Welcome again dear readers!

My Sydcon blurb has been submitted, now all that remains is to write the game, prepare the soundtrack, gather any props and costume, then work myself into a MAXIMUM ROCK AND ROLL FRENZY before running it. Oh, and to settle any fistfights over who get’s to playtest – people seem really keen to play this thing. Who knew there’d be so much demand to play an Orc in a rock and roll band?

Last weekend saw San Diego Comic Con, the time of year when studios save their new releases for and more news that you can poke a giant stick at is released. It’s also the time of year when my determination to be as completist as I can about the week’s news comes back to bite me in the ass, given the previously mentioned giant amount of news. So, if I’ve missed anything, or repeat myself, I apologise in advance.

Before we start, test footage for a Deadpool movie emerged during the week and if you were lucky enough to see it before it vanished, you were very lucky. It was animated in 2012 and while it looked like it was captured on a cheap mobile phone camera, the footage itself was fantastic. I can only hope the alternate universe where the movie got made is enjoying it, the lucky gits.

Mmmmm pancakes .Now I’m hungry…

As for the con itself, there’s a roundup of good and bad advertising (As usual, PETA meant well but missed the point, while the team promoting Outlander had a bunch of men in kilts walking round) and we can’t not mention the guy who took magic mushrooms before entering and texted his girlfriend his thoughts on the experience. We don’t endorse that sort of behaviour, but it makes for amazing reading. Peter Jackson wandered around dressed as an evil jester, while Adam Savage went out dressed as Kane from Alien. The cosplay, as usual, was fantastic to see with the highlights being a Baby Rufio and a lone person protesting Edgar Wright’s removal from Ant Man.  (BTW, Wright’s next film is an adaption of the novel Grasshopper Judge) Oh, and the cryptic announcement about Young Justice from a couple of weeks back? Turns out it’s just a repackaging of the DVD’s, along with the first season being released on Blu-Ray. Talk about an anti-climax…

Too soon dude, too soon…

Sadly, as always there was a bunch of douchenozzles who think it’s OK to be jerks to women but the push against that sort of behaviour is getting louder, which is a good thing, with the most high profile effort being from the group Geeks for CONsent, who made signs and flyers detailing what was appropriate behaviour. It’d be lovely if this sort of behaviour was eliminated, so I hereby support the shaming and exclusion of these fuckknuckles until they learn better.

 Pal, you’ll be apologizing for that till you’re blue in the face…

We got the first look at Wonder Woman from Batman vs Superman and the costume looks surprisingly good. Yes, I’m sure Snyder will screw it up somehow, but at least it’s not Michael Bay. And just in case you’re tempted, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS. Well, unless you need to refresh a burning hatred for humanity and haven’t see a Daily Telegraph front page recently.

Despite many people hoping for more, the only big announcement Marvel had was a sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy, while an animated series is also on the way. We still don’t have a confirmation on who’s playing Doctor Strange, but Joaquin Phoenix is, according to rumours, the frontrunner. Better him than Johnny Depp… (I don’t hate Depp, but I’m heartily sick of him being linked to EVERYFUCKINGTHING. Besides, I’m pretty sure Marvel will only give dump trucks of money to one person at a time and that’s currently Robert Downey Jr)

Marvel also had a collection of props on show from Avengers: Age of Ultron and the footage that was screened from the film sounded amazing. The concept art poster we previewed last week is now complete, it’s been revealed that Agent Carter will feature Edwin Jarvis (The flesh and blood version, not Tony Stark’s AI) and Evangeline Lilly is playing Hope Van Dyne (Daughter of Janet Van Dyne and Hank Pym) in Ant Man, which has lost 3 other members of it’s cast. They’ve also trademarked Squirrel Girl, which could mean we could be seeing her on screen soon, Agents of SHIELD is getting it’s own comic series and we know how who the new cast members are playing, along with the rumoured appearance of Bobbi Morse, AKA Mockingbird.

 Yeah, that’s Squirrel Girl.

We got the first trailers for Mad Max: Fury Road, which can be summed up as sweaty people driving through explosions and The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies, which is Billy Boyd singing and people brooding. Christopher Nolan showed off a new trailer for Interstellar, the first trailer for Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt 1 arrived and the first look at The Death of Superman Lives shows just how strange a Tim Burton directed, Nicholas Cage starring Superman film could have been.

We have the complete Women who Kick Ass panel, which featured, among others, Katey Sagal, Maisie Williams and Tatiana Maslany, as well as a liveblog of the Women of Marvel panel. You can watch the Marvel and DC panels here, with a collection of the other big panels (Including Interstallar, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and Community) here. The Goosebumps panel had Jack Black having puppet trouble, Stephen Colbert was in costume for his job moderating The Hobbit panel while Craig Ferguson moderated the Game of Thrones panel. And the press conference for the Blu-Ray release of Batman ’66 (Featuring Adam West, Burt Ward and Julie Newmar) was amazing with it being wonderful that something that was mocked and derided for so long was finally getting the recognition it deserves.

