GamersCircle

‘Captain Marvel’ Gets a Director

andy — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:23:17 +0000

Variety is reporting that Warner Bros. has signed Get Smart director Peter Segal to a three-year first look deal, which includes Segal directing a Captain Marvel film. Segal is currently working on a sequel to Get Smart for Warners. Segal will likely helm Liam McBain: International Tennis Star and Proper English Geezer before embarking on the Captain Marvel project.

But according to Variety, the Captain Marvel project was integral to signing Segal. Segal and his producing partner Michael Ewing began working on the Captain Marvel film two years ago at New Line. As part of the deal Warners has acquired the Captain Marvel script written by John August.

Actors’ union threatens to strike over Internet TV

andy — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:47:28 +0000

Another work stoppage by SAG could hit by January. Among other things, the TV actors now seek union protection for all Internet-only productions, regardless of budget.

Source

Doomsday Attacks The CW Tonight

andy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:49:18 +0000

For those that didn’t catch last weeks episode of Smallville, Doomsday will be duking it out with Clark Kent tonight!

Source

Lich King Expansion Sells Record 2.8 Million On Launch Day

andy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:02:09 +0000

The second World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, sold 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours — making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time, Blizzard says. The company also claims the previous record — 2.4 million copies sold on the January 2007 launch day of The Burning Crusade, WoW’s first expansion. Wrath of the Lich King received a simultaneous global launch in North America, Europe, Chile, Argentina, and Russia .

Source

Twilight Sells Out 2,000 Showings (Including 600 Midnight Showings)

andy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:28:41 +0000

Did you hear? A small film called Twilight is coming out this Friday. Despite my own feelings on the movie and subject matter, I knew when I went to Twilight’s Comic Con this year amidst the massive throng of screaming women that this film would be a huge success. When I saw the film this past Tuesday night, one could easily tell that the excitement for this film from the mom/teen demographic was approaching a fevered pitch.

According to Variety, Summit Entertainment’s new teen vampire flick, Twilight, has already sold out almost 2,000 showings, 600 of them midnight showings. Other sites like Collider are also reporting that Twilight accounts for a whopping 94% of Fandango.com’s daily ticket sales. Moreover, Twilight has broken into Fandango.com’s Top 10 Advance Ticket-Sellers list, beating out previous hits such as Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Spider Man 3, and Sex and the City (Don’t worry though, /Film readers: The Dark Knight is still still safely ensconed at #2…for now.) Here’s the full list as of today:

1. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

2. The Dark Knight

3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

5. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

6. Hannah Montana 3D

7. Twilight

8. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

9. Spider-Man 3

10. Sex and the City

Source

Bungie Advises Against Installing Halo 3

andy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:50:33 +0000

In the weeks leading up to today’s release of the New Xbox Experience, reports circulated on the impact of installing games to the hard drive. While most games a modest decrease in load times, Halo 3, strangely, was performing worse than it did when running off the DVD. Installing to the hard drive requires that you insert the disc of the game you want to play into the DVD drive for the purpose of verifying you actually own the game. The game disc, however, isn’t spinning like usual, so even if loading times weren’t impacted, you wouldn’t have to hear that noisy disc drive while you played.

As it turns out, those reports weren’t erroneous. Bungie is advising people to not install Halo 3 to their hard drive, as internal tests have shown that doing so can increase load times. Because of that, there’s the concern that increasing load times will negatively impact multiplayer games. Longer load times slow down the process of actually getting into games, which means people will begin quitting, which results in more waiting or in lame, unbalanced games.

The technical explanation of what’s causing this is fairly complicated. The full explanation can be found here, but essentially the reason is that Halo 3 already makes use of the hard drive in order to speed up load times by temporarily caching data. Even though the game is now located on the hard drive, it doesn’t know that, so it does the same process but is unable to simultaneously read the data from the hard drive and write to the drive.

Source

Avatar Clothing Packs Inbound

andy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:33:19 +0000

Those of you enjoying the New Xbox Experience may well be a little disappointed at the ammount of clothing options available for your Avatar. Well videogaming247 has received confirmation that over the next 6 months there will be a constant stream of new options.

Xbox Live product unit manager Jerry Johnson has confirmed that Avatar clothing will be constantly streaming onto the New Xbox Experience for the next half a year.

“We’re going to be continually releasing and unlocking clothes for the next six months,” he said. “They’ll be coming out in theme packs.”
There’s no word right now on whether or not you’re going to have to pay for this stuff, but don’t be hugely shocked if you will. NXE is now live! Go get it!

Score 1 for the Zombies

andy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:29:54 +0000

In February, Capcom was sued by a film company that claimed Dead Rising ripped off Dawn of the Dead. Now comes news that a judge has dismissed the case:

Last month, United States Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg granted Capcom’s motion to dismiss the suit, saying that The MKR Group (the producer’s company) “has not identified any similarity between Dead Rising and any protected element of Dawn of the Dead. Rather, the few similarities MKR has alleged are driven by the wholly unprotectable concept of humans battling zombies in a mall during a zombie outbreak.”

