Small Batch of Limited Edition, Numbered Items To Be Given Away During The 2009 Comic-Con in San Diego, California

NBCStore.com and Syfy.com Scratch Off Discount Cards To Be Given Away At Comic-Con.

This year’s exclusive, limited-run products include a “Schrute Farms Beets Watch,” celebrating the #1 beet-related agro-tourism destination in Northeastern Pennsylvania (a precious 1,000 units); a “Heroes Double Helix Necklace” that will enable fans to advertise their Heroic status (just 1,000 units); a “Heroes-Sword Letter Opener” that replicates Hiro’s famous Kensei sword (1,000 units); a “Caprica USB Drive,” celebrating the period 58 years prior to the events seen in Battlestar Galactica (limited edition of 1,000 Units); and a “Chuck Supervisor Polo,” as worn by the elite of the Buy More retail family (1,000 units). Also available will be an updated version of last year’s wildly popular chrome, pop-up style “Battlestar Galactica Toaster” — which creates the image of a Cylon on toast. The enhanced, 2009 edition — the “Battlestar Galactica LED Toaster” — is also emblazoned with the face of a Cylon that has red glowing eyes made of LED lights (limited edition of 2,000 units). Online pre-orders for NBC merchandise begin today.

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Earlier today, our own Kevin Coll reported that the role of Hal Jordan in the upcoming Green Lantern film had been narrowed to three candidates. Variety is now reporting that Ryan Reynolds has landed the starring role in Warner Brothers’ live-action film based on the DC Comics hero.

Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) will be directing based on a screenplay written by Greg Berlanti (Everwood, Eli Stone), Marc Guggenheim (Law & Order, Eli Stone), Michael Green (Smallville, Heroes). Production is set to get under way in January.

For you non superhero fans, Green Lantern is the name of several fictional characters in DC Comics’ universe. The first (Alan Scott) was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in 1940. The second was Harold “Hal” Jordan, a second-generation test pilot given a power ring by a dying alien, who then became a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an interstellar organization of police overseen by the Guardians of the Universe. Each member of the Corps is outfitted with a power ring with limitless ability, only limited by the wearers willpower.

The Silver Age Green Lantern was unique in several ways. He was the first DC superhero with a family, a founding member of the Justice League of America and starred in his own title as well.

This has been a great summer for Reynolds, he had a memorable role as Deadpool in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which by led to the announcment of a spinoff movie for the “Merc with a mouth.” Lastly his romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock “The Proposal” just surpassed the $100 million mark this week.

Reynolds can next be seen in “Buried,” a dark indie drama that will begin filming shortly in Barcelona with Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes. Reynolds will play a civilian contractor who is kidnapped in Iraq and awakes in a coffin, struggling against time to coordinate a rescue even though he doesn’t know where he’s buried in the desert.

I’m a huge Ryan Reynolds fan and I’ve been hoping they casted him as Wally West (The Flash) because I thought he’d be perfect for that role. But I have no problems with him playing Hal Jordan, the only concern I have is his ability to play completely different characters. Wade Wilson (Deadpool) is a complete 180 from Hal Jordan, so it will be interesting to see if he plays the characters differently.

What do YOU think?

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So I had probably one of the most bad ass phone conversations today with a guy who is literally one of the most hard working actors in Hollywood. Dubbed as a “chameleon” actor Clifton Collins Jr. is a guy you have seen in a lot of movies and never would have known it. Star Trek, Crank: High Voltage, Capote, Sunshine Cleaning, The Perfect Game, The Horseman and many more. A testament to the craft of acting, Collins, doesn’t like labels or typecasts, “Its nice when people do not recognize me or peg me as being the same guy over and over in a movie,” says Collins as we were laughing about his time in my neck of the woods, St. Louis, “diversity is my nature, I can’t stay in one place at one time and I get bored very easily.”

Before Collins and I got into the massive Q/A session of his career we pretty much wrapped with one another and when I mentioned I was from St. Louis, MO he immediately perked and said “I did a movie there called Still Waters.”

A true personality he began to talk about the city and some of the things that went on during is short time there. We also talked about Memphis, TN where I currently reside and where Fused Film is based. “I love Elvis man!…I was an Elvis freak growing up, listening to the 45s, drawing him on notebook covers in English class…yeah Memphis is cool.”

