Outlander - Final One Sheet Poster

As you may have read recently one upcoming sci-fi movie I'm looking forward to is the barmy premised Outlander, the Vikings vs Aliens movie. This poster above is the final one to be released before the movies comes out.

The premise once again is: During the reign of the Vikings, Kainan (James Caviezel), a man from a far-off world, crash lands on Earth, bringing with him an alien predator known as the Moorwen. Though both man and monster are seeking revenge for violence committed against them, Kainan leads the alliance to kill the Moorwen by fusing his advanced technology with the Viking's Iron Age weaponry.

Completely barmy, but one to see nonetheless!

Two Face Lives?

During his Golden Globes red carpet MTV interview Aaron Eckhart (the actor who played Two Face in Dark Knight if you didn't know) hinted that Two Face could well be in a coma at the end of the movie rather than outright dead. He stated "I think Harvey — if he's not dead — is in a serious coma and I'm not sure he's coming out. They might pull the plug on him." During the 3 minute interview he didn't say Two Face was 'dead' once...

Will we see Two Face in some way or form in a future sequel or was Eckhart just getting the fanboys all riled up? As always, only time will tell.

Jackie Chan As Mr. Miyagi?

One casting rumour I was worried about recently was that Jackie Chan is rumoured to be playing Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid remake alongside Jaden Smith.

Now don't get me wrong, Jackie Chan is great and I love his films, but he's not the Miyagi we all know and love by a long shot. It's like putting Sylvester Stallone in a Yoda suit for the next Star Wars movie simply because he's got big ears and talks funny... I can just see the casting team sitting round a table a saying "now who can we get that's Chinese and can do martial arts?... Jakie Chan!!!".

I grew up with the Karate Kid movies being a big influence on my life and being somewhat like my own (strict Japanese stepfather teaching me Martial Arts, catching a fly in chopsticks, yes I actually did do that, getting bullied and fighting back etc etc) and it pains me when a remake sounds as potentially disastrous as this could be. Pat Morita would not approve I'm sure!

Will they keep the crane kick final finishing move in? We'll see...

Kick Ass - New Photos

As I've said before in a couple of previous posts I'm really looking forward Matthew Vaughn's new 2009 comic book movie 'Kick Ass'. There's only been a couple of photos released but now there's another 3 to wet your appetite.

Samuel L Jackson May Not Return As Nick Fury?

One of the best and most talked about moments in the 2008 Iron Man movie was Samuel L Jackson's cameo in the post credit scene introducing himself to Tony Stark as Colonel Nick Fury of S.H.E.I.L.D and inviting him to join the Avengers Initiative.

It was a done deal in every fanboy's head that Sammy boy would reprise his role in the upcoming 2011 Avengers movie, or at least have another Marvel movie cameo. Unfortunately though it seems that the talks between Marvel Studios and Sam's agents broke down and the job may well now fall into the hands of another actor, or the role gets written out completely... Not good news. Let's hope David Hasslehoff isn't set to reprise his old 1998 Fury role!!!!

Hopefully the red tape will all be ironed out before things go ahead, I can't see anyone else having the presence or skill Sam could potentially bring to what is slowly building up to be one of the best and most anticipated movies of all time.

Iron Man 2 Casting Rumour - Emily Blunt As Black Widow.

I'd reported a few weeks back that both Hawkeye and Black Widow are rumoured to have prominent roles in the upcoming 2010 Iron Man 2 movie. Now the news from Variety is that Emily Blunt is now set to play the role of Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff. Blunt seems like a strange choice to me, I'm not sure why, I can see a dozen other actresses in my head that would fit the role a hell of a lot better than her, but still it's always nice to hear casting news when it comes to Marvel movies. Marvel studios themselves haven't confirmed Blunt yet but as with Sam Rockwell and Micky Rourke it's only a matter of time.

