Bleeding Fool |
- Indie Comics Showcase #132: Absolute, Skipt & Black Sun Samurai
- Lucy Liu Joins ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ Cast as a Villain
- What Happens When Diamond Comic Distributors Goes Bust?
- DCEU Films Ranked: #2 ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ (2021)
- Godzilla vs. Kong Box Office Roars to Another $13.4 Million
- Watch: New Trailer for ‘Belle: Ryu to Sobakasu no’ with a July Release
- Watch: All-New Trailer for Zack Snyder’s ‘Army of the Dead’
- Marvel Studios Rolling Out Kate Bishop Explainer Videos
| Indie Comics Showcase #132: Absolute, Skipt & Black Sun Samurai Posted: 14 Apr 2021 08:15 AM PDT
Welcome back to another installment of Indie Comics Showcase, the weekly blog where we signal boost a few truly independent comics that are currently crowdfunding their projects, crowdsourcing their funding in some way, or just completely self-publishing on their own. Every little bit of support for these creators matters, from a single dollar pledge to the twenty-five dollar bundle, and of course the higher tiers are usually fun too! Even if you can’t back a campaign or buy a book, you can share or tweet about these projects to your friends and followers.
On Indie Comics Showcase, we interview the creators, show off some art, and tell you how you can check out the product for yourself. Below we have some outstanding crowdfunding campaigns this week for you to learn about, enjoy, and hopefully support by backing one or more of them! Thanks for checking these out and for being the best part of Indie Comics Showcase. Let's jump in!
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| Lucy Liu Joins ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ Cast as a Villain Posted: 14 Apr 2021 06:15 AM PDT Lucy Liu is officially a god. The Elementary and Why Women Kill star has joined the DC Comics adaptation Shazam! Fury of the Gods as the villain Kalypso, the sister of Helen Mirren's villainous character Hespera.
Along with Liu and Mirren, the core filmmaking team from 2019's Shazam! is returning for the sequel, including Zachary Levi as the eponymous superhero Shazam!, and Asher Angel as his teenage alter ego Billy Batson. David F. Sandberg is returning to direct the film, from a screenplay by Henry Gayden. Peter Safran is producing with his shingle the Safran Company. Like Mirren's character Hespera, Liu's Kalypso does not have an obvious counterpart in DC Comics. Both characters, however, are the daughters of the Greek god Atlas, who is one of the sources of Shazam's powers: He holds the stamina of Atlas, as well as the power of Zeus, the strength of Hercules, the wisdom of Solomon, the speed of Mercury and the courage of Achilles. Shazam! Fury of the Gods is scheduled to open on June 2, 2023.
via Variety The post Lucy Liu Joins ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ Cast as a Villain appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| What Happens When Diamond Comic Distributors Goes Bust? Posted: 14 Apr 2021 04:45 AM PDT If Diamond distribution goes out of business, will that cause smaller publishers to follow suit?
That’s what this Hollywood Reporter article providing more news on Marvel’s shift away from Diamond appears to be saying, along with telling about the concerns of specialty stores:
So what they’re worried about is that no proper arrangements whatsoever will be made to ensure products are kept safe as possible during delivery? Maybe that’s why specialty store proprietors should consider supporting the idea of comics shifting to graphic novel format and retiring the floppy format altogether. The more you stick to outmoded models, the worse it’s going to get, considering the price they cost, which can amount to far more than the trade paperbacks combined in a whole. And I assume floppies are more vulnerable to damage than paperbacks and hardcovers. That said, even Diamond’s not escaping scrutiny here:
Well, at least that lays out the mistakes so many publishers made over the years, to rely on one single distributor, when here, they could’ve set a better example and sought out a few more if that made things easier. Again, this is why I strongly suggest all publishers still hooked on floppies let the format go, and make the move to trade format, as Zenescope appears to be doing. I just don’t understand why many publishers believe the audience can’t get used to a simpler approach to serial fiction rather than the way it’s been done since the 1930s. They’d do well to wake up, and start realizing the benefits of a shift. We’re facing a “brave new world” indeed, and publishers are going to have to start proving they have what it takes to be realists in business. Or else, they won’t last much longer.
