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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Did you miss out on Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #3 two weeks ago? You could buy a copy on eBay for $40, or, if you're lucky, you can find a rushed second printing today at your LCS for $3.99.

Sigh. (Seriously, I've been collecting comics for four decades, and I still marvel at how the speculator market works.)

While we're on the topic of speculating, I guess now's as good a time as any to mention that pop culture site wegotthiscovered.com reports... well, I'll let them say it.

Warner Brothers is looking to bring [Ryan] Reynolds back to DC but not as the Green Lantern. Instead, they want him to play Booster Gold.

Ok, sure. I'd buy a ticket to see Reynolds bring Zack Stentz's 2017 still-unproduced Booster Gold: The Movie script to life. But then, I'd buy a ticket to see Rob Schneider play Booster Gold. I'm not a hard sell in the Booster Gold department.

And now that I'm on the topics of actors, I should probably take the opportunity to mention what card -carrying Booster Brigade member Shawn Baston spotted in a youtube video tour of comedian Pete Davidson's apartment given to Netflix. Feast your eyes on this:

No, not the picture of Davidson's grandfather with Judd Apatow. Over there in the corner.

Yep, that's a copy of 1985's first printing of Booster Gold volume 1 #1. You've got good taste, Pete. That issue sells for upwards of $30 on eBay!

Double sigh.

UPDATE 2020-03-18: wegotthiscovered.com now reports that Reynolds has turned down the role. That means I've mentioned them twice in this post, which shows you how much mileage there is in speculating about such things.

UPDATE 2020-03-19: wegotthiscovered.com updates their own reporting to say that since Ryan Reynolds passed, WB now wants Chris Pratt. So, they're determined to poach all the Marvel actors then. I guess next week they'll be after Tom Holland.

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CBR.com (yes, them again) alerts us that

"A new report suggests that a series based on Blue Beetle may be in development at HBO Max."

That has caused a lot of Internet DC and comics fan sites (you know the type) to speculate that Booster Gold must be appearing in this. Two things:

1) We don't even know if this rumor is true, and

2) No it doesn't.

While it would be nice to think that Blue and Gold will one day own the airwaves just as they own our hearts, there's no great reason to assume that Booster will have anything to do with a Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle project (which this undoubtedly is, assuming it really is in the works).

Therefore... we are still where we were the last time we heard a rumor that Booster Gold might be coming to a streaming service near us: that is, Booster Gold might be coming to a streaming service near us.

*shrug*

When DC wants us to know otherwise, they'll tell us.

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Early Saturday, Wired.com ran an article by Adam Rogers titled "The CW's Crisis on Infinite Earths Puts a Gen X Headlock on Superhero TV".

The article is mostly about the CW's upcoming crossover event between its DC-themed television shows, but as originally published, it contained the following passage:

Clearly superproducer Greg Berlanti and writer Marc Guggenheim, teenagers at the time Crisis came out, cared about all this. Their Arrowverse now occupies a significant number of hours on the CW's program grid, pulling stories from all across DC spacetime. And like our own universe, the wider Berlantiverse is expanding. Titans and Doom Patrol are on the streaming service DC Universe—based on DC books but, confusingly, outside Arrowverse continuity. Next year, TV will add Arrowverse shows with Superman, Stargirl, Booster Gold, and Green Lantern.

Did Wired break the news that Booster Gold is coming to the CW in 2020? Not so fast.

The article was later updated, changing the above to

Clearly superproducer Greg Berlanti and writer Marc Guggenheim, teenagers at the time Crisis came out, cared about all this. Their Arrowverse now occupies a significant number of hours on the CW's program grid, pulling stories from all across DC spacetime. And like our own universe, the wider Berlantiverse is expanding. Titans and Doom Patrol are on the streaming service DC Universe—based on DC books but, confusingly, outside Arrowverse continuity. Next year, TV will add Berlanti shows with Superman, Stargirl, and Green Lantern.

Hmm. Look who's missing from that revision.

The footnote for the article says it was "Updated to clarify that not all the upcoming DC comics-based shows will necessarily be Arrowverse shows." Which obliquely avoids saying anything about why references to Booster Gold were dropped.

So, is a Booster Gold television show coming or not?

I asked around to see if I could confirm any of this (as it relates to Booster) and was told not to trust any of it. Therefore, let's pretend none of this happened and just keep hoping for progress on the Booster Gold The Movie coming to HBO Max rumor that I rumormongered last month.

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I'm never one to spread rumors, but ever since news broke that Greg Berlanti and Zack Stentz were working on a Booster Gold movie, rumor is about all we've had to talk about.

The skinny from David James of WeGotThisCovered.com is that

"[S]ome upcoming DCEU movies may skip theaters and premiere on HBO Max. The big name we're hearing is that Booster Gold could be the first feature film release for the service."

In case you hadn't already heard, Warner Bros will jump into the greedy proprietary streaming service game in May 2020. The service will stream content from across Warner Bros properties, both pre-existing and newly created. Berlanti has already announced two DC-themed shows.

As a result of that announcement, it seems a safe bet that the days are numbered for Warner Bros' existing DC Universe streaming service. We already know that at least some of its content (specifically Doom Patrol) will be moving to HBO Max. Therefore, if a Booster Gold movie is ever going to happen, it seems logical to assume that will be showing up at HBO Max, too.

Of course, that's all speculation. Like I said: rumors are about all we have to talk about when it comes to Booster Gold: The Movie.

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