One day before the Platinum Dunes reboot of Friday the 13th is released, one of their next horror reboots has obtained a captain. New Line Cinema and sub-studio Platinum Dunes have announced that Samuel Bayer will direct A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Bayer is best known for his work on music videos, having directed a ton of them since 1991 including — The Offspring’s Gotta Get Away, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Marylin Manson’s Coma White and Disposable Teens, Melissa Etheridge’s Come To My Window, Blind Melon’s No Rain with the nightmare-inducing little girl in the bumblebee costume, Metallica’s Until It Sleeps, and Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. These are just a few notable ones of many. The dude has his hand in a ton of various artists’ music videos. Bayer has also ton a bunch of big time product commercials.

As you all know, A Nightmare on Elm Street deals in the world of Freddy Krueger, a child killer who was burned alive and who infiltrates young people’s dreams, killing them while they sleep, which in-turn, kills them in reality. [...]

Comic Zeal
Mobile Comic Book Reader
Developer: bitolithic
Price: $1.99

The Comic Zeal iPhone app offers a way to read comics on a handheld device that conserve battery life much better than other similar applications. While most people may be turned off that it cannot read CBR or CBZ formats, the decision was intentional since CBR files are usually compressed and would require processor power to open (thus also decreasing battery life).

The downside to this is a lack of comics available. However, anyone can use the to upload their own user-created content so its a fair trade off.

The app has a great navigation interface as is storing and downloading new comics. Users can download comics directly from the app itself or upload them if they’ve been stored elsewhere. Version 2.06 offers new “eye-candy” graphics, like the ability to organize collections into comic boxes and bookmark pages for unfinished comics [...]

We live in uncertain economic times. A night out at the movies has to be worth the price of admission. People want to escape from their lives for a few hours. They want to escape into the dark theaters for entertainment, for escapism. It does not surprise me that Paul Blart: Mall Cop was number one at the North American box office for two weekends in a row. I have not seen the film and I must say I have very little interest in seeing it, but I see the appeal very clearly. You can take the whole family to see it. Does it surprise anyone that Marley And Me and Bedtime Stories did as well as they did during the holiday season? It should not; these are films that whole families can go see and enjoy together.

During the Great Depression, everyone went to the movies; it was long before television — radio was the only competition. Musicals and comedies were the crowd pleasers of the day. Dark and serious films have a hard enough time during boom times which is a great tragedy, but during bad times, it is much harder to fill seats for serious fare. Now the competition is fierce — movies must compete with television, DVDs, the internet, video games, and a whole host of alternatives. In the best of times, one needed a real crowd pleaser to get people off their sofas and into theater seats. This past summer saw the release of one of those films, The Dark Knight. The film has made well over a billion dollars worldwide. People of all ages and all walks of life went to see the film. It was one of those watershed moments where a film truly speaks to the moment. Given its release date, the film was the calm before the storm [...]

It was reported recently that we’d finally get our first look at Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglourious Basterds some time this week. Unexpectedly, this promise actually carried through and here now, is the first teaser trailer!

The trailer features Brad Pitt — using a much stronger, militant version of his Assassination of Jesse James accent — looking for 8 soldiers to help him kill the Nazis; he demands 100 Nazi scalps of each of them. That’s 800 f’n Nazi scalps, for those of you who refuse to learn math because it’s how the aliens will eventually control us and take over Earth. The trailer shows a lot of other stuff, too… including a little Hitler action for you all. I don’t want to ruin the whole party though, you’ll have to jump below to watch the trailer here a few hundred times, as I will be. No word on if all 800 scalpings will be featured, but I assume if they were, this movie would be far past a R-rating.

Inglourious Basterds follows two storylines during World War II. One storyline is about a young girl who witnesses her family’s execution before narrowly escaping; she then starts a new life as the operator of a theater. The other storyline follows a troupe of Jewish-American soldiers who set off on a special mission to slaughter the Nazis [...]

Ghoul day to you all, my living lunches. It’s your favorite Zombie correspondent who also happens to be a Zombie… ol’ Obvious.

So here I am repeatedly walking into a wall in some strange apartment (zombies lack a certain amount of navigational skills, shut up) when I bumped the little hollow-headed lad laying most un-flatteringly to across a table (this morning’s breakfast). Glowing amidst the grue and gunk, his laptop screen captivated me. I moved closer and found myself incredibly happy. After my eye adjusted (yeah, I have one) I read this.

Get this… some awesome meatbag took the Jane Austen über-classic novel Pride and Prejudice and mashed up with a horde of undead and retitled this newly minted horror tale Pride and Prejudice and Zombies … and the Hollywood feeding frenzy for it has already begun!

