According to Variety, Live Free or Die Hard director, Len Wisemen, will be directing the upcoming Gears of War film by New Line studios.

Chris Morgan, writer of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, has also been added to the film’s roster. Morgan will be creating a new script for Gears of War, replacing the draft that Stuart Beattie, known for producing such films as Pirates of the Caribbean and the upcoming G.I. Joe adaptation, originally wrote.

Epic Game’s boss, Mark Rein, seems assured that the film will be a great success. He commented:

“It’s like with our games, you can have it right or have it right now. We want to get it right. There’s no timetable for us. We just want to make as good a movie as we can, and we think (Wiseman’s) the guy who will do it.”

The Gears of War movie will be releasing in the summer of 2010, also according to Variety.

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Guess what, guys? There’s going to be a Bioshock movie, and the illustrious director of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is going to be making it. For some, this is pretty exciting news, but I know a certain ninja that probably feels otherwise. Still, considering how strong Bioshock’s narrative was, I think it should adapt quite nicely to film. Said Verbinski, “I think the whole utopia-gone-wrong story that’s cleverly unveiled to players is just brimming with cinematic potential. Of all the games I’ve played, this is one that I felt has a really strong narrative.” Hopefully they decide to make the ending a bit more riveting than it was in the game, though. Moreover, this is supposedly going to be the biggest game-to-movie deal since the now-defunct Halo deal in 2005. Hopefully Bioshock won’t end up in the trash, though.

[via Variety.com]

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Sources close to Take Two as well as several industry analysts expect Grand Theft Auto IV to make $400 million in its first week, selling 6 million copies when it releases April 29, according to Variety.

If these predictions are correct it will be the biggest one week video game launch ever, surpassing Halo 3’s $300 million in the first week. GTA IV might even beat movie records, with the the highest being $404 million worldwide, made by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in the first six days. If GTA IV’s launch does end up being the biggest entertainment launch of all time, at least we’ll know that gamers have better taste than movie goers when it comes to breaking records.

However, Halo 3 was an Xbox 360 exclusive, while GTA IV is on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, so it does have a significantly larger base of customers to draw money from. Still, $400 million is an impressive figure, and and at $60 a piece it works out to be over 6.67 million copies (even higher than the previously mentioned prediction). By my informal estimates, that works out to be amassiveshitload of virtual hookers killed per day and an even higher number of virtual cars stolen. While I don’t have industry analysts or important anonymous sources to back this up, I’m going to go ahead and say that GTA IV will break all records for crimes committed in-game in a week, and probably the record for amount of cumulative enjoyment from one game crammed into a single week too.

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When I saw the teaser trailer for the Oneechanbara movie, I immediately knew it had potential, since putting boobs, violence, and zombies together in one epic movie seemed like the best idea since putting boobs, violence, and machines together. While the premise is almost flawless, my excitement was only based on a brief, unrevealing teaser and speculation. Now a longer trailer (embedded above) has been released, and it’s definitely looking awesome. It has all the scantily clad cowgirls and over the top, campy, bloody, violence I was hoping for and the combination of boobs, violence, and zombies should make for some good old fashioned mindless entertainment.

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A while back it was announced that the Japanese hack-and-slash game OneeChanbara was being made into a movie, and now we have a brief trailer (embedded above). It may not show much, just some dark shots of the decidedly hot protagonist tilting her hat, doing expressive dance in a field, and staring at the camera, but it’s only a teaser after all.

While video game movies are notorious for just sucking in general, this one has potential. First, there’s no Uwe Boll in sight; and second, the game’s plot seems simple enough that it can’t be ruined by scriptwriters who think they know better than the people who created the game. Which brings us to where the real potential lies: the game is about a Japanese cowgirl who runs around in a bikini gorily killing zombies and other creatures with her katana.
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In my other life (read: real job), I’m a film critic and as a professional film critic I have to tell you that the new Street Fighter Movie coming out sometime in 2009 will most likely suck. As bad as the first one? No, but it’ll be pretty damn bad. I say this because the casting information for the film was just released and I just want to say before you get angry at any casting choice you don’t like… just remember that they could have cast the best actors in the world to play these roles and the movie would most likely still suck.

That being said the casting doesn’t seem too terrible. Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog seems a decent choice and while Kristen Kruek isn’t really Asian and doesn’t have monster thighs, she does have breasts so that kind of qualifies her to play Chun-Li. Look at that, Taboo, from the Black Eyed Peas is going to be playing Vega. That could be nice…oh, who am I kidding. None of this sounds very good except for Duncan being a big black guy. I guess Charlie Nash as Chris Klein works OK. At least it can’t get wor…Neal McDonough as M. Bison?! Screw you Hollywood, screw you to hell. Here I am not listening to my own advice.

