By now you’ve all seen the wonderful trailers for Shane Acker’s 9, the computer animated post-apocalyptic adventure about a band of 9 ragdolls and their fight to survive (Read: Check Out The Original Short Film & Trailer For ‘9’ Right Now). It’s dark and scary-yet strangely beautiful look immediately steals your eyes and won’t give them back until its done with you. Now from io9 comes some great new visual sustenance in the form of eight posters that feature the nine brave ragdolls! Just a note, two of the ragdolls are twins, and are featured in one poster, hence the nine dolls in eight posters deal.

Here is the movie’s official synopsis:

When 9 (Elijah Wood) first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group, 9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good. They must take the offensive if they are to survive, and they must discover why the machines want to destroy them in the first place. As they’ll soon come to learn, the very future of civilization may depend on them. [...]

Squidbillies
Vol. 2 DVD
Created by Dave Willis and Jim Fortier
Written by Dave Willis
Turner Home Entertainment
Release date: April 21, 2009

So Adult Swim has come up with some odd cartoons in their time, but I think Squidbillies takes the cake. Squidbillies, created by Dave Willis (Aqua Teen Hunger Force) and Jim Fortier (Brak Show), follows the story of the Cuyler family, a clan of hillbilly squids that happen to live in a town in Georgia. The Culyers’ penchant for violence and racism are always getting them in trouble but their bacon is usually saved by the town sheriff, thanks to a previous federal law passed that makes them an endangered species.

If you are even a bit familiar with Willis and Fortier’s previous work, you should like this series. The episodes are short and concise, and always really have no continuity whatsoever. Characters from the cartoon are often shot, brunt to a crisp, and eaten in every episode, but show up unscathed later on, sometimes even in the same episode. The storylines are also outrageous and over the top. One of the episodes involves Grandma Cuyler getting into a botched tanning accident and rather than have plastic surgery, the Cuyler family kill various animals and sew the animal skins onto her. Though be warned: A lot of the comedy is broad, with jokes ending with the death or dismemberment of another character, and might not be for all viewers, even for yours truly who happens to like Aqua Teen and Brak [...]

It has been multiple years now that we’ve been aware of James Cameron and his revolutionary juggernaut of a movie, Avatar. As these years have passed, we’ve seen concept and behind-the-scenes images, but still not too much beyond that. Recently though, a small crowd of special peoples had the Willy Wonka-like opportunity to see 24-minutes of footage from the movie at CinemaExpo in Amsterdam.

Among this disgustingly lucky group of people, a handful of them offered up a description of what they saw, and it’s one of those situations where the words are really difficult to put together, and even harder for someone like myself to even attempt to recycle and be useful to you. In this matter, /Film gathered up a collection of clips of these descriptions and put them in one spot — you can go there to read them all, and you can follow the links provided to go to each site and read the full descriptions. Of the many that offered up a description of what they saw, I’ve picked a couple of bits to include below.

We all knew that Avatar was setting up to be a really special event and something that we’ve never seen, but after reading these recaps, you can’t help but put this movie at the very top of your must-see list. [...]

Orange County’s OC Register has a story on a young girl named Colby Curtin — a ten-year old who had been battling a rare form of vascular cancer for three years now. The young girl was a big movie fan, and while seeing the movie Monsters vs. Aliens, she saw a preview for Pixar’s Up and declared it a must-see.

Unfortunately, before getting to see the movie, her condition worsened, and her family attempted to obtain a wheelchair so they could get her to the theater. The wheelchair didn’t show up in time, as Colby’s condition had declined her to immobility. In a desperate attempt, with no more options, a friend of the family began calling Pixar, making up names to try and get the automated phone system to recognize someone that they could reach out to. Eventually this worked and the family was able to explain their situation.

When Pixar agreed to try and get the movie to her, the news was passed on to the girl’s mother, who asked her daughter if she could hang on just a little more. The girl simply replied “I’m ready [to die], but I’m going to wait for the movie.” [...]

A couple of days ago, Collider got the scoop from an inside source that Comedy Central had ordered 13 new episodes of the ultra-popular sci-fi cartoon, Futurama. This was huge news that everyone had been anxiously waiting to hear about after we found out that Fox was pondering what to do with the show after a successful four-movie direct-to-DVD run. While I too was buzzing with excitement, I must admit, I was also incredibly skeptical due to the fact that this was the exact same order that Comedy Central made in 2006 before the four movies came out, and because when we last heard news, Futurama was waiting on Fox, not Comedy Central. Who was I to know they could tag team.

