Yeah, there’s some backstory here about when the trailer was supposed to premiere (during tonight’s IMAX screenings), and stuff about what’s in the trailer that I could possibly detail, but it’s just a YouTube link.

The one bad thing about Michael Bay Transformers movies is that the previews need to be in hi def to blow your pants off. Especially when Devastator shows up to…

Is Dave going to latch on to new live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles news? As my Minnesotan relatives would say: “You betcha.”

At the Tribecca Drive-In screening for the 1990 New Line Ninja Turtles movie last Thursday, Kevin Eastman, one of the Turtles’ creators re-iterated the morning news that there would be a new live-action Ninja Turtles movie. Online speculation and the involvement of Scott Mednick, also a producer on Where The Wild Things Are, suggests that we’ll be seeing costumed folks with CGI expressions on their face as the Turtles get re-launched.

Peter Laird, the other creator of the Ninja Turtles, and the sole owner of the rights since he bought out Kevin Eastman’s share a few years ago only appeared at the screening via pre-recorded message.

I’ve been poking around, and there isn’t an official script yet, so we’re still in the story phase of this project, so it’s nice to hear what Peter Laird has to say, especially since Mednick’s production mantra seems to be: “The original dozen comics created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman are some of the best source material one could hope for…”

Can I take a moment here to talk about Fox and Wolverine…you know, again?

First, I want to tell you the story of The Fantastic Four movie you’ve probably never seen. It involves B-movie extraordinaire Roger Corman, the guy behind Death Race 2000 and Piranha, two films being remade for modern audiences. He was also behind Little Shop Of Horrors (the original one that will be seeing a remake), which he claimed to have shot in two days and one night, and a number of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations while partnering with writer Richard Matheson.

In 1992, producer Bernd Eichinger at Constantin Film, a company known for making Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns in its time, was having quite the dilemma. Constantin had optioned the rights to a Fantastic Four movie from Marvel, and unless the flick was underway by December 1992, the rights would default and go up for grabs (much like what happened recently with Sin City 2 and The Weinstein Company). Eichinger knew that a Fantastic four movie with that many special effects would probably cost a good $40 million in 90’s-dollars and knew that he couldn’t pony it up to make the film.

Somehow, Eichinger contacted Corman and the two settled on making an ashcan copy, but with a special twist. Something dubbed an “ashcan copy” is material produced purely for legal reasons. It’s a term that developed during the age of Golden Age Comics. So, you do something quick to maintain an option, or to have something produced for copyright. The intention is that these ashcans only circulate internally. But, since Corman was told to make a Fantastic Four film on absolutely no budget,

Corman had his film written and cast by people who were not told that the Fantastic Four movie they were making was not intended for release. Some actors and crew members worked for less because they were told that if the film didn’t get released, it would be used as a backdoor pilot for a TV series. It’s not mentioned in any documentation I can find, but some of them had to be Marvel geeks psyched to work on a film adaptation like this.

Principal photography ended January 1993, and the cast was sent out to conventions and to do interviews as the studio announced a 1994 premiere at the Mall of America. Needless to say, because chances are you haven’t seen this film, the flick was pulled. It was never intended to be released, it was just a slick way to maintain the rights and get the actors and crew to work for less. The reality of the “backdoor pilot” suggestion was never known. The film disappeared into Comic Cons as unlabled VHS tapes and the Roger Corman Fantastic Four was never seen.

In 2005, 10-years later, Constantin Film and Bernd Eichinger brought Tim Story’s Fantastic Four to cinemas, followed by Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfur and a proposed re-boot of the franchise, even though the sad memories of watching Rise with my head in my hands are still fresh. The company behind these crap-fests? 20th Century Fox.

Now think about what Marvel Studios is trying to do with the properties they managed to keep: Iron Man, Nick Fury, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D. Marvel is going to attempt to build an inter-connected “Marvel Universe” on screen and it’s an exciting prospect. However, Marvel also managed to sell off the two most profitable properties, cinematically: Sony got Spider-Man and Fox got X-Men.

Giving up Spider-Man is sad because he’s a flagship character, but the X-Men property has so many characters and such a rich back-history that Fox has treated with disrespect since X2: X-Men United ended on a Dark Phoenix cliffhanger…

The project we’ll be discussing here is Humpty Dumpty 3D, which - by title alone - sounds like a lame, multi-dimensional version of Veggie Tales or something. Call me crazy, but as a guy who loves re-imagined fictional characters (especially in the comics form like Fables or Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentleman), I wasn’t sold on Humpty’s story being optioned.

Until I read more about it…

Looks like Wolverine won’t be premiering in Mexico City this Thursday…

Perhaps you’ve seen the documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston about the bi-polar songwriter. If not, the bare minimum you should know is that Johnston is one of those borderline geniuses who gained the momentary public spotlight in the early 90s when Kurt Cobain wore a t-shirt featuring the cover image of Johnston’s “Hi, How Are You” album. Even though Johnston was in a mental hospital at the time, this started a bidding war that eventually ended with Atlantic Records picking up the troubled artist.

The pop culture spotlight hit Johnston once again in 2004 when he released “The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered”, a two-disc compilation. The first disc featured popular musicians like Bright Eyes, Beck, Death Cab for Cutie, The Flaming Lips and Tom Waits covering songs written by Johnston. The second disc featured Johnston’s original recordings of the songs. Then came The Devil and Daniel Johnston documentary in 2006 and won the Director’s Award at Sundance.

Now, three years later, there is a biopic in the works from director David Miller (My Suicide) and the part of Daniel has already been cast, and - oddly - approved by Johnston himself…

I was having a discussion with someone about corsets this weekend. My arguement was that they aren’t that difficult to pull off. That being said, Megan Fox’s waist has dropped my jaw.

Megan Fox is on the set of Jonah Hex with Josh Brolin and John Malkovich. Malkovich is using vodoo to raise an undead army of confederate soldiers and Brolin - as Jonah Hex - will try to stop him. Fox will play Leila, a gun-wielding beauty and love interest for Jonah.

But who cares what the movie is about with that corset. Damn.