* Guillermo Del Toro and Peter Jackson did an online Q&A about the two upcoming Hobbit movies, and the transcript is here. (Via AICN.) Kristin Thompson runs down some of the highlights–John Howe, Alan Lee, Howard Shore, Andy Serkis, and Ian McKellen are all confirmed for both films, for example–but for my money the most interesting thing (not necessarily good, just interesting) is Del Toro’s comments regarding supplementing the Weta design and effects teams with his own staff.
* B-Sol at Vault of Horror says that The Strangers‘ tendentious “inspired by a true story” claims indicate a studio with something to hide, but isn’t that just the exact same hyperbole used to promote The Texas Chain Saw Massacre back in the day. For me it has more to do with the film’s deliberately old-school promotional campaign rather than trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes (though based on a conversation with my non-horror-fan little sister about the movie, that’s happening too).
* AICN has links to some fun clips from The Incredible Hulk. Looks like a good time to me.
The same thing happened with the X-Files, I seem to remember. The first episode says ‘inspired by true events’, but the producers later said there wasn’t any event in particular.
It’s all a bit dodgy, but probably less so than the novels that turn up on occasion claiming to be real manuscripts ‘discovered’ by the author. I’m not talking about serious literary frauds, just (as you say) old-school promotion.