| | | | | | Well, Daredevil: Born Again finally arrived on Disney+ and not a moment too soon, for some. People seem to like it, judging by the 86 percent popcorn rating on Rotten Tomatoes (85 percent from critics). We've only watched the first episode (boy, is it nice to see Charlie Cox back in action). But what we have watched all of: the entire season of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and THAT is a fantastic show. Fresh and unique but also classic-feeling with an animation style that blends the influences of artists such as Steve Ditko and Marcos Martin and pays heavy tribute to the Amazing Spider-Man comics. A show with one foot in the past and one hand swinging into the future. The last episode or two have some mind-bending Back to the Future moments, and the last 60 seconds changes EVERYTHING you thought you knew about the show. Which could be good or bad (and may explain the 97 percent critic score versus the 62 percent popcorn score). What Hollywood movie observers will be watching this weekend is the box office of Mickey 17, Warner Bros.' first big movie of 2025 in a year that seems pivotal to the studio. It’s Bong Joon Ho’s first movie since the sensation of 2019’s Parasite, and it’s an original and wild sci-fi movie (and not cheap). The question is whether YOU, dear reader, are going to go out and see it. (Meanwhile, Marvel is making sure you see Thunderbolts* and just released this cool trailer on Letterboxd, hoping in a fun way to snag interest from the cinephile faction.) And speaking of watching, it appears a lot of people are going to see – or read – Batman No. 158, which serves as the kick-off to the sequel to modern comics classic storyline Hush that ran in the early 2000s. This one reunites writer Jeph Loeb and artist Jim Lee, who hasn’t drawn a monthly comic in YEARS. Titled H2SH, Batman No. 158 is looking to be a massive hit, with DC, via the Batman Instagram account, announcing retail orders of over 400,000 copies which will make it one of the top-sellers of the decade (retailers order and buy comics upfront based on sales expectations). Lee is also going to hit a couple of comic stores in Los Angeles to celebrate comic’s March 26 release. He’ll be North Hollywood’s Collector’s Paradise from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. then at Golden Apple from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. doing signings. Speaking of comic books, here’s a scoop that might make you go “Whoa.” — Aaron Couch and Borys Kit. |
JUSTIN LIN IS GOING BRZRKR.
The Fast & Furious filmmaker is teaming with Keanu Reeves on the comic book adaptation, which is set up at Netflix.
Lin will direct from a script from The Batman Part 2 co-writer Mattson Tomlin.
The move reunites Lin with Reeves, who became an angel backer in the filmmaker’s latest drama and return to indie roots, Last Days, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
As for BRZRKR, Reeves created the book for Boom! Studios, working with artist Ron Garney and Eisner-nominated comics author Matt Kindt. The movie is described as a “brutally epic saga about an immortal warrior’s 80,000 year fight through the ages."
Enter Lin's matrix. |
ARCHIE IS GETTING A SUMMER JOB AT THE QUICK STOP FROM CLERKS.
That's in Kevin Smith's Archie Meets Jay & Silent Bob, a double-sized comic in which classic Archie characters collide with the protagonists from Smith's films.
And it takes place in continuity with Smith's movies, set after Clerks III, with Archie helping Clerks' Randal move on after the death of Dante.
“Not only is this my stab at a classic American franchise that existed long before me that I read as a kid … It’s a midlife crisis project about death and learning to deal,” Smith says of writing the book.
The View Askewniverse meets Riverdale. |
➤ A new Resident Evil movie is a go, with Zach Cregger writing and directing. It even has a release date.
➤ Making noise: Two big names from TV's biggest current shows — White Lotus' Michelle Monaghan and Severance's Adam Scott — join Robert De Niro in Netflix crime thriller The Whisper Man.
➤ Living large on Park Ave.: Dungeons & Dragons duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein to write Monopoly movie.
➤ Wicked: Cynthia Erivo joins Teo Yoo in Karoshi, a samurai-influenced Lionsgate thriller set in a Japanese-styled New York City.
➤ Kirbyvision: new Jack Kirby documentary in the works.
➤ The latest on the Neil Gaiman accusations: Sandman author says he has texts that prove he didn't rape his accuser.
➤ Dark: A look at the stunning collapse of Technicolor.
