Despite fears that Jodie Foster’s quirky comedy drama The Beaver would be left to gather dust on a shelf somewhere following Mel Gibson’s very public personal relations malfunction earlier this year, the film has been picked up by Summit Entertainment, and is now scheduled for release next spring in the US.

Apparently inspired by a rather strange sequence in Tony Scott’s The Last Boy Scout, in which Bruce Willis distracts a large group of heavily-armed bad guys with a furry glove puppet before executing them all, The Beaver stars Gibson as a middle-aged depressive who finds redemption through the furry creature of the title.

Jodie Foster’s first film as director since 1995‘s comedy-drama Home For The Holidays, The Beaver has one of the most intriguing premises we’ve heard for some time - and the word is, the script’s well written, too - but watching the trailer, two questions immediately spring to mind: one, what accent is the beaver meant to be speaking in, and two, will anyone pay to see a Gibson movie again?



Deadline

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

With all the vehicles, locations and zany characters the Back To The Future property affords, it’s surprising that it’s taken so long for the games industry to revisit the adventures of Marty McFly and Doc Brown. To tie in with the first movie’s 25th anniversary, developer Telltale has come up with a series of five BTTF-flavoured episodic adventures.

Set six months after the events of Back To The Future III, new voice actor AJ LoCascio will stand in for Michael J Fox as Marty, while Christopher Lloyd returns to provide the voice of Doc Brown.

Back To The Future: The Game will be available for a plethora of platforms, including PC, iPad, Mac and PlayStation 3, with Wii and Xbox 360 versions yet to be announced. The first episode is due to appear this month, with the remaining four released at regular intervals from February next year.

You can pre-order Back To The Future: The Game at Telltale’s website here

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

In a modern era where even television commercials feature expensive-looking CG effects, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for filmmakers to give audiences a genuine sense of awe with mere special effects alone. Call us jaded, but the last time we expressed genuine amazement at the cinema was over the staggering price of popcorn. That, and that extraordinary sequence where the city folded itself in half in Inception.

From the footage we’ve seen so far, Battle: Los Angeles looks as though it may be next year’s equivalent of Christopher Nolan's hit - in terms of pure eye-candy, at least, rather than for its imaginative flights of fancy. It’s alien invasion scenario may be a mind-numbingly familiar one (though, in fairness, you really can’t beat a good alien invasion movie), but in terms of action and sheer scale, Battle: Los Angeles looks genuinely enthralling.

Add the great Aaron Eckhart into the mix, as a foot soldier who views the unfolding invasion at street level, and you’ve got the ingredients for a great sci-fi blockbuster. This second trailer doesn’t give us goosebumps in quite the way the excellent first one did, but Battle: Los Angeles is still one film we can’t wait to see.

Battle: Los Angeles is due to arrive in cinemas on 25 March 2011.

IO9

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

After the success of the original Toy Story, both in terms of the sheer amount of money it made, and the critical response it notched up, it’s fair to say that all eyes were on Pixar, to see just what the hardly-fledgling animation studio would come up with for its second full-length feature. The answer was, of course, A Bug’s Life, a charmingly overlooked tale, with more than a little subtext to it.

I’m something of a fan of A Bug’s Life, and it’s arguably the forgotten Pixar film. Yet even those who strangely seem to have shoved the film out of their head tend to remember what I’m going to briefly talk about here. We’re going to look at the bloopers.

I distinctly remember searching out a screening of A Bug’s Life with the bloopers attached, as word of mouth about them spread. And as much as I like the film itself, and I really do, I do distinctly recall walking out of the cinema, grinning from ear to ear at the genius of what Pixar had just run over the end credits. It’s yet another addition to the list of reasons as to why Pixar is quite the firm that it is. And when you sit down and consider the work involved in doing what it did, it’s quite incredible.

After all, when some bright spark at Pixar first came up with the idea of spoof bloopers, it was at a point where the firm was in a very different place to now. Pixar, at this point in time, could announce it was going to release a 90 minute film about a pot of jam, and the world would explode with glee. Off the back of the original Toy Story, the pressure really was on, with DreamWorks adding to it by shifting the release of Antz forward to before that of A Bug’s Life. And yet Pixar still dedicated time to the end credits bloopers. That’s some gamble, and one that richly paid off for my money.

Just take a look at them to see why...

It can't just be us that's getting an odd feeling about Ridley Scott's upcoming prequel to the original Alien. Notwithstanding the fact that the director’s track record in recent years has been patchy (although many writers at this site would happily defend the director’s cut of Kingdom Of Heaven for some time), and notwithstanding the fact either that the Alien franchise has been battered hard by the terrible Alien vs Predator films, there’s still curiosity and concern as to the new prequel.

To be clear, though: the idea of a proper, respectful and intelligent prequel to the original Alien is a compelling one, and our ticket would be sold in double-quick time. Having the original director on board is also a very, very big selling point. But the noises come out of the project thus far - although some of these have been intensified by Internet chatter - are at the very least intriguing.

Take the plot, for starters. The story, almost inevitably, is looking at the tale of the space jockey from the first film, and finding out just who he is. The prequel is due to be set 30 years before the first Alien film, and thus far, that all sounds quite sensible. Yet there are elements that we reported here that sound just a little more off the wall. 

There are also loud rumours of a battle over ratings. Ridley Scott is reported to be keen to go for an R rating in the States, while Fox is apparently pushing towards a PG-13. The other area of contention is budget, with the number that Fox and Scott are respectively looking to spend being just a little different. This dispute has made it, one way or another, into public knowledge.

Finally, lest we forget, the idea is for a pair of prequels. That in itself is going to pose more than a few challenges, especially as the back-to-back approach is likely to be employed.

Which is all building towards the news we suspect you came to read, but didn't want to hear: namely that the whole enterprise has been put back at least a year. Originally, the first of the two prequels was set to start production in February 2011, but Scriptflags is now reporting that we won’t be seeing the first of the new films until 2013, with the second due to follow the year after. And all that's in spite of the fact that production design work has already begun.

Is it fair to conclude, we wonder, that those battles over rating, budget and consequently script, are still ongoing? If they are, nobody is saying anything. But it’s an unwelcome delay, whatever the reason. And let’s just speculate here: we wouldn’t be surprised if Ridley Scott doesn’t turn out to be the eventual director of the film. We hope he is, we just wouldn’t put hard cash on it.

Scriptflags

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

For music fans attending the London Film Festival, there was a bountiful selection of documentaries, whether you liked your ageing rockers (the modest, charming Ballad Of Mott The Hoople), britpop nostalgics (the selective, reverential Upside Down: The Creation Records Story) or indie aesthetes (the chaotic, downright odd Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt And The Magnetic Fields).

However, head and shoulders above these stood Lemmy, the compelling character study from co-directors Greg Olliver and Wes Orshoski, which came across as fiercely distinctive, keenly insightful and wildly entertaining.

Compiled from footage shot over a number of years, Orshoski and Olliver piece together the Motorhead frontman’s life from the ground up. One of the images that resounds throughout the whole picture is also one of its earliest: that of Lemmy Kilmister, the larger-than-life rock and roll survivor, sitting on his arse in his outrageously cluttered Los Angeles apartment playing videogames.

Later, he walks around the corner to his local boozer, which just happens to be fabled nightspot the Rainbow Bar & Grill, second home to many West Coast rockers over the years, and takes up his regular spot, right next to the quiz machine.

