Miley Cyrus as Batgirl in Dark Knight Sequel?!?
While this is perhaps one of those items that is best thrown into the “complete rumor” bin, apparently word has spread that teen sensation Miley Cyrus, most known for her breakout stardom as teen singer Hannah Montana, had a “stunning” audition for the role of costumed heroine Batgirl in the next Batman movie, a follow-up to The Dark Knight. Read more
World of Warcraft Film to be Directed by Sam Raimi
In addition to his duties with the Spider-Man film franchise, director Sam Raimi has been named as the leader of the big-screen adaptation of the massively popular World of Warcraft online game. A live-action version of the multiplayer game, where participants can take on the guise of an orc, dwarf, human or other creature. The film, produced in conjunction with Raimi’s Atlas Entertainment, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, will be fashioned in a way that follows a quest, in the hopes that this will lead to a film franchise and multiple sequels. Read more
The Dark Knight Storms Annual Saturn Awards
Adding more awards to an already impressive list, The Dark Knight lay claim to five more in last night’s Saturn Awards, the annual ceremony put on by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. While the Academy Awards may have announced that the DC Comics’ hero’s portrayal played a part in their decision to expand the Best Picture category from five to ten nominees in the coming years, the Saturn Awards richly awarded The Dark Knight in several main categories. Read more
Heath Ledger Wins Oscar
As much as the Academy members irked comic book fans by not nominating The Dark Knight for Best Picture, Heath Ledger winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor was a beautifully redeeming moment for the Academy. Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight was absolute perfection, and to not have given him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor would have been simply criminal.
While public sympathy over Ledger’s tragic death might have helped Academy voters overcome their prejudice against comic book movies for the Best Supporting Actor category, there is no doubt that Ledger’s performance was completely deserving of an Oscar. To fully understand just how riveting Ledger’s turn as The Joker was, one needs to only consider that he took over a role that had previously been played by the great Jack Nicholson and did it better.
Will Dark Knight Win Big At 81st Annual Academy Awards?
While the Academy failed to nominate The Dark Knight in either the Best Picture or the Best Director categories, the film managed to make its way into numerous other categories. The big question is how the film will do in all these other categories. If The Dark Knight somehow manages to win in most of the eight categories where the film is nominated, then the Academy’s huge oversight in not recognizing the film in the Best Picture of Best Director categories will become all the more glaring.
The Dark Knight was recognized with nominations in categories for performance by an actor in a supporting role, art direction, cinematography, film editing, makeup, sound editing, sound mixing, and visual effects.
The Dark Knight category that will garner the most interest from viewers is the Best Supporting Actor category. Heath Ledger was nominated posthumously for his performance as the The Joker. Other actors nominated in the category were Josh Brolin, Robert Downey Jr., Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Michael Shannon.
Academy Determines Ownership If Ledger Wins Oscar
In last year’s blockbuster The Dark Knight, the Guardian of Gotham spent most of the film trying to answer the question of how to deal with the Joker. In past weeks, Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime had Oscar officials scrambling with a decision of their own regarding how best to determine who has a legal right to accept his award, should the actor win Best Supporting Actor posthumously.
According to the by-laws of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, “tradition calls for a posthumous statuette to go to the spouse, or, if there is no living spouse, to the oldest child.” Complicating matters is the fact that Ledger was not legally married to Michelle Williams, actress and mother of his only child, Matilda. On Wednesday, representatives of the Academy announced that they had finally reached a verdict, deciding that the award should go to Ledger’s daughter.
Will Dark Knight Fans Boycott The Academy Awards?
The 81st Annual Academy Awards had all the makings of an epic year in the ratings, but instead the telecast looks like it might be serving up the movie equivalent of Ishtar. In the plus category, the Academy Awards selected Hugh Jackman to host the show. Hugh Jackman is best known for his portrayal of Wolverine in the X-Men movies.
Hugh Jackman is also the star of the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie, which is likely to be one of the biggest if not the biggest movie of the summer of 2009. Hugh Jackman’s selection as host would have had many comic book fans tuning in to see this year’s Academy Awards. Of course, that would have happened, if The Academy hadn’t then gone and outraged comic book fans everywhere by snubbing The Dark Knight in the Best Picture category.
Bruce Wayne Has To Be Alive!
To follow-up on the earlier Comicbook.com article “Batman Dies Again And Still No One Believes It,” the “demise” of Batman in Batman 681 and now Final Crisis 6 did surprise me and I give the staff at DC Comics respect for even entertaining the notion that Bruce Wayne could die. His death, unlike the “death” of Superman over a decade ago, is surprising because it reminds us that Bruce Wayne is simply a mortal with lots of tools, gadgets and learned skills. I’m not surprised that it gained media attention, as typically it seems that modern news outlets only give comics the time of day when a major pop-culture event happens, much like the ballyhooed “Death of Superman” and most recently the death of Captain America. Even the dissolving of Spider-Man’s marriage made it onto a few outlets’ web pages when that happened several months back.
For all the news surrounding the event of Batman’s death, and there was a bit, I’m not convinced, and I question DC’s motives in even doing the storyline to begin with. Even when the Batman RIP event was announced and the ominous artwork of a hollow, floating cape graced the cover of Batman 676 to kick off the storyline, I thought to myself “ok, this will be a metaphorical ‘death’. He’ll go on some dark night of the soul again and emerge as some sort of ‘new’ Batman.” My other thought was that the Batman we knew was dead and he, I don’t know, would reveal his identity to the public, briefly retire and give the mantle to long-time colleague Dick Grayson, or some other scenario where Bruce would take time off but eventually return. Even writers and contributors to the series acknowledged that Batman R.I.P. would be a more psychological piece. What happened? Enter Final Crisis.
What If Only Comic Book Movies Were Eligible For The Academy Awards?
As people go crazy over whether The Dark Knight will be excluded from the Academy Awards just because it’s a comic book movie, I decided to look at things from another perspective. What if all the members of the Academy nominated this year were comic book movies? With only comic book movies to choose from, which films would win in which categories? Here are my predictions.
Best Picture: The Dark Knight – While Iron Man might deserve some serious consideration, The Dark Knight would take Best Picture in a knockout. The Dark Knight appealed to both comic book fans and regular people alike. Show of hands from everyone who has heard one of their non-comic book friends announce, “I’m not a fan of comic book movies, but I really liked The Dark Knight.”
Best Director: Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight – This guy took a franchise that was last known for the dreadful Batman & Robin and gave us Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Let me say it again, Christopher Nolan took Batman & Robin and turned it into The Dark Knight. He not only deserves Best Director this year, but the Academy should retire the category after his win.
Heath Ledger Wins Golden Globe
It’s doubtful that anyone will remember whatever movie wins a Golden Globe for Best Picture this year. The majority of the people in the world have never seen or even heard of most of the movies nominated. However, the moment that will be remembered from the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards is Heath Ledger winning for Best Supporting Actor.
Heath Ledger was nominated for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight movie. Tragically, as the world knows, Heath Ledger passed away on January 22, 2008, before The Dark Knight ever reached theaters. When The Dark Knight was released in theaters, it quickly became the second highest grossing movie of all time, in large part due to Heath Ledger’s phenomenal portrayal of The Joker.
