DC Comic characters heading to the big screen - Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Marv Wolfman are the Trinity in control

DC Comics have got a few films in the works - The Losers, Jonah Hex, Green Lantern and Warren Ellis' Red. However, a recent article in THR shows there are a few lesser known characters being developed for the big screen, plus it also explains how DC are going about getting the characters and stories ready for the big screen.

In the past, Warners optioned a property, paying DC a fee comparable to what a property could command on the open market. But while the projects ostensibly were being developed under one roof, many were spread out over a host of producers, each with different visions for how to approach each adaptation.

To bring competing approaches into sync, DC Comics president Paul Levitz and DC's Los Angeles-based film exec Gregory Noveck have overseen a reorganization of the development slate. While Warners execs still drive the creative side, DC now has more input, making it an actual participant in the shaping of material.

"The creative process is by and large a true partnership," Noveck said. "They'll ask us a ton of questions, and we'll give a ton of answers. We will talk back and forth. We'll discuss writers and talent, but ultimately it's their decision."

Warners quietly hired three of DC's biggest writers -- Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Marv Wolfman -- to act as consultants and writers for its superhero line of movies. The move involved taking back the reins on projects being handled by such producers as Charles Roven ("The Flash") and Akiva Goldsman ("Teen Titans").

Some agents and scribes grumbled about being forced to work with the consultants, never mind that Johns started his career as a assistant to "Superman" director Richard Donner or that Wolfman has worked in animation since the 1980s.

Johns worked up a new treatment for a "Flash" script, being written by Dan Mazeau; Johns will act in a producer capacity on the project, which has not attached a director.

The projects Morrison and Wolfman are working on are in the early stages at Warners, whose execs declined to comment.

The process involves one writer taking point, though the trio do collaborate on projects, reading one another's materials while hashing out a story that will be at once accessible to nonfans yet still adhere to each character's long history. The writers also work in tandem with producers, writers and the Warners execs overseeing the projects, showing them treatments and providing notes on scripts.

Meanwhile, other superhero projects are moving forward at Warners.

The studio is taking pitches on sci-fi hero Adam Strange and the underwater hero "Aquaman," to be produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and his Appian Way shingle.

Also in the pipeline: "Bizarro Superman" being written by "Galaxy Quest" scribes David Howard and Robert Gordon; a sequel to "Constantine," with Goldsman and Erwin Stoff producing; two concurrent Green Arrow projects, an origin story and a prison-set one titled "Super Max"; and "Shazam," which was set up at New Line but has moved to Warners, with Pete Segal attached to direct.

However, it will be a while before we see DC's Trinity of main characters back on the big screen.

Warners and DC still haven't figured out how to translate "Wonder Woman" to the big screen. In part, that failure reflects the difficulties DC has had turning out a popular Wonder Women comic. Morrison, during a recent Q&A with Clive Barker at Los Angeles' Meltdown Comics, admitted he didn't have a complete handle on the character when he was writing the comic "Final Crisis."

Also, ever since Bryan Singer's 2006's "Superman Returns," a new Superman has been in limbo.

"Our hope is to develop a Superman property and to try again," Warner Bros. Entertainment president Alan Horn said in April. "What hurt us is that the reviews and so on for the Superman movie did not get the kind of critical acclaim that Batman got, and we have other issues with Superman that concern us."

On the Batman front, a sequel to "Dark Knight" also is quite a way off. Nolan is open to doing a third installment, but his next movie is "Inception," an original script he penned and is shooting for Warners.

HOME

The Losers and Freddy Krueger to go head to head in 2010

It looks as if the Comedian and Rorschach will be battling it out in the box office next year.

According to Box Office Mojo, the adaption of DC Comics The Losers will hit theaters on 16th April 2010. This is the same release date as New Line’s A Nightmare on Elm Street

Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jackie Earle Haley are the leading men of The Losers and Nightmare.

As far as I was aware The Losers had yet to start filming so it is a bit of a surprise for the release date to be announced so soon.

2010 should be quite a good year for Comic Book lovers - The Losers, Iron Man 2, Jonah Hex and Scott Pilgrim vs The World announced so far.

Out of The Losers and The Nightmare on Elm Street remake which one are you most looking forward to?

HOME

Oscar Jaenada has joined The Losers

Some more casting news for the adaption of Andy Diggle and Jock's brilliant comic, The Losers.

