It began with a Tweet.

Coming Soon noticed a little message on Twitter recently from actress Lynn Collins which simply read “celebrating john carter of mars!!!!!!!” and nothing more. Naturally this would lead you to believe that she had landed a role in the movie version of John Carter of Mars which is being directed by Pixar man Andrew Stanton, but it’s also something to be skeptical about.

Proving that not everything we hear/see on the Internet is a lie, it’s now being officially confirmed that Lynn Collins has indeed been cast in John Carter of Mars, as well as her X-Men Origins: Wolverine co-star Taylor Kitsch. Kitsch, who is now best known for his work as Gambit in Wolverine, will be playing the man himself, John Carter. Collins — who played Silver Fox in Wolverine and also appeared in the first season of True Blood — will be playing Dejah Thoris, who is the heir to the throne of Mars’ Helium Kingdom. [...]

The Burrowers
Starring Clancy Brown, Sean Patrick Thomas, William Mapother, Doug Hutchison, Karl Geary
Written and Directed by J.T. Perry
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Release Date: April 21, 2009

Sometimes when you have a seen a lot of movies, you tend to jump the gun on your opinion of the film before you watch it. When I looked at the cover for The Burrowers, I have to tell ya, I thought the movie was going to be terrible. It is not rare occurrence. When you review a lot of types of movies, they are not all gems. Some are just dreadful but sometimes, when the stars are aligned, a movie can really surprise you and this movie did just that.

The Burrowers is a movie mash up like once you have not seen. It is 1879 and when farmhand Coffey discovers his betrothed has been taken by Indians in the dead of night, he rounds up a few good men to find her and bring her back. What they find on this journey are freakish looking monsters called Burrowers that only come out at night and have a penchant for grabbing, paralyzing, and eating humans.

There are many things that I liked about this movie but above all else, I like it because it has everything stacked up against it to make it a terrible movie. The plot is borderline absurd, no one on the cast is a household name, and the concept in itself is hit or miss. I mean cowboys vs. monsters? It just sounds so silly but somehow the film works, and there a several reasons for this [...]

Bloody-Disgusting has on very good authority that a one Neil Marshall is close to signing on to direct Predators, another new horror reboot being produced by Robert Rodriguez and his Troublemaker Studios (Read: Robert Rodriguez To Direct ‘Predator’ Reboot; Confirms Himself For ‘Sin City 2′).

The movie is expected to be similar to the original Predator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, but with some changes and what’s certain to be a whole new look. One big change is that it appears that many Predators will be in the film instead of just one based on the brief description: “…a team of commandos face down a mysterious race of vicious monsters.”

Neil Marshall is best known for his cave-dwelling horror The Descent and the post-apocalyptic Doomsday. Fittingly, the main concern with this reboot will be how much CGI is going to be used — if The Descent is any basis for comparison, then fans will be happy to know that Marshall can put together some creepy beasties without all that cheap computer animation. No CGI in this reboot would be its possible saving grace…that, of course, and the faithful R-rating that is essential to Predator movies. [...]

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t like Betty White?

I didn’t think so.

White made an appearance this week on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon where the 87-year-old beloved actress went up against the host in a game of Beer Pong. I suggest you take a moment to watch the clip here below; it’s funny and quite enjoyable. I think I could have watched like an hour of Betty White playing Beer Pong. And I love how the audience loved White too, screaming her name like she was a rock star. Awesome.

White was promoting her new movie The Proposal, a rom-com starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds that I probably wouldn’t have given a second glance to had it not been for White’s role in it [...]

It has been a few days now since the E3 video game and electronics convention just came and went, leaving many exciting previews and announcements in its wake, but we here at Geeks of Doom wanted to put together a basic wrap-up for those of you who missed it all and do not yet know of all of the treasures that came of it. The big dogs in Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all had exciting conventions, with Sony and Microsoft making some magnificent announcements. Included in this mass of geek-tastic announcements: A look at Microsoft’s motion-capture attempt with Project Natal, Sony’s motion-capture prototype, and games like Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Halo: ODST, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, God of War III, and others.

In celebration of the convention and all of the great things that came out of it, we’ve decided to put together this little recap of the biggest and brightest things that we saw. We will do our very best to offer information on the products, as well as the mind-blowing videos that were shown! To start, we’ll go over the three main outlets and what they presented to us. [...]

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day over at Amazon today is Superhero Blu-ray Collection for only $79.95 (that’s 62% off the list price of $208.75).

This 8-disc Blu-ray boxed set includes seven major (and relatively recent) superhero action films from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment: Spider-Man High Definition Trilogy (Spider-Man / Spider-Man 2 / Two-Disc Spider-Man 3), Ghost Rider (Extended Cut), Hellboy (Director’s Cut), Underworld (Unrated), and Underworld Evolution.

