• Actor Stephen Lang confirms that there is a supernatural element, as well as fakirs and wizards, in the upcoming Conan the Barbarian starring Jason Mamoa. So it’s not just a bunch of muscled guys whacking each other. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

• Earlier this month, we missed some concept art from the Conan film that’s actually pretty cool. I know this guy scares the devil out of me.

• The BBC has formally announced that the television adaptation of Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a go for the fall/winter schedule on BBC 4. It sounds as if it’s the first book in the series. While this is believed to be a one-off, if it goes well it could become a series. No word from BBC America on airing it.

• The first review I’ve seen for Centurion is out, and it’s positive. “An ambitious and epic film that mixes elements of “The Lord Of The Rings” with “300″ and “Gladiator.” Director Neil Marshall’s visionary eye perfectly sets the tone for this blood and guts fest that features a powerhouse performance by Michael Fassbender.”

• This new trailer for Dragon Age 2 contains about 40 seconds of additional video over the first trailer. It’s all fight footage of Hawke kicking butt, plus a touch more dragon.

• Singer Lily Allen’s brother Alfie is set for a role on HBO’s A Game of Thrones. There’s an autoplay video at the link with him saying he’s excited to do an accent, and frankly, it scares me. Can he act?

• ABC’s superhero show No Ordinary Family has signed up Twilight’s Jackson Rathbone for a role as the telepathic teenage daughter’s classmate. No doubt this will inflate the ratings for any episode he’s in, with the rabid Twilight fans tuning in. With tactics like this, maybe the series will make it after all.

• The new director for Being Human series 3, block two, seems to really get what makes the show about a domestic werewolf, vampire and ghost work. It’s effects, it’s savagery, and it’s humor, and he’s aware of that, which is half the battle.

• Sylvester McCoy has confirmed he’s in negotiations for a role in The Hobbit (assuming they make the film in my lifetime). He’s not saying which role, but word on the street is that it’s Radagast the Brown, which is interesting, since Radagast doesn’t appear in The Hobbit. But when he teamed up offstage with Gandalf and the other wizards against Sauron, it was epic – at least as told in The Silmarillion.

• Steven Moffat says that he’s going to shake up the traditional Doctor Who season, running a Christmas special, a spring season with a finale on Easter, then back with seven episodes for autumn. But he’s fairly clear that this isn’t a SyFy split season – it’s more like two separate seasons. I smell a Children of Earth stunt.

• Allison Miller has joined Stephen Spielberg’s Terra Nova opposite Jason O’Mara. If they’re in charge of saving the human race and populating the earth, at least we know their descendants will be good looking.

• Earlier today, we gave our Dinocroc vs. Supergator review, and some advice to SyFy about their Original Movies. We also have the news that they intend to pit 80s mall sensations Tiffany and Deborah Gibson against each other in the Florida Everglades in Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. They promise a fight scene worthy of Dynasty.

• The Last Airbender has released “flybys” of each of its four Kingdoms. I know that Ba Sing Se would be more towards the last part of the second film, but you would think they’d make a CGI rendering of that iconic city for the Earth Kingdom, but we just got a bunch of trees. Weak.

• Infinitus 2010: A Harry Potter Conference is happening in July in Orlando, taking advantage of the new Wizarding World Of Harry Potter. Over 2,000 aficionados are expected to make the trip.

• This review calls The Legend of Tellam by Temitayo Ilori epic fantasy, full of magic and intrigue, with allusions to Harry Potter and Legend of the Seeker. It criticizes the book’s editing, but praises it for being the first fantasy novel by a Nigerian native who still lives in Nigeria. I’m intrigued.

• If you couldn’t bring yourself to shell out for the trilogy box set for Lord of the Rings on Blu-ray, in September, you can ease into ownership for $24.98 each.

• The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is more than meets the eye. Wired put together a clever guide for spotting all the Easter Eggs hidden in the details that you’d be sure to miss.

