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2005 - King Kong, The Eighth Wonder of the World!
Even though these movie magazines hardly ever feature any comic book content, I'm still fascinated by them and can't help but feature some of them here on the blog.
In the age of the internet, with magazines dropping like flies, "official movie souvenir magazines" seem like such an antiquated, old-school idea that I'm charmed they're still around.
So here we are, the official movie magazine for Peter Jackson's mammoth King Kong remake. I didn't buy this at the time; rather I picked it up on eBay for a buck or two a little while ago.
Being a fan of the original, and even the 1976 remake, I was hoping this publication would provide a rich history of the character. But unfortunately this concentrates solely on the remake. It does open with promise, featuring a really cool, moody pre-production painting:
...as much as I liked the movie (and I did like it, a lot!), I wish there had been something this cool-looking in the movie!
Anyway, this magazine features the usual PR-centric features, including profiles of the stars, some of the crew, and of course Peter Jackson:
(As a side note: carrying Naomi Watts around all day is a job I'd volunteer for!)
There's interviews with Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, and a nice little section on the effects people. Thankfully, they weren't all guys sitting in front of their computers:
There's also an interview with Andy "Gollum" Serkis, who did the same job for Jackson in the LOTR movies that he did here. In that part of the magazine, there's this priceless still from the shooting of the movie:
...you know, seeing that gives me new respect for any actor that can make an F/X-heavy movie and actually find a way to concentrate. I know I wouldn't be able to look at Serkis in that ridiculous get up and not burst out laughing.
This magazine is a dreaded "flip book", in that halfway through it flips over and features a second front cover:
I said "dreaded" because I hate the concept of the flip book beyond reason. I mean, what's the point? To me, it just ruins the whole flow of the magazine. But let's get back to Kong!
So, overall, I was a tad disappointed in this: I would have looooved to have seen a whole "History of Kong" magazine, and who knows maybe they did one like that, too. They could've made a little room for that kind of material here (did we really need an interview with the kid who played the Cabin Boy?), but they decided to keep this one remake-only.
Hmm...I wonder if there's an "official souvenir magazine" for the 1976 version?
Summer 2003 - This one ain't going down easy.
Like I talked about yesterday with Tim Burton imposing his vision onto the Batman universe, the Hulk movie is another example--maybe the best example--of a director imposing his "vision" onto characters that can't support it, even with the Hulk's broad shoulders.
I get the feeling that Marvel and Avi Arad were so thrilled to land the Oscar-winning Ang Lee to direct their Hulk movie that they told themselves whatever he and co-screenwriter James Schamus came up with would be pure cinematic gold.
This souvenir magazine features interviews with all the cast--Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Josh Lucas, Nick Nolte, and Sam Elliott(whose role as Thunderbolt Ross seemed to consist of seventy-five variations on the phrase "Ok, boys, let's take 'em down!") plus Lee and Schamus.
There's also a nice piece on the Hulk in the comics(name-checking Lee, Kirby, Thomas, Trimpe, David, McFarlane, and Keown, and showing off some covers), the special effects, the Hulk video game, and even a talk with Lou Ferrigno!
During the special effects article, there are some preliminary character sketches and it's here where we see one of the places the movie went wrong:
...yes, it's the Gamma-poodle!
All I can think of when I see this was seeing the movie with a group of friends on a Saturday. After the scene of the Hulk essentially beating the Gamma Poodle to death, there was a slight pause, and in the back of the theater you could hear the voice of a small child, worrily asking their Dad "did the doggie die?"
Summer 1992 - My post on the Batman movie magazine two weeks ago garnered such a response that it didn't take me long to go out and find more mags of that type to talk about.
Of course, the best place to start is with the Batman sequel, Batman Returns. At the time, I absolutely loved the movie, and was completely buying into the idea that these Bat-Movies were the best comic book film adaptations, ever.
With the benefit of hindsight(and approximately forty million comic book movies having been produced since), I can see the Burton Bat-Films for what they are--solid attempts at presenting Batman to a mass audience not as a buffoonish clown with a gut, but a grim avenger of the night.
But I also see that the characters and concepts get crushed under Burton's obsessive focus on the same themes that are in nearly all his films--loneliness, sadness, missed chances. Oh, and clowns. Lots of clowns.
After the massive success of the first film, it seems Warner Bros. pretty much let Burton do what he wanted for the second film, and he went a tad overboard.
