The charming girl detective comic by Hope Larson and Brittney Williams is now in development at Fox (who has a minority stake in publisher Boom! Studios) as a potential “family film franchise”. The talent involved is impressive. Kerry Washington is producing, while Rashida Jones will adapt and direct. Jones, who co-wrote Celeste and Jesse Forever and stars in Angie Tribeca, calls Goldie “exactly the kind of fearless, curious, and funny heroine we need right now.” Goldie’s adventures are set in […]

I really liked the version of the Batman we saw in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. He was strong and courageous and could be scary, but only in keeping with his mission for justice. And everyone involved with that cartoon had a sense of humor about it, whether it was satirizing what the Batman franchise had become in “Mitefall!” or doing musical episodes. So I’m glad to see that he hasn’t been forgotten, as Warner has announced that a […]

I was looking forward to seeing Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, the movie that opened Friday about the guy who created Wonder Woman and his unusual family life. Then a few things happened. The movie did not do at all well. According to Tom Flinn, it “crashed and burned, averaging just $600 per screen in 1,229 theaters.” That only adds up to about $737,000. Perhaps it should have had a more indie-movie-style rollout instead of going to over a […]

Fox, determined to continue exploiting the X-Men property in visual media, has not only launched a new TV series about running from the government when your kids turn out to be mutants (The Gifted), but the studio is preparing a movie for April, The New Mutants. And the trailer just became available. You’ll notice immediately that this does not look like your usual mutant superhero movie. No obvious powers, no costumes, no happy kids in class. These youngsters instead are […]

I’ve been thinking lately about the concept of “clean” media. As I understand it, it’s shorthand for work with “acceptable” levels (i.e., not much) sex, violence (although in America, this is less of a worry), and bad language. I’ve already hit on one problem with this concept: who defines what’s acceptable? But let’s proceed by assuming that we can generally agree on what makes something “family friendly”. (Although that’s obviously not true. Whether or not, for example, a sympathetic or […]

The House With a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs may be the scariest thing I read as a kid. First published in 1973, it’s the story of Lewis Barnevelt, an orphan sent to live with his uncle in a creepy old house. Lewis hears ticking in the house’s walls and eventually discovers that his uncle practices magic. The hidden clock was created to destroy the world, which Lewis and his uncle and their neighbor Florence (also a witch) […]

I don’t really blame Elizabeth Marston — when you sum up the premise of Wonder Woman like that, as people have done throughout the years, it does sound a little crazy. In this clip from Professor Marston & the Wonder Women, in theaters on October 13, Dr. William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans) explains his idea for a new comic to his wife (Rebecca Hall) and Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote), who are skeptical. The film, written and directed by Angela Robinson, […]

Box office this summer wasn’t good. Compared to last year, movie studios made 15% less, a 20-year low. (That’s still 3.8 billion dollars, so let’s keep this in perspective.) What’s the problem, say studio heads? According to this NY Times article, Rotten Tomatoes, the website that makes it easy for potential customers to see what critics think of a film. Some studio executives privately concede that a few recent movies — just a few — were simply bad. Flawed marketing […]