Voices From Krypton

HENRY CAVILL: Talking Superman with IGN

In this video interview conducted by IGN while Henry Cavill was promoting Immortals, the actor briefly discusses what he calls the opportunity of a lifetime -- the chance to portray Superman in Man of Steel. Luke Evans, who the studio continually pairs Cavill up with for promotional purposes, is once more forced to sit there as the conversation focuses on Supes rather than Immortals.

MAN OF STEEL: Location Report & Video

Over the past week or so, reports have been coming in about the preparation for shooting of Zack Snyder's Superman: Man of Steel. Myblogtimes.com offered up this story on July 27th:
   "For three days, a bridge in La Salle County [in Illinois] will be closed while Hollywood works its magic. A scene from the upcoming Superman: Man of Steel movie, some of which is being shot in Plano, will be filmed on the U.S. 52 bridge over the Fox River east of Serena. Illinois Department of Transportation media spokesman Josh Kauffman said the Warner Brothers production company was given permission and permits to close the bridge and adjacent highway sections for filming a rumored traffic accident scene on the span. Kauffman said the route will be reopened by Saturday.
   "The big budget production is expected to be a boon for the local economy in the Plano area, which will be portrayed as Clark Kent's hometown of Smallville. Exterior sets have been built throughout the city and thousands have applied in the hopes of being hired as extras for the filming. But not everyone is excited about movie makers invading the area. Bill Bickett, owner of Ayers Landing Canoe Rental in Wedron, was told the river around the bridge would be closed Thursday while shooting occurred. Ayers offers a 12-mile and six-mile trip and only the shorter trip will be offered Thursday. Bickett said he's already lost customers. 'I've had to turn away a lot of people who won't go on the six-mile trip,' he said. 'There's nothing I can do about it.' He's also worried about overnight campers expected to canoe past the bridge Friday. If the production schedule changes, he said, he'll have no way to get them off the river. He was told Friday would be a cleanup day from the shoot but at least half the river would be open. 'This has got my customers upset,' he said. 'That's the bottom line.'

MAN OF STEEL: Photos of the Kent Farm House

A nice collection of photos from production of Zack Snyder's Man of Steel have hit the Internet via Facebook, and they're definitely worth checking out. No actor material as of yet, but a look at the Kent farm house. What's obvious from this is that there is a bit of a different approach than Richard Donner took with 1978's Superman: The Movie in that this version of the Kent farm seems not be as isolated as it has in times past; just another farm amongst a number of farms. Just conjecture at this point, of course.

 

DARK KNIGHT RISES: The Batmobile Tumbler Videos

These videos from The Hollywood Reporter feature a close-up focus on the Batmobile Tumblers from The Dark Knight Rises. The vehicles were used for the filming of scenes over the weekend at the Pittsburgh campus of Carnegie Mellon and on the streets.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRISIS ON TWO EARTHS TRAILER

"GREEN LANTERN" PRODUCER BRUCE TIMM TALKS "FIRST FLIGHT"

In the tradition of Superman: Doomsday, Justice League: New Frontier, Batman: Gotham Knight and Wonder Woman comes the latest in DC's direct-to-DVD animated titles, Green Lantern: First Flight, being released this July. Over at GreenLanternFilm.net we've posted an interview with veteran producer Bruce Timm, who discusses the film. Just click HERE.

OA REPORT: THE UNFILMED GREEN LANTERN

Before he decided to take KITT out for a spin, Knight Rider writer/producer Gary Scott Thompson attempted to charge up a trio of power rings for a big screen version of Green Lantern (which has spent about a decade in development). Our sister site Green Lantern Film.net has scored an exclusive interview with him on the subject, said interview available HERE.

STAN WINSTON STUDIOS ON "GREEN LANTERN" AND "IRON MAN 2"

An article in the Los Angeles Times regarding the late Stan Winston and Stan Winston Studio states that the name of the operation is being changed to Legacy Effects, and mentions that one of the projects in the pipeline is the forthcoming Green Lantern.
   "The last two major American movies that will have Winston Studios listed in the credits will be Terminator Salvation and then the Cameron-directed 3-D film Avatar, which is fitting considering the importance of both the killer-robot franchise and its original director in the career of the late wizard... The Winston name will also appear on a German film called Pandorum. After that, the Legacy era officially begins (as far as movies are concerned) with the Bollywood production Robot and then, if things go as expected, with Iron Man 2 in 2010. Legacy is doing some early design work for a planned movie for Green Lantern, the DC Comics character..."
   In other Green Lantern news, the online io9 commented on the fact that the movie, to be directed by Greg Berlanti and scripted by Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green, could go into production as early as Spring 2009. In what could be a MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, they describe the film's plot as follows:  It "will start with the death of Green Lantern Corps member Abin Sur on Earth after a battle with the intergalactic baddie Legion (the latter will appear as one of the movie's villains). The dying Abin Sur snubs Clark Kent to pass the potent bauble to Hal Jordan, a civilian grappling with the death of his father. Once annointed, Jordan finds himself busy romancing aerospace businesswoman Carol Ferris, all the while gaining an enemy in Hector Hammond, who obtains powers while performing a government sanctioned autopsy on Abin Sur. Facing certain defeat, Jordan journeys to the Green Lantern motherland, Oa, to ask for help in defeating the tenacious Hammond.... The movie looks like it'll be somewhat steeped in space travel and, as such, is a total fanboy pleaser."

