If you couldn't already tell, Warner Bros. is marketing the hell out of Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Slayer. The only problem with that is, the more I see of the film, the more I don't really want to see it. But, here's four new character posters for the fantasy adventure film. All I hope is that it exceeds my low expectations. 

Jack the Giant Slayer tells the story of an ancient war that is reignited when a young farmhand unwittingly opens a gateway between our world and a fearsome race of giants. Unleashed on the Earth for the first time in centuries, the giants strive to reclaim the land they once lost, forcing the young man, Jack, into the battle of his life to stop them. Fighting for a kingdom, its people, and the love of a brave princess, he comes face to face with the unstoppable warriors he thought only existed in legend—and gets the chance to become a legend himself.

The movie stars Nicholas Hoult, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Ewan McGregor. It's set to hit theaters March 1st. 

Shane Acker, the director of the CG animated action film 9, is set to direct a new untitled CG animated movie based on the Dark Horse Comics series Beasts of Burden, which was written by Evan Dorkin and illustrated by Jill Thompson. It's a supernatural story that revolves around dogs.

Even though 9 was a little rough around the edges I still enjoyed the movie, and I've been looking forward to seeing what Acker would end up doing next because he's a pretty talented guy. This seems like a solid project for him to take on, and I hope it turns out to be a good flick. The movie is being produced by Reel FX, and the script is being worked on by Darren Lemke (Turbo, Shrek Forever After).

The story follows "the baffling behavior (tail chasing, barking at 'nothing' at all) of our favorite four-legged friends. In the charming town of Burden Hill, there might be more to these animal antics than meets the eye. The town is inhabited by the supernatural, and when its paranormal activity becomes even more abnormal than usual, it’s up to a group of fearless canines called the Watch Dogs to protect its citizens – and humanity – from the mysterious things that go 'bump' in the night." Acker had this to say in a statement,

It’s a pleasure to be working with such accomplished producers and filmmakers on this incredible project. There is a real independent spirit at Reel FX — the studio is full of energy and fresh ideas — which is necessary to bring this unique story to life.

Reel FX has got a growing animation slate, which also includes the Day of the Dead-themed project, The Book of Life with Guillermo del Toro producing and Jorge Gutierrez directing. Then there's Turkeys, which is being directed by Jimmy Hayward and stars Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson.

A few months ago it was announced that Sinister director Scott Derrickson would be directing a big screen adaptation of the hit video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution, from a script written by C. Robert Cargill. CraveOnline talked with the director and writer of the film recently, and they offered up some information on how they are approaching the property, and what we can expect from the movie. Derrickson starts off by saying,

Deus Ex is moving like a rocket. We’ve turned in a draft of that that everyone seems excited about, and we’re very excited about that, and we’ve got a number of other projects that haven’t really been announced that have a lot of momentum also. It’s Hollywood, though. I’ve been doing this a long time, and you just never know what will come together when.

The story is set in the near future, when dramatic advances in human augmentation have triggered a technological renaissance. The protagonist, an ex-SWAT security specialist named Adam Jensen, must embrace mechanical augments in order to unravel a global conspiracy. Cargill goes on to explain that they aren't making a video game movie,

[T]he chief philosophy is we’re not making a video game movie. We’re making a cyberpunk movie. We’ve taken a look at what’s worked in video games and what hasn’t, and really what we’ve broken down is what we think the audience really wants, [what] the audience that loves Deus Ex is going to want to see out of a Deus Ex movie. And it’s not a rehashing of the game. What they want to see is, they want to see elements of the game that they love, but they want to see things that they hadn’t quite seen in the game, that the game didn’t allow them to see. So it’s really allowed us to expand upon the things that happened in the game, and the game has such a great cinematic story to begin with that those elements are very easy to extract.

He goes on to discuss some of the inspiration they are looking at for the movie,

We’re trying to break out, and really, the mold for the movies that we’re looking at… We’re looking at movies like District 9 and Looper, and Inception. Those are the molds of what we’ve been doing. It’s… Let’s push this and do something new with concepts people love, but tell a story that they’ve never seen before, that just melts their brain. And that is just hyperkinetic and smart and just hits all the right buttons that genre audiences want to see. That’s what we’ve gunned for. We haven’t tried to build it around Johnny Mnemonic or New Rose Hotel...

I don't really care what they end up doing as long as a really good movie comes out of this. Derrickson then talks about Cyberpunk, and why we haven't really seen a good Cyberpunk movie yet. 

