First Photo of Angelina Jolie As Maleficent Revealed

Walt Disney Studios announced the beginning of production on the upcoming film Maleficient by releasing the first photo showing actress Angelina Jolie in the titular role.

The film is being directed by the two-time Oscar winning production designer Robert Stromberg most known for his work on hit films such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. This will be his directorial debut. Linda Woolverton wrote the screenplay with the project being executive produced by Angelina Jolie, Don Hahn, Matt Smith and Palak Patel.

Sharlto Copley, known for his role in District 9, Elle Fanning, from Super 8, and Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Miranda Richardson, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville will be co-starring in the production.

Maleficent focuses on the side of the story according the villain from the classic Sleeping Beauty. It will reveal what caused the evil queen to be so hardened and what drive her to curse baby Aurora. In the original movie, she is the self-proclaimed “Mistress of All Evil” who, after not being invited to the baby’s christening, curses the infant Princess Aurora to “prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die” before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday. The character is Disney’s half-dragon adaptation of the evil fairy godmother from the original fairy tale.

The character is also one of the most “loved” and well known of the evil villains from Disney films.

Maleficent is scheduled for a March 14, 2014 release in 3D.

Joe Cornish Attempting To Bring “Snow Crash” To Film

Joe Cornish, writer and director of the alien invasion film Attack the Block, will write and direct an adaptation of the Neal Stephenson novel Snow Crash. Paramount Pictures purchased the film rights, and the project will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Kennedy/Marshall.

This is the second time Paramount has attempted to make this film, first trying when the book was published in 1992.

The cyber-punk bestseller is set in the near-future, according to Deadline.com, when the U.S. exists as a “patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and private enterprise and the mafia control everything.”

During the story, a computer virus manifests as a drug called Snow Crash, and is transmitted visually from computer screens to users, damaging their brains. Hiro Protagonist, the computer hacking, sword wielding, pizza delivering main character, attempts to stop the attack.

Read the official plot summary below:

“One of Time magazine’s 100 all-time best English-language novels. Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison—a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world. Neal Stephenson is such a writer and Snow Crash is such a novel, weaving virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility to bring us the gigathriller of the information age. In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous…you’ll recognize it immediately.”

The novel has been widely recognized as one of the best science fiction novels ever written that would later inspire much of the genre as well as the technologically filled world we live in today.

Stephenson has explained that the title of the novel comes from his term for a particular software failure mode on the early Apple Macintosh computer. He described it as “When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television set — a ‘snow crash.'”

The novel has always influenced culture as well as its influence on the Internet as we know today. The novel is responsible for the term “Avatar” being the accepted term for your online virtual presence in computer games. Several of the worlds leading virtual globe programs utilized by Nasa and the Google Earth function were at least partly inspired by the “Earth” software developed by the central corporation in “Snow Crash.”

Nerd Haiku: Truly Geektastic – A Review

I recently got the chance to review another book by author Robb Pearlman. After his novel “Spoiler Alert” caught my attention, I jumped on the chance to review his new effort, “Nerd Haiku.” I love nerdy things and I love haikus so I pretty much knew I needed to read it.

The book is collection of 200 haikus that capture so much of the essence that makes up being a nerd and more. If you love Sci-fi, fantasy, time travel, super heroes, and so much more you’ll find at least a couple haikus to make you laugh out loud. I have to say that this one of my favorite reference books yet. It is not only witty, but also clever, and completely honest.

There is a reference to almost everything that is great. Firefly, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, Walking Dead, A Song of Ice and Fire, and countless superheroes make an appearance.

“Vampires/Buffy

The Walking Dead/ well-placed ax.

It’s a yin/yang thing.”

The best part of the poems though is that it doesn’t alienate people. It is not just for hardcore fans, even casual fans of the genres will enjoy reading the references. Even those people who read the comics/books or those who just see the television/movie adaptations can all enjoy the references. Unlike his last book, there aren’t very many spoilers in this collection of pop culture phenomena. Reading these poems will not only allow you to see your favorite characters in a new way but in some cases may remind you of long forgotten stories that you loved. In fact, after reading all 200 haikus, I had the urge to go back and read/watch almost every reference it made.

