Arrow Lands On Wednesdays This Fall

Arrow Takes Aim

Arrow, The CW’s new television series based on the DC Comics’ character Green Arrow, will kick off the network’s Wednesday lineup this fall as a lead-in to their super natural drama, Supernatural. The last show from the former network, The WB, Supernatural will be premiering on a new night.

The announcement was accompanied by a still image from Arrow, featuring Stephen Amell (Hung) as the emerald archer Oliver Queen, and a promo clip from the pilot.

The series is being created by the Green Lantern movie screenwriters Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, and Fringe co-executive producer Andrew Kreisberg. Arrow centers on Oliver Queen, a wealthy young spoiled brat, who after spending five years shipwrecked on an island, returns to Starling City (Star City in the comic books) with a mastery of the bow and a new outlook on the world.

Amell is joined by Colin Donnell as Tommy Merlyn, Katie Cassidy (Supernatural, Melrose Place) as Laurel Lance, David Ramsey (Dexter, Blue Bloods) as John Diggle, Willa Holland (The O.C.) as Thea Queen, with Susanna Thompson (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Kings) as Moira Queen and Paul Blackthorne (The Dresden Files, 24) as Detective Quentin Lance.

The official description follows:

After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen was missing and presumed dead for five years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the Pacific. When he returns home to Starling City, his devoted mother Moira, much-beloved sister Thea, and best friend Tommy welcome him home, but they sense Oliver has been changed by his ordeal on the island. While Oliver hides the truth about the man he’s become, he desperately wants to make amends for the actions he took as the boy he was. Most particularly, he seeks reconciliation with his former girlfriend, Laurel Lance.

As Oliver reconnects with those closest to him, he secretly creates the persona of Arrow – a vigilante – to right the wrongs of his family, fight the ills of society, and restore Starling City to its former glory. By day, Oliver plays the role of a wealthy, carefree and careless philanderer he used to be – flanked by his devoted chauffeur/bodyguard, John Diggle – while carefully concealing the secret identity he turns to under cover of darkness. However, Laurel’s father, Detective Quentin Lance, is determined to arrest the vigilante operating in his city. Meanwhile, Oliver’s own mother, Moira, knows much more about the deadly shipwreck than she has let on – and is more ruthless than he could ever imagine.

 Arrow will air Wednesdays this fall at 8 p.m. ET/PT, followed at 9 p.m. by Supernatural, which begins its eighth season.

Avengers Assemble Box Office Record

Earth’s Mightiest Ticket Sellers

There was much hype and fanfare following the release of Marvel’s The Avengers movie this weekend, and it lived up to box office expectations by posting an opening weekend $200.3 million in North America, passing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 to become the largest domestic debut of all time.

Last summer the final Harry Potter movie brought in $169.2 million during it’s opening weekend. Before that The Dark Knight had held the crown with it’s $158.4 million record opening in 2008. Even more astonishing is that the Joss Whedon led film has already raked in $441.5 million overseas. that  makes it over half a billion dollars in worldwide ticket sales in less than two weeks! This also surpasses the $623 million worldwide total of 2010’s Iron Man 2, which until now had been Marvel Studios’ most successful release.

Geek Of The Week : Super Crooks

I Think Its Time To Get The Old Gang Back Together

Super Crooks from Millar World, and published by Icon, a Marvel imprint, is shaping up to be an Ocean’s Eleven type of caper with super villains. Johnny Bolt runs with a group of fairly low level super crooks. They may have enough juice to put them over on the local authorities, but when it comes to handling heroes like The Gladiator, they’re over powered and out classed.

This leads the crooks into a routine of trying to pull off heist, and then being captured and thrown in jail. Jump ahead a few years and these former super criminals are attempting to work mundane jobs and live normal, boring lives. Lives that forbid them from using their powers. Of course for some its hard to walk the straight path.

Carmine, a.k.a The Heat, an old-time costumed bank robber tries to build up a retirement fund by cheating a casino. Using a psychic that can see 30 seconds into the future to feed him numbers, Carmine makes a killing at a roulette table. However, he gets too greedy, and keeps pushing his winnings which draws serious attention from the casino’s security team. The casino catches the pair, and to show that they mean business, they kill the psychic rather  bruitish, mobster manner.

