Spider-Man is one of Stan Lee's best and most enduring characters, and his popularity with the general public is still off the charts. Despite the fact that we've seen five Spider-Man films in the past fifteen years, including an unnecessary reboot of the character's origin story, people are still clamoring to know more about the character's upcoming appearance in Captain America: Civil War. Against all odds, Spidey continues to thrive in the zeitgeist.

PureCostumes has put together an infographic of the strangest alternate versions of Spider-Man that have appeared in the comics, and since I grew up watching the animated show and not reading the comics regularly, a few of these were new to me. I'm sure those of you who've been reading Spider-Man comics for years will be intimately familiar with all of these iterations of the character, but for anyone like me who knows the character primarily through the animated series and the live-action films, check this out:

Square Enix has released another trailer for Crystal Dynamics' highly anticipated game Rise of the Tomb Raider. It shows off some of the crazy impressive gameplay footage of the game with Lara Croft in action as she traverses the dangerous environments that she will find herself in.

The secrets of history are hidden in hostile environments. Lara must survive in the wild, then discover and explore deadly tombs filled with traps and puzzles in her search for the Lost City of Kitezh.

I've been a fan of Tomb Raider from the very beginning, and I enjoyed the first game in this rebooted franchise. Is there a chance that this sequel could be even better? It looks like it! 

Lara Croft survived a harrowing experience only to be discredited as part of a cover up. Now, after uncovering an ancient mystery, Lara must explore the most treacherous and remote regions of Siberia to find the secret of immortality before a ruthless organization known as Trinity. Lara must use her wits and survival skills, form new alliances, and ultimately embrace her destiny as the Tomb Raider.

Experience high-octane action moments, conquer beautifully hostile environments, engage in brutal guerrilla combat, and explore awe-inspiring deadly tombs in the evolution of survival action. In Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara becomes more than a survivor as she embarks on her first great Tomb Raiding expedition.

Rise of the Tomb Raider will be released exclusively on Xbox One and Xbox 360 on November 10th, 2015. Early next year the game will be released on PC and on PlayStation 4 during the holiday season of 2016

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I wasn't aware of this before today, but actor John Hurt (Alien, Harry Potter, Hellboy, V For Vendetta) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this past summer. He's undergoing treatment right now, and a new report in The Times says that his condition is causing yet another delay of director Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. For those who don't know, Quixote is a film Gilliam has been trying to make since 1998, but has fallen victim to practically every conceivable thing that could go wrong in the intervening years. Things were finally looking good earlier this summer, when Amazon backed the film and production was set to get underway for a May 2016 release with Hurt and Jack O'Connell in the lead roles, but it looks like the curse remains on the project...for now. (For more on this, watch the documentary Lost in La Mancha, which chronicles the first failed attempt to get the movie made.)

Obviously we hope Hurt has a speedy recovery simply so he can get healthy again quickly, and the man's health is more important than a movie production. You have to wonder, though...this is just the latest in a long line of setbacks for this film, and I can't imagine what another delay is doing to Gilliam's patience when it comes to this project. I wonder if he'll ever call it quits on this one once and for all and move on to something else, or stick it out and finally make the movie he's been dreaming of for years.

Via: The Playlist

Screen Junkies has released an incredibly funny Honest Trailer for Disney animated classic, Peter Pan. I love that they point out how dark, creepy, racist and insane this movie really is. After watching this Honest Trailer, I'd really like to see Screen Junkies take on more classic Disney films, both live-action and animated, because it seems like they would sure have some fun with them.

The CW has released a new poster promoting The Flash Season 2 featuring the Scarlet Speedster looking determined. Also, in case you haven't watched it on iTunes yet, there's a 5-minute video that gives fans a sneak preview of what is to come. I included a low-res embed of that for you to check out below thanks to Heather on Vimeo. If you're a fan of the show, this is something that you don't want to miss! It teases a lot of new elements that will be introduced in the upcoming season.

Picking up months after the Singularity attacked Central City, Barry (Grant Gustin) is still struggling to forgive himself for Eddie’s death. Concerned about putting his friends in danger, Barry has pushed everyone away and has chosen to protect the city on his own. When a meta-human named Atom Smasher (guest star Adam Copeland) attacks the city, Iris (Candice Patton) tells Barry that he needs to let his friends help him protect the citizens of Central City. Meanwhile, Cisco (Carlos Valdes) helps Joe (Jesse L. Martin) with his Meta Task Force.

