by A.J. Focht
Despite all his super powers, the Green Lantern might not land the green light for a sequel. Reports had been floating around all week that the movie would be getting a follow up regardless of its horrible performance at the box office. However reports of a Green Lantern 2 were quickly dismissed as Warner Bros. waits to make the official decision. Likely, the studio is wanting to see its $200 million (plus a ridiculous $175 million in marketing costs) returned before they sign off on anything. It all comes down to the green, and the lantern’s light isn’t going to help him out of this one.
And as if this summer hasn’t had enough of overdone CGI, Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be releasing worldwide on the first of July. In the earliest reviews it looked like the critics had gone to the dark side as they praised the film. Many critics insisted it be viewed in 3D claiming it to be the visual rival of Avatar. The later reports weren’t as kind. USA Today hails it as being visually stunning, but lacking story line, and…
“Third chapter in popular series is dedicated to little more than wanton destruction.”
Once you average the reports out, we’re looking at a visually epic blockbuster with no coherent story or plot of any kind… so really, it’s not that different from the last two.
On a more disheartening note (for me at least), it looks like the Toy Story trilogy wasn’t really a trilogy. Actor Tom Hanks let it slip that they are working on a fourth installment to what might have been the perfect trilogy. I personally feel that there is no need to bust Woody and Buzz back out of the toy box. If they want to re-hash and ruin a series they should just keep making more Cars sequels. Or, if they want to do a good sequel, what about The Incredibles?
I mentioned a few weeks ago that many of the big film companies would not be attending this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego. The disappointment didn’t stop there; Marvel has announced they will not be doing a major panel at Comic-Con. They will be on the floor, and there is talk about a Captain America: The First Avenger promotion or screening of site. Still losing one of the two major comic distributors from Hall H has most attendees upset. Comic-Con tweeted that they are expecting 1,500 refunded badges to have for sale, I wouldn’t doubt if this had something to do with it.
Last Wednesday marked the death of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. After finally falling at the hands of Green Goblin, Peter Parker’s death is the start of some major changes in the Ultimates universe. The decision to kill of the original (ok Ultimate) web crawler was a brave and risky move. The repercussions of it will be explored on July 7 in Ultimate Comics: Fallout #1, at which point we’ll get to see who is going to crawl into the spider suit.
Video game developer Valve started off their Uber Update by opening Team Fortress 2 up for an ‘extended weekend’ of free play. It turns out the biggest part of the update was that Team Fortress 2 will remain free to play. For everyone who had the game before it went free-to-play will receive a ‘premium’ account with extra benefits.
Valve’s Uber Update wasn’t the biggest news to hit Thursday as JK Rowling announced the launch of Pottermore. Rowling uploaded a video of herself onto the site explaining what exactly Pottermore is. For all her explanation, the purpose of Pottermore is still pretty vague. What we do know is that it will be the exclusive distributor of electronic copies of the Harry Potter series, and that there is some kind of online community element. Hopefully we’ll know more with its ‘beta’ launch on July 31.
Some last breaking news, it looks like mmo moguls Blizzard Entertainment are opening World of Warcraft up for free-to-play up to level 20, instead of the usual 48 hours free trial. After losing many of its long time players over the last two expansions, it looks like Blizzard is trying to rebuild its ranks. The original game and the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, are now being offered in a digital battle chest package for $20 at Blizzards online store for those who want more than just 20 levels. The remaining expansion sets will have to be bought separately.