Over its two hour runtime, Lemmy treads this line between reality and mythology. We see its subject both in candid footage and through the eyes of his family, friends and fans. Segments are dedicated to his formative years in North Wales, and his early career in beat group The Rockin’ Vickers and the space rock band Hawkwind, but it doesn’t get bogged down in biography and history, favouring an eclectic blend of everything documentaries can do.

Kilmister is a fascinating character, a self-deprecating eccentric who looks like a leather-clad barbarian, but sports a gently deadpan, dry wit and a unerringly straightforward manner. When asked about his fondness for Nazi artefacts, and whether this interest translates as sympathy or support, he responds that, if the Israeli army had the best uniforms, he’d collect them instead.

Likewise, despite being an icon for the live fast rock star lifestyle (and curiously maintaining both his integrity and faculties better than contemporaries such as Ozzy Osbourne), he is quick to avoid becoming a poster child, saying, "I wouldn’t want to advertise a lifestyle that killed a lot of my friends."

Indeed, Orshoski and Olliver are intelligent enough to engage with these more serious aspects of Lemmy’s cartoonish character, with time also given over to his suffering from diabetes and his awkward, yet loving relationship with his grown son, Paul. But their obvious passion for his music gives the film a certain infectious enthusiasm and a genuine energy during the footage of live shows, recording sessions and informal jams with the likes of Metallica, Dave Grohl, The Damned and Lemmy’s rockabilly side project, The Head Cat.

And while the film delights in bringing insight into the man’s more private moments, it successfully reveals him to also be tremendously popular, both as an influence and a friend, with interviews from various musicians from in and outside of the metal community, such as Grohl, Steve Vai, Peter Hook and Ice-T (who meticulously enunciates his way through the lyrics for Ace Of Spades). Pick of the bunch is the ever-effusive Henry Rollins, who looks aghast as he recalls Lemmy once mentioning that he lived in a time before rock and roll.

It is a terrific film, and should take pride of place next to other music documentaries like Anvil! The Story Of Anvil, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and Some Kind Of Monster. Like those films, it looks at the world of heavy metal as a community of musicians, fans and roadies all united by a shared passion, and assesses its subject with intelligence, warmth and familiarity. And, on top of that, it is a powerful portrait of one of the 20th century’s most enduring musical icons.

Lemmy is receiving a limited UK theatrical release in December, before a beefed up DVD and Blu-ray set in January.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

Of all the films at the London Film Festival, we particularly warmed to Lemmy, the rock documentary from directors Wes Orshoski and Greg Olliver. And, luckily for us, they were on hand for a chat. So, we grabbed a few minutes of their time, just before they scarpered off for a drink with two members of New Wave of British Heavy Metal group, Girlschool.

Two charming and energetic dudes, they regaled us with a few priceless production anecdotes, including how they got on Lemmy’s good side, what the man himself thought of the film, and how, when they wanted to storm a stage at a Metallica gig, they ignored the band’s managers and asked James Hetfield directly.

You’ve both been involved in the music scene for a long time, as directors and writers. So, how did the Lemmy project come about?

Wes Orshoski: Greg and I were working on another film, and we found ourselves in Dublin, Ireland, and we were working so well together, and we decided "Okay, let’s go to this pub across the street and come up with ideas."

And the first idea that popped into my head was Lemmy, because I’d just interviewed him for Billboard magazine in the US, and that interview was about the group Head Cat, his side project. And I just kept thinking about it. I kept listening to the record over and over.

Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash covers. Man! Lemmy’s such an interesting guy, and he’s a badass. He’s the ultimate rock and roll badass. There’s so many other sides to him.

So, I said, "Greg, I know who we should do a movie on." That was the only idea we came up with and we just drank for the rest of the night.

Greg Olliver : And when you have a few drinks, you get more courage, and you think things could happen, and we were really lucky that it actually happened. We could have a hundred more ideas, and a hundred of them won’t happen. So, we were really lucky that it fell together instead of apart.

How did you go about organising it, and getting Lemmy on board?

GO: There was a lot of phonecalls and emails, and showing my work and our work to management, to get them to see that we were decent filmmakers. And basically we auditioned for Lemmy as human beings. So, we went and met him at the Rainbow, in Hollywood, and it was supposed to be like a business meeting. And it was like two minutes of us telling him what we wanted to do and a couple of hours of getting drunk with Lemmy at the Rainbow.

And his manager was like, "He really liked you guys. That was the longest he’s ever sat down at a business meeting!" And so, we’re like, well, if this is business with Lemmy, then we’re excited.

WO: This is the business we want to be in!

So, how did it develop from there? How long were you filming him and following him around?

GO: We didn’t plan it, man. We didn’t have an agenda. We just told him we wanted to make an honest portrait of him. So, we didn’t know what we were going to film. We just knew we had to spend time with him. And we started thinking in our heads it might take a year, but it took three and a half years to get everything, so all three of us were happy with what we got, and we knew we were done with the film.

WO: It was funny, because it was just a couple of months before we finished the cut of the film for SXSW, where we world premiered it, Greg and I didn’t feel we had enough. We didn’t really feel like we had everything. And then we started to edit everything together, and we were like, "Fuck, man! We have a lot of stuff. Dude, we have a movie!" We just needed to get the ending.

So, did the film’s structure become more apparent during the editing process?

GO: Yeah. We knew we had to get some of his history in there, and learn about his other bands. But you don’t know what you’re going to get otherwise. You don’t know what journey you’re going to go on with him.

It was stressful trying to imagine it as we were shooting it. We shot all kinds of stuff with him, but it fell together at the end. You don’t know what you’ve got until you start digging in and editing it.

And what did the man himself think of it?

GO: Oh, Lemmy loved it. Lemmy loved Lemmy, let me tell you!

WO: Well, he had final cut.

GO: He could tell us what to take out. So, Wes and I got to make it entirely on our own and then show it to him.

WO: During the process, though, Lemmy wanted to see more, and it was kind of like... he would kind of get bored with the project. And then we’d show him stuff, we’d cut a scene, and he’d watch that and get totally excited, and everything would get easier for the next few months, as he’d see it was coming together.

We actually took the rough cut of the film to his apartment.  Super stressful. Greg was cool. I was not. I’m sitting in the apartment on the floor, because there’s no place to sit, and I’m just like, "Oh God. He’s going to make us take this out, and take this out." And there was just silence! He was sitting there. He was laughing. He was smiling.

I have this video that I snuck of him watching the film and he’s like laughing at himself. And we get to the end, where we have this solo song, and it’s one of Greg’s and my favourite moments of the film. I love that song so much. There’s a big sax solo at the end, and we get to it, and we cut that off.

We were done with the song, with that moment. And he’s like, "Argh! You cut off the sax solo!" That was the biggest thing that he protested about: "Put the sax solo back in!" And we were like, "That’s it? Cool!"

Some of the gig sequences have some amazing camerawork, like in the Metallica concert, where you’re right on stage in the middle of the action.

GO: That’s one thing that bothers me. There’s a lot of films out there that get really good reviews, about cool people and cool bands, but they look like shit. And I pride myself in trying to make the film look better than most. As good as I could. So, we spent a lot of time. Like there’s that one slow motion shot of Lemmy coming toward the camera at the beginning of the film, and we shot five shows trying to get that shot.

