DC Comics announced this morning that Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski will have his hands full with Superman and Wonder Woman later this year, aiming to return the icons to their rightful places at the top.

Starting in July with Superman #701 and Wonder Woman #601 JMS takes over as writer on both titles. (Wonder Woman writer Gail Simone recently announced her departure from the title to work on other DC series.) He’ll also have a story in each of the anniversary issues (issue 700) to lead into his new ongoing runs. DC’s Source Blog is promising more details regarding the direction of the titles and the artists joining him in the coming months, along with an essay penned by the writer later today.

Superman will hit issue #700 in June, just after the War of the Superman weekly event wraps in May. Wonder Woman returns to its original numbering with May’s #600 after a DC-promoted post card campaign proved effective [...]

If you stuck around after the last night’s Academy Awards for Jimmy Kimmel Live, you not only got to see the new Iron Man 2 trailer, but also some celebrity guests appearances from several Oscar ceremony attendees, like Best Supporting Actor winner Christoph Waltz.

If you missed it, though, then you missed one hilarious segment called Handsome Men’s Club, of which show host Jimmy Kimmel is the president.

Who’s in this handsome men’s club? Lots of good-looking famous dudes.

But, male-folk, don’t be dissuaded — it’s more than hot famous dudes, it’s funny too. Trust me, just watch it.

I won’t spoiler it by telling you who the members are, so check out the entire 10-minute segment here below.

Head’s up Twilight fans, your dudes get a nod in this [...]

I think its safe to say Alice In Wonderland had a pretty good weekend. Considering its shattering box office records left and right, you’ve probably seen Alice In Wonderland at this point, so why not join me for some spoiler talk!

Director and subject matter make for a perfect marriage in Tim Burton’s version of the Lewis Carroll classic. Alice In Wonderland stars frequent Burton collaborator Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Defiance‘s Mia Wasikowska as Alice, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, Helena Bonham-Carter as the Red Queen, and Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts.

I thought Burton’s style fit in nicely with the world of Wonderland and I really enjoyed the performances by Wasikowska and Bonham-Carter. Sadly, I am starting to grow a bit tired of the Burton/Depp/Bonham-Carter collaboration. All their recent films feel very similar and I haven’t really seen a lot of growth from the trio. Do you think its about time Burton found new best friends?

If you have seen Alice In Wonderland, then, it’s time for SPOILER TALK! Below are some of my spoiler-filled thoughts on the film, and as always, remember to leave your thoughts about the movie here below in the Comments section [...]

One of the big draws to tonight’s 82nd Academy Awards ceremony was the fact that a brand new trailer for Jon Favreau‘s mega-sequel, Iron Man 2, would be debuting after the broadcast on Jimmy Kimmel Live‘s annual Oscar special.

The promised Iron Man 2 trailer did indeed debut, introduced by Tony stark himself, Robert Downey Jr., and heads exploded. Instead of cutting a trailer that mostly consists of stuff we’ve seen, they gave us a whole lot of new goodies. In this second trailer you’ll see Whiplash meeting Justin Hammer for the first time, Black Widow in action, a new line of military suits, more of the epic battle that sees Iron Man and War Machine taking on and a bunch of these new generic suits, a possible glimpse at Iron Man taking a shot at War Machine, and even Tony Stark’s fancy new briefcase that just happens to fuse on to his body as another suit!

Put on your own personal super-suit and frolic over to the other side to check out the brand new trailer!

The first trailer was released back in December as an early Christmas present, and that one was pretty amazing to see. [...]

As always, we like to have the results of the big awards ceremonies here for all to see, and tonight was the biggest of them all: the 82nd annual Academy Awards.

This, the king of all awards shows, has faced much criticism the last few years, and their nominations this year did not help bring validity to their cause. Many of the films and actors were very deserving of their nominations, but many others were passed over in lieu of some big box office successes of questionable overall quality. And though they made a valiant effort to increase the excitement of the show with 10 Best Picture nominations, the end result was frustrating to we the film lovers of the world?

In the end, some fantastic films and performances were justly awarded, and as always, there were a few that rubbed the wrong way. Continue on over to the other side to see all of the final results! [...]

For those who have not heard, there is some craziness going on between Cablevision and ABC in New York. A failure to reach an agreement has lead to the pulling of tonight’s airing of the 82nd Academy Awards, leaving many customers infuriated and nowhere to watch.

Apparently they are working hard to reach an agreement, and it would be surprising if someone didn’t compromise to get this done somehow before the Oscars air, but there are options in a worst-case-scenario situation!

For those of you currently in the midst of this ridiculous network elementary school whine-fest, such as our leaders, Empress Eve and Dave3, you can now watch the LIVE Oscars telecast free and streaming thanks to the kind people at AP Live.

