A few months back, news popped up that Saturday Night Live cast members Bill Hader (Superbad) and Seth Meyers are working on a Spider-Man story titled “The Short Halloween” about a poor sap who dresses like the webslinger for Halloween and gets kidnapped by a few of Spidey’s deadliest foes. While the story was written solely by the comedic duo, the book features art by Kevin MaGuire, who has worked on other not-so-serious titles with another comedic team in Kieth Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis.
MTV Splashpage, who originally broke the story, now brings us a 13 page preview (sans lettering) which looks pretty cool so you should check it out. “The Short Halloween” is currently slated to hit comic stores on May 13, while SNL is still going strong in it’s 34th season every Saturday.
Previously on The Flickcast, the team discussed, among other things, the remake of campy horror classic Piranha and the casting of Elizabeth Shue in a lead role, the sad performance of the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles season finale and who should not play Captain America in the upcoming The First Avenger: Captain America.
On this week’s episode, the team delved into the death of author J.G. Ballard, discusses the latest footage released from Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen, decides if breaking J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit into two movies is a good idea and digs deeper into porn. Yes, that’s right, porn. Well, at least porn parodies of popular movies and television shows.
The team also made some great pics again this week including Matt’s choice of two movies, Crank 2 and Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle, Christina’s recommendation of a great television show called Oz and Chris’ picks State of Play with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck and Star Trek: The Original Series on DVD to help get you ready for J.J. Abrams’ upcoming reboot of the franchise. Speaking of Star Trek, don’t forget to head on over and visit our friends at The Icon Factory to grab your very own shiny icons based on the upcoming film. They’re really cool.
As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter or via email. Thanks for listening.
Yes, you read that headline correctly. With at least one costly yet tepid mini-series and a decent, if somewhat misguided, feature film already out there based on Frank Herbert’s classic novel Dune, it looks like producer Kevin Misher and director Peter Berg are giving a big screen version of the novel another go. According to an interview over at io9, Misher confirmed that he and Berg are indeed working on a script for a “reboot” of the Dune franchise and expect to deliver said script shortly.
According to Misher in the article, Dune is “one of my favorite books of all time, and I made a movie with Pete (Berg) called The Rundown. . . so we decided to get back together. Pete had loved the book as well. It’s a great opportunity for us.” As for the progress they’ve made so far, Misher said: “We’re working on the script right now. We’re going to turn it in shortly. The script is coming in, we’re hoping to get a green light shortly.”
So, apparently all systems are go for a reboot of the Dune franchise. However, as much as I loved the novel and would be interested in a new, updated feature film version, I’m not sure the guy who directed Very Bad Things and Hancock and the producer who made The Interpreter and The Scorpion King are the right guys for the job.
In my world where I run the studios, I think I would assign this task to a different team. Who would I pick? How about Christopher Nolan and Charles Roven or Zack Snyder and Lawrence Gordon?
I think either of those teams would do a bang up job. Peter Berg and Kevin Misher? I guess we’ll see.
At The Flickcast, we’re big fans of Battlestar Galactica (or BSG as we like to call it). Sadly, the show has run its course on Sci-Fi Channel and now all we have to look forward to is its eventual release on BluRay so we can watch it all over again. Fortunately, the folks at Sci-Fi feel our pain, and that of millions of other BSG fans, and have decided to give us a new show to watch: the BSG “prequel” series Caprica.
Sadly, the actual series, which stars Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales, takes place 58 years before BSG and tells the tale of two rival families and the creation of the first Cylon, doesn’t begin showing until next year — which is too bad.
However, we’ve got your back here at The Flickcast. So, to help pass the time until Caprica debuts and in honor of the two-hour pilot movie being released on DVD today, here’s another look at the “Official” promo for the series for you to enjoy. Watch this.
If you love Joss Whedon and his shows then you’re probably a fan of Dollhouse. Recently, at the annual PaleyFest in Los Angeles, Joss, series star Eliza Dushku and several more of the show’s cast and producers were on a panel discussing the show, what it all means and if its going to survive.
If you were one of the lucky few able to score a ticket to the event, you’ve already seen the panel and experienced it live. If you’re like most other fans, you weren’t there and had to hear about it from others who were.
But now, thanks to the folks at the PaleyFest, if you were not able to attend, at least you can watch some highlights of the panel on video. Over at the official PaleyFest website, they’ve posted video clips from the Dollhouse panel and, if you’re interested, they’ve also got clips from Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia as well. Check ‘em out.
On a related note, The Flickcast will be at the PaleyFest tonight for the Battlestar Galactica panel, so expect a report on all the festivities.
