We are just over a month away from the biggest and best pop culture event in world, San Diego Comic Con 2008!

I have been attending San Diego Comic Con for almost a decade. Organizations have tried to copy the success of the Con but with only mediocre success. San Diego Comic Con is the ultimate place to be if you are a fan of movies, TV shows and comic books.

First if you plan on attending, get your passes now if you haven’t already. Four day passes have already sold out and only individual days are available. If you still haven’t booked your hotel rooms, you are probably S.O.L. If you have one already, good for you.

So what can we expect come late July in the beautiful city of San Diego?

While the final schedule is yet to be determined and guests have not been locked down (and with the actors strike who knows who will be showing up), this what we have heard so far from various sources.

Warner Bros. will be featuring RocknRolla, Ninja Assassin, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Terminator: Salvation, Watchmen and Friday the 13th. Christian Bale, Zack Snyder and the cast of Watchmen, Jared Padalecki are rumored.

Paramount will have a Tropic Thunder screening. We have heard there might be something for G.I. Joe and Star Trek. No guests rumored.

The Weinstein Company will showcase Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno and possibly premiere the highly anticipated film from Kyle Newman, Fanboys. Kevin Smith, Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Kyle Newman and Jaime King are rumored.

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The first teaser ad for Oliver Stone’s biopic of George W. Bush isn’t what you would expect from the director.

Instead of a nefarious image of our current president, or a more sinister rendering of Vice President Cheney, there is a simple mimic of a dictionary entry: “W,” a noun defined as “The Improbable President,” followed by a long list of some of Bush’s great malapropisms: “They misunderestimated me.” “I can press when there needs to be pressed; I can hold hands when there needs to be … hold hands.” “I hear there’s rumors on the Internets that we’re going to have a draft.”

And on it goes …

It’s probably good that the ad for Stone’s “W” — which ran in trade publications and was aimed at drawing international distributors — wasn’t in any way pedantic. If there’s one dicey prospect at the multiplex, it’s politics in heavy doses, and the more recent the history, the worse the movies seem to do.

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Mentors is now titled Role Models and will be released on November 14, 2008. There is now a plot summary, which you can read below:

Danny and Wheeler (Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott) are two salesmen who trash a company truck on an energy-drink-fueled bender. Upon their arrest, the court gives them a choice: do hard time or spend 150 service hours with a mentorship program. After one day with the kids, however, jail doesn’t look half bad.

Surrounded by annoying do-gooders, Danny struggles with his every neurotic impulse to guide Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) through the trials of becoming a man. Unfortunately, the guy just dumped by his girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) has only sarcasm to offer a bashful 16-year-old obsessed with medieval role play.

Meanwhile, charming Wheeler tries to trade in an addiction to partying and women to assist a fifth-grader named Ronnie (Bobb’e Thompson) redirect his foul-mouthed ways. It would probably help if Ronnie’s new role model wasn’t an overgrown adolescent whose idea of quality time includes keggers in Venice Beach.

Once the center’s ex-con director (Jane Lynch) gives them an ultimatum, Danny and Wheeler are forced to tailor their brand of immature wisdom to their charges. And if they can just make it through probation without getting thrown in jail, the world’s worst role models will prove that, sometimes, it takes a village idiot to raise a child.

From Enprimeur.ca

Universal options ‘Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory’
Actress Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman producing.
By Josh Getlin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 12, 2008
The deal

Universal Pictures options Mickey Rapkin’s “Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory,” which chronicles the cutthroat — but deeply human — world of a cappella singing groups, and their fierce battles for supremacy.

The players

Actress Elizabeth Banks (”The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Spider-Man 3″) and Max Handelman producing. Kay Cannon (”30 Rock” and “Baby Mama”) writing the screenplay. Rapkin is repped by Farley Chase at the Waxman Literary Agency and on film rights by Howard Sanders at United Talent Agency. The title is published by Gotham Books.

The back story

Who knew? If you’re a student in college, or graduated in recent years, you know that a cappella contests are hugely popular, pitting rival groups against each other in campus concerts that draw thousands. When they got wind of Rapkin’s book — an irreverent yet compassionate look at this sub-culture — Banks and Handelman, her husband and producing partner, moved quickly to snap up the rights.

“It’s perfect for the comedy genre that’s so big now, what’s been called geek-chic,” Handelman said. “On one level it’s a very passionate world. On another level, it’s utterly ridiculous. We knew it could be a great movie.”

But first they had to sell studio executives. Banks is a friend of Cannon’s and sensed she was the ideal writer to turn Rapkin’s scathingly funny book into a screenplay. The two women huddled in Banks’ Hollywood Hills home for several days, polishing their presentation, and then took it to five studios. “We did some singing of our own, mostly some Mariah Carey songs, and we also used videos from YouTube to show people what this world was about,” Banks said. “This movie is ‘Bring It On’ for a cappella singing. Instead of hot cheerleaders, you have a bunch of dorky singers.”

Rapkin, a senior editor at GQ, believed his book had the makings of a movie as he wrote it. But he wanted to make sure that whoever got the film rights also “got” the material. Those concerns were erased during a meeting with Cannon, who outlined her ideas for the first five minutes of the movie. Cannon had Rapkin cracking up. “So I’m comfortable,” he said. “I’m not sitting here in my office tortured and wondering what they’re going to do to my baby.”

From the LA Times

Following our extremely popular contest, ‘HD Hottie Hysteria,’ we’ve started a new feature in which we will highlight a top female star every day. The gorgeous female will come from a program that can be seen in gorgeous high-def that very day.

Today’s ‘HD Hottie’ is Elizabeth Banks, who stars tonight in high-def in Invincible on Starz Edge at 11 p.m. ET.

The 34-year-old actress, who was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, won several small roles in films such as Spider-man, Shaft and TV shows such as Sex and the City and Without a Trace. But her first big break came when she was cast as Jeff Bridges’ wife in the 2003 hit movie, Seabiscuit.

Following that film, Elizabeth reprised her role in Spider-man 2 and Spider-man 3 (also with Tobey Maguire from Seabiscuit) and has starred in Fred Claus with Vince Vaughn and was a regular for one season on NBC’s Scrubs.

So, here is Elizabeth Banks, today’s HD Hottie:

From TV Predicitions