Iron Man game up in the air
GameSpot.com reports that Activision, which has published games based on Spider-Man 2, X-Men: The Last Stand and Fantastic Four over the last few years, no longer has the rights to do games based on the Iron Man movie:

“We did have the rights to make an Iron Man game, but no longer retain said rights,” a rep told GameSpot. “So I cannot comment on the status of any game project related to the film.” The rep did not say why Activision had let the rights lapse, or which publisher had acquired the rights.

So who is publishing Iron Man? That information remains elusive. THQ reps contacted by GameSpot claimed ignorance of any such project, as did Electronic Arts and Midway spokespersons. Take-Two Interactive declined to “comment on rumors.”

But while the Iron Man publisher is currently a mystery, it won’t be forever. “Expect an announcement this fall,” a Marvel Entertainment rep told GameSpot before declining further comment.

Snyder talks Watchmen
SciFi.com chats with Zack Snyder about his upcoming Watchmen adaptation:

“What will happen?” Snyder said. “I don’t know. I can tell you this: As far as I’m concerned, … the Watchmen movie needs to frickin’ be hard and challenge everybody. … The awesome thing about it is that Warner Brothers has it, and in some way it’s incredibly poetic that they do. Because they have Superman and Batman, and I always go, ‘Do you guys realize what Watchmen is? … Do you really want me to make this movie?’ And, you know what, I think to their credit, they’re like, ‘Yeah, we think we do.’ Because I think they know.”

Triumph at Comic-Con
TV Squad has a write-up on Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, appearing at Comic-Con, with a link to where a video used be (I’m sure the enterprising among our readership can probably find it somewhere else on the web, if you try hard enough). Here’s what happened:

During an introductory speech for Robert Smigel given by cartoon historian Jerry Beck at the San Diego Comic Con, the world’s only insult comic dog, Triumph, popped up and went on a hilarious tirade about Beck’s boring speech and the innumerable nerds who were in attendance. This is footage shot by someone who was actually there, so there’s a lot of swearing and you also get to see Robert Smigel actually doing the voice and manipulating the puppet. Of course, they don’t try very hard to hide that when he does his shtick on Conan, but Smigel is in the middle of a crowd and really has nowhere to hide.

Also from TV Squad, Kevin Smith will play substitute critic on Ebert and Roeper next week. Too bad Joel Siegel didn’t direct a movie this week that Smith could walk out of.

Break the walls down
Clive Barker, who has scared the crap out the world through books, movies and comics in the past, is staking his claim on the world of video games. Teamxbox.com has news and screenshots from a game created by Barker called Jericho, whose plot involves “the mysterious reappearance of a lost city in a remote desert”:

Says Clive Barker, “It’s incredible when a company as admired as Codemasters embraces your vision the way they have embraced Jericho. This project is very close to my heart and I don’t believe there’s ever been anything like it. It promises to be the most spectacular, creative, and unflinching realization of a Clive Barker nightmare that will drag players in kicking and screaming.”

Bit bites

Michael Chabon on the Simpsons

Amazon.com to offer movie downloads and Amazon gets into the movie business

Spidey 3′s women talk

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Conventions, DC Comics, Marvel, Movies, Television, Video Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.