The Flash will return to The CW on Tuesday, October 6th.

Todd Strauss-Schulson's The Final Girls is one of my favorite movies I've seen this year. I had a chance to review it at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and its mixture of genuinely heartfelt, emotional moments and classic horror movie scares makes it a must-see, both for horror aficionados and non-horror lovers alike. (My wife isn't a fan of horror films, but she loved this.)

The film will hit theaters and VOD on October 9th, and now Stage 6 Films and Vertical Entertainment have released a new poster, which, like the movie itself, is a cool throwback to classic slasher films as seen through a slightly different lens. Check out the synopsis and trailer below:

The Final Girls is an unconventional comedy about Max, a high school senior, who is mysteriously transported with her friends into a 1980s horror film that starred Max’s mother, a celebrated scream queen. Trapped inside the movie, Max finds herself reunited with her mom, who she lost in real life. Together with Max’s friends, they must fend off the camp counselors’ raging hormones, battle a deranged machete-wielding killer and find a way to escape the movie and make it back home.

If you aren't listening to Karina Longworth's You Must Remember This podcast, I'd highly recommend checking it out. It's a podcast devoted to the secret and/or forgotten histories of old Hollywood, and it's absolutely fascinating. She just did a big 12-part series on Charles Manson this summer, and as someone who only knew the basics about the murders committed by Manson's "family," it was enthralling to hear everything broken down in great detail with tons of context about the major players involved.

So it's good timing, then, that The Orchard has released a trailer for a new film called Manson Family Vacation, which follows a successful guy (Jay Duplass) who goes on a trip with his burnout brother (Linas Phillips) to all of the relevant spots around the Los Angeles area that the Manson family lived, visited, or committed murder. Manson Family Vacation comes to iTunes and On Demand on October 6th.

Nick Morgan (Jay Duplass) has it all: a loving family, a beautiful home and a successful law practice in Los Angeles. His estranged brother Conrad (Linas Phillips) has nothing but a backpack. When Conrad shows up for a surprise visit, all he wants to do in town is go to the infamous Manson Family murder sites. Reluctantly, Nick joins him and ends up on a road trip that leads the brothers into the modern-day world of Charles Manson.

J.K. Rowling has given Harry Potter fans a history behind Harry Potter's family and the Potter name. Harry Potter is the son of James and Lily Potter, but like any ancestry, there's a lot more to it than just mom and dad, and it dates back to the 12th century.

You can read the full description here, which talks about how the Potter name fits in with both the wizarding world and the world of muggles. It also talks about the link between the Potters and Peverells, who are the original owners of the Deathly Hallows. There's also information on how they ended up with the Invisibility Cloak. 

Here's an excerpt from the origin breakdown:

"In the Muggle world ‘Potter’ is an occupational surname, meaning a man who creates pottery. The wizarding family of Potters descends from the twelfth-century wizard Linfred of Stinchcombe, a locally well-beloved and eccentric man, whose nickname, ‘the Potterer’, became corrupted in time to ‘Potter’. Linfred was a vague and absent-minded fellow whose Muggle neighbours often called upon his medicinal services. None of them realised that Linfred’s wonderful cures for pox and ague were magical; they all thought him a harmless and lovable old chap, pottering about in his garden with all his funny plants. His reputation as a well-meaning eccentric served Linfred well, for behind closed doors he was able to continue the series of experiments that laid the foundation of the Potter family’s fortune. Historians credit Linfred as the originator of a number of remedies that evolved into potions still used to this day, including Skele-gro and Pepperup Potion. His sales of such cures to fellow witches and wizards enabled him to leave a significant pile of gold to each of his seven children upon his death."

As a fan of Harry Potter, it's always exciting to see new information like this come to light years after the saga came to a close. The Pottermore website is also going through some big changes as we get closer to the release of the film Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them. It has apparently been redesigned to be the "digital heart" of Rowling's Wizarding World.

"Pottermore.com now includes more content than ever before and is designed to be consumed in a completely different way to the original site, which was launched in 2012. The new site contains entertaining features, commentary and articles about the Harry Potter series and the wider Wizarding World."

For more information on the site, head on over to it and start exploring!

Source: THR

Last week, Zack Snyder fired the latest shots in The Great Press Battle of Marvel vs. DC when he called Ant-Man a "flavor of the week" movie and once again implied that his upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a film that deals with bigger, more important things than the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. Here's his comment that got the most attention:

"But I feel like Batman and Superman are transcendent of superhero movies in a way, because they’re Batman and Superman. They’re not just, like, the flavor of the week Ant-Man—not to be mean, but whatever it is. What is the next Blank-Man?”