That’s a nice pick of movies right there. Now let’s do the math: $79.95 divided by 7 movies is about $11.42 each. The Spider-Man blu-ray trilogy is selling for $49.99 on its own and the other films are much more than $12 each, so this is a pretty sweet deal for Blu-ray, and for major blockbuster titles on Blu-ray at that [...]

Yesterday, CHUD received word from an inside source that Marcus Nispel has been officially signed as the director of the new Conan reboot. This report has now been officially confirmed by the trades, and Nispel will indeed be the man that replaces Brett Ratner, who stepped away from the project recently, as director. Marcus Nispel is best known as the man behind some of the big horror movie reboots of late, including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Friday the 13th.

After Ratner’s departure, the aforementioned CHUD was told of four possible directors that were up for the job: James McTeigue (V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin), Christopher Gans (Silent Hill, Brotherhood of the Wolf), Neil Marshall (The Descent, Doomsday), and Nispel (Read: Three More Directors Thrown Into The ‘Conan” Mix).

At first, it seemed like McTeigue or Marshall were the best choices, though Nispel works here, too. While you may or may not be a big fan of his horror efforts, you can’t deny that they’re incredibly well-done visually. [...]

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai
Genre: Beat ‘Em Up
Rating: ESRB M for Mature
Publisher: Ska Studios & Microsoft Game Studios
Release Date: 1st April 2009
Format: Xbox Live Arcade

When I first heard about this release from Xbox guru Major Nelson on Twitter, I thought it was an April Fool’s prank. However I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it wasn’t, and promptly checked out some of the available gameplay videos. These turned out to be surprisingly gruesome and frantic – and if you can describe a game with those words… I’m there.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai was conceived when game creator James Silva was himself a dishwasher, finding himself the butt of many a joke. After pointing out that Bruce Lee was a dishwasher, he began to conceive a game about one that slaughters an insurmountable array of highly trained agents… and that became what we have here today.

The Dishwasher is a 2D sideways-scrolling “hack n’ slash ‘em up”, where you take control of the unnamed protagonist who was captured by cyborgs that had a view to assimilating him into their collective (yes… sorry, that was a Star Trek pun… it will be my last). Freed by “Chef” – his mentor – he is given Alien Blood that resurrects him from death, and imbues him with incredible powers.

And we of course like nothing better than to use these awesome new abilities to pulverise anything that moves into a bloody pink/red mist….

The first trailer for Martin Scorsese‘s new film Shutter Island has been released on Apple, and it looks intense. You can head over there for the HD version of the trailer.

The movie follows Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), two U.S. Marshals who come to a prison-like hospital for the criminally insane that is located on an island off the coast of Massachusetts. The marshals are called out to the hospital due to the disappearance of a woman who was being kept there for committing murder. The confusing thing about it all, is that the hospital is in a seemingly-inescapable Alcatraz-like location with eleven miles of cold, cold water between them and land. To make things even more chaotic — the presence of a 67th patient in a hospital inhabited by 66 causes the marshals to wonder what exactly is going on at Shutter Island.

This is one of the best trailers that I’ve seen in a while. It has a really creepy vibe to it and looks like it could be a third movie among The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. I also do not think that I would be out of line to claim that this trailer alone is scarier than most full-length horror movies that we see these days. [...]

Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time #2
Written by Brian Clevinger
Art by Scott Wegener
Colors by Ronda Pattison
Red 5 Comics
Release date: June 3, 2009

First off, how can you NOT love a comic called Atomic Robo and the Shadow Beyond Time? Everything you need to know about this comic is sitting right there in the title. It’s got robots, horror, and just the right about of humor. Of course, the book itself is pretty good too, which is a good thing because people generally buy a comic for more than just its title.

This is the third mini in the Atomic Robo series, and from the first two issues, I’m enjoying it even more than I did the first two. In this one, we follow Atomic Robo in 1920′s New York as he has to stop a Lovecraftian monster who has taken over the body of the actual H.P. Lovecraft. And that’s not even the craziest of the ideas in this issue. Brian Clevinger continues to make this a supremely fun comic. It’s filled with a lot of humor, but I wouldn’t really describe it as a humor book. It’s an adventure book, and Clevinger always keeps the action at the forefront. This issue in particular has a great balance between action and comedy, as Robo has a great conversation with Nikola Tesla while taking on the monster. The other nice thing about this series is that you never know what kind of story is going to be told. Each series has told a different kind of story, yet the central character keeps the whole thing together.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (Xbox 360)
Developer: Starbreeze Studios
Atari
Release: April 7, 2009

More often than not, video games based on movies are, to put it gently, awful. Fortunately, some decent film-based games do slip trough, and I’m happy to say that The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a decent enough game. It does suffer from a few problems, but the overall game play, eye catching graphics and outstanding sound design make this a worthwhile purchase. Certainly, one of the great things about this game is that you get not one, but two games. Not only do you get the new Assault on Dark Athena game, but you also get a remake of 2004’s Escape from Butcher Bay (which was release for the original X-Box). Butcher Bay is apparently regarded as a bit of a classic, and it’s nice to see it brought up to date for the PS3 and 360. It’s too bad that the follow-up is just a mediocre shooter that doesn’t make good use of its central game play element, namely, Riddick’s ability to see in the dark.

