"AI" Audiobooks Are Here And About What You'd Expect

Really since 2013 I've used the Text-to-Speech on my Kindles to listen to books in my car.  I'm sure most people wouldn't like it but after a while you get used to the automated voice reading the books.  The mispronunciations like "See Monday" for "C'mon" or "Maximum" for a sentence that ends "Max." or "Lung-ed" instead of "lunjed" or "Jills" for "gills" are still somewhat amusing.  For me it let me "read" books and avoid paying tons of extra money for audiobooks.  The Kindle also makes it easy to transport them instead of needing an MP3 player that can maybe hold one book at a time.

So I didn't really have the hang-ups other people might have when Amazon announced "Virtual Voice" audiobooks.  One night in December I opened my KDP and saw I was eligible to have my books put in Virtual Voice.  And I shrugged and said, "Why the hell not?"

You can scream about "AI" replacing real human narrators all you want.  Someone like me could never afford a real human narrator who's any good and my speaking voice would be much, much worse than "AI."  And a profit-sharing arrangement would just be a waste of time for the narrator.

So yeah I figured, why not?  All I had to do was go to a page for each book.  You can choose your narrator from a few options.  When I started they only had four but then they added a few more.  You can pick the speed you want them to read if you want or just go with the default.  Ones I really cared about I selected some options but most I just went with the default.

Then a few hours later it might be approved and from there people can buy it for $1.99 if they already have the book or $3.99 if they don't.  Those are the minimum prices you can charge.  You can charge more if you want, but why would I?

I could only do it at first for maybe 40-50% of my books.  Older ones especially it would bitch about not having a table of contents.  Others it would say it, "Hasn't completed the post-publishing process."  What is that, Amazon's version of the NFL's, "process of the catch" for receiving?  I emailed Support and didn't really get an explanation.  They just asked for ASINs and I could have them fix it.  Which would be fine if I only had like 5 books, but with over 200 it would be kind of annoying to find all of the ASINs.  Anyway, they did fix a few, though I'm not sure how many.

When I emailed them a second time with the ASINs of a bunch of the entries, the person said it happens because the start and end of the book aren't set and they have to do it manually.  So I expect the 50 or so I sent them will be done any day now.  LOL.  Yeah, it's probably never happening.  There are another 40-50 that say they don't have a table of contents.  Some are newer books and when I look them up on the Kindle previewer thing it shows a table of contents, so I don't know what their deal is.  I think it'd be a lot easier if you have traditional books with chapters since most of mine aren't really long enough to need chapters.

Once the first batch of audiobooks was published, I made an announcement on my Eric Filler website and newsletter and...not a lot happened.  For December I sold 31 audiobooks.  The most popular ones were Chance of a Lifetime and First Contact with 5 apiece.  So it wasn't even my erotica books that were leading the way.  An erotica omnibus was second place with 4.  Actually 1/3 of those first 30 sales were for PT Dilloway books.

January so far has about 45 audiobook sales and it's pretty much just a grab bag.  Mostly Eric Filler titles this time around.  There are a few with 2 sold, but not more than 2 so far.

But really as you'd expect, these "AI" books are nowhere near as good as a decent human.  Amazon actually calls them "computer-generated" and not "AI" which is probably more accurate.  They're just an upgrade of the text-to-speech on my Kindle.  They might get a few more pronunciations right, but they're still pretty flat.  I listened to the first couple of chapters of Chance of a Lifetime and some of Where You Belong and a couple of others.  I definitely wouldn't pay more than $4 for them.  Like how "AI" writing is just vapid, empty garbage, the "AI" reading still lacks the warmth of an actual human reading it.  A computer program just doesn't know where and how to shade the writing to sound natural.  I'd just stick with the Text-to-Speech on my old Kindle since I already have it and it's free.

I'm not really sure what readers think of them.  First someone would have to actually write something instead of just give a wordless rating.

The audiobook sales are included in your KDP Orders reports but you have to run a filter to separate them.  Even then it seems like the reporting on them is a bit slow.  I'll check it one day and there won't be sales for a day and a couple of days later that same day might have a couple of sales.  I'm not sure how they're doing the reporting for them that there's the delay but it might be a glitch that eventually gets fixed.  Or not.  The old reports don't have a bar for the audiobook sales and probably never will since ostensibly those will still be retired.

Anyway, if you have Audible already, maybe give it a try.  Or listen to a sample.  If you don't like gender swap books you can try A Hero's Journey for instance. I would have liked a male British narrator to pretend it's Marlin the ghost but they only have female British voices so far.

A couple of weeks ago, author Lawrence Block had a different take on it that you can read here.

One last thing is you can't do the audiobook until your Kindle book is "Live" on the site.  Which is a little annoying because then I either can't put a link in my newsletter or I have to wait until the audiobook is done too before I can send the newsletter with links to both.  Especially for preorders I don't know why you couldn't just set up the audiobook but probably they haven't figured out how to do preorders or how to have the audiobook if the Kindle book isn't on the site and all that nonsense.  I wouldn't look for them to ever fix that issue either.

Is Streaming Greed Catching Up to Studios?

 A month or so ago I was reading Scott Mendelson's Substack about Aquaman 2 and Migration the latest animated release from Illumination, the people behind Sing and Minions.  Pre-pandemic and especially pre-big streaming era (like up until 2017 or so) kid's movies were pretty much guaranteed moneymakers.  Pixar, Disney, Shrek, Despicable Me, Trolls, Ice Age, etc all made tons of money and most spawned franchises with multiple sequels and TV shows and merchandising.  

But in 2023 Pixar's Elemental didn't do great.  Disney's Wish didn't do great.  Migration wasn't really doing great.  The most successful animated movie was Super Mario Bros in the winter.

One of Mendelson's newsletters said:

 This also means this is the first time they will be dealing with the overall downturn for original, non-IP animation that has been in play since 2018. Pixar’s Coco was the last original animated blockbuster, earning $800 million worldwide in late 2017.

I had a thought:  maybe besides "inflation" and rising theater ticket/concession costs, parents are figuring out that they don't have to go to a theater.  They can wait 2-3 months and just let the kids watch the movie on streaming.  If it doesn't stream the same day in some cases.  Instead of having to wrangle the kids and get to the theater at a certain time and deal with lines, concessions, bathrooms, Covid, and whatever, they can just turn on the TV, bring up the app, serve their own snacks, and use their own bathrooms.  It's a lot cheaper and easier.

It's a big change from back in my day.  Home video only really started in the late 70s and early 80s.  Even then it could take the better part of a year before a big release like ET or Return of the Jedi would be on VHS tape.  By the 90s it was quicker.  Still, even in the 2010s it'd probably be 6 months or so before you could buy a movie on DVD or digital.  It'd be even longer for it to show up on HBO, Showtime, or some other cable channel.

But now with so many streaming services, each one needs content to draw users to it.  Adding a big theater release like Barbie, the latest MCU release, or an animated movie is a way to get views and hopefully subscribers.

When you see numbers for animated movies sagging, is part of it because parents have figured out that they don't need to go to the movies anymore?  They can save time and aggravation and only wait a couple of months, so for the kids maybe not a lot of FOMO.  The pandemic also probably helped to break kids and their parents of the need to see every new release right away.

By trying to get more subscribers for their streaming services, maybe studios are damaging their profits.  That is the risk with having so many streaming options and also when the movie studios are trying to sell movie tickets and streaming subscriptions at the same time.  When the major streaming services were mostly not movie studios as well (back when you mostly just had Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu) there was kind of a separation and really less motivation for studios to put something on streaming sooner.  

Now that every studio has their own streaming service too, there's pressure to put it on streaming to get views/subscribers.  Studio execs naïvely thought they'd have their cake and eat it too.  They thought people would watch it in the theater and then turn around to watch it on streaming a few months later.  But maybe that's not happening as much anymore.  The studios saw how much Netflix was making and wanted a piece of the action, but it turns out that it might be damaging their business instead of helping it.

The caveat might be that this is more for original movies.  Trolls 3 and Across the Spider-Verse did pretty well.  Besides being IP-related movies they probably also had more of a following among teens/young adults.  Like teens/young adults who were kids when the first Trolls came out would be more likely to go see that than a more kid-friendly original movie like Wish or Migration.  And Spider-Man pulls from all age demos plus some who maybe aren't huge Spidey fans but liked the first one.  Super Mario being a video game franchise from the 80s also probably had broader support.

That's just my theory at any rate.

(Bolstering my theory is Mendelson's newsletter today saying that the top 7 movies streamed this year were all animated movies.  Some like Moana, Encanto, and Frozen were older ones too.)

Celebrate Groundhog Day With A Blast From Blogger Past!

 Since Groundhog Day falls on a Friday, I decided to have a little fun with it.  The famous (or infamous) movie Groundhog Day is about Bill Murray's selfish weatherman getting caught in a time loop of one particular Groundhog Day in a small Pennsylvania town I'm not going to look up to spell correctly.

I got thinking that it'd be fun then to do my own little homage to Groundhog Day by picking a random old post to loop back to on February 2nd.  I did it by using a random date generator, which took a few tries then to find a date that wasn't on a weekend or otherwise when I didn't blog.  Then I copied and pasted the blog post.  I find the easiest way to do that in Blogger is to go into the edit screen and select the HTML view and just copy the code.  Then create a new entry and paste the code in the HTML view.

Of course that only is for Blogger; anyone who uses Wordpress or some other site would have a different setup.

Anyway, if anyone reads this, I thought maybe other people could do this for their blog on February 2nd.  Not an official "blogfest" but maybe an unofficial one if you've got nothing better going on.  From what I've seen the last few years, most people don't.

And come back February 2nd to see what the random generator picked!

Burning Books is Wrong. But So is Banning Book Burning.

 On Facebook there was a post about Denmark banning the burning of the Quran and other holy texts.  The writer of the post proclaimed, "Absolutely absurd and an outright attack on free expression. Shame on the Danish Parliament."  But while I don't support the ban, I also can't support people who burn books, even books I don't agree with let alone like.

Of course saying that I don't support burning books opened up a can of worms.  The usual gamut of insults and illogical arguments.

"What about Mein Kampf?  Wouldn't you burn that?"  No, I wouldn't.  Because when you start saying some books are OK to burn, where do you stop?  And who decides?  And like Rod Serling said in a Twilight Zone about death camps, we need to keep evil books like Mein Kampf around so people will remember.  Erasing the bad can be just as harmful as erasing the good because it makes it easier for the bad to repeat itself.  Already you can see that happening as more and more survivors of the camps and veterans of the war die off; it becomes easier and easier for young idiots to think it's a hoax or just some story in a movie.  

"So I have to own a book forever?"  Um, no, there are plenty of non-burning ways to get rid of books you don't want.  Give them to a library, sell them to a used bookstore, sell them online, or like I've done before just leave them somewhere.

To which this idiot said, " If every moron gave their books to local library that would be too many books. How many books are sold in usa every year? You want to build libraries to keep them all?"

You think libraries keep every book donated forever?  And apparently no one ever checks them out.  Yeesh, such two-dimensional thinking.

"The only books I would choose to burn are *my* books to do with as I please. I wouldn't be burning somebody else's books."  The overly simplistic idea here is "as long as I own it I can do what I want."  OK, so as long as "Moms for Liberty" and other fascists BUY the books that's OK then?

"If they go out and buy copies of the books themselves and then decide to set their own property on fire, I'd encourage them to do it as many times as they want to increase sales and the profits of the (presumably) LGBT author. Do you think that's a bad thing? If so, why?"

I get it's America and capitalism is great and all that, but this isn't ONLY about money.  If authors of LGBT books put out books and make money but no one reads the books, then that's not really a happy ending.  The kind of books we're talking about aren't dreck like I put out that is just to make money; these are books about serious issues.  The point is for those books to be read, not just to make money.

Another thing about "my property" is you know what they say:  possession is 9/10 of the law.  So if people elect a fascist government and they take your books, does that make it their property at that point?  At which point, does that mean they're entitled to do whatever they want with it?  Including burning it?

The other thing about the "it's my property, I can do what I want" argument is the simple people who say this don't really think it through.  Just because you own something, doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with it.  You can own a cat or dog but that doesn't mean you can butcher them or have sex with them or light them on fire.  There are things you can't do with cars and things you shouldn't be able to do with guns.

And really, until about 159 years ago, half the country could "rightfully own" people.  So by the ownership logic, a slave owner could light his slaves on fire if they displeased him.  It's his property, right?

To which someone said, "Books are just paper!"  Well if they're "just paper" why are people burning them in protest?  Obviously they aren't "just paper."  So that person called me a troll and tapped out.  And others just laughing reacted and tapped out.  When you can't fight with logic then just use icons and insults.

The point is the old saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right."  Fighting something bad with something bad doesn't make it right.  Whatever injustice you think you're fighting by burning books, it's still wrong.  And passing a law to ban that is also bad.  It's just two different flavors of fascism.  They're both pretty rancid.  A couple of other people also said something along those lines so at least it wasn't just me--for once.

On Friday I'm kinda sorta trying to bring Blogfests back!

The Template for a Moderate Blockbuster is Pretty Common Sense

On Bluesky, former Forbes film industry expert Scott Mendelson announced he was doing a Substack thing and so I followed it.  One of the first articles is about the success of the Hunger Games prequel:  The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which was pretty successful without the eye-popping numbers of Avengers Endgame or Avatar The Way of Water.  And the template seems kinda common sense.  It's really something studios--even Disney--should follow more closely.

1. Don’t spend like it’s a sequel to an already successful picture. 

The budget for this movie was only about $100M or half that of The Marvels.  Or maybe a third of Endgame or Avatar 2.

As an accountant I can verify this common sense wisdom:  fewer costs means greater profit.  The less you spend making the movie, the more you can make in profit.  Within reason.  I mean there are a lot of movies on the Rifftrax site that probably cost less than $5000--and look it.  You still want to have decent actors and effects, but don't spend so much that you're not likely to make it back.  Like they say about gambling:  bet only what you can afford to lose.  And making a movie is a bet.

2. Don’t promote your new movie by promising a new franchise. 

I mean, right?  How many times have studios been burned on this?  I get they want to make a splash at ComiCon or wherever by announcing some big "cinematic universe" or whatnot, but it's really putting the cart before the horse as the saying goes.  Then it's a little embarrassing for the studio when they promise a bunch of spinoffs, sequels, and TV series and the whole thing has to get scrapped because the first movie flops like The Mummy or maybe the second movie underperforms like Justice League or Divergent 2--whatever it was called.  Or in the case of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible series they're back pedaling on calling the next movie "Dead Reckoning Part 2" because "Part 1" didn't do so well.

I suppose the theory was that announcing a bunch of stuff would generate buzz on social media and make people worry about FOMO if they miss the first one.  But The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes took a more measured approach and people watched it anyway.

At this point, with so many franchises and attempted "cinematic universes" and sequels, spinoffs, revivals, and reboots on film and television maybe it's at the point where announcing another one just makes people go "Ugh" instead of "Yippee!"  I mean people only have so much time available to invest and so if they think they might have to invest a bunch more time in something they might balk, whereas if you don't announce a bunch of stuff they might be more willing to watch it because they won't have to invest more time later.

And, more depressingly, with "inflation" and such a lot of people just might not have the money to see 10 different movies of a "cinematic universe" and sign up for a streaming service for 5 new TV series.  And they really don't have the money to support 20 different "cinematic universes."  Another reason that announcing a bunch of stuff might not get people as stoked as execs are hoping for anymore.

***

With "the MCU" seeming vulnerable, Star Wars still trying to recover from setbacks, and its animated movies not really connecting with audiences, it seems like Disney should adopt these rules.  Don't spend $200-$300M on the picture and cool all the grandiose announcements of sequels and spinoffs until you actually have a success.

If you think about it, that's kinda how those properties started out.  I mean when Iron Man came out they weren't paying Robert Downey Jr $20M; he was a bargain signing because of his past issues.  Director John Favreau had done a few movies but pretty much a bargain signing too.  And while they had Incredible Hulk already coming out I don't think they had announced a 5-year slate of movies yet.  Like I said in the previous entry, they didn't have another MCU movie until 2010 and then two more in 2011 not like the 3-4 they've been doing except in 2020.  And obviously they didn't have any series going back then; Agents of SHIELD didn't come along until 2013 and that was only tangentially connected--the same for Daredevil in 2015 and Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Punisher after that.

And the initial success of Star Wars was the same way.  Lucas made the first movie on a shoestring budget with mostly nobodies except a couple of old British guys.  No one at Fox was announcing a trilogy with spinoff TV shows.  They didn't even have action figures made until the year after the movie came out!

Besides Disney, other companies like DC and Paramount with Star Trek, Transformers, Ninja Turtles, etc should really follow those rules too.  Don't spend a ton of money on a bad project.  Don't announce a ton of stuff you'll have to back pedal from.  Do one good project that's cost-effective and if it's successful then worry about doing more.

It's easy for success to breed overconfidence though.  And when someone else is successful it's easy for you to think you can do the same thing.  But life--and movies--are mostly a crapshoot, especially in uncertain times.

On Friday I'm kinda sorta trying to bring Blogfests back!

Superhero Movies: The Fire Rises...And Burns Out

With the failure of most superhero movies in 2023, "superhero fatigue" has become a favorite term.  One person on Facebook wrote it all off as a "fad" expiring.  I don't really think you can call something that's been so successful for 15 years a "fad" but whatever.

When you think about it, the history of superhero movies has been like a fire that burns hot for a time, dwindles to ashes, and then reignites.

The Fire Ignites 1978-1982

Before 1978, "superhero movies" were mostly the old serials from the 40s featuring Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel (aka Shazam), and some others.  There was also the Adam West Batman movie in the 60s that didn't really do much.  Mostly superheroes were on TV in live action and animation.

Then along came Richard Donner's Superman with Christopher Reeve as the titular hero and the awesome John Williams theme song.  People believed a man could fly!  Though I thought it was pretty cheesy but whatever.  The movie made a lot of money and had a successful sequel (that was mostly filmed at the same time) in 1981.

But it didn't spawn a 15-year "fad."  No one really developed any other hit superhero franchises, just the disappointing Supergirl spinoff and MST3K/Rifftrax fodder like Pumaman and Supersonic Man.  And so in a few years the fire had burned down.

The Fire Rises:  1989-1995

By 1989 superhero movies were over again.  Superman had been retired after the lame fourth movie and not much else had really happened.  Then came Tim Burton's Batman, which brought its neo-Gothic style, Michael Keaton in black rubber, and Jack Nicholson as a scene-chewing Joker.

The sequel came out in 1992 and wasn't as good but still performed decently.  Another 3 years later came the cheesy Joel Schumacher sequel that was the biggest movie of 1995--in America.  Apparently it was #6 in the world.  

Unlike in 1978, this time there were a couple of lame attempts to capitalize.  Marvel had crappy Captain America and Punisher movies--and almost a Fantastic Four movie from Roger Corman and a Dr. Strange movie from Full Moon Entertainment that was released as Dr. Mordred.  And a couple of parodies like Blankman and Meteor Man.  And there was Sam Raimi's Darkman, which I love but the public did not.  But Raimi would have the last laugh.

But in 1997 Batman & Robin and Spawn flopped pretty hard and so the superhero movie fire burned out for a few years except for Blade which was really more about vampires anyway.

The First Modern Era:  2000-2005

After mostly an absence for a few years, superhero movies returned in a big way in 2000 with Bryan Singer's X-Men.  Gone was the cheesiness of Joel Schumacher's Batman movies and none of the neo-Gothic look of Tim Burton.  Instead there was more of a realistic look and attitude.  Sam Raimi's Spider-Man came along in 2002 to amazing success.  Sequels to both franchises were well-received.  

There were also the failures like Hulk and Daredevil.  And in 2004-2005 a couple of moderate successes in Hellboy, Batman Begins and Fantastic Four.  All of those would have sequels though only one would be successful.

The fire had already reached its top temperature and started to burn out again.  In 2006 there were disappointments in X-Men: The Last Stand and Superman Returns.  It only got worse in 2007 with the lame Spider-Man 3, Ghost Rider, and Fastastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Really 2007 should have been the year that killed superhero movies forever, but the best was yet to come!

The MCU Era:  2008-Present

Superhero movies seemed to be on the ropes...and then Iron Man happened.  It wasn't exactly a billion-dollar hit like later Marvel movies but it laid the foundation with Robert Downey Jr.'s smart-ass performance as Tony Stark and a cameo by Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury at the end.  There was a little hiccup with The Incredible Hulk a month or so later that didn't really slow the MCU.

In July came Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight with Christian Bale returning as Batman and Heath Ledger's Oscar-winning turn as the Joker.

The next couple of years the fire maybe was burning a little lower--especially for DC--as Watchmen wasn't a big hit in 2009 and Jonah Hex was a pretty big flop in 2010.  Fox didn't do so well either with X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Iron Man 2 did well and brought in more elements to the MCU.

