Grimm Fairy Tales: Neverland...

Click image to enlarge...

'Neverland' was once a magical paradise until it fell under the spell of 'Pan'...

Must Be The Season Of The "Witchblade"...

Click images to enlarge...

A quiet weekend in New England turns to mystery as 'Sara' and 'Gleason' are pulled into another supernatural situation.

"Witchblade", published by Top Cow Productions, an imprint of Image Comics, was created by Top Cow editors Marc Silvestri and David Wohl, writers Brian Haberlin, Christina Z, and artist Michael Turner.

The series follows the lives of two women in New York City, 'Sara Pezzini' and 'Danielle Baptiste'.

Sara is an NYPD homicide detective who comes into possession of the 'Witchblade', a supernatural, sentient artifact with immense destructive and protective powers. The weapon has bonded with various women throughout history, Danielle being the most recent. Others who have come into contact with the Witchblade include Cleopatra and Joan of Arc.

Sara struggles to hone the powers of the Witchblade and fend off those with a nefarious interest in it, including entrepreneur 'Kenneth Irons'.

"Witchblade" was adapted into a 2-season Toronto-lensed TV series in 2001-2002, starring actress Yancy Butler as Sara.

A new live-action feature, based on the comic book series continues in active development, to be directed by Michael "Queen Of The Damned" Rymer, from a screenplay by Everett De Roche.

Top Cow's Silvestri and Matt Hawkins will executive produce with Platinum Studios' Rich Marincic and Greenberg Group's Randy Greenberg...

Abrams Toys With Hasbro's "Micronauts"...

Click images to enlarge...

Director J.J. "Star Trek" Abrams is interested in producing a film adaptation of the Japanese action figure line 'Micronauts', recently acquired by toy maker Hasbro.

Debuting in Japan in 1974, the plastic/metal 'Micronaut' 3. 75 inch action figures were released in North America by the Mego Corporation.

Pallisades Toys picked up the toy line in 2002, following a succession of "Micronauts" comic books published by Marvel, Image and Devil's Due Publishing.

According to the first Marvel comic book, the Micronauts originate in the 'Microverse, a microscopic series of habitats linked together in the fashion of molecule chains.

The original team comes together in response to the threat posed by former academic and now dictator, 'Baron Karza'.

'Commander Arcturus Rann' (returning from a thousand-year deep space voyage in suspended animation) and 'Biotron', his robot co-pilot, land on the 'HMS' (Homeworld Micro Ship) "Endeavor," to discover Karza has removed the royal family, who are Rann's parents.

What follows is an epic war across the Microverse: Rann and his allies against Karza.

In addition to Biotron, Rann's team includes 'Princess Mari' of Homeworld, who, with her brother, 'Prince Argon', are the only survivors of the royal family. Known to the team as 'Marionette', she falls in love with Rann, and sometimes leads the team.

The warriors 'Acroyear' and 'Bug' also join Rann's cause, one a noble warrior prince and the other a joking 'insectoid'. The last member of the original team is 'Microtron', Mari's robot tutor.

Trapped on Earth, the team returns to the Microverse. After a series of battles against Karza and his genetically engineered armies of soldiers, the Micronauts triumph and Karza is destroyed.

Rann is able to claim victory with possession of the 'Enigma Force', a semi-sentient power that bonded with him during his period of suspended animation, enabling him to perform super feats.

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Micronauts" in a Japanese and American commercial...

Goyer In Gear For "Ghost Rider 2"...

Click images to enlarge...

Writer/director David "Blade" Goyer is drafting a screenplay for Marvel's "Ghost Rider 2", following the 2007 feature's worldwide box office take of $228,738,393.

Actor Nic Cage will return in a 'darker' interpretation of flaming skull-head 'Johnny Blaze', a former stunt motorcyclist who morphs into a demon vigilante, in a 'darker' interpretation of the character.

Goyer said the new film will not be a 'reboot', but a serious sequel, picking up eight years after the first film, in an "existential place."

In the original film, Cage rode a Buell motorcycle for Blaze's stunt cycle and a heavily customized hardtail chopper named 'Grace' that transformed into the 'Hell Cycle'.

"Ghost Rider" debuted in Marvel Comics "Marvel Spotlight" #5 (Aug. 1972), created by editor Roy Thomas, writer Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog.

Sneak Peek "Ghost Rider"...

Jennifer Beals: "The Night Before The Night Before Christmas"...

Click image to enlarge...

Actress Jennifer "Flashdance" Beals, the former star of Vancouver-lensed "The L Word", is back in Canada to headline the Toronto-filmed, Hallmark Channel original movie "The Night Before the Night Before Christmas."

The family film focuses on 'Santa Claus' who accidentally leaves the North Pole a day early, only to crash-land on a family's roof.

Currently shooting in Toronto, the film is set to premiere in 2010 on the Hallmark Channel...

Sony Taking A Calculated "Risk"...

Click images to enlarge...

Sony Pictures have acquired motion picture rights to the Hasbro board game "Risk".

According to Columbia Pictures' Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, the film will be produced/developed by Hasbro’s Brian Goldner, Bennett Schneir and Overbrook Entertainment's James Lassiter.

"Risk" invented in 1957 by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse as 'La Conquête du Monde' (The Conquest of the World) was published in the US in 1959 as the first board game to offer 'nonlinear movement'.

The 'turn-based' game for two to six players is played on a board depicting a stylised Napoleonic-era political map of the Earth, divided into forty-two territories, grouped into six continents.

Players control armies with which they attempt to capture territories from other players.

The primary object of the game is "world domination," or "to occupy every territory on the board and in so doing, eliminate all other players."

Hopkins Is "Hemingway" ...

Click images to enlarge...

Actor/producer/director Andy "Godfather 3" Garcia has signed actor Anthony "Silence Of The Lambs" Hopkins and Annette "Bugsy" Bening to star with him in "Hemingway and Fuentes," based on a screenplay he wrote with Hemingway's grand daughter Hilary.

The drama will follow the last 20 years of the Nobel/Pulitzer prize winning author, living in Cuba, fishing giant marlin aboard his modified, 34-foot Wheeler Playmate craft 'El Pilar', alongside his best friend, boat captain 'Gregorio Fuentes'. During that time, Hemingway fell in love with an Italian woman, that inspire him to write the classic short novel "The Old Man and the Sea."

Garcia will play Fuentes and Bening will play the author's third wife, 'Mary Welsh Hemingway'.

Fuentes, who died at the age of 104 years old, as opposed to Hemingway, who died at the age of 61, was the inspiration for the character 'Santiago', the protagonist in "The Old Man and the Sea".

Hemingway met Fuentes in 1928, and in the 1930's hired him to care for 'El Pilar'. Fuentes later inherited the boat and donated it to the Cuban government, which displays it outside Hemingway's former home, now a museum on the outskirts of Havana.

After moving back to the US at the height of the Cuban/Castro hysteria, Hemingway killed himself with a double-barreled, 12-gauge shotgun. Initial reports said he 'accidentally' shot himself after cleaning the gun, even though he was an expert on firearms. His body was found by his wife Mary.

Garcia will produce "Hemingway and Fuentes" for executive producer Mark Amin of Sobini Films, with Garcia's CineSon and Paradigm Motion Picture Finance Group currently shopping the package to foreign distributors....