CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Witchblade live action movie?


[quote="ICv2"]Variety is reporting that Top Cow Productions, Arclight Films and Platinum Studios are teaming up for a live action feature film adaptation of the Top Cow comic book series Witchblade. Marc Silvestri and Matt Hawkins will serve as executive producers along with Platinum Studios’ Rich Marincic. Arclight’s Gary Hamilton and Nigel Odell are producing along with Platinum’s Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.



The Witchblade saga centers around a jewel-encrusted gauntlet that is presented to one chosen female in each generation. It began as a Top Cow comic book in 1995, which has now been translated into 21 languages and distributed in 55 countries resulting in sales of over 100 million copies of various Witchblade comic books. Earlier this year Top Cow re-released the first 160-page, full color Witchblade trade paperback collection with a cover price of just $9.99 providing an excellent jumping-on place for new readers.



A made-for-TV movie produced in 2000 led to a two-year run for a Witchblade TV series on the TNT cable network. The property’s most recent screen incarnation was an anime series produced by Gonzo in Japan in 2006 (and distributed in the U.S. by FUNimation, see “Witchblade DVD Tops Anime Chartsâ€

But when are they going to make a Darkness movie?

geez. what's with all of these live-action movies based off of anime/manga series? akira, dbz, speed racer, and now this?

Witchblade was actually an american comic for long long years before it was ever an Anime. It even had a live action show on TnT for a long time.

So the corrected question would be, "What's with all of these live-action movies based off of comic books? Ironman, the Hulk, Hellboy, and now this?"

Witchblade before The Darkness? What madness is this?

Oh well. The Darkness already got a nice video game.

The darkness leans a lot less on the fanservice. Execs like the fanservice. At least they're not doing Magdalena.

Cognitive Gear (post: 1225848) wrote:Witchblade before The Darkness? What madness is this?

Oh well. The Darkness already got a nice video game.

Ya the darkness was an awesome game. But i would still love to see a movie

Hrmm.... with respect to the comic books from which these titles originate, "Witchblade" is the original, "Darkness" is the spinoff. It would make sense to do Witchblade first, yes?

Of course, they did the "LotR" movies before "The Hobbit", so I guess that isn't a given...

Anyhow, "Witchblade" has been Top Cow's flagship title for just about its entire existence, so they're going to dance with the one what brung 'em, I guess.

EricTheFred (post: 1225906) wrote:Hrmm.... with respect to the comic books from which these titles originate, "Witchblade" is the original, "Darkness" is the spinoff. It would make sense to do Witchblade first, yes?

Of course, they did the "LotR" movies before "The Hobbit", so I guess that isn't a given...

Anyhow, "Witchblade" has been Top Cow's flagship title for just about its entire existence, so they're going to dance with the one what brung 'em, I guess.

The minor issue with this is that, per recent storyline... the darkness actually predates the witchblade and is integral to its existance.

mechana2015 (post: 1225911) wrote:The minor issue with this is that, per recent storyline... the darkness actually predates the witchblade and is integral to its existance.

Yessss.... but of course "The Hobbit" predates "LotR", so that doesn't get us anywhere.

Anyway, they're going to go with their flagship, first. Unlike DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse, Top Cow is new to the feature film level. Witchblade already has a following, since the TV show has a cult following and the anime has a goodl following as well, so by leading with it, they are hedging their bets.

EricTheFred (post: 1226028) wrote:Anyway, they're going to go with their flagship, first. Unlike DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse, Top Cow is new to the feature film level. Witchblade already has a following, since the TV show has a cult following and the anime has a goodl following as well, so by leading with it, they are hedging their bets.

True. With Witchblade, people are already familiar with the title even if they haven't read the comic, not to mention the cheap graphic novels they came out with. The Darkness is still more of a geek title.

However Witchblade wouldn't be leading Top Cow onto the screen--Wanted is.
(though apparently I must read this comic. League of Supervillains? Very much yes.)

