Bloody Disgusting has confirmed today that Robert Downey Jr is in close talks to play the vampire Lestat in Universal Studios’ planned reboot of the film franchise of Anne Rice‘s Vampire Chronicles.

Rice’s vampire books were previously adapted for the big screen in 1994 with Neil Jordan’s Interview With The Vampire, which starred Tom Cruise as the beautiful blond vamp Lestat (Brad Pitt played the vampire Louis), and then in 2002 with Queen of the Damn, in which Stuart Townsend took over the Lestat role.

Before the Twilight phenomenon, the books of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles were the ultimate in vampire stories next to Dracula, with Lestat being the most desirable of the undead. Fans might remember how badly Rice took the news of Cruise being cast as Lestat in Interview and severely criticized the choice (after seeing the film, she retracted her statements).

Since nabbing the lead in the first Iron Man film, Downey has seemed invincible. It’s not hard to imagine that he can pull off just about any role handed to him. But, Lestat? That just doesn’t seem to add up [...]

James Cameron‘s Avatar will be released on December 18, 2009 and the first trailer is due to be released on Avatar Day August 21 (Read: ‘Avatar’ Day Details Emerge; Let The Chaos Begin!), so it is a little odd that only today, we’re getting our first official image from the movie. We’ve seen plenty of concept art and some behind the scenes pictures, but nothing from the actual film, and nothing of these mysterious blue Na’vi that we’ve only seen said concept pictures of.

/Film was one of the lucky few who were sent this first image. It shows star Sam Worthington sitting in front of what looks like a tank full of liquid holding one of the Na’vi aliens. We also get a better description of what the movie is about, including a better explanation of what the title of the movie means. We all know what avatars are — we all have them, whether they’re on our IM, E-mail, or Wii, we have a little avatar to represent us — but until now, we didn’t know what that meant in regard to the movie. [...]

It’s being reported that Christopher McQuarrie has been hired to write the screenplay for the sequel this year’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The project is currently being developed by Hugh Jackman, and as expected, it will be taking the temperamental bladed mutant off to Japan.

The movie has always been expected to follow the Samurai storyline that Wolverine embarked on, but the pitch that McQuarrie made was likely the best take on that particular storyline. The tale would be based on the Frank Miller and Chris Claremont story, The Samurai, in which Wolverine goes to Japan and trains as a Samurai while also working on his anger issues.

Christopher McQuarrie is an interesting choice for the job; he won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for The Usual Suspects, which Bryan Singer directed. He then helped Singer on the original X-Men before moving on to write Singer’s Valkyrie. No word on who might direct the sequel, though fans would love to see Singer himself jump back in and take this one. [...]

In case you haven’t been informed yet, yes, the 1982 Tobe Hooper directed, Steven Spielberg written horror classic Poltergeist is being remade. On top of that, we now know that it’s being remade really soon. Shock Till You Drop is reporting that MGM has set a November 24, 2010 release date for the remake, placing it on Thanksgiving weekend of next year.

Considering the fact that the movie only has a script written by Juliet Snowden and Stiles White (Boogeyman, Knowing), and a director in Vadim Perelmen (House of Sand and Fog), with no actors cast yet, it’s assumed that it will be a rather quick production to meet that deadline.

Poltergeist tells the story of a normal everyday suburban family whose house begins doing strange things after a chilling interaction between a young girl and a TV set creates a gateway from the spirit world to the living world. [...]

As you all know, at Comic Con recently, James Cameron announced that August 21, 2009 would be Avatar Day. And on that day, a 15-minute preview of Cameron’s gigantic theme-park ride of a movie, Avatar, would be shown in its natural IMAX 3-D format all over the world. Later it was revealed that many other things would be happening that day as well, including the release of the regular and surely less-impressive 2-D trailer, a trailer for the video game, and even some toy figures. The only thing that was left, was to tell everyone how exactly we could get in on this 15-minute preview, and now we have that answer!

Basically, it’s going to be just like a good ol’ radio station giveaway. The LA Times is reporting that on Monday, August 17, people will go to the official Avatar movie website, and at 3:00PM EST (12:00PM PST), you click to get your free tickets. Obviously, this is first come, first served, though, so if you really want to check this thing out, get there early and be prepared to click like mad to claim your prize! [...]