As it turns out, Collider’s insider was on the scent, and we can all now rejoice: Futurama is OFFICIALLY coming back to the air on Comedy Central, who have ordered not 13 episodes, but 26 new episodes!

20th Century Fox has put out a press release stating that due to the success of the four movies and the popularity of the show’s reruns on Comedy Central, they have made an initial order of 26 half-hour episodes that will also air on Comedy Central. [...]

A Bug’s Life Blu-ray Edition
Directed by John Lasseter & Andrew Stanton
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Dave Foley, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Denis Leary, Madeline Kahn, Phyllis Diller, John Ratzenberger
Walt Disney Home Entertainment
Release Date: May 19, 2009

On November 25, 1998, Walt Disney Pictures and the budding Pixar Animation Studio put out their second feature-length computer-animated motion picture after the classic Toy Story, and this movie was called A Bug’s Life. When it came out, the movie cost only $60 million to make, and pulled in over $350 million at the in box office, which was an amazing feat, seconded only by Toy Story’s $30 million budget and over $350 million box office take. Even with these impressive numbers, Pixar still fought through many troubled times before really taking off and never looking back.

Since then, eight more Pixar movies have been released, and as we all know, they have all been brilliant. Pixar is now majorly considered to be completely fail-proof — and all of this started with the first couple of Toy Story movies and A Bug’s Life.

A Bug’s Life tells the story of a colony of ants who have collected a pile of food in order to pay off a bigger, more-dangerous group of grasshoppers lead by Hopper (Kevin Spacey) who demand payment from the little ants [...]

Last year we learned that the long-awaited new Heavy Metal movie adaptation was finally moving forward and that Watchmen director Zack Snyder had joined David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) and Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) as directors on the project (Read: Zack Snyder Joins David Fincher & Gore Verbinski For ‘Heavy Metal’). Heavy Metal consists of multiple different chapters or sections, and the goal was to find a team of top-notch talent to handle these various sections.

Fortunately for us, the party does not end there: Film School Rejects have spoken to Kevin Eastman (Owner of the Heavy Metal Magazine, as well as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator) who dropped the bomb that now a one Mr. James Cameron would be executive producing on the project, and that he would be directing one of the segments as well!

Eastman also shared that Kung Fu Panda co-director Mark Osborne would be doing a comedy segment of the Heavy Metal project along with Jack Black. They are really putting together one of the — if not THE — greatest collection of filmmakers ever seen; and this is just the directors — they still need to cast what I’m assuming will be all kinds of big name stars for the project. [...]

If you’ve yet to hear, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are directing a trilogy based on the popular Tintin character. Spielberg is directing one, then Jackson will direct, and then they may co-direct the third or maybe even find someone new to do the honors. The movies will be shot using motion-capture technology and they will be released in the booming 3-D format. The first movie in the trilogy is happily titled The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

U.S. distributor Paramount Pictures and international distributor Sony Pictures have officially announced that Secret of the Unicorn will be released on December 23, 2011 in the U.S., with the movie opening in late October and early November of 2011 internationally.

The Adventures of Tintin follows a determined young reporter who stops at nothing to get his story, a trait that sees him always in wild predicaments and encounters. The movie stars Jamie Bell as Tintin, Daniel Craig as Red Rackham, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thompson and Thomson, and Andy Serkis. [...]

It was only a matter of time before we finally got a second trailer of the fantastic looking animated movie from Shane Acker, 9, and what do you know…here it is. The trailer is pretty similar to the original trailer that we saw (presentation wise) but there’s plenty of new images to take in, and that’s all that really matters.

9 stars Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer, and Crispin Glover. It is based on the short film by Acker and produced by both Tim Burton and Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov. Pamela Pettler (Corpse Bride, Monster House) wrote the script.

Click over to check out the official synopsis in case you’ve yet to read it, as well as the brand new trailer!

When 9 (The Lord of the Ring’s Elijah Wood) first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. [...]

The first footage of Disney’s A Christmas Carol premiered today at Cannes.

Director Robert Zemeckis and stars Jim Carrey and Colin Firth were on-hand to debut the footage for the upcoming 3D motion-capture animated film, based on the classic Christmas tale by Charles Dickens.

Watch the 19-second video clip here below.

Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) begins the Christmas holiday with his usual miserly contempt, barking at his faithful clerk (Gary Oldman) and his cheery nephew (Colin Firth). But when the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come take him on an eye-opening journey revealing truths Old Scrooge is reluctant to face, he must open his heart to undo years of ill will before it’s too late.

A Christmas Carol arrives in conventional and IMAX theaters on November 6, 2009 [...]

MTV spoke to Pete Docter, director of Up and one of the main men at Pixar Studios, and he decided to share a sweet little morsel for fans of the studios’ films as well as fans of Easter Eggs. Docter admitted that the newest member of our favorite group of toys to be featured in next summer’s Toy Story 3, will have a brief cameo in Up, which will be released on May 29, 2009.

We all know that Disney/Pixar movies just love their Easter Egg surprises. Whether it be a tiny appearance by the insects of A Bug’s Life in Toy Story 2, various toy versions of characters being played with, such as a Nemo toy shown in Monsters Inc. before Finding Nemo was anywhere near release, and any of the many others we’ve seen. The difference here is that the Easter Egg is usually revealed later, after the character has become hugely popular in its own film, not before we know who they are.

To go one better, Up producer Jonas Rivera explained where exactly the new toy can be found [...]

Disney has put together a fairly interesting little promotional venture which will involve a train making its rounds on a United States tour for the upcoming motion-capture rendition of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol, which stars Jim Carrey in many of the roles.

The tour will span 40 cities with a four-car museum-like exhibit along with mood-setting additions to surround it. To find out when it will be in a city near you, check out the schedule at USA Today.

When you arrive, there will be a portable theater where you’ll be able to see early footage of the movie. You’ll then walk into a Christmas world with carolers, decorations, and even artificial snow. When you get inside the actual exhibit, you’ll find all sorts of cool things, including: digital portraits of the characters that begin from the concept and morph along to the finished character; a display that teaches people about how motion-capture technology works; interactive games with a photo booth that allows people to become Scrooge; and even some artifacts from the Charles Dickens Museum, including a copy of one of the first editions ever printed of A Christmas Carol. [...]

Donald Faison, who plays Turk on the television comedy Scrubs, made an appearance last week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon promoting his new movie Next Day Air, which is up against Star Trek this weekend.

Faison said that he was more a Star Wars fan than a Trek fan and that he’s seen The Empire Strikes Back, his favorite movie of the saga, over 300 times. He said it was his love of the film that introduced him to stop-motion animation, which he learned to do as a child and even has a stop-motion animation studio in his home now.

Faison said if he were to pitch a Star Wars story to George Lucas, it would be The Chronicles of Lando Calrissian, starring himself as the title character and taking place prior the events of Empire when Lando still had the Millennium Falcon before he lost it to Han Solo in a Sabacc game. To help his pitch, he even created a short stop-motion animated clip, which he showed on the late night talk show.

The stop-motion clip is cute and adorable and Faison’s pitch is quite honestly something I’ve LOVE to see made into a television series. You can watch the interview segment with Faison, which includes the stop-motion clip, at the end of this entry.

For those of you interested, there’s already a trilogy of pre-Empire Lando Calrissian books written by L. Neil Smith called Star Wars: The Lando Calrissian Adventures, which you can get for only $7.99 — definitely worth the read [...]

Ever wonder what the new Star Trek would be like if it was a teen comedy from the 1980s/90s? Well, wonder no more, because Dan Meth has created quite the humorous video of said version, titled “Trek Yourself,” for Comedy Central.

Watch the John Hughes-inspired animated short here below and see young Kirk on his first day at a new high school where Khan is the school bully dating the cheerleader Uhura and Spock is, well, the nerd [...]

The large and lovably energetic actor of stage, screen, and television — Dom DeLuise has passed away at the age of 75. He died quietly in his sleep after a long battle with illness.

