Sleb photo site Just Jared has a jillion photos of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth.
Above, Schreiber wonders why all X-men villains must have gnarly sideburns.
Here, Jackman/Wolverine realizes that adamantium claws make the best damn apple slicer, period.
Wolvie may look a little downscale in these photos, but can we say (in the jump) that Jackman puts the abs in “abtastic Wolverine”!
Victoria “Posh” Beckham leads youngest son Cruz off to a birthday party for big brother Brooklyn the other day.
Post-baby and lookin’ good! That Luba movie is still calling you, Salma!
Former Catwoman Julie Newmar, who is 74, would like more gigs as a spokesperson, so she took out an ad.
We say she deserves a role in some superhero movie!
[Via Jezebel]
We haven’t been covering this story because, frankly, everyone else has, and also it’s just sad. The rampant speculation and tasteless grandstanding following the young actor’s death is typical and yet the accelerated pace in the internet era makes it even more instantaneous and unavoidable. Nonetheless, a few notes that are germane to the topics of this website:
• Warner’s Dark Knight movie site, which had been rolling out a viral marketing campaign using Ledger’s Joker character, has gone to a simple tribute to the actor,
• Comicmix has a short audio interview with the actor about his role as the Joker.
• While Ledger’s entire , no one is saying how much ADR work had to be done, EW reports.
Dark Knight director Chris Nolan and execs at Warner Bros., the studio releasing the film, were not available for comment, and have not issued any public statements about the status of the movie. EW placed a call to Oscar-winning sound designer and sound editor Richard King, who’s handling the Dark Knight audio work, but he declined to comment. According to several other sound-mixing experts who also declined to speak on the record, there’s no way to tell what the situation is with Dark Knight from the outside, since the amount of ADR required, and the timetable for doing it, varies wildly between films. (In plenty of instances, looping is not completed until very close to the final release date, perhaps as little as a month or two out.)
• The marketing campaign will probably need major adjustments. Various pundits and studio types analyze the situation here. The marketing exec who came up with the campaign recently left WB.
“Warners are in a difficult position. Initially they wanted to capitalize on the early buzz that has surrounded Heath’s performance,” Bock told AFP. “Now they’re going to have to do a 180 from that.”
While the death of an actor before a film’s release is not unknown, with famous examples being 1994’s “The Crow”, starring the late Brandon Lee, and 1956’s “Giant”, released a year after James Dean’s death, the situation with “The Dark Knight” was unprecedented in the modern era, Bock said.
“This is something we’ve never seen before,” he said. “On the one hand they have to pay tribute to Heath and the performance that he gives, but on the other hand this is going to be one of the biggest films of the summer.
• Ledger’s final film was with director Terry Gilliam, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Major shooting had been completed but much SFX work remained to be shot in Vancouver. It’s not the first time a Gilliam film has been plagued by tragedies and accidents. The film’s future remains very much up in the air.
• And finally, in the most enigmatic note, when former Joker Jack Nicholson was apprised of Ledger’s death (by papparazzi), he muttered, “I warned him.” Which doesn’t mean anything at all really, except where the Joker is concerned, you should always go out on a mystery. You can watch a video of the comment here.
It seems that Kiwi Karl Urban, who will portray young Doctor McCoy in J.J. Abrams upcoming STAR TREK XI movie, didn’t have to be persuaded to take the role: he’s a lifelong STAR TREK fan and actively went after the role:
Well, I’ve been watching Star Trek since I was, oh gosh, seven years old so I was very familiar with the original series and with those characters. I didn’t actually even have to go out of my way to re-watch old episodes. I’ve just been watching them for over 20 years!
Urban also reveals that his time signing autographs at SF cons was well spent, as he avoids the use of the pejorative term “Trekkie:”
I just will say that the project as a whole is very faithful to the original series and I think that J.J. has a very fresh and exciting approach and I think that he’s an incredibly talented visionary. I believe that he is going to reinvigorate this franchise in a really healthy, positive and exciting way. I really think that the Trekkers and the long time fans will be really pleased with it, because it really does honor the very spirit of what we are all really quite crazy about, in a good way.
Looks like its time to rev up our Karl Urban programme here at SBM!