A busy guy Collins has a lot of projects that have finished and many that will be coming up, most recently we saw him in the reboot of Star Trek as Ayel, the right-hand man to Eric Bana’s Nero, which he had to agree with me and call it “the greatest reboot of all time.” When asked about his time on the production and working with JJ Abrams he couldn’t say anything except praise for the guy. “It was an honor working with him it always is. JJ has been so good to me over the years,”(referring to a small stint he had on Alias). When asked about his role as a Romulan and how he looked it was just more JJ complements saying, “JJ’s vision was there from the beginning and it was him that made me get all Romulan, from the way I looked to the way I sounded.”

Perhaps the next biggest movie we will see Collins Jr.  in will be the long-awaited sequel to the cult hit Boondock Saints, in Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. Collins will be joining the gun weilding brothers Conner (Sean Patrick Flannery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus) MacManus as a new third saint, named Romeo in the sequel.

“Troy [Duffy] wrote the part for me, I had to audition for it but he wrote the part for me,” says Collins laughing, “I have known him for a long time as well as Norman and Sean. So awesome to make a movie with good friends.”

Romeo was described by Collins as a character that is a bad ass in his own right. Someone who just wants to belong and he follows “The Saints” and then he gets to join them. Collins did most of his stunts that he could that wouldn’t disrupt the production or injure him. Lastly he said fans will be so pumped about this movie because, “it has different things, new things, and old familiar things.”

I also asked him about the rumor of the sequel being a middle act and the set-up for a possible third film for a trilogy and he talked a little bit about it.

“Hard to say if there will be a third film, there isn’t anything there that makes you say…yeah third movie coming…but we had so much damn! fun why not. I know Troy and if he wanted to do a prequel or a sequel he’d do it.”

Besides movies and acting Collins loves making a living behind the camera directing music videos under his own production banner called Stone Free Productions, something that Hendrix fans will get. His directed video “Chicken Fried” for the Zac Brown Band won USA Weekend Breakthrough Video of the Year for at the 2009 CMT Music Awards. An avid classic rock fan, Hendrix is a guy he loves and he’ll talk about on his Twitter.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation was when we both talked about our grandfathers. Collins and I both had grandfathers that were really important to us and the mentorship they gave us was awesome. Grandson to Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, who starred alongside John Wayne in the classic Western Rio Bravo, Clifton Collins Jr. had an experienced mentor to help nurture his way into Hollywood. “He was my only sounding board, and who else better to go to?”

His grandfather passed in 2006 but lived long enough to see his grandson’s achievements in Hollywood and breaking the latino actor stereotype mold and transcend the typical racial trappings of his grandfather’s era and play flesh-and-blood, three-dimensional characters.

After talking about his grandfather we into a conversation about his role in Jim Sheridan’s Brothers, starring Tobey MacGuire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman. “It was such an honor to work with Jim Sheridan who directed In America and In the Name of The Father. Watching him work you almost get a masters degree in filmmaking. Also Natalie Portman who is just so awesome its hard not to have a crush on her.”

Collins role will be a Major that debrief’s Tobey MacGuire after something tragic happens to him.

As the conversation peeled on with us he began to talk about his life on the circuit when he was touring with Phillip Seymour Hoffman during Capote he got a chance to know Heath Ledger as Brokeback Mountain was circling the same circuit. “He was such a great guy and losing my grandfather then my good friends Brad Renfro and Heath was tough…”

Ultimately Clifton Collins Jr. is truly a remarkable talent that we expect to see more of. His breakout role in Soderbergh’s Traffic as the gay Mexican hitman, Franky Flores garnered a lot of attention but it was in 1997 as his role as gang thug César Sánchez in the film One Eight Seven that really made his career. He will next be seen in Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, Jim Sheridan’s Brothers and Mike Judge’s comedy, Extract.

We also got out of the way the fact he will not be in the Marvel Thor project. “It would have been great to work with Kenneth Branagh on such an awesome film, but certain things aren’t mean’t to be. I met with him briefly and show him some stuff and my ideas, I got really involved with the world and everything but no Thor for me man.”

He also is working on some of his own screenplays, a comedy with Jay Vargas and the other a hardcore prison story based on the true life of the ethnic powers of the prison system. We plan on seeing him again at Comic-Con and hearing more from the actor as he continues his work throughout Hollywood playing memorable characters and being a true character actor.

