ISN News: The Zocalo Today
Line - Gray
The Zocalo Today
Line - Gray
Blank
Menu Top

  Latest News
  JMS Speaks
  New JMS Works
  This Week's News
  JMS Comic Books
  B5 Cast Activities
  Legend: Rangers
  Jeremiah
  Reviews
  Trading
  Back-Issues
  Links
  B5 Clubs
  PhotoShop
  Toons

Conventions
  Attendance
  Con Calendar
  Photos
  Reports
  Rallys


Reference Section
  Reference
  B5 Magazine
  Universe Today
  Other Publications
  Zocalo Awards

Menu Bottom
Main Top Line Main Top Left Blank Main Top Right
Blank  

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2013

PACIFIC RIM
Japan's Toho Studios are the folks who gave us our first atomic taste of mega monsters destroying Tokyo with 1954's Godzilla. The famed film production and distribution company went on to produce a killer slate of mutant creature features like Rodan, Destroy All Monsters, Mothra, and War of the Gargantuans. Guillermo del Toro was weaned on epic fare like this, so his Pacific Rim is no doubt a valentine to those cherished movies of his youth.
Here's a wonderful fan-trailer created in the dramatic Toho style of the '50s and '60s, with blaring titles, bad dubbing and ominous music to set the mood. This trailer was created by YouTuber "honda brigit" to coincide with Pacific Rim's Japanese release on August 9th and to salute those kaiju-krazy years when Toho was truly king of the monster movies.

The Flash THE FLASH
Looks like the CW superhero landscape is about to get even more crowded.
Deadline reports that the CW is now eyeing—make that fast-tracking—a Flash TV series, adding yet another DC male superhero to the roster, while we’re still waiting for Wonder Woman to make that long-overdue appearance. (The CW had been developing an origins project, which sadly didn't go to pilot.)
Apparently The CW is getting ready to discuss the new project at today’s TCA presentation. The idea would be to introduce the Flash on Arrow next season before sending him off into his very own series. Much as The CW did/is doing with The Vampire Diaries (The Originals) and Supernatural spinoffs.
Flash would be written by Arrow co-creators Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg. Director David Nutter, who has helmed the Arrow pilot, is also set to direct the potential Flash TV pilot as well—with Berlanti and Kreisberg set to be the showrunners.
We like the idea of The CW expanding its DC universe—as has always been the network’s goal ever since the end of Smallville. Arrow’s a great show, and we’re expecting Berlanti and Kreisberg’s magic touch to spark Flash into life.
It will not be the first time the speedy superhero in red tights has been brought to TV. As some of you may recall, there was a short-lived TV series back in 1990 that lasted for only a single season. It starred John Wesley Shipp as Barry Allen/The Flash and had the distinction of guest-starring Star Wars' very own Mark Hamill as a big bad villain named the Trickster in two memorable episodes.

Supernatural SUPERNATURAL SPIN-OFF
With Supernatural entering its ninth season this fall, The CW is looking to the future to see how they can expand the Winchester brothers’ demon-hunting world. Up next? A spinoff series.
The network hopes to introduce the spinoff via a backdoor pilot in the back half of season nine, which will give fans a peek at the potential cast and setting.
The spinoff will reportedly be set in Chicago, focused on the “clashing hunter and monster cultures in the Windy City,” according to TV Line. So most likely we’ll see the WInchesters take on a case there this season and meet up with some hunters, with the new characters getting some attention to see if the idea has legs.
Depending on how this turns out, it sounds like the spinoff will trade in Supernatural’s highway for a home town, giving it one significant twist from the original series. In the near-decade it's been on the air, Supernatural has created a pretty deep mythos that could conceivably survive outside of the main cast. But the big question is how the cast/plot will shake out with the spinoff.

Hartnett-Green PENNY DREADFUL
Showtime has found the leads for its upcoming horror drama series Penny Dreadful.
Eva Green and Josh Hartnett will star in the drama from John Logan, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Penny Dreadful was created by three-time Oscar nominee Logan (Hugo, The Aviator, Gladiator), who is on board to write and executive produce alongside Academy Award winner Sam Mendes and Neal Street's Pippa Harris (Revolutionary Road). The psycho-sexual horror series will begin production in the fall in London.
Hartnett will play Ethan Chandler, a man of action and daring who isn't afraid of violence. He's charming and brash but there are demons behind his eyes. He's more complicated than he likes to admit.
Green will play Vanessa, the singular female of the story. She's enigmatic with haunted eyes and utterly composed. She will prove herself a force to be reckoned with and the heroine of the series.
Production will begin in October and will be on the air in the spring.
Hartnett's credits include Pearl Harbor as well as 40 Days and 40 Nights. Green's credits include Casino Royale and Kingdom of Heaven. Her TV credits include the miniseries Camelot.

Elusion ELUSION
Although the first book in the planned two-book series won't be published until March 2014, Deadline is reporting that Silver Reel and FlynnPictureCo. have secured the big screen rights to the forthcoming Elusion by Claudia Gabel and Cheryl Klam. The young adult sci-fi tale is officially described as follows:
Soon, Elusion will change the world and life as we know it.
A new technology called Elusion is sweeping the country. An app, a visor, and a wristband will virtually transport you to an exotic destination where adventure can be pursued without the complications—or consequences—of real life.
Regan is an Elusion insider. Or at least she used to be. Her father invented the program, and her best friend, Patrick, heir to the tech giant Orexis, is about to release it nationwide. But ever since her father's unexpected death, Regan can't bear to Escape, especially since waking up from the dream means crashing back to her grim reality.
Still, when there are rumors of trouble in Elusion—accusations that it's addictive and dangerous—Regan is determined to defend it. But the critics of Elusion come from surprising sources, including Josh, the handsome skeptic with his own personal stakes. As Regan investigates the claims, she discovers a disturbing web of secrets. She will soon have to choose between love and loyalty . . . a decision that will affect the lives of millions.
Claudia Bluemhuber and Beau Flynn are attached to produce.

TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2013

China White ARROW NEWS
Oliver Queen may have plenty of new enemies in "Arrow" Season 2, but at least one old foe will make a return: China White (Kelly Hu) will return to the superhero series in the second episode of the season.
"Arrow" executive producer Marc Guggenheim confirmed the return of the Triad assassin at the TCA press tour in Los Angeles on Monday (July 29). While he didn't give too many details about how China White will fit back into the show's world, Guggenheim did give a little bit of context about the appearance.
"Kelly Hu is absolutely coming back. She comes back in episode 2," Guggenheim said. "She not only comes back, but we were dead-set on not just bringing back China White, but bringing back China White and showing her in a new way and with a new dimension than just what we did last year. There's no point in bringing her back, just to repeat same-old, same-old. We do one new scene where you go, 'Ooh! That's a China White we didn't see last year.'"
While Hu's China White is the only confirmed Season 1 villain to make more trouble, fans can expect other old foes to reappear in the second season. "Part of the enjoyment of Season 2 for us is how do you combine the old -- not the old -- but the Season 1 villains with the new Season 2 villains," Guggenheim hinted. "That's part of the fun of the show. It's part of the fun of any superhero show. The superhero mythos, the rogues' gallery. I think we've done a fairly okay job of rounding out his rogues' gallery, and it's about building onto that in Season 2."
What about the ultimate Season 1 villain, Malcolm Merlyn? Will he be back -- remember, the audience never saw Malcolm's body after Oliver beat him in the season finale. While Guggenheim wouldn't give too many details, John Barrowman will definitely return to the show in some form.
"We've confirmed that John Barrowman is coming back," said Guggenheim. But then the producer added, "We are a show that does flashbacks."
The one detail Guggenheim did give about Malcolm Merlyn's return is that he will be interacting with Oliver. "I don't think it's spoiling anything to say that John Barrowman's scenes will be with Stephen [Amell]," Marc Guggenheim hinted.
The question is: Will Oliver and Malcolm interact in the show's present or in the past? Only "Arrow" Season 2 holds the answers to that.

RIDDICK
While we eagerly await Vin Diesel’s new Riddick flick, there’s a brand-new (and a bit NSFW) motion comic that somewhat bridges the events between the end of The Chronicles of Riddick and the upcoming new film.
The last time we saw Richard B. Riddick, he’d become—despite his good efforts, as well as those of Vaako (played by Karl Urban) and Dame Vaako (played by Thandie Newton)—the almighty ruler of the Necromongers.
We know from the bunch of exciting trailers we’ve seen so far that the new Riddick film rocks the first film's vibe, Pitch Black, and will once again pit our favorite Furyan against a slew of new mercenaries out to get him.
Question is: What happened between then and there?
Now you can catch a glimpse of the troubles Riddick got as the new leader of the Necromongers whilst being reminded that Vaako will also be in Riddick (yay!).
Have a look at the prequel motion comic above, and as a refresher, here's the official synopsis:
The latest chapter of the groundbreaking saga that began with 2000′s hit sci-fi film Pitch Black and 2004′s The Chronicles of Riddick reunites writer/director David Twohy (A Perfect Getaway, The Fugitive) and star Vin Diesel (the Fast and Furious franchise, xXx). Diesel reprises his role as the antihero Riddick, a dangerous, escaped convict wanted by every bounty hunter in the known galaxy.
The infamous Riddick has been left for dead on a sun-scorched planet that appears to be lifeless. Soon, however, he finds himself fighting for survival against alien predators more lethal than any human he’s encountered. The only way off is for Riddick to activate an emergency beacon and alert mercenaries who rapidly descend to the planet in search of their bounty.
The first ship to arrive carries a new breed of merc, more lethal and violent, while the second is captained by a man whose pursuit of Riddick is more personal. With time running out and a storm on the horizon that no one could survive, his hunters won’t leave the planet without Riddick’s head as their trophy.
We don't know about you, but we're pretty excited to see Riddick being on the run for his life once more and duking it out with some badass mercenaries—including Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff.
Riddick will hit theaters on Sept. 6, 2013.

ROSEMARY'S BABY/THE TOMMYKNOCKERS
Classic horror fans, you’re in luck: The folks at NBC are looking to beef up their miniseries slate with some freaky new projects inspired by two of the scariest stories out there.
The network has announced that two new miniseries are in the works, based on Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby and Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers. Both are legit horror classics, and it’ll be interesting to see how they’re reworked for modern audiences.
Rosemary’s Baby will be developed as a four-hour miniseries following the story of a woman unknowingly carrying the Antichrist in her womb. The project will be written by Scott Abbott (Queen of the Damned), with Joshua Maurer, David Stern, Perri Kipperman and Alix Witlin executive-producing.
The Tommyknockers, which is set in a small town affected by an alien artifact in the nearby woods, will be directed by Emmy winner Yves Simoneau (V, The 4400). Frank Konigsberg and Larry Sanitsky are attached to executive produce.
The story of Rosemary’s Baby is probably best known from its 1968 film adaptation, which is considered one of the scariest movies ever made. The Tommyknockers has a less prestigious history on the screen, and was most recently turned into a decent 1993 TV miniseries.
Rosemary’s Baby brings a lot of name cachet, so it’s not much of a surprise to see it pop back up all these years later. The Tommyknockers is a more interesting pick, but King’s work is having a small-screen renaissance these days thanks to Under the Dome and Haven, so it makes sense that this story will get another shot.

CITY OF ASHES Sigourney Weaver is in negotiations to join the cast of The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes, Constantin's sequel to its upcoming supernatural fantasy, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
Much of the cast of the first installment, which opens Aug. 21 and includes Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Kevin Zegers, Robert Sheehan, Jemima West and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, is returning -- as is director Harald Zwart.
The project continues the story of a girl (Collins) who discovers she is a demon-slaying Shadowhunter and enters a world filled with warring vampires, werewolves and faeries, while also falling for another Shadowhunter (Bower).
In one of the few new roles, the veteran actress will play the ruthless leader of the Shadowhunters who will stop at nothing to destroy the man who killed her son.
An October start date is being eyed.
A legend in the genre world for her Aliens work, Weaver’s recent appearances include Amy Heckerling's romantic vampire comedy Vamps, Cold Light of Day with Henry Cavill and cult hit Cabin in the Woods.

UNDER THE DOME RENEWED
"Under the Dome," television's #1 summer series in viewers and key demographics, will return in summer 2014 with 13 new episodes, it was announced today by Nina Tassler, President, CBS Entertainment.
Stephen King, whose bestselling novel is the basis for the series, will write the premiere episode of the second season.
"We're excited to tell more stories about the mystery of the dome and the secrets in Chester's Mill, and are thrilled to have the master storyteller himself, Stephen King, tell the first one of next season," said CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler.
"Under the Dome" is a serialized drama from Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television based on Stephen King's bestselling novel of the same name. It tells the story of a small town that is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an enormous transparent dome. The town's inhabitants must deal with surviving the post-apocalyptic conditions while searching for answers to what this barrier is, where it came from, and if and when it will go away.
"Under the Dome" is averaging 13.84 million viewers, 3.5/10 in adults 18-49 and 4.8/12 in adults 25-54. In addition to impressive live plus same day ratings on CBS, the series has also seen significant additional viewing on DVR playback, video-on-demand and online streaming - including Amazon's Prime Instant Video, which provides exclusive online subscription streaming four days after the broadcast on CBS. Amazon says that since the show's launch, "Under the Dome" has been watched by more customers than any other series on the service.
"Under the Dome" is produced by CBS Television Studios in association Amblin Television. Neal Baer, Stephen King, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Stacey Snider, Jack Bender and Brian K. Vaughan, who wrote the television adaptation, are executive producers.

MONDAY, JULY 29, 2013

Wolverine WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
"Wolverine" took home the top spot at the box office this weekend, by a wide margin. It didn't quite live up to the studio estimates of a $63 million opening taking, but its $55 million was ahead of the no. 2 spot by over $30 million.
"The Conjuring" finished second at $22.1 million, "Despicable Me 2" was third at $16 million, "Turbo 3D" at $13.3 million for fourth and fifth was "Grown Ups 2" at $11.5 million.
The rest of the Top 10 is as follows:
6. "Red 2," $9.4 M
7. "Pacific Rim," $7.5 M
8. "The Heat," $6.9 M, over $140 M total
9. "R.I.P.D," $5.9 M
10. "Fruitvale Station," $4.7 M
In other notable box office numbers, Woody Allen's new "Blue Jasmine" opened in limited release, earning over $600,000 in just six theaters.

Star Wars Logo STAR WARS NEWS
At the closing ceremonies of Star Wars Celebration Europe on Sunday, Lucasfilm announced that its next fan fest – Star Wars Celebration VII – will be timed to the theatrical release of Star Wars: Episode VII, and will be held in Anaheim, California from April 16-18, 2015. Does this mean we should expect a May, 2015 release for "Episode VII"? Hopefully we'll find out soon.
Star Wars Celebration Europe was attended by more than 20,000 fans from 40 different countries. In a Main Stage event hosted by Warwick Davis, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced that legendary composer John Williams will return to score the highly-anticipated Star Wars: Episode VII, to be directed by J.J. Abrams. And one of the Executive Producers from "Star Wars Rebels," Dave Filoni, was on hand to guide fans through the genesis of the upcoming animated series, revealing designs heavily influenced by original "Star Wars" concept artist Ralph McQuarrie. While unable to attend in person, Executive Producers Simon Kinberg and Greg Weisman shared their excitement for the series in a video message recorded exclusively for Celebration attendees. "Star Wars Rebels" will begin airing on Disney XD starting in fall of 2014.
"Star Wars: The Clone Wars" was also featured at the event, spotlighting a first look at The Complete Season Five Blu-ray and DVD boxed sets, and the massive Seasons 1-5 Collector's Edition, both scheduled for an October 15 release.

Vin Diesel WORLD'S MOST WANTED
Universal Pictures has officially named Vin Diesel World's Most Wanted. Deadline is reporting that the Riddick star is set to headline an upcoming action adventure of that name.
The film, originally written by Sean O'Keefe and Will Staples, is being rewritten by Dan Mazeau. No plot details are currently available, but Neal Mortiz is producing alongside Diesel and together he and Diesel have previously launched both the Fast & Furious and XXX franchises. Tania Landau and Samantha Vincent are executive producing.
Diesel starred earlier this year in Furious Six and is set to reprise his Dom Toretto role in next year's Fast & Furious 7. His Riddick, meanwhile, hits theaters September 6.

ELYSIUM
We've got just two weeks left before director Neill Blomkamp latest, Elysium, hits theaters and, today, we've got a new clip from the sci-fi actioner that features leading man Matt Damon taking on a security robot.
Also starring Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, William Fichtner and Wagner Moura, Elysium takes place in the year 2154, wherein two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined planet. The people of Earth are desperate to escape the crime and poverty that is now rampant throughout the land. The only man with the chance to bring equality to these worlds is Max (Damon), an ordinary guy in desperate need to get to Elysium. With his life hanging in the balance, he reluctantly takes on a dangerous mission – one that pits him against Elysium's Secretary Delacourt (Foster) and her hard-line forces – but if he succeeds, he could save not only his own life, but millions of people on Earth as well.
Elysium arrives in conventional theaters and in IMAX August 9.

SUNDAY, JULY 28, 2013

Grimm GRIMM STAYING ON FRIDAY NIGHT
There was a time when if a series looked like it had a pulse while airing on Friday nights, a network would quickly move it to a different night that had higher overall viewership.
That thinking led people to assume that as "Grimm" quietly became a solid performer on Fridays, it would move too. NBC experimented with it a little last season, giving it a Monday slot after the Summer Olympics and a post-"The Voice" Tuesday berth in the spring, but Season 3 will once again air Fridays.
"We kept hearing from people, 'Don't take it off Friday, we love it on Friday. Why are you screwing with our show?'" NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt said Saturday (July 27) at the TCA press tour. "We put it in on Tuesdays in the spring for a few weeks because we thought it deserved the jolt of 'The Voice' lead-in, just to drive more viewers into it. But everybody inside the company, and we kept hearing from people outside the company saying 'Don't screw with it on Friday' and 'Leave it on Friday.' We took that to heart."
It has paid off. Season 2 of "Grimm" averaged 7.4 million viewers (in Live +7 ratings) and a 2.6 rating among adults 18-49. The demographic number is the best of any show that regularly aired on Fridays last season.
"Grimm" is now in the position of serving as a launchpad for a new series, "Dracula," which will follow it on Friday nights.
"We tried to build a night that's a little bit more genre with 'Dracula,'" Greenblatt says. "We saw last year, the week before Halloween when we aired the 'Mockingbird Lane' pilot at 8 o'clock and 'Grimm' at 9, and it felt like a genre thing has some juice on Friday night. It's always good not to screw something up that's working."
Season 3 of "Grimm" is scheduled to premiere Oct. 25 on NBC.

Underwood IRONSIDE RE-DO COMING IN OCTOBER
NBC's remake/redo of the 1960s-'70s cop show "Ironside" is a crime drama, but according to the people making it, it's not a procedural.
So what's the difference? Executive producer Ken Sanzel explains Saturday (July 27) at the TCA summer press tour.
"Procedurals are about process and kind of inevitably go to catching a bad guy at the end of the episode, says Sanzel, who previously worked as a writer and producer on "Blue Bloods" and "Numb3rs." "We'll catch plenty of bad guys, but as you see in the pilot, this is a man who -- because of who he was before, because of who he is now -- is driven to answer deeper questions about tragedy, having been steeped in some of his own."
"Ironside" stars Blair Underwood as a New York detective who was shot in the line of duty two years earlier and now is in a wheelchair. He carries some residual issues from the shooting, but has largely channeled any anger into his work, where he leads a hand-picked team of detectives and approaches cases from a not especially by-the-book angle.
Ironside's situation "doesn't necessarily just make him an angry guy, it makes him a driven guy. I think there's a little bit of a difference," Sanzel says. "I think he's probably an angrier guy than in the past, and now he's more consumed with all the things that would [as in the series pilot] lead a woman to jump off of a roof, when he knows it's just a suicide. He puts that in his pocket and takes us in 42 minutes through all the truth that happens with that.
"That's the key you use to open what makes this show special in the crime drama element, which I think is something that comes off of Ironside's situation."
"Ironside" is scheduled to premiere Oct. 2 on NBC.

STAR WARS VII SCORE - JOHN WILLIAMS RETURNS
It's official: the latest chapter of Star Wars will be scored by John Williams.
The composer, who has crafted the score for all six titles in the space opera saga, was confirmed to be joining J.J. Abrams' Episode VII by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy on Saturday at a Star Wars fan event in Essen, Germany.
In April, Abrams had indicated that he wanted the composer to return to score his film, but cautioned that it was still in the "early days." The Star Wars website posted an interview where Williams explains how he'll score the latest film.
"Of course, I haven't seen the script," the composer says in the clip. "The story is still unknown to me, the new story. But I can't imagine that there will not be some references to the existing stories that we know that would necessitate, and make appropriate, the use of some of the earlier themes."
The Episode VII script will be penned by Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3, Little Miss Sunshine) and is set to hit theaters in 2015, with Episode VIII and IX scheduled in the years after. Original trilogy stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford are expected to appear in the film. In addition, THR reported that Lawrence Kasdan, writer of Empire Strikes Back, and Simon Kinberg, who penned X-Men: Days of Future Past, are writing separate spinoff projects set in the Star Wars universe.

Hilary mini NBC NEW MINI-SERIES PLANS
NBC is becoming the latest network to dive head-first into the limited series.
NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt used his forum Saturday at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour to announce the network is developing four new high-profile event series.
In addition to the previously announced six-hour miniseries based on Cleopatra, NBC has ordered a four-hour miniseries based on former first lady Hillary Clinton starring Diane Lane, an "updated remake" of Rosemary's Baby, a new version of Stephen King's Tommyknockers and another limited series from Mark Burnett tentatively called Plymouth.
Greenblatt gave credit to CBS' Nina Tassler for the network's big summer swing with King's Under the Dome, noting that being in business with the author "sounds interesting" to executives at the network. Thus far this summer, Dome ranks as the No. 1 scripted series and a bona fide hit on Monday nights.
The four minis come a month after NBC hired ABC's Quinn Taylor as its new longform point person, who in the past has overseen King's previous miniseries.
For Burnett, this marks his second miniseries at the network, joining his follow-up to History's record-breaking The Bible with A.D.: Beyond the Bible, which the network added in early July.
Greenblatt noted the deal for the Clinton biopic just closed and casting has yet to begin for an actor to play Bill Clinton. While the former secretary of state is likely to announce her candidacy for president, Greenblatt said the mini will likely air before then -- avoiding concerns about offering about equal time to her potential Republican challenger.
"She's not going to declare her candidacy for two more years, so I think it will be the late spring or early summer of '15 that she will declare," Greenblatt told reporters. "This could well have aired before that. We have to talk through all that."
Hilary will be written and directed by Frozen River's Courtney Hunt and will recount Clinton's life as a wife, mother, politician and cabinet member from 1998 to the present. The script will begin with Clinton living in the White House as her husband is serving the second of his two terms as president. It will include her likely run for president. Busted Shark's Sherryl Clark will executive produce alongside James D. Stern (Looper). Greenblatt told reporters following his presentation that the former first lady hadn't yet heard of the project. (The project comes almost 10 years after Greenblatt opted to air CBS' controversial mini The Reagans during his tenure at Showtime.)
The NBC miniseries comes as a Hillary Clinton theatrical film also is taking shape. Rodham, which focuses on the future first lady's formative years in the 1970s and her courtship with Bill Clinton, is currently in development and seeking an actress to play the lead character.
Rosemary's Baby will also be a four-hour mini and is described as an updated retelling of the novel by Ira Levin that led to a feature film about devil worship and the relationship between a young husband and wife. In the new incarnation, the couple lives in Paris. Lionsgate will produce with Scott Abbott (Winchell) on board to pen the project. Joshua Maurer, David Stern, Perri Kipperman and Alix Witlin will executive produce.
King's Tommyknockers is based on the author's 1987 novel about the residents of a small Maine town and how they deal with what they perceive to be an alien spacecraft that has landed nearby. Frank Konigsberg and Larry Sanitsky will executive produce, while Emmy winner Yves Simoneau (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) will direct.
Limited series Plymouth will follow the challenges and drama of the Pilgrims' journey across the Atlantic and the difficulties of settling in a new country. Burnett and Anne Thomopoulos of Mark Burnett Productions will executive produce alongside Gina Matthews and Grant Scharbo of Little Engine. Oscar and Emmy winner Walon Green (NYPD Blue, The Hellstrom Chronicle) will pen the project.
With the additions, NBC becomes the latest network to delve further into the longform/event series business. The big push, which includes multiple high-profile projects at FX, Fox and ABC, comes as broadcast and cable networks alike look to lure A-list actors, prestige and eyeballs in an era dominated by DVRs. Greenblatt stressed the importance of event series and must-see live programming at NBC, including shows like The Voice as well as sports and Olympics programming.

Star Wars art Star Wars Rebels Logo STAR WARS REBELS
The first concept art and logo for Disney's animated Star Wars Rebels television series was revealed at Star Wars Celebration Europe on Saturday.
Executive producer Dave Filoni offered attendees the first look by unveiling drawings by concept artist Ralph McQuarrie that offer a better glimpse at the look and feel of Star Wars Rebels. Additionally, the official logo for the series was revealed. Executive producers Simon Kinberg and Greg Weisman sent a video message recorded for the attendees.
Star Wars Rebels takes place between Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, which spans about two decades. The animated series is set "in a time where the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking shape."
Star Wars Rebels is scheduled to premiere in fall 2014 as a one-hour special on Disney Channel before debuting as a television series on Disney XD.

SATURDAY, JULY 27, 2013

CLONE WARS TRAILER
The fifth and final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars is coming to DVD and Blu-Ray, and here’s the last bit of promo footage we’ll probably ever get to see. But, what about those never-released episodes still sitting on the shelf?
As we all know, Disney pulled the plug on the series after buying Lucasfilm to make way for Star Wars: Rebels on Disney XD — leaving an unknown amount of content in development and unreleased.
Fans had hoped the eventual DVD release (a.k.a. this one) would bring all that footage to the masses, but it sounds like we might be out of luck. The release info only mentions the 20 season five episodes that aired on television, meaning whatever else we might’ve been wanting probably didn’t make the cut.
There is still the promise of two director’s cut episodes, plus a “host of behind the scenes bonus materials, cast and crew interviews, and deleted and alternate scenes” on the way. But, “alternate” and “deleted” will probably not cover episodes that died in the pipe.
The fifth season, as well as a complete series package, are both scheduled to hit shelves on October 15, 2013. Until then, start reliving all the glorious action with the trailer above and officially say your goodbyes.

STAR TREK: NEXT GENERATION GAG REEL
Need proof a Klingon can have a good time? See the fourth wall break in these hilarious outtakes from the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
As the classic Trek series continues to find new live on Blu-Ray, the studio is teasing the latest set with a nice clip from the gag reel. We get to peek at a few scenes going off the rails, and it’s great to see Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn & Co. having a little fun back in the day.
Considering how melodramatic the show could get at times, these clips are all the more surreal.
If you want to check out the full blooper reel, pick up a copy of the season once it hits Blu-Ray on July 30.

THE WALKING DEAD - SEASON 4
With 50+ new Woodbury refugees pouring into the prison, we knew the cast was poised to swell for season four of The Walking Dead. So here are three more characters we’ll meet this fall.
After hearing about three other new characters on the way, plus three recurring characters that’ll be beefed up to regulars, it looks like the back half of season four will be adding even more survivors to the gang.
The folks at TV Line have the scoop, and here are the three new characters on the way later this year:
“While I can’t say if we’re due for another major death anytime soon, it’s looking like there will be warm bodies to fill any gaps. For midseason, the show is casting the recurring roles of John Tyler, a rough-around-the-edges and vulgar man with a propensity towards violence; Wayne Kesey, a gent in the 30s/40s whose book smarts are his main tools in survival; and Jordana Barraza, a Latina with a shameful past but a desire to learn right from others.”
Hmm. It sounds like “John Tyler” could fill the Merle void this season, while “Wayne Kesey” might be stepping into Milton’s role as the brain of the operation. As for “Jordana Barraza”? It sounds like she’ll slide right into Andrea’s conflicted mold quite nicely.

AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
It looks like Coulson won’t be the only agent with a fair share of secrets on Joss Whedon’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series.
A new featurette has been released showing off Ming-Na Wen’s Agent Melinda May, who doesn’t seem very keen to join up with Coulson’s secret unit. At least not at first.
We get to see a bit more of her backstory, as she has apparently requested to be taken out of the field for some unknown reason. But Coulson knows she can still kick ass, so he drags her back into the action. Judging by some of her fight scenes, the field is definitely where she belongs.
For Stargate fans, Ming-Na should also look familiar, as she played Camile Wray on Universe. This role looks to be a whole different animal, though, so it'll be nice to see her getting in on the action a little more.
The series debuts on Tuesday, Sept. 24.

FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2013

Once Upon A Time ONCE UPON A TIME NEWS
At least part of "Once Upon a Time" Season 3 will take place in Neverland, as we saw our intrepid heroes set sail for the "Peter Pan" locale in search of Henry. Now the show has announced who will play one of J.M. Barrie's classic characters.
Rose McIver has been cast as Tinkerbell, reports EW. The iconic fairy will have a surprising connection to another character and will appear in multiple episodes.
Meanwhile, TV Line reports that Sean Maguire has replaced Tom Ellis as Robin Hood. Ellis was unable to return due to his "Merlin" obligations, so Maguire will step in for a recurring arc.
One big role left to cast? The Little Mermaid, Ariel.
"Once Upon a Time" returns Sunday, Sept. 29 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

George R. R. Martin A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE
George R. R. Martin's next A Song of Ice and Fire novel isn't done yet, but he might have already spilled one of its biggest secrets.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!
Martin's last novel in the epic series, 2011's A Dance with Dragons, left one particular character in a state of extreme uncertainy. For the last two years, readers haven't even known if he's even still alive, but Martin may have just accidentally revealed the truth while answering a question about long-term planning for his characters in a lengthy (and very fascinating) interview with io9. His answer is below. See if you can spot the possible accidental spoilage.
"You introduce characters, and sometimes they take on a life of their own.
"Some major characters — yes, I always had plans, what Tyrion's arc was gonna be through this, what Arya's arc was gonna be through this, what Jon Snow's arc is gonna be. I knew what the principal deaths were gonna be, and when they were coming. That would be the closest thing."
Did you catch it? Yeah, Martin used the word is, not was, when referring to Jon Snow, whose fate was left ambiguous at the end of Dance with Dragons after he was stabbed repeatedly by some of his fellow Night's Watch brothers. Some fans had already written Jon off as dead based on his final appearance in the book, but this quote definitely rekindles hope that the character isn't gone.
Or is he? Obviously, Martin could have simply misspoke, or he could have been referring to knowing what Jon Snow's arc would be back in the early '90s when he began the series. Either way, that little grammar choice will be enough to keep even more fans talking about Jon's fate right up until the day the sixth book in the series, The Winds of Winter, finally hits bookstores.

47 RONIN
Keanu Reeves just proved again that he can still kick some ass in this first awesome trailer for 47 Ronin.
Written by Fast & Furious 6’s Chris Morgan and Drive’s Hossein Amini (which probably accounts for the amazing action sequences we’ve seen in this trailer), 47 Ronin is the first English-language version of a film that has already seen (*gasp*) 80 adaptations in Japan!
Our boy Keanu (who is 48, by the way, and looks at least 10 years younger, not that we're jealous or anything) plays a warrior who is recruited by 47 samurai to get revenge "upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind."
The movie has lots of stunning fantastical elements, ranging from ghosts, magic, Voldemort-like men and dragons.
Alongside Reeves, the flick will also star Hiroyuki Sanada (The Wolverine), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Tekken) and Rinko Kikuchi (Pacific Rim).
47 Ronin will hit theatres on Christmas Day—Dec. 25, 2013.

Red Witch AGENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
Director Joss Whedon will be expanding the roster with Avengers: Age of Ultron, and now he’s finally dropped some hints about what he’ll be doing with Scarlet Witch. The big news? She’ll have a whole new look.
Chatting with Nerdist, Whedon opened up a bit about how he’ll be handling the addition of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. When asked if he’ll keep Scarlet Witch’s comic-booky (but kick-ass) half-helmet, Whedon said it will most definitely be heading to the chopping block.
But that doesn’t mean they won’t pay homage to the design:
“No. She might wear a headband or something that might echo it. The guys at Marvel, the conceptual artists, are phenomenal, and they are so good at taking the essence of what works and interpreting it for the actual human body, and when they paint something you can not only tell how it’s gonna work on a person, you can even tell what fabric it’ll be. They are very specific, very talented. So I’m excited to see the designs. Obviously we want to echo the look that people know, but there’s the classic look and the Ultimates look, but you have to do it in a way that will work. But it can’t be too old school … she can’t wear a leotard.”
Considering the Marvel Cinematic Universe has made quite a few changes to the comic canon the past few years, mostly for the good, all we can really do is put our faith in Whedon that he’ll be able to figure it all out.

COLD COMES THE NIGHT
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions has acquired all domestic and international media rights to Tze Chun’s Cold Comes the Night, starring Alice Eve (Star Trek Into Darkness), Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad"), and Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus).
Currently in post-production, Cold Comes the Night is directed Chun and written by Chun alongside Osgood Perkins, and Nick Simon. Chun’s acclaimed debut feature, Children of Invention, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won 17 festival awards.
Chun’s film tells the story of a struggling motel owner (Eve) who, along with her daughter (Parker), is taken hostage by a career criminal (Cranston) as he attempts to retrieve his cash package from a crooked cop (Marshall-Green). Everyone gets in over their heads, and a series of double-crosses leaves a string of dead bodies in this pulse-pounding story about desperation and survival.
The film, which also stars Ursula Parker ("Louie") and Leo Fitzpatrick ("The Wire"), is produced by Mynette Louie of Syncopated Films and Trevor Sagan of Sasquatch Films. It was financed by Three Point Capital, Whitewater Films, and Cherry Sky Films, and executive produced by Scott Halle, Rick Rosenthal, Nick Morton, Jacob Pechenik, and Ali Jazayeri. Lauren Craniotes, Vice President of Production for SPWA, is overseeing the film for SPWA.

Wes Bentley INTERSTELLAR
Following yesterday's announcement that Topher Grace had been cast, The Hollywood Reporter has brought word that The Hunger Games' Wes Bentley has joined Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. Bentley has filled the final role in the film's all-star line-up that also includes Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Bill Irwin, Mackenzie Foy, John Lithgow and Casey Affleck.
Directed and written by Nolan, Interstellar is based on a script by Jonathan Nolan. The film will be produced by Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan of Syncopy Films and Obst of Lynda Obst Productions. Kip Thorne will executive produce.
Interstellar will depict a heroic interstellar voyage to the furthest reaches of our scientific understanding. The movie hits theaters on November 7, 2014.

THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2013

REVOLUTION UPDATE - SPOILER WARNING
If you didn’t watch the season-one finale of Revolution back in June, you might want to stop reading here.
Still with us?
Then you know that in the last seconds of the first-season finale, nuclear warheads were racing toward Atlanta and Philadelphia because of Randall’s (Colm Feore) twisted plan to reunite the states back into one entity. We were left wondering if they could be diverted, and the answer is no, as the new season trailer shows:
Along with the nuclear fallout, there are plenty of behind-the-scenes changes, too, as creator Eric Kripke has enlisted Rockne S. O'Bannon and Ben Edlund to join the series as executive producers and writers. They’re helping chart a new direction for the series, which has also changed shooting locations from North Carolina to Texas.
In a recent interview, O'Bannon admits he’s been onboard with the series just as a fan since the pilot.
“I came to the show since literally the first episode of the show. I was working on two shows last year, which I don’t recommend, but this was one of the shows I made an effort to record and watch, because I just loved it. It really did surprise me, and some of the things I talked to Eric about is that I see Revolution a real saga. In my mind, the characters of the show are essentially the heroes of the future. 100 years from now, in this show, they will be erecting statues for these characters and writing about them in history books. We don’t who is who right now, but we’ll see. Humanity has clearly taken a turn. By taking away all of our electronics, we have to see what is going to grow out of that. In my mind, it’s sort of a cleaned palate of society.”
Ben Edlund, who worked on Supernatural for the past few years, says he’s excited about this post-nuclear world –- which is three months post-detonations -– will initially break apart, then reconnect the core characters. “In a way, the nuclear bombs destabilized our story base in kind of a cool way. We’ve blown the chains of story into the air, and we’ve got parts and pieces landing around Texas for us to explore. Season one was Book One, and season two is Book Two: The Texas Chapter. Book One was about being opposed to a militia force, so it developed around military stories. The core fabric of this one is they land in a town, and instead of it being a road movie, it’s about settling down for a little bit. It will allow for deepening stories.”
Revolution returns to NBC on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2013.

SNOWPIERCER
Wanna know exactly how Earth became a winter hellscape in the new Snowpiercer movie? Check out this animated prologue detailing the global warming cure that went very very bad.
Based on the avant-garde French graphic novel LeTransperceneige, by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette, director Bong Joon-ho (The Host) has detailed his film adaptation with a grim dystopian flair and some rip-roaring action sequences, as seen in the most recent trailer. Following an environmental disaster turning the planet into a giant ice cube, survivors exist on a titanic supertrain that circles the chilly Earth nonstop. Snowpiercer opens next month in South Korea, with U.S. release dates to follow. It stars Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Jamie Bell, Ewan Bremner, Ed Harris, Alison Pill, Octavia Spencer and Song Kang-ho. Here's the official synopsis:
Snowpiercer is set in a future where, after a failed experiment to stop global warming, an Ice Age kills off all life on the planet except for the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine. A class system evolves on the train but a revolution brews.

TRANSFORMERS 4
Titus Welliver is the latest name to join the cast of Michael Bay's Transformers 4, now in production, Deadline reports. His character has not yet been revealed.
Welliver joins Mark Wahlberg, Jack Reynor, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Sophia Myles, Li Bingbing, T.J. Miller and Han Geng in the June 27, 2014 release. Although the plot of sequel is still top secret, Bay teased recently that it will involve a "Chase from Hell."
Welliver is known for big screen roles in films like Argo and The Town. Genre fans will recognize the actor from the recent Marvel Studios One-Shot, "Item 47," as well as for playing the Man in Black on ABC's "LOST."

YUKIKAZE
First announced back in April, Warner Bros. Pictures' adaptation of Japanese author Chohei Kambayashi's alien invasion novel Yukikaze has found a writer in Dan Mazeau (Wrath of the Titans). Tom Cruise remains attached to star.
The serialized Yukikaze began being published in the pages of SF Magazine in 1979. The collected version of the tale is officially described as follows:
More than thirty years ago, a hyper-dimensional passageway suddenly appeared over the continent of Antarctica. Fighters from the mysterious alien force known as the JAM poured through the passage, the first wave an attempted terrestrial invasion. Their ferocity was unquestionable, their aim unknown. Humanity, united by a common enemy, managed to repel the invaders, chasing them back through the passageway to the strange planet nicknamed “Fairy.”
The task of finishing the battle was given to the newly formed FAF, a combat force created to go to Fairy and eliminate the JAM bases once and for all. Now, in the midst of a war with no end in sight, Second Lieutenant Rei Fukai carries out his missions in the skies over Fairy. Attached to Tactical Combat and Surveillance Unit 3 of the Special Air Force, his duty is to gather information on the enemy and bring it back to base—no matter the human cost. His only constant companion in this lonely task is his fighter plane, the sentient FFR-31 Super Sylph, call sign: Yukikaze.
The novel was previously adapted into a five-episode Japanese direct-to-video anime series.

SONS OF ANARCHY
FX has announced it will launch the sixth season of "Sons of Anarchy" on September 10 at 10 PM ET/PT with a special 90-minute episode and will continue to run the series on Tuesdays at 10 PM.
"Sons of Anarchy" is an adrenalized drama with darkly comedic undertones that explores a notorious outlaw motorcycle club’s (MC) desire to protect its livelihood while ensuring that their simple, sheltered town of Charming, California remains exactly that, charming. The MC must confront threats from drug dealers, corporate developers, and overzealous law officers. Behind the MC’s familial lifestyle and legally thriving automotive shop is a ruthless and illegal arms business driven by the seduction of money, power, and blood.
Jackson ‘Jax’ Teller (Charlie Hunnam) is SAMCRO’s new President who must face the consequences of the MC’s illicit deeds before they tear the club apart. Gemma Teller-Morrow (Katey Sagal) is Jax’s formidable mother. Clarence ‘Clay’ Morrow (Ron Perlman) is Jax’s stepfather, the last of the Original Nine and former President. Dr. Tara Knowles (Maggie Siff) is Jax’s old lady and mother of his second son.
Having framed Clay for the murder of Damon Pope, Season Six begins with Jax’s leadership uncontested, but his family life suffering from his single-minded pursuit of John Teller’s vision. Jax must find a way to keep Tara from going to prison for conspiracy to commit murder while rebuilding his club and breaking from the cycle of violence and greed that ultimately led to his best friend’s death.
"Sons of Anarchy’s" season five notched its most viewers to date, continuing the show’s run as the highest–rated program in the history of FX. In Total Viewers, the show captured an average of 6.4 million and in Adults 18-49, it averaged 4.4 million viewers.

THOR: THE DARK WORLD
YouTube announced a special programming week from August 4-10 called "Geek Week," and they've revealed they will premiere the new trailer for Thor: The Dark World in conjunction with the event on Wednesday, August 7th.
Though not confirmed, the new trailer could contain footage that was screened at their San Diego Comic-Con panel.
Thor: The Dark World continues the big-screen adventures of Thor, the Mighty Avenger, as he battles to save Earth and all the Nine Realms from a shadowy enemy that predates the universe itself. In the aftermath of Marvel's "Thor" and "Marvel's The Avengers," Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos...but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.
Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano, Jaimie Alexander, Rene Russo and Anthony Hopkins star in the November 8th release.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 2014

GRAVITY
"Gravity," an upcoming film starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, has a new trailer. This trailer may be one of the tensest and most stressful two minutes of footage ever.
Seriously, watching this video may bring on a panic attack.
The concept of the film is simple. Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) is a first-time astronaut and a medical engineer. Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) is a veteran in command of his final shuttle mission. Thanks to debris striking the shuttle, Stone and Kowalsky are left alone in space. They are tethered to each other, but oxygen is limited and both are hurtling into the hopeless realm of deep space.
Do the astronauts have any chance of getting home? It sure doesn't sound like it.
In the "Detached" clip, audiences see the beginning of the astronauts' problems. Despite everyone's best efforts, radio communications go silent and Stone's tragically small figure vanishes into the darkness.
Prepare yourself for nightmares -- of the best kind -- after an image like that.

Ron Moore HELIX AND OUTLANDER
TV hasn’t had a new Ron D. Moore drama since Caprica, so fans of the genre-centric series creator will be glad to hear that we’re getting two new sci-fi series from the man in 2014. Helix and Outlander (based on Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling novels) are both being executive produced by Moore and will explore the far reaches of the Artic Circle and historic Scotland way back in the 1700s.
Helix starts production on 13 episodes in early August and is as he describes it, a “thriller with horrific elements.” It will star Billy Campbell (The 4400) as CDC scientist Dr. Alan Farragut, who travels to the Artic Circle after receiving an emergency call from a remote outpost station there.
Moore tells us that the base isn’t “owned or controlled by any one particular nation. It’s sort of a group of people who cobbled money together through mysterious sources and have been up there for quite some time doing medical research. Something happens at the base and a virus breaks out. They go under quarantine and they call the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to send a team to help them contain it. When [the team gets] there, they discover there’s a lot more going on than anticipated and they start realizing the research that has been going on has enormous potential to help humanity or to destroy humanity. Each episode is just one day at the base so the tension keeps ramping up and ramping up until we get to the end of the season.”
At the same time, Moore and his former Deep Space Nine executive producing partner, Ira Behr, are prepping the adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s time-traveling, historical romance series, Outlander, into a premium cable series for Starz network.
Moore enthusiastically reveals that they’ll be shooting the series in Scotland this fall. “It’s a really an exciting piece. We have 16 episodes. It’s a big production, and if you know the books at all, it’s a big, sweeping story.”
“We’re at pains to really follow the books,” he says to assure concerned readers. “One of the great things was Starz said to us early on was, 'We love the books, we think they are great so let's make the [show] for the people who love the books. Let’s make it for the fans of the books first and trust that anyone who doesn’t know the material will get swept along in the story like everyone else does.' Nobody ever says that,” Moore laughs. “Typically studios and networks just say, 'Yeah, we don’t really care about the book. We bought it for the cover or whatever…' and then dispense with it very early on [in the process]. This was the rare time when everybody said this is great material and we like the story and these characters so let’s try to get as close to the books as possible in the show and that’s what we are doing.”

Gran Turismo GRAN TURISMO
A feature film version of the hit video game series Gran Turismo is on the way from Sony Pictures, The Wrap reports. Dana Brunetti and Mike De Luca are attached to produce.
The first Gran Turismo was released for PlayStation in 1997 and boasted 140 different sport cars and 11 different racing environments. The most successful game franchise in PlayStation history, Gran Turismo 6 is slated to hit shelves later this year.
The news comes in the wake of Universal Pictures' Fast & Furious 6 breaking records worldwide and earning more than $700 million worldwide. DreamWorks Pictures, meanwhile, has their own racing franchise in the works, also based on a video game series. The Scott Waugh-directed Need for Speed will hit theaters March 14, 2014.

PENDRAGON P.I. - HELP JASON CARTER
Want to see British actor Jason Carter (Marcus on the classic hit sci-fi series Babylon 5) return as an unconventional private investigator who's a bit of Sherlock Holmes, a splash of Sam Spade, and a dash of The Doctor?
Jason Carter is working with Jerry Seward, creator and executive producer of an independent movie pilot titled Pendragon, P.I.that They are developing a gifted and accomplished production team to produce this series. Jason will play the lead, a man who - along with his helper Lucy (played by April Washko) - relies on his deductive skills to sort through a maze of clues in an attempt to solve the case of mysterious disappearances in a small, lakeside town where impossible things happen.
For more information on how you can help, go to http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-get-pendragon-p-i-jason-carter-project-made?show_todos=true.

TUESDAY, JULY 23, 2013

J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI - COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL ICON AWARD
Here is a post from the Fans of JMS Facebook page:
I wanted to extend my thanks here to the good folks at SDCC who this weekend honored me with the International Icon Award. I had no idea it was coming, so I was clueless as to what they were going on about when I arrived for my spotlight to find folks waiting for me on stage. By the time I figured out it was an award, let alone an Icon award, it was time to step up onto the stage to receive it, so I don't know how coherent I was in my acceptance.
So I wanted to use this space to extend my thanks to everyone at the convention for this amazing recognition, an award that's only been given eight times or so in the long history of SDCC (to folks like George Lucas, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Matt Groening and Stan Lee). It's an absolutely stunning honor, and I am infinitely appreciative.
If you would like to read more, go to http://www.comic-con.org/toucan/j-michael-straczynski-latest-icon-award-recipient.

SUPERNATURAL
"Supernatural" star Jensen Ackles took some time during the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con to talk about what's coming in Season 9 of his show.
Here are some interview highlights that Jensen had to share:
"They have no choice now but to dive in and figure out how they're going to navigate this whole new element that is now on their plate -- all the angels and demons ... We don't know how the angels are going to come into play, whether they're friend or foe."
"I like the fact that Dean is not playing the guilty cheerleader anymore."
On Crowley: "They think that he is going to better serve them alive than dead.
"But of course it's all going to backfire, it's all going to go to s***. That's just Season 9."
"They have outgrown the scope of Dad's journal to the extent of what they're dealing with."
On Castiel becoming human: "It's going to be interesting to see how the relationship between Castiel and -- not just Dean but Dean and Sam -- goes from here, given the fact that he is just a regular guy. Might have to have a few training sessions in store... 'OK, this is how we load a gun.'"

ROBOCOP REBOOT
There are a lot of hard core fans of director Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 film RoboCop that groaned loudly when it was announced that the seminal, ultra-violent action film was getting a brand-new remake. At San Diego Comic-Con, actor Joel Kinnaman, who plays the human cop Alex Murphy and later his robotic self, was adamant about distancing their version of the story from the original in a show of respect to Verhoeven’s work.
The style, the robotics, the lesser violence (it’s going for a PG-13 rating) and even the quotable lines were all considered very carefully to avoid direct comparisons and set this film apart. For example, Kinnamon said, “We kept a couple of lines from the original but we feel like all of the iconic lines from the first movie were part of the tone of Verhoeven’s movie, so I think that would feel unjust and disrespectful to keep all of the lines. “Your move, creep” did not, but it’s something that I say to my friends all the time when I play chess with them on my iPhone,” the actor laughed. “I practiced it a lot but never say it in the movie.”
Kinnamon also explained audiences will get more time with Alex Murphy before he gets gunned down and rebooted. “We go a little further with Alex Murphy and spend more time with him at work as an undercover cop and as a family man. He’s got a beautiful little family and that leads very much to the question -– is he now property? Is he owned by OmniCorp? He is very vulnerable because his system needs to be changed and he needs to be plugged in, so he is dependent on this corporation that has made him to survive. [His suit] has made him very powerful but at the same time vulnerable. [OmniCorp] also lets him interact with his family and lets him reconnect with his family after he’s become RoboCop and that’s not something that’s easy -– to try to embrace your six-year-old son and wife when you have a big robotic body and you can’t feel them.”
An admitted long-time fan of the original movie, which the actor said he’d “probably seen 25 or 30 times,” Kinnamon shared that his RoboCop walk has been in unofficial development since he was young.
“I started rehearsing my RoboCop walk way before I even became an actor so I was well-versed in my robo-walk. But when I got the suit on, the idea [hit] that the 1987 vision of where robotics would be is very different from a 2013 vision of where robotics would be, and how a robot would move 15 years in the future. So when I put the suit on, I had some ideas. We went for a more superhuman approach to his movement pattern. We also added in some more robotic movement to it too. I played around with it and [director] Jose (Padilha) would look at it and maybe give me a little note, and then I’d either take it or work on something else. Mostly I took his notes,” Kinnaman laughs.
RoboCop opens February 7, 2014.

DRACULA
A bloody new trailer for NBC’s Dracula series was released to coincide with San Diego Comic-Con, and it looks like the blood will be flowing in buckets once this one arrives in the fall.
The sexy, bloody trailer is the best setup yet to show what fans can look forward to — and this one lands right in the sweet spot of a Victorian-era True Blood. It’s graphic, and it shows off quite a bit of vampy lovemaking and gruesome death.
Set in the 1890s, the series stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Dracula, though he’s assumed the identity of an American businessman to keep his bloodsucking a secret. The cast is rounded out by Arrow alum Jessica DeGouw as Dracula’s love interest, and Thomas Kretschmann as a new twist on Van Helsing.
The trailer was a bit too graphic for my taste, but you an check out the trailer using the link below:
http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3244444/comic-con-13-vicious-dracula-trailer-will-leave-you-beheaded-and-bleeding-sdcc/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter.

AGENT CARTER
Set to be included as a bonus feature on the Iron Man 3 Blu-ray release on September 24, Marvel Studios' latest "One-Shot" short film, "Agent Carter" has brought online a new clip that you can check out here.
The film features Hayley Atwell, reprising her role as Peggy Carter. Set one year after the events of Captain America: The First Avenger, "Agent Carter" also stars Bradley Whitford, Shane Black and few additional surprises.
"After the premiere of 'Captain America,' I went straight back to London to do a play," says Atwell of how the project came about. "I thought that was the end of it. Then months and months and months later, I got a call from Lou [D'Esposito] saying that this was something that we could make together. It was as new to me as it was to the fans."

WARRIORS OF OZ
A new vision of L. Frank Baum's world of Oz is on the way from Timur Bekmambetov. Deadline reports that the Nightwatch and Wanted director will executive produce and potentially direct "Warriors of Oz," a miniseries set to air on Syfy.
The miniseries would follow modern day warriors on a journey through a post-apocalyptic future version of Oz taken over by an evil wizard. The Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion are to be reimagined as three warriors themselves, Heartless, Brainless and Coward.
It's been a busy time for Baum-fueled adaptations in Hollywood. Earlier this year, Sam Raimi's Oz The Great and Powerful hit the big screen and, set for release on May 9, 2014, Summertime Entertainment will offer their animated take, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return.

VAMPIRE ACADEMY
First announced back in 2010, Richelle Mead's hit book series Vampire Academy is headed to the big screen. Today, The Weinstein Company has revealed the film's official site.
Directed by Mean Girls helmer Mark Waters, Vampire Academy stars Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Danila Kozlovsky, Gabriel Byrne, Sarah Hyland, Joely Richardson, Cameron Monaghan, Sami Gayle, Claire Foy and Ashley Charles. The film follows Rose Hathaway (Deutch) is a Dhampir: half human/vampire, guardians of the Moroi, peaceful, mortal vampires living discretely within our world. Her legacy is to protect the Moroi from bloodthirsty, immortal Vampires, the Strigoi.
Susan Montford, Don Murphy, Deepak Nayer and Michael Preger will produce with Stuart Ford executive producing.
Vampire Academy hits theaters February 14, 2014.

12 MONKEYS
Terry Gilliam's 1995 feature 12 Monkeys is heading to the small screen. The Hollywood Reporter brings word that the time travel tale is in development as a series with "Terra Nova" writers Travis Fickett and Terry Matalas attached to pen the pilot.
Inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film "La Jetée," 12 Monkeys begins in a post-apocalyptic future wherein a convict, James Cole (played by Bruce Willis in the 1995 film), volunteers to travel back in time in the hopes of learning how it came to be that the release of a deadly virus set the world down a path to its own near-destruction.
Chuck Roven and Richard Suckle, both of whom produced the original film, are attached to the series with a 90-minute pilot currently being planned. "24" helmet Jon Cassar is attached to direct.

MONDAY, JULY 22, 2013

THE AGENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
As if brand-new trailers for Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier weren't enough, Joss Whedon came out at the end of the Marvel panel at Comic-Con to really blow the audience's minds.
Whedon strode out only to announce, "I don't have a lot to say," before pointing to the big screen behind the stage as the lights went down. A short teaser unveiled a quick glimpse of a mechanical head very familiar to Marvel fans and the name The Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Ultron, of course, is the robotic being created by Dr. Hank Pym that has tried again and again over the years to wipe out humanity, most recently in the Brian Michael Bendis run also titled Age of Ultron.
It's unknown whether Whedon will pull from that story or earlier ones, and whether he will incorporate the Ultron-created android the Vision, a role that has been linked to Vin Diesel. The mind reels at all the possible ways this could go. And where does Thanos fit in? Also, will Hank Pym be introduced in the Avengers sequel, since his Ant-Man movie is being released after that?
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige brought Whedon out at the end of a thrilling panel that also featured visits from the casts of the Captain America sequel and Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as an assembly of footage from the latter movie, which is only 10 days into shooting.
The panel kicked off with a visit from Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in the flesh, as the actor exhorted the delighted audience in costume and character.
He introduced the new extended trailer for Thor: The Dark World, which opened with the God of Thunder (Chris Hemsworth) and his fellow Asgardians in battle before Thor eventually heads to Earth to reunite with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). A destructive force soon appears on Earth as well, the work of Malekith (Christopher Eccleston).
With Malekith potentially destroying the fabric of reality itself, Thor must turn to Loki for help. But can his imprisoned brother be trusted? In one final shot, it looks like Loki betrays his adopted brother to Malekith.
Following that, Feige brought out Captain America: The Winter Soldier directors Joe and Anthony Russo, plus cast members Chris Evans (Cap), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Anthony Mackie (the Falcon), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill), Emily van Camp (Sharon Carter/Agent 13) and Frank Grillo (Brock Rumlow/Crossbones).
Asked how large a role Black Widow has in the movie, Scarlett said she's "very integral" to the story, adding that she and Cap develop a very complicated relationship. "They have different approaches to morality," added Evans.
Evans also said that Cap is now dealing with a modern age where "people are less trusting and the world is not as black and white as it used to be."
The talk was kept brief as the lights went down again and the footage began with a riveting scene of Cap being surrounded in an elevator at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ and laying waste to all of them within the enclosed space. As with most of these trailers, the action flashes by too quickly to absorb everything, but we do get to see Evans being debriefed by the S.H.I.E.L.D. exec played by Robert Redford, several shots of the Falcon taking flight and pursued by a jet fighter, a penultimate scene of the Helicarrier crashing badly into a body of water and one last shot of the Winter Soldier picking up Cap's shield.
Before the audience could recover from that relentless footage, Feige next brought out -- fresh off a plane from London -- director James Gunn and the cast of Guardians of the Galaxy, including Chris Pratt (Star-Lord), Dave Batista (Drax), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Michael Rooker (Yondu), Benicio Del Toro (The Collector), Lee Pace (Ronan the Accuser), Djimon Honsou (Korath the Pursuer) and Karen Gillan (Nebula), the latter of whom stunned the audience by pulling off what turned out to be a red wig and revealing that she has shaved her head for the part!
Again, the discussion was kept to a minimum, although the massive Bautista won over the crowd when he said that he fought really hard for the job, and "when I got it I broke down and cried like a baby." Pratt described his character by saying, "He's kind of a jerk; he had a hard time as a kid and now he goes around space making out with hot alien girls and being a bit of a rogue and a jerk, and through teaming up with these guys finds a higher purpose, something to care about and fight for and put his life on the line."
Saldana chimed in, "I've been blue once, so why not try green?"
Despite just starting production, Marvel assembled an impressive reel of footage that emphasized, above all, that the tone of Guardians will be decidedly lighter and more comedic. br> Guardians seems to be setting itself up as a wild space opera with flavors of both Serenity and Galaxy Quest, which sounds right to us and completely different from anything Marvel has done before. It was the surprise hit of the panel -- until Mr. Whedon pulled off his act.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
The horror genre is making unprecedented gains at the 2013 summer box office, a playtime historically ruled by all-audience tentpoles.
This past weekend, New Line and Warner Bros.' low-budget The Conjuring scared up a $41.5 million opening, far more than anyone anticipated and more than three times the dismal $12.8 million debut of Universal's big-budget tentpole R.I.P.D., which cost at least $130 million to make and stars Ryan Reynolds opposite Jeff Bridges. It also left Red 2, which opened to $18.5 million, in the dust.
The Conjuring came in ahead of the openings for recent summer tentpoles Pacific Rim ($37.2 million), The Lone Ranger ($29.2 million), After Earth ($27.5 million) and White House Down ($24.0 million).
Directed by Saw maestro James Wan and costing only $20 million to produce, The Conjuring follows the success of Universal's The Purge, which opened to No. 1 over the June 7-9 weekend, grossing $34.1 million and besting big studio comedy The Internship, which debuted to $17.4 million.
Generally speaking, horror pics avoid the heart of summer, preferring the August corridor and other times of the year, such as Halloween.
This unspoken rule could change with the success of The Conjuring and The Purge, which respectively boast the top openings of all time for an original R-rated horror movie and guarantee sizeable profits for their respective studios.
Based on a true story, The Conjuring stars Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as paranormal investigators who help a family terrorized by a dark force. Lily Taylor and Ron Livingston also star in the movie, which received an A- CinemaScore from moviegoers, a rarity for a horror film, and generally strong reviews.
One reason for the success of horror this summer could be females turned off by action fare. Teenage girls and younger women are huge fans of the genre. Overall, females made up 53 percent of those buying tickets to see The Conjuring.
"It was a bold move for us to go right in the middle of summer. It's very significant," says Jeff Goldstein, WB's executive vp domestic distribution. "Its success shows that fresh material attracts the audience in a big way. The real-life aspect of this movie makes it look very cool, and it scares the stuffing out of you."
The Purge, produced by Jason Blum of Paranormal Activity and Insidious fame, cost just $3 million to make. It has earned $64.1 million domestically and $12.3 million so far internationally for a total $76.4 million.
While designed as an all-audience tentpole, Brad Pitt zombie epic World War Z also is benefiting from the heightened interest in horror. The summer title has grossed north of $456 million to date.
Earlier this year, Universal's horror pic Mama was another win for the genre, opening to $32.1 million and trouncing the favored front-runner, Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe action-thriller Broken City.

SUNDAY, JULY 21, 2013

News J. MICHAELSTRACZYNSKI HONORED
Congratulations to J. Michael Stracznyski, the 2013 Comic-Con International Icon Award recipient!

Batman-Superman Logo SUPERMAN/BATMAN MOVIE COMING
"Man of Steel" director Zack Snyder took the stage at Comic-Con to reveal that he has begun work on a sequel. Batman and Superman will unite for a sequel to Warner Bros.’ “Man of Steel,” paving the way for a “Justice League” movie, the studio announced at Comic-Con on Saturday. The news was leaked just before the panel began, but that didn’t temper fans’ rapturous reaction to what would be the first time the superheroes were united on screen.
Director Zack Snyder ("Man of Steel," "300") made a surprise appearance in Hall H to announce he was working on the sequel, and promised to reveal something to "inform" audience expectations. He brought out actor Harry Lennix, who read a passage from Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight" - and then the screen flashed the Superman "S" symbol, shadowed by the distinctive wings of Batman. The crowd, as they say, went wild.
Snyder and David Goyer, who wrote the first one, will write the second one, maintaining the core creative team from the summer’s monster hit.
Though Snyder disclosed nothing more, Warner Bros. then sent out a press release announcing that Henry Cavill would return as Superman. Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane will repreise their roles as well. It remains unclear who will play Batman.
Christian Bale, who played Batman in Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy, has said he is done with the part.
The new film also brings back Charles Roven and Deborah Snyder as producers. Nolan and partner Emma Thomas are serving as executive producers, along with Benjamin Melniker and Michael E. Uslan.
In a prepared statement, Warner production chief Greg Silverman said: “Zack Snyder is an incredibly talented filmmaker, but beyond that, he’s a fan first and he utterly gets this genre. We could not think of anyone better suited to the task of bringing these iconic superheroes to the screen in his own way."
“Superman and Batman together on the big screen is a dream come true for DC fans everywhere. All of us at DC Entertainment could not be more excited for Zack’s continuing vision for the DC Universe," said Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment.
The success of Nolan’s Batman movies made the rebirth of Superman the next logical step for Warner Bros. in its efforts to leverage the DC Comics library, which also includes iconic characters such as the Flash, the Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Aquaman.
Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” did not reinvigorate the franchise, delaying those plans for a few years. Snyder’s “Man of Steel” gave Warner Bros. exactly what it wanted, grossing more than $600 million at the worldwide box office and furthering speculation that Warner Bros. would plot a multi-character “Justice League” movie.
TheWrap reported on the eve of the film’s debut that Warner Bros. was planning to make a sequel to “Man of Steel” first, and then move on to “Justice League” and the other DC characters. Though early reports on Saturday indicated Warner Bros. would formally announce those plans for movies about The Flash and Justice League, the studio did not say anything beyond "Man of Steel."
Warner Bros. announced its plans for Superman and Batman on Saturday at a panel where the studio showcased seven different upcoming movies, including “Godzilla,” “Lego: The Movie” and Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity.”
One question that went unanswered on Saturday is whether Legendary Entertainment will be involved in any way. Legendary co-financed and co-produced the “Dark Knight” movies and “Man of Steel” under a deal it had with Warner Bros. Yet Legendary has now moved on to NBCUniversal, and the schism was evident on Saturday as Warner Bros. slotted all the Legendary movies at the beginning of the panel, and reserved the second half for its own projects.
Regardless of who makes it, it is inevitable that Cavill, Snyder and the gang will return to Comic-Con in future years, promoting what Warner Bros. hopes will become a lengthy streak of hit movies.

Guardians of the Galaxy GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
They weren't scheduled to make an appearance, but the cast and crew of Marvel's next new title, "Guardians of the Galaxy," surprised the crowd at San Diego Comic-Con.
After they left the fans in Hall H cheering for more, the cast sat down to talk to the press about the movie and their characters, along with director James Gunn. Gunn kicked it off with his interpretation of what the story is. "'Guardians' is about a family coming together," he says, "It really is about a group of individuals who have acted selfishly, and only as individuals throughout their life, learning something about themselves that makes them heroes.
He also says the script for the movie isn't too dark in his opinion, though that's sort of what Gunn does best. "I don't think of it as darkly comedic. I do think of it as me. There's a lot of James Gunn in this movie." While some might not agree with that approach, it seems producer Kevin Feige and "Avengers" director Joss Whedon go. Upon turning the first draft of the script in, Gunn says, "Their biggest note was 'More James Gunn', which freaked the hell out of me.
As for his goals for the movie, Gunn jokes that he wants to avoid spoilers but, "I have some really big injuries planned for Michael Rooker (Yondu) and hopefully [Dave] Bautista (Drax the Destroyer) is going to help me with those."
When asked about his process of preparing for his role as Star Lord, Chris Pratt says it took six months to get in the shape he needed to be in. It paid off though, and Pratt has the selfie to prove it.
Zoe Saldana, who plays Gamora, says she's excited to be entering the Marvel universe, especially in a movie like "Guardians." "I do believe that Guardians have bigger powers in a way," she says, "and if we were up against Captain America or Thor, I would totally kick his a**."
Bautista is still relatively new to the acting game, even though he's a former WWE World Champion. He admits that he's still learning and honing his craft and that "Guardians" is hands down the biggest thing he's ever been involved with.
Benicio del Toro was announced during the Hall H panel as joining the movie in the role of The Collector. When asked what weird or wonderful thing his character brought to the table, del Toro offered a simple, "Well, he collects things."
Before ending the panel, Gunn shared a personal story Benicio told him during the casting process. The pair were talking about the character and collecting in general when del Toro looked at him and said, "You know, I was the first kid in my neighborhood to have an alligator." According to Gunn, it's in his top five favorite sentences of all time. "It's true," del Toro confirms.
"Guardians of the Galaxy" will be in theaters August 1, 2014.

REVOLUTION SEASON 2
Saturday, the cast of NBC's Revolution made an appearance at San Diego Comic-Con. They teased the upcoming second season and debuted a new trailer. We have to admit, it's much more brutal than we expected. There are tons of explosions and a fair share of stabbings. Once again, series regulars are put on the chopping block. Showrunner Eric Kripke has no problem killing off fan favorites.
At the panel, Kripke discussed the amount of destruction ahead. “We’re trying to be the first network show in history that loses two American cities in the first 15 seconds [of a season],” he said. “We’re back to a very intense set of basics, [a world] that’s even more dangerous than in season one.” Is that even possible?
It appears there's been a time jump and it hasn't been kind to everyone. Monroe's spending his nights in fight clubs, Rachel's dealing with flashbacks of Randall's suicide and Miles is off somewhere being pessimistic.

ARROW
The CW and DC Comics have just unveiled a new sizzle reel for the upcoming second season of the hit series Arrow. Though be warned, if you haven't been watching it goes into heavy spoilers for the first season. Keep your eyes open throughout the video for some special surprises and teases and sound off below telling us what you think!
Star Stephen Amell has spoken about the upcoming season and teased that it will feature "a growing world" for Oliver Queen. New series regular Colton Haynes has also teased that "a few of the most important DC characters" will be joining the series.
Arrow also stars Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance, Willa Holland as Thea Queen, Manu Bennett as Slade Wilson, Colton Haynes as Roy Harper, Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak, with Susanna Thompson as Moira Queen and Paul Blackthorne as Detective Quentin Lance. The show airs on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
The first season of the series will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on September 7th with season 2 premiering on October 9th.

SATURDAY, JULY 20, 2013

HANNIBAL
With a show as grim and gory as NBC's "Hannibal," it's hard to remember that the folks involved laugh from time to time. But as the Season 1 gag reel, which creator Bryan Fuller and Co. brought to San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday (July 18), reveals, the cast finds levity whenever they can.
Whether it's Laurence Fishburne cracking up after screaming, in character, about knowing when he's awake or Hugh Dancy calling a vegetarian a "w****" during a dinner scene, it's clear this cast has found a way to enjoy themselves and get back the darkness that envelopes the series.
As revealed during the panel, all 13 episodes of "Hannibal" Season 1 will be available for purchase on Sept. 24.

ALMOST HUMAN
It's no secret the cast of FOX's new sci-fi procedural "Almost Human" is really, really, ridiculously good looking. But when one of the hot main characters is an android policeman (Michael Ealy) and not actually human, the romantic pairing possibilities suddenly get a lot creepier (if still very attractive).
Karl Urban, who plays the human half of the future crime-fighting duo at the center of the show, which takes place in Los Angeles 35 years in the future, leaves the possibility of an android/human relationship open. "With J.J. Abrams [who produces the show], anything's possible," he jokes at the show's Friday afternoon panel at San Diego Comic Con. The relationship between Urban's John Kennex and Ealy's Dorian is strictly bromantic at this point, however.
The show follows LAPD Los Angeles detective Kennex as he's paired up with Dorian, who's not the standard issue android most of his colleagues team up with. This android has human-like emotions, which will make Kennex's experience very different. So it's not your typical crime procedural, says executive producer Naren Shankar.
"We have cases of the week which deal with future crimes and technology, but the human elements are really [the cast]," says Shankar, "their relationships and human beings dealing with the world of the future."
Though this near-future world is by no means the ruined America portrayed in many a current young adult novel, creator J.H. Wyman warns that there will also be some downsides. "We've sort of all been promised this incredible utopia of computers and technology, but there's another side to that," he says. "There's a dark side to that, there's a what if side to that. There's cautious side."
"Almost Human" premieres Monday, Nov. 3 on FOX.

WALKING DEAD SEASON 4 PREVIEW
Uneasy alliances, treachery, next to no hope, and a horde of zombies at your door? Yup -- The Walking Dead's back, all right.
Things were, as ever, in a murky place at the end of Walking Dead's third season. And that's just on-screen. While Walking Dead may be a critical darling, the show has gone through a number of showrunners since the comic made its way to the small screen.
But the new showrunner, Scott M. Gimple, is obviously ready and raring to go. He was at San Diego Comic-Con's famed Hall H along with comic creator Robert Kirkman with a brand-new trailer to show off.
Kirkman says of season four that "things are going to be way crazier, it's an escalation." Well, let's see, shall we?
An escalation, indeed. Who's feeding those zombies and leading them inside? What's up with the voice on the radio? And what surprise deaths will the fourth season have in store?
Gimple suggests things might be calm at first, but not for long, saying, "They might get a little comfortable, but then things might get a little dangerous."
And as for Rick and Carl, we'll be seeing some changed there as well. According to actor Andrew Lincoln, "The relationship with Carl is integral to the beginning of the season from Rick. [Carl] turning into a sociopath at the end of the season woke him up to his parenting duties. You find Rick in a completely different place this season."
We've got less than three months left to wait (and speculate). The Walking Dead season four premieres Sunday, Oct. 13.

GAME OF THRONES MEMORIAL FILM
Directly from San Diego, HBO has debuted online the "In Memoriam" video shown at their "Game of Thrones" Hall H panel. If you're not caught up on the show, do not watch this. Spoilers for the first three seasons ahead! But at the end of the video, you can see the tagline for season 4 of "Game of Thrones," which is set to debut in spring 2014.
Based on the bestselling fantasy book series by George R.R. Martin, "Game of Thrones" is an epic story of treachery and nobility set on the continent of Westeros, where summers and winters can last years, and only the lust for power is eternal. The series' fourth season is on track to air in the spring of 2014.

FRIDAY, JULY 19, 2013

DIVERGENT
The cast, director and author of Divergent gave Comic-Con the first look anywhere of footage from the dystopian sci-fi movie.
The movie is based on a book by Veronica Roth, who imagined a future world where society is divided into factions based on their personal characeristics. Each person goes through an extensive training process before they are able to choose which faction they want to belong to, and as director Neil Burger says, "The choosing ceremony is almost like a graduation ceremony ... once you've chosen, there's no going back to your family." Lead character Tris (Shailene Woodley) leaves behind her family, who belong to the Abnegation (selfless) faction so she can join the Dauntless (brave) faction.
Picture The Hunger Games in an urban environment -- in this case a Chicago that doesn't look too far removed from the present -- and you have an idea of what Divergent looks like. The montage of scenes shown in Hall H -- the first footage from the movie shown anywhere -- opens with a group of young people running through the streets of the Windy City and jumping on an L train, before Woodley and her friend Christina (Zoe Kravitz) leap off the elevated train onto the roof of a building.
She must then jump into the hollow center of another building and land in a net hundreds of feet below as her final test to become a Dauntless, after which she meets hunky potential love interest Four (Theo James). The rest of the footage features Tris getting knives thrown at her, getting some sort of injection in her neck, a quick intro to Kate Winslet, Tris crowd-surfing, some wielding of guns, and more knives -- only this time one gets close enough to draw blood from her ear.
At first it's just Burger, Roth, Woodley and James on stage in Hall H with moderator Chris Hardwick. Burger reveals that filming was completed two days ago and they prepared the trailer in advance because they knew they were coming to Comic-Con. Shailene is asked about playing Tris and says, "I get asked a lot how does it feel to play an action star ... I never saw her as an action star, I see her as a very normal young woman who's put in elevated situations where she has to find out who she is and find the bravery to help those around her and help herself.
Theo James is asked what he thinks the movie's main theme is and chimes in: "Bravery is not being fearless, it's how you deal with things that are scary and (how you deal) with fear itself."
The rest of the supporting cast then comes out, including Kravitz, Mekhi Phifer, Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Maggie Q, Ben Lamb, Will Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Christian Madsen and Amy Newbold. There are a lot of people on that stage!
They share memorable experiences from the shoot, including their training, fight choreography and dining hall scene in which Woodley gets to crowd-surf above the entire Dauntless faction. "How often do you get to crowd-surf for 45 minutes straight in a controlled environment?" she asks the audience. (Answer: not very often.)
The strangest part of the panel comes when a random guy gets up to the mic during the audience Q&A and begins to ask a question about Ender's Game -- apparently oblivious that he's asking the wrong panel!
We have not read the Divergent books (the third one, Allegiant, is due out in October), but they have a devoted following and the concept is interesting if somewhat overly complicated. The footage was not the most compelling, but Woodley is a great young actress and Burger has made several other interesting films, including Limitless with Bradley Cooper. Can Divergent reach the same heights as The Hunger Games?

THE 100
If you're looking for a new, interesting show about the human race struggling to survive in the future, then you'll be pleased with the CW's new show, The 100.
[Warning: Spoilers ahead.]
The pilot, which was shown during Comic-Con's Wednesday preview night, is set 97 years after the Earth was left uninhabitable due to a nuclear war. The only humans who survived are those living on The Ark, a group of space stations in orbit. The show opens with a young girl named Clarke Walters (played by Eliza Taylor) locked in a cell. We learn that resources are so limited on The Ark that the smallest crime can be punishable by death once you're over the age of 18 and if you are younger, you'll be locked in a cell until you're old enough for execution. Walters is then dragged out of her cell and put on a ship sent to Earth with 100 other delinquent youths. The youths are forced to test the environment and see if it is ok for human colonization.
It's at this point that the pilot turns into some mix of The Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies. Left to their own devices, the youths split into two groups. One group includes Walters, her friend Wells (played by Eli Goree), and some other ragtag youths (including love interest Finn played by Thomas McDonell) who want to carry out their mission for the people still on The Ark and another group led by some darker characters like John (played by Richard Harmon, Continuum) who want to forget about the people who imprisoned them in the first place.
The kids clash with each other and eventually Walters group leaves to carry out the mission left for them by The Ark. Both groups face typical challenges as they explore the new world, from mutant animals to searching for water to being hunted by each other. The new world is interesting to see but what was really fascinating in the pilot and seemed to get the best reaction from the audience were the scenes spent on the actual Ark with the adults.
Up in orbit is a stellar cast of veteran actors leading the remains of humanity including Henry Ian Cusick (Lost, Fringe), Alessandro Juliani (Battlestar Galactica), Kelly Hu (Warehouse 13, Arrow), Paige Turco (Damages), and Isaiah Washington (Grey's Anatomy). The scenes between these characters are just too few. When we visit these characters in orbit we get a fascinating peek into why the 100 were sent down to Earth and just how badly the space station's resources are running out. The audience reacted the most to these dramatic scenes and the mood was almost one of disappointment when the show returned to the youths on Earth to play out the final moments of their travels through the wilderness.
Still, it's a drama with a lot of promise especially with such a great experienced cast helping shore up the show for these younger stars. As long as the series doesn't turn too much into a kid hunting kid drama and it takes more time in the future to explore the life of humanity on The Ark, it could be one of the best new shows on TV this year.

INTELLIGENCE
Comic-Con is where the truth comes out. If it's sci-fi, fantasy, horror or comic-book-related, you'll get a scoop from the event. Today, TVGuide got some dirt on one of CBS's most anticipated new shows, Intelligence. The series stars Josh Holloway (Lost), and has a very familiar premise. It's so familiar, in fact, that it's earned some criticism.
In a nutshell, Intelligence centers on Agent Gabriel Black at the U.S. Cyber Command. He's an extremely talented individual who's a cut above the rest. Why is that? It's probably because he has a microchip implanted in his brain that gives him an advantage. It allows him to tap into the electromagnetic spectrum: Internet, WiFi, telephone and satellite data.
Intelligence has drawn comparisons to NBC's Chuck, but Holloway claims they're not one and the same.
"I thought Chuck was a great show," he says. "But it's not Chuck at all. The computer can't enhance what I am. I can't download how to fly a helicopter and suddenly fly a helicopter. I'm basically just connected to the information grid, so it can assist me in more practical ways than that concept of Chuck. I'm still Gabriel, and I get my tail kicked most of the time."
Intelligence premieres midseason on CBS.

ALMOST HUMAN
Whether you're a fan of science fiction, police dramas or just plan good TV writing, you're going to love FOX's new drama Almost Human. This futuristic police show was the only pilot screened during Comic-Con's preview night that won't be airing on The CW this fall. It's the latest show from J.H. Wyman and J.J. Abrams, who most recently worked together on FOX's Fringe, and is set 35 years in the future.
[Warning: Spoilers ahead!]
During that time, technology has advanced enough that cops are being paired up with androids as partners to help in an escalating crime war. The central character of the drama is John Kennex (played by Karl Urban, Star Trek), who is a hardened cop just returning to active duty on the LAPD after being in a coma due to an ambush from a shadowy criminal organization.
Urban does a great job of portraying a gritty, experienced detective who is determined to find out who caused the ambush that injured him and resulted in the death of his partner and squad. It's also clear from the start that he has no love for the android police officers. The android policemen all share a similar plastic appearance and are reminiscent of the emotionless Observers from Fringe. Even the crime-ridden, dark setting of the story is similar to the last season of the former FOX sci-fi drama in that it immediately draws you into the world and you want to know what happened to make it this way and how these characters are going to survive in it.
The show is only predictable in that Urban of course has to have an android partner despite his dislike of them (of course!), but manages to get a special model that feels more emotions than the standard robot cops. This android is called Dorian (played by Michael Ealy, The Good Wife) and is part of a decommissioned series of robots who were all shut down when it was decided their emotions were getting in the way of their work. Dorian and Kennex clash as they go on their first case, looking into a group targeting cops, but Dorian surprises his human partner with his deduction skills. It turns out emotions can actually help on the job, and while this could have turned into a cheesy moment, the two actors play the scenes where they reluctantly start to trust each other perfectly.
In the end, it's thanks to Dorian and his differences that the entire police headquarters is saved, and Kennex finally comes to accept him as his partner. This pilot did a great job of combining a compelling science fiction setting with an interesting investigation storyline, and it kept the entire Comic-Con crowd enraptured while it played. The small humorous moments got laughs at just the right times, and the dramatic surprises elicited a couple of gasps. It was the only show that had people talking once it ended, and I heard multiple attendees talk excitedly about wanting to see what happens next when the show starts in the fall.
Another plus for this show is its interesting side characters, especially the police chief Maldonado, played by Lili Taylor (Hemlock Grove). A smart, confidant leader, Maldonado clearly understands Kennex and what he's been through. In one scene she says that he's the only cop she trusts, making the audience feel bad that she's been stuck with all the other cops while Kennex was injured. It must have sucked not having anyone to trust while on the job! It also becomes clear during the episode that she's the one who assigned Dorian to Kennex in the first place, showing she understood his need to have more in an android partner than fast reflexes. She's a character that leaves you wanting to know more about her story and wishing she was in more scenes.
There's a lot to look forward to in Almost Human as a result. There is a lot of potential for this to be a fascinating sci-fi drama, and with J.H. Wyman and J.J. Abrams at the helm I have no doubt it will be. I'd recommend definitely adding it to your list of must-see shows in the fall.
Almost Human premieres Monday, Nov. 4, on FOX.

ELYSIUM
Sony has just released new TV spots for Neill Blomkamp's new movie Elysium.
Arriving in conventional and IMAX theaters on August 9, Elysium stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, William Fichtner and Wagner Moura.
In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined planet. The people of Earth are desperate to escape the crime and poverty that is now rampant throughout the land. The only man with the chance to bring equality to these worlds is Max (Damon), an ordinary guy in desperate need to get to Elysium. With his life hanging in the balance, he reluctantly takes on a dangerous mission – one that pits him against Elysium's Secretary Delacourt (Foster) and her hard-line forces – but if he succeeds, he could save not only his own life, but millions of people on Earth as well.

AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
At Comic-Con this week in San Diego, Bear McCreary will be introduced as the composer for the ABC pilot for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which aims to bring the Marvel Universe into primetime television with a mythology that is tethered somewhat to the silver screen exploits of the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., the government agency that answers a world with thunder gods and gamma-green monsters.
McCreary’s new post will surprise exactly no one in San Diego. The classically trained pianist and graduate of USC’s Thornton School of Music has been in the ear of discerning genre fans in a big way the past decade as the composer of some truly distinctive themes — among them the unsettling strings that open AMC’s record-setting hit The Walking Dead and the dark tribal exhilaration of the drums that ushered in episodes of the Peabody Award-winning series Battlestar Galactica.
Jeph Loeb, the head of television for Marvel, said McCreary is a collaborator with boundless energy and a gift for finding the “emotional vibrancy” of moments and music and message.

SAN DIEGO COMIC CON
TERMINATOR: THE FINAL BATTLE
Dark Horse announced today, on the eve of Comic-Con International in San Diego, that it will publish the 12-issue "Terminator: The Final Battle" by the team of J. Michael Straczynski and Pete Woods. JMS will appear Thursday at 1:00 PM at the Dark Horse booth on the con floor for to sign and discuss the as yet unscheduled series with fans.
To read more about the announcement, go to http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=46690.

TWILIGHT ZONE COMIC
Dynamite Entertainment has announced they have signed a deal with CBS Consumer Products to create new TWILIGHT ZONEstories and have signed J. Michael Straczynski to write them.
"One of the most deeply satisfying and creatively exciting experiences I've had in 25 years of writing for television and film was my stint on the new Twilight Zone television series," says Straczynski. "I've been a fan of the original series since I was tall enough to reach for the TV tuner. So I was profoundly excited when Nick Barrucci came to me with the possibility of doing the new Twilight Zone comic to come out from Dynamite."
To read more about JMS' new venture into the TWILIGHT ZONE, go to http://www.comicvine.com/articles/j-michael-straczynski-prepares-to-enter-the-twilig/1100-146880/.

Things are already moving very quickly at the con and it is just getting started. Be sure to see the latest news from the convention as it is posted on The Zocalo on Facebook.
JMS will be doing a number of sessions, promoting his new books and other upcoming projects.

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013

TERMINATOR: THE FINAL BATTLE
Dark Horse announced today, on the eve of Comic-Con International in San Diego, that it will publish the 12-issue "Terminator: The Final Battle" by the team of J. Michael Straczynski and Pete Woods. JMS will appear Thursday at 1:00 PM at the Dark Horse booth on the con floor for to sign and discuss the as yet unscheduled series with fans.
To read more about the announcement, go to http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=46690.

TWILIGHT ZONE COMIC
Dynamite Entertainment has announced they have signed a deal with CBS Consumer Products to create new TWILIGHT ZONEstories and have signed J. Michael Straczynski to write them.
"One of the most deeply satisfying and creatively exciting experiences I've had in 25 years of writing for television and film was my stint on the new Twilight Zone television series," says Straczynski. "I've been a fan of the original series since I was tall enough to reach for the TV tuner. So I was profoundly excited when Nick Barrucci came to me with the possibility of doing the new Twilight Zone comic to come out from Dynamite."
To read more about JMS' new venture into the TWILIGHT ZONE, go to http://www.comicvine.com/articles/j-michael-straczynski-prepares-to-enter-the-twilig/1100-146880/.

ENDER'S GAME
Harrison Ford channels his inner Bill Adama in the latest Ender's Game clip showing off some new footage from the controversial sci-fi flick.
Ender's Game won't be out in theaters until Nov. 1, but that hasn't stopped the sci-fi pic from being a major news story in the here and how. Lately it seems like Lionsgate has been working overtime to separate the Ender's Game movie from the author's controversial views on marriage equality.
So, as we await the inevitable deluge of details from San Diego Comic-Con, Summit Entertainment has snuck out this viral recruitment video both to keep excitment up and, no doubt, to keep focus off that pesky boycott at the same time.

ROBOCOP
Attempting to prove that everything's better with 'bots, check out this impressive promo video touting Omnicorp's assortment of badassery for urban and military applications from the upcoming RoboCop reboot.
The roster includes the XT-908 Aerial Drone, the Cobra-Cannoned ED-209 and their RC-2000 cybernetic law enforcement unit, aka RoboCop. Check out more viral goodies on their main site at Omnicorp.com.
Directed by Jose Padilha, the Robocop remake stars Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) and stomps into your city on Feb. 7, 2014.


THE WALKING DEAD
The producers of The Walking Dead are getting ready to unleash some zombie insanity over at San Diego Comic-Con, and they’ve let loose a few more pics from season four showing the main men ready for action.
Stars Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon) and Chandler Riggs (Carl Grimes) have staged a full-scale takeover of the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, with three collectible covers.
It takes a heck of a man to pull off a poncho, but Reedus looks positively badass propped up on that motorcycle. Plus, Lincoln looks ready for action with his gun drawn. The most interesting inclusion? Riggs, whose character grew into a major player last season and finally graduated from the ranks of whiny punk kid.
His transformation was one of the most entertaining storylines of last season, and it’ll be interesting to see how the writers bring him along this year. Judging by the fact that he made the cut for the cover shot, you’d have to think he'll continue to have a pretty big role.


PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS
What do you get when you have Nathan Fillion talking about his Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters character? You get epic awesomeness, of course.
The geektastic Fillion (Firefly, Castle) is playing the Greek messenger God Hermes. So it’s fittingly hilarious that he works in a UPS store (which becomes an OPS store), now, isn't it?
The new, more than two-minute-long action-and-myth-packed video featurette also has interviews with the upcoming fantasy film’s main stars, including the great Anthony Stewart Head (Buffy, Merlin), who plays Charon, the ferryman to Hades.
Directed by Thor Freudenthal, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters will hit theaters on Aug. 7.

HELIX
Ronald D. Moore’s new Syfy series Helix will be out in force at San Diego Comic-Con, and the network has released a new clip to get us good and creeped out.
Staged in the same vein as the first brief teaser we saw when the show was announced, the new clip shows off a bit more of that freaky black ooze — and this time it’s on the move.
Not a whole lot is known about the series, apart from the fact that its set at an Arctic research facility and seems to have a bit of a The Thing vibe going for it. It’ll be interesting to see how much Syfy shows off at Comic-Con, especially since the show doesn’t actually debut until 2014.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 2013

DISTRICT 9 SEQUEL
It’s been five years since director Neill Blomkamp exploded onto the sci-fi scene with his indie hit District 9, but it sounds like he might finally be coming back to the franchise that made him famous.
Despite the fact that a District 9 sequel hasn’t manifested, Blomkamp has kept plenty busy the past few years. His sci-fi epic Elysium, starring Matt Damon, is opening soon with quite a bit of critical buzz. Plus he already has his next project, Chappie, in the pipeline.
But after that? It sounds like District 10 could be a real possibility, especially since the writer-director has already “written an 18-page treatment for District 10,” according to a profile in Wired. Aside from saying it’s “really f*%$ing cool,” he wouldn’t spill any details, but it's good to hear Blomkamp is finally figuring out where to take the world of District 9 next.
The first film did a great job of world-building, and we’re chomping at the bit to see what Blomkamp could do with a bigger budget and some time to play in the universe he created.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
We finally know just who (well, almost officially: we’ll still have to wait for this week's Comic-Con for an official confirmation) Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) and Josh Helman (Jack Reacher) are playing in director Bryan Singer’s upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past.
The Game of Thrones star will play Bolivar Trask—a military scientist who creates the mutant-hunting, freakin' giant robots the Sentinels—while Helman will play the role of a young William Stryker. The character was formerly played by Bryan Cox and Danny Huston in previous X-films.
While Dinklage's casting as Bolivar Trask was generally—though unofficially—known, Helman's was, up till now, still a mystery.
We also know a bit more about the major plot point.
In the 1981 comic book written by Chris Claremont, Kitty Pryde (played by Ellen Page) sends her consciousness back in time to warn the X-Men and stop the assassination of a senator that would set in motion the bleak and grim dystopian future run by Trask’s Sentinels.
The movie takes a slightly different path. According to Vulture:
In Singer's take, Ellen Page returns as Kitty from the Brett Ratner–directed X-Men: The Last Stand, but this time she uses her powers to send Hugh Jackman's Wolverine back into the past, where he encounters the younger mutants played by James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, and Michael Fassbender. However, something bad happens to Kitty during the time-travel trance, and while Wolverine is still under her spell, the other X-Men must race to find a mutant who can siphon Kitty's powers and bring their friend back to the future. Could that be the plot development that brings Anna Paquin's power-copying Rogue into the fold once again?


AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
If you’ve been worried about how Joss Whedon would slip some geekiness into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., wonder no more. This new footage is the most Whedon-esque bit yet.
As we barrel toward San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, Marvel has started leaking out some new goodies from the upcoming ABC series — and the latest featurette introduces geeky team members Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), who look to bring a healthy dose of levity to the wild, weekly cases.
In the footage presented here, they look like they have the potential to become classic Whedon characters in the vein of Buffy’s Willow or Dollhouse’s Topher — geeky characters who turn out to have more layers than an onion once he starts peeking.
Add this clip to the one introducing Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) we got last week, and we can start to get a better picture of Whedon's pitch.
Marvel's 'Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.' is set to premiere on September 24 at 8:00pm on ABC. We should also get some more details on the series this weekend.

THE FIFTH ESTATE
DreamWorks Pictures has provided a trailer from The Fifth Estate, the Bill Condon-directed thriller starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Alicia Vikander, Peter Capaldi, Carice van Houten, Dan Stevens, Stanley Tucci and Laura Linney. The October 18 release is described as follows:
Triggering our age of high-stakes secrecy, explosive news leaks and the trafficking of classified information, WikiLeaks forever changed the game. Now, in a dramatic thriller based on real events, "The Fifth Estate" reveals the quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an Internet upstart into the 21st century's most fiercely debated organization. The story begins as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) team up to become underground watchdogs of the privileged and powerful. On a shoestring, they create a platform that allows whistleblowers to anonymously leak covert data, shining a light on the dark recesses of government secrets and corporate crimes. Soon, they are breaking more hard news than the world's most legendary media organizations combined. But when Assange and Berg gain access to the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in U.S. history, they battle each other and a defining question of our time: what are the costs of keeping secrets in a free society—and what are the costs of exposing them?

DAN BROWN'S INFERNO
Inferno, the latest novel to follow the adventures of Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks in "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels & Demons"), is heading to the big screen. Sony Pictures has dated the film for December 18, 2015 with David Koepp adapting the screenplay, Deadline reports.
The book itself marks the fourth novel to follow Langdon. The third book, "The Lost Symbol", is still eyed for a big screen version, but is expected at a later date. Published earlier this year, Inferno is officially described as follows:
In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces... Dante’s Inferno.
Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust... before the world is irrevocably altered.
UPDATE: It has now been revealed that Hanks is set to reprise the Langdon role with Howard returning to direct.

TUESDAY, JULY 16, 2013

LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN SERIES
You knew it was coming, and now comic guru Alan Moore has chimed in on Fox’s plan to reboot his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic as a TV series. Hint: He’s not psyched.
Moore's acclaimed comic started in 1999, and followed a Victorian-era team of heroes from literature and history. It stared as a period-set take on Justice League, but expanded its world into one of the richest and most unique in comic history.
Entertainment Weekly caught up with Moore to ask him about the plan to turn his comic into a weekly TV show, and he equated the project to the studios simply rummaging through the trash for something to adapt.
While discussing the TV effort, Moore also noted the complete and utter failure of the 2003 film adaptation starring Sean Connery, which was a critical and commercial bomb, as proof it probably isn’t a very good idea:
“Me and [co-creator] Kevin [O’Neill] have been chuckling about that one, we only heard about it the other day. When [DC Comics] did the recent Watchmen prequel comics I said all of sorts of deeply offensive things about the modern entertainment industry clearly having no ideas of its own and having to go through dust bins and spittoons in the dead of night to recycle things...
The announcement that there is a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen television series hasn’t caused me to drastically alter my opinions. Now it seems they are recycling things that have already proven not to work.”
Zing! Not to argue with Moore, but there was a very simple reason the film version failed. It was truly, deeply awful — and took too many liberties with Moore’s canon. A faithful adaptation (as faithful as you can be without Moore signed on, admittedly) could be interesting.
Of course, it’s a long shot to think that will actually happen — but we can always hope. In the meantime, lets just be glad that some things never change, and good ole’ Alan Moore is still as sassy as he’s ever been.

GODZILLA - SAN DIEGO COMIC COM NEWS
We're just days away from San Diego Comic-Con 2013, and Godzilla just got us even more pumped.
We already knew to expect Godzilla at the biggest convention of the year, but over the last couple of days we've seen two things that have us positively feeling the King of the Monsters' footfalls. First, on Sunday, director Gareth Edwards posted a video message to fans with a link to a viral website, GodzillaEncounter.com, and a promise that "something very big is heading to San Diego." We still don't know what that something will be, but today we got our next taste of Godzilla carnage with this awesome poster that features a glimpse (kinda) of the monster himself.
For more Godzilla teaser goodness, check out Edwards' video message, and be sure to check back here later this week for updates on Godzilla and everything else happening at SDCC '13.

WONDER WOMAN
From Batman to Teen Titans, the folks at DC have done a killer job of leveraging their properties as animated series — but this new Wonder Woman short might be the coolest one yet.
As part of Cartoon Network’s DC Nation programming block that runs on Saturday mornings, they’ve cooked up some animated shorts to sprinkle in around the full-fledged series. The latest? Wonder Woman, in the style of a Knight Rider-esque ass-kicker (with an invisible muscle car!).
They’ve released the 30-second clip above to give us a tease, but the entire short is expected to debut soon on Cartoon Network.
In addition to the Wonder Woman bit, DC has also dropped a boatload of its other, more quirky shorts on YouTube — which are also well worth a look.

INTERSTELLAR
Mackenzie Foy played the daughter of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) in the final Twilight movies, but for her next role the actress is going out of this world.
Foy, who also stars in The Conjuring, the New Line horror movie that opens Friday, is in final negotiations to join the all-star cast of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi movie Interstellar.
The, um, stellar lineup already includes Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine and Casey Affleck.
The script, by Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan, involves time travel and alternate dimensions and sees a group of explorers travel through a wormhole.
Plot details are being kept in a black hole, as is Foy’s character description.
Foy, who is also set to voice a role in an animated adaptation of children’s classic The Little Prince with Jeff Bridges and Marion Cottilard, among others, is repped by Coast to Coast, Keyword Entertainment and Felker Toczek.

EDGE OF TOMORROW
Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt's upcoming sci-fi thriller will debut brand-new footage at Comic-Con during the Warner Bros. panel on Saturday, July 20, at 10:45 a.m., the studio announced Monday.
The film, previously titled All You Need Is Kill, has also undergone a title change and will now be called Edge of Tomorrow. The Warner Bros./Village Roadshow feature has been slated for a June 6, 2014, release in 2D, 3D and Imax.
Directed by Doug Liman and based on the Hiroshi Sakurazaka book All You Need Is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow takes place in the near future in which an alien race unbeatable by any military unit in the world has hit Earth with an unrelenting assault.
Lt. Col. Bill Cage (Cruise), who has never been in combat, is dropped into what becomes a suicide mission. After being killed within minutes, Cage finds himself thrown into a time loop that forces him to go through the combat and death repeatedly. Each time Cage engages the enemy with more skill, along with Special Forces' Rita Vrataski (Blunt), and they get closer to defeating the enemy.
Rounding out the cast are Bill Paxton, Kick Gurry, Dragomir Mrsic, Charlotte Riley, Jonas Armstrong and Franz Drameh. The screenplay was written by Dante W. Harper, Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth, and Christopher McQuarrie.

THE WORLD'S END
With an intricate viral event planned for this week's Comic-Con International San Diego, Edgar Wright's The World's End has just revealed a look at a special art print that will be available during the con. Posted by artist Tommy Lee Edwards. Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Rosamund Pike, The World's End takes place 20 years after a group of five childhood friends attempted an epic pub crawl. They reunite when one of them becomes hellbent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by Gary King (Pegg), a 40-year-old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their hometown and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub – The World's End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind's. Reaching The World's End is the least of their worries.
The World's End arrives in theaters August 23.

MONDAY, JULY 15, 2015

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2
Getting people excited for a How to Train Your Dragon sequel isn't that hard, but this is still awesome.
We'll go ahead and say it -- it could easily be argued that How to Train Your Dragon is the best DreamWorks animated feature so far. It's got a solid story, an identifiable protagonist, actual consequences and, oh yeah, DRAGONS. So, yeah. We dug it.
But sequels, while inevitable, are always a tricky proposition. For every Toy Story 2, there are infinitely more animated followups that only serve to sully their predecessors. That's why news of a sequel to How to Train has had us cautiously excited so far.

TRUE BLOOD RENEWED
HBO has renewed the hit show "True Blood" for a seventh season, it was announced today by Michael Lombardo, president, HBO Programming. New episodes of the series will debut in summer 2014, with executive producer Brian Buckner returning as showrunner.
"'True Blood' remains a signature show for HBO, and a true phenomenon with our viewers," noted Lombardo. "Thanks to Brian Buckner and his talented team, the show continues to be a thrill ride like nothing else on TV."
Mixing romance, suspense, mystery and humor, the show takes place in a world where vampires and humans co-exist, after vampires have come out of the coffin, thanks to the invention of mass-produced synthetic blood that means they no longer need humans as a nutritional source. The series follows waitress and part-faerie Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who can hear people's thoughts, vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and vampire Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård). Alan Ball (creator of the Emmy-winning HBO series "Six Feet Under") created the show, which is based on the bestselling Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris.
The sixth season of "True Blood," which launched June 26, is already exceeding ten million viewers per episode.

MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
Marvel Studios' first television tie-in to their ongoing cinematic universe is set to make a major appearance at this week's Comic-Con International San Diego and, today, "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." has debuted a teaser image.
The upcoming series will have a panel at Comic-Con on Friday, July 19, that will feature executive producer Joss Whedon and Marvel's Head of Television and series executive producer Jeph Loeb. The show will also be spotlighted at the Marvel Entertainment Booth on the Convention Center floor throughout the entire weekend, with special surprises to be announced!
Clark Gregg reprises his role of Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel’s feature films as he assembles a small, highly select group of Agents including: Brett Dalton as Agent Grant Ward, Iain De Caestecker as Agent Leo Fitz, Elizabeth Henstridge as Agent Jemma Simmons, Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May and Chloe Bennet as the mysterious computer hacker Skye. It will air on Tuesdays this fall on ABC.

SATURDAY, JULY 13, 2013

I'm away for a few days in Pennsylvania. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

THURSDAY, JULY 11, 2013

ARROW NEWS
Not content until she’s had a role on every sci-fi show in existence, the lovely Summer Glau will be heading to The CW’s Arrow next season as a mysterious new baddie in Starling City.
Glau will play Isabel Rochev, described as a “beautiful and dangerous Vice President of Acquisitions for Stellmoor International, a company looking to take over Queen Consolidated.”
If the name sounds familiar, it should, because the character is a proper member of the DC comic canon. She was also foreshadowed in season one as one of many names on Robert Queen’s “list.”
After breaking out in Joss Whedon’s Firefly, Glau has had regular and recurring roles on everything from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, to Alphas, to Dollhouse, to Chuck and The Cape. Not a bad resume, and a boatload of geek cred.
Of course, fans might also be worried that Glau’s presence will serve as the kiss of death for the fan favorite series, as most of her roles came on shows that are now noticeably absent from the airwaves. Let’s just hope she shows up and kicks butt, and is only a bad omen for Oliver — and not the series’ hopes for a third season.

AMAZON AND COMICS
The biggest online retailer of them all is about to start making funny books, and look who's already involved!
Never mind Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse and IDW. There's a new game in town -- Jet City Comics. And the company producing this new line of comics is none other than Amazon.
Right from the get, that's a nice potential shot in the arm for both the digital end of the comic market and brick-and-mortar shops. But, as with all things, it boils down to a question of content.
So what's Amazon's lineup? Well! As we mentioned at the top, George R.R. Martin is on board, and he's bringing a little something old and a little something new along with him.
My fans have been clamoring for the return of Dunk & Egg ever since the graphic novels of ‘The Hedge Knight’ and ‘The Sworn Sword’ went out of print several years ago, so I am delighted to announce that Jet City Comics is bringing them back—newly formatted for digital readers, and in paper for those who still prefer the traditional formats. And Jet City will be bringing you something new as well: the graphic novel ‘Meathouse Man,’ adapted from one of my strangest, darkest, and most twisted short stories by the amazingly talented Raya Golden. I’m pleased and excited to be a part of Jet City’s takeoff. May they fly high.
In addition to Martin, Jet City will also see Hugh Howley's bestselling novel Wool adapted by two of our absolute favorite comic writers, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray.
It's an exciting move, not just because of Martin's involvement, but also because, lest we forget, Amazon began as a book retailer in 1994 before they went on to sell, ya know, everything else.
We are thrilled to see Hedge Knight back in print, and we'll definitely give Meathouse Man and Wool a shot.

SEVENTH SON
The Seventh Son is a fantasy film inspired by the novel The Spook's Apprentice. It's the first entry in Joseph Delaney's series The Wardstone Chronicles. As you might suspect, the story follows the seventh son of the seventh son. In the film, the character of Tom Ward is played by Ben Barnes, who's much older than the character in the book. But then again, the film's not a direct adaptation.
Jeff Bridges plays a Spook called John Gregory. All his life he's been fighting against the Dark, and at one point imprisoned the deadly witch Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore). Years after her capture, she escapes and is hell-bent on making John pay. With his back against the wall, John has to quickly train a new apprentice. Cue Tom Ward, who becomes mankind's last hope against evil.
The Seventh Son also stars Game of Thrones' Kit Harington as Billy Bradley, Djimon Hounsou as Radu and Jason Scott Lee as Urag.
The Seventh Son opens in theaters Jan. 17, 2014.

GODZILLA
We won't get to see the Godzilla reboot for about ten more months, but Legendary and Warner Bros. are already gearing up the marketing for the film. Having taken over a warehouse in San Diego to promote the film at next week's Comic-Con, the marketing has now moved to the internet were a website called Godzilla Encounters" was just launched. Featuring news clippings and articles about strange activity in the ocean and off the coast, this viral marketing attempt cements the "real world" approach that is being brought to the film.
Directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairn, Bryan Cranston and Sally Hawkins, Godzilla hits the big screen May 16, 2014.

JMS AT WONDERCON
J. Michael Straczynski answers 5.2 Questions, ranging who his hero is in real life, what he would like to be able to do, writing, when he writes, and upcoming projects.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 2013

LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
Hollywood is taking another stab at Alan Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," this time on the small screen. Fox ordered a put pilot commitment for the graphic novel series that "Heroes" showrunner Michael Green is executive producing and showrunning.
The show's logline reads, "A drama series based on Alan Moore's critically and commercially successful graphic novel series about a group of Victorian-age literary characters, including Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who team up to fight a common enemy."
It remains to be seen if this adaptation of "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" stays closer to its source material than the 2003 film starring Sean Connery did. Author Moore was not a fan of that version of his story, though he somewhat notoriously has disliked every Hollywood take on his stories from "From Hell" to "Watchmen."
Because "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is a put pilot, Fox will pay a penalty if it never airs. That's a big vote of confidence for the series, though it remains to be seen when it actually will head into development. For the record, neither Moore nor Kevin O'Neill will be involved in this TV show.

GREATEST SCI-FI SHOWS IN HISTORY
The folks at TV Guide are working up a list of the 60 greatest sci-fi shows in history — and their rankings might surprise you.
The full list of all 60 shows will be unveiled in an upcoming issue, but word leaked out on the Top 10. On the top of the heap? Star Trek/Star Trek: The Next Generation, which rode its cutting-edge sci-fi morality tales into history.
The classic, original version of The Twilight Zone was a close second, with Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica reboot, The X-Files and Lost rounding out the top five. It’s hard to argue that any of these shows don’t deserve a spot on the list, but the order is sure to spur some lively debate.
Check out the full Top 10 below:
Star Trek/Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Twilight Zone (1959-1964)
Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)
The X-Files
Lost
Doctor Who
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
The Walking Dead
The Prisoner
Game of Thrones
You’d think Doctor Who might be higher, but it's hard to argue with what’s above it. Plus, newcomers like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones earned a spot pretty quickly — it’ll be interesting to see if these shows have the same staying power as their older counterparts.

OUTLANDER
Starz's upcoming time-traveling series Outlander has just cast its romantic male lead.
Starz has announced that relative newcomer—well, at least on this side of the pond—Sam Heughan has been cast in the lead role of chivalrous Scottish warrior Jamie Fraser. The actor has appeared in the U.K. on BBC soap Doctors and A Very British Sex Scandal.
The new TV series is adapted from author Diana Gabaldon’s highly successful book series, which follows the adventures of a married World War II nurse named Claire Randall who’s mysteriously sent back in time to 1743. There she embarks on a love affair with the dashing Jamie Fraser.
The new time-traveling drama from Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ronald D. Moore (who is also hard at work on Syfy's upcoming series Helix) will begin filming in the fall for a 2014 premiere.

DEFIANCE
The first season may be over, but more Defiance is already headed our way.
Last night, the hit series wrapped up its first run of episodes on Syfy with a number of huge developments, including a political shift, a few deaths and a pretty shocking conclusion. Now the long wait begins for the show's second season, and while you can certainly fill time by playing the Defiance tie-in game, you've also now got at least a rough date to circle on your calendar in preparation for season two. Here's when Syfy says the series will be back.
Sadly, we don't have a specific premiere date yet, but make note of that month if you're itching for more episodes.
And if you just can't wait until then to see more of the show's cast, and you're heading to this year's San Diego Comic-Con, be sure to catch the Defiance panel at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, July 19, in Room 6A. Stars Grant Bowler (Nolan), Julie Benz (Amanda) and Jaime Murray (Stahma) will be on hand to chat about season one's success and even share a few tidbits from season two. And that's not all. Syfy's also once again transforming a San Diego Hard Rock Hotel restaurant into "Cafe Defiance," pictured above, so you should definitely head over there to hang out with fellow fans.
So, now that season one is over, we've officially got less than a year to wait until season two.

THE LAST DAYS ON MARS
Magnet Releasing has acquired U.S. rights to Ruairi Robinson’s sci-fi thriller The Last Days on Mars, starring Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas, Romola Garai, Olivia Williams and Tom Cullen.
The film concerns the first manned mission to Mars, during which a crew member discovers fossilized evidence of bacterial life. When he and another colleague vanishes, the team starts to suspect that the life form they have discovered is not yet dead, and the group begins to fall apart as it awaits for a relief ship.
The film, produced by Michael Kuhn and Andrea Cornwell, was acquired from Focus Features International, which is handling worldwide sales on the film, which bowed in this year’s Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.
“With a terrific ensemble cast and top-notch production values, The Last Days on Mars is an exceedingly well-made and frightening science fiction film that will be a real pleasure for fans of the genre,” said Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia, Magnet’s parent company.
Alison Thompson, co-president of Focus Features International, said: “After a successful Cannes premiere, we’re delighted to have Magnet onboard. They are a perfect fit for the film, and we have no doubt they will do an excellent job of ensuring that U.S. audiences embrace this exciting new filmmaker.”
Magnet is eyeing a release through its Ultra VOD program later this year.
The film was negotiated by Magnolia/Magnet senior vp acquisitions Dori Begley and director of acquisitions Peter Van Steemburg with Focus Features International.

AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
Marvel is already rolling out the advertisements for their upcoming series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and now they're ready for you to meet their new characters. In the first of what will likely be an ongoing series, Marvel has debuted an introduction to Agent Grant Ward, played by Brett Dalton, who is the Black Ops specialist of the group.
"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." will have a panel at Comic-Con on Friday, July 19, that will feature executive producer Joss Whedon and Marvel's Head of Television and series executive producer Jeph Loeb. The show will also be spotlighted at the Marvel Entertainment Booth on the Convention Center floor throughout the entire weekend, with special surprises to be announced!
Clark Gregg reprises his role of Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel’s feature films as he assembles a small, highly select group of Agents including: Brett Dalton as Agent Grant Ward, Iain De Caestecker as Agent Leo Fitz, Elizabeth Henstridge as Agent Jemma Simmons, Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May and Chloe Bennet as the mysterious computer hacker Skye. It will air on Tuesdays this fall on ABC.

THE JUNGLE BOOK
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, the classic tale of an Indian boy named Mowgli who is raised by wolves and living among the animals, is becoming quite popular apparently as Walt Disney Pictures, who released the classic 1967 animated version, will be developing their own live action movie based on the book. They've hired Justin Marks to adapt Kipling's short story collection that was first published in the 19th Century.
With Kipling's book well into the public domain, Warner Bros. has been developing their own live action version of The Jungle Book, written by "Harry Potter's" Steve Kloves, while at the same time developing a new Tarzan movie. Even so, Disney certainly has an advantage in that most people who hear the title "The Jungle Book" will associate it with the animated feature--Walt Disney's last production--which they were likely to have seen sometime in the last 45 years.
Marks is a fairly new screenwriting discovery who was involved in early drafts of David Fincher's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo as well as writing The Raven, which is being developed by Mark Wahlberg and Universal Pictures. He also had his hand in drafts of comic book-inspired films Suicide Squad and Super Max.
Even though development is in the early stages, Walt Disney Pictures are already looking for a director who can bring the tale of a boy raised by wolves to the big screen.

TUESDAY, JULY 9, 2013

CURSE OF CHUCKY
Believe it or not, the movie "Child's Play" is turning 25 years old. It was 1988 when that possessed Chucky doll first took to the big screen, wreaking havoc on anyone and everyone.
From there, the movie turned into a series and continued to get sillier as the installments rolled on. The last time Chucky was seen was in 2004's "Seed of Chucky," in which the doll and his doll wife (voiced by Jennifer Tilly) enlist real-life Jennifer Tilly to make a half-doll/half-human baby. Makes sense, right?
However, the 25th anniversary of the first film brings with it a new movie, "Curse of Chucky," and seems to be trying to get back to what the story's really about: a possessed doll terrorizing and murdering people.
"Curse of Chucky" is the first film in the series to forego a theatrical release, instead going straight to Blu-ray and video-on-demand, as many movies are starting to do. You'll be able to see "Curse of Chucky" on October 8.

HAVEN
After a wait of many months, fans can get their first glimpse at what's coming on "Haven" Season 4. Where does the show go after Audrey disappeared into the mysterious barn at the end of Season 3? And when will the show itself be back?
The answer to the second question is much easier than the first. "Haven" Season 4 will premiere on Friday, Sept. 13 at 10pm on Syfy.
As for what mysteries are in store for the audience in the upcoming season, a video posted by TVLine offers a few teases. There are definitely no concrete answers, but the few hints do point in intriguing directions.
SPOILER WARNING!!!
Spoiler things from the video (in case you don't want to go watch it) at http://tvline.com/2013/07/08/haven-season-4-premiere-date-promo/:
There is a person encased in glass on the beach? Even for "Haven," that seems like a weird one.
A person -- who sounds a lot like Duke -- is telling Audrey (A new Audrey?) about her identity.
The new character played by Colin Ferguson makes an appearance. Whoever he is, the new guy seems to want to help Audrey figure out who she is. As for Audrey, she definitely looks like she could be a "new" person. Who is this guy?
Audrey's hair is different in Season 4. That's rarely a good thing for her.
One way or another, Duke gets out of the barn (more or less) intact.

PACIFIC RIM
The steel-stompin' showdown starts this week, and here's the latest Pacific Rim trailer, welded together with new footage and battle scenes sure to get your turbines whirring.
Released by Warner Bros. Pictures and titled "Resistance," it features large lizards leaping out of the ocean, bad-breathed creatures taking in the city sights, a peek at the gaping "interstice" rift where these leviathans are hatched and a titan-toppling tidal wave of hellfire.
Not too shabby for a cathartic day at the movies!
Early reviews for Guillermo del Toro's summer blockbuster are already in and predict a bright box-office future for the mecha monster mash, praising the film's kinetic pace, neon-glossed FX and elegant action sequences.
Trampling theaters on July 10th in 3D and IMAX 3D, Pacific Rim stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini and Clifton Collins Jr.

THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES
MTV has debuted this final poster for Screen Gems' The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, opening in theaters on August 21.
Directed by Harald Zwart, the film stars Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers, Lena Headey, Kevin Durand, Aidan Turner, Jemima West, Godfrey Gao, CCH Pounder, Jared Harris and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
Set in contemporary New York City, a seemingly ordinary teenager, Clary Fray (Lily Collins), discovers she is the descendant of a line of Shadowhunters, a secret cadre of young half-angel warriors locked in an ancient battle to protect our world from demons. After the disappearance of her mother (Lena Headey), Clary must join forces with a group of Shadowhunters, who introduce her to a dangerous alternate New York called Downworld, filled with demons, warlocks, vampires, werewolves and other deadly creatures. Based on the worldwide best-selling book series.

CINDERELLA
Walt Disney Pictures' live action version of the classic fairy tale Cinderella, directed by Kenneth Branagh, is gearing up to start filming in the fall and the latest name to join the cast is Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard, who will play the king's adviser, the Grand Duke.
Skarsgard is probably best known at this point for playing Dr. Erik Selvig, first in Thor and then in last year's Marvel's The Avengers, and he'll be reprising the role in the upcoming Thor: The Dark World. Before that, Skarsgard was known for his groundbreaking Scandinavian films, many of them with controversial Danish auteur Lars von Trier, who he is reuniting with for the two part Nymphomaniac.
Skarsgard joins Lily James in the title role, Richard Madden from "Game of Thrones" as her prince, Cate Blanchett as the wicked stepmother, Helena Bonham Carter as the fairy godmother and "Downton Abbey" star Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger as the stepsisters.
The fantasy film is being produced by Simon Kinberg, Allison Shearmur and David Barron.

MONDAY, JULY 8, 2013

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE REPORT
There was good news and bad news at the weekend box office as "Despicable Me 2" led the charge to a new holiday record, but "The Lone Ranger" stumbled badly and looks like one of the biggest bombs of 2013.
Easily finishing first for the frame, "Despicable" brought in an estimated $82.5 million for the three day weekend and a total $142 million since its Wednesday opening. Made on a reported budget of $76 million, the animated sequel shouldn't have much trouble topping its predecessor's total gross of $251.5 million and looks to overtake "Monsters University" as the top grossing animated movie of the year.
"Despicable" can also take pride in accounting for a huge chunk of the $220 million three-day weekend box office -- a new record for a Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Coming in second but causing a lot of noise with its disappointing performance, "Ranger" nabbed $29.4 million for the three day weekend and just $48.9 million since its Wednesday opening. On a reported budget of anywhere between $215-250 million, "Ranger" joins "White House Down" and "After Earth" as one of the highest profile bombs of the year. It's just the latest bad news at the box office for Johnny Depp.
Opening in only 876 theaters, "Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain" debuted to a strong $10.1 million weekend (good for eighth place) and $17.5 million total since Wednesday. The low budget standup comedy concert movie had an opening to rival 2000's standup landmark "The Original Kings of Comedy," and even if it doesn't share that film's staying power, the performance proves Hart's drawing power.
A trio of hits rounded out the top five. Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy's buddy comedy "The Heat" placed third with $25 million for the weekend and a new gross of $86.4 million. "Monsters University" took a hit from the "Despicable" competition but earned $19.6 million for fourth place and a new $216.1 total. "World War Z" took in $18.2 million for a new gross of $158.8 million.
Outside of the top 10, indie comedy "The Way, Way Back" had a very strong opening in limited release. The coming of age story with an ensemble cast including Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell made $575,000 over the weekend for an impressive per theater gross of $30,263. That bodes well for an expanded release in the coming weeks.

BATTLE ANGEL
With director James Cameron hard at work writing back-to-back sequels to his box office record-setting smash Avatar--which don't have specified dates as of yet but could very well be shooting for December 2015 and 2016--anime and Manga fans may be wondering what that means for Cameron's insistence that he plans to develop and direct a live action movie based on Battle Angel.
We hadn't really heard anything from Cameron about the project since last year, but when the Oscar-winning filmmaker was down in Mexico City earlier this week to speak at the technology forum TagDF, a local site called Diario La Verdad was in attendance to document some of the more interesting bits of the panel, and fortunately, our pals at The Film Stage speak Spanish and they translated the text to share the juicier parts. One thing he told the audience was that he plans to start development on the long-gestating project sometime in 2017, telling the audience that its themes of trans-human exploration has "haunted" him for years.
If Cameron follows through with it, then Battle Angel will likely be his next movie after Avatar 2 and Avatar 3.
You can read more with Cameron, talking about his relationship with Alfonso Cuaron while working on the latter's upcoming Gravity and thoughts on how 3D is being used in some of the summer's biggest movies over at The Film Stage.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE FLASHPOINT PARADOX
Here is the first official "Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox" clip to be released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The clip -- which falls within an alternate, fractured timeline -- features Cyborg and his "team" trying to recruit Batman to help put a halt to a potentially apocalyptic war.
The film will have its World Premiere at Comic-Con in San Diego on Friday, July 19 from 7:30-9:30pm in Ballroom 20. The premiere/panel description with anticipated participants is below. Panelists are subject to change (which could include additions!)
Fans can also meet and get autographs (on a Comic-Con exclusive mini-poster) from the panelists on Saturday, July 20 from 11:00am-Noon at the Warner Bros. Booth.

SUNDAY, JULY 7, 2013

MC FARLAND
Fresh off his role as Clark Kent's earthly father in "Man of Steel," Kevin Costner has signed play a high school track coach in Disney's "McFarland."
In a plot that sounds much like "Stand and Deliver" meets "Remember the Titans," Variety reports the film revolves around a real-life track coach who created a championship team in a predominantly Hispanic town in California after the young athletes defeat "social and physical hurdles."
While Disney has yet to announce a release date for "McFarland," Costner next stars with Chris Pine and Keira Knightley in Paramount's "Jack Ryan," scheduled to hit theaters on Christmas Day 2013.
Costner recently won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for his portrayal of 'Devil' Anse Hatfield in The History Channel mini-series "Hatfield & McCoys."

SNOWPIERCER
A plan to stop global warming has gone very, very wrong in Snowpiercer, which has debuted a new trailer.
A class system has developed, with the poor living in the train's tale and the rich living in the front. One man (Chris Evans) has had enough, and seeks to reach the front of the train to benefit everyone on it. Among those seeking to stop him is the strangely dressed Mason (Tilda Swinton). It's the first English-language film for Bong, known for directing the Korean monster blockbuster The Host (2006).
The film also stars Jamie Bell, Alison Pill, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer, and Ed Harris. Frequent Bong colaborator Song Kang-ho plays Namgoong Minsu, a mysterious securty specialist Evans' character seeks out for help.
Snowpiercer is being released domestically by the Weinstein Company, which has not announced a release date. It hits South Korean theaters this summer.

PHINEAS AND FERB: MISSION MARVEL
USA Today has posted this new sneak peek at "Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel," airing on August 16th on the Disney Channel.
In "Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel," Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor and Hulk stand powerless after being struck by Dr. Doofenshmirtz's power-draining "inator." Once the Marvel Super Villains – Red Skull, Whiplash, Venom and M.O.D.O.K. – find out that Dr. Doofenshmirtz is responsible for robbing the Super Heroes of their powers, they seek him out and together create mayhem in Danville. Meanwhile, Phineas and Ferb do everything they can to restore the Super Heroes' powers before the evil villains take over the world.

TARZAN
Constantin Film has released the new German trailer for the 3D animated adventure Tarzan, opening in Germany on October 10. The English version of the film features the voices of Kellan Lutz ("The Twilight Saga") and Spencer Locke ("Resident Evil" films).
The movie was directed by Reinhard Klooss from a script by Klooss, Jessica Postigo and Yoni Brenner.

SATURDAY, JULY 6, 2013

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Disney has already started flexing its Marvel muscle with a handful of animated series either in the works or already on the air — and now it sounds like that other Marvel super team could be up next.
Marvel comics editor Steve Wacker dropped some hints in the letters section of the latest issue of Guardians of the Galaxy that imply a Guardians animated series could be in development. Wacker talks about his time at a Disney XD summit for Ultimate Spider-Man, and it turns out Guardians was a very hot topic at the event. Hmm.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Now, look, I can’t officially confirm that we spent a LOT of time talking about the Guardians Of The Galaxy cartoon but wouldn’t that HYPOTHETICALLY… be amazing?”
It makes sense that Marvel would be looking to leverage every Marvel asset they have, and with a Guardians film coming down the pike, corporate synergy dictates that it’d be a perfect time to get folks acclimated to the deep-space team with an animated series.
The Mouse House is already working on Ultimate Spider-Man, Avengers Assemble and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H./.

DEFIANCE
The first season of Syfy’s Defiance comes to an end Monday night, but you can see the first four minutes of the finale right now.
Picking up pretty quickly after last week’s penultimate installment, the season finale sets up the search for Irisa and the mayoral election for the soul of the city.
From killing off characters to ass-kicking fights, the past few episodes have brought some major game-changers for the first-year series. It’ll be interesting to see what the writers have in store as they try to bring at least some of these dangling storylines to a close.
Luckily for us, the show has already been renewed for a second season, so hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to head back into the post-invasion melting pot. Oh well, at least we can still play the MMORPG game in the off-season.

RIDDICK
Vin Diesel has revealed the first TV spot for Riddick, coming to theaters and IMAX on September 6.
Written and directed by David Twohy, the film stars Diesel, Karl Urban, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Bokeem Woodbine, Dave Bautista, Conrad Pla, Raoul Trujillo, Nolan Funk and Keri Hilson.
The infamous Riddick has been left for dead on a sun-scorched planet that appears to be lifeless. Soon, however, he finds himself fighting for survival against alien predators more lethal than any human he's encountered. The only way off is for Riddick to activate an emergency beacon and alert mercenaries who rapidly descend to the planet in search of their bounty.
The first ship to arrive carries a new breed of merc, more lethal and violent, while the second is captained by a man whose pursuit of Riddick is more personal. With time running out and a storm on the horizon that no one could survive, his hunters won't leave the planet without Riddick's head as their trophy.

LANTERN CITY
The first preview pages from 'Rise' - telling the story of Lantern City, a new project from Bruce Boxleitner.
Facebook posting: It has taken a lot of work to get to the publication of "RISE". Here, we invite you to take a sneak peek at some of the original artwork concept sketches.
For more information, go to www.lanterncitytv.com.

FRIDAY, JULY 5, 2013

COMIC-CON THURSDAY SCHEDULE
Comic-Con regulars know Thursday is usually the calm before the epic storm of Friday and Saturday. And without "Twilight" on the agenda, this year's first full day of the Con looks even less packed than usual.
Except, of course, for the 20th Anniversary of "The X-Files" which should fill Ballroom 20 past its breaking point and likely have hardcore fans lining up early just to guarantee a seat.
On the movie side, panels for "Divergent" and "Ender's Game" will try to lure the "Twilight" crowd (and hopefully appeal to some non-"Twilight" loving sci-fi fans as well). While anticipated TV panels also include fan favorites "Psych," "Dexter," "Teen Wolf," "Wilfred" and "Beauty and the Beast" and newcomers "Hannibal," "The Blacklist," "Star-Crossed" and "Intelligence" (with "Lost" star Josh Holloway).
Plus, the first ever Con panel for the BBC's awesome "Sherlock" (which airs stateside on PBS). Sadly, without stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman -- though don't be surprised if they send a video greeting. (Plus, it's in Ballroom 20 right before "X-Files," so it's likely to be a madhouse.)
Check out the full Thursday (July 18) schedule on Comic-Con's site and a few TV and movie highlights below:

"Intelligence" (10:00am - 11:00am, Ballroom 20): Stars Josh Holloway (Lost), Meghan Ory (Once Upon a Time), and Marg Helgenberger (CSI) and executive producers Michael Seitzman (North Country), René Echevarria (Terra Nova, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), and Tripp Vinson discuss the new CBS dramatic thriller.

"Star-Crossed" (11:00am - 12:00pm, Ballroom 20): Stars Matt Lanter (90210, Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Aimee Teegarden (Friday Night Lights), and Grey Damon (Secret Circle, Nine Lives of Chloe King), along with executive producers Adele Lim (One Tree Hill), Meredith Averill (The Good Wife), Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (Mission Impossible, Alias), and Scott Rosenberg (Gone In 60 Seconds, Con Air) invite you to get a first look at the futuristic epic romance tale.

"Beauty and the Beast" (12:00pm - 12:45pm, Ballroom 20): Kristin Kreuk (Smallville) and Jay Ryan (Terra Nova) along with executive producers Jennifer Levin (Without a Trace), and Sherri Cooper (Brothers and Sisters), invite all #Beasties to join them for an exclusive discussion of what is ahead for #VinCat and the sophomore season of the breakout fan-favorite series from the CW network.

"Psych" (1:00pm - 2:00pm, Ballroom 20): For the fifth year running, cable TV's most beloved fake psychic detective series is bringing its signature brand of humor, pop culture nostalgia and delicious flavor to Comic-Con.

"Sherlock" (2:15pm - 3:15pm, Ballroom 20): Steven Moffat (co-creator, executive producer and writer), Mark Gatiss (co-creator, executive producer and writer), and Sue Vertue (producer) discuss the latest adventures of Sherlock Holmes and his long-suffering faithful friend, Dr. John Watson.

"The Blacklist" (3:00pm - 4:00pm, Room 6A): View a preview the first episode of the highly anticipated new NBC drama series The Blacklist from Sony Pictures Television.

"The X-Files" (3:30pm - 4:30pm, Ballroom 20): It's been two decades since FBI Special Agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) first partnered to investigate unsolved paranormal cases. The X-Files made primetime safe for sci-fi, and spawned a generation of hugely successful writer/producers. Somewhere, the truth is still out there.

"Enders Game" and "Divergent" (3:50pm - 4:50pm, Hall H): Summit Entertainment presents a special sneak peek at the highly anticipated film adaptation of the beloved, award-winning novel Enders Game. The panel will also feature the first footage ever seen of the futuristic thriller based on the #1 New York Times best-selling novel, Divergent.

"Wilfred" (4:00pm - 5:00pm, Indigo Ballroom, Hilton San Diego Bayfront): Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings) stars as Ryan, a young man struggling unsuccessfully to make his way in the world until he forms a unique friendship with Wilfred, his neighbor's canine pet, played by Jason Gann (The Wedge), who co-created and starred in the Australian version of Wilfred in 2007.

"The Walking Dead 10th Anniversary Panel" (4:15pm - 5:15pm, Room 6A): Robert Kirkman discusses the evolution of The Walking Dead and his plans to celebrate its 10th anniversary this year, in a lively Q&A forum.

"Teen Wolf" (6:00pm - 7:00pm, Ballroom 20): Join cast members Tyler Posey, Crystal Reed, Dylan O'Brien, Tyler Hoechlin, Holland Roden, Charlie Carver, and Max Carver plus executive producer Jeff Davis for a Q&A as they discuss season 3 and share a special video presentation exclusively for Comic-Con fans.

"Dexter" (6:30pm - 7:30pm, Hall H): You've been there for every edge-of-your-seat moment, every kill, inside Dexter's most intimate thoughts, watching him transform before your eyes. Now, after eight amazing seasons, it's time to say goodbye to America's Favorite Serial Killer.

"Hannibal" (6:45pm - 7:45pm, Room 6A): Emmy Award-winning executive producer Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies), director David Slade (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse), Martha De Laurentiis (Red Dragon), and star Hugh Dancy (Agent Will Graham) reveal juicy morsels from behind the scenes of the groundbreaking NBC drama Hannibal.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Things are looking very bright at Universal Pictures this 4th of July as the animated family sequel Despicable Me 2 has far exceeded expectations by grossing an estimated $34.3 million its opening day.
Once again starring Steve Carell as the voice of the supervillain named simply Gru, Despicable Me 2 opened on Tuesday night and it's already Universal Pictures' biggest Wednesday opening as well as the eighth-highest Wednesday opening and third-highest opening day gross for an animated feature ever. Internationally, the movie has grossed $65.9 million through yesterday bringing its worldwide total over the $100 million after opening in a few select territories this past weekend and the weekend prior. It opens in 38 more territories this weekend and we'll have the full worldwide box office total for the movie in our Sunday box office report.
Meanwhile, Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Productions' take on The Lone Ranger, reuniting actor Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski from the first three "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, opened with less than $10 million its opening day, and the comedy concert film Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain brought in an estimated $4.5 million in just 876 theaters.

THURSDAY, JULY 4, 2013

COMIC-CON NEWS
A few new movies have been officially announced for the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con. "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" and the reboot of "Robocop" will be sending out their casts and crews for panels at the annual convention in Southern California.
Stumping for "Spider-Man" will be director Marc Webb, along with Andrew Garfield (Spidey), Jamie Foxx (Electro) and Dane DeHaan (Harry Osborn). They'll be joined by producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach. No Emma Stone this time around, and Paul Giamatti will also be absent.
"Robocop" will have a smaller crew at the panel, but a good one none the less. In addition to director Jose Padilha, stars Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish and Samuel L. Jackson will take the stage.
Sony will also bring "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2" to the Con, with a panel featuring directors Cody Cameron and Kris Pearns, and stars Anna Faris and Terry Crews.
San Diego Comic-Con kicks off July 18.

THE CROW
After a downward spiral of awful sequels, it sounds like they’re finally trying to get the Crow franchise back on track.
Relativity Media has hired The Crow creator James O’Barr as a “creative consultant” on the reboot, which is expected to start shooting in early 2014.
O’Barr wrote the graphic novel that inspired the 1994 cult-classic film of the same name, and his involvement at least means they’re trying to take it seriously and appeal to the existing fan base.
The reboot has already signed Luke Evans (The Raven, Clash of the Titans) to star, and the project will be directed by F. Javier Gutierrez (Before the Fall). According to O’Barr, the reboot will be inspired by the graphic novel — but still pay homage to the well-known film version.
Here is O’Barr’s statement about his involvement:
“It is important for ‘Crow’ fans to understand that Relativity, Javier, Luke and the entire team are working on a new adaptation of the book itself. I believe that this movie will stand alongside Brandon and his film as a valid work of art, and I look forward to collaborating on the project.”
This definitely adds a new wrinkle to the story, and it’ll be interesting to see how O’Barr’s involvement could affect this project.

MORE COMIC-CON NEWS - THOR/CAPTAIN AMERICA COMING
Two hotly anticipated Marvel films will be featured in Comic-Con's Hall H this year.
Walt Disney Pictures announced that Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier will both be featured during the Marvel presentation on its Saturday, July 20. Marvel Studios' president of production Kevin Feige is currently the only panelist who has been named, but the Disney announcement promises "many special guests."
Thor: The Dark World, the sequel to the 2011 film, follows Thor (Chris Hemsworth) one year after the events in The Avengers. Alan Taylor directed, with a cast including Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård and Idris Elba. It's slated for release on Nov. 8.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier sees the return of Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson. It follows Steve Rogers (Evans) as he deals with adjusting to the modern world after the events of The Avengers. He'll team up with Natasha Romanoff (Johansson) to fight off enemies in Washington, D.C. It hits theaters on April 4, 2014.
There are sure to be some other surprises from Marvel and Disney when the audience fills the 6,500 seats in the massive Hall H at the San Diego convention on Saturday.
Comic-Con runs July 17-21 in San Diego.

SHERLOCK COMING TO COMIC-CON
It's been quite a long wait for fans of Steven Moffat's "Sherlock." The second series concluded in January of 2012 with a cliffhanger that now appears set to remain unresolved until the show finally comes back for a third series in 2014. The good news, however, is that EW has just confirmed that "Sherlock" will take the stage at this month's Comic-Con International San Diego.
Although stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are not slated to appear, Moffat will be on stage along with his co-creator, executive producer and writer Mark Gatiss and producer Sue Vertue.
The series, which launched in 2010, is a modern day retelling of the adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic detective with Cumberbatch playing the titular Holmes and Freeman his sidekick, Dr. John Watson. The series airs on BBC One in the UK and on PBS in the United States.

SMURFS 2
Sony Pictures Animation has released a new TV spot for its upcoming The Smurfs 2!
In the July 31 sequel, the evil wizard Gargamel creates a couple of mischievous Smurf-like creatures called the Naughties that he hopes will let him harness the all-powerful, magical Smurf-essence. But when he discovers that only a real Smurf can give him what he wants, and only a secret spell that Smurfette knows can turn the Naughties into real Smurfs, Gargamel kidnaps Smurfette and brings her to Paris, where he has been winning the adoration of millions as the world's greatest sorcerer. It's up to Papa, Clumsy, Grouchy, and Vanity to return to our time, reunite with their human friends Patrick and Grace Winslow, and rescue her! Will Smurfette, who has always felt different from the other Smurfs, find a new connection with the Naughties Vexy and Hackus – or will the Smurfs convince her that their love for her is True Blue?
Returning cast includes Neil Patrick Harris, Jayma Mays, Sofia Vergara, with Katy Perry as Smurfette and Hank Azaria as Gargamel. Brendan Gleeson joins the cast as Victor. Joining the voice cast are Christina Ricci and JB Smoove as Vexy and Hackus.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 2013

FALLING SKIES RENEWED
Falling Skies is keeping its spot on TNT's schedule. The network's confirmed that the sci-fi drama will return for season four. Considering its strong numbers, is anyone surprised? Falling Skies averages 5.8 million viewers a week, which includes Live+7 DVR playback. According to the press release, it's basic cable’s No. 1 scripted series with adults 18-49 and adults 25-54 for the summer to date.
Season four will consist of 10 episodes and is expected to debut in summer 2014. The current season is dealing with major changes and notable guest stars that are making their presence known (i.e. Gloria Reuben, Robert Sean Leonard, Stephen Collins and Doug Jones). Its return has given TNT a boost, making it one of the summer's top-rated cable networks.
Falling Skies airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on TNT.

ARROW NEWS
Most fans would agree that the first season of The CW’s Arrow was actually pretty good, but producer Marc Guggenheim promises it was only the prequel to all the Dark Knight-esque action they have planned.
In a great interview with Comic Book Resources, Guggenheim opened up about their grand plan for the series and where they want to take it in the coming years. If you’ve noticed some parallels to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, that’s intentional, and Guggenheim said season one was essentially laying the groundwork for all the stuff they have planned. You know, like Nolan did with Batman Begins.
If they’re able to run as long as they’d like, he says they’ll really spend the first two years taking Oliver through that transition from “The Hood” to “Arrow.”
Check out an excerpt from the interview below:
“This was always sort of the trajectory we planned. This has always been the first two years of ‘Batman Begins.’ In fact, last year, around October, right before the show premiered, we had a meeting with the head of the studio and we basically said, it's about going from being the Hood to the Arrow to Green Arrow. We knew all along that it would take us two years to do that. The thing that makes me worried is, the show works well because it has darkness to it. It's not gonna be all sunshine and rainbows in Season 2, I don't want people to get the wrong impression that the show is going to abruptly change, tonally. It's actually consistent in its tone even though Oliver has a more ‘Aspirational’ mission.”
It’s nice to know they’ve developed such a detailed show bible along the way, and that forethought and planning showed in season one. They had good arcs, which tied together nicely to create a pretty taut action thriller. Here’s hoping it only gets bigger and better next season.

BLACK PANTHER
Stan Lee has made no bones about the fact that he wants a Black Panther movie, but now it seems like he might have actually confirmed it.
At Wizard World in NYC over the weekend was asked about Marvel's Phase Three of movie adaptations. Well, true believers, what Stan Lee had to say gave us hope.
The people at Marvel are spending hours trying to think 'What'll we do next?' And there's a damn good chance that they will think just what you mentioned because it would be a great idea, and little by little, everything you want to see will come along because they're just like you. They're fans of the stories and are trying to think, 'What will the fans like to see next? What would we like to see next?' So they're working on Ant-Man, working on Doctor Strange; they're working on Guardians of the Galaxy; they're working on God knows what. Did I say the Black Panther also? They're the ones I know about.
That sounds an awful lot like a Black Panther movie is definitely happening to us. We'd like to think that's been true for a while, but it probably doesn't hurt that T'Challa's book, New Avengers, in which he acts as team leader, is doing really well at the moment.

PACIFIC RIM
With just over a week to go before it hits theaters, director Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim has today revealed a new trailer.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters, the Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures release stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Brad William Henke and Diego Klattenhoff.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

TUESDAY, JULY 2, 2013

VERONICA MARS - COMIC-CON
The "Veronica Mars" movie has begun filming. And the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con is approaching quickly. Now, there are details about the presence of "Veronica Mars" at the massive fan event.
Timing
All events associated with "Veronica Mars" will occur on Friday, July 19. There will be a panel at SDCC on Friday morning, cast signings at the Warner Bros. booth throughout the day and an off-site fan event starting at 7:30 that evening.
Events
SDCC panel: Show creator and producer Rob Thomas, Kristen Bell (Veronica), Enrico Colantoni (Keith), Ryan Hansen (Dick), Jason Dohring (Logan), Tina Majorino (Mack), Krysten Ritter (Gina), Chris Lowell (Piz), Percy Daggs III (Wallace) and Francis Capra (Weevil) will be on the panel to talk about the production and show exclusive footage.
Signings: While Kristen Bell will not be there, most of the rest of the cast are expected. No times have been announced yet.
Fan event: Starting at 7:30pm at the Horton Plaza Regal Cinema, the event will bring back the panelists and show more footage. For those without reserved seats (from the Kickstarter pledges), the attendance line will start at 6:30am that day.
Video: There will be video recordings available after the panel and fan event.

S.H.I.E.L.D.
We're just two short months away from the kickoff of the 2013/2014 TV season, and that means promos of all shapes and sizes for all the new shows headed our way will be flooding the airwaves. It also means billboards. Lots and lots of billboards, particularly in Hollywood, where the major networks and studios will be trying to outbuzz each other all summer long. Usually these billboards are packed with text and bright colors to draw as much attention as possible, but there are other ways of catching the eye.
One show that's already got all of our attention is Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Joss Whedon-created ABC series that will follow the exploits of Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives in a world where superheroes are very much a reality. Though it's got a lot of buzz behind it already (and it'll definitely have more after Whedon and company cruise into San Diego Comic-Con in a few weeks), S.H.I.E.L.D. is not exempt from the billboard game. It's just playing the game in a different way. Check out this billboard spotted in Hollywood by Entertainment Weekly.
How cool is that? Black on black, no text, but definitely eye-catching. And how many fans would love to have that exact logo up on their walls? If this is how the billboard campaign starts, we can't wait to see what other cool displays ABC and Marvel are cooking up for us.

WALKING DEAD
One of the best things about Comic-Con is the awesome promotion. You get to see custom-made trailers, footage and posters. One of the convention's most popular panels is AMC's The Walking Dead. Every year it's preceded by great marketing, and this time is no different. The network just released the first teaser poster for season four, and it's overrun by zombies.
Four members of the cast take center stage. The poster features Rick (Andrew Lincoln), Daryl (Norman Reedus), Michonne (Danai Gurira) and Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) all wielding their favorite weapons: a gun, crossbow, sword and hammer. The new season can't get here fast enough. Michonne is on a horse, guys. We repeat, Michonne is on a horse.
The Walking Dead returns in October.

THE WOLVERINE
The Wolverine has premiered new footage exclusively through Digital Spy.
The above video, titled 'A Ronin's Story', sheds light on the storyline for Hugh Jackman's upcoming X-Men spinoff.
The 20th Century Fox/Marvel film is based on Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's 1982 limited comics series which sees antihero Logan make a journey to Japan to confront a figure from his past.
"Wolverine is the ultimate outsider. And in our movie, which takes place after X-Men 3, he's probably more isolated than you've ever seen Wolverine," Jackman explained. "He has lost hope, and it's a dangerous place for someone as powerful as Wolverine."
The Wolverine opens in cinemas on July 25.

THE SANDMAN: OVERTURE
Sandman: Zero no longer. The official title for Gaiman's new story is ...
The Sandman: Overture. That's the official title for the forthcoming Morpheus miniseries that will be coming out bimonthly through DC's Vertigo imprint beginning Oct. 30.
And while we're at it, let's have a look at some cover art, shall we?
As for returning to the his most famous property, Gaiman said, "The most peculiar thing for me about returning to ‘Sandman’ is how familiar it all feels. When I was writing ‘Sandman’ from 1987 to 1996, I never had the feeling at any point that approximately 50 million people were looking over my shoulder scrutinizing every word."

LOST MELODY
Nicolas Cage has his sights set on Terry Zwigoff's latest, Lost Melody, The Wrap reports. The site says that the star is in talks to play the lead in the offbeat indie drama.
Lost Melody will feature Cage as a man who falls in love with a prostitue and must find a way to escape his unpleasant wife.
Zwigoff, whose previous credits include the documentaries Crumb and Louie Bluie, is also well known for narrative films like Ghost World and Bad Santa. He also co-wrote Lost Melody with Melissa Axelrod.
Cage recently provided a voice in the DreamWorks Animation film The Croods and can soon be seen in the Scott Walker thriller The Frozen Ground.
Lost Melody will be produced by Edward R. Pressman with Anthony Scaramucci serving as executive producer.

TURBO
Twentieth Century Fox has released, via Yahoo! Movies, a new trailer for DreamWorks Animation's Turbo, opening in theaters on July 17. The animation film features the voices of Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Ken Jeong, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Snoop Lion and Samuel L. Jackson.
Turbo is the story of a snail who dreams of being the greatest racer in the world, just like his hero, 5-time Indianapolis 500 champ, Guy Gagné. Turbo’s obsession with speed and all things fast has made him an outsider in the slow snail community, and a constant embarrassment to his cautious older brother, Chet.
Turbo desperately wishes he could escape the slow-paced life he’s living. He gets that chance after a freak accident when he suddenly finds himself vested with the power of incredible speed. Turbo embarks on an extraordinary journey to achieve the impossible: racing against the best that IndyCar has to offer. Turbo is the ultimate underdog who achieves the impossible by refusing to let his limitations limit his dreams.

ELYSIUM
The first TV spot for Neill Blomkamp's Elysium has arrived!
Opening in theaters on August 9, the sci-fi action film stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, William Fichtner and Wagner Moura.
In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined planet. The people of Earth are desperate to escape the crime and poverty that is now rampant throughout the land. The only man with the chance to bring equality to these worlds is Max (Matt Damon), an ordinary guy in desperate need to get to Elysium. With his life hanging in the balance, he reluctantly takes on a dangerous mission – one that pits him against Elysium's Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her hard-line forces – but if he succeeds, he could save not only his own life, but millions of people on Earth as well.

IMAGE EXPO 2013
J. Michael Straczynski (JMS)Reminder: will be at Image Expo in San Francisco on Tuesday to announce new slate of Joe's Comics books for 2014. For more information, go to http://www.imagecomics.com/expo/.

JULY 1, 2013

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Over the weekend, Sony Corp.'s film studio was dealt its second box-office disappointment of the summer in the form of action film White House Down as it continues to face a call from activist shareholder Daniel Loeb for a partial spin-off of its entertainment businesses.
The movie, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, opened to a dismal $25.7 million domestically after costing at least $150 million to produce, excluding a $150 million-plus marketing spend.
Meanwhile, Will and Jaden Smith's sci-fi epic After Earth has all but ended its North American theatrical run after four weekends, topping out at only $58 million. Overseas, the Sony film, which was critically panned, has earned only $130.9 million, with its release in China still coming up.
Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Harrigan last month called After Earth "an ill-timed flop for Sony given its challenges from hedge fund manager Dan Loeb."
On Sunday, he told The Hollywood Reporter that the weak White House Down opening will similarly not boost the position of Sony and its CEO, Kaz Hirai, who has promised that the conglomerate's board would evaluate Loeb's proposal. "Kaz Hirai must have been feeling good about winning the gamer PR campaign at E3 around pricing used games and Internet, but this is a negative for what is generally a well-run studio that is adroit at counter programming," Harrigan said. "Right after After Earth, this doesn't help either. Hopefully Elysium and Smurfs 2 perform globally."
Loeb's hedge fund Third Point in mid-June said that it has slightly increased its stake in Sony to 6.9 percent as it continues to push for an IPO of a 15 percent-20 percent stake in the conglomerate's film and music businesses. In his second letter to Hirai back then, he argued that Sony's entertainment business lacks the "discipline and accountability" of many peers.
"In light of this track record, it seems difficult to argue that entertainment would not be strengthened by the transparency that comes with public reporting, an active media analyst community evaluating financial performance regularly and an expert board with strongly aligned incentives," Loeb wrote.
Third Point has suggested that Sony's entertainment operations could be worth about $10 billion, with an IPO possibly raising as much as $2 billion. That money could go towards acquisitions and other investments.
Observers pointed out that Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups 2, which will open July 12, and Matt Damon and Jodie Foster's sci-fi drama Elysium, set to open in August, have been drawing good buzz for Sony. The studio also has had a recent success with the modestly-budgeted Seth Rogen apocalyptic comedy This Is The End, which has grossed roughly $75 million in the U.S. after three weekends.
Last weekend, After Earth topped the Japanese box office in its opening weekend, but failed to light it up.
The film grossed $2.57 million in its first three days on more than 570 Japanese screens, with local analysts predicting a $10 million final total in the country, the third-largest theatrical market after the U.S. and China. Analysts have said the film may struggle to cover its production and marketing budget.

KILL THE MESSENGER
Rosemarie DeWitt has taken the female lead opposite Jeremy Renner in the upcoming Kill the Messenger, Deadline reports.
The film is based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb, a San Jose Mercury News reporter who allegedly committed suicide after being the target of a smear campaign when he linked the CIA to a scheme to arm Contra rebels in Nicaragua and import cocaine into California.
Peter Landesman wrote the screenplay, based on the two books the studio optioned: "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion," by Webb, and Nick Schou's "Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb."
DeWitt recently appeared in The Odd Life of Timothy Green, The Watch and Promised Land.
Michael Cuesta is attached to direct Kill the Messenger with Scott Stuber producing.

DOC SAVAGE
As already revealed, "Iron Man 3" co-writer/director Shane Black is following up the Marvel superhero property with an adaptation of another comic hero - 1930s pulp adventure icon Doc Savage.
Appearing at the Saturn Awards this week, Black confirmed to Collider that the Sony-produced film will retain the 1930s setting of the stories. He also spoke about his love for the property:
"We’re shooting it as though it’s in the 30s, including all the Capra-esque elements of 1930s films like You Can’t Take It With You. The idea of ‘What if Jimmy Stewart were a stone-cold killer?’ basically. It’s that kind of combination which we enjoy.
Doc Savage is a personal film to me. It’s a 1930s pulp character so it hasn’t been around for 75 years or so, but people if they’re introduced to it they’ll get to know, hopefully, what I came to love as a kid. I’ve read those series for 43 years and always wanted to figure out how to crack it."

SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2013

THE HOBBIT
Well, that’s a wrap — or at least it is for Ian McKellen’s Gandalf on the Hobbit trilogy.
Director Peter Jackson has been keeping fans apprised on the lengthy shoot via hia Facebook page, and has now revealed a pic from McKellen’s final day of shooting. Of course, Gandalf is expected to appear in the remaining two Hobbit films, set for release later this year and in 2014, but McKellen’s scenes are apparently complete.
Jackson essentially called the wrap an end to an era, dating back almost 15 years to when they filmed the Lord of the Rings trilogy:
"Seconds ago we finished our last shot with Gandalf. The end of an incredible adventure that began in 1999. I'm feeling very sad right now."
The pic above shows a sad Jackson and McKellen saying goodbye to one of the most iconic characters in modern fantasy.
Oh well ... at least we still have two more movies on the way in which to enjoy our favorite wizard. Factor in the extended editions that Jackson is surely prepping, and we should still have more than enough Gandalf to go around.

THE TERMINATOR
Arnie may be back, but Terminator itself is going back to square one.
We've been hearing talk of a Terminator 5 for a little while now, but it turns out the roboapocalypse is getting a little more of a facelift than we originally thought.
The new film, which will be called simply Terminator, will be a reboot for the franchise. Not only that, but it will be the first film in a standalone trilogy. Considering that the last two Terminator films weren't exactly the most successful or well-regarded, we can't say we're surprised. In fact, we're not terribly bummed about it, either. Terminator has always been about time travel anyway, so it's not hard to imagine that messing with the space-time continuum wouldn't eventually get us right back to the beginning anyway.
Here's the full press release:
Skydance Productions, Annapurna Pictures and Paramount Pictures have jointly announced they will partner on a rebooted “TERMINATOR” movie, to be released by Paramount Pictures on June 26, 2015.
The first in a stand-alone trilogy, “TERMINATOR” will be produced by Megan Ellison of Annapurna and David Ellison of Skydance. Dana Goldberg and Paul Schwake of Skydance will serve as executive producers. Laeta Kalorgridis (“Avatar,” “Shutter Island”) and Patrick Lussier (“Drive Angry”) are attached to write the screenplay.
Launched in 1984 with star Arnold Schwarzenegger as the title character, “TERMINATOR” spanned 3 subsequent films, which have earned over $1 billion at the worldwide box office.
David Ellison most recently executive produced, along with his partners at Paramount, “World War Z,” “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol”. A 5th installment of in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise is in active development, along with a 3rd film in the “G.I. Joe” franchise, among other films.
Megan Ellison most recently produced the Academy Award®-nominated “Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Master” and executive produced “Spring Breakers” via her Annapurna Pictures banner and has David O. Russell’s “American Hustle,” Spike Jonze’s “Her,” and Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” set for release later this year.
Now we're wondering if Schwarzenegger is still going to be playing the titular one-man robot death machine or if his role will be something else entirely.
Either way, we're glad that, despite the reboot, he still seems to be on board. Our only other request? Please, oh, please, do not turn this new iteration of the franchise into a CGI-fest. The first two films were successful in many ways because of their excellent practical effects. Imagine this as a post-apocalyptic Field of Dreams -- if you build a giant robot of death, we will come ... to the movie theater, that is.

DOCTOR WHO
This trailer for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary isn't real, but it's so good you won't even care.
We're less than half a year out from an episode that, at the very least, will see Matt Smith and David Tennant go toe to toe in a two-Doctors extravaganza. So people are understandably salivating at the thought of seeing footage from the landmark episode. You can imagine how thrilled people were when they thought the first teaser trailer had finally leaked.
The trailer is absolutely amazing, but it's also absolutely fake. But if someone hadn't told us up front that this wasn't the real thing, we never would have known. It's so good that we're left feeling that the actual trailer (whenever it turns up) will have some big shoes to fill.

PACIFIC RIM
On the heels of the first two clips from the July 12 release, Pacific Rim has revealed a new featurette. Dubbed "Under Attack."
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters, the Guillermo del Toro film stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Brad William Henke and Diego Klattenhoff.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

THE WORLD'S END
A new UK TV spot for The World's End, directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Rosamund Pike, is here.
In The World's End, 20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hellbent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by Gary King (Simon Pegg), a 40-year-old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their hometown and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub – The World's End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind's. Reaching The World's End is the least of their worries.

SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2013

GAME OF THRONES NEWS
Game of Thrones just cast its biggest season four character: The Red Viper of Dorne.
In what must be one of the most anticipated season four casting news, HBO just revealed through James Hibberd’s Inside TV on EW that Chilean actor Pedro Pascal (Graceland, Red Widow) had been cast in the coveted role of Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne.
Prince Oberyn, aka the Red Viper, will arrive in King’s Landing in what will be a pivotal storyline in the upcoming fourth season of Game of Thrones.
What’s exciting (besides the awesome casting news), is that it’ll be the first time that a character from Dorne will actually be featured on the show. As most book fans know, and without being too spoilery here, Dorne will become another major player in the power struggle for the Iron Throne in Westeros.
Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have said:
“This was a tough one. The Red Viper is sexy and charming, yet believably dangerous; intensely likable, yet driven by hate. The boys love him, the girls love him, and he loves them all back. Unless your last name is Lannister. We found a fellow who can handle the job description and make it seem effortless. He wasn’t easy to find and he won’t be easy to stop.”
So far, casting director Nina Gold and her team have been amazing in their casting choices for the show so we’re looking forward to seeing what Pascal will bring as the Red Viper to HBO's hit fantasy series.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
The roster just keeps expanding for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the director has added yet another mutant to the fold.
Meet Adan Canto, who will reportedly be playing the Brazilian mutant Sunspot, aka Roberto Costa. Sunspot was created in the 1980s, and has the ability to absorb solar energy that can be used in energy blasts.
If Canto looks familiar, he’s popped up recently in the U.S. on the hit Fox series The Following, though he’s a relative unknown outside of his native Mexico.
Word broke a while back that Canto had joined the X-Men sequel, but there was no word on who he might be playing. But the actor slipped up and responded to a fan on Twitter who had said they were looking forward to him playing Sunspot with this reply: “Thanks! Next summer.”
He deleted the post soon after, but the damage was done.

ENDER'S GAME
As the marketing machine gears up for this sci-fi epic, there's one face that's noticeably absent.
San Diego's annual Comic-Con is still the mecca for all things geeky. So, naturally, it's the place where all sci-fi things great and small come to promote what they're working on.
It's no surprise, then, that Ender's Game will be looking to make a big splash at the con. In addition to the expected panel, Summit Entertainment will also be providing an eight-room interactive Ender’s Game exhibit. That's pretty cool, even by Comic-Con standards.
As for the panel proper, it will take place on July 18 in the famed Hall H, where the line to get in never ends. On the panel will be star Harrison Ford, producer Bob Orci, director Gavin Hood and co-stars Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld and Abigail Breslin. Everyone. Well, almost. The man who wrote the book series upon which the film is based, Orson Scott Card, won't be there.
While Card has long been known for his gifts as a sci-fi creator, in recent years he has also become infamous for his very public anti-gay views. His stance hasn't gone over very well with many people (fans included), and so it seems likely that Card is being purposefully kept at arm's length from promotion for the Ender's Game film adaptation in order to prevent fans from attempting to start a boycott.
Whether or not that's a good thing, we can't say we're surprised. After Card was fired from a Superman comic due to fan backlash at his involvement, we almost assumed he wouldn't turn up for Comic-Con.
But now it's official -- no Orson Scott Card for San Diego Comic-Con.

PACIFIC RIM
Warner Bros. has released a new clip from Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim featuring Charlie Hunnum as Raleigh Becket and Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori. According to the synopsis, the duo is our only hope against those monstrous creatures called Kaiju. But before they can battle them, they have to battle each other.
In the following scene, Raleigh puts Mako through the wringer. He's a former pilot looking for a partner, and she's an untested trainee. They engage in combat and are constantly trying to one-up each other. Mako may not have much experience, but she's no pushover. Her natural skills shine through, and she quickly proves herself to her superiors.
It looks like neither actor held back in this scene. They freely toss each other around like rag dolls.

THE FIRE SERMON
DreamWorks has taken the film rights to the upcoming literary trilogy The Fire Sermon, Deadline reports. The dystopian science fiction tale arrives from Francesca Haig and will be seeking a domestic publisher next month.
Set in a post-apocalyptic 25th century, The Fire Sermon has humanity evolved without technology and all children are born as twins. The Alpha twins represent a ruling class while the mutated Omega twins are treated as lower-class individuals and sent to live in their own villages. The catch is that when one twin dies, so does the other and the story follows a brother and sister pair, one of whom rises up to become a ruler amongst the Omegas.
Carla Hacken, whose credits include films like Walk the Line and The Devil Wears Prada, is attached to produce.

FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 2013

CAPTAIN PLANET
Screenwriters the world over must've stopped generating new ideas because there is a big-screen adaptation of "Captain Planet and the Planeteers" in the works.
THR reports that Sony Pictures is in final negotiations to pick up the rights to the 1990s environmental cartoon for an adaptation by producers Mark Gordon ("Grey's Anatomy), Don Murphy ("The Transformers") and Susan Montford.
"Captain Planet" told the story of five teens, each from a different continent (North America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia and South America), who'd been given powers by Gaia, the earth spirit, in order to protect the planet from polluters. When they weren't strong enough, their powers combined to summon the one and only Captain Planet.

TERMINATOR
"The Terminator" will be back in theaters in 2015.
Paramount Pictures has announced a reboot of the beloved sci-fi franchise will open June 26, 2015. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already confirmed he will return in the title role, but the film is expected to launch a brand new standalone trilogy rather than continue where 2009's semi-disastrous "Terminator: Salvation" left off.
Paramount will distribute and is financing the project in a partnership with Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures and David Ellison's Skydance Productions.
Laeta Kalorgridis ("Avatar," "Shutter Island") and Patrick Lussier ("Drive Angry") are attached to write the screenplay.
"Terminator" co-creator James Cameron is not involved in any official capacity, although he will regain rights to the franchise in 2019 -- which could complicate bringing a full trilogy to fruition.

THE ROVER
A24 has acquired U.S. rights to David Michod’s thriller The Rover, starring Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson.
Set in a futuristic version of Australia following an economic collapse, the film centers on Pearce, who plays a loner traveling the Outback who teams up with Pattinson to track a gang of thieves.
Michod, who wrote and directed 2010’s Animal Kingdom, also wrote The Rover based on a story he and Joel Edgerton conceived. It was produced by Michod, Liz Watts for Porchlight Film and David Linde under his Lava Bear Films banner. The film co-stars Scoot McNairy, David Field, Anthony Hayes, Gillian Jones and Susan Prior. Natsha Braier served as director of photography, and Jo Ford, who also collaborated with Michod on Animal Kingdom, was production designer.
A24 will release The Rover theatrically in the U.S., while Village Roadshow will release it in Australia and New Zealand. The film’s investment partners include Screen Australia, the South Australian Film Corp. and Screen NSW, and financial partners Fulcrum Media and the Union Bank.
”A24 is a perfect fit for The Rover. A young, innovative and exciting company at the cutting edge of the independent sector in the U.S., they have contributed to an already exciting array of global distribution partners, and we are pleased to be partnering with them on the future release of the film,” producers Watts and Linde said.
A24 is distributing Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring and will open James Ponsoldt's The Spectacular Now on Aug. 2.
A24 negotiated the deal with UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers and FilmNation Entertainment. UTA also reps Michod. Before selling U.S. rights to A24, FilmNation Entertainment licensed the film to a majority of territories worldwide based on showing a two-minute reel of footage from the film.

TRANSFORMER 4's FREIGHTLINER
Michael Bay's official site has just been updated with another new automotive still from Transformers 4 and this one is quite a tease. The Freightliner truck is likely a sign that the character of Ultra Magnus will be featured in the 2014 release.
"The adventure continues to transform with a very different offering from Daimler Trucks North America," the site's official description reads. "The imposing 2014 Argosy cab-over truck by Freightliner."
Ultra Magnus, sometimes depicted as the brother of Optimus Prime, is an Autobot whose original creation is the result of a repainted Prime toy sold in 1986. The character also Transforms into a truck and features a color design very similar to the picture shown.
Although the plot of sequel is still top secret, Bay teased to ComingSoon.net that it will involve a "Chase from Hell." Starring Mark Wahlberg, Jack Reynor, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Sophia Myles, Li Bingbing and T.J. Miller, Transformers 4 hits theaters and IMAX on June 27, 2014.

THE CONJURING
A new trailer for James Wan's supernatural thriller The Conjuring is now online.
Starring Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ron Livingston, Lili Taylor, Mackenzie Foy and Joey King, the Warner Bros. release is based on the true story of Ed and Lorraine Warren (Wilson, Farmiga), world renowned paranormal investigators, who were called to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in a secluded farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful demonic entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most horrifying case of their lives.
Featuring a screenplay by Chad and Carey W. Hayes, The Conjuring hits theaters July 19.

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2013

SATURN AWARDS
The Academy Of Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy Films handed out top honors in TV and film at its 39th Annual Saturn Awards on Wednesday (June 26) night in Burbank, with "Marvel's The Avengers" and "Breaking Bad" taking home the most awards in their respective mediums.
"Avengers" collected hardware for top science fiction film, director (Joss Whedon), supporting actor (Clark Gregg) and special effects, going to the team of Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick.
"Breaking Bad" took in three TV awards for Best Presentation on Television, supporting actor (Jonathan Banks) and best actor (Bryan Cranston, in a tie with Kevin Bacon).
The full list of winners at the 2013 Saturn Awards is as follows:
FILM AWARDS
Best Science Fiction Film: "Marvel's The Avengers"
Best Fantasy Film: "Life of Pi"
Best Horror/Thriller Film: "The Cabin in the Woods"
Best Action/Adventure Film: "Skyfall"
Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey ("Killer Joe")
Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence ("The Hunger Games")
Best Supporting Actor: Clark Gregg ("Marvel's The Avengers")
Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway ("The Dark Knight Rises")
Best Performance by a Younger Actor: Suraj Sharma ("Life of Pi")
Best Director: Joss Whedon ("Marvel's The Avengers")
Best Writing: Quentin Tarantino ("Django Unchained")
Best Production Design: Dan Hennah ("The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey")
Best Editing: Alexander Berner ("Cloud Atlas")
Best Music: Danny Elfman ("Frankenweenie")
Best Costume: Paco Delgado ("Les Miserables")
Best Make-Up: Heike Merker, Daniel Parker, Jeremy Woodhead ("Cloud Atlas")
Best Special Effects: Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams, Dan Sudick ("Marvel's The Avengers")
Best Independent Film Release: "Killer Joe"
Best International Film: "Headhunters"
Best Animated Film: "Frankenweenie"

TELEVISION AWARDS
Best Network Television Series: "Revolution"
Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series: "The Walking Dead"
Best Presentation on Television: "Breaking Bad"
Best Youth-Oriented Series on Television: "Teen Wolf"
Best Actor on Television: Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad"), Kevin Bacon ("The Following") (tie)
Best Actress on Television: Anna Torv ("Fringe")
Best Supporting Actor on Television: Jonathan Banks ("Breaking Bad")
Best Supporting Actress on Television: Laurie Holden ("The Walking Dead")
Best Guest Star on Television: Yvonne Strahovski ("Dexter")

HOME ENTERTAINMENT AWARDS
Best DVD/BD Release: "Touchback"
Best DVD/BD Special Edition Release: "Little Shop of Horrors: The Director's Cut"
Best DVD/BD Collection Release: "Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection"
Best DVD/BD Television Series Release: "Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 1 & 2"

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
The Lifetime Achievement Award: William Friedkin
The Dan Curtis Legacy Award: Vince Gilligan
The Visionary Award: Richard Matheson
The Life Career Award: Jonathan Frakes
Theater Showcase Award: "Silence! The Musical"

X-FILES 20TH ANNIVERSARY
"The X-Files" is making its way to San Diego this summer to celebrate its 20th anniversary at Comic-Con International 2013.
An ad appeared in TV Guide Magazine's July 1 issue announcing the panel, informing that the celebration would take place on Thursday (July 18). Scheduled to attend are creator Chris Carter, as well as writer/producers David Amann, Vince Gilligan, Howard Gordon, Darin Morgan, Glen Morgan, John Shiban and Jim Wong. Gilligan and Gordon, of course, went on to fame with "Breaking Bad" and "24," respectively.
But what about Mulder and Scully? The ad says "more guests to come," without including a mention of either David Duchovny or Gillian Anderson. Anderson's official website says the actress will be in attendance, however there's no word on Duchovny.
We suppose the truth is out there, somewhere.

ELEMENTARY NEWS
From giant, evil lizard to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rhys Ifans is trading up.
Rhys Ifans had big shoes to fill when he took on the part of Curt Connors in The Amazing Spider-Man, but his move to the small screen is anything but small.
When Elementary resumes next season, it will see Holmes return to London in order to revisit an old case. There he will be forced to face a man with whom he shares a great deal of bad blood. In fact, this man and Sherlock share blood in more than one way -- they're brothers.
Yes, Ifans will be taking on the role of Mycroft Holmes, and executive producer, Robert Doherty, couldn't be more pleased.
I could not be more excited to have Rhys coming aboard. I've always been a tremendous fan and feel very honored to have him in the fold. Equally excited are Jonny and Lucy, both of whom have worked with Rhys in feature films. I think this is going to be a lot of fun for all of us.

FOX FALL PREMIERE DATES
Fox has announced the fall premiere dates for the 2013-2014 season. Here's the full press release:
The 2013-2014 season begins with the return of THE X FACTOR. Hosted by Mario Lopez, and featuring judges Simon Cowell, Demi Lovato, Kelly Rowland and Paulina Rubio, the hit music competition series will launch with a two-night season premiere event on Wednesday, Sept. 11 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) and Thursday, Sept. 12 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT).
Darkly amusing procedural BONES enters its ninth season on Monday, Sept. 16 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT), followed by the series premiere of the thrilling adventure fantasy SLEEPY HOLLOW (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT). In this modern-day twist on Washington Irving's classic, ICHABOD CRANE (Tom Mison, "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen") is resurrected and pulled two and a half centuries through time to find that the world is on the brink of destruction and that he is humanity's last hope, forcing him to team up with a contemporary police officer (Nicole Beharie, "42," "Shame," "American Violet") to unravel a mystery that dates back to the founding fathers.
On Sept. 17, the Tuesday night comedy block is back with two new additions - DADS (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT) and BROOKLYN NINE-NINE (8:30-9:00 PM ET/PT) - and new seasons of NEW GIRL (9:00-9:30 PM ET/PT) and THE MINDY PROJECT (9:30-10:00 PM ET/PT). Kicking off the night is DADS, the new live-action, multi-camera comedy from Emmy Award winner Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild ("Ted," FAMILY GUY) that stars Emmy Award winner Seth Green (FAMILY GUY) and Emmy Award nominee Giovanni Ribisi ("My Name is Earl," "Ted") as two successful gaming entrepreneurs - and childhood best friends - whose lives get turned upside down when their pain-in-the-neck patriarchs (Martin Mull, "Two and a Half Men") and Academy Award and Emmy Award nominee Peter Riegert, "The Good Wife," "The Sopranos") move in. BROOKLYN NINE-NINE (8:30-9:00 PM ET/PT), from Emmy Award-winning writer/producers Dan Goor and Michael Schur ("Parks and Recreation") and starring Emmy Award winners Andy Samberg ("Saturday Night Live") and Andre Braugher ("Men of a Certain Age," "Homicide: Life on the Street"), is a new single-camera workplace comedy about what happens when a hotshot detective (Samberg) gets a new captain (Braugher) with a lot to prove.
Will Rachel (Lea Michele) be Broadway's next baby? Will Blaine (Darren Criss) marry Kurt (Chris Colfer)? Can the kids of New Directions win yet again at Nationals? Find out the answers to all these GLEE-related questions when a new season of the hit musical comedy launches Thursday, Sept. 19 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT), following THE X FACTOR.
New unscripted series MASTERCHEF JUNIOR is set to debut Friday, Sept. 27 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT). The new culinary competition series for talented kids gives budding cooks between the ages of eight and 13 the opportunity to showcase their talent, culinary smarts and passion for food through a series of delicious challenges and cook-offs. Award-winning chef Gordon Ramsay, restaurateur and winemaker Joe Bastianich (Del Posto, Eataly) and acclaimed chef Graham Elliot (Graham Elliot, Graham Elliot Bistro) coach and encourage the promising hopefuls to cook like pros and teach them the tricks of the trade along the way.
Sundays get re-animated beginning Sept. 29, with the season premieres of THE SIMPSONS (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT), BOB'S BURGERS (8:30-9:00 PM ET/PT), FAMILY GUY (9:00-9:30 PM ET/PT) and AMERICAN DAD (9:30-10:00 PM ET/PT).
Later this fall, futuristic action drama ALMOST HUMAN premieres Monday, Nov. 4 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT). Executive-produced by Emmy Award winner J.J. Abrams ("Fringe," "Lost," the "Star Trek" and "Mission: Impossible" franchises) and creator J.H. Wyman ("Fringe," "The Mexican") and starring Karl Urban ("Star Trek") and Michael Ealy ("Sleeper Cell," "Common Law"), ALMOST HUMAN is a high-tech, high-stakes action drama set 35 years in the future, when police officers are partnered with highly evolved human-like androids. An unlikely partnership is forged when a part-machine cop (Urban) is forced to pair with a part-human robot (Ealy) as they fight crime in a futuristic new world.
Friday nights beginning on Nov. 8 are all-new when BONES moves to a new night and time (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) and RAISING HOPE (9:00-9:30 PM ET/PT) kicks off an all-new hour of comedy, followed by the series premiere of the new sibling comedy ENLISTED (9:30-10:00 PM ET/PT). Written and created by Kevin Biegel ("Cougar Town," "Scrubs") and starring Geoff Stults ("Ben and Kate," "The Finder"), Chris Lowell ("Private Practice," "Veronica Mars") and Parker Young ("Suburgatory"), ENLISTED is an irreverent single-camera comedy about an older sibling who returns home to reconnect with his two brothers and lead a group of misfits on a small Florida Army base.
Fall premieres of new and returning series are listed below in chronological order (all times are ET/PT):
Wednesday, Sept. 11
8:00-9:00 PM THE X FACTOR (Season Premiere, Part One)
9:00-10:00 PM MASTERCHEF (Season Finale)
Thursday, Sept. 12
8:00-10:00 PM THE X FACTOR (Season Premiere, Part Two)
Monday, Sept. 16
8:00-9:00 PM BONES (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM SLEEPY HOLLOW (Series Premiere)
Tuesday, Sept. 17
8:00-8:30 PM DADS (Series Premiere)
8:30-9:00 PM BROOKLYN NINE-NINE (Series Premiere)
9:00-9:30 PM NEW GIRL (Season Premiere)
9:30-10:00 PM THE MINDY PROJECT (Season Premiere)
Wednesday, Sept. 18
8:00-10:00 PM THE X FACTOR (All-New)
Thursday, Sept. 19
8:00-9:00 PM THE X FACTOR (All-New)
9:00-10:00 PM GLEE (Season Premiere)
Friday, Sept. 27
8:00-9:00 PM MASTERCHEF JUNIOR (Series Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM SLEEPY HOLLOW (Encore)
Sunday, Sept. 29
8:00-8:30 PM THE SIMPSONS (Season Premiere)
8:30-9:00 PM BOB'S BURGERS (Season Premiere)
9:00-9:30 PM FAMILY GUY (Season Premiere)
9:30-10:00 PM AMERICAN DAD (Season Premiere)
Monday, Nov. 4
8:00-9:00 PM ALMOST HUMAN (Series Premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM SLEEPY HOLLOW (All-New)
Friday, Nov. 8
8:00-9:00 PM BONES (Time Period Premiere)
9:00-9:30 PM RAISING HOPE (Season Premiere)
9:30-10:00 PM ENLISTED (Series Premiere)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 2013

MARVEL MYSTERY PROJECTS
Just what is Marvel Studios plotting for the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase Three? Disney just revealed that a new untitled Marvel movie is in the works, and it is now the third to be announced that doesn't have an Avenger attached to it. Beyond Edgar Wright's "Ant-Man" and the rumored "Doctor Strange" film, no characters have been officially announced as the focuses of the studio's upcoming Phase Three movies.
The first two mystery projects were announced earlier in June, and will come out on May 6, 2016 and May 5, 2017. The newest film will premiere on July 8, 2016.
There's plenty of speculation about which Avengers these movies could focus on. The Inhumans, Black Panther and Runaways are all popular voices, while superheroes like the Punisher, Blade, Ghost Rider and Daredevil are all newly back under Marvel control. Then there's always the chance Phase Three could feature a sequel to "Captain America," "Thor," "Guardians of the Galaxy" or a new "Hulk" movie as well.
Marvel still has years to unveil which superheroes the mystery movies will follow, but with San Diego Comic-Con and D23 just around the corner, fans likely won't have too long to wait.
Up next, Marvel has "Thor: The Dark World" coming out on Nov. 8, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" on April 4, 2014, "Guardians of the Galaxy" on Aug. 1, 2014, "The Avengers 2" on May 1, 2015 and "Ant-Man" on Nov. 6, 2015.

ENDER'S GAME
"Ender's Game" is still months away, but the promotional machine for the movie is off and running. The trailer came out in May and the movie's official Tumblr account has been posting viral content pretty regularly, asking people to join the "International Fleet" to begin training to fight the next alien invasion.
That trend continues with three brand-new propaganda posters. None of them carry the movie's title or a release date, but instead feature messages like "Join the next generation of heroes" and "Protect Earth."
The movie, an adaptation of Orson Scott Card's sci-fi epic, finds the Earth still recovering from an alien attack. As teenagers go through military training for the inevitable second battle, one stands out: a boy named Ender (Asa Butterfield). He is joined by the likes of Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Abigail Breslin and Hailee Steinfeld. "Ender's Game" is in theaters November 1.

PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS
A new international trailer for Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters has debuted, and it features lots of cool new footage.
Released by 20th Century Fox, the new trailer throws a lot of epic creatures and Greek myths at us alongside our demigod heroes.
We don’t know about you, but we thought the new trailer gave off a very Harry Potter vibe (especially the cab bit) mixed in with a bit of Wrath of the Titans (the fire monster thingie), but in a cool way.
The only downside: not enough geektastic Nathan Fillion as Greek god Hermes.
Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon, continues his epic journey to fulfill his destiny, as he teams with his demigod friends to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which has the power to save their home and training ground, Camp Half-Blood.
And where to find the fabled Golden Fleece? Why, in the Sea of Monsters—also commonly known to us mere mortals as the Bermuda Triangle—that's where. Nice vacation spot, we hear.
The Thor Freudenthal-directed sequel to 2010’s hit fantasy flick Percy Jackson & the Olympians stars Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Douglas Smith, Mary Birdsong, Yvette Nicole Brown, Missi Pyle, Nathan Fillion, Anthony Head, Paloma Kwiatkowski, Leven Rambin, Stanley Tucci, Robert Maillet and Zoe Aggeliki.
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters will hit theaters on Aug. 7.

OUTLANDER
Ronald D. Moore is officially a showrunner again.
The Starz network announced today that it's given a 16-episode series order to Moore's adaptation of Outlander, the bestselling fantasy series by Diana Gabaldon. Moore will serve as writer and executive producer for the series, which will shoot in Scotland this fall for a 2014 premiere. So, just a few months after we got the encouraging news that Moore was mustering a writing staff, the show is a reality.
"We are thrilled to be bringing Outlander to Starz next year," said Chris Albrecht, CEO of Starz. "Diana has created an incredibly compelling heroine, thrust into a very complex world, not to mention, time. The books weave a fascinating tapestry of history, spirituality, love and honor, not to mention plenty of time travel, sex and warfare. With Diana's stories guiding us and Ron's mastery, we hope to bring Claire and Jamie to life for the millions of fans the world over."
The Outlander novels -- which tell the story of Claire Randall, a combat nurse in 1945 who is suddenly swept back to 1743 Scotland -- have sold more than 20 million copies and frequently appear on the New York Times bestseller list. The eighth novel in the series, Written in My Own Heart's Blood, is due out in March 2014.
“I'm very excited to have the opportunity to bring these books to life," Moore said. "Diana's created a rich and textured world filled with intriguing characters, and I believe that Starz is the perfect home for her story. I think we'll make something that the millions of fans of these books will enjoy and recognize as Outlander."
So, between this and the forthcoming Syfy series Helix, which he's executive-producing, it looks like 2014 will be a very good TV year for Moore.

KNIGHT RIDER FEATURE
Michael Knight and KITT may soon be bringing their adventures to the big screen. The LA Times reports that The Weinstein Company has hired Brad Copeland to draft a feature film take on the popular automotive action franchise.
The original "Knight Rider" series aired for four seasons on NBC beginning in 1982. It starred David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, a crimefighter aided by the Knight Industries Two Thousand (KITT), a highly advanced vehicle with its own A.I. personality.
"Knight Rider" was spun off into the short-lived "Code of Vengeance" in 1985 and, in addition to three different telefilms, received two sequel/reboot series, "Team Knight Rider" and just plain "Knight Rider" in 1997 and 2008, respectively.
In addition to work on television shows like "Arrested Development" and "The Inbetweeners," Copeland has scripted big screen fare like Wild Hogs and Yogi Bear. He also wrote and directed the 2012 indie feature Coffee Town, starring Glenn Howerton, Steve Little, Ben Schwartz and Adrianne Palicki.

UNDER THE DOME
CBS debuted "Under the Dome" and, according to the Nielsen ratings, an estimated 13.14 million people tuned in to watch the Stephen King adaptation. It's the most-watched summer drama premiere on any network since 1992.
If you missed out on the premiere last night, CBS is streaming the episode at http://www.cbs.com/shows/under-the-dome/video/. We recommend giving it a spin.
Written by Brian K. Vaughan, the series stars Mike Vogel, Rachelle Lefevre, Dean Norris, Jolene Purdy, Nicholas Strong, Britt Robertson, Aisha Hinds, Alex Koch, Natalie Martinez and Colin Ford.

TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 2013

CEDAR COVE
Hallmark Channel announced that Bruce Boxleitner (“TRON,” “Babylon 5,” “Scarecrow and Mrs. King“) has been cast as a series regular in Hallmark Channel’s first-ever primetime series, “Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove.”
The two-hour prime-time drama is set to premiere Saturday, July 20 (8 p.m. ET/PT, 7C), with Boxleitner joining the cast regularly as Bob Beldon, owner of the local Cedar Cove inn, Thyme and Tide.
The series is based on the bestselling book series "Cedar Cove" by No. 1 New York Times bestselling author, Debbie Macomber and stars Andie MacDowell (”Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Groundhog Day”), along with Dylan Neal (“Dawson’s Creek,” “The Bold and the Beautiful”), Sarah Smyth (“50/50,” “Call Me Fitz”), Paula Shaw (“Freddy vs Jason,” “Hitched For The Holidays”) and Brennan Elliott (“Strong Medicine”). As previously announced, Teryl Rothery (“Stargate SG-1,” “Kyle XY,” “Dragon Ball”) has been cast as a series regular playing Grace, Judge Olivia Lockhart’s (MacDowell) best friend.
A native mid-westerner, Boxleitner received his formal acting training on stage and is an alumnus of Chicago’s prestigious Goodman Theatre. His big break occurred when he was cast opposite James Arness in the pilot for the epic TV series “How the West Was Won” and he went on to star in the CBS series “Bring 'em Back Alive.” In 1982, Boxleitner was cast in the title role in Disney’s cult film “TRON,” but, it was in Boxleitner’s four-year run for CBS’s “Scarecrow and Mrs. King,” starring opposite Kate Jackson, that made him a household name. In 1994, Boxleitner joined the cast of the syndicated science-fiction TV series “Babylon 5” as John Sheridan, commander of the B5 space station — an interplanetary UN — and later president of the Interstellar Alliance.
Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove” is a 16 Lighthouse Road Productions Ltd. production. Executive producers are Dan Wigutow, Caroline Moore, Ron French, Debbie Macomber and Harvey Kahn.
The series is produced by Connie Dolphin with Steve Harmaty as Co-Executive Producer. The pilot was directed by Michael M. Scott, written by Bruce Graham (“Debbie Macomber’s Trading Christmas”) and was adapted from material from Debbie Macomber’s series of books, Cedar Cove. Carl Binder is the show runner for the series.
Online: http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/cedarcove/about.

TEEN WOLF AND COMIC-CON
"Teen Wolf" is taking a bite out of this year's Comic-Con. MTV is bringing the hit sexy thriller back to San Diego for the fourth time with a panel of stars Tyler Posey, Dylan O'Brien, Tyler Hoechlin, and executive producer Jeff Davis. The panel is on Thursday, July 18.
On the same day, MTV is also hosting "MTV2 Party in the Park," open to all Comic-Con attendees, as well as the premiere of "Guy Code Honors" on Sunday, July 21, featuring the cast of "Guy Code" along with performances and special guests.
Check out the full lineup MTV is bringing this year to Comic-Con:
Thursday, July 18
"Teen Wolf" panel with cast members Tyler Posey, Dylan O'Brien, Tyler Hoechlin, Crystal Reed, Holland Roden, Daniel Sharman, Max Carver, Charlie Carver, and executive producer Jeff Davis, featuring an exclusive first-look at an all-new trailer.
"MTV2 Party in the Park" celebrates the fans at Comic-Con with live musical performances and free food and drinks.
Friday, July 19
"MTV Presents: Creator Pitch LIVE!" is hosted by MTV Comics executive editor Tom Akel, and is a live pitch competition between three of the top creators in the business. Last year's winner David Petersen ("Mouse Guard") will be back to defend his crown against two new challengers. Creators are presented with a topic just a few weeks out from the convention and then develop original pitches that the fans vote on to determine the winner.
"MTV Comics Premieres Graphic Novel The Gloom" from acclaimed writer Tony Lee ("Doctor Who," "Starship Troopers"), and artist Dan Boultwood. In 1940s Manhattan, vigilante The Gloom is America's last line of defense against the Nazis, classic pulp heroism, and common sense. Tony Lee will be signing copies of "The Gloom" at Arcana's booth #2415.

AUTHOR RICHARD MATHESON DIES
Richard Matheson, author of several iconic sci-fi stories including "The Shrinking Man" and "I Am Legend," has passed away. He was 87.
THR reports that Matheson died in his home in Calabasas, CA on Sunday (June 23). The cause of death was not immediately disclosed.
Several of Matheson's works were adapted into films during his career. In 1956, he wrote "The Shrinking Man," which was turned into the film "The Incredible Shrinking Man," giving him his first feature screenwriter credit. His vampire novel "I Am Legend" was the basis for an astonishing three different adaptation: 1964's "The Last Man on Earth," 1971's "Omega Man" and 2007's "I Am Legend," starring Will Smith. His 1971 short story "Duel" was adapted into a telefilm that shone a spotlight on young director Steven Spielberg.
In the late '50s, Matheson began writing for TV series like "Star Trek" "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" and "Twilight Zone," which he wrote 16 episodes for. In fact, one of his 16 is the legendary 1963 episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" starring William Shatner.
News of Matheson's passing came from his daughter, Ali Marie Matheson, who announced her father's death on Facebook on Monday, writing, ""My beloved father passed away yesterday at home surrounded by the people and things he loved ... he was funny, brilliant, loving, generous, kind, creative, and the most wonderful father ever ... I miss you and love you forever, Pop, and I know you are now happy and healthy in a beautiful place full of love and joy you always knew was there..."

WOLVERINE
She may not have a big role in the movie, but it's important to remember how important Famke Janssen's Jean Grey is to Wolverine in the "X-Men" film series. That could be the major reason Jean's likeness is captured in a poster for "The Wolverine."
It was revealed in March that Janssen would have a cameo in the film, even though her character died in "X-Men: The Last Stand." Star Hugh Jackman explained the appearance, saying, "She has a presence, which I think is vital to the movie, particularly for him confronting the most difficult thing within himself."
Now that presence is immortalized in a poster done in the sumi-e ink style. Posters with the same artistic look have been released for other characters in the movie, including Wolverine and Silver Samurai. The Jean Grey print was first posted by Collider, and can be seen popping up in movie theaters around the world.
"The Wolverine" is in theaters July 26.

THE CW'S FALL SCHEDULE
The CW continues its obssession with genre television. The network today revealed its fall premiere schedule, which includes mostly sci-fi and fantasy fare. With the exception of a few shows, they have an impressive lineup of new and returning dramas.
You will notice several scheduling changes. Arrow and Supernatural are no longer partners in crime. While Arrow maintains its Wednesday slot, it will usher in the new drama The Tomorrow People. On the flip side, Supernatural's being bumped to Tuesdays and paired with The Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals. Also, Beauty and the Beast has moved up to Mondays alongside Hart of Dixie.
The premiere date for Nikita's final season is still unknown.
Mark your calendars for the dates below:
Monday, Oct. 7
8 p.m. - Hart of Dixie
9 p.m. - Beauty and the Beast
Wednesday, Oct. 9
8 p.m. - Arrow
9 p.m. - The Tomorrow People
Thursday, Oct. 10
8 p.m. - The Vampire Diaries
9 p.m. - Reign
Tuesday, Oct. 15
8 p.m. - The Originals
9 p.m. - Supernatural
Friday, Oct. 25
8 p.m. - The Carrie Diaries

MORE COMIC-CON NEWS
The madness that is San Diego Comic-Con is nearly upon us.
In just a few short weeks, the biggest pop-culture event of the year will explode with goodies and bits of news from the worlds of film, TV, comics, toys, games and more, and we're finally getting a glimpse at how the schedule is shaping up. Details of the con's TV panels and events (including sneak peeks at a few promising new genre shows) are hitting the 'net, and we've got them all right here.
Keep in mind, though, that this list isn't complete just yet. Details are still coming together for many of these panels, including exact times and locations, and we haven't even heard about all the shows yet. But if you're planning to head out to San Diego to catch a can't-miss panel for your favorite genre series, this'll definitely help you start marking the calendar. Here's what we know so far about the con's TV events.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 17
The con's preview night is always a hot spot for TV, and this year is no different. Warner Bros. has already announced pilot screenings for its new genre shows The 100, The Tomorrow People, Almost Human and Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals, which will include some special extra footage.
THURSDAY, JULY 18
If you're a full-on fannibal, set your watch for 6:45 p.m. on this day. That's when showrunner Bryan Fuller, star Hugh Dancy and executive producers David Slade and Martha De Laurentiis will gather for the Hannibal panel. Also on this day so far: events for Starz's Treasure Island prequel Black Sails and Cartoon Network's wild sketch series MAD.
FRIDAY, JULY 19
Even more genre TV events will hit the con, including panels for new series The 100, Almost Human, Sleepy Hollow and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (featuring series creator Joss Whedon), and returning series The Big Bang Theory, The Following and Nikita.
SATURDAY, JULY 20
What's probably the con's biggest day is also its biggest for TV events so far. Look out for panels featuring new shows The Originals, The Tomorrow People and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, along with returning favorites like Arrow, Futurama, Once Upon a Time, Person of Interest, The Simpsons, Revolution and The Vampire Diaries.
SUNDAY, JULY 21
If you're still around for the con's final day, check out panels for Cartoon Network's new series Beware the Batman, along with events for Teen Titans Go! and Supernatural.
Like we said before, there's still a lot of stuff to be announced before the con, so we'll keep you updated as we get more info on all the biggest genre show events at San Diego this year.

PACIFIC RIM
Warner Bros. Pictures has released this new 2-minute long TV spot for Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim!
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on July 12, the film stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Brad William Henke and Diego Klattenhoff.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

TAKEN 3
Not long after the incredible success of Taken 2, it was revealed that work was underway to bring Taken 3 to theaters. Today, Deadline confirms that Liam Neeson is nearly set to return and will be paid almost $20 million to do so.
Robert Mark Kamen and Luc Besson will again provide the screenplay for the third film which, as Kamen noted last year, will offer a new twist on the franchise formula.
Released last fall, Taken 2 pulled in more than $375 million worldwide, beating the original Taken's total gross of $226 million.
Franchise stars Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen are also said to be in negotiations to return to their respective roles, but neither has been confirmed at this time.

KILL THE MESSENGER
Paz Vega is set to join Jeremy Renner in the upcoming Kill the Messenger, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter.
The film is based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb, a San Jose Mercury News reporter who allegedly committed suicide after being the target of a smear campaign when he linked the CIA to a scheme to arm Contra rebels in Nicaragua and import cocaine into California.
Peter Landesman wrote the screenplay, based on the two books the studio optioned: "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion," by Webb, and Nick Schou's "Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb."
Vega's credits include Sex and Lucia and Cat Run. She can be seen in the upcoming Grace of Monaco.
Michael Cuesta is attached to direct Kill the Messenger with Scott Stuber producing.

MONDAY, JUNE 24, 2013

RODDENBERRY INTO SPACE
The remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and his wife will be launched into space soon — and stay there forever. Roddenberry’s remains have previously been sent into space (he died in 1991), but this new plan will actually send them drifting off ... You know, perhaps to where no man has gone before?
The project is being handled by the Texas-based company Celestis, which has made a business of sending remains into space then bringing them back. Celestis will launch these high-profile remains, along with some digital files, DNA samples and hair from acclaimed science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke.
The items will be carried off with a large experimental solar sail developed by NASA, which will take them (literally) into the great beyond.
R.I.P., Gene — thanks for the good times.

WORLD WAR Z SEQUEL
With the successful $111.8 million worldwide debut of zombie extravaganza World War Z -- a passion project for the actor -- Paramount actively will turn to developing a sequel, studio vice chairman Rob Moore tells The Hollywood Reporter. The tentpole earned $66 million in North America, the best opening for an original live-action tentpole since Avatar, and $45.8 million from its first 25 foreign markets.
World War Z initially was envisioned as a trilogy, but those plans were shelved when the movie ran into trouble, requiring extensive reworking of the last act. Initially set to open in December 2012, the movie's release date was pushed back to June, prompting many in Hollywood to anticipate a blood bath.
But in a happy reversal of fortune, World War Z is off to a strong start, both in terms of its commercial and critical appeal. It will need to stay strong to make up for its $190 million budget, however. Paramount appears confident it will, judging by the fact that its reviving plans for further installments. It's the biggest debut of Pitt's career.
Skydance Productions co-financed World War Z, which also was made in association with Hemisphere Media Capital and GK Films. Pitt produced via his company Plan B, with Marc Forster directing.
Franchises are incredibly important to Hollywood studios and can likewise reap huge rewards for talent in terms of pay. And a World War Z series could mark a big win for Pitt in terms of his aspirations as a producer.
Pitt -- one of the world's most recognizable stars -- has spent much of his career pursuing prestige projects, versus more commercial event pics. Exceptions were Troy and the Ocean's Eleven franchise, although those were ensemble films.
His previous best box office opening, not accounting for inflation, was Mr. & Mrs. Smith in summer 2005 ($50.3 million). A year before, in May 2004, Troy opened to $46.9 million, now his third best debut.
Pitt has starred in a number of two-handers (Spy Game, Interview With a Vampire, The Devil's Own), as well having a relatively small -- but memorable role -- in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. His last two films were indie mob pic Killing Them Softly, which bombed, and the critically acclaimed Moneyball.
Pitt aggressively helped market World War Z, attending numerous screenings across the country, as well as turning up at industry events, such as CinemaCon, the annual convention of theater owners in Las Vegas. He also has jetted around the world to attend various premieres of the movie.
"The great thing about this process was that it showed what a great partner and producer Brad is," says Moore. "He made a true commitment."
Moore said that when the studio deemed that there problems with the movie, Pitt and Forster worked closely with Paramount Film Group president Adam Goodman to "find the right movie. He stayed and worked when he could have gone off and shot another movie."
The result -- World War Z drew a fairly even ratio of males (51 percent) and females (49), while 33 percent of those buying tickets were under the age of 25, and 67 percent were over.
In addition to Pitt's appeal, Moore says that females were drawn to the film's storyline. In World War Z, a U.N. worker who is torn between protecting his family and leaving to find a cure for a worldwide pandemic turning humans into zombies.
Last week, when attending the Moscow premiere, Pitt himself hinted at a sequel and said there is plenty of material left over from Max Brooks' novel, upon which the movie is based.
"I think the movie captured the public's imagination with something that is fresh and different," says Moore. "And certainly, Brad gave a superb performance."

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Affable monsters and hordes of zombies converged at the North American box office over the weekend to create a perfect storm for moviegoing.
Disney and Pixar's long-awaited sequel Monsters University opened to a sizzling $82 million, the No. 2 Pixar opening of all time after Toy Story 3 ($110 million). Overseas, Monsters U took in an early $54.5 million from 35 markets for a worldwide debut of $136.5 million.
Brad Pitt zombie pic World War Z, from Paramount, also overperformed in opening to $66 million, the top launch for an original live-action tentpole since Avatar. It also marks Pitt's largest opening domestically, easily outpacing the $50.3 million launch of Mr. & Mrs. Smith in summer 2005. Internationally, World War Z debuted to $45.8 million from its first 25 markets for a worldwide total of $111.8 million.
World War Z's performance is a notable victory for Paramount, considering many in Hollywood left the film for dead after its release was pushed back from December 2012 in order to allow for numerous reshoots required to reshape the ending. Directed by Marc Forster and co-financed by Skydance Productions, World War Z was a passion project for Pitt, who produced the tentpole.
Domestic box office revenue for the weekend reached an estimated $236 million, the second best of the year after Memorial Day weekend and among the top 10 weekends of all time.
Heading into the frame, box office observers believed World War Z would end up in a closer battle with Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan's Man of Steel, with many giving Superman an edge over zombies.
As it turned out, Man of Steel fell more than expected domestically, even as it jumped the $200 million mark in North America and nearly $400 million worldwide. The movie grossed $41.2 million domestically, a 65 percent decline, pushing its domestic total to $210 million.
Overseas, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures' Man of Steel towered over the competition, grossing $89 million from 52 markets for an international cume of $188.3 million and global total of $398.3 million. Highlights included China, where the tentpole took in $25.5 million. And it beat World War Z in the U.K., grossing $8.2 million in its second weekend, versus a $7.1 million opening for World War Z.
Coming in No. 4 in North America was Sony's innovative comedy This Is the End, which fell just 37 percent in its second weekend. The R-rated pic grossed $13 million for a domestic cume of $57.8 million.
Rounding out the top five was Summit's sleeper hit Now You See Me. The magician heist pic has enjoyed a great hold, grossing $7.9 million in its fourth weekend for a domestic total of $94.5 million.
The might of Monsters U, directed by Dan Scanlon, continues Pixar's winning streak at the box office and marks the 14th Pixar title to open to No. 1. The sequel returns Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi and Frank Oz in the roles of Mike Wazowski, James P. Sullivan, Randall Boggs, and Jeff Fungus, respectively.
"The consistency of the quality that comes from Pixar and John Lasseter and his team is extraordinary" "This movie had to live up to a very had to live up to a very high bar, and it did," said Disney executive vice president of distribution Dave Hollis, also noting that the animated tentpole did strong nighttime business in a sign that adults were turning out in addition to families.
One downer -- onlyl 31 percent of the revenues came from 3D screens.
Monsters U will have plenty of competition in the coming weeks as a record number of 3D summer toons open at the North American, but a glowing A CinemaScore should help fuel word of mouth.
Overseas, the 2013 summer animation war began over the weekend in Australia, where Monsters U debuted opposite University's Despicable Me 2 in advance of the winter holidays. Despicable 2 was the victor, grossing $4.3 million. Combined with previews, the toon has earned a total of $6.4 million. Monsters U took in $3.5 million.
Paramount is hoping that World War Z -- following the lead of other successful original tentpoles -- enjoys a better-than-usual multiple. Avatar debuted to $77 million in December 2009 on its way to cuming $760.5 million domestically, or 10 times its opening number. And in summer 2010, Christopher Nolan's Inception grossed $292.6 million, nearly five times its $62 million debut.
"This was an original movie in a summer that's been full of sequels and remakes. I think it captured the public's imagination. Certainly, Brad gave a superb performance," said Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore.
Rated PG-13, World War Z earned a B+ CinemaScore.
World War Z, based on Max Brook's 2006 novel of the same name, was a sizeable gamble for the studio, costing $190 million to produce after tax incentives. The budget was originally $150 million, but the additional work -- shepherded by Pitt and Forster alongside Paramount Film Group president Adam Goodman and his team -- bumped up the number.
In the film, Pitt plays a retired U.N. employee who must return to work and stop a worldwide pandemic that is turning humans into zombies. The Killing's Mireille Enos stars as his wife.
At the specialty box office, Sofia Copolla's The Bling Ring came in No. 11 as it made a major push in its second weekend, upping its theater count from five theaters to 650. The indie film, from A24 films, grossed $1.8 million from 650 theaters for a cume of $2.1 million.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
When he was first cast in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in May, William Fichtner's role was described as being of "iconic stature" within the mythology of the series, making many believe that he would be playing Shredder. Now he has confirmed that he is indeed playing the villain.
"I play Shredder," he told HuffPost TV Canada. "It is cool. It's one of those things that came along where I thought, 'Really? Let me think about this for a minute.' [Laughs] Then I was like, 'Yeah, OK, this sounds like a journey.' I'm very glad that it worked out, I'm really glad that I'm doing it."
He stars opposite Megan Fox, Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Noel Fisher, Will Arnett and Danny Woodburn in the June 6, 2014 release.

SIDEKICK 1 FROM JMS
Here's a sneak peek at the San Diego Comic Con variant cover for Sidekick 1, courtesy of the amazing talents of Whilce Portacio! The second title from Joe's Comics, following the terrific reception to Ten Grand, Sidekick tells the story of what happens to a sidekick after his mentor is apparently assassinated.
We will be having a limited-edition black-and-white version at Image Expo in San Francisco on July 2nd, this SDCC variant the weekend of 20th, and the book proper (or improper) comes out August 7th. Pre-sales on the book continue for another couple of weeks, so there's still time to get in your order.
If you haven't yet seen the trailer for the book, you can find it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-A0Bma0gII.

SUNDAY, JUNE 23, 2013

SUPER MOON TONIGHT
The largest full moon of 2013 will be rising Sunday evening (June 23), when the moon will be at its closest point to the Earth (the perigee), creating what has become known as the "supermoon." The moon will appear roughly 12 percent bigger in the sky than normal.
"It doesn't matter where you are, the full moon you're seeing will be the biggest for 2013," NASA's assistant director of science Michelle Thaller tells Space.com. "That 12 percent size difference can mean as much as a 30 percent change in brightness, so this will be a particularly bright supermoon."
Thaller adds that while a supermoon does happen about once a year, this year the supermoon is closer than it has been in a while. Space.com adds that if you take an amazing picture of the supermoon on Sunday, send it to spacephotos@space.com and maybe it you'll see it on their website.

WORLD WAR Z
After this weekend, Mr. and Mrs. Smith will no longer be Brad Pitt's biggest opening weekend earner.
The actor's World War Z is set to surpass the $50 million brought in by the 2005 spy film, which co-starred Angelina Jolie. Paramount expects the zombie apocalypse tentpole, which earned a B+ CinemaScore from audiences, to gross more than $60 million in its debut.
WWZ earned $25 million on Friday, placing the title at No. 2 on the domestic box office chart behind Disney/Pixar's Monsters University at $30.5 million.
The movie, co-financed with Skydance Productions, underwent an arduous production process that included numerous reshoots before finally making its way into theaters.
Pitt's last summer film was Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, which opened to $38 million in August 2009. He also starred in Steven Soderbergh's 2007 heist sequel, Ocean's Thirteen, which opened to $36 million in June. And the actor opened the mythology epic, Troy, to $46 million in May, 2004.

HERCULES
Kon-Tiki star Tobias Santelmann has joined Brett Ratner's upcoming Hercules film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Santelmann will play the lead villain in the film, a character named Rhesus. Santelmann's character is described as "a golden-locked barbarian and revolutionary" who will go toe-to-toe with Dwayne Johnson's Hercules in the movie.
Hercules also stars Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, Joseph Fiennes, Peter Mullan and John Hurt. Rounding out the main cast are Rebecca Ferguson, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Aksel Hennie and Reece Ritchie.
Based on the Radical Studios graphic novel "Hercules: The Thracian Wars," the ensemble-action film is a revisionist take on the classic myth set in a grounded world where the supernatural does not exist. The screenplay is by Ryan Condal and Evan Spiliotopoulos. President Barry Levine of Radical Studios is a producer and Executive VP Jesse Berger is an executive producer on the film.
Hercules will land in theaters on July 25, 2014.

INTO THE WOODS
Anna Kendrick is the latest name said to be joining the cast of the ensemble Broadway musical adaptation Into the Woods, says a story today at The Hollywood Reporter. She will play Cinderella opposite Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, Chris Pine, Jake Gyllenhaal, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Tracey Ullman and Christine Baranski.
Into the Woods weaves together the story of several of the most beloved fairytales (Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel) into the original story of a Baker and his wife who try to reverse a curse on their family in order to have a child, exploring the consequences of the characters’ wishes and quests and their desire for “happily ever after.”
With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book and direction by James Lapine, "Into the Woods" earned 10 nominations at the 1988 Tony Awards, winning three including best score and best book of a musical. The 2002 Broadway revival won a Tony for best revival of a musical.
Kendrick recently starred in Rapture-Palooza and can be seen coming up in the Dylan Kidd-directed comedy Get a Job.
Walt Disney Pictures is expected to start filming in the fall. James Lapine wrote the script and Rob Marshall will direct.

SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 2013

MATT SMITH THANKS THE FANS
We're still trying to make peace with the fact Matt Smith is leaving "Doctor Who" after this year's Christmas special, and this heartfelt video thank you to fans and colleagues is only making it harder.
He starts the message Bob Dylan/INXS/"Love Actually"-style with a series of words written on sheets of paper he holds up to the camera. The silence makes it all the more touching when Smith finally speaks.
The announcement Smith will be ending his tenure as the Eleventh Doctor came earlier this month, and ever since speculation has been rampant about who might replace him. This video is just more proof the replacement has big shoes to fill.

DOCTOR SLEEP
Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, the sequel to his legendary scarefest The Shining, won't hit bookstores until the fall. But we're just days away from the debut of Under the Dome, a CBS miniseries based on King's novel of the same name, and King's publisher is taking the opportunity to give Doctor Sleep a plug.
The short spot above will air during Under the Dome broadcasts (which begin Monday night) to promote the forthcoming novel, which will follow the exploits of an adult Danny Torrance as he battles a new supernatural foe. Here's the official synopsis for the book:
On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the 'steam' that children with the 'shining' produce when they are slowly tortured to death.
Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant 'shining' power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes 'Doctor Sleep.'
Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.
Doctor Sleep hits bookstores Sept. 24.

RELEASE DATES FOR ID-4, X-MEN AND MORE
Good news, sci-fi fans. It looks like 2014 and 2015 should be a whole lot of fun.
The folks at 20th Century Fox have just announced some major sci-fi release dates, while also confirming that long-rumored Independence Day sequel really is happening.
We also get a new date for Bryan Singer’s eagerly anticipated X-Men: Days of Future Past, which will be showing up a little earlier than expected in the summer of 2014. But that comes at the cost of bumping the Rise of the Planet of the Apes sequel further down the line.
If it means we get the X-Men back together a little sooner, that’s not a bad tradeoff. Here’s the full breakdown:
Roland Emmerich (Stargate, Independence Day) is returning to direct Independence Day 2, which is set to open wide on July 3, 2015. For those keeping count, that’s 19 years after the original. Still no official word on whether original stars Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum will be back to battle aliens.
The new X-Men sequel Days of Future Past is moving up from its originally set July 18, 2014, release date to May 23, 2014. As far as competition is concerned, it’ll roll out a week after Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla reboot.
To make room for Days of Future Past, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is moving from May to July 18, 2014. The first installment in this rebooted Apes canon was a surprise blockbuster, so this one will probably gain some steam heading into next year.
A new date for the videogame adaptation Assassin’s Creed has been set for June 19, 2015, which bumps it back a month from its original May 22 release date.

MAGGIE
Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken a leading role in the upcoming zombie project Maggie, Variety reports. He's also planning to serve as a producer on the 2011 "Black List" project. Written by John Scott 3, it was given the following official logline:
As a “walking dead” virus spreads across the country, a farm family helps their eldest daughter come to terms with her infection as she slowly becomes a flesh-eating zombie.
Although she was up for the title role earlier this year, Chloe Grace Moretz is no longer set to star due to scheduling conflicts.
Schwarzenegger, who recently starred in The Last Stand, also recently confirmed that he'll be returning to his most popular franchise with Terminator 5.
Commercials director Henry Hobson will helm Maggie and the modestly-budgeted film will mark his theatrical debut.

FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2013

IRON MAN
Robert Downey Jr.’s status with Marvel has been in flux ever since his lengthy contract finally ran out after Iron Man 3, but Disney has just ponied up enough cash to keep him in the suit for at least a few more movies.
Marvel has announced that Downey has inked a new, two-picture deal to return in The Avengers 2 and The Avengers 3. There’s no mention of money, but considering the fact that Avengers and Iron Man 3 banked $2.7 billion worldwide (and counting), it has to be a lot. Like, a lot.
Regardless, it’s great news for the continuity of Marvel’s long-term plan, and shows the centerpiece of Phase I will be sticking around through at least Phase 3. One thing to note: There’s no mention of Iron Man 4, meaning Tony Stark’s standalone movies are probably on hold for a while.
Most likely Iron Man will be shifting to an Avengers-only role, similar to how Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk was used recently. This also means we’ll most definitely be seeing more characters introduced to take those ripe spots on the schedule where Iron Man 4-5 will not be showing up.

TRUE BLOOD
Last Sunday, True Blood kicked off its sixth season by picking up right where it left off. The Vampire Authority's all but gone, and Sookie and company were running for their lives. Next week things will cool down as Bon Temps' favorite waitress tries to return to normalcy. But let's be real, this is True Blood, there's no such thing.
HBO's released a preview clip that introduces a new person (or should we say element?) to Sookie. While walking to work, Sookie comes across an injured man (Robert Kazinsky). Her head tells her to ignore him, but her gut says the opposite. It turns out the stranger is suffering from a serious wound, which was caused by a vampire attack. Sookie uses her fairy powers to read his mind and discovers his secret.
Like Sookie, the mystery man has fairy blood, and they engage in a silent conversation. No words, just thoughts. It's an interesting exchange, to say the least.

INDEPENDENCE DAY SEQUEL
The long-awaited sequel to Roland Emmerich's Independence Day will land in theaters in 2015.
20th Century Fox announced Thursday that Independence Day 2 will open on July 3, 2015, the eve of the lucrative holiday that drove 1996's Independence Day to a stellar $50 million debut. Emmerich will return to direct and produce, but none of the original cast -- including lead Will Smith -- has been announced as returning as of yet.
For now, only Universal's animated 3D Untitled Illumination Entertainment 2015 Project is slated to also open on that date.
Fox also announced that Peregrine's Home for Peculiars will hit theaters July 31, 2015. The film, based on Ransom Riggs' debut novel, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, will be directed by Tim Burton from a script by X-Men: First Class writer Jane Goldman. The story follows a teenage boy who is transported to an island where he must help protect a group of orphans with special powers from creatures out to destroy them.
The project currently has that date to itself.
Fox has also shuffled the dates of several other high-profile projects.
X-Men: Days of Future Past, has moved up from July 18, 2014, to May 23, 2014. Bryan Singer's X-Men film features several members of the original 2000-06 trilogy -- Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin and Ellen Page -- along with the First Class stars, including Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence. Newcomers Peter Dinklage, Booboo Stewart, Omar Sy and Fan Bingbing also have been added to the cast.
Warner Bros. comedy Blended, starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, also opens May 23, 2014.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes shifts from May 23, 2014, to July 18, 2014. Fox's sequel stars Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Judy Greer and Andy Serkis. Directed by Matt Reeves, the sci-fi pic is set 15 years after the events of the hit 2011 film. It follows Caesar (Serkis), the intelligent ape who is trying to maintain dominance over his kingdom, and the scientists struggling to survive in San Francisco.
The sequel to upcoming 3D animated film Planes -- titled Planes: Fire and Rescue -- is the only other wide release currently set for May 23, 2014.
Finally, video-game based film Assassin's Creed, starring Michael Fassbender, will push from May 22, 2015, to June 19, 2015. Pixar's Inside Out, from Up director Pete Docter, is slated for the same release date.

COMIC-CON NEWS
ABC has officially announced that their upcoming series "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." will make an appearance at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. You can read an excerpt from the press release below:
On Friday, July 19, Marvel Television will introduce fans to their first live action television epic with their new ABC series, "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," featuring a panel with executive producer Joss Whedon and Marvel's Head of Television and series executive producer Jeph Loeb. The show will also be spotlighted at the Marvel Entertainment Booth on the Convention Center floor throughout the entire weekend, with special surprises to be announced! Specific times and locations for all events to be announced at a later date.
Clark Gregg reprises his role of Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel’s feature films as he assembles a small, highly select group of Agents from the worldwide law-enforcement organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Together they investigate the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary.
Coulson’s team consists of Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), highly trained in combat and espionage, Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) expert pilot and martial artist, Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker); brilliant engineer and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) genius bio-chemist. Joining them on their journey into mystery is new recruit and computer hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet).
From Executive Producers Joss Whedon (Marvel’s The Avengers, ”Buffy the Vampire Slayer”); Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” pilot co-writers (“Dollhouse,” “Dr.Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”); Jeffrey Bell (“Angel,” “Alias”); and Jeph Loeb (“Smallville”) comes Marvel’s first TV series. “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is produced by ABC Studios and Marvel Television.

THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2013

WORLD WAR Z
Listen as J. Michael Straczynski talks about his involvement with WORLD WAR Z.

HEMLOCK GROVE RENEWED
Netflix has renewed its original series, "Hemlock Grove" for Season 2. The mystery thriller will return with 10 new episodes in 2014.
One of the first major original series to appear on the Netflix streaming service, "Hemlock Grove" is a bizarre and creepy gothic horror piece set in a small Pennsylvania town. With murders, monsters and a whole lot of mystery, the main story focuses on the friendship between the wealthy Roman Godfrey and a secretive newcomer, Peter Rumancek.
For Season 2, the series will add a new showrunner, Charles Eglee ("The Walking Dead," "Dexter," "The Shield"). He will join executive producers Eli Roth ("Hostel"), Brian McGreevy, Lee Shipman, Eric Newman and Michael Connolly.
"The worldwide fan response to 'Hemlock Grove' was phenomenal," said Roth. "Netflix members loved the potent combination of sexy monsters, mystery, and the dark family soap opera that ended with a huge twist, leaving audiences worldwide totally shocked. Season 1 was just a warm up for what we have in store for Season 2. Get ready to be scared in ways you never expected."
"Hemlock Grove" stars Famke Janssen, Bill Skarsgard, Landon Liboiron, Freya Tingley, and Dougray Scott.

BEWARE THE BATMAN
Superhero fans will have a glut of new animated series this year, and an extended look at Cartoon Network’s Beware the Batman looks like it could be one of the best of the bunch.
Whereas Marvel is taking the more animated, kiddie-focused route on Disney XD with shows like Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., DC is looking for a CGI throwback to the late-to-mid-'90s golden era of animated superhero shows. The new footage has a Batman Beyond vibe, and that’s a very good thing.
As for whether the actual show will be as intense as this trailer? We’ll know soon enough, as the show debuts at 10 a.m. on Saturday, July 13.

THE LEGO MOVIE
Toys are all the rage at the box office these days, and yet another iconic kiddie classic is coming to the big screen. Get ready for The LEGO Movie, which is apparently chock-full of beloved DC heroes.
An average-Joe LEGO guy tasked with saving the world will call on everyone from Wonder Woman to Batman (voiced perfectly by Will Arnett) along the way to protect his tiny, yellow way of life.
The expansive voice cast includes Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman and a ton of other folks — meaning this kiddie flick could be one to watch when it finally arrives in February 2014.
The movie looks to be a cameo-fueled blast, and if they can keep the jokes tight, it could definitely work. Fingers crossed.

GHOSTMAN
Headhunters director Morten Tyldum is set to helm the upcoming Warner Bros. adaptation of Roger Hobbs recent novel Ghostman. Published earlier this year, the crime thriller is officially described as follows:
When a casino robbery in Atlantic City goes horribly awry the man who orchestrated it is obliged to call in a favor from "Jack." Only thirty or so people are sure this man exists, some believe he's dead, and none know anything at all about his true identity. Those are closely guarded trade secrets, to say the least, for an exceptionally trained, experienced, and talented criminal. But as he struggles to clean up the mess left in the wake of the bungled Atlantic City heist, he finds himself increasingly more visible as he's pursued simultaneously by the FBI and other interested, if mysteriously elusive, parties--a situation that requires every gram of his skill, ingenuity, and self-protective instincts, especially when offense and defense become meaningless terms.
Tyldum will soon make his English-language debut with the Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game. Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley are both attached to star.
The feature film version will work from an adapted screenplay by Peter Craig with Kevin McCormick producing through his Langley Park Pictures.

LOCKE & KEY
Universal Pictures has been having a really good year and that's now showing by their willingness to jump in and save projects from other studios like the recent Dumb and Dumber sequel. That said, they're also looking ahead to new franchises and according to The Hollywood Reporter, they've now optioned the rights to Joe Hill's highly popular supernatural comic book series Locke & Key, published by IDW Publishing.
The project will be produced by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Bobby Cohen, who are having a strong summer sleeper hit with Now You See Me, through their Universal-based K/O Paper Products banner, along with Ted Adams, CEO and publisher of IDW Publishing.
It tells the the multi-generational stories of three siblings after the murder of their father which leads them to moving back into their ancestral home in Massachusetts which they discover has magical keys that give them special abilities even though others want to also get their hands on said keys.
The comics by Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez have led to multiple Eisner Awards nominations--Hill won an Eisner for his writing--as well as getting the graphic novel collections onto the New York Times bestseller list, which ultimately led to there being a lot of interest in Hollywood to adapt the graphic novels for a number of years.
Dimension Films previously owned the rights, which expired in 2010, and Kurtzman and Orci jumped in to possibly turn the comics into a television series, but it was held back by budget restrictions. Universal brings new hope for the feature film and a possible franchise if the initial film does well.
As it happens, Hill has supernatural fiction in his blood, being the son of noted horror author Stephen King, and having written his own novels Heart-Shaped Box and NOS4A2.

Claudia HEROES FOR SALE CONVENTION POSTPONED
Postponed new dates to be announced.
We have taken down the website until further notice to implement changes and to revise our dates when the event will be held. The event’s original dates of June 29th and 30th have been postponed. Anyone who has booked tickets and require a refund based on this information please email the following address. Carl@maineventmanagement.co.uk.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2013

WORLD WAR Z
A new clip from Brad Pitt’s World War Z finally shows off more of the zombie insanity, and gives us our best look yet at those ant-like undead.
Yes, this flick has been through the ringer as far as rewrites and reshoots, but there’s no denying — it looks absolutely epic in scale. Pitt has been saying all along that this is a worldwide look at an outbreak, and those wide set piece shots look breathtaking.
Who knows, maybe Damon Lindelof really does have the magic touch. It could happen, right?
The footage here seems to come from pretty early in the film, with Pitt and his character’s family trying to escape the bustling, zombie-filled streets of Philadelphia. Again, they've shown they can make a big movie. But, the jury is still out on if it's a good movie.
The flick opens June 21.

LOGAN'S RUN
Logan's Run is one of those cult sci-fi movies that's beloved based more upon how weird it is than its actual quality. But the book-turned-film has its charms. The idea of a seemingly utopian society that kills off all its citizens once they turn 30 years old (21 in the book) is the kind of speculative sci-fi that hits all the right moral questions and mortal fears.
But it's also incredibly cheesy and ridiculous, so, despite rumors of a remake over the years, it has seemed far more likely that Logan's Run would (and should) remain the '70s schlock it was.
But now a writer has come onto the project who has us watering at the mouth for a new version -- Ken Levine. If his name doesn't immediately jump out at you, it's because he's not known for movies, but for creating a videogame series called BioShock.
The BioShock series is incredibly well known for its sprawling worlds, dystopian alternate timelines and zany characters. Levine has an eye for detail that has made BioShock a household name. And now, apparently because Levine is a huge fan of the Logan's Run, he wants to make its story famous all over again.
So we say bring on the domed city, the runners, the Sandmen and the Carousel. This is the time of Renewal!

THE ARROW
Rumors have been making the rounds that The CW’s hit series Arrow could introduce a few more heroes next season, and now star Stephen Amell has chimed in.
In a chat with Digital Spy recapping the first season and looking toward what’s coming next, Amell teased that he would love to see some version of the Justice League introduced during season two.
Why? Because he’s interested to see how the writers would adapt the characters into the more grounded Arrow universe:
“I hope so, very much hope so. I would just like to see them come through our universe and get our treatment, so to speak, so it could be anyone.”
If the writers did want to expand the roster next season, it’d be the perfect time. They played season one pretty close to the vest, and did a great job of getting the series outside the shadow of the long-running Smallville.

UFOTOG
Legendary sci-fi visual effects expert Douglas Trumbull hasn't directed a feature since 1983's Brainstorm, when his star Natalie Wood died under mysterious (and infamous) circumstances during a party on Catalina Island as the film was under production.
Now, the man who created the visual effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner returns to directing after 30 years with an experimental sci-fi short called UFOTOG.
The innovative filmmaker, inventor (Showscan) and Oscar recipient's new 10-minute project was made in 4K 3D and at a high frame rate of 120 frames per second. (By comparison, The Hobbit was made in 2K 3D at 48 fps. And James Cameron’s high frame rate test from 2011 went as high as 2K 3D at 60 fps.) The short is a test run before the filmmaker embarks on two planned features that take advantage of these technical capabilities.
Trumbull says he has “loved” getting back into directing -- a love that he abandoned after making Brainstorm. “I had to personally make a life decision many years ago when Natalie Wood died under very suspicious circumstances during the making of Brainstorm,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I just had to stop. I had been a writer-director all my life, and I decided it wasn't for me because I was put through a really challenging personal experience. I do not think the story has ever been told. I don’t know the story myself, but I know what my experience was. I decided to leave the movie business.”
The soft-spoken director then changed the subject back to his work. UFOTOG, an acronym for UFO photography, is “based on a longer screenplay that I have” that tells the story of a man’s attempt to photograph an alien spacecraft. “He’s very smart, a serial entrepreneur, like Elon Musk. So he has the wherewithal to get a really good camera and build a system on a mountaintop.” The photographer is played by actor Ryan Winkles.
UFOTOG is one of two features that Trumbull has in the pipeline. “It is not the primary one that I want to make next. I’m also developing a sci-fi epic that takes place about 200 years in the future,” he said.
The projects underscore the director's belief that films shot at ultra-high resolution and frame rates -- and supported by immersive sound, such as Dolby Atmos, which will be used on UFOTOG -- will deliver a kind of experience that will draw more people to movie theaters. “What you see on the screen is less like a movie and more like a live event. The screen becomes a giant window onto reality,” he said, noting that this informs the creative choices, as it creates a more first-person experience.
UFOTOG was shot with Canon C500 4K cameras and a 3ality 3D camera rig, recording raw data at 120 fps. Actors and other live elements were primarily shot on a greenscreen stage at Trumbull’s studio in Southfield, Mass., and composited into 3D virtual sets. “I think we can save a tremendous amount of money by not going on location and not building many sets at all," the Trumbull said.
But unlike many productions that rely on virtual sets (where CG backgrounds are frequently used), Trumbull said there is actually very little CG in his short, since the environments are largely composites of live-action elements such as trees and skies. “The result is photorealistic,” he said.
To manage the data to accommodate 4K 3D at 120 fps, the production worked with manufacturer JMR Electronics, which designed and built a server and storage system that was used on the set to collect and manage the data while providing real-time playback. Later, it was moved to compositing (also at Trumbull’s location) while linked to the set via an InfiniBand 56GB connection.
“The amount of data that we would be collecting on set was the key issue,” said Timothy Huber of Theory Consulting, the project’s technology consultant. “Doug needed a playback server that would work at 120 fps for both eyes.”
JMR technical products specialist Miguel A. Saldate and COO Mitch Guzik said that they are seeing increasing interest in 4K, and that the company plans to offer the 4K and high frame rate-supported configuration of its system to customers.
For Trumbull’s project, exhibition also needed attention, as theaters are currently not set up to play movies at 120 fps. Trumbull has been working with projector maker Christie Digital, which supplied its 4K projector during production of UFOTOG.
“Almost all of the [DLP Cinema] series 2 projectors are capable of running my material; it just needs a modification to the media block [a piece of hardware required for digital projection]," he said. At this time, Trumbull is bypassing the media block and playing footage off a server. “[For exhibition] we will be using a Christie Integrated Media Block. [For production of the short] we play our material directly out of Eyeon Generation visual effects software, which is frame rate and resolution agnostic. It is the only thing we have found that allows us to work in this high frame rate all day, every day.”
To create his envisioned entertainment experience, Trumbull also believes that theaters need to increase the size and gain of the screen. He is currently testing a prototype from Stewart Filmscreen, which he described as “an extremely high gain hemispherical screen that reflects all the light from the projector back to the audience. So it triples the amount of light with no increase to the [lamps] in the projector.”
Trumbull is looking to demonstrate the configuration and the potential of 120fps to Hollywood. “We’re trying to find a venue in Los Angeles where we can set it up and show UFOTOG properly,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “We are shooting for some dates in August.”

EPSILON
Greg Berlanti has closed a deal to direct Epsilon, a sci-fi action feature project by Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.
Michael DeLuca is producing with Reese and Wernick.
Epsilon is set after a failed robot rebellion on an Earth almost entirely devoid of electronic devices. The remaining robots seek refuge on a space station and begin to raise their own human lab rats, which they train to act as their agents. The main character is a man who discovers he is more human than he thought.
Sony picked up the project as a spec in September, paying in the $1 million range.
Jonathan Kadin is overseeing production for Columbia Pictures.
The deal is a significant one for Berlanti, who is best known as a force in television. He is a showrunner and exec producer behind such shows as Arrow, Brothers & Sisters, No Ordinary Family and Political Animals and has Tomorrow People debuting on The CW this fall.
And while he worked on movies such as Green Lantern and Wrath of the Titans as a writer, his major directorial outing up to this point has been the 2010 dramedy Life As We Know It, which starred Josh Duhamel and Katherine Heigl.
Epsilon, with its large scale and what is sure to be significant visual effects work, will serve as a major step up for Berlanti, who is repped by WME and Felker Toczek.

LEGENDARY UPDATE
Legendary Pictures is having a great summer, it goes without saying. The Hangover Part III turned a decent profit and Man of Steel killed at the box office this weekend.
President Thomas Tull conducted a press conference in Hollywood to look ahead at the company's slate in the coming years which includes a new film from the Dowdle brothers, an epic-looking war film infused with a supernatural edge and more.
...Seventh Son, the monster-filled film directed by Sergei Bodrov and starring Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore and and Ben Barnes. Being a fan of The Big Lebowski, Tull expressed his excitement about getting Bridges and Moore back together, however, in this film, the two are at odds. Bridges plays a knight whereas Moore is a powerful witch (with a tail, I might add) who can tranform into a demonic, winged beast. The trailer packed a nice punch and it was brimming with various creatures and the promise of a cool adventure - akin to something like the old Ray Harryhausen films. Bridges is back doing some sort of Rooster Cogburn drawl, still, the movie looked like fun.
Next up was 300: Rise of an Empire.
Godzilla is obviously a big player at Legendary. The reboot is currently lensing in Vancouver under the direction of Gareth Edwards (Monsters) and Tull said his love for Godzilla ran deep, sharing his post-Thanksgiving tradition, as a kid, watching the Godzilla marathon that would play on TV. Rather than show footage, Gareth Edwards recorded a special message for the presentation. "There's no bigger or better monster than Godzilla," Edwards said. He added the film deals with themes of man meddling with Mother Nature and Mother Nature putting makind "in its place." Edwards expressed that that the story of Godzilla is highly relevant today and it ties in to the nuclear themes of the original. Of course, he didn't want to give "too much away" regarding the latter.
Warcraft was teased, albeit briefly, with a simple title treatment. To be directed by Duncan Jones (Moon), the film is based on the game series. Tull said they are taking their time with this one and placing a "very high bar" on it, "because, frankly, video game movies have not fared very well." They want a great script and are taking the property very seriously. Expect more updates over the next few months.
Michael Mann and Chris Hemsworth taped a greeting to promote Legendary's Untitled Michael Man Movie. Mann began by enthusing about working with Legendary and then discussed the research he did for this cyber crime/cyber terrorism thriller. Hemsworth said the combo between the script (moreover, its subject matter) and working with Mann was something he "couldn't say no to." All really vague stuff that didn't fill us in on the plot. Look for the film in 2014.
As Above, So Below was next on Tull's agenda and he showed off a title treatment as well as a video "mood piece" that offered a history of the film's backdrop: The catacombs beneath Paris that shelter the remains of millions of bodies - a place where tours and parties take place and where hundreds have gone missing. This is the latest film from the Dowdle brothers who gave us The Poughkeepsie Tapes, Quarantine and Devil and Tull said they're currently shooting the film. On the location, "I always thought it was cool and creepy," said Tull. The film reportedly concerns two archeologists searching for treasure within the catacombs. Of course, something goes wrong.
Director Nic Mathieu joined Tull to talk briefly about Spectral which pits a special ops unit against an army of ghosts ("spectrals") that are causing destruction in Manhattan (Legendary picked the film up on a pitch). The two showed off some concept art: Slide one featured the weaponry used to take down the ghost. They look like modified, futuristic machine guns. Another slide showed a destroyed city street and a ghost rising up in a blast of light, a few soldiers appear to be caught in some sort of shockwave. The film is described as a "modern war movie with an element of the supernatural" and the scope looks nuts. "We harness cutting edge, sci-fi weaponry to wage war on the supernatural," said Mathieu. "We have to do this on a big canvas and bring out the big guns." He added that he liked stories that "force us to look beyond ourselves" and feels Spectral is a movie that does that. The film is currently at the script stage and the hope is to maybe begin shooting in 2014.
Later, I had an opportunity to ask Tull about the prospect of Trick 'r Treat 2 since the first film is an early Legendary project. "People love it, it's something we talked about internally," Tull said, however, don't expect anything soon. Tull explained that they would need to have a great story (or stories, in this case) to move a sequel forward.

TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013

THE STRAIN
FX has nabbed itself an Oscar-nominated acting legend for its high-profile Guillermo del Toro pilot, "The Strain."
Joining a previously announced cast that includes Corey Stoll, Kevin Durand and Mia Maestro, John Hurt will portray Professor Abraham Setrakian in the pilot, based on the best-selling vampire novel trilogy by del Toro and Chuck Hogan. The professor is described as a holocaust survivor who immigrated to the U.S. after World War II and now runs a pawn shop in Spanish Harlem. As a mysterious viral outbreak with hallmarks of an ancient and evil strain of vampirism spreads, he may be the only one with answers -- if anyone will listen.
Stoll stars as Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, the head of the Center for Disease Control Canary Team in NYC. As the plague takes over the city, Eph, Abraham and a motley crew of everyday New Yorkers (including Maestro as Dr. Nora Martinez and Durand as Vasily Fet, an exterminator turned eager vampire slayer) form a "ragtag resistance.
"I am incredibly happy to be reunited with John, who is one of the greatest actors in the world and one of my favorite people ever," del Toro said in a statement. "Chuck and I always visualized him while writing The Strain novels and he is absolutely perfect for the part!"
The pilot, which will go into production in Sept. 2013 in Toronto, is expected to receive an order of 13 episodes from FX. Del Toro will direct and co-write the script with Hogan, while Carlton Cuse ("Lost") is on board to executive produce.
Hurt's illustrious career includes turns in "Love and Death on Long Island," "Hellboy," "V for Vendetta," "Alien," "The Elephant Man" and Midnight Express," with the latter two earning him Oscar nominations.

THE HOBBIT: DESOLATION OF SMAUG
This is a new The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug video featurette that shows why New Zealand was just perfect to become J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
So grab a ticket and take the grand tour with Peter Jackson as well as some of the actors, writers and producers from The Hobbit—including the great Sir Ian McKellen—as they show us around the truly breathtaking locales used to bring the world of Middle-earth to life.
The video's stunning, and, let's face it, it's a bit cheaper than actually getting there. Also, the whole thing just makes us even more excited for Desolation of Smaug to finally hit our screens on Dec. 13.

RIDDICK
A new trailer for Vin Diesel’s Riddick has arrived, showing off even more merc-fighting and monster attacks.
This one serves up more footage of the action we’ve been waiting for, and is a good setup for the plot: Mercenaries are hunting Riddick, big monsters start hunting all of them, they team up (somewhat) to kill them all. Simple, elegant and hopefully awesome.
The film seems to be a passion project for Diesel, picking up the story that started all the way back in 2000’s cult hit Pitch Black, and could be one of the coolest films of the year if it can channel the subtle charm of the original. That's a tall order, especially considering the muddled mess of a sequel Chronicles of Riddick that hit in 2004.
Oh yeah, if you needed more incentive? It also stars Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) and Karl Urban (Star Trek, Dredd).
Though it’s been delayed along the way, Riddick finally opens Sept. 6.

