The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman is facing a lawsuit from Michael Anthony “Tony” Moore, who is alleging he is co-creator of The Walking Dead comic on which the hit AMC series is based. Moore, who was once partners with Robert Kirkman, is accusing Kirkman of promissory fraud, breach of written contract and other charges.

Moore claims that he was talked into assigning all his rights on Walking Dead and other properties to a limited liability corporation controlled by Kirkman. Kirkman allegedly hasn’t shared any royalties or offered any other payments for Walking Dead or any of the other works.

According to the suit, Moore alleges he and Kirkman entered into an agreement which assigned Moore 60% of comic publishing net proceeds for The Walking Dead and another title Brit, 20% of all motion picture net proceeds for Walking Dead and Brit and 50% of all motion picture net proceeds in connection with another title Battle Pope. Moore says in the suit he was reluctant to enter into the agreement.

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The fourth installment of the Underworld franchise tried to bring the series back to it’s bread and butter, Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight leather. That was seemingly all you need as the film bounced back from the disappointing third installment and stands tall with a similar start to that of the first two movies.

The estimated twenty-five and a half million dollar haul puts Awakening on pace to top the over all totals of the first and third movies, whether or not it can catch the series peak, set by Evolution, will depend on it’s hold next weekend. The per theater average and total screen numbers are comparable to the second film which performed the best up to this point in the series.

Coming in at an impressive nineteen million is Red Tails, the Lucasfilm tale of the famed Tuskegee Airman. The movie surpassed many expectations and out paced other fighter pilot films by a solid margin. Much like Underworld: Awakening, the critical reception of Red Tails has not been kind, so it will need strong word of mouth to maintain momentum into next weekend.

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The first holiday weekend of the year has come and the big winner was the tender stare of an underwear model. The new Mark Wahlberg actioner, Contraband, came in at number one this weekend with an estimated Twenty-Four million. The impressive total marks one of the highest openings ever for a Mark Wahlberg starring film, and ranks comparably with other January films of this genre.

Coming in at number two was the 3D re-release of the Disney classic Beauty and the Beast. The 3D version raked in eighteen and a half million, which is less than the recent re-release of The Lion King in 3D. Even though the dollars weren’t as good, the sum is still nice considering how long this has been sitting on the shelf. Disney is staying in the 3D reissue business with releases scheduled twice a year for the next few years.

In a number three is the recent box office champ Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which continues to hold remarkably well. It brought in just over eleven million dollars and became the second highest grossing film in the Impossible franchise. This is a big win all around and looks to be a strong start Jeremy Renner’s assault on big budget franchise films.

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That’s right. You heard it here last. It seems that the newest film featuring our favorite Henson classics The Muppets is yet another “plan for the left to bad mouth affluent businessmen” as the film’s main antagonist is an evil oil baron.

According to a report (yes, they felt the need to do an entire segment on this) from Fox Business, Jason Segal’s Muppet film is guilty of negatively portraying a simple business owner in the form of Chris Cooper’s “Tex Richman”, an evil baron who’s set on destroying the Muppet studios to drill for oil.

The fact that Fox, or anyone for that matter, would think that it’s news that The Muppets, a creation of Jim Henson, is just now taking aim at the aptly labeled 1%, is just preposterous.

Note that the news report barely mentions the existence of Statler and Woldof, who were doing the “old, rich, white antagonist” act before this reporter was able to walk. Take a look at the downfall of modern journalism in true form after the jump, and catch The Muppets in theaters now, or the oil barons of the world win.

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The internet business is a pretty tricky thing to keep one’s thumb on. Especially when you are in charge of hundreds of thousands consumers ready for their on-demand entertainment. That’s why it was especially puzzling when Netflix CEO Reed Hastings decided to belly up to the DVD/VOD war and claim Qwikster would be his champion.

That’s when things got tricky, as Netflix subscribers were fleeing the scene, hoping this meant they wouldn’t have to spend double the amount they were spending to get the same DVD and streaming service. Now that Qwikster is dead and gone, it seems that the original company is still suffering from its mistake. From Variety:

While investors were disappointed with the reported decline of 810,000 streaming subscribers in the second quarter, some equally depressing projections for the final months of 2011 also contributed to a 27% drop in after-hours trading, sending the stock to $85. It had opened the day at $119.37.

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Have you ever wanted something so much that the impeding day you can have the thing never seems to actually arrive? It seems people feel that way about most things from Apple, and in particular the iPhone 5.

Anticipation for the new device is at fever pitch and finely it seems we’ve got some light at the end of the tunnel. According to AllThingsD, Apple is currently planning to hold the company’s Fall event on October 4th.

At this event Apple CEO Tim Cook will introduce the iPhone 5. Steve Jobs may or may not attend. Additionally, the report added regarding availability of the device: “Sources added that the plan is now to make the new device available for purchase within a few weeks after the announcement.”

So, if we do the maths right, that means you can expect to see the iPhone 5 hit store shelves sometime around October 24. Not. Soon. Enough.

Even though most of the country is going through some tough economic times at the moment, the fine folks at Apple (and its shareholders) are literally laughing all the way to the bank. Why? Well, as of market close on Wednesday, Apple’s market capitalization is $337.17 Billion. Yes, you read that right.

That market cap is $6 Billion higher than Exxon Mobile, which ended the day at $330.77 Billion. This development currently makes Apple the most valuable company in the world. Although, with the nature of the market these days, both companies will likely trade the number one spot in the days to come.

