Drew McWeeny had the chance to speak with Lloyd Levin, who along with Larry Gordon, are producers on Watchmen. As you all know, the movie has been in it deep with their legal battle with Fox about who owns the rights to the movie.

Mr. Levin took the time to write a very thorough, in-depth open letter covering the seemingly infinite amount of complications that they’ve faced in their efforts to bring Watchmen to movie form as well as why Fox beyond a doubt doesn’t at all deserve any piece of that movie. Yes, they may be more moral reasons instead of legal, but they’re sufficient.

Definitely follow the link to Hit Fix and read the entire letter, but I’ll try and cover some of the more important bits [...]

After finding out how much of a fan Barack Obama was of comic books and specifically, Spider-Man, Marvel made sure that they got to work on an issue where the two meet up.

In conjunction with the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama, Marvel is teaming up the President-Elect with the everyone’s favorite webslinging superhero in Amazing Spider-Man #583, “Spidey Meets the President!”

The story, written by Zeb Wells with art by Todd Nauck and Frank D’Armata, occurs in Washington, D.C. on Inauguration Day, where an old Spidey nemesis will try to thwart the swearing in ceremony of the 44th President of the United States.

The issue #583 will be on sale at comic shops on January 14, 2009, and will also have a special variant cover featuring Obama and Spidey by artist Phil Jimenez [...]

Call of Duty: World at War
Genre: First Person Shooter
ESRB: M for Mature
Developer: ACTIVISION/Treyarch Studios
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release Date: November 11, 2008

Just another WWII shooter right? Well, in this case, yes and no. The name Call of Duty has become synonymous with quality first-person shooters and sequels continue to improve upon their predecessors. That was until now, as the fifth installment seems to have hit a few bumps along the way and fails to really improve on some of more innovative aspects introduced in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It is worth noting that this game was produced by Treyarch Studios, who were responsible for part 3, but not part 4, which was produced by Infinity Ward. Even ignoring the WWII/Modern aspects, the contrast in styles is obvious, with some aspects not really helping the new version.

The story mode is entertaining, though at this point you have to wonder how creative people can get with yet another WWII first-person shooter. Even though Call of Duty: World at War lives up to its name by showing both the Asian and European fronts, I think the game could have done fine on its own focusing on the U.S.-Japanese conflict. The game jumps back and forth between the two fronts every two missions, which can be a bit annoying as it breaks the storyline for the sake of breaking it. Supporting this notion is the fact that a majority of the Asian front levels take place nearly a year after the fall of Berlin. You will play two levels in the spring of 1945 only be sent back to the battle of Stalingrad immediately after. It seems unnecessary. While the Japanese campaign story would have been fine on its own, I have to admit some of the Russian/German levels were my favorite ones to play [...]

In a fantastic bit of news, it’s being reported that both Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell are in discussions to play villains in the Summer 2010 mega-blockbuster, Iron Man 2.

Unfortunately, much confusion is stemming from this announcement.

Variety is reporting that Rockwell’s potential role isn’t known yet and that Rourke would be playing a big Russian arms dealer with a tattoo collection who eventually becomes Crimson Dynamo.

On the other hand, THR is reporting that Rourke would be playing a big Russian arms dealer with a tattoo collection who eventually becomes Whiplash, a former electrical technician for Stark Industries who decides to go villain and who is actually called Backlash because Whiplash is a female superhero now. They’re also hearing that Rockwell would be playing Justin Hammer, a much older gentleman who is a rival businessman to Stark Industries — a character who just doesn’t look or sound like he’d be fitted to Sam Rockwell’s style [...]

Yahoo has debuted the brand new one-sheet for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen from DreamWorks. There’s nothing stand-out shocking or surprising, but it’s a pretty sweet little poster. It’s dark and there’s a big robot who has large, scary red eyes looking right at you.

Click the image to see it full size.

If /Film‘s guess is correct, the poster shows Jetfire, a Decepticon who was banished and brought back by the Autobots. The reason I mention this is because I hope it’s right. An ex-Decepticon joining the Autobots to F.S.U…. what could be better?

