Day: June 12, 2002

Well, Frank “Boom Boom” Balkin was up to the task, and got the straight info on the rumored “Supergirl” film reported on Filmjerk.com.

It turns out that (unbeknownst to the DC editors I queried) Akiva Goldsman really does have a Supergirl film in development. However, the assertion that the film consists of nothing more than a crunched down abridgment of the first fifty issues of my run on the comic is apparently without foundation. According to Goldsman’s people, the treatment would not be a version of any one particular Supergirl, but instead an agglomeration of several different comic book incarnations…the aim being to produce a dark and less-than-sunny version, which doesn’t sound like either version of Supergirl as I’ve written her. Based on that info, my guess is that the alleged treatment included on the Filmjerk website was a summary of the first fifty issues prepared by someone working for Goldsman as an informational piece (which would explain the specific references to the comics) rather than something by Goldsman himself intended to serve as a film treatment.

Nevertheless, I was dead wrong in thinking that the entire report was without foundation, and Filmjerk scooped everybody, including me. Although I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering dámņëd near every DC character with any name recognition is in development these days. But because of that, it means very little that Goldsman is attached to it at this point. I mean, heck, who’d’ve thought that a Kevin Smith-generated Superman script based on Superman vs. Doomsday–the most high-profile, media-reported comic book confrontation in a decade–would have burned alive in development hëll? So those of you worrying that a Supergirl film would be a camp repeat of “Batman Forever,” keep in mind the odds of any film ever being made are very slim.

PAD

I offer the two items without comment and allow you to draw your own conclusions.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (Oklahoma City)–June 12, 2002–Four in five Americans would give up some freedoms to gain security and four in 10 worry terrorists will harm them or their family, a new Gallup poll shows. About one-third of those polled favor making it easier for authorities to access private e-mail and telephone conversations. More than 70 percent are in favor of requiring US citizens to carry identification cards with fingerprints, and 77 percent believe all Americans should have smallpox vaccinations. “It was amazing the percentage of people who are willing to give up freedom to get back some sense of personal security,” said Elaine Christiansen, senior research director for The Gallup Organization. “These aren’t people who were necessarily near the Twin Towers, near the Pentagon, near the Murrah building. These are average people.”

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN–“Those who are willing to give up some essential liberties to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

PAD