Wave 1 is right around the corner (and you can see the bios here!), and as excited as everyone I’ve talked to has been for the first batch, our eyes are quickly darted toward wave 2!
TFW2005‘s Kickback and his awesome inside sources have come through with some pictures of Voyager Jetfire, and deluxe Grimlock and Mirage. Since their site has been slammed with traffic lately, I’ve taken the liberty of posting mirrors of the images.

At the behest of Warner Bros., original Superman II director Richard Donner has been putting together a Director’s Cut of the movie, expected to be out later this year. Here are a few of the restored clips.

For those not familiar with the story of the film’s creation: Donner, along with story writer Mario Puzo, was responsible for creating the 1978 Superman movie with Christopher Reeve. He envisioned the story as a two-parter, and did most of the principal shooting for Superman II at the same time.

Before he could wrap up the project, he was ousted thanks to the producers, Ilya and Alexander Salkind. The new director, Richard Lester, had the job of piecing together a movie from existing footage and filming (or, in some cases, re-filming) the rest of the scenes.

Gene Hackman refused to come back after Donner was unceremoniously canned, so for every scene that Lester shot which required Luthor, they had to use a stand-in who you would only see from the back. Any unrecorded dialogue required a soundalike looped into the film.

We’ll finally get to see Superman II (mostly) as Donner intended it — he still has to use some of Lester’s scenes with Bizarro-Luthor (et al) because no other footage exists, but he’ll certainly be able to get the film most of the way there. I look forward to it.

~Sean

Mattel is obviously aware by now that the toy line to Superman Returns is little more than a couple thousand variations of Superman himself and 1 Luthor figure. I don’t blame them for not rushing to make plastic representations of Parker Posey and Kal Penn, but some variation is needed to keep the line from becoming worth of an ET/Atari2600-style landfill burial.

Thankfully, new toys are on the way!

Allegedly based off EA’s video game of Superman Returns, new figures include Mongul, Metallo, a NEW Luthor, and an even SHINIER Superman! Wow!

Thanks to Joey O.

Update: No longer requires quicktime.

Ok fans, get comfortable because there are a LOT of updates in this one. Instead of the usual breaking up the updates by company, this time around I’m going to break it up by properties (ie. Transformers, Marvel Superheroes, Star Trek, etc)

To view all the updates, continue on after the jump. Please note that I will be updating this constantly for a while until I feel I got everything I needed to.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Wow, I got so excited over this one over the weekend, I completely forgot to post it here.
The short story is this: Peter Cullen, the voice behind the original Optimus Prime in the 1984-88 Transformers animated series, has been cast as Optimus Prime once again in the forthcoming movie from Dreamworks.
The long story from producer Don Murphy:

the Cullen thing. As you all know when we started this grand experiment two years ago, Cullen and Welker were the ONLY Thing you gave me any consensus on. I’m serious, because I read everything you write, no matter how shitty. And if someone suggested something, half of you would shout it down. And the ONLY thing you overwhelmingly agreed on was that Prime should sound like Prime and Megatron should sound like Megatron. Which makes sense, especially since both actors are alive and well.

So I pushed your agenda. As some of you know, that was not an easy one. My own partner advocated celebrity voices. Then I showed him the results of your guys’ input and he immediately joined the bandwagon. Ian Bryce came to the show well in to the process and saw the results and supported immediately. John Rogers needed no prodding god bless his pointed head. One or two Dreamworks executives also supported from relatively early on. The interesting thing is that the director never gave an opinion any way. He had a lot of us telling him that there was no choice, really, the fans had spoken. But he had Skorponok and a lot of people at Dreamworks and Paramount FIGHTING actively not to do it. The forces of Cullen kept the push going.

Several weeks he came in and auditioned, which was all anyone could ask the director to do. Then he came back for a meeting. And now, Optimus Prime has his voice back. And there is much rejoicing. I now have people that really don’t like me because of this. But as we learned in this week’s sudden purge at Disney, it is the movie that counts. I have never cared if I was liked- all that anyone remembers is the film. And 14 years later I am still making movies… before you negativists start asking wotup with Welker, hey we are all working on it. Fact is I was told he was harder to arrange audition time with and his schedule— hell I don’t know. No one wants Cullen without Welker. I will not say that the director has made the decision because he hasn’t.

But you see this particular director is one of the most amazing I’ve ever seen work. One day he was shooting on a big city street- five cameras going at once. He set every shot up. He set the extras, hell he OPERATED one of the cameras. My gut tells me that Michael Bay weighs every decision QUITE STRONGLY. You have to remember that. HE finally okayed Cullen once HE was convinced. And should Welker happen, as I know everyone hopes, it will happen when he can make the decision. Which, quite frankly, is not an urgent decision to make at this moment. Hang tight….

Encouraging words.

Finally, hear Cullen voice Prime for the first time in many years at ComicCon from a panel with Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura:
“I am Optimus Prime… Transformers, roll out!”

In one of the more bizarre licensing deal announced at SDCC, Oni Press has announced it will be publishing a monthly comic based on the NBC show My Name Is Earl.

In the show, Jason Lee plays a criminal who wins the lottery and sets about righting the wrongs he’d done in his life in order to enhance his karma.

The comic book will focus on Earl and Randy crossing off items on the list that can’t be done on the show, or fit better in the comic medium. The first issue will featuring Earl replacing comic books (of course!) from someone he stole from at a comic convention. From there, future Earl stories include him flying a plane, destroying the Hoover Dam, and repairing it. Hunter Covington, scriptwriter for the Earl TV series, is set to write the comic, but no artist has been mentioned.

Link: BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM ONI PRESS AT COMIC-CON 2006!

News article on Nintendo.com gives you the how-to. Rumor has it there are several items to get through this deal, so you may want to plan multiple trips, or possibly one long one. Kotaku seems to think these are Mario-themed items, and I have little reason to doubt them, though they did get the conclusion date wrong.

This late news is in effect now through the 30th.