The Temeraire series from author Naomi Novik began in 2006 and takes place in the ever-entertaining world of alternate history in which fictional stories and events are constructed around actual historical happenings. The series takes place during the Napoleonic Wars that ran from 1803 to 1815, but adds to it the existence of dragons who are manned and used in combat. So far, there have been five Temeraire books, with a ending being aimed for at nine books.

For a while now, Lord of the Rings trilogy director Peter Jackson has had the TemeraireAin’t It Cool News and spoke on the topic, which included information on how it may unfold, though it is way too early for any of it to be definite. With the series expected to be around nine books, it’s obviously very difficult to compact it all into one or more feature films. Because of this, Jackson thinks that the mini-series format, much like HBO does so well with titles like Band of Brothers could be a fair option, though it is always changing and would need to be researched further. [...]

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day over at Amazon today is Lost: The Complete Seasons 1-5.

Save 70% on both the DVD priced at $72.99 (down from the list price of $239.95) and Blu-ray priced at $108.99 (down from the list price of $359.95).

This deal is for five individual box sets, each containing a season of the hit ABC televisions series Lost.

Math time: The individual season DVDs go for $32-$45 each, but the sale brings it down to under $15 each; Blu-ray editions are $47-$50 each, but the sale brings it down to under $22 each. So this sale is essentially giving you five seasons for about the same price as buy two seasons. That’s crazy, hence why you should grab this deal while it lasts, which is til midnight tonight PST or before that if supplies run out [...]

New Line Cinema recently heard a pitch from Darren Lemke that presented a concept for a live-action re-imagining of beloved fairy tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The pitch hit its mark solid and New Line acquired the idea and is moving forward with it. This new vision is expected to be of the action/adventure/fantasy variety and be presented in the same style as movies like The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

The original Nutcracker tale was written in 1816 by E.T.A. Hoffmann and centers around a 12-year-old girl named Marie and her 8-year-old brother, Fritz, as they eagerly await the year’s Christmas gift from their clockmaker/inventor father. He presents them with a specially crafted castle with mechanical people moving around it as if always tending to the day’s chores. Marie notices a Nutcracker and asks her father about it, who offers her the responsibility of caring for the doll. Later that night, Marie discovers that there is much more to the Nutcracker as he and many other dolls come to life to do battle with the mice, who are lead by the seven-headed Mouse King. [...]

Even more vampires are in the news today, as it’s being reported that after Alice in Wonderland, director Tim Burton will next tackle Dark Shadows with his constant, Johnny Depp. The proposed remake of the 1966 daytime soap opera had been talked about plenty, but it was never clear when Depp and Burton would get together for it. As you might imagine, a show that featured vampires, werewolves, ghosts, monsters, zombies, time travel, and other wild and scary elements was a bit edgy for 1960s television, let alone daytime TV. Depp will play a vampire named Barnabas Collins

Producer Graham King was out promoting The Young Victoria recently, and in a group interview, he made the announcement.

We’re actually going to shoot that film next September/October with Tim Burton and Johnny.

We’ve been working on the script a lot, even though he’s working on Alice. We’ve been given a script. John August wrote the first screenplay. We’re making some changes, but the film’s going to be in production, as I say, September or October of next year. [...]

The glaring issue that most who are not fans seem to have with The Twilight Saga is that the vampires portrayed within it are too pretty, too clean, and, well…too boring, to be blunt. It would appear as though Summit Entertainment — the studio behind Twilight — doesn’t completely disagree, as they are now officially developing a new movie that will be based on the vampire behind all vampires: Dracula.

The studio will produce along with Brad Pitt‘s Plan B Entertainment and is currently in negotiations with Anthony Mandler to direct the film. Mandler is another of one of the many up-and-coming directors who currently has a lot of music video work under his belt, but no feature films yet. The movie is being described as an period action story called Vlad — titled of course for the original Dracula we know as Vlad the Impaler — that will follow the feared being as a young prince.

Word has it that Summit has been developing the project for a while now unbeknownst to anyone else. It wasn’t until Mandler prepared a reel that was compared to Zack Snyder’s 300 that really impressed them and motivated them to get things moving forward in a more official fashion. [...]