Danny Devito as the Penguin was great casting, but the design of what is normally a goofy character was so hideous and dark that its just too much. Indeed, this magazine is actually just a giant poster folded up. There were three issues in the series, and when you fold this one out, you get the Penguin "teaser" poster:
...I mean, who wouldn't this on their wall?
Audiences felt the same, and while Batman Returns was a hit, it fell far short of the first film. And indeed, with the next film, both Burton and Michael Keaton were gone, turning the franchise over to Joel Schumacher.
But the less said about that, the better.
P.S.: The last page features an ad for the third and final issue, featuring lots of photos of Michelle Pfeiffer in her skin-tight Catwoman costume. Crap! Why didn't I buy that one?!?
1989 - I wouldn't normally think to cover mags like this here, since, unlike the Warren ones, these things were pretty much just boring, slick long-form ads, with none of the goofy flights of fancy that occurred before Stock Art guides started being issued.
But when I saw this for sale for a measly buck from the same eBay seller I was buying other things from, it was too good(?) to resist.
Back in 1988/1989, I simply could not get enough info on the Batman movie. Quite simply, I was obsessed with it, and since this was pre-internet (back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), info was much harder to come by.
In the end, I sort of diminished the fun for myself of seeing the damn thing, because before I had even walked in the theater I knew way too much about what happened in it. (I've since learned from that, and keep my efforts to a minimum nowadays)
Anyway, this magazine is, as you would expect, a big sloppy wet kiss to the Batman movie, filled with articles on Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, and their respective characters. Plus there's stuff on the Batmobile, the production design, the Batwing, etc. There's even a still from a cut scene from the movie:
...you see that happen sometimes, since giant blockbusters like this get tinkered with pretty much right up to its release. There's also some neat pre-production concepts(like Tim Burton's initial ideas for the Joker, who looked more like the Scarecrow), and some brief history of Batman as a comic book character.
Most surprisingly to me was a fairly long piece of collecting Batman merchandise. Sure, it was in Warner Bros.' best interest to make that seem cool, since they were about to deluge America with a tidal wave of Bat-Crap, but it still makes for a fun piece:
...collecting any and all Aquaman stuff is expensive enough, I can't imagine what kind of cash you have to lay out to collect Batman merchandise, or where the hell you would even store it all!
I'm a little surprised that the Official Movie Magazine concept is still around, in this post-internet world, but I still seem them all the time, for every major league blockbuster. I guess some concepts are just too good ever to go away completely.
Hmm, maybe I'll buy the upcoming one for The Dark Knight and compare...
Marvel must have gotten a good deal on a lotta paper, because in the late 80s they were cranking out all kinds of new b/w magazines with a volume not since their early 70s heydey.
Definitely an odd choice of movies to adapt, the Nightmare on Elm Street film series was by 1989 on fire popularity-wise; they were cranking out a new one per year almost and Freddy Kruger had managed to evolve from the bad guy in the series to almost an anti-hero; he got all the best quips and he started finding his way into mass-merchandising.
First up, if you need a cover both brutal yet sexy, who do you call? Why, our pal Joe Jusko of course! I can't imagine what it must have been like, having to sit there and stare at Freddy Kruger's ugly face all the time it took to paint this. Yeesh!
Anyway, before we even get to the (book-length) story, we're met with the craziest intro any comic magazine ever had:
The story is called "Dreamstalker", and is written by Steve Gerber, half-penciled by Rich Buckler, half-penciled by Tony DeZuniga, and the finishes are by Alfredo Alcala.
I don't see much of Buckler or DeZuniga's style here, but it was a good choice to have Alcala do the finishes; his moody, doom-soaked work is perfect for this type of story. The tone is set by the creepy splash page:
We get to find out Freddy's gruesome origin intertwined with an original tale(not an adaptation of one of the movies), and I was a little shocked reading this how much Marvel and/or Gerber stuck to the tone of the movies(or some of them, at least): very, very grim and not much in the way of the easy laughs that a lot of 80s slasher films used to cut the tension.
Overall, I enjoyed this a heck of a lot more than I would have expected to; Freddy is definitely menacing in this story, and for the most part he's kept in the shadows and unlike the movies, I think it benefits from the less is more approach.
Apparently I am/was in the minority, Nightmare on Elm Street lasted only two issues, a shockingly quick demise even by comic book standards.
Update: The above assumption about poor sales by me was wrong; please read the comments section for some behind-the-scenes info by Nightmare's cover atist Joe Jusko!
