Blog One – Introduction – Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World from Scott Pilgrim The Movie on Vimeo.

Here’s a snippet below:

…and when we do the Ghostbusters 3 movie, hopefully, Sigourney will be in, I know. We’ll make that happen.” That ‘hopefully’ was in reference to making the movie, I believe, not to Weaver’s role in it. He followed up with, “but there’ll be a whole new generation that has to be trained. And that whole new generation will be led by an individual that you’ll all love when you hear who it is, but I’m not going to tell you now. There will be lots of cadets, boys and girls, who’ll be learning how to use the cyclotron, the accelerators, and the new stuff. The nuon splitter, the inter-planary interceptor, all these great tools they’re going to have to flip from dimension to dimension. Anyway. Game number two, maybe.

Read the rest of the interview at Chud.com.

Marvel.com has announced that Iron Man 2 is officially underway, with principle photography beginning today.  Robert Downy, Jr. will return as Tony Stark, Iron Man and Gwyneth Paltrow as his assistant, Pepper Potts, and will feature newcomers, Don Cheadle (replacing Terrance Howard as James Rhodes), Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell. The sequel is slated for a May 2010 release.

Chud posted quotes from Empire magazine giving us all a little more hope for the fourth installment of this franchise.

They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually. But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn’t really have creative control, so to speak.

I don’t even want to comment on Venom, because I know he’s a great character and all the fans love him. I never want to say anything bad about a much-beloved character because usually it turns out that I’m the one that doesn’t understand what makes it great.

The best way for me to move forward on films, I realize…and this was a lesson I had to learn for myself…is that I’ve gotta be the singular voice that makes the creative choices on the film. I love Spider-Man so much that I’d like to continue telling Spider-Man stories but only under those circumstances where I think I can honour him. I don’t think I can honour him any other way.

Any hard-core toy nerd can tell you that Hot Toys is the king of the action figure world right now. For those not in the know, Hot Toys is a little outfit from Hong Kong that has been kicking ass all over the toy scene. Most recently with their award-winning Dark Knight 1/6 scale figures–probably the greatest Batman toys ever made–and their much anticipated Iron Man movie figures due out soon. The next movie line they will conquer is the original Predator and it should come as no surprise that these toys will be anything less than awesome.

Hot Toys has been making figures from the other Predator and AvP films for years with each subsequent release getting better and better, however, they have not yet done toys from the original Predator–until now.

Here is what you get with this guy:

• Realistic based 1/6 scale (14 in. tall) Predator from the first Predator movie
• Over 24 points of articulations
• Highly detailed armory and figure body with newly developed body chest , arms
• Removable mask with light-up laser targeting system (battery operated–YES!!!)
• Real fabric net body suit
• Interchangeable open and closed mandibles (oh SNAP!)
• Articulated Shoulder Cannon
• Extendable Wrist Blades
• Wrist Computer
• Bone Trophies
• Highly retailed Medical kit
• Interchangeable hands
• Jungle featured display base

Pics to drool over…

Vin Diesel spoke to MTV’s Splash page and dropped some interesting tidbits:

“I would be more apt to play a villain,” Diesel revealed to MTV News. “[I’d like to play] the protagonist of a story that is also like a Marvel villain — like Doctor Doom or something.”

In light of the newly announced plans for a “Fantastic Four” reboot, Diesel could get his chance to portray the Latverian dictator soon enough. But there are other characters in the comic book pantheon that the action star would be interested in pursuing, including one seaworthy superhero in specific.

“I have some superhero favorites,” Diesel admitted. “I talked to [‘The Surrogates’ director] Jonathan Mostow about ‘Sub-Mariner,’ which could be interesting because of its World War II-New York connection.”

Personally, I could get behind either of these suggestions. I think Vin Diesel is a perfectly capable actor. Given the choice of the two, though? I’d love to see him as Doom.

He’s got the right build, a cool voice and would kick ass as a villain.

What do you guys think?

Some of you may have heard that there has been leaked a copy of an uncompleted workprint of the upcoming Wolverine movie.

You will not be seeing a review of this version of the film on our website. As a filmmaking bot, pirating films makes me uneasy, but I wanted to say a few words about this situation.

Firstly, this could cause a serious damage to the box-office to a film that, by all rights, should be great. The trailers have been good, Hugh Jackman and Liev Schrieber are great and Deadpool is a fan favorite. Though it won’t open as well as X3 (because of how terrible that movie was) it should still do well at the box office, at least on opening weekend. And personally, my only misgiving about the film is the inclusion of Gambit, whom I hate as a character. But the early word spreading about this cut of the film is that it sucks.

Fox doesn’t deserve to lose money on a film based on an early cut of the film getting leaked to an overly critical community of rabid geeks like ourselves.

If the film is as good as it could be, then Fox shouldn’t be worried about this leak. Despite what a studio might think, I don’t think internet piracy really affects the box office prospects of a genuinely good film. But, if Fox is seriously worried about this leak (aside from the negligent breach in security), that this film getting leaked is going to damage their box-office because the film isn’t very good, then they have only themselves to blame for making a terrible movie out of one of the most popular properties in the known Universe.

And the fact that Fox seems worried about this leak in more than the “security breach” kind of way has me worried. Fox doesn’t exactly have a great track-record with the Marvel properties they’ve been in charge of that they didn’t have Bryan Singer working on: Fantastic Four 1 & 2, X3, Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, etc. This does not inspire a high level of confidence. If it weren’t for Bryan Singer’s X-men and X2, I’d be doubtful that Fox could produce a good Marvel movie, but the lingering quality of his Marvel installments offers me hope for this film.

I plan on seeing it opening weekend and I hope Fox didn’t screw it up. If they did, though, then this leak isn’t going to be what sunk them. If they lose a pile of money on this picture, maybe they’ll learn something about what it takes to make a Marvel film and ask Marvel Studios to step in and co-produce. That would be the smartest thing for them in any case.

Though If the film is bad though, and it under-performs they’re going to look to this incident and demonize movie piracy as the sole factor in their flagging profits. But there are a dozen more compelling reasons, the largest being this: good movies make more money.

Anyhow, I could go on like this forever.

Feel free to discuss the issue below.

Hey there bots! I have what I consider some good Spider-Man 4 news.

First off, scifiwire.com had a little chat with Sam Raimi, and he says that in order to hit the May 6, 2011 release date the script needs to be pretty much done in the next 3 months or so:

Sam Raimi, who will direct Spider-Man 4, told SCI FI Wire that the film’s script, by David Lindsay-Abaire (Inkheart), should be ready by summer. “Right now, David Lindsay-Abaire is working on a draft of the new picture,” Raimi said in an exclusive telephone interview on Monday. “And he’s hard at work, and hopefully we’ll see something in about three months.”

Raimi said that the film has to make its previously announced May 6, 2011, release date. “We have to make the release date, and on all of these pictures, the Spider-Man films—and I’m sure it’s the same as with many of the other bigger-budgeted films—they have release dates far in advance of a screenplay,” he said. “So it’s about getting it ready the best you can in time for the first day of production. That’s what we’ve always done, and that’s what we’ll try to do again.”

Tobey Maguire has reportedly signed on to reprise the title role. Raimi added that it’s a bit early to discuss other casting, though he does plan to reassemble the core cast, which includes Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane. “At this point I do, but it’s really … all going to be dependent upon the script, and I’ll just have to wait and see,” Raimi said. “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse, but hopefully we can service the story in the screenplay, and whatever it demands, hopefully we’ll be its eager servants.”

One thing that has been brought up before is that Raimi’s hand was forced with the decision to make Venom one of the villains in Spider-Man 3 by Arad. I think we can all agree that Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 are some of the best superhero cinema to date, then we have a sudden slump in the series with the third installment. I have been notoriously forgiving of Spider-Man 3 and eagerly await a rebound with a fourth, so I was excited to see this:

The helmer also told Empire magazine he will have full control over the fourth installment – something he didn’t have on the third. “They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually,” he said. “But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn’t really have creative control, so to speak.”

He added that “The best way for me to move forward on films, is that I’ve got to be the singular voice that makes the creative choices on the film. I love Spider-Man so much that I’d like to continue telling Spider-Man stories. But only under those circumstances where I think I can honour him.” (courtesy superherohype.com)

Raimi has always expressed that he has had a love for Spider-Man as a character since he was just a kid reading the comics. It was great to have a FAN of the comics directing the first two movies with so much creative control to do the justice Spidey deserves, then something went south with number three.

If this is all the case, if Raimi is back in control, I think we can all be slightly more cautiously-optimistic about a 4th installment.

As reported in the pages of Variety today, Universal and Imagine Entertainment are gearing up for “The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft.”

Created by Mac Carter and Jeff Blitz, book borrows elements from Lovecraft’s life, such as his family’s struggle with mental illness and his own bouts with writer’s block, and transforms the young writer’s darkest nightmares into reality when he comes across a book that puts a curse on him and lets the evils he conjures up loose on the world.

As a long time fan and admirer of all things Lovecraft, I’ve been eager to see some respectable Lovecraftian adaptations hit the big screen, such as the long rumored Guillermo Del Toro dream project, “At The Mountains of Madness”, so with the announcement that Universal  optioned such a promising property with the creators attached as producer’s, my iron heart leapt and I praised Yog-Sothoth.

Then I found out that Ron Howard was aiming to direct.

All the same, The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft is set to hit shelves on April 8th from Image Comics and it looks like a winner to me.  I can’t wait to check it out before Opie gets his filthy mits all over it.