• I was one of the movie-goers appalled at the “remake” (he says snidely) of Clash of the Titans. It was a hot mess that suffered horribly in the reviews. So of course the sequel is full speed ahead!

• Now that my daily dose of vitriol is out of the way, we can move on. By now we all know that wizard Radagast the Brown will be featured in The Hobbit. And now, thanks to The One Ring, we may know who’s playing him!

• Four new actors have signed on to meet their tragic and gruesome ends in the fifth Final Destination flick, to be called 5nal Destination. Heat Vision tells us David Koechner, Nicholas D’Agosto, P.J. Byrne and Ellen Wroe make up the latest batch of victims.

• Well, here’s something that never occurred to me. Does Christopher Nolan have a woman problem?

• Wanna see something really bizarre and have almost an hour to kill? Behold: Star Wars meets Indiana Jones: The Stunt Show.

• The always dependable Cracked gives us 7 Iconic Characters They Saved From the Cutting Room Floor.

• Finally, in the category of “Things Almost Too Awesome to Exist,” I present to you … the Yoda Cake!

That’s a cake!!!

• 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.

• In the world of J.K. Rowling, one of the rarest items is a complete set of all seven Harry Potter books that are signed by Rowling herself. The HP Alliance auctioned off the set for Haiti relief efforts, and now the Association of Electrical Contractors of New York, which won them in an auction that raised $39,000, has relisted them in a fundraiser for two other charities. Dig deep, folks!

• Speaking of Harry Potter, there are some images out that are being called new, but I’m not entirely sure because they look more like screen caps from a trailer. This is the money shot:

• SyFy is at the Television Critics Association conference, now going on in L.A., and they’ve unveiled an ambitious development slate of comedies. In the fantasy realm is Lengendary, starring Kevin Sorbo as a former syndicated action star who has to battle real-life monsters who attack Los Angeles. They also have a 23^rd century take on Robin Hood they call Sherwood, and Zeroes, about a zombie extermination and removal company.

• There are rumors that Universal and Reliance are going to build a theme park in India using primarily Universal properties like Jaws, E.T., Spider-Man, and even a Harry Potter section similar to what has been built in Orlando. The estimated cost of $1.5 billion seems cheap to me, however.

• We may have no word on when the movie version of The Hobbit is happening, but reports say that Warner Bros. is advertising for a director-level position to develop games based on The Hobbit at their Gamasutra division.

• The hack-and-slash Dragon Age: Origins DLC is called “Golems of Armarrack” and is being released August 10, 2010 at a price of $5.00.

• Above you can see two new character stills that have been released for Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and below is the first one sheet for the film, with the CGI version of the ship itself.

• Tron: Legacy producer Sean Bailey sat down with io9.com to explain the elements in the Comic-Con trailer. One interesting part was when they asked him if the movie was properly called science fiction or fantasy. He says:

I think we wanted this digital world — we made a couple big decisions early on. We thought this isn’t an internet movie. This is about a [virtual] universe that was left alone. And it developed, like a Galapagos, over time. It evolved into it’s own distinct thing. So in terms of a character from our world going into a brand new universe, with all of its hopefully dimensions of factions and different ideologies and a history of its own ruler [who] came into power. That was a big part for us. Is it fantasy? I don’t know that, I guess it depends on your definition. But it is certainly when you’re in the room with the Sirens, as we call those characters. It certainly has a mythological feel to it.

• MTV managed a spoiler-free review of True Blood #1 comic, and they had mixed emotions about it. They say that freed of budget constraints of a television show, the story can get absolutely insane. On the other hand, they found the dialogue tame, with no real profanity to spice things up. Lafayette without profanity just isn’t the same.

• Harry Potter’s Tom Felton has been cast in Caesar: Rise of the Apes. He’ll play the son of the co-owner of the ape facility. Previously announced cast includes James Franco, John Lithgow, and Frieda Pinto.

• Well, the next book in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series is three+ years late, and the HBO television series doesn’t have any footage to show at Comic-Con, but at least we know something about the video game. A Game of Thrones: Genesis is being called a Real Time Strategy game by Cyanide Studio. You can win with economics, war, or diplomacy, and it will be available on PCs and major consoles. I believe the art is of The Wall.