PART 2: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW -- KEVIN J. ANDERSON ON SUPERMAN/BATMAN "FIRST ENCOUNTER"

In this exclusive interview with Voices From Krypton, Kevin J. Anderson continues his preview of the followup to The Last Days of Krypton, First Encounter, which chronicles the first meeting between Superman and Batman. You'll find the audio file after the excerpt below.

VOICES FROM KRYPTON: These days it seems that Superman is a little more comfortable with being a part of humanity, but in the book it feels like there’s still a pretty large gap as far as he’s concerned.

KEVIN J. ANDERSON:  That’s a lot of the internal struggle of Clark/Kal-El in that he is trying to relate and at one point he throws up his hands to his mom and says, “I don’t understand these people. I don’t understand their problems. “ Martha says, “Do you think we understand them, Clark?” She tries to make him see that the things he doesn’t understand about humanity is a perfectly normal part of being human. It’s very poignant, because he’s Superman and when he’s sitting there in her kitchen eating apple pie and drinking milk, he says, “What right do I have pretending to be Clark Kent and living a life of my own? People need saving 24 hours a day. If I’m having coffee with Lois Lane for that hour, how many people die in car accidents or plane crashes? Shouldn’t I be Superman 24/7? And Martha Kent is insisting he deserves his own life and has to be among human to understand humans. This isn’t just a book of chapter after chapter of Superman stopping bank robberies, saving crashing airplanes and beating up bad guys. I think that’s the difference with the novel; you can really get into the reality of everything. On a comic book page, you can’t have pages of the character’s face as he ruminates. In a novel you can at least do it a little more in depth.

VOICES FROM KRYPTON: How do you view the relationship between Superman and Batman?

KEVIN J. ANDERSON: The structure of the novel, and I don’t know if I should say this, is that it’s almost like a classic romance. First they get together, they hate each other, they’re at odds, then they gain an understanding and they come together.  There’s a lot of friction because Superman does not agree with Batman’s tactics, and Bruce is having a lot of problems with Luthorcorp. He also figures out that the only other company that can create these things – the bullet proof suit, the ability to fly -- is Luthorcorp, so Superman has to be working for Luthor. Who else could have made someone like him? So there’s an immediate at odds and the situation worsens. They also look at their duty in a completely opposite way. Batman kind of wants to stop the little criminals – the muggers in the alleys, the rapists, the thugs – whereas Superman wants to promote world peace and stop wars and keep the governments from killing each other. So it’s a big picture or little picture thing. Obviously something happens where they have to work together to do both.

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When you're done checking out the Kevin Anderson interview, check out our new sister site devoted to the sitcom The Big Bang Theory. There you'll find interviews, vidoes, news and more. Just click HERE.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: KEVIN J. ANDERSON ON THE SUPERMAN/BATMAN NOVEL "FIRST ENCOUNTER," PART 1

After the success of last year’s The Last Days of Krypton, it’s not surprising that author Kevin J. Anderson has been given the chance to dip back into the DC well and what he’s emerged with his First Encounter, the 2009 novel that will chronicle the first time that Superman and Batman meet.
   “These are big books, not paperbacks, so you want to do something significant,” says Anderson. “So I thought the best way to go would be the first meeting between Superman and Batman. But I was still wrestling with it a lot, because I personally love the superheroes in the past. I did a JSA series set in the ‘40s and I just think those heroes belong in the ‘40s and ‘50s; that’s just my preference.”
   Then he was struck with the idea that if they were to meet each other in the 1950s, it would place the books setting during the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union.
   “Then all of these things came up,” he says. “That was the beginning of the UFO craze and the time of all of those great – or not so great, depending on your point of view – sci-fi movies, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Them and Invaders From Mars. Everybody was seeing UFOs. This would be set eight or 10 years after the Roswell crash. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun for Perry White to have Clark Kent look into the UFO crazy and find out if there were any of these little green men wandering around on earth?’ Of course, Clark wants to find out if he’s the only alien on earth, if he’s truly the Last Son of Krypton or if there are others. So he’s passionate about that. I’ve also got Lex Luthor, who’s pretty much promoting the Cold War. He’s trying to increase international tensions with his counterpart, a KGB general in the Soviet Union, because Lex is making so much money selling weapons. There’s also the element of Bruce Wayne’s board of directors being blackmailed by Luthorcorp for sensitive information.
   “The other thing I thought was the most fun,” Anderson continues, “is that Bruce Wayne is just fascinated by this Superman guy. How does he fly? How do bullets bounce off of his chest? Bruce is down in the cave working like crazy to figure out how to make a suit so that bullets can bounce off his chest and whether or not he can rig something so he can fly. Bruce Wayne is a rational guy, he doesn’t believe Superman can be some alien from space flying around. I just had so much fun tracing these ideas and seeing how they can all come together.”

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   To hear the rest of the interview, please click below..

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