If I had naughty bits, they would have been tingling. Seriously, can any of you walking, thinking happy meals deny this anymore? You go about your daily lives pretending we don’t exist, but we’re most definitely real and we’re coming to take over very soon. THIS is your first warning sign [...]

The theatrical trailer for director Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code follow-up Angels & Demons is now online.

Tom Hanks returns as symbologist Robert Langdon for this prequel story, that has the Harvard professor up against the ancient secret society, The Illuminati, which has returned for revenge against the Catholic Church.

Ewan McGregor and Stellan Skarsgård also star in the film, which will be released May 15, 2009.

Official Synopsis

The team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code returns for the highly anticipated Angels & Demons, based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard religious expert Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Angels & Demons will be released by Columbia Pictures and Imagine Entertainment [...]

Boxing Day
Directed by Francis Abbey
Starring Demetrius Parker, Bridget Devlin Burke, Jim Murphy, Vicki Hartford, Jenna St. John, Danny Gavigan
Ten Sundays Production

In the brief DVD feature “The $1,000 Pitch” director Francis Abbey describes the story for his film Boxing Day as a cross between the Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn/Sidney Poitier classic Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Seinfeld co-creator Larry David’s HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm, and if he would also throw in Meet the Parents, Everybody Loves Raymond , and the original British version of The Office (not to mention the aforementioned Seinfeld), then that would sum up Boxing Day perfectly.

Sometimes great humor can be mined from ordinary people finding themselves in the most uncomfortable situations and how they attempt to deal with them or get out of them. There are a lot of moments like that packed into Boxing Day‘s tight 86-minute running time, moments when you’re not sure whether or not to laugh or bury your face in your hands and slowly leave the room without bumping into any furniture. Needless to say this is a hilarious film that takes its slightly incendiary premise (and it’s not incendiary for the reason you think) and milks every possible joke and idea from it until the finale when the lead characters collapse on a couch totally exhausted, and you will probably want to do the same [...]

Zombie CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead
Paperback
Written by Jonathan Maberry
Citadel Press
Release date: September 1, 2008

It’s a good time to be a zombie, or at least a lover of all things zombie-related. Max Brooks recently had two best sellers about the undead hordes, The Zombie Survival Guide (a sort of “worst case scenario” book for dealing with the ghoulish undead) and World War Z (an oral history of the coming war against the zombie hordes.) Call To Duty: World At War had a special game play mode after the credits rolled, where suddenly you have to fight your way through hordes of carnivorous Nazi undead in order to extend your miserable life. Zombies from the Third Reich also appear in Dead Snow, a selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in which a group of Scandinavian kids who accidentally awaken Wehrmacht and SS zombie hordes in the Nordic snow. We will even soon be treated to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a classic Regency zombie romance re-write of a Jane Austen classic by Seth Grahame-Smith.

To all this zombie gold, we must add Zombie CSU – The Forensics of the Living Dead by Jonathan Maberry. Taking something of an opposite tack from Max Brooks’ work, Maberry starts by asking “What would a real zombie outbreak look like?” and then goes to find answers from real pathologists and criminologists who are interested in the subject. Along the way, he provides frequent little detours into zombie-related subjects like the roots of the modern zombie phenomenon, lists of key zombie films, differences between zombie film genres, the zombie in art and illustration, and quotes from fellow zombie-philes in the arts and sciences [...]

After leaving Paramount last fall and after a supposed deal with Universal fell through, DreamWorks has reached a distribution deal with Disney. This sets up a pretty huge pairing in legendary Steven Spielberg and juggernaut Disney.

The deal is set to begin in 2010 with an expected 6 movies per year for around 7 years and a total of 30 movies. Disney will invest about a $250 Million jump start to the struggling studio, who in turn, will pay Disney about 9% of their box office take per movie.

The loan from Disney will be put together with $325 Million that India’s Reliance Big Entertainment has put in as well. This would make about $575 Million toward DreamWork’s goal of $650 Million total.

The interesting twist here, is DreamWorks Animation will still work with Paramount. DreamWorks SKG co-founder (the K in SKG) Jeffrey Katzenberg heads the animation department, whose biggest rival (king and rival to all animation companies) is Pixar, who also has a deal with Disney. The deal doesn’t affect Katzenberg at all, but it’s surely not the easiest to swallow. [...]

The trades are reporting that Aaron Eckhart is in negotiations and Richard Jenkins (currently Oscar nominated for his role in The Visitor) has signed on to The Rum Diary — based on the book by Hunter S. Thompson.

