Del Toro's Madness, Ruffalo is Hulk, and more news

GUILLERMO DEL TORO has landed on his feet, hard: Deadline reports that his first post-Hobbit directing gig will be his long-gestating passion project, an adaptation of the seminal H.P. Lovecraft novella At the Mountains of Madness. Del Toro put a substantial, ten-year deal with Universal on hold to direct The Hobbit, postponing the production of several dream genre vehicles, including new, perhaps definitive versions of Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde, a film of Dan Simmons' neo-Victorian Drood, and Madness. His return to America has apparently borne fruit, with James Cameron of all people stepping on board as producer to bring Del Toro's ultimate movie to screens. A script has long been written, and Deadline reports pre-production may begin in weeks with production commencing next year.

Madness is a key tale in Weird horror writer Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, wherein an expedition to the Antarctic in the 1930s awakens horrific old gods linked to the origins of humanity. A film would be that now-rare beast: a horror tentpole movie, with a big budget to bring an epic of Weird Fiction to the screen. Between the unexpected mass success of Avatar and Inception, the rejection by audiences of returns-to-the-well like The A-Team and Robin Hood, and the studio support for visionary projects like this, might we be seeing a rise in auteur-driven blockbusters? Granted, Cameron's involvement no doubt helped a lot - he and Christopher Nolan are probably the only filmmakers who can make anything they want on a large budget - and it will be in 3D, but this is still hugely encouraging. I'm off to read the book.

Blu-Ray Bliss: Alien Anthology and Back to the Future Trilogy announced

Two Blu-Ray packages have been announced that give hope that studios aren't completely abandoning extra features: a few weeks back, it was the Back to the Future Trilogy, and today we have the Alien Anthology.

The Alien Anthology... my god, this is a comprehensive package. Fox have thrown in everything from all previous releases of the films: the 1999 Legacy DVD set, the 2003 Quadrilogy DVD set, even the 1991 laserdiscs! I have the Quadrilogy and it's one of the best sets out there, as should be expected from DVD producer extraordinaire Charles de Lauzirika (Blade Runner, Twin Peaks, Gladiator). But there's a lot of new material on the Blu-Ray. It would take substantial extras to make the upgrade worthwhile, but these look to be a slam dunk. The highlights:

FINISHING SCHOOL: Wonder Woman (2009, Animated)

Following up on their long-running benchmark shows Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond, and Justice League, Warner Bros. are taking a new approach to their DC superhero animation, releasing two or three short feature films straight to DVD and Blu-Ray each year. Spotlighting both major and lesser-known characters and sporting big-name voice casts, these films also have a more mature sensibility and slightly more graphic content than is allowed on Saturday morning TV.

Discovering Green Lantern

While I enjoy superhero comics - sometimes against my better judgement - I don't love all the characters unreservedly. Try as I might, I don't find Superman that engaging except in a few classic stories. I love the mythos and greatly relish the Christopher Nolan-produced film currently in development, but unlike Batman, I can't get into Superman comics consistently. Then there are the characters I haven't even tried reading yet, and Green Lantern was one of these. An interstellar cop with a ring powered by will, he was historically more of a B-lister with a cult following than an iconic player. But in the last few years, Green Lantern has enjoyed a rare transformation into an A-lister of the superhero world, to the point where Warner Bros. saw his potential and put a major film in development. It will be released next year, whereas only a few years ago the character was so inconsequential to them that they were going to use him as a comedy vehicle for Jack Black.

Star Trek Fiction - More than Mere Tie-Ins

I like to consider myself the kind of fan who isn't slavishly faithful. I don't think it's healthy fandom when the object of your ardour can do no wrong. If nothing else, it prevents you from demanding the best, not to mention the fact that you may end up spending far too much time thinking about it.

Tie-in novels have a reputation among more casual geeks as being extreme fodder targeted at such all-encompassing fans, wherein the large backlog of episodes still isn't enough. When the corporate owners of the show don't see any creative value in these extensions of the franchise and are keen to just make a quick buck, then it's sad to see mediocre and inconsequential tie-in novels get gobbled up by the fanbase without discernment (and don't get me started on novelisations...). To make matters worse, the tie-ins inherently can't contribute anything substantial to the narrative of their series or franchise as they are tightly constrained by being unable to contradict what may come. While the shows are running, the novels occupy a fairly pointless limbo where they can only ever hope to be a standalone episode free of budgetary constraints.

