Holy magical Nic Cage wig — The Sorcerer’s Apprentice looks kinda bad ass

Check out the latest behind-the-scenes video from Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Sure it’s not high-concept, but its smacks of quality summer popcorn fare. And we’re due for one good wide-screen action film that isn’t plagued with wrecking balls and racist robots. We’re due for a new Mummy-esque/Pirates action adventure that you can take your kids to.…

Architects design gigantic solar cell that can wrap around the Moon

Searching for a way to provide unlimited clean energy to Earth’s population, Japanese architecture firm Shimizu designed the “Luna Ring,” a solar cell that would be wrapped around the Moon’s equator and beam energy back to Earth. Says Shimizu on their webiste: A shift from economical use of limited resources to the unlimited use of…

Frank Miller returns to Ancient Greece with Xerxes

More than a decade after 300 — the story of Leonidas’ doomed stand against the Persian Empire at Thermopylae — the writer-artist reveals a first look at the prequel, Xerxes, named after the power-mad god-king. Miller will release Xerxes as a the six-part through Dark Horse next year. In an interview with The Los Angeles…

Awesome Predators posters, Harry Potter set pics, X-Men casting rumor, The Crow update, and Doctor Who clips!

Get a better look at Predators’ main characters. Will Kick-Ass join the X-Men? Find out where the Crow update takes place. Plus Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Smurfs, Splice, Heroes(!), Cowboys And Aliens, Real Steel, Last Airbender and Mission Impossible! Predators: Here are a couple new posters. [ShockTillYouDrop] Harry Potter: Some more set photos showing how…

Swamp Thing and other “Vertigo” characters to return to the mainstream DC universe

Back in the DCU of the 1980s, Swamp Thing hung with Superman, Sandman met Martian Manhunter, and John Constantine bothered anyone he damn well pleased. This changed with the advent of DC’s Vertigo imprint, but things are changing once again. According to Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool, Swamp Thing will be returning to the…

H.P. Lovecraft-inspired art show to open in Brooklyn next week

We love both H.P. Lovecraft and fun art openings. So when Dylan Thuras of Atlas Obscura told us he was curating a Cthulhu-centric art show in Brooklyn, we bellowed a hearty “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!” The show — A Love Craft: Art Inspired by Monsters, Madness and Mythos — opens at Observatory on…

BP’s oil spill unleashes an outpouring of angry fan art

Now that the U.S. Attorney General’s announced that the oil spill has made almost a third of the Gulf of Mexico off-limits, people are taking their anger to the internet. Here’s a collection of pissed-off, BP-inspired cartoons, videos and illustrations News via CNN. By Mike Mitchell Via Shoryland. By K. Beaton from Hark A Vagrant!…

Which novel is science fiction’s Harry Potter?

Pyr’s Lou Anders breaks it down for you in an awesome new interview over at Redstone Science Fiction. Will “sword and planet” novels make a comeback? Why is steampunk eating hard SF’s lunch? What’s science fiction’s answer to Harry Potter?

The io9 guide to June science fiction awesomeness

Summer here is, and there’s a ton of sizzling scifi on the way! June brings us the returns of True Blood and Futurama, Splice and Jonah Hex at the box office, and loads of author appearances, new books, and conventions. You can download the June calender by clicking here. And here are this month’s convention…

How will the world end? Cory Doctorow, Ben Greenman and other authors debate!

It’s launch day for new science fiction magazine Lightspeed

Indie SF publisher Prime Books is publishing a new online magazine of science fiction and essays called Lightspeed. Edited by John Joseph Adams, formerly of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed aims to “push the envelope.” Now you can read it! Every week, Lightspeed will publish a free story online, along with essays that explore themes…

Sometimes high-school cliques and supervamps both need a roundhouse kick

A boarding school full of vampires sounds like a bit silly, like Harry Potter meets Twilight. But Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy is actually something much cooler: Mean Girls with mysticism, plus complicated vampire politics. Spoilers ahead. The Vampire Academy novels have already reached their fifth or sixth volume by now, and I’ve seen them for…

Are there phenomena in the universe that will always be beyond human comprehension?

Just after we linked to the Physics and Cake blog’s post about whether there might be a “ceiling” in the level of theoretical physics that humans can understand, Reith Lecturer Martin Rees wrote an essay for the London Times, explaining the first of his Reith Lectures. And Rees does believe that there may be intrinsic…

The alien landscapes of Northern California’s salt ponds

Last year, UC Berkeley architecture professor Cris Benton used kite aerial photography (KAP) to capture these stunning, otherworldly images of salt ponds. Benton writes: These are photographs taken during a first excursion to Salt Pond E6B in an area near the ruins of the 19th Century Ohlsen Salt Works just north of Alameda Creek. I…

The Best Year in Science Fiction: 1954

We’re getting to the end of our survey, but 1954 is a ridiculously robust year, with Ray Bradbury delivering Fahrenheit 451, Richard Matheson offering I Am Legend, and Japan unleashing Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Cinematic science fiction had yet to develop the technical wizardry to compete with the mind’s eye, so this year belongs…

How Hollywood is destroying my postmodern love affair with 80’s pop culture

Since G.I. Joe and Transformers became big goofy movies, author Jeremy Robinson has developed mixed feelings about loving the 1980s. He explains why below. I’m a child of the eighties. That’s not to say I was born in the eighties. I wasn’t. What I mean is that my formative child rearing years stretched between 1980,…

What if Jaws was made today?

Read this hilariously accurate depiction of what Jaws would be like if it was made today. Starring Sam Worthington as Chief Brody (who has an ultra-dark NYPD past), Michael Cera as Matt Hooper, and Samuel L. Jackson as Quint. [CHUD]

Donald Glover for Spider-Man: The evolution of a meme

Late last week, we wrote about the idea of Sony casting a non-white Peter Parker for their Spider-Man reboot. Then…a thing happened. And suddenly, Community actor Donald Glover has rallied the internet to his cause: getting him an audition. https://gizmodo.com/the-last-thing-spider-man-should-be-is-another-white-gu-5549613 If you’ll recall, the original post asked the question: In the face of such underwhelming…

How You Can Live Like A Vulcan Without Bleeding Green

You can’t be a Jedi, because the Force isn’t real. You can’t be a Na’vi, because your hair isn’t magic. But you can do a pretty good job of living like a Vulcan from Star Trek, and here’s how. And let’s face it – Vulcans are way cooler than Jedi or Na’vi anyway. (At least…

A leaked first look at J.J. Abrams’ new spy show Undercovers

The purported first twenty pages of Undercovers — J.J. Abrams’ married spy thriller debuting on NBC this fall — were leaked to the Italian website Il Post. What’s the show about? Sexy espionage action and unsexy married life. Spoilers on. The leaked script — which is credited to J.J. Abrams and co-creator Josh Reims, and…