Angry Web

If you loved The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo books and movies, well DC comics Vertigo is adapting all three books in the series as two-volume graphic novels. The novels won’t arrive in stores until this coming November.

ThisJuly we will be seeing new 12 inch statues and busts of Batman, Bane and Catwoman from the upcoming movie, “The Dark Knight Rises”. The film opens in theaters and IMAX on July 20,2012.

At the end of the Operation Early Bird viral marketing game, fans were rewarded with passes to see the 6-minute opening prologue to “The Dark Knight Rises” at select IMAX theaters across the world. T-shirts for Bane and Batman were passed out, which we’ve attached images of below.  AW was at the screening and we now have a summary along with our thoughts…

SUMMARY

The prologue begins with the reveal of a new logo, which appears to be a green-tinted web of shattered glass in the shape of the batsymbol. We then open to a memorial ceremony as Commissioner Gordon gives a eulogy to Harvey Dent. This is in standard widescreen format and looks as if it was filmed during The Dark Knight.

GORDON – I knew Harvey Dent. I was his friend. And it will be a very long time before someone inspires us the way he did. I believed in Harvey Dent.

Cut to IMAX. We float through a wheat field and zoom in on a jeep holding Dr. Leonid Pavel and three masked hostages. The jeep reaches an airplane as the hostages are met by a CIA officer. At first, he refuses to take the 3 hostages, but is then told they worked with the mercenary known as Bane. He admits the 3 hostages along with Dr. Pavel into the airplane and they take off.

Cut to what looks like a European mountain range as the plane drifts through the skies. The CIA officer says he will only take Dr. Pavel and the one hostage who tells him about Bane. He interrogates the first 2 by dangling them along the side of the plane, only to be interrupted by the 3rd hostage. A CIA agent unmasks the hostage revealing him to be Bane. The agent looks at Bane’s mask and asks him, “If I pull that off will you die?” Bane says, “It would be extremely painful…for you.” The agent then asks “Was getting caught part of your plan?” Bane answers, “Of course.”

A second plane flies overhead. The agent finally tells Bane, “Congratulations, you got yourself caught. Now what’s the next step of your master plan?” Bane replies, “Crashing this plane.” Within seconds, Bane’s henchmen have jumped onto the plane, bashed in the windows, attached cables to its sides, and broken off the wings. The tail then breaks off as the CIA agents hang on for their lives. Bane and his henchmen meanwhile take out a catheter and proceed to transfer blood from Dr. Pavel to a corpse inside a body bag. One of his henchman asks Bane, “Have we started a fire?” He replies, “The fire rises.”

Bane grabs Dr. Pavel and, gripping onto a cable, is hoisted out of the plane’s tail as they fly off with the second plane.

We then cut to a sizzle reel which shows Batman holding a new gadget (same one on the cover of Empire Magazine), Bane walking out into the snow with his henchman, the new ‘Bat-Wing’ chasing down a camo Tumbler, people rappeling down a well, a fight in the snow between Bane and Batman, a brief shot of Catwoman in full costume, Batman driving the Bat-Pod, a running shot of Officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Selina Kyle in a car, mobs of people rushing down a street, Bane and a camo tumbler, and finally, an epic shot of Bane holding a broken batcowl. Fade to black.

OUR THOUGHTS?

In all honesty, I was initially more impressed by The Dark Knight prologue than this one as I felt there were more elements of surprise in the former. Make no mistake though – this was an incredible prologue and I now feel the need to watch it a second time in order to develop a better appreciation for it. Let’s face it, we have seen similar stunts like this before – the one major difference though is that this sequence was most likely done in real life, rather than behind a green screen or with CGI. Rethinking about the prologue with this understanding makes it loads more impressive and I can now say that this is definitely one of the most epic action sequences ever captured on film.

