Turns out that the Akira project was not “shelved” as several reputable sources had reported over the past week.

The Hollywood Reporter said today that the project is still moving forward, has a script, and will be directed by Spanish Unknown director Jaume Collet-Serra.

“The anime property has been in development with a succession of writers and directors since WB grabbed the rights in 2008, but now the Spanish Unknown director has the helm for the live-action film version.”

All this makes me wonder how exactly the rumors started flying about that the project had been shelved, but I suppose that’s just Hollywood as usual.

The Reporter also stated: “Harry Potter adapter Steve Kloves has written the most recent draft of the screenplay, which is designed to turn Katsuhiro Otomo‘s classic graphic novel into a tentpole with a mid-level budget along the lines of WB’s Clash of the Titans.” This seems like an interesting development to me. I have really enjoyed most of the Harry Potter movies, and I feel like the right people could turn this project into something most fans would love.

Then again, I still can’t help but wonder why they have gone through so many potential writers, directors and rumored actors. I’m still skeptical, but I’m willing to give this project hope if people start pouring in some serious effort. Also, I think most fans would agree that a live action version of the motorcycle chase scene – if done well – could be absolutely incredible.

Can I make a recommendation to those working on this for Appian Way? The source material is good – damn good in fact – so don’t stray too far from it and you could make Akira into an excellent live action adaptation. Call in some of the creative team from the 1988 Japanese animated release, and while you’re at it make a friendly call to Katsuhiro Otomo.

Oh, and if it’s true that the project is still going to happen, was all that news about the motorcycle re-design false? Stay tuned to Big Shiny Robot and we’ll be sure to give you all the updates!

I know everyone is more concerned about the other big release tomorrow, but Winnie the Pooh is also coming out and it deserves a lot of attention in its own right.

Before we talk about Winnie the Pooh, though, I want to talk about the short film before it. Nessie is an adorable 2D animated film about how the Loch Ness Monster gets to Loch Ness. It’s set to a Scotsman reciting a poem about the legend and was just beautiful to look at. I need more short cartoons attached to feature length fare. And since Winnie the Pooh was a very taut 69 minutes, this helped fill out the time so if I’d have paid for it, I wouldn’t have any chance of feeling cheated.

The film is a return to form for the Winnie the Pooh universe, in that it’s actually set inside the confines of a book narrated by none other than John Cleese. The characters once again interact with the letters and paragraphs and illustrations and the tone of it captures everything I loved about Winnie the Pooh as both a kid and a fan of animation.

The story is very, very straight forward. Eeyore (played here quite capably by Bud Luckey, from “Boundin'” fame) has lost his tail and there’s a contest to find him a new one. The prize? A pot of honey that Pooh just needs because he can’t even remember the last time he’s eaten. Owl (played hilariously by Craig Ferguson) steals every scene he’s in, at one point attaching a chalkboard to Eeyore’s backside as a replacement for his tail and then illustrating an entire story on it, still attached to Eeyore. The animation delves into the chalk and provides a great sequence in the old mold of “Heffalumps and Woozels” or “Pink Elephants on Parade.” It worked stupendously.

More than anything, this film is fun and funny for people of all ages. I saw it with my 8 and 9 year old and we three were all laughing hysterically throughout. They came up with a perfect mix of humour and charm that appealed to everyone in rapid fire succession.

Again, the animation was gorgeous, the film was funny and beautifully rendered, the voices were top notch, and it was just a great, easy way to spend an hour and a half in the theatre.

If you get Harry Potter fatigue and want to see an adorable movie that isn’t a waste of your money and will bring plenty of childhood memories flooding back, you can’t do much better than this.

Well done, Disney. Well done.

John Carpenter’s The Thing is probably on my top 15 list. I love it. It’s the perfect monster movie. One of those: “because we didn’t have everything, we had to be inventive, and tricky, and clever to scare the audience” type movies… one, that just works.

I am also a fence-sitter when it comes to remakes. Some movies… should NEVER be remade. Yet, there are a handful of movies I wish to death would be remade: The Thing fell into the first category. It’s just too good to be touched, yet someone somewhere decided to do so anyway. Here’s the impending result:

There are a LOT of things in this trailer that lead me to believe that it is more of a prequel than a re-make… then again there are TOO MANY things that scream that it cannot be anything but a remake.

I will say this though- The pieces of the film that are definitely remade, seem to stay true to the original style and feel of the film. They seem to have captured that sense confinement that the original had- but with a modern edge… I don’t like that they are in the middle of mountains, I mean… that is nowhere near as scary as a shack in the middle of hundreds of miles of flat, ominous, snow. But I’m sure a producer only thinks: it’s not visually stimulating enough… For me, it’s more about the tone than the look though.

