I had planned on doing a segment on this a while ago, but never got around to it. Back in April, the touring video game orchestral event known as Video Games Live visited Yale University for one of the performances on their list. Usually the tour brings it’s own large orchestra and choir to perform massive feats of gaming music awesomeness all over the USA and Europe, and often accompany it with video segments from games shown behind the orchestra/choir on a huge theatre-like screen. Kind of like a living game music video.

This time around, however, things were a bit different and more special.
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A reader over at Action-Figure.com wrote in to the site with the following message:

Adrian,

Thought you’d like to know: Toys R Us has received an RTV (Return to Vendor) order for the entire Series 1 release for Marvel Legends.

In black and white on the RTV order, the reason for the recall states “poor sales”.

Hopefully, this means Hasbro will get their act together and work on better quality product and pricing.

This order means that Toys R Us can’t mark the product down… they have to return the product as soon as possible. This is a major line for Hasbro to cross. Toys R Us is not responsible for the cost of the product.

Peace,
CC

If you are in need of completing the Annihilus wave, you had better do it soon. You may not have the chance in the near the future if you wait too long.

Its interesting to note that while some of these figures have really not sold well at all (Emma Frost, Banshee I’m looking at you!), others have been scooped up as soon as they hit shelves including Ultimate Iron Man, Planet Hulk, and Hercules.

An intrepid fan with a camera captured this footage from the set of The Dark Knight. Late nights in Chicago are inspiring all sorts of snipers with cameras, and when he saw actor Cillian Murphy on set, he knew he had a scoop! At the end of Batman Begins, Murphy as Scarecrow/Jonathan Crane rode off into the sunset on his fire-breathing horse, and now in the sequel it appears he’s still causing trouble. See more at SuperheroHype!

The principal criticism of the older Batman movies was the death and elimination of the villains. Screenwriter David Goyer was careful not to let that happen in Begins, and now we see Scarecrow’s story will continue. Could he again be merely a front for the real threat, this time the Joker? After all, his mind control and fear experiments could be of great interest if adapted to cause manical laughter.

KidsWB released a promo image for the Spider-Man cartoon debuting this fall. The show was previously going to be called The Amazing Spider-Man, but with the Spidey comic line getting stripped down to that one title, the cartoon’s name was just changed to Spectacular Spider-Man. I imagine there’ll be a comic book tie-in to the show of the same name, which would explain the change of the show’s name. Not like they’re about to change the book’s name, right?

Also, Wizard took a bunch of pictures at the New York Licensing Show which – while it doesn’t sound very interesting – resulted in some impressive shots. We’ve got a select few mirrored below – and be sure to keep an eye out for an old Amazing Spider-Man cartoon poster:

Sticky floors, overpriced snacks, pre-pubesant pukes yakkin’ it up…It may all be a thing of the past, and Michael Bay’s “Transformers” is leading the charge!

Check out this tasty tidbit from Uberpulse.com

For an entry fee of $49, you could be watching Transformers… on opening day… in your undies with a cold beer on Pay-Per-View. Incredible news, and well overdue in my opinion. If theatre managers can’t foster a clean, quiet atmosphere for viewing a film, an alternative would be created that could. As expected, movie theatre insiders are up in arms, but as Galvatron said in the original Transformers: The Movie, “We all must die sometime.”

Update: Michael Bay’s site Shoot For The Edit has squashed this as completely false. In Bay’s own words: “Total Bullshit”

Update 2: Curses! Foiled Again! – Chozoman

It would seem I haven’t been keeping up on my gaming news as much as I should. Madhouse animation studio had been pumping out trailers for the new Devil May Cry animated series well before it’s June 14th debut in Japan on the WOWOW network.

Based on the popular action/sci-fi gaming series by Capcom, the anime series will focus on Dante’s exploits between the storylines of the games. It would appear that the series takes place somewhere after DMC1, as Trish and Lady both are slated to make appearances as well as some new characters not seen in the games.

Thus far, the artistic styles used for the animation look top notch and the character designs are dead-on in terms of looking like their gaming counterparts. Twelve episodes have been announced to comprise the series, making it short, but that’s probably a good thing considering you don’t want the story of the anime to get too over-involved to where it seems unrealistic to the story of the games. I suppose that’s why they have Bingo Morihashi as a writer, since he was also the writer for the second, third and fourth games.

Here’s the teaser trailer that was released on the Japanese website.

Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that the dream team casting for Jon Favreau’s Iron Man has just gotten sweeter. Shooting a cameo appearance is the Academy Award nominated star of Pulp Fiction, Samuel L Jackson in the role of Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD.

The hot rumor is the role will be expanded upon in future marvel movies (Incredible Hulk, Captain America) and eventually lead to the full on Avengers movie. Wow, what a great idea of getting casting now for a role years down the road.

This casting is of course as perfect as casting gets, as Ultimate Marvel Nick Fury was completely based on Samuel L Jackson, and Sam has said in the past he wanted the role.

Well, I for one thought that the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy was enough of a sendoff for a great collection of movies, but it seems Johnny Depp and Geoffery Rush disagree. According to Cinema Blend, both have signed on for a 4th Pirates movie, which had only been rumors up until this point.

Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom have, as expected, denied signing on for another Pirates movie. The new movie would be focusing on Jack Sparrow and his past anyway, so I suppose that’s all well and good regardless. The plot rumors also state that the adventures of Cap’n Jack will steer towards a more sci-fi/fantasy theme, in the same vein that the other movies only had a light dusting of. Could this reflect what the ending of the 3rd movie hinted to? That of course, remains to be seen.