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.

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Tom Cruise is interesting in a comic book movie called Sleeper and and he and Sam Raimi are looking to adapt the DC Comics/Wildstorm property for the big screen.

Written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, “Sleeper,” which ran from 2003-05, centers on an operative whose fusion with an alien artifact makes him impervious to pain and allows him to pass it on to others through skin contact. He is placed undercover in a villainous organization by an intelligence agency and falls for a member of the group, named Miss Misery.

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The comic-book, which is a spin-off of WildC.A.T.s would make a pretty cool movie, but not half as cool as WildC.A.T.s would be. Now that would be a movie!

Speaking of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (see the recent DVD Releases), here is a few cast photos that I ran across recently. This is good news because it means the new season is pretty close to starting. Enjoy.

Recount and Street Kings seem like pretty good offerings for this week’s DVD releases, although I really know very little about either of them. The previews I’ve seen for Street Kings just has that Training Day vibe to it though, so I’ll probably like it. People knock Keanu for his acting ability (or lack thereof) but I’ll admit that I actually like the guy.

Now, a quick side note that if you didn’t see the very awesome Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles last season on FOX, then now is your chance. It was absolutely excellent and probably one of the few series from television that was actually worth buying the DVD set.

• 6 Films To Keep You Awake
• An American Crime
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• Deal
• Dexter: The Second Season
• George of the Jungle: The Swingin’ 1st Season
• Gossip Girl: The Complete First Season
• Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds
• House: Season Four
• The Life Before Her Eyes
• Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
• Prom Night
• Recount
• The Scorpion King 2
• Street Kings
• Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Season 1
• Transformers Animated: Season One

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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?

I was really mixed on Babylon A.D. and then I’ve seen the recent round of television trailers and it looks pretty good. I’m probably one of those rare few that actually like Vin Diesel most of the time though. The poster reminds me of a Blade Runner and Unbreakable cross-over for some reason.

There have been some crazy celebrity deaths.  For example (from the site filmschoolrejects.com):

Blonde, blue-eyed Gwili Andre from Denmark, “the highest priced model in America,” was taken on as a “Garbo look-alike” by RKO Studio, earning $25,000 a year and dating Howard Hughes. To her dismay, she failed to become a movie star. In a bizarre suicide, she was found sprawled on the bedroom floor of her apartment, burned to a crisp in a funeral pyre she had made out of old publicity clippings.

Or how about:

Character actor Albert (Dr. Cyclops, The Wild Bunch ) Dekker, a fan of autoeroticism, was found hanging from a shower curtain rod wearing delicate ladies’ silk lingerie. He had dirty hypodermic needles stuck in each arm, a hangman’s noose around his neck, a scarf over his eyes, and a rubber-ball bit in his mouth, its metal chains tied firmly behind his head. The corpse was trussed in leather belts fastened around his body like a halter, the end of one clutched in his hand. Each wrist was handcuffed separately. Among other equally weird sentiments scrawled in flaming red lipstick all over his body was “make me suck.”

There are eight more on the site.  All very interesting and some very strange or disgusting…

The 10 Most Gross And Disgusting Celebrity Deaths

 30 Seconds to Mars, and Jared Leto were sued by Virgin Media on Friday.   This according to Yahoo!:

“Virgin Records sued the band and front man Jared Leto in Los Angeles on Friday, claiming they refused to deliver three albums as required by its contract.   

The band’s last album, “A Beautiful Lie,” was released in 2005.”

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You may remember Jared Leto from “Requiem for a Dream” and “My So Called Life.” He was also in “Lord of War (with Nick Cage)”, and has been in several other movies.  Maybe he has been too busy acting to put together a new CD?  

A Beautiful Lie was an excellent CD.  I hadn’t realized it had been out so long.      

Ricky Gervais (The Office, Night At the Museum) stars in this one about a jerk(go figure!) who begins seeing dead people after flat lining on the operating table.  It looks pretty good!  Check out the trailer above.  The link to the official site is here, but there really isn’t much to see.  

I keep seeing bits about this movie Outlander, that has old school Vikings fighting an alien (or aliens). Here’s a two-minute clip I found on YouTube that gives you a bit of a feel. Oh, there’s also a good alien played by Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) who’s in the clip being interrogated by a Viking chieftain about what he’s doing there