DC Comics television department have been busy, with new trailers for The Flash (Which announced 2 new cast this week),  Constantine, Gotham and Arrow, with an upcoming episode of Arrow investigating Felicity’s past titled Oracle. In other TV news, the people behind The Legend of Korra have spoken about how the show’s not exactly cancelled, just moving on-line and Sam Raimi announced he’s working on an Evil Dead TV series, with Bruce Campbell set to star. That’s no guarantee it’ll actually get made mind you, but there’s hope.

That’s basically how I look first thing in the morning.

The new cast of Game of Thrones have been announced and there’s still no Damphair. Harrumph. We also have the season 4 gag reel  – seeing Tywin Lannister smiling is a lot scarier than I was expecting…. There’s a fresh preview of Assassin’s Creed: Unity and shock rocker Rob Zombie made an animated prelude video for the game that’s as gory as you’d expect. We’ve the first trailers for Kevin Smith’s new film Tusk and Daniel Radliffe’s Horns,  another teaser for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and the next season of The Walking Dead.

Alex Kurtzman is set to direct the reboot of The Mummy,  Guillermo Del Toro has been talking about his plans for Justice League Dark and there’s the first look at The Thing from the Fantastic Four reboot. The comic series Locke and Key is being adapted into a movie series. The series was set to be a TV series at Fox, but never made it past the pilot stage. Continuing that thread, a movie of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series is in pre-production, which means no signings for Neil for the time being.

Quentin Tarantino is working on a sci fi movie, as well as his previously cancelled western The Hateful Eight, a Japanese Dragon Ball Z film is due in 2015 and Maisie Willaims is said to be in talks to star in the movie version of video game The Last of Us. We have a glimpse of the title sequence to Warcraft and Legendary Pictures have announced a pair of monster films, those being a sequel to the Godzilla reboot and a King Kong origin film, which rumour has it Joe Cornish is set to direct.

 Disagree and he crushes your city.

Now, there was news that wasn’t released at the con, and here it is!

There’s trailers for post apocalypse drama The Maze Runner and the documentaries Atari: Game Over, which looks at the legends behind the Atari 2600 ET game and Mudbloods, which looks at the Quidditch clubs popping up over the world. From the ‘We need a new ‘Lord of the Rings series’ department comes word the movie rights to the Dragonriders of Pern series have been bought by Warners. It’s one of the series I keep hearing good things about, but every time I hear the name Anne McCaffrey the words tent peg pop into my brain. I can’t throw stones, given my favourite author was pretty damn far from a paragon of tolerance and modern thinking, but as first impressions go, it’s a pretty hard one to ignore.

The 21 minute teaser to the Star Trek fan feature Prelude to Axanar has been released, we’ve a longer trailer for Michael Keaton’s new film Birdman, production on the new season of The Big Bang Theory has been delayed with several of the main cast negotiating new contracts and there’s some new pictures and a  brief teaser for the new season of Doctor Who. Not long to go now…

No context, I just really wanted to use this picture.

We leave this week with a selection of some of the stranger news from recent time, starting with the comics crossover you’ve been waiting for! That’s right, it’s time for a Star Trek/Planet of the Apes series, with William Shatner’s Kirk trying to stop the Klingons from aiding a renegade Gorilla general! No, I’m not joking. You can’t saw you don’t at least want to read this, even if only for the car crash appeal of the idea. In saner news, a study was done recently showing that kids you read the Harry Potter books are more tolerant of others and there’s a documentary about a Danish school that teaches through LARPing. Why didn’t this stuff exist when I was in school? You can read Tom Hiddleston’s adorable thank you letter to Joss Whedon after he first read the script for The Avengers and we end with a glorious piece of Pinky and the Brain.

Quote of the Week:

Deadpool: The day my father Odin banished me from Asgard, I was bitten by a vampire and had radioactive waste dumped into my eyes. To make matters worse, my mutant ability to control weather activated just as I was hit by a blast of gamma radiation. Nah, actually, I got this way by volunteering for the Weapon X program. They promised to cure my cancer. And they cured it all right, by giving me an outrageous healing factor. Then they labeled me psychotic and tossed me into a prison lab. So I escaped and became what some people might call a ‘mercenary’. I prefer the title ‘cleaner of the gene pool’. And I’ve made a lot of good friends along the way: like Arcade. He’s always sending me to his amusement park.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

Cheers,

Gavin

Welcome once again dear readers!

Once again, this week has seen me working on a gaming project. The blurb’s not quite done, but if I had to describe it, I’d say it’s V for Vendetta meets This is Spinal Tap. It’s planned for Sydcon 2014, so keep your eyes peeled, air guitars warmed up and earplugs handy!

The big news this week comes from Marvel Comics, with the announcement (On daytime talk show The View no less) that the new Thor is female. No, it’s not a gender change (Like the time he got turned into a frog), but a female character (As yet known) who’ll be deemed worthy to lift Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer and thus gain his power. It’s a worthy move, but not without some confusing aspects – Thor is a name, not a title that can be passed down. Still, it’s not the first time a female character has been able to lift the hammer, with even Jane Foster doing so in the past. Now, if they can transfer this idea to the Marvel Cinematic Universe when Chris Hemsworth decides to leave, that’d be kind of awesome. (I still want a Black Widow movie though) And, if you’ve got a problem with that, well…

 You think you can take the Q-Unit? BRING IT!

