Tag Archives: Movie

Rumor: Flash Movie Speeding Up?

Edit: Thinking about it more, Brandan’s probably right. This was too sketchy to really bother posting. Even if it’s true, I probably misremembered the dates anyway. I’d delete the post, but on the internet that would paradoxically give it more attention.

Not much to report anyway: just someone overhearing a conversation which implied that WB marketing expected to start working on stuff related to the perpetually-in-development-hell Flash movie in the next couple of years, rather than just eventually.

Speed Reading: Casting, Powers, Moose and Waid

Winged Lions Quiver looks at Flash casting rumors. Kneel Before Zod casts the Flash’s Rogues.

Nwego’s Dirty Mind looks at the Barry vs. Wally debate.

Lordportico ponders the nature of the Flash’s super-speed [Edit: the author moved this to a new blog in April] [Edit 2: The author seems to have removed the article entirely. I wish I’d been a little more descriptive in this link, since I don’t remember what the approach was.]

Flash-back podcast has a new installment focusing on the Speed Force (not this blog, of course, but the concept it was named after).

Major Spoilers has a sneak peek at Mark Waid’s Irredeemable, while the writer himself has launched a podcast, 15 Minutes With Waid, starting with Inside Potter’s Field. (I quite liked the first two issues of the Potter’s Field miniseries that came out last(?) year, and would definitely be interested in more.)

A Comic Bloc discussion over why Moose Baumann is no longer the colorist on Flash: Rebirth has made it to Lying in the Gutters.

Flash Movie Back From the Dead? Dan Mazeau Rumored on Script

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Hot on the heels of Warner Bros. producer Charles Roven telling Sci Fi Wire that the Flash movie is “shrouded in mystery” but not actually dead, IESB reports that Dan Mazeau, writer of the upcoming Jonny Quest film, is writing a script.

IESB spoke with Roven, who would not confirm the news, but did talk about the character:

I was always a big fan of the comics. I was around for… Gosh, this is embarrassing, you know, the last two Flashes. The Flash that was the policeman and Kid Flash, Wally, and his uncle. Those are the two Flashes that I grew with, so I was excited to have the opportunity to try and see if I could actually translate those characters to the screen.

When the Flash movie was originally announced in 2004, David Goyer (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) was going to write and direct. He finished the script, but Warner Bros. thought it was too dark, and took him off the project. Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) was brought as the new director early in 2007, then replaced later that year by David Dobkin (Fred Claus), and the movie was re-positioned to spin out of the planned Justice League film.

Of course, all that fell apart, the Justice League film is basically on hold, and now Warner Bros. actually wants dark films. But rather than resurrect Goyer’s script, they’re apparently going back to the drawing board.

My cynical take: The original script probably featured Wally West as he took over from Barry Allen. With DC repositioning Barry Allen as the primary Flash, they probably didn’t want to muddy the waters with his successor.

Read up on the sordid history of the Flash Feature Film.

Speed Reading: Best-Of, Classics, Kerschl and Waid

And the year-end round-ups keep coming!

At Comic Fodder, Tpull’s Top Ten Mini-Series of 2008 counts Rogues Revenge at #4.

CBR’s When Worlds Collide lists Geoff Johns among its 15 Creators to Watch in 2009.

Geoff Johns makes iFanboy’s list of The Top 5 Best Things About Comic Books in 2008.

Also:

Bags and Boards looks at Flash v.1 #309 (May 1982), pitting the Flash against a man from the future who would, by the end of the issue, become the first future Flash

According to David S. Goyer, all DC movies at Warner Bros. are on hold while they figure out how to get them right. (via The Beat)

The Montreal Mirror profiles artist Karl Kerschl, who penciled Teen Titans Year One and one issue of Flash: The Fastest Man Alive. The article focuses on his work with the band Ragni and his webcomic, The Abominable Charles Christopher.

Major Spoilers has some preview pages from the upcoming The Incredibles comic written by Mark Waid.

Speed Reading: Movie, Geoff Johns and DCUO

Geoff Johns talks to MTV about DC Universe Online, saying that the massively-multiplayer game is likely to ship in early 2010 or late 2009. He also says he’d love to tackle a Flash or Superman movie.

And speaking of movies, Variety reports that the film industry is starting to take super-heroes seriously, and looks into which characters are likely candidates for the big screen.

Michael Doran, co-founder and senior editor of the comicbook news site Newsarama, sees the most movie potential for DC Comics’ the Flash.

“Superspeed just is so elemental,” he says. “The character, especially the Wally West version — the fast-talking, quick-witted type — his personality almost matches his superpowers.”

Back to the fan perspective, Comix 411 has a wishlist for the Flash movie, and Siskoid looks at “The Human Race”.

Review: Stan Lee’s Lightspeed

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I recently decided to try out Netflix’s instant streaming service by watching Stan Lee’s Lightspeed, the made-for-TV movie about a government agent turned super-speedster. It’s been on my queue for a while, and I figured I’d free up the slot for something else.

Ultimately, I was really impressed — with the service. The image and sound were very clear, even with the window playing fullscreen. I’m annoyed that it’s Windows– and Internet Explorer–only. Aside from that, the only thing I really missed was fine control over fast-forward and rewind.

The movie itself? Cheesy. And what’s worse, dull. I took a break halfway through and wasn’t sure I really cared about coming back to finish it. Heatstroke was better — and I mean that.

The structure’s fine. It starts with the villain, a man with snake-like skin called Python, and a firefight between the villain’s gang, the people in a building, and a SWAT-team–like group called the Ghost Squad. Then it flashes back to the villain’s origin, then jumps forward to the aftermath of the battle and weaves the hero’s origin into the tale of Python’s master scheme. Like many classic stories, the hero’s and villain’s origins are linked.

The effects are decent, if no more exciting than those that appeared on The Flash a decade and a half earlier. Though they do spend more time in daylight. The suit is goofy, but they at least hang a lampshade on its goofiness: he picks it up at a sporting goods store to help protect himself from windburn.

But the movie just isn’t compelling at all.

I started taking notes during the film, but they quickly turned into snarky commentary. So rather than writing a full review, I’m attaching them below the cut. There could be spoilers, so beware.

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