Links of the Day

Disney To Buy Marvel for $4 Billion - Marvel Entertainment, home of Spider-Man, X-Men, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man and more than 5000 characters, is soon to be part of the Disney empire. The deal will net around $50 for each for Marvel stockholders making me wish I had bought some back in 1997 when it was going for less than a $1 each instead of buying Marvel comics that now just collecting dust. What this means for Marvel isn't clear as they have a lot of contracts with other businesses for movies, video games, and merchandising that has to expire before Disney can do their thing. One critical question is what will this mean for Marvel Comics - will they get "Disney-fied" or will they be allowed to run mostly autonomously?

100 Years of Visual Effects - A pretty good compilation that shows the evolution of special effects.


Bad Boys 3 Screenwriter Hired - Peter Craig has been hired to write the script for the movie that ignited the careers of Michael Bay, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. I guess all three have indicated they are willing to come back and Sony is willing to pony up the truckloads of cash as likely bringing all three on board will account for at least the first $50 million of the budget if not more. How this effects production of Transformers 3 is currently unknown since a script doesn't necessarily mean a green lit movie.

EVE Online Bank Near Failure - In a case of the online world mimicking the real world, the MMORPG's largest player run bank is on the brink of failure after its "CEO" embezzled 200 billion game credits from the virtual bank and sold it in year life. This combined with general mismanagement has resulted in a 1.2 trillion credit deficit that has resulted in player's accounts being frozen for withdrawal. What impact this will have on the game world is currently unknown but it should be interesting to see as it demonstrates how real world theories on commerce affect even the fake world of the virtual marketplace.

God of War Collection - God of War I and II will get a 720p HD upgrade with a re-release for the PS3 for $40 this holiday season. What, if any, extras are unknown except that Trophies will be added to the game.