Archive for
September, 2006
— September 30, 2006
In comic book related movie news, Marvel just announced that Robert Downey, Jr. will be playing Tony Stark/Iron Man in the new Iron Man movie which will begin filming early next year. What Eric Bana wasn’t available?
I expect a wide range of reactions from fans, mostly focusing on the negative. I agree that Downey is an interesting choice especially since this is his first lead in an action movie. I hope he does well in the role though, for Iron Man’s sake.
Also in Marvel movie news, it was confirmed that Doug Jones will be playing the Silver Surfer in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie sequel, which I believe will be out in the summer of 2007. This news was leaked earlier this year, but Jones refused to confirm it when asked at SDCC this year. Jones, who also played Abe Sapien in Hellboy, is expected to reprise his role in the sequel, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.
In other Hellboy news, an animated Hellboy movie, “Sword of Storms,” will air on Cartoon Network, Saturday, October 28 at 9:30 PM ET.
Finally in Marvel TV news, Spike TV announced that Blade: the Series will be canceled. Who knows if this the last we will see of it, but I suspect it probably is. I myself tried watching it several times, but it just wasn’t enough to really interest me. “Heroes” on NBC however kicks ass, and I hope it will get even better.
— September 28, 2006
Gentle Giant announced on their blog last week that two upcoming products will each be pushed back by a month due to quality control issues. The Animated Boba Fett Maquette will ship in October instead of September, and the Animated Princess Leia Maquette will ship in November instead of October.
Gentle Giant also announced edition sizes of some upcoming products. The Strider Ringbearer mini bust is set at 2000 pieces, and the Ringwraith Ringbearer mini bust is set at 2000 pieces. The Plo Koon mini bust is set at 4500 pieces, and the Obi-Wan Kenobi in Clone Trooper Armor statue is set at 2500 pieces.
— September 26, 2006
Bowen Designs has a great web site if you haven’t seen it yet. One thing in particular that is very cool is the sneak peeks page. In this section, Bowen will post images of unannounced upcoming products they they are working on them. The images they post show works in progress, as well as fully painted prototypes.
Some of the upcoming works they have posted are:
- Rogue statue
- Daredevil mini bust (3 versions)
- Thor statue
- Captain Britain 70’s mini bust
- Wasp mini bust (2 versions)
- Kitty Pryde & Lockheed mini bust
- Apocalypse statue
- Iron Fist statue
- Wolverine statue
- Gladiator (original) mini bust
- Ice Man statue
- Goon statue
Whew, that’s a lot of statues! They seem to be doing mostly statues these days and that makes sense. But I collect mini busts, and I am most interested in the new Daredevil bust with three versions depicting three different Daredevil outfits.
The Daredevil bust features a very dynamic pose which looks really cool and is always welcome in sculptures since they are static. But the three different outfits puts it over the top! I will be getting all three of these. The Gladiator also looks good, but I will wait to see what it looks like painted. Gladiator is a Daredevil enemy. Do you see a theme here?
Check out the Bowen Sneak Peeks on their site here. I also have several Bowen busts and statues up for pre-order in the store.
— September 25, 2006
Here are a few random, upcoming news items that you might be interested in…
X-men 3 comes out on DVD a week from Tuesday on October 3rd. The DVD features deleted scenes and 3 alternate endings. There is also a special collector’s edition that features an exclusive original mini-comic written by Stan Lee. See the web site here.
Also, the pilot episode of “Heroes” airs tonight at 9 PM ET on NBC. Don’t miss it. I’ve been waiting for this all summer long! Check out the “Heroes” web site here.
And last, if you caught “The Simpsons” last night, you might have noticed a little “Star Wars” tribute. Bart and Principal Skinner fought while “Duel of the Fates” played in the background. If you noticed it, it was pretty sweet.
— September 14, 2006
New items from Gentle Giant just added to the store:
Star Wars
Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
— September 3, 2006
As most of you probably noticed, Toy News International, or TNI, got a redesign. Not sure when it launched, but I first noticed it on Friday night. I think it looks really good and it is more in line with the other sites in the network. It also seems that the redesign will improve the usability of the site even more.
For the record, I believe this is the third major redesign of the site since I have been a regular user. You may remember, it used to be called American Dream Comics years ago. You may have noticed ADC in some of the url’s. That’s what it stands for.
At some point, ADC relaunched as TNI, changed the url and updated the design. That is the look that we have had up until now. I, for one, like the look and wish them more succeess to come. Visit Toy News International today and check out the new look!
