Columbia Pictures Announces Doc Savage Movie

From the Press Release:

Sony Pictures Options Rights to Doc Savage

Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, hero of pulp novels, films, and comic books, will return to the big screen; it was announced by Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, Presidents of Columbia Pictures. Shane Black is adapting the screenplay with Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry, and Black is also attached to direct the film. Neal H. Moritz will produce through his Original Film banner.

One of the most popular characters of the pulps of the 1930s and 40s, Doc Savage was also popularized on radio, film and television. He is a scientist, physician, adventurer, inventor, explorer and researcher. He has been trained since birth to be nearly superhuman in every way, with outstanding strength, a photographic memory, and vast knowledge and intelligence. He uses his skills and powers to punish evil wherever in the world he finds it.

Matt said, "Doc Savage is an icon, a character with limitless possibilities. We have had a great experience working with Neal to bring another classic character of the era, The Green Hornet, to a new generation of fans, and we think he and Shane make the ideal team to bring Doc Savage back to the big screen."

"I've been looking for an excuse to work with Chuck and Anthony, who wrote one of my favorite spec scripts of the last decade, `Tick-Tock'," said Black. "In 'Doc Savage' we've found a project that all of us have loved since childhood."

Ori Marmur is overseeing for Original Film. Sam Dickerman will oversee for Columbia Pictures.

Born 1961 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Shane Black is considered one of the pioneer screenwriters of the action genre. Black made his mark upon graduating UCLA's Theatre program with his Lethal Weapon (1987) screenplay. In addition to collaborating on the sequel Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), he has also penned such projects as The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight. As an actor, Black was the first to be eviscerated by The Predator (1987) and has appeared in As Good As It Gets, Robocop 3 and various other independent films. Black made his directorial debut with the action comedy-thriller Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.



From Harry Knowles at ain'titcoolnews:
I know from talking with Shane this will be period, will have Doc's team, and is going to be a s#!t ton of fun.

Pulp of the Week - Doc Savage #11

January, 1934 - Brand of the Werewolf

The major impact of this eleventh outing of Doc Savage and his band of adventurers is the introduction of Patricia Savage, Doc's cousin. Her father, Alex Savage, according to Doc, "He is an Uncle. I have never met either him or his daughter... Age about 18."

It is never said, but given that his last name is Savage, this uncle must be Clark Savage, Sr's brother. The words, "an Uncle" bring to mind the probability that Doc had other uncles. Interestingly, the Bantam back cover refers to Doc "Seeking to avenge his brother's murder," which is obviously not true. We can surmise that Alex Savage is Doc's father's brother, but not Doc's brother.

Pat Savage is described by Lester Dent as. "She had a wealth of bronze hair -- hair very closely akin in hue to that of Doc Savage... She was tall; her form was molded along lines that left nothing to be desired. Her features were as perfect as though a magazine-cover artist had designed them."

Pat is also wearing a six-shooter on her hip and carrying a rifle when we meet her. She is young, impetuous, and beautiful. Sounds like a great girl.

In this tale it is also stated that Doc Savage does not kill, although actions often lead to the villains falling victim to their own traps. This is in spite of the dozens of killings in earlier novels. The rapid-firers shoot mercy bullets exclusively, though it is stated they could kill at short range.

In the paperback, the words clue and clew are used interchangeably and I wonder if that is true to the original text or just a Bantam typesetter's doing. "Clew" is actually the preferred spelling (as of my 1986 dictionary).

In the story, the public is starting to know who Doc is and he really doesn't like the Hero Worship that some exhibit. The five aids really have become really defined. The Vest of Many Pockets is now in full use.

I read my Bantam Paperback, published April 1965, eighth printing, and give this one a 7 out of 10. While it was nice to meet Pat, the story said nothing about Doc's uncle, Alex Savage, and I was quite unsatisfied with the resolution of the story. "The Brand of the Werewolf" was Bantam's best selling Doc reprint with over 185,000 copies printed.

The Bantam cover is by Mort Kunstler and the pulp cover is by Walter Baumhofer.