• Wednesday night, Jimmy Kimmel hosted the entire cast of Twilight on a primetime special. My favorite bit of trivia was that when it came time to get the film rated by the MPAA, they were told that the CGI wolves couldn’t have genitalia if they wanted a PG-13 rating. So all their wolves are eunuchs. Advantage Team Edward.

• Speaking of the Twilight special, what if the Twilight cast was swapped out with the cast from Jersey Shore?

• Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book won the 2010 Carnegie Medal. The Carnegie Medal is awarded to the writer of the year’s most outstanding book for children. Probably terrified children in this case.

• The Chicago Tribune has a roundup of which genre shows are attending Comic-Con. Disappointingly, HBO’s Game of Thrones can’t attend, because they’re going to be deep into filming in Ireland. But the fact that Caprica is having a panel sounds like good news for the troubled series.

• I had no idea that Joe Manganiello had made being cast as Alcide on True Blood a nearly two-year mission with an entire online component. That’s respect for character you don’t often see.

• The bidding is about to start for the basic cable reruns of True Blood. Should HBO go for the best money, or the network that promises to chop the episodes up the least, removing all the good parts?

• If they’re going to make the live-action Akira movie PG-13, they shouldn’t make it at all.

• My fellow Palantir-peer Tim O’Leary showed you the first pictures of Jason Momoa as Conan, but that was just one of several shots that were released. He went for the beefcake. Here are the rest.

• Merlin star Colin Morgan dished on being the most powerful wizard in history to USAToday, but the interesting part was when he named guest stars for season 3. Miriam Margolyes (Professor Sprout, Harry Potter) has filmed a guest spot, and Warwick Davis (Willow) is about to. How cool is that?

• We showed you a bit of the behind-the scenes thought processes that went into making the Fantasia mop scene for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice already. But in this clip, you get to see the whole extended scene, and I’ve got to give them credit, it’s pretty awesome. Great effects, good emotion, good homage, and much funnier than I thought it could be while still being respectful.

Update: Kick-boxer Bob Sapp is reportedly being offered this role.

Since casting for the new Conan remake began in January, stuntman-turned-actor Raw Leiba has been rumored to be a strong contender for the part of Ukafa, one of the movie’s key villains.

With the news that the producers are auditioning other actors, including wrestler Shad Gaspard, is Leiba out?

“We’ve definitely been in talks,” Leiba tells TheTorchOnline.com about his relationship with the movie, “but the deal is I’m kind of committed to other projects, and currently I’m trying to work it out, and they’re trying to work it out as well. I’m very excited — I want it to happen now. But unfortunately, these things take time.”

Leiba says, “I feel confident if I were to straighten out my schedule, the role would be mine. But that’s why they haven’t taken the ‘rumored’ off the Conan IMDb page. Until somebody’s really in, nobody’s really in.”

The character of Ukafa is reportedly a massive, gold-toothed African, a mighty warrior who helps lead the Kushite tribe on the savannahs of Kush. He’s the second-in-command behind the character of Khalar Singh, but is plotting to overthrow that leader’s son, who is next in line to be commander.

“He just kicks a lot of ass,” Leiba says of the character. “He doesn’t care. He kicks a lot of his own tribe’s ass, and he kicks a lot of other people’s ass too. He’s just an ass-kicker!”

According to Leiba, the character of Singh has not been cast yet, but Sean Hood, the  screenwriter for the upcoming Hercules movie, has been brought in to do last-minute rewrites that may result in Ukafa becoming the movie’s central villain.

Leiba is best known for roles on The Wire and Street Fighter: The Later Years.

He’s says he’s not worried that other actors are auditioning for the part.

“I think I’m perfect for the role,” Leiba says. “I can’t see them going with actors outside of me, unless I’m unable to do the project. I’m an actor first, but I also have martial arts experience, and I also do stunts. You add those three together, it’s phenomenal. The idea of getting in there to fight Jason Momoa [who's been cast as Conan] would be really cool!”