We don’t watch HEROES all that often, but it seems that Claire and Peter are dating…or Hayden Panetierre and Milo Ventimiglia are. They denied it for months, but this photo of the pair wandering through a mall holding hands was the smoking gun, so to speak. Not that just holding hands necessarily means that a couple is knocking boots, but we think you’ll agree they certainly look like they WANT to.
Anyway, like we said, we’re weak in Heroes-fu, so we have no idea how shocking this is.
We know one thing: they both have names that are hard to spell.
First via Craig’s list, a Star Wars Guide to the Candidates, presenting President Wickabee and many more.
Speaking of Endor, that sort of weird foresty place where the Ewoks frolic and enjoy each other’s company, right-to-work laws, and a ban on gay marriage, who’d have ever thought Wicket, a Republican true believer in The Force, could ever have risen to lead such a traditionally Democratic tribe? I mean, it’s inspirational that he lost 105 pounds (he only weighs about 45 now!) and plays the bass, but can you really imagine introducing him to the UN General Assembly? “Ladies and Gentlemen, President Wicket!” How ridiculous. I don’t think so.
NEXT, Marc Bernadin at EW points out some similarities between Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and Edward Norton as Bruce Banner:
Apparently, Marvel superheroes are prone to wearing wifebeaters when making quasi-scientific advances.
Actually, we are told that Marvel employs the same trainer for all their superhero movies, which is one reason for the wifebeater look. Either that or Marvel Studios head Michael Helfant just has some kind of fetish.
Well in the press anyway. Bloggers Whitney Matheson and TV Squad have jumped on the bandwagon, even as James Urbaniak rides shotgun. It all started with this post on Venture Bros. creator Jackson Publick’s blog:
One sour note from the past month (aside from my car getting hit yet again) is that Mr. Stephen Colbert has decided not to reprise his role as Professor Impossible this season, for reasons which probably have something to do with him being all super-famous, super-busy, and no longer in need of a few hundred bucks here and there. We figured this would happen eventually, considering his monumental success in the years since our first season, but we held out hope that the WGA strike would leave him with enough bored free time on his hands that he’d have a go at it. But after getting shuffled around from his assistant to his assistant’s assistant to his agent to his manager, one of them finally shot us an email saying: “Stephen has neither the time nor the interest in participating in your project.”
Was the “nor the interest” really necessary? I would have bought the “time” part without question, but man…you gotta kick a guy when he’s down like that? Well maybe I’m not interested in your ice cream, mister! Or your book. Unless someone buys it for me for Christmas.
While everyone hopes this was the work of a WGA- Strike-saddened assistant, and not the man himself, it did lead Urbaniak to put Colbert on notice:
Developing.
PS: we recently saw Urbaniak in THE BENTFOOTES, a dance “mockumentary” co-directed by frequent Beat commenter Todd Alcott and choreographer Kriota Willberg, who is married to cartoonist R. Sikoryak, who drew “The Decider” comics for THE DAILY SHOW, which precedes THE COLBERT REPORT. You see how it is all connected? Anyway, THE BENTFOOTES was totally excellent, and we’ll remind everyone when the DVD comes out.
Latino Review takes yesterday’s Anne Thompson story and spins it into confirmation that Brandon Routh won’t be returning as the Man of Steel:
Kelvin knew about Brandon not being the new Superman for weeks and weeks now, but made a promise to the DC people that he wouldn’t break the story. Variety has now confirmed what we’ve secretly known for a while and Brandon Routh will be replaced in the stand alone sequel by whomever is cast as Superman in the upcoming Justice League of America movie.
While we can’t say we’re not surprised, we do think Routh looked the part and didn’t do a bad thing all things considered. Plus be made a fine butter statue. So…let his name be honored in the Superman Annals if this is true.
If you look closely the book he’s carrying is some kind of book about Dragons. Luckily, Wacko Jacko has not yet discovered yaoi.
Answer: What is pandering?
(NB: this is a still from the movie FANBOYS, in which some Star Wars nerds travel to Skywalker Ranch to get a copy of PHANTOM MENACE for their dying friend.
Death by Jar Jar?)
Christian Bale assays a rare pop culture two-fer as he signs on for the role of grown up John Connor in the planned TERMINATOR relaunch:
Bale will play Connor, now in his 30s, in the fourth installment of the “Terminator” franchise, to be set in the future. McG is directing the project, skedded for an April start in Budapest.