➤ Disney pulls the plug on Tiana, an animated series on Disney's first Black princess spun off from The Princess and the Frog.
➤ In case you missed it: Amid large studio turmoil, DC Studios hires Ricky Strauss as its own marketing consultant on Superman.
Catch up on these Heat Vision interviews...
➤ On the same day that Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Tony Stark, he launched the filmmaking career of Riff Raff filmmaker Dito Montiel by playing Dito Montiel.
➤ Running Point showrunner David Stassen took inspiration from Jonathan Glazer's famous Michael Jordan commercial.
➤ Last Breath star Finn Cole admits that Peaky Blinders wasn't the same following the death of Helen McCrory.
➤ The Monkey star Theo James says he wasn't cut out for the green screen acting in the Divergent franchise.
➤ The Monkey filmmaker Osgood Perkins says the studios don't want to greenlight horror-comedy.
➤ Vision Quest star Matthew Modine recalls the time Val Kilmer told him to go fuck himself. |
MICHAEL BAY IS STILL A BLAST TO TALK TO.
THR's James Hibberd got on the phone with Bay to talk about his renegade new project premiering at SXSW as well as some of his past career highlights. Bay's new documentary, We Are Storror, follows a death-defying parkour trope whose antics are so extreme that Bay had to take an extremely hands-off approach to directing: "I could not shoot it. Do you understand? Because everything they’re doing is illegal."
The interview is refreshing blast of pure Michael Bay as he talks about industry frustrations ("no one can greenlight anything anymore"), his terrifying first close encounter with Steven Spielberg, and how a vomiting Ben Affleck made Armageddon better. |
WHO WANTS TO KILL QUI-GON JINN?
That’s one of the mysteries behind Jedi Knights No. 1, the new comic from writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Madibek Musabekov. The series takes place before the events of The Phantom Menace, and features favorites like Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Mace Windu and Yoda.
Guggenheim, who was a longtime writer-exec producer on many of CW's DC shows in the 2010s, has long wanted to tell stories about the Jedi at their height, and conceived of this series after Lucasflim approached him to come up with a proposal.
It happened around the 80th anniversary of D-Day back in June 2024.
“I got to thinking, ‘Seen from Germany's perspective, D-Day was an invasion of Europe by America and Great Britain’ and got interested in how conflicts lend themselves to a variety of different ‘points of view’ (to use a Star Wars phrase),” Guggenheim emails Heat Vision regarding the comic, which deals with war.
The book also features Atha Prime — who began life as part of unused concept art for Return of the Jedi that in turn inspired a villain for a never-released Kenner toyline. (Yeah, that’s a deep cut, even by Star Wars standards. )
Though the Star Wars movies tell us where many of these characters are ultimately headed, Guggenheim enjoyed finding ways to surprise readers (just wait until you get to the last page of the first issue).
Says the scribe: “It’s both a challenge and an opportunity.” |
JACK KIRBY IS, OF COURSE, KNOWN FOR HIS WORK AT MARVEL AND DC, WHERE he co-created The Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Darkseid, and Mister Miracle among so many others.
But the legendary artist had a Hollywood era, a result of him turning his back on comics in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He went into animation, working primarily for Ruby-Spears Productions, the company run by Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! creators Joe Ruby and Ken Spears.
His brain burst open like an exploding dam, and he drew up a ton of (sometimes really whacky) ideas and concepts, many that never saw the light of day.
One thing that did, however, was a show titled Thundarr the Barbarian. Created by Steve Gerber, the co-creator of Howard the Duck who also turned his back on comics, Thundarr was a Saturday morning cartoon that aired for two seasons on ABC and one on NBC in the early '80s.
With an "everything and the kitchen sink" mentality, the show was set in the 40th century and featured recognizable American landmarks in a post-apocalyptic setting (all because in 1994, a runaway planet destabilized Earth and split the Moon in two).
It featured evil wizards, beautiful princesses, old technology and mutant creatures. Kirby did design work on the series and one item, seen below, made it to a ComicLink auction this week (the auction house has a deal with the Ruby-Spears archive to sell off the collection).
The piece features Thundarr, with his magic sword (AKA the Sunsword), fighting a three-headed mutant on the 101 Freeway with the help of ... we’re-not-sure who. But we like it!
Collectors also liked it, too, bidding up the piece to a sale of $5,600. |
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