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From Saw to Chainsaw—We're smack dab in the middle of a 3-D renaissance right now, and for every exciting project like Avatar, there are party-poopers who are just using the technology as a fad to follow rather than a storytelling device. With the success of The Final Destination 3-D, we're now seeing horror movies lining up to jump out of the screen. Have a look at which are coming, and find out how being a screenwriter can get you out of sticky situations.

THE GOOD

• I mentioned back in June how, not to be outdone by Tokyo's life-size Gundam, Kobe decided to build a life-size replica of Gigantor (better known there as Tetsujin 28-go). The 60-feet tall statue was finally completed last week, and unlike the life-size Gundam—which has now been dismantled—the life-size Gigantor is a permanent fixture in Kobe's Wakamatsu Park.

More photos from the Mainichi Daily News.

• Wesley Snipes has had his share of shame lately, from starring in a string of Seagal level direct-to-video crap ever since the embarrassment that was 2004's Blade Trinity and then caught evading taxes. There may be hope still—Snipes will star in Game of Death, a thriller from his King of New York director Abel Ferrara that sounds like it's inspired by the Bruce Lee movie of the same name.

Snipes plays a bodyguard who has to fend off five of the world's top assassins one by one. Zoe Bell also stars in the film (perhaps as one of the assassins?), so this has the potential to be fun.

• After tackling the horror genre (sort of) with Antichrist, Lars von Trier continues his bent on genre films by announcing that his next film is a sci-fi disaster movie.  Called Melancholia, it's about a planet veering dangerously close to Earth. It goes without saying that it's not going to be anything like 2012 or Armageddon. The director's statement should tell you this:

“No more happy endings!”

Since Von Trier's films aren't exactly known for their happy endings, I'm assuming that he's mocking the usual Hollywood disaster movie—which probably means this film is going to end with the Earth destroyed and humanity wiped out.

This is the image that accompanied the press release:

• Here's a great commercial for Canal+, the French television pay channel and production company.

• Finally, a trailer for Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, starring Zac Efron, Claire Danes and Christian McKay, whose role as Orson Welles is looking very, very impressive in this.

THE BAD

• Gary Ross will be writing and directing the Spider-man spin-off movie Venom. Leaving aside the fact that a Venom movie is probably a very bad idea to begin with, Gary Ross is a really weird choice to handle the project.

Maybe not surprising given that he's already writing Spider-man 4 for Sony, but Ross' sensibilities (as seen in Seabiscuit and Pleasantville) don't exactly gel with a deliberately crass and violent character like Venom.

• In completely angering news, MGM has decided to push the Joss Whedon-Drew Goddard horror project Cabin in the Woods back for a full year, changing the release date from Feb 5, 2010 to Jan 14, 2011. Is it because the studio isn't happy and they want reshoots? Is it because their slate is full for the year? Nope, it's because the studio is so happy with it that they've decided to spend 6 months to convert it to 3-D, and then wait a bit for more venues to have the proper equipment for 3-D viewing.

I've got nothing against 3-D movies, they can be fun, but shelving a movie that wasn't intended to be a 3-D movie for a full year just to jump on a bandwagon? Pathetic.

• Still not angering enough? Variety reports that Twisted Pictures, the makers of the Saw series, is close to taking over the rights for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre from Platinum Dunes/New Line. Their plan is to reboot the film in 3-D (there it is again) and set it in contemporary times, as opposed to the 70's setting of the Marcus Nispel remake. The deal is for multiple films, so maybe they're planning to kill Saw once and for all and replace it with Chainsaw sequels. "If it's Halloween, it must be pay day!"

• Aaaand the 3-D horror assault continues. Director Neil Marshall (The Descent) is teaming up with Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures to do Burst, a 3-D horror movie about a group of travelers facing the terror of spontaneously combusting. It amuses me to imagine that this is just going to be a movie about people gratuitously exploding with their innards flying out of the screen. I like Marshall—a lot—but this just doesn't sound very promising at all.

• Predators, the reboot written and produced by Robert Rodriguez and directed by Nimrod Antal, drew laughs this week when they announced that the leads in their team of commandos will be... Adrien Brody and Topher Grace. Brody's character is described as a "hunter of men," while Grace's is a secretly a dangerous serial killer. It's a good thing they have Danny Trejo and Walt Goggins to back them up.

THE WTF

• Japan is looking to host the 2018 World Cup. To help them bid for this, they've named Astro Boy as their official PR Ambassador. This is all very cool and very representative of Japan's pop culture—considering Astro Boy's legendary popularity in his home country that spans generations—but the mascot itself is quite terrifying to look at.

• The sequel to Showgirls is not only finally happening, but it's currently shooting right now in Frankfurt and they've created this absolutely ridiculous website with an absolutely ridiculous video. I don't know what the heck is going on here, but my spider sense is not tingling.

• When you watch the video below, you might suspect that it's a teaser trailer for a Transformers ripoff. It's not. This is, in fact, the recruitment commercial for the Taiwan military. That's right, the Taiwanese tries to get kids to enlist by showing how f--king awesome giant robots are. Which is more effective, this or Army Strong?

• No doubt thanks to his current incarceration, Roman Polanski has kicked Megan Fox off the top spot on IMDB's star meter. It goes to show that attention whoring doesn't always get you all the publicity.

• You think 2012 is only a showcase for special effects? Then you're clearly uninformed about the amazing performances by the actors. To illustrate this point, here's that crazy 5-minute disaster clip, with all the special effect shots cut out, leaving 1.5 minute of pure acting.