CAPTAIN HARLOCK
A brand-new and very cool full Japanese trailer for the upcoming CGI flick Space Pirate Captain Harlock has hit the web.
The film is a remake of the classic anime called Space Pirate Captain Harlock, which is based on Leiji Matsumoto's original 1977-79 manga. It has a production of about $30 million U.S.
To date, Captain Harlock is Toei Animation’s biggest production budget, and it shows. The trailer is a splendid piece of CG animation.
The trailer even opens with a quote from James Cameron, no less, which states, "This unprecedented event is already legendary."
Okay, James, we’ll just have to take your word for it.
The only downside to this awesomely superb trailer is the rather cheesy theme song from rock band ONE OK ROCK, titled “Be the Light.”
Space Pirate Captain Harlcok is set to open in Japan on Sept. 7. London-based film sales company GFM Films has revealed that it is currently working on an international dub, so fingers crossed that we’ll get to see it here sooner rather than later.

X-MEN: WOLVERINE
There seems to be no shame when it comes to cross-promotion these days, and a new Wolverine crossover might be one of the weirdest (but strangely awesome) commercials yet.
Showing off some snippets of new footage from the X-Men spinoff, the footage finds Logan (Hugh Jackman) under assault from a gang of guys while riding on a train. It’s pretty awesome, not surprisingly, with Logan tossed off the side of the train and forced to use his claws to hang on for dear life.
But that’s when it gets weird. It turns out the baddies weren’t after Wolverine (apparently), but instead after a piece of Adamantium gum. Well, of course that’s what they wanted.

HIGHLANDER NEWS
The Wrap is reporting exclusively that Ryan Reynolds has dropped out of Summit Entertainment's long-in-development reboot of Highlander with producers Neal Moritz and Peter Davis, following the departure of 28 Week Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo last November.
Although Summit was reportedly going to move forward to find a replacement for Fresnadillo, who developed the reboot for well over a year before departing, the lack of a director may have forced Reynolds' hand in departing the project himself. Reynolds was meant to play Connor MacLeod, "an immortal Scottish swordsman forced to confront the Kurgan, a brutal barbarian who lusts for the fabled 'Prize.'"
Many writers have worked on the reboot including Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, Noah Oppenheim and even "The Twilight Saga" screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, while four-time "Fast and Furious" helmer Justin Lin was originally attached to direct the project before Fresnadillo came on board.
The original Highlander movie, released way back in 1986 and starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery, became a cult hit that led to a successful home video release, although the attempted 1991 sequel Highlander II: The Quickening was a box office bomb. Highlander was then turned into a television series in the years that followed and the original movie continued to find an audience during multiple DVD releases in the early 21st century, seemingly making it a viable property for a reboot.
Even without the movie, Reynolds has a full plate this year as he provides his voice in DreamWorks Animation's Turbo and is paired with Jeff Bridges in R.I.P.D., both releasing in mid-July. He stars in Tarsem Singh's Selfless, which has just been dated by FilmDistrict for Sept. 26, 2014. He also finished working on two thrillers, Atom Egoyan's Queen of the Night and Marjane (Persepolis) Satrapi's The Voices.

THE LONE RANGER
A new featurette from Walt Disney Pictures' The Lone Ranger is now online.
Directed by Gore Verbinski, the action adventure stars Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale, Ruth Wilson and Helena Bonham Carter.
The July 3 release is a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor in which the famed masked hero is brought to life through new eyes. Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Johnny Depp) recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid (Armie Hammer), a man of the law, into a legend of justice—taking the audience on a runaway train of epic surprises and humorous friction as the two unlikely heroes must learn to work together and fight against greed and corruption.

ALIEN UPRISING
A group of friends awake one morning to find all electricity and power shut off, and an immense alien aircraft hovering in the air above their heads. Suddenly this regular group of friends is battling to survive, as the entire human race is threatened by the alien army hovering ominously above.

BACKYARD BLOCKBUSTERS
Here is the first 12 minutes of BACKYARD BLOCKBUSTERS from John Hudgens (the guy who did all of the Babylon 5 videos). You are going to love it if you are a fan of any science fiction genre!

DREAMWORKS AND NETFLIX
Netflix has inked a multiyear deal with DreamWorks Animation to premiere its slate of new original TV series, the company announced Monday. The first series are expected to begin airing in 2014.
The deal, which Netflix says is the largest for original content in its history (over 300 new hours), will give members in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and Europe access to series based on the studio’s franchises like Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon. It marks the first time DreamWorks’ characters will be available as a branded collection of shows on TV.
“DreamWorks Animation is a valued partner in our global efforts to provide families the most engaging stories delivered however, whenever and wherever they want,” said Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos. “This deal represents a major expansion of what’s already a phenomenal relationship, allowing us to bring beloved DreamWorks characters to the 40 countries where Netflix operates and setting the stage for us to innovate together as we expand into new markets.”
Monday’s deal follows an agreement between Netflix and DreamWorks last February for its first original series for kids based on the upcoming film Turbo, to premiere in December. The studio’s animated feature films will be available on the service beginning next year.

MONDAY, JUNE 17, 2013

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE RESULTS
After three decades, Warner Bros. has successfully resurrected its Superman franchise with Zack Snyder's darker, more violent take on the marquee superhero.
Man of Steel, directed by Snyder and produced by Christopher Nolan, debuted to $113.1 million over Father's Day weekend in North America and to $71.6 million from 24 markets overseas for a total opening of $196.7 million. That includes the $12 million grossed Thursday night from special Walmart screenings in the U.S., which puts the domestic take at $125.1 million.
Man of Steel eclipsed previous June record-holder Toy Story 3, which debuted to $110.3 million in June 2010. All told, grosses for Father's Day weekend were up a staggering 51 percent over last year, with Man of Steel capturing 60 percent of the market.
"The movie is a perfect blend of a superhero who reaches not only the fanboy audience but the family audience as well, with great results from both," said WB president of domestic distribution Dan Fellman.
Man of Steel is a notable win for WB and Legendary Pictures, which co-financed the $225 million tentpole. In 2006, WB and Legendary's Superman Returns did okay business at the box office, but not enough to mark a new chapter for the franchise.
Man of Steel opens exactly 30 years after Superman III, the third entry in the wildly popular Christopher Reeve franchise. There was one more title in that series, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, although it fell flat at the box office in summer 1987.
This time out, British star Henry Cavill stars as Clark Kent, aka Superman, which sees his character trying to hide his superpowers and live a normal life on Earth. Amy Adams stars as Lois Lane and Michael Shannon takes on the role of the menacing General Zod. Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane also star.
David S. Goyer penned the script based on a story he crafted with Nolan. Warners and Legendary turned to Nolan as a producer on the project after he successfully revived the Batman franchise with his Dark Knight trilogy. In the summer of 2005, Nolan's Batman Begins opened to $48.7 million and had incredible staying power.
Man of Steel, while drawing mixed reviews, earned an A- CinemaScore, portending strong word of mouth. The pic skewed male (56 percent) and was fueled by older moviegoers, with 62 percent of the audience over the age of 25.
IMAX theaters did big business, taking in $13.3 million (12 percent of the total gross) to likewise score the biggest June opening of all time.
Overall, 41 percent of the revenues came from 3D screens.
Overseas, Man of Steel soared to the top of the chart in the U.K. -- Cavill's home country -- and in Mexico, taking in $17.1 million and $9.8 million, respectively. It dazzled in Southeast Asia, including in South Korea ($9.9 million).
In the 24 markets where it opened, Man of Steel is pacing 39 percent ahead of Nolan's The Dark Knight, which earned $470 million offshore.
Coming in No. 2 Friday at the North American box office was Sony's innovative end-of-the-world comedy This Is the End with a stellar five-day debut $32.8 million. The R-rated pic, opening Wednesday and marking the directorial debut of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, has already made its $32 million budget back.
This Is the End stars Rogen opposite Jonah Hill, James Franco, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera and Emma Watson.
In the comedy, the actors -- all playing fictional versions of themselves -- meet at a star-studded party at Franco's house when the apocalypse begins and they're forced to work together to survive. The film is based on a short film created by Rogen and Baruchel in 2007 titled Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse. Rogen and Goldberg also co-wrote the scripts for Superbad, The Green Hornet and The Watch.
"It's just so original, and so out there," said Sony's distribution chief Rory Bruer. "This film will be playing for weeks to come."
Several other studios also had reason to celebrate.
Summit's magician heist pic Now You See Me placed No. 3 in its third weekend with $10.3 million for a domestic total of $80 million.
Universal's Fast & Furious 6 hit $636.9 million in global grosses to become the No. 1 title in the action franchise, besting the $628 million earned by Fast Five. Domestically, the action tentpole placed No. 4 in its fourth weekend with an estimated $9.4 million, pushing its North American total to $219.6 million.
Paramount and Skydance Productions' Star Trek Into Darkness continued to enjoy strong legs, jumping the $200 million mark at the international box office to put its worldwide at $412.2 million. The pic earned $17 million over the weekend at the foreign box office from 57 markets for a total $201.7 million -- 60 percent ahead of the 2009 Star Trek and a result of Paramount's massive international marketing campaign.
Universal took the No. 5 slot domestically with the Jason Blum-produced thriller The Purge, starring Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey. The pic grossed $8.2 million in its second outing for a cume of $51.4 million -- 17 times the film's $3 million production budget.
The news wasn't so good for Hawke's second film in the marketplace, Richard Linklater's Before Midnight, which expanded nationwide, grossing a tepid $1.5 million from 897 theaters to place No. 13.
Nor did the scenery didn't get much better for Shawn Levy's Google comedy The Internship, which tumbled 60 percent in its second weekend to $7 million for a domestic total of $31 million. The 20th Century Fox film, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, placed No. 6.
Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring rung up strong business at the specialty box office as it debuted to sold out crowds in five theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The movie, from A24 Films, took in $210,000 for a location average of $42,000. It marks the director's best opening since Lost in Translation, as well as the top location average of the weekend.
Documentary 20 Feet From Stardom got off to a strong start, grossing $52,000 from three theaters for a location average of $17,404. Radius is distributing the film.

WORLD WAR Z
Paramount Pictures has released this new clip from World War Z, opening in theaters on June 21 and starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox and David Morse.
Directed by Marc Forster, the thriller revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop a pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.

THE AVENGERS 2
Details for The Avengers 2 are few and far between, but this latest piece of information will likely upset many fans. Writer-director Joss Whedon has confirmed with the Empire Movie Podcast that Tom Hiddleston will not reprise his role as Loki in the upcoming sequel.
When initially asked about his progress on the movie, Whedon gave a similar answer to what we've heard for some time: "I've turned in a first draft, but the story is very set. Everybody's very much on board with the exact movie I'm trying to make which is what worked the first time."
But when asked about a specific moment from the first film featuring Loki, Whedon became the bearer of bad news: "Immitating what I did before is the surest way to do it not as well. Second of all, and Loki is not there to say those terrible things."
How this plays into the events of the upcoming Thor: The Dark World remains to be seen, but if you recall from the trailer, Thor does promise to kill Loki when he betrays him. Any theories on why Loki will be absent from the upcoming sequel?
Whedon also spoke about production on the upcoming "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.EL.D."
"We're building the next episodes, we start shooting again in July."
"Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." is set to air this fall on ABC and Marvel's The Avengers 2 is scheduled for release on May 1, 2015.

SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 2013

SIDEKICK!
Surprise! A video trailer for issue one of Sidekick, the second title coming this summer from Joe's Comics, a division of Studio JMS!
The first promo image/ad/poster for SIDEKICK, the next title due out from Joe's Comics! The book is due out in early August but we're publishing a special convention variant just for San Diego Comic Con a couple of weeks earlier.

CHUCKY The sixth installment of the Child's Play franchise, Curse of Chucky is on the way, targeting an unspecified direct-home-video release (likely this fall)!
The franchise comes full circle as Toyland's most gruesome serial killer returns in a horrifying all-new movie from Universal 1440 Entertainment, a production entity of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Curse of Chucky stars Fiona Dourif (The Master, "True Blood," "Deadwood"), A Martinez ("Longmire," "General Hospital"), Danielle Bisutti (Get Smart, "CSI: Miami") and Brennan Elliott (Flight 93, Double Jeopardy). Brad Dourif ("The Lord of the Rings," Dune) once again returns to provide the voice of Chucky, the pint-sized doll possessed by the spirit of notorious serial killer Charles Lee Ray, who returns to settle some unfinished business.
The film is directed by Don Mancini, the Child's Play franchise creator who has written or co-written each of the previous movies and was the director of Seed of Chucky. Also an integral part of the "Child's Play" franchise from inception, David Kirschner (An American Tail, Hocus Pocus, Bride of Chucky) produces from a screenplay by Mancini. The film's top-flight production team includes special-effects wizard Tony Gardner (Zombieland, Seed of Chucky), production designer Craig Sandells (Mother's Day) and costume designer Patricia J. Henderson (ATM).
In the film,Nica (Fiona Dourif) is grieving over the gruesome suicide of her mother when her domineering older sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti) arrives with her young family in tow to help settle their mother's affairs. As the sisters butt heads over Nica's plans for the future, Barb's young daughter comforts herself with a grinning, red-haired talking doll named Chucky (voiced again by Brad Dourif) that recently arrived mysteriously in the mail. But as a string of brutal murders begins to terrorize the household, Nica suspects the doll may hold the key to the bloodshed. What she doesn't know is that Chucky has a personal score to settle. He's determined to finish a job he started more than 20 years earlier, and this time he's going to see it through to the bloody and shocking end.

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES
There's only three issues left before the end of "League of Super-Heroes" in the DC Comics universe. Issue #21 hits newsstands Wednesday, June 19, but here is your first look. Want to see more? Go to http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2013/06/dcs-legion-of-super-heroes-21-cover-and-6-pages-revealed.html to see the first six pages.
In the comic's story, the League of Super-Heroes team is at a very low point, nearly defeated by the evil Fatal Five. The Fatal Five entered the series in issue 18, led by the Emerald Empress.
Members of the Legion are on the losing end of a battle against the Fatal Five's Persuader. The issue is written by Paul Levitz, with art by Jeff Johnson. The cover is drawn by Francis Portela.

EARLY BOX OFFICE RETURNS
It should come as no surprise that "Man of Steel" is number one at the weekend box office, by far. The newest Superman adventure, which is a reboot of the franchise, pulled in $44 million Friday, and is working toward a $120 million weekend. Adding in an extra $12 million from Thursday showings, and "Man of Steel" seems to be doing alright.
It's Friday total more than doubled that of 2006's "Superman Returns," giving it the 20th highest opening day of all time.
"This Is the End" ranks at a distant number 2 with a $7 million Friday, working toward $21 million for the 3-day weekend. Factoring in grosses from Wednesday and Thursday will bring the R-rated comedy to a total of $32.3 million.
"After Earth" continues to fall down the Top 10, landing at number nine in its third week, bringing in $1 million Friday. The entire Top 10 can be found below with Friday estimates.
1. Man of Steel $44 million
2. This is the End $7 million
3. Now You See Me $3.1 million
4. The Purge $2.8 million
5. Fast & Furious 6 $2.5 million
6. The Internship $2.2 million
7. Epic $1.6 million
8. Star Trek Into Darkness $1.3 million
9. After Earth $1 million
10. Iron Man 3 $650,000

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
We can finally put the rumors to rest. Guardians of the Galaxy has cast its Rhomann Dey. As suspected, Oscar-nominated actor John C. Reilly landed the part. He'll play the leader of the Nova Corps in the superhero film. Rhomann has a tragic history ultimately caused by the warlord Zorr. Zorr massacred many of the citizens of Rhomann's home planet Xandar, including his family.
Rhomann was driven by vengeance and made it his mission to chase Zorr to the ends of space. Some of Rhomann's powers include superhuman strength, flight, endurance and resistance. Reilly's a talented actor, and we're interested to see if he can pull this off.
Guardians of the Galaxy also stars Chris Pratt, Benicio Del Toro, Glenn Close, Zoe Saldana, Lee Pace and Michael Rooker. The film is directed by James Gunn and opens in theaters Aug. 1, 2014.

SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2013

PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD
Primeval: New World will build on the bones of the original series, while heading into brand-new territory, said Canadian actor Niall Matter, who plays Evan Cross on Syfy's Primeval spinoff. And Matter, who also starred in Syfy's Eureka, promises that there will be some crossover between the Primevals beyond the arrival of Andrew-Lee Potts' Connor in last week's premiere.
“People can watch New World and then understand the world of the original Primeval,” said Matter during an exclusive interview with Blastr. “It might cause some people to go back and watch the original after watching New World. And that is definitely a possibility, because when you're dealing with time paradoxes and everything else that comes with these anomalies, who knows what series actually occurs first? You know what I mean?”
Primeval: New World takes place in Vancouver and follows Evan and the team he builds, who begin to investigate temporal anomalies that set prehistoric and future creatures loose on our world. This team, however, is unaware of the adventures that happened during the original British series, Primeval.
“We have crossover, obviously, so it's operating in the same realm of reality as the original Primeval, which is really cool. But you also get introduced to a completely new team. Obviously, when you're working with dinosaurs or creature-of-the-week type episodes, you're going to have similarities between some of the episodes. But I do really think that we did our best to make it our own show. You don't necessarily need to be a fan of the original to be a fan of New World, because we lay all the track work,” said Matter.
While there will be plenty of dinosaurs and future-saurs popping up, the series will also explore what happens when people try to control the anomalies and the creatures within.
“There's a lot of dark layers in our show. A lot of dark layers. There's motives that become questioned halfway through the season. I mean, I can't really give anything away, because those are huge plot points, but yeah, we definitely have similar elements to the original Primeval. We definitely play that role as well,” he said.
As for his character, Evan Cross, he's a world apart from Matter's computer genius misfit, Zane Donovan, from Eureka, who battled computers more than anything that might eat him. Evan Cross is “a visionary-type leader.” He heads up a team of anomaly and dinosaur trackers, “so he's very similar [to Primeval's] character, Cutter. So he's the New World's Cutter. Early on, in the very first episode, you'll learn that Evan actually lost his wife to his first discovery of an anomaly, and the dinosaur that came out of it ends up brutally killing [her]. That's what sets Evan on his path to discover more about these anomalies and to prevent other people from losing their loved ones. But Evan becomes a little bit of a recluse, and he hides out in a secret facility within his factory, which they nicknamed the Tank, basically inventing technology and weaponry to prevent anybody else from getting hurt,” he said.
While there's a lot of CGI used to bring the dinosaurs and future creatures to life, Matter feels the cast brought a distinctive emotional effect onto the screen with each dinosaur and future creature.
“Each creature affected us differently, which was quite interesting. And we always played the fear of the situation,” said Matter. “[Executive producer] Martin Wood was the guy behind that. He would always come to set and be like, 'Guys, guys! You gotta be running! You gotta be moving! There's more fear! Keep it moving! There's fear here!'”
Scary dinosaurs and creatures included, while there's much to look forward to with a full 13-episode season of Primeval: New World, the series has unfortunately been canceled in Canada. That means there will only be the one season. Unless ...
“It's doing great internationally, so who knows?” said Matter. “All we need is another network to step in, play archaeologists, dust off some prehistoric bones, and bring life back into our show, so to speak.”
Primeval: New World airs on Saturday nights on Syfy at 10 p.m. ET.

TRUE BLOOD
True Blood’s season-six premiere is only two days away—and we’re pretty stoked about that—but in order to while away the time, we’ve got some new bloody cool sneak peeks to share.
(These are actually three clips all rolled into to one, courtesy of ETOnline.)
The first part has Erik (Alexander Skarsgard) and Pam (Kristin Bauer Van Starten) arguing, and things don’t look so hot between them.
The second one has Lillith Billith Bill issuing a warning to Sookie (Anna Paquin), Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) and Erik. Is our beloved Bill really gone? Just who is he now?
The third and final part of the clip has Sookie meeting her new beau, played by Rob Kazinsky. In good ol' True Blood fashion, this one's in trouble, and our favorite faery-telepathic waitress can't resist the need to lend a helping hand.

MAN OF STEEL BOX OFFICE THURSDAY
Zack Snyder's Superman reboot "Man of Steel" took in $12 million from special Walmart screenings, and $9 million in midnight runs on Thursday night.
That tops the $15.6 million scored earlier this summer by "Iron Man 3" which also began rolling out on a Thursday night. However, it's behind the $30.6 million that "The Dark Knight Rises" grossed in midnight previews last year.
The studio is currently projecting an $80 million opening weekend, whereas box-office analysts are more bullish with $85-100 million estimates.
This follows on from the film already opening yesterday in the Philippines and Taiwan where it scored the largest opening day ever, and the largest Warners opening ever respectively.

FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 2013

ELYSIUM
"Elysium" already has sci-fi fans buzzing simply because it's the second film from "District 9" director Neill Blomkamp, but this new extended trailer should kick the excitement up even higher.
The epic-looking futuristic drama stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga, Diego Luna and "District 9's" breakout actor Sharlto Copley in the story of a society divided into haves (who live on a Utopian space station) and have-nots (who remain down on Earth).
While "District 9" impressed audiences on a relatively limited $30 million budget, it'll be interesting to see what Blomkamp does with a budget reportedly three times that size. From the looks of this trailer, he may have outdone expectations.
He also has a high standard of quality to live up to. "District 9" is one of the rare sci-fi films to earn a Best Picture Oscar nomination.

NEW MARVEL PROJECTS
In the process of firming up its 2014 release schedule, Disney has revealed plans for two untitled and top secret Marvel projects.
At this point, Marvel's parent company Disney is really just claiming the release dates -- May 6, 2016 and May 5, 2017, the traditional first weekend of summer movie season -- to let rivals know they've got something coming. Could it be more "Iron Man"? A "Guardians of the Galaxy" sequel? An Incredible Hulk solo movie? A brand new property?
We don't know. But Disney wants the dates.
It's also unclear if staking claim to just one release date per year means Marvel plans to slow its pace a bit and drop back to a single release annually. Marvel Studios is currently on a two-movie-per-year schedule with "Iron Man 3" and "Thor: The Dark World" this year, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" next year and "The Avengers" sequel and "Ant-Man" set for 2015.
The vague announcement was accompanied by release date news for several other Disney projects:
- "Saving Mr. Banks" starring Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson will open in limited release on Dec. 13 of this year, followed by its previously scheduled wide release on Dec. 20. The potential Oscar contender is based on the true story of how "Mary Poppins" made it to the screen.
- The sequel to 2011's "The Muppets" is now titled "Muppets Most Wanted" and retains its March 21, 2014 release date.
- "Planes" sequel "Planes: Fire & Rescue" will open July 18, 2014 in 3D. (The first "Planes," a sorta spinoff of "Cars," opens in August.)
- "The Hundred-Foot Journey" produced by Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, based on the book by Richard C. Morais, opens August 8, 2014.
- Children's book adaptation "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" starring Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner opens Oct. 10, 2014.
- Live action adventure "Tomorrowland" starring George Clooney and Hugh Laurie and directed by Brad Bird ("Ratatouille," "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol") opens Dec. 12, 2014.
- Broadway musical adaptation "Into the Woods" -- likely starring Johnny Depp and Meryl Streep (though they're not 100% official yet) -- opens Dec. 25, 2014.

TOMB RAIDER
Marti Noxon is not a name necessarily known outside of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom, but having written many of the show's best episodes, Joss Whedon trusted her enough to hand her the keys for the last two seasons the show. Noxon also penned the surprisingly high-quality remake of Fright Night.
Meanwhile, Tomb Raider is enjoying a resurgence, thanks to its last game, which traded out the dripping-from-the-ceilings sex appeal for survival horror. Unfortunately, the previous two Tomb Raider movies were ... not great. They consisted mostly of Angelina Jolie smirking while wearing tight outfits. There are no real emotions (other than daddy issues), the plots are D-grade Indiana Jones, and there are giant robots, for some reason.
Thankfully, since the games are taking themselves more seriously, the new movie will be, too. And, yes, they hired Marti Noxon to write it. Thank goodness.
Noxon has a real gift for writing strong but vulnerable characters (both male and female), which is, frankly, what Lara Croft needs to be. So color us cautiously optimistic that we'll finally get a Tomb Raider movie worth seeing.

DERMAPHORIA
The Vampire Diaries star Joseph Morgan, along with Walton Goggins, Ron Perlman and newcomer Nicole Badaan will topline Dermaphoria, an adaptation of Craig Clevenger's cult novel.
Ross Clarke wrote the script and is directing. He is also producing with his Keep the Car Running partner Teryn Fogel and Upload Films' Nick Thurlow.
Described as Memento meets Breaking Bad, the story centers on a brilliant chemist (Morgan) who wakes up in jail after a drug-lab explosion and is suffering from amnesia. Trapped between cops who want to arrest him and heavies who will stop at nothing to get the formula buried deep inside his head, the man needs to piece together memories fragmented by a powerful new drug and find his missing girlfriend.
The movie is heading toward a June 23 start in New Orleans.
Aperture Entertainment’s Adam Goldworm will executive produce with Jonah Loop.
Morgan is coming off several seasons of Vampire Diaries and will now star in its spinoff, The Originals. The actor -- who is repped by WME, Richard Konigsberg and Curtis Brown Group -- has the thriller Open Grave with Sharlto Copley in the can.
Goggins stars in FX’s Justified and recently appeared in Django Unchained and G.I. Joe: Retaliation. He is repped by ICM and Darris Hatch Management.
Perlman, who stars in FX’s Sons of Anarchy and will appear in Pacific Rim, is repped by Kritzer Levine and Bloom Hergott.
Dermaphoria is the feature debut for Badaan, who is repped by Aperture Entertainment.

PACIFIC RIM
A new featurette is now online for Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim. This one explores the development of the massive robotic Jaegars featured in the film.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on July 12, the film stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Brad William Henke and Diego Klattenhoff.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013

VERONICA MARS
Creator and executive producer Rob Thomas announced on Wednesday (June 12) that Tina Majorino was on board to reprise her character Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie for the upcoming Veronica Marsfilm.
As he's done with previous announcements surrounding the returns of cast members Percy Daggs III, Chris Lowell and Francis Capra, Thomas revealed Majorino's return through an e-mail to the Kickstarter contributors who've made the film a possibility.
"I wrote Mac for Tina, and Tina only," Thomas writes. "Veronica needed a female friend, and a Q to her Bond. Tina felt like just the sort of girl that Veronica would like and respect. I couldn't be more pleased that she'll be with us for the movie."
The Neptune High class reunion is shaping up to be a a complete cast homecoming.

WOLVERINE
An awesome new The Wolverine international trailer has surfaced, and it's got tons of brand-new scenes as well as some bits (aka plot elements) that could be considered a tad spoilery.
So -- SPOILERS!
The James Mangold-directed flick sees Logan, played by an incredibly buff Hugh Jackman, going to modern-day Japan, where he faces his greatest nemesis in a battle to the death.
This time there’s no Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) in sight, but there’s a lot of Rila Fukishima, who plays red-haired Yukio; Tao Okamoto as Mariko Yashida (Wolvie’s new lady love); and Svetlana Khodchenkova as the villainous Viper. Plus there are some pretty cool fight scenes featuring samurais, ninjas on motorcycles and the Silver Samurai.
Check out the film’s synopsis below:
Based on the celebrated comic book arc, this epic action-adventure takes Wolverine, the most iconic character of the X-Men universe, to modern day Japan. Out of his depth in an unknown world he faces his ultimate nemesis in a life-or-death battle that will leave him forever changed. Vulnerable for the first time and pushed to his physical and emotional limits, he confronts not only lethal samurai steel but also his inner struggle against his own immortality, emerging more powerful than we have ever seen him before.
All in all, this new trailer looks good, and we're really excited to see James Mangold’s take on everyone's favorite X-Man with The Wolverine.
The Wolverine will claw its way into theaters on July 26 in North America, and on July 25 in the U.K.

SNOWPIERCER
Revolution is coming, and we finally have our first look at one of the most intriguing sci-fi flicks of the year. Get ready to board the last train on earth: Snowpiercer.
Directed by South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho (The Host), the future-set flick stars Chris Evans (Captain America), John Hurt (Hellboy) and Tilda Swinton (Chronicles of Narnia) among the last survivors on earth following a planet-wide Ice Age.
The last survivors inhabit a massive train that runs on a perpetual-motion engine all the way across the globe. But over the years, a steep class divide develops between the inhabitants of the front and the back — and a full-scale class war is about to begin.
The film opens in South Korea on Aug. 1. No U.S. release date has been announced yet, but considering the star-studded cast list, it’s likely just a matter of time.

MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS: A JOURNEY TO THE EDGE OF SCIENCE FICTION BBC America, home to Orphan Black, Doctor Who and more, will continue on its sci-fi bender with a docuseries exploring the genre.
The cable network and BBC Two on Wednesday announced My God, It's Full of Stars: A Journey to the Edge of Science Fiction (working title), a four-part entry that explores popular themes in the genre. Each hour of the co-production will feature specific themes: time travel, the exploration of space, aliens as well as robots and artificial intelligence,
To tell the story, BBC will look to the men and women who created some of the most beloved properties in sci-fi including filmmakers, writers, actors and graphic artists who will report on their experiences exploring the future, the past, parallel universes and more. "This is the story of science fiction told by the men and women who fell to Earth," BBC America noted in a press release announcing the news. "From H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds to The Terminator, from Doctor Who to Star Wars this series will guide viewers through a rich, thought-provoking and endlessly exciting genre."
Michael Poole will exec produce for the BBC, with Richard De Croce and Rachel Smith overseeing for BBC America.
The series comes as BBC America has found success with its Supernatural Saturday programming block that includes Doctor Who, Orphan Black -- starring Critics' Choice winner for best actress Tatiana Maslany -- and Chris Hardwick's The Nerdist.

SUPERMAN COMIC BOOK
A rare copy of the first appearance of Superman, in Action Comics No. 1 --only about 100 are known to still exist -- sold for $175,000 on Monday, auctioneers ComicConnect.com announced.
The price is far cry from the world-record $2.1 million paid for Nicolas Cage's pristine copy in 2011.
But consider the condition of this comic: It was used for decades as insulation in a rural Minnesota house and then, when it was discovered by contractor David Gonzales, who had bought the house to renovate and sell, the cover was torn in in argument with his wife's aunt about the comic.
Cage's comic had a grade of 9.0 on the 10-point ratings scale used by Certified Guaranty Company (CGC).
This comic? Just a 1.5 grade.
Still, the rarity and allure of the Man of Steel is such that a buyer described as a "hard-core, golden-age comic book collector," to the AP by ComicConnect CEO Stephen Fishler, paid over six figures for it.
ComicConnect received 51 bids in total.

THE LONE RANGER
A new TV spot for Walt Disney Pictures' The Lone Ranger is now online!
Directed by Gore Verbinski, the action adventure stars Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale, Ruth Wilson and Helena Bonham Carter.
The July 3 release is a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor in which the famed masked hero is brought to life through new eyes. Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Depp) recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid (Hammer), a man of the law, into a legend of justice—taking the audience on a runaway train of epic surprises and humorous friction as the two unlikely heroes must learn to work together and fight against greed and corruption.

PACIFIC RIM
A fifth TV spot is now online for Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim!
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on July 12, the film stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Brad William Henke and Diego Klattenhoff.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

CORWIN'S DRIVE-IN
HOLLYWOOD, June 11, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rebel filmmaker Roger Corman and producer Julie Corman had a tough time handpicking 30 titles from their vault of 400 films to launch their new "Corman's Drive-In" channel on YouTube. The indie icon popularized genres like dystopian biker flicks, cross-species mutants, space operas and women-in-cages. The final selection appeals to the largest possible segment of YouTube's estimated one billion plus unique users.
"I cast Jack [Nicholson] in his first few pictures," explained Roger Corman, who discovered Nicholson in an acting class. "They're some of his best performances. We'll release those along with other cult classics and some modern titles. We'll screen the best pictures from all six decades."
Julie Corman added: "This is a brave new world. Roger has always been on the cutting-edge and now he's paving the way for independent filmmakers by testing a new distribution platform. Streaming our films opens them up to future generations of fans."
In addition to the 30 movies available on "Corman's Drive-In," there are also sneak peeks of upcoming features, like Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda; and exclusive anecdotes from Roger and Julie themselves, presented as "Corman's Take," which reveal behind-the-scenes insights and trivia. Subscribers will also be able to view an interview with the special effects team from Dinocroc and special edition extended trailers for many of the films.
Offered as a subscription programming service for $3.99 per month, "Corman's Drive-In" will refresh its rotating selection of 30 movie titles regularly, along with "Corman's Take" and other exclusive content every month.
"Corman's Drive-In" will also offer consumers a 14-day free trial subscription.
"Corman's Drive-In" kicks off with Jack Nicholson's debut double-feature. First up is The Crybaby Killer, in which Jack makes his film debut as a juvenile delinquent, who panics when he thinks he's committed murder. It will be followed by Little Shop of Horrors, a crazy beat-era classic film which Corman famously shot in just 2 days with a young Jack playing a masochistic dental patient. Of course, no Corman premiere would be complete without encore showings of Attack of the Crab Monster, Piranha and Sorority House Massacre.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2013

THE LONE RANGER
When director Gore Verbinski makes a movie, he's not playing around. A look at his three entries into the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise are perfect examples of how big he likes to go.
Maybe no one told "The Lone Ranger" star Armie Hammer that when he signed on for the movie, but he sure learned it while on the set. In a behind-the-scenes featurette from the movie, Hammer is shown standing atop something called the "spirit platform."
This piece of the movie has been seen in trailer, featuring the Lone Ranger standing atop a rickety wooden structure, next to the edge of a canyon. It turns out there wasn't quite as much CGI involved in that as one would expect, and Hammer actually had to climb the wooden monstrosity, perched next to a 2,000 foot drop.
In the video, he talks about the helicopter swooping down around him, trying to get the perfect angles for the movie and it really seems pretty dangerous. Luckily, Hammer came out of the shoot just fine, even though Johnny Depp almost died.
"The Lone Ranger" is in theaters July 3.

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG
The first trailer for Peter Jackson’s Hobbit sequel The Desolation of Smaug has arrived, and it definitely looks to ratchet up the Middle-earth action. If you found the first installment a little slow, this one should remedy the problem.
The sequel definitely has a major Lord of the Rings vibe, most notably because it features the return of everyone’s favorite arrow-slinging elf, Legolas (Orlando Bloom). We also get to see a bit of Evangeline Lilly's elf warrior Tauriel, and the epic reveal of Benedict Cumberbatch’s dragon Smaug. No surprise: He looks amazing.
Jackson definitely looks to be following his Lord of the Rings formula this time around. If An Unexpected Journey was the slow, Fellowship-esque opening, Smaug looks to be the ass-kicking, Two Towers-esque followup. We can't wait.
The film is set to open Dec. 13.

SUPERMAN SEQUEL
It seems that Warner Bros.' next big superhero blockbuster will be another Superman flick.
Just days away from the release of the hotly anticipated Man of Steel, Deadline is reporting that the studio is "fast-tracking" a Superman sequel, reuniting Zack Snyder as director and David Goyer as screenwriter. As for producer/mentor Christopher Nolan, it seems his role in the next flick won't be so "full-blown," but as the latest Superman flick is set to open in more than 4,000 theaters this weekend, a sequel looks like a strong prospect regardless of whether he's directly involved.
Deadline's Nikki Finke also reports that this sequel is the second part of a three-picture deal Goyer has with Warner Bros., the third tier of which is a Justice League film. Though that flick seems to have been in development for a while, it now looks like we're more likely to see a second Superman flick before we see Warners' big DC Comics teamup movie, a view furthered by Snyder's recent interview with Hero Complex.
“Do the DC characters exist in the universe I created? The answer is yes,” Snyder said. “In my mind, we have this fantastic character of Superman. It’s not madness that there would be others.
"Now, that being said, does a ‘Justice League’ movie exist now? No. Whether or not I ever get to make that movie, I don’t know,” he continued. “What is real is that there’s a crack — a foot — in the door. That’s promising. The door is definitely open.”
From what's been said so far, it looks like we could be well on our way to a Snyder/Goyer Justice League blockbuster sometime in the next few years. For now, though, everything seems to be focused on the future of Superman.

ASSASSIN'S CREED
Frank Marshall has signed on to produce the upcoming big screen take on Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, according to a story today at The Hollywood Reporter. Set to star Michael Fassbender, the film version is slated to hit the big screen May 22, 2015.
The original game involves a bartender named Desmond Miles, captured by a secret organization with ties to the Knight Templar who repeatedly send Miles back in time into the body of his assassin ancestors to retrieve valuable historical artifacts, the first time going back to the Crusades.
Marshall's wide range of producerial credits include Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, The Sixth Sense and the upcoming (but currently on hold) Jurassic Park IV.

THE TERMINATOR
Paramount Pictures looks like it's going to be the new home of The Terminator as The Wrap reports that Annapurna and Skydance are negotiating with the studio to team on the next entry in the blockbuster franchise.
As reported earlier this year, Patrick Lussier and Laeta Kalogridis are teaming up to script the next installment. Lussier directed Drive Angry and My Bloody Valentine 3D while Kalogridis penned Shutter Island and did some script work on James Cameron's Avatar.
Arnold Schwarzenegger himself recently confirmed that he intends to be involved in the new film, which marks the franchise's fifth big screen entry.

GAME OF THRONES
"Game of Thrones" closed out its third season on Sunday night with 5.4 million viewers for the episode's first airing.
That figure is up 28% from the season two finale (4.2 million), but just behind the season high of the sixth episode "The Climb" at 5.5 million viewers.
When factoring in repeating airings, DVR, and HBO Go, the show has averaged 13.6 million viewers this season - up from the 11.6 million viewer average for the second season.
Shooting on the fourth season, based on the second half of George R.R. Martin’s third book in the series "A Storm of Swords," is scheduled to begin shortly.

TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2013

TRUE BLOOD
The war between vampires and humans is ramping up in a new trailer for HBO’s True Blood, and it looks like this could be the bloodiest season yet.
The fangs come out, along with the rifles and SWAT teams, as we see more of the government’s crackdown on vamps in the series' latest season. The evolution of this storyline looks like it could be just the thing to revitalize the series — and should make for some great drama in a few weeks.
As everyone seems to be saying, "the world is changing," and we're curious to see how everyone adapts to it.
This being True Blood, the latest trailer also features a fair amount of sexiness, with star Anna Paquin stepping to the forefront. Between the new season of True Blood and Bryan Singer's upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past, there should be more than enough Paquin to go around.
The new season debuts Sunday, June 16, at 9 p.m.

MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
The latest S.H.I.E.L.D. video shows off some advanced tech.
There's been a brief lull in news on Joss Whedon's new Marvel TV series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but another clip has surfaced, and it shows off at least one fancy aspect of Level 7 we weren't yet aware of.

RIDDICK: I BOW TO NO MAN
A banner for David Twohy's Riddick is now online, showing off Vin Diesel's defiance as a leading man.
Opening in theaters and IMAX on September 6, the film also Karl Urban, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Bokeem Woodbine, Dave Bautista, Conrad Pla, Raoul Trujillo, Nolan Funk and Keri Hilson.
In the film, the infamous Riddick has been left for dead on a sun-scorched planet that appears to be lifeless. Soon, however, he finds himself fighting for survival against alien predators more lethal than any human he's encountered. The only way off is for Riddick to activate an emergency beacon and alert mercenaries who rapidly descend to the planet in search of their bounty.
The first ship to arrive carries a new breed of merc, more lethal and violent, while the second is captained by a man whose pursuit of Riddick is more personal. With time running out and a storm on the horizon that no one could survive, his hunters won't leave the planet without Riddick's head as their trophy.

THE LITTLE MERMAID
Fifty Shades of Grey and Saving Mr. Banks screenwriter Kelly Marcel has signed on to adapt the Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale The Little Mermaid, Deadline reports. The Working Title Films production will be directed by Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Hanna, Jane Eyre).
Abi Morgan (Brick Lane, Shame) previously drafted the project, following the story of a young mermaid who gives up her life in the sea for a human prince.
Andersen's story was first published in 1837 and has been adapted numerous times for stage and screen. Wright's version is inspired by a children's puppet theatre production of the classic at London's Little Angel Theatre Company.

MAN OF STEEL SEQUEL
Although Man of Steel doesn't even officially open until later this week, Deadline is reporting that Warner Bros. has already set a sequel on the fast track to the big screen. Zack Snyder will return as director and David Goyer will be back as screenwriter but producer Christopher Nolan has not yet agreed to continue as a producer and may ultimately step aside to focus on alternative projects.
Hitting theaters June 14 release, the new film follows a young boy who learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.
Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff star.

MAN OF STEEL INFOGRAPHIC
In celebration of Superman’s 75th Anniversary and just in time for the next Silver Screen blockbuster, Man of Steel, Alex Hillsberg and his team at FinanceOnLine.com have created an infographic that pays homage to the original Big Blue Boy Scout. You can find the exclusive preview here: http://financesonline.com/the-man-of-steel-financial-success-of-superman/.

The infographic contains a lot of entertaining facts about Superman that many of his fans are probably not aware of:
- Did you know that there used to be two Superman characters in the comic books (one blue and one red)?
- Were you aware that Superman creators Siegel and Shuster sold their creation to Future DC comics for only $130?
- Or that Superman is the original green machine as his body can transform solar energy into power?

MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2013

NEW DOCTOR WHO
With a new Doctor announcement imminent, these are, allegedly, the remaining contenders.
Word from on high says that the BBC is due to announce the 12th Doctor within the nexr 48 hours. And as the question of just which actor will take on the part reaches fever pitch, we've heard of three particular fellas who are the most likely.
The candidates are:
Name: Domhnall Gleeson
What you know him from: Ron's big brother, Bill Weasley from the Harry Potter movies.
What do we think his chances are: Well, the Doctor's always wanted to be ginger, hasn't he? Perhaps Amelia Pond rubbed off on him and his day has finally come.

Name: Daniel Kaluuya
What you know him from: You might recognize Daniel from the Doctor Who episode, Planet of the Dead, where he played one of the trapped bus passengers. Or, you might know him from his brilliantly fun turn on the underrated supernatural series, The Fades, where he played a very Xander-Harris-esque character named Mac.
What do we think his chances are: Pretty good. There's been a huge push to get a black actor in the TARDIS after 50 years of white dudes. Plus. the show's pulled from its past episodes before (Freema Agyeman, Karen Gillen, Colin Baker).

Name: Dominic Cooper
What you know him from: He played Tony Stark's dad, Howard Stark, in Captain America.
What we think his chances are: Despite his big-screen credit, we'd call Cooper the least known of the bunch. So he's a bit of an underdog in that regard. Then again, most people think an unknown actor is the best option for a Doctor, so you never know...

AUTHOR IAIN M. BANKS
Iain M. Banks, the celebrated creator of The Culture series who built a devoted following across genres, died Sunday at the age of 59.
Banks' death was confirmed Sunday morning by fellow sci-fi author and friend Charles Stross, and by an announcement on the Friends of Iain Banks website, in which Banks' wife Adele said:
“Iain died in the early hours this morning. His death was calm and without pain.”
Banks' passing comes a little more than two months after his announcement that he had been diagnosed with gallbladder cancer and likely had less than a year to live. In response to this, he withdrew from any scheduled public appearances, married his longtime partner Adele Hartley, and asked his publishers to move up the release date of his final novel, The Quarry. Sadly, he did not live to see its publication. The Quarry will be released June 25 in the U.S. and June 20 in the U.K.
Though we know him primarily here for his great contributions to the science fiction genre, Banks' career was also largely defined by his literary fiction. His career began with a literary novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984, which he published under "Iain Banks" (the moniker he would continue to use for all such fiction). Two more mainstream/literary novels followed (Walking on Glass in 1985 and The Bridge in 1986) before Banks published his first science fiction novel. Consider Phlebas, published in 1987, was not only his entry into a genre where he would become a beloved figure, but also the first book in his award-winning (and in some ways career-defining) Culture cycle, a series of novels and short stories set in a utopian, semi-anarchist society largely controlled by extremely advanced AIs known as "Minds." Banks went on to publish eight more Culture books, most recently The Hydrogen Sonata in 2012. Among his numerous other works are the Hugo-nominated 2004 sci-fi novel The Algebraist, the 1992 literary novel The Crow Road (adapated for television by the BBC in 1996) and the 1993 novel Complicity (adapted into a film of the same name, known as Retribution in the U.S., in 2000).
Banks was a frequently honored author in the sci-fi and fantasy community. Throughout his career he was nominated for five British Science Fiction Association Awards, winning twice for Feersum Endjinn (1994) and Excession (1996). His novels were also nominated six times for the Locus Poll Award (Matter earned second place honors in 2009). His work also earned nominations from the Hugo Awards, Prometheus Awards and British Fantasy Awards, and his novel Transition was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2010.
Just a few weeks ago, on May 20, Banks wrote his final entry on the blog at the Friends of Iain Banks page. Though it was written only as an update, not a deliberate goodbye, he ended it with these words, thanking not only his fans and friends, but the writers who inspired him.
I want to say thank you to all of you for your messages, your memories, your wit, your sympathy and your kind, supportive thoughts. It means a lot, almost more than I can say, and – whatever type or size of screen I read the comments on – I come away from the computer, laptop, iPad or phone with a happy smile on my face.
Oh, and that bit in the last update, about telling the writers and artists you most admire now, before they’re dead? Done it; or at least started the process. I sent what was basically a fan letter to Alasdair Gray a couple of weeks ago, telling him how much his work has meant to me, then last night I got to tell Mike (as in M John) Harrison something very similar. Doing that made me feel good too.
All the best
Iain

MAN OF STEEL
After a few clips showing off some nice character moments, we finally have some true Man of Steel action. Behold: Superman vs. Zod!
This piece of footage is, by far, the most revealing bit we’ve seen to date. It shows off the strength and scope of the action director Zack Snyder has created, as Superman (Henry Cavill) drags Zod (Michael Shannon) all over Smallville in an insane bit of action.
The clip debuted on the Tonight Show With Jay Leno, and kicks in at about the 3:15 mark in the interview above.
It’s a pure FX extravaganza, and it seems Snyder is aiming to change the way we think about Superman’s power. We’ve seen a lot of versions over the years, but Supes has never looked so strong and so fast.
Man of Steel opens June 14.

MAN OF STEEL INFOGRAPHIC
In celebration of Superman’s 75th Anniversary and just in time for the next Silver Screen blockbuster, Man of Steel, Alex Hillsberg and his team at FinanceOnLine.com have created an infographic that pays homage to the original Big Blue Boy Scout. You can find the exclusive preview here: http://financesonline.com/the-man-of-steel-financial-success-of-superman/.

The infographic contains a lot of entertaining facts about Superman that many of his fans are probably not aware of:
- Did you know that there used to be two Superman characters in the comic books (one blue and one red)?
- Were you aware that Superman creators Siegel and Shuster sold their creation to Future DC comics for only $130?
- Or that Superman is the original green machine as his body can transform solar energy into power?

PHINEAS AND FERB
We knew Disney’s purchase of Marvel would result in some, shall we say, “intriguing” synergy — and now we have a look at Earth’s Mightiest Heroes showing up on one of the Mouse House’s most popular series.
The long-running animated hit Phineas and Ferb will get a visit from Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and Spider-Man as part of the summer special Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel. For a kids’ show, Phineas and Ferb isn’t half bad, and the effort should at least be comparable to all the other animated Marvel series they keep rolling out on Disney XD.
Digging deeper, this likely shows another piece of Disney’s master plan to lure the younger generation into the superheroic fold. By crossing over into a broad kiddie comedy like Phineas and Ferb, it’ll open up a whole new demographic to The Avengers. Sneaky, sneaky.

WHITE HOUSE DOWN
Columbia Pictures has released a four-minute extended trailer for Roland Emmerich's White House Down, starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins and James Woods.
In the film, Capitol Policeman John Cale (Tatum) has just been denied his dream job with the Secret Service of protecting President James Sawyer (Foxx). Not wanting to let down his little girl with the news, he takes her on a tour of the White House, when the complex is overtaken by a heavily armed paramilitary group. Now, with the nation's government falling into chaos and time running out, it's up to Cale to save the president, his daughter, and the country.
White House Down hits theaters on June 28.

THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013

TWILIGHT ZONE
Before his death in 1975, Rod Serling had written a script called The Stop Along the Way. The story is a virtual unknown. In fact, the only mention of it comes from Serling's final interview. When asked if he had a script he had a special feeling for, Serling mentioned this story saying, "And then one that I just wrote called The Stop Along the Way, which is, I think, a lovely script."
That's it. But considering how many strong stories Serling wrote during his career, it's not hard to be intrigued all the same.
And now the script is going to be developed into a limited series by none other than Bad Robot. Considering the kind of TV content they've produced (Alias, Lost, Fringe, Revolution) it's not surprising to see them pick Serling's work up. They love mysteries and Rod Serling was, in a way, Mr. Mystery.
While Serling's most famous work, The Twilight Zone, is being brought back by X-Men director, Bryan Singer, we can't help but be a little more interested in The Stop Along the Way.

CONTINUIUM CONTINUED - RENEWED FOR THIRD SEASON
The second season hasn’t even debuted in the U.S. yet, but Canadian network Showcase has already picked up Continuum for a third year.
The time-traveling shenanigans of future-cop Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) will continue for another season, which is great news for U.S. fans prepping for Syfy’s season two premiere on June 7. The second season is airing now in Canada, and the first season of the import aired a few months ago on Syfy in the U.S.
Based around the story of a cop who travels back in time to stop a group of terrorists, the series has managed to build a pretty great mythology around the concept. It has grown into a bona fide hit in Canada, and is gaining steam in the ‘States as well.
Star Rachel Nichols teased Digital Spy with this tidbit about upcoming episodes:
"Kiera goes through a very interesting moral crisis... because in 2077 she knows who she is and she knows what she's fighting, she knows what's bad and good. She comes back to 2012 and her world is completely turned upside down and everything she believes she stood for is in question."
No announcements have been made about when/if the third season might debut in the U.S. at this point. But considering the U.S. air dates have almost caught up with the Canadian schedule, it could be a slightly longer wait between seasons from now on.

INSIDIOUS
One of the scariest ghost stories in recent memory is finally getting its sequel.
Insidious, especially in its first two acts, was damned good storytelling. There are scares aplenty, a nice twist on the classic haunted house story and, the greatest shock of all, characters we actually kind of liked!
The only trouble with a sequel is, we weren't sure how they'd do it. If you've seen the end of the first, you know it wouldn't be easy. But with this first trailer for Insidious Chapter 2, it actually makes sense.
We're excited for the sequel, but a little nervous to see that there will be more of that limbo space from the original. Hopefully they'll find a way to keep those bits scary this time. Really, though, we're just glad we're continuing the story of the same family rather than starting from scratch.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2013

MTV's decision to extend "Teen Wolf" Season 3 to a longer 24-episode season seems to have been justified. The horror-comedy-romance scored its highest ratings ever for the Season 3 premiere on Monday (June 3).
The first episode of Season 3 was up by 15 percent over the Season 2 premiere a year earlier, earning a 2.3 rating in the 12-34 demo (MTV's target audience). Among teens, the numbers were even better, with MTV scoring a 4.1 rating among younger audiences. Overall, 2.4 million tuned in to watch "Tattoo," up from 2.1 million a year earlier.
"Teen Wolf" can be even prouder of its ratings increase when the episode's lead-in is taken into account. Seasons 1 and 2 of the series premiered right after the MTV Movie Awards and enjoyed increased ratings as a result. For Season 3, on the other hand, only a repeat of the show's Season 2 finale aired before the premiere.
What can account for the numbers rising on "Teen Wolf"? This is one of those rare shows that has truly benefited from audience word-of-mouth. Pretty much unanimously loved by those critics who pay attention to MTV programming, "Teen Wolf" has also gained notice from excellent reviews, presentations at the San Diego Comic-Con and increased exposure for stars like Dylan O'Brien.

MAN OF STEEL
Warner Bros. recently premiered the first clip from this month's Man of Steel. It debuted on Ellen and features Amy Adams as Lois Lane and Laurence Fishburne as Perry White. Historicallly, Lane has been portrayed as a plucky reporter who's always out for a good story, while White is her stern editor-in-chief. The clip reveals that the dynamic between the two still fits that mold.
Lois is getting reprimanded by White for disobeying orders. Yeah, that sounds like the Lois we know.
Official synopsis:
Clark Kent/Kal-El (Cavill) is a young twentysomething journalist who feels alienated by powers beyond anyone’s imagination. Transported to Earth years ago from Krypton, an advanced alien planet, Clark struggles with the ultimate question – Why am I here? Shaped by the values of his adoptive parents Martha (Lane) and Jonathan Kent (Costner), Clark soon discovers that having super abilities means making very difficult decisions. But when the world needs stability the most, it comes under attack. Will his abilities be used to maintain peace or ultimately used to divide and conquer? Clark must become the hero known as “Superman,” not only to shine as the world’s last beacon of hope but to protect the ones he loves.”

TEN BEST SCI-FI TV SERIES EVER WRITTEN
The Writers Guild of America has come up with a list of the 101 best TV series ever. But which sci-fi series made the list?
All right! It's the 101 best, most trailblazing, most influential, most stayed-up-all-night-obsessing-about TV shows of all time, as voted by members of the WGA.
How did science fiction and fantasy TV fare? And the answer is ... not all that well, sadly. You'd think, given the volume of genre television, that there'd be tons of sci-fi on this list. You would be wrong.
But here's what the WGA deigned worthy, from bottom to top:
90. The Prisoner
79. Star Trek: The Next Generation
49. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
40. Game of Thrones
38. Battlestar Galactica (2005)
35. Twin Peaks
33. Star Trek
27. Lost
26. The X-Files
3. The Twilight Zone
While we're happy with many of the shows that did make the list, there are an awful lot that didn't and, frankly, should have. Where was Farscape? Babylon 5? Firefly? Futurama? Doctor Who?!

WORLD WAR Z
Paramount Pictures has released another TV spot for the upcoming World War Z.
Hitting theaters on June 21, the Marc Forster-directed action thriller stars Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox and David Morse.
The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop a pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.


FABLES
The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that fan favorite Vertigo series Fables is on its way to the big screen. A Royal Affair director Nikolaj Arcel is now attached to helm the project based on the Bill Willingham series. Screenwriter Jeremy Slater (writer behind the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot) has been brought on to write the film. David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford of Heyday Films will produce.
Two other attempts have been made to adapt Fables into another medium, but both were halted in development before production could begin.
Fables imagines that all the characters from the world’s most beloved storybooks are real - real, and living among us, with all of their powers intact. From Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf, to Goldilocks and Little Boy Blue, these beloved characters are alive and well - but they’ve been exiled from the land of fairy tales. Escaping the mysterious Adversary, they have relocated to a magically camouflaged New York City neighborhood known as Fabletown. To survive in the mundane world, the Fables will have to fight for their happily ever after.
A Fables video game will also debut this summer from Telltale games titled The Wolf Among Us.

SALEM
With Matt Cherniss newly installed as president, WGN America has ordered its first original scripted series.
The first project is a drama titled Salem, from Brannon Braga (24, Star Trek: TNG, Terra Nova) and Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut), which will go straight to series with 13 episodes. The hourlong entry hails from Fox 21, the cable studio responsible for such cable dramas as Homeland and Sons of Anarchy, and was initially developed at FX. Production is set to begin in the fall, with a plan to premiere on WGN in 2014. The news comes as Cherniss looks to bolster both his executive team as well as his programming slate at the Tribune-owned network.
Salem is set in the volatile world of 17th century Massachusetts, and explores what really fueled the town's infamous witch trials. The series will look to uncover the dark, supernatural truth hiding behind the veil of this ignominious period in American history. The witches featured are real, but they are not who or what they seem. What’s more, the drama, which centers on an epic romance wrapped around this explosive revelation, delivers a bold new vision of Salem -- and an even bolder new vision of witches.
“Brannon and Adam have an amazing vision for the world and characters that comprise Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials, and we believe that a great adventure full of supernatural romance and action awaits the viewer," said Cherniss, who joined the company after a stint on the feature side at Warner Bros. Before that, he spent several years in top programming posts at both Fox and cable sibling FX. The new position reunites him with his former boss, Tribune CEO Peter Liguori.
“As we expand our cable television business through Fox 21, we are always on the lookout for new opportunities, and we couldn't be prouder to be the first studio to produce an original scripted series for WGA America,” noted Twentieth Century Fox Television chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman. Fox 21 president Bert Salke added: “Salem is a passion project of ours at Fox 21, and Matt and Peter’s enthusiasm for it was instantaneous and incredibly gratifying. We are excited to be delivering WGN America its inaugural scripted series and look forward to continuing to develop with the network in the years ahead.”
Salem, which was formerly titled Malice, was created and written by WME-repped Braga and Simon, who will serve as executive producers alongside Prospect Park’s Josh Barry and Jeff Kwatinetz.

TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

DOCTOR WHO REPLACEMENTS
With Matt Smith officially on his way out after three seasons as "Doctor Who," speculation is running rampant as to who will land the coveted role of the Twelfth Doctor.
Theories range from the wacky (former companion Billie Piper!?) to the preposterous (Benedict Cumberbatch, who is a little busy making a ton of movies, not to mention "Sherlock"), but the frontrunners have narrowed down to a credible bunch.
Topping the list is "Law & Order UK" star Ben Daniels (pictured above, left), who at 48 years old would be a notable departure from recent younger Doctors including the youngest ever, Smith. Best known for his work in British TV (including "Cutting It," "The State Within" and "Merlin") and theater, Daniels also recently co-starred as Adam Galloway on Netflix's "House of Cards."
Daniels currently leads the odds by a large margin on UK betting site SkyBet.com and his name has quickly circulated through the British press as a likely successor. But given the scramble to find out any information at all in the wake of Smith's announcement, any rumors should be taken with a grain of salt.
Other frequently mentioned candidates include Rory Kinnear (who played M's chief of staff in "Skyfall" and pictured in the center above) and David Harewood (recently CIA director David Estes on "Homeland" and pictured above, right).
Harewood previously appeared in the two-part "who" episode "The End of Time," which marked the transition from the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) to the Eleventh (Smith). While it would be highly unusual for an actor who previously appeared on "Who" to suddenly become the Doctor, it's not unprecedented. Colin Baker played the Sixth Doctor from 1984-86 after previously playing the character Commander Maxil in 1983's "Who" story "Arc of Infinity."
Two former "Being Human" stars have also been mentioned as contenders: Russell Tovey, who is also a former "Who" guest star, and Damien Molony, who at the age of 29 would be a more age-appropriate love interest for the Doctor's current companion Clara. That's assuming the show continues to keep playing up their romantic sparks and Jenna-Louise Coleman continues with the show after Smith leaves.
More recognizable names like Chiwetel Ejiofor ("American Gangster"), Ben Wishaw (Q in "Skyfall") and Rupert Grint ("Harry Potter") seem like serious long-shots, given the franchise's preference for casting lesser known actors in the role. Plus, there's the production and promotion commitments the show requires, which surely played a part in Smith's decision to leave in light of his blossoming film career, and may not be particularly appealing to a more established actor.
Then there's always the controversial possibility that the Doctor could regenerate into a... woman. In which case, Olivia Colman -- who played Margaret Thatcher's daughter in "The Iron Lady" and currently stars in the acclaimed series "Broadchurch" opposite Tennant -- has emerged as the "favorite."

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
He may have beamed off the villain role of “John Harrison” in Star Trek Into Darkness, but Benicio Del Toro (The Wolfman) has just nabbed a mysterious lead role in director James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy! Question is: who is he playing?
Deadline reports that Del Toro has signed on to play "a character that is built to be part of future Marvel films, which means he has signed a deal with options that put him into multiple movies."
Although the character he’ll play is shrouded in mystery, rumors are swirling that he could be playing Thanos—the big bad mysterious villain who appeared during the end credits in last year’s hit The Avengers.
Del Toro’s casting follows the announcement that former Doctor Who companion Karen Gillan has also been cast as the main female baddie of the inter-galactic flick, along with Pushing Daisies’ Lee Pace, who will play the main villain.
With a huge cast that also boasts Glenn Close, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Michael Rooker, Dave Bautista, and John C. Reilley, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is shaping up to be THE movie to see in 2014.

OUTLANDER
Time-travel and toaster fans rejoice! Ronald D. Moore’s (Battlestar Galactica) newest series Outlander has finally been greenlighted. Guys, get your kilts on.
Starz has given a series order for the romantic time-traveling drama series, based on a very successful series of seven books by author Diana Gabaldon. An eighth one is due out later this year.
The project, spearheaded by Moore and Sony Pictures TV, will now go ahead and develop a 16-episodes series, with production starting this October in Scotland.
The storyline follows Claire, a married World War II nurse who steps back in time to 1743, where she is thrown into sweeping adventures as well as into the arms of Jamie, a romantic and chivalrous young Scottish warrior, marrying him as well.
What’s a gal to do, you ask me?
Moore will be surrounded by Toni Graphia, Matt Roberts, Ira Behr and Anne Kenney, who have joined him in the writers' room.
Next up on Ron Moore's fantasy/sci-fi plate is the upcoming series Helix for Syfy.

BIRDMAN
Fox Searchlight Pictures has been filming the dark comedy Birdman in New York City and here is a photo from the shoot.
The film tells the story of an actor (Michael Keaton) – famous for portraying an iconic superhero – as he struggles to mount a Broadway play. In the days leading up to opening night, he battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career, and himself.
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, the film co-stars Lindsay Duncan, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts.

THE EQUALIZER
David Meunier is the latest name said to be joining the cast of director Antoine Fuqua's The Equalizer. Deadline reports that the "Justified" actor will join Denzel Washington, Chloë Grace Moretz, Melissa Leo and Marton Csokas in the big screen take on the 1980's television show.
The original series was created by Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim. It starred Edward Woodward as Robert McCall, a private detective with a lot of contacts who is available for hire if you have a problem that you don't know how to solve.
In the movie, McCall (Washington) is living a quiet life while working at a Home Depot when one of his acts of kindness towards a prostitute (Moretz) gets him embroiled with the Russian mob. Leo will play McCall's former supervisor who now provides him with information.
Meunier will play Slavi, a Russian pimp for whom Moretz's character works.
The movie was written by Richard Wenk with Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch producing through Escape Artists, alongside Alex Siskin, Mace Neufeld, Tony Eldridge, Michael Sloan, and Washington.
The Equalizer will begin production this month in Boston.

STAR-CROSSED
There are a number of new series coming to The CW. They include "Star-Crossed," "The 100," "The Originals," "Reign" and "Tomorrow People." Here is a clip from Star-Crossed.

MONSTER UNIVERSITY
Walt Disney Pictures has released, via The Wall Street Journal, a new clip from Monsters University which features a scare class session from Monstropolis' prestigious institution.
Ever since college-bound Mike Wazowski (voice of Billy Crystal) was a little monster, he has dreamed of becoming a Scarer—and he knows better than anyone that the best Scarers come from Monsters University (MU). But during his first semester at MU, Mike's plans are derailed when he crosses paths with hotshot James P. Sullivan, "Sulley" (voice of John Goodman), a natural-born Scarer. The pair's out-of-control competitive spirit gets them both kicked out of the University's elite Scare Program. To make matters worse, they realize they will have to work together, along with an odd bunch of misfit monsters, if they ever hope to make things right.
Featuring a score by Randy Newman, the Dan Scanlon-directed prequel opens in theaters on June 21.

MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2013

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
Aside from some scattered concept art, we haven’t actually seen much of Captain America: The Winter Solider’s new namesake baddie -- until now.
The Phase 2 film is drawing inspiration from one of the greatest Captain America stories in comic lore, and some new leaked set pics look like they’ve managed to nail down a pretty great look for Cap’s pal-turned-nemesis.
Sebastian Stan (aka Bucky Barnes) looks right at home in the masked leather outfit of the brainwashed soldier. With a gun in hand, and another strapped to his side, he looks ready and able to give S.H.I.E.L.D. a very bad day.
Following Cap’s exploits while serving alongside S.H.I.E.L.D., the sequel promises to be the most direct sequel to The Avengers, with a pretty solid political-thriller edge. We’ve been waiting for the First Avenger to deal with something other than being a fish out of water — and it looks like we’ll have some more drama soon.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens April 4, 2014.

LATE PHASES
Reports indicate that Erin Cummings ("Spartacus") and Ethan Embry have joined the cast of the werewolf thriller Late Phases, currently lensing in New York for MPI/Dark Sky Films.
The film is the first English-language project for director Adrian Garcia Bogliano, who made a splash on the genre scene with Cold Sweat, Penumbra and the upcoming Here Comes the Devil.
Cummings and Embry join previously-announced cast member Nick Damici (Stakeland). It has also been disclosed that Tina Louise ("Gilligan's Island's" "Ginger") will appear in the film.
Late Phases will tell the story of Ambrose McKinley, who moves into a community where the residents have been dying in increasing numbers - oddly, all have supposedly been the victims of dog attacks. But after barely surviving his own attack on his first night there, Ambrose discovers that the assailants are much more than canines.
Damici is playing the part of Ambrose. Cummings and Embry will plays a couple in the film.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
X-Men: Days of Future Past is still filming in Montreal and details are few about the upcoming ensemble film. Star Patrick Stewart offered a few teases for the film at Comicpalooza, however.
"I think it is going to certainly be the X-Men of all X-Men pictures, and one doesn't want to tempt fate, but perhaps also the blockbuster of 2014. It was a wonderful experience to reunited with those people."
Stewart began to elaborate on a few details for the film, including Charles Xavier's return.
"It's been 6 or 7 years since X-Men 3, where you will recall that Charles Xavier was vaporized by whats-her-name, Jean Grey. And you're asking yourselves, 'If you were vaporized, how can you be in the next X-Men movie?' Anybody got any ideas how that came about?" One audience member yelled out "Time travel," to which Stewart responded: "Yeah, that's exactly it. I guess. There will be an explanation, but it was a little puzzling for me because I thought my X-Men days were over. So, it's something to look forward to."
Stewart also revealed that he has completed filming his parts of the movie and that Hugh Jackman will remain on set for the duration of the production which should wrap up in August.
Coming to theaters on July 18, 2014, X-Men: Days of Future Past stars Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore, Peter Dinklage, Omar Sy, Halle Berry, Daniel Cudmore, Fan Bingbing, Boo Boo Stewart, Adan Canto and Evan Peters.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Just one month in, this has already been a summer full of surprises at the box office and after a record Memorial Day weekend, things slowed down slightly with two lower-key new releases, one starring one of the biggest box office stars working today, the other with an ensemble cast and an original premise that set it apart from the other summer releases.
Neither of those new movies won the weekend though, as last weekend's champ Fast & Furious 6 (Universal), starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and Dwayne Johnson, achieved something that's only been done by few other movies and that's to retain the top spot after being #1 over Memorial Day. (Other previous movies to do so include one-time opening weekend record holder The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the current Memorial Day weekend record holder.)
It remained on top despite dropping nearly 65% from its chart-topping opening weekend, bringing in $34.5 million over the weekend to take its domestic total to $170.4 million. By comparison, Fast Five had grossed $140 million by the end of its second weekend, although it didn't have the added bump of a Memorial Day opening.
Internationally, the street racing sequel brought in $75 million in 62 territories to bring its overseas total to $310.2 million which combined with the U.S. brings its worldwide total to $480.6 million after just three weeks.
Going into the weekend, it seemed like the reunion of Will Smith with his son Jaden in the sci-fi action-adventure After Earth (Sony) would take a strong second place, but instead, the lower-key magic-based heist movie Now You See Me (Summit) managed to surpass it both on Friday and for the weekend.
Directed by Louis Letterier (Clash of the Titans) and featuring the ensemble cast of Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, the original concept of a group of magicians who steal from the rich and give to the poor really struck a chord with moviegoers, allowing it to bring in $28 million, beating After Earth's $27 million for second place despite opening in 500 fewer theaters. That would also give Now You See Me the biggest opening for a Summit Entertainment release that didn't have "Twilight" in the title.
It was quite a shocker for those expecting the Will Smith presence to bring in audiences, especially after the huge success of Jaden's solo outing in The Karate Kid. By comparison (and coincidence), the last time father and son appeared in a movie together was for 2006's The Pursuit of Happyness, which opened in the same range with $26.5 million, but that went on to gross $162 million domestic and $306 million worldwide.
There was a rare tie for fourth place based on estimates with the animated action-adventure Epic (20th Century Fox) and J.J. Abrams' sci-fi sequel Star Trek Into Darkness both bringing in an estimated $16.4 million and having to wait until Monday actuals to determine which one will take that slot.
Although there was very little other family-friendly fare in theaters, Epic still dropped 51%, the second smallest drop in the Top 10 after Fox's other animated movie The Croods. It has grossed $65.1 million since opening before Memorial Day, while Star Trek into Darkness has grossed $181.2 million, pushing it ahead of The Croods as the third-highest grossing movie of 2013.
Todd Phillips' The Hangover Part III (Warner Bros.), reuniting Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong, took a nosedive after its disappointing opening weekend, dropping all the way from 2nd to 6th place with $15.9 million, which is down 62%. It has grossed $88.1 million since opening eleven days ago. Like most movies, it's faring better overseas where it took in $82 million in 54 markets this weekend to bring its worldwide total to $198 million.
Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3, starring Robert Downey Jr., dropped 59% from its Memorial Day weekend take to seventh place with $8 million for the weekend and $384.8 million since opening roughly one month ago. On top of that, it added another $9.9 million internationally in 55 territories to bring its overseas total to $795.2 million and its global cume to $1.18 billion after roughly a month in theaters.
Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, dropped to eighth place with $6.3 million and $128.3 million total.
For a second weekend in a row, the Top 10 was up from the same weekend last year, in this case up 16% from last year when Snow White and the Huntsman led the box office with $56.2 million.
After a strong platform release a few weeks back, Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha expanded into 133 theaters where its $552 thousand weekend take may be enough to help sneak it into the Top 12 just ahead of the baseball biopic 42.
As far as limited releases of note, Sundance regulars Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij (Sound of My Voice) returned with the thriller The East (Fox Searchlight), co-starring Alexander Skarsgård and Ellen Page, which opened in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles to $75 thousand or $19 thousand per theater. Jordan Vogt-Roberts' The Kings of Summer (CBS Films), a favorite at this year's Sundance Film Festival, also opened in four locations to $58 thousand or $14.5 thousand per theater.

MAN OF STEEL
Warner Bros. Pictures has released a 13-minute featurette on Man of Steel!
Directed by Zack Snyder, the action adventure stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff.
In the film, a young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2013

DOCTOR WHO NEWS
Weeks after the return of Doctor Who was made official, season eight will be without star Matt Smith.
Smith, who first made his debut as the Doctor in 2010, will depart following the 50th anniversary Doctor Who special that will air Nov. 23 and the annual Christmas special, the BBC announced Saturday on its official blog. There had been speculation that Smith would return for another go-around.
"Doctor Who has been the most brilliant experience for me as an actor and a bloke, and that largely is down to the cast, crew and fans of the show," said Smith. I'm incredibly grateful to all the cast and crew who work tirelessly every day, to realise all the elements of the show and deliver Doctor Who to the audience. Many of them have become good friends and I'm incredibly proud of what we have achieved over the last four years."
Smith also thanked the fans for their never-ending support during his four-year stint as the title character on the beloved British staple: "It's been an honour to play this part, to follow the legacy of brilliant actors, and helm the TARDIS for a spell with 'the ginger, the nose and the impossible one'. But when ya gotta go, ya gotta go and Trenzalore calls. Thank you guys." Steven Moffat, who returns as showrunner/executive producer for season eight, praised Smith's performance on the series, and acknowledged that oftentimes there is an end to all good things. "But great actors always know when it's time for the curtain call, so this Christmas prepare for your hearts to break, as we say goodbye to number Eleven," he said.
Though his focus is on the upcoming specials, Moffat teased the search for the 12th Doctor: "Somewhere out there right now -- all unknowing, just going about their business -- is someone who's about to become the Doctor. A life is going to change, and Doctor Who will be born all over again!"
The 50th anniversary Doctor Who special will feature Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman, David Tennant, Billie Piper and John Hurt, who was seen in the season seven finale.
Stateside, Doctor Who airs on BBC America, and is the cable network's highest-rated series. Doctor Who is produced by BBC Cymru Wales.
Over the past few seasons, Doctor Who parted ways with Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), who has joined the cast of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams). Smith, the first actor to be nominated for a BAFTA award as the Doctor, will star in Ryan Gosling's directorial debut, How to Catch a Monster, expected to hit theaters in 2014.

INTERSTELLAR
Collider is reporting that long time Chris Nolan collaborator Hans Zimmer will score his upcoming film Interstellar and has already started working on the film's music. Zimmer has served as the composer for four of Nolan's films including Inception and the entire "Dark Knight" trilogy. His work can be heard next in the upcoming Man of Steel.
Directed and written by Nolan, Interstellar is based on a script by Jonathan Nolan. The film will be produced by Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan of Syncopy Films and Obst of Lynda Obst Productions. Kip Thorne will executive produce. Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Michael Caine will star.
Interstellar will depict a heroic interstellar voyage to the furthest reaches of our scientific understanding. The movie hits theaters on November 7, 2014.

SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2013

GUARDINS OF THE GALAXY
Marvel has answered our sci-fi prayers -- they've put someone from the Doctor Who universe in Guardians of the Galaxy. Friday evening it was announced that Karen Gillan -- who you may know her from her run on Doctor Who as Amy Pond -- is joining the cast.
It's being reported that Gillan will play the lead female villain in the film. That means she'll probably share scenes with Lee Pace (The Hobbit), who was previously announced as the main baddie. Further details regarding Gillan's role are being kept under wraps.
The actress joins the growing cast, which includes Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Michael Rooker and the recently added Glenn Close. The film's scheduled to start shooting in late June in the UK.
Guardians of the Galaxy is directed by James Gunn and hits theaters Aug. 1, 2014.

REVOLUTION
NBC has released a preview clip from next week's highly anticipated Revolution season finale, which should answer the question "Will the lights come back on?" Not only that, but will more Rebels meet their maker? The previous episode featured several standoffs, including one between Miles (Billy Burke) and Monroe (David Lyons).
In the following clip, we'll see what happened to Captain Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) and his son Jason (JD Pardo) after they talked their way out of militia hands. Last week, Neville was able to convince one of his captors to start a coup. Monroe's still stuck in the Tower, so while the boss is away, his enemies will play.
What will Neville do with Monroe's army? In the official episode description it says, "Neville and Flynn give new meaning to evil.” That can't be good.

HAMMER OF THE GODS
Here is the first look at an almost three-minute clip from Hammer of the Gods in theaters on July 5th.
Set in Viking Britain in 871 AD, Hammer of the Gods is a visceral, intense tale set in a world whose only language is violence. A young Viking warrior, Steinar (Charlie Bewley), is sent by his father the king on a quest to find his estranged brother, who was banished from the kingdom many years before. Steinar’s epic journey across terrifyingly hostile territory gradually sees him emerge as the man his father wants him to be – the ruthless and unforgiving successor to his throne.
Elliot Cowan, Clive Standen, Guy Flanagan and Michael Jibson co-star.

BLADE RUNNER 2
Writer Michael Green is in negotiations to do a rewrite of Alcon Entertainment's Blade Runner sequel penned by Hampton Fancher (Blade Runner, The Minus Man, The Mighty Quinn) and to be directed by Ridley Scott. Fancher's original story/screenplay is set some years after the first film concluded.
Alcon co-founders and co-Chief Executive Officers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove will produce with Bud Yorkin and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin, along with Ridley Scott. Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble, CEO’s of Thunderbird Films, will serve as executive producers.
Green recently completed rewrites on Robopocalypse and Warners Bros.' Gods and Kings.
Alcon and Yorkin previously announced that they are partnering to produce Blade Runner theatrical sequels and prequels, in addition to all television and interactive productions.
The original film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently taught in university courses. In 2007, it was named the 2nd most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society.
Released by Warner Bros. almost 30 years ago, Blade Runner was adapted by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples from Philip K. Dick's groundbreaking novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and directed by Scott following his landmark Alien. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction).

FRIDAY, MAY 31, 2013

MAN OF STEEL
Sorry, small-town residents: Zod is coming to cause some major trouble. New footage from Man of Steel has surfaced, showing off the apparently epic “Battle of Smallville.”
It’s no surprise that Clark Kent’s earthly home will play a big part in the film, and we’ve already glimpsed some action in the many trailers already floating around. But a new featurette includes some of the best footage yet of the battle for small-town America.
The footage also shows off some cast and crew interviews, where they discuss the more grounded approach and how they’re trying to introduce Superman in a new way. That’s a tall order, to be sure, but early feedback has been quite positive.
So here’s hoping.
Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel opens June 14.

REVOLUTION
We still have to wait until Monday to learn who lives and who dies in Revolution’s season-one finale, but the network is already prepping for year two — and here are some of the new characters we’ll be meeting along the way.
The writers are looking to add no fewer than five new regular and recurring characters next fall, which makes us wonder how much damage next week’s finale will do to thin the ranks.
Of the new additions, we’ll have a small-town doctor, a religious single mom, a femme fatale, a crazy professor and a sheriff. How they’ll play into the growing war between the nations, and the story of our beloved band of survivors? No idea, but we can’t wait to find out.
Here’s an excerpt from TV Line’s report breaking down the casting sides:
“The Season 1 finale has yet to air, and already NBC’s freshman hit is busy recruiting reinforcements for the battles yet to come. Season 2 casting calls have gone out for the possibly series regular role of Gene, a folsky, 60something doctor from a small Texas town, as well as the recurring characters of Cynthia (a religious single mom), Annabeth (a femme fatale who runs an entertainment “mecca” of sorts), Titus (a slightly psychotic professor) and a handsome sheriff in his 30s. As for Monday’s season-ender itself, Elizabeth Mitchell assures us, ‘Forces collide…. Forces most definitely collide!’”
It’s hard to get a read on how all these folks will fit into season two, but one might guess some or all of them are part of a new locale that will pop up next season (that “small Texas town,” perhaps?).

TOMORROW PEOPLE
One of the most intriguing sci-fi series of the fall looks to bring super-powered teens back to prime time, and now we have a ton of new footage from The CW’s Tomorrow People to show just how fun it could be.
A reboot of a long-running 1970s British series, the shiny new version looks like a cross between X-Men and Heroes — with this latest trailer definitely channeling the Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters vibe.
With executive producers Marc Guggenheim (Arrow) and Julie Plec (Vampire Diaries) behind the scenes, this one looks like it could strike the perfect balance between superheroics and teen angst. If they can avoid the convoluted pitfalls of Heroes, this could be one of the breakout hits of the fall.

PRISONERS
The first trailer for Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners is here!
Starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo and Paul Dano, the thriller asks, "How far would you go to protect your child?" Keller Dover (Jackman) is facing every parent's worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street. Heading the investigation, Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) arrests its driver, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), but a lack of evidence forces the only suspect's release.
Knowing his child's life is at stake, the frantic Dover decides he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands. The desperate father will do whatever it takes to find the girls, but in doing so, he may lose himself, begging the question: When do you cross the line between seeking justice and becoming a vigilante?
Prisoners hits theaters September 20, 2013.

THURSDAY, MAY 30, 2013 PERCY JACKSON SEA OF MONSTERS
A brand-new trailer for the mythological romp Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters has finally been released, and it looks like it could be one of the most fun movies of the summer. You know, if you’re into mythology-lite young adult fare.
But the best part? The addition of geek god Nathan Fillion, who plays the actual Greek god Hermes. Not surprisingly, it looks like the former Firefly star could steal the show and make this kiddie-tinged flick at least tolerable for adults. Plus, it looks to show off some pretty whiz-bang FX work.
A sequel to the surprise 2010 hit Percy Jackson & the Olympians, the followup will track young Percy and his pals as they embark on a treacherous journey into the Sea of Monsters (aka the Bermuda Triangle).
The film opens wide Aug. 7.

FALLING SKIES
What is ClearGaze, and how is it connected to Falling Skies? Intially, the latest viral video promoting season three isn't about the show at all. But we soon learn that looks can be deceiving. What starts off as a typical contact lens commercial turns into a terrifying sight.
If you already have anxiety about wearing contacts, this footage won't help. A young woman gets the shock of her life when her lenses reveal an overactive eye worm. We've seen these creatures slither from eye to ear in both Tom (Noah Wyle) and Hal (Drew Roy). They can affect your behavior and who knows what else.
Falling Skies returns June 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on TNT.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Glenn Close is in final negotiations to join Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
The movie, which is heading for a late June start in London, is part of Marvel’s Phase Two and the only movie that is not a sequel to already established characters such as Thor and Captain America.
Close will play the head of a space police force known as the Nova Corps.
Her casting continues the eclectic nature of the space adventure’s roll call.
Chris Pratt, best known for his comedy work in Parks and Recreation, is headlining the ensemble as half-alien, half-human Star-Lord.
Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista are playing a green-skinned alien assassin and a cosmic energy-blasting superhuman named Drax the Destroyer.
Michael Rooker is playing an alien named Yondu while Lee Pace is the movie’s villain.
Also sitting on an offer to play an newbie agent that acts as a liaison between all the characters is John C. Reilly.
Still yet to be cast are voice talent for Rocket Raccoon, a gun-totting animal, and Groot, a living tree-like being.
Close’s boarding just broadens the character spectrum.

WORLD WAR Z
This clip from Marc Foster's World War Z is now online and it features Brad Pitt's Gerry Lane faced with a hard decision.
Based on Max Brooks' best-selling novel "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War," the story revolves around United Nations employee Lane, who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself. World War Z opens June 21.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 2013

TRANSFORMERS 4
With new Autobots being revealed, Transformers 4 director Michael Bay has now also provided a first look at the "completely upgraded, custom-built Optimus Prime from Western Star (a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks North America)."
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Jack Reynor, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Sophia Myles, Li Bingbing and T.J. Miller, the fourth installment hits theaters on June 27, 2014.

MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Last week saw the announcement that actor Tom Cruise was bowing out of the upcoming reboot of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in favor of focusing on Mission: Impossible 5, which he will produce and star in. Now Variety is reporting that Man of Steel star Henry Cavill is in talks to take on the role of Napoleon Solo.
Should he sign on, Cavill will join Armie Hammer and Alicia Vikander in the project. Guy Richie will direct the film from a script by Scott Z. Burns and Max Borenstein.
In a previous interview with ComingSoon.net, screenwriter Scott Z. Burns talked about setting the film in the 1960's.
"I thought it would be really fun to go back and look at spycraft in the Cold War and what you could and couldn't do," he said. "When you think about the world in the 1960's just in terms of cars and fashion and the aesthetic, to be able to go and shoot that world with today's cameras and today's technology, I think we could do some really cool stuff. Then also, the thing that was so cool about 'U.N.C.L.E.' that people don't realize--and this is why I like it more than 'Mission: Impossible'--the initial conceit of 'U.N.C.L.E.' was amazing. It was really about an organization that didn't have an affiliation with a country and Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin were guys who should've been sworn enemies. One was Russian and one was American and they worked together. In that way, it was a really incredibly progressive, hopeful kind of show."

BEWARE THE NIGHT
"Community" star Joel McHale has joined the cast of the Scott Derrickson paranormal thriller Beware the Night, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter. He'll play a veteran police officer opposite Eric Bana, Edgar Ramirez and Olivia Munn.
Derrickson will direct the picture from a screenplay he and Paul Harris Boardman adapted. Production is now underway in the Bronx with Jerry Bruckheimer producing.
Beware the Night again teams Derrickson and Boardman with Screen Gems where their first film, 2005’s hit The Exorcism of Emily Rose, was made and distributed. The film reunites Bruckheimer with Bana, who starred in the producer’s Academy Award-winning Black Hawk Dawn, directed by Ridley Scott.
The film follows a New York cop who meets a renegade priest when he is pulled into a case which the priest convinces him, against the officer’s religious beliefs, is demonic related. Together they work to solve the case and combat the paranormal forces working against them.

THREE DAYS TO KILL
Relativity announced today that it will distribute Three Days to Kill in the U.S. on February 14, 2014. The film is directed by McG (This Means War, Terminator Salvation), written by Luc Besson and Adi Hasak and stars Kevin Costner (Man of Steel, Jack Ryan), Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Amber Heard (Paranoia) and Connie Nielsen ("Boss").
In the action thriller, Costner plays an elite government hit man who after receiving news that he has a terminal disease, decides to give up his high stakes life to finally build a relationship with his estranged wife and daughter, whom he's previously kept at arm's length to keep out of danger. But when his agency offers him an experimental, potentially life-saving drug in exchange for one last mission, it's an offer he can't refuse - even if it means juggling his two toughest assignments yet: going after the world's most ruthless terrorist and caring for his daughter for the first time in ten years while his wife is out of town.
EuropaCorp’s Luc Besson and Virginie Besson-Silla and Adi Hasak and Relativity’s CEO Ryan Kavanaugh are producing. Relativity’s President, Tucker Tooley, will executive produce.
Tooley said: "EuropaCorp is a tremendous partner for Relativity and we are excited to continue building our relationship. McG, Kevin Costner and the entire team have done an incredible job of bringing Luc and Adi's script to the big screen."
This films furthers the co-financing and co-production relationship between EuropaCorp and Relativity, which the two companies recently announced will be extended for an additional slate of films. The original deal also includes Besson's comedic action film Malavita in theatres September 20, 2013.

TROLLS
DreamWorks Animation has announced today that Mike Mitchell is set to direct their upcoming Trolls. Emmy Award-winning writer Erica Rivinoja will provide the screenplay.
Mitchell, currently directing the live action sequences in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 2, has garnered a fan base among family audiences for hits such as Shrek Forever After, Sky High and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, and has a proven track record taking legendary characters on new adventures. Rivinoja has been lauded for her work on comedies including "South Park" and "Up All Night." Under the direction of this new creative team Trolls will be distributed by Twentieth Century Fox on November 4, 2016.
"Mike and Erica are the perfect team to reimagine this film," said Chief Creative Officer Bill Damaschke. "Mike's pedigree in shaping stories with already beloved characters is second to none, and Erica's amazing sense of comedy will introduce the Trolls to a new generation of fans while keeping the spirit and appeal audiences have loved for years."
The film, which will be a grand scale musical comedy centering around how the Trolls came into their vibrant and colorful hair, will be produced by Gina Shay (Shrek Forever After).
The Troll doll phenomenon was born in 1959 when Danish fisherman and woodcutter Thomas Dam, too poor to afford a Christmas present for his young daughter Lajla, carved a doll for her based on the legendary Scandinavian troll. This modern-day Geppetto couldn't have imagined that the Troll dolls would soon become one of the biggest toy crazes of the 1960s. The Trolls experienced a resurgence in the 1990s and their uniquely endearing faces and shocks of colorful hair continue to capture the hearts and imaginations of fans around the world.

TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013

TRUE BLOOD
It ain’t easy being a vampire. The sixth season of HBO’s True Blood looks to make life even tougher on the fang gang, with a new politician declaring war on vamps in a tense new trailer.
The new footage finds Governor Burrell, newcomer Arliss Howard, addressing the state and letting them know that vampires are not so welcome anymore. They’re shutting down vampire-run businesses and encouraging every human out there to stock up on guns and wooden ammo.
The show has come a long way over the years, and season six sounds like it could be the wildest yet. Luckily, we only have a few more weeks to wait for the June 16 premiere.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE FLASHPOINT PARADOX
We still don’t know what DC will do with their long-rumored live action Justice League film, but their animated projects keep on rolling out — and here’s the first trailer for a Flashpoint-inspired flick.
Dubbed Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, the new animated feature is based on Geoff Johns' 2011 crossover comic. The series served as a setup for the New 52 relaunch, and found the Flash and a few other heroes noticing major differences between the established and altered timelines.
The trailer looks like the film should be pretty close to the comic canon, and should be a worthy addition to their excellent slate of animated flicks. It makes you wonder why DC doesn’t just put their animated development team in charge of the live-action Justice League and let it roll.
The film will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray July 30.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE RESULTS
It's June 5, 2009 and Todd Phillips' new R-rated comedy The Hangover, featuring a cast of unknowns including Bradley Cooper in his first full-on leading role, opens against Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost, considered at one point to be the favorite, and it absolutely destroys it, making $45 million to "Lost's" $18.8 million. Cut forward to Memorial Day 2011 and The Hangover Part II is opening against DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda 2, the sequel to a huge animated hit for star Jack Black. Once again, Phillips' raunchy comedy wins the day with an $85 million weekend after a $31 million opening day. Kung Fu Panda 2 barely makes in four days what the original movie made its opening weekend.
And that brings us to Memorial Day 2013, the weekend where Todd Phillips' "Hangover" franchise finally met its match...
In Fast & Furious 6 (Universal), the long-running street racing franchise that's evolved with the times and delivered a quick follow-up to the popular Fast Five that brought the fans into theaters in droves. With the returning cast of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson--his fourth movie in four months--Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, joined by Luke Evans and Gina Carano, "Furious 6" opened on Friday in 3,658 theaters, taking in $38.2 million, surpassing the opening day of Fast Five by $3.8 million. It then took full advantage of the long holiday weekend, bringing in $96.8 million over the three-day weekend and an estimated $120 million including Memorial Day Monday.
That opening makes it the fourth-biggest Memorial Day opening ever as well as Universal Pictures' biggest opening movie to date, surpassing the $86.2 million opening of Fast Five two years ago. Work is already underway for a seventh installment to the franchise that could be released as early as next summer. That $120 million opening combined with the other blockbusters helped set a new Memorial Day record with the Top 10 grossing more than $300 million, an unprecedented achievement that didn't even happen the weekend where Marvel's The Avengers set a new opening record with $207 million.
Internationally, the movie also continued to do well as it opened in 59 additional territories following its slow roll-out in the UK and Ireland last weekend, with huge results in many countries that brought the international total to $197 million. So as of Monday, the sixth movie in the franchise has made $317 million worldwide. It's yet to open in big markets like Australia, China and Japan.
Meanwhile, Todd Phillips' The Hangover Part III (Warner Bros.) opened early on Thursday, reuniting the Wolf Pack of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong, but it hit the weekend with horrid reviews and its $11.8 million opening Thursday (compared to the $31 million made by its predecessor its opening day) led to a disappointing four-day weekend take of $51.2 million, which is nearly half of what its predecessor made over Memorial Day weekend two years ago, at the time becoming the fourth-biggest opener over the holiday weekend. That position has been bumped down to fifth thanks to the latest "Fast and Furious," too.
J.J. Abrams' sci-fi sequel Star Trek Into Darkness, featuring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Simon Pegg and Benedict Cumberbatch, held decently in its second weekend even as it dropped to third place to make way for the two new movies. It brought in $38 million for the three-day weekend and $47 million including Monday. The film has earned $155.8 million domestically and $102.1 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $257.9 million. That was followed by the latest animated film from Blue Sky Studios, makers of the "Ice Age" movies, with the action-adventure Epic (20th Century Fox), featuring the voices of Colin Farrell, Christoph Waltz, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Beyonce Knowles, Aziz Ansari, Pitbull, Jason Sudeikis and Steven Tyler. That brought in $42.6 million over the four-day holiday weekend, which may be low for a Memorial Day where it's the first new family film in months but it's not awful and it can build on it in the three weeks before Disney•Pixar's Monsters University opens.
Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3, starring Robert Downey Jr., took fifth place with $19.4 million over the three-day weekend and $24.3 million including Monday, bringing its total to $371.6 million domestically, putting it head and shoulders above all other movies as the biggest grossing movie of the year. The threequel has grossed $1.142 billion worldwide, which you can read more about here.
Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, dropped to sixth place with $13.7 million over the three-day weekend and $17 million including Monday. Luhrman's biggest domestic hit to date has grossed $118.2 million so far.
Nothing else in the Top 10 made a significant amount of money although Jeff Nichols' Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey, had the best hold, making more over the four-day holiday weekend then it did last weekend despite losing theaters.
As mentioned before, this was one of the biggest weekends at the box office in a long time and the over $300 million made by the Top 10 was a huge 59% boost over last Memorial Day when Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones reunited for Men in Black 3, which brought in $69.2 million over the four-day weekend. The only other new movie was the found footage horror movie Chernobyl Diaries, which opened in fifth place with $8 million.
Opening in limited release, Richard Linklater's long-awaited third chapter in the "Before" series Before Midnight (Sony Pictures Classics), once again starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, opened in five theaters in New York and Los Angeles where it grossed $322,000 over the four-day weekend or $54,300 per theater. Plans are to expand it nationwide on June 14.

PACIFIC RIM
A new TV spot for Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim is on-line.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on July 12, the film stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Brad William Henke and Diego Klattenhoff.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

MAN OF STEEL
Warner Bros. Pictures has released the eighth TV spot for Man of Steel.
In the Zack Snyder-directed June 14 release, a young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.
Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff star.

MONDAY, MAY 27, 2013

Just got back from the Phoenix Comic Con. What a totally awesome event. Found the video for the reunion event so I am posting it here. More to follow.

PART 1 of the Reunion Event.


PART 2 of the Reunion Event.











Babylon 5 Memorial Video from John Hudgens.





















WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2013

THE LONE RANGER
The latest trailer for The Lone Ranger is loaded with new footage, and we finally get to see a little more of that utterly insane train job we’ve glimpsed in previous teasers.
Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski are teaming up once again to try and recapture that early Pirates of the Caribbean magic, and it looks like they might do just that. But, you know, with cowboys instead of pirates.
We get to see some more of the banter and dynamics between Depp’s Tonto and Armie Hammer’s Lone Ranger, which could be fun, plus the action looks positively mind-boggling.
Here’s the full synopsis, which sets up the reimagining of the classic radio-show hero:
From producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski, the filmmaking team behind the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, comes Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ “The Lone Ranger,” a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor, in which the famed masked hero is brought to life through new eyes. Native American warrior Tonto (Johnny Depp) recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid (Armie Hammer), a man of the law, into a legend of justice—taking the audience on a runaway train of epic surprises and humorous friction as the two unlikely heroes must learn to work together and fight against greed and corruption.

SLEEPY HOLLOW
We’re pretty excited about FOX’s upcoming Sleepy Hollow TV series, which is set to air in the fall, and to whet our appetites until then, more chilling video previews have been released.
This brand-new version of the classic tale of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving, gets a modern twist à la Sherlock, pulling the Headless Horseman and the series’ hero, Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison), into the modern-day town of Sleepy Hollow.
The upcoming series boasts Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Fringe) as showrunners. Not too shabby if you ask us.
Sleepy Hollow debuts on FOX this fall, Mondays at 9 p.m.

WORLD WAR Z
Paramount Pictures has released more spots for World War Z.
Hitting theaters on June 21, the Marc Forster-directed action thriller stars Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox and David Morse.
The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop a pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.



MAN OF STEEL
We have a new trailer for Man of Steel! Focusing a little more on General Zod's plans in the film, it shows the roots of the viral marketing campaign that we saw earlier this year.
Hitting 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters, the action adventure stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff.
In Man of Steel, a young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

PHOENIX BABYLON 5 EXTRAVAGANZA
The Phoenix Comicon is almost here. It will feature over 19 hours of B5 focused programming over all 4 days. We are beginning with Babylon 5 101 & 102 and going all the way up to panels with J. Michael Straczynski and culminating with the 20 Anniversary Reunion panel featuring 14 of the Starring Cast and the Creator himself all on one-stage. Come join us for the once in a life-time experience, after Phoenix Comicon an experience like this will disappear fast that the 4th Bablyon.
Go to https://www.phoenixcomicon.com/page/70 for a look at the full program.

I will be reporting from the convention, so be sure to visit The Zocalo Today on Facebook.

TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2013

TEEN WOLF
If you’re looking for something that falls between True Blood and Vampire Diaries, MTV’s dark, sexy Teen Wolf hits the sweet spot. So what’s the network cooking up for season three?
For a network best known for reality TV and, well, not music — MTV is home to one of the most entertaining fantasy series of the modern age. In addition to that new Scream series, the channel also has this fantastic ’80s movie reboot, which has evolved into a dense, fun drama that holds its own with the better-known horror fantasy shows out there.
Season three looks to be the wildest yet, with a new Alpha pack coming to town and no shortage of werewolf ass-kicking. Oh, and of course, lovely young men and ladies canoodling one another.
The new season begins June 3.

STAR WARS REBELS
We’ve been wondering what Disney would do after pulling the plug on the beloved animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars, and now we know. Prepare to meet the Rebels!
The company has announced plans to launch a new series dubbed Star Wars: Rebels, which will debut in the fall of 2014 as a new series for Disney XD. As was rumored, the series will bridge the gap between Episodes III-IV, and judging by the synopsis it sounds like some ripe territory to mine.
The action-filled series is set between the events of Episode III and IV -- an era spanning almost two decades never-before explored on-screen. Star Wars Rebels takes place in a time where the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking shape. Details about the show are a closely guarded secret at this point.
Behind the scenes, the series will be producer by Simon Kinberg (X-Men: First Class, Sherlock Holmes), Dave Filoni (Star Wars: Clone Wars) and Greg Weisman (Young Justice, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Gargoyles). The company plans to debut the first teaser trailer in July, at the Star Wars Celebration in Europe.
Though it's nice to know Disney isn’t leaving too much of a gap between Clone Wars and this new project, the addition of Filoni should at least help ease the pain of losing the Emmy-nominated series.

THE LONE RANGER
A new TV spot for Walt Disney Pictures' The Lone Ranger is now online!
Directed by Gore Verbinski, the action adventure stars Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale, Ruth Wilson and Helena Bonham Carter.
The July 3 release is a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor in which the famed masked hero is brought to life through new eyes. Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Johnny Depp) recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid (Armie Hammer), a man of the law, into a legend of justice—taking the audience on a runaway train of epic surprises and humorous friction as the two unlikely heroes must learn to work together and fight against greed and corruption.

THE HOBBIT RESUMES PRODUCTION
The final weeks of production on the last two parts of Peter Jackson's new Middle-earth trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: There and Back Again, has officially begun in New Zealand. Jackson himself posted the following message on his Facebook page along with a behind-the-scenes photo that shows him with Ian McKellen's Gandalf the Grey.
Back on set for our last Hobbit pick ups. Our last ever Tolkien pick ups, in fact. It's going to be an intense few weeks, but we're looking forward to shooting some powerful scenes with our great cast. Our next blog is coming soon!
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug hits theaters on December 13 of this year while The Hobbit: There and Back Again concludes Jackson's second J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy on December 17, 2014.

TURBO
20th Century Fox has released the new trailer for DreamWorks Animation's Turbo, opening in theaters on July 17. The animation film features the voices of Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Ken Jeong, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Snoop Lion and Samuel L. Jackson.
Turbo is the story of a snail who dreams of being the greatest racer in the world, just like his hero, 5-time Indianapolis 500 champ, Guy Gagné. Turbo’s obsession with speed and all things fast has made him an outsider in the slow snail community, and a constant embarrassment to his cautious older brother, Chet.
Turbo desperately wishes he could escape the slow-paced life he’s living. He gets that chance after a freak accident when he suddenly finds himself vested with the power of incredible speed. Turbo embarks on an extraordinary journey to achieve the impossible: racing against the best that IndyCar has to offer. Turbo is the ultimate underdog who achieves the impossible by refusing to let his limitations limit his dreams.

MONDAY, MAY 20, 2013

AVENGERS 3/IRON MAN 3
Joss Whedon is looking to dig a lot deeper into the Marvel universe with Avengers 2, and has opened up about how two new additions (and a founding member) will fit into the super-team’s next adventure.
Some spoilers for Iron Man 3 ahead!
As we’ve heard before, Whedon is looking to add Marvel alums Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch to the universe, and said they’d represent an interesting counterpoint to the status quo from the first film. Plus, the brother-sister duo is guaranteed to complicate things:
“You know, they had a rough beginning. They’re interesting to me because they sort of represent the part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily agree with The Avengers. So they’re not there to make things easier. I’m not putting any characters in the movie that will make things easier.”
Whedon has also touched on how the ending of Iron Man 3 might affect Avengers 2, with Tony Stark having blown up his suits and found his inner identity apart from his Iron Man persona by the end of the threequel. Those events will hold some consequences, but Whedon said Stark still believes in the greater good — and would still come when called upon to save the world:
“Well, I feel like in Iron Man 3, even though he said, ‘I’ve changed' -- he blew up his remote suits, but I don’t think anybody thinks he doesn’t have one anymore. The question is, if The Avengers are called, does he show up? And the answer is, ‘Yes!’”
It’s nice to see that Whedon is already putting the pieces together, and that he’s giving proper respect to the canon established in the early Phase 2 films (i.e. Stark’s new philosophy on life). Plus, we can’t wait to see what he has in store for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE NUMBERS
Paramount and Skydance Productions' Star Trek Into Darkness topped the box office chart with a solid four-day opening of $84.1 million -- even if it didn't engage warp speed and hit $100 million.
Overseas, the J.J. Abrams-directed tentpole took in another $40 million over the weekend for an early global total of $164.6 million, including $80.5 million internationally. The 3D pic, playing in 40 markets, tied with Iron Man 3, which took in $40.2 million in its fourth weekend.
But it was Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby -- benefiting from being the only female-skewing event pic -- that topped the foreign chart, grossing a solid $42.1 million as it opened in 49 markets following its international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival May 15.
There was plenty of action overseas all the way around. Universal's Fast & Furious 6 tore out of the gate as it debuted in the U.K. and Ireland, grossing $13.8 million to score the biggest opening ever for a Universal title in those countries and boding well for the film's domestic bow over Memorial Day weekend and its continued expansion offshore.
Heading into the weekend, many box office observers believed Into Darkness had a shot at hitting $100 million in North America, easily outpacing the $79.2 million opening of Abrams' 2009 Star Trek, which reinvigorated the sci-fi film franchise. Paramount had hoped for $100 million, but hedged its bets by estimating an $80 million to $100 million debut.
Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore said he was "extremely pleased" with the sequel's performance, both domestically and internationally, where the studio waged a massive marketing campaign to improve the franchise's standing (Star Trek has never been as popular overseas).
"Into Darkness did 6 percent better than the 2009 Star Trek and received an A CinemaScore, so we know people love the movie," Moore said. "And overseas, it is pacing 82 percent ahead of Abrams' first film."
In Russia -- where sci-fi often suffers, but 3D is enormously popular -- Into Darkness debuted to $8 million, four times the opening of the 2009 reboot, which topped out at only $4 million.
Moore says Into Darkness could ultimately double the $127 million earned by Star Trek in its entire run internationally.
Into Darkness returns Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in the roles of Captain James T. Kirk and Spock. Other returning castmembers include Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Karl Urban. This time out, a scheming villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch resorts to terrorism to threaten Earth.
Paramount and Skydance co-financed the $190 million tentpole, and produced alongside Abrams' Bad Robot. The script was written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof.
In the U.S., Into Darkness skewed male (64 percent) while 73 percent of the audience was over the age of 25.
IMAX theaters turned in big numbers thanks to Trekkies who wanted to see the film in a large-format, with 336 theaters taking in $13.5 million.
There is no doubt but that Into Darkness faced tough competition from The Great Gatsby and Iron Man 3. In its third weekend, Disney and Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 came in No. 2 domestically with $35.2 million. The billion-dollar baby has now taken in $337.1 million in North America and $736.2 million internationally for a total $1.07 billion, the No. 9 film of all time.
The Great Gatsby, from Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures, placed No. 3 domestically, falling 53 percent in its second weekend for a handy cume of $90.2 million.
Warners' belief that Gatsby would serve as counterprogramming to action fare is paying off and already marks Luhrmann's biggest success to date in North America, not accounting for inflation (his previous best was the $57.4 million grossed by Moulin Rouge!)
Gatsby also marks Luhrmann's best opening overseas, coming in 38 percent ahead of Australia ($30.4 million) and Moulin Rouge! ($13.8 million). The 3D film did nice business in numerous markets, including earning $6.2 million in Russia and $6.1 million in the U.K., despite Fast and Furious. It placed No. 1 in France with $4.7 million, buoyed by its premiere in Cannes.
At the U.S. specialty box office, Noah Baumbach scored with the debut of his black-and-white independent film Frances Ha, which grossed $134,000 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles for a location average of $33,500.
Below are the top 10 estimates for the May 17-19 weekend at the North American box office.
Title, weeks in release/theater count, studio, three-day weekend total, cume
1. Star Trek Into Darkness, 1/3,868, Paramount/Skydance, $70.6 million, $84.1 million
2. Iron Man 3, 3/4,237, Disney/Marvel Studios, $35.2 million, $337.1 million
3. The Great Gatsby, 2/3,550, Warner Bros./Village Roadshow, $23.4 million, $90.2 million
4. Pain & Gain, 4/2,429, Paramount, $3.1 million, $46.6 million
5. 42, 6/2,380, Warners/Legendary, $2.7 million, $88.7 million
6. The Croods, 9/2,373, Fox/DreamWorks Animation, $2.8, $176.8 million
7. Tyler Perry Presents Peeples, 2/2,041, Lionsgate, $2.2 million, $7.9 million
8. Oblivion, 5/2,077, Universal, $2.16 million, $85.5 million
9. Mud, 4/960, Roadside Attractions, $2.15 million, $11.6 million
10. The Big Wedding, 4/1,442, Lionsgate, $1.1 million, $20.2 million.

TRANSFORMERS 4
Chinese superstar Li Bingbing has joined the cast of Michael Bay's Transformers 4, says a story today at The Hollywood Repoter. Her role has not yet been officially confirmed, but she joins Mark Wahlberg, Jack Reynor, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer and Sophia Myles in the franchise sequel.
Although the plot of sequel is still top secret, Bay teased that it will involve a "Chase from Hell."
Bingbing is well known to American audiences for playing Ada Wong in Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil: Retribution.
Transformers 4 hits theaters June 27, 2014.

R.I.P.D.
Universal Pictures has released the first TV spot for R.I.P.D.!
Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds headline the 3D supernatural action-adventure as two cops dispatched by the otherworldly Rest In Peace Department to protect and serve the living from an increasingly destructive array of souls who refuse to move peacefully to the other side.
The July 19 release also stars Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephanie Szostak, Robert Knepper, James Hong, Marisa Miller, Mike O’Malley and Devin Ratray.

SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2013

BUCK ROGERS
Sci-fi's 1st hero Buck Rogers gets whole new look for his comic return. The 25th century gets an upgrade.
We told you Howard Chaykin would be bringing Buck back, but it turns out our first peek at Chaykin's take on the character was just him aping the classic style. Today we've got the brand-new art that shows us just how Buck's gonna look this coming August, when he returns through Hermes Press.
Buck Rogers, the first, best, and original Sci-Fi hero returns with Howard Chaykin drawing and writing this action packed incarnation of this iconic title. Over eighty years after the creation of the newspaper strip that become a household word, Howard Chaykin has returned the character and his universe back to basics: Buck Rogers, former World War I ace is accidentally suspended in time only to awaken to new and different earth, 500 years in the future, fragmented by war and ruled by an omnipotent force – the Chinese. Now, Buck along with Colonel Wilma Deering, begins a new fight, to free the United States!

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness took in roughly $22 million on Friday for a projected four-day debut of $83 million, in line with the opening of the director's 2009 reboot. The 3D sequel opened late Wednesday night in North America and has earned $25.3 million to date.
Into Darkness should benefit from a coveted A CinemaScore and generally upbeat reviews, although some had expected the movie to open close to $100 million (Paramount had always estimated $80 million to $100 million).
Abrams' 2009 Star Trek, which successfully relaunched the iconic sci-fi franchise, opened to $79.2 million in May 2009 (that film wasn't in 3D).
The sequel returns Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in the roles of Captain James T. Kirk and Spock. Other returning castmembers include Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Karl Urban. This time out, a scheming villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch resorts to terrorism to threaten Earth.
Paramount and Skydance co-financed the $190 million tentpole, and produced alongside Abrams' Bad Robot. The script was written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof. Into Darkness faces a crowded marketplace in North America, competing with Iron Man 3 and The Great Gatsby.
Disney and Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 placed second on Friday, grossing $9.5 million for a domestic total of $311.4 million. The Great Gatsby, from Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures, came in No. 3 on its second Friday, grossing $7.7 million for a cume of $74.4 million.
Q&A: 'Star Trek's' Damon Lindelof on 'Star Wars' Influences and His 'Fatal Flaw' Overseas, Into Darkness opened in seven markets last weekend. The 3D pic has grossed a stellar $37 million through Wednesday, 70 percent ahead of the 2009 film.
Its projected to hit $35 million overseas for the weekend, lead by Russia at $9 million. (That's $2 million more than the opening on last film.)
By this weekend, the international cume is predicted to hit $75 million with just over half of all markets opened.
As Abrams' rolled out in North America, Universal's Fast & Furious 6 and The Great Gatsby commenced their international runs.
Zooming out of the gate, Fast & Furious 6 debuted in the U.K. and Ireland on Friday, grossing $4.6 million and marking the best opening performance ever for a Universal title in those territories.
Gatsby, which opened the Cannes Film Festival on May 15, began rolling out internationally Wednesday and is now playing in 49 countries. From Wednesday through Friday, it has grossed $17 million, more than the entire opening weekend of Moulin Rouge, which took in $13.8 million during its opening weekend in 2001.
In France, the third top-grossing market for the film, behind only Russia and the U.K., Gatsby has taken in $2.2 million on 660 screens to rank first.

I AM ZOZO
Image Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s Ouija board thriller I Am ZoZo from Outsider Pictures and One World Studios Ltd. The film was written and directed by documentarian Scott Di Lalla (Choppertown: The Sinners) and stars Kelly McLaren, Courtney Foxworthy, Demetrius Sager, Caleb DeBattista, and Caleb Courtney.
The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo was filmed entirely on Super 8mm and recently received Best Feature and Audience Choice Awards at the 2012 US Super 8 Film Festival. Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Image Entertainment made today’s announcement.
I Am ZoZo centers on five young friends who play with a Ouija board that inadvertently summons the malevolent Ouija demon “ZoZo.” The film’s horrific account of possession is based on widely reported real experiences with this ancient and evil spirit that attaches itself to people exclusively through Ouija boards.

SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2013

EUROPA REPORT
While seeking out alien life on Jupiter's moon Europa, a group of astronauts will prove the old adage "In space, no one can hear you scream."
Documentary-style horror has been a pretty common in the last decade, but usually because it's cheaper to produce. But with Europa Report, we're instead experencing a very real foray into a place where most humans will never go -- outer space.
If there's one thing of which we are unabashed fans, it's practical effects, and, as is often the case with found-footage movies, Europa Report seems to be favoring that over CGI.
And here's the official synopsis:
EUROPA REPORT follows a contemporary mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa to investigate the possible existence of alien life within our solar system. When unmanned probes suggest that a hidden ocean could exist underneath Europa’s icy surface and may contain single-celled life, Europa Ventures, a privately funded space exploration company, sends six of the best astronauts from around the world to confirm the data and explore the revolutionary discoveries that may lie in the Europan ocean. After a near-catastrophic technical failure that leads to loss of communication with Earth and the tragic death of a crewmember, the surviving astronauts must overcome the psychological and physical toll of deep space travel, and survive a discovery on Europa more profound than they had ever imagined.
One of the coolest things about the film is that it'll hit iTunes before it even lands in theaters. So if your appetite is as whetted as ours, this flick will be ready to scare the space pants off of you on June 27.

DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 8
It seems like we’re always wondering when the next Doctor, or next showrunner, will be falling in line for Doctor Who. But it sounds like Matt Smith isn’t going anywhere — at least not until after season eight.
Smith is locked in for 2014 — though the same can’t be said about showrunner Steven Moffat, apparently. He’s off shooting a feature film for a few months, but after the Christmas special is wrapped up, he says he’s returning in 2014 for the next series.
Here’s his statement, via The Sun:
“I’m on a break for a couple of months while I’m in Detroit making How To Catch A Monster. We come back and shoot the Christmas special over the summer, then we go on to the next series, which will either start filming at the end of this year or at the start of 2014.”

WAREHOUSE 13 TO END
There will be one more season of artifact hunting, and then Syfy’s Warehouse 13 will officially come to a close.
The network has announced that the hit series has received an order for a fifth and final season, which will consist of six episodes. The show is currently airing the back half of its fourth season.
Syfy President of Original Content Mark Stern had this to say about the decision:
Warehouse 13 has been an incredible signature series for us. We are grateful to the loyal and passionate fan base and know that Jack Kenny, his gifted creative team, and outstanding ensemble cast will give them an amazing finale season.”
The series has been a consistent performer, and has a pretty solid fan base following the gang of artifact hunters. It’s nice to know the writers will get a chance to close out the story on their own terms with a final season.
The series stars Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly, Saul Rubinek, Allison Scagliotti and Aaron Ashmore.

THE EQUALIZER
Marton Csokas (upcoming Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and The Amazing Spider-Man 2) will play the villain in Columbia Pictures' The Equalizer. He will be joining Denzel Washington and Chloë Grace Moretz in director Antoine Fuqua's big screen adaptation of the 1980s TV show.
The original show was created by Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim. It starred Edward Woodward as Robert McCall, a private detective with a lot of contacts who is available for hire if you have a problem that you don't know how to solve.
In the movie, McCall is living a quiet life while working at a Home Depot when one of his acts of kindness towards a prostitute (Moretz) gets him embroiled with the Russian mob. Csokas plays a vicious fixer for the Russia mob.
The movie was written by Richard Wenk with Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch producing through Escape Artists, alongside Alex Siskin, Mace Neufeld, Tony Eldridge, Michael Sloan, and Washington.
The Equalizer will shoot this summer in Boston.

THE AVENGERS 2
A rumor started a few weeks ago that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch would be joining the team in the upcoming Avengers sequel. Further signs continued to point towards the characters' inclusion in the film and now writer/director Joss Whedon has confirmed the characters will appear in an interview with IGN. In the interview, he spoke about their involvement in the film.
"You know, they had a rough beginning. They’re interesting to me because they sort of represent the part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily agree with The Avengers. So they’re not there to make things easier. I’m not putting any characters in the movie that will make things easier.”
We've learned exclusively at SuperheroHype that Irish actress Saoirse Ronan is the "prototype" for their version of the Scarlet Witch, but no casting has taken place.
Whedon also spoke about how the ending to Iron Man 3 (spoiler ahead!) showed a potentially changed Tony, but he's still tied to The Avengers.
“Well, I feel like in Iron Man 3, even though he said, ‘I’ve changed' -- he blew up his remote suits, but I don’t think anybody thinks he doesn’t have one anymore. The question is, if The Avengers are called, does he show up? And the answer is, ‘Yes!’”
Casting for The Avengers 2 is still coming together with many rumors flying around about potential actors being replaced. Regardless of who ultimately assembles for the sequel, Marvel's The Avengers 2 hits the big screen on May 1, 2015.

FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2013

THE TOMORROW PEOPLE This series is easily the most promising of the bunch new at The CW, and seems to boast the best production values to boot (for what it’s worth). The series looks like a good spin on Heroes, with young people figuring out they have awesome superpowers. As suspected, it definitely has a Push vibe, which should be a good fit for the small screen. Oh, plus Mark Pellegrino (Supernatural, Lost)!

THE ORIGINALS
We got a peek at the backdoor pilot earlier this season with The Vampire Diaries, and the network liked the New Orleans-set pitch so much they decided to bring the more mature spinoff back for a full season. It’s a no-brainer for Vampire Diaries fans, and could also appeal to fang fans who found the high-school series a bit too young-skewing.

THE 100
This one could go either way. It’s a future-set series following 100 teens sent back to Earth to investigate whether the planet is hospitable to re-establish a colony. It has a lower-budget Terra Nova vibe (minus the dinosaurs, of course), and definitely feels like a Hunger Games ripoff. It’ll be interesting to see how they develop the premise for the pilot.

STAR-CROSSED
Do you miss Roswell? Well, you’re in luck! This series looks like a pretty straight play on the fish-out-of-water storyline of aliens in a high school, only this time the whole world knows they’re aliens (and apparently hates them for it). It looks like 90210 with aliens, which could definitely appeal to a niche of CW fans.

PACIFIC RIM
Last month, Guillermo del Toro rolled out a package of footage from his epic monsters-vs.-mechs flick Pacific Rim that had previously been available only to attendees at this year's WonderCon. That trailer featured, among other things, a Jaeger (the film's name for the giant human-piloted robots that fight the beasts known as Kaiju) clubbing a monster in the face with a ship and smashing another's head with a pair of crushing punches. Now a new, two-and-a-half-minute trailer for the film has hit the 'net, and it's packed with even more Jaeger-vs.-Kaiju badassery.
We've still got nearly two months to go before Pacific Rim finally barrels into theaters, but if you weren't pumped up for this flick already, you're about to be. Monsters! Explosions! Kaiju dropping Jaegers into the ocean! Jaegers superpunching Kaiju at a full run! Ron Perlman's sunglasses! Check it out!
Pacific Rim is in theaters July 12.

DISPICABLE ME 2
Universal Pictures has released the first clip from Despicable Me 2 in which Gru and Agnes show you how to avoid unwanted guests. Hitting theaters on July 3, the sequel is voiced by Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Russell Brand, Steve Coogan, Ken Jeong and Benjamin Bratt.

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

NEW CBS DRAMAS
INTELLIGENCE
"Intelligence," meanwhile, is straight out of the CBS playbook. A sarcastic, hunky leading man (Josh Holloway) bantering with a bright-eyed young woman (Meghan Ory) and backed by a network veteran (Marg Helgenberger). Action, mystery and crime-solving elements collide to give the network's regular viewers exactly what they expect. Which, let's face it, is part of what gives CBS the right to be so cocky. There was also a little more of the show on display during the upfront than there is in the behind-the-scenes promo above, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't find the whole thing instantly forgettable.

HOSTAGES
It's an interesting play: a heavily serialized thriller set for a limited cable-style run of 15 episodes that still looks and feels like a CBS procedural. Put another way, "Hostages" feels closer in spirit to an extended arc from "NCIS" or "Person of Interest" than something cut from the same sharp cloth as "The Good Wife." Or maybe it just finds the middle ground. Starring Toni Collette, Dylan McDermott and Tate Donovan, "Hostages" at least shows CBS' willingness to play with their form ... to a point.
The pilot cut-down shown to advertisers ran longer than the behind-the-scenes video above and gave a more concrete overview of the plot with more details about Donovan's character and the kidnappers. It also featured a brief look at future episodes, including what seemed to be a shocking twist (that drew gasps from the audience), but could have just as easily been a dream sequence.

ONCE UPON A TIME: WONDERLAND
ABC's unveiled the first trailer for Once Upon a Time: Wonderland. It's a spinoff of the popular drama that brings fairy tales into the modern day. Wonderland sets itself apart by taking place in Victorian England. It centers on Alice as she tells her story of love and loss in a magical land.
As you might expect, not everyone believes her account. When Alice tells her family about a place with an invisible cat, a hookah-smoking caterpillar and playing cards that talk, they find it hard to believe. Can you blame them? Because of that, she's placed into a mental facility.
Alice yearns for freedom but can't forget about Cyrus ((Peter Gadiot), a genie she fell in love with. She assumes he's dead but learns he's actually alive and kicking. With the help of the Knave of Hearts (BBC's Being Human's Michael Socha) and the White Rabbit (John Lithgow), she returns to Wonderland on a mission.
Once Upon a Time: Wonderland will air Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

DEPARTURE
Billy Ray has come aboard to direct Departure, a sci-fi romance from Good Universe.
Jim Whitaker is producing while Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane will executive produce.
The script is inspired by Ghosts of the Air by Martin Caidin. The book told of the real accounts from pilots who have experienced flight anomalies.
According to Good Universe, Departure "follows a brilliant Miami-based FAA investigator who is obsessed with learning how a 727 suddenly vanished into thin air and then reappeared in the exact same spot 10 minutes later. As mysterious occurrences continue to occur with increasing frequency in the skies over Miami, the investigation becomes personal when the employee’s beloved wife is on one of the planes affected."
The company is fast-tracking the project and wants to begin casting immediately.
Spencer Wong will oversee the project on behalf of Good Universe. Elizabeth Ingold will oversee for Whitaker Entertainment.
Ray is one of Hollywood’s most in-demand scribes with recent credits including The Hunger Games and the upcoming Tom Hanks movie Captain Phillips. As a director, he helmed the acclaimed Shattered Glass as well as Breach.

ORPHAN BLACK
TORONTO – Canadian indie producer Temple Street Productions has seen its sci-fi drama Orphan Black go to BBC 3.
From co-creators Graeme Manson (Flashpoint) and John Fawcett (Spartacus), Orphan Black follows a young woman played by Tatiana Maslany who discovers she is, in fact, one of several clones after she witnesses the suicide of someone who looks exactly like her.
The conspiracy clone thriller was also recently renewed for a second season by BBC America and Space in Canada with a 10-episode order.
Executive producers are Ivan Schneeberg and David Fortier.
The cast includes Maria Doyle Kennedy, Jordan Gavaris, Dylan Bruce, Kevin Hanchard and Michael Mando.

Z FOR ZACHARIAH
Chris Pine, Amanda Seyfried, and Chiwetel Ejiofor are starring in Z For Zachariah, a post-apocalyptic feature that will be directed by Craig Zobel.
Tobey Maguire is producing via his Material Pictures banner along with the company’s senior vp Matthew Plouffe. Zik Zak Filmworks’ Skuli Malmquist, Thor Sigurjonsson and Palomar Pictures’ Joni Sighvatsson are also producing.
Zachariah is a psychological thriller, set after an apocalyptic event. It centers on a teenaged girl (Seyfried) who is seemingly the sole survivor until a scientist (Ejiofor) finds her farm, and the two fall in love. Another survivor, a young man (Pine), surfaces, complicating matters.
An August shoot is being planned.
Nissar Modi wrote the script, an adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's classic science fiction novel.
Gary Ross and Lucky Hat Entertainment’s Stephen Bannatyne are executive producing, along with Silver Reel’s Claudia Bluemhuber and Lotus Entertainment’s Jim Seibel and Bill Johnson.
Lotus is selling international territories at Cannes. CAA arranged financing for the project, and CAA and WME will co-represent domestic rights.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 2013

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player KILLER WOMEN
The teaser ABC unveiled Tuesday (May 14) for its midseason series "Killer Women" does not waste much time living up to its title.
In the opening scene, a woman in a red dress stalks up the aisle at a wedding and shoots the bride. Lead character Molly Parker (Tricia Helfer), the only woman in the Texas Rangers, is loaded for bear for pretty much the entire trailer (except for a love scene with a DEA agent played by Marc Blucas). In three minutes, the trailer expends more bullets than seemingly an entire season of "Justified."
Helfer plays tough incredibly well, and the chemistry she and Blucas have is palpable. There are a more than a couple cop-show cliches present as well, but the hope is that Helfer's magnetism and the action, which is plentiful and well-shot, can overcome them.

ABOUT TIME
We lurrrve romcoms. But a romcom with sci-fi elements like time travel sprinkled in it? Sounds like a winner to us. Especially if one of its stars is the great Bill Nighy. Oh, and it has Rachel McAdams in it, too.
About Time is the new brainchild from Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and Funeral, Notting Hill and the wonderful, infinitely sad Doctor Who episode “Vincent and the Doctor,” in which Nighy had a cameo).
It stars Domhnall Gleeson (Black Mirror) as Tim, an unlucky-in-love guy who is revealed to have the ability to travel through time (but not space) by his dad, the always-awesome Bill Nighy, when he turns 21 (a secret family trait).
So what’s a guy to do?
Well, first dad makes a point that he can’t change history: "You can't kill Hitler or shag Helen of Troy, unfortunately." Hi-la-ri-ous.
So instead Tim uses said special ability to get himself a hot girlfriend in the shape of McAdams’ Mary—in her second outing in a romantic time-travel movie (the first was The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on Audrey Niffenegger's book)— and to get everything in their relationship absolutely right. (We could always use that kind of power, right?)
Written and directed by Curtis, About Time also stars Lindsay Duncan, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie and Vanessa Kirby. It’ll be released in the U.K. on Sept. 6.

ROBO COP
Some new footage have leaked out from the RoobCop reboot, showing off some action scenes and a major set piece in the works.
Judging by the bit we’ve seen here, it looks like director Jose Padilha will be bringing the action once this reimagining finally arrives. We also get a better look at that sleek new RoboCop outfit — which looks like a combo of a G.I. Joe exo-suit and the original RoboCop design, in a good way.
A reboot of the 1987 cult hit about a cop turned into a half-machine lawkeeper, the film stars Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) as the title character, Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight Rises) as a scientist and Samuel L. Jackson (The Avengers) as a media mogul.
Here’s the film’s synopsis:
In RoboCop, the year is 2029 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Their drones are winning American wars around the globe and now they want to bring this technology to the home front. Alex Murphy is a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit. After he is critically injured in the line of duty, OmniCorp utilizes their remarkable science of robotics to save Alex’s life. He returns to the streets of his beloved city with amazing new abilities, but with issues a regular man has never had to face before.
A new set video also captured what looks to be the staging of a major police standoff, with RoboCop using his fancy robo-cycle to roll up on the incident.
The film opens February 7, 2014.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY
Fox has confirmed that it's restarting its hit "24" with the limited event series "24: Live Another Day" to debut in Summer 2014.
Showrunner Howard Gordon and star Kiefer Sutherland will return for the series which will retain all the regular hallmarks (split screens, interweaving story lines, etc.) of the eight earlier seasons.
Set several years after the events of the final season, one difference is that this will be a shorter run with twelve episodes now set to represent 24 hours. This will make the 'real time' gimmick a bit tricky.

TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2013

SLEEPY HOLLOW
A slick and tantalizing re-imagining of the classic Washington Irving tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, from "Fringe" producers and "Star Trek Into Darkness" co-writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Tom Mison (HBO's "Parade's End") stars as 18th Century soldier Crane who somehow winds up in the 21st Century under the watch of a small town police officer (Nicole Beharie of "Shame"). Given that FOX's track record on high concept fantasy/sci-fi/action dramas contains far more flops than hits, we probably should be worried about this one. But the trailer is too much fun (beheadings! Revolutionary War flashbacks! banter! the Headless Horseman with a machine gun!), so we're hoping the powers that be pull this off.

ALMOST HUMAN
FOX went all-in with the "Fringe" folks this season, also ordering a series from the team of J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk and J.H. Wyman. This one is a buddy cop drama with a sci-fi twist, set in the not too distant future of 2048 when every LAPD officer is required to have a "synthetic" (a.k.a. robot) ridealong partner. A troubled cop (Karl Urban) is partnered with a troubled 'bot (Michael Ealy) and the drama goes from there. Another shiny and intriguing hour that could also suffer the curse of the FOX high concept drama (recent casualties include "Terra Nova," "Alcatraz" and "Touch"), but also looks promising enough to set itself apart.

AFTER EARTH
Well, this isn't exactly a warm father-son moment.
After Earth, the new sci-fi epic co-written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Will Smith and his son Jaden, hits theaters in just a few weeks, and the filmmakers have finally released a clip. In it, Cypher Raige (Will Smith) tasks his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) with retrieving a beacon from their crashed ship, which is somewhere in the threat-filled wilderness of a future Earth that's long been abandoned by humans. It's an important task, and a dangerous one, but as you'll see below, Kitai is getting no coddling from Cypher.
After Earth hits theaters May 31.

DOCTOR WHO NEWS
If any of you had any itsy-bitsy, tiny doubts at the back of your mind that an eighth season of Doctor Who was upcoming after the show’s 50th anniversary in November, then you can now brush them all aside and throw them away in the Time Vortex.
Showrunner Steven Moffat has “definitely confirmed” season eight is indeed coming up.
During last night’s BAFTA Television Awards, Moffat addressed the issue, since he was bewildered (as are we, frankly) that some Doctor Who fans were unclear about the beloved show’s fate.
"This is a thing that just seems to have slipped by... so can I say it very firmly - series eight is absolutely, definitely confirmed," Moffat said.
"It is real and it's happening - it's [taking up] most of my time at the moment."
"I get people telling me [that series eight is] not really happening," he explained. "It really, definitely, honestly is!"
Season eight will feature current companion Clara, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman. No confirmation has been made about Matt Smith's return as the Doctor.
So now that season eight has been officially confirmed by the Moff himself, are you relieved by the news? Did you guys have any doubts whatsoever that the show would return for season eight?

DRACULA
NBC's lavish new Dracula drama doesn't debut until this fall, but three set shots of the famed bloodsucker seducing Olde London have recently been released by the network. Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) stars in the 10-episode series as the undead Wallachian prince.
The production has been filming in Budapest and also stars Thomas Kretschmann (King Kong, Wanted) as the vampire hunter Van Helsing, Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Raven, Going the Distance) as Jonathan Harker and Nonso Anozie (Game of Thrones) playing Renfield. Dracula is slated to be unleashed in the coveted Friday night programming slot from 10 p.m.-11 p.m. beginning in September. It's being produced by former 24 producer Tony Krantz, Collin Callender (ex-president of HBO Films), Anne Mensah, Reece Pearson and Downton Abbey producer Gareth Neame. Creator Cole Haddon will serve as writer and co-executive producer.
Here's the official synopsis:
It's the late 19th century, and the mysterious Dracula has arrived in London, posing as an American entrepreneur who wants to bring modern science to Victorian society. He's especially interested in the new technology of electricity, which promises to brighten the night - useful for someone who avoids the sun. But he has another reason for his travels: he hopes to take revenge on those who cursed him with immortality centuries earlier. Everything seems to be going according to plan... until he becomes infatuated with a woman named Mina Murray (Jessica De Gouw) who appears to be a reincarnation of his dead wife.

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION VIDEO
As Cmdr. Chris Hadfield prepares to take his final bow and exit the outer-space stage that is the International Space Station, he gives us one last encore.
There's already no shortage of reasons to love Cmdr. Hadfield. His raw charisma has reignited the world's interest in space exploration. He even managed to grab the attention of both Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock. But his time is running out, and, before he returns to the womb of Mother Earth, he has one last video message to impart, which also doubles as the first music video to be recorded in space.
Somehow, deep down, we always knew the first-ever intergalactic music video would involve David Bowie. We're glad we were right, and we're thankful it was Hadfield who made it happen.

MONDAY, MAY 13, 2013

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player AGENTS FROM S.H.I.E.L.D.
Here is our first look at the new ABC series "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."
The network teased the teaser (why that's become a thing, we'll never understand) early Sunday (May 12), hoping to drive fans to the "Once Upon a Time" finale where the longer trailer would debut.
The clip is narrated by Clark Gregg's magically resurrected Agent Coulson, though there's still no hint as to how he's back among the living after "The Avengers."
"We work the cases that S.H.I.E.L.D. hasn't classified; the strange, the unknown," he explains. "It's not just spy versus spy anymore -- the whole world's in on the action."
It's still a frustratingly brief clip, teasing so many images without any real explanation. No doubt an even longer trailer is to come this week when ABC unveils their 2013-14 lineup at their Upfront on Tuesday.
For now, this will have to do.

THE WALKING DEAD
Production is ramping up on the fourth season of AMC’s hit zombie series The Walking Dead, and now we have our first look at Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) back in action. Not surprisingly, there’s a walker close behind.
Though it’s hard to glean much from this pic, we can tell that Rick at least looks a little bit more put together than the near-crazy version from last season. Plus, after a year spent fighting with humans, it’s nice to see a good old-fashioned zombie hanging ominously in the background here. The fourth season officially started shooting on May 6, and the pic originated on set in Atlanta, Ga.
Hopefully this is new showrunner Scott Gimple’s way of telling us they’ll be getting back to the dead-on-undead action once October rolls back around.
So while we get ready for a long, Dead-less summer, enjoy this peek at the new season to come.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness beamed up $31.7 million from only seven international markets as it began its worldwide rollout -- 70 percent ahead of the director's 2009 film.
Paramount is determined to improve the franchise's standing overseas, where Trekkie mania has never fully taken hold. To that end, the studio decided to whip up interest by opening the 3D tentpole first internationally, including in several countries where Abrams' Star Trek did the best the last time out.
Into Darkness, opening in the U.S. on May 10, returns Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in the roles of James T. Kirk and Spock, respectively.
In those markets where Star Trek films have seen their strongest business -- U.K., Australia and Germany -- aggregate grosses for Into Darkness were 56 percent ahead of Abrams' 2009 reboot.
The real test for Paramount came in Mexico, New Zealand and German-speaking Switzerland, where the space-set franchise has never been especially popular. The results: Into Darkness paced 250 percent ahead of the 2009 film.
Mexico was of particular importance, since sci-fi isn't a favored genre there (it's also one of the biggest markets for 3D fare). Into Darkness took in a stellar $3 million from 573 locations, triple the opening of the 2009 film.
"That's what we were really for. Mexico is a great Barometer," says Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore. "The first movie certainly laid the groundwork for anyone who is a Star Trek fan. We want this film to cross over and create new fans."
The U.K. led with $13.3 million from 556 locations, 50 percent better than the 2009 reboot. Into Darkness also dominated the market in Germany, grossing $7.6 million from 627 locations, 80 percent better. Australia took in $5.5 million from 263 locations, 50 percent ahead of the 2009 movie.
Paramount has taken elaborate measures in marketing Into Darkness overseas, including dispatching producer Byran Burk to share 20 minutes of footage with media and distributors in numerous countries earlier this year.
Into Darkness continues its international rollout next week, including in Russia. On May 16, it opens in China. It's already delivering strong results for Imax theaters, which took in $2.7 million over the weekend from $2.3 million.
In 2009, Star Trek grossed $257.7 million in North America and $128 million overseas, where most Hollywood tentpoles do far better.

THE BLACKLIST
NBC is betting big on The Blacklist.
The freshman drama starring James Spader has just landed the best time slot on the network's 2013-14 fall schedule -- on Mondays at 10 p.m. following The Voice. It's the same slot where the network launched Revolution this season, with the J.J. Abrams drama moving to lead off Wednesdays at 8 p.m.
Ahead of its Monday upfront presentation to Madison Avenue ad buyers -- and the release of the full trailers for all its 12 freshman shows, NBC has released the first trailer for The Blacklist.
Spader stars as the world's most wanted criminal who mysteriously turns himself in and offers to give up everyone he's ever worked with. His only condition is he will only work with a newly minted FBI agent (Megan Boone) with whom he seemingly has no connection.
Perfect Stranger's Jon Bokenkamp and showrunner John Eisendrath (Alias) and producers John Fox and John Davis.

MAN OF STEEL
A fourth TV spot with more footage from Warner Bros. Pictures' Superman movie Man of Steel.
Hitting 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on June 14, the action adventure stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff.
In Man of Steel, a young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

PHOENIX BABYLON 5 EXTRAVAGANZA
The Phoenix Comicon has the Babylon 5 Programming that you are looking for! 2013 will feature over 19 hours of B5 focused programming over all 4 days. We are beginning with Babylon 5 101 & 102 and going all the way up to panels with J. MIchael Straczynski and culminating with the 20 Anniversary Reunion panel featuring 14 of the Starring Cast and the Creator himself all on one-stage. Come join us for the once in a life-time experience, after Phoenix Comicon an experience like this will disappear fast that the 4th Bablyon.
Go to https://www.phoenixcomicon.com/page/70 for a look at the full program.
For more information about the convention, go to https://www.phoenixcomicon.com/page/1.

NBC FALL SCHEDULE NEWS
We will launch two classy, attention-getting dramas in February: 'Believe' from J.J. Abrams, and 'Crisis' starring Dermot Mulroney and Gillian Anderson.
"On Fridays, anchored by 'Grimm' at 9 p.m., we will have a more fun genre night with the limited-series 'Dracula,' starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers at 10 p.m. In the spring, 'Crossbones' - with John Malkovich as the infamous pirate Blackbeard - replaces 'Dracula,'" said Greenblatt.

SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2013

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
In the battle of the billionaire playboys, Jay Gatsby couldn't topple Tony Stark, though he gave the Marvel superhero quite a run for his money.
"The Great Gatsby" had spectacular opening day, grossing $19.4 million, which has put the Warner Bros. adaptation on track for a $50-55 million weekend (which exceeds all expectations). Baz Luhrmann's film, which cost roughly $100 million to make, will undoubtedly become the director's best debut ever. As for Gatsby himself, the film will rank as Leonardo DiCaprio's second biggest opening in his career, behind "Inception," which bowed with $62.8 million in 2010.
The huge opening couldn't beat back "Iron Man 3," however. The latest installment in the Marvel franchise followed up its phenomenal opening weekend with $19.8 million on Friday (May 10).
It wasn't all rosy results on Friday, though. The weekend's other big opener, the Tyler Perry-produced "Peeples," truly flopped, placing fourth with a paltry $1.2 million. The film, starring Craig Robinson, David Alan Grier and Kerry Washington, is the first film marketed on Perry's name to open in the single digits.
Friday's Top 5:
1. "Iron Man 3" - $19.8 million
2. "The Great Gatsby" - $19.4 million
3. "Pain & Gain" - 1.3 million
4. "Peeples" - $1.2 million
5. "42" - $1.1 million

MAN OF STEEL
The official Man of Steel Twitter account debuted the latest poster for the upcoming reboot with a little reminder - "In five weeks..."
The film, arriving in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on June 14, stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff.
In Man of Steel, a young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

MANIAC
A new poster for director Franck Khalfoun's remake of Maniac is now online!
Starring Elijah Wood and Nora Arnezeder, the thriller is set for a limited theatrical bow and VOD debut on June 21st. Written and produced by Alex Aja and Gregory Levasseur, the film finds Wood playing Frank, a man - haunted by seedy memories of his promiscuous mother - who works in a mannequin shop by day and stalks 'n kills women by night. Things take a turn in his life when he meets a beautiful photographer (Arnezeder).

STAR WARS NEWS
Lucasfilm has announced that the next "Star Wars" movie, like the previous six, will be filmed in the U.K. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy added a brief story hint in the following official statement:
"We've devoted serious time and attention to revisiting the origins of Star Wars as inspiration for our process on the new movie, and I'm thrilled that returning to the U.K. for production and utilizing the incredible talent there can be a part of that.
Speaking from my own longstanding connection to the U.K. with films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire of the Sun and recently War Horse, it's very exciting to be heading back."

SATURDAY, MAY 11, 2013

ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND
ABC has picked up "Once Upon A Time In Wonderland," the spin-off of the network's popular fairy tale drama, currently wrapping up its second season.
The network describes the series, designed to air as a limited-run standalone series to bridge the gap between the original show's fall and spring runs, as such: In Victorian England, the young and beautiful Alice (Sophie Lowe, "Beautiful Kate") tells a tale of a strange new land that exists on the other side of a rabbit hole. An invisible cat, a hookah smoking caterpillar and playing cards that talk are just some of the fantastic things she's seen during this impossible adventure. Surely this troubled girl must be insane and her doctors aim to cure her with a treatment that will make her forget everything. Alice seems ready to put it all behind her, especially the painful memory of the genie she fell in love with and lost forever -- the handsome and mysterious Cyrus (Peter Gadiot, "The Forbidden Girl"). But deep down Alice knows this world is real and just in the nick of time, the sardonic Knave of Hearts (Michael Socha, "This Is England") and the irrepressible White Rabbit (voiced by John Lithgow, "Third Rock From The Sun") arrive to save her from a doomed fate. Together, the trio will take a tumble down the rabbit hole to this Wonderland where nothing is impossible. Emma Rigby ("Hollyoaks") also stars as antagonistic Queen of Hearts.
"OUAT" co-creators Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz wrote the pilot and will executive produce with Steve Perlman and Zack Estrin.

AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
ABC has ordered its pilot "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." to series, confirming maybe the most no-brainer decision of this upfront season.
The show stars Clark Gregg as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson, reprising his role from "The Avengers" and several Marvel movies that preceded it. The cast also includes Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Elizabeth Henstridge, Chloe Bennet and Iain de Caestecker.
"Avengers" writer-director Joss Whedon also directed the "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." pilot and co-wrote it with his brother Jed and Maurissa Tancharoen. All three will be executive producers, along with long-time Whedon writer-producer Jeffrey Bell and Jeph Loeb ("Smallville," "Heroes").
Per ABC, "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." will follow Coulson and his team as "they investigate the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary." The first teaser for the series will air Sunday (May 12) during the "Once Upon a Time" season finale.

DEFIANCE RENEWED
Get ready to return to TV's hottest new sci-fi world.
After the second-biggest series premiere in network history and three straight weeks of leading its Monday-night timeslot in key demographic ratings and total viewers for a cable drama, Syfy announced today it has renewed its acclaimed, groundbreaking original series Defiance for a second season of 13 episodes.
The show's second season will begin production this summer in Toronto for a 2014 release, and will reunite the season-one production team of showrunner Kevin Murphy (Caprica) and executive producers Darren Swimmer and Todd Slavkin (Smallville). As for the tie-in Defiance game developed by Trion Worlds, that's still a part of things, too, so if you're one of the more than 1 million players who've set up a game account, keep playing. Your gameplay will continue to affect the world of Defiance in the second season.
"Bringing the rich world of Defiance to life has been in incredible team effort. We couldn't ask for better partners than Kevin Murphy, his amazing cast and crew, and Trion Worlds," said Mark Stern, President of Original Content for Syfy and Co-Head of Original Content for UCP. "We can't wait to see where they take us in the second season."
Nearly 4 million viewers watched the premiere of Defiance in its first week, and the show has continued to deliver strong demo numbers and more than 2 million viewers every week. It's already become an anchor for Syfy's Monday night programming block (which also includes the likes of Warehouse 13, Lost Girl and Being Human), and it seems the best could be yet to come.
Defiance airs Mondays at 9/8C on Syfy.

GRAVITY
The first full trailer for Alfonso Cuaron’s long-delayed sci-fi flick Gravity has finally arrived, and space has never looked so absolutely terrifying.
No, these astronauts aren’t facing xenomorphs or Reavers, but the inky, black nothingness all around them is more than scary enough. Set 372 miles above the Earth, the story follow two astronauts drifting away from the planet after a horrible accident aboard a space station.
If you thought that teaser footage was good, you ain't seen nothing yet.
The effects are breathtaking, and the footage here looks like nothing we’ve ever seen. If Cuaron can carry this tension for the length of the film, this could be one of the most unique films of the year.
Here’s the full synopsis:
Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone–tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth…and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.
After a year-long delay to add some 3D effects, Gravity finally opens Oct. 4.

AFTER EARTH
Columbia Pictures has released a new TV spot for After Earth, the sci-fi thriller starring Will and Jaden Smith.
The film begins when a crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.
After Earth hits theaters May 31.

FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2013

BELIEVE
Not surprisingly, J.J. Abrams will have a few more new shows on TV this fall, and now we have the first look at his NBC series Believe.
This one isn’t quite as straightforward as his new robo-cop drama Almost Human at Fox, though NBC is betting on the golden goose anyway and officially picked the pilot up for a series order. It has the potential to be one of the most ambitious (or terrible) shows of the fall. So, we'll see.
The fantasy-ish pitch follows the “unlikely relationship that develops between a young girl with a gift and a man sprung from prison who has been tasked with protecting her from the evil elements that hunt her power.”
The first pic from the pilot shows off the young girl and her protector, though it’s hard to glean much more from the pic. It’ll be interesting to see the mythology that Abrams and company have in mind for this one, since it’s a pretty strange premise to build a series around.
In addition to Abrams, the series is also being developed by Alfonso Cuaron (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), Mark Friedman (The Forgotten) and Bryan Burk (Fringe, Lost). It stars Jake McLaughlin, Kyle MacLachlan, Delroy Lindo, Sienna Guillory, Jamie Chung, Johnny Sequoyah and Arian Moayed.

AMOST HUMAN/SLEEP HOLLOW
Well, Fringe might be gone, but Fox seems to be doubling down on new sci-fi shows next season.
The latest? J.J. Abrams’ Almost Human and Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci's Sleepy Hollow, both of which received a full season pickup from the network.
For Fringe fans, Almost Human should definitely be one to watch, as Abrams has teamed up with former Fringe producer J.H. Wyman to make it happen. That series will be a twist on the buddy-cop genre, following a cop (Karl Urban) who is teamed up with a humanlike android. Abrams’ name alone was likely enough to get this one on the schedule, and it’s the latest of many series (Fringe, Alcatraz) he's had on the network.
As for Sleepy Hollow, reboot gurus Orci and Kurtzman (Hawaii Five-0, Amazing Spider-Man 2) will be mixing time travel with the classic headless-horseman tale for a sci-fi-tinged crime procedural. The series will follow Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison), who gets yanked 250 years through time to find the world on the brink of destruction. Once here, he’s somehow partnered with a modern-day cop (Nicole Beharie) to try and figure it all out. The biggest question? How they plan to string this premise out for the long term. Best guess: a big mystery and a new mythology.

S.H.I.E.L.D.
Consider Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on the air at ABC.
The Joss Whedon drama based on the Marvel Comics property is near a series order at the Disney-owned network, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter, with an official green light expected to come Friday morning, May 10.
The ABC Studios project is based on Marvel Comics' secret intelligence organization that has appeared in countless titles, including Iron Man, Captain America and The Ultimates, since being introduced in the 1960s. The military law-enforcement agency's moniker stands for Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistic Directorate, which also has evolved over time in the comics.
Whedon is on board to co-pen the pilot alongside his brother Jed Whedon and Jed's wife, Maurissa Tancharoen; the trio previously teamed on the three-part web series Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Avengers and Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind Whedon directed the pilot, which has had ABC social media accounts for months. S.H.I.E.L.D. is executive produced by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, Tancharoen, Jeffrey Bell and Marvel TV's Jeph Loeb.
ER's Ming-Na stars as Agent Melinda May, The Avengers' Clark Gregg reprises his role as Agent Phil Coulson, Killing Lincoln's Brett Dalton is set as gruff rising star Agent Grant Ward, Elizabeth Henstridge as science whiz Agent Gemma Simmons and Iain De Caestecker as tech guru Agent Leo Fitz, with Nashville's Chloe Bennet set as Skye, a superhero-obsessed woman.
Since the project was first announced in August, it has been a clear front-runner to land on ABC's 2013-14 schedule. ABC Entertainment Group president Paul Lee told reporters in January that the project was being fast-tracked and he was "very hopeful" that the entry with a "great script" would go to series.
"Marvel has the ability to bring the whole family around it," Lee said at the time. "Joss has great relationships around it. There's a lot of real funny male-female relationships and flirtations, but it's also Joss and Marvel, so there's a lot of action to it."
"My boss Bob Iger buys Marvel, and how wonderful is it for ABC to be able to use the core talent from that and not use the Marvel brand but the Avengers franchise for a show that is not exactly about the Avengers but is attached to it?" Lee said, noting that Whedon was already working on scripts at the time.
ABC is expected to begin a major marketing push for the high-profile project with a sizable built-in fan base as soon as Sunday, May 12, during the season finale of Once Upon a Time. While ABC would yet not confirm S.H.I.E.L.D. had been ordered to series, a cryptic promo featuring Marvel's Hulk popped up on a network YouTube account Thursday, May 9, perhaps a telling sign of its imminent pickup. (The video has since been removed.)

THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013

UNDER THE DOME
We’re still a month away from CBS’s Under the Dome, based on King’s hit novel of the same name, but the network has finally released the first full trailer for the high-concept series. Thankfully, there's a lot more footage here than in those tantalizing teasers we've been getting.
The show will follow a plot similar to the novel, which explores the goings-on in a town cut off from the world by a huge, mysterious dome. The gimmick is used to perfect effect with the new footage here, as we see everything from cars to airplanes crashing into that seemingly impenetrable barrier.
We also get to see a little more of the national response, and how the townsfolk start to unravel. Think Jericho, with a dash of Lost, but more claustrophobic and with a focused sci-fi hook. If it’s done right, this could be one of the best shows of the new season. Or it could crash and burn under the weight of the premise. Regardless, fingers crossed.
The series will star Mike Vogel, Dean Norris, Jeff Fahey, Rachelle Lefevre, Britt Robertson and Keith Harris. The premiere is set for Monday, June 24.

HAVEN NEWS
Sheriff Carter is back (well, kind of)! A familiar face will be showing up in Haven next season as a former Eureka star has signed on for a season-long arc on the Syfy series.
Colin Ferguson, who played Sheriff Jack Carter for five seasons on the beloved series Eureka, will be headed to Haven once the new season premieres. Ferguson will play William, a “handsome, mysterious stranger, whose secret agenda” leads him to Audrey Parker (Emily Rose).
[Possible spoilers ahead.]
The third season ended on a pretty massive cliffhanger, and Deadline reports the season premiere will pick up six months after the finale, which saw the town nearly destroyed by meteors and Audrey finally face her mysterious origins.
Ferguson could always play the slapstick off with a bit of believable drama, so it’ll be interesting to see what he can do with a more series tone.
Production is actually ramping up today in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so hopefully we’ll have a peek or two at the new season soon.

BLACK SAIL
If you haven’t been getting enough Michael Bay in your diet, you’re in luck: The explosion maestro behind the Transformers series has two new TV series in the works set to debut next year. His latest targets? An apocalyptic military tale and a hard-nosed pirate series.
First up, TNT has ordered Bay’s The Last Ship to series with 10 episodes, which will follow the crew of a U.S. Navy destroyer after a global catastrophe decimates most of the world’s population. The crew are among a small group of survivors and could hold the fate of humanity in their hands. Of course, that dense conspiracy plot will play out with a fair share of explosions (shocked, no?) as the crew tries to make sense of the world around them.
If it could take some of the best elements of Shawn Ryan’s criminally short-lived Last Resort and throw in some nice sci-fi twists, it could be fun. Here’s hoping.
As if that wasn’t enough, Starz has also announced the tentative premiere date for Bay’s pirate drama Black Sails, which will follow Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) and his men 20 years before the events of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel Treasure Island. The show is set to debut in January 2014.
The network has released a tantalizing new poster for the series, which plays up the Game of Thrones-meets-Sons of Anarchy comparisons that have been thrown around. Depending on the execution, that could be a really good thing.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
MTV has released a new clip from Star Trek Into Darkness.
Opening in IMAX theaters on May 15 before expanding to conventional theaters on May 16, the film stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller.
In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2013

RAY HARRYHAUSEN HAS DIED
The ultimate creator of movie monsters is gone. The prolific visual effects artist, and creator of our epic fantasy dreams, Ray Harryhausen, has died.
The family of Harryhausen announced his passing in London. He was 92 years old. The stop-motion maestro and model animation trailblazer was (and will continue to be) a key inspiration for future filmmakers. His work on movies such as Clash of the Titans, Jason And The Argonauts, The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad will be remembered in the world of cinema forever (and even nodded to in current films like Monsters Inc.).

ENDER'S GAME
It’s finally here. The first trailer for Ender’s Game has arrived, and Orson Scott Card’s 1985 novel has never looked so good.
The film will follow humanity in the wake of a huge alien war, specifically focused on a group of highly-trained students at a high-tech military school in space.
So, can they pull off some of the epic scenes that Card described in the book and actually make this thing work? Yes and yes, at least according to the first real look we’ve gotten at some footage.
The effects are absolutely insane, and if nothing else, director Gavin Hood has created a true FX extravaganza. The films stars Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin, Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff, plus Ben Kingsley, Nonso Anozie, Moises Arias, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin and Viola Davis in supporting roles.
Here’s the full synopsis:
In the near future, a hostile alien race (called the Formics) have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of International Fleet Commander, Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) and the International Military are training only the best young children to find the future Mazer. Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy, but strategically brilliant boy is pulled out of his school to join the elite.
Arriving at Battle School, Ender quickly and easily masters increasingly difficult war games, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers. Ender is soon ordained by Graff as the military's next great hope, resulting in his promotion to Command School. Once there, he's trained by Mazer Rackham, himself, to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and save the human race.
The film is set to open in November 2013.

DOC SAVAGE
Doc Savage is back on the docket for Shane Black.
Sony Pictures says it's closed its deal with Black to co-write and direct the film based on the classic pulp hero.
Black began work on a screenplay in 2009, and decided to make it his directing vehicle in 2010 when the opportunity to direct Iron Man 3 came along.
Now with that movie out of the way, and on its way to earning $1 billion in global box office, Black is renewing his commitment to one of his favorite heroes.
Black co-wrote the screenplay with Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry. Neal H. Moritz is producing the project with Ori Marmur through his Original Film banner. Michael Usland will also serve as a producer on the film.
Sony is prepping to go all out with Savage and make it its next big franchise.
"We couldn't be more excited to be building a franchise from the ground up with Shane and this team,” said Sony’s president of production Hannah Minghella in a statement. “Shane and Neal have a fantastic understanding of the character and a great take on the material and we can't wait to get this production up and running.”
Known as the Man in Bronze, Savage was a popular fixture on radio and magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. Savage had almost limitless skills – he was a surgeon, scientist, inventor – and possessed super-strength, was a master of disguise and more. He surrounded himself with a group of helpers and, from his office in the Empire State Building, fought villains bent on world domination.
Black is a huge fan of the pulp stories and has the original Savage books lining his book cases.
The character was translated into a Warner Bros. movie in 1975 produced by George Pal and starred Ron Ely.

DUALING SPOCKS
Saw this post from Ranger Jan on Facebook and JUST HAD TO SHARE it with everyone!

TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2013

WAREHOUSE 13 NEWS
Syfy's Warehouse 13 and the world barely escaped another Earth-shattering tragedy a la artifact, this time a pandemic, when the series premiered its season 4.5 last week. But don't think things are going to get easy for the Warehouse agents anytime soon, as consequences of the deeds of evil Artie reverberate and an array of notable sci-fi guest stars pop in for recurring roles, including Buffy alums James Marsters and Anthony Head and X-Men's Kelly Hu.
[Spoiler alert!] “We've got to, of course, deal with the repercussions of what Artie has done,” said creator and executive producer Jack Kenny. “He killed Leena. That's going to be some pretty major stuff. But we still continue to do what we do with a sense of … I hesitate to say a sense of humor, but we do try to keep humor alive. It's not all dark and weepy and crying.”
Now that Claudia has saved Artie and he's returned to his right mind, “our next order of business is to figure out how do we move forward now having been through what we've been through. Leena's dead. She's not coming back. It's not a sci-fi death. It's a real death. She's gone. And that was important for us to do it that way because you don't want everybody always thinking, 'Oh, well, in sci-fi there's no jeopardy, no stakes because you can always come back to life.' So it was important to us to have somebody die who's really dead and have her really go away,” said Kenny.
“The first journey is one of healing. Our theme for both last season and this season was dealing with various forms of mortality. Our family is pretty firm and pretty strong now. We know who we are and how we feel about each other and there's a great deal of love and concern. So the next hurdle to throw at the family was loss and mortality. How do we deal with the loss of someone else? Our own mortality?”
That kind of loss “has a tremendously powerful effect on a family. I think it speaks to the strength of the relationships if we're able to get through it. And we will continue that. We will continue to test the bonds of our family. At the end of episode 17, we have a pretty big bomb to drop on Myka. That Myka and Pete are going to have to deal with in a major way, in a pretty powerful way. We'll get to meet an ex-flame of Steve's on a mission and see how he deals with that. Kind of an unexpected turn of events. Of course our people give him endless shit about it,” he said.
This season there are “some really cool guest stars lined up.” Buffy's James Marsters and Caprica's Polly Walker guest stared as Professor Sutton and Charlotte Depres last week, and they'll be recurring this season. Sutton turned out to be the 500+ year old Count of St. Germain, whose in a constant battle with his ex, aka Charlotte. Unlike Leena, the Count's death at the end of the episode, doesn't look like it's going to stick considering he's immortal and all.
Marsters and Walker will “thread in and out of the season. Then the big bad comes in and there's even another pickle. As you know, we like to leave you in pickles.”
Later in the season, Marsters is “going to be teaming up with another Buffy alumnus.” That turns out to be Anthony Head, who'll play the villainous Paracelsus, an alchemist. Head will guest star in the final three episodes of the season.
And X2's Kelly Hu guest stars as someone who comes in due to Leena's death. She joins the cast as Abigail Cho, a protégé of Mrs. Frederic. Returning guest stars include Jaime Murray as H.G. Wells and Kate Mulgrew as Jane Lattimer, who appeared in the premiere.
In season 4.5, “we go to Vegas for an episode. There's an artifact that a magician is using to levitate people. There's an artifact, an old mining lantern, that can cause the earth to swallow somebody up,” said Kenny. “There's an episode that we shot a lot of at the Niagara Falls power plant that's about an old pirate from the 1920s. He actually intercepted a warehouse ship full of artifacts and stole a bunch of them, and Artie and Pete and Myka are on a hunt to find his lair beneath the Niagara Falls power plant. Yep, searching for pirate's treasure,” said Kenny.
“It gets pretty major by the end of this next season. There's some pretty huge upheavals in the warehouse due to what this big bad does. It has a lot to do with Warehouse 9,” said Kenny.
Warehouse 13 airs on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on Syfy.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 5 Following a worldwide gross of $694.7 million for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions are ready to move forward with a fifth installment and have signed a deal with Tom Cruise to reprise the role of Ethan Hunt and produce.
Deadline says that both Paramount and Skydance have confirmed the signing but they are not saying who is writing and directing or when the release date may be. "Ghost Protocol" was directed by Brad Bird, who has moved on to directing Tomorrowland for Disney.
Deadline adds that they are hearing Christopher McQuarrie will direct, but that is not confirmed yet. The two just teamed up for Jack Reacher last year. That film is in early talks for a sequel as well.

ICE STATION ZEBRA
All of a sudden, EVERYONE wants to know if Christopher McQuarrie will indeed direct Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 5, a question that's been around for a good five months now.
While digging around, The Hollywood Reporter discovered that the talented Oscar-winning writer/director and frequent Tom Cruise collaborator already has another assignment on his plate, to write and direct a remake of the Cold War thriller Ice Station Zebra for Warner Bros.
The 1968 MGM movie based on the Alistair McLean novel was about an American Naval submarine team racing the Russians to retrieve sensitive photographic material in the Arctic and it was one of the very first submarine action movies with all the torpedoes and intrigue and double agents that you would expect from one. It's illustrious cast included Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan and Jim Brown and it was a major hit at the time.
McQuarrie first got attention for his screenplay for The Usual Suspects, directed by his other frequent collaborator Bryan Singer, for which he won an Oscar, before turning to directing with 2000's The Way of the Gun. He reunited with Singer and first worked with Cruise writing the 2008 WWII thriller Valkyrie and then wrote and directed Cruise in last year's Jack Reacher. He's also been involved with the writing on Singer's recent Jack the Giant Slayer, Cruise's upcoming All You Need is Kill and did a pass on The Wolverine.
Ironically, Cruise recently signed to another Cold War-inspired movie for Warner Bros., the re-imagining of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., directed by Guy Ritchie and co-starring Armie Hammer.
THR's seems to think that this new project may impact whether McQuarrie directs Mission: Impossible 5, although nothing has been confirmed for either project besides the fact that they exist.

MONDAY, MAY 6, 2013

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
The studio is wrapping up a nifty viral marketing stunt, which has unveiled a new 3D trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness. Want to see Benedict Cumberbatch wreak havoc on Starfleet ... in 3D?
It all started by asking fans to tweet #The1701, and ended with 1,701 of them (get it?) being selected to receive that cool wreckage poster, a pair of old-school 3D glasses and a secret URL to check out a new 3D trailer.
Well, the rest of us might not have gotten the cool poster and 3D glasses, but we do have the new 3D trailer above. It seems to be your basic anaglyph-style (blue and red lens) video, so if you have an old pair of 3D glasses lying around, dig ‘em out and give this thing a look.
The folks at Trek Movie have been kind enough to post what the prize pack looks at, so go ahead, marvel and be jealous:
The movie opens May 17.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
The summer spectacle has begun.
Kicking off the season with the pedal to the metal, Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man 3 made the record books as it opened to $175.3 million from 4,253 theaters in North America, the No. 2 debut of all time behind fellow Marvel pic The Avengers ($207.4 million), also starring Downey as Iron Man. Iron Man 3 received a glowing A CinemaScore from audiences, fueling word of mouth.
Overseas, the Disney and Marvel threequel grossed $175.9 million in its second weekend, putting the 3D movie's international total at $504.8 million and early worldwide haul at $680.1 million. Internationally, Iron Man 3 - the first title in the franchise to be released in 3D -- is all but matching Avengers overseas, where 3D remains a big draw. China leads with a whopping $63.5 million, the top opening of all time for a Marvel film.
Iron Man 3 -- directed by franchise newcomer Shane Black -- has a strong shot of joining an elite club of films ultimately grossing $1 billion or more and is another sizeable victory for Marvel and parent company Disney, giving them the top two slots on the list of all-time North American openings as Iron Man 3 beat out the final Harry Potter pic ($169.2 million).
Box office observers are convinced that the threequel is playing more like a sequel to Avengers than to Iron Man 2, a testament to Marvel's superhero strategy. They say it bodes well for sequels Thor: The Dark World, which opens Nov. 8, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, opening April 14, 2014 (both characters shared the screen with Downey's Tony Stark in Avengers).
"A year ago, we speculated as to the impact of Avengers, and now we're witnessing it first-hand with the success of Iron Man 3," said Disney executive vice president of distribution Dave Hollis, crediting Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige.
Case in point: Iron Man 3 has already surpassed the total global box office of Iron Man ($585 million), Iron Man 2 ($624 million), Thor ($449 million) and Captain America ($369 million). And it zoomed past the $128.1 million domestic opening of Iron Man 2.
In North America, Iron Man 3 played across all age groups, although the film skewed male overall (61 percent). There was a good turnout among moviegoers under the age of 25 (45 percent)), while 45 percent of the overall opening gross came from 3D tickets.
Overseas, Iron Man 3's performance propelled Disney to cross the $1 billion mark at the international box office. The movie also shattered records for IMAX, which took in $30 million globally over the weekend for a cume of $40.2 million.
Helmed by franchise newcomer Shane Black, Iron Man 3 shattered a number of other records in its worldwide assault, including scoring the top-grossing Saturday of all time in North America ($62.2 million) save only for Avengers ($69.6 million).
Overseas, the movie scored the biggest weekend of all time in Southeast Asia and many regions of Latin America, as well as in Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UAE.
The threequel sees the return of Gwyneth Paltrow as Stark's girlfriend Pepper Potts and Don Cheadle as James Rhodes. Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall join the superhero series as characters threatening the stressed-out Stark.
Other male-fueled pics saw big declines as Iron Man 3 entered the market. Michael Bay's Pain and Gain fell 63 percent in its second weekend to place No. 2 with $7.6 million for a 10-day domestic total of $33.9 million. Tom Cruise starrer Oblivion, from Universal, fell 67 percent in its third weekend to $5.8 million for a domestic cume of $76 million. The sci-fi epic took in $6.5 million overseas from 61 markets for a worldwide haul of $222.8 million.
Several specialty films served as effective counter programming, including Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon drama Mud, from director Jeff Nichols. From Roadside Attractions, the specialty pic climbed to No. 7 in its second weekend, although it is only playing in 576 theaters. The movie grossed $2.2 million for a cume of $5.2 million.
Millennium Entertainment's mob pic The Iceman, starring Michael Shannon and debuting in four theaters in New York and L.A., turned in a strong performance, grossing $93,149 for a location average of $23,289, the best of the weekend after Iron Man 3 ($41,218). Millennium's second new entry, Julianne Moore-Steve Coogan drama What Maisie Knew, grossed $23,248 as it debuted at the Angelika in New York.
Sony Pictures Classics saw solid business for Danish diretctor Susanne Bier's romantic dramedy Love is All You Need, starring Pierce Brosnan as a widow who takes up with a younger woman, played by Trine Dyrholm. The film grossed $38,954 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles for a location average of $9,729.
Below are the top 10 estimates for the May 3-5 weekend at the North American box office.
Title, weeks in release/theater count, studio, three-day weekend total, cume
1. Iron Man 3, 1/4,235, Disney/Marvel, $175.3 million
2. Pain & Gain, 2/3,227, Paramount, $7.6 million, $33.9 million
3. 42, 4/3,345, Warners/Legendary, $6.2 million, $78.3 million
4. Oblivion, 3/3,430, Universal, $5.8 million, $76 million
5. The Croods, 7/2,915, Fox/DreamWorks Animation, $945K, $165.5 million
6. The Big Wedding, 3/2,633, Lionsgate/Millennium, $3.9 million, $14.2 million
7. Mud, 2/576, Roadside Attractions, $2.2 million, $5.2 million
8. Oz the Great and Powerful, 9/1,160, Disney, $1.8 million, $228.6 million
9. Scary Movie 5, 4/1,857, The Weinstein Co., $1.4 million, $29.6 million
10. The Place Beyond the Pines, 6/1,162, Focus/Sidney Kimmel, $1.3 million, $18.7 million

WORLD'S END
Director Edgar Wright has revealed this new quad poster for The World's End, arriving in UK theaters on July 19 before opening in North America on August 23.
Wright and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost reunite for a third film following the successes Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007). In The World's End, 20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hellbent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by Gary King (Simon Pegg), a 40-year-old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their hometown and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub – The World's End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind's. Reaching The World's End is the least of their worries.

SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2013

THE CROW REBOOT
Luke Evans is apparently destined to star in comic book reboot "The Crow." Relativity Media has delayed the start of production to early next year to accommodate Evans' schedule.
The Welsh native plays Bard the Bowman in "The Hobbit" trilogy, the villain in the upcoming "Fast & Furious 6" and will soon play Dracula in origin story "Dracula: Year Zero." While all of those commitments have raised Evans' star status, they also seemed to place him out of the running for "Crow." But the studio is apparently so smitten with the star that they're willing to give the film a later start.
As Deadline reports, several other actors -- including "Avengers" villain Tom Hiddleston and "True Blood" heartthrob Alexander Skarsgard -- were rumored to be close to landing the role. But Evans was ultimately the guy.
James O'Barr's comic book series "The Crow" launched in the late '80s and was adapted into a 1994 film starring Brandon Lee -- which is sadly most famous as the film where Lee lost his life during an accident on set.
A poorly received sequel (1996's "The Crow: City of Angels"), short-lived TV series ("The Crow: Stairway to Heaven") and several direct-to-DVD continuations followed.

TRUE BLOOD
HBO revealed the trailer for True Blood season 6 this weekend. You can now watch it below and begin to speculate as to what is going to go down this season. It definitely looks like the stakes are high this time.
The new season begins June 16th.
Based on the popular Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris, the show follows waitress and part-faerie Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who can hear people's thoughts, vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and vampire Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard).

IRON MAN 3
After making an estimated $15.6 million in Thursday previews and midnights, Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 brought in an estimated $68.5 million its opening Friday.
That's a strong opening day, definitely in the Top 10 but below last year's Marvel's The Avengers ($80.8 million), The Dark Knight Rises ($75.7 million), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($91 million) and three of "The Twilight Saga" movies - it's tied with "Eclipse."
Right now it's on its way to anywhere from $165 million and up depending on how well it holds business on Saturday, but its A CinemaScore is a good sign of positive word-of-mouth to carry it through the weekend.
Essentially it could take second place behind the opening of last year's Marvel's The Avengers which holds the record with $207.4 million but more likely it will take third place behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which held the opening record for ten months with $169.2 million.

SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2013

MAN OF STEEL
Another new Man of Steel trailer has been released, showing the new Superman doing his very best Hulk impersonation. I’m thinking we will not like him when he’s angry.
Narrated by Russell Crowe’s Jor-El, the voiceover here sets the scene for Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) to be the ideal for humanity to strive toward. We also get some snippets of explosive new footage, including some peeks at Krypton and alien ships blasting through the clouds.
Man of Steel stars Henry Cavill as Superman, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Crowe as Jor-El, Diane Lane as Martha Kent and Laurence Fishburne as Perry White.
Superman’s triumphant return opens June 14.

WARNER BROS. ANIMATED SERIES
It wasn’t that long ago that Warner Bros. and the Cartoon Network pulled the plug on two beloved DC animated series. There was a bit of hope for a while, but now it looks like they’re definitely staying dead. Boo.
The folks at SMGO.tv were organizing a Kickstarter crowdfunding movement to revive Young Justice and Green Lantern: The Animated Series, which were cancelled recently. DC pulled the plug to clear the way for a new line-up of animated series, but that didn’t make the decision any easier for fans to stomach.
Well, after months of trying, the folks at SMGO just announced that Warner Bros. has axed their plans to raise funds to save one or both of the shows. Here’s their statement:
“Hey all, I’ve been trying (all day) to come up with a slightly better way to say this, but I’m just going to give it to you straight. Warner said no – they don’t think we can reach our goals – do you believe that?”
The two shows have been replaced by Beware the Batman and Teen Titans Go! on the Cartoon Network schedule, and it seems DC doesn’t want to deal with the potential distraction of a fan campaign. Heck, why not give them a seemingly unattainable goal of what it would take to realistically happen? Then, if they don't make it, so be it, but they at least have a chance.
Oh, well. For every Veronica Mars, it looks like there will be a whole lot of good-intentioned ideas like this one that fall by the wayside.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Paramount Pictures has started airing this new TV spot for Star Trek Into Darkness, opening in IMAX 3D theaters on May 15 and conventional theaters on May 16. The J.J. Abrams sequel stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller.
In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice.
As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

INTERSTELLAR
Jessica Chastain is the latest major name to emerge in the casting for Christopher Nolan's top secret sci-fi project "Interstellar," which already has Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway set for lead roles.
Based on an original screenplay by Nolan's brother Jonathan Nolan (who worked on the Batman films and executive produces CBS' "Person of Interest"), "Interstellar" is said to involve time travel, an interstellar voyage and the scientific theories of Caltech physicist Kip Thorne. It's scheduled to open Nov. 7, 2014.
Deadline reports Chastain is in talks for the third lead role in the film, which would represent one of her first projects since landing her second consecutive Oscar nomination (last year for "The Help" and this year for "Zero Dark Thirty").
Chastain also recently joined the cast of Guillermo del Toro's upcoming horror film "Crimson Peak" along with Benedict Cumberbatch, Emma Stone and Charlie Hunnam.

DARK TOWER
Looks like one of Stephen King's strongest and most prolific works still has hopes of getting adapted.
Gunslinger Roland Deschain has faced a long, uphill battle to find his way to any kind of screen, big or small. Universal, Warner, Media Rights -- all these companies have held the rights to adapt The Dark Tower into a TV Show or movie and all of them have let that opportunity lapse for one reason or other. It's had fans of the books series (and its stellar comic adaptation) feeling a little down.
But hope springs eternal, and this project isn't totally down and out just yet. In fact, none other than famed director Ron Howard has his eyes on the project and, with his show Arrested Development returning to our screens, so does Netflix. Vice President of Content at Netflix, Ted Sarandos, was asked recently about the possibility, and he sounded hopeful.
I spoke to Ron about it, actually. The last time we talked about it the thing was being kicked about HBO – but it’s no longer there. Once Arrested Development gets through we’ll keep talking about it.
Netflix could be a great fit for the project. Rather than having to either force the series into a few movies or risk dealing with fickle TV networks, The Dark Tower could get a great shot at having a full season released all at once giving ample time for it to find an audience. It worked for House of Cards. We think it could work for Stephen King's opus, too.

THE WIDOW
David Slade -- whose credits include "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" -- had drawn rave reviews for his "Hannibal" episodes.
Slade has come aboard to direct The Widow for Vendome Pictures.
Penned by Ray Wright, the psychological thriller centers on a young woman who befriends a lonely widow only to discover that their encounter was not a coincidence.
Vendome CEO Philippe Rousselet will produce the film alongside Steve Golin and Alix Madigan of Anonymous Content. Vendome is financing the film, with plans to commence production later this year. The project is out to actresses.
Slade, whose feature credits include The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, is the executive producer on NBC's midseason hit Hannibal. He's directed multiple episodes, as well as the pilot, with his work drawing rave reviews. Spade's breakthrough movie was Hard Candy in 2006, followed by the vampire genre pic 30 Days of Night.
"We are thrilled to be working on this piece with David. He is such a dynamic filmmaker, and we are excited about his vision to make this movie a throwback to some of the most iconic thrillers in cinematic history -- not to mention the two females leads being the strongest and most interesting we have seen in some time," Rousselet said.
Vendome’s Guy Stodel and Sarah Schweitzman will oversee the project for the company.
Vendome, which financed and produced Source Code, also is developing El Bulli, based in part on the world-famous Spanish chef Ferran Adria and the restaurant he built.
Anonymous’ recent credits include such awards-season contenders as Winter’s Bone, Babel and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

ORPHAN BLACK
Orphan Black, currently airing its freshman run as part of BBC America's "Supernatural Saturday" lineup, will return for a 10-episode second season in 2014.
The conspiracy clone thriller, produced by Temple Street Productions, stars Tatiana Maslany and was co-created by Graeme Manson and John Fawcett.
“Tatiana Maslany has delivered one of the year’s standout performances," said Perry Simon, general manager, channels at BBC Worldwide America. "We’re excited to commission a second season from the talented team of Graeme, John and Temple Street Productions, and we can’t wait to see who Tatiana shows up as in season two.”
“We’re delighted with the second season order for Orphan Black and want to thank everyone at BBC America, BBC Worldwide and Space for their support and commitment to our show,” said David Fortier and Ivan Schneeberg, executive producers of Orphan Black and co-presidents of Temple Street Productions. “We’re thrilled to continue this journey with such a strong team and fantastic cast, led by the ridiculously talented Tatiana Maslany. A huge thanks to the fans for their steadfast support of the show. We’re looking forward to giving every one of them more Orphan Black.”
Maria Doyle Kennedy, Jordan Gavaris, Dylan Bruce, Kevin Hanchard and Michael Mando co-star in Orphan Black.
The cable network, home to Doctor Who and The Nerdist, announced the renewal early Thursday afternoon on Twitter: "JUST ANNOUNCED: @BBCAMERICA Original Series, @OrphanBlack, Renewed for Second Season! #OrphanBlack."
The season one finale airs June 1. The DVD and Blu-ray sets of Orphan Black's first season will hit stores July 16. BBC America will roll out Copper's sophomore season June 23.

ENDER'S GAME
Summit Entertainment has brought online a teaser for next week's Ender's Game trailer featuring an intro by Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford.
The world premiere of the first teaser trailer for Ender's Game will debut during a Google+ Hangout on Tuesday, May 7 at 1:00 PM PT / 4:00 PM ET. The event will also feature a live conversation with director Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), producer Bob Orci (Star Trek Into Darkness) and star Asa Butterfield (Hugo).
You can tune in to the live Google+ Hangout at YouTube.com/EndersGameMovie and Google.com/+EndersGame. Fans are invited to submit their questions for a chance to have them answered in the Hangout. Join in the conversation online using #EndersGame. You can join the event here.
In the near future, a hostile alien race called the Formics have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of International Fleet Commander Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and the International Military are training only the best young minds to find the future Mazer.
Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy but strategically brilliant boy, is recruited to join the elite. Arriving at Battle School, Ender quickly and easily masters increasingly difficult challenges and simulations, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers. Ender is soon ordained by Graff as the military’s next great hope, resulting in his promotion to Command School. Once there, he’s trained by Mazer Rackham himself to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and save the human race.
Based on the best-selling, award winning novel, the November 1 release is an epic adventure which stars Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, with Abigail Breslin and Harrison Ford.

TEN GRAND #1 - JMS COMIC BOOK
For a review of J. Michael Straczynski's new comic book, TEN GRAND, go to http://www.geeksofdoom.com/2013/05/02/comic-review-ten-grand-1.

For more information about the book, see below in the KEEPING UP WITH CAST AND CREW section.

MERLIN RETURNS TODAY TO SYFY
Time is running short and only Arthur’s impassioned love and Merlin’s timely magic can stop Morgana’s spell from dooming Gwen to an eternity of evil in “With All My Heart,” the first of the final five episodes of MERLIN, which airs Friday, May 3, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy.
The series lauded by Entertainment Weekly as “an utterly charming mini-epic” barrels toward its stunning conclusion in five episodes fraught with tension, revelation – and, of course, filled with magic.
The first of the five episodes is this week’s “With All My Heart.” In it, Merlin must act fast before Morgana’s twisted power over Gwen takes control of the queen forever. But Gaius warns him that only the most powerful magic can save Gwen – a task that will not be easy, even for Merlin.

THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
The shooting schedule for Captain America: The Winter Soldier is finally hitting some good action scenes, and now we have our first look at Anthony Mackie as Cap’s new sidekick The Falcon.
Judging by the set pics here, it looks like his introduction should be an awesome one. Some fans snooping around the set popped off several picks of Mackie in costume, guns blazing, as he flew around on wires in front of a green screen.
The costume has some vague homages to the newer versions of the comic, but it looks like a pretty standard evolution of the S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform style, and should be a good fit with the film universe aesthetic.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens April 4, 2014.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Ever wonder what happens when a starship starts flipping while zipping through deep space? Well, wonder no more.
The latest clip from J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness finds the Enterprise and company in deep trouble as Kirk (Chris Pine) and Scotty (Simon Pegg) scramble through the halls of the ship while taking heavy fire.
But when the Enterprise starts spinning, the shiny halls turn into a funhouse-style death trap as corridors become pits and crew members go flying.
It’s a neat scene and shows a new angle and consequence of being in deep space without solid artificial gravity. It shows some great effects work as Kirk and Scotty try to stay on track while everything (literally) turns upside down around them.

FALLING SKIES RETURNS
Next month, Falling Skies returns to TNT. The third season ups the ante with new characters and more drama for the 2nd Mass. The network's released six photos from the premiere, plus a detailed description of what's to come. It looks like Tom (Noah Wyle) and Anne's (Moon Bloodgood) bundle of joy will appear, while Weaver (Will Patton) and his daughter join forces. Plus, Hal's (Drew Roy) still exhibiting questionable behavior.
As the new season of Falling Skies opens, seven months have passed since the survivors of the 2nd Mass reached Charleston, which has been named capital of the New United States. Now elected to public office, Tom (Wyle) has taken a more aggressive approach to the alien occupation than former leader Dr. Manchester. The government has formed a tenuous alliance with a band of rebel skitters who now paint their faces with a red and yellow stripe before battle in honor of Red Eye, their fallen leader. Tom’s son Ben (Jessup) serves as the mediator between Mason and the rebel skitters. But the alliance may not be enough to overpower the enemy Espheni, whose forces are now being led by an even more sinister overlord. To complicate matters further, another race of aliens has just entered the battlefield.
Charleston also faces dangers from within its own walls. Recent battle losses have convinced Tom and the military that there may be a mole feeding strategic plans to the Espheni. Despite the threats they face, the survivors living in Charleston are doing their best to rebuild their lives. Dr. Glass (Bloodgood) and Tom are focusing on their growing family. Newly promoted to Colonel of the 2nd Mass, Weaver (Patton) is enjoying a renewed relationship with his daughter. Hal (Roy) is recovering from mysterious injuries he suffered while trying to destroy an alien super weapon. Meanwhile, his romantic pursuit of Maggie (Carter) is finally starting to see positive results, though she has a growing concern that something is wrong with him beyond mere battle injuries. And Pope (Cunningham), the non-conformist leader of the Berserkers, has set up his own little Popetown on the outskirts of Charleston.
Falling Skies returns June 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on TNT.

STAR WOLF - KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN
Tired of network TV? Two former Star Trek writers are, too, so they're turning to you to help make their next series.
David Gerrold and D.C. Fontana got a big career boost thanks to their work on Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Fontana, one of Trek's very first writers, penned 10 episodes of the original series (some under pseudonyms), including "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," "This Side of Paradise" and "The Enterprise Incident," and later went on to a healthy screenwriting career that includes contributions to The Six Million Dollar Man, Kung Fu, Babylon 5 and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Gerrold first came on board after being impressed by the pilot, and began pitching scripts. He eventually contributed two episodes to the series, including the legendary "The Trouble With Tribbles," and later went on to write for the Star Trek animated series, Land of the Lost and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He also became an acclaimed novelist, with works like the Hugo- and Nebula Award-nominated The Man Who Folded Himself, the War Against the Chtorr series and the Hugo- and Nebula-winning novelette The Martian Child (made into a feature film in 2007).
Now Gerrold and Fontana are teaming up again, alongside Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition producer David C. Fein, to adapt Gerrold's Star Wolf series of novels into a TV series, and they're using Kickstarter to make it happen because they simply don't believe networks know what to do with sci-fi.
"Star Trek, The Original Series got cancelled because NBC executives didn't understand what they had. Firefly got cancelled because Fox executives didn't understand what they had. Babylon 5 was cancelled because the network executives didn't understand what they had," the team said on their Kickstarter page. "Even a profitable series can be cancelled if the numbers don't work for the accountants. And anything less than three million viewers isn't considered enough.
"But even a million committed viewers are more than enough to make any show profitable -- if we leave out the obsolete distribution system and go directly from the producers to the audience."
The Star Wolf is the story of a lone starship faced with trying to get back home after a devastating attack by a humanity-hating alien race called the Morthans. With limited resources and a small crew, the show's heroes must simultaneously rebuild the damaged ship and get back home as quickly as possible, all while being hunted.
"This is a story of the courage of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. It's about the strength of human beings in an impossible situation. It's about war and revenge, hope and triumph. It's about us. The Star Wolf is an epic adventure of ordinary men and women caught in an extraordinary war against a race of superhuman creatures... the Morthans who have augmented their evolution, genetically transformed themselves into a breed of gigantic warriors, trained for aggression, ferocity, and hatred... and they have sworn to destroy humanity!"
To make the production possible, Gerrold, Fontana and Fein have assembled a crew that includes Oscar-winning visual effects artist Dennis Skotak (The Abyss, Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Batman Returns), sound designer Steve Lee (The Lion King, Apollo 13) and composer/arranger Edwin Wendler (The Losers, Sleeper Cell).
According to Gerrold, four scripts for the show have already been written. If the team hits its $650,000 fundraising goal, they'll produce the first episode. For every $500,000 they can raise after that, they'll produce another one, until hopefully they've made their first four-episode arc.
As for what you get if you back the project, rewards start at $10 (a PDF of the script and advance online viewing of the first episode) and run all the way up to $10,000 (you get to be a character who suffers an extremely gory death). In between there are cameo appearances, less gory deaths, Star Wolf "Launch Crew" jackets, posters and bumper stickers, and a chance to name a character. So if you're interested in helping a couple of sci-fi TV legends with their next project, check out the video below, then head over to Kickstarter to lend a few bucks to The Star Wolf.

EPIC
A new battle scene from director Chris Wedge's animated-adventure Epic is now online.
Opening in theaters on May 24, the film is voiced by Beyonce Knowles, Colin Farrell, Christoph Waltz, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Christoph Waltz, Aziz Ansari, Pitbull, Jason Sudeikis, Steven Tyler, Blake Anderson and Judah Friedlander.
Epic is a 3D CG action-adventure comedy that reveals a hidden world unlike any other. From the creators of Ice Age and Rio, Epic tells the story of an ongoing battle deep in the forest between the forces of good and the forces of evil. When a teen age girl finds herself magically transported into this secret universe, she must band together with a rag-tag team of fun and whimsical characters in order to save their world…and ours.

MAN OF STEEL
Warner Bros. Pictures has revealed the second TV spot for director Zack Snyder's new Superman movie, Man of Steel, opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on June 14.
In the action adventure, a young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.
Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff star.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2013

WORLD WAR Z
Everyone involved with World War Z has been trying to downplay those recent rewrites and reshoots, but apparently new writer Damon Lindelof didn’t get the memo.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Lindelof opens up about how he was brought in after the fact to help rework the final act, which resulted in a massive reshoot and a full rewrite of the ending and several other late scenes. Lindelof described the original cut as “abrupt and incoherent” and said it was “missing a large chunk of footage.” Well, that’s not good.
That’s why star Brad Pitt and director Marc Forster brought Lindelof in to have a fresh set of eyes. Here’s Lindelof’s recollection of what Pitt told him when he was hired:
“‘But when we started working on the script, a lot of that stuff had to fall away for the story to come together. We started shooting the thing before we locked down how it was going to end up, and it didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to. The thing we really need right now is someone who is not burdened by all the history that this thing is inheriting, who can see what we’ve got and tell us how to get to where we need to get.”
After watching a rough cut of the film, Lindelof said he had two ideas to make it better: try to write around what’s already there, to give it context, or scrap a whole chunk of the movie and try something else. Turns out the film was in such a mess that they went with the second route, cutting 12+ minutes and reshooting approximately 40 minutes of footage while dropping a huge Russian battle scene:
“I said to them, There are two roads to go down here. Is there material that can be written to make that stuff work better? To have it make sense? To have it have emotional stakes? And plot logic and all that? And Road Two, which I think is the long-shot road, is that everything changes after Brad leaves Israel. I didn’t think anyone was going to say, ‘Let’s throw it out and try something else.’ So when I gave them those two roads and they sounded more interested in Road B, I was like, ‘To be honest with you, good luck selling that to Paramount.’”
It took a few months, and a budget that climbed to approximately $200 million, but they apparently think they have the kinks worked out. The film is finally hitting the big screen June 21, so we’ll know soon enough. Here’s hoping.

ARROW
The first season of The CW’s Arrow has been building to a certain faceoff all year, and this first look at the season finale confirms we’ll have it soon enough.
Spoilers ahead!
Yes, TV Guide has published the first pics from the May 15 season finale, showing Arrow (Stephen Amell) chained up as Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman), aka the Dark Archer, looks on. That’s right — they’re both unmasked, meaning Malcolm will learn Oliver’s secret identity and apparently get the upper hand on him.
Amell didn’t want to give too much away, but did say that all the subterfuge comes to an end as the two ass-kicking archers finally have a chat face-to-face:
"I start the season finale chained up and left for dead. I'm chained up by Mr. Barrowman. In the photos, he's not wearing a mask and neither am I. So everything is out in the open between us."
We’re definitely curious to find out what Arrow has to say once he finds out his archnemesis has been right under his nose all season. The writers have made it a point not to hold any storylines back this season, and it's made for one of the most engaging and action-packed shows of the year. Since we've been building to this faceoff for months, it should be a doozy.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Paramount Pictures has released more TV spots for Star Trek Into Darkness. Opening in IMAX 3D theaters on May 15 and conventional theaters on May 17, the J.J. Abrams-directed sequel stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller.
In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice.
As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2013

PACIFIC RIM
Last month at WonderCon, Guillermo del Toro unveiled a new two-and-a-half-minute trailer for his epic sci-fi flick Pacific Rim. Unfortunately, you had to actually be at WonderCon to see the footage ... until now. Citing popular demand for more footage from the flick online, del Toro released the full trailer today via the Legendary Pictures Facebook page. There's quite a bit of new footage to enjoy, including lots of giant-scale action and a closer look at the birth of the Jaeger program, which crafted the giant two-pilot mechs designed by humanity to take down the Kaiju.
Pacific Rim hits theaters July 12.

REVOLUTION
With Revolution officially coming back for season two, NBC is adding yet another sci-fi vet behind the scenes to make sure it can match that early momentum. The latest? Farscape creator Rockne S. O’Bannon.
Since his latest CW series Cult crashed and burned, O’Bannon’s schedule is clear, so Eric Kripke (Supernatural) and J.J. Abrams (Lost) brought him on board to have a “heavy role” behind the scenes of the hit sci-fi series as work on season two cranks up.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, O’Bannon will serve as an executive producer behind Kripke, meaning he’ll definitely be involved in the day-to-day operations. In addition to Farscape and Cult, O’Bannon also had a hand in Syfy’s new hit series Defiance, Alien Nation and SeaQuest 2032.
Needless to say, the guy is a sci-fi legacy, and should be a welcome addition in the writers’ room for season two. After its initial 10-episode run, the writers opted for a soft reset with the back half of season one, which has made for an action-packed (though a bit awkward) transition into a bigger scope.
Considering O’Bannon’s experience with epic sci-fi worlds in Farscape and Defiance, he could have the right touch to help Revolution hit its stride next year.

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN
Young newcomer Travis Tope has booked the male lead opposite Addison Timlin in MGM’s The Town That Dreaded Sundownz. Ryan Murphy and Jason Blum are producing the remake of a 1976 horror thriller that is being directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.
The story centers on a rural Texarkana town that was stalked by a serial killer in 1946. The maniac was never caught and in 2013, he comes back.
Timlin plays a young high schooler being raised by her grandmother who’s targeted by the mysterious killer. Tope will play a classmate who befriends Timlin’s character and decides to make a documentary about the search for the killer. The pic begins shooting in May in Louisiana.
The part is a coup for Tope, who auditioned via tape for a couple of Hollywood productions while based in Plano, Texas. Nothing took, but he was encouraged enough to move to Los Angeles. He was in town for a whole 10 days before he nabbed the Sundown part, beating out at least two other more established young actors, according to sources.

CAPSULE
20th Century Fox has picked up Capsule, a sci-fi spec by Ian Shorr that has Matthias Hoene attached to direct.
Hutch Parker and John Zaozirny are attached to produce with Parker producing through his Hutch Parker Entertainment banner.
Based on an original story by Hoene, Capsule centers on a young man whose life is turned upside down when he mysteriously begins to receive metallic capsules containing messages from his future self.??
Steve Asbell will oversee the project for the studio. Aaron Ensweiler will shepherd the project for Hutch Parker Entertainment.
Shorr (UTA, Mosaic, Morris Yorn) wrote the 2008 indie horror movie Splinter and has Cristo, a futuristic re-telling of The Count of Monte Cristo set up at Warners. His horror thriller script The Operator is in pre-production with Zaozirny and Jimmy Miller producing.
Hoene (Gersh, Partizan, Lichter Grossman) directed the comedic horror flick Cockneys vs Zombies for Studio Canal. ?
Parker is a producer on Fox’s The Wolverine, which opens July 26.

LINE OF SIGHT
AMC is moving forward with a drama project from Brotherhood's Blake Masters.
The cable network has green-lighted a pilot order for Line of Sight, centered on a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator who survives a mysterious plane crash. Masters will write and serve as executive producer.
Production on the Fox TV Studios/AMC Studios-produced pilot will begin later this year.
Described as a "genre-bending odyssey," Line of Sight is the story of Lewis Bernt's search to find out what happened to him. He becomes a man whose world, as he knows it, unravels in a whirlwind of obsession and paranoia.
"Blake Masters has created a world and set of characters that defy the traditional boundaries of drama and sci-fi. It's got great elements of both genres while also having that unique blend of a conspiracy thriller. It is genuinely unexpected and unconventional,” said Joel Stillerman, AMC’s executive vice president of original programming, production and digital content. “It is also great to be working with our incredible partners at FTVS again."
Stillerman, senior vice president of scripted programming Susie Fitzgerald and senior vice president of production Jason Fisher are overseeing development and production.
This comes more than a week after AMC unveiled its slate, which included a Breaking Bad talk-show companion Talking Bad and seven scripted efforts in development. Other pilots at AMC include Ballistic City and Halt & Catch Fire.

I-ORIGINS
Mike Cahill, the co-writer (with Brit Marling) and director of 2011's Another Earth, has revealed, via Deadline, the full cast of his followup feature, I Origins. Also a science fiction tale, the film will again star Marling alongside Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Archie Panjabi, Michael Pitt and Steven Yeun. The official description reads as follows:
[I Origins] connects the lives of the most unlikely people from around the globe. One doctor on the brink of a scientific discovery which will have historical ramifications, travels to India to search for the one person, a young Indian girl, who can prove or disprove his theory. The story follows the incredible journeys which bring these strangers together, and proves there is no separating matters of science and matters of the heart.
Cahill, Hunter Gray and Alex Orlovsky will produce with Pitt, Adam S. Bersin, Tyler Brodie, Jayne Hong, Rebekah Paltrow Neumann, Adam Neumann and Bonnie Timmermannexecutive producing.

VAMPIRE ACADEMY
First announced for a big screen adaptation back in 2010, Richelle Mead's hit book series Vampire Academy is headed to the big screen with Mean Girls director Mark Waters helming the first film, Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters. Today, Deadline reveals that Oblivion star Olga Kurylenko has joined the cast as Kirova, the Academy's headmistress.
The Vampire Academy book series is a coming-of-age, action driven, "paranormal romance" fantasy. It is set in the present day against a hidden universe of vampires, half-humans, alchemy, and magic. The series centers on a strong, yet flawed, 17-year-old female who confronts her world with grit, determination, and lots of moxie. Rose Hathaway is a dhampir, half human/half vampire and guardian of the Moroi, a race of peaceful and magical mortal vampires who can walk in the daylight, survive by feeding off willing blood donors, grow old and die. Hidden deep in the forests of Montana is St. Vladimir's Academy, where Moroi and dhampirs learn to take their place in Moroi society. Rose must master her inherited abilities as a dhampir and earn the approval of the Royal Council, as guardian to Princess Lissa, her best friend and sole heir of one of the twelve Royal families of Moroi. Rose and Lissa share a mysterious psychic bond and sense of destiny, but first they must survive an intense social scene, politics and the physical challenges of Moroi life at the Academy. Outside the sanctuary of St. Vladimir's waits their greatest threat of all, the Strigoi, a race of bloodthirsty immortal vampires and predators of the Moroi.
Zoey Deutch, who recently starred in Beautiful Creatures, will play Rose with newcomers Lucy Fry as Lissa and Danila Kozlovski as Dmitri.
Susan Montford, Don Murphy, Deepak Nayer and Michael Preger will produce with Stuart Ford executive producing.

BLACK AND WHITE
Kevin Costner is set to both headline and produce the upcoming indie drama Black and White. Deadline reports that Costner will re-team with director Mike Binder, who previously helmed 2005's Upside of Anger.
The film will star Costner as a man who, along with his wife, has been raisng his bi-racial granddaughter in the wake of his daughter's death. When the wife is killed in a car accident, Costner's character finds himself at odds with the child's other grandfather, who seeks to legally take the girl away.
Costner can be seen later this year in both Zack Snyder's Man of Steel and Kenneth Branagh's Jack Ryan.
Production on Black and White is slated to begin this summer in New Orleans.

MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2013

IRON MAN 3
Marvel Studios and Disney's Iron Man 3 has blasted into the stratosphere overseas, opening to $195.3 million from 42 markets to beat last year's global blockbuster The Avengers, which debuted to $185.1 million internationally.
Box office observers agree that Iron Man 3 is playing more like a sequel to last summer's The Avengers -- which featured a myriad of Marvel superheroes, including Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man -- than a follow-up to Iron Man 2, which posted a foreign opening of roughly $100 million in 2010.
The mammoth foreign opening bodes well for the tentpole's domestic prospects, and is already whipping up speculation as to whether the threequel can match or better Avengers in North America. Avengers debuted to $207.4 million domestically, the top number of all time.
Disney president of worldwide distribution Dave Hollis didn't want to speculate as to whether Iron Man 3 could reach that number but said the film is clearly off to a stellar start. "To say we are beyond encouraged is an understatement," he said.
Iron Man 3, another victory for Marvel Studios' president Kevin Feig, is breaking a slew of records overseas, scoring the biggest opening weekend ever Asia Pacific and Latin America, and in individual countries including Argentina, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. It also scored the top Marvel opening in another raft of markets.
Teaming Downey with franchise newcomer, director Shane Black, Iron Man 3 opened at the international box office ahead of its May 3 North American launch, as Iron Man 2 did in 2010. Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle also are returning cast members.
Iron Man 3, which has been well received by critics so far, is playing in roughly 80 percent of the foreign marketplace, excluding major markets Russia and China, where DMG Entertainment put up some of the financing.
It saw its biggest gross in the U.K. ($21.5 million), followed by Korea ($19.2 million), Australia ($18.4 million), Mexico ($16.1 million), France ($14.7 million), Brazil ($12.3 million), Italy ($11.2 million), Taiwan ($8.4 million), Philippines ($7.4 million), Japan ($5.4 million), India ($5.2 million), Spain ($5 million), Hong Kong ($4.9 million), Malaysia ($4.6 million) and Indonesia ($4.5 million), among other markets.
The tentpole broke numerous records for 113 IMAX theaters, which took in $7.2 million for a per screen average of $64,000, coming in ahead of any Marvel title, including Avengers.

UNMASKED
Christina Ricci in talks to start in Indie Thriller Unmasked.
Geoffrey Sax (White Noise, Frankie & Alice) is onboard to helm the film, which was written by first-time scribe Peter Scott Vicaire.
The script was discovered on Inkip.com and optioned by Sean Thomas, producer of the upcoming A Single Shot starring William H. Macy, Sam Rockwell and Melissa Leo.
The story follows a man who joins a dangerous and mysterious club in order to relive the worst day of his life.
The filmmakers are now looking to cast a male lead.
Founded in 2001, InkTip.com has become a well-used repository for scripts, with 11 feature films having gone into production from InkTip.com-sourced scripts and writers.
Ricci recently wrapped the relationship drama Mother's Day and a voice role in The Smurfs 2. She is repped by ICM Partners, Management 360 and attorney Melanie Cook.

DRIFT
Drift, an Australian drama starring Sam Worthington, Myles Pollard, Xavier Samuel, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Robyn Malcolm, Steve Bastoni and Aaron Glenane will be available On Demand July 2nd and in theaters on August 2nd.
In the film, after their mother escapes from Sydney to Margaret River in the 1970’s, the two Kelly brothers spend their youth searching for the perfect wave. Out of necessity the family launches a backyard surf business - re-thinking board design, crafting homemade wetsuits and selling merchandise out of their van.
Battling big waves, small town conservatism and criminals, the brothers give rise to a global brand. A story of passion, corruption, friendship and loyalty, deadly addictions and fractured relationships, Drift tells a tale of courage and the will to survive at all odds.
Myles Pollard, Xavier Samuel, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Robyn Malcolm, Steve Bastoni and Aaron Glenane co-star.

FAST AND FURIOUS 6
Universal Pictures has released the final trailer for Fast & Furious 6, which hits theaters on May 24 and for which you can now buy tickets in advance. Directed by Justin Lin, the anticipated action thriller stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Elsa Pataky, Luke Evans and Gina Carano.
Since Dom (Diesel) and Brian's (Walker) Rio heist toppled a kingpin's empire and left their crew with $100 million, our heroes have scattered across the globe. But their inability to return home and living forever on the lam have left their lives incomplete.
Meanwhile, Hobbs (Johnson) has been tracking an organization of lethally skilled mercenary drivers across 12 countries, whose mastermind (Evans) is aided by a ruthless second-in-command revealed to be the love Dom thought was dead, Letty (Rodriguez). The only way to stop the criminal outfit is to outmatch them at street level, so Hobbs asks Dom to assemble his elite team in London. Payment? Full pardons for all of them so they can return home and make their families whole again.

SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2013

SERIES RENEWAL NEWS
NBC has picked up five of its most valuable performers for the 2013-14 season.
On Friday, the network handed out early renewals for Revolution, Grimm, Law & Order: SVU, Chicago Fire and Parenthood.
From J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot and Warner Bros. TV, Revolution ranks as NBC's top scripted drama across all of primetime -- averaging more than 6 million viewers in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic.
Revolution, which has had the benefit of The Voice as a lead-in on Monday nights this season, returned from its four-month midseason hiatus down two-tenths of a point from its winter premiere with a 2.7 among the under 50 demo. It has seen further dips since but remains one of the biggest success stories of the 2012-13 season.
Another freshman success, Chicago Fire has proved a solid performer for NBC on Wednesdays, where it recently topped CBS' veteran procedural CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and remains neck-and-neck with ABC competition Nashville. From SVU producer Dick Wolf, NBC is also mulling a potential spin-off centering on the Chicago police department. For his part, Wolf also has a half-hour comedy in contention -- Girlfriend in a Coma, which was pushed off-cycle after difficulties finding a replacement for star Christina Ricci.
With NBC's additional season orders for Revolution and Chicago Fire, the network joins Fox as having picked up two first-year series. CBS and the CW, meanwhile, have thus far only added one each (Elementary and Arrow, respectively). The fate of CBS rookies Golden Boy and Vegas, along with CW's Beauty and the Beast and The Carrie Diaries has not yet been determined. Fox's The Goodwin Games and NBC's Save Me are not expected to return.
The lone survivor of Wolf's once sprawling Law & Order franchise, SVU has averaged a 2.1 rating with adults 18-49 in its Wednesday time slot. Heading into its 15th season, the show is not the juggernaut it once was but remains a consistent performer on a night that has been problematic for NBC.
Critical darling Parenthood will return for a fifth season. The perennial bubble show proved its worth this past season on Tuesday nights, where the network struggled to find a replacement after the Jason Katims ensemble wrapped its abbreviated 15-episode run. Ending early to allow room for the second and expanded season of Smash, the Broadway drama tanked in its return and was banished to Saturdays. Reality dating series Ready for Love followed in the slot and was canceled after two episodes. Like Grimm, Revolution, Chicago Fire and SVU, Parenthood -- which comes with a pricey and sizable cast -- will be back for a full season of 22 episodes. Supernatural procedural Grimm has proven a sturdy performer for NBC on Fridays at 9 p.m., averaging nearly 3.2 million in the demo -- the network's fourth-best drama and behind only Revolution, rookie Chicago Fire and Parenthood in the metric. The series hails from Universal Television and Sean Hayes' Hazy Mills Productions, the latter of which also has a scripted drama pilot in contention for fall as well as the upcoming Jane Lynch-hosted unscripted offering Hollywood Game Night, both via his overall deal with the studio. Dramas that did not receive a green light Friday include long shots Deception and Smash -- as well as April entry Hannibal. Deception finished its soft run last month, while dramatic declines have seen the pricey Smash banished to Saturday nights.
There is a bit more optimism around Hannibal, which saw a soft debut but strong DVR growth. Still, Byran Fuller's update on Silence of the Lambs dropped to a troubling low on Thursday night, averaging just a 1.0 rating with adults 18-49. The 10 p.m. Thursday hour has been a revolving door of failed dramas for the past two years. Mid-season entry Do No Harm was pulled after just two episodes.
Comedy renewals are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

NEW SCI-FI THRILLER
Jason Blum and "Fast & Furious" franchise writer Chris Morgan are teaming to produce a low-budget sci-fi movie, says The Hollywood Reporter. Chris Denham will write the script.
According to the trade, "the story centers on a group of students who invent a new technology with ramifications that go far beyond their control."
Universal Pictures may distribute the project, as both Blum's Blumhouse and Morgan's Chris Morgan Productions have first-look deals with the studio.

IRON MAN 3
Walt Disney Pictures and Marvel Studios have released a new TV spot for the upcoming Iron Man 3 and it features new footage.
Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

THE WALKING DEAD
Rumors began circulating last week that "The Wire" alum Larry Gilliard Jr. was in talks to join the hit AMC series The Walking Dead. The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Gilliard has signed on for the series and will play the role of former Army medic turned alcoholic Bob Stookey.
In the source material, Stookey was a resident of Woodbury and saved The Governor's life after being tortured by Michonne. With David Morrissey set to return as The Governor in the upcoming season, it remains to be seen if these two characters will interact, but it does seem likely.
The Walking Dead will begin production on its fourth season this May and will return to air in October.

JMS AND TEN GRAND AND SUPERMAN
Follow the link below to hear about how J. Michael Straczynski is paying off on plot items that were set up in Superman Volume 1, plus he teases the reveal of the big bad responsible for the destruction of Krypton, and shares insight on his Shakespearian roots. Also, find out if JMS has any more adventures with Superman up his sleeve.
JMS also talks about TEN GRAND, his latest comic book venture.

http://m.mtv.com/blogs/geek_post.rbml;jsessionid=uT1kDYxwfrEKPQ5v10BRzPeV?nborh=&emvcc=0&nbpr=1&nbcol=1|unknown&nbck=501-100-001&id=2013/04/23/j-michael-straczynski-on-superman-earth-one-volume-3/&nbck=119-019-001

JULIE CAITLIN BROWN
Julie Caitlin Brown had a passionate energy that lit up the media room from the moment she walked in. Sporting a big pink feather in her hair that one of her loyal StarFest fans had asked her to wear, this successful actress, writer, and producer took time out of her busy schedule at the StarFest Convention in Denver April 19-21, 2013 to share her current projects with her fans. Best known for her role as "Na’Toth" from 'Babylon 5' Ms. Brown talked about her incredible career and her thoughts on going back to singing Cabaret.
To read more of this interview, go to:
http://www.examiner.com/article/interview-with-bablyon-5-actress-julie-caitlin-brown

JULIE CAITLIN BROWN

SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2013

11/22/63
Deadline is reporting that J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot is in negotiations to turn Stephen King's 2011 novel "11/22/63" into a TV series. The book is described as follows:
Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time."
Bad Robot would be teaming up with Warner Bros. TV for the project. The project was originally set up to become a movie that was to be directed by Jonathan Demme.

VAMPIRE DAIRIES SPIN-OFF The CW Network has given early pickups to three additional dramas for next season, including the first new series order of the season with "The Originals," the spin-off of "The Vampire Diaries," which was introduced during last night's episode. The network also gave advance orders for the second season of "Beauty and the Beast" and the third season of "Hart of Dixie." The pickups were announced today by Mark Pedowitz, President, The CW.
"As soon as we saw last night's episode of 'The Vampire Diaries,' we knew we wanted more of 'The Originals' - Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson have done a fantastic job with 'The Vampire Diaries,' which is as fast-paced and well-written as ever, and Julie has created an equally compelling world for 'The Originals,'" said Pedowitz. "We're also very excited to bring back 'Beauty And The Beast' and 'Hart of Dixie' for next season - both series continue to be creatively strong and compelling, and their fans are incredibly passionate. I'm very happy to have all three series on the schedule for next season."
"Beauty and the Beast" stars Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan and "Hart of Dixie" stars Rachel Bilson.
The CW has already given advance orders to "Arrow," "The Vampire Diaries" and "Supernatural" for next season.

FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2013

THE STRAIN
Guillermo del Toro's pilot at FX has found its lead in "House of Cards" star Corey Stoll.
"The Strain" is described by the network as a "high concept thriller" that tells the story of Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Stoll), the head of the Center for Disease Control Canary Team in NYC. He and his team are tasked to investigate a mysterious viral outbreak with hallmarks of an ancient and evil strain of vampirism. As the strain begins to spread, the team, along with a group of everyday New Yorkers, must fight in a war for the fate of humanity itself.
"To me, having the right lead for 'The Strain' series was perhaps the most important creative task," del Toro said in a statement. "To be able to secure the perfect actor in Corey Stoll sets the project on the right track. To embody a character like Ephraim Goodweather - who transitions through every emotion and situation imaginable, and which anchors the narrative of the series - requires amazing talent and craft. Corey has both in spades as he has demonstrated it over and over again."
"The Strain" is based on the best-selling vampire novel trilogy from del Toro and author Chuck Hogan. They will co-write the pilot script, with del Toro attached to direct. Famed writer and producer Carlton Cuse ("Lost") will oversee the series with del Toro as an executive producer, acting as showrunner, should the pilot go to series. Production on the pilot is set to begin in September 2013.

JOHNNY MNEMONIC/SCREAM
With series development ramping up, networks are looking to the 1990s for inspiration this year — and two classic film franchises will be coming back to life on the small screen.
Do you remember Scream and Johnny Mnemonic?
The 1995 sci-fi flick Johnny Mnemonic, starring Keanu Reeves, is being reimagined as a weekly TV series. No network is attached yet, but the studio behind Syfy’s Lost Girl, Prodigy, is involved in early development.
Based on a short story by sci-fi author William Gibson, the dystopian flick focused on a guy (Reeves) with a cybernetic brain implant, tasked with moving some highly sensitive data. It was admittedly a mixed bag, but it was set in a pretty rich sci-fi universe, and with the right hands at the wheel it could be a compelling jumping off point.
The production company apparently has some talent lined up behind the scenes, including some folks who were apparently involved in the long-running Stargate franchise (SG-1, Atlantis and Universe). But, no word on which specific writers are signed on.
Over at MTV, where they’ve already turned the 1985 classic Teen Wolf into a hit series, the network has green lit a show based on the 1990s horror slasher Scream. The film, which was followed up with three dreadful sequels, is best known for the “ghost face” mask worn by the knife-wielding killers.
With horror shows like The Walking Dead and The Following becoming bona fide hits in recent years, it makes sense MTV would want to get in on the action. It’ll be interesting to see if they can retain the cheap thrill charm of the original, or if they go for a full-fledged reboot and drop the meta-tinged tone.
Still no word on who will head up the Scream series, though the network is apparently talking to original Scream director Wes Craven to see if he’d be interested in directing the pilot.

DOCTOR WHO NEWS
The BBC has released the official synopsis for Neil Gaiman’s highly anticipated second Doctor Who episode, titled “Nightmare in Silver.”
From the look of it, it sounds like it could be a doozie:
Hedgewick’s World of Wonders was once the greatest theme park in the galaxy, but it’s now the dilapidated home to a shabby showman, a chess-playing dwarf and a dysfunctional army platoon.
When the Doctor, Clara, Artie and Angie arrive, the last thing they expect is the re-emergence of one of the Doctor’s oldest foes. The Cybermen are back!
Guest-starring Warwick Davis (Willow, Life’s Too Short), the episode sees the return of the original Cybermen and will serve as the finale for season seven, perhaps even seguing into the Doctor Who 50th-anniversary special in November.
Hopefully it’ll be as awesome as Gaiman’s first Doctor Who effort, the wonderful “The Doctor’s Wife.”
Doctor Who season-seven finale "Nightmare in Silver" is set to air on May 11.

DOC SAVAGE
Now that Iron Man 3 is done, director Shane Black is setting his sights again on the long-awaited Doc Savage movie.
Speaking to Collider, Black said:
“Well Doc Savage is proceeding on pace. I mean we’ve got to try to set a deal now to go back into that, so as Iron Man wound down I sort of reconnected with Sony who have been gracious to say, ‘We’ll wait a year and sit on these rights until you’re finished with this other picture that we don’t control.’ So they were really cool about it, they were really nice. So yeah I’m back on it.”
Doc Savage was described by the series’ main writer, Lester Dent, as “a mix of Sherlock Holmes’ deductive abilities, Tarzan’s outstanding physical abilities, Craig Kennedy’s scientific education, and Abraham Lincoln’s goodness.”
He was a fictional character with stories originally published in U.S. pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s (he first appeared in March 1933 in the first issue of Doc Savage Magazine). "The Man of Bronze" also appeared on the radio and in comic books. If you recall, there was also a little 1975 movie, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, which starred former Tarzan actor Ron Ely.
Producer Neal Moritz also added that Black is “100%” still writing and directing Doc Savage and that it’ll be Shane Black’s next big film, and we couldn’t be happier about it.

IRON MAN 3
A new clip from next week's Iron Man 3 is now online and it deals with Tony Stark's reaction to a post-Marvel's The Avengers world.
The Shane Black-directed action adventure stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau, Ben Kingsley and Wang Xuequi.
Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

MR. PIP
An international trailer for writer/director Andrew Adamson's Mr Pip has been released. Based on the Lloyd Jones novel, the drama stars Hugh Laurie, Xzannjah, Healesville Joel and Eka Darville.
In 1991, a war over a copper mining in the South Pacific tore the island of Bougainville apart. In 14 year-old Matilda's tiny village, the reclusive "Popeye” (Hugh Laurie) offers the children escape into Dickens' "Great Expectations." But on an island at war, fiction can have dangerous consequences.

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

DOCTOR WHO
Clara Oswin Oswald may be a computer genius, but her common sense leaves something to be desired.
In the next episode of Doctor Who, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, Clara will get lost within the labyrinthine corriders of the Doctor's big, blue, sexy, um ... box. Now maybe she assumes the TARDIS is a safe place. She's wrong. That's not what had us pulling our hair out, though. No, it's something else entirely. Take a look at the clip:
Clara is smart enough to reason out that a red flashing light means "bad." She even checks her logic aloud to make sure. Then she opens the door anyway!

THE WALKING DEAD
It seems like the Walking Dead producers are really big fans of HBO’s acclaimed series The Wire.
A report indicates that Lawrence Gilliard Jr. has been cast as new character Roy Stark, described as a "former Army medic who is deeply haunted by his past." Stark seems to be a TV creation who does not appear in the comics, though he bears some background similarities to comic character Sgt. Abraham Ford.
Gilliard has previous held roles on The Wire, Friday Night Lights and Southland. If this report does pan out, Gilliard will be the second Wire alum to take a regular spot on the zombie drama, following Chad Coleman’s turn as Tyreese.
It’s not much of a surprise to hear that new showrunner Will Gimple is beefing up the cast for season four, after the bloodbath of Glen Mazzara’s third season. Considering the fact that Hershel is about the only person with any medical training, this new character should be a welcome addition to the fold.
It’ll be interesting to see if he’s a Woodbury refugee or just some other survivor who stumbles upon the prison.

MAN FROM UNCLE
Armie Hammer is building an impressive list of co-stars.
Hammer, who stars opposite Johnny Depp in this summer’s The Lone Ranger, now joins Tom Cruise in Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Guy Ritchie is on board to direct the Warner Bros. movie, which had a heck of a time finding its leads.
Cruise’s boarding in March gave life to the project at the last second, as Ritchie was close to picking another movie to direct.
U.N.C.L.E., created in the 1960s during the Cold War, featured the spy adventures of American agent Napoleon Solo and Soviet agent Illya Kuryakin.
Robert Vaughn and David McCallum played the roles of the American and Soviet agents, respectively. Hammer will play McCallum to Cruise’s Vaughn.
Hammer caught Hollywood’s eye when he played the Winklevoss twins in David Fincher’s The Social Network.

CHASING LIFE
ABC Family has greenlighted Chasing Life, formerly known as Terminales, to series.
With the pickup, the cable network has gone 3-for-3 with its drama pilots, with the murder mystery Twisted (formerly Socio) and The Fosters launching in the summer.
The 10-episode series will debut in early 2014. Production will begin in July in Santa Clarita, Calif.
Based on the Mexican format by Miguel Angel Fox, the series centers on a young woman's life after she is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Italia Ricci, soap veteran Mary Page Keller, Aisha Dee, Richard Brancatisano, Haley Ramm and Abhi Sinha are among the cast.
Aaron Kaplan (GCB, Terra Nova) will executive produce the Lionsgate/Televisa project. Susanna Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz, who wrote the pilot, also serve as executive producers.
ABC Family, which is gearing up for a busy summer with eight scripted and unscripted series on the schedule, still has yet to make an official decision on Bunheads and The Lying Game, opting to wait until after it's summer offerings premiere. In an effort to sample one of its new scripted offerings, the network aired a sneak preview of the Twisted pilot following the season finale of Pretty Little Liars.
Last month, the network took to social media to announce a Pretty Little Liars spinoff, Ravenswood, which will debut in October.

MONSTER
Guillermo del Toro is teaming with "Sherlock" and "Doctor Who" screenwriter Steven Thompson to bring Naoki Urasawa's manga series "Monster" to the small screen. Deadline reports that the pair will co-write the series with Thompson tackling the pilot's screenplay and Del Toro directing.
The 18-volume series has previously been adapted in anime form. Published domestically by VIZ Media, the first volume is officially described as follows:
An ice-cold killer is on the loose, and brilliant Dr. Kenzo Tenma is the only one who can stop him! Conspiracies, serial murders, and a scathing indictment of hospital politics are all masterfully woven together in this compelling manga thriller. Tenma risks his promising medical career to save the life of a critically wounded young boy. Unbeknownst to him, the child is destined for a terrible fate. Who could have known that Tenma would create a monster!
Del Toro and Thompson will also executive produce alongside Susan Montford and Gary Ungar. The Japanese publishing company, Shogakukan Inc. will serve as consulting producer.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013

WOLVERINE
Between three X-Men films and a prequel spinoff, we’ve seen several sides of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). But, the upcoming spinoff sequel is definitely trying some different things. Most notably? It looks like Logan is about to get his ass kicked.
As most comic fans know, Wolverine's true mutant power lies not in those trademark adamantium claws but in his incredible healing abilities, which keep him mostly ageless and near-invincible. The claws were added later on, along with an indestructible skeleton.
There have been some allusions to the fact that director James Mangold’s The Wolverine would tackle the mostly immortal mutant’s mortality, and now we get a look at him taking a hit and not just popping back up in a new trailer. The footage also hints at some of those story elements, and we're curious to see what type of "cure" the film will showcase.
So what happens when you take away those awesome healing powers? This, apparently:
It’s definitely a risky move to hint that Wolverine could (at least temporarily) lose his powers in this film, but it’s also a brave direction to take a character best known for chomping cigars and kicking butt.
Here’s hoping Mangold’s Japan-set epic can pull it off.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
A Japanese trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness is now online, courtesy of TrekMovie.
Star Trek Into Darkness opens in IMAX theaters on May 15 before expanding to conventional theaters on May 17. The film stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller.
In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

MAN OF STEEL JUNE 13 SCREENINGS
Walmart announced today that it has partnered with Warner Bros. to give its customers exclusive access to see Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ Man of Steel in theaters nationwide before the film’s official release.
Tickets for the exclusive screening will go on sale in more than 3,700 Walmart stores starting at 8 a.m. on May 18. Customers will be able to purchase up to four tickets per visit and will have the option to choose between 2D or 3D showings, where applicable. The advance screenings will take place in selected local theaters nationwide at 7 p.m. on June 13.
Specific details of the promotion read as follows:
• Each ticket bought at Walmart will feature a code on the back that allows customers to pre-order their own Blu-ray Combo Pack or HD Digital Download of Man of Steel, which will contain exclusive film content.
• Fans can bring Superman to life with the official "Man of Steel Experience” augmented reality app. The app allows customers to take photos with the superhero, as well as unlock special photo frames by pointing their phone at Man of Steel signage in their local Walmart.
• Customers will receive a free original Digital Comic Book written by Man of Steel screenwriter David Goyer with every ticket.
• Beginning April 28, a variety of Man of Steel merchandise such as t-shirts, electronics, posters and more from top brands will be available at Walmart stores and at Walmart.com.
Walmart invites customers to join the conversation and show their excitement for the first screening of “Man of Steel” on Facebook and on Twitter with the hashtag #SeeSteelFirst.
The highly-anticipated action adventure stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff.
In the film, a young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.
Man of Steel will 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters nationwide on June 14.

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
"Oblivion" shows that Tom Cruise still has some solid pull at the box office. It earned just over $38 million in its first weekend, which is the fourth-best opening weekend for a movie in 2013, behind "Oz the Great and Powerful," "The Croods" and "G.I. Joe: Retaliation."
Coming in second was "42," the Jackie Robinson flick, at just over $18 million in its second weekend of release. "The Croods" was third at $9.5 million, "Scary Movie 5" was fourth at $6.3 million and "G.I. Joe" was fifth at $5.78 million.
The rest of the Top 10 is as follows:
6. "The Place Beyond the Pines," $4.7 M
7. "Olympus Has Fallen," $4.5 M
8. "Evil Dead," $4.1 M
9. "Jurassic Park 3D," $4 M
10. "Oz the Great and Powerful," $3.05 M

SPIDER-MAN 2
Last week we caught a glimpse of Jamie Foxx as Electro on the set of the upcoming sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Today, director Marc Webb tweeted a photo of Foxx without his blue makeup on and presumably before his electrical transformation. Webb captioned the photo with this: "Day 52. My name is Max."
Shortly after Marc Webb tweeted the picture, Dane DeHaan tweeted the first photo of his character, Harry Osborn, as well.
In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, opening in theaters on May 2, 2014, for Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), life is busy – between taking out the bad guys as Spider-Man and spending time with the person he loves, Gwen (Emma Stone), high school graduation can't come quickly enough. Peter hasn't forgotten about the promise he made to Gwen's father to protect her by staying away – but that's a promise he just can't keep. Things will change for Peter when a new villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), emerges, an old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, and Peter uncovers new clues about his past.

MAN OF TAI CHI
Keanu Reeves revealed the first trailer for his directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi, at the Beijing International Film Festival.
The film reunited Reeves with star Tiger Hu Chen, who was martial arts trainer for "The Matrix" trilogy, as well as Yuen Woo-ping, who was action choreographer of the Wachowskis' trilogy. The film co-stars Karen Mok and Iko Uwais.
A North American release date has not been set yet.

300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE
The official website for Noam Murro's upcoming 300: Rise of an Empire is now online, taking over the original film's official site at 300themovie.com. In addition to a character guide, there are two new stills for the sequel.
The movie, a follow-up to Zack Snyder's 300 (in turn based on Frank Miller's 1998 comic book miniseries), is expected to tell, in part, the story of Greek General Themistocles, who lead Athens against Persian invaders in a battle that played out simultaneously with the Battle of Thermopylae (depicted in the first film).
Rodrigo Santoro returns as Xerxes in the film with Sullivan Stapleton as General Themistocles and Eva Green as Artemisia (the film's original namesake). The Noam Murro films also stars Lena Headey, Hans Matheson, Igal Naor, Callan Mulvey, Jack O'Connell and Andrew Tiernan and is set to be released in 2D, 3D, and IMAX.

SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 2013

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
There’s a new image out, as well as a menacing viral video, of Benedict Cumberbatch’s villainous “John Harrison” from this summer's Star Trek Into Darkness.
The new short viral promo below features the menacing voice of John Harrison in a video that’s similar to General Zod’s threat to Earth from Man of Steel.
It’s also dripping with quiet menace (helped along by Cumberbatch's sexy, velvety voice, but we digress) and taunts Capt. Kirk (Chris Pine) as well as the rest of the crew of the USS Enterprise.

IRON MAN 3
A short new TV spot for Iron Man 3 has come online! The third installment hits international theaters this week and will be available in North America the evening of May 2nd.
Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2013

WAREHOUSE 13 NEWS
"Warehouse 13" has cast "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" actor Anthony Head as a villain called Paracelsus. Head's role on the Syfy series will begin with the final three episodes of Season 4.5 this spring and summer.
The casting news was first announced by The Hollywood Reporter, but no details about the character -- other than the fact that he will be a bad guy -- made available. Head is but one of several guest stars already announced for the upcoming episodes, including Joel Grey, Enrico Colantoni, Missi Pyle, Polly Walker, Nora Zehetner, Kelly Hu and Steve Valentine.
While we don't know anything for sure about Head's future character, the name -- Paracelsus -- might give some clues. If you're an avid "Harry Potter" fan, you may recognize the name from a Chocolate Frog card in the series' first book. For you medieval history buffs out there, the actual Paracelsus was a 16th-century Swiss scientist known for work in alchemy, physics, medicine and astrology.
As was becoming increasingly common at the time, Paracelsus insisted on the primacy of natural observation over authoritative texts, although his medical practice was based on ancient Greek theories as much as anything. The scholar was also influential in what became the field of toxicology, noting that toxicity depends as much on dosage and concentration as anything else.
That said, history has mostly remembered Paracelsus as an alchemist and astrologer. "Warehouse 13" will probably go with that.
Best known for playing the role of Rupert Giles on "Buffy," Anthony Head more recently co-starred on "Merlin" as King Uther and has been cast in the CW pilot, "The Selection."
New episodes of "Warehouse 13" begin on Monday, April 29 at 10pm on Syfy.

THOR: THE DARK WORLD
Chris Hemsworth looks as sharp as ever in his slightly tweaked battle armor, and the lightning effects are top-notch. It also has that otherworldly vibe, as it should, since it's supposedly set out in the cosmos, as opposed to the Earth-centric first film.
If nothing else, it’s great to finally get an official look.
The flick stars Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano and Jaimie Alexander.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Marvel’s "Thor: The Dark World" continues the big-screen adventures of Thor, the Mighty Avenger, as he battles to save Earth and all the Nine Realms from a shadowy enemy that predates the universe itself. In the aftermath of Marvel’s "Thor" and "Marvel’s The Avengers," Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos...but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.

TOMORROWLAND
A little over a month ago, we heard a pretty weird rumor claiming to be the convoluted plot for Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird’s upcoming sci-fi project Tomorrowland. Now a new casting note could’ve confirmed it.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, young actress Raffey Cassidy (Dark Shadows, Snow White and the Huntsman) has been cast in the mysterious flick as a “young girl robot who has been around for decades.” Cassidy joins George Clooney and Hugh Laurie in the project, which was previously known by the code name 1952.
Now, if that little point sounds familiar, it should — because it’s the crux of that rumored plot breakdown that made the rounds earlier this year. If you need a reminder, here’s the alleged plot pitch:
"A teenage girl, a genius middle-aged man (who was kicked out of Tomorrowland) and a pre-pubescent girl robot attempt to get to and unravel what happened to Tomorrowland, which exists in an alternative dimension, in order to save Earth."
It looks like it’s all starting to come together. Clooney is the man booted out of Tomorrowland, Laurie is the guy who kicked him out, and Cassidy is the girl robot. For fans hoping those initial rumors that the film would follow a 1950s UFO crash would turn out to be true, it sounds like we can officially put those to rest.
Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that the plot synopsis is pretty, well, weird. But, like most complicated sci-fi flicks, it can sometimes be hard to boil down a high-concept plot in the span of one sentence.
If nothing else, this sounds like it could be a pretty cool combination of A.I. Artificial Intelligence with the heart of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And with Bird in the director’s chair, it should at least look great.

DOCTOR WHO NEWS
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the BBC's "Doctor Who" has today revealed the title of its season finale. "The Name of the Doctor" will feature the return of Alex Kingston as River Song.
The seventh modern season of the show follows the adventures of The Doctor (Matt Smith) and his new companion Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) on their incredible adventures through space and time. Known only as "The Doctor" for half a century, the reveal of the character's real name has been teased ever since Kingston's first appearance in 2008's "Silence in the Library."
Written by showrunner Steven Moffat and directed by Saul Metzstein, "The Name of the Doctor" will air on May 18. Fans won't have to wait too long after that for another new episode, however, as a 50th anniversary special will follow later this year, featuring the return of both David Tennant and Billie Piper.

FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2013

DOCTOR WHO 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Christopher Eccleston, who played the Ninth Doctor on Who, will make a return to the series ... but not exactly as you'd think. Instead, he’ll be a voice from the past.
The actor had been rumored to make a return for Doctor Who’s 50th-anniversary special that will air in November, but apparently he pulled out of it at the last minute.
The 49-year-old actor will be featured in next week’s episode, titled "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS," that sees the Big Blue Police Box being taken by a spaceship salvage team.
So what will Eccleston’s voice from the past consist of? Apparently we will hear him say: “The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through these doors, and believe me, they've tried.”
The line is taken from the very first episode of new Doctor Who (back in 2005), titled “Rose,” which also starred Billie Piper as the Doctor’s then-companion Rose Tyler. Both Piper and David Tennant are part of the 50th-anniversary feature-length special, alongside current Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith and his newest companion, Clara Oswin, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman.
A BBC spokesperson recently said: “Chris met with Steven Moffat a couple of times to talk about Steven's plans for the Doctor Who 50th-anniversary episode. After careful thought, Chris decided not to be in the episode. He wishes the team all the best.”

CINEMACON - LIONSGATE
The final studio to present at 2013's CinemaCon, Lionsgate celebrated a record-breaking 2012 by debuting the first-ever trailer for the forthcoming Ender's Game, set for release on November 1 in 2D theaters and in IMAX. Fans will be able to catch the trailer on the big screen before May's Star Trek Into Darkness.
Hosted by Kevin Hart, the presentation also touted his upcoming comedy tour documentary Let Me Explain, revealing a new Red Band trailer and announcing that another film is in the works, to be titled Quick and Easy, presumably based on his comedy tour of the same name.
Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas revealed an anti-cell phone message with Perry dressed as his popular character scolding audience members for using phones during movies.
Stars Morgan Freeman and Isla Fisher came on stage to intro Now You See Me's latest trailer. The Louis Leterrier film also stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Caine and Common and hits theaters on May 31.
RED 2 also showcased a new trailer. Largely similar to the first trailer, this new one played up Anthony Hopkins' character, an eccentric scientist that Bruce Willis' Frank Moses has to break out of a Russian mental institution. It looks like Hopkins is having a lot of fun with the role (his character literally doesn't seem to know that he's not a young man) and he offers a very, very animated performance.
The Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger starrer Escape Plan showed off its first trailer, largely focusing on the storyline that has Stallone's Ray Breslin, an expert at breaking out prisons, being kidnapped and sent to a new, experimental jail. The prison itself has all the cells as as The Silence of the Lambs-style glass cubes, all set up on different levels of metal scaffolding with guards wearing creepy all-black masks.
Schwarzenegger plays Emil Rottmayer, an inmate already in the prison who reluctantly teams with Breslin to win their freedom. They've definitely worked in a few one-liners, too. At one point, Stallone punches Schwarzenegger and he shoots back, "You hit like a vegetarian!"
Escape Plan hits theaters September 13.
Joss Whedon came onstage to show off two scenes from his June 7 release, Much Ado About Nothing. The same two scenes were showcased at WonderCon.
The big reveal of the presentation was Ender's Game, welcoming stars Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld and, Ender himself, Asa Butterfield to the stage to premiere the film's first trailer, which features lots of shots of Ender's zero-G training, battles with the Formic race both in space and within a planet's upper atmosphere and lots of dialogue from Ford's Hyrum Graff and Ben Kingsley's Mazer Rackham (the latter of whom has his character's very intricate face tattoo).
Closing out the film slate, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire offered up the teaser trailer on the big screen for the first time. It will arrive in theaters with Iron Man 3 on May 3.

THE LONE RANGER
The final trailer for Disney's mega-budget western epic "The Lone Ranger" starring Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp is out. This one showcases a bit more of the plot, not to mention some effects heavy shots.

