Over on his blog, Kevin Smith has released another new image from Zack and Miri Make a Porno, promising fans that the film's first internet-only teaser will debut on his site, www.quickstopentertainment.com, when he returns home from a trip to the east coast next week. Additionally, Smith says he'll be at San Diego Comic Con again this year (we missed ya at NYCC, Kev!), and to (most likely) look out for a panel in the big room on Friday night. Panel? Does that mean he'll have a bunch of cast members with him? Does that mean he'll debut the first full-length trailer for the film? Does that mean he'll give out candy?!

From looking at the photo, it appears we'll be getting some fun adult hockey in the flick, which, in case you didn't know (or forgot) tells of two platonic friends (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks) who, strapped for cash, decide to make a porno. Check out a couple more images from the film in our gallery below. Zack and Miri Make a Porno arrives in theaters this fall.

Like my esteemed colleague Kevin Kelly, I too have had a little time to relax and reflect on my recent Comic-Con International experience. Although I don't have nearly the amount of photos he has, I do have a few thoughts as to what news, events, problems and other things hit home for me during the four and a half glorious days that made up Comic-Con International 2007.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been attending the Comic-Con for many years now. During that time I've watched it grow from an event held in a hotel attended by thousands of hard-core comic book fans eagerly trading comics and excitedly talking about their favorite comic book covers, characters, artists, writers and story arcs to a giant, unwieldy beast seemingly driven not by a love of sequential art but by the Hollywood PR machine.

The event used to be about comic books and the people who make them. Now, it seems to be about movies and TV shows and the people who make them. At least in years past, the majority of movie or TV shows on display at the Con had some loose association with comics. Not this year. For example, I like Russell Crowe and Christian Bale and 3:10 to Yuma looks like an interesting film, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with comics -- except that Bale plays Batman in Batman Begins and the upcoming Batman: The Dark Knight.

As you probably already know, this week hundreds of thousands of fans who live and breathe comic books, movies, TV shows, costumes, action figures and pretty much anything else that can be imagined, drawn, photographed, video taped or otherwise produced for mass consumption, will occupy the downtown section of San Diego for Comic-Con International 2007. If you've been reading Cinematical the last couple of weeks (and you should be), you know that we're going to be covering the heck out of the Con over these next several days.

We're covering it so much, in fact, that our wise, benevolent Editor-In-Chief Ryan Stewart has dispatched not one but two brave soles to report on all the doings at the event. I'll be one of them, along with my colleague Kevin Kelly, and we'll be bringing you as much Con news, interviews, scoops, photos, video and even tastes and smells as we possibly can. It should be a great time full of interesting people, great comics, cool new movies, spectacular events and probably a few surprises too. So, stay tuned.

If you're like Kevin and myself and you happen to be one of the hundreds of thousands who's love of all-thing Comic-Con outweighs any thoughts of economics, hotels, traffic or personal safety (that Con floor sure does get crowded -- especially on Saturday) and you are attending the Con next week, read on because as a veteran attendee (growing up in North San Diego County I've been going to the Con since I was eleven years old) I've got a couple tips for you on what to do, see and be aware of while at the Con.

There has been no shortage of news coming out of the NYCC this past weekend (including from our very own Ryan Stewart). Now, IGN reports that Paramount and Brad Pitt's Plan B Productions are partnering to produce a film version of the novel World War Z: An Oral History of The Zombie War by Max Brooks (son of Mel). Brooks seems to have a flair for the subject of the "living challenged" as he also wrote the Zombie Survival Guide. Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski is adapting the book but there is no confirmation yet that Pitt will star, Straczynski kept it pretty non-committal saying the script was, "For Brad Pitt potentially -- we'll see what happens. He might be the star in it."

