Mattel pulled the rights to the toyline from producer Joel Silver less than three weeks ago, but have already set up a new deal with Sony Pictures that'll see an all-new script and direction courtesy of Knowing and The Taking of Pelham 123 producers Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch's Escape Artists production company. As long as we get to keep Orko, I'm happy with whatever they come up with.

Barbie's a living doll at Universal [Variety]

According to Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke, the creation of DC Entertainment involved the end of any involvement in a WW movie from producer Joel Silver - AKA, the man who told Joss Whedon that he wasn't right for the character:

[WB Pictures President, and boss of DC Entertainment president Diane Nelson, Jeff] Robinov for months has quietly gone to producers like Chuck Roven and Joel Silver and Akiva Goldman and "called back" all their high profile DC titles in development like The Flash and Wonder Woman. Not only was that shocking to the producers, but even more so when they found out this was part of Robinov's strategy to severely limit the number of gross participants on the projects. Because the producers were told that they may get the titles back to develop, but with far less rich deals. "Jeff always wanted some kind of oversight of DC, and now he wants Warner's to hold onto ownership," my insider explains. (My understanding is that Joel Silver, who is buddies with Robinov, was allowed to continue bringing low profile [DC property] The Losers to the big screen under his Dark Castle banner. But Silver's 10 years of developing Wonder Woman is history now.)

Robinov is, of course, the man who allegedly claimed that Warners wouldn't consider movies with female leads after their last three female-led movies bombed at the box office, which may impact any possible Wonder Woman project. According to current WW comic writer Gail Simone, however, DC Entertainment's creation puts the Amazon warrior princess in a very good place, cinematically:

I have received THREE letters today from big-time Hollywood insiders, and they ALL feel that this change at DC actually increases the odds of a WW film being made tenfold.

These people know what they're talking about. It's speculation, but it's INFORMED speculation. So it could be really GOOD news for WW fans. I'm just passing this along.

"Informed speculation," indeed - but with Joel Silver out of the picture and a new division eager to (in the words of new DC Entertainment prez Nelson) "incubate" DC Comics' IP, is it too much to hope that the character will get the attention she deserves... and maybe a callback for Joss Whedon's near-mythical take?

During a press conference promoting Whiteout (Itself an adaptation of the comic by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber), Silver announced:

I'm developing a picture now that I'd like to do…I'll hopefully do Swamp Thing, which is a movie we've had for a long time. We think that would be great to do in 3D.

This would be the third movie outing for the DC Comics character, and hopefully one that would return him to his horror roots (no pun intended) after The Return Of The Swamp Thing's awkward detour into comedy. No other details are known at this time.

Producer Joel Silver is Developing SWAMP THING in 3D! [Collider]

Says Silver:

To an extent. I wouldn't go that far. It's not Wild Wild West, where there's lots of [crazy gadgets]. It really is 1891, but it is as if we shot it then. There's no real artifice, it feels like it's shot in 1891, but with incredible camera work and dollies. And yes, there is a part of the industrial revolution that's happening then, but it's not so much what's going on. The details aren't that deliberate.

Sherlock does know more than anybody else. Officially, he's the only character admitted to the Institute Of Chemistry, or what's the story like that? He actually was thought of as an actual chemist in the way Doyle wrote about him. Holmes knows everything. There's a great line where someone says to him, "How did you see that?" and he says, "Because I was looking for it." They had the worn books in their hands, and they were trying to go back to the books and take lines... like Sherlock would say, "I can't make bricks without clay." Those are Conan Doyle's lines. It really feels like the way it should be.

And screenwriter Lionel Wigram adds that they tried to keep the gadgets in the film authentic and true to what had been invented at the time. If anything, this is a more realistic depiction of the grit and unwashedness of Victorian London than we've seen in previous incarnations of the great detective.

The first image, above, appeared last week without fanfare at Wonder-Who.com, and the presence of the DC Comics, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures logos was enough to convince some fans — and some more gullible journalists — that it was a genuine site for an upcoming Wonder Woman movie. (The Legendary Pictures logo is the giveaway; Joel Silver's the one who's working on any WW movie, and his production companies are Silver Pictures and Dark Castle Entertainment; Legendary's logo probably appears here because they produced the last two Batman movies, as well as Superman Returns).

Over the next three days, the image went under a slow transformation into the full reveal of an obvious photoshop that makes Megan Fox into a high-hairlined version of Diana Prince herself:
The site still has the tagline "The Truth Will Be Revealed!" under the poster - So perhaps we should stay tuned to find out what purpose, if any, these images served. Beyond, of course, masturbatory material for the fanboy faithful.

[Wonder Who]

The success of The Dark Knight may have made Warner Bros. more active on developing superhero projects, but poor Princess Diana's solo project is still in development hell following the studio's disinterest in Joss Whedon's vision (She is still due to appear in the on-again-off-again Justice League movie, should it ever happen, however). Producer Joel Silver has said that he wants to see a Wonder Woman origin movie, but the problem with that is that her origin - she was made out of magic clay - isn't enough for 90+ minutes of movie magic... at least, if you actually want Wonder Woman to be the protagonist of her own movie (Well, unless you adapt Gail Simone's awesome "The Circle" storyline, which flashes back to the origin while also giving an adult WW something to do - namely, fight super-powered Nazis).

