I’m still anxiously awaiting the day I get to see Kick-Ass, and be as cool as our SXSW team that caught its Austin premiere. (Be sure to check out Shannon Hood’s review.)   But at least I could content myself with Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie which the gang at Titan Books was kind enough to let me review.

Anyone who viewed the trailer knows that Kick-Ass is going to be a unique movie. One look at Chloe Moretz’s Hit Girl can tell you that much. But I hadn’t realized just how unusual its page-to-screen transition was. Millar was still in the process of sketching the book out when he approached Matthew Vaughn (licking his wounds after leaving Thor) about directing.

The movie took shape as the comic did, with Millar running back and forth between the production offices and his own keyboard, incorporating ideas from Vaughn and screenwriter Jane Goldman as he went. Characters who were meant to be minor players such as Red Mist took on a life of their own after they were cast, and ended up becoming major players in Kick-Ass’ story arc. If there’s a sequel to Kick-Ass, it may be entirely due to Christopher Mintz-Plasse single-handedly rewriting his character.

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With less than a week to go until the highly anticipated release of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls (prequel to publishing phenom Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), Quirk Books has released a blood-soaked trailer for fans to get a glimpse of how the Bennet sisters became formidable zombie killers.

The terrifying and hilarious prequel is a coming-of-age story details the origins of the zombie plague in early-nineteenth-century England and how the five Bennet sisters go from clumsy country lasses to savage slayers of the undead. Fans of the beloved Elizabeth Bennet will witness her clumsy first attempts at training with nunchucks and katana swords to mastering the placement of a ninja star in a zombie’s neck (tasty!).

Written by Steve Hockensmith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls will be available at a bookstore near you on March 23.

Catch the gory (well, 19th-Century gory) two-minute trailer after the jump

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Now that the trailer has hit for the third Twilight installment, Eclipse, Summit has begun the hunt for the lucky soul to sit in the director’s chair for the final dose of Twilight: Breaking Dawn. According to Entertainment Weekly, they’re aiming high and want no less than someone with an Oscar nomination or two under their belt.

Summit has reportedly approached Sofia Coppola, Gus Van Sant, and Bill Condon with offers.   It’s still very hush hush, however, as only Van Sant’s representatives would confirm first contact. Summit declined to comment.   Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg’s script outline is due next week, so it’s unlikely any serious offers can be made until  everyone knows how the iffy bits are going to be handled.

Stephanie Meyer will also have to weigh in, as she has approval over every hire Summit makes.  Any Twilighters know whether she prefers Marie Antoinette to Dreamgirls? What does she think of Good Will Hunting?

Of course, it may end up being none of these fine people. When Chris Weitz dropped out of the series after helming New Moon, the list of possible Eclipse directors was long and interesting:  Drew Barrymore, Juan Antonio Bayona, Paul Weitz, and James Mangold were all name dropped before David Slade climbed on board.

With that in mind, do you think we can convince David Cronenberg consider the gig?  If so, Breaking Dawn would officially be the first Twilight film I’d be camped out to see.

As I was watching the new Eclipse trailer, out of sheer boredom and a hint of curiosity, I found myself wondering why in the world two super-powered boys would fight it out over a girl clad in American Apparel who’s a hell of a downer.

How is there an entire film series devoted to one girl’s delusional obsessions of a fairy tale ending with a born-again killer? Sparkely vampires want to kill you, strapping werewolf shape-shifters want to keep you safe.

Do these Edward fans have a death wish and a yearning for abandonment? Is Bella Swan so heavily marketed as mesmerizing that it erases the history of the brazen blonde that came before her?

A long time ago, otherwise known as the 90’s, there was a series called Buffy the Vampire Slayer where a feisty girl from the southland slayed Urban Outfitted demons. This legendary show paved the way for multi-tasking girls who cheer by day, slay by night, and every once in a while hook-up with a tormented blood sucker.

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While Tim Burton is getting ready to unleash his interpretation of Alice in Wonderland onto the world this Friday, he’s already planning on sinking his producing teeth into another piece of historical fiction. Seth Grahame-Smith, the author behind the cult classic Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, got his newest historical/horror hybrid released yesterday, in the form of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

The premise is about as black and white as it sounds. In the time during Lincoln’s presidential term, he is forced to wage war against blood-sucking demons before they’re able to bring down the free world. According to Heat Vision, some gentlemen known in the genre have already taken interest.

Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, the producers behind last fall’s 9, will be producing the novel for a big screen adaptation. This fits right into the directors’ current resume, as Bekmambetov got his US popularity from his work on the Russain Night Watch films, and Burton is no stranger to the world of gothic vampire-like scenarios.

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With Universal’s The Wolfman bringing in over $30 Million in its first weekend, it’s only expected that other studios will be giving the green light to some interesting scripts involving some of Hollywood’s other classic monsters. The first news of that is that Dean Koontz’s best-selling Frankenstein book series, a 21st century spin on the classic tale, is getting an adaptation to the big screen.

According to Variety, the film may just put the good doctor and his creation into the passenger seat for a bigger murder plot.

Project places the doctor — a socially prominent and successful businessman — and his super-human original creation Deucalion in modern-day New Orleans. Winter and Botwick are aiming to launch a franchise. “These books have enough twists and turns to keep the public coming back to the theaters for many years to come,” the duo said.

The story centers on a pair of street-smart detectives who encounter Deucalion while investigating a murder, leading them to a bizarre array of “engineered” humans.

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A sad day for the literary world today as the writer of famed novel Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger, has passed away at the age of 91. Salinger was known as a devoutly private author, refusing interviews and turning down offers of further publishing.

It was widely known that Salinger refused to let his most famous novel be turned into a film, as he hated “Hollywood phonies” more than anything else. According to his publicist, Salinger’s health was excellent until the turn of the new year, when it suddenly declined and the author suffered from a broken hip.

Many people will remember Salinger for his novel and recluse lifestyle, but fans of comics and movies will always remember the work of his son, Matt Salinger. It’s little known, but Matt Salinger was the actor who portrayed Captain America in the original 1990 film.

Check out a clip below, and our prayers go out to Matt along with the rest of the Salinger family.

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Shortly after I read The Lovely Bones in 2002, I started hearing rumblings that it was being optioned for a movie. My immediate reaction was “Why?” The emotionally devastating novel about the rape and murder of a fourteen year old seemed like dubious source material. The murdered girl resides in a self imposed ethereal limbo-land between heaven and earth for most of the book, making it logistical nightmare to film. I just didn’t understand how a filmmaker could pull it off.

In the case of director Peter Jackson, he couldn’t, and he didn’t. Jackson worked his magic with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but he is woefully out of his element here. The most shocking thing about seeing the film is that it is completely devoid of any emotion or warmth, the very characteristics that made the book so beloved. So much consideration is given to unnecessary special effects (that don’t even look good) that the crucial human interactions are lost, and that is a true pity. If you take those away, there is no reason to see this movie.

Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) plays Susie Salmon, who disappears on her way home from school one day. A nerdy and harmless looking neighbor, Mr. Harvey, lures Susie to a root-cellar like building in the middle of a field with the sheepish confession he has built a playhouse for the neighborhood kids. Susie feels honored to be the first child to see the playhouse, but she is ultimately raped, murdered, and dismembered in the claustrophobic dwelling.

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It’s easy to go on about how much money Avatar is making at the box office. However, a more interesting result of the film’s success is the possibility that it proved 3-D can be far more than just a gimmick.  Instead of having objects fly out at the audience James Cameron used the technology to pull viewers into the environment.  It was such a simple twist on 3-D I’m surprised nobody thought of it before now.

However, with Avatar’s explosion in popularity, and everyone it seems hoping on the 3-D bandwagon, Cameron may have unintentionally become the “3-D guy”.  Any projects he takes on moving forward people are going to anticipate some kind of 3D component, which may not necessarily be the case.

As such, I (along with everyone else writing about this story) have to assume that Cameron could have 3-D plans in mind for the book The Last Train From Hiroshima. Cameron has optioned the rights to the book by Charles Pellegrino which probably means he plans on making either a documentary or movie based on it.  Moreover, Cameron purchased the rights with his own money, which isn’t really a stretch given two of his films, Avatar and Titanic, have made over a billion dollars each.

Pellegrino’s book “…takes place over two days and weaves together eyewitness accounts of the Japanese civilians and American pilots who experienced the atomic explosions firsthand.”

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When the idea for a book called 1000 Comic Books You Must Read came about, I’d imagine that picking an author for the project would be almost as difficult as picking which 1000 comic books to focus on. Luckily for Krause Publications they had just the person right under their noses: Tony Isabella.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Isabella’s accomplishments, and more importantly (in this case), credentials, allow me to fill in the blanks for you. He’s been a writer and/or editor for both Marvel Comics and DC Comics – along with a smattering of other publishers – for over 30 years. He’s reviewed and written about comics and comics-related items for Comic Buyer’s Guide – produced each month by F+W Media, which is also affiliated with Krause Publications – in his “Tony’s Tips” column for almost the same period of time.

He’s arguably read more comics than most of us comic aficionados hope to read in our lifetimes. While judging comics always comes with the usual “how it’s interpreted” hang-up, having Tony Isabella at the helm is definitely a step in the right direction.

So how’s the book? For starters, neglecting the urge to rank said comics was probably the best decision the powers that be ever made in regards to this project. All ranked lists do nothing but fuel debate, which the seemingly endless Internet trolls love to argue and spit vitriol over. Instead, the book is broken up into sections spotlighting the various decades, ranging from the forties to the current decade.

There are two notable exceptions to the breakdown: a section for Superman’s first appearance and early issues as well as a section where Isabella talks about his pick for “the greatest comic book of all time” for an extended period. I won’t tell you which issue stood out for Isabella but I will say he makes some interesting points – both professionally and personally – as to why it was chosen.

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