The Metallica thing was really important for me, to be on stage with Lemmy, because you see so many concerts where it’s shot from the pit or the cranes, and everybody’s so used to seeing that.

But this is not a concert movie, it’s a documentary. It took Wes two years to set up the Metallica concert, and it was so sensitive with the management, there was no way in hell that we were going to ask the management if we could go on stage with the camera. So, we’re just like, we’re so lucky to be doing this at all, I’m going to ask James Hetfield right before the show if I could do it.

WO: There’s so many people involved in the Metallica organisation, and we didn’t ask any of them!

GO: I was so nervous, man. And Hetfield’s like, tall, a big dude. And we’re back stage, and they rehearsed the song, and Lemmy leaves and everyone’s leaving the room. And Hetfield’s standing there, and I’m like, "Excuse me, James. Uh..." And he looks at me. "Would it be all right if I follow Lemmy up on stage with the camera?" And I go into this whole rambling spiel about "it would look so much better...’"And he leans down at me, and he goes. "What?!" And he pulls this earpiece out of his ear.

WO: An in-ear monitor!

GO: And I was totally fucking nervous man. And I go, "Can I go on stage with Lemmy?" And he says, "Hell yeah, man! If you’re going to do this, do it right!"

And so they let me follow Lemmy on stage with the camera, and I feel like it’s so much more fun to watch. I’m standing right next to James Hetfield on stage, and at the end where they’re all hugging each other, you can actually hear what they’re saying.

I feel like we’ve spent a lot of time trying to make it look good, and be like an adventure where you’re in that world.

WO: That’s one of the really special things. There’s so many films out there, and I’m a major music nerd. I have hundreds of music DVDs, but there is a lack of intimacy. There’s the crane shots, or the tripods in the back of the arena. I mean, dude, there’s actually a moment there at the end, where Hetfield has to pull away, because Greg’s so close to him.

You should see, we have this really great footage on the DVD. We have 35 minutes of that whole Metallica experience, in surround sound. Let me tell you, dude, when you hear that surround sound turned up, it’s fucking thrilling.

The funny thing is, we were all stressed out trying to get our angles for the first song, which was Damage Case. They did a second song, and by that time we all calmed down, and it’s way better. It looks way more beautiful.

GO: We shot 30 or 40 Motorhead shows over the course of three years, and in the beginning the crew wouldn’t let me on stage. And finally, when they got to know us, and by the end of the tour I was literally doing laps around Lemmy on the stage, because it’s so much more fun to watch, if you can go under his face. I feel it’s way more fun for the viewer, so it was worth the stress.

WO: It’s so funny, when he first walks in that room, backstage, and he’s like, "What’s up, motherfuckers," and he’s talking to them for a second. If you look close, you see this moment where Hetfield is clearly nervous, because this is his childhood hero.

GO: It’s cool, man. As intimidating as Metallica is, Lemmy is that way to them. They are like little kids. They were so excited to have him on stage. James is like, "Yeaaaahhh. I’m standing next to Lemmy!’

Wes: And you don’t see that when you see Metallica.

GO: No, they’re like, mighty, with firewalls and shit. And they’re so tough. We love that he just destroys all that.

WO: One of the coolest things that Hetfield told us was that Lars Ulrich is a huge Motorhead groupie. But at one point, when they were in Southern California, Lars and James followed Motorhead, found them, the original lineup, at some Holiday Inn or something, and they were all swimming in a pool. And they went up to meet them. And Hetfield tells the story like, "Wow, it’s Motorhead - and they’re swimming!"

It’s important that you have such a diverse group of interviewees, not only from the metal scene, but also from other areas of music such as Jarvis Cocker or Mick Jones. And they’re all geeking out over Lemmy. It seems to show that his influence isn’t just restricted to that one genre.

WO: It was important to have Jarvis and Peter Hook and Mick Jones, because Lemmy transcends heavy metal, and he transcends Motorhead. He’s bigger. People know Lemmy and they don’t know any Motorhead songs. Maybe they know Ace Of Spades, but maybe they don’t even know that.

You packed so much into the film. Not only the footage with Lemmy, the concert sequences and the interviews, but also little set pieces and segments about his hometown in Wales, or a shout-out to the road crew. There must be loads left on the cutting room floor.

GO: Well, there’s four hours of bonus material that’s going to be on the Blu-ray/DVD! And there’d be more if we could fit more on there.

Our distributors were like, "What, you have that much material?!" But it was so fun. There are mini-documentaries on Mikkey Dee, the drummer, on Phil Campbell. There’s one on the super fans.

There’s so much fun stuff, and you spent three and a half years with these guys. These characters. And you would not expect to interview Triple H. We expected him to be [grunts] "Lemmy!" But he an was articulate, wonderful person. He gave us an hour of amazing interview. So, that whole thing is on the DVD now. And even with the four hours of bonus stuff, there should be another eight hours.

Wes Orshoski and Greg Olliver , thank you for your time!

Lemmy will receive a limited release from December 7th. The DVD/Blu-Ray set comes out on January 24th.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

An accomplished musician at a young age, James Newton Howard studied at the USC School of music, and after he graduated, began a career as a session musician, working with some of the biggest names in the business before embarking on a career as a composer for film and TV.

He composed the iconic score for the TV show ER, as well as scoring a wealth of memorable scores for movies over the years.

With the imminent release of The Last Airbender on Blu-ray and DVD, I thought now would be the ideal time to look at his work with the director M. Night Shyamalan, as well as two of my other favourites in his back catalogue…

Wyatt Earp

If I were to pick a genre where the highest number of my favourite scores came from, it would be the western. It seems that the vast majority have amazing scores, and James Newton Howard’s score for the much-maligned Kevin Costner-starring biopic can certainly be ranked alongside some of the best.

The score is as epic as the film itself, with Newton Howard acknowledging scores that came before, but opting for a more reined in approach for much of his work here, but unleashing grand themes when called upon, particularly in the gunfight during the film’s finale.

The Sixth Sense

The first of many collaborations with director M. Night Shyamalan, The Sixth Sense isarguably their finest work together. I was lucky enough to be in America when this film opened, so managed to go in knowing very little about it, which made what unfolded all the more effective.

Despite the gradual dip in quality of the director’s later work, this remains an excellent film that benefits from an eerie scene-setting score that plays on the audience’s emotions, eliciting high levels of sadness as well as being chilling at the same time. A great score for an excellent film.

Unbreakable

For the pair’s second collaboration, Shyamalan sought Newton Howard’s involvement immediately after completing The Sixth Sense. Shyamalan wanted a score that sounded distinct and simple, so Newton Howard limited himself to just strings, trumpets and piano, setting out to record a classic piece of work.

There’s an air of tension and a reoccurring leitmotif that carries much of the piece, and the recording sounds incredible, with large parts of it being recorded in a converted church. Definitely one that comes highly recommended.

Signs

Newton Howard pitches this as though he’s scoring a classic thriller, which helps to elevate the material on screen and portray the required levels of suspense effectively. It’s an incredibly bass-heavy score, which makes for quite an unsettling viewing experience.

Sure, there are flaws in the film, and this isn’t the most adventurous of the composer’s work, but it suits the film perfectly, even if it isn’t the greatest standalone listen due to its relentless nature.

