DC sends Superman into space and gives Batman his last rites

EXCLUSIVE: Dan DiDio of DC Comics talks about Superman leaving "Action Comics" (and Earth), the revival of "Adventure Comics" and major changes in Gotham City that will mean "a close to the existing lore ... the last rites of Batman."

I was in New York a week ago to work on a long feature about the singer Beyoncé but (just to prove what a hopeless fanboy I really am) I was more excited about making my first visit ever to the offices of DC Comics, which was no disappointment. After a tour, I sat down with Dan DiDio, the senior vice president and executive editor of the DC Universe, which means he oversees the bread-and-butter, ongoing comics titles. He had plenty of scoop to share, including this Andy Kubert cover above, which is the variant for the upcoming landmark Batman tale "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader"...

Geoff Boucher: So, Dan, what are you most excited about right now?

Dan DiDio: Oh, gosh, that’s a good one. We’re coming to the end of “Final Crisis” right now and I’m not only excited about people reading the ending of “Final Crisis” but I’m also excited about getting to the end of “Final Crisis.” We did “Countdown to Final Crisis” and “Final Crisis” itself so this has been a long story for us. I feel we’ve accomplished a lot of goals and we created a lot of excitement. But more importantly it’s a point of change for us in DC Universe again. And once you know the ending is coming, it’s in sight, that’s when you start getting worked up about what’s coming up next. That’s what I really get jazzed about. We have two really big events that spin out of “Final Crisis” each in its own way and affecting our key franchises, Superman and Batman. The first thing we’re going to see is called “Battle for the Cowl,” that’s going to be a book that features nearly every member of the Batman family   

GB: Even Ace the Bat-Hound?

DD: [Laughs] Probably. We have a writer-artist team on this right now that’s scouring every book possible to see what they can include in these two-page spreads they want to build of all the characters that inhabit the Batman universe. So it’s a lot of fun for us. I always like those things because it’s a big noisy adventure book. And whenever you do one of those, the level of excitement is always right there on the page. You hopefully have people respond properly to that.

GB: There’s a lot going on with the Batman franchises.

DD: There are a lot of questions about what’s going on with the Batman line of titles. We just recently canceled three of the longtime Batman-related series: "Birds of Prey," "Robin" and "Nightwing." They all end in February. Then in March, “Battle for the Cowl” starts and once it does, you will get to understand how the Batman universe is starting to be realigned.

GB: And what about the Man of Steel?

DD: Simultaneous to “Battle for the Cowl,” we’re going to be making changes in Superman’s world as well. Superman has been the star of "Action Comics" for its entire run, essentially, and he will be leaving it and handing it over to new characters. The only time he hasn’t appeared in the book, I believe, was after “The Death of Superman,” in those years. So this is a lot of fun for us. I think that’s going to get people excited and scratching their heads and wondering what’s going on. In his own book, "Superman," there will be a dramatic turn as the hero leaves Earth and it seems like he’s leaving for good. We’ll follow his adventures in space more so than his adventures on Earth, and that’s a big and exciting thing. We’re also bringing back one of the old-time favorite titles of DC Comics, "Adventure Comics." It will be ...

Kevin Smith discusses the gay Man of Steel

Yesterday we had a link to Chris Lee's great (and unflinching) feature on Kevin Smith, who may have his most commercial film of his career in theaters today but is also grappling with a weight-related heath crisis. That story ran on the cover of the Los Angeles Times Calendar section; today Lee went through his notebook and pulled out some more material from the interview that will be especially interesting to the fanboy crowd. 

Kevin Smith does not feel one iota of guilt about making Superman gay. That is to say, the New Jersey-born writer-director knows precisely how big a casting coup it was to land Brandon Routh -- the studly star of director Bryan Singer’s 2006 Man of Steel update “Superman Returns” -- to portray a closeted gay man. In Smith’s raunchy sex comedy “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” (which hits the multiplex tomorrow), Routh's character, Bobby Long, is in a relationship with Justin Long’s flamboyant gay porn star character Brandon St. Randy. (The pair are pictured above, with Routh on the right.)

“On paper, it’s a thankless role. He’s the straight man, the set-up guy,” Smith, seated on the patio of his Hollywood Hills home last week, said of Routh. Instantly realizing his unintended pun, Smith reframed the discussion of Routh’s portrayal. “He’s a straight man playing a gay guy who’s pretending to be a straight guy in that weird ‘Victor Victoria’ way. But Brandon found a way to play him like a hen-pecked husband in a gay marriage who’s still not quite living out loud. He’s so funny. He found a way to make it more comedic than it was on the page without changing a word.”

Kevin Smith says his weight is out of control: 'I broke a toilet. That's how heavy I am.'

 

If uber-geek Kevin Smith could be any superhero right now, sadly, it might be Matter-Eater Lad. The 38-year-old filmmaker says his weight problem is so out of control that he will be taking a break from work to slim down before his heath is compromised.

Here's an excerpt from today's Los Angeles Times story by Chris Lee, who talked to Smith on the eve of the Friday release of the New Jersey native's new movie, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno": 

"I'm going away for a while," Smith, puffing a menthol cigarette on the patio of his Hollywood Hills home, "to concentrate on myself. To save my life."