For now, if a service like Penguin Random House does prove worthy, maybe they should decide to go for them as well.
Originally published here. The post What Happens When Diamond Comic Distributors Goes Bust? appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| DCEU Films Ranked: #2 ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ (2021) Posted: 13 Apr 2021 05:00 PM PDT
#2 in my ranking of the DCEU franchise.
Well, that's an improvement. The original release of Justice League in 2017 was a conflict of visions, mostly made by Zack Snyder but completed with heavy reshoots by Joss Whedon. It was also cut down from what would have been, best case scenario, almost three hours at the time to a svelte two hours flat. Considering the amount of storytelling that needed to happen in that shortened timeframe, it was no surprise to me that it felt rushed and incomplete. Well, several years pass, the "Snyder Cut" becomes a pop culture myth, and the COVID shutdown of theaters leads HBO Max in a desperate search for content, so they enlist Zack Snyder to make his original vision a reality. How does it stack up?
One of the main problems of the original cut was that there wasn't enough time to develop the three new main characters in any significant way before they got thrown into the plot. This movie fixes that, but there's a catch.
You see, ensemble pieces are hard. They're even harder when you have to introduce several of your main characters from scratch. The thing about a story is that stories tend to work best when all of the pieces work together to create one cohesive whole. When you introduce three new characters, along with a large plot about the end of the world, these three characters need to be fleshed out right there, but they're all dealing with different things. Cyborg is dealing with his fractured relationship with his father and the fact that he's part machine from an alien box that was buried under the ground for thousands of years. Flash is an incredibly awkward young man who runs super fast, can't make personal connections, and wants to pay for his college education to help his father beat the false charges that he's in prison for. Aquaman wants nothing to do with his Atlantean people because of something to do with his mother's mistreatment, even though he should be their king. This is all stuff that would have been fleshed out more naturally in stand alone movies that introduced these characters to audiences. However, as one quarter of the movie's first half, they all end up clashing. Add in the fact that Snyder was able to make his film four hours long because of the streaming platform release so that he included pretty much everything he had shot of these stories, and you get a first half that functions but drags. The individual pieces feel overlong, never bad, but also like we're cutting between four different movies instead of four different parts of a single story.
The plot is that same as the original release, of course. An alien named Steppenwolf has come to Earth looking for three Mother Boxes that were lost on Earth millennia ago that, when united, will destroy the planet through fire. However, Steppenwolf is much improved here. In an effort to create a streamlined character, the theatrical cut reduced him to obsessing over "Mother", and it felt off at best. Here he's trying to get back in the good graces of the ultimate bad guy of the DCEU, Darkseid, communicating back to the planet Apocalypse about his progress, hoping to get an audience with his master, and only beginning to gain the right attention when he discovers that Earth carries Anti-Life (unclear what that is, honestly, I think it's an equation) that Darkseid left on the planet millennia ago when his invasion was knocked back by the combined forces of Earth's Age of Heroes.
So, Steppenwolf has to get the three Mother Boxes first. The first is held at Themyscira and that action scene where Steppenwolf steals it from them is decent. The Amazons keeps getting owned in this franchise, but here they at least put up a good fight. The second is in Atlantis, and this comes off like a leaden balloon. There's too much to establish in Atlantis at once with Aquaman, Mera, and Nuidis talking high and mighty about the history of a place we barely know exists followed swiftly by another quick attack that's harder to see and includes a last second arrival of Aquaman that feels off. Well, at least Aquaman doesn't prevent Steppenwolf from getting the Box, so it's less annoying than it could be.