As for the audition process, Leiba says, “I like to come to my auditions in character. So when I go to audition [for Conan], I go to get dressed in the bathroom, so I put on this ‘warrior’ outfit, which is basically me naked with a bunch of chains around my neck. They had me read some lines that might supposedly be in the script — you never know if they will be. And then they looked at my physique — they really liked it. And they asked me why I’d be best for the role, and I told them exactly what I just told you.”

According to Leiba, a final decision will probably be made in the next week or so. On the other hand, the fact that they just brought in a new writer to do re-writes means the production is still somewhat in flux.

“I’d love to work with [director] Marcus Nispel. I think he’s an absolutely fantastic director, and Sean Hood is a fantastic writer.”

It’s possible he won’t be able to get out of his other commitments, Leiba says — “There’s a million-dollar penalty for one of them,” he says.

“The thing that would disappoint me most — I’ve been getting so many emails and positive responses from fans — if I can’t do it is I feel like I’d be disappointing them.”

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• Entertainment Weekly has a picture of James Marsters on Caprica. He looks like James Marsters on anything else. Do they make him bring his own wardrobe to guest spots these days? Because he doesn’t exactly vanish into roles. And nothing I saw in the pilot of Caprica looked as dirty and destroyed as this picture.

• Latest rumors say that the new Spider-Man reboot, which has a rom-com director at the helm, will get the Disney treatment, if you believe the rumors. David Henrie, who plays the eldest wizard brother on The Wizards of Waverly Place is rumored to be up for the role. It fits – he’s a goody-goody nerdy type on the show who got great pecs between seasons. Maybe he was bitten by a radioactive Mickey Mouse? He’s already fond of red and blue outfits.

• There’s a lot a gripe in the comic book world about a Marvel program that lets store owners trade in 50 DC comics (destroyed) for one special edition comic from the rival publisher. Marvel says it’s being economically kind, giving any credit for the unsold titles. I say they’re being unkind because the special edition they’re giving out is a blinged-out Deadpool straight from 1984.

• Stephen Fry was supposed to write a Doctor Who episode a few years back, but ran out of time in his life. Then it was too late, and Russell T. Davies had moved on. But while he was picking up his National Television Awards last week, he mentioned he’d love to try again. I can totally see Fry writing for David Tennant’s Doctor, but I’m not sure he could have done it for Chris Eccleston’s Doctor. Since I’m far from sold on Matt Smith, I’m ambivalent.

• AMC can’t decide what it wants to be as a network. It used to be true to the name, American Movie Classics. Then they decided “classics” could include Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which worked for me, but might have been stretching the truth, MTV-style. Now they’ve picked up a pilot called Walking Dead, about the zombie apocalypse. Yes, you heard it here: zombies have made it to television, so they’re done. Please rewrite all movie screenplays for angels.

• In random shopping news, Whedonites can pick up a Firefly replica keychain for only $9.95. It’s amazingly detailed, but having seen the damage River Tam can spontaneously dish out, I’m not sure I want that in my pocket, near things I care dearly about. Like my iPhone.

• Fantasy writer N.K. Jemisin has written a blog about some of the disturbing themes that appear in fantasy novels and movies, from inherited power (of the royal kind) to inherited power (of the magical kind). She thinks that it smacks of feudalism and eugenics, which is one way to look at it. Another is that every story about knights guarding the gate of a castle sells one copy, but if a dragon attacks the king and gets blasted by magical fireballs, well, then it’s not classified as a sleep aid.

• Because original ideas are so last century, the current buzz is that Fox’s Planet of the Apes reboot is now back on. It sounds very prequel, showing how the apes took over. Jamie Moss of Street Kings fame, is writing, while Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver are punching up the dialog.

• Sci-Fi Wire has this previously-told-but-still-amazing story about how Martin Luther King, Jr. kept Uhura from leaving Star Trek after the first season. He felt the role was the first post-racial character on television, and convinced Nichelle Nichols of how vital it was to the civil rights struggle.