Many rock bands have appeared on the big screen: KISS rocked in Detroit Rock City and even saved the day in the awesome KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park. Aerosmith actually showed up to Waynestock in Wayne’s World 2 and Tenacious D put aside their pizzas, successfully completed a cock push-up, and power-slided into cinemas in Pick of Destiny. More bands still have been given the rock biopic treatment, like The Doors, Def Leppard, and the Rolling Stones, while others are featured in rockumentaries, like Metallica embarrassing themselves in Some Kind Of Monster, the Sex Pistols swearing their way through The Filth and the Fury, and Anvil in one of the most heartfelt, completing documentaries of all time, Anvil: The Story of Anvil.

But their plenty of big rock stars who make it onto the big screen who aren’t real rock stars at all. Because the world can never get enough of the excesses and legend of rock bands, there are many that have been created just for the cinema. Some are immediately forgetful, like…um…you know, the band in that thing. There are, thankfully, many more fictional rock bands in film that are unforgettable, who look and sound believable, and, sometimes, their influence is even felt in pop culture.

This weekend sees the release Bandslam, a music comedy about the ultimate battle of the bands. Will any of the fictional bands in Bandslam leave a mark on pop culture? We’ll see, but for now, we’re going all the way to 11 with this list of some of the best fictional rock bands ever seen — and heard — in the film. [...]

This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘Save us!’…and I’ll whisper, ‘no.’

What would you do in order to ensure the safety of all mankind? Would you sacrifice millions of lives if it meant saving billions of other lives and creating a perfect and peaceful world? This is the impossibly difficult scenario placed in front of a small group of crime fighters known simply as Watchmen.

Watchmen is based on the timeless graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The book is the only graphic novel on Time magazine’s top 100 novels of all time — a truly epic feat for its platform. For many years, the novel was also called “unfilmable” by most people who strongly believed that no one could faithfully and accurately adapt the complex story and characters into a movie [...]

The man whose name was synonymous with the electric guitar and multiple important evolutions in rock ‘n’ roll music, Les Paul has died at the age of 94. The musician passed away in a hospital in New York due to complications from pneumonia.

Les Paul was born in Wisconsin in 1915 and was always big on music and inventing new things. A fighter from the start, Paul was a high school drop out who worked hard to get to his larger-than-life status. Even after he started making his unequivocal mark in music, he was in a terrible accident which almost claimed his life and left his arm in danger of never working properly the same. Still he fought, instructing the surgeons to set his arm at an angle where he would still be able to hold and pick the guitar.

He was one of the very first to build a solid-body electric guitar that was called “The Log.” This eventually moved on to become the legendary Les Paul guitar that’s been loved and used by greats of the electric guitar like Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Pete Townsend of The Who, and Eric Clapton. [...]

District 9, the new film from director Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson, is being released this Friday, August 14, 2009. With a nice little R-rating, there’s sure to be some heavy human/alien violence going down. In District 9, the aliens supposedly come in peace, but with most alien science fiction movies, that’s usually not the case. Quite the opposite, in fact.

So, in celebration of this new first-contact humans-meet-aliens film that’s getting rave reviews from all who’ve see it so far, we’ve decided to concoct a list of some of the most awesome scenes of aliens killing humans in film. Obviously, there’s been thousands of instances where an alien takes out a human in movies, so finding some of the more outstanding examples was not an easy task. Basically, the movies selected took a death and went a step further…or sometimes, a couple of steps further.

Whether the kill is just ultra-violent, or if it’s completely and disgustingly unique, if it makes viewers cringe when it happens, then it’s worthy of this list. Hopefully we’ve managed to feature some of the elite members of this category.

So without further delay, if you’re not one of the squeamish, click on over and check out our 7 Awesome Alien Kills In Film! [...]

Wow. That’s really all you need to know.

Since the sport of mixed martial arts has exploded onto the scene and pretty much completely over-shadowed it, it’s tough to find things to be excited about when it comes to boxing today. Every once in a while a fight comes along with fan favorites like Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, and Ricky Hatton — but aside from that, boxing has become a mostly unappealing spectacle. Fortunately, the cats over at Electronic Arts know how things are done when it comes to their sports games, and that’s no different when it comes to Fight Night: Round 4, which is now the best boxing video game ever made.

The Fight Night franchise has always offered up great boxing games — the best since Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!, to be precise — that fans have loved, even with some kinks here and there. One of the best thing about video games, though, is that many of them get better with new installments. This is because developers can take the good and the bad feedback from their previous games and build from that until they reach perfection. And so far, Fight Night: Round 4 is about as perfect as boxing games get…for now. The scary thing is knowing that they will probably keep finding ways to get better. [...]

A new teaser trailer for The Twilight Saga: New Moon will debut in theaters this Friday in front of screenings of Bandslam, the new movie from Summit Entertainment starring High School Musical‘s Vanessa Anne Hudgens.