Fast & Furious - Newest Trailer

Another movie sequel (number 4 this time round) is Fast and Furious, starring pretty much the entire original film's cast. Their careers might be going down the drain but they can all rely on a movie with no storyline, fast cars, exlposions aplenty and hot girls acting tough to bring in their long awaited paychecks... Oh and I do actually love these films, even Tokyo drift, so let's see if this film hit the mark for me too!

Here's the newest trailer:

Crank 2: High Voltage - Newest Trailer

I have to admit that although I'm an avid Jason Statham fan the original Crank film wasn't really his career high point for me. However Hollywood has deemed the Crank franchise worthy of a sequel so here we are again...

Here's the newest trailer:

I'll Be Back...

OK, it's been two weeks since my last post, and to those who visit regularly for entertainment news; I apologise.

I've had a busy few weeks with some UK Toyfairs coming up, some problems with my hips and back (an old man already at 30 years old!) and some problems at work resulting in possible redundancies due to the current economical climate... so all in all it's been a bit of a nightmare and I just haven't had the chance to sit down and do my beloved blog.

However I have a HUGE amount of posts to put up over this weekend (hopefully I'll find the time) so please visit again within the next couple of days and I should have made up for two weeks absence!

By for now!

New Stargate DVD Movie On It's Way

Being the phenomenally huge fan of Stargate SG-1 that I am (I'm currently watching 3 episodes a night with the missus of my season 1-10 DVD box set X-mas present for instance) I was ecstatic to hear that yet another SG-1 straight to DVD movie will be on it's way very soon.

Stargate SG-1 co-creator Brad Wright confirmed to Gateworld recently that the next movie will focus on Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson). Anderson’s role in Stargate: Continuum amounted to a guest appearance, but will be much more substantial in the next film. “The next movie will be much more Jack-centric,” Wright said.

Unfortunately someone who will be missing from the next chapter of the franchise will be Vala Mal Doran (Claudia Black). Wright has previously told GateWorld that, due to a variety of circumstances including the availability of former cast members who have moved on to other work, it’s unlikely that future SG-1 movies will include the entire cast of the television series. While fans of those characters will certainly mourn their absence, it does offer the writers the ability to spend more time servicing whichever characters are included.

I actually met Claudia last year at the London film and Comic Con and asked her why I didn't see her name announced for the San Diego Comic Con Continuum talk that I'd be attending the week after. She told me that she hadn't been invited and didn't even know there was a talk... I found that a little odd to say the least as she mentioned at LFCC that Ben Browder was one of her closest friends and pretty much the entire cast was attending the SDCC talk including the elusive Richard Dean Anderson himself... hell even Beau Bridges was there!

She was also unaware that former Farscape cast members Gigi Edgely and David Franklin were signing at SDCC and she would have gone if she'd been invited. Did I smell a rat somewhere? Damn right! Either she was telling porky's or they'd left her out of it for some reason.

Aaaaaaanyway, we may lose Vala, but to get O'Neill back for some major screen time is definitely a bonus and anything that lets me see more of Amanda Tapping will never be a bad thing for me. I love that woman!

There's no current release date for the next SG-1 DVD and there's certainly no sign of a theatrical release anytime soon, regardless of how well the last two movies did but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless.

More Thor News...

It's recently been confirmed that not only will Kenneth Branagh be directing the new Thor movie but he'll also have an acting role too. It hasn't been confirmed who he'll play but as the director of Iron Man (John Favreau) had a bit part in his movie this might seem to be the start of a new trend for each Marvel movie director going forward.

Better news for us geeks is that the script has been tweaked to add Thor's human alter ego Donald Blake into the end of the script. It's worth pointing out that Blake was not in the original script which meant that the whole film had been originally set in Thor's fantasy-like home of Asgard for the entire movie. Obviously some bright spark figured out that each Marvel movie after Iron Man has to be placed as much in the real world as possible and have a connection to the upcoming Avengers release.

I predict that if the movie itself doesn't have much real world involvement, as we know it doesn't at this point, we may well see Blake in a post credits appearance, hopefully being approached by either Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) or Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) to join the team. Me, I see Branagh playing Donald Blake...

