While movies like Iron Man and The Dark Knight have opened to raucous approval, one seemingly major admission has been missing from our movie screens of late; a trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Speculation has put it appearing before movies from Prince Caspian all the way through to The Mummy 3. Thankfully, [...]

A man who will no doubt go down as a legend in the Geek Hall of Fame, Joss Whedon continues to provide great entertainment for us all. At the San Diego Comic Con this past weekend, Whedon was on hand to answer questions about his upcoming project Dollhouse, which stars Eliza Dushku and Tahmoh Penikett, both of whom were alongside Joss on the panel.

Any panel with Whedon in attendance will typically always have a lot of Buffy and Angel fans asking questions, no matter what Joss is currently working on. But Whedon was able to spend a fair chunk of the time shedding a little insight into the Dollhouse.

“Penikett is someone I’ve had a man crush on,” Whedon said, regarding the actor most famous for his role as Helo on Battlestar Galactica. “Oh wait, the term now is bro-mance.” He then continued to describe why Penikett’s character was a favorite of his. “He keeps getting closer and closer to Echo, and when he does, she’s someone else.”

This article could also be called “Why I Love the Comic Industry Fanbase” but I went with this solely so that we could get two names out and up front. You would be hard pressed to find another industry, or group of people, that are so dedicated to each other.

This fact was in clear evidence at the Michael Turner Tribute on Sunday afternoon at San Diego Comic Con. Together, a large group of professionals from the comics industry gathered, lining up in two rows upon the stage, in front of a packed room of fans and friends of Michael Turner, to celebrate a life that ended far too abruptly.

I wrote an obituary for Michael when I found out that he had passed away earlier this year. Suffering from chronrosarcoma, Michael was taken from us far too early.

Peter Steigerwald, a longtime colleague of Turner’s, presided over the large group who had come to remember Turner, and in turn many of the biggest names in comics shared their memories of Michael Turner.

In 2008, a virus breaks out in Scotland. It can’t be cured, so they build a huge wall on the Scotland/Britain border. The healthy stay on the English side to get rich and snooty. The sick stay on the Scottish side, where they eat all the food before they start eating each other, and they fall prey to savage violence and even worse fashion choices.

So yeah, Doomsday is COMPLETELY FICTIONAL!

Anyway, the virus strike sin England again after thirty years, and the government sends their biggest badass, Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) to go over the wall and find the one renegade doctor who might have a cure (Malcolm McDowell). The gangs of Post-Apocalyptic Punk-Cannibals roaming Scotland ensure it will not be easy.

Where Doomsday differs from all the other crap is in the presentation. The writer/director of this little lark is Neil Marshall. His past efforts include Dog Soldiers, which is the only decent werewolf movie released since the eighties. They also include The Descent, which is a film (and my myspace friends will tell you this) that I legally married at the end of 2006.

To coincide with the release of Lost Boys: The Tribe‘s release on DVD today, we here at Geeks of Doom are giving away two (2) Lost Boys: The Tribe prize packs!

Two (2) winners will each receive:

– Lost Boys: The Tribe on DVD
– Lost Boys: The Tribe Soundtrack CD

This direct-to-DVD sequel to 1987′s The Lost Boys sees the return of the Coreys — Corey Haim and Corey Feldman — in another vampire-hunting adventure. The Soundtrack includes a remake of G Tom Mac’s The Lost Boys song “Cry Little Sister” performed by the band Aiden.

For more about Lost Boys: The Tribe and to watch some video clips from the DVD, check out the “About” section below.

At the San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, we got to see the entire Season 3 premiere of the NBC superhero drama, Heroes (see SDCC 08: ‘Heroes’ Season 3 Premiere Episode). But before we saw the full episode, we got to see all three Heroes Season 3 webisodes — the two that were released online earlier this month and one that just became available online today.

You can watch all three webisodes here below.

In the first webisode, we’re introduced to a new hero, Echo DeMille, a mailman who finds out he has special abilities; in the second one, we see Echo race home to protect his girlfriend Gina; in the final installment, Echo tries to get Gina to safety and, well, you’ll see what happens.

Director John Moore and stars Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges were in attendance at the San Diego Comic-Con this weekend to discuss Max Payne, their upcoming film adaptation of the video game.

Right off the bat, Moore explained that his biggest goal in taking such a popular video game with a great story and turning it into a major motion picture was just not to mess it up.

Here’s the funny thing about video games and movies — the minute you take that controller out of the player’s hands, you better deliver something of equal value. Ya gotta give them something so exciting and kick-ass and we thought the way to do that is to be highly subjective and make you feel like you are Max Payne.

