The recent announcement that there was another Dungeons & Dragons movie in the works at Warner Bros was met with the usual enthusiasm by fans for the RPG franchise, but it seems that the usual Hollywood complications may be interfering with just how soon we see a finished film.
Confused yet? Well so is Hasbro. The toy company is claiming that they own the rights to any Dungeons & Dragons film since they bought D&D developers Wizards Of The Coast several years back. Hasbro, it turn, has a development deal with Universal Pictures, with whom they produced last year’s Battleship, also based on Hasbro-owned property. “Hasbro owns the intellectual property rights to Dungeons & Dragons, period, because of Hasbro’s acquisition of Wizards Of The Coast in 1998,” said Wayne Charness, a spokesperson for Hasbro.
However, Warner Bros. asserts that Courtney Solomon, director of the 2000 bomb called Dungeons & Dragonsstill has the rights to develop a D&D film, which he’s now doing at Warners as a producer with David Lee Johnson (Wrath of the Titans) now penning the screenplay. Meanwhile, Universal has producer Chris Morgan (five out of the six Fast & Furious movies) guiding its own adaptation of D&D.
This has all the makings of another Spider-Man or Hobbit years long legal battle over who owns the rights to what. I guess the point is don’t hold your breath for a new D&D movie for sometime in the near future.
If you’re a Dungeons & Dragons geek like I am, then you probably remember the horrible pain that struck your chest when you watched that god-awful movie that was produced around the title back in the year 2000. Even though the property provides tons of material to work with, the makers of the film managed to screw it up so bad that it literally left people with a bad case of the runs. Now, however, D&D may be getting a chance to redeem itself, as Warner Bros. has just purchase the rights and plans to make a new Gary Gygax-inspired flick.
Of course, if you look at the details, your hopes may be crushed.
A man by the name of David Leslie Johnson is currently in charge of the script. Some of you may know him for his work on the action-splat dud, Wrath of the Titans. Others may know him as the writer of some mediocre episodes of The Walking Dead. He’s not the worst, but he’s not exactly a creative genius. To add to the doubt, one of the producers has a history of being involved in that 2000 D&D movie fiasco.
So the project, while it definitely looks to be in the works, is up in the air creatively. It may come down to who wants to take on the role of director of the film. Can we get someone as passionate as those who have been jumping onboard the super hero movies as of late? Or will this just end up being yet another Lord of the Rings copycat flick with zero brains behind it?
I remain optimistic, because there’s seriously a lot you can do with D&D if you put your mind to it. The success really depends on whether or not they can find people that are willing to put themselves into it. Btw, if anyone at Warner Bros. is reading this, I’d write a D&D script in a heartbeat and it would be way better than that shit movie made in 2000. Feel free to message me.
When Warner Bros. announced the development of Man of Steel,you prolly noticed a certain name missing from the title. You’d think a movie about Superman, would have “Superman” in the banner, right?
So, why is it not called Superman: Man of Steel? Oddly enough, this question came up in the most recent edition of Empire Magazine‘s podcast with guest David Goyer, screenwriter for Man of Steel.
In response to this great mystery, Goyer said:
“I would say that the marketing began early on in that we decided not to call it Superman, that was very deliberate.
That was Chris [Nolan] and I, Man Of Steel, and Warner Bros. said, ‘Why?’ And we started talking about it, and we said, ‘We want a line of demarcation in the sand between the old and the new.’ We always knew we would be using the Superman glyph or the shield as we call it. But Man Of Steel was also supposed to represent our take, which was he’s a man, but he’s not made of flesh and blood, metaphorically he’s a man of steel. So that was sort of like the whole thing wrapped up in a nutshell.”
I don’t think anyone had any real issue with the new Superman film being titled Man of Steel, but there’s your explanation. They simply named it that way to show off their new direction of the franchise. Understandably so. They gotta distant themselves from that failed Superman Returns flick from a few years back. Works for me.
Man of Steel hits theaters everywhere June 13th, 2013.
With the success of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign, it seems that everyone and their brother wants to save their pet project. SMGO.tv had that thought anyway, when they wanted to save the recently cancelled animated series Young Justice and Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Warner Bros, DC Comics and Cartoon Network pulled the plug on these shows, but the producers at SMGO.tv wouldn’t go quietly into that good night, and decided to raise the money themselves through Kickstarter. Bold move, but sadly it was not meant to be.
“Hey all, I’ve been trying (all day) to come up with a slightly better way to say this, but I’m just going to give it to you straight. Warner said no – they don’t think we can reach our goals – do you believe that?”
I do believe that, actually. I admire their noble ambition, but it’s no easy feat to fund an animated series indie-style, let alone two. “A” for effort, but it was never going to be practical I’m afraid.
