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Last week, a weird image reported to be part of an "Iron Man 2" viral marketing campaign hit the 'Net. The image featured a fictional newspaper clipping from a story about Tony Stark, with the word "Secret" highlighted in its title. Now it looks like we have another piece of the puzzle.

Over at Screen Rant, they've posted a large version of yet another image from what's being touted as some sort of "Iron Man 2" marketing campaign or secret game.This time around, the word "Stark" is highlighted.

The campaign (or game, or whatever it is) seems to be taking its cue from the viral marketing strategy used by "The Dark Knight" last year, which included similar, cryptic images culled from fictional newspapers, as well as various other images and websites that had fans participating in online and offline scavenger hunts, puzzles and other "Dark Knight"-themed activities. Read more...

Tags iron man 2

"Iron Man" screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby inherited the live-action "Akira" film at Leonardo DiCaprio's production company that might or might not feature Joseph Gordon-Levitt this year, but the previous writer on the project, Gary Whitta, worked on a preliminary script and the amount of story he tackled may surprise a few anime fans. He not only stretched his script beyond the scope of the previous animated "Akira" move — he pulled from the entire six-volume manga series.

"The version I worked on was about going back to the source and doing the manga version," said Whitta at a press event (via SuperHeroHype). "We were going to adapt the whole six-episode graphic novel." Read more...

Tags akira

MTV's next "Behind The Screen" special airs this week (Wednesday, 4 PM EST) with bunches of new footage and interviews from some of the hottest upcoming films, including James Cameron's blockbuster 3-D adventure "Avatar." When we sat down with Cameron recently to discuss his plans for "Avatar," we also had to ask about another project that's been on his radar: an adaptation of Yukito Kishiro's popular manga, "Battle Angel Alita."

Following the adventures of a robotic warrior rescued from the scrapheap by a scientist, it stands to reason that Cameron's groundbreaking "Avatar" filmmaking tech could be put to good use on "Alita."

"The mixture of live-action and CG is a little trickier in 3-D than it is 2-D," Cameron told MTV News. "Now we see it's good to have done 'Avatar' first before 'Battle Angel,' because the tricky scenes are where you're blending live-action photography, stereoscopic photography and CG." Read more...

Tags Avatar, Battle Angel Alita, James Cameron, Video

Earlier this year, it was announced that “Attack of the Show” hostess Olivia Munn had joined the cast of “Iron Man 2.” And while the details of her role are still tightly guarded, Munn has revealed that her improv experience is what led director Jon Favreau to cast her.

“Jon Favreau was familiar with a lot of my work that I had done [and] the skits that I’ve put out,” Munn said during an appearance on Last Call With Carson Daly. “And [he] just thought that I can keep up with improv and [he] literally offered me the role.”

Read more...

Tags iron man 2, Olivia Munn

"Batman: Arkham Asylum" made a compelling case for itself as one of this year's best overall games, and during this weekend's Spike TV Video Game Awards we received the first peek at the planned sequel.

While the new "Arkham Asylum 2" teaser doesn't offer much information as far as plot points, it does feature The Joker and Harley Quinn outside the confines of Arkham, as well as what looks to be a riot scene in Gotham City. The trailer also points fans to the website ArkhamHasMoved.com for updates on the project.

"Getting the opportunity to create 'Batman: Arkham Asylum' and seeing its success has been a dream come true for the team," said Sefton Hill, Game Director, Rocksteady Studios. "We are honored to create the next chapter in this compelling story and promise to deliver another game worthy of the Dark Knight." Read more...

Tags batman: arkham asylum, batman: arkham asylum 2, batman: arkham city

As far as weeks go, this was a big one — mostly due to a sudden burst of updates from the "Iron Man 2" camp. However, while the week's most popular stories were certainly filled with headlines involving Iron Man, War Machine and Whiplash, a few other topics managed to carve out a big place for themselves on the site.

We saw updates on the "Deadpool" movie and the next big-screen Batman adventure, and we even had some big news on the comic front, with news about the next writer scripting Superman's adventures, and new comics related to "Gossip Girl" and "Paranormal Activity."

Here's how the week's Top 10 stories stacked up:

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Last week, we checked in with previous "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight" writer Jane Espenson about the grand finale of her arc on the popular comic book series that has brought the adventures of Sunnydale's finest slayer from television to comics. With Buffy left hanging (literally) upon discovering some new powers (she's flying!), it was only right to check in with the author who will be taking up the scripting duties upon Buffy's return to comic shop shelves: celebrated novelist and comics writer Brad Meltzer.

Meltzer kicks off his run on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight" with February's issue #32, the penultimate arc of the series before "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon takes over and brings "Season Eight" to a close. The biggest questions on everyone's minds, however, have yet to be answered — namely, what's up with Buffy's new powers and the identity of the mysterious masked villain, Twilight, who has caused so much trouble for Buffy and her allies.

I picked Meltzer's brain to see if we could get any clues.

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Tags brad meltzer, buffy the vampire slayer: season eight, Hot Stuff, Preview

With excitement for “Iron Man 2” building towards a fever pitch — thanks to the recent reveals of War Machine and Whiplash — Robert Downey Jr. has offered some insight into the story of the next “Iron Man” installment while promoting his upcoming film, “Sherlock Holmes.”

“My take — Jon [Favreau] was in agreement, and Marvel supported us — was that once you tell an [origin] story pretty well, that's usually where things start to get dull, and one or two or three things start to happen over and over again,” Downey explained during an interview with Rotten Tomatoes. “So, we made Tony Stark's challenges very much outside the usual realm of activity. As much as anything else, it's much more of a side job for him the second time around. And the great thing, too, is that the Marvel universe is wild; it's so far out."

“That's the big balance to strike,” continued Downey. “It would be so easy to go so far out it would be intergalactic and nothing would be grounded in reality any more.” Read more...

Tags iron man 2, robert downey jr

Andy Diggle wins the 2009 Twitter Report award for greatest disappointment upon link click-through. Read on down to his post about Mandarin showing up in "Iron Man 2" to find out what the greatest source of disappointment was during my morning coffee.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Palmiotti and Evan Dorkin brought another depressing point of interest to the comics Twittersphere, linking to a story about legendary artist Frank Frazetta's son robbing the family museum. In other, more hopeful tweets, Neil Gaiman is making tons of latkes for Chanukkah, Marc Bernardin had a positive micro-review for "Avatar" and Bryan Hitch posted an in-progress piece of "Captain America: Reborn."

Check it all out after the jump in the Twitter Report for December 11, 2009. Read more...

Tags andy diggle, ben templesmith, bryan hitch, duane swierczynski, evan dorkin, Jimmy Palmiotti, marc bernardin, michael kupperman, neil gaiman, Twitter Report

It seems like comics icon Stan Lee and I have been chatting every other week lately about one project or another — and as someone who learned to read with Lee's "Amazing Spider-Man" comics, that's certainly not a bad thing.

In my latest chat with the co-creator of Peter Parker, the X-Men, Hulk and so many other characters, we discussed his recent comments confirming that he'll have a role in Marvel's upcoming "Thor" movie directed by Kenneth Branagh. After heaping praise on Branagh, Lee offered up some thoughts on what his role might be and why there's some good and bad elements of the cameo confirmation.

"I have absolutely no idea," said Lee of when we might know who he'll play in the film, "but [Branagh] told me that he has a good, small cameo."

"I loved the word 'good,' [but] I wished he hadn't used the word 'small,'" he laughed. Read more...

Tags stan lee, thor