Actors Who've Played Multiple Comic Characters

Well, there's Ben Affleck who's played Daredevil and is going to play Batman.

There's Chris Evans who played The Human Torch and is playing Captain America.

Who else?  read on...

While Affleck will attempt to remove the memory of "Daredevil" as Warner Bros.' new Batman, THR looks back on other actors -- including Chris Evans, Halle Berry and Samuel L. Jackson -- who've donned tights, capes or masks more than once.

Still More Superhero Movies

LOS ANGELES >> "Doctor Strange," ''Black Panther," ''Captain Marvel" and the "Inhumans" are joining the Marvel cinematic universe.

The studio unveiled the titles and release dates of its upcoming superhero films through 2019 during a Tuesday event in Hollywood. The schedule includes a mix of sequels featuring familiar faces and originals focused onMarvel characters that have yet to be introduced on the big screen.

The slate includes "Captain America: Civil War" and "Doctor Strange" in 2016; "Guardians of the Galaxy 2," ''Thor: Ragnarok" and "Black Panther" in 2017; "The Avengers: Infinity War -- Part I," ''Captain Marvel" and "Inhumans" in 2018; and "The Avengers: Infinity War -- Part II" in 2019.

The movies join next year's "The Avengers: Age of Ultron" and "Ant-Man."

"When we have information we want to reveal, we reveal it," Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige told fans and members of the media on stage at the El Capitan Theatre. "Sometimes that's in a press release, sometimes that's in San Diego Comic-Con -- if everything comes together well -- and sometimes that's on a random Tuesday at 11 a.m. in the morning."

At the end of the event, "Get On Up" star Chadwick Boseman was announced as the actor who will portray Black Panther. He joined "Iron Man" and "Captain America" stars Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans on stage for the reveal.

"I'm blessed to be part of this Marvel universe," Boseman said. "I look forward to making magic together."

Feige said the character will make his first appearance in "Civil War," which will pit Captain America and Iron Man against each other. In the comics, Black Panther is the leader of the fictional African nation of Wakanda who becomes a member of The Avengers.

"He is definitively a big part of 'Civil War,'" Feige said. "We will see him for the first time in 'Civil War' in costume."

"Black Panther" and "Captain Marvel" will mark the studio's first films centered on black and female characters from Marvel comics. Feige said the big-screen iteration of the Captain Marvel character will be Carol Danvers, a U.S. Air Force officer whose adventures take her to space in the comics.

No casting announcements were made for "Captain Marvel," the sorcery-centric "Doctor Strange" or "Inhumans," which is about a race of superhumans.

The Marvel films represent an important chunk of the Walt Disney Co.'s portfolio. Feige said the first 10 Marvelfilms, which kicked off in 2008 with "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk," have made over $7 billion.

Tuesday's unveiling of the so-called "phase three" of Marvel's film schedule comes two weeks after Warner Bros. announced a slate of 10 films based on DC Comics characters, including "The Flash," ''Aquaman," ''Cyborg," ''Wonder Woman" and "Shazam."

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Decades from now, cinephiles will look back on the early 2000s as the Superhero Era — and they’ll be able to pinpoint the moment when the bubble burst. As with all trends, it’s only a matter of time. It happened with film noir and then westerns, it happened to the spy movies of the 1960s, and then to the gritty crime dramas of the ’70s.

And that’s why Warner Bros.’ plan to produce 10 DC Comics movies between 2016 to 2020 seems so short-sighted. The company is so focused on dethroning Marvel as the reigning box office champ that it’s missing the big picture: Superheroes may be invincible on screen, but their popularity won’t last forever. And the upcoming glut of movies might just speed their demise.

The saturation is no joke. Studios have already slated 22 titles over the next five years, not including the handful Marvel has promised with release dates but without any details.

While Marvel has enjoyed hit after hit, from “Iron Man” to “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Warner Bros. has had a spotty past with its DC Comics adaptations. Batman and Superman can deliver predictably big box-office numbers, but beyond those guys, all bets are off. Remember the “Catwoman” catastrophe of 2004? Not to mention the two consecutive bombs “Jonah Hex,” in 2010, and “The Green Lantern” the following year.

