Easily one of our most anticipated shows of 2011, the return of Torchwood for the BBC/Starz co-production of season four, entitled The New World, has got us suitably excited. The new season run is set to start shooting next week in the US (and will be heading to Wales for the end of January), ahead of its 10-episode run in the summer.

And if you want to have an idea of what to expect, then an official synopsis for the season has popped up on the Torchwood: The New World Facebook page. If you want to head into the season utterly spoiler-free, then you might want to look away now.

"The new ten-part series of the Doctor Who spinoff will also see the return of regular Torchwood characters Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles).

Gwen will be shown living peacefully in Wales with husband Rhys (Kai Owen) and new baby Anwen when she encounters a 'new, epic danger' that will 'push [her] to the limit'.

Having left Earth at the conclusion of previous miniseries Children of Earth, Harkness will be drawn back to the Torchwood institute by 'his unstated love for Gwen'."

Make of all that what you will. And, of course, we'll bring you fresh Torchwood news as soon as we have it...

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It's not due until the end of next year, but word has seeped out that Pixar's follow-up to Monsters, Inc is set to be a prequel, rather than a sequel.

The news appeared at a Dutch blog by the name of Animatie, which got hold of a catalogue that Disney reportedly handed out to cinema owners. We've not seen the catalogue ourselves, so can't corroborate this, but it's an interesting rumour, and a plausible one.

Apparently, the new film will see Sulley and Mike signing up for the University Of Fear, and the movie will chart how the pair turned from enemies into friends.

Monsters, Inc 2 (or whatever it turns out to be called) isn't due in cinemas until November 2012 (there are two more Pixar films heading our way first, starting with this summer's Cars 2), so it might be a while before we find out how true the prequel rumour is. But we'll keep you posted...

Animatie

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2011 may just turn out to be Natalie Portman's best professional year to date. Firstly, there's her sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated leading turn in the excellent Black Swan, which is likely to bring her home a gong. And then there are a pair of films that are demonstrating her flair for comedy (as well as Marvel's Thor, of course).

Our ticket for the Danny McBride-starring Your Highness was sold a month or two back off the strength of the first trailer, but take a look at this one, too. It's for a film called No Strings Attached, a comedy starring Portman, Ashton Kutcher, Cary Elwes and Kevin Kline. It's directed by Ivan Reitman (whose next project is set to be Ghostbusters 3), and is arriving next month in the UK.

In advance of that, here's the first red band trailer for the film. Off the back of this, it's not up to the strength of the aforementioned Your Highness trailer, but we'll see how the final movie pans out shortly...

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The story of Aron Ralston, the American climber who went to extraordinary lengths to free himself when he became pinned to a canyon wall by a boulder in May 2003, may be a remarkable one, but the task of adapting it into a watchable cinematic experience sounds nigh-on impossible, at least on paper.

Yet, in the hands of director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, 127 Hours is as much about hope and triumph as it is about the grim details of against-all-odds survival. As the film arrives in UK cinemas, we caught up with Beaufoy to discuss his adaptation of this remarkable story...

Spoiler warning: If you don't know Aron Ralston's story, and want to see 127 Hours cold, you might want to skip the interview.

I thought the film was fantastic, first of all. Were you daunted by the task of writing it?

I was by the idea of it, because it seemed impossible for all sorts of obvious reasons. Of course, if you say impossible to Danny [Boyle], his eyes light up, and he goes, "Ah! Yes, I know! Impossible is good. We like impossible."

And this story had been knocking around in his head for years. I didn't understand how to do it until he wrote this document down, which was how he saw it. Rather than a script, it was more like a "This is how it's going to look" kind of document. It was an amazing piece of work.

He started with all these crowd scenes, and I instantly understood what he was up to, and immediately went off to meet Aron Ralston and start investigating the psychology of him, really, because that's what fascinated me. Not so much that he chopped his own arm off, but the psychology of what he was doing down there in the first place, and why three days went by before anyone even missed him.

All those things were of interest to me, and rang bells for me as a writer.

When you were planning the film and writing it, was it a worry that people would only focus on the sensational aspect of its subject matter, that it would just be known as the film about the man who cut his arm off? That they wouldn't see the psychological value in the story?

Well, I think it's our job to make them see that, if you like, but, yes. Modulating it so you're not banging them over the head with it, while still sticking to the facts of the story. I mean, it's a great challenge writing a piece where, without exception, everyone goes into the cinema knowing what happened. Without exception. So, they all know he chopped his arm off, and they all know he survived.

Immediately, you've lost any sense of tension, of drama. And you haven't got much there in the first place, because there's only him, no other people. It's a brilliant set of limitations, in a way.

See if you can make everyone in the audience forget that he survived. Make it such a subjective and immersive experience, that they're living in it second by second and moment by moment, so they're not thinking, "Oh yeah, he was the guy that got out and wrote a book, and blah, blah, blah."

You've got to be with him for every moment while he's down there. It's a big challenge.

How important was casting James Franco? How early in the scriptwriting process was he considered?

We had a pretty tight script by the time he came onboard. We knew from very early days that it had to be someone extraordinary who would understand how to modulate it so it wasn't a huge, brute performance, that it was actually quite a delicate thing, with all sorts of shades that go all the way from very intense all the way to Pineapple Express moments.

So, [James Franco] read a passage of it, and it was very clear that he was the guy.

I understand that you're quite into climbing yourself.

Yeah, I've done a lot of that in the past, yeah.

How did that help you to connect with Ralston's experience while you were writing the script?

Very much. Aron and I had an immediate sense of trust, working with each other, because we came from a similar point of view. We both love the outdoors and mountains. We talked a lot about that before I sat him down and said, "Okay. We need to discuss the tough bits of your life." So, I think it definitely helped, yes.

Going back to the subjective viewpoint of the film you mentioned earlier, did you consider not ever cutting out of the canyon, of leaving out the various flashbacks and so forth?

I think it would have been a disaster if you had done that. You immediately know he's all right if you do that. You've lost your subjectivity. You've allowed the audience to step away from the person and go, "Oh, it's just a film." We're out here, and he's in there. The whole point is, if he's in there, we're in there. If he doesn't get out, we don't get out.

It's interesting to contrast 127 Hours with Buried, which are, of course, very different films.

Yes, Buried sounds like a very bold film.

And they both feature a single actor trapped in one location.

I don't think I could watch it! [laughs] I know lots of people are saying the same thing about our film, and we're all going, "No, no, it's fine!"

There were rumours that the first part of 127 Hours was originally going to be shot without any dialogue. Was there any truth behind this?

I don't know where that rumour came from, actually, because [Ralston] met up with these girls, which was only going to be the only proper dialogue in the film. That was always going to be in there.

As it is, the script is extremely economical.

Yes, I think it needs to be.

Did much change between writing it and the actual shoot?

Not a great deal, no. It's such a strange piece of work. Such an individual piece of work that you have to stick to the script, really, otherwise you'd get lost. It doesn't have the shape of your average drama about.

What did that mean to you, that contrast between the crowd shots, depicting society, if you like, and those shots of Ralston by himself?

The received opinion is that it's about one person doing extraordinary things, but it's not, really. It's about all of us. It's about people, about crowds, about humanity. And he's turned his back and said, "I don't need them." It's his movement towards grace, if you like.

You do need people. You can't live without them. We're all interconnected in some way. I wanted to start with crowds and end with crowds.