Adapting the book won't be easy, since the novel is an anthology of man's survival during the "great" war with the undead. The structure of the book has no main characters and jumps time and place with recollections of the survivors of the decade long fight. During a panel discussion, Straczynski described the story as "very political, very smart, very cagey". Straczynski seems confident that if all goes to plan with the script, production wouldn't be far behind. The project sounds promising, but considering Pitt's plate looks pretty full, I'm not counting on him getting in front of the cameras for this one.

"I'm making things that I'm afraid of." -- Eli Roth

Writer-director Eli Roth showed up to NYComicCon amped up and ready to get down to business. In person, he's a man on a mission; his mile-a-minute speech is filled with passion, energy and everything you'd expect from a young filmmaker who's worked his ass off to get to where he is now. Roth started shooting short films when he was a kid, attended film school at N.Y.U and worked almost every behind-the-scenes production job there is until, finally, he put together enough dough to make the low-budged horror flick Cabin Fever. Eventually picked up by Lionsgate (during a bidding war at the Toronto Film Fest), Cabin Fever went on to be their most successful film of 2003. And that's when Quentin Tarantino took notice.

Roth doesn't consider himself a straight horror director. After all, he began his career in animation (directing South Park-like stuff) before switching gears and helping to revive a genre by introducing a balls-to-the-wall style that's often hard to stomach. Unlike most filmmakers, Roth considers his film a failure if people don't walk out halfway through -- if they aren't outraged, if they don't write a bunch of nasty letters -- then he didn't do his job. Hostel: Part II is no exception; Roth fully expects moviegoers to have massive issues with this film; mainly because its three lead characters are all women. A bunch of us sat down with Eli prior to his panel discussion, where he talked everything from Hostel: Part III to auditioning for Quentin Tarantino's half of Grindhouse, Death Proof. Check it out ...


Eli Roth

On directing the trailerThanksgiving for Grindhouse: "'Quentin comes to me, and he's like (switches to Tarantino accent): "Okay man, we're gonna do this f**kin' thing, and it's gonna be really f**kin' cool, right. It's gonna be f**kin Grindhouse, and we're gonna have f**kin' fake trailers. And you gotta do one, right.' So there was this slasher movie that my friend Jeff and I had been dreaming about. Growing up in Massachusetts, Thanksgiving is the biggest f**king deal; it's all you hear about. There's two full-time working Pilgrim plantations that you go to. So, every year there's a new slasher movie for every different holiday -- My Bloody Valentine, April Fools Day, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Silent Night, Deadly Night -- I'm like, how could they not have done Thanksgiving yet? I mean, what are they gonna start doing Passover Massacre? So when Quentin asked what I was going to do, I told him Thanksgiving -- it was my 1981 slasher movie. I've been dying to do it for years. So I went from Hostel II -- we kind of recycled a bunch of stuff we had from that set (like a decapitated head -- and threw it all into this trailer. It was fun. I had a great time doing it."

It's probably only a matter of time before someone with "Esq" after his name gets them taken down, but at the moment, both of the (very, very rough) clips from The Simpsons movie that were shown at ComicCon are up at YouTube, so get your asses over there to check them out. (And how great is YouTube? Way back in 2004, we would be reading about these clips, never even hoping to get a peek at them. And now? They're all over the place! Hoorah, technology.)

Because I'm a technical moron when it comes to animation (and, actually, most other things), I can't tell you the proper term for the state of production in these clips, but they're in very rough black and while, and consist only of outlines that are somewhat animated. The voices, however, are in place and, as is usually the case with The Simpsons, it's the dialogue that makes them work. In the first, Homer is being tracked down by a Frankenstein-style mob (even Grandpa is in it), while in the second he's ... driving a dogsled team, for some reason. If you're a Simpsons fan, my guess is that you'll find them pretty wonderful -- but short, funny clips obviously don't address the question of whether the show can be sustained for 90 solid minutes. I suppose we'll have to wait until next summer to answer that one.

Update: They're gone. Feel free to post links in the comments if you find them elsewhere.