The Lone Ranger rides into UK cinemas on 9 August 2013. In The Lone Ranger, native American spirit warrior Tonto (Johnny Depp) and man of the law John Reid (Armie Hammer) are opposites brought together by fate and must join forces to battle greed and corruption.

BREAKING BAD
AMC has finally confirmed a premiere date for the final eight episodes of what many call the greatest show on television right now - "Breaking Bad".
The final batch kicks off Sunday August 11th at 9pm. Assuming there are no gaps, people (including myself) who plan a marathon viewing of the final season should keep in mind September 29th as that would be the day the final episode goes to air.
AMC is also set to debut "Talking Bad," a post-episode discussion show, on the same night in the 11pm timeslot. The 10pm timeslot will be filled by the network's new crime drama series "Low Winter Sun".

SUPERMAN: UNBOUND
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is proud to release the first official clip from SUPERMAN: UNBOUND, the next entry in the popular series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies.
The clip features Superman's first encounter with Brainiac, a destructive force who has been devastating planets across the galaxy – with Earth next in his sights. Matt Bomer ("White Collar") provides the voice of Superman opposite John Noble ("Fringe," "The Lord of the Rings" films) as the voice of Brainiac. The film also features the voices of "Castle" stars Stana Katic as Lois Lane and Molly Quinn as Supergirl.
Produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, SUPERMAN: UNBOUND film arrives May 7, 2013 from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment as a Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, DVD, On Demand and for Digital Download.

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013

STAR WARS MOVIES AT DISNEY
We knew that Disney was taking the Star Wars business seriously, but fans might get even more than they’d bargained for over the next few years.
Beginning in 2015 with J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII, the Mouse House is planning to release a new Star Wars film every summer for the foreseeable future.
Disney made the announcement at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, saying they’ll offer up a new Star Wars every summer, with the schedule alternating between the new trilogy and proposed standalone films. Basically, we’ll get a proper “episode” every other year, with standalone universe stories sprinkled in to double the fun.
Considering the success Disney has had with a big-picture approach to Marvel’s release schedule, it makes sense they’d want to do the same thing with Star Wars. It’s arguably one of the biggest sci-fi franchises in existence, and there is a lot of potential there to tap.
With at least six movies apparently coming down the pike, Disney seems more than ready to make use of their latest investment. As long as they keep the quality up (a la Marvel) fans will come, meaning it’s easy money to keep cranking out movies.

BLACK SAILS
So long, Spartacus and its hot gladiators in skimpy loincloths. Hello, Black Sails with its (no less hot, well, some of them, at least) pirates!
STARZ has released the first exciting sneak peek at its highly anticipated pirate drama Black Sails, an original series from executive producer Michael Bay.
The new show looks a bit like Game of Thrones (action + sexy times) but with pirates (which is also really cool) and is slated to air sometimes in 2014.
Here’s what STARZ has to say about the series:
The eight-episode first season of the pirate adventure centers on the tales of Captain Flint and his men, and takes place twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.” Toby Stephens (Die Another Day) stars as Flint, the most brilliant and most feared pirate captain of his day, takes on a fast-talking young addition to his crew who goes by the name John Silver. Threatened with extinction on all sides, they fight for the survival of New Providence Island, the most notorious criminal haven of its day – a debauched paradise teeming with pirates, prostitutes, thieves and fortune seekers, a place defined by both its enlightened ideals and its stunning brutality.
Looks like a rollicking good ride to us! Arr, matey!
Black Sails stars Luke Arnold as John Silver, Zack McGowan as Captain Charles Vane, Toby Stephens as Captain Flint, Hannah New as Eleanor Guthrie, Jessica Parker Kennedy as Max and Clara Paget as one of the most famous female pirates of all time, Anne Bonny.

ZOMBIELAND
The rules of survival, and zombie kills of the week, are all back in the pilot episode for Amazon’s Zombieland series.
Amazon has posted the pilot for its proposed series, based on the hit 2009 film, and the first trailer has also gone live. So, is it any good?
Well, that depends. The effects are a little spotty, and the new cast isn’t bad. But after getting used to the original portrayals in the film, the recasting feels a little awkward. Since most have gone on to be huge stars, that’s a necessary evil, but it will still take some getting used to. The comedy is a bit more slapstick than the movie, and it feels like the writers are trying to make the transition from big-screen dark comedy to a dark sitcom format. It’s a weird mix, but it could work if given the time to develop.
Picking up two weeks after the film, the pilot does a solid job of reintroducing the characters, with Tyler Ross as Columbus, Izabela Vodovic as Little Rock, Maiara Walsh as Wichita and Kirk Ward as Tallahassee. Despite the format change, the pilot definitely maintains the weird Zombieland vibe. All the little fun stuff is still here, and original writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick wrote and produced the pilot, along with the film’s producer Gavin Polone.
Zombieland is one of several pilots Amazon is prepping, and the company will seek feedback from viewers to determine which ones actually get a series order.

R.I.P.D.
Universal Pictures has released the first trailer for R.I.P.D., directed by Robert Schwentke and starring Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephanie Szostak, Robert Knepper, James Hong, Marisa Miller, Mike O’Malley and Devin Ratray. Opening in 3D and 2D theaters on July 19, R.I.P.D. is based on the Dark Horse mini-series.
Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds headline the 3D supernatural action-adventure R.I.P.D. as two cops dispatched by the otherworldly Rest In Peace Department to protect and serve the living from an increasingly destructive array of souls who refuse to move peacefully to the other side.
Veteran sheriff Roy Pulsifer (Bridges) has spent his career with the legendary police force known as R.I.P.D. tracking monstrous spirits who are cleverly disguised as ordinary people. His mission? To arrest and bring to justice a special brand of criminals trying to escape final judgment by hiding among the unsuspecting on Earth.
Once the wise-cracking Roy is assigned former rising-star detective Nick Walker (Reynolds) as his junior officer, the new partners have to turn grudging respect into top-notch teamwork. When they uncover a plot that could end life as we know it, two of R.I.P.D.'s finest must miraculously restore the cosmic balance...or watch the tunnel to the afterlife begin sending angry souls the very wrong way.

RACHEL RISING
The Hollywood Reporter says that Terry Moore's comic book "Rachel Rising" is being groomed for the small screen. Alcon Television Group snatched up the rights to the property for development. Moore is best known for his on-going series "Strangers in Paradise."
According to the outlet, it "centers on a woman named Rachel who wakes up dead in a shallow grave. She begins to unravel the mystery of her death while crossing paths with not only friends but also a mysterious blonde woman who is tracking her and a horrific little girl named Zoe, out on a killing spree. Also figuring into the mix is the history of the local town, magic and witchcraft."
Alcon is currently looking for a showrunner to take point on the project. Also, some networks have been sniffing around the property to perhaps give it a home.

HEROES COMING BACK?
TV Line is reporting that MSN is looking into reviving the NBC series Heroes exclusively for the Xbox platform. Though they're said to be in early talks with NBC about this possibility, they do want it to be a new creation that will feature "new stories and heroes, while mixing in cameos from the original series’ cast."
Created by Tim Kring, Heroes lasted for four seasons on NBC and starred Hayden Panettiere, Milo Ventimiglia, Adrian Pasdar, Leonard Roberts, Ali Larter, Cristine Rose and Zachary Quinto. The series came to an end in 2010 after 77 episodes.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN SEQUEL
Kristen Stewart has officially signed on to star in a "Snow White and the Huntsman" sequel, but Robsten fans don't need to freak out, because Rupert Sanders will not be directing this one. Universal Pictures chairman Adam Fogelson announced the studio's official plans for the second film on April 16 at Cinemacon.
Stewart's highly-publicized affair with Sanders stirred up rumors that Stewart would not be returning to the franchise. Because of the cheating scandal, many assumed that the second film would be a prequel, instead focusing on Chris Hemsworth's Huntsman character in the years before he met Snow.
Fortunately, that's not the case. Hemsworth has not yet been confirmed to star in the sequel -- and neither has Charlize Theron, though that's to be expected, as her character died in the first film.
In December, Stewart said the sequel would be "f***ing amazing." "I'm so excited about it, it's crazy," she told Indiewire. "The other day I said that there was a strong possibility that we're going to make a sequel, and that's very true, but everyone was like, 'Whoa, stop talking about it.' So, no, I'm totally not allowed to talk about it."

MAN OF STEEL
Warner Bros. has released the newest full trailer for "Man of Steel." The three-minute trailer contains the first footage of Russell Crowe as Jor-El, father of Kal-El/Clark Kent (Henry Cavill). It also shows the war on Krypton as Superman's parents send him to Earth.
Lots of new content in contained in the clip, including a look at General Zod (Michael Shannon) in his Kryptonian armor, as he does battle with Superman. You also get the first verbal interaction between Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and Superman, as she asks him about the "S" on his chest, which he assures her isn't an "S" at all. It's then revealed how he is given the "Superman" name.
The trailer is also jam-packed with Superman saving the day, both in and out of costume, along with a look at the Fortress of Solitude. "Man of Steel" also stars Diane Lane, Kevin Costner and Laurence Fishburne. It arrives in theaters June 14.

SENSE 8
There's a reason why J. Michael Straczysnki chose Netflix for his next foray into serialized sci-fi.
The Babylon 5 creator recently announced the Netflix Original Series Sense8, a parternship between him and Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas). But why not try to launch another sci-fi show the traditional way? Straczynski recently sat down to answer some fan questions, and took the time to bash network TV for its attitude about sci-fi shows.
"The problem is that the networks still don’t take SF seriously, or even feel threatened by it. I’ve had executives say that a space-show doesn’t work because people don’t care about what happens to characters in space, it has to be on earth or nobody’ll be interested," Straczynski wrote. "I’ve had them say 'you can do whatever you want, it’s scifi, it doesn’t have to make sense.' Because it’s SF they always think that somehow or other The Fate Of The World has to be at stake. If you’re doing a drama, no one suggests that solving the relationship problems of the murder has to save the world, but they feel that it has to be that way if you’re writing SF, which is why it’s also so often the rule in SF movies. It’s absolutely crazy-making. 2001, one of the most classic SF motion pictures of all time, could never get made today. Not a chance. Too cerebral, they’d say. Not enough action. All the crowdsourcing in the world won’t rewire the neurons engaged in that kind of thinking.
"I keep waiting for a paradigm shift to happen that will let network and studio execs see that SF is the same as any other genre in terms of how you approach it – logically, character based, with challenging ideas and forward thinking – but I worry that it might never happen in my lifetime."
To be fair, network TV has allowed stuff like Fringe and Supernatural to stick around for a while in recent years, but that doesn't necessarily speak to network behavior as a whole. It looks like after years of playing the ratings game, Straczynski is happy to try a different format.
"We’re still very new to our dance, but so far all they want is for us to do what we think is best for the story," he said about his partnership with Netflix. "I think they enjoy a serialized structure because it feeds into binge viewing, but honestly, they haven’t said anything to us one way or another other than 'here’s a buttload of money, go have fun.' And I like that a lot."

BYZANTIUM
Despite what often feels like vampire overload, Byzantium's latest trailer actually has us genuinely intrigued.
When it comes to vampire fare, a movie tends to come in one of the following forms -- vampire romance, vampire horror, or vampire action flick. But we found ourselves hard-pressed to force Byzantium into any of those boxes because it feels like a mixture of all of those styles.
The story trails a permanently sixteen-year-old girl vampire and her mother to a run-down coastal resort. In no short order, they start a pop-up brothel business (really.) Unfortunately the fun is quickly marred by death, far more than simply from these two women who occasionaly must drink of the living. Also there's a waterfall of blood.
The trailer projects the feeling of Interview with a Vampire on speed. In a good way, we mean.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
The final full-length trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness has been released, featuring a ton of new footage—including the confrontation that leads to the Enterprise crashing back down to Earth.
Abrams has been peeling back more and more with each passing trailer, and this one shows off a whole lot. It’s mostly focused on Benedict Cumberbatch’s mysterious baddie John Harrison, and Kirk’s (Chris Pine) quest for vengeance after he takes out a Starfleet office in London.
We get to see a face-off between the Enterprise and Harrison’s ship, and the good guys are obviously outmanned. Anyone worried about those first few trailers being too Earth-bound, worry no longer. This film looks to be packed with deep-space action.
The new footage also includes some new hints at Cumberbatch’s true identity.
Star Trek Into Darkness opens May 17.

HELIX - FIRST TRAILER
Something really, really creepy is going on in the first teaser trailer for Ronald D. Moore’s (Battlestar Galactica) new Syfy series Helix.
The network has revealed the first peek at Moore’s The Thing-esque series, which follows a team of several dozen scientists working at a large Arctic research facility. The scientists apparently stumble upon something that could potentially destroy the world, leading to "a terrifying life-and-death struggle that holds the key to mankind’s salvation or total annihilation."
The teaser sets the scene, with a slow pan through the snowy landscape offering a peek at the research base. We then cut to a pristine, white-washed research lab, where a scientist takes off his mask to reveal ... something creepy leaking off his face.
What is that black ooze? We don’t know, but we really want to find out.
The series is set to debut later this year.

TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2013

IRON MAN 3
Some new footage from Iron Man 3 shows off more of that epic attack on Stark’s mansion, plus some new clips of Rhodey’s Iron Patriot armor in action.
The studio has released a great clip that goes much further into that attack on Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) home, as he basically summons the Iron Man armor to his body so he can survive a hail of gunfire. Of course, that’s just the first problem, because then the house comes down on top of him. The scene is a massive set piece, and the effects work is fantastic.
A new trailer focusing on Rhodey (Don Cheadle) is also in the wild, including some new footage of that shiny new Iron Patriot gear. It sounds like Rhodey will be a much bigger part of this film, which looks to be a very good thing. Cheadle was one of the best parts of Iron Man 2, and it's nice to see new director Shane Black will be taking advantage of the longtime friendship between Stark and Rhodey this time around.

TRANSFORMERS 4
Taking to the stage at Las Vegas' CinemaCon for this evening's Paramount Pictures presentation, director Michael Bay announced that Stanley Tucci has joined the cast of the upcoming Transformers 4. He'll appear opposite Mark Wahlberg, Jack Reynor and Nicola Peltz, as well as another mysterious young actor that Bay teased will be announced very shortly.
Although the plot of the June 27, 2014 release is still top secret, Bay teased to ComingSoon.net that it will involve a "Chase from Hell."
Tucci, who recently starred in Jack the Giant Slayer, will be seen later this year reprising his role as Caesar Flickerman in
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
Bay's latest, Pain & Gain, will meanwhile hit theaters April 26.

BRILLIANCE
Legendary Pictures has brought David Koepp on board to write an adaptation of the Marcus Sakey sci-fi/superhero novel Brilliance, says The Hollywood Reporter. The book, to be released on July 16, is described as follows:
In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets by the way they fold their arms. In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking. They’re called “brilliants,” and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in—and betray his own kind.
Joe Roth and Palek Patel are producing along with Legendary.

DIVERGENT
Liongate's Summit Entertainment announced today that Tony Goldwyn has joined the cast of the studio's feature film adaptation of Divergent, starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Academy Award winner Kate Winslet. The film will also feature Ray Stevenson, Maggie Q, Mekhi Phifer, Jai Courtney, Miles Teller, Zoë Kravitz, Ansel Elgort, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Ben Lamb, Christian Madsen, and Amy Newbold.
Currently filming in Chicago, the futuristic action adventure, based on author Veronica Roth's New York Times bestseller is being directed by Neil Burger from a script by Vanessa Taylor. The original draft of the script was written by Evan Daugherty. Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing the project via their Red Wagon Entertainment banner along with Pouya Shahbazian. Red Wagon's Rachel Shane is executive producing, alongside John J. Kelly. Summit will release the film theatrically in North America on Friday, March 21, 2014.
Goldwyn will portray Andrew, Tris' father, in Divergent. He currently stars as President Fitzgerald Grant on ABC's "Scandal." His feature acting credits include The Pelican Brief, Kiss the Girls, Nixon, The Substance of Fire, The Last Samurai and Ghost.
Divergent is a thrilling adventure set in a future world where people are divided into distinct factions based on their personalities, Tris Prior (Woodley) is warned she is Divergent and will never fit into any one group. When she discovers a conspiracy to destroy all Divergents, she must find out what makes being Divergent so dangerous before it's too late.
Erik Feig, Lionsgate Motion Picture Group's President of Production, and Gillian Bohrer, Lionsgate's SVP of Production, are overseeing the project for the studio.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
Deadline reports that former "Seinfeld" star Danny Woodburn will play Master Splinter in the Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Woodburn recently starred in Mirror Mirror and has recurring roles on Fox's "Bones" and Disney XD's "Crash & Bernstein."
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, the film stars Megan Fox in the role of April O'Neil, Alan Ritchson as Raphael, Jeremy Howard as Donatello, Pete Ploszek as Leonardo, Noel Fisher as Michelangelo, and Will Arnett in an unspecified role.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is scheduled to hit theaters on June 6, 2014.

MONDAY, APRIL 15, 2013

HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE
The moment we're waiting for has finally arrived! After a whole week of hyping the footage, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" trailer premiered at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards, and it was definitely worth being voted the can't-miss moment of the awards show.
This trailer was way more than we were expecting. It's clear that Katniss had problems much larger than just surviving the Hunger Games in "Catching Fire". President Snow is out for her blood, and he has a new ally in the form of Philip Seymour Hoffman's new Head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee. It looks like there's plenty of darkness going on here, and even though the trailer doesn't tease the upcoming Quarter Quell, there is a whole lot of action involved in Katniss' journey on the Victory Tour. She doesn't seem like she's happy with her new job as a beacon of hope for Panem either, as she clearly welcomes death at the end of the trailer.
Directed by Francis Lawrence, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Claflin and Jena Malone. It's due in theaters on Nov. 22.

IRON MAN 3
The big "Iron Man 3" reveal at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards has arrived. The exclusive clip features Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark as he struggles to survive an attack by the Mandarin. He uses one of his newly designed superhero suits to protect him as his Malibu home crashes around him.
Directed by Shane Black, "Iron Man 3" stars Downey, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Jon Favreau, Wang Xueqi and Ben Kingsley. It's due in theaters on May 3.
Here's the official synopsis for the movie: "Marvel Studios' 'Iron Man 3' pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?"

AFTER EARTH
Columbia Pictures has released the first TV spot for After Earth, the sci-fi thriller starring Will and Jaden Smith.
In the June 7 release, a crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.

MAN OF STEEL
The static has ended at the official site for Man of Steel and has been replaced with a message from General Zod (Michael Shannon), who requests that we return Kal-El to his custody and he tells Kal-El to surrender within 24 hours or our world will suffer the consequences.
A new site for the viral has also been discovered at IWillFindHim.com which is counting down 48 hours. We'll have to wait and see if that means we'll get the trailer then.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
The latest poster for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness is now online and it features Zachary Quinto's Spock surrounded by molten lava inside an active volcano.
In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.
Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller also star in the sci fi adventure film, opening on May 15 in IMAX and May 17 in conventional theaters.

TEN GRAND - ISSUE #2 AND #3
J. Michael Straczynski's comic book #2 hits the street on June 5. Issue #3 is shipping July 3. Here's a peek at the cover art from JMS.
Those wishing to order our premiere comic Ten Grand can do so through Midtown comics http://www.midtowncomics.com/ Gahl Buslov is the point of contact. gahl@midtowncomics.com.
JMS SIGNING MAY 1 IN SAN DIEGO
Justin posted this information about JMS signing at Yesteryear Comics on May 1 at 3:00pm.
Read his post at http://thirteenminutes.blogspot.com/2013/04/j-michael-straczynski-yesteryear-comics.html.

SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2013

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE NUMBERS
Moviegoers took themselves out to the ballgame at Friday’s box office, giving a rousing cheer to 42, the biopic about the legendary Jackie Robinson. The Legendary production released by Warners took in an estimated $9.1 million at 3003 locations in North America as it heads for a weekend in the mid $20 million range, buoyed by an enthusiastic A-plus CinemaScore.
Thing weren’t quite so rousing for Dimension’s Scary Movie 5, the weekend’s other new wide release. While it arrived in second place, the horror movie parody collected $5.5 million in 3,402 locations and is looking at a weekend total of $13.5 million, with moviegoers giving it a C-minus CinemaScore.
Financed by Legendary Pictures, whose CEO Thomas Tull personally produced the $40 million project, the PG-13-rated 42 was written and directed by Brian Helgeland (A Knight’s Tale), and stars Chadwick Boseman as Robinson and Harrison Ford as the Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey.
Scary Movie is the latest installment in the long-running franchise from The Weinstein Co.’s Dimension label that dates back to 2000. Malcolm D. Lee, who last directed 2008’s Soul Men, handled the directing reins of the PG-13 comedy, which cost just $19.5 million, and the cast is something of a rogue’s gallery of boldface names including Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Simon Rex and Ashley Tisdale.
Among the holdovers, Sony/Screen Gems Evil Dead, which was number one at the box office last weekend, checked in in third place with $3.2 million.
Fox’s release of DreamWorks Animation’s The Croods, entering its fourth weekend, claimed the fourth spot with $3.1 million.
Paramount’s GI Joe: Retaliation was fifth with $2.9 million as it climbs above the $100 million domestic mark this weekend.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
A new international spot for Star Trek Into Darkness has hit the web and it highlights the film's villain, played by Benedict Cumberbatch.
In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice.
As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.
Star Trek Into Darkness hits IMAX 3D theaters on May 15 and conventional theaters on May 17. The anticipated sequel stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller.

PARANOIA/OUT OF THE FURNACE
Relativity Media has shifted a few of their 2013 releases around, moving Robert Luketic's thriller Paranoia, the adaptation of Joseph Finder's novel starring Harrison Ford, Liam Hemsworth and Gary Oldman, to August 16, and placing Scott Cooper's crime drama Out of the Furnace, starring Christian Bale, Casey Affleck and Zoe Saldana, into its original date of October 4.
Paranoia now faces Universal's action sequel Kick-Ass 2 and CBS Films' comedy The To Do List while Out of the Furnace, the second feature from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper, takes on another comic book sequel, Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Henry Selick's animated The Shadow King and Vince Vaughn's comedy Delivery Man.
So far, neither film has rolled out any sort of marketing although Relativity has a good four months to plan their strategy on Paranoia.

NEW WORLD
Sony Pictures has picked up the remake rights to Park Hoon-Jung's recent South Korean crime thriller "New World".
After spending eight intense years deep undercover, a cop has become the right-hand man to the leader of South Korea's largest crime syndicate, Goldmoon.
Things get complicated when that leader is killed in a car accident, and various criminal factions vie to be named his replacement. Lee Jung-jae, Choi Min-shik and Hwang Jung-min starred.
Will Fetters ("The Lucky One") will pen the screenplay for the remake. Roy Lee and Dan Lin will produce.

SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2013

VERONICA MARS KICKSTARTER EFFORT ENDS
The "Veronica Mars" movie Kickstarter has finally ended. The groundbreaking crowd-funding effort ended up making $5,701,694 from 91,564 total backers. The Kickstarter's goal had only been $2 million.
These final totals are record-setters for Kickstarter. With less than a day left, the "Veronica Mars" movie passed 87,143 backers to become the most backed Kickstarter ever. It also was the fastest project to reach $1 million, the fastest project to reach $2 million and the all-time highest-funded project in Kickstarter's film category. The film ended up being the third-highest funded project in Kickstarter history, falling behind "Pebble: E-Paper Watch's" $10.3 million and "Ouya's" $8.6 million.
The fact that the Kickstarter is now over means that creator Rob Thomas and stars like Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring need to get cracking making the actual movie. The script is complete, and now it remains to be seen how long it takes the movie to follow suit. Based on the fact the film will have a presence at San Diego Comic-Con and will debut footage there, fans shouldn't have to wait too long.
It will be interesting to see what other cancelled shows start getting Kickstarters now that "Veronica Mars" has shown that fans will lend their support. Bryan Fuller has already teased a "Pushing Daisies" movie, though it remains to be seen if he can follow through.

BRADBURY BOOKS GOING E-BOOK
Almost a year after the prolific writer's death, the bulk of his library is heading toward the digital clouds.
Ray Bradbury is famous for saying, "I don't try to describe the future, I try to prevent it." It's an edict he lived by, even to his last breath. This was a feeling he ascribed to many modern comforts, e-books included. In fact, when Yahoo approached him about putting one of his works on their site, he claims to have said, "To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet."
Bradbury was a fierce advocate for libraries, and he only agreed to publish his most famous work, Fahrenheit 451, in digital form in order to renew the hardcover rights as well.
But the past is the past, and now the majority of his library is headed to Kindles, iPads and all the rest.
So, why now? The approval came not from Bradbury, but from his descendants. In a press release, one of Bradbury's four daughters, Alexandra, said "The entire Bradbury family is excited to know that Dad’s work will finally be available to all readers: traditional print readers and the new generation of digital readers."
And with that, Bradbury's publisher, William Morrow, has begun adapting his works, and, over the remainder of April, we will see these titles made available on the following dates:
April 16: Bradbury Speaks, Death Is a Lonely Business, A Graveyard for Lunatics, Now and Forever, One More for the Road, Green Shadows, White Whale.
April 23: Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, We'll Always Have Paris.
April 30: The Illustrated Man, Quicker Than the Eye, Driving Blind, The October Country, The Cat's Pajamas, Let's All Kill Constance, A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories.
We won't judge whether this is the right move. Certainly it's easy to see the benefit in having the best of Bradbury in the palm of your hand, especially if you live in a tiny apartment on a crowded island. Still, we can't help but think of Bradbury and about that future he was trying to prevent. Hopefully, history (as accessible through the digital cloud, no doubt) will prove him wrong.

CONTINUIUM SEASON TWO
The first season of Syfy’s Continuum asked some pretty big questions in its final episode, and our first look at season two promises more twisty time travel and terrorist-fighting action.
The show, which was developed by the Canadian network Showcase, has released a season two promo showing off some of the massive action set pieces the producers have whipped up for next season.
It sounds like they’ll be digging deeper into the question of destiny, and how the actions in our present might affect Kiera’s (Rachel Nichols) future. That’s always been one of the most promising aspects of the show, and it looks like the writers won’t be backing away from some of the big reveals (and mysteries) presented in the finale.
Also, we're not entirely sure what's happening with that epic helicopter chase, but we can't wait to find out.
Season two is set to debut in the U.S. on June 7 at 10 p.m., but until then check out the trailer and let us know what you think the series has in store for the next 13 episodes.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Paramount Pictures has revealed the new poster for Star Trek Into Darkness. The new trailer arrives on Tuesday!
In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller star in the J.J. Abrams-directed film, opening on May 15 in IMAX and May 17 in conventional theaters.

FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 2013

TRANSCENDENCE
Morgan Freeman is heading to Transcendence.
The Oscar winner is in final negotiations to star opposite Johnny Depp in cinematographer Wally Pfister's sci-fi directorial debut, it was announced Thursday.
Plot details have been closely guarded, but the film is described as in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Inception. Depp stars as a man who creates a computer program that develops an awareness.
Kate Mara, Paul Bettany and Rebecca Hall co-star.
Transcendence was penned by Jack Paglen and developed by Annie Marter and Straight Up Films, whose principals include Marisa Polvino, Kate Cohen and Regency Boies. Polvino, Marter and Cohen will produce, with David Valdes (The Book of Eli), Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove co-producing.
Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas and Aaron Ryder are executive producers.
Principal photography will begin in May in Los Angeles. Alcon Entertainment is financing and producing and will release it through its Warner Bros. deal on April 25, 2014.
Freeman most recently starred in Olympus Has Fallen and last year's The Dark Knight Rises and next appears opposite Tom Cruise in Oblivion and Now You See Me.

OVERLOOK HOTEL
Glen Mazzara, the ousted showrunner of The Walking Dead, is in negotiations to pen the screenplay to what is being called Overlook Hotel, the prequel to Stephen King’s horror classic The Shining.
For Mazzara, the project marks his first gig since he exited as showrunner on AMC's Walking Dead. The prolific producer, whose small-screen credits also include Crash and The Shield, recently signed a TV development deal with Fox Television Studios to develop cable projects under his new banner, 44 Strong Productions.
Under his oversight, The Walking Dead became TV's No. 1 scripted series in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic.
The Shining was set in a haunted hotel named the Overlook, and the prequel will look at what transpired there long before struggling author Jack Torrance brought his family there and went crazy.

INTO THE WHITE
Here is a first look at a clip from Magnolia Pictures' Into the White, the war drama starring Rupert Grint ("Harry Potter" films), David Kross, Stig Henrik Hoff, Florian Lukas and Lachlan Nieboer.
At the beginning of World War II, a hostile chance encounter in the skies above the harsh Norwegian wilderness leaves two aircraft—one British, one German—shot down in a remote and isolated region. By strange coincidence, the crews seek shelter in the same cabin. They must battle to survive the brutal winter in order to get back to the war—and to fighting one another. Although war has made them enemies, as the days go by, animosity proves hard to maintain. Mutual need leads to unlikely friendships, and the rules of war must be put aside.
Into the White is now available On Demand and in theaters.

CATCHING FIRE
Lionsgate has released another image from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, opening in theaters and IMAX on November 22.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire begins as Katniss Everdeen has returned home safe after winning the 74th Annual Hunger Games along with fellow tribute Peeta Mellark. Winning means that they must turn around and leave their family and close friends, embarking on a "Victor's Tour' of the districts. Along the way Katniss senses that a rebellion is simmering, but the Capitol is still very much in control as President Snow prepares the 75th Annual Hunger Games (The Quarter Quell) - a competition that could change Panem forever.

ELIZA GRAVES
Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley have both signed on to join the cast of the upcoming horror-thriller Eliza Graves, Deadline reports. They'll star opposite the previously announced Kate Beckinsale and Jim Sturgess in the Brad Anderson (Session 9, The Call) film.
Loosely based on "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether," a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, the film will center on a Harvard Medical School graduate (Sturgess) who takes a job at an insane asylum, unaware of the fact that it has been taken over by its occupants.
Joseph Gangemi (Fear Itself, Wind Chill) provided the screenplay.
Caine can next be seen in Now You See Me while Kingsley stars in the upcoming Iron Man 3.
Shooting is expected to begin this June with Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity) among the project's producers.

THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2013

SYFY RENEWS TWO SERIES
Syfy is bringing two series back next season, and prepping a freaky new anthology with Jamie Foxx that should give us chills this Halloween.
The third season of Being Human ended this week, and Syfy has now confirmed the hit series will be back for 13 more episodes next season. In overall ratings, season three averaged 1.8 million total viewers, including 1.1 million Adults 18-49 and 1.1 million Adults 25-54. The show is also a Top 10 cable program in its time period among both key demographics.
The unscripted series Ghost Mine will also be back next season, after raking in solid ratings the past year. The 13-episode season season will follow the ragtag team of miners and paranormal investigators as they keep on digging for gold and ghosts in Oregon’s creepy Crescent Mine.
Looking ahead to Halloween, the network is teaming up with Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx to executive producer a new five-episode horror anthology in the vein of Tales of the Crypt and The Twilight Zone. The series will debut in October, during Syfy’s 31 Days of Halloween. The half-hour episodes will tell “creepy morality tales with themes such as envy, jealousy and superficiality.” Sounds like fun.
Here’s how Foxx described the project:
“This is a project that I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I’m so happy to see it come to life. Get ready to lose it when some special friends and I bring the scares this October, and who knows… maybe I’ll make a guest appearance or two along the way!”
These renewals and new projects join the several other Syfy announcements today, as part of the network’s up-front presentations. Here is a rundown of new pilots in development, along with some high-profile projects from Bryan Fuller, Ronald D. Moore and Robert Zemeckis.

Clandestine
This series follows a group of left-for-dead outlaws who hide out in an abandoned Coalition ship. Before long they use the ship to pose as Coalition officers, until they discover a huge conspiracy surrounding the real agenda of the Coalition. This one is definitely intriguing, and sounds like it has a solid Farscape and Firefly vibe. Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead) will executive-produce this one, making it one to watch.

Dominion (working title, formerly known as Legion)
This one picks up 20 years after rogue, evil angels take their vengeance on humans, following a freedom fighter who rises up to protect humanity. It promises a solid amount of religious-tinged intrigue, perhaps wrapped up in a Supernatural vibe. Writer Vaun Wilmott (Sons of Anarchy) and director Scott Stewart (Defiance) are putting this one together.

Orion
This “space opera” is a combination of elements ranging from Tomb Raider to Farscape, and follows a female relic hunter tracking down artifacts from her past in deep space. To keep it interesting, the story is set in the middle of a huge intergalactic war, and those artifacts could potentially turn the tide of the campaign. Ron Milbauer and Terri Hughes Burton (Alphas) will write and executive-produce this series, and their experience with a grounded series like Alphas should help Orion strike the right balance.

Sojourn
Just because we can travel into space doesn’t mean humanity’s bad habits won’t come with us. This series would follow the first detective in space and the ensuing investigation to solve a murder on a starship. The investigation takes the detective deeper down the rabbit hole, digging up a conspiracy to cover up a crime that occurred half a century earlier. Sci-fi vet Phil Levens (Smallville) will write, with Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity) producing.

Shelter
This one takes the classic meteorite headed for Earth trope and tosses in a big mystery, as hand-picked survivors are sent underground into a utopian-esque bunker to keep society moving. But all is not as it seems, and everyone from the bunker survivors to those left on the surface have to figure out why and how this is happening. Plus, toss in a healthy dose of political intrigue, and this one sounds like it could be fun. In case you’re worried it won’t have enough asteroid street cred, Bruce Joel Rubin (Deep Impact) is writing and producing, so this will be one to keep an eye on.

Infinity
It’s been a long time since we had a good old-fashioned Lost In Space story, and Infinity looks to fill that void with a twist. This series would follow the crew of the only interstellar ship in existence, which is sent to meet an alien armada as they enter our solar system. But during the ensuing firefight, the ship is sent through a wormhole and winds up lost on the other side of the universe. The crew would then encounter different alien worlds as they search for a way home. This one is being written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost).

Silver Shields
This series would follow country boy Caymer as he journeys to the big city after his father is killed. Caymer then decides to follow in his father’s footsteps and join up with the local police force to solve the mystery surrounding his dad’s death. But once he digs a little deeper into the mystery, he comes face to face with all kinds of magical creatures. Alphas alum Robert Hewitt Wolfe is attached to write and produce this series if it makes it to air.

MOORE NEW SERIES
The schedule at Syfy couldn't be more star-studded this fall, with Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica), Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies) and Robert Zemeckis (Back the Future) all prepping series for the network.
We heard about Ronald D. Moore’s Helix series a while back, and now the Thing-esque project about a team of scientists at an Arctic base trying to save the world from annihilation has officially been picked up to series. Look for it later this year.
Bryan Fuller is developing the quirky, high-concept series High Moon, which will follow several lunar colonies planted by Earth governments. But things go haywire when scientists discover a new form of life on the Moon, and all sides will be scrambling to capitalize on the resources of the new discovery. Fuller has cut his teeth on comedy-dramas that don’t make a lot of sense in a capsule (i.e. Pushing Daisies: Pie-maker brings things back to life), so it’ll be interesting to see what he can do with an otherworldly premise like this.
The other new series is No Place, which is being spearheaded by Hollywood legend Robert Zemeckis. The series would follow the residents of a high-tech gated community, who wake up to find the world outside their neighborhood has disappeared. With food and resources scarce, tensions run high as the residents try to figure out what is happening and how to escape. It sounds like an interesting premise, and could be a more sci-fi counterpoint to CBS’s upcoming Stephen King series Under the Dome. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

CULT CANCELLED
Despite their best efforts, The CW couldn't make Cult a hit. The new series has been pulled from the schedule indefinitely. It initially aired as part of the network's Tuesday-night lineup, but its low ratings got it bumped to Fridays. Unfortunately, the new slot was no help and Cult continued to struggle.
The CW has aired seven of the 13 episodes in the season. We're unsure whether the remaining five will ever see the light of day. The most recent episode, titled "Suffer the Children," pulled a mere 620,000 total viewers. With numbers like that, perhaps it's a good thing The CW cut their losses.
Series creator Rockne S. O'Bannon reacted to the news as follows:
#Cult Sadly true. CW Execs once called the last 5 episodes "outstanding". I guess too outstanding. You are great, SMART fans. Thx to u all!
Cult centered on a journalist and research assistant who investigated the cult following of a TV show. Its fans take their obsession to a deadly level when they begin re-creating fictional murders from the series.
Cult starred The Vampire Diaries' Matt Davis, Cloverfield's Jessica Lucas and Heroes' Robert Knepper. At the moment, Cult's Friday-night slot will be filled with reruns of The Carrie Diaries and Oh, Sit.

HOUDINI
History is lining up its next miniseries.
The A&E Networks-owned cabler is developing a potential miniseries based on the life of master illusionist Harry Houdini, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
As first reported by EW, Adrien Brody is attached to star in the period project centering on Houdini's life and his rise to fame.
Gerald W. Abrams (Nuremberg, Modern Marvels) will executive produce the project for History. The project is a co-production from Abrams' Cypress Point Productions and History.
Brody, who won the best actor Oscar for his role in 2002's The Pianist, would play the magician and mark his first scripted TV appearance since the 1990s, when he appeared in the TV movie Bullet Hearts.
Houdini (working title) comes as History has found both critical and ratings success with its longform entries. The Bible recently concluded its 10-episode run with a two-hour finale that averaged 11.7 million viewers, boosting History's first scripted series, Vikings. Last summer's Hatfields & McCoys shattered network records over the course of its three-day run and concluded with 14.3 million total viewers. It was nominated for 16 Emmys, taking home wins for lead actor Kevin Costner and supporting actor Tom Berenger, among others.

WAYWARD SONS: LEGENDS
Lin Pictures, the production banner behind Warner Bros.’ upcoming animated feature The LEGO Movie, is teaming up with digital comics publisher Red Giant Entertainment to bring Red Giant’s Wayward Sons: Legends to the big screen.
The two companies will develop and co-produce the feature, which is out to writers.
Wayward Sons centers on two groups of diverse warring aliens who crash-landed on earth thousands of years ago. With their unending fight, the groups end up inspiring humanity’s every myth, legend and fairy tale, from Greeks gods to dragons to vampires to superheroes.
"The Wayward Sons comics present a great framework for an event science-fiction movie that explores ancient mythologies from various cultures around the world," said Lin Pictures head Dan Lin in a statement.
Producer Jon Silk brought the project to Lin Pictures and will oversee it for the company.
Producing for Red Giant Entertainment are Isen Robbins and Aimee Schoof (Blue Caprice).
The partnership also includes a television component. The two companies will simultaneously develop a series based on the Wayward Sons universe, including an upcoming book series titled Wayward Souls.
Wayward Sons is one of the top indie digital comics. Since its launch, it has produced 26 full-color issues and four graphic novel collections and generated more than 420 million advertising views worldwide. The comic is also the No. 1 seller on the charts of digital distributor Keenspot, a Comixology partner.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013

VERONICA MARS
"Veronica Mars" is going to San Diego! According to the most recent Kickstarter movie update from the show's creator, Rob Thomas, members of the cast and production will attend the San Diego Comic-Con this summer.
This isn't a huge surprise for anyone who knows how much of Comic-Con focuses on the attendees obsessions. Since the Kickstarter meant to fund a "Veronica Mars" movie has managed to break fan-support records left and right, this project definitely counts. As of this writing, over 75,000 backers had pledged between $1 and $10,000 in an effort to bring the 2004-2007 series to the big screen.
The original goal of the Kickstarter campaign had been $2 million, enough to make a basic film. That amount was reached in less than a day, and the total pledge has since inched its way toward $5 million. That money will go to the production and to providing rewards to backers. Warner Bros. will cover the costs of promotion and distribution when the film hits theaters.
As of right now, there aren't many details about what sort of presence "Veronica Mars" will have at SDCC. It's early though, and more information has been promised.

ELYSIUM
The first trailer for "Elysium" has arrived and promises futuristic war. The movie is set in the year 2159, with the world separated into two classes. The very wealthy live on a space station called Elysium, while everyone else lived on a ruined and rotting planet Earth.
Matt Damon's character, who lives on Earth, needs to get on board Elysium to access their medical care, and in trying to do so may tear down the barrier between the two classes. First, though, he has to get suited up in all kinds of mechanical parts and fight robots. Once the mayor of Elysium (Jodie Foster) realizes what he's trying to do, she'll stop at nothing to make sure he fails.
"Elysium," directed by Neill Blomkamp ("District 9"), lands in theaters August 9.

IRON MAN 3
A new featurette for "Iron Man 3" shows off quite a bit of new footage, mixed in with cast interviews featuring all of the major players. One of the biggest reveals in the clip is Gwyneth Paltrow's character Pepper Potts suited up in Iron Man's armor, saving Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) life.
"Robert was really interested in having Pepper do more in this movie," Paltrow says. The clips and trailers released so far focus on Stark not being able to live without Pepper. The Mandarin has quite a bit to do as well, being the film's villain. Oscar-winner Ben Kingley says he was happy to sign onto the role, "There's something original, dare I used the word intelligent, approached in this film."
The featurette also has the first footage of Happy Hogan, played by Jon Favreau. Favreau returns as an actor only for the third movie, after directing the first two. "It's fun to come back as Happy," he says. As for Colonel Rhodes, Don Cheadle says, "The relationship between Tony and Rhodey is deepening," with Downey Jr. adding, "We really wanted Rhodey to be able to match Tony in his bravado and his wit."
The clip also contains portions of interviews with Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall, both of whom play scientists who work on the Extremis virus. "Iron Man 3" is in theaters May 3.

POMPEII
Peter Schlessel's FilmDistrict has acquired U.S. rights to Paul W.S. Anderson's historical action epic Pompeii, setting a Feb. 28, 2014, release date in partnership with Sony/TriStar.
Germany's Constantin Film and Impact produced and financed the big-budget action pic, which stars Kit Harington, Emily Browning, Kiefer Sutherland, Jared Harris and Carrie-Anne Moss. Production is currently underway.
The film follows an enslaved Celtic gladiator who falls in love with a noblewoman on the eve of a massive volcanic eruption that destroys Pompeii, an event that also brings him face-to-face with the man who slaughtered his family years earlier.
Jeremy Bolt, Anderson, Robert Kulzer and Don Carmody are producing the film; executive producers are Martin Moszkowicz, Jon Brown and Schlessel serving as executive producers. Lee Batchler, Janet Scott Batchler, Michael Robert Johnson and Julian Fellowes wrote the screenplay for the film which is currently in production.
Lionsgate International is representing foreign rights.
"Pompeii is the kind of big and bold film we all love to go to the movies to experience. We believe the film’s scope and story line will resonate well with U.S. moviegoers and we are pleased to once again team with Sony on bringing a film to theaters and beyond," Schlessel said.
FilmDistrict and Sony/TriStar have an ongoing partnership, and are currently in theaters with the remake of Sam Raimi's cult horror pic Evil Dead, which opened to a better-than-expected $25.8 million over the weekend.

KUNG FU PANDA 3
"Pandamonium" is back for a triple kick with a trio of new cast members in DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda 3, which will be distributed by 20th Century Fox. Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad," Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted), Mads Mikkelsen ("Hannibal," Casino Royale) and Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids) join Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and other original cast members in the third installment of the beloved action-packed franchise. The film, slated for December 23, 2015, marks the first planned co-production with China based Oriental DreamWorks and follows Po, the chosen one, as he continues on his journey mastering the art of Kung Fu… and noodle slurping.
Continuing on his now legendary adventures of awesomeness, Po must face two hugely epic, but very different threats: one supernatural and the other a little closer to home. This chapter in the continuing adventures of Kung Fu Panda is directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who also helmed the worldwide hit Kung Fu Panda 2 and remains the highest-grossing female director for a film at the worldwide box office. The film is produced by Melissa Cobb, executive produced by Guillermo del Toro and co-produced by Jeffrey Hermann along with Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, who wrote and co-produced the original films and continue in these roles.
"Having the wonderful Jennifer Yuh Nelson return as director is incredibly exciting for the studio. Under her guidance I have no doubt that our returning cast and our outstanding new voice talent will take the franchise's story to the next level," said DreamWorks Animation Chief Creative Officer Bill Damaschke.
The first two chapters of DreamWorks Animation's critically acclaimed Kung Fu Panda franchise opened in 2008 and 2011. Both films were honored with Academy Award® nominations for Best Animated Feature Film. Together, they have generated approximately $1.3 billion at the worldwide box office.

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

S.H.I.E.L.D.
Details surrounding Joss Whedon's S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot have been heavily guarded. Now, two months after production has wrapped, an official plot synopsis has surfaced. With the description, we learn of the show's new and improved title: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Here's the synopsis:
Joss Whedon shows us not all heroes are super with Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Fresh from his role in the summer’s box office smash, Marvel’s The Avengers, Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) returns to the worldwide law enforcement organization S.H.I.E.L.D. He puts together a small, highly trained, team of Agents to tackle the cases that haven’t been classified yet, the new, the strange and the unknown. That team consists of straight arrow Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), an expert in combat and espionage; pilot and martial artist Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen); and brilliant if socially awkward scientists Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge). They’ll be joined by civilian new recruit and computer hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet).
Prepare for an epic adventure that showcases the hope and wonder of the human spirit. This is a world of superheroes, aliens and the unusual – of action, spectacle and world spanning stories. The show will speak to the human condition through the lens of our very human, non-powered S.H.I.E.L.D agents – that together we are greater than we are apart, and that we can make a difference in the world.
Last week, it was announced that J. August Richards would also appear in the pilot. The actor's best known for his work on Angel, the popular spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even though his role in S.H.I.E.L.D. is a mystery, we're happy with his addition to the cast. There's always room for more Whedon alumni.

DRACULA
Luke Evans has played a couple of Greek gods and even a musketeer, but now he is about to play the most god-like of literary characters.
In his first starring role for a studio, Evans has signed to topline in Dracula Year Zero, Universal’s dramatic horror movie telling an origin story of the most famous of vampires. (UPDATE: A Universal rep says the film will now be called simply Dracula.)
Michael De Luca is producing the project, which quietly has been greenlighted and hopes to start shooting later this year. Commercials helmer Gary Shore is making his directorial debut on the picture.
Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless wrote the script. Alissa Phillips is executive producing.
Universal, once the home for literature’s most horrifying characters, set the tone for Dracula’s screen image for decades with its 1931 classic. Now, this project hopes to set the tone for the modern age with a historical-oriented origin story.
The script tells of a young prince who, when the lives of his wife and child are put in danger by a bloodthirsty sultan, risks his soul to save them, and in the process becomes the first vampire.
Evans already is well known to the studio: the actor is playing the villain in its Fast & Furious 6, which opens May 24. He played Zeus in Immortals and Apollo in Clash of the Titans, and starred with John Cusack in the Edgar Allan Poe thriller The Raven.
Evans, repped by WME and United Agents, will be seen portraying Bard the Bowman in the upcoming installments of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies.
Vp of production Anikah McLaren and creative executive Jay Polidoro are overseeing the project for Universal.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
The first image for Captain America: The Winter Soldier has made its way to the web.
Just as Marvel announced production on the Captain America sequel commenced Monday in Los Angeles, the studio released an image of Captain America (Chris Evans) in shadow with his iconic shield behind him. Other filming locations include Cleveland and Washington, D.C.
The Winter Soldier picks up where The Avengers left off, with Steve Rogers struggling to embrace his role in the modern world, with the help of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to fight a "powerful yet shadow enemy" in D.C.
The cast for The Winter Soldier includes Robert Redford (Agent Alexander Pierce), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/Falcon), Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill), Frank Grillo (Brock Rumlow), Georges St-Pierre (Georges Batroc), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), Toby Jones (Arnim Zola), Emily VanCamp (Agent 13) and Maximiliano Hernandez (Agent Jasper Sitwell).
Anthony and Joe Russo are directing from a screenplay by Christopher Markus.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is producing, with Alan Fine, Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo and Stan Lee executive producing.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier hits theaters April 4, 2014, following Marvel's Iron Man 3 (May 3) and Thor: The Dark World (Nov. 8).

NEW CYBER THRILLER FOR MICHAEL MANN
HONG KONG -- Michael Mann will set parts of his upcoming hacker thriller in Hong Kong and cast a pair of Chinese actors to play two prominent roles.
Produced by Legendary Pictures – which has already had experience of a Hong Kong location shoot with The Dark Knight – Mann’s as-yet-untitled project will feature scenes in the city revolving around a pair of Chinese hackers, according to the Chinese-language Apple Daily.
The report said Mann and his entourage arrived in Hong Kong on Friday and spent Sunday night walking around Jordan, a bustling area in the center of the city, to scout for locations.
The visit reportedly took place after a series of meetings the director had with local stars during the afternoon, as A-listers such as Tang Wei (a Bafta nominee for Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution and star of current Chinese chart-topper Finding Mr. Right), Nick Cheung Ka-fai (The Stool Pigeon, The Viral Factor) and Shawn Yue Man-lok (who starred opposite Josh Hartnett in Tran Anh Hung’s Hong Kong-set I Come With the Rain) were spotted visiting the hotel Mann was staying in.
Chris Hemsworth signed up for Mann’s film in February, and it is understood that producers have been searching for appropriate locations for the Hong Kong-set scenes since then.
Legendary’s Hong Kong shoot for The Dark Knight – which involved scenes of a carrier plane flying low over the city, and also a sequence set in and around the central business district – was facilitated by local shingle October Pictures, which also contributed to the Hong Kong shoots of Contagion, Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
When contacted by The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, the company declined to offer details or comment on its role in Mann’s project.
It remains to be seen how Mann’s cyber-warfare feature will play out at a time when Beijing and Washington are regularly attacking each other for masterminding organized hacking into computer systems.
While some Hollywood productions have offered narratives with positive depictions of China and Chinese culture – the savior for Iron Man 3’s Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), for example, is the Chinese scientist-doctor Dr. Wu, played by veteran actor Wang Xueqi – there are others that paid no heed toward the country’s notoriously sensitive censors.
Contagion, for example, is based on the premise of an epidemic with roots in Macao and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, The Dark Knight was also met with mild criticism here for depicting the city where outlaws – in the shape of a mob accountant, played by Singaporean actor Chin Han – could flee to and live freely.
It was reported last week that World War Z will be released in China in a version devoid of dialogue referring to the country as the source of a virus that eventually led to a zombie outbreak. The film stars Brad Pitt, who has remained persona non grata for his role in Seven Years in Tibet, which the authorities deemed as offering an unflattering depiction of Chinese military officials taking over the southwestern region in 1950.

OMEGA POINT
CBS Films has optioned Omega Point, a sci-fi spec script from newcomer Cameron Alexander.
Sidney Sherman, a co-producer on the 2006 John Travolta thriller Lonely Hearts, is on board to produce via his Rosa Entertainment banner.
The story centers on a young man who comes across a mysterious crash site in the woods where he discovers and befriends a god-like artificial intelligence agent desperate to escape earth.
Execs Mark Ross and Alex Ginno are overseeing the project for CBS Films.
Omega is the first sale for the 25-year-old Alexander, a budding music video director (one of the videos under his belt is Cry Wolf from Kristinia DeBarge, the daughter of '80s pop singer James DeBarge). Alexander eventually wants to direct what he writes, but for now, he knows that writing is the way to make the inroads.
He is repped by Resolution, Rosa Entertainment and McKuin Frankel.

BATES MOTEL
A&E has extended its stay at Bates Motel, renewing the series for a second season.
From Universal Television, the Psycho prequel ranks as A&E's most-watched scripted drama in network history among adults 18-to-49 and 25-to-54. The series premiere drew 4.5 million total viewers and 2.5 million in both 18-to-49 and 25-to-54 when factoring in Live+7 figures. The series held up well in its second airing, jumping 6 percent among the 25-to-54 set against increased competition in its 10 p.m. Monday slot.
The second season again will feature 10 episodes and come from showrunners Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin, who use Psycho as a inspiration to help tell the story of Norman Bates' (Freddie Highmore) formative years growing up with his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga).
Bates Motel has garnered critical acclaim and a loyal audience in its first few weeks,” A&E president and GM Bob DeBitetto said in announcing the pickup Monday. "With superb writing and exceptional acting, led by the critically acclaimed performances of Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore, we’re incredibly excited to see where Carlton and Kerry take Norma and Norman Bates next.”
The series marks A&E's latest push into original scripted programming and joins a roster that also includes Longmire, which last year was renewed for a second season. A&E also has the pilots Occult, with Josh Lucas, and Those Who Kill, starring Chloe Sevigny, in the works.

MAN OF STEEL
The very first TV spot for Zack Snyder's upcoming Man of Steel is now online.
Flying into 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on June 14, the comic book action adventure stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff.
In the film, a young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

I, FRANKENSTEIN
Lionsgate has just announced that Hopscotch Features/Lakeshore Entertainment's comic book adaptation I, Frankenstein has moved from September 13 of this year to January 24, 2014.
"The film's franchise potential, given its large scale premise, setting and creative elements are perfectly aligned with the 3D experience and the studio wants to put forth the best version of the film possible to audiences," says an official press release.
Set in a dystopic present where vigilant gargoyles and ferocious demons rage in a battle for ultimate power, Victor Frankenstein's creation Adam (Aaron Eckhart) finds himself caught in the middle as both sides race to discover the secret to his immortality. From the creators of the hit supernatural saga, Underworld, comes an action thriller written for the screen and directed by Stuart Beattie based on the graphic novel "I, Frankenstein" by Kevin Grievous.
I, Frankenstein also stars Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski, Miranda Otto, Jai Courtney, Socratis Otto, Mahesh Jadu, Caitlin Stasey and Aden Young as Victor Frankenstein.

MONDAY, APRIL 8, 2013

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
The modestly budgeted remake of Sam Raimi's 1981 cult horror pic Evil Dead earned a better-than-expected $26 million in its domestic bow for a No. 1 finish. Overseas, the pic took in $4.5 million from its first 21 markets for a worldwide debut of $30.5 million.
Evil Dead, from Sony/TriStar, FilmDistrict and Raimi's Ghost House Pictures, earned a C+ CinemaScore in North America. Usually that would be problematic but horror films often receive a middling grade. The remake, appealing heavily to males (56 percent), cost $17 million to produce.
It is the fourth Evil Dead title and the first not to be directed by Raimi, who personally tapped Fede Alvarez to direct the reboot, which follows five friends who awaken a demonic presence while visiting a cabin in rural Massachusetts. The film's strong performance marks another victory for Sony/TriStar after The Call.
"Fede did an amazing job remaking this film," Sony president of domestic marekting Rory Bruer said. "When you think you've seen it all, they bring in something new. The movie really is scary."
Nostalgia invaded the box office all the way around.
Universal's 3D rerelease of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park also turned in a pleasing performance, coming in No. 4 domestically with $18.2 million, one of the top openings for a 3D redo (as a way of comparison, Titanic 3D opened to $17.3 million domestically). Overseas, Jurassic Park grossed $3 million from seven territories for a total opening of $21.2 million.
The 3D rerelease generated record-breaking returns for IMAX, which delivered $6 million in ticket sales -- or 32 percent of the total gross, the biggest share ever for the large-format circuit.
Universal opens the 3D rerelease of Jurassic Park 20 years after the original dinosaur movie debuted and is using the pic to prime audiences for Jurassic Park IV, which rolls out in June 2014 (Spielberg is producing but not directing). Hollywood has had a mixed track record with 3D rereleases and will be watching closely to see how Jurassic Park performs over the course of its short run (the Blu-Ray/DVD comes out in two weeks).
The Croods and G.I. Joe: Retaliation claimed the No. 2 and No. 3 spots on the North American box office chart, although the precise order won't be determined until Monday morning, since both films are estimating a $21.1 million weekend.
Croods, from DreamWorks Animation and Fox, jumped the $300 million mark globally over the weekend, becoming only the second title of 2013 to do so after Oz the Great and Powerful. Croods grossed $34.1 million internationally from 62 markets for a foreign total of $206.8 million. The 3D toon has now earned $125.8 domestically for a global cume of $332.6 million.
G.I. Joe raced past the $200 million mark in its second weekend of play at the global box office. The action pic, from Paramount, MGM and Skydance, boasts a domestic total of $86.7 million, while it earned $40.2 million internationally from 60 countries for a foreign total of $145.2 million and global haul of $231.9 million.
The action pic easily topped the foreign box office, followed by Croods.
Internationally, G.I. Joe is already on the verge of eclipsing the $150 million earned by G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra in its entire run.
At the specialty box office, Robert Redford's political drama The Company You Keep debuted to a solid $146,058 from five theaters for a location average of $29,212. Redford both directed and stars in the film, opposite Shia LaBeouf, Stanley Tucci and Anna Kendrick.
Financed and produced by Voltage Pictures, Company You Keep is being released in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics. In the film, Redford plays a former member of the Weather Underground who has been hiding for three decades, but whose identity is now in danger of being revealed.
Focus Features' A Place Beyond the Pines, starring Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, rose up the domestic chart to No. 14 as it expanded into a total of 30 theaters in its second weekend, grossing $695,041 for a total $886,459 and location average of $23,168.
Among other openers, Danny Boyle's British thriller Trance grossed a solid $136,103 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles for a location average of $34,206.
Shane Carruth's Upstream Color nabbed the top location average of the weekend as it opened on one screen at the IFC Center, grossing $31,500.
Below are the top 10 estimates for the April 5-7 weekend at the domestic box office.
Title, weeks in release/theater count, studio, three-day weekend total, cume
1. Evil Dead, 1/3,025, Sony/TriStar/FilmDistrict, $26 million
2. The Croods, 2/4,046, Fox/DreamWorks Animation, $21.1 million, $125.8 million
3. G.I. Joe: Retaliation, 1/3,719, Paramount/MGM/Skydance, $21.1 million, $86.7 million
4. Jurassic Park, 1/2,771, Universal, $18.2 million
5. Olympus Has Fallen, 3/3,059, Lionsgate/Millennium, $10.04 million, $71.1 million
6. Tyler Perry's Temptation, 2/2,047, Lionsgate, $10 million, $38.4 million
7. Oz the Great and Powerful, 5/2,905, Disney, $8.2 million, $212.8 million
8. The Host, 2/3,202, Open Road Films, $5.2 million, $19.7 million
9. The Call, 4/2,002, Sony/TriStar, $3.5 million, $45.5 million
10. Admission, 3/1,407, Focus Features, $2.1 million, $15.4 million

OBLIVION
Universal Pictures has released this new featurette on director Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion which talks about the filming at Earl Peak. Opening in theaters and IMAX on April 19, the film stars Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Melissa Leo.
On a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition, one man's confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind.
Jack Harper (Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack's mission is nearly complete.
Living in and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.

STAR TREK RE-ENACTMENT
I posted this video over on my Facebook page at The Zocalo Today but for those who don't do Facebook, you have just got to watch this video. It is awesome! The upcoming video game looks pretty good as well. Enjoy!

SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 2013

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
The remake of Sam Raimi's 1981 cult horror pic Evil Dead easily won the Friday box office race with $11.9 million for an expected weekend gross of $27 million.
Nostalgia invaded the box office all the way around. The 3D rerelease of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park also did better than expected, landing at No. 2 with $7 million. That puts the redo on course for weekend earnings of $18.5 million.
The Croods and G.I. Joe: Retaliation are both expected to overtake Jurassic Park as the weekend gets fully underway. Croods should place No. 2 with a weekend gross in the $21 million to $22 million range, while G.I. Joe is projected to take in $20 million.
Evil Dead, from Sony/TriStar, FilmDistrict and Raimi's Ghost House Pictures, earned a C+ CinemaScore. Usually that would be problematic but horror films often receive a middling grade. It is the fourth Evil Dead title and the first not to be directed by Raimi, who personally tapped Fede Alvarez to direct the reboot, which follows five friends who awaken a demonic presence while visiting a cabin in rural Massachusetts. The pic also opens this weekend in 19 foreign markets.
Universal opens the 3D rerelease of Jurassic Park 20 years after the original dinosaur movie debuted and is using the pic to prime audiences for Jurassic Park IV, which rolls out in June 2014 (Spielberg is producing but not directing). Hollywood has had a mixed track record with 3D rereleases and will be watching closely to see how Jurassic Park performs.
G.I. Joe, from Paramount, MGM and Skydance, placed No. 3 on Friday for a domestic total of $72 million.
DreamWorks Animation and Fox's Croods came in No. 4 with $6 million, pushing its domestic cume to $110.7 million. The family film is anticipating a sizeable bump on Saturday.
Lionsgate and Tyler Perry's sultry thriller Temptation came in No. 5 on its second Friday with $3.4 million for an eight-day total of $31.7 million.

GODZILLA
Warner Bros. Pictures has been filming Godzilla at Golden Ears Provincial Park in British Columbia, Canada and a new video of the production is online.
Directed by Gareth Edwards, the May 16, 2014 release stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairn, Bryan Cranston and Sally Hawkins.
A presentation of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures, Godzilla will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, except in Japan, where it will be distributed by Toho Co., Ltd. Legendary Pictures is a division of Legendary Entertainment.

SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 2013

S.H.I.E.L.D.
A familiar face from the Whedonverse is joining the cast of ABC's pilot "S.H.I.E.L.D."
J. August Richards, who starred on "Angel," is reteaming with Joss Whedon on the show, about the organization that provides support for the Avengers and occasionally has to save the world on its own. His casting was first reported by SHIELDtv.net and later confirmed by other outlets.
No details about Richards' role are available.
Whedon is directing the pilot and co-writing it with his brother Jed and Jed's wife, Maurissa Tancharoen ("Dollhouse"). Or rather, Whedon directed the pilot -- it was on an earlier production schedule than most pilots and wrapped filming in mid-February.
That would mean either that Whedon will shoot some extra scenes for the pilot featuring Richards ... or that ABC has signaled that it's OK to begin planning for a series pickup. To be clear, the network has not made any kind of announcement about a pickup yet -- ABC reveals its lineup for 2013-14 at its upfront presentation in May.
In January, ABC Entertainment president Paul Lee said he's "very hopeful" the pilot will go to series, but at the time he hadn't seen anything beyond a script.
Richards' post-"Angel" credits include "Conviction," "Raising the Bar" and recent guest roles on "Warehouse 13" and "Emily Owens, M.D.".

IRON MAN 3
Marvel Studios has dropped an exclusive new trailer for Iron Man 3. The sequel pits the hero against his biggest enemy yet -- the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). Without the assistance of the Avengers, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has to depend on his brain as well as his brawn.
The Mandarin is a terrorist whose sole purpose is to destroy Iron Man. He hits Tony where it hurts and breaks him down mentally and physically. Following the events of The Avengers, Tony's not in the best state. He's a changed man. Will that help or hinder his chances of survival?
Here's the official synopsis:
Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?
hits theaters May 3.

PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS
Twentieth Century Fox has moved up the release date for Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters a week-and-a-half from Friday, August 16 to Wednesday, August 7. This change puts the release date just five days after 2 Guns and 300: Rise of an Empire and only two days before Disney's Planes, Elysium and We're the Millers.
Directed by Thor Freudenthal, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters stars Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Douglas Smith, Mary Birdsong, Yvette Nicole Brown, Missi Pyle, Nathan Fillion, Anthony Head, Paloma Kwiatkowski, Leven Rambin, Stanley Tucci, Robert Maillet and Zoe Aggeliki.
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters continues the young demigod's epic journey to fulfill his destiny. To save their world, Percy and his friends must find the fabled and magical Golden Fleece. Embarking on a treacherous odyssey into the uncharted waters of the Sea of Monsters (known to humans as the Bermuda Triangle), they battle terrifying creatures, an army of zombies, and the ultimate Evil.

FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

IRON MAN 3
Some new footage from Iron Man 3 has been released, showing off the Mandarin’s army as he preps for war with Tony Stark.
Marvel is getting pretty good at slipping out bits of new footage with each trailer, and the latest shows off more of the Mandarin’s (Ben Kingsley) efforts to rally his forces and prepare an attack on Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.). These enemy soldiers definitely look like they mean business.
We also get to see some excellent new fight scenes, with Stark only sporting portions of his armor but still kicking an extreme amount of ass. Director Shane Black has hinted we’ll get to see a lot of Stark (as opposed to his suited alter ego) in this film, and he seems to be striking a great balance to that effect.
The sequel stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau and Ben Kingsley.
Iron Man 3 opens May 3.

OBLIVION
Go inside a spaceship crash and a creepy, abandoned building in new clips from Tom Cruise’s sci-fi epic Oblivion.
The studio has released four new clips from the unique post-apocalypse flick, showing Jack Harper’s (Tom Cruise) investigation into the mysteries that remain after humanity has abandoned the planet. The unique visual style that director Joseph Kosinski has put together is definitely on display here, and the big FX set pieces look stellar.
Here’s the synopsis:
Tom Cruise stars in Oblivion, an original and groundbreaking cinematic event from the director of TRON: Legacy and the producer of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition, one man’s confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind.
Jack Harper (Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack’s mission is nearly complete. Living and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.
Oblivion opens April 19.

THE BLACK HOLE
Disney’s reinvention of its 1979 sci-fi movie The Black Hole is getting a new engine.
Prometheus co-writer Jon Spaihts has been hired to kickstart the project, which has Joe Kosinski -- the filmmaker behind the upcoming Tom Cruise sci-fi pic Oblivion -- attached to direct.
Justin Springer, who produced Kosinski’s feature debut Tron: Legacy, is producing Black Hole.
Black Hole was the most expensive movie Disney ever made when it was released in 1979 with a cast that included Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, and Ernest Borgnine.
The original followed a group of space explorers aboard the USS Palomino who come across a lost ship, the USS Cygnus, hovering outside a black hole. Inside the Cygnus, the explorers meet a scientist commanding an army of faceless robots, who explains that his crew deserted him as he planned to go through the black hole. The explorers soon discover that the robots are the remnants of the former crew and that the scientist has no intention of letting them leave.
Disney put the remake into development in 2009. Travis Beacham was writing the script at the time, and Kosinski was working on the project while prepping the Tron reboot.
Among the signature pieces of the original movie were a threatening red robot named Maximillian as well as two kindlier robots named V.I.N.CENT and B.O.B.
It is unknown if those characters will return, but the new take, which restarts the project, has been described as being big idea -- philosophical and somewhat dark in tone.
Spaihts also wrote the screenplay for The Darkest Hour, an alien-invasion thriller produced by Timur Bekmambetov and is writing a script for Universal’s reboot of The Mummy.
He is repped by Paradigm, Circle of Confusion and Stone Meyer.

CRIMSON PEAK
Benedict Cumberbatch is joining Emma Stone and Charlie Hunnam in Guillermo del Toro’s haunted house thriller Crimson Peak.
Legendary Pictures is behind the movie, which has a February 2014 start.
The gothic horror story centers on a woman who discovers that her husband may not be whom he appears to be.
Details on who is playing whom were not revealed.
Del Toro wrote the script with Matthew Robbins; Lucinda Coxon recently did a rewrite.
Cumberbatch is proving to be in great demand thanks largely to his stellar and acclaimed work in Sherlock, which has caught the eyes of filmmakers Stateside, leading to several high-profile gigs. He stars as the villain in next month’s Star Trek Into Darkness and is currently filming The Fifth Estate, DreamWorks’ Wikileaks movie in which he is portraying Julian Assange.

ARROW
The CW's Arrow will be taking a brief hiatus for three weeks and its next episode will premiere on April 24. Titled "Home Invasion," the episode appears to contain the confrontation between Deadshot and Diggle that we learned about back in January. A plot description hasn't been revealed for the episode yet, but check back here for that and photos in the coming days.
Arrow airs on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

JURASSIC PARK
We don't know very much about what to expect in the upcoming Jurassic Park 4, but one thing we can guarantee is Velociraptors and a T-Rex or two. A new feature in USA Today, however, teased that a brand new set of teeth will be appearing in the film as well.
"I can't actually tell you who that will be," said paleontologist Jack Horner, who served as technical advisor for the previous Jurassic Park films and will consult on the new film. "But you'll want to keep the lights on after you see this movie."
The Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment production will be produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley with Steven Spielberg as Executive Producer. The script was written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (Rise of the Planet of the Apes). Safety Not Guaranteed's Colin Trevorrow will direct the movie, which is planning a June 13, 2014 release date.

THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2013

JMS SIGNING ON SATURDAY - TEN GRAND #1 COPIES
At C2E2 Saturday 4/27 at 4:30 Ben and I will be at Joe's Comics table signing and giving away 500 convention variant copies of Ten Grand #1. That's Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2). For more information, go to http://www.c2e2.com.

LEVEL 1313
Been looking forward to that really cool, Blade Runner-ish Star Wars game that’s been in development for a while now? Well, we have some bad news.
As was rumored for a while now, Disney has officially pulled the plug on LucasArts. The long-running game developer has been responsible for many recent Star Wars games, as well as some fun '80s and '90s classics (The Secret of Monkey Island!).
The company will now transition from an active developer to a “licensing model,” which will essentially farm out development of Star Wars games to other companies. Though it’s sad to see the studio close, the real impact for gamers today is that it further jeopardizes the fate of Star Wars 1313, an epic new adventure game that looked to be one of the coolest Star Wars games we’ve seen in ages.
Disney is cagey on exactly what the closure will mean for the project, but a Mouse House representative told Game Informer that 1313 could live on if they’re able to find a new publisher willing to take a chance on it:
“It is worth noting that we are looking for proven external partners who can help us provide video games to our fans. We still believe in the video game industry, we still will provide Star Wars games, we’re just looking at different models rather than internal production… They’re evaluating everything. There’s always a possibility that it [Star Wars 1313] can still come out via licensing.”
The game has been in development for a while now (heck, it’s been eight months since we saw the first trailer), so the longer it languishes the longer the odds it will ever see the light of day.
Prognosis: Not good, but not dead yet.

HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE
After months of leaked set pics and weird character posters, we finally have our first real look at The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
The first official trailer is set to debut Sunday, April 14, during the MTV Movie Awards, but the network has been kind enough to drop a teaser that shows off the first actual footage from the eagerly anticipated sequel.
We get a peek at Katniss’ (Jennifer Lawrence) intro as the reigning champ, and our first glimpse at the visual style we can expect from new director Francis Lawrence. How does it look? Classy, which is a good thing.
After The Hunger Games blew up the box office, Catching Fire should be one of the most anticipated flicks of 2013. It captures the perfect zeitgeist of sci-fi, dystopia and pretty young people. If the sequel is half as fun as the first film, it should do fine.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Zoe Saldana is kinda dominating the sci-fi and comic book genres. Over the past four years, she's appeared in Avatar, Star Trek and The Losers. Now she's adding another title to that list: Guardians of the Galaxy. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Saldana is in negotiations to play the film's female lead opposite Chris Pratt and Dave Bautista.
If everything goes smoothly, Saldana will star as "Gamora, the green-skinned humanoid who is the last of a species that was exterminated by a race known as the Badoon. She also happens to be a skilled assassin." Saldana will be the third major addition to the cast following Pratt's Star-Lord and Bautista's Drax the Destroyer.
The Guardians are almost complete. The team also includes a character called Groot, who's been described as a giant tree-like creature. There's also Rocket Racoon, a genetically modified animal that's highly intelligent and knows its way around weapons.
Guardians of the Galaxy is directed by James Gunn and hits theaters Aug. 1, 2014.

THE WALKING DEAD
In a case of "this is kind of obvious," reports are coming in that Chad L. Coleman and Sonequa Martin-Green have been elevated to series regulars as Tyreese and Sasha in the fourth season of "The Walking Dead."
The two entered season three rather late in the game, but now that they're on Rick's side, yes, we're going to be seeing a lot more of them. Oh, and one other character, too.
TVLine reports that Emily Kinney, who plays Beth, has been promoted to "series regular" status as well. That's Hershel's daughter, if you lost track.
The cast and crew of "The Walking Dead" are set to return to Atlanta, Georgia on Monday, May 6th to begin production on season four, which will premiere in October with 16 episodes.

CARRIE
Screen Gems and MGM will be debuting the full trailer for the upcoming Carrie tomorrow, but Entertainment Tonight has a 15-second preview available now.
Directed by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry, Stop-Loss), the film stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Alex Russell, Gabriella Wilde, Ansel Elgort and Julianne Moore.
The movie is a reimagining of the classic horror tale about Carrie White (Moretz), a shy girl outcast by her peers and sheltered by her deeply religious mother (Moore), who unleashes telekinetic terror on her small town after being pushed too far at her senior prom. Carrie is based on the best-selling novel by Stephen King.
Carrie hits theaters on October 18.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013

THE CONJURING
James Wan delights in scaring the bejesus out of us, and he's perfecting his craft with each new supernatural project. He's been on a roll since directing the first jagged installment of Saw and the deliciously creepy Insidious. The Conjuring is his latest grim ghost affair, branded with an MPAA "R" rating due to its stratospheric fright factor.
In this terrifying trailer, Wan produces an interesting array of disturbing tricks from his maniacal magic hat. It's based on an actual case from The Amityvile Horror's real-life husband-and-wife ghostbusting team, the Warrens, and appears to raise the boogeyman bar for this season's horror offerings.
Here's the official synopsis:
Before there was Amityville, there was Harrisville. Based on a true story, The Conjuring tells the horrifying tale of how world-renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren were called upon to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in a secluded farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful demonic entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives.
The Conjuring appears in theaters on July 19, 2013, and stars Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ron Livingston, Lili Taylor, Joey King, Shanley Caswell, Haley McFarland, Mackenzie Foy and Kyla Deaver.

DEFIANCE TRAILER
The action-packed tie-in game for Syfy's new series Defiance is finally here!
After months of anticipation, the online 3rd person shooter from Trion Worlds (makers of Rift) is available today for PC, PS3 and XBox 360. Set in a future Earth that's been radically altered by alien conflicts and terraforming, you play as an "Ark Hunter," tasked with tracking down alien technology from "Arkfalls," pieces of a destroyed alien fleet that periodically fall to the surface. You can choose to play as either a human or an alien, fight alone or with a group of other players, choose from a wide variety of weapons and modify them with alien tech, and travel the game's open world with a range of vehicles. As you play, events in the game will impact the Defiance TV series, and events in the TV series will impact the game, for a tie-in experience unlike any other.
Defiance the series premieres April 15th at 9/8C on Syfy.

VERONICA MARS
Rob Thomas' massively successful, Kickstarter-financed Veronica Mars feature film has officially added Jason Dohring to the cast. He'll reprise his role as Logan Echolls.
"Jason Dohring is officially on board for the Veronica Mars movie," Rob Thomas updates. "We now have three actors officially cast. Veronica. Logan and the waiter who says, 'Your check, sir.'"
The series starred Kristen Bell as the titular Mars, a young student who, growing up with a detective for a father, moonlit as a private investigator. The series ran for three seasons, transitioning Mars from high school to college.
Having already broken several records, the Veronica Mars funding campaign is now attempting to become the single largest Kickstarter in history. Want to contribute? Go to .

BIG EYES
Tim Burton has set "Big Eyes" as his next directorial effort.
Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams will star in the project about Margaret and Walter Keane, the artists whose paintings of large eyed children became one of the first mass marketed art sensations in the 50s and 60s.
Walter was the marketing genius and a full fledged celebrity. His shy wife, however, was the actual artist and when they split she tried to get what was due to her.
They ended up in court where a judge provided them with two easels and ordered them to prove it. His reputation crashed overnight as he begged off the order saying his arm hurt, whereas she created one of the trademark big-eyed works.
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski ("Ed Wood," "The People Vs. Larry Flynt") penned the script and will produce with Burton and Lynette Howell. The Weinstein Company is closing a deal to fund and distribute the film which will shoot this summer.

THE SAINT
The first promo trailer is out for "The Saint," the new TV series reboot of the classic property which stars Adam Rayner plays gentleman thief Simon Templar, along with Eliza Dushku, James Remar, Enrique Murciano and Thomas Kretschmann.
MPCA produced the series which will be shopped to networks following a screening at this year's MIPTV Media Market in Cannes.

TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 2013

DOCTOR WHO
The first read-through for the hourlong Doctor Who 50th-anniversary special just finished, and we've got the photographic evidence to prove it.
If you've been as excited as we have since the Beeb finally confirmed that, yes, David Tennant (and Billie Piper!) would be returning for Who's 50th extravanganza, then this picture might just crest you beyond elated to full-on manic, insane and jumping up and down with joy. S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Marvel universe is headed to the small screen this fall, and one of the most intriguing aspects of Joss Whedon’s S.H.I.E.L.D. series is that it will bring beloved agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) back to life.
As most fans know, the longtime agent (apparently) met his untimely demise at the hand of Loki in The Avengers, which inspired the team to come together and face off with the invading alien army. But then once the proposed ABC series came together, we learned that Gregg would be front and center, which set fans frothing at the mouth to find out how Coulson lives.
Gregg didn’t spill the exact details, but did tease how long fans will have to wait to learn how Coulson survived the seemingly fatal stabbing by Loki. Plus, he reveals the conversation he had with Whedon when he first learned they were bringing Coulson back to life.
Here’s an excerpt from his interview with Collider:
“I’ve been so happy and living this geek fantasy as they kept adding Agent Coulson to everything including The Avengers and then gave him this magnificent, almost Shakespearean death scene, and I found out on that day how much I loved this guy and had come to identify with him partly because of the way fans responded to him, and also because he had such a great niche in those movies. He got to be funny, he got to be, in this case, heroic. And then I got to say good-bye to him, and it was a very emotional day. And yet I feel what Joss did with that was a fantastic conclusion of the character.
And even though my friends at Marvel said, ‘You know, we spent a lot of time talking about how Coulson lives, and we know that there’s a movement out there, and there are t-shirts and people paint on bridges ‘Coulson Lives’, we’re going to bring you back’, and it’s one of the many things people tell you that never ever happens. And then I get this call from Joss saying, ‘Well…there’s a script. And here’s what we’re thinking, and it’s after The Avengers, and here’s the concept.’ By the time Joss finished telling me, I was in ... After people see the show, they’ll have some clue as to why I’m still there, still breathing. But I don’t think they’ll know everything.”
Though ABC is keeping mum on the S.H.I.E.L.D. series, it’s expected to debut at some point this fall.

UNDER THE DOME
CBS has released a sneak peek at its upcoming series Under the Dome. Based on the novel by Stephen King, who also serves as executive producer, the show explores what happens when a group of people are cut off from society. Under the Dome takes place in a town called Chester’s Mill, which is trapped underneath a massive barrier. No one can come in, and no one can go out.
According to actress Britt Robertson, who plays Angie McAlister, "Two thousand people secluded. It just gets pretty scary very quickly." In the promo we see blood-soaked hands and a body being dumped into a grave. The isolation must be making everyone a little stir-crazy.
Under the Dome also stars Mike Vogel (Bates Motel) as Dale "Barbie" Barbara, former Twilight star Rachelle Lefevre as Julia Shumway and Supernatural's Colin Ford as Joe. The series will run for 13 episodes and is slated to premiere in June.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
The new teaser for the red hot JJ Abrams sequel – starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Chris Pine – will air during Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway this evening.
ACTION-PACKED trailer starring Chris Pine as James Kirk to be revealed during Ant and Dec show.
The explosive new movie – which also star Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, Zachery Quinto and Alice Eve – sees the crew of the Enterprise called home to find an insider from within their own organization has destroyed the fleet.
With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction.
Star Trek Into Darkness is released on May 17, 2013.

IRON MAN 3
Walt Disney Pictures and Marvel Studios have debuted a new TV spot for Iron Man 3 in which Tony Stark has a little greeting for the Mandarin.
Hitting 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on May 3, the Shane Black-directed action adventure stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau, Ben Kingsley and Wang Xuequi.
The film pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES
Sony Pictures' Screen Gems has released a new trailer for their upcoming The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, based on the popular fantasy book series by Cassandra Clare.
Set in contemporary New York City, a seemingly ordinary teenager, Clary Fray (Lily Collins), discovers she is the descendant of a line of Shadowhunters, a secret cadre of young half-angel warriors locked in an ancient battle to protect our world from demons. After the disappearance of her mother (Lena Headey), Clary must join forces with a group of Shadowhunters, who introduce her to a dangerous alternate New York called Downworld, filled with demons, warlocks, vampires, werewolves and other deadly creatures.
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is set to hit theaters August 23.

APRIL 1, 2013

THE WALKING DEAD
"The Walking Dead" will still have the Governor to contend with next season, and David Morrissey is set to return as a full-time regular. [SPOILERS AHEAD.]
The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that although Morrissey initially signed a single season contract for the "Dead" role, he has been set to return for Season 4. Not knowing in advance whether or not Morrissey would return made the bloody Season 3 finale all the more suspenseful for fans.
The decision to keep the Governor alive after he led Woodbury into battle with Rick Grimes' gang at the prison represents another significant storyline departure from the Robert Kirkman comic books. But just because the Governor survived this fight, doesn't mean his days aren't numbered.
Shocking deaths have become a regular occurrence for the series (so regular it's debatable whether or not they even qualify as "shocking"). During Season 3, "The Walking Dead" killed off characters played by full-time cast members Sarah Wayne Callies, Michael Rooker and Laurie Holden, plus recurring players IronE Singleton and Dallas Roberts.

DOCTOR WHO NEWS
From out of the time vortex come MAJOR SPOILERS!
The official Doctor Who Magazine just made a huge error. Due to the holiday weekend, they sent out their magazine early. What was inside? THIS!
Yes, we can now confirm that two of the biggest names in Doctor Who history, David Tennant and Billie Piper, will be back for the show's 50th anniversary. And the choice of actors is extremely telling. Clearly this means we'll be seeing what happened with Rose and the Doctor Donna, Ten Two, or however you want to refer to the Doctor's half-human clone.
This is HUGE! But does it mean that this is the only reunion we're getting? Or is there more news to come? Stay tuned!

TRUE BLOOD
Yes, Game of Thrones started this Sunday, but what we really want to know now is just when the sixth season of True Blood will make its bloody return to our TV screens, right?
Well, HBO has revealed just when we’ll return to Bon Temps and get to see what’s happening next with our fave faerie-telepathic waitress, Sookie (Anna Paquin), hunky Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) and newly minted Vampire-God Bill (Stephen Moyer), as well as a score more beloved characters.
And the date is ... June 16!
We’re thrilled to know when we’ll finally get to sink our teeth into season six.
The great news follows in the wake of the real-life drama that arose from the abrupt departure of Alan Ball's showrunner replacement Mark Hudis (in the midst of shooting season six, no less), who was promptly replaced by writer-producer Brian Buckner; plus the release of some pretty cool pics of new guest stars, sci-fi god Rutger Hauer as Macklyn and new resident hunk Rob Kazinsky as Sookie's new faerie boytoy beau Ben.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Jon M. Chu's G.I. Joe: Retaliation opened to a pleasing $132 million at the worldwide box office, one of the best showings ever for the Easter holiday and marking the top international debut of the year so far.
G.I. Joe took in $80.3 million overseas and $51.7 million domestically, including $41.2 million for the weekend proper, the second-best domestic Easter gross behind the 2010 Clash of the Titans ($61.2 million).
Internationally, G.I. Joe opened 10 percent ahead of Oz the Great and Powerful, which debuted earlier this month to $69.9 million.
In North America, Paramount opened the action bonanza -- headlining franchise newcomers Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis -- on Thursday to get a jump on the holiday weekend. The sequel, earning an A- CinemaScore, came much closer than expected to matching the $54.7 million bow of G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, which opened in early August 2009. Males turned out in force, making up 68 percent of the audience.
Overseas, the sequel is doing double the business that Cobra did (that film opened to $92 million globally). It's doing especially well in Russia ($11 million), Latin America and Asia, where 3D remains a popular format. IMAX theaters generated $7 million of the total global gross.
The successful opening of G.I. Joe vindicates Paramount for deciding to push back the film's release from summer 2012 in order to convert it to 3D and refashion Channing Tatum's role so that the actor has more scenes.
"Clearly this was a movie that felt like it should be in 3D, so Jon Chu went back and did an excellent job in making that happen," said Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore. "Certain parts of the story also needed to be massaged, and Adam Goodman and his team worked with Jon to get it to a great place."
Paramount financed and produced the film with MGM and Skydance Productions in association with Hasbro. Producers are Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Brian Goldner.
The studio says it minimized its risk overall by keeping G.I. Joe's budget to roughly $130 million; Cobra cost at least $175 million. Paramount put up half the money for the sequel, while MGM and David Ellison's Skydance each put up a 25 percent share. Stereo D covered the cost of the 3D conversion and will get a percentage of the 3D grosses.
Animated event pic The Croods, from DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox, jumped the $200 million mark in its second weekend. The family pic came in No. 2 domestically, grossing $26.5 million for a 10-day cume of $88.6 million. Overseas, Croods took in $52.5 million for a worldwide total of $229.1 million.
Opening on Good Friday in North America were writer-director Tyler Perry's sultry thriller Temptation -- a marked departure from the filmmaker's comedic fare -- and director Andrew Niccol's sci-fi thriller The Host, adapted from Twilight author Stephenie Meyer's novel.
From Lionsgate, Temptation opened to a pleasing $22.3 million to place No. 3. Women fueled the film's performance, with females making up 70 percent of the audience and moviegoers over the age of 25 making up 79 percent of those buying tickets.
Receiving an A- CinemaScore, Temptation stars Jurnee Smollett-Bell (Friday Night Lights) as a restless marriage counselor who begins a dangerous affair with a social media mogul (Robbie Jones). Lance Gross, Kim Kardashian, Vanessa Williams also star.
"There's no fatigue at all for Tyler Perry," Lionsgate executive vice president of distribution David Spitz said.
Lionsgate targeted women and African-Americans in marketing the film. The studio also took advantage of Kardashian's celebrity profile.
It is the fourth Perry film that Lionsgate has released over Easter weekend.
The Host, starring Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons and Jake Abel, opened to a so-so $11 million. Coming in No. 6, the film received an B- CinemaScore.
Open Road Films is distributing the film on behalf of producers Nick Wechsler, Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz and Inferno Entertainment. Meyer also is a producer and has tirelessly promoted the project, which marks her first post-Twilight outing.
Set in a society where parasitic aliens known as "Souls" inhabit humans, The Host is appealing primarily to females (Meyer's fan base). The story follows a "Soul" who finds it impossible to entirely banish the human girl she inhabits.
Among holdovers, White House pic Olympus Has Fallen came in No. 4 in its second frame, grossing $14 million for a domestic total of $54.7 million for FilmDistrict and Millennium.
Disney's Oz the Great and Powerful jumped the $400 million in its fourth weekend of play at the global box office. The tentpole, placing No. 5 in North America, has now earned $198.3 million domestically and $214 million internationally for a total $412.3 million, by far the best showing of 2013 to date.
Harmony Korine's dark indie comedy Spring Breakers placed No. 9, grossing $2.8 million for a domestic total of $10.1 million for A24 Films.
Derek Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines, starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes, made headlines at the specialty box office. Opening in four theaters, the Focus Features film grossed $270,184 for a location average of $67,546, easily the best average of Easter weekend and the second best of the year so far after Spring Breakers.
"We're thrilled," said Focus distribution chief Jack Foley, who reported sold out shows in theaters such as the Landmark in West Los Angeles.
The film's strong domestic launch should help its overseas run. Sidney Kimmel financed and produced the film, with Sierra/Affinity handling international sales.
Filmmaker Rodney Ascher's documentary Room 237, examining the various theories about the hidden messages in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining opened on two screens in New York, grossing $36,000 for a location average of $36,000. From IFC Films, the doc opens in Los Angeles and other major markets next weekend.
Below are the top 10 estimates for the March 29-31 weekend at the domestic box office.
Title, weeks in release/theater count, studio, three-day weekend total, cume
1. G.I. Joe: Retaliation, 1/3,719, Paramount/MGM/Skydance, $41.2 million, $51.7 million
2. The Croods, 2/4,046, Fox/DreamWorks Animation, $26.5 million, $88.6 million
3. Tyler Perry's Temptation, 1/2,047, Lionsgate, $22.3 million
4. Olympus Has Fallen, 2/3,106, Lionsgate/Millennium, $14 million, $54.7 million
5. Oz the Great and Powerful, 4/3,324, Disney, $11.6 million, $198.3 million
6. The Host, 1/3,202, Open Road Films, $11 million
7. The Call, 3/2,439, Sony/TriStar, $4.8 million, $39.5 million
8. Admission, 2/2,161, Focus Features, $3.3 million, $11.8 million
9. Spring Breakers, 3/1,379, A24 Films, $2.8 million, $10.1 million
10. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, 3/1,575, Warner Bros./New Line, $1.3 million, $20.6 million

ARROW
Although executive producer Marc Guggenheim and his "Arrow" took to the WonderCon stage this afternoon in Anaheim, California, they were relatively tight-lipped as far spoilers go for the future of the series. Guggenheim did, however, let slip one big surprise for the 21st episode.
"Episode 21 is the first time we flashback to a point that wasn't on the island," he says. "We'll be flashing back to before the ill-fated boat trip."
He goes on to say that the flashbacks will allow for actor Colin Salmon to reprise his role as Oliver Queen's stepfather Walter Steele.
The panel also revealed a new sizzle reel, featuring footage from upcoming episodes.
Starring Stephen Amell, Willa Holland Katie Cassidy, Colin Donnell, David Ramsey, Susanna Thompson and Paul Blackthorne, "Arrow" airs on the CW Wednesday nights.

UNDER THE DOME
You'll find the text-heavy second teaser for Under the Dome, the upcoming CBS mini-series based on the novel by Stephen King.
This 13-part adaptatioon stars Chad Vogel, Dean Norris, Jolene Purdy, Nicholas Strong, Britt Robertson, Aisha Hinds, Alex Koch, Natalie Martinez and Colin Ford and concerns an invisible force field that descends upon the small town of Chester's Mill.
The first episode airs on June 24th.

SUNDAY, MARCH 31, 2013

DOCTOR WHO RECAP
"Doctor Who" is back and Clara Oswald is finally here to stay (at least as long as any companion is ever here to stay on "Doctor Who").
The midseason premiere episode "The Bells of Saint John" faced the tricky task of introducing Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara a third time -- following her debut as Oswin in "Asylum of the Daleks" and return as Clara in "The Snowmen." And Coleman still seems like a perfect fit for the role, but the hour couldn't help but suffer in comparison to those two more engaging, bigger canvas stories.
The central plot of "The Bells of Saint John" was a bit of a misfire despite an intriguing premise ("Suppose there was something living in the wi-fi harvesting human minds") and a couple of reliably delightful action set pieces (the Doctor landing the TARDIS aboard a crashing plane and waking up the pilots; and riding the motorcycle up the side of London skyscraper The Shard -- the kind of stunt Tom Cruise would kill for).
It was never quite clear how this wi-fi body snatching worked or what the purpose was, and the "Spoonhead" monsters were rather forgettable. Fortunately, the hour worked a lot better as an excuse to send the Doctor and Clara on an adventure, convince Clara that hanging out with this guy might be fun, and drop a few clues (or maybe red herrings) about what exactly is going on with "the woman twice dead."
Matt Smith has terrific chemistry with Coleman, and it's a fun change of pace to see a character who is a bit skeptical of the Doctor. I think it's easy for many Whovians to imagine jumping at the chance to take a trip in the TARDIS, but those without any previous knowledge of the Doctor might not be so easily seduced. And that's the fun of the Doctor/Clara relationship -- at least for now. He's desperate to uncover the mystery of who she is, and why he keeps running into her. He's the one who needs to convince her to come along, instead of the typical companion eager to convince the Doctor she's up to the task.
And then there were the tantalizing clues (Clara telling the Doctor she got his number from a woman in a shop and not recognizing the name "Oswin"; the numbers 16 and 23 missing from the ages the Doctor sees in Clara's book of 101 Places to See) and wink-wink references (the author of the book Clara's charge was reading? Amelia Williams -- that's Amy Pond, if you forgot her formal married name) that provided enough subtle pleasures to make up for the faulty main story.
Also, the final reveal of guest star Richard E. Grant as The Great Intelligence (the faceless terror behind the events of "The Snowmen," in which Grant played Dr. Simeon) suggested we may have found our Big Bad for the Doctor and Clara to defeat.

REVOLUTION
Following the show’s spring return last Monday, "Revolution" fans plugged into today’s WonderCon panel session featuring stars Billy Burke, Elizabeth Mitchell, Tracy Spiridakos, Zak Orth, David Lyons, Daniella Alonso and Tim Guinee, as well as co-executive producer David Rambo. Fans in attendance also got an advance look at footage from upcoming episodes, via an exclusive highlight reel prepared specifically for WonderCon. Check out the preview below!
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/wonderconnews.php?id=102175.

CITY OF BONES
Sony Pictures launched its WonderCon film presentation panels today with a look at the upcoming The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, based on the popular fantasy book series by Cassandra Clare.
Clare joined stars Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower and Kevin Zegers on stage to discuss the adaptation and revealed that she herself gets to cameo in one scene. Fans should be on the lookout for her wearing cat ears during Magnus Bane's (Godfrey Gao) party.
The panel saw the debut of the film's new trailer which plays heavily on the theme of worlds colliding, showing Clary's life before becoming aware of the Shadowhunters at a nightclub. There's also quite a bit of narration by Hodge Starkweather (Jared Harris), explaining some of the rules of the fantasy world.
The trailer includes a few scenes played for jokes, including one where an old friend of Clary's sees her in the street clad in her Shadowhunter gear. Even though she's surrounded by the rest of her team, the guy can't see them and remarks about how different she looks.
"The werewolves are here to save us," says one of the characters, pausing to consider his words, "I never thought I would say that."
As for the future of the franchise, Collins is eager to return for sequels.
"If you'll have me as Clary," she laughs, "I'm willing to be a redhead for awhile."
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones will hit theaters August 23. Check back soon for our exclusive WonderCon interview with Collins.

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

HEMLOCK GROVE
"Hemlock Grove" is making a gruesome splash on WonderCon weekend. In a video clip that premiered on IGN, Famke Janssen's character, Olivia Godfrey, looks on with frightening satisfaction as a handsome young man makes his slow and terrifying transformation into a werewolf. (Sorry the clip was age-restricted so I have not posted it.)
The show, which released its official poster earlier this month, uses the tagline, "The monster is within." And based on this preview, it's not just a saying. After the dude's eyeballs pop out on to the ground to be replaced by beady wolf eyes, and after claws protrude from what used to be his human hands, the face of the beast emerges straight from his face as bloody human teeth hit the ground in piles. It almost makes you forget about what just happened to the guy's back ... Almost.
The premise of "Hemlock Grove" -- brought to you by Eli Roth ("Grindhouse," "Hostel") and based on the novel by Brian McGreevy -- is a murder mystery surrounding the brutal death of 17-year-old Brooke Bluebell. The investigation into Brooke's murder uncovers a seamy side of the former Pennsylvania steel town, wherein every person -- and creature -- is a suspect. The show promises to be graphic, and if this teaser is any indication, Roth will deliver on the promise.
"Hemlock Grove" will air exclusively on Netflix. All 13 episodes of Season 1 become available April 19.

TRUE BLOOD
HBO has just announced when fans of "True Blood" can expect to get their fill of Southern-fried supernatural goodness this summer.
Season 6 of the cable hit will premiere on Sunday, June 16 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. This season, 10 episodes of will air, opposed to the usual 12-episode cycle, due to star Anna Paquin's pregnancy.
The upcoming season will see a slew of new faces in Bon Temps, including British actor Rob Kazinsky as a new love interest for Sookie and Rutger Hauer as Macklyn, "a mysterious and sinister figure with deep ties to Sookie and Jason." Additional actors joining the show include Jurnee Smollett-Bell ("Friday Night Lights"), Karolina Wydra and Luke Grimes ("Brothers & Sisters").

THE KILLING
AMC announced today that the critically acclaimed drama "The Killing" will return for its third season with a two-hour premiere on Sunday, June 2 at 8:00 p.m ET/PT. The new season, which stars Mireille Enos (Sarah Linden) and Joel Kinnaman (Stephen Holder) along with new cast members Peter Sarsgaard, Elias Koteas and Amy Seimetz, is executive produced by series creator Veena Sud, and will focus on a new case, which will be resolved over the course of ten episodes, ending with a gripping two-hour finale.
Season three begins one year after the close of the "Rosie Larsen" case (the focus of the series' first two seasons) with Sarah Linden (Enos) no longer working as a detective. But when her ex-partner Stephen Holder's (Kinnaman) search for a runaway girl leads him to discover a gruesome string of murders that connects to a previous murder investigation by Linden, she is drawn back into the life she thought she'd left behind.
"We learned so much from the first two seasons of 'The Killing' and are thrilled to be bringing it back with the elements that the fans loved," said Charlie Collier, president & general manager, AMC. "Veena's captivating storytelling along with the performances of Joel and Mireille, and the rest of the exemplary cast, will remind audiences of what they loved about the series and provide a season of suspenseful television."
Added David Madden, president of Fox Television Studios, "From the beginning, Veena Sud has invested 'The Killing' with some of the richest characters on television, testing and sometimes trampling the traditions of the television procedural - and we're indebted to AMC for the opportunity to present a third season. We're particularly excited by the new moves of our returning leads, 'Sarah' and 'Holder,' brought to life so beautifully by Mireille and Joel, as well as the addition to our stellar cast of Peter Sarsgaard in his television series debut, the brilliant Elias Koteas and Amy Seimetz, and a cluster of newcomers whom we hope will dazzle the audience as this new season unfolds."
Said executive producer and series creator Veena Sud, "I am grateful to AMC, Fox TV Studios and Netflix for their commitment to the show and their efforts in bringing 'The Killing' back to air. I'm also thrilled to be working with our incredible writing team as we continue to explore the lives of 'Sarah' and 'Holder,' who, like so many real-life detectives, grapple with the consequences to their own lives of a no-holds-barred immersion in the world of a homicide investigation."
"The Killing" is produced by Fox Television Studios and executive produced by Veena Sud, Mikkel Bondesen, for Fabrik Entertainment, Dawn Prestwich and Nicole Yorkin. Kristen Campo and Ron French serve as co-executive producers.
As previously announced by Fox Television Studios, which produces the series for AMC, and Netflix, "The Killing" season three will be available to Netflix members three months after the season finale airs on AMC.

FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013

WORLD WAR Z
If you’ve seen any of the trailers for Brad Pitt’s oft-delayed zombie epic World War Z, one thing probably stood out pretty quickly. The zombies function more like swarming ants, as opposed to the shambling undead. So why did they make the change?
Pitt chatted with Entertainment Weekly about why they switched to what many fans have called a pretty weird style of zombie, and said the change was made to differentiate World War Z from all the other zombie movies and TV shows out there.
Here’s his explanation, via Indiewire:
“The book focused on slow zombies. We chose to be more dynamic in that we wanted to base all of this on science. So it’s ‘What if we had them move like ants? Or a swarm of bees? Or birds or a school of fish that’s being chased?’ One of the first [questions] we asked was how to portray the zombies and how to do it differently because it’s been done so many times and been done pretty damn well.”
Well, they’ve definitely pinned down a very different look when compared to other zombie movies, though the jury is still out over whether that’s actually a good thing. The trailers are intriguing, but we’ll have to wait and see if those FX can stand up for a full two-hour movie.

DOCTOR WHO 50th ANNIVERSARY
The first casting news for Doctor Who’s upcoming 50th-anniversary special has been revealed!
The only downside is, it’s not any former Doctors, nor even former companions, but brand-new characters.
According to actor Ken Bones' CV—he was most recently seen in the BBC's revival of Upstairs Downstairs and will appear in Starz’s upcoming DaVinci’s Demons as well as the BBC's upcoming new fantasy series Atlantis—he is playing a character that is simply called the General.
A newcomer actor by the name of Orlando James (not to be confused with Orlando Jones) will play a character called Lord Bentham.
Also, and according to his agents, an actor by the name of Marshall Griffin has been cast on Doctor Who's upcoming big 5.0, but there’s no name for his character just yet.

ONCE: WONDERLAND
ABC's Once Upon a Time pilot presentation -- now called Once: Wonderland -- has cast its Alice.
English-born Australian actress Sophie Lowe has landed the Alice in Wonderland role in the network's Alice in Wonderland-themed spinoff, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Additionally, relative newcomer Peter Gadiot has been cast as Alice's mysterious love interest, Cyrus, in the project from Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz.
The duo joins Michael Socha, who was cast earlier Thursday as the Knave of Hearts.
The Once team -- including EPs Jane Espenson, Zero Hour's Zack Estrin and Steve Pearlman -- will shoot a short "teaser" presentation in April and, should it move to pilot, shoot that in late July or August.
Lowe's Alice is described as young but having lived a hard and long life and carrying those scars on her psyche.
Underneath it all, she has a generous heart that she tries to keep hidden. Gadiot's Cyrus, meanwhile, will play Alice's love interest with a background shrouded in mystery. Still to be cast are the mysterious Amahl and the White Rabbit, which will likely be animated with voiceover.
Lowe's credits include the Australian drama The Slap and episodes of Satisfaction, as well as features Two Mothers, The Philosophers and Blame. She's repped by CAA and Shanahan Management.
Gadiot's credits include an episode of My Spy Family and features Night Wolf and The Forbidden Girl. He's repped by Jonathan Arun and Industry Entertainment.

ZOMBIELAND
Amazon Studios has debuted, via The Huffington Post, a teaser poster for the upcoming "Zombieland" pilot.
"Zombieland" is based on the hit Columbia Pictures movie of the same name, and finds four survivors outwitting zombies and searching for a place to call home. The "Zombieland" pilot comes from the feature film's original creative team, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, "The Joe Schmo Show"), and producer Gavin Polone ("Gilmore Girls," "Curb Your Enthusiasm"). Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) is directing the pilot.
The part of Tallahassee will be played by Kirk Ward (The Island), Maiara Walsh ("Desperate Housewives," "Switched at Birth") is cast as Wichita, Tyler Ross (Milkshake) will play Columbus, and Izabela Vidovic has the role of Little Rock.
"Zombieland" is the seventh comedy pilot added to Amazon's pilot line-up, will be made available (along with the other six comedy pilots and six children's pilots) for free on Amazon Instant Video and LOVEFiLM UK. Customers are invited to view the pilots and then review them on the site; customer feedback will help determine which of the 13 pilots Amazon Studios will make into full-season productions, to air on Prime Instant Video.

STAR TREK VIDEO GAME
Since the reptilian Gorn are set to serve as the primary antagonists in the upcoming Star Trek: The Video Game, NAMCO Bandai Games has just debuted a new ad that reunites William Shatner with his "Arena" co-star.
In the game, you play as Kirk and Spock whose battles will take you into familiar locations, like the bridge, transporter room and the engine room – but also deep into many areas of the ship that have never been seen on film before, including the Enterprise’s turbolift shafts, observation lounge, engineering decks and officer’s quarters. This epic action adventure features an original storyline and provides immersive co-op gameplay.
The producers and development team of Star Trek: The Video Game worked closely with the entire creative team responsible for the re-imagined 2009 blockbuster Star Trek film to ensure what players see will look and feel remarkably authentic.
Star Trek: The Video Game will be released on April 23, 2013 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

INTERSTELLAR
Matthew McConaughey has allegedly been offered the leading role in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. Deadline reports that the actor would play a character named Cooper.
Directed and written by Nolan, Interstellar is based on a script by Jonathan Nolan. The film will be produced by Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan of Syncopy Films and Obst of Lynda Obst Productions. Kip Thorne will executive produce. The film will depict a heroic interstellar voyage to the furthest reaches of our scientific understanding.
McCanaughey, who recently starred in Killer Joe, The Paperboy, and Magic Mike, can soon be seen in Mud, The Dallas Buyers Club and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Interstellar is set for a November 7, 2014 release.

THIS WEEKEND -- WONDER CON NEWS
UPDATE:
"White Collar" star Matt Bomer, the voice of Superman, at the World Premiere of "Superman: Unbound" on Friday at WonderCon in Anaheim.
Mr. Bomer will participate in the post-premiere panel discussion alongside Molly Quinn ("Castle"), director/producer James Tucker, screenwriter Bob Goodman and dialogue director Andrea Romano.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will bookend the WonderCon weekend of March 29-31 in Anaheim with animated film adventures featuring DC Comics' greatest heroes, first presenting the World Premiere of Superman: Unbound as Friday night's marquee event, then capping Sunday's programming with a screening of LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite.
Both presentations will be supported with expansive post-screening panel discussions by cast and filmmakers, autograph opportunities for fans, and interview opportunities for media in attendance.
On Friday, March 29 at 6:00 p.m., fans lucky enough to gain admission to the Anaheim Convention Center's Arena will witness the World Premiere of Superman: Unbound, the latest DC Universe Animated Original Movie. A destructive force is devastating planets across the galaxy - with Earth next in its sights - and even Superman may not be capable of halting the destruction alone. Based on the Geoff Johns/Gary Frank 2008 DC Comics release "Superman: Brainiac," the film's stellar voicecast is led by Matt Bomer (White Collar) as Superman, John Noble (Fringe, The Lord of the Rings films) as Brainiac, Molly Quinn (Castle) as Supergirl and Stana Katic (Castle) as Lois Lane. Quinn will be on hand to lead the post-premiere panel discussion alongside producer/director James Tucker (Justice League, Batman: The Brave and the Bold), screenwriter Bob Goodman (Warehouse 13, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) and eight-time Emmy Award-winning dialogue director Andrea Romano (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns). As always, the panel discussion will include exclusive prizes and some potential glimpses into future DCU animated films by moderator Gary Miereanu. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Superman: Unbound will be released on Blu-ray, DVD, OnDemand and For Download on May 7, 2013.
Prior to the premiere, the Superman: Unbound panelists will sign WonderCon-exclusive mini-posters from 3:00-4:00 p.m. at the DC Entertainment booth.
On Sunday, March 31 at 2:00 p.m. in Room 300AB, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will present the first West Coast screening of LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite. The ultimate blend of action and humor guaranteed to entertain fanboys of all ages, LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite finds Lex Luthor taking jealousy to new heights when fellow billionaire Bruce Wayne wins the Man of the Year Award. To top Wayne's accomplishment, Lex begins a campaign for President - and to create the atmosphere for his type of fear-based politics, he recruits the Joker to perfect a Black LEGO Destructor Ray. While wreaking havoc on Gotham, Lex successfully destroys Batman's technology - forcing the Caped Crusader to reluctantly turn to Superman for help.
A lively panel discussion will follow the screening featuring TT Animation's award-winning director/producer Jon Burton and renowned videogame/animation actors Troy Baker (Bioshock Infinite, Batman: Arkham City), Travis Willingham (Avengers Assemble, The Super Hero Squad Show), Christopher Smith (Mortal Combat vs. DC Universe), Charlie Schlatter (Diagnosis Murder) and Laura Bailey (The Super Hero Squad Show). Once again, special prizes will be awarded to a lucky few audience members by moderator Gary Miereanu.
Prior to the screening/panel, LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite panelists will sign WonderCon-exclusive mini-posters from Noon-12:45 p.m. at the DC Entertainment booth.
From TT Animation, creators of the best-selling video game upon which the film is based, LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite will be released May 21, 2013 via Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on Blu-ray and DVD.

THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2013

WONDER CON NEWS
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and DC Entertainment will start of production on the all-new documentary, "Necessary Evil: Villains of DC Comics". The Joker, Bane, Deathstroke, Darkseid and Lex Luthor -- the scariest and most menacing villains in DC Comics' universe -- take center stage in a brand new full-length documentary from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) and DC Entertainment (DCE). The joint announcement was made yesterday by WBHE and DCE.
Fans attending WonderCon this Saturday, March 30 have the opportunity to become part of the documentary. From 10:30am-Noon, the documentary crew will be filming in and around the DC Booth at the Anaheim Convention Center -- seeking video and interviews with fans attired as their favorite DC Comics' villain. So dress your best.

DOCTOR WHO
The Doctor tells us bow ties are still cool ... but being a monk is definitely not.
That’s what we learned in three brand-new Doctor Who clips from the upcoming season seven returning episode “The Bells of Saint John.”
The first two clips are snippets from the episode itself—with the first one featuring Matt Smith dressed as a monk. (Which reminded us of the Doctor’s fellow Time Lord the Meddling Monk for some reason. Must be the monk robes.) Let’s just say our beloved Mad Man in the Big Blue Box is not overly fond of the garment.
The second clip lets you meet a certain evil character named Miss Kizlet.
The third clip has Jenna-Louise Coleman and Matt Smith introducing the episode.
Annnd we just can’t wait.
Doctor Who finally returns this Saturday. Geronimo!

TRANSFORMERS 4
Michael Bay is trying to shake up the tone of his Transformers franchise by adding Mark Wahlberg as the new headliner, but don’t worry, he’ll still have a young leading lady in the line up.
Forget Megan Fox and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, the former on-screen girlfriends of Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky in the first three Transformers movies. For Transformers 4, Bay has tapped 18-year-old actress Nicola Peltz for a key role, likely the daughter of Wahlberg’s character.
Peltz already has two genre roles under her belt, via The Last Airbender and creepy new A&E series Bates Motel, but can she muster proper reactiony faces to all the explosions and ridiculous FX to come? Who knows, and only time will tell if she has the leading lady chops to lead a Michael Bay tentpole.
Peltz’s character will likely be the girlfriend of a young race car driving character played by Jack Reynor, at least according to some early storyline reports.

PACIFIC RIM
Following this week's debut of the Coyote Tango and Cherno Alpha posters comes a third Jaegar design from Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Pacific Rim. This one, hailing from China, is the Crimson Typhoon.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on July 12, Pacific Rim stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Brad William Henke and Diego Klattenhoff.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

THE SECRET SERVICE
It's no secret that X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn has been keen to bring Mark Millar's Marvel Icon series to the big screen. Originally set up at Universal Pictures, Deadline is today reporting that Twentieth Century Fox has secured the rights to a big screen adaptation.
The series, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, tells the story of a British secret agent who recruits and begins to train his rebellious nephew.
“Secret Service is [about] the ramifications of [how] America is struggling on the world stage," Millar wrote of the series in its original solicitation. "Funding is being seriously undercut to balance the books and some people are trying their best to take advantage of the fragile global situation. The hero and sidekick guys who lead the book are, I think, the best characters I’ve written.”
Although casting is likely still a ways off, Millar previously confirmed that he and Vaughn want Mark Hamill to appear as himself, as he does in the comic.
The Secret Service is set to begin production in August for a November 14, 2014 release. At this time, it is the only major release scheduled for that day.

YESTERDAY'S BREAKING NEWS - SENSE8

Netflix signs up The Matrix, Babylon 5 creators to develop a new sci-fi series: Sense8
Continuing its quest to sate subscribers' appetites with a flow of original content, Netflix has announced a new original series, Sense8. Due in late 2014, it's being developed by the Wachowskis of The Matrix, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas and Speed Racer fame, as well as J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5. Details are thin, but the press release promises a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted with a ten episode run for its first season.
As it did with House of Cards, Arrested Development and other productions, Netflix is relying heavily on data from viewers to decide which programs to support. According to chief content officer Ted Sarandos, "Andy and Lana Wachowski and Joe Straczynski are among the most imaginative writers and gifted visual storytellers of our time," whose creations are very frequently viewed on the service. According to the creators themselves, they've sought to work together for a decade, and this idea started from a late night conversation about "the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us." If that's not enough for now, then there are a few more details and quotes in the press release, which is included after the break.
Go to http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/27/netflix-wachowskis-sense8/ to read the Press Release.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013

BREAKING NEWS

Netflix signs up The Matrix, Babylon 5 creators to develop a new sci-fi series: Sense8
Continuing its quest to sate subscribers' appetites with a flow of original content, Netflix has announced a new original series, Sense8. Due in late 2014, it's being developed by the Wachowskis of The Matrix, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas and Speed Racer fame, as well as J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5. Details are thin, but the press release promises a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted with a ten episode run for its first season.
As it did with House of Cards, Arrested Development and other productions, Netflix is relying heavily on data from viewers to decide which programs to support. According to chief content officer Ted Sarandos, "Andy and Lana Wachowski and Joe Straczynski are among the most imaginative writers and gifted visual storytellers of our time," whose creations are very frequently viewed on the service. According to the creators themselves, they've sought to work together for a decade, and this idea started from a late night conversation about "the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us." If that's not enough for now, then there are a few more details and quotes in the press release, which is included after the break.
Go to http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/27/netflix-wachowskis-sense8/ to read the Press Release.

ZOMBIELAND
The awesome horror comedy Zombieland is coming back to life, and now we have out first look at the new cast as they continue to search for Twinkies and kill the undead.
The hit 2009 movie was originally conceived as a TV show, but after the networks passed, the writers reworked it for a feature film. After the movie rocked the box office, studios were once again interested in making a small-screen version, and now we finally have our first look at Amazon's online Zombieland series.
It’s amazing when things come full circle.
Since most of the original cast have gone off to become bona fide movie stars (Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, etc.), the Amazon pilot has recast all the main roles for the small screen. The pic above shows the new cast in action, including: Wichita (Maiara Walsh), Columbus (Tyler Ross), Little Rock (Izabela Vidovic) and Tallahassee (Kirk Ward).
Creator Paul Wernick seems pretty excited to bring the franchise to its original medium, and said he believes the sitcom-style format should be a good fit:
Zombieland will strive to break the rules—action, adventure, thrills, chills and laughs and all packed into a half hour format. This is not your average show but Amazon is not your average network.”
In a pretty cool twist, Amazon has opted to post the pilot (and 12 others) online to allow viewers to vote on which projects they want to see receive a series order. The company says “customer feedback” will determine which shows move forward.
So, once the pilot goes live, be sure and let Amazon know what you think.

CONTINUIUM RENEWED
It’s official: Syfy is bringing Continuum back for a second season, and now we know when the time-traveling sci-fi drama will be back in action.
After spending the last few months on the Monday drama block with Being Human and Lost Girl, the Canadian import will slide over to Friday beginning June 7 at 10 p.m. with its second-season premiere.
The second season will consist of 13 episodes, up from 10 in the first season, and will continue the adventures of future cop Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) as she tracks a terrorist organization in modern-day Vancouver. It’s a smart show, and is just starting to scratch the surface of its intriguing time-travel premise.
During its first season, the series delivered 1.35 million total viewers (644,000 adults 25-54 and 537,000 adults 18-49), ranking No. 6 in adults 25-54 and No. 10 in adults 18-49 among all cable entertainment programs with at least three telecasts in its time period.
Since it’s shot in Vancouver, the series is a who’s who of small screen sci-fi stars. The show features and has featured Victor Webster (Castle), Erik Knudsen (Jericho), Tony Amendola (Stargate SG-1), Lexa Doig (Andromeda), William B. Davis (The X-Files) and Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica), among others.

BEING HUMAN
Being Human's taking a break from all the blood and gore to focus on romance. What do you get when you mix two werewolves, a vampire and a rotting corpse? Josh and Nora's wedding!
The couple's decided to bump up their ceremony so Sally can be part of the festivities. Over at EW, they've published two photos from the upcoming episode that features their exchanging of vows.
The episode's entitled "Always a Bridesmaid, Never Alive." It's fitting, considering the drama surrounding their maid of honor. Will the wedding go as planned, or will an unexpected force step in and ruin everything? Your guess is as good as ours. There's only one episode left until the season finale.
Being Human airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy.

DOCTOR WHO
One of Doctor Who's unexpected mysteries finally gets explained.
When details began to emerge for last year's Christmas special, The Snowmen, we were really surprised to see Sontaran nurse Strax among the characters appearing. Didn't he die during the battle at Demon's Run? If he didn't die, then how did he survive? And what's he doing in Victorian England with Madame Vastra and Jenny?
Behold -- the answer, at long last, awaits you!
While it may not be the most necessary story, we really enjoy the goofy comedy that Strax brings to the Who formula.

GAME OF THRONES
HBO has released an exciting new Game of Thrones season three promo that has lots of ice and fire and Dany’s mighty fiery cool dragons.
The 30-second spot has some new snippets of footage, including those magnificent, magnificent dragons, and a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it terrifying wight (aka Westeros’ equivalent of a Walking Dead icicled zombie).
But nothing really compares to that last shot that’s filled with Daenerys Targaryen’s (Emilia Clarke) mighty dragons flying into the air. Priceless.
Have an epic look at the Mother Of Dragons’ growing beauties making some kababs.

INDEPENDENCE DAY SEQUEL
Nearly 17 years after the original hit theaters, a two-film sequel to Roland Emmerich's Independence Day is in the planning stages. Tentatively titled ID Forever, Part I and ID Forever, Part II, the film will, according to a new report from EW, pick up 20 years after the original.
”The humans knew that one day the aliens would come back,” says Emmerich. ”And they know that the only way you can really travel in space is through wormholes. So for the aliens, it could take two or three weeks, but for us that’s 20 or 25 years.”
Emmerich goes to say that, while Bill Pullman is set to reprise his role as President Whitmore, leading man Will Smith has not signed on to return as Captain Steven Hiller. The film will, instead, follow the character's stepson, Dylan, in addition to a number of new, younger leads.
“It’s a changed world," Emmerich says of the world's post-invasion reality. "It’s like parallel history. [Humans] have harnessed all this alien technology. We don’t know how to duplicate it because it’s organically-grown technology, but we know how to take an antigravity device and put it in a human airplane.”
Scripts for both sequels are now being rewritten by James Vanderbilt, who worked with Emmerich on his latest, White House Down, slated to hit theaters June 28.

EDEN
The Fourth Kind writer/director Olatunde Osunsanmi is set to tackle Eden, a sci-fi tale at Gold Circle Productions, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter. Osunsanmi will direct from his own original screenplay.
The storyline takes place in a world where aliens have enslaved humanity. Survivors follow an Underground Railroad-like path called "The Rail" in the hopes of winning their freedom.
Paul Brooks is attached to produce with Guy Danella and Scott Niemeyer serving as executive producers.
Although they share the same title, Eden is unrelated to the just-released Megan Griffiths drama.

TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 2013

WOLVERINE
This Wednesday, Fox will release the first trailer for The Wolverine. But before its debut, director James Mangold has given fans something to tide them over. He released a six-second teaser which features a lot of action in a short amount of time. The biggest reveal is the appearance of Famke Janssen's Jean Grey.
Last fall, the actress coyly teased her return as the mutant telepath. The Wolverine takes place after the events of the original X-Men trilogy.
[Spoilers]
In X-Men: The Last Stand, Jean Grey was killed at the hands (or claws) of Logan. Her power was all-consuming and made her reckless. Because of Logan's healing ability, he was the only one who could get close enough to put her out of her misery.
Jean was the love of his life, and her death still haunts him. In the following clip, it seems as if she appears in a vision or flashback. If you look closely, there's also a shot of the Silver Samurai's helmet. There's word that Fox has another 20-second teaser in the pipeline before the full-length one hits.
The Wolverine opens in theaters July 26.

STAR WARS: CLONE WARS
It’s never a good thing when a beloved show is canceled, and shutting things down without a proper ending can just seem like adding insult to injury. Hmm, well, we have some bad news, Star Wars: Clone Wars fans.
It’s being reported that the team behind the beloved Cartoon Network CGI series is being disbanded, which isn’t much of a shock since Disney pulled the plug after buying out Lucasfilm.
But here’s the troubling part: It sounds like Disney has no plans to actually wrap up all the dangling storylines in the material that has already been produced for season six before shutting it all down.
At the moment, it seems there is reportedly no “clean resolution” to the arcs surrounding characters Ahsoka Tano and Asajj Ventress. With the development team reportedly being reassigned or laid off, it’s unlikely that’ll change.
According to TheForce.net, the folks at Disney are disbanding the Clone Wars team, with plans to route any future TV shows (animated or live action) through their existing studios. Considering Disney’s sizable infrastructure, this makes sense, but for Clone Wars fans it spells doom.
Of course, this is all just conjecture at the moment, as Disney is being cagey about what exactly will happen with the final season of Clone Wars. Here’s hoping they at least give fans some type of proper finale to the fading, pre-Disney era.

DEFIANCE
Why wait until April 15 when you can watch the first 14 minutes of Syfy's groundbreaking new series Defiance right now?
Set on a post-alien-invasion Earth, the series follows characters both human and alien trying to survive and protect their freedom. In addition to the TV series, the storyline will also continue in a shared-universe videogame of the same name.
The cast includes Grant Bowler (True Blood), Julie Benz (Dexter), Jaime Murray (Warehouse 13), Tony Curran (Blade II) and many others.
The series premieres April 15 at 9/8C, and the game hits shelves April 2.

IRON MAN 3
The action comes fast and furious in a new Iron Man 3 trailer, which shows off the latest edition of Tony Stark’s armor and all those other suits that’ll be flying around in part three.
Debuting at the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards, the latest teaser shows off some more of the banter between Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) and Rhodey (Don Cheadle) to go along with all those massive FX set pieces.
We get to see more of how Stark takes advantage of that nifty Extremis tech, but the most interesting thing is the glimpse we get at what is likely the epic finale. Those are a lot of Iron Man suits, including something that looks a lot like the Hulkbuster Armor. Awesome.
The sequel stars Downey, Cheadle and Gwyneth Paltrow, along with newcomers Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall.

ZOMBIELAND
Amazon Studios is moving forward with its cult-comedy pilot Zombieland.
The move comes as the online player continues to bulk up its original efforts, with its differentiator being a crowd-sourcing pickup strategy. Customers will be able to watch this Sony Pictures TV-produced effort along with 12 other pilots (six comedies, six kids entries) for free and then help determine which of them will be made into full-season productions to air on Prime Instant Video.
Zombieland is a fan favorite, and we can’t wait to see where this story line goes in a serialized format,” said Amazon Studios director Roy Price in a statement announcing the news Monday. “We’ve been announcing a lot of exciting exclusive content for Prime Instant Video, like Downton Abbey, Under the Dome and Justified, and we think adding original shows to that lineup is going to make Prime even more enticing for customers.”
The pilot, based on the 2009 Columbia Pictures film that starred Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and Woody Harrelson, follows four survivors outwitting zombies and searching for a place to call home. The pilot, the company's first from a major studio, hails from the movie’s original creative team, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, The Joe Schmo Show) and producer Gavin Polone (Gilmore Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm). Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) has been tapped to direct the pilot.
Zombieland will strive to break the rules: action, adventure, thrills, chills and laughs and all packed into a half-hour format,” said Wernick. "This is not your average show, but Amazon is not your average network."
Kirk Ward (The Island) has been cast as Tallahassee, while Maiara Walsh (Desperate Housewives), Tyler Ross (Milkshake) and Izabela Vidovic will play Wichita, Columbus and Little Rock, respectively.
Amazon Studios, which is said to be making pilots that fall into the $1 million budget range (compared with the far-pricier $4 million-plus Netflix efforts), has begun production on its six other comedy pilots: Alpha House, Browsers, Dark Minions, Onion News Empire, Supanatural and Those Who Can’t. On the kids side, the company is working on Creative Galaxy, Oz Adventures, Teeny Tiny Dogs, Tumbleaf, Sara Solves It and The Untitled J.J. Johnson Project.

SCARY MOVIE V
Dimension Films has brought online a new TV spot for their upcoming Scary Movie V.
Hitting theaters on April 12, the spoof comedy stars Ashley Tisdale, Erica Ash, Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen, Simon Rex, Molly Shannon, Terry Crews, Marisa Saks, Heather Locklear, Jasmine Guy, Angie Stone, Kate Walsh, Angela "Big Ang" Raiola, Sherée Whitfield, Mike Tyson, Audrina Patridge, Kendra Wilkinson and Katt Williams.
In the film, snooty, aloof, imperious, and oversexed French dance company director Pierre is putting on a new production. Jody (Tisdale), a Caucasian late-20s mother of two and her late-20s African American friend Kendra (Ash) are both vying for the lead in the production. Jody’s extremely controlling former dancer mother is determined that Jody will have the brilliant career that eluded her. The highly skilled mid-30s Diva veteran dancer with the company, Heather Daltry (Shannon), gets cut from the production and goes berserk.

DIVERGENT
Summit Entertainment announced today that Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Ben Lamb and Christian Madsen have joined the cast of the upcoming Divergent. They join the previously-announced Kate Winslet, Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Zoe Kravitz, Maggie Q, Jai Courtney and Theo James.
Divergent is a thrilling adventure set in a future world where people are divided into distinct factions based on their personalities, Tris Prior (Woodley) is warned she is Divergent and will never fit into any one group. When she discovers a conspiracy to destroy all Divergents, she must find out what makes being Divergent so dangerous before it's too late.
Lloyd-Hughes (Great Expectations, The Scapegoat) will play Will, Lamb ("The White Queen") will play Edward and Madsen (Palo Alton) will play Al.
The futuristic action adventure, based on author Veronica Roth’s New York Times bestseller, will be directed by Neil Burger from a script by Vanessa Taylor. The production will commence principal photography this April in Chicago with a script by Evan Daugherty.
Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing the project via their Red Wagon Entertainment banner along with Pouya Shahbazian. Red Wagon’s Rachel Shane is executive producing.
Divergent hits theaters on March 21, 2014.

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013

DOCTOR WHO RUMORS
And the rumor mill is back at it again. Matt Smith, who plays the beloved Eleventh Doctor on the BBC's hit sci-fi series Doctor Who, is apparently set to bow out of the TARDIS sooner rather than later. So when will that happen?
According to an Insider of the Sun (so you guys take this with a bucket of salt for now), it seems that Smith will regenerate into the Twelfth Doctor during the upcoming Christmas episode, following the big 50th-anniversary special.
Their source says that the BBC already know who they want next for the role.
Filming of the Who Xmas special will get underway later while filming for the 50th-anniversary 3D special episode will start next month.
Smith’s contract expires in November, and the actor apparently doesn’t want to renew it. He has recently said on the Jonathan Ross Show last week that: “I am very happy doing it. I do the anniversary special, then the Christmas special. At the moment it’s 2013, and we will see what 2014 holds.”
The Sun insider said: “Matt has told bosses he wants to bow out at Christmas.”
The British actor has filmed his first Hollywood project by playing the lead in Ryan Gosling’s first directing effort, How To Catch A Monster, which will be released next year.
Four years ago, in 2009, when Smith nabbed the role of the famous Time Lord, Smith had gotten a £200,000-a-year deal. Now it’s believed he’s now earning £1million a year, the same salary David Tennant was making when he left the show.
The BBC has issued a statement saying: “Sorry folks but even we don’t know what’s going to happen at Christmas. It’s not been written yet! But Matt loves the show and is to start filming the unmissable 50th anniversary, and the new series starting on Easter Saturday.”
Whether there is any truth in this, we do have to tread carefully. Rumors of Smith's departure have been swirling around ever since he got cast. The same happened when Tennant was on board the TARDIS before Smith.

WORLD WAR Z
Paramount Pictures has released a new black-and-white poster for its upcoming zombie thriller World War Z, starring Brad Pitt, that features a horde of zombies piled high as they attack a helicopter in flight.
The movie centers on a U.N. employee (Pitt) who travels the world in a race against time to stop a pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity.
Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox andDavid Morse also star in World War Z, which hits theaters June 21. Marc Forster directed the film from a script by Matthew Michael Carnahan, who adapted the book by Max Brooks.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
After a slower weekend, the box office rebounded with a strong comeback as three movies grossed more than $20 million for the first time in a month with two of the three new movies bringing in over $30 million each.
DreamWorks Animation's The Croods, their first movie marketed and distributed by 20th Century Fox and featuring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds and Catherine Keener, opened decently with an estimated $44.7 million, getting a nice weekend bump after an $11.6 million opening day on Friday. This is slightly better than the $43.7 million opening for Croods co-director Chris Sanders' 2010 movie How to Train Your Dragon, which also opened in late March to take advantage of school spring break. With a strong A CinemaScore, the movie should be able to carry its legs through Easter and April via strong word-of-mouth. The Croods also brought in an additional $63.3 million internationally--including $16 million from previews last weekend--to bring its total worldwide gross to $108 million.
Antoine (Training Day) Fuqua's White House invasion movie Olympus Has Fallen (FilmDistrict), starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett and Rick Yune, also fared very well, opening with roughly $30.5 million in 3,098 theaters, averaging just under $10 thousand per location. This was good news for Butler, who was coming off three huge bombs in Chasing Mavericks, Playing for Keeps and the comedy anthology Movie 43. It's also the biggest opening for fledgling distributor FilmDistrict.
After two weeks at #1, Sam Raimi's Wizard of Oz prequel Oz The Great and Powerful, starring James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams, dropped down to third place with $22 million in its third weekend, bringing its total to $177.6 million. Internationally, the movie has grossed slightly more with $178.8 million bringing its worldwide cume to $356.4 million.
After a solid opening, Halle Berry's thriller The Call (TriStar Pictures) dropped to fourth place with $8.7 million, down 49% from its opening weekend with a $30.9 million gross in ten days.
Despite a ton of television ads, the Tina Fey-Paul Rudd romantic comedy Admission (Focus Features), directed by Paul (In Good Company) Weitz, disappointed with a fifth place opening, earning roughly $6.4 million in over 2,100 theaters. That's the lowest opening for a Tina Fey live action movie despite the success she's had with movies such as Date Night, Baby Mama and Mean Girls, but it's on par with some of Paul Rudd's recent comedies.
After an impressive platform release, Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers (A24), starring Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and James Franco, expanded nationwide into 1,104 theaters where it took sixth place with $5 million or $4,620 per location.
The less-than-magical comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (New Line/WB) , starring Steve Carell and Jim Carrey, tanked in its second weekend, dropping 58% to seventh place with $4.2 million and $17.3 million total.
Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Slayer (Warner Bros.) took eighth place with just under $3 million, bringing its total to $59.1 million after four weeks in theaters.
Seth Gordon's hit comedy Identity Thief (Universal) took ninth place with $2.5 million and a total gross of $127.7 million.
Rounding out the Top 10 was Dwayne Johnson's action thriller Snitch (Summit) with $1.9 million as it crossed the $40 million mark.
This week's box office didn't stand much of a chance against the same weekend last year when Lionsgate's The Hunger Games opened with $152.5 million, which was 15% more than this weekend's Top 10 movies combined.
The Aussie musical comedy The Sapphires (The Weinstein Company) finally opened in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles following its year-long festival run, where it grossed $40.9 thousand or $10.2 thousand per site.

TEN GRAND
Writer J. Michael Straczynski wanted to do something special to commemorate the launch of his Joe's Comics at Image Comics. The creator has teamed up with Dynamic Forces to release two variant covers by artist Jae Lee. The covers will be for the first series, TEN GRAND #1 which is set to hit comic store shelves this May.
In addition to the new series TEN GRAND, Straczynski has an entire new line of series and titles prepared to be released under the Joes Comics banner.
Read more over at http://www.comicvine.com/news/exclusive-first-look-j-michael-straczynskis-joe-comics-variant-covers/146226/.

SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013

DOCTOR WHO
With one week to go, it's about time we started getting to the real, Gallifreyan meat and potatoes.
So what's the good Doctor been up to since last we saw him? Turns out he's been looking for his old companion. No, not Amy! Clara "Dies almost as much as Rory" Oswald. And where is he looking? Why, on a playground of course! And that's precisely where we pick up with him in this prequel to the latest episode, The Bells of Saint John.
Did you see that twist coming? And what does this tell us about Clara?

GAME OF THRONES
It’s another day and another glorious promo for the upcoming third season of HBO’s Game of Thrones.
Titled “All of Us,” the new trailer is making the rounds on the net and has snippets of brand new/extended scenes that A Song of Ice and Fire book readers will definitely be looking forward to see.
*Hint* There’s THAT bathtub scene and Jaime’s (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in it. Naked. Preferably. And so will apparently be Brienne! (Gwendoline Christie). Plus that awesome bear makes another appearance. So it's all good.
That looks pretty good to us. Game of Thrones returns on March 31.

OBLIVION
New TV spots for Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion have come online. Oblivion hits theaters and IMAX on April 19.
Starring Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Melissa Leo, the film envisions a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition. There, one man's confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind.
Jack Harper (Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack's mission is nearly complete.
Living in and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.

G.I. JOE RETALIATION
Paramount Pictures has brought online a new compilation of clips from their upcoming G.I. Joe Retaliation.
In this sequel, the G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence. The film stars D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, Ray Stevenson, Channing Tatum with Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson.
The film was directed by Jon M. Chu, and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Brian Goldner, from a screenplay by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick.
G.I. Joe Retaliation hits theaters March 28.

WONDER CON NEWS
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will bookend the WonderCon weekend of March 29-31 in Anaheim with animated film adventures featuring DC Comics' greatest heroes, first presenting the World Premiere of Superman: Unbound as Friday night's marquee event, then capping Sunday's programming with a screening of LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite.
Both presentations will be supported with expansive post-screening panel discussions by cast and filmmakers, autograph opportunities for fans, and interview opportunities for media in attendance.
On Friday, March 29 at 6:00 p.m., fans lucky enough to gain admission to the Anaheim Convention Center's Arena will witness the World Premiere of Superman: Unbound, the latest DC Universe Animated Original Movie. A destructive force is devastating planets across the galaxy - with Earth next in its sights - and even Superman may not be capable of halting the destruction alone. Based on the Geoff Johns/Gary Frank 2008 DC Comics release "Superman: Brainiac," the film's stellar voicecast is led by Matt Bomer (White Collar) as Superman, John Noble (Fringe, The Lord of the Rings films) as Brainiac, Molly Quinn (Castle) as Supergirl and Stana Katic (Castle) as Lois Lane. Quinn will be on hand to lead the post-premiere panel discussion alongside producer/director James Tucker (Justice League, Batman: The Brave and the Bold), screenwriter Bob Goodman (Warehouse 13, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) and eight-time Emmy Award-winning dialogue director Andrea Romano (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns). As always, the panel discussion will include exclusive prizes and some potential glimpses into future DCU animated films by moderator Gary Miereanu. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Superman: Unbound will be released on Blu-ray, DVD, OnDemand and For Download on May 7, 2013.
Prior to the premiere, the Superman: Unbound panelists will sign WonderCon-exclusive mini-posters from 3:00-4:00 p.m. at the DC Entertainment booth.
On Sunday, March 31 at 2:00 p.m. in Room 300AB, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will present the first West Coast screening of LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite. The ultimate blend of action and humor guaranteed to entertain fanboys of all ages, LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite finds Lex Luthor taking jealousy to new heights when fellow billionaire Bruce Wayne wins the Man of the Year Award. To top Wayne's accomplishment, Lex begins a campaign for President - and to create the atmosphere for his type of fear-based politics, he recruits the Joker to perfect a Black LEGO Destructor Ray. While wreaking havoc on Gotham, Lex successfully destroys Batman's technology - forcing the Caped Crusader to reluctantly turn to Superman for help.
A lively panel discussion will follow the screening featuring TT Animation's award-winning director/producer Jon Burton and renowned videogame/animation actors Troy Baker (Bioshock Infinite, Batman: Arkham City), Travis Willingham (Avengers Assemble, The Super Hero Squad Show), Christopher Smith (Mortal Combat vs. DC Universe), Charlie Schlatter (Diagnosis Murder) and Laura Bailey (The Super Hero Squad Show). Once again, special prizes will be awarded to a lucky few audience members by moderator Gary Miereanu.
Prior to the screening/panel, LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite panelists will sign WonderCon-exclusive mini-posters from Noon-12:45 p.m. at the DC Entertainment booth.
From TT Animation, creators of the best-selling video game upon which the film is based, LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite will be released May 21, 2013 via Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on Blu-ray and DVD.

SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2013

RIDDICK
The power of Vin Diesel's throaty voice compels you!
We've been waiting and waiting for the next entry in the Riddick saga. And while we've still got almost half a year yet to go before we finally get to see the entire thing, that doesn't mean we can't get a taste. And that's exactly what this is -- the tiniest of morsels. Let's savor it, shall we?

Alan Ritchson TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
The Heroes in a Half Shell are beginning to come together.
One month after announcing that Megan Fox would join his Ninja Turtles flick, Michael Bay and director Jonathan Liebesman have cast the first of the four turtles. The character is Raphael, and the actor is up-and-comer Alan Ritchson. The 28-year-old's past credits include three seasons on the Spike comedy series Blue Mountain State and a role as one of the ruthless tributes in the forthcoming Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire. But if you're a Smallville fan, you might be more familiar with him as Aquaman.
So after making a name for himself on TV and scoring a supporting role in what's certain to be a major blockbuster, Ritchson's now landed himself one of the leads in a Michael Bay production.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is set to hit theaters in May 2014.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER
Robert Redford is in negotiations to do his first comic book movie.
The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that the acting icon appears likely to close his deal with Marvel Studios and join the cast of Captain America: Winter Soldier, which will begin shooting May in locations around the U.S.
Sundance 2013: Festival Founder Robert Redford Addresses Sex, Guns and Family Values Joe and Anthony Russo are directing the movie, which continues the adventures of Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) and will focus on his relationship with sidekick Bucky (Sebastian Stan), who in the comics returns as the brainwashed assassin Winter Soldier.
Sources say that Redford will be playing an older member of secret government agency S.H.I.E.L.D., and one source describes the role as similar to the one played by Ralph Fiennes as M’s replacement in last year’s James Bond movie Skyfall.


EARLY WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Animated tentpole The Croods is off to a solid start at the domestic box office, where it's expected to gross $11 million to $12 million on Friday for a projected weekend opening in the $40 million to $42 million range.
That's welcome news for Jeffrey Katzenberg's DreamWorks Animation, whose previous film Rise of the Guardians was a box-office dud. Wall Street is paying close attention to Croods, with most analysts agreeing that a North American opening of $40 million or more would suffice in combination with a strong international run.
Croods, costing at least $135 million to produce, opens around the world this weekend. Insiders tell The Hollywood Reporter that the 3D family film is doing well offshore, though no numbers are yet available.
Following the travails of a prehistoric family, Croods is the first DWA title to be distributed by 20th Century Fox via their new distribution and marketing deal. The voice cast is led by Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone and Nicolas Cage.
Croods hopes to benefit from a dearth of family product in the marketplace. It is also aiming to do brisk weekday business because of spring break.
Elsewhere at the domestic box office, Antoine Fuqua's White House action pic Olympus Has Fallen is likewise off to a solid start. The pic, marking something of a comeback for Gerard Butler, is expected to gross north of $9 million on Friday for a weekend debut in the $25 million range, if not more.
FilmDistrict is distributing the Millennium Films title, which cost at least $70 million to produce.
In the film, Butler plays a disgraced presidential guard who is called back into action when North Korean terrorists take over the White House. Roland Emmerich's White House Down, opening in June, is similarly themed. Olympus Has Fallen also stars Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart, Melissa Leo and Ashley Judd.
The new Paul Weitz comedy Admission, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, is expected to earn roughly $2.5 million on Friday for a softish opening in the $6 million to $7.5 million range. Focus Features had hoped for slightly more but believes that the film will benefit from good word of mouth and have solid legs.
Focus' financial exposure is limited considering Admission, playing in more than 2,000 theaters, cost a modest $13 million to produce. The comedy tells the story of a straitlaced Princeton University admissions officer (Fey) whose life takes an unexpected turn when she makes a recruiting trip to an alternative high school run by a former classmate (Rudd).
Harmony Korine's outrageous indie comedy Spring Breakers, which expanded nationwide Friday, isn't that far behind Admission despite only playing in only about 1,100 theaters. The R-rated pic could gross north of $2.1 million on Friday for a weekend gross of $6 million, a victory for upstart distributor A24 Films.
Spring Breakers, starring James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson, scored the best limited release of the year last weekend when opening in three theaters in New York and Los Angeles.

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2013

STARGATE SG-1 GAME Evil aliens of the universe, watch out: New mobile game Stargate SG-1: Unleashed is officially available for iOS, and all the original cast is back to give it the classic SG-1 feel. Want to see Richard Dean Anderson (Jack O’Neill) and Christopher Judge (Teal’c) back in action?
Well, not exactly in action, but developer Arkalis Interactive has released some new behind-the-scenes clips showing the two beloved actors doing voice work in character. The videos also show off a ton of new game footage, which features the gang we've all come to know and love.
It’s been way, way too long since these guys kicked some Goa’uld ass.
Here’s the synopsis for the game:
Get involved in the action – defeat Jaffa warriors, infiltrate a Goa’uld labor camp, solve cryptic ancient puzzles - and stop a new evil menace before it’s too late!

NEIL GAIMAN AND MARVEL
For the first time in six years, Neil Gaiman's headed back to Marvel Comics, and he's bringing a friend.
The Hugo, Nebula and Eisner Award-winning author who became a comics superstar with his legendary Vertigo series Sandman, has collaborated with writer Brian Michael Bendis on the 10th and final issue of Marvel's Age of Ultron miniseries. The issue, which will drop in June, will conclude the next big Marvel event, and will introduce the Gaiman-co-created character Angela to the Marvel Universe.
This is big news for a number of reasons. For one thing, Angela isn't a Marvel character (or rather, she wasn't a Marvel character). She first appeared in issue #9 of the Todd McFarlane-created Image comic Spawn, one of the company's longest-running and best-selling titles. Sometimes she's Spawn's ally and sometimes she's his nemesis, but her biggest claim to fame is the 10-year legal battle between McFarlane and Gaiman over ownership of the character, which Gaiman first wrote and McFarlane first drew. That dispute ended with a 50-50 split between the two men, and while we don't know how McFarlane feels about it, it seems Gaiman decided to cross the character over into another comic-book universe.
As for her appearance in Age of Ultron, Marvel bigwigs insist that it's not a spoiler to let you know Angela will be popping up at the end of the book. Rather, they'd like you to think of it as a kind of post-credits teaser to let you know that something big is coming.
"We were looking for a good entry point to tease our fans and to let them know [Angela] was going to be a major player [in the Marvel Universe]," Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada said.
After Age of Ultron, Angela will pop up in July's issue #5 of Marvel's new Guardians of the Galaxy series. That issue will also be co-written by Gaiman and Bendis. From there, we don't know, but it's clear Marvel wants as many readers as possible to know that Angela has arrived, so more adventures for her can't be far behind.
As for how much Gaiman will be involved beyond these two comics, we don't know that either. He hasn't commented on the news yet, and we know he's already got a new Sandman prequel coming over at Vertigo this fall. Could he be adding more Marvel work in the coming months? Gaiman fans have their fingers crossed.

DEFIANCE
Fans are going to dive into a deep alien world when Syfy’s Defiance debuts next month, but lucky for us a new clip breaks down all the alien races occupying post-invasion Earth.
The series, which takes place after an alien colonization, finds humans living alongside seven alien races that sought refuge in our solar system. In a new behind-the-scenes featurette, the cast and crew break down the differences between the races and show off a ton of intriguing new footage.
It looks like a dense sci-fi world, not unlike the universe producer Rockne S. O’Bannon put together on his previous series Farscape. It seems to be loaded with action, intrigue and a fair dose of sexiness, as well. The expansive cast includes sci-fi alums such as Julie Benz (Angel), Grant Bowler (True Blood) and Jaime Murray (Warehouse 13), along with several others.
In addition to the new series, the universe will also play out in multi-platform videogame, which is available for pre-order now. Events on the show, and in the game, will have lasting effects to both media.
The series premieres April 15, and the game hits shelves April 2.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
Maximiliano Hernández, who played Agent Jasper Sitwell in Marvel's The Avengers and in the Marvel One-Shot: Item 47, took to Twitter today to confirm that he will play the character again in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
"So it's a much bigger role in a much darker Cap Story. Lots of twists and turns. And lots secrets about the MCU revealed!" he said, adding, "I can't say much more or the Marvel cops will revoke my SHIELD clearance! Trust me u will all freak out in the theatre when all is revealed!
A follower also asked if he meant "comic canon twists or new twists??" to which Hernández replied, "new twist."
He's joining a cast that includes Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Frank Grillo, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Scarlett Johansson, Toby Jones, Emily VanCamp and Hayley Atwell. Anthony and Joe Russo will direct the April 4, 2014 release.

PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS
The very first images for Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters are now online! What's more, the first trailer is expected to hit theaters next week before showings of The Host.
Directed by Thor Freudenthal with a script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the much-anticipated sequel stars Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Douglas Smith, Mary Birdsong, Yvette Nicole Brown, Missi Pyle, Nathan Fillion, Anthony Head, Paloma Kwiatkowski, Leven Rambin, Stanley Tucci, Robert Maillet and Zoe Aggeliki.
The sequel finds Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon, continuing his epic journey to fulfill his destiny, as he teams with his demigod friends to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which has the power to save their home and training ground, Camp Half-Blood.
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters hits theaters August 16, 2013.

DIVERGENT
Lionsgate's Summit Entertainment confirmed today that Kate Winslet will star as Jeanine Matthews in the studio's futuristic action adventure Divergent. She joins previously-announced cast members Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Jai Courtney, Zoë Kravitz, Ansel Elgort and Maggie Q.
The film, based on author Veronica Roth's New York Times bestseller, will be directed by Neil Burger from a script by Vanessa Taylor and commences principal photography this April in Chicago. The original draft of the script was written by Evan Daugherty. Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing the project via their Red Wagon Entertainment banner along with Pouya Shahbazian. Red Wagon's Rachel Shane is executive producing. Summit will release the film theatrically in North America on Friday, March 21, 2014.
Divergent is a thrilling adventure set in a future world where people are divided into distinct factions based on their personalities. Tris Prior (Woodley) is warned she is Divergent and will never fit into any one group. When she discovers a conspiracy to destroy all Divergents, she must find out what makes being Divergent so dangerous before it's too late.

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013

THE HOST
The super-sexy alien invasion begins in a little over a week with The Host, but don’t think Stephenie Meyer’s latest creation is just an alien-tinged rehash of her vampy love story Twilight. If anything, The Host looks more like a Bourne action movie with aliens.
Though other clips have played up the love story at the heart of the film, the latest trailer strikes a great balance between heartstring-tugging, gunplay and action set pieces.
Based on Meyer’s novel of the same name, The Host follows a young woman’s (Saoirse Ronan) journey through a world invaded by evil aliens. Along the way, she’ll apparently be kicking lots of ass and jumping out of windows. Oh, plus falling in love.
Sci-fi fans, if you need anymore prodding, the film was written and directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca), so hopefully this one will have a little something for everyone.
The Host opens on March 29.

GAME OF THRONES
HBO is pumping out the new previews and trailers and clips and whatnots for the upcoming third season of Game of Thrones at an almost alarming speed—except we’re not alarmed, but delighted, obviously.
This newest 30-seconds promo, titled “Enemies,” has mostly footage we've already seen, but it also has some new footage as well, and a bit more dialogue than the previous ones.
One thing's for sure after seeing this, you won’t want to turn your back on anyone, especially your enemies.
With a sister like Cersei (Lena Headey) and a nephew like Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), we, too, would be doing like Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and be hiding behind our closed door with an ax in hand.
Game of Thrones season three starts on March 31, 2013 on HBO.

TURBO
DreamWorks Animation continues to churn out star-powered animations, with the first full-length trailer for Turbo arriving online Wednesday.
Turbo features Ryan Reynolds as an ambitious snail who, after a freak accident, gains super speed and the opportunity to pursue his dream of racing in the Indy 500. The underdog tale also stars Paul Giamatti, Ken Jeong, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Samuel L. Jackson and the unmistakable voice of Snoop Lion.
Following a soft opening for its holiday film Rise of the Guardians in November, DreamWorks is hoping for better results with its next two projects. First up is The Croods on March 22. The story of a prehistoric family also stars Reynolds, along with Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener and Cloris Leachman. Turbo then arrives July 17, right in the heart of tentpole season, via 20th Century Fox.

POMPEII
Kiefer Sutherland is in final negotiations to star as the villain in Pompeii, the 3D Roman disaster movie being directed by Resident Evil maestro Paul W.S. Anderson.
Game of Thrones actor Kit Harington is starring in the movie, which began shooting in Toronto last week. Constantin Film is financing and producing the big-budget title.
The movie is set in 79 A.D. in the days before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, one of history’s great disasters.
Harington is playing a slave stuck on a ship who must race against time to save his true love, his master’s daughter, as well as his best friend, a gladiator trapped in the coliseum when the destruction begins.
Jared Harris is playing Harington’s master, a wealthy merchant, while Emily Browning is his daughter.
Sutherland will play a Roman senator who enslaved Harington’s village. The scheming senator forces the merchant to give his daughter’s hand in marriage to him.
Sutherland, the star of 24 and now of Fox’s Touch, appeared in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia and recently starred in indie thriller The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

ARROW NEWS
The CW's Arrow continues to bulk up for season two.
The series has promoted Manu Bennett to series regular for its recently announced second season, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.
On the network's adaptation of DC Comics' long-running title, Bennett plays Slade Wilson -- who in the comics ultimately becomes Arrow's villain Deathstroke. Producers have been cagey about whether Bennett would follow his comic book counterpart and transform into the famed villain; the show has featured multiple Deathstrokes during its freshman run.
Exec producers Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim thus far have written Slade as an ally to Stephen Amell's Oliver, appearing in Arrow's flashbacks to their time on the island.
Bennett joins Colton Haynes (Roy Harper) and Emily Bett Rickards (Ollie's IT whiz Felicity Smoak) as series regulars for Arrow's second season. He's currently wrapping the third and final season of Starz's Spartacus, where he plays Crixus. Repped by Sanders Armstrong Caserta Management, Bennett also stars as Azog in all three Hobbit films.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Paramount Pictures has revealed this new international trailer for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness, hitting IMAX 3D theaters on May 15 and conventional theaters on May 17. The anticipated sequel stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller.
In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice.
As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

IRON MAN 3
Marvel Studios revealed a short new TV spot for Iron Man 3 promoting that more footage will debut during Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday, March 23 at 8/7c.
Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?


OBLIVION
A new featurette on the Bubbleship in Universal Pictures' Oblivion is online (via iTunes Movie Trailers)!
Hitting theaters and IMAX on April 19, Oblivion is an original and groundbreaking cinematic event from the director of TRON: Legacy and the producer of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition, one man's confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind.
Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack's mission is nearly complete.
Living in and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2013

JAMES BOND NEWS
The wait for the next James Bond movie won't be very long. After the success of 2012's "Skyfall," MGM has announced that they expect to release the next installment in the long-running franchise within three years, Reuters reports. They also hope to announce a new director soon, after "Skyfall" director Sam Mendes decided not to continue with the series, but instead to focus on live theater projects.
During an investors conference call, MGM Chairman and CEO Gary Barber said the studio already has a screenplay for the next film in development. No story or casting details were hinted at, but Daniel Craig, Agent 007 himself, is signed on for two more films.
The next movie will be the 24th in the Bond series, which began over 50 years ago with 1962's "Dr. No." "Skyfall" was the most profitable film in the Bond franchise, raking in $1.1 billion.

GODZILLA
That Godzilla reboot only started shooting today, but director Gareth Edwards has already gone ahead and leaked out the first set video from production. So what do we see?
Edwards is front and center, video diary-style, saying hi to fans and letting everyone know that filming is officially underway. He’s obviously standing on set, and in the background we can see an airport terminal with signs in Japanese. Hmm, it’ll be interesting to see if the film is actually set in Japan, or if the locale only features into an America-set story.
Likely it's a combination of both, as Edwards could be trying to pay homage to the franchise’s roots while reintroducing it to a new generation of fans. Edwards has already proven he can make a smart monster movie with his indie hit Monsters, so here’s hoping he can make ample use of a bigger budget and star power.
The flick will star a who’s-who of great sci-fi stars, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass), Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai), Elizabeth Olsen (Silent House), Juliette Binoche (Cosmopolis), David Strathairn (Alphas) and Bryan Cranston (Total Recall) all attached. The script was written by former Walking Dead showrunner Robert Kirkman.

GAME OF THRONES AD
What’s a poor, fire-breathing lost little dragon from the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros to do in a big city without its mommy?
In what must be one of the cutest TV adverts we’ve seen in a while (we just went awww when we saw this), Time Warner Cable has Drogon, one of Dany’s (Emilia Clarke) three baby dragons from HBO's Game of Thrones, all lost and alone in a big city.
The poor thing hears the Mother of Dragons’ voice everywhere: “Where is my dragon? Find my dragon.” (Boy, does it take us back to season two big time.) But she’s nowhere to be found!
Looks like Time Warner Cable has dropped some pretty silver dragons (aka muchos dollars) for that ad.

PACIFIC RIM
First we get monster footprints, now we get monster blood.
Yesterday we showed you a teaser image from Guillermo del Toro's upcoming epic Pacific Rim that featured a massive monster footprint that dwarfed every human standing around it. Details are slowly leaking out about the giant beasts of Pacific Rim, called "kaiju," and today we get another peek, this one with a more ... well, let's say internal feel.
Pacific Rim production company Legendary Pictures released the above image this week with the caption "This is as close as you ever want to get to kaiju blood." Right, because we needed more convincing that we don't want these monsters to ever be real things.
Pacific Rim hits theaters July 12.

ONCE UPON A TIME
ABC is bulking up its potential Once Upon a Time spinoff.
Once consulting producer Jane Espenson and Zero Hour's Zack Estrin have inked multiple-year overall deals with ABC Studios and boarded the network's now Wonderland-themed effort, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Espenson will serve in the same capacity, while Estrin will be an executive producer.
Under the pact, they'll join Once creators/executive producers Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (who are penning the pilot) on the spinoff. The project, first announced in February, was previously set to revolve around the Mad Hatter (who has been portrayed by Sebastian Stan on the ABC drama), with producers noting at this month's PaleyFest that they had "no plans" to recast anyone considering the actor's busy schedule. The project is now set to take place in Wonderland.
The Once team will shoot a short "teaser" presentation in April and, should it move to pilot, film that in late July or August. Casting is currently under way to fill roles including Alice, The Knave and the mysterious Amahl. No casting has been announced.
Espenson, whose credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, Warehouse 13, Torchwood and Caprica as well as YouTube hit Husbands, is repped by CAA and Hansen Jacobson.
Estrin counts ABC's recently canceled Zero Hour, The River, No Ordinary Family, The Good Guys and Prison Break among his credits. He's repped by WME and Ziffren Brittenham.
Should the Once spinoff not move forward, Espenson and Estrin will develop original projects for the studio under their overall deal.

PETE'S DRAGON
Walt Disney Pictures has plans to remake their 1977 live action/animation hybrid Pete's Dragon. Deadline reports that the studio has brought aboard Ain't Them Bodies Saints writer/director David Lowery and his writing partner, Toby Halbrooks, to provide the screenplay.
The original film followed Pete, a young orphan boy with an imaginary friend, Elliot, who just happens to be an enormous animated dragon.
Ain't Them Bodies Saints, set for release on August 16 through IFC Films, marks Lowery's first feature as a director although, at this time, he's boarding Pete's Dragon strictly as a writer.
Although the 1977 film was a musical, it is noted that the new version is not being planned as one.

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2013

DOCTOR WHO
"Doctor Who" returns to BBC America for the second half of Season 7 beginning March 30, and the new trailer previews wild adventures ahead for the Doctor (Matt Smith) and mysterious new companion Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman).
"I look at you every single day and I don't understand a thing about you," the Doctor says about Clara in the trailer. Adding: "You're the impossible girl."
Coleman quietly made her debut in the Season 7 premiere, "Asylum of the Daleks," as Oswin Oswald -- a space traveler trapped inside a Dalek. She then returned as Clara in the annual Christmas special, "The Snowmen," as an 1890s governess who the Doctor opens up to after the loss of previous companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams. But just after the Doctor invites her on to the TARDIS, Clara was killed.
The Christmas special closed out with a brief glimpse of the character destined to become the Doctor's actual companion. So even though we've met her twice, we really haven't met her at all. Or have we? It's all very timey-wimey, and a mystery that's sure to play out through these next eight episodes.
Other highlights to look forward to: another episode penned by sci-fi and fantasy icon Neil Gaiman, a guest appearance by Diana Rigg, the return of the Cybermen and the first 21st Century appearance of classic "Who" villians the Ice Warriors.

HEMLOCK GROVE
The streaming service Netflix is getting into the horror business, and a new trailer for Eli Roth’s creepy series Hemlock Grove shows they don’t plan to pull any punches with their first stab at the supernatural.
Looking like a cross between Twin Peaks and American Horror Story, the 13-episode series seems loaded with chills and intrigue. Plus, odds are Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) has brought his trademark brand of horror to the Brian McGreevy book adaptation.
Here’s the official synopsis:
The series revolves around the eccentric residents of a dilapidated former Pennsylvania steel town and the murder of 17-year-old Brooke Bluebell. Through the investigation, the town’s seamier side is exposed, revealing that nothing is what it seems.
The new trailer digs a little deeper into the world of Hemlock Grove, and peels back a few of the supernatural layers:
The entire 13-episode horror series debuts April 19 on Netflix.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
You can’t keep a good badass down. It’s taken a few years to get off the ground, but it looks like that Escape From New York reboot is finally back on track.
Producer Joel Silver (Sherlock Holmes, V For Vendetta) is working to bring Snake Plissken back to life, with a retelling of the sci-fi classic that found Kurt Russell as a hard-nosed criminal sent into a lawless apocalpytic city to rescue the president.
The 1981 original was a true sci-fi action masterpiece, and Silver hopes to develop the property into a trilogy of films. The studio is comparing the strategy to the recent hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which successfully revitalized a stagnant sci-fi classic to its former glory.
The original Escape From New York was a modest box-office hit and had a cult following among fans, but its 1996 follow-up Escape from L.A. tanked, thanks in large part to a bloated budget.
Not surprisingly, this isn’t the first time someone has tried to bring the franchise back from the dead. A reboot has been kicking around development hell for years now, with Breck Eisner (The Crazies) originally attached to direct. Every action star under the sun was rumored for the main role at one point, with Jeremy Renner, Tom Hardy and Gerard Butler at the top of most heaps in the rumor mill.
But Silver’s take is apparently a completely new project, so anything related to that failed attempt wouldn’t apply here.
Now, the big question: Who do you think can take over Kurt Russell’s eye patch as the new Snake?

SHERLOCK
It’s been more than a year since we had any new Sherlock, but work is finally underway on season three of the hit BBC series. Need proof? Here’s the first pic from production, plus the revealing title of the premiere.
Producer Mark Gattis has been kind enough to tweet a pic of a place card from the premiere episode, and also unveiled the title of the first new episode: “The Empty Hearse.”
The title is a play on words from the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story “The Adventure of the Empty House,” which is the classic tale that brought Sherlock back to life after his apparent death (sound familiar?). In the original story, Holmes explains his three year absence spent traveling the globe. It’ll be interesting to see how Gattis and Steven Moffat adapt the story for the modern day.
Like the first two seasons, the third season will also consist of three movie-length episodes.
How do you think Sherlock escaped his apparent death?

IRON MAN 3
In case you haven't realized it yet, Tony and his friends aren't having a very good time in this movie.
The latest new footage from Iron Man 3 isn't in a much-anticipated mega-trailer, but that doesn't mean it's any less interesting. The flick's latest teaser comes courtesy of Chinese electronics company TCL, who managed to get their televisions into the movie in Tony Stark' slick California mansion. So, not surpisingly, the television sets feature heavily in the teaser (at least, until Mandarin comes along and blows the house up), but we also get a few seconds of new stuff from the film itself, including more Mandarin-induced angst from Tony as he apologizes for putting those he loves in harm's way.
Be on the lookout for a new look at James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Don Cheadle) as he makes a distressed phone call (on what we're guessing is a TCL phone).
Iron Man 3 hits theaters on May 3.

THE COLONY
An international trailer and poster for sci-fi thriller The Colony, starring Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Zegers and Bill Paxton, are online and can be viewed below! The Jeff Renfroe-directed film opens in Canadian theaters on April 12.
Set during the next ice age, an outpost of colonists struggle to survive below the world's frozen surface. Short on supplies, and plagued by illness and internal conflict, the colonists suspect the worst when they mysteriously lose contact with their only other known settlement, Colony 5. When Colony 7's leader Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) decides to lead an expedition to discover what happened, he is challenged by Mason (Bill Paxton), his former comrade-in-arms, who has his own ideas of what is best for the colonists. Briggs takes two volunteers on the mission, the young Graydon, and Sam (Kevin Zegers), a strong-willed mechanic who seizes the opportunity to confront the icy wasteland that orphaned him. When they reach their destination, the team discover a threat much worse than nature and must battle to save themselves and protect their fellow colonists in what might be humanity's last stand.

MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2013

GAME OF THRONES
The third season of Game of Thrones will hit us in two weeks with its awesomeness, and we’ve got new trailers and promos to share!
The 61-seconds second promo is titled “The Beast” and has House Tully and the funeral boat and more of the Hound (Rory McCann), amongst other things. Plus it has snippets of amazing new footage (again) and gives us another glimpse into some of the brand new characters that will inhabit season three.
GAME OF THRONES returns March 31.

DOCTOR WHO
With only two weeks left to go before the premiere of Doctor Who season seven, part deux, our appetites are being whetted by this new explosive trailer that had us gaping at our screen.
Filled with the monsters we’ll get to see in the upcoming remaining eight episodes, this 41-second new trailer is chock-full of brand-new footage and more. Mystery? Check. Action? Check. Alien planets? Check. Aliens? Check. Plane in trouble? Check. Warwick Davis? Check.
The Doctor (Matt Smith) says Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman) is “the only mystery worth solving,” and our beloved Time lord is right: Just who in the Time Vortex is she?
We’ve already met her future counterpart, Oswin Oswald (who was also a Dalek), as well as her Victorian version. Could there be more? Just who is she? And who is she in relation to the Doctor?
We have a feeling this second part to season seven will be truly exciting, with events that may just lead into Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary in the fall.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY
Where will the hit fright anthology take us next?
Season one took on the classic American haunted house, while season took us into a classic madhouse, and now it looks like season three will indeed explore another American horror classic: witches.
At the American Horror Story panel at PaleyFest Friday night, series co-creator Ryan Murphy took the stage with members of the cast and announced that season three will be titled American Horror Story: Coven. This seems to confirm the tease dropped by co-star Dylan McDermott a few weeks back that referred to "the witches of Salem," though Murphy noted that the season would have several "cool" locales, including New Orleans, so don't expect an exclusively Salem story.
“It’s a really cool story we’ve been talking about for a couple of years. So we’re going to do that," Murphy said.
The PaleyFest panel also included a surprise appearance by the show's new co-star, Kathy Bates, which led Murphy to offer up a few thoughts on her character, who he described as "cucko for Cocoa Puffs."
"I wanted to see a lot of scenes with Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates going at it,” Murphy said, “so that’s what you’re going to see.”
Murphy also noted that a big theme for this season will be "female power," and that another iconic monster (like season one's "Rubber Man" and season two's "Bloody Face") will be featured.
American Horror Story: Coven will debut on FX this fall.

ORPHAN BLACK
We’re just a few weeks away from the debut of one of the most intriguing new sci-fi series of 2013 on BBC America. Now the network has released a new clip peeling back a few of the mysteries surrounding Orphan Black.
The cloning drama looks like a smart, sci-fi spin on the recent CW flop Ringer, but with that enigmatic British flair. The series is one of BBC America’s first original scripted programs, and it’s great to see they’re willing to take a shot on a high-concept sci-fi series.
Here’s the synopsis:
Sarah hopes that cleaning out a dead woman’s bank account will solve all her problems. Instead, they multiply at an unnerving rate. Smart, sexy, and pulsating with suspense – BBC America’s new original series Orphan Black features rising star Tatiana Maslany (The Vow, Picture Day). She portrays Sarah, an outsider and orphan whose life changes dramatically after witnessing the suicide of a woman, “Beth,” who looks just like her. Sarah takes her identity, her boyfriend, and her money.
But instead of solving her problems, the street-smart chameleon is thrust headlong into a kaleidoscopic mystery. She makes the dizzying discovery that she and the dead woman are clones... but are they the only ones? Sarah quickly finds herself caught in the middle of a deadly conspiracy, racing to find answers.
The premiere of Orphan Black is on BBC America, Saturday, March 30.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
This weekend saw the release of two new movies, both with fairly big name stars, although neither of them stood much of a chance against Walt Disney Pictures' Oz The Great and Powerful, which held up decently in its second weekend with an estimated $42.2 million, down just 47% from its opening weekend which was enough to keep it at first place at the box office with relative ease. And just like that, the movie, directed by Sam Raimi and starring James Franco, Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz, became the highest-grossing movie of 2013 with $145 million grossed domestically. It held well in its 308 domestic IMAX screens, adding another $4 million to its IMAX total. Disney's movie did even better internationally in its second weekend, bringing in $46.6 million ($2 million from IMAX venues) to bring its international total to $136.8 million and its worldwide cume to $281.8 million after just ten days.
Despite opening in over 600 fewer theaters, Halle Berry's thriller The Call (TriStar Pictures), co-starring Abigail Breslin, did significantly better than the Vegas magic comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (New Line/WB), starring Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi, Jim Carrey, Olivia Wilde and Alan Arkin. The high concept thriller brought in an estimated $17.1 million over the weekend in 2,507 locations, averaging roughly $6,800 per site, while the star-studded magician comedy tanked with just $10.3 million in over 3,100 theaters, a dismal per-site average of $3,259 per location. It's the poorest showing for one of Carell's movies to open in over 2,000 theaters since the breakout success of The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005. It also continues Warner Bros.' run of disappointments and outright bombs for the year with only one of their releases opening over $20 million this year.
That movie was Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Slayer (Warner Bros.), which dropped down to fourth place with a better hold than its previous week, adding $6.2 million to its three week total of $53.9 million.
Seth Gordon's hit comedy Identity Thief (Universal), starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, took fifth place with $4.5 million, bringing its running box office total to $123.7 million to date, still good for what is now the second-highest grossing movie of the year. It also became Gordon's biggest comedy hit to date, surpassing the grosses of his previous comedies Four Christmases and Horrible Bosses.
Dwayne Johnson's real-life action thriller Snitch (Summit) had another great hold in its fourth weekend, down just 31% and one spot from the previous weekend to take sixth place with $3.5 million over the weekend and $37.3 million total.
Of the rest of the movies in the Top 10, all of which grossed less than $3 million, the R-rated party comedy 21 and Over (Relativity Media) did the best with $2.6 million to bring its total to $22 million.
Meanwhile, the Colin Farrell crime thriller Dead Man Down (Film District)--which like The Call was co-produced by WWE Films--took the biggest plunge of the week, dropping 62% from its fourth place opening to fall out of the Top 10 in its second week.
The Top 10 grossed an estimated $94.3 million, which is up slightly-less than 1%--from the same weekend last year when the Jonah Hill-Channing Tatum R-rated undercover cop comedy 21 Jump Street (Sony) won the weekend with $36.3 million.
Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers (A24), starring Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and James Franco, opened big in just three theaters in New York and Los Angeles, grossing an estimated $270 thousand or $90,000 per site, a great lead-in for its nationwide expansion next Friday. Taking full advantage of the number of college students currently on spring break--presumably many former Disney Channel watchers--it was quite a coup for new distributor A24, which also finally released Sally Potter's Ginger & Rosa, starring Elle Fanning and Alice Englert, on Friday into the same number of theaters to lesser effect. The British coming-of-age drama brought in just $45,000.
The Studio Ghibli animated film From Up on Poppy Hill (GKIDS) also opened in two theaters in New York on Friday where it brought in $55,000.

SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2013

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
Days of Future Past director Bryan Singer took to Twitter once again Friday afternoon to tease us with further news of who's joining the X-Men for their latest adventure. Rather than simply tell us the names, though, Singer posted a photo of a wall covered in headshots, three of which we hadn't seen on the cast list before.
You probably see a lot of familiar faces there. There's Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Michael Fassbender, Peter Dinklage, Ellen Page and so on, but the three faces on the right side of the bottom row are new. So, who are they?
The one in the center of the bottom row is Daniel Cudmore, who played Colossus in both X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand. So there's yet another returning star for Singer's third X-flick. The actress in the photo to the right of Cudmore is Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, who's been a star in Asia for quite some time and is best known for flicks like Double Xposure and Battle of the Warriors (she'll also show up in Iron Man 3 later this year). According to ComingSoon, she'll be playing the mutant Blink. On the far right is actor Boo Boo Stewart, who's best known for his appearance in The Twilight Saga films. We don't know who he's playing yet, though.
So, that's one returning X-Man and two new mutants for Days of Future Past.

GAME OF THRONES
Winter, war and all manner of foreboding w-words are heading to Westeros in the third season of Game of Thrones, as the latest promo makes quite clear.
Just about two weeks shy of the drama's return, "War" gives a rather concise run-down of who's fighting and why.
"A man who fights for gold can't afford to lose to a girl," says Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), clearly rebounding from last season's humbling desert sojourn.
It's Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), however, who seems to say what's on everybody's mind when he announces, "I want Joffrey dead."

Aaron Eckhart DIVERGENT
Aaron Eckhart ("The Dark Knight"), Ray Stevenson ("Rome"), Miles Teller ("21 and Over") and Theo James ("Golden Boy") are all reportedly hopping onboard the upcoming adaptation of Veronica Roth's young adult dystopian novel "Divergent" at Summit Entertainment.
The story is set in a society divided into five factions that each represent a particular virtue: honesty, selflessness, bravery, peacefulness and intelligence.
Once a year, sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. It's then a teenage boy and girl set out to rebel against the system and discover a growing conflict that threatens to unravel this seemingly perfect society.
Shailene Woodley, Jai Courtney, Kate Winslet, Ansel Elgort, Zoe Kravitz and Maggie Q are already attached to star in the Neil Burger-directed project.
Doug Wick, Lucy Fisher and Pouya Shahbazian are producing. The film is currently targeting a March 21st 2014 release.

Pompeii POMPEII
Production began earlier today on Paul WS Anderson's "Pompeii" in the actual city of Pompeii.
Constantin Film and Impact Pictures are producing the film which will spend the next two weeks on location at the uncovered ancient Roman city before moving to Toronto on March 28th.
Jared Harris has just joined the cast which is lead by Kit Harington and Emily Browning. The story follows a slave turned invincible gladiator who tries to save his love from a corrupt Roman General as Mount Vesuvius erupts.
Lee Batchler, Janet Scott Batchler, Michael Robert Johnson and Julian Fellowes worked on the screenplay, and Summit Entertainment will distribute the film next year in North America.
Anderson and Jeremy Bolt are producing.

SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2013

Dallas Roberts UNFORGETTABLE
It won't surprise anyone if Dallas Roberts' character Milton doesn't survive Season 3 of "The Walking Dead," but it'll be even less surprising with the news Roberts is joining the cast of CBS' "Unforgettable" for Season 2.
Roberts has been a prominent recurring figure this season on "Dead" as Woodbury resident and the Governor's personal researcher, Milton. But last week's episode hinted that he's becoming a bit disenchanted with his boss, and the Governor doesn't take kindly to disobedience.
Roberts' casting on "Unforgettable" keeps him in the CBS family -- where he's also had a recurring role as Alicia's brother on "The Good Wife." Season 2 of "Unforgettable" is scheduled to kick off July 28 and will introduce Roberts as Eliot, a NYPD detective in charge of major cases.
CBS nearly canceled "Unforgettable" after its so-so first season ratings but gave the show a last minute reprieve order of 13 episodes to air in the summer. First season cast members Poppy Montgomery, Dylan Walsh and Jane Curtin are all on board to return, while James Laio and Tawny Cypress ("Heroes") have been added in a recurring capacity.

IRON MAN: RISE OF THE TECHNOVORE
Check out the operatic awesomeness of this second trailer for Marvel’s Iron Man: Rise of Technovore, a direct-to-video Marvel Anime adaptation directed by Hiroshi Hamazaki.
Its classic Japanese anime style comes from the fact that Hamazaki was key animator in such legendary manga-riffic titles as Ninja Scroll and Blue Submarine #6 in the 1990s. This polished animated movie features Matthew Mercer as the voice of Tony Stark and Norman Reedus, The Walking Dead's favorite squirrel-eating redneck, Daryl, doing the sinister voice of the Punisher.
Here's the official synopsis:
Billionaire Tony Stark, in his Iron Man armor, prevents an attack from a mysterious new foe, but innocent bystanders are killed, including his best friend War Machine, Lt. Colonel James Rhodes. Detained for questioning by S.H.I.E.L.D., Iron Man escapes, determined to find the mastermind behind the attack. Pursued by Black Widow and Hawkeye, Iron Man enlists the help of the ruthless vigilante The Punisher. But can the Armored Avenger handle what he finds when he catches the person responsible and is forced to face his deadliest weapon, a biotechnology called Technovore that could wipe out all life on the planet?
Iron Man: Rise of Technovore launches on DVD and Blu-ray on April 16, 2013.

COLOSSUS
Universal Pictures is bringing Men in Black scribe Ed Solomon aboard to rewrite the Will Smith vehicle Colossus.
The move gives a shot in the arm to the Imagine Entertainment-produced project, a remake of the studio's 1970 Colossus: The Forbin Project that the studio began developing in 2007. Solomon, who is also collaborating on an untitled film with J.J. Abrams, has a long history with Smith, dating back to Smith's breakout hit Men in Black.
Blake Masters and Jason Rothenberg wrote earlier drafts of the super-secret sci-fi screenplay. Though the studio is keeping plot details under wraps, the project would see Smith taking on the role of Dr. Charles Forbin, who is the creator of a computer that has taken over the world and is the only scientist who can stop it.
Imagine's Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are producing alongside Erica Huggins and David J. Collins. Universal’s Anikah McLaren and Sara Scott are overseeing the project for the studio.

PACIFIC RIM
Legendary has released one teaser of an image from Pacific Rim. The pic shows the aftermath of a Kaiju attack - well, more like a giant footprint...

In the film, opening July 12th, legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, start rising from the sea and begin a war that would takes millions of lives and consumes humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes-a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)-who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
It seems reports of "Game of Thrones" star Jason Momoa taking on the part of Drax the Destroyer in Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" were premature. THR is reporting that a deal for the part has been closed, and the actor stepping into the role isn't someone known for acting at all. Dave Bautista, a former WWE World Champion and mixed martial artist, will play Drax in the upcoming movie.
Bautista left WWE in 2010 to try his hand at mixed martial arts fighting, as well as to pursue acting jobs. His roles so far have been mostly in direct-to-video movies, but with September's "Rick," in which he has a supporting role, he's to be taking a step forward.
Bautista joins Chris Pratt, who is already cast in the lead role of Star-Lord, "Guardians of the Galaxy," which will be directed by James Gunn, is expected to fit in the same universe as the other current Marvel franchises, and will include ties to "The Avengers." Filming is expected to begin this summer, with a release date scheduled in August 2014.

SAGITTARIUS A
It seems like Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have their hand in just about everything these days, and now the hit writers are prepping a massive new sci-fi flick.
Dubbed Sagittarius A, the project looks to be a big-budget sci-fi flick. No word on the plot, though the title suggests it could be set on a spaceship or perhaps in deep space. Definition-wise, Sagittarius A is a complex radio source located deep in the center of the Milky Way. What that means as far as the story? Who knows.
This project joins about a half dozen other films Orci and Kurtzman have in the works, including everything from Amazing Spider-Man 2 to a Van Helsing reboot. They’ve also had a hand in the Transformers series and J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek films.
It’s nice to see Kurtzman and Orci branching out into their own projects, and finally trying something outside of the big franchise fare. Here’s hoping it’s good.

RESIDENT EVIL 6
It’s one of the few successful franchises to make the jump from videogame to movies, so don’t expect Resident Evil to go away anytime soon.
Resident Evil 6 is officially happening, and the studio seems to have wrangled longtime star Milla Jovovich (Alice) and longtime director Paul W.S. Anderson back for one more go-round.
It’s not much of a surprise to hear the duo will be back for the next film, as Anderson had originally wanted to shoot Resident Evil 6 at the same time as the fifth installment, but eventually decided to just focus on Retribution.
The franchise is pretty much wild, popcorn sci-fi—but it does have an audience. Five films in, Retribution still managed to wrangle a $221 million box-office haul, so there’s still a lot of life left in this old zombie story.
No word on what the sequel will focus on, but after the ending to the last film, it’s safe to say that we’ll see the continued journey of Alice as she battles zombies and the evil Umbrella Corp.
As for what’s coming beyond Resident Evil 6? Who knows, but it’s likely this will be Jovovich and Anderson’s last film. Anderson has previously said he’s aiming for a double trilogy, so he may try to wrap up his convoluted epic with the last film. This being such a popular franchise, you’d have to think a reboot would come sooner rather than later.

TYRANT
Coming off of his Academy Award win for Life of Pi, celebrated director Ang Lee will make his television directorial debut with FX, directing the pilot episode for the upcoming drama "Tyrant" from Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning producers Howard Gordon and Gideon Raff ("Homeland"), and Emmy-nominated writer/producer Craig Wright ("Six Feet Under," "Lost"). The announcement was made today by John Landgraf, President and General Manager, FX Networks.
"Tyrant"will be Lee's first project following Life of Pi.
"Tyrant" tells the story of an unassuming American family drawn into the workings of a turbulent Middle Eastern nation. The series was created by Raff and developed by Gordon and Wright. Raff wrote the pilot script, which comes from Teakwood Lane, the company Gordon has set up at 20th Century Fox Television. "Tyrant" is produced by Fox 21 and FX Productions.
"Ang Lee has demonstrated time and again an ability to present characters with such depth and specificity that they reveal the universal human condition," said Landgraf. "No one could be a more perfect film maker to bring Howard Gordon, Gideon Raff, and Craig Wright's 'Tyrant' to indelible life."
Gordon, Raff and Wright are executive producers in association with Keshet Broadcasting. Lee is an Executive Producer. If "Tyrant" receives a series order, Wright will serve as showrunner.
"The fact that the brilliant Ang Lee has signed on to direct his first project for television speaks to the extraordinary nature of 'Tyrant,'" commented Bert Salke, President of Fox 21, which will produce the show. "Ang Lee, Gideon Raff, Craig Wright and Howard Gordon are master storytellers at the height of their powers, and the material is incredible. We can't wait to get started."
Production on "Tyrant" is tentatively slated to begin this summer.

JUPITER ASCENDING
Warner Bros. has set Jupiter Ascending, the new science fiction film from Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas) for a July 25, 2014 release. They've also moved Peter Segal's boxing comedy Grudge Match from November 15, 2013 to January 10, 2014.
Starring Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean, Douglas Booth and Tuppence Middleton, Jupiter Ascending focuses on higher forms of life who are watching us from other worlds. Kunis will play a Russian immigrant who is busily scrubbing toilets for a living. Unbeknownst to her, she actually possesses the same perfect genetic makeup as the Queen of the Universe and is therefore a threat to her otherwise immortal rule.
The date puts Jupiter Ascending up against Brett Ratner's Hercules, set to star Dwayne Johnson.
Grudge Match, meanwhile, stars Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Kevin Hart, Kim Basinger and Alan Arkin and revolves around retired boxers Billy "The Kid" McDonnen and Henry "Razor" Sharp, lifelong bitter rivals who are coaxed out of retirement and into the ring for one final grudge match -- 50 years after their last title fight.

THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2013

THE LONE RANGER
Disney's campaign to corral a captive audience for its big-budget summer hoedown of The Lone Ranger is hitting full stride. Check out this hyperactive new European trailer cut for the Japanese market, sharply focused on the Masked Man's mayhem, with Helena Bonham-Carter sporting an awesome cannonball-firing trick leg.
Galloping into theaters on July 3rd, 2013, The Lone Ranger stars Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, Tom Wilkinson and Barry Pepper.

OBLIVION A lengthy new featurette for Tom Cruise’s Oblivion has been released, which digs into the mysterious story and shows off some new footage of the glorious post-apocalypse.
The new promo clip includes some interviews with the cast and crew, where they break down the finer points of the story about one of the last men on future-Earth.
Here’s the latest synopsis, which teases lots of sci-fi intrigue:
Jack Harper (Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack’s mission is nearly complete.
Living in and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.
Oblivion is scheduled to open April 19.

Colton Haynes ARROW NEWS
It sounds like Arrow could be getting even more help soon.
After popping up in a guest role this season, it seems a classic Green Arrow character will be sticking around The CW’s small screen take on the comic permanently.
Former Teen Wolf star Colton Haynes, who guest starred as Roy Harper on Arrow, has signed on as a series regular for the recently announced second season. Harper was introduced as a teenage thief who has a run in with Oliver’s younger sister Thea.
As fans of the comic likely know, Roy Harper is also Green Arrow’s young sidekick Speedy. The character has been a part of the comic canon for decades, and has also had stints with the Teen Titans and Justice League of America.
So does this mean we’ll be seeing Speedy suit up sooner rather than later? Maybe, maybe not. The comic writers may be in a hurry to keep the action rolling, but they’re taking their time when it comes to character development.
If anything, the writers will likely start laying the groundwork next season with Oliver and Roy to eventually feed into season three or four (assuming the show survives that long, of course).

EVIL DEAD
TriStar Pictures has announced they are bringing Evil Dead to WonderCon at the end of the month with the following video, which features an intro by director Fede Alvarez and producers Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert, as well as new footage!
In the much anticipated remake of the 1981 cult-hit horror film, five twenty-something friends become holed up in a remote cabin. When they discover a Book of the Dead, they unwittingly summon up dormant demons living in the nearby woods, which possess the youngsters in succession until only one is left intact to fight for survival.
Opening in theaters on April 5, the film stars Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore.

HANNIBAL
NBC has released a new two-and-a-half minute trailer for their upcoming "Hannibal," based on the literary world created author Thomas Harris.
The series looks at the early days of FBI agent Will Graham's career and the time when he worked alongside Hannibal Lecter - naturally, before Graham realized Lecter was a cannibal. It appears the series is taking a few creative liberties, picking up with Graham being drawn back into the FBI game, which is where we saw him in Red Dragon/Manhunter, but in that book/film, Lecter had already been capture and Will was mentally exhausted/scarred by his time in the field.
David Slade directs the first episode which premieres April 4th.

VERONICA MARS
Anticipated by fans since the series went off the air in 2007, a Veronica Mars feature film is officially on the way! This morning's ambitious Kickstarter attempt to raise the $2 million necessary to greenlight such a project was a record-breaking success and the targeted budget was reached in less than 12 hours. You can check out what the total is up to now here.
The series, from creator Rob Thomas, starred Kristen Bell as the titular Mars, a young student who, growing up with a detective for a father, moonlit as a private investigator. The series ran for three seasons, transitioning Mars from high school to college.
As per the rules of the Kickstarter, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution has agreed to put the movie into production and pick up the tab for marketing, promotion, and distribution. The film will be released in the first quarter of 2014 for a limited-time theatrical run, before moving to VOD, iTunes, and other digital platforms.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013

James Spader THE BLACKLIST
NBC's action pilot "The Blacklist" has set Emmy winner James Spader to star in the lead role that was previously offered to Kiefer Sutherland.
Spader will play one of the world's most wanted criminals who inexplicably offers to work with a brand new FBI agent (played by "Law & Order: LA" alumna Megan Boone) and inform on all of his underworld associates.
The concept comes from "Taking Lives" screenwriter Jon Bokenkamp. It had been reported that NBC was pursuing Sutherland for the starring role, since the former "24" leading man's current show, "Touch," continues to struggle in the ratings.
But with Spader, "The Blacklist" has found another respected and well-known star with an established track record on the small screen. Spader won an Emmy for playing Alan Shore on "The Practice" before the character was spun off on "Boston Legal," which brought Spader three more Emmy nominations and two wins.
He then recurred on "The Office" in the 2011-2012 season. Spader also recently had a supporting role in Steven Spielberg's multi-Oscar nominated box office hit "Lincoln."

DEFIANCE
We’re just a few weeks away from the debut of Syfy’s ambitious new series Defiance, and a new clip has been released that takes us behind-the-scenes with two main characters on the sci-fi epic.
The featurette is all about the characters of Nolan (Grant Bowler) and Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas), and digs a little deeper into the post-alien invasion world of the project. The scope looks absolutely huge, and it definitely has a Farscape vibe when it comes to world-building (which is no surprise, with Rockne S. O’Bannon among the producers).
In addition to the TV show launching on April 15, the Defiance universe will also play out in a MMORPG video game set to hit shelves April 2. The game is already available for pre-order now (Use Arkfall code WBIEos) and will connect with the events that play out on the series.

OCCULT
That Fringe-sized hole in the fall schedule might not be there for too long, as A&E is prepping a new X-Files-styled series created by a bona fide X-Files alum.
The cable network has nailed down the cast for former X-Files writer James Wong’s new series Occult, about a team of FBI agents working for the government’s occult crimes task force. Josh Lucas (Poseidon) and Lynn Collins (John Carter) will star as the two agents at the center of the story. The series is being produced by Michael Bay.
Here’s the synopsis, via Deadline:
Occult, which draws parallels to X-Files and Fringe, centers on Dolan (Lucas), an FBI agent who returns from administrative leave after going off the deep end while investigating his wife’s disappearance. Eager to be back on the job, he is paired with Noa Blair (Collins), an agent with her own complicated backstory who specializes in the occult. Together, they will solve cases for the newly formed occult crimes task force.
The cable network is making a hard push into genre-tinged fare this year, along with the upcoming Psycho prequel Bates Motel. This sounds like a classic premise for a sci-fi show, drawing heavily from everything from X-Files to Night Stalker, but its success will all depend on how well they can build a mythos.
But with Wong’s experience on X-Files, that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.

David Strathairn GODZILLA
The beloved Syfy series Alphas might be gone, but that doesn’t mean Dr. Rosen is done trying to save the world. Next up for actor David Strathairn? A battle with continent-crushing super monster Godzilla.
Strathairn is the latest addition to director Gareth Edwards’ (Monsters) new take on the classic monster movie, which is being written by Walking Dead co-creator Frank Darabont.
The acclaimed character actor will likely join Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass), Elizabeth Olsen (Silent House) and Bryan Cranston (Argo) in the big-budget tentpole flick.
All of the main cast are apparently still in talks, though, as Darabont is still hammering out his final draft of the script. This is a pretty solid team in front of and behind the camera, and this could turn out to be a surprise hit in a few years.
Edwards’ take on the franchise is rumored to be a more serious, dark imagining of a giant monster attack seen through the eyes of a young soldier and those around him.

Justice League JUSTICE LEAGUE
Who says print is dead?
The '90s may not have always been considered the best time for writing and art when it came to comics, but it can't be understated that sales boomed in a way they never had before. For a long time, it seemed as though they never would again, either. So it's shocking that we can report today that DC Comics has sold more copies of Justice League of America #1 than it has of any other comic since 1996.
With nearly 308,000 copies ordered from retailers, the new Justice League managed to outpace even the highest selling DC 52 #1's by at least 100,000. At the moment, it is the seventh top-selling comic of the 21st century, and that number may increase with potential reorders.
But what made this issue so successful? Well, it seems that one of the major reasons for its sales is due to the variant covers. At a whopping 50, there are versions of this single issue for each state in the union. That's 50 different state flags, plus the U.S. flag for the regular cover.
That's certainly not as romantic as the notion that writing and artistry are paving the way to a more successful creative industry, but at least now DC knows that something sells better than sex and violence -- flags.

Karl Urban HUMAN
J.J. Abrams is someone who likes to keep it in the family. The director and producer has tapped a member of his Star Trek team to headline his new show. It's called Human and is a futuristic thriller written by Fringe's J.H. Wyman.
Karl Urban, who'll reprise his role as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in Star Trek Into Darkness, has landed the lead. The series is described as "an action-packed buddy cop show set in the near future, when all LAPD officers are partnered with highly evolved human-like androids."
Urban's character John Kennex is a veteran cop who's partnered with an android called Dorian (Michael Ealy). Even though John is human, his tragic past has left him emotionally and physically scarred. Despite Dorian's A.I. origins, he has a much better understanding of the human race.
Other Human castmembers include Friday Night Light's Minka Kelly, Lili Taylor, Michael Irby and Mackenzie Crook.
Aside from Star Trek Into Darkness, Urban will also appear in the sequel Riddick, which opens this fall.

Rutger Hauer TRUE BLOOD
With a fancy suit, pipe and some wild white hair, actor Rutger Hauer was spotted sauntering onto the set of "True Blood." Thanks to ShockTillYouDrop for the pictures.
The HBO series is entering its sixth season this summer and welcoming Hauer as a character named "Macklyn."
The Dutch actor signed up for the series last October and it has been said that his character has "close" ties to Sookie and Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten is also featured in one of the pics).
Hauer has had his fair share of vampire experience playing Lothos in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Barlow in Salem's Lot, Dracula in Dracula III: Legacy and Van Helsing in Dario Argento's forthcoming Dracula.

Brilliance BRILLIANCE
Legendary Pictures has acquired the rights to Marcus Sakey's forthcoming sci-fi/superhero novel Brilliance, Deadline reports. Set for release in July, the book is officially described as follows:
In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets by the way they fold their arms. In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking. They’re called “brilliants,” and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in—and betray his own kind.
Joe Roth and Palak Patel, fresh off the tremendous success that Sam Raimi's Oz The Great and Powerful, are attached to produce alongside Alex Hedlund.

TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2013

STAR WARS: CLONE WARS
After five seasons on Cartoon Network, Lucasfilm's animated adventure series "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" is coming to an end.
Lucasfilm delivered the news while announcing a "new direction" for the company's animated content. No further "Clone Wars" episodes will be produced for Cartoon Network -- a decision expected since Disney acquired Lucasfilm last year -- and only a few additional "story arcs" will be produced as "bonus content" (likely to wrap up ongoing storylines). When and where these "arcs" will be seen (cable TV? online? DVD?) has not yet been announced.
Additionally, Lucasfilm has indefinitely postponed the release of the animated spoof series "Detours" from the "Robot Chicken" producers (including Seth Green). Apparently the company now finds the idea of an off-kilter look at the "Star Wars" universe counterproductive to its strategy leading up to the 2015 launch of "Star Wars Episode VII."
But it's not all bad news from Lucasfilm. The company also made sure to note: "We are exploring a whole new 'Star Wars' series set in a time period previously untouched in 'Star Wars' films or television programming. You can expect more details in the months to come."

DOCTOR WHO NEWS
We'd already heard that actor Jenna Louise Coleman had, allegedly, said she would be back, but in an interview on BBC Radio 5, it was finally confirmed for all eager fan ears to hear. Clara will continue her adventure with the time-traveling Doctor all through the second half of season 7 and on through season 8.
One particular detail, though -- Matt Smith will be in America over the summer for a film that sees man-turned-internet-meme Ryan Gosling's directorial debut. That means filming for Season 8 of Doctor Who will be delayed until September. This means Coleman will be the first companion since the show came back to actually get the summer off. Her plan? To go someplace "hot."

Laura Vandervoort BITTEN
We haven't seen the last of Laura Vandervoort. The beautiful blonde is returning to genre television. Vandervoot has landed the lead in the upcoming Space series Bitten. She's been cast as Elena Michaels, the world's only female werewolf. The character is taken from the Women of the Otherworld novels, written by Kelley Armstrong.
Vandervoort is best known for her work on Smallville and the rebooted V. On the former, she starred as Kara Zor-El/Kara Kent, aka Supergirl, before becoming Lisa on ABC's V. According to Corrie Coe, senior vice-president, independent production of Bell Media, Vandervoort was the perfect choice for Bitten.
"Laura has complexity and strength, and is also very relatable, making her the perfect fit for a character struggling to maintain the life she desires, while fighting against who she really is, and for those she loves," said Coe. "Well-known to genre fans, Laura's star power is sure to stir up even more excitement for this already buzzed-about series."
Here's the plot synopsis:
A foster child, Elena thought she finally found her "happily ever after" with her new love Clayton, but with one small bite, her life was changed forever and she was forced to survive life with the Pack as a werewolf. Years later, Elena has found refuge in Toronto, working as a photographer and dating a new man. But when bodies turn up in the backwoods of Stonehaven, the rural mansion that has served as a werewolf sanctuary for generations, the perfect life Elena has constructed begins to crumble. With the Pack threatened by an unknown predator, they turn to Elena for help. Caught between two worlds and two loves, Elena returns to Stonehaven out of duty, but once back in the fold she realizes that when push comes to shove, like any true alpha female, she'll stop at nothing to defend her family.
Production on Bitten begins next month for its 13-episode season.

Agent Coulson S.H.I.E.L.D.
We all know Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) bit the dust in The Avengers, right? So how in the blazes will he be alive and kicking for that S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series? Unless the series takes place before the events of last year’s hit summer movie.
Well, Joss Whedon has revealed not only that the S.H.I.E.L.D. series will take place after The Avengers, but that Coulson will definitely be alive and kicking. No trick, no flashback. Ain't that super-exciting news!
This was revealed during Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing Q&A panel in Austin at the SXSW festival, where he addressed Coulson's return from the dead.
Cinemablend reported Whedon jokingly saying: "I’ll tell you guys this, Heimlich." Then he admitted, "I can’t talk about it," but he did say that he did indeed bring Coulson back from the dead for the ABC drama series and that "Yes," it is "For realsies."
So why did Joss Whedon want Coulson back for that S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series despite his apparent demise at the hands, or rather at the staff, of Loki (Tom Hiddleston)?
Speaking to Deadline he said:
The idea of the Little Guy is something that I am very fierce about, and there has never been a better Little Guy than Clark Gregg. That intrigued me, this world around the superhero community. It’s the people whose shop windows get blown up when the Destroyer shows up. It’s the more intimate stories that belong on television that we can really tap into the visual style and ethos, and even some of the mythology, of the Marvel movies. I think we’ve put together another really great ensemble headed by Clark. And how much it’s actually seeding or hinting or reacting to what’s going on in the movies is something we’ll let play out as we go. For me the most important thing is that people fall in love with it on its own merits, rather than constantly asking, “Is there gonna be an Avenger?” Well, there’s not gonna be a Hulk because that guy’s too expensive.
Hopefully (and if there is a TV God), the pilot will get picked up and the series will start airing in the fall.

Skeet Ulrich ANATOMY OF VIOLENCE
Anatomy of Violence has found its lead in Skeet Ulrich.
The former Jericho actor has been tapped to star in the CBS pilot from Homeland's Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa and Alex Cary, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The hourlong drama effort, inspired by Adrian Raine’s nonfiction book The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime, is familiar territory for the trio as it centers on Dr. Raines, a criminal psychologist who partners with a young female detective with whom he shares a conflicted past.
Ulrich will play Raines, who is being billed as the unshaven, disheveled maverick FBI criminal psychiatrist who specializes in the reasons people commit acts of extreme violence. He joins previously cast Homeland vet David Harewood, who is set to play Alejo, a celebrated profiler and Raines' boss and friend in the 20th Century Fox TV project.

Beauty & Beast THE BEAST
There's a new live-action take on "Beauty and the Beast" on the way from Walt Disney Pictures. Deadline brings word that the studio has hired Trance screenwriter Joe Ahearne to work on a reimagining of the classic tale, to be titled The Beast.
A French fairy tale with origins in the 18th century, "Beauty and the Beast" has been brought to the big and small screen time and again. Recently, 2011's Beastly offered a modern take on the story, as has The CW's recently launched "Beauty and the Beast" television series. Another, still-untitled live-action film is in the works with Guillermo del Toro slated to direct and Emma Watson attached to headline.
The new Disney version will be produced by David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman.

Ridley Scott MACHINIMA
Machinima has today announced a partnership with Ridley Scott and his commercial production company Ridley Scott and Associates that will focus on building original science fiction content for distribution through the online platform. Initial plans call for the creation of 12 sci-fi short films.
"Partnering with Ridley Scott to work with his talented directors shows Machinima's dedication to going above and beyond in delivering quality original content for our audience to embrace," said Allen DeBevoise, Chairman, Co-founder and CEO at Machinima, Inc. "By combining this unique incubation model together with our powerful partnership of established creative talent and scaled distribution to millions on Machinima, we believe new sci-fi franchises will be born.”
"RSA has always been at the forefront of creating innovative work. With new media transforming the way audiences connect with films and filmmakers, Machinima is a great partner for us as we embark on this new model of delivering original content to fans. It's a tremendous opportunity for pushing the creative boundaries for both our filmmakers and the audience," said Ridley Scott.
Scott will serve as executive producer with RSA president Jules Daly, and with Machinima, will select filmmakers from Ridley Scott and Associates to direct the short films.

MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2013

Oz WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Breathing life into the beleaguered box office, Sam Raimi's 3D fantasy-adventure Oz the Great and Powerful took in an impressive $80.3 million in its North American debut and $69.9 million overseas for a global opening of $150.2 million.
Disney and producer Joe Roth hope to launch a family-friendly franchise with Oz, which scored the top North American debut of 2013 as well as the third-best March opening of all time after last year's The Hunger Games ($152.5 million) and fellow Disney fantasy-adventure Alice in Wonderland, which debuted to $116.1 million in early March 2010.
The Wizard of Oz prequel tells the story of how a fast-talking Kansas circus worker (James Franco) became the wizard. The three witches central to the story are played by Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams.
Disney spent north of $300 million on Oz, between the $215 million production budget and a hefty worldwide marketing campaign. It is opening in the same corridor as Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp. Alice received an A- CinemaScore from moviegoers, versus a B+ for Oz.
Oz did solid but not spectacular business internationally, where the original 1939 film isn't as well known. Russia led with $15 million, followed by the U.K. ($5.7 million), Mexico ($5.1 million) and Australia ($5 million). Oz opened to $4.2 million in Germany, where it was in a close battle with holdover Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Oz opened in a total of 46 territories, or roughly 80 percent of the international marketplace.
In North America, Oz was up more than 35 percent from Friday to Saturday as families turned out in force, making up 41 percent of the audience. Couples made up 43 percent, while teenagers made up 16 percent. The movie skewed slightly female (52 percent).
"The families absolutely came out, but we also did great business during the evening," said Disney distribution chief Dave Hollis."After six weekends of decline at the box office, Oz has become a water-cooler movie and gets people back in the mood to see movies."
Roughly 53 percent of the domestic gross came from 3D theaters, a pleasing number considering the overall decline in 3D attendance. Imax theaters contributed 10 percent of the 3D total, or $8.2 million. Overseas, Imax grosses came in at $4 million, setting a March record.
The relative strength of Oz was a key victory for Disney; on the same weekend a year, the studio's ill-fated John Carter opened to a dismal $30.2 million.
And as expected, Oz made life impossible for Bryan Singer's troubled 3D fantasy-adventure Jack the Giant Slayer, which fell 63 percent in its second weekend to $10 million for a domestic total of $43.8 million. The tentpole, from New Line and Legendary Pictures, is trailing both John Carter and Battleship. Overseas, Jack took in $4.9 million from 10 Asian markets for an international total of $22.6 million and global cume of $66.4 million.
The weekend's other new wide release, romantic thriller Dead Man Down, fell flat in its opening, coming in No. 4 with roughly $5.5 million. Marking the English-language debut of Danish filmmaker Niels Arden Oplev, Dead Man Down reteams the filmmaker with his The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace.
Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard and Dominic Cooper also star in the movie, which is being distributed domestically by FilmDistrict. IM Global, Original Films and Frequency Films are partners on the film.
Debuting at the specialty box office was Peter Webber's post-World War II historical drama Emperor, starring Matthew Fox and Tommy Lee Jones. Distributed by Roadside Attractions, the movie grossed $1 million from 260 theaters in the top 75 markets for a location average of $4,010.
Below are estimates for the March 8-10 weekend at the domestic box office.
Title, weeks in release/theater count, studio, three-day weekend total, cume (*denotes Oscar best picture nominee)
1. Oz the Great and Powerful, 1/3,912, Disney, $80.3 million
2. Jack the Giant Slayer, 2/3,525, Warner Bros., $10 million, $43.8 million
3. Identity Thief, 5/3,002, Universal, $6.3 million, $116.5 million
4. Dead Man Down, 1/2,188, FilmDistrict/IM Global, $5.4 million
5. Snitch, 3/2,340, Lionsgate/Participant, $5.1 million, $26.8 million
6. 21 and Over, 2/2,771, Relativity Media, $5.1 million, $16.8 million
7. Safe Haven, 4/2,541, Relativity, $3.8 million, $62.9 million
8. *Silver Linings Playbook, 17/1,727, The Weinstein Co., $3.7 million, $120.7 million
9. Escape From Planet Earth, 4/2,549, The Weinstein Co, $3.2 million, $47.8 million
10. The Last Exorcism: Part II, 2/2,700, CBS Films, $3.1 million, $12.1 million

THE WALKING DEAD
There are three more episodes left in the third season of "The Walking Dead" and you can now check out a promo from next Sunday's episode, titled "Prey," here.
In "Prey," The Governor chases a dissenter who fled Woodbury. While the Governor is gone, a traitor tries to sabotage his upcoming plans.
"Prey" will air on AMC on Sunday, March 17.

ARMY OF DARKNESS
Last night at the post-premiere Q&A for the South by Southwest Film Festival premiere of Evil Dead, director Fede Alvarez revealed that they're already writing the sequel to the remake, which we're going to dub Evil Dead 2 until a better title comes along.
But just last week, Sam Raimi revealed that he and his brother Ted are working on a screenplay for an Evil Dead 4, which would presumably follow the further adventures of Bruce Campbell's Ash Williams.
Could they have been talking about the same project or is it possible that sometime in the future we may have competing Evil Dead franchises, both involving Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell? Not exactly.
According to Raimi's Ghost House Pictures producing partner Rob Tapert, they were never talking about doing an Evil Dead 4 but actually doing a direct sequel to Army of Darkness.
"That would be 'Army of Darkness 2,'" Tapert said, correcting the earlier news story when we talked to him at the movie junket. "Everybody calls it 'Evil Dead 4' but 'Army of Darkness' wasn't called 'Evil Dead' anywhere except by the fans."
And how does Bruce Campbell feel about returning as Ash? At the same Q&A last night, the actor told the audience that he's fine if the younger actors take over the franchise allowing his three movies to stand alone and apart, but if the Raimis are writing a fourth installment of their series, wouldn't that mean it would have to revolve around his character Ash?
"Sam threatens this every six months," he told us during the same interview. "I've heard this a thousand times, because in the back of his mind, he never wants to let go, because he loved making these movies. We all loved making them together. They were a nightmare to make, very difficult, but they lasted the test of time, so he's not going to let that go, and I'm never going to say 'no.' It'll be me and a walker fighting some other old guy. But that's what he does and who knows? It may happen."
And what about that sequel to Evil Dead, which played like gangbusters at SXSW last night? We asked Jane Levy if she had heard any of the crazy stuff they might do to her in the sequel, which she's already signed on to do.
"They haven't actually, but Shiloh has a secret," she said about her co-star who plays her brother in the upcoming remake. "He knows stuff but I don't, but I'm excited for it."

SF News

SUNDAY, MARCH 10, 2013

Oz the Great and Powerful WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Sam Raimi's 3D fantasy-adventure Oz the Great and Powerful is expected to gross north of $75 million in its North American debut after topping Friday's chart with $24.1 million. The big question is just how much more.
Some box office experts believe The Wizard of Oz origins pic, from Disney, could approach $80 million for the weekend if family traffic surges on Saturday. Disney insiders are giving a more modest range of $69 million to $74 million.
The studio hopes to launch a new franchise with Oz, which is on pace to score the top debut so far of 2013, as well as the third-best March opening of all time after last year's The Hunger Games ($152.5 million) and fellow Disney fantasy-adventure Alice in Wonderland, which debuted to $116.1 million in early March 2010.
Disney has spent north of $300 million on Oz, between the $215 million production budget and a hefty worldwide marketing campaign. It is opening in the same corridor as Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp. Alice received an A- CinemaScore from moviegoers, versus a B+ for Oz.
Oz tells the story of how a fast-talking Kansas circus worker (James Franco) became the Wizard of Oz. The three witches central to the story are played by Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams.
As expected, Oz is making life impossible for Bryan Singer's 3D fantasy-adventure Jack and the Giant Slayer, which fell 67 percent on its second Friday to $2.5 million. From New Line and Legendary Pictures, Jack is expected to gross $10 million for the weekend, putting its 10-day domestic cume in the $44 million range.
The weekend's other new wide release, romantic thriller Dead Man Down, fared dismally on Friday, coming in No. 3 with $1.8 million for a projected weekend debut of $5.5 million. Marking the English-language debut of Niels Arden Oplev, Dead Man Down reteams the filmmaker with his The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace. Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard and Dominic Cooper also star in the movie, which is being distributed domestically by FilmDistrict. IM Global, Original Films and Frequency Films are partners on the film.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
The latest trailer for J.J. Abrams next entry in the Star Trek series ditches the ominous tone of previous teasers in favor of rollicking action.
The clip opens with a familiar sequence seen in the first trailer, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) running and jumping off a cliff into an ocean, that's been revealed as a chase sequence (via The Playlist).
From there, Kirk gets lectured on breaking the rules, Benedict Cumberbatch's presumed villain delivers some glowering looks and some spaceship hijinks result in a one-liner delivered by Spock (Zachary Quinto). There's even an Enterprise warp drive scene as the teaser draws to a close. The sci-fi tentpole release, produced by Paramount, hits U.S. theaters on May 17.

GAME OF THRONES RECAP
Need a reminder of what happened in Season 2 of "Game of Thrones" before Season 3 premieres on March 31 at 9 p.m.? HBO has brought online this 14-minute recap of the last season which features executive producers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff talking about the show.
If you previously missed them, you can check out the new extended trailer for Season 3 here, view 12 character posters here and the dragon teaser poster here.
Summers span decades. Winters can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun. It will stretch from the south, where heat breeds plots, lust and intrigues; to the vast and savage eastern lands; all the way to the frozen north, where an 800-foot wall of ice protects the kingdom from the dark forces that lie beyond. Kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars, lords and honest men...all will play the 'Game of Thrones.'

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2013

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME IS COMING!!!!!
Be sure to set your clocks ahead an hour tonight so that you aren't running behind all day tomorrow!

True Blood TRUE BLOOD
Some big changes are being made in the "True Blood" offices.
Mark Hudis, who was hired as a showrunner for Season 6 after series creator Alan Ball resigned to work on "Banshee," is now being ousted. The rest of the sixth season will be run by series vet Brian Buckner, a writer/producer who has been with "True Blood" since Season 1.
Hudis, who has a two-year deal with HBO, will still be developing under the HBO umbrella. "Mark Hudis has stepped down as showrunner of 'True Blood' to focus on development under his overall deal with the network," HBO confirms to THR, which first reported the news.
"True Blood" began filming Season 6 earlier this year. Though a premiere date has yet to be announced, the show will return with new episodes this summer.

Chris Nolan INTERSTELLAR
Good news, sci-fi fans: We won’t have to wait too long to see what Dark Knight mastermind Christopher Nolan is working on next.
He’s been kicking a new sci-fi epic around in development the past several months, and now Interstellar has a green light and will be hitting theaters and IMAX on Nov. 7, 2014.
The script was written by Nolan’s brother Jonathan, and reportedly chronicles a “heroic interstellar voyage to the furthest reaches of our scientific understanding.” In layman’s terms, the story will reportedly feature time travel and alternate dimensions wrapped up in a deep-space package. Good, old-fashioned hard sci-fi.
It sounds like a “big idea” movie, and Nolan’s proven he can do smart sci-fi with his 2010 box-office smash Inception.

EVIL DEAD 2
Some breaking news out of SXSW where ShockTillYouDrop.com is on the scene at the very first public screening for the Evil Dead remake.
Director Fede Alvarez told the crowd this evening that they have begun writing Evil Dead 2. Yes, a sequel to the remake. That demonstrates the studio (Sony, in this case) is confident in the remake, as are the producers, and they should be given the response the film received tonight in Austin, Texas.
So far, based on the various Twitter reactions, Evil Dead is a real "crowd pleaser."
The film opens in theaters April 5th!

MONSTER X
A big screen ensemble of monstrous proportions is on the way as The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Benderspink and Monsterfoot Productions are teaming for Monster X, based on an original story by Ahmet Zappa.
The film finds humanity assembling of team of ten of ten of the world's most famous monsters (Dracula, Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein's monster are all mentioned) to defend the Earth from an even bigger threat.
Monster X marks the latest original idea from Zappa. He has, in various stages of development, the Charles Dickens-inspired Dodge & Twist, the Hawaiian family adventure Tiki, and the similarly monster-themed Monster Relocation Program.
Zappa will produce alongside Chris Bender, J.S. Spink and Jake Weiner.

News

FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013

Get More: MTV Shows

SHADOWMAN
Last year, Valiant Comics approached J. Michael Straczynski to write the movie adaption of "Shadowman" and JMS jumped at the opportunity because, as he told us in out exclusive video interview: "A, I like jazz. B, I like the supernatural. And there's a really cool mix between those two, not just in terms of the usual New Orleans, Voodooo environment, but what is music but incantation?"
Find out more about JMS's work on the script including whether or not Valiant is planning a Marvel-esque cinematic universe.

Ronald Moore HELIX
Syfy is back in business with "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer Ronald D Moore, giving his new series "Helix" a 13-episode order.
The show is designed as an "intense thriller about a team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control who travel to a high-tech research facility in the Arctic to investigate a possible disease outbreak, only to find themselves pulled into a terrifying life-and-death struggle that holds the key to mankind's salvation or total annihilation."
Syfy plans to debut "Helix" later this year (at which time it may or may not have a different title). Joining Moore as executive producers are Lynda Obst ("Contact") and Steven Maeda ("The X-Files"). Cameron Porsandeh wrote the pilot script and will serve as co-executive producer.
"With its well-drawn characters, taut drama, and incredible production team, we couldn't be more excited to see this intense thrill-ride of a series come to life," Syfy president Mark Stern said in a statement.
Moore's "Battlestar Galactica" reboot remains one of the most critically acclaimed shows in Syfy's history, earning two Emmy nominations for writing and two for directing during its four season run.

Omar Epps THE RETURNED
Former "House" star Omar Epps has found his next TV role after a year away from the small screen.
Epps will have a lead role in ABC's drama "The Returned," about how people react when loved ones who have died suddenly start returning to them. He'll play an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who looks into the case of Jacob, a boy who suddenly pops up in rural China.
Kurtwood Smith ("That '70s Show") has also joined the cast as Jacob's father, who along with his wife (Frances Fisher) buried Jacob more than 30 years earlier.
More pilot-season news:
- Paige Turco ("Person of Interest," "The Agency") has been cast in "The Hundred," The CW's drama about the surviving members of humanity attempting to re-colonize Earth a century after a nuclear holocaust.

AFTER EARTH
If you were wondering just how hard sci-fi the new Will Smith action flick After Earth will be, wonder now more.
The new trailer is here, and it looks to be a sci-fi FX spectacle with everything from an epic spaceship crash, to some cool set pieces, to alien creatures and big tech McGuffins.
In addition to a ton of action, the latest trailer also sets up the story of the Will and Jaden Smith flick. The father-son duo crash land on Earth 1,000 years after humanity had abandoned the planet to the wild, and have to fight for survival in search for the ship’s lost beacon. It looks like a nice, personal story packed in a big budget package.
Much like the upcoming Tom Cruise tentpole Oblivion, it could be a unique sci-fi tale that should make for a great 2013. If they manage to pull it off, it could be stellar.
After Earth is directed by M. Night Shyamalan and opens June 7.

Walking Dead THE WALKING DEAD
With the third season barreling toward a close, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman has opened about what may (and may not) carry over into next year. So what about Woodbury?
Though the big picture tale is about characters just trying to survive, each season has had its own arc—be it a trip to the CDC or trying to start a live on Hershel’s farm. Season three told the biggest story yet, with Rick’s gang at the prison facing off with the Governor and the forces of Woobbury. So could that story evolve into a multi-season arc?
Probably not, according to Kirkman, though he does leave enough wiggle room to make us wonder:
“That would certainly appear to be settling into a cycle. I don’t want to give anything away because we have some really cool stuff planned for the finale, but I will say that there is a resolution to the storyline at the end of the season, as people would expect. It becomes a whole complete story that you’ve been able to experience over the course of season 3. And It will set things up nicely for season 4. There are new places to go in season 4, but whether or not that means a new setting or new story direction or simply new characters I can’t really nail down any specifics.”
The season-long arc model has been a good fit for the series, and it makes sense they wouldn’t want to linger too long on a storyline when there’s a whole, undead world still out there to explore. But you also hope they don’t have all this build-up to blow through a few episodes that could easily be fleshed out into several great storylines. Between the back half of season two and first half of season three, we’ve seen the best of both worlds.
Here’s hoping new showrunner Scott Gimple can make it all work for 16 new episodes next season. After seeing his solo writing style on last week's stellar episode, "Clear," it does have us cautiously optimistic.

Boba Fett STAR WARS NEWS
The Force truly is with Disney and Star Wars.
Yesterday, Disney CEO Bob Iger officially revealed at the annual shareholders meeting in Phoenix that the company will be developing "some standalone movies" that will feature Star Wars characters.
Those movies will probably be appearing alongside the planned Star Wars: Episodes VII, VIII and IX.
The million-dollar question now is: Which Star Wars characters will get their very own, standalone movies? Iger is remaining tight-lipped about that for the time being.
Fans have been clamoring for a film about everyone's favorite bounty hunter, Boba Fett. (He’s one of the most likely characters to actually get his own standalone movie and is a very popular choice.)
A young Han Solo outing would also be pretty awesome for us—and heck, why not one with Jedi Master Yoda as well? We're all for it! There are so many interesting possibilities, and as long as they don’t make a movie about Jar Jar Binks, we’ll all be intergalactic happy campers.

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL SEQUEL
As Sam Raimi's Oz The Great and Powerful prepares to hit theaters tomorrow, Variety is reporting that Walt Disney Pictures already has a sequel in the early planning stages. Mitchell Kapner (The Whole Nine Yards) has been brought in to provide a screenplay.
Inspired by the rich literary world of L. Frank Baum, Oz The Great and Powerful serves as a prequel of sorts to the first of Baum's 14 fantasy novels, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." That project was most famously adapted as Victor Fleming's 1939's musical The Wizard of Oz. There's no word yet on whether or not this proposed sequel might re-adapt that story, although there are certainly elements in the new film that hint at that possibility.
Starring James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, Zach Braff and Joey King, Oz The Great and Powerful follows Oscar Diggs (Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, who is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz. He thinks he's hit the jackpot -- fame and fortune are his for the taking -- that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Kunis), Evanora (Weisz) and Glinda (Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity--and even a bit of wizardry--Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.

SO COLD THE RIVER
Ben Coccio, one of the writers behind this month's The Place Beyond the Pines, has been brought aboard New Regency's planned adaptation of Michael Koryta's So Cold the River, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter. Published in 2010, the novel is officially described as follows:
It starts with a beautiful woman and a challenge. As a gift for her husband, Alyssa Bradford approaches Eric Shaw to make a documentary about her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, a 95-year-old millionaire whose past is wrapped in mystery. Eric grabs the job even though there are few clues to the man's story—just the name of his hometown and an antique water bottle he's kept his entire life.
In Bradford's hometown, Eric discovers an extraordinary history—a glorious domed hotel where movie stars, presidents, athletes, and mobsters once mingled, and mineral springs whose miraculous waters were reputed to cure everything from insomnia to malaria. Neglected for years, the resort has been restored to its former grandeur just in time for Eric's stay.
Just hours after his arrival, Eric experiences a frighteningly vivid vision. As the days pass, the frequency and intensity of his hallucinations increase and draw Eric deeper into the area's dark history. He discovers that something besides the historic resort town has been restored—a long-forgotten evil that will stop at nothing to regain its lost glory. Brilliantly imagined and terrifyingly real, So Cold the River is a tale of irresistible suspense with a racing, unstoppable current.
So Cold the River is currently without a cast or director, but the trade notes that Kevin Misher and Scott Silver have both signed on to produce. Check back for details on the project as they become available.

THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013

Anthony Head THE SELECTION
Anthony Stewart Head played the beloved Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for seven years, but now he's coming back to American screens as a king.
Fans of Head will no doubt be aware that he's not new to playing royalty. In fact, the former Watcher recently wrapped playing the father of King Arthur on BBC's Merlin. Clearly, though, Head's not ready to hang up the crown just yet, as he has just been tapped to play King Clarkson on The CW's new show The Selection.
The series, based on a story by Kiera Cass, has an almost Hunger Games quality to it. Set 300 years in the future, The Selection tells the tale of America Singer, a lowly working-class woman who is, you guessed it, selected along with 25 other women to compete for Royal Prince Maxon's hand in marriage.
Head's King Clarkson will play a seasoned leader who does his best to advise his son to select a bride based not on love, but on the basis of the strongest political alliance. Naturally, in the midst of the competition, there are also brewings of a rebellion.
Head won't be the only Whedon alum on the program. Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, who produced and wrote for both Angel and Dollhouse, will act as executive producers and writers for The Selection. Considering the pedigree, we've got high hopes that the show will find success ... and that they can sneak in a few Buffy cameos here and there.

Liam Neeson A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST
Add Liam Neeson to the all-star cast being assembled for Seth MacFarlane's Ted follow-up A Million Ways to Die in the West.
Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Neeson is in negotiations to join MacFarlane, Charlize Theron and Amanda Seyfried in the Media Rights Capital-produced comedy Western.
MacFarlane wrote the script with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild (Ted, Family Guy) and will direct and produce with Scott Stuber and Jason Clark. A May production start is planned.
A Million Ways to Die follows a cowardly sheep farmer (MacFarlane) who chickens out of a gunfight and sees his girlfriend (Seyfried) leave him for another man. When a mysterious woman (Theron) rides into town, she helps him find his courage. But when her outlaw husband arrives seeking revenge, the farmer must put his newfound courage to the test. Neeson would play Theron's outlaw husband.
Giovanni Ribisi also recently boarded the project when Jonah Hill passed.
Neeson, who most recently starred in Taken 2, is repped by CAA.

After Earth AFTER EARTH
Sony Pictures' After Earth has revealed a new poster design that features leading men Will and Jaden Smith. Look for the new trailer here tomorrow, March 7, courtesy of iTunes Movie Trailers.
After Earth takes place after a crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, After Earth hits theaters June 7.

THE CROODS
A new clip from DreamWorks Animation's The Croods is online.
Opening in theaters on March 22, the animated adventure is voiced by Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke and Cloris Leachman.
The Croods is a prehistoric comedy adventure that follows the world's first family as they embark on a journey of a lifetime when the cave that has always shielded them from danger is destroyed. Traveling across a spectacular landscape, the Croods discover an incredible new world filled with fantastic creatures - and their outlook is changed forever.

REVOLUTION
"Revolution" returns to NBC on Monday, March 25 at 10/9c and the network has revealed the first minute, which you can watch below. The clip features an intro by J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke.
What would you do without it all? In this epic adventure from J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions and "Supernatural's" Eric Kripke, a family struggles to reunite in an American landscape where every single piece of technology - computers, planes, cars, phones, even lights - has mysteriously blacked out forever. A drama with sweeping scope and intimate focus, "Revolution" is also about family - both the family you're born into and the family you choose. This is a swashbuckling journey of hope and rebirth seen through the eyes of one strong-willed young woman, Charlie Matheson (Tracy Spiridakos), and her brother Danny (Graham Rogers). When Danny is kidnapped by militia leaders for a darker purpose, Charlie must reconnect with her estranged uncle Miles (Billy Burke), a former U.S. Marine living a reclusive life. Together, with a rogue band of survivors, they set out to rescue Danny, overthrow the militia and ultimately re-establish the United States of America. All the while, they explore the enduring mystery of why the power failed, and if - or how - it will ever return.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013

Doctor Who Doctor Who Doctor Who Doctor Who DOCTOR WHO NEWS
You can't keep a good Time Lord down for long and "Doctor Who" will be back for eight new adventures in space and time beginning March 30 on BBC America. Unfortunately we don't have a TARDIS to take us directly to that date, so we'll have to make due with these fresh images from the upcoming batch of episodes.
The new run is technically the second half of the show's seventh season (or series, if you prefer) and will pick up directly after 2012's epic Christmas special. The premiere episode, "The Bells of St. John," promises to officially introduce Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman), the Doctor's mysterious new companion who he has previously met as two different people in two different time periods.
Confusing? Yeah, "Who" is like that, but fans are already eager to solve the mystery of Clara's true identity. So peep the pics below for hidden clues. (Warning: If you think this enigma will be easy to solve, you don't know "Who.")
The first two images are from the midseason premiere, "The Bells of St. John".
Written by Steven Moffat, the episode involves the Doctor finding something nefarious lurking in present day Wi-Fi signals.
Classic "Doctor Who" villains the Ice Warriors are set to make their first appearance in the current run of the show in Season 7.5's third episode, set aboard a submarine.
And a brand new villain will debut in episode 2.

The Originals THE ORIGINALS
It's all happening! "The Vampire Diaries" Episode 420 began filming on Tuesday, March 5 -- and this isn't just any old episode. It will serve as a backdoor pilot for "The Originals," the spinoff in consideration for The CW's Fall 2013 season.
Director Chris Grismer, who is "The Vampire Diaries'" supervising producer and has directed fan favorite episodes like "The End of the Affair" and "Before Sunset," will serve as director for the pilot. Grismer shared this behind-the-scenes pic of the cast at work in Atlanta on Tuesday, writing, "The beautiful cast of #theoriginals wait for the next shot."
Visible are series stars Phoebe Tonkin, Daniel Gillies, Joseph Morgan, and Daniel Gillies' Waistcoat... which is so awe-inspiring we're assuming it gets its own billing.
The episode will see Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah travel to New Orleans, where Hayley has settled after betraying pretty much everyone in Mystic Falls. There, Klaus is reunited with his old vampire protege, Marcel. They'll also come across witches Sophie and Davina, who are on the cusp of a supernatural revolution, and psych student Camille, who seeks answers about innate evil after a horrific family tragedy.
The episode airs April 25 at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.

IN THE FLESH
With AMC’s The Walking Dead tearing up the ratings, the BBC is prepping its own zombie series this year. In classic Brit fashion they’re going highbrow with the approach—and the latest trailer for In the Flesh shows this is definitely not going to be a Walking Dead clone.
The show will follow Britain in the wake of a zombie uprising. But instead of battles with the undead, the series will take a sociopolitical spin and try to reintroduce the undead back into the world of the living.
The idea is ripe for great character moments, and could strike the balance between the recently canceled (U.K. version of) Being Human and the zombie fun of Walking Dead.
Heady? Sure, but it’s loaded with potential.
The series debuts Sunday, March 17, on the BBC. Still no word on a U.S. premiere date.

IRON MAN 3
Marvel Studios has dropped an exclusive new trailer for Iron Man 3. The sequel pits the hero against his biggest enemy yet -- the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). Without the assistance of the Avengers, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has to depend on his brain as well as his brawn.
The Mandarin is a terrorist whose sole purpose is to destroy Iron Man. He hits Tony where it hurts and breaks him down mentally and physically. Following the events of The Avengers, Tony's not in the best state. He's a changed man. Will that help or hinder his chances of survival?
Here's the official synopsis:
Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?
Iron Man 3 hits theaters May 3.

AGATHA
Will Gluck (Easy A, Friends with Benefits), has signed on to direct a spec script called Agatha at Paramount Pictures, Deadline reports.
Written by Allison Schroeder (Mean Girls 2), Agatha fictionalizes Agatha Christie's infamous eleven-day disappearance in 1926, crafting an action adventure around the event.
Gluck should tackle Agatha after his next project, Sony's 2014 remake of the Broadway musical Annie which recently cast Quvenzhané Wallis in the title role.
Chris Bender, Cale Boyter, Mary Parent, JC Spink and Jake Weiner are attached to produce.

TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2013

Ice Warrior DOCTOR WHO
It's been nearly 40 years since the Ice Warriors last graced our TV screens. How have the years treated them? Let's find out!
Mark Gatiss's episode, which pits the Martians against the Doctor all whilst in the tight confines of a submarine, is rumored to be called The Cold War and is set to debut next month. That is when we will finally see the Ice Warriors in action. In the meantime, however, let's check out their redesign.
This is actually an incredibly faithful adaptation of the original design. The mask is nearly identical. The torso is a bit more heavily armored looking, but is otherwise very similar to the '70s incarnation. The biggest change is that they traded out their lego stumps for actual hands! If ever there were a worthwhile change, it's that.
But will they look as exciting in action, or will that suit force the actor inside to lumber around in a way that is less scary and more unintentionally hilarious? All we can do for now is cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Berry-Storm X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
After a few months of will she/won't she, it looks like our favorite weather-controlling mutant will be back for another flick.
Just a few days ago we were hearing that Halle Berry's return as Storm for Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past wasn't a sure thing. Today, we got confirmation from Singer himself that she will indeed join her fellow mutants for another round.
Bryan Singer's Twitter feed:
Couldn't be more excited that #HalleBerry has joined the cast of #XMen #DaysofFuturePast. Hopefully she can improve the weather in Montreal.
Berry's return adds even more star power to a cast that already includes the likes of Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage and James McAvoy, to name just a few.

McDermott AMERICAN HORROR STORY
Where will the hit horror anthology series take us next?
In its first season, FX's American Horror Story took on a single-family home. In its second season, subtitled Asylum, it took on a psycho ward. But where will season go? Co-star Dylan McDermott, who has played two different characters thus far in the series, teased a possible location when talking about the addition of actress Kathy Bates to the season-three cast.
"She really is [perfect]," McDermott said, referring to Bates. "All the witches of Salem…there's plenty of them!"
So are we heading to the Salem witch trials for season three, or some modern-day incarnation thereof? What do you think, American Horror Story fans? Is McDermott on the money, or is he just trying to throw us off the trail?

Dewitt CITY OF THE DEAD
TNT is looking to bring Claire DeWitt to the small screen.
The Turner-owned network is developing a scripted drama based on novelist Sara Gran's book series about the tough female private investigator in post-Katrina New Orleans.
Gran is attached to write and co-executive produce the hourlong drama script, with John Wells, Andrew Stearn and Christopher Chulack on board as executive producers. If ultimately ordered to pilot, Chulack will serve as DeWitt's director.
The move expands the producers' relationship with TNT, where they have spent recent years in production on the network's Southland. The cop drama, which got its start on NBC before shifting to cable, is in its fifth season. DeWitt is being produced by John Wells Productions in association with Warner Horizon Television.
As The Hollywood Reporter previously reported, Gran also is developing Nutshell Studies, a Hitchcockian drama about a 1950s small-town housewife who becomes obsessed with solving brutal crimes, at HBO. Guillermo Del Toro will serve as an executive producer as well as director on that project, with Gran attached to write and co-executive produce.
Gran is repped by RWSG Agency, The Karpfinger Agency and Hirsch Wallerstein; Wells and his John Wells Productions president Stearn are repped by CAA; Chulack is repped by UTA and Ken Gross Management.

ARTEMIS
Tim Miller, currently attached to direct Deadpool, has now signed on for another Twentieth Century Fox project with the action thriller Artemis.
Artemis' plot is still unknown, although it is said to be set in outer space. Andrew Lobel, the screenwriter behind the upcoming Tunnels, is attached to draft the screenplay.
Miller's career so far has been as a VFX artist behind films like X-Men, Planet of the Apes and Where the Wild Things Are. As movement on Deadpool appears to have slowed as of yet, it is unclear whether that or Artemis will be his directing debut.

TOMB RAIDER
Square Enix is releasing Crystal Dynamics' new Tomb Raider game today for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and the PC. The game explores the intense and gritty origin story of Lara Croft and her ascent from a frightened young woman to a hardened survivor.
But what is the status of the movie reboot? Variety says Crystal Dynamics is working closely with GK Films to develop the film that will also focus on the younger Lara Croft.
"They are working from this new take that we've given them," Darrell Gallagher, head of studio at Crystal Dynamics, said of GK Films. "It's a good partnership. We're seeing the challenges through the same lens."
He added that "It was important for both of us to have a cohesive version of the franchise. We didn't want to see a film version that was a continuation of the old 'Tomb Raider' films."
Producer Graham King previously told us that the new film will be "the story before she became Lara Croft, so it is a character piece. It does have a lot of really great characters, but it's a lot of action and a lot of fun, and for me, it's something very different. I've not really done a movie like that before, but I really gravitated to rebooting this franchise and we're going to give it a shot."
Starring Angelina Jolie, Paramount Pictures made two movies based on the daredevil archaeologist on a series of global missions in 2001 and 2003. They grossed a total of $432 million at the worldwide box office.

RESIDENT EVIL 6
ShockTillYouDrop.com has learned that the next chapter in the successful Resident Evil franchise is planned for a release on September 12, 2014, meaning that production on the next chapter should begin soon.
The most recent film, Resident Evil: Retribution, grossed $221 million worldwide and previous reports have suggested that a sixth film could close out the series. Director Paul W.S. Anderson previously indicated that he had mapped out a story for a new trilogy that started with the fourth film, Resident Evil: Afterlife.
Story-wise, no details have been released, but when we last saw Milla Jovovich's Alice, she was at the White House and facing a rather large threat with Shawn Robert's Wesker by her side.
No title or plot details for the sixth entry have been revealed, but check back for details as they become available.

