David Tennant To Quit Doctor Who

David Tennant announced that he will quit as the title character in the BBC’s Doctor Who, after becoming one of the most popular Time Lords in the history of the BBC science fiction show, the BBC reported.

Tennant stepped into the Tardis in 2005 and will leave the role after four special episodes are broadcast next year.

Tennant made the announcement after winning the outstanding drama performance prize at the National Television Awards. “When Doctor Who returns in 2010 it won’t be with me,” he said. (Tennant speaks about his time on the venerable show in a video on the BBC Web site.)

Rumors have already begun as to who will play the next incarnation of the Doctor, including Paterson Joseph, David Morrisey, James Nesbitt and John Simm.

Tennant, the 10th actor to play the Doctor, left fans guessing about his return at the end of the latest season. In the last episode, which aired in the United Kingdom in July, the Doctor had to defeat his enemies, the Daleks, to save the universe. Almost 10 million people watched as the Time Lord apparently started the process of regeneration–but did not complete it.

Tennant will appear in a Christmas special, titled “The Next Doctor,” before filming four more specials in January.

Source: Scifi Wire

Preview – Iron Man: The End – Shipping November 5th

TC Games has a first look at Iron Man: The End – One Shot, shipping November 5th.

It’s the middle decades of the 21st century. After a lifetime fighting crime, corporate evil, and super-powered villainy as Iron Man, industrialist and inventor Tony Stark faces the biggest challenge ever: building the legacy he will leave humankind after he’s gone. But when his world-changing project comes under attack, Tony must fight espionage and super-villainy once more.. perhaps for the final time! The legendary Iron Man team of David Michelinie and Bob Layton teams with penciller Bernard Chang to tell the final story of Iron Man’s life!

Written by DAVID MICHELINIE & BOB LAYTON
Art by BERNARD CHANG & BOB LAYTON
Cover by BOB LAYTON

Click on the images below to see a larger version.

Sho’nuff! Samuel L. Jackson is in The Last Dragon

Samuel L. Jackson is set to star as the bad guy in Columbia Pictures’ remake of Berry Gordy’s 1985 cult classic The Last Dragon, says The Hollywood Reporter. Jackson will play Sho’nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, a role played in the original by the late Julius Carry.

“I’m a huge fan of the original and look forward to bringing Sho’Nuff into the 21st century,” Jackson said.

Writing the screenplay as well as producing is Dallas Jackson, who heads up the urban family label DJ Classicz with Davis. Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA is co-producing.

The updated plot will be along the same lines of the original, centering on young martial arts student Leroy Green in his quest through the streets of New York to achieve the highest level of martial arts accomplishment, known as the Last Dragon. Those who achieve the high ranking possess the Glow, making them the greatest fighter alive.

The project will take a new look at “Last Dragon” coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Motown next year. Davis Entertainment’s John Davis and Gordy’s son Kerry Gordy are producing.

Source:  GamersCircle Read more

WotC Ending Support For D&D Minis Skirmish Game

Wizards of the Coast will end support for its Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures skirmish game in the coming months, as it moves its D&D Miniatures from a separate game to acting only as accessories for the D&D RPG. In addition to changing the composition of the miniatures packages (see “D&D Minis Less Random”), a number of other changes will take place between now and the middle of 2009.

The next D&D Minis release, Demonweb in November, will be the last to include skirmish statistics. No further D&D Miniatures skirmish events will be officially sanctioned after D&D Experience in February. WotC will continue to update miniatures stats from previous sets to the current ruleset, to be completed by mid-2009.

D&D Sr. Brand Manager Scott Rouse explained the reasons for the moves in a follow-up post on the WotC Website. Sanctioned skirmish play began to decline in 2006, according to the post, a trend that the company had not been able to reverse. At the same time, rising costs were making the pricing on the mini packages as previously constituted untenable. So WotC sought a solution that reflected what the minis were being used for, and that would change the packages in a way that helped deal with pricing issues. The solution was new packaging that moved away from random packs (which allowed a higher price per mini while giving players more pieces they could use), and acknowledging that D&D Minis were primarily being used for roleplay support, rather than as a separate game.

The integration of D&D Minis and D&D RPG will involve content moving from the miniatures to the RPG. Character class powers from the power cards in the Players Handbook Heroes packs will be added to the databases on the D&D Insider Website, and may eventually be included in a D&D game book.

Rouse expressed regret at the ending of support for the skirmish game, along with the hope that it would continue at some level. “We hope to see skirmish play continue at the grassroots level, using the hundreds of miniatures produced for the game over the past six years and encouraged by the passionate fan sites that exist for the D&D Miniatures skirmish game,” he said.

