- Crystal Reed sat down to talk a bit about the new MTV movie/pilot for Teen
Wolf, and she swears it doesn’t suck. She claims it has a darker, more romantic tone, and is visually more like True Blood. She also says the wolf is more human than wolf because he’s a young werewolf.
- Doctor Who will arrive on American shores April 17th, two weeks after it hits the traditional Easter Eve broadcast in the UK.
- Danny Glover is back on the silver screen, this time starring in Dragon Fire as Captain Ahab. If that made you do a double take, it should, because Dragon Fire is Moby Dick, but with dragons instead of a white whale.
- Brian Dorf has another photo gallery of the construction on The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Orlando, and while there’s still some scaffolding up, it looks about ready to put some landscaping down under the roller coaster.
- The Telegraph has this really neat gallery of a sculpture contest sponsored by Scotch
tape — you read that right. My favorite piece is the dragon pictured here (it sparkles full size), but you should really go and look at all of them. These are people with talent — and a great deal of time on their hands.
- The ratings for Spartacus: Blood and Sand rebounded considerably from the dip they took against the Opening Ceremonies. In fact, it was almost a series high this past week for the duel against the Shadow of Death.
- I came across two visits to the set of Nightmare on Elm Street 2010, and both said basically the same thing: this might not suck. Dark Horizons describes a few scenes in detail, while Bloody Disgusting emphasizes the stunts and the underpinnings of the world that’s being rebuilt in this film. And we have the trailer below.
- Warner Bros. thinks it can manufacture success like Twilight, and is moving forward with plans for Girl With the Red Riding Hood, a modern update on the Grimm Brothers tale. To ensure success, they’re replaced the wolf with werewolves, and brought in Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke to direct.
- In comics news, launching next week, at the same time as the Star Trek:TNG #24, we have the rather poorly titled Star Trek Movie Adaptation #1, based around the slightly skewed Roddenberry universe of last summer’s film. Looking at a few pages though, all the characters look like Commander Data to me, but I’m not much of an art student.
- The Guardian has a list of tips for aspiring authors from some of the greats in the
field, including fantasy legend Neil Gaiman. While most of the authors seem to focus on syntax and structure, I like that Neil focuses on writing, one word after the other. That’s the hardest part, even as a blogger. The first sentence of this news summary took two hours to write. All the others flowed much more easily.
- While we’re talking about Neil Gaiman, he put a short post over on Tor.com saying his very existence in the literary field is entirely Michael Moorecock’s fault. So if by some chance you don’t like Neil, you know where to send the complaints.
- Charles Stross is mainly know for his science fiction, but some of his early work deals with the concept of the occult and monsters, and what would happen if the government had to get involved in regulating that like it does weapons of mass destruction. Which makes a lot of sense in the books, but less when summarized. In any case, he crosses genres, and he recently sat down for a casual interview with Tech4Thought.com to discuss what science fiction is.
- Recently, Action Comics #1 sold for a record $1 million (said best in Dr. Evil voice). Action Comics #1 is the first appearance anywhere of Superman, or after this event, Superwallet. Fortunately, Action Comics #1 ranks at the top of the list for most expensive comics.
- The shooter in the deaths at the University of Alabama played Dungeons & Dragons, so that must of been why the killings happened. Of course it’s not why the killings happened, and people need to stop saying such silly things about such tragic news.
- I’ve groused a bit before about the apparent lack of humor in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and this interview with Jackson Rathbone, who plays Sokka, doesn’t help my concern. Sokka is the comic relief, and the humanizing factor in the cartoon, as he has not bending of the elements. Here he mostly talks about fighting in the movie, and how it helped him for Twilight: Eclipse.
- Matthew Goode has auditioned for the part of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, which is good news in that they seem to be making progress if auditions are happening. It’s bad news because I just can’t see Matthew Goode as Bilbo — he’s almost impossibly handsome and would make a better elf.
- Fox has picked up the rights to a series of science fiction books by John Twelve Hawks called the Fourth Realm Trilogy and has set Watchmen co-writer Alex Tse to turn them into screenplays. While the description says they’re science fiction, it also says the heroes can use a sort of astral projection to send their spirits into other dimensions, so it seems to scramble some genres. Has anyone read them?
- io9.com gives a gallery of some DC Comics cosplayers from France, and frankly, they’re hot. These are not your normally gathering of geeks – some of these girls could be runway models. As for the guys, well, that looks about normal.
- The most recent ratings for The Legend of the Seeker show that through February 13, it was tying season highs, and looking really good. The only issue I see for renewal is that the syndication market is really rough right now, and original programming is pricey. But this looks like a consistent performance.
- How To Train Your Dragon has stopped bombarding us with silly Olympic spoofs and release a theatrical trailer. I have to admit, the more I see, the less opposed I am to seeing this movie. I’m not sold yet, but I do like some of the action scenes in this trailer, and I’m willing to forgive what I see as an uninspiring animation style.
- Mickey Rourke is in demand these days. Not only is he finishing up his role as Whiplash in Iron Man 2, he’s also being pursued for a couple of fantasy scripts, including the role of Conan’s father in the Conan the Barbarian remake starring Jason Mamoa. Also in the fantasy realm is casting for King Hyperion in War of the Gods with Henry Cavill of Tudors fame.
- There’s a list available of all the authors that are opting out of Google’s book scanning project, and it’s bad news for science fiction and fantasy fans, because all the big favorites are on the list, not just Ursula K. Le Guin.
- Peter Berg’s Battleship movie won’t begin with an alien battle, even if it gets there eventually. And it won’t be in 3D, either, making it a bit of an oddball for action films. But not to worry – Taylor Lautner’s Stretch Armstrong will be reach out from the screen to grab you in full, wondrous 3D.
- I want to finish with two clips from Alice In Wonderland, which is opening next week. The first is the most extensive world building and interview piece we’ve seen to date, and several new actors like the Tweedle’s Matt Lucas appear in it.
- And the second is a short clip from the film where Anne Hathaway as the White Queen makes a magic potion to shrink Alice back to the right size. Some of the ingredients are a little questionable – I might just stay tall.
