The internet has gone absolutely crazy with toys leaks in the past couple weeks, but I won’t waste your time with all of them. Instead, I’ll cherry pick the best, and relevant news, and leave TFW2005 to gobble up every scrap.

First up the comics: The Movie “prequel,” which will be a 4 issue series set before the events of the live action movie. TFarchive has a nice review of the book, which is due on February 21st.

Cover B is something special, showcasing non-movie characters, Arcee, Inferno, and Shockwave (at least one of the hundred one-eye bots HAS to be Shockwave). Don Figueroa is handling the pencils, so it should be pretty interesting to see how the fans’ favorite artist handles some of the fans’ least favorite designs.

Speaking of designs, its about time Dreamworks, ILM, Paramount, or Michael Bay himself fired somebody. Not because the designs are bad (I personally like the fresh approach), but because we have even more spec sheets. This has to be the worst kept secret in Hollywood.
Here are Starscream, Frenzy, Bonecrusher, and Ironhide.

Ok, enough of this concept art, its time for merchandise. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil #1 (of 4)
story and art by Jeff Smith

What’s that? Can’t read the title of the post? Well, thank God you’ve got your handy dandy Secret Decoder! What’s that? You don’t? Oh. Well, thank God I’ve got a spare!

This is the kind of effort that Jeff Smith (known for his career-defining work on Bone) is putting into this book. He’s been providing regular updates on his blog, using the code-speak as an added treat, and he says it’ll even be handy when you’re actually reading the book. For example, take a quick glance HERE, and see not only his mindset about putting Talking Tawny in the book, but also the process of creating the art for the page. And hell, you even get another chance to use the decoder. Interested? Don’t even know who Captain Marvel is? Want some preview pages? Well, read on for more!
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Hot on the heels of the announcement of Goyer’s dismissal, the Hollywood Reporter brings us news of the new director – Shawn Levy. So, what’s the man done before to warrant helming such a film? Well, according to IMDb, his most recent movies are: Night at the Museum, The Pink Panther, Cheaper By The Dozen, Just Married, and Big Fat Liar.

Holy. Crap. What an unimpressive list of action-movie/comic-movie credentials. Now, don’t get me wrong – I thoroughly enjoyed Night at the Museum, but I know some here at Powet cringe at its mention, and that’s not even touching the rest of the movies on that list. To be fair though, Levy did direct one episode of the short-lived Birds Of Prey show. And maybe it was a really well-directed episode. I’m pretty sure no one ever bothered to watch it, so it’s hard to say.

In the end, it’s only fair to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, especially until we find out a lot more (like, say, the writer). But this doesn’t exactly strike me as a step in the right direction.

First of all, pay no attention to the low scores given by other media outlets. This game is the best game to make use of the Spawn license (besides his appearance in the Xbox version of SoulCalibur 2). Surprisingly, it was a third-person shooter made by Capcom. The gameplay is a fusion of Quake 3: Arena and Powerstone. Players select from 37 characters (most of which are unlockable and 12 being available at the start), each with their own array of weapons and powers, and blast their way through several stages in either arcade or story modes. You can also play the standard multiplayer modes for up to 4 players in stages with variable environmental settings. The character selection included nearly everyone from the Spawn mythos, even Cagliostro, Sam, Twitch, and a few alternate versions of Spawn himself. It’s a shame that the game engine was used in only one other game, Heavy Metal Geomatrix. It would have interesting to see more shooters by Capcom done in this style.

WHAT? That’s right. According to Sega’s Japanese website a new game titled “Karous” will be released in Japan on March 8th on the Sega Dreamcast. Yes the Sega Dreamcast. Sega announced over 6 years ago on January 31st 2001 that they would cease production of the Dreamcast.

The game is a top view spaceship shooter somewhat similar to another Dreamcast game, Ikaruga, which was released in September of 2002, long after the console’s end of life. In the long period of time since the system’s death there have still been a handfull of games released for it. Could this finally be the last?

Since this game will only be released in Japan it could only be played in North America through some sort of piracy and we all know that’s not possible on the Dreamcast…

Check out the game’s official site for more information about Karous.

Thanks to Sega nerds for the scoop.

A third installment to the popular Ghostbusters franchise will be an all CG movie. This was confirmed by Dan Aykroyd, who played Ray Stantz in the original movies, in a radio interview. The movie will not be live action like the others in the series though Bill Murray will still lend his voice for his character of Peter Venkman.

Joss Whedon (who really needs no introduction at this point) was previously set to write and direct the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. David Goyer (whose recent movie-writing includes Batman Begins) was previously set to write (and potentially direct) the upcoming Flash movie. Now? Both have been de-attached from these two films. The reason – for both of them, it turns out – had to do with the studios having a different vision than them. Ah, non-creative executive types telling successful, proven creative types how to create. DC’s already a couple steps behind in the movie-franchise game, and these kinds of decisions really can’t be helping.

Regardless, new writers and directors have yet to be announced; read on after the jump to see what each of the two writer/directors had to say as they broke the news. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Ever since the original Xbox was developed, one of the most anticipated games for the system was Project Ego, a game being developed by Peter Molyneux’s Lionhead studios. This game promised an evolving world and character development system. Your character (who you decided would be good or evil based upon your actions), would age over time, even retaining scars that he earned in battle years ago. You could even marry, settle down, and have a family. You would even compete with other heroes in the world for fame and recognition, and a multiplayer mode would allow other player’s heroes to travel about in your world.

[Read the rest of this entry…]