Universal Pictures is in negotiations to acquire the rights to make a feature-length movie based on the popular book series Sweet Valley High. If the deal works out smoothly, the studio already has Juno and Jennifer’s Body writer Diablo Cody in line to pen the adaption. Cody set the project in motion with Mason Novick, who together went looking for the rights and made their pitch to Universal. Cody and Novick would also be producing along with Marc Platt.

Cody has settled into a groove where high school kids are a prime element to her stories. Juno, Jennifer’s Body, and her Showtime series The United States of Tara all have characters who are dealing with that time in their lives, so this would certainly be a fitting project for her, though some may want to see her spread her wings and fly a little.

Sweet Valley High revolves around two twin sisters named Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield who are polar opposites of themselves: one a good girl who works hard on trying to become a journalist; the other a resident flirt and cheerleader who gets into more trouble. [...]

One of my favorite things about the USA Network’s series Psych is all of its throwbacks to ’80s music and culture.

Oftentimes, the show’s main characters, childhood friends turned ‘psychic’ detectives Sean (James Roday) and Gus (Dule Hill), will put on their old ’80s duds and bust out a song by the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Wham.

Tonight’s new episode, titled “High Top Fade Out,” will feature a version of the show’s catchy theme song “I Know You Know” as performed by ’80s boy band sensation Boys II Men. You can check out the video of tonight’s special opening credits here [...]

The Weinstein Company hasn’t had the greatest luck in the world (award winners: yes; money winners: not so much), so the brothers, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, are retracting back to what brought them so much success through Dimension Films (who came with them after they left Miramax): genre movies. While sharing their plans for the future, a basic update on Scream 4 was offered, and it included a one Neve Campbell.

It was announced a couple months ago that a new Scream trilogy was being developed, and already has original writer Kevin Williamson working on the script, and both David Arquette and Courteney Cox set to return. The unknown cards to the franchise reboot were whether star Neve Campbell and director Wes Craven would come back. Reports indicated that Craven was still unsure and waiting to read the script before he decides, and Campbell actually came right out and said that she would not be doing it [...]

The MP3 deal of the day over at Amazon today is the album Absolution by the band Muse for only $2.99.

This is the third album by the UK band and contains two of their American hits “Time Is Running Out” and “Hysteria,” and a total of 15 songs. Muse is current the support band on U2′s tour.

Another worthy MP3 mention is the FREE download of the song “Perfect Stranger” by The Donnas from their recently released Greatest Hits album (a deal in and of itself at $8.99 for 16 songs) [...]

The Surrogates
The Surrogates: Vol 1
The Surrogates: Vol 2: Flesh & Bone
The Surrogates Operator’s Manual: Vol 1 & 2 (Hardcover)
Written by Robert Venditti
Art by Brett Weldele
Top Shelf Productions
Available Now

The Surrogates caught me by surprise when it came out a few years ago. Here was a book with a unique premise, which appealed to the Sci-Fi fan in me, as well as the crime drama/mystery fan. The story was fairly unique to me: In the future most people will not leave their houses at all, they do all their business and interactions through the use of realistic looking robots called Surrogates. These surrogates have changed all aspects of society: cops don’t have to worry about being killed in the line of duty; gender roles are easily switched by using a surrogate opposite of the users actual gender; and body image is no longer a problem, since your surrogate can be as good looking as you want it to be. All of this changes when someone begins to go around destroying other people’s surrogates. What follows is an examination of how we interact with each other in an online world, the role of religion verses technology, and really just a well crafted mystery.

The original Surrogates mini-series, by Robert Venditti is an interesting piece of work. It’s one of the most thought provoking series that I have read over the last few years. The world we live in today is one where people can go years without actually meeting people they interact with every day. You can keep up with complete strangers via any number of message boards, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, or a million other social networks. You can raid a dungeon in World of Warcraft with someone who could be half a world away, or they could be your next door neighbor, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The Surrogates takes the concept of this isolation that many people live their lives in today, and asks what would happen if no one had to leave their house if they didn’t want to. The best thing it does though, is take this interesting concept, and wraps it up in an also interesting murder mystery [...]

The first official image from the new Simon Pegg and Nick Frost movie Paul has been spotted at Universal Studios, snapped, and sent to Collider. Some images from the set had been seen, but nothing from the actual movie, so for someone visiting Universal to see this giant image hanging outside is a tad odd, but still good for all of us! Click the image at right to see it in full.