And the tone of the film is extremely positive, of course.

Yes. It should be. Very hopeful.

But it could have been quite sensationalistic, and certainly the fact that Ralston had to sacrifice his arm could have been portrayed as tragic.

When he cut his arm off, he had a smile on his face. I remember doing the last draft of the script, and Aron wrote, "I was laughing and smiling while I was doing this." And I remember thinking, "Really? Well, I can't put that in the script." And I kept not putting it in the script, and he kept saying, "Guys, it's really important. This was a really euphoric moment for me when I realised that I could chop this dead thing off."

So, in the end, we put in this big laugh when James snaps the bone. He really laughs, because it was really important for Aron that people realise that this was a wonderful thing. It wasn't a disaster that he was chopping his arm off. It was a relief. It was liberation. It was back to his old world. Back to people.

It was almost like a psychological hurdle he had to jump. And that's perhaps what other people can take from the film.

That's right! I always think of that. It's not a survival story. Well, it's not just that. Everyone's got a boulder that they have to overcome, of one sort or another. It's a film about confronting your big problem, and getting back to people. Understanding that complex web of interpersonal relationships, which help us all through.

Writing something based on a real event, on a living person, that was a new thing for you, I understand.

It was a big responsibility, because he's alive and well, and sitting next to me in the cinema. And you have to get it right. You've got an obligation to the facts, which can obviously run counter to the demands of the drama. You've got to shape and balance, hone and polish.

Real life is messy, and drama is a shaped version of real life. Those two things are quite often at opposites, so I'd often find myself slave to two masters, with the facts of what really happened and what we wanted to say.

And always, because Aron's sitting right next to me in the cinema and was there all the time, I'd always have to err on the side of what really happened. It was a great, fascinating challenge to get that right. We didn't know we got it right until he was sitting in the theatre watching it. It was a good thing we did get it right. He's very proud of the film. He feels it's very true to his experience.

He read every draft of the script, and had a lot to say about an awful lot of it. And we took on board as much of that as we could. But again, it's this to and fro about this fictionalisation of a real event, in order to get at a greater emotional truth than you might get from a documentary.

You get a sensational survivalist tale, and we were after more than that. Fortunately, he really understood that. He really got what we were trying to do.

The hallucinations that Aron experiences are a big part of the film. How did they come about?

They all came out of conversations with him. Some of those video messages are verbatim what he said on tape, and others are spun out of conversations I had with him about his terrible fear of a flash flood, because that would have meant instant death. And the sensation in the morning, as the sun came up, the rest of America was waking and nobody knew where he was.

By then he'd run out of water. And all those things allowed me to spin drama out of what he was thinking. Not exactly what he was thinking, but a version of it.

The key scene is, of course, where Aron finally releases himself. How did you decide how graphic you should make it? In the book, it's a moment that really lingers in the mind.

It's an amazing passage in the book, isn't it? It's brilliant.

Startlingly written, yes.

That was our guiding light, really, is that we should stick to what he wrote. It's superbly described in intimate detail. And it took him over an hour to do. So, we could hardly cut away and say, "Oh, his arm's free." It's part of the experience.

You have a duty to survive it with him. It's tough, but he does survive it, and everyone knows he survives it. And I always think, if he can do it, we can watch it.

Simon Beaufoy, thank you very much!

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US sitcoms are a lot like politicians. A lot of them get churned out each year, but very few of them are worth following. 2009 saw the debuts of the sublime Modern Family and Parks And Recreation, but it also gave birth to such gems as Sit Down, Shut Up (which mercifully took its own advice four episodes in), 10 Things I Hate About You (viewers found it hard to restrict it to that many), The Cleveland Show (because the world needs more Seth MacFarlane) and Hank, yet another failed Kelsey Grammer vehicle.

But what of 2010? Here's a look at some of this year's crop...

Mike & Molly (CBS)

What's It About?

Mike & Molly features the eponymous couple from their first meeting at Overeaters Anonymous through the first fumbling steps of their relationship. Along the way, they learn to cope with one another, as well as their respective friends and families.

Is It Any Good?

I once had a discussion with a friend as to whether The Big Bang Theory would still be any good if you removed all of the geeky references and nerd in-jokes. I maintained that it would be. However, looking at this show, overseen by Big Bang exec Chuck Lorre, I might have to reconsider my answer.

The leads are rather likable, while the supporting cast range from fun (Mike's cop partner) to profoundly irritating (Any of Molly's family). There are some decent one-liners scattered amongst the scripts, but a lot of the material on offer here feels tired and bland. There's a disturbing reliance on fat jokes (ha ha, Mike just fell through a table), and in avoiding the will-they-won't-they tension many sitcoms get bogged down in, the writers have created a couple so loved-up that they become hard for a bitter miser like myself to watch.

Has It Got Legs?

There's definitely potential for this show to sharpen up and become something worth watching on a regular basis, but at the moment it feels a bit flabby, if you'll pardon the pun.

It's also hard to see where they're going to take the show once all the major milestones in Mike and Molly's relationship have been covered. However, it's pulling in almost as many viewers as its CBS stablemate Big Bang, so they're likely to get the chance to show what they can really accomplish.

Mike & Molly airs on Comedy Central in the UK.

Running Wilde (Fox)

What's It About?

Arrested Development's Will Arnett stars as Steve Wilde, a self-centred billionaire with little idea about how the real world operates. But when his high school sweetheart reappears, she and her daughter move in and set about trying to educate him.

Is It Any Good?

Arrested Development is easily one of the best sitcoms of the decade, so the news that creator Mitch Hurwitz was teaming up with Gob Bluth himself for a new series filled me with genuine excitement. Unfortunately, there's something about this show that feels a bit flat.

Arnett's character comes across as a tired re-tread of Gob, but with the edges sanded down. And while Gob's plans often came to fruition in some way, Wilde is often there to be taught the error of his ways. And more often than not, rather than laughing at his antics, I ended up feeling a bit sorry for him not.

The supporting cast do a decent enough job, with a special mention for the UK's very own Peter Serafinowicz, who generates the lion's share of the laughs as Wilde's eccentric neighbour, but this really isn't half the show it should've been.

Has It Got Legs?

Running Wilde is an oddity, and quite different from the other shows on this list. Unfortunately, audiences haven't warmed to it, and it's been steadily dropping viewers since the premiere back in September. The last few episodes are set to air in December, after which Fox have announced they won't be ordering any more. Can we have the Arrested Development movie now, please, Mitch?

Outsourced (NBC)

What's It About?

American Todd Dempsey finds himself put in charge of his company's new call centre in India. Cultures clash as Todd adjusts to his new life.

Is It Any Good?

Outsourced is far more entertaining than its premise suggests. There are occasional moments where the jokes descend into lazy 'They do things differently over there' territory, but the show derives a lot of its best humour from the diverse ensemble cast of characters, such as Rajiv, Todd's ambitious assistant manager, who'll do anything to get rid of him, or Gupta, a strange and unpopular employee who tries to be the office joker.

The scripts, while not up there with the likes of Frasier or Modern Family, are witty, with several layers, and with wonderfully surreal moments thrown in. It's not perfect, but if it carries on along its current trajectory, this could be a very watchable show, indeed.

Has It Got Legs?

There's certainly a lot of potential in the characters and situations as they stand, and Outsourced is currently rating higher than its Thursday night NBC companions 30 Rock or Community, so I suspect we'll be hearing more from this call centre in 2011.

