What do Bilbo Baggins, Hellboy, Blade, and mutant cockroaches share in common? By the year 2010 they all will have traveled through the imagination of director Guillermo del Toro. Guardian Unlimited is reporting that it was announced at the French premiere of the del Toro produced horror film "The Orphanage" that the Mexican director will helm two films based on "The Hobbit" and events bridging the story with "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy for release in 2010 and 2011.

Peter Jackson - producer, director and writer of "The Lord of the Rings" films - will be overseeing both "Hobbit" films as an Executive Producer but it's unclear how much of his own creative input he'll push down the pipe onto the director. I hope they will strive for continuity of style with "The Lord of the Rings" in regards to the creature design, clothes, armor and music so that the five movies can be watched as a cohesive story.

Guillermo del Toro is a wise choice as director for these films. He's established himself as a compelling fantasy director. I didn't think "Pan's Labyrinth" was as good as everyone kept telling me it was but I expect "The Hobbit" films to be on par with "The Lord of the Rings" in quality. The first couple pieces of the puzzle are in place but we'll have to wait a while longer to see if Sir Ian will come back as Gandalf.

If you’re a horror movie fan or follow the constant tsuris of Hollywood, you may have read the news that Universal’s remake of The Wolf Man lost its director, Mark Romanek last week. The timing was unfortunate in that the movie was weeks away from shooting in England, but right as I was finishing up this blog, a new director was announced out of a number of great names, and one wholly inappropriate name, that were thrown around.

I’ve been interested in this project for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s been a long time since we’ve had a good werewolf movie. I’m also interested in this film because of the talent involved. The Wolf Man has been Benico Del Toro’s pet project, and the script was written by one of my all-time favorite screenwriters, Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en).

Above: Will the new Wolf Man make Lon proud?

When Mark Romanek was announced as the director, I knew this was moving in the right direction. I was very impressed with his film One Hour Photo, and along with David Fincher, I feel he’s one of the only video directors who can actually make a good movie (Romanek directed the videos for Nine Inch Nails’ Closer, and Fiona Apple’s Criminal, among many others). Then Anthony Hopkins joined the cast as Lawrence Talbot’s father, and probably the best news of all, Rick Baker is onboard for the special effects make-up. With those players, you’re already batting 1.000.

Having read a draft of the script, I can say it’s damn good, in the vein of Walker’s Sleepy Hollow, a period horror film, but infinitely better, and Universal wants to make a real, hard R horror film. The script has reportedly been rewritten, but Romanek did a good job with his script for One Hour Photo, and with him at the helm I was still willing to bet the film would turn out pretty good.

Above: Benico Del Toro and Rick Baker

But once he left the project, reportedly because of “creative differences” and budget concerns, every geek boy’s heart leaped in terror at the unthinkable. Brett Ratner’s being considered to take over?! Even though I tried to sustain hope that 8mm with Joel Schumacher directing would somehow still turn out okay, and Halloween remade by Rob Zombie could somehow still be okay, I just shuddered at another mistake of that magnitude being made with this one. Even if you like his movies, he’s just not the right director for this, period.

Whether Universal was paying attention to the geek sites or not, suddenly the news read much different. Ratner was being considered, but so were others. Frank Darabont? Big step back in the right direction. Martin Campbell was also in the running. Yeah, his output’s been spotty, but he hit one out of the park with Casino Royale and proved all the naysayers wrong. Neil Marshall, director of the acclaimed The Descent, another interesting choice, and my favorite choice out of the names I read was Bill Condon. You may only know him as the guy who finally brought Dreamgirls to the big screen, but the man knows his horror, and The Wolf Man would make a perfect companion piece to his Gods and Monsters.

Now it’s been announced the fur’s gonna fly with Joe Johnson. If you’re a Star Wars fan, his name should definitely ring a bell. He was an effects illustrator and designer on the first Star Wars, as well as the original Battlestar Galactica, and was also the art director of visual effects on Empire, Jedi, and Radiers. As a director, his output’s a little more hit and miss with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, Jumanji, October Sky, Jurassic Park III, and the critically acclaimed Hidalgo.

Of course, keep in mind that no matter who directs, there’s no guarantees. United Artists thought they made the deal of the century signing up Michael Cimino before The Deer Hunter was released to critical acclaim, and won Best Picture. It turned into a deal with the devil when his next movie, Heaven’s Gate, put the studio out of business. Steven Spielberg wants to make a comedy about World War II with John Belushi with a script from Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale? How can you lose? See 1941 for the answer to that.

Studios often love hack directors because they get the job done on time, they consistently make middle of the road movies with no point of view that make a lot of money, and they will implicate whatever stupid ideas an executive with too much free time on their hands wants in the film. But if you want a good movie, and the fans on your side opening day, which is crucial for a genre film, forget it. Johnson has geek cred because of his effects work, and he may not be an auteur, but if he tries hard enough, he could raise this one above regular journeyman director status. We’ll find out how he fares about a year from now, when The Wolf Man is scheduled for a February 13, 2009 release.

Above: Rick Baker working on An American Werewolf In London

Nvidia made a surprise announcement today, acquiring Ageia Technologies and its PhysX line of hardware and software. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

In memory of legendary poster artist John Alvin, who passed away on February 6 at the age of 59...

Valve announced yesterday that its digital distribution service Steam has surpassed 15 million accounts and realized year-over-year sales growth of 158 percent through the holiday season. According to Valve, the increase in members and sales has largely been attributed to the popularity of the Big Three: Call of Duty 4, BioShock, and The Orange Box. The question is, in a year when retail sales for PC games were down in the U.S., how much business has Steam and other digital download services done?

As I mentioned in a previous blog, 3-D, a gimmick that first gained popularity back in the fifties, is now being looked at as a way to bring audiences back to movie theaters. Could the gimmicks William Castle came up with do the same? Wait a minute, who is William Castle you ask? What great cinematic innovations did he come up with? Could his gimmicks be done today? First things first…

The late William Castle is today considered the godfather of movie gimmicks. He didn’t create technical advances like 3-D, but his cinema tricks were fun and clever inventions that gave his audiences some cheap, carnival style thrills to go with his films.

Castle was a producer and director since the late ‘40’s, but it was a clever little movie he made in the late fifties called Macabre that launched him into the world of gimmickry. 3-D was of course a cheap enough gimmick to do on a large scale, but Castle came up with a great gimmick for Macabre that didn’t require glasses, or shooting a movie with a special camera.

The idea hit him in the middle of the night: He’d offer insurance to everyone who attended Macabre in case they died of fright. He heard Lloyds of London would insure anything and gave them a call. As Castle recalled in his autobiography, he told Lloyds, “Nobody’s gonna drop dead. It’s just a publicity stunt.” The movie opens with a shot of a wall clock, and a narrator tells us the following:

Ladies and Gentlemen, when the clock reaches sixty seconds, you will be insured by Lloyds of London for one thousand dollars against death by fright during Macabre. Lloyds of London sincerely hopes none of you will collect.

There were also nurses on duty in the lobby and an ambulance parked outside. Of course no one died watching the movie, but audiences showed up in droves, and Macabre was a big hit.

Above: Gimmick King William Castle

Castle recalled the gimmick for the film The Tingler came when he got shocked changing a light bulb. He then decided to put buzzers in the theater seats to give the audience a jolt, and he called the gimmick “Percepto.”

The Tingler, which starred Vincent Price, is about a monster that grips you and zaps you with electric shock. The only way you can stop it from electrocuting you is by screaming, which causes the creature to become paralyzed. Now Castle was determined to “buzz the asses of everyone in America,” and in the coming attraction for The Tingler, he personally promised that “for the first time in motion picture history, members of the audience, including you, will actually play a part in the picture.” The poster for the film showed an empty movie seat with the tagline: “Do You Have the Guts To Sit In This Chair?”

With the success of Macabre and The Tingler, the movies, and the gimmicks, kept coming. For 13 Ghosts, the audience were given 3-D glasses not to see things fly out of the screen, but to see the spirits floating around in the film that were invisible without the polarized lenses. For Mr. Sardonicus, you were given a card with a thumbs up on one side, a thumbs down on the other. At the end of the film, you held up the card and decided whether the title character lived (thumbs up), or died (thumbs down). Of course only one ending was shot, which is part of the P.T. Barnum spirit of all this. Even if you felt cheated, you probably had a good laugh over it.

Filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz has recently completed his documentary on Castle, Spine Tingler, and it premiered at the Slam Dance film festival on January 22. Schwarz became a Castle fan when he saw a revival of The Tingler in New York at Film Forum, which he called “a life changing experience.” They buzzed the seats just like in the old days, and even the hip, pretentious downtown New York crowds loved it. “It’s always great when you can whip up an audience with that kind of hysteria,” Schwarz says.

The original Percepto motors have never been recovered from the original Tingler showings in the fifties, so theaters showing the movie today had to recreate the buzzing seats themselves. Schwarz says at one Tingler revival screening in San Francisco an audience member almost got electrocuted in his chair because they turned up the juice too high.

Obviously when you buy a copy of a Castle film on DVD it doesn’t come with a seat buzzer, so how are his movies without the gimmicks? Castle wasn’t Alfred Hitchcock, but he knew how to make good, entertaining thrillers, and you certainly don’t need a zap in the ass to enjoy them. “They’re all solidly made films,” says Schwarz. “They had a real economy of style. He never had a lot of money to play with, but he was able to tell a story in very interesting ways. The gimmicks added to the circus atmosphere of the movies and enhance your memory of them, but I think the films definitely hold up on their own.

“There was something very charming about what Bill was doing because it was so low rent and unsophisticated,” Schwarz continues. “You couldn’t do what he was doing today because it was very grass roots. Now it’s just so corporate and nobody takes any kind of chances. We’ve definitely lost the time where that could happen.”

PC RPG fans can finally rest easy. Electronic Arts and BioWare announced today that the award winning epic space romp Mass Effect will only remain an Xbox 360 exclusive until May 2008 when it will arrive for the PC. Mass Effect was developed by RPG powerhouse BioWare - developer of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - and when it was announced PC gamers were somewhat distraught at the news that the new BioWare space RPG was a 360 exclusive.

The PC RPG market could use some more quality science fiction games and with the MMO model dominating the landscape it's nice to see Electronic Arts remembering that nothing tells a memorable story like a single-player experience.

Here's the press release:

Chertsey, UK – February 12, 2008 – Leading video game developer BioWare™, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) company, has announced that the award-winning space epic Mass Effect™ will be released for the PC in May 2008. Published by EA and re-designed for the PC, Mass Effect invites players to take the role of Commander Shepard as they set out on an adventure to save the galaxy from imminent destruction. Wrought with treachery, heroism, difficult decisions and a universe filled with unique and colorful species, Mass Effect delivers a truly compelling storyline.

Optimized for the PC, Mass Effect for the PC incorporates the following features:
• Optimized controls designed specifically for the PC.
• High resolution visuals – Mass Effect for the PC features highly detailed textures, characters and environments.
• Fully customizable controls – PC gamers can re-map the control scheme any way they like.
• Run & Gun Control – Players can assign biotic powers or skills to ‘hot keys’ allowing them to play Mass Effect with a heavier focus on action.
• New decryption mini-game.
• New inventory screen GUI and functionality – The enhanced inventory system makes it easier for players to equip and modify their weapons and armor.

“Mass Effect serves as a powerful example of video games as an art form, delivering new levels of emotional intensity, realistic characters and a gripping storyline – all set in a compelling new universe,” said Ray Muzyka, General Manager, BioWare and Vice President, Electronic Arts. Frank Gibeau, President of EA’s Games Label added, “EA has struck an agreement with Microsoft to handle future publishing for Mass Effect. We are looking forward to releasing Mass Effect on the PC this Spring and brand new titles in the future.”

Originally released for the Xbox 360™ videogame and entertainment system, Mass Effect has received critical acclaim throughout the world with more than 70 awards including Game of the Year, Console Game of the Year and Role-Playing Game of the Year. Mass Effect combines a deep story with intense combat and challenges the player to make difficult decisions that can significantly impact the course of events. An innovative conversation system allows for lifelike interaction with some of the most realistic digital actors, voiced by Hollywood actors such as Seth Green, Marina Sirtis, Lance Henriksen and Keith David. Mass Effect for the PC has not yet been rated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

When Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars became both a critical and commercial success last year there was no doubt that a new Red Alert was in the making. Now it's official. Electronic Arts announced today the existence of Red Alert 3 and dropped some juicy details on what to expect from the game.

