This year has been a very good one for fans of comic book movies. The genre seemed unstoppable at the box office and destined to be a force to recon with for the foreseeable future. Then December came around and a lot of comic movie fans started scratching Lionsgate off of their Christmas lists. Because two comic adaptations from the studio might just kill the comic book genre altogether.

Punisher: War Zone and The Spirit share more in common than just a studio. Both are films based on iconic comic book characters, characters that changed the medium when they were introduced. Both movies offer the characters returning to celluloid (The Punisher starred in two previous motion pictures, and the Spirit was the focus of a TV movie in the late 1980s). Both films were released within weeks of one another, and both have the makings of being two of the biggest flops in cinematic history.

Punisher: War Zone was released on December 5th and only ranked a 22% fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes. It opened in a paltry 8th position, grossing only $4,271,451 in its opening weekend. It was out of theaters 3 weeks later, with only $8,816,788 in tickets sales, earning back only a quarter of its $35 Million estimated production budget.

Punisher: War Zone left theaters just as The Spirit was entering them. Frank Miller’s adaptation of the classic Will Eisner hero fared even worse with the critics over at Rotten Tomatoes, earning only a 16% fresh ranking.

The film opened on Christmas day, and, like War Zone,it opened in the lower part of the top 10, at number 9,  in its opening weekend. It earned $6,510,000 for the the post-holiday weekend and $10.352,000 for the five-day period. Budget estimates for the film are not available, but logic dictates that it has to be close to Sin City‘s $40 Million budget. Earning 25% of your production costs back in one weekend is as good as what Punisher: War Zone did in its entire run, but The Spirit  is still unlikely to make a profit.

There is one thing that is certain. Two high-profile comic book films tanking at the box office in such quick succession could be damaging to the genre’s future.

This might seem outrageous to some. After all, films adapting or inspired by comic books made close to $3 Billion dollars worldwide up to this point. But Hollywood is very much a “what have you done for me lately” kind of town. The Dark Knight came out months ago, it’s ancient history. The studios might look at the performance of Punisher: War Zone and The Spirit and think it indicates a change in the tastes of the moviegoing audience.

Comic fans might say there are mitigating factors. War Zone was the third time to the well for the Punisher character. It could have been three strikes and you’re out. And The Spirit was released the same day as four other highly anticipated films–Marley and Me, Bedtime Stories, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Valkyrie. Some movie had to lose in that scenario.

On top of that, both films were directed by relatively unknown and inexperience directors and neither had a big-name star in the lead. Add that to the bad reviews, and there are valid reasons why people stayed away other than they were just tired of comic book movies.

The effect these flops have on the genre will not be seen right away. Watchmen, barring any legal injunction, will be hitting screens in March. X-Men Origins: Wolverine will arrive two months later. Pre-production has begun on a sequel to Iron Man and you know Warner Brothers will have one for The Dark Knight as well. So there will be comic movies coming for the next couple years at least.

But it will be interesting to see if studios are willing to take a chance on lesser known comic properties. There is also a chance that some of the comic films in development might be sent into turnaround. In a perfect world, you’d have the studios look at Punisher: War Zone and The Spirit and figure out their mistakes to make a better comic book movie. But it is far more likely that they could move away from the genre entirely.

Twentieth Century Fox has announced the release of the 1953 classic Biblical epic The Robe on DVD and BluRay on March 17. The film was the first motion picture to be released in the new, wide screen process CinemaScope, which the disc will replicate. Fox has put the film through a year-long restoration with input from the Academy Film Archive and the Film Foundation.

Additional special features on the standard DVD edition include:

• An introduction to the film by Martin Scorsese
• Audio commentary with film composer David Newman and film historians Jon Burlingame, Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman
• The Making of The Robe featurette,
• The Music of The Robe
• Alfred Newman’s score presented as an isolated music track
• Still galleries
• Interactive pressbook

Additionally, the BluRay disc will have the following additional extras-

• Vintage celebrity introductions by Richard Widmark, Susan Hayward, Robert Wagner, Clifton Webb and Dan Dailey
• The CinemaScope Story featurette
• From Scripture to Script: The Bible and Hollywood featurette
• A 1969 audio interview with screenwriter Philip Dunne
• 5 Movietone News shorts
• Trailers and TV spots
• A poster and lobby card art gallery
• BonusView picture-in-picture viewing mode featuring The Robe Times Two (a comparison of the full frame and widescreen versions)
• 10 A Seamless Faith: The Real-Life Search for The Robe featurettes

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s first pictures from next summer’s Transformers; Revenge Of The Fallen comes four new pictures from USA Today. Not surprisingly, one of them features a copiuos amount of explosions.

