2009 January 30 « Entertainment Today and Beyond

WATCHMEN countdown starts and GHOST RIDER to RETURN

Watchmen- With 36 days to the release of Warner Bros WATCHMEN, expect a mammoth marketing blitz from the studio, in the hopes that they can make this the next ‘big thing’. While attendance from the fan boy crowd is a given, can the studio make this film appeal to the masses when they have no knowledge of the graphic novel it’s based on? The jury is still out on that question. I said it before and I’ll say it again, the trailers have been visually interesting but they have not, at least to this point, shown any emotional involvement. If that doesn’t change the non-comic casual moviegoer, who helped make The Dark Knight a box-office dynamo, will have no big interest in seeing this. I’m really curious to see how the marketing campaign unfolds as WB needs to sell this film a different way to the mainstream crowd.

Ghost Rider sequel- According to Bloody Disgusting, Columbia Pictures has officially put out the word that they are in search of writers who can pen a follow-up to the original film which starred Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze. Considering Ghost Rider did only moderate box-office (230 million worldwide), and the majority of reviews were bad, one has to wonder why the studio would greenlight another installment. Personally I thought Ghost Rider was watchable, mainly due to the quirkiness of actor Nicolas Cage, but there’s only so much you can do with a character whose head bursts into flame! The concept is somewhat silly as a live action vehicle. Cage is reportedly signed on for this sequel.