Following on from that, Joe Quesada was on The Colbert Report this week to announce that the new Captain America is Sam Wilson, also known as hero The Falcon, with Colbert putting his hand up for the role, something that Marvel’s artists beat him to. Colbert has also recently been involved with  Star Wars Force for Change, a group raising money for Unicef (And with the chance to win a role in Episode 7) by engaging in a nerd fight with Jon Stewart that has to be seen to be believed. In another piece of glorious super hero news, Adam West will be voicing himself in Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham.

The week’s strangest news is the former dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega, is suing Activision over his appearance in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, claiming that Activision used his likeness without permission.  He joins a long list of people who’ve claimed their likeness was used without permission in games, with the likes of Gwen Stefani, Lindsay Lohan and even former US Army General David Petraeus. It must be something in the water – the North Korea government recent complained to the United Nations over the film The Interview, which stars James Franco and Seth Rogen as would be assassin’s tasked by the CIA with eliminating Kim Jong-Un. If you can’t take a bit of harmless fun about the leader of you country being assassinated, you’ve got a pretty thin skin – Cuba was laughing at the CIA’s attempts to bump off Castro for years!

In further bad news for the BBC, prints of the first 6 episodes of the new season of Doctor Who have leaked. As we’re busy trying to avoid spoilers, we aren’t linking to any news articles, so if you want it, you can find it yourselves – I’m not helping. It’s also been reported that BBC Worldwide have apologised to Steven Moffat and the production team, saying that those responsible for the leak have been ‘disciplined’. (Couldn’t they have just said Exterminated?) In better news, the first proper trailer for the next season has been released and is suitably awesome.

 What she said.

Turning to the Avengers, we have the first look at Ultron and wow, he looks mighty good. There’s also some new pictures from filming, which leads me to ask the obvious question: why do they keep putting Scarlett Johansson in those weird back arching poses? None of the guys are in them, so why should they keep doing it to her? (It’s things like that that keep the Hawkeye Initiative in business.) Andy Serkis has denied he’s playing Thanos in the film, while we also have a confirmed date for both the release of Agents of SHIELD S1 on DVD and the start date of S2.

There’s been big changes to Constantine, with word that both Lucy Griffith’s character has been dropped, to be replaced by Angelia Celaya and that Constantine’s bisexuality won’t be an element. I’m not a huge reader of the comic so I can’t comment on how it will affect things, but this strikes me as something that will annoy people. Another piece of casting for Powers has been announced and there’s been more casting news for Daredevil, with Deborah Ann Woll (True Blood) to play Karen Page, Daredevil’s secretary and Peter Shinkoda (Falling Skies) in an unknown role.

We have some new teasers for Gotham and some very interesting news: there was some excitement when the pilot for the show featured a failing stand-up comedian, one of the possible origins of the Joker, as stated in The Killing Joke. The show’s producers came up with a novel way to thwart any speculation – there’ll be a candidate in every episode of the show. That’s a wonderful way to both increase the anticipation and screw with people’s heads to an epic degree, something I’m sure the Joker would support.

Decisions, decisions…

We finally have the first trailer for Big Hero 6, as well as the voice cast for the film, which looks like a hell of a lot of fun. I haven’t been that interested in an animated film since The Incredibles, which should say something. We also have the first trailers for the films Suburban Gothic, about suburban ghost hunters and Reconstruction of William Zero, about a man trying to reconstruct his memories after an accident. There’s also looks at the horror films Ouija and Annabelle, which is a spin off from The Conjuring.

There’s a clip from the animated film Batman: Assault on Arkham, which is set within the timeline of the Arkham video games and stars Kevin Conroy as Batman (Yay!) and there’s a short preview of a  new Green Arrow short that’ll appear on DC Nation. It took us a while to find a version of the trailer for 12 Monkeys that wasn’t region locked, but it was worth the hunt. On the other hand, all the trailers for American Horror Story: Freakshow that I’ve found are either region locked or marked as private. Harrumph.

Christopher Walken will be playing Captain Hook in a live adaption of Peter Pan, Thomas Jane has been cast in SyFy’s new space opera The Expanse and the trend for reboots of 80’s cartoons has continued, with word that Super-Ted and Rainbow Brite will be returning. Jason Isaacs will be voicing The Inquisitor in Star Wars: Rebels and if anyone is surprised by this casting, please raise your hand. I mean, the man’s got a British accent, he’s in a Star Wars production and isn’t playing Obi-Wan Kenobi. Therefore, bad guy. That’s up there with George Lucas intending Count Dooku being evil to be a surprise –HE’S PLAYED BY CHRISTOPHER LEE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. *Ahem* Sorry about that. Furthermore, Marvel will be releasing all their vintage Star Wars comics to boot, while Seth Rogen has previewed the first song from Preacher.

 Let’s face it, it doesn’t get much more awesome than that.

In a piece of rather odd news, MTV, the channel most known for bizarrely tanned drunken idiots, teenage mothers and NOT PLAYING MUSIC ANYMORE, has given the green light for a Shannara series, based on the book series by Terry Brooks. The first series will be 10 episodes long and adapt the second book in the series, The Elfstones of Shannara. Hey, best of luck to them.

