Read the entire review HERE!
More news later today!
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KEVIN SMITH WRITES ‘BLACK CAT’
And No, That’s Not a Typo
When ya least expect it, expect it.
Comic fan and movie-maker Kevin Smith writing Daredevil for Marvel Comics wasn’t out of the ordinary at all. And Green Arrow at DC? Smith has a lifelong love for the character. So what’s Smith’s next project from a major publisher?
Black Cat.
That’s right — Felicia Hardy, the sometimes-villainess, sometimes-love-interest from Spider-Man’s life is getting ready to claw her way on to the charts. Marvel will launch a new Black Cat ongoing, written by Smith with an artist yet to be determined, in mid-2002.
But why Black Cat, a character who’s never had her own book and has scarcely been seen in years? Smith, who’s made both Daredevil and Green Arrow into major sales sensations, wants a challenge. “[Marvel Editor-in-Chief] Joe Quesada offered me an X-book a while ago before he locked in his final lineup of the current X-Men writing teams,” Smith reveals. “But I was like, ‘The X-books are already a no-brainer. They’ll make it in the top 10 with out without me. That’s too easy.’ If I’m gonna do it, it has to be kind of a challenge. Black Cat? That’s a f—ing challenge to make that book sell.”
Smith’s plan is to write the book for a year, then hand off to another writer. “It worked with Daredevil, it worked with Green Arrow,” he says. “People might jump in ’cause I’m on board, but they get interested in the character. I can’t tell you how many people have told me, ‘Man, I had no idea Green Arrow was such an interesting cat.’”
The series will be kicked off via a special Spider-Man one-shot that Smith will also write. “The one-shot will re-introduce the Black Cat,” Smith says. “Joe Q. wants to draw a piece of the one-shot, and J. Scott Campbell wants to do a piece. Joe envisions the Spider-Man one-shot as a bunch of different artists.”
This book effectively replaces the long-rumored Spider-Man/Daredevil one-shot Marvel had planned. “Once Marvel did the Spider-Man/Daredevil miniseries by Phil Winslade and Paul Jenkins, I was just like, ‘Well, what’s the point?’ What was I really going to do that was different? I just felt like it had just been done,” Smith says.
Marvel Editor Axel Alonso, who edits the Spider-Man line, will also edit Black Cat, and the pair have been trying to pinpoint an artist for the ongoing series. “Axel is pitching a lot of names at me, but we don’t know who’s going to do it yet,” Smith says.
Smith is also working out his storyline. “I’m going to take a different approach to the character,” he says, “but it won’t be like, ‘Everything you know is wrong!’ It’ll basically be just doing what we did on Daredevil and on Green Arrow: taking the character, keeping all the existing continuity in place, and telling a new story with the character that folks’ll hopefully dig.”
The desire is there on Smith’s part, for multiple reasons. “It appeals to me on a couple of different levels,” he concludes. “It would be great to write a book with a female in the lead for a change. That’ll be different. And it would be great to see if we could take a Black Cat book and put it in the top 10 sellers. That’s a challenge.”
For his part, Quesada is happy to have Smith back at Marvel, where Daredevil launched his comic career. “It’s very simple. Kevin is coming back home and we’re ecstatic,” Quesada says. “Kevin has a track record of taking dead-to-stalled characters and turning them into gold. He’s turned red into gold, he’s turned green into gold. Now it’s time to see if he can turn black into gold.”
…and I had to mention that NY Times piece. A big shout-out goes to Rick Lyman for such great (and substantial) killer ink for a movie that’s very dear to my heart.
You can read it online, as linked by boyd (I’d call him Boyd) below, or over at NewsAskew. But if you’re so inclined, I’d urge you to pick up a copy of the actual paper – as it features a HUGE photo of yours truly, taking up half the front page of the Arts section. I was blown away.
A few unrelated notes…
For the curious, ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’ received an ‘R’ rating.
If you’re in the San Diego area, I’ll be on the CBS station’s nightly news at four or five this evening (I also did two morning shows, but you’ve already missed those).
And I respectfully disagree with Jon Favreau, in regards to our casting of the same actors repeatedly in all the films we’ve done. Not only has it been essential (as some folks HAVE to play the characters they’ve played in the previous flicks, since we’ve often brought back the same characters), but if a actor or actress is good, then why not work with them again? And again? And again?
Plus, it’s just more fun.
Plus, it’s one of the attributes to the films we’ve made that makes them stand out.
Plus, the audience (Mister Favreau excepted) loves it.
Plus, I love it.
I can go on, but you get the point.
But if that’s his take on it, it’s cool. I’m not offended, so please don’t rush at the man’s cyber-throat in an effort to avenge some imagined wrong.
That being said, I suspect I’ll be waiting until video to check out ‘Made’ now.
Because, you know, fuck him and the horse he rode in on.
Just kidding.
About the fuck him part; not about skipping ‘Made’.
Wondering about the John Favreau talk? It stems from a remark Favreau made on casting Vince Vaughn in his new movie “Made” to the Real Detroit Weekly:
Favreau: No, I don’t work like that. I think it hurts Kevin Smith’s films. I couldn’t get too emotionally involved in Dogma with Jason Lee as the Devil. I didn’t want this movie to be a yearly talent show. I wanted it to be a film where there was a familiarity because of us, but I also want you to feel like you’re traveling to a world that none of us know. I want there to be a feeling that something very bad could happen, that the stakes were very real. Creating that tension gave us the opportunity to laugh and also the opportunity to have some sort of emotional resonance at the end.
You can catch the entire article HERE.
