| | | | | | Last night, the final Sundance in Park City wrapped up what may be the only big bidding war of the fest, with A24 taking Olivia Wilde's The Invite. That said, the first sale of the festival also went down yesterday, and was more in the Heat Vision lane: Neon's acquisition o the queen horror movie Leviticus. The movie, directed by Australian Adrian Chiarella, has been getting strong reviews and has been compared to allegorical horror titles such as Talk to Me and It Follows. Still, it's been a somewhat muted finale for Sundance in Park City, the town that helped launch so many filmmakers — Tarantino, Linklater, Soderbergh. That long list of luminaries also includes Destin Daniel Cretton, the co-creator of Marvel Studios’ Wonder Man. The series debuted yesterday on Disney+ and is unlike anything Marvel has put out before. On one level, it feels like Cretton is returning to his character-driven, indie roots. It's a show designed to the elevate the talents of its stars, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Sir Ben Kingsley. We spent some time with the Wonder Man team at our special screening and Q&A Friday night. Thanks to all who showed up. We hope you enjoyed the evening as much as we did. But before we get to that, let’s bring a little magic to your week. —Aaron Couch and Borys Kit. |
BRANDON SANDERSON AND APPLE HAVE MADE AN UNPRECEDENTED DEAL. The streaming giant has landed the rights to the Cosmere books, the fictional literary universe by the fantasy author. The first titles being eyed for adaptation are the Mistborn series (for features), and The Stormlight Archive series (for television). The deal comes after a competitive situation which saw Sanderson meet with most of the studio heads in town. It gives the author rarefied control over the screen translations, according to sources. Sanderson will be the architect of the universe, will write, produce and consult, and have approvals. That’s a level of involvement that not even J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin enjoy. Get misty-eyed. |
LIFE IMITATED ART — AND VICE VERSA — AT OUR SPECIAL SCREENING OF WONDER MAN ON FRIDAY. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Sir Ben Kingsley went into full thespian mode, delighting the audience with their chemistry and their obsessive commitment to the craft during a lively panel at the DGA alongside co-creators Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest. At one point, Kingsley dived so deep into a scene from episode three that the crowd, bewitched by witnessing the actor’s process, erupted into applause. If you've seen the show, you know the actors have insane chemistry, but as they revealed, that was something they discovered while the cameras were rolling — not something that came instantly. Kingsley wanted to keep a healthy distance between himself and Abdul-Mateen off-screen, in service of the acting craft. "The camera loves filming people discovering one another rather than an over-familiarity," Kingsley explained. "So with the greatest affection and respect in the world for my colleague, we did not 'hang out.'...What we did was discover each other while Destin's camera was rolling." Cretton described Kingsley as an actor who “likes to make sure that he is working with people who are going to be as dedicated as he is.” And ahead of Abdul-Mateen’s very first conversation with Kingsley, Cretton tried to give the actor a heads-up to be prepared for some intensity. “I got on the phone with Yahya [after] and he said, ‘You didn't tell me how, what that was going to be like!’ And I was like, 'I tried to tell you.' ‘You did not tell me!’ But, Yahya’s credit, he did not buckle with intimidation. He said, ‘I see what Sir Ben is like, and I like it. And he said, ‘The next time I see him, I am going to be ready.” And ready he was. At the first table read, he had the script memorized. (Kinglsey, as most actors do, read from the script.) A few more things: The show reteams Cretton with his longtime composer Joel P. West, and the director said his assignment was to go weird. "Try not to do anything that would typically be attributed to a superhero show or movie," he recalled telling West. And the first episode shot a scene at Taix, the French restaurant in L.A.'s Echo Park neighborhood. The restaurant has a special place in Cretton's heart as he lived in the area when he first moved to the city. And when we was feeling small, he would to go eat the restaurant's wedge salad. Sadly, the night of our panel, it was revealed that the dining spot would be closing for good at the end of March. You can watch the wondrous full panel here. |
THE COMIC INDUSTRY IS MOURNING THE LOSS OF LONGTIME MARVEL ARTIST SAL BUSCEMA.
He passed away Saturday, Jan. 24 at his home in Gainesville, Virginia, just two days before his 90th birthday. Buscema was the younger brother of John Buscema, another Marvel artist stalwart who was a star thanks to his 1960s and 1970s work on The Avengers, Silver Surfer and Conan the Barbarian. The elder Buscema opened the door to his brother, who initially wanted to be an inker, but ended up as a penciller.
Sal Buscema was never a superstar artist and never got the adulation of '70s fixtures like Neal Adams, Gene Colan and Jim Starlin. His work never got the special presentations at galleries.
But he was a professional draftsman through and through. Thanks to a 10-year run in the 1970s and early 1980s drawing The Incredible Hulk, a feat that would be impossible to match in modern comics, he is the defining artist of the Green Goliath for many.
Equally as important was his work on The Spectacular Spider-Man, a book he launched in the 1970s then returned to in 1988 for an eight-year run. He worked a lot with writer Bill Mantlo,
On Hulk, they created the U-Foes and the Soviet Super Soldiers, while they also adapted the toy Rom for comics.
On that long stretch of Spectacular Spider-Man, he worked with comic veteran J.M. DeMatteis, who yesterday reposted a 2013 note from one of his career highlights, making issue No. 200 of the series:
Sal’s pages came in: It was one of his finest hours. The panel to panel flow was cinematic and crystal clear, the characters dramatic and achingly human. And those final two pages? Perfection! At first—locked into my original vision—I began writing captions and dialogue for the end-sequence, but it quickly became clear that everything I wanted to say had already been said, and better, by Sal. It was all there in the pictures. He had translated my plot so expertly that words would have capsized the sequence and destroyed the emotional power of the moment.
Here are those pages, showing the goodbye between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn. |
Buscema is survived by his wife, Joan Buscema, who he married in 1960 and his three adult sons. Here is his cover to The Spectacular Spider-Man No. 1, which was the third-ever Spidey book from Marvel and launched in 1976. This nice-looking copy hits the auction block from Heritage next week. |
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