Where's Merle?

Where’s Merle Dixon? That’s the question AMCTV is posing to Comic Con attendees at The Walking Dead booth. Con-goers can also pose for a shot with an eerilly life-like wax figure of everyone’s favorite racist meth-head and potential zombie convert (or possible governer elect?), Merle Dixon. Series director and producer Frank Darabont announced at the panel yesterday that Season 2 will premiere on Sunday, October 16th at 9pm (via Deadline)

I saw viking vampire player Alexander Skarsgard from True Blood walking around like a regular human in the daytime yesterday! I was all, “Eric Northman!” and he was all, “Where have you been all my life?” And then I can’t tell you what happened after that because this isn’t a porn site. But I can tell you that EW has a full write up of the True Blood panel with video of what’s coming in Season 4 at this link.

Colin Farrell at the Fright Night press junket

Speaking of blood sucking fiends, I got a chance to sit down with the cast, writer and director of the upcoming Fright Night remake yesterday. I asked screenwriter, Marti Noxon (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel producing and writing fame), if the remake will retain the camp and whimsy of the 1985 original. She answered that it will have more of a “grounded humor” than the original. She said her script features well developed characters “with a sense of humor in a scary situation.” i09 has a full panel report here. With Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Kickass) playing Farrell’s vampire toady minion and David Tennant (Dr. Who) playing their vampire hunter, I say you can’t go wrong with this one.

Outside of San Diego proper, Captain America is kicking ass with the critics (with a 73% fresh rotten tomato’s rating) and at the box office (with 66 million bucks in returns so far) via Deadline

But right now nothing outside of San Diego exists for me, really, so I guess I’ll tell you a little bit about the JJ Abram’s produced pilot episode of Alcatraz (which will premiere in mid Fall on Fox and air on Monday nights). I liked it all right! It’s a good time travel/mystery show that Lost fans will most likely appreciate. I had no trouble with the sci fi on the show – it centers around unexplained time travel and it’s built on a basically solid plot. Although it does suffer from having an impossibly hot blonde cop protagonist who lives in a San Francisco manse-style condo overlooking the San Francisco Marina, it’s also got Jorge Garcia as a proferssor of Alcatraz-ology who also makes comic books in some capacity. So, yeah, if I were you, I’d give it a chance. I’ll definitely give it another look-see. Here’s the show’s Facebook.

All right, people, I gotta get out of this insanely loud supposed press lounge and go to another panel so I’ll catch up with you tomorrow with more TV and movie news and a semi-exclusive, drunken Jason Momoa interview to boot.

Peace out, bro-hans.