SPLASH PAGE has some idle talk from Patrick “Night Owl” Wilson about his contractual obligation to sign for a sequel which everyone knows is looney, but then that’s why they call it an obligation:

“Even the guys from ‘300’ might have had a sequel,” said Wilson. “It’s the most ridiculous option. It’s sort of a financial way to protect the studio, and I would do the same thing.”

But could “Watchmen” ever have a sequel — and furthermore, would he want to be in it?

“Certainly, artistically, I can’t fathom how it would happen,” said Wilson. “But hey, if Alan Moore writes it, I’d love to read it.”

The piece ends with the small exhortation:

What do YOU think, readers? Is there any way a story like “Watchmen” could (or should) receive a sequel?

Come on, now — we say, in words of one syllable: GET A GRIP!

DC’s December solicitations contained the usual amount of interesting stuff, and the usual amount of “colon spin-offs*” but in addition, two items of more than passing notice.

#1, There’s going to be a new hardcover printing of classic Alan Moore SWAMP THING, and this time it will include the never-before-reprinted SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #20, in which Moore “wraps up the previous storyline and sets the stage for the groundbreaking tales that were to come” in addition to the more usual #21-#27 stories. Available in February the book will run you $24.99 for 208 pages.

The other note was at long last the finale to WINTERMEN by Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon in a double-sized issue wrapping up the story.

WINTERMEN WINTER SPECIAL #1
Written by Brett Lewis
Art and cover by John Paul Leon
Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon’s carefully crafted, acclaimed epic reaches its oversized conclusion! Combining the Super Hero genre with a sociopolitical thrill ride, this finale will leave readers breathless! Who lives? Who dies? And what will befall the Wintermen?
On sale December 31 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS

Considering that the last issue came out two years ago, and we remember reading a B&W photocopy of the first issue in 2002, this has to be the most tortured — and yet highly praised — miniseries of all time. After all the heartbreak of getting this produced, asking Wildstorm to collect it might be a bit much, but it will certainly have better reviews than most of the stuff they publish, so let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Are you tired of ASBARTBW #10 yet? We’re sure many people are. As if the poorly masked swearwords weren’t enough, apparently a scene where Batgirl hits ‘em where it hurts was removed, as tracked down by blogger Ty Buttars, who quotes inker Scott Williams:

And when the infamous All Star Batman and Robin #10 comes out in it’s sanitized version, this page will not appear as it does does here. Batgirl was redrawn so that she does not take out her attackers by putting the squeeze on the “jewels”. One of MANY alterations this issue has gone through.

Buttars links to a Spanish-language page by Ferran Delgado that has a before and after–you’ll have to go there for the full-sized injury to the nads.

Frankly, we’re a bit surprised that this was removed. Based on our recent moviegoing experiences viewing movie trailers — there is nothing funnier than an injury to the nads. It’s a universal law, like “Batman wins.”

[Thanks to reader BS for the link.]

Technorati Tags: Injury to the nads.

Geoff Boucher of the LA Times does the journalistic thing, and calls Frank Miller for comment on the ALL-STAR BATMAN #10 controversy:

The issue was written by Frank Miller who didn’t even know about the dustup until we called him. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. I have no idea how this awful thing happened. It’s just one of those terrible and glorious things that happen time to time in publishing.”

Miller, caught as he was about to jet to Germany to promote THE SPIRIT, wants to get three copies for his own personal collection.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

For the DC Comics’ mainstream line of periodicals, July was the most eventful month in ages. Although the company’s big blockbuster Final Crisis missed its July shipping date, the series saw its first couple of spin-off books with Final Crisis: Requiem and Final Crisis: Rogue’s Revenge. The popular “Batman RIP” storyline returned with a vengeance, meanwhile, and began spawning crossover arcs in the secondary Batman books. There also were a Justice Society of America Annual, Ambush Bug and Reign in Hell, as well as - just in time for the new film - a whole bunch of Batman-related specials and miniseries. And quite what on earth was going on with Trinity in July, we can’t be certain, but I’m taking a brave stab at an educated guess, anyway.

