Kingsman: The Secret Service

A tribute to the weird quirks of movie logic that everyone just accepts.

Not to be confused with Disney’s ever-growing slate of live-action remakes which includes a Pinocchio project, Warner Bros.’ has had a Pinocchio movie of their own in development for years, with Robert Downey Jr. attached to play the role of puppet creator Gepetto. After repeatedly failing to secure a director, WB’s Pinocchio may have finally found its maker in Ron Howard, who is reportedly coming aboard to direct the long-gestating live-action take on the classic fairy tale.

As ‘Batman’ goes, so goes comic-book movies. When Tim Burton turned the Dark Knight into a retro-gothic hero, Hollywood followed suit with a slew of heavily stylized pulp throwbacks. (See: ‘Dick Tracy,’ ‘The Phantom,’ ‘The Shadow,’ etc.) And when Christopher Nolan turned the Dark Knight into, well, ‘The Dark Knight,’ it sparked a wave of “grim and gritty” movies, with serious superheroes doing and saying serious things in outrageous spandex costumes that had been reimagined as biker gear or body armor. (See: ‘Man of Steel’ [Or maybe don’t.]) There’s been some pushback, but we’re really only now coming out of the trend toward ultra-serious, uber-dark comic-book movies.