Looks like the seemingly awesome adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen may be in trouble. In the worst kind of trouble possible. Legal trouble. Fox claims the rights to the masterpiece, which has resulted in some nasty tug-of-war between them and Warner Brothers.

While legal troubles go over the naive and petty heads of us bloggers, we have some disturbing news at hand. The trial itself may go all the way upto June. And since it doesn’t make sense that Fox would allow the movie to be released till then, that could only mean…

The movie may be delayed to after the trial is over, and that is at least June 2009. Bad news. The movie was already a ways off, at March 2009 and is now delayed further? Not that I seriously mind this: I’d wait for all eternity for a Watchmen movie, so what I find scarier is that…

Fox may be trying to sabotage the movie itself. That would mean that if Fox wins the battle, the movie might actually not come out and the trailer we just saw may go into the ancient halls of “Awesome Movies that Weren’t”. And that’s a scary picture for us Watchmen fans.

Now if one of my favourite book series as a kid are Goosebumps, another will be Horrible Histories. Written by Terry Deary, Horrible Histories are essentially history books. They tell you history. But there’s a twist. They tell you the more horrible, the gorier, the more twisted parts of history. The sort your history teacher doesn’t.

Interestingly, there’s going to be an expansion to the franchise. While we won’t be seeing a movie for it, like Goosebumps (hmm, interesting idea), Horrible Histories will be going into the video games arena, with developer Slitherine Strategies taking it up.

If you’ve never heard of Slitherine, do not despair, for you haven’t missed anything. Slitherine’s previous works appear to be rather obscure titles I’ve never heard of either. Still, I think it should be in the right hands, since all of Slitherine’s previous works have been historical strategy games.

To be entirely honest. I’m not sure how a strategy game on Horrible Histories will work out. HH is more about the obscure facts and secrets of histories that were either distorted or maybe censored in time. How can you convert a series like that into a strategy game?

And the second focus of Horrible Histories is humour (and black humour at that). The last game I’ve seen that was actually funny would be Psychonauts. Okay, there’s Portal too. My point being, comedy in video games is an art. How well will Slitherine capture it?

Movie video game tie-ins aren’t news, but what Warner Bros. is trying to go with them is. Warner has announced that they will be experimenting with downloadable tie-in games for Watchmen and two are already in the works!

The first will be around the release of the movie (i.e. March 2009), while the second will arrive shortly after the DVD release. What’s more, if these two games end up successful, Warner will go ahead with further episodes.

Seeing the sorry fate of movie-based video games was probably what spurred Warner into action. The downloadable format means that the game will be shorter and more appealing to the fans. According to Warner, this model will end up better at pleasing fans and critics, which is definitely going to be a tough task.

Interestingly, the source article at Variety also says that if the series ends up successfull, there might even be future pics tie-ins with the games. We’re not sure if a downloadable series can get that successful, so we’re just gonna go with a “Yeah, right” for now.

Right now we know that the first game will be released for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. It will be developed by Danish developer Deadline Games. I checked out their Wikipedia entry and I don’t see any titles ringing any bells. The game will feature Rorshach and Nite Owl battling crime.

This would mean that the game is something of a prequel to Watchmen, where a close friendship between Rorshach and Nite Owl as crimefighting buddies is hinted at. Would be great to see this in the form of a video game, but again, we’re totally not sure if this is gonna work.

Thought Leonidas’ reign was over? The guys from Collider report that it is not: a 300 Prequel is being planned, along with a Greek epic called “War of Gods” (not to be confused with God of War, the video game). While a war between Greek deities is fun stuff to watch already, the crew will be doing it in 300-style, which kicks double ass!

War of Gods will be directed by Tarsem Singh, who is known for his earlier The Cell and The Fall, which came out this year. Singh is a decent director for the job, but I wonder what a 300-ish movie will be without Zack Snyder (who, by the way, is helming Watchmen at the moment). It has two unnamed writers working on it and is hinted to be nothing short of a truly epic movie. We sure hope it is, when it hits theaters early next year.

Meanwhile, Mark Canton, Gianni Nunnari and Bernie Goldmann, who were interviewed revealed that they are talking to Zack Snyder and Frank Miller himself about the 300 prequel. Frank will most probably write it up, which is pretty good too - the last thing I’d want is a 300 sequel/prequel that appears to be nothing more than a money-milking scheme with a crappy storyline. Then again, 300 wasn’t known for its storyline either. Hmm.

Lastly, 300 itself will be converted to the Blu-ray format, which means that we will see killer high-definition Spartan action! Can’t wait for it!

This is crazy news! A 300 franchise! Who would’ve thought?!

The anticipation is mounting up, as we inch closer and closer to next year’s much-awaited Watchmen. Not only is it a feature film offering of my most favourite graphic novel, but it is also made by Zack Snyder whom everyone loves for making 300. The movie will pretty much follow 300’s style, but is a completely different movie in a completely different setting.

In the graphic novel, the main story is interspersed by segments of a comic book read by a street urchin, called “Tales of the Black Freighter”. These are pirate comic books, that tell the tale of a marooned man striving get back to shore to warn his family of the Black Freighter, a ghost pirate ship. The series serves as something of commentary on the events in the actual novel, among several other literary devices.

Hit the jump to find out what Warner plans on doing with it!

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