Collider caught up with the Pacific Rim director recently. He gave an update on Marvel and ABC's live-action Hulk series, as well as other comic book movies he almost directed. Guillermo del Toro apparently almost directed Thor and The Wolverine.

“I had one meeting with Marvel after Avengers and we had a very, very good chat. We have a writer that we want to bring on board, a very, very concrete name. I can’t reveal it, but we want to wait for that writer. It’s a writer who is otherwise engaged. So right now we are in a holding pattern until that writer becomes free. Then we’re going to do a new draft of the script.” 

I am interested in seeing the Hulk TV show, but would love to see a feature film solely about the character. Do you think that del Toro will do a good job on the show? Check out the video! 

Connect with Jim on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr 

Sean Penn is headed back behind the directors chair for an upcoming film. Variety reports that Penn is planning to direct an adaptation of Crazy for the Storm for Warner Bros. The film will tell the memoir of Norman Ollestad. The screenplay was penned by Will Fetters. The story "revolves around Ollestad's relationship with his father and how the skills his father instilled in him helped him survive after a plane crash stranded him on a mountaintop."

WB has been trying to entice Penn to the project for a bit. The studio had looked at other directors, including Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity), but landed on Penn for the gig. Penn will not be starring in the film, only directing. I am excited to see Penn in Gangster Squad, which opens on January.

Connect with Jim on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr 

Source: Variety (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118057661.html?cmpid=RSS%7CNews%7CFilmNews)

Trekkies, prepare to embark on a secret voyage with the help of this new fan-made web series created by Craig Sheeler. The series is being dubbed Star Trek: Secret Voyage, and picks up where The Original Series left off and the first Trek motion picture began. The show follows  "a new crew assembled by Starfleet for a covert mission." Watch as Captain Mercer (Tyrone Loukas) taking the Enterprise on a mission to negotiate a treaty, which takes them to the farthest reaches of space.

Connect with Jim on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr 

Source: Blastr (http://blastr.com/2012/08/new-star-trek-web-series.php)

Check out these geektastic Hogwarts-inspired couture dresses by DeviantARTIST DistantDreamer. Every house is beautifully represented from the Harry Potter series.

Described as follows:

Couture dresses inspired by the four houses of Hogwarts with heavy inspiration from their mascots. Which dress fits your style? ^_-

Gryffindor - The Lion - You might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell the brave at heart, Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart

Hufflepuff - The Badger - You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil.

Ravenclaw - The Eagle - Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you’ve a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind.

Slytherin - The Serpent - Or perhaps in Slytherin You’ll make your real friends, Those cunning folks use any means To achieve their ends.

Which of these dresses would you most likely wear?

Connect with Jim on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr 

Source: DeviantART (http://distantdream.deviantart.com/)

The CW has released a new promo trailer for their Green Arrow TV series, Arrow. The new ad asks the question... "What has Oliver Queen become?" Kind of a silly question as I'm pretty sure everyone already knows what he's become a vigilante motivated to clean up Starling City, and find redemption. The superhero is being played by Stephen Amell, and here's the synopsis...

After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen was missing and presumed dead for five years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the Pacific. When he returns home to Starling City, his devoted mother Moira, much-beloved sister Thea, and best friend Tommy welcome him home, but they sense Oliver has been changed by his ordeal on the island. While Oliver hides the truth about the man he’s become, he desperately wants to make amends for the actions he took as the boy he was. Most particularly, he seeks reconciliation with his former girlfriend, Laurel Lance. As Oliver reconnects with those closest to him, he secretly creates the persona of Arrow – a vigilante – to right the wrongs of his family, fight the ills of society, and restore Starling City to its former glory. By day, Oliver plays the role of a wealthy, carefree and careless philanderer he used to be – flanked by his devoted chauffeur/bodyguard, John Diggle – while carefully concealing the secret identity he turns to under cover of darkness. However, Laurel’s father, Detective Quentin Lance, is determined to arrest the vigilante operating in his city. Meanwhile, Oliver’s own mother, Moira, knows much more about the deadly shipwreck than she has let on – and is more ruthless than he could ever imagine.

Arrow is scheduled to premiere on October 10th on the CW. Are you looking forward to watching this new DC superhero series? Do you think it will be a hit or miss for the fanboys and fangirls? 

Source: TV Guide (http://www.tvguide.com/News/Arrow-New-Trailer-1051866.aspx)

Illustrator Joshua Budich has created this awesome piece of Ghostbusters fan art featuring the villain Gozer. We don't really see much fan art focussed on this character, and I love how this piece turned out. What do you think of it? 

