• Some of the industry rags are predicting that the new The Dark Tower movies we told you about last week are going to break box office records set by the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Avatar. Interesting counting of chickens, no?

• Torchwood writer John Fay attempts to explain why Ianto had to die in Children of Earth, but flying in the face of every other interview on the subject, when asked if he’d bring Ianto back, “I’m not going to answer that, Neil, you’ll just have to watch and see.” Just for the record, it ain’t happening. Russell T. Davies has said as much.

• Tron: Legacy released a sneak peek of the new movie via Disney Channel. It’s not a ton of new footage, but there is some new battle scenes, and a bit more of Olivia Wilde’s purpose in the film.

• The new movie Super premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, and got snapped up by IFC for distribution. It looks to be a dark comedy version of Kick-Ass, with Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page playing a version of Big Daddy and Hit Girl. I watched four minutes of it and wanted to wash my eyes out with bleach.

• The Heroes movie to wrap up loose ends is not happening. NBC just isn’t interested, and neither are most of the actors.

• Clint Eastwood directed Matt Damon in Hereafter. It may be one of those Oscar-bait movies, but Damon looks to be a medium/psychic, which makes it “fantasy-esque.” I’m not sure how much the supernatural plays into what looks to be a character drama, but it’s definitely in there.

• Michael Caine is going to step into the Journey to the Center of the Earth sequel. He’ll be playing the grandfather to Josh Hutcherson. Brendan Frasier dropped out to pretend he has something better to do. O.K.: I’ll admit making his Broadway debut opposite True Blood’s Denis O’Hare is pretty cool.

• And finally, HBO released two clips on their upcoming A Game of Thrones. The first is a short montage of the action scenes they’ve shot.

The second video is behind-the-scenes, and includes a set visit with George R.R. Martin, who seems positively giddy with the production.

• 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.

• Obviously, this week is all about the aftermath of Comic Con, and one of the coolest images I saw on the interwebs is also one of the simplest: the emblem of all things good and true, Captain America’s shield. It’s funny … never in my wildest dreams as a kid did I expect to see so many live-action films based on the comics I loved. And now here we are. Excelsior. (There’s also a pic of the Infinity Gauntlet.)

• Plans are afoot to reboot The Crow film franchise, and for the script they’ve hired Nick Cave, also known as the dude I’ve never heard of before. But apparently he’s an esteemed writer and has a fan base, so who knows? Could be awesome.

• Now that the latest Tron: Legacy trailer has hit the net, word is coming in that the powers that be are planning a prequel comic in order to bridge the new movie with the original. Sweet.

• Even though he didn’t end up getting the role, Josh Hutcherson’s audition tape for Spider-Man, featuring him in a fight scene, is online. It’s actually pretty awesome, and totally makes me want to film one of my own. Too bad the part’s already been taken.

• If you’re interested, someone thought long and hard about why Stephenie Meyer’s vampires sparkle. Because if anything merits serious, scientific research, it’s Twilight.

• Family Guy head honcho Seth MacFarlane said that now having done their third Star Wars episode, they won’t do episodes lampooning the prequels. Why? Says star Alex Borstein, “They sucked.” Uh-huh. So did your spoof of The Empire Strikes Back.

• This season I’ve been channeling my inner evil demon to bring you Goth Recaps for True Blood, but it turns out all the cast wants to do is joke around and talking about getting naked on set.

• Check out Joss Whedon discussing his casting choices of Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers …

• And finally, fans are going gaga over what happened at the Green Lantern panel, as it just absolutely reeks of adorable. So this cute little kid wearing a Green Lantern T-Shirt asks Ryan Reynolds to recite the Green Lantern’s oath. Which he did … flawlessly. Epic win.

• Iron Man 2 dominated the weekend box office to the tune of $133.6 million. Of that, $6.50 was mine for a matinee Friday, which I enjoyed immensely. Meanwhile, Nightmare on Elm Street suffered an ear-popping 72% decline to place a distance second at $9.1 million. Seven weeks into its run, How To Train Your Dragon was still 3^rd with $6.7 million.