Living man-god Michael Bay also chimed in with his thoughts at the end of the year and what’s to come [...]

As always, the Watchmen movie is a huge topic. So instead lots of little stories, here’s one with all the latest goodies.

First off, and most importantly, the lawsuit update: It seems that both Fox and Warner Bros. have decided to pass up a trial by jury and let WB’s favorite judge on the planet right now make a decision on the March 6, 2009 release date that is set.

This means that on January 20th (the date originally set for a trial), Judge Gary Feess (the same dude who decided he didn’t want to wait until Jan. 20th and declared Fox the rightful owner) will sit down and decide whether Warner Brothers has the right to release the movie that they made on the date that they set, or if an injunction will be presented to prevent the movie from being released.

To explain in a much smarter fashion than my own, THR’s Matthew Belloni laid out the whole thing [...]

It only takes a few things in life to make me happy. One is Cheez-Its, another is the sweet, sweet fantasy that someone, somewhere will FINALLY catch that crafty bastard Benny Hill, and last but not least, Broken Lizard.

Collider has made me happy today, being the site that has the brand new red band trailer for Broken Lizard‘s newest offering, The Slammin’ Salmon.

Check out the trailer here, and remember, it’s RED BAND and NSFW. You’ve been warned.

The movie centers around the wait staff of a high class restaurant owned by a former heavyweight boxing champion (Michael Clarke Duncan) who sets up a contest where the best waiter will win $10,000 and the worst waiter will receive the ultimate ass-kicking by the champ himself.

The Broken Lizard comedy troupe first came into sight with Super Troopers, which I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve thrown on while drinking with friends [...]

Disney has put a new version of the Jules Verve classic titled 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo on the fast track and signed Terminator Salvation director McG to helm it.

Not many details are known, but the movie will supposedly follow Captain Nemo and the creation of his ship, The Nautilus. It’s being written by Bill Marsilli (Deja Vu).

McG is also in discussions to oversee development and direct the next film in the Terminator trilogy, which is a surprise to me, as I thought he was already in as director on all three. This likely means that Captain Nemo will be one fast-moving project, one Disney apparently wants THIS year [...]

Season 2 of the FX Network drama Damages premieres today at 10PM ET/PT, after over 14 months since the Season 1 finale back in October 2007.

It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since any new episodes have aired. The show, which debuted in July 2007, was originally scheduled to begin its sophomore season in the summer of 2008, but was delayed and then nearly canceled because of the Writers’ Strike. While other shows became casualties of said Strike, the legal-thriller drama managed to escape the ax.

The first season of Damages saw Rose Bryne as the recent law school graduate Ellen Parsons, who takes a high-pressure job at the law firm Hewes & Associates, headed by cut-throat high-stakes litigation lawyer Patty Hewes (Glenn Close). The naive Ellen is hardly prepared for what happens over the next six months, including the murder of her fiance.

Hulu has a two-part recap of Season 1 of Damages, which will get you up to speed for tonight’s season premiere. Both videos — which are here below — are just under 20 minutes total, so you have plenty of time

Season 2 Preview

FX Network sent me the first three episodes of Season 2, which I watched immediately and LOVED! [...]

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has unveiled their Blu-ray titles for 2009, which will include new Blu-ray + DVD Combo Packs, as well as new Blu-ray releases from the Disney/Pixar/Miramax/Touchtone/ABC back catalogs.

Disney’s Combo Pack — which is the Blu-ray and the DVD in one single package — will be available for Disney-branded theatrical and Platinum titles releasing on Blu-ray between February and October of 2009.

According to Disney’s press release, the inclusion of the feature film on standard definition DVD will allow consumers without Blu-ray players to “future proof” their collections. This means that even if you’re not ready to purchase a Blu-ray player now, you won’t have to re-buy all your movies on Blu-ray in the future. Also, if you already have a Blu-ray player, you can use the standard DVD for use in your computer or portable DVD player.

For those of us eagerly awaiting the release of some of those Pixar gems, it looks like we’ll be getting Monsters Inc. and A Bugs Life some time this year. See all the titles here below; release dates are listed where available [...]