Warner Bros. is doubling down on its golden boys: In addition to “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” with Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne, Warner plans to release two other Justice League movies. The directive is clear: Replicate the success of Marvel’s “Avengers” franchise, and pray that Affleck doesn’t pull a Clooney.

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release dates

Marvel killing the Fantastic Four?

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Marvel superheroes are a powerful force in the movie universe, but it's going to take a huge plot twist to get them all fighting on the same side.

When Disney (DIS) bought Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion back in 2009, it secured the rights to Marvel's entire comic-book universe including Captain America, Spider-Man, The X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four and The Hulk. It just didn't get the right to put all of them on screen, and it's still a little bitter about it half a decade later.

Sony (SNE) still holds the film rights to Spider-Man and all the villains, sidekicks and other characters created specifically for his books. The folks at 21st Century Fox (FOXA) hold similar rights to both the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Neither Disney nor Marvel are happy about that situation and, recently, issued an edict to Marvel's writers not to develop anything new for the Marvel properties owned by Fox.

X-Men writer Chris Claremont recently appeared on the Nerdist podcast and told Len Wein, Marc Bernardin and Heath Corson that he's been “forbidden to create new characters… all because all new characters become the film property of Fox.” And -- “because why promote Fox material?” -- the Marvel staff has been told to put exactly zero effort into producing new X-Men merchandise.

Keep in mind that the X-Men franchise has brought in $1.3 billion in the United States and more than $3 billion worldwide. Fox has released seven X-Men films since 2000 and the latest, X-Men: Days Of Future Past, just brought in $746 million around the globe this summer. In the U.S., the X-Men franchise ranks No. 11 just behind the Transformers in overall box-office receipts, not including merchandising and home video.

The Fantastic Four, meanwhile, might just get killed off for making money for the wrong company. Marvel Chief Executive Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter -- portrayed by The Hollywood Reporter early this summer as the media equivalent of a miserly millionaire who dresses in rags and subsists on stale packets of oatmeal -- apparently was so enraged about Fox rebooting the Fantastic Four film franchise that he's killed all licensing and merchandising for the title. As Bleeding Cool reported, workers in Marvel's offices “pulled down lest Perlmutter see one and have his ire raised.”

Also, it looks as if the Fantastic Four themselves are getting the ax, as Bleeding Cool adds that the upcoming Fantastic Four: The End Is Fourever storyline could be the group's last once it wraps up in early 2015. With the Fantastic Four franchise making $620 million worldwide from two films released since 2005 and with the newest installment releasing in August, cutting off the franchise's ability to generate cash from anything other than the films themselves is no small deal.

As the more than $1 billion produced worldwide by 2012's The Avengers makes clear, however, Marvel just loves getting as many of its high-priced heroes under one roof as possible. Combined, the Marvel Cinematic Universe films with rights owned exclusively by Marvel have made more than $7 billion worldwide at the box office from the release of Iron Man in 2008 through the box-office run of this year's Guardians Of The Galaxy. When all Marvel Comics properties are combined, however, they've produced nearly $7 billion in the U.S. alone, and more than $15 billion worldwide.

Marvel and Disney want all of that, which is why recent murmurs surrounding Marvel, Disney, Sony and Spider-Man might just produce a way forward. Sony is desperately attempting to exit the movie business and, according to The New York Times, might be talking to Marvel about getting Spider-Man back into the Marvel universe as the franchise loses steam.

Sony's original Spider-Man made more than $400 million in the U.S. alone when it released in 2002. Adjusted for inflation, that's more than $566 million. The latest installment, this year's Amazing Spider-Man 2, had a tough time cracking $200 million in the U.S. and made just $700 million worldwide compared to the first film's $890 million 12 years ago. Amazing Spider-Man 3 isn't scheduled for release until 2018, a Spider-Man supervillian movie The Sinister Six is coming in 2016 and Entertainment Weekly notes that a flop by either film could put Spider-Man back into Marvel's hands.

