R.B. Propst: June 2005 Archives

Greg Biffle notched his fifth win of the NASCAR Nextel Cup season by taking today's Batman Begins 400 at Michigan International Speedway. Last season Biffle won the Fall race at MIS while carrying a special one race paint scheme featuring Justice League Unlimited's Flash.

In other comic book race-related news Mark Martin, sporting a Batman Begins paint scheme for the race, finished third. Last Fall he finished second to Biffle while carrying the Justice League Unlimited Batman paint scheme.

According to The Pulse Lane Smith, who played Perry White on TV series Lois and Clark , has lost his battle with Lou Gehrig's disease.

DC's Dan DiDio revealed today that not only will the "One Year Later ..." line-wide concept that follows the Infinite Crisis mini-series shake up the characters and their plotlines, but it'll also shake-up the editors on various lines. While not giving a complete title-by-title rundown of the editorial changes, DiDio did reveal a few of them:

- Current Batman Group Editor Bob Schreck will move from the Bat-office to overseeing the All-Star line.

- Peter Tomasi will then become the editor on Batman and Detective Comics.

- The Super-books will move from Eddie Berganza to current Bat-editor Matt Idleson.

- Berganza will move over to JLA.

Dana Elcar, best known for his TV role as MacGyver's best friend and boss Pete, died Monday of complications from pneumonia. Elcar was also featured on several other TV shows in addition to MacGyver, appeared in 40 movies and starred in numerous theatrical productions.

imdb.com had this interesting tidbit this morning. I'd link to the article, but imdb.com updates the news daily and doesn't archive past entries. Here's a copy-and-paste of the news bit:

Bale Calls for Batman Sex Scenes

Batman Begins star Christian Bale is urging producers to release two versions of the next Batman movie, so that the Caped Crusader's sexuality can be explored. The actor, who has already signed up to star in a second Batman movie, believes it's time for the powers that be to show the comic book superhero's R-rated side, while also releasing a film for younger fans. Bale says, "I do think there is a lot of room for, like, an R-rated Batman. It's a little bit tricky to broach the sex aspect of the story when you want kids to come see this as well. I mean, we still like for a 12-year-old to come see it and enjoy it. I think it would be very interesting, myself, to do maybe one version, which can be both PG-13 and R - two different cuts of it. The (Batman) graphic novel certainly dove into his private life because it's fascinating. He's got to do something sexual at some point. I think it could be an interesting storyline to take somewhere."

I don't think a Batman movie needs to show intimate bedroom seens of Bruce and some woman to get across the idea that he has an active sex life. In 1989's Batman Burton accomplished the task by showing Vickie and Bruce heading upstairs, then a cutaway shot of Vickie sleeping in Bruce's bed while he hung upside down in the exercise harness, and the "next morning" shot of her leaving the Manor. That approach to it had the best of both worlds. The adults understood what happened even though it wasn't shown and the kids thought it was cool to see Batman hanging upside down while the sex aspect might've gone over their heads.

I don't think there needs to be 2 versions of the movie. All it takes is some creative film making.

News is starting to come out of Wizard World: Philly already. In DC's Crisis Counseling panel Dan Didio has explained that, after Infinite Crisis concludes, starting in March 2006 all of the DCU books will be set "One Year Later ..." relative to what was seen in their February issues. Here's how he explains it:

Got that? Good, 'cause that’s just the tip of the iceberg. "There will be big scale changes," Didio said. "New characters, perhaps new series, new alliances, friendships, relationships, changing locations, and we might not even have some of the same people under the masks one year later."

The first trailer has been released to this Fall's The Legend of Zorro, the follow-up to The Mask of Zorro. Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones will reprise their roles from the first movie.

According to Newsarama X-Men 3 director Matthew Vaughan has stepped down from the project, citing personal reasons. Vaughan replaced the director of the first 2 installments of the series, Bryan Singer, who stepped down to take over as director of Superman Returns.