The Strip
Directed by Jameel Khan
Starring Dave Foley, Jenny Wade, Rodney Scott, Billy Aaron Brown, Federico Dordei, Cory Christmas, Noreen DeWulf, Chelcie Ross
Bata Films
Rated PG-13
Release Date: December 4, 2009 (limited)

The Strip is a new independent film from Bata Films that tells the story of a group of small-town retail store workers trying to find themselves. It’s a story that we’ve seen before, but that works on many different levels, as witnessed in movies like Clerks, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Waiting. What differentiates it from movies like that is its open subtlety. The movie doesn’t rush anywhere or get too out of hand, and though hilarious in the movies mentioned, it avoids the constant swearing and adult themes as much as possible in an attempt to thrive on being what it is: just a simple tale of a few lives looking to rediscover their true paths.

The Strip refers to a strip mall where a little store called Electri-City is located. It’s a blatant Radio Shack ripoff, and sells many generic brand products that no one has ever heard of, but because people love cheap crap, they do have customers…sometimes. This branch is run by the manager, Glenn (Dave Foley). He obviously has the passion and the drive, but you can tell he’s in a bit of a mid-life crisis, though he’d never admit it. He makes an effort in raising sales numbers by trying trust exercises with his team, such as all holding hands and trying to untie themselves. Unfortunately, these exercises aren’t completely successful due to the fact that his staff is a grab bag of varying personalities that don’t exactly mesh together well. [...]

Today’s Gold Box spotlight deal of the day over at Amazon is Arrested Development – The Complete Series for $28.99 (that’s marked down even more from its sale price of $82.49 and 74% off the original price of $109.94.)

This is all three seasons on 8 discs of the Fox television comedy narrated by Ron Howard and shot mockumentary-style and starring Jason Bateman as the only normal seed in his dysfunctional family of Jeffrey Tambor, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, David Cross, Jessica Walter, and Michael Cera.

Each season comes separately in its own case and all seasons include commentaries, deleted and extended scenes, and blooper reels. Additionally, Season 1 contains the never-aired extended pilot, Ron Howard’s inside look at Arrested Development, and a Making Of featurette; Season 2 has a video over of Season 1 and “The Immaculate Election” campaign videos; and Season 3 has a “The Last Day on Location” featurette.

This is a major deal, considering that the individual season DVDs sold separately are about $13 – $20 each [...]

Creed
Creed Live
DC3 Music Group
Released December 8, 2009

Love them, loathe them, regard them with a shrug of indifference — whatever it is you do when it comes to Creed, it is impossible to deny the credentials of this band. Its first three albums have gone multi-platinum and the latest, Full Circle, is on course to follow suit. Formed in 1995, Creed split in 2004 under a blaze of furious egos. Actually it was more like under a soft blanket of withheld apologies. Which makes this concert and new album a Creed reunion. Now this reformed rock group has released its first DVD, Creed Live.

Creed’s popularity lies almost entirely in North America and during its most successful period earlier this decade they remained relatively unknown elsewhere. My North American friends, I must tell you: the rest of the world was on to something.

I listened to a couple of Creed’s albums not long after they were released but I never really connected with them. Maybe there was too much pain to deal with and at the time of 1999’s Human Clay and 2001’s Weathered, there was a wave of new rock/metal bands that dealt in misery. Even when the lyrics were not dealing with tough emotional issues they still sounded like they were complaining about something. But on listening to these albums I could tell that drummer Scott Phillips and co-songwriters guitarist Mark Tremonti and lead singer Scott Stapp (the band had bass player issues) were obviously capable musicians so maybe with the help of this Creed Live DVD I would finally complete my Creed puzzle [...]

The first teaser trailer is now online for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Watch it here below!

This teaser trailer is included in the DVD and Blu-ray release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which will be released on December 8, 2009.

Therefore, I’m thinking this teaser might be yanked by Warner Bros at any moment, so watch it while you can. It includes an introduction by director David Yates and producer David Heyman [...]

Last month, we reported the sad news that rock legend Ronnie James Dio had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and was receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic [read 'Rock Legend Ronnie James Dio Diagnosed With Stomach Cancer'].

In a statement released by Dio’s wife and longtime manager Wendy Dio, all the well-wishes the singer has received so far has helped to keep his spirits up, as he fights this battle against cancer, which was caught in its early stages.