• I continue to giggle inappropriately at the YouTube spoof Outcasts of Hogwarts. Who knew that inserting yourselves into a fantasy franchise along with extreme editing could yield a comedy goldmine. This episode has the boys forming a band with Harry.

• Americans will get their shot at Russell Tovey and the bunch when the second series of Being Human hits BBC America in July. The ghost, vampire, and werewolf (who live together on the show) don’t spend much time living in domesticated bliss after ridding their town of aggressive vampires in season one. They may have drawn too much attention to themselves.

• I enjoyed Alice In Wonderland. It wasn’t the greatest film I’ve seen lately, though, so it bothers me that it has knocked The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers out of the all-time top ten box office films, with a $928.9 million gross.

• Let’s face it: if you could use The Force, would you run around the universe getting involved in a complicated galactic war, or would you terrorize the town and make inappropriate gestures with your light sabers? I thought so. Jedi A-holes is the short for you.

• Kevin Durand is lining up new roles now that his stint as the baddie on Lost is wrapping up. He’s in negotiations to play the head of the aliens who are hunting for survivors in I Am Number Four, starring Alex Pettyfer, then he hopes to step into a Don King role in the Hugh Jackman robot boxing movie Real Steel.

• The novel Paul Is Undead, which imagines the Beatles as zombies, has been optioned for film. In the book, the Fab Undead are pursued around the world by the world’s greatest zombie hunter, Mick Jagger. The Beatles as zombies, I can buy — but isn’t the real-life Mick already a member of the undead?

• Tron: Legacy has released a huge amount of concept art you’re supposed to hunt down across the web. Thankfully the folks at io9.com have corralled a lot of it in one place, because who has that kind of time? On the front page, I used a render of the Light Car show from above that gives the impression it’s not so much a car as an ATV, despite how it look in this poster:

• I don’t have a lot of background on Captain America’s origin story – Cap was always too goodie-goodie for my tastes – but reports are that Hugo Weaving being confirmed as Red Skull is just the beginning. British actor Toby Jones is in discussions to play evil scientist Arnim Zola, who will actually create Hugo’s Red Skull.

• Televisionwithoutpity.com has managed to get their hands of the book Firefly: Still Flying (due May 25^th) and have come up with a list of 10 Things We Didn’t Know about the Sci-Fi Classic, from the upcoming fan movie to the death of Jayne.

• This French trailer for Avatar: The Last Airbender has more new footage than any of the American trailers have introduced, and includes a really cool introduction of the Four Elements. Thankfully, the trailer itself is in English, with French subtitles. As a side note, I finally saw the trailer with the flying Appa over the weekend on the big screen, and he looks awesome!

• Splice’s Vincenzo Natali is stepping in to direct William Gibson’s classic Neuromancer, which may or may not still be starring Hayden Christensen. I have serious misgivings about the adaptation of one of my favorite books after what Keanu Reeves was allowed to do to Johnny Mnemonic fifteen years ago. Hayden is pretty, but he’s the same kind of blank, emotionless actor.

• What can you learn from friendly ghosts haunting a house in San Francisco — former humans who died in the AIDS epidemic? That’s the question Ben Francisco seems to be asking in San Francisco Ghost Hunt. This is a quasi-sequel to his story Tio Gilberto and His Twenty-Seven Ghosts, and is part of an entire sub-genre of activist ghost stories I was entirely unaware of, but the author makes a decent case for the story in this above interview.

• And because I just saw this for the first time, and was stunned to silence, here’s a two-year old video of Spider-Man dancing West Coast Wing to Michael Bublé’s version of the Spider-Man theme song. That girl does NOT look like Mary Jane.

• The 2010 Hugo Award nominations have been announced. The more I write, the less I seem to read, so the only book I’m familiar with is Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. You can check out the whole list and tell us what you like!

• I was really looking forward to The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – even though I don’t really care much for either star, there was something rambunctious and fun about the whole thing. But my personal dislike of Nic Cage may yet win out. From WonderCon, how does he get from A to B in this?

