Hollywood Reporter is breaking news that the Matrix directing Wachowski Brothers are now going to helm a Live Action update of Speed Racer for producer Joel Silver.

The article mentions Vince Vaughn being screen tested for Racer X, and that Larry & Andy want to make a more family friendly movie unlike their existing efforts (Bound, The Matrix, V for Vendetta).

They’re of course promising mind blowing effects and racing in ways we’ve never seen before. I certainly hope so because after this summers 1-2 Nascar punch of Cars and Ricky Bobby, I’m not sure racing is very interesting to film without the type of unexpected chaos a car chase in a movie allows. That said, I’m a fan of the car chase in Matrix Reloaded and hope they’ve got some fresh ideas.

Speed Racer is of course an infamously cliched Japanese animated series, and one of the first to ever be imported to the US.

Of course, instead of posting an actual Speed Racer clip to go with this article, I’ll go with the Dexter’s Lab send up. Its funnier and less boring.

All of us at Powet.tv would like to wish you a safe and happy Halloween. To celebrate the occaison, many of our members have shared their own unique pumpkin carvings.

bmxbot shares a Green Lantern logo and Hello Kitty pumpkin with us:

e.kohli‘s girlfriend carved this dragon:

xCharonx does the inevitable, given the number of trannies around this place, and gives us a decepticon logo:

SparkStalker shows us some pictures of pumpkins of past Halloweens with this skull carving and violently impaled pumpkin head:

And I try my luck at a Sailor Moon pumpkin:

SuperHeroHype brings us lots of updates on comic-based movies coming out.

• Ron Perlman and Kelly Hu are joining Samuel L. Jackson on the Afro Samurai project for Spike TV.

  • The five-part animated series is produced by Japanese studio Gonzo in association/partnership with GHK K.K. and FUNimation and premieres on SPIKE Thursday, January 4, 2007

• I just noticed that IMDB is listing Kelly Hu as Yuriko Oyama in the Wolverine movie, listed as ‘in pre-production’. So expect to see a rematch of Wolverine vs. Lady Deathstrike, or at least some interesting flashbacks.
• A Superman sequel looks like a go with Bryan Singer on board to produce and direct.
• Superman Returns hits 200 million domestically, clearing an obstacle for a sequel which already looks to be given the go ahead now.
• Fourth Spiderman 3 villain revealed to be Bruce Campbell?
• Marvel’s Moon Knight property is heading for a TV series!

[UPDATE – CRAZY: Just noticed that IMDB is listing Kelly Hu as ‘rumored’ for Wolverine and not yet confirmed.]

Movieblog reminded me theres a new animated Hellboy movie coming on Cartoon Network TOMORROW NIGHT.

Hellboy: Sword of Storms, the first of the animated Hellboy movies, debuts Saturday at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT on Cartoon Network.

Sorry we couldn’t get enough advance warning here on the front page, but set your Tivos and VCRs to record for whats sure to be some good pre-Halloween viewing. Miss this and your next chance won’t be until the February 6 DVD release.

Theres another Hellboy movie on the way called “Blood & Iron” next year. Best part is these animated flicks star Ron Perlman and Selma Blair from the fantastic Hellboy live action movie a couple years back.

Loads more info at the Hellboy Animated Production diaries!

Mark your calendars, He-Man fans! The New Adventures of He-man are coming to DVD December 26, 2006.

He-man.org brings us details about the set. It will be a 6 disc set and will feature 33 episodes.
The set will be Volume 1 of 2.
The bonus features include

• Two all-new half hour documentaries; one featuring interviews with members of the New Adventures of He-Man production team, and the other featuring the history of Masters of the Universe comics (both classic and 2002) and interviews with their creators
• 50 Detailed Characters and Location Profiles with Bios, Images and Clips
• Trivia Fun Facts
• Art Gallery
• Easter Eggs
• DVD-ROM features including scripts for multiple episodes and the series bible (PDF format, PC/Mac readable)
• Ink & Paint trailers for many other cool animated releases

While this is far from the most beloved series of the Masters Of The Universe franchise, it definitely has its place. I remember watching it everyday before leaving for school. Also, the spine of this set adds on to the spine art picture of the previous sets and the She-Ra sets. See the picture below for a picture!

Also, don’t forget Volume 1 of She-Ra, Princess of Power comes out November 7th.

There is a much rumored, not confirmed, and not denied new series in the works for Transformers that has been referred to as Transformers: Heroes. A number of other sites have reported on it, but thats about all they reported because nothing else was known really. Voicecasting is happening in LA. TFW2005 brings us news the David Kaye has confirmed he has been cast as Optimus Prime.

For those who don’t know who David Kaye is, he voiced Megatron in Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron. It seems like a curious choice as Optimus Prime, considering his past with Megatron.

A complete fan film, but light hearted and accurate enough to be direct from Nintendo.

YouTube has removed 29549 Japanese videos from it’s site following a complaint by Japanese rights holders. I was a bit confused by this statement at first until I remembered the tons of anime that’s on the site.

Some people are blamming google for this move but that’s hardly relevant. This has happened before as it has always been YouTube’s policy to remove videos when the copyright holders complain about it. This removal is just very large in scope.

YouTube’s policy on copyrighted material is simple. They make it very clear that users shouldn’t upload something they don’t have the copyright to and even restrict video length to a maximum of 10 minutes. That being said they can no more stop a person from putting something copyrighted up there than the post office can stop someone from sending a copyrighted game to their friend by mail. Copyright holders want YouTube to start policing the content themselves and be held accountable for any copyrighted material that makes it’s way onto the site. This doesn’t work with their current functionality due to the sheer volume of videos that go up on the site. That doesn’t change the simple fact that it’s better to have the multi million dollar company accountable than some 12 year old with a paper route who’s uploading Naruto episodes.

No worries about powet.tv’s videos. Any use of copyrighted characters or clips are covered by fair use as portions are used for review purposes and never used in a way that would cause a loss of profit to the copyright holder. We’re part of that small chunk of users who use YouTube for legitimate purposes along with all these girls who like to tape themselves shaking their booties to their favourite music. God bless every last one of them.

The future of YouTube is always a bit unknown due to it’s nature. Let’s hope the restriction of copyrighted material causes as little hinderance to legitimate users as possible. And if you’re part of that majority of people who go to YouTube solely for the copyrighted content you can cross your fingers all you want but there’s not much legal protection for what you want to do.