In the Thor comics Thor's father Odin decides that his son needs to be taught humility and consequently places Thor into the body of a partially disabled medical student named Donald Blake. After becoming a doctor and thoroughly believing himself to be Blake, he later discovers Thor's disguised hammer and learns to change back and forth into the Thunder God.

As this part of the story isn't actually the birth of Thor, more of a rebirth on Earth, it isn't integral to the main movie, only to eventually join him in some believable way to the real world where the rest of the superheros like Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and co belong to.

"WHOSOEVER HOLDS THIS HAMMER, IF HE BE WORTHY, SHALL POSSESS THE POWER OF THOR"!

Sorry, couldn't resist that...

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li Poster, Pics And Trailer

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li has had a few updates in the last week with a new Poster, a couple of new pics and the official US trailer getting released. The poster is above and the rest are below...

Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas as Vega.

Neal McDonough as M.Bison.


Official English version trailer

Tron 2 Finds Its Lead - Garrett Hedlund

The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that the new Tron movie (now being called just 'Tron' with no numbers or letter switches etc) has found its lead role in the 26 year old Garrett Hedlund of (Troy, Friday Night Lights, Eragon, Death Sentence).

No character name has been revealed but Hedlund's role is described as "a man who finds himself pulled into the world of a computer [to retrace] the steps of a character from the original movie named Kevin Flynn".

Common speculation says that Jeff Bridges character of Flynn is in the computer world once more and has turned bad and Hedlund's character will have to rescue him in some way. We'll soon see what it's all about when shooting starts in the spring for release in 2011.

Iron Man 2 Casting Rumour - Mickey Rourke And Sam Rockwell As Villains?

Both Variety and Hollywood Reporter have news on the Iron Man 2 movie. Supposedly both Mickey Rourke And Sam Rockwell have been cast in, as yet unconfirmed roles. We know that they'll both be villains at least and the word is that Rourke may be Crimson Dynamo or Whiplash and Rockwell may be Justin Hammer.

100% confirmation is what we're waiting for but both these casting decisions seem sound to me. Rockwell is usually great in his roles (let's forget Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy) and Rourke is getting his credentials pumped back up again from the reviews of his most recent movie 'The Wrestler' so we're looking at a great sequel... I can't express how excited I am for the Marvel movies coming out in the next few years!

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Teaser Poster

Over at Yahoo the first teaser poster for the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen movie has gone up. There's some online debate over whether the image is of the actual character of 'The Fallen' or whether it's 'Jetfire' but I'm going with the 1st one until it's proven otherwise. I already know that Jetfire is a Decepticon that turns good at the end of the movie to join (literally) with 'Optimus Prime', so the evil this poster exudes it definitely 'The Fallen' to me...

New Toy Trains 'Star Wars' Fans To Use The Force!

Well, it actually uses brain waves but we'd all like to pretend you're honing your Force skills!

The following is an exert from USA Today:

The Force Trainer (expected to be priced at $90 to $100) comes with a headset that uses brain waves to allow players to manipulate a sphere within a clear 10-inch-tall training tower, analogous to Yoda and Luke Skywalker's abilities in the Star Wars films.

No, you're not tapping into some "all-powerful force controlling everything," as Han Solo said in the movies. But you are reaching out with mind power via one of the first mass-market brain-to-computer products. "It's been a fantasy everyone has had, using The Force," says Howard Roffman, president of Lucas Licensing.

Mind-control games may be the coming thing: Mattel plans to demonstrate a Mind Flex game (also due this fall), which uses brain-wave activity to move a ball through a tabletop obstacle course, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday.

In the Force Trainer, a wireless headset reads your brain activity, in a simplified version of EEG medical tests, and the circuitry translates it to physical action. If you focus well enough, the training sphere, which looks like a ping-pong ball, will rise in the tower.

A state of deep concentration is needed to achieve a Force-full effect. "When you concentrate, it activates the training remote," says Frank Adler of toymaker Uncle Milton Industries, which is creating the Trainer. "There is a flow of air that will move the (ball). You can actually feel like you are in a zone."

Star Wars sound effects and audio clips emitted from the base unit "cue you in to progress to the next level (from Padawan to Jedi) or when to move the sphere up or down to keep challenging yourself," Adler says.

"Until today, EEG technology has been designed for rigorous medical and clinical applications with little regard to price (and) ease of use," says Greg Hyver of NeuroSky, which developed the brain-wave technology for both games. "We are putting this exciting technology into everyone's living room."

I'm definitely putting this on my X-mas 2009 list!!!
Thanks to my mate Nads for bringing this to my attention.

Smallville Gets Better...

WARNING: SMALLVILLE EPISODE SPOILER BELOW.

Below is a trailer for the next episode of Smallville season 8 which is due to air in the US on the 15th of Jan. Not only do we get Doomsday (he looks pretty good doesn't he?!) but we also have Braniac (in Chloe), The Legion of Superheroes (3 of them at least), Martian Manhunter (looking a bit worse for wear) and the Persuader (future gimp boy!). Season 8 has been one of my favourite so far, I hope it keeps its momentum until the end of the series!

Episode Synopsis for 'Legion':

DC COMICS’ LEGION OF SUPERHEROES ARRIVE IN SMALLVILLE FROM THE FUTURE TO HELP CLARK STOP BRAINIAC AND THE PERSUADER — The aftermath of Doomsday’s (Sam Witwer) attack on Chloe (Allison Mack) and Jimmy’s (Aaron Ashmore) wedding leaves Clark (Tom Welling) in shock, but before he can search for the kidnapped Chloe, The Persuader (guest star Fraser Aithceson) appears and attacks him. Rokk (guest star Ryan Kennedy), Imra (guest star Alexz Johnson) and Garth (guest star Calum Worthy), also known as The Legion, step in from the future to help vanquish the Persuader and the group realizes Brainiac has taken over Chloe once again. Meanwhile, up at the Fortress, Chloe, as Brainiac, informs Davis he is Doomsday and was created to kill “the other Kryptonian” and destroy the world. Glen Winter directed the episode written by Geoff Johns.

Trailer:

BBC Chooses New Dr. Who...

The following is taken straight from the Reuters News website:

The BBC has chosen a relative unknown, Matt Smith, to take over the role of Doctor Who in the long-running science fiction television series.

The actor will be the 11th timelord in 45 years to travel across the universe in the Tardis time-ship and at 26, the youngest.

He will replace David Tennant who leaves at the end of this year and make his debut next year.

The BBC revealed the identity of the new Dr. Who on a special edition of "Doctor Who Confidential" that was broadcast on Saturday.

Smith has appeared on television, in films and on stage. He is best known for a role in the BBC adaptation of Phillip Pullman's "The Ruby In The Smoke."

"I'm just so excited about the journey that is in front of me," Smith said in a statement. "The challenge for me is to do justice to the show's illustrious past, my predecessors and most importantly to those who watch it. I really cannot wait."

Lead writer and executive producer, BAFTA-award winning writer Steven Moffat, who is taking over from Russell T. Davies, said it took a special actor to play the doctor, a role first filled in 1963 by William Hartnell.

Over the years the role has also been played by Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, and Christopher Eccleston.

"You need to be old and young at the same time, a boffin and an action hero, a cheeky schoolboy and the wise old man of the universe," said Moffat.

"As soon as Matt walked through the door and blew us away with a bold and brand new take on the Time Lord, we knew we had our man."

Article End.

To tell you the truth I'm not a happy camper about this decision but then I was soooooo wrong about David Tennant and even Catherine Tate when I thought they'd be rubbish, so let's hope I'm wrong again and Matt blows us away as the new Doctor.

