Impossible Realities

Celebrity American actor returns after three years out of the pictures for ‘Men in Black 3′
BOB THOMPSON

POSTMEDIA NEWS

Will Smith’s been out of pictures for three years, but he’s back with Men in Black 3 .

Suffering from third-degree burnout, Smith took a break from an incredibly successful 18-year run. The Oscar-nominated actor’s movies earned more than US$5.7 billion at the box office across the world.

The former Fresh Prince of Bel Air TV star didn’t exactly stay at home to count his money during his unofficial sabbatical, though. He was a producer on the successful 2010 remake of The Karate Kid , which starred his son, Jaden. And the former rapper helped his daughter, Willow, with her music career. She had a hit with the single Whip My Hair last year. Now, Smith returns re-energized with Men in Black 3 , which opens in theatres May 25. In the 3-D comedy directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, Agent J (Smith) travels back in time to the 1960s. His mission is to save Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) from being assassinated, and thwart an alien invasion. New to the cast is Josh Brolin, who plays the 1960s version of Agent K. Emma Thompson is Agent O, and Alice Eve plays the 1960s O. Jemaine Clement is Boris, the alien manipulator,plotting to destroy earth.

Initially, it was Smith who had the time-travel idea back when Sonnenfeld, Smith and Jones were filming the second Men in Black movie more than a decade ago. The logistics of the story proved to be more challenging than they thought it would be, but Smith said the extra effort was worth the time-travel hassle in his conversation with Postmedia: Q: Why choose Men in Black 3 for your return to the big screen?

A: I wanted to put on some shoes that I knew would fit. It felt like home.

Q: Besides the comedy, and lots of Men in Black alien battles, the third film has an emotional subtext to it, as well.Why include that?

A: We wanted some dumb and silly … but it’s 10 years later. We wanted to have some meat to chew on this time. There has to be some message. I think

CONSTRUCTION ZONE
Over the course of the glorious month of May, little green men are going to tinker with our site. We are upgrading our server, installing the latest version of our cart software, and implementing little gadgets and gizmos. Some improvements will result only in a slight hiccup in our earnest online Chaosium service. Other improvements will result in our taking our site offline for a few hours to chant, move databases, and perform other semi-occult rituals. The result should provide you with an increase in swellness when using our site.

PDF NEWS
We have lowered prices for PDF books derived from our in-print titles. All PDF prices across the Chaosium online catalog have been adjusted to reflect these lower prices.

CTHULHU BY GASLIGHT
It’s been about a month since Cthulhu by Gaslight hit the stores. Here is a link to the print version of Cthulhu by Gaslight. Here is a link to the Cthulhu by Gaslight PDF. Both include access to a new Gaslight character sheet and a transit map of 1890s London.

UPCOMING TITLES
Over the last year or so, Chaosium’s steadfast editors have worked to increase the number of titles we have in the works, so that we can more predictably get titles released on schedule. Dustin has been previewing a number of these books in the UPCOMING TITLES section of our website.

TALES OF CONGRESSIONAL SPACE
A Long Way Home: Tales of Congressional Space tells the story of a young farm boy from a rustic world who accidentally gets involved in a firefight involving Congressional Marines. Saving the life of a marine, he is plucked from his rustic life and thrust into a world of secret agents and interstellar politics.

RECENT OFFERINGS
In Age of Cthulhu: A Dream of Japan the cold tentacles of primeval madness reach across the globe. This is the sixth release in their Age of Cthulhu series of adventures.

Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is proving to be quite popular!

Pardon our e-dust!
The Folks at Chaosium

By LIANA B. BAKER

Reuters

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Electronic Arts lost 400,000 Star Wars: The Old Republic subscribers in the fourth quarter, dealing a blow to its efforts to rely on the new game for growth and sending the game maker’s shares down about nine per cent.

EA has poured more money and firepower into Star Wars: The Old Republic than it has any game in its 30-year history. Wall Street is closely watching to see if the game can succeed, since it could bring EA riches for years to come. If it struggles, EA’s earnings will be hurt in future quarters.

Interim chief financial officer Ken Barker said in an interview EA is pleased with the stability of the game, but it wants to boost the subscriber base up with the release of two expansion packs this quarter that deliver players more content.

