Archive Page 2162

May 5, 2023

Guardians has good start in theatres – Cinema Blend

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is finally in theaters. The movie is set to be the swan song for the Marvel super team, and based on the early numbers, it looks like fans are turning out in force to say goodbye. The movie brought in $17.5 million in Thursday night preview ticket sales, which marks a high point for the franchise."

Over 40 different comic books for free - this annual event was first organized 21 years ago – Yahoo

Free Comic Book Day book highlights – PC Mag

For Comic Book fans, Saturday is "Christmas" – MSN APP com

News around the internet: Jim Lee has officially been named as the new president of DC Comics.

Updated: And it's official Hollywood Reporter "The executive will continue to report to Pam Lifford, president of global brands, franchises and experiences at Warner Bros. Discovery, who announced the promotion Wednesday. Lee, per the company, will continue in his primary role as publisher at DC, where he leads the creative teams. He will also continue to lead the creative efforts to integrate DC’s publishing portfolio of characters and stories across all media ..."

Netflix spent $200 Mil on this show then immediately cancelled it 1 month after release pic.twitter.com/EP7rAtvI1a

— Soundwave (@LocalSoundwave) May 1, 2023

Conan gets a bump in value for back issues – Comicbook

The trouble with Conan in the many media forms he is put into is that the character engages a larger audience when it appears to stay within the Robert Howard original conception, and when it gets "improved' the audience shrinks. There are elements within Howard's original stories that makes the character assessable beyond the genre. Perhaps the main problem is when a creative team "hones" Conan down into his more base characteristics, something significant gets lost and the appeal narrows. There's a new licensing arrangement on the character and new product is being made, and this is stirring up the franchise, and in turn effecting the price on that Barry Smith Conan #1 from 1970.

Conan had somewhat of a revival at Marvel before being pulled and moving to a new publisher. Titan Comics will be taking on a new iteration of Conan, and By Crom, does it look fun! Recently Titan Comics released a sneak peek of the first issue due in July, along with other plans to adapt other characters from the Robert E. Howard universe. This book features a couple, including Conan and Kull the Conquerer. In addition, the first film with Arnold Schwarzenegger just hit Netflix on 5/1, alongside unconfirmed rumors of a new TV series in development at the streamer. All of these factors factored into a surge of sales this week at a high sale of $7,100 for a CGC 9.8 copy and a raw FN FMV of $258.

The Robot Future is here

Joe Russo sees AI making movies within two years – variety.com

You could walk into your house and save the AI on your streaming platform. ‘Hey, I want a movie starring my photoreal avatar and Marilyn Monroe’s photoreal avatar. I want it to be a rom-com because I’ve had a rough day,’ and it renders a very competent story with dialogue that mimics your voice. It mimics your voice, and suddenly now you have a rom-com starring you that’s 90 minutes long. So you can curate your story specifically to you.”

Connected to this is that there's a Writers Strike in Hollywood right now, and part of what they're (The WGA Writer's Guild) shooting for is barring AI derived "creative" content (see this NBC article).

Hollywood screenwriters have long imagined dystopias where machines ruled over humans of the future. They are now starting to worry the machines are coming for them much sooner...

The Writers Guild of America said it wants Hollywood's top studios and networks to regulate the use of AI on creative projects. The union's specific demand, according to a document released Monday, states: "AI can't write or rewrite literary material; can't be used as source material; and MBA-covered [contract-covered] material can't be used to train AI."

Margot Robbie to be in Fantastic Four?

Story at Superhero Hype MSN

The May 22nd-25th US Book Show will have a Graphic Novel Day

Story at Comicsbeat

Well, here's a story I didn't expect to see at Cosmopolitan How to Watch Every Batman Movie in the Right Order

Some Box Office May 2, 2023

• The Super Mario Bros. Movie – $1,045,882,878 Worldwide
• Return of the Jedi – $5,610,199 Worldwide
• John Wick: Chapter 4 – $402,465,254 Worldwide
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – $194,537,573 Worldwide
• Avatar: The Way of Water – $2,319,331,934 Worldwide
• Renfield – $22,942,167 Worldwide
• Shazam! Fury of the Gods – $133,434,660 Worldwide
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – $474,569,485 Worldwide

Okay, how many Captain Marvels are there?

Story at Gamesradar

Summer "Blockbuster" movies are coming: The Flash, Indiana Jones, Guardians #3, Asteroid City, Fast X , etc.

Long list of films coming from now through beginning of September

The forgotten Superhero TV Shows – Movie Web MSN

Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc gearing up to take on Marvel Super Movies – Business Insider

There's a sequel to Alita Battle Angel coming – Boundingintocomics

BOOM! Studio bringing a four-issue limited comic book based on the Creed boxing films

Story at GraphicPolicy

IDW cost-cutting means 39% work force layoff – Gamesradar

Alex Ross artworks coming to the Elmhurst Art Museum – WBBM Radio Chicago

The exhibition will feature more than 50 pieces of original artwork by Ross, including artwork from his retrospective book, Marvelocity, and three-dimensional head busts of Marvel characters."