The story follows Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp), a freelance journalist and heavy drinker who moves to Puerto Rico to write for a newspaper. Eckhart would play a rich land owner named Sanderson, who attempts to show Kemp an alternative way of life. He’s involved with a woman named Chenault (played by Amber Heard), who also gets involved with Kemp, creating a good old fashioned love triangle. Richard Jenkins will play Lotterman, the head of the newspaper where Kemp works.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote the story based on his own story as a journalist who moved to San Juan to write for a newspaper. He wrote the book in 1959, but it wasn’t published until 1998.

This will be Johnny Depp’s second go round in the world of Hunter S. Thompson — his first being Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. [...]

Ghost Town
DVD
Directed by David Koepp
Starring Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Téa Leoni, Jordan Carlos, Dequina Moore
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 27, 2008

David Koepp may be best known for writing big studio summer blockbusters such as Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, and last year’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but every few years he gets behind the camera and makes a movie that has an interesting concept but ultimately gets marketed poorly, released at the wrong time, and forgotten about before it even has a chance. Now I’ve never been interested enough to see Koepp’s 1996 directorial debut The Trigger Effect but I did enjoy Stir of Echoes (1999) and Secret Window (2004), his adaptations of short works from Richard Matheson. As a director, Koepp has not found a distinctive voice yet but he manages to make perfectly fine films that should not be overlooked in a day and age where mature, intelligent genre films coming from major studios are in short supply. His latest effort Ghost Town basically suffered the same fate as those I’ve already mentioned, but hopefully the film will find new life now that it is available on DVD.

One of the hallmarks of ghost stories is that sometimes the spirits of the dead cannot depart this mortal coil until they have resolved unfinished business. The ghost town of the film’s title in this case is the island of Manhattan in New York City where thousands of dead souls gather and are left with little choice than to wander the earth for all eternity because they cannot be seen by the living. Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) is a dentist who loathes human contact and is perfectly content with keeping to himself [...]

Every year at Con season, Marvel EIC Joe Quesada likes to take time out to connect with fans at the fan favorite Cup O Joe panel. Taking questions as well as making a few announcements, Quesada gives it to ’em straight and usually brings a few friends along.

At New York Comic Con this past weekend, Quesada thankfully did have a few friends in tow. Joining him on the panel was marketing maven Jim McCann, Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley, uber writer Brian Michael Bendis, and the world traveling talent scout/writer CB Cebulski.

Sitting down to a rousing welcome from the crowd, Quesada pre-ambled to the crowd that this panel is as fun as they make it, and luckily the fans decided on “fun” for the day by cheering their faces off. After introducing the rest of the crew, Joe directed everyone’s attention to the PowerPoint presentation for the announcements segment [...]

On January 20, Lionsgate released their horror rock-opera Repo! The Genetic Opera on DVD and Blu-ray and to conjunction with this release, we here at Geeks of Doom have copies to give away to some lucky readers!

Three (3) winners will each receive:

– 1 copy of Repo! The Genetic Opera on either DVD or Blu-ray*

*Be sure to note in the OPTIONAL COMMENTS section in the Entry Form whether you want DVD, BLU-RAY, or EITHER.

TO ENTER: Fill out the entry form HERE and submit.

RULES: One entry per person. All entries must be in by Monday, February 16, 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.

From the producers of the Saw franchise and director Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II, Saw III and Saw IV), based on a screenplay by Darren Smith & Terrance Zdunich from their original stage play, comes the new cult classic Repo! The Genetic Opera. A futuristic tale of horror that modernizes the “rock opera” genre with original music and rich, dark production design, the film features an eclectic cast that includes Anthony Stewart Head, Sarah Brightman, Alexa Vega, Bill Moseley and Paris Hilton [...]

Joss Whedon previewed his new television show Dollhouse to a crowd of enthusiastic fans at New York Comic Con‘s first big Sunday panel.

Dollhouse peers into the life of Echo (played by Eliza Dushku), a human “doll” who takes on a new personality to perform missions for an underground criminal organization and is then mind-wiped after completion. When Echo starts to put together bits and pieces from past missions, she begins a search for her own self identity.

Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica) co-stars as Paul, an FBI special agent who discovers the underground “dollhouse” facility when Echo begins to regain memories from her previous identities.

The clip shown at the panel of the upcoming show, which began with Echo is a counseling session. Next, Echo is on a motorcycle racing down a busy city street against who she believed to be her boyfriend. They end the race at a club where they celebrate the boyfriend’s birthday [...]

At the New York Comic Con‘s Cup O Joe panel, Marvel announced that the long-running comic book series Ultimate Spider-Man will get the axe soon, as will the entire Ultimate Universe line.

The news came as a “surprise” to writer Brian Michael Bendis, who joked that Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada was dead to him. “I’m Christian Bale-ing on you!” he said.