Escape from Butcher Bay serves as a prequel to Pitch Black, and shows how Riddick got his most unique feature, his glow in the dark eyes. It also serves to fill in the back story between Riddick and William Johns, his jailer from Pitch Black. In the game, Riddick is sent to the titular prison of Butcher Bay, and immediately plans to make his escape, while fighting his fellow inmates. Assault on Dark Athena follows that story up with a similar one as Riddick is captured by mercenaries and again has to escape, this time from a space ship. Butcher Bay has a fun story, as you see how Riddick got those amazing eyes, and how he makes his eventual escape. Dark Athena also has a decent story, but feels more like a retread, although they do use it to explain some of Riddick’s softness for kids [...]

A couple of days ago, Collider got the scoop from an inside source that Comedy Central had ordered 13 new episodes of the ultra-popular sci-fi cartoon, Futurama. This was huge news that everyone had been anxiously waiting to hear about after we found out that Fox was pondering what to do with the show after a successful four-movie direct-to-DVD run. While I too was buzzing with excitement, I must admit, I was also incredibly skeptical due to the fact that this was the exact same order that Comedy Central made in 2006 before the four movies came out, and because when we last heard news, Futurama was waiting on Fox, not Comedy Central. Who was I to know they could tag team.

As it turns out, Collider’s insider was on the scent, and we can all now rejoice: Futurama is OFFICIALLY coming back to the air on Comedy Central, who have ordered not 13 episodes, but 26 new episodes!

20th Century Fox has put out a press release stating that due to the success of the four movies and the popularity of the show’s reruns on Comedy Central, they have made an initial order of 26 half-hour episodes that will also air on Comedy Central. [...]

God bless the Internet.

Avid Twitter-user Jon Favreau has been keeping his fans well up-to-date on the happenings of his Iron Man 2. Over the past couple of days, he has been dropping mini Tweet-sized hints that something new was coming very soon. Well, the man wasn’t lying, and via his latest message, he offered up a link to the first picture of Mickey Rourke as the dreaded Whiplash over at USA Today.

The image shows Rourke’s Whiplash at a race track sporting a makeshift suit of his own, which bears similarities to Iron Man’s suits. The suit will include two whips which are powered by that rascally glowing chest piece and will surely do some heavy damage. Favreau says that the matching glowing chest-pieces and technologies are “definitely related,” but no guarantees that Whiplash works as a designer for Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) as he does in the comics.

This our second official look at Iron Man 2 after the first image of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark was released at the beginning of last month (Read: Geek Peek: First Look At Robert Downey Jr. In ‘Iron Man 2′). [...]

In an unexpected turn-of-events, it appears that actor Shia LaBeouf is going to pass on starring in the feature film adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan‘s brilliant graphic novel, Y: The Last Man, as Yorick Brown — a role that he had long been rumored to be a lock for.

It seems like an eternity ago that we heard that a movie based on Y was on the way. Then it was announced that Disturbia director D.J. Caruso would be directing the movie, and that the then-budding superstar LaBeouf would be starring. All was good in the world then.

Since that time, LaBeouf has become one of the top young faces of Hollywood, starring in blockbuster franchises with Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This explosion of popularity has ultimately left a bitter taste in many a mouths and the once-perfect fit for Y: The Last Man suddenly didn’t seem so appealing anymore. [...]

Bruce Campbell. The man, the myth, the mighty chin.

In the realm of cult cinema there is no greater name than his. Bruce embodies all the great qualities we look for in our cinematic icons: talent, personality, wit, charisma, humility, grace, and honesty. He may never be accepted in the Hollywood circles like so many before him who got their start in B-movies and then forgot about where they came from, because Bruce will never betray his roots or his massive, well-deserved international fanbase. Any movie he’s part of, be it a clever cameo (the Spider-Man movies) or a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bit part (the last shot of Darkman, The Demolitionist, several recent Coen Brothers flicks), is all the better for his presence alone, but Bruce has more acting talent than his extensive resume of Sci-Fi channel flicks, failed television shows, and countless convention appearances would reveal to the uninitiated.

Here’s a list of Bruce’s 10 best performances in film and television, in the humble opinion of this writer [...]

