Wednesday, June 19, 2002

DAREDEVIL MOVIE UPDATE

A press conference for the Daredevil movie was held on Wednesday in Los Angeles, and Fox released several new images.

The photos include Colin Farrell as Bullseye, Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin, Jon Favreau as Foggy Nelson, director Mark Steven Johnson with stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner and Joe Pantoliano as Ben Urich.

Look for a complete transciption of the press conference, with comments from the stars and filmmakers, soon here in The Continuum.

In other Daredevil news:

Two days of production on Daredevil movie concluded at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Filmmakers took two days to convert the hotel's Rendezvous Court into a ballroom set for a formal party scene. The room is adjacent to the hotel's elevators, and security staff members had to monitor traffic throughout the day.

Jennifer Garner, who plays Elektra, drew many curious onlookers. For a while in the late afternoon, Garner, dressed in a sparkling silver evening gown, sat next to an elevator for a scene where Elektra overlooks a balcony, accompanied by a burly bodyguard.

Garner wore the same dress and Affleck a tuxedo at the press conference.

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IMAGE COMICS FOR SEPTEMBER

Image Comics has released its solicitation information for September.

For a complete rundown, CLICK HERE.

X-MEN: EVOLUTION UPDATE

X-Men: Evolution producer Boyd Kirkland told The Continuum that writing for the third season of the show has nearly been completed.

"Story-wise, we're into the writing of the last two episodes," Kirkland said on Tuesday during The Continuum's visit to Film Roman, where X-Men: Evolution is produced. "It's going to be another two-part finale for the season like we've done for the first two seasons, where we have a big, epic kind of finish to the season.

"The first part of that, the story is finished, and is now just going into storyboards. The second part of it, we're working on finalizing the script right now. We're nearing the end of the story development phase of the third season."

The second season of the show ended with a cliffhanger that introduced new characters and revealed to the public the existence of mutants.

"It was nice that the network let us construct a story that ended in a cliffhanger so that we can do a story that will carry on, and pick up the pieces where we left off," Kirkland said. "So ultimately it will make for a nice, big story arc."

Although they've been revealed as mutants, the young X-Men will return to high school.

"We're not real anxious to completely turn our backs on what the show has been, the idea that they're high school kids and they're stealing with those kinds of issues," Kirkland said. "So they are going to get back to school, but it will be under different circumstances now. The circumstances now obviously being that the world knows they're mutants. So rather than finding ways of hiding who they are, they have to find ways of coping with who they are, with the general public, including friends, peers at school and Principal Kelly. And we have some episodes that deal with those sorts of issues."

Look for much more soon in The Continuum on the third season X-Men: Evolution, including interviews with Kirkland, directors Frank Paur and Curt Geda and Marvel Studios' Craig Kyle, who is writing episodes for the season.

STATIC SHOCK GETS THIRD SEASON

Kids' WB! has ordered 13 original episodes for a third season of Static Shock to air on Saturday mornings during the 2002-2003 season.

"Static Shock has delivered strong ratings this spring and is a wonderful example of Kids' WB!'s unique brand of 'character adventures,'" said Donna Friedman, executive vice-president, Kids' WB!. "As we strengthen our creative partnership with Warner Bros. Animation, we are proud to continue tackling highly relevant issues for kids today in the third season of this electrifying series."

Since its second season debut on January 26, 2002, Static Shock, at 8:30 a.m. ET, has jolted all time period competition, including cable, in Boys 6-11 (5.5/22) and is the #1 broadcast program in its time period among Kids 2-11 (3.0/13), Boys 2-11 (4.2/17), Kids 6-11 (3.8/17) and Tweens 9-14 (2.8/18). Static Shock has delivered double-digit year-to-year ratings growth in the 8:30 a.m. ET time period in Kids 2-11 (+15%), Boys 2-11 (+14%), Kids 6-11 (+15%) and Boys 6-11 (+15%). Season-to-date, Static Shock ranks No. 7 among the top 10 Saturday morning programs for the season in Boys 6-11 (5.5/22) and among the top 10 broadcast programs in Kids 2-11 (3.0/13), Kids 6-11 (3.8/17) and Boys 2-11 (4.2/17).

Static Shock is produced and animated by Warner Bros. Animation, under the creative supervision of supervising producer Alan Burnett and producers Swinton Scott and Denys Cowan.

AQUAMAN RETURNS IN NEW SERIES

Following the conclusion of "The Obsidian Age: The Hunt for Aquaman" in JLA this summer, Aquaman will return in December in a new ongoing series by writer Rick Veitch and artists Yvel Guichet and Mark Propst.

According to DC Comics, the repercussions of the "Obsidian Age" storyline lead directly into the new series' launch.

"Without giving too much away, let me say that Aquaman's missing hand will play a big part in the new series in a way that will resonate with classic Arthurian legends," Veitch said. "We're also going to explore water in a way that's never been done in Aquaman before."

Veitch also said there will be an expanded supporting cast for the series, as well as appearances by past characters and locales, including Atlantis and Poseidonis.

"At the end of 'Obsidian Age,' Aquaman will be in a shockingly different place than he was previously," said editor Dan Raspler. "Rick's experiences with other comics projects gives him a unique viewpoint on super-heroes. He's bringing new depth to Aquaman, taking the character, his powers and situations and looking at them in an entirely new way."

Click below for JLA covers involving the "Obsidian Age" story.

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WITCHBLADE TV UPDATE

The second-season premiere of Witchblade on Sunday night drew the strongest ratings yet for the TNT series.

According to the network, Witchblade premiered to double-digit increases in all key adult demos vs. the 2001 first-season season premiere as well as the 2001 first-season premiere average, while posting a strong 2.6 household rating/2,203,000 households.

Following its Sunday premiere, Witchblade settled into its regularly scheduled slot on Monday at 9 p.m. with a new episode which garnered a solid 3.0 rating in the metered market overnights.

Sunday's premiere drew 730,000 adults 18-34, 1.785 million adults 18-49 and 2.009 million adults 25-54. Those compare to the first-season premiere's 579,00 in 18-34, 1.613 million in 18-49 and 1.81 million in 25-54 and the first-season averages of 511,000 in 18-34, 1.344 million in 18-49 and 1.505 million in 25-54.

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