The first image from Ridley Scott‘s next project has been released online. The movie, which is titled Exodus, is one of the multiple projects in the incoming boom of biblical epics.

Exodus is a retelling of the story of Moses, which features an impressive cast led by Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton, as well as Ben Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver, John Turturro, and Aaron Paul.

This first image offers our first glimpse at Bale as Moses, which can be seen below.

As a some of you might be aware, I have been involved in the testing of the forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons rule system for the last two years. It was an honor to get in on the ground floor and to get to influence it from the beginning. Along with myself, there were more than 175,000 playtest participants.

Earlier this month, Wizards Of The Coast announced that this newest game system will be available this coming summer and that the rules for the new system are now complete. At this point, some details are sketchy, like the final name and what made it and what didn’t (personally I like the codename they gave it, D&D Next).

Sometimes you can gauge the audience interest in a potential tentpole blockbuster movie simply by observing the great lengths certain individuals will go to in order to honor those big-budget entertainments, or even burn them in mocking effigy.

Whenever a new trailer for one of these eagerly-anticipated features is released you can always expect there to be a “sweded” version or two uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo within days. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, “sweded” basically means a group of amateur filmmakers get together with whatever resources they can scrounge up and make their own identical version of the slicker Hollywood trailers. Some of them often use shots from the real trailers to plug in gaps in their dollar bin attempts, but the makers of the best sweded trailers will recreate every component themselves, from the visual effects to the shot composition to even the bloody generic music that underscores these 2.5-minute blasts of money shots.

Submitted for your approval and enjoyment are sweded trailers for 8 of the year’s biggest blockbusters, like Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, and more. Depending on your perspective you might find some of these homemade previews better than the genuine articles. Even if you don’t, you have to admit they are pretty amusing.

For an epic like Peter Jackson’s film trilogy of The Hobbit, whose source material has a major and rabid fanbase, there’s going to be a lot of dissection of the adaptations (that’s why it helps to watch the filmmaker’s 30 hours of Blu-ray bonus features). The folks over at the Tolkien fan site The One Ring have brought attention to a list, created by fan Gary Appenzeller, of the differences and similarities between The Hobbit book and its 3-film adaptation. The list, which includes instances from the first two films of the planned trilogy, is quite lengthy and even notes some of the very minor details.

Below are six items from the list that pertain to The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, which was released in theaters on December 13, 2013.

Big comic book cinematic universes seem to be where all the action and attention is these days, following the immense success of Marvel’s ongoing shared universe with their Avengers flagpole title. First, DC Comics took the leap with their in-production Batman vs Superman title that will launch off several DC mainstays into a shared universe, and recently Sony announced big plans to create a huge cinematic universe around the Spider-Man property.

Now, rumors are beginning to surface that 20th Century Fox may be doing the same thing around the two big franchises they still control – X-Men and Fantastic Four.