The Harry Potter website, The Leaky Cauldron, has found out that actor Bill Nighy has told The Independent that he will finally be starring in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after a long, long time claiming to be one of the few British actors not cast in a Potter film.

The Leaky Cauldron apparently caught wind of this a long while back, but only now is it seemingly being confirmed by Nighy himself. Though the actor decided not to say who he would be player, experts are confident that he’s a shoo-in for the role of Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour

Here is what Bill Nighy had to say:

I don’t think I’m allowed to say it but I’m going to be in the next Harry Potter film. I won’t say which character, but he’s a goodie. I just got the gig.

When asked if he’s even read the books, he explained “Not yet, but I will! It’s rather like being in a Shakespeare that way, you know?” — a quote that may have Potter fans nervous. [...]

For a decade now, Frank Darabont has been trying tirelessly to adapt the classic Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451 into a movie, with nothing but bad luck and fallen plans keeping the project in a deep hole. The closest it seemed to be to actually happening is when they were able to score Tom Hanks for the lead, but when he eventually exited the project, Fahrenheit disappeared from the radar for some time. Now comes word via Sci Fi Wire from the Saturn Awards that Darabont has a new actor in mind and that he’s determined — even in the face of death — to make this movie now.

Frank Darabont isn’t someone who makes movies in quick-succession, but when he does make them, they usually find high-praise. Most-notably, Darabont has written and directed the comparable Stephen King adaptations of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. He also wrote and directed the remake of The Mist, which was liked by many people, but not nearly at the level of his other King adaptations. [...]

Now that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is upon us, the focus will slowly begin to shift toward Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — the final book in the series which is being turned into two movies. The pair of films will take the smart path and are filming right now, immediately after Half-Blood Prince so they don’t lose any more time or youthful looking actors. One of the big questions that has plagued fans since learning of the two-part finale is of course where do they stop the first part to cut them into two? Well, it seems they have a good idea where they want to slice it.

First off, producer David Heyman and star Daniel Radcliffe spoke to Empire, where Radcliffe claimed that the split would occur at a major cliffhanger. Heyman added:

We’ve played around with a couple of places, and ultimately settled on a place that we think is very exciting, and I think quite bold, in that it’s not necessarily where one might expect. You want to give a sense of completion, on one hand, but a sense that there’s another piece, more to come. [...]

The first trailer for Martin Scorsese’s new film Shutter Island has been released on Apple, and it looks intense. You can head over there for the HD version of the trailer.

The movie follows Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), two U.S. Marshals who come to a prison-like hospital for the criminally insane that is located on an island off the coast of Massachusetts. The marshals are called out to the hospital due to the disappearance of a woman who was being kept there for committing murder. The confusing thing about it all, is that the hospital is in a seemingly-inescapable Alcatraz-like location with eleven miles of cold, cold water between them and land. To make things even more chaotic — the presence of a 67th patient in a hospital inhabited by 66 causes the marshals to wonder what exactly is going on at Shutter Island.

This is one of the best trailers that I’ve seen in a while. It has a really creepy vibe to it and looks like it could be a third movie among The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. I also do not think that I would be out of line to claim that this trailer alone is scarier than most full-length horror movies that we see these days. [...]

Make Love The Bruce Campbell Way
Written & Narrated by Bruce Campbell
St. Martin’s Griffin
Available Now

Bruce Campbell, exploitation movie stalwart and man-god to millions, has always secretly dreamed of transcending his B-flick actor trappings and hitting the Hollywood big time. One day after his literary agent Barry simultaneously rejects his proposal for a book about walking and proposes that he instead write a book about relationships, his acting agent — also named Barry — calls Bruce and informs him that he has been invited to audition for a major supporting role in an upcoming romantic comedy for Paramount Pictures starring Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger and directed by Mike Nichols called Let’s Make Love. Bruce is wary of the offer at first but a trip to New York City and a chance to meet a great director proves too irresistible to pass up.

At the audition he uncomfortably encounters just about every big name actor in the movie industry and when he reads for the role of Foyl Whipple, a salt-of-the-earth doorman at a high-end New York hotel always ready with sage advice and an open door, it does not go too well. Returning to his rural Oregon home in what he believes to be defeat, Bruce is surprised to get the news that he won the part. It turns out that Mike Nichols is a big fan of his and wants to be the one to give the struggling actor his big break in mainstream film. This gesture on the filmmaker’s part inspires the star of the Evil Dead trilogy and Assault on Dome 4 to prepare for this role the way a professional actor would [...]

Best-selling author David Eddings died yesterday in Carson City, NV, at age 77. No cause of death was given.

Eddings was a giant in the world of fantasy literature with most of his popularity stemming from his Belgariad and Malloreon book series. The now-classic Pawn of Prophecy launched the epic Belgariad series in 1982 and was instantly embraced by fans of the fantasy genre.

The author collaborated on most of his works with his wife Leigh Eddings, who died in 2007 at the age of 69. Born in Spokane, WA, Eddings studied literature and drama in college, receiving a Master’s Degree from the University of Washington in 1961 before being drafted into the U.S. Army. In 1973, Eddings wrote a fictional adventure novel High Hunt, but later switch to fantasy writing after seeing a copy of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in its 78th printing made him realize that the genre was still a viable one [...]

