Again, The End?

Hey you! Yes, you. You can download a trailer for Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. It's in FLV, but is better quality than the version on YouTube - and doesn't have the placeholder bits of Buffy that the YouTube trailer did. This is the finished article and it's really very interesting indeed. Not to mention ahead of schedule: expect the show to start in January. 8 months from now. Better news, however, is that the show appears to have more than the initially understood 7 episode order because I've been sent some quotes from Whedon in which he mentions Tim Minear writing and directing not only the 7th but also 8th episode. If 8 instead is our lot or not, I have no idea, but I'm placing my chips on 13. Let's see a year or so from now how right or wrong I am.

I know that film ick officially finished up months ago, but recently I've been trying to get writing again. I'm currently negotiating for somewhere to publish my stuff... and negotiations, while convivial, promising and encouraging are also rather slow. But I think I'm about to start up very soon. Cross your fingers for me - it's a good platform, somewhere I'd be proud to contribute, and it will give me access to a lot more info, people, bits and pieces than I have managed alone.

Not to mention paying, just a tiny bit, meanign I can afford to make time to do the job. Which is nice.

Buffy Spin-Off Ripper Finally Happening

This weekend, Anthony Stewart Head has been attending the Collectormania Glasgow event. Several film ick eyes and ears were present, as well as some pushy film ick fingers and flapping film ick tongues. What was the best bit of news we found out?

That, according to Anthony Stewart Head, the Ripper series is finally going into production. He's expecting the shoot to take place next summer, if everything goes to plan. And, yes, Joss Whedon is behind the wheel.

Ripper was originally proposed some years ago as a BBC co-production while Buffy was still at The WB. It's to be set in the UK and Anthony Stewart Head is to lead a line-up of new characters, much the way Angel did when he went to LA.

Good to hear that the Buffyverse is coming back to TV, even if legal issues might keep even little cameos from some favourite characters well out of the frame.

From Screen To Page: The TV Shows And Movies That Are Becoming Comics

Joss Whedon is one of the greatest television writers that ever worked for the big Networks. He's also one of the greatest writers to pen mainstream superhero titles for the big two comics publishers. No surprise, then, that his Buffy 'Season 8' comic book series is proving successful - in just about every sense of the word.

And it may prove to be setting a new paradigm.

Talking to The Toronto Star, Rob Thomas has let on that DC Comics want to publish a 'Season Four' of Veronica Mars. The Buffy model must have been in mind - there's a common conception, anyway, that Mars is the new Buffy (but if that were entirely true, surely it'd swap networks for a few more seasons before heading to print?)

Looking at Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters yesterday, I saw a piece of art created for a proposed Reanimator comic book. House of Reanimator has had some famous trouble in finding funding, so maybe the route to the printed page has been similar here also - a makedo or an attention spinner when the cash for a screen hasn't been forthcoming.

What's more, there's the prospect of Virgin Comics producing a series of graphic novels (at the very least) based upon unproduced Terry Gilliam projects. Oh... and more Star Trek: Original Series... and the countless projects that have already happened in synch with still ongoing series, from Alias to 24 to CSI.

All in all, it looks like comicbooks are becoming a kind of Limbo for rejected film and TV projects. And let's face it, that's what these projects are: rejects. Buffy Season 8 on TV: rejected. Veronica Mars Season 4: rejected. More Reanimator: rejected. The Defective Detective, Time Bandits 2, The Minotaur: rejected, rejected, rejected.

The potential audience for a comic book is massive, but any realistic projection is not. Has any given issue of Buffy Season 8 been read by anything like the number of people who saw any given episode of the TV show? Of course not. So, the die-hards amongst the numbers, the web-savvy, forum trawling, Browncoat wearing, comic-friendly geekcore, they're going to prove big enough a potential audience base to give comics a shot.

When comics make the transition to the big screen, more often than not there's a kind of smoothing down - which is not necessarily to say a dumbing down. It seems like the geekcore are more open to the idiosyncratic (say, a big purple man with a funny helmet instead of a cosmic cloud of black and grey dirt) and even, it seems to me at least, they expect, want, and sometimes plead for this kind of wild, abandoned fantasy. As such, going from TV to comics, I think, might afford some previously off-limits 'craziness' to occur. Veronica Mars Season 4 might just go into some uncharted territory, push its own limits a little more readily, be less concerned with wide audience expectations and just play into the hands of the geekcore more.

So, perhaps, in a parallel universe Slither wasn't a movie but a comic book, Snakes on a Plane was a comic book, Death Proof and Planet Terror were comic books, Serenity was a comic book and they each did very, very well. They'd each be seen as far greater successes.

But I don't like that universe so much. I like the one where they are all movies just fine thankyou - most of them are very fine films indeed. I can cope with them being not that popular - in fact, I'd expect some of them to be downright unpopular - but I wouldn't want them to stop being films and get forced into a comic book just so they'd be less of a commercial viability.

But, on the other hand, I'm glad that comics have helped people like Greg Pak get attention where their films didn't.

Punishing Joffe And Cohen

Why do people want to punish Roland Joffe and Larry Cohen - not to mention the many other folk who put in months of hard work to make Captivity? Why can't they see that only the distribitor, After Dark, is at fault, and only they need to be 'handled'.

Denying the film a rating is simply the wrong thing to do. Fining the distributor - as heavily as they want - makes a lot more sense.

Joss Whedon is supporting the 'Remove the Rating' campaign. How would he feel if Serenity had been denied a rating because of some dumb idiots marketing it in a grossly inappropriate way? He'd be punished by such a sanction as much as the distributor - providing, of course, he really wants people to see his films. If that's the real reason he makes them. I mean... what other commendable reason is there?

