The word is that we can get a look at the Wolverine, the new Wolverine movie supposedly set in Japan, come 26 July 2013. That’s a long damn wait. However, if they deliver a better move than X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it’ll be worth the wait.

The sad thing is for such a tepid piece of film mediocrity, XOW (just made that acronym up and I love it already) made $373 million USD worldwide on a budget of $85 million. What does that say about audiences in general. If that includes the sales  on DVDs, I guess I somewhat put my cut in, so I guess this is “pot calling the kettle” and all that. Mea culpa. But I dig Wolverine. I wasn’t back there in the beginning, but I was hooked with Frank Miller’s Wolverine mini-series.

And if this new movie set in Japan takes its cues from that story, we might be looking at something pretty darn cool.

My main question is: when the fuck do I get my Planetary movie?

I recently got a chance to watch Punisher: War Zone. I was tempted to do so after listening to Patton Oswalt rhapsodize over it on an episode of How Did This Get Made. I have to say, he’s pretty much spot on.

This is an amazingly entertaining movie. It is not a great movie. Nope. But it delivers. Boy, does it deliver. It is a fun movie, an exciting movie, and absolutely the best Punisher movie yet made. This movie seems to get it. This is a comic book movie about a comic book vigilante and it has comic book sensibilities.

It’s also gritty. Frank Castle’s world is dirty and depressing. It is always night and wet. It is also incredibly well shot for what is basically an homage to B-movies wrapped in a violent comic adaptation.

And Ray Stevenson: this man needs much more work. Much. More. Listen, I have a soft spot for him and Kevin McKidd due to HBO’s Rome. Stevenson was outstanding in that. But he’s been outstanding in everything I’ve seen him in, whether he’s supporting—as in Book of Eli—or starring—as in Outpost, which I’ve also reviewed. This is Frank Castle—massive, intimidating, beefy but not pretty-boy cut. And the costume is great, just enough of the comic influence while providing something that looks like it could protect one from a 9mm.

If you like the Punisher comic, found the Dolph Lundgren vehicle appalling, but weren’t totally enthralled by Thomas Jane’s turn, give War Zone a shot. I wish there were a sequel with the same cast and crew coming out way, but that doesn’t look likely.

More information on this movie can be found here.

The Punisher: War Zone episode of How Did This Get Made is here.

My review of Outpost can be found here.

I’m pretty optimistic about the Avengers movies. That’s mainly because my expectations are low. Those expectations are low not because I don’t like Joss Whedon—I do—nor because I think the film doesn’t have enough impressive actors in it—it certainly does—but because even Kenneth Brannagh didn’t totally crush Thor.

Listen, I like Joss Whedon, and I enjoyed Serenity, but it wasn’t a great movie. It was a good movie. A good movie is enough. It is not a bad movie nor a mediocre movie, but a good movie.

Thor was a good movie. I wouldn’t call it a great movie, though I enjoyed it. It was a good movie, it did its job. It—like the Avengers—had a pretty stellar cast. The character development, even for its main character, fell a little flat and the fight scenes didn’t have much energy. I’m not going to complain, though, because I got to see Thor on the big screen.

I expect the same from the Avengers. The photos that I’ve seen so far have been great. The trailer—I am certain—will be awesome. It will look spectacular. And, in the end, it will be good. I’m fairly certain of that. I don’t think, though, that it will great.

According to leaked information from an upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly, Marvel movies in the pipe include Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Inhumans. Of those, the one I’m both most excited for and dreading the most is the Guardians of the Galaxy.

I was a big fan of the comic when it was running. Granted, I only bought the collections, so maybe I was part of the problem, but I was very sad when it disappeared. I didn’t really follow the Thanos Imperative, because while it kind of continued the Guardians, without Starlord there really is no Guardians.

Now it looks like Marvel is banking that the concept that couldn’t keep a comic running will make a profitable movie. I truly hope so, and I also truly hope that they look at the Guardians series for their story and characters.

