Chinese Mag Uproar, Avatar and Iron Man 2 Break Records and First Rocket Hits Moon Eye: This Week in Geek

The reason superheros don’t use computers as part of they’re crime-fighting activities.

[Pic of the Week from agent-xcomics.com]

• The movie Avatar continues to break records with the home release on April 22. Avatar became the fastest selling Blu-Ray DVD, outselling The Dark Knight (which previously held the title) and sold four million DVDs on the first day alone. However, the movie’s release has inspired controversy over alleged double-dipping, since Fox has already announced that it plans two more releases of the same movie, a special edition in November, and a 3-D version in 2011.
• There was an uproar among the Chinese sci-fi community, specifically the revered magazine, Science Fiction World. Editors of the state-run magazine and popular Chinese sci-fi writers combined to write an open letter calling for Li Chang (the magazine’s editor and president) to be removed. They accused Chang of gross incompetence that led to the normally popular magazines drop in sales. They also criticized Chang’s attempts to cut costs by having the magazine’s editors write stories instead of authors and the art directors draw illustrations instead of artists. Chang has been suspended pending an investigation.
• The highly anticipated Iron Man 2 was released today, with many expecting it to break the opening weekend success of the second Christopher Nolan Batman film The Dark Knight.
  OVERUNDER: The Dark Knight made $155.34 million in its opening weekend. Iron Man 2 made $100 million in its foreign release last weekend. The film will make $200 million in it’s domestic opening weekend.
• Happy Anniversary – This week, May 2nd, marked the 105th anniversary of the first science fiction film A Trip to the Moon (“Le Voyage Dans le Lune”). This is also one of the first cases of movie piracy, since Thomas Edison stole a copy of the film and released it in the US, leaving George Melies’ movie company bankrupt. Watch it on archive.org with commentary from some French guy.

What do you think about this week’s news?