At this point, I was honestly feeling kind of a bit bored. We were just shy of two hours in, and I was getting four separate movies in one, and none of them were great though they were all functional. Then the pieces finally began to come together with the team actually forming. First was Flash, who happily joined because he needs friends. Then is Aquaman who joins because of his failure in Atlantis. Then is Cyborg who joins after his father is kidnapped by Steppenwolf's parademons. Together, they bear down on Steppenwolf's location outside of Gotham where he was looking for the final Mother Box. This is where it suddenly feels like we're in a single movie, and despite my inability to fully appreciate the first two hours because of its inelegant construction, the character work in the first two hours begins to pay dividends here.
Action scenes have more emotional punch as the team learns to work together against a mighty foe. We get demonstrations of their individual power, but none of them are strong enough individually to take on Steppenwolf and even as a team they're too fractured. The fight scenes have Snyder's visual panache with each hero getting their moment to shine, even if they don't fully succeed. Beaten back, they consider their only potential alternative to fighting such a powerful being: raising Superman from the dead with the power of the Mother Box they have.
Superman arises, and he's disorientated, surrounded by people he doesn't know, and he sees the man who had been trying to kill him, Batman, just before his death at the hands of Doomsday. Only saved by Lois Lane, who was nearby to say goodbye to Superman one more time before trying to move on with her life from her sorrow, the team watches Superman fly away right before Steppenwolf shows up and takes the final Mother Box from them, knowing where it was because they turned it on to revive Superman.
From this point, all the pieces are set for the finale. Steppenwolf has the three Mother Boxes and begins the Unity that will end the world. Cyborg has watched his father die marking the Box to be tracked, so his motivation is complete. The heroes have doubts because of their failures against Steppenwolf and their inability to bring Superman to their cause, but they have no other choice but to fight. Superman, though, is wonderful here. He doesn't have some grand moment of realization. Instead we just watch him slowly remember with the help of Lois and his mother Martha his final days and come to the realization of how much the League risked to get him alive. He has to help, it's just who he is.
The pieces all come together in a large scale fight in and around an abandoned nuclear reactor in Russia (not Chernobyl, though) where everyone has to use their powers and abilities to their utmost to fight off the army and leader trying to destroy the world. It's a hugely satisfying bout of superhero antics that caps with a look at the bigger threat to come as Darkseid ends up watching the final moments through a portal in preparation for his victory, coming face to face with the heroes who would defy him if this adventure were to continue.
There's no way Warner Brothers was ever going to release this movie at 4 hours in theaters. There might have been a possibility of a three hour release if they had bent some more, but for whatever reason they wanted no more than a two hour and twenty minute version of this film. For all of my problems about the jagged nature of this movie's first half, that first half becomes necessary in order to create the emotional investment for the final two hours. This is a marked improvement over the original, though it's far from perfect. There's extra stuff added in here and there that I have trouble understanding at all, like why is Secretary of Defense Swanwick, who was in both Man of Steel and Batman V Superman, suddenly Martian Manhunter? I have no idea, and he contributes nothing. The film feels both self-contained and part of a larger whole at the same time, though, and that's a hard trick to pull off.
It's good. Rating: 3/4
Originally published here The post DCEU Films Ranked: #2 'Zack Snyder’s Justice League' (2021) appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Godzilla vs. Kong Box Office Roars to Another $13.4 Million Posted: 13 Apr 2021 03:00 PM PDT Godzilla vs. Kong stormed to the top of the domestic box office, picking up $13.4 million in its second weekend of release. That brings the monster mashup's stateside haul to $69.5 million, an impressive gross considering it comes in the midst of a global pandemic. 
The Legendary and Warner Bros. release's robust commercial performance has been all the more notable because it comes as COVID restrictions are in place, limiting capacity in theaters, and also as the film is available on HBO Max. The film dropped 58 percent compared to its opening weekend gross of $32.2 million. Warner Bros. is releasing its entire 2021 slate on HBO Max at the same time they debut in theaters as a concession to coronavirus and a way to bolster the streaming service.