• Take this with a huge grain of salt, but supposedly the seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, has been cast in The Hobbit as the “second biggest lead.” This has lead to a lot of speculation on whether the second biggest lead could actually be Bilbo, and you count Gandalf as the lead?

• As far as I knew, Imagi Studios financial problems had killed the Gatchaman (G-Force) movie. But over the weekend, a new teaser trailer of a fight scene surfaced on their website with 2011 at the end. I’m a bit unclear on Gatchaman – I’d always considered it science fiction, but the trailer description specifically talks about the team being magic: “Gatchaman constitutes an action-fantasy about a magical band of five heroes.” Can anyone clarify?

• Will Smith is going to star in The Legend of Cain, which is a retelling of the Biblical brother story with the vampire twist. I’m led to believe this is a common vampire origin story, but I can imagine the heads of several religious organizations exploding over this high-profile story.

• I’m not going to spell out the Merlin Season 3 spoiler this article purports to have about a “smirky look” being pivotal to the storyline. It’s not that I’m opposed to spoilers, I just don’t understand it well enough to spell it out.

• Inception pulled in a healthy $60.4 million at the box office this weekend, meaning it should finish the theater run right around $190 million, which is the top end for a non-franchise movie. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (which I saw) earned an anemic $17.4 million for the actual weekend and finished behind Despicable Me (which is a much better film), which had $34 million in the second weekend.

• I’m becoming increasingly fascinated by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I’ve not read the books, but it looks to be fun and funny. I don’t think it’s precisely a fantasy movie, but it’s not science fiction either. It’s square in a fairly unique space: it’s a comic book movie that isn’t about super heroes. They’ve been releasing remix trailers for the film, which are pieces of art in themselves. They plan seven remixes, this is #5, “Fight.”

• Don’t let the title fool you — the upcoming Archangels has nothing to do with archangels and is not in the vein of the recent warrior-angel flick, Legion. Instead, it’s all about aliens. Cool, right?

• Over at Aint it Cool News, columnist Quint started a pretty cool new column called Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day, and their most recent edition has an awesome pic of Heath Ledger’s Joker.

• This isn’t that new, but I thought this list was pretty cool: the Top 10 Fictional Male Charmers, which includes a few fantasy characters in there, like Lancelot and Han Solo.

• I’m going to get carpal tunnel syndrome from reporting all the news about The Hobbit, including this tidbit that Peter Jackson is reportedly meeting with actors to join the cast.

• Of all the millions of superheroes in the world, my absolute favorites are the X-Men, and io9 has a list of the 5 most tear-jerking X-Men deaths. I bet you’ll just never guess who’s number one.

• In other superhero news, Slashfilm has some casting news for the upcoming Spider-man and Superman reboots.

• And finally, since M. Night Shyamalan’s quality of work is just so high right now — yeah, ouch — here’s a trailer for a movie he did NOT write or direct, but did come up with the story for, called Devil.

A New Zealand newspaper is reporting that, despite all the production delays, construction is well underway on the sets for the upcoming two-part production of The Hobbit.

Here are some pictures they claim to have taken on a recent visit to the set for Hobbiton (located in the same spot where similar sets were created, and mostly destroyed, for The Lord of the Rings):

See the rest of the photos here.

Two weeks ago, director Guillermo del Toro took the geek world by surprise by announcing that he was withdrawing from directing duties for the upcoming two-part movie version of The Hobbit. He later gave his reasons, but the Poison Pen was suspicious, so we did a little investigative work. Here is more or less how the whole thing REALLY went down:

Guillermo Del Toro

• Joining the project in 2008, Del Toro is soon frustrated — specifically, the fact that he keeps being mistaken for a hobbit. And not just any hobbit: a Sackville-Baggins.

