commenters at Comics2Film to hurt Fox by pirating Wolverine? Eh, probably not a very good, or effective, plan.

“It’s hard to imagine a boycott or a digital pirate attack could significantly skewer Wolverine’s prospective box office, even if they did actually come to pass,” writes Hollywood Insider’s Jeff Jensen. “Fanboys are pretty amped for Jackman’s franchise bid — the trailer Fox showed at Comic-Con killed — and a vast majority of geeks probably shy away from doing anything that will rile up a small army of Fox lawyers armed with court orders.”

As I posted earlier this morning, all of this uproar is likely for nothing. Sure, Fox may say it wants to prevent the release of Watchmen, but that’s not necessarily what it means. Money — lots of money — talks.

“The bad news is that it’s going to be an arduous process,” entertainment lawyer Dinah Perez tells Underwire. “The good news is that Fox and Warner Bros. have until March 2009 (Watchmen’s current release date) to figure it out and come to a settlement.”

For those who want to check out the original source material, here are the the Fox complaint, Warner Brothers’ response, the disputed legal documents and the judge’s order.

Arguably the most explosive sentence in the order: “It is particularly noteworthy that nothing on the face of the complaint or the documents supplied to the Court establishes that Gordon, the claimed source of Warner Brothers’ interest in ‘Watchmen,’ ever acquired any rights in ‘Watchmen.’”

As several reports state, Warner Brothers faced a similar situation before, when, in 2005, the same judge granted a preliminary injunction that would have kept The Dukes of Hazzard movie from being released, prompting the studio to agree to a multimillion dollar settlement. The plaintiff’s lawyer in the Hazzard case: Marc Toberoff, who is now representing the Siegel heirs.

Tom Cruise and Sam Raimi are setting up an adaptation of DC/Wildstorm’s Sleeper at Warner Bros.

Cruise is “loosely attached” to star; Raimi will produce.

Sleeper, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, ran for two 12-issue “seasons” from 2003 to 2005. It centers on Holden Carver, a covert operative who fused with an alien artifact, making him impervious to pain and allowing him to pass it on to others through skin contact. Carver is placed undercover in a criminal organization, but loses his link to the outside world when his handler falls into a coma.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. is eyeing Sleeper as a potential franchise. However, considering the current legal wrangling over Watchmen, and Sleeper’s connections to WildC.A.T.s and Gen13 — Hollywood deals involving both titles were set up before DC bought Wildstorm in 1999 — the studio “appears determined to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s in its contracts.”

Update: MTV’s Splash Page talks with Brubaker about the announcement, and the potential legal entanglements:

One of the biggest concerns mentioned throughout today’s blog posts — in light of the recent “Watchmen” legal debacle — are the legal issues. Namely, in the “Sleeper” comics, characters from DC Comics’ Wildstorm universe show up, which could cause potential headaches. However, Brubaker assured fans that those problems have already been addressed and — despite Warner Bros. most likely triple-checking for any potential legal problems — shouldn’t delay production too long. “They’ll have to just figure it out and cut around some of the characters who appeard in other Wildstorm books, but this type of thing happens in Hollywood all the time.”

Mandalay Pictures has acquired the film rights to Julius, Antony Johnston and Brett Weldele’s modern-day retelling of Julius Caesar.

F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job, The Negotiator) will direct.

Released in 2004 by Oni Press, Julius reinvisions Shakespeare’s play as an urban crime drama centering on the charismatic leader of a London gang whose generals conspire against him.

Eric Gitter of Closed on Mondays Entertainment, Oni’s movie-production arm, will produce. Peter Schwerin and Joe Nozemack will executive produce.

Julius is the latest in a string of Oni projects being developed for the big screen: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Resurrection and Resurrection at Universal; Courtney Crumrin and The Damned at DreamWorks; and Maintenance and Billy Smoke at Warner Bros.

A federal judge has denied a motion to dismiss 20th Century Fox’s lawsuit against Warner Bros. over the rights to produce and distribute Watchmen.

In the lawsuit, filed in February, Fox claims to hold the exclusive copyrights and contract rights to Watchmen, and seeks to prevent Warner Bros. from moving forward with the movie. The lawsuit also seeks unspecified damages.

Hollywood gossip columnist Nikki Finke reports that U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allen Feess is still considering Fox’s motion for an injunction.

Fox claims that between 1986 and 1990 it acquired all movie rights to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ DC Comics series. According to the lawsuit, in 1991 Fox assigned some rights to Largo International, which later dismantled and transferred those rights to producer Lawrence Gordon. Gordon, in turn, agreed to pay a buy-out price to Fox if he ever entered into a deal with a third party.

After stops at Universal and Paramount, Watchmen ended up at Warner Bros. But Fox claims than neither Gordon nor Warner Bros. has paid the required fee or acquired the necessary rights.