Red Sonja 50th anniversary coming up, also she gets a Free Comic Book Day book – Comicbookmovie – image of the Free Comic Book Day Red Sonja Comic

Dynamite page on coming Red Sonja #1, Vol.7 coming in July

James Gunn's Superman Legacy movie "will not be a comedy" – Batman-News

Rarest Yu-Gi-Oh! card might auction for $14 million – MSN CBR

Let's get nuts! New The Flash preview trailer

Marvel publishing "Art of" series

Story at Yahoo Gizmodo

Marvel and Clover Press are collaborating to support the crowdfunding efforts of The Marvel Art Of... books. Artists David Mack and Alex Maleev will be the first two comic artists to have a collectible edition that celebrates their time drawing for Marvel.

Kraven the Hunter will release as R-rated film – Superherohype

"...and its violent" – Comicsbeat

Some Box Office April 26, 2023

• The Super Mario Bros. Movie – $888,580,486 Worldwide
• John Wick: Chapter 4 – $359,094,319 Worldwide
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – $178,502,428 Worldwide
• Avatar: The Way of Water – $2,318,378,871 Worldwide
• Renfield – $18,463,565 Worldwide
• Shazam! Fury of the Gods – $132,994,781 Worldwide
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – $474,519,045 Worldwide

Announcing Batman #900 - the Alex Ross Variant! Sign up & enter to win a free signed copy: https://t.co/1N6AyJti11#batman #comicbooks #comicart #dccomics pic.twitter.com/WI1n1x1oGQ

— Alex Ross (@thealexrossart) April 18, 2023

Superman goes Naruto!

Story at Comicbook

Disney cuts animation staff, marketing, etc in second day of layoffs – Deadline MSN

Playstation marking some DC/Marvel games down to $2.99

Story at comicbook

Writer told to not do comic conventions after controversial Spider-Man issue #26 comes out

Story at Boundingintocomics

Cheap stunt? Or something that Spidery editorial knows fans will hate? Major character to die? Article speculates the possibilities.

Elizabeth Olsen says she has no contract for more Marvel

Story at Superherohype

July 2023 DC titles coming out – Comicsbeat

At Marvel for decades, now unemployed, Ike Perlmutter buys million-dollar townhouse – Bizjournals

Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter became associated with Marvel Entertainment in the late 1990s, around the time when the company filed for bankruptcy. He played a crucial role in helping Marvel recover from bankruptcy by becoming the largest shareholder and restructuring the company. Following the company's acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in 2009, Perlmutter continued to serve as the Chairman of Marvel Entertainment until he was fired by Bob Iger. Why was he fired? Iger says for 'redundancy' at Marvel and not because of his playing a part in the "shareholder revolt" in earlier 2023 that threatened Disney executive positions.

Manga sales finally hitting plateau – Publishers Weekly

Interesting Publisher's Weekly article that has numbers showing that Manga's mammoth sales, though "cooling off" are still astounding, with $246 million in N. America sales in 2022 and €381 in France, two huge markets outside of Japan. But beyond this, the author quotes something interesting:

...the number of legal ways you can access digital manga to the variety of physical stores that carry manga, from direct market comic shops all the way to mass market stores like Target and Walmart, fans no longer have to seek out a few restricted channels... " Ivan Salazar, senior marketing director for Kodansha USA

A trip to Barnes and Noble (or a secondary chain like 2nd and Charles) shows that Manga has built up a huge footprint where books are sold, and though there's starting to be sales and deals to move copies of some titles (I see B&N running incentives) it shows that the manga presence is wanted and utilized by readers. The comparison with this that is rather dispiriting is that both DC and Marvel have got their "floppies" into B&N and Books-A-Million, etc., outlets in the past only to have the stuff mostly sit on the magazine racks, unmolested. Same thing with bundle-packs and other deals from the recent past inside of Wal-Mart, for example, a place that would seem like the perfect intersection to reach an audience.

Needing many outlets to build large scale sales seems obvious, but, for reasons that can be debated a number of ways, DC and Marvel style books seem only to have success inside of the rarified systems of the direct market and some online sales portals, like Amazon (and, if we're being realistic, eBay, where any hot title shows up immediately after its been sold out on local comic shop shelves).

What's it mean? Manga has an advantage that it built step-by-step, and not by cannibalizing DC and Marvel readers, but by meeting a need in youth readership that Marvel and DC couldn't reach, and still can't reach.

Some Box Office April 21, 2023

• The Super Mario Bros. Movie – $725,776,389 Worldwide
• John Wick: Chapter 4 – $352,730,254 Worldwide
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – $160,705,033 Worldwide
• Avatar: The Way of Water – $2,316,830,130 Worldwide
• Renfield – $12,798,162 Worldwide
• Shazam! Fury of the Gods – $132,128,334 Worldwide
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – $474,402,922 Worldwide

"80% of the revenue on Batman V Superman came from the Director's Cut" says Zack Snyder – Reddit

Foreboding Message on Magazine Cover on the rack at Barnes and Noble, April 19, 2023

Original page Febraury 14, 2023