2009 has been pretty heavy with blockbusters so far. But when it comes to preposterous action movies, the list begins and ends with Crank 2: High Voltage, the sequel to 2006′s Crank. While this movie may have been pretty ridiculous from start to finish, it was still a fun and entertaining way to spend 85 minutes and $10. There isn’t much to the movie story-wise (it’s no Casablanca), but it certainly did the franchise justice and may not even be the last time we see these characters.
For those not “in the know”, the original Crank was about Jason Statham’s character, Chev Chelios, being injected with a synthetic poison that forced him to keep his adrenaline pumping in order to stay alive. This new film essentially keeps the same premise, but ups the ante by replacing Statham’s heart with an artificial one, and the only way he can stay alive this time is to keep the mechanical heart electrified — by any means necessary. Even for a comic book movie, this premise would seem farfetched. But one of the great things about this film is how it doesn’t take itself seriously at all. This becomes abundantly clear when one of the lines in the movie describes Statham’s character as “the guy from that Transporting movie”.
The movie continues with it’s video game-like action to a point where you feel it could easily be a live-action adaptation of the Grand Theft Auto video game series. Statham defies just about every action movie conceit and would probably make even John McClane cringe. The use of ultra-violence, excessive nudity and more “f*cks” than you can shake a stick at didn’t diminish in this sequel and are, in fact, even more abundant this time around.
Even with all the over-the-top action, violence and nudity, the film does offer a great number of interesting cameos. From Corey Haim to David Carradine, Ginger Spice and John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Q), the movie pulls no punches when it comes pumping up it’s C-List celebrity quotient.
There isn’t really a whole lot to pick apart in this film. It is what it is. I suppose the worst thing you could say about it is that if it were a Troma movie, I wouldn’t have blinked twice. The ridiculousness of Crank 2: High Voltage had the audience both laughing and cringing at the same time but it is a great movie to run out to on a weekday afternoon if you’ve got nothing better to do. Or, if you want to make it an even better experience, after a few drinks.
After all this, where could they possibly go for a third film? Of course, nobody really knows what’s in the minds of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the film’s writers and directors. But if I were throwing out ideas for the next one, may I suggest Crank 3: Diabetes?
Are you one of the many who loved the first Transformers movie? If so, you’re probably jazzed for the sequel, which hits theaters on June 24th. Well, if you are one of those people, here’s a little something, courtesy of director Michael Bay, to help you pass the time until the release date.
This footage, screened by Bay himself at the recent ShoWest convention, features some of what you would expect from a Transformers movie: characters bonding with their mechanical protectors, explosions, robots destroying stuff, a cranky old-man robot and more. Oh, there’s also a bit of footage of Megan Fox’s character taking off her clothes — not that that would interest anyone.
Here’s some interesting, exciting, controversial and never boring news from the worlds of movies, television, comic books and all things geek that caught our eye this week.
If you’ve seen any of the photos or trailers for J.J. Abrams upcoming Star Trek, you’ve seen many images of the new, sleeker, sexier starship Enterprise. Of course, when Abrams needed a team to help him refresh the franchise and provide all the cutting-edge visual effects for his new film, he turned to the men and women at Industrial Light and Magic. Now, thanks to an article over at Sci-Fi Wire, some of the team at ILM can let us in on how they took the venerable Enterprise and completely reinvented it for Abram’s film.
According to model maker John Goodson in the article, Abrams wanted: “. . . a hot-rod type of vehicle, but they also wanted to preserve the Enterprise kind of look.” He also kept saying, according to ILM creative director David Nakabayashi, to “Make it a bigger movie. Make it a bigger shot.” “I think that’s one thing you see in this film, at least. The stuff I’ve seen is just everything is big,” he added.
Even though I’m a huge fan of the original Star Trek and most of the subsequent series (yes, even Enterprise had its moments) and I was a bit skeptical about this movie when I first started hearing about it, the more I see lately, the more I want to see it. Right. Now.
Director Michel Gondry has started a new “project” on his website, MichelGondry.com, where he will draw a portrait of you from a photo you supply for $19.95 plus shipping. You know his directing work if you’ve ever seen such “indie” films as The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He’s also currently working on the not-so-indie Green Hornet. Apparently, he’s also an accomplished artist as well.
From his site:
Michel will personally sketch and sign your portrait based off of the photo that you submit via email. This personalized collectible can also be incorporated onto any item sold through this website. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.
So for those of you out there looking for a nice piece of personalized-but-kooky memorabilia from the mind who made legos cool again, head on over and check it out here.
Here at The Flickcast we love all-things Whedon. From Angel to Firefly to Serenity, Dollhouse and the show that started it all Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, the Whedon’s work has made us laugh, scared us and entertained us for many years. When Buffy went off the air in 2003, rumors and speculation about an eventual big-screen adaptation began almost immediately.
Even though the show ended with a vary satisfying, albeit slightly sad, episode, fans have always wanted to see what happens next. Not even a comic book version from Dark Horse that continues the series with Season Eight has been able to make fans completely forget their desire for a big-screen Buffy. They just haven’t stopped wishing for it to happen. Sadly, according to the man himself in an interview this week, and posted over at Sci-Fi Wire, wishing just won’t make it so.
According to Joss:
“Not gonna happen. Until I gather the press and make a public announcement myself that it’s going to happen, never believe anything.”
At least we still have the comic. And who knows, one day Joss just might gather those reporters and make that annuncement. Stranger things have happened in Hollywood.
Well, not really red-and-blue-glasses 3D, but three-dimensions nonetheless. Family Guy creator and all-around funnyman Seth McFarlane was on Adam Corolla’s also funny podcast and the conversation quickly steered towards a theatrical release of the Fox series and maybe even some live-action…action:
MCFARLANE: I can say with definitive assuredness that it will be out. Within the next few years. We already know what it’s gonna be. We’ve been trying to lock into something that makes it so that it has to be a movie, as opposed to an extended Family Guy episode. And I like the Simpson’s Movie , but that’s something they could do with animation on TV because they’re not constrained by sets. [...] You have to find some way to make it so that it has to be a movie.
CAROLLA: Are you hinting at some live action?
MCFARLANE: Possibly, possibly. Here and there. It will not be a 90-minute Family Guy episode.
McFarlane is most likely referencing the first direct-to-dvd film, “Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story”, which got negative reviews for essentially being 3 episodes strung together with a few dirty words. The FG team has been kicking around the idea of a theatrical release for a few years now and just about everyone in the cast, from Adam West to Mila Kunis has expressed enthusiasm for the idea. This, of course, begs the question: who would play our favorite family from Quahog? Seth McFarlane in a fatsuit? Drew Carey and Kathy Griffen? Let’s hope it’s none of the above.
A few months back, news popped up that Saturday Night Live cast members Bill Hader (Superbad) and Seth Meyers are working on a Spider-Man story titled “The Short Halloween” about a poor sap who dresses like the webslinger for Halloween and gets kidnapped by a few of Spidey’s deadliest foes. While the story was written solely by the comedic duo, the book features art by Kevin MaGuire, who has worked on other not-so-serious titles with another comedic team in Kieth Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis.
Previously 
, Christina’s recommendation of a great television show called 
and Chris’ picks State of Play with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck and 
on DVD to help get you ready for J.J. Abrams’ upcoming reboot of the franchise. Speaking of Star Trek, don’t forget to head on over and visit our friends at 
Yes, you read that headline correctly. With at least one costly yet tepid 
At The Flickcast, we’re big fans of Battlestar Galactica (or BSG as we like to call it). Sadly, the show has run its course on Sci-Fi Channel and now all we have to look forward to is its 
so we can watch it all over again. Fortunately, the folks at Sci-Fi feel our pain, and that of millions of other BSG fans, and have decided to give us a new show to watch: the BSG “prequel” series Caprica.
being released on DVD today, here’s another look at the “Official” promo for the series for you to enjoy. Watch this.
If you love Joss Whedon and his shows then you’re probably a fan of Dollhouse. Recently, at the annual 
2009 has been pretty heavy with blockbusters so far. But when it comes to preposterous action movies, the list begins and ends with Crank 2: High Voltage, the sequel to 2006′s Crank. While this movie may have been pretty ridiculous from start to finish, it was still a fun and entertaining way to spend 85 minutes and $10. There isn’t much to the movie story-wise (it’s no Casablanca), but it certainly did the franchise justice and may not even be the last time we see these characters.
Here’s some interesting, exciting, controversial and never boring news from the worlds of movies, television, comic books and all things geek that caught our eye this week.
If you’ve seen any of the photos or 
Director Michel Gondry has started a new “project” on his website, 
Here at The Flickcast we love all-things Whedon. From Angel to Firefly to Serenity, Dollhouse and the show that started it all Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, the Whedon’s work has made us laugh, scared us and entertained us for many years. When Buffy went off the air in 2003, rumors and speculation about an eventual big-screen adaptation began almost immediately.
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