I stand corrected, although the former TV presentations are a bit of a gray area, I think.
Ah, the 80’s Howard the Duck. The movie George Lucas wished he had never made, and wishes he could disown. (right next to the Star Wars Holiday Special, I imagine.) I was surprised to find that someone had released it on Blu-Ray.
I originally watched it late one night as a kid in one of those “B-Movie” time slots. It was cheesy back then, and it hasn’t improved at all over time.
I could dig an animated version, as long as they play it closer to the comics. (You can do far more with animation than with live action…)
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You are a horrible person for putting that idea out into the world.
The comics weren’t bad, but that movie… I tried to watch it again, recently. With my youngest daughter who loves watching bad movies with me. We just couldn’t do it.
Agreed.
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The problem with the movie wasn’t that it was campy, it’s that it wasn’t campy enough. If it was funnier, people would have forgiven anything else.
It was as if Deadpool had been put out in the 80s without landing its jokes, and without believable special effect support.
Lea Thompson and Tim Robbins were troopers.
I’m a little surprised more people aren’t talking about how Chelsea Handler is going to write Dazzler.
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I’m rather surprised that Howard the Duck is the one making the news and not that they’re also making a show about Tigra. Rowr.
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And yet it’s still markedly better than Episodes 1-3…
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I just finished reading Chip Zdarsky’s run. I’m not much of a connoisseur, but it’s reasonably clever and a little bit meta; I wouldn’t mind seeing more of it, but it came to a fairly definitive conclusion in 2016.
https://www.newsarama.com/30852-howard-the-duck-finale-weird-wild-bittersweet-says-zdarsky-quinones.html
No clue as to how Mr. Gerber feels. There’s quite the history there.
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Howard the Duck has been making cameo appearances in recent (live action) Marvel movies, his current (well, recent) comic book is critically acclaimed and popular, and his crossovers with other comics have been tons of fun. Believe it or not, the crappy movie aside, he’s a popular character and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what Kevin Smith does with it.
Though I’m just as curious to see what Patton Oswalt does with his new animated M.O.D.O.K. show (which I have to assume he’s voicing as well as producing and writing).
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Goddamn right.
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Oswalt confirmed last night that yes, he is voicing M.O.D.O.K.
I really enjoyed him as the Koenig quadruplets in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and hope this is a bigger opportunity for him.
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Smith is definitely a comic book guy through and through, and I think he’ll be very careful to make sure the intentions of HtD’s creators are followed closely.
Also, forget 80s HtD. That should have been buried at the bottom of a nuclear waste dump.
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That was a solid fake “I wrote this for Appollonia Times 6” Prince song
I hope he doesn’t get a big head over all this attention though.
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And I just had a thought about why the 80s movie didn’t work. I think it was George Lucas (through Willard Huyck) trying to prove he could produce a comedy (which no one ever truly wanted from him), because people like Spielberg could do funny and serious.
So it was essentially what it would have looked like if George Lucas tried to direct Spaceballs. A goofy hero’s journey sketched out, but with wooden unfunny “jokes” of no depth, jammed in.
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Except Lucas didn’t direct Howard the Duck, William Huyck did. And Lucas was certainly successful serving the same role in other non-serious films, if only I could think of their names… Don’t they star that same hunky rebellious dude from his space opera? Hmmm…
ETA I just reread this and realized it was way dickier sounding than I intended.
One of the funny things about HtD is that so many successful and talented people were involved and yet it still stunk to high hell. I know that’s not a novel phenomenon, particularly in the arts ::cough:: Lou Reed & Metallica ::cough::
But it is a notable example. I don’t think it says much about Lucas beyond a weird and hilarious footnote 
YMMV
If they can pull this off, and do justice to Steve Gerbers vision in the 70’s comic, it could be amazing.
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Willard Huyck, Lucas’s deep collaborator and college friend, did direct, but it was definitely a Lucas production. It was something Lucas was pushing for before Huyck was involved. It just didn’t end up working.
George Lucas is a treasure for a lot of reasons, but it’s okay to admit he can be clunky with character, and that he makes Jar Jar level mistakes from time to time.
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Is it wrong that I can totally see Patton Oswalt as MODOK? I mean, he’s just got the right sort of head-shape to pull it off, and the right sort of inherent silliness.
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