One exciting that presented itself to me was that it is produced by those who did the Dawn of the Dead remake… a remake that I feel, surpassed the original. Albeit- I found the original to be boring, trite, and poor execution of an amazing concept. (you know the concept- Zombies- the guy invented them for all intents and purposes and still to this day fails to present them in a way that speaks to me like 28 Days Later did) But that’s a rant for a different time and place.

I am actually a little excited to see this movie- because I have always wanted to see the story of the Norwegians… the group that discovered the alien in the first place and ended up letting the creature escape in a dog.  BUT! If this movie doesn’t end with a mysterious dog being rescued by a couple of the Norwegians who can’t speak English blowing up- and Kurt Russell… I’m over it. I think I could handle a prequel. Not a remake.

What do you think about the trailer? Are you excited for the prospect of another classic remake? Are you livid that Hollywood is out of ideas and too afraid to venture out and experiment with fresh new storytellers? Why is the sky blue? Where do babies come from?

I got the most intriguing email from the IFC today about two of my favorite YouTuber(s), the following is all it said, followed by a link to the video I’ve posted below:

We all knew Harry Potter fans were a bit rabid for their favorite wizard, [” target=”_blank”>but click on the link below] to see IFC’s own commercial kings, Rhett & Link and their musical homage inspired by one Potter SUPER fan who risked malaria and exposure in the great outdoors in an attempt to express her dismay, anxiety and fear about how the end of the Potter universe will impact her life forever!

This… is perhaps the BEST fan inspired/made homage to the Harry Potter I’ve seen to date (if you don’t count A Very Potter Musical)

Holy crap.

Pixar released the first trailer for John Carter of Mars (They can drop the “of Mars” all they want, I’m not going to) and I really couldn’t be more excited for this movie. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels are some of the most incredible, fun, and adventerous books I’ve ever read and knowing that Pixar is the mind behind bringing it to the big screen is blowing my mind on a regular basis.

Go here to watch the trailer in Glorious Quicktime.

They’re definitely going the route of the classic story and everything looks different than I imagined, but somehow better. The glimpse of the denizens of Barsoom ran shivers down. There were two moments that got me more than that though: John Carters leap into the Barsoomian desert, and the voice of Tars Tarkas (Willem DeFoe). They teased so much, though… I am DYING to see what their Tars Tarkas looks like and they just gave me his voice.

My only concern is that does it seem as though they’re playing down (at least for the trailer) the color of Dejah Thoris? Anybody?

At the end of the day I’m so happy about everything about this (even though the guy playing John Carter did play Gambit, the stupidest mutant of all time, in the stupidest Wolverine movie of all time). They’ve nailed the look and the feel and it feels like the movie will embody the breathless action the book instills you with.

This trailer just rocketed this movie up to my number 2 spot for most excited, right behind Captain America, meaning it’ll move up to number 1 soon.

Wow.

Well done, Pixar. Well done.

UPDATE: I’m not an idiot. I know the logos on the trailer say Disney. But when it was announced, this was touted as being Pixar’s first live action film. It’s directed by Andrew Stanton. I don’t know why the Pixar logo isn’t on there, but they’re doing the effects and the film. So… stop giving me shit about it not being Pixar. This is a Pixar movie through and through.

It’s been a while since we have heard anything on the Spider-Man front. For a while there we were being inundated with all sorts of cellphone camera footage and images of Spidey jumpin, running, flipping and swinging around.

Now, The Amazing Spider-Man directed by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Denis Leary, Chris Zylka, Irrfan Khan, C. Thomas Howell doesn’t hit theaters until July 3 of next year, but with Comic-Con right around the corner the studio is definitely making this film’s presence known and already seem to be ramping up some excitement for the film.

The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly features ol’ web-head himself on the cover, donning the suit without the mask.

Another photo released this week is a nice high-res version of Spider-Man sporting the mask.

So now we have some really good shots of the suit – at least from the waist up – showing the textures used, the design their going with, and if your familiar with the comics, where the costume designer got his/her inspiration from.

For me, I see a bit of everything mixed together. For some reason when I look at the suit I still see a bit of “classic” Spider-Man, a bit of Ultimate Spider-Man, and a fair dose of Spider-Man 2099. When chatting about the new suit with Kill-tacular-tron he said, “the costume is a little too [Spider-Man] 2099 for my taste, but it’s not awful.” I know there are some Spider-Man fans are really displeased with this redesign, but I quite like it. I really thing a lot of care was taken in bringing us a new version of his suit that is something fresh for this new start to the franshise without completely going off the tracks with something that didn’t even resemble the classic Spider-Man long johns we’ve all come to know and love over the years.

