THE STARSTORE NEWS ROUNDUP: WHEEL OF TIME, GREEN LANTERN, ROCKY HORROR, DARK KNIGHT

Hey there folks, here’s our daily roundup of what is currently making big nerd-shaped waves on planet geek. Up today we have a legendary series of books coming to the movies, a much loved DC character gets closer to having a movie out, a cult classic gets remade (um, I know this happens pretty much every day right now *sigh*) and a movie star causes some controversy. Some things never change…

WHEEL OF TIME TURNS TO THE BIG SCREEN

The late, great Robert Jordan’s fantasy epic The Wheel of Time is set to become a big screen extravaganza. Universal have optioned the series for an undisclosed seven figure sum, and the first book, The Eye of The World, is set to go into preproduction soon, according to this article from Variety. The much loved fantasy series has sold in excess of 44 million copies , and while the final book wasn’t complete before Jordan died last year at the age of 58, it was finished from his notes by respected fantasy author Brandon Sanderson and is due to be released next year. This isn’t the first time the series has been optioned, but it seems to be the most likely incarnation to get made, following NBC holding the rights to it back in 2000.

GREEN LANTERN SCRIPT DETAILS

Information on the current draft of the Green Lantern movie script has been posted over at IESB, and the piece also contains info on the Justice League movie, which appears to be hitting more obstacles already. The treatment of the Green Lantern storyline sounds extremely cool though.

ROCKY HORROR REMAKE ANGER

Richard O’Brien, he of Riff-Raff, Dark City and Crystal Maze fame is none too pleased with the news of his most famous creation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, being remade. I can understand this, as if I have to sit through The Time Warp one more time I’m going to eat my own head. He says he won’t be involved in any way at all, which means once the train wreck comes out, it will be devoid of any wit whatsoever and will no doubt be another in the long line of sanitized Hollywood remakes clogging DVD bargain bins the world over. For crying out loud, think of something new. Nobody wants or needs a Rocky Horror remake. Do you really want to make ANOTHER generation of bored students and housewives get tarted up and sing along for years to come? Does society really need more ugly dudes in drag? No, it doesn’t. Put the project on hold, donate the budget to some filmmakers with a clue, and never darken our doors again. Kthxbai.

DOWNEY SLAMS DARK KNIGHT

Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr, has slammed The Dark Knight and DC Comics in an interview with Moviehole covering his latest film, Tropic Thunder. While many love the overlong, overblown bunch of random scenes that the new Batman film is, I have to agree with Robert (despite my colleagues loving TDK). Put the two films side by side, and Iron Man is infinitely more satisfying as a film (and it doesn’t outstay its welcome by an hour). Actually, put any DC film next to any Marvel film and the Marvel flicks come out on top. Granted this may all change with Watchmen, but still, he has a point. Okay, with all that said, I’ll now switch off my ‘bitchy little hack’ circuit. For a couple of minutes. Maybe one.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 9:15 am and is filed under Comics, DC, Geek Culture, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.