Last May, it was announced that Steven Spielbergand Peter Jackson were to direct and produce three performance-capture films based on Georges Remi’s 1929 comic strip, Tintin.

Since then, rumors surfaced that Spielberg would no longer be directing the first movie in the planned film trilogy and that Jackson would be moving up from directing the second film to the first.

Now, there’s news that both Jackson’s and Spielberg’s people have confirmed that nothing has changed and that Spielberg would still do the first and Jackson would do the second. No word yet on who will direct the third film…

Back in November 2006, it was announced that the super-violent comic called Preacher would be turned into a one-hours series on HBO. This was exciting to fans of the Garth Ennis comic book series as it promised all the necessary violence and a whole lot more than two hours of content a movie adaptation would have provided.

Now, those dreams have been slaughtered as Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil, Ghost Rider), who was trying to get the project going, has told Comics Continuum that the new head of HBO decided he didn’t like it.

We were budgeting and everything and it was getting really close to going, but the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial. Which, of course, is kind of the point!

HBO also offered Johnson the chance to re-do everything and try and tone it down, but he decided to just pass on it all together…

Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Heroes) has been cast in Warner Bros. upcoming CG-animated movie adaptation, Astro Boy.

The storyline runs along the same vein as Pinocchio and Edward Scissorhands where a boy is created; in this case the boy is created by a scientist to replace a son that he lost. This doesn’t work out so well and Astroboy goes off on an adventure looking for people to like him. On his journey, he discovers his great powers and becomes a hero that has to return home to save Metro City and re-unite with the scientist that created and rejected him.

Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Bill Nighy, Nathan Lane, Eugene Levy, and Freddie Highmore are all set to lend their voices to the movie as well.

As you may have heard, some legal battles have arisen involving the much-anticipated movie adaptation of the comic book, Watchmen.

So what’s really going on?

Well, basically, a federal judge has granted Fox permission to take Warner Bros. to court for not gaining Fox’s permission to make Watchmen in the first place. Fox has apparently has held the rights to make a Watchmen movie for 22 years with no luck actually making it themselves. Warner seems to think all is fine and legal, so to battle they go.

Properties that are obtained by studios, but ultimately don’t get made by said studio are usually picked up by other studios (Fox failed, Warner picked it up. On we go.), but the original studio will still hang onto something in case the movie gets turned into a juggernaut. In this case, Fox tried and failed to make Watchmen, now WB is doing it and getting A LOT of attention in the process, so Fox is pissed and doesn’t want to be made a fool…

I’ve never seen an episode of Red Dwarf. I don’t even really have a clue what it is, aside from that it’s British and kinda weird looking. But I have a friend who loves it very dearly and it’s pretty popular, so I figured it’s worth sharing this news.

Red Dwarf cast member Robert Llewellyn made an announcement at the KTCS9 20th Anniversary shindig that a new one-hour special has been commissioned by the BBC Worldwide.

No word on the storyline, but the script is in its final stages.

The project should start filming in October 2008…

Universal told AICN that Danny Elfman will be taking care of the score for the upcoming new version of The Wolfman, which stars Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins, and Hugo Weaving. It’s directed by Joe Johnston.

I’m not 100% sure what to expect in this announcement as the footage I saw didn’t really seem like an Elfman project, but I think so long as it’s not Beetlejuice-y, it could be good. Maybe more along the lines of Big Fish and Edward Scissorhands?

The movie is slated for an April 3, 2009 release.

For those who haven’t seen the sneaky footage, check it out…

Something interesting has come about today on MySpace in the trailer for Fast & Furious, the fourth movie in The Fast and the Furious franchise, which you can watch right here.

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker reteam for the ultimate chapter of the franchise built on speed—Fast & Furious. Heading back to the streets where it all began, they rejoin Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster to blast muscle, tuner and exotic cars across Los Angeles and floor through the Mexican desert in the new high-octane action-thriller.

When a crime brings them back to L.A. , fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto (Diesel) reignites his feud with agent Brian O’Conner (Walker). But as they are forced to confront a shared enemy, Dom and Brian must give in to an uncertain new trust if they hope to outmanuever him. And from convoy heists to precision tunnel crawls across international lines, two men will find the best way to get revenge: push the limits of what’s possible behind the wheel…

IESB spoke to Jodi Benson — who voiced Ariel in The Little Mermaid and also did the voice for Tour Guide Barbie in Toy Story 2 — about Toy Story 3.

