Welcome dear readers!

Sorry for being a bit late this week – the heat has once again conspired against me. Not much has happened of interest, outside of booking for the Soundwave Festival! I’ve resisted festivals in the past, but there’s too many bands at this one I really want to see who, as a bonus, are touring here for the first time, primarily the mighty Testament and ragga metallers Skindred.

It’ s been a week for new trailers, with a gorgeous spot for Amazing Spider-Man 2 stuffed full of Easter Eggs for fans, the new Muppets Most Wanted cheerfully mocking studios use of Twitter quotes for press and a pair of jaw dropping new trailers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which drops more hints about what’s going on without actually spiling anything. Compare and contrast that with the first teaser for Transformers: Age of Extinction, which is 30 seconds of slow motion CGI, explosions and Mark Wahlberg looking dramatic. Well, that and the AWE INSPIRING -sight of Optimus Prime riding Grimlock into battle like GIANT ROBOT DINOSAUR CALVALRY. (You have no idea just how much fun that was to type)

Grimlock love you, but only have 14 hours to save Cybertron!

Some interesting casting news happened, with the news that Jesse Eisenberg is Lex Luthor and Jeremy Irons is Alfred in Batman vs Superman. Eisenberg’s an interesting choice for a younger Luthor, while Irons is British, so, yeah. We also have another possible title for the film, Man of Steel: Fight or Flight. That’s terrible, but it’s the least terrible option so far – yay for the lesser evil! In more British casting news, Paul Bettany (The voice of JARVIS in the Iron Man movies) will be playing The Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron. This – this I’m a fan of.

It’s now time to play the unverified casting rumour game! First up, Evangeline Lilly is said to be in talks for the female lead in Ant-Man (We don’t know if it’s Janet Van Dyne yet either) and Dwayne Johnson tweeted #LanternCanWhupSuperman and thus set the speculation train moving again. So we’re ignoring the Ryan Reynolds version? If it means we get him playing Deadpool, I’m OK with that.

Moving back to Captain America 2, there’s a gallery of new pictures, a preview clip (Taken from the Thor: The Dark World Blu-Ray) that has a pretty massive spoiler in it and there’s a competition running over what TV show Cap will be watching during the film. Sadly it’s only for the UK release, but I still voted for Doctor Who, which is coming second behind Sherlock, with Father Ted a distant third. It’s also set to have a knock on effect for Age of Ultron and Agents of SHIELD, which, if you aren’t watching, means Clark Gregg doesn’t like you.

 How can you say no to a face like that?

 Plans are apparently in the works for a sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy by 2016, Drew Pearce (Who wrote the Marvel one-shot All Hail the King) has been talking about Runaways (About a group of children who discover their parents are supervillains) and the gag reel for Thor: The Dark World as is awesome as you’d expect. We have what could be the first look at Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch of X-Men: Days of Future Past and director Marc Webb has announced actor BJ Novak’s role in Amazing Spider-Man 2. We’d just tell you, but there’s possible spoilers, so yeah. Consider yourselves warned!

We’ve had some movement on the Fantastic Four reboot – several blogs were threatened with legal action after reporting a strange synopsis. Said synopsis was, well, different, so the threats were initially taken as evidence that it was genuine. Thankfully, director Josh Trank has debunked it, saying the only similarities are ‘there are characters named Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben,’which is nice and reassuring. Meanwhile, casting has indicated they’re open to a female Doctor Doom. I’m not totally against that, but can’t they just use Lucia Von Bardas instead?

A sequel to The Lego Movie is already being planned and while I really want to see the movie, it’s more than a bit depressing that it’s Wonder Woman’s cinema debut. That’s right DC Comics and Warner Brothers – LEGO BEAT YOU. In more uplifting Lego news, a Lego version of the X-Men’s mansion has been proposed and it is downright amazing. Seriously, it’s even got a Danger Room in there. A new clip and details of the soundtrack for Knights of Badassdom have been released (It’s Bear McCreary – I’m buying it) and staying with gaming, we recently had the 40^th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons! By the way, did you know that Ice-T recently narrated a D&D audiobook?

   Yes, that’s Ice-T playing a mutant kangaroo. In his defence, it was the 90’s…

 Painkiller Jane (Previously a TV movie and series on the SyFy channel) may be headed for the big screen and the adaption of JG Ballard’s novel High Rise will star Tom Hiddleston. In mixed news, Snowpiercer will be uncut upon its released in the US, but it’ll be getting a limited arthouse cinema release. So equal amounts of yay and booo!

