Tag: Smallville

Geekscape Interviews: Shawn Ashmore on ‘Quantum Break,’ ‘Animorphs,’ and Being Super

by Eric Francisco

On a recent weekday afternoon at a cozy loft in New York City, Microsoft held a press demo for the new Xbox One exclusive third-person shooter, Quantum Break. While playing as Jack Joyce, the time-stopping protagonist modeled and voiced by X-Men star Shawn Ashmore, I turned around to see Ashmore, in the flesh, standing five feet away. During what must have been my fifth double take, my avatar was shot, killed, fell to ground writhing in pain. Ashmore, the real one, winced.

I let Shawn Ashmore die while Shawn Ashmore watched, is what happened.

A few hours later, I’m finally talking to Ashmore himself. I apologized for getting him killed. He said it was okay, and explained how trippy it is to be in a video game again (he was last playable in the video game tie-in for 2006’s X-Men III: The Last Stand).

“The X-Men video game it was like a day of voice recording,” he said to me, reminiscing. “I was so not involved, and I didn’t particularly like that game honestly. To me there was no depth. It was kind of cool to see myself running around and flying and on the ice-slide because at that point I hadn’t done it in the films either. I was like, ‘Oh, at least I get to do the ice-slide here’ This is something totally different.”

He was referring to Quantum Break, the hybrid shooter that’s also a live-action series. During the course of the game, certain actions players make as Jack will be reflected in live-action “episodes” of Quantum Break. Whether it’s successful or not, no one can deny Microsoft and developer Remedy — known for Max Payne and Alan Wake — are trying something bold. “This doesn’t just feel like a video game to me,” Ashmore says. “This feels like a full experience. I think this is potentially a new step to tell stories, get to play great characters this way, and I feel like being part of this was a great step for me. I would do this again in a second.”

For Geekscape, I sat down with Ashmore during the demo in New York to discuss his involvement, the process of being an actor in a game, and we even look back on a few fond childhood memories. Animorphs, anyone?

At one point Quantum Break was very different than it is now, At what point did you jump in in the game’s development?

About two years ago. I’m not exactly sure how much material they’d released or how far the development was along. I think [director] Sam [Lake] was saying today that they’ve been developing for about three years, so obviously it was a fair ways down the line before I jumped in, but it was about two years ago.

What was your first impression then?

I got to watch a demo first and I was blown away. I loved the story, I loved the character. I grew up playing Remedy games so I knew the level of character and storytelling that they were going to bring to it, and the visuals I thought were incredible. You know the stutters, the ripple effect? The game play mechanics I thought were really, really fun. They’ve come a long way from when I first saw them, but just the concept and the idea I thought was really strong, and I was in immediately. As soon as I saw the thing I was like, “Yeah. Okay. Let’s do this. Let’s go.”

What are your impressions of Jack Joyce, the character you play in Quantum Break? What was it like slipping into his shoes that’s been different from your other roles?

What I thought was interesting is that, you know Jack has a slightly troubled past and you don’t know too much about it in the amount you play, but there’s backstory we got to work and figure out. This is sort of Jack Joyce’s origin story. He becomes a super hero by the end, but what I thought was interesting, he’s sort of like an everyman thrown into an extraordinary situation, so he reacts like a normal person would. A lot of games I play there’s this rugged, swashbuckler kind of attitude, like cavalier and that works. That works for a lot of games. What I liked about this is that it felt grounded to me. It felt like when he’s scared, he’s scared. When he’s upset, he’s upset. Just a very grounded, real character being put through the ringer emotionally as we go through the game.

That being said it’s also a lot of fun, like once Jack has these abilities he becomes powerful and enjoys that too. I like Jack. I like Jack’s troubled past, and  as the game progresses you get into a lot of these notions and you go deeper into who these guys are, what their relationships are, the classic idea of Paul Serene, them being best friends and then being pitted against each other. It’s a much more complex relationship than just protagonist and antagonist. These guys love each other, yet they’re pitted against each other, and I think that brought a lot of drama and I thought that was a very interesting relationship to explore as the game goes through. I just thought it was very complex when I jumped in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU17_kd-e4w

There is much ado about Quantum Break‘s story because it’s told in a very unique way. It’s both television and video games. What was that experience like for you, maintaining a character through a digital process and then live-action?

