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Source: Variety

Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment and Capcom Ltd. are developing a new movie based on the popular videogame franchise “Street Fighter,” says Variety. Screenwriter Justin Marks has been hired to adapt.

Hyde Park and Capcom — Japanese publisher of “Street Fighter” — will produce the film in a joint venture.

The movie will focus on the game’s most popular female fighter, Chun-Li, but the exact storyline is being kept under wraps.

In 1994, Universal released a Street Fighter movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme that featured most of the characters from the game.

Hyde Park and Capcom’s film is targeted to be released in 2008, the 20th anniversary of the game franchise.

Marks just completed writing Voltran for producer Mark Gordon.

Source: Reuters

Reuters reports that Activision’s Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was the top game last week:

A video game which lets players pick a dream team of Marvel super heroes flew in its debut week into the No. 1 slot on UBS Securities’ weekly U.S. list of best-selling video games.

Activision Inc.’s “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” pits Marvel teams against Dr. Doom and the newly reformed Masters of Evil, who have launched a bid for global domination.

Available on most currently available systems, the title has won strong critical reviews. Versions for Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s Wii are expected next month, when those consoles are also expected to be released.

Visit the link above for more on the news.

Product Page

Although marred by the $80 mail-in-rebate, this deal still gets you a 14-inch widescreen laptop with a 1.46GHz Intel M 410 processor for $399.99. The Westinghouse laptop has 802.11b/g wireless, ATI Xpress 200M Graphics card, a 60 GB hard drive and 512MB of DDR2 RAM.

Good for a throwaway notebook that you won’t be afraid of losing if you’re heading overseas or to a conference

Source: MGM & ComingSoon

ComingSoon.net has your first peek at the new poster for National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, which goes up in theaters this weekend.

“The Rise of Taj” is the sequel to the hit 2002 comedy, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder. Taj (Kal Penn), Van Wilder’s assistant in the first film, heads out on his own to England’s prestigious Camden University to further his studies. Along the way, he adopts a group of misfits and shows the uptight student body how to get Wilder!

The MGM release, hitting theaters on December 1, also stars Lauren Cohan, Daniel Percival, Glen Barry, Anthony Cozens, Tom Davey, Holly Davidson, William de Coverly, Shobu Kapoor, Ashley Rae, Steven Rathman, Amy Steel and Beth Steel.

You can find more images from the film here as well, and be sure to visit the official site.

The new Brick expresses a ludic playfulness in a user-friendly high-performance hard drive. Stack & Play multiple LaCie Bricks together to brighten your desktop and your mood. With Hi-Speed USB 2.0 interface, it offers the fast data transfer rates required for substantial jobs like downloading digital photos, saving MP3s or transferring home videos from a camcorder.

Price is $119.95 after instant savings + if you use Google checkout to pay you get an additional $10 off, plus free shipping!!!

Source: Film Ick

First he named Spider-Man, then he defeated Spidey as a theater usher, and now he gets to play a villain? Film Ick is reporting a rumor that Bruce Campbell may be playing Quentin Beck (aka Mysterio) on the set of a Spidey movie being made within Spider-Man 3. The site says that Avi Arad and Sam Raimi will have cameos as the producer and director of the film.

Click here for more of the story.

In an effort to show consumers what its 50 GB next-generation Blu-ray Disc technology can add to movies, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will give the first 500,000 PlayStation 3 owners a free copy of Will Ferrell’s summer hit “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”

Sony synergy abounded at the news conference in San Francisco that unveiled the 22 launch titles and key functionality of the long-awaited PS3.

During a demonstration of the PlayStation Store, part of the free online community that gamers can plug into, trailers were shown for Sony Pictures’ upcoming “Casino Royale,” which shares the Nov. 17 launch date with PS3, and next summer’s “Spider-Man 3,” which has a PS3 video game in development by Activision.

