Over the years DC have been pretty successful with TV shows based on its flagship characters. Superman has enjoyed numerous incarnations such as Lois and Clark as well as CW’s Smallville. CW also has Arrow, based on the adventures of the titular Green Arrow. Batman has had a few himself, mainly animated, including the bloody amazing Batman: The Animated Series. Now Fox are planning to revisit Gotham City with a series, currently titled Gotham, following the early years of Gotham Central’s finest, James Gordon. Gotham will be headed up by TheMentalist creator Bruno Heller who has signed on for a series commitment.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you will be aware that Phantoms star Ben Affleck has been cast as Batman in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel follow-up, currently titled Batman Vs. Superman. The internet has been up in arms about the casting, and so far the man himself has remained relatively tight-lipped. However, Ben Affleck appeared last night on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon to promote his upcoming movie Runner Runner, co-starring Justin Timberlake, and the subject of Affleck playing Batman inevitably came up:
Affleck talks about how he was warned about the internet backlash following previous casting choices. “They said, ‘Just don’t use the Internet for a couple of days,'” the actor told Fallon. “And I said … ‘I handle shit!'” Ben fAffleck’s curiosity couldn’t prevent him from having a little peek when the news was made official. “I saw the announcement, I look down the thing. The first comment? … ‘Nooooooooooooo. And I was done! We’re going to be Luddites for a while.'”
Affleck still seems very pleased with his casting and told Fallon:
[quote]It’s so awesome, man. I’m so excited. They called me up and asked me if I wanted to do this. And I said, ‘I’m not 25, man, are you sure about this?’ And they said, ‘Come down, we wanna show you what we’re doing.’ Zack Snyder’s directing it and he has this amazing take on it. Obviously you can’t do what Christian [Bale] did, those movies were amazing. But Zack wants to something different but still in keeping with that.[/quote]
There is mixed feeling over here at Grizzly Bomb over Affleck’s casting, I for one am on team Affleck. He is a solid actor and in recent years has proved his salt both in front of and behind the camera. At least the rumor that pop star Justin Bieber being in the running to play Robin in the movie has now been quashed. The Wrap reported on Sunday that the whole thing was potentially set up for an upcoming Funny or Die sketch.
Affleck will next be seen on the big screen alongside of Justin Timberlake in gambling thriller Runner Runner on September 27. Batman Vs. Superman is aiming for a July 15, 2015 release.
It is hard not to love hearing these types of stories. The story involves one Adam Thompson, an artist who decided he wanted to improve his skills on Adobe Illustrator and he gave himself quite an inventive way of doing it.
He decided that for the next 50 days he would create, in his own style, a hero. Called 50 Heroes in 50 Days he managed to produce some of the most innovative designs of well-known heroes that the fandom collective have ever seen. Here is what the man himself had to say about his gallery of heroic heroes.
[quote]“As the title indicates, each day for 50 days I drew a new superhero in Adobe Illustrator. In doing so I learned many new shortcuts and tools, and ultimately made myself more efficient in the program. This project was incredibly fun for me. As an illustrator I am inspired by comics, this project allowed me to pay extra close attention to the details of each character, and gain a greater understanding of what goes into character development. I hope to do a villains series in the future, so keep an eye out, and as always, enjoy!”[/quote]
Now the villains series certainly sounds like it will have promise after such a good job he did on the heroes. What is so great about these designs is their unique style, making the heroes cute-a-fied while sticking to their superhero roots. The pill shaped body also adds a certain continuity to them that is something to be admired. A lot of the designs are from the film versions of these characters, but the comic designs pop up as well (look out for super cute Agent Coulson!). So enjoy the pictures below and if we keep our fingers crossed we will see more of these in the near future. Mr. Thompson, if you are reading this, these pictures would look great in a book.
Fan art is fast becoming one of the quickest ways for lovers of all things fandom to express their nerdy tastes. Heck you can’t jump onto the internet without something popping up, whether it be gifs, mash-up t-shirt designs, or just interpretation of old characters in a new light. With the hot news on the net of Affleck’s casting as Batman, it seems appropriate to look at a new re-imagining of the Caped Crusaders foes (thanks to Buzz Feed).
This 1920’s inspired series of mug shots comes from the mind of J.E. Mark (whose website can be found here) and they perfectly sum up the prohibition era. Check out his versions of Mr Freeze, The Joker, Two-Face and company below to see what I mean.
It is always fun to see a new take on an old characters and Mark has given us some incredibly life-like pieces of art here. The detail is incredible and the harder edge to the characters makes this a world this reviewer would love to visit again. Batman has had adventures in this era many times before in the comic books (mostly through the Elsewhere series of books), but still Mark’s work shows a freshness to it that makes these images a joy to behold. I especially love the Riddler who reminded me of an older version of the Adam West Batman foe The Riddler (played by Frank Gorshin) and the bloodied faces of both The Penguin and The Joker. Here is hoping he gives us some more takes on popular comic creations very soon.
[Editor’s Note – My favorite is actually Ivy, who just seems to fit with that flapper look… – BK]
From the moment the Man of Steel sequel was announced as Batman vs. Superman, speculation began as to who would be next to don the legendary cowl. It seemed like every actor of a certain age was rumored to be Warner Bros.’ next “favorite.” Then it was rumored that Zack Snyder wanted Batman to be older, so a whole new batch of actors were rumored.
While we here at Grizzly Bomb put Ryan Gosling on our Justice League casting couch, it appears as if Snyder had his eye on another man… Ben Affleck!
While seemingly every other actor in Hollywood was named in the Batman casting rumors, Affleck’s name was not one that was at the forefront by any means. However, the speculation has finally ended and we now know that Affleck with be going head to head with Henry Cavill’s Superman in the Man of Steel sequel.
No doubt there will be plenty of pissing and moaning over this choice, because frankly, we’ve seen Affleck as a superhero before and it wasn’t pleasant. Daredevil anyone? Nothing good came from that film, except maybe some hot Jennifer Garner/Ben Affleck chemistry but even that couldn’t save the sinking ship.
We can take solace in the fact that even Affleck himself didn’t like Daredevil. Plus, Hollywoodland wasn’t awful. Wasn’t great by any means but Affleck as the actor (George Reeves, of course) who played Superman wasn’t near as bad as the Daredevil fiasco.
So how do you like Ben Affleck as Batman? Can he be a convincing Caped Crusader? Do you buy him as the billionaire Bruce Wayne? Thankfully we have plenty of time to speculate on how great or awful the move is as Batman vs. Superman is not due in theaters until Summer of 2015.
As you may know, Kevin Smith is a huge Batman fan and weekly presents a podcast called Fatman on Batman as part of his SModcast empire. Each week Kevin Smith invites a creator who is involved (sometime tenuously) with Batman. This week Smith was again joined by famed writer and spiritualist, Grant Morrison for issue #44. Morrison was invited to discuss his favorite Batman stories, and as part of the podcast discussed Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s seminal Batman story The Killing Joke.
Grizzly Bomb 