Sci-Fi Storm

We knew she couldn’t keep away from the world she created for long…it appears that Warner Bros and J.K. Rowling have agreed to develop a new film series set within the magical world first seen her highly successful Harry Potter series.

The films would not be related to Harry Potter specifically, or for that matter Hogwarts – but rather will follow the adventures of the fictional author of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, Newt Scamander. Warner Bros actually approached Rowling with the idea, and she has decided to write the script herself.

“It all started when Warner Bros. came to me with the suggestion of turning ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ into a film,” she said. “I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing Newt Scamander, the supposed author of ‘Fantastic Beasts,’ realized by another writer was difficult. Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it and I already knew a lot about Newt. As hard-core Harry Potter fans will know, I liked him so much that I even married his grandson, Rolf, to one of my favourite characters from the Harry Potter series, Luna Lovegood.

“As I considered Warners’ proposal, an idea took shape that I couldn’t dislodge. That is how I ended up pitching my own idea for a film to Warner Bros.”

It appears that Sweetpea Entertainment has cast its counterspell to Hasbro’s fireball…they filed a 102 page counter-complaint against Hasbro, and aren’t pulling any punches. They aren’t just asking for clarification of rights, but “damages, including its actual damages (or statutory damages for certain acts of copyright infringement, if Sweetpea so elects), Counter-Defendants’ profits, treble and punitive damages, as well as attorney fees and costs, in an amount to be ascertained pursuant to applicable laws.”

Hasbro filed suit again Sweetpea Entertainment in May to shut down production on D&D movie being set up at Warner Bros, saying it owned the rights as Sweetpea did not meet the requirements to retain the rights after 2000’s Dungeons & Dragons and the 2005 sequel Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God.

Apparently we were a little overdue for our annual Stargate movie update… 🙂

We’ve heard for years about how Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin intended to make two more Stargate movies after the original, but instead MGM decided to take the franchise to television instead in the form of Stargate SG-1, plus the followups Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. But now a few years removed from the television franchise, Emmerich appears poised to bring the movie franchise back on track – but as opposed to making outright sequels to the original, he wants to start over, given the amount of time that has passed.

In an interview with Digital Spy, he said, “We went to MGM, who has the rights, and proposed to them to do a sequel, but as a reboot… and reboot it as a movie and then do three parts. Pretty soon we’ll have to look for a writer and start.”

As for the original actors returning, “The actors look totally different… it would not work,” he stated. Thus the impetus to start fresh.

The official trailer for Gravity is out now…and it is just as intense as the teasers…I REALLY want to see this movie…but I’m almost afraid of it!

Star Trek: Into Darkness, the second adventure in J.J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek franchise, is out on [sfs=1342]Blu-ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1343]DVD[/sfs] next Tuesday…is the Blu-ray worth it? I’d say a conditional Yes. What may be a deciding factor is how much you like special features.

First, some of the technical details…I will talk about the film later for those who would still like to avoid the “big spoiler” that is probably widely known across the interwebs by now…

The Blu-ray version of the movie comes on a single disc, with the 3D version on another disc, and both come with the feature alone on separate DVD…there is no additional special features disc included. The feature is in full 1080p, with a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio track (no DTS-HD track), as well as Dolby 5.1 English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, plus English Audio Description. It is also captioned in English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

The feature looks amazing on Blu-ray…and that is very important to this film, because the visuals are top notch, and there are a LOT of them. Spectacular scenes abound. The audio quality is good, although when listening just through my TV set was a little unbalanced volume-wise. At times the audio had to be turned way up to hear dialog, but then blasted the ears during fight scenes. I think this may be fairly typical however of most Blu-rays through my TV system, however, but I’m still on the search for a new HD-capable receiver.
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Marvel announced today that actor James Spader (Boston Legal, Stargate) will take on the role of Ultron in the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron movie to be directed by Joss Whedon and expected to be released on May 1st, 2015.

Spader, who’s most recent feature credit was as W. N. Bilbo in Lincoln, has a lot of television experience as well – he has three Emmys for his role as Alan Shore in The Practice and Boston Legal, recurred on The Office and is starring in the upcoming NBC series The Blacklist.

Ultron is a robotic supervillain with an adamantium shell, making him nearly indestructible, and an Oedipus complex. In the overall Marvel universe, he was created by Hank Pym (Ant-Man) by duplicating his own brain waves, resulting in an unstable robotic intelligence, obsessed with constant upgrading.

Vin Diesel appears to be dropping hints that he will play the tree-like alien Groot in the upcoming Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy. Diesel apparently put up an upcoming picture of the character on his Facebook page before later taking it down, but the Riddick star previously had said he had been in talks about the movie as well.

Groot first appeared as a villain in Tales To Astonish in 1960 seeking to capture humans to study. He made appearances in The Incredible Hulk in 1976 and The Amazing Spider-Man in 1997, before joining S.H.I.E.L.D. and appearing in the Annihilation: Conquest crossover event. Groot can control trees, and absorb wood to strengthen himself. However, he has limited vocal abilities, apparently only able to say “I am Groot,” but it is said he can communicate a lot if you can understand him.

For your enjoyment! Thor: The Dark World premieres November 8th.

It appears that we won’t get two sequels to Avatar – we’ll get three.

According to Deadline, the plan is now for three sequels to be developed and produced simultaneously, an extremely ambitious plan and one that could have a price tag topping $1 billion – but given the original grossed over $2.8 billion to become the top grossing film of all time, it seems a pretty safe bet for 20th Century Fox.

To get things moving, James Cameron has actually set four writers to work: Josh Friedman (War of the Worlds, The Black Dahlia) will write one, Shane Salerno (Armageddon) will write another, and the last will be done by the team of Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), all in collaboration with Cameron.

Production is expected to begin next year, with yearly releases starting in December 2016.

It seems that two things that people thought would never happen are happening…first, Harvey Weinstein is going to work with Disney again. Harvey and his brother Bob sold their Miramax Films to Disney in 1993, but continued running the studio until 2005, when they had a very public split with Disney and formed The Weinstein Company. But now it appears that a film that’s been on the backburner at Miramax for over a decade has resulted in both sides putting aside the past, with the hopes of finally producing a film based on author Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series.

The books are about an extremely intelligent and rich Irish criminal mastermind, Artemis Fowl II – who happens to be just 12 years old, descended from a long line of criminal masterminds. With his mother suffering from a nervous breakdown, he’s determined to find his missing father, and will stop and nothing…even if it means revealing and potentially destroying the world of the fairies, who have moved underground.

“If you would have told me five years ago I would be producing a project with Disney I would have thought you were crazy,” Weinstein, Co-Chairman of The Weinstein Company, said. “I feel as though everything is coming full circle considering Bob DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal brought me this book while I was still at Miramax and within hours I told them I wanted the rights to the film.

“This is a special project for me because my children absolutely love this book. This story is for everyone and there is no one better than Disney to make a film that will excite people young and old.”

DeNiro and Rosenthal will executive produce the project. Michael Goldenberg, who adapted Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix, is tapped to adapt the books. Many consider the character of Artemis Fowl to be the “Anti-Harry Potter”.