Comic books companies have made a habit of killing off beloved characters from Superman to Captain America to make them profitable again. Sacrificing its own creations to pry money out of Fox and Sony's hands? Marvel's true believers have read similar stories before.

the decline of world hunger

Scanning the news, it's easy to think the world is falling apart. But, on Monday, we got a major piece of good news: hunger is on a major decline in the world. Since 1990, there's been a sustained and massive collapse in the number of people who have difficulty accessing food.

The data comes from the 2014 Global Hunger Index, a measure of global hunger from the International Food Policy Research Institute. The index tracks "the percentage of the population that is undernourished, the percentage of children younger than five years of age who are underweight, and the percentage of people who die before the age of five." Malnutrition is particularly bad for children, and poor access to food makes kids way more vulnerable to diseases, the leading cause of child death in the developing world.

The Index goes from zero, which indicates a country with no undernutrition, to 100, a country where everyone goes hungry. Here's the overall score for "developing nations" since 1990, which basically means all countries except for industrialized "developed" nations such as the US, the UK, Japan, and the like:

That's a 39 percent decline over 24 years. That decline in hunger is a massive win for humanity.

Why are things getting better? Credit two things: economic growth and government programs. Global poverty has declined sharply since 1990, especially in India and China, making it easier for people to afford food. Meanwhile, government programs and international aid have made major improvements in getting people access to healthy diets.

Progress on undernutrition hasn't been even. Some countries, like Swaziland and Iraq, have gotten worse over time. But almost all have made huge strides — India, as The Hindu's Rukmini Shrinivasan explains, posted one of the largest absolute declines in hunger in the world.

Just another reason to believe that, for all our troubles, we're living through the greatest era in human history.

[via twitter]

Jan Hooks

(CNN) -- Jan Hooks, the actress and comedian who rose to fame with sly turns on "Saturday Night Live" as Ivana Trump, Tammy Faye Bakker, Sinead O'Connor and as part of the lounge-singing Sweeney Sisters, has died. She was 57.

Her representative, Lisa Lieberman, confirmed the death to CNN. The cause of death was not revealed.

In the late-'80s era of the show that also featured Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Nora Dunn and later Mike Myers, Hooks was the definition of a team player, always putting the sketch first. It was a character-actress attitude, one admired by others on the show.

"She was totally amazing as a sketch player," one of her colleagues, Kevin Nealon, told People magazine.

"She so immersed herself in her characters, and her timing was amazing. She got it from some crazy stratosphere, and I was so attracted to that talent in her, and I don't think she ever knew how well respected and admired she was for her talent," said Nealon, who also dated Hooks for a while.

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Saturday Night Live alum Jan Hooks, who died Oct. 9 at age 57, was most well-known for her comedic impressions of people like Hillary Clinton and her recurring character Candy Sweeney, but SNL didn’t showcase any of those roles when they paid tribute to her Saturday night: Instead, they showed “Love is a Dream,” a short, sweet film starring Hooks and fellow SNL alum Phil Hartman.

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I remember her pre-SNL on TBS with Bill Tush

El Rey

El Rey is new channel I just noticed on Oceanic 36.  It was playing an old Kung Fu movie, Dragon Missle, evidently playing all month on El Ray.  It was launched in 2013 by Robert Rodriguez and carried by Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and DirecTV.

What else is on El Ray besides old kung fu movies?  Well I see Starsky & Hutch, Dark Angel, X-Files, Texas Justice.  And a bunch of infomercials.  Then I see Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer this weekend.  Like that.

McDonald's now promoting rotting food

McDonald's wants the world to know that yes, its food can rot.

In its latest attempt to woo health-conscious customers to the Golden Arches, the company has embarked on a campaign to debunk common perceptions about the quality and nutritional value of its food. At the top of the list was a the long-standing idea that McDonald's meals don't decompose.

The fast-food giant even hired Grant Imahara, the former host of the TV show “MythBusters,” to star in videos touting, for example, the quality of the beef used to make burger patties.

McDonald’s has struggled to defend its cheap, fattening fare since the 2004 release of the Oscar-nominated “Super Size Me.” A scene from the documentary, which tracks star Morgan Spurlock as he eats nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days, showed how McDonald’s french fries did not decay when kept in a glass container for eight weeks.

Compounding the bad press was a blog by a Utah man named David Whipple, who claimed to have photographs of a burger that remained unchanged since it was purchased in 1999.

