Whedon Draws Energy from AVENGERS

Plus: JUDGE DREDD, ASTRO CITY, SPIDER-MAN and more! by Rob M. Worley     August 27, 2010 Source: various

Whedon draws energy from Avengers. plus: Urban says Judge Dredd is "hardcore." Busiek talks about writing Astro City movie.  Hiddleston bleeds for Thor and more! It's your Comics2Film 10.8.27!

Over in the Twittersphere, comics scribe Kurt Busiek has been talking about his Astro City movie.

Yesterday he tweeted, "Just had a conference on the Astro City movie story. It was astonishingly positive and supportive; some really cool ideas are in the works."

Busiek also responded to a fan question revealing that he's working on writing the script for the film. "I'm joining the [Writers Guild of America] because I'm working on the writing of the Astro City movie, yeah. if I wasn't, I wouldn't qualify to join –"

Good news for Busiek fans to see him so intimately involved in the film production of his comics!

If you missed the boat on the little-known mini-series Red by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, which is the basis for October's feature film starring Bruce Willis, you'll get your shot at new Red comics later this year.

Wildstorm (whose name has been inexplicably dumped in favor of Vertigo in the film's opening credits) is publishing four new one-shots focusing on the characters Marvin (played by John Malkovich), Victoria (Helen Mirren), Joe (Morgan Freeman) and Frank (Bruce Willis).

Ellis seems to not be involved. The books are written by Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber, Doug Wagner and Gregory Noveck.

The Hoeber Brothers wrote the screenplay for the film.

Noveck is a producer on the movie and has for years been the movie guy at DC Comics. He's recently been displaced by the newly-formed DC Entertainment but was instrumental in getting films like Batman begins, Dark Knight and Green Lantern going, not to mention the lively string of animated DVDs that DC has produced over the past few years. Noveck was also the driving for on getting Platinum Studios' Cowboys & Aliens set up with Spielberg and DreamWorks.

Hamner is providing covers for the book, based on the actor likenesses and keyed off the movie's design artwork (which, of course, is based on his original comic cover designs). Interiors are from Diego Olmos, David Hahn, Bruno Redondo and Jason Masters./Film has a look at all four covers from the new books.

Thanks to cartersvillevol for the submission.

Good luck to actor Thom Hiddleston who, as Loki, has to duke it out with a beefed up Chris Hemsworth in Marvel's Thor. The film's heavy told MTV Splash Page that their battle scenes were intense enough as to result in injury. Hiddleston said that Loki's fighting style for the film had to be different from Thor's just because of the sheer size differences of the actors. So whereas Thor is about power, Loki is more balletic. Still the actor wasn't agile enough to avoid a critical blow from his sparring partner.

"There's a huge fight at the end — that's not giving too much away to say that it comes to a head," Hiddleston told MTV. The donnybrook between him and Hemsworth had been well-rehearsed. yet, when cameras rolled things got a bit too real.

"There was this move where I had to spear [Hemsworth] and he'd catch the spear . . . and then just pop the elbow up into my face," he said. "I'd been doing this quite nifty reaction — like great boxing closeups where you see someone get punched in the nose. on the fourth take, we got a little close, and in that split second, I thought, 'I've got too close. I'm going to get nailed.'

"[Hemsworth] just cracked me in the nose, and I was so stilled by the force of this thing," he continued. "Chris had huge arms at this point. his arms were the size of my head.

"he had to throw me across the room, and you can hear him going, 'Sorry, dude,' and then slinging me across the room," laughed Hiddleston. "Rivers of blood were coming out of my nose."

Look for Thom Hiddleston's blood, sweat and tears in Thor, coming May 6, 2011.

And if you're eager to see Gemma Arterton's boo-tay, there's a new trailer for the comic-strip based Brit rom-com Tamara Drewe over at Yahoo!

MTV Splash Page chatted up Karl Urban who is slated to play Judge Dredd in the all-new feature film. Unfortunately for him, the mention of a Dredd movie automatically elicits groans from fans who are still smarting from the less-than-stellar 1995 movie starring Sylvester Stallone. Urban wants fans to know that the new movie is not the old movie.

"I can say that the producers of this film are going to make a very gritty, hardcore, faithful adaptation of the comic," Urban told MTV. "[Comic writer John  Wagner], who created the character, and Jock, one of the key artists, have been on board as collaborators right from the beginning."

Urban has been racking up credits in high-profile comics and genre fare, including next month's RED, the upcoming manhwa adaptation Priest and, of course, his turn as Dr. "Bones" McCoy in Star Trek. Still, Judge Dredd represents his first shot at top-lining as a beloved comic book character, and one he happens to be a fan of as well.

"I'm thrilled to bits about this opportunity," said Urban. "I've been reading Dredd in one form or another for 25 years, so to be given the opportunity to portray such an enigmatic, iconic comic book character is one that I'm absolutely elated about."

The film is expected out in 2012.

You'd think a guy like Joss Whedon, flush-for-life on Buffy money, wouldn't have a care in the world. yet, the Sidney Morning Herald has published a fascinating and insightful interview with the filmmaker about his career, which (money aside) has seen more downs than ups, including the failure of his beloved Firefly TV show (canceled before he even wrapped production on the show's run), the movie follow-up Serenity and his new show Dollhouse.

And while Whedon may never have to work again in order to earn a living, those failures are painful. However, he told SMH it's the creative work that keeps him going, as evidenced by his recent experiences developing The Avengers movie for Marvel.

"right now I'm working on a movie that's got enormous stipulations and is going to be changing and fluid every second. I've come up with dozens of scenes and lines and exchanges and monologues that I adore that are not going to be in it," he told the paper. "but while I'm writing them they feed me, excite me and they ultimately inform the character. It all goes in."

The directing gig came at a timely moment for Whedon, who was in the process of mourning the loss of Dollhouse and going through his own custom cycle of grief.

"Yeah, pretty much. Anger, anger, anger. Anger. Bargaining," he deadpans. "honestly, this year with my career, I've been going, 'OK, is it over? Are they done with me and is it time for me to start doing really small or make a graceful exit? Because I'm OK. I have my family, I love to write, I'll always write, they can't stop me doing that. but maybe I'm not going to get my shot to reach a mass audience.'

"but then I got The Avengers. So, clearly, I'm an idiot," he said.

He went on to describe the Marvel movie as the job "I've waited for my whole life."

What do you think, Maniacs? Will Whedon's luck change with THE AVENGERS? Post your comments below…

Rob M. Worley is the writer and creator of the all-new, all-cat kids comic book series Scratch9 which arrives in comic shops on September 1st! Come see him on the 1st at Wonderworld Comics in Taylor, MI where he's signing copies of the first issue of the new book!

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