Yeah, cyberpunk is difficult. There’s a reason we haven’t had a great cyberpunk movie yet. There’s a reason why a sci-fi movie as great as Neuromancer has never made it to the screen. I do think there’s a new wave coming, and not just because the technology and the effects are up to speed, but I think that there’s a sensibility to cyberpunk that the movies are catching up with. That’s kind of how we feel. We feel like the science fiction, the reason why we reference Inception, Looper and District 9 was that they were all movies that took certain familiar science fiction methodologies and turned them upside-down and brought a grounded realism to them. Time travel, aliens arriving on Earth, going into the dream world… Those are all things that you’ve seen a dozen bad versions of, and it dozen decent versions of that. But no one, until those three films, no one had gone into filmmaking from a grounded, realistic point of view and made something with a fresh aesthetic. And I think that there was a little bit of the Blade Runner curse, a little bit of the Matrix curse, where you’ve got these movies that touch on cyberpunk elements that aren’t really cyberpunk films but they are so iconic, and so insurmountable. They’re perfect films in their own ways, [but] no one has been able to break free of that, or no one has broken free of that, and tried to go at it completely fresh. I think that we’re going to see a wave of them, I predict. I think that cyberpunk is going to break out. There’s going to be a new kind of science fiction film, and it will be cyberpunk, and it will be amazing.

Do you like the approach they are taking in turning this game into a movie? I'm excited to see how this thing turns out! Make sure you head over to CraveOnline to read the full interview.

If you're not excited about Oz the Great and Powerful, you should be. If you're a fan of the original film and Sam Raimi then this is a movie you're sure to enjoy. Disney has released a new clip from the film featuring Oscar Diggs/The Wizard (James Franco) and Finley the flying monkey (Zach Braff) as they start start their journey to take down the Wicked Witch so that Diggs can claim the treasures of the Emerald City. I've also included a new Behind the scenes featurette, and a couple of new photos from the film that might be considered a spoiler.

The movie will be released on March 8th, 2013 and it's a movie that needs to be watched on the big screen, and in 3D, and that's coming from a guy that doesn't like 3D movies. 

Disney's fantastical adventure Oz: The Great And Powerful, directed by Sam Raimi, imagines the origins of L. Frank Baum’s beloved character, the Wizard of Oz. When Oscar Diggs, a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he's hit the jackpot—fame and fortune are his for the taking—that is until he meets three witches, Theodora, Evanora and Glinda, who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity—and even a bit of wizardry—Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well. 

When small-time magician Oscar Diggs pulls one flimflam too many, he finds himself hurled into the fantastical Land of Oz where he must somehow transform himself into the great and powerful Wizard—and just maybe into a better man as well.

Check out this awesome t-shirt design created by victorsbeard called "This Walker's Dead." As you can see it's an amazing mashup of The Walking Dead and the Imperial AT-AT Walkers from The Empire Strikes Back as zombies. To buy yourself one of these head over to Red Bubble.

So for those who were working or couldn't get access to the live stream of Sony's Playstation 4 Event last night, here's a recap of what Sony is bringing to the table with the successor to the PS3. We'll cover some of the games announced in separate articles, but here's the skinny on the system itself, which is coming Holiday time this year.

The Obvious

Lots of horsepower under the hood to produce some jaw-dropping graphics. Peep the trailers for Killzone: Shadow Fall or the demo of Unreal 4 for proof. 

Sharing Is Caring

Social Media has become a huge selling point for consoles lately, but if Sony delivers what it promises with the PS4, then we might just have the most well-implemented social network ever in a console. A share button is built directly into the controller, so with one tap of a button you can not only share screenshots but upload gameplay videos directly to your social media of choice. You can also comment on other people's videos and gameplay in real time. Interested to see how gamers use this feature, but the cynical part of me just pictures basement dwellers using this as an excuse to harrass people. Guess we'll see. 

Multitasking

Sony has been stranded in Apple land when it comes to this, but the PS4 can play partially downloaded games as well as update games and run other tasks in the background while not disturbing your playtime.

The Controller

Taking some cues from the VITA, the new Dualshock 4 has a touchpad on the front for additional gameplay input, as well as revised triggers and analog sticks. It also looks a bit heftier than the Dualshock 3, but can't confirm that until I get some hands on time. It also has MOVE tech built right in, with a light bar emitting a kinda sweet blue glow that the new stereo camera reads and recognizes once you're in range. Clearly someone took some notes on what the competition did right, which is completely fine by me.

THE VITA IS ALIVE!

At least for a bit longer anyway. Sony is positioning the VITA as the number one companion to the PS4, and truthfully I think it can succeed that way (because the other method clearly hasn't been working). You can transmit a game to the VITA from the PS4 quickly and lag free, so the other person can do something else on the main screen. Nice way to make a device that was quickly becoming irrelevant infinitely more desirable. 