For the most part, this "battle" between the two studios has been incredibly one-sided: Marvel has been dominating it from a box office perspective, but the people from DC seem to be the ones constantly throwing out little disses at their cross-town rivals in an effort to get people interested and excited about the direction of their upcoming movies. Well, apparently word got back to Marvel actor Sebastian Stan, who plays The Winter Soldier in Captain America: Civil War, and it doesn't sound like he's thrilled with Snyder's comments. He told Collider:

"Yeah, I’m sitting here and I’m listening to you and I’m thinking, “Do I want to fire some shots at DC right now, at Zack Snyder?” I read some of those comments where he said something about Batman and Superman, I can’t remember where I read that, somewhere… Something about, “It’s not going to be your flavor-of-the-week Ant-Man.” And I was like, “Oh thanks, Zack. That’s great. Way to do something original.” But I would say we’re still making something very original in our own way. I mean, the Russos are coming in and taking something people are used to and they’re shaping it up and changing it in a very different way. They’re not trying to mimic a better Christopher Nolan movie or something like that.”

As one of my fellow GT writers put it when they read the news: "Oh, snap!" With Nolan on board as a producer for Man of Steel, it was easy to see his influence over Snyder in that particular movie, and now that Nolan has left those films and moved on to other things, I bet this comment is going to sting a little for Snyder, who's likely hoping to put his own stamp on the franchise and get out of Nolan's (very long) shadow.

I'm sure he'll have something to say about this soon, since it seems these two sides are going to continue to dig at each other in the press until the end of time.

Ryan Reynolds is finally bringing Deadpool to life the way he wants to this February, but he's seen his fair share of scorn from the fanboy community for his starring role in 2011's Green Lantern, Warner Bros. and DC's failed attempt to kickstart a franchise. So he's uniquely suited to be able to empathize with the talented young cast of Josh Trank's recent Fantastic Four adaptation, another massive failure that was torn to shreds by critics and fans. When asked by GQ how he feels about young talent being sucked into big franchises, part of his response involved a reaction to some of the sexism and racism that's still endemic in Hollywood today:

“But I’m more frustrated about the Michael B. Jordan aspect than Miles Teller. You know, Miles Teller’s gonna recover. Miles Teller’s gonna go on to do amazing things, you know. It’s important that Michael B. Jordan continues to go on and do amazing things.”

And you feel like they’ll make it harder for a black actor than for a white one?

“I know it’s not easy for a black actor. It’s not easy for a female actor. It’s not easy for a lot of people that are... That entire cast is amazingly talented. And I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I mean, I know what that feels like. It doesn’t feel good. And it also is difficult, because you don’t feel like you can control that outcome. You know, as much as you want to. You can’t really.”

I agree that the industry as a whole would probably allow Teller a fresh opportunity before it gave a similar one to Jordan or Kate Mara, but thankfully it looks like Jordan already has his comeback role lined up with this year's Creed, and Mara does well with a small role in Ridley Scott's The Martian, so I think both of them are going to end up doing just fine.

The whole interview is worth a read, but Reynolds also spoke a bit about the superhero genre and the perceived audience fatigue after this summer's movies:

“It’s a genre. There are good horror movies and bad horror movies. There are good comedies and bad comedies. Think of it like that. Think of it less about just superheroes. I do believe that they explore similar archetypes a lot, so I think that notion can be somewhat fatiguing, maybe. I think one of the reasons that Deadpool has gained a lot of momentum isn’t just that it’s funny or isn’t just that it’s rated R. The meta aspect is very important. So I think Deadpool’s coming along at the right time, because it’s also speaking to that generation and that group of people that have seen them all, seen all these comic-book films and enjoyed them all to varying degrees of success. But I think it’s speaking to them as though the guy in that red suit is one of them, to some degree.”

Via: AV Club

Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams is awesome as Arya Stark, but sooner or later she's going to have to break away from that character and continue to craft her career moving forward. Hopefully she'll be able to do that as successfully as the former Harry Potter stars, but time will tell. One of the projects she's been talking up over the past year has been a film adaptation of the popular video game The Last of Us. But that project doesn't have much momentum behind it right now, and I just received a press release for a project that Williams will star in that sounds pretty similar to the storyline of the video game. Here are the relevant sections:

Writer/Director Kate Maberly (The Secret Garden, Finding Neverland) and Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow) announced today that they will jointly produce the project The Forest of Hands and Teeth, written by Maberly. In addition, Maberly and Liman announced that British actress Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) has just been attached to play the lead. Production is lining up for 2016, with Kate Maberly directing.