As far as Vertigo and WildStorm’s periodical departments are concerned, the most notable thing that happened in July was probably the fact that three of their new releases failed to make the Top 300. In fairness, July was a month with five shipping dates for new material and an unusually high bottom line for the charts. But that’s happened before, and it’s never pushed any Vertigo or WildStorm periodicals off the chart until now. Vertigo’s average periodical sales continued to be stuck below 11,000 in July. At WildStorm, the latest Wildcats relaunch and an X-Files adaptation failed to get average periodical sales back above the 10K mark again.

The lateness of the column this time around is entirely my fault, by the way. After relocating several times in the last few weeks, my computer decided to call it quits and crashed, just when I’d finally settled down. My apologies to all for the delay, especially to Heidi and Paul, whose Marvel piece has been done for quite some time.

See below for the details, and please mind the disclaimers at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

5 - BATMAN
07/2001: Batman #593 —  43,654*
07/2002: Batman #605 —  52,635*
07/2003: Batman #617 — 146,601 [158,844]
07/2004: Batman #630 —  69,026 [ 70,414]
07/2005: Batman #642 —  65,435
07/2006: Batman #655 — 113,567 [123,903]
——————————-
07/2007: Batman #666 —  83,781 (+ 4.6%)
08/2007: Batman #667 —  78,578 (- 6.2%) [ 82,418]
08/2007: Batman #668 —  76,962 (- 2.1%)
09/2007: Batman #669 —  73,471 (- 4.5%)
10/2007: Batman #670 —  76,890 (+ 4.7%) [ 86,049]
11/2007: Batman #671 —  76,764 (- 0.2%) [ 80,440]
12/2007: Batman #672 —  71,189 (- 7.3%)
01/2008: Batman #673 —  69,234 (- 2.8%)
02/2008: Batman #674 —  68,208 (- 1.5%)
03/2008: –
04/2008: Batman #675 —  71,138 (+ 4.3%)
05/2008: Batman #676 — 105,039 (+47.9%) [122,877]
05/2008: Batman #677 —  96,116 (- 8.5%) [111,065]
06/2008: –
07/2008: Batman #678 — 103,213 (+ 7.4%)
—————-
6 months: +49.1%
1 year  : +23.2%
2 years : - 9.1%
5 years : -29.6%

Grant Morrison’s “Batman RIP” arc keeps Batman sales far above their previously established level. Between June and July, the first two chapters of the storyline also sold a combined 33,000 units in reorders. So, all told, it’s one of DC’s bigger hits of late, trumping even previous successes like the “Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” and “Sinestro Corps War” crossovers.

What the three publishing events have in common is that they’re stories centered on specific characters, rather than celebrations of the DC Universe as an end in itself. There may be a lesson in that.

As with the two previous issues, there was a 1-for-25 variant-cover edition of Batman #678, which means that retailers had to order 25 units of the regular edition to qualify for ordering one variant-cover edition.
(more…)

If you were wondering whether some retailers might just not destroy their copies of ALL-STAR BATMAN #10, but rather dip a toe into the eBay waters, well, you may look no further. There are, as of this writing, some 179 results for the book on eBay, with bidding over $100 on a few of them. Buy-it-now movement has been brisk, with copies typically going for $39.99 to $59.99.

While most of the copies probably came from stores (retailers in the East and Midwest got their copies from Diamond, while Western stores did not), some stores are selling them through personal accounts to avoid whatever steps DC or Diamond may take to shut down the sales.