Hit the jump for the press release.

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(Unsexy Update: Apparently, Microsoft still believes in its little engine that could, the HD DVD player. Gamerscore Blog recently had this to say about rumors circulating that HD DVD was officially dead:

We do not believe the recent reports about HD DVD will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace. As we’ve long stated, we believe it is games that sell consoles and Xbox 360 continues to have the largest next-gen games library with the most exclusives and best selling games in the industry. We will wait until we hear from Toshiba before announcing any specific plans around the Xbox 360 HD DVD player. HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room along with playback of the DVD movies they already own.

Ah, well, I guess we won’t be seeing a Blu-Ray add on anytime remotely soon. -backflip)

You guys have heard that Netflix, Wal-Mart, and most recently Toshiba, who is the main backer of HD-DVD, are completely dropping the format, right?

Well, it looks like Microsoft is ready to put the final nail in the coffin by releasing a Blu-ray add-on for the 360 as soon as May ‘08. According to Smarthouse.au, Microsoft has pretty much finished developing the thing and it can be released to stores within around 3 months.

I just want to say that this is totally unconfirmed and from what I can tell, a completely unknown source, but it’s something I was discussing with backflip earlier today and it definitely sounds plausible to me.

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The trailer for Uwe Boll’s Far Cry movie showed up on Youtube today, and guess what? It looks pretty good! HA, not really! It looks f*cking awful.

Mr. Boll, immature humor can be really damn funny (see: Superbad), but when you make “is that a gun in your pocket or are you happy to see me” jokes in the middle of an already terrible action movie that has nothing to do with its source material after making 246 terrible movies before it, it just makes you look like even more of a f*cking talentless hack.

It releases this Spring and includes a coupon for a free castration with every ticket. Great deal!

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You hardly ever see a movie compared positively to a game, although critics usually don’t seem afraid to bash a movie for being just like a video game. However, the Arizona Daily Star compared Rambo to Call of Duty 4 in their review of the movie, and if you’ve played the game you should know that’s quite a compliment. The reviewer, Phil Villarreal, calls the movie “a nasty, Call of Duty 4 style shoot ‘em up that kicks down the door, rips out your throat and inserts a Claymore where your jugular used to be,” and judging by the general consensus that’s probably one of the best things that has been and probably will be said about Rambo. Having seen the movie and played the game I’m not sure I see the similarities besides lots of shooting and explosions, but since that’s the only reason to see the fourth Rambo movie I guess it is an apt comparison. If you want to read more, here’s the full review.

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Chances are, if you’re a gamer, you have at least one reason to hate, or at the very least dislike, Uwe Boll. The man has done everything from making horrible movies based on games such as Bloodrayne, House of the Dead, and Alone in the Dark, to beating up film critics, and now he’s done even more to give us a reason to scorn him.

Recently Boll was on Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld on Fox News, and he had some pretty condemning remarks about our favorite hobby. In an attempt to defend his terrible movies, he had this to say:

“A lot of video games have no story. I did the movie House of the Dead and got bashed and I said, what were you expecting, Schindler’s List? …I don’t know what they were expecting if you make a movie based on an ego shooter where you kill ninety minutes of people non-stop.”

Ugh. Here we have a man who takes all of his “inspiration” (and I use the word very lightly) from games, and then turns around and slaps them in the face. I am becoming more and more convinced that Uwe Boll is not only a failure at making movies, but just completely a failure at life. When you can’t defend your works without resorting to petty excuses and mudslinging, then you should probably quit what you’re doing.

Via CVG

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TMZ has just reported that Heath Ledger has been found dead in his Soho, NY apartment.  Ledger, who stars as The Joker in the newest Batman movie: The Dark Knight was discovered in his bed by his housekeeper at 3:35 PM EST today.  No other details have been released as of yet.  According to CNN, it was most likely an overdose of sleeping pills found near his body.

I don’t know about you guys, but this seriously bummed me out for the rest of the day.

[Via TMZ]

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Uwe Boll, who I consider the next Ed Wood Jr., is not one person who shys away from his critics. He’s been known to say some off the wall shit talking and even has had boxing matches with some of his film critics.

