Closer to Midnight.

“Now at midnight all the agents, and the superhuman crew, come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do.” One year out from its release date, Zack Snyder releases some character stills of the Watchmen. I like the three above quite a bit (particularly the pitch-perfect, G. Gordon Liddyesque gleam to the Comedian.) But, imho, Ozymandias didn’t really pan out (Matthew Goode looks way too young), nor did Malin Ackerman’s Silk Spectre. (Besides looking rather generic and X-Men-ish, she seems way too tall and modelly for Ms. Juspeczyk.) As yet unseen, Carla Gugino’s Mama Spectre and — perhaps the real make-or-break’er — Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan.

Rewriting the Legend.

As y’all might remember, I quite liked I am Legend last year, despite the fact that it pretty much falls apart in the last half-hour or so. (It still made #18 on the 2007 list.) Well, fwiw, the original ending to the film is now online, and it’s definitely more Matheson-esque (and sidesteps the goofy New England Utopia at the end, although I guess it is still implied.) Worth a look, if you saw I am Legend in the theater.

All in the Games.

By way of my sis-in-law Lotta, here’s a funky animated gif: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton play the oldest game of all. (The text is early on from Neil Gaiman‘s Sandman, when Morpheus descends into Hell to retrieve his helmet and is challenged to a contest of wits to reclaim his prize, at the risk of unending torment.)

Strangely enough, just as she sent me this, I’d just grabbed an animated gif of a different game, which — at least imho — also has some metaphorical resonance for the primary season. (For those who don’t follow basketball, that’s virtually an automatic basket by 7’5″ Yao Ming getting stuffed out of nowhere by 5’7″ Knick Nate Robinson…Notice also (in the Youtube) how Yao tries to play the victim card after ignominious defeat…)

This aggression will not stand, Stark.

Robert Downey, Jr. suits up to face Obadiah Stane (a.k.a. the Bald Lebowski) in a spiffy all-new trailer for Jon Favreau’s Iron Man. As with the two previous teasers, this looks surprisingly enjoyable, and may hopefully end up being Marvel’s best product since Spiderman 2 and X2.

End of the Line.

The fruits of the Compass? After forty years from Reefer Madness to Semi-Pro (with, of course, PJ’s Rings trilogy being the notable highlight), New Line Cinema is no more. “The company will lay off hundreds of employees and be merged into its corporate sibling, Warner Bros…In a sign of retrenchment that is increasingly prevalent in Hollywood, the company will now focus on making fewer movies limited to the kind of smaller, low-cost ‘genre’ horror and comedy pictures upon which it built its name.” (Nevertheless, the Tolkien suit will go forward.)

Heavy Freight.

“Exhausted, I slept across the grave…I saw the Black Freighter bearing down on all I loved, but I was powerless to stop it.” Zack Snyder alum Gerard Butler reveals his upcoming part in Watchmen: He’ll be narrating the Tales of the Black Freighter digression for the DVD version. “‘I’m going to do the voice of the captain,’ said Butler. ‘They’re going to do it in the style of a Japanese anime and I’m totally stoked.” Anime? Hrm.

You play with matches…

Some comic-book cautionary tales for the day: Rorschach sets fire to a would-be pursuer in a new still from Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, which has wrapped shooting. And Dark Horizons offers a first glimpse at how Aaron Eckhart will look as Harvey Dent…after the incident.

He’s a good man, and thorough.

If adventure has a name this morning, it must be the teaser for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Cate Blanchett’s channeling of Maude Lebowski is going to take some getting used to, but otherwise this looks better — and more iconic — than I envisioned. Update: But, please, don’t point any guns at him.

That’s what Bilbo Baggins Hates.

“The Tolkien trustees do not file lawsuits lightly, and have tried unsuccessfully to resolve their claims out of court,” Steven Maier, an attorney for the Tolkien estate based in Britain, said in a statement. ‘New Line has not paid the plaintiffs even one penny of its contractual share of gross receipts despite the billions of dollars of gross revenue generated by these wildly successful motion pictures.’” Uh oh. The Tolkien estate sues New Line Cinema, putting the potential Hobbit films at risk. “The plaintiffs seek more than $150 million in compensatory damages, unspecified punitive damages and a court order giving the Tolkien estate the right to terminate any rights New Line may have to make films based on other works by the author, including ‘The Hobbit.’” Obviously, this thing has to go to trial, but in light of PJ’s earlier suit, one has to wonder: What the hell has New Line been up to?

In South Central, Out of Retirement.

In the trailer bin, Keanu Reeves gets all Training Day up in here in the trailer for David Ayers’ Street Kings (formerly The Night Watchman), also starring Forest Whitaker, Common, The Game, Hugh Laurie, and Chris Evans. (Perhaps more importantly, it’s penned by James Ellroy of L.A. Confidential.) And Jet Li and Jackie Chan join forces to train a fish-out-of-water apprentice in the trailer for Rob Minkoff’s The Forbidden Kingdom. Um, even notwithstanding the Mortal Kombat cheese here, didn’t Jet Li say he was done with martial arts epics after Fearless? I guess it’s a Jay-Z thing. (By the way, our first look at Indy 4 will be Valentine’s Day.)