Not too long ago, news hit the Castlevania fan community that Paul S. Anderson would be directing a live-action adaption of one of the longest running gaming series to date. And, we all wept. Or at least I did. However, it looks like there might be an alternative in the works – a Castlevania animated movie.

It seems that Project 51 Productions Ltd. has aquired worldwide animated rights from Konami Entertainment to the Castlevania franchise. Representing Project 51 in the deal were Rick Privman and Yumiko Miyano from JEA and Eric Gardner from Panacea Entertainment. Their announced first project is an animated movie based on Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse; with Award winning comic book writer Warren Ellis writing the script and Eisner Award winning artist James Jean slated to be the art director. To enlighten the casual gamer, Dracula’s Curse was the third and last of the NES Castlevania games released in 1990, and has been argued by fans as being the best of the original trilogy, if not the series. Set 100 years before the original game, it follows the quest of Trevor Belmont to defeat Count Dracula before his curse spreads throughout the land of Warakiya, Transylvania.

No planned release dates have been announced as of yet, but the project seems to hold some promise despite being in the early stages of production. A production blog has been set up to track details of the flick as it developes – http://www.castlevaniadraculascurse.com/

There are 2 major motion pictures in production both by giant directors and both are called Avatar.

James Cameron (Titanic, Terminator 2) finally ends month of silences on the secret filming he’s been doing on sound stages as he announces his “Avatar.” Its set for a 2009 release, and will feature humans at war with aliens in robot bodies. I think its human robots, but there might be alien robots too. And its the future. I can’t make sense of this, except it has nothing to do with that damn boat so I’ll take it. Harry Knowles spoke with Jim, but that interview was cut short when Malibu caught fire.

M. Night Shyamalan is decreasing in popularity the last few years, but I’m still a fan. Night’s “Avatar?”

I am not kidding. He’s adapting the faux-anime Nickelodeon series into a live action movie. I’m barely familiar with this series, so I took a look at Wikipedia and it doesn’t look like his usual fare. Well its got some supernatural elements, but its pretty far removed from “I see dead people” or “those we don’t speak of.”

Night’s not betraying his roots because he actually wrote the adapted screenplay for “Stuart Little” which is a movie I shamelessly admit to liking and have seen several times.

Now, the battle royale: Who gets to keep the title? Cameron’s management and Nickelodeon both claim to have had their names registered with the MPAA. Nick’s cartoon has been on the air for about 2 years, Cameron has had a script for 12 years, but has only been filming for 4 months. I predict Cameron will have to bend, since he’s not working with an established franchise.

There’s a new trailer available at the Invincible Iron Man official site, and it gives a decent glimpse of what the story will be like in the movie. It’s an interesting choice of enemies for Iron Man – ancient Chinese elemental creatures? It hardly feels like any sort of a definitive Iron Man story, let alone one worth using in his premiere solo adventure … until you check some of the desktop images at the site, clearly showing classic Iron Man villain Mandarin playing a large role in matters. Not that Mandarin’s role has been a secret mind you – It was in the advertised synopsis since day one. Just makes it all the more odd that he’s being hidden in the trailer.

As for the movie, I’m wondering how we’re going to go through three different armors (initial grey, underwater yellow, and good classic old ketchup-and-mustard, er, red-and-gold) over the course of a single story. I guess only time – 19 days to be exact – will tell.

Also, the Hellboy Animated movie (Sword of Storms) has a sequel due to hit in February, called Blood and Iron. The trailer can be found HERE. According to the Animated Hellboy blog, one of the scenes from the trailer isn’t from the movie; it’s from an “extra special DVD extra”, whatever that might mean. The blog also talks about plans for a third movie to follow this one, but will only be greenlit if DVD sales warrant it.

This review is a bit late but not nearly as late as this second issue of the Gargoyles comic which was an absurd 4 months behind schedule!