Tim Curry

MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2013

STAR WARS: CLONE WARS NEWS
There's no crime in giving yourself over to pleasure. Or, in this case, the Dark Side.
Ian Abercrombie has been the voice for Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious for quite some time, and his passing left not only a hole in the hearts of Star Wars fans, but a huge gap in the Clone Wars itself. Without Abercrombie, who could play the most sinister of sinister villains from a galaxy far, far away?
Supervising director for the cartoon series Dave Filoni took the task of recasting the role tremendously seriously and came up with an absolutely perfect replacement -- Tim Curry.
We had an extensive search to find a new voice for Palpatine. It wasn’t just a matter of finding an actor who could to recreate lines from the films. We needed someone to deliver a performance that could stand alongside what Ian McDiarmid and Ian Abercrombie created as this legendary Star Wars character. At the end of the day, there is little question that bringing in an actor of Tim’s caliber was perfect for Chancellor Palpatine.
We have to say that we wholeheartedly approve. Curry has played so many baddies to camp perfection over the decades that we've lost count. Curry is set to debut this coming Saturday in the season finale. While we're still sad about the loss of Abercrombie, but we're still excited to see what new flavor Curry will bring to the role.

Once Upon A Time ONCE UPON A TIME
Once Upon a Time took over PaleyFest on Sunday afternoon, with the raucous crowd taking in every eyebrow raise, every tease and and every promise with fervor.
ABC's fairy tale drama left off with the long-awaited reveal of Gold's son and Henry's father, Baelfire, and executive producers Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis promised the Saban Theatre audience that the rest of season two explores "this dysfunctional family" that is now in place. The identity of Henry's father was established "very early in maybe season one," Horowitz revealed, with actress Jennifer Morrison admitting that the moment in "Manhattan" was crucial for her alter ego, Emma Swan. "How do you play [all those emotions] in three seconds?" she asked.
Producers also took a brief moment to discuss the potential Mad Hatter spinoff, though never outwardly addressed it. When asked about a possible Jefferson return on Once Upon a Time, Horowitz and Kitsis denied that they were recasting the character. "No plans to recast anyone," Kitsis said, but did note portrayer Sebastian Stan's busy schedule.
Here are 11 teases for season two, including pivotal clues to the 17th episode, "Welcome to Storybrooke":
A darker Snow: In Sunday's episode, Snow White makes a decision on which side she'll fall: the light or the dark. It will be a big point of contention for Snow and Charming's relationship. Though it will be a major hurdle for their romance, Josh Dallas said: "He's going to be there no matter what." Lana Parrilla, who plays Regina, was excited to see this new side to Snow: "It's going to get very intense."
Storybrooke's early days: Details of the 17th episode, "Welcome to Storybrooke," were revealed. The episode, which marks the return of the Huntsman (Jamie Dornan), Gus Gus and Billy the Mechanic, will go back in time to the first week after the curse. " 'Welcome to Storybrooke' is the very early days of Storybrooke," Horowitz teased, adding that viewers will see what it was like in 1983, what it was like for Regina to be victorious and why she wanted to adopt Henry. The timing for the episode is also crucial. "When you see the episode, the answer will be very clear," Horowitz said, as to why they decided for it to be in season two.
Another shade to Belle: In an upcoming Belle-centric episode, "things are going to get a lot more interesting for Gold," Kitsis said, with Emilie De Ravin revealing that Belle's cursed alter ego will be far different. "Lacey is the opposite of Belle," De Ravin said. What is the likelihood for Belle to regain her memories? "Have hope and faith," Kitsis said coyly.
Another realm: Before the end of the season, the show will visit another realm. Producers wouldn't offer any more details other than: "We'll be going to a new land!" as Kitsis exclaimed. However, they will be "teasing someone who will live in this other land, but we won't see them until season three."
Final season two episodes revealed: The two-part finale will be called "Second Star to the Right" and "And Straight on 'Til Morning," major hints that the season may very well be ending in Neverland.
Father, son and grandson troubles: Now that Rumpelstiltskin has found his son, what will this mean for their relationship? "There's a little gamechanger," hinted Robert Carlyle of episode 22. Now that he is aware that Henry may be his undoing, it will present Rumpelstiltskin with an interesting question. "Has he learned anything [from his past and] what chance does his grandson have?" asked Kitsis of Rumpelstiltskin's debacle. "Is undoing a bad thing?" Horowitz inquired.
A love triangle forming? Now that Henry's father is back in the fray, will there be a possible love triangle forming between Emma, Hook and Bae? "I'd like to see it," Kitsis offered. Fellow EP Horowitz seconded it: "It could happen."
The Evil Queen will be back: "Regina the Evil Queen is going to make a comeback, but in a different way," teased Parrilla.
Is Hook redeemable? "He's out for himself," Colin O'Donoghue said, "as long as he gets his greasy paws on Rumpelstiltskin." Kitsis offered this: "At the end of the day, they're all searching for their happy ending. Some just have a harder road." Viewers will see Hook "pop back into the season in a fun way," Horowitz said.
More familiar faces: August will return and viewers will find out where he ran off to and what he's been doing. However, that big question of how August knew Neal was Bae will not be answered this season.
More backstories: Sunday's episode will reveal an interesting connection between Hook and Bae; expect their backstories to be explored even further.
Once Upon a Time airs at 8 p.m. Sundays on ABC.

Jack-Giant WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Things picked up somewhat as March kicked off with the release of Bryan Singer's fantasy epic Jack the Giant Slayer (New Line/WB), starring Nicholas Hoult, Stanley Tucci, Ewan McGregor and newcomer Eleanor Tomlinson, and though it didn't have much competition, allowing it to gross $28 million over the weekend, that might be seen as a disappointment compared to its reported $200 million budget.
It opened on Friday with a modest $7.7 million but it got a nice bump on Saturday showing that despite its PG-13 rating, it was able to bring in a family audience. It grossed $3.4 million of its weekend gross from its 317 IMAX sites.
The hit comedy Identity Thief (Universal) dropped back down to second place for the second time, bringing in $9.7 million over the weekend to become the first 2013 movie to cross the $100 million mark with $107.4 million since opening in early February.
The R-rated coming-of-age comedy 21 and Over (Relativity Media), directed by the writers of The Hangover, opened in third place with a relatively disappointing $9 million in 2,771 theaters, roughly $3,200 per site.
The horror sequel The Last Exorcism Part II (CBS Films) may indeed prove to be the last exorcism this time as it tanked with just $8 million in 2,700 theaters.
Dwayne Johnson's action thriller Snitch (Summit Entertainment) dropped to fifth place with $7.7 million, down just 42% from its opening week, with $24.4 million grossed so far.
The animated family comedy Escape From Planet Earth (The Weinstein Company) took sixth place with $6.7 million and $43.2 million to date, while the Nicholas Sparks adaptation Safe Haven (Relativity Media) followed in seventh place with $6.3 million and $57.1 million in the same amount of time.
David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (The Weinstein Company) had a nice 3% bump following Jennifer Lawrence's win at the Oscars last weekend as it added another $5.9 million to its running total of $115.5 million.
Bruce Willis' action sequel A Good Day to Die Hard (20th Century Fox) and the alien invasion thriller Dark Skies (Dimension Films) both took substantial drops, taking ninth and tenth place with $3.5 million and $4.5 million, respectively. The fifth "Die Hard" installment has grossed a measly $59.6 million over the last three weeks while Dark Skies has grossed just $13.5 million in ten days.
The Top 10 brought in roughly $89.5 million, which was down $56 million from the March opening last year when the animated Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (Universal) blew into theaters with over $70 million with the R-rated comedy Project X (Warner Bros.), produced by The Hangover director Todd Phillips, taking second place with $21 million.
Back in the present, new distributor RCR Distribution tried to give the submarine thriller Phantom, starring Ed Harris and David Duchovny, a wide release into 1,100 theaters over the weekend but it was a failed effort that amounted to roughly $465 thousand or $416 per theater, which is among the worst for a wide release into over 1,000 theaters.
There were a lot of limited releases out on Friday, but the true standout was the psychological thriller Stoker (Fox Searchlight), directed by Korea's Park Chan-wook and starring Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode, which brought in an estimated $158 thousand in 7 theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Its $22.6 thousand per site was the best theater estimate for the weekend.

SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 2013

Revolution Cast REVOLUTION TEASE
The cast and producers of "Revolution" teased a Paley Festival audience Saturday (March 2) with the first act of the show's March 25 return, but that maybe wasn't the most revealing thing to come out of the evening.
Series creator Eric Kripke was in a talkative mood, and he revealed several things about the second half of the season, starting with when we'll find out the cause of the worldwide blackout.
"It's almost avant-garde [how early] we're revealing why the power went out," Kripke jokes, noting the tendency of many genre shows to tease their big mysteries endlessly. That's not the case here, he says.
"Episode 13," Kripke promises. "I'm just saying it. I'm throwing it out there."
Kripke explains that he doesn't like to be "precious" about answering questions the show raises, and he and his fellow writers also realized that explaining the blackout opens the door to a lot of other possible stories.
The writers got an assist from co-executive producer and pilot director Jon Favreau in deciding when to explain the blackout. Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell) knows what happened, and naturally Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos) and Co. don't waste much time pressing her for answers.
Favreau noted that there's only so long Rachel could plausibly duck the question, and Kripke and the writers went with it.
Among the other things the "Revolution" crew revealed at Paleyfest:
- While other questions will be raised over the second half of the season, Kripke promises to answer everything from "why Rachel slapped Miles [Billy Burke]" to why Miles and Monroe (David Lyons) had their falling out.
- The other republics in the carved-up United States will become real places instead of just spots on a map. Kripke notes that the Georgia Federation -- Leslie Hope of "24" and "The River" plays its president -- will be substantially different than the Monroe Republic because of geography and climate, among other things, and the show will explore what those differences mean.
- Aaron (Zak Orth) will see his wife again, which will bring up all sorts of issues about his leaving her and how she's survived in the decade since he left.
"Revolution" returns to NBC on Monday, March 25.

Jack the Giant Slayer WEEKEND AT THE MOVIES
New Line and Legendary Pictures are bracing for a tough weekend after a poor showing by 3D tentpole Jack the Giant Slayer at the Friday box office.
From Bryan Singer, Jack earned a disappointing $7.7 million to top the chart, but it was something of a hollow victory.
That puts the year's first tentpole on course for a weekend opening in the $24 million to $25 million range, not enough considering the movie cost nearly $300 million to make and market, including a $195 production budget. Last year, Battleship -- costing in the neighborhood of Jack -- debuted to $8.8 million on Friday for a $25.5 million weekend.
New Line and parent company Warner Bros. are hoping that Jack, loosely based on the classic British story Jack the Beanstalk, picks up the pace on Saturday as families become available. Although it is rated PG-13, Warners believes the 3D event pic is well suited for adults and teens alike.
Jack, starring Nicholas Hoult in the title role, earned a B+ CinemaScore.
New Line and Warner Bros. already are counting on strong international business to make up for any deficit in North America. Their hopes are being fulfilled so far in seven Asian markets where Jack opened on Thursday, grossing a total of $2.5 million, ahead of Wrath of the Titans ($2.1 million) and Journey 2: Mysterious Island ($1.3 million), both of which were successes.
Moviegoing was soft overall in North America on Friday, with new entries 21 & Over and The Last Exorcism Part II placing No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, with a modest $3.4 million and $3.3 million. Each is expected to post gross in the $8 million range for the weekend.
New independent thriller Phantom, from RCR, is only expected to open to a dismal $500,000, one of the worst openings of all time. It opened at 1,118 locations. Universal's Identity Thief could beat both films and rise to No. 2 for the weekend. On Friday, the Melissa McCarthy-Jason Bateman comedy became the first movie of the year to cross $100 million.

Omar Sy
X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
The already impressive roster for X-Men: Days of Future Past is getting bigger.
French actor Omar Sy, known for his work in the acclaimed 2011 film The Intouchables, is joining the cast in an unspecified role. Director Bryan Singer shared the news on Twitter Saturday, where he called the actor "brilliant."
"Thrilled to welcome the brilliant #OmarSy from the amazing film #TheIntouchables to the cast of #Xmen #DaysofFuturePast!" Singer tweeted.
The follow-up to 2011’s X-Men: First Class, will reunite castmembers James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult. On Feb. 13, Singer announced Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage was joining the cast in a role still being kept under wraps.
The film will also include appearances from the actors of the original X-Men trilogy, which was released from 2000-2006. Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page and Shawn Ashmore are on board to reprise their roles.
Based on the iconic 1981 story in Marvel Comics' Uncanny X-Men, Days of Future Past will portray the original series stars as older versions of their characters in a dystopian future in which mutants are hunted down.
Days of Future Past, from 20th Century Fox, is eyeing an April start date and is slated for a July 18, 2014, release.

ASSASSIN'S CREED
The announcement trailer for Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, featuring Blackbeard talking about the protagonist, has come online early!
The trailer includes a release date of October 29 and reveals that the game will be available for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC.
Ubisoft will announce more details on Monday, March 4 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific.

SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 2013

Zero Hour ZERO HOUR RUNS OUT OF TIME
The clock has run out on "Zero Hour." According to a report from TV Line, ABC has canceled the series. The conspiracy thriller never really got off the ground, with three low-rated episodes.
The show premiered February 14, Valentine's Day, to a weak 6.3 million viewers, with a 1.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic, and didn't get any better moving forward. The latest episode, airing Thursday night, dropped down to 5 million viewers and an 18-49 rating of 1, leading ABC to cut their losses.
"Zero Hour" was Anthony Edwards' first full-time TV role since he left the critically-acclaimed "E.R." in 2002. ABC has yet to officially confirm the cancellation, or announce what will take over its time slot.

Game of Thrones GAME OF THRONES
Even though season three of Game of Thrones doesn’t roar into life on our TV screens until March 31 on HBO, we now have the titles for eight out of the ten episodes set to air.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The episode titles were gathered together by Winteriscoming thanks to some of their sources, and while some titles are quite mysterious, others may give a tiny hint as to what the episode will be about. (In fact, a few of them are pretty telling for those who've read A Storm of Swords.)
According to our esteemed colleagues, the reason why two episodes are currently missing their titles is due to recent reshuffling of material and subsequent renaming.
And they are:
· Ep. 301 – Valar Dohaeris
· Ep. 302 – Dark Wings, Dark Words
· Ep. 303 – Walk of Punishment
· Ep. 304 – And Now His Watch is Ended
· Ep. 305 – Kissed by Fire
· Ep. 306 – to be determined
· Ep. 307 – The Bear and the Maiden Fair
· Ep. 308 – to be determined
· Ep. 309 – The Rains of Castamere
· Ep. 310 – Mhysa
What do you think each episode will be about? Time to speculate!

OBLIVION
A new trailer has been released for Tom Cruise’s upcoming post-apocalypse flick Oblivion, which reveals a ton of new footage and is crammed with even more mysteries.
The new trailer digs a little deeper into the premise, which follow’s Cruise’s character as one of the last men on Earth doing drone repair. Things apparently get interesting after a ship crashes, and it goes haywire from there. The sweeping, creepy shots of abandoned Earth are absolutely breathtaking, and however this film turns out story-wise, it should be a beauty to behold.
Here’s the synopsis:
Jack Harper (Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack’s mission is nearly complete. Living and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.
Oblivion opens April 26.

Revolution REVOLUTION
It’s been months since we last visited the post-electric world of NBC’s Revolution, and during the hiatus the creators have made some pretty big changes to the hit series. One of the biggest? The back half of season one will apparently be less scrappy adventurers and more political intrigue.
The show has already hinted at the world beyond the Monroe Republic, and producer Eric Kripke and co-star Giancarlo Esposito say they’ll be digging deeper into the politics of North America once the series returns.
Kripke even pulled the trump card and compared the new direction to HBO’s acclaimed series Game of Thrones, and said they’re trying to make a future-set sci-fi take on the highbrow drama genre.
Per TV Guide:
"We've seen personal relationship struggles and personal revolutions happen, but we haven't seen how this particular power outage has affected the whole world. We're about to," Esposito teases. With the revolution finally beginning, everyone has their own role to play, roles that will take them outside of the Monroe Republic. "We'll see the Georgia Federation this season, we'll see the Plains Nation this season — and they're wildly different nations ... We really want this to evolve into kind of an American Game of Thrones,” Kripke says. But with the world expanding, don't expect our recently reunited gang of misfits to stay together too long.
The return date of March 25 is getting closer, but we’re still about a month away from seeing how that shocking cliffhanger will resolve itself.

EVIL DEAD 4
There's likely no question that has been asked of director Sam Raimi and leading man Bruce Campbell more often in the last two decades than, "Is there ever going to be an 'Evil Dead 4'?" Today, however, the answer to that question looks it could finally be "Yes."
"I would love to make 'Evil Dead 4,'" Bleeding Cool quotes Raimi as having said during a press tour for his upcoming Oz The Great and Powerful (via ShockTillYouDrop.com), "My brother and I plan to work on the script this summer."
The Evil Dead series began in 1981 with the self-proclaimed "Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror" and continued in 1987's semi-sequel/semi-remake Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn, finally concluded (for the time being) with 1992's Army of Darkness. Although the franchise has continued through video games and comic books, hope for a big screen sequel seemed dashed when Raimi announced that he would be producing Fede Alvarez's upcoming remake of the first film, set for release on April 5.
The brother Raimi mentions is likely his older brother, Ivan Raimi, with whom Sam co-wrote Army of Darkness and Drag Me to Hell (among other projects) as opposed to his actor brother, Ted Raimi (who can be seen in a cameo in next week's Oz The Great and Powerful). The Walt Disney Pictures film also features a role for Campbell who, while nothing is confirmed as of yet, it's hard to imagine the horror series continuing without. Regardless, check back for details as soon as they become available.

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2013

Lost Girl LOST GIRL RENEWED
"Lost Girl," possibly the sexiest of all supernatural series, has been renewed for a fourth season by Syfy (in the United States) and Showcase (in Canada). There is no projected date for the beginning of Season 4 yet.
Currently airing episodes from the show's third season, "Lost Girl" averages 1.3 million total viewers during its Monday night time slot, making it the top original cable drama at that time. Considering that this puts "Lost Girl" up against strongly rated programs like "Castle" on ABC and "Hawaii Five-0" on CBS, this is an impressive number.
The show deals with the Fae, legendary and magical creatures who hide in plain sight among humans. The main character, Bo (Anna Silk), is a succubus and the main character, a young woman whose past has always been a mystery. This does, however, allow Bo the independence to choose her own path among humans and to not align with either the Light or the Dark clans of the Fae.
Kris Holden-Ried, Ksenia Solo, Zoie Palmer, Rick Howland and K.C. Collins co-star in the Canadian production.
"Lost Girl" airs Mondays at 10pm on Syfy. The Season 3 finale will air on Monday, April 22.

Daniel Radcliffe FRANKENSTEIN
Who better to play creepy hunchback assistant Igor in a new take on "Frankenstein" than -- Daniel Radcliffe? The "Harry Potter" star is said to be near a deal for the role, according to Variety.
The "Frankenstein" feature film in the works at 20th Century Fox will be directed by Paul McGuigan (BBC's "Sherlock") and written by Max Landis ("Chronicle"), inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel.
Radcliffe would be the first actor cast in the project, which is expected to shoot in the fall and said to focus on the twisted friendship between Igor and his "master," Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
Radcliffe will next be seen on the big screen in the racy indie "Kill Your Darlings," which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. He also co-stars with Jon Hamm in the British miniseries "A Young Doctor's Notebook."

IN THE FLESH
Starting this fall, AMC won’t be the only place to find zombies on the small screen. The BBC is getting in on the undead craze, and it's released a hilariously awesome new public service announcement to promote the new series
In The Flesh.
The new show finds Britain in the wake of a zombie outbreak. But instead of survival horror, a la The Walking Dead, this series will follow the social and political ramifications of reintroducing domesticated zombies back into the populace.
Sure, it’s kind of weird, but it could be awesome. The premise has a lot of potential, and the series will follow a zombie trying to find his place in the (undead) world. It seems like it could be a spin on those vampires-living-in-society tropes, as zombie Kieren (Luke Newberry) fights the urge to eat brains on a daily basis.
The BBC hit a grand slam with the marketing campaign, putting a zombie spin on the old “Keep Calm” ads. The best bit of polite advice? If surrounded by a zombie horde, please call this number and remain calm while an armed team responds. You know, just don’t get eaten while you wait.
In the Flesh debuts on March 17 in the U.K. A stateside release date has yet to be announced.

Hobbit HOBBIT NEWS
The release of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: There and Back Again is being pushed back five months, from July 18, 2014, to Dec. 17, 2014.
News of the shift comes as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey prepares to cross the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, thanks to a strong run in China. The movie's global gross is approaching $990 million as the weekend gets underway.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the second title, is staying put and will open Dec. 13.
The relocation of There and Back Again means the 3D tentpole won't have to face direct competition from Fox's X-Men: Days Of Future Past.

Gary Oldman DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Gary Oldman is joining the growing cast of 20th Century Fox’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Jason Clarke and Kodi Smit-McPhee are already cast in the sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes being directed by Matt Reeves.
While much of the plot is being kept under lock and key, it is set 15 years after the events of the hit 2011 film. One focus is on the human scientists who are struggling to survive alone in San Francisco. Another aspect of the story is the struggle of intelligent ape Caesar, played by a returning Andy Serkis, to maintain dominance over his kingdom.
Oldman is coming on board to play a leader of the human resistance, a diplomatic type who has a military background and was, interestingly enough, a former police commissioner (at least in the current script).
Fox had no comment on the roles.
Apes is the latest franchise that Oldman has joined. The veteran actor is becoming a favorite of the fanboy nation with turns in the Harry Potter and Batman movie series and the recently wrapped shooting Robocop, MGM’s reboot that could turn into yet another franchise.
He is repped by APA, manager Douglas Urbanski and Loeb and Loeb.

Emma Watson CINDERELLA
Emma Watson is eyeing the title role in Walt Disney Pictures' upcoming live-action take on Cinderella, Variety reports. Cate Blanchett is already set to play the wicked stepmother with Kenneth Branagh (Thor) directing.
Watson starred last year in The Perks of Being a Wallflower and can be seen coming in Darren Aronofsky's Noah, Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring and Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen's This is the End.
Produced by Simon Kinberg, the film was originally written by The Devil Wears Prada screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna with subsequent rewrites by The Twilight Saga: New Moon director Chris Weitz.
Production is planned to begin this fall in London.

Doctor Who Poster DOCTOR WHO NEWS
Fans anxious for the continuation of the seventh modern "Doctor Who" series don't have long to wait as the first new episode since last year's Christmas special is set to debut Saturday, March 30 at 8:00pm on BBC America. Today, the channel has revealed a new poster for the upcoming episodes along with details the premiere, now officially titled "The Bells of St. John."
Said to be a modern day urban thriller, "The Bells of St. John" is written by lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat ("Sherlock"). Set in London against the backdrop of new and old iconic landmarks – The Shard and Westminster Bridge – "The Bells of St. John" introduces a new nemesis, the Spoonheads, who battle the Doctor as he discovers something sinister is lurking in the Wi-Fi.
The premiere will be followed by seven new episodes written by Moffat, acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman (Coraline, Beowulf), Mark Gatiss ("Sherlock"), Neil Cross ("Luther") and Stephen Thompson ("Sherlock").
The Doctor (Matt Smith) is joined by his new companion Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) for the latest set of incredible adventures through space and time. The duo finds new adversaries and familiar friends around every corner as they journey from the bottom of the ocean in a submarine to the center of the TARDIS and beyond. The Cybermen make a thunderous return and the Ice Warrior arrives in an unexpected place.
“It’s the 50th year of Doctor Who and look what’s going on!" says Moffat. "We’re up in the sky and under the sea! We’re running round the rings of an alien world and then a haunted house. There’s new Cybermen, new Ice Warriors and a never before attempted journey to the centre of the TARDIS. And in the finale, the Doctor’s greatest secret will at last be revealed! If this wasn’t already our most exciting year it would be anyway!”
Also appearing this season are guest stars Dougray Scott ("Desperate Housewives," Mission: Impossible II), Warwick Davis ("Life’s Too Short," Harry Potter), Celia Imrie (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Richard E. Grant (Iron Lady, Dracula), Jessica Raine ("Call the Midwife") and Tamzin Outhwaite ("EastEnders," "Law & Order: UK"). Additionally, mother and daughter Dame Diana Rigg ("Game of Thrones," "The Avengers") and Rachael Stirling (Tipping the Velvet) will appear on screen together for the first time.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2013

Iron Man 3 IRON MAN 3
A new poster has been released for the upcoming "Iron Man 3" that shows just how bad things can get for Tony Stark. The poster, released by Yahoo!, shows a beaten down Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in a heavily-damaged Iron Man suit. Behind him, seven different Iron Man suits take to the sky.
If the film makes use of the "Extremis" virus, which has been rumored, it's possible those suits of armor are controlled by Stark himself, mentally. In the comics, the virus makes this possible, creating the Iron Legion. Of course, there are a number of explanations for those suits, including it simply being artistic interpretation. The background of the poster also features the destruction of Tony's home, which can be seen in the film's trailer. The poster follows Marvel releasing looks at other characters in the movie, including the film's villain, The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley).
"Iron Man 3" finds Stark's personal world being destroyed by The Mandarin. Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, and Jon Favreau reprise their roles from the previous films, with Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall joining the cast as scientists. The movie hits theaters May 3.

allowfullscreen>DEFIANCE
The upcoming Syfy series Defiance looks to be a true FX extravaganza, and a new trailer shows off some of the big-budget set pieces that are in store on post-invasion Earth.
The latest footage digs a little deeper into the world of Defiance, which picks up in the wake of an alien invasion that finds humanity just one of many competing races on the planet we call home. We see a ton of huge alien battles, and some hints of political intrigue in the namesake town.
In addition to the Syfy series, the events of Defiance will also play out in a shared-universe videogame that ties in to the storylines in the TV series. Ambitious? Absolutely. Here’s hoping they can pull it off.
The expansive cast features several sci-fi alums, including Grant Bowler (True Blood), Julie Benz (Dexter), Jaime Murray (Warehouse 13) and Tony Curran (Blade II).

Chris Cooper SPIDER-MAN 2 NEWS
One of Spider-Man's (and the Marvel Universe at large's) greatest foes has just been cast.
Move aside, Willem Dafoe. For the first time in more than a decade, there's a new Norman Osborn in town. The sinister CEO of Oscorp Industries will be played by none other than Academy Award-winning actor Chris Cooper. Probably still best known for his portrayal of the terrifying next door neighbor in American Beauty, Cooper has a real talent for scaring the pants off of audiences with just a glance. So what we're saying is, this is killer casting, and we can't wait to see if they'll let him take a crack at being the Green Goblin eventually, too.
Cooper is just one of many big names that Amazing Spider-Man 2 has picked up along the way. In fact, with both Jamie Foxx and Paul Giamatti cast as Electro and Rhino respectively, the only real problem we see is that the villains could very easily outshine the heroes.

TOMB RAIDER
With the game hitting the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC next Tuesday, March 5th, Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have released this new "Reborn" trailer for the anticipated new Tomb Raider game.
Tomb Raider explores the intense and gritty origin story of Lara Croft and her ascent from a frightened young woman to a hardened survivor. Armed only with raw instincts and the ability to push beyond the limits of human endurance, Lara must fight to unravel the dark history of a forgotten island to escape its relentless hold.

Johnny Depp TRANSCENDENCE
Said to be in negotiations last fall, Johnny Depp is officially attached to headline Wally Pfister's directorial debut Transcendence. With a shoot scheduled to begin in April, Depp will also be able to headline the Whitey Bulger biopic Black Mass, set to begin production this summer.
Although no official plot details have been revealed, recent reports suggest that Transcendence will feature Depp as a scientist who uploads his consciousness into a computer.
The film is being financed and produced by Alcon Entertainment’s Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove and will be released by Warner Bros. The film will also be produced by Straight Up Films’ Annie Marter, Marisa Polvino and Kate Cohen along with David Valdes. Pfister will direct from newcomer Jack Paglen’s screenplay, which was developed with Annie Marter, with the most recent draft by Noah Oppenheim. Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas are serving as executive producers. Straight Up’s Regency Boies will co-produce.
Depp will next be seen starring in Walt Disney Pictures’ The Lone Ranger, directed by Gore Verbinski and debuting July 3, 2013. The film is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Verbinski along with Depp and Christi Dembrowski’s Infinitum Nihil banner. Infinitum Nihil’s credits also include Hugo, Dark Shadows and The Rum Diary.

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
A new TV spot from director Sam Raimi's upcoming Oz The Great and Powerful is now online and you can check it out in the player below, courtesy of Fandango. Also below is the cover to this week's EW, which shows off a new image of the Wicked Witch.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D on March 8, the fantasy adventure stars James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, Zach Braff and Joey King.
When Oscar Diggs (Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he's hit the jackpot--fame and fortune are his for the taking--that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Kunis), Evanora (Weisz) and Glinda (Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity--and even a bit of wizardry--Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.

Get More: MTV Shows

JOE'S COMICS
It's official: Joe's Comics, the imprint that created Midnight Nation and Rising Stars, is back in business. And MTVGeek has exclusively learned from JMS himself that the first comic book from the new line will be "Ten Grand," illustrated by best-selling artist Ben Templesmith ("30 Days of Night"). The comic will officially debut May 1st -- but a convention variant will be unveiled at C2E2 in Chicago the week before for those who can't wait.
Watch our exclusive video interview with J. Michael Straczynski after the jump!
"The temptation to bring back Joe’s Comics has been very powerful over the last few years," J. Michael Straczynski remarked, "but I really wanted to wait until I had a collection of stories that I absolutely had to tell, that like Midnight Nation wouldn’t let me go until they were told. Stories that could be dark, funny, deeply personal but also played out on a large stage in terms of action."
Read the rest of the piece at http://geek-news.mtv.com/2013/02/27/jms-joes-comics-ten-grand/.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2013

Lee Pace HALT & CATCH FIRE
AMC's 1980s-set pilot "Halt & Catch Fire" has tapped Lee Pace as its lead.
The "Pushing Daisies" star will play a computer visionary in the pilot, which is about the PC revolution of the 1980s. His character is a former top salesman at IBM who joins a Dallas tech firm. Mackenzie Davis ("Smashed") will also star as a gifted young programmer.
If it's picked up, "Halt & Catch Fire" will be the first series role for Pace since "Pushing Daisies" ended in 2009. His recent movie credits include "Lincoln" and "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"; he'll be in the next two "Hobbit" films as well.
More pilot casting:
- NBC's "Believe" has added Delroy Lindo to its cast. The drama is about a young girl with great powers and the ex-con (Jake McLaughlin) assigned to protect her from harm; Lindo will play Winter, a man who poses as a priest. [Hollywood Reporter]
- British actor Tom Mison ("Parade's End") will star in FOX's drama "Sleepy Hollow" as Ichabod Crane. The character is transported from the late 1700s to the present day and teams with a detective when the Headless Horseman begins terrorizing the town. [Deadline]
- NBC's "The Sixth Gun" has cast Laura Ramsey ("The Ruins") in its lead role. Her character comes into possession of the titular weapon, which has otherworldly properties and a whole lot of bad people looking for it. [Deadline]

FALLING SKIES
For the most part, Falling Skies has been about humans vs. aliens. These creatures have killed innocent men and women, while kidnapping their children. Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) and his 2nd Mass militia have struggled to put up a fight. Everytime they think they've made progress, they discover something worse on the horizon.
[Season two spoilers ahead]
TNT's released new footage from the upcoming season, which is a gamechanger. A bigger and badder threat may be heading their way. In last season's finale, we discovered that Hal (Drew Mason) was implanted with an alien parasite. It drastically changes his personality and makes him unstable.
There's also the issue of Anne's (Moon Bloodgood) baby. The writers and producers insinuate that something more diabolical could be going on. We're reminded that Tom was held captive on an alien ship and is unaware of what was done to his body. We don't know what's floating in his bloodstream. Could he have passed it on to the child?
We can't forget the introduction of the new aliens. They're completely different from the ones we've seen in the past. The first one we saw was played by Hellboy's Doug Jones.

WAREHOUSE 13
We finally know when new episodes of Syfy’s hit series Warehouse 13 will return, and the network has released a new trailer teasing tons of new, crazy artifacts.
The final 10 episodes of season four will debut April 29 with the installment “The Living and the Dead,” which will address the cliffhanger about the Black Orchid Artifact. The gang will have to race against the clock to save the world, which always makes for compelling television.
A familiar face to Syfy fans will also be joining the gang, with Caprica co-star Polly Walker popping in for a multi-episode arc.

Hercules HERCULES
MGM and Paramount Pictures announced today that the Brett Ratner-directed Hercules, starring Dwayne Johnson, has been moved up from August 8, 2014 to July 25, 2014.

This means the film will be released in between The Hobbit: There and Back Again and X-Men: Days of Future Past, both set to be released on July 18, 2014, as well as Marvel Studios' Guardians of the Galaxy, opening in theaters on August 1, 2014.
HerculesHer is based on the Radical Publishing "Hercules" comic books of which there were two series, "The Thracian Wars" and "The Knives of Kush," both written by Steve Moore with Cris Bolsin on art.

Fantastic Four FANTASTIC FOUR
Just days after it was revealed that Matthew Vaughn is boarding Twentieth Century Fox's upcoming reboot of Fantastic Four comes word, via The Hollywood Reporter, that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter novelist and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith has signed on to do a polish on the screenplay.
To be directed by Chronicle's Josh Trank, Fantastic Four is targeted for release on March 6, 2015. Vaughn, who directed 2011's X-Men: First Class, is also producing the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past as well and, while nothing has been confirmed as of yet, it has been speculated that Fox could develop their Marvel properties for the same kind of crossover potential shown with Marvel's The Avengers.
Fantastic Four's screenplay was previously drafted by Jeremy Slater. Grahame-Smith's big screen resume also includes last year's Tim Burton project, Dark Shadows.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Castiel SUPERNATURAL NEWS
The long-running CW series Supernatural has never been afraid to write off some supporting characters, but it looks like one guest star will be sticking around permanently next season.
It’s been confirmed that Misha Collins, who plays the fan fave angel Castiel on the monster-hunting drama, will be a series regular for the show’s upcoming ninth season.
The network recently pulled the trigger and ordered an early renewal, and it seems the producers are wanting to lock in the cast they’ll need for wherever they’re taking the story next year.
Collins has bounced from recurring to regular roles on the series the past several seasons, depending on the storyline. So, expect Castiel to factor in heavily next season.
Even cooler? The actor will also be stepping behind the camera for at least one episode next season and serving as director.

IN THE FLESH
It was only a matter of time before zombie shows started popping up in places other than AMC.
In a few weeks, The BBC will debut In The Flesh, a zombie show with a twist. Set in the aftermath of a zombie outbreak in the UK, the series will follow Kieren (Luke Newberry), a dead teenager who was resurrected as a zombie and has since been rehabilitated somehow by the British government (they apparently call his condition "Partially Deceased Syndrome"). As Kieren attempts to re-enter society (while surrounded by people whose friends and relatives he just ate), he continues to struggle with the old urges that come with being a shambling undead cannibal.
The show is set to debut on BBC Three starting Sunday, March 17. No word on when (or if) it'll hit the States.

HENRi
The first trailer for the new sci-fi short HENRi has finally been released, after the film cleaned house on the indie festival circuit. The coolest part? The flick brings 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Keir Dullea (aka Dave) back to the world of sci-fi.
Written and directed by Eli Sasich, the film tells the tale of a derelict spaceship that becomes self-aware and starts building itself a body. The trailer looks like a good mix of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Moon, and should make for a chillingly cool story.
It also brings in some true sci-fi legends on the casting front, with Dullea and Margot Kidder (Superman) the big draws.
Here’s the plot synopsis:
HENRi is an epic new sci-fi short film starring Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey) and Margot Kidder (Superman). Kickstarter funded, and two years in the making, HENRi tells the story of a derelict spaceship that becomes self-aware and builds itself a mechanical body in order to feel alive. Utilizing a mixture of quarter-scale miniatures, in-camera effects, and computer animation, HENRi is a completely unique and visually stunning short film.
HENRi from Eli Sasich on Vimeo.
The entire film is out now.

Devin Kelley THE RETURNED
Covert Affairs actress Devin Kelley has joined ABC drama pilot The Returned, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
From Criminal Minds' Aaron Zelman and based on the Jason Mott novel, The Returned asks what happens when the people you have buried and mourned suddenly appear on your doorstep as if not a day's gone by.
Kelley will play Gail Garland, a tough, attractive and smart doctor at the local clinic in Arcadia with an inquisitive nature. Daughter of the local sheriff, her mother Barbara died 30 years ago in the same accident that killed an 8-year-old boy. Against her father's wishes, she teams up with Agent Martin Bellamy to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Kelley joins a cast that includes Matt Craven. Zelman will write and executive produce, with JoAnn Alfano, Jon Liebman, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. Charles McDougall will direct the ABC Studios/Brillstein Entertainment and Plan B production.
Repped by APA and Group Entertainment, Kelley recurred on USA's Covert Affairs as Parker and was a regular on the one-season Fox drama The Chicago Code. On the big screen, she appeared in Chernobyl Diaries.

Joel-Ethan Coen UNBROKEN
Last year Angelina Jolie indicated she had plans to direct an adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken as her sophmore feature film. Today, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Jolie has found some surprising talent to board the project: Joel and Ethan Coen will rewrite the current draft by Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson.
Co-financed and co-produced by Universal and Walden Media, Unbroken follows the incredible life story of Olympian and war hero Louis Zamperini who, along with two other crewmen, survived in a raft for 47 days after a near-fatal plane crash in WWII only to be caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner of war camp.
The book has sat atop the New York Times bestseller list for more than 108 consecutive weeks, fourteen of those at number one. It was also the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award for Nonfiction.
The Coens' latest, Inside Llewyn Davis, is slated to hit the big screen later this year through CBS Films. They also provided the script for Michael Hoffman's Gambit, which will also see a 2013 release through the same distributor.

Mad Max MAD MAX ON BLU-RAY JUNE 4
Mad Max, the sci-fi franchise that introduced Mel Gibson to the world, will come together for the first time as a Blu-ray collection when Warner Bros. Home Entertainment debuts "The Mad Max Trilogy" on June 4th.
The three films – Mad Max (1979), Mad Max: The Road Warrior (1982) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) – are all set in the near-future in Australia and hail from Oscar-winning director George Miller (Happy Feet). All three films star Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, a highway cop traveling through the Outback in a society descending into chaos.
Although photos of the limited premium tin packaging are not yet available, it has been revealed that the set retail for $49.99 on Blu-ray Disc. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, which is making its Blu-ray debut, will also be available as a single release along with Mad Max Road Warrior.
Special features have not yet been revealed, but the films' official descriptions are listed as follows:
Mad Max (1979)
George Miller's first entry in the trilogy, Mad Max packs brutal action and insane stunts as it follows the inevitable downfall of relentless cop Max Rockatansky (Gibson) in a world gone mad. Living on the edge of an apocalypse, Max is ready to run far away from it all with his family. But when he experiences an unfortunate encounter with a motorcycle gang and its menacing leader, the Toecutter, his retreat from the madness of the world is now a race to save his family's life.
Mad Max Road Warrior (1982)
The sequel to Mad Max, Mad Max Road Warrior provides action-packed, “automotive” entertainment, telling the story of a selfish-turned-selfless hero and his efforts to protect a small camp of desert survivors and defend an oil refinery under siege from a ferocious marauding horde that plunders the land for gasoline.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Mel Gibson returns for his third go-round as the title hero who takes on the barbarians of the post-nuclear future - and this time becomes the savior of a tribe of lost children. Music superstar Tina Turner co-stars as Aunty Entity, a power-mad dominatrix determined to use Max to tighten her stranglehold on Bartertown, where fresh water, clean food and gasoline are worth more than gold.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013

GAME OF THRONES
HBO just debuted the first official Season three Game of Thrones trailer. And you know what? It’s 60-seconds of pure awesomeness.
Shown on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the brand new stunning official trailer features characters both returning and new, and has it all: Drama, thrills, fights, ice wall climbing, dragons, fire, and more drama.
The third season of Game of Thrones returns to HBO on March 31 at 9PM.

Cusick-Dalek DOCTOR WHO DESIGNER DIES
Ray Cusick, the BBC designer who created the look of Doctor Who's most iconic nemesis, the Daleks, died in his sleep Thursday. He was 84.
Back in 1963, it was Cusick who was tasked with designing a new alien rival for the Doctor based on writer Terry Nation's script for the Who serial "The Daleks." Cusick went to work, and later said he developed the basic shape of the Dalek simply to make it easier to fit a human operator inside.
"When I'm asked what I was inspired by I suppose it was really a system of logic because I realised that you've got to have an operator to operate them. If you had anything mechanical, 10 to one on the take it would go wrong, so you've got a human being in there who would be absolutely totally reliable," Nation said in an interview with Doctor Who Confidential. "I then thought 'Well, the operator's got to sit down', [so I] drew a seat, ergonomic height, 18 in., got the operator down, and then drew round him. That's how the basic shape appeared."
The Daleks have evolved over the years. Their shape has changed slightly, they've sometimes changed colors, and their place in the Who universe has shifted, but they remain an indispensible part of the show's mythology, and easily its most remembered and most celebrated villain.
"Extinction is not an option - If you say Doctor Who to someone in the street about the second thing they're going to say is 'Exterminate'," said Nicholas Briggs, the current voice of the Daleks. "Lots of my friends who are not Doctor Who fans think that the programme is 'Doctor Who and the Daleks' - that surely the Daleks are in it all the time - which isn't true but that is the impression. That's the brilliance of the creation of the Daleks. They've made an indelible stamp on the series really."
Half a century after his creation first hit British homes, Daleks live on, and Cusick's original design will be trotted out once again this year for An Adventure in Space and Time, the dramatized origin story of Doctor Who, set to air as part of the Doctor Who 50th annivesary celebrations. It's just a shame Cusick won't be here to see it.
Cusick is survived by two daughters, seven grandchildren and one of the greatest fictional alien races ever to hit TV.

Snitch WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Universal Pictures continues to have a great 2013 as their hit comedy Identity Thief, starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, bounced back to #1 after dropping to second place last weekend. It brought in $14.1 million to take first place, down 40% from the holiday weekend with a total gross of $93.7 million in three weeks. Not counting the Oscar-nominated movies that opened in late December that have been dominating the box office, it's currently the highest-grossing movie of 2013, although it has some competition for that spot in the coming weeks.
Dwayne Johnson starred in the true life crime thriller Snitch (Summit Entertainment), co-starring Susan Sarandon, Jon Bernthal, Barry Pepper, Michael K. Williams and Benjamin Bratt, which had to settle for an opening in second place with an estimated $13 million in 2,511 theaters, averaging $5,177 per site.
The animated family comedy Escape From Planet Earth (The Weinstein Company) jumped up from fourth place to third in its second weekend, taking in $11 million and bringing its total to $35 million. Hard to believe, but that amount would already put it in the top 10 highest grossing movies for the distributor and that's after just ten days. It could ultimately catch up to their earlier animated hit Hoodwinked! to join the company's top 5 biggest hits.
The Nicholas Sparks adaptation Safe Haven (Relativity Media, starring Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel, took a plunge from the previous weekend, dropping to fourth place with $10.6 million, which is down 50% from last week. It has grossed $48.1 million so far and will likely end up among the second tier of Nicholas Sparks films.
By comparison, Bruce Willis' return as John McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard(20th Century Fox) took an even nastier plunge in its second weekend, dropping a whopping 60% to fifth place (from first last week) with $10 million and $51.8 million total so far. Right now, it's looking doubtful that the movie will even gross $100 million domestically.
The alien invasion thriller Dark Skies (Dimension Films), starring Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton, opened weakly in sixth place with $8.9 million in 2,313 theaters, roughly $3800 per site.
On the other hand, David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (The Weinstein Company) continues to do big business during the Oscar weekend where it won three Independent Spirit Awards including Best Picture and Director on Saturday. With a negligible 3% drop from the holiday weekend, it brought in another $6 million to bring its total gross to $107.5 million, which makes it the Weinstein Company's fourth-highest grossing movie of all time. Their #1 is currently Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, which has grossed nearly $160 million domestically and another $222 million internationally, although the latter distribution is being handled by Sony Pictures.
Summit Entertainment's zombie comedy Warm Bodies took eighth place with $4.8 million, down 48% as it brought its total to $58 million after four weeks.
Ninth place went to Steven Soderbergh's psychological thriller Side Effects (Open Road) with $3.5 million and a running total of $25.2 million after three weeks.
The romantic fantasy Beautiful Creatures (Warner Bros.) rounded out the Top 10 with $3.4 million, down 55% from its opening weekend and bringing its total to $16.4 million.
The Top 10 grossed roughly $85 million, which continued the trend for the month by being down 21% from the same weekend last year when Act of Valor topped the box office with $24.5 million while Tyler Perry's Good Deeds took second place with $15.6 million.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2013

Hill Harper COVERT AFFAIRS GETS A NEW REGULAR
A CSI: NY star is jumping ship.
Hill Harper has joined USA spy drama Covert Affairs as a new series regular for season four, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Harper, who has played Sheldon Hawkes on CSI: NY since the CBS procedural's 2004 debut, will play an ambitious CIA station chief in Latin America. Intelligent, charismatic and slightly cocky, he ascended to a very high position at a relatively young age and is plotting his way into a bigger position back in Washington. In his journey for greater power, he will attempt to make CIA operative Annie (Piper Perabo) and blind tech-op Auggie (Christopher Gorham) his allies, but his questionable actions will cause the pair to doubt his intentions.
The casting comes as CSI: NY wraps up its 17-episode ninth season Friday night. There has been ongoing speculation that the current season could be the series' last. Though Harper will not return should CBS renew CSI: NY for a 10th season, the other core cast members are still on board.
Harper joins a Covert Affairs cast that includes Perabo, Gorham, Peter Gallagher and Kari Matchett. The one-hour series is executive produced by Doug Liman and David Bartis via Hypnotic and is written/executive produced by co-creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord, who signed an overall deal with studio Universal Cable Productions in December.
The new season picks up after Annie and Auggie finally acknowledge their romantic feelings, and things get complicated when Annie aligns with Henry Wilcox (Gregory Itzin) in a dangerous mission that has potentially scandalous consequences for the CIA.
Harper, also a best-selling author, is repped by Innovative, Luber Roklin and Carlos Goodman at Bloom Hergott.
Covert Affairs returns this summer.

Wolverine THE WOLVERINE
The Wolverine director James Mangold is taking up the trend of X-Men: Days of Future Past director Bryan Singer and The Amazing Spider-Man 2's Marc Webb and teasing us with new images for the film via his Twitter account. A few days ago , he posted a new still from the film and today he's released a new behind-the-scenes shot captioned with "A production snap from shooting a wood chopping scene in Omishima. We found an eight inch caterpillar that morning."
Opening in theaters on July 26, the action adventure stars Hugh Jackman, Will Yun Lee, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hal Yamanouchi, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima and Brian Tee.
Based on the celebrated comic book arc, The Wolverine finds Logan, the eternal warrior and outsider, in Japan. There, samurai steel will clash with adamantium claw as Logan confronts a mysterious figure from his past in an epic battle that will leave him forever changed.

Captain America CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige says that the upcoming sequel "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is tonally more akin to a political thriller than the historical fantasy adventure of the first movie. Asked about comic book movie adaptations in general, Feige says:
"If it is a fad, it's one that lasts 30 to 40 years, as the Western did, because each one is so different. There's an opportunity to graft almost sub-genres onto them.
Our first Captain America film was a World War II picture, and the next is a political thriller. They all have their own textures and patinas, and that's what is exciting about it."
Chris Evans, Emily VanCamp, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Frank Grillo, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Scarlett Johansson and Toby Jones all star.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2013

GAME OF THRONES
"The revenge you want will be yours in time," Varys says in full Season 3 trailer for "Game of Thrones," and so it will be for many of the main characters when the hit fantasy series returns to HBO on March 31.
Unlike the previous teaser, this new video gives fans a good taste of what they can expect for their favorite characters in Westeros and the lands beyond. From Mance Rayder (Ciaran Hinds) gathering the wildlings north of the Wall to Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) wreaking havoc in King's Landing to Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) finding the Unsullied in Astapor, there is a lot to be teased in this trailer.
That's not even mentioning our favorite Starks, who are trying to find their place in the world when Season 3 starts. Bran and Rickon are on the run, Robb is still building up his army, Catelyn returns to her Tully family and Arya continues to be a badass, this time with the Brotherhood Without Banners. Jon Snow's place is still north of the Wall with Mance, but it remains to be seen how long he stays there.
The best scene in the trailer comes when one of Daenerys' dragons flies towards a ship at sea. These critters have certainly grown since we last saw them, but will that help or harm Daenerys' search for an army? Tune in when "Game of Thrones" premieres on March 31 to find out.

Mark-Henry TOMORROW PEOPLE/THE HUNDRED
A pair of actors who played key roles on "Lost" have signed on to two different pilots at The CW.
Mark Pellegrino, "Lost's" Jacob, will co-star in "The Tomorrow People," The CW's remake of a 1970s British series. Henry Ian Cusick, who played star-crossed lover Desmond on "Lost," has joined the cast of "The Hundred" at the network.
Pellegrino is familiar to CW fans from his recurring role on "Supernatural" as Lucifer. He'll play a bad guy on "The Tomorrow People" as well: a scientist committed to containing the "threat" of the show's title characters, young people with advanced abilities. The cast also includes Robbie Amell ("1600 Penn"), Peyton List ("Mad Men") and Luke Mitchell.
"The Hundred" is set about a century after nuclear war renders the planet uninhabitable. What's left of humanity resides on a space station called the Ark, and its leaders send 100 juvenile delinquents back to Earth to see if it's possible to return to the surface.
Cusick, whose credits also include "Scandal" and "The Mentalist," will play an officer aboard the Ark who has his sights on a higher rank.

Dawn McPhee DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Just days after Zero Dark Thirty star Jason Clarke signed on for Twentieth Century Fox's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes comes word, via Deadline, that Kodi Smit-McPhee will be starring as well.
The film is set 15 years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and finds most of humanity wiped out and the intelligent apes ruling over the world. Part of the film's focus is said to be on a small group of San Francisco-based scientists that are forming a resistance against the apes and part follows Andy Serkis' Caesar as he, like his namesake, tries to maintain order and power within his new civilization.
Smit-McPhee, who recently voiced the title character in ParaNorman, will be re-teaming on Dawn with director Matt Reeves. The two previously worked together on 2010's Let Me In.
Featuring a screenplay by Scott Z. Burns, Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa and Mark Bomback, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes hits theaters on May 23, 2014.

Riddick-Throne RIDDICK
Vin Diesel is back on his official Facebook page and, today, has released a new image from the upcoming Riddick.
In the film, the infamous Riddick has been left for dead on a sun-scorched planet that appears to be lifeless. Soon, however, he finds himself fighting for survival against alien predators more lethal than any human he's encountered. The only way off is for Riddick to activate an emergency beacon and alert mercenaries who rapidly descend to the planet in search of their bounty. The first ship to arrive carries a new breed of merc, more lethal and violent, while the second is captained by a man whose pursuit of Riddick is more personal. With time running out and a storm on the horizon that no one could survive, his hunters won't leave the planet without Riddick's head as their trophy.
Also starring Karl Urban, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Bokeem Woodbine, Dave Bautista, Conrad Pla, Raoul Trujillo, Nolan Funk and Keri Hilson, Riddick hits regular theaters and IMAX on September 6.

J.K. ROWLINGS NEW BOOK NEWS
J.K. Rowling, who should need no introduction as the bestselling author of the Harry Potter books, has begun work on a brand new not-related-to-Harry-Potter novel, she’s signed with a new publishing company in order to do it.
Said Rowling of the switch, and her new novel:
Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world. The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry’s success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher. I am delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life.
Rowling’s Harry Potter publisher in the US, for what it’s worth, is Arthur A. Levine Books, a company only a year older than the Harry Potter books themselves.
As for the content of that new novel (as if you weren’t already skimming this article to read that part first), we’ve got no hints at all, except that it will be her first novel intended for adults. So, adults out there who grew up loving the Harry Potter books… well, you won’t be getting another any time soon. But you will be getting a novel aimed at your age group, so that’s something interesting and new to look forward to.
I’m sure everyone is interested in seeing what Rowling has up her sleeve for a grown audience.
Update: jkrowling.com has updated its front page with a useful form that anyone can use to sign up for updates on Ms. Rowling’s new novel.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Neverwhere NEVERWHERE
In what will make fantasy and Neil Gaiman fans everywhere happy, we have the first official pic of the extremely star-studded ensemble cast of Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, Start Trek Into Darkness, The Hobbit), James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class, the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past), Natalie Dormer (The Tudors, The Fades, Game of Thrones), Sophie Okonedo (Doctor Who) and David Harewood (Homeland) will take on Gaiman’s tale of London Below, which is an alternate reality beneath the capital. In the story, famous landmarks take on a life of their own.
But not every glorious cast member is in this pic.
The awesome-and-we-don't-need-to-tell-you-who-he-is Christopher Lee and the wonderful Bernard Cribbins (Doctor Who) also star in this adaptation, which is being called an “audio film.”
And therein lie the itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, tiny catch.
Neverwhere is an audio play in six parts that will begin with an hourlong episode on Saturday, March 16, on Radio 4 at 6PM in the U.K. Subsequent installments will be 30 minutes long and will be spread across the week on Radio 4 Extra starting March 18.
But never mind that Neil Gaiman’s star-studded Neverwhere will be an "audio film." With a cast as fantastic and hugely talented as this, we’re certain that it’ll be a hit for fantasy fans everywhere.

Charlie Cox THE ORDAINED
Charlie Cox has been tapped to join CBS' family drama The Ordained, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Ordained revolves around Tom, the son of a Kennedy-esque family who leaves the priesthood and becomes a lawyer to prevent his politician sister from being assassinated.
Cox, who played Nucky's right-hand man/Margaret's love interest Owen on HBO's Boardwalk Empire, will star as Tom, who is described as having the charm and looks of the late JFK Jr. Tom joined the priesthood after law school to quell anger issues and to spite his authoritarian father. He leaves the priesthood in an attempt to unravel an assassination plot against his sister, the mayor of New York City.
Journalist/author Lisa Takeuchi Cullen will pen the script for CBS Television Studios and will executive produce alongside Frank Marshall, Larry Shuman and A.B. Fischer. RJ Cutler will helm the pilot, with Robert Zotnowski on board as a co-EP.
In addition to his role on Boardwalk (his character, Owen, was murdered last season), the WME and United Agents-repped Cox's credits also include a starring role in Stardust, the mini Moby Dick, in which he played Ishmael, and the upcoming feature Hello Carter.
Cox joins a cast that also includes Act of Valor's Nestor Serrano, who will play a partner at the law firm where Tom is employed whom he suspects is behind the plot to kill his sister.

Egan-Ellis GOTHICA
ABC's gothic monster soap has cast two of its leads.
Kings alum Chris Egan has landed the role of Dorian Gray, while EastEnders' Tom Ellis has been tapped to portray Victor Frankenstein in the high-concept drama Gothica, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The pilot is described as a sexy gothic soap set in the present day that weaves together a mythology that incorporates the legends of Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and Dorian Gray, among others. Egan's Dorian Gray -- the character who first rose to fame in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray -- is described as a beautifully charming and devastatingly sexy man with a smile like a switchblade. He's an enigmatic playboy who develops a relationship with Grace Van Helsing and attempts to help her figure out who killed her family. Ellis -- whose name recently circulated as a new addition to Downton Abbey -- will portray Victor Frankenstein, a good-looking guy with intense eyes and a brilliant doctor who's trying to find a way to bring his late daughter, Anna, back to life. Now married to Madeline Usher, he used to have a relationship with Grace and is still in love with her.
Egan, repped by WME, Trokia, Anonymous Content and Jackoway Tyerman, also had roles in the ABC's failed pilot Beauty and the Beast as well as features Letters to Juliet and Crush. Welsh actor Ellis, repped by Hamilton Hodell and Anonymous Content, starred on EastEnders, Pulling, Merlin and Gates.
They join the previously cast Raza Jaffrey (Smash) in the pilot.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice's Matt Lopez will pen the pilot for ABC Studios and executive produce alongside the Mark Gordon Co.'s Mark Gordon. Anand Tucker will direct the pilot, which is slated to film in Montreal.

Michael Biehn SEVERED CONNECTION
TORONTO - Michael Biehn will topline Severed Connection, a Canadian horror thriller from Rob Freeman and Cody Hackman's newly launched film production shingle Hackybox Pictures.
Severed Connection, which revolves around a man and woman who wake up to find themselves trapped in a remote location, also will star Jennifer Blanc, UFC’s Krzysztof Soszynski, Nick Bateman (Hobo With a Shotgun) and Hackman, a karate expert.
The picture is based on a story by Bateman and Hackman, who earlier starred along with Biehn and Soszynski in Tapped, a Canadian action drama about a disgruntled teenager with a troubled past who enters an MMA tournament to face the man who killed his parents.
Hackybox Pictures also is producing Gridlocked from writer-director Allan Ungar.
There is no word yet on casting for the action drama about a former SWAT team leader and the arrogant movie star shadowing him.
Ungar directed Tapped, which also starred Martin Kove (The Karate Kid) and UFC stars Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida.
Both Severed Connection and Gridlocked are due for release in 2014.

MERLIN PREVIEW
Morgana’s plans to kill King Arthur grow more intense when Guinevere makes a secret pact with a visiting ruler to complete the task – and Merlin is nowhere to be found during “The Hollow Queen,” an all-new episode of MERLIN premiering Friday, Feb. 22, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy.
Merlin agrees to help a young Druid boy who begs for assistance, and at first his absence is barely noticed as Camelot prepares for a visit by another nearby king, fearsome Sarrum of Amata (John Shrapnel).
But as the sky darkens, so do Merlin's suspicions. Is there more to the Druid than meets the eye? And can a man as ruthless as the Sarrum ever really be trusted? Before long, the young warlock realizes he's made a terrible mistake.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013

Avengers NEBULA AWARDS
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America have just revealed their picks for the best sci-fi and fantasy writing and filmmaking of the last year.
Since 1966, the Nebula Awards have been recognizing the very best in sci-fi storytelling, and the award is now among the most prestigious anyone working in genre fiction can hope to earn. Past winners include legends like Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert and Ursula K. LeGuin and still-active icons like Neil Gaiman, Steven Moffat, Connie Willis and Greg Bear.
This year the nominees include Joss Whedon (up for the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation for The Avengers and a second Bradbury Award as co-writer of The Cabin in the Woods), Kim Stanley Robinson (up for Best Novel for 2312), China Miéville (up for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy for Railsea) and Andrew Stanton (also up for the Ray Bradbury Award for directing and co-writing John Carter).
The full list of this year's nominees is below. The awards will be given out in a ceremony at the San Jose Hilton during Nebula Awards Weekend, May 16-19, 2013.
Novel
Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
Ironskin, Tina Connolly (Tor)
The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Novella
On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Stars Do Not Lie,” Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)
“All the Flavors,” Ken Liu (GigaNotoSaurus 2/1/12)
“Katabasis,” Robert Reed (F&SF 11-12/12)
“Barry’s Tale,” Lawrence M. Schoen (Buffalito Buffet)
Novelette
“The Pyre of New Day,” Catherine Asaro (The Mammoth Books of SF Wars)
“Close Encounters,” Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)
“The Waves,” Ken Liu (Asimov’s 12/12)
“The Finite Canvas,” Brit Mandelo (Tor.com 12/5/12)
“Swift, Brutal Retaliation,” Meghan McCarron (Tor.com 1/4/12)
“Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia,” Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 8/22/12)
“Fade to White,” Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 8/12)
Short Story
“Robot,” Helena Bell (Clarkesworld 9/12)
“Immersion,” Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12)
“Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 4/12)
“Nanny’s Day,” Leah Cypess (Asimov’s 3/12)
“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream,” Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed 7/12)
“The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species,” Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/12)
“Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” Cat Rambo (Near + Far)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
The Avengers, Joss Whedon (director) and Joss Whedon and Zak Penn (writers), (Marvel/Disney)
Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin (director), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Abilar (writers), (Journeyman/Cinereach/Court 13/Fox Searchlight )
The Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard (director), Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (writers) (Mutant Enemy/Lionsgate)
The Hunger Games, Gary Ross (director), Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, and Billy Ray writers), (Lionsgate)
John Carter, Andrew Stanton (director), Michael Chabon, Mark Andrews, and Andrew Stanton (writers), (Disney)
Looper, Rian Johnson (director), Rian Johnson (writer), (FilmDistrict/TriStar)
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
Iron Hearted Violet, Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown)
Black Heart, Holly Black (S&S/McElderry; Gollancz)
Above, Leah Bobet (Levine)
The Diviners, Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom)
Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst (S&S/McElderry)
Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
Enchanted, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
Every Day, David Levithan (Alice A. Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books)
Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (Pyr)
Above World, Jenn Reese (Candlewick)

Aksel Hennie HERCULES
Headhunters star Aksel Hennie is set to join Dwayne Johnson in Brett Ratner's upcoming Hercules, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter. He will play a mad warrior named Tydeus.
Co-produced between MGM and Paramount Pictures, the film will be based on the Radical Publishing "Hercules" comic books of which there were two series; "The Thracian Wars" and "The Knives of Kush," both written by Steve Moore with art by Cris Bolsin. "The Thracian Wars" is officially described as follows:
Fourteen-hundred years ago, a tormented soul walked the Earth that was neither man nor god. Hercules, powerful son of the god king Zeus, received nothing but suffering his entire life. After twelve arduous labors and the loss of his family, this dark, world-weary soul turned his back on the gods, finding his only solace in bloody battle. Over the years he warmed to the company of six similar souls, their only bond being their love of fighting and the presence of death. These men and woman never question where, why, or whom they go to fight; only how much they will be paid. Knowing this, the King of Thrace has hired these mercenaries to train his men to become the greatest army of all time. Hercules begins to question King Cotys' motives when he takes his army out to battle and sees them practice on innocent men, women, and children of their neighbors. Deep in his soul something stirs, but is it enough to stop a mad king and his army of the damned from marching across Greece - or even Olympus itself?!
The screenplay for the film version was written by Ryan Condol. MGM's Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber and Jonathan Glickman will produce with Peter Berg and his Film 44 partner Sarah Aubrey, as well as Barry Levine of Radical Pictures, whose Jesse Berger will executive produce.

Jones-Winter SLEEPY HOLLOW
Orlando Jones (Evolution) and Katia Winter ("Dexter") are the first cast members to sign on for Fox's upcoming "Sleepy Hollow" series. From Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Transformers, Star Trek), "Sleepy Hollow" has now been revealed to feature a time travel element. The still-uncast Ichabod Crane will travel from the past to present day Sleepy Hollow where he finds himself accused of murder.
Jones will play Lieutenant Frank Williams, a present-day police officer while Winter will play Crane's wife in the 18th century.
Based on the now-classic 1820 Washington Irving short story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," the pilot episode will be directed by Brad Anderson (The Machinist) (Len Wiseman was previously attached) and written by Kurtzman and Orci alongside Phillip Iscove.
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" has been adapted for film and television as far back as 1922. It last hit the big screen with Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow in 1999 and the small screen with "The Hollow," an ABC Family telefilm that also brought the plot to present day.

Arclight ARCLIGHT
Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment have plans to adapt Josin L. McQuein's upcoming sci-fi novel Arclight into a feature film, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter. The book, set for release this April, is officially described as follows:
There is the Light. There is the Dark. And no one survives The Fade. These are the absolutes... until a teenage girl stumbles out of the shadows with no memory of how she survived.
Her appearance brings hope, but also danger as a race of parasitic, chameleon-like creatures known as The Fade begin attacking those who have given her shelter. Torn between the possibility that she's the key to defeating the Fade, and the growing dissent that would sacrifice the girl in hopes of stopping the attacks, she's hard pressed to find anyone she can trust.
She finds a strained ally in the son of the man who died to bring her to safety. And when the two teens stumble across a captive Fade who begs them for help locating his lost mate, they begin to wonder if the Fade are the enemy they've been taught to believe.
Matthew Sand (Ninja Assassin) is attached to adapt the screenplay with Brian Grazer and Pouya Shahbazian producing and Sarah Bowen and Erica Huggins executive producing.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2013

Jason Clarke DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Looks like there are a couple of big changes coming for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
For one thing, there's a new star. Say goodbye to James Franco and say hello to Jason Clarke. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Clarke just nabbed the lead role in the Apes sequel, which will be directed by Cloverfield's Matt Reeves. Though you might have seen him in flicks like Public Enemies and in the short-lived series The Chicago Code, Clarke is best known these days for his work as a tough CIA interrogator in Kathryn Bigelow's acclaimed and controversial Zero Dark Thirty. It's a breakout role that was bound to land Clarke plenty of other acting opportunities, and he's apparently decided his next big job should be sci-fi.
But that's not the only big news here. Most of Dawn's plot will likely remain a secret until we're a good bit closer to the release, but THR is reporting a few new tantalizing details to go along with the news that Clarke is coming aboard. For one thing, the sequel will be set 15 years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and will feature at least two major plotlines. One will include a group of scientists fighting to survive in San Francisco (which, if you'll recall, took quite a pounding from the apes in the first film), while another will follow ape resistance leader Caesar (Andy Serkis) as he tries to maintain authority over the apes. Where does Clarke fit in? We don't know yet, but this certainly sounds like a combustible mix of elements.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is expected to begin shooting sometime this spring for (hopefully) a 2014 release date.

Guy Pearce IRON MAN 3
A new Iron Man 3 poster has been released, giving us a pretty kickass look at newcomer Guy Pearce getting ready to mix it up in Marvel’s biggest standalone franchise.
Pearce has signed on to play Aldrich Killian, who works with scientist Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) developing the Extremis technology at the center of the sequel’s storyline.
The studio has been leaking out some pretty great character posters in the leadup to the May 3 release date, and it's great to finally get a look at Pearce in action. Director Shane Black definitely has him looking cool here, so it’ll be interesting to see how Pearce fits into the Marvel world.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Paramount has released a thrilling official Star Trek Into Darkness first-look featurette that’s so action-packed that you may want to hold on to something.
“The goal for this movie was to up the ante as much we could.” Lofty words from our man, director J.J. Abrams, and from the looks of the trailer and this intense, actiony "first-look featurette" on the highly anticipated Star Trek sequel, it looks like he may very well have succeeded.
The almost one-minute-thirty-second gripping video is chock-full of action scenes and breathtaking sequences, as well as perfectly awesome footage. There's also a little something for the ladies and the romantics at heart, since we get more smooch time between Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana).
Oh, and we also have Abrams, Quinto, Saldana and Chris Pine talking about the upcoming tentpole movie.
Quinto—fresh from his recent stint on American Horror Story: Asylum—calls it “stunningly beautiful,” while Pine, who plays Capt. Kirk, calls it “relentless.”
With that very exciting first-look featurette, we can say that we're as ready as can be to descend into darkness with the cast and crew of the U.S..S. Enterprise.

Jason Lee SECOND SIGHT
CBS is developing an American version of the BBC crime drama "Second Sight", TV Line reports. Jason Lee is attached to play the lead.
The original series premiered in 2000 and ran for eight episodes. It starred Clive Owen as Detective Chief Inspector Ross Tanner, a maverick cop who undergoes an experimental treatment to hide the fact that he's going blind. The setting of the CBS version will be relocated from London to New Orleans.
Michael Cuesta will direct the pilot with a script co-written by Gerald Cuesta. The former Cuesta will also executive produce alongside Phil Goldfine, Carol Mendelsohn, Paula Milne, Nick Reed and Julie Weitz.

Rachelle Lefevre UNDER THE DOME
The Twilight Saga star Rachelle Lefevre has taken a leading role in the upcoming Stephen King television adaptation, "Under the Dome," says a story at TV Line.
The series, set to debut on June 24 at 10/9c on CBS, has been adapted for the small screen by Brian K. Vaughan ("Y: The Last Man," "Ex Machina," "LOST"). Neils Arden Oplev, the director of the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, will helm the pilot.
The story tells of Chester's Mill, a small town in Maine, which is cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible dome. With air, food and patience dwindling, societal norms within this town begin to break down.
Lefevre, who can soon be seen on the big screen in White House Down, will play Julia Shumway, the owner of Chester's Mill's newspaper.
The 13-episode first season will also star Colin Ford, Aisha Hinds, Alex Koch, Natalie Martinez, Jolene Purdy, Britt Robertson, Mike Vogel, Dean Norris and Nicholas Strong.

BATES MOTEL
Premiering on A&E March 18th, "Bates Motel" offers a contemporary take on the story of Psycho's Norman Bates and his mother and, today, the network has launched a lengthy trailer.
Starring Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga as Norman and Norma Bates, "Bates Motel" concerns the early days of Norman's life. Following the tragic death of her husband, Norma Bates buys a motel on the outskirts of the idyllic coastal town of White Pine Bay, seeking a fresh start. As Norma and Norman get ensconced in their new home, they discover this town isn't quite what it seems, and the locals aren’t so quick to let them in on their secrets. But the Bates’ are done being pushed around and will do whatever it takes to survive – and will do whatever it takes to protect their own secrets.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2013

HANNIBAL
Now that NBC's "Hannibal" finally has a premiere date, the network has released an official trailer giving audiences the first look at the new series from Bryan Fuller ("Pushing Daisies") starring Hugh Dancy as FBI agent Will Graham and Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
If the trailer looks uncomfortably similar to FOX's current serial killer serial "The Following," we have hopes that Fuller has a plan to take the genre somewhere fresh.
The bigger concern could be how Dancy and Mikkelsen adjust to roles we've already seen brought to life by other actors. Graham was previously played on screen by William Petersen (in Michael Mann's "Manhunter") and Edward Norton (in Brett Ratner's "Red Dragon"). And, of course, Lecter was made famous by Anthony Hopkins who won an Oscar for his performance in "The Silence of the Lambs" and reprised the role in "Hannibal" and "Red Dragon." (Brian Cox played Lecter in a supporting role in "Manhunter.")
We'll find out when "Hannibal" premieres April 4 on NBC.

THE CULT
Cult (The CW) 9 p.m. - You're Next
Series premiere! A journalist begins to investigate the mysterious disappearance of his troubled brother, only to discover it might have something to do with the freaky fans of a popular TV show named Cult. Stars The Vampire Diaries' Matt Davis and Heroes' Robert Knepper.




G.I.JOE: RETALIATION
Paramount Pictures International has debuted both a new trailer and a new TV spot for the upcoming G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on March 29, the Jon Chu-directed action adventure stars D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, Ray Stevenson, Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson.
In the sequel, the G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2013

Die Hard WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
After a touch-and-go start, the Bruce Willis starrer A Good Day to Die Hard has pulled ahead of rivals Safe Haven and holdover Identity Thief to narrowly win Presidents Day weekend with a three-day gross of $25 million. The 20th Century Fox pic now is projected to earn $30 million for the full holiday weekend, pushing its five-day domestic debut to $38.3 million (both Die Hard and Safe Haven opened on Valentine's Day).
Overseas, the fifth installment in the series topped the international box office with $61.1 million for a foreign total of $80.1 million and worldwide haul of $113.3 million.
Melissa McCarthy-Jason Bateman's R-rated comedy Identity Thief has plenty of reason to laugh in its second weekend. Declining a narrow 33 percent, the Universal pic came in No. 2 for the weekend with $23.4 million in domestic ticket sales. Its projected Friday-Monday gross is $27.7 million for a domestic haul of $75 million through Monday.
Relativity Media's Nicholas Sparks film adaptation Safe Haven remains a big winner as well, even at No. 3. Fueled by younger females, the romantic drama grossed $21.4 million for the three-day weekend and should earn $25 million for the four days.
Pairing Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel, Safe Haven wasn't expected to open much past $25 million; now, it should finish Monday with $34 million in the bank. Safe Haven narrowly won Valentine's Day and tied with Die Hard on Friday.
Die Hard had been widely expected to amass a five-day gross in the $40 million to $45 million range. Dismal reviews likely are hurting the R-rated film since the franchise's fan base is older and more influenced by a critic's opinion (65 percent of the audience was over the age of 25). Those who are turning out gave the film a B+ CinemaScore.
Live Free or Die Hard, the PG-13 previous installment in the series, posted a five-day debut of $48.4 million when opening on the eve of the Fourth of July holiday in 2007.
In A Good Day to Die Hard, Willis' McClane travels to Moscow to rescue his son (Jai Courtney), a CIA operative who's in some nasty trouble.
IMAX theaters contributed $4.3 million of the total domestic gross and $8.3 million worldwide.
Fueled by younger female moviegoers, Relativity's Safe Haven received even worse notices than Die Hard but is more review-proof. The romantic drama also drew a B+ CinemaScore. More than 70 percent of those buying tickets were females, while 68 percent of the total audience was under the age of 25.
Safe Haven is directed by Lasse Hallstrom and stars Hough as a young woman who returns to her hometown only to be gripped by a dark secret from her past, even as she falls for a stranger (Duhamel).
Animated 3D family entry Escape From Planet Earth, opening on Friday, is holding steady at No. 4, grossing a solid $16.1 million for the three-day weekend. From the Weinstein Co., the pic should post a four-day opening gross of $21 million.
Escape From Planet Earth is the first theatrical feature from Rainmaker Entertainment. Its voice cast is led by Brendan Fraser, Jessica Alba, Rob Corddry and Sarah Jessica Parker. William Shatner plays the evil alien Shanker.
The holiday's fourth new wide release, Beautiful Creatures, has fared poorly. The movie, based on the popular YA book series, grossed $7.5 million for the three-day weekend and is projected to post a five-day opening of only $11.6 million, well less than expected.
From Alcon Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros., Beautiful Creatures was bested by fellow YA film adaptation Warm Bodies, which took in $2.6 million for the three-day weekend to come in No. 5 in its third frame and pushing its domestic cume to $50.2 million.
Directed and scripted by Richard LaGravenese, Beautiful Creatures is the latest film property to be based on a young-adult book series. The film stars Alice Englert and Alden Ehrenreich and is being distributed by Warner Bros. via its deal with Alcon. Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis also star in the film based on the first book in the Caster Chronicles series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The movie centers on Lena Duchannes (Englert), whose special powers have long kept her separated from others. Moving to a new town, she quickly captures the attention of Ethan Wate (Ehrenreich), but their budding relationship is threatened by an ancient battle between good and evil.
At the specialty box office, Gael Garcia Bernal's No opened to a notable $74,476 from four theaters for a location average of $18,619. The Chilean film, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics in the U.S., is a contender for the best foreign-language film Oscar.
The Metropolitan Opera's The Met: Live in HD continued to hum along as Verdi's Rigoletto, a new production from Michael Mayer, grossed $2.6 million from 800 theaters on Saturday morning. The live broadcast ranked No. 12 overall.
Below are estimates for the Feb. 15-17 weekend at the domestic box office.
Title, Weeks in release/theater count, studio, three-day weekend total, cume (*denotes Oscar best picture nominee)
1. A Good Day to Die Hard, 1/3,553, Fox, $25 million, $33.2 million
2. Identity Thief, 1/3,141, Universal, $23.4 million, $70.7 million
3. Safe Haven, 1/3,223, Relativity, $21.4 million, $30.3 million
4. Escape From Planet Earth, 1/3,288, The Weinstein Co, $16.1 million
5. Warm Bodies, 3/2,897, Summit, $9 million, $50.2 million
6. Beautiful Creatures, 1/2,950, Warner Bros., $7.5 million, $10 million
7. Side Effects, 2/2,605, Open Road, $6.2 million, $19 million
8. *Silver Linings Playbook, 14/2,202, The Weinstein Co., $6.1 million, $98.5 million
9. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, 4/2,103, Paramount/MGM, $3.5 million, $49.8 million
10. *Zero Dark Thirty, 9/1,522, Sony/Annapurna, $3.1 million, $88 million

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
Rachel Weisz and James Franco appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" last week and brought along two clips from director Sam Raimi's Oz The Great and Powerful. Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D on March 8, the fantasy adventure also stars James Franco, Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams, Zach Braff, Joey King and Bruce Campbell.
When Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he's hit the jackpot--fame and fortune are his for the taking--that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity--and even a bit of wizardry--Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.


Here is a teaser trailer for the upcoming season of the webseries "Mortal Kombat: Legacy 2" that just premiered at the 3rd Annual Streamy Awards.
The follow-up to "Mortal Kombat: Legacy," one of the most-viewed web series of all time with 60 million views on Machinima's YouTube site, the sequel is once again directed by Kevin Tancharoen, co-writing with Josh Baizer and Marshall Johnson.
The cast is made up of Harry Shum, Jr. ("Glee") as the warlord adviser Kuai Liang, Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers) as martial arts film actor Johnny Cage, Brian Tee (The Wolverine) as Shaolin Monk Liu Kang, and Mark Dacascos (Cradle 2 the Grave) as Kung Lao. Ian Anthony Dale (“Hawaii Five-O”) also returns as the resurrected ninja Scorpion and Cary Tagawa reprises the role he made famous in the Mortal Kombat theatrical release as the powerful, arrogant sorcerer Shang Tsung.
According to the description, "The footage showcases the non-stop action of the continuing saga as Liu Kang and Ermac join the ranks of fighters introduced in the hugely successful first season. The trailer features first glimpses into the rivalries and histories of these fierce warriors as Raiden and his recruits clash against the dark forces of Outworld in the epic battle for Earthrealm!"

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013

David Bradley DOCTOR WHO NEWS
After much teasing, we have our first tantalizing look at Harry Potter and Game of Thrones actor David Bradley in the role of William Hartnell, aka the First Doctor.
Ever since it was announced by the BBC that they were doing a special for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who retelling how the show first came about, we were excited about the project.
Titled An Adventure in Space and Time, the Mark Gatiss-penned drama is currently filming and will air sometime in November on BBC2.
Bradley is playing the role of William Hartnell, who played the first mysterious time traveler from Gallifrey. At first, Hartnell was apparently reluctant to take on the role, but he was sad to leave in 1966. He died in 1975.
David Bradley said that when Mark Gatiss offered him the part, “I almost bit his hand off.”
This very first picture shows Bradley as William Hartnell (incidentally reading a copy of Radio Times magazine) along with actress Lesley Manville who plays Hartnell’s wife Heather.
An Adventure in Space and Time also stars Jessica Raines (Call the Midwife) as producer Verity Lambert (who was then only 27 years old) and Brian Cox as colorful Canadian Sydney Newman, BBC head of drama, who was the “father” of Doctor Who.

HANNIBAL
Set to premiere on NBC on April 4, Bryan Fuller's upcoming "Hannibal" series has debuted a first trailer..
The pilot is directed by David Slade and the series is said to explore the early days of Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) and the working relationship he had with FBI agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) before it turned sour.
"Hannibal" will also feature appearances by Gillian Anderson and Lance Henriksen.

Dwayne Johnson HERCULES
Dwayne Johnson says Brett Ratner's "Hercules" project at MGM and Paramount is a dream project for him.
Ryan Condal ("Paradise Lost") adapted the script from the Radical Publishing comic book series' "The Thracian Wars" and "The Knives of Kush" by Steve Moore and Chris Boslin.
Johnson became attached to the project back in November, and while out doing promotional work for "Snitch," he waxed on enthusiastically with MTV about his upcoming role as the ancient Greek hero:
"The next shoot, I'm really excited about, a passion project I've had now on my mind ever since I got into Hollywood, over 15 years now, Hercules. I can't wait. We're going to shoot that in Croatia and Budapest. I've been preparing for this role now for the good part of a year."
"Understand, for me when I was a kid, Hercules was always a hero of mine, from Steve Reeves to the multiple guys who have played Hercules, but the idea and the notion of this man. When I first got into movies, I thought, 'Gosh, I would love to do that one day.' I always thought that the version of Hercules that I want to play was one that was more dramatic and survived in barren lands and not necessarily slick in any way or anything like that. It's been around and been on my mind for some time."

BABYLON 5 ART WORK ON E-BAY
Tim Earls, set designer for Babylon 5, has put a number of his drawings out on e-bay for sale. Tim is awesomely talented and you may want to add a piece of original art to your Babylon 5 collection. Go to http://www.ebay.com/sch/platijaguar/m.html?item=111013958942&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19d8f2951e&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562 to look at what he has to offer.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2013

Geller-Williams CRAZY ONES
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, is attempting a return to TV. The actress was last seen on CW's "Ringer," which was canceled after one season in early 2012. This time, she's looking to make the audience laugh, and she's got a secret weapon named Robin Williams.
THR reports Gellar has signed on to co-star with Williams in the CBS pilot "Crazy Ones." The show is a single-camera comedy, about an advertising agency run by a father and daughter. Williams plays Simon Roberts, while Gellar plays his driven, yet practical daughter, Sydney.
The pilot's script is written by TV veteran David E. Kelley, who is also the show's producer. If the show goes to series, it would be Williams' first since "Mork & Mindy" ended in 1982.

Bryan Singer TWILIGHT ZONE
Bryan Singer has a plan for his proposed Twilight Zone reboot -- but he says he's going to need a lot of help to make it happen.
News that Singer was getting involved with yet another new version of the classic anthology series first surfaced last January, with the X-Men and Jack the Giant Slayer director negotiating with CBS to develop and executive produce the show. But with Singer now taking the helm of next year's X-Men: Days of Future Past, projects like this and his Battlestar Galactica movie may have taken a back seat.
Singer, however, says he's still very much attached to The Twilight Zone, telling Total Film:
"I’ve taken over The Twilight Zone. I’d love to direct one -- at least the pilot. It’s really not easy to jumpstart an anthology show, particularly because it’s hard to pair them with other things. The production is complex too, because you don’t have standing sets and you have a revolving cast. But I like the challenge."
Singer goes on to say that for The Twilight Zone to be successful again, it needs to attract the kind of top-notch actors and writers that the 1959 Rod Serling original featured:
"If we can get Twilight Zone to a place where A-list talent is participating, then it would emulate the experience of the Rod Serling show which had, you know, William Shatner, Agnes Moorehead, Burgess Meredith...all these terrific actors doing these really serious morality tales. If we achieve that it could be really something."
Certainly the 1985 version of the program attempted to aspire to those same goals (the 2002 version not so much). And Singer, who has worked with actors like Tom Cruise, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman and Kevin Spacey, probably has a deep enough contact list on his phone to make a few calls.
But will top-shelf talent be willing to work for less pay on the kind of anthology series that is rarely seen these days (except on New Year's Day marathons)? And will the Twilight Zone "brand" still be strong enough to attract a new generation of viewers already bombarded with plenty of sci-fi series on broadcast and cable?

Kyle Chandler THE VATICAN
Kyle Chandler is returning to the small screen.
The Friday Night Lights Emmy winner has been tapped to star in Showtime's drama pilot The Vatican, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The Vatican, a contemporary thriller about spirituality, power and politics, is set against the modern-day political machinations within the Catholic Church. The potential series would explore the relationships and rivalries in addition to the mysteries and miracles behind the institution.
Chandler, who has been among the most sought-after actors since his five-season run on NBC's Friday Night Lights, will star as Cardinal Thomas Duffy, a charismatic yet enigmatic archbishop of New York whose progressive leanings excite some and alarm others within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The casting reunites Chandler with former Friday Night Lights executive producer and Showtime Entertainment president David Nevins, who is said to have wanted to cast the actor for the role of Brody on Homeland.
The Super 8 and Argo actor joins a cast that also includes A Good Day to Die Hard's Sebastian Koch and A Single Man's Matthew Goode.
Paul Attanasio (House) penned the one-hour script, with Ridley Scott (Prometheus, The Good Wife) onboard to direct his first television pilot. Production on the Sony Pictures Television entry is expected to begin soon. Attanasio, Scott and David Zucker (The Good Wife) are onboard to exec produce.
"Kyle Chandler is one of the most talented and sought-after actors working today and was a fantastic creative partner through five seasons of Friday Night Lights," Nevins said. "With Kyle, Matthew Goode and Sebastian Koch, Ridley and Paul have put together a powerhouse cast to anchor this incredibly timely show.”
Koch will play Cardinal Marco Malerba, the Vatican's secretary of state, who is informally known as the "dark prince of the Curia" for his ability to ruthlessly wield power within the Church hierarchy. Goode will play papal secretary Bernd Koch, the pope's closest confidant, who has a very powerful perch within the Vatican inner circle.
Chandler earned two Emmy nominations and one win for his role as Coach Eric Taylor on FNL. His credits include The Day the Earth Stood Still, Broken City and best picture Oscar nominee Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. He also earned an Emmy nomination for his guest turn in ABC's Grey's Anatomy. He's repped by Gersh and Brillstein Entertainment.

THE CROODS
The first clip from DreamWorks Animation's The Croods is online.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on March 22, the animated adventure is voiced by Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke and Cloris Leachman.
The Croods is a prehistoric comedy adventure that follows the world's first family as they embark on a journey of a lifetime when the cave that has always shielded them from danger is destroyed. Traveling across a spectacular landscape, the Croods discover an incredible new world filled with fantastic creatures - and their outlook is changed forever.

THE LAST EXORCISM PART II
A UK trailer for horror thriller The Last Exorcism Part II has surfaced!
Opening in North American theaters on March 1st, the film continues where the last one left off. Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell) is found terrified and alone in rural Louisiana. Back in the relative safety of New Orleans, Nell realizes that she can't remember entire portions of the previous months only that she is the last surviving member of her family. Just as Nell begins the difficult process of starting a new life, the evil force that once possessed her is back with other, unimaginably horrific plans that mean her last exorcism was just the beginning.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN
FilmDistrict has released this new featurette on the R-rated action-thriller Olympus Has Fallen, starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Dylan McDermott, Ashley Judd, Melissa Leo and Rick Yune.
In the March 22 release, directed by Antoine Fuqua, the White House (Secret Service Code: "Olympus") is captured by a terrorist mastermind and the President is kidnapped, while disgraced former Presidential guard Mike Banning finds himself trapped within the building. As our national security team scrambles to respond, they are forced to rely on Banning's inside knowledge to help retake the White House, save the President, and avert an even bigger disaster.

FARPOINT THIS WEEKEND
For those of you in the Washington-Baltimore area, don't forget the 20th Anniversary of FARPOINT this weekend. This is one of the best fan-run conventions in the country. They have some wonderful guests coming -- and I'm sure you will have a marvelous time. For more information, go to www.farpointcon.com.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2013

MERLIN
Murder and deception reign supreme in King Arthur’s court when Queen Guinevere falls completely under Morgana’s mystical control in “A Lesson in Vengeance,” an all-new episode of MERLIN premiering this Friday, Feb. 15, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy.
In the episode, darkness steals into the very heart of Camelot as Morgana (Katie McGrath) and her puppet queen hatch a sinister plan to murder King Arthur. But stable hand Tyr Seward becomes caught in the crossfire and threatens to ruin everything. As the plot reaches its deadly climax, a suspicious Merlin seeks to unravel the truth before it’s too late.
In the role of Tyr Seward is John Bradley, the latest member of the “Game of Thrones” cast to make an appearance in the fifth and final season of MERLIN.

Mumy THE MUMMY
Universal Pictures has apparently developed a new strategy for getting the best possible Mummy reboot: two writers, two scripts, and may the best draft win.
We already knew that Universal was hoping to get a third incarnation of the classic horror franchise off the ground sometime soon, and that they'd picked up Underworld and Total Recall 's Len Wiseman to direct it and Prometheus' Jon Spaihts to write it. But it seems Spaihts has company in the film's script department. Sources have told Vulture that Universal also hired Hunger Games screenwriter Billy Ray to work on the flick, but he's not collaborating with Spaihts. He's competing with him.
That's right, in what seems like an effort to double the odds of a good script being produced, Universal has picked up two high-profile scribes to work on two different drafts of the flick, both of which will reboot the Mummy franchise with a present-day story. It's an unusual (and possibly expensive) strategy, but it could help the studio to speed up the production process. After all, having two writers at work simultaneously lessens the chance that yet another writer will have to be hired for rewrites further down the line. Plus, one insider said it's possible that these dueling scripts could simply turn into one uber-script by the time the flick heads into production.
“My suspicion is that one of them will be a ‘structure-and-body’ man, and one’s going to be a ‘character-and-dialogue’ man — and that they’ll then just gang-bang them together into one script, crediting both writers,” the insider said.
So, we could see a Ray script, we could see a Spaihts script, or we could see a Ray/Spaihts script, all in the service of hopefully saving Universal time, helping Wiseman get back to making hit movies after the box office disaster of Total Recall, and keeping the Mummy franchise profitable. Will it work? Well, the studio's hoping to begin shooting by fall at the latest, so we'll see if the dueling writers can hit that target.

THE HOST
The latest trailer for Stephenie Meyer’s sci-fi thriller The Host finally breaks down some of the plot, and gives us a much better look at the mysterious alien invasion.
Based on the book by Meyer (Twilight), The Host follows a young woman who is one of the last free humans left battling against a parasitic alien invasion. The film stars Saoirse Ronan (Hanna The Lovely Bones) and is directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, In Time).
Having Niccol attached could be a good thing, seeing as Gattaca is a bona fide modern classic. But the so-so In Time left a lot to be desired.
The new trailer gives us a look into how the aliens operate, and tries to show and explain the alien force that is taking over humanity. It’s definitely a tough sell to translate from the page to the screen, but it looks like NIccol is taking some Bourne-like action cues to keep it entertaining.

Battlestar BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Just last year, Bryan Singer was teasing us about his "very cool" new Battlestar Galactica movie.
So what’s happening with the planned reboot to the 1978-79 TV series?
Well, as you know, Bryan Singer is getting busy working on the highly anticipated X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the film’s keeping the director-producer pretty much occupied.
In fact, it seems like the news just keeps on coming for that flick (and pretty awesome news at that).
Speaking about Days of Future Past, Singer talked about his eagerly awaited Battlestar Galactica reboot, and, as you can imagine, the news is not so hot:
"I have that one on hold for a moment, so hopefully, I'd love to be able to get back to that, but for now I'm just focused on this X-Men business."
Considering the news broke way back when in 2009, we guess a couple more years of waiting won’t kill us. But if Days of Future Past is as successful as we expect it to be, Singer may put the Battlestar reboot on hold for a loooong while.

Hannibal HANNIBAL
According to ShockTillYouDrop.com, Bryan Fuller's upcoming "Hannibal" series is set to debut on NBC April 4 at 10pm.
The pilot is directed by David Slade and the series is said to explore the early days of Hannibel Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) and the working relationship he had with FBI agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) before it turned sour.
In addition to this announcement, Fuller revealed a new pic of Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter.
"Hannibal" will also feature appearances by Gillian Anderson and Lance Henriksen.

Downers Grove THE CURSE OF DOWNERS GROVE
Award-winning indie filmmaker Derick Martini (Lymelife with Alec Baldwin and Cynthia Nixon) has teamed up with Brett Easton Ellis on the new psychological thriller The Curse of Downers Grove. The film, currently in development, will begin production in spring of this year. Martini will direct.
Bella Heathcote (Dark Shadows, Not Fade Away will star in The Curse of Downers Grove with Lucas Till (X-Men: First Class, Stoker) who recently wrapped on Paranoia in which he stars opposite Gary Oldman, Harrison Ford and Liam Hemsworth. Penelope Mitchell ("Hemlock Grove") will also take a leading role.
The movie takes us on a wild ride through a small midwestern town gripped by a curse that claims the life of one high school senior every year. Chrissie Swanson (Heathcote) fears she is the next victim of The Curse of Downers Grove.
Jason Dubin, Oren Segal and Chiara Trento are producing the film.

Chris Hemsworth CHRIS HEMSWORTH NEWS
Michael Mann has lined up a new project in the form of a still-untitled thriller that he co-wrote with Morgan David Foehl. Variety reports that Chris Hemsworth is attached to headline.
Set up through Legendary Pictures, the thriller marks the first Mann film since 2009's Public Enemies and, while official plot details have not been released, the trade suggests that the storyline has to deal with cyber security.
Hemsworth had a busy 2012, starring in The Cabin in the Woods, Red Dawn, Marvel's The Avengers and Snow White and the Huntsman. He'll next headline Ron Howard's Rush before returning to Marvel's Cinematic Universe in Alan Taylor's Thor: The Dark World.
Mann joins Jon Jashni and Thomas Tull as producers with Alex Garcia executive producing.

20,000 Leagues 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
Although the most recent update to David Fincher's long-gestating adaptation of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea named Brad Pitt as a likely headliner, The Hollywood Reporter now brings word that the World War Z star is not involved in the project. Movement towards a green light is underway, however, and Australia is offering Walt Disney Pictures brand new tax incentives to shoot down under.
Originally scripted by Scott J. Burns, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is based on the classic Jules Verne novel of underwater adventure with Captain Nemo and the crew of his submarine vessel, the Nautilus.
If Disney elects to film in Australia, the choices are said to be between Village Roadshow Studios in Queensland and Fox Studios in Sydney. At its planned budget, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea would be the country's most expensive production to date.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013

Linda Hamilton LOST GIRL
Linda Hamilton, possibly the toughest woman to ever grace television and film screens, will soon play a part on one of television's sexiest dramas. The actress will guest-star on an episode of the third season of Syfy's fantasy series, "Lost Girl." Hamilton's episode is scheduled to air in March.
In the episode, titled "Delinquents," Hamilton will play the character of Acacia. She is a sexy, tough and ruthless assassin with a long trail of bodies left behind throughout her career. She will come into contact with the "Lost Girl" heroes at an urban camp for at-risk youth. Bo (Anna Silk), Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) and Dyson (Kris Holden-Ried) are undercover at the camp, trying to catch a Fae serial killer who seems to be preying on the kids.
There is no word yet as to whether Acacia is Fae or human, although a name like Acacia certainly would fit a Fae assassin. Will Hamilton's character be the killer? Or is she there to stop that killer from harming anyone else?
A star for several decades, Linda Hamilton's television credits include the original "Beauty and the Beast" series as well as a recent recurring role on the spy comedy, "Chuck." On film, she is best known for the starring role of Sarah Connor in the "Terminator" movies.
The "Delinquents" episode of "Lost Girl" will air on Monday, March 25 at 10pm on Syfy.

OBLIVION
Tom Cruise's latest gives us a big trailer full of big questions.
What is Oblivion about, really? It's more than a bit of a mystery. That, it seems, is the point -- to craft a sci-fi story that will keep you guessing just what is really going on. Just check out the blurb from the latest trailer.
A court martial sends a veteran soldier to a distant planet, where he has to destroy the remains of an alien race. The arrival of an unexpected traveller causes him to question what he knows about the planet, his mission and himself.
So was there really a war between mankind and a malevolent alien race? What really happened to cause humanity to abandon Earth? And why is something changing now?

Shrinking Man INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN
Richard Matheson’s classic novel The Shrinking Man is getting a modern makeover. In 1957, he adapted it for the screen as Jack Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man. The film centered on Scott Carey, a man who's exposed to radiation and insecticide, which causes him to slowly shrink.
MGM has acquired the rights to the book and have partnered with Matheson and his son Richard Matheson Jr. for a reboot. The author describes the new take as “an existential action movie.” He says, “My original story was a metaphor for how man’s place in the world was diminishing. That still holds today, where all these advancements that are going to save us will be our undoing.”
Why revamp the story now? MGM president Jonathan Glickman thinks its themes are still relevant. He believes "the Mathesons’ cutting-edge ideas for the adaptation will make for a great film that will play all over the world.”
Universal had the book rights for years and planned to adapt it for a film with Eddie Murphy. They were eyeing a comedy about a magician who would shrink due to a spell. As you can see, that idea never got off the ground.

Rupert Grint SUPER CLYDE
"Harry Potter" actor Rupert Grint will star in the new CBS comedy "Super Clyde," says The Live Feed.
According to the site, the show, from "Raising Hope's" Greg Garcia, "centers on a meek, unassuming fast-food worker who decides to become a super hero."
"Grint will play the title role of Clyde, the well-meaning and sweet yet slightly neurotic guy who never feels like he really fits in. The avid comic book reader considers himself a borderline agoraphobic with mild to severe anxiety issues who wishes he were a super hero himself. When Clyde inherits a $100,000 a month inheritance from his long-dead eccentric Uncle Bill, he decides that the cash will be his secret super power and will use it only for good and reward the good-hearted."
Garcia will write and executive the comedy. Mike Fresco ("Raising Hope," "My Name Is Earl") will direct the pilot.

Terror THE TERROR
AMC has a new horror-themed television series on the way in the form of "The Terror," an adaptation of Dan Simmon's novel. Deadline has the news, saying that Scott Free TV, Television 360 and producer Alexandra Milchan are developing the story for the small screen. Published in 2007, the book is officially described as follows:
The men on board the HMS Terror - part of the ill-fated 1845 Franklin Expedition - are entering a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, stranded in a nightmarish landscape of ice & desolation. Endlessly cold, they struggle to survive with poisonous rations & a dwindling coal supply. But their real enemy is even more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror clawing to get in, picking the men off one at a time.
David Kajganich (The Invasion, Blood Creek) is attached to adapt the screenplay for the pilot.

RATINGS PICTURE THIS WEEK
Walking Dead WALKING DEAD - 12.26 million viewers
The Walking Dead premiered its third season last fall by posting the highest demo score of any basic cable series ever. It was proof that the show was continuing to spread its influence after a robust second season that was itself kind of unbelievable. Now, with its midseason return, the show has surpassed even those numbers, once again breaking a basic cable demo score record and pulling in more viewers than it ever has before. There are episodes from season two that had half the viewers this episode had, and those were considered good performances.

Once Upon A Time ONCE UPON A TIME - 7.08 million viewers
Once Upon a Time returned from a break to another drop in viewers and ratings. This was the show's worst performance ever, but it was going head to head with the Grammy Awards, so we'll see if this is a permanent problem or just a temporary setback.

Merlin MERLIN - 1.48 million viewers
Merlin broke even this week. It's not where it was at the start of the season, but it's still doing well for a Friday night show.

Touch TOUCH - 3.94 million viewers
The last time we saw Touch was a September leftover episode that brought the shows lowest ratings and viewership ever. Fans might have hoped that was a one-time disappointment, but last Friday's season two premiere didn't fare much better. It pulled in only a third of the series premiere audience last year. There's always a chance the show will recover in the coming weeks, but this isn't a good way to start.

Beauty & the Beast BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - 1.48 million viewers
Beauty and the Beast dropped again this week. It's still struggling, but it's struggling less than many other shows on The CW right now, so there's a good chance we'll see more of it.

Vampire Diaries VAMPIRE DIARIES - 2.50 million viewers
The Vampire Diaries dropped again this week for its lowest episode since last April. History tells us it'll bounce back, but even if it doesn't it's still the strongest show its network has, and it's already been renewed.

Elementary ELEMENTARY - 10.84 million viewers
Elementary broke even this week, holding on to its position as one of the top new shows of the season.

Person of Interest PERSON OF INTEREST - 14.88 million viewers
Person of Interest dropped a bit this week but remained a strong part of the CBS Thursday night block.

Supernatural SUPERNATURAL - 2.29 million viewers
Supernatural got another boost this week, pulling in its best numbers since November. That, plus word that it's getting another season, makes this a good week for Supernatural fans.

Arrow ARROW - 2.96 million viewers
Arrow broke even in viewers and picked up a tenth of a ratings point. It's not where it was a few weeks ago, but it still rivals The Vampire Diaries in terms of audience, and it just got renewed, so The CW's definitely still enthusiastic about it.

Lost Girl LOST GIRL - 0.84 million viewers
Lost Girl broke even with its ratings score but took a big drop in viewers for its least-watched episode ever. It's been down low before and bounced back, though, so we'll see if a recovery is on the horizon.

Continuium CONTINUIUM - 1.08 million viewers
Continuum lost viewers again but held on to its ratings score. We'll see if it can ever pick up more points in that key demo score.

Being Human BEING HUMAN - 1.04 million viewers
Being Human took a hefty drop this week, but still managed to stay above one million viewers and wound up with the best rating of any of Syfy's Monday shows.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2013

DOCTOR WHO
The BBC has released a new drama showreel (aka a trailer) that features their upcoming 2013 TV line-up. And what timey wimey treasure does it include? Yep, it includes a few clips from two upcoming episodes from the second part of Season 7 of Doctor Who. Geronimo!
According to our colleagues over at Doctor Who TV, the new clips are apparently from Mark Gatiss’ two upcoming episodes which are the as-of-yet-untitled-one with the Ice Warriors, and “The Crimson Horror” (title apparently still to be confirmed) which stars Dame Diana Rigg.
If you look closely at the trailer, you’ll see we have both Victorian and is it future-Clara? (Jenna-Louise Coleman) again, and that the Silurian Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and Jenny (Catrin Stewart) are also back for more adventures with our favorite Time Lord (Matt Smith).
Oh, and there’s also a bit of Sherlock in there too, just to let you know, no biggie.
Doctor Who Season 7 part-two airs March 30th.

CULT
Farscape creator Rockne S. O'Bannon's new CW series Cult doesn't hit TV screens until next week, but you can get a sneak peek at the premiere online right now.
O'Bannon himself tweeted out the news Tuesday that the series' first episode, "You're Next," is available to check out now on The CW's official website and on Hulu.com.
In case you're not yet up to speed on what Cult has to offer, here's the official synopsis:
Investigative journalist Jeff Sefton has learned to laugh off his brother Nate's relentless string of obsessions, especially his latest rant that a hit TV show intends to harm him. However, when his brother mysteriously disappears, Jeff takes Nate's paranoia seriously, and in the process uncovers the dark underworld of the TV show "Cult" and its rabid fans.
Cult stars Jessica Lucas (Cloverfield, Evil Dead), Matt Davis (The Vampire Diaries), Alona Tal (Supernatural) and Robert Knepper (Heroes). Check out a trailer, then head over to The CW or Hulu and check out the premiere.
And if you don't have time to check it out today (or just prefer a more traditional viewing experience for some reason), don't worry. Cult will premiere on The CW next Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central.

Falling SKies FALLING SKIES
The survivors on Falling Skies spent the past two seasons fighting the alien invaders, but in season three it looks like they might be getting their first true otherworldy ally.
Series co-star Drew Roy (Hal Mason) recently chatted with Collider about the third season, which is set to debut on TNT this summer. Though the 2nd Mass. dabbled in alien politics by getting a little help from the skitter rebellion last year, Roy says the third year could see an alien character become a true regular on the show.
Played by Doug Jones (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy), the mysterious new alien character that was introduced in the final shot of season two will be sticking around for a while. Roy said he had a blast working with Jones, and seems to imply that they had quite a few scenes together—meaning that the new alien character could be embedded with the 2nd Mass.
After a slow start to find its footing, Falling Skies has grown into a solid series about what happens to humanity after we’re no longer the dominant species on the Earth. It’s never been quite as heady as Battlestar Galactica, but its always been compelling.

DEAD MAN DOWN
Here is your exclusive first look at a clip from Dead Man Down, the action thriller opening in theaters on March 8. Dead Man Down stars Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace as two strangers whose mutual desire for revenge draws them together and triggers an escalating trail of mayhem.
The clip shows what Rapace's character, Beatrice, films and will use to get Farrell's character, Victor, to help her take revenge.
The film, which also stars Academy Award-nominee Terrence Howard and Dominic Cooper, marks the American theatrical debut of director Niels Arden Oplev (the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

Shadow & Bone SHADOW AND BONE
DreamWorks Studios is developing a feature film version of Leigh Bardugo's debut novel Shadow and Bone. Today, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Christopher Kyle has been brought aboard to provide the screenplay.
In the book, the first in the planned "Grisha Trilogy," a young woman must learn to control her newly discovered power in order to save her country from the Shadow Fold, a creature-filled darkness that threatens to overrun the land.
The next book in the series, "Siege and Storm," is scheduled for release in June 2013 with the third installment coming in summer 2014.
Kyle's work as a screenwriter includes Oliver Stone's Alexander and Kathryn Bigelow's K-19: The Widowmaker.

THE NUMBERS STATION
Here is the trailer for the upcoming action-thriller The Numbers Station.
The film, directed by Kasper Barfoed and written by F. Scott Frazier, stars John Cusack and Malin Ackerman and is set to hit theaters on April 26.
After his latest mission goes disastrously wrong, veteran CIA black ops agent Emerson Kent is given one last chance to prove he still has what it takes to do his job. His new assignment: guarding Katherine, a code operator at a top-secret remote CIA "Numbers Station" where encrypted messages are sent and received. When an elite team of heavily armed assailants lays siege to the station, Emerson and Katherine suddenly find themselves in a life-or-death struggle against an unknown enemy. With the station compromised and innocent lives at stake, they must stop the deadly plot before it's too late.

Dark Skies DARK SKIES
Dimension Films has released, via Empire, a new British quad poster for the upcoming supernatural thriller Dark Skies.
Opening in US theaters on February 22, the film is written and directed by Scott Stewart and stars Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, Kadan Rockett and J.K. Simmons.
Dark Skies follows a young family living in the suburbs. As husband and wife Daniel and Lacey Barret witness an escalating series of disturbing events involving their family, their safe and peaceful home quickly unravels. When it becomes clear that the Barret family is being targeted by and unimaginably terrifying and deadly force, Daniel and Lacey take matters in their own hands to solve the mystery of what is after their family.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013

Doctor Who DOCTOR WHO - 50th ANNIVERSARY IN 3D
The BBC is pulling out all the stops for the 50th birthday of sci-fi institution "Doctor Who," announcing that this year's anniversary special will be broadcast in 3D and also shown in cinemas in the U.K.
The as-yet-untitled special is expected to air Nov. 23 in the U.K., the same day that the Doctor's first adventure was broadcast. The BBC has also commissioned a TV movie about the behind the scenes story of bringing "Doctor Who" to television.
The 3D broadcast is a first for "
Who." Details of the special remain under wraps and it's unclear if BBC America will follow suit with the 3D broadcast.
"It's about time," "Who" executive producer Steven Moffat punned in a statement. "Technology has finally caught up with 'Doctor Who' and your television is now bigger on the inside. A whole new dimension of adventure for the Doctor to explore."
"Doctor Who" continues its current seventh series run on March 30 on both BBC and BBC America.
The 50th anniversary special is an additional installment beyond the usual series order and is expected to be followed by the show's customary Christmas special in December.

Arrow THE CW RENEWS ARROW, VAMPIRE DIARIES, SUPERNATURAL
The CW made a huge announcement today. They've renewed three shows for next season. First up, we have newcomer Arrow, which was a no-brainer. It's been a standout since its premiere last fall. The modernized take on the Green Arrow comic has proven to be a winner.
Next up, the oldie but goodie Supernatural. Sam and Dean will be back for a ninth season. The veteran's shown improvement since being bumped from Friday to Wednesdays. The one-two punch with Arrow is a bright spot on the CW schedule.
Last but not least, The Vampire Diaries will return for its fifth season. Even though The CW's hard at work on its spinoff The Originals, they still have faith in the series.
“We said last year that one of our goals was to establish building blocks to grow on, and now with our new hit Arrow and fan favorite Supernatural on Wednesday night, and the continued success of The Vampire Diaries on Thursday, we’ve been able to do that,” network president Mark Pedowitz said in a statement. “Not only do Arrow, Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries perform well on-air, they’re also extremely successful for us both digitally and socially. I’m thrilled to have all three shows returning to our schedule next season.”

Walking Dead THE WALKING DEAD
After breaking cable ratings records with its season 3 premiere back in October, The Walking Dead hit yet another high with its midseason return Sunday.
Sunday's episode, "The Suicide King," raked in a whopping 12.3 million viewers at its first airing, and picked up another few million with encore airings for a total of 16.6 million viewers. But that's not the biggest news. The first airing garnered 7.7 million viewers in the key 18-49 demographic, a 6 percent increase from the season 3 premiere and a new record for a basic cable series. And it did all that on a night when it had to compete with the Grammy Awards broadcast, which pulled in more than 28 million viewers.
So, with a fourth season already on the way The Walking Dead hit a series high in viewers and a basic cable high in demo ratings for the second time in just four months. We're just a few weeks away from the season finale.

Sandra Bullock MINIONS
Sandra Bullock is set to provide the lead villain voice in the "Despicable Me" 3D spin-off feature "Minions" at Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment.
In the film, it is established that the adorable yellow henchmen have existed since the beginning of time, in service of history’s most ambitiously evil villains. Through their lovable ineptitude, they have thwarted and ultimately killed them all.
The story is set in the 1960s as the now depressed collective seek a new master at a villain convention.
They soon compete for the right to be henchmen to Scarlet Overkill (Bullock) who is described as a "stylish bad-ass super-villain bent on world domination".
The CG-animated comedy is currently targeting a December 19th 2014 release.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2013

Doctor Who-Clara DOCTOR WHO NEWS
We knew Neil Gaiman was writing another Doctor Who episode for the second half of season seven, and we knew it was about the Cybermen. Now we finally know the revealing title.
Titled "The Last Cyberman," the Neil Gaiman-written Who episode will be the penultimate episode of the current seventh series.
Apparently, the title was first leaked last year when a script for Gaiman’s episode was discovered in ... the back of a taxicab, and the cover page started making the rounds on the wonderful world of the Internet.
IMDb has even listed the episode with that title ever since.
However, the confirmation comes from the American Gods and "The Doctor’s Wife" author, who made the reveal on themusic.com.
Gaiman said about his Who episode: “I’ve written [one] that broadcasts in May. It guest stars Warwick Davis (Willow, Harry Potter, Life’s too Short), Tamzin Outhwaite and Jason Watkins (Being Human U.K.). The episode is called "The Last Cyberman." It’s about identity, it’s about responsibility and it’s about porridge (which also happens to be the name of Davis’ character).”
Doctor Who returns Easter Sunday, March 30.

Green Inferno THE GREEN INFERNO
ShockTillYouDrop.com has posted the first official still from Eli Roth's next feature directorial effort, The Green Inferno.
Shooting began in Peru last November with stars Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, Aaron Burns, Daryl Sabara, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Magda Apanowicz and actress/singer Sky Ferreria.
The Green Inferno is cannibal flick based on a screenplay Roth co-wrote with Aftershock co-writer Guillermo Amoedo. The film follows an idealistic student and a group of naive do-gooders who are captured by cannibalistic Indios after their plane crash lands in the Peruvian jungle.

GAME OF THRONES
HBO has debuted a new "Chaos" preview for the third season of "Game of Thrones." The new season premieres on March 31.
Based on the novels of George R.R. Martin, the third season is said to adapt events from "A Storm of Swords." The series is executive produced by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Carolyn Strauss, Frank Doelger with co-executive producers George R.R. Martin, Vanessa Taylor, Alan Taylor, Guymon Casady, Vince Gerardis and Bernadette Caulfield producing.

Vampire Academy BLOOD SISTERS
The Weinstein Company (TWC) has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to Blood Sisters, the first feature film installment of the highly successful "Vampire Academy" series of young adult books from financiers Reliance Entertainment and IM Global.
Blood Sisters, to be directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls, The Spiderwick Chronicles), is based on the first book in author Richelle Mead's successful series of books, with the screenplay written by Dan Waters (Batman Returns, Heathers). The "Vampire Academy" book series has sold over 8 million copies in print across 35 countries. To date there are 6 books in the series, with the last 4 on the New York Times Best Sellers list.
Blood Sisters will be produced by Don Murphy and Susan Montford (Transformers, Real Steel) of Angry Films, Michael Preger (Day of the Triffids) and Deepak Nayar of Kintop/Reliance (Walking With Dinosaurs, Bend It Like Beckham). IM Global CEO Stuart Ford will executive produce.?
The Kintop Reliance partnership/IM Global film will go into production in early summer and last week announced Zooey Deutch, Lucy Fry and Danila Kozlovsky as principal cast.
The mini-major will release the film on a nationwide level on February 14, 2014, a date that combines both Valentine’s Day and the Presidents Day long weekend.?? ??
“I am thrilled to be working on the first feature for 'Vampire Academy.' This series is fantastic and I am excited to bring it to the screen for diehard fans and introduce the stories to a whole new audience,” said TWC Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein.
Said producer Don Murphy, “The addition of Harvey and the TWC distribution and marketing team gives us the opportunity to present this wonderful franchise to the world in a bold, unique fashion and only adds to 'Vampire Academy's' considerable momentum.”
In Blood Sisters, Rose Hathaway develops a mental and spiritual bond with her BVFF (best vampire friend forever) Princess Lissa. The two girls attend a strict school for vampires designed to retain their humanity where it is Rose’s task to protect the Princess. Among the everyday issues faced by teenage vampires Rose falls for Dimitri, their dreamy guardian, and together the three battle the mysterious forces of the evil Moroi who are set on destroying the Princess’s bloodline.?

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2013

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD AND CHROME
If you've never gotten into any of the incarnations of Battlestar Galactica in the past, now's your chance, agreed Luke Pasqualino and Ben Cotton, the stars of Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, which premieres on Syfy on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET. The two-hour movie, which began life as a 10-episode web series last November on Machinima.com, offers not only an accessible new story in the franchise, but also never before scenes not available online.
Blood & Chrome takes place during the First Cylon War and digs into the first big mission of a young William Adama when he's assigned to the a new battlestar called the Galactica.
"I think you could jump in on this,” said Cotton, who plays a new original character to the franchise, the war weary Lt. Coker Fasjovik. “It introduces the Adama character. If you weren't aware of him before, I think you get a pretty good picture of this person. I'm always a big fan of doing things in order, but then again, with this show, you'd have to start with Caprica, wouldn't you? You'd start with Caprica and then this and then Battlestar, the reimagined version. But I feel like this is a contained story. You could jump in and just watch this and get a really good feeling for who these people are and what the world is and what's going on.”
Jumping in for the actors, however did offer the actors some challenges, they said during a conference call with journalists.
“We both knew what to expect. We both knew what we wanted to do with our characters, and I think being able to explore every realm,” said English actor Pasqualino, who plays the iconic character of William Adama as a young man right out of the Academy. “Being able to take these characters and their relationship, my character's relationship with Ben's character, I think to be able to take them anywhere, for me it came from me and Ben becoming such close friends. We didn't feel that we'd have to hold back on any kind of performance. If I wanted to shout at him, I could shout at him. If I wanted to laugh at him, I could laugh at him. If I wanted to scream in his face, I could have screamed in his face, you know? It was one of those things that we just had so much confidence in performances, and [director] Jonas [Pate] gave us a lot of free reign to take it wherever we wanted in terms of improvisation and all of that. Involving team effort, really. It was brilliant. If ever something was completely out of character that wasn't on the page or anything like that, they just didn't use it in the final edit, you know? But so much of the great performances that you see, some parts really are improvised. We just went with it and brought out the final product.”
“I found there was a real freedom on this set to just let it go and play with each other, like Luke said. I felt like you could yell at each other, you could shout at each other, you could laugh, you could do all of those things. And Jonas let us make it up now and then. He'd just kind of keep rolling and we would go at each other a little bit. So it was really fun, because you get to work with an actor who's going to hand it back to you when you hand it to them. It just rises and keeps going and keeps going and there's this chemistry that happens. I thought we were lucky. It was cool. It was really cool,” said Cotton.
Adama Stepping onto the set of the newest incarnation of Battlestar Galactica was one thing. However, Pasqualino found himself in the sizable shoes of William Adama, originally played by Edward James Olmos in the 2004 reimagined version of the series.
“He's fantastic,” said Pasqualino. “He did an amazing job and he's got such a huge fanbase. I feel like he helped make Battlestar what it is today. But I didn't really want any advice in terms of performance, because I think seeing Adama at the age that I portray him compared to the age that Eddie portrays him is two completely different stages of anyone's life. And I didn't want anything that Eddie said to me to upset my interpretation of the material. I wanted to go ahead and take the writing for what I thought and get my own stamp on it.”
Pasqualino admits when it came to playing Adama, “I was never really fazed by the bar that Eddie had set. I just really wanted to go in there, like I said before, with my own interpretation of the material and just do the best job I could as an actor. The writing's great. Michael Taylor wrote an amazing script. Just to go in there and really push those limits as far as we could go.”
The other challenges they faced were more of the physical kind.
“The hardest part was the helmet,” said Cotton. “Hard to breathe in those helmets. The green screen, everybody kind of kept saying before we started, 'Oh, it's going to be so hard,' but I didn't find it to be too much of a challenge. There's little markers that you can pick to have an imaginary spaceship or whatever it is. But after watching some of the dailies, I realized that I wasn't taking in the environment as much as I would if I was actually in some kind of a Cylon facility or whatever. But once you figure that out, I didn't find it too challenging at all.”
BSG-Chrome “I kind of felt a little bit daunted by the whole thing when I first realized the scale of how much green screen we would be using. You would think it would cause problems in terms of where you're going to be. A lot of times you don't actually have any physical set to touch or work with. We worked even some props and a lot of the foreground stuff on our sets actually. They were props and we could actually touch and move around and stuff. But the hardest thing for me that I found was really the stuff in the spaceships, like Ben said. Like when something hits the windscreen or something's flying over our heads. We don't have anything to play to, or we have a ball on the end of a stick that we have to follow. That was really kind of the hardest for me. But everything else was really just … it all came. I think for Ben as well, I think we adapted to it a lot quicker than we thought we would,” said Pasqualino.
“It becomes a little more like doing a black box theater type of situation, where you just have to use your imagination,” added Cotton.
Before they started filming, they were given a book of computer generated images of what the set would look like. “And then you take that image in your head and you have to kind of visualize your surroundings based on a picture given to you on a piece of paper. So it does involve imagination for sure. But that's what acting is. That's what performance is all about. You have to be able to take your character and your performance any which way you can and to go in there. It did pose problems in certain areas just because me and Ben had never really worked on green screen to that scale before, but ultimately it was just such an enjoyable experience. It taught me so much about our work for sure. It was great,” said Pasqualino.
“And you do get accustomed to having to imagine. A lot of the times when you do closeups, the other actor can't even be in your eyeline because he's too close to the camera. Half the time you're talking to a piece of tape. So you get used to using your imagination,” said Cotton.
“Definitely. With a virtual environment like the one [the] special effects team created on Battlestar, you can take it anyway. There's no such thing as a location anymore with this kind of technology. Every day of our shoot was in one studio surrounded by green walls. We didn't have to visit locations. By doing that, that's when you can achieve anything you want. We could have put a sandy beach on that backdrop. We could have put a snowy mountain, which we did. We can put anything that we want. That's what I love about it. You can take a story anywhere with this kind of technology, and it's great,” said Pasqualino.
While Cotton played a couple roles in the franchise before, Pasqualino admits he wasn't that familiar with the series.
“For me, being a Battlestar virgin, the first thing that [executive producer] David [Eick] did to me was throw seasons one and two of Caprica at me. That's kind of the dawn of this this whole epic, the birth of the Cylons in Caprica. That was his input to my performance, really, just sit down and watch Caprica, just so you know where we're at in terms of story. And I did and I really enjoyed it. It helped me a lot to see where our show fit into the whole Battlestar mix, to see that birth. The rest is all set completely in the future, so that didn't really affect my performance at all. But Caprica I did watch,” he said.
BSG-Cotton As for Cotton's character Coker, could he be a Cylon, like so many characters we came to know and love on Battlestar Galactica?
"Haha. No, I personally don't think he's a Cylon,” said Cotton.
“I did,” said Pasqualino.
“You do, do you?”
“He could be. … He was a bit grumpy, wasn't he? … I think you're right. Maybe he is a Cylon.”
Cylon possibilities aside, Cotton believes the reason Battlestar Galactica has continued on is because “the writing has always been really good. People love it. Our fans are the best fans that you're going to find. They'll stick with you. I think people want to embrace this story. Or so it seems, anyway. People are excited,” he said.
“I think aside from that, even someone like me who wasn't a Battlestar fan before I was involved with it. People like to see action. People like to see relationships. People like to see real life stories. People like to see drama. They like to see comedy. They like to be human. All these different things, Battlestar can offer that. The only difference between Battlestar and any other show is that it's set in space. We're dealing with real life situations here, whether it be love, hate, there's everything going on there,” said Pasqualino.
“It's humanity.”
“Just set in space, so it looks cool.”
Syfy is offering special online incentives to viewers involving Twitter and Battlestar Galactica Online. People that watch Blood & Chrome will see a code that will allow them to unlock a special B&C ship in Battlestar Galactica Online. And on February 19, the unrated edition of Blood & Chrome will be available from Universal Studios Home Entertainment on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download.

Lawrence Kasdan STAR WARS - FRESH START
Fandom abuzz in the wake of Walt Disney Pictures' recent confirmation of plans to develop stand-alone films in the Star Wars universe, The LA Times spoke with writer Lawrence Kasdan who is said to be writing one of those solo films and consulting overall on J.J. Abram's Star Wars: Episode VII.
“I’m trying to start fresh,” Kasdan explains. “There are certain pleasures that we think the saga can bring to people that they’ve been missing, and we’re hoping to bring them that, and at the same time, have them feel that it’s all new.”
Although recent rumors have suggest that Kasdan's film may follow either the adventures of a young Han Solo or those of Boba Fett, the screenwriter did not confirm the focus of his specific project. He did say, however, that it was George Lucas himself who asked that he return to the Star Wars universe.
“George sort of brought me into this part of it," he says, "and he’s stepping back from the company. He’s sort of given his blessing to everybody, and he’ll be there if you need him. I think everyone’s interested to see where this can go. It’s been some very different places over 30 years …. I think with J.J., we’ll get something entirely new.”
Star Wars: Episode VII is tentatively planned for release in 2015 with two sequels and the first of the stand-alone films following within the next six years.

Clive Owen BLUE ANGEL
Clive Owen is set to headline writer/director Richard Levine's Blue Angel, Variety reports. The film is adapted from Francine Prose's novel of the same name, officially described as follows:
It has been years since Swenson, a professor in a New England creative writing program, has published a novel. It's been even longer since any of his students have shown promise. Enter Angela Argo, a pierced, tattooed student with a rare talent for writing. Angela is just the thing Swenson needs. And, better yet, she wants his help. But, as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions...
Owen, best known for films like Closer and Children of Men, recently starred opposite Nichole Kidman in the television miniseries "Hemingway & Gellhorn".
Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy are attached to produce Blue Angel.

Julie Kagawa KAGAWA SERIES COMING
Universal Pictures has picked up the film rights to an untitled supernatural young-adult book series proposal from fantasy author Julie Kagawa.
The story is set in a present-day coastal town where mythical creatures hide amongst us cloaked as humans.
Slayers soon infiltrate the town disguised as out-of-town kids, setting up a confrontation and a love triangle.
The first book is to be released in 2015. Chris Morgan is attached to produce the film adaptation.

Night at the Museum NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 3
20th Century Fox is moving forward with a third film in the "Night at the Museum" series.
Director Shawn Levy is back, as it actor Ben Stiller who will reprise his role of security guard Larry Daley. No story details are currently available.
The involvement of scribes Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant isn't confirmed as yet. A December 25th 2014 release is being targeted.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2013

Do No Harm DO NO HARM CANCELLED
The first victim of the new debuts has been announced. TV fans were not in the mood for a modern day spin on Jekyll and Hyde this season.
After just two episodes, NBC has pulled the plug on the good/evil doctor drama Do No Harm, which received some pretty terrible reviews from critics and even worse ratings. That leaves 11 of its 13 episodes still in the can, and the best fans can hope for is that the network will go ahead and dump them online to stream or sell them on iTunes.
With 3.1 million total viewers and a 0.9 demo rating for its January 31 series premiere, the show now holds the dubious honor of being the lowest-rated season premiere in the history of major network television (excluding smaller net-lets like The CW). With ratings that bad, the network would probably lose money by burning the episodes off on an already dead night. Ouch.
Just hours after the news broke the studio moved quickly to distance itself from the series, as a keen eye spotted one of the show’s many billboards already being torn down.

Damon Lindelof THE LEFTOVERS
Ever since Lost ended its run back in May 2010, fans have been wondering if co-creator Damon Lindelof would come up with something new for TV.
Lindelof is busy these days with a healthy screenwriting career (Prometheus, Star Trek Into Darkness, Tomorrowland), but somehow he's found time to develop a new TV series that HBO has just decided to produce a pilot for.
According to Vulture, the proposed series is called The Leftovers, and it's based on a 2011 novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta (Little Children). The novel takes place three years after a Rapture-like event called the Sudden Departure, in which vast numbers of people simply disappeared from the face of the Earth one day. The book follows those who were left behind as they struggle to make sense of and get on with the rest of their lives.
It seems as though the show will not get into the religious aspects of such an event as much as the implications of what happens afterward. Lindelof told Vulture:
"The fact that there's this reaping which occurred, and you don't make the cut, some of us don't feel worthy, seemed very ripe territory for a cool character drama."
Lindelof and Perrotta pitched the series to HBO just six months ago, and the notoriously slow network must like the idea if it's already moving ahead with a pilot. There's no word on when that will shoot or when a potential series would debut, but pencil it in for 2014 at the earliest -- hopefully nothing like the Sudden Departure will happen before then.

MONSTER UNIVERSITY
The new trailer for Disney•Pixar's Monsters University is coming soon, but first this extended preview has surfaced which features director Dan Scanlon talking about the June 21 release.
The prequel features the voices of Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Dave Foley, Julia Sweeney, Joel Murray and Peter Sohn. Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan are an inseparable pair, but that wasn't always the case. From the moment these two mismatched monsters met they couldn't stand each other. Monsters University unlocks the door to how Mike and Sulley overcame their differences and became the best of friends.

JACK THE GIANT SLAYER
Here is a clip for Jack the Giant Slayer from the March 1st release.
Directed by Bryan Singer (upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past), the 3D action adventure stars Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy and Ewan McGregor.
Jack the Giant Slayer tells the story of an ancient war that is reignited when a young farmhand unwittingly opens a gateway between our world and a fearsome race of giants. Unleashed on the Earth for the first time in centuries, the giants strive to reclaim the land they once lost, forcing the young man, Jack, into the battle of his life to stop them. Fighting for a kingdom, its people, and the love of a brave princess, he comes face to face with the unstoppable warriors he thought only existed in legend—and gets the chance to become a legend himself.

THE HOST
Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds, "National Treasure" films) stars as The Seeker in Andrew Niccol's adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's The Host.
Also starring Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel, William Hurt, Frances Fisher and Chandler Canterbury, the film opens in theaters on March 29.
In the film, when an unseen enemy threatens mankind by taking over their bodies and erasing their memories, Melanie Stryder (Ronan) will risk everything to protect the people she cares most about - Jared (Irons), Ian (Abel), her brother Jamie (Canterbury) and her Uncle Jeb (Hurt), proving that love can conquer all in a dangerous new world.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2013

Being Human BEING HUMAN CANCELLED BY BBC
"Being Human" is coming to an end on the U.K.'s BBC Three. The successful supernatural drama airs in the U.S. on BBC America and spawned an Americanized adaptation that's currently in Season 3 on Syfy.
The U.K. original premiered its fifth season Feb. 3 in the U.K. but the BBC announced that this year's finale will wrap up the show with an "apocalyptic end." The current trio of stars -- Damien Molony as vampire Hal, Michael Socha as werewolf Tom and Kate Bracken as ghost Alex -- will face off against the devil.
Executive producer Rob Pursey noted in a statement: "Working on 'Being Human' has been a truly great experience. From the first one-hour pilot, all the way through to this climactic series, we've been given real creative freedom and encouragement. It's a credit to BBC Three that such an unusual idea has been allowed to flourish and evolve in its own unique way."
Creator Toby Whithouse wrote about the decision on the official "Being Human" blog: "We've created what I hope you'll agree is an epic, thrilling and shocking finale that'll keep the fans guessing and speculating for years to come."

ORPHAN BLACK
BBC America continues to expand into original programming with the upcoming sci-fi series "Orphan Black," set to premiere March 30.
The show stars Tatiana Maslany as Sarah, a young woman who encounters a complete stranger who looks just like her moments before the stranger kills herself. Sarah assumes the stranger's identity to escape from her own life, but realizes the freaky coincidence is only the beginning of a deeper, darker mystery.
BBC America will air "Orphan Black" under its Supernatural Saturday banner with all new episodes of "Doctor Who" as its lead-in. Chris Hardwick's "The Nerdist" will round out the night.

ARROW
The CW's released a new midseason trailer for Arrow. They really want you to get excited about what's to come. After this week's game-changing episode, Oliver's bitten off more than he can chew.
[Spoiler alert]
After Diggle provided him with proof of his mother's dirty dealings, Oliver had no choice but to confront her. Yet somehow he found himself on the opposite end of a gun. Flash forward to him back at his lair recovering from a nasty bullet wound. When it comes to the new promo, we noticed several things.
First off, it sounds like Felicity (Queen Consolidated's resident techie) is brought in on Oliver's operation. That's been a long time coming. Secondly, we get our first glimpse of Roy Harper. In the comics, he was Green Arrow's sidekick, who went by Speedy. That's why it's so interesting that Oliver chose that as a nickname for his sister Thea.
Speaking of Thea, she'll have a rough first encounter with Harper. He's from The Glades and represents a life she knows nothing about. In the trailer, he's shown wearing a red hoodie as he tries to escape with a stolen purse (we assume Thea's). The character is played by Colton Haynes, who previously starred on MTV's Teen Wolf.
Follow this link for a new trailer: http://www.zap2it.com/videogallery/74333338/Entertainment/Arrow-exclusive-video-Justice-is-Earned.
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

STARGATE SG-1 GAME TEASER
Considering that it's one of the biggest sci-fi brands after Star Trek and Star Wars, fans of Stargate SG-1 have gotten the short straw when it comes to videogames. But not for long.
The first trailer for a new Stargate SG-1 episodic mobile/tablet game, a la the recent smash hit The Walking Dead, has gone live. We don’t get any gameplay footage for Stargate SG-1: Unleashed, but the clip here sets it up as a dark, gritty adventure that will leave SG-1 worse for the wear. It’s set in the Goa’uld enemy era, meaning it can hopefully capture some of that early series fun that faded once the snakeheads were essentially vanquished in the later seasons.
Stargate games have been in development off and on for years, though almost all of them crashed and burned in development hell. A MMORPG game dubbed Stargate Worlds got closest to release, but the developer went bankrupt and tied it all up in court. Whatever work was done has been on the shelf for more than three years now.
Developers MGM and Arkalis Interactive are keeping the plot under wraps, but it seems all the key members of the team will be involved (though Dr. Jackson is on the bloody end of some torture). The developer is a relatively new outfit, but they’ve proven they can ship apps on time. They most recently developed the Stargate Command app, which includes a Teal’c’s Revenge action game. Both are currently available in the iOS and Android app stores.
The developers hope to ship Unleashed in March for major mobile platforms.

Zombielanders ZOMBIELAND
It was revealed last month that Amazon is making plans to turn Ruben Fleischer's 2009 horror comedy Zombieland into a streaming series and, today, Deadline has learned two of the actors that will be joining the central four-person cast. Tyler Ross (Milkshake) will play Columbus and relative newcomer Izabela Vidovic will play Little Rock.
The original film, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, starred Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin as a group of survivors trying to stay alive in the face of the zombie apocalypse. Ross and Vidovic's roles are those originally played by Eisenberg and Breslin, respectively.
Planned for 30-minute episodes, the "television" version of "Zombieland" returns the franchise to its original concept of an ongoing serialized comedy adventure.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Demons DA VINCI'S DEMONS
The show won't air for another couple of months, but you can get your first look at one of the more bizarre new shows on television right now: Starz has released key art for its new series, "Da Vinci' Demons."
Created by David S. Goyer ("The Dark Knight Trilogy," "Man of Steel"), the series focuses on Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci. This version of the story recasts Leonardo in the role of a true action figure. Played by Tom Riley, this particular version of the man shows him as a swordsman, an artist, an inventor and a dreamer.
Basically, there is a lot more action than you might expect from a story based on history. Da Vinci is 25 years old when the story begins, an ambitious and eccentric man on the edges of Florence's high society. In addition to the outside pressures keeping him down, this Leonardo struggles to survive reality and his own almost-superhuman genius.
"Leonardo was a transformational figure -- the original Renaissance man and the kind of genius that only emerges every thousand years or so," David Goyer said of his series.
"Da Vinci's Demons" premieres on Starz Friday, April 12 at 10pm. Following the premiere, the show will air Fridays at 9pm.

JJ Abrams HALF-LIFE/PORTAL
If you thought J.J. Abrams would be too busy with Star Wars VII to take on any more movies, think again.
The prolific director/producer/writer participated in a discussion at the DICE 2013 summit with Valve co-founded Gabe Newell, and revealed that the two are in preliminary talks to develop movies based on the popular videogame franchises Half-Life and Portal.
So go ahead and throw these two on a list that already includes Star Trek 3, Star Wars VII, Mission Impossible 5 and a ton of new and ongoing TV series.
The Half-Life franchise focuses on an alien invasion at a top-secret research facility, while Portal is a sci-fi puzzle game that utilizes teleportation to get around obstacles and solve problems. Both games have been the subject of movie speculation for years, and fans have even gone so far as to make live-action spec trailers for fun.
Abrams said both franchises are ripe for exploration on the big screen and his team is working with Valve to see how they could make the leap:
"[The games are] as real as anything in Hollywood ever gets... which is that we are really talking to Valve, we are going to be bringing on a writer, we have a lot of very interesting ideas. Our goal here to is to treat the world Valve has created in both these properties like anyone would a book or some great story that comes from a pitch or original script — just to treat it with the respect they treat their games and their players with.”
In addition to the potential films, Abrams said he’d also like to see Bad Robot work with Valve to co-develop a videogame. But he clarified they want to make a “real” game, not some film-esque extension into the medium:
“We're not looking to make a movie in the gaming world, we're not looking to impose what we do on that, we're looking forward to taking some of our strengths and collaborating with some of these incredible minds that make some of my favorite games."
This actually sounds like it could lead to something cool, and Abrams has proven he can take an existing brand and turn it into gold.

SW-Spin-off STAR WARS SPIN-OFF
The debate over who shot first is about to start again, apparently. It seems Disney wants to take full advantage of all the iconic characters littering George Lucas’ Star Wars universe, and young Han Solo and Boba Fett are the latest in line for spinoff films.
Entertainment Weekly is reporting that both characters, which have become fan favorites over the years, will be getting standalone adventures as part of Disney’s push to crank out a steady stream of Star Wars movies. Throw in the fact that a rumored Yoda movie is also in development, and it looks like we’ll have more Star Wars than we know what to do with in the coming years.
The Han Solo film will “focus [on] the wisecracking smuggler’s origin story,” while the Boba Fett flick will put the masked bounty hunter “at the center of a rogue’s gallery of galactic scum.” Both projects are early in the development cycle, but it seems they’re pretty likely to move forward.
The stories would reportedly fit in the existing six-film timeline, with the Han Solo standalone falling between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. The Boba Fett story would apparently take place either between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, or between Empire and Return of the Jedi.
Both films would almost certainly require younger actors to step into these iconic roles, because there’s no way that Harrison Ford could pull off playing a young Han Solo. He’s good, but not that good. Of course, there’s always a chance he could have a role to introduce the story (much how The Hobbit brought back some Lord of the Rings stars to kick off the story) in some way, which could be a nice passing of the torch.

GAME OF THRONES
HBO has released a new animated Game of Thrones Season 2 Blu-ray exclusive short that reveals the secrets of the Alchemists Guild and that pesky (yet totally awesome) little thing called wildfire.
Narrated by that old alchemist geezer Hallyne the Pyromancer from Season 2 (played by veteran actor Roy Dotrice), this new clip talks about the history of his order and the story of wildfire which was featured heavily in the masterful Blackwater episode written by George R. R. Martin himself back in Season 2.
“The History of the Alchemists” is but one little part of the many, many, many extras that the Season 2 Blu-ray set will be chock full of.
We’ve always liked those animated extras that provide useful (and much needed) background information that are not dealt with in the hit HBO fantasy series, but are found in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series of books.
HBO's Game of Thrones Season 2 will be released on February 19 on DVD and Blu-ray sets. Season 3 will begin to air on March 31.

THE LAST MAN OUT
Pierce Brosnan has signed on to lead an adaptation of Stuart Neville's The Twelve (titled Ghosts of Belfast in America), says a story at The Hollywood Reporter. The film version will be titled Last Man Out and has been scripted by Craig Ferguson and Ted Mulkerin. Published last year, Neville's novel is officially described as follows:
Former paramilitary killer Gerry Fegan is haunted by his victims, twelve souls who shadow his every waking day and scream through every drunken night. Just as he reaches the edge of sanity they reveal their desire: vengeance on those who engineered their deaths. From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all must pay the price.
Pierce Brosnan When Fegan's vendetta threatens to derail Northern Ireland's peace process and destabilise its fledgling government, old comrades and enemies alike want him gone. David Campbell, a double agent lost between the forces of law and terror, takes the job. But he has his own reasons for eliminating Fegan; the secrets of a dirty war should stay buried, even if its ghosts do not.
Set against the backdrop of a post-conflict Northern Ireland struggling with its past, "The Twelve" takes the reader from the back streets of Belfast, where violence and politics go hand-in-hand, to the country's darkest heart.
Terry Loan will direct with Beau St. Clair, Steve Clark-Hall, Jonathan Loughran and Rebecca Tucker producing.

Matt Smith HOW TO CATCH A MONSTER
Ryan Gosling has cast the lead in his directorial debut, How to Catch a Monster, and it's someone with quite a bit of monster-catching experience. Variety reports that "Doctor Who" star Matt Smith will star opposite Christina Hendricks and Eva Mendes in the fantasy adventure.
Said to weave elements of fantasy noir and suspense into a modern day fairytale, How to Catch a Monster is set against the surreal dreamscape of a vanishing city. Billy, a single mother of two, is swept into a macabre and dark fantasy underworld while her teenage son discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town. Both Billy and Bones must dive deep into the mystery, if their family is to survive.
Marc Platt and Adam Siegel will produce on behalf of Marc Platt Productions, along with Ryan Gosling via his Phantasma Films banner, and Michel Litvak and David Lancaster via the Bold Films banner.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Robin Sachs SAD NEWS - ROBIN SACHS HAS DIED
Robin Sachs has died at the age of 61, reports BBC News.
The British actor died last Friday, but news of his death was announced on his official website on Feb. 5:
"Please join us in raising a glass to Robin - goodbye, dear friend. Thank you for all the laughter and the cookies. We will miss you so very much."
Further details about the actor's death have yet to be revealed.
The actor (who was just four days shy of his 62nd birthday) is best known for playing villainous character Ethan Rayne on the hit series "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," but boasts a full resume and will also be remembered for his roles on "Babylon 5 (Coplann, Hedronn, N'Kal and Callain)" and "Star Trek: Voyager."

Yoda YODA MOVIE?
The "Star Wars" universe is suddenly a very active place. With production now scheduled to begin in the next few months on "Star Wars: Episode VII," rumors are already flying about what could come after that. According to rumors, a standalone film focusing on the character of Yoda is a definite possibility.
While a whole series of standalone films -- each focusing on a character important to the "Star Wars" saga -- are possible, the word is that the very first has to be about Yoda. The first word on a Yoda-based spinoff came from Ain't It Cool News. This report indicated that, while there was a Jabba the Hutt idea out there as well as some passion for a story about Boba Fett, the plan for any standalone series starts with Yoda.
Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger confirmed to CNBC the development of the standalone movies on Tuesday (Feb. 5). Screenwriters Lawrence Kasdan (the writer of "The Empire Strikes Back") and Simon Kinberg have already begun work on concepts for these spinoffs.
If there is indeed a Yoda movie coming, that brings up a whole host of questions. Since Yoda didn't survive the original "Star Wars" trilogy, a new standalone film would have to take place earlier in the timeline. Could we see the Jedi Master as a young warrior? Or would the Yoda story focus on the creature's escape to Dagobah when the other Jedi were destroyed?

George R.R. Martin GAME OF THRONES
In what could potentially be seen as a good news/bad news kinda thing (but mostly good), George R. R. Martin has just signed a two-year overall deal with HBO.
Deadline reports that the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, on which HBO's Game of Thrones is based, has signed on the dotted line, keeping him on as a co-executive producer on the hit fantasy series that will have its eagerly awaited Season 3 premiere on March 31.
Not only that, but Martin will also develop and produce a new series project for the network. And this is where it could potentially mean bad news for fans of the books who are eagerly waiting for Martin to finally finish the opus that was begun in 1996 with the first book, A Game of Thrones. There are two more books left to be written and published in order to finish the saga. They are The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring.
Still, we think that its very, very good news that Martin is staying put as co-executive producer on the series, which also probably means that Martin will still write one new episode per season for the next two years, just as he’s done for the past three seasons.

JUPITER ASCENDING
Andy and Lana Wachowski are hard at work on their new film, Jupiter Ascending, and they've lined up a fan favorite actor from Game of Thrones to join the cast.
Deadline reports that the siblings have recruited Sean Bean to join their latest mind-bender in the role of Stinger, described as a "Han Solo-type character." He'll be acting alongside Channing Tatum (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra), Mila Kunis (Oz the Great and Powerful) and Eddie Redmayne (Les Miserables).
The film follows a poor Russian cleaning woman (Kunis) who discovers that she has been marked for death by the Queen of the Universe since she has the same genetic makeup and thus threatens her rule over humanity, who are pretty low on the galactic ladder in this reality. The woman is forced to go on the run, accompanied by the bounty hunter (Tatum) originally sent to kill her.
Bean, of course, played Ned Stark in season one of Game of Thrones, and is perhaps best known before that for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings. He'll also appear in this year's Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, reprising the role of Zeus from 2010's Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
Jupiter Ascending, which will follow up last year's poorly received Cloud Atlas for the Wachowskis, is due to start filming this spring for a release sometime in 2014. In the meantime, enjoy this compilation of Sean Bean death scenes -- he almost never makes it out of any of his movies alive. Here's hoping Jupiter Ascending changes that.

DEFIANCE
Syfy’s latest trailer for their epic new series Defiance shows an alien assault in the making, and one thing's for sure—this project promises to be a true FX extravaganza.
Combining a television show and video game set in the same universe, Defiance follows humans and aliens on a post-invasion Earth. It's loaded with action and intrigue, not to mention a shared universe between mediums that could make for a pretty expansive experience.
The series premieres on April 15, but the game hits shelves a few weeks before that on April 2. Digital and physical editions of the game are available for pre-order now.
The latest trailer peels back a few more layers on Syfy’s biggest gamble of the 2013 season and we can’t wait to see how this battle actually plays out. The series stars Grant Bowler (True Blood), Julie Benz (Dexter), Jaime Murray (Warehouse 13), Tony Curran (Blade II), Stephanie Leonidas (Mirrormask) and Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves).

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Director James Gunn has found the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy. After an exhaustive search, Chris Pratt has landed the role. The actor will play Star-Lord aka Peter Quill, the frontman of the intergalactic team. The actor's best known for his role on NBC's Parks and Recreation, as well as the films Moneyball and Zero Dark Thirty.
Oddly enough, Pratt beat out Zero Dark Thirty co-star Joel Edgerton for the part. His stiff competition also included Boardwalk Empire‘s Jack Huston, Cloud Atlas‘ Jim Sturgess, The Hobbit's Lee Pace, and Eddie Redmayne from Les Miserables. Even Zachary Levi (Chuck) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were eyed as candidates.
Over the past few years, Pratt's shown some serious range. He's able to go from comedy to drama at the drop of a hat. For his role as a Navy SEAL in Zero Dark Thirty, he got in amazing shape. We're sure he'll do the same for Star-Lord, the half-human half-alien hero.
Guardians of the Galaxy hits theaters Aug. 1, 2014.

THE SHADOW KING
Following yesterday's announcement that they'll be producing Henry Selick's next stop motion feature film, The Shadow King, K5 International (via Bleeding Cool) has revealed through their website a first look at the project and the following list of voice talent:
Jaden Betts as Hap
Pamela Adlon as Richard
Brendan Gleeson as Darce
Jeffrey Tambor as Cuzzie Bell
Catherine O’Hara as Miss Fern
The Shadow King is described as being a deliciously magical tale about nine-year-old New York orphan Hap who hides his fantastically weird hands with long fingers from a cruel world. But when a living shadow girl teaches him to make amazing hand shadows that come to life, his hands become incredible weapons in a shadow war against a ravenous monster bent on killing Hap’s brother Richard and ultimately destroying New York.

CEDAR COVE
Ranger Anne reports that Dylan Neal ("The Legend of the Rangers") will be appearing in a Hallmark Channel TV movie this June, "Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove," based on the author's best selling series of novels set in a lakeside town. Airdate is June 1st at 9pm ET.
The info about the telefilm, including photos, synopsis (spoilers included) & bios, can be found at: http://www.crownmediapress.com/Shows/PRShowDetail?SiteID=142&FeedBoxID=845&NodeID=302&ShowType=&ShowTitle=Debbie%20Macomber's%20Cedar%20Cove.
It's a lead-in to the channel's first original primetime scripted series, which carries the same name. Dylan's character is Jack Griffth, new editior of the Cedar Cove Chronicle newspaper and possible love interest to Judge Olivia Lockhart, played by Andie McDowell.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Thunderbirds THUNDERBIRDS RETURN
Thunderbirds are finally GO! as the classic 1965 children's sci-fi series is at last getting the reboot treatment we’ve been waiting for so long.
According to Deadline, the U.K.’s ITV studios will partner with New Zealand’s Pukeko Pictures and Weta Workshop to bring back to life the five Tracy brothers and their awesome vehicles to lead impossible rescues around the globe.
However, instead of puppets (or supermarionation), the new series will use a unique mix of CGI animation and live-action model sets while paying tribute to the late Gerry Anderson’s legacy of model locations.
A total of 26 half-hours have been ordered, to air on ITV and CITV in the U.K. in 2015.
ITV’s Denise O Donoghue said:
"Thunderbirds is a highly respected brand that continues to hold recognition around the world. This cult series is often credited as changing the history of animation and action-adventure, and we look forward to taking the show to another level while retaining the much-loved heritage that has endured over the past fifty years.”
Thunderbirds may have only aired for two seasons in the 1960s, but it became an international hit, spanning a 2004 feature film (which flopped big-time) and inspiring South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s Team America: World Police (as well and a hilarious Stargate SG-1 parody for the show’s 200th episode).

THE WALKING DEAD
After a few months away, the zombies are back. Sunday, The Walking Dead returns with an all-new episode. The second half of season three picks up right where it left off. Daryl and Merle are pit against each other, Rick and Michonne are on the road, and Tyreese is trying to adapt to his surroundings.
AMC's released a new clip from the midseason premiere "The Suicide King." While at the prison, Hershel does his best to make sure Tyreese and his group are healthy and bite-free. Through awkward chit chat, imagine their surprise when they learn that Hershel was once a zombie chew toy (hence the missing leg).
Not only that, but the newcomers are amazed by Judith. They've been surrounded by so much death, birth has been out of sight and out of mind. They assume Beth is the baby's mother, but are quickly corrected.

Bruce Greenwood QUEEN OF THE NIGHT
Bruce Greenwood has joined co-writer/director Atom Egoyan’s thriller Queen of the Night.
Greenwood, who also has appeared in Egoyan's Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter and Ararat, will play the role of a successful developer in their latest collaboration.
Ryan Reynolds and Mireille Enos in previously announced roles will play the parents of an abducted child.
Queen of the Night is based on an original story by Egoyan, who penned the screenplay with David Fraser.
The feature from Ego Film Arts and The Film Farm is shooting in northern Ontario.
The ensemble cast includes Scott Speedman, Rosario Dawson and Kevin Durand.
Egoyan, Simone Urdl, Jennifer Weiss and Stephen Traynor share the producing credits, with Entertainment One distributing Queen of the Night.

Stan Lee STAN LEE'S MONSTERS VS. KITTENS
He might be 90 years old, is getting over a flu and has canceled several comics convention appearances, but comics legend Stan Lee still proved he could still draw a crowd Saturday for the book launch of Monsters vs. Kittens, the debut tome from his family-friendly imprint, Stan Lee’s Kids Universe.
The event, held at Giggles 'N Hugs in Century City, attracted a diverse group ranging from Make-A-Wish Foundation families to hipsters and Hollywood moms with their kids.
Kittens is joint venture between Lee’s POW Entertainment and 1821 Comics, run by Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis and Terry Dougas -- an odd combination if there ever was one. But the pair have had success in publishing before, with the best-selling graphic novel Romeo & Juliet: The War.
With the new imprint, which will encompass books, e-books and apps, Lee said he and Dougas "were looking in book stores and on the Internet, and we noticed that there’s really nothing that great, we thought, for very young children -- children who are just starting to read. So we thought we could try to produce some reading matter for them and introduce them to the joy of reading."
Lee holds the title of creative director for the imprint and had a great deal of input on the book, which was written and illustrated by Dani Jones.
At the event, still nursing a cough, Lee read the very simple book to the crowd of attending kids, but every few sentences he displayed his trademark charm with one-liners that had their parents chuckling out loud. It’s hard to say what drives Lee -- the co-creator of Spider-Man, X-Men, Hulk, Iron Man, Daredevil, Avengers, and other iconic Marvel characters -- to keep pursuing ventures that deal with storytelling and imagination long after his peers put down their pens.
On one hand, he jokes that "greed” keeps him going, but then he follows that up with this: “Most people say, ‘I can’t wait to retire because then I can do the things I want to do.’ But I’m doing what I want to do, so why retire?”
He adds: “I never really thought I’d live to be 90."

Henry Selick THE SHADOW KING
Fans of Henry Selick and his films like Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas were dismayed last August when it was revealed that Walt Disney Pictures had elected not to move forward with his then-untitled next feature. Since then, the future of the project has been uncertain but today, K5 International has revealed that they've stepped in to produce alongside Josh Penn (Beasts of the Southern Wild). The film, titled The Shadow King, is officially described as follows:
The Shadow King is a deliciously magical tale about nine-year-old New York orphan Hap who hides his fantastically weird hands with long fingers from a cruel world. But when a living shadow girl teaches him to make amazing hand shadows that come to life, his hands become incredible weapons in a shadow war against a ravenous monster bent on killing Hap’s brother Richard and ultimately destroying New York.
The Shadow King is written and directed by Selick. His team includes Director of Photographer Peter Sorg (Frankenweenie, Coraline), Eric Leighton, Animation Director on Legend of the Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’hoole, Production Designer Lou Romano (The Incredibles), Editor Wyatt Jones (Immortals, Rango), and composer Bruno Coulais (Coraline).
“K5 is the perfect presenter for 'The Shadow King' – they appreciate the film's exciting blend of the fantastic and personal with its mix of humor, scares, and moments of sweetness. We can't wait to get back into production,” stated Henry Selick.
“We immediately realized that 'The Shadow King' is a fantastic and exciting prospect that needed to find the support. To offer our help to Henry’s brilliance as a storyteller is an absolute pleasure for us. And it also demonstrates K5’s commitment to bringing bigger and bolder projects to the market,” say K5’s Co-Founders Oliver Simon and Daniel Baur.
“Henry Selick is the best in the business. His films are all instant classics and they delight family audiences all over the world over and over again,” adds Partner Sales Carl Clifton.
A significant amount of production on the project has already been completed and K5 International will bring the project to the European Film Market at Berlin to conduct special presentations to selected buyers with exclusive clips from the film screened behind closed doors as part of the presentation.

Secret Garden SECRET GARDEN
Universal Pictures has acquired a pitch for a new film adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel "The Secret Garden".
The story follows an orphaned girl is sent to live with her reclusive uncle and discovers a hidden garden containing magical secrets. This version is tipped to take place in the American South at the turn of the 20th Century.
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" co-writer Lucy Alibar will pen the script and will work closely with producers Guillermo del Toro and Mark Johnson ("Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark"). del Toro's schedule prevents him from directing.
Alfonso Cuaron ("Children of Men") penned the last major film adaptation of the property twenty years ago.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2013

STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS
A new trailer for the much anticipated "Star Trek Into Darkness," the sequel to 2009's reboot of the popular "Star Trek" franchise, debuted during the first half of the Super Bowl. The sneak peak shows a stare down and brief conversation about the end of the world between Chris Pine's Captain Kirk, and the film's villain, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Spliced in are shots of all kinds of destruction, including what looks to be a disabled Enterprise falling to Earth.
"Star Trek Into Darkness" will land in theaters on May 17. After that, director J.J. Abrams begins preparations on his next sci-fi epic, "Star Wars: Episode VII."

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
For fans of "The Wizard of Oz" and "Wicked," here comes another offering to add to the pantheon. "Oz the Great and Powerful" debuted a new trailer during Super Bowl XLVII and it promises a wild romp through a magical world.
This prequel to the 1939 classic stars James Franco as the titular wizard. Before he was the Wizard of Oz, he was Oscar, a magician and con man who goes on the run in a hot air balloon and winds up in Oz.
Once there, he convinces everyone he's a powerful wizard -- except three witches, Evanora (Rachel Weisz), Glinda (Michelle Williams) and Theodora (Mila Kunis). Zach Braff also stars; the director is Sam Raimi, of "Spider-Man" (2002) and "Evil Dead". "Oz the Great and Powerful" hits theaters on March 8.

THE LONE RANGER
Disney unveiled the trailer for "The Lone Ranger" during CBS' Super Bowl pre-gam show Sunday (Feb. 3). It's safe to say this is not your father's masked man.
Directed by Gore Verbinski (the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise) and starring Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp, "The Lone Ranger" is every bit a 21st-century action movie, from the big set pieces to the close-up effects shot of a revolver's chamber turning.
As for the plot? Well ... yeah. There's a bit of exposition about Hammer's Texas Ranger character being left for dead, being discovered by Tonto (Depp) and the two of them teaming up to "ride for justice." Hammer then returns to his home, presumably for unfinished business.
"The Lone Ranger" is scheduled to hit theaters on July 3.

IRON MAN 3
Walt Disney Pictures and Marvel Studios debuted a 30-second spot for Iron Man 3 during the Super Bowl on Sunday which pointed fans to the official Facebook page for an extended look.
Hitting 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on May 3, the Shane Black-directed sequel stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau, Ben Kingsley and Wang Xuequi.
Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

UNDER THE DOME
CBS premiered the first teaser for their upcoming "Under the Dome," based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Go UndertheDome.com to see what your own house looks like trapped under the dome.
Niels Arden Oplev, the director of the original The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, will helm the first episode. Brian K. Vaughan ("LOST") adapted the book for the screen.
The story tells of a small town in Maine which is cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible dome. With air, food and patience dwindling, societal norms within this town begin to break down.
"Under the Dome" will debut on CBS June 24 at 10/9c.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2013

JMS JMS TO DIRECT THE FLICKERING LIGHT
Acording to Variety, Babylon 5's J. Michael Straczynski will be working on a The Flickering Light, World War II drama about the plight of Gypsies in the Marzahn Concentration Camp.
THE FLICKERING LIGHT, which Straczynski will direct, is based on his script about Leni Riefenstahl's filming of TIEFLAND, which used Gypsies as actors. Every day Riefenstahl would use the prisoners in her film, and at the end of the day the Gypsies would return to the terrors of Marzahn. "During the day, the prisoners were escorted to the studio by armed guard and corralled onto movie sets," said Straczynski. "They were cleaned up by the largely sympathetic Aryan crew, feasted on food unimaginable to prisoners, then dressed in period Spanish wardrobe as Riefenstahl required 'authenticity' on camera. Then after filming each day, returned, once more in rags, to the horror of the camp."
It sounds like a fascinating piece of history from World War II, and not the usual work we expect from Straczynski. Leni Riefenstahl is a hugely controversial director, and it's quite a difficult subject to cover. Riefenstahl was obviously a very gifted filmmaker, who worked for the most evil people imaginable. THE FLICKERING LIGHT sounds like a very personal project for Straczynski and we have yet to see what he can do behind the camera. Straczynski will be producing along with Grant Hill and Norman Golightly.

Iron Man 3 - Maya IRON MAN 3
Marvel's released a new photo from Iron Man 3 featuring Dr. Maya Hansen, played by British actress Rebecca Hall, and she appears to be slightly injured. Judging from the bloody scar on her head, Hansen just escaped a dangerous situation.
Hansen's a brilliant mind who plays a huge role in developing the Extremis technology. Marvel Chief Kevin Feige told Empire Magazine (via CBM), "Maya is a scientist who makes a pretty astounding discovery that leads her to places -- and some are healthier than others. It's not dissimilar to what Tony's been through, and it's a great parallel."
It's been said that Iron Man 3 will find Stark in a state of paranoia. He'll develop a dependence on his suit. In the comics, the Extremis technology allows the hero to become biologically integrated with his armor. It makes sense that they'd introduce this story as he battles his biggest opponent yet (the Mandarin).
Iron Man 3 hits theaters May 3.

Kitty Pryde X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
Mark Millar continues to stir the pot for X-Men: Days of Future Past. As Fox's Marvel consultant, he has firsthand knowledge of the sequel, and in a recent interview he teased some key elements from the story. He confirmed that Sentinels will make an appearance, and suggested the return of Kitty Pryde.
"I don’t really want to give too much away, but the Sentinels are a big feature of this story," Millar revealed. "They will be cool and this will deliver on all of the teasers. We’ve all been waiting for this ever since X-Men: The Last Stand showed us one of their heads. Now it is finally coming, and we only have to pay ten quid to see it in the cinema, whereas they’re having to pay $100 million to deliver it. So I’m delighted [laughs].”
As for Kitty, Millar didn't openly discuss the character, but he did drop a hint.
“Ach, I cannae get into that [laughs]. As soon as I say something it will turn into a big Internet story. Let me put it this way though: Kitty Pride fans will not be disappointed."
We can't imagine Days of Future Past without Kitty. She was a huge part of the comic arc. They need to make that work.
X-Men: Days of Future Past opens in theaters July 18, 2014.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje THOR: THE DARK WORLD
Starring in this weekend's Bullet to the Head, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje spoke today with The LA Times about appearing on the big screen later this year in another comic book-inspired feature, Thor: the Dark World. He'll be playing both Algrim and the character's demonic alter-ego, Kurse, in the November 8 release.
“It’s an amalgamation of a bull and a lava-like creature,” the actor told the outlet. “He has very animalistic tendencies but with this insatiable and unstoppable power. As an actor, that’s one of the hardest things to embody. You have to realize you are probably the most powerful thing you could imagine. And you have to be that. You can’t pretend, so that when you face Thor, it’s real.”
Algrim first appeared in Thor #347 and was one of the most powerful of the dark elves. He is given the task of killing Thor by Malekith the Accursed (set to be played by Christopher Eccleston). He is betrayed by Malekith who tries to kill Thor by allowing both the god of thunder and Algrim to fall to their deaths. While both survived, Algrim developed amnesia from the event and is transformed into the much more powerful being, Kurse.
Thor: the Dark World reunites Chris Hemsworth's Thor with Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Anthony Hopkins as Odin, and Natalie Portman as the love interest, Jane Foster. Alan Taylor ("Game of Thrones") is directing.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2013

Emily VanCamp CAPTAIN AMERICA 2
Chris Evans has found his new leading lady. According to Deadline, when he returns for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he'll be sharing scenes with Emily VanCamp. The actress is currently causing a stir on television as the star of ABC's Revenge. She beat out tough competition including Anna Kendrick, Felicity Jones and Imogen Poots.
In the initial report, it doesn't clarify what character VanCamp will play. It just cites her as the "female lead." But we assume Sharon Carter, the niece of Peggy (Hayley Atwell), would fit the bill. Aside from her headlining gig on Revenge, VanCamp previously appeared as a regular on the defunct series Brothers & Sisters and Everwood.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier co-stars Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Frank Grillo, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Scarlett Johansson and Toby Jones.
The film hits theaters April 4, 2014 and is directed by Joe and Anthony Russo.

CULT
One of the most intriguing shows coming up this season is The CW’s Cult, developed by Farscape creator Rockne S. O’Bannon. It’s been described as a mysterious meta-twist on Twin Peaks—and the opening of the pilot episode definitely fits the bill.
The series revolves around a cult series (dubbed Cult), with an investigative journalist looking into the show’s rabid fan base after a fan disappears. It’s definitely a unique premise, but O’Bannon knows how to write his share of quirky characters, and it should be cool to see what he’s cooked up. The only concern is that, with a premise like this, you have to wonder how long it can be sustained. But if it proves too quirky for an audience (even by The CW's standards), it won't survive long enough to matter.
The clip looks like a convoluted mishmash of bloody fingerprints, VHS tapes and static-filled screens. Mysterious, but weirdly cool.

Vampire Academy VAMPIRE ACADEMY
First announced back in 2010, Richelle Mead's hit book series Vampire Academy is headed to the big screen. Today, Deadline announces that Mean Girls director Mark Waters has signed on to direct the first film in a planned franchise with a cast that now includes Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry and Danila Kozlovski. The title has been amended as well and the first film will now be known as Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters.
The Vampire Academy book series is a coming-of-age, action driven, "paranormal romance" fantasy. It is set in the present day against a hidden universe of vampires, half-humans, alchemy, and magic. The series centers on a strong, yet flawed, 17-year-old female who confronts her world with grit, determination, and lots of moxie. Rose Hathaway is a dhampir, half human/half vampire and guardian of the Moroi, a race of peaceful and magical mortal vampires who can walk in the daylight, survive by feeding off willing blood donors, grow old and die. Hidden deep in the forests of Montana is St. Vladimir's Academy, where Moroi and dhampirs learn to take their place in Moroi society. Rose must master her inherited abilities as a dhampir and earn the approval of the Royal Council, as guardian to Princess Lissa, her best friend and sole heir of one of the twelve Royal families of Moroi. Rose and Lissa share a mysterious psychic bond and sense of destiny, but first they must survive an intense social scene, politics and the physical challenges of Moroi life at the Academy. Outside the sanctuary of St. Vladimir's waits their greatest threat of all, the Strigoi, a race of bloodthirsty immortal vampires and predators of the Moroi.
Deutch, who stars in the upcoming Beautiful Creatures, will play Rose with newcomers Fry as Lissa and Kozlovski as Dmitri.
Susan Montford, Don Murphy, Deepak Nayer and Michael Preger will produce with Stuart Ford executive producing.

NOON
Noon, a sci-fi short from writer/director Kasra Farahani, is headed to the big screen through Chernin Entertainment, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter. Farahani, best known in Hollywood for his work as an art director, will make his directing debut with the feature version.
Noon is said to be a science fiction story about a soul-deadened "coyote" who reluctantly guides a band of rebels on journey to take control of water and energy on a future Earth where the Sun has stopped moving in the sky.
The full short is actually a scene from the feature screenplay. It introduces the protagonist, Gray, officially described as "a coyote numbed to the cruelty of the world and his part in it."

SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 2013

Spiral Galaxy NEW SPIRAL GALAXY
The spiral galaxy we live in, known as the Milky Way, is a massive place. From outer arm to outer arm, it's a whopping 100,000 light-years across. But using a variety of astronomical instruments, scientists have now confirmed there's a spiral galaxy more than five times bigger than the one we live in, and now we can see what it looks like.
The above image is a composite of spiral galaxy NGC 6872, put together using visible light images from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, far ultraviolet light data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and infrared light data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. It's a gorgeous image, and all that data combined has confirmed for astronomers what they've long suspected: NGC 6872 is the biggest spiral out there.
The galaxy has been listed among the biggest in the universe for decades, but scientists couldn't definitively call it the largest spiral galaxy because they couldn't see all of it. Now, thanks to GALEX, they can.
"Without GALEX's ability to detect the ultraviolet light of the youngest, hottest stars, we would never have recognized the full extent of this intriguing system," lead scientist Rafael Eufrasio, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the Catholic University of America, said. From arm to arm, NGC 6872 measures a whopping 522,000 light-years across. How'd it get so big? Eufrasio and his fellow researchers believe it has to do with gravitational interaction with a much smaller nearby galaxy, IC 4970.
"The northeastern arm of NGC 6872 is the most disturbed and is rippling with star formation, but at its far end, visible only in the ultraviolet, is an object that appears to be a tidal dwarf galaxy similar to those seen in other interacting systems," Duilia de Mello, a professor of astronomy at Catholic University, said.
So, after years of speculation, astronomers have crowned the king of the spiral galaxies.

OBLIVION
Just like he did with picking music duo Daft Punk to do the score for TRON: Legacy, director Joseph Kosinski has chosen another great band, M83, to do the music for his next film, Oblivion. M83 has been keeping their fans updated and they just posted this clip of a "Drum Battle" recording for an action scene in the Tom Cruise-starrer.
Opening in IMAX theaters first on April 12 before hitting conventional theaters on April 19, the Universal Pictures release co-stars Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Melissa Leo.
In the film, on a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition, one man's confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind. Jack Harper (Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack's mission is nearly complete.
Living in and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.

A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD
"Die Hard" series fans received some great news on Friday with word that A Good Day to Die Hard will be rated R. Now Twentieth Century Fox Film has released a new TV spot for the February 14 release which includes the R rating.
The John Moore-directed action film stars Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch, Yulia Snigir, Cole Hauser, Amaury Nolasco, Megalyn Echikunwoke and Anne Vyalitsyna.
Since the first Die Hard in 1988, John McClane has found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the skills and attitude to always be the last man standing, making him enemy #1 for terrorists the world over. Now, McClane faces his greatest challenge ever, this time on an international stage, when his estranged son Jack is caught up in the daring prison escape of a rogue Russian leader, and father and son McClane must work together to keep each other alive and keep the world safe for democracy.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen PENNY DREADFUL
On Friday, news broke that Skyfall director Sam Mendes and screenwriter John Logan's new high-concept drama series "Penny Dreadful" would be going to Showtime, and the company has now confirmed the deal. Here's the press release:
Some of literature's most iconic figures will step into the light on SHOWTIME in PENNY DREADFUL, a psychosexual horror series created, written and executive produced by three-time Oscar(R) nominee John Logan (Hugo, The Aviator, Gladiator) and executive produced by Oscar winner Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) and Neal Street's Pippa Harris (Revolutionary Road, Call The Midwife), it was announced today by David Nevins, President of Entertainment, Showtime Networks. PENNY DREADFUL will begin production in London in the second half of 2013.
In PENNY DREADFUL, some of literature's most famously terrifying characters - including Dr. Frankenstein and his creature, Dorian Gray and iconic figures from the novel Dracula - become embroiled in Victorian London. The series weaves together these classic horror origin stories as the characters grapple with their monstrous alienation. This project marks Logan and Mendes' second major collaboration, following Skyfall, their recent critically-acclaimed and box office record-breaking James Bond film, which Mendes directed and Logan co-wrote; and their first ever collaboration for television. The project will be produced by Mendes' production company Neal Street Productions.
"John Logan and Sam Mendes are two of the great storytellers of our time," said Nevins. "The visual spectacle combined with the psychological insight in their reimagining of these iconic literary characters seems totally mesmerizing to me. This promises to be a wholly original television show."

SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 2013

Originals VAMPIRE DIARIES SPIN-OFF
The CW's going into vampire overload. The network's confirmed that they're planning a spinoff of their hit, The Vampire Diaries. The good news is, the holy trinity of Stefan, Elena and Damon will stay intact. But their biggest adversary is moving on.
According to EW, The CW will "launch a backdoor pilot for a spinoff within the show's current fourth season." The episode will be written by TVD executive producer Julie Plec. If the show's picked up for a series order, it will center on Klaus (Joseph Morgan) and his family of Originals.
Here's the pilot description:
In the episode, Klaus "returns to the supernatural melting pot that is the French Quarter of New Orleans — a town he helped build centuries ago — and is reunited with his diabolical former protégé Marcel.
Phoebe Tonkin, who currently plays werewolf Hayley on TVD, will also appear on the new series. The episode's scheduled to premiere April 25, under the show's working title The Originals.
Even though Plec's on board as The Originals showrunner, Kevin Williamson won't be involved.

GAME OF THRONES
We still don't have any actual footage from the third season of Game of Thrones, but a stark (get it?) new teaser definitely sets the mood for a return to Westeros.
Set to the tune of Lord Tywin's "The Rains of Castamere," the teaser shows the creepy three-eyed black raven flying around several major cities. From New York, to Paris, to Florence, it looks like winter is coming soon.
The only teaser text? "Their world returns to ours." The crew behind Thrones has made the surreal, epic teaser a true art form. The latest is a great addition to the canon. Yeah, we can't wait.
The new season premieres March 31 on HBO.

Jurassic Park JURASSIC PARK 4
Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall are returning to produce the long-awaited next installment in the franchise, although no director or cast is yet attached. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) are writing the script.
Spielberg -- who only days ago revealed that Robopocalypse won't be his next directing project -- directed the first two films in the Jurassic Park franchise.
A fourth installment has been in works for years. Jurassic Park III, directed by Joe Johnston, opened in theaters in July 2001.
Marshall said in a July interview that Jurassic Park 4 would still rely on animatronic dinosaurs despite the advancements in technology over the past decade.
So far, the movie has June 13, 2014 to itself.

Sam Mendes FRANKENSTEIN COMING TO SHOWTIME
Skyfall helmer Sam Mendes and co-writer John Logan are in talks with Showtime to develop a high-concept drama series, reports Deadline. But this isn't any ordinary "drama" as the site says:
"The untitled drama, which has undergone some tweaking from the original spec to tailor it to the Showtime audiences, is described as a psychological horror drama series with literary underpinnings, including Dr. Frankenstein and his creature, set in the 1800s."
This is just the latest Frankenstein-themed project to get some heat. There are a number of films in the works - including Fox's Frankenstein and Lionsgate's I, Frankenstein as well as a television series at NBC.

Jack Sparrow PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN
Although reports from back in 2011 seemed to suggest that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides co-writer Terry Rossio had developed a screenplay for a fifth installment in the hugely successful franchise, Variety reports today that Catch Me If You Can scribe Jeff Nathanson has been brought aboard the same project. It's unclear whether or not Nathanson will be working from Rossio's draft or if he'll be tackling the project as a page one rewrite.
Launched in 2003 with The Curse of the Black Pearl, the Walt Disney Pictures franchise has, in every film so far, featured Johnny Depp in the role of Captain Jack Sparrow. The most recent adventure, On Stranger Tides, also starred Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane and Sam Claflin and turned out more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2013

Christopher Nolan With his Dark Knight trilogy out of the way, Christopher Nolan looks to be heading into hard sci-fi for his next big-screen adventure. Enter Interstellar.
Incorporating time travel and alternate dimensions, the script reportedly follows a team of explorers sent through a wormhole. Nolan is reportedly in talks to direct the high-concept sci-fi flick, which was written by Chris' brother Jonathan, who also collaborated on the Dark Knight films and The Prestige.
If Nolan does sign on, he'll replace a name even bigger than his own. Steven Spielberg was originally circling the film, and could stay on in some capacity, especially considering that Robopocalypse debacle just cleared up his schedule.
Nolan has always skirted around the edges of sci-fi (with the mind-bending Inception probably falling closest into the genre), so it's nice to see him finally taking the plunge.
We're definitely curious to see what he could do with a big budget and a wild premise.

Star Wars Logo STAR WARS
It's been some time since there was last an update on the proposed live-action "Star Wars" television series. Today, EW reports that, with the property now owned by Walt Disney, ABC has a tentative interest in bringing a galaxy far, far away to the small screen.
“We’d love to do something with Lucasfilm," ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee told the outlet. "We’re not sure what yet... We haven’t even sat down with them. We’re going to look at [the live-action series], we’re going to look at all of them, and see what’s right. We weren’t able to discuss this with them until [the acquisition] closed and it just closed. It’s definitely going to be part of the conversation.”
ABC is already hard at work bringing a major film franchise to television in the form of "Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D." Lee says that, while "Star Wars" plans are currently nascent, he could imagine the series going a similar route.
“It’s going to be very much up to the Lucasfilm brands how they want to play it,” he adds. “We got to a point here with Marvel, a very special point, where we’re in the Marvel universe, and very relevantly so, but we’re not doing 'The Avengers'. But S.H.I.E.L.D. is part of 'The Avengers'. So maybe something oblique is the way to [approach the Star Wars universe] rather than going straight head-on at it.”
Earlier plans for the "Star Wars" were postponed due to budgetary concerns. It remains to be seen as to how that same issue might affect new plans, but check back for updates as they become available.

Legendary Logo SPECTRAL
First announced back in 2011, Legendary Pictures' supernatural thriller Spectral appears to have found a pair of directors in Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg. Deadline reports that the Kon-Tiki pair are eyeing the project following their recent film's Academy Award nomination this morning.
The script, written by Ian Fried, follows a special ops force that has trained in hunting the supernatural. They come up against ghosts that have taken over Manhattan.
Production on Spectral is expected to begin later this year with Kon-Tiki itself set for a domestic theatrical run in March.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 2013

George R R Martin GAME OF THRONES
Boy, George R.R. Martin knows how to build anticipation. The acclaimed fantasy author is knee-deep into his hit series A Song of Ice and Fire but is taking his sweet time finishing up the latest book, The Winds of Winter. Luckily, to at least whet our appetite, he's finally released a tantalizing new sample chapter.
Martin's series was already acclaimed in fantasy circles, but skyrocketed to a new level of attention once HBO adapted it into the smash hit TV series Game of Thrones. But Martin hasn't let all the attention put his feet to the fire. He's always worked at his own pace, and doesn't plan on changing anytime soon.
No solid release date has been revealed for Winds of Winter, the sixth book in the proposed seven-volume saga, but many expect it to hit shelves late this year or at some point in 2014.
For now, let's just enjoy the shiny new chapter dubbed "Arianne," which focuses on the character of the same name. In typical Martin fashion, the sample chapter is pretty lengthy, meaning we at least get a good feel for what he's planning for the next installment.
Use this link to read Arianne.

Doctor Who DOCTOR WHO 50TH ANNIVERSARY
While rumors persist about the possibility of an 11 Doctors 50th-anniversary special for Doctor Who, we have confirmed that there is one story going out that will star all five living actors who have played the Doctor and more. But it's not quite what we thought.
Big Finish, the company that kept Doctor Who alive during the times it was off the air by continuing the Doctor's stories through audio dramas, has announced it will be releasing a special adventure for the 50th anniversary. Titled The Light at the End, this radio play will include Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann. That's every living actor who played the titular role during the classic series.
But that's not all! A slew of classic companions will be returning as well, including India Fisher, Louise Jameson, Nicola Bryant, Sarah Sutton and Sophie Aldred.
And that's still not all! At the bottom of the press release is the phrase "With special guest stars ...", which we think means they'll be using audio clips from the deceased actors. Writer Nicholas Briggs even says, "That's not to say the first three Doctors don't appear—we wanted to pay homage to the whole history of the classic series." There look to be even more companions popping by, too, as Briggs adds, "There will be a number of appearances from some much-cherished old friends from the TV series."
The whole thing is going to run about two hours and will be due out sometime this year. And while we'd love to see the classic actors appear in the 50th Who TV special, we're absolutely thrilled that they'll all be getting together for a thrilling audio adventure.

HEMLOCK GROVE
Though most edgy new series are relegated to cable these days, horror auteur Eli Roth's new project Hemlock Grove is skipping the TV system entirely and heading straight to Netflix. Want to see the first creepy, sexy trailer?
Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) has a cult following for his unique style of scary, and Hemlock Grove looks like a worthy addition to his canon. Based on Brian McGreevy's novel of the same name, the 13-episode series stars Famke Janssen (X-Men), Bill Skarsgard (Simon & The Oaks), Landon Liboiron (Terra Nova) and a few others.
Here's the official synopsis:
The series revolves around the eccentric residents of a dilapidated former Pennsylvania steel town and the murder of 17-year-old Brooke Bluebell. Through the investigation, the town's seamier side is exposed, revealing that nothing is what it seems.
Not content merely to air other networks' TV shows anymore, Netflix is making a push this year to become an outlet for exclusive quality programming in its own right, and Hemlock Grove is among the first wave of that effort. The company is also developing a new season of cult fave sitcom Arrested Development, as well as a political drama dubbed House of Cards.
The entire 13-episode run of Hemlock Grove is scheduled to go live to stream on April 19.

Christopher Nolan INTERSTELLAR
In development for some time, the sci-fi tale Interstellar looks to have a found a new director in Christopher Nolan. The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Nolan is interested in developing the project, taking over the reins from the previously-attached Steven Spielberg.
Production on Interstellar would be a joint effort between Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. and would see Nolan again tackling a screenplay from his brother, Jonathan Nolan (The Prestige, The Dark Knight Rises).
The plot is said to have been informed by a scientific theory by Kip S. Thorne, a Caltech physicist and expert on relativity. His theory suggests that wormholes exist and can be used for time travel.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2013

Sin City 2 SIN CITY 2
"Gangster Squad" star Josh Brolin has just lined up his next project. THR reports that Brolin will be filling the role of Dwight, a part Clive Owen originally played in the first film.
Brolin joins original Sin City cast members Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Jaime King, and Rosario Dawson, as well as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was announced as joining the cast yesterday. Other cast replacements include Jaime Chung taking over for Devon Aoki and Dennis Haysbert replacing the late Michael Clarke Duncan.
In a statement, directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller say, "Dwight is a constant character throughout the 'Sin City' world, and 'A Dame to Kill For' is a defining episode in his life. We're looking forward to Josh's take on Dwight."
"Sin City: A Dame To Kill For" is currently in production at Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Tex. and is scheduled to be released October 4.

DEFIANCE
If you were worried Syfy's new post-alien invasion series Defiance wouldn't feature enough wild sci-fi action, the latest trailer is chock full. Want to see a full-scale alien battle set in former St. Louis?
The new trailer finally starts to break down the premise, which is a disparate pile of survivors trying to make it in a tough world where humans don't seem to be alone at the top of the pecking order anymore.
Developed by Rockne S. O'Bannon (Farscape), the new series stars Grant Bowler (True Blood), Julie Benz (Angel), Jaime Murray (Warehouse 13) and a slew of ensemble players. We can't wait to get to know them all in the 12-episode debut season.
In addition to the series, the storyline will also play out in a video game set to be released in April. The two will share the same world, and events in one will have consequences in the other.
Here's the synopsis:
Set in the near future, Defiance introduces an exotically transformed planet Earth, its landscapes permanently altered following the sudden - and tumultuous - arrival of seven unique alien races. In this somewhat unknown and unpredictable landscape, the richly diverse, newly-formed civilization of humans and aliens must learn to co-exist peacefully. Each week, viewers will follow an immersive character drama set in the boom-town of Defiance, which sits atop the ruins of St. Louis, MO, while in the game, players will adventure in the new frontier of the San Francisco Bay area. The dramatic tapestry of the series and the intense action of the game will exist in a single universe where their respective narratives will inform one another and evolve together into one overall story.
The new series premieres April 15, at 9 p.m.

M. Night Shyamalan WAYWARD PINES
After a string of box-office and critical disasters in theaters, M. Night Shyamalan is turning to television to see if his fortunes pick up there.
According to Deadline, Shyamalan is the executive producer on a new "event series" for FX (home of American Horror Story) called Wayward Pines. Based on a best-selling novel called Pines, by Blake Crouch, the series is described as "an intense, mind-bending thriller evocative of the classic cult hit Twin Peaks."
The story follows a Secret Service agent named Ethan Burke who travels to the town of Wayward Pines, Idaho, in search of two missing federal agents. If you think he finds them, guess again: There's a lot more going on in Wayward Pines than Burke has bargained for, and it's very possible that he may end up sharing the same fate as the men he came to look for.
The pilot script was written by Chad Hodge and the show is envisioned as a "limited series," topping out at 10 to 12 episodes. If all goes well, FX is hoping to get it on the air in 2014.
Meanwhile, Shyamalan's next big-screen foray, After Earth, arrives in June, and we're sure he's hoping that the post-apocalyptic epic, which stars the father and son team of Will and Jaden Smith, will put the director back on top after misfires like Lady in the Water, The Happening and The Last Airbender.

Bones BONES RENEWED
Fox has renewed the hit series "Bones" for its upcoming ninth season, it was announced today by Kevin Reilly, Chairman of Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company.
"After more than 150 episodes, 'Bones' continues to be one of television's most dynamic and consistent dramas," said Reilly. "We at Fox, along with millions of zealous fans, look forward to seeing where the incredible creative team takes the series next season."
"Bones" returns with all-new episodes, beginning with a special two-hour Winter Premiere Monday, Jan. 14 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on Fox. In the episode, "The Diamond in the Rough/The Archeologist in the Cocoon," the Jeffersonian team investigates the death of a professional ballroom dancer who was murdered three days before her audition on a popular dancing competition show. In order to solve the case, Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz) go undercover as dance competitors to see if they can find potential suspects. Then, the team investigates the murder of a well-known archeologist with a questionable reputation, who came upon a career-defining discovery right before his death.
"Bones" is a darkly amusing procedural centered on a highly skilled forensic anthropologist and an FBI agent. These unlikely partners take on homicide cases involving human remains that most forensic specialists can't handle. The series stars Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, TJ Thyne, Michaela Conlin, Tamara Taylor and John Francis Daley.
"Bones" is from Far Field Productions and Josephson Entertainment in association with 20th Century Fox Television. The series was created by Hart Hanson. Hanson, Stephen Nathan, Ian Toynton, Barry Josephson and Jonathan Collier are executive producers.

Jack Reynor TRANSFORMERS 4
A rumored contender from late last year's short list, Jack Raynor has officially been chosen to play a leading role in Michael Bay's upcoming Transformers 4. Bay himself issued the following statement on his official site:
I just hired a great new actor for Transformers 4 to star against Mark Wahlberg. Jack Reynor, he is an Irish kid that came to America with 30 bucks in his pocket. Pretty ballsy. Seriously who does that? Anyway I spotted him in a great little Irish movie WHAT RICHARD DID. This kid is the real deal.
Transformers 4, is not a reboot. That word has been floating around on the net.
This movie takes place exactly 4 years after the war in Chicago. The story makes a very natural transition, and reason as to why we have a whole new cast. This Transformers will feel very different then the last three. We are embarking on a new trilogy.
Set for release on June 27, 2014, Transformers 4 will begin production this spring. The film will be produced by Don Murphy & Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Ian Bryce, and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Bay, Brian Goldner and Mark Vahradian.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2013

NASA'S DAWN MISSION
From planning epic Mars missions, to floating ideas for a space base, NASA is pretty busy these days. Luckily, they have Leonard Nimoy to explain the next big plan—a study of the asteroid belt that could hold the secrets to the genesis of the solar system.
The space agency is right in the middle of the Dawn mission, which sent a spacecraft to the asteroid belt to collect data that could shine a light on how the planets formed in the early days of the solar system.
The craft launched in 2007, but it took four years to finally arrive at the large Vesta asteroid, which it studied for over a year between 2011-2012. Next up? The spacecraft— NASA's fastest at 78,000 miles per hour—is headed to the dwarf planet Ceres (which accounts for approximately one-third of the asteroid belt) for more research.
The original Spock himself was kind enough to lend his voice to a new video explaining the project, which gives it that great Star Trek vibe. Plus, it's an excellent example of the cool work taking place in space exploration everyday.

DA VINCI'S DEMONS
After Spartacus became a hit, Starz decided to try their hand at another fantasy-tinged period piece with Da Vinci's Demons—and the new trailer looks like it could be a sexy, steampunk thrill ride.
Developed by David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight trilogy, Flashforward), the series will follow young inventor and artist Leonardo Da Vinci as he gets into all kinds of trouble in the 1400s.
Though it may look like a period action drama on the outside, Goyer told The Hollywood Reporter his vision of Da Vinci also owes a debt to modern-day comic book movies like Batman Begins:
"We've embellished it with what I'm calling historical fantasy; he had an incredible life and we didn't have to embellish as much as you'd think. I didn't want to do Ye Olde Historical Drama; I wanted to do something historical, viewed through a modern prism... Da Vinci is kind of superhero-y, there are so many legends and tall tales about him. People have said aside from Christ he's the most recognizable figure in the world. My approach wasn't unsimilar to adapting Batman and Superman -- obviously we did a lot more research."
From the uneven Flashforward, to under appreciated Threshold and Freakylinks, Goyer has a long history with TV. After helping hatch Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, it looks like he wants to bring some of that cinematic flair to the small screen this time around.

Godzilla GODZILLA
We've still got more than a year before the second American attempt to reboot Godzilla rampages into theaters, but it's not too early for the flick to be in trouble. Just months before production is set to begin, Legendary Pictures is ousting the flick's original producers and bringing in Frank Darabont to fix the script.
Though we don't know exactly what he's been called in to fix, or how in-depth his rewrites will be, Deadline is reporting that Darabont (best known to genre fans these days as the guy who brought The Walking Dead to TV) will take on a "final rewrite" of the script originally penned by The Seventh Son writer Max Borenstein.
Meanwhile, Dan Lin and Roy Lee, the Warner Bros. producers who first came to Legendary with the Godzilla rights, are being ousted from the flick. See, Legendary has the rights, and for some reason they're not pleased with Lin and Lee's work on the film so far. So they're exercising pay-or-play deals to buy off the producers. They'll get paid for working on the film, but they won't be credited in the final production, and they won't have any access to any back-end cash the movie generates (which is where the real money is made). Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni and Brian Rogers (who was in on the original deal with Japanese rightsholder Toho) are Legendary's choices to produce the flick now.
Why did this happen? Well, Deadline mentions the possibility that Legendary was mad at Lin for comments he dropped about the flick in interviews, while other reports suggest the split was amicable. But either way, things could still get uglier. Lin and Lee are important producers at Warner Bros. (Lin's been there for 15 years), and Warner Bros. is both co-financing and distributing Godzilla. Will the studio strike back at Legendary for taking Lin and Lee off the project? Will the movie be delayed? We don't know yet, but trouble of this sort never bodes well for an already-expensive flick that hasn't even started shooting yet.

Defiance DEFIANCE
One of Syfy's biggest shows coming out this year is Defiance, an epic tale set on alien-occupied Earth. Now we finally know when we'll get to see it.
The series, developed by Farscape mastermind Rockne S. O'Bannon, Kevin Murphy (Caprica) and Michael Taylor (Battlestar Galactica), will premiere with a two-hour pilot on Monday, April 15, at 9 p.m. The first season will consist of 12 episodes (making a total of 13 hours, including the two-hour premiere).
In addition to the series, the franchise will also tie in to a MMORPG video game set in the same universe. The Defiance game is expected to hit shelves around the same time that the show premieres.
The series stars Grant Bowler (True Blood), Julie Benz (Angel), Jaime Murray (Warehouse 13), Stephanie Leonidas, Tony Curran, Graham Greene and Mia Kirshner.
For a refresher on the concept, here's the synopsis:
Set in the near future, Defiance introduces an exotically transformed planet Earth, its landscapes permanently altered following the sudden - and tumultuous - arrival of seven unique alien races. In this somewhat unknown and unpredictable landscape, the richly diverse, newly-formed civilization of humans and aliens must learn to co-exist peacefully. Each week, viewers will follow an immersive character drama set in the boom-town of Defiance, which sits atop the ruins of St. Louis, MO, while in the game, players will adventure in the new frontier of the San Francisco Bay area. The dramatic tapestry of the series and the intense action of the game will exist in a single universe where their respective narratives will inform one another and evolve together into one overall story.

PACIFIC RIM
An alternate version of the trailer for Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim is now online, courtesy of Qualcomm. The video debuted as part of the company's presentation at CES in Las Vegas with del Toro himself in attendance.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on July 12, the film stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Brad William Henke and Diego Klattenhoff.
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot and an untested trainee who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind's last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013

GRIMM
It is so on when Grimm returns March 8.
Nick (David Giuntoli) finally learns the truth about Renard (Sasha Roiz) -- not only that he's a royal but has stolen the heart of his girlfriend, Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch).
"This had to come to a head -- we didn't want to play it out forever," executive producer David Greenwalt told reporters today (Jan. 6) at the TCA press tour. "It is [Nick's] girl Renard is messing around with -- albeit under a spell."
"I was very excited to finally have a confrontation," Roiz said. "It's going to be a powder keg. It's a lot of fun to work with David on a whole other level now that he's in the know."
"It finally all comes to a big angry kerfuffle, to resurrect a word," adds Giuntoli. "It comes to blows. He has a bit of a height advantage on me, but I had a rage advantage."
"There's a tremendous amount of stuff going on, in addition to the kerfuffle between these handsome men," reveals Tulloch. "There was also a sort of bedroom scene that was so intense that it required a stunt coordinator and hours of rehearsal, which 'Grimm' has not yet done. Which is really, really fun and crazy."
"[Juliet is] really starting to lose her mind," laughs Tulloch about her character's confused amnesia. "It's really trippy and kind of fabulous."
Fortunately, Rosalee Bree Turnerwill be coming to her rescue.
"I do go back to Portland just in time in regards to Juliette's condition," observes Turner about Bree's return after caring for her ailing aunt.
That's also good news for Rosalee and Monroe's Silas Weir Mitchell budding romance.
"Monroe and Rosalee are snuggling into the spice shop," says Mitchell, but emphasizes that the focus is "really about the love triangle. Monroe helps where he can and tries not to break things."
"Grimm" returns Friday, March 8 at 9 p.m. on NBC.

WHEN WILL YOUR FAVORITE SCIENCE FICTION SHOWS RETURN?
With the holidays and breaks of one sort or another, everyone must be asking when their favorite shows will return. Syfy has pulled together a great list giving us some answers.
Doctor Who had a huge night with its annual Christmas special, while Tron: Uprising returned to a big boost.
Tron Uprising MONDAY
Revolution (NBC) — OFF
Revolution is on a long midseason break. We won't see it again until March.
Tron: Uprising (DISNEY XD)
.26 million viewers/0.0 (Dec. 17) and .43 million viewers/0.1 (Dec. 24)
Tron: Uprising basically broke even the week before Christmas, but got a big boost for Christmas Eve, rising to its highest viewership since last June. As we head into the final stretch of the show's first season, we'll see if the trend continues.

Shows on Hiatus

Alphas (Syfy) — Returns Unknown
Being Human (Syfy) — Returns Jan. 14, 2013
Teen Wolf (MTV) — Returns 2013
Warehouse 13 (Syfy) — Returns April 2013

WEDNESDAY
Arrow (CW) — OFF
Arrow returns January 16th.

American Horror Story: Asylum (FX) — OFF
American Horror Story was off over the holidays. We'll talk about its return next week.

Dragons: Riders of Berk (TOON) — OFF
Dragons returns January 23rd.

The Neighbors (ABC) — OFF
The Neighbors is back January 9th.

Supernatural (CW) — OFF
Supernatural is back January 16th.

Shows on Hiatus
Futurama (Comedy) — Returns 2013

THURSDAY
The Big Bang Theory (CBS) — OFF
The Big Bang Theory returns to our list next week.

Person of Interest (CBS) — OFF
Person of Interest is also back on our list next week.

Elementary (CBS) — OFF
We'll also discuss Elementary again next week.

Last Resort (ABC) — OFF
Last Resort returns January 10th.

The Vampire Diaries (CW) — OFF
The Vampire Diaries returns January 17th.

Beauty and the Beast (CW) — OFF
Beauty and the Beast is back January 24th.

Shows on Hiatus
Saving Hope (NBC) — Returns Unknown
Touch (Fox) — Returns Feb. 1, 2013
Wilfred (FX) — Returns 2013

FRIDAY
Haven (Syfy) — OFF
Haven is back for a two-part finale January 17th.

Fringe Fringe (FOX)
3.02 million viewers/1.0/3 share
Fringe dipped a bit the week before Christmas, but the numbers are still steady. New episodes return January 11th.

Grimm (NBC) — OFF
Grimm is off until March.

Shows on Hiatus
Lost Girl (Syfy) — Returns January 6, 2013
Merlin (Syfy) — Returns January 4, 2013
Spartacus (Starz) — Returns January 25, 2013

Doctor Who SATURDAY
Doctor Who (BBC)
1.43 million viewers/0.6
Doctor Who returned to us briefly for its annual Christmas special, and BBC America reaped the benefits. "The Snowmen" was the second most-watched telecast ever on the network (the top spot is still held by Who's season seven premiere), and its highest-rated ever among adults 25 to 54. Will this continue when season seven returns?

Clone Wars (TOON) — OFF
Clone Wars is back Saturday.

Shows on Hiatus
Bedlam (BBC) — Returns Unknown

SUNDAY
Once Upon a Time (ABC) — OFF
Once Upon a Time is back Sunday.

666 Park Avenue (ABC) — OFF
666 Park Avenue is also back Sunday.

The Walking Dead (AMC) — OFF
The Walking Dead is back in February.

Shows on Hiatus
Falling Skies (TNT) — Returns 2013
Game of Thrones (HBO) — Returns March 31, 2013
True Blood (HBO) — Returns 2013

THE FOLLOWING
Fox has aired this new 3-minute promo for "The Following," starring Kevin Bacon and premiering on Monday, January 21 at 9/8c. "The Following" is the upcoming psychological thriller from creator/executive producer Kevin Williamson (“The Vampire Diaries,” “Dawson’s Creek,” the "Scream" franchise).
The FBI estimates there are currently up to 300 active serial killers in the United States. What would happen if these killers had a way of communicating and connecting with each other? What if they were able to work together and form alliances as they left a trail of blood across the country? What if one brilliant and charismatic, yet psychotic serial killer was able to bring them all together and activate a cult of believers following his every command?

THE BLUE UMBRELLA
The Wall Street Journal has debuted this first clip from Pixar's new short film, The Blue Umbrella.
The short will hit theaters with Monsters University on June 21.
Amidst the rain in a singing city, two umbrellas - one blue, one not - fall eternally in love.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 6, 2013

Orphan Black ORPHAN BLACK
Who are you if you're a clone? What about if you assume the clone's identity? Those are the questions at the heart of "Orphan Black," the upcoming BBC America show about a young woman named Sarah who finds out that there are more of her than meets the eye.
She's a clone. It's problematic.
The stars -- Tatiana Maslany (Sarah), Jordan Gavaris (Felix) and Dylan Bruce (Paul) -- and co-creator Graeme Manson did their best to explain the twisted and creepy new show. What did they share?
The story begins...
...With Sarah, a street-smart and independent orphan who sees a woman commit suicide by stepping in front of a train. The thing is, the dead woman looked exactly like Sarah. A purse-snatching and some identity theft later, Sarah has assumed the life of her doppelganger, Beth. But Beth's life turns out to have more than its share of problems.
And then there are more women who look like Sarah.
Clones!
The cast and producer wouldn't share exactly how many clones there would be -- or which of the women is the original -- but there may be a lot. "It's like 'The Parent Trap' on steroids," Bruce explained on the clone aspects of the show.
The results of all this
Although "Orphan Black" was originally conceived of as a feature, the writers decided there was too much story for just a couple of hours. The result is supposed to be a creepy (and at least occasionally sexy) descent into sci-fi territory.
The central theme of it all, according to Tatiana Maslany, is as follows: "It's all about the clone identity. What makes me me?"
You can find out the answer to that question when "Orphan Black" premieres on BBC America on Saturday, March 30 at 9pm.

Ripper Street RIPPER STREET
Jack the Ripper was the most notorious killer of the Victorian era, but he wasn't the only one. Haunted by their failure to apprehend him, the police on "Ripper Street," the new period procedural premiering January 19 on BBC America, have to move on.
"The whole idea for us setting out on this journey was to really discard Jack the Ripper at least in terms of wondering who he was or trying to catch him," creator Richard Warlow said at the TCA winter press tour Saturday (Jan. 5).
"What we wanted to do really was tell stories about the streets down which he walked and committed his crimes in the wake of those terrible murders and how it affected the community -- most importantly the police who tried and failed to catch him."
Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew MacFayden) and Detective Sergeant Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn, who plays Bronn on "Game of Thrones") are working during a "time of great change" and experimentation in police work, notes executive producer Will Gould. "So many things, like fingerprinting, were just around the corner, [but] our characters" -- especially roguish American captain Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) -- "felt they were in a modern age."
"Reid is convinced that if tomorrow's technology had been here today, they would've got the Ripper. They just didn't have the resources they needed to get that guy."
Thanks in part to the detectives' controversial and "cutting edge" (for that time) forensics, each episode of "Ripper Street" will feature a "standalone crime that is solved," promises Warlow. But will the "Ripper Street" detectives ever identify Jack?
"I think the answer's no," says Warlow. "The whole point of show is what it was like for police at the time --- the confusion and loss and trying to move on. The whole credo of Reid's character is that we are moving on, there are other things to concentrate on and we always have to be true to that."
"[The Ripper] will always be part of our characters' lives," notes Gould. "Obviously we'll never come up with this is the guy, because no one ever did."
"Unless we do work it out," laughs Warlow.
"If we work it out," cracks Gould, referencing the holiday-themed episodes of shows like "Downton Abbey" and "Doctor Who," "then it will be a Christmas special."
"Ripper Street" debuts Saturday, Jan. 19 at 9 p.m. on BBC America.

THOR: THE DARK WORLD
Next appearing on the big screen opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in January 18th's The Last Stand, Jaimie Alexander is also set to reprise her role as Sif in this fall's Thor: The Dark World. Today, Alexander spoke with IAmRogue about the Marvel Studios project in this video interview..
"We sort of explore the Sif/Thor relationship a little bit," she tells the outlet. "…It's more getting a feel of who these people are and how they are the way they are with each other."
Alexander goes on to discuss director Alan Taylor, the recasting of Fandral and the overall darker tone of Thor's third big screen appearance.
The sequel takes place in the aftermath of Thor and Marvel's The Avengers, following Thor as he fights to restore order across the cosmos when an ancient race, led by the vengeful Malekith, returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.
Thor: The Dark World hits theaters on November 8, 2013.

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, PART 2
Although physical DVDs and Blu-rays won't be hitting store shelves until January 29, Amazon already has Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 available for digital download.
With Gotham City back under his watchful eye, and accompanied by able sidekick Robin, Batman continues to battle crime – but his resurgence awakens a far worse evil at Arkham Asylum: The Joker. In the meantime, Superman has been dispatched by the President to halt Batman’s unsanctioned reign by whatever means necessary. Between the Joker’s diabolical scheme to drag Batman to the darkest levels of insanity, and the Man of Steel’s seemingly invincible physical presence, the Dark Knight must confront adversaries and allies simultaneously while maintaining the peace in Gotham City.
Primetime television stars Michael Emerson ("Person of Interest", "Lost") and Mark Valley ("Human Target," "Fringe") join the voice cast as The Joker and Superman, respectively; and popular talk show host Conan O’Brien gives voice to animated talk show host Dave Endochrine. Fanboy favorite Peter Weller (RoboCop, "Dexter") continues as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and he is once again accompanied by David Selby (The Social Network, Dark Shadows) as Commissioner Gordon, Ariel Winter ("Modern Family") as Carrie/Robin, and Michael McKean (This is Spinal Tap) as Dr. Bartholomew Wolper. Also featured in the voice cast is Maria Canals-Barrrera ("Wizards of Waverly Place") as new Commissioner Yindel, Paget Brewster ("Criminal Minds") as Lana Lang, and Radio Hall of Fame member Michael Jackson as Alfred.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 2013

Man of Steel MAN OF STEEL
Here's an intense shot of Krypton's favorite son surveying some unseen destruction from Zack Snyder's summer Superman reboot. Wonder what's being absorbed by those blue alien eyes? Take a look.
When the latest Man of Steel trailer launched last month, heat on this long-gestating project began to really ignite. With Snyder at the helm, the film has the operatic flair and gritty realism seen in the director's Watchmen adaptation and the Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy. While Nolan serves as executive producer on the film and no doubt applied a fine layer of creative veneer to the story along with co-writer David Goyer, it's Snyder's baby all the way.
This new image released shows Henry Cavill fixated on the horizon, with military tanks and helicopters flanking his advance.
Man of Steel soars onto movie screens on June 14, 2013.

John Barrowman JACK AND THE BEANSTALK
Captain Jack Harkness might be immortal (well, most of the time), but that doesn't mean that former Torchwood star John Barrowman can take a fall and keep on going without a hitch. After taking a tumble in a U.K. production of Jack and the Beanstalk today, the beloved genre actor was hospitalized with undisclosed injuries.
During a pantomime performance of the classic children's tale at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow, Barrowman was reportedly thrown from a horse and transported to a nearby hospital.
There has been no word on what type of injury Barrowman suffered, though The Mirror reports it is not believed to be serious. A BBC rep said Barrowman was checked into the hospital as a "precaution."
As for the performance, Barrowman's understudy stepped in after a 40-minute delay and wrapped things up.
In addition to his beloved character of Capt. Jack Harkness on Doctor Who and Torchwood, Barrowman has also made a big splash in the U.S. this season with a supporting role as the deliciously evil Dark Archer on The CW's Arrow.

Merlin cast MERLIN
For four years, Syfy's Merlin has delved into the tale of King Arthur, Merlin and Camelot, but don't think that because you know the legend you know how the series will end. The fantasy show, which premiered its fifth and final season last night on Syfy, takes some dark and shocking turns, said actors Colin Morgan, Bradley James and Katie McGrath in an exclusive interview with Blastr.
"There are certain things, certain ways that the story is being told that are incredibly surprising," said James, who plays King Arthur.
"It pushes all our characters further than they've ever been before," said McGrath, who plays the evil Morgana. "I think it's the most extreme season that we've done. It's also the darkest season. It's the most filmic. Every year with Merlin, rather than it sort of finding a formula that works and resting on that, it's pushed it further and challenged it and changed a little bit in response to what worked and what didn't. I think season five is the culmination of all of that. I think it is our most grown-up, it's our most capable, it's our darkest and it's our most cinematic one yet."
Season five begins a couple years after the events of season four, with King Arthur and Queen Guinevere ruling over a Camelot that's entering a golden age. However, magic is still outlawed, and Morgana and others plot to destroy all that Arthur has built.
"Merlin's very much by Arthur's side as we enter into the new season with them in a place where Camelot is in a good position," said Morgan, who plays Merlin. "But Merlin's got people coming at him from all sides trying to trap him into a corner, and so he's got to fight back as good as he can get. He's definitely at his most powerful this year and I think becoming the wise advisor of the legends that we know him to be. He has grown up. It was always going to be a growing-up tale for Merlin, so this is him at his most grown-up, I think."
As for King Arthur, years have passed since the events of season four and "the kingdom has found its place. It has become what Arthur has been searching for, and as the nightingale sings, it rests in a lovely place, in the Camelot that he wants it to be. And that unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, isn't very dramatic, so we didn't film any of that. And we find Camelot where things are about to happen, which could potentially disrupt that. So for Arthur, he's in a very comfortable place with his kingdom where he wants it to be," said James.
Some of those things that are about to happen will undoubtedly involve the trouble-making Morgana.
"The important thing that you need to remember about Morgana in season five is that between season four and season five she has been imprisoned for two years. So she has spent two years being persecuted for being magical. For her, that is her every fear come true. Everything that she had been afraid of for the whole season and whole series, actually. And the fact that that has happened has kind of vindicated her anger and has pushed it forward. So she now feels entirely right that she should go out and fight against Arthur to bring magic back to the kingdom, because in her head, if that doesn't happen, she will then spend more time in prison, [as other] people like her will," said McGrath. "So she's more committed."
But will any of the main characters actually find out that Merlin has magic ... finally?
"You know what, they'll invent traffic cones before Arthur finds out about that," joked James.
"The traffic cones of Camelot? Yeah," McGrath added with a laugh.
What the young actors do promise is that viewers will not be disappointed when it comes to the show's final season.
"I think the ending is only one of the things that is going to happen for our characters this season. Obviously it's a big one with a full stop and a final note, but each of our characters goes through so much in the 13 episodes before they get there. It's not the only thing that's important for my character. There's the relationship and change between her and Guinevere, there's Mordred coming back. There's scenes that I have with Merlin. There's a lot going on before we even get to episodes 12 and 13, and I think every episode brings something for the character," said McGrath. "It's a real delicatessen of a series. It's just got so many brilliant ingredients. So many brilliant ingredients, for everyone."
"This has been an epic journey, and we've ended on a high. Yeah, very proud of it. Very lucky as well," said Morgan.

BATES MOTEL
A&E Network will premiere the new original scripted drama series "Bates Motel" from executive producers Carlton Cuse ("Lost") and Kerry Ehrin ("Friday Night Lights") on Monday, March 18 at 10 PM ET/PT, it was announced today by Bob DeBitetto, President and GM of A&E Network and Bio Channel.
"Bates Motel" is a contemporary prequel to the genre-defining film Psycho, and promises to give viewers an intimate portrayal of how Norman Bates' psyche unravels through his teenage years. Fans will have access to the dark, twisted backstory of Norman Bates and how deeply intricate his relationship with his mother, Norma, truly is. The series stars Academy Award nominee Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air (The Departed), Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland), Max Thieriot (Disconnect), Olivia Cooke (Blackout) and Nicola Peltz (The Last Airbender). Season one also co-stars Nestor Carbonell ("Lost," The Dark Knight Rises) and Mike Vogel ("Pan Am").
"Carlton and Kerry crafted a fascinating backstory for Norman and Norma Bates that has been brought to life by this incredible cast," said DeBitetto. "It's thought provoking television at its finest and we're thrilled to bring it to the A&E family."
In "Bates Motel," following the tragic death of her husband, Norma Bates buys a motel on the outskirts of the idyllic coastal town of White Pine Bay, seeking a fresh start. As Norma and Norman get ensconced in their new home, they discover this town isn't quite what it seems, and the locals aren't so quick to let them in on their secrets. But the Bates' are done being pushed around and will do whatever it takes to survive - and will do whatever it takes to protect their own secrets.
"Bates Motel" is produced by Universal Television for A&E Network. Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin serve as executive producers for Carlton Cuse Productions.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 2013

EVIL DEAD
Don't worry, Evil Dead purists. The upcoming reboot will be at least as bloody, if not bloodier, than the original. Need proof? Check out the brand new red band trailer that is jam-packed with scares and gore (but you'll have to be over 18 to see it!).
It looks like new director Fede Alvarez is trying to put his own twist on the classic Evil Dead tropes, and the new footage here looks much darker than Sam Raimi's seminal classic. This is shaping up to be one seriously disturbing (in a good way) horror film.
The new freaky Deadite shots are absolutely chilling, and the reimagining of that infamous tree attack looks to be even more uncomfortable to watch than the original (if that's even possible). Oh, and the Necronomicon 2.0 looks extra-creepy.

Firefly ARROW's FIREFLY
Arrow's still on winter break, but The CW's released a sneak peek at an upcoming episode. Months ago it was confirmed that Firefly (a character who appears in the comics) would debut on the show. Now we've got our first look at him and all his torched glory.
Arrow's version of the villain is a former firefighter who was badly burned on the job. He was severely mutilated and has serious rage issues.
Firefly is played by Andrew Dunbar, who previously appeared as Marine corporal Gorman on SGU Stargate Universe and had a brief stint on Battlestar Galactica. Dunbar rolls into Starling City later this month, when Arrow returns with its midseason premiere, "Burned."
Arrow is back Jan. 16 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, PART 2
Later this month, the battle for Gotham continues. In the upcoming sequel, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2, an older Bruce Wayne will fight the good fight. But before catching the film on DVD, Blu-ray or VOD, check out this new action-packed clip.
Batman's back in the game, and once again he'll battle his archenemy the Joker. He'll also have to deal with the Last Son of Krypton, Superman, who's been sent to reel him in. Peter Weller (RoboCop, Dexter) reprises his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman, while Michael Emerson (Person of Interest, Lost) and Mark Valley (Human Target, Fringe) bring the Joker and the Man of Steel to life.
Modern Family star Ariel Winter plays Carrie Kelley/Robin, David Selby (The Social Network, Dark Shadows) voices Commissioner Gordon, and Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) tackles Lana Lang.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 will be available Jan. 29.

Doctor Who Stamps DOCTOR WHO STAMPS
The Royal Mail's decided to celebrate Doctor Who's 50th anniversary. In honor of the Time Lord, they've unveiled 15 special-edition postage stamps. They salute not one, but every Doctor, as well as some of his biggest foes.
If you're a diehard fan of the series, this stamp set's for you. It gives us a history lesson by highlighting all the actors who've played the popular role. Dating back to William Hartnell, who first portrayed the Doctor in 1963, to current star Matt Smith.
The stamps also feature the Doctor's most memorable enemies, such as Daleks, Oods, Weeping Angels and the Cybermen. They appear on an exclusive 50th-anniversary card centered around the TARDIS.
The Doctor Who stamps go on sale March 26, but they're available for pre-order now. Just go to the Royal Mail website.

Hawaii Five O HAWAII FIVE O - ENDING IN REAL TIME
For the first time in television history, a primetime drama will allow viewers to choose the ending of an episode in real time when CBS's "Hawaii Five-0" lets fans vote on CBS.com or Twitter during the East and West Coast broadcasts, Monday, Jan. 14, 2013 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
The mystery begins on #H50 when the team must investigate the death of an O'ahu State University professor. His boss, his teaching assistant and a student who he busted for cheating are all viable suspects.
To vote, after each of the suspect's motives is revealed, viewers will be directed to CBS.com or Twitter to select either #theBoss, #theTA or #theStudent as the culprit, any of whom could have committed the crime. The votes will be tallied immediately and the most popular ending will become part of the broadcast. Separate voting will occur for East/Central and Pacific Time Zone broadcasts. The three different endings will all be available at CBS.com after the broadcasts.
"I've always felt the most fun aspect of watching a mystery is trying to figure out 'whodunit,'" says Executive Producer Peter Lenkov. "Now the 'Hawaii Five-0' viewers will actually get the chance to tell us who they think committed the crime and we will listen. I love that our dedicated and attentive fans will actually play a part in resolving our story."
"Hawaii Five-0" is broadcast Mondays, (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network and is a production of CBS Television Studios. Peter Lenkov, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are the executive producers.

Ashley Tisdale LEFT BEHIND
Ashley Tisdale, who can be seen in the upcoming Scary Movie 5, is joining Nicolas Cage and Chad Michael Murray in Left Behind, which follows a group of survivors during the first few hours after the Rapture.
Deadline says she'll be playing Chloe Steele, the daughter of Cage's Ray Steele character. After millions of people suddenly disappear from Earth, Chloe wanders America looking to find any remaining members of her family.
Murray will playing the role of journalist Cameron “Buck” Williams in the remake of the Christian-themed movie franchise.
Vic Armstrong will direct the $15 million project from Stoney Lake Entertainment, the new production company led by Paul Lalonde of Cloud Ten Pictures. Filming is expected to start in early spring for a fourth quarter 2013 release by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The franchise is based on the series of books written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins that have sold more than 65 million copies worldwide. Kirk Cameron starred in the original trilogy of which the first film hit theaters in 2001.

Star Trek Into Darkness STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
A few weeks ago, scanned images from Star Trek Into Darkness in the latest issue of Empire magazine found their way onto the internet. Now we've got the high quality versions from Paramount. Go to http://www.comingsoon.net/imageGallery/Star_Trek_Into_Darkness to see the entire photo gallery.
Star Trek Into Darkness stars John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller. It is described as follows:
In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice.
As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

Merlin MERLIN RETURNS TONIGHT, JANUARY 4
I am happy to report that MERLIN returns to Syfy on January 4. This is the fifth and final season for this wonderful series. It will air at 10:00pm. Stay tuned here for episode clips and other information on the series.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 2013

Captain America CAPTAIN AMERICA NEWS
We've held out hope, but now we're getting confirmation that a beloved Captain America character will not make a return appearance in the highly anticipated sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier. All we can say is: bummer.
After that Avengers deleted scene that alluded to the fact that Peggy Carter was still alive and kicking more than 60 years after the events of Captain America, we've held out hope that the lovely English actress would return to reprise her role (even if it was only in flashbacks) in the sequel. Alas, our hopes have just been crushed by actress Hayley Atwell herself.
In an interview with Time Out, it was simply stated that "She won't, she confirms, be back for the [Captain America] sequel."
Well, while we can't say that we're surprised by the news, we're still a bit crushed by it. Atwell was a real breath of fresh air, and her Peggy Carter was a strong woman with spunk. She was a real equal to our good ol' Cap (Chris Evans) himself, and could more than hold her own against the boys in the testosterone-fueled film.
We know the powers-that-be at Marvel are actually looking to fill in the role of a new love interest in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. That new love interest? Peggy Carter's own niece Sharon Carter. Back in October, they were looking at five actresses for the role, but since then, nothing.
And since Peggy Carter's age sits at around 80 to 90, they'll probably find an actress a tad closer to that age to fill in the role if Peggy makes it in Captain America 2 (just like the way they aged up the late Gloria Stuart to play the elderly Rose in Titanic).
Captain America: The Winter Soldier will star Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Frank Grillo, Cobie Smulders with Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson. It'll hit theaters on April 4, 2014.

GHOST RECON
Comic books have ruled the big screen the past few years, but it looks like videogames are wanting to make a strong push back in 2013 and beyond. The latest? Future-set action series Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, which is based on a military special-ops team.
Ubisoft Motion Pictures chief executive Jean-Julien Baronnet confirmed to the L.A. Times that film development is underway and they could start shopping a pitch to studios this year.
The future war franchise has been kicking around for more than a decade and has evolved from an original Playstation 2 edition to the latest 2024-set sequel on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The franchise has spawned about a dozen sequels, but there's been no word on exactly what storyline the film will follow. Missions typically center around a special-ops team as they go on super-secret missions steeped in danger and political intrigue. Not a bad setup for a film.
Ghost Recon joins fellow Ubisoft properties Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed as currently being in development for the big screen. The company has smartly opted to attract big stars for the proposed features, with Michael Fassbender attached to Assassin's Creed and Tom Hardy in talks to star in Splinter Cell. No word on who they'll try to tap for Ghost Recon, but it's likely they'll go after a star to anchor it.
To get a feel for how the franchise might translate to live action, the studio created a pretty great short film prequel, Ghost Recon: Alpha, for the latest edition of the game/

Clone Wars STAR WARS: CLONE WARS
Hope you saved some bubbly for Saturday when Star Wars: The Clone Wars celebrates the century mark. Here's a fitting five-minute salute to the ambitious animated series and its latest launch, centering on an MIA Republic commando.
The Clone Wars is showing some heroic longevity, with Saturday's historic episode, "Missing in Action," outliving the TV lifespans of both Star Trek and the new Battlestar Galactica. Now that Lucasfilm has been absorbed by Disney's mighty tractor beam, the expansive and illuminating Clone Wars empire will most likely make a light-speed leap to a permanent home on Disney XD. This tribute was delivered by EW. Follow this link to the video:
http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/01/02/star-wars-the-clone-wars-watch-exclusive-clip-from-100th-episode-video/
Here's the official press release:
Given the series' title and its backdrop of galactic warfare, Star Wars: The Clone Wars often focuses on the valiant and tireless clone troopers tasked to defend the Republic from darkness. The vivid personalities of these soldiers often challenge many assumptions about the nature of clones, and has created a roster of individual heroes. This tradition continues in the 100th broadcast episode, "Missing in Action," with the intriguing addition of Gregor, a Republic clone commando suffering from amnesia who has seemingly forgotten his true nature.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars' 100th episode, "Missing in Action," hits the airwaves Jan. 5 at 9:30 a.m. ET/PT on Cartoon Network.

Star Trek STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - SPOILER WARNING
We've just learned of some VERY tantalizing new details concerning J.J. Abrams' upcoming and highly anticipated Trek sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness. Be aware that there are some MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
According to Bleeding Cool, the recent issue of Empire Magazine—out in the U.S. now—contains a new plot description for the upcoming tentpole summer movie.
Again, be aware that there are some MAJOR SPOILERS ahead! You've been warned.
Right, on with it then:
with Earth under terrorist attack from Benedict Cumberbatch's ex-Starfleet employee John Harrison, Kirk is this time forced into a rash decision that breaks a critical Starfleet command, puts his crew in danger & costs him his captain's chair. Now out of uniform and dressed down in space civvies of black leather jackets and boots, our three heroes have separated from the Enterprise and headed off on a mission to try and rectify his mistake...

Last Exorcism Part II THE LAST EXORCISM PART II
CBS Films has revealed the poster for The Last Exorcism Part II, opening in theaters on March 1.
In the movie, which continues where the first film left off, Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell) is found terrified and alone in rural Louisiana. Back in the relative safety of New Orleans, Nell realizes that she can't remember entire portions of the previous months only that she is the last surviving member of her family. Just as Nell begins the difficult process of starting a new life, the evil force that once possessed her is back with other, unimaginably horrific plans that mean her last exorcism was just the beginning.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2013

Skyfall SKYFALL SETS RECORD
Sony and MGM have plenty to toast about as Skyfall rings out 2012 by crossing the $1 billion mark in global ticket sales.
Directed by Sam Mendes and marking Daniel Craig's third turn as 007, the movie reached the milestone Sunday when its worldwide tally hit $1 billion, by far the best showing of any Bond pic, not accounting for inflation. Skyfall has grossed $289.6 million domestically and $710.6 million internationally, becoming the highest grossing film in Sony's history and the first to jump $1 billion.
Skyfall continued to break records in the U.K. during the weekend, grossing $1.4 million for a total take of $161.6 million and becoming the first movie to ever cross the 100 million pound mark.
The film, from Eon Productions, is the 23rd installment in the iconic British spy franchise. Skyfall also stars Javier Bardem, Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes.
Skyfall is the third movie of 2012 to cross $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales after Disney and Marvel's The Avengers ($1.51 billion) and Warner Bros.' The Dark Knight Rises ($1.08 billion). Including Skyfall, only 14 films have grossed $1 billion or more.
"It is truly thrilling to reach this incredible milestone," said MGM chairman-CEO Gary Barber.
Added Sony vice chairman Jeff Blake: “To see a film connect with audiences is always gratifying, but the success of this film is nothing short of extraordinary. After 50 years of entertaining audiences all over the world, Skyfall is the most successful James Bond film of all time."

THE WALKING DEAD
Over the holiday break, AMC revealed a new preview for the remaining half of "The Walking Dead" Season 3. Said sneak peek hit YouTube, yes, however we have a clean look at the preview which features new footage of the drama that will kick up between The Governor and Rick Grimes when the season resumes February 10th.
Based on the comic book series written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics, "The Walking Dead" stars Andrew Lincoln, Laurie Holden, Steven Yeun, Norman Reedus, Chandler Riggs, Lauren Cohan, Scott Wilson, Melissa McBride, Chad Coleman, David Morrissey and Danai Gurira.

MONSTER UNIVERSITY
This TV spot for Monsters University aired during the Rose Bowl football game on the Disney-owned ESPN. The promo is described as follows:
"Get a glimpse at the wide variety of creatures and schools that make Monsters University the premiere destination for academic excellence. Now is the perfect time to find out if MU is right for you!
Coming to theaters on June 21, 2013, Monsters University unlocks the door to how Mike and Sulley overcame their differences and became the best of friends.

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES
Warner Bros. Pictures has started airing this first TV spot for Beautiful Creatures, the big screen adaptation starring Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, Thomas Mann and Zoey Deutch.
Written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, the February 13 release tells the tale of two star-crossed lovers: Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), a young man longing to escape his small town, and Lena (Alice Englert), a mysterious new girl. Together, they uncover dark secrets about their respective families, their history and their town.

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
Walt Disney Pictures has released New Year's promos for director Sam Raimi's Oz The Great and Powerful.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on March 8, Oz The Great and Powerful imagines the origins of L. Frank Baum’s beloved character, the Wizard of Oz. When Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he's hit the jackpot--fame and fortune are his for the taking--that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity--and even a bit of wizardry--Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.

Happy New Year

TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2013

CONVENTION CALENDAR
I have updated the Convention Calendar with some great events coming this year, including one that has a number of Babylon 5 cast members attending. Be sure to check out the calendar to see if there will be one near you. If you know of a convention that should be listed, please send that information along and I'll post it for everyone to see.

JMS INTERVIEW
Ranger Jim has sent along this link to an interview with The Great Maker, J. Michael Straczynski. http://www.previewsworld.com/Home/1/1/71/977?articleID=128060. Enjoy.

Sonequa Martin-Green ONCE UPON A TIME
Sonequa Martin-Green is headed from one popular genre series to another -- the recent "The Walking Dead" addition has also booked a recurring role on "Once Upon a Time."
"Dead" fans saw Martin-Green's debut in the midseason finale "Made to Suffer," playing the role of Sasha, the sister of Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) who led a new band of survivors into the prison. She's expected to play an important role in the second half of Season 3 when "Dead" returns to AMC on Feb. 10, 2013.
On "Once Upon a Time," Martin-Green has landed the mysterious new role of Tamara and will appear in multiple Season 2 episodes with the possibility of returning in Season 3. TVLine reported the casting and notes that details of the role are being kept under wraps.
How this may impact Sasha's future on "Dead" is unclear. The horror hit has already wrapped filming on Season 3. If Season 4 follows a similar production schedule, it would begin filming again around May.

FRINGE - SPOILER WARNING
We're still not ready to say goodbye to "Fringe," but we're going to have to get used to the idea -- there's only one more episode left before the two-hour finale event airs on January 18. Zap2it just got a sneak peek at the next new episode, "The Boy Must Live," which will air on January 11.
In the most recent episode, we barely had time to recover from Nina's death when it was revealed that Donald, Walter's mysterious partner in his quest to save the world, was actually September, our favorite Observer. In "The Boy Must Live," some of the biggest questions about September are finally answered when we reunite with the one who started it all.
The episode is best described as a gift to longtime fans of the show, returning to the core themes of the first season and packed with callbacks to memorable early moments, of both the heartwarming and heartbreaking variety. While we've been sworn to secrecy on some of the big twists, we can tell you six things to expect as we approach the series finale of one of the most underrated shows on television.
1. Olivia gets an eyeful. In the first of many callbacks to the pilot episode, Walter goes into the sensory deprivation tank to pull memories of September from his subconscious. He's not a fan of the swim trunks he's supposed to be wearing, though. "They were too restrictive. My body needs to be as free and open as my mind is so I can find September," he tells Olivia. It's good to know that even with his brain intact, Walter is still Walter.
2. Time travel to 2609. Captain Windmark blips into the distant future to get some answers -- and he admits that he's become consumed by the idea of eliminating Walter, Peter, and Olivia from existence entirely.
3. Walter and Peter's relationship shifts. We've always been a little bummed that in this timeline, Walter doesn't remember all of the development and growth that occurred between him and Peter over the course of the first three seasons. The father/son bonding was such an important theme to the show, so it was disappointing to have it erased, at least where Walter was concerned. There's some much-needed resolution to that in the very beginning of this episode.
4. The Observer origin story. We'll finally learn how they were created, and why. One particularly interesting piece of information? Because Observers don't feel romantic love, human methods of reproduction -- became inconvenient, and they developed a new way to reproduce, using genetic material from donors. Michael's genetic makeup is important.
5. A tiny spark of hope. As revealed in the above trailer for the episode, September and Walter's plan involves resetting time -- which gives Olivia hope that she and Peter may see Etta again. But we've seen in the past that wishful thinking can be a dangerous thing, and Peter is hesitant to be even cautiously optimistic.
6. One last sacrifice. This season, Etta and Nina both sacrificed their own lives for the greater good, making conscious decisions to die so that Walter, Peter, and Olivia could go on to save the world. In "The Boy Must Live," we learn that one more character we've grown to love will have to sacrifice his or her life in order to complete the plan.
Tune in January 11 at 9 p.m. EST.

Oblivion OBLIVION
Standing out in a crowded galaxy of sci-fi flicks ain't easy. To get your attention, Tron: Legacy's Joseph Kosinski wants geek fans to cozy up to his new Tom Cruise tentpole and lays out a sunny welcome mat that's both familiar and strange.
How do you lure rear ends into movie seats for an original genre flick devoid of recognizable logos from the recent realms of comics or videogames? First, grab Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman to star. For his big-budget action fable chronicling the life of a dreary drone technician stranded on a barren, post-apocalyptic Earth, writer/director Joseph Kosinski is opening the blinds and letting the sun shine in.
In an interview with Collider, Kosinski digs deep into the genesis of the Disney-turned-Universal project and how the marketing campaign seeks to distinguish it as a fresh entry against the darker sci-fi fare of yesteryear. Instead of the dark future a la Alien, he's aiming for something a little brighter:
"You've got to build awareness early because we don't have a built in fan base, you know, we're not Star Trek or Batman or Superman and we've got to build from scratch ... I spent about a year just writing treatments and bidding on project after project with no success, and in order to keep myself from going insane I wrote this treatment for this small character driven science fiction film that I knew I had to keep contained if it was ever going to be my first movie.
So I modeled it thinking back to Omega Man or Silent Running, these very character driven stories that had a small cast of characters but set against an epic backdrop with big ideas. In terms of the look and my vision for it I felt that I wanted to do something that I hadn't seen in a while, which was a daytime science fiction film. After Alien, which is one of my favorites, science fiction kind of went into a very dark place for a long time and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to bring it into the daylight. So this aesthetic of taking this kind of very clean refined technology set against a rugged backdrop, which ended up being Iceland.""
From the highly stylized hardware and polished sheen depicted in the trailer, Kosinski clearly has optimistic sights set for Oblivion and hopes hardcore fans and newbie audiences will applaud his efforts to deliver a bright science-fiction baby for the new year.
Oblivion opens April 26, 2013.

JOHN DIES AT THE END
We now live in a time when "anti-piracy" ads are the norm. That's kind of sad. Still, it allows some promo campaigns for movies to get creative. Take John Dies at the End, for example. The Don Coscarelli-directed film is now available on VOD and Magnet Releasing has released a new "anti-piracy trailer."
A note accompanied the piece: "Before pirating JOHN DIES AT THE END be sure to watch the video below as stealing the film could result in severe health issues. Support independent films. Support something different…all without leaving your home, heck your bed. It's so simple even a meat monster could do it."

MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2012

Star Trek - Cumberbatch STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
As we get closer to Star Trek Into Darkness' release date, the more we're getting tantalizing bits and pieces about J.J. Abrams' highly anticipated sequel and its extremely enigmatic villain, John Harrison, played by Benedict Cumberbatch.
The Sherlock actor and Abrams are at it again and are once more teasing us about the upcoming Trek sequel's Big Bad.
In video interviews from Korea (from the Korean site Naver Movies), brought to us by TrekMovie, both Cumberbatch and Abrams have offered more enticing details about "John Harrison."
About his villain character, Cumberbatch says:
He is an extraordinary terrorist of sorts. He uses himself as a warrior with weapons and close hand combat to just reap devastation and havoc wherever he goes and a trail of destruction follows him. What is interesting from an acting point of view — beyond doing the stunts and choreographed fight sequences....was also the psychological warfare that he acts out. He has an incredible ability to control people's minds to his bidding and make them — well confuse the radar of their loyalties and prerogatives, so that was great fun. So it was a great mixture of intense acting scenes and action scenes.
Trek director Abrams also pondered Cumberbatch's villain and what the actor brings to the role:
Benedict is an amazing actor. He is someone who brings this incredible intelligence and depth and truth to whatever he does. When I saw Sherlock I thought "here is a guy who is making Sherlock Holmes into a character that I absolutely relate to, love watch, makes me laugh — I really feel for him. It's Sherlock Holmes but someone Benedict Cumberbatch is completely bringing it to life and making it real. We needed someone for this character who is going to ground the character and make him relatable and be frightening and intense and believable. Not because he is raving and insane but because he is rational. And he brought this incredible sense of sophistication and psychological complexity to the role and we were very luck to get him.
The best and greatest Star Trek villains have always been the ones we've been able to somewhat relate to, such as Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) from the original series' episode "Space Seeds" and The Wrath of Kahn and even Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—villains who always think they're actually doing the right thing and believe that THEY are the heroes of the story.
Star Trek Into Darkness will be released on May 17, 2013.

HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS
In addition to the trailer, Paramount Pictures has started airing two TV spots for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, hitting North American theaters on January 11 and Australian theaters on February 7.
Directed by Tommy Wirkola, the action thriller stars Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Peter Stormare, Derek Mears and Thomas Mann.
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters takes place 15 years after the siblings' incident at the gingerbread house. The two are now specialized bounty hunters looking to put down the cackling black-hat set.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2012

DEAD MAN DOWN
The first trailer for the crime thriller Dead Man Down, starring Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Dominic Cooper and Terrence Howard, has appeared online. It's the first English language film from Danish filmmaker Niels Arden Oplev, who previously directed Rapace in the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Farrell plays Victor, a professional killer who is being blackmailed by Rapace's Beatrice, a woman from across the street who saw Victor murder someone and convinces him to help her get revenge on the man who maimed her in a violent crime.
Dead Man Down will be released by FilmDistrict on Friday, March 8.

THE AVENGERS
Earlier this year, SuperHeroHype had the opportunity to visit Industrial Light & Magic and speak with some of the artists behind 2012's biggest box office hit, Marvel's The Avengers. Today, ILM has released a new featurette that shows off some of the complicated effects that went into building the film's epic finale.
Written and directed by Joss Whedon, Marvel's The Avengers stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Cobie Smulders, Clark Gregg and Samuel L. Jackson. The third-largest box office hit of all time, The Avengers earned more than $1.5 billion worldwide. It's still-untitled sequel is slated to hit theaters on May 10, 2015.