Cage also said that he came up with the original idea for the movie: “When I came with this idea, I was on Next. I was talking to Tom Garner, who was also the producer. I said, ‘I want to play a magician. You know, I want to play like a sorcerer.’ And he came back and said, ‘I got it. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.’”

• Just in case you were missing out on Spartacus: Blood and Sand because Starz was expensive, we’re reminded you can stream the whole series from Netflix, and with 11 episodes shown, you can catch the entire first season before your 30-day free trial expires.

• Tron: Legacy has been doing a lot of viral marketing, but generally the definition of viral is that it spreads with little to no money. Staging a helicopter jump into a faux press conference you actually have in San Diego doesn’t sound like it meets the “little to no money” aspect. Though I am spreading it, so who knows?

• Alex Pettyfer, who’s building buzz for his performance in Beastly, has been cast in I Am Number Four from Dreamworks. It revolves around nine aliens in exile on earth from a genocide. They’re being hunted down, but one of the rules is they must be killed in numerical order, and the movie starts with the death of Number Three.

• The folks over at io9.com seem utterly enchanted with the book Spellwright by Blake Charleton about a magician in a world where magic is practiced with words and phrases. But since this magician has a form of dyslexia, things don’t often go well for him. They seem to say it’s not the farce it sounds, and praise the worldbuilding. (We liked it too.)

• Speaking of magic, a Lebanese man has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for being a sorcerer. The evidence is that he’s some sort of television psychic in Lebanon, where sorcery is more of a misdemeanor, but on a trip to Saudi Arabia he was arrested, and Sharia law applied. Diplomats from Lebanon are trying to intervene.

• Here’s the latest trailer for Resident Evil: Afterlife. I’ve never been much of a fan of the series, but I have friends that are already drooling.

• Ryan Reynolds seems to have decided his niche is comic books, because reports say he’s somehow going to find time to do R.I.P.D (Rest In Peace Department) as a recently dead guy partnered with a long dead guy in a police department for the dead. This is being pitched more as a buddy comedy, which could be fun, because I’ve always felt from Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place to Waiting, Reynolds has impeccable comic timing.

• Entertainment Weekly has a picture of the cast of The Big Bang Theory in “superheroine drag” from the Evil Wil Wheaton episode. I would try to describe it, but words fail me.

• Ellen DeGeneres did her show from Universal Orlando Florida last week, and one of the things she did was borrow a couple of kids for a walkthrough of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. There’s a lot of Ellen silliness, but you do get some nice angles on a few attractions and shops.

• The Clash of the Titans brought in $61.4 million over the weekend, and thankfully destroyed that Miley Cyrus film that opened on Wednesday to make the numbers look better.

• There’s a (mostly) spoiler-free review of the broadcast of Doctor Who “The Eleventh Hour” which aired in the U.K. over the weekend, and while I’m not going to analyze “why” I liked it like they did, I have to say I liked it a lot. I had serious concerns about Matt Smith, from his age, to the frantic nature of the previews, but it really, really worked for me.

• By some counts, we’re facing no less than 13 movies about vampires and/or zombies by the end of next year. What am I most looking forward to? Rosecrantz and Gildenstern Are Undead. It’s probably going to be awful, but awful in a good way.

• And for the comedic finish, I give you Harry Potter and the Outcasts of Hogwarts, which I understand is going to become an irregular series.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Please send an email to thetorchonlineoracle@gmail.com and be sure and include your city and state and/or country.

Q: Who really is the fairest one of all? — Donald, Lake Placid, NY

A: Does the All-Knowing Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracle look like a magic mirror to you? Do I? Do I?!

Nonetheless, I will deign to answer this question:

For women, the fairest of them all is, of course, Snow White — although when Snow White has a “bad hair” day, the title shifts to Angelina Jolie.

