The recent announcement that there was another Dungeons & Dragons movie in the works at Warner Bros was met with the usual enthusiasm by fans for the RPG franchise, but it seems that the usual Hollywood complications may be interfering with just how soon we see a finished film.

Confused yet? Well so is Hasbro. The toy company is claiming that they own the rights to any Dungeons & Dragons film since they bought D&D developers Wizards Of The Coast several years back. Hasbro, it turn, has a development deal with Universal Pictures, with whom they produced last year’s Battleship, also based on Hasbro-owned property. “Hasbro owns the intellectual property rights to Dungeons & Dragons, period, because of Hasbro’s acquisition of Wizards Of The Coast in 1998,” said Wayne Charness, a spokesperson for Hasbro.

However, Warner Bros. asserts that Courtney Solomon, director of the 2000 bomb called Dungeons & Dragons still has the rights to develop a D&D film, which he’s now doing at Warners as a producer with David Lee Johnson (Wrath of the Titans) now penning the screenplay. Meanwhile, Universal has producer Chris Morgan (five out of the six Fast & Furious movies) guiding its own adaptation of D&D.

This has all the makings of another Spider-Man or Hobbit years long legal battle over who owns the rights to what. I guess the point is don’t hold your breath for a new D&D movie for sometime in the near future.

More news as it develops.

Source: Blastr

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You know that Simpsons where Poochie is introduced to the “Itchy & Scratchy Show,” and in the first episode of the new “Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show,” the cat and mouse duo are heading to the fireworks factory, and they come across Poochie, who starts rapping about who he is and why he has so much attitude, and then Milhouse, watching the show, gets all flustered and shouts, “When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?!”

Yeah, waiting for G.I. Joe: Retaliation has been a lot like that.

Here are two new TV spots for the movie, which will be out in theaters on March 29th.

In this sequel, the G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence. The film stars D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Ray Park, Adrianne Palicki, Jonathan Pryce, RZA, Ray Stevenson, Channing Tatum with Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson. Directed by Jon M. Chu, and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Brian Goldner, from a screenplay by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick based on Hasbro’s G.I. Joe characters.

But when is G.I. Joe going to retaliate….?!

Source: Geek Tyrant

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Nerd action figure enthusiasts, like myself, are privileged to buy just about every pop culture character that ever was/is. Seriously, pretty much every iconic character from film, TV, video games and more have spawned little plastic figures honoring their image. I’m not complaining. No, I’m thrilled! I am, though, running out of shelf space. That, and my wallet and fiancee are not so understanding.

Money, storage and g/f problems be damned, because, thanks to the New York International Toy Fair (which happened this weekend), 2013  is looking like another killer year for plastics.

Toy Fair 2013 showcased all types of toys to choose from, classic toys from yesteryear, new movie tie-in toys, and toys for all ages, brought forth from the wacky minds of the toy masters at Mattel, Lego, Hasbro and many, many more. These are the products that will be hitting store shelves everywhere all year long that may flop, or become the hottest must have toy for Christmas.

Thanks to internet leaks, and work from other bloggers, we’ve rounded up the biggest and the best.

Take a stroll through the New York Toy Fair courtesy of NerdBastards “Gallery of Toys” and get your second hand look at NECA‘s Kick-Ass 2, and Lone Ranger line. Hasbro’s Star Wars, G.I. Joe:  Retaliation and Transformers, Marvel Legends/Avengers figures. Mattel‘s Masters of the Universe, DC Unlimited, Classics TV Batman, and Watchmen collections. DC Collectibles Man of Steel and, much, much more!

Check out the massive (90) picture gallery below and let your fellow NerdBastards know which are keepers and which will clutter store shelves until their thrown into the 50% off bin in the comments section below.

Note: Release dates and other deets are not provided. Please see our sources (ToyArk, ToyNewsi, ComingSoon) for more information.

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More Star Wars, more toys. That’s the deal and the silver lining for those who are wincing at the thought of a further exploration of the branches that connect to the artery of fantasticness that is the original trilogy.