Game of Thrones MOST PIRATED FILMS & SHOWS FOR 2012
TorrentFreak have released their annual lists of the most pirated movies and TV shows of 2012, and the winner of the film list is not one you'd expect.
"Project X," the widely panned teen comedy about three nerds who throw a party that spirals out of control, took the top spot on the film list with 8.72 million illegal downloads in 2012.
It just edges out much higher profile action tentpoles like "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" (8.5m), "The Dark Knight Rises" (8.23m), and "The Avengers" (8.11m).
Also making the list are "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" (7.85m), "21 Jump Street" (7.59m), David Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (7.42m), "The Dictator" (7.33m), "Ice Age: Continental Drift" (6.96m), and "The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1" (6.74m). On the TV front, HBO's big-budget fantasy series "Game of Thrones" easily dominated the small screen list with a single episode of this year's second season receiving 4.28 million downloads. Showtime's "Dexter" was the runner-up with 3.85 million.
Then came two sitcoms, "The Big Bang Theory" (3.2m) & "How I Met Your Mother" (2.96m), followed by acclaimed cable dramas "Breaking Bad" (2.58m), "The Walking Dead" (2.55m) and "Homeland" (2.40m).
Rounding out the Top 10 were "House" (2.34m), "Fringe" (2.28m), and "Revolution" (2.13m).
Unsurprisingly, more than 80% of TV show piracy happens outside the United States. Lack of availability, rather than price, is also the main reason people torrent.
The most interesting statistic is that Australia is the #1 illegal downloader of 'Thrones', accounting for approximately 10% of global total. The next nearest is the U.S. with 9.7%.
When you take population size into account though, that means approximately 1.95% of the entire Australian population illegally downloads an average episode of 'Thrones'. In comparison, only 0.13% of the U.S. population does the same.
In fact, the results have been broken down by city with Sydney and London being the biggest downloaders. Taking population into account, approximately 2.77% of Sydney residents will download an episode of 'Thrones' through illicit means.
The main reason is delays. Cable service provider Foxtel would air new episodes of 'Thrones' one week after their U.S. broadcast. TorrentFreak's study shows that 90% of all illegal downloads take place within the first week of an episode's broadcast.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2012

WONDERFUL HOLIDAY

I had a wonderful holiday with family and hope that you all did the same. With the new year approaching, it is a time of reflection. I hope that you all take stock in what you have -- family, friends -- and give thanks in whatever fashion is appropriate for you. Knowing what is important in life is a very, very important lesson -- and one that isn't assessed by a dollar amount. The love we give and receive enriches our lives beyond any monetary value.

HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY, STAN LEE!
On Dec. 28, 1922, Stanley Lieber was born to Jewish immigrants and then raised in the swelling mass of the Bronx. In 90 years he would learn to play the flute, grow a mustache and, oh yeah, reshape comic books as we know them.
It's exciting to see Stan "The Man" Lee still out at seemingly endless comic conventions. He's still full of energy, still smiling, still ready to greet every fan. It's easy to forget that he's just turned 90 because, frankly, he's got more pep in his step than men (myself included) a quarter his age.
In celebration of his birthday, it's nice to look back at Stan's many accomplishments. Did you know that, as an editor for Marvel (then TImely) Comics, he oversaw the release of 15.2 million comics in 1952 alone? It's true. Not only that, Stan had to battle with the ever-changing genre shifts that comics underwent from 1948 to around 1958. Superheroes, westerns, horror, crime, romance and back to superheroes. Stan had to adapt to them all, and he did so with aplomb.
Then there's the Marvel way of writing comics, which Stan invented. The idea of giving an outline to an artist and then filling in the story later would, despite controversy that exists even today, revolutionize the comic book industry.
Without Stan, there would be no X-Men, no Fantastic Four, no Spider-Man, no Thor, Doctor Strange or countless others. We'd call him the King of Comics if Jack Kirby hadn't already nabbed the title. Still, he is, without question, the patriarch of this industry, and we're proud to have him around, kicking, and still influencing writers and artists today.
So, happy birthday, Stan!

DOCTOR WHO
We may have until April to wait for the second half of Doctor Who's seventh series, but that just means the BBC (and Steven Moffat, likely) will have months' worth of opportunities to sneak glimpses of new Who footage wherever we look. The latest BBC promo, for example ...
This is a case of blink-and-you'll-miss-it viewing, but play close attention and you'll get two quick snippets. One is right toward the beginning, and the other is at the tail end.
In both brief clips, the Doctor puts his hands on Clara's face and, in the second, he even goes so far as to kiss her on the forehead. Now, granted, there was some similar affection between the Doctor and Amy. Then again, Amy seemed awfully keen to participate in some sexual extracurriculars with the Doctor despite her pending nuptials. Now the shoe is on the other foot and it's the Doctor who is already married.

MANIAC
Maniac, the remake of the William Lustig film of the same name, is making its overseas debut soon and its international distributor (Warner Bros., in this case) has released the first six minutes in anticipation of its release!
In the film, Elijah Wood plays Frank, a man - haunted by seedy memories of his promiscuous mother - who works in a mannequin shop by day and stalks 'n kills women by night. Things take a turn in his life when he meets a beautiful photographer (Nora Arnezeder). Franck Khalfoun directs.
Maniac is directed by Franck Khalfoun. Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur penned the script - you know them from High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha.

Hobbit THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has surpassed the $500 million benchmark at the worldwide box office. To date, the blockbuster has earned an estimated $179.7 million domestically. In addition, on the heels of its record-breaking release in Australia -- the biggest Boxing Day opening of all time -- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has grossed an estimated $344 million internationally, for a global total of $523.7 million.
The joint announcement was made today by Toby Emmerich, President and Chief Operating Officer, New Line Cinema; Gary Barber, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios; Dan Fellman, President of Domestic Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures; and Veronika Kwan Vandenberg, President of International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures.
A production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Pictures, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the acclaimed first film in Oscar®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson's epic "The Hobbit Trilogy," based on the timeless novel by J.R.R. Tolkien.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2012

TAKING SOME TIME OFF
I will be taking some time off for the holidays and not updating the page as often as usual. There is usually not that much going on anyway, but if something does come up, I'll post a note.

I hope you all have a very joyous holiday season. You have been fantastic readers throughout this year and I have had a marvelous time bringing you whatever news I can find on Babylon 5 and science fiction in general.

Be safe if you are traveling to visit loved ones over the holidays. If you are not traveling, enjoy the company of friends and family. That is what truly makes the holidays a season to remember.

Sandy

Merlin MERLIN RETURNS JANUARY 4
I am happy to report that MERLIN returns to Syfy on January 4. This is the fifth and final season for this wonderful series. It will air at 10:00pm. Stay tuned here for episode clips and other information on the series.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2012

Jenna Louise Coleman DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
The Doctor (Matt Smith) will be getting a lovely new companion for Christmas, and actress Jenna-Louise Coleman says her new character Clara/Oswin doesn't just try to fill that Amy and Rory-sized hole in his life. Who fans, get ready for a whole new Doctor/Companion dynamic.
Coming in at a time where the Doctor is still mourning the loss of his previous longtime companions, Coleman said her character gives him something to smile about and brings him back to life, a little, once he's done moping around. The biggest difference? The flirtation that will apparently develop between the two.
She told CNN:
"I like that she holds her own. You know, The Doctor's this amazing man, and she's like, 'You know, cool. I think you're amazing, but so am I.' So, it's a nice double act...
It's been interesting how it's changed Matt's Doctor. There is a natural bounce between them, and a flirtation, and attraction. But, again, they've always got this friction because they're a bit magnetic and drawn to each other, but she can't quite figure him out. He's got loads of secrets and he's always looking at her, trying to figure her out."
Coleman said she doesn't take the task of replacing Amy and Rory lightly, which is part of the reason showrunner Steven Moffat made it a point to construct a mystery around her character so it doesn't fall into the same trappings of the Doctor's previous relationships.
She continues:
"I like that it's not plain sailing. Like [Steven Moffat] was saying, it's not very interesting if you come in and it's like this friendship straight away. He's been very clever in creating a mystery, because, no matter what, it's always going to be hard to bring in somebody else into the show, when Matt, Karen and Arthur started out together, and you're used to seeing them on screen together."
We'll get to see some of that chemistry soon enough, as Coleman's official introduction is coming next week as part of the Doctor Who Christmas special.

Fury Road MAD MAX
Aside from some scattered set pics, director George Miller has managed to keep his Mad Max sequel Fury Road shrouded in secrecy. Now, thanks to a promo photo leak, we finally have our first look at Tom Hardy as the new Mad Max.
The Dark Knight Rises star takes over for Mel Gibson, who played the post-apocalyptic road warrior in the 1979 original and two sequels in the 1980s. Our first shot of Hardy in costume seems to come via an autographed still from the film that surfaced on Twitter, showing Hardy in a barren landscape channeling a lot of that early Mad Max attitude.
Here's the insane plot description, that picks up the post-apocalyptic tale all these years later:
"Mad Max is caught up with a group of people fleeing across the Wasteland in a War Rig driven by the Imperator Furiosa. This movie is an account of the Road War which follows. It is based on the Word Burgers of the History Men and eyewitness accounts of those who survived."

Robin Hood ROBIN HOOD
The CW is in the market for Robin Hood.
The youth-skewing network is developing Sherwood, an hourlong period drama with a female slant, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Sherwood, which has received a script commitment at the network, is set in 1072 England and revolves around a young noblewoman who sets out to free her serf boyfriend, who has been wrongfully imprisoned by ruthless Norman occupiers. Seeing help from the vanished Robin of Locksley, she inadvertently reunites -- and joins -- the fabled Robin Hood and his Merry Men, inspiring new hope for the oppressed people of Nottingham.
Tze Chun (Cashmere Mafia) will pen the script, which hails from CBS Television Studios. Oscar-winning American Beauty producer Dan Jinks, who produced the CW's short-lived Emily Owens, M.D., will executive produce.
The project comes at a time when the network has found success with freshman drama Arrow, a reboot of the DC Comics franchise about the superhero archer. Sherwood's Robin Hood, should the drama move forward,would become the network's second archer.
Sherwood becomes the latest high-profile hero to surface at the network this development cycle, joining Amazon, a Wonder Woman origin story from Grey's Anatomy's Allan Heinberg. CW also has a contemporary Alice in Wonderland drama from The Playboy Club's Chad Hodge set up this development season, as well as a Sleepy Hollow reboot.
The Chun effort joins NBC's Hood, marking the second Robin Hood story set up this year. The NBC effort, which also received a script commitment, hails from Ken Sanzel (Blue Bloods) and re-imagines Robin Hood as an Iraq War veteran-turned-outlaw in upstate New York.
The Robin Hood story has been a frequent subject of film and TV adaptations, most recently with Ridley Scott taking on the tale in 2010 with Russell Crowe as the archer/swordsman. Errol Flynn famously starred in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood (pictured above), which many consider to be the benchmark in the franchise.

Summit REVOC
In what is likely one of the last deals of the year, Lionsgate division Summit Entertainment has picked up a sci-fi action pitch titled Revoc from Olaf de Fleur.
David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman of Mandeville are attached to produce.
Plot details are being kept under wraps, but the story has been described as being in the vein of District 9 and Moon and is a post-alien invasion thriller.
Mandeville is prepping a winter shoot in London for the sequel to The Muppets, which will star Ricky Gervais and Ty Burrell. It also has the zombie love story Warm Bodies awaiting a Feb. 1 release.
De Fleur is an Icelandic filmmaker who co-write and directed the crime movie City State; New Regency is remaking the film with James Mangold attached to direct. He is repped by WME and Thruline.
Overseeing for the company are Lionsgate Motion Picture Group president of production Erik Feig, Summit Entertainment president of production Geoff Shaevitz and Lionsgate vp production Matthew Janzen.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2012

Bryan Singer THE TWILIGHT ZONE
TV could soon be taking a trip back to "The Twilight Zone."
"X-Men" director Bryan Singer is developing a new take on Rod Serling's iconic anthology series, which may find its way back on TV for the first time since 2002.
The original "Twilight Zone" ran from 1959-64 on CBS. According to Deadline, Singer's project is set up at CBS TV Studios, which makes CBS a prime contender to air the new version as well. CBS also aired a revival from 1985-89, while UPN aired a single season of yet another remake in 2002.
Although Singer's take is still in the early stages and doesn't yet have a writer attached, "The Twilight Zone" brand remains strong among fans of classic TV and smart sci-fi/thrillers, and feels ripe for revival.
Hopefully Singer will have better luck with this than he did as a producer and director on "Mockingbird Lane," Bryan Fuller's failed "Munsters" reboot for NBC.

Chloe Bennett S.H.I.E.L.D. CASTING NEWS
Considering that Joss Whedon's S.H.I.E.L.D. series is coming in the fall of 2013, it makes sense they'd want to round the cast out pretty quickly. Well, the pilot just filled its final opening—say hello to geek girl Skye.
Actress Chloe Bennet, best known for a recurring role in the ABC drama Nashville, has joined the pilot as a superhero fan intrigued by the shadowy government organizations they work with.
Here's the character description, via The Hollywood Reporter:
"Bennet becomes the sixth and final regular in the drama and will play Skye, a confident woman who is slightly obsessed with superhero culture and the shadow organizations that exist within it. She's edgy and can out-talk anyone with her unflappable nature."
It sounds like Bennet's character will provide the "average person" angle in the series, an outsider looking into the organization. She joins Clark Gregg (The Avengers) as Agent Phil Coulson, Ming-Na (Stargate Universe) as Agent Melinda May, Brett Dalton as Agent Grant Ward, Ian De Caestecker as Agent Leo Fitz and Elizabeth Henstridge as Agent Gemma Simmons.
With the cast in place, you'd have to think we'll start getting some actual intel on the series soon as production ramps up on the pilot. Whedon is writing the pilot with his brother Jed and Maurissa Tancharoen (Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog). The series will be produced by Joss and Jed, Tancharoen, Marvel exec Jeph Loeb and Angel alum Jeffrey Bell.

Fringe Finale FRINGE
A new poster for the final four episodes of Fringe has been revealed, and it looks like a certain Big Bad is a little worse for wear. So what happened to Captain Windmark?
It looks like someone finally made him bleed, even though Observer-enhanced Peter (Joshua Jackson) got his ass royally kicked by the baddest baldie of all. As for what actually did the damage? No clue. But our best guess is that it has something to do with the resiliency of the human spirit.
New episode "Anomaly XB-6783746? airs this Friday, and then the series will go on a hiatus until January to wrap up. The series resumes Jan. 11 and closes out with a two-part finale on Jan. 18 (starting at 8/7c).

AFTER EARTH
Columbia Pictures has now launched the official site at AfterEarth.com!
In After Earth, hitting theaters on June 7, a crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.

Iron Man 3 IRON MAN 3
Marvel Studios has released a new photo from next summer's Iron Man 3 that showcases a battle-damaged Tony Stark.
Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?
Iron Man 3 opens in 3D and 2D theaters on May 3, 2013. Directed by Shane Black, the action adventure stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau and Ben Kingsley.

NEW DVD RELEASES

Dark Knight 2 BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS 2
BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, PART 2
COMING JANUARY 29, 2013

BURBANK, CA (December 17, 2012) – Batman must battle old friends and foes on two fronts in the epic animated conclusion to Frank Miller’s masterpiece in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2, the next entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. Produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, the all-new, PG-13 rated film arrives January 29, 2013 from Warner Home Video.
With Gotham City back under his watchful eye, and accompanied by able sidekick Robin, Batman continues to battle crime – but his resurgence awakens a far worse evil at Arkham Asylum: The Joker. In the meantime, Superman has been dispatched by the President to halt Batman’s unsanctioned reign by whatever means necessary. Between the Joker’s diabolical scheme to drag Batman to the darkest levels of insanity, and the Man of Steel’s seemingly invincible physical presence, the Dark Knight must confront adversaries and allies simultaneously while maintaining the peace in Gotham City.
Primetime television stars Michael Emerson (Person of Interest, Lost) and Mark Valley (Human Target, Fringe) join the voice cast as The Joker and Superman, respectively; and popular talk show host Conan O’Brien gives voice to animated talk show host Dave Endochrine. Fanboy favorite Peter Weller (RoboCop, Dexter) continues as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and he is once again accompanied by David Selby (The Social Network, Dark Shadows) as Commissioner Gordon, Ariel Winter (Modern Family) as Carrie/Robin, and Michael McKean (This is Spinal Tap) as Dr. Bartholomew Wolper. Also featured in the voice cast is Maria Canals-Barrrera (Wizards of Waverly Place) as new Commissioner Yindel, Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) as Lana Lang, and Radio Hall of Fame member Michael Jackson as Alfred.
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is scheduled for release on December 4. For more information and video clips, go to Dark Knight.
I just posted information on CHERNOBYL DIARIES - coming to DVD on October 16. Go to Chernobyl for more information about this film and my review of this video.
As I receive information about new releases, I will post the information on the New Releases page. Here you will find more information about new movies coming out, complete with trailer and production information.
Check out the UNIVERSAL 100TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION and see if you agree with their selections. Currently featuring GREEN LANTERN, TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, TOUCHBACK, THE ORANGES, END OF WATCH, SILENT HILL: REVELATION 3D

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2012

DOCTOR WHO
The BBC has released three cool new Doctor Who Xmas special pics that reveal a whole lot more about that new TARDIS control room we told you about. As for the other two, well, you've got to see them to believe them. Plus we've got a brand new video for more Xmas cheers.
We knew the Doctor (Matt Smith) was going to have a brand new TARDIS control room to go along with a brand-new revamped opening sequence, his brand-new costume, his brand-new top hat and his brand-new companion Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman). But this is the first time that we're actually seeing it.
We don't know about you, but we think the new control room definitely gives off a classic Doctor Who vibe and actually looks a lot like the TARDIS control room taken straight from the Tom Baker and Peter Davison eras.
As for the other two pics, well, once again, the Doctor's in for a bit of a snog—as our British cousins like to say. The more things change ...
As a bonus, we also have a brand new video of the Doctor and Commander Strax (Dan Starkey) investigating a mystery.
Doctor Who's "The Snowmen" will air Christmas Day.

James Callis THE ARROW
The CW's Arrow continues to cast sci-fi favorites. They've grabbed Torchwood's John Barrowman, Fringe's Seth Gabel and Farscape's Ben Browder, just to name a few. Their latest get comes from the always popular Battlestar Galactica.
According to TVGuide" TVGuide, James Callis will guest star on an upcoming episode. Most of us know Callis as Gaius Baltar from Battlestar, but the actor's also spent time on Eureka, Merlin and FlashForward. His latest job will have him facing Starling City's hooded protector.
Callis has been cast as "The Dodger, an elusive international jewel thief who imposes his plans on the innocent, forcing them to carry out his crimes under duress." Once a rare ruby goes missing, The Dodger finds himself on Oliver and Diggle's radar. Unfortunately, catching this bad guy might be easier said than done.
The Dodger sounds a lot like the comic book character of the same name. The comic version is also a thief, and both he and Callis are British. But the network has yet to confirm if he's the small screen adaptation of the character. Callis will make his Arrow debut sometime next year.
Arrow returns with all-new episodes Jan. 16.

Shield SHIELD
Comic and TV creator Jeph Loeb was being interviewed about his latest comic project recently when he let slip some big news in the form of when we can expect to see the premiere of Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series.
Excited? You should be. Considering the talent involved and how busy Whedon and company tend to be working on, well, just about every cool project in sight, there were fears we'd never see S.H.I.E.L.D. make its way to our TV screens. Turns out we'll be seeing it sooner than any of us could have hoped. From Loeb:
Well ... we have a "little" pilot for television that you might have heard about called Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. co-written, directed, and Executive Produced by none other than Joss Whedon! Working with Joss, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jeffrey Bell on the show is a blast! And bringing in Clark Gregg to play Agent Phil Coulson — the best! Hopefully we will be on in the Fall of 2013 on ABC!
That puts us less than a year out. Not only does that mean the show is coming soon, it also means lots more teasers, casting news, trailers and who knows what else. So stay tuned!

GAME OF THRONES
It's Tuesday and this must be Game of Thrones day. Not only did we just learn that season three episodes will have longer running times, but we also got a brand-new production video which offers us an exciting glimpse at new and returning characters, as well as hints at some key scenes from book three, A Storm of Swords.
The new Making Game of Thrones video highlights the art direction for the upcoming third season. Featuring comments from art directors Heather Greenlees and Tom Still and location manager Robert Boake. The new video also offers us a glimpse of new character Jojen Reed (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and a few more familiar returning faces.
Not only that, but we also get a very cool first look at a new inner courtyard for the Red Keep in King's Landing.
As for the key scenes, we won't reveal too much here in order not to spoil those of you who haven't read the books, but let's just say we have hints at two major fight scenes. And that's all we're willing to say.
Game of Thrones season three returns on March 31, 2013.

Hugh Jackman X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE
Hugh Jackman was rumored last month to be joining the cast of director Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past, but now the filmmaker has made the casting official via his Twitter account.
"I would officially like to welcome @RealHughJackman to the cast of #Xmen Days of Future Past. Very excited! More to come..." Singer said.
Jackman is joining a cast that includes James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.
Scheduled for release on July 18, 2014, X-Men: Days of Future Past features a script by Simon Kinberg and is said to be inspired Chris Claremont and John Byrne's comic book storyline that ran in "Uncanny X-Men" #141 and 142 back in 1981. "Days of Future Past" introduced the idea of an alternate future for Marvel's mutants that grew out of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants killing an important senator, leading to a future where all mutants are hunted by Sentinels.
In addition to playing a key role in the comic book version of the story, Wolverine has appeared in every live-action "X-Men" film to date and will star in his second solo adventure with the July 26 release The Wolverine.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2012

DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS PREQUEL
The upcoming Doctor Who Xmas special "The Snowmen" just got extra-special, with an exciting new prequel. Titled "Vastra Investigates—A Christmas Prequel," it features our favorite Silurian lady, played by Neve McIntosh, and a Victorian mystery.
In the new prequel episode, Madame Vastra is accompanied by her very own loyal companions Jenny (Catrin Stewart) and Sontaran Commander Strax (Dan Starkey).
Our interstellar/interspecies dynamic trio is called upon to investigate a good old-fashioned Victorian murder mystery. But where is "Sherlock Holmes" the Doctor when you need him?

Star Trek 2 STAR TREK 2
Sure, the first trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness was awesome, but it was fairly light on the actual star-trekking. Instead, we got a lot of cool Earth-based footage and action. But don't worry, the second trailer is loaded with space battles galore. Unfortunately it has been taken down so we'll have to wait a little longer to watch this one.

Focusing more on Capt. Kirk (Chris Pine), the trailer opens with a somber voiceover from what appears to be Adm. Pike (Bruce Greenwood), telling Kirk that if he isn't careful, he's going to get his crew killed.
The new trailer isn't quite as creepy as the first, but it does play up the spectacle of the space battles, which look even more insane than before. Sadly, there's still no additional info as far as Benedict Cumberbatch's mysterious baddie is concerned, but hey, we'll happily take some nifty space battles any day.
Star Trek Into Darkness opens May 17, 2013.

HELLIFIED
In development at Paramount for some time, Hellified has received a new writer in Predators' Michael Finch, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter.
Originally scripted by Andy Burg, the film follows a team of criminals who travel to Hell itself to prevent the apocalypse. Dan Bradley (Red Dawn) was formerly attached to direct but the project is currently without an announced helmer.
Producers on Hellified include Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian.

THE SMURFS 2
A trailer for Sony Pictures Animation's The Smurfs 2 is now online!
In the sequel, the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) creates a couple of mischievous Smurf-like creatures called the Naughties that he hopes will let him harness the all-powerful, magical Smurf-essence. But when he discovers that only a real Smurf can give him what he wants — and only a secret spell that Smurfette knows can turn the Naughties into real Smurfs — Gargamel kidnaps Smurfette and brings her to Paris, where he has been winning the adoration of millions as the world's greatest sorcerer. It's up to Papa, Clumsy, Grouchy, and Vanity to return to our world, reunite with their human friends Patrick and Grace Winslow, and rescue her! Will Smurfette, who has always felt different from the other Smurfs, find a new connection with the Naughties Vexy and Hackus – or will the Smurfs convince her that their love for her is True Blue?
The film, which also stars Neil Patrick Harris, Jayma Mays, Sofia Vergara, Brendan Gleeson, Katy Perry, Jonathan Winters, Alan Cumming, Fred Armisen, George Lopez, Anton Yelchin, Christina Ricci, JB Smoove and John Oliver, is set for release on July 31, 2013.

JUPITER ASCENDING
Eddie Redmayne is the latest name to enter negotiations to star in Andy and Lana Wachowski's Jupiter Ascending, Variety reports. He'd star in the sci-fi tale opposite Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis.
The film focuses on higher forms of life who are watching us from other worlds. Kunis will play a Russian immigrant who is busily scrubbing toilets for a living. Unbeknownst to her, she actually possesses the same perfect genetic makeup as the Queen of the Universe and is therefore a threat to her otherwise immortal rule.
Although Redmayne's specific role has not yet been revealed, you can catch the star in Les Misérables when it hits theaters Christmas Day.

Josh Hutcherson PARADISE LOST
The Hunger Games' Josh Hutcherson is set to join Benicio Del Toro in the upcoming Paradise Lost, reports Deadline. The story, based on true events, will mark the directorial debut of Andrea di Stefano, who was recently seen as an actor in Ang Lee's Life of Pi. He will also provide the screenplay.
The story follows a young man, Nick (Hutcherson), who visits Colombia and falls in love with a girl named Maria. Things get a little more complicated, however, when he learns that Maria's uncle (Del Toro) is the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Despite the matching title, Paradise Lost has no connection to Alex Proyas' now-defunct adaptation of John Milton's 17th century poem or Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's trilogy of documentaries surrounding the West Memphis Three.
Frederique Dumas, Dimitri Rassam and Jerome Seydoux will produce Paradise Lost with production slated to begin in March 2013 in Panama.

Dark Knight 2 BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS 2
BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, PART 2
COMING JANUARY 29, 2013

BURBANK, CA (December 17, 2012) – Batman must battle old friends and foes on two fronts in the epic animated conclusion to Frank Miller’s masterpiece in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2, the next entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. Produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, the all-new, PG-13 rated film arrives January 29, 2013 from Warner Home Video.
With Gotham City back under his watchful eye, and accompanied by able sidekick Robin, Batman continues to battle crime – but his resurgence awakens a far worse evil at Arkham Asylum: The Joker. In the meantime, Superman has been dispatched by the President to halt Batman’s unsanctioned reign by whatever means necessary. Between the Joker’s diabolical scheme to drag Batman to the darkest levels of insanity, and the Man of Steel’s seemingly invincible physical presence, the Dark Knight must confront adversaries and allies simultaneously while maintaining the peace in Gotham City.
Primetime television stars Michael Emerson (Person of Interest, Lost) and Mark Valley (Human Target, Fringe) join the voice cast as The Joker and Superman, respectively; and popular talk show host Conan O’Brien gives voice to animated talk show host Dave Endochrine. Fanboy favorite Peter Weller (RoboCop, Dexter) continues as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and he is once again accompanied by David Selby (The Social Network, Dark Shadows) as Commissioner Gordon, Ariel Winter (Modern Family) as Carrie/Robin, and Michael McKean (This is Spinal Tap) as Dr. Bartholomew Wolper. Also featured in the voice cast is Maria Canals-Barrrera (Wizards of Waverly Place) as new Commissioner Yindel, Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) as Lana Lang, and Radio Hall of Fame member Michael Jackson as Alfred.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2012

I'M BACK!

Had a wonderful trip abroad and am catching up on everything. I'll be updating the page gradually so stay tuned.

Mummy THE MUMMY
Dust off your bandages and prepare to enter Universal's tomb for a reboot of Egyptian proportions. Len Wiseman tosses vamps and werewolves for a crinkly dead pharaoh, resurrecting the "T" in terrifying horror flicks.
Universal's love for The Mummy dates back to 1932, when Boris Karloff wrapped himself in dingy whites for the lead. There have been several remakes, including Hammer's 1959 Technicolor outing, with Christopher Lee shuffling around causing trouble, and the Stephen Sommers action-fests The Mummy and The Mummy Returns in 1999 and 2001, starring Brendan Fraser.
Wiseman is currently finalizing plans to direct an updated version of the classic tale with a dark, gritty slant. Here are his comments on the project regarding bringing The Mummy back to life in the 21st century:
"There was skepticism. The difference between the two, if 'The Mummy' is to be the next movie for me, is that 'The Mummy' is a completely different film. It is a modern-day take. It doesn't have anything to do with the Brendan Fraser films, and it is not a remake of any kind.
"'The Mummy' is one of Universal's longstanding, iconic characters, well before the Brendan Fraser movies ... This is such a different thing. What was attractive to me ...There is still a script to be written, and all of that. ... But the pitch was to go with a much different tone. It was a Mummy like I'd never heard of before. It's nothing like what you would expect, at all, oddly. I was picturing Egypt, and the sand-swept settings. The mummy wrappings. When I heard what they were wanting to actually do with it, it was shocking.
"It's horror. Its epic. It's more of a modern-day version of what would happen if we came across a mummy in our world today. It is pretty fascinating."
Universal's The Mummy is hoping to crawl into theaters sometime in 2014.

Transformers 4 TRANSFORMERS 4
The Transformers franchise is getting a makeover. It's got a new leading man, and two fresh-faced co-stars. Mark Wahlberg headlines the sequel, which he believes kicks it up a notch.
While promoting his upcoming film Broken City, Wahlberg spoke about his blockbuster gig. The actor and director Michael Bay just worked together on the upcoming film Pain and Gain. The experience was so great that they wanted to do it again. According to Wahlberg, "He said to me (on set), 'What do you think about doing a Transformers movie with me?' I said, 'Well, what do you want me to do?' He told me and I said, 'Absolutely!'"
Despite Wahlberg's impressive resume, with parts in The Fighter and The Departed, he says Transformers 4 "will be the most challenging role that I've played." He spoke to producers Steven Spielberg and Brian Grazer and assured them this wasn't about money. He wanted a family-friendly blockbuster under his belt.
"I said, 'Don't worry, guys, this is not me taking a paycheck and running with it. This is me trying to ... I liked what the guys did with, like, The Avengers, for instance. When I watched that movie I was not interested in seeing it at all, but it was entertaining for me as well as for my kids. I think they did a really good job, and we want to do something special with it, so I'm excited about it."
Transformers 4 begins shooting in May and hits theaters June 27, 2014.

BATES MOTEL
One of the most curious series coming down the pike is A&E's Psycho prequel Bates Motel, which will follow psychopath-in-training Norman Bates as a teenager. Judging by the first trailer, this could be one of the creepiest character studies of the year.
Carlton Cuse (Lost) is bringing his clout as an executive producer to the contemporary reimagining of the story, and it seems to be shaping up as a dense family drama drenched in pure creepiness. Some intriguing cast and crew interviews are interspersed along with the series footage, which reveals they definitely won't be beholden entirely to the story of Psycho.
Instead, it'll serve as a jumping-off point, perhaps in the same way that the modern-day Battlestar Galactica reboot used the original series. Ideally they'll take what worked from Psycho and wrap it up in a modern blanket—then slice it up and murder it.
The series stars Freddie Highmore as Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga as his mother Norma. The show premieres in March.

Hobbit WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
New Line Cinema and MGM's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey kicked off the holiday season with an estimated $84.8 million, a new December opening weekend record, surpassing the $77.2 million earned by Will Smith-starrer I Am Legend the same weekend in 2007. The Peter Jackson film debuted in 4,045 theaters in which it averaged a strong $20,958 per location.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey received an A CinemaScore from moviegoers which should help with word-of-mouth through the holidays. 58% of the audience was over the ages of 25 and males made up 57% of the audience.
$10.1 million of the domestic total came from the 326 IMAX theaters the film opened in this weekend. That's an average of $31,000 per screen. Internationally, the picture broke an IMAX December record grossing $5 million in 126 IMAX locations (an average of $40,000). The IMAX locations which showed the film in 48 fps were quite strong, generating $44,000 per screen domestically and $57,000 per screen internationally. IMAX's global weekend total for "The Hobbit" is an estimated $15+ million, which is a record for December.
In North America, DreamWorks Animation's Rise of the Guardians remained in second place with $7.4 million for a four-week total of $71.4 million. The animated family adventure cost about $145 million to make.
DreamWorks Pictures' Lincoln climbed a spot to third with $7.2 million. The $65 million Steven Spielberg film has earned $107.9 million after six weeks in theaters.
Dropping from first place to fourth, Sony and MGM's Skyfall added $7 million domestically for a total of $272.4 million after six weeks. Internationally, the 23rd James Bond film grossed an estimated $12.2 million this weekend, bringing the overseas total to $678.7 million. Worldwide, the film has earned $951 million to date.
Ang Lee's Life of Pi rounded out the top five with $5.4 million its fourth weekend. The Twentieth Century Fox Film release has collected $69.6 million after four weeks.
Also, Summit's The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 earned $45.2 million its fifth weekend for a domestic total of $276.9 million.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012

Lincoln-Walking Dead THE WALKING DEAD
We've barely had time to catch our breath from the insane midseason finale of "The Walking Dead," but AMC has set an official premiere date for the second half of Season 3: Feb. 10, 2013.
That's only 10 weeks away! Season 3 of the mega-hit zombie drama has been split into two equal halves, so the second half will run for eight episodes, just like the first.
Additionally, Chris Hardwick announced on "Dead" "post-game" talkshow "Talking Dead" that "Talking" will move to 10 p.m., immediately following new episodes of "Walking" in 2013. Plus, "Talking" will expand to one hour to allow for "more time to talk about the episodes, interview actors from the show, much more fan interaction," according to Hardwick.

Star Trek:  Into Darkness STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS
Paramount Pictures has just released the first teaser poster for J.J. Abram's highly-anticipated sequel Star Trek Into Darkness.
The film, which stars Chris Pine, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller, is described as follows:
In Summer 2013, pioneering director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes "Star Trek Into Darkness."
When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.
With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.
As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.
Star Trek Into Darkness hits theaters on May 17, 2013. THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
Warner Bros. Pictures has started airing this new TV spot for Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey which gives a very quick look at the dragon Smaug in the film.
The December 14 release follows title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain, first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever... Gollum. Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum's "precious" ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities... A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Seventh Son Seventh Son SEVENTH SON
USA Today has published the first two photos from Warner Bros. Pictures' Seventh Son featuring Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes and Julianne Moore. Based on the young-adult novel "The Spook's Apprentice" by Joseph Delaney, the Sergei Bodrov-directed film hits 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on October 18, 2013 and also stars Alicia Vikander, Antje Traue, Olivia Williams and Kit Harington.
Seventh Son is described as follows:
In a time long past, an evil is about to be unleashed that will reignite the war between the forces of the supernatural and humankind once more. Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges) is a knight who had imprisoned the malevolently powerful witch, Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), centuries ago. But now she has escaped and is seeking vengeance. Summoning her followers of every incarnation, Mother Malkin is preparing to unleash her terrible wrath on an unsuspecting world. Only one thing stands in her way: Master Gregory.
In a deadly reunion, Gregory comes face to face with the evil he always feared would someday return. Now he has only until the next full moon to do what usually takes years: train his new apprentice, Tom Ward (Ben Barnes) to fight a dark magic unlike any other. Man's only hope lies in the seventh son of a seventh son.

Breaking Dawn WEEKEND BOX OFFICE RESULTS
The weekend after Thanksgiving has never been a great one to release a movie, but this weekend's two offerings barely even made a mark with Brad Pitt having one of his worst openings for a wide release as Andrew Dominik's gangster thriller Killing Them Softly (The Weinstein Company) didn't even crack the Top 5.
Instead, the top six movies remained the same with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (Summit) pulling a three-peat by remaining at #1 for the third weekend in a row, bringing in $17.4 million and taking its total gross to $254 million. Down 60% from the Thanksgiving weekend, it's slightly ahead of the previous chapter which had grossed $247 million by its own third weekend. It also grossed $48.4 million overseas to bring its global total to date to $702.4 million.
The 23rd James Bond film Skyfall (Sony/MGM), directed by Sam Mendes, also held its ground, remaining in second place for a third week in a row and closing the gap with "Breaking Dawn" by grossing $17 million over the weekend and bringing its four-week total to $246 million. It grossed an additional $34 million overseas to bring its global total to $869 million.
Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (DreamWorks), starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the nation's 16th President, continues to do big business despite only playing in roughly 2,000 theaters. It remained in third place for its third weekend with $13.6 million, down 47% from the holiday weekend, and taking its gross to $83.7 million. DreamWorks distributor Walt Disney Pictures still plans on expanding the movie wider, although they may be waiting to see how the upcoming critics awards and other nominations pan out.
DreamWorks Animation's Rise of the Guardians was right behind it in fourth place with $13.5 million, down a respectable 43% from its opening weekend and bringing its total to $48.9 million in 12 days. It added another $40 million overseas to bring its international total to $57 million, which might end up being the holiday adventure film's savior.
The animated film also remained just ahead of Ang Lee's Life of Pi (20th Century Fox), which brought in $12 million in its second weekend of wide release to take fifth place, with its domestic total falling right behind "Guardians" with $48.4 million.
The animated family adventure Wreck-It Ralph (Walt Disney) took the second-biggest plunge in the Top 10, dropping 58% to bring in $7 million for sixth place. It has grossed $158.2 million since opening in early November.
Brad Pitt teamed with Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) for the gangster thriller Killing Them Softly (The Weinstein Company), co-starring Scott McNairy (Argo), Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Rises), Ray Liotta and James Gandolfini. Opening in 2,424 theaters, it failed to bring in the type of business Pitt normally sees, grossing just $7 million to take seventh place with approximately $2.9 thousand per site.
The long-delayed Red Dawn (FilmDistrict) remake dropped to eighth place with $6.5 million, down 54% from its opening weekend. It has grossed $31.3 million so far.
Robert Zemeckis's Flight, starring Denzel Washington, took ninth place with $4.5 million, having grossed $81.5 million to date.
The grisly horror sequel The Collection (LD Entertainment) from the writers of the "Saw" franchise opened in 1,403 theaters nationwide on Friday and was able to bring in $3.4 million to round off the Top 10, which grossed roughly $101 million, up 31% from last year when no new movies were given a wide release.
Falling just outside the Top 10, David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (The Weinstein Company), starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, held well with $3.3 million, down just 24% from last weekend despite not adding any theaters of significance. It's grossed just $11 million and one expects that the Weinstein Company will expand it nationwide gradually over the coming month.
Two weeks after opening in limited release, Joe Wright's Anna Karenina (Focus Features), starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law, expanded into 384 theaters and that was enough to help it take 12th place with $2.2 million and a three-week total of $4 million.
Opening in 172 locations, the Bollywood thriller Talaash (Reliance Entertainment), starring Indian superstar Aamir Khan, grossed just under $2 million over the weekend. That's roughly 11,600 per site, showing the box office draw of Khan, the star of the Bollywood hit 3 Idiots.

SUNDAY, JUNE 24, 2012

Brave WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Once again silencing the naysayers, Pixar and Disney's Brave topped the Friday box office with an impressive $24.5 million, putting the animated tentpole on course for a weekend debut in the $66 million range.
Brave -- receiving an A CinemaScore from audiences -- is the first Pixar title to feature an female heroine, prompting some to question whether the 3D movie could come near other titles in the company's pantheon. So far, it is having no trouble.
Last year, for example, Pixar's Cars 2 earned $25.7 on the same Friday for a $66.1 million weekend. And so far, Brave is pacing ahead of DreamWorks Animation and Paramount's Madgascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, which opened earlier this month to a strong $60.3 million after earning $20.7 million on Friday (one difference -- not all kids were out of school yet).
Madagascar 3 remains a potent force in its third weekend and will easily come in No. 2, beating out Timur Bekmambetov's new entry Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which is now looking at a soft debut in the $16 million-plus range.
The strength of both Brave and Madagascar 3 underscore the pent-up demand for family movies.
Fom 20th Century Fox, Abraham Lincoln grossed $6.3 million on Friday after losing steam during evening shows.
Fox had hoped the film -- costing roughly $68 million to make -- would get to $20 million. Abraham Lincoln -- featuring the storied U.S. president as a vampire hunter -- is playing like a horror film and received a problematic C+ CinemaScore.
Produced by Bekmambetov and Tim Burton, Abraham Lincoln was adapted for the big screen by Seth Grahame-Smith from his book.
Abraham Lincoln is an important test for the "mash-up" genre. (Lionsgate is making the film adaptation of Grahame-Smith's ride and PrejudiceP and Zombies.)

Tron Uprising DISNEY AT COMIC-CON
Disney Channel and Disney XD have announced their full lineup of panels for next month's Comic-Con in San Diego. Check out the full listing below!
Friday, July 13
TRON: Uprising: 2:15 - 3:15 p.m. (Room 6A) - Voice cast Elijah Wood ("Beck") and Bruce Boxleitner ("Tron") join executive producer/director Charlie Bean and consulting producers Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz. The panel will also feature never-before-seen clips of Disney XDÕs turbo-charged original series "Motorcity" and a sneak peek of the upcoming animated series "Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja." The panel will be moderated by Daily Variety film editor Josh Dickey.

Saturday, July 14
Phineas and Ferb: 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. (Room 6A) - Creators/executive producers Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh join cast members Vincent Martella ("Phineas"), Alyson Stoner ("Isabella") and Dee Bradley Baker ("Perry"). The panel will also include an exclusive sneak peek of this summer's epic two-part cliffhanger episode "Where's Perry?" Special guest moderator to be announced at Comic-Con.

Disney Channel Television Animation: 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. (Room: 5AB) - Fans can see exclusive footage and clips from upcoming episodes of Disney Channel's BAFTA award-winning series "Fish Hooks" and its newest mystery adventure series "Gravity Falls," plus a first look at the upcoming series "Wander Over Yonder." Panelists include: "Fish Hooks" creator/executive producer Noah Z. Jones and executive producer Maxwell Atoms and voice talent Justin Roiland ("Oscar") and Kari Wahlgren ("Shellsea"); "Gravity Falls" creator Alex Hirsch and creative director Michael Rianda and voice talent Jason Morgan Ritter ("Dipper"), and "Wander Over Yonder" creator Craig McCracken and co-producer Lauren Faust. The panel will be moderated by Eric Coleman, Senior Vice President, Original Series, Disney Television Animation.

SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 2012

THE PROTOTYPE
The first teaser trailer for the new sci-fi action flick The Prototype has been releasedÑshowing off a humanoid cyborg you do not want to mess with. So what happens when it goes rogue?
The film, from Act of Valor creators the Bandito Brothers, follows a humanoid combat drone that gets loose, and the manhunt that ensues. Plus, there appear to be some conspiratorial undertones to boot.
The effects look stellar, and the heads-up display (HUD) for the robot looks awesome.
The film stars Neal McDonough (Captain America), Joseph Mawle (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and Anna Anissimova.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
A new clip from The Amazing Spider-Man has been releasedÑdropping some major intel on how Marc Webb's reboot is tackling the mysterious death of Peter Parker's parents.
The clip shows off a tense conversation between Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifan) and Ratha (Irrfan Khan) as they discuss shady, secret trials for a new serum.
The topic of Richard Parker's death, and how it may have come about, comes up in a spoilery bit of conversation.

Bourne Legacy THE BOURNE LEGACY
It happens every summer, the last-minute shuffling of release schedules and today it's been announced there will be another major one as Universal Pictures has decided to move Tony Gilroy's The Bourne Legacy, starring Jeremy Renner, back one week to August 10.
It makes perfect sense, because originally it was going up against another action movie, the Len Wiseman-directed remake of Total Recall, starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, and Kate Beckinsale, and now it's also able to get away from the third weekend of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, which is likely to still be going strong by early August.
The movie now just has to face the Will Ferrell-Zach Galifianakis political comedy The Campaign and Meryl Streep, Steve Carell and Tommy Lee Jones in the adult-oriented Hope Springs.
At the same time, Deadline is reporting on recent Vancouver reshoots on the movie that will reboot the franchise sans original star Matt Damon, while clarifying that they had nothing to do with the decision to move release dates. Last minute reshoots are nothing new and often done to improve small things in the story, and the film's second unit director and stunt coordinator Dan Bradley (who performed the same functions on "Ultimatum") was at the helm for the two days of pick-ups.
They also confirm that the decision to move The Bourne Legacy was more in response to exhibitors complaining about having two high profile action movies being released on the same date.

Aaron Eckhart OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN
Aaron Eckart has been elected President of the United States for the action thriller Olympus Has Fallen, Variety reports.
Set up at Nu Image/Millennium Films, the Antoine Fuqua film also has Gerard Butler attached to play an ex-Secret Service agent who must defend the White House from terrorists.
Written by newcomers Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, production on Olympus was previously reported to begin in September, but it's being fast-tracked to race against the similarly-themed White House Down, set up at Sony Pictures.
Eckhart, who recently appeared in The Rum Diary, can next be seen in I, Frankenstein, set for release on February 22, 2013.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2012

Beauty and the Beast BEAUTY AND THE BEAST REMAKES
A few months ago, The CW ordered a script for a remake of the '80s fantasy TV series Beauty and the Beast. It seems they weren't the only ones who thought a new Beauty series was a good idea. It turns out ABC has a script, too, and now BOTH of them are getting pilots.
News that The CW was taking its script to the pilot stage came last week. That wasn't entirely unexpected, but now ABC is jumping into the mix with its own take on the tale in what could be a bid to become America's Fairy Tale Network.
Unlike the CW version, which will follow the original show's more modernized romance with a "procedural twist," ABC's Beauty pilot will be set in a "mythical, dangerous" fairy-tale world where "a beautiful and tough princess discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast." Once Upon a Time gave ABC a major boost this season, revitalizing its waning Sunday-night lineup. It seems ABC is hoping yet another fairy-tale show will provide yet another ratings bump. Beauty may even end up being Once's Sunday night follow-up.
The CW's take on the tale is co-executive-produced by Ron Koslow, creator of the '80s series, and co-written by Jennifer Levin (Felicity) and Sherri Cooper (Brothers and Sisters). For its version, ABC has tapped Jericho co-creator Jonathan E. Steinberg to write the pilot. There's no word on casting for either show yet.

Carol Mendelsohn WIDOW DETECTIVE
CBS has added another drama to its pilot orders.
Widow Detective, which counts CSI mastermind Carol Mendelsohn as an executive producer, certers on a decorated police detective who becomes a surrogate husband, lover and father to the families of three partners lost in the line of duty.
David Hubbard (Noel) is attached to write and executive produce the CBS TV Studios project, with Julie Weitz, head of development at Mendelsohn's production company, on board to executive produce.
Widow is one of four dramas Mendelsohn has in development at CBS. The others include Two Badges, based on the book by Mona Ruiz and Geoff Boucher with The Good Wife writer Ted Humphrey, Murder Room with feature scribe George Nolfi and the Rifleman reboot with Chris Columbus set up at CBS.
In addition, TNT picked up her Missing to pilot in September, and she has projects in development with both CW and FX through her overall deal with CBS Television Studios.

Alan Ball BANSHEE
Alan Ball is working double time for HBO.
The premium cabler's sibling network, Cinemax, has given a series order to Ball's crime drama Banshee, ordering 10 episodes of the project that will be executive produced by the True Blood showrunner.
Jonathan Tropper and David Schicker will pen the drama, which revolves around a criminal who steps into the identity of the Banshee, Penn., where he continues his shady ways while being hunted by gangsters he crossed in his past.
House's Greg Yaitanes will direct the pilot and executive produce with Ball, Tropper, Schickler and Peter Macdissi.
Ball will juggle Banshee with his duties on HBO's campy Anna Paquin vampire drama True Blood, which is in production on its fifth season.
Cinemax has been making a bigger push into original scripted fare with Strike Back picked up for a sophomore season, Melissa George action drama Nemesis and a reboot of the feature series Transporter, starring Chris Vance.
In addition to Banshee and True Blood, Ball also has Wichita, an hourlong medical drama in development at HBO about a Kansas surgeon who inadvertently becomes the focal point of a contemporary political, cultural and ethical war surrounding late-term abortions.
Ball inked a multiyear deal with HBO in July.

Spiderman AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
Columbia Pictures has released the official synopsis for director Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man, opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on July 3. This is how the studio describes the film:
One of the world's most popular characters is back on the big screen as a new chapter in the Spider-Man legacy is revealed in "The Amazing Spider-Man." Focusing on an untold story that tells a different side of the Peter Parker story, the new film stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, with Martin Sheen and Sally Field. The film is directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay written by James Vanderbilt, based on the Marvel Comic Book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Laura Ziskin, Avi Arad, and Matt Tolmach are producing the film in association with Marvel Entertainment for Columbia Pictures, which will open in theaters everywhere in 3D on July 3, 2012.
"The Amazing Spider-Man" is the story of Peter Parker (Garfield), an outcast high schooler who was abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him to be raised by his Uncle Ben (Sheen) and Aunt May (Field). Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. Peter is also finding his way with his first high school crush, Gwen Stacy (Stone), and together, they struggle with love, commitment, and secrets. As Peter discovers a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his father, he begins a quest to understand his parents' disappearance – leading him directly to Oscorp and the lab of Dr. Curt Connors (Ifans), his father's former partner. As Spider-Man is set on a collision course with Connors' alter-ego, The Lizard, Peter will make life-altering choices to use his powers and shape his destiny to become a hero.
Stay tuned for lots more on the movie as we get closer!

JOHN CARTER
A fifth TV spot for Walt Disney Pictures' John Carter is now online.
Directed by Andrew Stanton, the big screen adaptation of the classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs hits 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on March 9. The film features a cast that includes Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church and Willem Dafoe.
John Carter tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

MERLIN NEWS
For six seasons, he played the traitorous Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica. This Friday, James Callis brings his acting talents to the international hit series MERLIN, playing the equally unscrupulous Julius Borden.
And in his first scene in this Friday’s episode, titled “Aithusa,” Callis comes face to face with the man who was once his mentor – fittingly, court physician Gaius.
Once the pupil of MERLIN’s Gaius, Borden left Camelot during the Great Purge, but in the darkness returns to Camelotlooking for the third part of the Triskelion – an ancient object that promises to reveal the location of the last dragon egg.
Despite a stern warning from Gaius, Merlin offers to help Borden if it means he can fulfill his obligation as the Last Dragonlord to ensure the survival of the species. But the task turns deadly when Merlin realizes exactly why Borden wants the egg.
Although the Great Dragon, Kilgharrah (voiced by John Hurt), figured prominently in the first season of MERLIN, in the last two seasons his primary function has been to give advice to Merlin and help him in times of greatest threat. It was Kilgharrah, for instance, who cautioned Merlin that “your determination to see goodness in people will be your undoing.”
In “Aithusa,” however, the Great Dragon assumes a much more prominent role in the story. In the last two seasons, MERLIN “has shown his separation, his independence from the Dragon,” says actor Colin Morgan, who plays Merlin. “At the beginning of Season One, the Dragon was a confidante, someone Merlin needed help from. Slowly and slowly, they grew apart, and the Dragon’s motives became slightly unclear, so there has been a question of trust between them.”
And yet, Kilgharrah and Merlin are inextricably linked, Morgan says. “As Dragonlord, Merlin can always command the Dragon, which is a great quality. What’s going to be interesting to see is if Arthur ever meets the Dragon – what his reaction would be.”
While the Dragon doesn’t meet Arthur in “Aithusa,” he does meet a new character … though just who (or what) that is remains to be seen. Viewers will discover the identity – and his or her role in Camelot – in “Aithusa,” the next episode of MERLIN, which airs Friday at 10 p.m. ET/PT (9 p.m. Central), only on Syfy.
All three seasons of MERLIN are now available on DVD and on iTunes. Be sure to follow the latest news on MERLIN at the Official Merlin page on Facebook.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2012

Lily Collins THE EVIL DEAD NEWS
The remake of The Evil Dead that we've been hearing about for ages has lost its female lead just weeks after she signed on.
It was right after the start of the new year that Lily Collins was announced as the first cast member of the new Evil Dead, with the young actress slated to play Mia, one of the five friends who stumble upon that cabin in the woods and its dreaded contents.
But today Variety reporter Jeff Sneider posted on Twitter that Collins was out due to "a scheduling issue." The actress just completed work on Mirror, Mirror, one of two Snow White movies coming out this year, and has also reportedly been attached to an adaptation of the young adult fantasy novel The Mortal Instruments.
Although we've heard little about that project for a while now, it's speculated that the production could be finally starting up and throwing a wrench in Collins' plan to appear in The Evil Dead.
So now producer Sam Raimi and director Fede Alvarez have to start looking again—and the clock is ticking since The Evil Dead is due in theaters on April 12th, 2013. Maybe they can run the script through the word processor again and put Ash back in there?

Sherlock Holmes ELEMENTARY
When news broke that CBS had approved a pilot for a modern-day reimagining of the Sherlock Holmes story called Elementary, it seemed like just another part of the Holmes resurgence—falling in line with the successful film series starring Robert Downey Jr. and the BBC's hit series Sherlock. But it could have some slightly more nefarious origins, at least according to a producer from the BBC series.
Sherlock executive producer Sue Vertue told The Independent that her team was actually approached by CBS to create a licensed U.S. version of Sherlock a while back, but they turned the U.S. network down. Not soon after, CBS announced Elementary was in development.
According to Vertue, the timing seems like more than just a coincidence.
"We understand that CBS are doing their own version of an updated Sherlock Holmes," she said. "It's interesting, as they approached us a while back about remaking our show. At the time, they made great assurances about their integrity, so we have to assume that their modernised Sherlock Holmes doesn't resemble ours in any way, as that would be extremely worrying."
If there is too much of a resemblance, Vertue noted every recourse could be taken—and hinted that could even mean a potential lawsuit against CBS.
"We are very proud of our show, and like any proud parent will protect the interest and wellbeing of our offspring," she said.
For those unfamiliar, the BBC series takes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's turn-of-the-century detective and places him in modern-day England, solving cases with everything from CSI equipment to cellphones. Plus, his partner Dr. John Watson publishes their exploits online via his personal blog.
As for the now-in-development Elementary, Holmes and Watson will be solving cases in modern-day New York City. Additional details about the show have not been released.

Neeson-Bale THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
For months now, we've all been wondering whether actor Liam Neeson was going to be in The Dark Knight Rises. With the actor playing coy—or rather, playing the ''comatose amnesiac patient'' card regarding the fate of his character, Ra's al Ghul—we almost never thought it would happen! Until we finally got to hear exactly what we wanted.
The actor has confirmed to showbizspy that he's indeed back as Ra's al Ghul in TDKR and that he had filmed some scenes. However, the Irish actor has no idea what's really in store for his character:
"I can tell you nothing about Dark Knight Rises, seriously. I was on set for maybe an hour-and-a-half and the director didn't tell me anything of what it's about. So, I'm being very honest when I say I have no idea what's going to happen."
An hour and a half is a short time to film anything, making us think that perhaps we may only get to see Ra's al Ghul in flashback scenes (after all, the character appeared to die in that spectacular train crash at the end of Batman Begins; try to get out of THAT alive) with his beloved daughter Talia al Ghul. (Joey King plays the character as a young girl, and Marion Cotillard as the older Talia.)
Neeson may also have some scenes with a younger Bane (Tom Hardy), or he may also appear in flashbacks about Bruce Wayne's (Christian Bale) past with the man who was his former mentor.
No matter how he appears in TDKR, it is really exciting to have him back as Ra's al Ghul.
The Dark Knight Rises will soar into theaters on July 20, 2012.

Daniel Radcliffe THE WOMAN IN BLACK
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Daniel Radcliffe stepped out without his trusted wand and wizardry for the world premiere of his first post-Harry Potter role in The Woman in Black in the British capital Tuesday.
For his first spell after Potter, Radcliffe stars in the spooky Victorian England-set picture which also includes Janet McTeer, who was in Los Angeles at the time, in its cast.
McTeer is fresh from learning she has been nominated for a supporting role actress Oscar for her turn in Albert Nobbs.
Radcliffe drew a crowd -- albeit smaller than he's used for at the height of Potter mania -- for the premiere held at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank.
The dank, damp weather did nothing to dampen the spirits of the crowds all waiting to see the Potter star.
Before the film unspooled, Radcliffe said it turned out scary enough to "make me jump."
The James Watkins-directed ghost story adaptation is penned by Jane Goldman and backed by Alliance Films, Hammer Films Productions, Cross Creek Pictures, Exclusive Media Group and Film I Vast.
It is a long-anticipated return to British horror stories for Hammer.
Radcliffe also said he will next play poet Allen Ginsberg in the independent film, Kill Your Darlings on the big screen next.

Catherine Zeta-Jones SIDE EFFECTS
First announced in November (under the title The Bitter Pill), Steven Soderbergh's medical thriller, Side Effects has now, according to Deadline, added Catherine Zeta-Jones to its cast.
Zeta-Jones, who previously teamed with Soderbergh for Traffic in 2000, joins Jude Law, Blake Lively and Channing Tatum.
The film, which also reunites Soderbergh with screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (The Informant!, Contagion), is said to be set in the world of psychopharmacology (the study of how drugs affect the human mind). Zeta-Jones and Law are said to play doctors with Lively a woman who becomes addicted to prescription drugs and begins an affair with Law's character. Tatum, meanwhile, plays Lively's character's husband, a convict who is due to soon be released from prison.
Lively remains the sole cast member not to have worked alongside Soderbergh in the past. Law appeared in last year's Contagion and Tatum just appeared in Haywire and will soon star in the director's Magic Mike, arriving June 29th.

CHRONICLE
Twentieth Century Fox has debuted a third TV spot for their upcoming Chronicle.
Opening in theaters on February 3rd, the movie stars Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan, Alex Russell and Michael Kelly. In Chronicle, three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to them developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities, and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2012

CHANGES IN RELEASE DATES FOR RELATIVITY MEDIA
Relativity Media has made two big release date changes today.
The Raven was scheduled to go up against John Carter on March 9th, but the James McTeigue-directed thriller will now open in theaters on April 27th. Starring John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson and Oliver Jackson-Cohen, the film faces The Five-Year Engagement and Safe on the new date.
Relativity also pushed back the Jennifer Lawrence-starrer House at the End of the Street from April 20th to September 21st. The horror thriller will go up against Dredd and Hotel Transylvania on the new release date.
Relativity's Haywire just opened last Friday and their next film, Act of Valor, opens on February 24th.

THE VOW
A new clip from the upcoming romantic drama, The Vow, has debuted at Yahoo! Movies.
Starring Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum, Sam Neill, Scott Speedman and Jessica Lange, the film tells the story of a newlywed couple as they recover from a car accident that puts the wife in a coma. Waking up with severe memory loss, her husband endeavors to win her heart again. The Vow arrives in theaters on February 10th.

Young Lana Lang MAN OF STEEL NEWS
Zack Snyder's Man of Steel has added another famous character from the Superman mythos to the production, albeit in a younger form than fans might have been expecting. Superman Super Site confirms today that 13-year-old Jadin Gould will play a young Lana Lang in a flashback scene to Clark Kent's Smallville childhood.
First appearing in 1950's Superboy #50, Lana is the teenage girlfriend of young Clark. She was a central character in the television series, "Smallville" (played by Kristin Kreuk) and has also appeared as a teenager on the big screen in 1978's Superman: The Movie (played by Diane Sherry) and later as an adult, re-entering Clark's life in Superman III (Played by Annette O'Toole, who would later play Martha Kent on "Smallville").
At her young age, Gould already boasts an impressive resume, having appeared on television shows like "Chuck", "Rizzoli & Isles", "The Mentalist" and on the big screen in Battle Los Angeles.
Now filming, Man of Steel's cast also includes Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, Antje Traue, Christopher Meloni, Harry Lennix and Laurence Fishburne. It is targeting a June 14, 2013 release.

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2012

Underworld: Awakening WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
This weekend's box office duel was between the fighting vampires of "Underworld: Awakening" and the Tuskegee Airmen of "Red Tails." Alas, the "Underworld" sequel managed to cleanly beat the George Lucas-produced historical drama, bringing in $25.4 million to "Red Tails'" $19.1 million.
Rounding out the top five box office earners for the weekend of Jan. 20-22 were last week's No. 1, "Contraband," in third with $12.2 million, the wide release of "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" in fourth with $10.5 million and another butt-kicking female-fronted film, "Haywire," in fifth with $9 million.
Here's the rest of the top twelve:
6. "Beauty and the Beast 3D," $8.6 million
7. "Joyful Noise," $6.1 million
8. "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol," $5.5 million
9. "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows," $4.8 million
10. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," $3.8 million
11. "The Iron Lady," $3.7 million
12. "War Horse," $3 million
PS: For those of you not aware of this, J. Michael Straczynski (yes, our Babylon 5 JMS) is one of the writers on this movie.

Tom Riley DA VINCI DEMONS
Starz has found its da Vinci.
British actor Tom Riley has been cast to play a young Leonardo da Vinci in the network's upcoming original series, Da Vinci's Demons.
The historical fantasy drama, a co-production with BBC Worldwide, follows what is being labeled the "untold" story of da Vinci during his turbulent youth in Renaissance Florence.
"Given that da Vinci was the model for the 'Renaissance Man,' these were incredibly large shoes to fill. Leonardo had to be smart, witty and incredibly confident --without coming across as arrogant. He also had to be tormented, because, as a true visionary and polymath, he was ostracized for his ideas as much as he was celebrated," said the series' scribe David S. Goyer. "As soon as [Tom] finished his audition, we knew we had found our man."
Added Starz managing director Carmi Zlotnik, "Tom showed us that there are many dimensions to this man yet to be explored, and, at the same time, make him believable, suprising and unique to a world-wide audience."
Riley, who is the first actor cast in the series, is well known in UK circles where he's a regular at London's Royal Court Theatre. His small screen credits include ITV's Monroe as well as Bouquet of Barbed Wire and Lost in Austen. On this side of the pond, he was nominated by the Drama Desk Awards for his performance as Septimus Hodge in Arcadia.
The project, the first to enter production under the multi-year pact between Starz and BBC Worldwide Productions, is set to premiere with eight episodes in 2013. It will join a schedule that currently includes Boss, Spartacus and upcoming Magic City. BBC will distribute Da Vinci's Demons internationally.
Goyer, whose other works include Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, is already on board as the series' showrunner. Julie Gardner and BBC Worldwide Productions' head Jane Tranter are attached as executive producers.

Last Exorcism THE LAST EXORCISM
It looks like The Last Exorcism wasn't the last exorcism. A good box office performance in 2010 made sure of that, so now we have a sequel in the works.
Shooting is expected to begin very soon, using a script by Damien Chazelle. This weekend, the director of the sequel was revealed and it's not Daniel Stamm, who helmed the first entry.
Ashley Bell is returning to reprise her role as Nell, however.
According to Deadline, Ed Gass-Donnelly (Small Town Murder Songs) is in the director's seat this time.
And while story details are being kept under wraps, it is known that the events that take place pick up three months after The Last Exorcism.
The producers - Eli Roth, Eric Newman, Marc Abraham and Tom Bliss - are mulling over titles for the sequel. The Last Exorcism 2 isn't going to cut it, apparently.
A Studiocanal (the company financing the film) exec tells Deadline: "This much bigger scale movie will unravel a profoundly scarier chapter to Nell’s battle between good and evil. God have mercy."

SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2012

Steven Spielberg SPIELBERG UPDATE
Steven Spielberg is a busy, busy man.
Not only is the famous director helming new projects like "Lincoln," a biopic about our 16th president, and "Robopocalypse," a sci-fi book adaptation about a robot uprising -- let's not forget "War Horse" and "The Adventures of Tintin," both of which are still in theaters -- Spielberg also has his hand in all sorts of projects as a successful producer.
This TV season alone he had his hand in three different series -- "Terra Nova," which aired its first season on FOX in the fall, and two midseason dramas that have yet to debut. "Smash," about the mounting of a Marilyn Monroe-themed Broadway musical, debuts Feb. 6 on NBC, while "The River," a creepy mockumentary about a documentary crew observing supernatural forces in the Amazon, premieres Feb. 7 on ABC.
Spielberg seems especially proud of "Smash," telling Access Hollywood, "I came up with the idea for the series. I'd been flogging it for about five years. It took [NBC entertainment president] Bob Greenblatt to step forward, because he's done musical theater with '9 to 5.' He really responded to the material."
Spielberg also recently spoke about some of his film projects at a press conference, calling "Robopocalypse" "a cautionary tale about war between human beings and robots. It's a big crowd pleaser, I think, a big action popcorn movie with a message."
And if you're a fan of Spielberg's previous work, you'll be happy to know that he's coming back for "Jurrasic Park 4" -- but not as director. "I don't want to talk about 'Jurassic Park 4' yet - it's too early - but I can tell you that I'm not directing it. I'm producing it though," he says.

Underworld 4 BOX OFFICE REPORT
Box Office Report: 'Underworld 4' Wins Friday With $9.4 Mil, 'Red Tails' Flies With $6 Mil. "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" grosses $3.2 million as it expands nationwide; Steven Soderbergh's upscale action pic 'Haywire' comes in No. 5 after scoring D+ CinemaScore.
Screen Gems' Underworld: Awakening and George Lucas' Red Tails are fueling a strong weekend at the domestic box office, which could be up as much as 30 percent over last year despite bad weather in the Midwest and East.
Underworld Awakening, the fourth outing in the Kate Beckinsale vampire-werewolf franchise, grossed $9.4 million on Friday, benefiting from being released in 3D and IMAX runs. The horror action pic is course to gross $23 million to $24 million for the weekend -- better than two of the three previous titles.
Threequel Underworld: Rise of the Lycons debuted to $20.7 million in January 2009, a franchise low. The original Underworld opened to $21.8 mllion, followed by $26.9 million for sequel Underworld: Evolution.
Awakening, co-produced by Screen Gems and Lakeshore Entertainment for $70 million, also opens in a number of overseas markets this weekend.
Fully financed and produced by George Lucas, Red Tails grossed a better than expected $6 million on Friday for a projected $16 million weekend. Fox is distributing the movie, which came in No. 2 behind Awakening.
Red Tails, about the Tuskegee Airman during World War II, received a glowing A CinemaScore. Awakening and Warner Bros.' Extremely Loud & Incrediby Close, which is expanding nationwide this weekend, both received an A- CinemaScore.
Lucas spent 20 years pursuing the project, and recently revealed he couldn't get any studio to finance the film because of an all-black cast. He finally decided to put up the money himself, and spent $58 million on the production budget and another $35 in distribution costs. Lucas produced with Rick McCallum.
The cast of Red Tails includes Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard. Recently, the producers and cast were recently at the White House for special screening of the film, along with director Anthony Hemingway.
Stephen Daldry's post-9/11 drama Extremely Loud, starring Thomas Horn, Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks, came in No. 4 on Friday, grossing $3.2 million as it expanded from six theaters, where it's been playing since Christmas Day, to 2,630 locations. Projections show Extremely Loud grossing $10 million for the weekend.
Universal's Mark Wahlberg starrer Contraband came in No. 3 on its second Friday, grossing $3.7 million for a projected $12 million weekend. The pic's domestic gross through Friday was $37.6 million.
Steven Soderbergh's upscale action film Haywire, the weekend's other new player, came in No. 5 on Friday after scoring a dismal D+ CinemaScore. The Relativity Media pic grossed $2.9 million for the day, and is expected to gross $8 million to $9 million for the weekend. Relativity says the film only cost $23 million, with much of the budget covered by foreign presales.
Headlining Gina Carano as a female covert operative, Haywire also stars Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Chaning Tatum and Michael Douglas.
Haywire opens in a handful of foreign territories this weekend, including Russia and the U.K. Alliance is distributing the movie in Canada.

Normal Heart THE NORMAL HEART
Julia Roberts, Alec Baldwin, Matt Bomer and Jim Parsons have joined Ryan Murphy's ("American Horror Story," Eat Pray Love, "Glee") next film, an adaptation of Larry Kramer's semi-autobiographical play The Normal Heart, says The Hollywood Reporter. The film is being produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B production company. The play is described as follows:
"The Normal Heart" is the explosive drama about our most terrifying and troubling medical crisis today: the AIDS epidemic. It tells the story of very private lives caught up in the heartrendering ordeal of suffering and doom - an ordeal that was largely ignored for reasons of politics and majority morality."
Mark Ruffalo will play the lead character Ned Weeks. Roberts plays Emma Brookner, "a wheel-chair bound doctor who is one of the only doctors in New York talking the new disease seriously." Baldwin will play Weeks' brother, "a lawyer having a hard time dealing with his sibling's sexuality." Bomer's character is Felix Turner, "a gay fashion journalist who becomes Week’s boyfriend and tragically contracts the disease," while Parsons is reprising his Broadway version of "a Southerner who is a gay activist and part of a gay men’s health crisis group."
Kramer wrote the screenplay.

Nothing to Fear NOTHING TO FEAR
Anchor Bay Films has made a deal at Sundance with Slash's new company Slasher Films to distribute Nothing to Fear. The full press release:
Anchor Bay Films announced today the pick up of Slasher Films’ Nothing to Fear. Slasher Films is the new horror label conceived by legendary guitar hero Slash and the producing team of Rob Eric and Academy Award™ winning producer Michael Williams (Session 9, Transsiberian, The Fog of War). Nothing to Fear is the first film to be produced in the Slasher Films slate and is based on an actual town in Kansas, which, according to legend, is one of the seven gateways to Hell. The film will be directed by Anthony Leonardi III. Leonardi has been the lead creature artist and storyboard artist for such films as Constantine, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Rango and the upcoming 47 Ronin. His vision and tenacity have made him one of the most talked about new directors. Slash will be co-producing the score of the movie.
“Anchor Bay is thrilled to be working with the Slasher Films team,” commented Kevin Kasha, Executive Vice President, Acquisitions and Co-Productions for Anchor Bay Films. “We knew we wanted to work with Slash when he announced the formation of the label back in September at Toronto and after having read this script, we are even more excited. Anchor Bay Films is the PERFECT home for Nothing to Fear.”
“The team that we’ve put together for Nothing to Fear is nothing short of excellent,” added Slash. “Anthony Leonardi’s vision of this story is exceptionally unnerving and dark. It will keep you totally engaged from the first second of the film to the last. It’s guaranteed to scare the hell out of you.”
“Slash is one of the biggest music icons in the world,” remarked Josh Thomashow, Director of Acquisitions for Anchor Bay Films. “Anchor Bay is so proud to be a part of the brand that makes him an icon in the horror world as well.”
Nothing to Fear is about a family whose journey towards a better life in a small town is savagely derailed by a charismatic but emotionally conflicted man of the cloth.
Stemming from folklore surrounding the actual town of Stull, Kansas, generations of residents and outsiders alike have proclaimed Stull to be one of the seven known gateways to Hell, where once a year, the Devil will rise from the town’s modest graveyard to walk the Earth. For decades, television, music, movies, and more have cautiously addressed the town; its horror is so infamous, even Pope John Paul II refused to fly over its grounds. Nothing to Fear finally pulls the folklore to the forefront and reveals the unsettling fact and fiction rumbling beneath the surface.
The deal was negotiated by Josh Thomashow on behalf of Anchor Bay and by Executive Producers Shaun Redick and Ray Mansfield of Movie Package Co., and Jackie Eckhouse of Sloss Eckhouse LawCo on behalf of Slasher Films. Content Media Corp. is currently handling international sales for the picture.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2012

666 Park Avenue 666 PARK AVENUE
The Hollywood Reporter writes that ABC has made a date with the Devil.
The network has picked up to pilot 666 Park Ave., an hourlong drama from Alloy Entertainment, the producers of The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle and Gossip Girl.
From Warner Bros. Television and Alloy, 666 Park is based on the book series by Gabriella Pierce. Like the books, the drama centers on an innocent couple from the midwest that moves to New York and gets hired to be resident managers of a building on the Upper East Side. There, unbeknownst to the couple, the residents have all unwittingly made deals with the Devil to have their deepest needs, ambitions and desires fulfilled.
David Wilcox is attached to adapt the project and executive produce alongside Alloy's Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo.
The project marks a reunion of sorts for ABC entertainment chief Paul Lee and Alloy executives, who worked together when Lee was at ABC Family.
666 Park joins a growing crop of Alloy dramas that include ABC Family's The Lying Game, Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game. It marks the fourth drama ordered to pilot at the network this season, joining Shawn Ryan's Last Resort, the untitled Roland Emmerich election project and Shonda Rhimes' period hotel piece Gilded Lillys.

Patrick Wilson-Vera Farmiga THE CONJURING
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are in final negotiations to star in The Conjuring, a supernatural thriller from New Line.
The casting will reteam Wilson with director James Wan, who directed the actor in Insidious, another supernatural creepfest that was one last year's most profitable movies.
In Conjuring, written by Chad and Carey Hayes, Wilson and Farmiga will play a husband and wife team of demonologists and psychic investigators who enter the most horrifying case of their career, spirits in a Rhode Island farmhouse.
The story is based on the real life tale of the Perron family and their ordeals in the 1970s. When New Line acquired the pitch from the Hayes, it included life rights to the Perron family and the paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
A March shoot in North Caroline is being eyed.
Pete Safran, Rob Cowan, and Tony DeRosa-Grund are producing.
Wilson, currently seen on screen in Jason Reitman's Young Adult, is repped by CAA, Anonymous Content and Hansen Jacobson.
Farmiga, who appears in next month’s Denzel Washington-Ryan Reynolds action thriller Safe House, is repped by CAA, Authentic Talent and attorney Jodi Peikoff.

RESIDENT EVIL 6
Here is a trailer for newly-announced video game Resident Evil 6 from Capcom. Coming to stores on November 20, 2012, the game is described as follows:
It has been ten years since the incident at Raccoon City and the President of the United States has decided to reveal the truth behind what took place. Raccoon City survivor and personal friend of the President, Leon S. Kennedy, arrives to find the President transformed beyond recognition by a bioterrorist attack. Leon is forced to make the hardest decision he has ever made.
At the same, Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance Member, Chris Redfield arrives in China, itself under threat of a bioterrorist attack.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2012

Olga Kurylenko
NEW TOM CRUISE SF FILM
The new sci-fi epic from Tom Cruise and the director of Tron: Legacy has finally found its female leads. According to Variety, Olga Kurylenko and Andrea Riseborough have been cast as the two main female characters in the first film directed by Joseph Kosinski since he brought Tron: Legacy to the screen in 2010. Previously called Oblivion, then Horizons, then Oblivion again, the movie is currently without a title until Universal Pictures' marketing department finds one they like.
The movie, based on a graphic novel written by Kosinski himself, follows a soldier (Cruise) who scours the surface of an obliterated Earth looking for remnants of the alien race that leveled the planet a while back. He eventually comes upon a woman in a crashed spaceship who changes his life and everything he knows.
Riseborough plays the mystery woman, while Kurylenko will show up as Cruise's wife. Kurylenko has been seen as a Bond girl in Quantum of Solace and a savage Pictish warrior in the Dark Ages historical thriller Centurion. Cruise reportedly liked her from her very first screen test and preferred her over Olivia Wilde (Cowboys & Aliens), Noomi Rapace (Prometheus) and others.
Riseborough, meanwhile, is from England and has not been seen yet in an American film. But she must have been damn good in her screen test since she allegedly beat out Hayley Atwell (Captain America) and Kate Beckinsale (Underworld: Awakening) for the part, which first went to Jessica Chastain (Take Shelter) until she had to drop out because of a scheduling conflict.
Production is supposed to start sometime before the end of March and the movie is set for release in 2013.

BEING HUMAN
The stakes are high, there's no escape, the vampires are coming.'' That's what we're being ominously told in this first exciting and full-on emotionalÑand may we add, a bit trippyÑBeing Human U.K. season-four trailer.
Returning for this fourthÑand perhaps even lastÑseason of the popular BBC Three supernatural drama series created by Toby Whithouse are actors Russell Tovey, as werewolf George, and Lenora Crichlow, as ghost Annie.
The remaining twosome is joined by new posh vamp Hal (Damien Molony) and young werewolf Tom (Michael Socha), who was first introduced last season.
Annie, George, Tom and newcomer Hal find the fate of humanity in their hands as Being Human returns for it's fourth series.
Have a look:
From the looks of things, George is NOT in a good emotional place, having lost both his best friend Mitchell (Aidan Turner) last yearÑGeorge became the prophesised ''wolf-shaped bullet'' and staked his bloodsucking BFFÑand his girlfriend Nina (Sinead Keenan; the departure of the character will be made off-screen).
If that wasn't enough, our poor George also has to deal with the new vampire-authority-in-town that wants to kill his baby daughter because ''werewolves have only ever been made, not born.'' Awesome.
Being Human season four will air on BBC Three in the U.K. in early February (date still to be determined). Let's keep our fingers (and toes) crossed that it'll air sooner rather than later on our side of the pond.

RESIDENT EVIL RETRIBUTION
As they've gone on, Milla Jovovich's Resident Evil movies seems to have become less and less tethered to anything resembling sanity. Thing is: We don't care. Insane is precisely what we want, and this first snippet from Retribution doesn't disappoint.
I'm particularly fond of the use of Patrick Stewart's dulcet voice to soothe you into a kind of tech-commercial stuporÑand that is a whole lot of Sony products this teaser is sellingÑbefore all hell breaks loose.
It's a long way until September 2012, but I'm marking my calendar.

Harrington-Kinnaman ARTHUR & LANCELOT ON HOLD
In a surprise move, Warner Bros. has taken David Dobkin's Arthur & Lancelot off its release calendar in order to iron out several issues, including a large budget.
The new take on the King Arthur legend, starring Kit Harington and Joel Kinnaman, was supposed to open March 15, 2013.
In a second major move, Warners moved back Bryan Singer's fantasy Jack the Giant Killer 3D by nine months to March 22, 2013. It had been set to open June 15, 2012. In a more minor tweak, New Line and Warners' Rock of Ages is being pushed back by two weeks, from June 1, 2012, to June 15, 2012.
Dobkin called talent and crew Wednesday night to inform them that Lancelot "wasn't looking good."
The studio says it is trying to address the movie's issues. "We are trying to make it work. It's not dead," says a Warners insider.
The reimagining of the King Arthur myth is new territory for Dobkin, a helmer best known for comedies including Wedding Crashers. After an exhaustive search, Harington and Kinnaman were picked to play King Arthur and his most loyal knight, Lancelot, respectively. The film is intended to be a lighthearted action pic, similar in tone to Warners' successful Sherlock Holmes franchise.
But the budget for the project soared from less than $100 million to $130 million, prompting Warners to ask for cuts. Adding to the complication was the untested box-office power of the two actors, both of whom have drawn raves for their television work but have yet to carry a movie.
If the film does move ahead, it could be without one or both actors because of scheduling issues (Dobkin was supposed to start shooting in spring 2012).
Kinnaman is shooting AMC's The Killing and was due to segue into Arthur & Lancelot, but Harington was meant to do the movie before returning to his hit show Game of Thrones, which is due to start shooting in the spring. If ironing out the issues takes too long, he could be the first casualty.
Warners can likely afford to move back Jack the Giant Killer because of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, which opens in July. And pushing the film back gives the studio more time for special effects, as well as a chance to attach trailers for it to Peter Jackson's Christmas tentpole The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN
Universal Pictures has released, through the film's Facebook page, a new sneak peek from their upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman. The footage debuted as part of Charlize Theron's guest appearance on "Top Chef" and, while it contains much of the same footage as the first trailer, it also has a few brand-new shots as well. Check it out in the player below! Directed by Rupert Sanders, the fantasy take on the classic fairytale also stars Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Eddie Izzard, Bob Hoskins, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Stephen Graham, Ray Winstone, Lily Cole, Sam Spruell, Liberty Ross and Noah Huntley.

Atlantis Rising ATLANTIS RISING
Platinum Studios Inc. chairman Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and producer Mark Canton (300, Immortals) announced today that they are immediately putting the Platinum Studios comic book Atlantis Rising into development for a new, ongoing film franchise. Atlantis Rising is just one of the titles in Platinum Studios' international library of thousands of comic book characters which it adapts, produces, and licenses for all forms of media.
Created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Atlantis Rising was first published as a five-issue mini-series that had been previously optioned to DreamWorks. Platinum Studios recently regained the production rights, allowing them to reboot the series and to team up with Canton. The film is set against an undersea civilization that began over 10,000 years ago, and whose presence is unknown to the surface population.
"'Atlantis Rising' has the franchise potential of 'Men in Black,' which I green lit for Scott while at Sony's Columbia Tristar Motion Picture Companies," says Mark Canton. "I'm looking forward to bringing it to the screen with Platinum as a dynamic, state of the art action thriller."
Canton, who is chairman and CEO of Atmosphere Entertainment, has been on the Platinum Studios' board of directors since 2010. Atmosphere Entertainment's recent films include Relativity's Immortals which has grossed over $210 million in worldwide box office sales; Warner Bros.' 300, based on the best-selling graphic novel by Frank Miller; and The Spiderwick Chronicles, based upon the best-selling book series, for Paramount Pictures.
"'Atlantis Rising' is a provocative sci-fi thriller that at its core brings up the question: whose planet is this?" adds Scott Rosenberg. "We hope to duplicate that achievement after the enormous success of the 'Men in Black' franchise."

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

Christopher Heyerdahl TRUE BLOOD CASTING NEWS
"Twilight" actor Christopher Heyerdahl will be joining the cast of HBO's "True Blood." Yes, it's his second turn as a vampire, and this is a guy who's played Bigfoot and Jack the Ripper in Syfy's "Sanctuary." Heyerdahl might be the current king of monsters.
According to Deadline, Heyerdahl will play the recurring role of Dieter Braun, an ancient, powerful vampire who plays a large part in the intelligence of the Authority and especially enjoys enhanced interrogation. Hey, he's got that vampy face. One can see why he keeps playing supernatural characters. Heyerdahl played the ancient Volturi vampire Marcus in three of the "Twilight" movies, a demon in "Supernatural" and a wraith in "Stargate: Atlantis."
He currently co-stars on the AMC drama series "Hell on Wheels" (just renewed for a second season) where he plays The Swede. Heyerdahl will be joining the recently cast hottie Christopher Meloni on "True Blood."

Syfy SYFY GREENLIGHTS TWO-HOUR PILOT FOR TIME TRAVEL ACTION THRILLER REWIND FROM BERMANBRAUN AND UNIVERSAL CABLE PRODUCTIONS
NEW YORK - January 18, 2012 -- Syfy has given a two-hour pilot greenlight to the action thriller Rewind from BermanBraun and Universal Cable Productions, it was announced today by Mark Stern, President of Original Content, Syfy and Co-Head of Original Content for Universal Cable Productions.
"We couldn't be happier to be back in business with BermanBraun. Justin Marks has created a time-travel series with an exciting innovative approach that really exemplifies Syfy's commitment to bring compelling storytelling to life," said Stern.
The thriller revolves around a team of military field operatives and civilian scientists who must use untested technology to travel back in time to alter past events in order to change the future and avoid a devastating terrorist attack. Justin Marks wrote the pilot and will executive produce with Tom Spezialy, Gail Berman, Lloyd Braun and Gene Stein. BermanBraun and Universal Cable Productions also produce Syfy's original hit series Alphas, currently entering its second season. Rewind is set to begin production in April 2012.

The Stand THE STAND
A new report from Vulture says that the Warner Bros. adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand has landed screenwriter David Kajganich.
Kajganich (The Invasion, Blood Creek) also worked on an as-of-yet unproduced adaptation of King's It, which is likely what brought him to director Ben Affleck's attention.
Previously adapted as a television miniseries in 1994, "The Stand" tells the story of a full-scale apocalypse, driven by the accidental release of a biological weapon and the ensuing struggle of good versus evil carried out by the world's final survivors.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2012

Get More: ,

STAR TREK 2
While we're still waiting with bated breath to know exactly just who-in-the-universe Benedict Cumberbatch is playing in J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Trek 2 (or XII, if you prefer), the Sherlock actor has at least revealed some tantalizing tidbits about his mysterious character.
It's been nearly two weeks since it was announced that the War Horse actor had been tapped to play the film's villain. Two weeks, and yet both Abrams and Cumberbatch are still remaining tight-lipped about whether the awesome British actor is actually playing the film's villain.
Cumberbatch is even teasing the fact that he may not be playing Capt. James T. Kirk's (Chris Pine) next nemesis after all!
While on the Red Carpet during this past Sunday's Golden Globes awards, Cumby (as people are now affectionately calling the 35-year old actor) told MTV's Josh Horowitz:
"I don't think we do know that [him playing the villain], actually. That's just supposition. And that's all I'm going to say about it."
"I started [becoming a Star Trek fan] slowly, but quite genuinely, when he rebooted it with this last film. I have lots of friends and family, all sorts of people who've loved all of the series and all of the films. I've been introduced to it through them and now I'm going back to them and asking them questions so I can get up to speed with true Trekkies."
However, what the actor did reveal is that the role he'll be playing in the as-yet-still-untitled Trek sequel demands a good deal of physical preparation, saying that he's been ''working out nonstop'' to get ready for the film.
Even if the role appears physically demanding—making us even more curious in the process—Cumby had only high praise for Abrams, saying:
"[Abrams has] great ideas. It's been great fun to prep. I start [shooting] next week, which is really exciting, and I can't say any more than that."

Joss Whedon IN YOUR EYES
As part of what seems to be an increasingly urgent bid to become the hardest-working man in show business, Whedon is gearing up to kick out another post-Avengers flick. And he's tapped a Mad Men star for the lead in a supernatural-flavored romance.
Whedon seems hell-bent on carving out a niche for himself in movies, much the way he did in television: a smart, genre-savvy creator who can churn out lots of high-quality material rather quickly. (Let's not forget that, for one golden year, Whedon had Buffy, Angel and Firefly on TV all at the same time.)
So, even while prepping The Avengers for its May release, and nudging Cabin in the Woods to open the South by Southwest festival, and shooting Much Ado About Nothing in secret, Whedon wrote and will produce the supernatural romance In Your Eyes (which'll be directed by Brin Hill).
Starring Abigail Spenser, who just wrapped up Sam Raimi's Oz: The Great and Powerful, In Your Eyes is allegedly about two people who are preternaturally or supernaturally connected, despite being polar opposites. Vague, huh? Well, if we've learned anything, it's that the Whedon moves in mysterious ways.

Joel Edgerton ONE NIGHT STAND
Though he's best known for his acting resume (most recently appearing in Warrior and The Thing), Joel Edgerton has, according to The Hollywood Reporter, now sold his screenplay entitled One Night Stand to New Regency and will stay involved as executive producer. Edgerton previously co-wrote the screenplay for the crime-thriller The Square, directed by his brother Nash Edgerton.
One Night Stand is described as a comedic drama that focuses on a one night stand between a man and a woman and the ensuing consequences.
Edgerton is not intending to star in the project, though he can soon be seen back on the big screen in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby and in Peter Hedges' The Odd Life of Timothy Green.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2012

BEING HUMAN
Aidan is drawn back into the vampire fold by a character named Mother and her daughter Suren. Dollhouse's Dichen Lachman joins the cast as Suren.
"So we see how that affects him in a really, really bad way. And there's just ... there's some very cool overtones in terms of the story as it develops and Aidan finds himself in a dysfunctional relationship. I'll put it that way," said Witwer.
Aidan ends up on a destructive path. "A really destructive one, and eventually self-destructive. So yeah, if you are invested in that character then it's going to be a painful season to watch, I think. Yeah, I'll be honest, I actually am concerned that people are going to turn on Aidan in terms of the fanbase. On the other hand, maybe they'll stick with him no matter what," he said with a laugh.
Last year we saw flashbacks from the '50s and '70s as the story dug into Adian's past. "Now we get to go and spend a good deal of time in the '30s. We spend a ton just on the backstory of who Aidan was in the '30s and what happened to the vampires back then. Because the vampires we've seen are, they hide in the shadows and they have day jobs and they try to keep a very low profile. Well, back in the day, that wasn't necessarily the case. Things were a lot cooler for these guys, and they had a lot more money, and they had a lot more prestige, and they were a little bit flashier, and we learned why they felt it was necessary to change that and head for the shadows and seek a low profile and really just hide out. We learn why they changed, and we also learn what part Aidan had to play in that. So it's really cool stuff. We even spent some time in World War I," said Witwer.
As for ghost Sally (Meaghan Rath) and werewolf Josh (Sam Huntington), "the good news is that the writers are able to raise the stakes with the other characters as well, quite a bit more so than they did last year. So that's kind of fun."
Sally will be dealing with the repercussions of missing her door, and Josh will hunt for a cure for being a werewolf. And they'll also have to "deal with characters from their past showing up and shaking things up," said Witwer.
The actor believes that Being Human can go places other types of television shows can't go.
"Science fiction at its best is always examining very real issues and real human stories through the lens of, 'Oh, don't take us too seriously, we're science fiction,'" said Witwer. "But in the case of Aidan we have not forgotten this whole drug-addiction metaphor. In fact, it comes into focus very clearly in this season." Being Human premieres its second season tonight on Syfy at 9 p.m. ET

SKYFALL
You can watch a countdown until the release of the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, on the newly revamped site. In case you're wondering, there are currently 296 days of waiting left.
The website, 007.com, also provides the first official video about the film. Long-time Bond co-producer Michael G. Wilson hosts the slick video, which features images of men with guns in front of a blue-lit background.
While the sleek site doesn't give much away about the top secret plot, it will feature production videos and stills, casting updates and also a look back at the history of Bond films. 2012 is the 50th anniversary of the James Bond genre, so the site should have plenty to celebrate.
Daniel Craig is back as James Bond 007 in Skyfall, the 23rd adventure in the longest-running film franchise of all time. In Skyfall, Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.
Skyfall, which is helmed by Sam Mendes, also features Javier Bardem, Dame Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe and Ben Whishaw.
The highly-anticipated film will begins its worldwide roll-out in the U.K. on October 26 2012, and will reach North America on November 9, 2012.

Catching Fire CATCHING FIRE
It's always a little strange when a sequel is greenlit before the first installment of a movie comes out, but that's what Lionsgate did with the sequel to the soon-to-be-released adaptation of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, announcing a release date for its sequel Catching Fire last August. That release date set was November 22, 2013, and now, The Wrap's "Deal Central" reports that Oscar-winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) has been hired to write the adaptation for Collins' second book. It also reports that Gary Ross who co-wrote and directed The Hunger Game (out March 23) is overseeing Beaufoy's work and has been confirmed to return as director for the sequel. Furthermore, they're confirming that four of the cast--Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson and Liam Hensworth--will also be returning, although that's probably not that strange since they all were likely to sign multi-picture deals, since that's standard operating procedure these days.
The Hunger Games is out on March 23 and now, it looks like its sequel Catching Fire is still on track for its planned release date of November 22, 2013.

Contraband WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Going into the second weekend of January, the four-day Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, it seemed like it might be a close race between two very different movies, an adult crime thriller and a Disney 3D rerelease, but on Friday, it became quite clear that Mark Wahlberg's Contraband (Universal), which he co-produced and starred in with Kate Beckinsale, Giovanni Ribisi and Ben Foster, would win the weekend and that it did with $28.8 million in 2,863 theaters over the four day Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. With a per-theater average over $10,000 per site, it's officially the highest opening movie for the film's primary producer Working Title Films, topping the opening of Sidney Pollack's The Interpreter.
After the successful rerelease of The Lion King 3D last September, Disney gave it another go with Beauty and the Beast 3D (Disney), a 3D conversion of the Oscar-winning film which had already been released on DVD and Blu-ray. That didn't matter to family audiences who went out to see it over the extended holiday weekend, amassing $23.5 million in over 2,600 theaters. This is added to the nearly $400 million the film already made in its theatrical runs since opening over 20 years ago.
The Tom Cruise action movie Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Paramount) continues to do big business as it took third place with $14.2 million over the four-day holiday, bringing its own total to $189.5 million.
Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton teamed for the musical comedy Joyful Noise (New Line/WB), which ended up in fourth place with $13.8 million in 2,735 theaters, averaging roughly $5,000 per site.
Guy Ritchie's period action sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Warner Bros.), starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, continued its run as the second-strongest holiday rerelease, bringing its running domestic total to $172.1 million with the $10.5 million it made for fifth place.
Paramount Insurge's low-budget horror movie The Devil Inside, which began the year on top, tanked in its second weekend, losing over 70% of its business and dropping all the way down to 6th place with $9.2 million and $47.5 million. Clearly, bad word-of-mouth spreads fast and those interested in seeing the movie rushed out opening weekend.
David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sony) continued to bring in business with $8.1 million for seventh place, $89.3 million total, while Fox's Alvin and the Chipmunks - Chipwrecked took eighth with $7.8 million and $121 million total since opening before Christmas.
Steven Spielberg's War Horse (DreamWorks) and the Cameron Crowe-Matt Damon family drama We Bought a Zoo (20th Century Fox) continue to vie for position as they settled on ninth and tenth place, respectively, War Horse earning $7.1 million to Zoo's $6.8 million. They both have earned in the $65 to 68 million range since opening over Christmas weekend.
After a successful platform release, Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady (The Weinstein Company), starring recent Golden Globe winner Meryl Streep as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expanded nationwide into 802 theaters, but it just missed the chance to get into the Top 10 (at least going by the four-day weekend), taking in $6.5 million, roughly $8 thousand per site.
The Top 10 grossed an estimated $129 million for the four-day weekend, which is right in line with the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend last year, when Seth Rogen's action-comedy The Green Hornet (Sony) beat Vince Vaughn and Kevin James' comedy The Dilemma (Universal) by double, $40 million to $20 million.

MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2012

TinTin THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN
"The Adventures of Tintin" managed to beat out "Arthur Christmas," "Puss in Boots," "Rango" and even Pixar's "Cars 2" for a 2012 Golden Globe award.
Interestingly, the Steven Spielberg- and Peter Jackson-produced "Tintin" isn't your traditional animated feature. Starring Jamie Bell as the titular young reporter and Daniel Craig as the villain Ivanovic Sakharin, "Tintin" used 3D motion capture technology to create its unique-looking world. (That's also known as what made "Avatar" so cool-looking and what makes Andy Serkis so in demand. Coincidentally, Serkis co-stars as Captain Haddock in the film.)
Spielberg, who also directed the film, spoke to Moviefone about using the technology for his film. "Motion capture is just another tool in a vast tool chest," he tells the site. "It was the right tool to use to be able to make this movie as close to the original artwork of the great Herge, who illustrated and wrote all the Tintin books. But, at the same time, the adventure of making 'Tintin' is always the same for every movie, no matter what the medium. It's telling a good story and getting the actors to acquit that story in the funniest and most breathtaking ways possible. That's where my focus was -- being able to tell a good story."
Though "Tintin" was nominated for a handful of awards this season, it only managed to take home two (aside from its shiny new Golden Globe) -- from the Florida and Toronto film critics.

Michael Massee FRINGE NEWS
Just because season 4 might be the last for Fringe, don't think that the show is going to even think about slowing down. The show returned on January 13 with an awesome midseason premiere, and things are only going to get better from there. In fact, Fringe is about to introduce one of its best bad guys yet.
Michael Massee has been cast in Fringe season 4 in a role that is very shrouded in mystery. All we know about the role, in fact, is what we've heard from executive producer J.H. Wyman. "His character promises to be one of the most memorable, guest bad guys we've ever had," he told TV Guide. The episode Massee's character will be featured in will be "a terrifying journey with a man pushed to the limits by intense loneliness," Wyman confirmed.
Massee has previously appeared in Se7en, 24, Alias, Supernatural, and Carnivale. Genre television fans might know him as baddie Dyson Frost from ABC's short-lived FlashForward.
Massee's as-yet unnamed character won't be the only bad guy of the second half of Fringe season 4, though. As confirmed back in November, Jared Harris is returning to the series to reprise his role as season one's big bad guy David Robert Jones, who is still alive in the show's new timeline. Harris made his (re)entrance in January 13's episode, "Back to Where You've Never Been."
Fringe returned with all-new episodes starting January 13, starting with "Back to Where You've Never Been" at 9/8c on FOX.

Peter Dinklage GAME OF THRONES
After picking up the Emmy for HBO's fantasy drama Game of Thrones, Golden Globe supporting actor in a drama or miniseries winner for Peter Dinklage said he hopes the win gives fantasy dramas more credibility.
"Hopefully it will give that genre a little bit more respect," he told reporters backstage.
Based on the best-selling series by author George R.R. Martin, Dinklage credited the willingness of the series to take risks adds to Thrones' addictive nature. "You never know what's going to happen when you kill the protagonist," he said, referencing the death of Sean Bean's Eddard Stark in the penultimate episode of Season 1.
"That's really smart narrative. … You've got to push the envelope and challenge expectations and ideas of what's going to happen next. That adds to the addiction of the show -- you never know what's around the corner."
As for what's to come when Thrones returns April 1, Dinklage offered this gem: "In Season 2, we're not done killing off people," he told reporters.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2012

Walking Dead WALKING DEAD NEWS
AMC is adding more of The Walking Dead.
The zombie series based on the comic books by Robert Kirkman will expand its third season with three additional episodes for a total of 16.
Season 1 featured six episodes, while Season 2 has 13 episodes, with the current sophomore frame split into two parts and set to return for its back half on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 9 p.m. Season 3 will also follow the same broadcast pattern, with a fourth-quarter bow and subsequent split.
Leading up to the Season 2 return, which will find Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his group of rag-tag survivors cope with Sophia's death, AMC has scheduled a marathon of episodes from Seasons 1 and 2.
On Saturday, Feb. 11, starting at 8 p.m., the network will marathon all of Season 1, while on Sunday, viewers can catch up on the first seven episodes of the second frame starting at 1:30 p.m. and leading up to the show's return at 9 p.m. with an episode titled "Nebraska."
The Season 2 midseason finale topped the show's freshman year finale, drawing 6.6 million total viewers and 4.5 million in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic, pulling in 3.9 million in the adults 25-54 demo, according to Nielsen.The zombie drama was renewed for a third season in October after the Season 2 bow shattered basic cable ratings records.

Fringe FRIDAY NIGHT RATINGS
It was business as usual for the returns of several Friday programs, including Fringe and Grimm.
Fringe returned to match a series low, drawing only 2.9 million total viewers, and a 1.1 rating in adults 18-49 demographic. The poor showing came nearly a week after Fox entertainment chief Kevin Reilly admitted that the network lost money on the heavily-serialized multi-universe drama.
"At that rating, on that night [Fridays], it’s impossible to make money," he told reporters during the winter Television Critics Assoc. press tour, "and we’re not in the business of losing money.”
Meanwhile, Fox's Kitchen Nightmares won its time slot at 8 p.m. with a 1.7 rating. The Gordon Ramsay series lured 3.8 million.
NBC's Grimm (4.6 million, 1.4) returned after several weeks off the air, down slightly from its most recent episode in December. Airing against Fringe in the 9 p.m. hour, Grimm placed second in its time period behind ABC and CBS which tied for No. 1. Grimm lead-in Chuck (3.2 million, 0.9) stayed flat as it nears the series finale.
CBS' A Gifted Man (8.7 million, 1.3) and CSI: NY (10.5 million, 1.7) both dropped from last week's returns. Blue Bloods (11.9 million, 1.8) remained the same.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition wrapped up its series run on ABC with 6.3 million viewers tuning in from 8-10 p.m. and a 1.6 rating, relatively steady from the previous week. Newsmagazine 20/20 (5.6 million, 1.7), however, saw an uptick at 10 p.m.
The CW's Nikita (1.5 million, 0.5) and Supernatural (1.5 million, 0.6) both slipped.
In a rare tie, ABC and CBS top Friday with a 1.6 primetime average. Fox followed with a 1.4, with NBC (1.2) and the CW (0.6) trailing.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
The extended 4-day Martin Luther King Jr. weekend has started off strong with Mark Wahlberg's crime-thriller Contraband (Universal) winning Friday with an estimated $8.7 million in 2,863 theaters, besting Disney's rerelease Beauty and the Beast 3D, which took in $5.6 million in 2,625 theaters. While the latter should gain some ground over the weekend with many schools out on Monday, Contraband should still come out on top with roughly $29 million Beauty and the Beast should end up somewhere between $25 and 27 million.
The Queen Latifah-Dolly Parton musical mash-up Joyful Noise took third place with $3.3 million, but it has Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol nipping at its heels for third place over the weekend with both of them expected to be in the $13 to 14 million range.
Paramount's The Devil Inside took a massive tumble from its enormous opening weekend, making just $2.7 million on Friday, down 84% from its opening day last week.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 2012


GAME OF THRONES
HBO has finally announced that their Emmy-winning hit series, Game of Thrones, will return for its second season on Sunday, April 1 at 9 p.m. ET. Like the first season, season two will have ten episodes.
It was previously announced that season two would be based on the second book in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire," A Clash of Kings. That means you can expect plenty of treachery and turmoil as the battle for control of the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms continues.
Returning cast members include: Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Emmy winner Peter Dinklage, Michelle Fairley, Lena Headey and Kit Harington.

THE FADES
Get ready for a new monster to haunt your nightmares, says Scottish actor Iain De Caestecker, who stars in BBC America's latest Sci-Fi Saturday series, The Fades. The series does its own spin on the horror genre with the spooky Fades, which don't quite fit into the normal monster categories.
"These new kind of creatures have been created, and I think that's a really exciting thing. You've got vampires and werewolves and things like that, and now you've got the Fades, I suppose," said De Caestecker. "There's a lot of rules, things that are associated with the Fades that you need to become aware of to really understand them ... So there's a mythology behind it now."
The Fades, which premieres tonight, is about 17-year-old Paul (De Caestecker) who suddenly finds himself facing the terrifying Fades, which appear to be a cross between ghosts and zombies. Unfortunately, his friends and family can't seem to see them AND he's having apocalyptic nightmares. The high schooler is quickly drawn into a war that's brewing between the Fades and the only people who can see them, the Angelics. After the Fades lead a devastating attack against the good guys, Angelic Neil draws Paul into the fight after realizing that he can see things he shouldn't be able to see.
Still, for Paul there's something more terrifying than ghostly zombie monsters that are trying to break into the real world and eat people ... high school and girls. The Fades also stars Daniel Kaluuya as Paul's best friend, Mac, Johnny Harris as the Angelic Neil, and Sophie Wu as the girl Paul has a crush on, Jay.
According to De Caestecker, when it comes to creator Jack Thorne, "he's got quite a lot of balls, and he's not scared to do something that you're not expecting. There's a couple times I remember reading the scripts and going to myself like, 'Oh really?' and then turning the page, 'Oh, no! You've done that?' So, that's one good thing about it. There's lots of twists," he said.
"Paul has been given these powers which he can't really explain, and it doesn't really fully know their purpose yet, and that's really interesting. That's something that I've never come across before. I've never experienced myself in my life and I don't know if I will," said De Caestecker with a laugh. "So that adds something really different, the supernatural element."
The teen has "all the normal worries that a 17-year-old kid does. Coupled with the fact that he's got this really huge burden on his shoulders of ... is he going to have to do something to try to save mankind or what? You know, he doesn't really understand what exactly it means, him having these powers," he said.
Paul's other big challenge is how to reconcile possibly being the savior of the world and telling his friends and family what's going on.
"How do you tell someone that? You know, when you find out that this is the way the world ends and there's all this other stuff going on ... first, of all do you believe it? Secondly, how do you explain that to someone who doesn't have the same connection as you do with the Fades?"
Probably the most important relationship Paul has is with his best bud, Mac, who's a big nerd and movie fanatic. "Mac's quite content to stay in that world with Paul and not meet anyone else, and I think Paul is yearning for something a little bit more. So there's that, yeah, and there's also growing up and living up to the responsibilities of these powers that he's been given. ... I think he has to become a man and he has to become selfless, and learn what the difference between right and wrong is. I think starting the story he's quite impressionable. He can be manipulated because he's quite innocent, and I think he starts to learn to make decisions for himself for the greater good, or what he perceives as the greater good," said De Caestecker.
While this might initially sound like a Buffy knockoff, not so. The Fades is filled with the language and sexual situations that the British are used to, but that might have challenges when it comes to what the American audience is accustomed to.
Beyond that, De Caestecker feels the show is adult in other ways as well. "I think it's really deeply rooted with some adult themes, and there's a lot of different ways you can interpret some of the messages that come across, maybe. But that was one of the things I always found so great about it, was that it had a real sense of purpose around in it in whatever way you took it. It's got a lot of depth to it."
The role has given the 24-year-old actor plenty of meaty material to sink his teeth into, including using an English accent for the character.
However, his biggest challenge involves dealing with "so many sci-fi elements and the special effects. There's loads of practical things you've got to be very aware of whilst trying to mesh yourself into a scene," said De Caestecker. "I think there was, at one point, we shot a sequence for about two days that only probably lasted 10 minutes. I remember it being really grueling. Me and the other actor had bruises all over us, and but I felt at the start if you didn't have a few bruises, you weren't really doing it properly, I don't think."
Here's a look:
BBC America premieres The Fades' six-episode first season tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Episodes run 75 minutes long. After the premiere of The Fades at 10:15 p.m., BBC America will air The Nerdist, hosted by Chris Hardwick, who will interview The Fades castmember Lily Loveless, who plays Paul's sister, Anna.

JOHN CARTER
A new TV spot for Walt Disney Pictures' John Carter is now online.
Directed by Andrew Stanton, the big screen adaptation of the classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs hits 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on March 9. The film features a cast that includes Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church and Willem Dafoe.
John Carter tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

Fantastic Four FANTASTIC FOUR
It's been some time since it was first announced that 20th Century Fox is planning a reboot of the Fantastic Four film franchise. Today, Variety has an update with word that the studio is eyeing Josh Trank as a potential helmer.
Trank makes his big screen directorial debut with Chronicle on February 3rd and, with it, already has a connection to both the studio and the superhero genre.
Fantastic Four, Marvel's self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Comic Magazine", first hit the stands in 1961. Its debut is generally considered the beginning of the "silver age" of comics and the real beginning of the Marvel Comics universe that exists to this day.
The property has been adapted twice before for the big screen with Fantastic Four in 2005 and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in 2007. Both were directed by Tim Story. A 1994 feature-length version was also infamously produced by Roger Corman and never released.
Trank's involvement in the reboot is likely contingent on Chronicle's box office performance and a decision is not expected to be reached until next month at the earliest.

THE LADY
A new trailer for Luc Besson's The Lady is now online, courtesy of iTunes Trailers.
Starring Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis, The Lady is an epic love story about how an extraordinary couple and family sacrifice their happiness at great human cost for a higher cause. This is the story of Aung San Suu Kyi and her husband, Michael Aris. Despite distance, long separations, and a dangerously hostile regime, their love endures until the very end. A story of devotion and human understanding set against a background of political turmoil which continues today. The Lady also is the story of the peaceful quest of the woman who is at the core of Burma's democracy movement.
The Lady hits theaters on April 13th.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2012

Dark Shadows DARK SHADOWS
Is that you Johnny Depp? Once again, the actor's gone pale and pasty for his latest role in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. Remember Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd?
One of Depp's biggest fan sites, Johnny Depp Italia, got its hands on a new photo from this summer's Dark Shadows remake. It features Depp as bloodsucker Barnabas Collins and Michelle Pfeiffer as Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. The film is based on the soap opera of the same name that ran from 1966-1971. Coincidentally, Burton's version takes place in 1972.
Dark Shadows centers on Barnabas, a Liverpool native who moved (with his family) to America in 1752. He grew up to become one of the most popular residents of Collinsport, Maine and the master of Collinwood Manor. He had everything; good looks, charm and money. Too bad he lost it all when he screwed over Angelique (Eva Green), his ex-girlfriend who happened to be a witch!
Angelique uses her powers to turn Barnabas into a vampire, and buries him alive. But somehow, some way he emerges hundreds of years later and wants to reclaim what's his. Unfortunately, the times have changed and his family and estate aren't what they used to be.
Dark Shadows hits theaters May 11.

Batman & Robin CHANGES COMING AT DC COMICS
It's been nearly five months since DC Comics rolled the dice on a companywide reboot that took every superhero in their stable back to issue #1. The gamble seems to be paying off overall, but DC's not done tweaking. They just announced six new series to replace six outgoing ones, and one of them is written by fantasy novelist China MiŽville.
The new titles will launch in the spring, after each of the outgoing series has a chance to publish an eighth and final issue. According to DC's editor-in-chief Bob Harras, the new titlesÑwhich DC is branding "The Second Wave"Ñwill focus more on expanding the world of the New 52 than the titles that launched last fall.
"The excitement of the initial launch of DC ComicsÑThe New 52 was in seeing the re-imagining of these classic characters and concepts," said Harras. "The 'Second Wave' is all about world-building."
The titles we're losing are Men of War, O.M.A.C., Static Shock, Hawk and Dove, Mister Terrific and Blackhawks, all of which will conclude in April. In their place, we get these:
Batman Incorporated, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Chris Burnham, will continue Morrison's concept of Bruce Wayne taking the Batman brand to an international scale to combat a global threat.
Earth 2, written by James Robinson and drawn by Nicola Scott, will star a Justice Society fighting evil on an Earth parallel to our own.
Worlds' Finest, written by Paul Levitz and drawn by George Perez and Kevin Maguire, will continue the parallel world theme by following Earth 2's Huntress and Power Girl as they try to get back to their world after they're stranded on our Earth.
Dial H, written by China Mieville and drawn by Mateus Santoluoco, will feature a "bold new take" on the concept of an ordinary man who gains superpowers and becomes a hero.
G. I. Combat will feature the return of the classic soldiers vs. dinosaurs story The War That Time Forgot, written by J. T. Krul and drawn by Ariel Olivetti, along with rotating backup stories The Unknown Solider by writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti and artist Dan Panosian and The Haunted Tank by writer John Arcudi and artist Scott Kolins.
The Ravagers, by writer Howard Mackie and artist Ian Churchill, will spin off from both Teen Titans and Superboy to tell the story of four teens with powers on the run from a group that wants to turn them into supervillains.
The biggest news here is MiŽville's entry onto the comics scene. He's won virtually every major award a genre novelist can win for novels like The Scar, Iron Council and The City & The City, so it'll be interesting to see if he can make the same kind of impact on another storytelling medium. Of course, this is a sad day for fans of titles like Static Shock and O. M. A. C., but Harras says fear not. Those characters might not be starring in their own books anymore, but they're not leaving the DC universe.
"Many of the characters from our canceled books will appear in DC ComicsÑThe New 52 titles, and in some very surprising ways," Harras said. "We're developing stories that reach from cultures around the globe to parallel worlds. We're just getting started."

FRINGE RETURNS TONIGHT
When Fringe finally endsÑif it ends wellÑwe may look back and realize it was perhaps the best sci-fi television series ever. There's been plenty of discussion today about the possible cancellation of Fringe because Fox is losing money by airing it. So if you're a Fringe fan, dig in and enjoy what's left of this amazing series. One way or another, either being canceled this year or being given a few episodes a la Chuck, its days are certainly numbered.
As for this episode, it looks like another great mythology story which has Peter making a dangerous journey to the alt-verse to have a chat with Walternate. Meanwhile, Olivia is paid a visit by the Observer, and he has an ominous message for her.

MERLIN'S BACK
Conclusion to the two-part season-four premiere! After throwing himself in front of a Dorocha to save Arthur, lucky Merlin's only mostly dead. As Lancelot tries to get him back to Camelot so Gaius can save him, strange creatures called Vilia delay their journey. Meanwhile, Arthur continues his efforts to sacrifice himself to stop the Dorocha.

Green Arrow GREEN ARROW TV SERIES PLANNED
A "Green Arrow" television series is being planned for The CW with Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg writing and executive producing, EW reports.
Dating all the way back to 1941 when he made his first appearance in "More Fun Comics" #73, Oliver Queen is a billionaire who leads a double life as expert archer and costumed hero Green Arrow. Over the years, Queen has been a member of the Justice League and even Mayor of his hometown, Star City.
Justin Hartley previously played a television version of the character on "Smallville", becoming a regular cast member in later seasons. It's not mentioned whether or not the new series will connect in any way, but it is noted that Hartley is not being sought to play the role at this time.
"Green Arrow" isn't the only DC superhero being planned for the small screen. Plans for a "Booster Gold" pilot were announced late last year with "Blue Beetle", "Deadman" and "Spectre" series still believed to be in various stages of development.
Of course, just because a network expresses an interest in a pilot doesn't mean that a series will see the light of day, as was the case with last year's proposed "Wonder Woman" series.

TANGLED EVER AFTER
Walt Disney Pictures has debuted a second clip from their upcoming short film "Tangled Ever After."
A follow-up to their 2010 hit animated feature, Tangled, "Tangled Ever After" will premiere before the theatrical release of Beauty and the Beast 3D, beginning January 13th. The official synopsis is as follows:
By popular demand, directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard are bringing back some of DisneyÕs most beloved characters when "Tangled Ever After" picks up where "Tangled" left off. The Kingdom is in a festive mood as everyone gathers for the royal wedding of Rapunzel and Flynn. However, when Pascal and Maximus, as flower chameleon and ring bearer, respectively, lose the gold bands, a frenzied search and recovery mission gets underway. As the desperate duo tries to find the rings before anyone discovers that theyÕre missing, they leave behind a trail of comical chaos that includes flying lanterns, a flock of doves, a wine barrel barricade and a very sticky finale. Will Maximus and Pascal save the day and make it to the church in time? And will they ever get FlynnÕs nose right?
"Tangled Ever After" is the perfect accompaniment to "Beauty and the Beast", which is returning to the big screen in Disney Digital 3Dª and introducing a whole new generation to the Disney classic with stunning new 3D imagery. Beauty and the Beast was nominated for six Academy Awards¨, winning Oscars¨ for Best Song, by the renowned Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, and Best Original Score (Menken).

THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 2012

Contagion HOME VIDEO MARKET
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Warner Home Video snagged the top four spots on the national home video sales charts for the week ending Jan. 8, with the newly released Contagion debuting at No. 1 on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart. Three previous releases followed: The Hangover Part 2 at No. 2, Dolphin Tale at No. 3 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II at No. 4.
The prior week’s top seller, 20th Century Fox’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, slipped to No. 5 its fourth week in stores, selling about 31% as many copies as Contagion.
Contagion also topped Nielsen’s dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart for the week, followed at No. 2 by Hangover and No. 3 by Harry Potter. Rise of the Planets of the Apes, the top-selling Blu-ray disc of the previous week, slipped to No. 6.
Contagion generated 40% of its first-week unit sales from Blu-ray Disc.
On Home Media Magazine’s video rental chart for the week, Hangover rose to No. 1 now that its holdback from rental outlets such as Netflix and Redbox is over. Universal Studios’ Cowboys & Aliens, also now available at those Netflix and Redbox, shot up to No. 2 from No. 56, while 20th Century Fox’s Mr. Popper’s Penguins, also off its holdback, soared to No. 3 from No. 63.
Sony Pictures’ Columbiana, the previous week’s top rental, slipped to No. 4.
Another Sony release, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, was the week’s highest-charting new release, debuting on the rental chart at No. 6.

Devil Inside DEVIL INSIDE DUO PLAN NEW PROJECT
Despite having signed on for The Vatican earlier this week, William Bell and his The Devil Inside co-writer Matthew Peterman are planning an additional horror project. According to ShockTillYouDrop.com, the film will shoot this April in Romania.
Plot details are few, but the film is said to apply the same Devil Inside filmmaking approach to another horror subgenre.
Set up at Sierra/Affinity, the film is currently being called The Untitled Bell/Peterman Project. The production outfit will finance and produce the film with Steven Schneider, Peterman and Morris Paulson.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2012

GRIMM
Guess what TV series came back just in time to creep you out on Friday the 13th? If you guessed "Grimm," you're right. And now you're probably hiding under your sheets.
[SPOILER ALERT]
In the upcoming episode, a prison escapee (Eric Edelstein) looks to exact his revenge on Hank (Russell Hornsby) for sending him to the big house. And he's not just your run-of-the-mill terrifying prison escapee either. He's an ogre.
Things get hairy (no pun intended) for Nick (David Giuntoli) and Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) when the ogre looks to put the hurt on them. This leaves Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) in the awkward position having to actually help a Grimm, his mortal enemy.
It seems that Nick's two worlds are slowly starting to collide. And it's getting increasingly dangerous for Nick and those around him. How long until he cracks?
We'll find out on Friday, Jan. 13 at 9 p.m. ET.

Psych PSYCH GETS NEW SEASON
Everyone's favorite crime-fighting team is coming back for a seventh season. "Psych" has been renewed, announced stars James Roday and Dule Hill Tuesday (Jan. 10) on Facebook, via a lovely pineapple puzzle and hilarious video.
Roday is also looking for a new belt. He says, "Yeah, it's me, it's Roday. It's so big I didn't want you to hear it from anyone but me. And that includes Pat Dempsey ... I have decided to get a new belt ... Oh, almost forgot. 'Psych' picked up for a seventh season."
Hill adds, "'Psych' is coming back for season 7. Whaaat?! You know that's right. Seven seasons, that's what I'm talkin' about."
We can't wait. We hope the "Clue" episode, if it does not appear in the remainder of Season 6, is in the works for Season 7.

Bryan Cranston Archer ARCHER NEWS
He's played a drug dealer. He's played a downtrodden father. But Bryan Cranston has a new role on the horizon, astronaut.
The multi-time Emmy winner is slated to appear in the animated series "Archer" as an astronaut commander during a two-episode arc to close out Season 3.
In a recent interview, Executive Producer Adam Reed said, "Archer and the gang are going into outer space. There's a problem on the International Space Station. This commander [Cranston] comes in to enlist ISIS's help and...not surprisingly things don't go planned."
Cranston is only one of many guest voices that the show has planned for its upcoming season. They've also enlisted Patrick Warburton, Burt Reynolds and Jack McBrayer to join the spy comedy at various points during the season.
Reed explains that McBrayer plays Ray Gillette's (Adam Reed) brother who has "gotten in trouble with local law enforcement over a marijuana farm. So Ray and Archer have to go to West Virginia to help him out of it."
When the season kicks off on Jan. 19, Burt Reynolds plays Malory Archer's (Jessica Walter) love interest. Whether he wants to or not, Reynolds manages help save Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) from a squad of Cuban assassins.
Just another wacky day at ISIS.

Resident Evil - Retribution RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION
Screen Gems has released the official plot synopsis for Resident Evil: Retribution. Once again, Alice is on a mission to take down Umbrella one zombie at a time. Unfortunately, she hits a snag when she uncovers a huge secret—about herself!
Here's the synopsis for Resident Evil 5:
"The Umbrella Corporation's deadly T-virus continues to ravage the Earth, transforming the global population into legions of the flesh eating Undead. The human race's last and only hope, Alice (Milla Jovovich), awakens in the heart of Umbrella's most clandestine operations facility and unveils more of her mysterious past as she delves further into the complex.
Without a safe haven, Alice continues to hunt those responsible for the outbreak; a chase that takes her from Tokyo to New York, Washington, D.C. and Moscow, culminating in a mind-blowing revelation that will force her to rethink everything that she once thought to be true. Aided by newfound allies and familiar friends, Alice must fight to survive long enough to escape a hostile world on the brink of oblivion. The countdown has begun."
It looks like Alice's past is coming into question—again. This could be the perfect setup for flashbacks, which would explain the return of Resident Evil stars Michelle Rodriguez and Colin Salmon.
On the other hand, we're not sure what the "mind-blowing revelation" is, but it sounds interesting. Maybe the Umbrella Corp. isn't the Big Bad? Maybe Alice is more involved with the T-virus than she thinks? And how does Jill Valentine fit into all of this? There are so many possibilities. Resident Evil: Retribution opens Sept. 14.

FRINGE RETURNS THIS WEEK
The countdown to Fringe is on! The sci-fi drama returns Friday with all-new episodes, starting with "Back to Where You've Never Been." Fox has released a featurette and three preview clips, which include Peter's fantasy, Olivia's revelation and a trip to the other side.

This five-minute recap narrated by John Noble (Walter Bishop) explains what happened to Peter, the differences between the alternate universes and the traumatic events of the last episode. This clip should get you up to speed.
More clips tomorrow.

Legend of Hell's Gate THE LEGEND OF HELL'S GATE
Phase 4 Films and Lightning Entertainment have picked up all rights to director Tanner Beard's The Legend of Hell's Gate: An American Conspiracy. Starring Eric Balfour, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jenna Dewan, Summer Glau and Henry Thomas, the Western is based on how Hell's Gate at Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas came to have its name. Produced by Suzanne Weinert and Jay Michaelson, Beard's film premiered at the Dallas Film Festival last March.
The full synopsis is below:
In 1870s Texas, a ruthless bounty hunter and an Irish desperado flee the law with a young criminal claiming to possess a treasure more valuable than gold. Crossing paths with some of the West's most notorious figures, the three outlaws fight for their lives in the pursuit of fame and fortune. Fueled by an ensemble cast and inspired by actual events, The Legend of Hell's Gate blends legend and history into a Western spectacle that recounts a treacherous existence in post Civil War Texas.
The plans are to release the film using Phase 4's ultra VOD model with plans for release On Demand and in theaters sometime during the Spring.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2012

Katee Sackhoff RIDDICK 3
Everyone's favorite hot-headed fighter pilot has just been cast in the third Riddick movie.
Deadline reports that Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff is in "final negotiations" to play the female lead in Riddick, the third film to star Vin Diesel as the title galactic outlaw. Sackhoff will play Dahl, described as a "Nordic mercenary" who is hunting Riddick.
The role bring Sackhoff back to sci-fi after she spent the past couple of post-BSG years with parts on 24 and CSI. She also has two movies, The Haunting in Georgia and Evil Sexy Genius, waiting to arrive later this year.
With Sackhoff coming on board, it looks like the financial problems that plagued Riddick in the early going have finally been put to rest. The movie was shut down late last fall after the production had problems paying the bills, but the issue was sorted out and work resumed shortly after the holidays.

STAR WARS UNDERWORLD
Attention Star Wars fans! (And that's everybody, right?) The live-action television show we've talked about? As of now, it has a title (well, a working title). And it's called ...
... Star Wars: Underworld!
IGN interviewed producer and George Lucas' right-hand man, Rick McCallum, who spoke about the direction the series will take:
"They take place between Episode III and Episode IV, that 20-year period when Luke is growing up. It's not about Luke, but it's about that period when the Empire is trying to take things [over]."
The characters are criminals and gangsters within a shady government. When the interviewer said the characters were akin to pyramid-schemer, Bernie Madoff, McCallum said, "Exactly."
Lucas and crew are sitting on 50 one-hour scripts, each "bigger than any of the prequels were. ... They're complex, they're dark, they're adult." But McCallum says they need to keep costs to $5 million an episode. And until the technology matures, Lucasfilm—and those lovely, lovely scripts—will wait.
McCallum also spoke about the delivery system of the show, that is, he doesn't know exactly how it will air. Will it appear on network television or cable? If so, it means Lucasfilm may have to give up a certain amount of control of their work, and as we know, George isn't big on compromise. Will it appear as a digital download? "iTunes isn't the panacea that we thought it would be," McCallum said. And Netflix, according to McCallum, doesn't have enough viewers for them to recoup their costs.
Right now, Lucasfilm is taking a wait-and-see approach about Star Wars: Underworld.
And as that happens, we fans will also be waiting. We just hope that we'll eventually be seeing.

WONDER WOMAN
A couple of months ago we told you about Smallville co-star Erica Durance's chance to play Wonder Woman, albeit briefly, in a guest appearance on David E. Kelley's legal series Harry's Law. Now the episode is ready to air, and we finally get to see Durance in action.
As we already know, Durance doesn't actually get to play Wonder Woman herself (if she did, Harry's Law would certainly be a more interesting show). She guest stars as Annie Bilson, a mentally unstable woman who dresses up as the DC Comics heroine to dish out her own form of vigilante punishment. In the clip, we see her on trial for breaking into a man's house and beating him senseless, all while dressed as everyone's favorite Amazon.
"The way that I was able to work with the character Wonder Woman in this is through the eyes of a woman who desperately needed a strong female archetype to look up to, and she had gone through such terrible things and this was her alter ego," Durance told TV Guide back in December. "I would challenge anybody who said that she didn't think she was Wonder Woman. This is how she found her way out."
"So, as an actress, getting to put on the suit and play Wonder Woman was fantastic and then I got this whole other layer because of the way David E. Kelley had written it, to ground it in this kind of humanistic viewpoint, which was lovely."
Of course, because this is David E. Kelley's show, a little bit of his failed Wonder Woman pilot had to leak through to Durance's appearance. You'll notice that her costume is basically identical to the second Adrienne Palicki model that NBC rolled out after the first costume was the subject of so much internet revulsion. But hey, at least a Smallville fan favorite is in the suit this time.
Durance's episode of Harry's Law will air Wednesday at 9/8 Central on NBC.

Munsters NBC ORDERS NEW SERIES
NBC is going seriously sci-fi these days, and it's working on several new pilots to prove it. The ratings-challenged network released the official descriptions for five pilots and promised that more would be coming our way.
While we won't bother with the Sarah Silverman description, the rest of the shows feature mechanical human beings (as in robots?), a dramatic version of The Munsters, a comedy about a middle-class family with a magical teen, and a woman who creates miracles.
We don't know if NBC is going to finally come up with a great new series or two out of the bunch, but we'll keep our fingers crossed. Here are the descriptions:
Beautiful People is an imaginative and thematically rich ensemble "what if" drama set 10 minutes in the future where families of mechanical human beings exist to service the human population -- that is until some of the mechanicals begin to "awaken." Michael McDonald (Cougar Town, MADtv) is the writer and executive producer, Robert M. Sertner (Revenge, No Ordinary Family) is the executive producer and Stephen Hopkins (Californication, Shameless) directs the pilot. Beautiful People is from Universal Television and ABC Studios.
From writer-executive producer Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Heroes), The Munsters is an imaginative reinvention of The Munsters as a visually spectacular one-hour drama from Universal Television. Bryan Singer (X-Men: First Class, House) is the director of the pilot and an executive producer; John Wirth (Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles) also is an executive producer.
Isabel is a comedy centering on an otherwise normal middle-class family that wrestles with the challenges of everyday life while raising a daughter (Sophia Mitri Schloss, Grimm) who has magical abilities. Abigail Mavity and Skyler Gisondo also star. Howard Busgang (The Closer, Boy Meets World) and Tom Nursall (Single White Spenny) are the executive producers and writers. Todd Holland (Malcolm in the Middle) directs the pilot and is an executive producer. Karey Burke (Free Agents), Aaron Kaplan (Terra Nova) and Jocelyn Deschenes also are executive producers. Isabel is produced by Universal Television, Kapital Entertainment and Sphere Media.
Save Me (cast contingent) -- A woman who lets herself go while in a broken marriage goes through a transformation where she becomes the best version of herself and creates miracles along the way. The single-camera project is from Sony Television and Original Film & Television. John Scott Shepherd (The Days) is the writer-executive producer and Scott Winant (Breaking Bad, True Blood, Californication) is the director and executive producer. Neal Moritz (The Big C, Prison Break) and Vivian Cannon (The Big C) also are executive producers.

Fringe FOX SERIES IN TROUBLE
Things are not looking good for Fringe, and the fate of Terra Nova will be decided soon, Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly said at the TCA Winter Press Tour yesterday.
In a flurry of announcements, Reilly gave out frank assessments of where the network stood on many shows, including Fringe, Terra Nova and several non-sci-fi shows. The animated Allen Gregory was canceled.
Regarding the possibility of a fifth season for Fringe, Reilly said: "The hesitation in my voice is that it's an expensive show. We lose a lot of money on the show. At that rate, on that night, it's almost impossible for us to make money off it. That's been the case now over the last season. We're not in the business of losing money. So we really do have to sit down with that entity as well and figure out 'Is there a number in which it makes sense, or will this be it?'," he said.
"Please don't start the letter-writing campaign right now, everybody. I don't, I can't take it. ... I'm not now quietly doing a soft cancel here. I'm just telling you where it stands," added Reilly.
As for Terra Nova, the news seemed more positive to a point.
"We made money on it, the studio made money on it, and the audience enjoyed it," said Reilly. "The show looked fantastic, it's clearly a conceit people wanted to watch. They had ample opportunity to reject it. They didn't."
The news wasn't all good, however, as Reilly addressed the creative issues that the dinosaur adventure series has struggled with. "There were a lot of chefs in the kitchen going in. That did make for a little bit of a challenge. The show was hunting for itself creatively through the season. ... We are going to decide very soon, because it does need to get back into production over the next month."
In other Fox programming news, Reilly announced that the network is putting together an ambitious slate of original programming, including alternative animated shows, shorts and user-adapted material for a new late-night animated programming block on Saturday nights and a new digital multiplatform network. The block is expected to launch in January 2013 and will premiere four new animated series per season.

Greg Berlanti NEW FOX PILOTS
Fox's buying spree continues with two more pilot orders.
The network has opted to move forward with an untitled serial killer drama from The Vampire Diaries creator Kevin Williamson and legal drama Guilty from Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim.
Williamson's thriller centers on a diabolical serial killer who uses technology to create a cult of serial killers, and the FBI agent who finds himself in the middle of it. Williamson will serve as writer and executive producer on the project, which hails from Warner Bros. Television and his Outerbanks Entertainment.
Berlanti's project, which stems from his overall deal with Warner Bros. Television, revolves around a smart and ethically questionable defense attorney who uses his unique methods to solve cases he’s been banned from handling after he’s stripped of his license to practice law after being falsely convicted of fraud.
Guilty continues the duo’s history of legal projects. Former attorney Guggenheim’s credits include Eli Stone and Law & Order; Berlanti’s legal work includes Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Money.
Earlier Monday the network picked up Dana Fox’s comedy, Ben Fox is my Manny.

MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 2012

Kevin Ryan NEW COPPER FROM BBC
COLOGNE, Germany - Irish actor Kevin Ryan has joined the cast of BBC TV's upcoming seies Copper, joining M-15/Spooks star Tom Weston-Jones and German actress Franke Potente (The Bourne Supremacy) in the police drama set in 1860s New York City.
Ryan will play the series regular role of Detective Francis Maguire, an Irish-American cop working alongside Weston-Jones' Kevin Corcoran. Ryan, who is now based in L.A., plays the lead in the upcoming thriller Tripping Tommy from director Philippe Caland (Boxing Helena).
Copper was created by Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson (Wag the Dog), Tom Fontana (Oz) and Will Rokos (Southland). The period drama focuses on the lives of Irish immigrants living in Manhattan's Five Points neighborhood and on its lead character, played by Weston-Jones, who tried to uncover the truth about his missing wife and dead daughter.
Shooting is set to begin this month in Toronto, Canada It is BBC America's first scripted series. Shaw Media and Cineflix Studios are co-producing. Copper will premiere on BBC America this summer and in Canada on Shaw Media Showcase in the Fall.

Devil Inside WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
In a boost for the domestic box office, Paramount's horror pic The Devil Inside opened to a record-breaking $34.5 million, helping to drive up theatrical revenues by more than 25 percent over last year.
The R-rated movie--acquired by Paramount for only $1 million--scored the best opening ever for early January, and the third biggest for the month after fellow Paramount title Cloverfield ($40.1 million) and George Lucas' 1997 reissue of Star Wars ($35.9 million). Those two films were released in late January.
The Devil Inside is as polarizing as it is successful. Overall, it received a F CinemaScore on Friday night. The overall CinemaScore report showed the film receiving either an F or a D- across all demos.
Underpinning The Devil Inside's strength were younger moviegoers, who have been largely absent from the multiplex. Nearly 60 percent of Friday night's audience were under the age of 25, while 85 percent of the audience was under the age of 34.
Males made up 54 percent of the audience.
Paramount president of domestic marketing and distribution Megan Colligan said the campaign for Devil Inside focused on making the film seem real, evidenced by the slogan "the film the Vatican doesn't want you to see." And on Christmas Eve, the studio released an online trailer that prompted worldwide chatter.
"The campaign was very scary and it was intended to push the envelope," Colligan said. "The conversation online became very robust."
The Devil Inside took the No. 1 spot away from Paramount title Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which itself stayed strong.
Ghost Protocol, which had topped the box office chart since opening nationwide on Dec. 20, dipped 30 percent from New Year's weekend to $20.5 million for a hefty domestic cume of $170.2 milion. Overseas, the movie grossed $27.7 million for the weekend for an international cume of $287.9 million and worldwide total of $458.1 million.
The Tom Cruise pic wasn't the only holiday title still enjoying good business in North America.
Warner Bros.' sequel Sherlock Holmes--Game of Shadows also stayed high up on the box office chart, falling 33 percent to $14.1 million for a domestic cume of $157.4 million.
David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made news for Sony, sporting the best hold of any film in wide release and falling only 24 percent to $11.3 million for a domestic cume of $76.8 million. Dragon Tattoo continued its rollout overseas, grossing $12 million from 33 territories for an international total of $29.3 million and word cume of $106.1 million.
Fox's Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked grossed $9.5 million for a domestic cume of $111.6 million. Internationally, the 3D family film enjoyed its strongest weekend yet, grossing $30.1 million from 62 markets for a foreign total of $128.4 million and world haul of $240 million.
DreamWorks and Disney's War Horse, from Steven Spielberg, grew its domestic cume to $64.4 million, followed by Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo with $56.4 million. War Horse has only opened in four international markets, grossing $7.6 million to date for a world total of $64.4 million. Zoo has earned $2.6 million internationally from 14 markets for a world total of $69.9 million.
Spielberg's second holiday film The Adventures of Tintin, from Paramount and Sony, has jumped the $300 million mark worldwide. It's earned $61.9 million domestically and a hefty $271.8 million overseas for a total $333.7 million.
Making news at the awards box office on Friday was Focus Features and Working Title's arthouse hit Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which came in No. 9 for the weekend as it expanded from 57 theaters to 809 locations, grossing an estimated $5.8 million for a domestic cume of $10.4 million.
Tinker Tailor flourished in surburban markets--a theater in the surburbs north of Oklahama City was No. 5 in the country--as well as continuing to thrive in holdover art house locations.
The Devil Inside, which is being released via Paramount's micro-budgeted Insurge label, was acquired by the studio for a mere $1 million. Insurge was launched after the phenomenal success of another low-budget Paramount horror film, Paranormal Activity.
Heading into the weekend, Paramount indicated that The Devil Inside would open in the $8 million to $10 million range, but that number was revised upward in light of the film's midnight performance Thursday night, followed by strong Friday business. The Devil Inside earned $2 million in its midnight runs.
Directed and co-written by William Brent Bell, the documentary style Devil Inside is about a woman who becomes involved in a series of exorcisms after her own mother was supposedly possessed, killing three people. Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Steven Schneider, a producer on the Paranormal Activity franchise, brought the project to Paramount. The Devil Inside was the only new wide release of the weekend.
Domestic Box Office Jan. 6-Jan. 8
Title/Weeks in Release/Studio/Theater Count/Three Day Weekend Total/Cume
1. The Devil Inside (1) Paramount/2,205, $34.5 million
2. Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol (4), Paramount/3,555, $20.5 million, $170.2 million
3. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (4), Warner Bros./3,603, $14.1 million, $157.4 million
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (3), Sony/2950, $11.4 million, $76.8 million
5. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (4), 20th Century Fox/3,425, $9.5 million, $111.6 million
6. War Horse (3), DreamWorks/Disney/2,783, $8.6 million, $56.8 million
7. We Bought a Zoo (3), Fox/3,170, $8.5million, $56.4 million
8. The Adventures of Tintin (3), Paramount, Sony/3,006, $6.6 million, $61.9 million
9. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (5), Focus Features/809, $5.8 million, $10.4 million
10. New Year's Eve (5), Warner Bros./New Line/1,864, $3.3 million, $52 million

Kiefer Sutherland 24 MOVIE
It was nearly a year ago that star Kiefer Sutherland confirmed plans to bring the television series 24 to the big screen. Today, TV Line has an update from Sutherland that includes a tentative start date and some plot details.
Planning to shoot in late April or early May, the 24 film will continue directly from the series' finale, jumping forward in time by about six months. Like the show, the film will be set over a 24 hour period but (of course) will not actually play out in real time.
Written by Mark Bomback and Billy Ray, 24 does not yet have an announced director and no one outside of Sutherland has been confirmed to be returning. Expect that to change in the very near future and check back for details as soon as they become available.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 2012

Charlize Theron SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN
A new photo from Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman shows the evil queen, played by Charlize Theron, giving off a very deadly glare.
In the new image, Theron can be seen wearing a striking, spiky crown, and a very royal looking metallic outfit. She sits atop her thrown, giving someone the evil eye. This is the same outfit that the queen wears in some of her most memorable scenes from the trailer, like when she holds a young girl by her throat and seems to suck the life right out of her.
There’s no denying that Theron’s version of the evil queen is going to rule Universal’s film. In the first trailer, which premiered in November, her character not only narrates, but also screams like the best of villains, takes a milk bath and turns into a bunch of big, scary looking blackbirds.
Universal’s version of the fairytale, set for release on June 1, sees Kristen Stewart as Snow White, who must defend herself from the Evil Queen (Theron) who has enlisted a Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to kill her so that she can be fairest of them all.

Supernatural FRIDAY NIGHT RATINGS
The Hollywood Reporter writes that as the networks return to business as usual, the returns of several key Friday scripted series bounced back from the December doldrums.
According to preliminary numbers, Fox will take an easy victory on the evening with a broadcast of the 2012 Cotton Bowl. During the 8-10 p.m. hours, the college football postseason game averaged 7.8 million total viewers and a 2.2 rating in adults 18-49, topping its competitors in the 8 and 9 p.m. slots.
Even so, the football game didn't prove to be an issue for CBS' dramas, which all returned from a monthlong hiatus. A Gifted Man (8.5 million, 1.5) ticked up a few tenths to notch a demo rating slightly higher than its series debut. Will that help it in the future? The jury remains out on that one.
CSI: NY (10.5 million, 1.8) had the biggest jump from its last original, up nearly half a point. At 10 p.m., Blue Bloods (11.2 million, 1.8) saw an uptick. CBS placed second at 8 and 9 p.m. (after the Cotton Bowl), but topped the 10 p.m. time period.
ABC took third place on the night, with a 1.4 ratings average. Winding down the series, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition(5.7 million, 1.5) also saw an improvement. 20/20 averaged 5.1 million viewers and a 1.3.
The CW's returns of Nikita (1.5 million, 0.6) and Supernatural (1.8 million, 0.8) both notched slightly higher demo ratings since their last originals.
NBC's Chuck (3.4 million, 1.0) saw a boost from last week's episode. To note, it was the only original scripted offering to continue through the holiday lull on broadcast networks. Dateline lured 5 million viewers and a 1.4.

MALEFICENT
Walt Disney Pictures has found its director for the new Maleficent film, to which Tim Burton was previously attached, and it's Robert Stromberg.
Stromberg was the production designer on Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and Disney's upcoming Oz The Great and Powerful. He's also worked as visual effects supervisor for "Boardwalk Empire" and "The Pacific." He won Oscars for Art Direction for Avatar and Alice in Wonderland and was nominated for visual effects for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
Maleficent, which is being developed as a starring vehicle for Angelina Jolie, will be his directorial debut. Joe Roth is producing.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 2012

SILENT HOUSE
SILENT HOUSE is a uniquely unsettling horror thriller starring Elizabeth Olsen as Sarah, a young woman who finds herself sealed inside her family's secluded lake house. With no contact to the outside world, and no way out, panic turns to terror as events become increasingly ominous in and around the house. Directed by filmmaking duo Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, SILENT HOUSE uses meticulous camera choreography to take the audience on a tension-filled, real time journey, experienced in a single uninterrupted shot.
From the directors of Open Water and starring Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene), SILENT HOUSE is based on "La Casa Muda", the official Uruguayan entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category to the 84th Academy Awards. The film releases in theaters March 9th, 2012!

UNDERWORLD AWAKENING
Kate Beckinsale has returned to her vampy roots. The actress reprises her role as Selene in the sequel Underworld Awakening, and judging from this explosive clip, she's still deadly as ever.
In the sequel, the vampire returns after spending 12 years in a cryogenic sleep.
After she awakens and escapes her captors, she realizes she's a fish out of water. The world has changed, the stakes are higher, and the enemy is different. The humans are well aware of vampires and Lycans and have waged a war against them.
In the following clip, Selene gets bomb-happy after sneaking into a highly secured building. Her only backup is a human named Detective Sebastian, played by Michael Ealy. As he waits for her cue, Selene slips into an elevator shaft, plants some bombs and detonates them without batting an eye. It's good to know that after all these years she's still got it!

RUSSIAN FALLING ROCKET
A few months ago it seemed like space junk was falling out of the sky every other week or so. Start watching the skies, because Russia's crippled Mars probe is about to come tumbling down.
The Phobos-Grunt (doesn't that sound like the name of an intergalactic supervillain?) probe was launched into orbit around Earth back in November. The plan was to get it into orbit, fire its engines and head for Mars. Only that didn't exactly work, and now the thing's just up there, spinning around, waiting to fall back down again.
The guys and gals at Russian mission control have been trying for more than two months to save Phobos-Grunt, but it's a lost cause, and now Russia's space agency is giving the probe a projected re-entry date of Jan. 15, a little more than a week from now. There's no exact time yet, but a little mystery just makes all that fiery metal hurtling down from the heavens more fun, right? Right?
As with NASA's fallen UARS satellite and Germany's ROSAT, a good portion of Phobos-Grunt will burn up during re-entry. But somewhere between 20 and 30 pieces of varying size will likely make contact with Earth. As for where they'll hit, that's a fun guessing game too, because it could be as far north as Calgary, Canada, or as far south as the tip of South America.
Of course, all of this could go splashing down harmlessly in water or in some deserted portion of the planet. But this is 2012, so it doesn't seem too crazy to think we might see a little space-induced mayhem to kick off any apocalyptic year.

Devil Inside WEEKEND BOX OFFICE Paramount's R-rated horror pic The Devil Inside is scaring up massive business at the domestic box office, where it's now on course to open as high as $30 million.
At this rate, the film will easily take the No. 1 spot away from fellow Paramount title Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol, which has ruled the box office since opening nationwide on Dec. 20.
Devil Inside, which is being released via Paramount's micro-budgeted Insurge label, was acquired by the studio for a mere $1 million. Insurge was launched after the phenomenal success of another low-budget horror film, Paranormal Activity. One note of irony--Devil Inside received an F CinemaScore.
Heading into the weekend, Paramount indicated that Devil Inside would open in the $8 million to $10 million range, but that number has been revised upward in light of the film's midnight performance Thursday night, followed by strong matinee business. Devil Inside earned $2 million in its midnight runs.
Directed and co-written by William Brent Bell, the documentary style Devil Inside is about a woman who becomes involved in a series of exorcisms after her own mother was supposedly possessed, killing three people. Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Steven Schneider, a producer on the Paranormal Activity franchise, brought the project to Paramount.
Early January is a popular landing spot for genre fare; in 2009, The Unborn opened to $19.8 million, while Daybreakers opened to $15.1 million in 2010.
Devil Inside is the only new wide release of the weekend.
Ghost Protocol is expected to gross roughly $5.8 million on Friday for a $19 million weekend, putting its domestic gross at nearly $170 million.
At the awards box office, the news will be Focus Features and Working Title's arthouse hit Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which makes a major push in expanding from 57 theaters to more than 800 as awards season heats up. The espionage pic, starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Tom Hardy, has earned $4.5 million to date domestically.

Shawn Ryan LAST RESORT
ABC has made it official, picking up Shawn Ryan's futuristic project Last Resort to pilot.
From Sony Pictures Television, Resort revolves around the crew of a U.S. nuclear submarine who, after ignoring an order to fire nuclear missiles, wind up being hunted and escape to a NATO outpost where they declare themselves to be the world’s smallest nuclear nation.
The pilot, which received a pilot production commitment in August, is written by Karl Gajdusek and Ryan, with The Shield creator on board to executive produce. The pilot order was expected, with the project enlisting Casino Royale director Martin Campbell to helm the project earlier this week.
Resort becomes the second drama project to receive a pilot commitment from the netwok, joining the untitled Roland Emmerich election drama. The Disney-owned network has also picked up a pair of comedy projects to pilot: Dan Fogelman's untitled alien family comedy and the Kirstie Alley starrer The Manzanis.
Resort is one of two projects Ryan has in contention this development season. The Chicago Code creator also has a crime procedural with Criminal Minds’ Simon Mirren set up at CBS. That project, also from Sony Pictures Television, revolves around a genetic scientist who uses his own psychopath gene to assist the FBI. It’s based on the real life story of IC Irvine processor/scientist James Fallon.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2012

Superman-Earth-One NEWS FROM J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
On JMS' facebook page (Fans of JMS), a comment asked:
Hey JMS, I saw the game in my shelf and remembered that a few years back Jerry Bruckheimer supposedly asked you to write a script for Shattered Union. How did that go?
J. MIchael Straczynski Finished it, they're deciding what to do with it. Meanwhile, they turned around and made a deal for me to write another screenplay for them, Vanishing Point, which just went in to them before Christmas.

2012 - SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE - VOLUME TWO
The formal announcement and preview pages for the next volume of Superman: Earth One... http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2012/01/05/dc-comics-in-2012-superman-earth-one-%E2%80%93-volume-two/.

Akira AKIRA SHUT DOWN
Welcome to a new age in Hollywood, where studios are putting major projects on hold if the numbers don't line up. The latest victim? The new live-action version of Akira.
According to Heat Vision, the film is being shut down while Warner Bros. Pictures and the filmmakers reassess its budget. The production offices in Vancouver are being closed and the staff is being sent home, while director Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan) and the producers will take the next two weeks to go over the script and find ways to squeeze a few more dollars out of it.
The budget right now is reported to be around $90 million, which is half what it originally was when director Albert Hughes (Book of Eli) was ramping the movie up a while back. Apparently the studio wants to knock another $20-30 million off the current price tag.
The reason? Star powerÑor lack of it. Garrett Hedlund from Tron: Legacy has been cast in the lead role, but it's not like moviegoers broke down the doors and rushed to see him in that underperforming sequel. The other potential cast membersÑKristen Stewart (Twilight), Ken Watanabe (Inception) and Helena Bonham Carter (Dark Shadows)Ñaren't exactly blockbuster names either (Stewart's movies have all bombed outside the Twilight franchise), and in any case they're still working out their deals.
Sources say that the project could have the plug pulled permanently if the budget cuts aren't made, which would be a shame since this is the third time that Akira has come close to becoming a Hollywood feature film. But those famous inside sources also say that "Warner Bros. just won't let" the movie collapse completely, so maybe there's hope yet that Akira won't join At the Mountains of Madness, The Dark Tower and all the other big genre projects that have hit hard times lately.

Merlin-Morgana MERLIN'S MORGANA SPEAKS
Remember that sweet and somewhat spoiled girl who was King Uther's ward in season one of Syfy's Merlin? Well, she's gone, and the Morgana that's replaced her is dripping with evil and back with a vengeance when the show's fourth season premieres tomorrow at 10 p.m. on Syfy.
Morgana is "just better in every way," said Irish actress Katie McGrath, who plays Morgana. "Fourth-season Morgana is this confident, self-possessed, self-reliant, driving-force-behind-her-own-story, confident woman. And to be able to play that when I'm totally not like that in real life is such a wonderful thing. I can't even tell you. Coming to work is a joy."
And she gets to be more than a little bit evil.
"I get to be a lot evil. It's so much better," said McGrath with relish during an exclusive interview with Blastr.
"I think the fourth season is where you start to see the telling of the legend as you know it. You start to see Arthur becoming king, Guinevere becoming queen, Merlin becoming this great sorcerer, Morgana becoming this sort of dark, evil presence," she said. "It's more grown-up. The producers areÑrather than sort of resting on their laurels and accepting that they had a formula that worked and staying with it that might have gotten staleÑthey evolved it every year, and season four is exactly that. It's just gotten bigger, bolder. It's more filmic. We're shooting on 35mm film. All our sets are bigger. Our locations are more vast. Our cast is bigger. It's our most ambitious yet, and I think to their credit they've really managed to pull it off. There was no sleeping to be had for eight months."
As far as specifics about the upcoming season, McGrath gets cagey.
"Well, I will say that possibly in the fourth season you might see the evolution of the love triangle between Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot. That might come in. I'm not saying it definitely will, but it could. You might see more story about the sword and the stone. Again, can't tell anything, but that might happen. And you might possibly, possibly see the evolution of some prince into some type of king. Again, not saying anything," she said with a laugh.
"What's amazing about Merlin is that it gives you all those parts of the legend that you know and you love, but not how you expect it. It's this new twist. Even if you know the legend, and even if you are so familiar with it, you can still watch Merlin and enjoy it and find something new," McGrath added. "That's the thing about Merlin, it never plays out like you expect. You can't take anything on faith, and nothing is ever as it seems, and nobody ever really dies in Merlin."
In fact, expect Merlin and the villainess Morgana to surprise you a lot and through at least one more year. Merlin's been picked up for a fifth season.
"I know the producers as well didn't want Morgana to be this very two-dimensional bad guy. I think it was very important to everybody that in a way, you see her point of view. You sort of understand. While you may not agree with how she goes about it, you can almost see where she's coming from and how she's been driven to what it is that she's ended up doing. I mean, for her on season four, she's pretty much entirely running on revenge. That's all she's got, and I think her reckoning is going to come at some point, and I think that's going to be possibly later in season five, because right now all she wants to do is to make everybody pay for how she's been treated and what has happened to the people that she loves," she said.
"I think every story is only as good as their bad guy. It's only as good as the person that drives forward the story and drives forward the heroes. And I think that's what Morgana does. ... So essentially what I'm saying is that it's my show. You may think it belongs to Colin [Morgan as Merlin] and Bradley [James as Arthur], but it's actually my show. It's really called Morgana: The Merlin Years. But we don't tell Colin that, because he's very sensitive and we don't want to upset him," joked McGrath.
Merlin airs on Syfy on Fridays at 10 p.m. ET.

CHRONICLE
20th Century Fox hosted a special showing of the studio's February 3rd release, Chronicle.
In the film, three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to them developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities, and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over. Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan, Alex Russell and Michael Kelly star.

SILENT HOUSE
The trailer for the American remake of the Uruguayan horror film Silent House is now online, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.
Directed by filmmaking duo Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (Open Water), the single-take film stars Elizabeth Olsen as Laura, a young woman whose panic grows into terror as she finds herself sealed inside her family's crumbling lake house. With no electricity and no contact to the outside world, events throughout the house become increasingly frightening and bloody.
Also starring Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens, Julia Taylor Ross, Haley Murphy and Adam Barnett, Silent House hits theaters on March 9th.

84th ACADEMY AWARDS
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the trailer for the 84th Academy Awards in conjunction with Funny Or Die. The trailer features host Billy Crystal and cameo appearances by Robin Williams, Josh Duhamel, Megan Fox, William Fichtner and Vinnie Jones.
"We wanted to try something a little bit different this year instead of a traditional, clip-based piece," said Academy Chief Marketing Officer Christina Kounelias. "The trailer has a fun twist that conveys how excited everyone is to have Billy back."
Crystal has one of the most distinguished track records of any host in Oscar¨ history. His upcoming appearance will mark his ninth turn hosting the Academy Awards. The enthusiastic response to the announcement of his return was the inspiration for the trailer.
"Our team had a great time working with the Academy and joining forces with Billy again," said Mike Farah, Funny Or Die's president of production. "We think the trailer really speaks to the excitement around this yearÕs Oscars¨, and Funny Or Die was honored to be a part of it."
The trailer will have a one-month run in more than 2,000 theaters beginning January 6.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center¨, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

Jeremy Renner THE BOURNE LEGACY
Universal Pictures has released the first official image of leading man Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross in the upcoming The Bourne Legacy.
An expansion of the popular film universe started with the 2002 film, The Bourne Identity (in turn based on the series of novels by Robert Ludlum), The Bourne Legacy also stars Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach and Scott Glenn and is planning an August 3rd release.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2012

Benedict Cumberbatch Noel Clarke STAR TREK NEWS
According to Deadline, British hottie Benedict Cumberbatch is about to join the cast of STAR TREK 2, which includes all the main characters from the last film, as well as Alice Eve in an as yet unidentified role.
Don't recognize the name Benedict Cumberbatch? You will soon. He's been landing all sorts of plum roles lately. Cumberbatch just starred in the Spielberg film "War Horse" and the best selling novel-based "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." He plays the lead role in the BBC television series "Sherlock," and he'll play a motion capture Smaug the Dragon and voice the Necromancer in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey."
Sounds like this guy is one to watch! No word yet on whether or not he'll be a hero or a villain, but he's sure to be compelling, whoever he plays.
Noel Clarke, who took some reluctant tours on the TARDIS as Rose Tyler's boyfriend Mickey Smith, is strapping in for some more sci-fi. According to Variety, Star Trek 2 will have Clarke playing a "family man with a wife and young daughter."
Aside from his Who experience, Clarke is a BAFTA-winning filmmaker who wrote an episode of Torchwood and co-starred alongside Michael Fassbender in Neil Marshall's Centurion. So he's been keeping busy, which is good. "Star Trek 2" is looking at a release date of May 17, 2013.

Roland Emmerich PILOT FOR EMMERICH
Not sure if this is a sign of the coming apocalypse or not, but the Independence Day and Godzilla director is hatching another adventure in which a young scientist learns unimaginable secrets about the true nature of the universe. And, most likely, things will blow up.
Emmerich will direct the pilot for the as-yet-unnamed drama, which will hit ABC's airwaves this coming fall. Written with Harald Kloser—who collaborated with Emmerich on the stalled Singularity movie—the show is described thusly by Variety:
Set in New York City, the story is set against the backdrop of the presidential race of 2012, when a young astrophysics student learns his destiny lies not in science but somewhere between heaven and hell.
It's unclear just how much of Emmerich's trademark destructo-porn style will be achievable on a TV budget, but I'm sure it'll be worth watching to find out.

Lily Collins THE EVIL DEADbr> There's finally been some movement on The Evil Dead front. The remake has found its leading lady, and (surprisingly) she has a fairytale past.
Up-and-comer Lily Collins is the first actor to join the new Evil Dead. According to Bloody Disgusting, she's been cast as Mia, one of five friends who find themselves stranded in a remote cabin. It's there that they discover the Book of the Dead, which unleashes evil spirits that possess them one by one.
Collins' character is a bit rough around the edges. She's a drug addict who thinks a vacation could help her detox. But when the trip takes a supernatural turn, her past comes back to haunt her. When she tells the group she's been attacked by "coyotes and trees," no one believes her. They assume she's under the influence and hallucinating.
Speaking of the group, the other characters yet to be cast are David, Natalie, Olivia and Eric. David and Natalie are engaged, Olivia is Mia's best friend, and Eric is the unlucky one who unleashes the demons from the book.
Before joining The Evil Dead, Lily Collins played Sandra Bullock's daughter in The Blind Side, Paul Bettany's niece in Priest and Taylor Lautner's girlfriend in Abduction.
Next up, she'll appear in Tarsem Singh's Mirror, Mirror as the fairytale princess Snow White.

Schwartz-Savage CULT
CW is back in business with the team behind the CW's Monday night pairing, Gossip Girl and Hart of Dixie. The network has ordered to pilot Cult, a sudsy crime drama from executive producers Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage and Len Goldstein. Rockne O'Bannon (V) is attached to pen the pilot script as well as EP the potential series that would center on an inquisitive, young female production assistant on a wildly popular television show, Cult, who joins a journalist blogger in investigating the show's rabid fans. Together, the duo find the fans might be recreating crime scenes from the show in their real lives - behavior that has lead to a rash of disappearances and a likely murder.
In keeping with the younger-skewing network's plan to rethink the network's once narrow strategy with new chief Mark Pedowitz at the helm, a knowledgeable source suggests the network is considering doing a cable-style, limited-run 13 episode season, if the project is ultimately picked up to series.
Schwartz and Savage's Fake Empire, in association with Warner Brothers Television, will produce the project. It joins The Carrie Diaries, another Schwartz-Savage collaboration, adapted from author Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City prequel, in contention at the CW.

CHRONICLE
20th Century Fox has released a new 60-second trailer and a clip from director Joshua Trank's superhero movie Chronicle, hitting theaters on February 3.
In the film, three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to them developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities, and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over. Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan, Alex Russell and Michael Kelly star.

THE GREY
ShockTillYouDrop.com has an exclusive first look at a clip from director Joe Carnahan's thriller The Grey, hitting theaters on January 27.
In The Grey, Liam Neeson leads an unruly group of oil-rig roughnecks when their plane crashes into the remote Alaskan wilderness. Battling mortal injuries and merciless weather, the survivors have only a few days to escape the icy elements – and a vicious pack of rogue wolves on the hunt – before their time runs out.
Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson, James Badge Dale and Nonso Anozie co-star.

World War Z WORLD WAR Z
Since Paramount Pictures announced their adaptation of World War Z, fans have wondered how director Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) and screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom) and J. Michael Straczynski (Changeling), who wrote the initial script, were going to take Max Brooks' dense novel and turn it into a movie. Eschewing a typical narrative structure, the World War Z novel is comprised of a series of fictional interviews with survivors of a zombie apocalypse that span the globe. How that becomes a movie was any fan's guess, though many have their own "must-have" scenes picked out.
With the novel's unseen narrator turned into Brad Pitt as U.N. employee Gerry Lane, fans rolled their eyes when the movie's brief synopsis revealed that Pitt's character would be traveling "the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself" — which essentially throws out the novel's post-zombie apocalypse setting for one that starts during the initial outbreak. Now, it turns out that Forster's plan for the movie could be more than just one movie — instead, it could become a franchise.
In a retrospective of Pitt's work as actor and producer on Moneyball from The LA Times, it was revealed that the plan for World War Z is to turn it into a trilogy of movies.
For Pitt, the big sci-fi thriller also represents his strongest bid to have a big film franchise of his own, which might be viewed as the missing piece of his career jigsaw puzzle. Forster and Paramount Pictures each view World War Z as a trilogy that would have the grounded, gun-metal realism of, say, [Matt] Damon's Jason Bourne series tethered to the unsettling end-times vibe of AMC's The Walking Dead.
Looking at World War Z as a potential trilogy should appease fans, especially if their favorite scenes are not included in the upcoming movie. Of course, World War Z will have to be a financial success to actually become anything more than a single movie, but, should it find box office success, at least there is plenty of material in the novel for a trilogy, unlike many movies that find success and are suddenly turned into a franchise (Paranormal Activity and The Hangover, for example).
Without even a trailer released, however, fans have yet to see if the movie is trilogy-worthy, and it won't reach theaters until December. The rest of the World War Z cast includes Mireille Enos (The Killing), Matthew Fox (Lost), James Badge Dale (The Departed), and Elyes Gabel (HBO's Game of Thrones). World War Z opens December 21st.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

World War Z WORLD WAR Z
The big screen adaptation of Max Brooks' World War Z is headed to theaters on December 21st and even though the date strategically links the film's zombie apocalypse to the highly-publicized real world end date of the Mayan calendar, director Marc Forster already has an eye to the future. The film's leading man, Brad Pitt, today tells the Los Angeles Times that Paramount Pictures is planning a potential trilogy of World War Z films.
The story for the first film revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.
The supporting cast includes Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox and David Morse and arrives from screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan.

CHRISTOPHER LEE ON CURRENT PROJECTS
What a wonderful way to kick off the New Year! Here is a video message from the legendary Christopher Lee, who remains as busy as ever as he approaches his 90th birthday.
Sir Christopher posted a YouTube two-part Christmas message to his fans and followers, with the first part focusing on his recent film work. With his 90th birthday approaching on May 27, the great British star has no less than four films that he's appearing in this year. One, Hugo, is already out, while The Wicker Tree—a follow-up to the 1973 horror classic The Wicker Man—is still awaiting a release date.
Lee also has a small role in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, which comes out on May 11, but his most eagerly anticipated appearance has to be in December's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, in which he reprises the role of Saruman the White.
The actor reveals that he's completed his scenes for An Unexpected Journey and the second part, 2013's There and Back Again, both of which, he says candidly, "I hope I live to see." Lee admits that at his advanced age he only takes small parts requiring just a few days of shooting.
Perhaps for the benefit of his fans who are not familiar with The Hobbit, Lee adds, "What is extremely important is that in these two films, which of course are long before Lord of the Rings ... Saruman, who I play again, is indeed still Saruman the White, but he is a good and noble man, and the head of the Council of Wizards, as he always was."
You can find a bit more in the video about his other roles, and there's also a second part in which he speaks about some personal accomplishments outside acting. Age has certainly slowed Lee down, but he's as sharp as ever and still has that unmistakable voice. We hope Sir Christopher gets to see both parts of The Hobbit as well—and is around with us for a long time to come.

MERLIN RETURNS ON FRIDAY
Part one of the two-part season-four premiere! This season a new age returns and Arthur decides to use magic ... at least according to the preview. As the season opens, Morgana is up to her trouble-making ways as she summons Callieach (Gemma Jones) to help her unleash creatures that can kill with a touch. It looks like Arthur and Merlin have their hands full once again.

LOOPER
Director Rian Johnson has given us a sneak peek at the time machine that appears in his latest film, Looper.
Looper is a sci-fi thriller that stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis. The film takes place in the near future and centers on a group of hitmen called—you guessed it—loopers. Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, one of the killers who works for the mob and helps them "dispose" of bodies. In the future, the mob uses time travel to send victims to the past (about 30 years), where loopers wait and eventually kill them.
This is a great plan, right? Nothing could possible go wrong. That is, until Gordon-Levitt spots his latest victim—himself! Willis plays future Joe, who's captured and transported through the top-secret time machine. The younger Joe can't pull the trigger on his older self and allows him to escape.
Rian Johnson has revealed the first photo of the Looper time machine in all its glory. He posted it on the film's official Tumblr as a new year's gift to fans.
Aside from Gordon-Levitt and Willis, Looper stars Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels, Paul Dano and Garrett Dillahunt.
Looper opens in theaters Sept. 28.

GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGENCE
Columbia Pictures has released the first TV spot for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Opening in 3D and 2D theaters on February 17, the Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor film stars Nicolas Cage, Fergus Riordan, Ciaran Hinds, Violante Placido, Idris Elba and Johnny Whitworth.
In the new film, Johnny (Cage) - still struggling with his curse as the devil's bounty hunter - is hiding out in a remote part of Eastern Europe when he is recruited by a secret sect of the church to save a young boy (Fergus Riordan) from the devil (Hinds). At first, Johnny is reluctant to embrace the power of the Ghost Rider, but it is the only way to protect the boy - and possibly rid himself of his curse forever.

Brad Anderson THE HIVE
According to Variety, The Hive is now moving forward with The Machinist director Brad Anderson.
The project, from Exit Wounds and Thir13en Ghosts screenwriter Rich D'Ovidio, is said to focus on a female emergency line operator who, in trying to help a young girl, comes up against a killer from her own past.
New casting is expected to be announced soon with a production start targeting this spring.

Matthew Fox EMPEROR
Variety reports that Matthew Fox has joined the cast of Peter Webber's Emperor. He'll play the role of General Bonner Fellers, who served under Douglas MacArthur in Operation Blacklist at the conclusion of WWII.
Webber's film is said to detail the days following Japan's surrender whereby MacArthur, effectively in command of the nation, sought to have Emperor Hirohito and his family exonerated rather than be charged as war criminals. The story will likely be told with the character of Fellers as the lead.
Fox, best known for his role on "LOST," will soon appear on the big screen in both I, Alex Cross and World War Z.
Written by David Klass and Vera Blasi, Emperor will begin filming shortly in both New Zealand and Japan.

Dragon Tattoo DRAGON TATTOO SEQUEL
Sony's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which cost about $90 million to make (not counting marketing costs), has earned $60 million at the domestic box office and will still be hitting many international territories in January. So, while some are saying it's underperforming, it's no surprise that the studio is moving forward with plans to make the sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire.
“[Dragon Tattoo] continues to do strong business and nothing has changed with respect to development of the next book,” a Sony rep told Entertainment Weekly. "Development continues” on the sequel and Steven Zaillian is still working on the script as planned.
It is unclear whether David Fincher will return to direct at this point, but Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig are both signed for the other two films.

Arabian Night ARABIAN NIGHTS
Liam Hemsworth (upcoming The Last Song) has been cast in director Chuck Russell's action-adventure Arabian Nights.
Written by Russell and Barry P. Ambrose, the 3D period epic centers on a young commander (Hemsworth) who, after his king is murdered in a coup, joins forces with Sinbad and Aladdin to rescue Queen Scheherazade.
Inferno Entertainment's Bill Johnson is producing with Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray of Mayhem Pictures. ROAR also is producing.
Filming is targeted for an end-of-summer start.
Liam's brother is Chris Hemsworth, who is now shooting Marvel Studios' Thor.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2012

Paranormal 3 PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4
Horror fans can mark it down in their calendars -- there will be a Paranormal Activity 4 in 2012.
Paramount officially revealed Monday it is pursuing another chapter in the hit Halloween franchise, although it hasn't yet dated the movie. Already set to open on Oct. 26 is Dimension Film's Halloween 3D.
The success of the Paranormal Activity films, made on a shoestring budget, is a sizeable victory for Paramount and producers Jason Blum, Oren Peli and Steven Schneider. Paranormal Activity 3 grossed $202.2 million worldwide -- besting the first two films, unusual for a third outing.
Paranormal Activity 3 opened to a massive $54 million at the domestic box office over the Oct. 21-Oct. 23 weekend in 2011 -- the top launch of all time for a horror pic, as well as the best October debut ever.
The first Paranormal, which cost $15,000 to produce and opened in a limited run in September 2009, went on to gross $193.4 million worldwide. Paranormal 2 cost $3 million to produce, and grossed $177.5 million worldwide.
Paranormal Activity 3 cost $5 million to produce.

THE WOMEN IN BLACK
A new TV spot for The Woman in Black has arrived. Opening in theaters on February 3, the film is directed by James Watkins from a script by Jane Goldman. The horror film stars Daniel Radcliffe ("Harry Potter" films), Ciaran Hinds, Liz White, Janet McTeer, Alisa Khazanova, Tim McMullan, Roger Allam, Daniel Cerqueira, Shaun Dooley, Mary Stockley, Cathy Sara, David Burke, Victor McGuire and Lucy May Barker.
The story follows a young lawyer, Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), who is ordered to travel to a remote village and sort out a recently deceased client's papers. As he works alone in the client's isolated house, Kipps begins to uncover tragic secrets, his unease growing when he glimpses a mysterious woman dressed only in black. Receiving only silence from the locals, Kipps is forced to uncover the true identity of the Woman in Black on his own, leading to a desperate race against time when he discovers her true intent.

JAMES BOND WEBSITE REOPENS
In preparation for the 23rd James Bond movie Skyfall (opening November 9th) and this year's 50th Anniversary of 007 in movies, 007.com has been relaunched with a countdown clock to the new movie and an introduction by producer Michael G. Wilson that shows a bit of behind-the-scenes footage.
In related news, Ralph Fiennes talked about his role in the film to the Sunday Mail and said that he was only allowed "to say that I'm a government agent."
In Skyfall, Bond's (Daniel Craig) loyalty to M (Dame Judi Dench) is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost. Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Ben Whishaw, Helen McCrory and Ola Rapace also star in the the Sam Mendes-directed movie.

JOHN CARTER
The full new trailer for Walt Disney Pictures' John Carter is now online!
Directed by Andrew Stanton, the big screen adaptation of the classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs hits 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on March 9. The film features a cast that includes Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church and Willem Dafoe.
John Carter tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.
The official site for the film has also been updated and can be checked out at Disney.com/JohnCarter!.

MONDAY, JANUARY 2, 2012

AT THE MOVIES
Had a chance to see two great films this weekend -- THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN and SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS. Loved both of them and would recommend either to you. Saw TIN TIN in 3D and it was absolutely awesome! The animation was just amazing.
The SHERLOCK HOLMES sequel may have been better than the first one -- but I'm not sure. Both films were amazing and I think Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law have such great chemistry on film. The photography on HOLMES is hard to describe. The stop-motion visuals lend another dimension to the film and story. HOLMES is one of those films that you really need to watch twice. There are so many things going on, you are definitely not taking it all in. Almost forgot, the music by Hans Zimmer adds so much to the movie.
This holiday season, there are SO many good films to draw you into the theater. If I have a chance, I want to see WAR HORSE and WE BOUGHT A ZOO. Both look like good family films.
Forgot to mention the previews! There were some very interesting trailers yesterday that haven't hit the internet yet, including the latest for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. That movie looks like one to see, for sure.

Mission Impossible 4 WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Paramount's Tom Cruise-starrer Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol continued to tower over the competition as moviegoers rang in 2012, grossing $31.3 million for the three-day New Year's weekend for a domestic total of $134.2 million.
Paramount estimates that Ghost Protocol, directed by Brad Bird, will earn another $8.7 million on Monday--a national holiday--for a projected domestic cume of $142.9 million. Overseas, the tentpole has sailed past the $200 million mark, although final figures for the weekend won't be available until Monday. All in, Ghost Protocol will likely earn $600 million globally, a franchise best.
Steven Spielberg's War Horse made news when moving up the box office chart to No. 4, grossing $16.9 million for the three-day weekend and putting the film's eight-day cume at $43 million. The DreamWorks film, which Disney is distributing, was up more than 22 percent on Saturday, the biggest jump of any film in wide release and indicating the pic is playing well with adults.
At the specialty box office, the Weinstein Co.'s Meryl Streep-starrer The Iron Lady bowed to impressive numbers over the three-day weekend, grossing $221,752 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles for a screen average of $55,438. Phyllida Lloyd directed the film, about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Sony Pictures Classics also did nicely with Iranian film A Separation, which debuted to $66,598 from three theaters for a screen average of $22,199.
In welcome news for the film business, New Year's Eve weekend was up at least 3 percent over last year. However, the year-end uptick wasn't enough to close the gap in domestic box office revenues. Ticket sales came in at an estimated $10.21 billion in 2011, down 3.4 percent from 2010, or roughly $370 million.
More grim was the drop in attendance, which tumbled to a 16-year low in 2011. An estimated 1.28 billion people went to the movies, down 4.21 percent from the 1.33 billion who went in 2010.
Ghost Protocol has dominated the global box throughout the year-end holidays, followed by Warner Bros.' Robert Downey Jr.-Jude Law sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and 20th Century Fox's threequel Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.
Returning Guy Ritchie to the director's chair, Game of Shadows grossed $22.1 million over the three-day weekend for a domestic cume of $132.1 million. The sequel should end Monday north of $137 million.
Chipwrecked grossed $18.3 million for a domestic cume of $94.6 million. The 3D toon should near $100 million on Monday. Both Game of Shadows and Sherlock have made up ground after muted openings over the Dec. 16-18 weekend.
Sony's R-rated adult drama grossed $16.3 million for the three-days for a domestic total of $57.1 million. The David Fincher-directed film, starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, is expected to end Monday just north of $60 million. MGM is a partner on the film.
Fox's second holiday film We Bought a Zoo, directed by Cameron Crowe and starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, grossed $14.3 million for a domestic cume of $41.8 million. The movie should be right around $45 million by the end of Monday.
We Bought a Zoo, designed to be an all-audience film, has lagged since its debut on Dec. 23 and found itself bunched in with fellow family-friendly film The Adventures of Tintin, also directed by Spielberg.
Tintin, opening on Dec. 21, grossed $12 million for the weekend and is projected to end Monday with a domestic cume of $51 million. The film is a runaway success overseas, where it has earned nearly $250 million, pushing the movie's worldwide gross to $300 million.
Zoo cost just under $50 million to produce, while Tintin cost well north of $100 million. War Horse's production budget was north of $70 million.
As with wide releases, Monday should be a strong day for Iron Lady and other awards contenders, including Focus Features' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which has quietly blossomed into an arthouse hit. The British film, produced by Working Title, grossed $1.2 million over the three-day weekend from 57 locations for a domestic cume of $4 million and screen average of $20,360.
The Weinstein Co.'s awards darling The Artist also posted impressive numbers, grossing $1.4 million from 167 theaters for a cume of $5.1 million and weekend screen average of $8,432.
Warner Bros.' awards entry Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close grossed $106,00 from six theaters for a cume of $308,000 and screen average of $17,667.

THE HOBBIT
Here is another segment from Peter Jackson's video blog for making of THE HOBBIT. Watching these clips gives you an appreciation of the magnitude of this movie. How do you move some 500 people around New Zealand? This is one daunting task!

SUNDAY, JANUARY 1, 2012

Oscar 84 84th ACADEMY AWARDS
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has unveiled the poster for the 84th Academy Awards®. The art features the iconic Oscar statuette alongside memorable images from eight films spanning eight decades: Gone with the Wind (1939), Casablanca (1943), Giant (1956), The Sound of Music (1965), The Godfather (1972), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Forrest Gump (1994) and Gladiator (2000). All the films featured on the poster won the Academy Award® for Best Picture, except Giant, for which George Stevens won the Oscar for Directing.
Supported by the tagline "Celebrate the movies in all of us," the design is meant to evoke the emotional connections we all have with the movies. "Whether it's a first date or a holiday gathering with friends or family, movies are a big part of our memory," said Academy President Tom Sherak. "The Academy Awards not only honor the excellence of these movies, but also celebrate what they mean to us as a culture and to each of us individually."
The artwork was created by award-winning graphic designer Anthony Goldschmidt, and Mark and Karen Crawford of the design firm Blood&Chocolate.
Posters will be available to theaters in the U.S. and internationally, along with a theatrical trailer, which will begin screening on January 6.
The 84th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 24, 2012, at 5:30 a.m. PST in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live at 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PST by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2011

END OF ANOTHER YEAR
Well, it's that time of year again! A time to reflect on the year gone by and the year ahead. There is the TWILIGHT ZONE marathon on Syfy, the Rose Parade and all the football you can stand tomorrow. If sports is not your thing, there are a ton of good movies to see. I am going to see the new SHERLOCK HOLMES movie. Loved the first one and the trailers have been great for this sequel. It was a hard choice though with so many good movies out during the holiday season. THE WAR HORSE looks awesome and THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN looks like a winner.

I hope you all have a great New Year's Eve and usher in 2012 with hope and anticipation for what lies ahead.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2011

17th Precinct from ddt73 on Vimeo.

17th PRECINCT
Calling all "Battlestar Galactica" fans: The reunion that happens mostly in your dreams could've been a reality.
"17th Precinct," a pilot from "BSG" mastermind Ronald D. Moore, was passed up by NBC for the 2011-2012 but has just leaked online.
That means you can see Jamie Bamber, James Callis and Tricia Helfer -- along with help from some actress you might've heard of named Stockard Channing -- solve crimes in a magical alternate world where a police procedual deals with spells, hexes and necromancy instead of the plain-old boring normal weapons we have in this world.
Everything is explained pretty well considering they had to pack a lot of information to establish this world in just 44 minutes (although there's no explanation for why Bamber constantly sounds like he has a cold), but we can also see how this could've been a tad inaccessible to the everyday TV-watcher.
Too bad -- another interesting one slipped away.

ALBATROSS
ComingSoon.net has provided the exclusive first look at a 10-minute behind-the-scenes featurette on Albatross, the Niall MacCormick drama starring Felicity Jones, Jessica Brown Findlay, Sebastian Koch and Julia Ormond. The film is now available to watch on SundanceNOW and Cable VOD ahead of its theatrical release on January 2nd.
Albatross is the story of Emelia Conan-Doyle (Jessica Brown Findlay, "Downton Abbey"), a cheeky force of nature and the 17-year-old heir to the legacy of Arthur Conan Doyle. Harboring an ambition to follow in the literary footsteps of her grandfather, Emelia writes while working at a stuffy seaside hotel populated by another blocked novelist Jonathan (Sebastian Koch), his put-upon wife (Julia Ormond) and their daughter Beth (Felicity Jones, Like Crazy).
Instigating a whirlwind of change, Emilia first befriends and emancipates the bookish daughter Beth (Jones), alarms her career frustrated mother (Ormond), before bewitching Jonathan himself.

THE AVENGERS
Thanks to YouTube, we don't have to just watch Russia's MSN trailer for Marvel's The Avengers. We get more of a look at some of the main characters in this movie with a much anticipated May 4th release. Written and directed by Joss Whedon, the action adventure stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan SkarsgŒrd and Samuel L. Jackson.
Marvel's The Avengers is the superhero team up of a lifetime. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as SHIELD, finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2011

Matt Smith DOCTOR WHO NEWS
Companions Amy and Rory may be on their way out on "Doctor Who," but the Doctor himself says he has no plans to leave the show anytime soon.
Matt Smith was a guest on "The Graham Norton Show" over the weekend and told Norton that he won't be following Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, who play Amy and Rory on the series, out the door. Executive producer Steven Moffat said earlier this month that the Ponds would leave at the end of the next season, and the Doctor would find a new companion.
Smith, on the other hand, says he's "very happy to stay. I love it and love making the show."
"I'll miss Karen because she's my best mate," Smith adds. "She's mad as a box of cats, but she's a firecracker."
Smith is under contract for 14 more episodes of "Doctor Who," which will likely take the show through 2013.

Arnold Schwarzenegger BLACK SUNDAY
Thirteen years after he battled Satan himself in End of Days, Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning to the supernatural (as an angel?) for his next movie.
The former governor of California has thrown himself back into acting since leaving office last year, and told followers at TheArnoldFans that in his next project, titled Black Sunday, he'll play what he called "kind of an angel," although he added, "I can not currently say more about this film." The site described the movie as a cross between Commando and Constantine, with Schwarzenegger "raging [sic] war against weapons dealers as an immortal instrument of death."
What's odd about this whole thing is that Black Sunday was originally called Black Sands, with the script said to be in the mode of films like the Denzel Washington action thriller Man on Fire and the classic Clint Eastwood western High Plains Drifter. Somewhere along the line—either at the star's request or through the rewriting stage or both—the supernatural came into the mix.
Well, whatever it ends up being,Black Sunday starts production in New Mexico on April 1. It will follow Schwarzenegger's two already completed projects, The Expendables 2 and The Last Stand, into movie theatres, presumably in 2013.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2011

HAPPY HOLIDAYS I am taking some time off for the holidays. I hope all of you will have a chance to do the same -- whether it is spending time with family and friends, or just having some time to relax and enjoy the season.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2011

THE HOBBIT
It seems like we've been waiting ever since the end of The Return of the King to see it, and now the first trailer for Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is finally here! Prepare yourself for singing Dwarves, beautiful visuals and a creature in a mountain who first hears the dreaded name Baggins.
From the very beginning we get ties to The Lord of The Rings with hints of Howard Shore's original score, plus appearances by both Elijah Wood and Ian Holm as old Bilbo lets young Frodo know that he didn't tell him the whole story of how he got his hands on the One Ring after all.
From there, we get a good look at GandalfÑstaff, pipe and allÑas he invites a band of dwarves into Bilbo's pleasant little Hobbit hole and offers him a chance to go on a strange journey to a mountain far away. The Dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), sing their story for Bilbo, and the unexpected journey begins.
Amid Jackson's predictably stunning visuals are hints of trolls, Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and of course the now-iconic voice of Gollum (Andy Serkis) as he meets Bilbo beneath the Misty Mountains for the first time. We knew we were excited for this, but until this trailer hit we didn't know just how excited. Now begins the excruciating yearlong wait to see the full first film.

PROMETHEUS
Only yesterday, we brought you a first exciting look at the upcoming 1st official trailer (yes, it's a teaser trailer FOR the trailer) for Ridley Scott's upcoming sci-fi tentpole Prometheus. Today, we get another sneak peek at what's coming up in part-deux of that teaser.
This second teaser trailer features even more exciting footage that seems to amp-up everything from the sense of danger to the break-neck action.
And while yesterday we had Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class) and Idris Elba (Thor), today we get to see Charlize Theron's (Snow White and the Huntsman) baddy CEO Meredith Vickers and a glimpse at Noomi Rapace's (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) Elizabeth Shaw in a blink-and-you'll-miss-her explosive sequence.

The River THE RIVER
The ABC Studios TV series Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli stars Canadians Bruce Greenwood and Leslie Hope, along with Joe Anderson, Jeff Galfer, and Thomas Kretschmann.
The action adventure series will be simulcast along with the ABC airdate stateside from February 7, 2012 on CTV.
The River joins a CTV mid-season schedule that includes FoxÕs American Idol juggernaut returning for its 11th season on January 18, and the debut of the previously-announced rookie shows Smash, the Debra Messing-starring musical drama from Steven Spielberg, the mean girls comedy GCB, and the action-drama Missing, which stars Ashley Judd.
And returning U.S. series on the CTV and CTV Two schedules include Whitney, Pan Am, Up All Night, The Big Bang Theory, GreyÕs Anatomy and Two and a Half Men.

Vin Diesel FAST AND FURIOUS 6
Rumored for some time, leading man Vin Diesel confirmed today to The Hollywood Reporter that both a sixth and seventh film are being planned for the Fast and the Furious franchise.
"With the success of this last one," he explains, "and the inclusion of so many characters, and the broadening of scope, when we were sitting down to figure out what would fit into the real estate of number six, we didn't have enough space... We have to pay off this story. We have to service all of these character relationships, and when we started mapping all that out it just went beyond 110 pages. The studio said, 'You can't fit all that story in one damn movie!'"
Last year, when ComingSoon.net visited the set of Fast Five, Diesel was already setting his sights on a sixth film, which he envisioned as the end of a second trilogy.
"I've always had kind of an allergic reaction to taking a reactionary approach to a sequel," he said of why he didn't immediately return after the first film. "My gut feeling about sequels is that they should be premeditated. You should try to write a trilogy first or at least sketch out a trilogy if you have any faith in your film. You should think about where the film is going over a series of films... This is a trilogy... When I was thinking of this 'Fast & Furious,' I thought of it as three stories. The one that you saw, this one and the final one."
Whether that planned finale is still the arc that both upcoming sequels will follow remains to be seen, but Universal is currently set to begin production on at least Fast & Furious 6 next year with Justin Lin back behind the wheel as director, aiming for a May 24, 2013 release. It is possible (and has been rumored) that both sequels will shoot back-to-back to take advantage of scheduling around the sizable ensemble cast.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2011

TERRA NOVA
If Terra Nova executive producers Brannon Braga and Rene Echevarria's hopes turn into reality, you'll be seeing a second season of the dinosaur-filled adventure next fall. The producers are in early talks with Fox about a possible second season, but no decisions have been made on the expensive series yet.
"We're guardedly optimistic," Echevarria told the The Hollywood Reporter. "We're hoping for good news any day. There are a lot of factors in play and a lot of things for the network to consider. We know we have a lot of people there who like the show and we have a core audience that seems to like what we're doing."
Considering the ratings for the high profile, Steven Spielberg-produced series have been less than Fox might have hoped for — with an average of 7.8 million total viewers and 2.6 in the 18-49 demo — there's been speculation that the production might move from Australia to Hawaii to lower costs. Not so, say the executive producers, who have no plans to leave Australia.
"That's not part of the conversation right now. You hear a lot of, 'It's a really expensive show.' It's not an inexpensive show but it's not most expensive show on television by a long shot," said Echevarria.
When it comes to tonight's two-hour season finale, which premieres at 8 p.m. on Fox, Echevarria promises it will be "bigger than the pilot in a way." The executive producers tease that a major character will bite the dust, the story will revisit 2149 and there won't be a standard cliffhanger.
"We promised ourselves and the audience that we'd tell a complete story this season, and we do tell a complete story. Having said that, there new are some new startling mysteries and aspects are uncovered about Terra Nova," said Braga.
According to Echevarria, "a few doors are closed, and few new doors are opened," and "some tantalizing new things occur."
The executive producers say that those "tantalizing new things" will be fleshed out in a second season, if they get one, but they are just at the beginning stages of where that new season might go.
"We don't have it all mapped out but we have pitched a take on season two to the network and that's part of the decision making process for them," said Echevarria. "It's a creative conversation with them. It was an opening conversation. It went well, but they have some thoughts of their own and we're eager to get in there and work it out and come up with a great season two."

PROMETHEUS
In what feels like a movie-marketing first, here's a warmup for the first full trailer for Ridley Scott's science fiction flick—and we get our first looks at Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba and freaky alien goo in action.
"So here we are ... I'm back again" is how Scott kicks off this strange little piece of advertising, which seems to star the director as much as anything he's directed. But I don't particularly care. What brief flashes of Prometheus we do get look fantastic.
Face melting! Specimen examining! Doors opening! People screaming! We'll get a better sense of why all those things are happening when the real trailer hits Apple (which also has the HD version of this teaselet) on Thursday, but for now, excitement is afoot.

WRATH OF THE TITANS
It's time to dust off your sword and sandals. All Hades has broken loose in the first official trailer for Wrath of the Titans. There are new gods, new foes and a whole lot of family drama.
Sam Worthington is back on the scene as Zeus' bastard, warrior son Perseus. A lot has changed since we last saw him. The story takes place a decade after the first film and has him living a quiet life as a farmer and father to a 10-year-old boy. Unfortunately, the life of a demigod isn't meant to be easy.
A war is brewing between the gods and the Titans, and the Titans are winning. Without the humans' unwavering devotion, the gods lose their strength and power. The plot is riddled with daddy issues because guess who's the leader of the Titan's rebellion? It's none other than Kronos, the father of brothers Zeus, Hades and Poseidon.
Zeus' other son, Ares, makes a deal with Kronos and helps kidnap and imprison his father. Perseus may not have the best relationship with his dad, but he's not going to ignore this betrayal. He joins forces with Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), Poseidon's demigod son, Argenor (Toby Kebbell) and fallen god Hephaestus (Bill Nighy) to invade the underworld and rescue Zeus.
As you can tell from the trailer, Andromeda is no longer a damsel in distress. It looks like someone has taken some self-defense classes. She's rocking warrior gear and is ready for battle. One-eyed giants (cyclops) and fiery dragons are just some of the creatures they encounter on their quest. There seems to be a lot more action in this sequel than the original (who knew that was possible?). We have to admit, this movie looks slightly better than its predecessor.

Wrath of the Titans hits theaters March 30.

Peter Jackson THE HOBBIT
Although we've been anticipating the Steven Spielberg-directed The Adventures of Tintin for some time, we now have another reason to head toward the theaters, because when Tintin opens on Dec. 21, it's how we'll get to see the trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
There are some details from the trailer for the upcoming The Hobbit—it starts off with Bilbo (Ian Holm) retelling his adventures to Frodo (Elijah Wood)—we haven't seen the Precious for ourselves. According to Coming Soon, Tintin will be giving us that window of opportunity.
Sadly, there's no news as to when the trailer for The Hobbit will appear online. It's just as well. Considering that The Hobbit won't be released until Dec. 13, 2012, having more time to watch the trailer over and over again will just make the year seem that much longer.
Peter Jackson produced Tintin and directed The Hobbit. In other words, watching the trailer for The Hobbit while waiting to see Tintin is kind of like having a Jackson festival. We recommend viewers bring a King Kong toy to the theater to make it a complete Jackson experience.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Revealed in theaters with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Warner Bros. Pictures has now posted the new trailer for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises online.
Opening in theaters on July 20, 2012, the Nolan's highly-anticipated third Batman movie stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, Josh Pence, Daniel Sunjata, Nestor Carbonell, Matthew Modine, Tom Conti, Joey King, Brett Cullen, Chris Ellis, Josh Stewart, Christopher Judge, Adam Rodriguez and Rob Brown.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2011

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
In a worrisome start to the holiday season, franchise installments Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked both dissapointed in their debuts, while overall box office revenues tumbled 14 percent from last year.
Warner Bros.' Game of Shadows topped the soft weekend with $40 million -- compared to a $62.3 million opening for Sherlock Holmes, which launched on Christmas Day in 2009.
Chipwrecked, which fared worse, opened at No. 2 with $23.5 million, substantially less than the $48.9 million debut of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel, which opened on Dec. 23, 2009, and the $44.3 million earned by the original Alvin and the Chipmunks over the Dec. 14-Dec. 16 weekend in 2007.
The 14 percent decline in domestic revenues further worried Hollywood studios, who are increasingly alarmed over the exodus of moviegoers from the multiplex. But the news isn't all bad. Films can rack up huge grosses during the year-end holidays beause of better-than-usual multiples, and Game of Shadows and Chipwrecked could make up ground.
Warner Bros. didn't expect Game of Shadows to open at the same levels as the first Sherlock, which had the advantage of opening when the holiday season was fully underway.
"We never had any intention of replicating those grosses. We have 9 days before we get to Christmas, and we will have substantial box office revenues by the time we get there. We will get to where we ended up with the first movie," Warner president of domestic distribution Dan Fellman said.
However, even Warners expected the sequel to debut well north of $40 million, and had hoped for $50 million.
Last year, Disney's Tron Legacy opened on the same weekend to $44 million after grossing $17.5 million on Friday.
Game of Shadows, directed by Guy Ritchie and returning Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in the title roles, did post better exits than the original film, earning an A-, compared to a B for the first. Of those buying tickets, 68 percent were over the age of 25, while men made up 59 percent of the audience. The sequel cost $125 million to produce, and was co-financed by Village Roadshow Pictures.
"The big news is that the exits were sensational, meaning strong legs," Fellman said.
Game of Shadows opened in six international markets, grossing a strong $14.7 million, including a No. 1 launch in the U.K. with $5.8 million and a $5 million debut in Italy.
Another bright note to the weekend: Paramount's Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol grossed $13.6 million from limited IMAX sneaks in advance of its Dec. 21 nationwide debut. Coming in No. 3 behind Sherlock and Alvin, Ghost Protocol played in 425 locations for a massive per screen average of $32,000. A big draw was an extended preview of Warner Bros.' The Dark Knight Rises.
Overseas, Paramount opened Ghost Protocol in 36 markets, where it launched to a stellar $68.2 milllion.
Ghost Protocol played on 300 IMAX screens--earning $11 million--and 125 on large-format screens. Overseas, Ghost Protocol earned an additional $3 million from 85 IMAX loations for a total $14 million, the best December opening on record for IMAX. Skydance co-financed the tentpole with Paramount.
"It feels like we are in strong shape," said Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore, adding that fans do indeed love the movie, along with critics. Ghost Protocol currently has a 95 percent ranking on RottenTomatoes.com.
Fox senior vice president of distribution Chris Aronson said comparisons for Chipwrecked are difficult, since it's the only one of the three films in the franchise to open over the last full shopping weekend before Christmas, when moviegoers are preoccupied with buying gifts. He said Chipwrecked, which cost $80 million to produce, will make up ground in the coming days.
"We will have a great multiple. The midweek numbers will be terrific as we move into the serious moviegoing stretch between Christmas and New Year's," Aronson said.
Chipwrecked, appealing heavily to families as expected, earned a B+ CinemaScore, compared to an A for the original. However, those under the age of 25, including kids, gave it an A-.
Internationally, Chipwrecked earned $14.5 million as it rolled out in 38 markets, of which only six were major territories.
Elsewhere at the box office, New Line and Warner Bros.' New Year's Eve fell 43 percent in its second weekend, grossing an estimated $7.4 million for a soft domestic cume of $24.8 milion.
New Year's Eve placed No. 4, followed by Fox's Jonah Hill R-rated comedy The Sitter, which dropped a sizeable 55 percent to an estimated $4.4 million for a 10-day cume of $17.7 million.
Paramount's Charlize Theron black comedy Young Adult grossed an estimated $3.7 million as it upped its theater count from 8 to 986 in its second weekend for a cume of $4.1 million. Paramount said the Jason Reitman-directed film, penned by Diablo Cody, did solid business in coming in No. 7 for the weekend.
Martin Scorsese's Hugo, an awards darling that landed top Golden Globe nominations last week, followed with an estimated gross of $3.6 million from 2,532 theaters for a domestic cume of $39.1 million in is fourth weekend.
Focus Features' Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, produced by Working Title, held up well in its second weekend, grossing an estimated $452,278 from 16 theaters for a location average of $28,267--the best of any film outside of Mission: Impossible ($30,558). The critically acclaimed Tinker Tailor wasn't slowed down by being shut out of Golden Globe nominations.
Specialty openings included Roman Polanski's Carnage, which grossed $85,696 from five theaters for a location average of $17,139. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing the film in the U.S.
Domestic Box Office Dec. 16-Dec. 18
Title/Weeks in Release/Studio/Theater Count/Weekend Total/Cume
1. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (1), Warner Bros./3,703, $40 million
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (1), 20th Century Fox/2,723, $23.5 million
3. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (1), Paramount/425, $13 million, $13.6 million
4. New Year's Eve (2), Warner Bros./New Line/3,505, $7.4 million, $24.8 million
5. The Sitter (2), 20th Century Fox/2,850, $4.4 million, $17.1 million
6. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1 (5), Summit/2,958, $4.3 million, $266.4 million
7. Young Adult (2), Paramount/986, $3.7 milllion, $4.1 million
8. Hugo (4), Paramount/2,523, $3.6 million, $39.1 million
9. Arthur Christmas (4), Sony/2,929, $3.6 million, $38.5 million
10. The Muppets (4), Disney/2,808 $3.5 million, $70.9 million

TIM & ERIC'S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE
Following the recently released teaser trailer and the full-length Red Band trailer, Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie has released, through iTunes Trailers, the full Green Band version.
A spin-off of Cartoon Network's "Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!", the comedy stars Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, John C. Reilly, Robert Loggia, Jeff Goldblum, Will Forte, William Atherton and Erica Durance.
In the film, Tim and Eric are given a billion dollars to make a movie, but squander every dime... and the sinister Schlaaang corporation is pissed. Their lives at stake, the guys skip town in search of a way to pay the money back. When they happen upon a chance to rehabilitate a bankrupt mall full of vagrants, bizarre stores and a man-eating wolf that stalks the food court, they see dollar signs - a billion of them.
Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie will be available on VOD on January 27, 2012 and in theatres starting March 2, 2012.

JOHN CARTER
Here is the second of two new TV spots for Walt Disney Pictures' John Carter, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.
Directed by Andrew Stanton, the big screen adaptation of the classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs hits 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on March 9. The film features a cast that includes Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church and Willem Dafoe.
John Carter tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

WE BOUGHT A ZOO
(20th Century Fox)Release: 12/23/2011
Screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna and Cameron Crowe, based on the book “We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo and the 200 Zoo Animals that Changed Their Lives Forever” by Benjamin Mee This holiday season, acclaimed filmmaker Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) directs an amazing and true story about a single dad who decides his family needs a fresh start, so he and his two children move to the most unlikely of places: a zoo. With the help of an eclectic staff, and with many misadventures along the way, the family works to return the dilapidated zoo to its former wonder and glory.
Directed By: Cameron Crowe
Produced By: Julie Yorn, Rick Yorn, Cameron Crowe

NEWS THIS WEEKEND: SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17-18, 2011

Denzel Washington THE EQUALIZER
According to Variety, Denzel Washington is attached to star in the film version of the classic 1980's TV series "The Equalizer" in development at Sony Pictures Entertainment and Escape Artists.
Edward Woodward starred in the classic CBS television series about Robert McCall, a former operative of a covert intelligence organisation who seeks redemption for his dark past via offering his services to those being persecuted and in need of help.
Combining his skills both investigative and deadly, McCall brings justice to various hoodlums, killers, dealers, rapists and other scum on the streets of New York City. He also performed assignments for the head of his former organisation and dealt with his estranged son.
The show was noted for its memorable theme tune, McCall's signature Jaguar XJ6 car, and its realistic handling of the spy world with sometimes brutal violence and a lack of fancy gadgets.
The project has been in development for years originally at The Weinstein Company back in 2005 before Escape Artists picked it up. A little over a year ago Washington's "American Gangster" co-star Russell Crowe was attached as the lead while Paul Haggis was to write the script.
Richard Wenk ("The Mechanic," "Expendables 2") has now been hired to pen the latest draft. Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch will produce.

Rites of Spring RITES OF SPRING
IFC Midnight is acquiring U.S. rights to director Padraig Reynolds' thriller "Rites of Spring".
The story follows a group of kidnappers who abduct the daughter of a wealthy socialite and hide out in an abandoned school in the middle of the woods. As guilt divides the group, they all become fodder for a mysterious creature that requires springtime ritualistic sacrifices.
AJ Bowen, Anessa Ramsey, Sonny Marinelli, Katherine Randolph and Marco St. John star. Reynolds also penned the screenplay.

The Driver THE DRIVER
According to Heat Vision, Voltage Productions and Solipsist Films have acquired Spenser Cohen and Zach Luna's spec script "The Driver".
The story centers on a man whose suburban existence is flipped on his drive to work when he finds himself coerced to be the wheelman of an assembled group of criminals. The man learns that thieves were not randomly assembled and that the heist leads to a larger mystery.
Cohen will direct while Stephen L’Heureux, Nic Chartier and Craig J. Flores are producing. Casting will begin in the new year.

Sherlock Holmes 2 WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
With three new sequels opening this weekend, the industry is hoping that last weekend's painfully quiet Box Office will show improvement -- and it will.
At No. 1 "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" scored an estimated $14.7 million on opening day -- $1.25 million of that coming in from midnight showings on Thursday night. Though this doesn't necessarily make "Sherlock" the blockbuster that the original was, there's a strong chance that the word-of-mouth on this one will keep it considerably successful through the holiday season.
The latest "Alvin and the Chipmunks" sequel, "Chipwrecked," is one of few (mostly) animated films this year that does not have a 3-D option, but that seems to be working for family audiences. The movie drew $6.8 million on Friday night to come in second place, and of course as a family-friendly film, it's likely to pick up the pace throughout the weekend with matinee showings and the Saturday night crowd.
As for Tom Cruise's most recent "Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol," which was well-reviewed, numbers are coming in high. Opening this weekend in only 425 theaters (300 of which are of the IMAX variety), the "MI" sequel still raked in $1.1 million at midnight and a total of $4.1 million for Friday.

Brendan Meyer ENDER'S GAME
The casting for the film adaptation of the Orson Scott Card sci-fi novel, Ender’s Game, is heating up. And an inside source tells The Hollywood Reporter that Canadian teen star Brendan Meyer has joined the OddLot project.
Meyer will play Stilson, Ender’s (Hugo’s Asa Butterfield) classmate who taunted him during ground school in the futuristic film.
The 17-year-old actor has starred in the titular role of Adam Young on the YTV and Disney XD series, Mr. Young, as a child prodigy who graduated from college at 14 and returns to his area high school as its science teacher.
Ender's Game is described as the story of “a young boy, a genius strategist, who is drafted by the International Fleet to destroy the alien Formic race.”
Hailee Steinfeld and Ben Kingsley are currently in negotiations to join the film.
Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) wrote the script and is set to direct the film. The producing team includes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (2009’s Star Trek, Transformers), OddLot’s Gigi Pritzker and Linda McDonough, as well as Lynn Hendee, Robert Chartoff and Card.
The film will be executive produced by OddLot’s Bill Lischak, K/O’s Mandy Safavi, Digital Domain’s Cliff Plumer and Ed Ulbrich. Summit is the domestic distributor and is co-financing. Digital Domain is also a financial partner in the movie. The production is set to start shooting early next year in New Orleans with a March 2013 release date.
OddLot also co-produced the film, Drive, which just scored a supporting actor Golden Globe nomination for Albert Brooks.

James Frain THE LONE RANGER
British actor James Frain, who recently recurred as vampire on HBO’s True Blood, has joined the cast of Disney’s The Lone Ranger.
Johnny Depp toplines the Gore Verbinski-directed pic, which also counts Armie Hammer, Helena Bonham Carter and Tom Wilkinson among the cast.
Frain will play a tough foreman overseeing Chinese and Indian rail workers who works for the story’s chief villain (Wilkinson).
Jerry Bruckheimer is producing the adventure movie which begins production in about six weeks.
Frain, who appeared in Water for Elephants, was one of the stars of NBC’s short-lived series The Cape and portrayed Thomas Cromwell for three seasons of Showtime’s acclaimed drama The Tudors. He is repped by APA.

JOHN CARTER
New TV spots for Walt Disney Pictures' John Carter are now online, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.
Directed by Andrew Stanton, the big screen adaptation of the classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs hits 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on March 9. The film features a cast that includes Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church and Willem Dafoe.
John Carter tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

ACT OF VALOR
Relativity Media has premiered, through iTunes Trailers, the new trailer for action-thriller Act of Valor.
Opening in theaters on February 17, the film stars a group of active-duty Navy SEALs in a powerful story of contemporary global anti-terrorism. Inspired by true events, the film combines stunning combat sequences, up-to-the minute battlefield technology and heart-pumping emotion for the ultimate action adventure.
Roselyn Sanchez, Alex Veadov, Jason Cottle and Nester Serrano co-star.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2011

JACK THE GIANT KILLER
Despite being attached to more projects you can count on one hand?a Battlestar Galactica re-reboot, The Munsters pilot, a remake of Logan's Run?Bryan Singer hasn't offered up a single frame of a film that he himself shot in years ... until this first look at his epic take on Jack and the Beanstalk.
Jack certainly looks like it has scope and scale, and X-Men: First Class' Nicholas Hoult looks perfectly hapless as the boy who doesn't care for his magic beans?which seem to come with as many rules as mogwai. ("Don't get them wet!")
Plus, it's got Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' Ian McShane as the King, and he automatically makes everything 22 percent better.
Here's the plot to Jack and the Giant Killer, which opens June 15, 2012:
Jack the Giant Killer tells the story of an ancient war that is reignited when a young farmhand unwittingly opens a gateway between our world and a fearsome race of giants. Unleashed on the Earth for the first time in centuries, the giants strive to reclaim the land they once lost, forcing the young man, Jack, into the battle of his life to stop them. Fighting for a kingdom, its people, and the love of a brave princess, he comes face to face with the unstoppable warriors he thought only existed in legend-and gets the chance to become a legend himself.

Amy-Rory DOCTOR WHO UPDATE - SPOILER WARNING
Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has just announced that everyone's favorite couple in the TARDIS and Who companions Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) are set to leave Matt Smith's Time Lord next season.
The sad announcement was made by Moffat at the BBC TV Centre in London at a screening for the upcoming Christmas episode ''The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe'' that is set to air on Christmas Day.
"The final days of the Ponds are coming," Moffat said. "I'm not telling you when or how, but that story is going to come to a heartbreaking end."
Wait! Heartbreaking end? What on Earth can you mean Mr. Moffat? We're not sure we're liking the sound of that.
Steven Moffat also added that The Doctor was going to meet "a new friend." The role has apparently not yet been cast.
About Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill's departure from the series next year, Matt Smith said:
"We had the most incredible journey. We took over the show and we've really had to hold hands and help each other through it.
"So it's very disappointing, but one has to remember that this show is about change and regeneration, and that's what galvanizes it and pushes it forwards."
And here we were, really getting to love the Ponds, Doctor Who's first married couple in the TARDIS ever. We'll be sad to see them go.

Rutger Hauer DRACULA
Italian horrormeister Dario Argento has never exactly been known for his subtlety, so we were sure his new Dracula 3D project would pack plenty of over-the-top vampire awesomeness. The first (slightly NSFW) footage from this opus has finally hit the 'net, and with Rutger Hauer heading up the cast as an intense Van Helsing, it doesn't disappoint.
We've heard that the flick won't be a direct adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel (we have enough of those), but this footage certainly packs plenty of bloody punch. It's got much of the look and feel of the classic Hammer Horror Dracula pictures, the ones with Christopher Lee as the red-eyed bloodsucker and Peter Cushing as the fearless vampire hunter.
This time the role of Dracula is being filled by German actor Thomas Kretschmann (who you might know best from his role as Captain Englehorn in Peter Jackson's King Kong), and Argento's own daughter Asia has the role of Dracula's victim Lucy Westenra. But the real star is definitely Hauer, and he looks damn badass decked out in Victorian waistcoats chasing bloodsuckers.

GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE
While not quite as crazy as that first Ghost Rider 2 teaser?in which, if you'll remember, Nicolas Cage's fiery alter-ego actually urinated fire?this first full trailer clues us in to what the movie's actually about. And, yes, blows up lots of stuff with hellfire.
The plot seems pretty straightforward: Innocent little kid is chosen by Evil Dudes (played by Ciaran Hinds and the original Highlander, Christopher Lambert) to be the vessel for the Antichrist, and Johnny Blaze gets recruited by Awesome British Black Guy (Thor's Idris Elba) to save both the kid and his own soul.
Also: Explosions.

HOLIDAY BOX OFFICE
It's all about sequels, threequels and fourquels at the box office this weekend.
Tom Cruise reprises his role as U.S. agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the fourth entry in Paramount's action franchise. This time around, his team of agents trying to thwart a villain who believes that a nuclear winter would be in the natural order of things. Simon Pegg, Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner co-star, which marks The Incredibles director Brad Bird's first live-action film. The movie opens Friday in Imax theaters before expanded wide Dec. 21.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. releases its Sherlock Holmes sequel, subtitled A Game of Shadows, in which Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law reprise their roles as detective Sherlock Homes and his close associate Dr. Watson, respectively. The movie finds Holmes pitted against his most formidable opponent, the diabolical Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris).
Alvin and his furry friends Simon and Theodore also hit the big screen once again in 20th Century Fox's family comedy Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked. The threequel finds the trio wreaking havoc about a luxury liner, much to the eternal chagrin of their "dad" Dave (Jason Lee).
Sony Classics opens Roman Polanski's Carnage in limited release Friday. The movie, which has its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, is an adaptation of Yasmina Reza's award-winning play God of Carnage and stars Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz as the parents of two kids who have been involved in a playground fight.

Robert Redford ALL IS LOST
According to Deadline, Robert Redford is interested in playing the lead role in the upcoming All Is Lost. The film is set to be directed by J.C. Chandor, who recently directed Margin Call.
Plot details are currently few, but the story is said to take place on the water and will feature a man surviving the elements all alone.
Zachary Quinto's production company, Before the Door, will produce the project, which is potentially planning to shoot in Mexico.
Redford's next is The Company You Keep, which he will both direct and star in opposite Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, Richard Jenkins, Susan Sarandon and many more.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2011

Prometheus Poster PROMETHEUS
Ridley Scott and Fox have done a pretty good job of keeping their Alien prequel under wraps. But there have been some cracks in the veil of secrecy: First, a very spoilery look at what might be the entire plot and after a blurry image leaked out, Fox has revealed the first poster.
This is a relatively odd teaser poster, given that there's no mention of any of the things you'd normally use to sell a movie like this, like any of the stars' names—not that Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender or Idris Elba will put butts into seats. Even odder, though, is that there's no "From Ridley Scott, the Oscar-winning director of Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator." Seems like you'd want to let people know something like that.
Here's an unspoilery synopsis:
"Ridley Scott, director of Alien and Blade Runner, returns to the genre he helped define. With Prometheus, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race."

Being Human BEING HUMAN
Can't wait until Jan. 16 to see what the cast of Syfy's Being Human gets up to in the show's second season? Neither can we! But until then, here's the first official photo from the new season, which will definitely remind you to mark your calendar.
Syfy described the new season as follows in an earlier press release:
Being human: nobody ever said it was easy. But when you're a ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf, like the three twenty-something roommates of Being Human, it may be completely impossible. The second season of Syfy's hit drama picks up where the explosive season finale left off. Aidan tries to steer a leaderless Boston while resisting his deadlier vampire instincts, as he finds himself tempted and tormented by a figure from his past. Sally must face the consequences of missing her door, while figuring out how to navigate life on earth as a ghost. Werewolf Josh searches for a cure for his condition while struggling to maintain his relationship with Nora and, like the rest of his roommates, trying to build a future for himself beyond simply being a monster.
Being Human stars Sam Huntington (as werewolf Josh Radcliff), Sam Witwer (as vampire Aidan McCollin) and Meaghan Rath (as ghost Sally Malik), and will premiere Monday, Jan. 16, at 9 p.m.

The Hobbit THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
We still have a looong year to wait until we can finally go back to Middle-earth again when The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey makes it to theaters. But in the meanwhile, the studio's just released the first official synopsis for the film.
If the blurb released by the studio exactly a year to the day before the premiere doesn't raise your anticipation for The Hobbit at least a little, we don't know what will. Oh yeah, we do. Maybe a boatload of pics would do the trick ... but there are none to be found today. (Sorry!)
Anyway, we're pretty darned excited about what we've read below. Gollum's mentioned A LOT in there. And we simply can't wait to see Sherlock's Martin Freeman as the younger Bilbo Baggins, and all the returning characters we know and love from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Here's the synopsis:
From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson comes The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first of two films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The second film will be The Hobbit: There and Back Again.
Both films are set in Middle-earth 60 years before The Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in the blockbuster trilogy that culminated with the Oscar®-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
The adventure follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.
Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever...Gollum.
Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum's "precious" ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities ... A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.
Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf the Grey, the character he played in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Martin Freeman in the central role of Bilbo Baggins. Also reprising their roles from The Lord of the Rings movies are: Cate Blanchett as Galadriel; Ian Holm as the elder Bilbo; Christopher Lee as Saruman; Hugo Weaving as Elrond; Elijah Wood as Frodo; Orlando Bloom as Legolas; and Andy Serkis as Gollum.
The ensemble cast also includes (in alphabetical order) Richard Armitage, John Bell, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Barry Humphries, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Evangeline Lilly, Sylvester McCoy, Bret McKenzie, Graham McTavish, Mike Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean O'Gorman, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt, Conan Stevens, Ken Stott, Jeffrey Thomas, and Aidan Turner.
The screenplays for both The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again are by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson. Jackson is also producing the films, together with Fran Walsh and Carolynne Cunningham. The executive producers are Alan Horn, Ken Kamins, Toby Emmerich and Zane Weiner, with Boyens serving as co-producer.
Under Jackson's direction, both movies are being shot consecutively in digital 3D using the latest camera and stereo technology. Filming is taking place at Stone Street Studios, Wellington, and on location around New Zealand.
Among the creative behind-the-scenes team returning to Jackson's crew are director of photography Andrew Lesnie, production designer Dan Hennah, conceptual designers Alan Lee and John Howe, composer Howard Shore and make-up and hair designer Peter King. The costumes are designed by Ann Maskrey and Richard Taylor. The score is being composed by Howard Shore.
Taylor is also overseeing the design and production of weaponry, armour and prosthetics which are once again being made by the award winning Weta Workshop. Weta Digital take on the visual effects for both films, led by the film's visual effects supervisor, Joe Letteri. Post production will take place at Park Road Post Production in Wellington.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again are productions of New Line Cinema and MGM, with New Line managing production. Warner Bros Pictures is handling worldwide theatrical distribution, with select international territories as well as all international television licensing, being handled by MGM.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be released beginning December 14, 2012. The second film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, is slated for release the following year, beginning December 13, 2013.

THE EXPENDABLES 2
Lionsgate has released the teaser trailer for The Expendables 2! with an August 17, 2012 release.
Directed by Simon West, The Expendables 2 stars Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger and is described as follows:
The Expendables are back and this time it's personal...
Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Lee Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) -- with newest members Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Yu Nan) aboard -- are reunited when Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) enlists the Expendables to take on a seemingly simple job. The task looks like an easy paycheck for Barney and his band of old-school mercenaries. But when things go wrong and one of their own is viciously killed, the Expendables are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory where the odds are stacked against them. Hell-bent on payback, the crew cuts a swath of destruction through opposing forces, wreaking havoc and shutting down an unexpected threat in the nick of time - six pounds of weapons-grade plutonium; enough to change the balance of power in the world. But that's nothing compared to the justice they serve against the villainous adversary who savagely murdered their brother.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE
Universal Pictures announced today that it has acquired the worldwide rights to the young adult fantasy novel Daughter of Smoke & Bone written by National Book Award Finalist Laini Taylor. The book was published this September and is the first in a trilogy. Universal's Co-Presidents of Production Peter Cramer and Jeff Kirschenbaum made the announcement.
Daughter of Smoke & Bone has been sold in over 25 countries so far to critical acclaim and has been one of the most well-received books of the year. Honors include an Amazon Top Ten Books of 2011, Amazon's #1 Teen Book of 2011, a Publishers Weekly Best Books 2011, a Huffington Post Top 10 YA Book of 2011, and a New York Times Notable Children's Books of 2011.
Since its release, Daughter of Smoke & Bone has been hailed with rave reviews across the board. A review from Entertainment Weekly said, "This smartly plotted, surprising, and fiercely compelling read will hook you from its opening pages." The New York Times called it "A breath-catching romantic fantasy about destiny, hope and the search for one’s true self that doesn't let readers down." And the Los Angeles Times noted, "It's to Taylor's great credit that evil incarnate and its love match in 'Daughter of Smoke & Bone' are such imaginative interpretations and that the worlds in which this romance unfolds are likewise so unique."
At the news of the acquisition, Laini Taylor said, "My goal is always to write stories that readers will want to climb inside of and live in, and which – I hope – will allow them to just lose themselves in the page. It is a hugely thrilling prospect to think about Universal and filmmakers translating my world onscreen and giving it a second life in such a grand way. I'm over the moon."
Jane Putch, Taylor's manager and producing partner, said, "Taylor is a stunning visual writer, whose superbly developed characters shape a plot filled with intrigue, epic wars, love, betrayal and 'teeth.' I can't wait to see her world on screen!"
Daughter of Smoke & Bone is published in the U.S. by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, a division of Hachette Book Group and in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton. The second book in the trilogy will be published in September 2012.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2011

DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS
The "Doctor Who" Christmas special is on the way. We've got the trailer for you right here. It's going to be the "best Christmas ever!" (No, really, that's a line from the trailer.)
We're so excited for this show! No sign of the companions or River Song (Alex Kingston), but you know the special always packs a punch. The Doctor (Matt Smith) ends up with some kids "In a forest, in a box, in a sitting room." Where else are you going to hear a line like that? We can't wait to see who the baddies are this time.
"The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrode" airs this Christmas Day on BBC One, BBC America and Space. Let us know which villain you want to see. We're hoping for Weeping Angels. Don't blink.

William Devane REVENGE NEWS
Even the cunning Victoria Grayson (Madeleine Stowe) can’t go it alone as this new casting shows.
An ABC spokesperson confirms that William Devane has joined the series in a guest role, as first reported by EW.
He’ll play Conrad Grayson’s (Henry Czerny) father, Edward. And here’s the twist: Victoria called on the Grayson patriarch to help her in the divorce proceedings against his son. He joins the series for Episodes 14 and 15 airing in January.
And apparently, Episode 15 will be a big one as it addresses the murder scene from the series pilot.
Devane played James Heller on 24, but primetime soap fans will also remember him as the plotting politician, Gregory Sumner, on the Dallas spinoff, Knots Landing, from 1983-1993. His movie credits include Marathon Man, Payback, and Hollow Man.
Revenge returns on Wed., Jan. 4. on ABC.

Chris Meloni TRUE BLOOD NEWS
An HBO spokesperson confirms to The Hollywood Reporter that Chris Meloni is joining True Blood as a series regular for Season 5. Executive producer Alan Ball, the maker himself, broke the news first to TVLine.
Ball describes Meloni’s role as “an ancient, powerful vampire who holds the fate of Bill and Eric in his hands.”
Ever since the news broke that Meloni was negotiating for a role, fans have suspected he may be part of The Vampire Authority, the council which rules over all vampires and gives its royalty their power.
Meloni recently left Law & Order: SVU after 12 seasons on the show. This casting represents a homecoming for the actor after starring in the HBO series, Oz, from 1998-2003. He has also starred on several other series, including NYPD Blue, The Boys, and The Fanelli Boys. He’s also appearing in the next Superman flick, Man of Steel, due out in 2013.

VIRAL
Recent UCLA graduate Tim Schechmeister has sold the rights to his short film, Viral, to Screen Gems, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter. The film has been enjoying a successful film festival run over the last year, however, it wasn't until a known horror scribe saw it and passed it along to the right people.
Schechmeister met writer Stephen Susco (The Grudge) at screenwriting event this year and gave him a copy of Viral. An impressed Susco, in turn, passed it along to Roy Lee, producer of The Ring and The Grudge.
Lee and two other producers rallied behind the project and took it to Screen Gems where the feature rights were sold. Now, Schechmeister and his brother Matt are penning a feature adaptation for Tim to direct.
In the short film, two young ladies - Julia and Alexis - are supposed to be studying. But Alexis gives in to the temptation to go online and provoke someone... or something... that should have been left alone.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2011

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION
The new trailer for 2012 tentpole "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," does an excellent job at teasing what we're assuming the movie is about: soldiers, fighting and explosions.
Featuring the ever-reliable Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis an other tried-and-true action stars, "Retaliation" looks to be an exciting sequel to 2009's "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" featuring 100 percent more "Friday Night Lights" stars.
Basically, if you go into this movie expecting to see some badass action scenes, lots of guns and Adrianne Palicki being awesome, we're predicting you'll get what you paid for.

Dragon Capsule DRAGON SPACE CAPSULE
Great news, space enthusiasts: Dragon will be flying on February 7, 2012. What's Dragon? It's a capsule that will be flown to the International Space Station (ISS). And if all goes well, Dragon and its Falcon 9 launch vehicle will serve as the new replacement for the 30-year-old space shuttle, which was retired in July.
When we say "private," what we mean is "not public," that is, not government-based. SpaceX, the space transportation company that developed Dragon, won a $1.6 billion contract as part of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) project, which would bring non-government vehicles to the International Space Station.
(Previously, the only craft that have made its way to the International Space Station are the United States' former Space Shuttle; the Japanese vehicle, H-II Transfer Vehicle; Russia's Soyuz, and the European Space Agency's ATV.)
In fact, SpaceX isn't the only winner of NASA funding. Orbital Sciences earned $1.9 billion from COTS. Its Cygnus spacecraft was due to launch in late 2010, but that date has been postponed.
According to SpaceX's website,
Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft being developed by SpaceX under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Initiated internally by SpaceX in 2005, the Dragon spacecraft is made up of a pressurized capsule and unpressurized trunk used for Earth to LEO transport of pressurized cargo, unpressurized cargo, and/or crew members.
Note the "and/or crew members." Dragon's first flight will be unmanned.
But according to Wired,
SpaceX is one of several private firms that are vying to take over Nasa's supply runs and astronaut transport to the ISS following the discontinuation of the Shuttle programme earlier this year. The US is currently having to buy seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, so it is looking towards using SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation for future trips.
In other words, private industry will be taking passengers. And with so few astronauts admitted to NASA and other government spaceflight programs, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences may look to paying passengers to help with their bottom line.
It looks like there's going to be a race to see which business can send unmanned vehicles to the ISS. The winner? The first business that can successfully flies manned vehicles, of course.

Eli Roth HEMLOCK GROVE
Netflix is going gory.
In the streaming service's continued and aggressive foray into the original content business, it is nearing a deal for Eli Roth to direct and executive produce hour-long horror series Hemlock Grove. The project, which will be granted a 13 episode order, is based on Brian McGreevy’s upcoming gothic horror novel by the same name.
The project, which hails from the newly launched Gaumont International Television, centers on the body of a young girl who is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Penn. McGreevy is on board to co-write and executive produce the script with his writing partner Lee Shipman. Mad Hatter’s Michael Connolly will serve as a co-executive producer on the series, with Strike Entertainment's Eric Newman attached as an EP.
The news follows Netflix's other original projects, David Fincher's House of Cards, Jenji Kohan's Orange is the New Black and the resurrection of Fox's cult comedy Arrested Development, as well as its continued efforts to lock up deals with content providers such as the CW and AMC. "There are no signs of us reeling in spending," Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos recently told The Hollywood Reporter.
More recently, Netflix has been at the center of still more news. This time, rumblings about a potential sale. The company's shares briefly jumped more 7 percent in afternoon trading Monday as reports surfaced that Verizon is interested in acquiring the company.
Roth, whose credits include Discovery's docuseries Curiosity, The Last Exorcism, Grindhouse and Hostel, is repped by CAA.

PERFECT SENSE
IFC Films has released, through Yahoo! Movies, the trailer for David Mackenzie's Perfect Sense, starring Ewan McGregor, Eva Green, Connie Nielsen, Ewan Bremner and Stephen Dillane.
A hit at Sundance '11 and winner of the Edinburgh Film Festival's prize for Best New British Feature, the amazing genre concoction stars McGregor and Green as witnesses to the end of the world - strangers who form a desperate romantic connection in the face of an apocalyptic epidemic of sensory loss.
Audiences nationwide can see the film before it hits theaters on demand starting January 6th. The theatrical release starts February 3rd.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2011


GAME OF THRONES - SEASON TWO
HBO unveiled a new teaser for Season 2 of "Game of Thrones" Sunday night (Dec. 11), and like the one that debuted three weeks ago, it's pretty dark and brooding.
The 45-second spot is filled with dimly lit shots of most of the (still living) key players from Season 1, looking contemplative and/or worried. Renly Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) says in voiceover that he's laying claim to the Iron Throne, since Robert left "no true-born heir."
That's unlikely to go over well with the Lannisters, but Stannis doesn't much care: "They will bend a knee or I will destroy them," he says. He closes with the Season 2 tagline, "The cold winds are rising."
"Game of Thrones" returns to HBO in April.

Dark KnightRises THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
The end is near. Warner Bros. has released an epic new teaser poster for The Dark Knight Rises. It features Tom Hardy as Bane, lots of rain, and a trail of shattered debris. The man's out for blood and there's nothing we can do to stop him!
Aside from Bane's intimidating presence, the poster features Batman's broken cowl and the tagline "The Legend Ends." If that's not a foreboding advertisement we don't know what is. The shattered cowl definitely alludes to "The Man Who Broke the Bat" storyline Bane is known for. It's no secret that Batman's going to be incapacitated at some point, we just don't know how or when.
What if Christopher Nolan deviates from "breaking The Bat" and takes him out another way? Since this is the final entry in his Batman series, we'd like him to exit on a somber but still hopeful note. He could let Bruce Wayne take a hit, while leaving the door open for a replacement. The possibilities are endless. We're both excited and terrified to see what happens next.
The Dark Knight Rises is directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film opens in conventional and IMAX theaters July 20.

NEW JURASSIC PARK
Tt has been over ten years since Jurassic Park 3 hit theaters and with rumblings of them finally getting around to doing Jurassic Park 4, something hinted at by original director and producer Steven Spielberg at this year's Comic-Con, fans of the successful franchise and dinosaur enthusiasts have been itching for any good news that it really was going to happen this time.
While out promoting The Adventures of Tintin, Spielberg answered questions about his adaptation of Hergé's globe-trotting adventurer and we tried to quickly get in a question about their progress on Jurassic Park 4.
"I haven't been active in the last year because I've been so busy obviously on 'War Horse,' 'Tintin' and now I'm currently shooting 'Lincoln,' but right now, it's on the schedule to bring out another 'Jurassic Park.'"
Will it continue on from the last movie or reboot and start from scratch? All he could tell us was "It's just another boring secret," he chuckled.

THIS WEEKEND: DECEMBER 11, 2011

TERRA NOVA SPOILER ALERT
Someone's going to die. That much has been leaked about the upcoming two-hour finale on Fox's Terra Nova, and star Allison Miller promises that fans are not going to be at all happy if the Steven Spielberg's dino drama doesn't get a second season.
"There's going to be so much left unanswered," Miller told EW. Miller plays Skye, a traitor within the Terra Nova camp.
The finale, which airs on Monday, Dec. 19 at 8 p.m., opens with the colonists anticipating the arrival of the 11th Pilgrimage. Producers have already spilled that not just one, but two people will die, including a "person who is without family," there will be an explosion, and there is an unexpected trip back to 2149.
"It felt like we went back to the pilot as far as the scope and scale of everything," said Miller. "It's just so huge, it sort of has this post-apocalyptic feel to it that's dark and interesting." As far as who might be killed off in the finale, "I was so disappointed. I mean, it's heartbreaking. It's so, so sad."
However, she does say we'll get some answers. We'll learn why Lucas wants the portal to go into the future, as well as the past, and how Lucas and Taylor ended up on different sides of things. "You'll know exactly what has been driving them apart all these years," said Miller. And we'll find out about an organization with "something else in mind for Terra Nova."
Since we've already heard about new evil doers named the Phoenix Group, we're guessing that might be the organization she's talking about.
According to executive producer Brannon Braga: "We have super-charged the premise of our show in a very chilling way... Everything changes."
"It would not be fair to anyone to not give us a second season," said Miller.

BATTLESHIP
A hurricane of speculation has surrounded this project since its inception, and for good reason. How could a simple hide-and-seek geometry game you play on boring camping vacations while swatting away meat bees have any chance at a narrative adaptation to film?
The result may be a stitched-together fusion of equal parts Armageddon, Independence Day, Transformers and Battle: Los Angeles, but Berg and his team seem to have a confident ace up their sleeves with what may end up being a decent popcorn pageant of destruction.
Yes, an alien armada force field, star-crossed lovers, toppling skyscrapers and razor-tailed attack drones destroying military bases all seem painfully familiar and do bring to mind the more unmemorable moments of recent sci-fi fiascos, but let's be optimistic. The broad, candy-colored canvas and deja-vu feel could give Universal's $200 million tentpole a steady foothold with its spring opening. (Or it could sink to an early, watery grave.) Anchors aweigh, and save us a lifeboat seat just in case.
Launching May 18, 2012, Battleship stars Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker and Rihanna.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN
Here is a new and thrilling Snow White and the Huntsman trailer that's so cool you'll hardly notice this one's in Spanish—even if you don't speak the language of Don Quixote.
This new trailer seems to be featuring a bit more of Twilight's Kristen Stewart as ''Blancanieves,'' aka Snow White, and overall it seems a bit more dramatic and dynamic.
Chris Hemsworth (Thor) is still rocking it as El Cazador, or the Huntsman, and he's again accompanied by Snow White's faithful dwarves.
But it's still Charlize Theron who rules as the Evil Queen—we think SHE might be the fairest of them all! Even if she's a whole lotta evil and really, really bad.
Snow White and the Huntsman opens on June 1, 2012.

THE DIVIDE
Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia is back with a violent, post-apocalyptic thriller The Divide.
Anchor Bay's The Divide centers on nine strangers, all living in a New York high-rise apartment, who escape a nuclear attack by hiding out in the building's bunker-like basement. After being trapped for days waiting to be rescued, the nine tenants spiral out of control, each turning on each other -- and one survivor holds onto the small chance that they'll be able to escape.
Genre legend Michael Biehn (Aliens, Terminator), Lauren German, Ashton Holmes, Courtney B. Vance and Rosanna Arquette co-star in the thriller directed by Xavier Gens (Hitman), set for theatrical release on Jan. 13. The film received buzz at last year's SXSW film festival.
The Divide has an explosive and chaotic opening, with people trying to get to safety after their city is under attack. The ominous score doesn't help matters, adding to everyone's impending doom.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2011

TOUCH
Although the "Touch" pilot wasn't made in time for FOX's upfront presentation in the spring, our first look at the new series has finally arrived. "Touch" stars Kiefer Sutherland as a man with a possibly prophetic autistic son who can communicate solely through numbers and help change the future.
We will say that the first trailer for the FOX show, which premieres Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 9 p.m., looks quite intriguing. With "Heroes" boss Tim Kring at the helm, we're sure to get at least one good season before it goes completely off the rails.
"Touch" will premiere its first episode in January after an installment of "American Idol," but the rest of the series won't air until it settles into its regular Monday night time slot in March.

Stan Lee THE ANNIHILATOR
There are plenty of superheroes and superhero teams that deserve their own movies. But the next superhero to get the big-screen treatment isn't one you're familiar with: It's Stan Lee's newest hero, The Annihilator.
Back in July, Stan Lee joined forces with a Hong Kong investment company to create "a new superhero franchise aimed at Chinese and foreign audiences." The Annihilator, about a Chinese superhero, is their first project.
Screenwriter Dan Gilroy, who wrote Real Steel, the upcoming The Bourne Legacy and the 1992 film Freejack, has been hired to bring The Annihilator to life.
When he's not forming international partnerships, Stan the Man has kept busy. Today Variety reported that he sold rights to an "original superhero property" to Lionsgate. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who produced Smallville, will be writing, directing and producing this property.
Variety writes,
Details of the untitled project are being kept under wraps, but it's described as a multigenerational superhero movie that spans several decades.

X-Men First Class TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX UPDATE
Twentieth Century Fox has a lot of Marvel on its plate right now. We've been waiting for a while to hear something definite on a sequel to the acclaimed X-Men: First Class, and we just heard earlier this week that its Daredevil reboot isn't dead. Neither of those have so much as a vague release date yet, but according to exec Tom Rothman, they're well on their way.
Speaking at the Gotham Independent Film Awards, Rothman offered some encouraging enthusiasm for the X-Men followup, and said that, when it comes to how soon it gets done, it all depends on how soon they can get a killer script done.
"We're trying like hell. We're trying as hard as we can. We really want to do it. We're planning to do it," he said.
"The reason, in addition to those two guys [James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender] and Matthew Vaughn, that it was as good as it was is that the script was really good. The key to making a great continuing franchise is to have a great script, so we're working hard on it."
As for that Daredevil reboot, we saw 30 Days of Night director David Slade confirm on Twitter earlier this week that he's still working on it. Rothman basically confirms that's happening, but adds talk of one more reboot to the mix.
"Daredevil is still with David Slade," Rothman said. "It's in development now. We're working on it and Fantastic Four."
If it seems like FOX is dragging its feet on some of these projects, Rothman has a simple explanation. Superhero flicks aren't just popcorn fare anymore, and they've got to live up to high expectations.
"I think for all of us, the bar has been raised, so we've got to aim high now. Marvel's done a terrific job with their films. Where our Marvel movies are concerned or other movies like that," he said. "It's like what we had with Planet of the Apes this summer. I think it's important for us to really aim high and deliver an A-level experience to the audience."

