A first, pioneering effort at cosplay in space has been halted by a shocking development: Space tourist Daisuke Enomoto has failed his physical:

A Japanese businessman seeking to become the world’s fourth space tourist has failed a medical test and cannot fly to the international space station next month, a Russian space agency official said Monday.

Daisuke “Dice-K” Enomoto, 34, was to be launched in a Russian Soyuz vehicle from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the next space station crew on September 14. However, Roscosmos spokesman Igor Panarin told The Associated Press that Enomoto “was deemed not ready to fly for exclusively medical reasons.”

Another person will be chosen to fly with U.S. commander Miguel Lopez-Alegria and Russian flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin, Panarin said.

Unmentioned in the CNN report was Enomoto’s bold plan to dress as Char Aznable from GUNDAM during takeoff.
The thin, reedy geek had trained hard for his 10-day space trip;:

Flying to space is not as simples as writing a fat check. The Japanese entrepreneur has also already gone through intense training at Russia’s cosmonaut school outside Moscow for the last few months.

He can now swim 800 meters in 22 minutes, four minutes shorter than when he started his training months ago. He has been put in a capsule in the Black Sea to train to remove his equipment quickly in case of a water landing.

“I’m kind of a nerd. I don’t exercise,” he said. But now, Enomoto said, “I’m getting in good shape.”

Evidently not good enough. Enomoto is not the first space tourist to fail his first physical — if he gets his physical conditioning up he could still take off at a later date. The dreams of cosplayers everywhere go with him.

Tim Allen’s film ZOOM is challenging ELEKTRA and CATWOMAN as the worst comic book movie in history, and those are some big spandex tights to fill.
Cinematical reveals that ZOOM has achieved the extremely rare feat of rating 0% Positive at Rotten Tomatoes.

And now … drum roll please … we are thrilled to announce the eighth arrival in the Rotten Tomatoes 0% Hall of Mega-Shame! Starring Tim Allen (of The Shaggy Dog (27%), Joe Somebody (14%), Jungle 2 Jungle (10%), Christmas with the Kranks (4%) shame), and directed by Peter Hewitt (of Garfield: The Movie (13%)) is Zoom, recipient of 39 reviews — all nasty. Congrats to all of those who worked extra hard on turning Jason Lethcoe’s comic book series into one of the very worst movies of a very bad movie year.

For instance, Ty Burr at the Boston Globe called it “Shabbily filmed and resolutely unfunny.” SHABBY! Jeannet Catsoulis at the NYT panned “Too infantile for tweens and too stagnant for tots, Zoom bleeds boredom from every frame.” STAGNANT! Truly we are raiding this page for future insults for all occasions.

[Cover now floating around the blogosphere, taken from Lee Barnett who got it from Steve Gerber, who got it from Dave Kraft, etc.]

UPDATE: WAIT! THE INTERNET HAS SPOKEN.

Apparently this cover originally had COVER LINES and they explain why Jimmy is crying. You can see the REAL cover here.

As you all know by now, SNAKES ON A PLANE, the internet driven movie phenomenon which saw Samuel L. Jackson intoning “M—–f—in’ snakes on a m—–f—in’ plane!” everywhere nerd hipsters congregate, was a first place flop — a mere $15 mil in BO, and that contested, being padded by every available preview penny.

Now let’s get one thing straight. You’ll find very, very few mentions of SNAKES ON A PLANE, or SoaP as it is known, on this here blog. We are not primarily a movie blog, to begin with, and even more bluntly, we live in a world of m—–f—in’ COMIC BOOKS, DUDE! SNAKES ON A PLANE! TEENAGE MUTAnT NINJA TURTLE! TOO MUCH COFFEE MAN! THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT!…Wait that was a movie…but anyway, as a comics nerd, we’re pretty much hardened to that sense of ironic fun and post-modern histrionics that SoaP seemed to be speaking to in the blogosphere — heck, when we’re in the mood for ironic silliness, we just create our own!

