The new movie coming out March 2009 called Watchmen is in a whole mess of legal trouble right now. A  federal judge has denied Warner Brothers’ motion to dismiss Fox’s lawsuit regarding the rights to distribute Watchmen. That could mean a delayed release for the movie.

A federal judge has denied a Warner Bros motion to dismiss 20th Century Fox’s legal battle over the rights to develop, produce and distribute a film based on the graphic novel Watchmen. This is huge Hollywood news because Warner Bros plans to release on March 2009 its highly anticipated big-screen version of the popular comic book written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.

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Let’s hope that the movie still comes out and I hope a deal is made or something. There was one other superhero movie that was sent to limbo and was never seen again and that was The Fantastic Four movie from 1994. Course it did look horrible, but in 1994 it would have been pretty cool. Have a look at the trailer after the jump.

Click here to see the Video

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Well, it looks that Voltron is definitely on the way and that’s probably good because we could need a defender of the universe about now.

Last summer, New Regency picked up the rights to the property, adapted by scribe Justin Marks, who’s behind Warner Bros.’ bigscreen versions of “He-Man” and “Green Arrow.”

Marks’ take is described as a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico, where five survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth’s invaders.

Technically, New Regency never had the rights to the project, insiders close to the project said. The shingle couldn’t wrap up a deal with “Voltron’s” Japanese rights holders, delaying any further development of the pic.

Talks for “Voltron” were under way before DreamWorks and Paramount successfully launched “Transformers,” but Hollywood’s interest in robot pics based on popular toys or toons grew after “Transformers” hit it big at the B.O., with Warner Bros. snatching up the rights to “Robotech.”

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I really hope this doesn’t end up just looking like the Power Rangers movie and they all have the standard five color uniforms. That would just be too hard to take. how cool would a Robotech live action movie be though?

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Dragonball is a movie based on a Japanese Anime called Dragonball Z and it stars Justin Chatwin as Goku (above), who is trying to prevent the evil Piccolo (James Marsters) from stealing dragonballs (sounds sort of dirty) and doing bad things with them (like world domination or whatever). Chow Yun-Fat and Emmy Rossum are also cast in the movie. JoBlo has a few new pictures.

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Holy Lightning Scars! Warner Bros. has announced that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is now going to come out July 2009 instead of Nov 2008. It’s like that moment in Star wars when a planet exploded. You can just feel all the Potter People (Potterites? Pottarians?) cry out in anguish.

Commenting on the release date change for “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” David Heyman, the producer of all the Harry Potter films, offered, “When Jeff Robinov explained the rationale behind moving the release date of ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ to July 2009, it was immediately apparent that this offered us the potential to reach the widest possible audience. I am extremely proud of this latest film and of the work of David Yates and our incomparable cast; I believe we have developed and pushed the series further still. We are all looking forward to sharing it with Harry Potter fans around the world, even if we have to wait just a bit longer.”

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So it’s not a problem with the film, but rather just a plan to get more exposure for Harry. That’s a good thing, but waiting over half a year extra sucks.

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Universal Pictures has just picked up the film rights to adapt Robert Jordan’s bestselling The Wheel of Time series for some big money. The series has 11 huge books, but if you cut down on all the characters traveling, there would be only 3. I’m kidding. It actually would be an interesting thing to see on the big screen.

Adaptations of the fantasy tomes will begin with the first book in the cycle, “The Eye of the World.”

Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon will produce for Red Eagle Entertainment, which published graphic novel adaptations of Jordan’s books.

“The Wheel of Time” follows, among its dozens of characters, Rand al’Thor, the latest incarnation of a force for good called “The Dragon.” Rand is born to fight an evil character called Shai’tan.

“Wheel of Time” books have sold 44 million copies worldwide and spawned computer, trading-card and role-playing games; a soundtrack; comicbooks; and numerous fan sites. The four most recent installments have reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

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I guess we’ll see what happens. It will take years and years to work everything out I’m sure.

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Lately I’ve been on a Greek kick because I’ve been reading David Gemmell’s series about Troy (utterly fantastic and I’m saddened that he passed away) and then I read this welcome article on all the great movies in the works. It’s possible my favorite time genre and hearing about The Argonauts just gets me all fired up.

Hollywood’s latest love affair with the toga, which heated up after DreamWorks-Universal’s “Gladiator” nabbed $458 million worldwide at the B.O. and a best picture Oscar, is starting to rival the output of the 1950s when such pics as “The Robe,” “Quo Vadis” and “Ben-Hur” hit the bigscreen.

Now, Zak Penn is taking a stab at Greek life. The scribe, who is best known for adapting such comicbook properties as “The Incredible Hulk” and “The X-Men” for the bigscreen, is writing and will produce “The Argonauts” for 20th Century Fox.

In the wake of the success of “300,” sword-and-sandals pics have become a hot commodity.

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The good news is that it doesn’t end there. Warner Brothers is going to remake the awesome Clash of the Titans. That movie sucks now, but at the time I thought it was incredible. An update remake would be fantastic. Oh, there’s also a 300 sequel or prequel in the works. We’ll also be getting War of Gods about a Greek hero/king named Theseus who fought gods and killed the minotaur. There’s also a Hercules: The Thracian Wars (I really like director Peter Berg) in the works and of course the video game to be a movie, God of War.

It’s seems like some great stuff is headed our way. For Sparta!

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