Castle CASTLE FANS GET MORE!
Good news for Castle fans: ABC has ordered an additional episode.
That means the episode count for the Monday night procedural, starring Nathan Fillion as a mystery novelist and Stana Katic as a New York detective, will go up to 23 for the fourth season.
Castle recently wrapped the first half of its current run with the episode "Cuffed," which found Castle (Fillion) and Beckett (Katic) handcuffed together with no recollection of how they got there. The crime drama returns with the second half of season 4 on Jan. 9.
When Katic spoke to THR in early November, she teased that in an upcoming episode of the show, viewers would finally "see Ryan finally get married" to Jenny.
Castle airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on ABC.

Ed Asner HAWAII FIVE-O NEWS -- OLD MEETS NEW
After 36 years, Ed Asner is returning to Hawaii Five-0.
The Emmy winner (Mary Tyler Moore, Lou Grant) will guest star in a spring episode of the CBS drama, reprising his role of August March, the network announced Thursday.
The episode will for the first time feature original footage from the 1975 episode, "Wooden Model of a Rat," in which Asner originally guest starred, explaining his back story as an up-and-coming world-class smuggler.
?It is thrilling to, for the first time, merge the original Hawaii Five-0 and our new show by having the classic, versatile and award-winning actor Ed Asner reprise his role of August March, a character Mr. Asner first played 36 years ago. There is no better way to form a bridge between our reboot and the original series,? executive producer Peter Lenkov said in a statement announcing the casting.
Five-0 detectives Alex O'Loughlin and company will lean on March, now a reformed man living in Oahu after serving 30 years in prison for murder, for assistance with a new smuggling case.
Hawaii Five-0, now in its second season, airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on CBS.

Ben Kingsley ENDER'S GAME
Ben Kingsley is in talks to join the cast of Ender?s Game, Odd Lot?s sci-fi film adaptation of the novel by Orson Scott Card.
Hugo actor Asa Butterfield is starring in the pic (Hailee Steinfeld is in negotiations to join it), set in a future where the Earth is under attack by an insect-like race and mankind has created a battle school to train fighting forces. In this environment enters Ender Wiggin (Butterfield), a kid who is tormented by bullies and an older brother but proves to be a master at a three-dimensional, zero-gravity laser tag-like game. That sets him on a path as a possible savior of the human race.
Kingsley will play a legendary war hero presumed to be long dead.
Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) is directing and also wrote the script. Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are producing along with Gigi Pritzker and Linda McDonough of OddLot Entertainment. Card and Lynn Hendee are also producing.
A February production start date is being penciled in.
Summit is the domestic distributor and is co-financing. Digital Domain is also a financial partner in the movie.
Kingsley, repped by CAA, Jackoway Tyerman and Independent Talent in the UK, can be seen portraying cinema pioneer George Melies in Martin Scorsese?s Hugo opposite Butterfield.

Aja - Horns HORNS
It was some time ago that Mandalay Pictures first announced their plans to develop Joe Hill's novel, Horns, into a feature film. Today, The Hollywood Reporter has word that Alexandre Aja has signed on to direct.
The novel, released last year, is a horror love story about a young man named Ig Perrish who wakes up one day to find that horns have grown from his head. What's more, they're still growing and are somehow tied to the unsolved murder of his girlfriend.
Shia LaBeouf was, earlier this year, attached to the role of Perrish, but there's no confirmation yet as to whether or not he's still involved.
Aja recently directed Piranha and is known for his past horror efforts such as Mirrors, The Hills Have Eyes and High Tension.

Heigl THE FOLLOWER
According to Variety, Katherine Heigl is making plans to headline a thriller entitled The Follower. Details are few, but the project arrives from a spec script by Tony Giglio and is being developed by Millennium Films.
In addition to starring, the New Year's Eve actress will produce alongside her mother and creative partner, Nancy Heigl.
Giglio directed the 2005 Jason Statham film Chaos and, more recently, wrote the direct-to-DVD sequels Death Race 2 and Death Race 3.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2011

Edgar Ramirez NEW STAR TREK VILLAIN?
J.J. Abrams isn't wasting any time: Now that Benicio Del Toro won't play the villain in Star Trek 2, the director has reportedly already lined up another choice.
Sources have told Variety that Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez is Abrams' pick to replace Del Toro, who dropped out of the picture last week when salary negotiations broke down. Ramirez, who's not widely known to American audiences, blew critics away as the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal in the miniseries Carlos. He's also been in Che, Domino and The Bourne Ultimatum, and will show up as Ares, the god of war, in next year's Wrath of the Titans.
The villain in Star Trek 2, of course, is believed to be Khan Noonien Singh from the original series episode "Space Seed" and the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where he was played by Ricardo Montalban.
Ramirez was supposed to test for the role over Skype either today or tomorrow, and there's still scheduling issues to work out if he gets it. Abrams is supposedly also looking at Jordi Molla, who starred in Colombiana.
Either way, he has to make a decision fast, since production on the May 17, 2013 release gets going next month. The crew from Abrams' 2009 Star Trek will all be back, along with new additions Alice Eve and Peter "RoboCop" Weller, who Entertainment Weekly says is playing a CEO of some kind.

Gary Oldman BATMAN 4 AND 5?
Director Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale may be finished with the Dark Knight, but Gary Oldman thinks we'll probably get a fourth and even a fifth film right after the third opus, The Dark Knight Rises, comes to theaters next July.
Even though it's also the end of the road for Oldman in the role of the much-beloved Commissioner Gordon, the British actor, whom we'll soon see in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, believes the studio will want to continue with the franchise :
Yeah, yeah. For us I think it's the end. Whether they will make more, my guess is probably. I mean, they don't have Potter anymore. So, there could be a Batman 4 a 5. It may be Chris overseeing it in a producorial position, but for us and for Chris I think that's it. It's a great way to go out though. It's a great story. Epic, epic thing it is.
With Warner Bros. milk cow—aka the Harry Potter franchise—out of the picture, the studio will look to another viable money-making franchise, and Batman is definitely one.
I think Chris strikes me as someone who's too smart and he's sort of too classy to just sort of make a third for the sake of making it. I don't think that's who he is. I remember way back saying to him, '"Is there going to be a third?" He said, "If I can get the story right. I've got to outdo myself. I've got to do it better than The Dark Knight. I've just got to get it right." He set the bar very high, and so he said, "If I can find a story that interests me I will do it." I think also it's genius that he's picked Bane as the villain, that he didn't go with The Riddler or The Penguin. I think right there is a wise choice.
We're not exactly surprised to hear this, since we know Warner Bros. and DC Comics are looking to finally make that Justice League movie. And with rumors that Nolan may be killing off Batman at the end of the trilogy, we still think they'll be ''rebooting'' the Batman franchise rather than going the sequel route IF they plan to make more Batman films.
The Dark Knight Rises comes to theatres on July 20, 2012.

SNOW WHITE: A DEADLY SUMMER
The first trailer for Snow White: A Deadly Summer finds our fair maiden trapped inside a mundane world haunted by Velveeta-like acting and stale-breadcrumb storytelling. But just try and resist. It's more tempting than a ripe red apple.
With next year's showdown between competing big-buck fairy tale flicks Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror, it seems everyone is crowding on the enchanted bandwagon.
The wafer-thin plot chronicles the bland adventures of a suburban teen named Snow (Shanley Caswell) and her wicked stepmother, played with drama-club gusto by Maureen McCormick. Snow is sent away to a badgirl bootcamp where some supernatural shenanigans occur with seven doomed campers. No dwarves apparently allowed.
The direct-to-dvd gem Snow White: A Deadly Summer slinks into stores next year.

THE IRON LADY
The new trailer for director Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady is now online.
The film is an intimate portrait of Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep), the first and only female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. One of the 20th century's most famous and influential women, Thatcher came from nowhere to smash through barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male dominated world.
Opening in limited release on December 30th, the film also stars Jim Broadbent, Alexandra Roach, Harry Lloy, Olivia Colman, Nicholas Farrell, Susan Brown, Roger Allam, Anthony Head, Julian Wadham, Pip Torrens, Nick Dunning, Richard E Grant, David Westhead, Angus Wright and John Sessions.

Tom Wilkinson THE LONE RANGER NEWS
Although Tom Wilkinson was originally cast back in June, the delays that hit Gore Verbinksi's The Lone Ranger threw the supporting cast into question. Today, Deadline confirms that Wilkinson is back aboard and that the Jerry Bruckheimer production is keen on getting back everyone who was originally attached.
Wilkinson's part is said to be that of Latham Cole, a villainous railroad tycoon. He'll appear opposite Armie Hammer as the titular hero and Johnny Depp as the Ranger's legendary sidekick, Tonto.
Though unconfirmed at this time, Helena Bonham Carter, James Badge Dale, Barry Pepper and Dwight Yoakum are likely to return as well.
"It's sort of 'Don Quixote' told from Sancho Panza's point of view," Verbinski told ComingSoon.net last year, suggesting that Tonto will, in many ways, be the lead.
The Lone Ranger will begin production shortly, aiming for a May 31, 2013 release.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2011

Thor THOR 2 NEWS
Marvel's highly anticipated Thor sequel has lost its director. Patty Jenkins (The Killing, Monster) has officially jumped ship, leaving Thor 2 in pre-production limbo.
According to Deadline, Jenkins left the film due to "creative differences," but she's still on good terms with the studio. Even though she and the God of Thunder didn't work out, she might return to direct one of Marvel's other superhero films. And we're not talking about a sequel; she could have first dibs on an origin story.
As for Marvel, they're scrambling to find a replacement and are expected to fill Jenkins' spot fairly soon. They'll have to move fast because Thor 2 is already scheduled to hit theaters on July 26, 2013. With 2011 coming to a close, they'll need everything ready to go by early next year.
The first Thor was directed by Kenneth Branagh and earned over $448 million at the worldwide box office.

John Carter JOHN CARTER OF MARS
Even though the first adventure based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic tales is still months from hitting theaters, director Andrew Stanton and Pixar have their eyes on more John Carter cinematic exploits.
A total of 11 books make up Burroughs' Barsoom series, from 1917's A Princess of Mars to 1964's John Carter of Mars, and if Stanton has his way, they're not going to stop at just one:
"We bought the rights to the first three books when we first started. I thought, let's set it off right because you never get time back. ... The worse case scenario is that you'll plan for more but only make one. But what I'd hate is that you'd plan for one with no preparation for the others, because it'll show. It'll really bite you in the back end.
"I never expected anyone to say we'd definitely do more than one. It's a huge risk for them ... and It's a huge chunk of change to make any of these movies, something this big. So it made complete sense to me, from their side of the fence, to wait until the movie's out.
"So if the worst is that it was just a writing exercise for me to plan the others and then I never get to do them, I don't think I'll have any regrets. So we've been planning out all three all along, just on the chance that they do go ahead. ... My fan wish is that we'll go to all 11 stories and make more."

DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS EPISODE
We've been waiting for the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe," about as eagerly as we've been waiting for Christmas itself. This new one-minute prequel video will have us stewing like a plum pudding.
There's a million miles of tension packed within this one-minute video, and as we know, time and space are things the Doctor is absolutely familiar with. He is not, however, familiar with the workings of this particular spaceship.

TRANSFORMERS 4
Michael Bay will be back behind the lens for a fourth Transformers film, Vulture reports. He's said to be close to finalizing a deal with Paramount Pictures and will likely begin work after shooting his smaller-budgeted passion project, Pain and Gain.
Word of a fourth entry in the blockbuster franchise first popped up in October, suggesting that Shia LaBeouf is unlikely to return in a leading role and that a fourth and fifth film could be shot back-to-back. Those reports remain unconfirmed.
Just yesterday, a report suggested that Bay is close to locking his leading men for the dark crime comedy with Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg. Because of it's significantly smaller scale, Pain and Gain is planned for a shoot towards the beginning of 2012, leaving the end of the year open for work on a fourth Transformers.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011

SUPERNATURAL NEWS - SPOILER WARNING
Supernatural may still be alive and kicking in its seventh season without everyone's favorite trench-coated angel, but every fan of the show has the same question on their minds—When is Castiel coming back? Today, we finally get our answer.
[Spoilers ahead!]
When last we saw our Angel-turned-God, he had been hollowed out and cannibalized by this years baddies, the Leviathan. Castiel's final act was to walk into a reservoir and perish, just in time to unleash the Leviathan into the world.
He sure seemed dead and gone, but this is Supernatural we're talking about and nobody as pretty (what?) as Castiel could stay lost forever.
According to a spokesperson at Warner Bros., Misha Collins, who plays Castiel, will be returning in Episode 17 along with two other episodes yet to be determined. "Please note that there's really nothing else that we are able to add about these specific episodes or the details of his return at this time."
It's interesting that the only thing guaranteed was the return of the actor and not the character. Could this mean Misha Collins could be playing someone else? If Castiel is back, how will the show runners explain his resurrection?

SYFY HOLIDAY EPISODES
Merry Christmas! Tuesday night, Syfy is giving us its annual Christmas present via special holiday episodes of its summer shows, Eureka, Warehouse 13 and Haven. So what does that mean for us? Well, how about an animated Eureka, a world where Pete was never born on Warehouse 13 and Christmas in July for Audrey on Haven?
Considering all the shows are in the middle of storylines and cliffhangers, you might think it'd be difficult to spin out a heartwarming Christmas tale. Not so much. All the shows are set "out of time" and are non-linear according to the stars of the three shows, Eureka's Colin Ferguson, Warehouse 13's Eddie McClintock and Haven's Emily Rose.
"You want it to be perennial. You want it to be something that can air every single year. So if you lock it in the continuum of a show, you almost make it outdated by the next year. So I think I you do a service to the holiday. All of our [shows] exist out of time," said Ferguson, who plays Sheriff Jack Carter on Eureka.
"It's like a little gift to the fans, kind of a holdover type of intermission episode where it's just its own little gem of an episode. So if you miss the characters and you've missed the world, you could hop into it," said Rose, who plays Audrey Parker in Haven.
For Ferguson, it is an especially special episode, considering he gets animated.
"It was really, really fun, really fun to see, for myself to be a Rankin and Bass [claymation] character," said Ferguson. "It brought me back to when I was a kid. I haven't seen that stuff in a long time so it was really, really fun to watch."
In his episode, Jack and the gang turn into animated characters when a mysterious Kaleidoscopic wave of color washes over the town of Eureka. That leads to several animation styles, including anime, claymation, Looney Tunes-inspired animation and modern CG.
"For us it was more of a concept than a reality. We took one of the sets that we usually shoot in, Café Diem, and we sat there for six hours one day and blew through 30 pages of dialogue or something like that. That's awesome. I mean if I could shoot like that everyday that'd be the greatest. So we loved, loved that."
As for Warehouse 13, Pete touches an artifact and suddenly discovers he was never born. Talk about complications, especially when the new Warehouse agents think he's an intruder and someone from his past shows up in charge of the Warehouse.
"I liked this year's Christmas episode better because I just felt it was a little too, dare I say, 'Schmaltzy' last year. Not that it was a bad episode. I enjoyed it, but I just like this one better," said McClintock, who plays Pete Lattimer on Warehouse 13. "I mean Roger Rees is back as MacPherson. There's an actual bad guy and the stakes are much higher this year."
There was "more great writing from Jack Kenny and company, to give Pete the depth that I think that he needs to have longevity in regards to the show. Don't get me wrong. There's still some good lighthearted, funny stuff and there's some good heartfelt moments, as well. It's not that dark, but I think what it primarily does is it gives you the same feeling I think that It's a Wonderful Life provided for viewers. Kind of that sense of redemption and struggle, and at the end I think it'll leave everybody nice and happy and ready to go see Santa," he said.
And if offered up a moment that fans might not forget soon. "I think any chance for Pete to nestle his head between Mrs. Frederic's ample bosom, I think that'll be a fan favorite. And that kind of comes out of nowhere," said McClintock.
While Eureka and Warehouse 13 have both gotten into the Syfy Christmas spirit before, this is the first time we'll see a Haven holiday episode.
In the Haven episode, everyone in the town thinks that it's normal to have Christmas in July, until people start vanishing in thin air. Audrey is the only one that "thinks that it's foolish and why would it be happening in July? So again, she's feeling on the outside and has to try to solve things and get everything back on track on her own. But she's pretty good at that, so nothing to worry about," said Rose.
Audrey has other reasons to feel ambivalent towards Christmas, considering she's living with another woman's memories. "I think that's the great chestnut about that character is that the past for her is something that is really hard for her to literally wrap her head around. But what she does remember, whether they're her memories or not her memories... what she does remember isn't exactly the most pleasant thing. So how does she overcome that and deal what's going on in the day? And I think it makes for a pretty interesting episode," she said.
So what are the actor's Christmas wishes for their characters?
"I guess I'd like Pete to find himself a good woman. You know, he gets tired of being alone at night back at Leena's," said McClintock.
"I would wish a great holiday online shopping [spree] for Audrey, that there would be some great accessible stores for her to go and shop in so that she can continue to have a really amazing wardrobe for the consecutive seasons," jokes Rose. "No, I think I would always hope for Audrey that she would find out more about her mother or her previous memories, or whatnot. I will always be begging the writers to dive more into that... because it's so intriguing. And whenever I do get to look into her past, I get to dress up in really cool period costumes. So that's what I would hope for for her."
"I think for Jack it would be a simpler wish of just raising a family again, in a sense, properly and continuing to do what he does in the town. I think he belongs there. I think the town should sort of go off and do what it does forever. So my wish would be that he gets to settle in and have a real family community small town life. I think it would do well for him to have that," said Ferguson.
Of course, the real Christmas wish for Rose and McClintock might just be that they could actually be animated like Ferguson.
Rose jokes that she's jealous, "a little bit, yes. I'm having to deal with that right now. I'm having to keep the jealousy down now."
"I'm drawing a picture of you. I'm drawing a picture of you right now. There we go then," said Ferguson.
"I kind of am not as bent out of shape as I could be just because they've done a Warehouse 13 comic book. And apparently Jay Leno and I have the exact same chin," said McClintock.

CABIN IN THE WOODS
We're not dreaming. We're also not hallucinating. Nor are we on drugs. We've actually just seen the trailer for Joss Whedon's long-awaited Cabin in the Woods.
If you've been paying attention to the drama, you'd know that Cabin—which was produced by Whedon, directed by Drew Goddard and co-written by them both—was filmed way back in March 2009 and scheduled for a release date in February 2010. The release was delayed when MGM decided to convert the film to 3-D and delayed even further when MGM went bankrupt.
But Cabin eventually made its way off of a shelf and into the hands of Lionsgate, possibly due to the success of co-star Chris Hemsworth, who played the title character in Thor. Lionsgate will be giving us Cabin on April 13, 2012.
We've long been impatient for details on Cabin, and with this trailer we have a few more. Because we know Joss and his evil ways, we assumed that there was more to this movie than a typical friends-in-the-woods-get-mutilated-by-a-serial-killer flick. Now we have proof that it's way more interesting than that.
And we just noticed that the Luc Besson film Lockout, as well as season two of Game of Thrones, will be appearing in April 2012 as well. It looks like April is going to be a terrific month.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011

Breaking Dawn WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
With no new wide releases this weekend, revenues came in at $78 million to $82 million, the lowest of 2011, save for the weekend after Labor Day, when the domestic box office took in roughly $81 million. The weekend was also down from last year by 4 percent to 7 percent.
Summit Entertainment's The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1 had no trouble retaining the No. 1 crown for the third weekend in a row, grossing $16.9 million for a domestic cume of $247.3 million. The fourth installment is still pacing slightly behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which opened over Thanksgiving in 2009. At the same point in its run New Moon had earned $255.4 million domestically.
Among the flood of Thanksgiving family films, Disney's The Muppets remained the top choice, grossing an estimated $11.2 million for a hearty domestic cume of $56.1 million to come in No. 2. Overseas, the pic grossed $1.8 million from three markets for an early international total of $4 million and world cume of $60.1 million.
However, Muppets fell off nearly 62 percent from last weekend in North America. There's always a fall off after Thanksgiving, but the movie's dip was more than expected and could reflect the deluge of family product. Last year, Disney's Thanksgiving entry Tangled fell 55 percent in its second weekend.
Sony and Aardman Entertainment's kids entry Arthur Christmas came in No. 4, grossing $7.4 million in its second weekend for a cume of $25.3 million. Sony insists the pic will have especially strong legs because of its holiday theme. One possible sign backing up Sony's claim--Arthur was up 111 percent from Friday to Saturday, the largest gain of any film in wide release.
Overseas, Arthur Christmas grossed $11.4 million from 53 markets for a pleasing international total of $45.3 million and global cume of $60.1 million. The 3D pic has done especially well in the U.K., where Aardman is based.
DreamWorks Animation and Paramount's 3D toon Puss in Boots also continues to prosper overseas, grossing $23 million from 26 countries this weekend for an international total of $89.2 million and global cume of $228.7 million. The pic has been a massive hit in Russia, where it's earned a record-breaking $50 million. It's also done well in Spain, despite widespread unemployment.
If there was any action at the domestic box office, it was among awards contenders--including the debut of Steve McQueen's Shame, rated NC-17 for its edgy sexual content.
Despite the dreaded rating, Shame scored the top location average of the weekend, a notable feat. The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight and starring Michael Fassbender, grossed $361,181 from 10 theaters in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco for an average $36,118.
Even the top 10 box office chart included award hopefuls.
Paramount and GK Films' Hugo--Martin Scorsese's first 3D family friendly film--moved up the chart to No. 3 as it expanded into an additional 500 theaters after being named best movie of the year by the National Board of Review. Hugo grossed $7.6 million from 1,840 locations for a cume of $25.2 million.
Alexander Payne's The Descendants, headlining George Clooney, landed at No. 7, even though playing in only 574 theaters. The Fox Searchlight film grossed $5.2 million for a cume of $18.1 million--becoming the first platform release in history to cross $10 million in only 12 days. Also, Descendants is the top grossing platform release of 2011 after Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, which cumed $55.7 million domestically.
Sony Pictures Classics' Midnight in Paris, released in late May, made its own play this weekend as it prepares for awards season and the release of the DVD on Dec. 20, going back into more than 260 theaters. The results were tepid at best, with the film earning $274,518 from 305 locations for a location average of $900.
The Metropolitan Opera continued its successful live theatrical program with Saturday's broadcast of Handel's Rodelinda, starring Renee Fleming. The broadcast grossed $1.8 million from 850 screens at the domestic box office, while an additional 45,000 people saw the opera on 500 screens in 38 countries.
Domestic Box Office Dec. 2-Dec. 4.
1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1 (3), Summit/4,406, $16.9 million, $247.3 million
2. The Muppets (2), Disney/3,440, $11.2 million, $56.1 million
3. Hugo (2), Paramount/1,840, $7.6 million, $25.2
4. Arthur Christmas (2), Sony/3,376, $7.4 million, $25.3 million
5. Happy Feet Two (3), Warner Bros./3,536, $6 million, $51.8 million
6. Jack and Jill (4), Sony/3,049, $5.5 million, $64.5 million
7. The Descendants (3), Fox Searchlight/574, $5.2 million, $18.1 million
8. Immortals (4), Relativity Media/2,627, $4.4 million, $75.6 million
9. Tower Heist (5), Universal/2,404, $4.1 million, $70.8 million
10. Puss in Boots (6), Paramount/DreamWorks Animation/2,750, $3.1 million, $139.5 million

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2011

Blue Bloods FRIDAY NIGHT RATINGS WAR
It was another down week in the ratings following Black Friday, even with football as one of the programming choices on broadcast.
CBS continued its reign atop a sleepy Friday, up against Fox's telecast of the first Pac-12 championship game between the Oregon Ducks and the UCLA Bruins. (Ducks won the game handily.) Averaging a 1.4 rating in the key 18-49 demo during primetime, CBS' lineup slipped across the board from their last originals -- with Blue Bloods seeing the biggest drop.
A Gifted Man (8 million total viewers, 1.2 rating in adults 18-49 demographic) hovered around its usual demo home, but compared to two weeks ago, was down a tenth. CSI: NY (9.7 million, 1.4) dropped two tenths, while Blue Bloods (11 million, 1.6) plunged. Even so, CBS either tied (A Gifted Man) for No. 1 or won its hours (CSI: NY, Blue Bloods).
Following CBS was Fox with the Ducks-Bruins football game. From 8-10 p.m., the matchup didn't prove to be a big draw as 4.3 million tuned in and the network averaged a 1.3.
ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (4.8 million, 1.2) dipped slightly and Katie Couric's big 20/20 interview (4.5 million, 1.3) with a pregnant Beyonce didn't infuse a new energy at 10 p.m. ABC placed third on the night with a 1.2 average.
The CW's midseason finale of Nikita (1.7 million, 0.5) dropped, while Supernatural (1.9 million, 0.7) held firm. NBC's telecast of Game of Your Life (2.2 million, 0.6) wasn't a ratings winner; Dateline (4.1 million>, 1.0) followed with a steep drop.

Cabin in the Woods THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
The Cabin in the Woods, a horror film from Joss Whedon and Cloverfield scribe Drew Goddard, has been promising an unexpected take on a familiar premise since it went into production in early 2009.
Now, approaching the release, Lionsgate is playing up the tongue-in-cheek slasher flick with new artwork.
First posted by AICN, the new poster finds the titular cabin has been turned into an architectural Rubik's Cube. It boasts the new tagline, "You think you know the story."
For all the time it's gone unreleased, not much is known about Cabin in the Woods. Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Kristen Connolly, Brian J. White, Amy Acker, Fran Kranz and Jesse Williams also star in the film.
It also marks one of the first starring stateside vehicle for a then unknown Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor in Whedon's upcoming Avengers.
The story follows two white-collar co-workers (Jenkins and Whitford) stranded in the woods while a group of college kids spend the weekend in the mysterious cabin. At some things likely go very, very wrong.
The Cabin in the Woods finally makes it to theaters April 13, 2012.

Felicity THE INVISIBLE WOMAN
Most of Charles Dickens' acclaimed work as an author is well known, whether it's "Oliver Twist" or "A Tale of Two Cities" or "Great Expectations" or "A Christmas Carol," all stories that have been adapted to the big screen either directly or influencing other movies. What some may not know is that he had a mistress named Nelly Ternan for 13 years right up until his death, something accounted by Claire Tomalin in her book The Invisible Woman.
According to the UK's Daily Mail, actress Felicity Jones (Like Crazy) will be portraying her in an adaptation helmed by Ralph Fiennes, whose directorial debut Coriolanus is getting a one-week Oscar run in New York and Los Angeles starting today.
Jones is fresh off her win for Breakthrough Performance at the Gotham Independent Film Awards earlier this week, and according to the story, they will start filming sometime during the spring or summer of 2012 with BBC Films producing. This will follow Jones' starring role in Warren Beatty's biopic of Howard Hughes in which she'll play a young woman who had a romance with the eccentric millionaire.

San Andreas SAN ANDREAS: 3D
24 Frames is reporting that New Line Cinema is developing an earthquake disaster film titled San Andreas: 3D, written by Allan Loeb. Loeb's credits include 21, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and the upcoming Rock of Ages.
The film is about the Big One and is described as follows:
[T]he hero is forced to go on the road to reconcile with his children and his estranged wife, who's moved away and taken up with another man a la John Cusack's character in "2012." (According to a person who's read the script, the "San Andreas" hero makes the trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco using some rather, er, unconventional transportation.)
The movie is being produced by Beau Flynn (Journey to the Center of the Earth, Red Dawn).

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2011

NEVERLAND
Imagine not only taking on a classic children's tale and spinning it into magical prequel, but also working with a filmmaker who felt like Peter Pan himself. That was the case for the stars of Syfy's Neverland, Charlie Rowe, Rhys Ifans and Anna Friel, who were thrilled to be a part of writer-director Nick Willing's Peter Pan prequel.
"Looking at Nick and being around Nick all the time, I realized that he was actually this character Peter that he'd written about," said 15-year-old Rowe, who plays Peter. "Nick Willing is Peter Pan, really. So I just tried to involve him into my part because ... yeah, I think he's still a child. If you meet him, he's a complete child, and it's his little baby, this film. And so I just tried to involve him as much as I can into the part I was doing. And, yes, my part is basically just Nick, very honestly."
"Everyone knows the story of Peter Pan. And what was appealing, I guess, for all three of us is that this goes a long way, if not all the way, to explain how Peter Pan becomes Peter Pan, how he acquires these magical powers, and how Captain Hook loses his hand," said Ifans, who took on the iconic role of Hook.
"Has any story ever before explained why Hook despises Peter so much? I don't think it has," said Friel, who plays a new character, a lady pirate named Elizabeth Bonny. "That's what fascinated me with the script; that you get the story before."
Neverland is Willing's take on J.M. Barrie's classic tale, one that begins with a young gang of pickpockets who steal a magical orb that transports them to a fantastic land before Peter met Wendy and before Hook became a Captain. The miniseries premieres on Sunday, Dec. 4 and Monday, Dec. 5 at 9 p.m. ET and stars Ifans, Rowe, Friel, Bob Hoskins and Keira Knightley as the voice of Tinker Bell.

Hansel and Gretel HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS
Hansel and Gretel are all grown up! The fabled storybook siblings are dressed in leather and packing heat in the new film Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton star as the tortured pair.
Entertainment Weekly got first dibs on an exclusive photo of the new Hansel and Gretel. Renner and Arterton headline the latest adaptation of the German folktale, which centers on adult versions of the characters. After almost being eaten alive by a sadistic old woman, the duo have turned into butt-kicking vigilantes.
Renner describes his version of Hansel as a Han Solo type, while Arterton's Gretel is "a thinker," and more "open-minded than he is." Even though this revamped story will focus on the siblings' adult lives, Arterton says there will be flashbacks to the original story: They shot a scene that re-enacts the terrifying event, complete with a candy house and ugly witches.
With a childhood like that we're not surprised Hansel and Gretel become professional killers. According to Arterton:
"In our minds, these are two people who grew up with no parents and they only have each other and the bond they have, and with the complexities of that, some resentment."
The first trailer for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is rumored to debut next Thursday, while the film itself opens March 2.

Starship Troopers STARSHIP TROOPERS
Robert Heinlein's somewhat controversial 1959 book was made into Paul Verhoeven's rather divisive 1997 movie: Some saw it as an insightful satire on the media-readiness of modern war, while others saw it as a candy-colored betrayal. But now Sony has retained the writers of Thor and X-Men: First Class to fashion a new take on a classic tale.
Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz will be fashioning the story, which, in Heinlein's original, followed young Johnnie Rico as he went from a raw recruit in the bug-fighting Mobile Infantry to a hardened battle veteran. Verhoeven veered wildly from the text, casting a roster of mostly forgettable pretty people—the great exception being Neil Patrick Harris—and turning to a childhood forged in the fascism of World War II for inspiration.
It's too soon to tell what path Miller and Stentz's adaptation will take, but there's is still a great war movie to be made from one of the best military sci-fi novels ever written.

Hailee Steinfield ENDER'S GAME
Director Gavin Hood's take on Orson Scott Card's sci-fi classic seems to be doing what no other attempt at adaptation has: move forward. After the news that Hugo's Asa Butterfield will play Andrew Wiggin and Harrison Ford is being courted for General Graff, True Grit's Hailie Steinfeld might join the Battle School, too.
Steinfeld is in negotiations to play Petra Arkadian, the rare female student at the Battle School and one of Ender's dearest friends. While she wasn't the youngest actor ever nominated for an Oscar—that'd be Kramer vs. Kramer's 8-year-old Justin Henry—Steinfeld is definitely one of the most promising fresh faces to come down the pike in a long while.
We're getting more optimistic about this Ender's Game flick all the time.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2011

THE HOLIDAYS COME TO SYFY
Syfy is presenting their holiday specials for "Eureka," "Warehouse 13" and "Haven."
On "Eureka," Jack (Colin Ferguson) and Jo (Erica Cera) find themselves lost on their way to the photon generator and appear to run into the nature-loving Taggart (Matt Frewer), who has transformed into a polar bear living in an ice cave. Everyone ends up in various states of animation. You'll see your favorite show represented. Kind of amazing. We're so sad to see this show go!
On "Warehouse 13," Pete (Eddie McClintock) is seen reaching high on the shelves to put back Rudolph's nose, when suddenly he falls on the slippery snow on the ground, taking down several other pieces with him. He returns these items back onto the shelf and heads back inside. Upon entering he notices two investigators and quickly asks Pete to show his hands. Pete tells him to come out but instead we see MacPherson (Roger Rees) appear and claim he hasn't worked there for years.
On "Haven," Audrey (Emily Rose) is wondering why everyone seems to think it's Christmas Eve and is confused by the Santa locked up in the cell block. Santa asks Audrey if she'd like to sit on his lap, which sparks a nerve and Audrey goes after him but soon realizes that its Duke (Eric Balfour) under the costume. It appears that Nathan (Lucas Bryant) and team were helping to get Audrey into the Holiday spirit though she's still unsure as to why now, considering its July!

Action Comic #1 COMIC BRINGS RECORD PRICE
The Holy Grail of comic books is now even holier. A stellar copy of Action Comics #1 from 1938, once owned by Nic Cage, shattered auction records this evening in New York when the smoke cleared and a final bid of $2,161,000 was announced.
Within its fabled pages, Superman was first introduced to the planet, ushering in the Golden Age of superheroes. Stolen from actor Nicolas Cage in 2000, the comic was recovered in April of 2011, found inside a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley by the Los Angeles Police Department's Art Theft Detail. Fewer than 10 copies of the precious book exist in this condition. The famed specimen is the highest officially graded edition in the census, weighing in at 9.0 Very Fine/Near Mint, inspected by Certified Guaranty Company in New Jersey, the gold-standard of comic book grading services.
Back in 2010, a lesser, 8.5-rated CGC copy sold for $1.5 million, smashing the record for most expensive comic at the time. This auction was predicted to obliterate the previous record and didn't disappoint. Fifty bids were recorded before the gavel fell.
Cage purchased the storied comic in 1997 for a then-astounding $150,000, solidifying his rank as a self-described comic book geek. He eventually settled for his lost "national treasure" and was paid off by the insurance company ten years ago when it was first stolen.
ComicConnect Corporation in New York City hosted the auction and will take a 10% commission on the final sale.
Owner and COO Vincent Zurzolo was thrilled to have the opportunity to sell this once-in-a-lifetime piece of history.
"This copy of Action Comics #1 is the Holy Grail of all comics and we're proud to be auctioning it off here at ComicConnect," he said. "We were fortunate enough to sell the former world-record holder, Action Comics #1 in 8.5 back in March of 2010 and this current copy is unequaled. This is a historic day and we're very excited to see where this lands."

Alice Eve STAR TREK 2 NEWS
With J.J. Abrams finally getting to work on his second Star Trek film, the director has just cast a female role that is said to be new to the Trek universe.
Variety reports that Abrams has offered the part of a brand new character to British actress Alice Eve, who has been seen in She's Out of My League, Sex and the City 2 and HBO's Entourage. She reportedly beat out Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four) and Hayley Atwell (Captain America: The First Avenger) for the role.
As usual with Abrams, no one is saying who Eve's character is or what she's doing, but the word is that you won't find this person anywhere in the 79 original series episodes.
As previously reported, Abrams is also close to nabbing Benicio del Toro to play the villain in Star Trek 2 (or whatever it ends up being called), and there's a lot of chatter out there on the intertubes that del Toro is going to appear as Khan Noonian Singh of "Space Seed" and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan fame. (Does that mean that Eve won't be playing Lieutenant Marla McGivers?) That has been neither confirmed nor denied, however.
The director apparently has one more major role he needs to cast, and it's said to possibly be another villain who's "older and more of a supporting character" to the one played by del Toro. Of course, the rest of the cast is locked in, with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, etc. all returning as the command crew of the starship Enterprise.
All will be revealed when Star Trek 2 warps into theatres on May 17th, 2013 in 3D.

JOHN CARTER TRAILER
Fans awaiting Disney’s John Carter have gotten some nice little goodies before the holidays. Earlier this week, a new poster for the film premiered and on Wednesday, star Taylor Kitsch made an appearance on Good Morning America to tease the first official trailer for the film.
The action-epic, based on the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, follows a former Confederate captain (Kitsch) who is mysteriously transported to Mars, and must resolve a conflict between warring nations.
On Wednesday night, the first full-length official trailer was released.
And oh what an adventure it is! Kitsch's character will be challenged with fighting massive alien creatures to prove his worth, and helping solve the ongoing battle between warring Martian nations. "We did not cause this, but this very night, we will end it," screams Kitsch's character in the trailer as he prepares for battle.
The film is the first live-action project for director Andrew Stanton, who helmed Pixar’s Wall-E and Finding Nemo.
Friday Night Lights star Taylor Kitsch told THR that taking on such an epic role was a challenge for him. “It’s by far the most challenging gig I’ve ever had in my life,” said Kitsch. “It’s the most rewarding as well.”
The film, which also stars Willem Dafoe and Lynn Collins is set for a March 9, 2012, release.

Twilight Zone THE TWILIGHT ZONE
Variety is reporting that Invictus and Sherlock Holmes writer Anthony Peckham is in final negotiations to write The Twilight Zone for Warner Bros. Pictures and Appian Way.
Peckham will rewrite the original draft by Jason Rothenberg. Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In) is set to direct.
Appian Way partners Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran will produce with Michael Ireland, while Matt Cherniss will executive produce.
Based on the classic Rod Serling TV series, the movie is expected to start filming in the summer of 2012.

THE DEVIL INSIDE
The first TV spot for Paramount's The Devil Inside, hitting theaters on January 6 is out.
Directed by William Brent Bell, the horror film stars Fernanda Andrade, Isabella Rossi, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth, Ionut Grama, Suzan Crowley, Bonnie Morgan, Brian Johnson, Preston James Hillier and D.T. Carney.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2011

Tube FAHRENHEIT 451 E-BOOK
The 91-year-old science fiction Grand Master Ray Bradbury has notoriously refused to allow his groundbreaking novel—about a reductive futuristic society that eradicates free thought as easily as it burns books—to be published on anything besides paper. But despite his loathing of the Internet, Bradbury has buckled to popular demand.
The man who called the Internet a "big distraction" and claimed that e-books "smelled like burnt fuel" has found himself having to embrace that which he formerly loathed: The publishing rights to his 1953 classic, which has been released by Simon & Schuster since the 1960s, are coming up for sale, and any new deal would have to have an e-book component.
Faced with the inevitable—and the fact that digital sales account for up to 20 percent of a title's revenue—Bradbury went with the devil he knew, and Fahrenheit 451 hit digital bookshelves from Simon & Schuster today, with a new paperback to follow in January.
The irony of a book whose title derives from the temperature at which paper burns being released without paper is lost on no one.

Bryan Singer THE MUNSTERS
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Bryan Singer is moving from mutants to Munsters.
The producer-director-writer, who has been involved with three of the X-Men films in the superhero franchise, is closing in on a deal to direct and executive produce NBC's The Munsters.
The project, which received a pilot order earlier this month, is billed as an imaginative reinvention of the classic comedy series as a visually spectacular one-hour drama.
Singer will executive produce alongside Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies), who also is writing the Universal Television-produced project.
Fuller and NBC first made an attempt to revive the 1960s CBS sitcom last year, with the network ultimately passing. His newer version is said to be an edgier and slightly darker take exploring origins of Herman and Lily Munster (originally played by Fred Gwynne and Yvonne De Carlo) and how they arrived at the famed 1313 Mockingbird Lane address.
The original series, produced by Universal Studios, aired 70 episodes from 1964-66 on CBS.
Singer directed the first two X-Men films and produced the second and third in the series. He also helmed and produced Superman Returns and Valkyrie and directed the upcoming Jack the Giant Killer.
On the TV side, he directed the pilots for Fox's House and ABC's Football Wives. His executive producing credits include House and ABC's Dirty Sexy Money.

Marti Noxon OUIJA
Ouija may not have a studio home, but the supernatural project is still very much alive and kicking, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Hasbro, which is financing development, and Platinum Dunes, the shingle producing the project, have hired well-regarded scribe Marti Noxon to work on the script.
Noxon cut her teeth and gained geek cred with her work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and most recently wrote the remake of Fright Night.
Ouija was set up at Universal but was untethered in late August due to budgetary concerns. The move followed Universal's letting go of another Hasbro property, Monopoly.
But Noxon’s hiring shows Hasbro is still very keen on the Ouija project, and is unafraid to spearhead its own development, mirroring moves already made on the Monopoly project. In September, Hasbro and Ridley Scott, who is producing Monopoly, set Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski to pen a script.
Ouija is still envisioned as a family adventure in the tone of The Mummy centering on a family who has to deal with otherwordly chaos that is unleashed.
Noxon, who also did a pass on Lionsgate’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, is repped by WME and Hansen Jacobson.

Steven Soderbergh BITTER PILL
A week and a half after parting ways with Warner Bros. over a planned remake of Man from U.N.C.L.E., Steven Soderbergh is bouncing back.
The prolific filmmaker is reteaming with his U.N.C.L.E. writer Scott Z. Burns for The Bitter Pill, a new project that is being pitched to studios now and is fielding multiple bids.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing with Soberbergh’s longtime producing partner Gregory Jacobs and Burns. Soderbergh, Jacobs and Burns are the director-producer-writer, respectively, behind the recent Warner Bros. films Contagion and The Informant!
Little is known about Bitter Pill, although it is described as a thriller set in the world of psychopharmacology.
Soderbergh, who has the spy action movie Haywire coming out in January and the male-stripper dramedy Magic Mike set for June, was due to direct U.N.C.L.E. next year but left the project over differences in budget and casting.

ENDER'S GAME
Recently rumored for the role, Hugo star Asa Butterfield confirmed earlier today via Twitter that he's officially joined Summit Entertainment's big-screen version of Ender's Game. Now, Variety has word that the next major bit of casting is the role of Colonel Hyrum Graff and that the producers are keen on getting Harrison Ford for the part (though there are said to be other unnamed possibilities as well).
To be directed by Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Ender's Game is based on the science fiction novel series by Orson Scott Card, officially described as follows:
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
Though his casting is far from a done deal, Ford is no stranger to sci-fi worlds. He made iconic the role of both Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and Rick Deckard in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Recently, Ford merged sci-fi with action adventure in both Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Cowboys and Aliens.
Ender's Game is slated for release on March 15, 2013.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2011

Tom Hanks IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Universal has optioned the movie rights to Erik Larson’s nonfiction best-seller In the Garden of Beasts for Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman to produce via the duo’s Playtone banner. Hanks is eyeing the project as a potential starring vehicle.
The book tells the true tale of William Dodd, the United States' reluctant and mild-mannered ambassador to Berlin in 1933, and his daughter Martha, a vivacious socialite who had romantic affairs with a Gestapo official and a Soviet spy. Dodd and his family at first naively navigated life in Nazi Germany (Dodd’s daughter was excited when Hitler kissed her hand) but they slowly gained awareness of the mounting brutality around them.
The book, whose full title is In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, was published in May.
This isn’t Larson’s first brush with Hollywood; the author is known for writing The Devil and the White City, another nonfiction tome in development by Leonardo DiCaprio and his Appian Way shingle. Larson is repped by Paradigm and Black Inc.
Beasts continues Hanks’ fascination with World War II-themed projects, and history in general. His Playtone was behind the Emmy-winning miniseries Band of Brothers, The Pacific and John Adams. The CAA-repped actor next stars in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
Production co-president Peter Cramer will oversee for Universal.

Dust & Glory DUST AND GLORY
Top Cat Films may have found a director for their upcoming racing tale, Dust and Glory. The Hollywood Reporter has word that Simon West has entered negotiations.
Based on a novel by Evan Green, the film adaptation is officially described as follows:
"Dust and Glory" is the story of a car race… the longest, roughest, toughest craziest car race in the world … a 10,000 mile event, right around Australia. It is set at a time when roads around the coast were outback tracks of appalling roughness and a journey like this was more a pioneering adventure than a motor sport.
The redex Trials of the 1950s captured the imagination of post war Australia like no other event. Through regular radio updates the entire country followed the fortunes of the competitors during the race, and huge crowds turned out along the routes to cheer cars and drivers. Competitors were feted at every stop like movie stars.
"Dust and Glory" combines the best of the actual real life characters, events of the three actual redex Trials, along with harrowing and dynamic fictional character amalgamations which weaves a tapestry of hilarious and gripping adventure that might have happened – had there been a fourth race!
As in the actual trials, "Dust and Glory" depicts the zaniest collection of contestants ever to get behind a wheel – showbiz celebs, wealthy amateurs, criminals, raving lunatics, and even a few bona fide professional drivers!
West last directed The Mechanic and is currently in production on The Expendables 2.
Dust and Glory boasts a screenplay adaptation by Robert Lewis Galinsky and plans to begin production in Australia in Summer of 2012.

Kyle Chandler BROKEN CITY
Kyle Chandler is the latest name to join the cast of Allen Hughes' upcoming Broken City. Variety has word that he's set to star alongside Russell Crowe, Mark Wahlberg and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
The film, written by Brian Tucker, centers on a cop-turned-P.I. (Wahlberg) who is hired by the Mayor (Crowe) to find out if his wife (Zeta-Jones) is having an affair. When he confirms that she is, her lover soon turns up dead and the P.I. is drawn into a vast political conspiracy.
Chandler, who recently appeared in J.J. Abrams' Super 8, will play the campaign manager for a rival mayoral candidate (played by Barry Pepper).
Broken City is also set to star Justin Chambers, Griffin Dunne, Natalie Martinex, James Ransone, Alona Tal and Jeffery Wright and is currently targeting a January 18, 2013 release.

John Carter Poster JOHN CARTER
Walt Disney Pictures has debuted, through iTunes Trailers, a new poster design for their upcoming sci-fi adventure John Carter, which will have a new trailer arriving Wednesday, December 30th at 9 p.m. Pacific Time.
Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on March 9, the adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic novel tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2011

Twilight Breaking Dawn HOLIDAY BOX OFFICE TOTALS
There was a lot to be thankful for this week as the Thanksgiving holiday kicked the box office into high gear and though three family offerings were fighting for business, they all succumbed to the second weekend of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (Summit), the first half of the final chapter of the fan favorite supernatural romance series, which brought in $42 million in its second weekend, down 70% from its opening, and $62.3 million over the five-day holiday including Wednesday and Thursday. This brings its domestic total to $221 million, down slightly from the second movie New Moon's $230 million, which followed the same release pattern two years ago. Worldwide, the movie has grossed $489.3 million since opening twelve days ago, adding $71.5 million from 68 international markets this weekend. Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is currently the fifth-biggest movie of 2011, but considering it's only been in theaters ten days, we can see it making a play for third place by the time the holidays are over.
Opening in second place, Disney's The Muppets, co-starring Jason Segel, Amy Adams and Chris Cooper, brought in $29.5 million in its first three-day weekend and $42 million over the five days in 3,440 theaters. It joins seven other Disney movies in the Top 10 biggest Thanksgiving openers though it fell short of the openings of last year's Tangled and Adams' other Thanksgiving hit Enchanted, probably hurt by the family competition.
George Miller's animated sequel Happy Feet Two (Warner Bros.) dropped to third with $13.4 million in its sophomore frame with $43.8 million grossed in ten days. It's still faring fairly poorly compared to the previous movie and probably won't even get to $100 million with so much family competition coming between now and Christmas.
Sony Pictures Animation's first collaboration with Aardman, the holiday comedy Arthur Christmas (Sony), featuring the voices of James McAvoy, Bill Nighy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent and Imelda Staunton, opened in fourth place with a disappointing $12.7 million in 3,376 theaters, roughly $3,700 per venue, making just under $17 million over its first five days. It adds another $11.9 million from its global release into 4,000 theaters in 24 countries, which makes its three-day worldwide gross $39.3 million.
Martin Scorsese's Hugo (Paramount Pictures), an adaptation of Brian Selznick's "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" starring Asa Butterfield, Chloë Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Sir Ben Kingsley and Emily Mortimer, brought in $11.35 million with $15.4 including Wednesday and Thanksgiving. Having opened in less than 1,300 theaters including many 3D screens, it averaged nearly $8900 per venue over the weekend, which gave it the second-highest per-theater average in the Top 10, and Paramount already has plans to expand it into over 2,000 theaters on December 9.
Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill (Sony) followed in sixth place with $10.3 million over the three-day weekend bringing its total to $57.4 million, followed in seventh by Tarsem Singh's Immortals (Relativity) with $8.8 million and $68.6 million total.
DreamWorks Animation's Puss In Boots took eighth place with $7.4 million over the three days with a gross of $135.3 million since opening in late October.
Brett Ratner's comedy Tower Heist (Universal), starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy, was the only returning movie to actually increase over the holiday weekend despite losing theaters, as it took ninth place with $7.3 million (up 3%) with a total gross of $65.4 million for the month.
Alexander Payne's The Descendants (Fox Searchlight), starring George Clooney, remained in tenth place with $7.2 million after expanding into 433 theaters, bringing its total to $10.7 million after ten days. By comparison, it took over six weeks for Payne's previous movie Sideways to gross that amount.
The Top 10 grossed an estimated $150 million over the three-day weekend, down roughly 13% from last Thanksgiving when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 dominated the weekend with $50 million, followed closely by Disney's Tangled with $49 million.
The Weinstein Company opened two potential awards contenders in limited release this weekend with My Week with Marilyn, starring Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne and Kenneth Branagh opening with $1.8 million in 244 theaters, roughly $7,200 per site, which was enough to get it into the Top 12. It opened on Wednesday in roughly a hundred fewer theaters, bringing its five-day gross$2.1 million.
Opening on Friday in New York and Los Angeles, The Artist grossed $210 thousand, averaging $52.5 thousand per site, which is a solid opening for a movie that's being considered one of the top contenders at the Oscars in many categories.
David Cronenberg's psychological drama A Dangerous Method (Sony Pictures Classics), starring Michael Fassbender, Vigo Mortensen and Keira Knightley, brought in $241 thousand in 4 theaters in New York and L.A, though it opened on Wednesday so it had two extra days of box office over The Artist.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the fourth installment of the action franchise, will debut in Australian cinemas on the night of Wednesday, December 14, giving Australian fans the opportunity to be the first in the world to see the film.
"Ghost Protocol" will play these special sessions in IMAX cinemas, VMAX at Event Cinemas, VMAX at Village Cinemas, Titan Screens at Reading Cinemas and Xtremescreen and IMAX at Hoyts locations around the country ahead of the broad national release on Thursday, December 15. These cinemas have been chosen to showcase this first look at the spectacular action sequences, daredevil stunts and stunning cinematography of the latest film in the "Mission: Impossible" series.
Directed by Oscar winner Brad Bird and featuring an all-star cast including Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, Vladimir Mashkov, Josh Holloway, Anil Kapoor and Léa Seydoux, "Ghost Protocol" has been described as the most inventive, action-filled and visually arresting yet.
In the film, the IMF is shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name. No help, no contact, off the grid.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2011

The Muppets THE MUPPETS ARE BACK
Among other family films, "Happy Feet Two" leads over "Arthur Christmas," which is in close race with Martin Scorsese's "Hugo"; George Clooney starrer "Descendants" doing big business.
In a notable victory for Disney, The Muppets continues to rule over other family films at the Thanksgiving box office, grossing $12.3 million on Friday for a three-day cume of $24.8 million.
The pic, which cost a modest $45 million to produce, is now projected to post a Wednesday-Sunday debut of at least $40 million, putting it behind only The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1, which grossed $16.9 million on Friday for a cume of roughly $195 million (the pic will jump the $200 million mark sometime on Saturday).
Walt Disney Studios chairman Rich Ross has been a persistent advocate of reviving the classic brand since Disney bought the rights to Jim Henson's iconic characters in 2004. The film stars Jason Segel and Amy Adams.
Muppets opened on Wednesday opposite two other PG films--Sony and Aardman Entertainment's 3D pic Arthur Christmas and Martin Scorsese's Hugo.
Arthur Christmas and Hugo, distributed by Paramount, are in a dead heat, even though Hugo's theater count is nearly a third of Arthur's.
On Friday, Arthur Christmas grossed $4.6 million, compared to $4.5 million for Hugo. The two films came in No. 4 and No. 5, respectively, with the No. 3 spot going to Warner Bros. holdover Happy Feet Two, which grossed $5.1 million for cume of $35.5 million.
Projections show Happy Feet Two staying at No. 3 with a five-day gross in the $16 million range, followed closely by Arthur Christmas and Hugo.
One unique attribute: Muppets, Arthur Christmas and Hugo all received rave reviews from critics, which could protend strong legs. Sony believes Arthur Christmas will have great playability into December because of its holiday theme.
And since Hugo is playing older than a conventional family film, Paramount decided to open on a smaller number of screens, and then expand on strong word of mouth.
Among specialty films vying for awards attention, Alexander Payne's The Descendants continued to expand nicely, coming in No. 10 and grossing $2.7 million from only 433 theaters for an 10-day cume of $6.2 million. It's among the best showings of the year for a platform release.
Opening Friday in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles, The Artist grossed $75,456 for a per location average of $18,864. Like other adult-skewing films, the black-and-white silent film should see a healthy uptick on Saturday.
The Weinstein Co. is having a busy Thanksgiving between The Artist and Michelle Williams starrer My Week with Marilyn, which opened Wednesday in more than 100 theaters and expanded on Friday into a total 244 locations. The film grossed $607,000 on Friday for a three-day cume of $918,000.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2011

Ben Whishaw SKYFALL NEWS
Ben Whishaw, cast in the latest James Bond movie Skyfall, currently shooting in the U.K., set the Internet atwitter with reports his role is to be that of gadget maestro Q.
Whishaw, the British actor with a sizeable female following, set message boards humming as reports emerged his role would be that of the MI6 boffin who traditionally dishes out the gadgetry to 007 for his missions.
The actor, already announced as part of the cast alongside Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney among others, is reported to have been assigned the role for the Sam Mendes directed actioner.
The British press pondered the fact the casting means Whishaw will be the first Q in the franchise’s history to be younger than 007.
He is 31, Craig is 43.
Q is a James Bond staple for older 007 fans as he hasn’t appeared in a Bond adventure since 2002’s Die Another Day when John Cleese turned on the quirk for the role.
For the previous 36 years, the gadget whizz and inventor had been played by Desmond Llewelyn.
Mendes’ Skyfall is scheduled to begin its worldwide box office assault in the U.K. and Ireland in October 2012 before hitting North America in November of the same year.

Muppet Movie

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2011

AT THE MOVIES
The latest pic in Summit Entertainment franchise eyes $55 million-$58 million five-day gross, followed by "Muppets" with a debut in the $40 million range; "Arthur Christmas" hopes to hit $20 million, while "Hugo" makes a more limited play. Summit Entertainment's The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1 topped the Thanksgiving eve box office with $12.5 million, while Disney's new family film The Muppets came in No. 2 with $6.6 million million.
In a victory for Disney, The Muppets has a strong shot at hitting $40 million for the five days. Starring Jason Segel and Amy Adams opposite the iconic puppets, the family film cost a modest $45 million to produce and is designed to introduce a new generation to the brand.
Warner Bros. holdover Happy Feet Two bested Sony and Aardman's new family film Arthur Christmas, grossing $2.9 million, compared to $2.4 million for Arthur. Sony believes that Arthur, costing $85 million to produce, will have especially strong legs, even if it starts slow.
Happy Feet Two should hit $20 million for the five days; Arthur is hoping for the same.
Muppets earned a stellar A CinemaScore, while Arthur earned an A-.
Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed new 3D film Hugo came in No. 8 on Wednesday after opening on 1,277 theaters, only a third of the location count of Muppets and Arthur Christmas. Projections show the film grossing $12.5 million for the five days, in line with expectations.
Paramount, which is distributing Hugo, believes the film will play older than traditional family films, as well as to more sophisticated audiences. By opening on a smaller number of screens, Paramount is looking to build word-of-mouth heading into the heart of awards season.
Hugo, Muppets and Arthur Christmas have all received great reviews.
Alexander Payne's The Descendants, starring George Clooney, expanded nicely, grossing $985,000 on Wednesday as it moved into a total of 390 theaters across the country. The film came in No. 10, and its domestic cume is now $2.5 million.
Michelle Williams specialty film My Week with Marilyn opened Wednesday in 123 theaters, grossing $155,000 for a location average of $1,256. The Weinstein Co. is distributing the film.

Pirates DISNEY ON YOUTUBE
The studio joins Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Brothers as major content providers on the Google-owned website. Google announced Wednesday that Walt Disney Studios has partnered with YouTube as the latest rental partner on the streaming video hub.
Available on YouTube and Google TV platforms, Disney follows Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Brothers as the fourth major studio to distribute titles on the service.
Hundreds of movies under Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks Studios will be offered on the site, with a soft launch including Alice in Wonderland, Cars and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
The titles join YouTube's growing rental library, which is available to users in the U.S. and Canada.
More Disney offerings are expected to join the site in the coming weeks.

JOURNEY: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
Following the domestic trailer and behind-the-scenes featurette, New Line/Warner Bros. has released this new international trailer for Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. Directed by Brad Peyton, the 3D family adventure stars Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine, Josh Hutcherson, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzman and Kristen Davis.
Opening in theaters on February 10, the new journey begins when young adventurer Sean (Hutcherson) receives a coded distress signal from a mysterious island where no island should exist--a place of strange life forms, mountains of gold, deadly volcanoes, and more than one astonishing secret. Unable to stop him from going, Sean's new stepfather (Johnson) joins the quest. Together with a helicopter pilot (Guzman) and his beautiful, strong-willed daughter (Hudgens), they set out to find the island, rescue its lone inhabitant and escape before seismic shockwaves force the island under the sea and bury its treasures forever.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2011

Turkey HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE
STARHYKE
Ranger Andrew sent along the following information:
Claudia Christian is staring as Captain Blowhard in the sexy science fiction serial STARHYKE. The show will premiere on Showcase TV, 8pm on Tuesday 13th December, repeating on Fridays at 2pm. Showcase TV is Sky channel 201 or Freesat channel 403.
Internet users can view using the link http://information.tv/WatchLive/FlashPlayer/?id=2
Showcase TV live link http://www.starhyke.com
While this series was made in 2004, it went directly to DVD. It has never been seen on TV before.

JJ Abrams STAR TREK SEQUEL SCHEDULED
Two pieces of news today about the long awaited "Star Trek" sequel, which writer/director J.J. Abrams will be shooting in 3-D. First of all, the film has a release date, finally. We'll be seeing the further adventures of Spock, Kirk and friends on May 17th, 2013 according to Deadline.
Abrams couldn't make the original release date June 29th, 2012 that Paramount had originally set because he was still working on "Super 8." This news comes hot on the heels of the announcement that filming was set to begin in January.
But that's not all. In an interview with MTV, Abrams said that, though we don't yet know who will be the villain of the story, he has an actor in mind for some secret role. He's hoping to get Benicio Del Toro to come on board.
"Well, we're just in negotiations, we're in discussions," Abrams said. "It's not even negotiations -- just in discussion. But I would love to work with him. I've wanted to work with him for years, and this felt like a good opportunity."
He wouldn't say what role he has the Oscar-winning actor in mind for, but he did say, "It's too early to talk about what the role is, but he's such an amazing actor," said Abrams. "He's so versatile. He could sort of do anything. Except play Uhura," he joked. "I wouldn't buy that."

John Carter JOHN CARTER
Disney's John Carter promises to pit its Civil War-era Earthling against all sorts of alien threats on the surface of Mars, but one of the largest is sure to be this massive pseudo-simian—and director Andrew Stanton explains why they had to divert from the original book to make this ape full of blind rage.
Given that the last time Stanton directed a film that left Earth we got the masterpiece that is WALL-E, we're inclined to listen to his reasoning behind making the white apes different than in Edgar Rice Burroughs' original text. As he told Entertainment Weekly:
"They were always cool, just from a visceral standpoint, [but] they don't really have a narrative function in the first book. So what we did is we made the White Apes a formidable creature that you kind of hear about throughout the movie, but you never really witness. There's a subtle sense of anticipation for what these things might be like. Then Michael Kutsche—who did a lot of the designs on Alice in Wonderland—came up with this design on his own, for just their scale. He made them nocturnal, almost like moles—they stopped using their eyes, and just had a heightened sense of smell. We just love that. We needed a scene where Carter was going have to get out of his execution sentence in order to move the story forward, and we thought what better than having to go up against this formidable creature?"
As I said, Stanton and Pixar have spent more than 20 years delivering some of the finest stories moviegoers have ever seen, animated or not. But there's something about this that reminds me a little too much of Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones, specifically the arena on Geonosis.
Dusty, orange-brown arena, ringed by alien spectators: Check. Prisoners attached to the ground by chains: Affirmative. Huge alien beastie as the executioner: Yep. Now, it's entirely possible Lucas was inspired by the John Carter books. But the similarities are ... striking.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2011

Anne McCaffrey ANNE McCAFFREY DEAD
When legendary sci-fi/fantasy author Anne McCaffrey had to cancel a recent appearance at a sci-fi convention, she asked her son to write on her blog, "Sorry that old age came up and bit me on the a**."
It seems she was twice bitten, as the 85-year-old author of "Dragonriders of Pern" passed away on Monday after suffering a stroke at her home in Ireland. The house, which she called Dragonhold-Underhill, was one she designed herself.
McCaffrey was a prolific writer with an impressive list of accolades, including being the first women ever to win a Hugo Award and the first to win a Nebula Award. Wired reports that she was still writing and answering fanmail up to a few weeks before her death.
She is survived by her two sons and her daughter.

Booster Gold BOOSTER GOLD COMING TO SYFY
After getting gritty and realistic with superpowers on Alphas, Syfy will take a dip in the other end of the pool by greenlighting a pilot script for a live-action take on DC's light-hearted time-traveler, Booster Gold.
Created by Dan Jurgens in 1986, Booster Gold is really a former athlete from the future named Michael Jon Carter who gambled on his own games and got banned from football. He stole some time-travel and crime-fighting tech from a museum and slipped back in time to the present, where he planned on becoming a beloved and well-compensated hero. Instead, he became a laughing stock.
Presumably, the hour-long series—the pilot for which will be written by Warehouse 13's Andrew Kreisberg and executive produced by Greg Berlanti (No Ordinary Family, Green Lantern)—will track Booster's transformation into the real deal.
This isn't the first time Booster has made the jump from page-to-screen: He also popped up in an episode of Smallville during that show's final season.

GOLDDIGGER FOR THE CW
According to the Hollywood Reporter, The CW is going on an adventure. The young female-skewing network has given script orders to Golddigger, an hourlong adventure series that’s part Indiana Jones and part National Treasure.
The drama, from Rizzoli & Isles executive producer Bill Haber and his Ostar Productions, will revolve around a young female treasure hunter who tracks down artifacts for a variety of mysterious and interesting clients.
The Day After Tomorrow’s Stephanie Germain will executive produce, with Lauren Horowitz (Abducted: Fugitive for Life) is attached to pen the project.
Golddigger joins a development slate that includes the Sex and the City prequel The Carrie Diaries, a Beauty and the Beast remake, Deadman, an untitled Truth or Dare drama and a pair of projects from CSI’s Carol Mendelsohn, among others.
Haber and Germain are repped by CAA; Horowitz is managed by Plumeria Entertainment.

Avengers THE AVENGERS
Marvel's The Avengers for Disney does not open in theaters until May 2012, but Disney has been dropping plenty of breadcrumbs to keep fans satisfied. The first trailer came out in October, and now Disney has provided character posters showing stars Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson in costume. Directed by Joss Whedon, Marvel’s The Avengers is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series The Avengers, first published in 1963.

Ewan McGregor THE CORRECTIONS
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Ewan McGregor has been tapped to star in HBO's drama pilot The Corrections.
The Star Wars and Moulin Rouge actor will co-star alongside Dianne Wiest and Chris Cooper in Noah Baumbach and Scott Rudin's adaptation of Jonathan Franzen's best-seller.
McGregor will play Chip, the middle child of an elderly Midwestern couple (Cooper, Wiest) who reunite the family for one last Christmas.
Rudin optioned the film rights for Paramount to the National Book Award-winning novel in 2001 and would executive produce the project.
Baumbach and Franzen will pen the project and exec produce, with Baumbach directing the drama, which is currently in production.
McGregor's TV work includes guest starring on NBC's ER in 1997 as well as appearing as himself in the U.K. TV docuseries Long Way Down.
McGregor's upcoming features include The Impossible and Jack the Giant Killer.

Gens HOUSE OF HORROR NEWS
"Frontiere(s)" and "The Divide" director Xavier Gens has been selected to direct the upcoming found footage scare feature "House of Horror" for Icon Entertainment reports STYD.
Max La Bella penned the script which focuses on the aftermath of a horrific massacre - five college students have been found brutally murdered inside a decrepit, abandoned home.
It's discovered the group are amateur ghost-hunters, seeking out paranormal phenomenon at the abandoned house believed to be haunted. What started out as a harmless activity turned into something truly terrifying.
Gens replaces Javier Gutierrez ("Before the Fall") who was once attached to direct. The project marks the first deal under an agreement between Icon and "Saw"/"Insidious" filmmaker James Wan who will produce.

AREA 51
"The Walking Dead" executive producer Gale Anne Hurd and her Valhalla Entertainment banner have optioned and are developing an hourlong dramatic TV series based on Annie Jacobsen’s book "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base" reports Deadline.
The story follows two men working on the base who are thrust into danger when they uncover secrets that the government will protect at any cost. Unlike its portrayals as a base holding alien technology in many sci-fi shows, this series will focus on the actual technology being developed and tested in Nevada.
Jacobsen interviewed 19 men who served the base and another 55 who had links to it. Karl Gajdusek is penning the script and will serve as showrunner.

War Horse WAR HORSE
DreamWorks have announced that special word-of-mouth screenings of Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" will be held this coming Sunday, November 27th in ten U.S. cities.
The key screening will take place in New York City, to be followed by a Q&A with Spielberg himself. Said session will be beamed via satellite to the other nine screenings, as well as streaming live on MSN.com.
The sneak preview is being utilised to generate word-of-mouth a month ahead of the official Christmas Day release.
Fox is using a similar albeit wider approach the day before with Cameron Crowe's "We Bought a Zoo" screening in several hundred cinemas on Saturday November 26th ahead of the general release on December 23rd.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2011

The Fly THE FLY SEQUEL - NO MORE
It's official: David Cronenberg's proposed sequel to The Fly is dead.
Although Cronenberg wrote a follow-up to his 1986 classic, he said a few weeks ago that he wasn't sure if the film was going to get made. Well, now he's sure, bluntly telling The Playlist, "I wrote a script and at the moment Fox is not wanting to do the project."
The famed director did not elaborate on why Fox passed on his script, which would seem like a no-brainer to us, but then again, we're not running movie studios.
Cronenberg has also not gone into detail about the approach he would have taken with a new Fly, except to say that it was more of a sequel and less of a remake. We assume he would just pretend that The Fly II didn't exist at all.
Either way, it's all moot since the damn thing isn't happening. Cronenberg is currently doing press for A Dangerous Method and also recently wrapped a screen version of the novel Cosmopolis, but has yet to announce his next project.

The Hobbit THE HOBBIT/SHERLOCK HOLMES
If you're thinking about going to see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows when it opens next month, you might want to plan to get there early. And if you are not sure about seeing the movie, you may want to reconsider.
That's because rumor has it that the first teaser trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first half of Peter Jackson's mammoth adaptation of the Tolkien novel, will go out to theaters with all prints of the Sherlock Holmes sequel.
Star (and second unit director!) Andy Serkis recently hinted that we might get our first look at The Hobbit in December, and with Sherlock Holmes being the only big budget blockbuster coming out around the holidays from the same studio as The Hobbit, it sounds like a perfect match.
According to the same source, Sherlock Holmes will also be bringing a new trailer for The Dark Knight Rises along for the ride.
As previously reported, a six-minute prologue for Christopher Nolan's final Batman epic will play in front of IMAX screenings of Mission Impossible IV: Ghost Protocol. But this trailer will undoubtedly be different and give us a taste of more footage from Christian Bale's eagerly awaited third adventure as the Caped Crusader.
No one's confirming any of this, of course, but the bottom line is that you should go see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows when it opens on December 16th and get there very early. Then go see Mission Impossible in IMAX—which opens the same week—for a double dose of Bat-mania!

Star Wars Identities STAR WARS: IDENTITIES
Last week, we heard about some new Lucasfilm domain registries for a project with nothing but a name: Star Wars: Identities. Now we've got the official word on what the project is, and it sounds like just the thing for Star Wars geeks.
Lucasfilm announced today that Identities is a brand-new interactive museum exhibit set to debut April 19 at the Montreal Science Centre. Focusing on the pivotal developments of Anakin and Luke Skywalker, the exhibit will combine material from the Lucasfilm archives with a scientific approach to the concept of identity to present an interactive experience for fans.
"The Star Wars saga continues to captivate audiences who find connection to its richly diverse cast of wonderful characters," Kyra Bowling, Lucasfilm's Exhibits Manager, said in a press release. "Star Wars provides a natural lens through which to explore the themes of personal identity and character. This innovative exhibition lets visitors of all ages investigate, in a fun and educational way, the factors and forces that help shape who we are as individuals."
The exhibit will explore three major themes of identity: "the origins of the characters, the influences that shape them, and the choices they make during their life." These themes will be explored through extensive use of material and artifacts from Lucasfilm—among them Anakin's full-sized podracer—and research from experts in the fields of genetics, neuropsychology, health sciences and psychology.
All this is designed to both explain what made Luke and Anakin tick throughout their adventures and provide Star Wars fans with a new way to experience the saga. Tickets are already on sale at StarWarsIdentities.com.
And hey, if you can't make the exhibit, you can always wait for the special edition with CG-enhanced psychology experts.

Grimm GRIMM NEWS
NBC has given freshman fairy tale procedural Grimm a full-season order.
"We are very pleased to be making a full-season commitment for ‘Grimm,’” NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt said in announcing the news Monday. “This series is turning the traditional procedural drama on its head and is attracting a loyal following for us on Friday nights. We love where it’s going creatively and we’re excited to deliver more episodes to our audience.”
In addition, the network will test the fantasy starring David Giuntoli, Bitsie Tulloch, Silas Weir Mitchell, Sasha Roiz and Russell Hornsby on Thursday, Dec. 8 at 10 p.m.
The news comes days after the network ordered additional scipts of the series, from Universal Television and Buffy scribes David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf. Since launching amid heavy competition in the Friday at 9 p.m. slot, Grimm has averaged a 2.3 rating/7 share in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic, drawing 6.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
When factoring in Live Plus Seven results for its Oct. 28 premiere -- where it faced stiff competition from Game 7 of the World Series -- Grimm is the No. 1 new drama so far this season, growing 47 percent in the demo.

Be sure to catch three episodes of GRIMM tonight on Syfy.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - 3D
Disney released the trailer for its upcoming Beauty and the Beast 3D rerelease Monday.
The company said in October that it would be rereleasing the movie -- along with three others -- on the heels of the runaway success of the 3D rerelease of The Lion King.
Beast, which is first out of the gate, begins its limited theatrical run on Jan. 13. The animated film, grossing $377.4 million worldwide, was first released in 1991 and, like Lion King, spawned a long-running Broadway show, as well as regional tours.
The movie tells the story of Belle (voiced by Paige O'Hara), who is imprisoned by a beast (Robby Benson) she discovers to be an enchanted prince.
The movie won the Golden Globe for best motion picture, musical or comedy, and became the first animated film to be nominated for an Oscar. It also won Oscars for best original score and best original song for the title tune, sung in the movie by voice castmember Angela Lansbury and made into a hit single by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson.
Beauty and the Beast also features the voices of Richard White, Jerry Orbach and David Ogden Stiers.
Following on the heels of Beast's rerelease will be 3D versions of Finding Nemo (Sept. 14, 2012), Monsters, Inc. (Jan. 18, 2013) and The Little Mermaid (Sept. 13, 2013).

Chris Evans THE ICEMAN
Deadline reports that Chris Evans is set to replace the previously announced James Franco in The Iceman. He'll appear opposite Michael Shannon in the true serial killer tale.
Ariel Vromen (Danika, Rx) is directing from a screenplay he co-wrote with Morgan Land (Rx), based on the book "The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer" by Anthony Bruno and on interview footage from the documentary "The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer" by Jim Thebaut. The film is officially described as follows:
"The Iceman" is the electrifying true story of Richard Kuklinski (Shannon), a notorious mob contract killer and loving family man. He earned his nickname by freezing the bodies of his victims, disguising the time of death, and throwing police off-track. He was a man who used his tendencies toward violence and detachment from consequence to create an idyllic family life. His family and neighbors believed he was an average businessman, having no idea about his deadly alternate life. Kuklinski killed over one hundred people during his life. He never felt remorse for anything he had done, except hurting his family.
Evans, who next appears in Marvel's The Avengers, plays a mentor assassin known as Mr. Softee.

WOMAN IN BLACK
Creepy like Black Friday, but with more vengeful homicidal spirits and fewer discounts - here is the NEW :60 Sneak from the thriller about a young lawyer (Daniel Radcliffe) who travels to a remote village in to settle the estate of a recently deceased woman who is terrorizing the locals. Have a Happy Thanksgiving... because The Woman In Black is coming February 3rd.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2011

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE UPDATE
Summit Entertainment's The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1 opened with a sharp bite around the globe, grossing $139.5 million domestically and $144 million overseas for a franchise best $283.5 million.
In North America, Breaking Dawn wasn't able to quite match the $142.8 million opening of The Twilight Saga: New Moon on the same weekend two years ago. However, Breaking Dawn made up for the gap at the international box office, where it opened day and date in 54 territories. New Moon opened day and date in only 25 territories, earning roughly $132.5 million.
Breaking Dawn set two key records: It's the fifth largest opening ever at the domestic box office, and the 10th largest worldwide, supplanting New Moon, which took in $275.3 million. Thanks to Breaking Dawn, domestic revenues were up 14 percent over a year ago in a much-needed boost for the film business.
"We faced the weekend with some trepidation because you don't really know on a fourth installment whether you are going to maintain the interest of your audience. The numbers seem to speak for themselves. We got as close to New Moon as we could," Summit president of distribution Richie Fay said.
Females continued to drive the vampire franchise, making up 80 percent of North American ticket buyers. Breaking Dawn's audience, however, skewed slightly older than the previous films, with 50 percent of the audience over the age of 25. Last year, 54 percent of the opening weekend audience for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse was under the age of 25.
Eclipse, opening on June 30, a Wednesday, earned $157 million in its first five days at the domestic box office.
Breaking Dawn, teaming director Bill Condon with franchise stars Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, received a B+ CinemaScore, compared to an A- for Eclipse.
Among other new players, Warner Bros.' Happy Feet Two opened to a soft $22 million domestically, compared to $41.5 million for the original Happy Feet on the same weekend in 2006. Heading into the weekend, Warner Bros. cautioned that Breaking Dawn was likely to compete with Happy Feet Two for moms and girls, but still expected the 3D toon to open at $30 million or better.
"We certainly didn't open to the number we expected, but hopefully we'll catch up over Thanksgiving week and weekend," Warner president of distribution Dan Fellman said. "Our exits were very good, but there was a lot of competition for the female audience, between Twilight, Jack and Jill and Puss in Boots."
Both Breaking Dawn and Happy Feet Two drew noticeably worse reviews than previous installments in their respective franchises.
Happy Feet Two will have plenty of competition next week as three family films debut on Wednesday--Sony's Arthur Christmas, Paramount's Hugo and Disney's The Muppets. Warners still believes Happy Feet Two will have an advantage because its a known brand.
The good news for Warners was that 50 percent of the grosses for Happy Feet came from 3D screens. The pic received a B+ CinemaScore overall, although females--who made up 57 percent of the audience--gave it an A-, as did moviegoers under the age of 25, who made up 47 percent of those buying tickets.
Alexander Payne's awards contender The Descendants, starring George Clooney, made headlines in placing No. 10 for the weekend, even though it was only playing in 29 theaters in 11 top markets. The Fox Searchlight film grossed $1.2 million for a massive per location average of $41,379. The movie's cume (it opened last Wednesday in five locations) is $1.3 million.
"To break into the top 10 and beat films that are playing in thousands of theaters is an amazing accomplishment," Fox Searchlight vice president of distribution Sheila DeLoach said. "It's great counterprogramming for adults."
The Descendant's strong performance out of the gate is reminiscent of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, which became a crossover hit.
Among holdovers, Relativity Media's Immortals fell a steep 62 percent in its second weekend to $12.3 million for a domestic cume of $53 million. The pic still did well enough to place No. 3.
Sony's Adam Sandler holiday comedy Jack and Jill fell more than 50 percent in its second outing to $12 million for a domestic total of $41 million.
Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, fell to No. 7 in its second weekend, declining 47 percent to an estimated $5.9 million for a domestic total of $20.7 million.
For full weekend results, see below.
Top 10 Domestic Box Office Nov. 11-Nov. 13
Title/Weeks in Release/Studio/Theater Count/Weekend Total/Cume
1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1 (1), Summit/4,061, $139.5 million
2. Happy Feet Two (1), Warner Bros./3,606, $22 million
3. Immortals (2), Relativity Media/3,120, $12.3 million, $53 million
4. Jack and Jill (2), Sony/3,438, $12 million, $41 million
5. Puss in Boots (4), Paramount/DreamWorks Animation/3,415, $10.7 million, $122.3 million
6. Tower Heist (3), Universal/2,942, $7 million, $53.4 million
7. J Edgar (2), Warner Bros./1,947, $5.9 million, $20.7 million
8. A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (3), Warner Bros./New Line/1,808, $2.9 million, $28.3 million
9. In Time (4), Fox/New Regency/1,367, $1.7 million, $33.4 million
10. The Descendants (1), Fox Searchlight/29, $1.2 million, $1.3 million

Dexter DEXTER RENEWED
Showtime has announced that they've renewed their hit series “Dexter” for two more seasons.
Michael C. Hall is locked to be returning as the titular Dexter Morgan with production on the seventh season beginning in 2012 in Los Angeles. Both seasons will consist of 12 episodes each to air as usual throughout the final quarter of the year.
The current sixth season is averaging 5.12 million weekly viewers on all platforms, making it the highest rated season yet.
Showtime president David Nevins tells Deadline that the producers have a three year trajectory creatively with the character mapped out, one which includes the current sixth season and the next two years. Once that was figured out the deals quickly locked into place.
Does this mean the show will likely end once this extension is complete? “I’m not going to say with absolute certainty that this is the end, but that is the likely scenario, that the series is moving towards a definite end.”

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2011

Fringe-John Noble FRIDAY NIGHT RATINGS
In the latest round of the see-sawing ratings on Fridays, several programs held steady while others improved -- and a few didn't.
CBS won the night, averaging a 1.6 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic in primetime and a Friday best 10.1 million viewers. A Gifted Man (8.2 million, 1.3) started off a tenth better than it did last week in the demo, but CSI: NY (9.9 million, 1.6) held steady. At 10 p.m. Blue Bloods (12.2 million, 2.0) rose significantly from its last original (2.0 vs. 1.7).
ABC and NBC managed to tie for second place, averaging a 1.3 rating. Chuck (3.2 million, 0.9) stayed flat for NBC as it continues through its final season and fairy tale procedural Grimm (5.4 million, 1.6) -- which NBC just ordered a handful of additional scripts of -- maintained last week's rating. Dateline (5.7 million, 1.5) followed.
ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (5.3 million, 1.3) rose more than half a rating adn drew more than 1 million viewers compared to last week. 20/20 (5 million, 1.4) rose.
Fox placed third on the night, with a 1.2 average. Kitchen Nightmares (3.5 million, 1.4) sank, which did not help Fringe grow from last week's low. In fact, Fringe (2.9 million, 1.1) tied last week's demo performance and hit below the 3 million viewers mark.
The CW's Nikita (1.8 million, 0.6) remained steady while Supernatural (1.5 million, 0.7) dipped slightly.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
David Fincher has what seems like dozens of future projects in the works right now, and one of them is a return to sci-fi with an adaptation of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for Disney. The flick may or may not be Fincher's next work, but he's at least found a screenwriter: his Se7en collaborator Andrew Kevin Walker.
Disney has been working for a while now on finding a compelling way to revisit the classic Verne tale, which was made into one of the company's most successful early live-action efforts in 1954. Though Walker is best known for Se7en and the almost equally creepy 8MM, he's also worked in more fantastic realms with flicks like Sleepy Hollow and The Wolfman, so he might be a good fit, especially if Disney wants to go a somewhat darker direction with a new version of the classic story.
As for Fincher, there's really no telling what he'll do. His next release is The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in December, but he's been attached to so many other possible future projects that it seems difficult to peg which one will be his next release. Among the things on his plate: a TV series called House of Cards, a remake of Cleopatra with Angelina Jolie, this film, and Dragon Tattoo's sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire (if the first one is profitable enough and he still wants to work in that world).
Regardless of when it happens, it'll be interesting to see what these two combined do with a Captain Nemo story.

THE ENDER'S GAME
Asa Butterfield The upcoming adaptation of Ender's Game has found its Ender ... and you can get a good look at him about a week from now.
According to Deadline, 14-year-old Asa Butterfield has been offered the title role in the big-screen version of Orson Scott Card's classic 1985 novel.
Who is Butterfield? He's a British actor who has appeared in movies such as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, but is about to become much better known as the title character in Hugo, director Martin Scorsese's 3-D period fantasy.
Hugo opens six days from now, on Nov. 23, so you'll have a chance to take a good, long look at the young man who will almost certainly play one of sci-fi's most beloved characters of the past 30 years. Once Butterfield's deal is official, we're sure that more casting announcements will be on the way.
Production is scheduled to begin next year to meet the film's March 15, 2013, release date, with X-Men Origins: Wolverine director Gavin Hood behind the camera.

Wedding-Breaking Dawn WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Bringing the domestic box office to life, Summit Entertainment's The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 grossed $72 million on Friday for a projected weekend opening in the $140 million range. Bowing day and date in 54 territories, the film has grossed another $66 million internationally.
The Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner starrer is performing a tad behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which opened on the same weekend two years ago to $142.8 million after grossing $72.7 million on Friday.<
Breaking Dawn scored the third biggest opening day ever after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($91.1 million) and New Moon.
The weekend's other new wide entry, Warner Bros.' Happy Feet Two, got off to a slower-than-expected start domestically, grossing an estimated $5.9 million on Friday for a projected weekend gross of $22 million to $24 million. The 3D family toon -- which opened to half of the original Happy Feet on Friday -- hopes to make up ground during Thanksgiving week.
At the specialty box office, Alexander Payne's George Clooney starrer The Descendants did brisk business on Friday as it expanded into 29 theaters. The comedy-drama, which opened Wednesday in five theaters, grossed $318,638 -- enough to come in No. 11 for the day. The pic's cume is $397,000.
Breaking Dawn will become only the second film this year to jump the $100 million mark in its debut after Deathly Hallows Part 2, which opened to a massive $169.2 million.
Directed by Bill Condon, Breaking Dawn began playing in 3,251 theaters at 12:01 a.m. Friday, earning $30.3 million in midnight grosses before moving into a total of 4,061 locations by mid-morning.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2011

Amy Archer GRIMM NEWS
Friday night's haunting NBC procedural "Grimm" is bringing in Amy Acker for a guest starring role in an upcoming episode.
TV Line is reporting the series has signed the former "Angel" and "Dollhouse" actress to guest in the show early next year. Her character will have the ominously name of the Black Widow.
The report states that Acker's character will have a disease where she ages rapidly, but if she sucks the life out of three men, she can retain her youthful appearance. Creepy!
Acker worked with producers David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf on "Angel," so it's no surprise that they'd bring her over for a spell.

PROMETHEUS
Michael Fassbender hit paydirt when he landed a role in Ridley Scott's Prometheus. So, inquiring minds want to know: How did he prepare for the huge, Alien-like thriller? According to the actor, he skipped Alien and watched Blade Runner.
While promoting his latest film Shame, Fassbender spoke with MTV about how he prepared for the highly anticipated Prometheus. The film has been called a prequel, a spin-off, and everything under the sun in relation to Scott's original Alien. Therefore, it would make sense for Fassbender to study the previous films, right? Wrong!
Fassbender admitted that he spent more time watching Blade Runner than anything in the Alien series. In Prometheus, he plays an android, so he probably took notes from Blade Runner's Roy Batty. Rutger Hauer is amazing in that role, so who wouldn't try to pick up a few pointers?
Fassbender claims that he was also influenced by Olympic diver Greg Louganis. He says, "Greg Louganis was my first inspiration. I figured that I'd sort of base my physicality roughly around him." Little is known about Fassbender's character (or the movie itself) other than his name is David and he's an android.

DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS EPISODE
The trailer for the upcoming Doctor Who 2011 Christmas special is out NOW. Titled ''The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe,'' the episode seems poised to prove that Steven Moffat has managed to sprinkle that bit of Christmassy Doctor Who magic once again.
The new trailer just debuted tonight on Children in Need on BBC One, and, once again, shows Matt Smith in top shape as the time-travelling Doctor.
We also get a look at this year's main guest-star, actress Claire Skinner (Sense and Sensibility, Outnumbered), as Madge Ardwell a.k.a the ''widow'' of the episode.
It's pure magical Chronicles of Narnia awesomeness.
What do you think of the trailer and the episode's title? We don't know about you, but we almost expected Mr. Tumnus to saunter about after the Doctor and that kid.

Jon SNow KING ARTHUR
This time last year, Kit Harington was just a young British stage actor with no screen time. Now he stars in HBO's smash hit Game of Thrones as the bastard Jon Snow, and for extra fantasy fun he just landed a part with an even cooler sword than Longclaw: King Arthur.
Harington has just been cast as Arthur in Warner Bros. upcoming Arthur & Lancelot, a new take on the King Arthur tale - and the Arthur/Lancelot relationship - to start production with director David Dobkin next year.
With the hope of doing for Arthurian lore what the new Sherlock Holmes franchise did for Holmesian literature (lots of action, a little humor and a lot of polish), Arthur & Lancelot makes Arthur an illegitimate son raised by a poor knight in a small village, while Lancelot is a rebellious young noble fighting the power of the established government. Eventually (if we get enough sequels), they will grow into the mythic medieval heroes we know them to be.
The film doesn't have a Lancelot yet, but Harington seems to be strong casting as Arthur, particularly because he already has a good deal of experience as a sword-wielding illegitimate son. Word is the Guinevere character will only have a cameo in this installment (again, sequels), so that whole love triangle thing won't be happening just yet. But depending on who ends up being Lancelot, this flick could have all the trappings of a buddy action comedy...but, you know, with swords.

HUGO
Paramount Pictures has debuted, through Yahoo! Movies, a clip from director Martin Scorsese's b>Hugo, opening in 3D and 2D theaters on November 23.
The film stars Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Ray Winstone, Christopher Lee, Helen McCrory, Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, Emily Mortimer and Michael Stuhlbarg.
Hugo tells the story of an orphan boy living a secret life in the walls of a Paris train station. With the help of an eccentric girl, he searches for the answer to a mystery linking the father he recently lost, the ill-tempered toy shop owner living below him and a heart shaped lock, seemingly without a key. Based on Brian Selznick's award winning and imaginative New York Times bestseller, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," this magical tale is Scorsese's first film shot in 3D.

THE DARKEST HOUR
New video pieces for The Darkest Hour have been released through 20th Century Fox Singapore. The first goes behind the scenes of the Moscow-based shoot (which you can also read about in our recent set visit report) and the second is a "mood piece" trailer, setting footage to a fast-tempo score.
The thriller, released domestically through Summit Entertainment, opens in 3D and 2D theaters on December 25 and tells the story of five young people who find themselves stranded in Moscow, fighting to survive in the wake of a devastating alien attack.
Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella, Rachael Taylor and Joel Kinnaman star with Chris Gorak (Right at Your Door) directing.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2011

Yvonne MUNSTERS REBOOT?
According to Deadline, NBC is going to reboot the 1960's comedy, "The Munsters."
For those of you not old enough to remember this loveable comedy, here is the rundown. Grandpa Sam Dracula creates Herman Munster because no one is good enough for his vampire daughter Lily. Their young son Eddie is a werewolf and cousin Marilyn, a stunning beauty by ordinary standards, is considered to be a freak.
Since vampires and werewolves are all the rage these days, it was only a matter of time before someone looked at The Munsters. The good news is that "Pushing Daisies" creator Bryan Fuller is behind this one. If you're not ready to revisit 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Fuller also has a show called "Hannibal," based on the Hannibal Lecter character.

ULTRAMAN
Japan's Ultra Series just won't die. The superhero franchise is celebrating 45 years of campy, sci-fi action that culminates in the new film, Ultraman Saga. The movie's first trailer has been released and it has monsters, masked heroes and explosions—lots of explosions!
The first trailer for Ultraman Saga has all the over-the-top action we know and love. The movie features appearances from Ultraman Zero, Ultraman Dyna, and Ultraman Cosmos plus the five Ultra Brothers and the newbie Ultraman Saga. The group has their work cut out for them as they go against the dangerous Hyper Setton and his monstrous army.
Ultraman Saga is a sequel to 2010's Ultraman Zero: The Revenge of Belial. And the latest film's tagline is "We Still Have Glittering Hope!!" Despite the repetitive nature of the series with its various heroes and villains, people can't let it go. Ultraman Saga's first trailer takes us back to the days of bad lighting, old school effects and the excessive use of smoke machines.
Ultraman Saga will be released on March 24.

RATINGS NUMBERS
We've entered that magical time of year known as November sweeps, when all the shows start thinking up ways to surprise, impress and pull in more viewers before the holiday break. This week, Terra Nova enjoyed a big rebound, Grimm continued to slide and American Horror Story won its night on cable. Meanwhile, Once Upon a Time and The Walking Dead continue to rule Sundays.
Terra Nova (FOX)
7.75 million viewers/2.6/7 share
Terra Nova bounced back big from its Halloween loss last week, creeping closer to the 8 million mark, which may end up being the default position for this show. The numbers aren't earth-shattering, and the show is still getting kicked by the CBS sitcoms in its time slot, but Terra Nova is still fighting.
The Vampire Diaries (CW)
3.17 million viewers/1.4/4 share
The CW's vampire hit has been struggling this season, but the struggle seems to be waning at least a little. The show dropped a share point and a few hundred thousand viewers this week, but still managed to come in above the three million mark, above its season premiere numbers a few weeks ago. Now the question will be if they can maintain this when they come back after November sweeps.
The Secret Circle (CW)
2.17 million viewers/0.8/2 share
This show seems to have stabilized its numbers at just over two million viewers, which isn't bad for a CW show. But when you consider that it's still dropping one million viewers from its lead-in show, The Vampire Diaries, you have to wonder how long it's going to stay around. The shows were packaged as sisters, but viewers clearly are less interested in the younger one.

A Gifted Man (CBS)
8.25 million viewers/1.2/4 share
A Gifted Man's numbers are definitely stable, hovering right around 8 million viewers, but its rating might be cause for concern in the future. It's not bad for a Friday show, but it is low when you consider the other Friday shows in the CBS lineup. Younger people just don't seem as interested in watching this one.

Chuck (NBC)
3.13 million viewers/0.9/3 share
Here's a show that looks like it might be doomed to languish in low ratings for the rest of its lifespan. In its third week, Chuck picked up a few viewers but broke even in its share and rating. Maybe sweeps will cause a spike, but it seems like Chuck's final episodes are only going to be seen by a small but loyal viewership.
Fringe (FOX)
3.03 million viewers/1.1/3 share
Fringe dropped again this week but managed to stay above the three million mark. It also managed to keep itself over the one point mark in its 18-49 rating. It's a sign of stability, but will the numbers the show is keeping be enough?
Grimm (NBC)
5.18 million viewers/1.6/5 share
Though it's still doing better than a lot of Friday shows, Grimm lost nearly a million viewers, a share point and two tenths of a ratings point in its third week. It's too early to tell, but if this slump continues it could spell trouble for the fairy tale procedural.
Supernatural (CW)
1.85 million viewers/0.8/2 share
Supernatural's numbers this week look almost exactly the same as its numbers last week, so there's some stability there. The problem is the numbers weren't that high to begin with. This is the CW we're talking about, so we can't measure it in the same way other networks do, but Supernatural is definitely not what it once was.
Sanctuary (Syfy)
1.31 million viewers/0.4
Sanctuary picked up a few viewers this week but held steady in its rating. It might seem like the numbers are low, but the show is still consistently breaking the top 25 cable broadcasts on its night, so it doesn't look too bad.
The Walking Dead (AMC)
6.12 million viewers/3.2
We've almost reached the mid-season point with The Walking Dead, and it continues to dominate Sunday night cable. It dropped two tenths of a ratings point this week, but it's still miles ahead of everything else it's competing with. The zombies still rule Sundays.
Once Upon A Time (ABC)
11.36 million viewers/3.8/9 share
Though it's still the Sunday night leader for scripted television, Once Upon A Time has been dealing with a slow slip in viewers. It lost almost 100,000 this week, but held steady in its rating and share. It's still doing great, so no cause for alarm, but if viewers keep falling away little by little, by the end of the season there may be a problem.

Aliens THUNDERSTRUCK Not content to swallow up genre viewers with zombies, AMC is moving into alien territory, buying the UFO-centric Thunderstruck, with one of Battlestar Galactica's masterminds on board.
Along with Eick, Thunderstruck will be executive-produced by Paul Boardman and Scott Derrickson (who wrote and directed The Exorcism of Emily Rose), and, according to Deadline, the show will follow:
"Powerful and enigmatic entities that begin appearing all over the world. After one shows up in the town of Great Falls, Montana, the local citizens must grapple with the dramatic effects and growing mystery of repeated visitations."
AMC's development process is a little kooky—they hold a "bake-off" with a number of different projects they've already bought and choose the few they want to actually put on the air—so there's no telling if or when this'll be on the air.
Luckily for Eick, he's still got the Hulk pilot he's co-writing for Marvel, ABC and Guillermo del Toro to keep him busy in the interim.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2011

Durance-Wonder Woman WONDER WOMAN CAST
Erica Durance (Lois Lane on SMALLVILLE) has been cast as Wonder Woman on David Kelley's NBC lawyer drama "Harry's Law." TVLine was first to report that Durance will be playing a delusional vigilante who genuinely believes she is Wonder Woman, as she seeks revenge on domestic violence offenders.
Durance's mentally ill character will appear in the season's 11th episode, set to run after the holidays when the show airs in its new timeslot on Sundays at 8 p.m.
No word yet on whether the "Smallville" heroine will don the famous Wonder Woman costume for the role, but we're guessing Kelley has access to a redesigned version that just might do the trick.

STAR TREK: NEXT GENERATION
Since the original Star Trek series was remastered in 2006, fans have been chanting for a similar treatment of their beloved TNG and now their wishes have been granted.
A new extended spot for the Star Trek: TNG Blu-ray transfers is teasing our Trek sensibilities with tantalizing digital images of four key episodes. All 178 episodes are being converted to high-definition 1080p and will be released in Seven Season Sets beginning later in 2012. The sampler disc being launched January 31th, 2012 will be called Star Trek: The Next Generation—The Next Level and includes the two-part pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint," "Sins of the Father" and "The Inner Light," which won a 1993 Hugo Award.
The wizards at CBS Paramount are returning to the original negatives of the show, working from over 25,000 reels of footage, and will recut film for transfer to high definition with a 7.1 DTS Master Audio mix. Warn the neighbors and crank up the sub-woofer!
The image quality in comparisons between Standard and High-Definition is amazing with a bold color palette and deep blacks that provide a more balanced picture that intensifies the visceral appeal of the Star Trek universe. By using recomposited shots instead of simply upcoverting the video material, this project will create true HD masters with true HD special effects. Also, before anyone blows a galactic gasket, the episodes WILL be presented in their original 4:3 fullscreen aspect ratio.
The sampler disc engages fans January 31, 2012 as part of The Next Generation's 25th Anniversary.

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION
Milla Jovovich tweeted this video featuring a first look at Li Bingbing as Ada Wong on the set of Screen Gems' Resident Evil: Retribution along with Milla's own Alice.
Coming to theaters on September 14, 2012, the Paul W.S. Anderson film also stars Sienna Guillory, Colin Salmon, Michelle Rodriguez, Shawn Roberts, Boris Kodjoe, Johann Urb, Oded Fehr and Kevin Durand.
"Retribution" is the fifth installment in the film series.

MIRROR, MIRROR
Relativity Media has revealed the trailer for Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror, starring Julia Roberts as the Queen, Lily Collins as Snow White, Armie Hammer as Prince Alcott, Sean Bean as the King and Nathan Lane as the Queen's hapless and bungling servant, Brighton.
In the March 16 release, wicked enchantress (Roberts) schemes and scrambles for control of a spirited orphan's (Collins) throne and the attention of a charming prince (Hammer). When Snow White's beauty wins the heart of the prince that she desperately pursues, the Queen banishes her to the forest, where a ravening man-eating beast hungrily awaits.
Rescued by a band of diminutive highway robbers, Snow White grows into an indomitable young woman determined to take back her realm from the treacherous Queen.

HAPPY FEET Two
Warner Bros. Pictures has debuted, through Yahoo! Movies, the final trailer for Happy Feet Two, coming to 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters this Friday, November 18.
Directed by George Miller, the animated adventure features the voices of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Hank Azaria, Alecia Moore (P!nk), Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Sofia Vergara, Common, Hugo Weaving, Magda Szubanski, Anthony LaPaglia, Richard Carter and Benjamin "Lil P-Nut" Flores, Jr. (who introduces the video below).
In the follow-up, Mumble, The Master of Tap, has a problem because his tiny son Erik is choreo-phobic. Reluctant to dance, Erik runs away and encounters The Mighty Sven - a penguin who can fly!! Mumble has no hope of competing with this charismatic new role model. But things get worse when the world is shaken by powerful forces. Erik learns of his father's 'guts and grit' as Mumble brings together the penguin nations and all manner of fabulous creatures - from tiny Krill to giant Elephant Seals - to put things right.

h2>TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2011 Lucas Film Logo STAR WARS: IDENTITES
Lucasfilm has registered domains for a new mystery project from the Star Wars franchise, so let the speculation begin!
Three domains—StarWarsIdentities.com, StarWarsIdentites.com (typo) and sw-id.com—were registered by Lucasfilm on Nov. 7 through brand protection firm Corporation Service Company. We have no details at all on any of them except a name: Star Wars: Identities.
What is this mystery project? A film? A series of films? A TV show? Those don't seem that likely, since the TV side of Lucasfilm is pretty busy already with Clone Wars and that Robot Chicken comedy show in development. It's also likely not a film, since Lucas has for years denied any possibility of a sequel series to the original trilogy (and we have dozens of books that cover that time period anyway).
So that leaves other media. Are we talking about an MMORPG, a new incarnation of Star Wars Galaxies? The "Identities" element seems to suggest that could be the case. How about an official online database, or new merchandise, or a web series? Sadly, nothing really points strongly in one direction or another on that front. All we know from the registration record is that at least one of these domains is set to expire in two years. Hopefully we won't have to wait that long to find out more, but the rest is up to Lucas at this point.

Doctor Who NEW DOCTOR WHO?
Director David Yates, who ably guided the last four Harry Potter films to meteoric success, is working with the BBC to fashion a big-screen adventure for the last of the Time Lords. Good news, yes? Perhaps ... unless you like any of the actors or continuity developed for the TV show.
Yates' plan, being hatched with the BBC's cooperation, is to break Doctor Who down to its components—which presumably include an immortal time traveler, his time machine and an attractive female companion—and rebuild it:
"It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena. ... The notion of the time-travelling Time Lord is such a strong one, because you can express story and drama in any dimension or time."
And that transformation (which Yates expects to take two or three years to develop) means that Yates will be ignoring most if not all of the continuity of the current TV series—which has, mind you, become one of, if not the single biggest and most profitable properties the BBC controls:
"Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch."
So that means that Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvil will definitely not be a part of the Doctor Who film future.

HUNGER GAMES
The first full trailer for The Hunger Games has been released ... and it's grim. Watching kids prepare to fight to the death is no laughing matter. And the trailer shows the uncertainty that surrounds the dog-eat- dog world of Panem.
The Hunger Games is directed by Gary Ross and based on Suzanne Collins' popular book series. The dark story centers on a group of children who are trained to compete against each other in a televised sport called The Hunger Games. The catch? They fight to the death!
North America no longer exists. It's been replaced by Panem, which contains 12 Districts and a Capitol run by the twisted President Snow. Each year two minors (male and female) from each District between the ages of 12 and 18 are picked to be a Tribute and participate in the games.
Katniss Everdeen (the film's heroine) is an expert archer who's chosen to compete against some of the best players Panem has to offer. There's nothing cool or attractive about kids killing kids, so the trailer plays up the angst and sadness surrounding it all. There's a lot of build-up but not much action. We assume they're saving all the good stuff for later.

Gifted Man MORE GIFTED MAN EPISODES
CBS has opted for three more episodes of A Gifted Man.
The Friday night rookie, which stars Patrick Wilson in his first series television role in a spiritual-tinged medical drama, has been a modest performer in its end-of-week 8 p.m slot.
Thus far this season, the series has averaged 8.4 million viewers and a 1.2 rating in the coveted 18 to 49 demo, making it consistently the most-watched program in timeslot and more than doubling its nearest competitor.
No decision has been made about what will fill its place when its 16 episode season run is complete. (CBS announced mid-season premiere dates for its Rob Schneider comedy and Undercover Boss earlier Monday.)
The network had already granted full season orders to its other freshman offerings, 2 Broke Girls, Person of Interest and Unforgettable. The fifth, How to Be A Gentleman, was quickly canceled.

Q Q
Columbia Pictures is in final discussions to acquire the rights to the novel Q, by Evan Mandery for writer/director David Gordon Green and producer Matt Tolmach. The book is described as follows on Mandery's official site:
Shortly before his wedding, the unnamed hero of this uncommon romance is visited by a man, claiming to be his future self, who ominously admonishes the protagonist that he must not marry the love of his life, Q. The author doubts this stranger, but in time becomes convinced of his authenticity and leaves his fiancée. The resulting void in his life is impossible to fill. One after the other, future selves arrive urging him to marry someone else, divorce, attend law school, leave law school, travel, join a running club, stop running, study the guitar, the cello, Proust, Buddhism, opera, and eliminate gluten from his diet. The only constants in this madcap quest for personal improvement are the author’s love for his New York City home and for his beloved Q. Q turns the classic story of transcendent love on its head, with an ending that will melt even the darkest heart.
Tolmach previously collaborated with David Gordon Green when the two worked together on the hit film Pineapple Express.
Pouya Shahbazian, who manages Mandery, will produce the film with Tolmach. The book was discovered by Matt Tolmach Productions executives Robert Kessel and Kate Checci, who will also work on developing the project. Andrea Giannetti is overseeing Q for Columbia Pictures along with Hannah Minghella.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2011

Underworld Awakening UNDERWORLD AWAKENING
Screen Gems has released the new U.S. poster for Underworld Awakening, coming to 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on January 20. Directed by Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, the film stars Kate Beckinsale, Stephen Rea, Michael Ealy, Theo James, India Eisley and Charles Dance.
Beckinsale, star of the first two films, returns in her lead role as the vampire warrioress Selene, who escapes imprisonment to find herself in a world where humans have discovered the existence of both Vampire and Lycan clans, and are conducting an all-out war to eradicate both immortal species.

DJANGO UNCHAINED
Variety reports that actor/comic Sacha Baron Cohen is in final negotiations to join Quentin Tarantino's star-studded Western Django Unchained, playing a gambler named Scotty who buys the title character's wife as a companion. It's reportedly a small role but Tarantino was adamant on having Baron Cohen play the part.
The slave-turned-bounty hunter Django himself is played by Jamie Foxx while Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz are the other primary leads in a cast that includes Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Don Johnson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kerry Washington, Anthony LaPaglia, RZA, and more.
In the meantime, you can see Baron Cohen in Martin Scorsese's Hugo, opening November 23.
The Weinstein Company will release Django Unchained on December 25, 2012, with Sony releasing the movie internationally.

Lego LEGO MOVIE
Warner Bros. is working with Australian-based animation company Animal Logic (Happy Feet, Legend of the Guardians) to move forward with a live action-animated hybrid movie based on the popular LEGO building blocks with plans for a 2014 release. With an incentive from the Australian government and the state of New South Wales to make the movie entirely on the continent, the new movie will be an action- adventure set in a world made up of LEGOs with casting for the live action actors starting in January.
The project has been in development at Warner Bros for over three years when the studio began working with the LEGO Company on developing a family comedy written by Dan and Kevin Hageman, and then brought on Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) to write and direct in 2010. They recently brought "Robot Chicken" stop-motion director Chris McKay on as a co-director for LEGO under Lord and Miller.
Working closely with the Danish company--LEGO VP of licensing and entertainment, Jill Wilfert, is one of the executive producers along with Seanne Winslow of Lin Pictures--the film will continue the relationship between Warner Bros. and LEGO that has produced numerous toys and videogames based on Warner Bros. properties including Batman and Harry Potter. It was announced at Comic-Con that LEGO will have access to all of DC Entertainment's comic book characters and stories to launch DC Universe figures and playsets starting in January, which will include Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and others.

ACT OF VALOR
Relativity Media is premiering the new trailer for action-thriller Act of Valor during the 2011 Quicken Loans Carrier Classic game between the Michigan State Spartans and North Carolina Tar Heels.
Opening in theaters on February 17, Act of Valor stars a group of active-duty Navy SEALs in a powerful story of contemporary global anti-terrorism. Inspired by true events, the film combines stunning combat sequences, up-to-the minute battlefield technology and heart-pumping emotion for the ultimate action adventure.
Roselyn Sanchez, Alex Veadov, Jason Cottle and Nester Serrano co-star.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Russell Tovey BEING HUMAN
Actor Russell Tovey, who plays lovable werewolf George on BBC 3's hit series Being Human, has just announced he's leaving the popular British sci-fi series.
After four seasons of werewolf transformations and running around naked on Being Human, Russell Tovey has announced on Twitter—and through an article in the Guardian—that he's finished with the series.
The actor cited the exit of actor Aidan Turner and his character, the vampire Mitchell, as the probable catalyst for his departure.
Here's the revealing bit from the article :
"Well, I've actually left Being Human but no one [outside of the show] knows yet," he says, bursting our bubble. The news will come as a shock to fans, still reeling from Aidan Turner's exit as his character, Mitchell the vampire, was killed off by George in the season three finale. "Aidan's left to film The Hobbit in New Zealand [with Peter Jackson] and going on without him on this fourth series felt strange," says Tovey by way of explanation. But for such a huge sci fi-ish hit on both sides of the Atlantic, doesn't having only one of the original cast members left put the show in major jeopardy?
"No, with Being Human the story can definitely go on and on," Tovey insists. "Toby [Whithouse, the writer] still runs it and they can do all sorts ... add giants and robots!"
The news may come as a shock to fans of the series, and it's quite unclear at this moment if Tovey's departure will take place during season four or at the end of it.

Immortals WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
While many in the industry thought that DreamWorks Animation's Puss In Boots had a chance at pulling a threepeat, both new movies fared better with Tarsem Singh's Greek Gods war epic Immortals coming out on top with an estimated $32 million. Starring Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff, Isabel Lucas, Freida Pinto, Luke Evans, Kellan Lutz and John Hurt, the movie which had transitioned over from Rogue Pictures opened strong on Veteran's Day Friday with $15 million (including $1.4 million on Thursday at midnight) then tailed off over the weekend. It still has a long way to go before it makes back its reported $75 million production budget.
Second place may be too close to call but for now, Adam Sandler's cross-dressing PG comedy Jack and Jill is claiming it with an estimated $26 million in 3,438 theaters, averaging $7,500 per site.
Puss in Boots, came in a close third with an estimated $25.5 million, down less than 30% in its third weekend, with a total gross of $108.8 million. It could eventually get to the $150 million mark of last year's Megamind although it has a lot of family competition over the next couple weeks.
Brett Ratner's action-comedy Tower Heist (Universal), starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy, dropped to fourth place with $13.2 million and $44 million total.
Opening in fifth place, Clint Eastwood's biopic J. Edgar (Warner Bros.), starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the former FBI director took in roughly $11.5 million this weekend in 1,910 theaters after opening in select cities on Wednesday.
The R-rated comedy A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (New Line/Warner Bros.) dropped three places to sixth, down 54% from last week to bring in $5.9 million with $23.2 million total.
Justin Timberlake- Amanda Seyfried's sci-fi thriller In Time (20th Century Fox) took seventh place with $4.1 million to bring its total to $30.7 million.
Paramount Pictures' Paranormal Activity 3 was in eighth place with $3.6 million as it joins Puss in Boots in this year's $100 Million Club, while Craig Brewer's remake of Footloose, also from Paramount, fell to ninth with $2.7 million and nearly $49 million total.
Rounding out the Top 10 was Shawn Levy's action-adventure Real Steel (DreamWorks), starring Hugh Jackman, with $2 million and $81.8 million total.
The Top 10 grossed around $127 million which was actually up 15% from the same weekend last year when DreamWorks Animations' Megamind won for a second week in a row with $29 million followed by Tony Scott and Denzel Washington's Unstoppable (20th Century Fox) with $22.7 million.
Opening in select cities, Werner Herzog's new doc Into the Abyss (IFC Films) brought in $50.8 thousand in 12 theaters, averaging roughly $4,200 per location.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011

Syfy Logo SYFY ANNOUNCES THREE NEW SCRIPTED PROJECTS
A starship populated by humans ... and trans-humans. A ghost cop trying to solve his last case. And the hunt for a deadly ... something ... that's escaped from a Siberian research facility. That's what's coming on Syfy following the success of Warehouse 13, Alphas, Eureka and Haven.
Here's Syfy's official press release:
SYFY ANNOUNCES NEW SCRIPTED PROJECTS FROM UNIVERSAL CABLE PRODUCTIONS, FOX TELEVISION STUDIOS AND CBS TV STUDIOS
NEW YORK - November 9, 2011 - Marking another phase of its record expansion of original programming, Syfy today announced three new scripted projects in development from Universal Cable Productions, CBS TV Studios and Fox Television Studios.
In making the announcement, Mark Stern, President, Original Content, Syfy, and Co-Head, Original Content, Universal Cable Productions, said: "This broad-based slate, from top-notch talent in the creative community, will enable us to build upon the strong foundation of our current hit scripted series to provide Syfy viewers with the next generation of imaginative entertainment."
Syfy's quartet of popular scripted series—Warehouse 13, Alphas, Eureka and Haven—powered the channel to its most watched Third Quarter ever, drawing 1.45 million total viewers.
On Monday, January 16 at 9PM (ET/PT), Being Human will return for its second season, followed by the premiere of Lost Girl at 10PM.
Syfy Scripted Development Slate
UNT. ROBERT H. WOLFE PROJECT
Universal Cable Productions
Robert H. Wolfe -- Executive Producer/Writer
After decades of war, the newly formed Unity Democracy orders a volatile mix of humans and trans-humans to lead the Starship Defender on an expedition in search of lost worlds requiring law and order.
SEEING THINGS (working title)
Fox Television Studios
David Slack -- Executive Producer
Scott Rosenberg and Robert Cort -- Co-Executive Producers
David Slack and Gabrielle Stanton -- Writers
A cop becomes a ghost after his violent death and the only person who can help close his last case is a socially awkward man who realizes that the hallucinations he's had all his life may not be a figment of his imagination.
GHOST PROJEKT
Oni Press
CBS TV Studios
Brett Matthews -- Executive Producer/Writer
Andy Bourne, Eric Gitter -- Executive Producer
Based on the popular comic series, a female KGB agent and male American weapons inspector form an unlikely partnership when a deadly force is unwittingly unleashed from a Siberian research facility.

Syfy Logo ARTHUR CHRISTMAS
Leave it to the folks who brought us Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run and Flushed Away to bring a delightful blast of fresh air to the conventional Christmas genre.
Aardman’s Arthur Christmas is that and more — an endlessly amusing 3D, CG-animated Yuletide romp with lively innovation at every turn and a dream voice cast headed by James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie and Bill Nighy.
While longtime Aardman adherents might find this Sony Pictures Animation collaboration to be slightly more mainstream than some of those earlier productions, there’s still sufficient evidence of an agreeably subversive spirit lurking just beneath the obligatory ribbons and bows.
The story of the heroic journey undertaken by Santa’s youngest son upon discovering an undelivered present may dutifully hit all the seasonal emotional posts, but the route it chooses to take is anything but predictable.
Audiences should be cheerfully transported, especially across the pond, where the film opens Friday. It opens in the U.S. one week later.
The forecast for North America, meanwhile, is for solid but likely more modest numbers, given all the British accents (not to mention comic sensibility), as well as a marketing campaign that really doesn’t quite capture the essence of the film.
Starting off by addressing the nagging question, “Just how exactly does Santa deliver all those presents over the course of one night?” the film depicts the seemingly impossible mission by doing it up Mission: Impossible style, complete with millions of elves schooled in covert ops and a hi-tech sleigh equipped with stealth cloaking technology.
The sequence moves like the dickens and effectively sets the pace that follows back at the North Pole, where Santa’s (voiced by Jim Broadbent) headstrong firstborn son Steve (Laurie) runs the Christmas Eve command with crack precision while coveting his aging dad’s gig.
Despite his not-so-secret ambitions, Steve is destined to be the subordinate Claus while sweet but klutzy younger brother Arthur (McAvoy) contentedly heads up the Letters to Santa Department.
But when a wrapped bicycle destined for a little girl in Cornwall turns out to have missed the big shipment, Arthur, determined that no child be left behind, goes on a rogue mission to personally deliver the present with the help of his not-quite-with-it Grandsanta (a terrific Nighy) and his old-school sleigh.
In her first feature animated outing, director and co-writer (with Peter Baynham) Sarah Smith not only successfully keeps this intricate operation humming, she instills a welcome female sensibility long missing from the boy’s club that is Santa’s workshop.
This time, Mrs. Claus (Imelda Staunton) is no longer the only woman in town thanks to the presence of Bryony (a wonderful Ashley Jensen), a fiercely devoted member of Santa’s Giftwrap Battalion — and likely the only elf ever presented sporting an eyebrow ring — who manages to steal most of her scenes.
Visually, Arthur Christmas is splendidly state-of-the-art and vividly appointed right down to the tiniest detail.
The frosty milieu may at times be reminiscent of Polar Express but with much more personality.
Maintaining the warmly playful tone is Harry Gregson-Williams’ buoyant score; while Justin Bieber’s Jackson 5-flavored take on “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town” manages to sneak along for the ride without feeling gratuitously out of place.

Max Borenstein GODZILLA REMAKE
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Max Borenstein has been tapped to write the planned remake of Godzilla.
Gareth Edwards, the director of the indie sci-fi movie Monsters, is attached to direct the creature feature centered on the giant city-destroying and monster-fighting lizard, which is in development at Legendary Pictures.
Legendary's Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni are producing along with Dan Lin, Roy Lee and Brian Rogers. Warner Bros. will distribute per its deal with Legendary.
David Goyer (The Dark Knight) previously worked on the script.
Borenstein, who just turned in his script for Art of the Steal for Warner Bros and producers Kevin McCormick and Zac Efron, is well acquainted with Legendary. He worked on the company’s in-development Jimi Hendrix biopic, Jimi, and rewrote the outfit’s supernatural fantasy The Seventh Son. The latter, based on the Joseph Delaney YA book, is due to go into production with Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore and Ben Barnes attached to star.

Evan Spiliotopoulos ASTEROIDS
The Hollywood Reporter writes that screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos has been hired to work on the script for Universal's Asteroids project.
The studio outbid other suitors for film rights to the simple, late-'70s Atari video game two years ago. The plotline for the film adaptation has evolved into the story of two estranged brothers that must team up to save Earth from an alien race.
Matt Lopez (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) originally worked on the script.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers: Dark of the Moon) is producing.
Universal has Battleship, inspired by a Hasbro board game, hitting theaters in May.
Repped by UTA and manager D.J. Talbot, Spiliotopoulos worked on the script for the Universal film Snow White and the Huntsman, which hits theaters in June, and he is writing Charles Fort for producer Robert Zemeckis, also set up at Universal.

JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, the sequel to 2008's Journey to the Center of the Earth remake hits theaters early next year, and if the trailer is any indication, tropic settings are always recipes for crazy adventures.
Josh Hutcherson, gearing up for his time in the spotlight in the forthcoming Lionsgate adaptation of The Hunger Games (out in theaters March 2012), is back as Sean for the second 3D venture with Vanessa Hudgens' Kailani tagging along. They've also got The Rock (er, Dwayne Johnson) on their side.
Their task? To follow a mysterious radio signal that points to the Mysterious Island, the same one that author Jules Verne wrote about. Of course, it's revealed that some of them has an invested interest in finding this place. They find themselves in the middle of a thunderstorm and before they know it, are on the island (with big bumblebees that people are able to ride) in question.
"Let me warn you, this island is full of dark jungles and terrifying creatures," warns Michael Caine, who plays Hutcherson's grandfather in the film. But of course. There's action, a hint of maybe-romance and many looks of awe, but the best part may be the comedic turn displayed by Johnson, who teaches young Hutcherson about the "peck pop of love."
Walden Media and New Line's Journey 2, directed by Brad Peyton, is out in theaters Feb. 10, 2012.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2011

Chris Columbus THE RIFELMAN REBOOT?
CBS is looking to revive The Rifleman with Harry Potter director Chris Columbus.
The project, which hails from Carol Mendelsohn Prods. in association with CBS Television Studios, is based on the 1958 classic western series of the same name. The effort will center on Civil War hero Lucas McCain, an unparalleled sharpshooter with a haunted past, who moves to the uncharted New Mexico territory to raise his son Mark. There, he joins forces with the Sheriff to protect his new town and become its unofficial guardian.
The script order is further evidence of TV's current love affair with the western genre. In addition to AMC's Hell on Wheels, which opened to an impressive 4.4 million viewers Sunday, TNT is prepping Gateway while the networks continue to add projects to their development coffers.
Proof: ABC has nabbed Gunslinger from David Zabel (Detroit 1-8-7) and Hangtown, a procedural pitch set in the Wild West, from Battlestar Galactica mastermind Ron Moore. CBS and author Nicholas Pileggi (Good Fellas) are preparing Ralph Lamb, based on the 1960s adventures of a real-life cowboy- turned-Las Vegas sheriff, while NBC has ordered a script for Shaun Cassidy's 1840s-set The Frontier.
Columbus (Stepmom, Mrs. Doubtfire, Home Alone), who recently inked a three for one deal with CBS, is attached to executive produce and direct the Rifleman reboot, with Laeta Kalogridis (Avatar, Shutter Island) and Patrick Lussier on board as writers and EPs. Joining them as executive producers are Julie Weitz and CSI's Mendelsohn, for whom this project marks a sixth network sale this development season.
Original producer Arthur Gardner and his son Steven as well as original proudcer Jules Levy's son Robert will also serve as producers on the project.

DREAMT
Safady Entertainment has announced that they have acquired Dreamt, a psychological thriller written by Andrew Alexander that they will develop for Martin Weisz to direct.
Set in modern day, Dreamt tells the tale of two people who have a supernatural connection and therefore are actually dreaming in each other's lives. Conflict ensues after the men discover each other's existence, leading one man to try to take over the other's life and stopping at nothing to get it.
"We're excited to tell a thrilling, exciting story with an amazing twist to it," says producer Gary Safady, adding: "The script has all the elements for intrigue and fascination to capture the audience from the opening frame of the film. Andrew has crafted an amazing story in the vain of 'Memento' and 'Fight Club'."
Weisz, best known for directing The Hills Have Eyes II, has also shot over 350 music videos for artists such as Puff Daddy, Korn, Live, Sisqo, Nickelback, Fuel, and numerous others.
"We believed that Martin's visual capabilities, intuition with actors, accompanied by his passion for this project will create an amazing film," Safady adds.
Pre-production on this action-thriller is expected to begin February 2012 with principal photography beginning April 2012.
"Martin has been a great friend of mine and a couple months ago told me I had to read this script," says Safady's producing partner Craig Chapman. "That night I read it three times and said we have to make this movie. Good material and great writing fuel our business. We were lucky to stumble upon a gem!"

Snow White SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN
Universal Pictures has just debuted a brand-new banner for their upcoming fairytale epic, Snow White and the Huntsman.
Directed by Rupert Sanders, the epic action-adventure stars Kristen Stewart as the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Charlize Theron), who is out to destroy her. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) who was dispatched to kill her. Sam Claflin joins the cast as the prince long enchanted by Snow White's beauty and power.
Snow White and the Huntsman is coming to theaters on June 1, 2012.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2011

Robocop ROBOCOP REBOOT
We love RoboCop's story of police officer Alex Murphy-turned-crime-fighting machine, as well as the 1987 film's dark humor. We were a little concerned last month when director Jose Padilha rejected the script of highly successful screenwriter Darren Aronofsky in favor of his own take on the film.
But now Padilha explains his vision.
And it turns out his vision is very specific. According to SuperheroHype, the Portugese director said:
In the first RoboCop when Alex Murphy is shot, gunned down, then you see some hospitals and stuff and then you cut to him as RoboCop. My movie is between those two cuts.
RoboCop isn't just a standard cop movie set in a dystopian future. It has some serious social and satirical commentary, and even touches upon the nature of humanity.
It looks as if Padilha will maintain first RoboCop director Paul Verhoven's multilayered themes:
... the concept of RoboCop is brilliant, first because it lends itself to a lot of social criticism, but also because it poses a question, 'To when do you lose you humanity?' The way it does that is by replacing body parts with machine parts, and that's very smart because guess what? It's going to happen!" ...
How do you make RoboCop? How do you slowly bring a guy to be a robot? How do you actually take humanity out of someone and how do you program a brain, so to speak, and how does that affect an individual?"
It's good to know that Padilha won't be dumbing down the reboot. But will the new RoboCop be as funny as the first one? If so, we'd totally buy that for a dollar.

SPARTACUS
Looks like Starz really has faith in its new Spartacus (Liam McIntyre), because the hit series has just been renewed for a third season that'll probably be filled again with lots more sex, sand and blood.
The news of a third season renewal comes before season two, titled Spartacus: Vengeance, even starts airing on Starz Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, at 10 p.m. Preproduction on the as-yet-untitled third series will begin in New Zealand in early 2012.
Starz Media Managing Director Carmi Zlotnik said in a new press release that "There is no denying the impact Spartacus has had in the marketplace with fans across the globe thirsting for the continuation of the epic tale. Vengeance brings unparalleled action and drama to STARZ viewers in January. We are thrilled to come to an early agreement that allows the writers and talent to get right back to work in preparing for season three."
"Many surprises are in store for Vengeance viewers this year,'' said executive producer Rob Tapert. ''But rest assured the multi-layered plot and richly developed characters will continue to be a trademark of this series. It's incredibly gratifying to see how the story has resonated so well with viewers worldwide."
"The executives at Starz have been extremely supportive in giving us creative freedom and allowing us to tell the story in a rich, yet bold way that leaves an indelible mark on its fans," added Steven S. DeKight, also executive producer.
We're really quite thrilled that Spartacus is already getting a third season renewal.
Spartacus: Vengeance stars Liam McIntyre, Lucy Lawless, Peter Mensah, Manu Bennett, Dustin Clare, Nick E. Tarabay and Katrina Law.

Blastr NEW APP FOR IPHONE/IPAD
Syfy launched a new version of the Blastr app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch with a bunch of new features yesterday.
Commenting - Yes, it's finally here. You can now read and add comments to any Blastr article without leaving the app. Comments in the app are the same as on the site, and you can use your Facebook account to log in or leave comments anonymously.
Sharing - We've made it easy to share articles via Facebook, Twitter and email
Photos - Photos from articles can now be saved to your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad's camera roll for emailing, posting or using as wallpaper or lock screen backgrounds.
Favorites - Articles can now be saved to a Favorites section for easy reading offline. This feature also makes it easier to follow the comments on an older article that may have worked its way down the list.
Download the app from here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blastr/id303687966?mt=8
Android owners. All of the above upgrades will be coming to Android in the next few weeks, including added support for Android tablets.

Ridley Scott PROMETHEUS
A while back we finally got confirmation that Ridley Scott's Prometheus does tie in to his Alien franchise after all, but what we didn't hear was how. Now Scott is speaking up, and though the details are vague, he says that the connection lies in the film's final eight minutes.
Scott seemed to hint back in January that the films are only loosely tied when he said that only a "keen fan will recognize strands of Alien's DNA," but a quote from an interview at Speakeasy seems to suggest that he's got deliberate plans for just how that DNA winds up in the new flick.
Scott says that by the last eight minutes of Prometheus, the film will have evolved into "a pretty good DNA of the Alien one." Details about every aspect of this film have been kept quite quiet so far, so it's hard to expect anything more than that, but it is nice to know there's some deliberate sense of planning with regard to how the films tie together. Whether this connection is visual, plot-based or just thematic is something we'll have to wait and see.
Scott also spoke on other aspects of the production, including the film's central theme. It's derived from the Greek myth of Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from the gods to give to man. In Scott's film, the characters will grapple with what happens when they steal from the gods, so to speak.
"Fire is our first form of technology," Scott says, and so by taking fire, the higher being is punished "in perpetuity in a horrible fashion."
Scott also noted that he's once again turning to practical special effects to create the sci-fi world of Prometheus:
"I'm a great believer in filming the real thing if you can and so I did a lot of building the real thing."
And on one last little note to clear up any rumors, Scott confirms that Ripley (Sigourney Weaver's Alien character) will not be making a cameo.
Prometheus doesn't hit theaters until June of next year, so that leaves us with a little more than six months left to speculate on what all of this means.

Brian Vaughan UNDER THE DOME
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Lost scribe Brian K. Vaughan has found his next TV gig.
The well-known comic book writer (Y: The Last Man) has been tapped to adapt Stephen King's 2009 novel Under the Dome, which is in development at Showtime.
The premium cable network announced plans to develop a potential drama series based on the book about locals at a Maine locale who battle one another when a force field surrounds their town and cuts them off from the remainder of the world.
King will executive produce the project along with DreamWorks TV's Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank.
In addition to serving as a writer, co-producer and executive story editor on ABC's Lost, Vaughan is an Eisner Award winner for best comic series for Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Ex Machina and Marvel's Ultimate X-Men.
His work on Seasons 4 and 5 of Lost earned a 2009 Writers Guide of America Award for best dramatic series.

Rapace-McCrory SKYFALL
Production has just started on the next James Bond adventure, Skyfall and the film's official Twitter feed has revealed two more additions to the expansive cast. Helen McCrory and Ola Rapace are now attached in undisclosed roles.
McCrory is best known for her turn as Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter films. She'll also soon be on the big screen soon in Martin Scorsese's Hugo.
Rapace, meanwhile, is primarily known for his work in Swedish cinema and is the former husband of actress Noomi Rapace.
The pair join Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Dame Judi Dench, Naomie Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney and Ben Whishaw in the November 9, 2012 release, which has been officially described as follows:
In 'Skyfall,' Bond's loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2011

Puss N Boots WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
When DreamWorks Animation moved their animated spin-off Puss In Boots up a week to late October, some may have thought CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg had lost his mind. Its $35 million opening was seen as somewhat disappointing, but they've clearly gotten the last laugh as the movie, starring the character voiced by Antonio Banderas in the "Shrek" movies, held up astoundingly in its second weekend to take first place for a second week in a row with $33 million. Clearly, it was hurt last weekend by facing a combination of the World Series, a huge snowstorm and Halloween parties, and its impressive second weekend take was off just 3% from its opening weekend, something that rarely happens without a holiday bump.
The pairing of Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller in Brett Ratner's action-comedy Tower Heist (Universal) probably should have grossed more than the roughly $25.1 million it made in 3,367 theaters this weekend. It opened slightly ahead of Puss In Boots on Friday with $8.1 million, but fell behind on Saturday to settle for second place over the weekend.
It fared better than the third installment of the stoner franchise A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (New Line/Warner Bros.), which opened with $13.1 million in 2,875 theaters, a lower opening than its predecessor despite the higher price of 3D tickets.
Paramount Pictures' Paranormal Activity 3 dropped to fourth place with $8.5 million, having now grossed $95.3 million in theaters, which puts it well past its predecessor as it tries to catch up to the first movie's $108 million gross.
Andrew (Gattaca) Niccol's sci-fi thriller In Time (20th Century Fox), starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, took fifth place with $7.7 million and $24.2 million total, down just 36% from last weekend.
Craig Brewer's remake of Footloose (Paramount) ended its first month in theaters in sixth place with $4.5 million and $44.8 million total, while Shawn Levy's Real Steel (DreamWorks), starring Hugh Jackman, added $3.4 million to its own total in seventh place. It's grossed $78.7 million to date.
Eighth place went to the Hunter S. Thompson adaptation The Rum Diary (FilmDistrict), starring Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart and Amanda Heard, with just under $3 million and $10.4 million total.
Ninth and tenth went to two Sony movies, George Clooney's political thriller The Ides of March with $2 million and the baseball drama Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill with $1.9 million. Ides has $36.8 million banked compared to Moneyball's $70.7 million.
The Top 10 grossed roughly $102 million, down significantly from last year's November opener which was lead by DreamWorks Animation's Megamind with $48 million and the Todd Phillips road comedy Due Date (Warner Bros.) with $33 million.

Ben Kingsley A COMMON MAN
Myriad Pictures has signed with Asia Digital Entertainment to distribute the action-thriller A Common Man, starring Ben Kingsley and Ben Cross. The film, which recently completed production in Sri Lanka, was adapted for the screen and directed by Chandran Rutnam (The Road From Elephant Pass).
In A Common Man, which is set in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a mysterious man (Kingsley) has planted 5 bombs in the politically-scarred city that are set to explode unless four major terrorists are immediately released from prison. When he calls in his demands to the Deputy Inspector General of the Colombo Police Department (Cross), it sets in motion an ideological and deadly confrontation between the truth and duty.
Myriad CEO Kirk D'Amico is selling the title at the American Film Market this week. "Early response to our sales promo has been terrific," said D'Amico. "Ben Kingsley is a very big star internationally and the film has the right components buyers look for – a big star with a lot of action. We're excited to be handling the film for Paul and his team."
A Common Man was produced by Manohan Nanayakkara, B.S. Radha Krishnan and Chandran Rutnam. Executive producers are Paul Mason and Jon Sheinberg. The movie is a production of Asia Digital Entertainment which produced the feature film, The Road From Elephant Pass, a Finalist Award winner at the 2011 New York International Television and Film Awards.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2011

TIME CHANGE
Did you remember to roll back your clock this morning? I hope so. Otherwise you are going to be really early for anything you schedule to do today!!!!

FRIDAY NIGHT RATINGS
Fast National ratings for Friday, Nov. 4, 2011
After a solid premiere last week NBC's "Grimm" maintained an impressive amount of its audience, winning the hour for NBC in the 18-49 demo. Its lead in, "Chuck," continues to struggle in its final season with a series low last night, meaning that the World Series competition last week likely can't be blamed for its dismal premiere numbers.
As always, the CBS procedurals dominated the night. On FOX, "Fringe" got a slight boost from the return of Peter (Joshua Jackson). "Nikita" and "Supernatural" remain steady performers for The CW.
CBS averaged 10.2 million viewers and a 6.5 rating/22 share in households for the night, easily beating ABC with 5.0 viewers and a 3.3 rating/6 share. NBC followed (4.3 million, 2.8/5) with FOX (3.4 million, 2.1/4) and CW (1.7 million, 1.1/2) trailing.
In the adults 18-49 demographic, CBS won the night with a 1.6, followed by FOX (1.4), NBC (1.3), ABC (1.2), and The CW (0.7).

BIGSTAR GIVING BREAK TO COLLEGE STUDENTS
After the enormous success of last month's deal for former Netflix subscribers, BIGSTAR has decided to take it to college campuses where students and faculty alike can get a much needed break. For cheaper than a 6-pack of Natural Light, a college student can get hundreds of films a year streamed directly to a list of internet-connected devices, including iPad, iPhone, Yahoo! Widgets, (Samsung, Vizio, Sony TV), Google Android, Roku Players, Palm WebOS, Vizio TVs, Samsung TVs, PopBox players and more. http://www.bigstar.tv.
So for the month of November, college students and faculty at universities everywhere can now sign up for a full year membership to BIGSTAR's extensive streaming movie library for only $7.99 with proof of a valid ".EDU" email address. (promo code "EDUNOV")

SATURDAY, NOVEMER 5, 2011

THE HOBBIT
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit director Peter Jackson has just made a new thrilling production video available to all of us Middle-earth fans. This time, we're being plunged into the world of 3-D, and we get to see those dwarves and hobbits in action.
The fourth production video blog Jackson recently made available on his Facebook page mainly concentrates on the intricacies of filming in HD 3-D with about four dozen RED Epic cameras, which, as you'll see for yourselves, Jackson has all named—yes, named—after family members, pets and even the Beatles.
Peter Jackson says shooting The Hobbit in 3-D is ''a dream come true,'' and we learn that the Oscar-winning director would have filmed LOTR in 3-D if the same technology had been available back when he set out to film his masterpiece more than 12 years ago.
The very interesting (if fairly technical) production blog also features some nifty behind-the-scenes footage (while filming was taking place on a soundstage) and a look at some very cool scenes taken straight from the Tolkien book—namely something that happens in the very sinister Mirkwood forest (cocoons and spider webs, everyone!).
We also get to see Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen), Bilbo (Martin Freeman), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Frodo (Elijah Wood) and the company of dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) in action; sprinkled with a few wood elves, more of Bag End, and is that Rivendell we spy?
Another really cool part of Jackson's production video blog is to see renowned Tolkien illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe—who are once again providing all the amazing art for the film—realizing some pretty cool 3-D illustrations. If you've got some 3-D glasses tucked away somewhere, you should run and get them to see the awesome 3-D effect of one of their drawings (we should rather say TWO drawings).
Part one, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, is set to hit theaters on Dec. 14, 2012. Part two, titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again, will be in theaters on Dec. 13, 2013.

Keaton/Monaghan PENTHOUSE NORTH
Dimension Films has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to Penthouse North, a thriller that will star Michael Keaton and Michelle Monaghan and being directed by Joseph Ruben. A release date has not been scheduled yet.
The psychological thriller sees Monaghan as a photojournalist blinded in Iraq who falls prey to a criminal (Keaton) who believes there are stolen diamonds hidden in her apartment. THR broke the news about the project at September’s TIFF.
The movie is scheduled to begin shooting in Ottawa, Canada on Dec. 7. Jeff Sackman and Michael Baker are producing the film along with Ruben. Also producing is David Loughery, who wrote the screenplay. Jon Shiffman joins as executive producer.

Benicio Del Toro STAR TREK SEQUEL MAY HAVE ITS VILLAIN
J.J. Abrams untitled Star Trek sequel may have found its villain. Variety reports that, while nothing is yet official, Benicio Del Toro is expected to be offered the role imminently.
Famous for his secrecy, Abrams has reportedly not yet revealed even to the actor what the role will be, though production is expected to begin this January.
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Anton Yelchin are expected to all reprise their roles as members of the Enterprise crew with Abrams back in the director's chair and a script again from Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

THE MUPPET MOVIE
Another new clip from Walt Disney Pictures'The Muppets is now online!
In the November 23 release, Walter, the world's biggest Muppet fan, and his friends Gary (Jason Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams) from Smalltown, USA, discover the nefarious plan of oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to raze the Muppet Theater and drill for the oil recently discovered beneath the Muppets' former stomping grounds. To stage The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever and raise the $10 million needed to save the theater, Walter, Mary and Gary help Kermit reunite the Muppets, who have all gone their separate ways: Fozzie now performs with a Reno casino tribute band called the Moopets, Miss Piggy is a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, Animal is in a Santa Barbara clinic for anger management, and Gonzo is a high-powered plumbing magnate.

Skyfall Logo SKYFALL - NEW JAMES BOND MOVIE
This morning, EON Productions, MGM and Sony Pictures announced the start of production for the 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall.
Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli today presented the cast of the 23rd James Bond adventure, entitled SKYFALL. The film, from Albert R. Broccoli's Eon Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and Sony Pictures Entertainment, is directed by Academy Award? winner Sam Mendes and stars Daniel Craig, who returns for his third film as James Bond 007. The screenplay is written by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and John Logan. SKYFALL, which goes into production on Monday, November 7th, will begin its worldwide roll-out in the UK and Ireland on October 26th 2012 and in North America on November 9th 2012.
Joining Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Director Sam Mendes were members of the cast of SKYFALL, including: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Dame Judi Dench, Naomie Harris and Berenice Marlohe. The filmmakers also announced Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney and Ben Whishaw.
In SKYFALL, Bond's loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.
"We're so delighted to have Sam Mendes direct SKYFALL and be working once again with Daniel Craig. We've a great script, an extraordinary cast and an incredibly talented creative team for this latest James Bond adventure," said Wilson and Broccoli.
The Director of Photography is Roger Deakins, a nine-time Oscar nominee who previously shot the films Jarhead and Revolutionary Road for Mendes. The Production Designer is Oscar winner Dennis Gassner, who previously designed Quantum of Solace and collaborated with Mendes on the films Road to Perdition and Jarhead. The Editor is Stuart Baird, A.C.E., whose many credits include Casino Royale. Jany Temime, whose many credits include the Harry Potter series, In Bruges, and Children of Men, is the Costume Designer. Action specialist Alexander Witt is the 2nd Unit Director. Gary Powell is Stunt Co-ordinator, Chris Corbould is SFX Supervisor and Steve Begg is Visual Effects Supervisor, all of whom have worked on previous Bond films.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Bones Premiere THURSDAY NIGHT RATINGS
Bones returned for its seventh season and the beloved Fox drama didn't miss a beat.
Bones (11.3 million total viewers, 3.6 rating in adults 18-49 demographic) grew 22 percent in the coveted demo from last season's premiere and posted its highest-rated opener since season four, which launched Sept. 3, 2008. In its 8 p.m. time slot, only CBS' The Big Bang Theory and Rules of Engagement topped it in the hour (4.4 vs. 3.6).
That proved helpful for the newly renewed The X Factor (10 million, 3.3), which aired its first elimination episode of the season. The reality competition series retained 97 percent of last week's audience on Thursday and was down one-tenth from Wednesday's live performance show. Notably, ABC's Grey's Anatomy topped X Factor at 9 p.m. in 18-49 (3.5 vs. 3.3). Fox overtook CBS for the slim victory in the demo with an average rating of 3.4 in primetime, while the latter notched another win for viewership (12.9 million).
NBC's Thursday comedies all grew from last week, the most significant being Community (3.9 million, 1.7), which improved 21 percent. Parks and Recreation (3.9 million, 2.0), The Office (6 million, 3.1) and Whitney (4.3 million, 2.1) all rose, including the lone drama on the lineup Prime Suspect (4.5 million, 1.2). With the network rerunning Prime Suspect throughout the week in an effort to increase sampling, the ratings boost was just 9 percent.
CBS' The Big Bang Theory (15.5 million, 5.1), meanwhile, matched its Thursday high in adults 18-49 and was the night's most-watched and highest-rated program. That boosted Rules of Engagement (11.9 million, 3.7), which hit highs in viewership and 18-49. The Mentalist (13.5 million, 2.9) rose 16 percent and drew its highest rating in the demo since early April and posted its biggest audience since the season opener. Person of Interest (11.7 million, 2.7) remained steady.
ABC continues to burn off the rest of its Charlie's Angels (5.4 million, 1.2) episodes. And though the reboot remained steady from its last original two weeks ago, it still matched the canceled series' lowest-rated episode. Grey's Anatomy (9.3 million, 3.5) dipped 5 percent, while Private Practice (6.8 million, 2.6) grew 8 percent.
The CW's Vampire Diaries (3.3 million, 1.5) matched last week's season high in both total viewers and the demo. The Secret Circle (2.3 million, 0.9) was steady.

Olivia FRINGE
Fringe is finally back, and it's got a lot of explaining to do! The series cast recently answered some burning questions regarding Peter Bishop's return and the insanity that follows.
Peter Bishop won't have the reunion he was hoping for. His lady love, Olivia, doesn't remember him, so his reappearance has no effect on her life. Anna Torv, who plays Agent Dunham, revealed, "He's never existed and doesn't exist in this universe. He's the one entering this world ... whereas Walter and Olivia and Astrid have made do. This is how we've always known [life] to be." Can you say odd man out?
With the timeline change, certain events have been put on the back burner or erased completely. For example: Whatever happened to baby Henry? The child of Alt-Olivia and Peter just wasn't meant to be. Torv says, "There's no possible way that Henry could happen in this timeline, because Altlivia never met Peter." We knew that would happen, but part of us still wondered if he had a shot.
As for Walter, he won't embrace Peter with open arms. It might take a whole season (or more) for the duo to return to normal. Walter's portrayer, John Noble, claims the pair's relationship "might" get back on track "if Walter acknowledges this is his son from a different dimension," which sounds like a tough pill to swallow. Considering the amount of time Walter's spent mourning his death, we don't expect him and Peter to become a big, happy family overnight.
Fringe airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on Fox.

[the films of] Tim Burton from Kees van Dijkhuizen jr. on Vimeo.

TIM BURTON'S MOVIES IN BRIEF
Scanning through this supercut of all of Tim Burton's films�from Pee Wee's Big Adventure to Alice in Wonderland and everything in between�two things become abundantly clear: He's got an instantly identifiable look, and he really loves Johnny Depp.
There's nothing like butting all of a filmmaker's work together to illuminate his stylistic tics. Burton seems to favor sets that make no real attempt to portray reality, crazy-ass hair on his heroes, and porcelain-smooth skin on his heroines.
And, yes, the outsider's place in society.
Still, I'd have been okay not being reminded of Burton's Planet of the Apes, but maybe that's just me.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2011

Lucy Griffiths TRUE BLOOD NEWS
Everyone's favorite tall, blond and undead viking vampire Sheriff, Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) is getting a sister on the next season of HBO's hit series True Blood. Wanna guess who the lucky lady is? Hint: she's a former Robin Hood star.
The news just broke over at Mike Ausiello's TV Line that Lucy Griffiths (who played a kick-ass Xena-esque maid Marianne on the BBC drama Robin Hood) nabbed the very important role of Eric's little vamp sister Nora:
Griffiths will play Nora, Eric's (Alexander Skarsgard) centuries-old vampire "sister" (they were both progenies of Godric) who is working as a double agent within the Vampire Authority. Described as intelligent, intimidating, cool under pressure and a very good liar, Nora loves Eric deeply, but has dedicated her life to a higher purpose.
Lara Pulver, who played Sookie Stackhouse's (Anna Paquin) fairy God Mother Claudine (God rest her fairy soul), is the other Robin Hood alum. She played Isabella in the third and last season of the BBC series.
As Maid Marianne, Griffiths sent both Robin (Jonas Armstrong) and Guy of Gisborne (Richard Armitage)'s hearts aflutter for two seasons in the medieval action-drama U.K. series. Question is, will she get to do the same to Eric, or perhaps to one of our other Bon Temps favorites?
Much like Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) and Godric (Allan Hyde) before her, Nora is also a character purely created for the HBO TV show, since none of them exist in author Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse popular book series.
We're also thinking Nora's the certain someone in high places who's been protecting Eric for a while. You know, the one Nan Flanagan (Jessica Tuck) mentioned to King Bill (Stephen Moyer)? We're taking bets right now.
True Blood season 5 will return in the Summer of 2012, on HBO.

UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION, AWAKENING
The first full-length trailer for the much-anticipated fourth installment in the Underworld franchise has been released, and it's clear that this time the vamps have much more than Lycans to worry about.
Set 12 years after the events in Underworld: Evolution, Awakening takes place in a world where humans have discovered the existence of both vampires and Lycans and are working to eliminate both. A worldwide war against the supernatural is underway, and Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is trapped in a human lab.
In the trailer, Selene escapes her captors, finds a more dangerous world to contend with and picks up her guns to do battle with the human exterminators (and a few of their more deadly battle toys).
Underworld Awakening also stars Stephen Rea, Michael Ealy, Theo James, India Eisley and Charles Dance, and is directed by Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein. The flick is set to hit theaters Jan. 20.

Hunger Games HUNGER GAMES
While HUNGER GAMES and TWILIGHT book series are YA blockbusters and both center around the adventures of young heroines, Jennifer Lawrence, the X-Men: First Class alum is quick to point out that there are very real differences.
The absence of sparkly vampires and shirt-challenged werewolves notwithstanding, Lawrence is also talking about the size of Hunger Games' rabid fanbase compared to the Twihards. As she told Vanity Fair:
"Hunger Games is not Twilight, and while I hear the comparisons, it's really premature to say that it will be the same phenomenon. I'm so proud of the work we did on the film�Gary [Ross, director] and the entire cast and crew were amazing, and I can't wait for it to be brought to life because I think it's an important story. If it does become a crazy phenomenon, I'll soak up my freedom now!"
Lawrence also spilled a bit on what drew her to the character to begin with:
"Katniss is an incredible character: she's a hunter but not a killer, a 16-year-old who's being forced into the arena. These kids are killing one another only because if they don't they'll die. It's needless, pointless, unjustified violence. It's heartbreaking. When I auditioned, I told Gary, 'I understand if you don't hire me, but please remember that after Katniss shoots a bow and kills someone, her face cannot be badass.' So there's nothing cool about her. It's not like she looks around the arena and goes, Yeah, I got this. I think she looks around helplessly, and thinks, I made a promise to my sister that I would survive; now I have to kill in order to do so.'

Dark Tower THE DARK TOWER
There have been encouraging signs of life for Ron Howard's epic adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower lately, including the news that HBO has signed on for the TV end of the project. But don't get too excited. Even though things are looking up for The Dark Tower, Howard says it could take years for anything to get done.
In a new interview, Howard seems most enthusiastic about his current work in progress, the Formula One racing drama Rush, a film he picked up when The Dark Tower began to suffer setbacks. Rush wasn't the kind of film he was interested in making, until his Frost/Nixon collaborator Peter Morgan showed him a script, and he turned from epic fantasy to epic racing:
"Because these are fascinating characters�ballsy, masculine guys. It was a very dangerous era in racing, and here are two absolute individuals at the height of their powers. It makes for great drama and very exciting action. I wasn't a die-hard Formula One fan before I read Peter's script, but I've been immersing myself in this world. I think the excitement I feel as a fresh convert may be infectious."
When asked about The Dark Tower, Howard said script developments are still happening to make the story work with a new, lower budget, and that any recent news on the project that includes any hint of a release date makes him wince. When it comes to The Dark Tower, there seems to be no real timeline in place, and even as he's talking about the project, his thoughts still turn back to Rush.
"We are continuing to work on the script to find ways to make the budget more manageable and still deliver the work in a way that the project deserves. We were always racing and fast-tracking the project, so I always wince when I see something written about it and there's a release date in there. These kinds of projects often take years to come together in the right ways. But I am in love with the material, and the minute it can come together in the right way, I am fully committed to it. Rush was kind of like a gift. I love stories that center on fascinating characters, and here you have psychologically complex, rare human beings, and they are also young and cool�and it's all in this unbelievably glamorous, sexy period in the mid-'70s. And yet, in terms of emotion and the heartbeat of the story, I think they will be very relatable. If you don't know anything about Formula One, I'm going to present it in such a way that you'll very likely fall in love with it. If you do know Formula One, I'm going to be very respectful and deliver a film you'll love, too."
While this means we might not see any real results from The Dark Tower for a good while, there also might be an encouraging way to look at this. Which would you rather have, a rushed adaptation that's mediocre or a patient adaptation that's really great?

Wrath of the Titans CLASH OF THE TITANS 3
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Warner Bros, which is in post-production with Legendary Pictures on Clash of the Titans sequel Wrath of the Titans, is developing the next installment of the tales inspired by the Greek myths, even though Wrath doesn’t open until March 30, 2012.
Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson, who co-wrote Wrath’s screenplay with Steven Knight and also share story credit with Greg Berlanti, have been enlisted to develop and write a treatment for the threequel, which would continue the adventures of Perseus, played by Sam Worthington.
Insiders say that Agenor, a sidekick-like character played by Toby Kebbell, may also figure into the new story, as the second movie leaves the door open for the character’s return.
The producing team behind Wrath, Basil Iwanyk and Polly Johnsen among it, would return for the new installment should it go forward as would Wrath Jonathan Liebesman, though no deals are in place.
Titans, directed by Louis Leterrier, grossed $163 million domestically and a whopping $330 million overseas.
Wrath again reunites not only Worthington but Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Danny Huston as Greek gods, and throws in actors Edgar Ramirez, Rosamund Pike and Bill Nighy among others.
Mazeau and Johnson are not a writing team but became one for the Titans movies. Both were well-liked by Warners: Mazeau, repped by CAA and Circle of Confusion, worked on The Flash and Jonny Quest for the studio while Johnson, repped by Paradigm, worked on 2009's The Oprhan and 2011's Red Riding Hood.

WE BOUGHT A ZOO
An international trailer for Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo has been released.
The film is the true story about a single dad who decides his family needs a fresh start, so he and his two children move to the most unlikely of places: a zoo. With the help of an eclectic staff, and with many misadventures along the way, the family works to return the dilapidated zoo to its former wonder and glory.
Starring Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, Patrick Fugit, Elle Fanning and John Michael Higgins, We Bought a Zoo opens on December 23.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2011

THE MUPPET MOVIE
The Muppets make everything better. Somehow the cute, fuzzy characters managed to turn Twilight into comedy gold with their latest trailer. The Muppets takes a stab at the vampire sequel Breaking Dawn and also gives the new Paranormal Activity a run for its money.
Disney has released what they claim is the final parody trailer for this month's The Muppets. Over the spring and summer, the film's viral campaign spoofed some of the year's most talked about movies. The Hangover Part II, The Green Lantern, and even The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo weren't safe from its wrath.
The Muppets' latest parody pokes fun at the dark and gloomy films that dominate the fall. Twilight went from Breaking Dawn to Breaking Prawn with Pepe, everyone's favorite shrimp, while also embracing some Abnormal Activity. Other victims include the animated features Puss in Boots (i.e. Fuss in Boots) and Happy Feet.

Doc Savage DOC SAVAGE NEWS
That epic new Doc Savage movie we've been waiting on for eons still has some life left in it. Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout) is attached to direct the strapping hero and believes the adaptation will get his full attention once his other little comic movie, Iron Man 3, is done.
Black came aboard the project back in 2009 to co-write the screenplay, then was assigned to direct for Columbia in February of last year. It is rumored to be a period piece set in the '30s, the era in which pulp magazines were enjoying vast popularity. Seems like a juicy gig for the pulp-loving Black's exotic tastes.
In a chat with Comic Book Resources at last week's Long Beach Comic Con, Black outlined the feasibility of the Man of Bronze bursting onto the big screen soon:
"If we do Doc Savage, the challenge is make it adult," said Black. "I think that there are so few practitioners of action movies these days who are doing worthwhile stuff that it behooves me to try to weigh in and try to do the Raiders Of The Lost Ark-type stuff, to try to recapture the magic. When I stood in line for a summer movie when I was coming up at eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old, I stood in line for two and a half, three hours and you got the goods! They delivered! And if they didn't, you went outside and said, 'Arg, Indiana Jones 2' wasn't that good, I stood in line for three hours!' Now, you don't know what you're getting!
"There's just, I think, a decrease in the quality of these types of comic book action movies, and so it's almost irresistible, sometimes, to try and shore that up a little, or weigh in at least with my opinion about what's wrong and how it should be. It's not the next thing I want to do. I want to do something more serious, a smaller movie at some point. I'm sure there's a Winter's Bone in my future. But for now, I've immersed myself in comics. I do want to do Doc Savage. The script is still evolving and I'm kind of busy, but I want to get it right and I want to do it."
Doc Savage was first published in U.S. pulp magazines during the glory years of the '30s and '40s and was created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic. Lester Dent served as the beefy action hero's main writer. Savage was a surgeon, scientist, adventurer, inventor, explorer, musician and martial arts master. Raised from birth to fight crime and evil, he lived in an Empire State Building-like skyscraper and kept a secret frozen lair in the Arctic. The popular bare-chested badass would go on to appear in radio serials, film and comic books, and was reprinted for modern audiences in a series of paperbacks.
In 1975, a faithful but campy version hit Hollywood, titled Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze starring ex- Tarzan actor Ron Ely. Let's hope Black's rendition returns to the retro rawness and adventurous spirit infused in the original comics. Old-school heroes never die, they just keep swingin'.

Taylor Lautner NEXT
Following the less-than-stellar reception of his latest, Abduction, Taylor Lautner is now planning to go indie, starring in a film from Gus Van Sant. The Hollywood Reporter has the news, saying that Lautner will also produce the film and that it will be based on an unspecified New Yorker article that the star optioned.
Van Sant's latest film, Restless, starred Mia Wasikowska and Henry Hopper. He also directed the pilot episode of the new Starz original series "Boss," featuring Kelsey Grammer in the lead.
Lautner himself can next be seen on the big screen in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, hitting theaters on November 18th.

MADISON COUNTY
A new trailer for indie horror film Madison County is in. The film had its world premiere at Screamfest and will be present at the American Film Market (AFM) this week. The poster was designed by artist Tom "The Dude" Hodge, who created the Hobo with a Shotgun poster.
Madison County is about a group of college students that travel to a remote, mountain town called Madison County to interview the author of a tell-all book on the accounts of the grisly murders that happened in the town over two decades ago. Upon their arrival, the author is no where to be found and the townspeople state that they've "not seen him in years." They also deny that Damien Ewell, the notorious murderer, ever existed and that the murders never happened. As the kids start to dig around to get their own answers, they come to find that the stories, and Damien, maybe more real than the townspeople are letting on.
Written and directed by Eric England, the film stars Ace Marrero, Colley Bailey, Adrienne Harrell, Matt Mercer, Nick Principe, Joanna Sotomura, Natalie Scheetz and Katie Stegeman.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2011

IN YOUR EYES
Joss Whedon, the geek king who's hand has graced "The Avengers," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the completely-done-in-secret feature film adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" has announced a brand new project.
Whedon and his wife, Kai Cole, have formed a "micro-studio" called Bellwether Pictures. Their first project? A supernatural romance called "In Your Eyes."
According to Deadline. the film "tells a metaphysical love story about two seemingly polar opposites who are deeply connected in ways neither could have ever imagined." (No one freak out and start making "Twilight" comparisons. Whedon's vamps and monsters are scary!)
Brin Hill will direct, with Cole and Michael Roiff producing through his company Night & Day Pictures. Whedon will exec produce. The film begins shooting in February.
The always witty Whedon tells Deadline, "I didn't have the wherewithal (or the moxie) to make it without an established production house. I believe, as I did then, that it's a pretty timeless romance, and now, with the creation of Bellwether Pictures (and Brin Hill's elegant, passionate take on the piece) I have the opportunity to prove it. (I also have a 37 percent increase in moxie.)"

BONES
Any "Bones" fan knows that it was hardly love at first sight for FBI agent Seely Booth and forensic scientist Temperance Brennan. It took six seasons for Booth and Brennan to finally hook up. But once they did get together, they really went for it -- the couple is expecting a baby at some point during Season 7.
But even if they weren't romantically attracted to each other at first, this promo FOX released to hype us up for the Season 7 premiere on Thursday (Nov. 3 )at 9 p.m. will remind you that there's been chemistry between the now-couple since day one of their unlikely partnership. It'll also remind you how adorable David Boreanaz is, and how great an actress Emily Deschanel is (not that those two qualities are mutually exclusive).

AMERICAN HORROR STORY RENEWED
Just in time for Halloween, FX announced it will continue to tell Glee co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's American horror stories.
The male-skewing cable network has renewed American Horror Story for a second season.
Starring Friday Night Lights' Connie Britton and The Practice's Dylan McDermott, AHS stands as the network's No. 1 premiere in the 18-49, 18-34 and women 18-34 demographics when factoring in Live+7 ratings according to Nielsen.
The series, which co-stars Jessica Lange and Frances Conroy, opened strong for the network Oct. 5 with its original and encore airings collecting 5 million viewers.
“It’s one thing to have the ambition and guts to reinvent a genre in a way that makes it captivatingly fresh for a broad audience -- it’s something else entirely to have the craft to back that ambition up,� said FX president and GM Jon Landgraf. “Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have hit the trifecta with Nip/Tuck, Glee and now American Horror Story, which will be scaring FX’s viewers to death for many years to come.�
After a 14 percent dip during its second episode, the story about a family that moves into a haunted abode where they're tortured by spirits of the estate's former residents in a metaphor for marriage and infidelity, rebounded with its third and fourth airings, which both set series highs in topped the premiere in the advertiser- coveted adults 18-49 demo as well as adults 18-34.
Murphy and Falchuk split their time between Fox's Glee and AHS, with Murphy telling reporters ahead of the series' premiere that working on two shows has been "energizing."
"If you love something, you make time for it," he said, noting the sound stages are right next to one another. "If that means you give up your weekends, you do it. And that's sort of the mood that we had and the ideology that we had as we approached doing these two shows at once."
Landgraf told reporters in August at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour that he had high hopes for the risky series, calling it a potentially "break through commercial piece of television that's going to be imitated widely if people find it."
Landgraf also expressed hope that the series run for multiple seasons, and assured the roomful of reporters that each season will have a beginning, middle and end.
In addition to Murphy and Falchuk, Dante Di Loreto executive produces the 20th Century Fox Television series.
AHS airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FX; Glee airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on Fox.

LIFE IN A DAY
First announced last summer, the amibitious project Life in a Day is now available to watch for free online (via YouTube).
A collaboration between director Kevin Macdonald, producer Ridley Scott and thousands of volunteer individuals, Life in a Day had contributers send in video of their daily routine, all shot on July 24, 2010. The final film was pulled together from from 4,500 hours of footage sent in from 192 countries.
With two live-streams this past January, the film enjoyed a brief theatrical run and is now permanently available on YouTube with subtitles in 25 different languages.

Bill Paxton KUNG FU
Long planned for a move to the big screen, the 1970's television series Kung Fu may finally be getting a feature adaptation. Deadline reports that Bill Paxton is currently in talks to helm the project and that a shoot is planned for summer of 2012.
The original show ran from 1972 to 1975 and starred David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk traveling across America's old west in search of his half-brother, Danny Caine. A spinoff show launched in 1993 and ran for four seasons, also featuring Carradine in the lead.
Legendary Pictures is developing the project and production is expected to take place in China.
Paxton, though best known as an actor, directed the features Frailty and The Greatest Game Ever Played.

THE MUPPETS
A clip from Walt Disney Pictures' The Muppets has debuted at Yahoo! Movies.
In the November 23 release, Walter, the world's biggest Muppet fan, and his friends Gary (Jason Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams) from Smalltown, USA, discover the nefarious plan of oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to raze the Muppet Theater and drill for the oil recently discovered beneath the Muppets' former stomping grounds. To stage The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever and raise the $10 million needed to save the theater, Walter, Mary and Gary help Kermit reunite the Muppets, who have all gone their separate ways: Fozzie now performs with a Reno casino tribute band called the Moopets, Miss Piggy is a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, Animal is in a Santa Barbara clinic for anger management, and Gonzo is a high-powered plumbing magnate.

JOHN GLENN SCI-FI ACTIONER COMING
John Glenn has come aboard to rewrite the recently announced sci-fi action film from Snakes on a Plane writer Jon Heffernan. Variety has the news, saying that the project is still without an official title.
Originally described as "'Die Hard'" on a space ship", the film is set up at Paramount through Mary Parent's Disruption Entertainment. Parent, Cale Boyter and Brian Spink are producing.
Glenn is best known as the writer behing the 2008 Paramount thriller, Eagle Eye.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2011

Puss N Boots WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
The new all-time Halloween weekend box-office champion is not a horror movie, but an animated film about a fairy-tale cat.
"Puss in Boots" made an estimated $34 million in its opening weekend. If that figure holds up, it will become the highest-grossing opener on a Halloween weekend ever. The current record is held by "Saw III," which made $33.6 million on its 2006 opening.
The $34 million take for "Puss in Boots" is pretty much in line with forecasts after it made $9.6 million on Friday. Most predictions had it in the $35 million range, but snow in the Northeast may have kept the movie's take a little lower than it would have otherwise been.
Last week's winner, "Paranormal Activity 3," took a steep but not unexpected 65-percent drop. It still made $18.35 million, though, and finished second for the weekend. "In Time" finished third with an estimated $12 million, while the weekend's third wide release, "The Rum Diary," was a disappointing fifth with just $5 million. "Anonymous," the William Shakespeare conspiracy drama, pulled in $1 million in limited release.
The weekend's Top 10 movies:
1. "Puss in Boots," $34 million
2. "Paranormal Activity 3," $18.35 million
3. "In Time," $12 million
4. "Footloose," $5.4 million
5. "The Rum Diary," $5 million
6. "Real Steel," $4.7 million
7. "The Three Musketeers," $3.5 million
8. "The Ides of March," $2.7 million
9. "Moneyball," $2.4 million
10. "Courageous," $1.8 million

Freddy Krueger FREDDY KRUEGER MEETS HAWAII FIVE-O
"Hawaii Five-0" gets into the Halloween spirit Monday (Oct. 31) with a guest appearance by the original Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund. As you can see in the clip up above, he's not especially happy to meet up with McGarrett and Co.
Englund plays a homeless man named Samuel Lee who guards a traditional Hawaiian burial site. When a couple filming a documentary about the site is murdered, Five-0 brings him in for questioning -- and he puts a curse on Danny (Scott Caan).
The interrogation scene is, to say the least, a little bit tense. McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) and Weston (Lauren German) more or less play good cop, but Danny, who's already a little angry at the suspect, is in no mood to cut Samuel a break.
Maybe Danny will be cheered by the fact that the episode also features a second appearance by Dr. Gabrielle Asano (Autumn Reeser), the scientist he flirted with a couple weeks back.
The episode, "Ka Iwi Kapu" (Sacred Bones), also has some its spooky bona fides behind the camera: It was directed by Joe Dante ("Gremlins," "Masters of Horror"). "Hawaii Five-0" airs at 10 p.m. ET Monday on CBS.

300: BATTLE OF ARTEMISIA
It's been a few months since word broke that Noam Murro (Smart People) would be helming the the 300 quasi-sequel, 300: Battle of Atemisia. Today, producers Mark Canton and Gianni Nunnari spoke about the project at the junket for their latest, Immortals.
"We have to say that Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad, his writing partner, have killed it," said Canton of the screenplay. "They've done a tremendous job making a highly intelligent, epic story that will stand on its own. But it's not a conventional sequel and, for what we do, that's what you hope and pray for. That you can be original and authentic at the same time."
There's no announced timeline for the project as of yet, but Nunnari says that it's now officially "a work in progress... as opposed to a year ago where it was just something we wanted to do."
As for the rumors of a potential Gerard Butler cameo (as Frank Miller has said that Leonidas appears in his graphic novel, Xerxes, of which the film is somewhat based), Canton played it coy.
"It's too early to say," he smiled, "but we know the answer."
Canton also spoke briefly about his next film, Piranha 3DD, which is officially set for a TBA release in 2012.
"It's definitely coming out in January. That's what I hear from the Weinsteins" Canton said, then adding with a laugh: "Which probably means March."
Immortals hits theaters on November 11th. Check back soon for full interviews with the cast and crew.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN
While Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin" won't open in the United States until Christmas, the already well-reviewed film has begun to open in the international markets where the property is best known and the results have already been strong.
'Tintin' pulled in $55.8 million from its bow in just 19 markets says Thompson on Hollywood. In France it scored $21.5 million, the biggest opening ever for an original Hollywood film and the second biggest for the year behind "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two". That opening number is 80% bigger than the last "Indiana Jones" film and 41% bigger than "Spider-Man".
In the UK it opened first with $10.7 million, almost triple that of "The Smurfs" and over double that of the first "Sherlock Holmes". In both Spain and Germany the film opened slightly ahead of "Toy Story 3" and considerably ahead of "Iron Man 2". In its home country of Belgium it scored $2.1 million - five times the opening of "Toy Story 3" and four times the opening of "Sherlock Holmes". In Switzerland and Denmark it more than doubled "The Smurfs".
The film will roll out across much of Asia and South America over the next two weeks before hitting North America, Australia and Hong Kong around Christmas.

Orlando Bloom CITIES
Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Clive Owen and Anil Kapoor have joined the cast of Roger Donaldson's international thriller "Cities" for Eyeworks New Zealand says Risky Biz Blog.
Set in the months before the Dow Jones stock-market high, the ensemble piece follows characters around the globe including a New York hedge fund manager, a Mumbai policeman and a couple looking to buy a home in London.
Matthew Metcalfe and Chris Curling are producing and shooting scheduled to begin in the spring in London, Mumbai and New York.

PARANORMAN
Focus Features would like to wish you a Happy Halloween - with a sneak peek (eek!) at our new movie ParaNorman. Norman would have written but he's too boo-gged down with saving his town right now...
ParaNorman - opening nationwide August 17th, 2012 - is the new stop-motion comedy thriller made in 3D from animation company LAIKA, following "Coraline." In ParaNorman, a small town comes under siege by zombies. Who can it call? Only misunderstood local boy Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is able to speak with the dead. In addition to the zombies, he'll have to take on ghosts, witches and, worst, of all, grown-ups, to save his town from a centuries-old curse. But this young ghoul whisperer may find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits. Directed by Sam Fell ("The Tale of Despereaux," "Flushed Away") and Chris Butler from the latter's original screenplay, the cast of ParaNorman also includes Casey Affleck, Tempestt Bledsoe, Alex Borstein, Jodelle Ferland, John Goodman, Bernard Hill, Anna Kendrick, Leslie Mann, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Elaine Stritch.
Witch ever way you spend your Halloween, we hope it's a safe and spooktacular one!

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2011

COVERT AFFAIRS PREMIERE
When we last saw Annie Walker on "Covert Affairs," she was revealing her secret life as a CIA operative to her sister -- and it didn't go well.<
Things between Annie (Piper Perabo) and sister Danielle (Anne Dudek) haven't thawed much as the show returns to USA Tuesday night (Nov. 1), but work is still keeping her on her toes -- as you can see in the opening few minutes of Season 2.5's premiere, "The Wake-Up Bomb."
Annie is in Venice (the show traveled to Italy for some location shooting), marking time until she finally hears from her contact. Things go sideways, though, and we're treated to a pretty nice chase scene through the alleys, canals and squares of the ancient city.
Back in the States, Annie is stewing over the Venice mission -- and enforced downtime on the orders of Joan (Kari Matchett) -- when she meets a handsome chef (guest star Santiago Cabrera) who has ties to Basque separatists. As you might expect, it soon turns into more than just a meet-cute. That clip is at the end of the post.
"Covert Affairs" returns to USA at 10 p.m. ET Tuesday.

FRIDAY NIGHT RATINGS
The doom-and-gloom ratings predictions for NBC's new drama "Grimm" opposite Game 7 of the World Series turned out to be off base -- the show had a decent premiere Friday night, scoring the top adults 18-49 rating of anything that wasn't baseball.
The same couldn't be said for "Chuck," which began its final season with its smallest audience ever. "Nikita" and "Supernatural" were pretty steady with last week's numbers, while the World Series gave FOX its biggest Friday audience in a long time.
FOX averaged 23.25 million viewers and a 13.4 rating/22 share in households for the night; those numbers will likely change some because of the live telecast. CBS was the best of the rest with 6.9 million viewers and a 4.5/7. NBC (4.9 million, 3.2/5) came in third, a little ahead of ABC (4.5 million, 3.1/5). The CW trailed with 1.8 million viewers and a 1.2/2.
FOX also dominated the adults 18-49 demographic with a 6.8 rating. NBC came in second with a 1.5, and ABC and CBS tied for third at 1.1. The CW drew a 0.7.

Joel Kinnaman ARTHUR AND LANCELOT
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Warner Bros. has found its Lancelot for the planned King Arthur movie Arthur & Lancelot. The Killing star Joel Kinnaman has won the role and is in negotiations to star for director David Dobkin, who also wrote the script.
The role of Arthur has yet to be cast, and sources say Kinnaman will now do chemistry reads with several of Hollywood's up-and-coming leading men. As THR first revealed, the casting process for the two leads has included such hot actors as Kit Harrington (HBO's Game of Thrones), Sam Claflin (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides), Dominic Cooper (The Devil's Double), Hans Matheson (Sherlock Holmes), and Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) in the UK and Ben Walker and Liam Hemsworth in the U.S.
Kinnaman came to Hollywood's attention in the Swedish film Snabba Cash (Easy Money), then booked a lead male role in AMC's acclaimed crime series The Killing. He also will appear in his Snabba Cash director Daniel Espinosa's upcoming Ryan Reynolds-Denzel Washington thriller Safe House and he has shot Snabba Cash 2 in Sweden.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2011

PARANORMAN
The same folks who brought you the excellent animated adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline two years ago are back: Meet ParaNorman.
The first trailer for the movie�which, like Coraline, is a stop-motion animation affair from Portland-based Laika Studios�has just been released, and it looks like it could be just as much creepy fun as its predecessor (hooray for good old-fashioned stop-motion animation!).
The film stars the voice of Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In) as Norman, a boy who can speak with the dead and must save his town from an ancient curse that involves zombies, witches and ghosts.
Also contributing their vocal talents are Tucker Albrizzi, Casey Affleck, Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin and John Goodman. The movie is being directed by Sam Fell, who directed The Tale of Despereaux and Flushed Away, and Chris Butler, who did storyboards for Coraline and The Corpse Bride and who also provided the screenplay for this one.

Wild Card Hearts WILD CARD HEARTS
Before he started his landmark Song of Ice and Fire series of novels, which would spawn the Game of Thrones TV series, George R.R. Martin devised and edited Wild Cards, an ongoing anthology that built a gritty, realistic world of superpowered heroes and villains. Now Syfy Films will be bringing it to life at the movies!
The theatrical-movie partner between Syfy and Universal is developing Wild Cards as a feature film that will be written by Star Trek: The Next Generation veteran (and Wild Cards contributor) Melinda Snodgrass. Wild Cards tells of an alien virus that infects the populace of New York City just after World War II, killing 90 percent of the populace. The survivors mostly fall into two categories: Aces (a rare breed of people with enhanced abilities) and Jokers (who are twisted and deformed).
Since Wild Cards' first publication in 1987, the shared universe has seen 21 interwoven books hit shelves, all overseen by Martin but written by some of sci-fi's finest, from Martin himself and Roger Zelazny to frequent Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell. As Martin told The Hollywood Reporter:
"We had a love of comics books and superheroes that we grew up on... But we approached the material differently. We wanted to do it in a grittier, more adult manner than what we were seeing in the '80s. It's something that many other people have been doing in the decades ever since. "One of the things we have going is the sense of history.... The comics in the mainstream are doing retcons [retroactive continuity] all the time. [Heroes] get married, then one day, the publisher changes his mind, and then they're no longer married. To my mind, it's very frustrating. [Our stories] are in real time. It's a world that is changing in parallel to our own."
Which of the dozens of Wild Cards stories will form the spine of the feature film remains to be seen. When Heroes premiered�and, to a certain extent, when shows like Syfy's own Alphas followed�lots of fans felt it owed more than a little to the ideas first set forth in Wild Cards.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows has three new TV spots poised and ready to hit us at an appropriate commercial break. These trailers are fun because, unlike many trailers that are variations on a theme, each has its own unique angle.
The first trailer has a tinge of romance interspersed with action, the second is filled with the movie's more amusing bits, and the third is filled with tension as it introduces Holmes' nemesis, Moriarty.
In other words, there's something for everyone to like in A Game of Shadows. We're looking forward to its release on Dec. 16.

CATEGORY SIX
New Line Cinema has purchased a screenplay for a found footage film called Category Six, Deadline reports.
Written by John Swetnam (who also wrote the upcoming found footage project Evidence), Category Six tells the fictional tale of a deadly tornado.
The title is a reference to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which ranks the potential damage that can be done by hurricanes. Though the scale only goes through five, some scientists have recently argued that the list should be amended to include category six, which would mark the most catastrophic of storms.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2011

FRINGE
It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Peter Bishop is officially back on Fringe. Before the show took a break for the World Series, it concluded its final episode with Peter coming face to face with Olivia. Can you say cliffhanger? How will she react? What will Walter say? Where the heck has he been? Here's your first look at his anticipated return.
Peter won't be receiving a hero's welcome this week. The character's been off the radar for months, and was wiped from the memory of everyone he loves. On the latest episode of Fringe, entitled "Novation," Peter has a lot of explaining to do. No one trusts him, and his inside knowledge of the Fringe Division has everyone on edge.
We all knew Peter's return wouldn't be an instant love-fest. That's just not how this show works. In the current world, Peter died as a child. That's something everyone is aware of, especially Walter. When Peter comes on the scene claiming to be his long-lost son, it doesn't go over easy. According to John Noble, "Walter can't accept it." He can't believe that this strange man is the grown child he's spent years mourning.

Alice Cooper DARK SHADOWS
Tim Burton's vampire melodrama just got a bite of glam-rock glitz with Alice Cooper's cameo in the new retro-goth remake. Cooper will play himself (his much younger self), rockin' out at a gala ball hosted by Depp's suave plasma sucker, Barnabas Collins.
Cooper loves popping his kabuki deathmask mug into films, playing himself in Wayne's World and weird roles in Prince of Darkness and Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy's Dead. His frightfest persona will be in full spandex regalia in Dark Shadows, directing his rowdy horror-show band in a rousing rendition of "No More Mr. Nice Guy."
The aging Hall of Fame musician commented on the impressive, elaborate sets at the Warner Bros. film's production on a recent visit to Pinewood Studios in England, the location for many Burton blockbusters.
"They should take that set and make it a haunted house next year," Cooper joked.
Rick Heinrichs, creator of the detailed cinematic worlds of Sleepy Hollow, Pirates of the Caribbean and Captain America, and his team built the amazing Collinwood Manor and a sprawling harbor dock with rotting piers and bobbing boats. Collinwood's interior sets are decorated with marine-themed details including magical mer-people sculptures and a lavish chandelier bedecked with crystal squid tentacles.
Dark Shadows, based on the gloomy, gothic soap of the late '60s and early '70s, stars Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green and Helena Bonham Carter and violates theaters in May 2012. Depp stars as the playboy blood slurper who returns to his seaside ancestral home in the year 1972 after a long, earthy slumber. The cameo rumor began back in June, when Depp dropped in on an Alice Cooper gig and even stepped up to play guitar on "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out."
"He's a guy you have to watch when he's up on the stage, and the songs are just classic," said Depp.
Cooper and Depp and Burton make for an interestingly odd trio. What do you think? Does Alice Cooper add some swingin' 70s swagger to the film, or should the shock rocker retire to greener pastures?

Matt Smith DOCTOR WHO
Last week we encountered the troubling rumor that Matt Smith might make next year his final season on Doctor Who. Now Smith is reassuring fans that he's not hanging up his sonic screwdriver and bowtie anytime soon.
The rumor got rolling when Smith told an interviewer that he'd love to come see what Los Angeles was all about, but he had another year of Doctor Who first. The implication was that he only had another year left, and after that he was set to hit America.
But based on a new interview promoting the Doctor Who series six DVD set, Smith just wanted to visit. Where the Doctor is concerned, he's in it for the long haul.
"We work very long hours every day for nine months. The schedule is pretty brutal, but I'd never complain about it. I love playing this role, and I don't want to give it up anytime soon," he said.
"I feel very lucky. In the current climate for actors, I'd never say, 'This is too much'�quite the opposite, in fact. I'd say, 'Bring it on'."
So there you have it. While he'll eventually pass the mantle on to another Time Lord, Matt Smith isn't giving up his key to the TARDIS anytime soon.

11-11-11
"I believe in God; that means I also believe in the devil," is one of a few creepy lines in the latest trailer for the upcoming horror thriller from the man behind Saw II-IV, 11-11-11. Did you know there's a whole movement that marks that impending November date as apocalyptic?
In this new theatrical preview, we are teased by the idea of an 11-11 movement that will bring an apocalyptic supernatural fearfest onto mankind. Unlike an earlier teaser released for the film, an actual plot can be seen this time around. From director Darren Lynn Bousman, who also created Repo! The Genetic Opera, the film seems like an interesting take on the actual New Age belief that the day signals some sort of monumental spiritual event. The film, however, rests in the hands of a guy who is better at the outlandish graphic horror scares than the creepier, more refined thriller variety. Nonetheless, this trailer gives us hope�for now�that this will not be B-movie fare, but a capable and scary film.
In the film, after the tragic death of his wife and child, author Joseph Crone (Timothy Gibbs) travels from the United States to Barcelona, Spain, to reunite with his estranged brother Samuel (Michael Landes) and dying father, Richard (Denis Rafter). However, fate has a different plan. Joseph becomes plagued with strange happenings and the constant sightings of the number 11. Curiosity quickly turns to obsession, and Joseph soon realizes that this number holds a horrific meaning. Isolated in a foreign country with only the support of his companion, Sadie, Joseph soon realizes that 11/11/11 is more than just a date, it's a WARNING!

Primeval UK Cast PRIMEVAL NEW WORLD
Awhile back, we told you that the Primeval Canadian spinoff called Primeval: New World. Here is a bit more news to share with you. Seems the Canuck version of the series will be darker and scarier and will also fit in the U.K. series' mythology�which can also mean one very cool thing: possible crossovers!
Primeval co-creator Tim Haines spoke to SFX about the upcoming North American take on anomalies, dinosaurs and dangerous freaky creatures from the future.
"It's a spinoff,'' Haines explains. ''Imagine CSI�so the people in Miami do it, the people in New York do it. Essentially anomalies start appearing on the northern latitudes, and they've got to cope with it. And there is a little bit of crossover in the first episode, and then we'll see how it goes after that. Mostly they'll be getting on with it themselves."
What we really want to know is whether (if not which) characters from the original ITV U.K. series will occasionally pop up in the SPACE channel Canadian spinoff: "Possibly," says Haines. "We've only got one at the moment�we haven't worked that out."
Haines also stated that filming on the upcoming spinoff will start next year, and that the Impossible Pictures team are, according to him, "very keen to start the writers' room soon. It will be produced in Vancouver, and it will be made very much under the North American system. It'll be very interesting to see how that works."
But does the creation of another Primeval TV series mean the end for the planned Primeval movie adaptation? Haynes doesn't think so. "Obviously movies do their own kind of thing, but Jeff Pinkner [of Fringe fame] is the writer, and as far as I know he's redrafting."

Hailee Steinfeld FORGOTTEN
Remember Hailee Steinfeld, the unknown actress who earned an Oscar nomination for True Grit last year? Well, she's a star now, and among her many upcoming projects is her very first starring role in a sci-fi flick.
Steinfeld is attached to star in an adaptation of Cat Patrick's novel Forgotten, the story of a 16-year-old girl whose memory is erased at 4:33 each morning, leaving her with memories only of future events. Oren Uziel�who's working on the script for New Line's Mortal Kombat reboot right now�is set to write the adaptation.
The flick is set to be produced under the Paramount-based Fake Empire company headed by Gossip Girl and The O.C. producer Stephanie Savage and Gossip Girl and Chuck producer Josh Schwartz. They're no strangers to teen-based stories, and teen sci-fi is definitely hot right now, so it's no surprise they jumped on this one.
As for Steinfeld, she's got a number of other gigs on her hands before this one rolls around. She's already attached to a new version of Romeo and Juliet adapted by Julian Fellowes, and she's said to be in talks with Fox 2000 to star in Rosaline, a Rebecca Serle novel inspired by Romeo and Juliet.
So if she ever gets a break from the Shakespeare-inspired stuff, it look like Steinfeld will be ready to get her sci-fi on.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL
The full-length trailer for Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol has finally hit the web.
Director Brad Bird personally introduced the new promo for the upcoming Tom Cruise actioner and this time, it doesn't rely on images of Cruise in a black hoodie. The nearly three-minute trailer -- going back to a traditional score, rather than having the previous teaser's hip-hop feel -- promises more fights, more action and more chases, evening setting up the plot (and locations) with a little more meat.
So what can moviegoers expect in December? Set-ups, near-misses, gunfights, car crashes and lots of secrets. Paula Patton, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Josh Holloway co-star in the fourth film in the franchise, opening in U.S. theaters on Dec. 21, which finds Ethan Hunt and the rest of the I.M.F. team going rogue to clear their organization's name.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2011

THE TWILIGHT SAGA
Edward Cullen and Bella Swan are (almost) ready to get it on. The Twilight Saga's favorite couple officially becomes husband and wife in the latest sequel, Breaking Dawn�Part I. In a new clip released by Summit Entertainment, the duo prepare for the night of their honeymoon, which proves to be a very awkward experience.
Edward (Robert Pattinson) has always been old-fashioned, and, considering his age, that's understandable. In the previous Twilight films, Bella (Kristen Stewart) has tried to take their relationship to the next level, but Edward just wouldn't allow it. There was always something standing in their way, usually Jacob, death and more death.
Having survived the latest attempts on their lives, the duo have finally jumped the broom and are officially married. In the following clip, Edward goes old school and carries Bella across the threshold of their honeymoon suite. When she asks if it's really necessary, he replies, "I'm nothing if not traditional." Yes, because a century-old vampire marrying a teenager is normal.
Toward the end of the video, it gets real uncomfortable real quick. Bella can't keep eye contact and is on the verge of doing those weird, twitchy moves she's so famous for. Nothing about this scene screams sexy or romantic. But that's just our opinion.

The Hobbit THE HOBBIT
In 1937, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and even created the artwork for its original Unwin & Allen publication, and the upcoming book The Art of The Hobbit will celebrate the author's artistry. Better yet, it's going to contain an important surprise: two dozen never-before-seen sketches and paintings created by Tolkien.
And when we say "never before seen," what we mean is that this artwork had been sitting for a number of years in a library, completely unknown to the public.
According to The Guardian:
"When HarperCollins began preparing for the book's 75th anniversary next year, the publisher discovered Tolkien had actually created more than 100 illustrations, which lay buried in his archive at the Bodleian Library in Oxford and were only recently digitised.
How could the works of such an eminent author go unknown for so many years? We don't know. Although Oxford's Bodleian Library has 11 million volumes spread across multiple buildings, the artwork was found in Tolkien's own archive.
But the late Oxford professor's archive contained more than a few sheets of paper; in 2003, researchers found 2000 pages of a translation and commentary of Beowulf.
According to publisher David Brawn, The Art of The Hobbit (to be released on Oct. 27) includes Tolkien's "conceptual sketches for the cover design, a couple of early versions of the maps and pages where he's experimenting with the runic forms." It sounds like a must-have for fans of the father of high fantasy.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2011

Walking Dead THE WALKING DEAD
Just two record-breaking episodes into its second season, The Walking Dead has been renewed for a third year!
AMC officially announced today that The Walking Dead has been picked up for season three after the first two episodes of the new season earned the highest ratings ever for a basic cable channel, with the season premiere's 7.3 million viewers smashing the record set by the series The Dead Zone a decade ago.
The show has also attracted record numbers of viewers in the 18-to-49 demographic, which anyone in the industry will tell you is the sweet spot for advertisers.
All this comes following a summer of controversy, during which show co-creator and executive producer Frank Darabont was fired as rumors spread that AMC was cutting the show's budget despite the first season's success.
The Walking Dead's success is not limited to the U.S., by the way: The show premiered in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East this past weekend, where it also apparently broke ratings records.
In an official press release announcing the third season, AMC president Charlie Collier said:
"Today we are pleased to announce that the 'dead' shall live as we proudly renew 'The Walking Dead' for a third season on AMC and, globally, with our terrific partners at Fox International Channels. We are thankful for everyone's contribution in front of and behind the camera as we continue to make 'The Walking Dead' a unique television experience. And, we are so proud as it continues to set viewership records around the world."
So now we can all rest assured that as the second season of The Walking Dead unfolds (and those first two episodes have been awesome, by the way), there will be even more mayhem to come in season three!

Dark Tower THE DARK TOWER
Word came out yesterday that Ron Howard's massive adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower could be saved by budget cuts, at least on the film side. Now the TV side looks to be shaping up, too. According to producer Brian Grazer, the project now has a network home at HBO.
In an interview promoting Tower Heist, Grazer said that while the movie side of the project is still waiting for studio backing after losing Universal Pictures earlier this year, the TV end of things is set.
"We're going to do [The Dark Tower] with HBO," Grazer told us. "We'll do the TV with HBO, and we'll do the movie with... to be determined. We'll do it right."
Grazer also reaffirmed that knocking $45 million off the budget of (we think) the first film will help to push that side of the project in the right direction.
"We're going to do that movie. We've lost $45 million out of the budget," he said. "When people say no to you enough, then you have to lose money, which we've done without harming the scope of the film."
Javier Bardem is (as far as we know) still on board to play the hero, Roland Deschain, but no dates have been thrown around for production or release of either side of this hefty endeavor just yet. Still, with HBO on board, the project definitely has a new sense of stability.

GRIM NIGHT
With the town still shaking off the eerie $52.5 million opening of scary movie Paranormal Activity 3, Universal has won a bidding war for Grim Night, a spec written by Brandon Bestenheider and Allen Bey.
Unbroken Pictures, the shingle run by The Strangers director Bryan Bertino and his partner Adrienne Biddle are attached to produce. Universal-based Marc Platt is also on board to produce.
The producers and writers’ camp strategized ahead to make sure the timing was right for the script. They knew they were going to take it to the market after Paranormal became a hit (the only question regarding the sequel was how high was the opening weekend number going to be) and they stoked the flames with a visual aid: a trailer hit the Internet late last week just before Paranormal opened and got some attention on various horror sites. The newbie scribes work at a post-production house and were able to make the trailer.
Grim Night’s conceit is that one night every year, strange creatures attack Earth and kill thousands, targeting different place with no one knowing why. The story centers on a family in small town America that gets attacked and has to defend themselves.

Person SERIES NEWS
CBS is two for three so far in launching drama series this fall.
The network has given full-season orders to Person of Interest and Unforgettable. The pair joins freshman comedy 2 Broke Girls in CBS' new fare earning back-nine pickup orders.
From executive producer J.J. Abrams, Person of Interest has performed well in its competitive Thursday at 9 p.m. slot, averaging 9.5 million total viewers and a 2.8 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic. For its fourth episode of the season, Person of Interest ticked up from the previous week, luring 12 million and posting a 2.8 rating. In Week 5, the hourlong drama averaged 12.4 million and a 2.7.
Unforgettable, starring Poppy Montgomery, regularly wins its Tuesdays at 10 p.m. slot in total viewers and the demo against established dramas including NBC’s Parenthood and ABC’s Body of Proof. Most recently, the procedural drew 11.9 million and a 2.5.
Person of Interest stars Lost’s Michael Emerson as a mysterious billionaire who teams with an ex-CIA agent (Jim Caviezel) to prevent violent crimes in New York. Unforgettable centers on a Brooklyn cop (Montgomery) who has the ability to remember everything.
That leaves Friday newcomer A Gifted Man, a supernatural medical procedural starring Patrick Wilson, that has been averaging 8.2 million viewers and a 1.3. It is the remaining CBS drama awaiting a full-season pickup.
The two pickups come at a time when the network pulled struggling comedy How to Be a Gentleman, starring David Hornsby and Kevin Dillon, after shifting it from Thursdays to Saturdays due to weak ratings.
Other rookie series landing full-season orders include Fox’s New Girl, the CW's Ringer, Hart of Dixie and The Secret Circle, as well as NBC’s Up All Night and Whitney.

McG PUZZLE PALACE
According to the Hollywood Reporter, McG has emerged as the top talent to take on Summit Entertainment's Puzzle Palace.
First announced for development last year, the thriller has the son of a police officer who has been framed for murder attempting to prove his father's innocence. To get the evidence he needs, the son plans a break-in to the headquarters of the NYPD, pursued by the men who framed his dad.
The screenplay arrives from David Guggenheim, the man behind the upcoming Safe House.
McG's next, This Means War, hits theaters on February 17, 2012.

Janson THE JANSON DIRECTIVE
Universal Pictures has plans to adapt another Robert Ludlum work with The Janson Directive, Deadline reports. The book, published posthumously in 2002, is officially described as follows:
When billionaire philanthropist Peter Novak is kidnapped by a terrorist known as The Caliph, it’s up to Paul Janson � a legend in the notorious U.S. covert agency Consular Operations�to save him. But Janson’s rescue operation goes horribly wrong…and soon Janson is marked for death, the target of a "beyond salvage" order issued from the highest level of the government. Now Janson is running for his life, pursued by Jessica Kincaid, a young agent of astonishing ability who can anticipate and counter his every move. To survive, Janson must outrace a conspiracy that has gone beyond the control of its originators. To win, he must counter it with a conspiracy of his own...
The film is being developed through Captivate Entertainment with John Hlavin attached to provide the first draft. The writer is also one of the credited talents on the upcoming Underworld Awakening.
Plans for Janson no doubt seek to duplicate the immense success of the studio's "Jason Bourne" franchise, also based on the work of Ludlum. That franchise's third sequel, The Bourne Legacy, is due in theaters on August 3, 2012, with Jeremy Renner in the lead.

THE END
Deadline is reporting that Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures picked up two spec scripts tonight titled The End.
The site says that The End at Warner Bros. is a sci-fi drama written by Aron Eli Coleite and describes the project as follows:
"The film focuses on three completely different storylines that are interconnected by the fact that the players in each one are trying to reconcile the fact that the world is going to end. There is a veteran broadcast in London, a 16-year old girl and her boyfriend in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a devoted family man in Shanghai."

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2011

THE WALKING DEAD
Norman Reedus promised us we'd learn more about Daryl Dixon, the character he plays on AMC's "The Walking Dead," during the show's second season. Based on this sneak peek clip, he's ready to dish about his childhood. We're thinking the whole using "Poison Oak as toilet paper" thing was a little TMI, but we do learn that Daryl himself, like Sophia, once got lost in the Georgia woods as a child.
In the clip, he tells Andrea (Laurie Holden) about his 9-day ordeal and how he survived despite the lack of a search party or even any concern from his drunk father or uber-redneck older brother, Merle.
We're not quite sure why Daryl and Andrea would be wandering through the woods at night, casually trading stories since there are, you know, zombies in these here parts. But, the joke's on them, because at the end of the clip they do come face-to-face with a walker. Sort of.
Season 2, episode 3 -- "Save the Last One" -- airs Sunday, Oct. 30, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.

Fringe FRINGE
Fringe has undergone some serious changes and there are plenty more to come. One of the main villains from the show's first season was recently spotted on the Vancouver set. And this person's return could change everything ... for the worse!
Who's been caught circling the set of Fringe? It's Jared Harris�aka David Robert Jones. The last time we saw the Massive Dynamic employee turned criminal was in the episode "There's More Than One of Everything." Jones' final scene featured him walking into a portal where he was presumably split in two. Jones was attempting to crossover to the alternate universe, but was stopped by Peter who shut it before he could transition.
Since we're currently living in a world where Peter doesn't exist, that means David Robert Jones could still be out there. A recent paparazzi photo showed Harris on the Fringe set talking to what looks like a body double. Is this his alter? Did he make it to the other side? Could they be in cahoots?
When TVLine spoke with Lance Reddick (Phillip Broyles) regarding the upcoming season, he hinted at the return of a "great character from seasons ago." His co-star Jasika Nicole (Astrid Farnsworth) also confirmed that "something in the past has come back."

Harry Potter HARRY POTTER
Warner Bros. said Monday that it plans to stop shipping Harry Potter DVDs and Blu-ray Discs to retailers at the end of the year. The move, which is clearly intended to boost sales of the biggest box office franchise of all time, will take effect as of Dec. 29.
Warners said it will stop shipping all titles, including box sets and special and limited editions. That includes the final title in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which hits stores Nov. 11, as well as Harry Potter: The Complete 8-Film Collection.
Disney employs a similar strategy with its home video titles, pulling them from shelves for a period of time before making them available again at a later date.
The Harry Potter film franchise has grossed more than $12.1 billion for Warner Bros. Entertainment -- with $7 billion at the worldwide box office for Warner Bros. Pictures and $5.1 billion for Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.
The last film, Deathly Hallows Part 2, was released in theaters July 15 and went on to earn more than $1.3 billion at the worldwide box office. The franchise stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Last week, the rumor appeared that Warner Bros. Pictures is planning on showing a six-minute prologue for The Dark Knight Rises with Paramount Pictures' early release of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol in IMAX theaters on December 16 (the film has its general release on Dec. 21). Today, AMC Theatres has confirmed the rumor with the additional detail that the prologue will only screen at 70mm IMAX screens and not at digital IMAX locations.
The plan matches the screening situation in December 2007 where The Dark Knight attached its opening sequence to IMAX prints of I Am Legend.
The Dark Knight Rises opens in theaters on July 20, 2012.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2011

Joss Whedon JOSS WHEDON NEWS
Joss Whedon has wrapped his next project. Only thing is, no one seems to know much about it.
Fans of Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dollhouse were rejoicing late Sunday night after frequent Whedon collaborators Nathan Fillion, Sean Maher and costume designer Shawna Trpcic tweeted a link to MuchAdoTheMovie.com.
The site features a single photo of a man in what appears to be a lake wearing scuba gear and holding a martini glass.
The site reads, "Bellwether Pictures is proud to announce the completion of principal photography" and says the project is "a film by Joss Whedon based on a play."
It also lists a slew of actors who have worked with Whedon in the past, including Fillion, Amy Acker, Fran Krantz, Tom Lenk and Sean Maher.
The site doesn't offer any further details, but the news did spur speculation around the Internet about what the project might be and how Whedon found time to finish it while also working on the upcoming Avengers movie.
Some speculated that it might be his follow-up to the web series Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The obvious question, of course, is whether it is in fact some sort of adaptation of the William Shakespeare play.
Meanwhile, Trpcic answered some questions about the project on Sunday night but gave only vague answers.
In response to the question "full-length film, short or web series?" she wrote: "Film ish not sure in what format he will release it."

Sherlock Holmes Poster SHERLOCK HOLMES
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows doesn’t open until December 16, but Warner Bros. is already planning the next installment of the period detective adventure movies.
The studio has hired Drew Pearce, the creator of the British superhero TV satire No Heroics, to pen a script for what would be the third Robert Downey Jr.-Jude Law movie starring the Sherlock Holmes creation.
The hiring of a writer this early (and in anticipating that the movie will be a hit) mirrors the hiring of Michele and Kieran Mulroney to work on Holmes 2 about three months before the first Holmes came out in December 2009.
Pearce is a scribe on the rise. He is writing Iron Man 3 for Marvel Studios (so the new Holmes project would reteam him with Downey) and Paramount’s adaptation of DC Comics’ The Mighty.
Pearce is repped by WME.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2011

Gifted Man FRIDAY NIGHT RATINGS
According to the Hollywood Reporter, CBS and ABC tied for the Friday victory, both networks averaging a 1.6 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic.
CBS' A Gifted Man (8.6 million total viewers, 1.2 rating in adults 18-49 demographic) improved nearly 1 million in total viewers compared to the previous week, but maintained its demo rating. What's interesting to note is that in its final half-hour, the hourlong medical drama starring Patrick Wilson jumped 1 million viewers, from 8.1 million to 9.2 million.
With the network likely to give full orders to Unforgettable and Person the Interest, the jury is quieter on A Gifted Man. CSI: NY (10.7 million, 1.8) rose a tenth (winning its 9 p.m. period), while Blue Bloods (10.8 million, 1.7) went the other way.
ABC debuted Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (5.6 million, 1.4) in its new Friday home, followed by 20/20 (7.6 million, 2.1) -- the latter winning its 10 p.m. time period.
The CW's Nikita (1.7 million, 0.6) improved for its latest episode, but the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reunion with Charisma Carpenter and James Masters didn't boost Supernatural (1.8 million, 0.7) ratings.
Fox aired an original Kitchen Nightmares (3.5 million, 1.4), which won at 8 p.m., but decided to repeat Fringe (1.7 million, 0.5). NBC aired repeats of The Office, Parks and Recreation before Dateline (4.1 million, 1.0).

Captain America 2 CAPTAIN AMERICA 2
With Captain America: The First Avenger hitting DVD and Blu-ray this Tuesday, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have been making the press rounds. In a conversation with The HD Room, the pair reiterated that the sequel will stick mostly to the filmic Marvel Universe's present day.
"I think it's safe for us to say that it's primarily set in the modern day," says Markus. "That seems to have been the biggest question people have been wondering about regarding the sequel... [W]e've been left with room to explore Cap entering the modern day wondering, 'What is all this? What's happened to the world' and so on."
"We made a movie where the world was in context for Steve Rogers," adds McFeely. "It was a movie where it was a more pure time, where there were clearly black-and-white, right-and-wrong, good-and-evil scenarios. And Cap is a guy who symbolizes that. Now he's in the now, and there is nothing black-and-white. So what do you do with that guy? How does he react to a much more uncertain time? So you're given this huge new palate to work with, but you can keep him the same."
Chris Evans' Captain America next appears in Marvel's The Avengers on May 4, 2012. Unfortunately, it may be a bit before his next solo adventure. Evans recently revealed that Captain America 2 will probably have to wait until 2014.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011

Paranormal 3 PARANORMAL 3
The appetite among horror fans for "Paranormal Activity" hasn't gone away.
"Paranormal Activity 3" opened to an estimated $8 million at midnight screenings at 2,200 locations Thursday night (Oct. 20). That's an improvement on the $6.3 million "Paranormal 2" made in its midnight debut last year. The new movie played in more theaters, but its per-screen average was higher than "Paranormal 2's" as well.
Up next for the new film, a prequel set in the late 1980s, is the $40.7 million "Paranormal Activity 2" grossed in its first weekend last year. It has a better-than-average chance of hitting that mark, considering that the only other big release this weekend is the latest adaptation of " The Three Musketeers."
Even if "Paranormal 3" doesn't match its predecessor's take for the weekend, it will still make a profit for Paramount. All three films in the series have been produced on the cheap, with the latest clocking in at a reported $5 million. Even by Hollywood accounting standards, it should be in the black by Sunday.

ONCE UPON A TIME
Once upon a time, two producers named Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz worked on a spectacular epic tale called Lost for ABC. Well, believe it or not, those guys have moved on to the world of classic fairytales with their new ABC series, Once Upon a Time, which features Snow White, Prince Charming and Rumplestiltskin. Only it's not your average fairytale.
"For me and Adam... Lost was such an amazing experience for us. We learned so much and it was such a rewarding creative experience that if we're going to do our own show and do TV and work this hard, it has to be something that we feel really passionate about and something unique and something original," said Kitsis during an exclusive interview with Horowitz. "We weren't interested in just doing she's a young D.A. balancing her life and trying criminal cases. We don't know if this show will go past 13 episodes. So for us, our operating principal is let's make it 13 that we love and even if it doesn't work out we walk away happy with everything we did."
Their unique tale explores what happens when the modern world and the world of fairy tales collide. In Once Upon a Time, a 28-year-old bail bonds collector named Emma Swan finds herself returning young runaway Henry, a 10-year-old boy she gave up for adoption, to the town of Storybrooke. Henry believes that Emma and everyone in the town comes from an alternate world, a fairytale land, that thanks to a curse by the Evil Queen is now trapped forever in time. The characters have been brought into our world with no knowledge of who they really are. The series, which premieres Sunday, Oct. 23 at 8 p.m., stars Jennifer Morrison as Emma, Jared Gilmore as Henry, Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White, Lana Parrilla as the Evil Queen and Robert Carlyle as Rumplestiltskin.
"What really [Lost's show runners] Damon [Lindelof] and Carlton [Cuse] taught us was its character first, mythology second. And we took that really to heart and it's that lesson that led us to this, how to tell this story," said Kitsis. "Because we've had this idea for eight years and it wasn't until we were on Lost that we really figured out how to tell it because we didn't want to do a pilot where every episode was about the first five minutes of the pilot... For us it had to be about the characters and emotion. If Lost was about redemption, Once Upon A Time is about hope."
"The stories are amazingly difficult," said Horowitz. "We try to set an incredibly high bar for ourselves and we always want to try to top ourselves and to push the limits of what's possible on a network television schedule and budget, and for us it's really about how do we keep telling the stories that excite us and that we really love and how do we keep finding new things about these characters to explore and reveal to the audience?"
Once Upon a Time will feature both the modern world of Storybrooke and the lavish fairytale land in every episode.
"Every week is going to kind of be exactly like the pilot," said Kitsis. "We are going to go back and forth between the two worlds and we're going to focus on a character and ... highlight what that character had going on in fairytale land, and in Storybrooke you're going to see the void that the cursed replaced it with."
Upcoming episodes will feature the Evil Queen and how Snow White met Prince Charming, said Horowitz.
According to Kitsis, their challenge is to "make sure that one world informs the other and you want to continue to peel back the layers of their story and you want to progress things, but you don't want to progress them so, so fast. One thing we've really also realized is there's a large mythology to this show, but what we realized is... the [episodes] themselves are actually quite self-contained."


The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - Intro Segment by jj3000 MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
After briefly flirting with starring in the Crow remake, the Limitless star is this close to signing on to the role of superspy Napoleon Solo in Steven Soderbergh's update of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Soderbergh reportedly wanted his Ocean's Eleven star George Clooney to play the premiere agent of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, but Clooney couldn't handle the stunts that'd be required to properly acquit the role of Napoleon Solo--which was originally played on the 1964-68 TV series by Robert Vaughn.
So Cooper stepped up to bat--after Matt Damon and Johnny Depp passed. Still, a win's a win, right? No word if Soderbergh's U.N.C.L.E. will have an Illya Kuryakin (originally played by David McCallum) part as well. But there's always room for a creepy blond Russian.

The Stand THE STAND
Deadline reports that Ben Affleck is the man Warner Bros. is eyeing to adapt and direct The Stand, another adaptation of Stephen King's famous tome, except this time, it's headed to the big screen.
Affleck is currently helming Argo, so The Stand movie is in its infancy. The actor has certainly proven himself in the director's chair with Gone Baby Gone and The Town.
Previously adapted as a television miniseries in 1994, "The Stand" tells the story of a full-scale apocalypse, driven by the accidental release of a biological weapon and the ensuing struggle of good versus evil carried out by the world's final survivors.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2011

Galactica BATTLESTAR GALACTICA MOVIE
Frak, yes! Bryan Singer's "Battlestar Galactica" film has finally gotten a writer.
"Anonymous" scribe John Orloff will be taking the helm on the film based on the 1978 TV series. But, he says, "Don't worry, I'm not going to frak it up." If you don't know what "frak" means, you need to get yourself on Netflix and watch the 2004 Syfy series in its entirety. Don't worry. We'll wait.
According to Deadline, Orloff says that he has a "pretty radical take" on the "BSG" story, but gave no other details about this incredibly anticipated film. All good fanboys and fangirls know that Singer's version of the space opera has been in the works for years. They've been buzzing with the news that Singer was all over it once his "Excalibur" film was shot down by Warner Bros.
We're thrilled to hear the news. Sure, we're huge fans of the show in both its incarnations, but we're willing to admit that we really miss using the word "frak" on a regular basis.

Punisher PUNISHER TV SERIES
As if the multitude of film projects they're either actively making or developing weren't enough, Marvel and its partners at Disney and ABC are now out to conquer television, too. Along with developing properties for The Incredible Hulk and Jessica Jones, ABC Studios has now sold a script for an hour-long Punisher drama to FOX.
The Punisher sale is one of several shows ABC Studios - which is owned by Disney, who also owns Marvel - sold in recent days, according to Variety. The show will be executive produced by Ed Bernero, a former Chicago cop whose production credits include Third Watch and Criminal Minds.
The show will reportedly focus on Frank Castle as an NYPD officer who uses The Punisher as his vigilante alter ego to settle scores for people who the justice system has failed. FOX has already committed to a pilot for the show, so let's all start building our dream casting lists.
After three film adaptations - none of which were very successful - it sounds like Frank Castle may finally get another chance in a new format. But for a guy whose life revolves around, you know, blowing people's heads off with all manner of firearms, it might be a little tough to fit in on broadcast television. Cable?

Movie Props MOVIE PROPS FOR SALE
If you're a fanboy or -girl who can't get enough of the Marvel movie universe, and you've got some extra cash lying around, you've got something to look forward to this weekend. Marvel is auctioning off a boatload of costumes, props and set pieces from Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk, and they've got some good stuff on the block.
Marvel announced the auction in a press release via their website earlier this week. The items, which include everything from Tony Stark's Iron Man 2 racing suit to Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow catsuit, are hitting an online auction starting at 10 a.m. Pacific Saturday.
Propworx, in association with Marvel Studios, announces The Official "Iron Man 2" and "The Incredible Hulk" Prop and Costume Auction encompassing two amazing events featuring props, costumes, production artwork, concept drawings and set pieces from these fan-favorite movies. Propworx will partner with its' online auction provider LiveAuctioneers.com to host the online auction on October 22, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. PST.
Over 225 lots of props, costumes, production artwork, concept drawings, and set pieces will be on the auction block including such notable items as the Screen Used Stunt Whiplash V1 Suit worn by actor Mickey Rourke during the entire fight scene at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. This amazing armor is made from a custom leather vest with the shell of a RT unit on the front, two hand whip handles and whips and features working lights on the back section that run from the top of the suit to the bottom.
The Iron Man 2 Hero Suitcase Armor is also on the auction block and was used by Tony Stark so he could change into Iron Man as needed. This screen used hero version is permanently closed and was used for close up shots and detail work.
Tony Stark's Hero Racing Suit, worn by actor Robert Downey, Jr. and also used in the Monaco Historic Grand Prix scenes, includes a blue rubberized spandex coveralls with padded legs and black leather accents, a black cotton undershirt, custom made leather jacket with blue rubberized spandex accents and a pair of black leather custom gloves.
The Iron Man 2 Black Widow Hero S.H.I.E.L.D. Uniform is the hero screen used catsuit worn by actress Scarlett Johansson as Agent Natasha Romanoff when she broke her cover and revealed herself as the Black Widow. Additional lots include the Hero Mark VI Chest RT Unit, Hero Whiplash V1 RT Unit, screen used Ironnette Costumes, the Hero "Ex-Wife" Missile, and Tony Stark's Hero Racing Helmet. A complete PDF catalog and bidding instructions are posted at www.propworx.com.
You could look at this as an early Christmas shopping opportunity, or just a chance to make yourself a little more like Tony Stark. Of course, these things won't exactly come cheap, so you might have to make some kind of pact with your friends and buy the item of your choice together. That way you can live out your very own geek sitcom episode when you all start to fight over it.

GHOST RIDER
Ghost Rider is back, and he's dripping with anger. The first clip from the upcoming sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance has hit the net, and it gets up close and personal with the new and improved Johnny Blaze.
If you forgot to tune in to the 2011 Scream Awards, you're in luck, because we've discovered one of the many clips that premiered during the show. While accepting the honorary Maverick Award, Nicolas Cage introduced an exclusive scene from Ghost Rider 2 that gave the audience a little taste of the hero's new attitude.
The short clip shows a woman being harassed by a group of thugs led by Limitless star Johnny Whitworth. As he prepares to do some serious damage, he spots a flaming piece of metal in the air. As you might have guessed, it's Johnny Blaze, and he's all hot and bothered (pun intended).
Does any real action occur in this clip? No. Instead, it just gives us a head-to-toe look at Ghost Rider before he goes into full butt-kicking mode. Even though we're always excited to see the flaming skull, the bike and the chain, it would have been great to see him put those things to work.

WOMAN IN BLACK
The former boy wizard is out to stop some supernatural shenanigans once again�but this time, instead of a magic wand, he's got a stiff upper lip and some carefully cultivated facial hair.
The setup for The Woman in Black sounds, on the surface of it, a lot like Bram Stoker's Dracula: Radcliffe plays a lawyer who treks out into the middle of nowhere at the behest of a client who may or may not be dead. Hijinks ensue.
Can the young Mr. Radcliffe carry a spooky thriller all by himself, without an Expelliarmus spell or a Hermione in sight? We'll find out on Feb. 3, 2012.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS
It's an exciting and explosive ''Holmes vs. Moriarty'' face-off in this thrilling new Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows trailer. Once again, there are plenty of explosions to see. Add to that a bit of romance and a good dash of cross-dressing and it's all in a day's work for the greatest detective of all time.
Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr., who clearly is having the time of his life playing Holmes) and his trusted sidekick Dr. John Watson (Jude Law) are once again embarking on a new and thrilling adventure when they find themselves facing the evil machinations of Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), Holmes' archenemy.
Here's the synopsis:
Sherlock Holmes (Downey Jr.) has always been the smartest man in the room... until now. There is a new criminal mastermind at large--Professor Moriarty (Harris)--and not only is he Holmes' intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil, coupled with a complete lack of conscience, may actually give him an advantage over the renowned detective. When the Crown Prince of Austria is found dead, the evidence, as construed by Inspector Lestrade (Marsan), points to suicide. But Sherlock Holmes deduces that the prince has been the victim of murder--a murder that is only one piece of a larger and much more portentous puzzle, designed by Professor Moriarty. The cunning Moriarty is always one step ahead of Holmes as he spins a web of death and destruction--all part of a greater plan that, if he succeeds, will change the course of history.
As always, our favorite bromantic duo will be getting themselves into a $#!@load of trouble (we wouldn't have it any other way), but this time they'll be joined by a mysterious fortune teller played by Noomi Rapace, as well as by Watson's new, not-so-blushing bride, Mary (Kelly Reily), and even Holmes' main love squeeze, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), gets in on the action.
As Watson said: Oh, how we've missed you, Holmes!
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows will hit theaters in time for the holidays on Dec. 16.

Sam Raimi VANISH
The Hollywood Reporter writes that NBC has purchased a drama script from Moonlight writer and executive producer, Trevor Munson, currently titled Vanish, with Sony Pictures Television.
The project is described as “an original drama series, which revolves around a man with a mysterious past who protects deserving people from danger, and helps them disappear.
Sony Pictures TV is co-producing the project with Sam Raimi (Spiderman 3, Spartacus) and producing partner Joshua Donen’s company, Stars Road Entertainment.
Director Michael Dinner (The Wonder Years, Justified) is also set to EP and according to Munson on Twitter, Dinner will direct this spring if the script goes to pilot. And if picked up by NBC, it will debut next fall.
Vanish joins recent NBC acquisitions including Sarah Colonna's 'Life as I Blow It' Comedy, a legal drama from NYPD Blue co-creators Steven Bochco and David Milch, and a drama from Law & Order consulting producer Judith K. McCreary based on the book, The Serial Killer Whisperer.

Akira Cast AKIRA
The live-action Akira is getting close to becoming a reality. Variety reports that Warner Bros. has greenlit the project with director Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown) attached to direct. What's more, they may have already found their leading man in TRON: Legacy star Garrett Hedlund.
Famously adapted as an anime in 1988, Akira will be based on the original manga by Katsuhiro Otomo, depicting a sci-fi cyberpunk dystopia, but will relocate the action to "New Manhattan" rather than "Neo-Tokyo."
Hedlund's involvement is only tentative at the moment, but he would up be for the part of the original story's Kaneda (there is not yet word on whether or not the character names will be changed).
Budgeted at $90 million, Akira could shoot as early as February of next year.

,

CHRONICLE
MTV has debuted the trailer for 20th Century Fox's Chronicle, the faux-documentary style film that tells the story of three teenagers who develop superpowers. Directed by Joshua Trank and written by Max Landis and Trank, the movie stars Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan, Alex Russell and Michael Kelly.
In the February 3 release, three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to them developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities, and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2011

Sam Witwer STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS
Star Wars fan favorite Darth Maul is being brought back from the ''dead'' for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The question became, whose voice would be tapped as the legendary Sith lord.
Being Human's Sam Witwer.
Yep, you heard right. Funny thing is, Witwer is truly no stranger to the Star Wars Universe�and to using the Force�at all.
The news reports say:
Witwer is an experienced actor who has appeared in such television shows as C.S.I., Dexter, Being Human, Dark Angel, JAG, Battlestar Galactica, and Smallville. He is no stranger to the Star Wars Universe either. Witwer has done extensive voice work on Star Wars The Force Unleashed 1 & 2, and the Ultimate Sith Edition video games, and he has also voiced the part of 'The Son' on Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series.
Those who've played Force Unleashed will know that Witwer was one of the best things about those two games (especially the first one). The actor managed to create in Starkiller�Darth Vader's secret apprentice�a great character who fans learned to love and root for.

Jason Statham TRANSFORMERS NEWS
News reports have said that Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay were planning another return to the Autobot- Decepticon Wars. Well, now it seems like they're adding one film and losing one star.
Paramount wants to shoot Transformers 4 and 5 back to back, a cost-cutting technique employed by Back to the Future 2 and 3, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and, most recently, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3.
While Bay is interested in returning to orchestrate more mechanical mayhem, and Dark of the Moon writer Ehren Kruger has an idea for T4 and T5 that Paramount likes, it seems that Shia LaBoeuf has had enough, and he's bailing. That leaves a hole in the franchise for some new blood, and rumor has it that Jason Statham's name is on the short list.

The Glades GLADES RENEWED
The A&E network has renewed, The Glades, its charcter-based procedural for a third season, which will premiere in summer 2012.
The news comes as the net looks to expand its scripted footprint, with other scripted dramas Breakout Kings and upcoming Longmire.
For its part, The Glades' second season grew 12 percent in the advertiser beloved 18 to 49 demographic -- and 2 percent in the adults 25 to 54 demo-- compared to a year earlier. On average, the series, starring Matt Passmore, lured 3.9 million total viewers.
The drama, which is produced by Fox Television Studios, is executive produced by creator Clifton Campbell (White Collar, 21 Jump Street) and Gary Randall (Saving Grace).

In The Dust IN THE DUST
Stephen L'Heureux's Solipsist Films has preemptively picked up the rights to the upcoming Top Cow graphic novel In the Dust, created by George Mahaffey and Christian Duce. Mahaffey will write the adaptation.
L’Heureux will produce with Top Cow’s Matt Hawkins and Marc Silvestri executive producing.
The story is set against the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when “black blizzards� obscured the Midwest and prairies. The plot sees a G-Man investigating the disappearances of entire families from small towns during these storms, uncovering the existence of an army of vampires that are using them as cover to ravage the countryside. The agent is forced to team up with remnants of Al Capone’s gang to save Chicago when the vampires turn their attention to the Windy City.
The 165-page graphic novel is due out next year.
Mahaffey, repped by Gersh and Generate, is an attorney-turned-scribe who last year sold the spec Heat Seekers to Paramount with Platinum Dunes and Chris Morgan producing. He also sold a spec titled Bots to Blumhouse and worked on Drone, a sci-fi project being developed by Solipsist and Benderspink.
L'Heureux recently set up vampire thriller Undying Love, based on a comic created by Tomm Coker and Daniel Freedman, at Warner Bros., and is producing A Dame to Kill For, the Sin City sequel being co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. The helmers are doing a pass on the recently submitted William Monahan draft and are eying an end of the year start.
Top Cow is the company behind Wanted, which was adapted into the 2008 Angelina Jolie action vehicle. Earlier this year its comic Crosshair was set up at Summit with Mandeville producing.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2011

Vampire Diaries-Michael THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
In the final moments of last week's "Vampire Diaries" episode, Katherine (Nina Dobrev) and Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) broke into a crypt and woke up a very cranky vampire.
This is actually our second time meeting Mikael, played by "Supernatural's" Sebastian Roché -- he's the vampire hunter police chief with the wooden bullets who crashed Klaus and Stefan's party in the 1920s.
First of all, his name is spelled Mikael, a fact that producers kept under-wraps initially, just as they kept the spelling of Rebekah's name a secret. The old-world spellings certainly betray the ages of the vampires in question.
It remains to be seen for sure whether Mikael is an Original vampire. There's a notable absence of a white-oak silver dagger in his chest when Katherine opens the tomb. However, he is wrapped in chains, and has clearly dessicated without being able to feed on blood, so it's likely that he was never killed by a dagger or a stake -- just stuck in the tomb, as the 1864 vampires were in Season 1.
The general consensus is that Mikael may be the Original father -- that is, Rebekah and Elijah's father. We know that the Original dad had quite a temper, since he killed the werewolf who fathered Klaus. But is his temper dangerous enough that he would hunt his own children? Remember, Klaus wasn't the only one on the run from Mikael in the 1920s. Rebekah feared him as well.
We know that Mikael was entombed by a witch in the Pickett wing of the largest cemetery in Charlotte at some point in the 1990s. Given that this is "The Vampire Diaries," we have to assume that there's some significance to that time frame... and our first thought is that Elena, the first viable doppelganger in five centuries, was born right around then. And how convenient that at the time of his capture, Mikael was in the Southeast United States, the birthplace of the doppelganger.

The Walking Dead THE WALKING DEAD
THE WALKING DEAD, AMC's horror favorite, was the highest-rated cable premiere in almost a decade.
The Walking Dead's premiere infected 7.3 million viewers on Sunday night, making it the biggest basic- cable premiere since USA's The Dead Zone, back in 2002. And, if you count the folks who caught the premiere's encores, you get 11 million folks (and that's before the DVR numbers come in).
As AMC president Charlie Collier so humbly put it:
"The Walking Dead is one of those rare television programs that reaches both a core genre fan as well as broad audiences simply looking for a great, character-based story. ... That The Walking Dead is now the most watched drama in the history of basic cable is staggering, just like our zombies."

Excalibur EXCALIBER
If you, like us, have been waiting with trepidation to see Bryan Singer's take on John Boorman's epic Arthurian movie Excalibur, you can stop waiting, because the planned remake is�to put it mildly�dead in the water.
Singer had announced about two years ago that he would tackle a remake of Excalibur (1981), a film that many fans still consider to be, to this day, the definitive King Arthur movie.
While Singer was attending the annual Sitges Film Festival, the director spoke to SFX about how the deal has fallen through:
"Yeah, unfortunately it is no longer going to happen," he says. "I was really enthused to do it. I'm a fan of John Boorman's movie and it was my intention to get it going after Jack The Giant Killer was completed. The project was with Warner Bros and what happened is that another King Arthur project was brought to them during that time. Basically, it was just more ready to go into production than ours was. That is why our version of Excalibur ended up being negated. But, when that happened, it allowed me to go straight into developing Battlestar Galactica - which I think will be really exciting."
While we're a bit bummed out we won't get to see a new version of Excalibur, it would have been cool to see an updated version�if done right, of course�since it hasn't aged as well as we'd hoped), we're quite excited about the fact that Singer is moving ahead with his reboot of Battlestar Galactica.
Singer's version will have nothing to do with Ron D. Moore's recent successful take on the classic sci-fi series, but will rather be a re-imagining of Glen Larson's 1978 original series, with Larson on board as a producer.

Shia LaBeouf GIANT
Variety reports that Shia LaBeouf has attached himself to a script from Gil Kenan, currently titled A Giant.
The film, described by AngeleFine Productions as "Lars and the Real Girl meets Edward Scissorhands," would star LaBeouf as a 20-foot giant. Their full synopsis is as follows:
A modern day adult dramatic fairy tale. A story of love and friendship between a rebellious young woman and the mysterious young man who lives in the shadows next door.
Lava Bear Films will produce with the Henson Company and Variety hints that Universal may step in as distributor.
LaBeouf, who appeared earlier this year in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, will next star in The Wettest Country in the World. Kenan is best known as the director of the animated film Monster House and for his live-action followup, City of Ember.

Zombiland ZOMBILAND
Just a few months ago, Ruben Fleischer, the director of the original Zombieland, said that a film sequel wasn't happening anytime soon. Today, The Hollywood Reporter has an update, explaining that a followup to the 2009 comedy hit is, indeed, in the works, but that it's heading for the small screen.
Planned as a half-hour show, "Zombieland" is being developed by Sony Pictures Television and 20th Century Fox and, if it moves forward, will likely replace any big screen sequel. The original writers of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are involved, but the full cast is unlikely to return. Whether that means recasting the same characters or focusing on new ones altogether remains to be seen.
The original Zombieland, which ended up starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, was originally being developed as a TV pilot.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN
A new trailer has debuted, courtesy of iTunes Movie Trailers, for director Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin.
Opening domestically in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on December 23, the big screen adaptation stars Jamie Bell as Tintin, the intrepid young reporter whose relentless pursuit of a good story thrusts him into a world of high adventure, and Daniel Craig as the nefarious Red Rackham.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2011

Matt Reeves TWILIGHT ZONE
The new big screen version of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone has found its director, and it's not any of the filmmakers who were reportedly up for the job.
Deadline has revealed that Warner Bros. Pictures has chosen Matt Reeves to get behind the camera for The Twilight Zone. Reeves is known for his scary found-footage monster movie Cloverfield as well as last year's Let Me In, the effective remake of the brilliant Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In.
Reeves has been attached to a few other projects, including an adaptation of the epic vampire novel The Passage, a revisionist Frankenstein tale called This Dark Endeavor, and a film based on the classic sci-f short story "8 O'Clock in the Morning." Looks like The Twilight Zone will come first though: although a script has already been written by Jason Rothenberg, the plan is to get Reeves' deal done, let him work on the screenplay himself and start production next summer.
Sounds good, but what happened to all those other directors that the studio was allegedly approaching about the movie? Nothing against Reeves, but last we heard, Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Rises), Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men), Michael Bay (Transformers) and Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) were all on the short list. In the end, Reeves may have come at a lower price than all of them, although that doesn't mean he isn't suited to make the movie.
As previously reported, the new Twilight Zone will not be an anthology like the 1982 movie but a single story, described by Deadline as a "big science fiction action movie with a single freestanding story that is linked to the original series mainly in that it shares that familiarly eerie feel."
That raises another question: why exactly is this being called The Twilight Zone? Will there be a classic Serling-like twist at the end, a moral lesson of some kind, or is this just a way to brand an original idea with a marketable title?

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
DreamWorks Pictures' Real Steel narrowly won first place at the weekend box office to top for a second straight weekend. The Hugh Jackman-starrer added an estimated $16.3 million to bring its two-week total to $51.7 million domestically. The Shawn Levy-directed action drama, distributed by Disney, finished first overseas as well with $24.2 million for a foreign total of $56.6 million and worldwide total of $108.3 million.
Paramount's Footloose remake, directed by Craig Brewer and starring Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough, debuted in a close second in North America with $16.1 million from 3,549 theaters. The film was made for about $24 million.
Universal prequel The Thing opened in third place to $8.7 million from 2,996 theaters, which was below studio expectations.
In its second weekend, Columbia's The Ides of March earned $7.5 million for a total of $22.2 million so far.
Warner Bros.' Dolphin Tale rounded out the top five with $6.3 million and has collected $58.7 million after four weeks. The family film cost $37 million to produce.
Following in sixth, seventh and eighth, Moneyball earned $5.5 million for a total of $57.7 million after four weeks, 50/50 added $4.3 million for a total of $24.3 million after three weeks, and Courageous brought in $3.4 million for a three-week total of $21.4 million.
20th Century Fox comedy The Big Year, starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, bombed badly with just $3.3 million from 2,150 theaters, an average of only $1,547 theaters per site.
Internationally, The Three Musketeers came in second behind Real Steel with $20.4 million and has earned $49 million overseas so far. The Paul W.S. Anderson action adventure opens in North America this Friday. Third place went to Johnny English Reborn, which added $17.3 million and is already up to $85.1 million internationally. The comedy doesn't hit domestic theaters until October 28.
In limited domestic release, Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In opened in six theaters where it earned an impressive $231,000, an average of $38,500 theater. Moviegoers didn't seek out Joel Schumacher's TrespassTexas Killing Fields earned only $9,600 from three theaters.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2011


THE WALKING DEAD PREMIERES TONIGHT
"The Walking Dead" returns to AMC Sunday (Oct. 16) for a second season of zombie-infested drama. It's been nine months since we last left Sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his rag-tag band of zombie-pocalypse survivors outside the exploding headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Season 2 promises more friction between survivors, a richer understanding at some of the characters (Norman Reedus' Daryl, for instance), twice the episodes (13 in all) and lots and lots of blood-splattered, zombie-fueled terror.
As we head into the 90-minute premiere, we've gathered these 10 important things to know before you watch. For fans, it'll serve as a refresher. For newcomers, it should give you all the information you need to survive a zombie attack. Okay, not really -- but you'll at least make it through the premiere unscathed:
1. Pay close attention to Rick's opening monologue. He'll give a brief re-cap of where things stand, too. You'll probably be left with one dangling question. The answer: Jacqui.
2. The nasty, black-toothed people you see on the screen are not meth addicts. The entire population of the earth (as far as we know) has been decimated by a virus that turns the infected into zombies.
3. If you read the Robert Kirkman comic books, don't assume you know where this ship is headed -- the show only uses the comics as a loose guide for its own story line.
4. Zombies, though lethal, are slow and stupid. They're easy to outrun, characters just need to avoid getting trapped and/or surrounded by them.
5. We don't know if there's any cure for the virus. At the end of season 1, we met Jenner (Noah Emmerich), a CDC scientist who was pretty sure he knew how the infection worked. He chose to stay and die when the building self destructs.
6. Before they left, Jenner whispered something in Rick's ear. We don't know what that something was. Could he have seen something -- say a surprising encounter between two characters -- or did he discover something interesting from the blood tests he did on the group?
7. Andrea (Laurie Holden) didn't want to leave the CDC alive. If you're wondering why she's got a death wish, know that she had to shoot her younger sister in the head at point blank range when she (her sister, Amy) was bitten and turned into a zombie.
8. Lori Grimes (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Rick's best friend and fellow sheriff, Shane (Jon Bernthal), had a post-zombie-pocalypse friends with benefits kind of relationship when they both thought Rick was dead. When he surfaced alive, they broke things off. Rick doesn't know.
9. Carol's (Melissa Suzanne McBride) husband was killed when zombies swarmed their camp in season 1. She and daughter Sofia are kind of downcast about that, but not really since he was a pretty abusive guy who had more interest in his daughter than was probably healthy.
10. Daryl's older brother, Merle (Michael Rooker), was left handcuffed to the roof of an Atlanta building by Rick. We know he cut his hand off to escape. We don't know what became of him after that.
Bonus: Season 1 only consisted of six episodes. If you've got about four hours, you can watch it all before 9 p.m.
P.S. Watch this 5-minute clip that premiered on Saturday (Oct. 15) at New York Comic-Con:
"The Walking Dead" premieres Sunday 9 p.m. ET on AMC.