The Village

For his fourth collaboration with Shyamalan, Newton Howard enlisted the help of the Hollywood Studio Symphony and violinist Hilary Hahn to bring his compositions to life. The results are quite fantastic, with Hahn’s work being the highlight.

Like Signs, I think there’s a good idea for a film here. I just feel that it failed to deliver on its early promise. It’s by no means a terrible film, just a mildly disappointing one. So, it’s a shame that Newton Howard’s score is often overlooked, as it’s attached to a maligned film.

The score does exactly what it needs to by creating a sense of an insular community with a mix of curiosity, of fear, and wonder of the outside world, resulting in an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.

Lady In The Water

Grass dogs and evil tree monkeys are but two of the delights that Shyamalan treats audiences to in what, until recently, was regarded as his worst movie. It’s not without reason, as I struggle to think of a more blatant example of a filmmaker slamming film critics and praising his own genius in a film. It’s a masturbatory mess of a movie that has very few redeeming features other than its score.

Newton Howard makes the most of a large scale orchestra to make this a dramatic and stirring score that is much, much, better than the film deserves. Similarities have been drawn to Morricone’s score for Days Of Heaven, and these comparisons aren’t inaccurate.

There are also some awful Bob Dylan covers in the film that go some way to show how easy it is to ruin great songs.

The Happening

The score here bears similarity to his work on Signs and The Village, in that there’s a reliance on recurring themes and an ominous build of tension. Newton Howard’s work here is fine enough, it’s just a shame that the pay-off on screen doesn’t match the quality of his composition.

However, there’s not enough originality or inventiveness here to recommend the score to even fans of the composer’s. It’s very much a by-the-numbers piece of work.

Blood Diamond

Perhaps the score of Newton Howard’s I listen to most in isolation from its film, this is an incredible score that is one of the finest works of his career. Without exception, all of the pieces here are incredibly well thought out and performed to near perfection. And best of all, it shows off an experimental side that seemed to be lacking from some of his other scores leading up to the film’s release.

The Last Airbender

Okay, the film is obviously rubbish, and will, no doubt, be a prominent feature of the worst film of the year list for many people, but the score is probably one of the best efforts of the year.

Newton Howard has composed a score that far exceeds the quality of the film (not hard, I know), and in my opinion has composed his second best score for a Shyamalan film to date.

Whilst it perhaps lacks the inventiveness of much of his earlier work, he more than makes up for it with a sense of drama by using a huge orchestra to its full potential.

There’s a decent mix of moods, from the ominous and slow build in its opening passages, through to its dramatic finale. There’s little hope in the piece, which is generally quite dark. Comparisons could be made to the scores of John Williams, but it’s much more downbeat than much of that master’s work.

Given his extensive back catalogue, there are a number of great scores missing. Feel free to provide your Newton Howard highlights below!

• See all the Music in the movies

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

Crikey, what’s happened to Lara Croft? According to Crystal Dynamics, she’s been in a shipwreck, leaving her normally well-groomed hair messy and unfettered, and her skin in desperate need of a good pot of moisturiser.

It’s the new, rugged look for the rebooted Lara and her freshly announced Tomb Raider game. Here’s the official word straight from Crystal Dynamics HQ:

After a brutal storm destroys the boat she was travelling on, a frightened young woman is left washed ashore on an unknown beach. On her own but not alone she has only one goal, to survive.'

Here begins the first adventure for a young and inexperienced Lara Croft in a story which charts the journey of an ordinary woman who finds out just how far she must go in order to stay alive.

"Forget everything you know about Tomb Raider, we are exploring things that have never been done before in this game," said Darrell Gallagher, Head of Studio, Crystal Dynamics. "This is an origins story that creates Lara Croft and takes her on a character defining journey like no other."

The first image of Lara, which appears here courtesy of Game Informer, is the first glimpse of Lara in her post-shipwreck state, and after years of well-scrubbed visuals, lovingly rendered bosoms and tight shorts, it’s a bit of a shock – which, we’re guessing, is precisely the point.

There’s not much more to go on just yet, but we’ll be sure to let you know as soon as we hear more about the new, messier, Tomb Raider reboot.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

Not for the first time, we should say this from the outset: we love Bill Bailey. And thus, when offered the chance to interview the man face to face about his new DVD, Dandelion Mind, arms were duly snapped off. It turned out to be a lovely chat, too, where we touched on his recent tour, his new DVD, his planned TV series about sound, and a little bit of The Hobbit.

Here’s how the chat went...

I’ve got to say from the off, I love the fact that you’ve done a post-credits encore on the DVD. It felt like leaving an album running on a blank track for ages, only to have a bit of music suddenly pop up. Was it spontaneous, that you just walked back on stage as the audience were leaving, and started again?

Yeah. It happened firstly on the tour in Australia and New Zealand. I can’t remember what it was, it might have been Auckland. I did a show at the Civic Theatre there, and it was a great gig, and the audience really enjoyed it. I’d had great fun, and there was lots of banter.

I finished the show and I walked off, and there were still quite a lot of people in the venue, and they hadn’t left. And my guitar tech, Trevor, said, there’s still lots of people out there. There’s loads of people out there. And the music was still playing. So, I just wandered back out there, and they didn’t clock me at first. Then someone said, “There’s Bill!” So, I sort of picked up the guitar and started singing a song.

Then I realised that a lot of people who had been at the show, who were at the back of the venue, suddenly were able to come right to the front.

So, it was nice for those who’d had a seat at the back, as they were now able to have a really intimate show at the front. And I thought, what a great thing. It felt really good fun. It didn’t happen every night, but a couple of nights, it did. It spontaneously happened when the audience was just hanging about.

I know myself, because I’ve been to see rock gigs and shows, and just want to sit in the venue afterwards, and take in the atmosphere. So, that’s what I did.

It happened in Dublin again [the DVD recording gig], because being the 02, there were 10,000 people in there. With the stragglers, there were still enough people there to play a gig to.

The thing that strikes me about you is that you still have the ability to genuinely surprise an audience with your material. That’s something that’s happening less and less with comedy. We saw it with the treatment of the Tesco supermarket scanner in this gig [you can see the clip here]. Is that the real hard work for you?

It is, yeah. It’s trying to find a subject matter that is interesting, and ways of dealing with it that are interesting. Those are the challenges, really.

There’s so much comedy around, and so many comics doing lots of different things. It’s one of the things that I find takes up so much time when I’m writing a show. Trying to imagine ways to deal with subjects that haven’t been done before, or trying to think up things that I’ve not seen before. Treat familiar subjects with an unfamiliar way.

I would love to do a pastiche of Interpol, or something like that, but not everyone knows who Interpol are. And the few people who do might nod sagely and say, “Oh. yes. I see what he’s done there.” But that’s it. So, I think that’s one of the challenges of writing comedy. Finding things that are funny, but also you’re revealing something in a different way.

You mentioned the Tesco film, the scanner. That’s something which is almost a physical representation of that exact approach, seeing something from another angle. It’s a very familiar thing, the scanner. We’re all going to the supermarket and scanning our own food now. And you look into the scanner and you see, from the scanner’s POV, my face, and what’s in it.

That, to me, I suppose, is one of the duties of comedy in a way, an obligation of stand-up, to try and make sense of the world, or to try and explain it in a strange or lateral way. To see the surreal and absurd in the everyday.

I love the little documentary you put on the disc and the way you talk about playing the Shetland Islands. There seemed to be as much a thrill in surprising yourself and finding an untapped venue for your work? That the venue was more of a resource than usual.