Red Alert 3 plans to introduce a cooperative campaign to mix up the normal RTS multiplayer offerings as well as units like armored bears and transforming tanks. That sounds great and all but what I really want is an armored bear that transforms into a tank. I guess this'll have to do for now.

In addition to tiny details about the game the press release mentions that purchasing the Command & Conquer 3 expansion Kane's Wrath could net you a beta key for Red Alert 3.

"Command & Conquer fans eager to experience Red Alert 3 before anyone else can get early access to the beta (available for the PC only - an announcement about the Red Alert 3 beta dates will be made this summer) by picking up a copy of Command & Conquer™ 3: Kane’s Wrath later this year."

More details on the beta keys can be found here.

Can we expect more live-action cut scenes? I would wager on most definitely yes. The cut scenes from Command & Conquer 3 garnered much attention - although not all positive but attention none-the-less - and more cut scenes were filmed for Kane's Wrath adding sci-fi veteran Natasha Henstridge to the cast. I guess the big question is will they recast Agent Tanya or can we expect more of Kari Wuhrer?

The interesting bits from the press release are below.

Chertsey, UK – February 14, 2008 – After a seven-year hiatus, Electronic Arts today announces the return of Red Alert, one of the most beloved and best-selling real-time strategy franchises. Command & Conquer™: Red Alert™ 3, for the PC, Xbox 360TM video game and entertainment system and the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, takes players on an epic adventure to a breathtaking alternate future spawned by time travel run amok. Developed by EA Los Angeles, Red Alert 3 breaks new ground in the RTS genre, featuring a fully co-operative campaign while bringing back the series’ light-hearted style and classic, action-oriented gameplay.

“The Red Alert games are known for challenging hardcore strategy gamers with depth, variety, and innovative gameplay. But they also belong to that rare breed of games that can draw in more casual players with their over-the-top stories, instantly accessible mechanics, and straight-to-the-fun design,” said Mike Verdu, general manager of EALA. “With Red Alert 3, our team is continuing that proud tradition by introducing genre-first features like co-operative campaign play, which rewards veterans and casual players alike. In Red Alert 3, friends and family can always have your back.”

“It’s been too long.” said Chris Corry, executive producer at EALA. “Fans have been waiting for a new Red Alert game for seven years, and we’re working hard to ensure its well worth the wait. The team is staying true to the series’ roots while adding new elements like a co-operatively played story-driven campaign, an astounding new faction that will shake-up the Red Alert universe as we know it, and units that will help make Red Alert 3 everything our fans have been waiting for. And by bringing naval combat into the heart of the game design, we’re transporting that fast, fun and fluid C&C gameplay to the high-seas in ways that you’ve never seen before.”

In Red Alert 3, the desperate leadership of a doomed Soviet Union travels back in time to change history and restore the glory of Mother Russia. The time travel mission goes awry, creating an alternate timeline where technology has followed an entirely different evolution, a new superpower has been thrust on to the world stage, and World War III is raging. The Empire of the Rising Sun has risen in the East, making World War III a three-way struggle between the Soviets, the Allies, and the Empire with armies fielding wacky and wonderful weapons and technologies like Tesla coils, heavily armed War Blimps, teleportation, armored bears, intelligent dolphins, floating island fortresses, and transforming tanks.

Red Alert 3 asks the question “What If?” What if every bizarre research project and technology experiment for the last 70 years had actually borne fruit? What if the Philadelphia Experiment, time travel theory, teleportation, invisibility, Tesla technology, and a hundred other intriguing research projects had all paid off and gone mainstream? What if the Soviet Union survived and thrived; what would it look like 10 years in the future? What if the Japanese Empire had never fallen and instead became the ultimate high-tech military superpower? The end result is an imaginative and playful vision of an alternate future filled with possibility.

Wow.

For those of us that were wondering how Electronic Arts would respond to Activision's merger with Blizzard, the answer has arrived. Electronic Arts has proposed an acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive, which would give EA the highly lucrative and mega-popular Grand Theft Auto franchise, as well as other IP like BioShock and Duke Nukem. Unfortunately Take-Two announced today that it rejected the proposal as "inadequate." Read on for the official statement for EA.