Upcoming Movie To Look Out For - Outlander

Oh dear lord, what will they come up with next? 'Outlander' is a 2009 movie that stares Jim Caviezel, Sophia Myles, Ron Perlman (Yay!) and John Hurt, among others, in a sci-fi movie that has a strange but intriguing premise. During the reign of the Vikings, Kainan (Caviezel), a man from a far-off world, crash lands on Earth, bringing with him an alien predator known as the Moorwen. Though both man and monster are seeking revenge for violence committed against them, Kainan leads the alliance to kill the Moorwen by fusing his advanced technology with the Viking's Iron Age weaponry...

Futuristic sci-fi with Vikings... Has this been done before? I don't believe it has, although there have been movies with similar premises. Can't wait to see what this one's like!

Here's the trailer.

Upcoming Movie To Look Out For - Surrogates

Starring Bruce Willis, Rosamund Pike, Ving Rhames and Radha Mitchell, among many others, 'Surrogates' is a 2009 movie (which I hadn't even heard of until today) about and FBI agent (Willis) who is investigating a murder in a futuristic world where humanity only interacts with the outside world via sensory feedback from robot avatars called Surrogates.

It's set to be a great sci-fi action film, a la I-Robot, and will join other robot themed movies in 09 including the much awaited Transformers 2 and Terminator 4.

Brucie may be coming up to his mid 50's but he's still an action hero people want to see on screen!

Morbius For Spidey 4?

Sam Raimi has been quoted as saying that he'd like Dr. Michael Morbius to be a villain for Spidey in the upcoming Spider-Man 4 movie. "I like it in the Marvel comics when Spider-Man fights Morbius, he's really cool. A vampire! I like the combination of superhero plus supernatural".

The director of the Evil Dead trilogy and upcoming Drag Me To Hell movie is no newcomer to horror and as Morbius is actually a scientifically created vampire (albeit accidental) he would fit right into Spider-Man without it being too much of a stretch for the storyline.

Morbius isn't a confirmed addition to the newest movie but he's the most likely candidate next to The Lizard and possibly The Vulture. Me, I just wanna see Black Cat make an appearance!

New Products @Forbiddenplanet.co.uk

Hot Toys have done some incredible 1/6th scale figures in their time, some of which I proudly own, but I was particularly impressed that they'd picked up the Predator license and will be releasing three original movie figures; Dutch, Billy and the Predator himself. Each figure comes with a huge array of accessories like weapons, clothing and even a cigar for Dutch (Arnold) and the likenesses are incredible, as they always are with Hot Toys figures. Expensive but worth every penny if you're a collector like me!

Predator
RRP £199.99 FPI Price £169.99
Save: 15% off

Billy
RRP £179.99 FPI Price £149.99
Save: 17% off

Dutch
RRP £199.99 FPI Price £169.99
Save: 15% off

Urban Myths Topcow Pilot Season Comic Rocks!

As I've said many times before I love coming across something randomly on the internet. I can't remember how I came across this a couple of days back but I was really happy that I did.

Urban Myths is a fantastic comic book created by writer Jay Faerber and drawn by Jorge Molina which was entered in the 'Pilot Season' contest this year and came in 3rd. Pilot Season 2008 was a contest run by Top Cow Comics, an imprint of Image Comics, in which six different standalone books were created and voted upon by comic book fans. The premise of the contest was that the two books that received the most votes at the end of the process would be given a six issue mini-series. Unfortunately as Urban Myths came in 3rd it didn't get the chance to be printed and that's a travesty as it really does rock.

The Premise of the initial comic:

Imagine a world in which Minotaurs are police officers and a Cyclopes is a street thug – welcome to the world of Urban Myths. The story features a private investigator named Jack Kaklamanis, but everyone calls him Jack Medusa based on the “good looks” he inherited from his mom. Jack wears a metal mask around as to not turn everyone to stone and is investigating a girl who has come up missing. Jack finds out that she has put herself in a coma and gone to Hades to find her father who passed away. Jack must follow her to Hades and deal with all of the downfalls of crossing the River Styx and facing old foes that you yourself had killed.

