Media Hijinks - Crazy Casting, Hot Trailers and Adaptation Complications

The biggest news of the week, aside from the untimely death of actor-icon Philip Seymour Hoffman, has to be the recent casting announcement from the Batman vs. Superman camp. Despite persistent rumors that Bryan Cranston and other bald actors might be taking on the role, it seems as if Warner Bros. has gone a completely different route. For the new Lex Luthor shall be none-other-than Jesse Eisenberg. There’s also the confirmation that Jeremy Irons will be playing the role of Batman’s butler, Alfred, but that pales in comparison to Eisenberg’s casting. People are, needless to say, split on whether this is a good idea or not. Let’s face it, Eisenberg is pretty damn young. And though he may be proving himself as of late with some Academy Award noms, the super hero fanboys are still up in arms that one of their favorite villains will not be played by one of the people that they would have chosen. My guess is that Warner Bros. and DC have a solid plan for the new flick. Well, either that or they’ve just gone completely nuts at this point.

Second up, the Super Bowl trailers finally dropped this last Sunday. To be honest, there wasn’t much to look at. Transformers: Age of Extinction looked like every other Transformers movie. Most of the other flicks looked unimpressive. The only two that stuck out were the Captain America: The Winter Soldier trailer and the Amazing Spider-Man 2 trailer. The new Captain A. looks like it might have a good storyline to it, something serious that Marvel usually doesn’t address with their movies. Of course, trailers have seemed that way before only to fall flat and become overwhelmed with generic action, so we shall see. Amazing Spider-Man 2, however, looks like tons of crazy action, though the in-between bits seem like they might contain a compelling story. That one is more of a gamble to me, but if Marc Webb pulls it off, it could be truly epic.

Third up, HBO pulls a stupid and decides to dump the adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Apparently, Gaiman wrote some new stuff into the story in order to elaborate on certain points, but HBO wanted a straight-from-the-book treatment. So they said bye-bye. Good news for fans though, as FreemantleMedia has decided to take over where HBO left off. Let’s hope that they’re a little more visionary in what they let Gaiman do with the script.

And the final development of this week, Hollywood is turning out yet another cartoon-to-big screen adaptation, this time in the form of a Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers live-action movie. I used to love this show as a kid, but after watching those creepy Chipmunk movies I dunno if I could bring myself to sit in a dark theater while talking CGI animals prance across the screen. I’m gonna have to pass on this one, though I’m guessing the kids will love it. 

And that’s it for this week. Until next time, watch more super hero cartoons - they will give you super powers. Seriously. It will happen. Eventually…

Photo Credits -

Eisenberg-Luthor courtesy of comicbookmovie.com