The film Nothing Lasts Forever, starring Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd, has resurfaced. The film was shelved by MGM and never released on video, but has emerged on YouTube. There’s also the first teaser poster for the film Horns, staring Daniel Radcliffe as a man who grow’s a pair of horns from his head, a brochure from Jurassic World has leaked, two of the writers of X:Men: First Class and producer Roberto Orci have joined the Power Rangers movie and Universal are said to be trying to establish a series based around the classic monsters.

With Justice League: Throne of Atlantis confirmed as the next DC animated movie, we’ve a look at the action figure designs and the voice cast, which is a pretty impressive cast – Sam Witwer, Sean Astin and Nathan Fillion appear, among others. Guillermo Del Toro has said that Hellboy 3 isn’t likely to happen  due to a lack of funding, some odd rumours have been emerging from the Fantastic Four reboot, namely that it might not have anything to do with the comics, or possibly not be based on any one story from the comics history. Before you start screaming though, it’s translated from the original Spanish using Google Translate, so it could be anything from the lyrics to Paranoid to the Gettysburg Address.

 Well, there goes my heterosexuality… *swoons*

Joss Whedon has been drawing new Firefly and Buffy on his Twitter feed and Bioware have announced a poll about Mass Effect 4, so if you want your voice to be heard get to the website and fill the poll in! We leave you this week, with news that a new Dungeons and Dragons comics series has been announced, starring everyone’s favourite Ranger and Hamster combination, Minsc and Boo! To make the news even sweeter, it’ll be written by Jim Zub, the writer of Skullkickers, a comic you really should be reading.

Quote of the Week:

Protagonist: Ah, I see you still have that… rodent. Dare I ask how you have kept it hidden from our captors?

Minsc: Don’t ask questions better left to aged sages. Boo is so quick and evasive and there is ever so much of Minsc to search, there is no hope of getting us apart!

Imoen: Eww, I… really don’t want to think about that too much.

Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn

Cheers,

Gavin

A few thoughts before we begin…

Laser Tag is a lot of fun, though that can depend upon your attitude to small children. Organising a Zerg rush of small children is a useful thing, as others I was playing with demonstrated, whereas I tend to have the knack for attracting people who are just below my sightline and while not the most accurate shots, spray enough laser fire around that I’ll get shot just as I’ve seen them. It’s a bizarre mix of scary precision and the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy and it’s my hope it can be harnessed for Good instead of Evil. Anyhow, let’s begin…

Are you one of those people who constantly worry about George RR Martin dying before he finishes A Song of Ice and Fire? Do you feel the need to mention that in the comments of every article you read about the series, or every time people mention it? If you are, then George RR Martin has two words for you, those being simply ‘Fuck You.’ Martin feels justifiably offended by the questioning and really, who can blame him? Wanting more Ice and Fire is fine, but there’s a way to express that without coming across as a jerk.

And please remember, George RR Martin is NOT YOUR BITCH.

There’s been big drama at the BBC this week, with the leaking of 5 Doctor Who scripts from the Miami office. We aren’t going to give this any more publicity or give away any details, unlike the (so-called) newspaper The Scottish Sun*cough*scum*cough*. We also have the first image from the premiere episode, which doesn’t give away a lot, mercifully.

SyFy have announced a pilot for The Magicians, based on the novel series by Lev Grossman, Warners schedule for San Diego Comic Con would seem to hint at something related to the Young Justice animated series and Bernard Cornwell’s series The Last Kingdom is getting a television adaption. Frozen has continued is conquest of ALL THE THINGS, with Once Upon a Time casting Queen Elsa while both Firestorm and The Atom will be appearing in Arrow, the third season of which has started shooting. Orphan Black has been renewed for a third season, the Guardians of the Galaxy are set to appear on Ultimate Spider-Man and both a 7^th season of Community and a movie are possible. #SevenSeasonsandaMovie doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but I’ll take what I can get.

Big news about the game Alien: Isolation – 2 DLC missions have been announced where you’ll be able to play as the crew of the Nostromo from the original film. Several of the original cast will also be voicing their characters, including Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerrit and Yaphet Kotto. The two missions were originally planned to be pre-order only, but will now be released available for all, thanks to the public reaction to the announcement.

Family reunions can be awkward at the best of times…

Kevin Smith has denied the rumour he wrote a fake Batman vs Superman script and talked about his visit to the set of Episode 7, while his plans to make Clerks 3 have hit a wall, with the Weinstein company not wanting to fund it. In better news, there’s a poster for his next film, Tusk. Speaking of Episode 7, it’s shut down for two weeks, apparently because of Harrison Ford’s recent injury and added two new cast members, while there’s a look at Agent Kallus, the latest Imperial agent in Star Wars Rebels, who if nothing else, has an amazing set of sideburns.