Visit the bringbackjack.blogspot.com site which gives you all the details of the would-be comic and also acts as an online petition to get the production rolling with Top Cow regardless of the fact that it failed to come in the top two slots for the competition.

If you get a spare few minutes read the whole first issue of the comic online at Newsrama, it really is worth your time!

Here are a few snaps of the comic itself. I want to read this Top Cow, make it so!

Judge Dredd Remake On It's Way?

DNA Films (of Sunshine and 28 Weeks Later) has green lit another Judge Dredd project. Apparently the film will be something of a re-imagining, going all the way back to the 2000 AD comics that Sylvester Stallone's 1995 film was based on as well. The news comes from the official 2000 AD forums, where Jason Kingsley left this message for fans: "We can't give away too many details at this point, but we're looking forward to working with DNA Films to bring Judge Dredd back to the big screen."

I'm a fan of the original Stallone movie so I'm looking forward to this new one. I am d'LAW!

Bruce Boxleitner Returning for Tron 2

Comingsoon.net have learned that Bruce Boxleitner, who played Tron in the original Tron movie, will return for Tr2n (Tron 2). Details on his role were not revealed, except that he is currently shooting and joins fellow original cast member Jeff Bridges along with new girls Olivia Wilde, and Beau Garrett in the "next chapter" of the Tron adventure. Boxleitner is now 58 years old and is better known as President John Sherridan in the sci-fi series Babylon 5 and recently for a small roll in the ever popular Heroes.

New Products @Forbiddenplanet.co.uk

Some great new products have gone up on www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk recently. These are some of the best.

Marvel Mighty Muggs - X-Men
Sabertooth
Phoenix
Logan
Cyclops

£9.99 Each

Star Wars Clone Wars - Captain Rex Monument 1:1 Scale Statue


RRP £1,299.99 FPI Price £979.99
Save: 25% off

G.I. Joe Mighty Muggs Wave 2

Baroness
Destro

£9.99 Each

Transformers Mighty Muggs Wave 2 - Grimlock

£9.99

Star Trek Original Series Classic Captain's Chair 1:1 Replica


RRP £1,999.99 FPI Price £1,499.99
Save: 25% off

Women of the DC Universe - Supergirl Bust


RRP £49.99 FPI Price £39.99
Save: 20% off

Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen New Pics And Info

This months edition of Empire magazine has some juicy information on the new Transformers sequel 'Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen'. 3 of their pics are below along with some other shots that have popped up on the web this week. I can't wait for this movie! Only about 7 months to go...

News:

*Bay and LaBeouf confirm the Fallen is a separate character. The Fallen was described by Bay as "Apocalyptic"
*Egyptian hieroglyphics, turn out to be depictions of Transformers who visited Earth before the pyramids were built.
*Bay claims Megatron is not coming back and the tank is just a new toy.
*Around 40 robots.
*Budget is $200 million.
*Ramon Rodriguez is the one holding on for dear life to a pole while cars are flung.
*Devastator appears at the pyramid, he's probably 50 feet tall because that's the height of the camera crane they used on location.

New Trailer - Crank 2

Jason Statham is one of my favourite action stars at the moment but I have to admit that Crank wasn't one of his best movies. OK so it was supposed to be crazy, kind of like Speed with a human instead of a bus, and the ending was just too ludicrous to be true but the movie studios obviously thought it was worthy of a sequel as Crank 2 is imminent!

Here's the trailer:

New Trailer - Streetfighter: The Legend Of Chun Li

This Japanese trailer for Streetfighter: The Legend Of Chun Li has recently popped up online and has received some mixed reviews from numerous sights and blogs. Personally I think it looks pretty bad and not unlike the numerous game-to-movie adaptations from the last 20 years that have all flopped. I'm not a big fan of Kristin Kreuk but I am a Streetfighter fan so we'll see just how good or bad this movie is very soon.

Happy New Year!!!

It may be a bit late in the day but Happy New Year!

I'll be blogging again by the weekend and will have a good few posts to put up so pop back on Saturday for updates.

Here's to 2009!