Turning to the idiot box, alternate history comic The Red Star is coming to television, as is a series based on John Scalzi’s book Redshirts, about the more expendable members of a starship crew,  and it’s been confirmed that Preacher will be airing on AMC. SyFy US are developing a series based on the DC Comics series DMZ, Studio Ghibli are working on a new anime series and the CW’s The Flash series has cast Iris West.

There’s some new propaganda posters for Star Wars: Rebels and if you’re (Quite rightly) concerned about the Constantine series, he’ll be from London and will have the accent. Neil Gaiman has given an update on the TV versions of his books American Gods and Anansi Boys and read Dr Suess’s Green Eggs and Ham. It’s glorious, trust me. The only thing that could out cute that this week has been Benedict Cumberbatch’s appearance on Sesame Street and that was magnificent.

 Ia! Ia! Gaiman fhtagn!

The adaption of video game Uncharted has a director, Zachary Quinto will be co-starring in the reboot of Hitman, but we won’t be seeing a 6^th Resident Evil film this year, for which we must be thankful for small mercies. In things we should be thankful for without sarcasm, a CG Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers film is being planned. My inner child would like to argue about how it’ll be butchered like all the other movies based on 80’s cartoons, but it’s too busy singing the theme tune to care.

We end this week discussing, as I frequently do, the glory of the lightsaber, which is still my favourite sword of all. Yes, the longsword is a beautiful and elegant weapon, as are the katana and rapier and I have a lot of love for the simplicity of the gladius, but none of them have the same effect on me as the hum of a lightsaber. Anyhow, there’s an example of a lightsaber fight in the dark and a series of lightsaber combat academies have opened in Italy. Sure, it’s a geekier version of sport fencing, but if that get’s more people into swordsmanship, than I’m OK with that.

Quote of the Week:

“Hey,” said Shadow. “Huginn or Muninn, or whoever you are.”
The bird turned, head tipped, suspiciously, on one side, and it stared at him with bright eyes.
“Say ‘Nevermore,'” said Shadow.
“Fuck you,” said the raven.”

Neil Gaiman, American Gods

Cheers,

Gavin

Hey all,

So, there’s not been much blogging of late. I’d like to blame the heat, or any number of other factors, but the truth is I’m rubbish without a deadline. The last few days has mostly been writing for a LARP I’m in and listening to Dio era Black Sabbath. There’s far worse ways to spend the time, but possibly more productive ways. Anyhow, we’re back, so let’s get this going.

We start this week with more than the recommended dose of “You’re joking, right?” I’d love to find a witty way to introduce this, but I can’t, so here goes: Back to the Future: The Musical. Robert Zemeckis is directing, as well as writing the show with Bob Gale (Who co-wrote the film), with composer Alan Silvestri scoring. So, anyone expecting a song about your mother hitting on you?

OK, something less strange. *rummages* Well, the new Doctor’s costume has been unveiled and it’s mighty spiffy. Well, except for the cardigan, but we can’t have everything. As numerous others have pointed out it’s very reminiscent of the Third Doctor Jon Pertwee’s outfit, with Capaldi further adding to that with the post he’s striking. While we’re talking Doctor Who, there’s a fan made Who themed version of Cards Against Humanity called Cards Against Gallifrey and a trailer for the fan made documentary, Who’s Changing?

                That’s the most work-safe combination I could find.

 Fun Fact: Jon Pertwee was one of the back-ups in-case Sean Connery didn’t want to play Henry Jones Snr in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. As much as I’d love to say I came up with the line ‘Only the penitent man shall reverse the polarity’, it’s not one of mine.

The rumours around the Agent Carter TV show continue to rumble, with new word that the show has a script and producers. In more welcome news, Lady Sif will be appearing in Agents of SHIELD and Batman vs Superman has been pushed back 10 months, with Ant-Man taking it’s release date. Anna Paquin might be back in X-Men: Days of Future Past, Gal Gadot has signed up for three  Wonder Woman films, but sadly Stan Lee won’t have a cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Thor 3 has been announced, we have a couple of stills from Tom Hiddleston’s audition for Thor (It’s on the Blu-Ray for the second movie) and has appeared, along with Mark Strong and Ben Kingsley, in a Jaguar car ad that asks Why are all Bad Guys British? Thanks to merchandise we’ve gotten a look at the Guardians of the Galaxy and the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as well as a closer look at the Falcon from Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Yes, it’s kinda creepy, but not as bad as the underwear…

 There’s trailers for the straight to DVD movies Justice League Adventures: Trapped in Time and Son of Batman and a look at Necessary Evil, a documentary on the villains of DC Comics and which I’m slightly ashamed to admit I only just found out about. We also have a teaser for the anime styled Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher (Gee, I wonder who’s in that one…),  a TV spot for Amazing Spider-Man 2 and a deleted scene from Thor: The Dark World.

