|

Casting the Amalgam Universe Movies

AMALGAM POSTER

In comics, chocolate and peanut butter are rarely mixed.

As much as we may wish otherwise, the big two remain Houses of Ideas divided. Aside from the occasional mini-series (that, obviously, doesn’t really count in continuity), Marvel and DC usually keep all their toys to themselves.

But once, long ago, in a mystical hazy time we call the mid-90s, where Rangers were Powerful and a hundred thousand Tamagotchis all sang out in chorus, the stars aligned. DC and Marvel squared off against each other in Marvel vs. DC, and the result was…well…this:

AMALGAM GROUP

The Amalgam Universe was every young comic fan’s wildest, most fan-fictiony dream come true. Marvel and DC mish-mash-mix-em-upped their respective rosters and published several wild and weird comic book bonanzas. An X-Men team secretly led by the Martian Manhunter with a green Nightcrawler? Sure. Tony Stark with a Green Lantern power ring? Why not. Paste-Eater Pete?! HELL YES!

With Hollywood gobbling up every comic property under Earth’s yellow sun, it may just be a matter of time before we see a Dr. Strangefate or Amazon film. So today I’m gonna give the big studios a list of possibilities as to who could play some of the Amalgam Universe’s shining stars.

Scoff if you want, but we live in a world where there’s gonna be an Ant-Man movie, Unrealtors.

SUPER SOLDIER

SUPER-SOLDIER
PLAYED BY: ARMIE HAMMER

If you’re gonna combine Superman with Captain America, you’re gonna need one strapping, tall dude with a great smile. While the Winklevi were certainly the bad guys of The Social Network the one man playing the two parts was definitely the hero of the flick. Armie Hammer has that chiseled physique and warming appearance that would make him an ideal Superman…or Captain America.

But since those parts are taken, that leaves the leader of the Judgment League  Avengers himself: Super-Soldier. Injected with a serum derived from cells an alien corpse, mild-mannered Army recruit Clark Kent became Super-Solider: beacon of freedom throughout the Amalgam Universe.

Hammer has the Aryan-wet dream look down perfectly that Super-Soldier would require, and while The Lone Ranger was a bit of a flop, it still gave him leading man experience building points. We all gotta start somewhere.

Super-Soldier will be the flagship film of the new Amalgam Entertainmedia empire, and the first spike should be struck by this Hammer.

SPIDER BOY

SPIDER-BOY
PLAYED BY: ZAC EFRON

Like it or not, it’s going to take effort to get general audiences into the theaters for these flicks. There’s just not as much a built-in audience like for regular comic movies. Efron is money in the bank. Go take a look at the grosses of those High School Musical movies. Uh-huh.

After a botched cloning experiment, Spider-Boy was born in Project Cadmus with all the powers of a spider…and also a web gun! This wise-crackin’ clone was one of the darlings of the Amalgam Universe and there’s no way a studio wouldn’t jump on a chance to make Spider-Man for the Twilight crowd, and Efron would be an ideal arachni-kid.

But before you accuse me of just thinking about box offices, give Efron some credit. Have you seen Neighbors? He’s legitimately funny in it. He’s a regular guest on Robot Chicken, and that’s pure geek. He’s got the comedic chops and the geek cred to at least once get to don the…Spider-jacket?

But really, he’s a funny dude and has the superhero look about him. Spider-Boy’s gonna have to be a charmer and while you may not be one with the Efron, your girlfriend/niece/sister/probably mom (but she’d never admit to it) definitely is.

DARK CLAW

DARK CLAW
PLAYED BY: GERARD BUTLER

On the corner of Handsome Lane and Scary Street there are two men: Dark Claw and Gerard Butler. Try as they might to shoe-horn Butler into romantic comedies, there’s still something about him that just convinces you he’d bite your face off if you looked at him wrong. So while being a romcommunist may not be in his future, capes might fit Butler better.