[Regular Beat commenter Torsten Adair attended the just-concluded Diamond Retail Summit in Las Vegas, sat through every presentation, and typed up his notes for us. A first installment ran yesterday in PW Comics Week with updates on the POS system, the Comic Shop Locator system and more. Here’s a summary of the rest of the announcements. Parsing through it, the biggest news, from a business standpoint, appears to be both Image and Dark Horse adopting the “Final Order Cut-Off” system through Diamond, meaning retailers can raise or lower orders for specific titles much closer to print dates, allowing more accurate ordering. The system has done well for Marvel and DC to increase periodical sales (retailers can order with more confidence) and could do the same for Dark Horse and Image.]

by Torsten Adair
• Diamond’s new warehouse:
At Monday’s breakfast, Cindy Fournier, Diamond Vice President of Operations, presented the new distribution warehouse moving from Memphis, Tennessee, to nearby Olive Branch, Mississippi. Six years ago, Diamond moved from Sparta, Illinois, to its present location in Memphis, renting a 225,000 sq. ft. facility. Today, they occupy three buildings with 350,000 sq. ft.

The new facility, built to Diamond’s specifications, will occupy 600,000 sq. ft. It will utilize modern technology, using Radio Frequency Identification and voice recognition software to assist with efficient distribution of product. Computer cartonization will calculate the volume of the product on each shipment and then select the optimal carton size, thereby reducing waste.

An implementation date for the new warehouse has not yet been publicized. Diamond plans to finish the move before the holiday season, preferably by late October. 6,000 skids, or 300 tractor trailers, of product has already been transferred. Diamond offers over 20,000 SKUs and 20,000,000 items, so reordering will be suspended for one week as non-comic book product is transferred, then later, comic books and graphic novels will be unavailable for six to ten days. New product will ship directly to the new warehouse, and won’t be affected.

Since the move is less than ten miles from Diamond’s current warehouses in the Memphis area, all of the warehouse management staff, and 98% of the warehouse employees will transfer to the new location. UPS shipping will continue from the current hub.
(more…)

UGO has an interview with director DJ Caruso in which the EAGLE EYE helmer gives all sorts of info on the proposed Y: THE LAST MAN movie, including the idea that it may be a SERIES of movies. He also speaks on casting choices — Shia LaBeouf is still a front runner for Yorick but other parts are still speculative:

UGO: We’ve heard rumors about Alicia Keys playing 355?

DJC: Well, she’s actually not a bad choice. She’s definitely not a bad choice. She’s definitely someone to consider. I thought she did a really cool job in the Carnahan movie (Smokin’ Aces) which was a lot of fun. So yeah. So really, the one thing, I think I’ve mentioned this to you, I’m going for, and it’s not quite there yet on the page. I’d love to have sort of a (Robert) DeNiro/(Charles) Grodin relationship between 355 and (Yorick). Kind of a Midnight Run relationship…I think Alicia’s a great girl and everything but I have to make sure that she can handle the acting part of it.

Caruso plans to have Ampersand played by a real monkey, dashing rumors that he would be played by Mickey Rooney in make-up. Much more info in the link, including BKV’s involvement.

Thought: This will be one movie that passes the Bechdel test, eh?

As revealed in a few comments here and around the web, and confirmed by several insiders, the reason for yesterday’s ALL-STAR BATMAN #10 recall was language. Writer Frank Miller had requested all the issue’s profanity be lettered in,, and then covered with a black bar. However, although it looks fine in the proof stage, when it was printed, the black bars were transparent enough to read the offensive language. Funnybook Babylon has the scans:

In an email, Nat Gertler speculated on the production error:

“Just having looked at scans over the Internet, it looks to me like the lettering is printed using just black ink, while the bars were put on a different layer using “rich black”, which is a mixture of all four color inks. “Rich black” makes a darker, more vibrant black. On the computer screen, it would all just look black, but the difference will be visible on the printed page.”

Those who suggested the “goddam Batman” had done this or that were far closer than they knew to the truth.

Technorati Tags: Batman wins

Jeff Lemire’s blog previews The Nobody, his upcoming GN for Vertigo.