[via JoBlo]

Welcome back to The Geek Beat, readers. Last week we did the "what if Marvel fielded a baseball team" game, and this week we were scheduled to do part two of that column -- the All-Star Villains. A few readers made some very astute guesses, but you'll have to wait one more week to learn my starting nine, because this week's column is dedicated to a full-on, all-out wrap-up of the crazy week that was Comic-Con 2006. Geek movie news aplenty was pouring out of San Diego these past few days, and we're going to sum it all up in case you missed out on any of the action. If you read this and know of some fantastic bit of movie-related news which I overlooked, click on the comments and let us know. We'll make it a team effort. Ready? Here it goes:

Day 1

• Lots of interesting news from a comic book perspective, including some great panels with DC and Marvel, but precious little movie news hit from the big two. Mostly, everyone was just gearing up. Marvel does, however, completely destroy DC in a softball game.
• The agent for Doug Jones, the guy who played Abe Sapien in fan favorite Hellboy, said to expect a major casting announcement from Doug. Popular rumor expected this to be a deal to play the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four 2. Which, by the way, still has no official title despite what you've been hearing.
• Rosario Dawson is very excited for Sin City 2, and is planning to bring her own comic series, Occult Crimes Taskforce to the big screen.

Yes, I'm excited about Hot Fuzz. So sue me -- Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost made a pretty freaking awesome start with Shaun of the Dead, and everything we've been hearing about (and from) their follow-up -- an action-comedy about "two mismatched cops who team up in a West Country backwater" -- has been awfully promising. Though the movie isn't huge enough (not yet, anyway) to merit the coverage granted to things like Spider-Man 3 or whatever Quentin Taratino is up to today, Rogue Pictures offered those lucky enough to attended its ComicCon panel last weekend a glimpse at some Fuzz footage. And, if Moviehole's reaction is anything to go by, the movie is well-worth our excitement: They describe the footage (revealed in the form of trailers, and scored with the Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack, no less) as "quite simply, gold." Woo hoo!

And, for those of us who live really far from San Diego, the folks at Solace in Cinema have pulled together all the images they can find from the movie (ComicCon-related and otherwise) in an effort to make the months and months (and months) until the movie's March 9 release a little easier to handle.

Sure, Vin Diesel keeps telling us we're going to see his Hannibal movie really, really soon (I think it's safe to say that reports of it being in the can are wildly overstated). But, really, no one's going to believe him until a)there's a studio attached to pay for the thing, and b)there's some distribution. And, since he's zero for two so far, he's the only one who's counting those chickens. Thanks to BET, however, Diesel and Hannibal are actually confirmed -- for the small screen.

In one of the most unexpected -- and possibly coolest, depending on who ends up doing the animation -- bits of news to come out of ComicCon, it was revealed that Diesel has signed a deal with BET to create an animated series called Hannibal the Conqueror, which "will span the life of Hannibal, from his tutelage as a warrior under his father, Hamilcar Barca, to his scaling of the Alps with an army of elephants, and his invasion of Italy." Diesel will be the voice of Hannibal and is also producing the series through his One Race Prods.,; the first six episodes will air next year in prime-time.

My #1 favorite horror site, Bloody-Disgusting.com, is spending some solid time at Comic Con, and those bloodthirsty little kooks are reporting on every single horror-centric tidbit you could possibly imagine. In addition to their thorough obsession with Grind House, the BDboyz have also brought us the following news:

• A Saw 3 clip that seems more than a little Barker-esque. And another nasty poster. Coooool. Also, Saw 4 is almost certainly going to hit theaters next October. Yay.
  
• Wan & Whannell, creators of the original Saw, have their new flick, Dead Silence, almost finished.
• Feast (finally) hits DVD on October 17th. They better stick to the date.
• The trailer for Renny Harlin's The Covenant is now online.
• The House on Haunted Hill sequel we mentioned last week? Going direct-to-video.
• Lionsgate will release Ju-On: The Grudge 2 on DVD come October 10th. Strange coincidence: The Grudge 2 hits theaters on October 13th.
• Probably not anytime soon, but Sam Raimi assures us that the Evil Dead remake will happen eventually.
• Neil Marshall just dropped a juicy little teaser: The Descent 2 will be coming soon...

