Welcome dear readers!

It’s been a quiet week - the writer has submitted his game for Eyecon 2013, which is the only thing he’s done of note this week outside of scouring YouTube for power metal versions of ‘Over the Misty Mountains Cold.’ Excitement Central, that's my life.

This week saw the Superbowl, which for those of you who’ve not heard of it, is an event that somehow manages to squeeze in an American football game between the advertising and the halftime show. It’s those commercials we’re here to talk about! There were new spots for Star Trek Into Darkness, Oz, the Great and Powerful and The Lone Ranger while the extended version of the spot for Iron Man 3 has to be seen to be believed. TV wise, there were new spots for Under the Dome and The Walking Dead.

HBO have signed George RR Martin to a two year deal which means he’ll continue as Executive Producer on Game of Thrones, but will let him develop new shows for the channels. I’ll spare you the ‘but that’ll distract him from writing books!’ rant, as I’m sure you’ve heard it enough. In more Thrones news, the Night’s Watch are calling for people to take the oath and Jon Snow, AKA actor Kit Harrington, has talked about just how cold it is beyond the Wall. There’s a couple of mini docos’s from the season 2 Blu-Ray on the Alchemists Guild and the Night’s Watch and the synopsis has leaked for the first episode of season 3. Spoilers!

That’s how I plan to look when my children’s dates come to pick them up.

JJ Abrams is battling Guillermo Del Toro for the busiest man in showbiz, as he’s now said to be working on adaption of the video games Half Life and Portal. To combat this threat to his title, Del Toro has signed on to produce an adaption of the novel The Secret Garden, though why the setting will now be the American South instead of England is beyond me. We’ve some new pictures from Star Trek Into Darkness (The redshirts surrounding Benedict Cumberbatch – I give them about 10 seconds) and it could be a typo, but we might actually know who Cumberbatch is playing. (Spoilers!)

We’ve been saddened this week to hear of the deaths of makeup artist Stuart Freeborn, the man who sculpted Master Yoda and of actor Robin Sachs, most known for playing Ethan Rayne on Buffy but better known in recent years for his voice over work in the Mass Effect games. Our thoughts go out to their friends and family.

Collectors of 1930’s pulp art will be salivating over the soon to be released book The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage, who worked for Weird Tales magazine in the 1930’s and speaking of pulp art, if you want to make you own, you need the Pulp Magazine Cover Generator! We’ve the synopsis and the first pictures from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, pictures of the Axe-Cop action figures and Jericho creator Stephen Chbosky is in talks with Netflix over reviving the show. Moving along, never before (To the best of my knowledge) have male nudity and mind bending horror been so combined than at the upcoming event Naked Dudes Reading Lovecraft, at which, well, work it out.

Disney have confirmed a series of Star Wars spin off movies, separate from Episodes 7, 8 and 9. Early word was Master Yoda was getting his own movie, but now there’s talk of films about the early years of Han Solo and Boba Fett. Haven’t we learnt from the last time there was a prequel movie? I love the Star Wars universe, and have done for a very long time, but can’t we leave a few stones unturned? You know, leave a little mystery?

That movie – now that I would watch.

Benedict Cumberbatch could go from the Enterprise to Bletchley Park, with word he’s in talks to play pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing in The imitation Game . The writer of Heathers and director of Mean Girls are combining to bring the book series Vampire Academy to the screen and the next season of the UK Being Human will be it’s last.

Writer Mark Millar has a rather scathing opinion of a Justice League movie, calling it an ‘excellent way of losing $200 million.’ Word is the film is being completely rewritten, with the current script called ’terrible.’ Gotta say, that’s not a bad idea. Millar has also dropped more hints about X:Men: Days of Future Past, which we can sum up in one word: Sentinels. If you don’t understand what’s awesome about that, then this movie might not be for you. I’d go see it anyway though, just in case.

The article is packed with possible spoilers, but talk of plans for The Hulk over the next phase of Marvel films makes me indescribably happy. Casting wise, Captain America 2 has it’s leading lady  and Guardians of the Galaxy has cast the Star Lord. Still no word on who’s playing Groot or Rocket Raccoon though.