Now, the Black Sabbath fan site has some official information on where you can sent your get-well wishes to Dio. According to Wendy Dio, all cards and items for Ronnie can be sent to the official Dio fan club address:

Dio Fan Club
12400 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 624
Studio City, CA 91604

Also, the Black Sabbath fan site webmaster is also collecting all get-well emails for Dio at getwellronnie@black-sabbath.com, which will then be printed out and passed to to Ronnie and Wendy [...]

Fear Itself: The Complete First Season
Directed by Ronnie Yu, John Landis, Darren Lynn Bousman
Starring Brandon Routh, Elizabeth Moss, Eric Roberts, Cynthia Watros, Wendell Pierce, Shiri Appleby, John Billingsley, Rachel Miner
Lionsgates Films
Released Date: September 15, 2009

Apparently, FDR was wrong. There are plenty of other things to fear than fear itself. This is what I gathered after sitting down and watching the first season of Fear Itself.

The concept itself is not new. Much like many of the anthologies before it, from The Twilight Zone to Tales From the Crypt, Fear Itself offers up hour long mini horror “movies” directed by some of today’s masters of suspense. As an added bonus, each episode features familiar stars, from both the big and small screen.

I wanted to like this series a lot. If you used your Wayback Machine, you would clearly see a little Jack Bauerstein sitting in his living room and watching reruns of The Outer Limits with Neil Patrick Harris in it. I wanted the series to work but for several reasons, the series misses its mark.

For one thing, the writing is not all that fantastic. Yes, there are indeed a handful of episodes that work very well in the hour long format but in general, most of the stories are tired and unoriginal [...]

The Gold Box deal of the day today over at Amazon is HBO’s Rome: The Complete Series DVD or Blu-ray set for up to 60% off.

The DVD set is discounted at $39.99 (that’s 60% off the list price of $99.98), while the Blu-ray set is down to $59.99 (that’s 57% off the list price of $139.99).

Both sets contain all 22 episodes of the HBO series that ran for two seasons (the DVD has 11 discs; the Blu-ray has 10) and starred Kevin McKidd, Ray Stevenson, Kerry Condon, and Polly Walker.

Both editions contain audio commentary by the cast and crew; featurettes on the history of Rome and its famous citizens; behind-the-scenes featurettes on the show’s production; featurettes focusing on the creation of specific scenes; and an interactive historical guide. The Blu-ray edition also has some exclusive to Blu-ray content and has enhanced versions of some of the existing extras [...]

A report via the LA Times was floating around the internet yesterday that Twilight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon star Taylor Lautner was being weighed as an option to star in Paramount’s superhero teenager property, Max Steel. This didn’t take long to develop into a factual story as Deadline Hollywood was able to confirm with Paramount that they had indeed cast the 17-year-old Lautner for the lead.

Max Steel originated as a CG-animated series that debuted in 2001 and went on to become an internationally popular toy line for Mattel, though it is not so well-known here in the states. And though it’s not the Transformers and G.I. Joe-level title that’s already making Paramount massive amounts of money, the studio is hoping that Lautner will rake in the majority of the planet’s female population and a strong percentage of the male population — for whatever reason might snag them. Steel tells the story of a 19-year-old X-Games-type athlete who is badly injured in an attack that sees millions of microscopic nanomachines known as Nano Tech Max infest his body and die, which in-turn eventually kills him. In order to save him, he is subjected to a heavy amount of special energy that revives the machines, saves his life, and gives him superhuman abilities. [...]

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Directed by Wes Anderson
Voiced by George Clooney, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Wallace Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Owen Wilson, Jarvis Cocker
Release date: November 25, 2009

My relationship with the movies of Wes Anderson can best be described as strained, to say the least. I have a sympathetic ear for the dysfunction he makes his characters wallow in each movie, but aren’t they all really just singing the same song?; that a family, no matter how damaged and quirky, can get through anything as long as they stick together? He has a definitive style, but more and more I get the impression that he is really telling a variation of the same story and trying to hide it by out-weirding the last one. Considering it to be my loudest objection to his movies, I find it curious that one of the biggest compliments I can give Fantastic Mr. Fox is that it feels like a Wes Anderson movie.

The children’s novel by Roald Dahl that the movie is based on is pretty straightforward. Mr. Fox steals chickens, turkeys, and cider from three wealthy nearby farmers. The farmers band together to try to ambush and kill him. He escapes with his family but ends up trapped and starving. After a spell he hatches a plan to create an underground safe haven and steal from them again out from under their noses while they wait for him to emerge [...]

