Studios are always looking for a way to tie a movie to some element of pop culture in hopes of a guaranteed box office blow out. Board games may be the biggest stretch so far, but it is happening. With Battleship in theaters this weekend, it leads one to wonder: What other board games could be made into great movies? That’s giving Battleship a lot of credit in advance, but we can just assume it will be great for the sake of this article, OK? There are other board game movies in the works, of course, with the most notable being Monopoly, which was originally to be directed by Ridley Scott. Others have already been made, such as Clue.

Obviously Hollywood wants to utilize the big name board games for that coveted pop culture relevance, but there are also lesser known and even independent board games that might have something to offer to a feature film (yes we’ve already said the whole concept is a stretch). Here’s our list of the Top 5 board games that would make great feature films [...]

There’s several pre-order bonuses and discounts at Amazon and Best Buy for the upcoming video game Darksiders II, which will be released on August 14, 2012.

At Amazon, when you pre-order the game for Xbox 360, PS3, or PC, you will get the Arguls Tomb expansion pack featuring extra gameplay content, including a whole new dungeon to explore. You’ll also get the Amazon exclusive Deadly Despair Pack, which adds a permanent speed boost for Death’s trusty steed Despair, allowing players to travel across the vast world even faster than before. The pre-order bonus as well as a 10% discount is available for the PC Download version (which will be available for download at midnight the day of the game’s release).

At Best Buy, if you pre-order a copy of the Darksiders II: Angel of Death Collector’s Edition for either Xbox 360 or PS3, you’ll get an exclusive Darksiders II prequel comic book from Dark Horse Comics titled Darksiders II: Death’s Door, along the Best Buy exclusive Angel of Death Pack [...]

Marvel has offered their comic books in print, digitally via an online app on PCs, and for mobile through the Marvel Comics App. While there has been synergy between these two mediums, since the start the House of Ideas has desperately needed a way to consolidate their distribution structure.

Now they have launched the Marvel Comics Digital Store. At this online destination fans can purchase and read their Marvel Comics and those purchases will automatically sync with the Marvel Comics App allowing them to take their books on the road on Android and iOS devices [...]

One of the Syfy Channel’s most beloved shows, Eureka is began its final season on April the 16th. Leading up to the series premiere the network offered a group of journalists the opportunity to participate in a roundtable discussion with the series creator Jamie Paglia and star Colin Ferguson. Of course, the event began with the most basic of questions: What’s coming up on the show? Though not wanting to spoil anything, Paglia does share that some story elements that were obviously meant to be a larger part of the show’s mythos are being brought to completion in this season, with Beverly Barlow and the Consortium being a specific example.

Eureka premiered as a unique series in the genre. At the time the show started Battlestar Galactica was a big success and Stargate was also still successful. These were shows with spaceships and aliens, the parts that make up the space opera puzzle. Eureka had none of that, plus it had comedy. After the success of Eureka, the possibility of other similar leaps into this sort of grounded sci-fi with comedy seemed possible. Thus Warehouse 13 was born a show this is extremely successful for the Syfy Channel. So it’s an easy assumption to make that the show had some influence of the genre as a while [...]

You’d think the two big comic book publishers (DC and Marvel in case you didn’t know) would learn from each other’s mistakes, right? DC Comics has written itself into a corner so many times crossing their various universes that multiple reboots have been required to set things right. Marvel has required reboots for other reasons, and that’s another story. Has Marvel paid attention to DC’s “issues” with universe cross-overs? Obviously they have not because they’ve announced another big summer story arc called Spider-Men that involve the Ultimate Universe Spider-Man and the standard universe Amazing Spider-Man teaming up to fight the good fight.

Brian Michael Bendis (Avengers, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man) will be penning the five-issue miniseries with artwork being handled by Sara Pichelli (Ultimate Comics Spider-Man) and cover art by Jim Cheung (Avengers VS. X-Men) [...]

Avengers vs. X-Men Infinite #1
Creators: Richard Isanova, Joe Quesada, Mark Waid
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release Date: April 4, 2012
Cover Price: $.99

The release of Avengers vs. X-Men Infinite #1 exclusive to digital represents the culminations of two big pushes by Marvel Comics. The first is the beginning of Marvel’s big summer event, the final run of Brian Michael Bendis on The Avengers. The second push involves Marvel’s next generation of digital comics: Infinite. First the story…

Avengers vs. X-Men Infinite #1 is a short story, even for a comic book, but it’s only $.99 bought alone or it comes free with the full-on Avengers vs. X-Men #1. Infinite #1 is a prequel to the events in the first issue of this new story arc. The Phoenix Force is returning to Earth. If you aren’t aware of what the force is you obviously haven’t ever been an X-Men fan. The Phoenix Force is an incredibly powerful entity that often visits Earth via a human host. When it comes it typically brings heartache, death, and massive destruction. The space-traveling Nova is the first person to see the trajectory of the Phoenix and he pushes himself beyond the limits of his own power to rush to Earth and deliver a warning. This story follows his journey [...]

I read The Hunger Games for a couple of reasons: pop culture relevance and simple curiosity. I wanted to get it read prior to the release of the film, too. The book is simple and incredibly melodramatic, but it’s also surprisingly engrossing and the characters are quite well rendered. It feels like a hundred other genre all-ages books I’ve read and it also lacks a central voice, other than the fact that “bad people suck,” to quote a friend. The classic genre films and books of this type had something to say deeper, and at least to the author, more important than just the adventures of so and so.

What this book and film has is a well-developed and interesting female hero in Katniss Everdeen. She’s strong and imperfect, but a good role model for young girls, unlike a certain vampire lover we all know too well. Now a good role model for young girls isn’t a requirement for me to like a book or movie, but if kids are going to grab onto this story, at least the hero is worth their time [...]

The road to the inevitable digital lifestyle is a rocky one. Retailers are rightfully fearing for their lives while sellers are stuck in the middle between retailers wanting exclusives and online shoppers demanding more access to content. The most interesting battle in this arena is actually happening with comic books. Publishers are finding rapidly growing success with digital books on tablets and smartphones, but the customer base isn’t yet big enough to support the publishers so they still have to appease brick and mortar retail.

This battle was lost years ago by music publishers. Record labels fought hard, but the truly dynamic and reigning method for acquiring music now is via iTunes, the Amazon Mp3 store, and streaming options. That’s not to say CDs don’t still sell because they do, but that business has lost its attractiveness and feels like a necessity now to make sure music is available to those that haven’t quiet jumped online yet. The statistics may still show a majority of sales happening in “classic” CD format, but it’s a given that the nail is in that coffin [...]

At SXSW Marvel Entertainment shared its plans for the future of digital. The plans came off a little convoluted, but mostly exciting. But they only came off convoluted because Marvel isn’t sharing absolutely everything just yet. The beans will get spilled soon as their entire initiative (nudge nudge wink wink) begins on April 4th coinciding with the release of Avengers VS X-Men #1, when they roll out Infinite versions of their comics. The entire plan has been dubbed ReEvolution.

“Marvel’s always led graphic fiction industry in digital media innovation and the Marvel ReEvolution is a quantum leap into the future of publishing,” said Dan Buckley. Publisher & President of the Print, Animation & Digital Divisions, Marvel Worldwide, Inc. [...]

I think one of the worst things old school publishing companies can do as they transition into the digital age (kicking and screaming) is lock themselves down into their own application or portal. Apparently someone at Marvel Entertainment thinks so too because Marvel announced this week that a bevy of their most popular graphic novels are now available in the Apple iTunes iBookstore [...]

I traveled to New York City recently to cover the International Toy Fair, an event where creators of toys and games meet with buyers of all sizes to attempt to get their products into stores. Just covering this event sort of sets me apart from others that trek to the Big Apple, but I’m further set apart well because of what I like and the lengths to which I’ll go to investigate the things I’m a fan of. So, what’s a geek do in New York City? Well, pretty much what anyone else visiting for the first time does, just with a geeky spin on it [...]

Marvel Comics has been promoting their next summer event, Avengers Vs. X-Men, as one of the biggest stories they’ve ever told. Well, honestly I took that with a grain of salt, because that’s what they say about every new comic book event they release. I took Avengers Vs. X-Men to be a fun tights and fights story with elements of almost fan fiction in play because fans always debate which heroes could take each other out.

Now, Marvel has announced a pretty cool partnership with MTV Geek to further get the word out about this summer story arc. So, maybe this is gonna be a big deal? We’ll just have to wait and see on that one [...]

Blank DVDs and CDs are going the way of the dinosaurs in favor of the infinitely reusable and non-OS specific (usually) flash drive. These little devices allow sharing of data with the click of a USB port, and they’re much greener than one time use only discs if you’re into that sort of thing. For the longest time these little devices had all the style of a giant suppository, but that’s just not the case any longer.

Mimobot is a company that’s creating USB flash drives and card readers that allow their owners to show off their geek love while still having a flash drive at the ready. [...]

The International Toy Fair currently going on in New York City isn’t a convention, even though it may look sort of like one from a distance. Toy Fair is all about sellers trying to woo buyers at the most basic of definitions. There are indie creators in booths huckstering their creations right along side big boys like Hasbro and Mattel. Buyers also range in size from mom and pop hobby shops to Target and Walmart.

Geeks of Doom is on the scene at the Toy Fair, so take a look here below at our first photo gallery of some of what was on display [...]

Avengers vs. X-Men may be one of Marvel’s most hyped Summer events ever. It does actually have all the elements to become something great: a killer creative team (Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Ed Brubaker, John Romita Jr., Adam Kubert, Olivier Copiel) and a mix of Marvel’s most popular heroes fighting each other HeroClix-style. Hopefully it’s not all just flash and there’s actually a great story behind all the punches and energy blasts.

Avengers vs. X-Men #0, a set up for the story to come, hits shelves in March. Then in April issue #1 lands on store shelves and on the Marvel Comics app. We’ve got the cover of issue #1 and seven pages from the book here below to get you excited the summer blockbuster series [...]

Just four episodes into season two of Syfy Channel’s “original” series Being Human the network has renewed the series for a third season of 13 episodes.

Viewership for the second season has increased by an impressive +27% in Adults 18-49, +35% in Adults 25-54, and +15% in total viewers; 52% of the viewers are female making Being Human the most female skewing series ever on the network [...]

Marvel Entertainment is gearing up for their big film The Avengers, hitting theaters in May. This Sunday a new commercial with never before seen footage will air during the Super Bowl and on the Marvel Comics App, the company is giving away the first issue of a prequel comic book miniseries.

The miniseries is titled Marvel’s The Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week and it will run for 8 issues. After this Sunday’s free issue is released, subsequent installments will be released on the app each Tuesday for 99 cents each [...]

Avengers Vs X-Men is Marvel’s big event for the summer and it all starts in March with issue #0. This issue apparently moves all of the pieces into place for the epic showdown that is to come. More specifically this issue establishes the importance of the Scarlet Witch and Hope Summers to the greater story. Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, and Frank Cho team up to bring this issue to life.

Marvel is still being pretty cagey about more story details, but we do have a couple of images from the comic here below. Avengers Vs X-Men #0 hits store shelves and the Marvel Comics App in March [...]

We recently posted an article here covering the major tie-ins to Marvel’s upcoming summer event simply titled Marvel vs. X-Men. Just when we thought Marvel had given all of the titles to expect they release cover art for yet another title: Uncanny X-Men #11!

This cover art, featuring the Avengers vs. X-Men banner, hints at a brawl between Red Hulk and Colossus, which could be pretty entertaining. Uncanny X-Men currently comes to us from the creative team of Kieron Gillen and Greg Land [...]

Marvel Comics has their marketing mutants using all of their powers to promote the big upcoming crossover story Avengers Vs. X-Men.

The summer event is fairly monumental in a few ways: first because it marks the finale of writer Brian Michael Bendis’ epic run on the Avengers titles, and second because this story promises to bring decades of fan fiction to life by pitting the House of Ideas’ two most popular, and powerful, super hero teams against each other. [...]