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It was just last week that anime fans the world over breathed a sigh of relief that Leonardo DiCaprio's live-action Akira was no more. But, that doesn't mean Hollywood has lost its taste for anime, and there are still plenty of other reboots headed our way. So while most of them have stayed in development limbo, two of the more popular titles: Cowboy Bebop and Robotech have started to make new ground, and some of the people involved are starting to talk.

Cowboy Bebop:
When the live action film of the beloved anime was first announced, fans were not thrilled with the idea. Plus, it probably didn't help that Keanu Reeves was taking the role of Spike. But, maybe we shouldn't count out the film yet, because when it comes to the film's screenwriter, there is good news and some bad news. But, let's start with the good news. In an interview with Anime Vice, Craig was asked about whether or not he was familiar with the series, and to his credit, Craig went into full fan-boy mode, telling them about some of his favorite episodes and that both he and Reeves have been meeting with Sunrise studio (the creator of the anime) to make sure that the original 'feel' of the show remains intact. According to Craig, "they [Sunrise] were very specific about their vision for the series, and how it might convert to a live-action film." -- sounds promising, right? Well, the bad news is that Craig has zero experience with sci-fi, and made his name writing about con-men and dysfunctional families. But, I'm going to remain hopeful that with Sunrise watching over the flick, there might be a chance we get something a little better than expected.

Read the rest over at SciFi Squad

OK, I highly doubt that anyone has ever sat down to read Dante's Divine Comedy and thought, "Hey! This would make a great video game!" -- But I guess there have been worse places to get an idea. Variety reports that Universal has snapped up the film rights to an upcoming console game with the working title of Dante's Inferno.

Universal was the lucky winner after a bidding war erupted between major studios (including Warner Brothers, MGM, and Paramount) for the netherworld adventure. The project went to Universal for the low, low price of a seven-figure deal, and this is the first title Electronic Arts has sold this year that was not based on an popular existing game. This brings EA's total to three film deals this year, with the possibility of a Sims feature (which some of us might have tried to block out), and then the announcement of an Army of Two feature film with Bourne scribe, Scott Z. Burns.

Since it's still early days for Inferno, not much is known about the game other than it will take players on a journey through hell. The games creator's will be taking a hands-on approach to the adaptation, and according to Variety , "Making a movie deal well before the game's release will give EA a shot at seeing a movie released closer to the beginning of the game's life cycle." I don't know about that, but I do know that it can't be any worse than most movie tie-in games.

As I reported before, Microsoft was going to start providing downloads of select movies and TV programs to users of its XBox 360 gaming console through its XBox Live service. Well, the day finally came and the results, while impressive due to the sheer number of sales, were not without their share of problems. According to Variety, Microsoft went live with the service on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and it wasn't long before message boards, and Microsoft phones and emails, were jammed with complaints of slow download speeds, missing programs, being charged multiple times for the same program and other problems.

Microsoft responded quickly (especially for Microsoft) to the complaints with postings on its public message boards that it was aware of the problems and was working on fixes. But insiders at the software giant report that Microsoft vastly underestimated the amount of sales, especially of High Def programming from the WB, CBS and others, and so was ill-prepared for the incredibly large amount of bandwidth needed to download that much High-Def content. However, by Sunday Microsoft reported at its website that "download speeds for most users should be significantly improved across the board." After that announcement, according to the Variety article, online complaints dropped to almost nothing. In addition to improved download speeds after a few days, Microsoft also announced plans to offer refunds or "make-goods" for users encountering problems -- which is a good move on their part.

So, score one for Microsoft. Even if they have problems in other areas of their business and are often accused of being an evil company bent on world domination, they got it right with the Xbox 360. As a user of the console, I appreciate it's impressive design and how well it works. Also, I happened to download one or two programs on Friday afternoon (The Matrix and Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn if you want to know which ones) and although the download speed was glacially slow, once I finally got the content, it made for a very impressive viewing experience. If Microsoft really can work out the glitches and is able to expand its content to include a great deal more movies and TV programs, companies like Apple who seek to offer competing services might really have a problem on their hands. Who knows, maybe Microsoft really will become king of the living room?

Warner Bros. may well be leading the movie download race against other studios, as it is one of the few to already have deals with download sites CinemaNow and MovieLink, and it recently announced an agreement to distribute movies via BitTorrent. Now they have signed with one more, Guba. I won't go into the technical differences between all the download sites, mostly because I don't understand them well enough, but it doesn't matter since the pricing is still what matters most, and Guba isn't much different from the others. New movies cost $19.99 and old movies are $9.99. To rent the films, though, is only $1.99 for 24 hours, with the option to extend the rental period for a little bit extra. Each movie is a Windows Media file, so it can be streamed on anything with the Windows Media Player, including portable devices.

Once again, I'll be sticking with my Netflix, but I applaud the apparent advances in this area of distribution. As long as they keep experimenting, they're likely to get something that will be attractive to me eventually.

Ever since I signed on to the cast of the good ship Cinematical, I've been periodically updating you about the many and varied rumors of an Aquaman movie. Eventually, it settled down and what we ended up with is an upcoming WB made-for-tv movie as a pilot for a new series. Then, the casting rumors flew for awhile, particularly fueled by the release of the casting call a short while back. Now, we once again cut through the endless stream of rumors to bring in some hard fact. That's right, the underwater adventurer has been officially cast, and will be played by none other than...wait, who? Okay, so his name is Will Toale, and he's apparently a newcomer to the acting gig, with the only substantial bit of his resume being a supporting role in in A Streetcar Named Desire at Broadway's Roundabout Theater. The pilot will begin shooting in March, and is expected to figure heavily into WB's fall lineup.

I continue to find myself oddly interested in this show. I'm not a huge DC fan to begin with, I deride Aquaman pretty regularly (and have for many years), and I'm not even all that keen on Smallville (heresy, I know). I don't expect to become a regular viewer of this new show...but I AM really curious to see what they come up with. Thoughts?

[via sci fi wire]