It seems that the Byran Singer directed re-make of John Boorman’s Excalibur won’t move forward. The project has been dropped as another King Arthur project, also named Excalibur, was ready to move forward before Singer could get to work on his, so his got dropped.

The other Excalibur? Directed by Guy Ritchie. Okay, that’s kind of neat. And written my WARREN holy-mother-fuckin’-cool ELLIS. I’m trippin’ balls on this.

And while I would very interested in seeing Singer re-make Boorman, I’m more interested in seeing him re-make Larson.

See, apparently dropping Excalibur means that the next project on Singer’s menu is a “re-imagining” of Battlestar Galactica. Not a remake of the recent series, but a remake of the original from 1978. Very cool. I’m assuming this is going in a totally different direction than the Ronald Moore production. It better.

Unless Singer wants to re-do the finale, because I’d be all for that.

According to leaked information from an upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly, Marvel movies in the pipe include Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Inhumans. Of those, the one I’m both most excited for and dreading the most is the Guardians of the Galaxy.

I was a big fan of the comic when it was running. Granted, I only bought the collections, so maybe I was part of the problem, but I was very sad when it disappeared. I didn’t really follow the Thanos Imperative, because while it kind of continued the Guardians, without Starlord there really is no Guardians.

Now it looks like Marvel is banking that the concept that couldn’t keep a comic running will make a profitable movie. I truly hope so, and I also truly hope that they look at the Guardians series for their story and characters.

Unfortunately, though, it looks like they will go back to the original Guardians concept, which I have absolutely no stake in and could not care less about. I am not surprised by this, given how much Hollywood hates me.

By the way, when is someone going to give me my Immortal Iron Fist movie starring Ray Park? When?

Read the leaked information here.

Read the Wikipedia article on the cool Guardians of the Galaxy here.

Holy *expletive deleted* I’m in Black Gate!

Listen, there are very few professional venues for heroic fiction, let alone something like Sword Noir fiction, so when John O’Neill—Black Gate’s editor—bought one of my stories, I was thrilled. Now that story has seen the light of day in Black Gate 15, a copy of which arrived in my mailbox today.

Here’s the thing about Black Gate—it’s much more a short story collection or anthology than a fiction journal. By that I mean it’s big, huge in fact—issue 15 clocks in at 384 pages and boasts 21 stories plus regular features. That’s a lot of heroic fiction. Unfortunately, it looks like Black Gate might be moving to an annual format, as the note with issue 15 indicated the next issue would be Spring 2012. Issue 15, as one might guess, is the Spring 2011 issue.

Still, annual is better than never! And that just gives all of you a little extra time to go buy Black Gate 15. The story “A Pound of Dead Flesh” was consciously a Sword Noir story, so pretty cool that it’s coming out a couple of months after the game it helped to inspire.

By way of introduction to the story, imagine Vorenus and Pullo from HBO’s Rome caught up in criminal machinations in my version of the Roman Empire—let’s call it the Aeolean Empire. An old “friend” hooks them into an easy gig that turns out—surprise surprise—to be not so easy.

I guess you could call it Sword & Sandal Noir. And yet a new genre emerges!

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Check out Sword Noir: A Role-playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery.

Go buy more Sword Noir fiction with For Simple Coin: Four Tales of Sword Noir.

You really should watch HBO’s Rome.

Oh, and in case you didn’t get the hint up there . . . go buy Black Gate 15.

Dune is dead. Long live Dune!

There have been a few directors attached to Paramount’s planned new adaptation of Dune, and there have been a few scripts. I met some of the announcements with cautious optimism, but most with outright pessimism. That does not matter now. What matters is Paramount’s option to the property is running out, and the reason they are going to give up on it is simply the money.

The production would likely have cost over $100 million.

It’s hard to argue that $100 mill is a hell of a bid for a gamble of this magnitude. David Lynch’s Dune, which I enjoyed—and I saw it before I read the book—failed to make money. I suppose the SyFy mini-series made some bank, because they filmed a sequel, but big budget is closer to David Lynch’s foray than the mini-series. We’re talking some major cake.

And, frankly, do we need another Dune movie? I really don’t think so. I don’t think a single movie can do it justice. Two or three movies, with significant budgets? Possibly. But there is never a guarantee of quality.

I’m not terribly sorry this adaptation of Dune is being buried. Let’s try something new, shall we, Hollywood?

And so, the date for 3D Phantom Menace is 10 February 2012. While this is not the date of the Mayan apocalypse, perhaps it should be.

While I doubt this will be an apocalypse, there is no way Lucas is going to get me to put any more money down on the prequel trilogy. However, if we expect one movie a year, that puts Star Wars (you can’t make me write A New Hope, there is no way I’ll . . . never mind) coming out around 2015. My eldest will be 8 and my youngest will be 6.