Zachary Quinto has posted a 5-minute audio sample of the Star Trek novelization’s audiobook, of which he is the narrator.

Listen to the clip here below.

Quinto, who stars as Spock in the newest Star Trek film, voices all of the characters in the full 8.5-hour audiobook, which is based on the film adaptation by Alan Dean Foster and includes parts of the story that did not make it into the movie.

Speaking of Quinto, who attended the MTV Music Awards this weekend with his Heroes co-star Hayden Panetierre, the actor attended a fundraiser last week where he got the chance to shake hands with President Obama. Quite amusing, considering how the President has repeatedly been compared to the character Spock, with several photoshopped images of Obama with pointy Vulcan ears and eyebrows. Quinto is a big supporter of the President and had campaigned for him during the election [...]

D&D: Player’s Handbook 2
A 4th Edition D&D Core Rulebook
Written by Jeremy Crawford, Mike Mearls, and James Wyatt
Wizards of the Coast
Release date: March 17, 2009

I’ve been meaning to do a series of articles on the books being released for the newest edition of Dungeons and Dragons since I started playing several months ago, but it just kept getting pushed back. However, I now find myself with some free time and spare energy, so I will begin this series today, by talking about one of the most recent books released for the game, the Player’s Handbook 2.

Player’s Handbook 2, or PH2, is a fairly important book in the line, clearly the most important since the first Player’s Handbook. Each Player’s handbook is important because these are the books that tell us what kind of characters we can play. Where PH1 laid the groundwork for the game and gave us the basic classes and races for characters, PH2 gets a bit more exotic, with 5 new races, and 8 new classes.

Some are of the races are classics from earlier editions that were left out of PH1 for space, while some are new additions to the game that look to set out their own place in gamers’ hearts. The five new races are Deva (kind of an angelic race and the opposite number of the Teifling from PH1), Gnome, Half-Orc, Goliath, and Shifter [...]

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. [...]

We kicked off our Terminator Salvation Week of Geek with an awesome Terminator Salvation Videogame contest, so to bring this event to a close, we’re giving away Terminator Salvation: The Official Movie Companion!

Thanks to the good folks at Titan Books, we have three copies of this companion book to the film, which opened this weekend. The book includes loads of production stills and behind-the-scenes images, along with features on all of the characters and interviews with the cast and crew.

What do you have to do to get a chance to win? Glad you asked ’cause it’s really easy. Just make sure you’re a subscriber to our email digest, and then go ahead and fill out the handy dandy form below. Done [...]

As part of celebratory Week of Geek, we’ve put together a preview of all of the books being released in association with the Terminator Salvation, which was released this weekend.

We have novelizations, prequel books and comics, and art and film companion books — all of the books that Terminator fans would want to have in their library or on their coffee table!

Below you’ll find the brief summaries of the books, along with authors, illustrators, number of pages, publishers, and a link to where you can go and get your own copy.

Also, be sure to check back tomorrow for information on your chance to win one of the Terminator Salvation tie-in books, courtesy of the awesome folks at Titan Books..

Enjoy! [...]

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. [...]

With a new 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, two new Sherlock Holmes, and various other new movies based on classic literature on the way, it should come as no shock that a new movie based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is on the way. The project already has Keanu Reeves lined up to star, and Justin Haythe (Revolutionary Road) penning the script.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tells the tale of a doctor who discovers a way to alter himself, allowing his evil, inner-self the ability to take over in vicious fashion. The story deals heavily along the lines of split personality disorders, but in a much more physical, visible, and scary way.

The story has appeared many, many times in stage and screen adaptations — a true testament to the simple and unique-yet brilliant creation of Robert Louis Stevenson. Two unfortunate appearances of the character were in recent lackluster films such as Van Helsing and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. [...]

A fan of Douglas Adams’ A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will attempt to thumb his way from his village in Germany to the late author’s gravesite in London with nothing but his coat, a copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, and of course, a towel.

Mathias-Emanuel Hartmann wrote last week on his blog, Me and My Towel, that he will embark on May 5 from his hometown of Rambin, a small village in the north of Germany, to the London Highgate Cemetery, where Adams is buried. The author died on May 11, 2001.

According to Hartmann, his only provisions on this hitchhiking journey will be his morning coat, a copy of the guide, and his trusted towel. He plans on blogging and posting pictures of his experience, which will take him across about 750 miles (1207 km), whenever he’s able to find an internet connection.

Any good samaritans along the route, be sure to give a fellow geek a hand on his lofty quest [...]

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Paperback Edition
By Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith
Quirk Books
Release date: April 1, 2009

Jane Austen’s literary classic Pride and Prejudice has long captured the hearts of women, thanks to its independent, intelligent heroine Elizabeth Bennett and her antagonist turned love interest, the handsome Mr. Darcy. Since its publication in 1813, this tale of romance set in the Georgian age of social propriety and conformity has rarely enticed a male readership, but Seth Grahame-Smith’s new mash-up novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, is sure to do just that.

Grahame-Smith took the majority of Austen’s beloved novel and incorporated a plague of attacking zombies hellbent on feasting on the brains of the people of England. While most of the countryside is open game for the “Unmentionables,” the wealthy are able to hire ninja warriors to protect them from the constant zombie assaults. Some well-off families, like the Bennetts, had a different strategy — the five Bennett sisters, including Elizabeth, were sent by their father to the Far East to study martial arts with a Shaolin master and are now in His Majesty’s service to protect their fellow countrymen.

Mr. Bennett takes pride in his daughters’ abilities and encourages them to train further, much to the dismay of their mother, whose sole purpose in life is to see her daughters married well [...]

Chris Ryall, publisher and editor-in-chief over at IDW Publishing, has posted some pictures on his blog of IDW’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the upcoming illustrated hardcover edition of the classic novel.

The hardcover edition, due out in stores on May 13, will include 27 all-new, full-page and full-color illustrations from Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night, Wormwood). Templesmith has also been putting up sketches and final artwork on his blog, so check that out as well.

The book is available now for pre-order: Bram Stoker’s Dracula Illustrated by Ben Templesmith.

When Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to meet with the mysterious Count Dracula, he ends up enslaved by the vampire who wants to learn about England. Leaving Harker for dead, Dracula travels to London where he begins to menace Harker’s fiancee, Mina, and her beautiful friend, Lucy. [...]

You all saw this coming, right? It was inevitable that we Zombies, the rightful heirs to this pitiful planet peopled with living lunches, would learn how to both write AND travel through time. That’s right, humans, we’ve developed our OWN flux-capacitor thingy. We likes ta call it the Guts-Corpacitor and it runs on 1.21 gigawats of electrified pineal glands (yeah, I mix my movie metaphors like a man from the Catskills). Our first stop in Global goreification: your beloved literature!!!

Arrrrrrggghhh AAAAAHHH!!! Scary right? boo

You wanna talk about a remix? We sent our most wordsmithy brain-fed ghoul, Seth Grahame-Smith, who we cleverly disguised as Jane Austen, back in time to mess with the best. Beware, for thanks to Seth (along with a generous grant from Quirk Books), your classic Pride and Prejudice now contains the proper amount ZOMBIE ATTACKS! And… more ZOMBIE ATTACKS!! Can I get a w00t, my bug-ridded brethren?

Anyhoo, we know you self-hating humans just love us. And since we’re so damn nice when we’re not hungry for your tasty, tasty brains, we decided to give away some copies of this new masterpiece… along with the original television series adaptation, which, without the zombies is full of fail, though Colin Firth would make a fine-looking zombie. But we’ll let you be the judge, as you have the opportunity to win BOTH of them, my necros!

One (1) winner will receive:

– One (1) Blu-ray edition of the popular BBC series Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle [...]

I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t a little uncomfortable with this new picture of some of the werewolf cast from the sequel to Twilight, now titled The Twilight Saga: New Moon, staring at me off to the right. I am. They look like they’re about to eviscerate me, and at the same time, they kind of look like they want to take me out dancing. But while I may be ready to run away, arms flailing, to find the nearest bed to hide under — this little photograph is very likely to set the female Twilight fan-base off on some kind of epic hot flash.

The picture, which comes courtesy of USA Today, shows Native American actors Chaske Spencer, Alex Meraz, Kiowa Gordon, and Bronson Pelletier in all their werewolfy glory. The group will join Taylor Lautner, who gets to rock the leader of the pack, Jacob Black.

Lautner’s Jacob is the one who Bella (Kristen Stewart) snuggles up to after Edward (Robert Pattison) takes off. [...]

President of Production for Summit Entertainment, Erik Feig has officially announced that director David Slade will take over the helm for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse — the third movie in the series, which is set for a June 30, 2010 release date. This sets the director’s chair up for the trilogy with The Golden Compass director Chris Weitz currently handling the sequel, New Moon.

Though the first movie did really well, the way it was handled by then director Catherine Hardwicke was not exactly the way that the studio wanted it, so they began their search for new blood. And as you can tell, they’ve gotten their hands on some decent talent.

David Slade first jumped on the scene with Hard Candy — his acclaimed, yet dark and sometimes hard-to-watch movie about a pedophile and the young girl trying to shine a light on his despicable ways. The movie starred Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page. He’s probably more known for his second film, though, which was 30 Days of Night. No word on if the vampire experience landed him this gig, but I’m sure it helped! [...]

Celebrated author of such books as The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,Michael Chabon has been hired to help polish up the script for Andrew Stanton’s John Carter of Mars movie.

The news had been hinted at recently in a Deadline Hollywood report on Chabon’s change of agents, where it listing his partially-used draft of Spider-Man 2 and John Carter as the writer’s works.

Chabon offered up the confirmation via The Amazing Website of Kavalier & Clay:

John Carter of Mars will take the classic science fiction hero and create a new story around him. The character was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and first used in 1912’s Under the Moons of Mars and has been used in many different ways and has seen many different adventures since then. [...]