He recently sent out a statement to BollBashers.com, a website dedicated to bashing Uwe Boll, about his new movie based off of the Dungeon Siege series, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.

The statement reads:

Our competitor in USA FIRST SUNDAY with Ice Cube is a piece of shit and for NOBODY nearly so interesting as IN THE NAME OF THE KING. We have a better movie and a bigger movie with a better script, better cast and we proved in europe that our movie has the power to stay 3 weeks in the TOP TEN and that we can get at least 50% good reviews. FIRST SUNDAY is a direct to DVD title in europe but in USA Sony puts 40 mill. $ in advertising to win that weekend. And this is completly absurd. Sony will not even recoup the advertising costs with that movie. The MAJORS own the TV Stations and the Radio Stations and they use that for free advertising and so the wide audience believes at one point that FIRST SUNDAY is the movie of that weekend - and they go and buy a ticket. The biggest problems in todays market is that nobody believes anymore in word of mouth or gives a film a chance without seeing upfront all 5 seconds in TV a spot.

Uh…So far, First Sunday has a 17% on RottenTomatoes, while A Dungeon Siege Tale has a 05%. Boll’s piece of shit based on 19 reviews, while First Sunday is based off of 48. It’s plainly obvious that Boll’s problem is not with the US or with “today’s market.” It’s pretty much common sense to avoid a film made by a director that has never directed a half decent film in his film career. Eh…I guess more Raging Boll is on the way.

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The recent Xbox 360 dashboard update added support for DivX/XviD video files, and now the great Mac streaming app Connect360 has followed suit. It has always been the best (and only) option for Mac users wanting to stream their photos, music, and video straight to their Xbox 360s, and now that it has been updated with DivX/XviD support only a day after the 360 it looks like it will continue to be an awesome program for anyone who has an Xbox 360 and a Mac.

It is incredibly easy to use, and all you need to do is keep your files in the appropriate places on your Mac and they will be accessible from your Xbox 360. Any photos in iPhoto will be shared, and likewise any music in iTunes can be played. Movies need only to be put in a specific folder of your choice (Like your torrents download location…?) to be streamed, and Connect360 does the rest. With the most recent version, WMV+WMA, AVI (DIVX/XVID), H.264 and MPEG4 files (in MP4 and MOV containers) can be streamed using Connect360, and more details on the codecs supported by the Xbox 360 can be found here.

I haven’t tested the new version yet, but I’ve been very satisfied with how movies streamed with the previous version and I imagine DivX/XviD videos will work smoothly as well. I’m sure many of you can’t wait to have your porn collection so easily accessible right on your huge TV.

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As if we didn’t already see this coming…Hitman has gotten the terrible score of 11% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 34% on MetaCritic. HORRIBLE reviews for the Xavier Gens directed movie, who is getting some very hurtful words spat at him. One critic even went as far as to comparing the movie to a Uwe Boll movie. Here are my favorite quotes from the critics of the film:

“Despite its title, in every crucial respect the picture shoots nothing but blanks…it’s Uwe Boll bad.” - Frank Swietek, One Guy’s Opinion

“Hitman has no more imagination than its title, which just as easily could have been The Bourne Idiocy or Mission: Possible and Boring.” - Matt Pais, Metromix.com

“If someone ran this guy through a scanner, the readout would say: ‘Mark down and stock in straight-to-video aisle.’” - Kyle Smith, New York Post

“Plays like a music video without the music, a spectacle of shiny weapons, spurting blood, and Jesus Christ poses that would have benefited from more overlaid songs and less blabber.” - Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

Eek. This is one shitty movie. The Hitman movie seems to be helping the stereotype of “all video game movies suck.” Many of the critics who bashed the film stated that the film was full of unintentional laughs and over the top blood. This can only mean one thing…I’m going to heavily enjoy this movie when I do get a chance to see it. Massive failure to fans of the franchise and a big win for b-movie lovers such as myself.

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According to Variety, Mark Walhberg is considered for the role of the pissed off and constipated cop movie, Max Payne. The film is to be directed by John Moore (Flight of the Pheonix, The Omen remake, Behind Enemy Lines) and released by 20th Century Fox. The script is being written by newcomer Beau Thorne and will follow the same plot as the original video game had: Payne is haunted by the murder of his family and wants to avenge their deaths by going after the drug syndicate responsible.

If Marky Mark does want to play Payne, he would first have to complete his role in Peter Jackson’s The Lonely Bones. No word on when the film is being released, or if there are any plans on doing any sequels have been announced yet.

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