Without a doubt, DC has managed to get some of the greatest cartoons ever produced. For an entire generation of kids, our memories of our childhood are indelibly linked to watching Batman and Superman on a Saturday morning. Now, a new generation of kids are going to get to watch Batman team up with a variety of characters in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

News of this cartoon is not news in and of itself, but a new debut date and trailer are definitely newsworthy.

Cartoon Network has announced, after first announcing it would premiere Fall 2008, then pushing it back to March 2009, that Batman: The Brave and the Bold will debut on Friday, November 14, 2008!

Secondly, Warner Bros. Animation has released a new description and trailer for the series.

One of the more popular franchises attached to DC comics — outside of the comics themselves of course — is Smallville, and the reimagining of the Superman mythos. It’s teenage heartache drama at its corniest, but it’s got 7 seasons under its belt and they’re still going.

Lex Luthor is leaving, taking actor Michael Rosenbaum with him, but apparently Justin Hartley will see his role of Oliver Queen/Green Arrow upgraded to a series regular. And a female named Tess, and the introduction of Davis Bloome/Doomsday will definitely keep the season interesting.

However, news out of San Diego Comic Con this weekend has fans of the Legion of Super-Heroes excited. Geoff Johns, who is currently working on Legion of Three Worlds as a Final Crisis tie-in, wrote Rogues’ Revenge, and was just announced to be teaming back up with Ethan Van Scriver for The Flash: Rebirth, is also bringing the Legion to Smallville.

One of the highlights every year at the San Diego Comic Con is any panel that may involve Kevin Smith. It doesn’t matter if you love him or hate him, enjoy or loathe his movies, there’s just no arguing that the dude is funnier than a narcoleptic seagull.

This year, Smith’s big panel was for his upcoming movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and he brought an odd little bunch of friends along with him in regulars Scott Mosier and Jason Mewes, stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, Ricky Mabe, and male-favorites Katie Morgan and Traci Lords. How’s THAT for an entourage?

Smith got the dance going with a clip which was preceded by a silent-but-hilarious little progression of words warning everyone not to record said clip. The scene shown took place at a high school reunion where the attractive Miri (Banks) is trying to seduce the guy she had a crush in high school. She seems to be having a hard time of it, and her friend Zack finds out why when he meets Miri’s crush’s date.

As most of you Twilight fans know, Summit Entertainment had a Twilight panel at this year’s San Diego Comic Con this weekend (see SDCC 08: Summit Entertainment’s ‘Twilight’). On the Con floor, there was also a Twilight booth, which had freebies, contests, and a chance to get your picture taken with cardboard cut-outs of the stars from the upcoming film.

It’s safe to say the Twilight booth was one of the more frequented ones at the Con. I mean, the whole place was a madhouse, but that booth did real well this weekend. I fought my way over to it to see what kind of swag I could get my hands on. I missed out on the t-shirts, but I did snag a small poster and trading card sample set for myself … and extra ones for you guys who didn’t get a chance to go to the Con.

I have five extra sets of the Twilight trading card samples. If you want a pack, then just leave a comment here telling me why you think the Twilight movie will be awesome. I’ll pick 5 winners from those who leave a comment on this entry and one person will also get one of the posters.

In what is entirely unsurprising, The Dark Knight has once again taken top honors at the box office this weekend, completely blitzing anything and everything that attempted to make a big showing this weekend. This is especially bad news for The X-Files: I Want to Believe, which also debuted this weekend.

After a blockbuster opening weekend of over $150 million, TDK dropped by 52%, but still managed to gross an estimated $75.6 million, a 52% drop sure, but still $45.6 million over its nearest rival, Step Brothers, another debut movie. This brings TDK‘s total gross up over the $300 million mark to $314 million, bringing it within $660,000 of Iron Man for all time grosses. Of course, TDK has only been out for two weeks, so we think it might just pass it by.

Mamma Mia! brought in another $17.8 million to take its coffers up to $62.7 million, and taking third place as it beat out The X-Files, which only managed to take in $10 million, a dismal performance which is backed up by its 33% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

I’m a big fan of the original Friday The 13th movies — all 11 of them — and since I’m really not big on remakes, I really had NO interest in the Michael Bay-produced Platinum Dunes remake of the classic horror film.

But, Geeks of Doom’s own Movie God made me promise that I’d attend the Friday The 13th panel here at the San Diego Comic Con so I could report back to him about the film, and now I’m glad I did, because I got to see the teaser trailer and I’m definitely impressed.

The film’s producers, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, appeared on the panel along with the film’s stars Jared Padalecki (Supernatural), Amanda Righetti (The OC), and as the masked killer Jason Voorhees, Derek Meers.

The producers said they were committed to making a new Friday The 13th movie that was based in reality and not in the supernatural. The franchise’s later sequels introduced supernatural elements to it, making Jason — who was actually a little boy who drowned while at sleepaway camp — an invincible super-powered being. The filmmakers wanted their Jason to be believable to today’s audiences.