Then the heat turned up in 2011 with Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.  It really ignited in 2012 with the billion-dollar-breaking Avengers movie.  A few months later The Dark Knight Rises did pretty well too.

From there it was on for the MCU with Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America 2 in 2013-2014.  Avengers 2 and Ant-Man followed in 2015.  Meanwhile DC had a decent success with Man of Steel.

DC tried to turn up the heat with Batman v Superman in 2016, but it didn't really pan out.  Fox had a surprise hit with Deadpool while its revived X-Men movies did decently.  Its Fantastic Four revival though was a pretty big flop.  While DC and other comic book companies would try to match the success of Marvel, they never really did.  There were a couple of successes like Wonder Woman and Aquaman but the MCU was large and in charge, culminating with the mega-success of Avengers Endgame in 2019.

But now we're seeing the fire burning out again.  The pandemic delaying MCU movies for nearly 2 years didn't help.  Disney buying Fox took out some of the competition too.  And DC's natural inability to manage anything successful for very long.

Like 2007, 2023 was a year that seems like it should be the death of superhero movies--for now.  Most of the new movies were pretty disappointing and performed from bad to mediocre at the box office.

If the fire burns out again, how long will it last this time?  A year?  A few years?  Probably not forever.  As I said, since 1978 it's come and gone pretty steadily.  The IPs have in some cases have lasted more than 80 years so clearly there's something to them.

It'll be hard to test "superhero fatigue" this year as Marvel has pushed back all of its movies except Deadpool 3 to next year and beyond because of the strikes last year.  The new and unlikely improved DCU won't have its first movie until at least 2025 either.  So maybe the fire will roar back to life then or maybe it'll get snuffed out.

And when you think about it, there's one major thing to each time the fire burns out and comes back:  quality.  After Superman/Superman II you have two mediocre sequels.  Then Batman comes along years later, followed by weaker sequels.  Then X-Men/Spider-Man come along and each has a decent sequel but the third parts and most of the other franchise movies are pretty weak.  Then Iron Man/The Dark Knight come around to start a pretty epic run.

But for years now viewers have been faced with mostly weak sequels and original entries, though there are still occasional good ones like Shang-Chi or The Batman.  But most of the movies are pretty weak and you can't blame the public for having less interest.  When studios make better movies again, people will come back, as they pretty much have my entire life.

Animated Comic Book Movie Wish List

 On the 8th I reviewed a bunch of DC animated movies I watched when I signed up for MAX.  There were some good ones and not as good ones.  It got me thinking about what stories I'd like to see adapted into animated movies.

Because these are cheaper and you don't need to build big sets and stuff, I think the animated movies are a lot more flexible and thus you can do stories that might be harder to do in live action.  It would be great if Marvel did more of them because they wouldn't have to be part of "the MCU" and thus they could use different characters from live action, including ones like the X-Men and Fantastic Four who haven't been introduced yet.

Top of the list (still)

Batman: Knightfall:  As pretty much the definitive 90s Batman story why hasn't this had a real adaptation yet?  They've done the big 80s ones like The Dark Knight Returns, Killing Joke, and Year One and some of the 2000-2010s stuff like Hush and Court of Owls.  Why no true adaptation of this?  

Maybe because to do it right you'd need 3 movies:  the first breaking Bruce Wayne, the second featuring Az-Bats while Bruce heals, and the third with Bruce taking back the mantle.  Still it would be pretty awesome.

By the same token...

Batman:  No Man's Land:  Another huge comic book story from the late 90s and maybe into the early 2000s, this is the one where an earthquake devastates Gotham and the government declares it off-limits.  Batman and his allies do what they can to fight the criminals who have taken over the ruins.  Unlike Knightfall, you could probably do this in about 90 minutes, though 2 parts would be better.

The two stories above were key parts of The Dark Knight Rises but it would be nice doing them separately as they were intended.

DCeased:  This was an Elseworlds event from a few years ago where Darkseid releases a computer virus that basically turns most people into zombies--including superheroes!  Those who are able to resist it have to find a way to try to stop it--or at least save some of humanity.

With Marvel doing a Marvel Zombies series it would make sense for DC to do their version, which is in some ways better.

DC vs. Vampires:  Pretty self-explanatory.  This is a recent event where some heroes are turned into vampires and others try to stop them.  I haven't read it yet but it seems like a pretty obvious property to make into a movie.  Maybe they're already doing it.

Batman:  Vampire:  Speaking of vampires, this 90s trilogy by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones would be another good one to make movies out of.  Since they've done a few R-rated ones already it wouldn't be that off-putting because this does get pretty R-rated.  The first part is about Batman fighting Dracula and in the end he becomes a vampire.  The second part has him fighting his instincts to suck blood while also falling in love with Catwoman who is a were-cat.  The final part has Batman completely giving over to the vampire side and needing to be stopped by Gordon, Alfred, and Two-Face.  There would need to be at least 2 parts, maybe with Part 1 as one movie and Parts 2-3 as a second movie.

Kingdom Come:  This classic 90s story by Mark Waid with excellent painted art by Alex Ross is set in the future where a dude named Magog and a new generation of "heroes" are going bad and so the classic heroes led by Superman have to stop them.  Mayhem ensues!  If they could get the animation to look somewhat like Ross's paintings it would be amazing.  That's probably too expensive and complicated.

