Pop Culture Safari!

New Thor movie pictures and posters

James Franco, Mila Kunis to star in Wizard of Oz prequel

Via Variety:

Kunis stars as Theodora, the youngest sister of three witches, in "Oz, the Great and Powerful," opposite James Franco, who portrays a fast-talking snake oil salesman and illusionist who flees a traveling circus and winds up whisked away in a hot air balloon by a tornado to Oz where he must face off against real magic and the sisters battling for control of the land.

Theodora starts out as a good witch, alongside her beautiful sister Glinda, but after her sexual advances are jilted by Franco's salesman, she's convinced by Evanora to switch sides and help her older sister rule Oz.

Sam Raimi helms "Oz" this summer from a revised script by David Lindsay-Abaire ("Rabbit Hole"). Joe Roth ("Alice in Wonderland") produces.

Wonder Woman's Steve Trevor cast

Justin Bruening, who starred in NBC short-lived Knight Rider reboot will star as Steve Trevor in the network's new Wonder Woman.

This version of Steve is a:

...government agent who crash-landed on the island of Themyscira and fell in love with Diana (Adrianne Palicki), who returned with him to New York. In the new television show they’ve broken up, with Diana living in Los Angeles and Steve working as a lawyer for the Justice Department. They’re apparently not over each other, though.

The NBC pilot is described as a reinvention of the DC Comics superheroine, who’s recast as Diana Themyscira, a successful corporate executive who fights crime as Wonder Woman while trying to balance the elements of her extraordinary life.

Video find: 1960s beat generation documentary

Via Dangerous Minds (which has a knack for posting all sorts of great stuff):

Happening from Django's Ghost on Vimeo.

New collection of Wally Wood-illustrated sci-fi comics on the way

Via Hooray for Wally Wood, cover art for a new compilation of the artist's sci-fi tales, edited by J. David Spurlock.

Douglas Adams' Doctor Who script set for novelization

"Shada," a Doctor Who story scripted by "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" author Douglas Adams but never aired is set to be released in novelized form next year.

Via Wikipedia:

Shada is an unaired serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 season (Season 17), but was never completed due to a strike at the BBC during filming. In 1992, its recorded footage was released on video using linking narration by Tom Baker to complete the story.

Shada was later remade as an audio play with animation produced by Big Finish Productions and broadcast 2 May - 6 June 2003 on BBCi and later webcast on the BBC website, and (in a slightly different version) on the BBC7 Digital Radio Station in 2005 and 2006.