Avengers THE AVENGERS AT NEW YORK COMIC CON
Cast members of the upcoming Marvel superheroes movie The Avengers, along with producer Kevin Feige, drew much applause and loud cheers here at New York Comic-Con Saturday evening as they showed new footage and answered fans' questions.
Passionate fan boys and girls greeted and feted Chris Evans (Captain America), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson), Cobie Smulders (Agent Hill) and surprise guest Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner aka The Hulk).
Feige told fans that Marvel is currently already working on Iron Man 3, which is in pre-production and which he said "will be the first of what we sort of refer to as phase two of this...saga that will culminate, God willing, in Avengers 2."
In what organizers said was its first-ever event at the New York gathering, Marvel Studios also debuted new footage that included an extended scene featuring Ruffalo's Banner as he meets Scarlett Johansson's character Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow. The new footage also included a range of snippets with the other protagonists, such as a scene in which Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark aka Iron Man tells Loki that he has annoyed a range of his superhero colleagues.
The trailer for The Avengers, which came out earlier in the week, was downloaded more than 10 million times within 24 hours.
In the new scene with Ruffalo and Johansson, Romanoff tells Banner -- after a little girl lures him to a meeting spot inside an abandoned building-- that Samuel Jackson's Nick Fury and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency need his help.
It is "just you and me," Romanoff tells Banner. She also says that Banner has been "without an incident for two years -- I don't think you want to break that streak."
Banner gets upset for a moment, but contains his rage. Romanoff then puts down a gun she had drawn quickly and says into a microphone: "Stand down!"
The scene then cuts to the outside of the building, revealing armed men who were standing by after all in case she needed help.
Feige said during the Saturday panel that Avengers director Joss Whedon is currently working on the movie in the edit room. Asked by a fan, he said it wasn't clear yet how long it would be.
Another fan wanted to know if the Avengers would follow the tradition of recent Marvel movies and include a scene hinting at the comany's next superhero film.
"It's a nice tradition, and I like traditions, so I think we'll keep that up," Feige responded.
Hiddleston, who got more questions from fans than anyone else on the panel, said he had a great time on the film. "It's thrilling for me to be the only bad guy in a group of the greatest superheroes in the world played by some of the best actors in the world," he said.
Evans said it was "nerve-wracking going into a project like this" because of the great talent and everyone's hope to get along, particularly since Avengers "could be a franchise."
"It was extremely intimidating," echoed Smulder. Working with Whedon, a friend of hers, was one of the most exciting things about the project, she added.
"This is my first Con," Smulder admitted. "This is the best way to be introduced to Comic-Con."
Evans said that while he loves the Captain America suit, it's nice to shoot scenes without it. Other stars also said it takes a lot of work and discipline to get into their suits for shoots.
Asked about the various men who have played his character in the past, Ruffalo said he built on the great work of such men as Bill Bixby, Eric Bana and Ed Norton, but tried to give his character a more mature edge.
"I had to pay homage, but then I had to 'Ruffalize' it," he quipped in a line that some of his stars later harked back on.
He also highlighted that he actually got to play both Bruce Banner and the Hulk given that the film did not use an all-CGI Hulk.
Ruffalo also quipped that Bruce Banner was this generation's Hamlet. "We're all going to get a chance at the part," he said.
One young fan got the actors to jointly say the famous line "Avengers assemble!"
"Assemble" was also the text of a text message that Evans sent his co-stars one day when everyone was in the same city, the panel revealed. Asked what happened that evening, Evans quipped that none of the stars remembers.
Asked about their favorite superheroes, male and female, Feige mentioned the Hulk, Ruffalo said Hulk and the Black Widow, Smulders and Evans mentioned Iron Man, and Hiddleston gave a shout-out to his character's brother Thor.
Keeping the crowd entertained in between other questions, Gregg sang his version of the Avengers theme song to much applause. It included a rhyme that went from the line "we have muscles so bulky" to one that said the superhero had "Hulky."
Gregg also drew many laughs when asked about his experience on the film. He said when he walked into a room with the assembled Avengers for the first time, "I kind of felt it was the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
The Avengers is scheduled for a May 4, 2012 release.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2011

Brandon McLaren FALLING SKIES NEWS
TNT’s Falling Skies, which was the biggest cable premiere of 2011, is gearing up for Season 2 and The Hollywood Reporter has learned that one of the stars of AMC’s The Killing, Brandon Jay McLaren, has been cast for a multiple episode guest-starring role.
McLaren, who played Rosie’s teacher Bennett Ahmed on the AMC drama, will appear in at least seven episodes of Falling Skies starting with the second season’s premiere.
The 31-year-old will play Sunil Chutani who’s described as a handsome and overwhelmed mechanic who has spent a fortune on an Ivy League engineering degree and was just days away from launching an IPO when the aliens hit. Aside from The Killing, McLaren also plays Lenin in the Canadian fantasy series, Being Erica. He has also appeared on CBS' mystery thriller, Harper’s Island, Smallville, and he was the red ranger on the 2005 live action kids series, Power Rangers S.P.D. He also appears in the film, Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, which opened in select theatres on Sept. 30.
TNT renewed Falling Skies for a 10-episode second season in July. It returns in summer 2012.

You Tube GOOGLE/YOU TUBE
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Google's YouTube has been striking deals with several content providers in an effort to add about two dozen channels that will offer TV-style entertainment and news, insiders confirmed Friday. The effort could yield some channels by early next year with original shows from such partners as Warner Bros., BermanBraun, FremantleMedia and ShineReveille.
Details were sketchy on Friday, but some sources indicated Google would spend as much as $150 million on the effort.
Google, of course, made its reputation off of user-generated content but it has been adding premium fare at a fast clip, mostly in the form of movies it rents for $3.99 or older titles that it offers free with advertising.
While the addition of traditional TV shows via an a la carte model similar to the way YouTube offers movies is in the works, the creation of new channels with online programming is a somewhat separate initiative, insiders said.
An official announcment of the project is expected within about a month.

Shawn Levy THE THREE MISFORTUNES OF GEPPETTO
Deadline reports that Shawn Levy is attached to direct a project called The Three Misfortunes of Geppetto.
The story, from screenwriter/playwright Michael Vukadinovich, is a prequel to the classic fairy tale "Pinocchio" and tells of the life and love of the puppet-turned-boy's creator.
Though Levy is said to be attached, he recently said that anything with his name on it as director has to be taken with a grain of salt.
"According to the internet, I'm going to be directing 19 different movies simultaneously as my next," he laughed during the Real Steel junket.
Two major projects that have caught Levy's eye, both also with 20th Century Fox, are the Max Landis-scripted adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Isaac Asimov adaptation Fantastic Voyage.

THE GREAT GATSBY
Currently in production in Australia, The Great Gatsby has been given the release date of December 25, 2012.
The film, based on the classic work by F. Scott Fitzgerald, follows would-be writer Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz and bootleg kings. Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy (Carey Mulligan), and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves and deceits. As Nick bears witness, within and without the world he inhabits, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams and high-octane tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles.
The Christmas Day release puts The Great Gatsby head-to-head with Django Unchained, in which DiCaprio also stars.

Top Gun TOP GUN SEQUEL
X-Men: First Class co-writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz are in negotiations with Paramount and Skydance to write the script for the Top Gun sequel, reports Variety.
While no plot details have been released, director Tony Scott previously said that the film would chart the development of the Air Force fighter pilot into the present day, inspired partially by a young Air Force pilot he met on a flight who runs drone simulations. In contrast to Tom Cruise's character in the first film, the sequel would explore the evolution of the remote-control pilot, he said.
Bruckheimer also said that "the aviation community has completely changed since we made the movie a long time ago. So we have to find a way in and how to incorporate the Maverick character into it."
There has not been any official word whether Cruise would return, however. Jerry Bruckheimer and David Ellison are on board to produce.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2011

Dano-Foster DIE HARD
With a new "Die Hard" film set for a Valentine's Day 2013 release, it's time to find the key role, that of John McLane Jr. According to Variety, there are some choices already being considered to play alongside Bruce Willis in the action film.
Paul Dano ("There Will Be Blood"), Ben Foster ("3:10 to Yuma") and Aaron Paul ("Breaking Bad") are reportedly each being talked about for the role. The story also states that actors will soon begin reading with Willis as they audition for the part.
While details are limited about "A Good Day to Die Hard," Fox film CEO Tom Rothman said that whoever plays the younger McClane will have to have screen chemistry with Willis and that the tone will be similar to that of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."
Rothman also added there's an interest using whoever plays McClane Jr. to extend the franchise.
"If we do it right and we introduce a new personality, that does open it up for the future...that's going to be a casting challenge," Rothman said in a radio interview on Wednesday (Oct. 12). "We gotta get just the right guy."
The film will start shooting in January 2012.

Patty Jenkins THOR 2
After much speculation, it's official: Thor 2 will be the first Marvel movie directed by a woman.
Marvel Studios announced that Patty Jenkins will take over for Thor director Kenneth Branagh as the filmmaker of record on Thor 2. Jenkins is best known for making the beautiful Charlize Theron into an ugly (and Oscar-winning) serial killer in Monster, as well as for directing the pilot of AMC's series The Killing, for which Jenkins landed an Emmy nomination.
Jenkins joins an elite Marvel boys' club that has so far included Jon Favreau (the first two Iron Man movies), Branagh, Joe Johnston (Captain America), Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk), Joss Whedon (The Avengers) and Shane Black (the upcoming Iron Man 3). In fact, every superhero movie to date�including Marvel movies made by other studios and DC Comics films�has had a man behind the camera until now.
Thor 2 will also represent another first for the studio: it will be the first Marvel movie to open outside of the traditional summer blockbuster season. The studio has moved the picture's release date from July 26, 2013 to November 15, 2013. Why? Marvel's press release did not give an official reason, but as The Playlist speculates, it could be to get out of an already crowded July schedule that includes potential sci-fi epics like Steven Spielberg's Robopocalypse, Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim and Joseph Kosinski's Horizons (formerly known as Oblivion).
Chris Hemsworth will return as the God of Thunder, of course, while Natalie Portman will be back as Jane Foster. And Loki (Tom Hiddleston) will make an encore appearance as well, although producer Kevin Feige hinted at new menaces to threaten the Nine Realms (the Enchantress, anyone?).
So there you have it, Marvel goes outside the box and makes a surprising, unconventional choice to direct one of its most anticipated sequels.

BAG OF BONES
Stephen King is returning to the small screen, and this time he's bringing James Bond with him. Pierce Brosnan stars in Bag of Bones, the author's latest novel-turned-TV movie. The first promo for the film has debuted, and it's filled with terrifying goodies�just in time for Halloween!
Bag of Bones centers on a widower named Mike Noonan who's overcome by grief following the death of his wife. After having a strange dream, he's inspired to visit their lakeside retreat in western Maine. Little does he know that the pain and sorrow he's trying to escape are about to get much worse.
Mike realizes that the small town isn't as innocent or peaceful as it seems. He's pulled into a custody case and murder mystery, which Brosnan describes as a "beast of a piece." A&E has released a behind-the-scenes look at Bag of Bones that reveals plenty of horrifying moments, including walking corpses.
Bag of Bones co-stars Melissa George, Jason Priestley, Annabeth Gish, Anika Noni Rose and Matt Frewer and is directed by Mick Garris.
Bag of Bones is a two-part mini-series that airs Sunday, Dec. 11, and Monday, Dec. 12.

CRIME OF THE CENTURY
Deadline reports that Dan Trachtenberg, the commercials director who recently released the short fan film Portal: No Escape, is set to direct Crime of the Century at Universal Pictures. Deadline says the project is based off an idea from Trachtenberg and screenwriter Daniel Kunka.
Little is known about the specifics of the film's plot, though it is said to be a heist film with science fiction elements.
The film will be produced by Chris Morgan, who has recently taken a turn to producing after successful screenplays like Wanted and Fast Five. Kunka, meanwhile, is best known for writing 12 Rounds and the upcoming Agent OX.

Rade-Taken 2 TAKEN 2
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Rade Sherbedgia has landed the role of the lead villain (the father of the original film's kidnapper) in the upcoming Taken 2.
The film, which was just yesterday given the release date of October 5, 2012, is officially described as follows:
Liam Neeson returns as Bryan Mills, the retired CIA agent with a particular set of skills who stopped at nothing to save his daughter Kim from Albanian kidnappers. When the father of one of the kidnappers swears revenge, and takes Bryan and his wife hostage during their family vacation in Istanbul, Bryan enlists Kim to help them escape, and uses the same advanced level of special forces tactics to get his family to safety and systematically take out the kidnappers one by one.
Though they had no scenes together, Sherbedgia played a minor role in Batman Begins, which also starred Neeson.

HYPERDRIVE
Paramount Pictures has purchased a spec script called Hyperdrive, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter.
To be produced by Mary Parent, the script arrives from Morgan Jurgenson and David Daniels and mixes buddy comedy with science fiction, pairing a serious cop with a nerdy sci-fi writer, both of whom move from investigating a murder to the middle of an intergalactic plot.
Jurgenson is best known for his recent release, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, which he co-wrote with that film's director, Eli Craig. Daniels, meanwhile, is said to be the pen name of Alex Ankeles, an executive at Panay Films most recently connected with Disney's The Girlfriend Equation.

ROSEWOOD LANE
Here is your first look at the trailer for Rosewood Lane, the new thriller starring Rose McGowan poised to premiere at Screamfest in Los Angeles this weekend.
McGowan (Conan the Barbarian, Grindhouse) plays radio talk show therapist, Sonny Blake, who moves back to her childhood home after her alcoholic father dies. Upon her return to the old neighborhood, Sonny discovers her neighbors are terrified of the local paperboy.
Ray Wise, Lin Shaye, Ashton Moio, Lesley-Anne Down and Rance Howard also star.
Rosewood Lane is written and directed by Victor Salva, the man behind Powder and the Jeepers Creepers films.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2011

SPECIAL CHRISTMAS EPISODES
Eureka will get animated, Warehouse 13's Pete will face a world where he was never born and Haven's Audrey will deal with Christmas in July, as Syfy offers up holiday episodes of its three summer series on Dec. 6 as part of its Countdown to Christmas.
Syfy had previously announced that their big Peter Pan origin miniseries, Neverland, would be premiering on Dec. 4 and 5. The Christmas episodes of Syfy's summer series, Eureka, Warehouse 13 and Haven will air the day after from 8 to 10 p.m. ET.
So how do the various producers deal the fact that their shows are in the middle of story arcs and have cliffhangers, like on Haven with Audrey being kidnapped? They don't. These are stand-alone episodes.
Warehouse 13's special episode, "The Greatest Gift," deals with what happens when Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) gets hit on the head by an artifact and discovers he's never been born. A familiar face returns for the episode, which was directed by showrunner Jack Kenny.
And on Haven's "Silent Night," everyone except Audrey (Emily Rose) seems to think it's Christmas even though it's July. However, when people begin disappearing into thin air everyone starts to lose the Christmas spirit.

Intruders INTRUDERS
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Millennium Entertainment has acquired North American rights to the horror film Intruders, which had its world premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. The company plans a theatrical release in April.
Clive Owen, Carice Van Houten, Daniel Brühl, Pilar López de Ayala, Ella Purnell and Izán Corchero star in the story of two children in different countries who are each visited by a faceless intruder that wants to take possession of them. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) directed a screenplay by Nicolás Casariego and Jaime Marques.
Enrique López Lavigne, Belén Atienza and Mercedes Gamero produced the project; Jesus de la Vega and Ricardo Garcia Arrojo are executive producers.
“Intruders is an accessible chiller with high entertainment value, but the film is also a smart, psychological journey which will appeal to sophisticated audiences,� said Millennium CEO Bill Lee. “The film resonated hauntingly with our team in Toronto, and we’re enthused to work with Juan Carlos to bring the film to theatres this spring.�
Millennium exec Vincent Scordino negotiated the deal with UTA Independent Film Group's Rich Klubeck and David Flynn, who represented the filmmakers.
Millennium has recently released the dramas Trust and Puncture. Forthcoming films include Rampart, Bernie, Little Birds and Trespass, which opens Friday.

FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 2010

JONAH HEX
The trailer for Warner Bros.' latest DC Comics adaptation, JONAH HEX, has finally been released. The Josh Brolin-Megan Fox flick went into production back in April 2009, but not much has been heard of the movie since -- other than a teaser poster and some set photos.
Now Warner Bros. is making a push for the horror-western by recently releasing a still of the title character's scarred face, and the trailer is set to debut this weekend before "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
JONAH HEX rides into theaters on June 18.

Chuck CHUCK FANS RALLY
CHUCK fans have a plan to rally support for the NBC series, and this time it doesn't involve sandwiches. With the action-comedy on the bubble for a renewal, CHUCK fans on Monday will stage themed flash mobs in at least four cities.
In Chicago, Seattle, San Diego and Philadelphia, CHUCK fans plan to gather while dressed in the show's Buy More-style clothing (short-sleeve work shirts, name tags and the like).
The idea is from fan site chucktv.net, one of those that spearheaded last year's "Finale and a Footlong" campaign that made national headlines when fans bought sandwiches from "Chuck" sponsor Subway. While last year's effort was about sending a message to NBC that fans will support the show's advertisers, this year it's about trying to market the show to potential viewers.
"Chuck fans are the most loyal, dedicated, imaginative and passionate fans any show could ever hope for," CHUCK co-creator Josh Schwartz said.
"Every season they offer more proof they should be licensed and professional fans teaching other fans how it's done. This is yet another example of their awesomeness. We are, as always, grateful and inspired to deliver a show as good to them as they are to us."
The College Hill/Wonderland/Warner Bros.-produced series has been on the bubble for a pickup at NBC, though indications suggest the network is bullish about a return. CHUCK has been the most stable part of the network's Monday night lineup in a year that companion series HEROES has dropped significantly.

The Dark Tower GUNSLINGER
The Hollywood Reporter writes that J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot shingle spent some time trying to crack Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower� book series as a television series. However, they no longer has the rights to one of the author’s biggest properties.
Bad Robot has returned the rights back to the best-selling author. Now Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman are teaming up to tackle the fantasy Western.
The three are in discussions on a scenario that would see an adaptation begin as a movie, to be written by Goldsman and directed by Howard, that would lead to a TV series produced by Imagine’s small-screen division.
“Tower� is not set up, nor has any option deal been made, but insiders say Universal, home to Imagine, would be the studio that will release the movie.
That would be a contrast to the vision drawn up by Bad Robot, which had been eyeing their potential series as a reunion with “Lost� exec producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Because of the comprehensive nature of the project, the creators wanted to wait until “Lost� was over to give it their attention. When they realized they wouldn't be able to do an adaptation justice, they gave the rights back to King.
King’s magnum opus, “Tower� encompasses not just a narrative about the Man in Black and Roland, the Gunslinger, that spans seven lengthy books (and one short story), but also the entire universe of King’s fiction. Characters from his other novels flit in and out of “Tower� in minor and major ways.
Envisioned when King was still in his teens as his own take on spaghetti Westerns and the world of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,� “Tower� has also spawned a series of graphic novels from Marvel Comics, with the latest issue hitting shelves May 19. The property’s expansive nature and direct connection to King’s other works make it one of the biggest, ripest franchise possibilities in entertainment.

Dwayne Johnson PROTECTION
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Dwayne Johnson will star in the action thriller PROTECTION, with Simon West directing.
The screenplay, written by Brandon Noonan, follows a Mexico City security operative who is forced to smuggle the daughter of a high-ranking judge across the border while being pursued by corrupt cops, drug lords and white collar U.S. criminal forces.
IM Global's Stuart Ford and Robert Lawrence will produce along with Gordon Gray and Marc Ciardi of Mayhem Pictures. Brian Kavanaugh Jones is an executive producer, and Jib Polhemus will be a co-producer.
The $35-million production is scheduled to start filming in New Mexico in the fall.
Johnson most recently starred in TOOTH FAIRY and RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN. He will next appear in the Columbia comedy THE OTHER GUYS in August and the CBS Films actioner FASTER, set for release in November.
West last directed WHEN A STRANGER CALLS. He has also directed LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER, THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER and CON AIR.

Hunter HUNTER
Scarlet Fire Entertainment is set to produce a film adaptation of Brit scribe Adam Hamdy's comic, THE HUNTER. Hamdy will adapt the screenplay.
The 2007 Dare Comics debut release is a contemporary superhero comic set against the backdrop of organized crime. Through print and online distribution, HUNTER has reached 130,000 readers.
Hamdy will produce along with Scarlet Fire's Steven Pearl and Allan Loeb, the co-writer of "21" and "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps." Scarlet Fire exec Shane Abrahams first brought the comic to the company.
"We're extremely pleased to be working with Scarlet Fire," said Hamdy, who founded Dare Comics. "They understood 'The Hunter' immediately, and saw in it the potential to create a compelling new universe that loyal fans and newcomers alike will love seeing come to life on the big screen."
Hamdy will create an original Hunter story for the film iteration.
"Not only is Adam an accomplished writer, he is an innovative entrepreneur," said Steven Pearl. "He's succeeded in building a new superhero brand virtually single-handed in a market that is dominated by big companies with very deep pockets."
Hamdy has a new sci-fi comic, "Starmaker: Leviathan," publishing this month from Dare.
Scarlet Fire has produced the television series "New Amsterdam" and "The Beast." The company also has the comedy feature "Arranged" in development.

THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2010




|
SPLICE
A new trailer has gone live on MySpace.com for SPLICE, the upcoming sci-fi horror movie from Cube director Vincenzo Natali.
The trailer gives us a much better look at the central creature, a dangerous creepy human hybrid. There is also a quick glimpse of the former Dr. Rodney McKay, Stargate Atlantis' own David Hewlett.

Eclipse Poster TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN DIRECTOR
Summit Entertainment has officially confirmed rumors that Bill Condon, screenwriter and/or director of films such as Gods and Monsters, Kinsey and Dreamgirls�not to mention '80s genre fare such as Strange Invaders and Strange Behavior�has been hired to direct The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, the final entry in the massively successful film franchise based on Stephenie Meyer's novels.
Summit president of production Erik Feig said in the official press release, "Bringing Stephenie Meyer's BREAKING DAWN to the screen requires a graceful and intelligent hand, and we believe Bill Condon is exactly the right steward, having shown equal and abundant talents of immense creativity and subtle sensitivity."
Meyer herself chimed in, adding, "I'm so thrilled that Bill wants to work with us. I think he's going to be a great fit, and I'm excited to see what he does with the material."
The press release did not indicate whether BREAKING DAWN would be subject to either of the trends that studios are currently enforcing on their tentpole pictures, i.e. being filmed in or converted to 3-D or broken up into two parts, although the latter has also been rumored for the Twilight finale.
The hiring of Condon comes following recent rumors that 30 Days of Night's David Slade�the director of the third installment in the series, ECLIPSE (out June 30)�had run into trouble with Summit over the tone of his film, with reports of reshoots and a change in editors on the project. The studio has sought to dispel those rumors, telling E! Online that it is "very happy with Slade."
Condon himself said in Summit's press release, "I'm very excited to get the chance to bring the climax of this saga to life on-screen. As fans of the series know, this is a one-of-a-kind book�and we're hoping to create an equally unique cinematic experience."
The filmmaker is perhaps understating the case. Breaking Dawn is the most controversial book in the series, and as reported by CHUD.com last November, its many outrageous plot points�Bella and Edward violently consummating their relationship, Bella's monster baby nearly tearing her apart during childbirth, and werewolf Jacob's unnatural relationship with the child�would present a challenge for David Cronenberg, let alone a more mainstream director like Condon (no word on whether he'll get a crack at writing the thing�regular Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg is back again).
Condon, however, did start out in genre work and has a feel for it, while his efforts on Kinsey and Dreamgirls also show a flair for the sexually provocative and the theatrical, respectively. He'll get a chance to bring all that to the table for Breaking Dawn, while juggling the demands of Summit, Meyer and, most important, the fan base.

WAREHOUSE 13'S COMING SEASON
Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly, the stars of Syfy's WAREHOUSE 13, offered a peek at what's in store for the show in the upcoming second season in this exclusive SYFY video interview.
The stars spoke with us at the upfront presentation to advertisers and the press in New York.
"It's going to be so much better this year!" Kelly said enthusiastically.
"The writers have found the show this year," McClintock added. "They're a little bit more clear about where they need to go, and I think the scripts are really strong."
They also offered a few spoilers for the upcoming season, especially about Pete's background and what's coming up for Pete and Myka's relationship.
WAREHOUSE 13 returns in July.

Gere-Grace THE DOUBLE
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Richard Gere and Topher Grace are teaming up for THE DOUBLE, a Hyde Park-Imagenation Abu Dhabi spy thriller on which scribe Michael Brandt will make his directorial debut.
Brandt and his writing partner Derek Haas, who were wrote movies like "Wanted" and "3:10 to Yuma," penned "Double," which begins with a murder of a senator in Washington by a Soviet assassin long thought to be dead. A retired CIA operative (Gere), who spent his career going toe to toe with his Soviet nemeses, is forced to partner with a young FBI agent (Grace) to hunt the killer down.
Brandt said he was a fan of films such as "The Conversation," "Three Days of the Condor" and "No Way Out," and hoped to follow in their tradition.
Production is scheduled for June in Detroit.
The movie is part of Hyde Park and Imagenation's $250 million financing deal to make up to 20 films over a seven years, with additional financing for the production of local language and cross-cultural films. (The two also partnered on Hyde Park Imagenation Singapore.)
Gere last appeared in BROOKLYN'S FINEST, and Grace next appears in Twentieth Century Fox's PREDATORS.

Train Your Dragon HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON SEQUEL
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON has emerged as one of the year's biggest box-office draws and plans to franchise it out are already in the works.
Talking on a conference call to discuss quarterly earnings, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg sais that a TV series is in the works along with a movie sequel for release in the second half of 2013.
Dreamworks is also developing an online virtual world and a live arena show along the lines of the "Walking with Dinosaurs" show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
DRAGON, the best-reviewed film in the DWA's history, has pulled in $180 million at the domestic box-office.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2010

FRINGE MUSICAL EPISODE
It started with BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Who can forget that musical episode?
Now Fox has posted a black-and-white noir-ish promo for Thursday's musical episode of its sci-fi series FRINGE. No music, though. Guess we'll have to wait for the actual episode, "Brown Betty," to air at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Monster Squad MONSTER SQUAD
According to producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, the proposed reboot of the classic 1980s family monster movie THE MONSTER SQUAD is moving forward.
"We're out to writers right now," Form said. "We're going to start hearing takes this week. Hopefully we'll be off to the races writing that." Rob Cohen, producer of the 1987 original, is in line to direct.
The movie comes from Fuller and Form's Platinum Dunes, the company behind remakes of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and FRIDAY THE 13TH, and it marks a bit of a departure for them into family horror.
The original movie centered on a gang of movie-buff kids who actually had to battle Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Gill Man and the Mummy, with Frankenstein as an ally; it's mostly remembered now for the line "Wolf Man's got nards!" But Form and Fuller promise the reboot will be edgier.
"It seems like it stays within our wheelhouse, and yet it expands what we're doing just a little bit," Form said.
"It's a movie we're really excited about, because we loved movies like Goonies, Monster Squad," Form added. "To take a family adventure-type movie, make it scary, is something a little different for us."
Fuller added: "You're going to have those monsters in there, and Platinum Dunes is not going to make a movie with monsters where they're not scary.
"It's not a soft version," Form said.

THE LAST AIRBENDER
Here is the latest trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming martial-arts fantasy film THE LAST AIRBENDER.
The trailer highlights some of the film's fantastical visual effects, including a glimpse at the giant white furry "sky bison" Appa, as well as Aang (Noah Ringer) and his power over the four elements of air, fire, earth and water.
LAST AIRBENDER is based on the animated TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender. It also stars Nicole Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel and Aasif Mandvi and opens on July 2.

SEQUELS COMING
According to Deadline New York, Warner Bros. is moving forward with sequels to both CLASH OF THE TITANS and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH.
The site says the studio is eyeing a spring 2012 release for a CLASH OF THE TITANS follow-up. Director Louis Leterrier won't be at the helm this time (he'll still executive produce), though Sam Worthington is expected to reprise the role before he makes the Avatar sequel. Greg Berlanti will write the story while the studio looks for a screenwriter and director. The film has $388.8 million worldwide since opening at the beginning of the month.
As far as the JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, New Line/Warner Bros. wants to make a fall 2011 release, which means that Eric Brevig wouldn't be able to direct because he's busy with YOGI BEAR. The site says that "Fraser wants to be loyal to Brevig and is resisting New Line's suggestion of filmmakers like Brad Peyton." We'll have to wait and see how that turns out. JOURNEY collected $242 million worldwide in 2008.

LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE SOLDIERS OF FOREVER
Marc Guggenheim ("FlashForward," upcoming Green Lantern) is set to write fantasy action adventure LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE SOLDIERS OF FOREVER for Warner Bros. Pictures.
The studio acquired the project in early March from producers Adrian Askarieh, Roy Lee and Doug Davison.
SOLDIERS OF FOREVER re-imagines Da Vinci as a member of a secret society who falls headlong into a supernatural adventure that pits Da Vinci against Biblical demons in a story involving secret codes, lost civilizations, hidden fortresses and fallen angels.
The studio has also hired Guggenhem to work on a draft of THIEVES OF BAGHDAD, a 10th century family adventure steeped in the world of the Arabian Nights. Based on Cole Hadden's take on the original collection of folk tales "One Thousand and One Nights," it is a film that weaves Sinbad, Ali Baba, flying carpets, sword fights and genies in urns.

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2010

Southland SOUTHLAND RENEWED BY TNT
TNT has announced that it will renew SOUTHLAND for a third season. The cable channel has ordered 10 more episodes of the critically hailed and fiercely loved cop show, which TNT picked up after NBC canceled it last fall. Season 3 is scheduled to premiere in January.
"SOUTHLAND is a challenging, visceral show that engages viewers with its immersive style, provocative storylines and complex characters," TNT programming boss Michael Wright says. "These qualities have made SOUTHLAND a favorite among critics and appointment viewing for an extremely loyal audience."
TNT aired all 13 produced episodes of the show earlier this year. The first seven -- which aired on NBC in 2009 -- performed only modestly in the ratings, but Season 2 episodes in March and April picked up. The six-episode second season averaged 2.7 million viewers (not huge numbers for TNT, but not bad either), a little mroe than half of whom fell into the adults 18-49 demographic. The channel also notes that SOUTHLAND is its youngest original series, with a median viewer age of 47.
The series stars Ben McKenzie and Michael Cudlitz as LAPD patrol officers; the cast also includes Regina King, Clifton Collins Jr., Kevin Alejandro, Arija Bareikis, Tom Everett Scott, Shawn Hatosy and Michael McGrady. Ann Biderman created the series and executive produces with John Wells and Christopher Chulack.

Jamie Kennedy EUREKA NEWS
Jamie Kennedy, the GHOST WHISPERER actor, will guest star on the upcoming season of EUREKA on Syfy, the network announced Monday.
In the episode "The Story of O2," Kennedy will play Dr. Ramsey, who's created a machine that creates oxygen. When the technology malfunctions and too much oxygen is released over Eureka, the town is in danger of incinerating.
Kennedy joins the previously announced Wil Wheaton ("Star Trek: TNG"), James Callis ("Battlestar Galactica") Matt Frewer and Jaime Ray Newnan, all of whom will make their own guest appearances in Season 4.
The fourth season of EUREKA kicks off on Friday, July 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Kennedy's episode is scheduled for July 30.

Nimoy-Vulcan NIMOY VISITS VULCAN
Leonard Nimoy�Spock in the original Star Trek and Spock Prime in last year's reboot movie�was the guest of honor at the christening of Vulcan, Alberta, Canada, as the official Trek capital last Friday.
Nimoy admired the bronze bust of himself as Mr. Spock by sculptor Nathan Scott in the Canadian hamlet. He also left behind his iconic "live long and prosper" handprint. (Photos are by Glacier Valley Photography.) Nimoy presented the town with two special souvenirs: the Spock ears that he wore during the filming of the original Star Trek TV series and a lithograph of the original Trek cast, autographed by all of the original cast members, which will go on display for the next year.

Legend of the Seeker LEGEND OF THE SEEKER CANCELLED
According to EW.com, LEGEND OF THE SEEKER will not get a third season in syndication.
Reports have been circulating since March that things weren't looking good for SEEKER after many of Tribune Station Group's markets dropped the series due to poor ratings. Producers Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert, who managed to keep successful syndicated versions of XENA and HERCULES alive for several years, shopped SEEKER around elsewhere without success.
The writers wrapped up last season's story pretty well, so let's hope we get an ending to the story of the SEEKER and his troupe of heroes, who are trying to save the world from the Keeper of the Underworld.
Executive producer Kenneth Biller talked about the final episodes in a recent interview: "The last four episodes, I think, are going to be a really compelling and satisfying epic payoff to the quest that was set up at the very beginning of the season to the various conflicting prophecies that we have heard about Richard's fate. The Seeker and the Mother Confessor will, in fact, find the Stone of Tears. The question is, will they be able to get it where it needs to be in time to save the Keeper from achieving his ultimate victory? They are going to find themselves with some very unlikely adversaries, as well as some very unlikely allies ... and maybe there might be a wedding."

Warehouse 13 WAREHOUSE 13 NEWS
The original Bionic Woman, the beautiful Lindsay Wagner, and action star Tia Carrere (Wayne's World, Relic Hunter) are among the guest stars on Syfy's upcoming new season of WAREHOUSE 13, Syfy announced.
They join previously announced guest stars Jewel Staite and Sean Maher of Firefly/Serenity, as well as Philip Winchester and Nolan Gerard Funk.
The second season of Warehouse 13 kicks off July 6.

MORE REALITY TV - PANIC ATTACK ORDERED
Fox has ordered a reality pilot about conquering one's fears. In PANIC ATTACK, contestants face their greatest fears -- heights, snakes, tight spaces -- with the help of a pair of therapists.
The project is from frequent Fox collaborator A. Smith & Co., which also produces "Hell's Kitchen" and "Kitchen Nightmares."
PANIC will be hosted by Nik and Eva Speakman, married psychotherapists and motivational speakers who host the U.K. series "A Life Coach Less Ordinary." Each week, five people who suffer from the same phobia will be brought together to work through conquering their fears.
The series is produced by Arthur Smith and Kent Weed.
PANIC is the latest in a series of reality projects in the works that mark a return to the intense, adrenalin- based ideas in vogue during the genre's formative years. Michael Bay is shopping an action-based series with Magical Elves, and Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are crafting "The Great Escape," an action-adventure reality pilot for TNT.

The Ring THE RING
Heat Vision reports that Paramount Pictures is developing a third installment THE RING franchise to be titled RING 3D.
The new film will be written by David Loucka, who wrote the upcoming Dream House and House at the End of the Street.
Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald are in negotiations to return as producers, and Vertigo and Benderspink are executive producing.
The first installment, directed by Gore Verbinski (the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films) and starring Naomi Watts, earned an impressive $249.3 million worldwide in 2002. Watts reprised her role in director Hideo Nakata's The Ring Two, which made $161.5 million in 2005.
According to the trade, "the new film is being fashioned as more teen-centric than the first, and though the logline is being kept under wraps, the aim is to reinvent the franchise."

MONDAY, APRIL 26, 2010

How To Train Your Dragon WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
The animated HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON reclaimed the top slot at the box office in its fifth weekend of release, taking in $15 million and vanquishing newcomer THE LOSERS.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON opened in first place in late March, then dropped back but has remained strong among a slate of lukewarm new movies, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The sci-fi-ish action movie THE LOSERS debuted in fourth place on the April 23 weekend with an estimated $9.6 million domestically.

John Schneider-Robert Davi DOONBY
According to The Hollywood Reporter, John Schneider (Clark Kent's father in SMALLVILLE) has signed on to play a modern George Bailey in DOONBY.
In the feature film, John Schneider stars as Sam Doonby, a happy-go-lucky drifter who takes up residence in a small Texas town but seems suspiciously immune to the misfortunes that beset the other townsfolk.
The film is described as a cross between "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Crazy Heart" and also stars Robert Davi as the town sheriff.
Tommy Warren, who was behind the "Teed Off" series of golf comedies from National Lampoon, is producing with Mark Joseph, a marketing veteran whose campaigns included "The Passion of the Christ" and "Facing the Giants."
Joseph also is co-producing the film's soundtrack, which includes music from AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson.
DOONBY is written and directed by British filmmaker Peter Mackenzie and will be shot at Spiderwood Studios near Austin.
"It's a real clever script that you can't quite figure out until the final minutes of the story," Schneider said. "But nowadays, it's the people involved in the projects that attract me more than the projects themselves. There has to be a high level of integrity, passion and skill."
Schneider, famous for his role in "The Dukes of Hazzard" series, recently wrapped a pair of Christian-themed films: He plays a drifter in "What Would Jesus Do?" scheduled for DVD release in August, and stars as Satan in the comedy "Holyman Undercover," in limited release. He also stars in the horror film "Snow Beast," set for release next year.
As Sam Doonby, Schneider is a mysterious stranger who takes a job as a singing bartender and always seems to be in the right place at the right time, a quality that inspires a dangerous level of envy from his new neighbors.
Joe Estevez, Jennifer O'Neill, Ernie Hudson and Jenn Gotzon also star.
"In some ways, DOONBY is a modern-day retelling of 'It's a Wonderful Life,' but with a little more edge," Mackenzie said. "But the central question remains the same: What would the world look like if we hadn't lived?"
In "Wonderful Life," Jimmy Stewart stars as George Bailey, a man who wishes he never was born who is granted that wish by an angel-to-be.

Summer Glau DEADLY HONEYMOON
Lifetime Movie Network is embarking on DEADLY HONEYMOON, greenlighting an original movie starring "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" alumna Summer Glau.
Chris Carmack ("Drop Dead Diva") and Zoe McLellan ("Dirty Sexy Money") co-star in the film inspired by real- life events.
DEADLY HONEYMOON follows two young newlyweds, Lindsey (Glau) and Trevor Forrest (Carmack), as they embark on their 10-day honeymoon cruise. But the dream vacation devolves into a night of wild partying, infidelity and strange encounters with a group of Eastern European passengers, and the next morning, Trevor is missing, presumed to have fallen overboard to his death. However, one investigator (McLellan) begins to question if his death really was an accident.
Paul Shapiro is directing from a script by Ron McGee Michael Jacobs, Fernando Szew, Ricardo Galindez and Roy Trice are executive producing. Filming is slated to begin in October for a 2010 premiere.

SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 2010

Spock-Leonard Nimoy LEONARD NIMOY IN SPACE TECHNOLOGY HALL OF FAME
Ranger Stefan sent in the following note:
As reported in AviationWeek, Leonard Nimoy was inducted into Space Technology Hall of Fame at National Space Symposium (Colorado Springs).
The posting includes some nice clips showing Nimoy at the press conference. http://tinyurl.com/2c684am

Back-up Plan WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Lopez's new romantic comedy THE BACK-UP PLAN claimed a modest No. 1 slot in the Friday rankings, but it will probably cede that spot to DreamWorks Animation's indefatigable dragons as the weekend proceeds.
The PG-13 PLAN, released by the the fledgling CBS Films, took in an estimated $4.2 million in its first day of release in 3,280 theaters in North America, but Paramount's release of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, beginning its fifth weekend, ranked number two with about $3.7 million, and with the help of matinee moviegoers it could well climb to the top spot for the three days.
Fox's DATE NIGHT, heading out for its third weekend, checked in at number three with $3.3 million.
That left newcomer action-movie THE LOSERS, from Warners, in fourth place. The PG-13 movie from director Sylvain White and starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana and Chris Evans, pulled in $3.2 million from 2,936 locations.
Lionsgate's KICK-ASS came in at fifth for its sophomore session with $2.9 million.
Meanwhile, Disney's nature documentary OCEANS, which opened Wednesday, was lodged down around the eighth position as it collected about $2 million on Friday.

Cary Elwes SAW VII 3-D
Lionsgate has announced that Cary Elwes will reprise his role of Dr. Lawrence Gordon from the first Saw movie in Saw VII 3D, coming to theaters on October 22. The full cast includes Tobin Bell, Elwes, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Sean Patrick Flanery, Gina Holden, Chad Donella, Laurence Anthony, Dean Armstrong and Naomi Snieckus.
In the seventh installment, as a deadly battle rages over Jigsaw's brutal legacy, a group of Jigsaw survivors gathers to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen (Flanery), a man whose own dark secrets unleash a new wave of terror...
Directed by Kevin Greutert from a script by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, it is the first theatrical feature to be shot on the SI-3D digital camera system.
Oren Koules, Mark Burg and Gregg Hoffman are producing.

SHREK FOREVER AFTER
DreamWorks Animation has released the trailer for the IMAX 3D release of SHREK FOREVER AFTER which features new footage from the May 21st release.
There have been questions as to whether the title is now "Shrek: The Final Chapter." The studio has confirmed that "The Final Chapter" is just being used for marketing purposes - the film's title remains SHREK FOREVER AFTER.
Directed by Mike Mitchell, the third installment features the voices of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Antonio Banderas, Jon Hamm, Kathy Griffin and Kristen Schaal.

SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2010

Space Jockey ALIEN PREQUEL

As he prepares for the prequel for his seminal 1979 sci-fi movie ALIENS, director Ridley Scott says that the movie will indeed deal with the identity of the "space jockey" discovered by the crew of the Nostromo on LV-426 in the original movie.
It's one of the nagging mysteries from the original movie: Who were the race that crashed that giant ship on LV-426 in the first place, leaving a wreck�and a bunch of leathery alien eggs�for Ripley and her crew to discover?
Here's what he told MTV:
It's set in 2085, about 30 years before Sigourney [Weaver's character Ellen Ripley]. It's fundamentally about going out to find out 'Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle�there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair. Remember that? ...
And our man [Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas] climbs up and says "There's been an explosion in his chest from the inside out�what was that?" I'm basically explaining who that Space Jockey�we call him the Space Jockey� I'm explaining who the space jockeys were.
Scott says the movie is still being written. "As we speak, I've got a pile of pages next to me; it's like the fourth draft. It's a work in progress, but we're not dreaming it up anymore. We know what the story is. We're now actually trying to improve the three acts and make the characters better, build it up to something [we can shoot]. It's a work in progress, but we're actually making the film. There's no question about it, we're going to make the film."

TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE
TWILIGHT fans. Here is the trailer you have been waiting for: the new trailer for THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE, which debuted on Oprah Winfrey's show Friday.
In Eclipse, based on the third of Stephenie Meyer's best-sellers, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between Edward and Jacob�knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life.
ECLIPSE opens June 30.

Tron Legacy SYFY'S 51
Syfy announced that Bruce Boxleitner will star in the upcoming Saturday-night original movie 51. 51 is not the prequel to 61, Billy Crystal's movie about the Roger Maris/Mickey Mantle home-run race, but rather a movie about what happens when a visitor escapes from the most secretive base on the planet: Area 51.
Below is a portion of Syfy's full release:
BRUCE BOXLEITNER (BABYLON 5) WILL STAR IN NEW SYFY SATURDAY ORIGINAL MOVIE 51
New York, NY - April 23, 2010 - Bruce Boxleitner (Babylon 5) will star as a military hero nearing retirement in the upcoming Syfy Saturday Original Movie, 51. The movie is scheduled to premiere on Syfy in 2011.
A co-production with After Dark Films, 51, co-starring John Shea (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) chronicles what happens after political pressure from the American public forces the Air Force to allow a few well-known reporters limited access to the most secretive base on the planet: Area 51, the rumored repository of captured alien technology and extra-terrestrial beings. When one of the base's hidden "long term visitors" exploits this unprecedented visit as a chance to liberate himself and his fellow alien captives, Area 51 turns from a secure military installation to a horrifying destination of terror. Directed by Jason Connery (The Devil's Tomb).

THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC
Variety reports that Universal Pictures has attached Ron Howard to direct THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC, an adaptation of the espionage thriller by "The Bourne Identity" author Robert Ludlum.
David Self will adapt the Ludlum novel about a CIA operative who thinks he witnessed the execution of his lover after she was identified as a KGB double agent.
Imagine Entertainment's Brian Grazer will produce with Captivate Entertainment partners Jeffrey Weiner and Ben Smith. Imagine's David Bernardi will be executive producer.
Universal is separately developing a fourth "Bourne" installment with director Paul Greengrass and THE SIGMA PROTOCOL, an adaptation of yet another Ludlum thriller.

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2010

World War Z THE WORLD WAR Z NEWS
There's several zombie films in the works right now but none of them have anything close to the potential promise of WORLD WAR Z based on Max Brooks’s best-seller.
However there was fear that the project had become stalled in development in recent months and may not make it into production after all. Not so says the author.
“Paramount just renewed the option for WORLD WAR Z, for half the time and twice the money, so that might signal interest� said Brooks in a recent interview with Fear.Net (via Sci-Fi TV. So where does it stand right now? "We still got our director, Marc Forster, who's raring to go. Were all waiting on Matt Carnahan's new draft, which should come in a month or so.�
Brooks says part of the hesitancy is the expense in portraying a global apocalypse - “You can't do a cheap and dirty World War Z. It's a world war, and I think that makes studio executives nervous. I think it limits its options, so that's running against it.�
Although Brooks hasn't been closely involved since the story went out into the hands of the movie people, he's seen the script, the first draft that J. Michael Straczynski wrote, and thought it was "brilliant." Brooks doesn't want to reveal much about how the story unfolds, but he did confirm that the book's oral history format won't carry over; no faux-documentary here.
"It's a [narrative-driven] movie," he explained. "[Straczynski's] ability to pick and choose what was important, or what was integral to a story, and to be able to weave it together into a cohesive story, I thought was phenomenal."

Marvel Heroes MARVEL HEROES COMING TO BIG SCREEN
Marvel Studios is exploring ways to adapt some of its lesser characters into movies while it proceeds to build its more famous franchises�such as the upcoming IRON MAN 2�toward THE AVENGERS.
That's the report on CHUD:
Marvel Studios is currently taking meetings with writers and directors to work on small scale movies based on some of their third tier characters. The movies would cost in the range of 20 to 40 million dollars (very small when we're talking studio films) and would allow them to take risks with less obvious characters and with interesting talent.
Filmmakers are being offered their pick of characters whose names are only familiar to comic fans. Properties like Dr. Strange, Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Dazzler and Power Pack are among the many that are being tossed around right now. And the attitude seems to be that Marvel is open to bringing any of their characters to the screen at the right price point. ...
Who knows what will be the first small film announced; Marvel has been meeting with people for some time now, and I don't think they're going to wait for THE AVENGERS to be released before they start planning the next phase. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a smaller film was being developed alongside THE AVENGERS.
Marvel estimates it owns more than 5,000 heroes, villains, places, etc. Which hero would you pay money to see on the big screen?

SYFY PICS
Syfy has added two familiar names to its Saturday night movie lineup.
The network has booked Bruce Boxleitner ("Babylon 5") to star in original movie "51," about reporters trapped in a top-secret Air Force Base with malevolent aliens.
And A.J. Buckley ("CSI: NY") has been tapped to star in "The Doomsday Scrolls," about a book editor who tries to prevent Armageddon.
Both films will debut next year.
Also in castings: Paula Malcomson ("Caprica") will appear in seven episodes of FX's "Sons of Anarchy," and Paul Blackthorne ("Leverage") has landed a recurring role on ABC drama pilot "The Gates."

Monsters, Inc. DISNEY SLATE ANNOUNCED
Pixar tentpole BRAVE has been given a release date of June 15, 2012, and there will be another MONSTERS, INC., scheduled for the 2012 holiday season, precisely Nov. 16.
Those were two of the news items off a wide-ranging discussion and presentation Thursday by new Disney film chieftain Rich Ross.
After unveiling trailers for a number of upcoming titles -- including Jerry Bruckheimer's "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and the female-skewing "Secretariat," with Diane Lane as the horse's determined owner -- Ross unveiled the first three movies he's greenlighting: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4, THE MUPPETS in 2011 and the teen-targeted PROM in 2012.
The first is the company's most successful global franchise and hence a no-brainer, the second will introduce a new Muppet named Walter, and the third will be "smart and authentic" a la what John Hughes used to do.
BRAVE, once known as "The Bear and the Bow," is written and directed by Brenda Chapman and features the voices of Reese Witherspoon and Billy Connolly in a tale of archery and royalty.
MONSTERS, INC., directed by Pete Docter, grossed $525 million worldwide after its release in November 2001.
Speaking to about 20 reporters in the Frank Wells building on the Disney lot, Ross -- who has been on the job for seven months -- tipped his cap to the Dick Cook regime that preceded him but also embraced the studio's upcoming slate as his own.
He emphasized that the tentpole business is crucial to the success of the global Disney brand but that not everything on the slate is a four-quadrant movie. Perhaps four out of 10 Disney pics per year would be genuine tentpoles going forward, he said.
Ross emphasized the diversity of the banners under the studio umbrella -- from Disney's bemused and decidedly modern take on the Rapunzel fairy tale in TANGLED to Pixar, Marvel and DreamWorks' distinctive brands and approaches. But, he added, none has a "silo mentality."
As for his background in cable TV and his hiring of several relative outsiders to key positions, Ross said he wants "diversity of thought."
Affable and relaxed, the executive -- who said his favorite movie is "Tootsie" -- seemed particularly enthused by the emotional tone of the fall release "Secretariat," which he said is a movie that is "a signal of what Disney is."
The unfinished trailer included a scene in which the race horse is born -- and the foaling that was filmed recently in Kentucky features the actual great-grandson of the Triple Crown champion.
About the next PIRATES, Ross said several new characters would be introduced -- Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane already are on board -- including some international talent.
And more than 10 years after TOY STORY 2, the third installment in the franchise -- which is out June 18 and will be in 3D -- features a number of new toys and voices, Ross noted, as well as the return of leads Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.

Looney Tunes LOONEY TUNES REVIVAL
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Cartoon Network is branching out into new genres, launching its first awards show and ramping up its efforts in the live-action arena.
The network also said that it is launching a new version of Warner Bros.' classic "Looney Tunes" series starring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and unveiled several new series and pilots.
"We're delivering and adding great brands and beloved franchises that represent the breadth and scope of Cartoon Network's ongoing evolution," said Stuart Snyder, president and COO of Turner Broadcasting's Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media division.
"Cartoon Network's Hall of Game" will honor professional and amateur athletes. The show, created and produced by IMG Media, is set to debut early next year.
Also in the sports arena, Cartoon announced "Run It Back Sunday," which condenses a full NBA game in one hour with fun facts and special effects, and said NFL star Tony Gonzalez and his 8-year-old son Nikko will appear in the next installment of the shortform series "My Dad's a Pro."
Elsewhere in live-action, Cartoon has ordered a half-hour scripted comedy pilot tentatively titled "KROG" from Cartoon Network Studios. The project, created by Mark Rivers ("Metalocalypse"), centers on a monster band sent to Earth to conquer mankind.
Cartoon's first hourlong live-action scripted series, "Unnatural History," is set to premiere June 13. A second hourlong scripted show, "Tower Prep," debuts in the fall.
Meanwhile, "The Looney Tunes Show," from Warner Bros. Animation and executive producer Stan Register ("Teen Titans"), takes Bugs and Daffy out of the woods and puts them into the suburbs with "colorful neighbors" including Yosemite Sam, Granny, Tweety and Sylvester,
"Looney" will also have classic characters singing original songs in two-minute music videos called "Merrie Melodies" and the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote in CG shorts. Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone ("Duck Dodgers") are the supervising producers.
Cartoon also unveiled "Mad," an animated sketch-comedy series from Warner Bros. Animation that uses DC Comics' Mad magazine as inspiration. The show will feature such classic Mad characters and features as Alfred E. Neuman and Spy vs. Spy in parodies of movies, TV shows, games and pop culture. "Mad" is from exec producer Register and producers Kevin Shinick ("Robot Chicken") and Mark Marek ("KaBlam!").
"Mad" will be part of a new quarter-hour comedy programming block that also includes new series "Secret Mountain Fort Awesome," created by Chowder writer and artist Pete Browngardt, about underground monsters unleashed when a portal to the world is opened, and the previously announced "Regular Show" and "Robotomy."
Also in the animated lineup is new series "Young Justice," about a teenage superhero, from exec producer Register and producers Brandon Vietti ("Batman: Under the Red Hood") and Greg Weisman ("Gargoyles").

AVATAR DVD SETS RECORD
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment sold 1.5 million Blu-ray units of James Cameron's AVATAR on Earth Day, the film's first day of home video release. The 1.5 million units is a new record, topping THE DARK KNIGHT's 600,000 Blu-ray units sold its first day in 2008.
The studio expects to sell well over 4 million combined Blu-ray and DVD units of the movie.
Retailers sold out of 60% of their Blu-ray inventory, while they moved out about 50% of their AVATAR DVDs.

GREEN HORNET
Variety writes that THE GREEN HORNET is going 3D, but it's also on the move: Sony Pictures is moving the Seth Rogen starrer from the prime holiday slot of Dec. 22 to the slower Martin Luther King weekend. The Michel Gondry-helmed pic will now open Jan. 14, 2011.
The studio bristled at the notion that bad buzz surrounding the project played a role in its decision to abandon one of choicest days on the box office calendar. Instead, Sony said that once the decision was made to incorporate 3D during the production process, "Green Hornet" needed to find a frame with sufficient digital screens. A number of 3D pics have already staked out December slots including "Tron: Legacy" and "Yogi Bear."
"We've had a lot of success with the Martin Luther King frame, including 'Paul Blart,'" said the studio's marketing and distribution topper Jeff Blake. "We couldn't be more excited about 'Green Hornet.' In fact, we're doubling down by making it 3D."

THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2010

TRUE BLOOD
HBO will be airing six mini episodes. Dubbed "A Drop of True Blood" and written by creator Alan Ball, the episodes begin airing on Sunday, May 2 after the Season 2 reruns at 8 p.m.

True Blood Comic Book IDW Publishing released the first "True Blood" comic book cover art of the series. Written by Alan Ball, the first comic book will be available at San Diego Comic Con in July or you can pre-order it at the HBO website.

THE PHANTOM
RHI Entertainment has posted a trailer for Syfy's upcoming THE PHANTOM, a four-hour miniseries that premieres June 20 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Based on Lee Falk's classic comic strip, THE PHANTOM stars Ryan Carnes as Kit Walker, the latest in a long line of heroes.
Paolo Barzman directed the miniseries, which was written by Daniel and Charles Knauf. Cameron Goodman, Isabella Rossellini and Sandrine Holt also star. Here's RHI's official description:
The legendary superhero returns in this modern-day and action packed miniseries event. When Kit Walker (Ryan Carnes) learns of his father's death, the adventurous young man inherits the mantle of his superhero father. As the new Phantom, the 21st in the Walker line, Kit vows to uphold and honor his ancestors' creed--to fight crime and injustice throughout the world.

Torchwood TORCHWOOD - US - NOT
Fox has decided not to pursue a U.S. version of TORCHWOOD. The network was developing a stateside version of the "Doctor Who" spinoff, a prospect which divided fans.
“BBC Worldwide Productions and the FOX Broadcasting Company have mutually agreed not to progress together with a 13-episode serialized 'Torchwood' format," said BBC Worldwide in a statement. "We are currently in discussion with several interested networks.�
As to that last part, BBC Worldwide executive vp of programming and production Jane Tranter reiterated that a U.S. version was still making progress.
"It's very much ongoing and very much alive," Tranter said.
Also, fans shouldn't hope for/worry about a U.S. edition "Doctor Who," whose recent season premiere just set a ratings record on BBC America.
"It may well be confusing to have a British Doctor and an American Doctor at the same time," she said. "There is only one Doctor, so I don't see that happening."

NINETY
MOTHER'S DAY director Darren Bousman and writer Scott Milam are reteaming on NINETY, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The plot follows a psychotic killer hoping to set a record by committing 90 murders.
The trade says that Christopher Mallick's Oxymoron Entertainment is teaming with Blue Star Entertainment's William Sherak and Jason Shuman to produce the film.
The movie will be shot in 2D this summer in New Mexico and then be converted to 3D.

ROBIN HOOD CLIP
Universal has released a third clip from director Ridley Scott's ROBIN HOOD featuring Robin (Russell Crowe) leading his archers in as they storm a French castle.
Opening in theaters on May 14, the action-adventure co-stars Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Matthew Macfadyen, Mark Strong, Oscar Isaac, Lea Seydoux, Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand, Alan Doyle, Danny Huston and Max von Sydow.

Batman 3 BATMAN 3
According to Batman-On-Film, Warner Bros. Pictures is expected to make an official "Batman 3" announcement this July.
The news is expected to be along the lines of their post-2006 Comic Con announcement for "The Dark Knight" which revealed the film's official title, Heath Ledger's casting and the release date.
This announcement may come earlier as director Christopher Nolan will be doing press for "Inception" in early July and will no doubt be asked a lot about how the third "Batman" film is progressing.
Meanwhile cinematographer Wally Pfister, who shot both "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight", tells Cinematical that he and Nolan aren't really talking about filming the project in 3D but they have discussed shooting entirely in IMAX.
In any case what Nolan "is adamant about is that he wants to shoot on film. He doesn't want to shoot on video, and I'm the same way."

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2010

EUREKA
For those of you who can't wait until EUREKA's return in July, Syfy has provided this sneek peak for you.

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
According to Production Weekly, director Sam Mendes will direct OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, with IRON MAN star Robert Downey Jr. "circling to play the Wizard".
The film is a prequel to the 1939 THE WIZARD OF OZ, and the offer has gone out to Downey, The Playlist reported.
The family friendly project, previously known as "Oz," is set up over at the WB's New Line banner and is based around a script by Darren Lemke ("Shrek Forever After," "Jack The Giant Killer"). Naturally, details on this are tight for now. The movie is one of two proposed Oz-themed movies in the works.
It's unclear on the timing of this movie because of Downey's busy schedule. At a minimum, he's committed to a second SHERLOCK HOLMES movie this fall and Joss Whedon's THE AVENGERS early next year.
Mendes was slated to do a 23rd James Bond movie, but that looks to be on hold as a result of MGM's financial difficulties.
Downey's IRON MAN 2 opens May 7.

SORCERER'S APPRENTICE
Here's a new trailer for Disney's upcoming supernatural action movie THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE, which features a look at some new footage and visual effects and an idea of the big action.

Spock LEONARD NIMOY RETIRING
I’ve been doing this professionally for 60 years,� Leonard Nimoy tells the Toronto Sun. “I love the idea of going out on a positive note. I’ve had a great, great time.�
The Canadian paper talks to the man who would be Spock, who also just finished shooting his last episode of FRINGE. And the "positive note" he was talking about was last year's "Star Trek."
Nimoy may also be retiring from sci-fi and comic conventions. He will be at this weekend's Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo but says this convention appearance "could be the last go-round for that too."
And yes, he really will be going to Vulcan. Vulcan, Alberta, that is. The southern Albertan town will be graced by Nimoy's appearance on Friday, before the convention.
If he truly is retiring, then I hope he still (I'm gonna say it!) lives long and prospers.

Foust-Ferrara-Wood TOP GEAR - US VERSION TO LAUNCH
One of my favorite shows from across the pond, TOP GEAR, will be teaming with History to bring the show to the U.S., launching version of the series in the fall.
The network has made a 10-episode commitment to GEAR, which showcases all things automotive: customization, stunts, reviews and auto-centric celebrity interviews.
History's GEAR will be hosted by comedian and RESCUE ME co-star Adam Ferrara, stunt driver Tanner Foust and racing analyst Rutledge Wood. Scott Messick will executive produce.
"The history of the automobile and the history of America are intimately intertwined -- to celebrate one is to celebrate the other," History president and GM Nancy Dubuc said. "We'll stay true to the original format and add a sense of the American car culture."
GEAR fits the History brand even better than one might expect. The first program to air on what then was called the History Channel was "Automobiles: Corvette." Car-related content has performed well on the channel; History had several auto-related pilots in the works when it got GEAR.
GEAR premiered in 1977 in the U.K. then relaunched in 2002 as a studio-based format. It is BBC 2's most-watched program, and the brand has spun off a magazine and road tour. NBC came close to doing a U.S. version in 2008.
BBC Worldwide executive vp programming and production Jane Tranter said the U.S. version has the potential to be bigger than the original.
"It will have a completely different landscape," she said. "There's a different relationship with cars in the U.S. and a fascination with customization that's much greater than in the U.K. There's the potential for the U.S. 'Top Gear' to have even greater traction with an audience."

Avatar AVATAR SEQUEL
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, AVATAR's James Cameron talked about the highest-grossing movie of all time (it's at $2.717 billion now), as it goes to blu-ray and DVD tomorrow. In the interview, Cameron revealed that the AVATAR sequel will focus on the ocean of Pandora while they'll explore more of the Alpha Centauri AB system in a third film. Here's an excerpt:
We created a broad canvas for the environment of film. That's not just on Pandora, but throughout the Alpha Centauri AB system. And we expand out across that system and incorporate more into the story – not necessarily in the second film, but more toward a third film. I've already announced this, so I might as well say it: Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment – a different setting within Pandora. And I'm going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora, which will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative, but it just won't be a rain forest. I'm not saying we won't see what we've already seen; we'll see more of that as well.
While Thursday's release doesn't have any features, Cameron says that we'll get an additional six minutes in theaters for a re-release of the film in August before a 4-Disc Blu-ray/DVD set hits stores in November:
We're working on finishing an additional six minutes of the film -- which includes a lot of Weta work -- for a theatrical re-release in August. We were sold out of our IMAX performances right up to the moment until they were contractually obligated to switch to "Alice in Wonderland," so we know we left money on the table there. And the 3-D really helped "Avatar" right up until the moment that it hurt it. And it hurt it at the moment "Alice" and then "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Clash of the Titans" came in and sucked up all the 3-D screens. We went from declining 8% a week to declining 50%. Clearly, it wasn't market forces directly; it was the availability of theaters. So we're going to wait until there's a time to come back in, inject the new footage into the mix and see if we can interest people in the "Avatar" experience in theaters.

DEATHGAMES
B5's CRUSADE and LOST star Daniel Dae Kim is joining Samuel L. Jackson and Kellan Lutz in action thriller DEATHGAMES, from Motion Picture Corporation of America.
According to Heat Vision, "the story centers on a young man (Lutz) who is kidnapped by a sadistic mastermind (Jackson) and forced into a modern gladiator arena, where men fight to the death for the entertainment of the online masses. Kim is playing a fellow prisoner, an artist who happens to be a master of kendo (samurai-style sword fighting), a skill that comes in handy when he competes for his life and his wife's."
Visual effects supervisor Jonah Loop is making his directorial debut on the film, which starts shooting next month in Louisiana.

Treasure Island TREASURE ISLAND
According to reports in Pajiba, a second film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel TREASURE ISLAND is currently in the works at Warner Bros. Pictures.
Producer Lionel Wigram ("Sherlock Holmes") is shepherding the Warners film which is in direct competition with Ecosse Films who is currently in development on their own adaptation that scribe Niall Johnson ("White Noise") is currently working on.
The difference is speed. At last report Johnson was still at work on his script, whereas Michael Gilio's script for the Warners one was completed a month ago.
Then there's Wigram track record of getting projects he produces made first - Guy Ritchie's 'Holmes' easily beat a rival project that Sony was developing with Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen. Wigram is also producing a Doug Liman-directed "Three Musketeers" production which is moving along faster than a rival 'Musketeers' project Summit and director Paul W.S. Anderson are at work on.

TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010

Kyle Chandler TERRA NOVA
FOX may be heading deep into the past next season with a show called TERRA NOVA, and "Friday Night Lights" star Kyle Chandler may be going along for the ride.
TV veteran Brannon Braga ("FlashForward," "24," "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Enterprise") has come aboard the show as executive producer and showrunner, and that puts the show on track for a pickup for the 2010-11 season. According to Deadline.com, the show has received an "unofficial" pickup and has been given the go-ahead to start hiring staff.
Meanwhile, a separate report on EW.com says Chandler -- who's currently working on the fifth and likely last season of "Friday Night Lights" -- has received a "lucrative offer" to star in the show, which centers on a family from the 22nd century who travels back in time. Way back, in fact: They wind up co-existing with dinosaurs.
If both the pickup and Chandler's deal go through, it would put Chandler in the odd position of starring in a new show before his old one finishes airing. The fifth season of "FNL" is set to air on DirecTV in the fall but won't debut on NBC until 2011. Season 4 of "FNL" premieres on NBC on May 7.
Craig Silverstein ("Bones," "The Inside") and Kelly Marcel wrote the TERRA NOVA pilot, which is based on an idea by Marcel. Braga was brought in because Silverstein also created and is executive producing The CW's pilot NIKITA, which is looking good for a pickup there.
TERRA NOVA's executive producers also include Steven Spielberg and Peter Chernin, the former president and COO of FOX parent News Corp.

X-Files X-FILES RETURNING
When the last X-FILES movie, I WANT TO BELIEVE, did not live up to potential at the box office, it looked like the end of the franchise. But Mulder and Scully will live on ... in comic-book form, at least.
WildStorm will publish a new comic series that will meld The X-Files with Steve Niles' 30 DAYS OF NIGHT vampire series, Niles said on his Facebook page. The official announcement is below.
Niles and Adam Jones will write the series, with art by Tom Mandrake. No word on when it will debut!
This summer, WildStorm will publish an all-new comic book series combining two of the most popular horror properties of the last two decades: THE X-FILES and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT.
The six-issue series will be co-written by 30 Days of Night creator Steve Niles and rockstar-turned-writer Adam Jones, guitarist of the band Tool. The series will feature the moody artwork of comics industry legend Tom Mandrake (who, amongst all of his illustrious credits, just did some amazing guest pages in Victorian Undead.)
Check out some words from Steve and Tom below:
"I'm a huge X-Files fan and when the cross-over was presented to me, I lunged at the chance. It's actually a very good match, I think because the vampires in 30 Days have a real-world feel to them, they are not effected by crossed or garlic or any of the common folklore which lends itself nicely to the X-Files universe. And getting a chance to work with Adam Jones is amazing. He's a pal, but I am also a huge fan of TOOL, as well as his video work for the band; not to mention the special effects he did at Stan Winstons before he became a rock star. He came up with the hook that really made this story come together." - Steve Niles
"I've been an X-Files fan from the very first episode and have always wanted to illustrate a story featuring Scully and Mulder. I'm also a huge fan of Steve Niles and 30 Days of Night. What could be a better project for a horror fan like myself than pitting the X-File's best agents against relentless vampires in the frozen North? Steve Niles and Adam Jones have collaborated to mesh both concepts together to give me a chance to draw the stuff I love to draw best- my favorite FBI agents, vampires and dark, bloody horror." - Tom Mandrake

Star Wars STAR WARS CARTOONS
You may see what happened to Luke, Han and Leia after RETURN OF THE JEDI, at least that was the hint offered by Lucasfilm's Steve Sansweet, director of fan relations, at a convention over the weekend, according to Collider.com:
During a Q&A session at C2E2 on Saturday Steve Sansweet, LucasFilm's Director of Fan Relations, revealed that this new animated series would feature the post-Return of the Jedi adventures of the original characters. It happened when a fan asked, "I would really love to see new adventures after Jedi with our favorite characters Luke, Han and Leia," to which Sansweet replied, "And you will, in the new animation." (via IGN)
In an interview with ForceCast, Sansweet seemed to backtrack and insisted that he was "in the dark" and did not know exactly what would the new series would be about. He said that it could possibly feature "characters from the original trilogy, the prequels [or] new characters," but that it will most likely be a mix of all of the above.
Sansweet revealed that the long-awaited Blu-ray versions of the STAR WARS films were in the works, according to IGN:
"We have been at work for a couple of years working on�I won't call it the Ultimate Set because we keep finding stuff�but, a very full set of all six movies on Blu-ray with lots of extra material. We're finding all kinds of scenes from dailies that have never been seen before. Beyond all of those things that you know about ... there are some real treasures."
When will the set come out? Sansweet says, "We're not ready to announce exactly when it's coming out, but it won't be in the too distant future."

Bond Delayed BOND DELAYED INDEFINITELY
007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli of EON Productions, today announced they have suspended development on the next James Bond film previously scheduled for release 2011/2012.
"Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended development on 'Bond 23' indefinitely. We do not know when development will resume and do not have a date for the release of 'Bond 23,'" stated Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli jointly.
EON Productions have produced twenty two James Bond films since 1962. In 1995, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli took over the 007 franchise from Albert R 'Cubby' Broccoli and are responsible for producing some of the most successful James Bond films ever, including Casino Royale and more recently Quantum of Solace. The James Bond franchise is the longest running in film history. EON Productions and Danjaq LLC are affiliate companies and control all worldwide merchandising for James Bond.

-
BEASTLY
CBS has debuted the new trailer for BEASTLY. Written and directed by Daniel Barnz, the July 30 release stars Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer, Mary-Kate Olsen, Neil Patrick Harris and Peter Krause.

Shiloh Fernandez GIRL WITH THE RED RIDING HOOD
According to Heat Vision, Shiloh Fernandez will star opposite Amanda Seyfried in GIRL WITH THE RED RIDING HOOD, Warner Bros.' gothic horror re-imagining of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.
Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) is directing the film, in which Seyfried will play a woman in a medieval village being terrorized by a werewolf.
Fernandez has nabbed the role of Peter, an orphaned woodcutter for whom Seyfried falls, much to the displeasure of her family.
Appian Way's Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran are producing with Julie Yorn.

MONDAY, APRIL 19, 2010

Train Your Dragon WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
DreamWorks Animation's HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, currently the best reviewed wide release of the year, has used word-of-mouth advertising to drive its box office since opening moderately four weeks ago. This weekend, it added another $20 million (estimated) to its total box office take of $160 million, jumping from third place back up to #1 for the first time since its opening weekend, leaving new and returning movies alike eating its dust. Internationally, DRAGON added $15.5 million to bring its foreign total to $176.5 million. Worldwide, the film has earned $336.5 million.
Having been picked up last August by Lionsgate from director/producer Matthew Vaughn, the dark superhero comedy KICK-ASS, based on the comic book series by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., looked to have the best chances at winning the weekend, the company having put a lot of money into marketing, realizing how much was at stake. Despite solid reviews and buzz from early promo screenings, the action flick starring Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz opened with a disappointing $19.7 million in 3,065 theaters, roughly $6.3k per site, which meant it had to settle for second place in its debut weekend.
In third place, the Tina Fey-Steve Carell comedy DATE NIGHT (20th Century Fox), which just missed the top spot last weekend, dropped a mere 31% in its second outing, to make $17.3 million with a total of $49.2 million.
It also edged out the weekend's other new movies, the R-rated ensemble comedy remake DEATH AT A FUNERAL (Screen Gems/Sony), which brought together Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan and an all-star cast to the tune of $17 million in 2,459 theaters. Though somewhat below expectations with its fourth place opening, the comedy did claim the higher per-theater average for the weekend with just under $7,000 per site.
Last week's #1 movie, Louis Letterier's action epic CLASH OF THE TITANS (Warner Bros.), starring Sam Worthington and Gemma Arterton, dropped to fifth place with $15.8 million in its third weekend, down 41%, with a total of $133 million. Internationally, CLASH topped the box office a third straight weekend with $53.6 million from 57 markets. The film has earned $188.7 million overseas and $321.7 million worldwide.
Sixth place went to the Miley Cyrus drama THE LAST SONG (Disney/Touchstone), based on the Nicholas Sparks novel, which added $5.8 million to its own total to $50 million.
Tyler Perry's sequel WHY DID I GET MARRIED TOO? (Lionsgate) was hit hard for a second week in a row, dropping 62% to seventh place with $4.2 million and $54.8 million total.
Eighth and ninth place went to the MGM comedy HOT TUB TIME MACHINE and Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND, respectively, each with roughly $3.5 million. The latter has grossed $324 million domestically and over $827 million worldwide, making it the biggest blockbuster hit of the year so far; HOT TUB TIME MACHINE has grossed a moderate but adequate $42.5 million.
Opening in limited release in 193 theaters, the dark comedy THE JONESES (Roadside Attractions), starring Demi Moore and David Duchovny, brought in $554 thousand, averaging $2,870 per site, while the long-delayed sports drama THE PERFECT GAME (Freestyle Releasing) opened in twice as many theaters, grossing less than $500 thousand. The Oscar-winning Argentinian film THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES (Sony Pictures Classics) scored $176 thousand in ten theaters, while the acclaimed documentary EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, the film debut from enigmatic street artist Banksy, achieved the higher per-theater average of the weekend ($20.7k per site) to make $166 thousand in just eight theaters in select cities.

COWBOYS AND ALIENS
Variety reports that THE LAST AIRBENDER star Noah Ringer has been cast in director Jon Favreau's COWBOYS & ALIENS. He joins a cast that already includes Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde.
The sci-fi Western, based on the Platinum Studios Comics graphic novel, explores what would happen if the traditional Old West enemies -- cowboys and Native Americans -- found the prairie attacked by aliens in mid-1800s Arizona.
Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof wrote the script for the film, hitting theaters on July 29, 2011.

Crossed CROSSED
According to Variety, the ten-part Avatar Comics mini-series CROSSED written by Garth ("Preacher") Ennis and drawn by Jacen Burrows is being developed for the big screen by Michael De Luca, Jason Netter and Kevin Spacey's Trigger Street Productions, who are currently looking for a director.
With a script written by Garth Ennis himself, the story follows survivors "dealing with a zombie-like plague that causes it victims to carry out their most evil thoughts and wishes, including murder, rape, mutilation, arson." The series was published in 2008 and followed by a sequel called "Crossed: Family Values."

SUNDAY, APRIL 18, 2010

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Lionsgate opened the Matthew Vaughn-helmed comic actioner "Kick-Ass" -- featuring a young cast complemented by an engagingly goofy Nicolas Cage -- with an estimated $7.6 million in domestic boxoffice on Friday. The chart-topping sum included roughly $1 million in coin from about 1,500 screens programming the pic at 10 p.m. Thursday and a similar number of midnight Thursday performances.
The sturdy start to the frame should get the R-rated pic to about $20 million through Sunday. A $50 million production, "Kick-Ass" was acquired by Lionsgate for North American distribution for just mid-teen millions.
Starring Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence, Sony's R-rated comedy "Death at a Funeral" opened in second place among the daily grossers with $5.5 million. That's about the launch expected for a film projected to land in the teen millions through its first three days.
Among notable holdovers, Fox's PG-13 comedy "Date Night" -- starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey – rang up a third-best $5.5 million on the cusp of its sophomore session, yielding $37.4 million in cumulative b.o.
DreamWorks Animation's Paramount-distributed "How to Train Your Dragon" was fourth in the Friday rankings with $4.4 million. Entering its fourth weekend, the leggy 3D adventure now boasts a $155.4 million cume.
Warner Bros.' 3D action fantasy "Clash of the Titans" came in fifth with $4.3 million on the day and a $121.5 cume, entering its third frame. 'Kick-Ass' tops Friday boxofficeFilm opens with $7.6 million; 'Funeral' comes in second.

Machete MACHETE
20th Century Fox has set a September 3 release date for Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis' MACHETE, starring Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Jeff Fahey, Don Johnson and Steven Seagal. Labor Day falls on Monday, Sept. 6, which gives the movie a four-day opening weekend.
Machete is based on the "fake" trailer in Robert Rodriguez's 2007 Grindhouse. The feature version of the trailer finds Machete (Trejo) a renegade former Mexican Federale, roaming the streets of Texas after a shakedown from drug lord Torrez (Seagal). Reluctantly, Machete takes an offer from spin doctor Benz (Fahey) to assassinate McLaughlin (De Niro) a corrupt Senator. Double crossed and on the run Machete braves the odds with the help of Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), a saucy taco slinger, Padre (Marin) his "holy" brother, and April (Lohan) a socialite with a penchant for guns. All while being tracked by Sartana (Alba), a sexy ICE agent with a special interest in the blade slinger.

THE AMERICAN
Focus Features is releasing Anton Corbijn's suspense thriller THE AMERICAN, starring George Clooney, a couple of days earlier on Wednesday, Sept. 1.

Kirsten Dunst MELANCHOLIA
Kirsten Dunst has scored the lead role in MELANCHOLIA, the next project from controversial director Lars on Trier ("Antichrist," "Dogville") reports Deadline New York.
Dunst takes over for Penelope Cruz who was originally in negotiations for the role before her commitment to PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES ruled her out of the running.
Dunst joins an impressive cast list which includes Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, Alexander Skarsgård, Stellan Skarsgård and Udo Kier.
Filming kicks off this July in Sweden for release sometime next year.

SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 2010

Doctor Who DOCTOR WHO ARRIVES TONIGHT
The latest season of "Doctor Who" is all about renewal -- from the 11th Doctor's regeneration and the parallel TARDIS redesign to the introduction of a new logo and companion.
Matt Smith, the youngest actor to take on the role of the intergalactic Time Lord, makes his U.S. "Doctor Who" debut on BBC America on Saturday, April 17th at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
In the premiere, titled "The Eleventh Hour," the Doctor is still adjusting from his last regeneration -- a necessity after absorbing a bit too much radiation in his previous incarnation (played by the exiting David Tennant) -- when he's drawn to the home of his future companion, Amy Pond (Karen Gillan).

Peter Jackson THE HOBBIT
In an interview with Moviefone, Peter Jackson, who is producing the two Hobbit movies, talked about a start date, casting and whether the movies are delayed.
About the only thing he'll confirm is that the script for the two proposed movies is now complete:
"We've just delivered the script. Literally last week, we delivered the second of the two screenplays -- the first draft. So the studio's got both scripts now, which is a milestone; and if anything was holding it up, it was us doing the screenplays, because we'd just been writing as fast as we can, but it took us this long to get them finished. So we take whatever responsibility there is for the speed. And we're now in the process of budgeting the films, and then hopefully we'll get to a budget the studio [people] are happy with, and they'll greenlight the movies and we'll announce the shooting dates. I'd be pretty optimistic that we'll be shooting before the end of the year. I would imagine October, November, we'd be shooting by. I'm not announcing it, though."
One big hangup, of course, is the fate of MGM, one of the studios that holds the rights. It's still being sorted out how the financially troubled studio will be saved, and that means there's no green light yet for the Hobbit movies.
"Well, it's not really been delayed, because we've never announced the date," Jackson told the site. "I mean it's sort of interesting because the studio [MGM] has never greenlit The Hobbit, so therefore The Hobbit has never been officially announced as a 'go' project, nor have we ever announced a date. But there's so much interest that people� newspapers and magazines, of their own account, say, ah, it's likely to film in May, it's likely to film in June, it's likely to film in September. People make this stuff up. And then if it's not filming in June, you get a story saying, 'The Hobbit's been delayed.' But it's never actually been announced."
Until the production receives a green light, producers can't cast or set up a schedule, Jackson added. "But I would imagine that if we get a green light within the next month or two, we would be hopefully making some casting announcements by, I guess, the middle of the year. We've done a little bit of auditioning, but we haven't really done any meetings with actors or anything yet. We've just been totally committed to the scripts. Everything's a little bit later than what people assume it is. I think people think we've been sort of doing secret casting."

Sam Claflin PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
According to Walt DIsney Pictures, Sam Claflin has been selected by producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Rob Marshall to star in the key role of Philip, a youthful missionary, in Walt Disney Pictures/Jerry Bruckheimer Films' epic adventure PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES, the fourth in the blockbuster series of films. Claflin joins Johnny Depp, returning in his iconic role of Captain Jack Sparrow, as well as Astrid Bergès-Frisbey and an international cast. The film is slated to open on May 20, 2011.
Hailing from the United Kingdom, Claflin attended The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He then won roles in the historical mini-series "The Pillars of the Earth," alongside actors Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, Matthew MacFadyen and Donald Sutherland, followed by the telefilm "The Lost Future."
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES is directed by Rob Marshall, whose first feature film was the Academy Award-winning CHICAGO, followed by MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and NINE. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer's films include (producing with Don Simpson) TOP GUN, BEVERLY HILLS COP, FLASHDANCE, and (producing solo) CON AIR, ARMAGEDDON, the "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy and the "National Treasure" franchise, as well as this summer's PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME and SORCERER'S APPRENTICE. JBTV's current series are "C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation" and its spin-offs "C.S.I.: Miami," "C.S.I.: NY" and "Cold Case," "The Amazing Race" and "Miami Medical."
The first three films in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series amassed a total international box office of $2.7 billion.
Beginning in June, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES will film entirely on location in Hawaii, Great Britain and Los Angeles.

Mighty Mouse MIGHTY MOUSE RETURNING
The L.A. Times writes that Paramount Pictures and its Nickelodeon Movies imprint plan to bring the classic Saturday morning cartoon character MIGHTY MOUSE to the big screen.
The studio is currently looking for a new writer and director in hopes of moving the long-gestating project forward. The success 20th Century Fox had with the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" movies is certainly a strong motivator for bringing back the superhero mouse whose name and theme song is almost more known than the actual cartoons in large part thanks to the late Andy Kaufman. The Terrytoons cartoon ran from the '50s through the '80s, creating a similar sense of nostalgia among those over thirty that should be easy to capitalize on with the right movie. It's unclear whether the project will be fully animated or a combination of live action and animation such as the "Alvin" movies, the "Stuart Little" or "Garfield" movies or Disney's failed attempt to bring Underdog to the screen.

FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2010

Smith-Tennant NEW DOCTOR WHO THIS WEEKEND
When DOCTOR WHO returns this Saturday on BBC America, it's going to be the biggest change in the show since it was re-launched in 2005. Sure, the Doctor has already regenerated once since then (from Christopher Eccleston to David Tennant), but at the time the man behind the show, Russell T. Davies, was still at the helm and companion Billie Piper stuck around, which provided some continuity. With this season's premiere, "The Eleventh Hour," everything is new: from Doctor (Matt Smith) to companion (Karen Gillan as Amy Pond) to executive producer (revered Who writer Steven Moffat).
What does that mean for the series? Will fans still recognize their favorite show?
The TARDIS, the Doctor and the sonic screwdriver are all there. But an all-new team naturally means all-new ways of telling stories. This in itself is exciting!

Whedon-Dollhouse THE AVENGERS
Along with this week's news that BUFFY creator Joss Whedon would direct THE AVENGERS comes a report that he will also have a shot at the movie's script, as well as that of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER.
That's the news on Pajiba:
Several months ago, Zak Penn was charged with writing the script for THE AVENGERS. We still don't know what the gist of that story will be, other than it will involve Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. bringing together the newfound superheroes who have been developing in a series of movies from Marvel Entertainment�namely, IRON MAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA, THOR and possibly THE INCREDIBLE HULK. We don't know much else about it, nor do we know who the villain will be.
Apparently, Whedon is not only in final negotiations to direct, but also to rewrite Penn's script. He's also likely to be tasked with doing a polish on the CAPTAIN AMERICA script. That movie was originally written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
This is good news for us fans mainly because Whedon�for all his skill as a director (Serenity was underrated as a bit of masterful filmmaking)�is first and foremost a writer, with an encyclopedic familiarity with the Marvel universe in particular. We look forward to what he'll do with the familiar stories.

Lily Collins ABDUCTION
Lily Collins (The Blind Side, upcoming Priest) will star opposite Taylor Lautner ("The Twilight Saga") in Lionsgate thriller ABDUCTION.
John Singleton will direct from a script by Shawn Christensen. Shooting is scheduled to start this July in Pittsburgh.
Lautner will star as a teen who has long felt disconnected from his parents. He discovers his own baby picture on a missing persons website, which unleashes a chain of violent events.
The film is being produced by The Gotham Group, Vertigo Entertainment and Lautner's Tailor Made.

KNIGHT AND DAY
A new international trailer for action comedy KNIGHT AND DAY is online! Opening in theaters on June 25, the film stars Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis, Olivier Martinez, Paul Dano, Maggie Grace, Mark Blucas and Jordi Molla.
KNIGHT AND DAY centers on a lonely woman (Diaz) whose seemingly harmless blind date suddenly turns her life upside-down when a super spy (Cruise) takes her on a violent worldwide journey to protect a powerful battery that holds the key to an infinite power source. Grace is playing Diaz's sister, who is getting married, excited that Diaz will take the place of their late father and walk her down the aisle.

Burn Notice BURN NOTICE - TWO MORE SEASONS
Variety reports that cable broadcaster USA has ordered two further full seasons of BURN NOTICE on top of the upcoming 16-episode fourth season which begins broadcast on June 3rd.
The order for a 15-episode fifth and 18-episode sixth season brings a total of 49 episodes, more than the 44 episodes that have aired thus far over the show's first three seasons.
Debuting in mid-2007, BURN started out with solid reviews and ratings which have only improved with time. The recently finished third season scored a 7.1 million viewers per episode average including live-plus 7 data.
The number not only makes it easily one of the biggest series on all of cable, but is doubly impressive considering the show airs over the low-rating Summer period. In fact BURN has proven a better rater than many free-to-air network shows in the peak ratings season.

THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2010

MORE SYFY MOVIES COMING
GIANT WORMS AND NASTY WITCHES WREAK HAVOC DURING SYFY'S MAY SATURDAY ORIGINAL MOVIES MONGOLIAN DEATH WORM, STARRING SEAN PATRICK FLANERY (THE BOONDOCK SAINTS), PREMIERES SATURDAY, MAY 8, AT 9PM (ET/PT)
WITCHVILLE, STARRING LUKE GOSS (HELLBOY 2), DEBUTS SATURDAY, MAY 22, AT 9PM (ET/PT)
New York, New York - April 14, 2010 - Monstrous worms unleashed from their ancient crypts and vicious witches declaring war on humanity wreak havoc during Syfy's May Saturday Original Movies.
In MONGOLIAN DEATH WORM, premiering Saturday, May 8, at 9PM (ET/PT), treasure hunter Sean Patrick Flanery (The Boondock Saints, Young Indiana Jones) and U.N. aide worker Victoria Pratt (Day Break) find themselves battling local bandits while searching for Genghis Khan's secret tomb in central Mongolia. The crypt is guarded by man-eating Mongolian death worms, who grow very angry at being disturbed.
Luke Goss (Hellboy 2), Ed Speleers (Eragon) and Sarah Douglas (Conan the Destroyer) star in WITCHVILLE, debuting Saturday, May 22, at 9PM (ET/PT). When his father dies, a prince (Goss) returns home to claim his kingdom, only to find it overrun by witches. Though he initially refuses to believe in magic, he soon finds himself locked in a brutal war with the witches, whose leader (the Red Queen) is his long- lost mother.

Sherlock Holmes VIDEO SALES
Strong second-week sales lifted Warner Home Video's "Sherlock Holmes" to the top of both the national home video sales chart and the rental chart for the week ending April 11.
"Sherlock" narrowly captured the top spot on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart, bumping the previous week's top seller, 20th Century Fox's "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel," to No. 2. "Alvin" still managed to sell nearly 93% as many units as "Sherlock" in its second week in stores, according to Nielsen data.
On Home Media Magazine's rental chart, "Sherlock" remained at No. 1 for a second consecutive week, with just a 17% decline in total rental transactions. "Alvin" finished at a distant No. 2, generating 50% as much rental action as "Sherlock."
The top-selling new release of the week was Warner's Blu-ray Disc release of "The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy." The pricey set, which lists for $99.98, debuted at No. 5 on the First Alert sales chart and at No. 1 on the Nielsen VideoScan Blu-ray Disc sales chart.
Another new release that fared quite well in its first week in stores was First Look's "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans." The film, which stars Nicolas Cage and was directed by Werner Herzog, debuted at No. 7 on the sales chart and No. 4 on the rental chart, despite a limited theatrical gross of less than $2 million.

Astrid Berges-Frisbey PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
Walt Disney Pictures has announced that French actress Astrid Bergès-Frisbey has been personally picked by producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Rob Marshall to star in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES as Syrena, a beautiful and alluring young mermaid encountered by Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow.
A star of stage and screen in her native Paris, the 23-year-old actress born in Barcelona to French-American and Catalan parents has appeared in films such as Bruc and La Première Étoile as well as work on television and in a French production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus." To date, none of those films have made their way to the U.S. shores so that "On Stranger Tide" will more than likely be the actresses introduction not only to moviegoers in the United States, but much of the rest of the world as well.
Scheduled to start filming in Hawaii, Great Britain and Los Angeles in June for a May 20, 2011 release, the fourth installment is looking to build on the $2.7 billion made globally by the original trilogy.

Hayley Atwell CAPTAIN AMERICA'S FEMALE LEAD CAST
Marvel Studios today confirmed that British actress Hayley Atwell has landed the female lead in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER. Here's the full press release:
Marvel Studios announced today that Hayley Atwell has been cast to star as Peggy Carter in the studio's highly anticipated movie CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER opposite Chris Evans. In the early comics, Peggy Carter fell in love with Captain America while they fought together in the war effort. The character will be updated for the feature adaptation. Joe Johnston will direct the film penned by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely.
Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige will produce CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER. Alan Fine, Stan Lee, David Maisel and Louis D'Esposito will executive produce. The film will be released in the US on July 22, 2011 and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER will focus on the early days of the Marvel Universe when Steve Rogers volunteers to participate in an experimental program that turns him into the Super Soldier known as Captain America.
Atwell will next be seen in PILLARS OF THE EARTH, the 8-part miniseries premiering July 23 on Starz and the TV series THE PRISONER. Her film credits include THE DUCHESS, BRIDESHEAD REVISITED and CASSANDRA'S DREAM.
In addition to CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, Marvel Studios will release a slate of films based on the Marvel characters including the highly anticipated sequel, IRON MAN 2, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow on May 7, 2010, THOR on May 6, 2011, and Marvel Studios’ THE AVENGERS on May 4, 2012.

Shrek-Final SHREK 3D: THE FINAL CHAPTER
DreamWorks Animation has a new poster for SHREK FOREVER AFTER, opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D on May 21. The Mike Mitchell-directed film features the voices of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Antonio Banderas, Jon Hamm, Kathy Griffin and Kristen Schaal.
In related news, The Hollywood Reporter says that DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg announced at the NAB convention in Las Vegas on Wednesday that the company is converting the first three "Shrek" movies to 3D for a Blu-ray Disc release.
"Our movies exist in digital files to begin with. To go back and rebuild to a quality 3D experience is not inexpensive, but we are about to achieve a pretty high quality result," Katzenberg said.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010

Avengers JOSS WHEDON AND AVENGERS
Deadline Hollywood is confirming the rumor that BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER creator Joss Whedon is in final talks to direct Marvel's proposed THE AVENGERS movie.
In early April, rumors started about Whedon edging out CLASH OF THE TITANS director Louis Leterrier to direct the superhero saga. IESB.net wrote:
I'm told Marvel Studios is in final negotiations for Buffy the Vampire Slayer series architect Joss Whedon to direct Marvel Studios' The Avengers. That's the fast-tracked film that would amount to an all-star team of Marvel superheros, including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), as well as SHIELD leader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Other signature superheros will likely be involved, but I've listed the actors in active superhero duty. Whedon has been rumored for this job for awhile, and is high on the fanboy wish-list.
Whedon's only directed one movie�Serenity�though he's written the scripts for several (including his upcoming Cabin in the Woods) and is a well-known script doctor in Hollywood. He's also got a long relationship with Marvel, having written Astonishing X-Men, not to mention an early draft of the X-Men movie, among other things.

IRON MAN 2
Paramount has released a cool interactive version of the IRON MAN 2 trailer, with places to find out more about what's in it.
Hot spots in the trailer, which we've seen previously, now allow you to read about new characters Justin Hammer and Black Widow, among other things.
IRON MAN 2 opens May 7.

Man from UNCLE MAN FROM UNCLE REMAKE
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Max Borenstein has been tapped to write the latest draft of MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., Warner Bros.' big-screen version of the 1960s TV show.
David Dobkin is attached to direct the long-in-development project and will produce with John Davis and Jeff Kleeman.
Running from 1964-68 on NBC, the TV series featured the espionage adventures of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, agents of United Network Command for Law Enforcement (U.N.C.L.E.), who fight the forces of T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity).
The show was produced by MGM Television and starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum. Warners inherited rights from Turner Broadcasting, which acquired them from MGM.
Borenstein is known for highbrow and historical fare including "History on Trial" and "JIMI," a Jimi Hendrix biopic script set up at Legendary that landed on last year's Black List.

SUSPENSION
According to reports in the Hollywood Reporter, producers Daniel Alter and Adrian Askarieh have optioned SUSPENSION, an action-horror spec by Scott Milam.
Patrick Tatopoulos, a creature and special effects designer-turned-director, is attached to helm.
Milam's script is set in the German Alps as a raging fire burns and a rescue helicopter is forced to make an emergency landing on an old suspension bridge. Trapped, the passengers' hope for survival go up in flames as they face a new kind of creature.
The script began to make the rounds when Alter, a friend of the writer, asked the scribe whether he could show it to Tatopoulos. Milam acquiesced and Tato¬poulos sparked to it.
Tatopoulos -- who has unleashed monsters for movies including PITCH BLACK, I AM LEGEND, and TRICK R TREAT -- plans on creating a new type of creature.
The producers plan to raise financing independently to make SUSPENSION, with the plan to keep more control of the branded ancillary markets.
Tatopoulos made his directorial debut with last year's UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS. Milam wrote MOTHER'S DAY, the upcoming Jaime King thriller from SAW franchise director Darren Lynn Bousman.
Milam will produce with Robert Sanchez, who is executive producing Lakeshore's I, FRANKENSTEIN, which Tatopoulos hopes to direct in the fall.
Alter and Askarieh are in preproduction on the video game adaptation KANE AND LYNCH, which has Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx attached to star.

THE FLINT HEART
Variety writes that Bedrock Studios and Arcady Bay Entertainment are developing a feature based on Katherine Paterson's fantasy novel THE FLINT HEART.
Arcady Bay principal David Paterson (BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA) will adapt his mother's book as a live-action film that will be special effects driven.
The story centers on a magical amulet that brings power and despair to those who touch it while taking place during a time stretching from the Stone Age to modern day England.
The book is scheduled for a release from children's publisher Candlewick Press early next year.

TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010

Game of Thrones THE GAME OF THRONES
Who ever heard of languages like Klingon before STAR TREK or Na'vi before AVATAR? HBO is inventing a new language for its upcoming fantasy series GAME OF THRONES -- in this case, Dothraki, the tongue of the saga's nomadic warriors.
The series, which is based on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series of books, will draw on Martin's own description of the language and will find influence in Russian, Turkish, Estonian, Inuktitut and Swahili. An example: athastokhdeveshizaroon, which means "from nothing."
David J. Peterson, a language creator from the Language Creation Society, is the expert who will create the tongue.


@
PIXELS
If you haven't seen this video, PIXELS, on YouTube already, you shouldn't miss it.
The video, from Patrick Jean, imagines what it would look like if iconic video games invaded New York and pixelated it, as well as the entire Earth!

Thor-Heimdall THOR NEWS
Kenneth Branagh's THOR movie takes the idea of color-blind casting to a new level: Idris Elba, the charismatic British actor best known as Stringer Bell in HBO's THE WIRE, will play Heimdall, Odin's guardian sentry of Asgard, described in some texts as "the whitest of the gods."
Elba�whose film roles include 28 WEEKS LATER, ROCK-N-ROLLA and the upcoming THE LOSERS�acknowledges the breakthrough.
"Yeah, casting now is taking definitely a more open-eyed approach to it," Elba said in a group interview on Sunday in Beverly Hills, Calif., where he was promoting The Losers. "I was cast in Thor, and I'm cast as a Nordic god. If you know anything about the Norse, they don't look like me, but there you go."
In THE LOSERS, Elba also plays the part of a character drawn in the comic books as a white guy. Maybe Elba doesn't look like the artist's conception of Roque or Heimdall, but we think it's cool to have a multi-ethnic cast of Asgardians.
"I think that's a sign of the times for the future," Elba continued. "I think we will see multi-level casting. I think we will see that, and I think that's good."
Elba still strove to be faithful to the comic books. He favored the Marvel library over Norse texts in his research. "I looked at the comic books, actually, because Heimdall, he's a very central character, and I wanted to reflect him as he is in the comic books."
THOR is coming to theaters May 6, 2011.

SYFY ORIGINAL MOVIES GO INTO PRODUCTION THIS SUMMER
SYFY AND RHI ENTERTAINMENT TO CO-PRODUCE THE ORIGINAL MOVIES THE OTHER SIDE AND ROADKILL PRODUCTION STARTS THIS SUMMER FOR 2011 PREMIERES ON SYFY
New York, NY - April 12, 2010 - RHI Entertainment and Syfy today announced they will co-produce two movies which will air on Syfy in 2011 and will also be available for worldwide distribution at MIP-TV. THE OTHER SIDE and ROADKILL will both begin production on location in Ireland this summer.
THE OTHER SIDE, written by Douglas G. Davis (Carny), is the story of a groundbreaking device designed to glimpse alternate universes. But when the machine malfunctions on its first demonstration and transports a group of observers into a nightmarish new dimension of bizarre alien terrors, the travelers must use ingenuity and courage to survive. But even if they stay alive, without a working transport, the group may never make it home.
In ROADKILL, written by Rick Suvalle (Astroboy), a group of friends take a scenic RV road trip to their high-school reunion. Their cross-country adventure takes a decidedly unexpected turn when an ancient Gypsy curse takes wing by way of a giant flesh-eating bird of prey.
"We love both of these scripts and we are looking forward to seeing them on the screen," said Robert Halmi, Jr., President, RHI Entertainment. "Both stories are filled with action, suspense, special effects and great imagination. We anticipate a great reception from the international community while at MIP TV."
"We've enjoyed a long and productive relationship with RHI, whose movies have been popular with our savvy television audience. We're looking forward to premiering these action-packed and entertaining movies as part of our hit Saturday night original movie block," said Thomas Vitale, Executive Vice President, Programming and Original Movies, Syfy.

Here, There Dragon DRAGONS SCRIBE HIRED
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Travis Adam Wright has been hired to adapt HERE, THERE ARE DRAGONS and THE SEARCH FOR THE RED DRAGON, the first two books in James A. Owen's popular young-adult fantasy series THE CHRONICLES OF THE IMAGINARIUM GEOGRAPHICA.
The Gotham Group is producing the feature adaptations, with THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy co-producer Rick Porras also coming aboard to produce. Warner Bros. will distribute the films in the potential franchise.
So far, GEOGRAPHICA, which Owen also illustrates, includes four novels revolving around a secret book that contains the unpublished maps and journals of history's most famous author-adventurers. Included as protagonists are a young J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, future giants of the fantasy-adventure genre whose famous works are imagined by Owen to have been inspired by these fictional adventures.
Wright said Owen's series is "the best gift any fanboy of Tolkien, Lucas and Spielberg could receive. Here is a character-driven franchise that is both familiar and fresh, where wit and intelligence, not just rifles and regiments, win the day."
The series' publisher, Simon & Schuster, plans to publish seven books, with the fifth novel, THE DRAGON'S APPRENTICE, due in stores in the fall.
"James Owen has managed to create a global 'what-if' franchise which subsumes not just the 'LOTR' trilogy and 'The Chronicles of Narnia' but the entire canon of Western literature from Milton to Jules Verne," said Porras, who also is producing THE LOST PATROL at Legendary Pictures.
Wright co-wrote the thriller EAGLE EYE for DreamWorks as well as Paramount's remake of Walter Hill's THE WARRIORS, which is in development with Tony Scott attached to direct and produce.

I'M.MORTAL
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Andrew Niccol is readying his next sci-fi movie.
New Regency is in negotiations to pick up I'M.MORTAL, the latest script from Niccol, who also will direct the film project.
Strike Entertainment, the production outfit run by Marc Abraham and Eric Newman that is currently shooting THE THING prequel for Universal, is in negotiations to produce.
The story is set in the not-too-distant future where the aging gene has been switched off. To avoid overpopulation, time has become the currency and the way people pay for luxuries and necessities. The rich can live forever, while the rest try to negotiate for their immortality.
The protagonist is a poor young man who comes into a fortune of time, though too late to help his mother from dying. He ends up on the run from a corrupt police force known as “time keepers.�
The script is the latest entry into the arena of “social sci-fi,� a genre that uses one big idea to reflect on societal issues. Examples range from last year’s DISTRICT 9 to CHILDREN OF MEN, which Strike produced.
The script is one of the hot projects for the under-25 set because every character looks young. (The scenario makes it so that onscreen, adults such as parents appear to be the same age as their kids.) Niccol is currently ensconced in meetings with a deep pool of candidates, eyeing a summer start in L.A.

MONDAY, APRIL 12, 2010

Dune DUNE ARTIST DEAD AT 74
John Schoenherr, one of the finest science-fiction illustrators of the 1960s and 1970s�and the first artist to draw Frank Herbert's DUNE and Anne McCaffrey's PERN�died Thursday at age 74. Herbert was so taken with Schoenherr's images that he referred to the artist as "the only man who has ever visited Dune."
Schoenherr was perhaps best known for his illustrations for DUNE, which was first published in two parts as "Dune World" and "The Prophet of Dune" in the science fiction magazine Analog in 1963 and 1965, respectively, and for which he won the 1965 Hugo Award for Best Artist. Beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the late 1970s, Schoenherr contributed hundreds of distinctive and memorable illustrations for various science fiction magazines and books.
For those of us who discovered science fiction in the 1960s, John Schoenherr was one of a handful of artists who helped create our visual memory of the classic science fiction of that era. His interior illustrations, especially those in scratchboard, were iconic in their dark precision. His full-color cover paintings often made use of bright, glowing colors to create dramatically alien landscapes, artifacts and creatures. In addition to Dune, he did illustrations in 1967 for Ann McCaffrey's first Pern story, "Wehr Search." He thereby contributed to the genesis of two of the most popular science fiction series of the past 50 years.
In 1978, he returned to the world of DUNE with new art for THE ILLUSTRATED DUNE, after which he worked only occasionally in SF but continued his prolific and award-winning work in children's book and wildlife art. But for 20 years, John Schoenherr played a seminal role in helping visualize the sense of wonder of SF, and in his passing we have lost another of our greatest artists.

Masters MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Mike Finch and Alex Litvak, who co-wrote the upcoming PREDATORS, have been hired by Columbia Pictures to write the script for MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE.
The "He-Man" adaptation was previously at Warner Bros. Pictures, where it went through several writers and in latter stages had John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda) attached to direct.
Heat Vision says that Finch and Litvak's pitch "attempted to balance a treatment that would convince the studio it was cinematic and keep the toy company satisfied that its characters were being portrayed appropriately."

IRON MAN 2 COMMERCIAL
Dr Pepper starts airing its IRON MAN 2 commercial on TV and here is your first exclusive look at the spot that features a cameo by the one and only Stan Lee and also features the voice of Paul Bettany as JARVIS. Here's a link to the video: http://www.superherohype.com/news/ironmannews.php?id=9269

Danger Girl DANGER GIRL
The Los Angeles Times reports that producer Adrian Askarieh (Hitman) revealed that Todd Lincoln will direct and executive produce a big screen version of the comic DANGER GIRL for Askarieh and his producing partner Daniel Alter.
Lincoln just wrapped THE APPARITION last week and also wrote the upcoming Hack/Slash adaptation for Askarieh and Alter.
Askarieh describes the comic as follows:
I would describe it as "Kill Bill" meets "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with the "team" element of "Mission: Impossible." I would say to the uninitiated that the book is a smart, hip, fun and beautifully drawn love letter to the best action/adventure movies of the last 30 years. It is the story of a lost girl who, through this incredibly kick-ass adventure, finds her destiny, comes of age and helps save the world.
DANGER GIRL was created by J. Scott Campbell and Andy Hartnell.

SUNDAY, APRIL 11, 2010

Date Night WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Friday night was indeed DATE NIGHT.
The Fox film, which stars NBC sitcom headliners Steve Carell and Tina Fey, topped the Friday box office with an estimate of $9.3 million in 3,374 engagements. Following in the the No. 2 spot was the Warner Bros/Legendary Pictures CLASH OF THE TITANS, which collected an estimate of $8.5 million in 3,802 runs. Another 3D pic, Paramount's HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON claimed the No. 3 position, with an estimate of $7.1 in 4,007 runs.
Tyler Perry's WHY DID I GET MARRIED TOO (Lionsgate) grabbed an estimate of $3.5 million on Friday in 2,155 runs, and rounding out the top 5 was Disney's THE LAST SONG, with an estimate of $3.6 million in 2,674 runs.
MGM's HOT TUB TIME MACHINE collected $1.78 million in 2,611 engagements, a 38% drop from last Friday, while Disney's other top 10 film, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, earned an estimate of $1.6 million in 2,530 runs. The bottom three finishers were Fox's DIARY OF A WIMPY KID with an estimate of $1.8 million on 2,453 runs, Sony's THE BOUNTY HUNTER, with an estimate of $1.5 on 2,901 runs and Vivendi's LETTERS TO GOD, with $395,000 on 897 engagements.

GREEN LANTERN
SuperHeroHype reports that "The Closer" star Jon Tenney will play Hal Jordan's dad, test pilot Martin H. Jordan, in director Martin Campbell's GREEN LANTERN.
"Ryan Reynolds is the Green Lantern, and when he is a young boy, like 11, I'm his father. I'm Hal Jordan's dad. I'm very excited – it's incredible company," he told the site.
Green Lantern will hit 3D and 2D theaters on June 17, 2011.

PAY THE GHOST
According to Variety, Dennis Iliadis (The Last House on the Left) will direct supernatural thriller PAY THE GHOST for Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. The film was adapted by Dan Kay from a short story by Tim Lebbon.
The trade says "the story kicks off on Halloween night, when a couple's young son is mysteriously abducted. A year later, they begin to sense his presence in frightening ways. A string of terrifying clues draws them to search for the boy throughout New York, where they uncover ancient secrets and discover a vicious, vengeful spirit."
Mark Gordon Productions and Midnight Kitchen Productions are producing.

Emile Hirsch THE DARKEST HOUR
Emile Hirsch has joined Olivia Thirlby in New Regency and Summit Entertainment's The Darkest Hour, according to Variety.
The $40 million production is described as a 28 Days-like thriller about a group of kids struggling to survive in Russia after an alien invasion.
Chris Gorak (Right at Your Door) is set to direct from a script by Les Bohem and Jon Spaihts. Timur Bekmambetov and Tom Jacobson are producing.
Filming is scheduled to start in Moscow this June.

SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 2010

SUPERNATURAL - 100 EPISODE - POSSIBLE SPOILERS
On Thursday, April 15, SUPERNATURAL will air its 100th episode. Now that Dean (Jensen Ackles) has decided to surrender to Heaven, things are about to get pretty tense between him and the little rogue angel on his shoulder, Castiel (Misha Collins).
This is a preview clip of the landmark episode, "Point of No Return."
Dean ditched Castiel and Sam (Jared Padalecki) at the end of the last episode to go say his last goodbyes before he "says yes" to allow the arch angel Michael to use his body as a vessel. Since Castiel rebelled against all of Heaven, losing a lot of his angel mojo, to keep Dean away from Michael, he's obviously not too thrilled by Dean's plan.

SPIELBURG GOES TO DISCOVERY
Discovery announced a science fiction-science fact miniseries to be developed by Steven Spielberg called FUTURE EARTH that will imagine what life on Earth would be like in 25, 50 or 100 years.
As the project is being produced by DreamWorks Animation, we're thinking it will have a CG component to it.
The miniseries won't be fiction, but rather will rely on futurists and scholars to examine various aspects of daily life as they might appear in the future.
No dates have yet been set for airing the new mini-series.

Riese RIESE COMES TO SYFY
A mysterious wanderer named Riese has been on the run in an online futuristic fantasy-adventure series�and now she (along with her webisodes) has run all the way to Syfy. Syfy Digital has acquired the rights to the entire award-winning 10-part series with an eye toward possibly developing it for broadcast on air, just as the channel did with the Web series SANCTUARY.
Here's Syfy's official announcement.
SYFY DIGITAL ACQUIRES RIESE
ACCLAIMED, STREAMY AWARD- WINNING 10-PART FANTASY-ADVENTURE WEB SERIES FOR FALL 2010
Season One and The Never-Before-Seen Season Two To Be Streamed on Syfy Digital With Eye Towards Development for Broadcast
New York, New York - April 8, 2010 - Syfy remains on the forefront of cutting edge fantasy based digital entertainment with the acquisition of the highly acclaimed web series, Riese, it was announced today by Craig Engler, SVP and GM of Syfy Digital. Syfy Digital has acquired the rights to the entire 10-part series - which is distributed by Fireworks International, the television and digital distribution arm of ContentFilm plc - with an eye towards development for a broadcast air. Riese consists of two five-part episode seasons, with season two premiering fully for the first time exclusively on Syfy.com. Season one and two are both slated for a digital launch in the fall 2010.
"RIESE is a fantastic web series with a lot of room to grow, and we're excited to work with the very talented cast and crew to help them take the show to the next level, backed by the full promotional efforts that Syfy can bring to the table," said Engler. "At the same time we'll be working hand-in-hand with our TV development team to see if Riese has the potential to make the jump to TV, just like our hit show Sanctuary did."
RIESE recently scooped the Streamy Award for 'Best Cinematography in a Web Series' with a further three nominations for Best Sound Design, Best Foreign Series and Art Direction. The digital series starring Christine Chatelain (Sanctuary, Fringe), Sharon Taylor (Smallville, Eureka), Ben Cotton (Stargate Atlantis, Haper's Island), and Patrick Gilmore (Fringe, Stargate Universe), was shot in Vancouver, BC, and is created by Ryan Copple and Kaleena Kiff and produced by Galen Fletcher and Nicholas Humphries.
Jonathan Ford, Executive Vice-President, Digital Acquisitions and Distribution at Fireworks International added, "Syfy is highly regarded in the digital community with a fantastic background in identifying and securing the best in new multiplatform content. We are delighted to announce this significant deal for the important US market and look forward to working with the Syfy team on the web series as well as developing Riese for television."
RIESE is a fantasy-adventure based web series that chronicles a mysterious wanderer named Riese, (portrayed by Chatelain). A life-on-the-run from a world with a dim future, Riese and her trusted wolf companion, Fenrir flee their dying land of Eleysia in search of freedom as they are hunted by assassins of 'The Sect,' a terrifying religious entity. As she tries to piece together her mysterious past, Riese will take on a life and death journey with the balance and the fate of the world lying in the palm of her hands.

FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 2010

ABC SUMMER LINE-UP - THE GATES
ABC has released its lineup of summer programming, and the only show that sounds vaguely supernatural is The Gates, which debuts June 20.
It's set in a private community where a family moves from Chicago only to discover that things are not what they seem. We've pasted the official description below. It will air at 9 p.m. on ABC.
THE GATES - PREMIERES SUNDAY, JUNE 20 (9:00-10:00 p.m.) - Nestled inside a private mountain community are The Gates. The image of perpetual suburban bliss, each street is lined with perfectly manicured homes protected by the massive iron gates, but a dark and delicious secret is buried just beneath the surface of this picturesque neighborhood.
Like most families that settle inside The Gates, the Monahans are unmoored from a complicated life they abandoned in Chicago. Named the new police chief of The Gates, Nick Monahan is expecting a change of pace in this quiet suburb. Nick's wife, Sarah, and their children, Charlie and Dana, are embarking on new adventures as well. Their house is to die for, but amidst the excitement, Sarah is still burdened with the revelation that her husband may not be the man she thought he was. Charlie and Dana will also face some challenges of their own: Along with navigating the trials and tribulations of adolescence, they'll also face the daunting task of fitting into their new upscale school, where their new friends run in tight-knit packs.
There's something very different about this place, almost... haunting. Unions will be complicated by friends with unnatural influence, insatiable housewives will struggle with ravenous cravings, and teenagers will be cursed with keeping their beastly instincts in check. The Monahans are facing an uncertain fate. Nick is about to be tangled up in a mystery where he will begin to piece together the dark truth about their new home, and the supernatural elements that lurk behind the shadows of The Gates.
"The Gates" stars Frank Grillo as Nick Monohan, Marisol Nichols as Sarah Monahan, Rhona Mitra as Claire Radcliff, Luke Mably as Dylan Radcliff, Travis Caldwell as Charlie Monohan, Skyler Samuels as Andie Bates, Colton Haynes as Brett Crezski, Chandra West as Devon, Victoria Platt as Peg Mueller, Justin Miles as Marcus Jordan and Janina Gavankar as Leigh Turner. "The Gates" is produced by Fox Television Studios. The series is executive-produced by Gina Matthews and written and executive-produced by Grant Scharbo and Richard Hatem.

TOY STORY 3
A new clip from Disney•Pixar's Toy Story 3 is now online and features the gang meeting Lotso and Ken, who takes them on his "Dream Tour" around the day care. Toy Story 3 hits 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on June 18.

MONTE CARLO
Variety reports that Katie Cassidy (upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Andie MacDowell are joining Selena Gomez and Leighton Meester the comedy Monte Carlo, from Fox 2000 and New Regency.
Cory Monteith has also come on board to play the love interest
Based on the Jules Bass book "Headhunters" by Jules Bass, Monte Carlo tells the story of a girl and her best friend who travel to Paris, accompanied by her future, uptight stepsister. When one of the girls is mistaken for a spoiled British heiress, they are caught up in a whirlwind of attention and find themselves going on a dream vacation to Monte Carlo.
To be directed by Tom Bezucha, the movie starts shooting next month in Monaco, Budapest and Paris. Bezucha wrote the script with April Blair. Nicole Kidman, Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan are producing.

THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 2010

Iron Man 2 IRON MAN 2
IRON MAN 2, opening on May 7, could shatter the first-weekend box-office record of THE DARK KNIGHT, according to tracking data.
Here's what the Los Angeles Times' 24 Frames blog had to say:
According to just-released tracking surveys, director Jon Favreau's second installment in the Marvel franchise is showing astonishing levels of interest and awareness well ahead of its three-day opening next month. There are enough statistical indications to think that the first-weekend gross could top the $158.4-million haul for "Dark Knight", the current record-holder for the biggest (non inflation- adjusted) opening weekend and the gold standard for movie debuts.
The first IRON MAN opened to a healthy $98 million weekend in 2008. The Times says that interest is especially strong among women, owing to star Robert Downey Jr.:
Thanks in part to Downey, the Paramount-distributed film is drawing as much (strong) interest among women over 30 as it is among women in their 20s, the tracking surveys show. Males in their teens and 20s are so keen on the film they may as well be dressing up in an iron suit. About the only people who aren't fully sold are teen girls, but there are signs of robustness there too.

Halo HALO
Frank O'Connor, Franchise Development Director, 343 Industries, Microsoft Game Studios, says that the HALO movie will happen eventually.
O'Connor talked about the possibility at the MI6 Conference in San Francisco last week.
"We're going to make a movie when the time is right," he said. "We own the IP. If we want to make a movie, the scale of all the other stuff that we do changes dramatically. We make tens and tens of millions of dollars on ancillary stuff, toys, apparel, music and publishing. If we do a movie all of that will grow exponentially. We have some numbers if we do a movie, but it changes everything. It also changes our target and age demographic."
The HALO movie almost moved forward with District 9's director Neill Blomkamp and executive producer Peter Jackson back in 2006. Stuart Beattie later wrote a film adaptation of "The Fall of Reach," complete with concept art.

Johnny English JOHNNY ENGLISH SEQUEL
Variety reports that Universal Pictures and Working Title Films are developing a sequel to the 2003 comedy Johnny English. Rowan Atkinson will again play the bumbling British spy in the film, which is eyeing an August start date.
While the original only made $28 million in North America, it earned $161 million worldwide. The film cost about $40 million to make.
Oliver Parker (St. Trinian's) is on board to direct from a script by Hamish McColl (Mr. Bean's Holiday).
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Chris Clark are producing. Will Davies and Atkinson are executive producing.

Cowboys & Aliens COWBOYS AND ALIENS
IRON MAN 2 helmer Jon Favreau has confirmed a Latino Review scoop that Harrison Ford is joining Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde in the director's graphic novel adaptation COWBOYS & ALIENS.
Favreau posted the following on his Twitter account.
Please stop asking if Harrison Ford is in Cowboys & Aliens. Okay? He is. Please don't tell anybody.
Based on the Platinum Studios Comics graphic novel written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley, the sci-fi Western explores what would happen if the traditional Old West enemies -- cowboys and Native Americans -- found the prairie attacked by aliens in mid-1800s Arizona.
The DreamWorks and Universal movie is targeting a July 29, 2011 release. Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof wrote the script.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2010

TRON
According to the Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, the LOST writers/ executive producers who worked on LEGACY, have already begun writing a third Tron film.
TRON LEGACY, the sequel to Disney's classic 1982 sci-fi movie, doesn't hit theaters until Dec. 17, but the studio is reportedly already developing a third movie, which would complete a trilogy.
No details have been released because it is so early in the process.
Notwithstanding the question of whether the movie will be a hit, other topics to ponder are whether the sequel will focus on spinoff characters or center on a new adventure set in the "Tron" world. Insiders have suggested that Kitsis and Horowitz are working on a way to round the story into a trilogy.
Joseph Kosinski directed LEGACY, which stars Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde, as well as returning original TRON cast members Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner.
There have been no deals with any yet to return for a third movie.

FRIGHT NIGHT
STAR TREK and TERMINATOR SALVATION's Anton Yelchin will next fight vampires as the new lead in FRIGHT NIGHT, the upcoming remake of the 1985 horror comedy. That's the news on The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog:
Craig Gillespie, the director behind 2007's "Lars and the Real Girl," is helming the new version, which sticks to the concept of a teen being convinced that his new neighbor is a vampire, although no one will believe him.
The new iteration, written by Marti Noxon, keeps the character's name the same as in the original: Charley Brewster. William Ragsdale, now seen on FX's JUSTIFIED, originated the role.

Andrew Lincoln THE WALKING DEAD
AMC announced the casting of English actor Andrew Lincoln (Teachers) as the lead character in its upcoming zombie apocalypse series THE WALKING DEAD. Lincoln will play Rick Grimes, a small-town police officer who leads a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse.
Lincoln isn't well known on this side of the pond, having appeared in small roles in feature films such as Love Actually and Human Traffic, as well as on British TV.
The series�based on the comic-book series written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics�begins production in Atlanta in June for a debut in October.

Harry Potter HARRY POTTER NEWS
J.K. Rowling revealed yesterday when she could return to her boy wizard once more at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, the Washington Post reported.
Rowling, who was among the guests as thousands of egg hunters descended on the White House, read to a small group of children and answered their questions.
Asked whether she was planning on writing a new Potter novel, she said she doesn't intend to write any offshoots of the Potter series now�but she didn't rule it out "maybe 10 years from now," depending on how she feels.
But she told one child she does want to write more books�so we won't have to wait quite that long for another Rowling novel, though it won't be in the Potter universe.
"Yes, I do, and I am," Rowling said. "I'm quite sure in the not-too-distant future I will bring out another book."

Toxic Avenger TOXIC AVENGER
Deadline New York: A remake of THE TOXIC AVENGER is in the works and will be produced by Akiva Goldsman, Richard Saperstein and Charlie Corwin. Original Media has acquired the rights to franchise that includes sequels, an animated TV series and comic books. The company will finance the development of a script.
Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman directed the 1984 original, which starred Andree Maranda, Mitchell Cohen, Pat Ryan Jr., Jennifer Baptist, Robert Pritchard, Cindy Manion, Gary Schneider and Mark Torgl.
The film is set in Tromaville, New Jersey - a small American town, terrorized by criminals. Among the residents of Tromaville is Melvin, a nerdy emaciated janitor at the local health club. A gang of thugs devise a cruel hoax that goes horribly wrong as Melvin is cast through a third story window into a vat of hazardous toxic waste. However, an unexpected metamorphosis takes place. As the chemicals take hold of his body, Melvin turns into the Toxic Avenger, doer of good, and brutal mauler of evil.
"The group intends to turn Toxie into a green superhero for these environmentally conscious times." The remake is expected to be a family friendly PG-13 action comedy.

Sinestro GREEN LANTERN
In an interview with USA Weekend, Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes, upcoming Kick-Ass and Robin Hood) talked about playing Sinestro in Warner Bros. Pictures' Green Lantern.
"For anybody who's familiar with the Green Lantern and the origin story, the film closely follows the early comics," Strong said. "Sinestro starts out as Hal Jordan's mentor, slightly suspicious and not sure of him because obviously Hal is the first human being who's made into a Green Lantern. He's certainly very strict and certainly unsure of the wisdom of Hal becoming a Green Lantern."
Strong added that "[Sinestro] is a military guy but isn't immediately bad. It's the kind of person he is that lends himself to becoming bad over the course of the comics being written, but initially he's quite a heroic figure."
The actor said that the costume and other aspects of the character closely follow the character's early days. "That widow's peak and thin mustache was for some reason originally based on David Niven, and Hal Jordan was based on Errol Flynn," said Strong, who recently got fitted for special Sinestro contact lenses.
"In the '30s and '40s, they shared an apartment together in Hollywood when they were making movies and they were great friends. Obviously at the time, whoever was doing the original comics must have looked at them as guys doing very well in the film industry, and based those characters on them. So I would like to do justice to the Sinestro that was conceived for the comic books."
Opening in 3D and 2D theaters on June 17, the Martin Campbell-directed comic book adaptation stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Robbins, Strong, Taika Waititi, Temuera Morrison, Angela Bassett and Jay O. Sanders.

TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 2010

WIL WHEATON MOVED TO EUREKA
Syfy announced that actor and geek superstar Wil Wheaton, best known for his roles on the TV series STAR TREK: NEXT GENERATION and the classic film STAND BY ME, will be making an appearance on EUREKA as Dr. Isaac Parrish, head of the Non-Lethal Weapons Lab at Global Dynamics.
Wheaton's episode is scheduled to air on Friday, July 23.
Wheaton blogged about his casting:
I've had the script for a little while, now, and I've been getting to know Dr. Isaac Parrish as I convert the words on the page into a person you'll see on television. I obviously can't go into any specifics, but I've had a great time developing his backstory, creating his relationships with the characters, giving him secrets and beliefs, and doing all the other parts of character creation that make being an actor so much fun.
As part of my homework, I spent the entire weekend watching DVDs and reading about the show on the Internets so I could understand the tone and see the characters in action ... it wasn't a bad way to spend several hours, I tell you what. (In my professional opinion, time you currently spend watching a show that you hope will get better would be much more wisely spent watching reruns of EUREKA.)

Olivia Thirlby THE DARKEST HOUR
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Olivia Thirlby, the young actress known for supporting roles in such indies as JUNO and THE WACKNESS, has booked one of the leading roles in THE DARKEST HOUR, a sci-fi action movie from Summit and New Regency.
Chris Gorak is directing the pic, which is being produced by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov and Tom Jacobson.
The script, which Gorak and Josh Zetumer are currently revising, is set in Moscow and follows a group of Americans traveling in the city when an alien invasion occurs.
Thirlby plays a trust fund girl trying to survive the attack who teams up with others to try to defeat the invaders.
The movie lenses this summer in Moscow, where Bekmambetov will use his own facilities for the shoot and special effects.
HOUR marks the biggest commercial play and largest production for Thirlby. The list of distributors for her previous movies is like a Who's Who of the indie world: IFC Films, Magnolia Pictures, Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics.
Thirlby is due to shoot another indie, the fantasy romance JACK AND DIANE, this spring.

Dark Life DARK LIFE
According to Variety, Robert Zemeckis is attached to direct the big screen adaptation of Kat Falls' underwater adventure novel DARK LIFE. Walt Disney Pictures and Zemeckis' ImageMovers have signed a deal to partner with the Gotham Group (The Spiderwick Chronicles) to bring the book to the big screen.
The book will by published in May by Scholastic. The following is how it's described:
Set in an apocalyptic future where rising oceans have swallowed up entire regions and people live packed like sardines on the dry land left, DARK LIFE is the harrowing tale of underwater pioneers who have carved out a life for themselves in the harsh deep-sea environment, farming the seafloor in exchange for the land deed.
The story follows Ty, who has lived his whole life on his family's homestead and has dreams of claiming his own stake when he turns eighteen. But when outlaws' attacks on government supply ships and settlements threaten to destroy the underwater territory, Ty finds himself in a fight to stop the outlaws and save the only home he has ever known.
Joined by a girl from the Topside who has come subsea to look for her prospector brother, Ty ventures into the frontier's rough underworld and begins to discover some dark secrets to Dark Life.
As Ty gets closer to the truth, he discovers that the outlaws may not be the bloodthirsty criminals the government has portrayed them as. And that the government abandoning the territory might be the best thing for everyone, especially for someone like Ty, someone with a Dark Gift.
Zemeckis, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey will produce through ImageMovers. Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Lee Stollman will produce through Gotham.
It has not been determined yet if the movie will be produced using Zemeckis' performance capture process.

THE THING
In a recent interview with ShockTillYouDrop.com, Joel Edgerton talked about starring in Universal Pictures' THE THING prequel that has been shooting in Toronto for a week under the direction of Matthijs van Heijningen.
In the film, Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins a series of attacks, she is forced to team with a blue-collar mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage.
Here's a clip from the interview:
"Well, it's a prequel and definitely the Norwegian base is modeled on the base you see in the Carpenter film," he told us. "Being a prequel you'll see a lot of tie-ins as to how the base comes to be the way it is in the Carpenter film, being so destroyed, and that evidence you see in the Carpenter film, We'll get a glimpse into that. It's great because you have a bunch of people behind making it�Eric Newman and Marc (Abraham), the producers at Strike (Entertainment), those guys and Matthijs the director, they have such respect for the original film that they're not trying to do a remake, they're just trying to pay homage to the original and also do the right thing with what I think is a real cool way in to doing that, and revisiting the material."

NEW DOCTOR WHO RATINGS
The UK season premiere of "Doctor Who" starring Matt Smith in his first full episode as the new Doctor scored an overnight rating of 8 million viewers, easily the highest rated program on the Easter Saturday holiday.
The figure, which is expected to rise when DVR and iView figures come in, is on par with the show's last three season premieres which have each pulled in around 8 million viewers. Viewership was notably down across the all networks over the Easter holiday, so the lack of any real impact is a welcome surprise.
Reviews for the premiere have been strong - the performances in particularly being lauded along with new showrunner Steven Moffat's writing, character elements and slightly different tone. The few common criticisms have fallen on a few sub-standard visual effects shots and the new opening credits sequence - specifically the remixed theme tune.
Along with some new creature shots, we also get quick glimpses of many of this season's guest stars in action including Bill Nighy, Toby Jones, Sophie Okonedo, Ian McNeice, Tony Curran, Robert Pugh, Helen McCrory, Meera Syal, James Corden and of course the returning Alex Kingston.

Sean Sipos ENTER NOWHERE
Katherine Waterston, Scott Eastwood, Sara Paxton, Shaun Sipos and Christopher Denham have joined the cast of the supernatural thriller ENTER NOWHERE says The Hollywood Reporter.
The story revolves around four strangers who find themselves stranded in a deserted, supernatural forest. Taking shelter in an abandoned cabin, they must learn to trust one another and work together to find a way out of the woods. Shawn Christensen and Jason Dolan penned the script.
Jack Heller makes his directorial debut on the film which begins shooting this week in Southampton, New York. Heller and Dallas Sonnier will produce.

MONDAY, APRIL 5, 2010

Buck Rogers BUCK ROGERS MAKEOVER
At WonderCon this weekend, RESIDENT EVIL director Paul W.S. Anderson told reporters that he's going back to the original concept�a man thrust 500 years into the future (in this case, the 26th century)�with the help of the guys who put the spark in Tony Stark.
Screenwriters Art Markum and Matt Holloway are working on a Buck Rogers script, and that's a good sign: They worked on the script to the first Iron Man movie, so they've done well by comics before.
The writers have hashed out a storyline going back to the original concept. "You take a relatable modern-day man, you put him in the far-flung future," Anderson said. Anderson, out to promote RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE, added, "I think what Markum and Holloway will do�which they did with Iron Man�which is bring a lot of kind of humanity and character to the story. So I think they're going to write a great Buck character in the way that they wrote a great Tony Stark character."
"I always start with a love of the source material," Anderson said. "That's the thing all of those things have in common. I love Aliens and Predators. I used to play and love Mortal Kombat. I love Resident Evil. I love Buck Rogers. I read the comic strips as a kid, the old comic strips. I watched the TV show. I love the source material, and then I take that love and knowledge of the source material and then try and put my own spin on it."
Anderson added: "In the case of Buck Rogers, I'm going to have the help of Markum and Holloway, who wrote the original Iron Man [and] who are terrific writers. It's not just going to be me. They're going to be bolstering my visual vision of what Buck should be with, I think, some tremendous character work."
Buck Rogers was last adapted as a television series in 1979, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Anderson promises a serious sci-fi epic adaptation from his team. "You're dealing with Earth in 500 years' time, so your imagination can run rampant as to what that is," Anderson said. "We're going to do it straight. There won't be the kind of camp factor that you had in the '70s show."

TOY STORY 3
The TOY STORY panel at WonderCon in San Francisco on Saturday, we got a look at a few never-before-released scenes from the upcoming movie. Fans of the previous movies have been checking out recently released shots of the new characters from the movie. We've seen Trixie, the triceratops, Buttercup the unicorn, Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear (who smells like strawberries) and the fantastically named Mr. Pricklepants the hedgehog.
After a few brief statements from director Lee Unkrich, we were told that they were going to choose three people from the crowd to do voice-overs for the scene. The first man to the stage was an audience member, but the next two just happened to be Kristen Schaal, the voice of Trixie, and Jeff Garlin, who plays Buttercup.
After the two teased the chosen audience member about his British accent, we got to check out what they did with the scene. In it, Woody (Tom Hanks) finds himself in the room of a little girl having a tea party. When she runs out to powder her nose, Woody tries to get the attention of the other toys and find out where he is.
Mr. Pricklepants is trying to stay in character, being something of a thespian, but the other two introduce themselves and explain where they are in the soap opera they're performing. When the girl returns, she brings out what may be the most foul combination in history, a plastic hamburger topped with her "secret ingredient": jelly beans. We finally saw the scene fully scored with Timothy Dalton, the real voice of Mr. Pricklepants.
Next, we saw a scene where the toys arrive at a day care center after being donated. From inside the box, they see a room full of kids playing with toys. Everyone is excited except Woody, who misses the now college-aged Andy.
When they fall onto the floor, all the day-care toys come to welcome them, including Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear (Ned Beatty), who explains the situation. He tells them that, with a new group of kids always on the way in, they can never be hurt. They'll never feel abandoned or alone.
We also see a Ken doll (Michael Keaton), dressed up in head-to-toe turquoise, encounter Barbie (Jodi Benson) for the first time. It's love at first sight. She tells him he has a nice ascot. If the roar of the crowd was to be believed, the sneak peek went over well.
Before the end of the panel, Kristen Schaal was told by Unkrich that she will be in every Pixar picture going forward. The crowd certainly loved her. And if we're going by their casting history, this woman will be employed for life.
TOY STORY 3 will open in theaters on June 18.

RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE
The teaser trailer for RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE, which premiered this weekend at WonderCon in San Francisco, is now online! Opening in 3D and 2D theaters on September 10, the Paul W.S. Anderson-directed sequel stars Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Kim Coates, Shawn Roberts, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Spencer Locke, Boris Kodjoe and Wentworth Miller.
In the film, Alice (Jovovich) continues on her journey to find survivors and lead them to safety. Her deadly battle with the Umbrella Corporation reaches new heights, but Alice gets some unexpected help from an old friend. A new lead that promises a safe haven from the Undead takes them to Los Angeles, but when they arrive the city is overrun by thousands of Undead - and Alice and her comrades are about to step into a deadly trap.

XXX: The  Return of Xander Cage XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE
XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE, the third film in the spy action franchise started in 2002, has left Sony Pictures and has re-emerged over at Paramount who are in negotiations to finance, produce and release the film says Deadline New York.
John Brancato and Michael Ferris ("Terminator Salvation") penned the script which involves Xander Cage, the extreme sports athlete-turned-government operative from the first film, returning to the National Security Agency after an eight-year absence to work on a dangerous assignment only he can pull off.
As previously reported Vin Diesel is reprising the role of Cage, Samuel L. Jackson will return as his handler Agent Augustus Gibbons, and the first film's director Rob Cohen will helm. Ericson Core ("Invincible") was briefly attached to direct last year but that's seemingly no longer the case.
Cohen plans to shoot the film with 3D cameras and a late 2011 or early 2012 release date is being targeted.

SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2010

TRON LEGACY
Fantasy met reality in San Francisco last night when Alan Bradley, the new executive consultant at Encom Corp., appeared on the Embarcadero at an elaborate press event to announce a new online version of the company's legendary game Space Paranoids�an announcement that was disrupted by protesters arguing that former CEO Kevin Flynn (who mysteriously disappeared more than 25 years ago) was still alive.
The event was capped by an elaborate stunt in which someone jumped from a hovering helicopter and parachuted behind the stage (we're not sure, but we think high winds may have altered the skyjumper's original destination). [Update: The jumper was supposed to be Sam Flynn, the son of Kevin Flynn (as played by Garrett Hedlund), who was jumping to highlight the disappearance of his father; check out this video on the Flynn Lives site.]
The reality is that "Alan Bradley" was played by actor Bruce Boxleitner, reprising his character from the 1982 classic sci-fi movie Tron; that he was joined in a surprise appearance by Dr. Lora Baines (a radiant Cindy Morgan); and that the entire press conference and protest was a viral promotion for Disney's upcoming 3-D sequel film TRON LEGACY.
Clash of the Titans WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Warner Bros.' 3D action fantasy CLASH OF THE TITANS topped the domestic rankings on Friday -- its first full day of release -- with an estimated $26.4 million.
Co-produced and co-financed by Legendary Pictures, TITANS totes $29 million in cumulative boxoffice including some Thursday night "pre-shows" in mostly 2D venues. Now playing in a combination of 2D and 3D locations with a total theater count of 3,777, TITANS appears ready to march north of $60 million through Sunday.
That would seem to validate Warners' decision to convert the pic from 2D to 3D just two months prior to its scheduled release. It also would render moot most negative reviews of the pic, though reviewers' criticism of the quality of the 3D conversion may bear watching in future weeks for possible impact on 3D screen grosses.
Tyler Perry's WHY DID I GET MARRIED TOO? from Lionsgate enjoyed a solid start to its Easter weekend with $12.3 million in second place on Friday.
DreamWorks' 3D animated feature HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON came in third with $11 million on the day and an eight-day cume of $74.1 million.
Disney's Miley Cyrus starrer THE LAST SONG, which bowed Wednesday, grossed $7.1 million in fourth place on Friday for a three-day cume of $16.5 million.
MGM comedy HOT TUB TIME MACHINE -- hitting its sophomore session in release -- ranked fifth among the daily grossers with $2.9 million and a $21.7 million cume.

NATIONAL TREASURE 3
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME and THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE co-writers Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro are reteaming with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and SORCERER'S APPRENTICE director Jon Turteltaub to pen the script for NATIONAL TREASURE 3.
The first National Treasure was released in 2004 and earned $347.5 million worldwide, but National Treasure: Book of Secrets easily surpassed that in 2007 with $457.4 million worldwide.
There's no word yet on which way the story is going to go in the third film. Though it has not been confirmed, we assume Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger and Jon Voight will all be back.

SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 2010

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&from=sp&fg=shareEmbed&vid=13d6cb48-df41-4d16-907d-1b6fdd5b4f77" target="_new" title=</a> SPLICE
Warner Bros. Pictures has released the new trailer for the R-rated sci-fi thriller SPLICE, opening in theaters on June 4. Directed by Vincenzo Natali, the movie stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley.
In the film, Clive and Elsa are superstars of the genetic engineering world. They specialize in splicing together DNA from different animals to create fantastical new hybrids. The charismatic couple wants to use human DNA in a new hybrid – something that could yield astronomical medical benefits. The pharmaceutical company that funds their research, however, is more interested in exploiting their earlier triumphs for easier, short-term profit. Clive and Elsa secretly conduct their own experiment. The result is Dren: an amazing creature who exhibits an array of unexpected developments, both physical and intellectual. Dren exceeds their wildest dreams... and, ultimately, their most terrifying nightmare.

Ryan Reynolds GREEN LANTERN
Ryan Reynolds is currently gearing up to wear the power ring as GREEN LANTERN, but it's just been announced that he'll also soon star as an undead cop in the feature-film adaptation of the R.I.P.D. comic series.
Producer Neal Moritz told Collider.com:
R.I.P.D. Rest in peace department. A terrific script by Manfredi & Hay at Universal that we hopefully going to make at the beginning of next year. ...
It's terrific based on the graphic novel. It's about two cops, one recently dead and a gunslinger who's been dead for hundreds of years who work on the Rest in Peace department�which is the police department of the dead. And they basically, ... it takes place on a normal day and it's about trying to keep the dead quiet. ...
R.I.P.D. is a 2003 Dark Horse graphic novel by Peter Lenkov.

Lord of the Rings LORD OF THE RINGS ON BLU-RAY
When The Lord of the Rings debuts in the Blu-ray high-definition home video format, you'll finally be able to see some of the fine detail that got lost in the big-screen releases, Oscar-winning makeup effects artist and creature supervisor Richard Taylor said in an interview on Thursday.
"It's probably more in the close detail in terms of the filigree and the surface of ribbons and buttons and elf clasps and belt buckles," he said.
Fans know that Taylor and his Weta Workshop team gave every costume a distinct look instead of making armies of identical uniforms. Those subtle differences will finally be revealed.
"It was going with the philosophy that in the period of the medieval age, it could be just as easy to make something look totally different or make something look completely the same," Taylor said. "There would not have been a huge amount of replicates of technology. Obviously, if you reproduce the same object, it might be easier at a mass-production level in the modern-day workshop, but we tried to give the feeling of a different quality to different elements. That's something that I look forward to seeing if it comes through."
The Blu-rays are not even out yet, but people are complimenting Taylor on new details they've seen in the films some nine years later.
"People have told me over the last couple of days that they have now seen the details that we had put in," Taylor said. "We had thought we had just been a bit fanatical, because they weren't apparent to the viewer. Now they are. That's a fantastic thing, to hear that. A lot of that very fine detail is now popping out."
Blu-ray was not yet on the horizon when Taylor began creating the creatures, makeup and costumes of The Lord of the Rings, so it's fortunate that the work was of such a high quality that it holds up in the hi-def format.
"You try and aim to produce the best work you possibly can, obviously," Taylor said. "I certainly didn't cast my mind forward going, 'Gosh, one day the world's audience will be watching these movies on cinema-screen-sized televisions in a level of clarity that we can only dream about today.' Thankfully, the work that was done back then was done with the greatest intent to make it as good as possible. So hopefully it holds up OK today. It's just exciting to think that the Blu-ray release offers an opportunity for the community of enthusiasts to enjoy them all afresh."
THE LORD OF THE RINGS Blu-ray trilogy debuts next Tuesday, April 6.

Merlin-Arthur MERLIN
Even if you haven't seen season one of the British series MERLIN, now showing on Syfy, actor Colin Morgan promises plenty of "swashbuckling" adventure that the entire family will enjoy in the upcoming second season. And for those who have seen it, Merlin promises to dig deeper into the characters, show new sides of the story and get a bit darker. (Merlin premieres on Syfy Friday at 10 p.m. ET/PT.)
"The great thing about going into the second [season] is it ties up in terms of storylines where we left off on the end of the first [season], where Merlin's relationship with the dragon had changed drastically. We get really stuck right into the action at the start of the second [season] with a kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark-type opening," the young Irish actor said in an exclusive intervew. "Which is great. It just gets kicked off full force with them."
Merlin focuses on what might happen if a young Merlin, before he became a great wizard, met a young Prince Arthur, before he became king. And, oh yeah, Arthur's father, King Uther, has outlawed magic under penalty of death. The BBC series premiered in 2008 in Britain and stars Morgan as Merlin and Bradley James as Prince Arthur, along with Katie McGrath, Angel Coulby, Anthony Head, Richard Wilson and John Hurt as the dragon.

John Forsythe JOHN FORSYTHE PASSES AWAY
Depending on how good your memory is and when you started watching TV, John Forsythe will bring back different memories. I remember him in BACHELOR FATHER years ago. Then we heard him as Charlie in CHARLIE'S ANGELS and envied him his role as Blake Carrington in the 1980s soap DYNASTY.
Forsythe died Thursday in Santa Ynez, Calif., of complications from pneumonia after a yearlong struggle with cancer. He owned a ranch in the area north of Santa Barbara. He was 92.
For his portrayal of Blake Carrington, Forsythe earned two Golden Globes and three Emmy nominations. So popular was the show that in 1985, Forsythe became the spokesperson for a line of men's cologne called "Carrington." He series ran from 1981-89.
Forsythe was born John Lincoln Freund on Jan. 29, 1918, in Penn's Grove, N.J. The son of a Wall Street businessman, Forsythe attended and graduated from the University of North Carolina, then defied his family's wishes by moving to New York to become an actor.
While making the rounds, Forsythe landed his first paying job as the ballpark announcer at Ebbets Field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. After the Dodgers deserted to Los Angeles, Forsythe lent his distinctively soothing voice to radio soap operas and performed in supporting roles on Broadway.
After serving in World War II for the Army Air Corps, Forsythe returned to New York and starred on Broadway in "Mr. Roberts," the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Teahouse of the August Moon" and Gore Vidal's "Weekend." He also helped found the Actors Studio after auditioning for Lee Strasberg.
While onstage, he was noticed and, following a screen test, signed by Warner Bros. and cast in his first movie, "Destination Tokyo" (1943), opposite Cary Grant.
In the early '50s, Forsythe acted in many of the early live television shows, including "Studio One," "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars," "Philco Playhouse" and several episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."

ROBIN HOOD
A new behind-the-scenes trailer has been released for ROBIN HOOD by NCM. This new featurette on director Ridley Scott's ROBIN HOOD, opening in theaters on May 14. The action adventure stars Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Matthew Macfadyen, Mark Strong, Oscar Isaac, Lea Seydoux, Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand, Alan Doyle, Danny Huston and Max von Sydow.

FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010

SALT
Angelina Jolie goes back into action-movie mode this summer with SALT, and from the looks of the new trailer, it tips more to the MR. AND MRS. SMITH end of the scale than the WANTED end.
Jolie, in her first movie since CHANGELING in 2008, plays CIA Agent Evelyn Salt, who's accused of being a Russian spy with a mission to kill that country's president. She goes on the run, and lots of motorcycle-stealing, butt- kicking, hair-color-changing mayhem ensues.
The movie also stars Liev Schreiber as Salt's CIA colleague, who can't believe what he's hearing, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the man assigned to track her down. Phillip Noyce ("Clear and Present Danger," "The Quiet American") directed the movie, which was written by Brian Helgeland and Kurt Wimmer.
Thrillers like what SALT appears to be can rise or fall depending on how well-executed the inevitable twist is, so it's hard to say whether the full movie will be as fun to watch as the trailer. These two-plus minutes, though, are pretty entertaining.
SALT is scheduled to open in July.

Robert Knepper Julie McNiven
FAMILIAR FACES ON SYFY DRAMAS
Syfy's acclaimed series, STARGATE UNIVERSE has cast famed actors, Robert Knepper (Heroes, Prison Break) and Julie McNiven (Supernatural, Mad Men) as guest stars to the second season of the hit series. Knepper joins the cast for a six-episode arc and will portray Simeon, a member of the Lucian Alliance. McNiven will also join the cast for a five-episode arc, portraying Ginn, a member of the Lucian Alliance. Season two of STARGATE UNIVERSE premieres on Syfy fall 2010.
Production is underway in Vancouver, Canada. The second-half of Stargate Universe's first season premieres Friday, April 2, at 9 PM (ET/PT).
Edgier and younger in tone, SGU takes the franchise in a dynamic new direction, appealing to longtime Stargate fans and first-time viewers alike. The series stars Robert Carlyle, Louis Ferreira, Brian J. Smith, Elyse Levesque, David Blue, Alaina Huffman, Jamil Walker Smith, Ming-Na and Lou Diamond Phillips.
SGU follows a band of soldiers, scientists and civilians, who must fend for themselves as they are forced through a Stargate when their hidden base comes under attack. The desperate survivors emerge aboard an ancient ship, which is locked on an unknown course and unable to return to Earth. Faced with meeting the most basic needs of food, water and air, the group must unlock the secrets of the ship's Stargate to survive. The danger, adventure and hope they find on board the Destiny will reveal the heroes and villains among them.
Robert Cooper and Brad Wright, of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, serve as executive producers and writers. SGU is produced and distributed by MGM Worldwide Television Distribution.

Sebastian Stan CAPTAIN AMERICA
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Sebastian Stan, one of the actors who tested for the title role of Marvel’s CAPTAIN AMERICA which ultimately went to Chris Evans, has nabbed the key role of Captain America’s sidekick Bucky Barnes.
In comic book lore, Barnes, a teenaged orphan, was too young to join the army but became one camp’s mascot. When he discovered Captain America’s identity, he joined Captain America as a partner in his Nazi-fighting escapades. The character died in Captain America’s final World War II adventure.
After decades of being “dead,� the character was revived in 2005 and brought back into modern comic continuity, initially as a covert assassin named Winter Soldier.
It is not clear if the movie version of Barnes sets up the Winter Soldier identity. Marvel would only confirm that Stan is playing Barnes.
Insiders also say Stan has signed on for five or six pictures.
Shooting on the Joe Johnston-directed pic starts this summer in Europe.
Stan starred in NBC’s short-lived KINGS and had a stint on the CW’s GOSSIP GIRL. His feature film career has been on a roll of late, having recently appeared in HOT TUB TIME MACHINE and wrapped the Joel Silver-produced thriller THE APPARITION and Darren Aronofsky’s BLACK SWAN.

THREE MUSKETEERS COMING
Doug Liman (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity) is in negotiations to direct Warner Bros.' THE THREE MUSKETEERS, which is in a race with the Paul W.S. Anderson-directed THE THREE MUSKETEERS 3D in development at Summit Entertainment. The latter project is currently casting.
Producer Lionel Wigram, the creative force behind Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, recently hired screenwriter Peter Straughan (The Men Who Stare at Goats) to update Alexandre Dumas' classic for Warner Bros.
Straughan's script is expected to play up the action and "sexier" elements of the story.

THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2010

Fantastic Voyage FANTASTIC VOYAGE
According to the Hollywood Reporter, producer James Cameron has found a director for his upcoming remake of the classic 1966 sci-fi movie FANTASTIC VOYAGE -- Paul Greengrass (Green Zone, United 93).
Greengrass, who is also know for amping up the Bourne series of movies, directs a movie that will reportedly remain faithful to the original, a story about a medical team that is shrunk in a miniaturized submarine and injected into the body of Soviet scientist to save him from a lethal blood clot.
The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog reports:
The director is in talks to direct Fox's long-gestating remake of the 1966 sci-fi thriller which is being produced by James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment. The original "Voyage," made during the Cold War, revolved around a team of scientists who are shrunk to atomic size and sent on a miniature submarine to save the life of a defecting Soviet scientist. The story then followed the biological adventures the team encounters in trying to save the scientist and themselves.
The movie will also take advantage of state-of-the art medical imaging technology, Cameron has said, and will reportedly make use of the latest computer visual effects and the gimmick du jour, 3-D.

NEW SYFY MOVIES
Syfy is teaming with indie production company After Dark on two films for the network's Saturday night creature-feature slot.
The first co-production is SCREAM OF THE BANSHEE, starring Lauren Holly ("NCIS") and Lance Henriksen ("Aliens"), about a professor who releases a creature with a bone-splitting scream.
The second is "51," which revolves around a group of reporters allowed access to a top-secret Air Force base housing aliens.
After Dark produces Syfy's annual "8 Films to Die For" event.
"We've aired nearly 20 After Dark-acquired movies, which have played very well with our viewers," said Thomas Vitale, Syfy executive vp programming and original movies. "Because of After Dark's strong branding, effective production values and understanding of the audience, we are excited to expand our relationship."
TRAVIS MCGEE
WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS helmer Oliver Stone is in talks to direct TRAVIS MCGEE for 20th Century Fox. Leonardo DiCaprio has been attached to play the title character since September of last year.
In the adaptation of John D. MacDonald's first book in the mystery novel series, titled "The Deep Blue Good-by," McGee is a self-described beach bum who lives aboard 52-foot houseboat the Busted Flush and alleviates his cash-flow problems by hiring on as a "salvage consultant." He recovers property for clients, taking a hefty percentage and getting into a lot of danger.
Peter Chernin is producing with Appian Way's DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran. The film was written by Dana Stevens and Kario Salem.

IRON MAN 2
A new trailer for IRON MAN 2: The IMAX Experience is now available and can be watched using the player below! Opening in North American theaters on May 7, the Jon Favreau-directed sequel stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Jon Favreau, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Garry Shandling, John Slattery, Kate Mara, Clark Gregg and Olivia Munn.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2010

Castle CASTLE RENEWED
ABC has confirmed that it has picked up CASTLE -- which is coming off two straight weeks of record ratings -- for next season. It will get a full complement of 22 episodes next year.
So far this season CASTLE is averaging 9.9 million viewers per week, up from 9.3 million last year, and a 2.6 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic. Those numbers will tick up a little after Monday's (March 29) episode, which drew a series high of 13.9 million viewers and a 3.5 in the demo.
The week before, the show drew 12.2 million viewers to surpass its previous best. The spike in numbers are the result of both a bigger lead-in -- two highly rated episodes of "Dancing with the Stars" -- and a two-part story in which Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) was threatened by a serial killer, activating the protective instincts of her partner in crime-solving, novelist Rick Castle (Nathan Fillion).
CASTLE joins a handful of other ABC scripted shows that are guaranteed spots in the network's 2010-11 lineup. The comedy trio of THE MIDDLE, MODERN FAMILY and COUGAR TOWN will be back, and so will drama BROTHERS & SISTERS. Mainstays GREY'S ANATOMY and DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES haven't officially been renewed yet but are almost certain to be picked up.

WAR OF THE GODS
Stephen Dorff has rounded out the cast of Relativity Media's Greek mythology movie called WAR OF THE GODS, set to begin shooting in early April in Montreal, Variety reported.
The movie, not to be confused with Friday's CLASH OF THE TITANS, also stars Kellan Lutz, Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke and Freida Pinto and will be directed by The Cell's Tarsem Singh.
Dorff (Blade) will play Stavros, a master thief who joins Theseus on his quest to help free Greece from the dark threat of the Titans. The movie opens on Nov. 11, 2011.

Action Comic #1 ACTION COMIC #1 SETS RECORD
Another copy of Action Comics number one�featuring the debut of Superman� has sold at auction, setting a new record of $1.5 million, surpassing the previous record of $1 million and exceeding the $1.075 million paid for Detective Comics number 27, which marked the first appearance of Batman.
This particular copy of Action Comics No. 1 was given a grading of 8.5 versus the 8.0 that the $1 million copy of Action Comics No. 1 rated.
The high grade comes from its excellent condition. The comic book was tucked inside a stack of magazines from the 1930s, preserving its quality. A savvy buyer who purchased the stack of magazines knew exactly what he held in his hands when he saw the iconic image of the Man of Steel lifting a car. Since then, the comic book has been bought and sold several times, increasing in sale price each time.

BY VIRTUE FALL
Variety reports that UP IN THE AIR co-writer Sheldon Turner is making his directorial debut on BY VIRTUE FALL, a thriller he wrote that Nicolas Chartier (The Hurt Locker) will finance and produce. Jennifer Klein will also produce with Turner.
The movie revolves around a man who is framed by his mentor and winds up in prison. Once released, he's fixated on getting revenge on his former partner, who has flourished in his new life and tried to cleanse himself of the past.
The filmmakers are looking to make BY VIRTUE FALL for less than $20 million. Production will start in September.

Werewolf NEW WEREWOLF FLICKS ON THE WAY
Scribe David Hayter ("X-Men," "Watchmen") will make his directorial debut on the $18 million thriller WOLVES for TF1 reports Deadline.
Described as a less chaste TWILIGHT, Hayter's script de-constructs past werewolf films of their mythology and make it a more blunt metaphor for teenage sexual awakening.
The project almost got going once before with Thomas Dekker and Ray Stevenson, but the credit crunch put a stop on that.
Steve Pink ("Hot Tub Time Machine," "Accepted") is attached to direct the R-rated horror comedy WEREWOLVES OF RESEDA reports Production Weekly.
Brian Frank's script follows a group of guys who live in San Fernando Valley suburbia and gradually turn into werewolves. The changes actually end up being a benefit to their family lives.
Lawrence Grey will apparently produce.

TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010

  V RETURNS
This catch-up video should help with getting you back up to speed with V following the three month gap since the last episode. This "V"-cap is of the first four episodes which aired way back in November.
Tuesday's episode is the first completed under new showrunner Scott Rosenbaum ("Chuck," "The Shield"), who took over after the first four episodes from Scott Peters. Rosenbaum also wrote the episode, which contains a fight scene between FBI Agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) and a Visitor.

Walking Dead WALKING DEAD
AMC has given a green light to THE WALKING DEAD, a six-episode zombie show based on Robert Kirkman's Image Comics series.
The show comes with a huge sci-fi pedigree: Executive producers include Frank Darabont (The GREEN MILE, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION), Gale Anne Hurd (the TERMINATOR franchise) and Charles "Chic" Eglee (DARK ANGEL), among others.
John Bernthal (HBO's The Pacific) has been cast as a supporting character, but the lead has not yet been cast, and AMC denied rumors that Eli Stone's Jonny Lee Miller would star.
The show, about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, is slated to debut in October.

KNIGHT AND DAY
20th Century Fox has debuted the new trailer for James Mangold's action comedy KNIGHT AND DAY, hitting theaters on June 25 and starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.
An action-comedy centered on a fugitive couple (Cruise and Diaz) on a glamorous and sometimes deadly adventure where nothing and no one – even themselves – are what they seem. Amid shifting alliances and unexpected betrayals, they race across the globe, with their survival ultimately hinging on the battle of truth vs. trust.
Use this link to view the trailer.
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3896771609/

Victor Frankenstein VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN
Production Weekly reports that WANTED helmer Timur Bekmambetov is attached to direct David Auburn's adaptation of Peter Ackroyd novel "Casebook of Victor Frankenstein."
Random House describes the book as follows:
When two nineteenth-century Oxford students�Victor Frankenstein, a serious researcher, and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley�form an unlikely friendship, the result is a tour de force that could only come from one of the world's most accomplished and prolific authors.
This haunting and atmospheric novel opens with a heated discussion, as Shelley challenges the conventionally religious Frankenstein to consider his atheistic notions of creation and life. Afterward, these concepts become an obsession for the young scientist. As Victor begins conducting anatomical experiments to reanimate the dead, he at first uses corpses supplied by the coroner. But these specimens prove imperfect for Victor's purposes. Moving his makeshift laboratory to a deserted pottery factory in Limehouse, he makes contact with the Doomsday men�the resurrectionists�whose grisly methods put Frankenstein in great danger as he works feverishly to bring life to the terrifying creature that will bear his name for eternity.
Filled with literary lights of the day such as Bysshe Shelley, Godwin, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley herself, and penned in period-perfect prose, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is sure to become a classic of the twenty- first century.

NEW GODZILLA COMING
News is breaking that a new American version of Godzilla is being developed by Legendary Pictures, based on Toho's classic monster.
Entertainment Weekly reports:
[Legendary], which is behind the upcoming Clash of the Titans, has made it clear it won't be a sequel to the 1998 film that Sony and Roland Emmerich made. (That movie starring Matthew Broderick grossed close to $400 million worldwide.) Rather, it will be a re-imagining of the original Godzilla movies. Legendary has plans to announce a director for the film soon.
Good news, if they are serious about being faithful to the original Japanese movies.
The new Godzilla will rampage through a city near you in 2012.

MONDAY, MARCH 29, 2010

Train Your Dragon HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
The 3-D animated HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON earned a fire-breathing $43.3 million at the domestic box office to rank number one for the March 26 weekend, knocking ALICE IN WONDERLAND to number two.
ALICE lost half of its audience in its fourth weekend of release but still managed to take in another $17.3 million, The Hollywood Reporter said.
The weekend's sci-fi debut, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, took in just $13.7 million to rank third.
DRAGON opened in 4,055 locations, and its gross was boosted by ticket sales from 2,178 3-D theaters, which accounted for 68 percent of the movie's total.

THE NEW DAUGHTER
A trailer for THE NEW DAUGHTER, coming to DVD and Blu-ray on May 18th, is now online.
The film follows the James family, as John (Kevin Costner) tries to rebuild his family after a painful divorce. John has his hands full raising his youngest child Sam (Gattlin Griffith) and especially his adolescent daughter Louisa (Ivana Baquero). As Louisa's troubling behavior continues, far beyond the average tween angst and frustrations, John begins doubting his parental abilities. But when events around the James household start taking on an increasingly mysterious nature, John realizes that his family may be in mortal danger.
Co-starring Samantha Mathis, THE NEW DAUGHTER is adapted by John Travis from the short story by John Connolly. Luis Berdejo (screenwriter of [REC] and Quarantine) makes his directorial debut on the Anchor Bay Films thriller.

Sofia Vergara HAPPY FEET AND SMURFS
Heat Vision is reporting that Sofia Vergara has joined the cast of Sony's THE SMURFS. According to the trade, the "Modern Family" star "will portray Odile, a powerful executive at a high-end French cosmetics company who is married to the live-action character played by Neil Patrick Harris."
Directed by Raja Gosnell, the big screen adaptation is scheduled for an August 3, 2011 release. Filming will start in New York next week.
In related news, Vergara has also landed a voice role in George Miller's HAPPY FEET 2, which Miller is filming in Sydney for a November 18, 2011 release.
She joins Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brad Pitt and her "Smurfs" co-star Azaria in the Warner Bros. sequel.

HAVEN
Emily Rose, Lucas Bryant (Dollhouse) and Eric Balfour (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) have been cast in Syfy's new series HAVEN, based on the novella "The Colorado Kid" from author Stephen King.
The series kicks off this summer following FBI agent Audrey Parker (Rose), who arrives in the small town of Haven, Maine on a routine case...only to discover that this curious enclave has served as a longtime refuge for people who are afflicted with a remarkable range of supernatural abilities.
Bryant will play Nathan Wuornos, the wry local cop who soon becomes Audrey's partner. Bristling under the thumb of his father, the Chief of Police, Nathan has a quiet, controlled demeanor that often clashes with Audrey's feisty one: a dichotomy that also makes them perfect complements. As events in the town begin to unfold at a surprising pace, Nathan's usual controlled sense of calm is put to the test.
Also among the citizens of this eccentric town is Duke Crocker (Balfour), a charming yet mysterious jack-of- all-trades. Though Duke outwardly appears to be a free spirit who lives an unobtrusive life on his boat, it becomes apparent that his mellow demeanor may conceal a much darker agenda.
Shooting is taking place in Halifax, Nova Scotia this spring.

SUNDAY-MARCH 28, 2010

Orson Welles CHRISTMAS TAILS
According to Movies Online, a recently discovered recording of the late Orson Welles narrating a children's Christmas novel will be employed in the 3D live-action/CG hybrid movie CHRISTMAS TAILS.
Robert X. Leed penned the book back in the early 80's and got his friend, Welles, to make five reel-to-reel recordings narrating the book in 1985. Several months later Welles passed away and the recording has essentially been sitting on a shelf.
Now, special effects studio Drac Studios ("Curious Case of Benjamin Button") will develop an adaptation of the story in which ill reindeer makes Santa consider cancelling Christmas, and the group of canines who team to help save the day.
Todd Tucker will direct from a script by Matt Thompson.

IRON MAN 2
Paramount Pictures aired this TV spot for IRON MAN 2 during Nickelodeon's "Kids' Choice Awards 2010" on Saturday night! Opening in conventional theaters and IMAX on May 7, the Jon Favreau- directed sequel stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Jon Favreau, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Garry Shandling, John Slattery, Kate Mara, Clark Gregg and Olivia Munn.

FRIDAY BOX OFFICE
DreamWorks Animation's HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, the newest 3D attraction to hit theaters, fired up an estimated $12 million in 4,055 theaters in North America on Friday.
Based on the children's book by Cressida Cowell and directed by the team of Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, the PG-rated Paramount release about a Viking boy who makes friends with a dragon in the enemy camp, easily commanded the top slot for the day as Disney's ALICE IN WONDERLAND, which has reigned atop the boxoffice for the previous three weekends, should shift to the second spot for its fourth round, having pulled in about $4.8 million on Friday.
MGM's R-rated comedy HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, starring John Cusack and Rob Corddry, was contesting for second postition on Friday with $4.85 million as it bowed in 2,754 locations.
Sony's rom-com THE BOUNTY HUNTER, with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, held down fourth position with $4.1 million as it entered its second weekend.
Rounding out the top five, Fox's DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, also entering week two, pulled in $2.8 million.

SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 2010

Kiefer Sutherland 24 COMES TO AN END - MAYBE
There has been much speculation about the renewal for Fox's series 24. Yesterday, Fox issued this statement:
"In a joint decision made by 24's star and executive producer Kiefer Sutherland, executive producer and showrunner Howard Gordon, Twentieth Century Fox Television, Imagine Entertainment and Fox Broadcasting Company, it was determined that the acclaimed series will end its remarkable eight-season run."
Star Kiefer Sutherland says, "This has been the role of a lifetime, and I will never be able to fully express my appreciation to everyone who made it possible. While the end of the series is bittersweet, we always wanted 24 to finish on a high note, so the decision to make the eighth season our last was one we all agreed upon.
"This feels like the culmination of all our efforts from the writers to the actors to our fantastic crew and everyone at Fox. Looking ahead to the future, Howard Gordon and I are excited about the opportunity to create the feature film version of '24.' But when all is said and done, it is the loyal worldwide fan base that made it possible for me to have the experience of playing the role of Jack Bauer, and for that I am eternally grateful."
Executive producer and showrunner Howard Gordon says, "Kiefer and I have loved every minute of making 24, but we all believe that now is the right time to call it a day. I echo his sentiments of gratitude toward the show's amazing creative team, as well as the studio and network who have always believed in us and shown us unbelievable support."
However, look for the "24" feature film. Star Sutherland tells EW, "We both felt strongly that there has been a demand and an interest in a "24" film, which would be a two-hour representation of a 24-hour day, so we felt it was time to move in that direction."
It sounds like the plans for the "24" movie are still in the works, so hopefully this isn't the last we've seen of Jack Bauer.

THE LAST AIRBENDER
A Japanese trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's THE LAST AIRBENDER is now also online. Opening on July 2, the fantasy action adventure stars Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel, Jessica Jade Andres, Aasif Mandvi, Shaun Toub, Cliff Curtis and Keong Sim.
I know, it is in Japanese -- but I don't think you need to speak the language to see follow the story and see that this movie is going to be full of special effects.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS
Just one week ago, director Bryan Singer and producer Lauren Shuler Donner were talking to the L.A. Times about Singer's affinity for the X-Men characters, which convinced him to direct X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. According to Deadline's Mike Fleming, Singer's obligations to begin production on JACK THE GIANT KILLER, his 3D version of the classic fairy tale for Warner Bros., will have to take precedence and Singer will now only be producing X-MEN: FIRST CLASS.
According to Fleming, Fox is already in talks with a few directors they've short-listed who may be able to start production on the proposed first movie in a new prequel trilogy as early as summer or fall for a 2011 release, while Singer is locked into making the other CG-heavy movie through his contract with Warner Bros. Some may remember that WB snagged Singer to direct SUPERMAN RETURNS, preventing him from directing X-MEN: THE LAST STAND.

SCORCER'S APPRENTICE
Walt Disney Pictures has a new trailer for director Jon Turteltaub and producer Jerry Bruckheimer's THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE, opening in theaters on July 16.
In the epic comedy adventure, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) is a master sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan trying to defend the city from his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). Balthazar can't do it alone, so he recruits Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), a seemingly average guy who demonstrates hidden potential, as his reluctant protégé. The sorcerer gives his unwilling accomplice a crash course in the art and science of magic, and together, these unlikely partners work to stop the forces of darkness. It'll take all the courage Dave can muster to survive his training, save the city and get the girl as he becomes THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE.
This one looks really cool.

FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 2010

Tron-Bruce Boxleitner TRON LEGACY
The company behind the games Space Paranoids and TRON, Encom International, will make a major announcement next week in San Francisco, where new Executive Consultant Alan Bradley will appear.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because Encom is the company from Tron and its upcoming sequel film TRON LEGACY; Alan Bradley is a character from the original movie, played by Bruce Boxleitner, who will also appear in the sequel; and San Francisco is hosting WonderCon next week, where this viral promotion will undoubtedly unfold.
Below is the "official" announcement. TRON LEGACY opens Dec. 17.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
ALAN BRADLEY TO HEADLINE MAJOR ENCOM PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT
March 24th, 2010
Newly-minted Executive Consultant Alan Bradley will introduce the latest addition to the Encom International product library on April 2 in San Francisco.
Software giant Encom ushered in the digital age with an unrivaled library of gaming titles. Now, Encom International circles the globe with advanced software systems that include communications, sports, entertainment, navigation, agricultural, health care, construction, weather, military and governmental applications on every continent.
Bradley began his career with Encom as a security systems engineer and rose through the ranks to be named CEO in the early 1990s. When he exited the executive suite, he took on a far greater role. His visionary research turned Encom into the industry leader in sustainable production and distribution methods -- methods which are now the best practices for technology companies around the world. "Whether the challenge is to establish communications in a national disaster, or keep kids engaged as they battle Recognizers, I love what I do. Encom will always be my home. "
CEO Kurt Hardington sums it up this way: "Alan's new title and role reflect his unique position as part of the Encom story. He keeps us grounded, yet he's the first to move forward when technology takes us in a new direction. That's why he's perfect to present our newest product - it's where we've come from and where we're going."
Alan Bradley will take the stage at 8pm in Justin Herman Plaza on April 2 to unveil the next generation in Encom innovation.

Fringe-Young-Walter FRINGE RETURNS APRIL 1
One of my favorite shows, Fox's mind-bending sci-fi series FRINGE, returns with the first of the final eight season-two episodes on April 1. Star John Noble (Dr. Walter Bishop) discussed the show from the set in Vancouver, Canada, about the first episode back, "Peter," in which we learn the heartbreaking, shocking backstory of his character.
Much of the episode takes place in 1985.
"It's interesting having played Walter 25 years younger. He's actually quite a likable man," Noble told a group of visiting reporters in the white lab set of Massive Dynamic. "He's married to a lovely woman, and he seems to enjoy his work. He's driven. He's a driven man. He's very smart, and he's very driven to succeed ...
We also meet Peter's mother, played by Orla Brady.
The Walter we meet is different from the one we know: younger, more energetic, more focused, more arrogant. And with longer hair. We also see younger versions of other characters, including Blair Brown's Nina Sharp.
FRINGE returns with the new episode next Thursday in its regular 9 p.m. timeslot.

Gina-Torres WAREHOUSE 13 MEETS FIREFLY
Gina Torres, who played the kick-ass Zoe on Joss Whedon's FIREFLY/SERENITY, will appear as a guest star in the upcoming second season of Syfy's hit WAREHOUSE 13, becoming the third FIREFLY star to guest on the show. Syfy previously announced that Jewel Staite (Kaylee) and Sean Maher (Simon Tam) would also guest-star.
Other guest stars for the coming season include Philip Winchester and Paula Garces. WAREHOUSE 13 returns with new episodes in July.

Robin Hood-Crowe ROBIN HOOD TO OPEN CANNES
Universal's ROBIN HOOD, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, has been selected as the opening-night film for the upcoming Festival de Cannes.
The film will screen out of competition May 12, the opening day of the festival, which ends May 23.
The film was written by Brian Helgeland ("L.A. Confidential," "Mystic River") and portrays the beginnings of the Robin Hood legend.
Scott is a familiar face at the festival, having been to the Riviera in 1977 with prize winner "The Duellists" and in 1991 with "Thelma and Louise."
The film, which also stars Max Von Sydow, Lea Seydoux and William Hurt, will be released in France on the day it screens at the festival and in the rest of the world May 14.

Carter Beats the Devil CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL
Film School Rejects has learned from author Glen David Gold that his novel, CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL, has been optioned by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Hyperion Books describes the title as follows:
America in the 1920s was a nation obsessed with magic. Not just the kind performed in theaters and on stages across the country, but the magic of technology, science, and prosperity. Enter Charles Carter -- a.k.a. Carter the Great -- a young master performer whose skill as an illusionist exceeds even that of the great Houdini. Fueled by a passion for magic born of desperation and loneliness, Carter has become a legend in his own time.
Carter the Great's thrilling act involves outrageous stunts carried out on elaborate sets before the most demanding audiences. Night after night, in towns across the nation, he performs these masterful feats, bringing his unique brand of magic to those starved for wonder. But nothing in his career has prepared carter for his most outrageous stunt of all, which stars none other than President Warren G. Harding and which could end up costing Carter the reputation he has worked so hard to create.
Filled with historical references that evoke the excesses and exuberance of Roaring Twenties, pre-Depression America, Carter Beats the Devil is a complex and illuminating story of one man's journey through a magical -- and sometimes dangerous -- world, where illusion is everything.

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2010

ROBERT CULP DIES IN FALL
Robert Culp was one of those actors that people has admired for years. You may have seen him in I SPY with Bill Cosby or THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO with William Katt -- or way back when, in westerns like THE RIFLEMAN or in newer work like Debra's dad in EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND.
Beyond his television and film acting, Culp was a well-known and respected screenwriter, writing several I SPY episodes, including the pilot episode. He also wrote scripts for THE RIFLEMAN and THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO. In addition, he directed episodes of SPY and HERO, along with the feature film HICKEY & BOGGS, which starred both Culp and Cosby. He also lent his voice to the 2004 computer game Half-Life 2 as the prime antagonist, Doctor Breen, and in 2007 in ROBOT CHICKEN Culp voiced his Hero character Bill Maxwell.
I SPY greatly advanced the careers of Culp and Cosby and forged a lifelong friendship. Cosby said Wednesday Culp was like an older brother to him.
"The first born in every family is always dreaming of the older brother or sister he or she doesn't have, to protect, to be the buffer, provide the wisdom, shoulder the blows and make things right," he said. "Bob was the answer to my dreams."
"No matter how many mistakes I made on 'I Spy,' he was always there to teach and protect me," Cosby said."
Kulp died after a fall at his Hollywood home. He was rushed to Queen of Angels hospital shortly past 11 a.m. after hitting his head when he fell during a walk outside. He was 79.

Angela Bassett GREEN LANTERN CASTING
According to Variety, Angela Bassett is joining the cast of director Martin Campbell's GREEN LANTERN, which is currently shooting in New Orleans.
In the Warner Bros. release, Bassett will play Dr. Amanda Waller, a government agent who's a staple of the DC Comics series. There's a good chance that she's being introduced to set-up the proposed Suicide Squad movie announced last year.
She's joining a cast that includes Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Robbins, Mark Strong, Taika Waititi and Temuera Morrison.
GREEN LANTERN is scheduled for a June 17, 2011 release.

Buck Rogers BUCK ROGERS
Paul W.S. Anderson ("Resident Evil" films) has signed to direct BUCK ROGERS, to be released in 3D. IRON MAN co-writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway will write the script.
According to Deadline New York, the big screen adaptation is "a new version of the classic tale of a fighter pilot who quickly acclimates to the future and puts his skills to use defending the planet against invaders."
One of the first pop-culture vehicles to tackle the issue of space exploration, the story of Buck Rogers began life as a comic serial in the late 1920's and early '30's and has seen numerous film and television versions over the years.
The rights to the property are controlled by Paradox, the company behind the new Conan movie that is currently filming in Bulgaria. Paradox will finance and Anderson's partner, Jeremy Bolt, will produce with Fredrik Malmberg, Larry Abramson and George Furla.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
Finally, this movie opens this weekend. The trailers look awesome! And this looks like a movie for everyone -- children and adults alike. The animation is unbelievable! Dreamworks has done it again!
Synopsis:
From the studio that brought you "Shrek," "Madagascar" and "Kung Fu Panda" comes "How to Train Your Dragon." Set in the mythical world of burly Vikings and wild dragons, and based on the book by Cressida Cowell, the action comedy tells the story of Hiccup, a Viking teenager who doesn’t exactly fit in with his tribe's longstanding tradition of heroic dragon slayers. Hiccup's world is turned upside down when he encounters a dragon that challenges he and his fellow Vikings to see the world from an entirely different point of view.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2010

DOCTOR WHO TRAILER - UK VERSION
Yesterday we looked at the trailer for the upcoming DOCTOR WHO premiere in the U.S. Today we look at the UK version of the trailer, as Matt Smith takes his turn as the Time Lord, and it introduces the new season to viewers in a very different way.
The U.S. trailer launches with the focus on Matt Smith and portrays him as a far more heroic figure, while the U.K. version is a softer, gentler intro to the Doctor Who concept, letting viewers enter that universe through the eyes of the new companion, portrayed by Karen Gillan. In addition, the U.S. trailer even starts off more like hardcore sci-fi, while the U.K. one begins with more of a "once upon a time" fantasy flavor.

WOLVERINE DANCES TOO?
Here is something a bit different for you this morning. We all love Hugh Jackman. Now you can see what really gives him his mutant powers -- Lipton tea!
At least that's the way it seems based on the Japanese iced tea commercial Lipton just launched starring Hugh Jackman.

MALEFICENT
The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision has confirmed a report that said Tim Burton is interested in making a live-action feature based on MALEFICENT from Disney's 1959 adaptation of the fairy tale SLEEPING BEAUTY.
The trade Blog adds that ALICE IN WONDERLAND screenwriter Linda Woolverton will write the script for Disney. MALEFICENT might reunite Woolverton with Burton, but it's not a done deal as the movie is one of a handful of projects the filmmaker is circling.
The movie would tell the classic fairy tale from the point of view of the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil."
Woolverton's credits also include Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and THE LION KING.

Twilight: New Moon TWILIGHT: NEW MOON SELLS 4 MILLION DVDS
Summit Entertainment announced today that the home entertainment release of the studio's THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON sold just over 4 million DVD units in its first weekend of release. The tally surpasses the first weekend sales of TWILIGHT in 2009 which sold 3.8 million DVD units, and went on to be the top selling DVD title of the year with 9.2 million units sold. The DVD launch of NEW MOON commenced this past Saturday morning with 7,000 retail locations nationwide taking part in events at midnight giving fans their first chance to obtain a DVD of the film.
Thousands of TWILIGHT fans across the nation participated in the "'New Moon' at Midnight" event and some were treated to surprise appearances by members of the cast as well as the film's director. Fans saw actors Justin Chon who plays Eric, Christian Serratos who plays Anglea, and Michael Welch who plays Mike in Salt Lake City; director Chris Weitz and Nikki Reed who plays Rosalie Hale in Los Angeles; Peter Facinelli who plays Dr. Carlisle Cullen in New York; Edi Gathegi who plays Laurent in Pittsburgh; and Liz Reaser who plays Esme Cullen in Phoenix. Other cast members of The Twilight Saga: New Moon made appearances nationwide including Kiowa Gordon and Tinsel Korey in Cincinnati; Charlie Bewley in Denver; Chaske Spencer and Tyson Houseman in Atlanta; Daniel Cudmore in Houston; and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg in Seattle.
Summit Entertainment's Co-Chairmen Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger stated, "Once again the incredibly dedicated fans of the 'Twilight Saga' came out in massive numbers this weekend for the opportunity to be one of the first take home the second movie in the series. As we have said all along, the fans are what make this franchise and we once again thank them for their support."
"The support that we have received from our retail partners in accommodating the incredible demand for the title has been nothing short of amazing," said Steve Nickerson, Summit's President of Home Entertainment. "The ground we have broken with in-store partnerships and the availability of this title has been a positive influence on the retail DVD business."
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON was released in theaters on November 20, 2009 and has since grossed over $705 million worldwide. The third installment, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE will be released in theaters throughout North America on June 30, 2010.

SCREAM 4
It’s official: Scream 4 is a go. Dimension Films announced today that the fourth iteration of the popular series is back and starting production this spring. Kevin Williamson is writing, Wes Craven is directing, and Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courteney Cox have all signed on to reprise their roles from the original SCREAM movie. The veterans are set to join a new group of young actors who have yet to be announced. Scream 4 will be released on April 15, 2011.
Said Craven in a press release, “Working with Courteney, David, and Neve was a blast ten years ago and I’m sure it will be again. Kevin is right on his game with the new script � the characters and story crackle with energy and originality � to say nothing of some of the most hair-raising scares I’ve seen in a script since… well, since the original Scream series. Let me at it.�

TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2010

Chris Evans CAPTAIN AMERICA FOUND
After a long and winding casting road, Marvel ended up finding Captain America in its own backyard. Chris Evans, who starred as Johnny Storm in the two "Fantastic Four" movies, has accepted Marvel Studios and Paramount's offer to play Steve Rogers in THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA. The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog says the only barrier to sealing a deal is "dotting the i's and crossing the t's."
The casting of Evans ends more than a month of speculation about who would take up the Cap's shield. Chris Pine ("Star Trek"), John Krasinski ("The Office"), Mike Vogel ("Cloverfield"), Chace Crawford ("Gossip Girl") and Scott Porter ("Friday Night Lights") were among those who were connected to the part, which is a linchpin of Marvel's strategy to round up several of its heroes for an "Avengers" movie in the next few years.
The 28-year-old Evans was offered the role on Friday (March 19) and, according to Heat Vision, spent the weekend considering whether he wanted to take on another superhero role following the "Fantastic Four" movies. After deciding to take the role, the deal moved along pretty quickly.
Evans will next be seen in THE LOSERS, set for release in April, and SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD, which hits theaters in August. CAPTAIN AMERICA is scheduled to start filming in England in June.

DOCTOR WHO IS COMING
BBC America released the latest trailer for the new season of DOCTOR WHO, which kicks off on Saturday, April 17.
Starring Matt Smith as the 11th incarnation of the Timelord and Karen Gillan as his companion Amy Pond, the new DOCTOR WHO looks to have just as much creepy action as before.

Kellan Lutz WAR OF THE GODS
Everyone's second-favorite TWILIGHT vampire, Kellan Lutz, expected to make a splash in the upcoming Greek mythology-based WAR OF THE GODS as Poseidon, the God of the Sea.
Expect lots of shirtless godliness in this one, since he'll have the entire ocean at his beck and call. He'll be playing opposite Mickey Rourke, Freida Pinto, and Henry Cavill.
This latest casting confirmation comes on the heels of a long list of rumored roles for Lutz, including SPIDER-MAN and CONAN THE BARBARIAN.
According to Variety, WAR OF THE GODS starts shooting in April. Lutz can be seen next in the upcoming NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET thriller, which opens on April 30.

Sissy Spacek SISSY SPACEK COMES TO TV
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Oscar winner Sissy Spacek has been tapped as the lead on the John Wells-produced medical drama pilot on CBS.
The Warner Bros. TV-produced project, written by Hannah Shakespeare and to be directed by Christopher Chulack, centers on a mobile team of volunteer doctors led by a driven visionary (Spacek) that travels the world and the U.S. helping those in need.
Deeply committed to her work, Spacek's character, originally envisioned as a man, works around the clock, and expects her team to do likewise. Complicating things is her own cancer diagnosis, which requires agonizing chemo treatments at regular intervals, as well as her physician daughter's (Rachelle Lefevre) decision to join the team.
This is the second major drama pilot this season whose lead character's gender was switched to male to female for an Oscar-winning actress.
The curmudgeonly lawyer at the center of David E. Kelley's "Kindreds," also from WBTV, was conceived as a man, Harry Korn, but became Harriet when Bates came on board.
The name of the lead character on the CBS medical drama pilot will similarly be changed from Adrian to Adrianne for Spacek.
Spacek is coming off a strong arc on HBO's drama "Big Love."

Spy Hunter SPY HUNTER
Variety reports that Warner Bros. Pictures is developing a big screen adaptation of Midway Games' SPY HUNTER with Dan Lin (Sherlock Holmes) and Roy Lee of Vertigo producing.
The story follows a highly-trained spy hunter whose job it is to eliminate rogue spies when they become liabilities to their governments. Chad St. John is set to write the script.
The project was previously set up at Universal, where John Woo and Paul W.S. Anderson were attached to direct at various points and Dwayne Johnson was attached to star.
Warner Bros. picked up most of Midway's assets in bankruptcy court last summer for $33 million, giving the studio rights to "Mortal Kombat," "Spy Hunter," "Joust" and several other game franchises.

TRANSFORMERS 3 UPDATE
Michael Bay has made a big announcement about Transformers 3 on his official website! He writes:
Hey, it's been a long time since I've posted. Just been a little busy.
Transformers 3 has been going very well. We are going to shoot in LA, Chicago, Washington DC, Florida, Texas, Africa, Moscow, and China. On the talent front, we just locked in Frances McDormand and John Malkovich. Both amazing actors I've always wanted to work with. We also just got Ken Jeong, he is the super funny actor stuck in the trunk from “Hangover� and the Doctor from “Knocked Up.�
We start shooting pre-shoots in about one month.
I also was at a Ferrari charity event this week raising money for a hospital being built by Ferrari in Haiti. I announced that night the newest Autobot to join Transformers: the Ferrari 458 Italia.
I also want to thank everyone on this site that donated to the Make -A-Wish charity. We raised $20,000 which I will personally be matching. This is a great charity where they make wishes come true for kids who are very ill. We have had many Kids from Make-A-Wish visit us on our Transformers sets and this time we will be posting video of their visits on Transformers 3.

MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2010

Chris Evans CAPTAIN AMERICA SEARCH OVER?
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Chris Evans, who already portrayed one Marvel superhero on the big screen�the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four movies�has been offered the role of The First Avenger.
Evans, who wasn't in the initial round of actors being considered, wasn't asked to screen-test for the part. The offer is for more than just a single film, as the role entails starring in up to three Captain America movies plus the Avengers movies and appearances in several other Marvel movies.
Why hasn't the actor immediately snapped up the part? Apparently Evans is committed to co-starring in the Anna Faris romantic comedy What's Your Number?, and both films are scheduled to shoot this summer, so the conflict must be resolved.

Jack Coleman ROCK THE HOUSE
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Hallmark Channel is looking to ROCK THE HOUSE, greenlighting an original movie toplined by "Heroes" star Jack Coleman.
Just as in "Heroes," in which Coleman's character is involved in a complicated father-daughter relationship with Claire (Hayden Panettiere), ROCK, which co-stars Cassi Thomson ("Big Love"), centers on a strained father-daughter relationship.
Coleman stars as Dave Peterson, a career-driven attorney who barely spends time with his teenage daughter, Karen (Thomson).
But when Dave opens up his 25th high school reunion invitation to see photos of himself, he begins reconnecting with old friends, including members of his high school band, the Groaners, and starts spending more time with Karen while putting his career on hold.
ROCK has begun production for a premiere next year. Larry Levinson is executive producing with Lincoln Lageson; Erik Helberg is producing. Ernie Barbarash directs from a script by Joe Woolf.
"Heroes," which has been sliding in the ratings, wrapped its fourth season, and its future is up in the air.

CAMELOT COMING TO STARZ
Chris Albrecht is building CAMELOT at Starz. In its first series order since Albrecht took the reins as president and CEO, the pay cabler has greenlighted a contemporary retelling of the Arthurian legend from a producing team that encompasses four countries -- the U.S., U.K., Ireland and Canada -- and is led by Oscar-winning producer Graham King and THE TUDORS masterminds Morgan O'Sullivan and Michael Hirst.
The 10-episode CAMELOT, slated to premiere in first-half 2011, marks the first project from King's recently launched GK-TV. It uses Thomas Malory's 15th century compilation, "Le Morte d'Arthur," often considered the definitive work on the legend of King Arthur, as a starting point for a take on the tale that looks to weave authenticity into a narrative relatable to contemporary audiences.
"The story of Arthur isn't history, it's mythology, and Camelot isn't a place but an idea of hope that has resonated at different times throughout history," Albrecht said. He called "Camelot" "a highly entertaining and distinctly original TV program that fits in perfectly with our lineup." That includes the breakout original hit "Spartacus: Blood and Sand," the returning comedy "Party Down" and the recently acquired eight-part miniseries based on Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth."
Described as a romantic adventure series, CAMELOT is being written by British TV scribe Chris Chibnall ("Torchwood").
Casting is under way for CAMELOT, which will start production in June in Ireland, where "Tudors" and HBO's upcoming "Game of Thrones" also are filmed. Postproduction will be done in Canada.
The goal with the series is "to tell the universal story of Camelot on a global scale," he said. The project reunites O'Sullivan with Albrecht, who worked together during the latter's tenure as head of HBO. Chibnall, who was head writer on "Torchwood" and showrunner on "Law & Order: UK," has ties to the Camelot legend. In 2005, he developed a fantasy series involving the mythical magician Merlin for the BBC.

Alice in Wonderland WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND easily topped the domestic box office for a third straight weekend, earning an estimated $34.5 million to bring its total to $265.8 million. The film also topped the overseas box office a third time with $47 million, bringing its total to $300 million. Made for $200 million, the Walt Disney Pictures release has reached $565.8 million worldwide. Playing in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters, the film stars Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas, Mia Wasikowska, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Christopher Lee, Paul Whitehouse and Barbara Windsor.
20th Century Fox's adaptation of Jeff Kinney's best-selling illustrated novel DIARY OF A WIMPY KID opened in second place to $21.8 million from 3,077 theaters, an average of $7,085 per site. Directed by Thor Freudenthal, the $15 million family comedy stars Zachary Gordon, Chloe Moretz, Steve Zahn, Rachael Harris, Robert Capron, Devon Bostick and Grayson Russell.
Following close in third was Columbia Pictures' THE BOUNTY HUNTER, starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. The action-comedy earned $21 million from 3,074 theaters. Averaging $6,831 per theater, the film was made for about $40 million.
Universal Pictures' REPO MEN bombed out of the gate in fourth place, collecting just $6.2 million from 2,521 locations. Produced for $32 million, the futuristic action-thriller stars Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Liev Schreiber, RZA, Alice Braga and Carice van Houten.
Rounding out the top five was DreamWorks' SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE, which dropped a reasonable 38.5% in ticket sales and added $6 million its second weekend for a total of $19.95 million, slightly below its production costs of $20 million.
Universal's GREEN ZONE suffered a drop of 58.3% its second weekend in sixth place. Directed by Paul Greengrass, the Matt Damon-starrer has earned just $24.7 million compared to its budget of $100 million.
In seventh place, Martin Scorsese's SHUTTER ISLAND made $4.8 million to bring the psychological thriller's total to $115.8 million. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, the film cost about $80 million to make.
In its 14th weekend in theaters, James Cameron's AVATAR earned another $4 million to push its domestic total to $736.9 million. Internationally, the film added $13 million to take its foreign sum to $1.937 billion. Worldwide, the #1 film of all time has reached $2.673 billion!
There were also some notable limited releases. Apparition opened THE RUNAWAYS in 244 theaters where it earned $803,000, an average of $3,291 per site, and Warner Bros.' HUBBLE 3D debuted in 39 IMAX theaters in which it collected $453,000, an average of $11,615. The film that impressed the most out of the limited releases was Noah Baumbach's GREENBERG, starring Ben Stiller, which earned $120,432 from just three theaters - that's an average of $40,144 per location. Also, Anchor Bay released CITY ISLAND in two theaters in which it made $35,000.

BLANK SLATE
The Hollywood Reporter informs us that Bold Films has acquired BLANK SLATE, an action thriller script from Doug Cook and David Weisberg, the writing team behind The Rock and Double Jeopardy.
The project involves the CIA which, in order to investigate a murdered female agent, implants the agent's memories into the damaged brain of a female convict. The agent's lethal abilities also are implanted, and soon the convict goes rogue to discover the truth about the murder.
Bold recently financed and produced LEGION.

SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2010

LATEST DR. HORRIBLE VIDEO
Here is the latest from Joss Whedon -- who has had a series of just awesome videos starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion.
In an interview with MTV.com, Neil Patrick Harris said:
Apparently they're making a 'Dr. Horrible' sequel�a feature film, I hope," laughed Harris. "I hope they cast me in it�we'll see."
"That's their plan," he reiterated when asked whether a feature-film was indeed the preferred format for the sequel. "I don't know of what scale. They're talking all options, because they made the first 'Dr. Horrible' in five days on no budget at all�that was its intention."

FARSCAPE CELEBRATION
For those who loved FARSCAPE on Syfy, here is a clip from John Crichton's first adventure through the wormhole when the series debuted on Australia's Nine Network March 19, 1999. There are two early teaser trailers Oz audiences saw, at least one of which clearly aired before Farscape began. See the other one at http://scifiwire.com/2010/03/farscapes-11-today-watch.php#more.

FLASH FORWARD RETURNS
Thursday's two-hour return of ABC's sci-fi drama FlashForward had the show's lowest ratings yet, partly because of competition from basketball playoffs on CBS.
Here's the news on The Hollywood Reporter's Live Feed blog:
The two-hour "FlashForward" (6.6 million viewers, 1.9 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) was down 10% from its last original episode back in December. If the show continues to perform at this level, the ABC drama's next blackout might be the show winking off the air. It's kind of a shame; last night's episode�"Revelation Zero," parts one and two� kicked the narrative into high gear, with many reveals and lots of action and suspense. br> The show's prospects for a second season are not good, though Canadian SF writer Robert J. Sawyer�on whose book the show is based�remains sanguine. In a post on his Facebook page, the author wrote:
On the other hand, my Hollywood agent, who is much more savvy about these things than I am, just emailed to say he thinks FLASHFORWARD still has a good shot at a second season, despite last night's ratings�and it's certainly true that a lot of very-high-level conversations have been going on at ABC lately on that topic. Fingers crossed!
ABC will repeat the 2-hour return episode tonight - in case you missed it on Thursday. FlashFoward airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

Star Wars STAR WARS TV SERIES
The Chicago Tribune reports that work is progressing on the series, with writers working on scripts for the proposed first season.
... Lucas and executive producer Rick McCallum want all the scripts for the show's first season to be completed before production begins.
"They are working with writers on scripts," a Lucasfilm representative said in response to a query. "They won't set a production date [for Season 1] until the scripts are done."
But work on the unnamed show's scripts appears to be at an advanced stage�which isn't surprising, considering the writing of the live-action show began two years ago.
The show would be set between the eras of Star Wars: Episode III�Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV�A New Hope, will not feature any major characters from the film series and is rumored to be in preproduction in Australia, though none of that is officially confirmed.
The show is being developed independently by Lucasfilm with writers from all over the world and has not found a home on any TV network yet.
As for casting?
"They met with people in several countries (including Australia) early on but they are not currently casting. They are not going to start casting until the scripts are completed," according to the Lucasfilm rep.


Clash of the Titans Exclusive Clip

|
CLASH OF THE TITANS
Warner Bros. Pictures has released two clips from director Louis Leterrier's CLASH OF THE TITANS, opening in 3D and 2D theaters on April 2. The anticipated film stars Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Danny Huston, Gemma Arterton, Mads Mikkelsen, Jason Flemyng, Alexa Davalos, Izabella Miko, Nicholas Hoult and Pete Postlethwaite.

FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 2010

TV'S DANIEL BOONE/DAVY CROCKETT DIES
Everyone of a certain age will be saddened to learn that Fess Parker has passed away. While growing up, there wasn't a kid who didn't want a coonskin cap -- the trademark of Davy Crockett. (I had Davy Crockett PJs!) Here is the official report.
Fess Parker, the Baby Boomer who captured the imagination playing American heroes Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, has died. He was 85. The actor, wine maker and resort owner died Thursday, March 18 of natural causes at his Santa Ynez, Calif., home near the Fess Parker Winery, according to reports.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1924, the six-foot-six Parker seemed born to play the legendary Davy Crockett in a series of 1950s Disney films including "Davy Crockett and the River Pirates" and "Davy Crockett Goes to Congress." Crockett-mania gripped the nation, and little kids could be heard singing the theme song and sporting racoon-skin caps.
He also starred in the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" TV series before hitting it big again with the "Daniel Boone" series in the '60s.
His film credits include "Them!," "The Kid From Left Field," "The Bounty Hunter," "Alias Jesse James" and the classic "Old Yeller."
Beyond his Hollywood career, Parker is known for his Fess Parker Winery & Vineyard in Los Olivos, Calif. Besides wine and other merchandise, the property's General Store sells coonskin caps and "Davy Crockett" and "Daniel Boone" videos.
JERICHO STAR GETS NEW SERIES
Skeet Ulrich will star in a medical drama at CBS.
Ulrich will star in a drama from exec producer John Wells and writer Hannah Shakespeare about a medical team that travels to disaster sites. The "Jericho" star will play a cardiologist who likes the itinerant lifestyle being a member of the team affords him, the HR says. In addition to "Jericho," Ulrich starred in a CBS pilot called "Back" last year.

X-Men X-MEN: FIRST CLASS
Bryan Singer, who made comic-book movies cool with the first X-Men movie, is returning to the franchise with the prequel X-Men: First Class, and he's talking about it for the first time.
The movie will deal with the early relationship between Charles Xavier and Eric Lensherr/Magneto and the early days of the Xavier Academy, Singer told the Los Angeles Times:
... a prequel to the 2000 film that shares its name with the eight-issue comics series that began in 2006 and was written by Jeff Parker with art by Roger Cruz.
Singer says the film will find its axis in the relationship between Professor X and Magneto and the point where their friendship soured. It will also detail the beginning of the school for mutants and have younger incarnations of some characters with new actors in roles of Cyclops, Jean Grey, the Beast, etc. (He only shrugged when asked if Hugh Jackman might appear as Wolverine, the one character who doesn't age at the same rate as humans.)
The premise has compelling elements to it, Singer said. "Just doing younger mutants is not enough. The story needs to be more than that. I love the relationship between Magneto and Xavier, these two men who have diametrically opposite points of view but still manage to be friends -- to a point. They are the ultimate frenemies."

Sam Raimi DIBBUK BOX
Lionsgate will make DIBBUK BOX, a supernatural thriller a la The Shining, which will be written by Juliet Snowden and Stiles White and produced by Ghost House Pictures partners Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, Deadline Hollywood reported; the film, based on a true story, comes from a Los Angeles Times story about a family with a haunted box and an evil curse.

DARK FIELDS
Australian actress Abbie Cornish (the upcoming Sucker Punch) will star in Neil Burger's sci-fi movie DARK FIELDS alongside Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper, The Playlist reported; the movie deals with a writer (Cooper) who uses a brain-enhancing drug whose side effects include sanity-splitting headaches, spontaneous blackouts and violent outbursts.

Beau Bridges ROCKFORD FILES REMAKE
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Beau Bridges is set to co-star opposite Dermot Mulroney on NBC's ROCKFORD FILES reboot.
ROCKFORD, written and executive produced by HOUSE creator David Shore and executive produced by Steve Carell, stars Mulroney as roguish private detective Jim Rockford.
Bridges will play his father and closest friend, Rocky, a truck driver for thirty years who always helps his son in a tough situation, though he tends to offer a commentary that Jim doesn't always appreciate. Noah Beery, Jr. played the role on the original series.
ROCKFORD marks Bridges return to NBC where he recently played the father of another title character on comedy series MY NAME IS EARL. On the show, he played Earl's (Jason Lee) dad Carl, earning an Emmy nomination for his recurring turn.

PREDATOR
On Saturday, 20th Century Fox released a sneak peek at PREDATORS and at the same time revealed the first trailer and an extended clip at the South by Southwest Film Festival.
Opening in theaters on July 7, the Nimrod Antal-directed and Robert Rodriguez-produced sci-fi action-adventure stars Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo, Walton Goggins, Oleg Taktarov, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali and Louiz Ozawa.
Brody plays Royce, a mercenary who reluctantly leads a group of elite warriors who come to realize they've been brought together on an alien planet... as prey. With the exception of a disgraced physician, they are all cold- blooded killers – mercenaries, Yakuza, convicts, death squad members – human "predators" that are now being systemically hunted and eliminated by a new breed of alien Predators.

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2010

James Marsters HAWAII FIVE-O NEWS
In prior rolls, Alex O'Loughlin (Mick) and James Marsters (Spike) would have met on the field of battle as vampires. The actors will indeed tangle, but on CBS' "Hawaii Five-O" pilot.
Marsters' Facebook page says he'll be a guest star in the pilot, playing the "nemesis of lead character McGarrett. There's no word yet on whether his guest spot will be a one-off appearance or has the potential to recur.
The "Hawaii Five-O" cast also includes "Lost's" Daniel Dae Kim, who recurred on "Angel" from 2001-03), is playing Detective Chin Ho Kelly.
Marsters has also recurred on "Caprica" this season and guested on "Lie to Me."

Jason Clarke RIDE ALONG
The Hollywood Reporter writes that "Brotherhood" star Jason Clarke has been tapped as the lead in "Ride-Along," Shawn Ryan's cop drama pilot for Fox.
"Ride-Along," set and to be filmed in Chicago, centers on Chicago born-and-bred Detective Jarek Wysocki (Clarke), one of the city's toughest cops. He is a local legend and outsized character with a wicked sense of humor who struggles to clean up the town's violence and corruption.
The casting could bring the two stars of Showtime's critical darling "Brotherhood," Clarke and Jason Isaacs, back together. Isaacs headlines another Fox/20th TV drama pilot, "Pleading Guilty."
Clarke, who next appears in "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," recently wrapped the indies "Trust" and "Yelling to the Sky."

Gregory Smith DREAM HOUSE
EVERWOOD fans will be glad to hear that Gregory Smith, has booked three movie roles.
He has joined the cast of "Dream House," the Daniel Craig-Naomi Watts thriller that Jim Sheridan is directing for Morgan Creek.
Smith also will star in Canadian indie "Whirligig" and then segue to "Conception," an indie that will shoot in Los Angeles.
In "House" -- a psychological thriller about a man (Craig) who moves his family into what appears to be the perfect home but turns out to be the scene of the murder of a mother and her two children -- Smith plays a punk rocker obsessed with the case. The movie is shooting in Toronto and will be distributed by Universal.
"Whirligig," directed by Chaz Thorne and shooting in Halifax, Canada, sees Smith as a young man who hits rock bottom and returns home to live with his parents. He find comfort with his married neighbor, and when he befriends the woman's adopted 12-year old Vietnamese son, family secrets are revealed.
"Conception," directed and written by Josh Stolberg ("Sorority Row," "Good Luck Chuck"), follows nine couples as they grapple with sex, love and pregnancy. Smith enters a relationship with a divorced woman (Julie Bowen) who has a child. Shooting is to begin this month.

Gargamel SMURFS NEWS
According to Entertainment Weekly, Hank Azaria ("The Simpsons") will voice evil sorcerer Gargamel in Sony's THE SMURFS.
The magazine also says that Jayma Mays ("Glee") will play the pregnant wife to Neil Patrick Harris' character. The film centers on the happy expectant couple's lives being turned upside-down upon meeting these blue creatures. The movie will take place in New York City's Central Park and is set to begin production next month.
Jonathan Winters, who voiced multiple characters on the long-running Hanna-Barbera cartoon version of SMURFS, will play Papa Smurf. Katy Perry will portray Smurfette, Alan Cumming is taking on Gutsy Smurf and George Lopez is onboard as Grouchy Smurf.
The studio is targeting a August 3, 2011 release.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2010

Riverworld SYFY MOVIE SLATE ANNOUNCED
Syfy announced its slate of original movies for the 2010-2011 season, including the promised SHARKTOPUS.
RIVERWORLD, based on the classic sci fi novels by Philip Jose Farmer, is a four-hour movie event that stars "Battlestar Galactica's" Tahmoh Penikett and "Smallville's" Laura Vandervoort.
The story centers on the greater part of humanity that lived on Earth suddenly finding themselves resurrected on a terraformed planet known as Riverworld. Among these people are war correspondent Matt Ellman (Penikett) and his fiancee (Vandervoort), both of whom had been killed and now find themselves alive and kicking, although separated. Matt enlists the help of Mark Twain (Mark Deklin) and a 13th-century female samurai warrior Tomoe (Jeananne Goossen).
THE PHANTOM premieres in June and reimagines the classic comic strip. Ryan Carnes stars as Chris Walker/The Phantom, along with the legendary Isabella Rossellini as the villainous Lithia.
The list of Saturday originals:
"Mega Piranha" (Premieres April 10) - Barry Williams, '80s mall singer Tiffany and Paul Logan team up to stop a giant mutant piranhas, hungry and heading for Florida.
"Mothman" (Premieres April 24) - "Firefly/Serenity" star Jewel Staite is one of five friends who've covered up an accidental killing when they were kids. Too bad the titular monster is bent on revenge.
"Mongolian Death Worm" (Premieres May 8) - The worms have been awakened by the oil drilling in the Mongolian desert, and it's up to a treasure hunter (Patrick Flannery) to stop them lest they devour everything in their path. Sounds about right.
"Witchville" (Premieres May 22) - A new king (Luke Goss) must save his people from witches who are sucking life out of the land, but he's connected to one of the witches, the Red Queen, which may throw a wrench in the whole saving thing.
"Sharktopus" (Date TBA) - Starring Eric Roberts and Hector Jimenez, the film centers on a genetically engineered shark-octopus hybrid that goes on a killing spree on the beaches of Mexico.
"Red" (Date TBA) - Red ("Dr. Horrible's" Felicia Day) reveals to her fiancee just what he's getting into if he marries into her family: A family of werewolf hunters. When he gets bitten by a werewolf and therefore becomes their target, Red has to step in and try to save him.
"Lake Placid 3" (Date TBA) "Eureka" star Colin Ferguson does double duty for Syfy in this sequel. A game warden (Ferguson) and his family moves to their aunt's cabin on Lake Placid. Unfortunately, their young son begins feeding his new pets, baby crocodiles, at the lake. Fast-forward three years later, and the crocs are bigger and hungrier.
"Stonehenge Apocalypse" (Date TBA) - Stars Hill Harper, Misha Collins and Peter Wingfield star in this film about how the ancient monuments -- really alien technology -- start to move and cause cataclysms worldwide.
"The Lost Future" (Date TBA) - "Lord of the Rings" star Sean Bean is one of the humans in a post- apocalyptic world where everyone has regressed to the Stone Age. Somehow, a young man is discovered that can still read, and books become the key to rebooting civilization ... if only they can get to where the books are kept by an evil warlord.
"Scream of the Banshee" (Date TBA) - Lauren Holly and Lance Henriksen star alongside a creature who can kill with her scream. Sound down on this one.
"Morlocks" (Date TBA) - "Stargate Atlantis'" David Hewlett stars in the project in which mutated Morlocks from the future squeeze through a window in time and hand out candy. Okay, they really go on a murderous rampage, but that's just so predictable.
"8th Voyage of Sinbad" (Date TBA) - Manu Bennett is Sinbad, who journeys to find the golden head of the long lost Colossus of Rhodes but instead comes across the Minotaur and its minions.

Tracy Morgan SCARE TACTICS BACK FOR ANOTHER SEASON
Actor and comedian Tracy Morgan, who's been hosting the hidden-camera show SCARE TACTICS for three seasons, adds a new title to his resume�executive producer�as Syfy picks up a fourth season. Here's an excerpt from the official announcement:
ACTOR/COMEDIAN, TRACY MORGAN RETURNS AS HOST AND FIRST TIME EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF SYFY'S HIDDEN CAMERA REALITY SERIES, SCARE TACTICS
The Fourth Season of Production Begins This Spring On 13-Episode Pick-Up Order- Series Premiere To Kick Off Fall 2010
New York, New York - March 16, 2010 - Syfy returns with the frighteningly funny fourth season of the hit hidden camera reality series, Scare Tactics. Actor/comedian, Tracy Morgan (30 Rock, Cop Out, SNL) is on series double duty this new season as host and executive producer for the half-hour, 13-episode pick-up order, it was announced today by Mark Stern, Executive Vice President of Original Programming, Syfy. Scare Tactics begins production this spring and is scheduled to premiere fall 2010.
"We're ecstatic to be bringing back Scare Tactics for another season to all our die-hard Syfy reality fans," said Stern. "Tracy has his finger on the pulse when it comes to comedy and having him on board as executive producer just adds another layer to the huge success of our show."
Set-up by friends and loved ones, unsuspecting victims are placed into elaborately staged scary situations involving movie-style special effects and makeup. The horror hoaxes are skillfully designed to tap into the wildest fears of the prank's prey. Viewers laugh along to the hilarious reactions of the show's "stars" as they are caught off guard and on camera. Scott Hallock and Kevin Healey of Hallock Healey Entertainment are the executive producers and creators of Scare Tactics.

Sanctuary SANCTUARY BEGINS PRODUCTION ON SEASON THREE
In December, Syfy picked up SANCTUARY for a third season with a 20-episode order. Production began on Monday. Here is a portion of the Syfy announcement:
SYFY'S SANCTUARY BEGINS PRODUCTION ON SEASON 3
New York, NY - March 16, 2010 - Syfy's groundbreaking hit original series SANCTUARY, commenced production on its third season in Vancouver on March 15. The one-hour drama's 20-episode season is slated to return to Syfy this fall.
SANCTUARY is one of television's most groundbreaking series, shooting almost entirely on green screen. The series was the first television series in North America to use the RED camera exclusively, and its stunning visual effects were nominated for a 2008 Emmy Award.
Season three picks up from the adrenaline-fueled action of season two, which raised the stakes for the brilliant scientist Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) and her team, who use their unique combination of instinct, medicine and cutting-edge science and technology to find and aid a clandestine population of beings that the world refuses to believe exist. SANCTUARY also stars Robin Dunne as forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman, Agam Darshi as the quick-witted Kate Freelander, Ryan Robbins as tech wiz Henry Foss and Christopher Heyerdahl as the sinister John Druitt.
Created by Damian Kindler (Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis), SANCTUARY is produced in association with Syfy and is distributed by Tricon Films and Television. Season three of the series will be executive produced by Damian Kindler, Amanda Tapping, Martin Wood, Keith Beedie and Tricon Films.

ER MEETS BATTLESTAR
The Hollywood Reporter writes that ER alum Goran Visnjic is in negotiations to star opposite Katee Sackhoff (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, 24) in the ABC drama pilot BOSTON'S FINEST, which also has cast Nia Long.
FINEST centers on a detective (Katee Sackhoff) who teams with a disgraced ex-cop (Visnjic) to solve crimes and untangle the conspiracy that sent him underground. Long, repped by Gersh and Hyphenate's Glenn Rigberg, will play her friend, mentor and partner.
Following his nine-year stint on ER playing Dr. Luka Kovac, Visnjic co-starred in the 2009 CBS movie "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler."

The Hobbit THE HOBBIT BEGINS SHOOTING IN JUNE
Ian McKellen, who is returning as Gandalf in the two films based on J. R. R. Tolkien's THE HOBBIT, has confirmed a report from earlier this year about the start of filming on his official website. The site says: THE HOBBIT's, two films, start shooting in New Zealand in June. Filming will take over a year. Casting in Los Angeles, New York City and London has started. The script too proceeds. The first draft is crammed with old and new friends, again on a quest in Middle Earth.
Guillermo del Toro will direct the two highly-anticipated films.

Sigourney Weaver VAMPS
Sigourney Weaver (Avatar) will play a vampire queen in writer/director Amy Heckerling's romantic horror- comedy VAMPS.
The modern-day story focuses on beautiful young vampires (Alicia Silverstone and Krysten Ritter) who are living the good nightlife in New York until love enters the picture and each has to make a choice that will jeopardize their immortality.
Weaver is set to play Ciccerus, the bloodthirsty vampire who turned the two ladies into creatures of the night. Filming is scheduled to start in late April.

TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010


TRUE BLOOD BACK IN PRODUCTION
HBO has officially confirmed that season three of TRUE BLOOD will premiere Sunday, June 13 at 9 p.m. ET. Though TRUE BLOOD debuted to less-than-impressive ratings in September of 2008, it has steadily grown into HBO's most-watched series since "The Sopranos" ended its run.
The third installment of the hit series brings a host of new characters to Bon Temps, including werewolves, a hospital orderly, and yes ... new vampires. New cast members include Joe Manganiello ("How I Met Your Mother"), Brit Morgan ("The Middleman") and Kevin Alejandro ("Southland").

EUREKA NEWS
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's" James Callis will be back on Syfy later this year as a regular on EUREKA.
Production on EUREKA's fourth season begins this week, with Callis joining returning regulars Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Erica Cerra, Joe Mortan, Niall Matter and Neil Grayston. Callis will play a character named Dr. Grant, a former Eureka resident whose return to the town sets people on edge. He also has a thing for Allison (Richardson-Whitfield), which causes friction with Sheriff Carter (Ferguson).
Callis, who played Gaius Baltar on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, will also be seen in a guest arc on ABC's FLASH FORWARD later this season.

Dakota Goyo REAL STEEL
The nationwide search for Hugh Jackman's Real Steel co-star didn't turn up a talented unknown to fill the part of Jackman's son in DreamWorks' robot-boxing movie after all.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the role has gone to 11-year-old Canadian actor Dakota Goyo, who previously appeared with Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett in 2007's RESURRECTING THE CHAMP.
The sci-fi movie is based on a story by Richard Matheson that director Shawn Levy has described as "a father/son action drama set in the near future, surrounding the sport of robot boxing." In a world where robot boxing has replaced the human version, a former boxer gets a shot at redemption when he teams up with his long-lost son to train an unusual robot for a shot at the championships.
Production on REAL STEEL will begin in June, with Disney set to release the film on Nov. 18, 2011.

Robert Downey, Jr. GRAVITY
CHILDREN OF MEN's Alfonso Cuaron is looks to get his 3-D space film GRAVITY off the ground, deadline.com reported.
Robert Downey, Jr. is negotiating a deal to star as the leader of a team posted at a remote space station who is traveling outside the station with a female colleague when the other team members are killed by debris from an exploded satellite.
Downey was attracted to the project for a chance to work with Cuaron, who also directed Y tu mama tambien. Downey will shoot the film in London this summer, finishing in time to re-team with director Guy Ritchie and Jude Law in the SHERLOCK HOLMES sequel that will shoot in early fall, also in London.
Cuaron wrote the script , which had originally been developed at Universal with the intention of having Jolie play the female role, with his son, Jonas. Much of the film was to be devoted to Jolie's struggle to get back to Earth and her daughter. But Jolie passed on the project around the time Universal cut it loose, and it will now be co-financed by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures.

SYFY AND THREE INCHES
Syfy has greenlighted a pilot that puts a spin on the traditional superhero genre and seeks to continue growing its "Battlestar Galactica" empire.
The network has ordered a 90-minute pilot, THREE INCHES, from Fox Television Studios, writer Harley Peyton ("Twin Peaks") and executive producer Bob Cooper. It centers on an underachiever who gains the power to move any object using his mind, but only for a distance of three inches. He recruits a team of fellow heroes, each with their own less-than-spectacular abilities.
" THREE INCHES is a fun, smart, offbeat spin on the superhero genre," Syfy executive vp development Mark Stern said. "It's a very postmodern approach, with a really wonderful, tongue-in-cheek script."
Added David Madden, executive vp at Fox TV Studios, "We felt there was something special and particularly twisted about this script, both in tone and in its sense of imagination."
The network hopes to at least pick up one of its two pilots. The other, ALPHAS, also is about a team with superpowers.

CAPRICA/BATTLESTAR NEWS
Syfy also is seeking to expand its popular "Battlestar" franchise.
When asked about the chances of its modestly performing spinoff "Caprica" getting a renewal, Syfy executive vp for development Mark Stern was bullish. He pointed to the show recently hitting a series high in the adult demographic using Live+7 ratings, drawing 1.6 million viewers and 913,000 adults 18-49.
"We have a lot of hope for that show," Stern said. "The (DVR data) has been very promising and growing week after week."
The network also is looking to order another "Battlestar"-related project. Details were slim, but Stern said the title would mark a return to the franchise's space-opera roots.
"We're looking for other ways to spin off 'Battlestar' beyond 'Caprica,' " he said. "That world is so rich. We're sitting down with (executive producer) Ron Moore and his team. It would not necessarily be a traditional series."
With Syfy's upfront scheduled for Tuesday, media buyers likely will receive added clarity on the network's plans. Until then, there's one project that Stern adamantly refused to discuss, a title so notorious, the Syfy executive would not divulge any hints about its content.

THE TOURIST
Variety reports that Paul Bettany and Rufus Sewell have joined Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's romantic thriller THE TOURIST, which is shooting in Venice, Italy.
The Columbia Pictures release revolves around Frank (Depp), an American tourist visiting Italy to mend a broken heart. Elise (Jolie) is an extraordinary woman who deliberately crosses his path. Frank pursues a potential romance but soon finds himself the pursued as he and Elise are caught in a whirlwind of intrigue and danger.
THE TOURIST is produced by GK Films in association with Spyglass, and is produced by Graham King, Tim Headington, Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum and Jonathan Glickman.
Julian Fellowes, Christopher McQuarrie and Jeffrey Nachmanoff wrote the script.

Existence 2.0 EXISTENCE 2.0
According to HeatVision.com, Paramount has picked up the film rights to Image comic book EXISTENCE 2.0, with Miles Millar and Alfred Gough attached to adapt.
The title, written by Nick Spencer with art by Ronald Salas, centers on an amoral, self-absorbed physicist who finds his consciousness transferred into the body of the hitman who just killed him. He begins enjoying the hitman's lifestyle until his daughter is kidnapped by the same people who "killed" him.
Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller's Platinum Dunes is producing with Circle of Confusion's David Alpert. Gough and Millar are executive producing, as is Circle of Confusion's Rick Jacobs.

MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2010

Peter Graves PETER GRAVES IS DEAD
Peter Graves, perhaps best known as Jim Phelps on the television program MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, was found dead Sunday. It is believed as of press time that Graves died of natural causes.
The 83-year-old actor started working regularly in the 1950s, mostly in character roles. Graves replaced Steven Hill starting with the second season of the iconic TV program and the adventures of the Impossible Missions Force skirted the edges of science fiction�artificial viruses, brainwashing drugs and nuclear isotopes were themes�while bring grounded in the suspense/thriller genre.
Graves also appeared in a number of science fiction films, though truth be told the movies would have been utterly forgettable except for Graves' own work in them. Graves faced down giant grasshoppers in Beginning of the End, helped save the planet from a Venusian invasion in Roger Corman's It Conquered the World (well, It almost conquered the world!), and played the president-elect in Parts: The Clonus Horror. Parts, of course, may have inspired an even worse sci-fi flick: The Island.
These films and others were lovingly torn apart by the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew, and Graves' voice over work for the A&E documentary program Biography was a frequent theme of the show's humor. All in all, Graves appeared in more than 70 films and TV shows. His distinctive voice also graced the 2010 video game Darkstar�an FMV science fiction mystery also featuring the voices of MST3K alums Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu.
He's survived by his wife, Joan Endress, and three daughters.

To relive some of the opening segments of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, use this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k55NuWQCh78&feature=player_embedded

Kiefer Sutherland 24
Rumors are that the clock may be running out for 24 at Fox, but there's a new rumor that beleaguered NBC is considering picking it up for a ninth season.
That's what Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello reports:
Multiple sources confirm to me exclusively that 20th Century Fox has approached NBC about picking up the series should Fox opt to cancel it�and the Peacock is considering it. "There's definitely some interest," says an insider close to the talks. ...
A move to NBC�while still considered somewhat of a long shot given the hefty price tag�would likely delay 20th's plans to launch a Jack Bauer film franchise.
Earlier this week, Variety speculated that other networks would be unlikely to pick up the show because of its dwindling ratings and rising production costs.

Green Lantern GREEN LANTERN UPDATE
Kiwi filmmaker/actor Taika Waititi and Kiwi actor Temuera Morrison, Jango Fett from the "Star Wars" movies, have joined the cast of Warner Bros. Pictures' Green Lantern.
Production begins this week in New Orleans on the 3D feature, which has Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, GoldenEye) directing Ryan Reynolds as the superhero.
Waititi plays the best friend of Hal Jordan, the test pilot who comes to wear the super-powered ring of the interplanetary police force known as the Green Lantern Corps.
Morrison is playing Abin Sur, a member of the Corps who is instrumental in Jordan becoming the superhero. The studio has set a June 17, 2011 release the comic book adaptation.

STARGATE UNIVERSE
The first photos and trailer for the second half of the first season of the "Stargate" spin-off have gone online. The photos can be found at Daemon's TV while the preview is here. The remaining ten episodes of SGU's initial season kicks off at 9pm on Syfy on Friday, April 2nd.

Christopher Gorham THE LEDGE
Christopher Gorham from UGLY BETTY is the latest to climb up on THE LEDGE.
He joins Charlie Hunnam, Terrence Howard, Liv Tyler and Patrick Wilson in writer-director Matthew Chapman's suspense thriller. The film tells the story of a man (Hunnam) standing on a high-rise ledge who insists he must jump by noon as the policeman below (Howard) tries to manage the situation. Gorham will play the distraught man's roommate, a television editor.
Michael Mailer ("Loverboy") and Foresight Unlimited's Mark Damon ("Monster") are producing the film, which began shooting last week in Baton Rouge, La. Howard, Moshe Diamant, Bobby Ranghelov and Tamara Stuparich De La Barra are exec producers.
Gorham next appears in the features "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend," "Trivial Pursuits" and "Somebody's Hero." He also stars opposite Piper Perabo in the USA series "Covert Affairs," which premieres during the summer. Gorham has been a regular on the series "Popular," "Felicity," "Jake 2.0" and "Harper's Island."

SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2010

Shrek SHREK: FOREVER AFTER
The latest trailer for the final Shrek movie, SHREK FOREVER AFTER, in which everything goes to hell, is out.
Our favorite green ogre (Mike Myers) makes a bad deal with a malevolent pixie named Rumpelstiltskin, resulting in an alternate reality (a la Back to the Future Part II) in which everything is wrong and Shrek has to reconnect with his pals and true love, Fiona (Cameron Diaz), to set things right again.
Directed by Mike Mitchell, SHREK FOREVER AFTER reunites a voice cast including Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, Eric Idle and Justin Timberlake. It opens May 21.
http://scifiwire.com/2010/03/new-trailer-shrek-goes-to.php

Summer GLau THE CAPE
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Summer Glau, from TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES and FIREFLY and DOLLHOUSE, has joined THE CAPE.
In the pilot, directed by Simon West, a former cop (David Lyons) is set up as a criminal and becomes a masked hero, the Cape, to clear his name.
Glau will play Orwell, a cute and intrepid investigative blogger who fearlessly goes after corrupt cops and costumed bad guys.
For those of us accustomed to Glau kicking butt and taking names, we're assured there'll be plenty of that as well.

Riverworld RIVERWORLD
Syfy has set an April 18 premiere date for Syfy's upcoming four-hour TV movie RIVERWORLD, which will air in one block starting at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
The movie, starring Battlestar Galactica's Tahmoh Penikett and V's Laura Vandervoort, is based on the books by Philip José Farmer and takes place on a world where everyone who has ever lived on Earth is resurrected simultaneously in an unusual afterlife.

lice in Wonderland WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Disney’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND remained atop all newcomers on Friday, ringing estimated $17.4 million in domestic coin, as Tim Burton’s 3D fantasy began what is sure to be a repeat No. 1 performance at the weekend boxoffice.
The pic’s bodacious Friday boxoffice suggests a soph-session tally of $60 million or more for the Johnny Depp starrer, which rung up $116 million last weekend. A modest drop of less than 50% this frame would see ALICE soaring noth of $200 million in cumulative b.o. through Sunday.
Four wide openers this session marked sluggish starts Friday.
Universal opened Paul Greengrass’ GREEN ZONE with $5 million in Friday b.o. That was the second-highest tally among daily grossers, but the so-so sum reinforces a sense that the Iraq War thriller will be limited to the mid-teen millions for the weekend.
Elsewhere among the market entrants, Summit Entertainment’s Robert Pattinson starrer REMEMBER ME debuted in third place with $3.6 million. That was roughly in line with modest pre-release expectations for the romantic drama this weekend.
Paramount’s romantic comedy SHE'“SS OUT OF MY LEAGUE wooed $3.3 million in fourth place in its first day of release, while Fox Searchlight’s Forest Whitaker starrer “Our Family Wedding� fetched $2.5 million in fifth.

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2010

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
The much anticipated first trailer for the third TWILIGHT feature 'Eclipse' has gone online in full.
Bryce Dallas Howard's brief river jumping wire-trick shot as Victoria is awesome.
The movie is set to open June 30.

Glitter News FIREFLY MEETS ROCKFORD FILES
Ex-FIREFLY star and Joss Whedon regular Alan Tudyk has signed on to NBC's remake of THE ROCKFORD FILES. Tudyk, who had recurring roles on Whedon's FOX series DOLLHOUSE and ABC's V earlier this season, will star opposite Dermot Mulroney in the pilot. He'll play Dennis Becker, an LAPD detective who gets along with private eye Rockford -- which makes him a rarity on the force, according to The Hollywood Reporter. HOUSE creator David Shore is behind the new show.
Joe Santos played Becker alongside James Garner's Rockford in the 1970s series.
Tudyk is the second DOLLHOUSE alumnus to join an NBC pilot this season. Fran Kranz, who played Topher on the show, will be one of the stars of the network's comedy FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS.
In addition to FIREFLY (and its followup movie "Serenity"), Tudyk's credits include "Knocked Up," "3:10 to Yuma" and "I, Robot."

Hugo Wearing CAPTAIN AMERICA VILLAIN NAMED
The Hollywood Reporter writes that while the title character in THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA remains to be cast, the villain seems a lock: Hugo Weaving (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix) is the choice of Marvel Studios to play the Red Skull. The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog says:
In the Marvel comics, Red Skull has been Captain America's archenemy since 1941, when he engaged in espionage and sabotage as Hitler's right-hand man. In his final battle with the superhero, he was buried under the rubble of a bombed building but�as would occur later with Captain America�fell into a state of suspended animation. Both were revived in modern times.
Weaving just worked with Johnston in The Wolfman and is no stranger to villain parts, having played the nefarious Agent Smith in the Matrix films.

Eric Roberts SHARKTOPUS
Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee Eric Roberts will star in the new Syfy Saturday Original Movie SHARKTOPUS, produced by cult movie legend (and recipient of an Honorary 2010 Oscar) Roger Corman.
SHARKTOPUS (scheduled to premiere later in 2010) is about a research scientist (Roberts) and his daughter, who develop a secret military weapon�a hybrid shark/octopus that can be controlled by electrical implants. But when the controls break down, the monster goes on a killing rampage at the resort beaches of Mexico.
Roberts received Golden Globe nominations for his starring roles in King of the Gypsies (1978) and Star 80 (1983), and was nominated for the 1985 Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role in the film RUNAWAY TRAIN. Roberts also appeared in THE DARK KNIGHT as Sal Maroni, the Gotham City Mafia boss who hires the Joker to killer Batman.
On television, Roberts co-starred in the ABC sitcom LESS THAN PERFECT and made guest appearances on HEROES, CSI: MIAMI, LAW & ORDER: SVU and THE L WORD.
Roger Corman is the legendary director and producer of numerous low-budget cult classics, among them It Conquered the World, Little Shop of Horrors, House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, Premature Burial, The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, The Wild Angels and The Trip.
SHARKTOPUS is produced by Roger Corman and Julie Corman and directed by Declan O'Brien (Wrong Turn 3, Cyclops, Monster Ark, Rock Monster).

Jon Voight MIDLAND
The Hollywood Reporter informs us that Jon Voight has signed on as a lead in Fox's drama pilot MIDLAND. This is his first regular TV series role.
David Keith also landed co-starring role on the pilot, directed by Marc Webb.
MIDLAND from 20th TV, centers on Bob (Jimmy Wolk), a con artist juggling two lives in two Texas cities with two women (Adrianne Palicki, Eloise Mumford), one of whom (Palicki), is the daughter of a Texas legend (Voight), described as a gravely voiced titan equally at home in boots or a three-piece suit.
On TV, Oscar winner Voight most recently did an arc on the seventh season of "24," also a Fox/20th series, as villain Jonas Hodges.
Veteran Keith will play Bob's con-man father, who groomed his son to follow in his footsteps.

TRUE GRIT UPDATE
Barry Pepper has signed to play "Lucky" Ned Pepper in the Coen brothers' TRUE GRIT. The character was played by Robert Duvall in the 1969 original.
Pepper is joining a cast that includes Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and Hailee Steinfeld.
Ethan and Joel Coen will direct from their adapted script. Scott Rudin is producing with the Coens and Steven Spielberg is executive producer.

NINJA ASSASSIN COMING MARCH 16
Warner Bros. will release NINJA ASSASSIN on March 16. A young ninja turns his back on orphanage that raised him, leading to a confrontation with a fellow ninja from the clan. The screenplay was written by Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski (BABYLON 5). More information about the video can be found in the DVD section of this page.

THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2010

  THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
Summit Entertainment sent out a 10-second tease of the teaser trailer for THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE on Wednesday, March 10. Watch closely. Bella (Kristen Stewart) is torn between Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Jacob (Taylor Lautner).
A full teaser trailer is to be released on Friday (March 12).

Tron Monorail TRON MONORAILS IN DISNEY WORLD
Disney will paint its Disney World monorails with light cycles from its upcoming TRON LEGACY movie in an effort to cross-promote the upcoming movie.
The repainted monorails will feature snazzy versions of the new generation light cycles from the upcoming 3-D sequel to the classic 1982 sci-fi movie.
Disney Parks posted this description:
The transformed trains will be visible on the Epcot monorail line as early as this month. And if you look close, you'll notice that the design of the futuristic motorcycle-like vehicles from the upcoming film TRON: LEGACY also includes walls of trailing colored light.
TRON LEGACY opens Dec. 17.

Tron Billboard Walt Disney Pictures has provided us with a new billboard for Tron Legacy, opening in 3D theaters and IMAX 3D on December 17. You can get a bigger version of the billboard by clicking on the image below (and save it to your desktop in the gallery for an even larger version).

DA VINCI PROJECT
Warner Bros. is turning Leonardo Da Vinci into an action-adventure hero.
The studio has picked up a treatment titled "Leonardo da Vinci and the Soldiers of Forever" from producer Adrian Askarieh, who is teaming with Vertigo's Roy Lee and Doug Davison.
Da Vinci is best known as the painter behind "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper," though he also was an inventor, engineer, architect, mathematician among many other occupations. The project re-imagines Da Vinci as a member of a secret society who falls headlong into a supernatural adventure that pits the man against Biblical demons in a story involving secret codes, lost civilizations, hidden fortresses and fallen angels. Think "National Treasure" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" by way of "Clash of the Titans."
Askarieh, who is producing via his Prime Universe banner, came up with the original idea and wrote the treatment, with a search for a writer now under way.
Jon Berg is overseeing for Warners.
In the wake of the worldwide success of "Sherlock Holmes," Warners seems eager to make more projects involving a period setting, a historical figure and the fantastical. Last week, the studio picked up a pitch that has Francis Lawrence attached to direct a supernatural tale featuring explorer Marco Polo, and it's back in business with "Holmes" director Guy Ritchie on a King Arthur project.

ROBIN HOOD
Universal Pictures has released the full new trailer for director Ridley Scott's ROBIN HOOD, coming to theaters on May 14. The action-adventure stars Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Matthew Macfadyen, Mark Strong, Oscar Isaac, Lea Seydoux, Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand, Alan Doyle, Danny Huston and Max von Sydow.
Crowe stars as the legendary figure known by generations as "Robin Hood," whose exploits have endured in popular mythology and ignited the imagination of those who share his spirit of adventure and righteousness. In 13th century England, Robin and his band of marauders confront corruption in a local village and lead an uprising against the crown that will forever alter the balance of world power. And whether thief or hero, one man from humble beginnings will become an eternal symbol of freedom for his people.

J. EDGAR HOOVER BIOPIC
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Clint Eastwood will next direct a biopic of controversial FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment will produce.
Hoover was the first Director of the FBI of the United States. He was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.
Late in life, and after his death, Hoover became an increasingly controversial figure. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI.
Dustin Lance Black (Milk) wrote the script.

PROTECTION
Variety reports that Gary Fleder will direct the thriller PROTECTION for 20th Century Fox. John Davis is producing via his Fox-based Davis Entertainment.
The story centers on a college professor who investigates the disappearance of his wife and daughter and who must confront authorities at the Witness Protection Program to find them.
Mark Bomback has been brought on board to rewrite the script, which was an original spec from Allan Loeb.

Prince of Persia PRINCE OF PERSIA
Walt Disney Studios and Jerry Bruckheimer Films have announced plans to release its epic action-adventure PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SAND OF TIME in IMAX theatres across the globe to coincide with the film's day-and-date worldwide release on May 28th 2010.
The film's limited international IMAX release will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of the larger screen format. The project will be the sixth feature of the Summer season currently set to score a IMAX release in at least some territories. Others presently listed on the IMAX website include IRON MAN 2, SHREK FOREVER AFTER, TOY STORY 3, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE and INCEPTION.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2010

Merlin MERLIN RETURNS IN APRIL
Syfy announced that it will air the U.S. premiere of the second season of MERLIN on April 2, following the spring return of STARGATE UNIVERSE. MERLIN will debut at 10 p.m. ET/PT after SGU at 9.
Below is an excerpt of the official announcement!
U.S. TELEVISION PREMIERE OF MERLIN SECOND SEASON ON SYFY FRIDAY, APRIL 2, AT 10PM (ET/PT)
Season One Merlin Marathon Airs on Syfy Sunday, March 28, from 10AM-11PM (ET/PT)
New York, NY - March 9, 2010 - The second season of the critically acclaimed series Merlin makes its United States television premiere on Syfy Friday, April 2, at 10PM (ET/PT), following the spring season premiere of Stargate Universe at 9PM (ET/PT).
To give viewers a chance to catch up before the new season two launch, Syfy will showcase all 13 hours of Merlin's first season in a full day marathon Sunday, March 28, from 10AM-11PM (ET/PT).
An imaginative new twist on a timeless legend, Merlin is set in the mythical city of Camelot, before history began. It's a fantastical realm of legendary beasts and mysterious peoples, and a dangerous world where magic has been banned by the ruthless tyrant, Uther Pendragon.
Merlin stars Colin Morgan as Merlin, Bradley James as Prince Arthur, Anthony Head as King Uther, Richard Wilson as Gaius, Katie McGrath as Morgana and Angel Coulby as Gwen.
In the season two premiere episode, new servant Cedric (Mackenzie Crook, The Office) threatens Merlin's position as Arthur's right-hand-man, turning the Prince against his loyal friend. Merlin is convinced the slippery newcomer is up to something and he's right - Cedric is a con man and a thief who's after a magnificent jewel recently unearthed in a tomb far beneath Camelot. Little does Cedric realize that his precious prize is more dangerous than he could possibly imagine.
Merlin is executive produced by Julian Murphy and Johnny Capps for Shine Television.