$#*! My Dad Says (CBS)

What's It About?

William Shatner stars as William Shatner in a small-screen adaptation of a Twitter feed. When Ed's son falls on hard times, the pair end up living together.

Is It Any Good?

The father-son dynamic has been milked for big laughs many times in the past, perhaps most effectively in Frasier, where the relationship between Niles, Frasier and their dad was layered with nuances and subtleties that drove the comedy. As you might expect from the casting of Shatner, $#*! My Dad Says (inexplicably referred to as "Bleep My Dad Says" by network announcers. If you can't say the name of your show on air, change the name of the show!) isn't exactly subtle.

It's a classic four-camera sitcom, with the larger-than-life characters and broad comedy this entails.

Shatner's character is a grouch with a heart of gold, whose role in the show is to say outrageous things and then stop shy of hugging someone by the episode's end, and he naturally gets given the majority of the show's jokes. Delivered with sledgehammer-like force, it feels too often like this show is trying to compensate for the scripts by saying ‘Hey, look, it's William Shatner!', leaving the rest of the cast to feel more than a little redundant. Still, it gets him out of the house...

Has It Got Legs?

Hard to say. Having rebuilt his career over the last few years with Boston Legal, the Shatner brand carries with it a fair bit of weight. The ratings haven't been stellar, but they haven't been abysmal either, despite widespread criticism. I suspect this will get picked up for a second season, but it's going to have to do some serious work if it wants to go further.

Raising Hope (Fox)

What's It About?

Twenty-three-year-old Jimmy is forced to raise his infant daughter when her mother is executed for the murder of several previous boyfriends. With hilarious consequences.

Is It Any Good?

Greg Garcia's follow-up to My Name Is Earl seemed, at first, to share a lot of similarities, an optimistic lead character in the middle of Hicksville, USA, and Jimmy's rather unlikable family took some getting used to. Fortunately, Hope shares its predecessor's sense of positivity in the midst of chaos, as well as its subtly amusing writing.

The main coupling of Jimmy and his potential love interest, Sabrina, works very well, and saccharine scenes with the eponymous baby are balanced with the cynicism of Jimmy's parents and mentally-ill grandmother. As sitcoms go, it's a slow burner, and certainly not laugh-a-minute, but it might be one worth keeping an eye on.

Has It Got Legs?

Raising Hope was the first full-season pickup of the 2010-11 season. Ratings haven't been stellar, but I suspect Garcia's pedigree and a strong critical reaction will carry it through.

Raising Hope airs on Sky in the UK.

So, that's the new shows we've been checking out so far this season. Are there any we've missed? Let us know in the comments box below!

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The eighteenth season of Doctor Who is still, some thirty years after its initial transmission, something of a controversial one. It was a season that saw the ascension of John Nathan Turner to the producer's chair, the rather dry and (some would say) pretentious Christopher H. Bidmead becoming the show's script editor as well as a whole slew of other stylistic and presentational alterations.

More pertinently, this was also the season that saw Tom Baker's seven-year tenure as the now legendary Fourth Doctor come to an end. A sombre and joyless run of stories, season 18 is an odd and atypical season for that most identifiable of Doctors to bow out on, as Bidmead's influence seemed to accentuate philosophical and scientific finger wagging over telling compelling, engaging and entertaining stories.

The second story of the season, John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch's Meglos followed on from the appalling opening adventure, The Leisure Hive, and managed to maintain the low standards that the previous story had set. A bizarre concoction of odd ideas and half formed concepts, nothing really comes together in this tale of the titular villain (a shape shifting sentient cactus, no less!), his plot to impersonate the Doctor, and his plan to steal the, frankly, rather unimpressive Dodecahedron from the planet of Tigella.

Throw in a ham-fisted ‘critique' of organised religion that is so blunt and po-faced it'd make an earnest 15-year-old schoolgirl blush and you have a story that caused a fair number of the previously loyal Saturday night audience of the time to choose Gil Gerard and Erin Grey strutting their twenty-fifth century stuff on LWT instead.

However, the ropey script aside (which would appear to have been heavily re-written by script editor Bidmead to remove any and all sense of whimsy, wonder and fun) is only one part of the problem, as it's in the execution of the story, by veteran BBC director Terence Dudley, that most of the show's real problems lie.

It's usually the case with most classic Doctor Who adventures that the first episode of a serial, no matter how dull it wound up being, would be the most enthralling and/or exciting, as it was concerned with establishing atmosphere, mood and setting up the premise of the next four-to-six weeks. However, Meglos manages to be the exception to that rule, as its first episode is possibly the most un-dramatic and devoid of atmosphere piece of television I've ever seen.

How Dudley manages to drain a story that features marauding space pirates, a kidnapped Earth businessman, a societal schism based around religion versus science, a talking/shape-shifting cactus and the Doctor and his companions stuck inside a time loop of any sort of life and make it this boring is certainly some sort of achievement.

Clearly not comfortable with either the special effects being employed (this was the maiden use of the then-revolutionary Scene Sync camera technique) or the tone of the script he'd been given, Dudley directs the first episode with a distance and detachment that borders on the soporific, but in actual fact, just comes cross as lazy and ill thought through.

Most bizarrely of all, the first episode ends with an interminable repeat of an abominably staged scene that finds the Doctor and Romana (Lalla Ward) trapped inside something called a ‘chronic hysteresis'. Although this dilemma sounds like it could be a cross between a female sterilisation procedure and a urine infection, it is simply a Bidmead-ism for a time loop. Which, on reflection, is probably something of a relief.

Not every aspect of the production is a disaster (although the less said about the killer plants in the jungle of Tigella, the better) and the major high point of the episode comes in the form of the make-up for the humanoid versions of Meglos. This ‘green cactus faced human' look is an image I remember vividly from childhood and proves that, even when failing in every other department, Who can always be relied on to dredge up imagery that burns itself into impressionable young minds for years to come.

Make-up aside, the episode also benefits from a relatively decent Tom Baker performance, as he seems to relish playing both the disguised Meglos and the Doctor, especially in their scenes together. Another notable plus is a relatively enjoyable sequence of fun moments between Lalla Ward's breathy Romana and the always reliable, K-9.

However, the oddest piece of casting in the story has to be that of Jacqueline Hill as Lexa, leader of the fanatical Deon faction. Doctor Who royalty, thanks to her role as Barbara Wright back in the William Hartnell years, Hill's performance is decent enough, but it's hard not to feel sorry for the actress, as she has to deliver lines that wouldn't seem out of place in the far-future sections of Blackadder's Christmas Carol.

An odd role for such a high profile and well-respected performer to take, one can't help but feel that this decision bears the fingerprints of publicity-loving producer, John Nathan Turner. Never one to shy away from throwing a self-referential bone to the fans, it's nonetheless a rather sad and inappropriate footnote to Jacqueline Hill's association with the show. 

Extras

Despite the poverty of the main attraction, the extras for Meglos are actually not too bad.

The audio commentary track, featuring co-writer John Flanagan and Romana herself, Lalla Ward, is fairly standard, but the short documentaries on offer are all worth watching.

Entropy Explained is a short piece explaining the scientific concept of entropy and manages to be both light and informative, while The Scene Sync Story is an interesting look behind the scenes of the Scene Sync camera system that was used to blend blue screen elements with the model shots in a number of sequences. 

