Word making its way out of San Diego Comic Con ’09 is that the Futurama panel was a major downer and that none of the cast members who were expected to appear were present. Naturally, this all stems from the current salary dispute between the majorly-talented voice actors and 20th Century Fox, who recently put out a casting call for new voice actors in case no agreement is reached (Read: FOX Hates Your Guts With Every Single Inch Of Their Being; Possibly Looking To Re-Cast ‘Futurama’). It’s being reported by Topless Robot that the only thing that came out of the Comic Con panel, was that show creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen basically just asked that we all cross our fingers and hope for the best, which we’ve all been doing for years now anyway.

Surprisingly, this isn’t all that came out of the Con, though. IGN actually found Bender Bending Rodriguez himself, John DiMaggio, at Comic Con and was able to ask him where things stood. DiMaggio, in his typical outgoing and happy style offered his own personal view of what was going on and what he thought would happen. He even opened with a little song by a man named Elvis. [...]

The stars of the upcoming Iron Man 2 made a highly welcomed appearance today at the San Diego Comic-Con, along with producer Kevin Feige and director Jon Favreau, to debut the first footage from the film.

Check out the description of the footage, along with images of the panelists, including Robert Downey Jr, Scarlet Johansson, Don Cheadle, and Sam Rockwell, here below.

The stars talked a bit about their experiences making the new movie, like Johansson’s mixed martial arts training for her role as Black Widow. Cheadle said he tried to make Rhodey his own, but he also drew from Terrance Howard’s performance in the first movie. Downey Jr, of course, keep everybody laughing with his reactions to audience questions.

In regards to the planned Avengers movie, Favreau confirmed that he would be involved in the film — which will include the Iron Man character — in some way, avoiding the question as to whether he would be directing it. Favreau also said that he’s been keeping tabs on the other Marvel film, Thor, directed by Kenneth Branagh, since Thor will also be included in the Avengers film [...]

Since it was announced that Joss Whedon (Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Drew Goddard (Lost, Cloverfield) would be bringing us a new horror movie amusingly called The Cabin in the Woods, fanboys have been itching to know more about what the movie was all about. All that we really know is that the movie takes that literal cabin in the woods that you see so often in horror movies, and builds a new kind of horror movie around it. And with someone like Whedon involved, you know there’s some laughs mixed in there somewhere, which you can now get a very small idea of from the three brand new teaser posters that have been released.

Aside from the basic idea we have of what this movie will be, and these new giggle-worthy posters; Cabin in the Woods does have a pretty strong cast set up as it films in Canada. The cast includes Bradley Whitford (The West Wing, Billy Madison) and Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) at the top, with young up-and-comers in Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek, Thor), Kristen Connolly (Revolutionary Road), Anna Hutchison (Underbelly), Fran Kranz (Dollhouse) and Jesse Williams (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2) rounding out the cast. [...]

Since its announcement nearly two years ago, there’s been very little buzz about Solomon Kane, the big-screen adaptation of the Robert E. Howard books about a 16th century wandering Puritan on a path to vanquish evil in the most badass of ways.

At the San Diego Comic-Con today, the film’s director Michael J. Bassett, producer Samuel Hadida, and star James Purefoy were on hand for the Solomon Kane panel to give audiences their first glimpse of the film.

From the trailer and clips shown, we see that Kane (played by Rome‘s James Purefoy), a formerly greedy warrior who meets someone with more power than him who takes him almost to Hell. Kane has to suffer the consequences of his earlier immoral actions and his soul is in jeopardy. From there, Kane embarks on a path of redemption, trying to avoid the road to Hell, fighting evil across the land. In his journeys, he meets up with a good family who shows him there’s goodness in the world; he also believes that this family could help him on this mission.

Director Bassett likens Kane to Batman, a man without superpowers who’s strong and has a strong belief in his own convictions and strengths. While Kane has renounced violence, he finds that the road to redemption is not always a peaceful one [...]

Disney has released the first teaser trailer for Tron 2, which is now officially titled Tron Legacy. The new title isn’t the best title in the world, but certainly a step up from other possible titles like Tr2n, Tron 2.0, and Tron.

The teaser trailer is actually the special footage that was shown at Comic Con last year, and is not even actually from the movie. The footage was created by director Joseph Kosinski to show how great today’s technologies could lend themselves to a Tron sequel. Disney obviously agreed and the rest is what you’d call history. No word yet on if this footage is so good that the whole movie was shot the same way, or if this is just a small taste of what the finished project will be. Kosinski is also attached to direct another reboot of a popular old title: Logan’s Run.

