by A.J. Focht
Strange things are happening over at Marvel Comics as a Doctor Strange movie is in motion. Marvel Studios already exploited their rights to most of the mainstream heroes, and, as they look toward the studio’s future, they’re going to have to start pulling from the lesser known source material. It looks like Doctor Strange is going to be the first of them, tentatively seeing a 2013 release date.
While Marvel is trolling their more obscure character lineup to fill future rolls, it looks like DC is going to stick with their big names, even if they don’t do so hot at the box office. Warner Bros. has given the lantern back its green light, and they’re saying the Green Lantern 2 will be edgier. If putting a dark tint on the Lantern’s light doesn’t work, they’ve also got a script set for The Flash.
They’ve always got the Batman when all else fails tho. The internet has been abuzz with on set photos and videos from a recent location shoot for The Dark Knight Rises, which feature images of an all-out brawl between Batman and Bane.
Marvel’s comics division shocked the world Tuesday with news that the next Spider-Man is going to be a half-Hispanic and half-black teen named Miles Morales, who’s significantly younger than Peter Parker. The announcement came just a day before the release of Ultimate Fallout #4, in which the origin of the boy’s powers, and his connection to Peter Parker, will be explored. Whether this was a horrible spoiler, or a genius marketing move I don’t know. I guess we have to wait until next week to see.
Stepping away from the super heroes, news of a The Walking Dead webisodes has broken. Six episodes, all to be written by John Esposito, will come out this fall. There is even talk of the episodes being played on AMC during Fearfest, although this is unconfirmed.
Things aren’t looking good for Torchwood. Although the series is popular and maintaining decent ratings, Starz doesn’t know if it will get a second season on the channel. It looks like the future of the show might rest in the hands of creator Russell T. Davies; if his schedule can’t accommodate it, it’ll be the end of Torchwood.
Over on the gaming front, Nintendo has made a significant price cut on the Nintendo 3DS. The system was Nintendo’s most expensive handheld to date, starting at $250. That price has been slashed to $169. Lots blame the price drop on lack of quality games (with a large overall exception given to Zelda), but no matter what the reason, the price cut has helped to re-peak interest in the system. All owners who bought the system before the price cut are receiving 20 free games to make up for it.
And finally, we check in on Harry Potter. The last movie broke $1 billion world-wide this last weekend. In just three weeks it has climbed to the eighth spot on the all-time world-wide box office list. This also coincided with Pottermore’s beta opening on the July 31. A total of one million people have the chance to get into Pottermore early. Each day between July 31 and August 6, a Harry Potter related clue is placed on the website. Those who figure out the clue are led to a third party site to ‘find the magic quill’ once they have found it they can sign up. Only a certain number can get in each day, and the spots fill quickly. If you really want in the beta you’ll need to stay up late (or wake up early), and know your Harry Potter trivia.