Of course the casino is being run by criminals themselves. Criminals with connection and a long reach. Carmine tried to take them for $12 million, well now they’re putting the squeeze on Carmine to pay them $100 million within one month. And if he can’t come up with the money then they’re going to make an example out of him.

Desperate and beaten, Carmine seeks out Johnny and Kasey, two former criminals trying to get by in their ordinary reformed lives. Carmine was a friend and a mentor. They owe him a lot. And they feel that they have to help. That’s when Johnny comes up with a plan to pull off the mother of all heists. But there are capes everywhere. Being a criminal in America carries a high risk. So why stay in America? Johnny’s idea is to go to Spain. That way they won’t have to deal with all of the super heroes in America that always win, and always throw the crooks in jail. But first they’re going to need a crew.

Johnny and Carmine travel about to piece together their the rest of their team. They have Johnny with electric powers, Kasey the psychic, and The Heat with an old school ray gun. Then they set off to recruit The Ghost, a cat-burglar turned architect. TK McCabe, a telekinetic working a warehousing job. Forecast, a street vendor with weather control powers. And then Roddy and Sammy Diesel, brothers with incredible regenerative abilities fighting in a brutal underground fight-club. Appealing to their sense of loyalty to Carmine, or their need for money, or a more fulfilling life, the team is assembled.

Arriving in Spain there is just one piece left to put in place, the bad-ass. They blackmale The Gladiator, a hero who in the past had put them behind bars, into joing their crew. And at the end of the second issue Johnny reveals their target. Not a bank, or abusiness, or any honest citizens, but the “greatest super villain who has ever lived.”

Mark Millar is writer on Super Crooks, and along with co-plotter Nacho Vigalondo, they are telling a fantastic story. I like how instead of being another super hero comic book, this comic follows the guys on the other side. And it places them in a compelling story that I can’t wait to see more of. This is a cool caper with a lot of character. The art looks great. Lenil Yu is the artist on the comic, with inker Gerry Alanguilan, colorist Sunny Gho, and VC’s Clayton Cowles doing the lettering. The art team is creating a stylish book, and does a superb job of storytelling. These first two issues are a real page turner. This is one of the best comics of the year.

Kelly Ripa Goes Catwoman

Mee-Wow

Day time talk show host Kelly Ripa made quite an entrance when she hosted the TV Land Awards. She was lowered down to the stage wearing a very Catwoman like costume.

“This is my second time hosting the TV Land Awards and I need something special…something classic yet fashion-forward,” Ripa said during the show’s opening segment, which had her dressing like TV characters such as Wonder Woman, Sue Sylvester, Tootie from The Facts of Life and Daisy Duke, while trying to find the right outfit for her hosting duties.

Ripa ended up going with the Catwoman costume cooing that, “It’s purrrrfect.”

New Mutants Movie ?

More Merry Mutant Movies

Collider had the opportunity to discuss the future of Marvel properties in movies with Fox CEO Tom Rothman at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. And the talk revealed that another merry band of mutants could become the next marvel movie franchise. While Rothman wouldn’t come right out and say it, he seemed to hint that The New Mutants could get the movie treatment.

Given the commercial and critical success of the young-skewing superhero flicks First Class and Chronicle, it seems like a no-brainer for Fox to pull the trigger on a New Mutants movie. When the idea was brought up,  Rothman tried to remain cryptic, but he seems to point at a New Mutants movie in the future.

Collider: “I know you guys have like The New Mutants and a lot of characters in the X-Men universe. Obviously you guys are moving forward on an X-Men sequel, you’re moving forward on Wolverine, do you envision New Mutants or some of these other characters as franchises that the door can be open to?  It does seem to me that the superhero genre is bigger than it’s ever been, and you guys have some of the crown jewels.”

Rothman: (smiles) “Yes.”

Collider: “When can fans expect an announcement on some of these other properties?  Before Comic-Con, after Comic-Con, at Comic-Con?”

Rothman:  ”In the summer.”

Collider: “Are you talking to filmmakers right now?”

Rothman: “Let me just say this. All I have to say is, I agree with you in your assessment of the potential in a lot of these characters.”