At the moment, you can watch the red carpet stuff going on, and it all should zip right into the ceremony when the action begins.

Walk your own carpet (of whichever color you wish) on over to the other side to watch the live stream right now. And many thanks to AP for stepping up while these massive companies run by toddlers throw Legos at each other. [...]

With James Cameron’s Avatar up for nine Academy Awards tonight, including Best Picture and Best Director, here’s an detailed look back at the record-breaking film.

Over $700 million in domestic box office grosses later, James Cameron’s epic sci-fi adventure Avatar has beaten months of mediocre buzz and a cryptic advertising campaign to become the highest-grossing movie of all time. Ironic given that the last time Cameron was behind the camera the result was Titanic, another movie which took on similar, insurmountable odds and became the #1 box office champ in history. Sure the inflation nerds will always pipe up and say, “But wait! When adjusted for inflation Gone with the Wind is really the highest-grossing movie of all time!” To which we’d all say, “Yeah but Gone with the Wind didn’t have big blue aliens with long tails, did it?” Thus there is no comparison.

The movie is a full-blown phenomenon with critics and audiences and now it’s being showered with awards, including a slew of Oscar nominations including Best Picture (for which Avatar is a front-runner) and Best Director (Cameron is competing with ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, the director of The Hurt Locker, for the prize). I had the good fortune of seeing Avatar when it was first released in December before strong word-of-mouth, a lackluster holiday movie line-up, and the promise of mind-blowing visual wonders exploding from the screen through the magic of 3D transformed a potential Christmas turkey into a celluloid slot machine that’s been paying off in cash and prestige for Cameron and 20th Century Fox ever since [...]

Saturday Night Live is typically hit or miss and while I always record the show, it’s rare that I watch it ‘live’. But, when I heard that The Hangover‘s Zach Galifianakis was to be the host, I tuned in promptly at 11:30pm last night hoping for the best.

The Obama opening sketch wasn’t all that funny, but once Galifianakis did his opening monologue, that was it. I was laughing every two seconds. I especially liked the parts about his applying ‘chapstick’ and his inquiry about the show’s musical guest. This had to be one of the show’s best opening monologue’s ever.

You can watch the entire opening monologue here below.

The rest of the sketches were all amusing: the shock value of “The Kissing Family” (I knew what was going to happen as soon as they said “We’re a close family”); the musical revue “What Up with That?” (no need for dialogue here, they could have just played the song, which I still can’t get out of my head); and “CNN Reports” (hilariously funny for its closeness to the truth). Oh, and Kenan Thompson’s “Weekend Update” appearance as Oscar-nominee Mo’Nique — good, good stuff! [...]

The Crazies
Directed by Breck Eisner
Starring Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker, Joe Anderson
Rated R
Release date: February 26, 2010

A military plane carrying a biological weapon crashes near an Iowa farm town, the people start becoming infected due to the effects of the weapon, the military gets involved and everyone has to run for their lives. If this sounds like a movie you have seen before, and not just because it is a remake of the 1973 film by George A. Romero, you are probably right. But I doubt it’s ever been as much fun.

Speaking of, let’s get something out in the open before we even get started. I know The Crazies isn’t movie about zombies in the truest sense, but purists be damned, it really is a zombie movie. It is not a faceless killer running amok; these are your friends and people you know infected by something unknown causing them to act… we’ll say “out of sorts.” I’ve always liked that level of emotion built into the zombie (and zombie-like) movie. If it were a typical horror movie there would be definitive bad guys. They threaten you, you kill them, end of story. No love lost. When the zombie apocalypse finally happens, the infected could very well be your wife, your friends, or your children. The survival aspect is compounded by potentially having to kill someone you know to stop them from killing you, eating your brains, lighting you on fire, chewing your face off doing you harm [...]

Green Hornet #1
Written by Kevin Smith
Breakdowns by Phil Hester
Pencils by Jonathan Lau
Dynamite
Price: $3.99; Released March 3, 2010

Lone Ranger, Zorro, Buck Rodgers, and now we get Green Hornet. Comics featuring old pulp heroes are the new zombie comics, so it’s no surprise we are now getting a resurrection of the character, especially with a movie coming out eventually. Some might remember that Kevin Smith was set to direct the film version at one point, and since he also likes to dabble in comic writing, it makes sense for him to write this series. He does a good job with Green Hornet #1. If you’re like me, you might be aware of the Green Hornet, but only so far as to know that he drives a car, and Bruce Lee was his sidekick on the TV show. If that’s all you know about the character, Smith succeeds in explaining the basics of the character.

We see the Green Hornet and his sidekick Kato as they take down the last of the mob and yakuza gangs that are operating in his city, and Green Hornet announces to his wife that he’s going to retire. We then skip ahead to the future, where we meet the Hornet’s son, who I have to assume will be the star of the series. By the end of the issue, I understood the character and what his deal is, and was interested enough to consider picking up the next issue. It did feel very similar to the first issue of the Zorro reboot, and I hope the origin story that we’ll be seeing over the next few months moves quickly [...]

Back in November, Steve Guttenberg was making some very interesting claims. The ’80s star seemed not just confident, but downright positive that not only was Walt Disney developing a third film in his Three Men and a Baby franchise, but that it was time to revisit both Police Academy and Cocoon as well.

All of this as a whole remains to be seen for sure, but one of these has become an official possibility. It’s being reported that New Line Cinema is developing their very own Police Academy reboot, and that one of the original producers, Paul Maslansky, is back for the job here.

Since the first film’s release in 1984, six more films have been put out — each one disliked more than the last. If you’re a child of that time period, however, you have to have a soft spot somewhere for the first two or three movies at least, but even then, that was the absolute limit. All seven films combined pulled in $240 million, which as you know, is about the average budget of your typical, run-of-the-mill Summer blockbuster these days. [...]

NOLA #4
Issue 4 of 4
Created/Story by Chris Gorak
Script/Writer: Pierluigi Cothran
Art by Damian Couceiro
Covers: Erik Jones (A); Chris Brunner (B)
BOOM! Studios
Price: $3.99; Release Date: March 3, 2010

Raised only by her mother, Nola Thomas led a confused lifestyle prior to the devastating events of Hurricane Katrina laid waste to her home city of New Orleans, Louisiana. After being nearly murdered by her boyfriend, a powerful married man, Nola wakes up after the hurricane to discover that half of her body has been burned, and that she has been left for dead, alone, in a New Orleans hospital. Nola goes home to find out that her mother has passed away.

Nola takes this opportunity of a post-apocalyptic setting of lawlessness and rage to take out all of her transgressions on the people responsible for all the wrong that has been done to her.

Issue #4 concludes this mini-series and gives us all the answers to every question that was presented in NOLA. We find out who murdered her father, and all the details of the elaborate cover up [...]

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep #9
Written by Philip K. Dick
Art by Tony Parker
Covers: Moritat, Scott Keating
BOOM! Studios
Price: $3.99; Release date: March 3, 2010

Full disclosure, I love Philip K. Dick. I have almost every novel and short story he’s ever published including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. While Androids is not my favourite book, it is the most well-known Dick novel, so it came as little surprise when I learned that BOOM! Studios was adapting it into comic book form.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep #9 picks up one of the most fascinating sections of the novel: the bounty hunter Deckard has been cornered by suspected android Luba Loft, who accuses him of being a sexual deviant. Instead of simply executing him right then and there, she calls in another police officer, Crams, who claims that he has never heard of a bounty hunter in the San Francisco police department named Deckard, nor has he ever heard of his superior, Harry Bryant. In fact, when Deckard tries to contact Bryant, the connection is cut off before Crams has a chance to speak with him. After finding the body of a “retired” android in Deckard’s car, he is arrested and shuffled into the back of Crams patrol car. Deckard soon realizes that he has been duped by the androids, and he is now at their mercy [...]

Dead Snow
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Tommy Wirkola
Starring Stig Frode Henriksen, Vegar Hoel, Bjorn Sundquist
MPI Home Video
Release date: February 23, 2010

A group of medical students take an Easter vacation to a cabin in the woods near the small Norwegian village of Oksfjord. Because of the heavy snow their only way to get there — and back — is a single snowmobile or a 45-minute walk. And no, there is no phone reception up here. Happily, they play in the snow; having snowball fights and sledging down the hills. In the cabin they drink beer, play twister, and enjoy themselves. But they are not alone. During World War 2, German soldiers terrorised Oksfjord subjecting its people to three years of barbarity as they looted any valuables they could find. Having finally had enough, the villagers rallied together and hounded the soldiers out of their homes and into the mountains. Something evil is stalking the students — zombie Nazis.

Let me get this out of the way early: I loved this movie. I thought it was a great genre piece made by an obvious horror movie nut and brought a fresh angle to an already gorged genre. Like the child vampires in Let The Right One In it seems the snow in Scandinavia has forced a genuinely fresh take on another of my favourite horror creations and Dead Snow, directed and co-written by Tommy Wirkola, steps into those bloody-footprints with gory glee [...]