Who knew a comics convention would yield so much cinematic splatter? That's it: Next year, it's Comic Con for Weinberg.

Nobody loves announcing new projects like good ol' Quentin Tarantino, and he took yesterday's Comic Con appearance as an opportunity to announce not one but TWO new Kill Bill movies. Apparently the first one will tell Bill's backstory, and the second will be a continuation of The Bride's blood-soaked misadventures. Oh, and both flicks will be animated. Really, Q? An animated prequel and sequel? That's what you've got lined up? Nothing even remotely like Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown up your sleeve? Ah well.

As much as I generally adore the QT's work, I have to ask: Will these prequels/sequels be arriving before or after Inglorious Bastards and the half-dozen other projects the guy has on his numerous back burners?

Though cool footage and pictures are unlikely to quell fanboy rumblings that Topher Grace is too small to play Eddie Brock/Venom, Sony last night gave ComicCon attendees their first look at Grace as the character. According to a report at JoBlo, footage from Spider-Man 3 was screened and, though "a bit rough in spots" (I'm assuming that means it's unfinished, as opposed to bad), it showed all sorts of cool stuff, from a fight between Spidey and Sandman to MJ caught in Venom's webs. Oh, and it also included the minor event of Brock's transformation in Venom, a scene that, not surprisingly, "[brought] the house down." (That said, what clips at ComicCon don't bring the house down?! People go there primed to love everything -- that's why studios reveal stuff there, for God's sake.)

To coincide with the big reveal, Sony added some Venom wallpaper to their official site for the film. Maybe going and staring at it will make your forget that the movie doesn't come out until next May.

... And the ComicCon geek-bits just keep on pouring in. The most recent news comes from actor/director Jon Favreau, who's been admirably and enthusiastically fan-friendly since landing the Iron Man directorial gig. And the news is this:

In his inaugural big-screen adventure, Iron Man (aka Tony Stark) will be battling ... Mandarin (see pic). According to the Marvel Directory, Mandarin is a former Chinese politician who once discovered an alien spacecraft full of magical rings that enabled him to become a super-mega-evil dude who frequently got beat up by Iron Man. OK, so he's not as slick as The Joker or Dr. Octopus, but hey, at least Favreau's sticking to the source material. Apparently Madarin WAS one of Tony Stark's most frequent nemeses, so I say it's a good choice -- even if I wouldn't know "Mandarin" if I tripped over him in a dark hallway. (OK, if he was wearing that outfit, I'd recognize him.)

Paramount's Iron Man is scheduled for release in May of 2008 (against Bond #22). We'll let you know when we hear some casting news.

(Thanks to Marvel Directory for the pic as well as the Mandarin lesson.)

According to Quentin Tarantino himself, Kurt Russell signed a contract last night to replace the AWOL Mickey Rourke (Word on the street is that he simply failed to show up for the shoot -- that's sure to help the career, Mick.) as Stunt Man Mike in Death Proof, QT's killer-car laden half of Grind House. (While this is certainly big news, imagine the movie for a second with Russell Simmons in the role. Because that's what my brain pictured when I first saw the headline -- tell me that wouldn't kick all kinds of bizarre ass.) Tarantino, not surprisingly, is characteristically excited about the deal, telling the assembled ComicCon masses, "Snake Plissken is one of the most iconic characters in the last 20 years, it's f*ckin' balls man. I think Stunt Man Mike is one of the best characters I've ever written." Balls, man! Balls.

In further Grind House news, fans were shown a clip of Planet Terror (for the two of you hearing about this for the first time, that's the Robert Rodriguez half of the movie) featuring, and I quote, "Rose McGowan wearing a machine gun leg." Needless to say, the crowd went bonkers.