Yeah, certainly. I think that taking on that tour, it’s hard. It’s harder to get to these venues. You can’t just rock up there. You have to plan it, and get flights, and planes, and ferries. And also, I was aware that they might not even be that familiar with my stuff. I had to accept that.

Some of these places might not be my die-hard fans, or people familiar with my stuff, and I might have to work a bit harder. And that, to me, felt like a good challenge, the good element of it. I always think that performing comedy somewhere unfamiliar is a way of sharpening yourself up, and testing your mettle as a comic.

I remember a few years ago, I went and performed in New York. Nobody knew who I was from Adam. I was just some Limey, some English bloke coming over to do comedy. So, the first ten minutes of the first few shows were met with utter baffled silence. And then they gradually got into it. Those first few shows, I really made it so hard for myself, because I was just treating it as if they would be on my wavelength straight away. And, of course, they weren’t.

What I ended up doing, I wrote ten minutes of quite straightforward stand-up, to almost convince them that I was funny, so that they would then relax. I would do stuff about the hotel, about Soho. I was in this posh hotel. They serve this breakfast. What do they serve it with? Contempt. And they’re like “Oh, yeah. This guy’s funny.” Then I can do the stuff about science and nuclear physics, language, obscure bands.

Then, there’s a way in. There was a bit of that going around Scotland as well. Not quite as much, but there were a few places where they were like, “Oh. yeah. I’ve seen this guy on TV. I don’t know if I’m going to like him live.” I had to work that bit more to convince people, and sell the show a bit more. That was great, invaluable, interesting. That was early on, and that was the show’s conception, really.

You clearly had a lot of fun with the scale of the 02, but you also make the point that you enjoy the smaller gigs, where you can just go in and try something. And that by the time you get to the big arenas, you’ve got less room to try things out.

Yeah, that’s right. It had to be like that. I knew, at the end of the tour, there was going to be a big gig that had to be filmed for the DVD. And I knew that this show, more than any I can think in recent memory, is about getting back to the roots of stand-up, in a way. And how it all began. Playing in small venues, convincing people that you’re funny, and knowing eventually that there would be a big crowd, with all the production things.

I wanted the show to be something I could do in a small venue. I could equally do this show in a room and that was quite important to me. Somehow you need to convince and challenge yourself, and remind yourself why you got into it in the first place.

When we spoke a year ago, you were in early talks with the BBC about putting together a children’s television series on sound. Have you got any further with it?

These things grind forward very slowly. We’re still talking to them about it, trying to find the right elements to do. In some ways, it’s the sort of thing that I’d like to try in a live context. To do a show for kids. Explaining to people about instruments, and to make a show that’s about sound, and actually take people through it in a live context, and see how we do with that.

The Guide To The Orchestra was the basis of that…

It is, yeah. And I can see the next few years being where I would like to do more of those things. Guides to film music, to jazz, to the piano, sound, how we hear it. That is something which is about trying to constantly push yourself. Otherwise you lose your keenness.

Now, this show I’m doing right now in the West End, it’s hard. It’s not easy to do. The ideas and the concepts behind it, the words I have to remember, they’re not easy. And sometimes you have to work a bit harder to get the audience onside. But that’s part of the challenge of it, and I’m never going to lose that element of it. I have that keenness in this show, more than ever.

You got them all chanting “oud” at the gig in Dublin! [Oud as in the musical instrument, rather than Ood as in the Doctor Who characters].

I know! It’s amazing! There’s nowhere else in the world where that would happen, other than Dublin!

You saying about testing out the live music stuff on stage, there’s almost like a frustrated music teacher in you…?

Yeah. It is a bit like that. I think so. I think that in the search for subjects that are not familiar or not commonly dealt with in comedy, in my orbit will come all kinds of other things. Like instruments: medieval instruments, stringed instruments, folk instruments. Hi-tech gizmos. Things that interest me, and would not normally be seen in a comedy context.

You won’t see a celebrated oud player making jokes about it, and getting the audience to chant “oud”. And making jokes that you can’t get a purchase on! But that’s part of the essence of what I do. The juxtaposition of things that you would not associate with comedy, and placing them in a comedy context, and seeing where that takes you.

Finally, just quickly, The Hobbit. Any news?

I don’t know, yet. I’m still waiting to hear! I’d love to be a dwarf.

Bill Bailey, thank you very much.

Dandelion Mind is out now on DVD.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

German concept designer and artist Daniel Simon initially worked in the automotive industry, before later enjoying wider attention with his sensational book, Cosmic Motors. Showcasing his seductive and highly technical style, the book displayed a real-world approach to the design of futuristic vehicles that Daniel would later carry over into his work for the forthcoming Tron: Legacy.

We sat down with Daniel to discuss his work on the film, and updating Syd Mead’s iconic vehicle designs, which were such a big part of the original Tron, for a new generation…

What was it like to be given the opportunity to update Syd Mead’s original vehicle designs?

It was probably the biggest honour possible. But he’s not just some mysterious design icon. He lives in LA, and he’s very approachable for most of us. So, most of us met him or went to his parties.

That was a pressure, to not upset him! But on the other hand, we stepped away a little bit, and wanted to create something of our own, you know? So, it’s a mixture of homage to somebody’s work, and trying to put your own ideas in there.

But his spirit is all over it and I hope he likes it.

So, you haven’t had any feedback from him yet? 

Not on the finished movie piece. But he walked through and looked at stuff, and we had a good laugh sometimes, so I think he’ll be fine.

Bearing in mind that Mead’s earlier design for the Light Cycle had to be simplified for the computers of the time, was it difficult to avoid the temptation to go overboard with the new version?

That’s always a danger, and that’s why you have a production designer and a director who come by every week. So, it’s their job to be available to keep us crazy people somehow within boundaries.

On the other hand, everybody else brings their own vision, and all of us just agreed somehow. We all went through the same schools and have similar hobbies and ideas, so there was very much an agreement on how things should look.

The biggest input I had was in making things mechanically connected, rather than energy connected. With the Recognizer, for example, I knew there’d be an engine, and some form of propulsion system – very mechanical, very believable.

Because, at the same time, those wheels on those [Light Cycles], they could just be floating in an energy field or not really connected. Each piece has a hinge and a purpose.

So, you really took the designs down to that detailed, nuts and bolts level?

Totally, yeah. Which is why they took us on, because we’re nuts and bolts freaks! But it was a big mixture, because our concept artist, David Levy, who you met before, he paints in big strokes, and sets up a tone. And then people like me come in, and interpret his conceptual visions, and take them down to the nuts and bolts. He did the environments, but those are reflected in the vehicles.

I can’t sleep if something isn’t figured out, so sometimes we spend an extra weekend just trying to work out “Ah, how does that handlebar work?” And there isn’t much time on something like this. You’re not making a car for a car company where you have a year or two years. It’s like, bam, bam, bam, you know? We only have a few weeks. It’s crazy.

So, was that a freeing up, then, in a way, that although you considered how these machines could work, they didn’t actually have to be able to function in the real world?

We wanted the things to look real, so it wasn’t very different, but I didn’t have to worry about putting in an airbag, or seatbelts [laughs], but anything other than that had to work. Olivia Wilde’s character had to steer a steering wheel and Jeff Bridges, when he operated a vehicle, had to look comfortable and have enough space to look around and not look silly.