We managed to find a trailer for Sharknado 2: The Second One and it’s either A: the perfect B-movie or B: the sign to drop the bomb and start over. The new trailer for The Zero Theorem is exactly what you’d expect from a Terry Gilliam film, while the first one for Exodus: Gods and Kings all but screams Ridley Scott. (Which is useful, as it’s a Ridley Scott film.) There’s another teaser for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, an extended trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy, which managed to make me even more excited about it and the first look at season 2 of Sleepy Hollow. A trailer’s been released for the 30^th anniversary re-release of Ghostbusters, though we’re only heard of screenings in the US and UK and a trailer has emerged for the straight to DVD film based the PS3 game Heavenly Sword, starring most of the game’s cast (Alfred Molina replaces Andy Serkis).

Mike Mignola is writing the series Hellboy: The Lost Years and JK Rowling has released a new Harry Potter story, starring Harry as an adult. Two more writers have been hired on for Ant-Man, Mark Ruffalo has been promising more ‘science bros scenes’ in Avengers: Age of Ultron while Gal Gadot hasn’t shot any scenes as Wonder Woman for Dawn of Justice yet. 

Quote possibly the two greatest comics pages ever

Rumour has it Mark `Wahlberg in in line to play Steve Austin in the Six Million Dollar Man, Guillermo Del Toro reckons he can make At the Mountains of Madness as a PG-13 (The rough equivalent to our M rating) and he’s also mentioned he wants to make a small black and white film before Pacific Rim 2. And that’s without mentioning the animated series he has planned. There is a guy who does not like free time…

Stan Lee put his angry old man pants on the day he was ranting about movie credits being too long (If I know there’s something at the end it means I have more time to run to the toilet and back), The Conjuring is getting a spin off, Chris Columbous has joined the Gremlins reboot and Gus Van Sant could be directing the live action Death Note movie. Bryan Singer’s developing a movie adaption of the book series Age of Heroes, Roberto Orci suddenly isn’t confirmed to be directing Star Trek 3 anymore and we have what would appear to be the first look at the dinosaurs of Jurassic World.

The week’s collection of random stuff includes a Star Wars fan film made by American football players at Georgia University, McFarlane  Toys are making Walking Dead Lego sets  (Well, not quite Lego but close), scientists have created a tractor beam using water and there’s a gallery of artwork from Ralph McQuarrie and Syd Mead for a remake of Forbidden Planet that Irvin Kirshner was trying to get off the ground in the 90’s.

 Badumtssh!

We leave you with the strangest thing I’ve seen this week – what’s said to be a Japanese Doctor Who parody from the 70’s found on an old VHS. (Yes, I know it was actually made by a British film student – CAN’T YOU LEAVE ME WITH MY DELUSIONS?)

Quote of the Week:

(Hellboy has caught Abe listening to a CD of love songs)

Hellboy: You’re in love. Have a beer.

Abe Sapien: Oh, my body’s a temple.

Hellboy: Well, now it’s an amusement park.

Abe Sapien: No, no, no. The glandular balance of–

Hellboy: Just shut up and drink it, would you?

Abe Sapien: [sighs and takes the beer]

Hellboy: What track?

Abe Sapien: Eight.

Hellboy: “Can’t… Smile… Without You.”

Abe Sapien: I know.

Hellboy: Yep, I’m gonna need a beer, too.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Cheers,

Gavin

There’s no time for intros this week, no news from what I’ve been doing and no bad jokes. It’s STRAIGHT TO THE NEWS this week. Because something amazing was announced, something that can restore my faith in humanity, or, quite possibly destroy it. What has happened? The return of the world’s greatest secret agent, that’s what! Why is this mysterious figure? James Bond? Nope. Ethan Hunt? Oh please. Jason Bourne? Pish-tosh pa-shaw!

He’s fantastic, he’s amazing and wherever there is danger he’ll be there. That’s right, the one and only Danger Mouse is returning!

The legendary crime fighter and his sidekick Penfold are returning to the screen, with the announcement of 52 11 minute episodes to air next year.  There’s no word on the voice cast, but Stephen Fry is the bookies favourite. (You know, David Jason is still around and working.) Wait a second, people can bet on this? ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE? Right, back on topic… As happy as this news has made me, and that is incredibly happy, the news that the show will be updated, with the post office box headquarters and even DM’s eye-patch (Which the Guardian called an i-patch) kitted out with all sorts of new technology makes me very nervous. So long as they keep a minimum amount of awful puns and fourth wall breaking in the show, I’ll be happy. It’s more Danger Mouse and that cannot be a bad thing.

Take this, add the Goodies and the Young Ones and you’ve got my sense of humour.

We’ve a UK trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy, what is apparently the final one for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and a fresh teaser for Gotham which looks at the villains of the show. There’s also a trailer for the documentary Video Games: The Movie, which, surprise surprise, looks at the history of video games. Yes, Zach Braff is the executive producer, but don’t hold that against them – Wil Wheaton is involved and Sean Astin is narrating.

Early details about the villains of Ant-Man have emerged, Mark Ruffalo has said that a Hulk movie might be back on and Scott Derrickson (Who’s writing Doctor Strange), will be writing the Outer Limits film. Paul WS Anderson has said the next Resident Evil film will be the last (Hands up if you believe that? No. Didn’t think so) and a reboot of Scooby Doo is in the works. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.