Godzilla vs. Kong is now the top-grossing film of the pandemic era, bypassing Christopher Nolan's Tenet, which earned $58.4 million.
via Variety The post Godzilla vs. Kong Box Office Roars to Another $13.4 Million appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Watch: New Trailer for ‘Belle: Ryu to Sobakasu no’ with a July Release Posted: 13 Apr 2021 01:00 PM PDT Mamoru Hasoda’s ‘Belle: Ryu to Sobakasu no’ progresses! A new, 70 second long trailer with alluring music and intense visuals has dropped on the interwebs:
IMDB also shows a July release, but no specific date as of yet.
Mamoru Hasoda (Summer Wars, Digimon franchise) helms this brand new outing with Studio Chizu, marking its 10th anniversary. Hasoda is also working with Jin Kim (character design supervisor of Big Hero 6 – 2014), both are admirers of one another. ‘Belle: Ryu to Sobakasu no’ tells the story of a teenage girl living between the real world and a virtual one (called U).
Highly anticipated, enjoy the trailer as we wait for what looks to be an incredible story from a celebrated director in Hasoda.
The post Watch: New Trailer for ‘Belle: Ryu to Sobakasu no’ with a July Release appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Watch: All-New Trailer for Zack Snyder’s ‘Army of the Dead’ Posted: 13 Apr 2021 11:00 AM PDT Army of the Dead is one of the first projects Zack Snyder has taken upon with his production company The Stone Quarry. Set during a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, the film follows a group of mercenaries that venture into a quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted. The director co-wrote the screenplay with Shay Hatten. The film is the first in a set of films that includes a prequel directed by star Matthias Schweighöfer known as Army of Thieves and an animated prequel that explains how the zombies came to be.
In addition to directing Army of the Dead, Zack Snyder is serving as the film's cinematographer. He's also producing the picture with his wife and producing partner Deborah Snyder alongside Wesley Coller. Ori Marmur and Andrew Norman are overseeing for Netflix. The film stars Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell Omari Hardwick, Tig Notaro, Hiroyuki Sanada, Garret Dillahunt, Raúl Castillo, Nora Arnezeder, Matthias Schweighöfer, Samantha Win and Rich Cetrone.
Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead hits Netflix on May 21, 2021.
Via Heroic Hollywood
The post Watch: All-New Trailer for Zack Snyder’s ‘Army of the Dead’ appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Marvel Studios Rolling Out Kate Bishop Explainer Videos Posted: 13 Apr 2021 08:00 AM PDT
With a lot of the focus of the MCU being on the Disney+ series, folks are looking ahead to what's coming after things like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki, and while training footage of Moon Knight and casting news for She-Hulk are great, the one I have my eye on is Hawkeye. One of the original Avengers takes the lead and with the way the series have been focused on the effect of the Snap/Blip, I'd love to see how Clint Barton handled his entire family disappearing and then returning. Joining Jeremy Renner is another Hawkeye, a younger female version from the comics named Kate Bishop who will be played by Hailee Steinfeld. She's known for films like True Grit, Bumblebee and Pitch Perfect 2 along with the series Dickinson. Bishop is one of the Young Avengers created by Alan Heinberg and Jim Cheung. You may have heard the name Young Avengers a lot lately as Marvel has been introducing a lot of the members of the team over the last few projects. They include Wiccan and Speed (Wanda's grown up twins), Stature (Ant-Man's daughter), Patriot (Isaiah Bradley's grandson), and of course America Chavez who has been announced for the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Now, if you're kind of confused on how their can be two Hawkeye's at once… kind of wondered that myself, Marvel has put out a bit of a primer for the Kate Bishop character that gives you and idea of who she was and how she ended up carrying a bow and wandering the streets with the pizza dog…
As for when we're going to see the Hawkeye series, we know it's already been filming and it's expected to be the final series of 2021 for Marvel after Loki, What If…?! and Ms. Marvel. If that turns out to be true, even if the series is just started during 2021, that along with the upcoming films of Black Widow, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, The Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home, we're going to have a ton of new MCU material to fill up the rest of this year. The post Marvel Studios Rolling Out Kate Bishop Explainer Videos appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
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