Don’t expect to see James Marsters to reprise his role as Detective Grant Mars from the Without a Trace television show. The actor/musician told fans the studio was likely “pissed off” when he declined to resign his contract in favor of other work.

“I thought that they were pretty much done with me,” said Marsters when explaining to fans at Dragon*Con 2008. The studio signed him to a partial contract that meant he wasn’t locked in for the entire season but was also paid less money.

Marsters declined to return after signing on to play Lord Piccolo in the Dragon Ball live-action movie, which is currently in post production and due out in theaters next year…

Latino Review is reporting that Max Makowski has been signed to direct Voltron: Defender of the Universe.

This comes shortly after it was announced that Voltron was indeed still being made (see ‘Voltron’ Movie To Take A Page From ‘300′), only cheaper.

Word is that Makowski is a great choice for the job, even though no one knows who he is. Apparently he had a couple movies at Sundance and one go to Cannes and he’s writing the Hawaii Five-O movie and directing a new Kung-Fu movie, but aside from that, most has been TV work (Queer Eye For The Straight Guy).

As you can imagine, Voltron fanboys are writhing with concern…

In this prequel to Disney’s 1989 hit The Little Mermaid, we get to see what life was like under the sea for everyone’s favorite mermaid, Ariel, before she explored the surface. And it wasn’t all fun and games, unfortunately.

The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning opens with the adorable red-headed Ariel as a wee tike, playing happily with her sisters as her deeply in love parents — King Triton and Queen Athena — rule over the merry kingdom of Atlantica. Since Queen Athena doesn’t appear in The Little Mermaid, you immediately know something’s about to go array. That’s when this happy animated feature takes a page from Disney’s Find Nemo by showing what happened to Ariel’s mommy. Since Queen Athena had a beautiful singing voice, the King can’t bear to hear music any longer, so he bans it from his sea kingdom.

Ten years later, we see the now-rebellious princess we know and love. She loves music and can’t understand why her father is so against it, because she’s too young to remember what happened with her mother. Feeling stifled, Ariel breaks away from her father’s protective overbearingness and predictable daily routines and gets into plenty of trouble…