For men, the fairest of them all is Star Trek hottie Chris Pine, but only because the entire cast of Supernatural was recently disqualified due to an unfortunate set-wide outbreak of nose hair. The Oracle suspects it has something to do with the cold Canadian climate, where the show is filmed.

The “official” fairest of the them all

Q: With the hype machine gearing up for the release of Tron Legacy (the Tron sequel) and with Jeff Bridges being hotter than ever as a result of last Sunday’s Oscar win, is there any chance they’ll now do a Starman sequel? — Mary, Monterrey, CA

A: There is an ongoing internet campaign for a sequel to the movie, about the romance between a lonely woman (Karen Allen) and an alien who takes the form of her dead husband (Jeff Bridges), but nothing official has yet been announced.

The once and future Starman

Incidentally, The Oracle is convinced that the reason why Tron Legacy is a “sequel” and not a “remake” is the continuing hipster cred of the Big Lebowski himself, Jeff Bridges (the original star of Tron).

This says to The Oracle that if Tron Legacy is successful, a Starman sequel is a very definite possibility — and it’s more likely to be a sequel, so they’ll be a part for Bridges, and not merely a remake.

Q: I know wizards have “familiars,” or faithful animal companions who do their masters’ bidding in magic and other things. I have a cat, Whitepaws, to whom I am particularly close. Am I wrong to think of him as a familiar? — Marcia, Houston, TX

A: Yes. Whitepaws is not your familiar.

However, you’re not entirely wrong, in that there is a being in your household with a familiar. It’s just not you — it’s Whitepaws. A familiar does its master’s bidding, right? Face it: you are Whitepaws’ familiar.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Please send an email to thetorchonlineoracle@gmail.com and be sure and include your city and state and/or country.

Looking to buy any of the projects mentioned in this article (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

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2010 is shaping up to be an exciting year for fantasy fans. There are at least 15 films slated for release this year, and we’ve got a full preview!

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief
Release date: Feb. 12
Based on the best-selling series by Rick Riordan, Lightning Thief tells the story of Percy Jackson, an American teenager afflicted with ADHD and dyslexia, who discovers on a school field trip that he is the son of Poseidon. (You know, the god of sea and earthquakes. The angriest of the Big Three.) Percy’s mission is to find Zeus’ stolen lightning bolt and prevent a civil war from breaking out among the gods — who, by the way, have moved Olympus from the mythical mountain to the mythical 600th floor of The Empire State Building. Percy also has to rescue his mother from the Underworld, and — presumably — wrestle with the tourists that swarm The Empire State building every Valentine’s Day.

The Wolfman
Release date: Feb. 12
The Wolfman has a long, proud history of scarring the crap out of anyone willing to leave home on the night when the wolfbane blooms. The film has been remade five times since its 1924 debut, and each time it falls firmly in the “horror” category. In this incarnation, Oscar winners Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins team up as Lawrence Talbot and Sir John Talbot, a haunted father and son team searching for their missing brother/son. Lawrence finds himself falling in love with his brother’s fiance, and then falling under the spell of the full moon. We’re holding out hope for a special guest appearance by Michael J. Fox, surfing by the sleepy Victorian hamlet of Blackmoor on top of a van.

Alice in Wonderland
Release date: Mar. 5
In Tim Burton’s vividly re-imagined Alice in Wonderland, Alice falls down the rabbit hole at the age of 19. She doesn’t remember ever having been to Wonderland before, but you can bet your shrinking potion that Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen remembers her. Alice reunites with the White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and of course, the Mad Hatter. (Played by Michael Sheen, Matt Lucas, Barbara Windsor, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry and Johnny Depp, respectively.) The teaser trailer promised stunning visuals and the second trailer actually hinted at an engaging plot. Disney will be offering the film in their patented Digital 3D, just in case you missed out on attending a rave when you were in college.