Game Spotlight - The Adventurers

The Adventurers: The Temple of Chac
Designed by Frédéric Henry and Guillaume Blossier
AEG/Dust Games
2-6 Players
MSRP $49.95
Online $35

Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) is best known for the terrific, long running CCG, Legend of the Five Rings, first released in 1995, following the release of Magic: The Gathering in 1993. L5R is one of the few CCGs to survive to to this day.



Starting with Tomb, published in 2008, AEG has been making a strong push into the boardgame arena. The successful launch of Tomb was followed by a flood of nine board games in 2009. Rush 'N Crush, Arcana, and The Island of Doctor Necreaux, and the Tomb sequel, Tomb: Cryptmaster were successful releases.





One of the biggest splashes at GenCon was made by The Adventurers: The Temple of Chac, a clever game of Archaeological survival in the temple the Mayan rain god.

Each player starts the game with two randomly chosen adventurers, but only one enters the deadly ruins seeking ancient treasure. If that adventurer should happen to die in one of the many traps set to protect the ancient tomb, then all their treasure is lost, but the player can send in the second adventurer to try and salvage a win.

The game play is quite straight forward and although there are different rules for each room, the basic choices are constant - move or pick up ancient relics. But there are many perils that must be faced to escape alive. Walls that crush you like a trash compactor; a giant boulder that may roll over you; a lava pit; a terrifying river and the rickety bridge that crosses it.

The Game Begins

The Wall Room

The game is great family fun and the challenge lies in balancing the amount of treasure you are carrying versus getting out before that giant boulder smooshes you or locks you in the temple. The treasure not only takes time to collect (allowing that boulder to move ahead), but the weight of it slows you down as well.

The boulder starts off slow, but rapidly gains speed.

If I have any qualms about this game it is that the abilities don't differentiate the characters enough. They are all identical other than that once-per-game special ability. Everyone can carry the same amount of treasure and everyone moves the same and checks traps the same. The characters are also assigned randomly. Given how unique and interesting the figures are, this is a shame and probably something I will address with custom rules.

The game is played out in rounds. The round begins with comparing the number of treasure cards you have to chart that gives you an Encumbrance number. One player, designated as the dicekeeper, rolls the 5 dice and each player compares that roll to their chart. The characters get one action for each die equal to or higher than their encumbrance number. So each time you take on more treasure you risk decreasing the number of actions you will get on future turns.

After determining the number of actions, the dicekeeper uses their actions to search for treasure, look of clues that warn of traps, or to simply move. The board is not a strictly straight line, but there is finality in that the boulder will block off the only exit and trap you in the Temple if you move too slowly, or spend too much time searching for treasure.

The traps are cleverly designed and serve to push you to the end of the game. The first room is the wall room. You can spend actions taking treasure, moving, or looking a the carvings on the walls. An ingenious bit of design lets you briefly look at up to four hieroglyphic tiles that will each match one of 14 on the tile floor over a pool of lava. However, those lava tiles are covered until someone gets to that room so you have to remember them.

The Lava Room

Of course, the hieroglyphics on the trap tiles are very similar to one another and you only get to look at them a few seconds. If you step on a wrong tile in the lava room, your character dies.

The Footbridge

You can spend actions in the room with the closing walls to find out which four tiles are traps, but that takes time away from either moving or grabbing treasure. But the walls are closing and the boulder is building up speed.

There is quite a bit of luck in The Adventurers (dice rolls determine how much you can do), but the choices you make do have a big influence on the outcome of the game. Each turn there are decisions to be made and if you choose wrong, the dice may hurt you.

All in all, I found the game a blast to play and so did my family.

Each character has one of six special abilities that can be used once per game to help out in dire circumstances. These are Leap (allowing one diagonal move), Linguistics (allowing a peek at an adjacent tile in the lava room to see if it's a trap), Lock Picking (helps with getting certain treasures, including the highest value treasure in the game), Sprint (move one space without using an action point), Stamina (get more action points for one turn), and Swimming (helps you escape the river without losing treasure).

The twelve figures included allow up to six players (as each player needs two figures).