It’s Christmas Eve, and what better time to watch an old Christmas special, like this Claymation Christmas CLASSIC:

You can find a plethora of Christmas specials like this, all in their entirety ALL RIGHT HERE, from It’s A Wonderful Life, to the stop-motion classic Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, to less obvious selections like The Office’s recent Christmas episode, or even the Star Wars Holiday Special (Part 1, and Part 2). It’s Christmas everybody, so even if you don’t celebrate it, ’tis definitely the season to watch a video of Chewbacca celebrating it.

Joseph Barbera now joins his partner William Hannah in history. They formed the production duo Hannah-Barbera, responsible for the most recognizable and loved cartoons outside of the old Disney and Warner Bros vaults.

In 1940, their first short for MGM “Puss Gets the Boot” had the dual distinction of being the nominated for an Academy Award and the first in many, many Tom And Jerry cartoons. In the 60s, they went solo and created The Flintstones, Jetsons, Jonny Quest, and Scooby Doo. And even into the 90s working under Turner Broadcasting, they produced Cartoon Network’s earliest breakout hits.

William Hannah passed in 2001, but just last year Joe Barbera wrote and produced a new Tom and Jerry short. It is a testament to his talent and longevity that he return and finish his career with the characters that made him famous 65 years prior.

read more: Wikipedia, AP Obituary

thanks to Sindra and Matt

TrekMove.com, a site I can only assume was founded to unearth information about the still hazy JJ Abrams movie, has some news on a possible new animated (!) internet(!!) series.

Under the headline “CBS Considering New Animated Trek Series For The Web” Trek Movie reports:

The idea for a new animated Trek started back around the time that Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled. David Rossi and his partners didn’t buy into the notion that Star Trek ‘needed a rest’. “We wanted to spark a little life into Star Trek and to keep it alive in people’s eyes,” explains Rossi. They knew CBS and Paramount weren’t going to be keen on a new (and very expensive) live action show so they decided that animation was the way to go. Their first notion was to do a show set in the Original Series era (but not on the Enterprise), however that notion didn’t sit well with the people at CBS. Rossi then took the advice he got from LeVar Burton on how ‘Star Trek should always be about moving forward and what is next in the human adventure.’ So the team came up with the notion of taking a big leap forward and setting a show 150 years after the time of Picard and Star Trek Nemesis, but in a very different and somewhat dark Trek universe. CBS were more open to that idea and over the last year and a half have asked the team (now formed into Zero Room Productions) to flesh out their idea. Although CBS have not committed to the series, they have asked the team to develop test artwork and scripts for 5 mini episodes.

I always liked LeVar Burton.

No more prequels, no ancient history, no revamps. Taking a big leap into a “Next Next Generation” will give them lots of room to play around while not abandoning the races and planets we know.

So I’m firmly in the camp that loves the concept. Why am I nervous? Because they’re going for “mini-episodes” meaning all stories will have to be low character development but high action. This is not Trek’s strong point. At the risk of comparing to Star Wars (cue groaning), All the characters there were defined by actions and broad dialog, where as I didn’t feel like I knew a character like Picard until the show had been on for years, and they still managed to surprise me for years afterwards. Star Trek may be overshadowed by Battlestar, Stargate, and other sci-fi series these days, but lets not forget that the character based sci-fi drama began with Trek and its only fair that Trek come back to reclaim it. I don’t think they’ll do it with cartoons for the YouTube audience.

Best case scenario: The ‘toons take off and a real new series is developed to flesh out the new timeline. Worst Case scenario: we’re pretty much already living it, so we’ve got nothing to lose.

Thanks Shiv’Kala

Live Free or Die Hard’s trailer is boring as hell. And Justin Long is a poor follow up to Die Hard 3’s sidekick, Sam Jackson.

Frank Miller’s epic graphic novel is being turned into a experimental film using digital sets. Nope, not a rerun of Sin City, its a new trailer for 300

SHREK THE THIRD! DOES ANYONE CARE? NOT ME. The clip prominently features “Do You Remember Rock N Roll Radio?” by the Ramones for no reason what-so-ever, and lists Justin Timberlake as a cast member. I missed the first two movies. Can I three-peat?

iFilm collects what they call The Best Trailers of 2006. I’ve seen all of them, but only half of the movies.