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Who Should Rule Atlantis?
First appearing way back in More Fun Comics #73 (Sept. 1941), Aquaman is one of the oldest comic book characters in existence. His longevity in popular culture, coupled with his incredible powers — super strength and durability, telepathy, ability to breathe underwater — and the fact that he is also the king of Atlantis on top of being a superhero should place Aquaman in the upper echelon of comic book characters, yet he has always been considered something of a laughing stock outside of the comic book community. A popular subject of derision on TV shows like Saturday Night Live and The Big Bang Theory, Aquaman's only live-action highlights have come from his appearances on Smallville, as played by Alan Ritchson, and in an Entourage sub-plot in which the too-lean and not-blonde Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) played the "King of the Seven Seas" in a faux James Cameron movie.
Apparently, there is some talk at Warner Bros. about bringing Aquaman to the big screen in a solo movie, but the studio is far more invested in developing Green Lantern 2, The Flash and Wonder Woman so Aquaman's big screen debut will likely be as part of the ensemble Justice League movie. Who do you think has what it takes to not only salvage Aquaman's reputation, but stand alongside Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice Leaguers on the big screen?
Aquaman art by Jeff Chapman
Select the Top 10 Actors Who Could Play Aquaman >>
Posted 10.11.12 by BrentJS -
With Cars 2 handily winning the weekend's top box office spot, Disney/Pixar is already looking to the future by offering the teaser trailer for their upcoming movie, Brave.
Set in medieval Scotland, Brave (formerly titled The Bear and the Bow) is Pixar's first foray into the genre of fantasy and fairy tales, with the 3-D animated tale utilizing Hollywood's most well-known Scottish actors (outside of Sean Connery and Ewan McGregor), as illustrated in the movie's synopsis.
read the synopsis and watch the trailer >> Posted 06.27.11 by Ryan -
Promos for Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief are popping up all over the place today. The most interesting of the lot are a series of character profiles that offer quite a bit of additional footage and more than a few spoilers.
All of these featurettes have at least a little something new to offer, but the portrait of Hades (Steve Coogan), the overlord of the Underworld, has the most new stuff. He has not been featured in the trailers so far, so this really is a first look at him, in human … and not-so-human form. We get a good taste of his personality as well. "I have one pleasure in my life: human suffering," he informs Percy at one point, before going on to lay out his plans for taking over, well, everything.
Although we have been able to sneak a few peeks at Medusa (Uma Thurman) before, her profile here is more extensive and contains the most spoilers. She's definitely got great hair. And, as we can see more clearly in a separately released publicity still, one really seductive accessory.
The footage released in the rest of the character profiles — Percy, Annabeth, Grover — looks to be a windup for the new international trailer, which incorporates some of their highlights, and adds pretty interesting additional bits as well, including a first look at Percy's father Poseidon (Kevin McKidd). However, it currently seems to be available only in a French-dubbed version. Worth watching, nonetheless, and the French makes everything sound even more dramatic.
Posted 02.04.10 by reelz -
The international trailer for Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is out, and it shows the storyline in a much more coherent way than earlier teasers — and displays at least one plot change from the book and an older Percy. (Logan Lerman is clearly not 12 in this clip.)
It also offers a pretty cool preview of some of the movie's creature designs. Highlights include glimpses of the watery powers that Percy inherited from his sea god father Poseidon (Kevin McKidd), a very cool sequence in which his teacher Mrs. Dodds (Maria Olsen) transforms into a bat-winged Fury, and a first look at Uma Thurman as Medusa. Sporting a head full of snakes and a come-hither attitude, she tries to entice our young hero out from behind his iPod to "sneak a peek," with all the horrible consequences that would entail.
See Meet the Cast of Percy Jackson to learn more about the movie's half-bloods, Greek gods, monsters, and occasional mortals.
Posted 11.18.09 by reelz -
The new poster for Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief has the young hero Percy hip-deep in water and brandishing a lightning bolt. Not a good idea — unless you just happen to be a demi-god and the son of Poseidon. Then everybody else had better watch out.
This theme is carried over in what's being touted as the "world's first electronic lightning billboard." The movie's stars came out as they turned on the billboard's juice. Logan Lerman (Percy), Kevin McKidd (Poseidon), and Alexandra Daddario (Annabeth, daughter of Athena) were all on hand for autographs and interviews at the event.
Talking with ET, they were all clearly charged up about the movie, and Lerman offered his own summary of what the whole thing is about:
The movie takes place in the modern day. And Greek mythology is real. Basically, Zeus has lost his master lightning bolt, and the world is going to come to an end because there's gonna be this huge war between the gods. Everybody's pointing their fingers at Percy, the son of Poseidon. And he doesn't even know that he is a demi-god, half human, half god. And he goes on this huge journey to try to save his mom, find who the lightning thief really is, and save the world.
