What characters were rip-offs of others? Are comics and pro wrestling actually tied together? Is the story from the comic better than the story in the movie? Just what the heck was happening in comics in the 90’s?

These are some questions any reasonable human being who contributes a portion of their weekly salary to the funny books may ask. The Flickcast alumni Jonathan ‘Wally’ Weilbaecher and I join forces with Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles to answer these and more.

With regulars Joe Slepski of The Joe on Joe podcast, Pablo Romero-Estevez and Alan ‘Sizzler’ Kistler of Crazy Sexy Geeks and some guests like Lucha Underground’s Joey Ryan and The Flickcast co-founder Matt Raub, we haven’t come to many conclusions but we have had a ton of fun arguing our way there.

This weekend had the distinct feel of a throwback celebration with a Reboot-make, a re-release and a sequel to an 80’s iconic franchise inhabiting three of the top four positions.

Coming in at number one, with $26 Million, was the incredibly well advertised Evil Dead which played very strongly for an extreme horror film aimed squarely at a specific niche. Due, in part, to that specific audience target, the film’s reviews have been mixed and the word of mouth has been less than stellar on the whole. Still, the film plays very well to its target audience and with a big weekend under its belt will go into the books as a big win for all involved.

The next two spots ended up being an estimated tie between last weekend’s top two films. G.I. Joe: Retaliation and The Croods. Both brought in an estimated $21.1 Million, with the tie break going to last weeks number 1 because the Rock is in that one and the main event at Wrestlemania this weekend.

The Amazing Spider-Man was a divisive film. Some people thought it was a fair reboot that rejuvenated a popular, if tired, franchise. While others felt a resounding hollowness from a, seemingly unnecessary, reboot of a franchise that was still reasonably healthy. Despite the mixed reception from the Spider-faithful, the film made gobs of cash and a sequel is fast approaching.

We thought we had a good handle on the villainy of ASM 2 with the assumed inclusion of Norman Osbourne and Jammie Foxx as an unorthodox Electro set to conflict with the web-head. However a surprise twist to the film’s rogues gallery might just have been uncovered via a Hollywood Reporter scoop:

Paul Giamatti is in talks to join The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as the villain known as The Rhino… The Rhino first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #41in 1966 as a thug from a Soviet Bloc country who wore a superhuman suit that made him invulnerable while giving him superstrength and superspeed. It also had a deadly horn on top.  

What What What?

This film is certainly heading into some bold and interesting directions. Not only is the one-two punch of Rhino and Electro rather random, but the actor choices the casting department targeted for these roles are either brilliant or completely nutter-butter.

It hardly seems like a month can pass by without some sort of out of left field news popping up regarding the upcoming RoboCop reboot. This is a remake that should be easy to file away as a bad idea, the original worked despite it’s premise because of Verhoeven and everything else in the franchise after that has been a miss on one level or another.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t at least trying to give us an enjoyable film next year, and today’s casting shuffle news seems to indicate that at least some one really cares about this project. Secret British badass Hugh Laurie was in line to play the CEO of OmniCorp until he wasn’t, so the film replaces Dr. House with a damn Batman, Variety reports:

Michael Keaton has been tapped to play the villain, Raymond Sellars, in the “RoboCop” reboot for MGM and Sony… The Sellars character is the CEO of the corporation that builds RoboCop, played by Joel Kinnaman. The film, described as a “reimagining” of the 1987 Paul Verhoeven pic, is scheduled to begin shooting next month.

As much as Hugh Laurie was an exciting choice for the role originally, Keaton is easily ten times more intriguing. He has a manic energy that can really bring something fun to the head of the ever-present OmniCorp. You can even gauge from the actors connected to the role that the character is not meant to be a two-dimensional prick, but perhaps a character with some interesting perspective.

This film once again has us nodding our head in approval at the choices it has made in pre-production, let us hope that good mojo translates to the production phase that is set to begin soon.

There are two prime ‘seasons’ on the Box Office calendar, summer and holiday. Both represent times of the year where most people like to go watch movies, and as a result, most of the best films get released in those windows. During these seasons there are single weekends that are the marquee slots, reserved for the films most likely to draw in the biggest audiences, the fourth of July and Christmas.

If you want some idea of how much faith Paramount has in their new Jack Ryan reboot, you have only to look at its freshly minted release date for an answer. Kenneth Branagh’s CIA thriller reboot will be hitting screens December 25th, 2013. The new potential franchise starter stars Chris Pine as the titular analyst, Keira Knightley as his love interest, Branagh himself as the villain Kevin Costner in an important but as yet unidentified ‘key’ role.

One of the most interesting developments for this film is the way Paramount is setting the franchise up. They don’t seem content in just developing a new franchise in the style of the Bourne films or James Bond, instead Paramount thinks that there is a whole shared universe of Tom Clancy characters that they can develop like Marvel Studios has done with The Avengers.

So the development of this film has turned into a rather interesting experiment, stay connected to The Flickcast for any future updates.