“While the Judge’s opinion is preliminary and his views could change in the course of the litigation, his current take on the facts is consistent with our position,” a Fox source tells Finke.

Update: Variety reports that Fox isn’t looking for monetary compensation. Rather, it wants to prevent Warner Bros. from ever releasing Watchmen.

The trade paper quotes “a source close to the litigation” as saying, “When you have copyright infringement, there are some damages you never recover.”

Hollywood Insider provides a little history and context.

Update: Jeff Trexler has all of the relevant legal documents, including the judge’s order, and highlights what’s been mentioned in several reports — that Warner Bros. faced a similar situation in 2005 with The Dukes of Hazzard.

Michael Horn inserts an Imperial presence into camcorder footage of San Francisco. The Official Star Wars Blog talks to Horn about how, and why, he did it.

• As expected Tropic Thunder unseated The Dark Knight this weekend, grossing an estimated $26 million. Don’t cry for Batman, though: Although it fell to No. 2, The Dark Knight has earned $471.5 million domestically, making it the second highest-grossing movie of all time, behind Titanic. Star Wars: The Clone Wars came in third this weekend, with $15.5 million. [Variety, The New York Times]

• Relativity Media is negotiating to pick up Voltron: Defender of the Universe after Fox’s New Regency put the project into turnaround. Relativity is shooting for a lower budget by making use of cost-effective “green-screen” technology used in movies like 300. Justin Marks, who wrote Greyskull and Supermax, penned the adaptation of the 1980s anime series. [Variety]

• Rumor mill: Apparently Punisher: War Zone will be rated R after all? Eh, I don’t care anymore. [FirstShowing.net]

• “5 Manga Movies We Want to See After Akira Blows Everyone’s Mind.” [io9.com]

• Warner Bros. is resurrecting Hanna-Barbera’s weird ’60s TV series The Banana Splits in a “multiplatform effort” that includes shorts and music videos and Cartoon Network. DVD and CD releases, as well as live performances, are planned to follow. Can Skatebirds be far behind? [Variety]

Editor’s note: Newsarama contributor and Olympics fan Seth Robison joins Blog@ to highlight “tangentially Olympic-related” comics and pop culture moments. You can read more from Seth on the Olympics at his blog Off The Podium.

By Seth Robison

James Bond never saved the Olympics, so what is one of his film classics doing here? Well, we are not here for James or the vile Auric Goldfinger or Pussy Galore or Felix Leiter or even Pussy Galore (heh). The movie Goldfinger is the only place where you can see the best henchman in the history of film: Oddjob, better known to his friends and family as 1948 Olympic weightlifting Silver Medalist, Toshiyuki “Harold” Sakata.

Born in Hawaii in 1920, Toshiyuki, who chose the name ‘Harold’ to better fit in growing up (like another Hawaiian once did, Illinois Senator Barack ‘Barry’ Obama). He parlayed his Olympic success into another ‘Angle:’ Professional Wrestling. Under the name Tosh Togo, Harold went on to win several NWA championship belts in the 1950s and 1960s. There, he caught the notice of Bond film series producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, who, despite his limited acting ability, cast Harold as the mute Korean enforcer of Goldfinger’s will.

In both the original book and the film version, Oddjob is shown to be incredibly strong and durable, a master of karate and a fearless killer. However, his most enduring threat is in the use of his lethal, metal-rimmed bowler hat. A completely unique martial art unto itself — although there is Tessenjutsu, the Japanese art of the War Fan, which sounds really cool, but personally I’d stick with a sword or a gun — Oddjob demonstrates his habadash-su in the film by decapitating statuary and breaking the necks of female bit players.

(more…)

– Stan Sakai shares the character designs for Usagi Yojimbo and Gen from the current Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Setting my TiVo to “stun” …

– Willy Harold Vassaux is creating an Olympic comic. And will our search hits skyrocket if I mention “superhero” Michael Phelps?

– Brigid Alverson and her fellow contributors at Good Comics for Kids discuss Robot Dreams making Oprah’s Reading List for Kids.

– Film.com analyzes the most rabid fanbases — movies fanbases, that is, like Trekkies, Twilighters and Potterheads. They say Harry Potter fans are the most rabid, even more so than Whedon fans, who I would have picked for the top spot.

– “Because I want to set you free.”

– I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong.

– The New Yorker blog interviews Comics Curmudgeon Josh Fruhlinger.

– Tom Spurgeon talks to Abandoned Cars author Tim Lane.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

At least three things can be gleaned from this Variety article about the state of Warner Bros. and the DC Comics properties:

1. The studio is riding high from the success of The Dark Knight and the results of those July strategy meetings.

2. Big changes are planned for how Warner Bros. develops its comic-book adaptations — changes that could be announced within the next month. It remains to be seen whether that means an executive specifically assigned to shepherd DC properties to the big screen, or something else entirely.