[EDIT: Please read the comments, and contribute - no matter what side of the argument you are on]

Wonder Woman Cast?

There's no script, there's not even any (known) screenwriter, but has Joel Silver's Wonder Woman already been cast?

Cobie Smulders - pictured above, in case you're one of the many who don't yet know who she is - was apparently Joss Whedon's top choice to play the Amazon godess and, according to somebody who seems to think they know about these things and saw fit to e-mail me, she was allegedly one of the few Whedon ideas that Silver liked. As such, he's trying to move the project forward with her still in the frame.

It sounds like whoever gets to draft the next version of the screenplay gets that tiny piece of Whedon legacy but will be 'encouraged' to head in different directions otherwise. Tough job.

I thought I'd share this tip-off with you even though, for what it's worth, I can't see any Wonder Woman film going into production any time soon, with Smulders or not.

Angel Season 6 Paperbound Like Buffy Season 8

Angel is to get a comics series just like his beloved Buffy.

"...we will be doing some new Angel books, with Brian and Joss, picking up where the show left off. They will be post-show, and definitely canon, and co-written by Joss."

Brian is Brian Lynch, director of Big Helium Dog. Long ago, he wrote a Muppet spec script that I've been wanting to get my hands on for years, and his 'Wile E. Coyote sues Acme' pitch sounded incredible - all live action except the Coyote, a proper court room story but funny as hell.

How Buffy The Vampire Slayer Changed Your Life

Dark Horse Comics are holding a Buffy contest, to tie in with the upcoming paper-bound 'eighth season'. All you need to do is write a 250-word mini-essay on how Buffy the Vampire Slayer changed your life. We all have such a story, I'm sure - but the trouble for some would be keeping it trimmed to 250 words.

And what can you win? A copy of Buffy Season 8 issue 1, signed by Joss Whedon; a Buffy Lithograph; a personal appearance in an upcoming issue; and, best of all, the knowledge that Joss himself selected your words as the winning entry.

Joss Whedon Talks Buffy Movie Plans With VH1

Joss sez: At some point you have to let go of that fear. The movie audience is going to be different. In terms of a Buffy movie, both David [Boreanaz] and Sarah [Michelle Gellar] have pretty much got swinging careers and have never really wanted to revisit the characters anyway. It's doubtful that would happen. I never say never, and it would be fun to do it with them. I would be willing to overlook certain discrepancies. Ultimately, a movie would have to pick them up later in their lives anyway. I would have to fudge it with David, like "He got his mortality back for five years and then he lost it again," or something like that. I don't think anybody's going to mind that much if they get a movie" - more at VH1.

No Whedon Wonder Woman

Everybody has reported this by now, but incase you are a loyal film ick reader that doesn't much bother with other movie sites and blogs (hi, Mom!) here's a bitter mouthful of bad news.

Warner Bros. Wonder Woman film is no longer to be written, nor directed, by Joss Whedon. Not so bad for Joss, but very bad for Wonder Woman.

He broke the news on his blog in typical Whedonesque manner.

In the Bizarro-version of this same news story, David Goyer has announced that he will no longer be involved with a movie of The Flash. Not so bad for anyone, surely? Casting Jack Black as the Green Lantern (remember that project?) makes more sense than paying Goyer to write and direct anything, if you ask me.

Whedon's Woman Not So Wonderful?

Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland have written a Wonder Woman script on spec, and sold it to Warner Bros. What does this mean fro Joss Whedon's long-coming, heavily discussed take on the superheroine?

The story seems to be that Silver pictures and Warners have stepped in to purchase this script simply as a cautionary measure. They've snapped this version up so that no legal trouble will arise if it bears any comparison to Whedon's version. Hmmmm. I'm not buying that entirely, not on face value. Does that mean we could all sit down tomorrow, knock out Spider-Man 4 specs and guarantee ourselves a nice, fat paycheck? Of course not. This given explanation doesn't explain everything, that's for sure.

There would certainly be no issue if Whedon had anything like a completed script - how could he be accused of plagiarism in that case? So, it's reasonable to assume that, so far at least, none of Whedon's drafts have met producer Joel Silver's approval. It might also be reasonable to assume that, actually, the Jennison and Strickland version does contain elements similar to Silver's preferred approach, and he's looking to have them incorporated into Whedon's script. The Hollywood Reporter do admit that Silver was impressed by Jennison and Strickland's writing.

It has been reported that this spec Wonder Woman script is a period film, set in the aftermath of the second World War, while Whedon's story is a contemporary one.

This all smells fishy to me. We haven't heard the end of this.

Joss Whedon's New Directing Gig

It was just last week that I was defending the American version of The Office in the pub - I bet that doesn't happen every day, at least not in a 'real' pub in England - and now Joss Whedon comes out and confirms he'll be directing an episode.

If you wade through the discussion on the man's message board, you might miss his brief comment: " Yes, people, it's true. I am the ideal mate."

I think the episodes I saw from the second series of The Office: An American Workplace were much, much better than anything in the UK series, and it goes without saying that Steve Carell is a hugely more talented performer than Ricky Gervais. I've yet to see a single frame of the third year's episodes - how are they?

Wonder Bush

The IESB have recently spoken to Sophia Bush about her rumoured casting as Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman and, at the very least, she wants it to sound like she's in the running. Hmmm. Not sure about this one.

The conversation went a little like this:

IESB: So have you auditioned or has anybody talk to you about Joss Whedon’s Wonder Woman?

Bush: Maybe. We’ll see.

IESB: So you have talked to somebody about Wonder Woman.

Bush: Maybe. We’ll see.

Whether or not Bush is just playing games here, I'm still hoping Joss eventually goes for a non-American lead - though not the oft-rumoured Priyanka Chopra, if only because she's quite a bad actress.