In the comics right now The Avengers are facing off with the X-Men, but come 2015 they might be facing off with the Justice League as both Marvel Studios and Warner Brothers are gearing up new film versions of the beloved superheroes. Fresh news has broken this past week on both properties.  Lets start with Marvel…

It is official! Joss Whedon will be returning to write and direct The Avengers 2 for Marvel Studios for release in the summer of 2015. In addition to this very large duty, the fan favorite director will also be developing a television series ele Marvel and ABC that takes place in the Marvel movie universe. All of this is part of an exclusive deal that Whedon signed with Marvel that will extend their working relationship through 2015. Deals like this are very common with comic book writers/artists with publishers and used to be the norm in Hollywood, but these days it is very rare. Who might the television series focus on? Could it be the long in development Hulk show? Or how about Cloak and Dagger? Maybe a series that Whedon took a crack at writing in comic form, like The Runaways? Black Panter, Doctor Strange, Heroes for Hire with Luke Cage and Iron Fist… the possibilities are endless. And if they can get a big screen Avenger to appear during sweeps, you better believe record setting ratings will follow.

Rumors are also swirling that Marvel Studios is negotiating with Fox in regards to the rights of Daredevil and Fantastic Four characters. Fox is looking to extend their rights to make another Daredevil movie, and Marvel is willing to play ball as long as Fox reverts the rights to a few cosmic characters from the Fantastic Four, including Galactus and the Silver Surfer (both of which were butchered in Fox’s awful FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer). We’ll have to wait and see if this is legit. Worse case is that it is not, but in the very least it looks like Marvel will be getting the rights to Daredevil back soon enough.

Over at Warner Brothers, with Man of Steel heading into theaters next summer, the studio is trying push forward to a Justice League film sooner rather than later. Hopefully it will tie into Man of Steel and also connect to the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern. A script has already been written by Will Beall (writer of Gangster Squad and a handful of Castle epsiodes) and Variety reports that the WB is sending it out to Ben Affleck to consider directing and co-starring in it. Deadline Hollywood denies that Affleck has any interest in the project, but this will be a wait and see type of deal. Affleck, who starred in Daredevil and was one of the actors at the top of the list to play Superman for the aborted Tim Burton Superman Lives, could have interest in the genre and Justice League would be the ultimate superhero film. As for which role he’d take? I have no idea…

So, I’ve said a lot of negative things about the upcoming Green Lantern movie in the past. The early footage and the awful looking costume have had me worried. Now, I like Ryan Reynolds and a LOVE that the movie is really spotlighting the GL Corps. I could easily see a studio wanting to eliminate the Corps and cosmic elements of the comic and just focus on GL as a normal hero. The last trailer gives me a lot more hope, in the very least we’ll have a different kind of superhero movie. And I really dig this new poster…

DC relaunches their superhero universe on June 17th. How long until Justice League?

Check out these Green Lantern related products…

With Marvel Comic’s announcement of their new superhero block of Spider-Man and Avengers toons on Disney XD, we knew an announcement from their main rival DC Comics couldn’t be too far away. Well, now we have it. DC Comics and Warner Brothers will be continuing their relationship with Cartoon Network and are putting together a block of programming with their already announced Green Lantern: The Animated Series and a newly announced showcase, DC Nation.  The new series will be telling stories with a variety of different DC Comics characters, reaching into their vast universe of superheroes and villains.

The official summary:

A multi-platform, branded block of original programming and exclusive content based on the DC Comics library of legendary character properties, DC Nation is developed in partnership with Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment.  The all-new venture will harness the publishing, theatrical and television assets together for one powerful on-air block on Cartoon Network with exclusive online content.

And an official summary for Green Lantern: The Animated series:

Based upon the DC Comics super hero, the series is an all-new CG animated action series from Warner Bros.  As Earth’s Green Lantern, Hal Jordan is used to being in dangerous situations—but he’s never faced anything like this!  Set at the farthest reaches of deep space, Hal must face down an invasion from the Red Lantern Corps.  Hal is soon joined by an all-new group of heroes on a mission to protect Guardian Space —and the Green Lantern Corps itself!

I think DC Nation is an awesome way to introduce audiences to lesser know DC characters and a great way to tell stand alone stories, but without an ongoing plot or continuity between characters I doubt that it will gain a steady fanbase. I’d watch it if I just so happened to be channel surfing by, but I doubt I’d tivo it unless the episode was focuses on a character I really like (someone like The Question, who barely gets animated love). I think it’d be better if DC Nation focused on the DC Universe as a whole and told interlocking stories set in the same universe with crossovers to connect various characters. Similar to Justice League Unlimited, but more stand alone stories mixed in.

Check out these DC Comics related movies…

Welcome to the New Year! I hope that 2011 brings you everything that you are looking for. The beginning of the new year means a lot of things; the Oscars are rapidly approaching, TV’s winter break will soon be over (Wipe Out returns in a few days!), and Marvel Comics is gearing up its next big crossover, dubbed “Fear Itself”.