Bale has been rumored to be involved in the project for weeks, but there had been conflicting reports about his role.
What other such two time heroes are there? The original Schwazenator was both the Terminator and Conan, of course. Harrison Ford was Han AND Indy. Wallace Shawn was Wallace Shawn AND Vizzini. We’re spacing here…there must be lots more. Knock yourself out.
She really IS a Love and Rockets character:
The Mexican bombshell and recent mom reveals that as a child she prayed for more…assets.
She says, “My mom and I stopped at a church during a road trip we were making from our home in Mexico. “When we went inside, I prayed for the miracle I wanted to happen. I put my hands in holy water and said: ‘Please God, give me some breasts’. “And he gave me them! Within a few months, I developed a growing spurt, as teenagers do, and I was very pleased with the way I grew outwards.”
The Scream Awards were taped this weekend and Shock Til You Drop has a mega photo gallery . We like the above one the most. The gang was all there: Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Robert Rodriguez, BRUCE, Krisanna Loken, etc etc. Neil Gaiman received a special Comic-Con Icon Award from Spike-TV and the San Diego Comic-Con.
The show airs Tuesday on Spike.
We almost forget that actress Salma Hayek had a baby girl last week. Congratulations! Valentina Paloma Pinault is the first child for Hayek, 41, and fiancee Francois Henri Pinault, but great training for when Hayek plays mother of god-knows-how-many Luba in The Beat’s imaginary but much dreamed for adaptation of LOVE AND ROCKETS. And maybe even Salma is thinking the same thing: Paloma…Palomar….hm…..
BTW, the previous pictures of Salma Hayak we’ve posted are now the most Googled upon elements of this blog. Sad but true. We’re thinking this is one traffic-raising ploy that most of our readers will enjoy, however.
Diespite her hanging with the stars, Whitney has the right perspective:
It’s a shame Hollywood dominates the post-Comic-Con headlines, because there are so many more things going on than blockbusters and new TV shows. For one thing, this annual event is a gathering of some of the world’s greatest storytellers, and, if you know where to go, some of them will be willing to entertain you late into the evening.
And then she reports on the Sci-Fi/EW party with the paragraph that will most please our mother:
Hollywood folks there included Robert Downey Jr., J.J. Abrams, Jon Favreau, Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Zach Quinto, Colin Ferguson, Sarah Silverman and Brian Posehn. Cool comics folks there included Stan Lee, Ed Brubaker, Gabriel Ba, Douglas Wolk and Heidi McDonald. After that party I headed to the Hyatt, where several of these folks (including Galifianakis, Duke and Seth Green) continued to enjoy the evening in the hotel’s two bars. During the night, several people asked me if I was Zooey Deschanel. Weird.
§ Dave Astor has several reports from the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists’s 50th Anniversary convention:
Can editorial cartoons survive?
Before audience members came up with the suggestions, the problem was described by editorial cartoonist Paul Fell — one of the session leaders. “Part of the reason the AAEC was founded was a concern about the dimimishing number of editorial cartoon positions in the U.S.,” said Fell, a Nebraska-based creator syndicated by Artizans. “Here we are 50 years later and we’re facing the same problem — only now there’s roughly 25% of the staff positions [about 80]compared to 1957.”
Plus: Tooners on blogging
• Comments from Beat hero Helen Thomas.
• 3 cartoonists honored
• Various issues regarding the Mohammed Cartoons.
§ Phil Yeh talks literacy: as always.
Troubled by the fact that so many Americans were functionally illiterate, he organized a group called Cartoonists Across America to encourage kids to dive into books. Beginning with a cross country tour to 34 states and two Canadian provinces, Yeh (pronounced, “Yay”) and his cohorts appeared at schools, shopping malls, and other public spots to paint murals, enlist literacy tutors, and give away original comic books with a reading-is-fun theme.
§ Minnie Driver is the new Lara Croft in Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider, a new animated series from GameTap, Turner Broadcasting’s video-game-themed broadband network.
§ Jack Black, ‘tooner.
