The 25 Most Influential People in Comic Book Movies: #3 Kevin Feige

Kevin Feige is Marvel’s 21^st century boy. He began his comic book movie career as associate producer of X-Men in 2000, and moved on to become co-producer of X2 in 2003 and executive producer of X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006, working with the likes of #19 Ralph Winter, #16 Lauren Shuler Donner, and #9 Bryan Singer. By this time, Feige had also worked in some sort of production capacity on eight other Marvel films, including Daredevil, Elektra, Hulk, Spider-Man 2, The Punisher, Blade: Trinity, Man-Thing, and Fantastic Four. In 2007, Feige was named President of Production at Marvel Studios. He continued to serve as executive producer of more Marvel properties that year, including Spider-Man 3 (made with #11 Sam Raimi at the helm) and 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (working again with Ralph Winter). In 2008, he produced the enormously successful Iron Man and the also popular The Incredible Hulk (with the contributions of star writer #12 Zak Penn and famed producer #21 Gale Anne Hurd.) With the success of these two films, things look good for the future of Feige and Marvel Studios. Marvel’s relatively new comic book movie production studio has several ambitious new projects in the works, as does Feige himself. He is serving as executive producer of the soon to be released Punisher: War Zone, and will be an executive producer, with #22 Micahel De Luca, of a planned 2009 release of The Hands of Shang-Chi, based on the Marvel character of the same name. Feige will return to the X-Men franchise, accompanied by Lauren Shuler Donner and Ralph Winter, with their production of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, scheduled for release on May 1, 2009.

Influence Meter: ++++++++++

Long Island Recollections: What Shakespeare Teaches us of Superheroes.

This weekend I had a great conversation with my good friend Ellis who is a tremendous fan of the show Smallville, which is about Superman as a teenager. We got to talking about the publication histories of major characters, the intents of the characters’ creators, and the effect that time had had on the development of the depth and significance of great characters such as Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man. I mentioned that I believe there are probably a finite number of basic archetypal characters from which all superheroes are derived. Ellis pointed out that these three in particular represented three basic archetypes: Superman, the hero who is born with super powers; Batman, the hero who has no super powers; and Spider-Man, the hero who suddenly gets super powers at some point in his life. Later that weekend, I remembered a line from Shakespeare‘s Twelfth Night.

“…some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

Back in the day, William Shakespeare keenly observed that among heroes, some such as Superman are born great, some such as Batman and Iron Man achieve their own greatness, and some such as Spider-Man and the Hulk have greatness literally thrust upon them.

More on this later…

Ed Norton vs. Guillermo the Hulk

Many of you may have seen this already, but this is too funny to pass up.

Abomination Speaks !

Oh, now it’s on.

HULK SPEAKS!!!

And let’s all guess what he says…

Tony Stark and The Incredible Hulk Video Clip !!!

Just found this online, plus a funny few seconds from the movie!!!

Enjoy!

Retro Incredible Hulk Trailer !!!

Apparently, this is appearing on promotional DVDs from Best Buy.  The trailer recalls the old Bixby/Ferrigno era Hulk TV show.

The 25 Most Influential People in Comic Book Movies: #12 Zak Penn

Zak Penn started his writing career in the early 1990s with such films as The Last Action Hero and PCU. In 1997, Universal Studios, working at the time with #21 Gale Anne Hurd, hired Penn to rewrite an early draft of a script for Hulk written by John Turman, featuring a fight scene involving the Hulk and a school of sharks.  Although a different script was ultimately used, Penn soon graduated to writing the story for 2003’s X2, produced by #16 Lauren Shuler Donner and #19 Ralph Winter.  After this success, he was hired to write four projects over the next three years; Elektra (after executive producer #14 Mark Steven Johnson‘s early draft script, based on #7 Frank Miller‘s titular character), the Fantastic Four video game, X-Men: The Official Game (for which he wrote the screenplay and story), and X-Men: The Last Stand.  He wrote the story and the first three drafts of the script for The Incredible Hulk, released on June 13, 2008, starring star and co-writer Edward Norton and Liv Tyler. Zak Penn is currently engaged as the writer for the upcoming Marvel films The Avengers and The First Avenger: Captain America, both scheduled for release in 2011.

Influence Meter: +++++

Another NEW Incredible Hulk Trailer !!!!

This one’s from Canada.  It’s got a couple seconds of new scenes.  Check it out…

 

The 25 Most Influential People in Comic Book Movies: #21 Gale Anne Hurd

Founder of Pacific Western Productions, Gale Anne Hurd has produced such great films as The Terminator, Aliens, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. She has, in fact, been credited with creating the “event” motion picture. Her first comic book film was the 1999 adaptation of Dark Horse’s Virus, which she produced with Dark Horse chief #6 Mike Richardson as executive producer.  In 2003 and 2004 she produced Ang Lee’s Hulk and Jonathan Hensleigh’s The Punisher (starring Thomas Jane) both to disappointing reviews.  She is credited, however, as a producer of The Incredible Hulk, released June 13, 2008, starring Edward Norton, and Punisher: War Zone, scheduled for release on December 5, 2008. Both of these films promise to be far superior to their predecessors.  Hollywood.com reports an announcement that Gale Anne Hurd will be producing a film adaptation of the toy line and Marvel Comics title Micronauts.  No release date has been confirmed.

Influence Meter: +++