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We talked a little about Phillips’ next projects in our Zack Galifianakis article earlier this week and it seems as if he is set for Phillips’ other comedy Due Date.

Galifianakis will play one of the two leads in Due Date, an Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland script that was revised by Adam Sztykiel. In the comedy about fatherhood, an expectant dad and his unlikely travel companion (Galifianakis) race cross-country in hopes of making it home for the birth of his first child.

Warner Bros. hired Phillips and Scot Armstrong to begin writing The Hangover 2 right after early test scores left the studio optimistic that it had a winner.

The film has become WB’s biggest grossing comedy ever, trailing only Beverly Hills Cop ($234 million) in grosses for an R-rated comedy. Studio believes The Hangover will finish around $240 million to become the biggest domestic grossing comedy ever and the third highest grossing R-rated film ever, behind The Passion of the Christ and The Matrix Reloaded.

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It turns there is a name that we have yet to hear on the list and that is Ryan Reynolds. The other 2 names include Timberlake and Bradley Cooper.

“The studio ordered up two rounds of screen tests with Cooper, Reynolds and Timberlake. Other actors in the early mix included Michael Fassbender, Henry Cavill and Jared Leto.

Apparently, De Line, Campbell and the studio each had a different favorite among the three finalists, making it difficult to come to a consensus.

Another issue impacting the casting process is the rising budget. “Lantern” is a full-blown space epic that is expected to cost between $150 million and $200 million, if not more. Warners would like to have the production costs at a reasonable level before proceeding.

The studio has scheduled the movie for a December 2010 opening.”

I am gonna go ahead say Reynolds would be great being his humor really fits the character and how it is written, he also has the physical look for him. However I think Marvel will object to their Deadpool crossing into DC and playing a hero. I think he would be good though.

Timberlake could be good but he’s too tiny and just has a weird look to him that would be a different way to go for the character - he’d make a better Kyle Rayner than Hal Jordan.

I gonna go on a whim and say that Bradley Cooper is going to be the guy they role with. I think he has the best look of the three. Bradley Cooper for Green Lantern Begins now.

Who do you think is the best on the Green Lantern short list?

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The Omega Man

Tag line: Pray for the last man alive. Because he’s not alone

Director: Boris Sagal

Starring: Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe, Paul Koslo, Rosalind Cash, Eric Laneuville

Genre: Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic

Release Date: August 1, 1971

Runtime: 98 min

Rating: PG

Charlton Heston plays Robert Neville, one of the last “intact” survivors of a biological war that’s ravaged Earth’s population in this Boris Sagal-helmed sci-fi thriller based on Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend. Armed with an experimental vaccine for the disease that’s turned everyone into light-averse zombies, Neville roams the empty streets of Los Angeles by day and fights off the mutated “subnormals” at night.

The original trailer.

Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend has had at least two other adaptions:

The Last Man on Earth (1964) — a film that’s said to have inspired George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead — Vincent Price is the only human left alive after a deadly global plague turns its victims into vampires.

I Am Legend( 2007) PG-13

A terrible virus has spread across the planet and turned the human race into bloodthirsty monsters. Mankind’s only hope for survival is scientist Robert Neville (Will Smith), the one person left unaffected by the epidemic. When he’s not fighting for his life against the hordes of the infected, Neville searches for a cure to reverse the virus’s effects — all the while battling his own doubt and despair as he spends every day alone.

I recommend all three for a fun night of Vampires, and the end of the world. As usual The Omega Man is available on Netflix for instant down load.

Peace out MajorXero!

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Mel Gibson is going to be unleashing his tremendous talents on Jodi Foster’s “The Beaver.” Foster is going to be directing as well as costarring in the film about a depressed man (Gibson) who finds solace in wearing a beaver hand-puppet. Kyle Killen is writing the script with Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin and Keith Redmon producing. The producers are pushing for a September start date in New York.

Financing for the $18 million-$19 million film has yet to be finalized. A studio could pick up the project or it could go the indie route, as Golin did with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s ”Babel.”

It’s very possible that Gibson’s production company Icon could get involved in some way because they distribution shingles in territories such as the U.K. and Australia.

This will be Foster’s thrid time in the director’s chair, having previously helmed 1991’s “Little Man Tate” and 1995’s “Home for the Holidays.”

