Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and Pixar’s Brave are all the subjects of hardcover art books that could provide retailers another way to profit from these summer blockbuster movies.  These beautifully-produced volumes all feature concept art, stills, and behind-the-scenes images from the tentpole films of 2012.

 

First up is Avengers: The Art of Marvel’s Avengers by Jason Surrell that is due to be released on May 2nd just two days before the film debuts.  This 272-page hardcover has a cover price of $49.99, and includes interviews with director Joss Whedon, producer Kevin Feige as well as other members of the film’s cast and crew, plus the usual assortment of behind-the-scenes visuals and concept art.

 

Excitement is definitely building among science fiction fans for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, a high-concept sci-fi horror film from the director of Bladerunner and Alien.  On June 5th Titan Books is publishing Prometheus: The Art of the Film, 192-page hardcover with a cover price of $39.95.  This movie began as a sort of “prequel” to the original Alien movie, but quickly morphed into something altogether more ambitious via a process that is detailed in this sumptuous volume.  The narrative DNA of the Alien movies is definitely present in Prometheus, but there is also a strain of high-concept narrative that touches on the most profound mysteries of life in a manner unseen in a major science fiction film since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.

 

Titan Books has come up with yet another way for retailers, especially comic book retailers, to profit from Prometheus, which is due out on June 8th, by publishing a new edition of Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson’s graphic novel adaptation of the first Alien film, Alien: The Illustrated Story, which will be available in a standard paperback edition for $14.95 and in a limited Alien: The Illustrated Story Artist’s Edition, a 72-page hardcover with a cover price of $75 that showcases Simonson’s classic art to great advantage.  Goodwin and Simonson’s adaptation of Alien is an excellent example of the increasingly assured comics creators of the 1980s taking on one of the decade’s most influential and visually stimulating films and adapting it seamlessly into the comics medium.

 

Last summer Pixar took it on the chin from critics with its sequel to Cars, but there should be no such outcry against this summer’s Pixar release Brave, a new original animated feature set in the highlands of medieval Scotland.  Brave is the first Pixar feature to be written by women, and one of the writers, Brenda Chapman, is co-directing the film, which is due out on June 22nd.  Chronicle Book’s 160-page The Art of Brave hardcover by Jenny Lerew, which is due out on May 31st and has a cover price of $40, captures the lush visuals and elaborate prep work and research that go into making every Pixar film special.

 

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, which debuts on July 20th, is perhaps the safest bet of this summer’s blockbusters given the enormous success of its predecessor.  It is also Nolan’s final Batman film, so it is only fitting that Abrams is planning the July 28th release of what could well be the safest bet among these movie-based hardcovers, Christopher Nolan’s Batman: The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy, a 304-page hardcover by Jody Duncan Jesser and Janine Pourroy with a cover price of $40.  This volume covers all three films of the trilogy, from Batman Begins in 2005 to The Dark Rises in 2012 with the aid of in-depth interviews with Nolan, screenwriter David Goyer, cinematographer Wally Pfister plus lots of concept art, sketches, and never-before-seen stills.