X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner wants to make a Gambit movie starring, you’ll want to be sitting down for this part, Channing Tatum. Yeah… I’m not sure where to place that on the scale of bad ideas – it’s somewhere between ‘getting hit in the crotch with a brick’ and ‘invading Russia in winter’, but below ‘Batman and Robin.’

Both the creator and star of the Leprechaun movies (Mark Jones and Warwick Davis) are working on a reboot of the series called Vamprechaun, the live action version of  Ghost in the Shell has a director and Vin Diesel has been a busy boy – he’s announced that not only is a new Riddick film in development, but a script for a new XXX film is a month away from completion.

 Vin Diesel contemplating another Pacifier movie.

There’s new trailers for Malificent and 300: Rise of an Empire, which might not be a very good film, but they’ve sampled Black Sabbath’s War Pigs, so they’ve done something right. We have another teaser for the TV adaption of From Dusk Till Dawn and new spots for Scarlet Johansson’s Under the Skin and Terry Gilliam’s latest, The Zero Theorem.  There’s also trailers for Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage, which boats stop motion animation and a voiceover from Patrick Stewart,  and the movie Occulus, which stars  Amy Pond and Kara Thrace. (Or Karen Gillan and Katee Sackhoff for the pedantic)

The rumours about Pixar making a Star Wars movie are most likely false, Billy Dee Williams would love to return for Episode 7 and we also have details on a new character from the upcoming Star Wars: Rebels, a cranky astromech droid known as Chopper. *waves $10 note* This goes to the first person to overdub the droid noise with dialogue from Chopper. C’mon, you know you want to do it…

In the ‘Too Good to be True’ category comes word of a rumour that Dame Judi Dench is to play Mon Mothma in the next Star Wars movie. (For what it’s worth, Caroline Blakiston, who played her in Return of the Jedi, is still active.)

You can’t tell me that’s not true – I REFUSE TO DISBELIEVE.

The TV remake of Barbarella is still on the way and some casting news for the Rosemary’s Baby adaption. We’ve a collection of new pictures from season 4 of Game of Thrones and if you were spooked by the announcement of a John Constantine TV show, there’s some god news – the mighty Neil Marshall (Who you may remember from directing such films as Dog Soldiers and Centurion) will be directing the pilot. No, that doesn’t guarantee it’ll be good, but there’s a slightly better chance of it!

The week’s most important news is that Lego are releasing a Ghostbusters set this year and in the week’s least important news, it’s been confirmed that Ian Ziering and Tara Reid will return for Sharknado 2. The movie adaption of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series might be back on and the producer of Transformers: Age of Extinction is insisted the film isn’t a reboot. How about you just make a good movie, can you do that?

We end this week with a gloriously nerdy internet flame war between the Star Wars and Marvel Twitter accounts. People are getting paid to do that, with actual money. Alec Hardison was right – it truly is the age of the geek.

Quote of the Week:

Marty: Wait a minute. Wait a minute Doc, uh, are you telling me you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean?

Doc: The way I see it, if you’re going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?

Back to the Future

Cheers,

Gavin

Welcome dear readers!

This week (Outside of trying not to melt in the heat) I’ve been re-watching Leverage to prepare for an upcoming game and sorting out my costume for a live action game I’m in. So, basically, I’ll be very dodgy sitting around a table and dodgy dressed up in costume and wielding foam swords. Hey, do I mock your hobbies?

There’s been a fair bit of big news this week, but there’s one story that overshadows them all. It’s something many thought would never happen, but finally, after almost 40 years, Batman 66 is finally getting a home release. The show was long tangled up in rights issues between Fox (Who produced the show) and Warners (Who own DC Comics), with further legal issues over celebrity cameos muddying the waters even more.  The news was broken by a tweet from late night host Conan O’Brien and appears to confirm a complete series box set would be released this year, though there’s no word on special features or whether it’ll be on Blu-Ray and DVD.

 Hurry Boy Wonder, we have to get to JB Hi Fi in time!

There’s also the trailer for Doomed, the untold story of the Roger Corman Fantastic Four movie. What’s that, you’ve not heard of this? Well, that’s because it was never intended to be released. The film was shot on the cheap as a way of holding onto the rights, with the cast and crew not being told of this at the time. Bootlegs exist of the film, but I’m pretty sure Marvel would like to forget about it, like the two Captain America TV movies made in the 70’s, one of which has Christopher Lee as the villain.