“The Forest of Hands and Teeth” is adapted from the New York Times best-selling novel by Carrie Ryan.  The story is set “sometime in the future”, in a world where most of the human race has been taken by a bloodthirsty virus that leaves them roaming the planet as unconsecrated cannibals. Mary (to be played by Williams) seeks a bigger world beyond the fenced off village of survivors, and the survival of the human race seems dependent upon her success in leading a ragtag group through the dark depths of The Forest of Hands and Teeth.

So let's take a look at the comparisons between this movie and The Last of Us. Sometime in the future? Check. Virus causing bloodthirsty cannibalism? Check. Human race dependent on the survival of a young girl as she travels outside of her village? Check. The Forest of Hands and Teeth may end up being a good movie, but as someone who was very much looking forward to seeing Williams star in a Last of Us film, I wonder if it might be so similar that she'd do this movie and then bail on the video game adaptation because she would have already tackled a story too close to that one. We'll have to wait and see how it all plays out, but this may be a defining moment in the game adaptation's history.

Editor Pablo Fernández Eyre put together this nice little supercut of time coming to a complete stop in movies, set to the Hans Zimmer track "Time" from the Inception score. Watching this just makes me want to watch Big Fish again. I think that might be the best movie Tim Burton ever made (yes, including Batman, Beetlejuice, and Edward Scissorhands. Come at me!).

Via: LaughingSquid

It’s been over a week now since the release of "The Taken King," the newest expansion for Bungie’s golden boy, or problem child depending on your experience over the last year with the game over the last year, Destiny.  I walked into my game room on September 15th with high hopes, but low expectations.  I wanted Destiny to be the game that haunted our dreams, but in a good way.  The way unicorns and waterfalls overflowing with beer haunt mine.  After three disappointing releases with the initial game and the first two expansions however, I kept my expectations low and hoped for the best.

My first impressions of the game were great!  Destiny has always been an extremely polished first person shooter with gorgeous graphics, and this new content didn't disappoint in those areas.  The graphic and lighting effects are colorful, detailed, and will regularly make you stop to take in the beautiful (and sometimes creepy) scenery.  The game play mechanics are also excellent and the controls are tight and accurate. The Taken King would need a lot more than that to win me over though.  After all, the base game and first two expansions had boasted the same shiny features and well-executed controls.

In the first year of Destiny's release the story was practically non-existent unless you spent hours on a computer looking at Grimoire Cards.  Even if you actively sought the story out though, it was often vague and felt like a convenient shortcut for developers to avoid telling players what the hell was actually going on in the game.  The character development was even worse.  I knew there was a Speaker who spoke to the traveler. Or used to? Or still does but it’s a dead sphere thingy now?  Shit.  I don’t remember. It's a convoluted mess, and that's only the one character. There’s also the three Vanguard big wigs downstairs in the tower, one for each class.  The only reason I remember Ikora’s name was because of that damn exotic shotgun bounty I completed so many times.  I knew I loathed the Cryptarch, but that's it.  Then finally, there was Squid Face/Zoidberg/Xur and nobody knows where he came from or why he’s the only one who wants the strange coins. But we didn’t ask questions.  We just took our exotics and ran.  

In playing The Taken King, I immediately noticed more character development with Zavala, Cayde-6, Ikora (the Vanguard “big wigs”) and Eris.  As the story progressed, so did the feeling that I was getting at least a slight sense of who these characters are.  Eris seems like an overly dramatic person with an eye shadow problem and who is in desperate need of a straitjacket.  Zavala comes across as a pretentious douche who always needs to be in control, a fact which seriously made me want to pull pranks on him like Jim would do to Dwight in The Office.  And Cayde-6…well, if you didn’t have a crush on Nathan Fillion before, you definitely will now.  He’s the frosting on the cake that I’ve waited for and which Destiny so sorely needed!  I digress.  My point is that I now know their names and I have an opinion about them.  Even if my opinion is that I think  Eris needs psychiatric help and that I want to paint a dick on the side of Zavala’s helmet.  Sure, he storytelling and character development doesn't come close to games like The Last of Us or Bioshock,  but it’s more than we’ve had thus far and it’s a refreshing change.  

