TrueGentleman

The difference is that Gotham takes place in a comic book and Galaxy Park in an MMORPG. There's nothing wrong with Galaxy Park's atmosphere, only that its layout could be improved for the flow of play.

The smaller starting populations of CoV and GR require compression into one zone in order to avoid empty maps, but CoH's seems to be on the cusp between crowding into one zone or dividing into two sparse ones. Although the devs are apparently loathe to either remove or refurbish content, playing up the atmospheric differences between the polished Atlas Park and the gritty Galaxy City in order to establish player loyalties wouldn't be too demanding an undertaking and could be folded into the direly needed revamp of blueside starting content.

This is one of those occasions where my first reaction is sheer disbelief - it feels like it can't be true, but sadly, it is.

Her performance as Sarah Jane Smith made that character the pre-eminent companion of the classic series. She could scream convincingly at rubber monsters and hold her own in witty banter with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. She was like Lois Lane and Hildy Johnson for the Time Lord.

Should the Avengers be a bigger hit than the Spider-Man and Batman franchises combined, Whedon still will never get as much creative freedom than if he produced another self-financed web-only project. The tradeoff naturally is that he wouldn't get the same access to big budgets or iconic established properties.

Well, that and the devs' reluctance to rennovate established content. I'm not suggesting wholesale gentrification in order to attract a better class of supervillain, though. Giving Freedom Court more prominence in its immediate surroundings, the way Freedom Plaza does in Kings Row, or explanding the arena's neighborhood to make it feel more like a sports center would open up the map without detracting from its character. Right now, its streets are too cramped and tangled for a good rampage, its buildings too much of an architectural melange for a would-be world conqueror to imagine as impressive ruins. Galaxy City needs the equivalent of a special economic zone program, except for super-powered mayhem.

Very interesting. The Wall Street Journal confirmed that sales figure a week ago, so it's probable that there are still some international deals to be done. The generally good reviews the premiere received will doubtless help that.

But have they officially? While the international rights have been selling quickly in numerous markets, HBO has said this season cost about $60M, and the $100M number has been rumored. That puts the series well in the same ballpark as one of the individual Lord of the Rings movies.

Good for HBO for taking another gamble on unusual subject matter (if Starz's decidely lower budget Camelot doesn't saturate the audience). It's a very big gamble, though.

Warren Ellis elaborates on his blog:
And when he describes it as "where Joss’ sense that too few people followed the example of DR HORRIBLE meets my obsession with the QUATERMASS serials", my interest is piqued even more than a Dr. Horrible sequel. Oh, and it's "sort of a funny horrible story about the end of the world."

"Joss'ed" characters tend to stay dead more frequently than others in assorted genres, but I suspect that if Whedon were to bring Day's character back for a sequel, he'd pull a Monkey's Paw-style twist and make the fans wish he hadn't (in the best way).

That said, I was struck by how much lingering affection Whedon had for this ostensibly one-shot DYI gig, particularly when he'd already done several TV series and a major motion picture and has an even bigger project underway, but it was the first time he'd ever had absolute control over a project. Launching Dr. Horrible in a comparatively untested medium, with only his finances behind it, he must have experienced quite a thrill when it worked.

Dr. Horrible remains one of the most successful experiments in web-only content - although Felicia Day's ongoing MMORPG web series The Guild is breathing down its neck - so it's interesting to hear how much Whedon wants to continue with it.

It is - the Saul Bass homage is wonderful. Then again, its sense of style and fun wouldn't fill the theater seats the way they must today. The official one, as a purely commercial piece, is trying to advertise the movie and nothing more. "From the Studio that Brought You Iron Man"!


Incidentally, here's another retro-style superhero movie poster that's a lot more fun than any official one:

As I've said, I'm fascinated by flops and the case of Sucker Punch as such is intriguing. The only question now is if it will count as a fiasco or a failure. In the eyes of Hollywood studios, its foreign box office (it's not going to lose much in translation) is probably going to boost it, barely, from the former category to the latter. It's not going to kill any careers in the spectacular fashion of flops like Heaven's Gate or Gigli, but it's going to be a long time before anyone greenlights a live-action anime-style flick with that kind of budget.