Let’s talk about digital because that was the majority of my work. Because the video game is told from Jack’s perspective and the show is told from the antagonist’s, so it’s the same story told from two different perspectives. So Jack is more involved in the digital aspects, the game aspects than the show. There’s obviously crossover, but I spent more time with the game. It was challenging. It was totally different. I’d never done motion capture work before.

In all the X-Men films we shot it on set and then it was manipulated digitally afterwards, so to do the motion capture stuff was challenging because it’s just a new process. But it was also a lot of fun because it’s really stripped down. It’s a very raw way of capturing performance because it’s actors in big empty room working together, so you have the words, the page, the characters, and the actors recording together, so it felt natural. It felt easy once you got into it, and because you’re doing these sometimes ten minute takes, you get rehearsal ahead of time which you don’t get with film and television.

One of my healthy skepticisms about Quantum Break was the user experience, playing a video game and then watching a show for twenty minutes. As a gamer yourself, what do you think about that experience?

I’ll be honest. I think that if you’re not invested in the story, you’re not going to want to sit and watch the show. That’s what it is. When you’re playing action, you want to play an action game. Again, what Remedy does and what I was so excited for is that they tell a great story. You’re invested in the characters so you want to know more, and I think that that’s what’s important, and that’s what I when I approached the project, that’s what I got out of it. I thought the same thing. I was like, “Okay. That’s interesting.” But when I play a game a lot of times I just want to hit the skip and get back to the action.

I think by telling a story from two perspectives and interweaving the drama and the characters are hopefully grabbing people early, you’re going to want to learn more, so to me that was very important because this is a new way of telling a story. I think that’s really interesting, but I totally understand what you’re saying and I thought about that before I became involved, but when I read the story, I was like “This can work.” Remedy can weave this story so you want to know more. You want to spend as much time as you can with these characters.

I’d be remiss as a so-called “90s kid” if I didn’t ask: Animorphs! We’re in an era where everything kind of comes back and is renewed. Would you want to do Animorphs again?

It’s crazy. I was seventeen when I shot Animorphs in Canada. We didn’t get Nickelodeon in Canada. I worked on the show for two years, but none of my friends watched it. Nobody watched it in Canada because it wasn’t on TV. I came down to the States, I was walking around and people were like, “Oh, my God. Jake.” I was like, “Oh, wow. People actually watch this show.” That was an incredible experience. Then like I’d say maybe a year and a half or two years ago, like I hadn’t heard the word Animorphs in like fifteen years, and all of a sudden it came on Netflix and, again, people were walking down the street and they were like, “You’re the guy from Animorphs.” It had this resurgence, and I heard a rumor somewhere that they’re talking about making an Animorphs feature film, and I think it’s a lot of fun.

Would you want to be involved in that revival?

Absolutely. Sure. I’m probably way too old to play Jake anymore, but absolutely. That would be a lot of fun. That was one of the roles that helped me start a career as an actor, so it’s kind of near and dear to my heart, and it was a great experience at the time.

In 'Quantum Break' players take control of Jack Joyce, portrayed in the game and the live-action series by 'X-Men' star Shawn Ashmore.
In ‘Quantum Break’ players take control of Jack Joyce, portrayed in the game and the live-action series by ‘X-Men’ star Shawn Ashmore.

The big reason I bring up Animorphs is because you have a history with genre. You’ve also, of course, been in the X-Men movies. You’ve done a lot of straight-forward drama and comedies too, but you’re known in genre. What attracts you as an actor to this realm?

I grew reading fantasy, science fiction, comic books. This is my world. Entertainment-wise this is the kind of stuff I love, and I do love straight drama, and I love hard-hitting art house films, but growing up I was reading Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and X-Men comics, and I was playing video games, so this is my childhood. This is the stuff I love, and the reason I love science fiction and fantasy is that I think that you can tell such an extraordinary story. Normal people going through extraordinary things, that’s awesome, and as entertainment there’s escapism. That’s what I liked. I like heightened fantasy, that heightened world.

A lot of the projects that I’m attracted to as an actor are because I would want to watch them. I would want to play them. This is a game that I would love, you know a story driven game with science fiction elements, heightened game play. This is the kind of stuff that I want to play, so from the X-Men to Smallville, to Fringe, and all that stuff. I’m a fan of that. I do my best work when it’s a project that I’m excited about.

Fun question. Out of all the superpowers you’ve had in your career, which one would you actually want to have in real life?

Jack Joyce of course. [laughs] No, I actually am not sure I would want to have Jack’s powers because it’s kind of a burden. I think as you play through the game you realize that time travel is very, very complicated and the repercussions can be very challenging. I think being able to manipulate time might be as much of a burden as it would be as a gift. Maybe I’d go with Bobby Drake, although I’m cold all the time anyways.

Would you be open to coming back for Quantum Break 2 or 3?

Who knows what’s going to happen, but yeah. I would love to be a part of video games again. I loved working with Microsoft and Remedy. They’re creative, collaborative teams. That’s what I want as a performer. As an actor sometimes you step into work where everything is so set you don’t really get to have a say, so you’re just coming in and doing exactly what they want. With Quantum Break a lot of the character and the story were there, but I got Sam and the writers were open to my opinion, so I felt like, “Okay. They want me to bring a lot to this character.”

Is it rare as an actor to have that kind of input in a character?

Not always. For a big studio feature that’s not really the way. It’s more collaborative when you’re on an independent scale, and a lot of that has nothing to do with studio features not wanting actors to have an opinion. There’s so many rungs on the ladder, so if you want to make a change you got to go all the way up to the top, and I was dealing directly with the creative director of the company [for Quantum Break] so if I had an idea I could voice it. They weren’t all good ideas and they didn’t use all of them, but we had an open dialogue where I could talk, so I felt comfortable with the Remedy team immediately. That’s important.

You don’t want to feel uncomfortable you can’t say anything. If I couldn’t give them what they wanted performance-wise, I would say, “Hey, guys. Can we try changing this line? I’m not getting there. What can we do?” They’re accommodating to help me get where we needed because everybody benefits. If the performance is better, the story will be better, and a lot of the times it’s just as an actor sometimes you have a block, like a line just doesn’t read well. On the page it’s great and another actor could pull it off, but for you it just doesn’t roll off your tongue the right way. They were always willing to make adjustments and make things work and that was important.

For longtime Animorphs or X-Men fans, where can we see you next after Quantum Break? 

I’m about to go shoot a pilot for ABC up in Toronto called Conviction. I’ve a film called Devil’s Gate that just finished. Sort of like a thriller, dark thriller. 

Could we maybe see you in a cameo for X-Men: Apocalypse?

No. I can say I’m not in X-Men: Apocalypse. I always hope that there’s another X-Men on the horizon for me because I loved that character. I’d love to go back again, but I am not in Apocalypse.

Quantum Break will release on Xbox One on April 5th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4or8YE-6P4

SDCC 2015: Phil Morris, From ‘Smallville’ and ‘Seinfeld’ on Voice Acting, Kung-Fu, and ‘Real Fake History’

by Eric Francisco

If the worlds of pop culture were real, then that time giant kaiju leveled Hong Kong in Pacific Rim or the Crazy 88 massacre in Kill Bill would be significant, cultural watershed moments in the national psyche. Imagine the documentaries! Well, someone did.

Enter: Real Fake History. Founded on the premise that pop culture really happened, Real Fake History lovingly apes the Ken Burns-style documentary and examines fake history as if they were, well, real.

As with all Ken Burns-esque documentaries — however satirical — , the narrator is a major component, and the show’s producers did no wrong casting the legendary Philip Morris.

The son of Greg Morris from Mission: Impossible, Phil Morris has starred in Seinfeld as attorney Jackie Chiles and Smallville as J’onn, the Martian Manhunter. But he has also had a career in voice acting, with his deep, velvet sound providing the chords for shows like Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Dead Space: Downfall, and The Secret Saturdays.

On the Saturday of the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con, I had just finished watching Phil and a slew of other prolific cartoon voice actors slay a packed crowd attending the “Cartoon Voices 1” panel. They performed an abridged The Wizard of Oz to the delight of everyone — I especially lost it when Eric Bauza used his Puss in Boots voice for Dorothy’s uncle — but Phil was a standout as the Lion and Oz himself.

One thing you need to know about Philip: He’s a dyed-in-the-wool nerd. He loves Comic-Con, and has relished his roles like J’ohnn in shows like Smallville. He’s seen geek culture change, evolve, and proliferate throughout the years; he can’t believe how big it’s become either.

After the panel, I sat down with Philip to talk about what we can expect from Real Fake History, his time as a voice actor, and the complicated, important intersections of race in geek culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNOBHZ7FYUE

How different is it playing a documentary narrator in Real Fake History versus your other voice over roles?

Phil: It’s really not that different. It was just honoring the structure of it because it’s a bit of a mockumentary. It’s based on the whole Ken Burns documentary style and I’m a huge Ken Burns fan, huge. I love it all, America, Baseball, Jazz, Civil War.