Alice in Wonderland 3D
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter
Rated PG
Release date: March 5, 2010

Tim Burton has spent the bulk of his career adding films to his resume that should have made us all rejoice in the idea of seeing his version of Alice in Wonderland. His imaginative style had the potential to lend itself to a classic version of the Lewis Carroll books. Technology and animation has caught up to Carroll’s imagination which should have provided an open canvas to bring the cherished story to life. Even in the able hands of someone who should be able to pull it off, it turns out that isn’t such a good thing.

Somewhere in the last few years filmmakers have become clouded with this notion that 3D is some kind of art form and it seems like every other movie is being converted to 3D, even ones that have no business being in the discussion. For the life of me I cannot figure out why they have yet to realize it is just a gimmick. There is no doubt Avatar changed our perception of what is possible but everybody else is light years behind the curve and until they figure it out, 3D will remain a joke that brings nothing to the table. Just because the glasses are a little cooler than they were 20 years ago doesn’t mean we should all hop back on the bandwagon. It went away before for a reason and it was brought back without really fixing the problem [...]

It’s been a while since it was reported that a remake was in the works for the 1989 horror film Pet Sematary. Now it looks as if this wasn’t some sick joke, but the honest-to-gods truth. The first movie was of course adapted from Stephen King‘s 1983 book of the same name.

Paramount Pictures has hired Matthew Greenberg to write the screenplay for the remake. Greenberg handled the writing duties for another King adaptation in 2007′s John Cusack thriller, 1408. Before that, he also wrote The Prophecy II, Halloween H20, and Reign of Fire.

The story revolves around a big city family who move to the quiet countryside of Maine. One day while having a fun family picnic, their very young son Gage wanders off and is hit by one of the 18-wheelers that are known to drive by at high speeds. One day, the boy’s father Louis, unable to handle the grief, brings his son’s lifeless body to a nearby Micmac cemetery he was shown. [...]

The other day, we told you how kick ass the Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie book is and promised that you’d have a chance to win a copy right here at Geeks of Doom [check out the review].

Well, today’s the day!

Three (3) winners will each receive:
– One (1) Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie book

Kick-Ass, the bestselling comic book series by Mark Millar (writer of the graphic novel Wanted, which became a smash-hit movie) and artist John Romita Jr., is now an eagerly awaited film, and this is the essential companion book!

What would happen if you tried to be a superhero? What would happen when an ordinary kid in a spandex costume comes face-to-face with the criminal underworld? Comic book fan and high school student Dave Lizewski, aka the self-styled vigilante Kick-Ass, is about to find out… and it’s going to get really, really violent!

Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie features creator Mark Millar’s unique commentary on the conversion of his bestselling comic to the big screen, with hundreds of movie photos![...]

Many of you may have the willpower to wait until March 16 to see God of War III for the very first time; but for the rest of you, teases are here to temporarily sustain your eager eyes.

A new video has been released online, and it shows the first 10 minutes of the game. This will give you a basic idea of what to expect when you get your own copy. Of course, if you’re like me, you’ve already purchased the special God of War and God of War II re-release OR the District 9 Blu-ray in order to grab your own download of the demo! Naturally it would be recommended that you play said demo, but if you just can’t get your hands on it, this is worth a peek.

Battle your way over to the on over to the other side to watch the first 10 minutes of God of War III right now! [...]

Universal has released a new image from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the Harry Potter-themed section of Islands of Adventure, a theme park within the Universal Orlando Resort.

See the image here at right (click for larger, full view).

The new image, which was taken today, is of the Hogwarts Express as it arrives at Hogsmeade Station. In the Harry Potter universe, the special train, which departs from King’s Cross railway station’s Platform 9 3/4, is what’s used to transport the young wizarding students to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The steam engine train will be what greets guests as they enter Hogsmeade at the Wizarding World area of the theme park, which is set to open this Spring.

Back in January, a tiny sneak peek was given of the top of the Hogwarts Castle at the park [read Geek Peek: Hogwarts Castle At Universal’s ‘Wizarding World of Harry Potter’] [...]

Since a devastating fire destroyed much of the Universal Studios in June of 2008, the damage has slowly-but-surely been restored. Over this time period, many exciting announcements have also been made — namely, that the legendary King Kong ride would not be rebuilt, but re-imagined as a brand new and amazing attraction for visitors to check out.

A few details for this new ride — which was to be based not on the classic 1933 film, but Peter Jackson‘s latest epic film — were shared in June of 2009, but they only described what the ride would be. Now, almost two years later, we’re starting to get a really strong idea of what to expect if we find ourselves visiting Kong this Summer when the ride opens.

Jackson got together with a team of both theme park ride experts and film making talents inside of a giant hangar cloaked in green screen to put it all together and create one of the wildest cinematic adventure rides ever conceived.

Continue on down below to read more about how insane this ride will be, and also to check out the ride’s short teaser trailer. [...]