This seems like completely baseless rumour week in the world of Lucasfilm after Saturday’s New Star Wars Trilogy debacle.

Blue Sky Disney (a blogspot of some type) claims to have a source that says LFL will be announcing a 3D conversion of the Indiana Jones saga next month.  Everyone is running the story.  And I’d be glad if it were true.

But Tracy Cannobbio, a Lucasfilm spokesperson, had this to say to me:

This is completely false. Right now, we are totally focused on bringing Star Wars to 3D, and we have no plans to do an Indiana Jones conversion.

And I’m liable to believe her.

The thing I hate about this is that whenever someone starts a rumour about Lucasfilm revisiting a property, the crazies come out of the wordwork and complain about how much they used to love George Lucas properties and how sick they are of him “stealing their cash.”  It gets annoying.

Having said that, I don’t think Indiana Jones lends itself as well to 3D.  Star Wars is an effects extravaganza, Indiana Jones, for all its adventure, is pretty straight drama.  It would be a lot easier to convert, I suppose, because there isn’t as much to convert.

But with as many hands in the Indy pie (Paramount, Spielberg, Ford, Lucas, etc.) I wouldn’t expect that LFL would be able to unilaterally decide to do this.  In addition to the official Lucasfilm comment, it’s common sense that this wouldn’t be happening.

Badass Digest is claiming to have a scoop on the development of the much anticipated sequel to JJ Abrams’ Star Trek sequel. According to Badass Digest, they have a source that is close to the production of the film and has informed them that the basic storyline has been decided on and that they will not be going with Khan as the villain for the sequel, but will be pulling from the classic Trek universe for a protagonist.

. . . my source says that the film won’t be focused on a traditional ‘villain’ type at all.

The story will focus on a classic Trek character. And when I say classic, I mean a character who appeared in season one of the original series, when Gene Roddenberry was in charge.

It’s definitely a character that will make fans of TOS excited. Think along the lines of Harry Mudd or Trelane or Gary Mitchell or the Talosians or the Horta. Actually it’s one of those that I named.

Now, the age that I am, I have seen almost all episodes from TOS, but The Next Generation was the Star Trek I grew up with – so don’t be too embarrassed if those characters don’t exactly ring familiar bells with you. Luckily though, Badass Digest has a great break down of all of these characters and how they might play into this new Star Trek universe. My bet? Out of the characters listed it seems it would be cool to see the “Q-like” character of Trelane make an appearance, or see Kirk have a personal struggle this time around (since the first film was pretty Spock-centric in this department) with a character like helmsman Gary Mitchell – Kirk’s best friend who is turned into an evil God-like being.

I like the idea of staying away from Khan. Abrams has developed a new universe for the crew of the Enterprise and it would be kind of shame to see them just start rehashing villains from prior films. When the filmmakers made Khan – a previously somewhat forgettable protagonist from the series – the villain it was a stroke of genius to bring back this minor character in a big way, and with a vengeance. It looks like Abrams is looking to do something similar by looking to the original series to find his man of mishief for the sequel.

In any case, I can’t wait to see what we get for Star Trek 2 – which I’m pretty sure will eventually get a sweet subtitle . . .

Come make some new friends (or enemies! . . . or even “frienemies”) in the BSR Forum and share your thoughts on villain selection for Abrams’ Star Trek sequel!

It has been a while since I’ve written a DVD column, but they were seemingly popular and readers asked for it back.  So here I am with the column, back in all of its glory.

This is actually a great week to be back.

The first and most important release today is Clone Wars Season 2 on DVD and Blu-ray.  This season stepped up the game from the already great Season 1 and delivered better animation, better stories and a return to form for Star Wars, bringing fans who’d lost interest because of their inability to enjoy the prequels back into the fold.  I’ve reviewed every episode of this show on this site and this season started great and ended even better.

Next we have the Back to the Future trilogy on Blu-ray.  This is a great set of movies and I really don’t need to tell you twice why you should own it.  The box set even includes footage of Eric Stoltz in the role of Marty McFly.  He was replaced by Michael J. Fox 5 weeks after they started filming.