Lets move on to the newest entertainment news from that Pit named Hollywood. Today we’re gonna look at a mix of comic news, upcoming television shows, and some movie tidbits.

• In less than 20 days Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 will be coming to an end! I still have a lot of questions after last issue’s tragic end and I can’t want to see how Joss sets up Buffy Season 9 and the new Angel series that is launching at Dark Horse Comics. 2011 will be bringing us a lot of good Buffy stuff.

• 24 was canceled this past March, but fans were left with a lot of hope that they’d see Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer live to fight another day… that was until this past week when FOX rejected the proposed script and put the project in development hell. There is still a good chance that it’d get made with Sutherland actively talking about it and Tony Scott interested in helming the action movie.

• 2011 is looking very positive in terms of comic related television shows. In just a week Cartoon Network is presenting a look at DC Comic’s next generation of heroes with Young Justice, a show that focuses on the comic universes top sidekicks, including Robin, Superboy, Kid Flash, and others. Also gearing up from DC and CN is Green Lantern: The Animated Series, which follows what Ryan Reynolds and Martin Campbell are setting out to do in the new movie; Hal Jordan, intergalactic policeman. Marvel Comics is looking to produce new live action shows for the Hulk and Cloak & Dagger. Hulk is currently in the very early stages of development, but ABC Family is looking to produce a teen friendly version of Cloak & Dagger. It is cool to see them gearing up actual live action shows. The current season of Smallville shows just how well a series can handle the action and sci-fi elements that are involved with bringing a comic series to life. In addition to DC and Marvel’s efforts, there is the long rumored Powers series (which I hope doesn’t happen because I’d love to some day be involved with such a series).

• Hawkeye will be making his first theatrical appearance in this summer’s Thor? That is the latest rumor making the rounds. With the confirmation that Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury will be absent from the film, I’d love to see Jeremy Renner in the mix. I just hope that he doesn’t try to fight the fallen God, for his own sake.

• Hollywood the Game’s latest year has ended and the game will be celebrating the past year of movie releases with its Bi-Annual Awards show. Head on over to HollywoodtheGame.com for more details!

• Do you have a dog? Looking for the best medications for them? There are a lot of websites that can help you with the search, sites like PetCareRx Reviews.

Well, here it is, the official trailer for DC Comics and the WB’s upcoming Green Lantern adaptation.  I actually haven’t watched it yet, I’m not sure if I’m waiting because how worried I am that it will suck or… no, that is exactly why I’m waiting. Anyhow, click here to give it a view.

I think the problem with writing and making a comic book film is the material itself. The thing is if you take the original comics with all that camp-ness and so on, nobody is going to want to watch it. We’ll end up with a endless supply of Batman and Robins. In theory, Superman Returns should have been an awesome film. With it being a pseudo sequel to the Richard Donner films and that series, but it just never came together right. It was so freaking boring. I’d rather  have seen Tim Burton’s Superman Lives with the all weird stuff he was adding because at least it would have been something new to watch and from recently released test pictures it would have been very different which sometimes isn’t a bad thing.

Batman Begins was a great Batman film. It was good to finally see his full origin on the big screen. To be honest, I don’t like Christian Bale as Batman. I don’t even think much of him as an actor. I would have preferred Angel‘s David Boreanaz in the role. Everything was good about the film. In contract, I thought that The Dark Knight was just plain awful. The only parts that worked for me were the action scenes. I honestly believe, and I mean no disrespect, that this film wouldn’t have garnered the attention, money and great reviews had it not been the fact that Heath Ledger tragically passed away. His Joker didn’t work for me.

Trying to make DC Comics on film for Hollywood has never been a easy task. Hopefully that will change starting with Green Lantern and once they get Nolan and Bale finished with Batman and move on with a new actor and director. So we’ll finally get to see a long awaited Justice League of America film. Zack Snyder on Superman is a genius move and I long to see this film get made, so here’s hoping that us DC fans will finally get the movies we so longingly have wanted.

Check out these Green Lantern related products…

At the NYCC, the creative forces behind the upcoming Green Lantern cartoon, Bruce Timm, Giancarlo Volpe and Jim Krieg, spoke to audiences about the upcoming ‘toon.

They described the show as a cosmic “buddy cop” series that focuses on Hal Jordan and fan favorite GL Corps member Kilowog. Most of the show will take place in space and on alien worlds, so don’t expect to see much of Hal in civilian clothes or his human supporting cast.  The series will not feature an origin story, but with it coming out on the heels of the Ryan Reynolds live action flick, would it really be needed?  The episodes will be fully original, no straight comic adaptations like the recent DC Universe straight to DVD movies. They are planning to feature other DC Comics characters, but you likely will not see Superman or Batman.

The actual series is not going to be launching until 2012, but we’ll likely see an hour special in Fall of 2011. Even though I’m worried about the style of animation (I prefer traditional over CG), it seems like the creative team has a good grip on the material and they are doing something very different. We shall see.