The first two expansions only required a few days to complete their additional stories.  I took time off of work to play the first expansion, The Dark Below, when it released and was shocked by how quickly the excitement ended.  Your current weapons and armor, which were only obtainable from the Raid, became obsolete.  It made all the time and effort you spent in those raids feel pointless.  Moreover, you were forced you to play the new raid/multiplayer event if you wanted to stay on top. In fact, without completing the raid/multiplayer events it became difficult to even complete the weekly missions.  With both of the first two expansions, you needed to have the best armor and weapons to compete in their new activities.  But to get the new armor and weapons you had to play the new activities.  So around and around you went like a hamster in a wheel. The only way to escape the cycle was to either find a group nice enough to drag you along until you could get to the new light level max or give up and play a different game.  

The main story line for The Taken King is, unsurprisingly, short.  Longer than The Dark Below mind you, but before you know it you’re dancing inappropriately on Oryx’s grave. Unlike the previous expansions though, this wasn’t the end of the story.  In addition to the strikes, raids, and PvP, you now also complete story missions for all three of the Vanguard.  Some are better than others, but they’re not rehashes of what you’ve already played. These are actual new missions. On top of that, there are quests and missions to complete for the gunsmith, Eris (still annoying and crazy), the Crucible Handler and others.  That’s more new content than we’ve ever had previously.  I’m not saying it’s a lot, but it’s certainly more than we're used to.  So, surprisingly, after week one I still have plenty to do.

This brings me to the inevitable question of grinding.  As of right now I don't feel like I’m stuck grinding away, trying to get the best gear just to be able to compete. The game doesn’t feel like a chore. If it did I wouldn’t still be playing now and this would be a far bitterer article.  There are a few things I feel have contributed to the diminished grind.  First, there isn’t one all powerful max-level piece of armor that only drops in one particular section that will ONLY drop if you are able to dance, bow, jump, shoot a rocket,  switch your dance routine to something more tasteful, and then repeat that whole process mid-air while… I'm getting side-tracked, sorry. What I mean to say is that there isn't just one armor piece or one weapon to rule them all.  There are multiple weapons at different levels that are fun to try out and to level up.  At least for now I haven’t found that Highlander of weapons. 

Secondly, the drops seem to be better for the people I’ve been playing with.  This could be because it’s ALL new gear to us and we’re just excited to try something new, but I feel like I am getting better drops and it’s exciting.  The Cryptarch is still a dick, sometimes giving you the exact item you have equipped when decoding an engram.  But at least now he’s a predictable dick and you know a legendary engram means that you'll get legendary gear.

Is Destiny: The Taken King the next best thing in video games? Will it leave you thinking that no game in the future could hope to reach its unique level of perfection?  Not in my opinion. However, it is a fun, competitive, beautiful, and highly polished first person shooter that's a blast to play with friends…for now.  They have made changes to year two, changes that we could all argue shouldn’t have taken a year to implement, but they're changes that are here now and which have made Destiny fun again.  I can’t be sure how long it will last, but for now, I’m going to have my fun and enjoy the game with friends.

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If you haven't seen the second season premiere of Gotham, you need to jump on that shit because it was a great season premiere! It did a great job of getting me pumped up for the rest of the season. Fox has released a red-band trailer showing us lots of new footage from the next episode, which is called "Rise of the Villains: Knock, Knock.” Why is it red-band, you ask? Well, because it contains some graphic violence. It's not every day we get a red-band trailer for a TV show. 

On the heels of his reinstatement, Gordon is thrust onto the high-profile case tracking the deadly inmate escape from Arkham Asylum. Meanwhile, Galavan plans his next move, while Bruce enlists the help of his father’s old friend to unlock the secrets in his office, and Nygma asks out Kristin Kringle (guest-star Chelsea Spack) on a date.

Episode two airs next Monday.

Andy Park has created a ton of concept art for Marvel over the years, and it's always cool to see the art that he has worked on. The illustration above features the retro version of Wasp, who we briefly saw in action in Marvel's Ant-Man. I also included some work that he did for the hero of the movie below. The image above came with the following caption:

"I had SOOO much fun doing designs of the original Wasp for the Ant-Man film. Here's one I did."

Ant-Man turned out to be such a great movie, and it will be fun to see the character's adventures continue in the upcoming Marvel movies! You can check out some of Park's other art at the following links: New GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Concept Art, Stunning Concept Art from THOR: THE DARK WORLD, and Wicked Concept Art For AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON.