Well, it looks like the slow news day may be ending, as DC is requesting that this week’s shipment of ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #10 not be put on shelves. This morning, a Diamond advisory went out:

***** SHIPPING ADVISORY: DC COMICS’ ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #10

Dear Diamond Customer:

Please be advised that copies of DC Comics’ ALL-STAR BATMAN & ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #10 (FEB080203-4D) may be included in your September 10 shipment.

At DC’s request, please do not place this book out for sale to your customers. Instead, please destroy any copies that you receive. You will be credited for these copies on your September 17 invoice.

Diamond apologizes for any inconvenience this creates for you or your customers. If you have additional questions, please contact your Diamond Customer Service Representative. Thank you.

DC has had problems with already-printed books being deemed unsuitable for distribution before. Notably, a story by Kyle Baker in which a baby crawled into a microwave forced a run of an “Elseworlds” special to be destroyed, and concerns over a Victorian ad for Marvel Douche caused the run of LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN #5 to go into the hopper. It’s more unusual for a comic to be shipped out and recalled, although a special Best Buy edition of that LoeG that was was a gift with purchase of the DVD had to be recalled when the material was found to be a bit strong for the chain.

DC had no comment on the reasons for the return. However, sources close to DC suggested that a printing problem was probably the culprit.

While at this hour we don’t know exactly what caused the problem, it’s unlikely that all copies of the issue will be destroyed. In fact we’re guessing that if your store owner really likes you, you may just be able to get a copy.

With Diamond’s retailer summit underway out in Las Vegas, expect this to quickly become topic A on the gossip circuit.

Developing.

This week’s DC purist thorn of pain comes from the new issue of TEEN TITANS, in which Wendy and Marvin, two characters birthed from the insufferable SUPERFRIENDS cartoon, return, only to be savagely slaughtered by Wonder Dog, who then feasts on their grisly remains.

That is how to do it! I understand that SUPERFRIENDS is a low point, not just in superhero history but the annals of animation (indeed, the name Margaret Loesch in the credits must be seen as one of the true harbingers of cartoon doom.) It is only fitting that Wendy and Marvin get what was coming to them.

Plus, let’s face it, if Grant Morrison or Alan Moore had written this issue, we’d all think it was genius.

James Jean announces he’s leaving FABLES to concentrate on his own art:

“This is a difficult email for me to write. Don’t worry . . . as far as I know, I don’t have any tumors or crippling neuroses, and my taxes are in order. But I feel like I’m breaking up with the prom queen on prom night, after having dated through grades 6 - 12. Feeble analogies aside, it has been an amazing opportunity to work on Fables these past 7 years (8 this October). But I feel that it’s time to devote myself full-time to painting and personal work. Shelly and I talked yesterday, and my last cover will be 81, at the end of the story arc. It has been a true privilege to work on a team that has produced such great chemistry on paper, and to have been a part of such an important book that has entertained and drawn together so many people.

As usual, he’s going out on the same heart-stoppingly beautiful level he came in on.

This story in the WSJ reveals that DC Comics’ days as the shy, studious librarian of the Warners empire are doneski, as Warners bets on a new film strategy with DC at the center. The plan involves fewer films but larger tentpole opportunities for each of them. And all eyes are on DC:

“Films with our DC properties have the opportunity to support other divisions in the company in a way that our other movies don’t,” Mr. Robinov says, for example, with products such as a Superman game or toys. By 2011, Mr. Robinov plans for DC Comics to supply the material for up to two of the six to eight tent-pole films he hopes Warner Bros. will have in the pipeline by then.

These will not be chipper films, like the crash-and-burn of SPEED RACER:

Like the recent Batman sequel — which has become the highest-grossing film of the year thus far — Mr. Robinov wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as “The Dark Knight.” Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.’ DC properties. “We’re going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it,” he says. That goes for the company’s Superman franchise as well.