Benson confirmed that Mr. Michael Keaton himself will be joining the cast as a Ken doll to her Barbie.

Keaton played the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in Tim Burton’s 1989 feature Batman and its 1992 sequel Batman Returns, as well as the title role in Burton’s Beetlejuice. In recent years, the actor starred in the horror film White Noise and played Lindsey Lohan’s father in Disney’s Herbie: Fully Loaded. He also voiced Chick in Disney’s Cars.

Original cast returning includes Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as the required Buzz and Woody, along with Wallace Shawn as Rex, John Ratzenberger as Hamm, Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, Estelle Harris as Mrs. Potato Head, and Joan Cusack as Jessie…

Etan Cohen (Idiocracy, Tropic Thunder) spoke to MTV about Sherlock Holmes, the new movie he’s writing that will star Sacha Baron Cohen as the classic titular figure and Will Ferrell as his sidekick Dr. Watson.

This is a project that’s coming along parallel to another Sherlock Holmes project being done by Guy Ritchie and starring Robert Downey Jr. and it seemed pretty obvious that the latter would be actiony and the former would be really funny.

While Guy Ritchie’s film is being called “James Bond in 1891,” it seems that the Ferrell/Baron-Cohen movie might not be all-comedy all-the-time like we assumed.

What’s been exciting is to do a giant comedy but at the same time try to be true to the mechanics of a Sherlock Holmes story like using the Victorian forensics that Conan Doyle used. It’s a cool opportunity to write a good mystery that also gets to be a giant comedy. Fortunately a lot of the stories are public domain now. We can actually draw on a lot of the situations and language of many of the original stories…

It’s official, there won’t be a sequel to Superman Returns … instead, it’ll be a reboot.

Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov spoke to WSJ about where the studio is going, where they want to be in a few years, and what their plans are for their DC Comics properties, such as the caped man in the spandex going darker on us right along with other heroes.

“‘Superman’ didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to,” says Mr. Robinov. “It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned. Had ‘Superman’ worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009, but now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman… We’re going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it…

FlicksNews is reporting that Russell Crowe is apparently set to play Bill Hicks in a biopic of the far-too-young-deceased comedian. Crowe was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald saying, “I have another project based on the life of comedian Bill Hicks, which is going from treatment to draft stage with Kiwi writer Mark Staufer.”

Crowe’s currently spending time at home with his wife and kids while Nottingham is postponed. Apparently filming won’t be starting again until March because director Ridley Scott wants the leaves in Sherwood Forest to be perfect. That, ladies and gentleman, is an artist seeking perfection.

For those who don’t know, Bill Hicks was a hilarious and usually graphic comedian who loved to smoke and drink and piss people off. He was a master of his craft and one of many comedians who died way too young. Hicks died of cancer in 1994 at the age of 32…

MGM Domestic Television Distribution has announced that they have acquired the rights to the digital graphic novel The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore and will look into possibly developing it as a TV series.

The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore is set in a time where the British Empire has never ended and America is just one of thousands of virtual worlds hosted on a vast global game network. When Jonas Moore (portrayed online by British film and TV star Colin Salmon — Resident Evil, Die Another Day and the upcoming Punisher: War Zone), a character personally created by the network’s founder, becomes self-aware, he is tagged by the network as a virus and goes on the run. As he moves from one artificial game world to the next, his knowledge of the games and the real-world gamers spreads like a virus to the other game characters, freaks, creatures and monsters who live as slaves within the network — precipitating a revolution and fight for freedom against the murderously addicted real-world gamers. Worlds Apart lead singer Steve Hart wrote the score for the production and also stars in the online version…

Recently we featured a preview of the new web-only series called Gemini Division (see NBC To Debut Sci-fi Web Series ‘Gemini Division’), starring Rosario Dawson and Justin Hartley.

Now the show has debuted on NBC and you can currently watch Files (episodes) #01 and #02 right here below.

I checked them out myself and they’re definitely worth a look. It’s an interesting new way to do a series; with a green screen look (one I wasn’t sure about at first, but it’s not bad looking so far) and a kind of Cloverfield vibe.