One of the last panels of the San Diego Comic Con was the second DC Nation panel, One Weekend Later. DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio was promising a big announcement to do with Batman RIP at the end, so we all had to stick around — either at the panel or refreshing our web pages — to find out what it was.

And the big news that has everyone in a mild state of shock is that Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert are teaming up after Batman RIP, in January of next year, to write Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?

The book not only is a direct reference to the 1986 Superman story, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, written by Alan Moore and Curt Swann, but will also see the reuniting of the team who wrote Marvel 1602 for Marvel back in 2003.

One of the most anticipated panels of this year’s San Diego Comic Con was for the upcoming movie, Watchmen. Moderated by Jeff Jansen of Entertainment Weekly, the panel consisted of director Zack Snyder and Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons, as well as the cast from the movie.

The movie stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian, Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, Malin Akerman as the Silk Spectre II and Carla Gugino as her predecessor, Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, and Patrick Wilson as Night Owl, all who joined Snyder and Gibbons on stage.

The atmosphere in Hall H was electric, with people cheering at the obvious respect that these people have for arguably one of the greatest novels and comics of all time. Their reverence and referencing the TPB as “a bible” was very reminiscent of the atmosphere on the set of Lord of the Rings, where the book was lore and everybody had at least one battered copy lying around to refer too.

Saw fans rejoice, the first teaser trailer for Saw V has been released to the masses.

Watch it here below!

Honestly, I think Saw just continues to recycle the same idea over and over and people keep biting on it; this teaser changes nothing. If it is your kind of deal, though, continue on and enjoy the glorious tease.

Saw V is slated for an October 24, 2008 release and stars the regulars, Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith. It’s directed by David Hackl and written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan.

The hedonistic glare of the Nineties is a distant memory. I remember my fervent weekly devotion to the X-Files television show. It was one of my favorite shows on network television. For me, the show was the very essence of Nineties television. In a post-Cold War landscape, it was time to turn the lens on ourselves. The show captured paranoia and conspiracy on a grand scale. The high concept pitch would have been The Parallex View meets Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

I would say the series worked very well for the first seven seasons. Why did it work? The relationship between David Duchovny‘s Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson‘s Dana Scully was and will always be the core of the X-Files. Tamper with that dynamic and you do not have much to work with at all. As much as I adore every incarnation of The Avengers, it was always at its best with Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. Yes, Anderson and Duchovny have that kind of chemistry.

Director Andy Fickman, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (who worked together on The Game Plan) and Carla Gugino from Disney’s upcoming Race to Witch Mountain sat down and answered a few questions (some appropriate, some not) yesterday about the movie for the San Diego Comic Con crowd.

Fickman — who was obviously thrilled to be part of a panel after 9 years of being a spectator — filled us in that it was sort of a re-imagining and not a sequel, although it does take place 30 years after the 1975 original film, Escape to Witch Mountain. Also, the actors who played the kids from the original movie — Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann — will play a large part in this movie.

Fickman also talked a bit about the upcoming film’s mythology.

Director Sam Raimi said that a fourth Evil Dead movie is in the works!

While speaking at the San Diego Comic-Con panel for his upcoming horror film, Drag Me To Hell, Raimi said that he’d love to do another Evil Dead film with actor Bruce Campbell and that he’d like to work on it with his brother Ivan Raimi starting next week.

“I love working with Bruce Campbell and he’s like Allison [Lohman, star of Raimi's Drag Me To Hell]. He’s super willing to do anything to make it right. He’s a very funny guy, but mostly he’s got this quality where he will physically do anything to get the shot done right, so I would love to work with Bruce again because I’d love to test those limits. I’d love to make another Evil Dead picture. And actually that’s in the wheelhouse. I’d like to work on it with my brother Ivan [Raimi] when he comes up next week.“

We lucky few (thousand) who made it into San Diego Comic Con’s Hall H this morning were treated to the first episode from the upcoming season three of Heroes. And Holy Hell, it was great! The episode is titled Second Coming and it definitely kicks off the new season with an entirely different tone from season two’s ambling disarray. The feel of the episode was dark, with nearly everyone of the heroes seeming to go against character and making some very questionable decisions.

Before I get into serious spoiler territory, I’ll say that although they brought out the entire ensemble cast, plus writer/creator Tim Kring, and co-producer Jeph Loeb, there was very little time for panel discussion and audience Q&A (for obvious reasons — they spent the time showing the entire episode!). But audience reaction the panel was immense, and especially towards Zachary Quinto, who plays Heroes villain Sylar.

Also, the Season 2 DVD, which will be released August 26th, will include some unaired episodes that didn’t make it on screen because of the writers’ strike.