On a section of the site launched to support the new PR push, McDonald’s refuted the idea that its food doesn’t rot. The company said that tests that show their food never decaying were performed in places where there wasn't enough water in the air to grow the mold and bacteria needed to decompose the food.
“You might have seen experiments which seem to show no decomposition in our food,” the company said. “Most likely, this is because the food has dehydrated before any visible deterioration could occur.”

McDonald’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This isn’t the first time the company has tried to fight back against the idea that its food doesn’t break down. In 2012, McDonald’s hired a doctor from the University of Guelph in Ontario to explain in a post on its Canadian website that the chain’s “hamburgers, french fries and chicken are like all foods, and do rot if kept under certain conditions.”

Bill Gates' Grand Challenge

This week, Melinda and I are joining hundreds of scientists for a meeting in Seattle. The topic is something we’re all passionate about: how to harness the advances of science in ways that benefit the poor.

The occasion is the 10^th anniversary of our foundation’s Grand Challenges in Global Health program, which we launched with the goal of identifying the biggest problems in health and giving grants to researchers who might solve them. To be honest, we’re not as far along as I hoped a decade ago; the process of developing and perfecting new tools—going from proof-of-concept through clinical trials, regulatory approval, manufacturing, and distribution—is even slower and harder than I thought. But we’ve learned a lot, and we’ve made some promising progress.

Grand Challenges has its roots in what I call catalytic philanthropy. It’s designed to fix market failures—places where capitalism fails to meet the needs of the poor. Why is there so much more research done on baldness than on malaria? Because rich people go bald, and they don’t die of malaria.

Grand Challenges is like a venture capital fund in the sense that it backs a lot of ideas—some of them pretty crazy—knowing that many will fail, but a few could have a big impact. I’ll be delighted if five years from now, 20 percent of the initial projects are being deployed and saving lives. And I expect that much of the other 80 percent will still advance the frontiers of science by eliminating dead ends or making discoveries that enable other big ideas.

There’s another Grand Challenge that illustrates both what’s exciting and what’s hard about catalytic philanthropy: making the diagnosis of disease faster and more accurate.

Health clinics in many poor countries don’t have the same kind of sophisticated tools for diagnosing disease that many of us take for granted. If they do have access, it’s often a laborious process that involves mailing samples to a faraway lab and waiting for the results. The result: missed or delayed diagnoses and incorrect treatment plans. The evidence suggests that this problem has tragic consequences; in Tanzania and Nigeria, for example, studies found that misdiagnosis causes 25 percent of preventable deaths in children.

Imagine what would happen if American children were dying at that rate. The health-care market would spring into action, as dozens of companies went to work on new diagnostic tools. Yet because this was a problem of the poor world, companies were ignoring it. The market was failing.

So we challenged researchers: Can you create a new device that quickly diagnoses HIV, TB, malaria, and other diseases… accepts different samples, like blood, saliva, and sputum… is affordable… and reliable… and will work in a small clinic that has only a few hours of electricity a day?

Today, five public-private partnerships have taken up the challenge. The journey from idea to reality is a long one. For one thing, the partners had to figure out whether making such a machine was even technically feasible. It is—several of them have working prototypes.

If this idea succeeds, that will be fantastic. If it doesn’t, we’ll all be disappointed. But as Thomas Edison famously said, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” That spirit guides our foundation’s work in Grand Challenges and all our grantmaking. If one avenue turns out to be a dead end, there are always many more waiting to be explored.

the death of the Saturday morning cartoon

The era of the Saturday morning cartoon is officially over. This morning, The CW’s Vortexx programming block is airing episodes of Cubix, Sonic X, Dragon Ball Z and Kai, Digimon Fusion, Yu-Gi-Oh! and more for the very last time. Next week, The CW is parting with its animated block, signing on for One Magnificent Morning, a live-action block filled with educational shows for kids. This made today the last day to catch cartoons on a network station with your kids.

