A month from now, on June 20th, the controversial prequel Before Watchmen: Comedian #1 hits stands and the digital market.  Whether you are for or against all of the “Before Watchmen” titles, you have to admit, these are some pretty nifty covers that DC Entertainment released earlier today. The one on the left is a variant cover by Eduardo Risso, while the one of the right is by the living legend, Jim Lee. DC released a third cover over on its blog.

Official issue description: “I’m a funny guy…” Written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by J.G. Jones. Plus: Don’t miss the CRIMSON CORSAIR backup story by writer Len Wein and artist John Higgins!

Who watches reads the Watchmen?

As we move closer to the July 22nd release of Marvel Studio’s Captain American: The First Avenger we are getting more and more goodies for the comic adaptation. If you head over to the teaser website you’ll find more than a dozen images from the movie (including the one above), the theatrical trailer, teaser trailer, superbowl spot, and a shot plot synopsis. Check out that picture of Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull and tell me that you are not excited to see Marvel’s super solider come to live on the big screen.

Shock Till You Drop scored a plot synopsis and an image from the forth installment of the Underwold series. The image features the return of Kate Beckinsale as Selene, a sexy vampire with a taste for leather.  From the directing team of Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, Underworld: Awakening jumps ahead in time from the last time we saw Selene in 2006’s Evolution. The secret world of vampires and werewolves has been released to the public, who are hunting them down. The idea sounds like it could be good, but if I learned anything from the past three Underworld flicks, it is that they will be mediocre at best. Even the above image… if I didn’t know better I’d think it was from one of the first two movies in the action series.

We started this entry by talking about one captain, so lets end it by chatting about another one. The classic 90s cheeseball cartoon Captain Planet and the Planeteers is getting the big screen treatment thanks to Transformers producer Don Murphy and the Cartoon Network. This will be CN’s first foray into theatrical movies. According to reports, the big screen adaptation will be live action and focus on current global issues such as “earthquakes, tornadoes, melting icebergs”.

Murphy’s filmography is a mixed bag. In addition to all three Transformers films (the first two of which I hated, the third I just didn’t bother with), he also produced the horrid adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and disappointing From Hell, along with Shoot ‘Em Up… which was a damn fun popcorn flick. So one out of a dozen ain’t that bad but his name doesn’t give me hope that they could make Captain Planet into a good movie. If anything I think this captain would be better off on the small screen and animated for new audiences. Gear the show to young kids and entertain them while you teach them a thing or two about the environment.

At this years San Diego Comic-Con, Summit Entertainment showcased three upcoming films in their panel; Push, Knowing and the highly anticipated Twilight. Keep reading to find out what was revealed.

Push

They started off their panel with a trailer for a film called Push, about those with super powers that live amongst us. They brought out cast members Chris Evans, Camille Bella, and Djimon Honsou, plus director Le to talk about the film and show some more clips. Poor little Dakota Fanning was stuck in a massive traffic jam on the I-5 and couldn’t make it to the panel, but in the first clip we were all able to see how much she’s grown up in an action sequence with herself and Chris Evans running from the villains of the film. She plays a “watcher” (those that can see the future), while Evans plays a “mover” (telekenetic) and Camille Bella and Djimon Honsou are “pushers” (those who can put thoughts into others heads). The problem with this film was that Comic-con should be its target audience, yet the crowd didn’t seem too enthused, myself included.

Knowing

Here’s the next Nic Cage flop a la Next, amongst others. The concept is actually pretty spooky: a code is unearthed through a school time capsule that predicts every disaster and the death toll that will accompany it. These disasters seem to follow Nic Cage around as he goes crazy cracking the code. They showed the trailer and the director came out to discuss it a bit, but all in all it looked pretty forgettable.

Twilight

I didn’t know what a “Twilighter” was until a few weeks ago when I read an article in Entertainment Weekly. Despite this, there was no amount of reading that I could have done to prepare me for this panel. I had seen young girls in “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” t-shirts standing in line that morning (and the night before for that matter), but the deafening screams that came from the crowd when this came onto the screen were absolutely insane:

I’ve had Twilight sitting on my bookshelf for a few months now and have been putting off reading it until the movie gets closer. I knew it was popular, and it seems like I’ll love it, but I had no idea that there was such a gigantic following of young girls. This was something Comic-con has never seen before. The girl to guy ratio at this panel was at least 5:1. The Q&A attracted shaking 12 year olds walking up to the mic and professing their love for Stephanie Meyer and the hunky Robert Pattinson who plays the impossibly beautiful vampire Edward. The panel consisted of director Catherine Hardwick, author Stephanie Meyer, and actors Kristen Stewart (Bella), Robert Pattinson (Edward), Cam Gigandet (James), Rachelle Lefevre (Victoria), Edi Gathegi (Laurent), and Taylor Lautner (Jacob). Every time Robert Pattinson came on the screen, tried to speak, or was addressed, the crowd erupted in girlish screams and shrieks. The poor guy couldn’t get a word in edgewise. He was a far cry from Cedric Diggory, with his spiky gelled hair, seriously fanglike teeth (which is funny because supposedly Twilight’s vampires don’t have fangs), and spacey attitude. Kristen Stewart was cute, punky, and incredibly nervous and intimidated by the crowd. They showed a clip of a fight sequence between Edward and James with Bella and it looked incredible. It looks like this film will both please the fans and be easy for the non readers to watch as well.

Just before the panel ended, the mod announced that someone just wanted to say hello. Little (or not so little anymore) Dakota Fanning came out and graciously thanked the audience for coming to see the Push panel and apologized profusely for being stuck in traffic and not being able to attend the panel. She was such a cutie.