The Nightly Nerdlinger News, Weekend Edition 2 (updated)

I am Legend Trailer, now up!

30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night trailer now up. It's BIG. This should be a good movie, fans of the graphic novel have been waiting a while for it to come out. Vampires above the artic circle, nights that last a month, isolated town, last of the vampires, Sam Raimi produced and David Slade directing? Oh Yeah, gimme more of that. Main site of the film is here.

Death: The High Cost of Living

Superherohype reports:
While doing press for the release of the film adaptation of Stardust, writer Neil Gaiman talked to ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! about the status of his directorial debut, an adaptation of his Death: The High Cost of Living comics from Vertigo."Everything is moving, slowly, but it's moving... Guillermo del Toro is executive producing, which is a wonderful thing... and I'm actually planning on going out to Prague very, very soon to do some stuff with Guillermo on 'Death.' I think it definitely seems like it's going to happen.""Death" involves a teenager named Sexton who's been contemplating suicide. He is rescued by a mysterious teenager who claims she is Death herself, spending one day every 100 years on earth to learn the value of the lives she takes.The film takes place over 24 hours as Sexton learns to love life by spending a day with Death.

Hellboy 2 news

ShockTillYouDrop.com pointed [superherohype] to this thread [at deltorofilms] where Guillermo del Toro has posted an update on the filming of Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, revealed that Danny Elfman will do the score and that the sequel will have 30 or more creatures, compared to eight in the first film:

We JUST finished the first day of shooting...Danny Elfman IS going to score HELLBOY II and I feel privileged. I have worked with Marco Beltrami many times and will work with him soon enough but I believe we will have a beautiful score with Elfman, whom I admire greatly (in fact the "Title sequence" music cue had the "Ta-de-dum-ta-de-dum" rhythm by explicit request by me in an atempt to make it kind of Elfmanesque) and with whom I share a dark view of the world.

In the first HELLBOY film we had about 8 creatures (total, between CGI and animatronics/prosthetics) but in this one we have around 30 or more and the emphasis is still heavily on a 50% 50 % balance with CGI as enhancemnet or as a choice but not THE choice." The Golden Army" hits theaters on August 1, 2008.

Vermsnote: What a combination, Mignola, Del Toro and Elfman. Epic.

The Losers win

Leaving behind the world of superheroes, Tim Story is set to direct the bigscreen adaptation of DC-Vertigo's gritty comicbook "The Losers" for Warner Bros.
Studio has hired Jamie Vanderbilt to adapt Andy Diggle's comicbook, working from a first draft by Peter Berg.
Berg and Weed Road's Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster are producing. Also producing is Sarah Aubrey, Berg's partner at Film 44, and John Cameron, who brought the project to Film 44.
Film will center around a small band of elite and highly trained commandos who are set up to to be killed by their own government. They set out to avenge the wrong, as well as avenge other injustices.
"The Losers" was published by DC Comics imprint Vertigo in the 1970s. Strip was revived several years.
Story's feature adaptation will be set in contemporary times, with the special ops team carrying out missions around the world before the members are left for dead. Flying under the radar, they return and move around the U.S.
"I'm a big fan of the edge of war movies like 'Black Hawk Down' or 'Band of Brothers,' and this has some of that. I was looking for a vehicle that would have that edge, but I didn't want to lose my personality, which is a bit tongue-and-cheek, where the characters have a little fun with each other," Story told Daily Variety.
"I haven't made a movie in the real world since 'Barbershop,' because I've been locked into the superhero fantasy world," he says.
Berg originally penned the script with an eye to direct, but is instead helming "Tonight, He Comes."
Story's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" opens June 15. Second installment in the Fox franchise comes two years after Story's 2005 "Fantastic Four."

Source: Variety

Vermsnote: The Losers was a great silver age war comic and it's revival by Vertigo was gritty and compelling, this might just be good.

Watchmen Casting

Zack Snyder, who is directing a live-action adaptation of Alan Moore's Watchmen, told MTV.com that he'll find a place in it for his 300 star Gerard Butler, though Butler himself has said he may be too busy to do it. "Yeah, we'll find a spot for him," Snyder told the site at June 3's MTV Movie Awards. "

They'll let him [off the other sets for a while]; he's not going to get out that easy." Snyder has said he will remain true to Moore's classic graphic novel, about superheroes investigating a murder of one of their own. As for rumors that Jude Law, Keanu Reeves and Patrick Wilson had been offered roles, Snyder was noncommittal. "You know what? I would say 'No,' but then you'd call me later and go like, 'Dude, what are you doing?'" Snyder said with a laugh. "I don't know who's leaking this stuff, but they're good."

Snyder is finishing the Watchmen script. "At the beginning of the movie there's a character called the Comedian," Snyder said of the ill-fated former hero whose murder begins the story. "He gets in a fight with a guy that we don't know who it is, and [the Comedian] gets thrown out a window. That's what I'm working on right now, and it's pretty intense." Snyder added: "[We'll be shooting] up in Canada, starting in September. ... [We'll be shooting] real soon."
Source: Sci-Fi Wire

Vermsnote: Some good choices here, especially Keanu, he understands comics and this type of film so he'll do it justice I think, depending on his role. Dr Manhatten would be a bad choice.

Masters of Science Fiction

ABC will finally air episodes of Masters of Science Fiction in a four-week run starting Aug. 4, Zap2it.com reported. From the same producers as Showtime's Masters of Horror, the anthology series was initially considered a mid-season show; ABC ordered six episodes, but now plans to air only four in the death timeslot, Saturdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT. There's no word yet on which four installments will air. The hourlong shows feature adaptations of stories by such SF masters as Robert A. Heinlein and Harlan Ellison, as well as Walter Mosley. Actors taking part include Terry O'Quinn (ABC's Lost), John Hurt (V for Vendetta), Anne Heche, Judy Davis, Sam Waterston and Malcolm McDowell (NBC's Heroes), the site reported.

Source: Zap2it by way of Sci-fi Wire

Vermsnote: Finally! Some really great actors associated with this sadly truncated series. Anyone who's watched Masters of Horror knows this series is made for fans of the books the episodes are based on. I hear that H.G. Wells is also one of the authors.