Over the years, The CW has changed up its Saturday morning programming block more than once. Two years ago, Toonzai became Vortexx. On October 4, Vortexx will become One Magnificent Morning. A changing of the guard signifies different programming, but this time around, there will be no cartoons. One Magnificent Morning and Vortexx are, in fact, quite dissimilar. While Vortexx was mainly for kids, One Magnificent Morning is being billed as family-friendly programming. The new block will feature five hours of live action, educational programming like Dr. Pol, a new show that will follow a farm veterinarian taking care of animals, and The Brady Barr Show, which will follow Barr as he gets up close to wild and dangerous creatures. The move toward educational (and assumedly cheaper) programming has been coming for a long time. The programming is put together by Litton, an entertainment group that also runs Saturday mornings on several of the other big networks.

In 2008, Fox cut cartoons from Saturday mornings. In 2011, ABC signed over its former “One Saturday Morning” block to Litton. Then in 2013, Vortexx became the only non-educational, non-live action programming block geared towards kids on Saturday mornings after This TV shut down its early morning cartoons. Now, Vortexx is gone, too.

For years, from the 1960s into the 90s, Saturday mornings were made for cartoons. Several generations of kids wearing footie pajamas and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle print pjs would clamor in front of the television on early Saturday mornings, savoring hours of programming geared just toward them. Unfortunately, like the prize at the bottom of the cereal box, network cartoon blocks have disappeared.

That doesn’t mean cartoons are disappearing everywhere. The cable networks are doing fine with animated fodder geared toward kids, with Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network leading the charge. Disney XD, too, has done well with cartoon programs, including the popular Phineas and Ferb, Avengers Assemble and the upcoming Star Wars Rebels already receiving plenty of buzz. Streaming services are also offering plenty of alternatives to the traditional Saturday morning fodder, and as a bonus, you can watch whenever you want.

With cable stations and more picking up the slack where the networks left off, it’s not surprising that the major stations would replace early morning weekend programming with new entries. It’s sad, though, that an entire generation of kids is missing out on lazy Saturdays filled with excellent cartoons like The Smurfs, Muppet Babies, Recess, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, Pepper Ann, and much, much more. Replacing them with cheaper, educational content was bound to happen, but a little magic has been lost in the process.

William Shatner in Star Trek 3?

'Will William Shatner appear in Star Trek 3?' has been the question on every Trekkie's lips.

But after being told not to speak about the film for a second time, the original Captain T. Kirk says he's in quite the 'dilemma' but is 'very excited' about the new film.

'Here's my dilemma, I was cautioned not to speak about this and the next day it was out all over Twitter,' William, 83, exclusively told MailOnline.

'So I talked about it and then I get another phone call telling me to keep quiet again! All I can say is that I'm very excited about the film.'

Last week, Shatner took to social media to shut down reports he was set to star in the third Star Trek film from JJ Abrams.

But the 83-year-old gave fans a glimmer of hope at the Wizard World Nashville Comic-Con on Friday, admitting Abrams had been in touch with him and he would indeed be keen to star in the next film, on the proviso the script had substance.

William certainly shares a likeness to Chris Pine, the actor who has taken up the Captain Kirk mantle, and is happy when people describe Chris as good looking.

'You know everyone commented on how good looking he is, so by extension that means I am too,' the Canadian actor laughed.

a popcorn revival

SHELLSBURG, Iowa — Corn confronts you at every turn in Iowa. It blurs past the car window for hours. Stop for gas and you’re likely to find a patch growing out back.

Much of it will fuel cars, feed cattle and sweeten food. But a half-hour’s drive from Cedar Rapids, in front of Gene and Lynn Mealhow’s sturdy farmhouse, ears of corn no bigger than a child’s hand grow from seeds the family can trace back to the 1850s. The small, pearly flint corn has never been genetically modified or hybridized. Its only purpose is to pop into small, crisp puffs that taste of pure toasted corn.

Mr. Mealhow, 59, a soil expert who still looks very much like the hippie drummer he once was, spent years driving around trying to sell his precious popcorn. Now, his Tiny but Mighty brand is on the shelves of Whole Foods. For a family like his, that’s akin to winning the lottery.

The Mealhows are part of a popcorn revival, the latest reinvention of an enduring American snack that has been retooled every few generations to fit shifts in technology and culinary fashion.