After four days, 125,000 sweating people, and one death, pop culture’s biggest advertising expo came to a close yesterday. While there was approximately one interesting/unexpected comics announcement at Comic-Con—Neil Gaiman is writing a new Sandman miniseries—the focus, as usual, was on film, videogames, toys, cosplay, and everything that isn’t comics. Here’s the movie news:
• As soon as he’s done shooting The World’s End—the final film in his loose trilogy with Simon Pegg that includes Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz—Edgar Wright is going to make Ant-Man for Marvel. The only other time Wright’s made a movie based on a comic was Scott Pilgrim. In other words, this is excellent. Marvel also confirmed that their next movie that isn’t a Thor, Captain America, or Iron Man sequel will be 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, a cosmic adventure based on a comic that exactly no one outside of the Android’s Dungeon has ever heard of. It will star a giant tree and also a raccoon with a gun. So… looks like we’re already digging into comics’ B- and C-list characters. (But not you, Black Panther! Apparently it’s easier to make a movie starring a space raccoon than it is to make one about a black guy.)
• Peter Jackson might squeeze even more blood out of the stone (Arkenstone?) that is The Hobbit. Now he’s threatening to drag out the short, breezy, kid-targeted Lord of the Rings prelude into three movies—more or less confirming everyone’s fear (fine, my fear) that while Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films worked because they compressed Tolkein, The Hobbits might not work because they’re bloating up Tolkein.
• Huh. Another Godzilla. All I can think of whenever I hear about this is Matthew Broderick, sitting quietly in a chair in his home, hoping his phone will ring.
• With his characteristic nuance and erudition, music video director Zack Snyder bragged that his Superman movie is “all about being awesome.”
• Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to District 9, Elysium is probably going to be fucking amazing (and not only because during filming Matt Damon was covered in shit). So is Guilllermo del Toro’s first film since Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim—of which del Toro says, “expect obscene robot porn.” Tarantino’s Django Unchained still sounds ridiculously great. Oh! And Looper. Looper will probably be fantastic.
• Shocking no one, the M. Night Shyamalan/Will Smith flick After Earth already sounds like kind of a clusterfuck.
• We finally found the person who liked Prometheus.
Wow, three Hobbit movies! That seems like too much. I reread the book recently, and can definitely see how there’s enough material for two solid movies. But I’m not sure about three. I guess maybe they can spend like 45 minutes in the mountain, trying on gold armor and talking about how hungry they are. I’d watch the shit out of that.
Paul Chadwick’s “Concrete” (Flagship character for Dark Horse) was loosely based on a “Guardians of the Galaxy” character. Of course, now you’re all wondering who he is…sigh.