First Look at Lead Characters from PACIFIC RIM

Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro's giant monster and robots movie set for release next summer, got some more exposure ahead of Comic-Con with our first look at the film's lead characters

Here we see actors Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi fully suited up to kick some giant monster ass. Scan from the new issue of EW

[Source: Shock Till You Drop]

Godzilla Remake Gets New Screenwriter

The Godzilla remake that has been in production by Legendary Pictures has landed a new screenwriter, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Max Borenstein has been tapped to write the second American remake of Godzilla, which Legendary has long promised would finally do justice to Japan's King of the Monsters after Roland Emmerich butchered the beast in his failed 1998 big-budget blockbuster.

Bornstein joins Gareth Edwards (director of the fabulous indie-film Monsters) who was recently announced as the director for Godzilla's second -- and hopefully more faithful -- second American outing.

Will the new Godzilla breathe atomic life back into the monster for American audiences? I hope so.

Godzilla Attacks the Criterion Collection

This January, Godzilla will be stomping onto DVD and Blu-ray as one of the newest additions into the esteemed Criterion collection.

Available for purchase on January 24 on DVD or Blu-ray, the Criterion Collection edition of Godzilla will also boast several features guaranteed to make kaiju cinephiles drool:

• New high-definition digital restoration (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
• Audio commentary by David Kalat (A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series)
• New high-definition digital restoration of Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Terry Morse’s 1956 reworking of the original, starring Raymond Burr
• Audio commentary for Godzilla, King of the Monsters by Kalat
• New interviews with actor Akira Takarada (Hideto Ogata), Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima, and effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai
• Interview with legendary Godzilla score composer Akira Ifukube
• Featurette detailing Godzilla’s photographic effects
• New interview with Japanese-film critic Tadao Sato
• The Unluckiest Dragon, an illustrated audio essay featuring historian Greg Pflugfelder describing the tragic fate of the fishing vessel Daigo fukuryu maru, a real-life event that inspired Godzilla
• Theatrical trailers
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic J. Hoberman

S.H. MonsterArts: Exciting New Godzilla Toys

This November, Bandai is releasing a new line of figures called S.H. MonsterArts. The first two figures in the line will be Godzilla and Mechagodzilla as they appeared in 1993/1994. I couldn't be MORE excited.

There are two reasons I can't pass up these figures.

• 1.) The Hensei era Godzilla (as he appeared in the films from 1991-1995) is my preferred Godzilla design

• Although there have been countless Godzilla and Mechagodzilla figures before these, none have been so detailed or so articulated. Godzilla has at least 29 points of articulation -- articulation that is based on the S.H. Figuarts style. You can even put these monsters into their swimming or flying poses.

Despite the currency exchange from Yen to Canadian dollars and the diecast parts involved, which will crank up the price, I am at the least going to splurge and order this Godzilla figure. Hope I don't get addicted, because Bandai already has plans to follow up with the release of the 1994 Space Godzilla and Moguera, which they displayed in this amazing diorama at the 2011 Comic-Con.