News of the film slate is forthcoming:

The studio is set to announce its plans for future DC movies in the next month. For now, though, it is focused on releasing four comic-book films in the next three years, including a third Batman film, a new film reintroducing Superman, and two movies focusing on other DC Comics characters. Movies featuring Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman are all in active development.

MEANWHILE, back at the ranch, Val links to a report from the Toronto DC panel which suggests that the new word at DC itself may be “stable characters you can build a franchise on”, at least per Dan Didio.

“What happens is that if a character doesn’t work, we go, ‘We got a brand new direction to put him in! We’re moving him into something new! We’re going to try something brand new and different! We’re going to throw everything out and start over again!’ We make that mistake, but what that does is, it alienates fans.

“Our biggest mistake is that we don’t continue and build on…what we should be doing is let it sit for a while and then come back with a good strong story with what’s going on. That’s what Geoff [Johns] does. That’s Geoff’s secret weapon. He doesn’t throw it all out and start all over. He builds on what’s existed and makes it better…We get too worried about the minutia…all we should be doing is telling great stories with out characters.

“What we’re doing coming out of ‘Final Crisis’ ” and I’ll say this here, and I’ll say this everywhere ” is that we’re locking our characters down. We’re going with a good interpretation, and we’re staying with it. That’s why you don’t see Aquaman right now, because we want it to be clear what it is, who he is and what he’s all about.”

Given THE DARK KNIGHT’s history-making box office performance, it’s unthinkable for DC’s superheroes to remain the wallflowers of the Warner universe. Not one but TWO stories in Variety on Friday pointed this out.

The first puts DC’s superheroes into the wider picture of Warner’s release schedule:

It’s a tentpole whose supersized budget for top talent, lavish action sequences and special effects can pay off big time by selling a helluva lot of tickets — and raking in the dough for other divisions, including TV, homevid, merchandise and vidgames.

If Warners got its way, it would have at least four of those blockbusters a year. Yet the studio is light on tentpoles next summer. Make that most of 2009.

With nothing but the Green Arrow prison drama directly on tap, things look so thin that HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE had to be moved to Summer ‘09 to prevent this year’s Batman-led profits from completely shaming next year’s more modest slate. Here then is the problem: WB’s development feeder.

The other article is a more direct look at what will be done with this potential gold mine of superheroes:

The Time Warner comic-book arm is sitting on a stable of well-known superhero properties like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Justice League, but has been slow to develop the bigscreen adventures.

Getting the movies made would involve many of Warner Bros.’ other divisions — including TV, homevid, consumer products, online and vidgames — that would create tie-in projects for release around the films.

“They need a lot of lead time and it all needs to be choreographed,” Robinov says.

Yet with the dearth of tentpoles next year, those same divisions will have little to work with and will have to focus on more classic product like Looney Tunes.

In other words, the way forward isn’t yet clear. The article quotes WB studio head Alan Horn and production head Jeff Robinov, along with DC’s main movie man, Gregory Noveck, senior VP of creative affairs.
Noveck hasn’t yet emerged as the kind of Avi Arad-like figure who can convert lines on paper to lines in the theater. Robinov may be too preoccupied with larger studio matters to specifically oversee DC’s development.

What this article clearly suggests is that some changes will be made in the way DC movies are moved through the pipeline.

“We’re having a lot of internal discussions on it,” Horn says. “We haven’t committed to any change at DC at this point,” adding that both Warners and DC are committed to turning “the properties into viable movie product in an intelligent way so that we introduce them like planes on a runway. They have to be set up the right way and lined up the right way and all take off one at a time and fly safe and fly straight.”

As expected, THE DARK KNGHT finally fell to number 2 at the box office, although it took a superteam of Nacho Libre, Iron Man and Zoolander to stop him, with a cameo by Ethan Hunt.

Nonetheless, DARK KNIGHT is now officially the second biggest grossing domestic film of all time, and expect a new cottage industry of psychoanalysis as to why. The Guardian lays out various theories in the link, and you know it is serious whenever someone uses the word Manichean!