Unfortunately, though, it looks like they will go back to the original Guardians concept, which I have absolutely no stake in and could not care less about. I am not surprised by this, given how much Hollywood hates me.

By the way, when is someone going to give me my Immortal Iron Fist movie starring Ray Park? When?

Read the leaked information here.

Read the Wikipedia article on the cool Guardians of the Galaxy here.

Dune is dead. Long live Dune!

There have been a few directors attached to Paramount’s planned new adaptation of Dune, and there have been a few scripts. I met some of the announcements with cautious optimism, but most with outright pessimism. That does not matter now. What matters is Paramount’s option to the property is running out, and the reason they are going to give up on it is simply the money.

The production would likely have cost over $100 million.

It’s hard to argue that $100 mill is a hell of a bid for a gamble of this magnitude. David Lynch’s Dune, which I enjoyed—and I saw it before I read the book—failed to make money. I suppose the SyFy mini-series made some bank, because they filmed a sequel, but big budget is closer to David Lynch’s foray than the mini-series. We’re talking some major cake.

And, frankly, do we need another Dune movie? I really don’t think so. I don’t think a single movie can do it justice. Two or three movies, with significant budgets? Possibly. But there is never a guarantee of quality.

I’m not terribly sorry this adaptation of Dune is being buried. Let’s try something new, shall we, Hollywood?

I saw the article about an unsold pilot for Lost in Space directed by John Woo, so I had to go check it out. Much like Blackjack (for the love of sanity, won’t somebody please think of the Woo-fans?), it not only failed to impress, it failed to hold my attention longer than 5 minutes. Total cardboard cut-out opening, with nothing to distinguish it.

Starring as the young Judy Jets . . . er Robinson was an actress whose name I had heard but knew nothing about. Adrienne Palicki.

And then it turns out she’s going to be the new Wonder Woman for the David E. Kelley NBC series.

Weird how these intersections work.

I can’t say that she looks the part of Wonder Woman, at least not to me. Wonder Woman is the product of a warrior society, and perhaps the finest warrior from that society. She is also a diplomat and a kind of royalty. That’s a pretty tough job. I honestly don’t know who I would want for the role—maybe Gina Torres—but Ms. Palicki certainly isn’t it. Maybe they’ve got her on a massive training regime that is going to buff her up before filming. Who knows.

Also? Everything I’ve read about the Wonder Woman TV series leads me to believe it should suffer the same fate as that Lost in Space revival—disappear for six years only to surface on YouTube—to no acclaim.

If you want to read about the John Woo Lost in Space project, go here.

If you want to read about the new Wonder Woman, go here.

I will not Google image search for you.

Okay, so remember when Robert Rodriquez was going to direct Rose McGowan as Red Sonja? Yeah, that’s not going to happen. What is going to happen is apparently Simon West directing Red Sonja. That would be Simon “Con Air” West, though I would also have accepted Simon “Tomb Raider” West. Apparently, he’s been doing some TV stuff as well.

I liked Con Air and all, but it seems to have been an anomaly. I found Lara Croft: Tomb Raider pretty pedestrian, actually boring in parts. It totally failed to hold my interest, and that was even with Angelina Jolie in a tight shirt. He’s going to need to really up his game if he’s going to interest me in Red Sonja, which basically has the same assets as Lara Croft . . . well, that and it’s based on a sword & sorcery property that is tangentially linked to Conan.

And the young lady to play Red Sonja? Well, the producer wants Amber Heard, of whom I had not . . . heard. Sorry about that. Google image search tells me she’s an attractive enough young lady, but I don’t really see her as Red Sonja. She’d have to hit the gym a lot to make me believe she’s a warrior-woman.

So yet another “meh” response to big Hollywood news. Get yer shit together, Hollywood.

You can find my review of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider here.

Somewhere along the way, somebody apparently forgot the most important part of the Highlander mythos:

There can be only one.