Pearlman also calls things like he sees them but in a humorous way. As a self-proclaimed nerd himself, he knows what is up.

Some of my favorites:

“Who’s faster, the Flash

Or Superman? This is a

debate without end.”

“You’re such a nice girl

Please dont disappear on me

like Kitty Pryde did.”

Pearlman also combined several of my favorite story settings into one making my brain sufficiently happy.

“Asgard, Gotham, Hoth,

Middle Earth, Winterfell, Oz,

There’s no place like home.”

 And he is right, there is no place at home. So if you are a member of geekhood or nerdom,  definitely check this book out. You won’t regret it.

Live Action Film In The Works For Graphic Novel “The Suicide Forest”

It was announced last week that Producers Roy Lee and Taka Ichise will work together on a live-action adaptation of IDW Publishing’s graphic novel The Suicide Forest. Hideo Nakata is tapped to direct. Nakata is most known for  directing Ringu, which inspired the American adaptations: The Ring and The Ring Two.

Despite having the producers and director ready, the filmmakers are still looking for a screenwriter.

The Suicide Forest is the first installment of a four-part graphic novel series written by El Torres and illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez.

The story is a thriller about Aokigahara, a forest outside Tokyo which is the most famous suicide spot in the world. There is a legend that the spirits of past suicides roam among the trees. An American living in Tokyo enlists the help of a local forest ranger to help free him from an evil spirit that haunts him in the forest.

IDW’s Ted Adams and John Middleton will executive produce.

A summary for The Suicide Forest follows:

“Just outside of Tokyo lies Aokigahara, a vast forest and one of the most beautiful wilderness areas in Japan… which is also the most famous suicide spot in the entire world. Legend has it that the spirits of those many suicides are still roaming—haunting deep in those ancient woods. This series from the creators of the acclaimed The Veil examines the lives of Alan, an average worker from Tokyo and his rather unhealthy relationship with Masami, and Ryoko, a forest ranger who recovers the suicide victim’s bodies from the woods. We discover that behind Ryoko’s unconcerned surface lies a secret, and these three lives will be forever changed by the darkness waiting for them in the Suicide Forest.”

There is no word if they plan to make this into a movie franchise based in the issues of the graphic novel or keep it as a standalone film.However, based on how popular franchise films are these days, taking note from The Hunger Games, Twilight and the Marvel superhero films, it is reasonable to believe that if the film does well at the box office it could at least get a sequel.

Casting Update For Carrie Adaptation

With most of the major cast members already set for the upcoming adaptation of “Carrie” two more actresses have been added to the list. It was recently announced that Portia Doubleday and Judy Greer have joined the cast of MGM and Screen Gems’ remake of Stephen King’s Carrie.

Doubleday will play antagonist Chris Hargensen the mean-spirited popular girl who torments Carrie and later comes up with the plan to further humiliate her at the prom. Greer will play the gym teacher, Miss Desjardin, the sympathetic gym teacher that aids Carrie in the gym locker room. In the famed cult classic 1976 adaptation by Brian DePalma, the role of Chris was played by Nancy Allen and the gym teacher was played by Betty Buckley.

Director, Kim Peirce, has described this incarnation as an adaptation of the novel rather than remake of the De Palma film.

Other cast members include: Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass) as Carrie White, Julianne Moore will play Carrie’s religious mother, and Gabriella Wilde will play Sue Snell.

The official synopsis for King’s 1974 novel follows:

“The story of misfit high-school girl, Carrie White, who gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers. Repressed by a domineering, ultra-religious mother and tormented by her peers at school, her efforts to fit in lead to a dramatic confrontation during the senior prom.”

