BitterNews for Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Lots going on:

• Spider-man reboot will be in 3-D – did you see that coming? Of course you did. It will be a 2011 release for July 4th weekend.
• The rights to the Terminator franchise have been sold. Both Sony and Lions Gate bid separately and then combined forces to outbid Pacificor, the hedge fund that ultimately won; paying $29.5 million plus $5 million per sequel made. In addition, Pacificor forgave a debt of $36.5 million owed them by the previous rights holder, Halcyon. Sony & Lions Gate bid $36.5 million, but without the additional payments for sequels, and of course they couldn’t resolve the debt issue between Pacificor & Halcyon. Sony is crying foul, but a judge has ruled against them and so the property is going to the Pacificor group.
• The Return of Bruce Wayne story looks to be as awful as the Death Of Bruce Wayne story was if the covers revealed by Dan Didio this week are any indication. And in today’s godawful, nothing happens issue of Batman & Robin, Batwoman gets her legs crushed and is presumably crippled for life. Because if you aren’t Batman and you put the suit on, you are fucked, especially if you’re a girl. Hopefully this is a red herring or a result of Grant Morrisons obscene hallucinogen intake because it would signal the end or at least the Barbara Gordon-ing of a promising character. With DC’s apparent jihad on DC’s continuing existence, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were planning to throw her in a ditch, though.
• JJ Abrams and Tom Cruise will reunite for Mission Impossible 4.
• WMG, the music group that owns Atlantic, Warner, Reprise, Elektra, Rhino & others lost millions last quarter and are failing to add meaningful companies to their portfolio, despite spending a small fortune on them. They, like EMI, are partly funded by Citibank, so one possible endgame has the two majors merged and owned by Citibank.
• Kotobukiya is going to be revealing new DC based products at ToyFair, along with more Marvel, Star Wars, Bayonetta, and other stuff.
• Lots of hubbub today over a Captain America panel that negatively portrayed the TeaBaggers. The offense came from a sign in a crowd that was not inserted by writer Ed Brubaker, but in fact was added by a letterer or other post-creative person. It is going to be changed in future printings, but for now the book (Cap 602) is selling for $20 on eBay because Fox News talked about it today. Next week, $3.00 again. This is the state of American politics, people.
• In iTampon news, Apple is looking to lower TV show DL prices to $1 an episode for the product launch and Hulu, which is flash based and therefore won’t work on the device, is supposedly developing a non-flash version of their site.
• Popular streaming music service Rhapsody, currently owned by MTV, is being sold off. And MTV has finally dropped the “Music” from their name.
• Doug Morris, who has successfully helmed Universal Music for many years is stepping into a Chairman role and Lucian Grainge is taking over as CEO.
• I am the new lead singer of Aerosmith.
• DCUC 13 lineup announced today. Wow, what a stinker. Here’s your lineup: Zatanna, Hourman, Obsidian, Metal Man Gold, Golden Age Green Lantern (kids love the Golden Age!), Tyr (Brand Managers love Super Powers) with an Ultra-Humanite BAF and….. Kamandi, a figure that will be the pergwarmer of the CENTURY (if it ever gets to any pegs). It’s easily the GAYEST looking action figure ever- a healthy young boy with long blonde hair in cut-offs and boots. The only way it could be gayer is if it comes with lube and vibrates. No kid or mom will want this, although that old dude from Family Guy might be buying a case or two.
• Matty has also fucked up the Feb 15th, oh wait, 16th sale. The Ghostbusters figure that was to be offered that day is bumped BACK to April (??!) because it won’t be ready in time (why not March?) and the full set of DCUC 12 will be offered on March 15th, which means we’ll probably have DCUD 13 at Wal-Mart by then.
• Matty is also doing a TRU exclusive He-Man versus Superman 2 pack, which will include a reprint of the issue of DC Presents where they teamed up. And a planet yawns.
• JLU is soldiering on at Target despite horrible sales, which shows how bad Target’s new toy-buying team is at buying toys. Look for single carded figures and 3-packs.
• More fake Megos are coming and I nearly spit out my drink when I read that the team at Mattel is referring to them as Ferraris disguised as Pintos. They look like VW buses from the bottom of the ocean disguised as piles of horse poop to me.
• Finally, Matty reveals that the Legion of Superheroes will be part of the San Diego exclusives. And why not? Lots of smooth costumes means no newq tooling!
• John Mayer says that banging Jessica Simpson was awesome. Also, Jennifer Aniston didn’t get his constant fan-reachout via social networking, so she is an old person who doesn’t really understand “modern times”. This was in a Playboy interview, where he also used the N-word and said he has a "ghetto-pass", which shows that he’s clearly out of his fucking mind, because he’s one mindframe/pigment away from being a Klansman.
• Killing Joke are to release a new album in April, followed by a US Tour.
• Heide Montag is supposedly talking to Playboy about a real spread this time, with boobs and nipples and all that new gear she had installed recently. Apparently rebuilding your entire body and recording an album that is “better than Thriller” (but only sells in the triple-digits) costs all your ill-gotten money and once you’ve realized you are talentless AND broke it’s time to show your vagina to the few curious spelunkers that still care in order to avoid living in a cardboard box for the rest of your life. From there, it’s a short trip to hardcore porn, at which point, we might actually pay attention, especially if she’s getting shit on by fat germans (any sex or shepard, we're not picky).
• Michael Jackson was mostly bald and wore a wig, was primarily white-skinned and tattooed with color, and liked to pee in any handy container as he apparently no longer had bladder control. Kids love that!
• In an effort to compete with like a million sites showing the same chicks naked, but not turn into Hustler in the process, the SI swimsuit issue will feature a lot of ladies in nothing but body paint, which isn't sexy at all. The population yawns.
• The CEO of MySpace has resigned. But someone new has stepped in, so I guess it’s going to stay up for the 40+ crowd that can't afford to join Ashley Madison..
• The Hughes Brothers are looking to direct a 2-part live action Akira film.
• Chris Nolan is going to reboot Superman but not direct it. He’s working on script & concept. Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh are out. Will be interesting to see if Nolan can make this boring character interesting. Personally, I think an Aquaman film lends itself to a film more than Superman does. And can we stay away from Lex Luthor, please? Thanks.