• I’m vaguely creeped out by Lockheed-Martin’s HULC exoskeleton for soldiers, seeing it as the first step toward the cyber-apocalypse. But I had previously been consoled by the fact that the battery on the thing was measured in minutes. Now thanks to a fuel cell upgrade, the thing can go for three days, increasing strength and endurance, until it gains sentience and enslaves the wearer. Did we learn nothing from Doctor Octopus?

• Casting for Conan the Barbarian has been completed – Jason Momoa, of Stargate Atlantis and Baywatch, will be picking up the sword Arnold once carried.

• By the time you read this, Avatar will have passed Titanic as the top grossing movie of all time. Closing out the weekend, it was $1.841 billion worldwide, $2 million short of Titanic’s 1998 record.

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Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: So have you heard of this phenomenon of Avatar Depression?  What is your take on it? — Angela, Mooresville, NC

A: Before you emailed, I hadn’t heard of the “Avatar Blues,” which is supposedly a depression that sets in when, after viewing the beauty of Pandora, people fall into a funk when they realize that it’s not “real” and they can’t ever experience it. According to CNN, more than a thousand people have posted feeling exactly this way on just one Avatar fan forum.

What does the Oracle think?

Well, I’m reluctant to judge other people’s emotional reactions to so-called “fictional” universes. I was moved and depressed for days after the end of Xena: Warrior Princess. And I couldn’t sleep the night I discovered the reason why Buffy was so depressed was because her friends had pulled her out of heaven.

But at the risk of sounding insensitive to those who experience this, the Oracle would diagnose the  Avatar Blues phenomenon as being the direct result of (a) the movie’s extremely effective immersive visual experience (which includes 3-D, making it all the more powerful), (b) the nature of internet and social networking, where people draw attention to themselves by saying extreme, provocative things, and (c) hype-happy media which love to wildly exaggerate news in order to make a story “better.”

Q: Have you heard anything regarding the casting or start of filming on the Conan remake? — Dennis, Los Angeles, CA

Q: The movie currently has a start date of March 15th for a 2011 release. As for the cast, the lead has apparently been narrowed down to three choices: Twilight’s Kellen Lutz (pictured, right), Stargate Atlantis‘ Jason Momoa (pictured, left), and a third unnamed, but more established actor. But according to one connected blogger, Lion’s Gate has nixed both Lutz and Momoa — leaving us with the third, established actor?

Not necessarily. At this point, anything seems possible.

Incidentally, we do know the director: Marcus Nispel, the man behind Pathfinder and the Friday, the 13th remake. He has another intriguing fantasy movie in development, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which tells the story of the ship that carried Dracula’s coffin from Transylvania to New York, and arrives with no survivors.

Update: JustJared is reporting that Jared Padalecki is the “established” actor.

Q: You always hear about actors getting together to watch their TV shows together. Does that really happen? — Mason, New York, NY

A: “I had the whole cast [of Chuck] over to my house last night for the premiere,” McG, the executive producer of both that show and Supernatural, told reporters this week at the Television Critics Association in Pasadena.  “I like to always show my thanks to the writers and all the staff members and all the cast people, so they come over for the premiere every year.”

Incidentally, they were very pleased with last week’s Chuck numbers. “Hopefully, it’ll keep on Chuck-in’,” he says of the show that has incorporated plenty of fantasy-esque elements this season. “The show was on the edge of extinction, and the fans spoke and people are really passionate about it.”

Looking to buy something mentioned in this column (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

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Who doesn’t love a good man-lizard every now and then? Or a woman-lizard, for that matter.

If the new (and old) series V tells us anything, it’s that mankind has, well, a thing for mutant humanoid reptiles.

Reptile men have a long and celebrated history of interaction with his mammalian brothers, and it’s usually not one of cooperation and mutual benefit. Possibly the very first reptile man to chillax with his primate brethren was Sobek, the Egyptian god of water, specifically, the waters of the Nile which allowed their crops to be bountiful. He was joined by his reptilian cousin Apep, the snake god (occasionally seen as a crocodile, as well), who was a lot nastier than the benevolent Sobek.