As for Garfield, I don’t think too many people will dispute he definitely fits the look of Peter Parker. In fact, if I may be so bold to say, he looks more like a Peter Parker to me than Toby Maguire ever did – no we just have to see the treatment of the character on screen to see if the look matches the demeanor and personality; if it does, then I really think they’ve hit a homerun in casting everyone’s favorite nerd-turned-superhero.

In addition to these new images released, there is also a description of the teaser trailer floating around which is supposedly set to be released next week. According to reports the trailer was seen by a Comic-Con employee, and this description was posted to the interwebs. Obviously, if you want to go into the trailer wanting to be surprised, then you may want to skip this.

Trailer opens with Peter Parker [Andrew Garfield] being beaten by bullies, one of which is played by Chris Zylka.

Shots of Dr.Connors [Rhys Ifans] being injected by a greenish fluid in a lab.

Shot of Parker being bitten by a spider,in his own house in what appears to be an attic lab.

Shots of Gwen Stacy’s face, Uncle Ben’s face and Aunt May’s face.

Shot of an alley with Ben [Martin Sheen] and Parker, then one of a dying Ben who utters ‘With Greatest power must come greatest responsibility, never forget that.’

Shot of Parker putting on the costume, camera angle from his back. He turns and is now atop The Empire State Building.

Goes black for a few seconds, we hear some monstrous sounds and cut to Connors’ lab where his foot transforms into a scaly one. Goes black and we hear roars.

Then we see a giant web with the title The Amazing Spider-Man. Coming Next Summer in 3d and Imax.

If the description of this trailer proves to be true, then it sounds like we may be getting another origin story – which isn’t terribly surprising, but I kind of hope they blow through it pretty quickly since we have already gotten the origin story in the first Spider-Man film (yes, I know this is a “reboot”, my point is most people are familiar with the origin of Spider-Man, let’s cover it in a fair, but quick mannor and get on with his story!). There are a few nitpicky things that I’m questioning reading this, like him being bitten by the radioactive spider in his own attic, and Kill-tacular-tron thought the slight changes in Uncle Ben’s “With Great Power . . .” statement were a bit “cheesy”, but we both agree these are just nitpicky things. I’m fine with some changes to Spider-Man’s story if they fit the movie treatment well, and I think we will have a better idea of what to expect once the trailer finally hits.

I’m incredibly optimistic about this reboot of the Spider-Man franshise. I like the director, I like the cast, and from the images I’ve seen I like the look they are going with. I’m excited to get a “feel” for this movie once the teaser is released next week and I’m really anticipating the July 4 Holiday weekend next year when we get to see our new Spider-Man in action on the big screen and all take to the webs with our final judgements! No pressure, Marc Webb . . .

UPDATE 07/14/11 12:30PM:

Entertainment Weekly has released the photos from inside this issue featured in their Spider-Man piece! Check out the gallery below and share your thoughts in the comments!

Sources: EW, Geek Tyrant, Movie Web

Transformers is big money right now and for those long time fans some of the older cartoons are finally making their way onto DVD thanks to those magnificent people at Shout Factory. But there’s one series which many people didn’t ever know about and that is Transformers: Headmasters. The Transformers series though incredibly popular in America may have been slightly more popular in Japan, and so after broadcasting all of the episodes of the American version in Japan and finding the series was soon coming to a close Takara (The Japanese toy company in charge of Transformers) decided to keep the show going, thus Transformers: Headmasters was born.

The story of Headmasters takes place six years after The battle with Unicron when a renegade group of transformers known as the Headmasters attack Cybertron. These Headmasters have special powers unknown to the original transformers but luckily for the Autobots a select few good Headmasters come to spoil the fun and help lead the charge against the Decepticons.

This 35 episode series is in it’s original Japanese Language with English subtitles and is a bit darker then the original series. There is some mild language and some characters even die. The human Spike is still in the show but his son Daniel and his friend “Wheelie” a motorbike Transformer are the main “kid portion” of the show. Also I was delighted because the only Transformer toy I ever owned as a kid apparently was from this series, that being Sixshot a transformer which had six different forms. The story is somewhat hard to follow at first especially if you had forgotten most of what happened in the original series, but after a quick refresh of the characters I started to remember who everyone was.

The series is actually pretty good, and probably a must have for any big transformers fan. If you weren’t big into the original US series, I would get those first which are also available at Shout Factory and run through them before picking this one up, but it’s a great addition to the story. The Headmasters DVD is currently available for $24.98 plus S&H from Shout Factory’s website.

If you’ve been following us at BSR you’ll know we’re big fans of Pinball FX2. If this is your first time, Pinball FX2 is a realistic pinball gaming system for the XBOX marketplace. You can download tables on the system and play them much like normal pinball tables. Each table is between 200 and 250 points so they’re quite affordable.