You’ve seen the jazz one?

Phil: I’ve seen almost all of them, The Roosevelt’s, I love it all. National Parks, one of my favorite. I’m huge on that. I’m a big narrator fan. My Dad, Greg Morris, was a huge narrator. He did the first Mercedes Benz commercials and Chrysler commercials, so that was the voice you heard. He was also in the original Mission Impossible as Barney Collier, so voice over and narration has been part of my life since I can remember. I’ve worked with Keith David and I’m friends with Keith David and since he’s one of the major narrators of all the Ken Burns stuff, I’m honoring him as well with all this.

What can you tell me about Real Fake History?

Phil: Real Fake History takes the conceit that comics, TV shows, movies, that universe, whatever it is we’re talking about, Walking Dead, Kill Bill, whatever it is, that it actually happened. In that reality, we have bystanders, eyewitness accounts, which is really bizarre, and then I narrate with incredible integrity. The happenings on Endor, or with The Bride in Kill Bill and the Crazy 88’s.

It’s very exciting.

Phil: Oh, but it’s very real, you know what I mean? Every so often we make a little left turn and we do a little bit of a wink, but not a steady diet of it because it would kill it. You’ve got to see it. It’s very, very clever. Very clever stuff.

That’s a tight line to walk because it is hilarious that we’re going to talk seriously about giant robots tearing up Hong Kong. How difficult is it to tread that line?

Phil: I don’t know if it was difficult, but it was challenging. I think the challenge was in not letting the joke out before you set the hook. Do you know what I mean? That’s the key to this show is you’ve got to set that hook, you’ve got to make people believe, “What, is this real? Is this? Oh, no. Okay.” Then they get the joke and they go along with it, but you’ve got to set that hook. Setting the hook is in the integrity with which they bring it out. It’s really, really clever.

What’s been your favorite episode?

Phil: I think it might be the Kill Bill one. It’s one of my favorite movies, number one. The Crazy 88’s is one of my favorite, that whole scene, that whole katana scene, one of my favorite scenes, number two. The way that we address it in Real Fake History, as though one of the surviving Crazy 88’s is giving an account of this, it’s bananas ridiculous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64RyMzXe4fg

On Kill Bill, you say it’s one of your favorite movies, I understand you also are actually a practicing martial artist. You study wing chun.

Phil: Wing chun kung fu.

Can you tell me very briefly how you got started in that? I think that is really fascinating to me.

Phil: Thank you. Well my Dad, Greg Morris, from the original Mission Impossible, when they first started that show, they were told to go take a self defense class because they were one of the first TV shows to use martial arts moves in the show. They wanted them to know what they were. They went and studied with a man named Bruce Tegner on Sunset Boulevard. I was six, I went and trained with them. I was into it. I was really skinny and I got hurt a lot. It was great, but it wasn’t necessarily for a six year old at that time. Even though I was introduced to it then, it didn’t stick until much later and I started studying with Bong Soo Han, who was a Hapkido master and he choreographed the Billy Jack movies, just fantastic, passed away a few years ago.

I stayed with him, got my green belt, or my blue belt, or whatever it was. I bounced out of that, girls, comic books, or sports, or something else. Later, I was a huge Bruce Lee fan early on, as we all were, the kids my age. I’d always wanted to study wing chun because I’d heard the wing chun was his mother art, which he then extrapolated out to ge kong do and created that. I’d never found a wing chun studio until one day I’m in LA and it’s raining and I see on Venice Boulevard a wing chun studio, I pull in. This Asian guy comes downstairs and that ended up being my masters, his name is Hawkins Cheung, I’ve been with him 30 years. I’m in two hall of fames, I teach every Sunday morning in Burbank at 8:00, and wing chun is part of my soul, part of my spirit.

We just came from the voice acting panel, I told you on the way here, it was hysterical. You’re both a screen and voice actor. They’re different disciplines, but there are similarities. What do you find enriching about voice acting that you can’t do in screen and vise versa?

Phil: In voice acting, I can be more characters than I can look like in front of the camera. My voice, depending on what they are looking for from me, I can be a kid, I can be a dog, I can be an Asian bus driver, I can be a Jamaican DJ. I can be so many things with my voice that I can’t be physically because my physicality is limited. There is that. What I like about voice acting too are the people. The people that I meet, as you saw on the panel, are incredibly talented. Their references go everywhere. They have to because then they’re called on when the voice director wants them to do something to reach into that catalog and pull it out.

They have a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of interest, a wealth of passions that move them and they’re able then to convert that into a vocal ease. On camera is different. People are more bound by what they look like obviously. There’s more ego I think involved in the on camera because it is a full representation of who you are. Whereas voice acting, it’s a representation of the artist and your voice, but mainly the artist’s rendition.

When I’m doing Jackie Chiles or I’m doing a Disney show or any show, that’ me. People see me. They relate to me directly, there’s no indirectness to it, it’s very direct. I rather like it more. I rather like that walking and talking three dimensional field of face acting as opposed to vocal acting more. People have asked me what I like more, I think I like being in front of the camera more. I don’t know quite why.

You talked about this on the panel, which really struck me: minorities in Hollywood. It’s is a very powerful subject to me as well. Your father was one of the pioneering black performers in his era.

Yes.

You’ve also played super heroes, that’s a hot topic lately. They call it race bending. Michael B. Jordan is playing Johnny Storm and people lit a fire, so to speak about that.

Phil: No pun intended! [laughs]

Nope, not intended. But what is your opinion on someone who has also played super heroes and is also a performer of color?

Phil: We have enough renditions of the traditional super heroes throughout the ages. You know what I mean? Where did they come from? They came from somebody’s imagination, somebody’s creativity. That’s all this is. It’s another branch of creativity and expression that is pure. The politicization of this does it a disservice. It hampers the creator into thinking I can only make Johnny Storm a white, blond haired, blue eyed guy because that’s how Stanley and Jack Kirby initially created this character. Okay, that’s what those creators thought about it.

Now we have other creators that have come along in the generation since who go, “Man, this is my take on this particular character.” Why are you going to hamper the creativity of these other creators who have a different take on it because we’re so culturally tied to certain things. It does us a disservice as a people, as a species that we’re not able to open our minds to accept. People ask me all the time, what character would you want to play?

That was going to be my next question.

Phil: Traditionally, I’m always going Black Panther … blah, blah, why, because they’re black? Yes, that’s my limitation. In coming to Comic-Con today, I literally thought about who I’d want to play, I’d want to play Captain America. I think we need a new Captain America.

I think so too.

Phil: With a new ego’s that reflects today’s morality, today’s dilemmas. Back when Captain America was created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon … it was to answer the desperate of the war. Hitler, Togo, Mussolini, and Stalin. He was our representation of what America could do to stop the Axis powers. He came out of that time, he was a hero for that age. We need a new hero for our age. One that represents this pan of racial community that America has become. Until we do that, until we demystify these stereotypes and we knock down these cultural barriers, we should always have cultural identity and awareness and respect and honor, but not barriers.

That it keeps us from understanding and honoring other cultures. From travelling into those other areas to inform me more about who I am. Dude, you’re going to get me on a soap box here, but that’s how I feel about this. That’s why I think this Michael B. Jordan thing’s fantastic. Fantastic, bring it man. Bring more. Bring me a black dare devil, you know what I mean? I’m serious.

On the subject of super heroes now, you’re clearly very passionate about nerd culture, geek culture. You must of seen this culture proliferate. Could you have ever predicted that was where we were going to be?

Phil: No way, no way, and anybody who says they could’ve, they’re lying. Stan Lee couldn’t see this, you know what I mean? Carmen Fantina couldn’t see it. These guys and girls that spawn this industry are so fantastic, but there’s just no way you could of seen that technology would catch up to filmmaking so that you could represent a hero on screen seamlessly without us seeing the wires and the trampolines and all that stuff that they had to use before.

Now even the casual fan can be fully immersed and taken away in a way … cinematically that we could never do before. That has all changed. Bringing a comic book from the newsstand to the big screen is a lot easier. Bringing it to the small screen is even easier. Where as before you could only go to the big screen because of budgets and the film constraints. Now all of that stuff is fairly nominal to spend money on those effects. You can bring it to the small screen like we did in Smallville, it’s a great effect, they’re doing in Arrow like they do in The Flash. You see these shows on television becoming very successful because the technology is able to match the image and the concepts.

About Smallville because people have fond memories of that, what’s your fondest memory of working on Smallville as the Martian Manhunter?

Phil: My fondest memory honestly is meeting Allison Mack for the first time. Allison Mack was so kind to me my very first day. So supportive to me. She was like the greeter, unofficial, but she was the first person I met. If anyone knows Allison Mack, you’ll raise your hand, you know what I’m talking about is a true. She is one of the sweetest, smartest women, talented woman I’ve ever met. To meet her first was probably a great blessing because she really welcomed me and she kind of gave me the lay of the land, [because I] hadn’t met Tom yet.