The PS3, which will be available with a 20 GB hard drive for $500 and a 60 GB hard drive, HDMI cable and built-in WiFi for $600, will offer high-def video games and movies in 1080p. In addition to playing Blu-ray Disc games and movies from an assortment of studios, gamers will be able to download HD video content, including movies down the line.

PS3′s PlayStation Network broadband service also will allow gamers to download music, videos, original games and gaming content straight to the hard drive. Most of the downloadable content will be free. In addition to playing games and communicating with friends online, gamers will be able to surf the Web for free.

Sony will have 400,000 PS3s available in North America for launch with a total of 1 million hardware units shipped by year’s end. About 80% of the PS3s will be the $600 versions, in which early adopters are more interested.

Even though hardware will be in short supply throughout the holiday season and likely into the first quarter, Sony will have a huge retail presence that will allow consumers to test the hardware. Beginning Thursday, Sony will have 15,000 PS3 kiosks at retailers nationwide.

“Universally, PlayStation products will have the lead-in position,” Sony Computer Entertainment America vp Jack Tretton said. “They will have dominant shelf space. In addition, these kiosks will be networked so they can stream game demos and they’ll no longer be dependent on someone carrying a disc into the store to load it up.”

Electronic Arts, which is developing 30 PS3 games, will have four titles available this year, including such popular franchises as “Madden NFL 07,” “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07,” “Fight Night Round 3″ and “Need for Speed: Carbon.” Activision is bringing such key franchises to PS3 as “Call of Duty 3,” “Tony Hawk’s Project 8″ and “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.” Sony will have a trio of exclusive titles: “Resistance: Fall of Man,” which is in development in Burbank at Insomniac Games; “NBA 07,” the first sports game in 1080p; and “Genji: Days of the Blade.” Sony Online Entertainment will introduce “Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom” to PS3 gamers.

“Untold Legends” was a franchise born on PlayStation Portable that has migrated to PS3. Sony plans on making it easy for gamers who own PS3 and PSP to share content through Remote Play. The cross media bar onscreen display that Sony introduced last year with PSP is being used by PS3 and by the new Sony Bravia HDTVs, which allows for seamless navigation.

Todd McFarlane is going to be on Bubba The Love Sponge today. Check him out on Siruis Chanal 101.

Source: IESB.net

IESB.net has potentially good news for Superman fans:

A few calls later, other studio insiders confirmed that the deal was finalized last week and the team that brought Superman Returns to theaters earlier this year will return for the sequel.

We have been told that a couple of things are for certain. For one, the sequel will have a slightly smaller budget. Returns budget was approximately $208 million dollars with P&A (prints and ads) of about $50 million putting it at around $260. The sequel is expected to be around $140-175 million plus marketing.

You can read more on what to expect from the sequel at the link above!

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

NEW YORK – A federal judge refused a request from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. to immediately dismiss some claims in a lawsuit accusing it of selling “Grand Theft Auto” video games containing sexually explicit images under the wrong content label.

The lawsuit filed in July 2005 seeking class-action status, said Take-Two’s alleged misconduct violated consumer protection laws in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Since then a number of cases making the same claim were consolidated in Manhattan federal court.

Take-Two and its subsidiary, Rockstar Games Inc., had argued in its motion to dismiss parts of the lawsuit that the plaintiffs could only file claims in the states where they resided, not all 50 states.

But U.S. District Judge Shirley Wohl Kram denied Take-Two’s motion and said she would reconsider if class-action status were granted in the case.

“If class certification is granted, the court will have the benefit of a well-defined class and a more fully developed treatment of potential choice of law questions,” Kram wrote in an opinion dated Wednesday.

A spokesman for Take-Two was not immediately available to comment on the judge’s order.

The bestselling “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” was found to have hidden sex scenes in 2005. The explicit scenes, known as “Hot Coffee” allowed players to engage in virtual sex acts.

When the scenes were discovered, the video game ratings board slapped a restrictive “adult” rating on the game. Take- Two had to pull the games off store shelves and repackage them with the “adult” rating, which crimped sales and disrupted the company’s operations.