Click over to the other side for a synopsis and to see the trailer for yourselves. Don’t forget to check out all of the insane production art from the movie that was shown at Comic Con, in case you missed it (Read: SDCC 09: New Title, Concept Art & Footage From ‘Tron 2′) [...]

The Longbox is the standard storage and catalog unit for comic books and perhaps the most recognizable staple after bags and boards for collectors. The digital version is a bit more handy, or at least it aims to be, according to members of the Longbox Digital company.

At San Diego Comic Con, the company hosted a live demonstration of the Longbox application, which aims for the scope of iTunes but specifically tailored for all things digital comics.

The free app will have native versions on both Windows and OS X when it launches in late October, however, keys for a closed beta version were given to those attending the SDCC panel and will go live soon, according to the company.

There approach seems to be more Hulu, than iTunes in the sense that small creator owned and published work is eligible only after being screened for quality. So at this time it seems unlikely that they’ll build out support for user generated content.

This was the second publicly showcased demo since the app’s initial announcement (at Hero Con earlier this year). This build debuted new features such as a three-setting toggled viewer mode, a magnified lens tool that can adjust to the desired size and several other tweaks and polishes. In future builds, CEO of Longbox Rantz Hoseley stated there would be social functions as well as the ability to connect with pre-existing social networks.

Check out a live demo of the application [...]

The young stars of The Twilight Saga: New Moon made an appearance on Thursday at the San Diego Comic-Con, where thousands of Twilight fans not only descended upon the Hall H auditorium for the event, but many had camped out outside the hall for over two days.

Yes, people, there was Twilight madness at the Con, much like last year [read SDCC 08: Summit Entertainment's 'Twilight']. But, unlike the previous year’s panel, this time the fans stopped screaming long enough to let the actor’s answers questions.

Before I get into my coverage of the panel, which contains a description of the new footage that was shown, you should know you can check out the 43 photos from the panel here below of panelists Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Ashley Greene, along with director Chris Weitz.

The crowd went wild as the stars of New Moon were introduced, but oddly enough, when Stewart came out decked out in full Joan Jett attire (she’s playing the rocker in the upcoming Runaways film), the cheers turned a bit to groans. Both Kirsten and Pattinson behaved awkwardly while sitting on the panel, squirming in their seats and stuttering over their answers (they were the same way at last year’s panel). On the other hand, Green and Lautner were very talkative and open with the audience.

Much of the discussion revolved around Lautner’s transformation for the new film, in which he plays Jacob Black. The Jacob Black character was seen in the first movie, but he was younger and let’s just say, not quite yet developed. For New Moon, Lautner had to work with a trainer to gain weight and bulk up for the role, where we’ll be seeing a bit of shirtless action from Jacob (that’s right Team Jacob people). Lautner said that Jacob goes through a lot mentally and emotionally, but it was the physical transformation that was the most challenging. He said he “worked very hard to transform his body for the fans.” [...]

If you didn’t attend the 25-minute screening of James Cameron‘s new 3D movie Avatar on Thursday at the San Diego Comic Con, rest easy and mark your calendar [Read: SDCC 09: See 15 Minutes of James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ In 3D Imax For Free On August 21].

To help recreate the convention experience, it’s highly recommended that you check out our video coverage of the panel discussion with James Cameron and the cast of Avatar here below (you can also see photos from the panel).

Here’s an excerpt from the panel of James Cameron talking about what made him revisit the Avatar script after putting it aside for so long.

So in the same way that I wrote Terminator, which was sort of just to get a directing gig, I decided to write a story full of creatures and characters that would push the art of CG for that company. But when we looked at it, and they broke it down they said “We can’t do this — what are you out of your mind?” So I literally stuck the treatment in a drawer. When I got it out four years ago I thought, wow, this is more timely than ever, with us being at war, with us being in an environmental crisis than at any other point in the history of the human race. And by the way, it was just a damn good read. I’d sort of completely forgotten about it enough to look at it with fresh eyes. So I went back to it and said, we can do this now. Peter Jackson had done the second Lord of the Rings film at that point. Gollum was looking pretty damn good, looked like some soul and some real personality could be captured by CG. To me that was like the door opening on the possibility of being able to make this movie. [...]

Marvel Comics had a couple of big announcements today at the Cup O’ Joe panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, and one that frankly blew my mind. The big announcement of the day was that Marvel has apparently acquired the rights to Marvelman — or Miracleman as he may be better known as. (See SDCC 09: Marvel Acquires Rights to ‘Marvelman’.)