And here's the #AntMan design I did for the movie. Fun character to design- retro but has to hold up today #PaulRudd pic.twitter.com/rqV5FlhHYT

— Andy Park (@andyparkart) August 21, 2015

When Marvel and Sony teamed up to reboot Spider-Man and introduce the superhero into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans were excited as hell! Of course, in the process some things were sacrificed like the Sinister Six movie that Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) was developing. I was more excited about that project than anything else Sony was working on before Marvel came into the picture.

In a recent interview with io9, Goddard opened up about his original vision of the film, explaining that it would have been standalone Spider-Man movie set in the world of The Amazing Spider-Man, and it would have featured the return of Andrew Garfield as the web-slinger.

“My vision of that movie was a summer annual. So you didn’t have to worry about continuity. It was just, ‘We take Peter, put him on an adventure, we put him back in his life.’ I intentionally wanted a movie that didn’t have to worry about mythology and continuity. It was important to me to make a movie that could stand on its own. So the good news is, you know, [laughs], it slots in very well to any plan anybody ever wants. We just need to let a couple years go by, I think.”

He went on to say that it was the Spider-Man movie that he always dreamed of making:

“It was a Spider-Man movie. It was the giant, epic Spider-Man movie of my dreams.”

So if Marvel ever wants another crossover movie to happen, Goddard's script could work for them. Of course, it would have to be shaped to fit into the MCU, but it seems like he'd gladly do it if they ever want to push it into development. It's possible that Marvel could decide they want to work with Goddard on it. After all, he did develop Daredevil with them, and that turned out pretty freakin' fantastic. He went on to talk about how excited he is about Marvel and Sony teaming up to bring Spidey to the big screen:

“The tricky part about all this is I love this plan. I love that you get to see Spider-Man in Marvel movies. I think that’s a great thing. I’m on board with that decision because as a fan that’s what I want. So who knows what the future holds? This is Hollywood, man, you’ve gotta play the long game.”

It will be fun to see what exactly the future hold for Marvel and Sony's Spider-Man franchise. Hopefully, they open up the world, and we do eventually see a Sinister Six movie happen.

It's been a long time since I've read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other Middle Earth book by J.R.R. Tolkien. Most of the stuff I remember now is from the movies Peter Jackson has made over the years. There are so many things that I had forgotten about, but thanks to 9GAG. we have a long 8-part list of random facts about Lord of the Rings that every fan should know. This is a great reminder of stuff that you might have forgotten about, or maybe there's stuff included here that you never even knew! Either way, these facts are definitely worth reading through!

All of R.L. Stine's monster creations come out to play and wreak havoc in director Rob Letterman's upcoming film Goosebumps. We have a new Halloween-themed TV spot for you to watch called "The Monsters Come Alive at Halloween" that features several of these crazy creatures. We also have a new clip from the film featuring a giant praying mantis.

My kids haven't read any of the Goosebumps books yet, but they sure are excited about seeing this movie! Regardless of my lack of enthusiasm for the movie, I'm sure it will do very well at the box office. Maybe it will surpass my expectations. I just don't expect much from Jack Black movies these days.

Upset about moving from a big city to a small town, teenager Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) finds a silver lining when he meets the beautiful girl, Hannah (Odeya Rush), living right next door. But every silver lining has a cloud, and Zach’s comes when he learns that Hannah has a mysterious dad who is revealed to be R. L. Stine (Jack Black), the author of the bestselling “Goosebumps” series. It turns out that there is a reason why Stine is so strange… he is a prisoner of his own imagination – the monsters that his books made famous are real, and Stine protects his readers by keeping them locked up in their books. When Zach unintentionally unleashes the monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town, it’s suddenly up to Stine, Zach, and Hannah to get all of them back in the books where they belong.

The movie is set to be released n October 16th.

I recently got a chance to sit down and chat with Marc Guggenheim, writer of DC and The CW’s Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow. Somewhere in the midst of all that he has found time to write a new comic series, called The Infinite Adventures of Jonas Quantum. We cover his new project at length here, so let us get started.

Matt: I got a chance to read the book, and I absolutely loved it. Aside from the fantastic name, which if someone were actually named that you’d think they would be set up for life, can you give us some insight into what inspired it and what the book is all about?