At a time when Smith has been heavily promoting "Zack and Miri" -- perhaps the most commercially viable movie in his 15-year career as a multi-hyphenate actor-writer-director of crude comedies and art-house bromances -- the issue of his weight has remained front of mind. The director has been complaining about being fat in radio interviews and fretting about it on his blog much to the chagrin of Weinstein Co. publicists for the film, who have openly wished the director would "talk about something else." Like, for instance, how closely in tone and casting the movie resembles something conjured up by comedy rainmaker Judd Apatow?

Adding insult to injury, Smith's girth contributed to an embarrassing incident last week. "I broke a toilet. That's how heavy I am," said Smith. "I can't take all the credit -- that was an old toilet and a very waterlogged wall -- but my size took that toilet down. I cannot cognitively reframe it and be like, 'It wasn't me -- it was the toilet.' It was definitely me. And that's a wake-up call!"

Sweating steadily but not quite profusely, enveloped in a long wool overcoat (in implicit homage to Silent Bob, his screen alter ego in several of his films) despite the 90 degree heat, the New Jersey-born auteur seemed both exhausted and keyed up. He's immensely proud of the film, which earned a number of glowing reviews when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September.

Kevin Smith wants Seth Rogen in tights

Kevin Smith already made Superman gay -- now he wants to see Seth Rogen in spandex.

Writer-director Smith gleefully cast Routh, the squeaky-clean star of "Superman Returns," as the closeted lover of a male porn star in the upcoming comedy "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," which stars Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. (Have you seen the banned posted for the film? It's after the jump.) Now, during a run through the Toronto International Film Festival, the always quotable Smith told Sci-Fi Wire that he wants to build an entire superhero film around portly comedic star Rogen.

"First, I'm going to do a 180 turn and do a horror movie called 'Red State,' " Smith said in an interview Sept. 7 at the Toronto International Film Festival. "It's going to be a total horror-political-psychological movie without a funny line in it. Then I'm going to do the science-fiction superhero movie. It's going to be an original superhero that I've created. It's stewing right now. I want to do it, though, and, God willing, it will star Seth Rogen."

Rogen, the star of "Knocked Up" and scene-stealer from "The 40 Year-old Virgin," may not seem like the square-jawed superhero archetype, but start getting used to the idea.

The 26-year-old Vancouver native also has plans in place to write and star in a silver-screen adaptation of The Green Hornet, the 1930s radio-serial hero who was briefly (but memorably) revived in 1966-67 for a stylish television series that first brought Bruce Lee to the eyes of America. On that show, Van Williams played the dashing and wealthy Britt Reid, the publisher of The Daily Sentinel by day and two-fisted masked man by night. Lee played his valet, Kato, who joins him as he prowls the night in their sleek, weapons-laden car, the Black Beauty.

"The Green Hornet" is due from Sony in 2010 and Rogen is co-writing with Evan Goldberg ("Pineapple Express," "Superbad"). The producer is Neal Moritz ("Prom Night," The Fast & the Furious" films), who also has a "Luke Cage" project underway with director John Singleton and star Tyrese Gibson and a discussed "Flash Gordon" revisitation with "Sahara" director Breck Eisner.

There was a fairly instantaneous fan-backlash when the Rogen-as-Hornet idea was first floated. The star has said he has no plans to transform the venerable character into a bawdy "Superbad" hero. He also hasn't sounded especially passionate about the source material, at least not in one interview from June, which was also with Sci-Fi Wire:

For years we'd really been trying to write a movie that was kind of about a hero and his sidekick. When we heard the The Green Hornet movie was up for grabs, we thought that could be the perfect way to do this story, because he is the only hero whose sidekick is more known than he is. We thought it would be a good way to tell this relationship story and just do a big crazy action movie.

At Comic-Con International 2007, Rogen was on a panel for "Superbad" and got a "Hornet" question. Sheigh Crabtree, covering for the Los Angeles Times, jotted down this quote which, again, shows that Rogen isn't coming to the project with a real passion for the hero. 

"It's something that Evan [Goldberg] and I are big fans of.... We wrote 'Pineapple Express' together ... and we thought, 'What if we make an even bigger action movie? And what if I wear a mask? Evan really wanted me to wear a mask because he is so sick of seeing my face."

-- Geoff Boucher

Photo of Seth Rogen from WireImage    

RELATED Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen bond with fans at Comic-Con 2008

BONUS See the banned movie poster for "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" after the jump

The Superman problem: Can he still fly in the 21st century?

Thirty years ago, the Man of Steel was flying high at theaters. But will he ever get off the ground again?

Richard Donner's "Superman," released in December 1978, was a box-office triumph and critics were, for the most part, cheering right along with the fans. Roger Ebert called the film "a pure delight," while the late Jack Kroll wrote in Newsweek that Donner had pulled off "a major feat in filmmaking."