Before we get our hands on Episode VII (Roman numerals, catch the fever!) figures like “Darth Luke”, and (gah) “Senior Slave Leia” though, Hasbro is bringing us the Star Wars Black line of 6″ scale action figures. A line that is being hailed as a big change for Hasbro… which is bullshit, because the Unleashed line debuted ten years ago and it was in the same scale as these figures. Granted they were pre-posed and actionless figures, but they’re still rad.

Anyway, the Black line is set to drop (hippnessssssssss) in August with X-Wing Fighter Luke Skywalker (meh), R2 (huzzah), Darth Maul (prequel scum!), and an Imperial Sandtrooper (filler). These are being marketed as a collector line, so “Ohhhhh, fancy!”. Also, there is a $19.99 MSRP that your local comic shop will blow right past.

Worry not though small fig fan — Hasbro will continue making tons and tons of 3 3/4″ figures and they will also go out under the Black banner, with Star Wars Classic figures called “Lando’s Legion” and prequel figures called “Windu’s Warriors”… and that last part may not be true.

So in closing: More Star Wars figures!

This article is over. Go back to Facebook and wait patiently for our next Doctor Doom meme.

Source: Detroit Free Press… which I read while searching for Warlord futures.

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This week on The Bastardcast: Christmapocalypse Edition, Jason and Jeremy dish on bullpoop Star Wars rumors, Transformers, the pain of Pain and Gain, broken penises, The Imprisonment of the Scar Jo Boob Bandit, faux hawk baby-napper, the gender neutral Easy Bake oven, and the end of the damn world. Plus: A very Jewey Christmas Message from Jason.

All that and more on The Bastardcast, The WalMart of Internet radio humor!

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While the flux-capacitor hasn’t been perfected, and we can’t help you fix any past holiday humbuggery, maybe we can help you get this holiday season off to a good start.

For the next 12 days (Dec 1st-12th), the staff of Nerd Bastards will be listing a few of their favorite nerdy things. Gadgets, doohickeys, thingamabobs and more – all sorts of  items that have been Nerd tested and Bastard approved. Basically, stuff you want, things you need, and everything you can’t have.

We hope you’ll  find some unique and nerdtastic gifts among our selections, and that they make their way under your tree, Menorah or Kwanzaa bush.

Hit the jump for jeremy r! hudson’s list of Nerdful things. Check back tomorrow for Sam‘s list. To see archive of this feature, click HERE.

Now for my Nerdmas wish list/Geek holiday gift guide I decided (for no real determinable reason) to stick to the confines of the Internets biggest swap meet. Yes what follows is a list of the finest gift ideas eBay has to suit the needs of the nerdy. I will warn you it can be a bit pricey in places, but I figure out of the the thousands of you out there, a couple of you have to be dot-com millionaires or billionaire orphans with piles of f-you money. I would also like to remind the extremely wealthy out there that giving is the true meaning of the season and you are more than welcome to give any (or all) of these to me.

Thank you and lets begin.

The elusive and hard to find Murray Christmas T-Shirt, the perfect holiday piece of clothing. The Chive had these available for about 28 minutes before all but the size smalls sold out. For us non-hobbits it looks like there are a few up on eBay for around $50 bucks.

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Earlier this week, it was reported that the Walt Disney Company, on its present spending spree, was eye-balling toy-maker Hasbro as its next acquisition. But not so fast says a Hasbro insider.

In a report by the Providence Journal an anonymous source says that in the case of a Hasbro acquisition by Disney, there’s “absolutely nothing going on that they are aware of at all, in any way, shape or form.”  Of course denial isn’t synonymous with refutation (ask your English teacher), but one has to wonder if there wasn’t some kind of truth to it, especially when industry watchers will tell you that Hasbro stock went up 6.5 per cent when the rumor was leaked Monday.

So even if Disney had not yet been considered Hasbro as a purchase, Hasbro’s Board has to now be wondering if it might not be a good idea for their bottom line. Meanwhile, several Wall Street analysts are speculating that if Disney is indeed pursuing Hasbro, they may hold off until movie licensing agreements with other studios like Paramount (Transformers, G.I. Joe)  and Universal (Battleship) expire.