And who can forget the story told in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, in which Eve is tempted by none other than the serpent?

Shoot forward to the ’80s, and there was a veritable lizard man explosion!

First, you had the original V, in which Nazi-esque alien lizards descended upon humanity. Simultaneously, on Third Earth, the heroic Thundercats were dealing with some nasty mutant enemies, among them S-s-slithe, the reptilian leader (and yes, his name had hyphens. Hey, mine has an apostrophe, who am I to judge?). There was also the scaly presence of Cobra Commander in the world of G.I. Joe.

Meanwhile, on the big screen, a bizarre and touching friendship occurred between a human and a reptile being in an obscure but fascinating sci-fi film called Enemy Mine, and down here on Earth, James Earl Jones gamely turned into a giant snake in Conan the Barbarian.

In the ’90s, the world of video games brought us both Mortal Kombat’s Reptile and Soul Calibur’s Lizard Man.

And there’s my favorite bat-crap crazy philosopher, David Icke, who really believes that many of our world leaders are actually hybrids of humans and reptile-aliens (in other words, the exact plot of V), spanning the political spectrum from the first George Bush to Hillary Clinton, and belong to the shady institution known as the Illuminati. The man is insane with a capital WTF, so naturally I love him.

But the question has to be asked, what’s up with our fondness for these reptilians? What’s the dilly-yo?

It could be that we have that very human characteristic of being inexorably drawn to the other, the bizarre, that which is unlike us, and as mammals, a reptilian creature fits that mold. When in the shape of a man, it sort of looks like us, but is actually a funhouse mirror image, a bastardization of humanity, a representation of what we might have been had evolution taken a slightly different course. Reptile men are us, when seen through a glass darkly.

Or it could be that scales are just, you know, awesome.

Suffice it to say, with the new series V doing quite well for itself in the ratings, it would seem that lizard men are here to stay, at least until we find a new animal-man hybrid upon which to languish our affection. Personally, I’m leaning in favor of Bird Men. What do you think?

Savvy film newshounds around the globe got a little treat last week when a casting breakdown for the upcoming Conan the Barbarian reboot hit the interwebs. The character listing gives a lot of information about each character (as well as surprisingly specific ethnic requirements).

Staggeringly, the men span a wide age range while the women are all 18-22. Hmm.

Here at TheTorchOnline.com, we figured we would save the production company some headaches and go ahead and cast the film for them. Here’s who we pick:

Conan - Eric Bana

For the main man himself, you have to be really clever. It would be far too easy to just hand the role to Vin Diesel or Jason Statham, actors who make a living playing action heroes. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the powers that be do end up going with an irony-free muscleman to play the Cimmerian warrior.

But the breakdown also claims that Conan is “very smart,” and neither Diesel nor Statham, god love ‘em, show much of an inner life in their acting. I say give it to someone who has already proven he can play an action hero sensitively. Eric Bana’s portrayal of Hector was the only redeeming factor in Troy, and check out those Conan-like pecs!

Tamara - Freida Pinto

The gorgeous star of Slumdog Millionaire is the right age and the right look to play Conan’s leading lady, a “master of martial arts” who is “not in the least intimidated by Conan’s size or grim demeanor.” We’ve seen her sweet and vulnerable side in Millionaire, so now we’re ready to see her kick ass. Can’t you picture a hot and heavy fight scene between her and Bana?

Khalar Singh - Arnold Vosloo

The villain of the piece, Khalar Singh, needs to be played by a great, scenery-chewing character actor if the movie is to be any fun at all. And who better than Imhotep himself, Arnold Vosloo, who proved with the first two Mummy films that he knew how to play the insane villain so that we loved watching him, all charisma and craziness? Handsome and attention-grabbing, this guy knows how to work a scene.

Corin - Jason Statham

Yeah, remember what I said about irony-free musclemen? Here’s where it fits. Corin, according to the breakdown, is Conan’s father, whom we see in flashback teaching his son to be a warrior. Film-goers would likely get a kick out of the stunt casting, and Statham gets a nice paycheck out of the deal. Everybody wins.