In one respect, Sucker Punch counts as an undeniable success. Snyder wanted to take a whole mess of his favorite geek tropes - robotzombienazisamuraibrazilstrippersshockcorridor steampunkdragoncgi - and put it on the silver screen. He got $82 million of other people's money to do that. Well played, I suppose.

Here's the one thing that I won't say about Sucker Punch: It doesn't matter. For anyone who loves geek-centric movies, as we all do here, the compelling issue is how its failure will reverberate through the studios when other such movie projects are considered for production. At the moment, the message is that "fanboy" material is an acceptable bet only if namebrand A-list superheroes are involved - and we'll see if the summer of Thor, Captain America, X-Men, and Green Lantern is their next wave or merely their ebb. But a wholly original fantropic project backed only by a director's vision and reputation isn't likely to survive the first pitch meeting, which suggests we're in for dry spell.

Yet here your again, emoticons and all.

As long as I'm here, I'd like to keep supplying related links of interest. For instance, Sucker Punch's rep is so bad, other directors are publicly calling B.S. on it.

There isn't a debate here, just the continuing news of Sucker Punch's downward spiral. There are only the facts and consensus on one side, and you've got your personal opinion on the other. I'm merely the messenger (increasing my post count).

I admit, though, I am fascinated by the phenomenon of Sucker Punch, just as I am with flops of all kinds.

"The time has come, execute Order 66. (Looks like you almost missed a youngling there.)"

In that case, there's a Worldwide Web's worth of comments sections for you to defend it in. Devoting your energies here is but a distraction from the larger battles for the honor of Zack Snyder.

With the evidence in from all sides - film reviewers, audiences, and the cold hard box office figures - Sucker Punch is shaping up to be an object lesson in failed geek-centric auteurism and a black mark on the director's already spotty career. If it's a personal favorite of yours, then you'll have to mount a very eloquent defense to overcome all that.

Talk, and emoticons, are cheap, especially on the Internet.

Unless the next tactic Sucker Punch's defenders are going to try is suggesting that it's going to be a neglected classic ripe for appreciative rediscovery by the next generation of geeks, the only way to make a real impact on its fortunes is either to see it again in the theaters or convince friends and strangers to take a chance on it, i.e. to put their ticket money where their mouths are. That's just not happening.

Or to put it another way, when someone sees a movie that stumbles like Howard the Duck and sinks like Howard the Duck and quacks like Howard the Duck, then it's probably a box office turkey.

And they can join a queue with the "critics have no taste/it's not for them" defenders of the movie against its overwhelmingly bad reviews of all stripes.

But the really damning indicator of this movie's failure is the dropoff ratio of its box office receipts to its screens. Kick-***, a similarly geek-centric hyped flick that had better reviews but was far from well received, managed to keep its audience levels even as the number of screens on which it was playing shrank. That indicator suggested that either people who had seen it once were willing to see it again or its word of mouth was good enough to keep its per screen earnings level (or both) - and this was in a more competitive moviegoing season. It wound up being a box office hit thanks to steady business.

Sucker Punch, despite a vocal minority of defenders, cannot seem to attract either new or repeat viewings. The producers who paid $82M for it are taking notice.

Donnie Darko cost around $4.5M to produce (and related costs with releasing it were probably comparable). Sucker Punch's production budget was almost twenty times that, and its marketing campaign was at least eight figures. That's an awful lot to make up for with DVD sales.

And yet the demographic of the producing studio is exactly old enough to remember it from their childhoods, and judging from their choice of villain, they want to go back there.

Please confirm where Birthright is explicitly revealed to be the basis for this movie. So far that rumor seems to have the basis only in this unattributed story that mentions only West Africa as one of the settings. Otherwise, it sounds like bits and pieces are coming from here and there (in much the same way Batman Begins drew on disparate comics for its script).

edit: It's also standard operating procedure for Hollywood to take a piecemeal approach to comics sources (Batman, X-Men, Daredevil) since this tactic gets around the byzantine adaptation rules of the Writers Guild.

More like "meeeeh".

"As General Zod, Shannon will go toe-to-toe with Henry Cavill, who plays the new Clark Kent/Superman in the film," according to the Warner Brothers' announcement. That sounds more like a straightforward antagonist than a red herring.