As a youth I used to live in the shelves of my local video store. Most summers I would spend my days down at the local strip mall (a scant 1.3 miles away) bowling for hours, reading comics off the rack at the drug store, picking out the most essential candy at the grocery store and finally wandering in the stacks, searching for the perfect movie to watch that weekend. All this time spent in the stacks lead to a curious skill of recognizing films based solely by their cover art, and I’d often know the plot of the films based off of the descriptions on the back. Soon it became a bit of a game for my friends to quiz me on what the films were about, but only the films I’d never actually seen and using simply the cover as a hint.

Of course, back then I was still very young and simply didn’t have the time nor the resources to watch every film I wanted to. So I would pick and choose which I would watch, often leaning heavily towards science fiction and fantasy films (my horror obsession didn’t really kick in until my early twenties). So how is it that I never watched a post-apocalyptic film about a nomadic swordsman? Simple, I hated the cover.

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While this week marked the trailer release of a couple of better known films, I must admit the new trailer for The Tournament has caught my eye. I had seen an earlier teaser some time ago, but I’m guessing that was really just a test reel to convince people to invest in the project, as this trailer has an almost entirely new cast and the production values are much higher. It even seems they tweaked the story a bit, as what was originally a tournament every ten years is now every seven years. Even still, it isn’t hard to get a Running Man feel out of this film, with the notion of a group of assassins/gladiators hunting each other for sport. Granted this doesn’t have Arnold, but it does have Robert Carlyle and a bad guy with a really cool voice. Which is a plus.

No idea when this movie will get a theatrical release, if at all, but you can be sure I’ll be watching it. Feel free to check out both trailers to see the difference/improvements.

Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, assassins, film, films, movie, robert carlyle, teaser, The Running Man, The Tournament, trailer