For those wishing to relive the 1976 horror film, or see it for the first time, here’s the trailer:

You can also see the trailer for 2002 remake below:

Breathe Deeply Heading To The Big Screen

Universal Pictures has announced that it has closed a seven-figure deal to adapt the novel Breathe Deeply for the big screen. Breathe Deeply received a $2.3 million publishing deal from Harper Collins.

The upcoming book is a memoir in which authors Susan Spencer-Wendel and Bret Witter tell the story of Spencer-Wendel’s struggle with ALS (better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

Universal bought the book without first assigning a producer to the material, just as it did when it purchased the rights to Fifty Shades of Grey.

Spencer-Wendel, a court reporter for the Palm Beach Post, was diagnosed with ALS at age 44. The disease destroys the nerves that power muscles including the lungs.

Already dealing with the effects of the disease, Spencer Wendel hurried to write what she called in her proposal “a book about living.”

“It is hard to get through the 12-page proposal without getting misty,” Deadline reported. “She wants to leave behind a record of a life well lived, and achieve a few more experiences before it becomes too difficult for her.”

Spencer-Wendel has a husband and a 14-year-old daughter.

In this Wall Street Journal article, she revealed that she is trying to create as many memories as she can with her daughter before she is gone.

Among her plans is a trip for the teen to try on dresses at Kleinfeld’s, the New York bridal shop in which TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress” is filmed. Spencer-Wendel said the plan was always for her daughter to purchase a Kleinfeld dress for her wedding, so she will leave behind the money so her sister can buy a dream dress there when her daughter is ready to be married.

The author will soon lose the power of speech, according to Deadline, but she is determined to finish her 240-page memoir by October, even if she will need special equipment to record her words by following her eye movements.

Top 5 Most (Likeable) Badass Characters From Game of Thrones

 

Almost every character in the hit HBO series has killed someone. In fact, most characters have killed several people. While many of them are terrible people who we love to hate, others are actually pretty awesome characters whose killing is overshadowed by everything else they do whether it is protecting the innocent, avenging honor, or repaying debts.

They are the most likable of the badass characters in “Game of Thrones.”

:::Warning Spoilers ahead if you haven’t finished Season 2 or read the books:::

The Hound (Sandor Clegane)

The Hound AKA Sandor Clegane has quickly climbed the ranks to be one of the better characters despite his limited screen time. Despite his brutality and the fact that he enjoys killing, he is very compassionate especially toward Sansa (the little bird). When she is attacked and almost raped after the riot, he swoops in a kills/maims her attackers without a second though or mercy (and with incredible swiftness). But what makes him so badass is that he openly and often defies Joffrey and his cruel treatment of Sansa. Not many characters can get away with saying “fuck the city, fuck the king” without someone trying to kill them or without Joffrey throwing a hissy fit commanding your death.

If you still doubt his badassery, then just watch the Blackwater battle again.

Brienne

Who doesn’t LOVE Brienne? The lady warrior who could kick all of our asses. She is quite possibly one of 5 females in there series who doesn’t use their magic vagina to get ahead. Instead she kicks ass and proves herself worthy of being a knight. Not only is she able to defeat countless men in battle, but she is fiercely loyal, first to Renly then Catelyn, and doesn’t succumb to the weakness of flattery.

 

She displays some major fighting skills in the season 2 finale which gains her respect from the “best” fighter in Westeros, Jaime, albeit only a little bit at first. And we all know she is perfect match for Jaime if only he wasn’t in love with his sister as they could bang and sword fight all day long.

Tyrion Lannister

Easily not only of my favorite characters but I can guess that he is on most fans favorite character list. He is not only witty and clever but as the brother to the Queen Regent and uncle to the King, he repeatedly stands up to them, calls them out for their selfishness and occasionally cowardly ways, defends the innocent around him. He defends Sansa against Joffrey’s cruel treatment further infuriating him. He also isn’t afraid to call the Queen out for her relationship with her brother and for her child being unmanageable.

He is also not afraid of battle like the “King.” He has killed several people, with a shield, with an axe, probably with his words once or twice. What is also repeatable is that he doesn’t seem to enjoy killing like the majority of those around him, rather he likes cunningly defeating people.