The subscriber numbers EA reported on Monday missed some analyst estimates. Brean Murray analyst Todd Mitchell was expecting 1.5 million paying subscribers.

‘Star Wars is a nice role playing game, but people are playing through it and leaving,’ Mitchell said.

EA had been hoping to take on its biggest rival, Activision Blizzard, which had more than 10 million subscribers to World of Warcraft last quarter. Warcraft, a seven-year-old Internet game, is Activision’s most profitable franchise.

Video game companies such as EA and Activision have been trying to turn gamers from one-time purchasers into subscribers who generate a steady and predictable revenue stream to boost business and protect against economic uncertainty.

Electrnic Arts now expects earnings per share to be in the range of $1.05 to $1.20 per share for the year on revenue of $4.3 billion.

Analysts on average are expecting earnings of $1.12 a share on revenue of $4.49 million, according to Thomson Reuters I B/E S. Sterne Agee analyst Bhatia said the company’s earnings forecast was light and was likely affected by the performance of Star Wars.

For the fiscal first quarter, the company expects earnings per share to be a loss of 45 cents per share to 40 cents per share.

Adjusted for the deferral of digital revenue and other items, the company said profit fell 33 per cent to $56 million, or 17 cents per share, which beat Wall Street estimates by a penny. Adjusted revenue fell two per cent to $977 million, which beat analyst estimates of $957.85 million, according to Thomson-Reuters I B/E S. Its futuristic game Mass Effect 3 helped drive sales in the quarter.

The company’s digital revenue hit $1.2 billion in the fiscal year. Its shares fell to $1.41 in after market trading after closing at $15.12 per share Monday.

By LISA RICHWINE, RONALD GROVER

Reuters
The Avengers proved that five superheroes are better than one by bursting into Hollywood’s record books with a massive $200.3 million in ticket sales over its opening weekend in U.S. and Canadian theatres, kicking off Hollywood’s summer movie season with a bang.

The domestic debut for the bigbudget, effects-filled movie from Disney’s Marvel studios sped past last summer’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows – Part 2, which opened with $169.2 million in its first weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. In March, The Hunger Games opened with $152.5 million, the fourth largest opening in box office history.

The Avengers, which reunites Marvel comic heroes Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk and Black Widow, has collected $641.8 million since it opened in international markets on April 25.

‘We keep thinking we have a sense of what this movie can do, or will do, and every time we get a report it does even better,’ said Dave Hollis, Disney’s executive vice-president of distribution. ‘This is very satisfying, to say the least.’ Disney’s aggressive marketing, which included promotions aimed at women that included sending stars to The View daytime talk show, resulted in women making up 40 per cent of the audience for the action film, according to Disney’s survey. Half the audience was also over 25 years of age, the studio also said.

Winner of the past two weekends, Sony’s romantic comedy Think Like a Man, slipped to second place with $8 million at North American (U.S.

and Canadian) theatres, according to Hol ly wood.com.

Hunger Games, from Lions Gate Entertainment, took the No. 3 spot in its seventh week in theatres, with $5.7 million, and has collected $380.7 million in U.S. and Canadian theatres during its run.

Warner Brothers’ The Lucky One landed in fourth place with $5.5 million, and the animated film The Pirates! Band of Misfits from Sony finished in fifth place with $5.4 million.

The undisputed success of Avengers brought Disney the type of redemption that Hollywood loves to put on screen. In March, Disney released the expensive sci-fi adventure film John Carter, one of the biggest flops in box office history. The company said it expects to lose up to $200 million on that film.

Avengers is the first Marvel film released by Disney since the media and theme park giant purchased Marvel Entertainment Inc in 2009 for $4 billion, a move to expand its appeal to boys with a stable of superheroes.

Disney would not say whether it plans to make a sequel. Sequels to films based on the Thor and Iron Man characters are scheduled for next year and Captain America in 2014.

About 52 per cent of The Avengers ticket sales came from higher-priced 3D tickets, Disney said. The film sold more than $15 million in tickets on 275 digital-only large-screen IMAX theatres, IMAX said, which it said would tie it with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows – Part 2 for its highest grossing opening weekend.

The first weekend in May kicks off Hollywood’s summer movie-going season, a four-month period typically filled with big-budget action movies and sequels. Coming movies include Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, Men in Black 3, and Battleship.