Because I am a fan, I was more anxious doing this show than any other probably because I am a fan. I needed to measure up to my own fandom, but I knew there was a great fan base that was going to look at me and go, “Man, is this our John Jones or is this guy just a scumblebum. That to me, meeting Allison on that first day and having her be so gracious, so welcoming, set the tone for the whole experience I had up in Vancouver doing Smallville.

You’ve had a very prolific career from voice acting to screen acting. What’s been the one most rewarding thing about it when you look back? Not that you’re over it yet.

Phil: The fact that I get to do it. That sounds trite maybe, but there’s a lot of talented people in the world and the fact that I came from my father was no guarantee that I was going to have any talent, number one. Or that doors would open, number two. My father being who he was did not guarantee any of that. He didn’t help in any way. They spend money on you, you’ve got to perform for them. Not your father, not your mother, not your aunt, not your uncle. That’s why I say being in this business and continuing to work is the blessing.

I’m diverse. I like comedy, I like drama, I like Internet stuff, I like big screen, I like small screen. If it’s good, I’m probably there. If it’s a good solid crew that’s working, I’m probably going to be there. I find that’s a blessing. The more I work, the more I find that I’m blessed because I find so many people get off the train, they quit, it discourages them. They can’t make enough money. I have not had that problem and I look at that as a great blessing.

Last words about Real Fake History, what we can look forward to in this upcoming season?

Phil: Watch them all. They’re all funny and comment, comment, comment. Like them. Don’t like them. Do whatever it is you feel. I can’t tell you how to feel. I just know they’re really, really funny and I like them a lot.

Real Fake History can be found on YouTube by Machinima. Their newest episode, “The Battle of Castle Black,” can be found below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heK04CCJzVI

Could We See Batman Appear In CW’s ‘Arrow’?

by Shawn Madden

We already know that some DC villains would be showing up in Arrow but when producer Marc Guggenheim was asked if fans should expect to see some familiar heroic faces turn up as well. Unfortunately, his answer is pretty vauge on it.

“I would say, ‘Probably.’ One of the things we want to do is roll the show out at the right pace. For the most part, I think we’ve taken the philosophy that things are happening sooner rather than later. I always feel like every time we get the note from the network, ‘Is this happening too soon?,’ I feel like we’re on the right track. I know as a viewer myself, I’m impatient. I want to see stuff. We’re not going to make the audience wait to see characters, plot twists, revelations. I think running out of great characters and great moments is a quality problem to have, and I just want to have them.”

On to topic of the possibility of whether Batman will be one of the allies that this iteration of Oliver Queen meets up with, Guggenheim remains optimistic that the team behind Arrow will be able to use him in the series. Smallville producers wanted to do this for years but the execs at Warner Bros. wouldn’t allow it. Now that Nolan’s films are done could we see Bruce Wayne on the small screen?

“Oh, my hope is that we can use him at some point. I think that plagued the Smallville showrunners more than it plagues us because, obviously, the Dark Knight Trilogy is over. They’re not available to us yet. My hope is that they’ll be available to us at some point. That would be awesome. No question, that would be absolutely awesome. But I don’t know. That’s above my pay grade.”

So, would you like to see Batman make an appearance and team up with the emerald archer on Arrow?

Source: IGN

First clip from The CW’s “Arrow”

by Stephen Prescott

Let me lay this out for a quick second…

The CW knows that Smallville is ending and they really need another super-hero show to fill the void being left. The best thing about the last few seasons of Smallville (I know that is a bit if an oxymoron, but all things are relative) was almost definitely Oliver Queen/Green Arrow and the character’s portrayal by Justin Hartley. It would make some sense that CW, and by default Warner Bros., would want to capitalize on that character’s popularity.

But, instead of building a Green Arrow spin-off from Smallville they decided to reboot the character completely, in a new “darker/grittier” universe (the WB’s current MO for all things super-hero. ugh) with no connection to Smallville whatsoever. They can’t even blame it on Justin Hartley not wanting to continue in the role because at SDCC 2010 he was open to the possibility!

Someday I really hope to understand the thinning that goes on behind the scenes at Warner Bros. in relation to their media strategies with DC Comics, but for now I remain baffled at their choices.

Anyway here is the clip: