When you get names like Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary to write and David Fincher to direct, well, you have a special project on your hands. But when the names in question have varying styles that can get in the way of each other, the situation it not so exciting.

Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary spent the last two years adapting the graphic novel Black Hole by Charles Burns and with a director Alexandre Aja in place, things were moving smoothly. Then David Fincher replaced Aja at the helm and this is where things went bad. While David Fincher is an amazing director and can only do good things for this movie, apparently he has a sort of perfectionist routine to making his movies and this would have required a lot more of Gaiman and Avary than they were used to doing. Because of this, the duo stepped aside from the project and that’s where things stand now.

Madagascar
Blu-ray (2005)
Starring Ben Stiller, Jada Pinkett Smith, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Cedric the Entertainer
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: September 23, 2008

When Madagascar first came out in 2005, the computer-animated film was considered a commercial success but I still avoided it like the plague. I do not know why but there is something about computer-generated films littered with big-named stars that just makes me think it is going to be a stinker. Now with the sequel coming out in November, Paramount/Dreamworks has decided to re-release the film, this time on Blu-ray DVD, giving me an opportunity to find out if I was right to miss it the first time.

Madagascar follows the life of a group of pampered animals that all happen to be the star attraction at the Central Park Zoo in New York. One of the animals, Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock), realizes on his tenth birthday that something is missing in his life. He is tired of being cooped up in the zoo and wants see the world. When Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller) discovers fellow zoo residents the penguins’ plot to dig a hole to freedom, Marty follows suit and breaks free with them. His friends Alex the Lion, Melmam the Giraffe (David Swimmer), and Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) go after him in an effort to bring him back to the zoo. The mission fails famously and in a series of odd events, the animals get stranded on a tropical island left to fend for themselves for the first time.

We’ve been talking all week about EW’s most recent cover story, which featured Star Trek XI stars Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine as Spock and Kirk.

The full cover story is now online (8 pages!) at EW and it’s definitely worth a full read. It contains several tidbits about the film, as well as a few spoilers, some of which we’ve covered already, but below are a few more items we’ve yet to mention.

Also, new images from the upcoming J.J. Abrams Trek prequel were also released, some of which we were able to snag some hi-res versions (all new images are here below).

After Call of Duty 4 raised the bar for all first-person shooter (FPS) titles — and brought them out of the mire of WWII — I couldn’t help but be wary of the franchise heading back into the trenches for Call of Duty 5: World at War. But after watching the trailers and seeing the amazing imagery coming out of this game (who doesn’t want to fire up those wicked flame throwers?!), it’s hard not to get excited for this title! Add to that a co-op mode for the campaign (the campaign being the weak-link of CoD 4, which looks vastly better for CoD 5), and the already stellar class-based multi-player, and all of the ingredients are there.

With the pieces in place as they are, you’ll be hard pressed to find a FPS fan who isn’t chomping at the bit for this one!

Call of Duty: World at War is currently set to be released on November 11 for all current gaming platforms, as well as for the Playstation 2 and Nintendo DS systems.

Check out a ton of new images from the game here after the jump.

Incredible Hulk
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Louis Leterrier
Starring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt
Universal Home Entertainment
Release date: October 21, 2008

I was never one to bad mouth Ang Lee’s Hulk film from a few years back, at least the first two thirds of it (I’m not a fan of the film’s ending), but I know a lot of people hated it, and I can understand that. So, with so much dislike going around, Marvel decided to pretend that the earlier film never happened, and create the second movie, The Incredible Hulk, in their plan to bring the grand Marvel Universe into theaters.

Breaking away from serious auteur Lee, Marvel went with director Louis Leterrier, most famous for directing Transporter 2, not exactly the most thought provoking of films. While this may not be as deep a character study as Lee’s film was, Leterrier does manage to make at least an interesting film. This is more of a nuts and bolts plot driven film, with the famous Dr. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) on the run from General “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt). However, Ross is unable to capture Banner, so he enlists the help of elite soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), but when Blonsky isn’t up to the task, he gets a little boost in the form of the super-soldier serum. But, of course that eventually goes horribly wrong, and Blonsky turns into the Abomination, leading to a great battle between the Hulk and the Abomination in the middle of Harlem. All the actors in the film do a decent job, although Liv Tyler is a bit of a letdown as Betty Ross, but Edward Norton is fantastic as Bruce Banner, and really brings a unique feel to it.