Archive Page 2224
February 2025
Constantine II with Keanu Reeves coming? – Total Film
Reeves said the movie will take place in the same melancholy world as the first, adding: "John Constantine’s going to be tortured even more."
Are Superhero Movies Dying? – Graphic Chatter
Winter Vacation with the Superheroes
Superheroes on the beach (on a winter's vacation) - see it enlarged, courtesy of CHAT-GPT and some Photoshop
Grok took a shot at the theme here and here. Grok was asked to provide comic books for the characters to read, and you can see it somehow took this to mean a tiny comic book planted right before the eyes. In the background of the second image is a fourth character being formed but not completed, and looking pretty weird.
And count the number of legs on this one.
James Gunn's DC Studios is putting Waller, The Authority, Booster Gold, and their Batman reboot all on hold – Gamesradar
Gunn and Safran stop short of calling any of the projects dead, offering brief updates on the status of each, while also making it clear that they won't move forward with anything - movie, show, or otherwise - without a rock solid script...."
With Cap4 starting to tank after the second weekend earnings showed (a not unexpected) drop of nearly 70%, probably superhero films and comic book films in general from the main tastemakers (DC and Marvel) are going to be viewed with suspicion by movie studios tired of losing copious amounts of money. Deadpool-Wolverine's big boxoffice was last year, and there's just too many bombs in recent memory.... but that could all change in a weekend if the coming Thunderbolts* in May pulls off something like the first Guardians of the Galaxy and surprises audiences which turns into good word of mouth, and then the film piles in earnings and proves (this is assuming Thunderbolts* is well made) that a mass audience-pleasing film can still be made off of a superhero property by the big production companies.
It is "Edward Gorey" week – The Comics Journal
So everyone is reporting that Captain America: Brave New World’s box office suffered a 68% drop.
The linkage of Daniel Craig to a Sgt. Rock movie was "greatly exaggerated" – Superherohype
Half of my life has been rumours of a Sgt. Rock movie (with Clint Eastwood, with Arnold Shwarzenegger, etc), and yet here we are, no Sgt. Rock movie.
More comic book related stuff on retails shelves Racks Page IX
Looks like DC has cancelled Shazam, Two-Face and Power Girl (?) – Bleedingcool
Captain America: Brave New World stays #1 at box office but continues Marvel's trend "in this phase" of big drops in attendance on the second weekend – Forbes
DC General Manager SVP Anne Leung DePies talks about "expanding the comic book canon"
Story at Bleedingcool
The new teams and directions on Batman and Captain America
Batman is going back to a blue and grey suit instead of black and grey.
Rob Liefield would like for Kevin Feige to resign because of Cap 4's poor performance – WION News
Boom Studios: fewer comics to publish in 2025 – Bleedingcool
Cap 4 rolls up to $289,405,738 worldwide – The-Numbers – the domestic tally is $141.2 million
The problem showing up in tracking the Cap4 numbers is that compared to, say, Quantumania, Cap4 is significantly lower (around $30+ million) both in domestic and international box office. Probably tha main problem for this film (which is making money) is that it cost so much to be made. Disney-Marvel are boxed into a corner where only a blockbuster return can justify what they've done. In a way, it is a 2021 film in a 2025 economic environment.
Chat GPT and Grok generated A LOT of extra images for this and you can see them here.
At the ComicsPro event writer Jeph Loeb and artist Jim Lee say that "Batman Hush 2 Will Change Things" – Bleedingcool
The May 2025 DC Books – Comicsbeat – with properly formatted cover images showing the books
Amazon spent a billion dollars+ to get control of the James Bond franchise rights – Deadline Hollywood
The article talks about the war of words between the previous rights holders and Amazon. Apparently the family of classic Bond producer-mastermind Albert R. Broccoli isn't too keen on the new ideas Amazon has been thinking up.
More Bonded
Testing of Cap 4's Mettle
The big test for Captain America One World Brave and Orderly is this weekend. It had a good start over the 4 days for George Washington's Birthday (aka "President's Day") but where the rubber meets the road is whether the film has "legs" and that is the only shot it has at pulling a profit, especially since the estimated production budget for it ranges from $180 million (reported) to some saying with marketing costs and the reshoots it's more likely in the $300+ million range.
Either way, the film needs to attract audiences not just this weekend, but for at least a half-dozen weekends ahead in order to turn a profit. Since there's no backup for earnings on home video (Cinemagraphe link), and toy sales likely have only a marginal impact on the film’s success (though I could be wrong—if the parent company, Disney, can make a fortune off toy sales related to Cap 4, then perhaps it all turns out fine, and the film is written off as a giant commercial for toys and tie-ins. It worked for Batman!).
Considering the film got slagged with some pretty rough film reviews (though nothing on the order of Madame Web) the road ahead is pitted with traps.
Marvel launching an all-new Steve Rogers Captain America #1 – Comicbook
After a record year for Black Panel Press, the company's future threatened by Diamond's bankruptcy – CBC Canada
The owner of Black Panel Press talks about how much Diamond owed his company ($28K) and the lack of payment has gotten the company into a very bad spot, unable to pay royalties nor print any more issues.
List of DC's May books – Bleeding Cool – just photo images from the DC pitch book but it does shows the titles coming.
Get into the Public Domain archives that are online at Graphic Chatter
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Original page February 28, 2025