Much like the gunslinger’s from Stephen King‘s popular book series, The Dark Tower, the journey of a planned film and TV adaptation has been a long and difficult one.

It’s being reported that Warner Brothers has decided not to take on the property, which is being shopped around by Imagine Entertainment’s Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, despite the fact that even Russell Crowe was interested in starring. This comes five months after word that a deal with Warner Brothers was very close.

The story of Noah is among one of the greatest Biblical stories ever told, and Darren Aronofsky will finally be able to bring his vision of a man who saved his family and many animals from an epic flood to the big screen after years of gestating. Of course his vision will have a slight twist, but it will also keep the spirit of the story. So after a couple of casting rumors and set photo reveals from the director himself, we are getting our first look at Russell Crowe as the titular hero. Check it out below.

Crowe looks rugged and his clothing is tattered, but other than that, there isn’t too much to describe about the image. But we’ve seen giant set photos of the ark in the past, which suggest that this is going to be one of Aronofsky’s biggest films. The director occasionally posts photos on his twitter account to update his fans on the progress of the film.

Bill Hicks was one of the greatest comedians who ever lived, but he was a lot more than that. Hicks was a writer, musician, philosopher, and an all-knowing soothsayer whose work on and off the stage remains even more relevant now than it did when he died from pancreatic cancer at the young age of 32 in February 1994. Hicks was fearless in his approach to finding humor in the topics that most people found too serious to be taken lightly: drugs, abortion, organized religion, the government, and war. If you listened to his classic bit about the first Iraq War in the early 90’s (which Bill dubbed “the Persian Gulf Distraction”), you could swear he was talking about the recent Iraq War, right down to the name of the President… Bush.

Hicks never desired to become a television or movie star like many of his peers in the stand-up world, preferring to hone his material on the stages of comedy clubs around the world and write novels and screenplays that were never realized. Bill Hicks may be gone from this mortal realm but his legacy will endure for generations to come, and Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe is preparing to do his part.

The first teaser trailer for the Zack Snyder-directed, Christopher Nolan-produced Superman reboot Man of Steel premiered in theaters this week in front of Nolan’s final Bat-film The Dark Knight Rises. Bootleg copies quickly made their way online, but today the trailer has been officially released to the interwebs for your viewing pleasure.

You can watch the trailer here below. [Update: There’s actually two versions of the trailer, both are below. One has Jonathan Kent’s narration; the other is by Jor-El.]

This trailer isn’t as revealing as the footage that played at the movie’s Comic-Con panel this year (check out Stoogeypedia’s coverage of the panel here); new Supes Henry Cavill is all over the preview, fishing and looking mighty scruffy, and Kevin Costner (as Pa Kent) provides narration and can be briefly glimpsed in a photo. We don’t get to see Cavill in full-on Man of Steel mode until the trailer’s (literally) soaring final seconds. Howard Shore’s music from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring provides the soundtrack for this clip.

Everyone’s favorite son from Krypton, Superman, is back in full force in next year’s Man of Steel, which was showcased in a great session today which was part of the Warner Brothers panel in Hall H at San Diego’s Comic-Con.

The film, which is rebooting the storied franchise that arguably almost singlehandedly ushered in the success of comic book films to the silver screen, brings British actor Henry Cavill in to wear the famed tights this time around, following in the pressure filled red boots previously filled by Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh, and even by Tom Welling as the young growing pained Kal-El on the television series Smallville.