It’s been a while since Iron Man and Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau announced that he would not be returning to direct Iron Man 3, leaving fans to wonder who would be chosen to try and continue the massive success of the franchise.

Recently there had been some rumblings that Marvel Studios was meeting with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang director Shane Black to replace Favreau — a name almost everyone seemed to approve of. According to Deadline, all who approve can now celebrate, as it’s being reported that Black is in final negotiations for the job, which would be his first leap into the world of comic book movies.

For those of you who are unaware of Mr. Black, he’s done it all in Hollywood. He started as a writer and actor, penning the scripts for Lethal Weapon and a nostalgia favorite, The Monster Squad, with Fred Dekker. The same year he wrote those two movie, he also played the role of Hawkins in the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, Predator. He also went on to write and produce titles like The Last Boyscout and The Long Kiss Goodnight. [...]

A few days ago, a trailer for a video game called Dead Island was released. Before too long, it was everywhere you looked and people were clearly excited by what they were seeing (Read: Must Watch: Haunting Trailer For Zombie Video Game ‘Dead Island’ Will Leave You Speechless).

The game is an open-world action RPG video game set on an island where a zombie outbreak occurs, leaving the player to use what they can find to survive and fight off the relentless corpses. No gameplay is shown in it and as far as anyone can tell it has nothing to do with the actual game, but it’s so well-done you just can’t help but be impressed.

Because of the popularity of this trailer, Sean Daniel has decided not to wait around and see how well the actual game goes. The producer and his banner, The Sean Daniel Company, have acquired the rights to turn the game into a movie. [...]

Back in November we were informed that The Weinstein Company had acquired the rights to a movie called Apollo 18 to a movie called Apollo 18, which would be produced by Timur Bekmambetov and directed by Trevor Cawood.

The movie is of the “found footage” variety, taking the canceled NASA mission to the moon and proposing that it did in fact happen but went horribly, horribly wrong. The footage that has been found from the mission show just wrong it went and why they tried to cover it all up at first.

You can see the first trailer and read a synopsis for Apollo 18 by clicking on over now.

SYNOPSIS
Officially, Apollo 17, launched December 17th, 1972, was the last manned mission to the moon. But a year later, in December of 1973, two American astronauts were sent on a secret mission to the moon funded by the US Department of Defense. What you are about to see is the actual footage which the astronauts captured on that mission. While NASA denies its authenticity, others say it’s the real reason we’ve never gone back to the moon. [...]

Artist Francesco Francavilla is currently holding an auction on his website for a RoboCop sketch, with all of the money going to the #RoboCharity for Forgotten Harvest. The sketch shows the crimefighting cybog serving food to the hungry in his mission to protect and serve the people of Detroit.

Bidding on the sketch will end at 6pm EST on Sunday, February 27, 2011.

#RoboCharity came in response last week to the news that fans had raised over $50,000 (currently over $60,000) for Detroit to get a RoboCop statue (one the city officials neither asked for nor do they seem to want). While most agreed that banding together to raise money for something like this was very cool in theory, many people felt that money should actually go to help the people of Detroit. Thus the @RoboCharity Twitter account was created and #RoboCharity hastag to bring awareness to Forgotten Harvest, an organization that gets food out to the hungry in the Metro Detroit region [...]

Amazon is currently running a limited-time-only deal where you can buy one video game and a get a second video game for 50% off.

See the main Video Game Deal page for the qualifying selections. You have to put both selections in your cart and purchase at the same time to get the 50% off.

Some of the titles included in this sale are Bioshock 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Assassin’s Creed, Fallout 3, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Left 4 Dead, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Ghostbusters: The Video Game, and many many more.

There are lots of eligible titles for various platforms — Nintendo Wii & DS, Playstation 2 & 3, PSP, Xbox 360, and PC/Mac — so be sure to scroll through all 13 pages [...]

The $10 t-shirt deal of the day over at Teefury today is the H.P. Lovecraft-themed shirt called “Miskatonic Uni,” by artist Andy Hunt.

The sale at Teefury began at midnight EST (Sunday, February 20, 2011) and will continue for 24 hours from then, and once it’s over, it’s gone from the site for good.

The design is an Astronomy Club t-shirt for Miskatonic University, the fictional college in the H.P. Lovecraft universe that’s located in Arkham, Massachusetts [...]

