Brett Ratner gets his name attached to a lot of films, some by design and some through association.  When he took a meeting Nu Image regarding the Conan the Barbarian film, it was suddenly reported everywhere that Ratner was no attached to the film.

According to the Latino Review, Nu Image was talking to Ratner as one of many directors being considered for the revival of Robert E. Howard’s immortal character.  Other directors spoken to include Neil Marshall, James McTeigue, The Strause Brothers, Mark Neveldine, Robert Rodriguez and Brian Taylor. Next on their shopping list is Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.

While Rodriguez is reportedly the most rabidly interested, given his association with the companion Red Sonja film, he’s booked way beyond Nu Image’s time frame.

In celebration of it’s 21st birthday, the cast and crew of the popular British scifi comedy Red Dwarf will be coming back to put together four televised specials. They are being made for UKTV’s new free-to-air channel, Dave (interesting name). Series creator Doug Naylor will be taking the helm for the specials and they will go as follows:

Show One – The Making Of The Specials
A highly entertaining look at what goes on behind the scenes on a Red Dwarf production.

Show Two – Red Dwarf Special: Part One
The cast get back into character, and costume, a decade on…

Show Three – Red Dwarf Special: Part Two
The adventure continues…

Show Four – A Clip Show With a Serious Difference
The cast do it their way. Red Dwarf as you have never, ever seen it before!

The shows are currently planned to air sometime next year, and would mark the first time in 10 years since new Red Dwarf material has aired since the eight season in 1999 (unless you count the 1988 "lost" episode which aired in 2005). And if the newfound popularity of Doctor Who is any indicator, this could prove to be the rebirth of the franchise.

Red Dwarf debuted in 1989 and ran for a total of 52 episodes scattered over eight seasons on the BBC. It spawned an assortment of merchandise including the entire series available on DVD.  Four oruiginal novels were also published. An Americanized version never got past the pilot stage in 1992 and a feature film version was written but never got funded.

Producer John Davis spoke openly about how he’d make a film out of the interactive video game The Sims. At a roundtable interview for his latest film, The Express, Davis expounded on hi splans and forthcoming slate of films.

“First of all,” Davis told the press, as reported at Collider, “The Sims, 65 million units have been sold, the most successful video game ever. Right? Ever.

“And Tom Rothman, the Chairman of Fox said to me, ‘How are you going to take this incredible piece of IP and make it into a movie?’ Right? Because most games aren’t movies, so this is the way I did it: The Sims, as you know, you can control your imaginary world, right? And our movie, a young man, a 16 year old kid of a 14 year old kid and his friend get their hands on this thing called the Sims Infinity Pack, right, which kind of this very strange video game store which was there just for that moment, and seemingly wasn’t all that. But what they realize is that they can scan their world in, because this is the most life like, real Sims game ever. And as they are playing this they are all of a sudden realizing is what they are playing on the game is having an effect on the real world. So in effect, through the game, they are able to control their world. It’s wish fulfillment, and obviously it turns against them.

“And definitely there will be somebody coming out of the game into the real world, like Weird Science did.”

In other news, Davis said there are no plans for a third Aliens vs. Predator film but he thinks the Predator is a great monster and would love to make another solo film with Arnold Schwarzenegger once the California governor is out of office.

Davis also confirmed Zak Penn continues on the new version of Jason and the Argonauts and is hoping to land a Big Name director. “I think that a realistic version of Jason, where you basically deal with a guy who’s a doubter in a world were everybody believes, still, in the gods and the gods influencing our world, and starts to become a believer, but very slowly because he can’t explain all this stuff. And it’s at the time were we were going from the idea of many gods to one, so there’s a lot of historical cool things there. You know, Jason was based on a great Greek myth, right, but it’s that great story of . . . You know, all those Greek tragedies have the greatest of human foibles, the greatest of human downfalls embodied in them, and I think this has that. And so it’s a more realistic version of all that.”
 

David Willis, author of Shortpacked! and Joyce and Walky proposed to Maggie Weidner, his girlfriend of four years, using not just a single strip, but a week-long storyline of Shortpacked! Weidner, also an artist accepted in comic form, which was promptly posted to the Shortpacked! news section.

Willis is a long-time webcomic artist, having started Roomies! in 1997, continued with the sequel strip It’s Walky from 1999 to 2005, and continued that with the pay-per-month subscription strip Joyce and Walky. Shortpacked!, a less drama-heavy strip premiered in 2005 and chronicles the misadventures of the employees of a toy store.

Willis isn’t the first webcomic artist to propose in his comic. Mike Krahulik (“Gabe”) of Penny Arcade started the trend in 1999. Greg Dean of Real Life Comics did it in 2005, though he had actually proposed the week before, and the comic follows the (often embellished) events of his life. Eric Burns, also known as the webcomic pundit Websnark gathered a collection of 17 webcomic artists to create his proposal comic for co-blogger Wednesday White. And this past June, Three Panel Soul artist Ian McConville programmed a video game to propose to his girlfriend with.

Congratulations to Willis and Weidner, we wish you many happy returns. That, and we’re thankful you didn’t propose via LOLCat.