So far, both episodes have simply consisted of a succession of video transmissions via an iPhone-type device (remember, it’s the near-future) to an unknown friend or family member; these videos set the table…

When Quentin Tarantino made his bold statement at Cannes that he would be there in one year with Inglorious Bastards, everyone laughed and shook their heads saying “Ooh, Quentin, you rascal, you” and then continued about their business. Pretty much immediately after the amusing quote, Tarantino went and finished his script and then started casting and scouting locations like a mad man; this told us he was actually serious and was out to prove it.

So here we are. The movie is looking to start production this Fall and a strong cast is forming with Brad Pitt, B.J. Novak, Mike Myers, Samm Levine, and Eli Roth signed on and many more to surely come. This is everything we’ve wanted, isn’t it? We should be giddy and riddled with goosebumps, right? I’m not so sure.

After drifting in and out of production hell for a few years, it appears that Voltron: Defender of the Universe will be moving forward once again. Relativity Media is in negotiations to back the movie behind Fox’s New Regency with Mark Gordon and Jordan Wynn attached to produce.

Apparently one of the big problems was how much it would cost (obviously; it’s freakin’ Voltron) and that’s what kept holding it back. The solution: green screen! But of course. In order to have a more “moderate” budget, the studios will take the path paved by 300 and hope to achieve Transformers success. This decision is catching a lot of eyes and has a lot of people scratching their collective heads, but eh, we’ll see what happens I guess…

FOX News has shown the first trailer for spoof man David Zucker’s (Airplane) upcoming political bash, An American Carol.

The film stars Kevin Farley (Chris’s brother) as a filmmaker spoof on Michael Moore who’s running around doing… political stuff. As the title would suggest, it’s in the same vein as A Christmas Carol where Michael Malone is visited by some ghosts like General Patton (Kelsey Grammer) and George Washington (Jon Voight). There’s also a lot of other big names involved, but that’s about as much as anyone really can stomach information wise.

The movie looks really just terrible but I decided to cover it because two things stood out to me I felt were worth note…

Matthew Vaughn has gained a strong fan-following directing movies like Layer Cake, Stardust, and almost directing X-Men: The Last Stand (dammit!). Now, Vaughn wants to do a big-screen adaptation of Mark Millar’s (Wanted) violent comic Kick-Ass and is on a rampage to make it. Apparently the comic is so violent that studios just plain refuse to touch it; and with Vaughn refusing to tone it down (God bless his heart), he decided to find raise his own financing and make it an expensive indie flick.

After raising the $30 million or so for the project, casting has also begun with Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad’s McLovin!) in negotiations to play a villain and Chloe Moretz (The Eye) already cast…

Director Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II, III, IV) was quoted by MTV saying that he wanted to do a new Leprechaun movie, which would take the title character to the Old West.

Now Bousman, who recently directed Repo! The Genetic Opera, has posted to his MySpace blog to clear up the situation.

Here’s the original quote from MTV:
I would do Leprechaun in a second. If Lionsgate is listening, give me Leprechaun. It’s just one of those fun popcorn movies. I would love to bring back the fun popcorn movie — extreme violence, extreme absurdity — but make it fun. [Where would he go?] Back to the old west; you send him in a time machine and transport him to the old west. There are gold rushes. There are gunfights. It’s awesome! I have the whole thing already worked out!

In one of the more strange casting announcements I’ve heard in a while, Mike Myers has been cast in Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Inglorious Bastards in a small role as a British General named Ed French who assists in the plan to take down the Nazis.

Considering all of the comedic names rumored for this movie, like Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, and most recently Simon Pegg who’s in talks, and BJ Nowak, who has been cast (along with Brad Pitt, by the way); you would think that this wouldn’t surprise me, but man, Mike Myers in this seems totally made up. Don’t get me wrong though, this adds to the intrigue.

Luckily, Myers is just playing a bit part, because we wouldn’t want anything to get it the way of his writing an Austin Powers 4, now would we?

STYD is reporting that they’ve learned that Sony is possibly thinking about giving their Candyman franchise a makeover and even that they might ponder throwing a white guy in the role of the Candyman this time.

Now, remake news like this used to be pretty shocking when we heard it, but at this point, it’s just the norm. Any kind of movie that has any kind of following or nostalgic potential is destined to be re-made in one way or another, so just deal with it and hold on tight to the original copies, lest they be lost to time.

Plus, it’s obvious that Hollywood hates Clive Barker and will do everything in their power to ruin and/or bury anything adapted from his works.

In the original Candyman, based on Barker’s short story The Forbidden, Tony Todd played Civil War-area black slave who was tortured and murdered after his affair with white woman was discovered…