Reuters is reporting that 20th Century Fox TV and Fox Broadcasting Co. are banding together to develop a new venture, called Fox Inkubation. The idea behind Inkubation is to discover and develop new animated talent outside of the normal production track.

20th Century Fox TV is also planning to continue their normal production pipeline for animation development, but with a new leader, Jennifer Howell at the helm. Howell previously acted as executive VP of “South Park” Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s Important Films. Fox Inkubation will also be overseen by Howell.

The initiative will give aspiring writer/animators funding to make two-minute shorts in lieu of penning a script.

If the shorts are successful, Fox and 20th TV may order additional shorts or take the concepts to pilot, possibly pairing the newcomers with experienced producers.

Inkubation already has a slate of projects being developed, with the plan to be about 20 to 25 in various stages of the pipeline at any given time. There is also a possibility that they will be distributed online as viral marketing.

On Friday, Lucas Film released the first Theatrical trailer for their upcoming film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which is their new 3D animated film being released August 15th.

Reelz Channel reports that

Little of the plot is revealed in the two-minute clip, save for a few tidbits about a kidnapping plot involving Jabba the Hutt’s son. Which means, of course, that Jabba found a way to procreate — an unsettling fact that leaves all of us to wonder just how something like that could possibly have occurred. Let’s hope that Clone Wars’ story, which bridges the gap between episodes II and III of the Star Wars saga, leaves out that unpleasant detail.

The new clip showcases Star Wars: The Clone Wars‘ interesting animation style and abundance of new characters — both of which are likely to spur furious speculation in the fanboy community. Are the characters too “video game” in appearance? And just who exactly are all of those folks wielding red lightsabres? New Sith recruits?

An interesting note on the look of the characters. On Friday, I was over at one of the companies that are editing trailers for the video game version of Clone Wars. The video they had recieved from Lucas was intentionally degraded for their offline cutting (to prevent piracy and leaks) but even with that, you could clearly tell what the final images where going to look like. And, to me, the characters and environments looked to be exactly the same as they are in the theatrical trailer. So on one hand while the movie will be more stylized and not up to the photorealism that we’ve become accustom to from ILM. If and when you do play the video game you will be immersed in the same world that you where in when you watched the movie.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Lionsgate now has the right to make the comic book “Deal with the Devil” into a film with screenwriter Kyle Ward helming the adaptation.

Published by Alias, the story centers on a Chicago detective who is forced to take on an unlikely new partner: the original serial killer.

Senior vp production John Sacchi will oversee the project for Lionsgate.

Variety reports that Gore Verbinski is now set to direct Universal’s “Bioshock”, turning the bestselling videogame into a film. Universal signed on to produce Bioshock last year, and word in the industry is that this is the biggest game-to-film deal since 2005 when Universal and Fox signed on to make “Halo”. the makers of the game “Bioshock”, Take-Two Interactive

has been approached by a number of producers and studios since the game came out in August but waited until it had swept most of the end-of-year industry awards and racked up impressive holiday sales before working with CAA to package the project. Universal got a first look and made a preemptive bid.

Variety is reporting that THQ secured rights to Marvel’s new “Super Hero Squad” animated series for gaming purposes.

Though it doesn’t yet have a network home for the series, which will launch in 2009, Marvel is already busy turning “Super Hero Squad” into a multiplatform property. Along with the skein and vidgame, Hasbro has a related toy line and Marvel is working on a comicbook and a direct-to-DVD film.

Both companies hope the deal could lead to a lasting partnership. Marvel still doesn’t have a videogame company to partner with for its upcoming releases “Thor”, “Captain America” or “Avengers.”

Hollywood Reporter announced that Lionsgate’s ‘The Spirit’, a film written and directed by Frank Miller, has bumped up its release date to Christmas Day of this year.

The film, based on the comic book series created by the late Will Eisner, was originally slated to open Jan. 16, 2009.

Also slated to open on Dec. 25 are Disney’s “Bedtime Stories” and Fox 2000 Pictures’ “Marley & Me.”

Lionsgate’s President of Theatrical Films Tom Ortenberg claims ‘The Spirit’ has had such a resounding success at comic conventions, that they wanted to push the opening to an earlier date.

Variety is reporting that Grand Theft Auto IV, like many assumed a month ago when pre-sales went through the roof, has surpassed ‘Halo 3′ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’ to be the biggest opening week of an entertainment product ever.

Publisher Take-Two Interactive is set to confirm today that “Grand Theft Auto IV,” from its Rockstar Games label, sold over six million units in its first week, grossing over $500 million in consumer sales.

‘Halo 3′ grossed $300 mill in its first week, but it was only available on the XBOX 360, while Grand Theft Auto is also available on the Sony Playstation 3. ‘GTA IV’ sold roughly 3.6 million units in its opening weekend, worth about $310 million.

The $500 million-plus figure is even higher than the $400 million that sources close to Take-Two had been expecting based on retailer orders several weeks ago. Daily Variety, April 16)

Variety is reporting that after the box-office success of Iron Man this past weekend, Marvel has unveiled their lineup of the next superhero movies through 2011. The list includes: a sequel to Iron Man (April 30, 2010) and Thor (June 4th).

In 2011, company will unspool “The First Avenger: Captain America” on May 6; and “The Avengers,” which will team up the Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor characters, in July. Zak Penn is writing the latter.

Paramount will distrib all the pics, as part of its pact with Marvel.

“Ant-Man” is also currently in development, but no date is set for that film. “The Incredible Hulk” will bow in theaters this year on June 13th.

Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Iron Man took in a solid $104.3 million cumulation for the weekend since opening Thursday night. According to the Reporter, this is the second biggest opening for a non-sequel film, just behind “Spiderman” in 2002. Iron Man also had good global standing by taking in just under $97 million at worldwide box offices. Even with these better-than-expected opening numbers, Hollywood films are still down from what they were making last year.

The year-over-year downtick brings into sharp focus how tough a task Hollywood faces in posting a new boxoffice record this season, though it bears noting “Spider-Man 3″ was last summer’s top-grossing film. Year to date, 2008 is off 3% from the same portion of last year at $2.66 billion.

“I think it was given to me because Andrew Stanton loves science fiction and is such a fan of the ‘Alien’ movies,” says Weaver. “And he thought it would be funny after having such an important computer mother in ‘Alien,’ if I played the ship’s computer. I’m playing such a small part, but it’s such a great movie to be a part of, I’d play the wastebasket.”