Catwoman Poll: Final Results

So the voting is through for all the Catwoman polls, and in spite of my doubts, the people have chosen Julianne Moore. With 28% of the vote, she won pretty handily, too. Charlize Theron (my personal favorite) was second, with 17%. Marion Cotillard and Rachel Weisz tied for third at 14%. Another surprise to me, Kate Beckinsale only got one vote.

So that does it for Catwoman for a while. Thanks for voting! I'll try to do another big poll for another character, but since there seem to be a lot more casting ideas for Catwoman than anyone else, the rest will be quite a bit smaller.

News & Notes

Batman: Battle for the Cowl wrapped up this past week in the comics, and most people (including me) were pretty unhappy with it. Here are some thoughts on it, plus some other random stuff:

• Comixology compares the recent-ish deaths of Batman and Captain America. The short version: one kinda sucked, one was great.


• And here's a list of 5 reasons why Battle for the Cowl was terrible.


• Comics Should Be Good is posting a "cool comic book moment" every day this year, and the other day it was from a Suicide Squad story featuring Batman, Amanda Waller, and a little bit of Deadshot.


• IGN interviews Grant Morrison (spoilers ahead, if you're planning on reading Battle for the Cowl) about his upcoming Batman & Robin series, featuring the new Batman and new Robin.


• Romow picks the top 5 Batman villians but somehow excludes Two-Face.


• And there's another one of these villain profiles for the Arkham Asylum video game, this one featuring a pants-less Poison Ivy:

The Catwoman poll is probably closed by the time you read this (1 hour to go as I'm typing) but check over to the right if you want to try to get a last minute vote in. Or to see the final results.

News & Notes

I've linked to it a couple times before, but wanderingbert's Batman Villain project is still going strong, recently adding the above Black Mask image. I've been slack about these lately, but here are some links:

• DC's' The Source blog has some previews of Mark Bagley's (Ultimate Spider-Man, Trinity) art on Batman.


• MTV's Splash Page looks at the Joker-themed picture from Eminem's new album.


• A crazy person over at Bam Kapow wishes Batman would stay dead.


• The Philadelphia Daily News looks at the recent introduction of Adam West Batman foe King Tut to the comics world.


• Here's a bunch of Joker pictures.


• And here's the trailer for the next direct-to-dvd animation project, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies:

Don't forget to vote in the Catwoman poll, it's very close so far.

Catwoman Poll: Final Round

So Kate Winslet wins the 8th round of polling in a squeaker over Gretchen Mol (you can see the full results at the bottom of the sidebar on the right). I doubt either of them win this final round. But here are your finalists, the winners of the first 8 rounds (including the two tied for first in poll #3) plus the top 2nd place finisher to make it an even 10:

Kate Beckinsale

Marion Cotillard

Megan Fox


Eva Green


Angelina Jolie


Michelle Monaghan


Julianne Moore


Charlize Theron



Rachel Weisz


Kate Winslet

So there you go, vote over to the right.

News & Notes

I've been slack about these lately, so here's a whole bunch of links:

• Christian Bale isn't saying anything about when Batman 3 will come out:
  

  I’ve learned that I do not answer that question until (director) Chris Nolan has answered that question.



• Pop counts down the 25 coolest villains in comics.


• IGN goes a little further, ranking the top 100 comic villains (warning: it's annoying to flip through them one at a time, and they haven't gotten to the top 20 yet).


• Kevin Smith will be making another Batman comic. I'm not sure this is good news, since I didn't like his Cacophony. MTV has some more details.


• Io9 and MTV both look at upcoming episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon.


• Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman costume from Batman Returns brought in over $8,000 at auction.


• Lunch Bag Art asks who would win in a fight: Batman or Darth Vader?


• The LA Times ranks The Top 10 vintage Batman toys.


• The Weekly Crisis discusses some "legacy" characters who have passed their titles to others, and have recently or may soon revert to the classic versions, including Batgirl.

And there's still time to vote in the last of the Catwoman polls, and sorry again for the lousy options in this one.

News & Notes

Some links:

• Every Day is like Wednesday apologizes for ignoring the Joker's Asylum book until now.


• Wine For Breakfast looks at some villains (and fan-made posters).


• MTV asked Sam Worthington about those rumors a while back that he was going to take over for his Terminator: Salvation co-star as Batman in the sequel to The Dark Knight.


• And DC is releasing some really weird looking superhero toys

Don't forget to vote in the Catwoman poll.