“I’ve been a big fan of cartoons, and I actually got in there and did some animating when I was in high school,” he says. “I won a prize. I won a Rocky & Bullwinkle for my don’t-drink-and-drive cartoon.”
It’s true — they both appear in a documentary by Kristin Maccary called The Altered States of America. The title of the film was inspired by a line from Mack’s Kabuki. Now you can’t see David in the clip, but you do see Noam Chomsky and although he doesn’t play lobby soccer, he’s almost as good.
Thomas Jane spills his guts to Quint at AICN about dropping out of the rumored to-be-horrible Punisher sequel.
I’m writing to tell you that I regretfully and painfully had to pull out of P2. I can’t tell you how completely broken up I am about it. After busting my ass at the gym four days a week for almost two years, watching every character driven action pic that any fan would ask me to watch while I was standing in line buying egg whites and Tuna fish (Leon the Professional, Oldboy, The Seven-Ups (GREAT flick), Point Blank, Escape from NY, The Driver, Magnum Force, The Mechanic, The Great Silence, Sexy Beast, Nighthawks, Cry Vengeance (check it out), Road Warrior, Man on Fire, Outlaw Josey Wales, Rocky (think about it), Serpico, etc etc etc.) after countless Saturday nights making notes and drinking soda water and munching on seaweed sticks while my daughter slept on my lap to the sound of automatic gunfire, (now she can’t sleep without it. I had to make a tape of automatic gunfire to play in her room at night) after hauling myself to any ‘Guns! Knifes! Ammo!’ show in any small town that I found myself in shooting Killshot or The Mist or Mutant Chronicles, after torn ligaments, screwed up rotator cuffs, thousands of $$$ on ridiculously huge vitamins, overly long conversations with frighteningly tall men about The Fastest Way To Kill Someone With Your Bare Hands, and after a dude refused to sell me a Fatburger at 2am on Santa Monica Blvd, I am, sadly – no, make that heartbrokenly – fuck it - just rip out the heart and stomp it into the pavement a couple of times – pulling out. Punisher fans are already fighting an uphill battle as it is. And I’ve always felt a responsibility to fight that fight for them and with them so that Frank Castle gets the treatment he deserves.
I’m sharing this with you because I know you’re a fan, like me, and you’ve got your ear to the ground, and because we seem to share the same sort of taste and passion when it comes to movies and stories that get us off. What I won’t do is spend months of my life sweating over a movie that I just don’t believe in. I’ve always loved the Marvel guys, and wish them well. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to search for a film that one day might stand with all those films that the fans have asked me to watch.
We know one thing, after reading this rather colorful email, we are more interesting in reading ALIEN PIG FARM 3000, Jane’s new image comic!
Cate Blanchett has been spotted out and about of late looking her usual impeccably fashionable self, but tongues have been wagging that she looks gaunt. But word is, she has lost a lot of weight for her role in the movie version of Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s CANCER VIXEN. She is GOING THE DISTANCE.
Jessica recently claimed she wants to be a “serious actress”, and does not want her movies to be all about “me in a bikini”.
Hagrid and Flitwick enjoyed the ancient custom of cheese rolling in a grand photo op in Stilton, UK yesterday. Warwick Davis, star of STAR WARS, HARRY POTTER, WILLOW and several other films, is a local, and was there to bless the festival with Ewok homilies. He was soon joined by Robbie Coltrane, who plays the giant Hagrid in the Potter pictures. The duo was united to participate in Stilton’s annual cheese trundling fest. You’d not be advised to slice up the prize cheese for a bit of Welsh rarebit, however : it’s actually a piece of wood.
Made out of a telegraph pole, the “cheese” is trundled along the High Street by teams of bizarrely-dressed competitors who brave tussles and tumbles to cross the finish line first.
This year, participants donning traffic cones, scarecrow outfits and electric pink bubble perms made up one of the most eccentric line-ups the race had ever seen.
Local celebrity Mr Davis, who has starred in films such as Harry Potter and Star Wars, kickstarted the action with a rousing speech.
Speaking beforehand, he said the magic of the festival lay in its novelty value.
“This is the fourth year I’ve opened the festival. You don’t see this every day and can’t see it anywhere else,” he said.
While we’re sad that in this day and age you can’t use actual cheese to roll down the streets, we’re glad there is an Internet.
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