Friday, March 22, 2002

BLADE II ACTORS TALK

Blade II opens in more than 2,800 theaters on Friday, with Wesley Snipes returning as Marvel Comics' vampire hunter.

Snipes and Kris Kristofferson, who plays Whistler, are the only returning cast members from the first film. Following are comments from the main cast members of the sequel.

WESLEY SNIPES AS BLADE

GIVE'EM A CLICK

* On Blade II's darker feel: "It's like being a little kid in a haunted house. As an actor, you see these films and think, 'Wow, I'd love to be in a movie like that.' And now I get the opportunity to do it in this one - and with a guy who is very good at it. When we met in New York and Guillermo (del Toro, director) showed me his ideas for the weapons and the idea for the Reapers, I thought, 'Any guy that can think of something like that deserves to direct this movie.'"

* On comics movies: "I'm a real comic-book movie fan. I've seen a lot of the comic books that have been adapted to film, and saw the flaws and the things that worked. I'm also an avid film goer, so I go to the movies to see the films with the people that pay. I can listen to their comments, I can listen to what they react to and what they don't react to. And I bring all of those elements and all of that stuff to when we go into production.

* On his involvement in fight scenes: "We've laid a foundation and then I'll come in and I'll freak it. I'll add the little accents. Or I'll say, 'This looks more devastating or let's do it this way to give it little bit more drama, a little more dynamics.' My hands are in, foot, hands, holds, everything, right in the mix."

* On the Reapers: "They're formidable. They're formidable. And they're ugly, too."

* On the sequel: "We started out with a better script this time than we started with the first one. We have a better understanding of the mistakes we made with the last one, so we're not going to make those same mistakes now."

* On shooting in Prague: "It gives it a very gothic, ancient, vampire type of feeling."

RON PERLMAN AS REINHARDT

* On his character: "Reinhardt is a professional soldier. He's very handy, and very stealthy and very good at what he does. And a little kinky."

* On Snipes' fighting abilities: He's so great and so capable and so evolved as a martial artist, it's awe-inspiring to see. And a little bit daunting when you've got to be the one standing up next to him saying, 'OK, let's get it on, bro.'"

LUKE GOSS AS NOMAK

* On his character: "He's a villain with issues, which is kind of fun."

* On his character's look: "He's a scary dude. The first time I walked on the set like this guy, all the catering girls were completely freaked out. Everyone was getting chocolate handed out, but I didn't get my chocolate because they wouldn't come near me."

* On fighting Blade: "Wesley and Blade are both very powerful human beings - and a character. And I wanted to be a worthy opponent. I was training 3-4 hours a day sometimes. I had to learn a very specific martial arts style, like Kung-Fu or boxing, and then we had to kind of rough it up because I wanted to make the character kind of street."

* On del Toro: "I'm in awe of the fact that he's unfazed by this. So many of these sets have maps that say 'You are here' like a theme park, to find out where you are going. And this guys is like, (snaps fingers), 'Next. Move on.' He's kicking butt, this guy."

* On the film: "Blade really works because it crosses boundaries. It has suspense, it has action, it has subplots, and sex appeal."

NORMAN REEDUS AS SCUD

* On his relationship with Whistler: "I sort of replace him in the second one, and then he comes back and you can see in the movie there's a conflict between us."

* On comparing Blade II to the first film: "This one's going to blow the first one out of the water. I'm positive."

* On shooting in Prague: "Everywhere you walk, there's gargoyles on every building and faces carved in things. The city's crazy. Prague is nuts. It's 24 hours here all the time."

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON AS WHISTLER

* On returning: "I didn't imagine that I'd be in another one because I got killed in the first one. You're not supposed to know whether Whistler's still a vampire or not. Because he was. He spent several years with the vampires before Wesley found him in a tank full of blood."

* On his injuries during filming: "I'm keeping the hospitals here in business. I think they're going to be sorry to see me go. I'm been in there for everything from a bad chest to a bad back. I got my shoulder injured in the sewers while we were fighting the vampires down there. Fortunately, I'm in pretty good shape now for a guy my age."

LEONOR VARELA AS NYSSA

* On her character: "Nyssa has been training this tactical unit to take down Blade for about two years. She had the moral contract of the Samurai that actually makes her very similar to Blade."

* On long days of fighting shooting: "When it gets really hard is when you've already shot 12 hours and there's four more to go, and your arms are limp and your energy is just drained and you've still got to have control over your gestures. I sent somebody to the hospital. At the end of the day, my arms didn't have enough strength and I really opened his face."

* On del Toro: "He has a great power to create eeriness and creep things up."

* On vampires: "There's something really sexy about vampires that touches a chord."

MARVEL COMICS FIRST LOOKS

For first looks at Marvel Comics titles arriving in stores on Wednesday, CLICK HERE.

Titles include Ultimates #3, Wolverine #174, Wolverine/Hulk #2, Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #14, Spider-Man's Tangled Web #12, Paradise X #1, Mutant X Origin, Marvel Knights #1, Incredible Hulk #38 and Captain America: Dead Man Running #3.

X-MEN: EVOLUTION UPDATE

Kids' WB! will rebroadcast four episodes of X-Men: Evolution during the first two weeks of April.

Episodes on Saturday, April 6 will be "Turn of the Rogue" at 8 a.m. and "On Angel's Wings" at 10:30 a.m.

Episodes on Saturday, April 13 will be "Mutant Crush" at 8:30 a.m. and "Power Surge" at 10:30 a.m.

In other Kids' WB! schedule news, episodes of Static Shock will include "Attack of the Living Brain Puppets" on April 6 and "Junior" on April 13. Episodes of The Zeta Project will include "Wired, Pt. 2" on April 6 and "Resume Mission" on April 13.

SIDEKICKS AT ONI PRESS

Oni Press on Thursday announced a new Sidekicks trade paperback and one-shot for this summer.

June sees the release, right, of the book collecting the first three Sidekicks comics by writer J. Torres and artist Takeshi Miyazawa. The duo reunite in July for Sidekicks: The Substitute, an all-new one-shot. In an effort to prime fans and retailers for the pair of new projects, Oni Press will be making the first 24 pages of Sidekicks material available as part of their FreeComic online initiative.

"When we found out that Sidekicks was looking for a home, we jumped at the chance to make it part of the ever-expanding Oni line," Oni Press editor-in-chief Jamie S. Rich said. "This was one of our favorite miniseries of 2000 and we're pleased as punch to be bringing it out from under the general comics radar."

"J. and Takeshi are a perfect creative team," said collection editor James Lucas Jones. "Their teenagers talk, move, and dress like real kids. Sure, these students have special gifts and powers but they have more in common with the kids of Gilmore Girls than the costumed characters that dominate comics."

Here's how Oni describes the property:

"Terry Highland isn't like other kids. Or is she? Sure, Terry is the daughter of an ex-superhero sidekick and, yeah, she has powers of her own, too, but when you're a new student at a school like Shuster Academy that's hardly out of the ordinary. Terry's classmates include a pyromaniac firestarter in homeroom, a werewolf in Geometry, killer robots in gym-- and that's just before lunch! Sounds like a superteen's dream come true, doesn't it? There's just one catch. In order to make the grade at this school, you can't use your powers. So when three new vigilantes burst on to the scene calling themselves 'Biff,' 'Bam,' and 'Pow,' it has the whole student body buzzing and the administration on the lookout for the kids who would dare to break the Academy's number one rule. Can Terry and her friends solve the mystery without getting caught in the middle?"

"I couldn't be more excited about the return of Sidekicks," Torres said. "To have all the original issues available again in a snazzy new book for snazzy new readers. It feels like my birthday! And to have an all-new one-shot out just a month later? That's just icing on the cake."

Sidekicks: The Substitute picks up where The Transfer Student leaves off and sees Terry and the gang dealing with a new kind of fill-in teacher! Who is more qualified to run a classroom filled with rambunctious "gifted" youngsters? Why a reformed supervillain, of course! But how will the kids, administration, and PTA deal with a teacher who's more accustomed to crafting diabolical schemes than she is to creating interesting lesson plans?

Sidekicks: The Transfer Student TP will ship on June 26. It has 96 pages of full color story and art in a 6-inch by 9-inch book and is priced at $8.95. The first chapter of the story will be available for downloading at http://www.onipress.com/freecomic on March 25.

Sidekicks: The Substitute is scheduled to ship on July 24. It is a standard comic book with 32 pages of black-and-white story and art, and retails for 2.95.

CLAYPOOL COMICS FOR JULY

Following are Claypool Comics' solicitations for July, with information coming from the company.

ELVIRA #111

By various.

Three classic Elvira adventures. First, Elvira takes on her scheming Communist double in "Red Dupe!" by Frank Strom, Chuck Frazier and Louis Lachance. Then the Mistress of the Dark's film career expands to a classy period drama by Hollywood's hottest movie maven -- or at least a teen sexploitation flick version of same, in "Austentation," by Jo Duffy, Ronn Sutton, Terry Austin and Bob Wiacek. Finally, Elvira's reality-show gamble comes to its exciting pay-off, as she and her fellow "Tele-Castaways" learn the secret of Monster Island, in "Hex, Lies, and Videotape!," the conclusion of the "Tele-Castaways" serial, by Janet Hetherington, John Heebink and Mike Manley.

32 pages, black and white, $2.50.

SOULSEARCHERS #55

By Peter David, Richard Howell and Gordon Purcell, cover by Amanda Conner and Steve Leialoha.

Sweet little Kelly, Soulsearchers' resident sorceress and demon slayer, has been behaving a little "off" lately - like as in cackling, evil deeds, curses, and swooping around Mystic Grove on a broomstick. Has she devolved into a folk-tale witch -- or is that fantasy figure really Kelly at all? Janocz must discover the witch's secret--but who's he gonna cauldron?. It's all in "Which Witch is Which?"

32 pages, black and white, $2.50.

BRIEFLY