“Nolan turns the Manichean morality of comic books — pure good vs pure evil — into a bleak post-9/11 allegory about how terror (and, make no mistake, Ledger’s Joker is a terrorist) breaks down those reassuring moral categories,” writes Dana Stevens in the online magazine Slate. If the references weren’t obvious enough, the Time magazine critic Richard Corliss calls the Joker “the Bin Laden of movie villains”.

Both conservatives and liberals have been rushing to claim that The Dark Knight has become such a phenomenon because it validates their beliefs about the ethical issues at the heart of the war on terror. “There seems to me no question that The Dark Knight is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W Bush in this time of terror and war,” the conservative novelist Andrew Klavan writes in The Wall Street Journal. “Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.”

Technorati Tags: Batman wins

First it was 200K, then 250K, then 300k…now the NY Times reports that 900,000 more copies of WATCHMEN have been printed since the trailer debuted. Thus there will be about one million copies of WATCHMEN in print this year. Last year, about 100,000 copies were sold.

Kremlinologists will have a goddam FIELD DAY with this long piece in the New York Times on Time Warner’s new strategy entitled: Holy Cash Cow, Batman! Content Is Back at Time Warner, which details CEO Jeff Bewkes effort to dig TW stock out of the AOL-induced doldrums, an effort to which the success of DARK KNIGHT is integral:

Mr. Meyer is the chairman of Warner Brothers, the Hollywood studio behind “The Dark Knight,” and the film has had its debut at a transformative moment for his studio’s parent, Time Warner.

In an effort to focus more sharply on “content creation” (or what nonsuits still like to call movies and television shows), Jeffrey L. Bewkes, who became chief executive of Time Warner in January, is whittling down the company’s many branches.

It’s a makeover that will unravel about two decades’ worth of mergers that created the company in its current form, putting its trophy studio, Warner Brothers — as well as the ups and downs of moviemaking — more directly in Wall Street’s glare.

Time Warner, initially the amalgam of the old Warner studio and the Time Inc. magazine empire, grew to include Turner Broadcasting, America Online, a cable company and such prized cable channels as HBO. Some analysts have had a hard time embracing this goliath as it has grown into the world’s biggest media company.

The story does not mention DC Comics; however it does mention that TW’s publishing arm is under scrutiny:

It is less clear how the Time Inc. unit, which publishes magazines like Time, People, In Style, Fortune and Sports Illustrated, meshes with Mr. Bewkes’s strategy. According to Time Warner insiders, the company is likely to shrink the publishing unit to just a handful of the most profitable titles. Some analysts predict that Time Warner might try to sell the publishing unit en masse, but only if market conditions improve.

Fortunately, DC Comics is, famously, part of the entertainment division and not part of the publishing arm, a move facilitated over the years by Paul Levitz. One imagines that whatever has been going on with Time Warner of late has also been going on with DC, and this almost certainly ties in to the widely reported “DC movie retreat.”

As someone who’s been in the content production business for a couple of decades, the most interesting quote of all was this:

For Mr. Bewkes and his team, the core of the strategy is a wager that the media pendulum will swing away from distribution and back toward content.

Ya think? That’s one bet we’ll take.

The goddam Batman is rewriting the history books, staying on top again with $26 million to beat the stoner action comedy PINEAPPLE EXPRESS’s $22.4 mil. DARK KNIGHT just passed SHREK 2 to become the third highest domestic grossing film, just behind STAR WARS, which it is expected to pass this week.

An LA Times wire story wonders why a DARK KNIGHT video game has failed to appear:

It’s not as if an interactive “Dark Knight” wasn’t gearing up before the film’s release. Game publisher Electronic Arts had the rights to make a “Dark Knight” title, which EA-owned developer Pandemic Studios was working on, according to an EA manager who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information is proprietary.

Gary Oldman, the actor who plays Gotham City police officer James Gordon, said in a recent interview with cable network G4 that he had seen a “tiny little piece” of “The Dark Knight” game and described a sequence with Batman realistically gliding across rooftops.

Beyond that, details about the game have been as concealed as Bruce Wayne in the Batsuit. Representatives for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, EA and Pandemic would not comment for this story.

Frankly, we don’t quite know what they’re talking about.

The spectacular hospital explosion in DARK KNIGHT was actually a closed Brach’s candy factory being blown up. Some fellows make a pilgrimage to the site as it stands today.

Thanks, RJ.

Technorati Tags: Batman wins

We’re told this is very funny if you read DC comics.

It’s just a wild, wild guess at this point, but there seem to be some rumors out there that there could possibly be another Batman movie with Christian Bale and Chris Nolan. Just possibly. Splash Page polls comics pros on just who should be the villain if this HIGHLY, HIGHLY speculative movie gets made:

Brad Meltzer (“Identity Crisis”): “The reason the Joker worked is because he’s insane, and Batman is also crazy. You need someone who is more than evil. Anyone who saw Tommy Lee Jones as the cackling lunatic knows that.”

Grant Morrison (“Arkham Asylum”): “Ideally, you want another movie with Heath. Without him, Catwoman, but really think that one through. Give her a new take.”

Technorati Tags: Batman wins

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

In June, DC Comics’ periodical business was mostly defined by all the things that didn’t happen. Final Crisis #2 didn’t seize the top spot. The new weekly Trinity, DC’s big launch of the month, didn’t make the Top 10. The third chapter of “Batman RIP” didn’t show up in stores as scheduled; neither did All Star Batman, Reign in Hell, The Legion of Super-Heroes, Robin, Blue Beetle, Fables, The Exterminators or Northlanders. At Vertigo, the launch of the new monthly Madame Xanadu didn’t much affect average periodical sales. And at WildStorm, average periodical sales didn’t increase from May’s historical low. See below for the details, and please mind the disclaimers at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

3 - FINAL CRISIS
05/2008: Final Crisis #1 of 7 — 144,826          [151,704]
06/2008: Final Crisis #2 of 7 — 126,082 (-12.9%)

The bad news first: There’s no sign that the poor performance of Final Crisis in comparison with other blockbuster comics is due to an accounting glitch or because retailers massively misjudged demand when they placed their orders. So far, the numbers we see appear to be an accurate reflection of the book’s reception in the market place.

On the other hand, the second-issue drop in June is relatively small, particularly for a book selling above 100K. Marvel’s Secret Invasion, by comparison, saw a 27.1% drop for its second issue in May, shedding almost 70,000 units, as opposed to the 20,000 copies Final Crisis lost between its first two issues. Final Crisis #1 also made the chart again in June, selling an additional 6,878 copies.

Neither of these things suggests that retailers are rushing to make some significant course correction here, mind you, and Final Crisis sales are still in a different league from those of Secret Invasion. But the modest drop and the reorders may be a hint that the audience is slowly coming around to the book, after all.

Like the debut issue, Final Crisis #2 was promoted with a 50/50 variant-cover edition.

Batman #678, the third chapter of the much-hyped “Batman RIP” arc missed its June shipping date, meanwhile, and didn’t come out until July. The first two parts of the story both made the chart again in June, however, selling an additional 11,809 and 7,959 units, respectively. That’s quite significant, and it suggests that “Batman RIP” is a hit.

(more…)

He just went roaring past on his scooter:

In only its 18th day in release, Warner Bros.’ “The Dark Knight” reached the $400 million mark in domestic sales on Monday, grossing $6.3 million for a cume of $400.1 million.

That easily beats the 43 days it took “Shrek 2″ to jump the $400 million boundary.

THE DARK KNIGHT is expected to pass $500 million domestically, making it the second highest grosser of allllll tiiiiiime, right after TITANIC.