This is, however, a pretty colossal failure of Hollywood’s continued wooing of the Internerd. Bloggers seized on this movie as if it were their own invention, becoming cozy marketing partners with the guy who was in PULP FICTION.
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We make no bones here at Stately Beat Manor about our admiration for the work of Rick Veitch. We said that before he was our boss, we said it while he was our boss, and we say it when we’re just pals again. From his early short stories for EPIC ILLUSTRATED through THE ONE and his work on SWAMP THING and his own twisted Heroica line, his voice is a disturbing and powerful one, asking questions that need to be answered. His work takes us to the place where we find they can never be answered.

Thus, one of the happiest pieces of news that we heard from San Diego is that he’s back doing an original monthly book, ARMY @ LOVE, for Vertigo. Veitch will be both writing and pencilling the book, with Gary Erskine inking. According to an interview at THE PULSE:

Veitch said several things influenced his decision to do a story like this. “Part of it is looking at the news and seeing what a horrible situation the world is in right now,” he said. “It seems like the whole of Southern Asia is boiling over in a cauldron of war, while we here in the West are living fairly normally. Death and destruction are shown continually on our TV screens and we seem to pretty much ignore it. And another part of it is old television shows like HOGAN’S HEROES, that turn war into situation comedies. I got thinking if I made a black comedy of a war that was still happening, rather than twenty years after the fact like M*A*S*H, it might make an interesting counterpoint to the real violence going on right now. These are relationships that you might find on SOPRANOS or SIX FEET UNDER.”

Sign us up, Pilgrim! (You can see some preview art illustrating this posting.)

Veitch’s last work to appear was the OGN CAN’T GET NO, which has received some of the most intelligently glowing reviews of any mainstream comic of the past year. (Disclosure: we were the acquiring editor for the book, although we had zero to do with the production.)

Veitch has collected some of the reviews in this thread at Comicon, but it’s worth quoting a few:
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BY PAUL O’BRIEN

Well, here’s something I never thought I’d see - a month where most of the six-month comparisons are going up. July was an extremely good month for Marvel, mostly thanks to CIVIL WAR. On top of that, X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN get new creative teams, a new GHOST RIDER title launches, and the BEYOND! miniseries begins. Once again, Marvel are the runaway market leader. They beat DC in dollar share by 40.4% to 33.9%, and in unit share by 44.3% to 35.9%.

One of Marvel’s big July events isn’t on this chart at all, though. The HALO GRAPHIC NOVEL is over on the graphic novels chart, where it made number 2 with orders of 10,528. Not a desperately huge audience by direct market standards, but it doesn’t matter - a book like HALO is aimed at a wider audience and its sales won’t be confined to the direct market stores.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

Since our new home at the Beat has rather narrower margins, last month’s tables suffered from a bit of line wrap. The obvious way round that is to stop repeating the whole title in every single line. So…

1. CIVIL WAR
May 06 #1 (of 7) - 326,400
Jun 06 #2 (of 7) - 299,964 (-8.1%)
Jul 06 #3 (of 7) - 290,709 (-3.1%)

See, isn’t that so much nicer?

Now then… CIVIL WAR. Once again, the line-wide crossover sprawled across Marvel’s output in July. If you’re keeping track, it clocks in at one issue of CIVIL WAR itself, seven tie-in issues in regular titles (it was meant to be eight, but FANTASTIC FOUR didn’t come out on time), four issues of special CIVIL WAR tie-in miniseries, a SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN issue about Spider-Man losing his mask, the Director’s Cut of CIVIL WAR #1, and a mock CIVIL WAR Daily Bugle newspaper. In other words, thirteen issues of actual story before you even get to the variant covers. And every one is raking in the sales.

The book is also performing well in re-orders. As always, the extra copies are included in the numbers above. Issue #1 sold a further 47,880 in July, comprising 32,878 copies of the Director’s Cut edition, plus normal reorders of 15,002 (which would include the variant covers). Issue #2 had reorders of 46,108, surely also driven in part by variants. Still, a sale is a sale, and the fact is that even on the US direct market numbers, CIVIL WAR is consistently selling around the 300K mark - an incredible performance to sustain for three issues.