Source: icv2.com

Empire: Total War – Special Forces Edition Announced

LONDON (28th October, 2008) – SEGA Europe Ltd. today announce that Empire: Total War™ will incorporate Steamworks™, a complete suite of publishing and development tools that offers PC game developers and publishers access to the game features and services available through Steam.

Steamworks will support both the retail and electronic versions of the Empire: Total War game giving players game updates, downloadable content, friend-list support and achievements. To play single-player Empire: Total War, players need only to connect to the internet once via the Steam client after installing the game.

Steamworks will serve as Empire: Total War’s multiplayer backend, providing server browsing and match-making functionality, bolstering Total War’s new level of commitment to multiplayer game modes and features. Further details on multiplayer will be announced soon.

SEGA is also pleased to announce the Special Forces Edition of Empire: Total War. This premium-packaged edition of the title offers true aficionados of the series the chance to build their empire with the help of a range of exclusive elite units and plot their next move on a detailed print of the globe-spanning Campaign Map.

”We are delighted to be working with an infrastructure as effective as Steam” said Mike Simpson, Studio Director at the Creative Assembly. “Having their matchmaking and support systems on board for Empire; Total War makes a huge difference both for players and for the development team. It not only helps make multiplayer slick and sizzling, it also frees up a huge chunk of the team’s time which helps make the whole game better.” Read more

What Superhero Are you? I Took The Test, So Can You!

It appears that I would be that lovable rogue Gambit….

Remy LeBeau wandered the world as he plied his skills as a master thief, aided by his mutant power to charge objects with explosive energy. He employed playing cards he charged with kinetic energy as his trademark weapon. At one point Remy had approached the master geneticist Mr. Sinister for help in controlling his powers. Sinister removed some of Remy’s brain tissue to reduce his power levels, thus affording him a greater degree of control. As a result, Remy was now in the geneticist’s debt, and Sinister subsequently charged the thief with assembling the team of assassins called the Marauders. Remy did not realize that Sinister would employ the Marauders to massacre the underground mutant community known as the Morlocks. Seeing the horrific results of his actions, Remy attempted to stop the massacre but was almost killed by the Marauder named Sabretooth. However, he did manage to save one young Morlock girl who would one day grow up to become the X-Man named Marrow. Read more

Joe Q on the Potential of a Comic Book Price Hike

There has been quite a bit of talk lately about the possibility of comic books hitting the four dollar price tag and based on message board chatter this would be a very unpopular move by Marvel Comics. During Week 29’s episode of MyCup o’Joe, Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada, addressed such things as the effect the current economy has on comics and the potential for a comic book price hike.

When asked how comic books were faring in the current economic struggles Joe had the following to say.
“Honestly…I don’t know. There’s an old adage that has circulated around the comics industry for many years that I’ve heard from many creators and editors that comics do their best during economic hard times. I’ll be honest with you: I have no empirical evidence that that is indeed true. I certainly hope so, but your guess is as good as mine. I’ve heard a lot of old adages about comics that weren’t even close to being true, some of which I’ve helped disprove myself. The one thing that I know about comics is that our fan base is ravenous. and they’ll do whatever they can to get their fix. But who knows how bad our economy will actually get? That’s the great unknown.”

Regarding the potential death of the $2.99 comic book Joe had the following to say which was not an admission that the price of comics will be rising but also not very encouraging.

“I think it’s safe to say that the rising costs of everything everywhere are forcing us to evaluate pricing on a series-by-series basis. There are many things that go into the pricing of the book, but the ultimate driving force is cost. This can come from many places, from the physical material of the comic, to the shipping and distribution, to the price of talent on a book.”

“Let me leave it at this. We’re doing everything we can to insure that the largest number of customers and retailers can continue to get a large majority of Marvel Comics at the standard $2.99 price.”

With a potential price hike to $3.99 and the current economy in turmoil I can plenty of comic book fans making some serious cutbacks to their monthly pull list.

What do you think? Are todays comics worth a $3.99 price tag?

Source: ComicNews.info

Orson Scott Card Returns With New ‘Ender’ Novel

Orson Scott Card returns to his bestselling series with a new Ender novel

“Ender in Exile” is the first direct sequel to Orson’s best selling book “Ender’s Game.” After twenty-three long years, “Ender in Exile” answers fans questions about “after battle school…the lost years”

At first, Ender believed that they would bring him back to Earth as soon as things quieted down. But things were quiet now, had been quiet for a year, and it was plain to him now that they would not bring him back at all, that he was much more useful as a name and a story than he would ever be as an inconvenient flesh-and-blood person.

At the close of “Ender’s Game,” Andrew Wiggin — called Ender by everyone — knows that he cannot live on Earth. He has become far more than just a boy who won a game: He is the Savior of Earth, a hero, a military genius whose allegiance is sought by every nation of the newly shattered Earth Hegemony.