Paul is purely a fanboy movie with Pegg and Frost starring as loyal geeks on a road trip to Comic Con who encounter an alien while near Area 51. The movie is directed by Greg Mottola, who is known for his instant comedy classic Superbad, as well as the recent Adventureland.

The movie also stars Seth Rogen as the alien they meet, which will be created using motion capture. It’s also said that the alien will spit a lot of foul language in true Rogen form and that the movie will likely be R-rated. [...]

The bad news is that David Cronenberg‘s 1986 horror classic The Fly will be run through the gauntlet and given the remake treatment by Fox. The good news though, is that Cronenberg himself will be handling the directing duties here, and possibly even writing the script.

The ’86 film we’re all familiar with was also a remake of the original 1958 film of the same name, so this is no sacred desecration, either. The movies tell the story of a scientist (Jeff Goldblum) who creates two vessels that will transport any object from one to the other, which if successful, would mean the creation of teleportation. While testing out his massive breakthrough, a small fly enters the vessel with him un-noticed, and the system becomes confused at the second life form. To fix this problem, it takes both the scientist and the fly’s genetic particles, and combines them. Over a period of time, he slowly transforms into a hideous and horrific human/fly hybrid and begins taking desperate measures to try and fix himself. [...]

If you love MMORPGs, roll-playing games and awkward miscommunication then you’re probably already a fan of internet phenomonon The Guild. I know I am! If you’re one of the few geeks who hasn’t experienced the awesomeness that is the “Knight of Good” then here’s your chance to catch up to the rest of us. We Geeks of Doom are lucky enough to have a bunch of copies of the first two seasons to give away to our awesome readers.

Five (5) winners will receive:
One (1) copy of The Guild Season 1 & 2 on DVD

What do you have to do to get a chance to win? Glad you asked ’cause it’s really easy. Just make sure you’re a subscriber to our email digest, and then go ahead and fill out the handy dandy form below. Done…

Turning toys and games into movies is no new deal. Dodgeball: An Underdog Story, Transformers, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra have come and gone, with movies based on Battleship, Stretch Armstrong, Clue, Candy Land, Ouiji, Monopoly, and others still on the way. Adding to the party, Universal Pictures has announced that they have plans to take the legendary Barbie and turn her into a live-action movie, as well.

As crazy as these announcements always sound, this decision is a no-brainer, really. As her maker Mattel states, the toy celebrity has 99% worldwide brand awareness. You don’t have to be Good Will Hunting to know that’s pretty strong. The question here really is: what do you actually DO for a Barbie movie? The current plan to get going on finding some writers to take it on, but producer Laurence Mark isn’t worried, explaining that Barbie has had over 120 jobs over her 50-year existence, which opens the door to countless choices. [...]

Summit Entertainment has sent out a press release for their reboot of the Highlander franchise. The studio behind the Twilight franchise officially announced that director Justin Lin will be the man to take up the reigns and helm the new re-imagining. Lin is best known for his work as director of both The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, as well as Fast & Furious. He also handled Better Luck Tomorrow and Annapolis. Lin joins Iron Man writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway and producers Neil H. Moritz and Peter Davis on the project.

Summit is rebooting the title with full expectations of creating a whole new franchise, and they have every reason to expect it to work. Since its inception, Highlander has spawned four other movies, a couple TV series, an animated movie and TV series, and a ton of books and comics.

Though many will be sickened just by the thought of a new Highlander, that feeling will be magnified by the thought of the man who made two Fast and Furious movies. Nonetheless, Summit feels this is the perfect team for the job. [...]

From the start, we’ve known that Guy Ritchie‘s upcoming new vision of Sherlock Holmes was being built up with hopes of it becoming a huge franchise. Not to waste any time, Warner Brothers has brought in Kieran and Michele Mulroney to begin scripting the sequel an entire three months before the first film is released in theaters.

The move is pretty interesting, to say the least. The first movie was written by Michael Robert Johnson and Anthony Peckham, both of which had little experience: Peckham has a few credits including Don’t Say A Word, while Sherlock is Johnson’s first and only credit. This new pair of writers doesn’t seem to have much more experience with a few lesser-known titles and a handful of small acting roles. This is a move that could possibly lead people to believe that producers were not happy with the first movie and are looking to improve with the second. There’s a chance that Johnson and Peckham just had other projects lined up, but with this being set up as said franchise, that’s unlikely. [...]