Gibson and Foster previously worked on a classic from my childhood, 1994’s ”Maverick.” and it will be a nice to see them on screen together again.

What do YOU think?

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Today’s world is all about relationships and the internet helps personify those relationships and connections in so many ways. Communication is now global, blogging, news, information is all global and that helps connection become deeper, more meaningful and certainly more powerful.

Fused Film is proud to announce that they have partnered with FilmShaft.com for an overseas correspondent on all the latest film, TV and entertainment news and more. The partnership agreement comes on the beginning of Fused Film’s rebranding campaign to become a bridge between Hollywood, their hometown Memphis and beyond.

“It is a way for our relationships in the film blogosphere to grow to new readers while creating more opportunities to provide quality and timely information from a global perspective,” says Kevin Coll, Owner/Editor-In-Chief of Fused Film.

“Its about increasing the connection and Filmshaft provides that like a Sky News does for Fox News. Opportunities for our content to reach a new audience and for FilmShaft’s content to reach our audience and more.”

FilmShaft.com was started as part of a rebrand from its owner Craig Sharp, formerly of Original Sharp Says. As a UK based film news site they report on the many goings on and gossip within fanboy film productions much like Fused Film. With so many high quality American film news sites and so few UK based ones, it’s easy to forget from time to time that there is a British market and a British audience out there.

“Because Britain Loves Film Too!” says Craig Sharp, Editor/Owner of FilmShaft, “we are a country just like America, we love movies, our market may not be Hollywood style but we do have film fans too.”

Filmshaft was created to try and redress that balance, promising fast, accurate reporting (with a little cockny wit thrown in once in a while too).

“Partnering with Fused Film allows us to increase our exposure and connect with US readers giving them our perspective much like a BBC America does in the states. Kevin and I are such good friends this partnership made sense.”

Filmshaft will have a permanent link on top of the Fused Film pages directing readers to their site and content and you can also find information on Craig Sharp in Fused Film’s About Us section. Throughout the partnership both writers will contribute to the respective sites as well give proper correspondent posts on special features and reports from both sites based on quality and brevity of the scoop or news impact/perspective.

“We are really excited what doors will open for both of us and that our goal of global connection and bridging not just Britain and Memphis with Hollywood but bridging it with all of its audience. “Our cockny wit with our southern style…it doesn’t sound like a bad start,” says Kevin and Craig.

You can follow FilmShaft on Twitter here

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Tobey Maguire is joining the cast of  an indie black comedy entitled The Details. Joining Maguire will be  Elizabeth Banks as his wife, with Ray Liotta, Dennis Haysbert, Anna Friel and Laura Linney also .  Jacob Estes is directing.

Maguire and Banks play a couple on the verge of  breaking up.    Their attempts at reconciliation are interrupted by an infestation of crazed raccoons.

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So we were just informed that BBC America will be showcasing some Doctor Who at this year’s Comic-Con and we will definitely be at the panel to hear what they have to say. In the meantime here’s the sneak peek two minute clip of Day 1 of Torchwood: Children of Earth which premieres July 20 at 9pm ET on BBC AMERICA as well as the upcoming 1st of 4 specials for Doctor Who, called Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead which premieres July 26, 2009 8:00 p.m. ET on BBC America.

Torchwood: Children of the Earth Clip

An ordinary day becomes one of terror, as every single child in the world stops. A message is sent to all the governments of Earth: “We are coming.” But, as a trap closes around Captain Jack, the sins of the past are returning and long-forgotten events from 1965 threaten to reveal an awful truth. Torchwood is forced underground as the government takes swift and brutal action. As members of the team are hunted down, Britain risks becoming a rogue state. Meanwhile, the mysterious and powerful 456 draws ever-closer. Captain Jack, Gwen and Ianto are helpless as events escalate to such a degree that mankind faces the end of civilization itself.

Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead Clip

In the first of four specials shot in HD, Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead, finds the Doctor trapped on a desert alien planet with a red double-decker bus but no Tardis. He soon discovers the mysterious planet holds terrifying secrets hidden in the sand and is forced to team up with a mysterious, aristocratic thief Lady Christina (Michelle Ryan, Bionic Woman, Merlin) to get back to Earth. But time is running out, as the deadly Swarm gets closer.

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