Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the weekend. Have a link to share? Email our team at rundown@multiversitycomics.com.
– So predictable you didn’t even need to open your inner eye to see it coming, Doctor Strange opened at the top of the box office. It pulled in nearly $85 million over the weekend in the States and about $118.7 internationally. In the grand scheme of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it placed as the studio’s tenth best opening, topping the weekends of Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and Ant-Man, though it didn’t quite make Thor: The Dark World’s numbers. I guess the only thing more predictable than its performance is its plot, and it’s glee in white-washing everyone.
– But the Marvel train continues. Michael Giacchino announced he will be providing the score for the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming. Of course, seeing how everything Marvel does is a carefully controlled copy-and-paste operation, it’s more likely producers are using him for his name, rather than for any memorable themes.
– Double Take, the comics publishing house led by Bill Jemas, is shutting down at the end of November. Double Take was a division of Take Two Interactive and all its titles took place within the Night of the Living Dead universe.
– Ciaran Hinds has been cast as Steppenwolf in the upcoming Justice League movie. You might know Hinds from such roles as Aberfoth Dumbledore, the goat-fucking younger brother of Albus Dumbledore.
– Ever wonder why Chris Claremont never seems to be getting work anymore, even though he helped define what made a superhero comic thanks to his run on “X-Men”? Well, in an interview with Bleeding Cool, he mentions being under an exclusive contract with Marvel. And while Marvel are keeping him under contract, they’re not really giving him any gigs, effectively paying Claremont not to write. (Bleeding Cool were, as to be expected, only too happy to pat themselves on the back for guessing this.) Speculation around the Multiversity offices ran that it wasn’t so much that Claremont is terrible now or an embarrassment to himself, but more of Marvel doesn’t want him joining ole buddy Jim Lee and having the blurb “From the creators of ‘X-Men’…” on some other company’s books. Branding.