Plus we get amazing gems of Tyrion slapping Joffrey like the little jerk he is:

Oh and this one:

Bronn

I love Bronn, even though he is sellsword who would probably leave everyone and everything for the right price. It started by him willing to fight for Tyrion at the Vale, from here on out he and Tryion were besties, you know the kind where one friend is paying the other for their friendship. Although that doesn’t take away from their bromance, merely enhances is as Bronn would say.

One of the great aspects of Bronn is that he isn’t afraid to tell it straight to Tyrion even if it is something he doesn’t like to hear. He is also an incredibly skilled fighter who would rival that of Jaime and Brienne. He slays several men during the Blackwater battle and is also responsible for shooting the wildfire at the fleet, effectively killing hundreds of men.

Despite his joyful take on killing, his friendship to Tyrion and his sardonic sense of humor that provides some comedic relief for the audience makes him one of the more likable characters in the series.

Jaqen H’ghar

People all over the world are finding themselves strangely attracted to Jaqen (myself included). Whether it is because he talks about himself in the third person, is incredibly enigmatic, knows how to avenge properly and with honor, or he is just that good-looking, it is pretty obvious he is a badass. He can stealthily kill anyone the girl names and does so without even batting an eyelash. He more than easily kills the guards at the gate for Arya to escape. His strength and skill are unmeasurable as we almost never how he kills just the results of it. He never lets his strong guard down except when Arya names his name as the last. He shows his (albeit tiny) vulnerable side as he bargains with her to unsay his name.

But it comes down to this: The man repays his debts and looks sexy while doing it.

Honorable mentions: Robb Stark, Arya Stark, Loras Tyrell.

D.B. Cooper Novel May Get New Life In Film

Will Gluck, director of 2010’s Easy A, is at the center of a deal that CBS Films is making to adapt Geoffrey Gray’s novel Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper.  Keith Bunin is tapped to write the script.

Bunin previously scripted episodes for the HBO series “In Treatment,” and is writing a live-action film about the life of Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) for Universal and Illumination Entertainment with the intent of Johnny Depp starring and producing.

The novel Skyjack is an action-comedy that tells the story of D.B.Cooper, who on Nov. 24, 1971, hijacked a Boeing 727, demanded $200,000 and parachutes, and jumped out over the Pacific Northwest. Cooper was never caught nor was his body or the money ever recovered, and has since been hailed as a folk hero.

The book features the perspectives of three different people claiming to be Cooper.

Read the official summary of Skyjack below:

‘I have a bomb here and I would like you to sit by me.’

That was the note handed to a stewardess by a mild-mannered passenger on a Northwest Orient flight in 1971. It was the start of one of the most astonishing whodunits in the history of American true crime: how one man extorted $200,000 from an airline, then parachuted into the wilds of the Pacific Northwest and into oblivion. D. B. Cooper’s case has become the stuff of legend and obsessed and cursed his pursuers with everything from bankruptcy to suicidal despair. Now with Skyjack, journalist Geoffrey Gray delves into this unsolved mystery uncovering new leads in the infamous case.

Starting with a tip from a private investigator into a promising suspect (a Cooper lookalike, Northwest employee, and trained paratrooper), Gray is propelled into the murky depths of a decades-old mystery, conducting new interviews and obtaining a first-ever look at Cooper’s FBI file. Beginning with a heartstopping and unprecedented recreation of the crime itself, from cabin to cockpit to tower, and uncanny portraits of characters who either chased Cooper or might have committed the crime, including Ralph Himmelsbach, the most dogged of FBI agents, who watched with horror as a criminal became a counter-culture folk hero who supposedly shafted the system…Karl Fleming, a respected reporter whose career was destroyed by a Cooper scoop that was a scam…and Barbara (nee Bobby) Dayton, a transgendered pilot who insisted she was Cooper herself.

With explosive new information and exclusive access to FBI files and forensic evidence, Skyjack reopens one of the great cold cases of the 20th century.”

