I can hear the pitch meeting now. It probably went a little something like this: Peter Berg: “Transformers made a crapload of money, right? Well, this is Transformers on the ocean. See, robots attack ships and try to sink the them.” Studio Exec: “You’re a genius. Here’s a bag of money.”

I don’t know if Battlship will be good or not (probably not) or if Peter Berg is really a genius (I’m guessing no) but I can guarantee the movie will be busy and extremely loud. To prove that fact, please take a look at the new trailer just released today. We have it for you after the break.

In it you see lots of robots and whatnot trying to attack a group of ships at sea. All they wanted to do was have some simple war games and now these damn underseas robots have made this shit get real — or something like that. Does the story really matter? Not much as long as stuff explodes convincingly. Hint: it mostly does.

Peter Berg “directs” a cast of pretty people like Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Alexander Skarsgård, Rihanna and the always cool Liam Neeson (obviously doing this one for the money).

As the trailer says “The battle for Earth begins at sea” on May 18, 2012. Check it out after the break.

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If toys make an effective inspiration for movie franchises, why not games? After all, regardless of its relative creative merits, the Transformers franchise has managed to make a metric crapload of money.

So, why not try to do the same with a movie based on a classic game? It could work. That’s just what director Peter Berg and his team have done with the upcoming Battleship. To prove it, we’ve got the first trailer for the film for you right now.

In it we get a lot of the film’s story of a young, upstart naval officer (Taylor Kitsch) in love with his Admiral’s daughter (Brooklyn Decker) who needs to put aside his personal feelings and learn to be a man when an alien invasion threatens his fleet of ships. The movie is, of course, based on the classic board game Battleship and from the trailer, it actually looks like director Berg gets that he’s making a movie based on a game, is in on the joke and doing his best to make it a fun and exciting film.

When I first heard they were making a movie based on Battleship, I was, to say the least, skeptical. After watching the trailer I’m now intrigued, especially as to how Berg and company are going to pull it off. Who knows, maybe they can?

Check out the trailer after the jump. Battleship, which stars Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker and Rihanna, arrives in theaters on May 18th, 2012.

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Just when you thought Battleship was a dumb idea to bring to the big screen, think again.

Atari–yes, the company that created the gaming console that’s been outdated for nearly 3 decades–has decided that their third biggest selling title, Missile Command, is worthy of a big-budget reboot, as they’re bringing the idea to 20th Century Fox. Here’s the breakdown from Variety.

Game is the third top title that Atari has set up as a film property, after Universal Pictures acquired “Asteroids” and Sony Pictures Animation picked up “Rollercoaster Tycoon.” It also becomes the latest brand from the ’80s to get the bigscreen treatment, with U readying a number of toy-based properties from Hasbro, including “Battleship,” and Mattel having set up others, including “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” at Sony and “View-Master” at DreamWorks.

With “Missile Command,” the scribes have little to adapt beyond a title to build a plot around and a Cold War-heavy scenario of players having to defend their cities from being destroyed by a rain of missiles. Game celebrated its 30th anniversary last year.

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Liam Neeson has joined the cast of Battleship today. Neeson was added to the cast of the Universal Pictures science fiction action adventure just as filming began today.

Battleship is based on the popular board game by the same name. The writers are obviously taking some liberties with the game in order to create the film. In the movie, a naval fleet at sea must protect the earth from alien invaders.

Neeson will be playing Admiral Shane, a Naval officer whose daughter is engaged to the film’s main protagonist, Alex Hopper, who is played by Taylor Kitsch (X-men Origins:Wolverine).

Neeson’s daughter will be played by relative unknown Brooklyn Decker, who had guest appearances on television shows including  Chuck and Ugly Betty. Alexander Skarsgaard (True Blood) plays Kitsch’s older brother, and R&B songstress Rihanna is making her acting debut as she plays Kitsch’s crew mate and a weapons specialist. Tom Arnold will also be part of the cast, but no news on what his role will entail.

Set for release on May 18th of 2012, Battleship comes from producers Scott Stuber, Peter Berg, Duncan Henderson and Sarah Aubrey, as well as Hasbro’s Brian Goldner and Bennett Schneir. The flick will shoot on location in Hawaii and Baton Rouge.

This week On the Radar a bunch of gaming news about Halo and Gears of War, Red Sonja switches up celebrity hotties, Mark Strong talks Sinestro in Green Lantern and Tom Arnold takes to the sea to fight aliens!

Court dismisses Marvel, Stan Lee law suit.  Excelsior!

While Stan Lee has been working overtime on film cameos and convention appearances he’s also been dealing with legal fights.  This one was between Stan Lee Media Inc. and it’s former board members.  At it’s most basic level the case was over ownership of mainstream characters like Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Fantastic Four.

The judge dismissed the case based on two primary factors.  First, the shareholders did not acquire their shares until a year after the issue of ownership occurred and second, said shareholders should not have waited nearly a decade to file their case.  No word yet on whether the decision will be appealed so until next time true believers…

Halo movie will be happening at some point

What should be an easy sell as far as a video game adaption, Halo has struggled to gain traction with studios.  However, Frank O’Connor of Microsoft Game Studios has said the film will happen eventually:

“We’re going to make a movie when the time is right,” he said. “We own the IP. If we want to make a movie, the scale of all the other stuff that we do changes dramatically. We make tens and tens of millions of dollars on ancillary stuff, toys, apparel, music and publishing. If we do a movie all of that will grow exponentially. We have some numbers if we do a movie, but it changes everything. It also changes our target and age demographic.”

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It’s ironic how we were just having the discussion on this week’s podcast that Sam Worthington feels like a forced “action star” in Hollywood today, as news is now hitting that Taylor Kitsch has been cast to star in Peter Berg’s film adaptation of the timeless board game Battleship. From Heat Vision:

Pete Berg is directing the action adventure movie, whose story has drawn heat from some quarters for adding an “alien invasion” element to what has been traditionally seen as a grounded Naval game. The script, by Jon and Erich Hoeber, sees an international fleet come together to battle a water-bound armada of otherworldly origin.

In “Battleship,” Kitsch is playing a Naval commander named Alex Hopper, described as “wildly spirited” and “a great seaman but a lousy politician.”

Kitsch was a relative unknown a few years ago, but since being cast as Gambit in last year’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he’s already been cast as the titular lead in Pixar’s upcoming John Carter of Mars as well as being the lead in the TV adapatation of Friday Night Lights. Much like how Worthington was put over the top by getting roles in Avatar, Terminator: Salvation, and Clash of the Titans.

With this new role, it could seem that Kitsch is going to be the next “Worthington”, but what could that mean for the first “Worthington”? Is there room in Hollywood, amidst the stack of reboots and remakes as far as the eye can see, for two actors that Hollywood is forcing down our throats?

Because it’s just not good enough to make films about the E*Trade Baby or Battleship, Columbia Pictures is now taking it back to the 1980s with a remake of the Val Kilmer sci-fi comedy Real Genius.

That’s right. Not many people remember it, but before he was Batman, Jim Morrison, Dieter Von Cunth, Iceman, and the voice of K.I.T.T., Kilmer got his start in a little teen sci-fi comedy from 1985. In it, Kilmer plays Chris Knight, an incredibly bright university student that has to use his intellect to get back at a nefarious professor who steals his newest project for military purposes.

The super producer team of Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, who were the driving force behind such projects as The Davinci Code, 24, Angels & Demons, Arrested Development and many more, will be taking the lead on this one, so expect to see a few big names to drop by.

No word on a production schedule just yet, but since Columbia and the two producers are already on board, expect to see movement on this remake in the next few months.

The only thing now is to propose a remake of other great science fiction comedies of the 1980s such as Zapped! and Mac and Me.