“It takes place four years after Train To Busan, in the same universe, but it doesn’t continue the story and has different characters. Government authority has been decimated after the zombie outbreak in Korea, and there is nothing left except the geographical traits of the location – which is why the film is called Peninsula.”
Screenplay: Sean O’Keefe & Brian Helgeland based on characters created by Robert B. Parker and the novel by Ace Atkins
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Winston Duke, Alan Arkin, Bokeem Woodbine, Marc Maron, Donald Cerrone and Post Malone.
The Pitch: “Let’s turn Ace Akins’ Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novel into a movie!”
Tagline: The Law Has Limits. They Don’t.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
If you’re not a fan of Robert B. Parker and Ace Atkins Spenser characters there’s an outside chance you may like Spenser Confidential. If you are a fan of the books, my guess is that you’ll hate this movie. That’s because not a single character goes unchanged to something fundamentally different from the novels.
Spenser goes from an intelligent, wisecracking ex-cop to a less than stellar (IQ-wise) ex-con who aspires to be a trucker. In the novels, Susan is a Harvard-educated, calm, supporting soul mate to Spenser. In the movie she becomes a foul-mouthed, crazy girlfriend that Spenser works to avoid until he needs sex or help with the “case”. In the novels Hawk starts out as a respected rival who works on the fringes of the law and ultimately becomes Spenser’s best friend (outside of Susan). In the movie Hawk is a big, nerdy, untrained lug who dreams of being a MMA Champion who is forced to be Spenser’s roommate.
Peter Berg is usually a director that makes fun movies. Not here. Brian Helgeland wrote the screenplays for LA Confidential, Payback, Mystic River, and Man on Fire. Spenser Confidential isn’t in the same ballpark… not even the same continent.
You may be thinking that if I wasn’t such a big fan of Parker and Atkins’ Spenser novels I would have liked Spenser Confidential better. Perhaps I would have liked it a bit more… but not much.
…Featuring stories by Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and many more of crime comics’ top talent!
Murder, passion, and criminal enterprise are presented here at their darkest, directly from the most talented writers and artists in crime comics!
In these thirteen pitch-black noir stories, you’ll find deadly conmen and embittered detectives converging on femme fatales and accidental murderers, all presented in sharp black and white by masters of the craft.
Matt Wagner not only draws a great Batman, but has also created many great Batman stories. Come this June, DC Comics is releasing Legends of the Dark Knight: Matt Wagner with a bunch of them.
Matt Wagner’s prolific run on Batman is collected in one place for the first time ever. From a mad scientist who has created a race of giant monster men to do his bidding, to Batman encountering sinister machinations and new dimensions of wickedness as he confronts the hooded menace of the Mad Monk, there’s plenty of horror and action!
Collects issues Batman #626-641 and #54 (2016), Batman and the Monster Men #1-6, Batman Black and White #3, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #28-30, Batman: The Mad Monk #1-6, Detective Comics #647-649, Robin II: Joker’s Wild #1 and Batman: Riddler — The Riddle Factory.
Above is a pretty rare video of Lyle Waggoner & Peter Deyell and Adam West & Burt Ward in screen tests for the original Batman TV series. While Waggoner looked more like Bruce Wayne, West was the right choice.
I love this Jurassic Park poster by Paul Mann. You can see a bigger version at Alternative Movie Poster Movement. If you like what you can see, you should click over to Paul Mann’s site and check out his portfolio. There you’ll find more of Mann’s posters, prints and original art.
How about this rare unused poster comp by Steve Chorney for Big Trouble in Little China? You can see a bigger version of it and another color comp that Chorney did for BTiLC at Brandon Schaefer’s Twitter.
If you haven’t watched Ozark, you might want to give it a try. Season 3 is coming, but below is a trailer to give you a taste.
Official Recap for Ozark Season 2. The Byrde family drama ramps up as their money laundering operation in the Ozarks region grows more powerful and complex, drawing them further into the criminal world. Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, and Julia Garner return to their roles for Ozark Season 3, arriving on Netflix March 27, 2020.
They’ve announced the next Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novel. It’ll be called Someone to Watch Over Me and Ace Atkins will again (yea!) be the writer.
In this next thriller in the New York Times bestselling Parker series, Spenser and his new apprentice trace the murder of a young woman to an international crime ring that has been operating with impunity because of the powerful and highly connected billionaire at its helm.
Ten years ago, Spenser helped a teenage girl named Mattie Sullivan find her mother’s killer and take down an infamous Southie crime boss. Now Mattie–a college student with a side job working for the iconic private eye–dreams of being an investigator herself. When Mattie’s childhood friend from the South Boston housing projects, Chloe Turner, is found dead, she decides to take on the case for the family. Taking a cue from her boss, Mattie has a knack for asking the right questions to the wrong people.
Soon, Spenser and Mattie find ties between Turner and dozens of other girls from poor families to an eccentric billionaire with a massive home along Commonwealth Avenue. The man owns properties and business throughout the Massachusetts with connections to local politicians, the state house, and beyond. As a bleak winter bears down on Boston, Spenser and trusted ally Hawk must again watch out for Mattie as she unravels a massive sex trafficking ring that will take them from Boston to the Bahamas, crossing paths with local toughs and an old enemy of Spenser’s–The Gray Man–for a final epic showdown.
Anything Atkins writes is worth getting — never read a clunker by him yet — and his Spenser novels are more than worthy successors to Parker. Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me (Spenser) by Ace Atkins is available for pre-order now and drops on November 17, 2020.