Jacqueline Hill: A Life in Pictures is a series of snippets and interviews covering the life, career and untimely death of the first female Doctor Who companion and contains moving testimonies from her Who co-star, William Russell, her husband, Alvin Rakoff, and maiden Who Producer, Verity Lambert.

Meglos Men is a longer, but lighter affair that brings writers John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch together again for a jaunt down memory lane to discuss the writing of the story. The two writers are engaging, funny and likeable co-anchors for this piece, but the stand out ‘performance' of this documentary comes not from them, but instead from former script editor, Christopher H. Bidmead, whose wearing of a baseball cap throughout his section shows that, despite all evidence to the contrary, maybe he really does have a sense of humour after all. 

Episode:
Disc:

Doctor Who: Meglos will be released on January 10 and can be pre-ordered from the Den Of Geek Store.

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Imagine you’re a restaurant proprietor. Your establishment is a massive success, and night after night, the building’s full of happy customers, all quietly enjoying their scallops and pea purée.

And yet, somehow, your success isn’t quite enough. Sure, the punters are having a pleasant time, paying for their meals and leaving healthy tips, but surely, as they sit at their tables for hour after hour, there’s some way of making just a little extra money from them?

So as well as charging them for their meals and their drinks, you begin sneaking other charges in – slowly at first, so they don’t notice too much. An additional charge for breadsticks, perhaps, or a couple of pence on the bill for a sachet of horseradish sauce. Then you get really clever, and begin charging extra for tables with cloths and candles on them, and add a ten per cent surcharge for sitting down.

You charge customers for sitting within breathing distance of the air con, or within earshot of a fiddle player. You attach a turnstile to the cloakroom, charging 50p per minute to use the toilet.

This, I’d argue, is Activision’s attitude to the glowering success of the Call Of Duty franchise. COD is a series so monumentally popular that, having already released Modern Warfare 2 with an unusually high price tag of £54.99, Activision decided that it could get away with charging £10 for a set of five maps – two of which had already been seen in COD 4.

Meanwhile, industry analysts have warned for some time that Activision may be thinking about charging a subscription fee for playing COD online. In June last year, the company’s CEO, Bobby Kotick, told the Wall Street Journal that, if he could snap his fingers, he would "have Call Of Duty be an online subscription service tomorrow.”

Further, he suggested that paying a World Of Warcraft-style monthly fee would be a popular move among players.

“When you think about what the audience's interests are and how you could really satisfy bigger audiences with more inspired, creative opportunities, I would love to see us have an online Call Of Duty world,” Kotick said. “I think our players would just have so much of a more compelling experience. I think our audiences are clamouring for it. If you look at what they're playing on Xbox Live today, we've had 1.7 billion hours of multiplayer play on Live. I think we could do a lot more to really satisfy the interests of the customers. I think we could create so many things, and make the game even more fun to play. We haven't really had a chance to do that yet.”

Kotick’s sentiments were underlined by an Activision plan published last March, which stated the company’s desire to “further the brand as the leading action entertainment franchise in new geographies, new genres and with new digital business models.”

In the wake of the rampaging success of Black Ops – which, against most expectations, outstripped the business of its predecessor by around 2.5 million copies – analysts (this time, a company called Wedbush Securities) have again predicted that some form of monthly subscription for COD is in the offing.

“Activision remains a top pick, primarily due to the company's potential to create and monetize a second tier of multiplayer online gaming for its Call Of Duty franchise,” the company wrote in a January 2011 newsletter. “We expect this to occur during the first quarter of 2011.”

Considering the corporate glue that holds Activision together with Blizzard, an MMO-style overhaul for the Call Of Duty franchise wouldn’t be too tricky to implement from a technical standpoint. The changes elsewhere, however, would be huge.

For one thing, Activision would have to forget about churning out a COD game every 12 months, as it has for all but one year since the original appeared in 2003. Players are unlikely to want to pay out a monthly subscription for a game that will be replaced less than a year after they’ve purchased it.

Second, Activision will have to make a firm commitment to releasing new content each month – and plenty of it. Dedicated as COD acolytes may be, its creators will have to give players good reasons to pay for the game each month – and that means plenty of new missions, weapons and updates, not just the occasional set of new maps.

There is an argument that a gradual metamorphosis into a persistent online shooter is just what the COD franchise needs – its solo campaigns have become increasingly emaciated in recent entries in any case, and integrating its multiplayer mode into an ongoing narrative that can be undertaken with clans could give the game a much need shot in the arm.

What Wedbush appears to be predicting, however, is rather different, and would entail a premium version of the game’s online mode with additional content unlocked for a monthly fee.

At the moment, this is all so much industry crystal ball gazing, but given the comments Activision has made in the past, and COD’s ongoing financial success, such a move could be seen as inevitable in the long term.

If a COD subscription does appear (and it’s difficult to see one being implemented quite as quickly as Wedbush claims it will), the move will represent a considerable financial gamble, and could cause irreparable damage to Activision’s annual cash cow should it fail to succeed.

Any additional charge – whether it is indeed monthly, or to unlock additional items, such as weapons, clothing, or other items – will have to bring tangible benefit to the player, or improve the game in some tangible way.

The Call Of Duty franchise is already the most lucrative videogame series on the planet, and Activision could face a nasty backlash if it starts charging players per bullet.

Next Gen
Kotaku

Caprica may be dead, but that has not stopped SyFy from continuing to flog the BSG horse. Whether it pays off remains to be seen, but the promise of a return to CAPs, DRADIS contacts and Vipers will be a feast for those bored by Caprica's religious posturing.

If you don't yet know, Blood And Chrome will chronicle the adventures of a young William Adama during the tenth year of the first Cylon war.

According to an earlier press release, here's what we have to look forward to:

"Ensign William Adama, barely in his 20s and a recent Academy graduate, finds himself assigned to the newest Battlestar in the Colonial fleet, the Galactica. The talented but hot-headed risk-taker soon finds himself leading a dangerous top secret mission that, if successful, will turn the tide of the decade long war in favor of the desperate fleet."

It will be interesting to see how they do this, considering Bill 'Husker' Adama's first mission was seen in Battlestar Galactica: Razor and represented the last battle of the First Cylon War.

Anyway, Blastr.com has released the first four pieces of concept art for the new series, and it looks good.

We're curious to see how the new look Cylons fit into their evolution and what new direction the show will take the mythology, but it seems to be adhering to producer David Eick's promise of an "authentic, relentless depiction of combat" as well as "the agony and ecstasy of human-Cylon war, which was the hallmark of Battlestar Galactica's early seasons."

Blastr

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At the end of this week, we get the first Nicolas Cage film of the year, with the once-delayed and now back on the schedules Season Of The Witch. Early signs suggest that the film will see Cage in full-on playing Nicolas Cage mode, ably supported by the mighty Ron Perlman. And it all looks a bit of a hoot from where we're sitting.

To whet your appetite, we've got our paws on some exclusive new images from the film, which we've brought together for you here. Click on the ones you want to make bigger, and your bidding will be done.

We'll have our review of the film tomorrow for you, and Season Of The Witch arrives in cinemas this weekend.

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Back when Phil Alden Robinson's terrific ensemble caper, Sneakers, was released in the early 1990s, I distinctly remember the fact that much was made of how the press kit for it arrived in digital form.