We did also see a similar sequence in The Dark Knight when Batman uses a skyhook to capture Lau out of his building, which might have been why I didn’t feel as surprised this time around. One theory that I’ve come across is that Bane may be learning off of Batman’s tactics or that it was actually Chris Nolan’s intention to mirror the two characters by hinting back to the skyhook scene. This subtle parallel adds a whole new depth to the sequence and may be foreshadowing the relationship between Batman and Bane.

While I didn’t think Bane’s reveal was as memorable as The Joker’s, I did feel the immensely threatening force behind the character. Tom Hardy’s transformation into the villain is quite stunning and you definitely see Bane as being an extremely powerful enemy, both intellectually and physically. The mask is far more frightening than what we’ve seen in photos and almost evokes a Hannibal Lecter-like presence for the character. One thing to especially note is when Bane tells one of his henchman, “The fire rises”, and we see the henchman respond with a look of elated glory and excitement on his face – this is quite a disturbing image, seeing as this is moments before he’s about to martyr himself for their cause. It also indicates how deadly of an influence Bane really is.

Another interesting point I found was from the blood transfer. What I came to understand was that Bane was transferring Dr. Pavel’s blood into the corpse so that in the plane’s wreckage, forensics would discover the blood and believe Dr. Pavel to have been in the crash. From the staggering height the plane fell from, everything would have been completely destroyed, including the corpse, which would as a result, scatter the blood throughout the wreckage. Any other theories? Feel free to chime in.

As for the sizzle reel, I think it annihilates all the behind-the-scenes footage we’ve seen so far. The film looks gorgeous – especially the exterior action shots in the snow. Catwoman looks amazing, the Bat-Wing looks amazing…let’s face it, this is going to be a damn amazing film and this prologue has more than proved it. July 20th, 2012 can’t come soon enough.

*By the way, notice how we didn’t even address Bane’s inaudible dialogue – which many news sites seem to be making a bitching fiasco of. Chris Nolan has already spoken out on the issue and that it will be fixed during the postproduction process. I, personally, didn’t mind it as I thought Bane’s muffled voice actually added more mystery to the character. It almost made him seem more animalistic and unhuman, and therefore, more frightening.

The prologue will be shown in IMAX screenings of Mission Impossible:Ghost Protocol this coming weekend, so be sure not to miss it!

Brand new teaser poster for the upcoming “Spider-Man” reboot, Sony unleashed this awesome poster earlier this week!

Check it out and let us know what you think…

DC is bringing back the actors who provided the voices for the Justice League in the cartoon series “Justice League Unlimited”. Kevin Conroy as Batman, Michael Rosenbaum as Flash, Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman, Carl Lumbly as Martian Manhunter and Bumper Robinson joins the cast as Cyborg. “Justice League: Doom”, featuring the last film script written by the late Dwayne McDuffie, is coming to DVD/Blu-Ray on Feb 28, 2012.

“The Dark Knight” introduced one of the most engaging and memorable viral marketing campaigns that kept die-hard fans on the edge of their seats for months leading up to its release. With “The Dark Knight Rises” coming out next summer, fans were eagerly waiting to see how the marketing for this next installment would top off that of its predecessor, if at all. Recalling way back to 2007, “The Dark Knight” campaign had begun on Halloween, yet this time for “The Dark Knight Rises”, nothing happened. Sure, a twitter account called @thefirerises was released that led to official photos of Bane and Catwoman over the summer, but after the enormous success of the 2nd film, was a marketing campaign really worth the studio’s investment? Probably not – however, the film has likely been projected to reel in another $1 billion worldwide regardless, so why not spend a measly portion of that for the die-hard fans? And it looks like the studio has cooked something special up indeed! We will do our best to cover the events of this campaign so let’s get this ball rolling…and here…we…go!

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES VIRAL CAMPAIGN

12/7/11 – Wired and Empire Magazine unveil two “leaked” CIA documents both concerning a missing Russian nuclear scientist named Dr. Leonid Pavel – documents attached below. The first document is a profile of the scientist and the second, a transcribed conversation between “MILITIA” and an unknown party. It wasn’t entirely certain at the time whether this was relevant to TDKR, but the photograph of Dr. Pavel, played by actor Alon Aboutboul who is known to be in the film, practically confirms it. As much as fans have tried to draw away any hidden messages in the documents, nothing has come up.

