Look, I can only take so much, and the constant social media and comic book "news" website rumors about who might or might not be playing Booster Gold in the not-yet-materialized James Gunn DCEU are about to break me. Chris Pratt? Aaron Paul? Jessie Plemons? Sure. Fine. Whatever.

Actors are the least of my problem. I'm still not even certain what I want from a Booster Gold movie, much less who I want to play him.

The first Harry Potter film proved to me that I need a movie to be notably different from the printed source material, otherwise why bother watching it? My imagination is pretty darn good, thank you very much. I don't think the published works of Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald, to name just two examples, are notably improved by their many cinema adaptations. That means I personally require the adventures of movie Booster to be different from Booster's comic book stories in some way.

But how different? I certainly don't need to see Blackguard or Black Beetle. I probably won't be too upset if Booster has a friend other than Ted Kord or a love interest other than Trixie Collins. But I suspect I will be disappointed not to see Skeets, very preferably as a gravity-defying golden football. Would a David "Booster" Gold who solves comedic supernatural mysteries while wearing a yellow raincoat be remotely satisfying? Definitely not.

That there are so many people talking about who they want in a Booster Gold movie certainly suggests that there's great interest. And I think it'd be great for even more people to discover the Greatest Hero They've Never Heard Of. But I just don't get a lot of entertainment value from random speculation about who or what we might be getting, especially when I'm so uncertain about what I might want.

So if you're wondering why I don't comment more on each latest Casting Rumor Of The Day, that's why.

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My mailbox is full with "news" sites reporting that in an exclusive interview with CBR.com, Chris Pratt has broken his silence on whether or not he'll play Booster Gold!

"As far as DC characters pan, I don't know. I will let the fans tell me what they would want me to do. I don't have anything official to announce. I haven't spoken to James Gunn in any capacity to where he's offered me anything like that."

So there you have it. If you want Chris Pratt to play Booster Gold, tell him. If you don't, tell him. Apparently, he's listening.

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Big announcement today about our favorite hero coming to HBO! Says the press release:

The story will center on Booster Gold, a washed-up athlete from the future who travels back to the present in hopes of becoming the greatest super hero of all time. Instead of chasing criminals, however, his main priority is chasing fame and money. But Booster Gold discovers that being a hero takes more than just a megawatt smile, and that the future doesn’t happen without first protecting the present.

Oh, wait. Sorry. That one was from the press release from 2011 when Booster Gold was coming to SyFy. Obviously, that one never materialized. I'm sure this new one by *checks notes* James Gunn is totally better and will really happen this time.

Don't let my snark fool you. I'm pleased as punch that Booster might be finally coming to a... whatever screen it is you can watch HBO Max on. Tablet? Cell phone? That seems appropriate for Booster.

You can see for yourself Gunn's announcement of DCEU "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" — which one is Booster? God or monster? — on Youtube.com, and you can read a pretty good write-up about what all it entails on Variety.com. In both Gunn describes the upcoming Booster story as:

Booster Gold is one of comics really popular cult heroes. He is a fascinating guy. He is a loser from the future who uses future technology to come back to present day and become a superhero so that people will love him. It is basically a superhero story of Impostor Syndrome on an HBO Max series.

That does sound like an angle that HBO would want to tackle. And I don't disagree with that take on the character, although I might have worded it a little differently. Personally, I prefer how Booster's creator Dan Jurgens described his hero to Russ Burlingame at ComicBook.com:

With a character like Booster, who's more complex that many people realize, clarity is essential. Many writers have made the mistake of treating him like an idiot, which he most certainly isn't. It's just that his journey from problem to solution sometimes gets a bit tangled up, which is what happens to most of us in our own lives.

Heck, that might be the best, most succinct description of Booster Gold ever. Nobody gets him like Dan does.

If the ten different projects Gunn mentioned are released in order, it sounds like we shouldn't expect Booster Gold sooner than 2025. We've all got plenty of time to get excited.

Thanks to all who made sure I knew the news.

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It seems everywhere I go online in the past week, I bump into someone's opinion about whether Chris Pratt should be cast as Booster Gold in any film in new DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn's DC Extended Universe.

That should be expected, I assume. In large part thanks to his role in a Gunn movie franchise, Pratt is Hollywood's current go-to actor for action comedy, and most people assume that any live-action Booster would be a funny man of action.

You might think that I, as a Booster Gold fan, also have an opinion on whether or not Pratt should play my hero. But I don't.

This comes up every few years (see previous blog posts in 2010 and 2015). Assuming that Booster ever does make it to the big screen in my lifetime, all I really care about is seeing Booster characterized as he is the comics: a well-intentioned soul whose need for outside approval and material wealth drives him to do things that aren't necessarily so heroic.

Booster's exterior cockiness is a mask hiding his deep-seeded feelings of inadequacy, and any actor who can portray that with humor and charm is probably good enough for me. Even if that's Chris Pratt.

Booster Gold #1

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The Booster Gold News Of The Week is the tweet at the bottom of this short thread:

You know that tweet was shocking because it was covered by ComicBook.com, CBR.com, BleedingCool.com, ScreenRant.com, Looper.com, WeGotThisCovered.com, and for some reason, GQ.com, among many, many others, now including Boosterrific.com.

First of all, I'm not sure we can trust anything we read on Twitter these days. But supposing this tweeter is the real DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn, I think we have to assume all those people beating down his door are the angry fans of WB's Legends of Tomorrow, which was canceled before Donald Faison's Booster Gold could be redeemed. (He gets only one appearance, and sells out all the protagonists to the Time Police? What a dick!)

Frankly, I don't care whether those vocal Booster Gold proponents want more Faison, or want "The Greatest Story Never Told"'s Green Lantern, or want an Extreme Justice live-action movie (please, please, please!). More Booster Gold in any form is alright with me.

C'mon, James. Give the people what they want. Obviously, they have great taste.

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