According to the USA Today article, the Michael Bay film is the first movie to actually film on the 5,000 year old pyramids, as shown in the one picture with Bay training the camera on the returning John Turturro.

As for the film’s plot, the article states that Sam (Shia LaBeouff) is being chased by the villanious Decepticons over what he has learned about the origins of the Transformers and how that ties in to Earth’s ancient history. Meanwhile, humanity is trying to come to grips with their new alien, robotic visitors, with some governments distrustful of both the Autobots and Decepticons. That certainly sounds like potential for a good story, so I’m starting to become cautiously optimistic about the film’s prospects.

With The Dark Knight making almost $1 Billion worldwide while in theaters and the DVD being one of the hottest gifts this holiday season, it is not a question of will there be a sequel, but who Batman will face in it.

You may have seen in the last few weeks a number of websites giving their two cents as who the villain or villains should be and who should play them. Well, now that almost every other website has given their picks, we here at FilmBuffOnline are going to give ours.

We are going to break it all down for you. Which comic bad guy or girl should be involved, why they make a good choice and why they don’t and which version should they use. And we’ll also give you who we think should play them.

We are naturally going to ignore Ra’s Al Ghul, Scarecrow, Joker, and Two-Face (All could come back, with recasting to replace Heath Ledger a remote possibility). Instead, we are going to focus on new characters–including ones fans are clamoring for.

Catwoman:

Who is she?: Selina Kyle is a cat burglar with a heart of gold and a flirtatious relationship with Batman.

Why she’s a good choice: After the events of The Dark Knight (heretofore referred to as TDK), Bruce Wayne could use a little female companionship, preferably someone who could handle herself well in a fight.

The Catwoman character would fit with the realism of the films and the Robin Hood-like nature of the character in the comics would provide a nice contrast to the movie Batman (Both break the law for the greater good). And her story arc would lend itself to a lighter tone, something the franchise could use.

Why she’s not a good choice: It might be a bit too soon for Batman to engage in any romantic entanglements.

Who should play her?: Definitely not Cher. Or, not that it needs to be said, not Hallie Berry either. No offense to either, they are both fine actresses, they just aren’t Catwoman.

Angelina Jolie seems to be the popular choice, but I get the feeling it’s more from a purient desire to see her in skin-tight plether than her considerable acting skills.

My choice would be a little bit unusual. I’d choose Ellen Page. I see the current comic Catwoman as being scrappy yet able to mix in high society. I think Page can pull that off well.

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Ann Savage, best known for role as the femme fatale in the 1945 film noir classic Detour, has passed away on Christmas Day. She was 87.

Savage died in her sleep from complications following a series of strokes.

Born Bernice Maxine Lyon in Columbia, South Carolina on February 19, 1921, Savage’s father passed away when she was four. Moving with her mother to Los Angeles with her mother when hse was 10, she caught the acting bug wand started appearing in local theater productions. It was during a workshop production of Golden Boy that the then 22-year old Savage attracted the attention of a studio talent scout.

Upon being hired by Columbia Pictures, Savage was put into roles in a variety of b-pictures starting with One Dangerous Night (1943), an installment in the studio’s “Lone Wolf” detective series. She also made appearances in After Midnight With Boston Blackie (1943) and in comedies such as Two Senoritas From Chicago, Dangerous Blondes and Footlight Glamour (all 1943).

Savage played tough women in the noirs The Unwritten Code (1944),  Apology For Murder (1945) and The Last Crooked Mile (1946).

But it was in 1945 when director Edgar G. Ulmer cast Savage as the cigarette-smoking Vera in Detour that she found the role for which she would be best remembered. In the film she memorably bullies tough guy musician Al Roberts (Tom Neal) into doing her bidding. When the film slipped into public domain and began airing on television, it soon sparked a critical reappraisal of the film. In 1992, Detour would become the first film noir to be named to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. Detour also marked Savage’s fourth co-starring role opposite Neal- the three previous pairings being in Klondike Kate (1943), Two Man Submarine (1944) and The Unwritten Code.

