Scifi

Any thoughts for us on the box office performance of Transformers: Dark of the Moon last weekend? We all know how much you love that series.

Is it just me, or does it seem like movies aren't making as much money as they used to? The big summer movies so far don't seem to be having as big opening weekends as I remember them having before.

Mars Needs Moms looks like it's flopped. What went wrong there? I thought science fiction animation was doing decently these days.

I Am Number Four was 2011's first big science fiction release and was expected to win the weekend box office -- and didn't. Why not, and what does it mean?

Sci-fi fans are a spoiled lot: these days, pretty much every movie we geek out over gets released on DVD. No matter how obscure (or downright awful) the film might be, it will inevitably be discovered in some studio's fault, polished up, and given the full DVD treatment. But there are a few gems that, for whatever reason, have not made it to DVD. While some are available in foreign editions (or through the many means of bootlegging), these good, bad, and so-bad-they're-good sci-fi films have yet to properly join our DVD collections.

Take a look, and tell us what you gotta have on DVD in the comments!

Damnation Alley
If you remember anything about this movie, it's the awesome Landmaster vehicle that the characters ride around in. Set in the nuclear fallout of World War III, a ragtag group -- including Jan-Micheal Vincent (Airwolf) and George Peppard (The A-Team) -- drives around fighting giant cockroaches and generally being postapocalyptic. The flick was released by 20th Century Fox in 1977-- the same year as another little sci-fi epic about some wars in the stars. Guess which one is available on DVD.

The Fantastic Four
Long before Marvel Comics heroes ruled at the multiplex, Roger Corman's low-budget 1994 take on the superhero family came along. Never released in theaters, but long passed around in bootleg circles, the film achieved cult status for its B-movie production values, soap-opera-level acting, and laughable special effects. Still, comic-book geeks (and fans of low-rent kitsch) have longed to get their hands on an official copy of this turkey.

A friend of mine was discussing Blade Runner with me, and during the course of the conversation, she noted, in (I think) mock alarm, that there was now less than a decade separating us from the events of that flick. If we are really going to have replicants, offworld colonies, and Los Angeles getting more rain than the Pacific Northwest, then we had better get cracking! I responded by saying that before any of that could happen, Jupiter was supposed to turn into a red dwarf this very year -- as promised to us in 2010 -- and yet to date it gave no sign of actually being infested with implosion-facilitating monoliths. No matter how you slice it, whether you're hoping for replicants or red dwarfs, if you're a sci fan reality is really letting you down.

This shouldn't be too surprising. Reality has been proving scifi wrong for decades now -- or, if you prefer, it's been science fiction movies (and their makers) who have been letting down reality: Always promising wonders right around the corner, and yet when the date for those wonders comes to pass, we're still just us, still without the proverbial flying cars or robot butlers. How can movies get the future so wrong for so long?

Here's something about Diary of a Wimpy Kid (which hits theaters Friday) that you might not know: it started life as a comic. And though the story is mostly known as a series of hit illustrated books, creator Jeff Kinney first introduced the world to the diary of a hapless junior-high kid named Greg via a popular Web comic.

The Wimpy Kid books have become a hit with all ages, thanks to their melding of cartoony artwork with witty tales of bullies, school plays, and other adolescent woes. With comic-book movies becoming increasingly dark, it's nice to see something that kids and parents can enjoy equally. There are many all-ages comic books out there that should follow Wimpy Kid to the big screen. Let's take a look at a few.

Bone
Combining artwork worthy of classic Disney animation with a sweeping story that calls to mind The Lord of the Rings, Jeff Smith's 55-issue comedic fantasy series is one of the most acclaimed comic books of all time. Young and old have discovered the comic, which regularly tops library lists of the best all-ages comics and graphic novels. Warner Brothers is currently developing a CGI take, with hopes of turning the series into a three-movie franchise. While CGI could be interesting, one look at Smith's artwork will make you long for the days when traditional hand-drawn animation was the norm.

Mark Millar has been one of the biggest names in comics for years, but it wasn't until the movie adaptation of his book Wanted became an international hit that he crossed over to the mainstream. His second movie adaptation, Kick-Ass, hits next month, and it's already riding a wave of positive buzz, helped, in part, by the recent release of Millar's on-set diary, Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie, which documents the comic's path from page to screen. We talked with Millar by phone to find out what to expect.

Q: So, is it true that the Kick-Ass comic came about because you wanted to make more original movies but had no material to work with?

A: There's an element of truth to that, actually. The producers said to me, "Okay, this film's just made $341 million. We want to do another film with you." And I said, "I don't have anything else, really, you know?" And it was quite stupid of me, from a monetary point of view, not to do that. Also from the creative point of view, because I really like the idea of bringing something to the table. I love working with Marvel and DC, but you're playing with other people's toys, really. So the idea of doing what Stan Lee did back in the sixties -- creating a new wave of characters -- no one seemed to be doing that. So that inspired me, in a sense, to go off and create whole new franchises, and Kick-Ass was the next one out.

Q: How well do you think the transition from comic book to movie was handled?