Stuff…

Harry in, Peter outâ€¦ According to reports, Daniel Radcliff has signed to star in the final two films of the Harry Potter series. In contrast, Toby McGuire says that he’s done with Spider-Man following the third film. Of course, if the studio offers him $25 million, he just might change his mind. I doubt if they’d bother, though. The draw is Spider-Man, not the actor playing him.

Captain America has been killed, assassinated in this week’s issue of his comic book. Now, I LOVE Captain America, but since they’ll inevitable bring him back at some point–remember when Superman ‘died’?–I can’t really rouse myself to care. (Assuming it was really he who died anyone, and wasn’t a LMD or imposter.) Plus, I really don’t follow comics that much these days anyway.

Speaking of Captain America, Marvel last year (I think) did a mini-series called Marvel Zombies, in which, yes, all the Marvel universe characters became flesh-eating undead. (Weirdly, the whole thing probably began as a pun, since “Marvel zombie” is an old slur from DC fans employed against the more slavish Marvel faithful.) We’ve now two spin-off. One is a prequel, in which we see how, exactly, the heroes became zombies. Second, and far weirder, is a five issue spin-off called Marvel Zombies vs. the Army of Darkness, in which Ash (!!) of the Evil Dead films pops up just as the zombification begins. To emphasize the fact that this isn’t the regular Marvel universe (no duh), Luke Cage is an Avenger, but still wears his old yellow shirt and silver tiara costume. Which still looks awesome, by the way. Check this out. The original Marvel Zombies mini is now available in paperback.

M. Night Shymalan has been given the go-ahead to make his next movie. It sounds like some sort of apocalypse movie. Let’s see if he can pull out of his tailspin. Here’s a free piece of advice for the man: Drop the friggin’ twist endings already.

Sad, but unsurprising. Given the inanely healthy box office results this weekend, it looks likely that there will be a Wild Hogs 2. Gee, this is nearly as exciting as the news of a likely Beverly Hills Cop 4.

In better news, Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman are due to start shooting Hellboy II in May. Del Toro’s old idea to have Hellboy fight some or all of the classic Universal monsters is still about the coolest thing ever, but with the studio already bringing at least some of the monsters back to the screen (vis a vis the upcoming Wolf Man movie), I don’t see that happening.

Sadly, the giant crocodile thriller Rogue (by the Wolf Creek guy) seems likely to be released on DVD, rather than get a theatrical run. Thanks, Primeval. The DVD should be out in May. A Lake Placid II is also being made for DVD, but unlike Rogue, that was always the plan.

Apparently Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake won’t reuse John Carpenter’s classic score. Wow. Frankly, aside from the totally awesome cast, this sounds dreadful.

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The Rev. D.D.

That Marvel Zombies mini-series was pretty nifty from the couple of issues I snagged of it. The heroes are aware they’re zombies, and try to find ways of avoiding doing what zombies these days do, but completely lose themselves once the hunger for flesh comes upon them. I’ve got the first couple of issues, and they’re got a good sense of black humor to them, and they’re pretty gory too. (Funniest bit in the first issue concerns the Hulk wolfing down a large chunk of someone–I think a leg–and later, after reverting to Banner, having the leg painfully distending his abdomen.)
I’ll probably check those upcoming tie-ins to it as well.
El Santo

On the Spider-Man thing: while it is true that the main attraction for the movie is Spider-Man, it completely changes the dynamic if you get a new actor. Remember when Val Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton as Batman? Setting aside the quality of the movies and the change of directors, the change in actors completely transformed the personality of Bruce Wayne. Instead of being a borderline psychotic (Keaton), he was now an athletic playboy (Kilmer). (And for the record, I did think Kilmer made a good Bruce Wayne.) If they don’t resign Maguire, I can totally seeing Sony Pictures pressuring to get a more athletic and photogenic actor like they wanted in the first place.

As for the Cap thing, everyone mentions the “Reign of the Supermen.” Few, though, mention that Marvel, in the wake of the huge Superman publicity, tried to ape the event by killing off the Punisher and having what seems like 15 Punishers rushing in to take his place. I think Marvel even did a fan poll to see who should be the new Punisher. (It was a blonde woman.) That obviously didn’t work out, and Marvel had to pretty much bring Frank Castle back from the dead. (I don’t know if it tied into the multiple Punishers storyline, but there was a manga-style comic, co-starring Wolverine, where Frank walked the earth as and Angel of Death. Ugh.)

What absolutely humors me about everything is that it seems that “Reign of the Supermen” is going to become the template for dead superheroes from now on. Kill the superhero … add multiple replacements (to hopefully spin off in their own books) … bring dead superhero back to life.

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