The great and iconic Stan Lee has passed away at the age of 95. Tributes have pored in from other celebrities as you can see below.
Thanks for everything Stan Lee! What a life, so well lived. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have gotten to meet you and to have played in the world you created. 🙏♥️ pic.twitter.com/ryUjG7PL8D
Here’s a cool story about Cleveland Browns running back Fozzy Whittaker who is definitely a serious Captain America fanboy.
University of Texas football coach Mack Brown chuckles at the memory of his starting tailback Fozzy Whittaker ambling across campus with a Captain America backpack strapped across his shoulders.
“He didn’t care whether people made fun of him,” Brown said. “Fozzy is who he is and he’s very proud of it.”
The Browns running back-kick returner owns Captain America figurines, Captain America T-shirts, Captain America gloves and socks, Captain America boxers and briefs, Captain America costume and shield.
The rest of the article goes on to explain how Fozzy became a huge comic book character fan through his mother. It’s an inspirational story. The video above was filmed when Fozzy was still playing for the San Diego Chargers and goes into his collection of Captain America memorabilia and other items.
When it was announced that Jon Favreau would not return as director of the third “Iron Man” film, the producers surely fielded offers from every name director in town. So how did Shane Black land this gig, again? The guy hasn’t written or directed a feature film since 2005′s “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” and yet here he is, doing that Shane Black thing once again, only this time with superheroes, while trying his best to streamline his R-rated ways for a PG-13 audience. As it turns out, “Iron Man 3″ works, but just barely, and it’s more in spite of Black’s influence than because of it. At the beginning of the second act, Black begins to get in his own way, and for anyone familiar with his work, it’s not long before a strong case of deja vu sets in. He even set the movie during the holiday season, just like “Lethal Weapon.” And “The Long Kiss Goodnight.”
Here’s the new “Man of Steel” trailer, and it looks pretty good.
Daniel D. Snyder takes stock of the current state of superhero movies in the wake of the release of The Dark Knight Rises” and discusses what’s next.
When The Dark Knight Rises leaves theaters (probably sometime after the sun has gone out), it will mark the end of arguably the most commercially and critically successful comic-book movie franchise of all time. Save for Marvel’s loosely connected Avengers films, no series will have grossed more money at the box office, been subjected to more acute critical analysis, or garnered such devotion from both genre aficionados and outsiders.
This is all great for comic-book movies, which have now proven themselves not only to be a source of revenue but of genuine artistic worth. But what happens now? Has the genre peaked? In the wake of The Dark Knight Rises, it’s time to look at the future of comic book movies and see where they might go from here:
The DC/Warner Bros. partnership is screwed
Warner Brothers, which owns DC Comics, is in no danger of folding, but their stake in the comic-book movie market is about to shrink dramatically. Looking at the somewhat surprising success of Columbia Pictures’ Spider-Man’s “unnecessary” reboot ($500 million so far worldwide) a mere five years after its last installment, it may be tempting for Warner Bros. to get Batman back in theaters as fast as possible. But The Amazing Spider-Man had the benefit of following the commercially successful but critically reviled Spider-Man 3 (it wasn’t exactly like most fans felt director Sam Raimi’s legacy would be spoiled by the reboot). Considering the success and inevitable enshrinement of the Dark Knight trilogy, Warner Bros. would be wise to put as much distance as they can between Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film and the Caped Crusader’s next adventure.
Warner Bros. execs’ best hope for the future is next year’s Superman reboot, Man of Steel, but they’ll be relying on an iconic brand to overcome the deficiencies of its director, Zack Snyder, whose stock took a major hit in 2011 after the misogynistic boyhood fantasy flick Sucker Punch.
Check out the whole article for the rest of his take.
A veritable plethora of exciting news came out of this year’s San Diego Comic Con, but this little nugget just might be my favorite: Marvel is teaming up with developer High Moon Studios and publisher Activision to produce a videogame for the most self-aware and sarcastic anti-hero around, Deadpool, the Merc with a Mouth. A trailer, seen above, was released last week.
For those that have only seen the character in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” do your best to wipe what knowledge you think you have of him from your collective memories. Just know this: Deadpool is a disfigured and certifiably insane mercenary who’s great at using every weapon imaginable and better at being sarcastic prick. In his comics, the Merc often breaks the fourth wall for humorous effect, and it makes him one of the most entertaining characters out there.
Deadpool has appeared in games before, he’s a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and we got to beat up on him in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, but this is the first time he’ll be in the spotlight. Nolan North, who voiced him in the aforementioned games will be returning to the character. Little did you know, you’re likely already familiar with North’s work, he’s Desmond Miles in the Assassin’s Creed games as well as Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series.
Little else is known about the game so far, Marvel has yet to announce a genre, release date or which platforms it will be available on. We can only hope that High Moon (best known as the makers of the last three Transformers games) will stay true to the character, meaning the game will be rated M. Based on the trailer, that seems to be the case, and it’ll be chock full of violence, swearing, and of course, Deadpool’s trademark wit.
