Marvel Comics Attempts To Stop Screening Of Ironman

Popular website, TechCrunch has been handed a cease and desist notice by Marvel Comics' lawyers in an attempt to shut down a couple of private screenings of the Iron Man movie that TechCrunch had worked with Paramount Pictures to make happen. TechCrunch apparently rented a San Francisco theater and is paying full fare for all of the seats. The screenings where to take place Tuesday and Wednesday, while the official release of the movie is Friday. Sounds like Marvel and Paramount have to get their heads together and decide who is going to make these decisions...

Paramount Pictures To Offer Movie Clips On Facebook

Paramount is launching a video sharing service known as VooZoo, possibly the worst name ever, with free short clips from movies in it's catalogue. Face book users will be able to view and share clips ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes in length. Once a clip has played, a link will be displayed that offers the user a chance to purchase the movie that the clip was taken from, on DVD. "The short clips for a movie that you've already seen before helps you relive the moment," said Derek Broes, Paramount's senior vice-president of entertainment. CBC story here.

HD-DVD gets some life

CBC is reporting that Paramount Pictures Corp. and DreamWorks Animation SKG have thrown their hats in to the HD-DVD ring, saying that all future movie releases will be solely on the format, thus giving HD-DVD a much needed boost in the format war with Blu-ray. The studios bring with them some of the summer's hottest titles in Blades of Glory, Transformers and Shrek the Third. Blu-ray had recently pulled ahead in the race with news that Blockbuster Inc., the worlds largest rental chain was getting behind that format by only offering Blu-ray. The Paramount / DreamWorks announcement is good for me... we've got the XBox 360, a decision made partially because I was hedging my bets at the time on HD-DVD... who knew?