This news came as a shock to the audience, since the rights to the character have been tied up for many years in a long string of legal disputes. The announcement today states that they have purchased the rights from original creator Mick Anglo, who knows how this will work out with the other disputes, but publisher Dan Buckley went into a bit of how they were dealing with Mick Anglo and it sounds like they have everything lined up. I’m curious myself to learn more details on how this happened, but since I’ve never been able to read the work that Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman did with the character in the 80’s and 90’s, I’m very excited. Now specific publishing plans were announced, beyond a vague 2010 release, but Buckley said that they were talking with Moore and Gaiman, and the artists from the most recent stories, so it sounds like they are treating the character with a lot of respect. It will be interesting to see how much information comes out on this in the next few days [...]

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of the current trend that’s sweeping Hollywood of taking all of the televisions shows and movies from the 70s and 80s and reimagining, revamping, and rebooting them for today’s younger audiences. So, when I heard last year that New Line/Platinum Dunes was going to relaunch the A Nightmare On Elm Street franchise, I was totally against it, as was most of my colleagues. The original is a classic horror flick, why redo it? But then Jackie Earle Haley, who earlier this year totally killed in the role of Rorschach in Watchmen, was cast as the iconic horror figure Freddy Krueger and I thought, now this film has a chance.

At the Warner Bros. panel at the San Diego Comic-Con today, Haley made an appearance along with the new Elm Street director Samuel Bayer and producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller to debut the first footage from the upcoming film.

My initial reaction was a positive one and I believe that Haley totally nails the role of Freddy Krueger. We weren’t given a lengthy look at the villainous Krueger, but what we do see is chilling and reminiscent of the first Elm Street flick. It’s hard to scare today’s audiences, who’ve basically seen it all at this point, but from what I saw, at least fans of the original franchise will not be disappointed. Check out the footage description here below [...]

Marvel Comics has acquired the rights to classic super-hero Marvel Man, also referred to as Miracle man in the United States, from creator Mick Anglo. The company made the announcement during the last few minutes of the San Diego Comic-Con Cup o’ Joe panel.

Shortly after the announcement, the panelist, which included Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada, Publisher Dan Buckley, Jeph Loeb, Jim McCann, and C.B. Cebulski, donned blue t-shirts with the familiar “MM” Marvel Man logo on it.

Buckley stated that Marvel was talking with several creators who did Marvel Man stories in the ’80s and ’90s. Both Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are among those creators, but nothing has been announced beyond the acquisition.

Marvel hasn’t stated the full terms of the deal — whether they own just the likeness or if they can reprint past stories such as the unpublished Miracle Man #25 that was written by Gaiman for the now-defunct Eclipse Comics, which was never published [...]

The first teaser trailer, a poster, and even a cool motion poster for the upcoming Saw VI has been released by Lionsgate. Click the image at right to see the one sheet at full size!

The movie is the sixth in the franchise, which started in 2004. An impressive amount of production, with a movie coming out once a year. The franchise in general revolves around an intelligent killer who puts those who he believes deserve it into various sadistic situations which require extreme and ultra-painful actions to escape them and the certain death that awaits you if you do not.

Saw VI brings back stars Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith, as well as Betsy Russell, Mark Rolston, and Peter Outerbridge and is set for an October 23, 2009 release date.

Click over for a synopsis, the first teaser trailer, and to see the motion poster courtesy of Yahoo! Movies. [...]

Coming Soon was able to grab Disney’s Head of Production Oren Aviv at San Diego Comic Con 2009 and ask him a few questions. One of the juicy bits that they were able to abstract from the Disney head had to do with the next chapter in one of the biggest franchises ever: Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

Aviv confirmed that they were indeed still all about making another Pirates movie, and that they actually wanted to start shooting it next Spring for a 2011 release. Since the final movie of the trilogy, At World’s End, had come and gone, we all knew another flick would be coming. Judging by the last images we saw, it was expected to focus of course on Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) going after the legendary Fountain of Youth. It was also expected that stars like Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom would be left out of the project to save money — a move that would probably help the franchise overall. [...]

At the Warner Bros. panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Gary Oldman was on hand for the Book Of Eli panel.

During the Q&A, Oldman was asked the inevitable question: When will there will be a new Batman movie and Oldman confirmed that the third film with director Christopher Nolan will begin shooting next year. He added that we can expect a new movie in two years. “But you didn’t hear that from me,” he joked.

Obviously, the crowd went wild. This is exactly what everyone wanted to hear, especially since Nolan has talked about possibly doing another film before heading into a sequel to last year’s wildly popular The Dark Knight [...]

All-star DC Comics artist and Wildstorm Editor Jim Lee illustrated a Justice League version of Google’s main logo, which appears on the search giant’s homepage in celebration of the San Diego Comic Con currently underway.