Season of the Witch
Release Date: Mar. 19
Nicholas Cage plays a battle-worn and weary Crusader who returns to Europe for supplies, only to find himself recruited by a dying Cardinal. His mission is to escort a young woman to a remote abbey where she will stand trial for being a witch. Only this peasant is not your run of the mill Salem sorcerer; no, this witch is responsible for The Black Plague. Can Cage decode the map on the back of the Magna Carta in time to discover the secret message on the inside of King Arthur’s chalice in time to unlock the sacred chisel with which he must carve the answers to the world’s toughest Sudoku? And can he do it in time to save the entire continent from death? Oh, these are the Dark Ages indeed!

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang
Release date: Mar. 25
As the star, screenwriter and producer of this sequel, Emma Thompson has made Nanny McPhee her pet project. The film’s official description reads “A group of children are evacuated from the city to a farm during wartime, where they encounter Nanny McPhee, the magic-wielding governess.” So, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe meets Mary Poppins. Unfortunately, Thompson was so preoccupied with the role, that she couldn’t find time to return as Professor Trelawney in the final installment of Harry Potter. It’s a hard pill to swallow considering that Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort himself) is headlining Thompson’s Big Bang.

Clash of the Titans
Release date: Mar. 26
Another remake of a beloved fantasy classic, Clash of the Titans follows Perseus (born of a god, raised by a man) as he risks his life for the right to marry Princess Andromeda. He must battle Medusa and the Kraken monster as he follows his quest to forbidden worlds to defeat Hades (Ralph Fiennes) before the King of the Underworld can unseat Zeus (Liam Neeson). We don’t mind the remakes, as long as Clash of the Titans doesn’t fall victim to Hollywood’s latest fantasy craze: refusing to properly conclude a story, just in case the studio decides to fund a sequel. The only respectable exception would be the appearance of Kinopio Toad: “We’re sorry Perseus, but your Princess is in another castle.”

The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Release date: May 7
Poor Peter and Susan Pevensie, kicked out of Narnia for learning to shave and discovering makeup. But Edward and Lucy, played by Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley (arguably the more talented of the four child stars who relaunched The Chronicles of Narnia) are back, and they’re bringing Prince Caspian with them. Unfortunately, they’re also bringing Narnia’s own Cousin Oliver, Eustace Clarence Scrubb. (We’re counting on Reepicheep to drown him out. Or just drown him.) Dawn Treader will follow the plot of C.S. Lewis’ original story: The younger Pevensies join forces with Caspian as he sails to the edge of the world, battling dufflepuds, slave traders, dragons, merfolk, and plenty of Christian symbolism along the way.

Iron Man 2
Release date: May 7
Robert Downey Jr’s celebrated Tony Stark is back in the second part of the Iron Man trilogy. This time, the whole world knows that the industrialist inventor is the man in the armored suit. The military, the American government and the media are all pushing him to share his technology with the world, but Stark knows enough about humanity to realize it’s a terrible idea. Don Cheadle will be taking over for Terrance Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes. And Gwyneth Paltrow will return as Pepper Potts. Unfortunately Pepper drives Stark to the brink of alcoholism when she gets a new boyfriend. Apparently even bazillionaires need a reminder that you shouldn’t operate heavy machinery while under the influence.

Robin Hood
Release date: May 14
When Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood hits theaters, it will be the tenth time the story has been adapted for the big screen. This incarnation follows the more traditional version of the story: Robin of Loxley, Earl of Huntington, returns to London after fighting in the Crusades to find that his village has been plundered at the hands of the Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen). So, Robin forms a group of rough and tumble Merry Men to steal back their money and their land, and win the heart of Maid Marian (Cate Blanchett). Of course, the real question is whether or not the soundtrack can hope to compete with Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” from 1991’s Prince of Thieves. We’re guessing probably not.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Release date: May 28
A movie based on a video game? Why not; it worked for Angelina Jolie! In Prince of Persia, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, an Aladdin-like street-urchin in Medieval Persia. After showing unique valor in battle, the King adopts Dastan and sends him off to reclaim the Sands of Time (a gift from the gods that, um, controls the sands of time). Prince of Persia is the fourth Disney/Bruckheimer collaboration, and if the team’s other films (all three Pirates of the Caribbean) are any indication, it should enjoy plenty of mainstream success. And cross-promotion with Happy Meals. And Legos. And graphic novels. And, of course, another video game.