Well, a week ago our printer dropped-off a new supply of our Call of Cthulhu rulebook.

They also gave us a delivery date of April 4th for Cthulhu by Gaslight, a legendary Chaosium title. We have added the print version of Cthulhu by Gaslight to our catalog; we will ship orders including that book as soon as it is delivered to our warehouse. Here is an updated Cthulhu by Gaslight PDF along with separate files for the new Gaslight character sheet and the transit map of 1890s London.

TALES OF CONGRESSIONAL SPACE

Over the last year or so, Chaosium’s steadfast editors have worked to increase the number of titles we have in the works, so that we can more predictably get titles released on schedule. Among these projects is an effort to offer fiction in other genres.

A Long Way Home: Tales of Congressional Space tells the story of a young farm boy from a rustic world who accidentally gets involved in a firefight involving Congressional Marines. Saving the life of a marine, he is plucked from his rustic life and thrust into a world of secret agents and interstellar politics.

AGE OF CTHULHU

We just received a large carton from our friends at Goodman Games. In Age of Cthulhu: A Dream of Japan the cold tentacles of primeval madness reach across the globe. This is the sixth release in their Age of Cthulhu series of adventures.

RECENT OFFERINGS

Convention treasures
Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land.

Things are Springing around here!
The Folks at Chaosium

From now until March 7th is our industry’s celebration of the vital role that the gamemaster plays in every roleplaying game. Various companies are celebrating this time in various ways.

Since we just sent Cthulhu by Gaslight to the printer, we here at Chaosium thought we would use that as a theme. So, until March 7th, you can save 25% on the following downloadable books: Cthulhu by Gaslight, The Gaslight Equipment Catalogue, Dark Designs, Agents of the Crown, and Queensguard. The discount is already applied on our site, just add them to your cart.

CTHULUH BY GASLIGHT

We are extremely happy to announce that Cthulhu by Gaslight, a legendary Chaosium title, is now at the printer. A couple of days ago, Charlie posted the pdf of Cthulhu by Gaslight (along with separate files for the new Gaslight character sheet and the transit map of London). Some of you have already found it. We though that we would introduce many of you to this wonderful book and era.

Cthulhu by Gaslight should be back from the printer in a few weeks.

Convention Treasures

A bit more than a week ago, Meghan, Charlie, and Nick were at a local convention. We picked-up a couple of items for the site, which you can find here.

RECENT OFFERINGS

After a year of intensive development, the small indie team of Red Wasp Design have announced that their anticipated title, Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land has launched on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The game is a turn-based strategy RPG inspired by the works of cult horror writer H.P. Lovecraft and developed in co-operation with Chaosium,

Dissecting Cthulhu collects many of the seminal essays on the Cthulhu Mythos

As we embrace our favorite occasions, let us not forget that beyond the light is a darkness, and in that darkness something stirs—some nameless thing that brings us Horror for the Holidays!

Thanks for stopping by!
The Folks at Chaosium

Time flies when you’re this busy. Our Facebook page has been seeing muchy more traffic than we ever expected so trying to keep up with both is quite a handfull.

March To Oblivion Tentative Schedule (and you KNOW there will be last minute adds)

9AM-1PM:
Shadowrun – Andrew Kelly
Munchkin Demos – Heather Cato
… fIGHT fOR iNFINITY video game tournaments – Adrian Silva
Battletech (Introductory level) – Darren Drew
Formula D – Kale Harding
4th Edition D&D (LFR level 7-10) – Tony Spence
WH40K Tournament Registration – 9:30
WH40K Tournament – Round 1 10 AM
WH40K Tournament – Round 2 12:45 PM

2PM-6PM
Demon the Fallen LARP – Chris Fougere
Mutant Future – Steve McCavour
D&D 3.5 – Donna Nutter
Munchkin Demos – Heather Cato
fIGHT fOR iNFINITY video game tournaments – Adrian Silva
Heroclix Bizzaro event – Rick Hawkes
4th Edition D&D (LFR level 1-4) – Reg Moore
WH40K Tournament – Round 3 3:45 PM

7PM-11PM
Vampire the Masquerade LARP – Steve Henderson
Call of Cthulhu – “Deep Woods 2” Dana Betts
Munchkin Demos – Heather Cato
fIGHT fOR iNFINITY video game tournaments – Adrian Silva
Axis & Allies (Western Front scenario) – Ray Saulnier

The Stars are Right as ‘Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land’ Launches!

