Warner Bros

There's something about retro video games getting turned into major motion pictures that stirs some deep, unknown parts of my personal geekdom. I think it's because I used to fantasize my own stories around the games in my head, creating characters and situations to explain things beyond just zapping some geometric shapes with my joystick. I'm no kid, but I'm enough of a child-at-heart to recognize that the kid I one was would've flipped his lid over announcements like the one that came today -- Warner Brothers is creating a live-action Space Invaders film.

This comes hot on the heels of news of Fox's Missile Command feature film, and just like that project, someone will be saddled with the task of turning a simple electronic game into an entertaining sci-fi story. The L.A. Times reports that Mark Gordon (Saving Private Ryan, 2012) will produce, along with Jason Blum and Guymon Cassady.

I'm going to make the bold assumption that we'll end up with an alien invasion pic not unlike Independence Day, instead of two straight hours of black and white spriites marching slowly down the silver screen.

Warner Brothers is facing the very real concept that after 2013, Superman, arguably the most globally recognizable character in their library, will not be theirs to exploit any longer. Courts awarded the estate of Jerry Siegel, the writer who quietly kicked off the entire superhero genre in 1938, the rights to key elements of Superman and his origin. The battle is still ongoing, as Warners recently replaced their lawyers as they move forward to determine if there's any retro-active money owed to the Siegel or Shuster (Joe Shuster, Superman's original artist) estates.

Which side of the argument do you fall on? Clearly, Superman would never have existed without Siegel and Shuster, and the character has produced massive revenue in comics, toys, television, books, apparel, and film, with that money going directly into corporate pockets -- not the pockets of the creators (or their heirs). The argument is that Siegel and Shuster were clearly work-for-hire and that they knew the deal going in -- anything they created for DC Comics belonged to DC Comics. They've been given some monetary compensation over the years, as a "thank you" from the company, but technically DC (and their parent company Warner Brothers) owes them nothing.

Or do they? Do you think DC has been fair to the estates of Siegel and Shuster or should the rights to a creation always belong to the creator? The fall-out from this case could very well change comics forever. At the very least, Warners will have to pay out licensing fees to continue to use Superman as usual, but it could also create a situation where every comic artist and writer starts banging on the doors of their employers, looking for their deserved piece of the pie.

Vote in our poll after the jump.

There's little in the way of story details just yet, but Latino Review does cite Brainiac and Lex Luthor as the villains. Hooray for Brainiac, but can we please skip Luthor for at least one installment of the series? No film has quite gotten the character right, and I'd rather see Supes face off with someone he can actually have physical action scenes with -- Parasite, Mongul, Bizarro, anyone but Lex Luthor.

A new Superman movie sounds like a really tough sell, and this is coming from a guy who actually liked Bryan Singer's homage to Richard Donner. I acknowledge that it wasn't the Superman movie than most fans wanted to see, but it still strikes me as odd that Superman would ever be in a position where he'd actually be hard to market. Once bitten, twice shy, I guess. I'm hopeful that Nolan and company can turn this image problem around. There's still a lot to love about the Man of Steel.

An interesting bit of news from Deadline Hollywood this morning reveals that director Christopher Nolan is being asked to "godfather" a new Superman film. It's an odd choice of words, but it may reveal that Deadline Hollywood has no idea what Nolan is doing if he's taking meetings with Warners over the proposed film. To me, "godfather" sounds an awful lot like "producer", if they're naming Nolan as a man to come in and shepherd the project. I just don't think they know what he's doing (yet), but it makes sense that Warner Brothers would approach the man who brought us The Dark Knight and at least get his opinions on what he'd do with Superman.

And what would Nolan do with Superman? Nolan has admitted in the past that he's not a comic book reader, and I have to wonder how familiar he is with the character, first of all. Secondly, are we craving another deadly serious Superman film after Bryan Singer's Superman Returns? Nolan is a skilled director, but his creative interests (namely, complex mysteries) seem at odds with the material. I think fans have been waiting for a more fun approach to Superman on film -- something with more comic book science-fiction and large-scale action. We're waiting on Darkseid and Brianiac and Mongul and Doomsday, not another Lois Lane/Superman love story set against a Lex Luthor money-making real estate scheme. Maybe, just maybe, they're meeting with Nolan to get his thoughts on revitalizing Superman by having him appear in the third Batman film?

Warner Brothers is moving forward on the project while they still have the chance. The rights to Superman revert entirely to the estates of Superman creators Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster in 2013, and a new deal would have to be negotiated at that point (which I'm sure will happen anyway -- I can't see Warners letting Superman go). If they're trying to put something together for Summer 2012, they're going to be moving quickly, so expect more news on this soon.

I'm not one to get really hyped up for films before their release, preferring to keep a level-head lest I build up my expectations to the point where I am let down more often than I am satisfied. With that said, when it comes to these leaked Green Lantern design pics, there's only one thing I can say: OOOMMMMGGGGOMG!!!1111!!!!!!!!!111OMGGGGGG!

Ahem.

Yes, I will be a total drooling idiot by the time Summer 2011 gets here, in anticipation of Martin Campbell's live-action adaptation of one of the coolest superheroes ever created, DC's Green Lantern. What we have in these leaked alien character designs are the potential movie versions of Abin Sur, the dying ring-bearer who bestows his power ring to Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds in the film), as well as Green Lantern Corps members Tomar Re and, below the jump, trainer Kilowog.