Still want more Percy? An Italian website has gotten ahold of a neat set of character banners, including a first look at Daddario as the daughter of Athena and Brandon T. Jackson as the undercover satyr Grover Underwood.
Posted 10.30.09 by reelz -
Kevin McKidd got a major promotion. Best known for his role as Roman legionary Lucius Vorenus in HBO's Rome, he's now playing the Greek god Poseidon in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. The movie, adapted for a popular young adult novel of the same title, imagines the ancient Greek gods in the modern world, with the story focusing on young Percy, who finds out that his father is quite literally divine.
It's good to be a god, McKidd explains:
I'm 40 feet tall for most of the film, but then we come to human form, We can atomize ourselves because we're gods. We can do what we want, right? So we can atomize ourselves and walk around the streets of Manhattan, wandering Manhattan, and dress in Gap clothing and do all that stuff, then atomize ourselves back to 40-foot Greek god stage. It's a really fun film.
His own son, he says, is particularly impressed with his new job, and has begun devouring the whole Percy Jackson series, looking for spots where he might see his dad on screen. Assuming that Lightning Thief proves successful at the box office, McKidd could reprise his role in at least three more Percy Jackson movies.
Posted 08.12.09 by reelz -
We learned long ago not to pay too much attention to this business about "there can only be one." And here it comes. A Highlander reboot is in the planning stages, with rumor, or perhaps just fantasy, placing Rome's Kevin McKidd in the star role as Connor MacLeod. But it's not just the actors and the script that would be updated. It's the weapons as well.
In the original, it's all about swords and axes, anything with an edge. There are strict rules about how you take your opponent's head. One important rule is no guns. But an advance script review for the planned reboot reveals that in this version anything goes.
Advised early on by his mentor to become proficient with the weapons of whatever time period he is in, MacLeod later tries to take out his nemesis Kurgan from a safe distance with a sniper rifle. Presumably swords are still needed for the coup de grace, but still a pretty surprising change. Practical perhaps, but not quite so personal.
Overall, the reviewer pans the script, concluding that, in this draft of the reboot anyway, the screenwriters have decided to tell the same story as the 1986 original, but in the wrong way.
Posted 06.04.09 by reelz -
After twittering online that Kenneth Branagh "gets" Thor, Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada went on the record about the Thor movie meetings at the New York Comic-Con and talked about the "faithful" adaptation that Branagh is planning:
[Branagh] has immersed himself in [the comics]... He was talking about characters and villains that even I was going, like, who was that?, y'know. But if you're a Thor-head, you're going to go, oh yeah, of course... So it was wonderful to hear this stuff. He wasn't just concerned about Thor, but he also understood going in, from the beginning - because we established very early on... Well, at the end of the Iron Man movie, but very early on [in the process], that there's going to be other movies that become part of this tapestry. This is essentially our Star Wars, our universe is our Star Wars, and he understands that his Thor movie is one of the legs of this table that will interplay with an Iron Man movie down the road, or The Avengers movie down the road. Whatever is going to happen is part of a shared universe.
Thor is still without an actor to play the lead role. While Daniel Craig and Kevin McKidd have been mentioned as candidates, fans are petitioning for relative unknown James Preston Rogers, who played a Viking in Outlander, for a time was training to be a professional wrestler, and does have a resemblance to the thunder god.
Posted 02.18.09 by Ryan -
Months after being picked to direct Thor, Kenneth Branagh at last shed some light on his latest foray into big-budget moviemaking, his first since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
With rumors swirling over who will play the Asgardian, from Daniel Craig to Rome's Kevin McKidd, Branagh tried to quiet the chatter: "There's been lots of talk [about casting] -- I sound like a politician -- but we are too early at this stage. We're getting the story and the visual effects together and all of that is very exciting. Someone sensational is going to play the part but it is early days."
With Thor scheduled to open July 16, 2010, and the Avengers movie to follow a year later in 2011, Branagh will have to move quickly, as those "early days" are almost over. But for those who echo Robert Downey Jr.'s concerns over how they will blend Thor and Iron Man and the Hulk realistically into one movie, Branagh's vision for Thor should please: "It's a chance to tell a big story on a big scale. It's a human story right in the center of a big epic scenario."
Posted 12.16.08 by Ryan -
With the upcoming Avengers movie arriving in 2011, the pressure is on both First Avenger: Captain America and Thor to excite audiences in preparation. Thor has a confirmed director in Kenneth Branagh, but nothing but rumors over who will play the thunder god. Recently, Daniel Craig reportedly turned down the role, but was in fact just "having a joke."
If not Craig, then who? How about Rome's Kevin McKidd? IGN recently spoke to McKidd, who confirmed that he is one of the front-runners for the role and would be "excited" to work with Branagh.
Should McKidd win the part, there seems little chance that the hammer-throwing Asgardian will team up with fellow Rome star Ray Stevenson's gun-toting Punisher, but, you never know, this is Hollywood.
Posted 12.04.08 by Ryan