However, a new line of books under the banner Ultimate Comics will begin very soon, Quesada replied, adding that Spider-Man is one of four ongoing books in the line. All of these titles will have the same editorial schedule as the regular line of Marvel books.

“Because Ultimate was on its own schedule, there as a disconnect,” Bendis said in reference to the Ultimate Spider-Man restart, which will begin as Volume 2, Issue 1. “I wanted to react to things in the other books but I couldn’t without ruining their stories.” [...]

In a move that just may confirm that he only signs on to direct movies as opposed to actually directing movies, Brett Ratner has signed to direct an adaptation of the comic book Youngblood. Reliance Big Entertainment acquired the rights to the property and signed a deal with Ratner and his Rat Entertainment while at the Berlin Film Festival.

Youngblood is about a team of superheroes that has been assembled by the U.S. government, which also oversees the team. Members include Badrock, who is all rock like The Fantastic Four’s The Thing, as well as a former FBI agent named Shaft and an assassin named Chapel. A second team also exists and one of their enemies is called The Four, which consists of four baddies.

The comic originated in 1987. No word on the time table for the movie [...]

Legendary animator Bruce Timm was on hand to discuss the latest DC Universe original animated movie, Wonder Woman at over the weekend New York Comic Con, which is where it made its world premiere.

The movie will be released March 3 and features the talents of Keri Russell as the voice of Wonder Woman and Nathan Fillion as the voice of Lt. Steve Trevor.

Timm, who has previously worked on a plethora of DC’s animated videos, said the Wonder Woman from the new movie will contain aspects from every era of the character’s rich history.

“[This Wonder Woman] actually wasn’t based on any one specific comic. There was some misinformation about that earlier on — that it was based on the George Perez version. There are similarities, but it’s not specifically based on George’s run,” Timm said during a roundtable interview at NYCC [...]

One interesting panel at this year’s New York Comic Con is the one for the brand new Friday the 13th re-imagining. The movie opens in less than a week, which isn’t the kind of movies you see at the conventions, but consider it a little appetizer to the film — something to make you hungry for Friday, February 13, 2009.

Right off the bat, they showed the trailer for the movie and director Marcus Nispel introduces stars Jared Paladecki and Jason Voorhees himself, Derek Mears.

Next up was right into the exclusive footage, where they showed the first six minutes or so of the movie. There’s not a whole lot to describe because everyone needs to go see it, but let’s just say they go right into the pre-marital sex and violence and there’s a hell of a lot of screaming involved. All the ingredients that help make Friday the 13th what it is. If you really must know what transpires in the beginning of the film, then check the bottom of this post for the spoiler.

After watching the beginning of the movie, they go into the Q&A session.

Derek Mears is asked what it’s like being Jason, which I’m sure he’s been asked 2,000 times, but never gets sick of answering [...]

Marvel Entertainment will begin selling digital “In-Motion” comic books through iTunes, it was announced yesterday at the Digital Media panel at New York Comic Con.

The company is working with Neal Adams and Continuity Studios to create a new form of digital comics for iTunes dubbed motion comics, which feature panels that animate scenes and add spoken dialog from voice actors. No exact price point was discussed, however, it was mentioned that multiple prices could happen depending on the content.

The Comic Con panel offered a preview of an Astonishing X-Men motion comic based on the recent Joss Whedon run, with more original content planned in the future, according to Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis, along with frequent collaborator Alex Maleev, will do a new Spider-Woman motion comic starting in February, which will be the first in-continuity title produced specifically for the new digital medium [...]

Coraline
Directed by Henry Selick
Starring Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Ian McShane, Jennifer Saunders, Keith David, John Hodgman
Rated PG
Release date: February 6, 2009

There is something sadistic lurking in the mind of Coraline director Henry Selick, who also wrote the script from Neil Gaiman‘s children’s book. Selick’s vision evokes bareness and disconnection at their most extreme state. Coraline looks and feels like no other animated film in recent memory. Part of its mysticism is that it lays on the outskirts of conventional films, especially kid related films, where there isn’t any cuddly sidekick, boisterous colors, or predictable plot. It has a strange aura around it, the same aura synonymous with silent films in that it creates a supernatural feel to it not allowing the audience to fully comprehend what they are watching. This just goes to show people the talent that Selick acquires. That he can take the Christmas spirit (he directed Nightmare Before Christmas) and all the tidings attached to it and turn it into an artful piece of catastrophic evil proportions is truly amazing. That he can also use the same technology he used with Nightmare, which was a stop-motion animated feature, and upgrade it in Coraline giving it the full 3D experience is equally amazing. 2009 has just begun but Coraline has the potential of being the most creative and gorgeous looking film of the year as well as the most daring [...]