The very best thing about Dom DeLuise is that he was completely generational. He first showed up in the ’50s and by the ’60s, he was often a guest on Dean Martin’s legendary variety show and roasts. The ’70s saw his perfect chemistry with Mel Brooks’ style of movies skyrocket as he appeared in Blazing Saddles and Silent Movie — he also appeared in The Muppet Movie that decade. The ’80s were epic for Mr. DeLuise. He continued on his torrent pace of appearing in great movies and comedies like Smokey and the Bandit II, both Cannonball Run movies, History of the World: Part 1, Haunted Honeymoon, and Spaceballs. He also really shined as the perfect voice for animated feature films with work on The Secret of NIMH, An American Tale, Oliver & Company, and All Dogs Go to Heaven. [...]

To honor Cinco de Mayo tomorrow, the official Star Wars site is currently streaming Spanish-language versions of several episodes of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series.

Five full episodes of the animated TV series — Ambush, Trespass, Dooku Captured, The Gungan General and Hostage Crisis — are available for viewing online right now through May 7. This is the first time ever that a non-English version of the series is available online.

Also to commemorate the holiday — which celebrates the Mexican army’s 1862 defeat of invading French forces — StarWars.com is hosting an assortment of related content highlighting the Mexican Star Wars fan experience, as well as kid-friendly cultural activities, crafts, Spanish-language multimedia, and more [...]

One topic that some might argue was always bigger than anything else related to McG’s Terminator Salvation is: would we or would we not see Arnold Schwarzenegger, and if so, how? Rumors have flown in every direction, from strictly voice over work paired with Arnie-clone Roland Kickinger handling the physical look; to Schwarzenegger actually appearing; to even his likeness possibly being digitally introduced in one fashion or another.

Well, it seems that if you chose C, you’d be absolutely correct. Let’s see what they’ve won!

It’s being reported that a bust made of Schwarzenegger 25 years ago for the first movie is being used as the base for digital reproduction. That’s right, Arnold Schwarzenegger will apparently be appearing in the movie, but he didn’t do one thing for the appearance, just OK’d it, looked at it, and gave the gubernatorial thumbs-up. The thumbs-up may have been digital as well, we’re still checking in to that one.

So is this a good idea? Or has all of this Arnold business been way too distracting? [...]

Once upon a time, after the decent but so-so successful TMNT, it was rumored that a brand new live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may be on the way with some computer animated turtles instead of guys in suits.

Well, ladies and gentlemen of the ’80s — that dream is now a shiny reality. A press release has been sent out to the masses announcing that The Mirage Group has officially given the greenlight to the development of a new Ninja Turtles movie with the goal of a 2011 release.

The announcement was made as our favorite martial arts-trained turtles are celebrating their big 25th anniversary in New York City, lovingly titled “Shell-ebration.” For the event, the Empire State Building will be going turtle-green and the showing of the first movie outdoors at the Tribeca Film Festival’s Drive-In theater.

The movie has a strong producing team including Galen Walker, who produced TMNT; as well as Scott Mednick, who has a blockbuster resume that features: 300, Superman Returns, 10,000 BC, and the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are. [...]

If you haven’t seen the trailer for Shane Acker’s 9, well, then you should immediately go watch it first. You can watch both the trailer as well as the original short film for which the feature movie is based by peeking at our earlier coverage of it (Read: Check Out The Original Short Film & Trailer For ‘9′ Right Now).

After you’ve checked those sweet morsels out, we can now move on to a new two-minute clip from the movie which has been released exclusively through MTV Movies Blog. The clip can be seen below.

9 is made by a visual super-team including producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) and director Shane Acker, who also created the short. That’s one very cool bit about this project, is that they let the man who started it actually captain the whole movie.

Click on over for the intense two-minute clip.

Here’s the movie’s official synopsis, in case you missed it. [...]

Our always awesome friends at Titan Books shipped off a wonderful box of Monsters vs. Aliens comics for us to share with our readers. We have five copies of the official graphic novel adaptation to give to a handful of lucky GoD readers.

Five (5) winners will each receive:

One (1) Monsters Vs. Aliens: The Official Movie Adaptation

About

Susan Murphy is having a bad wedding day. After being struck by a rock from space, she mysteriously grows to become the 49-feet-11-inches tall Ginormica. However, Susan’s not the only monster — as a secret government compound full of them can attest! And when a malicious alien robot named Gallaxhar lands on Earth, General W.R. Monger must send a motley crew into action to save the world! This is the official graphic novel adaptation of the movie that features the voice talents of Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Laurie and Seth Rogen! [...]