But.

There’s a catch.
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Queenie Chan has finished THE DREAMING 2 and posts cool header art at her LJ:

The Dreaming (Book 2): Is finished. YAY!!! All 181 pages of it, plus a 3-page mini-manga at the end. Jesus, whatta heckuva month. It’s going to be out on November 22, and while I made the deadline, it was no fun experience since there was a major muck-up with my schedule. It turns out that the schedule laid out in my TOKYOPOP contract was wrong. In my contract, it said that everything was due on October 6th, but actually the due date was August 22nd. I found out after mid-July, and while having 6 weeks shaved off your schedule will kill most people, luckily I was a month ahead of schedule. That was what saved me, really - being 1 month ahead of schedule meaning that I had to work extra hard to fill in those 2 other weeks, but otherwise I made it. Now that it’s over, I can get back to bulletin-boarding and essay-writing, which I have really missed. I also got a new editor - Paul. Unfortunately, my former editor Carol is too busy to handle “The Dreaming” now. It’s a bit sad, but she was a good editor and I hope she’s coping well with her new workload.

Reader Joel Johnson has done a huge service to comics by purchasing and making high res scans of Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work an elegantly simple primer to basic storytelling that has existed in the internet age as a small, bad scan.

I’d seen “Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work” around the net here and there for several years, always as a low-resolution scan of a copy that was clearly the product of dozens of generations of photocopies. As a comics fan and occasional artist who absorbed what little drawing skill I have by copying and tracing comics when I was a teenager, I found the juxtaposition in Wood’s piece telling. Here was a working artist distilling his craft into 22 panels that could be used to teleport across the occasional creative wasteland, yet each example was dashed off with effortless skill. I live by very few maxims, but there’s at least one I’ve found useful: Fake it ’til you make it. In Wood’s piece I could see an artist who had clearly made it but hadn’t forgotten the practicality of the occasional shortcut.

In the blog posting, Johnson reveals the history of the famed piece, including writer/editor Larry Hama’s account of its creation: :

I worked for Wally Wood as his assistant in the early ’70s, mostly on the Sally Forth and Cannon strips he did for the Overseas Weekly. I lettered the strips, ruled borders, swipe-o-graphed reference, penciled backgrounds and did all the other regular stuff as well as alternating with Woody on scripting Cannon and Sally Forth.

The “22 Panels” never existed as a collected single piece during Woody’s lifetime. Another ex-Wood assistant, Paul Kirchner had saved three Xeroxed sheets of the panels that would comprise the compilation. I don’t believe that Woody put the examples together as a teaching aid for his assistants, but rather as a reminder to himself. He was always trying to kick himself to put less labor into the work! He had a framed motto on the wall, “Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.” He hung the sheets with the panels on the wall of his studio to constantly remind himself to stop what he called “noodling.”

It’s a fabulous context for one of the most famous pieces of visual advice in comics history.

Modern Tales is debuting nine new strips today, new Editor Shaenon K. Garrity announced. Most of them were selected by her predecessor, Eric Burns, as editor of the site. Creators include Benjamin birdie, Chris Shadoian, and more. Complete list in the link.
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Fanboy Radio is streaming a bunch of podcasts, including yesterday’s live Mark Millar broadcast:

The most successful comic book writer today, Mark Millar returns to Fanboy Radio. In this non-stop, fast-paced, edit-free hour Mark speaks with hosts Scott, Oliver, Sean, TJ and answers your calls about Civil War, the delays that have inflamed comic fans, The Ultimates, Superman Returns, Millarworld books and many other hot topics. The guys even squeeze in another popular ‘SUB OR FLUB’ segment.

The entire McCloud clan will be live guests on Wednesday.

PLUS…Ed Brubaker’s pals have made a parody video of the now infamous Comic Foundry Wizard blog:

That is not Ed, BTW. ben10 pornbengali porn filmsbenassi porn video bennyberlin porn festivallaws pornograpghy bermudabesality pornbest 2bpornbest porno adult sites Map

In what could very well be the Rosetta Stone for graphic novel sales analysis, The Book Standard takes a look at their Comics & Graphic Novel Chart which is taken from the Bookscan sales chart, which tracks actual book stores sales.

The rankings on the Book Standard’s Comics & Graphic Novels Chart fluctuate week after week: At any given moment manga publishers could release the latest volume of a popular series that grabs the No. 1 spot, only to be replaced shortly by a competing brand or the next volume in the same series. Also, movies based on superheroes could bump existing graphic novels that have been in stores for years to the top. One thing is consistent, however: TokyoPop and VIZ dominate, the majority of their titles reaching No. 1.

This week, TokyoPop’s cash cow, Fruits Basket, story and art by Natsuki Takaya, sits atop the Comics & Graphic Novels Chart with its 14th volume for the second consecutive week. The powerhouse Fruits topped the chart 15 weeks in 2005-more than any other brand on the chart-and six so far this year.

The story includes the actual Top 100 2005 COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVEL SELLERS. For your convenience, here’s the top ten:

1. FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: VOL. 1, Hiromu Arakawa (VIZ, 1591169208, $9.99)
2. NARUTO: VOL. 1, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ, 1569319006, $7.95)
3. NARUTO: VOL. 6, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ, 1591167396, $7.95)
4. NARUTO: VOL. 2, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ, 1591161789, $7.95)
5. SIN CITY: THE HARD GOODBYE, Frank Miller (Dark Horse, 1593072937, $17.00)
6. STAR WARS, EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH, Miles Lane (Dark Horse, 1593073097, $12.95)
7. NARUTO: VOL. 7, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ, 1591168759, $7.95)
8. FRUITS BASKET: VOL. 7, Natsuki Takaya (TokyoPop, 159532402X, $9.99)
9. FRUITS BASKET: VOL. 10, Natsuki Takaya (TokyoPop, 1595324054, $9.99)
10. NARUTO: VOL. 3, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ, 1591161878, $7.95)

Now, all you have to do is check out the leaked Bookscan chart here, and you know, within the ballpark, how much these titles sold. Just to ruin the suspense, FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST VOL. 1 is listed as selling 67,781 copies on the leaked chart. Bookscan generally reports about 70% of sales, so adjust ballpark accordingly.

The Toronto Star investigates the great Toronto Convention War:

There is a secret war brewing in this city’s comics scene.

Like any story set among spandex-clad vigilantes, this one conforms to some of the rules of the four-colour world. Just like Daredevil’s nemesis the Kingpin, one man wields influence over his vast domain. And just like the Justice League, disparate souls have formed a group to fight what they see as his oppressive power.

To an outsider, it could all be a source of great amusement: a nerd fight. And the nerds are fighting over one of the nerdiest things of all: a comics convention.

But to the parties involved, the subject is deadly serious. To explain why they’ve got their mylar bags in a knot, allow us to introduce the cast of characters.

In the piece Hobbystar’s Aman Gupta denies ever having told exhibitors who went to the rival one day Paradise Comics show that they were not welcome at his show. This statement led to retailer Daryl Collison, who sent around an email detailing the alleged blackballing, to walk around the Paradise show, held this weekend, with the placard you see here, in a photo by Jamie Coville. More of Coville’s photos from the show here.

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THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Anne Thompson looks at the summer’s superhero bockbusters and concludes that although X-MEN: THE LAST STAND may look like more of a box office hit that SUPERMAN RETURNS, Warners scored the ultimate win by luring Bryan Singer over to their team.

Singer was the creative force behind the “X-Men” franchise, and now he’s gone. Ratner is not in the picture; the sense in Hollywood is that Fox scored with “Last Stand” despite the director, not because of him. With its “X-Men” actors now too expensive to reassemble, Fox is proceeding with development on two “X-Men” spinoffs, starring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (David Benioff and David Ayer have written drafts) and Ian McKellen as Magneto. The bloom is definitely off the “X-Men” rose. One could argue that in the long term, the studio would have been better off paying Singer to keep him or waiting to get him back.
[snip]
But what really mattered to Warners was the successful relaunch of its franchise, and to that end they wanted to keep their director happy — even if it meant letting him deliver a two-hour, 40-minute movie. “If Warners goes ahead with the ‘Superman Returns’ sequel,” says producer Don Murphy (”From Hell”), “then they’ve ended up well because they’ve gone from having a wannabe franchise to a real franchise.”

The lengthy piece is well worth reading in its entirety as a snap-shot of Hollywood’s superhero industry.

Chris Arrant interviews Takeshi Miyazawa, a Canadian manga artist who is taking the ultimate step of moving to Japan, because if you can make it there you can make it anywhere.

Arrant: Can you tell us what, specifically, your intentions are in regards to making comics in Japan. Can you point to examples of other people doing what you’re planning on?

Miyazawa: I think the closest example is what Paul Pope tried a few years ago with working closely with Kodansha to introduce western creators to the Japanese manga market. Unfortunately, I read that his work was never published. Geez, it woulda been awesome… I’m hoping the stage will be a little different for me. As for specifics, I’m aiming to apply to a few anthology magazines that I’ve been following and that I think would suit my approach and style. I really want to follow the standard path that all artists there seem to tread. So, applying to one of the seasonal contests, getting some sort of notoriety and then being put on a weekly or monthly. The work would be in black & white of course.

More gushing over 300 at Ain’t It Cool News

Gawker weighs in on CRACKED:

There are a few comics that wouldn’t be out of place in ye olde Cracked, and there’s an eight-page spoof of ESPN Magazine that probably cost more than any six issues in the mag’s past format. Prose pieces are more Spy-like, especially a characteristically funny riff on face transplants by Banterist’s Brian Sack. The only real low notes are an appearance from militantly unfunny male shtick act Maddox and occasional glimpses of throwaway kid-culture references in the vein of Chuck Klosterman (callouts to both GI Joe and Thundercats cartoons?).

Found via our TrackBack, the blog Orange Tablecloth Front appeals to Wizard to make its conventions more indie-friendly.

Cinematical looks at seven of the 1970s’ Freakiest Sci-Fi Flicks including Logan’s Run and Zardoz, etc. Yes, those were the days.

Several comic geeks speak about, um, Civil War, at the podcast Comics Geek Speak, including

creator Beau Smith, noted comics journalist Heidi MacDonald and outspoken retailer Brian Hibbs. We also hear from two listeners David D. and John Mayo, include commentary from Augie De Bliek Jr’s Pipeline Podcast and read responses from various retailers. If you haven’t heard the news, now’s the time to listen.

A shout out to Peter for working with The Beat’s rather erratic schedule to allow us to participate.

A sneak peek at a rough cut of 300, Zack Snyder’s new film based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel, was held the other night, and everyone signed a non disclosure then went out and posted on the internet. The one’s we’ve seen have been overwhelmingly positive. Here’s one such post from Millarworld:

When I first heard about this adaptation, I was worried that Zack Snyder and company were just going to ape what Rodriguez and Miller did with Sin City. I was very surprised by the Comic Con presentation, and now having seen the rough cut, I think Snyder did an amazing job not only in terms of it adapting the comic, but of making a great film.

Not only is it faithful to the comic, the performances blew me away. I’ve never given much thought to Gerard Butler. but his performance blew me away.

Seriously, instead of waiting until next March to release this, they could send it out now with a temp score and half done effects and it would still be one of the best movies I’ve seen all year.

The downside of this was listening to the people next to me while they filled out their comment cards. One claimed that [spoiler snip]’s speech at the end should be trimmed because ‘it sounded too Republican’.

I spoke with Zack Snyder following the movie. He was blown away by the crowd’s response. I mentioned to him that [snip]’s speech at the end was brilliant, and he shouldn’t listen to what my aislemate said. Luckily, he said he fucked up when shooting that scene because there’s no way to edit it. Thank God.

As a side note, my friend and I asked him about Watchmen. He said a big hurdle with the studio right now is whether or not it’s important to set the movie in 1985. He’s pushing for it, they’re resisting it. Here’s hoping the success of this movie can help him get more of a say if they actually go ahead with that project.

As a side note, if WB would like to invite very, very discrete internet journalists to any MORE rough cut screenings…well, the words it out.

We’ve received information that indicates that THE COVENANT, the upcoming horror film, is not so much based on THE COVENANT, last year’s graphic novel, as they were developed concurrently. A story from last summer in CBR sums it up:

The Sony Screen Gems film, produced in association with Sandstorm Films, has already been green lit with production to start this fall. But before the film comes out you’ll get a chance to enter the world of “The Covenant” in the form of a new four issue original graphic novel to come this September from Top Cow and Spacedog, Inc.. The book is by “Crossing Jordan” writer Aron Coleite (”Proximity Effect”) and artist Tone Rodriguez (”Violent Messiahs”). [snip]

“The Covenant” graphic novel features a story that takes place prior to the events in the upcoming movie and follows a group of four families whose patriarchs wield a vast eldritch power. Those powers have been passed down from father to son for generations.

Ha ha ha ha, they said “eldritch.”

Just for the record, we received a little note from Dave Gibbons saying that as far as his recollection goes, only the LAST issue of Watchmen shipped late and it still hit the schedule they had given DC Comics. Before that, it shipped monthly. We’re going with Dave on this one, so watch out how you play that WATCHMEN card….it may just be a joker!

UPDATE: We’ve had a private communication with ANOTHER member of the Watchmen creative team who confirms that only the last issue shipped late. Combined with Brian Hibbs’ indicia evidence from the comment section, we think this provides solid, solid evidence, that WATCHMEN, the late great comic, the one that everyone uses as a shining example of a book being late but good, wasn’t really all that late by today’s standards. One issue, one month late.

We suspect that the memories of lateness may be because it was just so damned good you were standing at the comics shop peeing your pants in anticipation waiting for it. BECAUSE IT WAS SO GOOD YOU JUST DIDN’T WANT TO WAIT.

So, to all you latenicks out there, if you really want to use WATCHMEN as an example of the schedule you can keep… KNOCK YOURSELF OUT!

We have no idea what this cover which we found on an LJ is for, but it seems appropriate for a Friday afternoon.

The HALO graphic novel, based on the best-selling videogame, has proven to be a rare hit for the videogame-to-comics genre. The book has debuted at #2 on BOTH the Bookscan and Diamond charts, and the buzz around the watercooler is that there are 80-100K copies in print.

Based on the best-selling videogame, the Halo Graphic Novel reached #2 on the BookScan list of graphic novels sold in bookstores, the highest position of a non-manga, non-movie tie-in graphic novel in years. It also debuted at an impressive #33 on Amazon.com.

In fact, the Halo Graphic Novel has sold so incredibly that a second print will be available within weeks.

The reviews have been pouring in from numerous media outlets praising the video-game’s expansion into the world of graphic fiction.

Andrew Smith of Scripps News Service says, “It’s an excellent graphic novel for comics fans…it’s also undoubtedly a must-buy for anyone who loves the game because it fills in so many blanks.â€?

Hilary Goldstein of IGN.com says, “Considering the large audience who has played these games, this is a book that belongs in a few million homes. Master Chief’s first journey into comics is a brilliant success.â€?

Wayne Oliveri of UGO.com says, “Marvel knows how to make comics, and this hardcover has the highest production values. It’s a colorful, well-designed book.â€?

Wook Kim of Entertainment Weekly says, “All in all, this is an impressive effort, given a handsome and solemn presentation.�

Mark Millar will be the live guest on Fanboy Radio this Sunday. Gee I wonder what he will talk about!