The tale of D.B. Cooper had previously been made into a movie entitled The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper, however this new project will be different due to the structure of the story and the focus of the three suspects.

Gluck would direct the project, and also produce under his Olive Bridge banner. He is in the middle of a Sony Pictures deal for movies and series, and this is a rare project outside that arrangement. Gluck most recently co-wrote Friends With Benefits, a romantic comedy starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. Gluck is repped by UTA. Bunin is repped by Kaplan/Perrone and CAA, and CAA reps the author as well. CBS Films execs Maria Faillace and Mark Ross are overseeing the film. For CBS Films, which has made acquisitions a big part of its slate, it becomes another filmmaker-driven homegrown project, much like the upcoming Seven Psychopaths by In Bruges helmer Martin McDonagh.

While CBS has already acquired the rights to the novel, the question comes whether or not Gluck will be up for the task.

Could World War Z Be Shelved?

Since it began filming last year, there have already been several MAJOR complications in adapting the much loved novel “World War Z,” written by Max Brooks. There were already doubts floating around regarding the difficulty of adapting a novel that is written entirely as a oral account. Then when Brad Pitt entered the picture, the internet collectively yelled “mistake!”

And now months after the project was announced it seems to be shambles. It’s budget has skyrocketed to $170 million with no guarantees that the film will make that money back in the box office.

The film’s release has also been delayed by 6 months for extensive reshoots that signaled major issues regarding the film were on the horizon. It was originally supposed to open in theaters on December 21, 2012, however, the studio has set the film back by 6 months opening on June 21st, 2013.

It was also announced last week that the reshoots needed a new writer to fix the script and screenplay. Whatever caused the massive 5 week reshoot was enough to hire a new writer to fix.

The Hollywood Reporter also reported that the director, Marc Forster never found voice for the flick causing much of it be disjointed and without a plan.

Trouble emerged early: Three weeks before shooting was to begin in June 2011, sources say Forster had not made critical decisions about what the zombies would look like and how they would move. “They just couldn’t get it right,” one insider says. “There was a lot of spinning of plates, a lot of talking. [But] they did not have a plan.” […]

“The director was not empowered,” says one insider. “There was nobody that steered the ship […] When you get [a director] who can’t do it all […] you get a struggle as to whose is the singular voice.”

Then a major mistake almost halted much of the filming in Hungary.

Then in October, proceedings were disrupted when a Hungarian anti-terrorism unit raided an airport warehouse and confiscated 85 fully functional automatic assault rifles that were to be used on the shoot. (The guns were not supposed to be operational, and it is illegal to transport such weapons into the country.) With the movie already behind schedule and over budget, Pitt was said to be livid at the mistake – and perhaps wearying of a project that was showing no sign of ending.

Many agree that Paramount should have shelved the project long ago when they were squabbling over the budget. However, the director seems hopelessly optimistic stating that he feels the film should be a trilogy.

 “[We] each view World War Z as a trilogy that would have the grounded, gun-metal realism of, say, Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne series tethered to the unsettling end-times vibe of AMC’s The Walking Dead“

Despite the film being in the works for over a year , audiences know suspiciously little about the project. We don’t know which first person anecdotes will be included and which will be taken out. We don’t even know the full cast and their respective roles yet.

Though, the question stands, how many more problems will they deal with before the project is shelved? Many movies have been scraped for much less. Will the production company reach a breaking point? Even though these major issues keep slowing down filming and production, I wonder if Brad Pitt will use his star power to have it released no matter whether it is good or bad.

For now, I have high hopes for it even if they keep getting dashed by every news report from the set. Personally, I think fans of the novel should remain cautious until we get a trailer.

The Dark Knight Rises Mobile Game Releases Teaser

Gameloft recently released the trailer for their The Dark Knight Rises mobile game via IGN. There is no release date yet for the game, but it is expected to launch around the same time as the film. It will be released on both iOS and Android.

The Dark Knight Rises will hit theaters and IMAX on July 20th and stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Morgan Freeman.

You can see the game trailer below: