The International House of Mojo

This is really only relevant in a roundabout way, but since we covered the European re-release, we'll acknowledge this one: Back to the Future is returning to the silver screen in AMC brand theaters across the US on October 23rd and October 25th (ya get it?) to celebrate the film's 25th anniversary. Free posters will be distributed and much film classicness will be remitted to time travelers nationwide, even the ones in Houma, Louisiana! (See the full list of participating locations here.) Make like a tree, and order your dang ticket.

Would it be conspiratorial to wonder if Telltale might be hoping to attach a trailer or some sort of game-pimping promo during this event?

Source: AMC Theaters

There's a vote and general discussion up on IGN right now regarding where people stand on a new Indiana Jones movie. As I write this the vote's currently well in favour of Indy 5, with around 70% of people voting 'yay'.

Well, do you want a new Indiana Jones film?

Source: IGN

Jeff Smith had a spotlight panel at this year's Comic-Con, and Comic Book Resources has the write-up. Here's the tiny bit that was mentioned about the upcoming Bone feature film.

Check out the whole article if you want to read more on Jeff Smith's various projects and nothing about the Telltale games.

Source: Comic Book Resources

Back To The Future is getting a re-release in cinemas. It will be back in selected movie theaters this October. There's a poster.

Hmm? How is this related to LucasArts games you say? Article 121 of Mojo Law states that "All news stories must be related to LucasArts, former key employees or studios created by said key employees directly or indirectly via community efforts, fangames etc, with the exception of Back To The Future news because it's the greatest movie ever made and everyone should hear about anything to do with it as it's just so awesome."

Oh, and there's a Telltale game coming out based on it too. This year. October perhaps, wild guess?

Source: Empire

This feature has totally been moved here.

An unabashedly pink website is the home of the first, voyeuristic glimpses of the production of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, currently filming on location in Hawaii. The thirty-three photographs mostly depict stars Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz walking down a beach (presumably just outside the Big Whoop amusement park), but I'm all about the peeks of Geoffrey Rush in royal navy garb.

Source: RadarOnline.com

Heard of Lisa Foiles? Me neither, but while a teenage actress she worked for Nickelodean, and while there she had the opportunity all of us dream of - to be able to pitch a Monkey Island movie to a big Hollywood film executive who could make it happen. More than that, it was at the exact time pirates had just become popular again thanks to a certain Jack Sparrow, so the timing was never better.

She screwed it up, obviously.

This quote stood out for me:

I don't want to be mean Lisa, but, well, you look like this. There's a reason people listened to you. I would listen to you too (admittedly now that I know you're a big Monkey Island fangirl as well I really want to listen to you).

The end result: no Monkey Island movie. Again. Nevermind Lisa, the guy sounded like a dick anyway. (And the art Kotaku used was utterly kickass incidentally)

Source: Kotaku

Yesterday, Universal Home Video issued a press release announcing the 25th anniversary release of the Back to the Future trilogy on Blu-ray and DVD. The content of this new set is, as you might expect, absurdly voluminous, and looks to include everything from the 2002 DVDs plus brand new bonus material, such as glimpses of the infamous Eric Stoltz footage from the first movie. The release date for this bad boy is October 26th. This is certainly an occasion for Back to the Future fans (which last I checked includes: everyone) to be stoked. See the full specs here, at BTTF.com.

So that's awesome and all, but what does it have to do with Mojo? Well, if Universal is preparing to launch a gigantic Back to the Future re-release on October 26th, it isn't the biggest leap to assume that somewhere around that time is when Telltale's games will start rolling out. Or maybe my speculation makes about as much sense as a screen door on a battleship.

Source: BTTF.com

Although it was stated as fact when the project was first announced, it's been a year since we've had even the vaguest mention of Geoffrey Rush reprising his role as Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. And that's what makes this confirmation, reported by Variety, all the more welcome.

The original rumors held that the film, which has otherwise shed its numerous supporting characters from the original trilogy, will see Jack Sparrow and Barbossa on a quest for the Fountain of Youth together. The villain will be Blackbeard (Ian McShane), as in the novel, who will have a daughter (Penelope Cruz) who may serve as Sparrow's love interest. Shooting on the picture begins next week in Hawaii, if I'm correctly informed.

Source: Variety

The latest Indiana Jones 5 rumor has emerged, claiming the film will be the final outing for Harrison Ford, sending the character off with an adventure that will be "emotional and exciting."

This link to Musicrooms.net might be valuable if I hadn't pasted the entire article above.

Update by Jason: This rumor has been denied, point-blank, by Paramount, a Steven Spielberg rep, Lucasfilm, and producer Frank Marshall. So yeah, so much for Indiana Jones 5 happening anytime soon.

Source: Musicrooms.net

Stealing yet another of Monkey Island's ideas, the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film has been confirmed to embrace the latest craze and will be presented in Disney Digital 3D. As the film isn't yet shooting, hopefully this means it will be the good kind of 3D designed "from the ground up" as opposed to the retroactively converted 3D such features as Clash of the Titans and Alice and Wonderland suffered exhibited.

Source: Heat Vision blog

It seems Disney is starting to lose faith in those meddling Pirates of the Caribbean, with a number of troubles hitting the fourth installment On Stranger Tides like a Kraken against a ship with Orlando Bloom in it.

A number of major details have been given the axe apparently, most notably Pirates 1-3 director Gore Verbinski, a third of the budget and the, um, Caribbean. The titular Caribbean will be replicated using Hawaii and that other famous tropical island paradise, England.

Now we know why the rum's always gone.

Source: Yahoo Movies

Faithful readers of this site with longer attention spans than those who run it probably recall that we recently ran a contest to provide an alternate cover or marketing spiel for On Stranger Tides, the prize for which was a copy of the book, and the deadline for which was March 31st.

Well, what with the launch of MojoX as well as any number of lame excuses I'd be happy to make up, we neglected to post the results of the contest. That omission ends today. The lucky winner was Krasimir Savov, who came up with this cover for his entry. Congratulations, Krasimir, and we hope you enjoy the book! (Given the international shipping I opted for, please allow 6-18 months for delivery.)

Honorable mentions include (in no order): this cover by Fealiks, this cover by JezzaTheLagomorph, this cover by Valkian, these "system requirements" by Euan Mumford, and this marketing write-up by Icebox.

Thanks to everyone who entered! We were amused.