I’ve not been able to find confirmation for the rumour that Jason Momoa will be playing Aquaman in Batman vs Superman (And Momoa has denied it when asked), but it sure sounds good. Sources say it’ll be a small appearance leading into a larger role in Justice League, which sounds oddly plausible. I think it’s a pretty good choice, but my favourite version of the character is still the one from The Brave and the Bold. Mind you, if they cast Momoa to play it in that direction, that would be amazing.  Reports also state that a Batman solo film is set for 2019, but given DC’s scheduling and ability (Or lack of…) to make films that aren’t about Batman or Superman, who the hell knows what’ll happen?

Go on, call him useless. I dare you.

Seth Green is joining the voice cast of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, replacing Jason Biggs as the voice of Leonardo, rumours are spreading about a returning villain in the next series of Doctor Who and wonderfully, there’s to be a sequel to Peter Davison’s anniversary celebration The Five Doctors… ish. It was confirmed by Eighth Doctor Paul McGann, who cryptically said  as it involved multiple Time Lords, it could be filming next week, the distant future of 1822 for all we know!

Turning to gaming news now, a new edition of horror RPG Chill has been announced, the X-Wing miniatures game will soon have Dash Rendar’s Outrider and the VT-49 Decimator gunship available and there’s pictures of an Aliens board game based on a never released cartoon series. If you’ve ever wondered what the monsters in Dungeons and Dragons games do for recreation, then the web-series Cubicles and Careers should answer that.

Looking at sequels, we have the first tiny tease of the dinosaurs of Jurassic World, Ron Perlman still wants to make Hellboy 3 and no, Max Landis isn’t involved in Ghostbusters 3, but he had a cracking idea for it. Also, release dates for the next Transformers, Star Trek and GI-Joe films have been announced. There’s no word if Michael Bay will be directing Transformers 5, as he previously said he was finished after directing Dark of the Moon, but wound up directed Age of Extinction, which it’s been confirmed will be an arse numbing and bladder expanding 166 minutes long.

 Kittens make everything better. Though you’d need a lot to fix Transformers 2.

We haven’t had any Star Wars news, outside of reports about how injured Harrison Ford was on set, and the announcement of the documentary The People vs George Lucas 2. It’ll look at the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney and is set to be released  around the time of Episode 7. There’s a picture of Gendy Tartakovsky’s Popeye, Will Smith’s loss is Jared Leto’s gain, with Leto taking the lead in Brilliance after Smith dropped out and the Shredder’s armour from the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film looks suitably Michael Bay. By which we ,mean utterly impractical and incredibly over the top. I have an immense amount of sympathy for the poor stunt people who had to fear and fight in that get-up.

Heroes Reborn has signed up it’s first original cast member, with Jack Coleman reprising the role of the guy in the glasses. Yes, I’m sure he had an actual name, but that would have meant paying attention to the show, so yeah…. Moving on, the last episode of Game of Thrones series 4 has broken it’s own record for most pirated show, there’s casting  news for the SyFy series Z-Nation and the next season of Ultimate Spider-Man will have ALL THE SPIDER-MEN. Yes, including Miles Morales and Spider-Ham.

There’s a beautiful Viking-esque rendition of Toothless from How to Train your Dragon, a movie adaption of video game Dead Rising is being planned, as is a movie of James Wan’s comic series Malignant Man.  There’s apparently trouble on the film adaption of Into the Woods with songs being cut, Alan Ball is working on a True Blood musical and Quentin Tarantino is working on a comic series where Django meets Zorro.

 WARNING: CUTENESS OVERLOAD.

We leave you this week with news that the Tomb of Dracula may have been found, fencer Guy Windsor has been analysing the fencing references in The Princess Bride and a man wearing a suit covered with Mentos falling into a tub of Diet Coke. Science is wonderful isn’t it?

Quote of the Week:

Danger Mouse: [Looking at sign on door that reads C.H.M.F.F.G.] Look, Penfold… look what it says on that door.

Penfold: Oh, yes…”Chi-muff-guh”.

DM: “Chi-mu–” No, Penfold, it stands for ‘Car Holding Magnetic Force Field Generator’.

Penfold: ‘Cor…how’d you figure that?

DM: Mm. [confidentially] I read the script.

Penfold: Ooh, naughty Danger Mouse!

Danger Mouse – Journey to the Earth’s Cor!

Cheers,

Gavin

We’re on time this week! Bizarrely…

I’m torn between Slayer’s Raining Blood, played on the banjo, and James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender doing impressions of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen for the greatest thing I’ve seen this week. MacAvoy might win it, solely for the freak out when Stewart asks him to say ‘Space…’

We start this week kind of angry again. I know, I know, what a surprise… Why? I was just getting to that… Film scholar Natalie Wrayford was curious as to the lack of Princess Leia themed merchandise at Disney stores, and got a pretty brutal response to her enquiry. Granted, Disney hasn’t had the license for that long and are no doubt ramping up for Episode 7, but you’d expect them to do better than this. Maybe they haven’t learnt from the recent shortages of Frozen merchandise, or were stuck trying to think of something other than the gold bikini. The outrage has resulted in a Twitter campaign based around the hashtag #WeWantLeia and hopefully will result in some good news, or at least some Leia action figures that aren’t her in the metal bikini. Mind you, we’re also still waiting for JJ Abrams to announce the mystery new female character in Episode 7 – how many Bothan’s have to die for that information? Meanwhile, Leia herself, Carrie Fisher, has spoken about wanting to get the character right, while at a recent convention, also saying she wanted the famous hair buns to return, but in grey.

