March
1 Hollywood Dreams and Deals

A day late due to vacations and Oscar fatigue, here's the news wrap up:

Daily Variety broke the news that Lions Gate and Marvel struck a deal to develop film versions of "Iron Fist" and "Black Widow." The deal also includes a sequel to April's "The Punisher" flick. Lions Gate acquired "The Punisher" property when it bought Artisan, which had an overall development deal with Marvel.

Director-producer Robert Rodriguez told Daily Variety he'd already shot opening scenes to an adaptation of Frank Miller's crime graphic novel "Sin City." Miller, who owns the property and publishes it through Dark Horse, was won over by Rodriguez's agreement to make Miller co-director and the fact that he would shoot sample scenes to prove the film would retain the visual flair of its stark comic art origins. Dimension Films chief Bob Weinstein gave Rodriguez the go-ahead to start shooting the film this month in Austin, Texas.

And WB announced last week that the title of the next Batman film is "Batman Begins," not "Batman: Intimidation Game." The pic starts shooting this month in Iceland with Christian Bale starring as Batman.

Via Newsarama is a report from The Times Online that writer Mark Millar is very close to a deal worth six figures plus a share of profits with Universal to turn his Top Cow comic Wanted into a film with Eminem attached to star. Millar would exec produce the film.

ICv2 reports Del Rey has changed its mind about altering the artwork in its April manga release Negima, Vol. 1, to make it more kid-friendly. Instead, the book will ship shrink-wrapped with a label stating the book contains explicit content and is for ages 16 and up only.

Writer Neil Gaiman reported Feb. 24 on his blog that the appeal of his lawsuit decision over publisher Todd McFarlane was denied, meaning Gaiman retains co-copyright of several characters he created for the Spawn comic book. What this means for their ongoing dispute over who owns the rights to publish the popular Miracleman series of comics remains to be seen, though Gaiman did say in the blog he suspects McFarlane owns no real rights and that the popular 1980s series may return soon.

Anyone interested in the numbers side of the comics biz should take a look at Paul O'Brien's analysis of the most recent sales results from DC and Marvel over at The Pulse. Also at the Pulse is Heidi MacDonald's two-part interview (Part 1, Part 2) with DC Comics prexy and publisher Paul Levitz that talks about the biz of comics and how DC fits into Hollywood.

And the following books were hot enough to sell out at the publisher with most scheduled for reprinting, so if you want 'em, better grab them while you can: Dark Horse's Conan #1 and Chosen #1; Marvel's Secret War #1, DC's Aquaman #15, Action Comics #812 (second printing), Adventures of Superman #625 (second printing) and Superman #202.