12/8/11 – A third CIA document is tweeted by account @thefirerises, announcing an “Operation Early Bird” that will commence tomorrow (Friday) morning at 10 am PST.  Document below.  A countdown timer can be seen at http://www.operationearlybird.com.  Be sure to check the site tomorrow and stay tuned!

12/9/11 – At 10 am, http://www.operationearlybird.com, is activated to show a world map where GPS coordinates can be entered.  Heading over to http://www.thedarkknightrises.com, an audio track of a woman reading off coordinates is heard.  The coordinates are entered into the Operation Early Bird site to reveal IMAX theater locations holding free advance screenings of the prologue the following Tuesday.

This fairy tale opening June 1, 2012.

SyFy is bringing Peter Pan back in a 4 hour miniseries, called “Neverland”, which takes place prior to the original novel. It’s being written and directed by Nick Willing, who worked on Syfy’s “Tin Man” and “Alice”. We can Finally find out how Peter Pan and Captain Hook become mortal enemies.

“Neverland” premieres on SyFy Sunday, Dec. 4 at 9PM and Monday, Dec 5 at 9PM.

Are you looking for a program on television where you can watch a billionaire playboy genius fight crime in a suit of iron? Or a 17 year old wizard battling the forces of evil against all odds? Or possibly a doctor who….well Dr. Who? You are in luck! None of these are at the 2011 Spike Scream Awards! However, the actors who play them are there for your viewing enjoyment!

Attendees were treated to a host of celebrities including, you’ve guessed it, Robert Downey Jr.; a live feed from New York Comic Con where Samuel L. Jackson introduces your favorite household wizard, Daniel Radcliffe; and the current Dr. Who, Matt Smith. These are just a few of the actors and celebrities you will see at the 2011 Spike Scream Awards on Tuesday. Others include: J.J. Abrams, Darren Aronofsky, Sean Bean, Kate Beckinsale, John Cho, Bradley Cooper, Colin Farrell, Amber Bear, Workaholics Anders Holm and Blake Anderson, Bryce Johnson, Caity Lotz, Joe Manganiello, Dylan Mcdermott, Chloe Grace Moretz (Hit Girl herself), Kal Penn, Ron Perlman, Zoe Saldana, the king of horror himself Quentin Tarantino along with Eli Roth, Anna Torv, Mark Wahlberg, Paul Wesley, Rainn Wilson, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Another unexpected trio of surprise guests included Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, fresh from shooting “The Dark Knight Rises”, to accept the “Most Anticipated Award”, beating out movies such as The Avengers and The Hunger Games, among others.

Ever wonder what it would be like to see Darth Vader accept an award for “Ultimate Villain”, only to find that his secret agenda would be to slam the new additions to the Blu-Ray releases of the Star Wars movies and be confronted by a comical George Lucas himself? Me too. Who better to stick it to the man than the Dark Lord himself?

The Maverick award was given to, who else, but Nicholas Cage himself. Upon receiving this award, viewers will be treated to a never before seen part from the upcoming “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance”. Other never before seen trailers in the event include: “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”, “Piranha 3dd”, “The Woman in Black”, “Red Tails”, and “Paranormal Activity 3″.

The finale to such an epic award show included a tribute to the ever-popular and ever-hilarious Pee-Wee Herman, where he emerged on stage via his classic red bicycle that we love so much. Pee-Wee accepted the final award for the much deserved “Visionary Award”.

The Spike Scream Awards are a very different kind of award show, rewarding the real fans with treats of seeing our favorite celebrities and trailers to the most anticipated movies. You can catch The 2011 Spike Scream Awards this Tuesday, October 18th at 9:00 on Spike TV.

Here are some of our own shots from the red carpet and be sure to subscribe to our podcast for interviews with Blake and Anders from “Workaholics” and Pee Wee Herman!