 

Behind the Game

I asked some questions of AEG owner, John Zinser as well as Frédéric Henry and Guillaume Blossier, the designers of The Adventurers. (Hopefully the designers will reply. If so, I will add an article.)

At Gencon this year you really stepped it up in the board game arena. I believe you had 9 games this year and have plans for a big 2010. What led to the sudden increase in your board game presence?

John Zinser - The best way to be successful in gaming is to make what you play. We love board games and are playing lots of them. We have other non board game projects on our 2011 schedule but for now we had a bunch of really good ideas and a staff enjoying board games.

Rush N' Crush was previously available as a print and play game. How do you feel that has impacted sales?

John - Won't know for sure for months. Good games sell no matter what the previous incarnation.


What upcoming games would you like to hype for the readers?
John - well we are psyched about Thunderstone and Infinite City. Both were held up in customs so they will be available January 11.

Thunderstone is a deck building game - the first to follow Dominion. We love Dominion and Thunderstone is like a Reese’s peanut butter cup - you got your Dominion in my Dungeons and Dragons.... and it tastes great. Infinite City is as simple as play a tile do the effect but it has much deeper strategy and is one of the most amazing looking games we have done to date.

Was The Adventurers a finished game when you first saw it, or did you decide to buy it from Dust Games as a prototype or proposal?

John - Finished. I literally called Italy half way through the first run through to sign us up. We got to add some AEG flavor to the world but it was almost perfect.

The release of The Adventurers pre-painted figure pack has been somewhat controversial. Any time there is an exclusive, gamers get a little upset they can't have it. Do you have plans to make it available to the general public?

John - We have more coming, so yes. How we will make them available is still in question. If we put the painted figs in the box, the box would have been $70; no way around it. We are glad players like the painted figs and will try to make them available to players and collectors who want them.

(The game and figures are now available on the AEG site.)

In terms of new material, are you planning to release any additional figures or map packs?

John – Wow, fun idea. Yes, we have a promo fig in the works and Adventurers 2 is in development but with no date because we want it to be as good or better than #1.




There you have it - Part one. I'd like to thank John and Alderac for providing a review copy and for answering my questions. He was also gracious enough to send some questions along to the designers and with any luck, I will follow up with their answers and a look at the pre-painted pack in part two.

Pulp of the Week - The Lost City of Z

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The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
by David Grann
Doubleday, 2009
Non-Fiction

David Grann's evocatively written "The Lost City of Z" tells the tale of Amazonian explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett and his mysterious disappearance in Brazil in 1925. That three men should disappear without a trace in the wilds of the Amazon is not surprising. But Fawcett's story is genuinely astonishing and Grann's book recounts a time of adventure with gusto and evocative detail.

Fawcett spent a lot of time in the jungle, working for the British Royal Geographic Society, most of it exploring on foot and with very small parties of men. The large boats, amphibious planes, and huge caravans were for others, Fawcett felt that staying close to the rivers, or flying above the forest canopy would cause him to miss too much and maybe miss the clue that would lead him to the lost city that he called "Z."

There were numerous tales of Golden Cities and vast riches to be found in the jungles of South America and Fawcett often found broken bits of pottery and other clues on his treks. He had an amazing constitution and rarely felt any effects in the jungle in contrast to his fellow travelers that suffered malaria, wounds infested with maggots, fevers, and often, death.

Although Fawcett portrayed himself as one, he was not a Colonel. He was a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army. He distinguished himself numerous times in the field leading an Artillery group. He experienced the horrors of war first hand, at one point calling the battlefield, "Armageddon."

He survived the war despite being injured by a gas attack and returned a changed man, yet still determined to find "Z"

His final expedition included his son and his son's best friend. In 1925, the three of them marched into the jungle and were never seen again.

Search parties hunted for them, but they found nothing, or vanished as well. The author himself mounted an after thoroughly researching Fawcett's papers, letters, and journals.

The results of his journey are a fascinating part of the book and he finds some closure, if not Fawcett himself.

For this review I read the hardcover book and I give "The Lost City of Z" an 8.5 out of 10. The tales of the expeditions are harrowing and vivid. David Grann is to be commended for giving adventure readers (and writers) a lot to chew on.