 Help us Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope!

 Sydney is joining Melbourne and Brisbane in getting it’s first gamer bar! Spawn Point, located in Clarence St in the CBD, is set to open in August and will feature a mix of new and classic consoles available for play. There’s no word if tabletop gaming will be encouraged, but that would be awesome. In further gaming news, Lego Batman 3 has been announced, with a first trailer being released. There’s also trailers for The Strain, Earth to Echo and The Book of Life (Produced by Guillermo Del Toro) while in an unexpected bonus, there’s the first American trailer for Snowpiercer, which is getting a US release with the 25 minutes that Harvey Weinstein wanted to cut left intact. Hooray for small victories!

Remember the High Elf who attacked a car while on LSD? Well, he gave an interview this week and he’s a very special kind of crazy. Why is it when role-players make the news they always talk to the crazy ones? Couldn’t you just be a regular kind of weird? Like the guy who trimmed his hedge into a Dragon or the academic who claims that Britain has an underground network of 15,000 vampires? (And yes, he claimed role players were among them) There’s also been news about the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons – you’ll be able to get a free PDF of the rules, known as Basic D&D. It’ll contain rules for character levels 1 to 20 and have the Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard classes, with Dwarf, Elf, Halfling and Human as racial options. At launch it will have the basic, but with the release of the Player’s Handbook in August the PDF will expand to include monsters, magic items and all the rules needed to run the game.

 Come on, Papa needs a new Sword of Wounding!

A reboot of the Stargate movie series has been announced, with both Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin working on the project. There’s no word if any of the TV series (SG-1, Atlantis and Universe) will factor into it, but I’m expecting they won’t. Emmerich is currently busy with Independence Day 2, which is being rewritten at the moment. Turning to sequels I actually want to see, Taylor Kitsch has been talking about the John Carter sequel we never got and it’s kind of heartbreaking. For all the flaws that film has, it still deserved a larger audience, or, to be slightly crazy, an audience that gave it a chance in the first place. No, it’s not perfect, and there’s parts that fall over quite badly, but it’s a far better film than the promos made it look like.

A sequel to World War Z is being written, Alfonso Cuaran has said he has no idea no idea about either The Shining prequel  or the Harry Potter spin-off he was said to be directing and the first teaser poster for Bananaman has been released. We still have no idea who’s actually involved with it (The Goodies better be in there somewhere!), but it’s a spiffy poster. Kevin Smith has been claiming that Dawn of Justice is the lead in to a 5-6 movie Justice League series and we have the first on-set photos from the Terminator reboot.

Rumour has it the BBC were considering cancelling Doctor Who after David Tennant left and singer/songwriter Foxes will be appearing in the next season (No, I’ve never heard of her either) while a group of fans with a lot of spare time and talent have created the Doctor singing the Time Warp. I’m honestly surprised it’s taken this long for someone to do that…

Good to know what our parliamentarians are getting paid to argue about.

A casting sheet for the next season of Game of Thrones has been leaked and as it’s mostly Dornish characters, it means my hope of seeing Damphair on screen is even more forlorn. I have no idea why a discount travel website would do this, but cheapflights.com.au featured a Dothraki for Beginners guide. Marvel has cast Daredevil for the Netflix series and John Wesley Shipp (Who played the Flash in the 90’s series) will have a recurring role in the new series. Online service Hulu is in talks to being back Community and Halle Berry’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby in Spaaaaace!’ series Extant will premiere on Amazon Prime.

We end this week with word that two of the most overblown spectacles in recent history are joining forces – there’s to be an Avatar themed Cirque du Soleil show. I remember when James Cameron made movies…

Quote of the Week:

[The Doctor is cornered by four Angel Hosts in the kitchen.]

The Doctor: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Security protocol one! Do you hear me? One! One-ah! [The Hosts pause their attack.] OK. That gives me three questions. Three questions to save my life, am I right?

Host: Information: Correct.

The Doctor: No, that wasn’t one of them! I didn’t mean it! That’s not fair! Can I start again?

Host: Information: No.

The Doctor: No! No, no, no, no! That wasn’t a question either! Blimey… One question left. One question. All right. So. You’ve been given orders to kill the survivors but survivors; therefore, must be passengers or staff. But not me. I’m not a passenger, I’m not staff. Go ahead, scan me. [The Hosts do so.] You must have bio-records. No such person on board. I don’t exist. Therefore, you can’t kill me. Therefore, I’m a stowaway; and stowaways should be arrested and taken to the nearest figure of authority. And I reckon… the nearest figure of authority… is on deck 31. Final question. Am I right?

Host: Information: Correct.

The Doctor: Brilliant. Take me to your leader. I’ve always wanted to say that!

Doctor Who – Voyage of the Damned 

Cheers,

Gavin

I’ve been musing over character concepts for an upcoming LARP this week, and while I’ve a few ideas that are workable concepts, I’m going with the one that will give me an excuse to buy another kilt. What? I’m a simple man at heart and kilts are incredibly comfortable.

