Austin-based comic book author Steven John Busti is suing DreamWorks Studios, Universal Pictures and comic book entrepreneur Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and his company Platinum Studios over the graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens and it’s subsequent movie adaption which hit theaters this past summer. Busti claims that he created a comic book story titled “Cowboys And Aliens” in 1994 and had it published in the indie comic Bizarre Fantasy the next year and that the 2006 Platinum Studios comic is a direct steal of his original story.

Normally in a situation like this, it is hard to prove that an idea was lifted from one author’s work for another’s. The law makes allowances for the fact that two people can spontaneously and separately create pretty much the same idea and that those two people can develop that idea along similar lines.

The idea of space aliens in the Old West is a pretty easy concept to dream up on one’s own. And it is possible that the defendants could normally have been able to use that as a defense.

Except for the fact that Busti has a smoking six-shooter that could prove pretty damning if this case gets to court. Prior to the publication of his story, Busti and it were profiled in the weekly Comic Shop News. It turns out that in the same issue, Rosenberg is also profiled. Definitely a connection between the two.

Now you may be scratching your head as to why someone would want to sue an unsuccessful movie such as Cowboys & Aliens. While a potential settlement could have been greater if the Jon Favreau film had been a box office smash, a bad film could taint the saleability of the original comic. If Busti is able to prove his claim, and it looks like he can, the damages could be an estimation of what he might have conceivably been able to earn if he had been able to secure his own film deal.

Via Deadline.

1. Cowboys & Aliens (Universal, 3,750 Theaters, 118 Minutes, Rated PG-13): To call this film a comic book movie would be inaccurate. Scott Rosenberg sold this premise to Hollywood nine years before it was ever made into a comic book. It went through production hell over that time, allowing Rosenberg to publish a comic based on the premise in 2006. So it is only a comic book movie by that slimmest of coincidences.

Not helping matters is the fact that the film bears only a passing resemblance to the comic book. Outside of both taking place in the Old West,  involving an alien invasion of Earth, and a shapeshifting alien on the good guys’ side, the two are as different as night and day. The comic was a pretty straight forward, us-vs.-them, genre story, with nary a mention of an amnesiatic cowboy with a space weapon attached to his wrist.

But does have Indiana Jones teaming up with James Bond. So it’s got that going for it, which is nice.

2. The Smurfs (Sony/Columbia, 3,395 Theaters, 86 Minutes, Rated PG): I have to say, this film looks like it smurfing sucks. It only has a smurfing 10% fresh over at Rotten Smurfing Tomatoes, and I imagine that will only get lower as more reviews come in. Way smurfing lower.

The cast is a mixed bag. Some of it, like Neil Patrick Harris, smurfing rock. Others, like Katy Perry as the voice of Smurfette, are dubious at best (Really, what the smurf is she doing supplying a voice?). And Tim Gunn? Acting? I thought I’d be smurfed with a smurf in my smurf, while smurfing a smurfed smurf before I saw that happen. Smurf me.

So, the plot, what there is of it, involves the Smurfs being let loose on real world New York City. The beat the heck out of NPH while being chased by Gargamel (Hank Azaria), who doesn’t want them to boil them down for gold anymore, but to “enhance his magical powers.”

3. Crazy, Stupid, Love. (Warner Brothers, 3,020 Theaters, 118 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Here is a rarity in the world of the summer blockbuster, the intelligent, adult comedy.

Steve Carrell plays a man whose life becomes unravelled when his wife asks for a divorce. Entering the single’s scene after years away, he’s helped by a studly Lothario played byRyan Gosling.

The film is chock full of good actors, including many Oscar nominees and one winner (Marissa Tomei). This film should be a pretty good alternative if you want to get away from all the flash and the noise.

John Favreau has let slip a sneak peek at the trailer for his upcoming film Cowboys & Aliens which will be premiering later this eveing during the Super Bowl at some point around the end of the first quarter.

The film stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford and this gives us our first look at some of the action to be had when the film hits theaters July 29th.

Director Jon Favreau, who launched Marvel Studios growing superhero franchise with the blockbuster Iron Man and its sequel Iron Man 2, will not be back for a third installment. He will be continuing his executive producer duties on Marvel’s The Avengers.

The news was confirmed earlier this afternoon by Deadline after being initially reported by Vulture.