The print can be purchased at the Gallery 1988 website for $40 bucks.

Source: Joshua Budich (http://www.joshuabudich.com/)

Here is a cool piece of Hellboy fan art by Shawn Langley, aka Rottentoons. Shawn has done some cool pieces that you can see on DeviantART. I have also included a cool piece for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

Connect with Jim on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr 

Source: RottenToons DeviantART (http://rottentoons.deviantart.com/)

This guy, Ye Tongxin, is freakin' awesome! He's basically dedicated all of his spare time training to slice fruit by throwing playing cards at them. It's pretty damn impressive! He's able to get so much speed and velocity with these cards that they slice through and into various fruits such as cucumbers, apples and even watermelon. 

Right after I saw the video I took out a deck of cards and started throwing them at fruit myself... it didn't turn out as awesome. He says that the cards he throws travel up to 360kph, which is pretty insane, and could most likely slice open a person. 

Tongxin is currently trying to get the Guinness World Record in fruit slicing. To do that he would have to cut through 19 cucumbers in under a minute with a deadly set of playing cards. Checkout what he's able to acomplish so far! 

Source: Oddity Central (http://www.odditycentral.com/news/worlds-deadliest-card-player-slices-fruits-an-vegetables-with-plastic-playing-cards.html)

A new featurette has been released for John Hillcoat's prohibition era gangster film, Lawless. The movie tells the true story of the Bondurant brothers and their bootlegging exploits in Virginia in the 1920's. The featurette gives us a little history lesson on the true story beihind the movie which stars Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, and Mia Wasikowska. It also includes some new footage from the film. 

Lawless hits theaters on August 29th, 2012, and I can't wait to see it!

Here's the synopsis:

Gangster meets Western in the true story of the freewheelin' Bondurants brothers, bootlegging siblings taking the law into their own hands. This is the story of the rural hard-men that created the big city gangsters. Brazen and fearless, these young rebel brothers helped build the American Dream in this exuberant tale of what was to become crime's first major gold rush.

The youngest brother, Jack, fancies himself the next Al Capone; he dreams of sharp suits, guns, girls and fast cars, no matter the cost. Ambitious and impulsive, he takes the family's small-scale moonshining operation to the big leagues, to impress the gorgeous but off-limits Amish girl, Bertha. The middle brother, Howard, is the brawling muscle – loyal but reckless – never one to turn down a taste of white lightning. And eldest brother, Forrest, reluctantly accepts the changing times with grace and grit, leading the family with strength of character and silent determination against the beginnings of corporate greed. An enigmatic and stunning Maggie comes to town with a hidden past, igniting his passion and almost saving him in the process. As the Bondurants' legend grows, so too does the danger, and it's not long before the brothers must face the consequences of their transgressions, or rewrite the myth and the law themselves.

Some new story information has found its way online for director José Padilha's Robocop remake, and there's a strong chance you might not like what they are making. Drew McWeeny from HitFix got his hands on the most recent script for the film, and as you'll read, he really didn't care for what it contained. He took his thoughts to Twitter where he tore into the script, and the ridiculousness of it. One of the main things he pointed out is that we'll see four different versions of Robocop, and one of them is a transformer version. It definitely doesn't sound like a winner.

Before we get into some of the story details, I just wanted to point out that McWeeney compares the script to Len Wiseman's recent Total Recall remake saying....

Damn, that's pretty harsh. Sounds like this Robocop remake isn't going to be as awesome as we hoped it would be. Here's what McWeeny had to say about the script:

In the film, when Murphy is turned into Robocop 1.0, it's described "a high-tech version of the '80s suit." Then they show a focus group scene where criminals laugh at the design. "He looks like a toy from the '80s!" So they redesign him to look "meaner" as Robocop 2.0, who passes focus group approval. So they not only make sure to include the original design, they also point out it's dated and stupid. 

Hold onto your sides for more hilarious "Robocop" details. They outsource his construction to China. #seriously 

And we meet the ED-209s in the field in Iran, where they're used to subdue suicide bombers. 

Ahhh... now they just dropped Robocop 3.0 onto an Al Queda training camp to see what he does. "He should be programmed to incapacitate in all scenarios." "Agreed. Let's keep him PG-13, Dr. Norton." No. No. No. No. 

By page 54, they are already onto Robocop 4.0, who looks like a "cop on steroids painted metallic blue." Oh, god... oh dear god... Robocop is a Transformer. He goes from "social mode" to "combat mode" and back. Full transformation. 

It's tough to determine tone on the page, but "satire" seems low on their list of priorities. 