After a year of intensive development, the small indie team of Red Wasp Design have announced that their anticipated title, Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land has launched on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The game is a turn-based strategy RPG inspired by the works of cult horror writer H.P. Lovecraft and developed in co-operation with Chaosium, the publishers of the cult horror role playing game, Call of Cthulhu.

The game is now out on iTunes and is a universal iOS app so the same game works for iPhone and iPod Touch both SD & HD and for iPad, and carries graphics optimised for each of those platforms. It is priced $4.99, £2.99 & €3.99 for the full universal app. The game’s designer, Tomas Rawlings said, “We’ve put a vast amount of our time, energy and ideas into this game over the last year. It’s been a long journey for us because we want to get it right. We’re not a huge studio, but I hope that fellow gamers will appreciate what we’ve achieved with The Wasted Land.”

The game features nine 3D levels set in the trenches of World War One. The player controls a team of up to six investigators charged with uncovering a deadly inhuman conspiracy underlying the clash of empires of the Great War. Barbed wire, mustard gas and machines guns will prove to be the least dangerous thing that the investigators will encounter as they venture out into no-man’s land to solve the mystery of the Wasted Land. As the game progresses, the player can build up the skills, weapons and equipment of the team to suit their playing style. As well as the physical danger, the investigators must guard their sanity against the myriad horrors that threaten to destroy it.

To stay in touch with the developers and get updates on the game, help and strategy guides and more you may want to connect to Red Wasp Design on Facebook, Twitter (@redwaspdesign) and on their site at redwaspdesign.com

As promised, we have recently released. These include Friday, Power Grid: First Sparks, Power Grid: the Robots, and Puerto Rico Anniversary Edition, (which we have sold out of – as it was a limited edition, we will not reprint it). The German publishers have delayed other games we planned to release and printers and we expect to release them in a few weeks. These include Upon a Salty Ocean, South Pole, and Stone Age: Style is the Goal. We will also soon be releasing Lamborghini, Leader: Hell of the North, Hawaii, and Last Will. For Dominion, we still plan to release a digital version early this year. We are also planning to release a set of all base cards (treasure, victory, and curse) that players can use to replace used cards from the base game or Dominion: Intrigue, or to use with the expansions that do not include these base cards. The planned release for this product is March of 2012. We have changed the schedule a bit and will release the large expansion Dominion: Dark Ages at Gencon to accompany the Dominion World Masters Tournament that will be held there. The expansion previously announced for the spring: Dominion: the Guilds will be released in the spring of 2013. We are continuing to work on Arctic Scavengers, Cavemen, Carcassonne: the Castle Falcon expansion, Those Pesky Garden Gnomes, Rattlebones, Credit Mobilier, Mogul, Monster Factory, and several others. These will appear beginning in the spring of 2012. 

The Dominion World Masters Tournament will be held this year at Gencon. We have invited our partners from around the world to hold tournaments in their countries and send the winner. For the US, we are asking local conventions to sponsor “regional” tournaments so the winners can participate in the US finals prior to Gencon. We plan to hold those in June. We are also asking those who have held Dominion tournaments at conventions since October to contact us as we may offer those winners entry into the finals.

Jay M Tummelson
Rio Grande Games
PO Box 1033
Placitas, NM 87043

Hobbits, Spiderman, Jason Bourne and the Dark Knight are all back on the big screen this year
Published Monday January 2nd, 2012
BY JAY STONE
POSTMEDIA NEWS
Last year at this time, we were talking about all the upcoming movies that have numbers after the titles: 2011 was going to be a year of sequels.

Well, looking over the 2012 slate, what do we find but a lot of movies with numbers after the titles, including Wanted, Journey, Scary Movie, Men in Black, Madagascar, Step Up, G.I. Joe, Clash of the Titans, Hitman, The Expendables, Paranormal Activity, Taken, and The Twilight Saga. And that’s not counting the new Ghost Rider, Resident Evil and Die Hard movies.

Yes, it’s deja vu all over again, a sequel of sequels, but what are you going to do? In Hollywood, familiarity breeds content.
Fortunately, we don’t have to travel that road. There is much to look forward to next year: a Spider-Man reboot, a new Batman, another Bourne, and the return of Jay Gatsby.

Anyway, here, in the order they will open, are 12 to look forward to in 2012:
Jeff, Who Lives at HomeI’ve been haunted by this odd little comedy since I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival. Jason Segel stars as a sweet-natured slacker, a pothead who lives in his mother’s basement and believes in some kind of mystical connection of all things. A wrong number sends him out on an 83-minute adventure that’s awkward, uneasy and strangely gratifying. (March 2)

The Three StoogesOnce upon a time, Jim Carrey, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro were going to star in this Farrelly brothers film version of the slapstick comedy trio. Well (nyuck nyuck), it now looks like a somewhat diminished cast – Sean Hayes, Chris Diamantopoulos and Will Sasso – will be bopping each other on the head with monkey wrenches instead. The Farrellys haven’t been on the cutting edge of comedy since There’s Something About Mary, but if this material isn’t right up their alley, why I oughta . . . (April 13)

The DictatorWe’re stepping out on a limb a bit on this one, but we’ve been seduced by the filmmaker (Larry Charles), the cast (Sacha Baron Cohen, Megan Fox, Anna Faris, John C. Reilly and Ben Kingsley) and the tagline: “The heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.” (May 11)

The Amazing Spider-ManFiasco or brilliant re-invention? Tobey Maguire, who’s 36, quit the series, reportedly because he didn’t like a script that sent his character back to high school. In stepped Andrew Garfield, who’s only (ahem) 28, and a new love interest in Emma Stone. Besides, director Marc Webb made 500 Days of Summer. (July 3)

The Dark Knight RisesThis is more like it: Christopher Nolan directs Christian Bale, who brought just the right combination of brooding and pecs to The Dark Knight in 2008. This time, Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy are the villains, and several members of the Pittsburgh Steelers will make cameo appearances. Well, you can’t have everything. (July 20)

The Bourne LegacyMaybe it’s just leftover affection for the Bourne trilogy of Matt Damon films, but we have high hopes for this follow-up with Jeremy Renner as a new CIA agent (Damon said he wouldn’t return without director Paul Greengrass). The project is slightly second-hand – it’s based on a novel by Eric Van Lustbader, using Robert Ludlum’s characters – but it’s being directed by Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote the other movies and directed Michael Clayton. Plus, Edward Norton plays the villain. (Aug. 3)

Cloud AtlasBased on an ingenious novel by David Mitchell, this film tells six intertwined stories, starting in the South Pacific in 1850 and moving to a post-apocalyptic future, then back again. The cast includes Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry, and Hugh Grant and it’s directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix films).

Gangster SquadWe’re a sucker for this kind of thing: Sean Penn plays Mickey Cohen, a real-life hoodlum who ran things in Los Angeles in 1949 – the gambling, the prostitutes, the cops – until a squad of uncorrupted police, led by Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling, set out to clean things up. (Oct. 19)

SkyfallDaniel Craig returns as James Bond. That’s probably enough, even without Javier Bardem and Ralph Fiennes. Bond must destroy enemies attacking MI6 or something. As long as he has gadgets, we’re happy. (Nov. 9)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected JourneyFunny title for a movie we’re been awaiting for the better part of a decade, but there you go. Just to reiterate: Peter Jackson directs many of your Lord of the Rings favourites, including Elijah Wood’s Frodo, Hugo Weaving’s Elrond, Orlando Bloom’s Legolas, Ian McKellen’s Gandalf, and, of course, Andy Serkis’s Gollum. The story: We lose our precious, and a nasty Hobbit finds it. (Dec. 14)

The Great GatsbyIn this quintessential American story of the self-made man, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Gatsby (less stiffly, we trust, than Robert Redford in the 1974 version), with Carey Mulligan as his Daisy and Tobey Maguire, too old for Spider-Man but just right for Nick, the outsider who narrates their glittery story. We look for big things from director Baz Luhrmann: Moulin Rouge! big. (Dec. 25)

LincolnTall American president presides over Civil War. Steven Spielberg directs, Daniel Day-Lewis stars. Anything else you need to know? (December)