After making a few supporting role casting announcements, Disney has announced that they’ve cast Garrett Hedlund in the lead of their upcoming sequel, Tron.

Hedlund is best known as Achilles‘ cousin in Troy as well as the non-Mark Wahlberg white brother in Four Brothers. He was also in the movie version of Friday Night Lights. Hedlund beat out other potential candidates for this second Tron film, such as Ryan Gosling and Chris Pine.

The story will follow a man who — much like the first movie — gets stuck inside a computer world, where he will retrace the steps of the first movie’s main character.

The more I hear about this, the more it sounds exactly like the first movie. It doesn’t help that apparently now the title has gone from the horrid Tr2n to Tron 2 to just Tron… which last I checked was exactly what the original was called. This might just beat the brilliant Fast and Furious name-creating team [...]

Amazon has a new deal going on right now on select Blu-ray titles to Buy Two Blu-ray Discs, Get One Free.

From now til January 16, 2009, choose two Blu-ray discs from a selection of 240 titles (nine pages’ worth), and get another one free.

Here are some hot items from the list of eligible titles:

• Transformers (Two-Disc Special Edition + BD Live) [Blu-ray] — $24.95
• 300 [Blu-ray] — $22.95
• Pan’s Labyrinth [Blu-ray] — $23.95
• Cloverfield [Blu-ray] — $24.95
• Beowulf [Blu-ray] — $25.95
• Mad Men – Season One [Blu-ray] — $34.95
• Stargate: Continuum [Blu-ray] — $24.95

There’s plenty more to choose from, so check out the full list for all of the eligible Blu-ray titles [...]

The LA Times spoke to author Orson Scott Card, who’s currently promoting his direct sequel to Ender’s Game, Ender In Exile, and during the conversation, the movie adaptation that was supposedly in the works was brought up. Last we had heard was of Wolfgang Peterson‘s departure from directing duties (see Wolfgang Peterson Leaves Ender’s Game), but nothing since.

In what came as a great surprise, Mr. Card told them that the latest movie project had been scrapped because he “did not feel comfortable with the movie’s direction.” It was also explained that this and other attempted projects never worked because of Card’s refusal to allow his property to fall into Hollywood’s love for “tough-hero action films” and their usage of the green screen. He also clarified that he would still love to see an Ender’s Game movie, but he says the only way to make the movie work is when “…the human relationships are absolutely essential — an honest presentation of the story.”

Time will tell if someone will ever have the vision that Orson Scott Card wants to see translated on to the big screen [...]

A brand new video for the SCI FI channel’s upcoming Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica has been released and it is interesting, to say the least.

The clip basically shows Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) being lead through a club and getting a little information out of a young girl. The club seems to be the type where all sexual inhibitions are left at the door, unless you’re there to brawl, which is always welcomed as well.

For those who don’t know, Caprica will be set 50 years before the Galactica that we all know. It tells the story of two families, the Adamas and the Graystones, who are at conflict with one another over the discovery of what eventually becomes the Cylons. The Adamas are lead by Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) — father of BSG‘s Admiral Bill Adama — and the Graystones by Stoltz’s Daniel [...]

For today’s interesting hire of the day, Horton Hears A Who! co-director Jimmy Hayward has been brought on to direct the movie adaptation of the graphic novel Jonah Hex.

This will be Hayward’s first trek into the realm of live-action, which makes it one of the craziest back-to-back projects for a director I’ve heard of. It will be very interesting to see how he goes from fun and simple kids’ movie to a graphic novel movie about a gunman with a very grotesque, Two Face-esque half of a face who wears a Confederate uniform and kills lots of peoples.

Before directing Horton, Hayward did work on many other animated films, such as Robots and a collection of Pixar fare including both Toy Story movies, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo. All of this work leads a logical directing job, but still nothing that tells us how he might do on an adult comic book movie [...]

After it was rumored for so long, it has now been officially announced that the unfailing team of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz) will play Thomson & Thompson in the three-movie Tintin project from Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.