Next we have the Alien Anthology on Blu-ray.  These are four movies that would benefit greatly from the Hi-Def treatment and you’d be surprised how well the third and fourth installments hold up.  In fact, I almost prefer them to the second installment.  Alien is still the perfect movie to watch for Halloween, it’s still incredibly scary and one of the best horror/drama films ever made.

Next is the hilarious Venture Bros. Season 4, Part 1.  If you’re not watching this show, there’s something wrong with you.  (Admittedly, I haven’t seen this season, but I’ll be able to catch up now that the DVD is out.)

A must-own for any collector: The Criterion Blu-ray release of Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory.  This is one of Kubrick’s best.  It’s an emotional and thrilling story set in the trenches of France during World War I.  Kirk Douglas offers one of the best performances of his career and Criterion delivers high quality in all of their Blu-ray transfers.

Next is a must for any Silent film fan: The Complete works of Chaplin at Keystone studios.  This is a collection of 34 Chaplin classics.  Worth every penny.

This isn’t a definitive list of everything available, but only my picks.  If there’s anything you think I missed, be sure to comment below or on the forum!

We’ll see you next week with a whole new batch of releases!

NBC Universal has announced plans to adapt Stephen King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower. You may ask why Big Shiny Robot (BSR) is not giving the public news on this; well, I am the rebel who is filling you in on this breaking news!

For all of you who are unfamiliar with the awesome book series, here is a quick synopsis. The main protagonist, Roland Deschain, is the last Gunslinger in Mid-World in search of the legendary Dark Tower (envision King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, but with guns. Then throw in elements of the old west, magic, and violence!). As the series progresses, you realize that Mid-World and our world are linked together, as if they intersect on dimensional plains.

Stephen King reveals Roland’s story over the course of seven volumes. There has also been six comic book mini-series, one short story (written by King), and the announcement of an eighth book entitled, The Wind Through the Keyhole, which I believe will take place between books five and six.

The epic series encompasses every genre possible, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Western, Horror, Romance, Drama, and even pieces of an autobiography, just to name a few. It also intersects with almost all of King’s other works. For example, book five of the series, Wolves of the Calla, is a fine semi-sequel to his other novel, Salem’s Lot.

Weeks ago, it was reported that Ron Howard and Brian Grazer made a deal with NBC Universal to adapt this larger-than-life book series into a movie trilogy AND a television series at the same time. The reason they would add the television series to run around the same time as the movie is because the source material is enormous, to say the least. I think they understand that a story this complex would need more than three movies to completely explain this great series to an audience. And just to let you know my opinion, I do not believe they could re-create the complex world of The Dark Tower with any sort of justice even if it was adapted into seven movies.

From the limited news available, they will have Ron Howard direct the first movie as well as the first season of the television series. From there it seems there will be another movie followed by another television season, but no mention of the director. Supposedly, J. J. Abrams has had the rights to the film for years, as it is rumored he personally bought the rights from Stephen King himself for a whole $1! I think an Abrams adaptation would have been amazing, but they never called to get my opinion. Oh well. We can only hope for the best as no other adaptation has taken such a huge undertaking and risk since The Lord of the Rings and I believe that it will be an even bigger risk than the LOTR!

However, there are major drawbacks of adapting this movie; there always is. First, Akiva Goldsman who, admittedly, has written some great things like A Beautiful Mind, The Client, and various episodes of Fringe is writing the adaption. But all of his previous written comic book adaption’s he has written have ruined some of the best characters in comics. I mean, his adaption of Batman and Robin and Jonah Hex took these books and turned them into evil. He crushed and mutilated them!

Howard stated, “We are excited to have found partners at Universal who understand and embrace our approach to King’s remarkable epic … by using both scope and scale of theatrical filmmaking and the intimacy of television, we hope to more comprehensively do justice to the characters, themes, and amazing sequences King had given us in The Dark Tower novels. It might be the challenge of a lifetime but clearly a thrilling one to take on and explore.”

If anyone out there reading BSR wants to keep getting updates on the development of The Dark Tower adaption, feel free to let me and those at BSR know, and for all of you who have not read the novels, I urge you to start now! For the full press releases from NBC Universal go to the following site: http://www.stephenking.com/DarkTower/pdfs/dark_tower_pr1.pdf.

This morning I was hit with news via Twitter that IESB.Net broke the story that Lucasfilm is hard at work on developing another trilogy of Star Wars films to be released a year or two after the final installment of Star Wars 3D.

Their website has been crippled with traffic from the story and it might take a while to load, but you can find the story here.

I’m always very skeptical about news of new Star Wars movies.  Lucasfilm has been pretty adamant that there are no more films coming out and I’m reasonably in the loop.  I can pretty safely ignore stories like this 99 times out of 100.  But IESB is a usually reliable site and they are staking their entire reputation in the truth of this story.  If it doesn’t pan out, they’re up a creek as far as their reliability is concerned.

They claim that a spy deep inside of Lucasfilm leaked to them special knowledge of a desire by George Lucas, confident from the success of Clone Wars, to make more films set in the Star Wars Universe.  By all accounts, Lucas has said the Skywalker Saga has ended and we won’t be revisiting that again in any officially canon form.

IESB’s spy speculates that it is indeed a sequel, though how far into the Star Wars universe it is they didn’t know.

From their report:

What do we know? First of all, these new film will have nothing to do with the live action television series currently in development. That show already has over 50 scripts ready to go and plenty of pre-production time and money has been spent on artwork and storyboards. Once that show goes into production, Lucasfilm hopes to be able to produce at least 100 episodes since that is the threshold for syndication in the United States.

Too early for story details but one thing that our source is certain about, they will not be prequels but instead sequels. It’s not for certain if they will be the long awaited Episodes 7, 8 and 9 but could instead be Episodes 10, 11 and 12 or possibly even further out in the Star Wars timeline. And by giving space in the timeline, possibly even as far as 100 years or 1,000 years in the Star Wars universe future, Lucas avoids having to make these stories “fit in” with what the previous stories have told.

I’m telling you this firmly: take this news with a grain of salt.  A grain of salt with a vengeance.  Until Lucasfilm makes any sort of official announcement (or a little bird deep in Lucasfilm tells me so personally), this isn’t happening.

It’s not unheard of, though.  The prequels were bankrolled off the backs of the Special Editions, which helped advance the technology further to make them possible.  If Lucas is pushing the technology and form further with Star Wars 3D and will be using that to bankroll the live action TV series and a new trilogy, I will be nothing but elated.

The possibilities of a sequel trilogy set in the Star Wars universe are endless.  And I’d love to see George produce them in the same way he’s producing the Clone Wars and give top  filmmakers who are Star Wars fans a chance to play in the sandbox.  Though, if he does decide to direct them, I’ll still be there first in line.  As far as the films are concerned, he hasn’t let me down yet.

What do you guys think about this?

UPDATE:  Tracy Cannobbio from Lucasfilm responded to my request for comment on this story thusly:

“This is, of course, completely false. George Lucas has lots of projects keeping him busy right now – including plenty of Star Wars projects – but there are no new Star Wars feature films planned.”

I will take Tracy’s word for it, even though IESB ran their article with the following caveat:

Can we expect Lucasfilm to confirm our story? Have they ever? Nope, I am sure that they will spin this or completly deny the story, but we will stand 100% behind our source.

So, they can stand behind their source all they want.  Lucasfilm, quite predictably, is standing by the fact that it’s not happening, though in truth they’d have to say that at this point one way or the other.  It is interesting though that Tracy’s email to me is identical in wording to the email Wired got from their source at LFL.  At the very least, this story was enough for LFL to get together on an officially worded denial.

In any case, be sure to weigh in below.

MARTIN FREEMAN IS BILBO BAGGINS.

end of line

Seriously, it could end there and it wouldn’t matter, right?  Freeman is great, and you may remember him from (the original and still the best) British version of The Office, Hot Fuzz, and  Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy.  He’s perfect, and who everyone was pulling for, short of getting Ian Holm to magically lose 40 years (or 80-90, as it were in the LOTR chronology).

The next piece of key casting is Richard Armitage, who I personally have no real opinion of, but my wife swoons for as she religiously watches MI-5, (literally, she just went, “Oooooh!”) But he is involved in one of my most anticipated films of the next few years, Captain America.

The rest of the cast are people I know even less, but given Jackson’s ability to properly cast even more minor roles (I would argue there is almost no miscasting in either Lord of the Rings or King Kong– good thing we dodged the bullet with a replacement Aragorn or that wouldn’t be true, now would it?)

What is missing here is an announcement for Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Gollum (Andy Serkis), and the voice of Smaug (rumored to be Bill Nighy) and relatively major parts Beorn and Bard of Laketown.  Back during when Guillermo del Toro was directing, it was rumored he had a part carved out for Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman, speculated to be one of these two roles.

Also, since it was originally conceived as two films, rumored to include what would have been some peripheral stories about Gandalf’s interactions with Saruman, possibly including some meetings with Aragorn, we have no confirmation of Christopher Lee or Viggo Mortenson being involved either.

What say you robots?  Let the speculation-tron and bitch-mo-matic engage its servos!!!

Here’s the official press release (and also “>some youtube love):

Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Rob Kazinsky, Aidan Turner, Graham McTavish, John Callen, Stephen Hunter, Mark Hadlow and Peter Hambleton have joined the ensemble cast of the The Hobbit, it was jointly announced today by Toby Emmerich, President and Chief Operating Officer, New Line Cinema; Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer, Warner Bros.; Steve Cooper, co-Chief Executive Officer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., and Peter Jackson.

Since The Hobbit films received a green light on October 15, pre-production has been in full swing. Set for release in December, 2012 and December, 2013, we can confirm that Martin Freeman (The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Hot Fuzz) will play Bilbo Baggins, the hero of the story. Richard Armitage (UK TV’s MI-5 and soon to appear in Captain America: The First Avenger) is set to play Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the Company of Dwarves which sets off to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from a thieving dragon.

“Despite the various rumours and speculation surrounding this role, there has only ever been one Bilbo Baggins for us,” says Peter Jackson.  “There are a few times in your career when you come across an actor who you know was born to play a role, but that was the case as soon as I met Martin.  He is intelligent, funny, surprising and brave – exactly like Bilbo and I feel incredibly proud to be able to announce that he is our Hobbit.”

He adds “Richard is one of the most exciting and dynamic actors working on screen today and we know he is going to make an amazing Thorin Oakensheild. We cannot wait to start this adventure with him and feel very lucky that one of the most beloved characters in Middle-earth is in such good hands.”

Rounding out the Company of Dwarves are Aidan Turner (TV’s Being Human) and Rob Kazinsky (TVs EastEnders) who play Kili and Fili, respectively. Jackson comments “Rob is an extremely talented young actor with a huge career in front of him, I’m thrilled that he has agreed to take on the role of Fili.  Besides his talent as an actor, Rob is also a champion sword fighter; I’m looking forward to seeing the damage he can do to a horde of marauding Goblins!”  He continues, “Adian is a wonderfully gifted young actor who hails from Ireland. I’m sure he will bring enormous heart and humor to the role of Kili.”

The remaining dwarves will be played by Graham McTavish (Secretariat and TV’s 24) as Dwalin; John Callen (TV’s Power Rangers Jungle Fury) as Oin; Stephen Hunter (TV’s All Saints) as Bombur; Mark Hadlow (King Kong) as Dori; and Peter Hambleton (TV’s The Strip) as Gloin.

Jackson notes, “Graham is a terrific actor, with a great depth of experience, which I know he will bring to the role of “Dwalin. I have worked with Mark Hadlow on many projects; he is a fantastic actor.  I am thrilled to be working with both of them on these movies.  He adds, “I am also proud to announce the casting of New Zealand actors as Peter Hambleton, John Callen and Stephen Hunter. Fran and I know that they will bring great depth and talent to our Company of Dwarves.”

The two The Hobbit films are being co-produced by New Line Cinema and MGM, with New Line managing production, Warner Bros. Pictures handling domestic distribution and MGM distributing internationally. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Carolynne Cunningham are producing the films, with Phillipa Boyens serving as co-producer and Ken Kamins as executive producer.

The Oscar-winning, critically acclaimed LOTR trilogy, also from the production team of Jackson, Walsh and Cunningham, grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide at the box office. In 2003, Return of the King swept the Academy Awards, winning all of the 11 categories in which it was nominated, including Best Picture — the first-ever Best Picture win for a fantasy film. The trilogy’s production was also unprecedented at the time.

It’s time once again for another installment of The Big Movie Mouth Off, starring Jeff Vice from X96′s Radio From Hell and Jimmy Martin from SLUG Magazine (and both are regular panelists on The Geek Show Podcast)

You can friend the show on Facebook here.

These are available exclusively on Comcast: Utah On Demand, and then after their exclusive run there, they will be appearing on Big Shiny Robot! and across the Internet. (iTunes/podcast versions coming soon by popular demand.)

Without further delay, let’s get to the reviews:

The Sundance documentary Catfish:

Zack Snyder’s Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole:

The Impossible True Story of Secretariat:

David Fincher’s The Social Network:

You Again:

And finally, Let Me In:

Just today I was thinking to myself, “Self, what would it look like if you mixed Marvel superheroes and TRON?”

Well, I’llbedamned, would you look at this!

Marvel has revealed the variant covers of some of it’s most popular titles “celebrating” TRON: Legacy‘s release – which still is just about two months away. Starting in November you can pick up these TRON variants featuring your favorite Marvel superheroes all TRON’d-up at your local comic shop.

Kind of a weird mash-up idea, but it definitely looks pretty cool with some of these characters. You can check them all out over at Marvel.com!

The Hollywood Reporter’s Heatvision Blog is reporting that Disney has struck a deal with Paramount to release “The Avengers” and “Iron Man 3” and they have established a date for the release of the third Iron Man film.

May 3, 2013 is the date you need to write in your calendars.

Though they’ll be paying Paramount a boatload of cash for the right to distribute these films, it makes a lot of sense for Disney, since they own Marvel.  It must really bite at them to see another film company profiting so handsomely from the release of what is now their intellectual property.

Despite the deal, Paramount will still be distributing Captain America and Thor.

This shows a lot about how grown up Paramount and Disney can be and makes me wonder why Fox  and Sony won’t play ball.  It would be to all of our benefit to see Marvel Studios handling all of the other Marvel properties and they can build up a single movie universe out of it (like the fans want). I mean, I would love to see Peter swing by the Baxter Building and get advice from Johnny Storm, and see Nick Fury face off against the Punisher, and Charles Xavier, Reed Richards and Tony Stark hanging out with Dr. Strange and casting the Hulk into space, or whatever.

Fox, Sony, and Lionsgate could still make a killing with their licenses, but give the Marvel movies a life of their own and the potential to be greater than they are.

Click here to read the full report from The Hollywood Reporter.

What do you guys think?  Would it be better for Marvel to have control of all of their properties back?  What would you like to see on film if it could happen?

After a few days of speculation of which Spider-Man villain Rhys Ifans might play in the upcoming Spider-Man movie reboot directed by Marc Webb, the question appears to be answered.

The villain this film is going with is Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard, according to The Wrap:

Rhys Ifans will play Dr. Curt Connors, better known as The Lizard, in Marc Webb’s “Spider-Man,” TheWrap has learned.

There had been rumors across the blogosphere that Sony was thinking of bringing back Venom for the franchise reboot, but that character will not be featured in the movie, two individuals familiar with the project have told TheWrap.

Obviously, no sources for this information have been cited so we will have to wait for that 100% confirmation from Sony themselves before we all settle into accepting this as fact, but The Wrap does seem pretty sure of themselves. I for one think this is an interesting choice to go with as it may go further in separating Webb’s Spider-Man movies from Raimi’s. Raimi tended to lean towards the more “realistic” villains (until the whole Venom fiasco – but we have all heard enough about that), whereas Webb seems to be willing to take the risk on a more fantastical villain – a man who turns into a giant lizard. Granted, his transformation is all “science-based”, so I don’t think it’s as much of a stretch as it may initially seem.

For no reason in particular, I have a lot of faith in what Webb is doing with this movie, he has a great cast coming together and some inklings of what direction he wants to take his version are starting to come through. I can’t wait until we start getting more details once this film starts shooting.

Head on over to the BSR Forum to discuss this new villain revelation!