Every day I get a couple of emails, filled with various degrees of venom and proper English, decrying my negative review of Batman Begins. It is, I am forcefully told again and again, the best comic book movie ever. (Of course I have to take my correspondant’s words on that, as most of them are not quite literate enough to make a point beyond smashing their heads on the keyboard) Soon, though, fanboys will be singing a different tune, for Avi Arad of Marvel Movies has announced that the Mort the Dead Teenager movie is moving forward, thanks to Jessica Simpson.
It seems like the world’s most famous bimbo has shot an eight minute test reel for the film, which is to be based on a comic book that was cancelled so quickly that no one even remembers it. Apparently Mort was about a slacker who dies and comes back to haunt his friends or something. Who knows, since comic book fans hate buying any title that doesn’t involve bulging men in tight underwear and grotesque characterizations of women, especially women who are getting raped and killed for shock value or who perhaps have some "female troubles" and kill barely tolerated archers and rearrange realities at the whim of Marvel’s accountants.
Anyhoo, here’s what the media-savvy Avi had to say to MTV:
"We absolutely love Mort, and these eight minutes, unedited, tells you why we should make the movie… This guy [who directed the test footage] should make the movie, but he’s a first-time director. He got Jessica to do it. He basically wanted to show the tone and his understanding of the Mort idea, and he nailed it. Everyone who sees it loves it."