We start this week looking at the world of television, as May the 4^th brought us the first proper trailers for Star Wars: Rebels. I’m not sure what to make of it, as in places it look pretty cheesy, but hearing the line “Focus your fire on… on the Jedi!” gives me hope. That and it scores a lot of points for referencing early Ralph McQuarrie concept art (Zeb looks eerily similar to early sketches of Chewbacca) and their use of West End Games material – I might have a pile of books for that game over 3 feet high… That and it’s just great to have the Galactic Empire as villains again – there’s something about the scream of a TIE Fighter or the rumble of a Star Destroyer that puts me in a happy place.

Kuat Drive Yards Imperial I Class Star Destroyer. Accept no substitute.

There’s rumours that Obi-Wan and Lando will also be appearing in the series and while I’m quite happy to see them again, especially Lando, , I also really don’t want to. Yes, I keep saying it, but it continues to be true – sometimes leaving a little mystery works far better than flat out telling us. Remember how we all thought finding out what the young Anakin Skywalker was like? Remember how that turned out? Yeah…

We also have the first trailer for the young Jim Gordon series Gotham, which has been picked up for a full series. Showrunner Bruno Heller (Rome) has plans to introduce early versions of Batman’s rogues gallery, including the most famous of Batman’s enemies. Whoever plays that has very, very big shoes to fill…

It’s been a good week to be a DC Comics TV show, as Constantine (Which has released the first image this week) and The Flash also got picked up. DC aren’t alone though, with Agents of SHIELD getting a second season and the much hoped for Agent Carter series being confirmed, which will air before the 2^nd season of SHIELD. Starz is adapting the novel Blackbirds (About a woman who can tell you when you’ll die), TNT are working on Proof, a supernatural medical drama and the CW are working on iZombie, about a medical student who becomes a zombie. Brains? Lastly, comics writer Tony Lee is working on the show The Nest, which was co-created by Alaina Huffman (Stargate Universe). I’d love to tell you more, but that’s all I know. Meanwhile, in the bad news section, both Star-Crossed and the reboot of The Tomorrow People have been cancelled.

 You’ll be watching my show right?

 Yes, we’ll get to all things Episode 7 now, OK? JJ Abrams and Lawrance Kasdan made a short video saying not very much and the first of soon to be many rumours about the title of the film isThe Ancient Fear. Do I like it? No. Do I hate it? Kind of. Still, it could be worse – it could be some of the alternate names registered for Batman vs Superman. *shudders* There’s nothing of any real substance yet, apart from the shooting nickname, which will be AVGO, and that Chewbacca took a selfie. Well, that and Disney have confirmed that there’s at least three spinoffs on the way – let the milking of the cash cow commence!

Franklin Storm (Father of Jonny and Sue) has been cast in the Fantastic Four reboot and Lou Ferrigno has been saying there’ll be a Hulk solo movie after Avengers: Age of Ultron. I’ve no idea who he knows, but since he could break me in half without breaking a sweat, I’m not going to argue with him. Robert Downey Jr is developing a supernatural comedy called Cloaked, director Andres Muschietti has left the reboot of The Mummy over ‘creative differences’ and a new live action Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie has been announced. Dear 90’s nostalgia – YOU CAN STOP NOW.

John Goodman and Ken Watanabe are among the voice cast of Transformers: Age of Extinction, with Goodman voicing Hound and Watanabe the voice of Drift. Frank Welker (The original voice of Megatron) will finally appear in the films, in a role previously played by Leonard Nimoy, which should be cryptic enough for most.  Matt Smith has joined Terminator: Salvation and has been chatting about Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, saying he got some hints on the new season from Steven Moffat.  Yes, yes, I know… [River Song] Spoilers… [River Song]

I’d make a joke, but I’m scared he’d find me…

There’s the first first poster and image from Interstellar, Christopher Nolan’s new film – the trailer is due in a week or so and will hopefully tell us what’s happening. There’s a look at the action figures for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and both Laura Linney and Sir IanMcKellen have signed up for a new Sherlock Holmes movie. Trailer wise there’s not much – an ‘extended’ trailer for the TV series Extant (Rosemary’s Baby IN SPAAAAAACE!) and the final trailer for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

We leave you this week with a couple of interesting titbits – researchers have developed a method to tell when guys are playing girls in MMORPG’s and there’s a Kickstarter I thought deserved some more attention. It’s for an RPG called The Queens Cavaliers, set in an alternate universe 1600’s. Not only are you encouraged to swash your buckle, but dressing in fashion will help just as much as your swordplay.

Quote of the Week:

[After surviving a gladiatorial fight, at which point they would have been free]

Miek: No hmpfing! The Red *kik* King to pardoning us now.

Hulk: Red King?

Miek: The Emperor. His planet. We just living here.

Hulk: He runs this stupid world?

Miek: As much as he grabbing anyway.

[The Hulk leaps at the Red King’s seat]

Hulk: Finally. Hulk knows who to smash.

Planet Hulk – Issue #92

Cheers,

Gavin