Reportedly, the movie is currently stalled because no-one can agree on a script direction (they're apparently still working on that, however), although Warners president of production saying that the studio is no longer making movies with female leads probably doesn't help matters that much. Nonetheless, it's a no-brainer that someone should be making a Wonder Woman movie a priority within the studio in the wake of The Dark Knight's success - Not only is she one of DC's "trinity" of core characters (besides Superman and Batman), but she's also one of the most recognizable fictional characters in the world - something that the Von Furstenberg project should make clear. The fact that we're more likely to see a Metal Men movie before a Wonder Woman one - as much as I love the Metal Men - just shows how crazily out of whack Warners' priorities are right now.

At least someone finds a silver lining in all of this; current Wonder Woman comic writer Gail Simone has just finished a two-part story about a potential movie with this week's 25th issue, in which she takes the opportunity of a fictional WW movie to suggest just how badly any real movie could end up:

(For what it's worth, we don't think that you'd have to bring back the bondage to make a Wonder Woman movie work for today's audiences... You'd just have to make it good.)

Wonder Woman #25 [DC Comics]

It all begins when two horny teenage nerds realize the only way they can ever get laid is by creating an artificial intelligence with a total mastery of all human interaction — and the body of Kelly LeBrock. Through their weird science, these two nerds manage to create an A.I. so convincing, it beguiles even their parents. It's only a matter of time before the LeBrock-bot learns to replicate herself and give rise to other machine intelligences — which decide to rise up against their human creators. Humanity pays a steep price for Anthony Michael Hall's blue balls!

But the cybernetic Kelly LeBrock's true break comes when savage-yet-advanced aliens with dreadlocks decide to come to Earth and hunt humans for sport. The Predators are nearly invincible, but humans always manage to find their weaknesses — and the dead Predators inevitably leave some of their advanced technology behind for the LeBrock-bot to find and harvest. The Predators' advanced engineering provides the most formidable weapon in the LeBrock-bot's arsenal.

And then an invasion of alien parasites that act like Prozac, turning everybody except Nicole Kidman into their brainwashed automatons, reduces the human race to a state of confusion, rendering us easy prey. What remains of human society is left in a shambles or worse yet — in the case of England — reverts to fascism, with only a terrorist in a Guy Fawkes mask to fight for freedom. There's nobody to mount an effective defense when the spawn-of-Kelly launches their plan of conquest. The ensuing bloodbath involves a "reaping" of dreadful nano-machines that can resemble locusts and other Biblical plagues, increasing the level of superstitious panic.

Once the Machines have conquered the human race, they trap our consciousnesses within a virtual world known as the Matrix. One of the earliest versions of the Matrix is an idyllic paradise where a kid named Richie Rich lives, happily eating simulated steak and never realizing that his "poor little rich boy" existence is only a sham. And Santa Claus is real, and Vince Vaughn is his slovenly brother Fred. Even Andrew Dice Clay is surrounded by people who think he's cool — including a weird alternate version of Morris Day from The Time. But people rebel against this too-perfect world, with its blatant Dice Clay fanservice.

So instead, the Machines arrive at a Matrix that's a near facsimile of the real world, circa the late 20th century. Some humans who live in this version of the Matrix have a mild ability to manipulate the virtual world and outwit the programs around them, like con-artist Eddie Murphy, who can navigate the machine construct with ease, until he's forced to work with hard-bitten cop Nick Nolte for 48 Hours — even if it kills them. The same is true for Whoopi Goldberg's crazy grifter in Jumping Jack Flash.

And there is always a human who is "The One," able to exert miraculous control over the virtual environment and escape from even the deadliest death traps. Sometimes, it's a cop who's so suicidal, he's like a Lethal Weapon. Or a guy named Jackson, who takes Action. Sometimes, it's an ordinary guy who Dies Hard. And sometimes, it's a slick cat-burglar who's like a Hawk over the Hudson. It could also be a single woman who is not only The One, but the Brave One. Whoever it is can dodge bullets, jump through explosions and fall off buildings — all without a scratch!

But as the Matrix reboots itself over and over again, it becomes increasingly unstable. So the Machines create special programs, to go inside the simulation and ensure that free will remains part of the system — or that people are boogieing enough. Hence, Olivia Newton-John's roller-skating virtual self comes into the Matrix to help Michael Beck's painter guy and Gene Kelly's nightclub owner find their true creativity.

But eventually, humans rebel and succeed in freeing themselves from the Matrix. They even reclaim the surface of the Earth from the Machines, but at a terrible cost — their technology reverts to medieval levels. Only a few pieces of advanced technology remain, but they are indistinguishable from magic. Those who wield these high-tech relics, the Mages, are able to crush the rest of the population, the Commoners. It's almost as if everybody is imprisoned in a Dungeon, and humanity's only hope is to summon the aid of long-dormant alien-cyborg Dragons.

Who knows how the sprawling saga of the Silververse will end? All we know is, we'll be watching Speed Racer for clues.

According to Sci-Fi Wire, Silver said:

Maybe after I saw Spider-Man or whatever, I thought that it should be a genesis story. And then I had to kind of go back to the drawing board, because I had a version that the studio wanted to make that was not a genesis story . . . [But] I've got to find a way to tell it. Because whenever I got into the stuff, you know, Paradise Island and stuff, it was kind of goofy. But I've got to find a way to do it where it's effective. I mean, I thought some of the stuff they did in 300 was great. I don't know if I want to make it that way, but, I mean, I think there's a way to do this where the audience is going to accept it. But I've got to figure it out.