Earlier today, the French version of what could possibly be the upcoming trailer was leaked online today, but was quickly yanked for copyright infringement. But, Hollywood Crush has the translation of the footage, which includes voiceover narration from star Taylor Lautner.

The yanked trailer also includes the first footage of Dakota Fanning as Volturi vampire Jane, as well as the shirtless Wolf Pack.

A 14-second tease of the upcoming English trailer is now online — watch it here below (and note, another amusing ‘pop-up’ version plays immediately after it; right after a quick ad, you can see the previously released teaser trailer) [...]

G.I. Joe
A Real American Hero: Season 1.1
Starring Chris Latta, Michael Bell, Frank Welker, Arthur Burghardt
Shout! Factory
Released July 14, 2009

GI Joe is the codename for American’s daring highly trained special mission force.

Its purpose, to defend human freedom against Cobra — a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

If I had to list my favorite cartoons when I was a kid, one of the shows that would show up on that list would be GI Joe. I can fondly remember waking up before school, getting a bowl of healthy cereal (because my Mom would never let us have the sugary stuff), going downstairs, and watching GI Joe and Transformers. It was a great ritual for me, and thanks to the magic of DVD, I can relive those days. GI Joe has been released on DVD before, but the old sets have been long out of print. Fortunately, there’s a new movie to cash in on, so the show is coming back into DVD.

The plot for the show is right there in the theme song. The Joe team spends all their time trying to stop Cobra and their dastardly plans to take over the world [...]

HitFix has the exclusive scoop that Universal is reaching out to Bryan Singer to develop and produce a new feature film based on Battlestar Galactica. There’s also the chance that Singer could direct the new film, under the right circumstances.

If you’re not aware, Singer was actually the one developing Galactica for Sci Fi back in 2001, even having concept work completed on the project (Image at right is a Cylon concept, click to go big). Then the September 11 attacks occurred, and given the nature of the show — particularly how it begins — everything was delayed, and eventually everyone moved on to other things until Ronald D. Moore and David Eick were brought in for another go of it.

As you’ll recall, it was announced a while back that Universal was developing a new movie based on the original 1978 TV show, with original show creator Glen A. Larson writing and producing the film. It seems pretty obvious that they aren’t making two separate movies here, so this must be the project that they’re bringing Bryan Singer in for. Kind of like everything coming around full-circle — quite fitting, if it does all work out. [...]

AMC, the television network best known for hugely-popular shows Breaking Bad and Mad Men, is in the process of completing a deal that would see Frank Darabont write and direct a new series based on the Robert Kirkman graphic novel, The Walking Dead. The deal is said to be one of the the largest financial deals in developmental history.

The Walking Dead is from Image Comics, and follows a cop and his family who are some of the few survivors of a zombie infestation. They, along with a group of other survivors, work together (sometimes) to find somewhere safe that they can turn into their new home. But as you might imagine, in a situation as stressful as this one would be, as time goes on, these people change. Some grow stronger and smarter, some slide into the vast insanity. Think of it like Battlestar Galactica, but with zombies!

AMC Senior VP of programming, production, and original content Joel Stillerman assured fans of the graphic novels that the show would remain faithful to the story, and that Kirkman’s fantastic story was the reason the show could work so well. [...]

Green Lantern: First Flight
Single-Disc Edition
Directed by Lauren Montgomery
Starring Christopher Meloni, Victor Garber, Tricia Helfer
DC Animation/Warner Brothers
Released: July 28, 2009

DC Animation has hit on something with their recent direct-to-DVD releases, particularly the Batman: Gotham Knight and Justice League: The New Frontier movies and the streak continues with their newest film, Green Lantern: First Flight. DC/Warner Bros picked a good time to release this, what with the Green Lantern comic series being the best it’s been, arguably ever, and big news being thrown around with Ryan Reynolds being cast as Hal Jordan in the upcoming live-action movie. Let’s be honest, Green Lantern has never been as big a name to the non-comics world as say Batman or Spider-Man, so it’s nice to see that DC hasn’t forgotten about him. Is this movie as good as the current series? I wouldn’t say that, but it does a good job of introducing the characters and world of GL, so it succeeds in that part.

One thing to be said about the story is that it isn’t a straight adaptation of a story already told in comics, ala Superman: Doomsday or New Frontier. It’s a completely new story, although it does borrow elements from the entire series, and specifically some elements from the Sinestro Corp War [...]