Catwoman Poll #8

So last week, Marion Cotillard finished first, as I expected, but Emily Blunt gave her a real challenge, finishing only one vote back. Also surprising to me, Ali Larter finished a close third. You can see the full results at the bottom of the sidebar to the right.

As I mentioned last week, this last week is pretty iffy. Mostly it's people I kept putting off because I didn't have much nice to say about them. I suspect that the winner of this poll might finish last in the final round (which will be next week). So here they are, the leftovers:

• Jennifer Aniston
  You might know her from: Ferris Beuller (the TV series), Leprechaun
  She's built for comedy, if that makes any sense. Her voice, being generally a great looking woman but having a slightly large nose (you can't really do comedy if you're flawlessly beautiful). She's tried drama sometimes, but I don't think people remember Derailed or the Good Girl all that fondly.



• Elizabeth Banks
  You might know her from: Spider-Man (JJJ's secretary), Invincible, Zack and Miri, Scrubs
  I love her in a lot of roles, I think she's a really gifted comedic actress, but in dramas she's just kind of another pretty face. Which is fine, I guess, but I'd hope for more from Catwoman.



• Rachel Blanchard
  You might know her from: Snakes on a Plane, 7th Heaven, Clueless (the TV series)
  She's a lovely girl, but totally wrong for Catwoman, IMO. She just seems... innocent isn't the word, but generally harmless.



• Claire Danes
  You might know her from: My So-Called Life, Terminator 3, Romeo+Juliet
  I once read a book by screenwriter William Goldman where he talks about seeing Robin Wright in the Princess Bride and becoming convinced she'd be the biggest star in the world. Shortly after, she was up for some big role that would have made her career, but she was pregnant and had to pass. Goldman wrote that Barbara Streisand never would've gotten pregnant. Not that there's anything wrong with it, just that you have to have a drive to be an A-list actor to become an A-list actor, and Robin Wright didn't seem to have it. Point being, Claire Danes seemed like she was going to be the actress of my generation around '96, but she did some smaller movies, an ill-advised Mod Squad movie, took some time off to go to college, and until Terminator 3 never seemed to make any effort to cultivate her celebrity. I don't think she was really that into being a huge star, T3 notwithstanding. I don't really see her as a Catwoman anyway, but I don't think it'd be something she'd be that interested in.



• Alexandra Maria Lara
  You might know her from: The Reader, maybe?
  I have no idea who this is. Looking at a few pictures, she wouldn't be high on my list.



• Gretchen Mol (pictured above)
  You might know her from: Rounders, Life on Mars (the US one), 3:10 to Yuma, The Thirteenth Floor
  She's been in a lot of movies I've seen, but is generally not memorable in them. I only really remember her in Rounders (which I've seen about a million times), and she wasn't that good in it. So I can't say she'd be very high on my list of potential Catwoman actors.



• Audrey Tautou
  You might know her from: Amelie, The Da Vinci Code
  I've only seen her in the one movie, but she seemed a little... delicate. Catwoman is not delicate. So unless my impression was wrong, she is not right for the part.



• Emma Thompson
  You might know her from: Shakespeare adaptations, that one Cheers episode where she played Nanny G, Howards End, Harry Potter movies
  Julianne Moore did pretty well in these polls despite being 50-ish, but Emma Thompson actually kinda looks 50-ish. Not that she's not great looking for 50, but even more so than Julianne Moore, I can't see her leaping from rooftop to rooftop or kicking Batman in the face.



• Kate Winslet
  You might know her from: Titanic, other stuff
  Great actress, not right for Catwoman. I never found her all that attractive, she doesn't really have an athletic body type, and she never really seemed like the type to be kinda evil and enjoy it.

Voting is already open on the sidebar to the right.

News & Notes

El Gato put together this Catwoman poster. Now here's some links:

• Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch discusses whether the Joker should be retired in movies.


• Using incredibly scientific formulas (you can see them here, there's nothing scientific about them), MTV ranks the "biggest" superheroes of all time, based almost entirely on movies (Hellboy and Blade appear on the list, while Green Lantern, Captain America, and Wonder Woman do not).

Don't forget to vote in the Catwoman poll over to the right.

News & Notes

KalMart put together this poster featuring Killer Croc, with an interesting casting choice of Nathan Jones (who you may remember as the really large guy from Troy).

Only one link today, and it's not much of one, but here's a list of the 10 best and worst dressed comic book characters (digg currently crushed the site, here's a mirror if it's still down). I always thought Carrie Kelly's Robin costume was nice, but her Catgirl one looked awful.

News & Notes

• DC posted the above image on their source blog prompting speculation over who it is. Cassandra Cain, is Barbara Gordon coming back, someone else?