But now we have here the newest table Captain America, and this one may be my highest recommend for first timers. This table is probably the best mix of difficulty and challenge I’ve seen on any of the tables so far. It’s a smaller table but it’s more compact then others, there are so many different missions and side quests to do that you’re always busy and everything gives you decent scores. Probably my favorite feature is that nothing is lost when you lose a ball, if you got kickbacks they’re still there, and also the game rewards you for how much of a mission you did. For instance if a mission ends up giving you 14 million points in total and you happen to lose the mission halfway through, you’ll gain 7 million points and then when you reenter the mission you’ll start from where you last left off. On other tables I would feel major pressure right when I was at the end of a mission cause if I failed then I would have to start all over, but this table is helping me keep my cool the whole time. This is the major reason why I think this is a good table for beginners. It’s also a pretty high scoring tables which will make you feel awesome and thus be able to play better as well. My other favorite thing is The Cosmic Cube. The Cosmic Cube is located in the middle of table and when you’re able to hit it, it helps you with whatever current quest you are on as well as giving you a decent amount of points. So if you find yourself really stuck, get the Cosmic Cube out and it’ll help you on your way.

The story line elements are pretty good too. You’ve got a bunch of sidekicks to choose from including Bucky and the Howling Commandos like Dum Dum Dugan. There’s a way in which you can play as each character and they each give you special abilities. The villains are Red Skull and my personal favorite Baron Zemo. The whole of the story takes place during World War 2.

I highly recommend this table, I became good at the game recently and went back and bought all the tables I didn’t have previously, and though this isn’t my highest scoring table it’s near the top and it’s one in which I feel more accomplished in getting a high score then any other. Within about half an hour I had gotten up to about 50 Million and finally ended up getting to 95 Million points. So it’s a very fun table and I highly recommend it, especially to those who have yet to check out Pinball FX2 because it really is a good starting level.

UPDATE: Project was not shelved as previously reported! Click here to read the details!

Comics Alliance and several other sources confirmed today that the Live Action Akira project has been shelved (probably for good).

If you’ve been keeping up with our coverage of the project over the past couple of months, you probably know that most fans were in no way excited for the would-be live action adaptation headed up by Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company.

Honestly, I would have been able to accept a lot if the film was handled well…but where I drew the line was the complete tearing apart of the plot and the fact that they never even thought of consulting the still-alive creator and creative team that worked on the original manga and movie. This adaptation honestly could have been awesome – but the studio made wrong turns at nearly every major decision. The casting rumors (though unconfirmed) were the worst – that damned sparkly vampire from Twilight…ugh!

It was reported that Director Albert Hughes walked away in May and that Keanu Reeves refused the offer to play the leading role of Kaneda. This just confirms to me that the project was so terrible that nobody wanted it anywhere near their names. (In the words of Ted Theodore Logan, this project was “Bogus!”)

More shocking is that creative designer Chris Weston was asked on one of his first days of work to re-design the trademarked red motorcycle. Re-design?!? That’s insane! Has anybody out there noticed that the image of the famous motorcycle is what the movie is most commonly associated with, even after more than 20 years since the film’s release!?

Weston admitted that he was “horrified” and did not want to stray from the original design, but the studio pushed him forward and apparently somewhere in Hollywood there are concept drawings of the new bike. I would be curious to see them but am also pretty glad that they’ll probably never see the light of day.

So, what do you think? What would you have wanted to see in a live action Akira film? (I for one would want a gritty, futuristic Tokyo to fit with Otomo’s inspirational art and imagination.) Sound off in the comments below!

There are many changes going on over at the DC offices right now. The relaunch that is happening in September seems to be changing a lot of the current status quo in a majority of DC titles. However they seem to be taking a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach towards the Batman and Green Lantern books. A lot of the current Green Lantern continuity will carry over to the new DC universe. One of the big things that will carry over to the new relaunch was revealed in  Green Lantern #67, the end to the War of the Green Lantern story. Here  is the original cover to Green Lantern #1, beware after the picture there will be major spoilers.

I warned you there were spoilers ahead. This is your last chance to turn back! Hal Jordan is stripped of his ring by the Guardians after saving their lives and the lives of the rest of the Green Lantern Corps by killing the renegade guardian Krona. The Guardians state that a Green Lantern shouldn’t be able to kill a Guardian at all and deem him too dangerous to wield a power ring. During the final fight with Krona a ring-less Sinestro risks his life to help Hal. A green ring then flies to him stating he has the ability to overcome great fear and reinstates him into the Green Lantern Corps. That’s right, Sinestro will be the main character and Green Lantern of Earth in the new Green Lantern series starting up in September. To close out, here is the official cover to the first issue that DC just revealed: