Twentieth Century Fox has released a new trailer for James Mangold‘s The Wolverine, which is pretty much retreading what we’ve seen in the first trailer and the second Cinema Con trailer. The only major difference in this new trailer is the fact that there is the opening that confirms the presence of a familiar character.

You can watch the trailer below. [...]

Good news and bad news. Which do you want first?

OK, we’ll start with the good news. The two biggest issues gamers got themselves worked up over based on internet rumors, were next-gen gaming consoles blocking used games and being required to be always be online in order to use your system. We already found out that the next Xbox, the Xbox One, will not require you to always be online to play unless using an online feature, and now comes word that the system will in fact support used games as well.

Unfortunately there’s a little bad news as well, as it’s been revealed that the Xbox One will not be backwards compatible, meaning it will not play your Xbox 360 games. [...]

In case you missed it, Microsoft showed off their Xbox 360 follow-up, the Xbox One, earlier today. As promised, video games weren’t a very big part of the presentation as this particular event was dedicated to showing the console and talking about the company’s vision for the future. The games will be on full display when E3 arrives next month.

There were, however, a couple of video game-related topics covered, the biggest of which was the next installment in the Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty: Ghosts, which is Infinity Ward’s follow-up to Modern Warfare 3. The game smartly looks to up the story—with the help of Oscar-winning Traffic screenwriter and Syriana writer-director Stephen Gaghan—instead of just the action, and will hopefully keep the series fresh and fun.

A look at the game’s next-gen tech and new features was offered first, followed by the reveal trailer. Continue below now to check them out. [...]

A trio of new Man of Steel character posters have been released by Warner Brothers, and can be seen below.

The posters show off star Henry Cavill as Superman, which we’ve seen plenty of; Michael Shannon as General Zod, which we’ve seen some of; and a nice close look at Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Superman’s father, who we haven’t seen much of…including his massive Kryptonian boomstick.

Click on over to the other side to check out the new posters for Man of Steel. [...]

The day has arrived, ladies and gentlemen, and Microsoft has unveiled their next generation Xbox console. Presenting … the XBOX ONE.

Yes, we’re not sure why that’s the title they went with, either, considering this is now the third Xbox console. We knew the Xbox 720 was unlikely, but still.

That said, it’s only a title. Instead of taking the PlayStation 4 route and not showing the console during the console reveal, Microsoft did show what the new system will look like right off the bat. They also went into great detail about what you can expect from the new system.

Continue reading to see what the Xbox One looks like, what kind of power it has, and what kind of new features it offers, complete with videos. [...]

Casting for director Michael Bay‘s upcoming Transformers 4 continues, with the announcement of actress Li Bingbing.

Bingbing is a Chinese actress who has appeared in a number of titles over the years, including The Forbidden Kingdom, 1911, and her recent jump to Hollywood for Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil: Retribution, where she played Ada Wong. [...]

Last September we found out that Guillermo del Toro and LOST showrunner Carlton Cuse were teaming up to turn The Strain—a trilogy of vampire novels written by del Toro and Chuck Hogan—into a TV series at FX. Now the cast for the show is starting to take shape.

It’s being reported that Mia Maestro has joined the cast of the show as the female lead, joining the already cast Corey Stoll as the male lead. [...]

A new writer has been hired to pen Angry Birds, the animated 3D movie version of the hit Rovio mobile game phenomenon that involves agitated avians dropping aerial attacks on a group of rival pigs.

Sony Pictures Animation has brought in Jon Vitti to write the script for Angry Birds, which is still years away from its scheduled July 1, 2016 release date. [...]

Most people stopped paying attention to updates related to Ghostbusters 3 a long time ago, including us. Until we see some actual movement on the movie and not just talk, it’s just not worth it.

That said, news has been a tad slow, so why not do a quick update on a couple of long coming movies: the above mentioned Ghostbusters 3, and the remake of Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg’s 1982 horror classic, Poltergeist. [...]

We just saw a brief teaser trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins, the prequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, in which Batman is squaring off with Deathstroke. Now comes the first full trailer, and it is awesome.

The trailer is a cinematic, and runs almost five minutes in length as Batman basically finds himself in a Smokin’ Aces situation one Christmas Eve. The game’s primary antagonist, Black Mask, has brought in some of the world’s deadliest assassins to try and dispatch of the Dark Knight, including Deathstroke and Deadshot.

Be sure to continue below now to check out Batman dealing with this trio of baddies in the first trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins. [...]

Last month a clip from the hit show Parks and Recreation was released, in which Patton Oswalt attempts a filibuster to prevent a city council vote. Producers of the show told the actor to ramble on about something, and so Oswalt decided to ad-lib his way through his character’s vision for the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII.

Naturally the video became quite popular on the ‘net, opening the door for different takes and variations. Which brings us to today and a new video, which turns Oswalt’s speech into an semi-animated version showing what some of his ideas might look like.

You can check out the animated version of Oswalt’s Star Wars filibuster below now! [...]

Fans of the popular Cartoon Network animated series The Clone Wars were pretty upset when it was announced that the show was being cancelled, but we knew that they were also already planning a new Star Wars animated series to replace it and possibly fill that void.

The show will be called Star Wars Rebels and it is coming to Disney XD, currently planned for a fall of 2014 arrival.

Continue below for more and to see a video of the team working on the new show discussing what they can about it. [...]

Ray Manzarek, one of the founding members of The Doors, whose keyboard and organ sounds were as much of a signature sound for the band as was lead singer Jim Morrison’s attitudinal and poetic lead singing, has died at the age of 74 in Rosenheim, Germany after a lengthy battle with bile duct cancer reports Rolling Stone.

The Doors were and remain one of the premier American rock and roll bands to come out of California in the 1960s. Like The Beach Boys, the band is pretty much synonymous with the California lifestyle, but very unlike the Beach Boys, they were like the solarized version of them, expressing musically about darkness, early gothic nightmarish tales of love, political awareness, death and doomy styles that were punctuated by music which was deep rooted in the blues and something else actually, something indescribable at the time. A sound that was all their own, which was created by Morrison’s shamanic lizard king posturing, the jazzy yet tight bottom ended drumming of John Densmore, the buried in the delta swampy fretwork of Robby Krieger, and the horrorshow carnivalesque feel from the hands of Ray Manzarek who flawlessly played his instrument (and sometimes even played the bass parts on the organ as well). [...]

John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood
Paperback|Kindle Edition
By Michael D. Sellers
Universal Media
370 pages
Release Date: November 28, 2012

Pity John Carter. The poor bastard never had a chance. Released several months before the summer movie deluge, Andrew Stanton‘s highly anticipated adaptation of the classic 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel A Princess of Mars had the potential to kick start a new blockbuster sci-fi adventure franchise. Unfortunately a series of idiotic marketing decisions in the run-up to the film’s debut and mounds of negative press surrounding the troubled production and its massive $250 budget effectively sabotaged any chance John Carter had of connecting with audiences and grossing enough at the box office to ensure future sequels and additional ancillary revenue. Though it was very flawed I found the movie to be one of the most entertaining of last year – you can read my review here – yet it seems I was in the minority on that front.

John Carter‘s failure to even make back its budget and marketing costs turned out to be a major strike against the Walt Disney Company; the studio was pilloried for befouling what has been long considered one of the most important (if not THE most important) genre properties in existence by hiring a director inexperienced with live action – Stanton had previously directed several major hits for the company’s computer animation division Pixar – and allowing the costs to mount to the point where the movie’s box office prospects were saddled with unrealistic expectations, and then worsening its already ineffectual reputation even more with a confusing ad campaign that had no idea how to sell the film to the general moviegoing public. [...]

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day today at Amazon is Bioshock Infinite for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 for $39.99 each (that’s 33% off the list price of $59.99). The PC and PC Download versions are on sale for only $34.99 each (that’s 42% off the list price of $59.99).

Note – this deal is valid only for today, Sunday, May 19, 2013 until 11:59pm PST while supplies last.

Visit the main sale page for more details [...]