Kick-Ass has an interesting story so far. The movie is based on a comic book by John Romita Jr. and Mark Millar, and was made by Stardust director Matthew Vaughn. The director couldn’t find any studios to back the film due to its incredibly graphic content and ultra-violence, so he found a way to raise his own money for it, and moved forward without the studio money.

Now that the project is finished, some footage was shown at the recent Comic Con, and wouldn’t you know it, people went completely nuts for it. Seeing this overwhelming positive response to the footage, multiple studios are now engaged in a fight to acquire the rights to distribute the movie.

It’s being reported that the studios currently vying for the rights are Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Lionsgate Entertainment. Word is that the eventual deal could stretch into the seven figures range and is expected to be picked up by one of these establishments very soon. Hopefully this all means that Mr. Vaughn will get back above-and-beyond what he’s put into it so far. [...]

A third movie in The Blair Witch Project series is no big shocking developing news story — since the first movie was made, there was always word that a sequel would follow, and then a prequel would be made that was set a couple centuries ago and that would tell the real tale of the witch. After the second movie came out and was hated by most, the third chapter seemed to completely disappear. It’s popped up from time to time, but nothing has ever come of it.

While speaking to the BBC, film makers Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick chatted all things Blair Witch, including what the eternally-coming third movie they’re still developing might include, if it ever does get made, of course.

It appears that the current problem in the way of this project is what exactly to do with it. Sanchez and Myrick acknowledge the prequel idea set in the 1700s, but sound like they don’t want to do that anymore. [...]

G.I. Joe Volume 1
Written by Chuck Dixon
Art by Robert Atkins

G.I. JOE: COBRA
Written by Christos Gage and Mike Costa
Art by Antonio Fuso

G.I. JOE: Origins Volume 1
Written by Larry Hama
Art by Mike Hawthorne

I had not really cared about any of the G.I. Joe comics being produced by Devil’s Due Comics for the last few years, which is not to say they were good or bad, just that I couldn’t be bothered to actually buy them. However, when I heard that IDW had picked up the license and was going to be making a new series, I was intrigued. I was further intrigued when I heard of their plan to release three series, all focusing on different aspects of the G.I. Joe mythos. Then they suckered me in with G.I. Joe #0, which came out last year, and gave a preview of all three series. Since they’ve started, I’ve been eagerly waiting for each new issue, mostly because each series has its own place in the story, but also because each has its own unique feel.

The main series, G.I. Joe, is the most traditional of the three series. It’s got all the characters you enjoy, running around in their familiar costumes, fighting crazy robots controlled by Destro, and looking for Cobra. It’s a fun series, particularly if you’re a fan of the original. It’s got everything I’m looking for in a G.I. Joe comic [...]

Wolverine and the X-Men
Vol. 2Deadly Enemies DVD
Starring Steve Blum, Jim Ward, Tom Kane
Marvel Animation/Lionsgate Films
Release date: July 21, 2009

When Wolverine and the X-Men first came onto the scene, I wasn’t exactly sure what to think. I never watched creators Craig Kyle and Christ Yost’s first cartoon X-Men: Evolution, but so many people enjoyed the series that I thought I give it a try and was pretty satisfied with the first batch of episodes and even wrote a review on the DVD release, titled Heroes Return. And since I did review the first volume, it was only fitting that I also review the newest volume Deadly Enemies.

For a quick recap of the series, think of this as yet another alternate X-Men Universe. In this version, a mysterious attack on the Xavier school has left Professor X in a coma and Jean Grey presumed dead. This event shakes the X-Men to the core and every member of the team goes their separate ways. Fast forward to one year later, with mutant hysteria and hatred at an all time high, it is up to Wolverine to reunite the team to prevent a future that could wipe out mutantkind permanently [...]

At the San Diego Comic Con recently, the first footage from Iron Man 2 was shown by director Jon Favreau, and as expected, it blew minds. The big thing shown that had the majority of people buzzing, was the unveiling of the fan-favorite War Machine — the identity that James Rhodes (Terrence Howard in Iron Man, Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2) takes on with his own high-tech Iron Man-esq suit. While speaking to MTV recently, Mr. Cheadle explained that some conflict may arise between the two friends, which leads everyone to wonder: will Iron Man and War Machine clash in the sequel?

The conflict arises as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a tad…eccentric, to say the least, and he’s his own man with his own agenda; while Rhodes is used to taking orders. As the Comic Con footage revealed, there is a point where we’re shown that the government is out to claim the Iron Man suit technology, and eventually butt heads with Stark — this could in fact lead to a high-tech superpower showdown. Sounds like a good time! [...]