Heading into the 1950s, Savage took only sporadic jobs, mostly in television. Last year, she made her final film appearance in Canadian director Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg.

EmpireOnLine has a nice post-Christmas gift for Transformers fans- three new pictures from next summer’s sequel. The first is a shot of stars Shia La Boeuf and Megan Fox running from some explosions and the second is someone hanging on to a pole while a pair of cars fly through the air above. (I’m going to presume that they were thrown by one of the giant robots that populate the franchise.) The third is a behind-the-scenes shot of the production filming on location atthe pyramids in Egypt.

I wasn’t much of a fan of the first film, but hopefully the second one will be better. I like that they’re keeping the international scope of the first Transformers film, at least. We’ll know how things shake out when Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen premiers June 26.

Earlier this week, I was reminded of the thrill I got when I first saw Paul Giamatti explode across the screen. One of the cable movie outlets was running Howard Stern’s Private Parts (1997), which featured Giamatti as the beleaguered WNBC radio programming director Kenny. Taking responsibility for “taming Stern,” Giamatti’s Kenny is a slow but every rising boil of frustration and anger. It’s a great performance, one that really announced Giamatti as an actor tpo watch in the future and one which would inform several of his future roles including his star-making performance as Miles in 2004′s Sideways.

Giamatti’s latest film, Cold Souls, is premiering at the Sundance Film Festival next month. In the dark comedy, Giamatti plays himself in the midst of an existential crisis, deciding that he might want to go through an experimental process called “soul extraction” to relieve himself of his ennui. The film doesn’t have a distributor yet, but hopefully someone will pick it up at the festival.

Tomorrow sees the release of Valkyrie, director Bryan Singer’s thriller about a real life plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler planned by some of his own Third Reich officers. Granted, the film is probably not the most holiday-themed film to open on Christmas Day. In its place, we’d like to offer a more seasonal-oriented film with ties to Nazi Germany, the animated short The Snowman.

Produced in 1943, The Snowman is the brainchild of director and animator Hans Fischerkoesen. But unlike a majority of films produced in Nazi Germany during the war years, this not a piece of Third Reich propoganda. In fact, Fischerkoesen was a member of an underground resistance group composed primarily of artists. Where other German films of the period always made sure to emphasize the virtues of Germany – Werner Klingler’s 1944 Titanic featured a heroic German first officer whose continuous warnings about the dangers of the North Atlantic ice flow that the ship was steaming through went ignored by the greedy and vain  English owners of the White Star Line – Fischerkoesen’s short has a sense of whimsical innocence that recalls the work of the Fleischer Brothers.

Most sources put the cartoon’s length at about 13 minutes, but the longest version that is online clocks in at just over 10 minutes but only seems to be missing some opening titles. Enjoy.

You can learn more about the life of animator Hans Fischerloesen in this wonderful article by William Moritz.

Via CartoonBrew.

Christmas came a little early for those of us eagerly awaiting Disney’s TRON 2.0.

Bruce Boxleitner, one of the stars of the original 1981 cult classic TRON is returning for the sequel as computer programmer Alan Bradley and his cyberspace alter-ego, the computer program TRON. Boxleitner will be joining his original TRON co-star Jeff Bridges for the new film. The pair will be joined by new comers Olivia Wilde and Beau Garrett.

We still haven’t heard much in the way of details about the plot of the new film, but it is encouraging and exciting that both Boxleitner and Bridges are on board. Now, how about getting Cindy Morgan, David Warner and Peter Jurasik in the cast?

Via ComingSoon.

Turner Classic Movies will be paying tribute to Van Johnson this evening by preempting its previously scheduled films to present five of the actor’s films.

The schedule is as follows-

8:00 PM- In the Good Old Summertime
9:45 PM- A Guy Named Joe
12:30 AM- Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
2:30 AM- The Last Time I Saw Paris
4:30 AM- Thrill of a Romance

Johnson passed away earlier this month December 12th in Nyack, NY at the age of 92.