That headline, my kind friends, may be a little much to be claiming this soon, but having now seen some brand new videos that Bethesda Softworks has put out for their new game, Brink, it’s so very heard to ignore the possibilities. All you can do is watch what I’ve watched and see for yourself.

Brink is actually developed by Splash Damage and will be published by Bethesda, much like they did with the recent WET. Bethesda is renowned for their amazing video game feats, having crafted two of the greatest titles man has ever encountered in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3. And this was just in the past handful of years! WET wasn’t so well-received overall (though I quite enjoyed it for what it was), but with Brink, the company is really aiming to show that they know what they’re doing on both the developing and publishing fronts.

Not a whole lot is known about Brink and what we will get in terms of story, and up until today, we had only seen a very brief, very interesting teaser trailer. With these new videos, we get a little taste of the new systems that have been developed for the First Person Shooter (FPS), and we also get a much larger taste of the gameplay, the choices and strategies, and most impressive of all, the world. [...]

While it comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone that Google is the reigning king in in the realm of search, they’ve created an awesome new video advertisement demonstrating how their search engine can easily point you in the right direction no matter what your purpose is.

Who better to illustrate this than the tragic story of Gotham’s finest citizen, Bruce Wayne.

The video is part of Google’s Search Stories — a channel on Youtube proclaiming “Every Search Is A Quest. Every Quest Is A Story.”

Check out Bruce Wayne’s story in the video [...]

Empire Magazine celebrated their 20th anniversary a while back, and they made sure to do it proper. Many big news stories and goodies came from the event, but one of the big plans they hatched, was to attempt to book a bunch of the world’s biggest Hollywood stars for a photo shoot where they would re-create some of their own classic film scenes.

The result: big stars showed up. Lot’s of them. And though they didn’t get completely dressed in costume (the plan was to simply shoot them in nice attire with obvious props used to clarify the film), many fantastic images now exist. The list of names is impressive and includes Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, Christian Bale, Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Laurence Fishburne, Ben Stiller, Viggo Mortensen, Kevin Spacey, Matt Damon, Anthony Hopkins, and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, naturally! Movies that were re-created include Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Braveheart, The Matrix, Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park, and Shaun of the Dead.

Click over to the other side to check out some of the images we were quite smitten with; head over to Empire in order to see many more, including a lot more stars and movies not mentioned here! [...]

File this one under “reasons I love the Internet.”

Crickets, a user from the social news sharing site Reddit, has uploaded a rap inspired by Star Trek‘s Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge titled 99 Problems But A Breach Ain’t One — an obvious parody of rapper Jay-Z’s “99 Problems But A Bitch Ain’t One”. (For the time being, there’s a link to download the song on the Reddit Page.)

After reading the lyrics to the song, I think you’ll agree that this is on par with the Shatner-tastic Captain Kirk Is Climbing The Mountain and even Patrick Stewart’s showtunes performance aboard the Enterprise’s bridge.

An except from the song’s lyrics [...]

The trades are reporting that universal star Johnny Depp (you know aliens love him too) and Salma Hayek are both in “advanced negotiations” to star in a new biopic based on the life of famed Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. The film will be directed by Emir Kusturica, and will be called Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Six Fingers.

Kusturica says that he and Gordan Mihic have completed the script, but the project isn’t set to begin until 2011 due to Depp’s obviously jam-packed schedule. The director, who hails from Bosnia, has mostly only done foreign films before, but he has also worked with Depp in the past on a 1993 film called Arizona Dreams that co-starred Jerry Lewis and Faye Dunaway.

Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman with Six Fingers will concentrate on the tales of Villa and his men as they drank and bedded women and basically had a bunch of parties while often robbing the rich blind. It is based on James Carlos Blake‘s biography The Friends of Pancho Villa. [...]

Twilight: New Moon is out in theaters and has become a box office mega-hit. Whether you’re a fan of the movie or not, you can still enjoy the soundtrack, which is quite popular too (it’s already gone Platinum).

Therefore, we have five (5) digital copies of the Twilight: New Moon Soundtrack to give away to some lucky readers!

Five (5) winners will each receive:

– One (1) access card, redeemable for a digital version of the Twilight: New Moon Soundtrack*

*Each collectible access card has the cover of the soundtrack on the front with a unique code for a free download of Twilight The Saga: New Moon Original Motion Picture Soundtrack through a special URL listed on the back [...]