Rumour Mill

That marvelous thing called the Internet is filled with brilliant, useful and true information, but it is also home to lots of crap, randomness and flat-out lies. Here's a rundown of some of the confirmed information, as well as some of the rumours flying round the Internet today regarding your favourite entertainment past-times.

Death Race Prequel: Sadly this one ain't no rumour. The Paul W.S Anderson remake of Death Race, while being a rather terrible, pointless action film, somehow managed to garner enough financial success at the box office to warrant another film. They've decided to go the prequel route, dubbing the film Death Race: Frankenstein Lives (obviously this is Frankenstein Lives in the sense of his first creation). Production is set to start in 2010; this quote gives us some kind of idea about the film's focus:

"I also took painstaking efforts to make certain that this prequel organically sets up a lot of the stuff that was in the original. Frankenstein is a bad ass. Unlike Statham's character in the original, Carl Lucas is a bad guy. He wasn't framed. He's not fighting to get out to save his children. He's a convicted cop killer. A guy who's worked for the mob his whole life. A true anti-hero."

At least he's a bad ass. Oh, and apparently Mr. Anderson is melding the Alien universe with the Death race universe, the people who own the TV station that broadcasts Death Race just so happen to be the Weylan Corporation, particularly Douglas Weyland. Mr Anderson, you bastard.

William Stryker, Meet Thorin Oakenshield: I should refine my terms there, that's William Stryker circa X2, the only good X-Men film. The actor that played him, Brian Cox, is supposedly a major contender to play one of the 13 dwarves in Guillermo Del Toro's upcoming Hobbit film. Right now this one is just a rumour, but things have been picking up around The Hobbit over the past few weeks, so we should soon find out whether it's true or not pretty soon. I did love Cox in X2, he played such a good villian, and I always remember his bizarre yell/cry in Troy when his brother is killed. It would certainly be another quality addition to the cast of the film.

GTA V: The fact that there is going to be a Grand Theft Auto V is certainly no rumour. Apart from Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, this game had the biggest one-day launch for any entertainment platform and it was only for one console. The focus of the rumours are around where exactly the 5th game will take place. In the Ballad of Gay Tony and the manual for the Liberty City Stories there were plenty of hints that the game would be changing scenery, and alternatives like Vice City, London and Paris have all been speculated. Now Dan Houser, a bigwig at Rockstar, has done little to dispel the rumours of a city change. He told The Times "We'll think of a city first, then the characters." So where do you want the next GTA to take place?

In Russia Video Game Plays You: But not until the Russian ratings board has had a chance to edit out some scenes that they don't like. In the wake of the "No Russian" mission from Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 (it's such a controversy whore) the Russian ratings board are taking the game off shelves and won't release the game again until the "No Russian" mission is removed. Apparently they don't like the idea of Russians killing inncoent Russians on Russian soil. Really, it was only a matter of time before someone, somewhere actually tried to do something about Infinity Ward's highly controversial single player campaign, and it's not surprising it is the Russians who have been the whipping boys of Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2. Right now this one is only a rumour as the Russian government hasn't officially released any concrete info on the matter.

UPDATE (11/17/2009): An Activision rep has commented on the rumour regarding Modern Warfare 2 being pulled in Russia. Apparently the game has only been released there on the PC and it's an unedited version.