Ilira - Evan Rachel Wood

The latest vampire on the block of HBO’s True Blood, Wood is a pretty girl whose eyes give way to a vast intelligence underneath. Ilira is referred to as the true queen of the land, who the villains need in order to…oh, you know the drill. Anyway, Wood is an impressive young actress who would have no problem playing a young queen with intense courage.

So there you go, makers of Conan. I just saved you a major headache. I’ll be expecting my check in the mail any day now.

Chances are, when pulp fiction author Robert E. Howard created the character of Conan the Cimmerian, he didn’t anticipate his barbarous he-man would one day be brought to the screen by a womanizing Austrian bodybuilder destined to become the governor of California. (And all these years later, I still wince when acknowledging that political truth.)

Even less likely is the scribe forseeing that when he concocted the character of Red Sonya of Rogatino, a 16th-century gun-toting Ukrainian woman, she would be later re-imagined by comic book writers as Red Sonja, a chainmail-bikini-clad warrior woman who existed in the same fictional universe as Conan, only to end up as a cinematic heroine played by the paramour of Sylvester Stallone.

It’s no secret that Hollywood steadfastly refuses to greenlight any genuinely new film projects. I’ve ranted about it before and have no wish to do so again. So in the grand tradition of everything old and obsolete being new again, two new projects are in the works: Red Sonja and Conan the Barbarian.

Sigh.

The first Conan the Barbarian came out in 1982 and starred, naturally, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Though the new film hasn’t secured a star as of yet, the rumor mill is in a tizzy that it might be Roland Kickinger, another Austrian bodybuilder. Perhaps the origin of this gossip is the fact that Kickinger played the T-800 in Terminator: Salvation, stepping into the part once played by the aging governator. That would, of course, make this casting choice a little too obvious, and furthermore, it would be unfair to Kickinger, if he is indeed serious about his acting career, to place him as merely this generation’s answer to Ah-nold.

According to this article at CHUD, director Marcus Nispel (who seems to be making a name for himself as remake-go-to-guy with his gigs on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th) will be helming the tale of the Cimmerian warrior, with shooting allegedly to start later this year. Though the teaser poster claims the movie will premiere in 2009, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

The Xena to Conan’s Hercules is, of course, Red Sonja, first played by Brigitte Nielsen, who is probably best known to people my age and younger as the drunk, naked old lady from VH1’s The Surreal Life, but my sources tell me that in the 80’s she was considered something of a babe.

The 1985 barbarian flick was apparently something of a box office bomb, a poor follow-up to the slightly more successful Conan movies.

Apparently, a lot of fans were disappointed at the lack of any noticeable T&A factor, considering the source material was a red-headed warrior babe in a chain mail bikini. Nielsen’s red leather corset number just didn’t seem to do it for a lot of salivating nerds.

So what can we expect from the latest installment? For one thing, it’s being directed by Robert Rodriguez, the rebellious director behind such schlocky fare as From Dusk Till Dawn, Planet Terror, and Sin City. And I say “schlocky fare” with love, because I, for one, dig Rodriguez’s style, and his fearlessness when it comes to gratuitous imagery more highbrow directors might shy away from.

In fact, he’s the perfect fit to direct this kind of a movie, and his muse, Rose McGowan, seems like excellent casting for this warrior princess.

But what will the tone be? Well, judging from this article and the teaser poster to the left, this will be a lot more 300 than Conan, and while I’m not particularly a fan of 300, I think the idea of that style of movie done with a female warrior might be some kind of awesome.

I’m particularly charmed by McGowan’s comment about how one doesn’t always desire to play role models, and that really what she wanted was “to take a giant sword and kill a lot of people.”

Awesome.

So who knows? Maybe the incessant flow of remakes might yield one or two gems, and maybe one of these barbarian films will be one of them.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, better practice your swordplay.