• In April of 2009, del Toro turns in his script treatment. Because del Toro suffers from phobias, Peter Jackson is shocked to find that he has made a substantial number of revisions to the story: the elimination of all spiders (because of del Toro’s arachnophobia); moving Bilbo’s encounter with Gollum under the Misty Mountains to an open field at noon (because of del Toro’s fear of the dark and closed spaces); and his turning the character of Bilbo into a Carrie Bradshaw-like shoe-hound (because of del Toro’s paralyzing fear of hairy toes).

• In April of 2009, del Toro insists in a memo to the producers that there is no room in his vision of the story for Smaug. 

• In June of 2009, concerned that del Toro’s vision of the movie is shaping up to be an utter disaster, the producers interview Chris Columbus as a possible replacement director. After actually watching Columbus’s movies, however, they decide they are still better off with del Toro.

• In September of 2009, much to the horror of the Tolkien estate, del Toro inks a product placement deal with Gillette that involves Gandalf being clean-shaven.

• In October of 2009, del Toro and co-screenwriter Fran Walsh come to blows over del Toro’s “great” idea for a “twist” ending: Bilbo comes upon a ruined Statue of Liberty, proving that Middle Earth was “earth” all along.

• In November of 2009, del Toro begins frothing at the mouth during a development meeting and must be involuntarily committed to an insane asylum for seven days. Chris Columbus once again offers his services as a replacement director, but the producers decide they’re still better off with del Toro.

• The big conflict of December 2009 involves five simple words: Taylor Lautner as Thorin Oakenshield.

• In January 2010, del Toro announces another product-placement deal that involves an iPad for Bard the Bowman.

STILL better than Chris Columbus

• In February 2010, del Toro and Gollum actor Andy Serkis come to blows over the fact the del Toro wants to replace the famous “riddle battle” sequence with a scene where Bilbo gives Gollum a “make-over,” and the montage includes a guest appearance by Liza Minnelli singing a pre-Sex and the City 2 version of  “Single Ladies (Put a One Ring on It).”

• In March 2010, in a fit of pique, del Toro opens fire in the New Zealand office of New Line Studios, killing six people, including co-screenwriter Phillipa Boyens. The producers are convinced they’re still better off with him as director than Chris Columbus.

• In June 2010, furious that Peter Jackson has shot down his latest idea for a Battle of the Five Armies “interpretive dance” sequence, del Toro sets fire to himself and dies. Jackson ghost-writes del Toro’s heartfelt resignation letter on TheOneRing.net.

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Guillermo del Toro

Why did Guillermo del Toro leave the movie version of The Hobbit? As he promised previously, he posted his explanation today over at TheOneRing.net (which, frankly, is becoming the source for Hobbit-related news. Are the “old media” truly dead or what?).

It’s certainly heartfelt, but frankly, it doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know.

And weirdly, his assurance that “I believe these films will happen” actually makes me feel slightly less secure than before. Frankly, I didn’t think their not ever happening was even an option to consider.

Anyway, here’s the letter:

So, here I am again. As promised, I am posting a longer message before the week’s end.

I have to thank those of you that have supported me from the start as well as those that converted along the way. And even say farewell to those that never did convert or believed.

I will miss Mr. Crere, the faith of Compa and Sir DennisC, the wisdom of Voronwe, the joy of Grammaboodawg, the support of Kangi Ska and so many, many others

Now, Pasi, et al- that is what is quite uncommon even on big films. Pete and co stuck to LOTR for years, I’ve developed films for years and I have shot many a movie on location… but rarely do you relocate for such massive amount of time specially when you have to do major ironclad agreements to put in deep freeze other contractual obligations with multiple studios.

My commitment to the project demanded enormous sacrifices both in personal and professional terms. The consequences of which will ripple for years. I relocated my entire life and family to New Zealand and first came on board in 2008.

So- while the cited delays, contractual complexities or obstacles, cannot be attributed to a single event or entity - you will simply have to believe that they were of sufficient complexity and severity to lead to the current situation. Trust me on this, Pasi- leaving NZ and the Hobbit crew is extremely painful.

As stated before- a wealth of designs, animatics, boards and sculptures is left behind representing accurately my ideas for Mirkwood, Spiders, Wargs, Stone Trolls, etc, etc and everyone (PJ, FW, PB and myself) has the same goal in mind: to try and ensure the best possible transition of the movie to a new director.

I believe these films will happen. Preproduction continues as we speak. The writing team of PJ,FW,PB and myself will keep moving the screenplays forward.

Perhaps even sooner than we may anticipate we will all look at the finished film and then- I will tear up whenever I recognize a set or a creature or a quirk created under my supervision. Everyone on these boards will get two movies. Me? I will be watching filmic family albums. Photos of my children from far away.

I hope you will understand how delicate the subject is for me.

I will drop by now and then, I will read the boards with interest and do hope to see some of you around at SDCC and many other places.

I am not here, however, to provide a blow-by-blow of what happened, but to assure you, as I have, that it has been the toughest situation of my life.

Beyond that- I am simply no longer an official voice for these projects. Be good, be well- and I invite you all to follow me into the next phase of my filmmaking journey.

Sincerely

GDT

With the news that Guillermo del Toro will be unable to direct The Hobbit (due to an expanded commitment), talk has turned to the next obvious choice: Peter Jackson, who directed the first three movies and is producing the two-part version of The Hobbit.

But Jackson is contractually obligated to be working on other movies at the same time The Hobbit would be filming — and some are speculating that these contracts may even specifically forbid him from working on The Hobbit.

Jackson’s manager, Ken Kamins, immediately ruled out his directing the movies:

[Jackson can't consider directing the movies] at this time because he has and has had other commitments and obligations to other projects.

But shortly thereafter, Jackson said he would consider it if need be — though even he acknowledged it may be impossible. He told a New Zealand newspaper:

If [directing the films is] what I have to do to protect Warner Bros’ investment, then obviously that’s one angle which I’ll explore…The other studios may not let me out of the contracts.

In Jackson’s Saturday announcement that del Toro will not be directing, Jackson also said:

Guillermo is co-writing the Hobbit screenplays with Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh and myself, and happily our writing partnership will continue for several more months, until the scripts are fine tuned and polished. New Line and Warner Bros will sit down with us this week, to ensure a smooth and uneventful transition, as we secure a new director for the Hobbit. We do not anticipate any delay or disruption to ongoing pre-production work.

But the announcement also said:

The bottom line is that Guillermo just didn’t feel he could commit six years to living in New Zealand, exclusively making these films, when his original commitment was for three years.

If del Toro, who had been planning on directing the films, was unable to take six years to direct the films, it seems likely that Jackson, who already has a number of contracted obligations, will have the same problem.

Events are obviously moving rapidly, so it’s unclear how this will all play out. Jackson only found out that del Toro was leaving the film on Saturday.

In the never-ending drama that is The Hobbit’s journey to the big screen, we’ve hit another pothole: Guillermo del Toro, the much-loved and lauded director of Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth, will no longer be at the helm for our next trip to Middle Earth.

According to a statement he posted on TheOneRing.net, del Toro will continue to collaborate on the script with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens (the writers of The Lord of the Rings). His reason for departing the films are the expanded timetables, which he foresees preventing him from other projects he was intending to work on.

Peter Jackson, who directed the Rings films and is on board as a producer, has said they don’t anticipate this development will halt the production schedule.

• Studios have announced a slew of new dates for 2011 and beyond movies. The fantasy highlight is probably Red Riding Hood starring Amanda Seyfried as a young girl who falls for an orphaned woodcutter in a medieval village haunted by a werewolf. The Catherine Hardwicke film is set for April 22, 2010. The supernatural horror film The Apparition is set for September 9^th, 2011 with Sebastian Stan. And Disney has a new Winnie the Pooh film July 15^th, 2011 – start ‘em on fantasy young!

• The whole point of Dragon Age Origins: The Darkspawn Chronicles has been revealed, and it’s both less and more than some were expecting. The point of the expansion package is to let you play the bad guys and hack and slash your way through the regular, good playable characters. While it always feels good to be bad, the short length of the game explains the price.

• Emilia Clarke has been cast to replace Tamzin Merchant in HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones. The role is for Daenerys, who is an exiled princess. Elements of last November’s pilot will be reshot to accommodate the casting change. As casting for supporting roles is ongoing, the production start for the series has been pushed back to mid-July from June.

• Narnia: The Exhibition, with props and costumes from the films, is running two concurrent showings, one in Montreal and another in Jacksonville, FL. After spending the summer in these locations, the show moves on to Huntsville, AL, and Louisville, KY.

• Peter Jackson sat down to talk about the new King Kong attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood, but like most things he does these days, talk turned to the upcoming film The Hobbit. According to Jackson, they’re currently discussing whether to shoot in 3D, and plan on casting for a November start date for filming.

• Speaking of Tolkien, his grandson Simon Tolkien was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, ostensibly about his new mystery novel. But the entire interview seems to be about his grandfather’s later days, how The Lord of the Rings derailed his life’s work, The Silmarillion. As for what he thought of Peter Jackson’s movies, he found the first one good, and the others progressively worse. He thinks the later films showed much that the book left out.

• But Simon Tolkien might believe actor Charles Ross has taken the story too far the other way in his One Man Lord of the Rings, now being performed in Kentucky. He’s taken the entire film trilogy and whittled it down to 70 minutes of a comic retelling.

• A big batch of pictures from the set of Lost Boys 3 has surfaced. You know what you don’t see in most vampire movies? A bunch of people in bikinis at the beach and on boats in the marina.

• Shrek Forever After mashes up every fairy tale and fantasy story ever written into one incomprehensible mess. The film opened to a $71.3 million weekend, which most see as a failure. Robin Hood pulled in another $18.7 million to take 3^rd place behind Iron Man 2, and other new opener MacGruber staggered in with a disappointing $4.7 million.

• When you hit the theaters September 24th to see Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, you’ll be greeted with a brand new 3D Roadrunner/Coyote cartoon before the film starts.

• HBO is hosting midnight screenings for True Blood in theaters across the country June 1^st. Based on the content of the Season 2 finale, an extended peek of Season 3, and a Q&A with Alan Ball, I’m assuming a satellite hookup is involved. Tickets are free.

• And speaking of the True Blood season 2 finale, if you wondered what happened to the bull mask Maryann wore when she got her maenad action on, the third minisode shows how Sam worked out his frustration on the bovine mask.

• Anyone who’s been keeping up with the Buffy Season 8 comics knows that the last issue was pretty intense, as Buffy and Angel, who had been masquerading as Twilight, once again got all groiny with each other. But this time it has something to do with the nature of the universe. Uh-huh. You can read all about it in this interview with writer Brad Meltzer.

• Here’s a pretty funny list about the the things that Hollywood thinks computers can do. All you need to do is watch one episode of any primetime procedural to know it’s true.

• Not too long ago, I made up a Fantasy Casting list for The Hobbit, and chose Brian Cox as Thorin Oakenshield. Often those lists are wishful thinking, but I really thought Cox had a good shot. However, he might have been beaten out by Australian actor Jack Thompson, who certainly does have a dwarvish appeal. Here’s a pic:

• Well, Lost fans, it’s been quite a run, hasn’t it? Soon we’re going to be leaving the island for good, but before that happens, check out this cool interview with Daniel Dae Kim about his character Jin and his love for his wife Sun. Made me all sorts of sentimental.

• Cracked has a pretty awesome list of the 7 Most Soul-Crushing Series Finales. Did you know that Alf got caught by the government?! Turns out it was supposed to be a cliffhanger to set up the next season, but the show got canceled and so it never resolved (except for in a weird TV movie). Please, please, don’t let something similar happen to Legend of the Seeker. That show deserves closure and dignity.

• It looks it’s really happening: X-Men: First Class will be released in June of next year. Be still my geeky heart …

• Finally, this caught my eye as being really cool. As we all know, the two feature films based on Street Fighter … what’s the word I’m looking for … sucked. So actor/stuntman Joey Ansah, who had one of the best fight scenes in the Bourne movies (and how’s that for street cred?) took it upon himself to create his own fan film. You can find out more on his website, but to whet your appetite, here’s a trailer.