“This is Mark’s third appearance on the program and it couldn’t come at a better time� Scott Hinze, host of the show says. “Civil War is good medicine for the comic industry but it’s also generating a lot of heated opinions. I will do everything in my (very limited) power to present the radio and podcast audience a good time with the hottest writer in comics today while trying to cover all sides of the different conflicts.� Show host, Oliver Tull adds, “What a great chance to talk with one of my favorite writers, catch up on his work and practice my Scottish accent!“

Tune in for Fanboy Radio #326 this Sunday for Fanboy Radio with Mark Millar at 6pm Central (7pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific) and give the show a call at (817) 257-7631 – and everyone who makes it on the air will receive a Free FUNimation DVD!

Fanboy Radio broadcasts from http://www.fanboyradio.com and podcasts from http://www.fbrpc.com

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MORSE extension get converted into morse code songs.

The movie version of Mark Millar and JG Jones’ WANTED hasn’t been much heard of since the Eminem kerfluffle, but it is moving forward and James McAvoy, who played kiddie-fiddler Mr. Tumnus in THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE has been cast as the lead! Timur Bekmambetov directs from a script by 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS’s Derek Haas and Michael Brandt The film is expected to be an R, and is but one of a number of modestly priced nerd-friendly films coming from Universal:

The movie is a priority for the studio and is expected to go into production in first-quarter 2007 with a budget of less than $100 million. “Wanted” likely will be the first production under the studio’s new plan of making cutting-edge action movies that are reasonably priced yet have international appeal.

“With the convergence of new visions and new technologies, the genre is changing,” Universal president of production Donna Langley said. “We want to capitalize on it with filmmakers who have an affinity for working in these kinds of worlds. The model is reasonably priced action movies, movies that deliver, but look like they cost twice as much.”

The studio has quietly lined up some of the filmmakers it considers suited for such an approach. Last week, Universal hired award-winning commercial director Neill Blomkamp to helm “Halo” and this month added Guillermo del Toro and his “Hellboy 2″ to its slate. It also has writer-director Edgar Wright (”Shaun of the Dead”) attached to “Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life,” which it hopes to make next year.

Meanwhile, ICv2 reminds us—and probably many others—about a comic book movie coming out later this year that had completely slipped our notice, Reny Harlin’s The Covenant, based on the Top Cow book by Aron Colette and Tone Rodriguez.

The Covenant, which is a dark fantasy saga involving five teenage warlocks whose bonds of friendship are sorely tested as they are about to come into full possession of their powers as they turn 18, is just the sort of film project that could become a “sleeper” hit in the theaters this fall when it debuts on September 8th, or, if it fails to get wide theatrical distribution (like A Scanner Darkly), it might find its audience on DVD. Either way it’s a project that retailers may well want to watch closely.

Speaking only for ourselves, we have been seeing trailers and ads for this movie incessantly on the kind of boy themed shows we watch, and had NO IDEA it was a comic book movie. Anyway, DEFINITELY something to keep an eye on.

Moving away from lyrical, blood soaked sagas of loyalty and honor, director John Woo is moving into comics a little teeny bit, with his creation of SEVEN BROTHERS to be written by Garth Ennis and published by Virgin Comics. But it seems the helmer has been pondering the nature of our heroes, as a recent query on Yahoo! answers shows

Our fascination with comic superheroes is time-tested. Why do we continue to relate to them?

Woo existential question received 2506 answers, but the one he chose
covered many aspects of our fascination with the long underwear set:

I think it is partly because we are looking for beings that are good and more powerful than we are to protect us from the big bad guys whom we can’t fight on our own. Human beings have always liked myths and pantheons of gods and tales of heros. Think of the stories of the Arabian Nights, and the tales of miracles and prophets and things.

Of course, Woo may not have been actually pondering his next project, but merely wondering why so many people get upset when Civil War #4 doesn’t ship on time.