The darkness leans a lot less on the fanservice. Execs like the fanservice.

Ah, the fanservice in The Darkness leans toward the opposite gender. We need more female execs!

At least they're not doing Magdalena.

Aww, I love Maggie, theological incorrectness and all.

As long as it's Patience we're talking about, not the other nutcakes.

jon_jinn (post: 1225739) wrote:geez. what's with all of these live-action movies based off of anime/manga series? akira, dbz, speed racer, and now this?

well technically, Witchblade did NOT start off as an anime/manga series. It just started off as an American comic book created by a handful of comic book artist that were coming from the Marvel / DC comics "world" and were creating their own comic book company called Image Comics.

It eventually led to Marc Silverstri and others going on to create Top Cow Productions (The Publisher of Witchblade).

In 2000, they went on to create a TV-movie based on the comic and it did not do too well. It wasn't until recently that the original Witchblade creators partnered with a Japanese anime studio called Gonza to release the first Witchblade anime TV series. (I thought the anime was awesome!)

Now, they're going back to make another live action film. In my opinion, unless the original creators of Top Cow are involved with the production of the film and unless they can find the right actress to portray the main character, then the movie will be great. If they're not involved, the movie will suck. But that's just my opinion.

SirThinks2Much (post: 1226046) wrote:However Witchblade wouldn't be leading Top Cow onto the screen--Wanted is. (though apparently I must read this comic. League of Supervillains? Very much yes.)

Wanted movie? I hadn't heard about it. Went and found the web site. Quite a cast they've arranged.

The tv series was limited though in what she could actually DO with the Witchblade as compared to the comic book.

FKeel (post: 1227114) wrote:Now, they're going back to make another live action film. In my opinion, unless the original creators of Top Cow are involved with the production of the film and unless they can find the right actress to portray the main character, then the movie will be great. If they're not involved, the movie will suck. But that's just my opinion.

The news blurb says that Marc Silvestri will be one of the executive producers. Matt Hawkins is president of Top Cow, and he's been doing a fine job I think with the material that's been coming out lately. I only read a few titles, but they're tightly connected in a good way.

Matt Hawkins wrote:The way I looked at Top Cow from early on was that we need to be a very small boutique publisher. The one thing that Marc and I agree on is that we don’t really have any desire to be big. We don’t have a desire to be a Tokyopop, a Marvel, or a DC that’s pumping out a hundred titles a month. You see a lot of upstart companies all the time – and when I see them just starting out with sixteen, eighteen, or twenty titles in month, that’s the first sign of their death knell. You can only sustain so much.

...

Right. Marc and I are into comics – of course, but also videogames and movies, and other entertainment, and we’ve both come to the conclusion that we’d rather not have something done than have it be bad. That’s something I’ve seen a lot of people doing, particularly in films and the like – they take whatever deal is thrown at them where they get some cash. I’m not going to fault anyone for taking money, by any means, but for us – we held out for years on these Darkness and Witchblade videogame and animation deals in order to find the correct thing that we would work.

Good man.

Why did he mention Tokyopop? They mostly just translate stuff, they don't write or draw it. So even if they do pump out a hundred titles a month, that wouldn't make the quality suffer, since they're not the ones in charge of producing it, merely translating.

Nate (post: 1227426) wrote:Why did he mention Tokyopop? They mostly just translate stuff, they don't write or draw it. So even if they do pump out a hundred titles a month, that wouldn't make the quality suffer, since they're not the ones in charge of producing it, merely translating.

He's not saying the quality suffers. He's just saying that TC is still a relatively small company, and if they try to pump out as much as the bigger publishers, their quality might suffer. He's not saying anything about how well the other publishers are doing (and they're doing it quite well), just that it's not a good practice in general for small and/or new comic companies.

Wikipedia says that Tokyopop is planning on producing 100 OEM/manga adaptations within the next two years. And Tokyopop is younger than Top Cow.