Jonah Hex
Release date: June 18
D.C. is auctioning off its lesser-known heroes right and left these days. Jonah Hex is a caustic, curmudgeonly, former Confederate States Army soldier whose face is scarred almost beyond recognition. He’s got all of the swagger of Clint Eastwood, without any of the charm. Josh Brolin stars as Hex in the movie adaptation, along with John Malkovich as Quentin Turnbull (the bad guy), and Megan Fox as a trigger-happy prostitute. Er, trigger-happy with the guns. Actual guns. Revolvers. Turnbull’s plan is a Civil War do-over, and Hex has been hired as the bounty hunter who must shut him down. The plot sounds almost as plausible as Malkovich with a southern accent. We totally buy Megan Fox’s role, though.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Release date: June 30
We haven’t really heard much about this movie. It’s apparently some kind of adaptation of a vampire romance novel. There may have been some movies before this one, but they must have flopped at the box office. From what we’ve heard, there’s a vampire with some wicked crazy hair, and a werewolf who refuses to wear a shirt, and a helpless girl who sits in her room listening to emo music and writing fan fiction about herself. We also heard something about sparkles and middle-aged women wearing t-shirts to support either the wicked hair or the abs. If any other information becomes available, we’ll let you know. This thing will probably go straight to DVD, though.

The Last Airbender
Release date: July 2
M. Night Shyamalan directing a Nickelodeon movie? Who’d have guessed it? (Us, actually. M. Night Shyamalan sees dollar signs.) The Last Airbender is a live-action adaptation of the super popular Nick cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The premise of the cartoon is that Earth, Fire, Water and Air can be controlled by “benders.”  Aang is the Avatar, and the last surviving member of Air Nomads. His purpose is to restore balance and overthrow the Fire Nation’s Admiral Zhao, but first he must learn to focus and bend all of the elements. Fortunately, the creators of the series left out the fifth element, Heart. That poor kid with the Heart ring on Captain Planet had the lamest superpower ever.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Release date: July 16
Nicholas Cage is back with more fantasy, this time in a live-action adaptation of the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” scene from Disney’s Fantasia. (You remember? Mickey and those crazy mops!) Cage plays Balthazar Blake, a master sorcerer who sets out to protect his city from an evil wizard. He recruits a young apprentice, Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel) to help him. After a crash-course in magic (and what could possibly go wrong when you put those two words together?), Stutler joins Blake’s quest in a Disney-esque battle of Good versus Evil. The film looks to be a lot less trippy than the actual “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” from Fantasia. So if you’re looking for a mind-bend, you’ll have to watch Burton’s Alice in Wonderland on DVD.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Release date: Nov 17
If you thought Dumbledore’s death was tragic, wait until the first five minutes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Harry’s beloved and loyal companion, Hedwig, gets (spoiler alert) blasted out of the sky. As promised, Harry, Ron and Hermione don’t return for their seventh year at Hogwarts. Instead they must decode Dumbledore’s mission for them from beyond the grave while trying to find and destroy the fragments of Voldemort’s soul that he’s hidden in horcruxes around the country. The path toward victory is strewn with casualties and heartbreak. Even the unshakable trio will find themselves turning against one another. Director David Yates is sticking with the films until the final expelliarmus.

Tron Legacy
Release date: Dec. 17
Tron Legacy is the nerdgasmic sequel to Disney’s 1982 film. Jeff Bridges return as Kevin Flynn, and and Bruce Boxleitner will reprise his roles as Alan Bradley and Tron. Garrett Hedlund will take over as Kevin’s now-adult son, Sam, who gets sucked into the same world his father disappeared into 25 years earlier. (We knew he was alive!) The father/son team join forces and traverse the treacherous cyber terrain, which has become much more sophisticated since we last saw it.

Obviously, a tie-in video game will be released in time for Christmas.

What 2010 fantasy film are you most looking forward to?