This news is pretty impressive considering Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy less than 20 years ago. The company, thanks in large part to the return of Stave Jobs and some truly innovative and amazing products, has surely rebounded and come out on top in spite of the naysayers who predicted its demise back then.

Apple is expected to launch new iPhone and iPad models this fall which will undoubtedly only help the company continue to dominiate. I, for one, can’t to see what happens over the next 20 years.

In what may be a good thing or a bad thing, today Microsoft  announced it will buy Skype for $8.5 billion in cash. This news comes just days after reports cam out that Facebook and Google were both interested in purchasing the online video chat company.

Microsoft said Skype will be used to support Xbox and Kinect, Windows Phone and other Windows devices. Microsoft also said it will connect Skype users with Outlook, Xbox Live and other software platforms.

“Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world,” Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement.

Skype, which currently has 170 million users, will become a new business division at Microsoft with Skype’s current CEO Tony Bates taking on the role of president of the Microsoft Skype Division.

Click through for the full press release from Microsoft. So, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

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In a world where branding is extremely important, one company has risen to the top — at least according to a recent study. What is this top company? Why, it’s Apple of course.

According to a study conducted by advertising firm WPP and published in their “BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands,” Apple’s brand value has increased 859% since 2006, and jumped 84% to $153.3 billion this year. Yes, that’s a lot.

Apple isn’t alone, however, as tech companies are predominate on the list with AT&T, China Mobile, IBM, and Microsoft all having spots in the top-10 most valuable brands list. McDonald’s is the only non-tech brand in the top-5. Google had reigned supreme for the past four years before being displaced by Apple, and Amazon surpassed Walmart to become the No. 1 retailer.

Not bad for a company that was thought to be dead not that long ago. Click through to read the full press release from WPP.

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It must be nice not to have to worry so much about ratings and instead focus primarily on quality. Oh, to have those kinds of problems like premiere cable netwrok HBO. What have they done this time?

Much like they did previously with shows such as Boardwalk Empire and Treme, HBO has given the greenlight for another season to its new drama Game of Thrones after only airing the premiere episode — even though its rating didin’t set any records. The ratings were solid, coming in between other premieres such as True Blood and Boardwalk Empire, but it’s the show itself that earned another season.

“We are delighted by the way David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have brought George R.R. Martin’s amazing book series to the screen, and thrilled by the support of the media and our viewers,” HBO’s head of programming Michael Lombardo said.

For its debut at 9 PM on Sunday, the show drew 2.2 million viewers, down 54% from the September premiere of Boardwalk Empire but up 57% from the 1.4 million who tuned in for the debut of True Blood 3 years ago. Overall, the premiere of Game of Thrones averaged 4.2 million viewers on Sunday for its 3 airings vs. 7.1 million for Boardwalk Empire in September.

So far HBO seems to be doing very well with most of its original programming, especially lately. With True Blood and Treme returning soon and the solid performance of Game of Thrones it looks like DVRs across the country are going to remain full of HBO programming for the foreseeable future. As fans of the new Game of Thrones as well as Treme, Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, Bored to Death and most of the other current HBO series, we’re going to be there too.

Game of Thrones stars Mark Addy, Sean Bean, Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey. It airs Sundays at 9/8C on HBO.

Not a bad weekend for Hollywood and the domestic box office, as Battle: Los Angeles took the top spot with a decent $36 million for a March opening weekend. That is just about 50% of the $70 Million production budget of the film. You know what that means: expect a sequel.

Other opening weekend movies didn’t fare as well including the family CG-animated film Mars Needs Moms, which opened with an unfortunate $6.8 Million (the budget was over $150 Million) and landed in the 5th spot. Catherine Hardwicke’s re-imagining of Red Riding Hood pulled in $14 Million and came in at the 3rd spot.

Movement from last weekend was quite significant, as Rango moved to the number two spot and went down almost 50%, pulling in $23 Million over the weekend, and $68 Million since it’s opening last weekend.

Matt Damon’s Adjustment Bureau must have had some terrible word of mouth, as it went down 45% since last week, and went all the way down to the number 4 spot, with $11.5 Million.

Next weekend Relativity’s Limitless goes head-to-head with the Matthew McConaughey vehicle, The Lincoln Lawyer, and the fanboy-crazed Paul. Could be an interesting weekend, if Battle: LA doesn’t retain for another weekend.

Oh AT&T, will the complaints against you never cease. What’s going on now? A new lawsuit has been filed in a federal court in California alleging that AT&T regularly and purposely overcharges iPhone and iPad customers on capped data plans by inflating the amount of data they download to their devices.

Patrick Hendricks, who filed the lawsuit, contends that AT&T adds “phantom traffic” to its invoices in order to overcharge users. Says Hendricks in his complaint:

“AT&T’s billing system for iPhone and iPad data transactions is like a rigged gas pump that charges for a full gallon when it pumps only nine-tenths of a gallon into your car’s tank.”

Apparently, Hendricks isn’t just speculating with his lawsuit. Instead, he and his lawyers hired a consulting firm to investigate and it apparently determined that AT&T regularly inflates data usage by between 7% and 14%. In addition, on some occasions, the carrier actually inflates data usage by as much as 300%. Huh, that seems a bit excessive, doesn’t it?

Of course, in a statement to Computerworld, AT&T said it would fight the lawsuit “vigorously.” Did you think they wouldn’t? Okay, informal poll time. Do you feel AT&T charges for data fairly or do you think they don’t and this lawsuit will expose them for the cheaters they are?

Sound off in the comments.