Who’s ready for more sexy?

After our poll in which you all voted for Legend of the Seeker’s Kahlan Amnell as the sexiest woman of the past year’s fantasy entertainment, it’s time to bring on the men!

Once again, let’s get the ground rules out of the way. First and foremost, we are judging the characters, not the actors, on their sex appeal. The difference is subtle, sure, but it’s there. For example, despite Sam Worthington’s handsome looks and fit body, his Perseus may not exactly have started your heart a-racin’ in Clash of the Titans … but you can feel free to correct us in the polls if you see fit.

Second, these are fantasy characters we’re looking for, not sci-fi. We take a broad view of the fantasy genre — high fantasy, low fantasy, medieval fantasy, and supernatural fantasy — but specifically science-related speculative fiction is out.

And finally, the characters have to have appeared in some new work of entertainment in the 2009-2010 season.

Okay, enough with the boring stuff. Begin the cavalcade of men!

Jason Stackhouse

So he’s kind of a tool and not that bright … big deal. Jason Stackhouse, played by Ryan Kwanten, is the lothario of Bon Temps, Louisiana on HBO’s racy True Blood, and it sure doesn’t hurt that he seems to have an allergy to clothing.

Eric

Speaking of True Blood, while genteel southern vampire Bill Compton may have captured the heart of the heroine Sookie, even she can’t deny the animal magnetism of the super-hot vampire sheriff, Eric (Alexander Skarsgard).

Eggs

Our last True Blood hunk is the delicious Benedict Talley, known to his buddies as Eggs. Get it? Eggs Benedict? As played by Mehcad Brooks, he seems pretty appetizing to me.

Dastan

Based on a video game franchise of humble beginnings, Jake Gyllenhaal wowed movie-goers when he proved he has what it takes to be an action star as the dashing Dastan in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. But did he wow you enough to win your vote?

Richard

Considering his true love took the crown for Sexiest Woman of Fantasy, methinks our boy Richard Rahl (Craig Horner) here has a pretty good shot. Over the past two seasons, fans of Legend of the Seeker were witness to the young Lord Rahl coming of age and growing into the hero he was born to be. And what’s sexier than that?

Alistair

Prince Dastan (above) is based on an animated character in a video game, but Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins is a character in a video game. So what?  Just as the sexy enchantress Morrigan was a nominee in our sexy female poll, the hunky Grey Warden Alistair (voiced by Steve Valentine) would surely be on any list of the year’s sexiest male characters.

Spartacus

When Spartacus: Blood and Sand hit the airwaves this past January, no one knew quite what to expect from the show that made a lot of promises to stretch the boundaries of what you could show on television. But it turns out they delivered and then some, and while doing so gave us the immortal hotness that is Spartacus, as played by Andy Whitfield.

Crixus

Spartacus’ enemy-turned-ally, Crixus (Manu Bennett) was the last one to drink the Spartacus Kool-Aid, spending most of his time in the first season as a nasty bully who tortured our poor hero. But you know what? He mostly did it naked, so all’s forgiven.

Pietros

Not everyone likes their men huge and hulking. Starting as a character hovering in the backgrounds, Pietros quickly revealed himself to be a sweet and compassionate man, who was fiercely devoted to his lover, Barca. Sure, his ending may have been quick and tragic, but at least we got a little time to get to know him. And though he may not have had the he-man muscles of the gladiators, check out that slammin’ six-pack!

So there are our official nominees. But if you want someone not mentioned on the list, check the “Other” box in the poll and mention the name in the comments! And stay tuned to find out who won in a week!

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• Joss Whedon is looking for Comic-Con superfans for the documentary he’s developing with Super Size Me’s Morgan Spurlock. I don’t really know their angle, but consider Morgan (who I went to high school with) so immersed himself in junk food he nearly died to make his big film — so we could be looking at a geek reenactment of epic proportions.

• As for geek reenactments of slightly less-epic proportions, more than 100 Star Wars fans flashmobbed a shopping mall in Bristol, England for a massive lightsaber battle. Yes, there’s a video:

• Something was in the water in the UK, because days later, 99 costumed cosplayers dressed up in their Federation finest showed up at the London launch of the Star Trek MMO. They were trying to set the record for most costumed Trek fans in one place. I’d like to make a joke, but I can’t stop starring at the rack on Beverly Crusher.

• It’s official: you can see the trailer for Eclipse when Robert Pattinson’s Remember Me opens in theaters March 12.

• In case you’re waiting breathlessly for Sharktopus on SyFy March 13, you can whet your whistle with the network’s showing of Dinoshark, also from director Roger Corman. In the article, Corman explains how you get a Sharktopus in the first place, and as usual, the U.S. military is involved.

• Over at Entertainment Weekly, Michael Ausiello thinks that The Legend of the Seeker is a safe bet for renewal. He also gives dish on the March 20^th episode where Kahlan has a spell put on her, and Richard has to protect her greatest enemy to save her. I don’t watch the series, but based on my memory of the books, I’m going with Shota.

• This picture hit my inbox with no explanation — it could be real, it could be fake. All I know is that the combination of features in the image is slightly terrifying. Anybody want to explain how this isn’t scary?