The Cloud

When Sony purchased Gakai, you knew it wasn't just to have a $380 million dollar paperweight, and it seems that money was well spent (at least in theory). Due to Gakai's tech, the transfer to VITA from PS4 is a doable reality for Sony, and if things go according to plan they will play a huge part in making backwards compatibility a thing of the past. Sony plans on having games from PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, and Vita available to download and play seamlessly from the cloud onto your PS4, and eventually on your VITA as well. No word on when this feature would be implemented, but I wouldn't bet on having it available at launch. 

All in all I think Sony came to play, and this was a pretty nice opening salvo. Time will tell if half of these promises come to fruition, but if they do (and the system doesn't look like shiny roadkill) then I might actually have a hard decision to make come this December. So, what does everybody think? Let us know if you're already planning to stand in line come release day, or sitting this one out.

Here's a great little trailer for an interesting sci-fi space exploration short called Project Kronos. It was filmed as a documentary and is set in the not too distant future, following a mission to achieve interstellar space travel. Here's a description:

Project Kronos is an upcoming documentary film following a mission to achieve interstellar space travel. As the mission unfolds, the scientists find themselves questioning whether the space agency's solution to achieving interstellar space travel is ethical at all. 

This movie was written and directed by Hasraf 'HaZ' Dulull, and it looks like it could be a pretty good! Check out the trailer!

Project Kronos - Trailer from Hasraf HaZ Dulull on Vimeo.

Here's the trailer for a new political thriller called The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which stars Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber, and Riz Ahmed (Trishna). The movie is an adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s novel, and here's the synopsis:

We begin in 2011 in Lahore. At an outdoor café a Pakistani man named Changez (Riz Ahmed) tells Bobby (Liev Schreiber), an American journalist, about his experiences in the United States. Roll back ten years, and we find a younger Changez fresh from Princeton, seeking fortune and glory on Wall Street. The American Dream seems well within his grasp, complete with a smart and gorgeous artist girlfriend, Erica (Kate Hudson). But when the Twin Towers are attacked, a cultural divide slowly begins to crack open between Changez and Erica. Changez’s dream soon begins to slip into nightmare: profiled, wrongfully arrested, strip-searched and interrogated, he is transformed from a well-educated, upwardly mobile businessman to a scapegoat and perceived enemy. With time, he begins to hear the call of his own homeland. Taking us through the culturally rich and beguiling worlds of New York, Lahore and Istanbul, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is  a story about conflicting ideologies where perception and suspicion have the power to determine life or death.

The movie is set to be released on April 26th, 2013, and it looks like it could be a really good movie! Check out the trailer!

In this rant packed episode we go over the horrid mess that has become Aliens: Colonial Marines, the announcement of a new Batman game, some oldie but goodies in Bastion & Limbo, some research that confirms what most of us knew about how female gamers are treated in gaming, some cool noir superhero art, and a rant filled sounding off. Hope you enjoy the show!

Brad Anderson is a solid filmmaker, and I'm looking forward to seeing his next film The Call. I'm not the biggest fan of Halle Berry, but this looks like it could be her best film in years. Anderson is the guy who brought us Session 9, The Machinist, and Transiberian, which were all great films.

The Call follows a 911 operator named Jordan, played by Berry, who helps prevent an abducted teenage girl getting killed, and “realizes that she must confront a killer from her past in order to save the girl’s life.”

The movie also stars Abigail Breslin, Michael Imperioli, and Morris Chestnut, and it opens in theaters on March 15th, 2013. 

Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment are planning to developed a big screen adaptation of Josin L. McQuein's upcoming young adult sci-fi novel Arclight. The story is set "in a post-apocalyptic future where the remnants of humanity are hunkered down in an outpost protected by a wall of light named Arclight, hiding from creatures known as the Fade. Into this enclave enters a lone teenage girl with no memory of who she is and how she survived in what is called the Dark but one who holds the key to its survival." Brian Grazer is set to produce the movie, and they've hired Matthew Sand (Ninja Assassin) to write the screenplay. Here's the official description of the book. 

There is the Light. There is the Dark. And no one survives The Fade. These are the absolutes... until a teenage girl stumbles out of the shadows with no memory of how she survived. 

Her appearance brings hope, but also danger as a race of parasitic, chameleon-like creatures known as The Fade begin attacking those who have given her shelter. Torn between the possibility that she's the key to defeating the Fade, and the growing dissent that would sacrifice the girl in hopes of stopping the attacks, she's hard pressed to find anyone she can trust.

She finds a strained ally in the son of the man who died to bring her to safety. And when the two teens stumble across a captive Fade who begs them for help locating his lost mate, they begin to wonder if the Fade are the enemy they've been taught to believe.

Does this sound like a story you'd be interested in seeing on the big screen? 

Check out this fun trailer for a horror comedy film called Slay to Rest. The story follows a broke, struggling death metal band by day, who are vampire slayers by night. The movie looks like exactly what you'd expect to see with that premise. The film is being directed by Theo Kim, and I'm curious to see how the full movie turns out. Check out the trailer and let us know if you think it's something you'd like to see. 

Slay To Rest Teaser from Theo Kim on Vimeo.

 
Joker by: Anthony Misiano

Crazy people are unpredictable, tacticians are reserved, psychotic people enjoy killing, and clowns are crying on the inside. The Joker is all of these. His mind is so twisted that it loops between sane and insane and never stops. He is an ever-evolving face of chaos and fart jokes.

Joker by: Electricsixx

Joker by: Alexworks

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Joker by: Anthony Misiano

Joker by: Animewhitewolf

Joker by: Gammogahato

Joker by: Anthony Misiano

Joker by: Lucius Ferguson

Joker by: Kaspergustavsson

Joker by: Gammogahato

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Joker by: Federkiel

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Joker by: Chaves87

Joker by: Anthony Misiano

View all of GT's 'Best of' Cosplay Collections.

As we revel in all the news from the PlayStation 4 event held yesterday, we must not forget about some of the newcomers that are soon to hit the gaming scene. 

This past year we had two great Kickstarters achieve enormous feats. One was from the good folks over at Ouya, and the other bright gem was from GameStick developed by PlayJam. Haven’t heard about the GameStick? Well what rock have you been living under?! 

GameStick is a portable console that runs on the Android operating system. For only $79 you can get this wonderful piece of machinery that will be completely open to developers so that they can churn out games quickly for the console. Many of the great games you have already seen on the Android market will be available on this console. In addition to that, the company is attracting other indie developers who have created games on the Xbox Live and PSN networks, to bring their games over to this new platform as well. 

Like mentioned before, the console is totally portable, and is comprised of a controller and a little USB-sized stick that conveniently hides within it. If you happen to be worried about graphics, never fear, that little stick will plug right into your HDMI slot. So you will definitely get the best graphics that the console can pump out. 

What’s so remarkable about this console is that the company had an original Kickstarter goal of $100,000. But all the many fans and gamers out there wanted it so bad that they far surpassed this goal and was able to raise around $650,000! Because of this new influx of money, they were able to go back and revisit some things that they wanted to offer to the public. Many people left comments on the Kickstarter page, or sent them in directly to the company, which inevitably changed some aspects of the console for the better. One of those things being the controller’s design. 

As seen below, the original controller was a rectangle shape that didn’t look all too comfortable to hold in your hands. This is a big factor when gamers decide if they would actually buy this product. 

Think about it, there are many gamers out there who simply love the Xbox because of its somewhat ergonomic controller design, as opposed to the PlayStation’s controller which after hours of use can become very tiring to the hands. The company listened to these concerns and now the controller has two rounded ends to it that make it easier to hold in the palm of your hands and give you the ever so important comfortable grip. 

One of the big questions a lot of people ask is if devices like this will cut into the major console market. Only time will tell really. But with Apple and Android games starting  take a bite into the big three’s (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) sales, It looks like we have some very formidable alternatives to consider. Sure, they can’t play the big heavy hitting games like Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed or Battelfield, but that’s just for the time being. Give it a couple more years, and we will probably have an all new discussion about how portable can all consoles be. Either that or Apple will release something called the iGame (totally made that up), and then everyone is screwed. 

If you didn’t get a chance to participate in the Kickstarter for GameStick, you can at least pre-order the console over at the company’s website. 

GameStick Technical Specifications:

• Processor - Amlogic 8726-MX
• Memory - 1GB DDR3 / 8GB FLASH
• Content Download Manager w/ cloud storage for games.
• WiFi - 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth - LE 4.0
• O/S - Android Jelly Bean
• Controller - Bluetooth, 3 mode controller: gamepad, mouse and keyboard with support for up to 4 controllers.
• Full 1080p HD video decoding
• Support for XBMC & DLNA from Sept via optional firmware update.
• Support for iOS and Android mobile devices to be used as controllers

Producer Joel Silver is trying to get his live-action Ben 10 movie to the big screen, and he's hired another screenwriter to take a crack at the script. Up-and-coming writer Ryan Engle (Rampage) has landed the job, and he will work off the script previously written by Albert Torres (Akira).