There’s a look at the toys  of Iron Man 3 and a new picture from the film, a collection of pictures from Deadpool’s video game and Potato Head Avengers will soon be on the market. Speaking of stuff to buy, there’s a 30 disc set of Superman television shows and Wolverine: the Adamantium Collection, a graphic novel which is about a foot tall, weighs about 8 kilos, but completely fails as it isn’t actually made from adamantium. I’m picky about that sort of thing. Oh, and for the knitters, there’s a collection of Marvel and DC cross-stich patterns.

Least macho Wolverine merchandise. EVER.

There’s only 1 way we can introduce the next item, that’s with a countdown. *Ahem* 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Thunderbirds are go! That’s right, there’s to be a Thunderbirds reboot, following the exploits of International Rescue. The show will be part CG, part model, but before you scream heresy, the team at Weta Workshop are involved with it. It’s that’s not enough to calm your nerves, the original voice of Parker has already signed on.

Shooting has begun on the Doctor Who drama, An Adventure in Time and Space, with writer Mark Gatiss tweeting the first look at the script. There’s an update on the show here, with more casting and some photos from the set. Meanwhile, current Doctor Matt Smith has been cast in Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, How to Catch a Monster and most of this year’s DVD releases of the classic series have been confirmed. A special edition of The Visitation? Really? There’s also a series of limited edition t-shirts which will be released through the year.

A Disney archivist has revealed the contents of the 1952 box and Tron might be appearing in the Wreck it Ralph sequel. For reasons unknown to me (But I’m guessing money) there’ll be a new Hitman movie with Paul Walker taking over the role of Agent 47 from Timothy Olyphant and a link to the trailer for the second Hobbit film will be on the Blu-Ray.

Speaking of trailers, we have them for Byzantium and the Danish film Exodus, one for the new Studio Ghibli movie From Up on Poppy Hill and a look at Lords of Salem, directed by rocker Rob Zombie. TV wise there’s trailers for the new season of Futurama, which references the series saddest moment, the ‘send in the clones’ drama Orphan Black, a suitably epic trailer for the 4^th season of Community and new teasers for Arrow, Black Mirror and Defiance. Gaming wise, there’s an early look at Stargate SG-1: Unleashed, which will be available on mobile phones and tablets and the last in a 3 part series of teasers for the game Neverwinter, an MMO sequel to the classic game Neverwinter Nights. We end this section with a beautiful piece of marketing, a recruitment commercial for Cobra! It’s things like this that make me want to see GI Joe: Retaliation all the more.

What is it with bad guys and fancy uniforms?

Joss Whedon shared the latest issues of Firefly Owners Monthly, but sadly it appeared to be a fake. The person posting that is, not Joss himself. We’ve a collection of new pictures from Pacific Rim, Da Vinci’s Demons and The Walking Dead,  as well as shots of a fantastic looking group of Steampunk Batman cosplayers. 

Space horror film Europa Report (Starring Sharlto Copley) has been picked up and might actually see cinemas, the lawsuit over who came up with Avatar is over (James Cameron, no surprise), there’s another piece of casting for Sin City 2 and a series of board games based on The Princess Bride have been announced. INCONCEIVABLE!

From the ‘that’s unexpectedly awesome’ file, comes word that the stop motion film The Shadow King, cancelled by Disney, may be back on. There’s a picture from the film and a cast rundown here. Contrasting that, the Wachowski’s have cast Sean Bean in their new film Jupiter Ascending which begs the question: how will he get killed? After all, he’s been shot, stabbed, arrowed and had a satellite dish dropped on him – surely there’s some way he hasn’t died in a movie?

It’s funny, cause it’s true.

To end this week, artist Sruli Recht, in the name of experimental art, created a ring made from leather from his own flesh and abruptly switching topics to something a lot less nauseating, a seventh grader in the US sent a Hello Kitty doll into space for a class project. Lastly, we present Andy Serkis doing what he does best, when Gollum was asked what he thinks of the Lord of the Rings films. Bless you sir, bless you. 

Quote of the Week:

“What do we know … of the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have.“

HP Lovecraft – From Beyond

Cheers,

Gavin