In the meantime, you can enjoy Cartoon Network’s new DC-based series Beware the Batman and Teen Titans Go! So there’s that.
Movie fans love posters, it’s what use to give us our first look at movies until the Internet let us peer into Hollywood movies months in advance. Although, that hasn’t stopped studios from doing awesome poster reveals, because today, not one, but two high-profile movies and a mystery film released their new posters for our wandering eyes. Lucky us!
First off, the Superhero movies…
Marvel Entertainment released their new poster for The Wolverine featuring the menacing Silver Samurai, who was revealed in a snippet from last week’s trailer. Then we have Warner Bros. who showed off their shiny new Man of Steel banner featuring Supes in space.
Both of these posters are pretty cool and show off both companies clever production value, but the Man of Steel posters has been drawing comparisons to Superman Returns. Seeing as the studio is looking to bring new life into the franchise, they probably should have steered away from Warner Bros. most recent black eye in comic book adaptations.
On the other side of things, Edgar Wright debuted the third and fourth posters to The World’s End, the big finale of his “Three Flavors Cornetto” trilogy. With very little to go on, other than knowing it’s based in science-fiction, Edgar has kept everyone in the dark. Until the official teaser trailer come out on Wednesday, these posters, both from the UK, only add to the mystery of what the hell is going on?
With all the visuals going into Warner Bros. Man of Steelyou would almost forget that it’s filled with very talented actors. One actor in particular, leading man Henry Cavill, has been receiving a sea of praise as the new Superman, but did you know he almost missed his chance thanks to World of Warcraft?
Any lingering doubt you had about Pacific Rim maybe not being big or bold enough is about to go out the window. Shown originally at WonderCon earlier this month, Warner Bros. has uploaded the footage for us all to enjoy. And enjoy it you will. Giant robots. Fighting giant kaiju. And Idris Elba. What’s not to love?
I’m pretty damn impressed, are you? My jaw was gaping at the end. I mean, it swung an oil liner as if it were a baseball bat!
Sure looks that way. On the Facebook fan page for Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures new Godzillaremake yesterday, the below picture was posted with the caption, “Path of Destruction.” Not sure where this is supposed to be in the context of the film, but if you said that it looks like British Columbia, you’d be correct because Godzilla is indeed shooting in and around Canada’s western-most province right now. (No word yet on how a Godzilla attack is going to affect the current provincial election in B.C., and between you, me, and the lamp post Liberal Premier Christy Clark can’t take any more bad news.)
Here’s the shot from the Godzilla set courtesy of Geek Tyrant.
Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards (Monsters) and starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairn, Bryan Cranston,and Sally Hawkins, is scheduled to be released on May 16th, 2014.
04-24-13 • Comics, FilmPosted by Adam A. Donaldson
I think we’re kind of getting tired of asking this, but I have a feeling we will until Zack Snyder signs on the dotted line of a contract to direct the Justice Leaguemovie, so let’s just ask it anyway: Is Zack Snyder going to direct Justice League?
In the issue Empire, the point was brought up again. Here’s what was written:
Both filmmakers [Zack and Deborah Snyder] know the proof will finally be in the watching, but there are rumblings about the breakfast counters of rival studios that Man of Steel is turning out very well indeed. Plans are being hatched, they say. Warner Bros.’ long-term view has been revised to embrace this new vision, just as the Dark Knight films resisted the commodification of Marvel. Whether we get a Justice League, they say, depends on Man of Steel. If we do, they say, Zack Snyder will be asked to direct.
It sounds like there’s a lot of speculation inside the business that Snyder is going on to Justice League after Man of Steel, which plays into the wider speculation that Man of Steel is going to be the movie to beat this summer. It also sounds like Warners’ own game is in the process of changing given this news of Man of Steel’s alleged awesomeness, and if that follows with tremendous box office success in June, then the trinity of Snyder, screenwriter David S. Goyer and producer Christopher Nolan may find themselves getting some Justice League-related phone calls this summer.
We’ve loved seeing the awesome viral marketing and trailers that Warner Bros. has been releasing for Man of Steel, we also loved it when they released a slew of new images. The marketing team for the director Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel recently released a series of high resolution images from the set, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
Most of these have already been seen, but at least there’s a first look at actress Antje Traue as Faora in her full Kryptonian costume. Even though Antje looks physically intimidating as the follower of Zod, her armor isn’t as heavily built as those already seen worn by Michael Shannon and Russell Crowe. It looks like something out of Skyrim honestly, but if you’re looking for a computer background now’s your chance Superman fans.
Check out all the high-definition images in the gallery after the jump. (more…)
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