This was, of course, back in the days of masses of paper being generated just to print off every bit of marketing and promotional material. But Sneakers was a story of hackers, and so Universal tied into that to offer up one of the very first digital promotional campaigns. And it was rewarded with some healthy press for doing so. 20 years later, digital campaigns are, inevitably, far more prevalent.

Right now, though, there's something just as significant going on, and it's not getting anywhere near the level of attention. We're talking about Kevin Smith's promotion of the film Red State, which is, at heart, cutting out the middle man and giving us, the end users, the unfiltered, undiluted promotional push for the film. And not just powder puff nonsense, either. He's giving us, the audience, pretty much everything he's got as he sets about selling the film.

Not Such A Long Time Ago

It should be said that there is a little bit of back story here worth covering. Last year, off the back of the release of Cop Out (which was savaged by many critics), Kevin Smith expressed his displeasure at the way that some in the media went about their work. As he Tweeted at the time, "Realized whole system's upside down: so we let a bunch of people see for free, and they shit all over it? Meanwhile, people who'd REALLY like to see the flick for free are made to pay? Bullshit: from now on, any flick I'm ever involved with I conduct critics screenings thusly: you wanna see it early to review it? Fine: pay like you would if you saw it next week."

Whichever side of the debate you fell on (personally, I thought Cop Out was an okay comedy with some decent chuckles in it, but it's far from my favourite Kevin Smith film. I did pay to see it, too), and it certainly ignited some heated discussion online, you can't say that Kevin Smith isn't as good as his word. In fact, as it turns out, he's pretty much rewritten the way that directors, certainly of his profile, go about selling their films.

Thus, Red State.

This is the long-in-gestation dark horror project that Smith's long-time financiers, the Weinstein Brothers, passed on. There was no acrimony there. Smith himself has admitted that this is not a commercial picture. But it sounds an interesting one, albeit one where it took time for the funding to come together.

But come together it did last year, and Smith shot the film towards the back end of the year, wrapping it in November.

And here's where he began to take a different path to the crowd. Red State was completed without a distributor, which isn't unusual for a low budget picture, of course (although it is more unusual for one from a named director such as Smith). Thus, the plan that Smith announced, via Twitter, was to take the film to Sundance. The movie was subsequently confirmed to be screening out of competition, and it'll get its public world premiere on January 23rd.

However, rather than conduct the bidding process for the film behind closed doors, and across protracted negotiations, Smith wanted something more direct. His plan? That an auction for the distribution rights should take place in the room at Sundance. Possibly even allowing for online bidders. Whether that comes to fruition remains to be seen, but it's one part of a fascinating guerrilla approach to promoting the film that Smith is taking.

The next? Instead of releasing a poster for the film, covered with flimsy embargoes that restrict when it can be posted, he used the exclusive poster rights to raise some money for charity. Basically, any website could bid for the right to host the poster first (and enjoy the hits that followed), and many did. He's done this more than once now, and both raised interest in the film, and some cash for www.HaveFaithHaiti.org. The trailer he released himself, too, and rather than work through publicity departments, he's doing much of the heavy lifting himself.

Masterclass

But going back to the Sneakers comparison right at the start, the gold in what Kevin Smith is doing here is in the series of podcasts he's released about the making of the film. I can't lie and say I've heard them all yet, as there are nine of them and counting, with a new one being released each week. But from those that I've heard, they're a masterclass in low budget filmmaking, the kind you simply don't get in the run-up to a film's release.

Smith has been bringing in the likes of the film's director of photography, Dave Klein, the casting director Deb Aquila, producer Jon Gordon, and members of the cast, for individual podcasts. And within them, they go into detail about what they've been up to, even discussing how they got to where they are in the business. There's an abundance of fascinating material here, and it's like getting the most feature-packed DVD of a film, even before it's released. For film students, it's pretty much golden.

Smith is maintaining that he won't be doing the press circuit himself for Red State, outside of "maybe a business piece or two to help sell the flick if needed", although he has posted a phone number on his Twitter feed that any site can call to request an interview with the Red State cast. But he won't be putting himself up for interview on this one (although he is getting the podcasts transcribed to send out for the press to use).

As he wrote, "From nearly 20 years experience, I know this much. Folks are gonna write whatever they want, whether I sit down with them or not. So I'll just furnish all the information I'd normally serve up one at a time to a small, jaded audience that doesn't really give a sh*t unless there's someone famous in the room, to a much larger, appreciative audience that would actually enjoy and benefit from hearing the same information."

It's a gamble, certainly. As maligned as the press may be, it's, on paper, a lot easier to push your film when you have hundreds of websites, magazines, blogs and newspapers on your side, doing some of the work for you.

It's inevitable, mind you, that Smith will have won few friends with some of his words in the aftermath of the Cop Out critical mauling, and he'd likely argue that the press wouldn't be likely to do him many favours on this film at all anyway. That's not me putting words in his mouth, rather offering a flavour of what he's been saying out in the open at his Twitter feed (as he argues, that's where to go in order to get material direct from the source).

Departure

So, we get to here, where Smith is on the verge of releasing a film that, from all impressions thus far, radically departs from expectations of his work. And it's a film that's being sold, thus far at least, in a very, very different way (in fact, the film itself was almost funded in a different way, too, as Smith investigated the idea of allowing the end audience to invest small quantities of cash in the picture).

Will all this work? I've no idea. Will it backfire on Smith in the future if it doesn't? Quite possibly. But is it something different and a way of trying to promote the film by going straight to the audience, rather than funnelling it through media outlets? Absolutely.

And while I don't think this will be the norm in the future (and it's yet to be seen how much information the audience actually wants to digest before seeing a film), it could offer a significant precedent for smaller films to get noticed, in the midst of a busy calendar of movies with far more expensive marketing budgets. That might not be Smith's outright aim here, as his focus is on selling his own movie. But it'd be an interesting by-product of what happens here.

Profile

Granted, thus far Red State's profile has been fuelled by the work that Smith has personally put into promoting it (all while preparing his next film, Hit Somebody). But with or without the exposure that Smith himself brings to a project, it's been a fascinating approach, and one that's meaning this sub-$5m budgeted movie is already punching heavily above its weight.

Will the film live up to all of this? Couldn't tell you. Will the eventual distributor of the film just decide to market the film via conventional means anyway? Quite possibly. Will they keep to the planned March release that Smith has in mind? Quite possibly not.

But I can't help but think that, rather than ranting on a Twitter feed and leaving it at that, Smith is trying to do something different. Namely, whether you agree with him or not, he's putting his money - and more crucially, his film - where his mouth is.

You can find the Red State podcasts here.

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They're back. Those TV adverts for films which have normal people raving about how much they enjoyed the film playing behind them. For a moment, I thought they'd gone, a bygone marketing tool consigned to the scrap heap. What do we need real people for nowadays? We've got computers and stuff.

Turn on the TV, though, wait a while, and you might just catch one advertising The Next Three Days. It's filled with the usual people. Smiley, happy people. Shouldn't you be worried about VAT and jobs and potholes, like the rest of us? I guess not. You've got films to watch, cameras to talk to. 

They're kind of frustrating, like reading an old Paul Ross review when every new week would herald the arrival of "My new favourite action movie of all time!". Come on, that's just lazy. You must have watched a different Passenger 57.

The thing about this latest advert, however, is that it's scarily on the money. The Next Three Days is just a good as those pod people proclaim. There are a few too many clichés tossed around (I don't think anyone is ever "on the edge of" their seat during a thriller, although "it had me leaning forward slightly" doesn't have quite the same punch), but that's okay. They're a good fit here. 

It's a far more commercial and mainstream film than Paul Haggis' last venture as director, In The Valley Of Elah, and the first few minutes have the feel of a standard Hollywood thriller: let's set up a loving couple, an idyllic home life, then shatter it because we need to get going. Russell Crowe loves his wife, she loves him, but did she really murder that poor woman? Not selling it so far, am I? No wonder I'm never picked for those TV adverts.

The Next Three Days pretty much leads up to one big event, Crowe breaking his wife out of jail. What Haggis does brilliantly is make the setup just as interesting and dramatic as the break-out itself. Which is a good thing, because it's the former that takes up much of the film's running time, and it gives Crowe ample space to shed all traces of his movie star persona.

It was there in full force in Ridley Scott's good, but kind of inhibited Robin Hood. Crowe seemed so committed to adding a physical presence and fresh take to an iconic character that he forgot, or didn't have time, to add any humanity. Maybe he was saving it all up for here.

State Of Play showed that he could turn the star wattage down and play hangdog. I still remember that great scene where he's in the apartment block, a bad guy round the corner, and he turns to jelly. Panic overcomes him. For that moment he wasn't Maximus or an actor who threw a phone at someone. He was a normal guy fearing for his life. 

In The Next Three Days he does it even better, and Haggis cranks up the pressure so much that the film genuinely becomes what few mainstream thrillers are: unpredictable. It may lack the weighty heft of Elah, but mainstream Haggis is anything but cheery endings and good men saving the day.

There are laughs dotted plentifully around. One, following the film's special effect blow-out, is a perfectly timed raised hand by Crowe. Yet the film goes to some dark places, and doesn't always come back from them.

If anything, it's when the movie shifts up a gear into the final third, and that break-out, that it becomes a little strained. Haggis has to rely on some overly-familiar genre tropes, like an FBI man shouting things down a phone as he does them - 'I'm running down some stairs! I'm near a subway.'- or a too clever for his own good policeman and his slightly disbelieving partner (although he may have come up with that in Due South, so let's forgive him that one). 

It pulls it back for a nice (for Haggis read dark) climax, and actually makes good use of a Moby song before that. It also brings Brian Dennehy back to the big screen, giving him an emotional humdinger of a scene with just a few words. 

Don't let those adverts put you off. The Next Three Days is far better than its advertising campaign. 

The Next Three Days is in UK cinemas from today, January 5th.

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Frenetic, restless Danny Boyle. Whether he's at the helm of a mid-90s movie about Edinburgh drug addicts or a deep space science fiction adventure, you can guarantee the story will be told in a rush of sound and images.

127 Hours tells the true story of Aron Ralston, an active outdoors-type whose rock climbing outing was cut short one day when his arm became pinned beneath a falling boulder. Having spent more than five days stuck at the bottom of a Utah canyon with nothing more than a bottle of water and a blunt penknife for company, Ralston was forced to undertake extraordinarily painful measures in order to escape certain death.

Ralston's resulting book of his experience, Between A Rock And A Hard Place, appears to give Boyle little scope for his typical fast edits and funky music. This is, after all, a film about one man stuck alone in a single location for pretty much its entirety.

And yet, as 127 Hours opens, we're in familiar Boyle country. As Ralston, James Franco is an outgoing, fiercely confident young man who enjoys nothing more than getting away from the stresses of his family and job by heading out into the wilderness to climb a few cliffs. To thunderous music, Boyle intercuts images of bustling city life with the arid emptiness of Blue John Canyon.

Few directors are as adept at capturing the carefree exuberance of youth as Boyle, and 127 Hours' first act, where Ralston enjoys the company of a pair of picturesque hitchhikers (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara) provides a few moments' scene-setting levity before the inevitable happens. Having said farewell to his two new friends, Ralston accidentally slips down to the bottom of a deserted canyon, where a boulder the size of a dustbin crushes his right arm.

For the rest of the movie, Ralston agonises, squirms and hallucinates, and Franco's performance, like Ryan Reynolds' in Buried, is superb. A lesser actor would have allowed their performance to slip into screaming melodrama, but Franco is restrained and sympathetic throughout.

Boyle, too, should be commended for making a potentially unwatchable premise relatively palatable for a broad audience. As grim as the film gets (and for any but the most battle-hardened horror addict, Ralston's escape scene is particularly grim), Boyle's film is one of triumph over adversity rather than an exercise in unsettling gloom.

There are moments, even in the depths of the canyon, of incidental beauty: a lone plane flying through the blue strip of sky visible from Ralston's vantage point, perhaps, or the arresting sight of a phantom inflatable Scooby Doo.

At the same time, Boyle's restless, showy directorial style occasionally threatens to undercut the film's tension. Repeated flashbacks and dream sequences provide the audience with an escape route from Ralston's ordeal, disrupting not only the film's flow of time but also, on occasion, its palpable sense of loneliness.

Nevertheless, Boyle's film is a committed, well-made examination of individual disaster and survival, and Franco's performance is sure to gain some attention in the forthcoming Oscars.

127 Hours is in UK cinemas from today, January 5th.

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Sony's reboot of the Spider-Man movie franchise is now before the cameras in Los Angeles, as you may know, with (500) Days Of Summer helmer Marc Webb calling the shots on the new film.

And while we've still not had any official photography released from the film, the folks at JustJared have got hold of some pictures from the shoot, which give us our first glimpse of Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker. In the pictures, he's shooting a scene with Emma Stone, and you can click on any of the images below to make them bigger.

We've still not seen an image of Garfield in the webslinger's suit, and suspect we may have to wait a little while to do so. For now, though, you can find more images over at JustJared, right here.

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The mooted new big screen take on Godzilla has moved one big step closer to fruition with the news that Gareth Edwards has been hired to direct the film.

The news has broken over at Heat Vision, which reports that, off the back of Edwards' terrific Monsters, made on a microscopic budget, Legendary Pictures is close to inking a deal with him for its Godzilla project.

Edwards is set to work on the script, along with an as-yet unhired new writer, but it's unclear thus far whether they'll keep the guts of the screenplay that's already been written by David Callaham.

There's no fixed time scale that we know of yet on the project, although we'd imagine that Legendary will be looking to head into production before the year is out. Once we know more, we will, of course, let you know.

For now, here's the full story at Heat Vision.

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Post-production continues on this summer's latest instalment in the X-Men saga, First Class, under the watchful eye of director Matthew Vaughn. And January Jones, who plays Emma Frost in the film, has been chatting to the Los Angeles Times, about the project.

Jones, thus far best known for her role in the outstanding Mad Men, firstly recollected when she first heard of the project. "When I heard that this installment of 'X-Men' was gonna take place in the '60s," she said, "I was like, 'Oh my God, you must be kidding me!' But I read the script and familiarized myself with the character of Emma Frost. She's so, so far from Betty and from 'Mad Men', and it takes place in that time but it doesn't feel like a period movie."

Inevitably, the chat then moved on to the costumes that Emma Frost wears. In the comic books, it's fair to say that, at times, Frost's wardrobe is, er, ‘sparse'. And the film is seemingly following the same path.

"The costumes are insane," Jones confirmed. "It's a lot of very body-conscious stuff. If you look at the comic book, she's barely dressed. She's got quite the bod, which is very intimidating."

However, the actress revealed that she was asked not to work out in preparation for the film, "to maintain a body typical of the period" (that one's a quote from the article, rather than Jones herself, we should add).

Finally, she touched on Frost's mutant powers and how they're being deploying in the film. "I don't have to do all the crazy prosthetics. When I morph into my diamond form, it's all done on computer," she revealed.

"Emma was a bespectacled, mousy child who had this power when she was young that she couldn't quite harness, the telepathy, the mind-twisting stuff. She had a falling out with her father and went her own direction. Fans of the X-Men comics have a very set idea of these characters in their heads. I wanted to know as much as I could about her so I wasn't disappointing anyone. I'm sure I will still disappoint someone. I'm riding around in helicopters, I'm in a boat one day, I'm in all these fight sequences, we're all over the English countryside. I feel like I'm a kid playing mutant."

It's an interesting interview, and it's worth checking it out in its entirety. And you can do so right here.

Meanwhile, X-Men: First Class will be arriving in June.

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Arriving on BBC Three shortly is the much-anticipated third series of Being Human. And to give you a taster of what to expect, the BBC has released a trailer for the new series, which we've got for you right here.

Keep your eye on the site for more on the return of Being Human in due course...

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This review contains spoilers.

2.6 The Other Side Of The Mall

This Christmas-themed episode opened with a family being driven off the road by a 4x4 and a slightly creepy man telling the driver to kill the family. Luckily, the cops show up. Back at the office the family show up asking for help, interrupting a Christmas argument. As the team takes the case, Ilsa tells Chance that she's going to Uganda for the holiday, thankfully.

To protect the family, Chance starts work as a temp beside the father, Richard Applebaum (John Michael Higgins) with Guerrero working in the office as a janitor. Winston watches after Richard's wife, Rachel (Rebecca McFarland), while Ames watches their son, Joel (Taylor Boggan), while he works at the mall.

Richard is convinced his boss, Nick Meachem (Chad Willet), is behind the attack, so when he is asked to go down to the file room, he expects the worst. Thankfully, Chance stops him attacking his boss.

While this is going on, however, the men behind the attack are at Richard's house giving Winston a little bit of trouble. Later that night, after a little coercion from Ames, Joel sneaks out to a party down the street. At this point, Guerrero finds out that the guy behind the attacks is named Klemah Severenson and he's actually after Joel and his laptop. Severenson's men then turn up at the party, leading to a pretty good fight once Chance has gotten there.

With the novel use of a stapler, Guerrero helps Chance arrange an exchange so that Severenson can get the laptop and then leave the family alone. The exchange is to take place at the mall where Joel works. The team take their strategic posts around the meeting place, the best of which is Winston dressed as Santa. Once the meeting goes wrong, of course, a chase ensues during which Chance borrows Santa's sleigh to catch Severenson.

Back at the office, the team have a little Christmas moment before they all have to leave and Ilsa comes back. Then we get a little sentimental scene between Ilsa and Chance.

The Christmas episode of Human Target was a very light-hearted affair with some very good action in it. The team dynamic seemed much more balanced without Ilsa being involved. Ames really seems to have fit in and the writers aren't just using her as comic relief. A lot of the humour in this episode comes from Chance's hatred of Christmas and how, on this job, he's in ‘hell'.

John Michael Higgins always seems to play quite similar characters in shows and he's always brilliant in them, with this being no exception. His slightly over the top character works really well with his wife. The highlight for me, though, was Guerrero's use of a stapler to get information from Richard's boss.

Overall, I thought the exclusion of Ilsa from this episode really benefited it and there was more humour here than we've seen in recent episodes, though I think that was to be expected from a Christmas episode. I had been warming to her slightly, but seeing an episode without her made me release how much her moral stance drags the team, and indeed, show down. Unfortunately, I'd imagine Ilsa will be back in the next episode, but we'll just have to wait and see how much she interferes.

Read our review of episode 5, Dead Head, here.

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It's exciting times. The shoot for the fourth season of Torchwood, The New World, kicks off in under a week over in Los Angeles, as the ten episodes we'll be getting in the summer head into production.

In fact, we now know exactly when the show will be kicking off, too, both in the US and the UK. For episode one is set to premiere on 1st July 2011 on both BBC One in the UK and Starz in the US.

And the latest news from the show is that there's been a new piece of casting. Alexa Havins and Dichen Lachman are the new additions to the cast, which already includes John Barrowman, Eve Myles and Mekhi Phifer.

Havins will be in a recurring role as CIA Watch Analyst Esther Katusi. She's best known for her work in the show All My Children. Meanwhile, Dollhouse alumnus Lachman will be popping up in the first episode of the show as a CIA agent.

As ever, we'll keep you posted as we find out more.

TV Line

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Some time ago, I expressed to you all my interest in pursuing a pen pal relationship with action movie producer, Jerry Bruckheimer. At the time, I was becoming frustrated that the little man with the big kabooms had not responded to any of my handwritten letters or Twitter messages. Well, either things have changed since or I've lost a decent sized chunk of my mind and imagined a correspondence between the two of us.

I'm absolutely certain that this started somewhere in reality, when I received what can only be described as a spam message directly from Bruckheimer's Twitter account, advising me to check out his official websites. Not being the world class boob I'm frequently and aggressively referred to as, I was able to read between the lines. Jerry had reached out. He wanted me to make contact.

Getting Jerry Bruckheimer's email address wasn't so tricky. I managed to procure it in the same way that I got his office address. I simply used methods that I can't legally talk about on this website.

From there I set about contacting the cinematic explosions guru, excited to know that he was expecting my email and happy to engage in conversation with me.

I've included our entirely fictional correspondence below.

Sent: 11.46pm Sunday 31st October 2010

Hi Jerry

I got your Twitter message. No doubt you've been expecting my letter ever since. Would've been easier if you'd included your email address - lol! But I get it. You were testing me like God did when I had my accident. I showed him by surviving and by getting your email I address I've showed you too. I am worthy of time and love.

I have so many questions to ask you. I loved G Force this summer. How did you make it so good? Did you always plan to make it with animals or had you ever considered using other things, like maybe stationary? You could have called it Pen Force if you'd used pens.

Screw all the so called critics that didn't get the film. They don't know what they're talking about. The film was one of the best, if not the best, ever, and I should know, I watched the trailer on YouTube about 10 times. My friend is going lend me the DVD soon so I will have seen the whole film hopefully by Christmas. It will make me very happy.

I hope you will make G Force 2 and that it is a crossover with your best television show, CSI: Miami. You could call it G-Force: Miami. Just a suggestion. You don't have to use that. I just think it would be good.

I loved The Sorcerer's Apprentice so much. Magic is so brilliant and wondrous. Another classic that the critics didn't understand. No doubt they are jealous because you have achieved so much in spite of having such a tiny face.

This is another trailer that I must have watched about 10 times on the internet, it's so good. My friend hasn't got this one on DVD, so I don't know when I will get to see it. I would ask for it for Christmas but I haven't been getting on very well with my family lately and so I don't think I will be getting any presents. I like that the wizard in it has that hair. Do you do that with computers? I've been spending a lot of time on my computer lately.

I hope you will one day make The Sorcerer's Apprentice 2 as I have a good idea for the story which I will tell you about. In it the sorcerer has to take on a new apprentice because the old one is killed by an evil witch who has stolen the world's ability to believe in magic and also in the spirit of the underdog. The sorcerer finds a new apprentice, a badly burned young man who likes fire, doesn't have a big family and most of them hate him and sort of blame him for something that wasn't even his fault, but he has a good heart and a never say die attitude.

They have to go all over the world and battle some henchmen, like in the forest and up a mountain, before they finally have a showdown in an American wrestling event and everyone thinks it is a wrestling match but it's actually real lol. The new apprentice makes the crowd believe in him, even though he is the underdog and so then they can use magic again and they beat the witch.

I hope you will tell me about what new films you are making.

Your friend always

Matt

Received: 10.26am Friday 12th November 2010

Hi Matt

Thanks for your email and your kind comments. To answer your questions, I left the writing on G-Force to the writers, as it's a process I'm not very familiar with. With regard to Nic Cage's hair in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, none of us are really sure how he got it. He just turned up looking that way and when one of the producers asked him about it he just laughed at them. It was a laugh that lasted for more than three days and if you listen carefully, in some scenes you can actually hear it in the background.

What am I working on now? I have been very busy working on Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

I would also like to take this opportunity to make it clear that in no way did I encourage you to seek out my email address. Whilst I am always happy to hear from a fan, I do ask that you do not send me your film ideas, as I can't use them and it can lead to difficult situations if we have similar ideas.

I am sorry to hear about your accident and I wish you a speedy recovery.

Kind regards

Jerry Bruckheimer

Sent: 10.31am Friday 12th November 2010

Hi Jerry

Many thanks for responding to my email. My doctor said that you would never email back, so I shall show him this and see the look on his face in our session on Monday! What kind of doctor only does talking anyway? Thinks he knows bloody everything, that one.

Thanks for your concern regarding my injuries. I am fully physically healed now, but they say I still have to stay here until they discharge me. Also, I'm supposed to stop referring to what happened as an accident. They say the sooner I do that, the sooner my family will start visiting me again. Knowing what they know about the fire, you'd think they'd realise I don't even want to see them - lol.

Pirates Of The Caribbean sounds good. Can't wait to see it. I really liked all of the other films in the series. All of the sword fighting and boats with sea monsters, I have no idea how you are able to come up with these things. You really are some kind of genius. How long until it comes out?

Not only am I looking forward to seeing it, but I'd like to know when you'll be done with it, so you'll have some free time to email me. Maybe we could meet up? I have a friend who says he can get me to LA because he knows the right people to get me some documents, as I'm not really meant to leave the country at the minute.

The thing about spending long periods of time locked in a windowless room whilst strapped firmly to a bed is that you get a lot of time to think. Why, I've been wondering for quite a lot of hours, don't you work with Michael Bay anymore? Is it because he's off gallivanting around with Steven Spielberg and Shia LaBeouf and so he thinks he's better than you now? Is it because he doesn't want to make Armageddon 2? Is it because of your tiny face? If you ask me, these are all pretty pathetic reasons and if that's how he is, then he isn't a good enough friend for you anyway.

When I get to Hollywood I'll show you what a good friend is. I've got plans on how we can get even with Bay - lol! Seriously, if you're upset with him I know some things we can do.

Speak to you soon friend

Matt

Received: 9.16am Tuesday 16th November 2010

Hi Matt

Firstly, to answer your questions. Pirates comes out in the summer. We've just finished shooting it and are working on the edit and the special effects now. It hits theatres in May. Then we're going to put together some kind of script for it, which should be done by late September.

With regard to your question as to why Michael Bay has been acting like such a little bitch recently, I have no idea. If that prick wants to spend all of his free time ruining Steven Spielberg's good name with his silly Transformers, films then who am I to give a shit? Fuck him and his ridiculously over-sized face.

I'm afraid that I will not have more time to email you, as my schedule is always very full. As soon as we finish this Pirates movie we're moving straight on to parts 5 & 6. While I can't tell you much about them, I can say that these two will tell the story of how Jack Sparrow gets a new assistant, a young boy who had been badly burned in an accident, and they have to travel over the oceans after a witch who has stolen the spirit of the underdog, and also the spirit of Christmas as we're planning a Christmas release. The ending will involve underwater American wrestling.

I have been pleased to answer your emails and wish you the best, but I must now ask you to cease all future correspondence with this email address.

Goodbye

Jerry

Sent: 9.18 am Tuesday 16th November 2010

Hi Jerry

When I was in your office your receptionist said it would be okay if I emailed you, and now you say it's not. I don't understand.

Matt

Received: 9.19 am Tuesday 16th November 2010

I can assure you that my receptionist told you no such thing. When were you in my office?

Jerry

Sent: 9.20 am Tuesday 16th November 2010

I'm in your office.

Matt

Received: 9.22 am Tuesday 16th November 2010

Is that you behind the plant? I thought Michael Bay had surprised me with a reconciliation hooker. Like after I had to sit through Pearl Harbour. Anyway, I'm calling the police.

Sent: 9.23 am Tuesday 16th November 2010

No you're not.

Matt

Received: 9.24 am Tuesday 16th November 2010

I am now.

Sent: 9.25 am Tuesday 16th November 2010

Ah, yes. So you are.

Sent: 10.31am Monday 20th December 2010

Hi Jerry

How are things? Well, I hope. I'm happy to put the unpleasantness that surrounded our first meeting behind us so and be friends with you again. I can see why it would be a shock for you to find me in your office, although I'm sure you would agree that you overreacted. Maybe the world looks a little different when viewed through tiny eyes (because your bastard face is so small and flammable), but where I'm from that's not how you greet a friend. Anyway, bygones shall remain just that. I look forward to hearing from you again.

Your close friend

Matt

Received: 3.26pm Monday 20th December 2010

You're not allowed to email me anymore. I've blocked your email address. -JB

Sent: 3.28pm Monday 20th December 2010

No you haven't.

Matt

Received: 3.29pm Monday 20th December 2010

Yes I have. - JB

Sent: 3.31pm Monday 20th December 2010

Then how are you getting these emails? Don't block my emails or I will set fire to your office. I've started fires before!

Matt

Received: 3.36pm Monday 20th December 2010

I'm blocking it now. I don't know how to do it so I'm using the help thing, but I am doing it. -JB

Sent: 3.37pm Monday 20th December 2010

I want us to be together so much.

Matt

Received: 3.38pm Monday 20th December 2010

This person has blocked your emails.

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In most instances, the presence of no fewer than three directors working on one movie would sound like a recipe for disaster. In the case of David Mitchell's sprawling literary/sci-fi/fantasy novel, Cloud Atlas, which intertwines six disparate narratives across a thousand year period, it may require three people with canvas chairs and megaphones just to get the thing finished and in the can.

According to news floating in across the Atlantic, the Wachowski brothers will be teaming up with Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer to adapt Mitchell's Russian doll-like novel, which takes the reader through multiple time periods before folding back on itself and providing closure for each separate tale.

Mitchell wrote each section in a markedly different style from the last, so the presence of three directors begins to make sense if the film bears any resemblance to the novel.

Tom Hanks, Natalie Portman and Halle Berry have all been attached to the film, though it could be some time yet before shooting begins. (While Ms Berry hinted that shooting could begin this summer, the Wachowskis are still looking for studio backing.)

Given the sprawling and potentially expensive premise of the book (a budget of around $80-100 million has been mooted), it could be some time before the production properly clicks into gear.

More news on Cloud Atlas as we hear it.

Filmonic

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