Marc: Absolutely, but first I do have to tell you that in issue 3, you are going to learn something about that name. It will all make sense then. Wait, sorry, issue 4, I lied. What the book is about is the world's smartest man. The idea is pretty simple actually, what if there was a superhero whose power was his intelligence? and it is playing around with that notion. One of the things I wanted to do was, you know, Indiana Jones was created as a response to James Bond. No one has tried to create a character in response to Indiana Jones. That’s a lofty aspiration and I don’t even know if I can pull it off, but that is where the germ of the idea began.

Matt: You’ve been working on a variety of TV shows for awhile now, so did you just have an itch you needed to scratch or had this idea been there for awhile?

Marc: It was definitely in my head for awhile, and it was one that I had come up with about 15 years ago, when I had just moved to Los Angeles, and was just kicking around ideas. It was just a character I kept coming back to in my head. I would just think about it and then add these little elements, and it just slowly took form over a long period of time. Then I produced a pilot with a guy named Peter Johnson who then moved over to Legendary, and we kept in touch. We always wanted to do something together, and it just felt like the time was right, and I had mentioned this idea that I had been holding on to for quite a while, and Peter responded to it, and we just started going from there.

Matt: One thing that really sticks out, especially in the first few pages, is the banter between Jonas and Eve. How would you describe the dynamic between them? Is it a sidekick type thing or is there something more to that?

Marc: Well, I love writing banter. It is probably my favorite thing to do, particularly the banter in the rhythm style that you see in those first few pages. The relationship with Eve, it's... I would say there is a mystery element to the book. It will continue to evolve, and the reader's understanding of it will change over time. The relationship isn't changing, just the reader's understanding of it will. Even though the book is not serialized, each issue is self contained, each issue is designed to give you at least one or two new insights into Jonas's character and his relationship, and his interaction with Eve is definitely a big part of that. I don’t want to spoil too much, because there are some surprises in store, but let me put it to you this way. In the same issue Jonas is kissing Eve but is also going out on a date with another woman, but all of this will actually make sense as we get towards the end of the series.

Matt: I did notice that, and first thought was "what the hell?" Haha. When you have a character like this, it is really easy to have that person, because he or she is so intelligent, a Sheldon Cooperish type character if you will, act as if he or she is talking at people as opposed to to them, and I didn’t feel that way here. As intelligent as he is, he never spoke to her in a condescending tone. Even in his mini history lessons, it is more informational than anything, and I really appreciated that dynamic between them. I know that can be a really hard balance to maintain.

Marc: You know, I think the key to that was in making sure that Eve could play at Jonas’s level. Basically you kind of see that she doesn’t take any of Jonas's shit.

Matt: Hahaha

Marc: Even though Jonas might be inclined to be condescending, Eve would never let him get away with it. I love writing strong women, and I particularly love writing Eve because she’s just no-nonsense. Well, not no-nonsense, because she does have a wit about her, but she doesn’t have any patience for Jonas’s bullshit. I think that is a large part of why Jonas doesn’t come off the way you fear, because he is just not given the opportunity to by Eve.

Matt: Yeah, and you can see that in the first three pages, and that is much appreciated. The book is genuinely funny by the way. I laughed out loud more than a few times.

Marc: Oh, thank you.

Matt: As far as tone, because the book is dealing with all these epic things like time travel and and ramifications of what happens to his vault, and all these other things, but it is a very light-hearted tone throughout. Was that something you purposely did or did it just happen over the course of writing the book? Was it ever a more serious gritty tone at any point during the process?

Marc: It was always this. The book is very much inspired by the silver and bronze age comics I grew up with, before the eighties turned everything really dark. I work on Arrow as my day job, so I spend so much time with darkness, that when I write other things I like to lighten it up. I would say this is more my tone, just my voice as a writer. I always describe my writing as sort of accidentally funny. I never try to write jokes. I don’t consider myself a comedy writer. If I manage to write something that makes people laugh, it brings me great joy, but it is completely accidental.

Matt: Hahaha.

Marc: If you were to say "write me a comedy piece," it would be the most unfunny comedy ever. I can only get at comedy tangentially through other types of storytelling.

Matt: One of the best parts of the book was how the origin is handled. When the book starts you get a small origin, literally, and then you move right into the present. You don’t get bogged down in 10 pages of “well here is how it started when he was four, and now six, etc." and it doesn’t deprive the reader of information either because all throughout you are doing all of these small flashbacks. Moments like “and here is when he cures death,” and then we are back to the present story. While we are on the subject, I sat there for hours doing basic algebra homework, and I still have issues with math, and this guy cures death in one session.

Showoff.