Elektra Luxx
DIRECTED BY: Sebastian Gutierrez
WRITTEN BY: Sebastian Gutierrez
STARRING: Carla Gugino, Timothy Olyphant, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emmanuel Chriqui, Arianne Palicki, Marley Shelton, Malin Akerman, Josh Brolin
Sony Pictures
RELEASE DATE: March 11, 2011 (limited)

We all choose different career paths in life, and sometimes our path chooses us. Some people become doctors or teachers, while others become janitors or sales reps. And some don’t take a path at all; they go off-roading with careers like, oh, say…a porn star. No guidance counselor sends you in THAT direction.

But the lifespan of a career in the adult entertainment industry is a brief one, and before you know it you’re out of work and trying to figure out what the hell to do with the rest of your life, which is the basis for director Sebastian Gutierrez‘s latest film, Elektra Luxx.

This is the story of Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino), a legend in the porn industry with countless film titles to her name and an army of fans who have made her a star. Unfortunately for Elektra, she’s getting up there in age and is blind-sided by the news that she’s also pregnant with the child of recently deceased rock star Nick Chapel (Josh Brolin), forcing her to shockingly retire from the industry she’s such a staple in. [...]

Star Trek: The Animated Series is now streaming online and can be watched for FREE!

CBS has added all 22 episodes of the series online at StarTrek.com; the Star Trek page at CBS; and TV.com (which is owned by CBS).

Star Trek The Animated Series, which aired for two seasons in 1973 and 1974, featured most of the Star Trek: The Original Series characters, who were voiced by the original actors [...]

Comics creator Kate Beaton posted a little webcomic to Twitpic about Doctor Who, stating that she’s actually never seen an episode. The comic is just what she imagines the series is like from what bits and pieces she’s seen around, and humorously, her interpretation is not too far off!

See the full webcomic here.

You can check out more of Beaton’s work at her site Hark! A Vagrant [...]

The Eagle
Directed by Kevin Macdonald
Starring: Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, Donald Sutherland
Release date: February 11, 2011

What can we expect from a fearless director who documented mountain climbers’ perilous voyage in Touching the Void and directed a film about ruthless dictator Idi Amin? Director Kevin Macdonald didn’t flinch when making either of those films and he doesn’t wince the least bit here when he decides to direct a film about a Roman soldier in search of Rome’s lost pride (a golden Eagle statuette) during the 2nd century in Briton.

An exuberant vitality is brought to this material, a characteristic that hasn’t been put to adequate use in recent historical epics. No slouching is occurring here. Macdonald shows a deepened concern with emotion and the ways of how the Romans and savage races live. In The Eagle we see a juxtaposing of contrasting lifestyles. It’s a treat to see this variety and vitality being distributed freely in an action film by a director who has respect for nature and the olden days of Hollywood’s infatuation with adventure films [...]

Twilight Saga: Eclipse is available as a digital rental all this weekend for only $1.99 through Amazon’s Video On Demand.

This deal is valid through Sunday, February 19, 2011, until midnight PST. Once you activate the rental through Amazon’s Video On Demand service, you’ll have access to the movie for 48 hours. If you’re interested in purchasing the digital version, the cost is $14.99.

Also, if you’d like to own a physical copy of the movie, the following editions of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse are part of Amazon’s “Buy This DVD and Watch it Instantly” program: 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, Single-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo, and Single-Disc Blu-ray. That means with the purchase of any version, you will be able to watch the movie instantly through Amazon’s Video On Demand (see more details about this below).

Also available as a $1.99 digital rental this weekend are The A-Team, The Expendables, and Knight and Day. These three selections have a 24-hour rental access time frame [...]

A new video from Break.com is making it’s way around the web, and it’s…interesting, to say the very least.

The video is a spoof on the Enrique Inglesias song “Tonight I’m Loving You” dubbed “Tonight I’m Frakking You,” which replaces all the rhythmic sex of an Inglesias video with about as much geek content as humanly possible. No lie, friends, this is an all-geek wildfire, featuring cosplay fun from comic book superheros, Star Wars, Super Mario Brothers, Ghostbusters, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, and more.

You’ll even find a few familiar faces involved like Kunal Nayaar from Big Bang Theory, a brief cameo from BSG alum Richard Hatch, Amy Okuda from The Guild, and the absolute highest of high points of this video: Caprica star Alessandra Torresani as Princess Leia. Yes, that. You should go see. You can hug me later.

Be sure to click on over to the other side now to check out the video for “Tonight I’m Frakking You.” [...]

Last we heard, Johnny Depp was in line to replace Robert Downey Jr. as the Wizard in director Sam Raimi‘s upcoming new take on the tale of The Wizard of Oz, being called Oz, The Great and Powerful.