Additionally, Google’s personal homepage service “iGoogle” debuted a group of new comic book themes.

Anyone using the free wi-fi at the convention center immediately saw a list of themes including characters from Marvel, DC, TokyoPop, Vertigo and more upon opening their browser, which is fitting since iGoogle sponsored the Internet this year.

If you want fanboys to get on board with a new service, adding skins for current industry crossovers like the Green Lantern: Blackest Night storyline can only improve your chances. [Oh Google, you had me at "I'm Feeling Lucky."]

Check out a few screen shots of the comic skins below [...]

At last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Disney gave a sneak peek of Tron 2, stating that I’d be a year before we see anymore footage (see SDCC 08: Surprise Sneak Peek at Disney’s ‘Tron 2′).

Well, it’s a year later now and Tron 2 was back at the Con for Disney’s 3D panel, this time with yet another new name (remember the whole Tr2n phase?): Tron Legacy.

Star Jeff Bridges, who appeared in the original 1982 Tron film, made an appearance at the panel, explaining that the upcoming sequel was “a story about a son’s search for his father.” Bridges character, Kevin Flynn, returns in Tron Legacy as the father; his son is Sam Flynn, played by Garrett Hedlund, who was also on the panel along with co-star Olivia Wilde, director Joseph Kosinski, and producers Sean Bailey and Steve Lisberger (director of the original film).

The audience was treated to the same footage that made a big splash at last year’s Con, though this time it seemed more polished. There was also a non-3D clip shown of Sam going back to Flynn’s Arcade (see full footage description below), which takes place in the real world (not the game world).

While the film finished principal photography last week, the filmmakers still have a lot to do before the film is released next year, so the filmmakers offered up some motion image test footage, as well as concept art of the film’s digital gaming world. Check out all of the concept art images here below [...]

The Gold Box deal of the day today at Amazon is the DVD boxset of The Twilight Zone: The Complete Definitive Collection for only $105.99 (65% the list price of $299.99).

The DVD set includes all 156 complete episodes on 28 discs of the classic Rod Serling scifi television series that brought viewers each week to another dimension into The Twilight Zone. The episodes have been remastered with high-definition film transfers.

Bonus materials include the Serling bio-documentary Submitted for Your Approval, along with interviews with the show’s writers, the unaired the series’ pilot, audio commentaries with Martin Landau, Leonard Nimoy, Cliff Robertson and much, more [...]

If you’ll recall not too long ago, some lucky folks were the first to really get a good look at footage from James Cameron‘s groundbreaking new science fiction movie, Avatar, and their opinions of the footage were about as excited as humans can get for a movie (Read: The Words That Will Put James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ At The Top Of Your Must-See List). If you’re one of the many who are currently at Comic Con, you now know why this feedback was so resoundingly positive as Mr. Cameron himself showed up and showed off twenty-five minutes of footage to the rabid crowd!

While a recap of the Avatar panel will be featured on Geeks of Doom soon enough, Cameron made a very cool announcement at the end that we wanted to share with our readers singularly.

Cameron announced that on August 21, 2009, movie-goers around the world will be able to see 15 minutes of Avatar for free at digital 3D IMAX screens [...]

There are any number of things to pick up at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, but the ones everyone looks for are the SDCC Exclusives.

So, here is a list of the top five things that will be surfacing on eBay in the next few hours.

1. AFX Transformers Battle Damage Jetfire Bust

One of the coolest characters from Transformers 2 returns in his original form from the cartoon. Not only is this a really cool looking bust, but it also comes with a variant head to give it it’s original Macross/Robotech look. This is too cool for words, but I guess only if you’re like me and are both a Transformers and Robotech fan [...]

Though it leaked recently to many anxious eyes, the first teaser trailer for Tim Burton‘s Alice in Wonderland has finally been released online, and it is exactly what you would expect of a Burton Wonderland. The trailer was put up via The Disloyal Subjects of the Mad Hatter Facebook page, where you can go to watch the massive HD versions of the trailer, as well as in Quicktime and even for your iPod.

The movie is more of a sequel than an adaptation of Lewis Carroll‘s classic Through the Looking Glass. It picks up ten years later when Alice is seventeen years old and retains no recollection of her first adventure in Wonderland. She escapes from a boring upscale party and follows a white rabbit to a mysterious hole which transports her back and sees her becoming the last hope in the fight against the Red Queen.

The movie stars Mia Wasikowska as Alice, with a huge supporting cast including Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, Alan Rickman as The Caterpillar, and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, among many others [...]