No reason for the departure were given, though a few educated guesses could be made. Favreau is currently wrapping up Cowboys & Aliens for release next summer and will next be going on to do Magic Kingdom for Disney, which would probably conflict with Marvel Studios’ plans to get Iron Man 3 into theaters for May 3, 2013.

Also, with the success if the two Iron Man films coupled with the possibility of Cowboys & Aliens being another hit for the director, Favreau’s directing fee is very probably rising for each new project he takes on. He reportedly was given a $10 million paycheck and for Iron Man 3, he would probably would have been asking $12 to $15 million with up to 15% of the movie’s box office take. This would be in addition to whatever Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr is getting from his participation in the film’s gross. Given Marvel’s, shall we say pusillanimous, nature, it is very probable that Favreau has priced himself right out of what they would be willing to pay.

But there is a third possibility, and one that has been lurking in the background for some time – a growing unease with how to approach the cinematic world that he had helped to create. When a director was being sought for Marvel’s The Avengers, which would feature Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk and Thor all sharing an adventure, many fans thought that Favreau would be the perfect candidate for the position. But the director deferred, stating he wasn’t sure how to merge the magical reality of Thor with the more technological reality of Iron Man and the others. Favreau expounded on that just last week when talking to MTV -

In theory, Iron Man 3 is going to be a sequel or continuation of Thor, Hulk, Captain America and Avengers… This whole world… I have no idea what it is. I don’t think they do either, from conversations I’ve had with those guys.

So now we are left with Marvel having to find themselves a director who will step into Favreau’s shoes, no tall order as star Downey has contractual approval over anyone who may up for the job. Marvel has no script and will need to find themselves someone soon to oversee the production if they’re going to get Iron Man 3 in front of cameras by 2012 in order to make their May 2013 release.

Commentary tracks on films on DVDs are pretty standard at this point in time. But this has to be a first – Jon Favreau providing a commentary track for the trailer for his upcoming science-fiction western mashup Cowboys & Aliens.

Of course, this is just a clever way for MTV to do an interview with Favreau, but it is clever nonetheless. And it gives a little background on the film for the uninitiated.

Cowboys & Aliens stampedes into theaters next summer.

A very busy day at the Comic-Con. A lot of “first looks” and a very ugly incident. Let’s get that out of the way first.

ITEM!: There has been, as far as I can remember, no major act of violence at Comic-Con. That changed Saturday. Reports say that an argument of taking up seats during panels in Hall H resulted in one fan being stabbed in the eye with a pen and one man leaving the facility in handcuffs.

Comic Book Resources has as good a run down on the developing situation as you are going to get, including a statement from the San Diego Police on the matter.  Apparently, the fight broke out at the end of the Resident Evil: Afterlife panel when the attacker confronted the attackee, saying that if he was there for a later panel, that he should leave.

The situation is a developing one. It will probably be days before we know all the facts and even longer before we know how this will effect San Diego Comic Con and reflect on comic fans.

My knee-jerk reaction? It’s a wonder that this didn’t happen sooner. The SDCC policy of letting people stay through one of more panels so they can have the seat they want leads to the people camping out over night just to get a prime seat. There is a certain cache built up around this practice, almost as if it was a selling point for the con. But it also results in the fair share of disgruntlement and anger amongst fans. Granted, no one would ever go as far as stabbing another person, and that behavior in never acceptible under any circumstances, but there were signs of resentment yet SDCC seemingly put no effort into finding an acceptable alternate plan.

ITEM!: The logo from the Green Lantern movie was unveiled.

ITEM!: Destroyer robot from Thor revealed on convention floor.

ITEM!: First image from Cowboys & Aliens unveiled.

ITEM!: Logo for The Avengers film released.

ITEM!: As per CBR’s live blogging from the Marvel panel, they showed some brief clips from the first eight days of shooting on Captain America: The First Avenger. They also made mention that Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, is now back under the auspices of Marvel Studios, so expect yet another revamp of that franchise (I, for one, liked the last go round). And at the end of the panel, to the surprise of no one who has internet access, they brought out the cast of The Avengers film,  introducing Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, and Joss Whedon as the director. The one piece of information that everyone was waiting for (okay, maybe just me) was who would be playing Ant-Man, but this didn’t get answered at the panel.

UPDATE: According to Bleeding Cool, Whedon was quoted as saying that Ant-Man wasn’t in his The Avengers movie.