Yup, I see a family event taking place.

Let me take my two girls to see Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back on the big screen, and I will forgive all else, Mr. Lucas. All. Else.

If you care, the announcement is here.

I saw the article about an unsold pilot for Lost in Space directed by John Woo, so I had to go check it out. Much like Blackjack (for the love of sanity, won’t somebody please think of the Woo-fans?), it not only failed to impress, it failed to hold my attention longer than 5 minutes. Total cardboard cut-out opening, with nothing to distinguish it.

Starring as the young Judy Jets . . . er Robinson was an actress whose name I had heard but knew nothing about. Adrienne Palicki.

And then it turns out she’s going to be the new Wonder Woman for the David E. Kelley NBC series.

Weird how these intersections work.

I can’t say that she looks the part of Wonder Woman, at least not to me. Wonder Woman is the product of a warrior society, and perhaps the finest warrior from that society. She is also a diplomat and a kind of royalty. That’s a pretty tough job. I honestly don’t know who I would want for the role—maybe Gina Torres—but Ms. Palicki certainly isn’t it. Maybe they’ve got her on a massive training regime that is going to buff her up before filming. Who knows.

Also? Everything I’ve read about the Wonder Woman TV series leads me to believe it should suffer the same fate as that Lost in Space revival—disappear for six years only to surface on YouTube—to no acclaim.

If you want to read about the John Woo Lost in Space project, go here.

If you want to read about the new Wonder Woman, go here.

I will not Google image search for you.

Oh please, baby Jebus, no.

The horror. The horror.

Rumours have hit the Intartubdules that Keanu Reeves has spoken of two more Matrix movies, written and directed by the Wachowskis. Now, this is basically a: “I heard it from a guy I barely know who said he was there when . . .” so this is weak as even Internet rumours go, but I felt it my solemn duty to warn you so you could be prepared.

Now excuse me while I go start digging the foundations of the bunker in which I will protect my family and my RPG books when the final horseman comes.

UPDATE: Are we at all shocked to hear that this rumour is, in fact, false? Not totally shocked, no. Relieved? Hells yeah.

Now what do I do with that big hole in my front yard?

That new Alien movie? The one directed by Ridley Scott? Well, it’s still a go. That’s good. It’s not going to be an Alien move though. That’s bad. It’s apparently going to have the themes and atmosphere of the Alien franchise. That’s good. It’s going to be called Prometheus. That’s . . . I guess that’s good.

Other than that, it’ll apparently star Noomi Rapace, the new hot property in Hollywood by way of Sweden’s film version of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels. She’s also set to be in Sherlock Holmes 2 (I really hope it gets a better name than that). I’m pretty meh about that, but I await actual proof—like her performance in SH2—before passing final judgment.

So basically we have an SF directed by Ridley Scott on the way. That is cool, but that means if we see more of the Aliens franchise, it’ll likely be as messy with second- to third-rate directors before becoming a straight to video disaster.

I guess the frogurt is cursed.

So there are a bunch of actresses up for the female lead in the Alien prequel. Some of the names include Natalie Portman and a bunch of other people.

I vote for Natalie Portman.

Listen, I’m sure everyone else is an outstanding actress. They are all varying levels of hot, from extremely to eyesocket burningly. But, c’mon, it’s Natalie Portman!

We know she can act. We know she can do action. And just envision her in a soaking undershirt.

See? I was right, right?

Anyway, I’ll be in my bunk. Don’t forget, Natalie Portman for Presi . . . for the lead role in the prequel.

In case you actually want to consider others for the role (you are dead to me), the article is here.

Apparently, and I don’t know how much weight to put on this, the Alien prequel script has leaked. I actually haven’t read the synopsis or followed the link to the more detailed article, but I’ve linked to both below.

I can’t say I’m excited by this. The last to ventures into the Alien universe (those would be Alien Vs. Predator and AVP2) really sucked ass. I mean, they sucked so much they cleaned colons, stomachs, entire gastrointestinal tracts.

Now, this one has Ridley Scott, who did such great work with Alien. And I am one of the people who actually enjoyed Alien Resurrection (that would be IV), so I figure if it is a straight ahead Alien movie made by the original Alien director, it can’t be all that bad.

Then again, it certainly can. I love Ridley Scott . . . most of the time. He’s honestly hit and miss. And if the script doesn’t have depth, he’s not a director to add it. Visuals? Stunning. But he needs to work with a good script and good actors.

Let’s hope he gets both for the prequel.

You can read the synopsis here.

The full article is here.