The casting is interesting, as the twin characters are only identifiable by their mustaches. This is something hard to imagine with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who couldn’t look more different than one another; it’s part of their appeal… a modern day, British Laurel and Hardy, if you will. Maybe Frost lost a lot of weight for the role? Who knows! I’m sure they have some great, comical ideas in mind to make it all work.

The trilogy will be in full stylistic 3D motion-capture form, a la The Polar Express and Beowulf. Spielberg will handle the first movie’s directing duties, Jackson will do the second, and one or the other or both will do the final film [...]

NPR recently did a feature story classifying geeks by the way they read their comic books. And while the article was worth every penny donated by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, there were some discrepancies with their logic demanding immediate attention.

For instance, all comics-purchasing geeks and geekettes can be divided and classified into two possible sub-species according to author Glen Weldon — (1) Grazers – who simply work their way through their stack of weekly titles in whatever random order the shop rang them up, or (2) Stackers, who have a ritual of carefully sorting through their selections prior to reading.

After working at a comic book shop for four years, I can honestly say I’ve never once heard my fanboy brethren classified as either a grazer or a stacker. This leads me to believe he bullshitted the entire thing, which doesn’t really matter. The article isn’t inaccurate, but it’s also not necessarily reality. It was an entertaining read and usually that’s enough for me to close the browser tab and move on. Instead, I’m going to make an example of Weldon and the blatantly Detective Comics-biased organization known as National Public Radio [...]

Out of all of the original Dr. Seuss books and cartoons to be adapted to movie form, Horton Hears A Who! is the first to go all CG, differentiating itself from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat.

The movie follows Horton (Jim Carrey), a friendly and innocent elephant teacher who thinks that he hears a noise from a small speck on top of a small flower and comes to believe that this small speck holds a world of tiny people, to which most of the other animals think he’s absolutely nuts. In time, he finds a way to communicate with the Mayor of this tiny world (Steve Carrell), known as of Whoville. The Mayer tells Horton that his continuous movement is messing up the little world’s climate and will eventually destroy everything. This sets Horton off on a journey to find the perfect spot to safely put them while trying to avoid an extremely tyrannical soccer mom kangaroo (Carol Burnett), her hired vulture (Will Arnett), and a grab bag of other speedbumps along the way [...]

A completely nuts new video has been uncovered that shows the stunt team from the new movie Ninja Assassin practicing their choreography for the movie.

The video is filled with some amazing sword fighting and martial arts work, so you have to check it out if you’re into that kind of thing. If this video is any kind of sample as to what we can expect when the movie comes along, then we’re in for some sort of treat here, folks. Especially if this gets a hard R-rating as it looks to be getting.

The movie is directed by James McTeigue, who directed V for Vendetta. The Wachowski Brothers produced Vendetta for him and are also producing this movie along with Joel Silver. Current hot hand J. Michael Straczynski (Changeling) wrote the script.

Ninja Assassin follows a child who is kidnapped by a secret clan, who raise him and train him to be one of the deadliest ninjas ever to walk the earth. When the clan executes his best friend, the ninja goes into hiding and begins his preparation for complete revenge [...]

On Friday, January 9, Rogue Pictures’ new supernatural horror thriller The Unborn opens in theaters. In conjunction with the release, we here at Geeks of Doom have five (5) Unborn posters signed by writer/director David S. Goyer and star Odette Yustman to give away to our readers!

Goyer is the co-writer of this summer’s blockbuster The Dark Knight, and you might remember Yustman as the beautiful young Beth in the monster movie Cloverfield. Also starring in The Unborn are Gary Oldman (Harry Potter), Cam Gigandet (Twilight), and Meagan Good (Saw V).

Five (5) winners will each receive:

– an Unborn movie poster autographed by writer/director David S. Goyer and star Odette Yustman

For more information about The Unborn, see the About section.

TO ENTER: Fill out the form below and submit. Entry form is here after the jump.

RULES: One entry per person. All entries must be in by Saturday, January 17, 2009 at 9pm EST. This contest is only open to residents of the United States. No international entries will be accepted. Void where prohibited. Winners will be chosen randomly from valid entries and will be notified by email. NOTE: We will not sell your contact info into spam slavery. Enter with confidence [...]