Sometimes it's just impossible to keep an open mind about things, and ever since Warner Bros. announced their plans to develop a Marvin the Martian feature film back in July 2008, the studio hasn't really given much of a reason for anyone to do otherwise. Back then, the pitch revolved around Marvin landing on Earth just in time to destroy Christmas but "being prevented from doing so when he's trapped in a gift box" (via Variety).

Now, the LA Times reports Marvin the Martian has a director and two writers, all, unfortunately, working on the same lame premise announced back in 2008. Alex Zamm -- the director who brought you Inspector Gadget 2 and will soon bring you Beverly Hill Chihuahuas 2 -- will helm the project with Paul Kaplan and Mark Torgove (George Lopez, Just Shoot Me! and Spin City writing/producing credits) working on the script.

But wait, there's more.

The producers are talking to "a number of stars", but one name that has come up is Mike Myers, which actually may be the one bit of good news in all of this. Because that ain't all folks, I saved the best for last. Marvin the Martian will be a "a CG creation" in a movie of live-action actors, with the tried-and-true template being Alvin & The Chipmunks. For my feelings on all this, I defer to Marvin: "You have made me very angry, very angry indeed!"

From the first teaser to the generally hush-hush attitude, Warner Bros. and all the players have taken, mums been the word on the details of Christopher Nolan's Inception. This might seem hypocritical coming from a movie blogger, but it's actually kind of refreshing how WB and Nolan have managed to keep loose lips from sinking the secrecy around any significant details.

Keeping those appetites wet, WB released the first Inception poster, which Quint over at Ain't It Cool News pointed out, is cut almost precisely from the mold as posters like this one. Nothing wrong with a little pilfering, and technically, it isn't really stealing if you're taking from your own cookie jar. The more interesting bit is where the poster came from -- a nifty little game on the Inception website called "Mind Crime". Essentially, you plot out a maze with a start and end point, and then the rudimentary map becomes a city maze. Avoid contact with all other little people on the map (in true paranoid form, everyone is the enemy) and when you finish, the big reveal is...the poster that you've already seen.

Besides being an addicting office diversion, though, "Mind Crime" seems like a pretty good place to keep your eyes peeled for future trinkets, like say a full trailer or something of that nature. The WB marketing team really knocked it out of the park with The Dark Knight viral stuff, so it'll be great to see how they continue to sell Nolan's original sci-fi project.

In a scant twelve years, Louis Leterrier has gone from being a production assistant on Alien: Resurrection to directing what has just, with a single trailer, become one of my most anticipated films of 2010: Warner Brothers' remake of Clash of the Titans. Sure, he has progressively proven himself a champion of the fantastic, evolving from The Transporter series to last year's The Incredible Hulk, but as much as I've been impressed by his eye for spectacle thus far, I wasn't ready for how fun his take on Titans looks. It's just our first look, but I couldn't stop smiling by the end of this teaser.

And yet, I don't know why I should be so surprised. The original is, after all, a landmark fantasy film packed with Ray Harryhausen's indelible stop-motion imagery. Add on Leterrier commanding a great cast ranging from Liam Neeson to Ralph Fiennes to Sam Worthington, and a script whose bones were written by Raiders of the Lost Ark screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan before WB brought in the duo of Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi to flesh things out. Perhaps the shock of seeing this trailer came from just how indelible Harryhausen's Titans actually were. I knew it would undergo an extreme visual overhaul, but in the back of my mind I was still expecting stop-motion giants, not Troy by way of God of War.

There's nothing stop-motion about this new re-envisioning of the wars between Gods and men. Purists will not be on board with the amount of digital wizardry, but any fan of seeing mythological worlds brought to life should be in love with the energy Leterrier has infused in his Clash of the Titans. You can see for yourself over at Cinematical, or click over to Moviefone to grab it in a variety of HD flavors.

By: Elisabeth Rappe - originally posted on Cinematical

Once Clint Eastwood casts you in a movie, you're his friend for life and you'll probably enjoy a steady supply of work until the terrible day he decides to retire. (If I was a young actor at Warner Bros, I would just happen to walk by his office with bagels and coffee, just in case he was hungry and casting.) Thus, it's almost no surprise that Eastwood's next film will share the same leading man as his last. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Damon, soon to be seen in Eastwood's Invictus, will take the lead in Hereafter.

The plot of Hereafter is being kept under tight, tight wraps. All anyone knows about it is that it boasts a script by Peter Morgan and is "a supernatural thriller in the vein of The Sixth Sense." (Movieline, though, snagged a copy of the script and offered up some more details, including the following: "After two tense set pieces that leave its main characters changed forever, the film becomes a quiet drama about three people trying to figure out what, if anything, exists after death." Oh, and Matt Damon sees dead people.)

It's also being executive produced by DreamWorks and Steven Spielberg. They were the original owners of Morgan's spec script, but happily handed it to over to Eastwood and Warner Bros, with Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy staying on as executive producers. It'll be the fourth film Spielberg and Eastwood shared producing credits on. (The others are The Bridges of Madison County, Flags of Our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima. You might need that for a trivia contest someday.)