Thankfully, we can ignore everything that came after, and I have a feeling I’ll be ignoring the next installment as well. This time, it’s not a sequel. Nope, this time they are going for a remake.

Written by the scribe who brought Twilight to the screen.

I shit you not. I wish I did, but I do not.

This is Hollywood, once again, thinking that everything is interchangeable. I mean, it’s young people that went to see Twilight, right? So if we get the same writer on Highlander, we’ll get more of the same. Simple.

Only not so much.

Okay, so Melissa Rosenberg has done much more than just Twilight, including co-producing Birds of Prey for TV and doing all sorts of stuff for Dexter. I haven’t seen any of those, but there’s lots of good buzz about Dexter, and I know enough to know it ain’t about sparkly vampires and such.

I have literally no hopes for this. It’s not that I don’t think Ms. Rosenberg can pull off a good script. I have absolutely no opinion about that one way or the other. It’s just that every single big screen attempt to make another Highlander has flopped. And, let’s face it, it’s not exactly a quality movie. It has its charms, and I thought it was awesome back in the day, but watching it now isn’t the same. It’s a great idea. It had its time. Let’s just leave it lie.

Seriously, Hollywood, have you got no fucking new ideas?

Some people simply say they are fans of John Woo. I can’t say that, because I have to admit that I am not. I am a fan of John Woo’s Hong Kong heroic bloodshed movies, his pre-Windtalkers Hollywood output, and his more recent historical work in China, meaning Red Cliff. That’s the part of John Woo’s oeuvre that I love.

And among all of that, the Killer holds a place of distinction. It was the first John Woo movie I ever saw, and it was the movie I used to get other people interested in John Woo. If you can stomach the melodrama, and you love the balletic violence, there’s more where that came from. It’s also a high-water mark, arguably along with Hard Boiled.

Now there’s going to be an English-language adaptation of the Killer. It doesn’t sound like a straight re-make, but darn close. Word is that Woo is producing, along with Terence Chang, so there’s a strong connection to the original. It’s going to be directed by Korea’s John H. Lee (who shares a given and surname with Chow Yun Fat’s character in the Replacement Killers, so that’s certainly less than six degrees), and starring Jung Woo-Sung (he of Musa the Warrior, the Good, the Bad, and the Weird and John H. Lee’s A Moment to Remember) in the Chow Yun Fat role.

It might be in 3D.

I wish I could be excited about this, but unless this is going to be shot in Korea, Hong Kong or China, without Hollywood representation, and unless fate smiles on it, I have a sense this is going to be a mess. Korea has had some very good action movies, but even when they try to mimic the HK heroic bloodshed style, it tends to be American-ized. If John H. Lee considers the action scenes from movies like the Good, the Bad, and the Weird, Old Boy, Nowhere to Hide, and A Bittersweet Life we might see something interesting.

Will it have the Killer’s impact? I doubt that. I doubt that very, very much.

From the world of “are you fucking kidding me?” comes the movie Battleship. Now, having a movie based on that particular game in and of itself is kind of a WTF decision, but in a recent article, we learn that the movie is going to be about “an alien invasion at sea.”

Whiskey. Tango. Fuckin’ Foxtrot?

Yes, because an intrinsic part of the success of the game Battleship was the alien menace that always seemed to consume one’s destroyer just before you called out “A-5!” Methinks some screenwriter spent too many days in the park, playing Battleship by himself, and watching the ants carry away the restaurant mints he used in place of the ship pieces he had lost.

And a $200 million budget? Or you kidding me?

Hey! Studio execs! Over here! Listen, don’t bitch to me about how piracy is ruining the industry when you pump $200 million into a shit-stupid project like this. Are you telling me there are not 4 other scripts out there that could all be made for $50 mil, that could make a profit? Because I got news for you—those $50 mil action scripts? In Hong Kong they’ll film them for $5 mil, and make a better movie, and make more money.

It’s not piracy that’s killing Hollywood, it’s Hollywood.

The article referenced above can be found here.