Around the Web

January 15, 2016 at 12:00 am | Posted in Around the Web, Books, Comic Books, Marvel, Movies, News, Regular Feature, Star Wars, Star Wars Books, Star Wars News, trailers | Leave a comment
Tags: daniel wallace, landry q. walker, pablo hidalgo, star wars on the front lines, star wars propaganda, tales from a galaxy far far away

Here is this week’s Around the Web news roundup of Star Wars and beyond.

Book News

Jennifer Heddle announced on Wednesday that Alan Dean Foster‘s novelization of The Force Awakens hit #1 on The New York Times Best Sellers List.

Happy to announce that THE FORCE AWAKENS by Alan Dean Foster has hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list! Thank you everyone!

— Jennifer Heddle (@jenheddle) January 13, 2016

However, as of yet, I don’t see it posted on their site so it might be for next week. That said, Star Wars: The Force Awakens by Greg Rucka and Phil Noto is on The New York Times Best Sellers List at #3 for Children’s Middle Grade Hardcover (was #2 last week) and #1 for Children’s Middle Grade E-Book. Also worth noting that Greg Rucka‘s Before the Awakening was #1 for Children’s Middle Grade E-Book at the beginning of the year.

Star Wars Books teased the following post showing Star Wars author James Luceno writing something down next to a statue of Tarkin. Tarkin Book 2? The long awaited Sidious novel? Who knows, but it’s Luceno and it’s a Star Wars story, so that certainly has me intrigued.

In other book news, there’s some new release dates for the upcoming Star Wars books this year.

Aftermath: Life Debt by Chuck Wendig, the sequel to Aftermath, has been moved back to July 19th.
New Republic: Bloodline by Claudia Gray, the author of Lost Stars, has been moved back to May 3rd.
Becker & Mayer is coming out with two new Star Wars books. One is called Star Wars: On the Front Lines by veteran Star Wars author Daniel Wallace.

The other is Star Wars: Propaganda by Star Wars story group member Pablo Hidalgo.

And there’s more details plus a cover for Tales From A Galaxy Far, Far Away: Aliens Volume I. Current release date is April 5 with a 352 page count for this hardcover collection of Landry Q. Walker‘s The Force Awakens short stories (plus new ones not yet released!). The “Volume I” part is a new addition and a good indication there will be more to come.

Comic News

Poe Dameron is getting a comic series in April. Title Star Wars: Poe Dameron, it will be written by Charles Soule (Lando, Obi-Wan & Anakin) with artwork by Phil Noto (Chewbacca).

Diamond Distributors has released their comic statistics for the year and the number one bestselling comic of 2015 is Marvel’s Star Wars #1. It’s also ranked as the bestselling comic in two decades.
Also in the top ten bestsellers of the year is Vader Down #1 (at number 6), Darth Vader #1 (at number 9), and Princess Leia #1 (at number 10). Thus 40% of the top ten bestselling comics of the year were all Star Wars titles. Marvel ended up as the top publisher for 2015.
In graphic novels and trade paperbacks, Star Wars Volume 1: Skywalker Strikes TPB made #10.
ComicBook.com has a preview of Star Wars #15.

Convention & Event News

Random House is doing a contest for a free trip to Star Wars Celebration 2016. You can enter here and you have until January 26th.

Fandom News

Vogue has an interview with John Boyega covering stardom and Star Wars.
Projector and Orchestra has an interview with John Williams.
/Film has an interview with Star Wars: The Force Awakens special effects crew members Roger Guyett and Patrick Tubach.
DP/30 has a video interview with Star Wars: The Force Awakens special effects crew members Chris Corbould and Neal Scanlan.

Collider also speak with the special effects guys about the deleted scenes from the movie.

Visual Effects Society has a Q&A video with the VFX team and J.J. Abrams.

THR has an interview with the editors.
And if you’re looking for some hi-def photos from The Force Awakens, check out Stitch Kingdom.
D/30 also has an interview with Samuel L. Jackson. He talks Star Wars at 23:57 from being sad about not being in The Force Awakens to his thoughts on being Mace. It lasts for a couple minutes.

Movie & Television News

A major new Star Wars character will be making an appearance in Star Wars Rebels for its return this year. Click here to check out who.
The Force Awakens has received five Oscar nominations: Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects and Best Original Score.
In other news, there’s a trailer out now for Matthew McConaughey’s upcoming Civil War movie Free State of Jones which will be out in May.

This one looks hilarious. Michael Shannon as Elvis and Kevin Spacey as President Richard Nixon in Elvis & Nixon. It’ll be out in April.

This one, on the other hand, looks really weird…but interesting: High-Rise. It will be out sometime this year, no exact date yet.

Director Nolan Ryan will be taking on a WWII movie Dunkirk and Tom Hardy is in talks to star. Release date is set for July 2017. Dunkirk was the famous culmination of the German invasion of the lowlands where they trapped a large portion of the Allied army who were then able to escape across the channel to Britain.
And bringing it back to Star Wars, there’s some cool videos with Phil Tippett.

Music News

If you’re looking to get more The Force Awakens tracks, then head on over to John Williams Fan Network where they have downloadable MP3 links for the songs featured over on the Walt Disney Studio Awards site.

Toy & Collectible News

Star Wars Rebels The Fifth Brother now has an action figure in the 3.75-inch scale.
Want Finn/Poe’s jacket? Hexder has you covered.
The Hot Toys Rey figure is getting two updates, an adjustable scavenger mask and Luke’s lightsaber.
Kyo Ren is getting a Kotobukiya ARTFX+ statue.

Video Game News