One of the most legendary movie attractions ever to exist was the King Kong movie ride at Universal Studios Hollywood. Sadly, the attraction and much, much more property was lost in that devastating backlot fire in June of last year. Now that the fire is a distant memory and Universal has made huge plans to completely makeover the experience for tourists, including the recently-announced Creature From the Black Lagoon stage show (Read: ‘Creature From The Black Lagoon’ Gets A Rockin’ Stage Show At Universal Studios Hollywood) — they’re ready to bring the mighty Kong back to the fans.

While the King Kong attraction is making a return, it will not be that classic robotic ape we know so well. Kong is embracing the technologies of today and getting the complete makeover treatment. This time around, the experience will be based on Peter Jackson‘s 2005 King Kong and it will present fans with a groundbreaking 4-D (yeah, 4-D!), multi-sensory experience with mind-blowing effects and Earth’s largest Surround Digital projection system. This already sounds like something that has to be added to my bucket list. [...]

A Bug’s Life Blu-ray Edition
Directed by John Lasseter & Andrew Stanton
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Dave Foley, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Denis Leary, Madeline Kahn, Phyllis Diller, John Ratzenberger
Walt Disney Home Entertainment
Release Date: May 19, 2009

On November 25, 1998, Walt Disney Pictures and the budding Pixar Animation Studio put out their second feature-length computer-animated motion picture after the classic Toy Story, and this movie was called A Bug’s Life. When it came out, the movie cost only $60 million to make, and pulled in over $350 million at the in box office, which was an amazing feat, seconded only by Toy Story‘s $30 million budget and over $350 million box office take. Even with these impressive numbers, Pixar still fought through many troubled times before really taking off and never looking back.

Since then, eight more Pixar movies have been released, and as we all know, they have all been brilliant. Pixar is now majorly considered to be completely fail-proof — and all of this started with the first couple of Toy Story movies and A Bug’s Life.

A Bug’s Life tells the story of a colony of ants who have collected a pile of food in order to pay off a bigger, more-dangerous group of grasshoppers lead by Hopper (Kevin Spacey) who demand payment from the little ants [...]

Browncoats rejoice!

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day over at Amazon today is Firefly: The Complete Series on Blu-ray for only $39.99 (that’s 56% off the list price of $89.98).

This is a must-have super awesome deal for any fan of the prematurely canceled sci-fi television series from Joss Whedon. This Blu-ray edition contains all 14 episodes of Firefly and comes with all the original bonus features from the DVD release, as well as new Blu-ray exclusives, like a new commentary track by Whedon and stars Nathan Fillion, Ron Glass, and Alan Tudyk for the “Our Mrs. Reynolds” episode and a 25-minute discussion amongst the four men regarding the series with references to specific episodes [...]

Land Of The Lost
Directed by Brad Silberling
Starring Will Ferrell, Anna Friel, Danny McBride, Jorma Taccone
Rated PG-13
Release date: June 5, 2009

If you were a child of the ’70s, there’s a good chance you were glued to the TV on Saturday mornings waiting impatiently for one of the Krofft-produced series to come on. A favorite with all the kids I knew was Land Of The Lost, about Rick Marshall and his two children, Will and Holly, whose plummet down a waterfall finds them trapped in an alternate dimension populated by bipedal lizard creatures, ape-like cavemen, and dinosaurs. The new Land Of The Lost is based on this children’s television show, but as is the trend these days, instead of being a faithful big-screen adaptation, the movie is more a mockery of the original. When it’s not poking fun at its small-screen predecessor, it’s incessantly winking at it.

While all the names are the same, the characters have been drastically altered and the entire premise changed. Instead of Rick Marshall the dad, he’s now Dr. Rick Marshall, a scientist whose far-out theories about time warps have disgraced him right out of the scientific community, and he’s played greatly for laughs by Will Ferrell. In lieu of two kids, Will (Danny McBride) is now a wannabe casino owner biding his time as a guide at a makeshift tourist attraction and Holly (Anna Friel) is an attractive British graduate student who happens to be the only person who has any faith in Rick’s theories. While testing out one of Will’s theories with his Tachyon amplifier, the trio in their tiny raft go plummeting right into the “land of the lost,” a parallel universe populated with — yup — hostile lizard men (the Sleestaks), ape men (Jorma Taccone), and dinosaurs [...]

Geeks of Doom was very lucky to interview writer/artist Jimmy Gownley of Amelia Rules! fame. Jim talked about his series Amelia Rules!, how to break into the business, and most importantly, what is in his fridge.

If you have not read Amelia Rules!, you are missing out on some great comic writing. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy at your local book store or comic book store. You will be glad you did. Special Thanks to Jim for giving us a chance to interview him.

You can learn more about Gownley and Amelia at ameliarules.com [...]