Okay... the two "best" lines in the script. First up is at the unveiling ceremony for Robocop in Detroit, from a TV reporter covering it. "I think it's safe to say that Alex Murphy is now part man, part machine, ALL COP!" Yes, I too remember the original poster, asshat. 

Second, after the traumatic first meeting with his father, Alex's son retreats to the apartment of Lewis, Murphy's male partner. The scene ends with the action line "David sits, catatonic, looks at the TV -- MGM REMAKE TBD." It means "to be determined." They haven't decided which of their other movies to plug with that clip. 

Someone shows Pope, head of the OCP project, some mock-ups for Robocop action figures. "Are you kidding? I wouldn't buy that for a dollar!" 

I'll say this: once the script stops all the winky-winky crap and just starts telling a story, it's not terrible. But it's way too late.If you can get past Robocop The Transformer, there are some interesting action beats. And I'm sure Padilha will direct the hell out of it.

So that doesn't sound very promising. That's a shame, especially since it's got such a talented cast! Do you think there's hope for this movie after reading this script description?

Here's the official synopsis:

In RoboCop, the year is 2029 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Their drones are winning American wars around the globe and now they want to bring this technology to the home front. Alex Murphy is a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit. After he is critically injured in the line of duty, OmniCorp utilizes their remarkable science of robotics to save Alex’s life. He returns to the streets of his beloved city with amazing new abilities, but with issues a regular man has never had to face before.

The Expendable 2 hasn't even been released in theaters yet, but it's not really surprising to hear that producer Avi Lerner is already prepping up for the third film in the franchise. I think we all expected that to happen. What we didn't expect was who might end up being in it! They've approached some more incredible big name actors to join the production! 

Lerner has revealed that they've already talked to Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Nicolas Cage and Wesley Snipes about being in The Expendables 3! Here's what he told Total Film in a recent interview, 

We’ve approached Clint Eastwood to be one of the guys, we’ve got a character in mind for him. We’re talking to Harrison Ford. [And we want] Wesley Snipes when he comes back from prison. I’ll give you one more name, we’ve got Nicolas Cage to play [one of the characters]. And we’re going to bring Mickey Rourke back, if he won’t be too crazy. I like Mickey. And of course, all the existing stars [will return].

I honestly didn't think they could get a more badass cast than who they have for the upcoming sequel, but it looks like I was wrong. It would be insanely epic if they actually got Eastwood and Ford to join the already crazy awesome cast. 

What do you think about the cast additions they want for The Expendables 3? Do you think they'll actually be able to get them in the film? 

A couple of months ago we had our first look at a badass looking Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in their new prison escape film, The Tomb. Thanks to the The Wall Street Journal we have an official photo of the two action stars together looking tough as nails. It's so freakin' cool to be seeing these actors working together as much as they are these days. They look great in the movie, I especially love Schwarzenegger's look of grey. 

The Mikael Håfström-directed action-thriller follows a character named Ray Breslin (Stallone) who "is the world’s foremost authority on structural security. He’s analyzed every high security prison and has gained a vast array of survival skills. But all Ray’s ingenuity and knowledge are about to be put to work in the most challenging test he’s ever faced: escaping from the master prison of his own design."

Schwarzenegger, plays a character named Emil Rottmayer, a complex inmate with multiple shades of grey. "He’s the guy who fights to keep the prisoners from losing their humanity in their darkest hour as they struggle together to stay alive."

This sounds like it's going to be a very cool movie, and I'm excited about seeing it. What do think about the look of the two actors in the film?

Here's the first trailer for Cinemax's new TV series Transporter, which is the small screen adaptation of Luc Besson and Jason Statham's action-packed movie franchise. Besson serves as an executive producer on the series, and the role of the Transporter is being played by Chris Vance (Burn Notice), who seems to give the character more of a James Bond kind of feel to him. The Transporter film franchise has been entertaining to watch over the years, and it looks like this series will be just as action-packed and entertaining.

Here's the synopsis:

Based on the successful film franchise of the same name created by Europacorp's Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, this fast-paced series follows the adventures of professional transporter Frank Martin, who can always be counted on to get the job done - discreetly. Operating in a seedy underworld of dangerous criminals and desperate players, his three rules are: Never change the deal, no names, and never open the package. Occasionally, complications arise and rules get broken.

Andrea Osvart (Duplicity) co-stars as Martin's trusted handler Carla and Francois Berléand reprises his role of Inspector Tarconi from the films. The cast also includes Delphine Chanéac (Splice) in the recurring role of Juliette, a reporter who seems to know a lot about Frank's work, and Rachel Skarsten (Made,Birds of Prey) as Delia, the daughter of someone from Frank's past.