But to tar all tie-in novels with this brush is to generalise and ignore their potential. I read some Star Trek novels in my teens and a couple were hugely exciting, written so creatively that the stakes were huge without contravening the series they were based on. Peter David's Q-Squared was a terrific read in this vein, but I soon came to feel that most of the novels I was encountering were entertaining but inconsequential Trek yarns. There were still plenty of TV episodes I'd yet to see that served that purpose, so I moved on. As the years passed I would spot the latest novels in the bookstore and cringe a little that they were still going, even after the TV and movie franchises had gone to dust.

I've since learned that this was far too reductive an assessment. Out of curiosity, I read up on the current state of Trek fiction and was surprised to discover that its ambition has skyrocketed. Free from the constraints of conforming to series in production and movies in development, the books can now be as adventurous as the authors can imagine - anything can happen. The shows have essentially continued in prose form, but with the added bonus of becoming increasingly intermingled in mostly plausible ways, taking care to avoid what's been termed 'small universe syndrome'. The fallout from the Dominion War now affects Voyager and The Next Generation rather than being contained to the Deep Space Nine books, and the political and cultural complexity of that show is now one of the book line's calling cards.

Edward Norton won't be the Hulk in The Avengers

Drew McWeeny at Hitfix scored a double-whammy of a scoop over the weekend, first reporting that Edward Norton would not be playing Bruce Banner/The Hulk in The Avengers, despite Norton and director Joss Whedon both loving the idea. A deal allegedly couldn't be made, and given Marvel's current strategy of paying actors relatively small sums but for multi-picture deals, it's not hard to figure out what the sticking point might be.

Then Drew received an official response from Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige, which is rare in that it publicly acknowledges negotiations usually kept behind closed doors. Any chance that fan reaction to the news might send Marvel back to the negotiating table seems lost, with Marvel's rapid response designed to make that abundantly clear. It's also a very public dig at Norton, accusing him of not being a team player. Whether this means unreasonable demands for creative input or just not accepting a similar salary to his castmates is unclear. I can't help but wonder though if Downey is scoring the biggest payday here, and perhaps that's ruffling feathers.

Revolutionary Road

A skilled filmmaker can take a basic premise and develop two markedly different films from it. Revolutionary Road is similar to director Sam Mendes' debut American Beauty in examining discontent with suburban life, but each draw different conclusions depending on how the characters act on their epiphanies.

I'm trying to refrain from reviewing older films randomly unless they fit into an existing project such as Finishing School or the forthcoming Basic Training, but Revolutionary Road sparked such contemplation that I can't not write about it. Although set in the 1950s and based on Richard Yates' 1961 novel, the film is effortlessly universal and urgently relevant to life today by identifying that while the trappings of the conformist, more repressive 50s but may be gone, feeling trapped within one's society is always possible.

The 2010 Emmy Nominations - Why I'm Not So Cranky This Time

I've learned to care about the Emmys a little less each year. One maddening win after another does much to weaken your resolve, but since such awards are the closest a sportless weirdo like me will get to enjoying professional competition, I can't help but be curious when the nominations come in. On days like today I can't help but join my fellow industry watchers in cheering the little victories and crying foul at the usual lazy selections and narrow-minded thinking.

News for the Day

Ain't it Cool reports that Aaron Johnson will play young Cyclops in X-Men: First Class, to be directed by his Kick-Ass boss Matthew Vaughn. It's not official, but Ain't It Cool are more careful with their casting scoops these days - when they do make them, they tend to be very reliable.

Johnson joins James McAvoy as Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, and Alice Eve as Emma Frost, with the remainder of the cast to be announced.

Yes, this appears to be either a prequel or a reboot, neither of which has had much creative success in Hollywood lately given that they largely serve as a means to cast new, cheaper actors or wring some more money from a brand the studio has the licence to by hoping to convince the audience that the original films never happened.

Misfits

British genre television is a fickle beast, airing either in abundance or hardly at all. The success of the revitalised Doctor Who has thankfully led to numerous science fiction, fantasy, and horror shows with that much-missed no-bollocks British sensibility. For the decade prior, one show would came along in a blue moon to get our hopes up for a revival, but nothing would appear in its wake. Ultraviolet was a lone wolf in the late 90s, offering a pragmatic and innovate take on vampires years before they re-entered popular culture in force. But now we don't have to hang our hats on just one British genre piece. There's Torchwood, Being Human, Primeval, Dead Set, Paradox, and more. I can't vouch for the quality of all of them, but if a number are being made then we're far more likely to have a few standouts. Misfits is one of them.

Why Christopher Nolan's Inception Matters

The release of Inception is cause for celebration. Not just because it's Christopher Nolan's new film, but because an original science-fiction concept has made it to the screen with big stars, a bigger budget, and a major publicity campaign backing it, despite the prevailing wisdom that films with such attributes must now be based on known properties. If a major success, it may prove to executives that Avatar was no fluke, that audiences will flock to a film without brand awareness if they are sufficiently intrigued. Avatar also went against the norm in delivering a modest opening weekend but then remaining atop the box office for weeks, with strong word of mouth powering it on to become the highest-grossing film of all time. This is the opposite of the sadly-entrenched economic model of a massive opening weekend powered by buzz and marketing followed by a massive drop in sales when word gets out that the film is mediocre (Titanic managed this too. There's something about Cameron...). If Inception powers onward at the box office, could it be a game-changer?

Is The Hobbit debacle a sign?

The Hobbit is one of those upcoming films that everyone is looking forward to on auto-pilot. It's more Middle-Earth at the movies - it has to be great, right? I'd wager many such enthusiasts are failing to consider what an awkward position this endeavour is in, and that in some ways, it is setting itself up for failure. And that's before we consider the current debacle with MGM's bankruptcy postponing the film's progress. But one thing at a time.

Where the Wild Things Are

The notion of a kid's film that can appeal to adults is now a cliche. Pixar is so unfailingly good at catering to both demographics that it's now unusual for a 'kid's film' to offer nothing for the grown-ups. Spike Jonze has now pushed that boundary with a kid's film made with indie sensibilities: meandering, episodic, purely character-driven, and with much left unsaid. Where the Wild Things Are is highly ambitious, particularly in adapting Maurice Sendak's much-loved but very short picture book to feature length. Jonze and co-screenwriter Dave Eggers have opted not to pad it with an elaborate plot, but to let this world be for 90 minutes. It's a bold move, and sporadically successful.

The Case for Richard Kelly's The Box

The first Blu-Ray I purchased was The Box. I had other, more likely candidates on the way from Amazon, but I wanted something to watch with my new player. It was on special and I liked it a lot at the cinema, so I picked it up. The film got a fairly savage reception on release, tanking critically and commercially. I was curious whether it would hold up on second viewing.

FINISHING SCHOOL: The Fall (2006)

The trailer for Tarsem's The Fall is of the sort that comes along once in a while to utterly beguile you and demand to be watched over and over. Sometimes it leads to an amazing film (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) and other times a disappointing one (I Heart Huckabees). The end result of The Fall is somewhere in between (check out that trailer here, in high-res if you can).

Is Blu-Ray God in disc form?

Well, not quite, but it's certainly transcendent.

After many long months of pining, I finally have a 40-inch full HD LCD TV and a Blu-Ray player. Although I'd only seen snippets of Blu-Ray in action in stores - and not at optimal settings, I now learn - reading about the technology online and just watching my CRT confirmed that there was much room for improvement. My experience with that technology is akin to seeing a moving image through a dirty beer glass, and these first days with the new TV have proven that.

My DVDs now look clearer, sharper, brighter, and most importantly, more immersive. I can't wait to watch Twin Peaks again on this, for example, despite seeing it five or more times. Grain is much more obvious on certain discs, such as the first season of Friday Night Lights, but that may have been deliberate on Peter Berg's part anyway. Plus, having widescreen DVDs fill the screen is such a treat. Physically, this TV isn't that much bigger than our CRT, but with the image nearly reaching the edges of the unit itself combined with the leap in quality, it feels twice as big.

But Blu-Ray has been the most impressive aspect, by far. Some friends had said they could barely tell the difference, which was a little concerning. Is Blu-Ray, in the final analysis, more for the incredibly discerning home theatre buffs who can tell the difference between a Dolby and a DTS audio track? Would my upscaled DVDs look on-par with the new, much-vaunted, but controversial technology?

No. Far from it.