I've watched a couple of episodes of Ben 10, and from what I've seen it looks like it could make for a fun kid's action movie. The story revolves around a character named Ben Tennyson, a boy that can transform into 10 different alien creatures with the help of a glovelike device called the Omnitrix. Silver previously talked about the film, explaining,

I think we have to try something fresh and go at it in a way that stays true to the original material. I have a 5-year-old and a 9-year-old, so it's somewhere between them. I tried to do (something similar) with Speed Racer and failed miserably. You always learn more from the ones that don't work than the ones that do work.

I personally don't think he failed with Speed Racer at all, that movie was freakin' awesome! I don't care what anyone says. The reason it failed was because of the poor marketing. I thought it was a perfect adaptation of the animated cartoon. 

I'm not really sure what to expect from a live-action Ben 10 film. I really don't have any expectations, so at this point it can't really disappoint me. 

Spring Breakers went out and got itself a new red-band trailer for you to watch. This is the movie in which we see see Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Korine, shed their good girl personas and go bad. It also looks like James Franco gives the craziest performance of his career, and this trailer focuses on that. The movie previously screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, and from what I've heard, it's a really good movie.

The story follows "four sexy college girls as they plan to fund their spring break getaway by burglarizing a fast food shack. But that's only the beginning... At a motel room rager, fun reaches its legal limit and the girls are arrested and taken to jail. Hungover and clad only in bikinis, the girls appear before a judge but are bailed out unexpectedly by Alien (James Franco), an infamous local thug who takes them under his wing and leads them on the wildest Spring Break trip in history. Rough on the outside but with a soft spot inside, Alien wins over the hearts of the young Spring Breakers, and leads them on a Spring Break they never could have imagined."

Spring Breakers hits theaters on March 15th in New York and Los Angeles, and then goes nationwide on March 22nd. The red-band trailer includes things you might expect to see in a red-band trailer.

Star Trek writers and producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are currently working on a new TV series based on the legend of Sleepy Hollow. Total Recall director Len Wiseman is set to direct the pilot.

Up until this point all we've known is that the series is going to be "a modern–day supernatural thriller based on the legend of Sleepy Hollow. It follows Ichabod Crane as he partners with Sleepy Hollow’s local female sheriff to solve the mysteries of a town ravaged by the battle between good and evil."

Some new information has come to light that you'll either think is really cool, or really stupid: there's an interesting sci-fi element added to the story. THR reports the show will feature a time-travel element, in which the 18th-century protagonist Ichabod Crane will somehow be transported to the present day, where he’ll be working with a detective. Here's the synopsis:

In the script, Ichabod is described as a captain in the Revolutionary War who has been to hell and back. The former history professor finds himself catapulted to present day Sleepy Hollow, where he's indicted for the murder of a police officer and forced to prove not only his innocence but make a wary detective believe he's a traveler from the 18th century.

It's also recently been reported that Orlando Jones (Evolution) has been cast in the series. He will play Lt. Frank Williams, a stern professional detective transferred to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a double homicide. Katia Winter (Dexter) was also cast as the wife of Ichabod Crane and a nurse with the 37th Regiment in the Revolutionary War.

I'm really curious to see what exactly this series is going to be like, but I think it could be cool. This sounds like a fun and different concept. 

Here's another really cool illustration from artsit Kizer Stone, featuring one of his first attempts at a Clone Trooper. I enjoy Stone's style, and I like how this one turned out. I'd like to see more Star Wars art from him!

Sketch that worked itself into a drawing somehow. This is also a combination of like two troopers in one because of my extreme lack of drawing anything Star Wars. lol! Had fun with this posed warrior on the battlefield though. Great time to strike one...don't you think. 

Mondo has released three great new posters in their Oscar series, this time for Les Miserables, ParaNorman and The Master. All the posters turned out great! My favorite is the ParaNorman print above. It was created by DKNG, it costs $45, and it comes in a limited edition of 275.

All posters will be available for sale during the awards show broadcast on Sunday, February 24th at MondoTees.com. Follow @MondoNews for the exact sale announce time.

THE MASTER - Artist: Laurent Durieux Size: 24 x 36 Edition: 385 Price: $55

LES MISERABLES - Artist: Olly Moss Edition: 380 Size: 24 x 36 Price: $50

About a year ago, we shared some classic movie posters that were given a fun zombie twist. Since then a few more zombie posters have popped up, and since there was a good reaction to the first set, I thought you'd want to see the new ones that artsit Matt Busch has created! To see the previously released posters, click here. A lot of these are really awesome, I hope you enjoy them!