Omega Men/Mister Miracle/Strange Adventures/Human Target:  These were all limited series by Tom King, the latter three for DC's "Black Label" imprint.  Omega Men was a reboot of an older series that focuses on White Lantern Kyle Rayner joining up with some rebels in deep space to fight an evil empire.  Mister Miracle focuses on Scott Free who grew up on Darkseid's planet of Apokolips.  He and his wife Big Barda have a kid and...stuff happens.  Strange Adventures focuses on Adam Strange, who was an adventurer on Earth who was taken to the planet Raan by a "zeta beam."  Coming back to Earth, Strange puts out a book about his experiences but something is fishy and Batman tasks Mr. Terrific to look into it.  Human Target is about Christopher Chance, who impersonates people who are at risk of assassination.  While impersonating Lex Luthor he's poisoned and has 12 days to find the killer--and maybe an antidote.  The case leads him to investigating the former Justice League International--the late 80s League basically.  They're all really good stories and as limited series could be compressed into a single movie or maybe two parts.

Future State:  This was a 2021 event that goes farther and farther into the future of the DC universe.  The Dark Detective part has Bruce Wayne faking his death and working off-the-grid without all the toys and such to find out more about the private security force that has basically took over Gotham.  The Next Batman part is about Lucius Fox's son Jace finding a cache of Bruce's tech and becoming a new Batman.  The Wonder Woman part focuses on former Wonder Girl Yara Flor taking over as Wonder Woman.  The Superman parts have Superman going to "Warworld" and forced to fight as a gladiator until there's a rebellion.  Meanwhile his son Jonathan is trying to be Superman on Earth and Kara Zor-El, the former Supergirl, turns the moon into a sanctuary.  I really liked the Batman and Wonder Woman parts.  The Superman parts were a little weaker and since they just did a crummy Warworld story I don't think they'd want to do another of those. 

Like I said, it'd be nice if Marvel did more animated movies because their live action movies tend to do a pretty crappy job of actually adapting those stories.  I mean read the comics of "Civil War" and then watch the movie.  Or "Age of Ultron" that's hardly anything like the movie.  I'd like to see real adaptations of those, which would probably only be possible in animation.  And also:

Spider-Man & Fantastic Four: Life-Story:  It might be hard to do these whole 6-story, 6-decade stories in one 90-minute movie.  Maybe do it in two parts?  Anyway, one follows Spider-Man from the 60s to 2010s and the other follows the Fantastic Four in the same time period, though I don't think they're actually in the same universe.  It's a really interesting take that uses the whole history of the characters.  Animation is the best way to do these so you don't have to either cast multiple actors for the same part or do aging/deepfaking that looks weird.

Secret Wars:  The original big Marvel event that was their response to "Crisis on Infinite Earths" would really be impossible to film in live action because of all the characters it involves.  Basically every character in the Marvel universe at that time.  There was also a sequel where Dr. Doom creates "Battleworld" from various parts of the multiverse and different heroes and villains have to team up to stop him--or side with him.

House of M:  This was a story where the Scarlet Witch uses her powers to make mutants the rulers of the world.  The "M" refers to Magneto and his offspring who rule most everything.  There were sub-series to show how other characters were changed.  Spider-Man was a famous entertainer until it's found out he's not really a mutant.  Captain America was an old guy, Hulk was in the Outback of Australia, and some other stuff.  Ultimately Scarlet Witch is confronted and swaps it from mutants ruling the world to "no more mutants" that kills off all but about 200--for a little while.  Another of those things that might need more than one part depending on how much of the sub-series material they want to use.

X-Men: Age of Apocalypse:  Forget the movie--seriously, forget it, it sucks--this comics story from the 90s was pretty neat because for pretty much a whole year all of the X-Men books were this alternate universe where Legion accidentally killed his father, Charles Xavier, in the 60s or 70s and so Apocalypse takes over most of the world.  Magneto is the leader of the X-Men and married to Rogue while Wolverine/Jean-Grey are mercenaries, Cyclops works for Apocalypse, Angel runs a club like Rick in Casabalanca, Colossus/Kitty Pryde train new mutants, Cylcops/Jean-Grey's future son hangs around with Forge and some other mutants, and Bishop is the only one who knows that things are not the way they should be.  This would probably need to be at least two parts, but it would be awesome and maybe people would buy some of those toys rotting on the shelves of Ollie's.

Spider-Man: The Clone Saga:  Besides "The Death of Superman" and "Knightfall," this was the biggest comics story of the 90s.  And like an episode of the documentary series "Slugfest" mentioned it got dragged out for much, much longer than anyone intended.  But making a 90-minute or so movie would allow the story to be more like how it was originally intended.  Basically the whole thing is about a clone of Spider-Man/Peter Parker who comes to go by the name Ben Reilly and deciding who is the real Peter and who is the clone and whatever.

Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe:  It's exactly what it sounds like:  Deadpool goes nuttier (or sane maybe) and kills every Marvel hero in a variety of creative ways.  Then he takes on villains too and even the writers of his comics!

Deadpool Killology:  Deadpool kills great characters of literature for...reasons.  It's pretty funny to have Deadpool fighting Moby-Dick, Sherlock Holmes, etc.

And for the hell of it, why not throw some non-DC/Marvel in there?

Die:  This is sort of an R-rated version of that old Dungeons & Dragons show.  Years ago a group of British kids were sucked into a fantasy world and all but one escaped.  In the present they're drawn back to that world and again have to escape, which means confronting the mistakes of the past.  Since I thought the series went on a little too long some of the padding could be taken out to easily make this an 80-90-minute movie.

Highest House:  In this series a boy named Moth is sold into slavery.  Moth is taken to "Highest House" the colossal palace of one of the major houses in the kingdom.  It's kind of like King's Landing in Game of Thrones.  Moth is chosen to help a woman work on the many roofs of the place.  But soon in his dreams he starts hearing the voice of a mysterious being known as Obsidian that wants to make a bargain with Moth:  it'll give him whatever he wants if he helps to free it.  Eventually Moth agrees on the condition that Obsidian give him knowledge, heal his sister's eyes, and free the slaves.  But Obsidian can't do all of that directly.

Arrowsmith:  An alternate universe World War I where there's magic along with regular weapons.  A young boy signs up to be a wizard or whatever thinking it'll be all patriotic and glorious and finds it's not.

Lost Light:  I know this will never happen but it was my favorite Transformers comics series ever.  It focuses on Rodimus Prime and a ragtag group of mostly Autobots exploring the galaxy.  Sort of like Star Trek only with the humor and the ragtag misfits it's more like Lower Decks.  An animated movie or two of the best stories would be awesome.  Or just a series.  It'd give Hasbro an excuse to make more toys.

And maybe more...?

Who Would Be Your Retro Justice League?

 Since it's a holiday, here's a completely stupid topic I got thinking about while watching The Flash a couple of months ago.  That movie features a cameo by "Nic Cage" as Superman--or some awful AI that's supposed to be him at any rate--and George Clooney as Bruce Wayne at the end.  If you think about it, about 1998 or so this could have been the foundation of a Justice League movie since Clooney was Batman at that time and Cage was supposed to be Superman.  Then I got thinking, who would you cast as the rest of the league?

Pretend this is a multiverse world where Batman & Robin didn't flop hard and the Cage Superman movie happened to some success.  Now you're tasked with casting the rest of the Justice League for a big summer blockbuster.

Not Vol 1 But Close Enough!

Since it would be about 1998 it has to be people who were around then.  Also I figured we should probably use the JLA volume 1 by Grant Morrison roster since that was about that time period.  That roster was Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman (with one hand), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), and Flash (Wally West).  (Fun Fact:  Cyborg didn't join the Justice League until the "New 52" comics of 2011.)

So here's what I picked:

Superman:  Nic Cage

Batman:  George Clooney

Wonder Woman:  Why not Clooney's Out of Sight co-star Jennifer Lopez?   Can you imagine that booty in star-spangled shorts?  Hell yeah!

Martian Manhunter:  I was thinking Tony Todd of The Candyman and also Worf's brother on TNG/DS9.  He's big and he has a really cool voice.  The only problem is CGI would suck so they'd probably have to paint him green for when he's in Martian form.  Mostly you'd probably want him in human form to save on cheesy-looking makeup.  If they hired Rick Baker and the crew from Men in Black they could probably get something pretty good but it'd still probably be expensive and time-consuming.

Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner):  Since Kyle is supposed to be Latino, who was the top Latino actor then?  Antonio Banderas.  He'd still be young enough in 1998 for it to work.  The good thing about Kyle Rayner's costume is it's mostly black so you don't need it to really be green--or animated.  It could probably look a lot better than the Ryan Reynolds one is what I'm saying.

The Flash (Wally West):  Since this was before The Bourne Identity, I thought, hey, why not Matt Damon?  He'd probably be looking for an action role back then and he wouldn't be too tall and bulky to be a speedster.  So naturally then...

Aquaman:  In the late 90s if you cast Matt Damon you have to have Ben Affleck, right?  And while he'd look more like Namor than Aquaman, just give him a blond wig and beard and a harpoon for one hand and it'd work well enough.  If not, check to see if Brad Pitt is available.

There you go, that's my roster.  With two Latinx and a black guy it's a lot more inclusive than a lot of 90s stuff.

So if you're reading this, who would you cast?  Besides Batman and Superman.  Those are static.  I mean if they weren't I sure as hell wouldn't pick Clooney for Batman.

Make your picks in the comments!

The Danger of Branding Dead Authors

 I've talked before about posthumous books and how much I dislike them.  And who controls an author's work after he/she dies.  And in that discussion I mentioned that since his death in 2013, Tom Clancy has basically been used as a brand name.  His estate and/or Ubisoft, along with Big Publishing have put out a bunch of books with his name on them despite that he never wrote them and had been dead for years prior.  It's still going on as this book is slated for release this spring:

On top of that, Clancy is listed as a producer for TV shows featuring his work when, again, he's been dead for 10 1/2 years.  It's seems crazy.  And then it gets crazier!

Someone on Bluesky mentioned this book:

At first I just thought it was another of those "official" books using his name.  But when you look at it the description is no description and instead of Penguin or MacMillan or some other big publisher, it's through Amazon.

So I'm pretty sure that's just a knockoff.  Which isn't really surprising.  I mean when you make your author a brand it's pretty easy then to create knockoffs using the same brand.  It happens all the time with toys, electronics, watches, clothes, and so on.  Why shouldn't it happen with authors?

Perhaps seeing a couple of reviews saying this isn't a real Tom Clancy book, the description was updated as follows:

Prior to his passing in 2013, author Tom Clancy wrote 19 best-selling books. He co-wrote another dozen or so books with 7 other authors. In the following years 36 more authors have written almost 100 more books. Hundreds of writers have created two dozen video games, several tv shows, and streaming series.

This book, “Between the Lines” is a new kind of genre for the Tom Clancy Universe: Historical Fiction. It takes almost all of the books, movies, tv shows, and every mission in every video game, and references the minor characters and missions in the background of real world events. It’s a new story with new characters taking place between the lines of the rest of the Tom Clancy Universe.

Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Somalia, the Rwandan genocide, and so many other real events now tie together between the lines in the books, games, all the missions in the different games, and movies. See how one of being a hostage changed Erwin Osterman’s life (Rainbow 6 novel, and original game). Find out why Nikoladze was more than just a Georgian oil baron (Splinter Cell). Was Colonel Charles Bliss always an egomaniac (The Division)? How did historic floods in Mississippi ripple into characters and events? What was 911 like for some characters? What effect did Hurricane Katrina have on characters and events?

This story is a new stand alone in a world that crosses the Tom Clancy Universe with the real world, and it does so by reading between the lines and referencing hundreds of secondary and tertiary characters and events.

It also adds a fake publisher with "Turner Book Writers."  Sounds legit.  Basically this new description is saying it's fan fiction, which again you're not supposed to profit off of unless you have the permission of the property holder.

Just to prove it's not an isolated case, here's another one:

That one is done a little better--except the cover--but still I'm pretty sure that's not an officially licensed one.  It is pretty ridiculous that this is what it's come to in publishing, "official" and "unofficial" works trading on a dead man's name.  It's ghoulish and really I'm not sure who's worse:  the big publishers who collude to do this or small-time scammers copying them.

This is the rare case where I don't really fault Amazon.  I mean when the legitimate publishers use "Tom Clancy Blah Blah Blah" for titles, how is some flunky in India supposed to know that some scammer's "Tom Clancy Blah Blah Blah" isn't legit?  You can't expect them to actually read through all the details or read the books themselves.  Ironically by making Clancy a brand, his estate/Ubisoft/Big Publishing have made it easier for scammers--and harder for readers to determine what is "official" and what is "unofficial."

His estate should be ashamed, but I suppose they're too busy counting the money to really care.

Death & Clickbait Should Not Mix

 I've talked before about stupid clickbait headlines.  The idea is these sites deliberately write a headline to entice you to read it.  This happens a lot with "articles" about TV, movies, comics, or sports.  Sometimes it's pretty funny like with sports where a clickbait headline proclaims, "Jets Sign Veteran Packers QB!"  And you're supposed to think they finally traded for Packers QB Aaron Rodgers.  But really it was just about them signing one of Rodgers's many backups Tim Boyle who hadn't been on the Packers for years, but at some point he was, so, hey, it's not lying!  I mean, from a certain point of view, right?

This one is pretty funny too.  "Essential Retailer Faces Key Chapter 11 Deadline."  What "essential retailer?"  To find out you have to not only click the article, but wallow through 7 paragraphs vamping with generic blather about what Chapter 11 bankruptcy is and scroll past at least one video box to find out it's Rite Aid.  I suppose in some places Rite Aid is "essential" though not so much where I live; I haven't used Rite Aid in many, many years because I didn't live that close to one and one drug I used a lot they'd never have in stock so I'd have to wait days longer.  Maybe that's part of why they went bankrupt?

Anyway, most of this is pretty benign, but what really annoyed me was when I saw them doing this with people who died.  One headline was, "‘Transformers’ Voice Actor Dies at 69 After Battling Pancreatic Cancer."  The way the headline is written is to make you think someone from the old TV show or the newer movies has died.  Oh no, was it Peter Cullen or Frank Welker?  (I didn't think so because they're older than that.)  Someone from Beast Wars maybe?  Someone from one of the more recent "live action" movies?

Of course not.  It was "only" a guy who voiced a character on the short-lived 2000 Robots in Disguise series, which I never watched.  No disrespect to him or his family, but it was annoying to open the article and then I'm like, "Oh, OK, that guy from that show I never saw.  That sucks."  I was worried it was someone I was familiar with but then it wasn't.  Then I feel shitty for thinking it's "only" that guy.  But I guess the site got a click so well done.

Another one I saw read something like, "Legendary Member of '84 Tigers Team Passes at 69."  I already knew it was Guillermo "Willie" Hernandez from more responsible sources--ie the Tigers Facebook account.  Otherwise I might have had to give them a click to find out.

I understand the need for clicks, but it's really disrespectful to treat someone's death like some stupid NFL transaction or movie casting rumor.  Most clickbait sites aren't "journalism" but they could have a little professionalism.  Someone's death shouldn't be treated so callously as a way to cash in with a few clicks for ad revenue.

I don't think that's asking for too much, do you?

(BTW, another annoying thing lately is these sites are now posting rumors and just wishes as facts.  Like one Tigers newsletter I get declares, "Tigers Poach Infielder From Division Rival."  Oh, so who'd they get?  No one!  It was just some asshole's imaginary trade for a guy, but the headline clearly makes it sound like something actually happened.  A similar one was, "Vikings trade for $19M QB!"  Well, no, they couldn't as the trade deadline was months ago.  This was again just some asshole's imaginary trade in the offseason, but again, presented like it already happened.  Like the old crying wolf, it makes it really hard to distinguish between actual news and fake news.)