Not long after that, Depp also removed himself from the project, making it one of those annoying situations where every name you could think of was likely to become attached. Instead, the next to be offered the role was James Franco, and at the moment this looks to be a done deal. As good as Franco is, it is still a step down from Depp, who was himself a step down from Downey Jr., who seemed to be the perfect fit as the man who finds himself swept away to the magical lands of Oz, where he solidifies himself as an all-powerful wizard.

As it turns out, it took a little bit of sway in the form of another casting to lock up Franco’s services. Walt Disney was able to reach out to Black Swan star Mila Kunis and lure her away from the live-action Akira remake to play their Wicked Witch of the West. [...]

There’s an image on Buzzfeed titled “Willow And Elora Danan, 24 Years Later” with no image credit or caption. The man in the photo is actor Warwick Davis, who played the title role in the 1988 fantasy film Willow; the image title insinuates that the woman in the photo is the actress who played the baby Elora Danan in the film over two decades ago.

In Willow, the role of Elora Danan was actually played by infant twin girls, Ruth and Kate Greenfield, but there’s no mention as to which of the sisters is in this new photo [...]

How powerful is Nathan Fillion, the actor who portrayed Captain Malcolm Reynolds in the short-lived sci-fi television show Firefly?

Powerful enough so that fans take any suggestion to resurrect the show literally despite a highly unlikely success rate. For instance, Fillion’s recent interview with Entertainment Weekly [READ: Attention Browncoats: ‘Firefly’ To Return To Cable; Is This Our Last Chance To Save It?].

To most people mourning the death of a favorite creative project, saying something like “If I got $300 million from the California Lottery, the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly, make it on my own, and distribute it on the Internet” wouldn’t imply that this could ever reasonably be done.

However, the internet has responded with the launch of HelpNathanBuyFirefly.com, which offers the following plan of action [...]

Artist Dan Meth has created The Fantasy World Map, which charts popular fantasy lands like Middle Earth and Narnia all in one spot.

The map is #12 in his A Series of Pop-Cultural Charts project.

Can you name where each land is from? [...]

A new trailer for Mars Needs Moms is now online. Check it out here below.

The film is one of Disney’s upcoming non-Pixar animated films. It tells the story of Milo, a 9-year-old whose mother gets abducted by aliens so that they can rob her of her “mom-ness” to use with their own young. The film stars Seth Green, Joan Cusack, Dan Fogler, Elisabeth Harnois, Mindy Sterling, and Kevin Cahoon. It’s directed by Simon Wells who brought us the remake of The Time Machine. The film is produced by Robert Zemeckis who brought us Cast Away and The Polar Express. Yes, he also directed Back to the Future.

Mars Needs Moms is based on a critically acclaimed book from Berkeley Breathed, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and illustrator of the comic strip Bloom County. He based the book on a disagreement he had with his son also named Milo [...]

Amazon’s Blu-ray deal of the week is Torchwood Seasons 1 and 2, and Torchwood: Children of Earth for 53% off.

- Torchwood: The Complete First Season – Blu-ray – $40.99
- Torchwood: The Complete Second Season – Blu-ray – $32.99
- Torchwood: Children of Earth – Blu-ray – $16.49

Note: This deal is valid while supplies last through Saturday, February 19, 2011 at midnight PST.

Each Blu-ray set comes with bonus features like episode commentaries, deleted scenes, featurettes, and more.

The BBC television series Torchwood is the Doctor Who spin-off that stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness [...]

The t-shirt deal of the day over at RIPT Apparel is the Star Wars-inspired shirt called “Jedimeister.”

The tee, by artist bnel, went on sale at RIPT today, Friday, February 18, 2011, at midnight CST, and will continue for 24 hours from then, and once it’s over, it will not be sold on the site anymore.

The design mashes up Star Wars with the alcohol Jägermeister, placing Jedi Master Yoda in the center of the liquor bottle logo [...]

A second full trailer for Marvel Studios’ Thor has been released online.

The new trailer focuses more on the arrival of Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to Earth, and his first interaction with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). It also shows a hint of the evil side to Thor’s brother and the film’s villain, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), which we hadn’t seen up to this point.

Also starring in the movie is Anthony Hopkins, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgård, Ray Stevenson, Clark Gregg, and Rene Russo.

Thor is directed by Kenneth Branagh and will hit theaters on May 6, 2011. You can see the new trailer by clicking on over to the other side now.

SYNOPSIS
Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior, is sent down to Earth has punishment for reigniting a reckless war. But after a dangerous villain from his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth, the hammer-wielding Thor will learn what it takes to be a true hero in order to save mankind. [...]