Back to the point though, I love how all of these pieces are scattered throughout, which gets the reader involved right away, as opposed to the normal slow setup. I really enjoyed it, and it almost felt like watching a TV show, which goes to what you were saying before. You are used to writing these shows during the day, so has any of that seeped into your writing for comics? 

Marc: That’s a great question. Thanks for the kind words by the way. I would say that one piece has always fed the other for me. I learned a lot about dialogue and just sort of efficient storytelling due to my TV work. You only have 42 minutes and you have to cut to the chase really quick. At the same time, I feel my comic book work has informed my opinion for shots and editing, and that I carry over to my TV work, because in comic books the artist is the cinematographer, but you are sort of calling out the shots and going this is a two shot or this is a closeup. Internalizing the rhythm of that is something that has really benefited me in the editing room on my TV work, so I feel that one has fed the other, and vice versa. I have been very, very lucky to do that over the years. Its funny, I almost thought that once I started Arrow I would stop writing comics, because geez how much superheroes does one need in their lives.

Matt: Hahaha

Marc: But what I found is it is not just superheroes for me, it is the medium. I just have such a love of the medium of comics, and telling stores through that form, that that is still an itch I need to scratch.

Matt: So you mentioned how the artist is sort of the cinematographer. The art in the book is fantastic, Freddie and Christopher have done a great job. You mentioned how it is based on something a bit more classic, and you can really tell there are some homages at work, as there are tons of bold, vibrant colors, and the book is not afraid to be very Sci-Fi and have all this crazy equipment and alien technology on display throughout, and I love that. How has it been working with them? Did you pretty much have the designs in mind? or was that a major collaboration? can you go over that a bit?

Marc: It’s a great question. I will say that Freddie and I have worked before on Justice Society for DC, so we had a little bit of a shorthand. We had a lot of conversations about Jonas, and to those conversations Freddie brought a very clear vision on what Jonas should look like. We iterated just a very little bit on his look. What you see in the book was not the first design Freddie came up with, but it is very close. Chris is, here is the thing: I have been a long time fan of his work. He is just a remarkable talent because he meshes with Freddie’s style perfectly. It’s funny, I’m actually working with him on the Agents of Shield book which I am writing for Marvel at the moment, and his coloring style for that book is completely different, because Mike Norton had a completely different style than Freddie, so I just can’t praise Chris’ versatility enough. So much of the book is the visuals that Freddie and Chris are creating, and they work really well together.  Chris was essentially hand picked by Freddie, and they mesh seamlessly. When Freddie turns in pages he is always throwing in little notations to Chris on “here is what I’m thinking here” and "oh put a light source here." It's a great dialogue. Chris recently asked me, he is working on issue four, and he asked me for a copy of the script, and I’m like wow, I have been writing comics for over ten years now and a colorist has never asked me for a copy of the script. They never thought about that stuff. So I am very, very lucky because comics is a visual medium, and this book by design is meant to be incredibly visual, and it is really to their credit. Both men have really brought their A game, and I am deeply appreciative.

Matt: Yeah, you can definitely tell, and fantastic work all around. Well thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me, I really appreciate it!

Marc: Thanks man, really appreciate it!

Tom Clancy's CIA hero Jack Ryan is being rebranded for TV. Former Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse (Bates Motel) and writer Graham Roland (The Returned) are taking on the project and developing the project based on Clancy's novels into a TV series for Paramount TV and Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes.

According to Deadline, the idea was conceived by Cuse and Roland, and the show "is not a direct adaptation of the books as were the first Jack Ryan movies but a new contemporary take on the character in his prime as a CIA analyst/operative using the novels as source material." 

Over the years I've enjoyed most of the films that have been made, especially The Hunt for Red October with Alex Baldwin as Jack Ryan as well as Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger with Harrison Ford in the lead role. Ryan has also been portrayed by Ben Affleck and Chris Pine, both of whom were pretty underwhelming in the role. 

In the novels, Ryan, who retired following a helicopter crash, worked as an investment broker before taking on a position at the U.S. Naval Academy. He later joined the CIA and worked his way up through the ranks to Deputy Director. He eventually ended up being the President of the United States.

This has the potential to be a solid series if they bring on great team talent to bring it to life. A series like this could go either way. It could end up being a mediocre series that gets cancelled after the first season, or it could be something awesome that fans enjoy. Only time will tell if it turns out to be a dud or a success. As a long-time fan of the character, I hope it turns out to be awesome.