In the land of Detective Comics, Zack Snyder’s Superman (a.k.a. Henry Cavill) gets a foster mom in Diane Lane — word is she joins Kevin Costner as Pa Kent. David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman (a.k.a. Adrienne Palicki) gets a nemesis in Elizabeth Hurley. And Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises gets a possible plot revealed by Devin Faraci. Major story spoilers if true. (It sounds very plausible to me.)
Category: Fanboy
Counting Worms.
“Goodnight, no-room. Goodnight, two moons. Goodnight, Shai-Hulud bursting out of the dune…Goodnight, sardaukar, and goodnight, gom jabbar.” Building on a College Humor joke, Julia Yu brings to life the full Goodnight, Dune. “Goodnight spice flows everywhere.”
A Last Round for the Brigadier.
“[M]y first Doctor was Jon Pertwee and with him came a supporting cast that remains one of the best ever…[A]t the very heart of that grouping was Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. A man to whom no alien incursion was a problem – he was a calm, pragmatic, military man…in many ways he was the perfect foil to the Doctor. Watson to his Holmes, Jim Gordon to his Batman.“
Nicholas Courtney, a.k.a. Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart of Pertwee and Baker era Doctor Who, 1929-2011.
Banes of Smaug, Allies of Sauron.
“Mr. Freeman at least lived up to Mr. Jackson’s billing, offering a comic denial that the ‘Hobbit’ project was cursed. Despite the many setbacks the films had faced, Mr. Freeman told Agence France-Presse, “we’re ready to go – just as soon as 2015 comes around.” While PJ recovers from recent surgery, the cast of The Hobbit get ready to embark on a grand adventure. Cue the Glenn Yarborough…
In related news: In Soviet Russia, the Ring carries you…Salon‘s Laura Miller takes a gander at Yisroel Markov’s The Last Ringbearer, a Russian fan-fictiony novel purporting to tell the War of the Ring from Sauron’s side. “In Yeskov’s retelling, the wizard Gandalf is a war-monger intent on crushing the scientific and technological initiative of Mordor and its southern allies because science ‘destroys the harmony of the world and dries up the souls of men!’ He’s in cahoots with the elves, who aim to become ‘masters of the world,’ and turn Middle-earth into a ‘bad copy’ of their magical homeland across the sea.”
Bruce Gets Incepted.
Gotham in Limbo? Take it for what it’s worth, but rumors abound that Inception alums Joseph Gordon-Levitt (long rumored as Joker 2.0) and Marion Cotillard have both joined Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (which already includes Tom Hardy and Michael Caine), as Alberto Falcone and Talia Al-Ghul respectively. In movie terms, that would mean the son of Tom Wilkinson and the daughter of Liam Neeson from the first film, but I’m only familiar with the latter character.
20th Century Marvels.
On the Marvel front, recent weeks has seen an impressive Super Bowl spot for Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger and a decent trailer for Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: Mad Men…err, X-Men: First Class. (Screenshots are here and here respectively — Note Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull unmasked.)
In case you were wondering, that’s skinny Steve Rogers (Chris Evans + CGI) above, and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) apparently enjoying some downtime below.
Also not to be forgotten, we have another official pic of Marc Webb’s Amazing Spiderman. Looks good in a dark room, at least.
Funke Town | Coenology 101.
Mrs. Peacock with the Cornballer in Wee Britain…By way of Web Goddess, Pleated Jeans has assembled the Arrested Development version of Clue, “complete with box art, game board, suspect cards and weapon cards.” And, once that fails to entertain, Muller has fashioned a handy and informative Coenfographic to trace exactly who’s shown up where in the Coenverse over the years. Even more illuminating than the Goy’s Teeth!
Sentinel of Liberty.
Englishman in Metropolis.
“In the pantheon of superheroes, Superman is the most recognized and revered character of all time, and I am honored to be a part of his return to the big screen. I also join Warner Bros., Legendary and the producers in saying how excited we are about the casting of Henry. He is the perfect choice to don the cape and S shield.“
Meanwhile, over on the DC side of things, Sorry Brandon Routh (and the Legion of Jon Hamm Fans): Zack Snyder’s Superman has found its Man of Steel in Henry Cavill, formerly of The Tudors. (The photoshopped Cavill-El above was found here.) I don’t really know the guy, but I hear good things.
Magneto, how does he work?
“The best way of describing it is X-Men meets Bond, with a little bit of Thirteen Days thrown in for good measure. It’s set in the ’60s, and I basically molded a young Magneto on a young Sean Connery. He’s the ultimate spy — imagine Bond, but with superpowers.“
Also backlogged for a week or so: After a not-so-great initial photo leak, Matthew Vaughn of Layer Cake, Stardust, and Kick-Ass talks about what to expect from his X-Men: First Class. “It’s got a lot of teenage angst. The Twilight girls will like it.” Hrm.