Obviously, we’ll keep you posted with the happenings.

Source: Transformers Live Blog

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Less than a week after the bombshell announcement of Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, it seems that the House of Mouse is still in the mood to buy, and they may be shopping in the toy aisle.

The rumor du jour is that Disney has opened negotiations to buy Hasbro, the largest toy and game company in the world. Under the Hasbro banner are numerous billion-dollar franchise brands like Transformers, G.I. Joe, Monopoly, Nerf, Beyblade, Magic: The Gathering, and Dungeons & Dragons. Over the years, Hasbro itself has absorbed other toy companies like Parker Brothers, Kenner, Tonka, Milton Bradley, and Wizards of the Coast, so I guess with no more toy companies to monopolize, their only choice left is to be absorbed by another monopoly.

Sound implausible? If there are negotiations, they’ve only just gotten underway, but it reportedly only took six months for Disney and Lucasfilm to come to an agreement. The move would make sense for Disney, as Hasbro does produce the Star Wars line of action figures, plus they’d get access to hundreds of characters and licenses that could add billions to their coffers, and not just the obvious ones like Optimus Prime and Cobra Commander. Might Cabbage-Patch Kids, Mr Potato Head and My Little Pony soon become permanent parts of the Disney world? Time will tell.

I know we joke about Disney taking over the world, but it seems that the entire enterprise is no joke to the people in charge: Disney means to take over the world. Or at least the nerd parts.

We’ll keep you posted with developments.

Source:MTV

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People may complain about reboots and remakes, but there is a far more dangerous phenomenon plaguing the world of movies today.  I have seen it… and it is not good.  Movie studios have been trying to translate fkn board games and knock-off toys into film!  Anyone who’s seen Battleship knows that even special effects can’t always save a movie from turning into a giant, steaming pile of shit.  Well, it looks like Hasbro has three more turds cooking – Hungry Hungry Hippos, Action Man and Monopoly.

Apparently, the overwhelming box office success of Battleship prompted them to see what other copyrights they could turn into cash.  Oh wait… Battleship was a flop?  Well hell, I have no idea why they’re making these then.  But making them they are and they plan to have all three of these hemorrhoid-inducing projects to a theater near you in a couple of years.

A general plot synopsis is as follows, courtesy of yours truly:

Hungry Hungry Hippos will be about some fat hippos with levers on their backs that are unable to eat without help and so enslave children to do the work for them.  They eventually become morbidly obese and die of heart failure.

Action Man will be a bargain-bin rip-off of G.I. Joe and will feature tons of action, crappy special effects and some men.  Lots of men.  It’s actually going to be a gay porn.

Monopoly revolves around an historically accurate look at corporate America and how they devour their competition in order to obtain profits.  It will be seven hours long and the characters will spend much of the film in jail.  It is also a gay porn, but with fancier sets and less action.

Okay, so those may not be proper synopses, but they’re probably better than what will be assaulting our senses come two years from now.

I guess if you put enough thought into anything you can end up making a movie out of it, though I have to wonder if that’s the best motivation.  With any luck, Hasbro’s potential abortions will get killed in pre-production and the world will be spared from the punishment that God will no doubt bring down upon us for creating such atrocities.

Thanks to /film for the warning.

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Word is that Hasbro is focusing a lot of its energy on getting Transformers 4 out there in 2014. It doesn’t have a title beyond “Transformers 4” at the moment, and they even went out of their way to create this generic logo for it. A for effort, guys.

They’re going at this from a different angle, now, though, because while the third Transformers flick brought in lots of ticket sales, it wasn’t doing much for toy sales.  Apparently the reason for the lack of sales in that area is because no new robots were introduced in the last movie.  So Hasbro has decided, with the purest of intentions (heh), to bring new robots into a whole new storyline.  Yep.

Michael Bay is supposed to be coming back to direct the fourth film and to set things up for whichever future director comes on board, but this has yet to be confirmed.

Things are starting to seem a little desperate, in my opinion.  Or, at the very least, they’re not even pretending that money isn’t their priority.

Source: TFW2005, Bleeding Cool

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