He is offered the choice of living under the Hegemon’s control, a pawn in his brother Peter’s political games. Or he can join the colony ships and go out to settle one of the new worlds won in the war.

The story of those years on the colony worlds has never been told… until now.

The voyage was long. By the end of it, Val had finished the first volume of her history of the bugger wars and transmitted it by ansible, under Demosthenes’ name, back to Earth, and Ender had won something better than the adulation of the passengers. They knew him now, and he had won their love and their respect.

Ender was twelve when he chose to leave his home world and begin the long relativistic journey out to the colonies. With him went his sister, Valentine, and the core of the artificial intelligence that would become Jane. He wrote The Hive Queen and The Hegemon, and his sister wrote The Speaker for the Dead.

He served as governor of his first colony world, but now Ender is on the move, looking for a planet where the hive queens might be reestablished.

What he finds in the Ganges colony is more than he bargained for — a resentful governor who caused a devastating war on Earth and a brilliant young colonist who is out to destroy him, starting with his reputation and ending, perhaps, with his life.

---

Orson Scott Card is the internationally bestselling author of Ender’s Game. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Reviews:

“The novels of Orson Scott Card’s Ender series are an intriguing combination of action, military and political strategy, elaborate war games, and psychology.”
–USA TODAY

“You can’t step into the same river twice, but Card has gracefully dipped twice into the same inkwell-once for Ender’s Game, and again for his stand-alone ‘parallel novel.’… As always, everyone will be struck by the power of Card’s children, always more and less than human, perfect yet struggling, tragic yet hopeful, wondrous and strange.”
-Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Ender’s Shadow

“Ender’s Game is a fast-paced action/ adventure, but it is also a book with deep and complex moral sensibilities. Card constructed the book so that layers fold with immaculate timing, transforming an almost juvenile adventure into a tragic tale of the destruction of the only other sentient species man had discovered in the universe.”
-The Houston Post

“There aren’t too many recent SF novels we can confidently call truly moral works, but Speaker for the Dead is one. Full of careful characterization, intriguing scientific, especially anthropological, speculation, and a fictional challenge to our capacity to define humanity inclusively rather than exclusively, it’s a completely gripping story.”
-Toronto Star

“As a storyteller, Card excels in portraying the quiet drama of wars fought not on battlefields but in the hearts and minds of his characters.”
-Library Journal on Xenocide

“Card’s prose is powerful here, as is his consideration of mystical and quasi-religious themes. Though billed as the final Ender novel, this story leaves enough mysteries unexplored to justify another entry, and Card fans should find that possibility, like this novel, very welcome indeed.”
-Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Children Of The Mind

Source: Slice Of Scifi

xXx Rides Again With Vin Diesel Returning

Last month, it was announced that Columbia Pictures, producer Joe Roth, director Rob Cohen and Vin Diesel were reteaming for XXX: The Return of Xander Cage. Now, Collider says that Cohen has revealed target dates for shooting and the film’s release:

“Yes, they’re doing it with me and producer Joe Roth. We made the deal recently, it’s named xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. We met the writers yesterday and we’re trying to get into production by late spring, to have it out for the summer of 2010.”

The original xXx starred Vin Diesel, Leila Arcieri, Asia Argento, David Asman, Joe Bucaro III, and Marton Csokas. Read more

More News on Web Series ‘Angel Of Death’ Starring Zoe Bell

Newsarama has more information on ‘Angel of Death’, inclduding an interview with Ed Brubaker…

The last time we reported on Ed Brubaker’s Angel of Death live action, episodic story hitting Sony’s Crackle.com, it was during the hurly-burly of the San Diego Comic Con. Long story short, Brubaker, the current writer of Marvel’s Daredevil, Captain America and more, as well as his own Criminal (and the upcoming Incognito) as well as acclaimed runs on Batman and Catwoman and many more, is writing a story starring Zoe Bell as Eve, a hitwoman who suffers a traumatic head injury. Said injury leads to hallucinations and mental problems, leading Eve to conclude that the only way to end her suffering is to kill those who sent her forth to kill.

At the panel at San Diego, Brubaker was beside himself with excitement about the project, which was slated to begin production this fall. And – it’s actually happening. We spoke with Brubaker for more on where things stand with Angel of Death.

Newsarama: Ed, just to set the stage for the readers, we’re finally catching up after you being in LA for a while – as if the picture above isn’t enough, care to share what you were doing down there?

Ed Brubaker: I was on-set at the Angel of Death shoot for most of a week. I’d have stayed longer, but deadlines were calling. It was a lot of fun. The production is really coming together in a way I hadn’t thought possible for our budget. It’s really going to look fantastic, and Zoe Bell is going to be a huge star soon. Read more

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