3. The Justice League movie, at least in its current form, appears to be really most sincerely dead.

What’s that? You want to read more about No. 3?

… Given that it unites Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Arrow, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter, the studio is trying to figure out how such a pic (cast with younger actors) would affect its existing Batman and Superman franchises — and whether the script respects how the characters play off each other in the DC universe.

To put it simply: the studio doesn’t want to piss off the Comic-Con contingent.

“We’re not off the notion of a Justice League,” [WB President of Production Jeff] Robinov says. “There’s a massive interest and knowledge in the comicbook industry and it takes time to sort of catch up and understand the characters and the history, where they’ve intersected with each other and what their worlds are. That’s part of the education that we’re going through.”

One thing studio executives don’t need to be taught is to stick with what works — and what works is Christopher Nolan at the helm of the Batman franchise. Warner Bros. is just waiting for the director to commit to a third film.

• The runaway success of The Dark Knight may be to blame for Warner Bros.’ decision to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from Nov. 21 to July 17. Industry insiders say the shift could stop next year’s profits from looking anemic in comparison. “They don’t need the money this year anymore,” says a rival studio executive. “When a movie overperforms the way Dark Knight has, you really don’t need Harry Potter in the fall.” [Hollywood Insider]

• Seeing a vacancy in the fall schedule, Summit Entertainment has moved the tween vampire sensation Twilight to Nov. 21 from Dec. 12: “With a giant franchise like Harry Potter in the market, we had to stay clear of it,” said Summit co-chairman Rob Friedman. “Their move created an opportunity to bring the movie to fans three weeks earlier, who have continued to show their enthusiasm, from Comic-Con to the giant Breaking Dawn book sales. We felt we had to take that opportunity.” [Variety]

• TheWB.com will officially launch on Aug. 27. It will feature not only old WB fare like Smallville, Gilmore Girls and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and some new content, as was previously announced, but will also feature programs that aired on other networks, like Veronica Mars and Firefly. [Variety]

• Rumor has it that Lionsgate wants Punisher: War Zone to be released as a PG-13 film, rather than with the previously planned R rating. That follows the still-circulating rumor from last month that director Lexi Alexander, who didn’t appear at Comic-Con, had been removed from the project. [Latino Review]

• Could David S. Goyer bump X-Men Origins: Magneto in favor of The Invisible Man? “I’m in the process of doing [Invisible Man] right now, and I’m working with some conceptual artists in tandem with writing the script. … So it could be Magneto, or it could be The Invisible Man next.” [MTV Movies Blog]

• Justin Marks, who’s writing Grayskull – the He-Man movie — says the adaptation will stay true to the ’80s cartoon series, while working within a somewhat logical framework: “The script is very true to the characters — we’re not talking about putting nipples on the Trapjaw suit. But we had to come up with a reason again why Trapjaw would actually not just be something that’s totally absurd, but why he would need those bionic parts added to him.” [MTV Movies Blog]

• “Besides the Clone Wars, the Star Wars Comics Introduced Us to Talking Bunnies and the Dark Lady of the Sith.” [SciFi Scanner]

• A fan creates a hypothetical Dark Knight sequel — one featuring The Riddler as the villain, of course. Are you reading this, Brian Austin Green? [Slashfilm]

Compiled by JK and Kevin.

Per the Hollywood Reporter, Alcon Entertainment has optioned the film rights to Cryptozoo Crew, a comic series by Jerry Carr and Allan Gross that was published by NBM in 2005.

The book, which has been collected into two trades, is about Cryptozoologist Tork Darwyn and his wife Tara, who encounter yetis, thunderbirds and other strange and exotic creatures.

Joe Gazzam, who is also working on a script for a 21 Jump Street film, will write the screenplay for Cryptozoo Crew.

Editor’s note: Newsarama contributor and Olympics fan Seth Robison joins Blog@ to highlight “tangentially Olympic-related” comics and pop culture moments. You can read more from Seth on the Olympics at his blog Off The Podium.

by Seth Robison

“Tetsuo!”

Yell that in a room crowded with 20- to 30-somethings in America, and chances are that you’ll get the proper countersign back: “Kaneda!” The Japanese animated film Akira became a cult film sensation in the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While it saw a limited theatrical release, Akira spread in a proto-viral manner on bootlegged VHS tapes and late night television.

While Akira started its life as a manga, it was the film that made the biggest waves — although if the massive six volumes were dropped into a pool, the effect would be the same. Unlike anything seen in western animation, Akira’s fluid look and excellent English dub made tens of thousands of fans and opened the door to Japanese pop culture. It laid the groundwork for the mass acceptance of the works of directors such as Hayao Miyazaki and TV series like Pokemon and Naruto, as well as the explosion of manga in bookstores and comic shops.

(more…)