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• Series: Smallville, Superman (Nolan/Snyder Relaunch), Criminal Macabre, The Wolverine (Wolverine 2)

A Shift in SUPERMAN Rights

Comics2Film: Brandon Routh in SUPERMAN RETURNS
© Mania

The Siegels win a 'Superman' victory in court. Plus: McQuarrie to pen 'Wolverine 2'. 'Criminal Macabre' at Universal. 'Smallville' episode info. Voting itself out of the Big Brother house, it's your Comics2Film 9.8.14!

More SMALLVILLE Episode Titles Revealed

KryptonSite has posted the episode titles for three November-airing episodes of The CW's 'Smallville' onto their Spoilers Page. Click through if you want to know the future.

CRIMINAL MACABRE Goes to Uni

Steven Niles' pulp detective meets creature-feature concept 'Criminal Macabre' has gone from MGM to Universal, according to Variety. The comic, featuring Niles gumshoe Cal MacDonald is published by Dark Horse, who has a development deal with Uni.

Screenwriter Kyle Ward is writing the script. Dark Horse's Mike Richardson is producing along with Neal Moritz and his Original Film shingle.

The movie had percolated at MGM for years and even had actor Thomas Jane attached to star. On the comic side, the model for Cal MacDonald even began to strongly resemble Jane, especially as seen on the Tim Bradstreet covers for the book.

McQuarrie takes on WOLVERINE

Some time Bryan Singer collaborator Christopher McQuarrie has been hired to write the script for the sequel to 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine', according to Variety.

Fans know McQuarrie's work from 'The Usual Suspects', 'Valkyrie' and 'The Way of the Gun'. He also did uncredited work on the first 'X-Men' film.

As leading man and producer Hugh Jackman has said frequently in the past few months, McQuarrie's script will focus on Logan's Japan period, and the development of his Samurai code of ethics.

The article says the director of the movie is undetermined at this point.

A SUPERMAN Victory for The Siegels

In one of the most interesting intellectual property cases in history, the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel have won a significant courtroom victory in their struggle to regain the rights to the most iconic superhero of all time.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Judge Stephen Larson issued a 92-page ruling on Wednesday finding that the Siegel family was entitled to certain key rights with regards to the character.

Specifically, THR reports that the Siegels have regained control of "those first two weeks of daily strips as well as key sections of early Action Comics and Superman comics. This means that the Siegels, repped by Warners' nemesis Marc Toberoff, now control depictions of Superman's origins from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-El and Lora, Superman as an infant, the launching of the baby Superman into space and his landing on Earth in a fiery crash."

In other words, any stories that deal with Superman's origins, the planet Krypton or his parents are now in the domain of the Siegels. So look for DC Comics stories dealing with Superman's origins to be muted for a time.

For the moment, Warner and DC still retain other parts of the Superman mythology, such as Lex Luthor, the character's ability to fly and even Kryptonite.

Siegel attorney Marc Toberoff has previously vowed that the Siegels would obtain full rights to the character in 2013, although it remains to be seen if that will actually transpire or not.

We highly doubt that DC Comics will ultimately stop publishing Superman comics. A more likely scenario would be some deal making between the Siegels and Warner Bros. that would allow the studio to keep making movies and allow the comics publisher to keep making comics.