Square Enix and Marvel Team Up

In video game news, it looks like Marvel is stepping into the arena of interactive entertainment. Yesterday, a trailer for an unnamed video game, temporarily dubbed “The Avengers Project” was released by Square Enix. The brief teaser shows a series of images of the tools of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (Cap’s shield, Thor’s hammer, Iron Man’s repulsors), sitting abandoned in wreckage. A woman’s voice speaks over the footage, saying that the Avengers must be reassembled. There’s no word of when the game will be released or on which platforms, but Development studios Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal are set to work on what will apparently be a multi-game series set in the Marvel Universe. I never really got into Marvel’s mobile games, but Hulk: Total Destruction was some of the best fun I had on the original Xbox. Square Enix has proven they know how to revitalize a classic property with their revamped Tomb Raider games, so I’m excited to see what they’ll do with this.

Peter Dinklage in Talks to Join Avengers: Infinity War

In more rumored casting news, Peter Dinklage may be coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to an exclusive report from Variety, anonymous sources say that the Game of Thrones alum is in talks to appear in Avengers: Infinity War. Serving as the culmination of Phase III of the MCU, the two-part Infinity War will be directed by the Russo brothers, already celebrated for helming the last two (and in my opinion, the best two) Captain America films. There’s no word on which role would go to everyone’s favorite wisecracking, hard-drinking dwarf turned diplomat, but that hasn’t stopped my brain for spinning into overdrive imagining the possibilities. M.O.D.O.K., anyone (please let it be M.O.D.O.K.)?

[h/t Variety]

My Favorite Bits of News From San Diego Comic-Con (Part Two)

There were more big reveals than you could shake a stick at this Saturday, but here are some of my highlights:

Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes dropped in on the folks at MTV Geek to discuss their appearance in Plants Vs Zombies Vs Jay and Silent Bob. It looks like this:

Smith also updated MTV Geek on his latest creative projects. The title he formerly called his last directorial effort, a hockey comedy-drama dubbed "Hit Somebody," will now be produced as a miniseries. Instead, his last movie will be Clerks III, and the script has been submitted to The Weinstein Company for review. He also hinted at an idea for a bizarre horror movie that came up during one of his podcasts in which a man is held captive and turned into a walrus (smh only Kevin Smith).

Meanwhile, IGN was covering a talk by Microsoft Creative Director Ken Lobb on the new Xbox One console. Lobb announced that the next gen black box will allow players to record and share the last 30 seconds of gameplay with a simple voice command, and the camera can tell when players have switched controllers, automatically switching controller settings based on who is holding it.

While discussing his new Hulu series The Awesomes, Seth Meyers revealed that he'd always wanted to do a Blue Beetle/Booster Gold superhero movie (with himself as Blue Beetle). I was instantly reminded of the latest installment from Yale Stewart's fantastic webcomic:

Full size here

Fun side story: Meyers once ran into professional comics penciller Kevin Maguire and asked to be drawn as Ted Kord's Blue Beetle. The resulting drawing is the thumbnail image for Meyers Twitter profile.

Attendees of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. panel were lucky enough to witness the entire pilot episode (word on the street is it's awesome).

But perhaps the biggest news of the day came from the DC cinematic universe, with the announcement of not one but three new working titles. The first, a follow-up to this year's Man of Steel, will be a Superman/Batman movie - pairing DC's two most recognizable names to take on the sequel to Marvel/Disney's highest-grossing film ever (good luck with that) in 2015. It's probably a safe bet to assume Henry Cavill will return as Supes, but there's no word on who will be buttoning up Bruce Wayne's tailored Armani suit this time around. Next up will be a film adaptation for The Flash in 2016, followed by DC's answer to Marvel's The Avengers, Justice League, in 2017. DC also revealed the logo for the first film in line:

I think the batarang looks a bit chubby.

That's it for Saturday. Check back in Sunday for the last helping of juicy nerd tidbits!