• As we reported earlier this week, three actors are vying for the role of Spartacus. One, Stephen Amell, has posted an update on his blog: “It was a real privilege to be considered for such a prestigious acting job. To everyone who supported me: Thank you. I really love what I do and you will be seeing much more of me in the future.” I think this can be read as, “I’m done auditioning, now it’s up to the fates.” But others are saying, “No, he didn’t get the part.”

• Earlier this week, in promoting his new movie Morning Glory, Harrison Ford gave his thoughts on Indiana Jones 5. Now he’s told an interviewer that he thinks that Han Solo should’ve died at the end of the first Star Wars trilogy, “but George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”

• What killed Caprica?

• Remember the steam-punk web-series Riese that was picked up by SyFy Online? It’s back with new eps.

• Wow, Dino De Laurentiis died. He made some crappy movies — *cough* King Kong, Dune *cough* — but he also produced Blue Velvet, Army of Darkness, and the guilty-pleasure Conan movies. Mostly, he helped make big-budget fantasy bankable.

• The third (and last?) trailer for Tron: Legacy:
  

• Rumors of the death of the fantasy magazine Realms of Fantasy were greatly exaggerated! New owners have taken over publication with no stop in service.

• Daniel Radcliffe is opposed to the idea of J.K. Rowling doing any more Harry Potter books (I am too!), as she’s hinted. He says she personally categorically ruled it out to him.

• Stills from the upcoming The Tempest movie. Methinks this will be something special.

• Five “dark” clips from Deathly Hallows (but why watch em and spoil the movie?).

• Journey 2: Mysterious Island (the sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth) is officially in production!

• Oh, Lord, not another adaptation of Merlin! We currently have two TV shows (Merlin and the upcoming Camelot). Leave the frickin’ Arthurian legend alone already and come up with some new stories!

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• After surviving an expected shut-down a year ago, Realms of Fantasy, the fantasy magazine, is finally no more: a victim of the bad economy and (I would add) a radically changed media landscape.

• The man who played “Boy” in the Tarzan movies has died. Needless to say, at 79, he was no longer a boy.

• Remember that cool trailer we had for that Norwegian movie Troll Hunter a few weeks back? The film has found world-wide distribution for 2011.
  

• Sigourney Weaver talks about the Alien 5 she wanted to make: go to the planet of the Aliens. Duh! I’ve been saying this for twenty years!

• Really cool “fantasy” pumpkins (right)! (Plus, instructions on how to carve the “Death Star”.)
  

• I’m never as excited about “deleted scenes” as other people seem to be (they always seem to me to have been deleted for a reason!), but here’s one from Avatar.

• Glee is doing a Rocky Horror Picture Show-themed ep, and now the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, might re-make the movie.
  

• Now Anne Hathaway and James Franco are reportedly interested in the back-on-track Alien prequel.

• Daniel Radcliffe wants to play Sirius Black or Dumbledore in the inevitable Harry Potter remakes many years from now.

• Fifteen fantasy or sci-fi novels that publishers repeatedly rejected. Wow, a couple of my all-time favorites, including Left Hand of Darkness, Dune, and Octavia Butler’s first book.

• Oh, Lord, a movie based on the Ouija Board. That’s it, no story yet, just somehow “based on” the game. That’s like saying a movie “based on a handkerchief.”

• Not a good sign: ABC has reduced its order for new eps of V.

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• This is old news, but I suppose it must be said: Avatar is a massive hit, and its prospects are growing better by the hour. Even more interesting to me, surveys find that every single demographic gives the movie an “A”!

• Speaking of which, Stephen Spielberg liked Avatar a lot, saying it’s as revolutionary as Star Wars.

• The first issue of the returning Realms of Fantasy magazine is available for free download.

• The X-Men: First Class project means that the Magneto: Origins movie is now off the table — the Xavier/Magneto origin will now be part of the former film.

• A (dubiously sourced) rumor says that Taylor Swift will play Supergirl.

• 28 Star Wars mashups. Good Lord, some people have way too much time on their hands!

• Hasbro, which owns Wizards of the Coast (which makes Dungeons & Dragons) is suing Atari, which owns some digital rights to the game and recently sold them. Can I be honest? I didn’t even know Atari still existed.

• Tobey Maguire as Bilbo was a rumor with no basis in fact. Really? People on the internet are just making shit up? Who knew?!

• The decade’s most “profitable” actress was … Harry Potter’s Emma Watson. Which just kinda proves how stupid these kinds of surveys are.

• A great blog with all the news about HBO’s upcoming A Game of Thrones.

• A new website does for sci-fi/fantasy books what RottenTomatoes and Metacritic do for movies: it compiles and composites all reviews for particular books. Helpful!

• Liza Minnelli is not a fan of The Wizard of Oz – but only because she has a hard time watching what they do to her mother.

• Oh, and Happy Holidays!

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