It was by nature a sunny film, sentimental and playful, never embarrassed while soaring with its John Williams score and (literally) with its special effects. But show it to a teenager today and he or she will snicker and roll their eyes. These are kids who have sat in dark theaters with Wolverine, Hellboy and Heath Ledger's Joker. If they're holding out for a hero, you can bet he's not going to be plucking kittens out of trees, reciting patriotic mottos and chasing down bumbling bad guys named Otis.

This brings us to the Superman problem. Warner Bros. just pulled in half a billion dollars in the U.S. alone with the relentless nihilism of "The Dark Knight," and the other hero films of the summer ("Hancock," "Iron Man," "Hellboy 2," etc.) presented troubled protaganists who struggle as much with themselves as they do with bad guys. So, of coruse, Warner now wants Superman to tone down the Boy Scout stuff.

Lauren A.E. Schuker had a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal that quoted Warner Bros. executive Jeff Robinov (who, by the way, is apparently the man who came up with the idea of postponing the sixth "Harry Potter" film until next year) about the plans for the Man of Steel's next flight in Hollywood:

Like the recent Batman sequel — which has become the highest-grossing film of the year thus far — Mr. Robinov wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as "The Dark Knight." Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.' DC properties. "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it," he says. That goes for the company's Superman franchise as well.

We've heard this before. There was a series of Superman projects announced that had the hero dead, dying, powerless and, perhaps worst of all, portrayed by Nicolas Cage in a suit of armor. The thing is, Superman has always been a daytime hero; he's not Batman prowling the gutters of Gotham looking to exact revenge on every street punk in the world.

Comic-Con: 'Battlestar Galactica' and .. Kevin Smith?

"This show is so good that it'll get you pregnant."

And that's what "Clerks" director and fanboy icon Kevin Smith brought to the "Battlestar Galactica" panel that he moderated Saturday.  A bit of raunch, a scattering of F-bombs.  And I don't mean "frak."  The panel included Jamie Bamber, Michael Trucco, Katee Sackhoff, James Callis, Tricia Helfer, creator Ron Moore and producer David Eick.  Tahmoh Penikett came in later after having just appeared on the "Dollhouse" panel.

No Edward James Olmos. No Mary McDonnell. No Grace Park. No Michael Hogan. No Aaron Douglas. Maybe I'm accentuating the negative, and many of them have been here before, but it would've been a nice way to say goodbye.  They've definitely been making the farewell rounds already, and the cast may reassemble for next year's Con, but the feeling of moving on seems to have invaded the group.  Ron Moore addressed the show's ending in saying "There was a general sense that it was time to go."  Maybe for them ...

Comic-Con: Quote of the day from Kevin Smith

"You're like the Miley Cyrus of porn!"

-- Kevin Smith, after finding out Traci Lords made her first porno when she was 15.

Lords just completed filming on Smith's latest "Zack and Miri Make A Porno" which the the two are promoting at Comic-Con.

Photo: Traci Lords, center, with the cast of "Zack and Miri." Photo via Kevin Smith's Myspace.

Comic-Con: 'Dexter,' DC and Kevin Smith

In two decidedly unrelated panels, the dichotomy of Comic-Con was on display Thursday night.

In the DC Nation panel, DC Comics honcho Dan Didio led a group of writers and editors who talked to and about the core of the convention: comic books and fans.  Didio's sessions engage the crowd by asking them to pick favorites and directions that they think comics and characters should go.  Shouting things like "Who's the best Flash?" (Wally West and Barry Allen got the biggest cheers) and "Who should replace Bruce Wayne as Batman?" (Dick Grayson pretty much won that, though Tim Drake got a cheer), Didio did his usual cheerleading.  And even when someone shouted a criticism ("You want to kill everyone!"), he invited the commenter to come on the stage and sit in as a DC editor, which he gladly did.

In grand style, Didio brought up a secret guest:  Kevin Smith.  Smith remarked on the fact that the comic book convention had DC, one of the largest comics producers in the world, in a much smaller room than the star-seeking crowd assembled in Ballroom 20. The filmmaker/comics guy revealed that he would oversee a three-issue arc for the Dark Knight entitled "Batman: Cacophony," drawn by Walt Flanigan.  The busy mini-mogul joked about not getting his books in on time and wished Didio "good luck" in getting the book out by deadline.  He has started projects before, but occasionally falls off, as he noted by saying, "I'm Mr. Foreplay, but if you need me to thrust, forget it."

And speaking of R-rated ... the "Dexter" panel put on a bit of a show.  The standing-room-only presentation with Michael C. Hall and crew illustrates how shows sans superpowers continue to make their way towards Comic-Con.  The dedicated crowd peppered the assemblage with questions of literary-to-TV plot points, Michael's favorite kill (as Dexter -- "It was satisfying to kill Lil Chino cause he was so big"), and concerns on whether the romance between Rita (Julie Benz) and Dexter could last.  On the relationship, Hall said, "I think it's hard to argue that the relationship, in its own way, works." As for Benz: "I honestly believe that every man needs a hobby."

In an aside, Mark Echo of Mark Echo Productions announced that the new Dexter episodic video game would be released on the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.

-- Jevon Phillips