As the first Futurama straight-to-DVD movie, Bender's Big Score, begins airing on Comedy Central (they'll air the movie as a four-episode blok on Sunday night), Fox has announced the name and release date of the second straight-to-DVD epic.

AnimationMagazine.net reports that Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs will be released on June 24, and they note that Fox calls it "the most tentacle-packed Futurama epic." Since it's a continuation of Bender's Big Score, I'll talk about the plot of the new movie after the jump, for the benefit of those who haven't seen the first movie yet.

Sam Raimi, director of the Spider-Man and Evil Dead films, as well as producer of popular syndicated series such as Xena and Hercules, recently secured the film rights to author Terry Goodkind's eleven-volume Sword of Truth series. Development of the first part of the lengthy mini-series, based on the first book in the series, Wizard's First Rule, will begin as Raimi wraps up production on Spider-Man 3. The final volume of Goodkind's fantasy series is slated for release in 2008, and more information on the TV adaptation will be available early next year. I've read very little fantasy in my lifetime, but are any of you fans of Goodkind? What do you think of this collaboration?