These are very real design problems. We had body scans of the actors, but sometimes technical problems appear, so we had to tape measure them sometimes in the dressing room. There were a lot of fun stories.

Was there anything thought up during the design process that didn’t make it on screen, that had to be left out?

It’s almost the other way around. They asked for so much that there was no time to design something extra, where you think “Why didn’t that make it?” It was, up to the last day, more, more, more.

Of course, you’re your own hardest critic, so I wish I had much more time on things to make my car design friends happy, because that’s probably the highest pressure for me!

What’s the process of getting your ideas from a conceptual stage to the final 3D model? Did you make physical scale models as you perhaps would have done a few decades ago, or did it all go straight into a computer?

I wish we did have time for that, because you still need to look at stuff, but this was the first design process in my career where nothing was, in the process, physical. It was all digital.

Everything physical you’ve seen here was manufactured after the design process for shows. Those are the digital designs that we never touched before.

This is scary, because with computers, it’s a different field. So, the process would be sketching, most of the time, and illustrations. The director gets the first look, and ideas bounce back and forth.

I would then very quickly start working in 3D, because the director jumped on that, and can say “Okay, can you show it to me from this angle?” Even if it’s not finished, it’s simple. “Oh, I can put the camera here.” “Oh my God, if you put the camera there, I’ll have to design the back end so much better!”

It’s like a ping pong system. Pre-vis takes those models and puts them in their software. And then they create a move in, maybe, a pursuit scene, and I think, “Wow, is this what they’re going to do?”, then I go back into my design. It’s a crazy kind of organised chaos.

The original Tron obviously influenced a lot of design that came after it . The motorcycle out of Akira is one example that springs to mind, for some reason. Do you think it’s possible that Tron: Legacy could be as influential?

We hope so, definitely. On the other hand, we’re living in a very fast moving world. Even for me. I’m 34 now, and it’s shocking to me how… I mean, when I saw Avatar, I was so blown away, but I was also blown away by how fast people forgot about it. Like, a few weeks after it came out, if you were still talking about Avatar, you were so from yesterday! [Laughs]

And I can’t believe it, because it takes so many years to make these things. It’s the same with cars. It’s like, “When’s the new one coming out?” Or the iPhone. “Do you still have the old iPhone? Oh, my God.”

And this scares me a little bit. So, we tried to be a little bit timeless on some designs, so Tron: Legacy can survive way more years and still be fashionable and cool. Because if you’re always cutting edge on everything, you also get outdated very fast.

I also like the fact that some of Tron: Legacy’s design references back to the feel of the 80s original while still looking modern. It’s interesting to see that cyclical nature of design trends.

It’s not specialists that go to the movies. It’s innocent, young kids who aren’t yet inspired by the original Tron movie. It’s good if they can refer to something, and picking a period of time that was cool isn’t the worst idea. And that’s what design actually is. There’s always the 40s, 60s, 70s trends.

I still see it as very 2010, and if there are some 80s references in there too, that’s cool.

So, what element of Tron: Legacy would you say you’re most pleased with?

It’s hard. It’s like if you had ten kids, and you had to choose a favourite. You wouldn’t dare pick. I love the family! That’s a very cheesy answer.

I’m proud of the amount of work we achieved, and that our designs are on the screen. It’s not like the classic thing where people say, “They screwed it up.” Who’s they anyway?

It is one-to-one what we designed in our computers, and we owe that to the producers, Joe Kosinski and Digital Domain. That’s the scariest part. Every movie you start is, like, “Whatever I draw here, will this be really it?”

It’s really scary, because your name is on it, right from the beginning. You think, “Oh, my God.” Sometimes you wouldn’t even put your name into the official listings, because you’re thinking, “I’d better wait until the movie’s out, so I can still get away with not being mentioned.”

There was never that threat on Tron: Legacy. Right from the first day, we knew it was gonna rock. I’m not being cheesy, either!

Daniel Simon, thank you very much!

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

The classic Pixar production, A Bug's Life, brought together an amazingly talented group of people, including Kevin Spacey, David Hyde Pierce and Denis Leary. So, twelve years on from the film's original release, and to tie in with its UK debut on Blu-ray, we ask, where are the voices behind A Bug's Life now, and what have they done since?

Dave Foley - Flik

One of the former members of The Kids In The Hall and a stand-up comedian, Dave Foley has been well occupied since providing the voice for Flik. He's either providing voice talent for animated TV shows, or appearing in person as in a stint on Will And Grace, and the mini-series Kids In The Hall: Death Comes To Town.

Kevin Spacey - Hopper

When he's not promoting Virgin Airways, Kevin Spacey’s usually following his other interests in being an actor, writer, director, producer and musical performer. He's also the artistic director of the Old Vic, a position he took up in 2003 and promised to hold for at least ten years.

In 2006, he made it known that he intends to take UK citizenship, having lived here for some time.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Atta

The career of Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been action packed, after she first gained notoriety on Saturday Night Live in the mi-80s. A Bug's Life came at the end of appearing in 173 episodes of Seinfeld, although she had done plenty of voice work previously. Since then, she's been in Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Simpsons, was the lead actor in The New Adventures Of Old Christine, and most recently appeared in 30 Rock.

Hayden Panettiere - Dot

Hayden has become more famous since the movie mostly through her leading role in the TV series Heroes. Since she gave up being the indestructible cheerleader, she's been cast in the remake of The Black Hole.

Phyllis Diller - Queen

A unique performer, Phyllis Diller first appeared on screen in 1961, when she was then 44. That makes her 93, and she's still going strong. Since Bug's, she's been in a soap, The Bold And The Beautiful, provided voice talent for Family Guy, The Powerpuff Girls and The Adventures Of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, among others.

Richard Kind - Molt

Possibly one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood today, Richard Kind’s a regular animation voice talent and a staple of both TV and film. The list of things he's done since A Bug's Life is vast, but includes TV appearances on Leverage, Burn Notice, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Two And A Half Men, Stargate: Atlantis and Scrubs. He's also done lots of voice work, and even got to be the Bookworm in Toy Story 3.

David Hyde Pierce - Slim

David Hyde Pierce is perhaps best known for being Frasier's brother, Dr. Niles Crane, something he was doing before working with Pixar and returned to for a further six years after completing A Bug's Life. He's since almost exclusively moved into voiceover work, including The Simpsons, and Abe Sapien in Hellboy. This year, he returned to film acting, appearing as Warwick Wilson in the thriller The Perfect Host.

Joe Ranft - Heimlich

Sadly, Joe Ranft died in 2005 at the age of just 45, from injuries sustained in a road accident. His career to that point was extraordinary, having written the stories for Oliver & Company, Beauty And The Beast, and The Lion King, and worked with John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton to create A Bug's Life. Ranft was also a sketch artist and story supervisor before becoming a regular voice talent.

He was the voice of Lenny the Binoculars in the first Toy Story movie, was Wheezy in the second and contributed to Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Cars. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride was one of his last projects and that film is dedicated to his memory.

Denis Leary - Francis

A hugely well-known stand-up comedian and actor before working with Pixar, he's since got his own animation franchise as Diego in the Ice Age movies. He has also moved into writing, as in his serious long-running TV series, Rescue Me. He's recently been connected with the Spider-Man reboot, playing Gwen Stacy's father.

Jonathan Harris - Manny

The unmistakable Jonathan Harris is well remembered for playing the conniving Dr. Smith in the original Lost In Space TV series. For geeks, he'll also be remembered as the voice of the Cylon Lucifer in the original Battlestar Galactica TV series.

After playing Manny, he worked again for Pixar as Geri the Cleaner in Toy Story 2.

In 2002, Jonathan Harris sadly passed away just a few days before his 88th birthday.

Madeline Kahn - Gypsy Moth

In a stunning career that encompassed stage, TV and film, A Bug's Life was one of Madeline Kahn’s last productions, although she managed to fit this in between the 60 episodes of The Cosby Show she appeared in between 1996 and 1999. She died just a year after A Bug's Life, at the age of just 57.

I'll always remember her for the wonderfully absurd characters she played in Mel Brookes’ movies, such as Lili Von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles.

Bonnie Hunt - Rosie

An amazingly talented person, Bonnie Hunt is an actress, writer, producer and director, and has appeared in such diverse productions as Jerry Maguire, The Green Mile and Cheaper By The Dozen and its sequel.

She went to Pixar having produced her own talk show, The Bonnie Hunt Show, which has since returned, now approaching its 300th episode. She still works for Pixar on occasion, providing voice work for Monsters, Inc., Cars (and soon Cars 2), and Toy Story 3.

Michael McShane - Tuck and Roll

Connecting many dots here, Michael McShane appeared on Frasier, and Seinfeld, but is best known in the UK for his amazing contributions to Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Since working with Pixar, he's split his time between animated voice work, cameo TV show appearances and stage work.

John Ratzenberger - P.T. Flea

A hardy perennial at Pixar, he's provided the Hamm voice for all the Toy Story movies, and the Abominable Snowman for Monsters, Inc. He's also in Finding Nemo, The Incredibles (he's the Underminer at the end), Cars and its sequel, Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up. He does make the occasional TV and film appearance away from Pixar (and Cheers fans will recognise him as Cliff Clavin), but he's best known these days for his dry and resonating voice.

Brad Garrett - Dim

Another actor who, once he'd worked with Pixar, returned multiple times for its productions. He provided the voice of Dim while in the middle of a 208 episode run of Everyone Loves Raymond, where he played Robert Barone. But he'd done plenty of voice work before, including Transformers, and Biker Mice From Mars.

Since A Bug's Life, he's returned to Pixar to be Bloat in Finding Nemo, and voiced Chef Gusteau for Ratatouille. He's also in Disney's Tangled, while since 2006 he's been the lead character in US TV comedy Til Death.

A Bug’s Life is available on Blu-ray now.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

This review contains spoilers.

5.11 Hop A Freighter

I wouldn't characterise this show as a 'cop drama', but there was some detective work to be done by Dexter, in finding out who has been observing him and Lumen.

This was the key narrative thread that connected events in Hop A Freighter, which brought many plot lines to an end and moved the story into a whole new phase for next week's season end.

Having reviewed this show for some time, I've noticed the model on which the concept is entirely built. At its core, it's a delicate balance between what characters know, and more pointedly, what they don't know. The dance of secrets is the joy here, and what a truckload of secrets this season has carried.

What and who Dexter really is has been a secret that's been close to being revealed since the outset, but now Lumen is inside the line, and by the time this story is done she might not be the only one. Joey's suspicions have brought Liddy into play, and he's the character that I've possibly got the least appreciation for.

I couldn't really follow how he was going to use the surveillance he gathered on Dexter, and in this story he admits as much. But his logic that he can get a confession out of Dexter to plug that hole seemed equally bonkers to me. Surely, he wasn't going to record the 'interview', and he isn't even a cop any longer!

But it's not just these things that he seems to miscalculate. He's entirely underestimated Dexter, which in this show, is a precursor to the mortician's slab. This could rebound not on Dexter, but on Quinn, as it's his signature that signed out all the equipment in the van.

What I accepted much more readily was the transformation of Jordan Chase, who had previously been so controlled I suspected he had a Persian cat and plan for world domination. The way he became unhinged and killed Emily revealed his true persona, stripped of the presentation, and uncontrollably angry. My only confusion is understanding the significance of the blood locket, as clearly Chase didn't care that much for Emily at all.

But as the story got into the final third, and both Dexter and Lumen got themselves into simultaneous jeopardy, the tension cranked in a way that few TV shows can manage.

The scene where Quinn turns up at the van where Dexter has just killed Liddy was superbly handled, down to the drop of blood that lands unnoticed on Joey's shoe. Tension to die for, and Lumen's capture by Jordan Chase was a no less edgy experience.

Finding the body of Emily, and the blood left by Lumen, Dexter's dark passenger exchanges places with the driver. It's time to buckle up, with the certainty that it's pedal to the metal for the final sprint to the finish. Phew. What a show.

Season 6 has been confirmed in the past week, so whatever happens in the season finale there will be a continuation. But which characters won't be making a return? I've no idea, but I wouldn't give a wooden nickel for Jordan Chase being around given Dexter's current demeanour.

Read our review of episode 10, In The Beginning, here.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

Having got Iron Man 2 under his belt, director Jon Favreau instantly jumped onto what looks like 2011's most interesting blockbuster movie, Cowboys & Aliens. As one of the few non-franchise releases of next summer, we're keen to see it, especially after the strength of the first trailer for it, released a few weeks back.

Once that's out of the way, though, Favreau has a decision to make. It's already been announced that Iron Man 3 will be released on May 13th 2013, and while that's a bigger gap than between the first and second Iron Man films, it does mean that Favreau will have to decide at some point next year whether he wants to do a third Iron Man movie.

He's certainly been talking about one. In discussion with MTV, Favreau said that he didn't know a lot about the upcoming Thor movie (although he'd talked to Kenneth Branagh), and that he'd had a chat with Joss Whedon about Marvel's upcoming superhero mash-up, The Avengers. And then he added that, "In theory, Iron Man 3 is going to be a sequel or continuation of Thor, Hulk, Captain America and Avengers." In short, Iron Man 3 is going to be a pseudo-Avengers sequel, effectively.

But what will Iron Man 3 be about? Right now, he doesn't know, especially given that the Marvel universe on screen is constantly evolving. "This whole world... I have no idea what it is. I don't think they do either, from conversations I've had with those guys," he noted.

To our knowledge, Favreau still hasn't committed to Iron Man 3, but the gig is surely his to turn down. His immediate priority, however, is, no doubt, finishing off Cowboys & Aliens, which we suspect might just keep him busy for the next few months...

MTV

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

If all goes to plan, the third Ghostbusters movie will finally be going before the cameras in 2011, ahead of a release that's looking likely for 2012. We know that Ivan Reitman is directing the film, we know that Dan Aykroyd has been tinkering with the latest draft of the script, Ernie Hudson and Harold Ramis are back on board, and it's possible that Bill Murray will turn up, too. Meanwhile, in terms of fresh casting possibilities, Anna Faris reportedly remains a strong candidate.

The sticking point, inevitably, seems to be Bill Murray. And last week, Ernie Hudson was quite candid about the fact. He told the site Movie Mikes that "Bill has been the hold up." He added, "His definition of good is a little bit different than everybody else's. So we will see. I would love to see it happen. I know the fans have been asking for it...so hopefully."

Dan Aykroyd, meanwhile, has just hit the publicity circuit for his new film, Yogi Bear (you remember the poster, right?). Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Aykroyd said of Ghostbusters 3: "Great script, and [the writers] have written a part for Bill Murray that is a comic role of a lifetime." He added, "We've got the material. It's in the bag. Now it's just a matter of doing what you do when you produce a movie."

The Murray factor certainly seems to be the stumbling block of sorts, here, which given his reticence to return to Ghostbusters, as has been noted several times in the past year or so, is hardly surprising. Will he return? We wonder if they might just hit the point where they cut their losses and carry on without him...

Movie Mikes
Entertainment Tonight

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

From the director of Session 9 and The Machinist, Mr Brad Anderson, Vanishing On 7th Street stars Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo. And it's the story of a world where everybody seems to have disappeared, yet nastiness lurks in the shadows.

We've had a trailer for the film before, a bit earlier this year, but this new promo, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies, is better.

It's a modestly budgeted movie, but Anderson looks like he's stretched his funds quite far here. Could we be looking at a cheaper I Am Legend, without the ropey effects? Possibly, but it looks a little different to that. It might be daft, it might be brilliant.

Help yourself to the trailer and give yourself a taste of what's to come when the film arrives on video on demand in the States in January. There's currently no UK release date that we can dig out, but we'll let you know when one appears.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

Not for the first time, the collective mind of the Internet appears to be filling in some of the gaps where the direction of The Dark Knight Rises is concerned. Christopher Nolan continues to play everything very close to his chest, in his customary fashion, yet details may start seeping through in the next couple of weeks. For reports are that his screenplay is done and dusted, and heading over to Warner Bros today. That news was broken by Variety's David S Cohen, on his Twitter account.

The shoot itself is still set to begin in the spring, meanwhile, and Variety is reporting that the production will be returning to the UK, too. Bedfordshire's Cardington Hangars will be used for some of the shoots of The Dark Knight Rises, as they were for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Much of the rest of the film is pencilled in for filming in Chicago, which has been Nolan's Gotham City for his first two Batman adventures. It won't, as had been reported, be shooting in New Orleans, we understand.

Next? Last week we had the rumours that Heath Ledger would be digitally inserted into The Dark Knight Rises, something that was ruled out by Nolan and producer Emma Thomas. There has been continual chatter, too, that Aaron Eckhart might make a return as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, but that too has now been nixed. Eckhart confirmed to MTV that he had asked Nolan if he would be in The Dark Knight Rises, and Nolan had simply replied, "No". Which should clear that up.

Finally, story rumour of the day is an old one resurfacing: namely that Batman: Prey will form the basis for The Dark Knight Rises' narrative. This first bubbled up a few weeks back, and would point towards the villain of the film being Dr Hugo Strange. That's the current speculation, too, as to the role that Tom Hardy will be playing in the next film.

For now, as usual, we prescribe variable levels of salt, depending on which rumour you're following at the time. And expect some more solid details of the film to start emerging early next year.

David S Cohen
Variety
MTV
AICN

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

Artist and designer David Levy was, for many years, a concept designer for the videogame industry, heavily involved with such titles as Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones, and the original Assassin's Creed. Now the concept artist for director Joseph Kosinski’s forthcoming Tron: Legacy, we caught up with Levy to talk about his involvement in the film’s luminous, distinctive visual aesthetic…

How did you find working on Tron: Legacy after your experience in the games industry?

For the last fifteen years I’ve worked on videogames, so for me this was a very new thing.

But a natural transition, in a way?

Exactly, yes. I know that’s why they contacted me, because of my experience on games. I perhaps had a different perspective as well, maybe. And [Tron: Legacy] is so CG oriented, and a virtual environment, which is one reason why they contacted me, I think.

What was it like bringing Syd Mead and Mobius’ designs into the 21st century?

Well, one of the reasons I was so excited on working on this movie is because of Mobius. For me, when I was a kid, he was what I could become in the future – being French, he was very inspiring. We’re a very proud country!

So three years ago, when they released the DVD, the first thing I did was look at the making of, because I was really interested in that. To me, this was an extra special project, and when they asked me I asked, “Where do I sign?” I was very excited by it.

So how did you approach Legacy, in terms of design?

What happened was, Steve Lisberger, the original director, came to us one day with a whole book of sketches by Syd Mead and Mobius. I was in heaven!

These were the original drawings?

Yeah, originals! I was like a kid in a candy store. I was like, “Can I take it?” That was one of the highlights of the job, just seeing these sketches by Mobius and Syd Mead, two of the most influential designers working.

And when you looked at their designs, was it difficult to put your own spin on them, while retaining what made them special in the first place?

I think it came very naturally. When you have those two elements – the teaser, that Joe [Kosinski, director] had done, which had a very clear vision, and we had those designs from Steve, which were the old-school Tron, for us it was very natural.

I wouldn’t say it was easy, but no project is. In terms of inspiration, it felt very natural.

How do you work? Do you use traditional techniques, or work straight onto a computer?

It’s a very strange process. Because very often, when we do the same thing on the time, we always repeat the same shapes, so it’s good to vary. On many occasions on Tron, I’d switch back to pencils, just so I could break away from the habits I have with a computer. But honestly, it’s whatever works.

So one day I can just sketch on paper with a pencil, and then I can scan that image and turn it into a 3D model, maybe, and sometimes the opposite – I’ll create a 3D model, make a print of it, and have Joe sketch on it directly, or sometimes Darren Gilford, the production designer, would just sketch on it directly. It’s very organic.

I think it’s bad to always have the same habit, because you tend to re-do the same things, so it’s very important to change mediums.

What element that you’ve designed would you say you’re most proud of?

It’s very hard to say, because there are so many people involved in creating something, so it would be unfair to pick one thing – but I’m going to do it anyway! [Laughs.] I think our proudest moment, was that we worked very hard with Ben [Procter, art director], who was here this morning, on the nightclub, the outside and the inside.

I visited the set last year, and just walking through the club was one of the most amazing moments for me, because having worked in videogames for so long, you never get to do that. You never get to walk through a set, you know? That was very impressive, to get to walk through this set we had designed with so many people was just the proudest moment for me.

So physical sets aside, what are the other differences between designing for film and videogames? Are there any?

To be honest the creative process is the same. The only difference is that what you’re designing is real. But in terms of the creative process, it’s very similar. It’s problem solving. We get this huge problem dropped in our laps, which is the script, and we have to come up with some way to convey the emotions in it.

Our job is to support the whole script, to make it even more emotional for people to watch. It’s a very tight collaboration between the story and the visuals.

Was there anything that was on the drawing board that didn’t make it into the film?

I think it’s in the nature of our job. We do a lot of sketches, and what you see in the movie is just the tip of the iceberg. What you don’t see, which is kind of the magical part, is the pain behind it!

There are so many things that don’t come out, that don’t work. Failure makes perfect. So we fail a lot, so you only see the perfect side!

Is it frustrating, sometimes, working collaboratively with so many other designers?

Honestly, this project was the least frustrating I’ve ever worked on. When you have people that are in a management position like Joe and Darren, who are designers – I mean, Darren comes from the same background as I do, which is industrial design and architecture, and Joe comes from architecture – when you’re working with people like that, it’s like telepathy. You don’t have to explain much. They just say one word and I get it.

Actually I was really happy to work with them. It’s been a great experience.

David Levy, thank you very much!

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.