Geeks of Doom has had the honor of interviewing some of the great cast members of Troy Duffy‘s desperately-anticipated sequel, Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. First up was the wonderful Clifton Collins Jr., who’s new to the gang in the sequel. And now, I’m pleased to present our own little chat with the best two good guy killers ever seen in a movie — the Boondock Saints: Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus!

Whether you’re a super-fan of the original 1999 cult classic The Boondock Saints or not, you’ve very likely seen both of these gentleman in numerous other movies and TV shows. Sean has appeared in movies like Powder and Suicide Kings, and he even rocked the fedora and whip as Indiana Jones in Young Indiana Jones. Norman will soon be seen in Pandorum, and is also known from his roles in movies like Deuces Wild, Blade II, and Ridley Scott’s American Gangster with Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington.

You can stay up to date with both of these fine actors by following them on Twitter, or by going to their official websites for all the information you need on all of the past, current, and future projects discussed in this interview. [...]

Fucking ecstatic does not begin to adequately describe how happy I am that the dark period of music socialization is over. And in case you aren’t sure the time frame I’m speaking of, it’s the period in which people had to really work in order to discover and share new music by listening to FM radio, buying overpriced albums at a retail store or my *least* favorite, speaking to a group of self important douchebag music snobs. None of those options were ideal for the sake of discovery, but they were even worse for the sake of sharing.

Technology has ushered in so many new (legal) ways to socialize about music, none of which involve an abundance of black t-shirts or $5 covers at the door.

Blip.fm

If you’ve ever had the urge to communicate solely through notes and lyrics, then blip.fm will become an addiction. It’s by far my favorite new way to socialize about music. Blip.fm is a service that allows you to listen to virtually any song by “blipping” it to your own personal stream — similar to Twitter. Also like Twitter, each song you blip is accompanied by an optional 150-character message. Users “listen” or “follow” other people’s blips, which are aggregated in real time to a custom feed that acts as a playlist. However, if you get tired of this playlist you can always navigate to someone else’s [...]

9
Directed by Shane Acker
Starring Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau
Studio: Focus Features
Release date: 9/9/09 (clever right?)

I’m a big fan of animation in all its forms, but I’m also an adult, and I want a good story to go along with what I’m watching. That’s what I was hoping for when I first started seeing previews for the film 9. It looked like more of an adult action film, which just happened to be done with CG animation. Add in the names Tim Burton, whose done great animation work before with the Nightmare Before Christmas and the Corpse Bride, and Timur Bekmambetov, who directed Wanted as well as two very visually experimental movies in Night Watch and Day Watch, and you’ve made a movie that I’ll want to see. See is the operative word when it comes to 9, because while it is spectacular looking, the rest of my mind could never get into the film.

The story is fairly simple. A creature made out of cloth (voiced by Elijah Wood) wakes up in a strange room, with a mysterious round object. (I’d accuse the filmmakers of ripping off LittleBigPlanet’s Sack-boy if I didn’t know that the short film this is based on hadn’t come out well before the game.) He can’t speak and doesn’t know anything about what’s going on, so he ventures out until he runs across another cloth man, who says his name is 2 (Martin Landau), and sees that the new one has a 9 on his back, so that’s what he calls him. 2 is also nice enough to hook 9 up with a voice box so he can speak. Shortly after, 2 is captured by some kind of monster and taken away. 9 is determined to rescue him and sets off to the factory where he saw 2 was taken. Along the way he meets a number of creatures just like him (voiced by John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Connelly, and Crispin Glover), and then he ends up almost dooming what remains of life. Then the creatures run around, learning where they come from, why they were created, and how they can save whatever life remains on the Earth [...]

What happens when you mesh mirror-like shards commonly found on disco balls with the finest soldiers this side of the Darth Vader’s Empire? Disco Trooper, who in this case decided to crash the Battlestar Galactica‘s Fleet party at Dragon*Con 2009.

I followed around the groove jivin’ man inside the Disco Trooper suit, Chris Lee. Interestingly, he was accompanied by an entourage of folks that flashed strobe lights on him whenever it looked as if a picture was being taken. Also, there was a guy dressed as a nun — well either it was a guy or a really convincing asexual lady of the cloth.

Either way, I brought the flipcam along. Video starts with me questioning the ethics of this gathering in the company of the Holy Sister and ends with Disco Trooper bustin’ moves to Lady Gaga…