• In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Sir Anthony Hopkins gives his take on playing Odin in Thor, and while he calls it a “ruthless charm,” I’d go with pig-headed.

• Director Stephen Norrington’s new take on The Crow will film before he gets around to Patrol, since he actually has a script on The Crow, even if he’s not telling us what it is. All we know is that it’s not a sequel/prequel, just a new look at the mythology.

• Viceland had a list of the Dumbest Action Figures of All Time that ranges from Mozart to George Lucas to Wonder Woman. It’s a bizarre walk through toys that never should have been.

• There’s a new feature trailer out for The Secret of Kells, and the more I see of this fantasy/historical animation, the more determined I am to see it.

• Eureka Unscripted takes us into the rather bland geek-den that the writers of the quirky SyFy program hole up in to create their imaginary technologies, which still make more sense that the science on Fringe.

• Slashfilm gives us a rambling interview with Mike Newell, the director of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It doesn’t really spend much time on the movie, but more discusses Mr. Newell’s rather eclectic career choices. My favorite line? “The great thing about guys like me is I don’t have to make anything.” I love an honest man.

• All of Hollywood and the blogosphere is buzzing that Stephen Spielberg may go make something with dinosaurs again. We’re not talking about revisiting Jurassic Park (someone else is make those three films), but Terra Nova, a television series being called Land of the Lost , but nice. I keep having weird flashes of dinosaurs done on a television budget, and all I see is Primeval, and do we really need to see that again?

• Avatar gets the FunnyOrDie treatment today with Bavatar, where babies transfer themselves into adult bodies so they can gain control of the kitchens from the adult world.

• EA says Dragon Age: Origins has sold 3.2 million copies, an astounding run guaranteed to bring sequels and expansion packs for years to come. Bring on more of that troll on elf lovin’.

• The most elusive part of Avatar: The Last Airbender (besides any hint of humor) has been Appa, the six-legged flying bison. With only the briefest cameo in the trailer, our best indication of the live-action version of Ang’s best friend may be the toys that will accompany the film. Based on this gallery, well, it looks like a six legged flying bison. I don’t know why my mind thinks a plastic Appa is wrong, and he should be plush, but it does.

• Ratings for Spartacus: Blood and Sand were down Friday night opposite the Olympics Opening Ceremonies, which was no surprise, but numbers for rebroadcasts are up. Starz has a bona fide hit on their hands.

• We have a featurette from How to Train Your Dragon that makes me not hate the film as much as all the shameless Olympic plugs have been making me hate it. Mostly because we spend some time getting to know all the dragon types, and it sounds like someone thought about this for a while.

• And finally, we have a new featurette for Alice In Wonderland, this time focusing on the world building and the non-human creatures in that world like the Bandersnatch and the March Hare, who finally speaks. All in all, about four seconds of new footage, and three seconds of old footage with new sound — but what sound it is when the Bandersnatch roars!

Cinematic interpretations of video games have a, uh, less-than-impressive track-record: Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, D.O.A., Hitman, Bloodrayne, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Alone in the Dark…

The list goes on. But it’s possible the psychic damage to gamers everywhere may soon be undone.

Sony’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune might possibly be getting the feature film treatment very soon. The game itself has often been compared to a fun summer action-adventure blockbuster, so chances are that if it jumps to the big screen, that’s exactly what they’ll go for.

The story features the Indiana Jones-like treasure hunter, Nate Drake, who is a descendant of famed explorer Sir Francis Drake. He believes he has discovered location of El Dorado, the fabled lost city of gold. Naturally, there’s a rival to contend with and a saucy, sexy lady who factors into the story as well. Furthermore, there are mutated creatures determined to keep Drake from his goal.

(A scribe named Kyle Ward was hired to pen the script. Interestingly, Ward is also involved with game-to-movie projects Hitman 2 and Kane and Lynch.)

God of War, a video game series that takes place in a world of Greek mythology on a cocktail of steroids and mescaline, may also be seeing a film version in the near future. There doesn’t seem to be too much information available yet beyond the canceled plan to have X-men 3 helmer Brett Ratner direct, but given the enormous success of 300 and the spate of Greek mythology movies due out next year, it seems likely that this will happen.

There’s an amusing video of God of War creator David Jaffe meeting notrious(ly bad) film director Uwe Boll, who is responsible for some of the worst video game movies out there. After a few minutes of forced politeness and light discussion about collaboration, Jaffe admits he would not want Boll to direct the potential God of War film:

Finally, there’s the well-publicized upcoming adaptation of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, starring Jake Gyllenhaal — which is significant in and of itself, for its not very often that video game movies score A-list actors to play their leads. It’s a Jerry Bruckheimer production, so expect a lot of action on a grandiose scale, and given all the promotional material, we can be sure we’ll be treated to a great many scenes of Gyllenhaal fighting topless.

Director Mike Newell, perhaps aware of the current perception of video game movies, had this to say concerning the nature of Prince of Persia:

“It’s not a videogame movie. It’s a great story. If you had read the script, you would know that it wasn’t a videogame. It’s very exciting and it’s immensely romantic and it’s like Lost Horizon. It takes you to somewhere you’ve never been.”

Only time will tell the outcome of these projects, but here’s hoping the curse of the video game movies is finally lifted.

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