The 12-part action series is set to debut on Cinemax later this year. Watch the trailer for the series below and let us know if you think it looks good enough for you to watch! 

Inglourious Basterds star Christoph Waltz has landed another great role in director Terry Gilliam's next film project The Zero Theorem. I love Gilliam's insanely cool storytelling style, and in his next film Waltz will play a character named Qohen Leth, described as "an eccentric and reclusive computer genius plagued with existential angst who works on a mysterious project aimed at discovering the purpose of existence—or the lack thereof—once and for all." The movie was written by Pat Rushin, and the story seems to fit right in with Gilliam's wildly bizarre imagination, and Waltz is sure to be great in it!

Living in an Orwellian corporate world where “mancams” serve as the eyes of a shadowy figure known only as Management, Leth (Waltz) works on a solution to the strange theorem while living as a virtual cloistered monk in his home—the shattered interior of a fire-damaged chapel. His isolation and work are interrupted now and then by surprise visits from Bainsley, a flamboyantly lusty love interest who tempts him with “tantric biotelemetric interfacing” (virtual sex) and Bob. Latter is the rebellious whiz-kid teenage son of Management who, with a combination of insult-comedy and an evolving true friendship, spurs on Qohen’s efforts at solving the theorem. But these visits turn out to be intentional diversions orchestrated by Management to keep control of Qohen’s progress. Bob creates a virtual reality “inner-space” suit that will carry Qohen on an inward voyage, a close encounter with the hidden dimensions and truth of his own soul, wherein lie the answers both he and Management are seeking. The suit and supporting computer technology will perform an inventory of Qohen’s soul, either proving or disproving the Zero Theorem.

Sounds like it's going to be another incredible Gilliam film, and I'm excited about seeing how this odd story turns out. The movie is currently in pre-production in Romania, and will start shooting on October 22nd. The movie is also being produced by Dean Zanuck who worked on Road to Perdition and Get Low. 

What do you think about Gilliam's latest film project? 

Source: Deadline (http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/toronto-christoph-waltz-starring-in-terry-gilliams-the-zero-theorem-voltage-selling/)

Here's an interesting new infographic created by Networked Insights, that breaks down the data of several Marvel superheros telling us who the most popular characters are and why. 

The info for the infographic was gathered over the past 30 days to see which Marvel characters were getting the most play in conversations among geeks on the web. It calculated that Hulk, Thor and Iron Man lead the Top 10 Avengers, Wolverine, Magneto and Northstar lead the Top 10 Mutants, Loki, Lizard and Venom lead the Top 10 Villains and Thanos, Silver Surfer and Nova lead the Top 10 Cosmic Characters. It also goes into the details about why people are talking about Ant-Man, Northstar, Thanos and Star-Lord.

Remember, the infographic is only 30 days worth of information, so it's what is trending around Marvel right now. Check it out below and let us know if you think Marvel should be paying closer attention to the characters who are most popular among online fans.

Source: Blastr (http://blastr.com/2012/08/huge-marvel-infographic-b.php)

Even though one of the post-credits scenes in X-Men Origins: Wolverine included Wolverine in Japan, it doesn't mean the new James Mangold-directed film The Wolverine is going to be a sequel. In fact there's a reason why it's not called Wolverine 2, they wanted this Wolverine movie to be a standalone film, which is definitely the way to go. Especially after how bad the first Wolverine movie turned out. 

Hugh Jackman recently did an interview with Total Film magazine (via Coventry Telegraph) in which he discusses where The Wolverine fits in with the rest of the X-Men movies.

We've deliberately not called it Wolverine 2 because we want it to be placed and feel like a standalone picture. With an all-new cast and setting it in Japan, it's going to give us a whole new visual aesthetic. The approach to character means we won't be overloaded with mutants and teams and the like, so it'll be more character-based. I think in many ways it will feel like a completely different X-Men film.

This is exactly what Wolverine needs, in fact I'd love to see more standalone X-Men movies like this that are more character focused. 

The movie is based on the 1982 comic series created by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, and the story follows Logas as he "begins a forbidden romance with a Japanese woman whose hand in marriage is, unfortunately, promised to another man. Since Logan won't take 'no' for an answer, it puts him into battle with her father and her samurai-sword-wielding brothers and Silver Samurai."

The movie is currently shooting, and is scheduled to hit theaters on July 26th, 2013. It also co-stars Will Yun Lee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hal Yamanouchi, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima and Brian Tee.

Are you happy to hear the movie won't really be connected to any of the previous X-Men films?