• Suite101 has a list of the worst Batman villains.


• Voting is open for the MTV Movie awards through May 27th, and the Dark Knight is not surprisingly nominated in several categories.


• Living between Wednesdays looks at Wolverine as the center of the comic book hair continuum, but if you look closely at the chart, you'll see that Ra's al Ghul shows up on the chart a number of times.


• And this is a trailer for a fan-made CGI movie called Arkham, which is really well done:

Catwoman Poll #7

Everything was tightly packed last week, with 6 of 10 contestants getting between 2 and 5 votes. But Rachel Weisz was the clear winner, with 25% of the vote. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Uma Thurman tied for second with 15%. Last week's poll is on the bottom of the right sidebar. Now on to this week:

• Emily Blunt
  You might remember her from: The Devil Wears Prada, Charlie Wilson's War, Dan In Real Life
  She was long rumored for the part of the Black Widow in Iron Man II, but had to drop out due to a scheduling conflict. The Black Widow is a pretty Catwoman-like part, an ass-kicking, skin tight costume-wearing woman who may or may not be a villain, so I assume she can handle the role. But I've only seen her in one movie, Charlie Wilson's War, and I don't even remember her from it. So I can't say for sure that she'd be any good.


• Cher
  You might remember her from: Moonstruck, that Sonny & Cher variety show, some other movies
  This was the original stupid Catwoman rumor. Please don't vote for her.


• Jennifer Connelly
  You might remember her from: Hulk (the Eric Bana one), Labyrinth, Career Opporunities, A Beautiful Mind, House of Sand and Fog
  She's a fine actress and a lovely woman, but I wonder if the Hulk kinda turned her off superhero movies. It was kind of a mess, even though it had a lot of talent behind it, and I think that might make me afraid to try it again. Plus I don't recall her ever taking a kind of action-y role, where she'd be kicking ass and jumping from rooftop to rooftop.


• Marion Cotillard
  You might remember her from: La Vie En Rose, the Taxi series (French movies, not the 70s sitcom), the upcoming Public Enemies
  I have not seen her in a movie at all. She's a lovely woman and all, but I'm not sure. I doubt she'd be able to pass as an American, and I've seen some people flip out at the idea of making Selina Kyle French, but that wouldn't bother me. I'll be basing my opinion of her as Catwoman mostly on Public Enemies (which looks pretty cool).


• Melissa George
  You might remember her from: Some middle seasons of Alias, The Amityville Horror, 30 Days of Night
  I like her as an actress, and I think she's quite attractive, but I can't imagine her as either Catwoman or Selina Kyle. She just doesn't seem quite right.


• Maggie Gyllenhaal
  You might remember her from: The Dark Knight, I'd hope.
  The plot of the Dark Knight would make this kinda silly, but that was a rumor floating around for a while.


• Tricia Helfer
  You might remember her from: Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice
  She's quite beautiful, but I don't quite see it. Loved her on Battlestar, but she's not very Catwomanish to me.


• Ali Larter
  You might remember her from: Heroes, Final Destination, Varsity Blues
  She's nice to look at, and maybe it's just that I don't like her character(s) on Heroes, but I don't want her anywhere near a Batman movie.


• Rhona Mitra (pictured above)
  You might remember her from: Being the original Lara Croft model, The Practice/Boston Legal, Nip/Tuck, Skinwalkers
  She'd make a great B-movie Catwoman, but she's not the kind of actress who can hang with Christian Bale and Gary Oldman and the like.


• Marley Shelton
  You might remember her from: A bunch of familiar movies on her imdb page, but the only one I actually remember her from is Grindhouse (she was the doctor lady with the series of colored needles)
  She didn't really stand out in any other part in my mind, so I can't imagine I'd really love her as Catoman.

Voting's open over to the right. Only one more group of actresses after this one (which will be pretty weak, just sorta "who's left over," sorry in advance), but vote away on this one.

News & Notes

• Adam West did the above video for Funny or Die. It gets a little tired after the first minute and then spirals into what I assume is product placement, but there's not much news lately.


• Cracked lists 6 famous characters that were rip-offs. The evidence is debatable in most cases, especially with a loaded term like "rip-off," but it's interesting to look at some similarities and/or coincidences.
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• CHUD looks at "Kick-Ass Cartoon Chicks", with a whole section on the Batman Animated series. In listing the female-centric parts of the show, they left out the Gotham Girls flash series, which is somehow still online.

The latest Catwoman poll is closed, but I don't really have time to get up a new one today, but expect it on Monday.