Blackfilm.com have the news Oscar Jaenada (The Limits of Control, Che: Part Two) has got the role of Cougar.

Directing the film is Sylvain White. He directed Stomp The Yard and is due to direct Frank Miller's Ronin and Castlevania.

Losers centers around a Special Forces team, who are set up and betrayed by their enigmatic handler, Max, who soon discovers that you should never leave a bunch of black-ops commandos for dead. The Losers regroup for revenge, and to get their names off a pesky CIA death list. For issue after issue, they conducted covert operations against the CIA, and sought to uncover the plans and conspiracies of the powerful, secretive Max.

Previously I've mentioned the casting of Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen, Supernatural) as the leader Clay, Idris Elba (Ultraviolet, Obsessed) is his second-in-command Roque, Chris Evans (Fantastic Four, Push) as Jensen, Zoe Saldana (Star Trek) is Aisha, and Columbus Short as Pooch.

Blackfilm also confirm the news that Jason Patric will be playing the role of the big bad Max.

It's all coming together for this film and if it stays true to the comic it should have some amazing action scenes.

Discuss in the forum

HOME

The Random - Toy Story 3D, Inglourious Basterd, The Losers, Fantastic Mr Fox, Cemetery Junction, The Big Bang, Conan, Fast & Furious, Station,

- Disney’s 3D versions of Pixar’s Toy Story and Toy Story 2 will premiere at the 66th annual Venice Film Festival. The films will surround the Golden Lion award ceremony at the Palazzo del Cinema at Venice Lido, where the Venice Film Festival will give lifetime achievement awards to the Pixar aniamtors.

- NY Times have a big feature on Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds that has this interesting piece of news - "Not to mention a shelved subplot about African-American soldiers stuck behind enemy lines. 'I have a half-written prequel ready to go if this movie's a smash,' he said."

- Wes Anderson’s animated adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox will be released under Fox’s Fox Searchlight “indie”-focused label. The film is currently scheduled to hit theaters on November 13th in the States, but on October 22nd/23rd in UK and Russia.

- Jason Patric (The Lost Boys, Narc) may be the bad guy in the comic book adaption of The Losers. The good guys currently consist of Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the team leader, Zoe Saldana, Iris Elba and Columbus Short.

- Matthew Goode ("Brideshead Revisited," "Watchmen") has joined the cast of the dramedy Cemetery Junction for Sony Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter. "Cemetery" takes a period look at a group of twenty-something men working at the Prudential insurance company in the 1970's and their relationships with each other as well as the women in their lives. Goode will play Mike, a go-getter dating his boss' daughter. Ralph Fiennes, Felicity Jones, Christian Cooke, Tom Hughes, Jack Doolan and Ricky Gervais star.

- Antonio Banderas will star in the neo-noir detective thriller The Big Bang for says Variety.
Banderas stars as an L.A. private detective who's hired to find a missing stripper. The trail leads to the New Mexico desert. There the private eye finds a trail of bodies and contends with a brutal Russian boxer, three LAPD detectives and an aging billionaire looking to perfect the nuclear physics equivalent of the Big Bang.

- James McTeigue ("V for Vendetta," "Ninja Assassin") is tipped to be helming the upcoming Conan the Barbarian reboot film for Nu-Image/Millenium as Brett Ratner has left the project.

- Fast and Furious screenwriter Chris Morgan tells MTV News that all the talk of another sequel is not just true, but things are moving quickly. "It seems like there will definitely be another one. I just got out of a lunch with Universal, just pitching the story around. We were figuring out if we do another one, and what it would be. It has to come from the characters, so where are these characters after this film - what are they doing?" says Morgan.

- CBS Films has acquired screen rights to Johanna Stokes's comic book mini-series Station reports Variety. In the miniseries, five nations have sent their finest astronauts to operate Earth's first multinational space station, but when one turns up dead, the remaining personnel race against time to discover if it was sabotage, an accident or murder.

- Vin Diesel, director John Singleton and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura are teaming for a film adaptation of the video game The Wheelman for Paramount Pictures reports Variety.
Diesel produced, voiced and had his likeness used in the game about an expert driver who comes out of retirement to protect a woman from his past.


Leave a comment on this post below.

HOME

Chris Evans is almost a Loser

Chris Evans ("Fantastic Four," "Push") is in talks to join the film adaptation of DC Comics/Vertigo comic The Losers reports Mania.com. The comic was created by writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock

The story focuses on an elite group of special forces operatives who are betrayed by their handlers and left for dead.

Surviving the setup, they embark on a series of wildcat ops designed to clear their own names and bring down the government agency that sold them out.

Evans would play Jensen, the fast-talking tech whiz of the team. He joins Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Clay, Idris Elba as Roque and Zoe Saldana as Aisha.

Sylvain White is directing and shooting kicks off later this year.

Source: Dark Horizons

Leave a comment on this post below.

HOME

Idris Elba is joining The Losers

Idris Elba is the guy who was in The Wire, 28 Days Later, and Ultraviolet. This last one isn't the Milla Jovovich thing from 2006. Nope, I'm talking about 1996 UK TV series where he stared as Vaughn Rice, the tough SAS bloke who fought vampires with carbon tipped bullets. That was a great show and I highly recommend you watch it if you can (there is a bit below).

In the six-part British "vampire-slaying" mini-series Ultraviolet we discover that UV light is used (both in surgery and via high-tech weaponry) to identify people who have been infected with a disease labelled "Code 5". It's transmitted via a bite to the neck, but at no point in the series is the word "vampire" used. Instead, in the second episode ("In Nomine Patris") the nickname "Leech" is introduced. We learn that it was this disease, these "Leeches", that were responsible for the Fire of London, and that one in 20 people are already infected. In the opening episode, policeman Michael Colefield (Jack Davenport) is recruited into the secretive CIB. He meets its introverted priest-chief Pearse (Philip Quast), the emotionally driven Dr Angela March (Susannah Harker) and the bullish heavyweight Vaughan (Idris Elba). Spinning around Mike's suddenly complicated life are his best friend's jilted fiancée Kirstie (Colette Brown) and old flame Frances (Fiona Dolman). In later hard-hitting episodes we see a 12-year-old boy stab his teacher priest to death ("Mea Culpa") and the capture of a "Leech" ("Persona Non Grata"). This intriguing series ends having tied together most of its threads, but dangles worrying implications at the viewer

The 36-year old Brit is currently playing the new Dunder-Mifflin exec on The Office, and will be seen in theaters on 24th April 24 in the drama Obsessed, opposite Beyonce Knowles and Ali Larter. Now, according to Hollywood Insider, he's closing in on a a role in the Warner Bros.-Dark Castle thriller The Losers, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen). Elba is negotiating to play Roque, a black ops commando set up by the government. The project is based on the excellent DC-Vertigo comic by Andy Diggle and Jock. It will be directed by Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard).

Leave a comment on this post below.

HOME

The Losers gain Columbus Short

Columbus Short told Blackfilm.com that he will be working with Sylvain White again on his latest film, 'The Losers,' an adaptation of a gritty DC-Vertigo comic book.

He will playing the role of Pooch. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is already attached to play Clay, the leader. Morgan is currently on screen as the Comedian in 'Watchmen.'

White had directed Short on 'Stomp The Yard' in 2007 and is slated to direct Frank Miller's 'Ronin' and 'Castlevania.'

The James Vanderbilt-scripted project is being financed by Dark Castle Entertainment with Dark Castle's Joel Silver, Weed Road's Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster producing. The series was first published by the DC Comics imprint Vertigo in the 1970s. Gregory Noveck, who oversees DC Comics film transformations, will be involved in a producing capacity

'Losers' centers around a Special Forces team, who are set up and betrayed by their enigmatic handler, Max, who soon discovers that you should never leave a bunch of black-ops commandos for dead. The Losers regroup for revenge, and to get their names off a pesky CIA death list. For issue after issue, they conducted covert operations against the CIA, and sought to uncover the plans and conspiracies of the powerful, secretive Max.
Leave a comment on this post below.

HOME - Discuss in the Forum

The Random - The Losers, Dead Spy Running, Howl, Old Timers, Little Fockers, Shocker, The People Under the Stairs

According to Variety, "Watchmen" and "Grey's Anatomy" actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan has signed on to topline the adaptation of the Vertigo comic, The Losers. The James Vanderbilt-scripted project is being financed by Dark Castle Entertainment with Dark Castle's Joel Silver, Weed Road's Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster producing. The Losers regroup in the interest of revenge and the opportunity to remove their names from a secret CIA death list and to conduct covert operations against the CIA and its interests. Morgan would play Clay, the group's leader, whose signature look favors black suits without ties. Morgan is also shooting the Hammer Films thriller The Resident with Hilary Swank around the same time so schedules are currently being worked out.

"Traffic" scribe Stephen Gaghan will pen the adaptation of Jon Stock's espionage novel Dead Spy Running for Warner Bros. Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter. The story is the first in a trilogy and aims to reinvent the spy genre by telling the origin story of a newly trained spy which mixes Robert Ludlum's grittiness with John Le Carre's wit. McG is attached to direct the project which kicks off with the protagonist running the London Marathon, where a fellow racer is strapped with explosives. The scenario leads to a globe-trotting adventure to clear the name of the man's father.

Werc Werk Works is set to produce and fully finance Howl, taking over some of the reigns of the Allen Ginsberg-themed project from Telling Pictures reports Variety. "Howl" centers on the obscenity trial over Ginsberg's famed poem, as well as an animated reimagining of the poem itself. James Franco, David Strathairn, Alan Alda, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker and Paul Rudd star in the project which begins shooting March 16th in New York City.

Sidney Kimmel Entertainment has picked up playwright Noah Haidle's spec script Old Timers says the trades. The script follows two sixtysomething cons who have one final night to do everything they've wanted and reunite their gang before one of them meets his demise.

John Hamburg has come aboard to rewrite Larry Stuckey's screenplay for Little Fockers, the third film in the "Meet the Parents" comedy series reports Risky Biz Blog.

Wes Craven spoke to JoBlo AITH about some more of his films being remade - "We're actually talking about remaking THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS. Possibly SHOCKER also. So these ones that we've been remaking, especially THE HILLS HAVE EYES and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, I own with the producer. Two different producers and both close friends. Peter Locke with The Hills Have Eyes and Sean Cunningham with Last House. So we now own them after thirty years we got them back. It's funny because when we made those deals we thought, we'll never be alive in thirty years, we were all like [mimicking smoking pot]… but it turns out we're still alive. So were able to remake those. And People Under the Stairs and Shocker, although we don't own them, Universal owns them but we have rights with Universal and myself, and the producer who is Shep Gordon to say yes or no. So if we all say yes we can do it. Universal can't go off and make them with somebody else. So we're talking about doing that now."

Discuss in the Forum

The Random - The Losers, Deadworld, Tron 2

Jeremy Renner, who stars in The Hurt Locker, The Assassination of Jesse James, and 28 Weeks Later, told ComingSoon today at the New York Comic Con that The Losers is one of the projects that he's looking at joining soon. He didn't say which character he's interested in, but said that it's a "very interesting anti-hero graphic novel, I love that sort of thing." The comic, first published in the 1970's and again in 2002 by Vertigo, follows a highly trained and eclectic Special Ops team that is set up, betrayed and left for dead. They then go on a quest to find who sold them out and why, righting wrongs they encounter along the way.

At this week’s red carpet for Coraline, producer Bill Mechanic revealed to MTV News that he’s already got another project in the works with ties to the comics world — an adaptation of the comic book series Deadworld. Deadworld was originally published back in 1987 by Arrow Comics but was recently re-launched by Image in 2005. The storyline features survivors fighting off an apocalypse of zombies, but with the twist that the attacking dead are as sentient and intelligent as the living.

According to Radical Studios publisher Barry Levine (via io9), the full Tron 2.0 trailer is going to get its world premiere at this year's San Diego Comic-Con.

Discuss in the Forum

Judge Dredd concept art - Looks very nice

I mentioned back near the start of December that Rebellion where trying to get a new Judge Dredd film going. Well now it looks as if things are moving forward with this concept art found by io9.
This lovely concept art was done by the comic book artist Jock who has worked on 2000AD, The Losers, Green Arrow: Year One and Hellblazer. Looks mighty fine indeed and looks as if they will be sticking closer to the comic than Stallone's Dredd movie ever did.

Current suggestion over in the Forum as to who could play Dredd are Christian Bale, Jason Statham, Bruce Campbell (he has the chin), Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, The Rock and Billy Zane.

Home / Forum / Guestbook