In a bit of news you've always naturally assumed, io9 is reporting massive DDOS attacks on Wikileaks after its revelation of a revolutionary governement project which allows for the same type of tracking movies like The Bourne Legacy have popularized. Code named "Trapwire", the government can hack surveillance software and obtain facial recognition on anyone, basically if they're looking for them.  In actuality though, they have the ability to log EVERY INDIVIDUAL FACE IT SEES. That's right, even if you did nothing wrong, they know where you are. As we've learned from movies, this never means anything good, but we'll see how things turn out.

Email Me: MickJoest@Geektyrant.com Twitter: @MickJoest

Source: i09 (http://io9.com/5933966/wikileaks-reveals-trapwire-a-government-spy-network-that-uses-ordinary-surveillance-cameras)

For those of you like myself who were hoping that hear John William's beautiful Superman score in Man of Steel... it's not going to happen. Director Zack Snyder confirmed the news in a recent interview with Total Film, in which he also revealed that they made the film as if no other Superman film existed. 

We decided to act as if no Superman film had been made - even though we love the films that have been made. We had to say this is a Superman movie for the first time and you can't then go 'Oh, now let's steal a little music. So, yes it's awesome music but Hans Zimmer is going to do something awesome.

I understand why they don't want to use the music, and I'm excited to see what Hans Zimmer ends up composing for the film, but it's really going to be hard to not hear that iconic Superman music in the movie. That music is Superman. Snyder goes on to discuss his approach to bringing his version of the character to life saying,

We have great respect for the canon. I would say it is a clashing of stories and ideas. Superman is the king-daddy of all superheroes - to make him work is a big deal. The big challenge is if you can make people feel 'What would you do if you were Superman?' That's what we went out to do as far as we could. Superman's always been this kind of big blue boy-scout up on a throne that nobody can really touch, so we tried to make him relatable.

It's so hard to do that with this character, as awesome as he is, I've never really been able to relate with him. So if they can actually pull that off... that would be great! I'm looking forward to Man of Steel, I liked what I saw at Comic-Con, and I can't wait to see more! 

Man of Steal stars Henry Cavill, Michael Shannon, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Costner and Ayelet Zorer, and it's set to hit theatres on June 14th, 2013. 

What do you think about what Snyder had to say about Man of Steel? This isn't the first time he talked about this, he also mentioned this stuff at the Comic-Con panel for the film this year, and here's the video. He starts talking about it at the 2:30 mark. 

If you haven't heard already, Bill and Ted 3 is happening, and it was announced last week that Galaxy Quest director Dean Parisot would be bringing it to the big screen. In a recent interview with GQ, Keanu Reeves offered up a few more details on the story that we'll see in the film, and it sounds like classic Bill and Ted!

The second half of what he says is the new information...

One of the plot points is that these two people have been crushed by the responsibility of having to write the greatest song ever written and to change the world, and they haven't done it. So everybody is kind of like: 'Where is the song?'

The guys have just drifted off into esoterica and lost their rock. And we go on this expedition, go into the future to find out if we wrote the song, and one future 'us' refuses to tell us, and another future 'us' blames us for their lives because we didn't write the song, so they're living this terrible life. In one version we're in jail; in another we're at some kind of highway motel and they hate us.

I grew up watching these Bill and Ted movies, so I'm looking forward to seeing Ted Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq. back in another crazy time traveling adventure! I can't get over the fact that that Reeves and Alex Winter will be back top reprise their roles, that's just so cool. It's still hard for me to believe this movie is actually happening. 

The first film was Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which came out in 1989. Then in 1991 it got a sequel called Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Both movies are worth watching if you haven't seen them yet, and I think they are equally entertaining. 

What else would you like to see happen in Bill and Ted 3?

Alice Krige, whose best known for her role as the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, has been cast in a small role in Marvel's Thor: The Dark World. The actress revealed that she would be in the movie while at the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas this weekend. She didn't mention who she would be playing in the film, but according to CBM she did say that she may not be recognizable in the film.

The actress joins the recently cast Christopher Eccleston as Malekith the Accursed. As well as original cast members Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster and a few other familiar and new faces. 

The story follows the God of Thunder to The Nine Realms beyond Asgard and earth. And as his evil half-brother, Loki, returns for Asgardian justice, a new threat rises. Also rejoining Thor are his fellow Asgardians, Lady Sif, gatekeeper Heimdall and Warriors Three, as they encounter mythical Norse creatures among evildoers.

The Alan Taylor-directed film will go into production this fall, and it's going to be epically glorious! At least that's what I'm hoping for!