Pulp of the Week - Tomorrow Now

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Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years
Bruce Sterling - 2002

This book is a fascinating look at our possible future circa 2002. Now that we are in that books future, there are a few things that seem dated, but much of the stuff here is a solid bucket of futurism.

Sterling's first chapter is about biotech, and this is really the main place that his SF roots show. In his future, there is hardly an aspect of our lives that won't be impacted by the advent of advanced biotech, genetic engineering or both.

Later chapters discuss the narco-terrorist, new world disorder fighters that are the real enemies of peace. They are sometimes of nations, but are ultimately destabilizing and destructive. The stories of three men that changed that personify this trend and fascinating, particularly the rise of power of Shamil Basaev in Chechnya. He was always about making money and made a lot in the disorder of the the Chechen revolution. Sterling calls him, "an idealistic college dropout with a minor in arms smuggling."

I was quite fascinated as Sterling wrote how a band of thieves and cutthroats defeated a Soviet tank battalion with RPGs and cel phones.

There is a lot of thought provoking material in this book. The final sections are about climate change and the disappearance of glacial ice and its implications for the future.

Sterling proposes that we are at the beginning of one of the periodic mass extinctions that the earth undergoes every few hundred million years. Historically these have been caused by outside factors, mainly meteors, comets, and the like. But this extinction will be caused by human intervention in the worlds climate.

I have never heard anyone put it quite like that before. That our actions could kill off 60-75% of the species on the planet.

Yeah, us.


I read the hardcover and give this book a 7 out of 10. There are some very good sections, but there are also a few that go nowhere for me. All in all, an interesting read.

Pulp Announcement - Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Volume 2

Cornerstone Books and Airship 27 productions have just released their newest book - Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Volume 2.



From the publisher - "Once again, Holmes fans, the game is afoot! Here is another collection of five brand new adventures featuring the Great Detective and his loyal companion, Dr.Watson. Writers Bernadette Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, Ian Watson and Andrew Salmon deliver solid, traditional mysteries in the style of Arthur Conan Doyle. Edited by Ron Fortier, design and interior art by Rob Davis with a cover by Ingrid Hardy."

This looks like a beautiful book from the publisher of my own Green Lama book, which is still available. Visit the Airship 27 Lulu site.

Spoiler Movie Review - Avatar

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Avatar (2009)
Written and Directed by James Cameron
Released by 20th Century Fox
Spoiler-Filled, Ruin Your Good Time Review.

Go see Avatar before you read this review. Really, it is better without knowing everything. And if you knew everything, why would you see it?

You, if you are reading this blog, should see Avatar because it is a science fiction film in the best sense of those words. It is a movie about something, and tells its story through metaphor and parable. The movie uses imagined advances in science to tell a story about the human condition.

Go and don't come back until you have seen Avatar in IMAX 3D, or at least 3D.

As you know, because if you're reading this you have seen the movie :), Avatar is the story of Jake Sully, a paralyzed army grunt that signs up with a private security contractor to take the place his dead twin brother on the distant planet, Pandora. Jake takes the long term contract to pay for surgery to fix his legs.

When Jake gets to Pandora, a planet rich in a material nicknamed unobtanium, we learn that he was offered the contract for several reasons, with the main one being that a lot of money had been spent preparing an "avatar" of his brother to interact with the indignious intelligent species of Pandora, the Na'vi.

The avatar is a genetic mixture of his brother's DNA with that of a Na'vi. His brother died before he could serve his contract, but because they are identical twins, Jake is made the offer to serve in his place. The company will send Jake's consciousness into the body of the 10' tall Na'vi avatar.

Having lost the use of his legs, Jake quickly grows to enjoy occupying the Na'vi body and soon meets the Na'vi girl, Neytiri. He is separated from his group and Neytiri takes him to her Na'vi clan's tree home, a gigantic, towering tree.

When Jake and his friends in the avatar group decide that the destruction of the Treehome is a bad idea, they plot a revolt that sets them against their corporate employers.

There have been some attacks in the press saying that Avatar is just a Ferngully rip-off. That the film is anti-American. That the film is anti-human.That it is just a glossy retread of tired, overused ideas. That it is a green manifesto and a glorification of a noble savage treatise. Some of these criticisms are valid, some not.


I haven't seen Ferngully, but descriptions make it clear that the basic plot is very similar.

There is no doubt that there are many elements of the core story that have been done before.

We have seen the star-crossed lovers plot many times before.

Man goes into the wild and emerges changed, his perception altered to sympathize with the 'savages' who are more human than the invaders.

I'm sure there are earlier examples than Tarzan, but there's an example. Dances With Wolves has been cited as well, but clearly that is not the first either.

I didn't feel the film was anti-American as much and anti-corporate greed. Humanist. That perhaps people's lives are more important than corporate convenience.

Yes, we know he's going to get the girl, but that doesn't take away from their beautiful, and sometime thrilling romance.

Merciless corporate forces are a staple of science fiction, and a strong component of James Cameron's work as well. The Terminator series have Cyberdyne, and Aliens has them as well. It should come as no surprise that he uses that theme here as well.

I think the film is brilliant in many regards, if a bit predictable in its overall story. There were few moments where I was shocked, but many, many times when I was awed.

The 3-D was beautifully done. Unobtrusive, not show-offy at all. We got to be immersed in the story and the world of Pandora as James Cameron and his collaborators imagined it. The language, the geography, the flora and spectacular fauna, all part of a biologically linked world as a single life-form that is callously attacked by alien invaders.

There were many moments of pure cinematic joy, and a few bad ones. I'm not a big fan of the floating mountains. They are beautiful, but are very difficult to justify as science fiction. If they contain a lot of unobtanium, then why doesn't the company just scoop them up? If they don't contain unobtanium, then how are they floating?

Watching the movie, I was also never clear on what unobtanium is. Reading all the info online I learned that it is a room temperature super-conductor and would therefore float in a magnetic field. But they were also covered with rocks and trees and streams. Wouldn't the weight of all that pull it down? Either way, this went unexplained and for me was bothersome.

The actors were quite good and it was especially nice to see Sigourney Weaver in a great part. What is remarkable is how much the human/na'vi avatars look like their actors. Her avatar is a great likeness of a young, ten foot tall blue Sigourney.

It is clear why Cameron cast Sam Worthington. He is a terrific actor who was also the best thing in Terminator 3. I guess McG figured that if he was good enough for Cameron, he was good enough for him. (Avatar was shot before T3)

Also of note is Stephen Lang, who plays Col. Quaritch with grit and misguided but genuine honor.


As I was watching, I wasn't sure exactly how all this was done. I hadn't read all the article and interviews, hadn't seen the ET or Access Hollywood stories. I am not an uneducated viewer. I have been working in the film industry for more than 25 years. I was a Visual Effects Editor on Terminator 2 (although I never met James Cameron until Comic-Con last year). And yet... I had no idea how they did the faces of the Na'vi. As I watched I became convinced that they had somehow put in actual photography of the actors in makeup, just for the mouths, and combined it with the CGI. The characters are that real.


Of course I have now learned that the Na'vi are, in visual terms, all CGI. As it turns out, the performance capture and facial capture were just way better than anything ever done before.


For the digital cinematography, Cameron used a technique I had first heard about for the cool CG animated film, Surf's Up. The scenes are all blocked out and performed and given a low res render. Then the director looks through an electronic 'camera' and can see the scene and walk around it as if he was in the physical space. Multiple angles can easily be created of the same scene and be turned over to editorial. Surf's Up used a similar technique to achieve their hand-held documentary look.


Of course there was still a lot of traditional material shot on set, but even then there was a lot of CG added.

There is so much good SF here and with any luck the spectacular success of Avatar will encourage other filmmakers to tell other good SF stories, either original or adaptations. The sheer volume of quality SF literature has been laying dormant, waiting for someone in Hollywood to see that there is an audience for it.

Science Fiction in literature has been around for well over a hundred years. That is a lot of time, and there are a lot of great authors and great books. Perhaps we are finally at a place where Hollywood will see that.


I saw Avatar in Imax 3D ($15) and give Avatar a 9.5 out of 10.