More directors have been linked to a new Masters of the Universe film, the killer in the next Friday the 13th movie might not be Jason Voorhees and Disney are said to be working on a live action musical version of Frozen. We have a list of actors said to be reading for Kyle Reese in the next Terminator film, Sam Neill won’t be in Jurassic World and both Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana have signed up for 3 sequels to  Avatar. Kristen Stewart has signed on to Equals, which (Brace yourself for this part) is described as a romantic version of 1984 and a movie based on the card game (And just behind crack cocaine in it’s addictive properties) Magic: The Gathering is being prepared.

  All the power of Grayskull and he still has that haircut…

 There’s been some big casting news in the world of comic book movies of late, with the announcement of Michael Douglas as Hank Pym in Ant-Man and German actor Thomas Kretschmann as Baron Von Strucker in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Pym was the original Ant-Man, succeeded in the role by Scott Lang (Who Paul Rudd is presumably playing), while Baron Strucker is one of the heads of Hydra, last seen in Captain America.

Now the really awesome part hasn’t been confirmed, but word is that Jason ‘Khal Drogo’ Momoa was up for a role in Batman vs Superman. The part? Arthur Curry, better known as Aquaman. Momoa has denied any involvement, but a list of things I’d do to see that casting happen would be both A: Very long and B: Would get disturbing fast. There was also talk that Marvel wanted Johnny Depp to play Doctor Strange, but mercifully that was debunked quickly. It’s not that I don’t think Depp can’t act, I just don’t want him in the role.

  Who’s laughing now?

There’s a gallery of pictures from Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the mere mention of cloning in the viral marketing for Amazing Spider-Man 2 has made me very nervous. No, I’ve not read the Clone Saga, but I know enough to know it’s a continuity mess that makes the history of the X-Men look calm. Meanwhile, word is that the Justice League film will be shot back to back with Batman vs Superman, which, oddly, makes a lot of sense.

 Gotham will feature the origins of many of Batman’s villains and the CW has appeared to have cancelled the young Wonder Woman show Amazon. Boooo! The mighty Bill Paxton (AKA the only man to have been killed by an Alien, Predator and Terminator) will have an upcoming arc in Agents of SHIELD and a pilot for a Constantine TV show has been approved. Can we please get John Simm or Tim Roth for the lead? Pictures of Doctor Who filming have Peter Capaldi riding a horse while in his panamas and did you know that Steven Moffat wanted a shout out to Peter Cushing’s Doctor in the 50^th Anniversary special?

 Just forget this, except for Tilda Swinton. Don’t forget her.

 Anna Silk has revealed that George Takei will be appearing in the next season of Lost Girl and the next season of American Horror Story will take place in 1950, with the only other clue that Jessica Lange has been ‘brushing up on her German.’ The first trailer for season 4 of Game of Thrones was released this week and it can’t come soon enough for my taste. We also have the first clips from Knights of Badassdom,  I, Frankenstein and Robocop, the first teasers for the TV shows Outlander and From Dusk Till Dawn and a fresh teaser for Penny Dreadful. Lastly, there’s a clip from the new Marvel one-shot All Hail the King. If you’ve not seen Iron Man 3 yet, the spoiler warning still applies.

We have some plot details for Star Wars Episode 7, as well some details of a now scrapped script. Actor Peter Mayhew (AKA Chewbacca) has uploaded a stack of pictures from the classic trilogy and there’s a new publicity shot for Star Wars: Rebels that looks very close to that last one we got. We also have a somewhat disturbing storyline intended for the non-canon Star Wars Infinities that would have seen Leia fall to the Dark Side and well, we won’t say any more.

 Yeeeee-haaaaaaa!

 Gillian ‘Dana Scully’ Anderson is co-writing a sci-fi book series, a new female Transformer has been announced and we’ve a gallery of Game of Thrones based propaganda posters. Lastly, we have an awesome young Doctor Who fan, who decided to dress up as all 11 Doctors.  I don’t care what the commenters say, I choose to believe that he did all that with no help from an adult. Why? Causeit’s more awesome that way and I want a world with more awesome in it.

Quote of the Week:

Dyson: Hey. Did you guys get anything yet?
Bo: A lecture from the vice principal and 27 invitations to the dance. One delivered in soliloquy.
Kenzi: How nice!
Bo: You?
Dyson: A fist bump. Kenz, you?
Kenzi: Well I was attacked by rabid Muffys, manhandled by Coach ‘Bitchy Butch’ and I got detention.
Bo: We are not getting far are we?
Kenzi: Teen angst. Our greatest foe.

Lost Girl – School’s Out

Cheers,

Gavin