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Friday, September 29, 2006

Muchos Chic Geek Movie News!

No wonder I couldn't sleep last night -- I must be psychically-linked to entertainment news -- I woke up this morning, and the first three headlines I read have to do with geeky movies:
Warner Bros. has already bought the rights to the yet to be released novel, Here There Be Dragons, by James A. Owens. The book is a weird sort of "based on true events" fantasy, where future fantasy greats, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, and Charles Williams, travel about a fantastic globe dotted with the lands from popular fantasy myths and legends. There will be a series of both books and movies. The books are set to be released annually in October.

Robert Downey, Jr. will play Tony Stark (Iron Man) in the first comic-book movie adaptation fully produced by Marvel Entertainment itself. With a budget of over $100 million, this is the first time Marvel has not licensed the use of their characters to another company, as it has done with X-Men, Spider-Man, and others. Downey, like the character he will portray, has had a very public battle with substance abuse and lobbied hard for the role.

And, lastly, Seth Green of Robot Chicken, Family Guy, and Austin Powers fame (not to mention at least a million other things), has signed a two movie deal with Dimension Pictures under their Stoopid Monkey Productions banner. The first will be a stop-motion animated Christmas story and the second is being kept under wraps, but will be live-action and co-written by Robot Chicken writer, Tom Root.

4 comments:

Mayren said...

ok granted that i had no idea who was actually suitable to portray Tony stark for Iron Man - but Robert Downey Jr.???? Seriously?

Seriously?!?!

Manodogs said...

I know, I thought the exact same thing. And in the article cited, some spokesman notes that it was the 'perfect casting choice' -- almost like he was pre-emptively defending their decision.

Still, since I read it, and noted in the article where Downey is said to have grown a goatee and been working out, I can see it. A young Raul Julia would have been perfect. I'm interested to see how it turns out, but I tried like hell to get into Iron Man and just couldn't. I still have a very impressive run in a "to sell" box in the bedroom...

Oh, how I wish I'd sold those and all the rest before the bottom fell out of the industry...

Reel Fanatic said...

Seeing Downey's name as the selection this morning just made me smile .. it's an acknowledgemenat that Iron Man is more about brains than braun, and I think he will be fantastic

Manodogs said...

Did you get into the comic, Reel? I tried pretty hard -- got a slew of them off a friend for like $10.00 or something -- and I tried reading them a few times, but just wasn't that into it. The movie sounds promising, and I'm really interested in seeing Downey as Stark. I want to see a picture of him like "in character" (not necessarily in costume) just to see what he looks like.

Everyone said the same thing about Michael Keaton when he was first cast as Batman.