Years after watching his parents gunned down in front of him as a youth, Logan Wayne was submitted to the Weapon X program, bonding adamantium to his skeleton and unlocking his latent metamutant abilities. After escaping, he took to the night skies of New Gotham City as the clawed crusader: Dark Claw. Dark Claw is Amalgam’s leading creepy guy in the shadows, and it wouldn’t be a series of films loosely tied to DC without one brooding, drab, operatic film in the bunch.

Butler’s earned his acceptance into the comic world with his subdued leading role in 300 and he obviously has the build to play the part. Dark Claw is…well…dark, and with a heaping helping of Wolverine gruffness, but still a billionaire playboy in the meantime. Butler’s a handsome fella, but still rather rugged, and could pull off a performance somewhere between Alec Baldwin and Michael Madsen.

Don’t be surprised if Dark Claw winds up king of coin in the Amalgamovies. Those Bat-flicks are cash cows and don’t act like the X-Men movies shouldn’t’ really be called Logan and Pals.

LOBO THE DUCK

LOBO THE DUCK
VOICED BY H. JON BENJAMIN

Because H. Jon Benjamin should be the voice of everything including all of us.

Whatcha think, Unrealtors? Who might you like to see in phase 2 of the Amalgam movie universe? Access that comment box and let me know!

Adam Esquenazi Douglas is a playwright who was born in Texas, grew up in Arkansas, was raised by a Jewish man and a Cuban woman, and, somehow, he doesn’t have an accent. His plays have been produced across the United States from Los Angeles to New York City, as well as in Canada and Japan.

He is co-host of two podcasts, The JimmyJew Podcast Extravaganza and Schmame Over Level 2, which can be found at http://jimmyjew.libsyn.com/ and  http://schmameoverlevel2.libsyn.com/ respectively, as well as on iTunes. He is a contributing writer to www.GamersSchmamers.com.

He currently lives in Brooklyn where he drinks far too much coffee.

Similar Posts

One Comment

  1. Armie Hammer is of part Jewish descent.

    Actors of fully Jewish background: Logan Lerman, Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mila Kunis, Bar Refaeli, James Wolk, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Julian Morris, Adam Brody, Esti Ginzburg, Kat Dennings, Gabriel Macht, Erin Heatherton, Odeya Rush, Anton Yelchin, Paul Rudd, Scott Mechlowicz, Lisa Kudrow, Lizzy Caplan, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Gal Gadot, Debra Messing, Robert Kazinsky, Melanie Laurent, Shiri Appleby, Justin Bartha, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Margarita Levieva, Elizabeth Berkley, Halston Sage, Seth Gabel, Corey Stoll, Mia Kirshner, Alden Ehrenreich, Eric Balfour, Jason Isaacs, Jon Bernthal, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy.

    Andrew Garfield and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are Jewish, too (though I don’t know if both of their parents are).

    Actors with Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dave Franco, James Franco, Scarlett Johansson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Daniel Radcliffe, Alison Brie, Eva Green, Joaquin Phoenix, River Phoenix, Emmy Rossum, Rashida Jones, Jennifer Connelly, Sofia Black D’Elia, Nora Arnezeder, Goldie Hawn, Ginnifer Goodwin, Amanda Peet, Eric Dane, Jeremy Jordan, Joel Kinnaman, Ben Barnes, Patricia Arquette, Kyra Sedgwick, Dave Annable, Ryan Potter.

    Actors with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers, who themselves were either raised as Jews and/or identify as Jews: Ezra Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alexa Davalos, Nat Wolff, Nicola Peltz, James Maslow, Josh Bowman, Winona Ryder, Michael Douglas, Ben Foster, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nikki Reed, Zac Efron, Jonathan Keltz, Paul Newman.

    Oh, and Ansel Elgort’s father is Jewish, though I don’t know how Ansel was raised. Robert Downey, Jr. and Sean Penn were also born to Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers. Armie Hammer and Chris Pine are part Jewish.

    Actors with one Jewish-born parent and one parent who converted to Judaism: Dianna Agron, Sara Paxton (whose father converted, not her mother), Alicia Silverstone, Jamie-Lynn Sigler.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.