With one film franchise going strong and a second one just gathering steam, Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t have any more room in his work schedule for a potential third. The LA Times has reported that Downey has dropped out ofthe upcoming comic book adaptation Cowboys & Aliens, which is due to be directed by his Iron Man collaborator Jon Favreau.

With his schedule dominated by potential further sequels to Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Sherlock Holmes, the Times reportage hints that the actor wants to leave some space to do smaller, non-blockbuster films. Hopefully, these will be more successful in the vein of Tropic Thunder as opposed to The Soloist.

Dreamworks is reportedly looking at moving forward with the film, with Favreau still in the director’s chair. They just now need to find a new charismatic actor to play the leader of a revolt of cowboys and Indians against some aliens who have landed in the Old West with plans on enslaving the local populace. The studio still hopes to get the film before cameras sometime this year.

Hollywood Reporter ran a story that Robert Downey, Jr. was currently in negotiations to star in Cowboys & Aliens, a comic book adaptation that DreamWorks and Universal are looking at as a possible 2010 summer blockbuster.

While it is exciting to see Downey close to closing his first post-Iron Man deal, even if the project that wasn’t on many people’s radar for the actor, it does raise some questions about the future of the proposed Iron Man sequel. Normally, the scheduling of projects can be moved around a bit based on key participants’ availability. As most of the success of Iron Man can laid on the shoulders of Downey and his collaboration with director Jon Favreau, it makes sense that Marvel would want the pair back for the sequel and would wait until both their schedules permitted them to work on the film.

However, Iron Man 2 is not just a sequel, but a key component in Marvel Studio’s overall franchise plans for the next few summers, in which various superhero films will all dovetail into an Avengers team-up movie featuring those various heroes joining forces for one uber-blockbuster. In the wake of Iron Man’s spectacular box office opening last month, Marvel announced that it planned on releasing Iron Man 2 and Thor in the summer of 2010 and a Captain America film at the beginning of the summer of 2011. All three films would serve as lead-ins to mid-summer 2011’s Avengers.

The problem is that Marvel’s aggressive schedule does not have a whole lot of wiggle room, especially if they wish to stick as close as possible to their already announced release schedule. In order to make the intended April 30, 2010 release date, Iron Man 2 needs to go into production no later than spring 2009, the same time Cowboys & Aliens would need to in order to meet Universal’s desired summer 2010 date. With such a short lead time, Favreau has already stated that he feels the script writing and post production phases would be rushed, which would adversely affect the final film. And this is not even taking in to account that Favreau has still not yet been signed by Marvel to direct the sequel.

Ideally, Marvel could switch the Thor and Iron Man 2 dates for summer 2010, moving Thor to an April 30 opening and debuting Iron Man 2 on Thor’s currently staked out date of July 4. But this would only buy the Iron Man 2 production an extra eight weeks or so, not enough for Favreau’s needs. If the commonly held assumption that May 2011’s Captain America movie ends in a way that directly leads to the following July’s Avengers movie is correct, than Marvel certainly won’t want to move Captain America around on their schedule. Delaying Captain America and the Avengers films is probably not an option under strong consideration, in that further time between films would undermine the franchise momentum Marvel is trying to build.

The only alternative this leaves Marvel would be to be more malleable with their release strategy, leaving Thor in the summer of 2010 and perhaps moving Iron Man 2 to the holiday season of that year. There, its only currently announced competition would be Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1. Flipping Iron Man 2 to November/December 2010 would also put the movie closer to Marvel’s 2011 summer one-two punch of Captain America/Avengers, perhaps allowing more of a head of steam to develop for their overall franchise.

Lesser desirable scenarios include Marvel not making a second Iron Man film, and plugging another production into that spot. Currently, Edgar Wright is developing a movie based on Marvel’s Ant Man, a character who has long and strong ties to the Avengers. Marvel has not made any firm statements as to when to expect an Ant Man film. It is conceivable that Marvel may be holding Ant Man “on deck” to fill a spot if either the Iron Man sequel or the Thor movie were not ready to go into production when they need them to. (A script for Thor has been in development for years.) Conceivably, Marvel could recast. But given the fan reaction to Downey’s portrayal, that would be a suicide move.

Right now, Marvel is in a precarious position and needs to make some smart decisions and needs to make them quickly. They are to be commended for attempting as something as high risk as what they are doing. However, they need to take steps now to insure that the whole thing doesn’t fall apart before it really gets started.