PC Magazine Goes Out Of Print

andy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:18:59 +0000

PC Magazine Goes Out Of Print — Founded in 1982 and at times so rich with ads its issues reached as many as 600 pages, Ziff Davis’s PC Magazine will issue its last print edition this January, thereafter becoming an online-only publication. Ziff Davis, which recently exited bankruptcy will lay off seven print production employees.

Source

Sony-Owned Columbia Pictures Pulls Movies From Xbox Netflix

andy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:13:13 +0000

All Columbia Pictures movies have been pulled from the Xbox Live version of Netflix, following the launch of the New Xbox Experience dashboard update. Columbia Pictures is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment, but the move does not appear to be malicious on the part of Sony executives — all movies distributed by Sony Pictures still remain accessible through the service.

Source

New Xbox Experience Gets Branded Destination Pages: First Screen!

andy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:09:33 +0000

The New Xbox Experience launched today, providing a new interface for the much-ballyhooed Xbox 360 Dashboard. However, it seems that more than the interface is changing. Now, publishers will be able to purchase (we presume they’re purchased, anyway) branded pages on the New Xbox Experience. These pages, which act as all-in-one collections of game content and information, are going to be called Branded Destination Experiences. As it turns out, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for Xbox Live Arcade will the first game to be featured in the New Xbox Experience, Capcom announced today.

Launching tomorrow, the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix “Branded Destination Experience” will provide a central hub for Xbox Live Arcade gamers to learn about new content, view the latest trailers and access downloadable content (picture packs, a Basic theme and a Premium Theme). In essence, this is a Capcom-branded storefront similar to what the company did on the PS3’s PlayStation Store last week.

The new Street Fighter Premium Theme will feature extensive high-definition graphical layers that take over users’ Dashboard.

Age of Conan Upgrading to DirectX 10 Soon

andy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:06:47 +0000

According to a post by director Craig Morrison, Age of Conan is finally just about ready for the DirectX 10 treatment. The fantasy MMO was one of the earliest public supporters of DirectX 10, until the feature was suddenly delayed at the last minute this May.

Morrison had the following to say about the upcoming addition of DirectX 10 support:

“We are now preparing to take the DirectX 10 version of the game from our internal testing servers out to the public test servers, so you can see it for yourselves. The next major game update will include this version of the game and make it available for everyone with the appropriate hardware to enjoy. Since the outset we have been determined that the new DirectX 10 functionality would not just be a ‘gimmick’ addition to the game and would add visual quality to the game, we feel that the version we are preparing now for testing does achieve this and in a way that will find the right balance between visuals and performance. We have also gone to great lengths to try and make virtually all the DirectX 10 features customizable so that you can find the right balance between features for the performance level of your hardware. What we did not want to do was push this version out too early and not see the real added benefits this technology can bring. I am really looking forward to players getting to experience some of the new visual improvements that this new technology allows. It really brings an even further splendor to the game world.”

If Age of Conan’s visuals weren’t quite jaw-dropping enough to keep you from going back to World of Warcraft, then this DirectX 10 update might be worth keeping on your radar. It’ll be especially interesting to see if this graphical overhaul is merely an isolated incident, or if any of the other games vying for your monthly subscription fee elect to update their graphics engines in order to remain visually competitive.

Source

Narnia Scripters Named for Captain America Movie

andy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:37:15 +0000

Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely are being named as scribes for “The First Avenger: Captain America.” Markus and McFeely worked on “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and its sequel, “Prince Caspian.”

Source

Stan Lee Gets National Medal of Arts

andy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:36:18 +0000

Stan Lee was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President and Mrs. Bush in the East Room at the White House on Monday. The Medal awards are managed by the National Endowment for the Arts; recipients are selected “based on their contributions to the creation, growth, and support of the arts in the United States.”

Lee, 85, was one of nine recipients; others included actress Olivia de Havilland and jazz musician Hank Jones.

Comics Up 9% Over 2007

andy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:35:33 +0000

Comic dollars sold in to comic stores were up a robust 9% in October over the same month in 2007, although it appears to us that October may have been a five week month for Diamond shipping. Still, September and October were the first up months for comic sales since January, so periodical comics appear to be a bright spot in an otherwise dismal economy.

The gains weren’t in circulations at the top of the chart, where most titles were down. But ten of the top 25 books were $3.99 this October, compared to only two $3.99 books in October of 2007, so price increases are certainly a factor. Another is strength at the bottom of the chart, where the #300 title clocked over 4,200 copies, vs. just 3,000 copies for the #300 title a year ago.

Sales on the top 100 graphic novels were up 5% vs. the same group in October of 2007, for an overall 8% increase in dollars in the top 300 comics and top 100 graphic novels combined.

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