CAPTAIN AMERICA CASTING UPDATE
According to HEAT VISION and DEADLINE NEW YORK, Marvel Studios is looking seriously at Wilson Bethel (HBO's "Generation Kill," "The Young and the Restless"), Mike Vogel (Cloverfield), Chris Evans ("Fantastic Four" movies) and Garrett Hedlund (upcoming Tron Legacy) are reading for the role of CAPTAIN AMERICA, have tested or have received test offers.
Actors previously reported as testing including Krasinski, Michael Cassidy, Chace Crawford, Scott Porter and Patrick Flueger are no longer under consideration, say the sites. The part calls for a nine-picture deal, the second of which would be The Avengers.
To be directed by Joe Johnston, The First Avenger: Captain America is scheduled for a July 22, 2011 release.

Eclipse TWILIGHT SAGA TRAILER COMING
The first trailer for Summit Entertainment's THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE will come online on Thursday morning at around 6:00 AM PST/9:00 AM EST. The 90-second trailer's contents are being kept under tight wraps until its debut. Prior to this, on Wednesday, March 10 a 10-second teaser of that trailer will come online at about 6:00 AM PST/9:00 AM EST. The full trailer for THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE can also be seen in theaters in front of Summit Entertainment's Remember Me, which also stars Robert Pattinson.
In THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between Edward and Jacob � knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life.
Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner reprise their roles as Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black. The film is directed by David Slade, based on the novel "Eclipse" by Stephenie Meyer, with a screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg. The movie hits conventional theaters and IMAX on June 30, 2010.

OUR WILD LIFE
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Walter Salles (Dark Water, The Motorcycle Diaries) is in talks to direct OUR WILD LIFE, an animal drama from New Line/Warner Bros. being produced by Mandalay Pictures' Peter Guber and Cathy Schulman.
Previously known as "Peaceable Kingdom," the film is based on the true life and work of Dame Daphne Sheldrick, the leading animal conservationist in Kenya, who has devoted her life to preventing elephant extinction by endeavoring to save baby elephants left orphaned by war, poaching and culling.
Jeff Stockwell wrote the script.debut with "Dark Water" and recently directed a segment in the ensemble shorts feature "Paris, I Love You."

Darkest Hour DARKEST HOUR
Deadline New York writes that Entertainment are teaming for the thriller THE DARKEST HOUR.
A more sci-fi spin on "28 Days Later" in tone, the story follows a group of kids struggling to survive somewhere in Russia after an alien invasion.
Chris Gorak ("Right at Your Door") directs from a script by Les Bohem and Jon Spaihts he re-wrote.
Timur Bekmambetov and Tom Jacobson will produce with filming kicking off in Russia in June.

Kevin MacDonald MURDER MYSTERY
According to Variety, Kevin Macdonald is set to direct the whodunit MURDER MYSTERY, the first feature from production company Tower Hill Entertainment.
Tower Hill picked up James Vanderbilt's script from Disney, which put the project into turnaround. Vanderbilt ("Zodiac") is currently penning the next chapter in Sony's "Spider-Man" franchise.
MURDER MYSTERY revolves around an American couple honeymooning in Europe who are implicated when they witness a murder and wind up embroiled in interna-tional intrigue.
" 'Murder Mystery is pure entertainment. It's exciting, suspenseful and romantic," said Dix, who is Tower Hill's prexy of production.
Dix said MURDER MYSTERY will be shot on location across Europe, and that the film is now casting.
Macdonald, who past credits include "The Last King of Scotland" and "State of Play," is next in theaters with historical drama "The Eagle of the Ninth," which Focus Features releases in the U.S. on Sept. 24. Pic stars Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell and Mark Strong.

TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2010

Superman JMS TAKES OVER SUPERMAN/WONDERWOMAN COMICS
Good news for comics fans: BABYLON 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, who's no stranger to the world of comics, will be taking over DC Comics' SUPERMAN and WONDER WOMAN titles on an ongoing basis, starting in July.
That's the news on the DC Comics blog;
Starting in July with SUPERMAN #701 and WONDER WOMAN #601, superstar writer J. Michael Straczynski�a man who's created layered and compelling characters and worlds on the big screen, on television and across the comic book spectrum�dives head-first into the DC Universe by taking the ongoing writing reins for two-thirds of the fabled DCU trinity.
Here's what JMS himself had to say:
"For as long as I've been doing conventions (starting in the early Cretaceous period, when it was just me and a handful of pterosaurs on a panel debating whether or not mammals with opposable thumbs were really necessary to the writing of quality comics, a point still hotly debated today), there has always been the same question from folks in the audience: "Is there any one character who is your dream character to write for?" The answer has always been the same: Superman. When I first came over to DC, that dream was realized in part by Dan DiDio's gracious invitation to write the first of potentially many Superman original graphic novels. Now the dream has come fully true with the opportunity to write for the mainstream title, in a story that returns Superman to his roots in a way that will have the whole country talking about him in ways that we haven't seen in a long time.
Similarly, the chance to write Wonder Woman�the nearest analogue to Superman in the DCU�is massively exciting. She's a vital, powerful character, and we hope to bring a more contemporary sensibility to her character will retaining everything that makes her unique.
That DC is willing to jump-start these two runs in the pages of their respective anniversary issues is a great opportunity and a vote of confidence in what we have planned for these characters. I'm looking forward to this with more excitement than words can convey.
It's gonna be a blast."

Thor THOR ANNOUNCEMENT
Paramount and Marvel released the official synopsis and cast list for its upcoming THOR, starring Star Trek's Chris Hemsworth and Star Wars' Natalie Portman.
"THOR"
Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment Present
A Marvel Studios Production
A Kenneth Branagh Film
Co-Producers Craig Kyle Victoria Alonso
Executive Producers Louis D'Esposito Alan Fine Stan Lee David Maisel Patty Whitcher
Produced by Kevin Feige
Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Cast:
Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Stellan Skarsgard, Jaimie Alexander, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Josh Dallas, Tadanobu Asano, Idris Elba, Clark Gregg, Colm Feore
Synopsis:
Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment present the epic adventure, "Thor," which spans the Marvel Universe from present day Earth to the realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is the mighty Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and is forced to live among humans. A beautiful, young scientist, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), has a profound effect on Thor, as she ultimately becomes his first love. It's while here on Earth that Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.
Release: May 6th, 2011
CREDITS ARE NOT FINAL AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Liam Hemsworth ARABIAN NIGHTS
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Liam Hemsworth, who co-stars in Disney's upcoming Miley Cyrus drama "The Last Song," is jumping into action-movie territory with ARABIAN NIGHTS.
The actor is in negotiations to star in Inferno Entertainment's 3D adventure directed by Chuck Russell.
Inferno's Bill Johnson is producing with Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray of Mayhem Pictures. ROAR also is producing.
Written by Russell and Barry P. Ambrose, the period epic centers on a young commander (Hemsworth) who, after his king is murdered in a coup, joins forces with Sinbad and Aladdin to rescue Queen Scheherazade.
An end-of-summer shoot is being eyed.
Hemsworth is a relative unknown who apart from the buzz he is generating from "Song" appeared in last year's "Knowing."
The deal also puts him in territory being tread by brother Chris Hemsworth, who is in production as the title character in Marvel's superhero action fantasy THOR.
Inferno is planning a year-end shoot for "The Grey," an action project starring Bradley Cooper and directed by Joe Carnahan. The company also is coming off the Sundance premiere of comedy "The Kids Are All Right" and the Berlin premiere of thriller "The Experiment."

Sendhil Ramamurthy COVERT AFFAIRS ADDS CAST MEMBER
According to the Hollywood Reporter, HEROES co-star Sendhil Ramamurthy is joining USA Network's new drama series COVERT AFFAIRS as a regular. The spy drama centers on Annie Walker (Piper Perabo), a multilingual CIA trainee unexpectedly promoted to field operative while reeling over a mysterious ex-boyfriend who appears to be of particular interest to her agency bosses.
Ramamurthy will play a CIA agent. He fills the void left by the departure of Eric Lively, who played a third-generation CIA agent in the pilot. However, this is not a straight recasting as Ramamurthy will play a new character.
He joins COVERT cast members Christopher Gorham, Peter Gallagher, Kari Matchett and Anne Dudek as well as Eion Bailey.
Ramamurthy first indicated that he may be done with HEROES in November when he was cast in a regular role on NBC's dramedy pilot REX but made a quick exit over a scheduling conflict.
Ramamurthy's character on HEROES, Mohinder Suresh, was key in the series' first couple of seasons, but his importance has gradually been scaled down. He also recently guest starred in an episode of another USA series, PSYCH.

TRON LEGACY
The teaser trailer for Tron Legacy that debuted in front of Alice in Wonderland this weekend is now online.
Tron Legacy is a 3D high-tech adventure set in a digital world that's unlike anything ever captured on the big screen. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father's disappearance and finds himself pulled into the same world of fierce programs and gladiatorial games where his father has been living for 25 years. Along with Kevin's loyal confidant (Olivia Wilde), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, the anticipated film hits 3D theaters and IMAX 3D on December 17.

MONDAY, MARCH 8, 2010

Iron Man 2 IRON MAN 2
The new trailer for IRON MAN 2 premiered during the Jimmy Kimmel show following the Oscars on Sunday night. Watch it at http://ironmanmovie.marvel.com/.
It shows us a first real good look at Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow and more of Mickey Rourke's Whiplash in action against Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark/Iron Man. We also get a better look at Sam Rockwell's rival, Justin Hammer, and Don Cheadle as Rhodey/War Machine.
There's also a taste of the rockin' new action. IRON MAN 2 opens May 7, and we can't wait.

Alice in Wonderland ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND killed the competition at the March 5 weekend box office, taking in an estimated $116.3 million domestically to set a new record.
Worldwide, the 3-D fantasy movie took in $210.3 million, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Even accounting for ticket-price inflation, that's the biggest-ever (domestic) opening in the first quarter of the year, easily beating the record of $83.8 million set by THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST in 2004.
In the 40 foreign territories where it opened simultaneously, ALICE IN WONDERLAND collected an additional $94 million. That's also a record for the biggest foreign opening in the winter or spring, Disney said.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
Here is a new clip from DreamWorks Animation's HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, opening in 3D theaters and IMAX 3D on March 26th. Set in the mythical world of burly Vikings and wild dragons, and based on the book by Cressida Cowell, the action-comedy tells the story of Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), a Viking teenager who doesn't exactly fit in with his tribe's longstanding tradition of heroic dragon slayers. Hiccup's world is turned upside down when he encounters a dragon that challenges he and his fellow Vikings to see the world from an entirely different point of view.
The voice cast also includes Gerard Butler, America Ferrara, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig and T.J. Miller.

SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2010

Fringe FRINGE RENEWED
There is joy in Muddville today at least for this Fringe Fan!!!! Fox confirmed yesterday that the science fiction drama has been renewed for a third season.
The show, which returns to finish up its second season on April 1, has averaged around 7.6 million viewers this season.
FRINGE centers on an FBI team that uses "fringe" science to investigate odd and disturbing occurrences worldwide. When last we left the team, Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) had returned from an alternate universe and regained a special ability from childhood that allows her to uncover a surprising secret about Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson).

Alice in Wonderland WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Plenty of moviegoers followed Alice down the rabbit hole on Friday as Disney's 3D ALICE IN WONDERLAND opened to an estimated of $41 million. Setting up shop in 3,728 theaters, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's PG-rated revisionist take on the Lewis Carroll classic, is on track to climb above the $110 million mark for the weekend.
While ALICE dominated the scene, Overture's R-rated cop drama BROOKLYN'S FINEST, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Don Cheadle and Richard Gere, still found solid footing. Bowing in 1,936 locations, it took in $4.8 million for a second place showing.
Last week's #1 picture, Paramount's psychological thriller SHUTTER ISLAND, moved into third place after two weekends in the top spot. Its Friday haul amounted to nearly $4 million as its collective domestic gross moves in the $90 million range this weekend.
In its second weekend, Warners' buddy cop movie COP OUT ranked four for the day with $2.9 million.
Overture's zombie tale THE CRAZIES was fifth with $2.3 million.
Although it ceded most of its 3D theaters to ALICE, AVATAR still hung in in sixth place with nearly $2 million for the day.

Beyond BEYOND
According to reports in The Hollywood Reporter, Suri Krishnamma (“A Man of No Importance�) will direct the film adaptation of acclaimed New Age author Deepak Chopra's graphic novel BEYOND.
The supernatural thriller follows an American businessman and his family who journey to India on vacation. In the midst of a teeming bazaar, the son sees his mother wander into a small store but never come out, leading to a frenzied search for her whereabouts.
Gotham Chopra, Sharad Devarajan, John Garland and Michael Dufficy will produce the UK film production.

SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 2010

Pet Sematary PET SEMATARY
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Matthew Greenberg, who wrote the Stephen King adaptation "1408," is heading back to King territory with PET SEMATARY.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura recently boarded as producer on the long-gestating project, which is set up at Paramount. Steven Schneider also is producing.
Published in 1983, King's creeper tale centered on a family that trades the city life for the country life in Maine, then discovers that they have moved near a pet cemetery that rests on an ancient burial ground. When the husband's toddler son is killed in an auto accident, the father takes the boy's body to the cemetery, where it is resurrected in demonic form. Paramount brought the book to life in 1989, with a feature version adapted by King that starred Dale Midkiff, Denise Crosby and Fred Gwynne.
The new project at one point was being produced by Alphaville, working with a screenplay by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary ("Face/Off"), and had George Clooney circling.
Film group president Adam Goodman, looking over library titles, deemed it worthy to resuscitate.
Mark Vahradian and David Ready are overseeing for Di Bonaventura Pictures. The company is in production on comic-book adaptation "Red," starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren.
Greenberg has carved out a career in the fantasy and horror genres. Among his credits are "Reign of Fire," "Halloween: H20" and "Mimic."

PENDRAGON
The Los Angeles Times reports that Sylvain White, who directed upcoming THE LOSERS, is negotiating to helm PENDRAGON, a retelling of the Arthurian legend. The spin involves providing the key Camelot characters -- Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Galahad, et al. -- with origin stories.
The script for the Phoenix Pictures project was written by Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy.
The film is set up at Fox-based production company New Regency.

Midnight Run MIDNIGHT RUN
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal Pictures is developing a sequel to MIDNIGHT RUN, the 1988 action-comedy that starred Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. Here's synopsis for the original:
Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) is a tough ex-cop turned bounty hunter. Jonathan 'The Duke' Mardukas (Charles Grodin) is a sensitive accountant who embezzled $15 million from the Mob, gave it to charity and then jumped bail. Jack's in for a cool $100,000 if he can deliver The Duke from New York to L.A. on time. And alive. Sounds like just another Midnight Run (a piece of cake in bounty hunter slang), but it turns into a cross-country chase. The FBI is after The Duke to testify - the Mob is after him for revenge - and Walsh is after him to just shut up. If someone else doesn't do the job, the two unlikely partners may end up killing each other in this hilarious, action-filled blockbuster from producer-director Martin Brest (Beverly Hills Cop).
Timothy Dowling (Role Models) will write the script that would bring back De Niro's character, Jack Walsh, and pair him with a younger comedic foil.
The 1988 film carried a budget of about $30 million and earned $38.4 million domestically.
De Niro will produce the sequel with Tribeca Films partner Jane Rosenthal.

FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2010

SMALLVILLE RENEWED - GETS 10th SEASON
The CW announced yesterday that it has ordered a 10th season of the young Superman series.
The official announcement is below.
"SMALLVILLE" TO RETURN FOR A TENTH SEASON ON THE CW March 4, 2010 (Burbank, California) - The CW Network has announced that its hit series "Smallville" will return in the fall of 2010 for a momentous tenth season.
"Smallville," a modern retelling of the Superman legend, stars Tom Welling as Clark Kent. The series moved to Friday nights this season, where it currently ranks as network television's #1 show in its time period among men 18-34 and men 18-49. Additionally, "Smallville" has dramatically improved The CW's ratings performance in its Friday 8:00-9:00p.m.time period by 67% among adults 18-34 (1.5/6), 200% in men 18-34 (1.8/7), 75% in adults 18-49 (1.4/5), 183% in men 18-49 (1.7/6) and 74% in total viewers (3.12million).
"Smallville" joins the five previously announced series - "The Vampire Diaries," "Gossip Girl," "90210," "Supernatural" and "America's Next Top Model" - which will all return for another season on The CW.
"Smallville" was developed for television by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar ("Shanghai Noon," "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor"), based on the DC Comics characters. Kelly Souders & Brian Peterson serve as executive producers, along with James Marshall, Mike Tollin, Brian Robbins and Joe Davola. The series is produced by Tollin/Robbins Productions, Millar/Gough Ink and Warner Bros. Television. SUPERMAN was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

FUTURAMA RETURNS IN JUNE
Comedy Central sources confirm to HitFix that Thursday, June 24, at 10:00 p.m. is currently set to be the premiere of the first new half-hour episode of "Futurama" since 2003.
Despite earlier reports, the entire voice cast will be back.

CAPRICA
James Marsters fans! Buffy and Caprica fans! Here is the first look at James Marsters as terrorist leader Barnabas Greeley from Syfy's new Battlestar Galactica prequel series, CAPRICA!

BODY OF EVIDENCE
Jeri Ryan has joined ABC's drama "Body of Evidence." "The Unit" alum Robert Patrick has joined ABC's drama "Edgar Floats," Allison Miller has landed a lead in the CW's drama "Betwixt" and Alan Ruck has joined the CW's untitled Wyoming project.
"Body" is a procedural that centers on a brilliant, tenacious medical examiner -- a part Dana Delany is in talks for -- whose background as a neurosurgeon gives her a unique and refreshing crime-solving perspective but puts her at odds with nearly everyone.
Ryan will play the city's chief medical examiner. She has been recurring on TNT's "Leverage" and Star Trek fans will remember her from her days as 7 of 9 on Star Trek: Voyager.
"Edgar" centers on a a police psychologist-turned-bounty hunter who often works for a bail bondsman (Patrick) whose daughter (Alicia Witt) is Edgar's ex-wife.
"Betwixt" revolves around "changelings," who are responsible for saving humans from evil. Miller ("17 Again") will play an ethereal beauty.
The Wyoming project centers on 22-year-old Gideon (Sean Faris), a horse trainer who becomes the patriarch of a Wyoming ranch responsible for his three younger sisters after their parents die. Ruck will play a nemesis who wants a chunk of Gideon's land.

Scott Caan BOOK 'EM DANNO
Scott Caan, co-star in the "Ocean's Eleven" movie franchise, has been tapped for the role of Danny "Danno" Williams on CBS' updated version of "Hawaii Five-O."
The new "Hawaii," from CBS Studios, "Star Trek" writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and "CSI: NY' executive producer Peter Lenkov, centers on an elite branch of the Hawaii State Police headed by Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin).
Williams, who was played by James MacArthur on the original series, is a New Jersey cop who has recently undergone an acrimonious divorce and has transferred to Hawaii to be near his 7-year-old daughter. Forced to partner with McGarrett, Danno is initially leery of their association -- but as he grows more familiar with his maverick new boss, he begins to appreciate the opportunity to work with McGarrett.
The character's name was immortalized by McGarrett's catchphrase, "Book 'em, Danno!" which closed most episodes of the original series and is expected to live on on the new show.
Caan will be a guest star on the "Hawaii" pilot because of his commitment to HBO's "Entourage."
Caan is regular on the showbiz comedy for the upcoming seventh season, reprising his role as tough-talk manager Scott Lavin introduced in an arc last season.
He will then segue to "Hawaii" as a regular if the pilot is picked up to series.
Caan is probably best known for his role as Turk Malloy in the three "Ocean's Eleven" heist movies from Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney.
He will next be seen in IFC Films' "Mercy," which he also wrote and produced.

Green Lantern GREEN LANTERN GOING 3-D
Warner Bros. on Thursday revealed plans to release two previously announced 2D pics in 3D: THE GREEN LANTERN and SUCKER PUNCH.
Zach Snyder's action fantasy PUNCH is still set to land in theaters on March 25, 2011, following its move into the third dimension. And Ryan Reynolds starrer GREEN LANTERN will light up screens about three months after that, on June 17 of next year.
Warners has gotten more bullish on 3D following Fox's big payday with "Avatar." In a pair of previous moves, Warners announced plans to convert action fantasy CLASH OF THE TITANS and HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART ONE to 3D for release on April 2 and Nov. 19, respectively.
On Thursday, Warners also confirmed it will release HALLOWS, PART TWO in 3D on July 15, 2011.

FOUNTAIN CITY
Variety reports that Andrew Adamson ("The Chronicles of Narnia" and "Shrek" franchises) will next make the fantasy film FOUNTAIN CITY. The trade indicates that Lightstream Pictures has preemptively picked up the live-action/CGI hybrid, which it will co-finance.
The budget for the film is projected at more than $100 million. The company is keeping the storyline under wraps. Adamson and writer Joby Harold sold the fantasy-adventure to Lightstream based on their pitch. Harold is writing the script, which Adamson will direct.
Adamson, Aaron Warner, Tory Tunnell and Lightstream executives Garrett Kelleher, Paul Currie and Lawrence Inglee will produce.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2010

Game of Thrones GAME OF THRONES
HBO has picked up its highly buzzed-about pilot GAME OF THRONES to series.
The cable channel has ordered 10 episodes (including the already-shot pilot) of the series, which is based on George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" novels. Production on the series is scheduled to begin in Northern Ireland in June. It's likely to premiere in early 2011.
The show will use one book in Martin's series as the template for each season (four have been published, and three more are planned) in telling the story of several families fighting for power on the fictional continent of Westeros. The cast includes "Lord of the Rings" veteran Sean Bean, Lena Headey ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"), Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Jennifer Ehle and Mark Addy.
David Benioff ("Wolverine," "Brothers") and D.B. Weiss wrote the pilot script and will executive produce. Martin, former HBO exec Carolyn Strauss, Guymon Casady, Vince Gerardis and Ralph Vicinanza are all co-exec producers. Tom McCarthy ("The Visitor," "The Station Agent") directed the pilot.
GAME OF THRONES is HBO's first foray into swords-and-sorcery-style fantasy -- though "A Song of Ice and Fire" has a lot more of the swords than the sorcery. Its depiction of the complex relationships between characters vying for power has drawn comparisons to "The Sopranos."




|
PRINCE OF PERSIA
The new full 2-and-a-half-minute trailer for Disney's upcoming PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME gives us a great look at the epic scale and amazing action in the video-game adaptation.
In particular, we finally get to see some of Prince Dastan's (Jake Gyllenhaal) signature parkour-like acrobatics, which gamers may recognize, as well as more of Jake's English accent and co-star Gemma Arterton's voluptuous moves. PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME also stars Ben Kingsley. Jerry Bruckheimer produced and Mike Newell directed. It opens May 28.

Warehouse 13 WAREHOUSE 13 RETURNING IN JULY
Syfy announced that its hit series WAREHOUSE 13 has begun production on season two, which will premiere on July 13. All the main cast members are back, along with special guest star Nolan Funk (Nickelodeon's Spectacular and Drake & Josh), who will appear in a four-episode arc.
Season two will consist of 13 brand-spanking-new episodes.
Here is the official announcement:
New York, NY - March 2, 2010 - Syfy's #1 original hit series, WAREHOUSE 13, commences production on season two this March in Toronto and will kick off the new season with a summer premiere on Tuesday, July 13. Series regulars, Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly, Saul Rubinek and Allison Scagliotti, along with series guest star, CCH Pounder, reprise their roles in the series ratings leader for Syfy. The 13 episode, hour-long dramedy is slated to return this summer 2010.
Nickelodeon star, Nolan Gerard Funk (Spectacular), who recently starred on Broadway in Bye, Bye, Birdie, guest stars in a four-episode storyline in season two. Funk portrays Todd, a tech savvy local who takes a special romantic interest in Claudia (Scagliotti). This budding relationship is put to the test by the secrets they are forced to keep from one another.
WAREHOUSE 13 follows two Secret Service agents who find themselves abruptly transferred to a massive, top-secret storage facility in windswept South Dakota which houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government. The Warehouse's caretaker Artie (Saul Rubinek) charges Pete (Eddie McClintock) and Myka (Joanne Kelly) with chasing down reports of supernatural and paranormal activity in search of new objects to cache at the Warehouse, as well as helping him to control the Warehouse itself.
WAREHOUSE 13 became the all-time Syfy leader in total viewers (4.1 million), Adults 25-54 (2.1 million) and Household ratings (2.9), as measured by 7-Day DVR data, making it the most successful series in Syfy's 17-year history.
WAREHOUSE 13 is produced for Syfy by Universal Cable Productions. Jack Kenny (The Book of Daniel), returns as showrunner.

Fantastic Voyage FANTASTIC VOYAGE REMAKE
According to James Cameron, the script for his proposed remake of the classic 1960s medical sci-fi movie FANTASTIC VOYAGE is done and in a group interview Sunday in Century City, Calif., at the Visual Effects Society Awards, Cameron said, "Fantastic Voyage, we're looking for a director."
Cameron will produce the new FANTASTIC VOYAGE, based on the 1966 sci-fi movie that starred Raquel Welch, about a team of scientists in a miniaturized submarine who navigate a human body to zap an inoperable blood clot.
Cameron said that he has updated the original, thanks to new medical information available. "Look, medical imaging has come an awful long way since the '60s, when the first film was made," Cameron said. "So we can do some pretty amazing stuff."

Fringe-Olivia FRINGE SEASON FINALE SURPRISES
The first-season finale of Fox's FRINGE revealed the twin towers in an alternate-universe New York. So how do you top that? Series creator and producer J.J. Abrams said this season finale will outdo the last, in a deeper way.
"I think the whole alternate-universe idea is at the core of what's going to be happening," Abrams said in a group interview Sunday in Los Angeles, where he attended the Milk + Bookies Story Time Celebration with his family. "Without giving anything away, I think that the ending of this second season is, I think, richer and better and deeper than what we did last year. I mean, last year was definitely shocking, but I think the end of this year is different, but I think equally impactful."
No doors should be totally closed in the finale. It is FRINGE, after all, and anything is possible. "There are certain things that I think happen that I wouldn't want to talk about that might resolve certain stories, but for the most part I think the fun about Fringe�which I think some episodes that are coming up this season and certainly the ending take advantage of�is that sort of unlimited possibility. Not to say there aren't rules and things that are happening that have to be abided by, but the fun of this show that's specific to Fringe is the fact that we can go to certain places and do certain things that you couldn't normally do on a show and not have it be 'The Wacky Episode.' Every episode is a little bit the wacky episode."
FRINGE's second season resumes on April 1 with seven new episodes (eight if you count a two-parter as two episodes). Abrams said the April Fool's Day episode is awesome, and he doesn't sound like he's joking.
"It's one of my favorite episodes that we've done," Abrams said. "It is particularly retro and weird. It's a really cool episode."
Retro could mean many things. It wouldn't be that strange for Fringe to mimic the tone of classic sci-fi shows that came before. The creators could also use retro technology for a change. Abrams only hinted, "Both. You've got to see it."
It's too early for even Abrams to know whether Fox is ordering a third season of FRINGE. "There's no official word yet," he said. "I would hope so, but my fingers are crossed."
It would be surprising if Fox did not renew the hit show, though. "I have no idea," Abrams continued. "I hope so. Like I said, my fingers are crossed. I don't know. I just know that we have a lot of story yet to tell, so I hope that we get our shot to do it."
When the order comes in, Abrams knows how he would begin the third season. "Well, you have to see how the second season ends first, because it's pretty cool, but there are a lot of really fun ideas that are being kicked around," Abrams said. "I'm hoping that we get a chance to actually realize them and not resort to just blogging it or something."
FRINGE airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Fox.

SPACE INVADERS MOVIE
The Los Angeles Times reports that Warner Bros. Pictures is negotiating to acquire feature rights to classic video game SPACE INVADERS from Taito, the Japanese company that originally manufactured the game.
"Space Invaders" was designed by Tomohiro Nishikado and released in 1978. The game was later licensed for production in the United States by Midway.
The project would be produced by Mark Gordon (The Day After Tomorrow, Saving Private Ryan), Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity) and Guymon Casady.
Movie versions of "Missile Command" and "Asteroids" are also in development at Fox and Universal, respectively.

GILLIGAN'S ISLAND
Variety reports that Warner Bros. Pictures and production company Atlas Entertainment are developing a feature film based on CBS' GILLIGAN'S ISLAND.
Charles Roven and Richard Suckle will produce for Atlas, with Brad Copeland writing the screenplay. Original show producer Sherwood Schwartz is on board to executive produce along with son Lloyd Schwartz.
Variety says that plans are for a contemporary take on the iconic show. They're hoping to start production next year but won't move forward on seeking a director or cast until Copeland's script is completed.
"The characters are so good," Roven added. "We think it's going to be a great story to transport these cultural icons to the modern day."

TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER
Lincoln in hand-to-hand combat with a vampire assassin? That's not quite how I remember it from the history books. But if we're to believe Seth Grahame-Smith's historical horror novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, that's exactly how it all went down.
Grahame-Smith was paid a rumored $575,000 for the two-book deal that followed his smash hit Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Check out this awesome trailer.

Roland Emmerich FOUNDATION
Director Roland Emmerich (2012, The Day After Tomorrow) is still waiting for a complete script for his proposed film version of Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION series but says now that he will take a page from James Cameron's AVATAR when he finally gets down to making the movie as a 3-D CG epic.
"I want to create everything," Emmerich told Empire magazine. "I want it to be a full CG film, so [performance capture] is perfect for that."
Earlier, Emmerich told MTV: "The AVATAR technology applies to FOUNDATION. It has to be done all CG because I would not know how to shoot this thing in real."
As for the story, Emmerich assures us that he wants to remain faithful to Asimov's original books, about the rise and fall of a galactic civilization.
"I want to give people exactly what the Foundation trilogy is," Emmerich said. "You have to tell a story that represents the books but also works as a film. That's the challenge."

Sean Bean DEATH RACE 2
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Sean Bean is starring opposite Luke Goss in DEATH RACE 2, the prequel to Universal's 2008 Jason Statham starrer.
Universal is putting out the feature, now shooting in South Africa, as part of its DVD Originals banner. "Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball" was the label's most recent release.
Also in the cast are Lauren Cohan, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo and Frederick Koehler. Paul W.S. Anderson, who directed the 2008 movie, is producing with Jeremy Bolt. Roel Reine is directing.
The prequel is serving as the origin story for the character named Frankenstein, a convicted cop killer (Goss) in a declining American empire where a racing reality show is about to be born in the country's corrupt prison system.
Bean, currently seen on screens as Zeus in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," is starring in the pilot "A Game of Thrones," which is awaiting a series pick-up order from HBO.

LUCK
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Dustin Hoffman has signed to topline HBO's horse racing drama pilot LUCK, from Michael Mann and David Milch. It will be the Oscar winner's first major TV series.
The following is how the project is described:
The project is described as a provocative look at the worlds of horseracing and gambling told through a diverse group of characters surrounding a racetrack.
It centers on an intelligent, intuitive tough man (Hoffman) who always has been involved with gambling, from bookmaking and money laundering to casino operations.
Recently released from prison after four years, he teams with Gus Economou (Dennis Farina), his longtime chauffeur and muscle, to craft a complex plan involving the track. They recruit Turo Escalante (John Ortiz), a successful trainer with a sordid reputation.
Milch wrote the pilot, which Mann is directing. Filming is expected to star in the spring in Los Angeles.

TANGLED
A short teaser trailer for Disney's upcoming animated Rapunzel movie TANGLED is hitting stores with the DVD and Blu-ray for The Princess and the Frog on March 16th.
Coming to theaters in November, TANGLED is an action-packed, swashbuckling, animated musical comedy about the girl behind 70 feet of magical, golden hair. A princess stolen from her parents' castle as a baby, Rapunzel (voice of Mandy Moore) is locked in a hidden tower longing for adventure Now an imaginative and determined teenager, she takes off on a hilarious, hair-raising escapade with the help of a dashing bandit (voice of Zachary Levi). With the secret of her royal heritage hanging in the balance and her captor in pursuit, Rapunzel and her cohort find adventure, heart, humor, and hair... lots of hair.

MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2010

Leonardo DiCaprio WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Paramount Pictures' SHUTTER ISLAND remained on top of the domestic box office with an estimated $22.2 million in its second weekend, a drop of 45.9% in ticket sales. The Martin Scorsese-directed psychological thriller, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, has earned $75 million so far. Internationally, the $80 million film has brought in $34 million for a worldwide take of $109 million.
Warner Bros.' new comedy COP OUT opened in second place, earning $18.6 million from 3,150 theaters for an average of $5,894 million per location. The movie, directed by Kevin Smith and starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, was made for $30 million.
Third place belonged to Overture Films' THE CRAZIES, which debuted to $16.5 million from 2,476 theaters for an average of $16.5 million. Breck Eisner directed the reimagining of the George Romero classic. The horror film, produced for just $20 million, stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker and Joe Anderson.
James Cameron's AVATAR added yet another $14 million domestically and $36.1 million internationally for a worldwide take of $50.1 million in its 11th weekend. The 20th Century Fox release has now earned $706.9 million domestically and $1.844 billion internationally, which means Avatar's overseas number has even surpassed TITANIC's worldwide total of $1.843 billion. Globally, the juggernaut has reached $2.550 billion.
Fox's PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF rounded out the top five with $9.8 million its third weekend for a domestic total to $71.2 million. The fantasy-adventure has also earned $95.4 million in foreign markets, pushing its worldwide total to $166.6 million.
In sixth, Warner Bros.' VALENTINE'S DAY earned $9.5 million to take its total passed the $100 million mark ($100.4 million). Internationally, the ensemble romantic comedy has collected $87.4 million and worldwide it's at $187.8 million. The film cost about $52 million to make.
Screen Gems' DEAR JOHN took in $5 million in seventh place for a total of $72.6 million after four weeks.
Universal's THE WOLFMAN dropped another 58.3% in ticket sales to add $4.1 million in its third weekend. Made for $150 million, the film's domestic total is at $57.2 million and foreign total at $63.3 million - a worldwide sum of $120.5 million.
Also of note was the Oscar-nominated A PROPHET, which Sony Pictures Classics released in just nine theaters where it made an estimated $170,000. That's a strong average of $18,889 per site.

Serena SERENA
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Angelina Jolie and Darren Aronofsky are in discussions to adapt Ron Rash's 2008 novel "Serena: A Novel." The project would be a starring vehicle for Jolie, while Aronofsky would direct. Chris Kyle (Alexander, K-19: The Widowmaker) wrote the screenplay.
The following is how publisher HarperCollins describes the book:
The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains�but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.
Rash's masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a riveting novel that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.
Jolie is currently shooting THE TOURIST with Johnny Depp, but she has nothing lined up next. The untitled Kay Scarpetta project is one possibility.

Incarceron INCARCERON
Variety reports that Fox 2000 and Seed Productions have scored the film rights to Catherine Fisher's young-adult novel series INCARCERON.
The dystopian fantasy follows a young boy incarcerated in a futuristic and living prison ruled by rivalry and savagery, and the daughter of the prison's warden who lives outside in a future world made to resemble the 17th century and is being forced into an arranged marriage. Both find a device, a crystal key, which allows them to communicate with each other.
The project will go out to writers and directors shorly and John Palermo will produce. The second novel in the series, SAPPHIQUE, hits bookstores early next year.

Shrek Forever After SHREK FOREVER AFTER
SHREK FOREVER AFTER, the fourth installment of the jolly green ogre's adventures and the first in 3D, will raise the curtain at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival as its opening-night film.
The DreamWorks Animation feature, directed by Mike Mitchell, will have its world premiere April 21 at the New York City fest.
Shrek has always had a taste for fests -- the first two movies in the franchise played the Cannes Film Festival.
"We have always sought to open our festival with films that are captivating and strike an emotional chord with moviegoers," Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal said. " 'Shrek Forever After' combines the very best in storytelling and artistry while showcasing the wonders of innovative 3D filmmaking."
With a voice cast headed by Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas, the movie pits Shrek against Rumpelstilskin, who tricks the ogre into signing away the life he has known.
Paramount will release the movie nationwide on May 21.
Tribeca, which runs through May 2, will announce its full slate of programming next month.

SUNDAY, FEBRURAY 28, 2010

NEW JOSH WHEDON PROJECT
Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku, the actress and writer/producer/director from DOLLHOUSE, will be teaming up once more�though at this point, there isn't much information available. While attending Discovery's Life premiere in Los Angeles, Dushku spoke to HollywoodLife.com and admitted that their next project together would be a feature film, but refused to share anything about its content.
"I would say that we would [be working on something new very soon]!" she said. "I think we're going to work on a kick-ass feature together that we've been thinking about for a few years."
Dushku also admited that she might star in the GHOSTBUSTERS flick, because her longtime friend Dan Aykroyd, who's been talking up the project for a while, wants her on board.
"I don't know anything, I don't have a script�it's still a rumor thing right now. ... But I would be excited to do it! Dan is a friend since I was young, and I love [original star Sigourney Weaver] and would love to zip on a proton pack!"

Shutter Island WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Martin Scorsese's SHUTTER ISLAND from Paramount got a big jump on a likely repeat performance atop the domestic rankings this weekend when the suspense thriller topped the boxoffice Friday with an estimated $6.7 million.
The Leonardo DiCaprio starrer boasts $59.6 million in cumulative boxoffice through its first eight days in the marketplace. Originally set to unspool in the fall, ISLAND cost an estimated $75 million to produce, after tax credits.
Warner Bros.' Kevin Smith-helmed buddy cop movie COP OUT, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan – captured the #2 spot, ringing up $6 million during its first day in release. That should keep COP on track to cop mid- to high teen millions through Sunday, meeting pre-release expectations despite another snowstorm's hitting the East Coast on Friday.
Overture Films' THE CRAZIES, an R-rated remake of George Romero's 1973 horror classic, debuted just a shade further back with $5.9 million in third place. Starring Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell, "Crazies" also appears to be hitting its marks and should fetch mid-teen millions on the three-day frame.
Participant Films and Imagenation Abu Dhabi jointly contributed 50% of pic financing on CRAZIES.
Fox's AVATAR was fourth among all Friday grossers, with $3.1 million on the day shaping a $696 million cume. And Warner Bros.' romantic comedy VALENTINE'S DAY was fifth with $2.9 million and a $93.8 million cume.

Grace Park MORE HAWAII FIVE-O CASTING
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Grace Park, aka Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, has joined CBS' HAWAII FIVE-O remake.
The updated take on the original series centers on an elite branch of the Hawaii State Police headed by Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin). Park will play Kona Kalakaua, the niece of squad member Chin Ho Kelly, played by LOST's Daniel Dae Kim.
Kono is a beautiful and smart champion surfer who is about to graduate from the police academy when McGarrett recruits her to join his team.
Park most recently co-starred opposite Benjamin Bratt in A&E's dram drama THE CLEANER.
She joins another BATTLESTAR alumna, Katee Sackhoff, who was recently recruited to star in ABC's untitled Richard Hatem drama pilot. Additionally, Tricia Helfer, who played No. 6 on the sci-fi series, is joining TNT's cop drama DARK BLUE as a new regular.

GRAVITY
According to Vulture, Angelina Jolie has pulled out of WANTED 2 in favor of the space thriller GRAVITY which Alfonso Cuarón ("Children of Men") is helming for Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures. Jolie would play the sole survivor of a space mission gone wrong who desperately tries to return to Earth and see her daughter again.
David Heyman, who worked with Cuaron on HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, will produce. Cuaron co-wrote the script with his son Jonás.
Jolie is currently shooting the Johnny Depp-led thriller THE TOURIST in Paris.

CONAN CASTING
Heat Vision has confirmed a Latino Review scoop that Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2) is in negotiations to play Conan's father in Lionsgate's CONAN, to be directed by Marcus Nispel.
Filming on the fantasy action adventure, in which Jason Momoa plays Conan the Barbarian and Leo Howard a younger version of the character, will start in Bulgaria on March 15th.
The story sees Conan embark on a quest to avenge the slaughter of his people.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2010

Atlantis ATLANTIS
The BBC has announced it is going to dig into the story of "the greatest natural disaster to shake the ancient world" through a 300-style film and a companion documentary. ATLANTIS is the story of the Minoans, the first great civilization who lived on the island of Crete. The island was flooded by enormous tsunamis after a gigantic volcano erupted in the Aegean Sea and obliterated the nearby island of Thera. The film uses the work of leading scientists, archaeologists and historians to build a scenario for what the Minoans' civilization might have looked like.
"ATLANTIS will immerse the viewer in a world they've never seen before, in a brand-new, exciting way," said executive producer Ailsa Orr (Pompeii�The Last Day). "The world of the Minoans and the disaster that wiped them out has been created using visual effects that have, to date, only ever been used in Hollywood movies. It offers our audiences a unique viewing experience�the closest they'll ever get to one of the greatest natural disasters of all time."
ATLANTIS will be shot in a studio against a green screen, combining virtual and real sets to create a unique look. While ATLANTIS is the first British drama to go virtual, television series such as Syfy's SANCTUARY and Starz's SPARTACUS use this technique to get a distinctive visual style along the lines of the groundbreaking visual film feasts that are 300 and SIN CITY.
The filmmakers promise that ATLANTIS will bring viewers "face to face" with the spectacularly tragic events the Minoans had to endure, from the early earthquakes to the volcanic eruptions to the massive tsunamis. The drama will air on BBC One and stars Reece Ritchie (The Lovely Bones) and Stephanie Leonida (MirrorMask).
In a companion documentary, historian Bettany Hughes explores the Atlantis myth and uses Plato's account of what happened to Atlantis as evidence of the eruption. The documentary will air on BBC Two.
Along with Orr, Michael Mosley (Pompeii - The Last Day) also executive-produces, while Tony Mitchell (Primeval) directs. There's no word yet on when the film and the documentary will air.

Taylor Lautner MAX STEEL/STRETCH ARMSTRONG
Twilight teen werewolf Taylor Lautner has pulled out of MAX STEEL, a proposed film based on the Mattel toy, in favor of his other toy movie, Stretch Armstrong (Hasbro).
... In the weeks after signing on to play Steel, Lautner became increasingly convinced that Hasbro was playing its hand better than Mattel. Thanks to WME, Hasbro was moving with far greater speed through Hollywood's development maze than Mattel, not only setting up projects, but quickly moving them forward ...
As a result, by the time Universal had begun conversations earlier this month with Monsters vs. Aliens director Rob Letterman about directing Stretch Armstrong, Lautner had already decided not to do Max Steel.

Dermot Mulroney ROCKFORD FILES REMAKE
In his first regular TV role, Dermot Mulroney is set to play the iconic private eye in NBC's updated take on THE ROCKFORD FILES, the hit 1970s drama that starred James Garner in the title role.
The new Jim Rockford is described as "slightly crumpled, wry humored, cynical, world weary, compassionate when it's called for and easily irritated by morons."
His troubled past includes includes doing some time as a convict and as a cop.
Aside from an arc on NBC's "Friends" in 2003, "My Best Friend's Wedding" Mulroney has been focused on features, most recently appearing in "Burn After Reading."
NBC's "Rockford Files" was penned by "House" creator David Shore, who is executive producing with Steve Carell.

STEEL CITY CON
Just a reminder that this weekend kicks off the STEEL CITY CON in Monroeville, PA. Guests include SMALLVILLE's John Schneider, STAR WARS' Matthew Wood, LOST IN SPACE's Mark Goddard, STORM TROOPERS' Jake Busey and many others.

JMS INTERVIEW SERIES
Ranger Jim sent along this note regarding a series of interview with J. Michael Straczynski over at Newsrama. Here are the links:
Day 1: SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/JMS-Week-Superman-Earth-One-100216.html
Day 2: BRAVE & THE BOLD and WORKING With DC
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/jms-brave-bold-dc-100217.html
Day 3: MARVEL COMICS & THE TWELVE
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/JMS-Week-MARVEL-100228.html
Day 4: His Secret Origin in Comics!
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/JMS-Week-Comics-Secret-Origin-100219.html
Day 5: MOVIES, TV, & Following Dreams
http://www.newsarama.com/film/JMS-Week-Movies-TV-100220.html

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2010

Matt Smith NEW DOCTOR WHO
The wait is nearly over. The 11th Doctor will be arriving on these shores in less than two months. BBC America says that the new season of DOCTOR WHO will premiere in the United States on Saturday, April 17, just a few weeks after its debut in the U.K. Matt Smith is taking over from David Tennant as the 11th incarnation of the iconic character, and he'll have a new companion in a character named Amy Pond (Karen Gillan).
The show has undergone a change behind the scenes as well, with Steven Moffat ("Coupling," "Jekyll") taking over as head writer from Russell T. Davies. Richard Curtis ("Love Actually") and Mark Gatiss ("The League of Gentlemen") are among the writers on the new show.
"In introducing the Eleventh Doctor, Steven Moffat is opening the show to a whole new audience, while serving fans with an exciting mix of intergalactic, time travelling adventures. We can't wait to meet his new Doctor," says BBC America's head of programming, Richard De Croce.
Smith's Doctor and Amy will travel through space and time in the TARDIS and explore sixteenth-century Venice, 1890s France and the United Kingdom, which becomes a nation floating in space in the far future. The first two episodes of the new season, "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Beast Below," were written by Moffat. The third episode brings back an old enemy in "Victory of the Daleks," which was written by Gatiss.
Alex Kingston ("ER," "FlashForward") and Sophie Okenedo are among the guest stars for the new season.

Andrew Koenig WALTER KOENIG'S SON FOUND DEAD
After days of searching, the body of missing "Growing Pains" actor Andrew Koenig was discovered in a Vancouver area park today (Thu. Feb. 25), the actor's father has confirmed. "My son took his own life." Walter Koenig, Andrew's father, said at today's press conference.
A private group of family and friends, including his father, discovered his body in a wooded area of Stanley Park around noon today. His father did not find the body, but he was nearby. Police were summoned to the scene soon after.
Both Walter and Judith Levitt Koenig reached out to those who are suffering from depression and hopes they learn from Andrew's death that there are people out there who care. Friends and family previously reported that the actor was severely depressed and had stop stopped taking his prescribed medication.
The family asks that their privacy be respected at this time.
Friends revealed on record that in the weeks leading up to the Vancouver trip, Koenig sold or gave away his belongings, gave notice on his Venice apartment and paid his final rent.
Walter and his family are in our hearts and prayers at this most difficult time.

On The Tube FLASH
IESB.net report that Greg Berlanti, co-writer of the upcoming GREEN LANTERN and director of Life as We Know It, is in line to direct the upcoming FLASH movie:
The name should ring a bell or two, Berlanti wrote GREEN LANTERN with one my favorites Marc Guggenheim and was once attached to direct the film before WB settled on Martin Campbell.
It's unclear whether FLASH will be based on David Goyer's initial idea or will be written by someone else. And, of course, way to early to know who will put on the red suit, though Ryan Reynolds was once Goyer's choice (he's not involved and will instead play Hal Jordan in Green Lantern).

TRANSFORMERS 3
According to Michael Bay's official site, the director has settled on where two big action sequences will be shot for Transformers 3:
Spoke with Michael today and got some little info on TF3: there will be big action sequences shot in Chicago and Moscow this time around.
The third installment, again starring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, will be released in theaters on July 1, 2011.

On The Tube ANONYMOUS
Empire Online reports that Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis and Rhys Ifans have all joined ANONYMOUS, the Shakespeare- themed royal political thriller that big-budget disaster movie helmer Roland Emmerich ("2012," "The Day After Tomorrow") will direct.
John Orloff ("A Mighty Heart") penned the script which explores the theory that Shakespeare was not the author of his plays, but rather Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. The film will also explore the declining years of Elizabeth the First's reign as her court devolved into feuding factions between the Cecils and the Essex's. The aim is expected to be a dark and tense thriller along the lines of 1998's Oscar-winning "Elizabeth".
Redgrave will play Elizabeth, David Thewlis will be both the old and young incarnations of William Cecil, and Rhys Ifans will be the Earl of Oxford. Shooting kicks off in Berlin next month.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2010

-
SPIDERMAN AND JAMES CAMERON
Director James Cameron, who raised 3-D filmmaking to new heights with AVATAR, is downplaying reports that he is consulting with director Marc Webb about a rebooted SPIDER-MAN movie.
Though Cameron's AVATAR producing partner Jon Landau told MTV that the duo met with Webb, Cameron now tells MTV, "I never talked with them directly." Cameron added that he's happy to speak with Webb, who will be shooting the new Spidey movie in 3-D, but added, "It's not like I want to tell them how to do it. ... It's more like, just don't make the same dumbass mistakes that we made for 10 years."
As for what Cameron would like to see in a new, rebooted Spider-Man? (Remember that Cameron himself once wanted to adapt Spidey to the movies.) "I'd like to seem him reinvented in the same way that Batman got reinvented. ... That's very successful," he said.

NINE LIVES
Steven Spielberg's proposed supernatural miniseries NINE LIVES, which was original developed for Syfy, is now being rewritten for NBC, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Executive producer Les Bohem, who previously partnered with Spielberg for Syfy's TAKEN miniseries, is reportedly reworking the script to appeal to a broader audience.
The 12-hour miniseries was originally slated to air on Syfy in 2007.
[It] revolves around a group of people who find a way to reunite with their loved ones in the afterlife through near-death experiences, but those journeys unleash an evil force. ...
Bohem is reworking the script for a broader broadcast audience. NBC won't make any decision until reading the latest draft, but it's eyeing "Nine Lives" as a direct-to-series vehicle.

FINAL ORBIT
According to Production Weekly, John Moore is attached to direct FINAL ORBIT, a sci-fi thriller based on the graphic novel adapted by Phil De Blasi & Byron Willinger, about lottery winners who are vacationing on the International Space Station when it is damaged and they find themselves trapped.

John Schneider BACK NINE
SMALLVILLE's John Schneider has been tapped to star in the single-camera BACK NINE for Spike TV. Schneider portrays Ronnie Barnes, a hard-drinking, larger-than-life, washed-up former U.S. Open champion. He travels the country competing in small-time tournaments with Tiger, his sex-addicted longtime caddy, in order to qualify again for the PGA Tour. Miguel Nunez is in negotiations to play Tiger in the project written by Jason Filardi ("17 Again") and Mark Perez ("Accepted").
Spike put the BACK NINE script on the fast track almost a year ago. Filardi and Perez also are set to direct the pilot for BACK NINE and executive produce with John Lynch.
Schneider recently recurred on THE SECRET LIFE OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER, 90210 and NIP/TUCK. BACK NINE is looking to join Spike's two new sports-themed scripted comedy series: BLUE MOUNTAIN STATE and the upcoming PLAYERS.

NEW NIKITA NAMED
According to the Hollywood Reporter, The CW has cast Maggie Q (Mission: Impossible III) as the new NIKITA. The character was first played by Anne Parillaud in Luc Besson's 1990 film, followed by Bridget Fonda in the 1993 remake and Peta Wilson in the 1997 USA Network series. According to the trade, The CW's premise of a new Nikita being trained to replace the original one after she goes rogue gave creator Craig Silverstein an opportunity to break the stereotype, and he wrote the lead as "beautiful and exotic."

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2010

SUPERNATURAL NEWS
Yesterday, we reported the good news that SUPERNATURAL had been picked up for another year. Today we note that creator Eric Kripke is planning to step down as co-show-runner, along with his current co-show- runner, Robert Singer. While the men promise to continue to act as hands-on executive producers, Sera Gamble will move into the pivotal show-runner role, taking over day-to-day operations of the series. According to EW.com, "Eric and Bob will be working very closely with Sera. They are not abandoning the show."
Since the series began, Kripke has been saying that he had a five-year plan for SUPERNATURAL. Since season five has spent much of its time dealing with an apocalyptic battle between angels and the devil, with Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester caught in the middle, it seems like Kripke's plan was well in place. However, since the season started, Kripke's seemed to hedge his bets and had stated that he could now see the story might continue.
Gamble is an executive producer and talented writer who's been with the show since season one. In an e-mail exchange with The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan, Gamble was asked if viewers might be seeing "The Apocalypse 2: The Squeakquel," and Gamble replied:
"No, you will not be getting Apocalypse, The Squeakquel in Season 6 (that's hilarious). We're climaxing that story this season. We've been working on the Season 6 storyline for quite some time, and we're very excited about it. We have lots of ideas, and are grateful for the chance to keep the show going."
"Please tell the fans that the writers say thank you! We so appreciate the support."

Treasure Island TREASURE ISLAND UPDATE
Variety reports that Ecosse Films is moving forward with a contemporary adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's TREASURE ISLAND.
Taking a page from the success of SHERLOCK HOLMES, the project will update the 19th century tale with a 'hipper' contemporary sensibility and a stronger focus on the relationship between Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins Douglas Rae and Robert Bernstein will produce while Niall Johnson ("Callas") is penning the script.

WARNER/TALPA MEDIA PARTNERSHIP
Warner Horizon, a unit of Warner Bros TV, is teaming with Holland's Talpa Media to develop series for the American market based on the latter's formats.
Under terms of the agreement Stateside, Warner Horizon TV will have exclusive rights to develop and produce shows, jointly with Talpa, for cable and broadcast in the U.S. based on reality and game formats which have already been telecast in the Netherlands.
For Talpa, the arrangement gives the Dutch-based producer entree into a major new marketplace for its programs and the support and expertise of a key local player in it.
Current formats in Talpa's collection include "The Golden Cage," "Viper's Nest" and "Pretty Smart."
In a similar move in France, Talpa recently partnered with Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine to exploit its formats and finished product in the Gallic market.
Warner Horizon TV produces the "Bachelor" and "Bachelorette" franchises as well as "High School Reunion."
It is unclear if any money changed hands in the deal or what the split in profits would be from eventual broadcast fees.

FINAL ORBIT
According to Production Weekly, John Moore is attached to direct the 20th Century Fox action-thriller FINAL ORBIT, based on the graphic novel adapted by Phil De Blasi & Byron Willinger.
Back in June of 2008, publisher Platinum Studios announced that Gale Anne Hurd's Valhalla Motion Pictures would co-develop and produce a feature film.
FINAL ORBIT tells the story of some lottery winners who are vacationing on the International Space Station but when it is damaged, the vacation becomes a nightmare, trapping the tourists alone in a crippled module with no astronauts to help them.
Moore's credits include MAZ PAYNE, THE OMEN, FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX and BEHIND ENEMY LINES.

SOURCE CODE UPDATE
In a Twitter posting, MOON writer/director Duncan Jones announced Wednesday that Jeffrey Wright (QUANTUM OF SOLACE, CASINO ROYALE, ANGELS IN AMERICA) has joined Jake Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga and Michelle Monaghan in his new sci-fi thriller SOURCE CODE at Summit Entertainment.
In a recent interview, Gyllenhaal said that "'Source Code' is a kind of sci-fi thriller based in different time continuums. I play Colter Stevens and he's a helicopter pilot who finds himself in a very unlikely and disoriented situation."
According to previous reports, Stevens is part of an experimental government program to investigate a terrorist incident who finds himself in the body of an unknown commuter living and reliving a harrowing train bombing until he can find out who is responsible for it.
Farmiga will play a hands-on communications officer controlling Gyllenhaal as he travels through time and space. Monaghan is a woman on the train with whom the man is involved romantically.

FASTER
Variety reports that Carla Gugino has signed on to CBS Films revenge thriller FASTER, joining a cast that includes Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, Maggie Grace, Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Moon Bloodgood.
Johnson will play an ex-con bent on avenging the death of his brother, murdered 10 years earlier when the two were double-crossed during a heist.
Gugino plays the detective in charge of the investigation, hot on his trail and hell-bent on connecting the killings with a decade-old case.
Directed by George Tillman Jr. from a script by Joe and Tony Gayton, the project started shooting earlier this month.

Erector ERECTOR
Indie producer Helix Films and the Meccano Toy Company are teaming to develop an original 3D feature film based on Meccano's Erector Set toy line.
Meccano was conceived in England in 1901 as a model toy construction system which enables the building of working models and mechanical devices. The products are currently sold in more than 80 countries.
The tone will be a family fantasy/adventure but plot details are being kept quiet. The project is developing an original script with the aim of creating a film franchise.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2010

Taryn Manning HAWAII FIVE-O CASTING NEWS
The Hollywood Reporter provides more details on casting for the upcoming HAWAII FIVE-O remake. Taryn Manning is forging family ties with Alex O'Loughlin on the series. Manning ("Hustle & Flow," "Drive") will play Mary Ann McGarrett, the sister of O'Loughlin's Detective Steve McGarrett, in CBS' "Five-O" remake. (The character was not a regular part of the original 1968-80 series, appearing in only a couple of episodes early in the show's run.) She joins O'Loughlin and "Lost" star Daniel Dae Kim in the cast.

Twilight Eclipse TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE
Bryce Dallas Howard takes over the role of the evil vampire Victoria in the upcoming THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE. Here is the first look at the red-haired star as Victoria, a role previously played by Rachelle Lefevre, in an encounter with Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson. Fearnet says:
The new image shows Victoria (Howard) with her hands around Edward's (Pattinson) head, preparing to kill him the old-fashioned way: by tearing his head clean off. Victoria's boy-toy Riley (Xavier Samuel) is also present, restraining Edward who kneels in pain.
Twilight devotees will notice that nothing exactly like this happens in the book, although Edward does face off with the vengeful Victoria in the snow, so it seems as though screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg has taken some creative liberties to raise the stakes in the third, and more suspenseful, film installment.
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE is in theaters June 30.

Supernatural RENEWAL FOR THE VAMPIRE DIARIES AND SUPERNATURAL
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and SUPERNATURAL fans can rejoice! Both shows received early pickups from The CW for next season, meaning a second season for breakout hit THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and a sixth season for the apocalyptic SUPERNATURAL. THE DIARIES pickup was expected, since the teenage vampire romance is The CW's most watched series, with 4.6 million total viewers, and the network's number-one show among those coveted 18-34-year-old adults. The series debuted on The CW with their largest audience ever, at 5.7 million total viewers and increased 18-34-year-old female viewership on Thursdays at 8 p.m. by a whopping 114 percent.
But SUPERNATURAL's pickup was less certain, though the series did improve over last season among 18-34-year-old women by 29 percent and adults by 8 percent. The CW's press release praised SUPERNATURAL, saying that it has "one of the most loyal audiences of any show on television and does heroic work in a perennially tough time period."
Beyond angels, demons, the devil and an apocalypse, SUPERNATURAL has indeed managed to survive for years airing in the toughest timeslot on the schedule, Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, opposite ABC's GREY's ANATOMY and CBS's CSI. This season, Fox threw FRINGE into the mix as well. On the other hand, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES' strong female viewership has given SUPERNATURAL, a lead-in that has introduced some of that desirable audience to the charms of the Brothers Winchester.
One CW show that's still waiting to learn its future is SMALLVILLE, which is in its ninth season. While the soon-to-be- Superman series lost viewers when it was moved from Thursdays to Fridays, SMALLVILLE stabilized and actually began performing well, considering the universally low ratings that Friday shows receive.

Peter Sarsgaard GREEN LANTERN VILLAIN
Peter Sarsgaard (An Education) goes before the cameras in March in the role of GREEN LANTERN's villainous Hector Hammond, the infamous massively domed telepath with the tiny, withered body.
Sarsgaard's excited to wrap his brain around the role. "It's something completely different for me and something that I've not done before," he told us at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where he received a Cinema Vanguard Award. "I imagine that if I'd done 10 of them I wouldn't be as excited as I am, but it's not the kind of thing that I normally do. It feels expansive to me. It feels like shackles being taken off instead of being put on. I just feel like I can do anything with this role." Sarsgaard said "meeting [director] Martin Campbell" was what hooked him on taking on the enemy to Ryan Reynolds' ring-slinger� he wasn't initially familiar with the comic-book villain. "I can't really talk much about it, because we have to protect it, but it's a very, very fun role, and I just don't get the opportunity to play a role that is so expansive and delicious�and it really is!"
He's mum on whether the movie incarnation of Hammond will be visually faithful to the comics version first drawn by classic Silver Age artist Gil Kane, but he claims he was not taken aback when he first saw the original incarnation. "No," he chuckled. "I think it's awesome!" GREEN LANTERN is due in 2011.

Montgomery/Blucas TRUE BLUE
The Hollywood Reporter writes that WITHOUT A TRACE alumna Poppy Montgomery and Marc Blucas are set as leads on the ABC drama pilot TRUE BLUE. TRUE BLUE, from ABC Studios, revolves around six former best friends who rose through the ranks at the San Francisco Police Department and reunite to solve the murder of one of their own.
Montgomery plays one of the six, the only female police captain in San Francisco, who was once married to another member of the team (Blucas), a detective.
Blucas also co-starred on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Peter Horton is directing the pilot exec produced by Jon Feldman, Chris Brancato and Bert Salke.

TERRA NOVA
Variety reports that Steven Spielberg and Peter Chernin are in negotiations to board Fox's drama project TERRA NOVA, which is described as following a family from 100 years in the future who travel back in time 150 million years to the strange and inhospitable environs of prehistoric Earth.
The trade adds that the project would involve such elaborate sets and visual effects that there's been talk of greenlighting it directly to series production rather than a pilot because it would be too expensive to shut down and start up again during the downtime between pilot and first season's episodes.
The script for TERRA NOVA was co-written by Craig Silverstein and British writer Kelly Marcel, from an idea of Marcel's. Silverstein and Marcel would serve as executive producers along with Aaron Kaplan. Spielberg and Chernin would also executive produce, but deals for the two are not in place yet. If Spielberg comes aboard, DreamWorks TV's Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank would also sign on as executive producers, as would Chernin Entertainment TV's Katherine Pope.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2010

Michael Trucco V
The TV Guide reports that BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's Michael Trucco is going from Cylon to lizard alien on ABC's V, taking on the role of the mysterious resistance leader named John May. "John May Lives" has been a battle cry of sorts against the Visitors in the series so far, but we've seen neither hide nor hair (nor alien reptilian skin) of May so far.
According to the four episodes we saw of V last fall, May is the founder and leader of the Fifth Column, the group of Vs who are against their peoples' plans for Earth and the human race. Ryan (Morris Chestnut), a sleeper V who has been on Earth since before the Visitors arrived, once was involved in the resistance. Now he and Earthlings Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Father Jack (Joel Gretsch) are attempting to resurrect the Fifth Column.
V will return to ABC's schedule on March 30 with eight new episodes. So far, Trucco is set to appear as John May for only one episode, on April 13.
Trucco played another key role in BATTLESTAR GALACTICA as Sam Anders, Kara Thrace's husband and one of the Final Five Cylons.

VLAD
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Scott Kosar has been brought on to work on the screenplay for Summit Entertainment's VLAD. Actor Charlie Hunnam ("Sons of Anarchy") wrote the original script, which takes an action-oriented look at Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler, as a young prince. Music video director and photographer Anthony Mandler recently came aboard to direct the project and will shepherd Kosar's work on the screenplay.
Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner are producing through their Plan B shingle. Summit president of production Erik Feig and vp production Meredith Milton are overseeing the project. Jeremy Kleiner is shepherding for Plan B.
Kosar wrote the script for the 2003 "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake, the 2005 "Amityville Horror" remake and "The Machinist." He also co-wrote the screenplay for the remake of George A. Romero's "The Crazies," which Overture releases Feb. 26.

Frankenstein FRANKENSTEIN
Variety reports that Ralph Winter and Terry Botwick have acquired feature rights to Dean Koontz's "Frankenstein" through their 1019 Entertainment. Three titles in Koontz's series have been published, with the fourth scheduled for release in June.
Here's how the books are described:
Every city has secrets. But none as terrible as this. His name is Deucalion, a tattooed man and sleight-of-reality artist who's traveled for two centuries with a secret worse than death. He arrives in modern-day New Orleans as a serial killer stalks the streets, a killer who carefully selects his victims for the humanity that is missing in himself.
Is this an age-old conspiracy? A near-immortal race of beings, and killers that are more – and less – than human? They are stronger, heal better, and think faster than any humans ever created – and they must be destroyed. But not even Victor Helios – once Dr. Frankenstein – can stop the engineered killers he's set loose.
On the case is Detective Carson O'Connor, who is cool, cynical, and every bit as tough as she looks. Her partner Michael Maddison would back her up all the way to hell itself – and that just may be where this case ends up.
Now, the only hope rests in Deucalion, a one-time "monster" and Frankenstein's first attempt to build a perfect human, and his partners, the all-too-human detectives O'Connor and Maddison. Together, they must destroy a monstrosity that even Dr. Frankenstein could not imagine. Deucalion's journey is fated to end in the ultimate confrontation between a damned creature his mad creator.
"These books have enough twists and turns to keep the public coming back to the theaters for many years to come," Winter and Botwick said. The project will be produced by Winter and Botwick along with 1019 Entertainment executive Whitney Thomas.
The first book is titled "Prodigal Son," the second is "City of Night" and third is "Dead and Alive." The fourth book, "Lost Souls," will be published June 22.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2010

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
The weekend's fantasy/supernatural films failed to break into the top spot in the President's Day/ Valentine's Day box office, with PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF edging out THE WOLFMAN for second place. PERCY JACKSON took in an estimated $31.1 million domestically over three days to outpace THE WOLFMAN, with $30.6 million, the Associated Press reported. Both opened on Friday. AVATAR stayed strong but fell to fourth place for the weekend, with $22 million, raising its domestic total to $659.6 million and its worldwide haul to $2.35 billion.
Not suprisingly, the top movie at the V-Day weekend box office was the romantic comedy VALENTINE'S DAY.

Sharktopus SHARKTOPUS
Syfy's original movies director Karen O'Hara tweeted last week the network has greenlit a long-rumored SHARKTOPUS movie -- and directed by B-movie king Roger Corman.
Wrote O'Hara: "Just got off the phone with the legendary Roger Corman who's doing a new movie for us this year. Yes, it's the long-rumored SHARKTOPUS! ... Spent half am hour discussing what a sharktopus should look like, how many mouths it should have and how it should kill. That's my job!"

Deniro/Scorsese DENIRO/SCORSESE PAIR AGAIN
According to Reuters, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro are re-teaming for a presently untitled mobster drama. At the premiere of SHUTTER ISLAND at Berlinale on the weekend, Scorsese says "Bob De Niro (and I) are talking about something that has to do with that world… We're working on something like that, but it's from the vantage point of older men looking back, none of this running around stuff."
Scorsese and De Niro previously worked together on RAGING BULL, TAXI DRIVER, CAPE FEAR and CASINO.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan UNBLINKING EYE
Jeffrey Dean Morgan ("Watchmen," "P.S. I Love You") is set to star in the psychological thriller THE UNBLINKING EYE for Wind Fish Motion Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter. The story begins with a determined journalist hunting down a retired homicide detective (Morgan) who has become a recluse after nearly being killed by a serial killer. Dark stories from both their pasts come out as the pair face each other.
Michael Bassett ("Solomon Kane") penned the script and is directing while Juliusz Kossakowski and Kevan Van Thompson will produce. Filming kicks off in May.

SHIVER
Variety reports that scribe Nick Pustay ("Ramona and Beezus") has been hired to adapt Maggie Stiefvater's supernatural romance novel SHIVER for Unique Features. The first in a trilogy, the story covers a bittersweet paranormal romance between a teen who becomes a wolf each winter and his girlfriend, who helps him find the secret to staying human.
Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne will produce. The second novel in the series, LINGER, is scheduled to be released next August.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2010

Valentine's Day WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros.' ensemble romantic comedy VALENTINE'S DAY delivered a sweet $14.6 in estimated first-day boxoffice Friday to start the four-day President’s Day weekend in first place. The New Line-produced ensemble romancer is sure to pad its lead big-time during Sunday's titular holiday. A four-day bow north of $50 million is likely.
Elsewhere in the daily rankings, Universal debuted the Benicio Del Toro starrer THE WOLFMAN with $9.8 million, good for second place among the daily rankings. The horror pic's daily grosses will be closely watched for the balance of the holiday-stretched session, as patron word of mouth will be key to its success after many critics snapped at WOLFMAN.
Fox's family adventure PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF saw $9.7 million in opening- day coin to launch in third place, with prospects of more robust b.o. once the weekend's kid-filled matinees kick in.
Fox-distributed AVATAR rung up $4.5 million on Friday, taking up fourth place following its first frame of inhabiting anywhere but the top spot. The sci-fi epic totes $642.1 million in cumulative domestic box office.
Entering its sophomore session, Sony/Relativity's romantic drama DEAR JOHN scribbled $4.1 million in fifth place for with an eight-day cume of $43 million.
Lionsgate's John Travolta starrer FROM PARIS WITH LOVE -- another soph-session holdover -- fetched $2.7 million in seventh place Friday for a $13.8 million cume.

TEEN WOLF REMAKE
According to reports out on the internet, Russell Mulcahy (Resident Evil: Extinction) will direct the pilot for MTV's "Teen Wolf," a reinvention of the 1985 movie starring Tyler Posey, Tyler Hoechlin, Crystal Reed and Dylan O'Brien. The pilot was written by "Criminal Minds" creator Jeff Davis.
MTV's take on the film, which starred Michael J. Fox, is a dramatic thriller with a buddy-comedy element at the center and a romantic plot line. It revolves around Scott McCall (Posey), a dorky high-school student who gets a rush of new powers, including the ability to attract girls, after a wolf attack. The pilot is filming in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mind Hunter MIND HUNTER
Variety reports that Charlize Theron and David Fincher have teamed to develop a drama series titled MIND HUNTER for HBO and Fox 21. The series will revolve around the investigation of serial killers. Fox 21 has optioned the book "Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit," by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. The book recounts Douglas' experiences as a top FBI investigator of serial killers and rapists, and the profiling techniques he developed.
Scott Buck, an executive producer on DEXTER, has been hired to write the pilot. Theron and Fincher are executive producing along with Jennifer Orme Erwin and Buck.

MAGNIFICENT ELEVEN
"Trainspotting" Irvine Welsh will direct gritty UK comedy The Magnificent Eleven, a modern-day version of the classic 1960 western THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, reports Screen Daily.
In the updated story, the Cowboys are a local amateur soccer team, the Indians run a nearby Tandoori restaurant and the bandits are a group of menacing thugs run by a maniac called Blonde Bob.
Sean Bean, Dougray Scott and Robert Vaughan, the veteran actor who is the last surviving cast member from the original "Magnificent Seven," will star.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2010

Primeval PRIMEVAL IS BACK
The BBC America's sci-fi series PRIMEVAL (also shown on Syfy) story revolves around a group of scientists, cops and soldiers investigating temporal rifts around England that have allowed prehistoric creatures such as mammoths, saber-toothed cats, dodos and flesh-eating fungus to wreak havoc in the present.
Despite being a three-season hit in the U.K., PRIMEVAL was actually canceled last June due to the massive budget needed to produce the ambitious CG dinos and futuristic creatures for the small screen. But the series was saved from extinction by a complicated funding partnership involving five production entities (including BBC World), which ensures it will be back for a fourth and fifth season featuring a cumulative 13 episodes in 2011.
"It's the show you can't kill," co-creator and writer Adrian Hodges said with a laugh in an exclusive phone interview on Wednesday. Hodges revealed that he and his team are already deep into the development of season four. "We are actually just casting two or three new major roles right now. We'll have them cast in the next week or two. We also have scripts for the first six episodes and storylines and treatments for the remaining seven. We start shooting in the middle of March." The third-season finale of PRIMEVAL left heroic team leader Danny Quinn (Jason Flemyng) trapped in Pliocene Africa, leaving fans to wonder whether he will ever return.
Hodges revealed that season four "will be starting a year later [from the end of season three]. All the cast you know will reappear, but they won't all necessarily reappear straightaway or for the whole season. However, we will be giving satisfying answers to all those cliffhangers." You can catch up with a PRIMEVAL marathon on Syfy on March 2.

Adrien Brody SPLICE
According to Deadline.com, a monster-sized deal is in the works for the Frankenstein-esque film SPLICE, thanks to the Sundance Film Festival. Two weeks after the film premiered at Sundance, producer Joel Silver's Dark Castle is in the final stages of closing a huge distribution deal, which includes a wide summer release on 3,000 screens and a marketing commitment somewhere between $25 million and $40 million. SPLICE, a tale of genetic mutation gone wrong, stars Adrien Brody (King Kong) and Sarah Polley (Dawn of the Dead) as two scientists who combine human and animal DNA to create a new creature. The Cube's Vincenzo Natali directed the film, with executive producer Guillermo del Toro guiding the project for over a year.
Sundance often generates film offers, but usually at $5 million or less. While the megabucks potential for Splice is huge, the Dark Castle deal is not the first deal via Sundance that SPLICE has been close to having. We'll have to wait and see if it goes through.

DAVID GOYER - WRITER
David S. Goyer former show runner for FlashForward and TV writer/author Michael Cassutt have signed a three-book deal with Penguin's imprint, Ace Books, to write a sci-fi adventure trilogy, including HEAVEN'S SHADOW, HEAVEN'S WAR and HEAVEN'S FALL, according to Variety.
The HEAVEN trilogy involves what happens when an object hurtling through space toward Earth threatens to destroy the human race. Two rival teams of astronauts race to intercept the apparent meteor, only to discover alien forces when they land on the object.
"The idea of telling a big story over a series of novels is something I've been thinking about for a while, and a little over a year ago I actually got down to doing a treatment for one and invited Michael to write the series with me," Goyer said.
The trilogy is Goyer's first adventure as a novelist. However, he has written several films, including BATMAN BEGINS, the BLADE films and the upcoming X-MEN ORIGINS: MAGNETO. He also is developing a new version of THE INVISIBLE MAN for Universal and Imagine Entertainment. In TV, he developed BLADE: THE SERIES and executive-produced THRESHOLD.
Cassutt has been writing for TV for more than 20 years, including working as a story editor on MAX HEADROOM, a staff writer for THE TWILIGHT ZONE and a co-executive producer for Showtime's THE OUTER LIMITS. He has also written several novels, such as Tango Midnight, and nonfiction books, including We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race.

THREE MUSKETEERS
Variety reports that SHERLOCK HOLMES producer Lionel Wigram is setting up a similar period-set but modern-toned update of another great literary adventure, Alexandre Dumas' THE THREE MUSKETEERS at Warner Bros. Pictures. Peter Straughan ("The Men Who Stare at Goats") has been hired to pen an adaptation that will play up the action, humor and 'sexier' elements of the story.
No director or cast has yet been announced. The project is not linked with Paul W. Anderson's 3D version of the story currently in development.

Beau Garrett NEW SERIES NEWS
CRIMINAL MINDS SPIN-OFF
According to the Hollywood Reporter, CBS has tapped Beau Garrett as the female lead for it's new CRIMINAL MINDS spinoff series. Garrett will play a new FBI recruit who joins the team of profilers led by Forest Whitaker's character. The proposed spinoff will be introduced in a CRIMINAL MINDS episode toward the end of the season. Garrett co-stars in TRON LEGACY later this year. Her other credits include TURISTAS, 4: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER and an episode of HOUSE earlier this season.

NUMBERS
NUMBERS star David Krumholtz is going back to his comedy roots in a FOX pilot executive produced by Ron Howard and set in an IRS office, the HR says. Krumholtz will play an auditor whose boss won't leave him alone. NUMBERS is on the bubble for renewal this year for CBS, so the pilot is in second position to NUMBERS.

CHASE
Cole Hauser ("K-Ville") and former "Prison Break" regular Amaury Nolasco have joined NBC's CHASE, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced drama about a team that tracks fugitives. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Hauser will play the head of the unit and Nolasco the team's intelligence specialist.

CHAOS
Freddy Rodriguez ("Six Feet Under," "Ugly Betty") will star in CBS' drama CHAOS, which follows a group of CIA agents who work around government bureaucracy to get results.

BEING HUMAN
The second season of BEING HUMAN will debut on BBC America in late summer, with the third season following shortly, the network announced.

THE LOSERS
Warner Brothers has pushed its comic-based action movie THE LOSERS to June 4 from its original April 9 release date to move it out of the way of CLASH OF THE TITANS, which comes out April 2 (to allow for the addition of 3-D effects).

SUPERHERO CONTEST
Lionsgate is launching a Superhero Contest in connection with the superhero satirical movie Kick-Ass; entrants can create their own heroes and compete for a chance to win a cameo in a comic sequel. Go to http://www.iwillkickass.com/ for more information.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2010

Vin Diesel RIDDICK #3
According to Variety, Vin Diesel is confirmed to star in and produce a third installment installment in the CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK franchise. Universal Pictures will handle domestic distribution and Lionsgate is currently selling international rights.
David Twohy, who wrote and directed both PITCH BLACK and THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK, will direct again from a screenplay he wrote. Variety writes that the third film will be closer in tone to the cult hit PITCH BLACK and will focus on the character of Riddick as opposed to the universe he inhabits.
Diesel is first expected to star in Universal's FAST FIVE, the fifth installment in the FAST AND THE FURIOUS franchise.

Lone Ranger THE LONE RANGER
Heat Visision reports that Justin Haythe, who adapted Revolutionary Road, is negotiating to write the script for Walt Disney Pictures' THE LONE RANGER. Jerry Bruckheimer is producing the project, which will star Johnny Depp as Tonto. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN scribes Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were previously attached to write the script.
The Hollywood Reporter says Haythe's last gig at the studio, writing 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA: CAPTAIN NEMO, ended when the project was cancelled during the recent executive turnover.
The Lone Ranger's origin story begins with a group of Texas Rangers chasing down a gang of outlaws led by Butch Cavendish. The gang ambushes the Rangers, seemingly killing them all. One survivor is found, however, by an American Indian named Tonto, who nurses him back to health. The Ranger, donning a mask and riding a white stallion named Silver, teams up with Tonto to bring the unscrupulous gang and others of that ilk to justice.

THE LAST EXORCISM
Variety reports that Lionsgate has picked up the U.S. distribution rights for the Eli Roth-produced horror thriller THE LAST EXORCISM (formally titled "Cotton").
Helmed by German director Daniel Stamm, the cinema-verite style pic stars Patrick Fabian as a troubled evangelical minister who allows his final exorcism to be filmed by a documentary crew.
"It's always great to work with our friend Eli, who has played a key role in establishing Lionsgate in the vanguard of the horror genre," said Jason Constantine, Lionsgate's president of acquisitions and co-productions. "'The Last Exorcism' feels as close to a real exorcism as anyone would ever want to get -- audiences are going to find this movie scary as, well, hell."
THE LAST EXORCISM will premiere next month at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Shiver SHIVER
Unique Features' Michael Lynne and Bob Shaye are moving forward with supernatural romance Shiver, hiring Nick Pustay (Ramona and Beezus) to adapt the Maggie Stiefvater novel, according to Variety.
The Scholastic Press title is described as follows:
For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf�her wolf�is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human... until the cold makes him shift back again.
Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human�or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.
The second book, "Linger," will be published in August.

A LITTLE WAR OF OUR OWN
Variety reports that Kevin Costner will direct and star in action-adventure A LITTLE WAR OF OUR OWN, portraying a sheriff during World War II. Beacon Pictures is fully financing. Beacon topper Armyan Bern­stein will produce in his fourth teaming with Costner and their first since 2003's OPEN RANGE for Disney. Production's slated for fall.
A LITTLE WAR OF OUR OWN, penned by Dan Gordon, centers on a sheriff who must try to keep a town from exploding into violence. Beacon and Costner are beginning to cast, including pic's other lead role -- that of a German U-boat commander. Suzann Ellis, Jasa Abreo and Peter Almond will exec produce. IM Global is handling foreign sales and is introducing the project to distributors at Berlin's European Film Market this week.
"This has been a dream project for Kevin and I for years," Bernstein said. "The themes are timeless -- war, peace and reconciliation. The canvas is epic -- look at the movies Kevin has directed."
Costner won Oscars for best picture and director for DANCES WITH WOLVES. He starred with Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones in John Wells' feature directorial bow, THE COMPANY MEN, which screened at Sundance last month.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2010

Flash Forward FLASH FORWARD
ABC has gotten replacements for FlashForward. Jessika Borsiczky, Lisa Zwerling and Timothy J. Lea will take over as showrunners for the series, which returns to the air March 18. They take over for co-creator David Goyer, who will still be an executive producer but gave up his day-to-day duties on the show last week.
The network has also reduced "FlashForward's" episode order by one, from 23 to 22. The later-than-planned return (it was originally scheduled to come back March 4) meant that the additional episode wasn't needed. Borsiczky has been an executive producer of the series from the beginning, while Zwerling has been a co-exec producer and has written a couple episodes. Lea is a veteran of "CSI: NY" and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," among other shows.
"FlashForward" has gone through a couple of changes at the top during its brief life. Goyer and Brannon Braga co-created the show, and Mark Guggenheim was hired as showrunner following the pilot. Guggenheim left in October, after which Goyer took over.

SPIDER-MAN IN 3D
Sony has confirmed that its proposed reboot of SPIDER-MAN will be in 3-D and will hit theaters on July 3, 2012. Here's the full announcement:
SPIDER-MAN will swing into theaters worldwide in 3D beginning July 3, 2012, it was announced today by Jeff Blake, Chairman of Sony Pictures Worldwide Marketing & Distribution. The new film which is still untitled, will begin production later this year directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt. Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin will produce the film from Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios.
Commenting on the announcement, Blake said, "SPIDER-MAN is the ultimate summer movie-going experience, and we're thrilled the filmmakers are presenting the next installment in 3D. Spider-Man is one of the most popular characters in the world, and we know audiences are eager and excited to discover Marc's fantastic vision for Peter Parker and the franchise."

DUNE NEWS
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Chase Palmer has been hired to work on the DUNE script for director Pierre Morel at Paramount. Morel came aboard the project at the beginning of the year, and Palmer will work Morel's ideas into original scribe Josh Zetumer's screenplay. The "From Paris With Love" and "Taken" helmer is intent on hewing close to the source material, Frank Herbert's classic 1965 sci-fi tome.
David Lynch adapted the first novel into a feature for Universal in 1984.
Kevin Misher and Richard Rubinstein are producing the new Paramount version, which they hope will spark a franchise.

On The Tube NEW STEVE MC GARRETT NAMED FOR HAWAII FIVE-O
After much speculation, the Hollywood Reporter writes that Alex O'Loughlin is the new Detective Steve McGarrett. The "Moonlight" star has closed a deal to topline CBS' "Hawaii Five-0" remake. He will play the role of the head of the Hawaii State Police portrayed by Jack Lord in the original series. O'Loughlin, who was an early favorite for the part, joins recently cast "Lost" co-star Daniel Dae Kim, who will play Detective Chin Ho Kelly.
The new "Hawaii Five-0" hails from hot feature writers and "Fringe" co-creators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and "CSI: NY" executive producer/co-showrunner Peter Lenkov. CBS Studios is producing. "Hawaii Five-0" marks O'Loughlin's third starring vehicle at CBS, following "Moonlight" and this season's medical drama "Three Rivers."
CBS brass certainly hope that the third time will be the charm for O'Loughlin the way it was for another network favorite, Simon Baker, who starred in CBS' short-lived drama series "The Guardian" and "Smith" before headlining hit "The Mentalist."

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2010

ROUND 2 OF THE SNOW STORM HERE
I can't believe I am in Washington -- and not Pennsyvlania! We have about 20 inches on the ground and it has started snowing again -- with a promise of 8-12 inches more! While everyone has been smart and closed schools and governments, this is unusual. It is beautiful -- but enough already!

Superman SUPERMAN/BATMAN NEWS
Warner Brothers is going to try to reboot its SUPERMAN franchise yet again, but the big news is that they're enlisting the man who turned Batman into one of the biggest movies of all time: THE DARK KNIGHT director Christopher Nolan.
According to Deadline Hollywood:
Our insiders say that the brains behind rebooted Batman has been asked to play a "godfather" role and ensure The Man Of Steel gets off the ground after a 3 1/2-year hiatus. Nolan's leadership of the project can set it in the right direction with the critics and the fans, not to mention at the box office. ... Superman 3.0 is in the early stages of development and no one knows if Nolan would direct. This wouldn't be a sequel to SUPERMAN RETURNS but a completely fresh franchise. As one of our insiders reassures: "It would definitely not be a followup to SUPERMAN RETURNS."
It's well known that Warner was disappointed with the results of Bryan Singer's 2006 reboot movie SUPERMAN RETURNS. Nolan is currently putting the finishing touches on his sci-fi mind-bender INCEPTION, which debuts on July 16.
Meanwhile, news that David Goyer had left ABC's FlashForward fueled speculation that he is turning his attention to a third Batman movie, which Deadline Hollywood confirms:
Now [Nolan's] brother and frequent collaborator Jonah Nolan and David Goyer who co-wrote BATMAN RETURNS and penned the story for THE DARK KNIGHT, are off scripting it.

TV NEWS
THE SHIELD's Michael Chiklis has landed the role as superdad in ABC's new superhero drama pilot NO ORDINARY FAMILY. In the pilot, Chikis plays the father of an American super family who all have special abilities. NO ORDINARY FAMILY was written by Greg Berlanti (Eli Stone) and Jon Feldman (Tru Calling) and comes from ABC Studios. Chiklis won an Emmy for his role as the rogue supercop Vic Mackey on FX's THE SHIELD; however, he's no stranger to superhero movies. He played the Thing in the FANTASTIC FOUR movie franchise and has been very in demand this pilot season.

In other pilot casting news, we reported that LOST (and CRUSADE's) Daniel Dae Kim has been tapped to play Detective Chin Ho Kelly in the remake of HAWAII FIVE-O. Moonlight star Alex O'Loughlin is in talks to play the lead role of Detective Steve McGarrett (originally played by Jack Lord). And Stargate's Michael Shanks confirmed to us that he was reading for the part of Danno (originally played by James MacArthur).

THE CW has ordered a pilot for BETWIXT, which takes place in an urban setting and revolves around "changelings" who try to save humans from evil. Elizabeth Chandler (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) wrote the script, which is being executive-produced by Paul Stupin (Make It or Break It).

Frank Grillo THE GATES
The Hollywood Reporter indicates that PRISON BREAK alum Frank Grillo has landed the lead in ABC's supernatural crime drama series THE GATES. Luke Mably, Janina Gavankar and Chandra West also have been cast in the project, which Terry McDonough has come on board to direct.
GATES is produced by Fox TV Studios through the company's international co-production model. Its green light was contingent on FtvS securing foreign financing. The series, being eyed for a summer launch, moved forward after ABC stepped up and increased the license fee on it while FtvS continues conversations with international broadcasters.
Written by Richard Hatem and Grant Scharbo, GATES centers on a big-city cop (Grillo) who becomes chief of police in a seemingly sleepy planned community only to discover there's much more to the residents than meets the eye.
Mably ("The Prince and Me") will play one of the residents, a cardiologist who is a vampirelike creature. Gavankar ("The L Word") will play a local cop with a dark secret. West ("90210") will play the owner of a tea shop.

Stan Lee STAN LEE AND SEVEN
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Andy Heyward's recently launched A Squared Entertainment and Archie Comics have partnered with Stan Lee for a multimedia comic book property, SUPER SEVEN, which will feature the comic book icon. Lee, the Marvel legend and chairman and founder of POW!, is creating SEVEN, about seven aliens who find themselves stranded on Earth after their spaceship crashes and are befriended by Lee himself. Taking them under his care, Lee becomes their leader and enables them to resume their lives as superheroes.
"Although I've briefly appeared in other comics, 'Super Seven' is the first time that I'll actually be a continuing character in a far-out, original superhero series," Lee said.
"Seven" does not fall under the agreement between POW! and Disney, which this year acquired a 10% stake in Lee's company for $2.5 million.
Archie Comics will publish "Seven," and A Squared will focus on developing the project as a TV series and online property as well as handling licensing and merchandising. The partners are targeting a fall launch in print, online and on TV.

Mission: Impossible 4 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE IV
Paramount Pictures announced today that it is making MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE IV. The film, which will be produced by Tom Cruise, J.J. Abrams (Star Trek) and Bad Robot Productions and will star Cruise, will be released Memorial Day weekend 2011.
"Tom and J.J. are great talents and we are excited to be working with them to re-launch this legendary franchise," said Paramount Pictures Chairman & CEO Brad Grey.
Screenwriters Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec are attached to write the script, from an original idea by Cruise and Abrams.
The studio, Cruise and Abrams are in now the process of identifying a director for the film. Cruise's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE franchise has grossed over 1.4 billion globally.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE IV will be co-financed by David Ellison's Skydance Productions.
The move puts the fourth installment up against The Hangover 2, while Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides opens a week earlier on May 20th.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2010

CHUCK GETS TWO-HOUR FINALE
NBC has announced that CHUCK will end its third season the same way it started: with two hours of spy action comedy.
NBC has set season finale dates for most of its lineup, and the list includes a two-hour sendoff for CHUCK on Monday, May 24. The show should know its fate by then -- NBC's upfront, where it announces the schedule for 2010-11, is a week earlier on May 17.

Emily Rose HAVEN
Emily Rose (Jericho, Brothers and Sisters, ER) has been cast in Syfy's new supernatural drama series HAVEN, based on the novella The Colorado Kid from renowned author Stephen King. Rose will play the lead role of Audrey Parker, the shrewd and confident FBI agent with a lost past who arrives in the small town of Haven, Maine to solve the murder of a local ex-con. Before long, her natural curiosity lands her in the epicenter of activity in this curious enclave, which turns out to be a longtime refuge for people that are afflicted with a remarkable range of supernatural abilities.
As the townspeople's dormant abilities begin to express themselves, Audrey helps keep these forces at bay while discovering the many secrets of Haven - including one surrounding her own surprising past in this extraordinary place.
Production is expected to commence in Spring 2010, with an eye towards a Summer 2010 premiere.
The impressive creative team behind Haven includes Scott Shepherd (Tru Calling, The Dead Zone) serving as showrunner and is joined by his partners Executive Producers Lloyd Segan and Shawn Piller (The Dead Zone, Wildfire, Greek) and E1 Entertainment's John Morayniss (Hung,) and Noreen Halpern (The Bridge, Copper). The pilot is written by Sam Ernst (Shrek the Third, The Dead Zone) and Jim Dunn (Shrek the Third, The Dead Zone) who will also serve as executive producers on the series.

TERMINATOR RIGHT SOLD
According to Deadline Hollywood, the Halcyon Holding Corp. has sold the TERMINATOR rights not to Sony Pictures or Lionsgate, but to Santa Barbara-based hedge fund Pacificor for $29.5 million. What's interesting is that Halcyon has previously accused Pacificor of extortion, bribery, and fraud and demanded $30M in damages.
Halcyon will receive $5 million for every TERMINATOR movie made from now on, as well as retains the revenue streams from the third and fourth TERMINATOR movies. An arrangement also was made that the sale now wipes out the debt Halcyon owed to Pacificor and all the other creditors.
Back on May 9, 2007, rights to the TERMINATOR series passed from producers Andy Vajna and Mario Kassar to the privately funded Halcyon for a reported $30 million. It was Pacificor that lent Halcyon the money to conclude the deal.

GREEN LANTERN CAST ADDITION
Heat Vision reports that Tim Robbins has joined the cast of director Martin Campbell's GREEN LANTERN at Warner Bros. Pictures. Robbins will play Senator Hammond, the disapproving father of the movie's villain, Dr. Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), who becomes infused with psychic powers.
Ryan Reynolds stars as Green Lantern, with Blake Lively as the hero's love interest, Carol Ferris. Filming is set to star in March in New Orleans. The studio is planning a June 17, 2011 release.

DREAM HOUSE
Rachel Weisz will star alongside Daniel Craig and Naomi Watts in Universal Pictures' DREAM HOUSE. The Morgan Creek production is being directed by Jim Sheridan and was written by David Loucka. Filming began Sunday in Toronto.
The film is about a family that relocates into what appears to be the ideal residence in small town Connecticut. However, the father (Craig) and his family are disturbed to discover that their beautiful new home was the site of another family's slaughter, believed to be at the hands of the husband who survived. Weisz will play the wife and Watts is the family's neighbor.

CONTAGION
Variety reports that Marion Cotillard and Kate Winslet are in talks to join Steven Soderbergh's CONTAGION. Matt Damon and Jude Law are set for the action-thriller.
Soderbergh's been developing the project with producing partner Gregory Jacobs. Participant Media is in talks to co-finance and produce. Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher of Double Feature Films are also producing. The plan is to shoot the project later this year.
CONTAGION, based on a script penned by Scott Z. Burns, revolves around the threat posed by a deadly disease, with multiple plotlines in the style of Soderbergh's "Traffic."
Soderbergh currently is lensing "Knockout" for Relativity Media. Project stars Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor and martial arts champ Gina Carano.

MONDAY, FEBRUARAY 9, 2010

YESTERDAY'S SUPER BOWL
Well, did your team win? If not, did you enjoy the commercials? Some of them were exceptionally clever -- some were just dumb! I loved the Betty White commercial and am happy that it was rated #1. I also liked the Monster.com ad with the beaver playing the violin. The Dorito commercial with the little kid was great! But the others were not memorable for the product they were trying to get you to buy or use. The career-builder commercial with everyone in their underwear was awful. The Dorito commercial with the guy in the coffin full of the chips was in poor taste. The E-trade commercials with the babies are always good for a laugh. What did you think?

Daneil Dae Kim DANIEL DAE KIM IN HAWAII FIVE-O
According to the Hollywood Reporter, LOST's (CRUSADE's Lt. Matheson) Daniel Dae Kim is staying in Hawaii with a lead role on CBS' HAWAII FIVE-0 remake.
In CBS' updated take on the classic cop series, from CBS Studios, Kim will play Detective Chin Ho Kelly, a role played in the original series by Kam Fong.
The part of Detective Steve McGarrett has not yet been cast, though "Moonlight" star Alex O'Loughlin continues to be in talks for it.
The new "Hawaii Five-0" hails from hot feature writers and "Fringe" co-creators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and "CSI: NY" executive producer/co-showrunner Peter Lenkov.
Kim, who played Jin Kwon on "Lost" for its six-season run, is the first actor from the show's core cast to book a new series project this pilot season as the ABC mystery drama heads to its May finale.

Dear John WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
James Cameron's AVATAR, which has dominated the box office for the last seven weekends, finally slipped to second place the weekend of Feb. 5, but still took in a strong $23.6 million. That raised the blockbuster's domestic total to $630.1 million, the Associated Press reported.
Screen Gems' new drama DEAR JOHN, starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, took the industry by surprise taking the #1 spot away from James Cameron's AVATAR. Directed by Lasse Hallstrom and based on the Nicholas Sparks novel, Dear John earned an estimated $32.4 million from 2,969 theaters, a strong average of $10,913 per theater. The film was made for about $25 million and the studio said its audiences were 84% female and two-thirds were under the age of 21. Screen Gems had hoped for an opening of about $20 million for the movie, which set a new Super Bowl weekend record, surpassing 2008's Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour ($31.1 million).

Captain America CAPTAIN AMERICA
Director Joe Johnston has addressed concerns that an Australian or Englishman would take the title role as CAPTAIN AMERICA. Johnson said categorically that he will cast an American in the title role of THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA.
"Casting an American? Absolutely," Johnston said in a news conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Saturday while promoting his next film, The Wolfman. "Oh, yeah. I don't think we could make the film without an American playing the part. But we may not be casting in America, because we're going to London. I think we'll probably shoot in the U.K. for most of it, because it takes place in Europe. But, yeah, we'll definitely be casting [an American]."
Johnston also revealed other details about his upcoming film:
"Expect a casting announcement no later than March 1. And expect an unknown. "I hope it'll be somebody that we discover and who's never been in ... �he's probably been in something, but you won't know who he is. You won't recognize him, and we'll surround him with more prominent names. That's who we're looking for. Will we find him? I don't know. It's tough."
"It won't be shot in 3-D, but it will be shot on high-definition video that could be converted to 3-D later. "We're not going to be shooting it specifically in 3-D, but this is the first film I will have shot in hi-def."
"It won't look like other superhero movies. "We're definitely going to shoot it in a different way than any of the other Marvel pictures have been shot. What I'm trying to do is look at the comics, mostly the new ones, mostly the [Ed] Brubaker series [from 2004] and to interpret that sort of visual style into a film in a way that I think has been tried before, but it always looks like it's a little too on the nose. It looks like, oh, they're shooting a comic-book movie. I want to try something a little bit different."
Johnston promises big action set pieces. "Right now we have to sort of pick our battles, because it's a little more than we can afford right now, but there are some great action sequences, stuff we haven't seen before."
CAPTAIN AMERICA is due in theaters on July 22, 2011.

THE THING
The website, Heat Vision, says that Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton will star in Universal's THE THING, the latest take on the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people.
Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing the the film, which was written by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer. Strike Entertainment's Marc Abraham and Eric Newman are producing.
Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins a series of attacks, she is forced to team with a blue-collar mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage.
The movie starts shooting on March 15 in Toronto.

THE DESCENDANTS
Variety reports that Shailene Woodley (ABC's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager") is set to star opposite George Clooney in Alexander Payne's THE DESCENDANTS.
Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, the revolves around an attorney (Clooney) who is forced to get closer to his daughters after a family tragedy. Woodley will play the oldest daughter.
Nat Faxon and Jim Rash wrote the script.
Payne will helm the pic and produce along with Jim Burke from a script adapted by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

TEXAS KILLING FIELDS
Variety indicates that AVATAR star Sam Worthington is in talks to front the cast of TEXAS KILLING FIELDS, a new thriller by Ami Canaan Mann. Her father Michael Mann will produce.
THe trade says the film is a murder mystery titled Texas Killing Fields and written by Donald F. Ferrarone. Shooting will start in April in Louisiana.
The film focuses on the true story of a pair of police officers who undertook to solve two decades of disappearances and homicides -- totaling as many as 60 victims -- in the industrial wastelands surrounding Gulf Coast refineries.
Worthington will portray a local homicide detective who works with a New York transplant to wage a war against the unknown but fierce killers.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2010

Up AWARD WATCH
The Hollywood Reporter reports that Pixar Animation Studio's "Up" was named best animated feature at the 37th annual Annie (animation) Awards, Saturday at UCLA's Royce Hall.
Nominated for five Academy Awards, "Up" is the odds-on favorite to win the Oscar for animated feature, and is only the second animated film to earn a nomination in the best picture category. It is also nominated for best screenplay, music and sound editing Oscars.
Other big Annie winners were "Coraline" and "The Princess and the Frog," with three awards each. Disney/Pixar's "Up" earned a total of two Annie trophies -- best animated feature and Pete Docter for direction -- extending its string of prior awards including last month's Golden Globe. In all, awards were presented in 23 Annie categories in features, TV and commercials.
The Annie for best animated feature has matched the eventual Oscar winner each year since the Academy Awards first awarded the category in 2002, except for twice. A year ago, the Annie Awards came under some scrutiny after DreamWorks' "Kung Fu Panda" dominated the Annies and won the top prize, shutting out eventual Oscar winner "Wall-E" from Pixar.
William Shatner hosted this year's Annie ceremony, which is presented annually by ASIFA-Hollywood, the Los Angeles chapter of the International Animated Film Society.
Winsor McCay Awards went to Tim Burton, Bruce Timm and Jeffrey Katzenberg, but only Katzenberg was in attendance. Tom Sito earned the June Foray honor. The Ub Iwerks Award went to William T. Reeves. Special Achievement Awards were presented to Martin Meunier and Brian McLean. Myles Mikulic, Danny Young and Michael Woodside received certificates of merit.

Taylor Lautner STRETCH ARMSTRONG
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Taylor Lautner has signed on to star in “Stretch Armstrong,� Universal’s movie based on the Hasbro toy. The studio is making the movie in 3D, which will push back the release date of the movie from May 15, 2011 to some time in 2012.
The story developed for the movie, being produced by Imagine and Hasbro, sees an uptight spy who stumbles across a stretching formula, which he takes and must now adjust to in everyday life and when fighting crime.
“In the past two years, Taylor has emerged as a real star at the global boxoffice. He brings the perfect balance of energy and athleticism to the role of an unlikely super hero with a fantastic super power,� said Universal co-chairman Donna Langley.
Taylor has emerged as the mainstream star from the “Twilight� movies, signing on to major tentpoles such as “Max Steel� or action vehicles such as “Cancun.� The actor, repped by WME and Management 360, has shown charisma and physical prowess on screen beyond the “Twilight� movies (a recent “Saturday Night Live� appearance is an example) and Lautner is being positioned to be this decade’s action star.

Red Skull CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE RED SKULL
THE WOLFMAN director, Joe Johnston, has been doing press for his new movie and Johnston confirmed that the Red Skull will indeed be the villain of the first movie and told Ryan a bit more about why they decided to set the majority of the movie during WWII:
"Virtually the entire story except the bookends are in World War II because we all recognize we have one chance to tell the origin story of how he became Captain America, you can't tell a modern story and then go back and tell the origin story. If you're going to do it, let's do it. Let's do it first. Everyone wanted to tell an origin story. There was a version where it was a modern story and it didn't work."
THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA is currently scheduled for release on July 22, 2011.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2010

Out My Front Door BLIZZARD CONTINUES
It has been a very long time since I've seen snow like this. In Pennsylvania, you would get a good snow every so many years. I guess the Washington area was due -- perhaps overdue -- for it's own massive blizzard. I have seen news reports indicating that it hasn't snowed like this since 1922 (a little further back than I go), but this is definitely one for the books. The snow outside measures a good 10 inches and with blowing snow, there are drifts that are taller than I am! And the storm isn't supposed to end until tonight! It is absolutely beautiful -- and in another time -- you would have been filled with wonder and joy -- waiting for daybreak to come so that you could go out and frolic in the snow until your clothes were too wet for you to carry them around any longer. Growing up takes all the fun out of a snow storm like this. All you can think of is the energy needed to shovel it -- and if the roads will be cleared in time to get somewhere. I doubt if anyone will be going anywhere today -- even on foot.

Flash Forward FLASHFORWARD GETS ANOTHER SHOWRUNNER
Co-creator and executive producer David Goyer is exiting as showrunner of the sci-fi thriller just months after he took over for former showrunner Mark Guggenheim, according to The Hollywood Reporter's Live Feed. Goyer created FlashForward with Star Trek's Brannon Braga. However, because Goyer had limited experience running a television series, Guggenheim, who co-created ABC's Eli Stone, took the reins. During the fall, Guggenheim then stepped down, leaving Goyer in charge for the show's back nine episodes.
The series, which is based on Robert Sawyer's novel about what happens when everyone on the planet blackouts at the same time for two minutes and 17 seconds and has visions of their future, started off with big ratings. However, FlashForward has struggled in its first season so far, and ABC removed it from the schedule in early December. The series is due to return to the ABC schedule on March 18 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, with the network planning to air original episodes through the end of the season without repeats or pre-emptions.
It's never a good sign when a series has showrunner trouble, since that key position is basically the captain of the ship, running all the day-to-day operations for a series. No word from ABC as yet as to who will take over for Goyer, but the production is still several episodes shy of the show's 23-hour order.
Goyer said: "As my feature projects have started ramping up again, I felt I was being pulled in too many directions. I'm proud of the show and excited about the relaunch. It's in great hands." Goyer will still maintain the title of executive producer, and still be "involved" in the show, according to ABC sources. The producer wrote The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, and directed the films, The Unborn and The Invisible.

DAREDEVIL
According to deadline.com, Marvel's blind superhero will get a chance on the big screen again. David Scarpa, who has already scripted one reboot�The Day the Earth Stood Still�will be writing the screenplay for the new Daredevil film, which will be released by New Regency and produced by former News Corp. president Peter Chernin.
Why could we see yet another superhero on the big screen? Any Hollywood studios with Marvel superheros need to keep bringing those characters to the screen or else the rights will revert back to Disney-based Marvel.

Henry Winkler ROYAL PAINS ADDS FONZI TO CAST
Henry Winkler is joining the breakout USA Network hit in a major recurring role next season, playing Eddie R. Lawson, the absentee father to Hank (Mark Feuerstein) and Evan (Paulo Costanzo) Lawson.
In ROYAL PAINS' first-season cliffhanger, Hank learned that their father had taken the majority of the funds of his and Evan's company HankMed.
In the second season, Eddie arrives unannounced in the Hamptons, determined to reinsert himself into his sons' lives and make up for lost time, but his motives are unclear at best. ROYAL PAINS, which centers on Hank Lawson, a disgraced New York City physician who reinvents himself as the hot new in-demand doctor-for-hire returns in the Hamptons, for a 18-episode second season in the summer. The series, from Universal Cable Prods., also stars Reshma Shetty and Jill Flint.

Bag of Bones BAG OF BONES
Where BAG OF BONES TV mini-series will reside on the small screen is to be announced shortly. In the book, novelist Mike Noonan still suffers writers block several years after his wife's death. A dream inspires him to return to the couple's summer retreat in western Maine, a lakeside house called Sara Laughs. Shortly after arriving, Noonan is caught in the middle of a custody battle involving the daughter of an attractive young widow and the child's enormously wealthy grandfather. He also discovers that Sara Laughs is haunted and that his late wife, Joanna, still has something to tell him.

EARTHBOUND
Whoopi Goldberg and Kathy Bates have signed onto Nicole Kassell's romancer EARTHBOUND says Screen Daily. Kate Hudson and Gael Garcia Bernal play the leads while Rosemarie DeWitt, Lucy Punch, Romany Malco, Steven Weber and Treat Williams also star in the project.
Story details are unknown at this time, but Kassell is directing from a script by Gren Wells. Shooting is currently underway in New Orleans.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2010

BLIZZARD ARRIVES TODAY
The Washington metropolitan area is brazing for a snow storm -- to the tune of 12-30 inches of the white stuff. While it will undoubtedly be beautiful, having that much snow to shovel is a bit scarey! With the storm approaching, it sounds like a movie on SYFY!

TRUE BLOOD
TRUE BLOOD has filled in the last major piece of its season 3 casting puzzle, adding Brit Morgan to the ensemble. Morgan ("The Middleman") will have a recurring part on the HBO hit as Debbie Pelt, the ex-girlfriend of Alcide (Joe Manganiello), according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Morgan's other credits include a guest spot on "Cold Case" and the Toby Keith movie "Beer for My Horses."

NEW SPIDER-MAN?
According to the Latino Review, Logan Lerman, the 18-year-old actor who stars in the upcoming PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF as a teen who discovers he's the descendant of a Greek god, may soon discover himself to be the next friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
"Conversations are starting," said Lerman. "It's a long process with the studio and the producers and everything. But it's definitely a project that I'm really interested in, of course. I'd love to focus on the human element a little bit more. It'd be such a fun experience."
Lerman also revealed that he's been a longtime Spider-Man fan. "It's one of my favorite characters ever, and I'm a huge fan of the series," he continued. "I'd love to have more conversations about it. I'm definitely very interested in it."

TERMINATOR AUCTION
Variety reports that Sony has joined Lionsgate in the bidding on the rights to the "Terminator" franchise. The studio submitted a bid on Thursday, the final day for submitting offers. Lionsgate stepped up last month as the first bidder for the rights to the "Terminator" franchise with bid of $15 million and a 5% cut of future gross receipts.
Halcyon Group put the franchise up for sale in September. The auction for the assets--which include the rights to future "Terminator" movies, TV series, DVDs and merchandise--will be held Monday at the offices of FTI Consulting in Los Angeles, followed by a bankruptcy court hearing two days later. If Lionsgate doesn't win the auction, it will receive $750,000 as a breakup fee from the winning bidder.

ROBIN HOOD
Universal Pictures has revealed the Super Bowl spot for Ridley Scott's Robin Hood online. The May 14th release stars Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Matthew Macfadyen, Mark Strong, Oscar Isaac, Lea Seydoux, Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand, Alan Doyle, Danny Huston and Max von Sydow.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2010

Lost LOST
After waiting for what seemed like forever for this series to return, ABC has announced when it will end - forever. The sixth and final season will end: May 23. The two-hour series finale will air starting at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Here are some excerpts from the official announcement.
Stephen McPherson, president, ABC Entertainment Group, today announced the "Lost" series finale date, airing as a primetime event on a special night on Sunday, May 23 from 9:00-11:00 p.m., ET. Preceding the finale be a recap special from 8:00-9:00 p.m., ET.
"Lost is an example of what happens when you put creativity above everything else, trust the creative vision, and take the risks required to be truly original," said McPherson. "It's a testament to staying true to the creative vision of one of the most iconic shows ever on television, and we're giving the producers an unprecedented opportunity to respect the fans and really satisfy the viewers with a spectacular conclusion."
Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse appeared on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" after "Lost's" season premiere on Tuesday, February 2 (12:05 a.m., ET) to discuss the upcoming season.
Oceanic Air flight 815 tore apart in mid-air and crashed on a Pacific island, leaving 48 passengers alive and stranded on a remote island in the South Pacific. The survivors include a diverse group of people from different walks of life -- a doctor, an escaped fugitive, a con man, an Iraqi interrogator, a married Korean couple and a man formerly confined to a wheelchair who is now inexplicably healed. As the castaways attempt to get home, flashbacks (and forwards) illuminate their troubled lives before and after the crash, as the island that they find themselves stranded on begins to slowly reveal its mysterious nature. Faith, reason, destiny and free will all clash as the island offers opportunities for both corruption and redemption... but as to its true purpose? That's the greatest mystery of all.
"Lost" is filmed entirely on location in Hawaii and premiered on September 22, 2004, is from ABC Studios. The series was nominated for numerous awards and was a 2008 recipient of the prestigious Peabody Award, and awarded the 2005 Emmy and 2006 Golden Globe for Best Drama Series. At the end of its sixth and final season, "Lost" will have aired 114 episodes (121 episodic hours).

Avatar AVATAR CONTINUES TO MAKE FILM HISTORY
The records keep falling for James Cameron's AVATAR. It has officially become the highest-grossing film domestically of all time, surpassing Cameron's own TITANIC.
As of yesterday, AVATAR's domestic gross was $601.1 million, higher than TITANIC's $600.8 million, Variety reported.
AVATAR earlier topped TITANIC's global total with $2.05 billion worldwide, compared with the boat movie's $1.84 billion.

Thor THOR
In a recent interview, Sir Anthony Hopkins talked about his current project, THOR, the big-budget comic book-based movie in which he'll play Odin, the Norse god-like ruler of Asgard, as well as the father of Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and stepfather of Loki (Tom Hiddleston).
Production is underway now on the superhero adventure, which also stars Natalie Portman, Jaimie Alexander, Ray Stevenson and Rene Russo and is being directed by Kenneth Branagh (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein).
"That's a really big one, a really big movie," Oscar winner Hopkins said a couple of weeks ago while promoting THE WOLFMAN. "I'm a big Ken Branagh [fan]. I think he's an extraordinary guy, a wonderful actor and a terrific director. He's one of the easiest guys to be with. He doesn't shout or scream. He just is very gentle with everyone. He believes in his actors. He needs them to act, and he'll direct in a strong way, but he leaves it to you. Whatever you want, he gives it to you."
Hopkins didn't know Branagh well before signing on for THOR. But the two men had met previously as Hopkins had worked, twice, with Branagh's ex-wife, Emma Thompson, and they'd all gone out to dinner years ago. Hopkins got a better feeling for Branagh a few months back, over conversation and coffee in Santa Monica, Calif.
"He said, 'Would you take the [Thor] script and read it and see what you think? And if you'd like to play Odin,'" Hopkins recalled, adding: "I felt he was a very, very smart man, very bright and compassionate and well rounded."
THOR is in production now, with an eye toward a May 6, 2011, release.

Lost Symbol THE LOST SYMBOL
According to Variety, Columbia Pictures is moving forward with THE LOST SYMBOL, the third installment of the "Da Vinci Code" franchise. Steven Knight has come on board to adapt Dan Brown's novel.
The book is described as follows:
The Lost Symbol is a masterstroke of storytelling--a deadly race through a real-world labyrinth of codes, secrets, and unseen truths... all under the watchful eye of Brown's most terrifying villain to date. Set within the hidden chambers, tunnels, and temples of Washington, D.C., The Lost Symbol accelerates through a startling landscape toward an unthinkable finale.
As the story opens, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned unexpectedly to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building. Within minutes of his arrival, however, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object--artfully encoded with five symbols--is discovered in the Capitol Building. Langdon recognizes the object as an ancient invitation... one meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of esoteric wisdom.
When Langdon's beloved mentor, Peter Solomon--a prominent Mason and philanthropist--is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations--all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth.
Tom Hanks, who played Langdon in THE DA VINCI CODE and ANGELS AND DEMONS. has not yet committed to reprise the role, though he is expected to. Imagine's Brian Grazer and John Calley have signed on to produce the latest installment.

Fast/Furious 5 FAST AND FURIOUS 5
Variety indicates that Universal Pictures is pushing through on a fifth installment of "Fast and Furious," currently being referred to as "Fast Five." The studio has closed deals with Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, director Justin Lin and producer Neal Moritz to return to the franchise, which has become one of the studio's most lucrative.
Diesel and Walker sat out the third chapter in the series but returned for last year's fourth installment, which was the highest-grossing "Fast and Furious" film and Universal's top grosser of 2009. Its box office haul was more than $350 million worldwide.
Chris Morgan is writing "Fast Five," marking the third time he and Lin have teamed for a "Fast and Furious" film. The story finds Dom (Diesel) and Brian (Walker) as fugitives being pursued by relentless lawmen.
Lensing will begin later this year for a 2011 release.
Original Films' Moritz has produced every film in the series, beginning in 2001 with the "The Fast and the Furious." Universal's Jeff Kirschenbaum and Franklin Leonard will oversee the project for the studio.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2010

Avatar OSCAR NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
This year, there are 10 nominations. They range from the blockbuster "Avatar," which has amassed more than $2 billion globally, to a succes d'estime like "The Hurt Locker," which has attracted $16 million worldwide. With nine noms apiece, the two movies, from opposite ends of the money-making spectrum, were equally matched to do battle right up to the moment when the envelopes are opened and the trophies handed out on March 7.
The Oscar top 10 included a handful of other commercial hits: Pixar's "Up," also nominated for best animated feature, became only the second toon to be nominated for best picture, following 1991's "Beauty and the Beast"; Alcon's heartland fave "The Blind Side," which is not only the most popular movie Sandra Bullock has ever made but also her ticket to her first Oscar nom; and the revisionist World War II tale "Inglourious Basterds," the biggest grosser of Quentin Tarantino's career.
At the same time, Oscar's new largesse also embraced a number of smaller movies with passionate followings: the sci-fi allegory "District 9"; the London-set coming-of-age tale "An Education"; the gritty look at cycles of abuse, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire"; the Coen brothers' retelling of the Book of Job, "A Serious Man"; and a free-floating study of American malaise, "Up in the Air."
"Avatar," "Locker," "Basterds," "Precious" and "Up in the Air" all picked up directing noms for their respective -- and diverse -- directors: James Cameron, Kathyrn Bigelow (just the fourth woman in Academy history to be so honored), Tarantino, Lee Daniels (only the second African-American) and Jason Reitman.
Jeff Bridges has already collected a great number of awards for his work on "Crazy Heart" and seems to be the prohibitive favorite among the best lead actors for his role as a hard-drinking country singer in the Fox Searchlight film. He'll be going up against George Clooney ("Up in the Air"), Colin Firth ("A Single Man"), Morgan Freeman ("Invictus") and Jeremy Renner ("Locker").
After picking up trophies at the Golden Globes and SAG, Sandra Bullock has to be considered a front-runner in the best actress heat, although she faces considerable competition from Meryl Streep, adding a 16th nom to her charm bracelet for "Julie & Julia"; Oscar veteran Helen Mirren for "The Last Station"; and newcomers Carey Mulligan ("An Education") and Gabourey Sidibe ("Precious").

Tron Legacy TRON LEGACY
Walt Disney Pictures has released this new photo of Jeff Bridges in TRON LEGACY, opening in 3D theaters and IMAX 3D on December 17. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, the film co-stars Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Bruce Boxleitner, James Frain, Beau Garrett and Michael Sheen.

SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN
According to the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post, Hugh Jackman will play the male lead in Wayne Wang's SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN and that Li Bingbing (The Forbidden Kingdom) has replaced Zhang Ziyi in the film that also stars Jeon Ji-Hyun.
Filming started today at Hengdian, a large film studio near Shanghai. Jackman is expected to join the production in mid-February.
Set in 19th century remote China, SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN revolves around the lifelong friendship of Lily and Snow Flower and their imprisonment by rigid cultural codes of conduct for women.
The script is based on the novel by Lisa See. Wendi Murdoch and Florence Sloan are producing.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Farscape FARSCAPE
In a recent Twitter feed, FARSCAPE creator Rockne S. O'Bannon updated everyone by saying he's been busy updating it with teasers for his comic book and the much-anticipated webisode sequel series:
@Rockne_S: This weekend was dedicated Farscape comic story writing time. Delivered pages for the next 4-issue arc. What are those frelling PKs up to?! ...
New Farscape comic series: SCORPIUS. Story runs concurrent with the ongoing FS comic. It's what Scorpy is up to when nobody's looking!!
Farscape webisodes: yes still a possibility. But like always with FS, the deal-making is a very slow grind. Frustratingly slow!

SYFY - NEW SATURDAY MOVIES
Syfy announced that it will add a series of new original fantasy films to its schedule of Saturday Original Movies, based on classic fairy tales and legends.
The new series kicks off with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST on Feb. 27, followed by re-imaginings of LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, HANSEL AND GRETEL, ALADDIN and other stories.
Below is the official announcement.
SYFY UNVEILS NEW SATURDAY NIGHT ORIGINAL MOVIES RE-IMAGINED CLASSIC FAIRY TALES, LEGENDS AND POP CULTURE CHARACTERS FROM LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD TO HANSEL AND GRETEL KICKS OFF WITH PREMIERE OF BEAUTY AND THE BEAST SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, AT 9PM (ET/PT)

New York, NY - February 1, 2010 -- Syfy announced today it is adding a new Saturday Original Movies genre to its popular mix, re-imagining classic fairy tales, legends and pop culture characters -- from LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, ALADDIN and SINBAD THE SAILOR to HANSEL AND GRETEL -- beginning with the premiere of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST on Saturday, February 27, at 9PM (ET/PM).
Starring Estella Warren (Planet of the Apes), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is not the traditional Disney fairy tale. In this gritty celebration of Valentine's Day, a young Beauty (Warren) with a gift for healing helps a deformed Prince (Rhett Gilles, Wraiths of Roanoke) regain his throne and defeat the ruthless nobleman who wants to be king -- and then together they try to destroy a power-hungry witch. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was directed by David Lister and written by Gavin Scott.
Said Thomas Vitale, Executive Vice President, Programming and Original Movies, Syfy: "By turning familiar timeless stories inside out -- like retelling LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD as a werewolf tale or envisioning a dark version of Shrek -- we're creating an entertaining new genre for our popular Saturday night movie franchise, which has become the television destination for fans of action-packed independent sci-fi, horror and fantasy films."
During 2009, the 22 Syfy Saturday Original Movies averaged nearly two million total viewers (1.8 million) across the channel's twice-monthly original presentations. Syfy is one of television's most prolific producers of original movies.
Vitale also announced a preliminary development slate for the new line of Syfy Original Movies including:
o Red -- A young woman who is a descendant of the real Little Red Riding Hood brings her fiancé home, where he meets the family and learns about their business - hunting werewolves. He's skeptical until bitten by a werewolf. When her family insists he must be killed, Red tries saving him.
o Hansel -- Twenty years after his encounter with the witch, a grown-up Hansel returns to the haunted forest, seeking revenge. But there's a surprise waiting - his sister Gretel (who he thought had been killed) is the witch's protégée.
o 8TH Voyage of Sinbad -- Sinbad searches for the golden head of the long lost Colossus of Rhodes and, instead, discovers an island where the mythical Minotaur still rules, protecting a vast treasure. Sinbad and his crew have to battle the creature and its minions to get the treasure and save their own lives.
o Aladdin (working title) -- After accidentally releasing an evil genie from an ancient lamp, Aladdin must find a way to imprison the genie again before it wreaks havoc on the world.
o Black Forest -- A group of naïve tourists take a sightseeing tour into a supposed enchanted forest, where they encounter evil creatures from the world of fantasy. Trapped in the Black Forest, their only hope of survival is fighting their way out.

Orlando Bloom THE GOOD DOCTOR
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Orlando Bloom is toplining THE GOOD DOCTOR, an indie drama to which Michael Pena, Troy Garity, Courtney Ford, Taraji P. Henson, Rob Morrow and J.K. Simmons are in negotiations to co-star.
Bloom also is producing the Lance Daly-directed pic while his Viddywell Prods. producing partner Sharon Miller exec produces. Jonathan King and Dan Etheridge also are producing.
The script from John Enbom ("Veronica Mars"), described as a Hitchcockian thriller, centers on a frustrated doctor looking to impress his superiors and colleagues. When his 18-year-old patient, admitted for a kidney infection, provides him with the esteem he so craves, the doctor tampers with her treatment so that she'll have to stay at the hospital with him.
Pena will play an orderly who discovers the doctor's budding relationship and blackmails him for prescription painkillers. Garity is a successful, self-assured doctor, a counterpoint to Bloom. Ford is a woman who has eyes for Bloom's character.
Production is to start this week in Los Angeles. Leonid Lebedev is exec producing while Julia Lebedev acts as co-producer. Nicholas Chartier of Voltage Pictures is handling foreign sales. "Doctor" will make house calls at the European Film Market, which opens next week in Berlin.

NEW CBS PILOTS
CBS is laying down REAGAN'S LAW, giving a pilot order to the project from "The Sopranos" alumni Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green.
The network also has ordered a medical drama pilot produced by "ER" chief John Wells.
Burgess and Green wrote "Law," a multi-generational show revolving around a family of cops in New York.
The two are also executive producing with Leonard Goldberg for CBS TV Studios.
The untitled medical drama, from Warner Bros. TV, revolves around a roaming medical team that travels the U.S. helping those less fortunate get through life-or-death medical crises.
Hannah Shakespeare wrote the script and is exec producing with Wells.

Sgt. Rock SGT. ROCK
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Producer Joel Silver revealed the that comic book adaptation Sgt. Rock has found new life at Warner Bros. Pictures, but that the film won't take place in WWII. Instead, the plan is for Sgt. Rock to serve his country in the not-too-distant future.
"It's a little bit in the future," Silver said. "As a war movie, it's not going to be 'where it's been,' it's going to be 'where it's going.' We didn't want to do Iraq, we didn't want to do a contemporary war. We wanted to do a sort of futuristic war. It's pretty strong. Chad St. John wrote the script and we've got Francis Lawrence involved in developing it with us. It's not a 'go' movie yet but I'm feeling good about it."
As far as the status, Silver added that they just received a new draft of the script this week.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2010

Captain America CAPTAIN AMERICA UPDATE
Film Journal got an update from director Joe Johnston about his next project, Marvel Studios' THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA:
"We're in prep," Johnston says. "Rick Heinrichs is production-designing and we're set up down in Manhattan Beach [California]. It's the part of the process that I love the most," he enthuses. "We have eight or ten really talented artists, and we all just sit around all day and draw pictures and say, 'Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could do this?' It's that phase of the production where money doesn't matter: ‘Let's put all the greatest stuff up on the wall and [then later] see what we can afford.'" The film, he says at this early stage, will begin "in 1942, 1943" during World War II. "The stuff in the ’60s and ’70s [comic books] we're sort of avoiding. We're going back to the ’40s, and then forward to what they're doing with Captain America now."
THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA has set a July 22, 2011 release date for the film.

George Gershwin SPOCK, SYLAR, GERSHWIN?
According to Deadline Hollywood, Star Trek and "Heroes" star Zachary Quinto will play famed composer and pianist George Gershwin in a biopic at DreamWorks Pictures. This is one of three projects that Steven Spielberg is looking at to direct next.
The site says that the studio is supplying accent and dialogue coaches for Quinto, and shooting could begin as soon as April. Doug Wright wrote the script, and Marc Platt and singer/pianist Michael Feinstein are producing.
Gershwin, who passed away at the age of 38 in 1937, composed music for both Broadway and the classical concert hall, as well as popular songs. His compositions have been used in numerous films and on television.

THIS WEEK'S TOP SHOWS
It is wonderful to see so many of my favorite shows in the top ten this week:
1. Bones (FOX)3.6/1112.4.
2. Fringe (FOX)3.0/88.9
3. The Mentalist (CBS)2.3/611.0
4. The Office (NBC)2.1/64.6
5. CSI (CBS)2.0/59.1
6. The Vampire Diaries (CW)1.8/53.7

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2010

Avatar AVATAR STAYS ON TOP
The Hollywood Reporter writes that James Cameron's AVATAR fetched an estimated $7.5 million in U.S. and Canadian boxoffice on Friday to push its domestic cume to $572 million.
TITANIC registered $600.8 million domestically in its record 1997-1998 theatrical run. AVATAR should fly past that mark sometime next week after previously surpassing international and worldwide records that had been held by TITANIC.
Elsewhere on Friday, Warner Bros.' Mel Gibson starrer EDGE OF DARKNESS bowed in second place with $5.7 million in its first day of domestic release. Disney's romantic comedy WHEN IN ROME, starring Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel, debuted third among the daily grossers with $4.4 million.
Fox's family comedy TOOTH FAIRY rang up $2.3 million in fifth place Friday for $18.4 million in cumulative boxoffice through its first eight days, while Sony Screen Gems' sci-fi actioner LEGION was sixth with $2 million on the day and a $23.9 million cume.
CBS Films drama EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES tumbled from the top rankings with $760,000 in daily coin and an $8.6 million cume on the cusp of its second weekend.
Elsewhere, Warners' Denzel Washington starrer, BOOK OF ELI, continued its leggy ways, taking in another $2.5 million on Friday to shape a $68.1 million cume heading into its third frame.

Dollhouse DOLLHOUSE FINALE
Fox's DOLLHOUSE concluded on a familiar ratings note Friday night, while a battle of reality remakes had a tight race.
The DOLLHOUSE series finale drew 2.2 million viewers and a 0.8 preliminary adults 18-49 rating, providing a weak lead-in for the return of Gordon Ramsay's KITCHEN NIGHTMARES (3.3 million, 1.4) at 9 p.m. For NIGHTMARES, that's down 42% from its premiere a year ago on Thursday nights.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2010

THE GHOST WRITER
Summit Entertainment has released a trailer from Roman Polanski's THE GHOST WRITER, opening in New York and Los Angeles on February 19th before expanding to select cities on February 26th. The thriller stars Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton and Eli Wallach.
In the film, a successful British ghostwriter agrees to complete the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang because his agent assures him it's the opportunity of a lifetime. But the project seems doomed from the start�not least because his predecessor on the project, Lang's long-term aide, died in an unfortunate accident.

Being Human BEING HUMAN GETS THIRD SEASON
The BBC's supernatural show Being Human winds up its second season in February on BBC Three, and now comes word that the network has ordered up a third season, with the regular cast returning. In the show, a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost try to suppress their violent natures while finding a way to share a flat in Bristol. It stars Russell Tovey, Lenora Crichlow and Aidan Turner.
(The new season of the British original show is gearing up as Syfy develops its own American remake of the show.)
It's unclear when or whether the season will air in the United States.

Dune ANOTHER DUNE REMAKE
French action director Pierre Morel is taking over a new film version of Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic DUNE and indicates he wants to remain faithful to the book, of which he is an immense fan.
Speaking to the Tribeca Film Web site, Morel (Taken; From Paris, With Love) said he's going to start drafting a new script soon:
I'm preparing for a long trek in the dunes... We're going to start writing in a couple weeks. It's very early [in the] process.
[Q:] Do you plan to infuse it with some action?
I don't know. It's all about�I'm a huge Dune fan, a reader, like for 30 years; I read it when I was a teenager. I've read it 10 times maybe, so I want to stay true to the book. Saying that, I also think that there's a lot of scenes that are not described in the books�it's just mentioned, like the bad guys attacking something�and it might make sense to include those in the movie, not just by mentioning it but showing them, and that would maybe [call for] some action scenes, yes. It's not about action. It's not the point. It's not about [making] an action movie. It's just doing Dune. It's like a huge universe thing, and there's such a fanbase, like guys who have been reading that forever�you can't mess with that.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&from=sp&fg=MsnEntertainment_MoviesTrailersGP2_a&vid=1b9d070f-aff2-47f6-8a86-9b2b44ec4fc6" target="_new" title="'The Losers' Exclusive Look"></a> THE LOSERS
Warner Bros. Pictures has debuted the trailer for director Sylvain White's THE LOSERS, starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Holt McCallany, Oscar Jaenada, Jason Patric and Peter Macdissi. The action-thriller opens in theaters on April 9.
Based on the DC Comics title, the film centers upon the members of an elite U.S. Special Forces unit sent into the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission. The team--Clay, Jensen, Roque, Pooch and Cougar--find themselves the target of a lethal betrayal instigated from inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max. Presumed dead, the group makes plans to even the score when they're joined by the mysterious Aisha, a beautiful operative with her own agenda. Working together, they must remain deep undercover while tracking the heavily-guarded Max, a ruthless man bent on embroiling the world in a new high-tech global war.

LOST TRAILER
ABC recently held a sweepstakes in which 815 winners received an exclusive message in a bottle with the opening minutes of the sixth and final season of "Lost." That footage is now online. The premiere is airing on Tuesday, February 2 at 8/7c.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2010

TAKERS
Screen Gems has released this new international trailer for TAKERS, starring Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Idris Elba, Jay Hernandez, Tip "T.I." Harris, Michael Ealy, Chris Brown and Hayden Christensen. Opening in theaters on May 14, the film was directed by John Luessenhop.
TAKERS revolves around a notorious group of criminals who continue to baffle police by pulling off perfectly executed bank robberies. They are in and out like clockwork, leaving no evidence behind and laying low in between heists. But when they attempt to pull off one last job with more money at stake than ever before, the crew may find their plans interrupted by a hardened detective (Dillon) who is hell-bent on solving the case.

CAPED
The Hollywood Reporter writes that on Thursday NBC picked up an hourlong pilot for "The Cape." "Cape," from "Empire" creator Tom Wheeler, is a light drama with a comic book sensibility. Set in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles, it centers on a former cop framed for a crime who becomes the Cape, a masked hero, to clear his name and reunite with his son.
The project, from UMS and BermanBraun, was set up at NBC in the fall with a premium script commitment. Wheeler wrote the script and is exec producing with Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman.

COLD WARRIOR
Reports in the Hollywood Reporter indicate that Mel Gibson is in negotiations to reteam with his "Lethal Weapon" scribe Shane Black for Universal's spy thriller COLD WARRIOR.
Black, directing his second movie after 2005's "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," is tackling a tale in which a Cold War spy (Gibson) comes out of retirement to confront a domestic terrorism threat from Russia by joining with a younger agent. Charles Mondry wrote the script.
The dealmaking is in the early stages, but it does further Gibson's plan to get back in front of the cameras. "Edge of Darkness," his first onscreen performance since 2002's "Signs," opens Friday.
Michelle Manning, David Greenblatt and Anthony Bagarozzi are producing COLD WARRIOR.

THE WELL
Variety reports that Philip Seymour Hoffman and Emily Ziff's production company Cooper's Town Productions is developing a psychological thriller titled THE WELL.
Guy Pearce and Mary-Louise Parker will star in the film, which will mark actor Tim Guinee's feature directorial debut. Guinee will also write the script.
Story details are being kept under wraps, but THE WELL revolves around a well-to-do Manhattan couple whose obsessive pursuit of salvation ultimately leads to destruction.

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS
20th Century Fox has released the trailer for Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, coming to theaters on April 23rd. The film's official website is now also online.
MONEY NEVER SLEEPS stars Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella, Carey Mulligan, Susan Sarandon, Vanessa Ferlito and Charlie Sheen.
Use this link to see the trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi875627545/

Fire FIRE
Deadline Hollywood reports that Zac Efron is attached to star in Universal Pictures' adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis' graphic novel FIRE. In the film, based on the Image Comics title, Efron will play a college student who is recruited by the CIA, only to find that he has been trained for a program that creates expendable agents.
Bendis will write the script for the movie. Neil Moritz will produce with Circle of Confusion's David Engel. Efron and Alchemy Entertainment's Jason Barrett will be executive producers.
In a separate deal at Warner Bros., Efron has signed to star in a BACK TO THE FUTURE-like film that combines two projects - a pitch from writer Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski and a WB project called ALGORITHM that the studio was developing for director Nick Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall).

THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2010

Le Femme Nikita LA FEMME NIKITA LIVES
The CW has picked up the pilot for a TV remake of LA FEMME NIKITA reports THR's Live Feed.
"Nikita, which centers on a young condemned criminal who's trained as a top-secret assassin, has already lived many lives. There's the original French movie in 1990 by Luc Besson, the Hong Kong film "Black Cat" (1991) and American remake "Point of No Return" (1993) starring Bridget Fonda and the USA Network TV series also called "La Femme Nikita" (1997-2001) starring Peta Wilson.
In The CW update, a new assassin is trained to replace Nikita, who's gone rogue.

Star Trek Online STAR TREK ONLINE
Syfy has entered into a promotional partnership with Atari for Star Trek Online, the upcoming MMO, which goes live next Tuesday. The promotion includes exclusive new content and special offers through Syfy.com. Following is the official announcement with all the details.
ATARI AND SYFY ANNOUNCE EXCLUSIVE PARTNERSHIP TO LAUNCH THE EPIC TITLE STAR TREKâ„¢ ONLINE
Syfy to Broadcast Two-Day Star Trek Marathon and Offer an Exclusive "Syfy Bundle" for Download Only on Syfy.com's Game Center
New York, NY (January 27, 2010) - Atari, Inc., one of the world's most recognized videogame publishers, and Syfy, the broadcast leader in imagination-based entertainment, have announced an exclusive partnership promoting the highly anticipated massively multiplayer online game (MMO), Star Trek Online, releasing for the PC on February 2, 2010.
This exciting initiative explores uncharted territory, empowering Syfy.com to build a one-stop "hub" for Star Trek Online, where fans and gamers alike will be able to view explosive new content, participate in special contests and sweepstakes, and even purchase an exclusive bundle via digital download. The deal furthers Syfy's mission to leverage multiple platforms, transcending just the television screen, to reach its broad audience and leverage the affinity they have with the most mainstream and profitable genre world wide: science fiction.
Star Trek fans can visit Syfy.com/StarTrekOnline and purchase the limited time "Syfy Bundle" to digitally download the game and receive a variety of bonus offers, both in-game and out of game!
* "Neodymium Deflector Dish" -- An in-game item grants a bonus to Auxiliary power, boosts maneuverability, and increases the effectiveness of a ship's Science abilities.
* "500 Cryptic Points" -- These micro-transaction credits can be used to purchase in-game items and unlock unique bonuses.
* "Syfy Store Discount" -- Purchasers of the Syfy bundle will receive 15% off their next purchase at the Syfy.com store.
In addition, to celebrate the launch of Star Trek Online, Syfy will air a two-day Star Trek marathon on Monday, 2/1 8 am to 5 pm of "STAR TREK ENTERPRISE" and Tuesday, 2/2 8 am - 9 pm of "STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION".
"Syfy is the perfect home for Star Trek Online," said Jim Wilson, President and CEO of Atari, Inc. "By offering broadcast support, exclusive content and in-game bonuses, fans of Star Trek and the science fiction genre will be able to take part in this title's much anticipated release."
Alan Seiffert, Senior Vice President Syfy Ventures, added, "The Syfy audience has immense passion for video games. With that said, we are making a significant commitment to growing our presence in gaming and establishing Syfy.com's Game Center as a leading destination for cutting edge interactive entertainment from a news, entertainment and even sales perspective. This joint venture with Atari helps showcase the types of unique partnerships we will look to develop to provide our audience with exclusive experiences tied to today's hottest interactive entertainment."
This exciting - and first time - sales partnership between a media property and a gaming publisher will be supported with TV and Digital advertising and promotional units throughout the month of February.
Taking place in the year 2409, Star Trek Online boasts extraordinary features and lets fans both new and old experience unparalleled adventures. Players have the opportunity to become a high ranking Starfleet officer and participate in missions that take them into the depths of space, across exotic planets and even inside other starships. Star Trek Online offers total customization, from a player's avatar to the ship he captains.
Star Trek Online is a licensed product from CBS Consumer Products. For more information, please visit:
www.startrekonline.com and www.atari.com
Videos, screens, and additional assets are available at the Atari press vault. Log onto: www.atari-press.com.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2010

GOING 3-D
With the success of AVATAR, other studios have been convinced to try out 3-D for its movies. The latest movies to get 3-D-ified will includes the upcoming CLASH OF THE TITANS remake and the final HARRY POTTER movies. The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog reports:
Early 3D-conversion tests on Warners' remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS have gone so well that�combined with boosted enthusiasm for 3D in the wake of the AVATAR tsunami�the Burbank studio has decided to release not only TITANS but also the two-part HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS in 3D.
Warners refused to confirm the decision Tuesday, but an announcement on TITANS is expected by week's end, and official word on the POTTER pics surely will follow.
Warner will push back the release of CLASH OF THE TITANS�which stars AVATAR's Sam Worthington as Perseus� back one week to April 2.
Part one of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS is slated to open on Nov. 19, and part two is scheduled for July 15, 2011.

Clash of the Titans DRACULA YEAR ZERO
According to reports in The Hollywood Reporter, AVATAR star Sam Worthington is in negotiations to star in DRACULA YEAR ZERO, a period vampire epic Alex Proyas (Knowing) is set to direct for Universal. Michael De Luca is producing:
Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless wrote the spec, which explores the origin of Dracula, weaving vampire mythology with the true history of Prince Vlad the Impaler. It seeks to depict Dracula as a flawed hero in a tragic love story set in a dark age of magic and war.
Worthington will also appear in the Helen Mirren thriller THE DEBT, and his next role is Greek hero Perseus in the remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS.

Sherlock Holmes SHERLOCK HOLMES 2
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Producer Joel Silver said that Guy Ritchie is no longer attached to direct Warner Bros. Pictures' adaptation of the DC Comics title LOBO because the studio is moving forward with SHERLOCK HOLMES 2.
"I don't think he's going to do it now," Silver, who is producing both properties, said. "The studio wants us and Guy to focus on making another 'Sherlock Holmes'... So we're trying to see if we can do something quickly with another 'Sherlock Holmes' movie. We have some ideas and some good story points." Silver added that they'll likely go with another director for LOBO.
He expects everyone to come back for Sherlock Holmes 2. "Downey loves the experience of playing Sherlock and would love to play him again, and I'd love to see him play it again. Jude and all of them will be back and it will be great."
Silver was also asked about the rumor that Brad Pitt would appear in the "Holmes" sequel as Professor Moriarty. "Well, I mean, we talked about that at one point, but you know as of right now we're not sure what we're going to do. We'll see what happens," he said.

PASSENGERS
Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness, Seven Pounds) is in advanced negotiations with Morgan Creek to direct PASSENGERS, a sci-fi romance film he described as "a love story set on a spaceship," reports Variety. PASSENGERS is set in the future on a spacecraft making a centuries-long interstellar voyage to a new planet. Due to a computer glitch, a single passenger (Keanu Reeves) awakens from cryogenic sleep 90 years before anyone else. Faced with the prospect of growing old and dying alone, he, in turn, awakens a beautiful woman. Stephen Hamel and James G. Robinson will produce. Jon Spaihts (Ridley Scott's upcoming Alien prequel) wrote the script. Muccino expects to start shooting the film this summer.

CRUELEST MILES
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Gavin Hood ("X-Men Origins: Wolverine," "Tsotsi") is in talks to direct an adaptation of Gay and Laney Salisbury's book THE CRUELEST MILES for Walden Media.
Set in Alaska in 1952, the story follows twenty dog teams who're the only ones who could transport a life- saving serum across a thousand miles of Alaskan wilderness to the town of Nome where a deadly diphtheria epidemic was underway. The journey, through -60 Degrees Farenheit and phenomenon like ice fog, inspired the annual Iditarod dogsled race.
Sean O'Keefe and Will Staples are penning the script with filming to kick off in the Summer. Mark Johnson will produce.

Jay Mohr HEREAFTER
Former GHOST WHISPERER star Jay Mohr has landed a role in director Clint Eastwood’s next HEREAFTER, says Variety.
The film, about a group of people who experience death in dissimilar ways (though not in a “Final Destination� sense. In fact, the film is said to be closer in tone to “The Sixth Sense�), stars Matt Damon and Bryce Dallas Howard.
Mohr, whose film credits include “Go!� and “Picture Perfect�, will play Damon’s brother.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

CAPRICA PREVIEW
Here is a sneak preview of the second episode of CAPRICA, "Rebirth", set to air on Friday night at 9:00pm. Here's a brief description:
Pressure mounts on the Graystones and Zoe deals with her new life.
If you missed the premiere episode, you can catch it tonight at 8:00pm on SYFY.

Stargate Props STARGATE PROPS ON SALE
Would you like to have an actual piece of STARGATE in your home? You may be in luck. Propworx, who was also behind 2009's Battlestar Galactica auctions, has launched a series of Stargate Artifacts auctions this week. Fifteen seasons of STARGATE SG-1 and STARGATE ATLANTIS memorabilia will be up for sale through eBay and two huge live auctions.
There will be thousands of items auctioned off over the next few months, culminating in two live auctions in which you'll even get a chance to see a full-size, working Stargate. But even before those live auctions, Propworx will be auctioning plenty of affordable items on eBay, including costumes, props and even pieces of the STARGATE.
You can find out more about the eBay auctions and what will be for sale at www.propworx.com, where the Stargate fans who make up the Propworx team have blogs, videos and a forum for fans and collectors to discuss the Stargate auctions.
Some of the best props that Propworx will have in the live auctions include: Working Jaffa Serpent Head
Horus (Falcon) Head
MALP
Goa'uld Hand Device
Jaffa Staff Weapon
Thor
Jack O'Neill's Sunglasses
Hero Zat Gun
Hero T.E.R.
Hero Replicator Pistol
Hero Anti-Replicator Gun
The Ark of Truth
Daniel's Glasses
Ori Prior Staff
Ancient Drone
Zero Point Module (ZPM)
Ronon Dex's Blaster
Ancient Communications Terminal
Ancient Lifesigns Detector
Teyla's Bantos Rods
You can see these items along with a description and estimated price at http://scifiwire.com/2010/01/stargate-props.php#more.

James Marsters SPIKE MEETS CAPRICA
Entertainment Weekly has posted the first image of James Marsters as he appears in the March 5 episode of Syfy's CAPRICA.
Marsters, best known to sci-fi fans as the charming vampire Spike on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, will play Barnabus Greely, "an enigmatic and dangerous leader in the monotheist world."

Avatar AVATAR HIGHEST GROSSING MOVIE EVER
It's official: James Cameron's AVATAR on Monday officially pulled ahead of Cameron's other big movie, TITANIC, to become the biggest-grossing movie of ALL TIME.
Twentieth Century Fox said that the sci-fi epic had amassed an estimated global total box office take of $1.8437 billion, just ahead of TITANIC's worldwide total of $1,843,201,268, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The worldwide crown isn't adjusted for inflation, and AVATAR's high grosses were certainly boosted by higher ticket prices overall and especially for 3-D and IMAX screenings.

Forest Whitaker CRIMINAL MINDS SPIN-OFF
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Oscar winner Forest Whitaker is in final negotiations to star on CBS' potential "Criminal Minds" spinoff. The project, which revolves around a new group of profilers who work outside the FBI bureaucracy, will be introduced on an episode of "Criminal Minds" in the spring.
Whitaker will play Cooper, the squad leader. Described as dynamic, mysterious, charming and a father figure to the rest of the team, he is a former star profiler in the Behavioral Unit who has been off the radar for the past eight years.
"Minds" executive producer Chris Mundy wrote the planted spinoff, from a story by him and "Minds" executive producer/showrunner Ed Bernero. Richard Shepard is directing. Like the original series, the potential spinoff is being produced by ABC Studios, the Mark Gordon Co. and CBS Studios. Producers of the new show zeroed in on Whitaker early and finally moved close to locking him in Monday night after lengthy on- and off- negotiations. As part of the deal, Whitaker is expected to get a producing credit.

Dark Life DARK LIFE
Variety reports that the Gotham Group (The Spiderwick Chronicles) has optioned DARK LIFE, an underwater adventure novel by Kat Falls. The book will by published in May by Scholastic. The following is how the book is described:
Set in an apocalyptic future where rising oceans have swallowed up entire regions and people live packed like sardines on the dry land left, DARK LIFE is the harrowing tale of underwater pioneers who have carved out a life for themselves in the harsh deep-sea environment, farming the seafloor in exchange for the land deed.
The story follows Ty, who has lived his whole life on his family's homestead and has dreams of claiming his own stake when he turns eighteen. But when outlaws' attacks on government supply ships and settlements threaten to destroy the underwater territory, Ty finds himself in a fight to stop the outlaws and save the only home he has ever known.
Joined by a girl from the Topside who has come subsea to look for her prospector brother, Ty ventures into the frontier's rough underworld and begins to discover some dark secrets to DARK LIFE.
As Ty gets closer to the truth, he discovers that the outlaws may not be the bloodthirsty criminals the government has portrayed them as. And that the government abandoning the territory might be the best thing for everyone, especially for someone like Ty, someone with a Dark Gift.
Gotham's Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Lee Stollman will produce. The pair are in the process of attaching a director before taking the package out to studios.

MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2010

Avatar This weekend, AVATAR has:
- Exceeded THE DARK KNIGHT as the second-highest-grossing movie ever domestically ($552.8 million vs. $533 million).
- Is closing in on TITANIC as the biggest movie of all time: It's up to $1.841 billion worldwide, compared with the boat movie's $1.843 billion.
- Was the number-one movie for the sixth consecutive weekend in a row, defeating LEGION at number two ($18.2 million) and BOOK OF ELI at number three ($17 million in its second weekend, for a domestic total of about $62 million).
- Claims the all-time international total with sales to date of $1.288 billion, exceeding TITANIC's $1.242 billion, the Reuters news service reported.
(The biggest movie of all time in North America�adjusted for inflation�is 1939's GONE WITH THE WIND, with sales of almost $1.5 billion, according to BoxOfficeMojo. Avatar ranks at number 26 by that measure.)

MACHETE
According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, bidding for the distribution rights to Robert Rodriguez's next movie, the independently-financed MACHETE, expanding upon the fake trailer created for Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse experiment, has ended with 20th Century Fox winning out over five other studios for the rights to distribute it.
Danny Trejo returns in the title role, surrounded by a number of big stars including Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez. Robert Rodriguez wrote and produced the movie with financing from Rick Schwartz's Overnight Productions, and directed it with co-director Ethan Maniquis.
According to the report, the six studios were shown roughly 15 to 30 minutes of footage with the price set at $9 million with a healthy profit sharing from the film's theatrical and back-end grosses. While the Weinstein Company had the first look rights for the movie due to their long involvement with Rodriguez, the MACHETE deal included a production deal with Rodriguez, so one can probably assume that Fox will be the filmmaking pioneer's new home.

I HOP
The Hollywood Reporter writes that James Marsden will star opposite Russell Brand in Universal and Illumination Entertainment's I HOP, the live-action/CG-animated hybrid comedy.
Tim Hill (Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties) is directing the tale of an out-of-work slacker (Marsden) who accidentally injures the Easter Bunny (voiced by Brand) and must take him in as he recovers. As Fred struggles with the world's worst houseguest, both will learn what it takes to finally grow up.
Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio and Brian Lynch are writing the screenplay.

-
BURIED
Lionsgate has acquired domestic distribution rights to BURIED, the claustrophobic thriller in which Ryan Reynolds plays a civilian contractor who's kidnapped in Iraq and awakens buried in a coffin in the desert.
The film, which cost $3 million to make, was directed by Spanish helmer Rodrigo Cortes. The studio picked up the rights for about $3.2 million.
"BURIED is a powerful reminder that all you really need for an unforgettable movie experience is a great story, inventive filmmaking and brilliant acting," Jason Constantine, Lionsgate's president of acquisitions and co-productions, said in a statement.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 24, 2010

Avatar WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
The Hollywood Reporter writes that AVATAR seems to be on cruise control entering its sixth weekend of release, once again atop the boxoffice rankings. The Fox release picked up an estimated $9.1 million in North American theaters on Friday, easily fending off all newcomers. Of the three new wide releases, Sony’s LEGION, an apocalyptic thriller about avenging angels, showed the most muscle. The R-rated movie directed by Scott Stewart and starring Paul Bettany, flew to second place for the day as it collected 6.7 million in 2,467 theaters.
Wings also figured in Fox’s family comedy TOOTH FAIRY, starring Dwayne Johnson. But the PG movie, directed by Michael Lembeck, didn’t fly quite as high, and with $3.5 million from 3,344 locations, could be found in the fourth spot.
EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES, the first title from the new CBS Films, lagged behind. Despite the star power of Harrison Ford and Brendon Fraser, the PG-rated medical drama directed by Tom Vaughan, checked in in sixth place, with $2.1 million from 2,549 theaters.
Rounding out the top five, the second weekend of Warner’s end-of-days tale, BOOK OF ELI, stood in third place with $5 million. And, in its second weekend of wide release, Paramount’s THE LOVELY BONES was fifth, collecting an additional $2.6 million.>

Hugh Jackman REAL STEEL
According to The Detroit Free Press, DreamWorks will begin filming the Shawn Levy-directed REAL STEEL in Michigan this June.
"The movie will be filmed primarily in Michigan at locations in metro Detroit and across the state," said the newspaper.
The sci-fi action-adventure, starring Hugh Jackman, is targeted for a November 18, 2011 release. In the film, based on Richard Matheson's short story, Jackman plays an ex-fighter who becomes a promoter when human boxing is outlawed for being too violent. The new gladiators are 2,000-pound robots with human qualities. The ex-fighter's access to sub-standard robot parts hampers his hopes for glory in Robot Boxing, until he discovers a discarded robot that always seems to win. The ex-fighter has also discovered he's the father of a 13-year old son, and they bond as the robot brawls its way toward the top.

Powers Comic POWERS
Premium Hollywood writes that "Journeyman" creator Kevin Falls is writing the TV pilot for the Sony adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis' POWERS at FX.
If FX gives the pilot the green light, Michael Dinner ("Karen Sisco," "Kidnapped") would reportedly direct.
POWERS is a superhero police/noir detective series that Bendis co-created with Michael Avon Oeming, who also does the art.

Waling Dead WALKING DEAD
Variety reports that AMC has given the green light to THE WALKING DEAD.
Based on Robert Kirkman's graphic novel series set after a zombie apocalypse. The story revolves around a group of survivors, led by a police officer, who travel the country in search of a safe home.
Frank Darabont penned the adaptation and will direct. Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert and Darabont will executive produce.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 2010

Tron Cycle TRON
Here is a high-res version of the yellow light cycle from TRON LEGACY, the upcoming sequel to the classic 1982 sci-fi movie.
Tron Legacy, the 3-D follow-up to the groundbreaking TRON, centers on Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), who has to go into the virtual world to look for his father, Kevin Flynn (again played by Jeff Bridges). TRON LEGACY is due out Dec. 17.

HOBBIT DELAYED
Variety reveals that the first of the two Hobbit films may not hit theaters until late 2012, a full year after the previously-announced December 2011 release:
Once the script for the second film is in -- Jackson and his longtime collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are working on it with Del Toro -- New Line will work up a budget for both films and start casting. New Line exec Michael Disco, who was once Emmerich's assistant, will oversee for the studio.
Alan Horn, studio executive at Warner Pictures said he won't predict when the first of the two "Hobbit" films will be out, but says the most probable scenario would be a release in the fourth quarter of 2012.
"It's a big bet for us. But it's one we think will pay off given the success of 'Lord of the Rings,'" says Roland Emmerich. "This is one of the few movies it feels like people are waiting for."
New Line's original plan was to release the first film in December 2011, followed by the second one in December 2012. One reason for the delay may be the restructuring of MGM, which shares the financing rights with New Line for the "Hobbit" films. MGM is currently accepting bids for the studio and those rights may go to another studio (Warner Bros. is said to be one of the bidders).

DREAM HOUSE
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Naomi Watts is set to star opposite Daniel Craig in DREAM HOUSE, director Jim Sheridan's psychological thriller at Universal Pictures.
Written by David Loucka, the film is about a family that relocates into what appears to be the ideal residence in small town Connecticut. However, the father (Craig) and his family are disturbed to discover that their beautiful new home was the site of another family's slaughter, believed to be at the hands of the husband who survived.
Watts will the family's neighbor in the Morgan Creek production. Filming is scheduled to start in February in Toronto.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010

TNT SERIES PICK-UP
TNT has added three more shows to its lineup of originals, picking up a pair of cop shows for later this year and a Steven Spielberg-produced drama about an alien invasion for 2011.
The cable channel has picked up 10 episodes each of the untitled alien series, which stars Noah Wyle as the leader of a resistance group; "Delta Blues," featuring Jason Lee as a quirky Memphis cop; and "Rizzoli & Isles," about a Boston homicide detective (Angie Harmon) and medical examiner (Sasha Alexander) who work together on cases.
"Delta Blues" will star Lee ("My Name Is Earl") as Dwight Hendricks, a Memphis police officer with deep ties to the city who lives with his mom (Celia Weston). Alfre Woodard ("Three Rivers") plays his boss; the cast also includes Robyn Lively ("Savannah," "Saving Grace"), Sam Hennings, Abraham Benrubi ("ER"), DJ Qualls ("Hustle & Flow") and Leonard Earl Howze. George Clooney and Grant Heslov are executive producing the show with co-writer Liz Garcia ("Cold Case"); fellow scribe Joshua Harto is a producer.
"Rizzoli & Isles" is based on a series of novels by Tess Gerritsen. Harmon ("Law & Order," "Women's Murder Club") will play Detective Jane Rizzoli, who enlists the help of medical examiner Maura Isles (Alexander, "NCIS") to solve cases in Beantown. Lorraine Bracco ("The Sopranos") will have a recurring part as Jane's mom; the show also stars Bruce McGill ("W.," "Animal House"), Lee Thompson Young ("FlashForward"), Jordan Bridges ("Conviction") and Billy Burke ("Twilight").
"Bones" veteran Janet Tamaro wrote the pilot and will exec produce with "The Closer's" Michael Robin, who also directed, and Bill Haber.
Of the alien-invasion series Michael Wright, executive vice president, head of programming for TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies (TCM)said, "This series has the potential to be one of the most exciting and provocative shows on television. It grabs your heart and mind from the start and doesn't let go. It combines personal human drama with dynamic action to create the kind of series people will be talking about the morning after. We are especially thrilled to be working once again with Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks Television, as well as Noah Wyle and the extremely talented cast of veterans and newcomers around him."
The series opens shortly after aliens have wiped out most of the human population. The aliens are now rounding up the few people left, but they are met with strong resistance from a group of soldiers and civilians who fight for their survival - all while struggling to maintain their humanity.
Wyle plays Tom Mason, a former college history professor who becomes the reluctant leader of one of the resistance groups. Also starring in the series are Moon Bloodgood (Terminator Salvation) as Anne Glass, a therapist who works with the surviving children to help them cope with the traumatic situation; Drew Roy (Lincoln Heights) as Hal and Maxim Knight (Brothers & Sisters) as Matt, Tom's two sons; Jessy Schram (Crash) as Karen, who is one of the survivors' motorcycle scouts; and Seychelle Gabriel (Weeds) as Lourdes, an orphaned teenager who helps run the group's commissary.
This project marks Wyle's fifth venture with TNT, following three popular Librarian action-adventure movies and the acclaimed movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. TNT previously worked with DreamWorks Television on 2005's award-winning limited series Into the West. ...

Primeval PRIMEVAL RETURNING
The SciFiWire reports that series creator Adrian Hodges managed to secure financing elsewhere, and international networks airing the show�including BBC America�are contributing the budget for a fourth season. (Possible spoilers ahead!) That means we get to learn the fate of the characters, who were last seen in the past.
"Obviously there's a question of, at the end of the last season, three major characters were stuck in the past," Hodges told us. "So a lot of the first two episodes is going to be about how some of them at least get back."
The upcoming new season of Primeval will explore the other side of time travel: So far, the characters have only gone backward, where dinosaurs chase them. "There will be an aspect of the future in it, which is new for us," Hodges said.
Here's where it gets really interesting: There probably aren't dinosaurs in the future, but Hodges could take inspiration from other future-based sci-fi stories to bring new creatures to Primeval.
"Well, if you think of the future predators from other series, we're going to have a kind of variation on that idea," Hodges said. "There may also be some human intervention from the future as well."
In the aftermath of the series' temporary cancellation, lead actor Jason Flemyng moved on to other projects. He has agreed to return for up to three episodes, but Hodges is working on ways to advance the story without Flemyng.
"We're going to move it on pretty fast," Hodges said. "Jason won't necessarily come back at the beginning of the season. We're going to hold back his reappearance, but that will be shooting from March. We have the first five episodes written, so we're shooting in March."
Hodges envisions 13 episodes for Primeval's fourth season. BBC America aired the first two seasons of the show as Volume 1.

Jason Momoa NEW CONAN FROM ATLANTIS!
According to Deadline Hollywood, Lionsgate and Millenium Films have picked the actor to play the lead role in Marcus Nispel's reinvention of Robert E. Howard's CONAN and it's 30-year-old Jason Momoa, who may best be known for his run on STARGATE ATLANTIS and who also appears in HBO's upcoming mini-series GAME OF THRONES. At the same time, Latino Review says that an offer has been put out to Mickey Rourke to play Conan's father Corin. The movie is scheduled to start production in Bulgaria on March 15.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 3 COMING
Access Hollywood reports that 20th Century Fox is planning a third installment of their very successful NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM and NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN. Having collected almost $1 billion at the worldwide box office, who wouldn't?
Thomas Lennon, who co-wrote the first two films with Ben Garant, hinted to Access Hollywood that a script for the third film is being written.
"How could you not? I think it's a really outstanding idea to do 'Night at the Museum 3,' in fact," he said. "I wonder if someone's not even already working on a script for that," he added with a raised eyebrow. "I cannot confirm that for a fact, but I cannot deny it for a fact either... It might be in the works."

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK
In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Neil Gaiman said that the adaptation of "The Graveyard Book" is no longer in the works at Miramax, but may turn up elsewhere soon. The film was to be written and directed by Neil Jordan (The Brave One, The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire).
"It was all put together over at Miramax Films. The people there had a long, great relationship with Neil Jordan and it was all set up and ready to go, and then Miramax was more or less erased from existence," Gaiman said. "It became a filing cabinet in somebody's desk, more or less... But it looks like almost all the pieces are on the table again. They have a studio, they have a distributor and they are putting stuff together and I'm not allowed to say anything else."
Gaiman next hopes to write a screenplay for "Anansi Boy," his first novel.

HOPE FOR HAITI NOW
The list of celebrities scheduled for the Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief continues to grow. Recent additions to the actors there to present include Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Nicole Kidman. Today, MTV announced that President Bill Clinton, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, Robert Pattinson, Will Smith, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, and Muhammad Ali have also signed on.
Additionally, Madonna will perform live from New York and Haitian artist Emeline Michel in Los Angeles. They join a lineup of musical performers that includes Wyclef Jean, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Shakira, Sting, Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Dave Matthews, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Beyoncé, Coldplay, Bono, The Edge, Jay-Z, and Rihanna.
Proceeds from the George Clooney–organized telethon will be split evenly between The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, United Nations World Food Programme, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, The Red Cross, UNICEF, and the Yele Haiti Foundation.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2010
Spider-Man Logo SPIDER-MAN REBOOT
Now that Marc Webb has been hired to direct the SPIDER-MAN film franchise, new details are surfacing on what he plans for his proposed trilogy: namely, basing them on a rebooted Marvel comic series, Ultimate Spider-Man.
Sony is making a smaller movie ($80 million, compared with an estimated $260 million for Spider-Man 3) with an unknown actor to star and James Vanderbilt (Zodiac) writing the script.
Here's how The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Business blog reported it:
The story will be pared down to center on a high school kid who is dealing with the knowledge that his uncle died even though the teen had the power to stop it.
The touchstone for the new movie will not be the 1960s comics, which were the inspiration behind the movies by [previous director Sam] Raimi, who grew on up on them, but rather this past decade's "Ultimate Spider-Man" comics by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley where the villain-fighting took a back seat to the high school angst.
The first of the new Spidey movies is set to begin production this year.

SURVIVORS
BBC America's upcoming SURVIVORS revolves around a flu virus that wipes out all but a handful of the world's population. In England, survivors including a mother, a prison inmate, a nurse and a child form units to try to rebuild according to their own different plans.
Adrian Hodges (Primeval), who created the new series, says there's no limit to how many post-apocalyptic survival stories you can tell. (The show has already been picked up for a second season in the United Kingdom.)
"I think [the difference] is character," Hodges said during an interview as part of the Television Critics Assn. winter press tour. "You're right, there is a lot of stuff out there and a lot of different angles on it. The fact of survival is a given. What it's about is how your character responds. So the interesting thing for me as a dramatist, and for the actors, is it gives you a brilliant chance to explore characters outside of society. If you look at most drama, it's all about people interacting within society. It's about the rules. Everything is about our reaction for or against society. If there is no society, then you're down to the basic stuff. You're down to how human beings really behave, how they might behave, how they would behave."
In the new SURVIVORS, Greg (Paterson Joseph) just wants to find a farm somewhere and take care of himself. Abby (Julie Graham), a newly widowed mother, convinces him to join up with him and other survivors. Former inmate Tom Price (Max Beesley) gives himself a clean slate and reinvents himself. These are only a few of the permutations Hodges' drama can take. (Doctor Who's Freema Agyeman also stars.)
Survivors also deals with a politician (Nikki Amuka-Bird) trying to re-establish government, under her own leadership, of course. She gets dangerously strict in the series' third episode.
"She badly wants to be the government," said Hodges. "That's the point. I think the interesting thing about that episode is in a world where we no longer have to play by the old rules, anybody who wants to play by the old rules has to prove that they're the big cheese."
SURVIVORS premieres Feb. 13 on BBC America.

Walking Dead NEW AMC PILOTS
The Hollywood Reporter writes that AMC is looking to extend its perfect development record with the pickup of drama pilots "Walking Dead" and "The Killing." They mark the fourth and fifth pilots ordered by the basic cabler, with its first three -- "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad and "Rubicon," which premieres in the summer -- all going to series. They also continue "the tradition of delivering premium cable quality shows on basic cable," AMC president and GM Charlie Collier said.
"Dead" is based on Robert Kirkman's comic book. It chronicles the months and years following a zombie apocalypse and focuses on a group of survivors, led by policeman Rick Grimes, who travels in search of a secure home. Frank Darabont is writer, director and executive producer of the project, with Gale Anne Hurd of Valhalla Pictures and David Alpert of Circle of Confusion also executive producing.
"The Walking Dead," a monthly black-and-white comic, had been a sought-after property since it was published in 2003 by Image Comics. After healthy bidding, it landed at AMC in August in one of the network's biggest development deals to date.
"Killing," from Fox TV Studios, is based on the Danish series "Forbrydelsen." Written by Veena Sud ("CBS' Cold Case") and set in Seattle, the AMC project chronicles the investigation of a young girl's murder through the perspective of the police, the victim's family and the mayor's office.
Denmark-born producer Mikkel Bondesen (USA Network's "Burn Notice"), who is based at FtvS, brought the format to the studio and is executive producing with Sud.
"It's 'Prime Suspect' meets 'The Wire,' " FtvS exec VP David Madden said. "We're cutting between the three interconnected worlds that are all affected by the killing and everything that has come out in the investigation."
AMC's first three pilots and series were original concepts. The fact that "Dead" and "Killing" are based on underlying material is a coincidence, AMC senior vp original programming and production Joel Stillerman said. "We think that both of these pieces are incredibly original and distinctive," he said.
AMC is coming off of a record-setting best series Golden Globes award for "Mad Men," which became the first drama to win the top category three consecutive years.

Electric Church THE ELECTRIC CHURCH
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Sony Pictures has picked up the rights to a series of sci-fi novels by Jeff Somers and has hired Trevor Sands to adapt the first book, THE ELECTRIC CHURCH.
Jimmy Miller is producing the adaptation, which is working under the moniker of the The Avery Cates Project, named after the book's main character. Somers has so far written three books.
Here is a description of THE ELECTRIC CHURCH:
In the near future, the only thing growing faster than the criminal population is the Electric Church, a new religion founded by a mysterious man named Dennis Squalor. The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks -- cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans.
Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken -- and it may well be his last.

AFRAID
John and Drew Dowdle (Quarantine, upcoming Devil) are attached to direct an adaptation of Jack Kilborn's novel AFRAID. The book, about five killer members of a classified Special Forces unit, is described as follows: A helicopter has crashed near Safe Haven and unleashed something horrifying. Now this merciless force is about to do what it does best. Isolate. Terrorize. Annihilate. As residents begin dying in a storm of gory violence, Safe Haven's only chance for survival will rest with an aging county sheriff, a firefighter, and a single mom. Larry Malkin and Chad Thumann are writing the script.

THE QUESTOR TAPES
Rod Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Productions, announced that Roddenberry Productions has entered into a deal with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's Imagine Television to develop the Gene Roddenberry pilot THE QUESTOR TAPES. The announcement was made at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame induction ceremony where Rod Roddenberry accepted the posthumous honor, presented by Seth MacFarlane, on his father's behalf.
THE QUESTOR TAPES was originally conceived as a television series pilot about an android with incomplete memory tapes who searches for his creator and his purpose. The pilot ultimately aired as a 1974 television movie.
"My father always felt that 'Questor' was the one that got away," said Rod Roddenberry. "He believed that the show had the potential to be bigger than 'Star Trek.'"
Rod Roddenberry will develop the project along with Roddenberry Productions COO Trevor Roth and Imagine Television's President David Nevins and EVP of Development Robin Gurney. The team is currently in negotiations with writer, producer and show runner Tim Minear ("Lois & Clark," "The X-Files," "Angel," "Dollhouse") to produce.

HOWL
HOWL takes the audience back to the birth of the counterculture with the beat poets of the 1950s, encapsulating the inter-generational conflicts of the time in a landmark obscenity trial over the Allen Ginsburg poem from which the movie gets its name. The movie, originally to be a documentary, mixes scenes of Ginsberg (James Franco) reading his signature poem with a dramatization of the trial, a legendary disappearing interview that Ginsberg gave to Time magazine, and some dreamy animation.
Although HOWL did not end up being a documentary, filmmakers went to great lengths to recreate the atmosphere and the anxieties of the time, as cast members Franco, Jon Hamm (Don Draper in Mad Men), and Jeff Daniels explain in a series of on set video interviews.
Also released in conjunction with the movie's debut this week at Sundance is this set of four clips, starting off with an extended bit of Ginsberg's original incendiary poetry slam. Later, as a comic counterpoint, we get a scene in which a stiff establishment suit reads extracts from Ginsberg's work in the courtroom, pushing for some sort of meaning that makes sense in his world.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010

Torchwood TORCHWOOD REMAKE FOR FOX?
The Hollywood Reporter writes that FOX is in the process of developing a U.S. version of the British sci-fi hit TORCHWOOD. In addition to securing the remake rights from the BBC, FOX is also hiring TORCHWOOD creator Russell T. Davies to write a pilot script. There's even a chance that some of the current show's cast would cross over to the new series; the HR mentions John Barrowman by name.
Two seasons of TORCHWOOD -- an offshoot of DOCTOR WHO about a government agency that tracks and captures aliens -- and the miniseries "Children of Earth" have aired in this country on BBC America. "Children of Earth," which aired last summer, set ratings records for the channel, and the show has been a big success in its home country as well.
Davies' producing partner, Julie Gardner, will be an executive producer on the FOX project, as will former BBC executive Jane Tranter. The U.S. version of TORCHWOOD is still in its infancy; FOX hasn't yet decided whether to order a pilot episode.
Davies is also gearing up for a fourth season of TORCHWOOD on the BBC.

SPIDER-MAN DIRECTOR NAMED
With the SPIDER-MAN film franchise getting the reboot, Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced Tuesday that Marc Webb is on board as director. While not a household name yet, his "(500) Days of Summer" starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel has been widely acclaimed by critics and audiences alike for its playful youthfulness. Webb steps into the director's chair vacated by Sam Raimi, who helmed the first three SPIDER-MAN films before Sony decided to revamp the franchise.
"This is a dream come true and I couldn't be more aware of the challenge, responsibility, or opportunity," says Webb. "Sam Raimi's virtuoso rendering of Spider-Man is a humbling precedent to follow and build upon. The first three films are beloved for good reason. But I think the Spider-Man mythology transcends not only generations but directors as well. I am signing on not to 'take over' from Sam. That would be impossible. Not to mention arrogant. I'm here because there's an opportunity for ideas, stories, and histories that will add a new dimension, canvas, and creative voice to Spider-Man."
SPIDER-MAN co-creator Stan Lee approves of the decision to hire Webb: "I'm excited that Sony has chosen a director with a real penchant and understanding for the character. This is a brave, bold direction for the franchise, and I can't wait to see what Marc comes up with next."
The first of the films, written by James Vanderbilt, will hit theaters in summer 2012. Production will begin sometime later this year.
Columbia and Marvel claim they picked Webb because of his talent with telling more human, intimate stories, which would be important for the rebooted franchise that focuses more on a high school-aged Peter Parker.

TWO PILOTS FOR ABC
According to the Hollywood Reporter, ABC picked up two more pilots, a new medical drama from "Grey's Anatomy" creator Shonda Rhimes, and "Body of Evidence," both from ABC Studios.
"Off the Map," executive produced by Rhimes, revolves around three doctors, each anxious for a fresh start. They leave the comfort of the States to work at an isolated tropical clinic, where they face both exotic and unusual medical challenges as well as personal ones.
"Grey's Anatomy" co-exec producer Jenna Bans wrote the script and is executive producing with Rhimes and Betsy Beers.
"Body of Evidence," is a procedural that centers on Megan Hunt, a former neurosurgeon-turned-medical examiner who brings a unique and crime-solving perspective to the ME's office that often puts her at odds with her superiors. Chris Murphey wrote the script and is exec producing with Matt Gross, on whose idea the project is based. Gross described "Body of Evidence" as "a female postmortem 'House'."

I AM NUMBER FOUR
Heat Vision is reporting that D.J. Caruso (Eagle Eye, Disturbia) has signed on to direct the adaptation of James Frey and Jobie Hughes' sci-fi book I AM NUMBER FOUR.
The book is about a group of nine earthbound alien teens who escaped their planet just before it was destroyed by a hostile species. While the high school-aged kids assimilate, the title character discovers that he is being hunted by the enemy that blew up his planet.
HarperCollins Children's Books is publishing the book, which would be the first in a series of six, this fall. Al Gough and Miles Millar wrote the screenplay. Michael Bay will produce algon with Benderspink for DreamWorks Pictures.

True Grit TRUE GRIT REMAKE
Variety reports that Paramount Pictures has scheduled Joel and Ethan Coen's remake of TRUE GRIT for a Christmas Day 2010 release.
Based on Charles Portis' novel, the story follows a 14-year-old girl who, along with an aging U.S. marshal (Jeff Bridges) and another lawman (Matt Damon), tracks her father's killer in hostile Indian territory. Josh Brolin also stars.
The positioning sets the film squarely up for a high-profile awards run and the Christmas Day holiday box-office.

EDGE OF DARKNESS
Martin Campbell's EDGE OF DARKNESS is ready to hit theaters this month. The movie, based on a 1985 BBC mini-series that Campbell directed, is Mel Gibson's first leading role since 2002's Signs. Gibson plays a homicide detective who starts investigating the death of his daughter and uncovers a conspiracy of corporate and government collusion.
Warner Brothers has released 7 clips to help promote the movie, which Collider has compiled together into one long clip for your viewing convenience.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2010

Green Lantern GREEN LANTERN
During a recent interview, GREEN LANTERN director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) promised to keep the film believable. The live-action adaptation of the DC Comics series, starring Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively will tell the origin story of Hal Jordan and the intended casting of Peter Sarsgaard as the film's villain. "I think he's contracted," Campbell said. "I'm not sure if negotiations have been complete, but he's absolutely who we want." The director also hinted that he might have plans for an entire trilogy of Green Lantern films. "Oh, sure," he said. "Well, it's like Sam Raimi on Spider-Man, isn't it?"
The movie centers on Hal Jordan, a test pilot who becomes a guardian of Earth by wielding a ring that can create material manifestations of the wielder's choosing. That might seem as fanciful as you can get, but Campbell explained how he feels reality can exist within superhero stories.
"I think the thing to do is keep a sense of reality about it," Campbell said while promoting the thriller EDGE OF DARKNESS. "Any time we talk about it, we sit in meetings, we have a cheese meter. We talk about de-cheesing any scene. So it's quite funny. We've all sort of got a sort of cheese meter where that becomes our sort of yardstick in terms of keeping it, giving it some sense of reality."
Campbell added: "So often in these superhero movies, nobody seems to get hurt. I remember seeing Wolverine, and he picks people up and hurls them 100 yards into a brick wall. These people, apparently unhurt, sort of get up and continue to fight just as strongly as they did before. Well, there's something absurd about that, in my opinion."
Portraying the green manifestations of the ring would be a new step for visual effects, but it's all based on character. "Well, of course it's willpower drives the rings and forms the constructs via the ring," Campbell said. "I think he's the only superhero that does that."
Campbell was attached to a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS for the Platinum Dunes production company but said that he had to leave that project to do GREEN LANTERN. "I passed on that to do Green Lantern," Campbell said. "It's still with Universal." GREEN LANTERN is due out in 2011.

Avatar WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Cameron's AVATAR will soon sink TITANIC's global record of $1.843 billion, as the 20th Century Fox release earned yet another $54.6 million domestically over the four-day holiday weekend, claiming first place for a fifth weekend in a row. The film has reached $505.1 million in North America and passed up the $500 million mark in just 32 days, a new record. That record was held by THE DARK KNIGHT, which reached the mark in 45 days, and AVATAR is expected to surpass the THE DARK KNIGHT in total domestic box office ($533.3 million) as well next weekend to become the second-biggest title of all time behind Cameron's own TITANIC ($600.8 million). AVATAR also set a new record for the biggest fifth weekend ever domestically, beating TITANIC's $30 million by earning $41.3 million over the Friday-to-Sunday frame.
Internationally, AVATAR earned $125 million from Friday to Sunday for a total of $1.115 billion (not counting Monday). The worldwide total has reached an amazing $1.64 billion already!
At the domestic box office, Warner Bros. Pictures' THE BOOK OF ELI opened well in second place with an estimated $38 million for the four days from 3,111 theaters, a strong average of $12,221 per theater. It is Warner Bros.' biggest January opening ever and also the biggest R-rated debut for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. It marks Denzel Washington's second-best opening after 2007's AMERICAN GANGSTER ($43.6 million).
After playing in just a few theaters since December 11, Peter Jackson's THE LOVELY BONES expanded to 2,563 theaters and earned $20.5 million from Friday through Monday for a total of $21 million. Made for about $100 million, the Paramount film is based on the best-selling novel by Alice Sebold.
In fourth place, Fox's ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKUEL collected another $15 million to bring its four-week total to $196 million.
Lionsgate's new family action-comedy THE SPY NEXT DOOR, starring Jackie Chan, rounded the top five with $13 million over the four days from 2,924 theaters.
In their fourth weekends, Warner Bros.' SHERLOCK HOLMES added $11.7 million in sixth place for a total of $181.9 million, while Universal's IT'S COMPLICATED made $9.1 million for a total of $89.7 million.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
Governor of Hawaii Linda Lingle announced that Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films will shoot PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES on the islands of Kaua'i and O'ahu this summer:
Governor Linda Lingle today announced that Hawai'i will be the location for "PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES," the fourth installment of the highly successful Walt Disney Pictures' action adventure film series from Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
The Walt Disney Company President and CEO Bob Iger met with Governor Lingle on Friday to share the news that the islands of Kaua'i and O'ahu will be sites for the production of the feature film, which will begin shooting this summer and is slated to be released in summer 2011. The production is expected to generate an estimated $85 million in direct and indirect spending in Hawai'i, providing a needed economic boost for the state's economy as well as creating hundreds of jobs for local residents. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES will star Johnny Depp, returning to his iconic role of Captain Jack Sparrow.

BRUCE VS. FRANKENSTEIN
In a recent e-mail message, Bruce Campbell announced that he'll be reprising his role as... well, himself for the MY NAME IS BRUCE sequel titled BRUCE VS. FRANKENSTEIN. Here's his official statement:
Hello everyone. Bruce Campbell here. This urgent message is short, because my keystrokes are monitored and I fear for my life. My partner at Dark Horse comics, Mike Richardson (normally a very rational and talented man), threatened to have his foot soldiers "crush my spleen" if I did what I am about to do. But the fans deserve to know, so with great trepidation I officially announce BRUCE VS. FRANKENSTEIN, the sequel to MY NAME IS BRUCE. Principal photography begins this fall in Oregon. I'd like to live long enough to see the cameras roll, so please, for the love of God, do not tell anyone - I can't risk this announcement getting back to Mike! Thank you.

NeverEndingStory NEVERENDING STORY
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. and a pair of top-tier production companies are in the early stages of a remake of the 1980s children's fantasy classic THE NEVERENDING STORY.
The Kennedy/Marshall Co. (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Leonardo DiCaprio's company Appian Way are in discussions with Warner Bros. about reviving the 25-year-old franchise with a modern spin. The studio recently acquired rights to the property, clearing the way for a potential remake.
Born out of a German-language novel by Michael Ende, the film centers on a boy named Bastian Balthazar Bux who discovers a parallel world in a book titled "The NeverEnding Story." As the boy, a loner, delves deeper into the book, he increasingly finds his life intertwined with the plot of the novel, in which a hero in the land of Fantasia must save the universe on behalf of an empress.
The new film--which original producer Dieter Geissler--will examine the more nuanced details of the book that were glossed over in the first film, that was directed by Wolfgang Petersen.
A sequel directed by George Miller came out in 1990; a third movie followed in the U.S. in 1996 but quickly went to video.
Those familiar with the project emphasize that it is in its early stages and that writers have not been attached.

MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2010

Joss Whedon NEW SERIES FOR WHEDON ON FX?
FX president John Landgraf, speaking with reporters on Sunday, hinted that Joss Whedon, creator of Dollhouse and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, may be working on a new series for the cable TV network. Here's how the Futon Critic Web site reported it:
"Actually his representatives called and scheduled a lunch, I think I'm supposed to have lunch with Joss in the next two or three weeks," FX president John Landgraf told reporters when asked about working with the cult-favorite producer during the network's executive session at the TCA this morning.
DOLLHOUSE ends with a series finale, "Epitaph Two: Return," on Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.

Avatar AVATAR CONTINUES TO MAKE MONEY
James Cameron's AVATAR topped the U.S. box office for the fifth straight weekend in a row, raised its domestic take to about $491.8 million, and overtook STAR WARS as the third-highest-grossing movie of all time domestically. The Associated Press estimates that the sci-fi epic will top $500 million domestically by the end of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday.
Globally, AVATAR's total is now an estimated $1.6 billion, second only to Cameron's TITANIC ($1.8 billion). The first STAR WARS movie took in $460.9 million domestically in its original run and several reissues over the years. (STAR WARS is still ahead of AVATAR in terms of tickets sold.)
Meanwhile, THE BOOK OF ELI opened strongly in second place, with about $31.6 million domestically.

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS
Here are some of the winners from last night's Golden Globe awards:
Best drama - AVATAR
Best actor in a drama - Jeff Bridges, CRAZY HEART
Best actress in a drama - Sandra Bullock, THE BLIND SIDE
Best director - James Cameron, AVATAR
Best actor in a musical or comedy - Robert Downey, Jr., SHERLOCK HOLMES
Best actress in a musical or comedy - Meryl Streep, JULIE & JULIA
Best animated film - UP
Best TV drama - MAD MEN, AMC
Best actor in a TV drama - Michael C. Hall, DEXTER
Best actress in a TV drama - Julianna Marguulies, THE GOOD WIFE
Best actor in a supporting role - John Lithgow, DEXTER
Special moments:
Cameron acknowledged the movie's global appeal as he accepted the best picture award, saying: " 'Avatar' asks us to see that everything is connected, all human beings to each other and us to the Earth. And, you know, if you have to go 4 1/2 light years to another made-up planet to appreciate this miracle of a world that we have right here, well, do you know what? That's the wonder of cinema right there."
Sandra Bullock was recognized as best dramatic film actress for her true-life role as a suburban mom in takes in a homeless teen and prospective football star in the sleeper hit "The Blind Side." She acknowledged the Tuohy family, depicted in the movie, for reminding everyone "that a family is not just who you were born to or what color you are. It's who's got your back."
Industry vet Jeff Bridges won after three previous nominations, picking up a Globe as best dramatic actor for his down-and-out country singer in "Crazy Heart." Offering thanks to his wife and parents, Bridges said of his late father Lloyd Bridges: "He loved show business so damned much, he encouraged all his kids to go into showbiz. ... So glad, I listened to you, Dad."

SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2010

HUMAN TARGET
Tonight TV viewers will have a number of choices to make. There's the GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS starting at 8:00pm and then there is HUMAN TARGET and 24. At least there are some options tonight -- unlike many Sunday nights when there are a number of re-runs to view only.
HUMAN TARGET stars Mark Valley that FRINGE fans will remember. He portrays a highly skilled private security expert who's called in to protect clients when regular protective measures won't cut it. Unlike the DC/Vertigo comic of the same name, where Chance actually becomes the people he protects through elaborate disguises, the show's Chance is basically the world's best bodyguard, skilled at all manner of combat, incredibly observant and a little bit nuts.
As you can see from the opening sequence, there will be lots of action. Sunday's (Jan. 17) premiere takes place mostly aboard a high-speed train and features a couple of well-choreographed large stunts as well as a fantastic (and lengthy) fight scene in a cargo car.
Sounds like good escapism to me!

24
The action doesn't stop on Fox with HUMAN TARGET. Next up is the 8th season premiere of 24. It has been a long time coming, but this 2-hour premiere is finally here. It will be followed by another 2-hour episode tomorrow night. Season 8 promises a different Jack Bauer -- we'll have to watch and find out.
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA fans will love seeing Katee Sackhoff in her new role.

JOHN CARTER OF MARS
Walt Disney announced that JOHN CARTER OF MARS, the upcoming live-action adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" books, has begun production in London. The movie, from WALL-E director Andrew Stanton, is slated for release sometime in 2012. Below is a portion of the official announcement.

John Carter of Mars
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WALT DISNEY PICTURES' "JOHN CARTER OF MARS" BEGINS PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN LONDON
BURBANK, Calif. (January 15, 2010) - Principal photography is underway in London for Walt Disney Pictures' "JOHN CARTER OF MARS." Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton brings this captivating hero to the big screen in a stunning adventure epic set on the wounded planet of Mars, a world inhabited by warrior tribes and exotic desert beings. Based on the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom Series," the film chronicles the journey of Civil-War veteran John Carter, who finds himself battling a new and mysterious war amidst a host of strange Martian inhabitants.
Produced for Walt Disney Pictures by Jim Morris ("WALL•E," "Ratatouille") and Colin Wilson ("Avatar," "War of the Worlds"), the live action/animation film marks Academy Award®-winning director/writer Andrew Stanton's ("Finding Nemo," "WALL•E") first foray into live action. Stanton directed and co-wrote the screenplay for Disney•Pixar's "WALL•E," which earned the Academy Award and Golden Globe® for Best Animated Feature (2008); Stanton was nominated for an Oscar® for the screenplay. He made his directorial debut with Disney•Pixar's "Finding Nemo," garnering an Academy Award-nomination for Best Original Screenplay and winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (2003). He has worked as a screenwriter and/or executive producer on Disney•Pixar's "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life" (which he also co-directed), "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc.," "Ratatouille" and "Up."
"I have been waiting my whole life to see the characters and worlds of 'John Carter of Mars' realized on the big screen," says Stanton. "It is just a wonderful bonus that I have anything to do with it."
The stellar ensemble cast is led by Taylor Kitsch (NBC'S "Friday Night Lights", "X-Men Origins: Wolverine") in the title role, Lynn Collins ("50 First Dates," "X-Men Origins: Wolverine") as the warrior princess Dejah Thoris and Oscar® nominee Willem Dafoe ("Spider-Man 3," "Shadow of a Vampire") as Martian inhabitant Tars Tarkas. The cast also includes Thomas Haden Church ("Sideways," Spider-Man 3), Polly Walker (upcoming "Clash of the Titans," "Patriot Games"), Samantha Morton ("Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "In America"), Mark Strong ("Sherlock Holmes," "Body of Lies"), Ciaran Hinds ("Munich," "There Will Be Blood"), British actor Dominic West ("300," "Chicago"), James Purefoy ("Vanity Fair," "Resident Evil") and Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad"). Daryl Sabara ("Disney's A Christmas Carol," "Spy Kids") takes the role of John Carter's teenaged nephew, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The creative team includes Oscar®-nominated production designer Nathan Crowley ("Public Enemies," "The Dark Knight," "Batman Begins"), costume designer Mayes Rubeo ("Avatar," "Apocalypto"), cinematographer Daniel Mindel ("Star Trek," "Mission Impossible III," "Spygame") and video effects supervisor Peter Chiang ("The Reader," "The Bourne Ultimatum").

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2010

Sherlock Holmes
SHERLOCK HOLMES SEQUEL
With the success of the current SHERLOCK HOLMES movie, it was only a matter of time before work would begin on a sequel. Indeed, a sequel is afoot. Three months ahead of the release of its Robert Downey Jr. action pic, Warners is developing a new installment.
The studio is poised to bring on Kieran and Michele Mulroney, the scribes who are penning its "Justice League: Mortal" tentpole, to pen a draft of the new tale. Brad Pitt has had discussions with producers to star as Holmes' nemesis Moriarty in the new pic, say people familiar with the project, though there is no deal in place for him to take the part.
Susan Downey, Dan Lin and Joel Silver produced "Holmes," a holiday release that, from well-received footage at Comic-Con, appeared to be an action-heavy rendition of the world Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created.
Guy Ritchie helms the pic, and Downey stars as the title character; Jude Law plays protege Watson, and Rachel McAdams stars as love interest Irene Adler. Much of the talent is expected to return in the new pic, as could Ritchie as director.
Pitt has been the subject of a litany of blog rumors as appearing in several shots of "Holmes" as Moriarty, but those familiar with the script say the character is in shadow and cannot be recognized.
It's increasingly common for a studio to begin developing sequels ahead of a movie's release, enabling a second pic to get into production faster than it normally would, and at a comparatively low cost. Warners began pushing "The Hangover," as the movie's prerelease buzz began to grow, though did not close deals until after the movie had begun raking in boxoffice dollars.
Warners is keen on developing new franchises, with Holmes -- with its broad fan base and rich source material -- considered a very appealing candidate. The project would also mean Downey would star in a second franchise, after "Iron Man."

HAWAII FIVE-0 GETS GREEN LIGHT
The Hollywood Reporter writes that CBS has greenlighted an updated version of the classic cop series from hot feature scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and "CSI: NY" executive producer Peter Lenkov. The project, from CBS Studios, scored a sizable commitment when it landed at CBS in October. It is described as an updated take on the original series that is centered on an elite branch of the Hawaii State Police headed by Steve McGarrett and answerable only to the governor. The classic procedural, created by Leonard Freeman, ran on CBS from 1968-80 and became famous for its opening music and for its staple "Book 'em, Danno" closing line.
Kurtzman and Orci co-wrote the story for the pilot with Lenkov, who penned the script under their supervision. All three are executive producing.
CBS and CBS Studios, which has the rights to "Hawaii Five-O," first took a stab at developing a contemporary take last season with "Criminal Minds" executive producer/showrunner Ed Bernero.
Kurtzman and Orci, co-creators/exec producers of Fox's sophomore drama "Fringe," know a thing or two about reinvigorating TV series: They recently penned the J.J. Abrams-directed blockbuster "Star Trek." Their feature writing credits also include the two "Transformers" movies and "Mission: Impossible III."
Lenkov serves as exec producer/co-showrunner on CBS/CBS Studios crime drama "CSI: NY" alongside Pam Veasey.

UNDERCOVERS ADDITION
Jessica Parker Kennedy rounds up the core cast of J.J. Abrams' NBC pilot UNDERCOVERS. UNDERCOVERS, which Abrams co-wrote with Josh Reims, revolves around Steven (Boris Kodjoe) and Samantha (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a domesticated husband and wife who are re-activated as CIA agents after years of retirement.
Parker Kennedy will play Samantha’s younger sister who works at a catering company.
In addition to Kodjoe and Mbatha-Raw, Parker Kennedy joins previously cast fellow regulars Gerald McRaney and Ben Schwartz. Abrams is directing the Warner Bros. TV-produced pilot.

Happy Feet
HAPPY FEET 2
Movieline reports that George Miller has reunited "Ocean's Eleven" franchise co-stars Matt Damon and Brad Pitt for HAPPY FEET 2. The site says that the two actors already started doing voice work for the sequel this week. They join the returning Elijah Wood and Robin Williams in the Warner Bros. sequel, targeted for a November 18, 2011 release. Who Damon and Pitt are playing is unknown at this time.
The first film made $384 million worldwide.

TWILIGHT NEW MOON RELEASE DATE
Summit Entertainment has announced that THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON will hit DVD and Blu-ray on Saturday, March 20: One of the most talked about films of 2009, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON, will be released on a Two-Disc Special Edition DVD and Special Edition Blu-ray on March 20, 2010 – a Saturday street date that will allow for fans across the nation to celebrate at retailer’s midnight release parties before taking home the film at 12:01 a.m.
Already a worldwide literary phenomenon, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON, a post modern Romeo and Juliet story filled with action, suspense and the supernatural, took in an estimated $300 million domestic at the theatrical box office and had the third largest opening weekend box office in movie history at $142 million.
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON Two-Disc Special Edition DVD has a suggested retail price of $32.99, while the Special Edition Blu-ray is set at $34.99. Both are packed with bonus features that are sure to please even the most-hard core fans, including a revealing Audio Commentary with Director Chris Weitz and editor Peter Lambert; a riveting 6-part documentary that takes you behind the scenes; exclusive band rehearsal footage with Muse; and music videos from Death Cab for Cutie, Anya Marina and Mute Math.
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Dakota Fanning, Michael Sheen and Anna Kendrick. Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Nikki Reed, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone and Kellan Lutz return to their roles in the Cullen family.

ARCHER ON FX
Thursday saw the premiere of ARCHER, and found the network toon friendly for the animated spy laffer. Skein drew 1.8 million total viewers and 1.2 million in the 18-49 demo and established another beachhead on the comedy front for the net. ARCHER opened better than IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA in 2005 and, more recently, THE LEAGUE in October. For season five of SUNNY that launched in September, 1.7 million tuned in and the 1.4 million were in the demo.
The episode that aired at 10 p.m. was actually the second of the season. The pilot was telecast in the fall as a test balloon to gauge the show's popularity.
Next up on the comedy side is LOUIE, from the standup of Louie C.K. Show will premiere in April.
Cabler is on a roll following a big second season of motorcycle club drama SONS OF ANARCHY and is set to launch DAMAGES Jan. 25.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 2010

CBS RENEWS NCIS: LA AND GOOD WIFE
CBS has picked up two hit freshman dramas. The network announced Thursday (Jan. 14) that it's renewing "NCIS: Los Angeles" and "The Good Wife" for second seasons.
In its freshman season, "NCIS: LA" was the No. 1 new program of the season, averaging 16.8 million viewers. The drama stars LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell.
"The Good Wife," starring Julianna Margulies, has increased the time period in viewers and the adult demographic from last year and regularly wins its Tuesday 10 p.m. time period.
"Two great new series, fronted by talented stars on one big night of television," said Nina Tassler, President, CBS Entertainment. "We're proud of these shows and what they've accomplished on Tuesday night.

Jason Momoa
NEW CONAN?
Who will take over as the new Conan? That is the question as producers gear up to shoot a new Conan film, a reboot of the barbarian saga created by Robert E. Howard. Rumors about who will step into Arnold Schwarzenegger's spot are centering in part on STARGATE ATLANTIS' Jason Momoa, better known as Ronon Dex.
Deadline Hollywood reported:
Director Marcus Nispel is on track to start production March 15 in Bulgaria�if they can find the right barbarian. Last weekend, it seemed like things came down to two buff finalists: Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen in the Twilight Saga sequels New Moon and Eclipse), and Jason Momoa (Ronon Dex in the TV series Stargate: Atlantis). Suddenly, Millennium and partner Lionsgate decided today to look at another unnamed but better established actor before deciding.

Captain America
NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA
Director Joe Johnston (the upcoming reboot of The Wolfman) has revealed his plans for the upcoming THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA, saying it'll differ from the Marvel comics series.
Here is an excerpt from an interview with BoxOffice.com:
It is influenced by the comic book, but it goes off in a completely different direction. It's the origin story of Captain America. It's mostly period�there are modern, present-day bookends on it�but it's basically the story of how Steve Rogers becomes Captain America.
The great thing about Captain America is he's a super hero without any super powers. Which is why this story, among the hundreds of superhero stories, appealed to me the most. He can't fly, he can't see through walls, he can't do any of that stuff. He's an everyman who's been given this amazing gift of transformation into the perfect specimen�the pinnacle of human perfection.
How does that affect him? What does that mean for him emotionally and psychologically? He was this 98-pound weakling, he was this wimp, and he's transformed instantly into this Adonis. You'd think he got everything he wanted. Well, he didn't get everything he wanted. The rules change at that point and his life gets even more complicated and dire. For me, that's the interesting part of the story. It's got some great action sequences in it and some incredible stuff that we've never seen before.

AVATAR STILL CLIMBING
According to Fandango, James Cameron's unstoppable AVATAR is entering its fifth weekend with more dominant ticket sales. 80% of its ticket sales for AVATAR have been for the 3D and IMAX screenings and for the fifth weekend, 73% of its advanced ticket sales are for AVATAR, followed by THE BOOK OF ELI with 7% and THE LOVELY BONES with 5%.
Worldwide, the film has earned $1.42 billion and has just passed up Shrek 2's $441.2 million to climb to the fourth spot on the all-time domestic list with $445.7 million. It only trails Star Wars ($460.9 million), THE DARK KNIGHT ($533.3 million) and TITANIC ($600.8 million) now.
In sequel news, James Cameron told Entertainment Weekly that he was even planning a sequel during production. "I've had a storyline in mind from the start - there are even scenes in 'Avatar' that I kept in because they lead to the sequel," Cameron said. "It just makes sense to think of it as a two or three film arc, in terms of the business plan. The CG plants and trees and creatures and the musculo-skeletal rigging of the main characters � that all takes an enormous amount of time to create. It'd be a waste not to use it again."

Marc Forster
THE CHANCELLOR MANUSCRIPT
Variety reports that Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) is attached to direct THE CHANCELLOR MANUSCRIPT for Paramount. The studio -- which paid a rich $4 million for the Robert Ludlum political thriller in 2005 -- has tapped Peter O'Brien to adapt. The story centers on Peter Chancellor, who turns in a novel about D.C. power brokers who are blackmailed into altering U.S. policies. When some operatives get hold of the manuscript, they think he has uncovered their actual scheme and try to hunt the author down.
The project, which is being developed as a Leonardo DiCaprio starring vehicle, has seen earlier drafts penned by Michael Seitzman and Alessandro Camon.
In recent years, the late Ludlum's thrillers have proven irresistible to studios and big-name talent. Universal, the studio behind Ludlum's "Bourne" franchise, is developing "The Sigma Protocol." And Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington and helmer David Cronenberg are attached to an adaptation of "The Matarese Circle" at MGM.
Douglas Wick is producing CHANCELLOR MANUSCRIPT alongside DiCaprio. Forster's partner Brad Simpson is also involved in some producing capacity as is Captivate Entertainment, which reps the Ludlum estate.

Daniel Craig
COWBOYS AND ALIENS
According to Collider, DreamWorks Pictures, Universal Pictues and Platinum Studios are in discussions with James Bond star Daniel Craig for its comic book adaptation "Cowboys & Aliens." If he signs, Craig would replace the just departed Robert Downey Jr. who left the project due to scheduling issues. Jon Favreau ("Iron Man") remains attached to direct.
Craig would play Zeke Jackson, the lead character in a story about Apache Indians and Western settlers who must lay their differences aside when an alien spaceship crash lands in Silvery City, Arizona. Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci ("Transformers," "Star Trek") adapted the script.
Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Steven Spielberg and Scott Rosenberg will produce.

Antoine Fuqua
CONSENT TO KILL
Variety reports that Antoine Fuqua ("King Arthur," "Training Day") is set to direct the spy thriller "Consent to Kill" for CBS Films.
An adaptation of the Vince Flynn novel, the story centers on counterterrorism agent Mitch Rapp who battles a vengeful Saudi billionaire, an ex-East German Stasi spy and a husband-and-wife team of assassins -- all while dealing with a knee injury.
Jonathan Lemkin adapted the script while Lorenzo DiBonaventura and Nick Wechsler are producing.

THE CRAZIES
Breck Eisner's remake of THE CRAZIES has received three new posters depicting some of the infected townspeople from the movie. Eisner's THE CRAZIES continues to look like it is going to be more of a zombie movie than the original, as evidenced in the new trailer Overture Films has released online.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 2010

Supernatural
SUPERNATURAL NEWS
Throughout SUPERNATURAL's run, creator Eric Kripke has been saying he had a "five-year map" with plans for the CW series to go out with a bang at the end of this season. That would seem on par with the whole angels-vs.-demons-with-a-heaping-of-Lucifer-and-hell-on-Earth-thrown-in thing.
Now CW president Dawn Ostroff thinks Kripke might just be considering the possibility of a season six. "I think he's in that state of mind," Ostroff told Entertainment Weekly. "I had lunch with Eric the other day, and he's really excited about the show right now. I think he feels this season has been really satisfying for him. He's certainly not running out of ideas by any stretch of the imagination."
While Kripke's contract ends this year, stars Jared Padalecki (Sam) and Jensen Ackles (Dean) have six-year contracts. So if the CW decides they want to renew SUPERNATURAL, and if they can make a deal with Kripke (which seems like their plan, since Ostroff is taking him to lunch and all), we could see another season of the apocalyptic demon-hunting series.
There's no denying SUPERNATURAL has been doing well in the ratings and is highly compatible with the CW hit THE VAMPIRE DIARIES. The vamp series has led more young women than ever before to tune in for the adventures of the hunky brothers. "There aren't a lot of shows that you can say are doing better in their fifth year," said Ostroff.
SUPERNATURAL is one of those shows that just keeps getting better. Yet is is probably the most underappreciated shows on the air.
SUPERNATURAL returns with new episodes on Jan. 21 in its regular 9 p.m. Thursday timeslot.

Star Trek Platform
STAR TREK 2
STAR TREK co-writer Damon Lindelof has confirmed that he and co-writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman will begin drafting the new screenplay in the spring for the follow-up film.
"We're going to start probably in April once the writing on Lost is done," said Lindelof�who co-created and executive-produces the ABC show�in a group interview Tuesday in Pasadena, Calif. "Trek will come out in 2012 some point, so we've still got a little bit of time, but we've been talking about it. We just haven't been writing."
It's unclear when production would begin.

Brad Cranston
JOHN CARTER OF MARS
According to the Hollywood Reporter, BREAKING BAD (and BABYLON 5) star Bryan Cranston has joined the cast of Walt Disney's JOHN CARTER OF MARS. Andrew Stanton is directing the production, which goes before cameras next week.
The adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs book series centers on a Civil War veteran (Taylor Kitsch) who finds himself mysteriously transported to Mars, where he becomes involved with the planet's warring people. Cranston plays a Civil War colonel who comes into conflict with Carter. Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton and Polly Walker are among the cast.
Stanton wrote the screenplay with Mark Andrews. Jim Morris, who produced "WALL-E," and Colin Wilson are producing CARTER.
The movie will be a hybrid of live action and CGI.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010

FlashForward FUTURE OF V AND FLASH FORWARD
Fans of ABC's FLASH FORWARD and V have been concerned both with the network's decision to delay both shows' spring returns until March. ABC Entertainment Group President Stephen McPherson assured reporters on Tuesday that he has a clear plan for building both shows' audiences, with two different strategies.
McPherson said during a press conference at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., that he decided it was important to air FLASH FORWARD with no repeats, following the network's strategy for LOST's later seasons.
For V, the plan had always been to tell the story in chapters, but that the first chapter got shortened to only four episodes because of production issues.
"The original [1984-'85] V was two minis and then a series," McPherson said in a group interview later. "The two minis did incredibly well, and the series did not do as well. Now there was a huge creative change between those two, but I think as long as you market them appropriately, I do think the audience is willing to come in for chapters."
McPherson brought in producer Scott Rosenbaum to join the V creative team. "Scott has really got a vision for what that needs to be," McPherson said. "Those shows are always about 'How do you balance character with concept?' Obviously, it's a huge concept, but I think we were getting away early on, and the reason we put a stop to things is we were getting away from having a real character drive throughout. It was just literally burning through concept story, and I think he has a real sense of how this can have chapters, what each of those chapters will be, much the way Lost has been, certainly, in the past few years. They look at a season and they say, 'Here's the beginning, middle and end of the season.' Maybe they'll learn something from that and bring their own thing to it."
FLASH FOWARD co-creator and executive producer David Goyer told reporters that he had already pitched the network a second-season storyline for the show, and on Tuesday McPherson confirmed that he has high hopes for the show to persevere and return next season.
"[Its prospects are] really good," McPherson said. "We love the show. David's been fantastic. He was talking about season two when he pitched the show. He's had such a kind of long-term vision for it. That was one of the things that made us comfortable about it. So we're excited to be able to air consecutive episodes. I think as much as taking the break has its downside, I think the ability to really take a beat after this fall launch, adjust some things, make some changes and move forward is great."
FLASH FORWARD returns March 18. McPherson said he is still figuring out whether V will return on March 16 or March 23.

Peter Sarsgaard GREEN LANTERN VILLAIN
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Peter Sarsgaard is in negotiations to play the villain in GREEN LANTERN, Warner Bros.' big-budget, Martin Campbell-directed tentpole based on the DC Comics superhero.
Ryan Reynolds is starring as Hal Jordan, the test pilot who finds a downed spacecraft with a dying alien who passes him a powerful ring, introducing Jordan to an interstellar police force known as the Green Lanterns.
Sarsgaard will play Dr. Hector Hammond, the pathologist son of a senator who is seen as a disappointment in his father's eyes. He becomes infused with psychic powers when he discovers a meteor.
The character was created by John Broome and Gil Kane in the early 1960s.
Blake Lively has already been cast as Reynolds' love interest, Carol Ferris.
The movie is prepping for a March start in New Orleans. Donald De Line and Greg Berlanti are producing. Sarsgaard, who starred opposite Carey Mulligan in "An Education," recently wrapped "Knight and Day" with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. The actor is shooting the indie thriller "The Ledge" with Terrence Howard and Evan Rachel Wood.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw UNDERCOVERS
British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw ("Spooks," "Doctor Who") has landed the female lead opposite Boris Kodjoe on J.J. Abrams' UNDERCOVERS at NBC. Abrams and Josh Reims co-wrote the pilot.
The project revolves around a domesticated husband (Kodjoe) and wife (Mbatha-Raw) who are re-activated as CIA agents after years of retirement.
Abrams also will direct, marking the first pilot he has helmed since LOST in 2004.

SOURCE CODE
Heat Vision reports that Michelle Monaghan is set and Vera Farmiga is in negotiations to join time-travel thriller SOURCE CODE for Summit Entertainment.
The story centers on a soldier (Jake Gyllenhaal) who, as part of an experimental government program to investigate a terrorist incident, finds himself in the body of an unknown commuter living and reliving a harrowing train bombing until he can find out who is responsible for it.
Monaghan is a woman on the train with whom the man is involved romantically. Farmiga will play a hands-on communications officer controlling Gyllenhaal as he travels through time and space.
MOON director Duncan Jones helms the project which begins filming in March. Mark Gordon, Philippe Rousselet and Jordan Wynn are producing.

LOST PATROL
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Stephen Norrington ("Blade," "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen") will write and direct supernatural action thriller THE LOST PATROL for Legendary Pictures.
Set against the backdrop of World War II, story details are being kept scarce. Andrew Hilton and Matt Cirulnick penned the original script.
Norrington says the project is a mix of "hardware, heroes, grime, insane monsters." Rick Porras and Steven Boyd are producing.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2010

Spider-Man SPIDER-MAN REBOOT WITHOUT RAIMI AND MCGUIRE
The big news this morning is that Sony Pictures is going to take SPIDER-MAN in a totally different direction. Raimi and the cast including star Tobey Maguire are out. There will be no SPIDER-MAN 4.
Here is a portion of Sony's announcement:
Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012. Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today they are moving forward with a film based on a script by James Vanderbilt that focuses on a teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises.
The new chapter in the "Spider-Man" franchise produced by Columbia, Marvel Studios and Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin, will have a new cast and filmmaking team. Spider-Man 4 was to have been released in 2011, but had not yet gone into production.
"A decade ago we set out on this journey with Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire and together we made three 'Spider-Man' films that set a new bar for the genre. When we began, no one ever imagined that we would make history at the box-office and now we have a rare opportunity to make history once again with this franchise. Peter Parker as an ordinary young adult grappling with extraordinary powers has always been the foundation that has made this character so timeless and compelling for generations of fans. We're very excited about the creative possibilities that come from returning to Peter's roots and we look forward to working once again with Marvel Studios, Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin on this new beginning," said Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
"'Spider-Man' will always be an important franchise for Sony Pictures and a fresh start like this is a responsibility that we all take very seriously," said Michael Lynton, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures. "We have always believed that story comes first and story guides the direction of these films and as we move onto the next chapter, we will stay true to that principle and will do so with the highest respect for the source material and the fans and moviegoers who deserve nothing but the best when it comes to bringing these stories and characters to life on the big screen."
The studio will have more news about Spider-Man in 2012 in the coming weeks as it prepares for production of the film.

Chuck CHUCK RATINGS GREAT
Sunday's high-rated premiere of NBC's CHUCK made a lot of people happy.
The first hour of Sunday's third-season premiere of Chuck garnered an audience of 7.7 million viewers and a healthy 3.0 preliminary rating among adults 18-49, with the second drawing 7.2 million and a 2.9 rating. That was where the show needs to be for Warner Brothers, McG said. (McG spoke about the numbers based on the first report of ratings as high as 3.4.)
"We were mid-3s, and that was above [expectations]," McG continued. "They wanted to have a 3 in front of it, so we were right around a 3.4 with the men 18-49, and I think they're really happy with that, especially because I think the football game got a really good number on the other network and led into a big, strong Simpsons/Fox night."
The premiere revealed marked changes to Chuck's (Zachary Levi) character, who has all sorts of new skills after having downloaded Intersect 2.0. "We changed his hair, we did it all," McG said. "It was to show that emotional pivot in the character. Plus, he's ready for it. He's a talented guy, Zach, and he's capable of a lot, so if you ask it of him he's able to do it."
CHUCK airs Monday nights at 8 p.m. on NBC.

Firefly Cast FIREFLY LIVES ON IN SHORT STORIES
While Joss Whedon's beloved FIREFLY/SERENITY has left the galazy, fans can look for more adventures of Capt. Mal Reynolds and the crew of the doughty ship in a series of short stories coming soon from Titan Books.
Writer/producer Jane Espenson�who wrote one episode of the Fox sci-fi series but is a longtime friend and colleague of Whedon's going back to her days on Buffy the Vampire Slayer�told us that she will be writing one of the stories, centering on the characters of Kaylee and Wash (obviously set in a time period before the events of the movie Serenity).
"I'm writing a short story set in the Firefly universe that someone's putting together," Espenson said in an interview on Sunday in Pasadena, Calif., where she was promoting her upcoming Syfy series Caprica. "Titan Books is putting together a collection written by various of the Firefly writers. But [it's a] very short story, ... 2,000 words."
She added: "Oh, I just came up with a very clever little short story that involves Kaylee and Wash, two characters that we haven't seen together that much."
Espenson's Firefly episode was "Shindig," the fourth episode in the series, which deals with a society dance and a duel. It's best loved by fans for Kaylee's appearance in an over-the-top flouncy ruffled dress.
Espenson is an executive producer of CAPRICA, the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA prequel series, which debuts on Syfy at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Jan. 22.

Star Trek ACE AWARD NOMINATIONS
Sci-fi films fared well with the America Cinema Editors, who nominated AVATAR editors James Cameron, John Refoua and Stephen Rivkin, Julian Clark for DISTRICT 9 and Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey for STAR TREK for best edited dramatic feature. Dramatic feature noms also went to Bob Murawski and Chris Innis for THE HURT LOCKER and Dana Glauberman for UP IN THE AIR.
Best edited comedy or musical feature noms went to Alan Edward Bell for 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, Debra Neil-Fisher for THE HANGOVER, Joe Hutshing and David Moritz for IT'S COMPLICATED, Richard Marks for JULIE AND JULIA and the Coen brothers' pseudonymous alter ego Roderick Jaynes for A SERIOUS MAN.
CORALINE, FANTASTIC Mr. FOX, and UP got nods in the animated feature category, while favored docus were THE COVE, FOOD, INC and THIS IS IT.
TV standouts include "30 Rock," "Breaking Bad," "Grey Gardens," "The Deadliest Catch" and two episodes of "Dexter."

NBC GREENLIGHTS NEW SERIES
NBC is bringing in big drama guns for next fall, greenlighting pilots from David E. Kelley, Jerry Bruckheimer, "House" creator David Shore and "Without a Trace" creator Hank Steinberg.
The network ha picked up six drama pilots, in addition to the previously ordered J.J. Abrams drama "Undercovers" and legal dramedy "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer." The new pickups include Steinberg's remake of the icon British drama "Prime Suspect," Shore's updated version of the classic "The Rockford Files," Kelley's legal drama "Kindreds," the Bruckheimer-produced action procedural "Chase," as well as romantic comedy "Love Bites," from "Sex and the City" alumna Cindy Chupack, and thriller "The Event" from Nick Wauters.
Among the contenders for the remaining couple of slots on the network's drama pilot slate are "Midnighters," based on the Alloy book series, and the Dick Wolf-produced "Sam & Twitch." NBC also is developing a Los Angeles- set "Law & Order" series eyed for fall.
-- "Kindreds," written on spec by Kelley, follows a curmudgeonly ex-patent lawyer and his group of misfit associates as their lives come together to form an unconventional kind of law practice. The project, from Warner Bros. TV and David E. Kelley Prods., was taken to NBC on Tuesday and, in a competitive situation, NBC closed a deal Friday. The pickup of "Kindreds" doesn't affect the chances of "Rex," which recently completed its pilot, said NBC primetime entertainment president Angela Bromstad, noting that she would love to have two legal shows on the air that are working.
-- "Prime Suspect," from UMS and ITV, centers on a courageous female detective who investigates complex mysteries in a politically explosive big city. Steinberg and Erwin Stoff are executive producing.
-- The new "Rockford Files," from UMS and Steve Carell's Carousel Prods., centers on Jim Rockford, a roguish private eye who tackles the dangerous, quirky and unpredictable cases that no other detective wants to handle. Shore and Carell are exec producing.
-- "The Event," from UMS, features multiple points of view and follows a regular fellow throw in a large government conspiracy. Steve Stark is exec producing, with Wauters co-exec producing.
-- "Chase," from WBTV and Jerry Bruckheimer TV, based on a real-life group in the American Southwest, follows a fugitive apprehension team of U.S. Marshals that tracks down the nation's most notorious criminals. Jennifer Johnson wrote the script and is exec producing with Bruckheimer and Jonathan Littman.
-- "Love Bites," from UMS and Working Title Films, is exec produced by Chupack, Timothy Bevan, Eric Fellner and Shelley.
On the comedy side, the network has picked up one project so far, a single-camera comedy starring Adam Carolla.

MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2010

Townsend-Dallas THOR CASTING CHANGES
Reports in the AP indicate that Stuart Townsend has caused a last-minute THOR casting switch. The actor has reportedly left the Marvel Comics adaptation over creative differences, just as production was beginning. The role of Fandral, Thor's ally, will now go to relative unknown Joshua Dallas.
The Kenneth Branagh-directed film starring Chris Hemsworth in the title role starts shooting Monday and has been scheduled for a May 6, 2011 release.
The movie co-stars Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Renee Russo and Tom Hiddleston.

HEROES FUTURE
It is no secret that ratings for HEROES, once NBC's flagship series' have dropped, and its fans have slammed the show's meandery plots and confusing character arcs in recent seasons. However, NBC executive Angela Bromstad said no decision has been made on the show's fifth season and added that the network will hear a pitch from creator Tim Kring before making one.
Should this season be Heroes' last, the season finale will serve as the series finale, but since the show has already wrapped production on its current fourth season, there won't be time to add anything. "No, they're out of production," Bromstad said. "They've wrapped production."
Of course, Bromstand couldn't say where the season finale would leave the heroes in any event. "I can't give anything away on the Heroes finale."
She did confirm that if she renews HEROES, the show can continue to operate on its current budget without any more cuts. "Actually, HEROES has already been very responsible in having a good budget, so I don't think that we'd be looking at cutting it further," she said.

Day One DAY ONE - A MOVIE
When NBC first announced DAY ONE, it was a sci-fi series -- it then was transformed into a mini-series. Now, Angela Bromstad, president of prime-time entertainment at NBC and Universal Media Studios, indicates it will be a TV movie.
"DAY ONE is going to air as a two-hour movie," Bromstad said in a group interview on Sunday as part of the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif. "We looked at after V launched and after FLASHFORWARD launched with a strong initial thing. We didn't want to come on after that. As we sat down with [executive producer] Jesse [Alexander] and talked about more of the mythology, there's just concern about sustaining that."
Bromstad added that the DAY ONE will consist of the pilot that was originally shot. They just didn't shoot any additional footage. "We've only shot the two-hour pilot," Bromstad said. "It will be a pilot where you could see where it could go in series, but there will be a resolve at the end of the two hours."
There is still hope for continuing the story if the standalone movie version is a hit. "Absolutely," she said. "If it performs, absolutely." She has not scheduled DAY ONE yet.

AVATAR - #1 AGAIN
Fox's AVATAR continued its hold on the #1 spot for a fourth consecutive weekend, with an estimated $48.5 million tally in the latest frame producing a $429 million domestic cume.
Doubly deep foreign grosses give James Cameron's sci-fi epic a $1.34 billion worldwide cume, the second- highest in history after the filmmaker's TITANIC, which cruised to $1.84 billion in 1997-98. Its domestic total is the seventh-best ever after 24 days of release.
The weekend's three wide releases bowed further down the session rankings.
-- Lionsgate's vampire actioner DAYBREAKERS, starring Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawke, rung up $15 million in fourth place.
-- Universal's romantic comedy LEAP YEAR, starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode, debuted roughly as expected with $9.2 million in sixth place. -- Dimension Films' Michael Cera-toplined comedy YOUTH IN REVOLT unspooled limply, with $7 million in ninth place.
Among the strongest holdovers, Warner Bros.' Robert Downey Jr. starrer SHERLOCK HOLMES finished second in its third outing with $16.6 million and a $165.2 million cume. And Fox's family comedy ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL was third with $16.3 million and a $178.2 million cume since bowing Dec. 23.
Collectively, the session's top 10 grossers during the first boxoffice weekend of 2010 rung up $143.2 million, or 18% more than top performers in the comparable frame last year, according to Nielsen EDI.
Looking ahead, Friday begins the four-day Martin Luther King holiday frame, an increasingly lucrative boxoffice opportunity for domestic distributors.
Two pics open wide: Lionsgate's Jackie Chan starrer THE SPY NEXT DOOR and Warner Bros.' Denzel Washington- toplined THE BOOK OF ELI. Also next weekend, Paramount is scheduled to expand Peter Jackson's THE LOVELY BONES into wide release after a month of limited engagements.

Vulture SPIDER-MAN 4 VILLAIN
There has been much speculation about Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN 4, including its scheduled May 5, 2011 release date and why it has run into production problems. The latest info shows that John Malkovich was indeed up for the role of the Vulture, Raimi's choice of villain for the fourth movie.
Malkovich was interviewed by an Italian sports show called "Quelli Che il Calcio" and he was asked not only about whether he had been approached to play the Vulture but also about the production delays. The fine folks at the Italian web site Bad Taste have graciously provided an English summation of what was said on the show:
"When conductor Simona Ventura asked him about his role of Vulture in the movie, he not only didn't deny his involvement, but confirmed that he's waiting for the final script to be sent to him, and that the movie has been delayed. He also hopes that shooting will begin as soon as possible."
Some may remember that Malkovich was the alternate choice to play the Green Goblin in the first "Spider-Man" movie, a role that went to his Shadow of the Vampire co-star Willem Dafoe, so it has always made perfect sense that Raimi would be interested in him to play a Spidey villain. The question is whether Sony will agree to the lesser Spider-Man villain for such an important tentpole franchise.

RED
Variety reports that John Malkovich has replaced John C. Reilly in Summit Entertainment's comic book adaptation RED, based on the WildStorm/DC title.
He's joining a cast that includes Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker, Julian McMahon, Ernest Borgnine, Richard Dreyfuss, Brian Cox and James Remar. Directed by Robert Schwentke, the film was written by Erich and Jon Hoeber.
In RED, former black-ops CIA agent Frank Moses is now living a quiet life. That is, until the day a hi-tech assassin shows up intent on killing him. With his secret identity compromised and his love interest in danger, Frank must reassemble his old team to figure out who is out to get them.
The film will start shooting in Toronto and Louisiana this month for a fall release.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2010

BIG DECISIONS ON WHAT TO WATCH TONIGHT
Tonight you have choices to make -- CHUCK or BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. For some, there is no choice at all. Fans of these shows will watch their favorite and record the other! No problem. It has been a long wait but now fans of both shows will finally have something to watch. In the case of CHUCK, it is the start of a new season. For BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, it's just a movie. The wait continues for CAPRICA.

BSG The Plan BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN
It's back to BSG for a little Cylon action as two Number Ones and a Number Six take on all those humans without numbers. It involves the Cylons' plan and what happened behind the Cylon scenes that we never saw. Actor Edward James Olmos starred and directed. The Plan is already out there as a DVD and Blu-ray, but here's your chance to see it for free. After this, that's it for BSG, forever. We mean it. You'll never see anything involving Cylons again. Well, at least until Jan. 22, when we can watch CAPRICA.

Chuck CHUCK
Chuck is finally back, and he knows kung fu. While Chuck (Zachary Levi) doesn't get to give up his day job at the Buy More, he'll at least finally be getting lessons on being a spy now that he's the Intersect 2.0. But don't think that's going to make things easy on him. Apparently Chuck still has "emotions." Luckily for him, the gang's all back, including Adam Baldwin as Casey, Yvonne Strahovski as Sarah and Joshua Gomez as Morgan. Rumor has it that one of the minor characters will be killed off and that Chuck will have a major falling-out in the romantic department with Sarah. After the big two-episode Sunday premiere, Chuck moves into its regular timeslot on Mondays at 8 p.m. the very next day.

THE GHOST WRITER
Summit Entertainment will give Roman Polanski's THE GHOST WRITER a limited release on February 19th, with expansion plans to follow on March 5th and March 19th. The release comes just a week after the film's world premiere in Berlin on February 11th.
OK, I know the trailer is dubbed in German, but while the dialogue will make sense to only a few readers, all should enjoy the interesting visuals which are able to convey a surprisingly compelling and tense atmosphere in a very naturalistic way.
The film stars Evan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Eli Wallach, Timothy Hutton, Tom Wilkinson and James Belushi.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 2010

FlashForward FLASH FORWARD FURTHER DELAYED
ABC is delaying the return of new episodes of FLASH FORWARD by two weeks. It will now return on March 18 in its Thursday 8 p.m. ET/PT timeslot rather than the original March 4.
The network gave no reason for the delay, other than to say it would allow the show to air weekly for the rest of the first season without repeats or pre-emptions.
Also, the show has been building up to a big revelation on April 29, the day of the characters' flash-forwards; it's unclear whether this delay means the episode slated for that day will remain on that date or not. It's also unclear what this does to the season finale or when it will air. (The two-hour season finale was originally scheduled to air on May 27.)
The show has already seen its schedule cut, then shifted as its ratings fell. It was put on hiatus in early December, in part to allow the writers to regroup with the departure of original show runner Marc Guggenheim.
FLASH FORWARD stars Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford, John Cho as Demetri Noh, Jack Davenport as Lloyd Simcoe, Zachary Knighton as Bryce Varley, Peyton List as Nicole Kirby, Dominic Monaghan as Simon, Brían F. O'Byrne as Aaron Stark, Courtney B. Vance as Stanford Wedeck, Sonya Walger as Olivia Benford and Christine Woods as Janis Hawk.
David S. Goyer, Brannon Braga and Jessika Borsiczky are executive producers. FLASH FORWARD is from ABC Studios.

Avatar FX PURCHASES TV RIGHTS FOR AVATAR
FX captured the basic cable TV rights to James Cameron's AVATAR, the 3-D blockbuster that's now the second- highest-grossing movie of all time, according to The Hollywood Reporter. And if FX ever decides to go 3-D, they'll be set and will be able to air Avatar the way the Creator intended (that'd be Cameron).
Watching 3-D at home is not as outlandish as it sounds: The film is expected to premiere on FX in the middle of 2012, after AVATAR has given DVDs and HBO a chance to make their money. While no plans have been announced for a 3-D FX channel, by then two 3-D television channels are expected to be in place, one from ESPN and one from Discovery. So anything's possible, especially considering the 3-D craze that's rampaging through the movie and television industries these days.
FX is making big moves these days. Besides acquiring rights to THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON, STAR TREK, MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN and ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS, the network is also launching the new animated spy series ARCHER on Jan. 14, the drama JUSTIFIED in March and the third season of DAMAGES this month.

STAR TREK DATE SET
It looks like Paramount Pictures has decided at least on a tentative release date for J. J. Abrams' anticipated Untitled STAR TREK Sequel as it stakes claim to the coveted pre-4th of July weekend of June 29, 2012. At this time, it is the only movie scheduled for June that summer, and absolutely nothing is known of the sequel except that one expects most of the cast introduced in the first movie to return.

Green Lantern GREEN LANTERN NEWS
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. and director Martin Campbell have finally found the female lead for their GREEN LANTERN movie. Hal Jordan's lady love, Carol Ferris, will be played by Blake Lively, star of the CW's hit GOSSIP GIRL, THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS and its sequel.
Ferris is one of the who hires hot-shot test pilot Hal Jordan, played by Ryan Reynolds, to her father's aerospace company, which she's running, before he gets the ring to become Earth's GREEN LANTERN.
The movie is scheduled to start shooting in March.

A-TEAM TRAILER
The trailer for director Joe Carnahan's THE A-TEAM, which hits theaters this weekend, has come online! Opening in theaters on June 11, the big screen adaptation of the TV series stars Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2010

Thor THOR
Variety reports that Paramount and Marvel Entertainment have pushed up the release of THOR by two weeks, to May 6, 2011, staking out Spider-Man 4's former release date.
Disney, meanwhile, set a May 20, 2011, release date for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES, the fourth installment in the franchise, staking out THOR's original date:
Sony said it wasn't abandoning the date, a highly-coveted frame since it is the first weekend of summer. Studio said it is still hoping to complete the film in time.
However, Paramount decided to act aggressively and not wait for the outcome, in case another studio acted first and put one of their films there.
Let Me In LET ME IN
LET ME IN�the upcoming American remake of the Swedish vampire movie LET THE RIGHT ONE IN�has been given an Oct. 1 release date; currently shooting in New Mexico, the film is directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) and stars Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road), Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass) and Richard Jenkins (The Visitor).

SUPERNATURAL - WINCHESTER BOYS ENGAGED
Jared Padalecki, who plays Sam Winchester on The CW's SUPERNATURAL, is engaged to marry his former co-star Genevieve Cortese, who played the hot but very evil demon Ruby. E! Online reported Jensen Ackles, who plays Padalecki's onscreen older brother Dean Winchester, got engaged in fall 2009 to Danneel Harris.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
George Lucas
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorHealth Care Crisis
GEORGE LUCAS TALKS ABOUT MOVIES
George Lucas recently appeared on Jon Stewart's THE DAILY SHOW. He was out promoting his new book, BLOCKBUSTING, but he talked about making movies and how his life has changed since creating the first STAR WARS movie. "Life is duality," he said with Yoda-like equanimity. "It's a work of fiction. It's a metaphor. It's not real. And therefore, you can either like it or not like it. Whatever."
BLOCKBUSTING examines the movie industry through its most timeless films.

127 HOURS
According to Production Weekly, James Franco ("Spider-Man" films) will star in Fox Searchlight Pictures' 127 HOURS, to be directed by Oscar winner Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire).
The film tells the story of mountaineer Aron Ralston, whose right forearm got pinned for nearly five days under a boulder during a climb in Utah in May 2003. He used a dull knife to amputate the limb, then scaled a 65-foot sheer wall and hiked out before running into a family that gave him water and food.
Filming is set to begin early March in Utah.

MR. VENGENCE
Variety writes that Warner Bros. Pictures has scored the remake rights to Korean filmmaker Chan-wook Park's SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGENCE.
The story follows two men who set out on violent quests to punish those responsible for the murder of the women they love. Trouble is, they themselves are the ones responsible and only one of them will have vengeance.
Brian Tucker ("Broken City") will write the script. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian, Miky Lee, Ted Kim and Steven Schneider will produce.

THE APPARITION
Sebastian Stan ("The Covenant," TV's "Gossip Girl," TV's "Kings") will star opposite Ashley Green in the supernatural horror thriller THE APPARITION for Dark Castle Entertainment says The Hollywood Reporter. The story follows a couple who are haunted by a supernatural presence that is unleashed during a college experiment.
Todd Lincoln is directing and wrote the script inspired by true events. Joel Silver, Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman are producing.
Filming kicks off February 1st at Studio Babelsberg in Germany before moving to Los Angeles in March.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2010

Spider-Man SPIDER-MAN 4 DELAYED
The Hollywood Reporter and Variety write that Sony and director Sam Raimi are at loggerheads over which direction to go with the villains for the latest installment of SPIDER-MAN. This impasse has prompted the studio to delay its scheduled spring production start and potentially to bump the pic from its May 11, 2011 release slot.
Raimi wants to have a criminal known as the Vulture act as the primary antagonist in the film while the studio, which dislikes the idea of the winged wrongdoer, is pushing for a romantic sub-plot involving a burglar named the Black Cat in addition to another villain.
A succession of writers has tried to marry the two parties' differing visions to no effect. Alvin Sargent is penning the latest iteration.
Raimi, a fan of the wall-crawling super-hero since the character's 1960s debut, wanted to use classic villain Vulture in addition to Sandman, another classic creation, for that movie. The studio pushed him to use Venom, a character that was introduced in the late 1980s, because it thought that character, with its slick alien-symbiote origin, would lend itself to more effective marketing material and a way to attract "the kids."
Production still could begin by this summer. While Sony insiders maintain the pic still could remain in its current release date, a shift to a date later in summer 2011 may be more likely considering the lack of a final script for the visual effects-driven project.

Heroes TV PIRACY
We all know that pirating TV series and movies is a big problem. How big? According to recent reports, HEROES has been downloaded by 6.58 million people on a regular basis, more than actually watch the series live. Yes, in 2009 NBC's HEROES and Showtime's serial-killing DEXTER actually suffered more pirated downloads than they had actual viewers, according to TorrentFreak.com.
While HEROES sits on the edge of cancellation, TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES actually did get canceled last spring. If you do the math, TSCC had 6,340,000 actual viewers + 1,960,000 illegal downloads, which probably would have equaled enough to give it another season. However, it's not that simple.
Most of the downloads come from countries other than the U.S., where they sometimes have to wait weeks or months before the new episodes are available, according to TorrentFreak. Their take ... it's all about availability. "The piracy figures simply show that TV viewing habits are changing."
Here is TorrentFreak's list, with actual viewers and then the number of illegal downloads:
1. Heroes�5,900,000 actual viewers vs. 6,580,000 downloads
2. Lost�11,050,000 actual viewers vs. 6,310,000 downloads
3. Prison Break�5,300,00 actual viewers vs. 3,450,000 downloads
4. Dexter�2,300,000 actual viewers vs. 2,780,000 downloads
5. House�15,600,000 actual viewers vs. 2,590,000 downloads
6. 24�12,620,000 actual viewers vs. 2,440,000 downloads
7. Desperate Housewives�15,500,000 actual viewers vs. 2,180,000 downloads
8. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles�6,340,000 actual viewers vs. 1,960,000 downloads
9. Grey's Anatomy�15,640,000 actual viewers vs. 1,740,000 downloads
10. True Blood�12,400,000 actual viewers vs. 1,600,000 downloads

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
Warner Home Video has included this behind-the-scenes clip for A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET on the Blu-ray and DVD for THE FINAL DESTINATION.
In theaters on April 30, the Samuel Bayer-directed film stars Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Thomas Dekker, Kellan Lutz, Katie Cassidy and Connie Britton.

Hobbit THE HOBBIT
According to Production Weekly, Guillermo del Toro's HOBBIT movies are moving ahead as planned. It is reported that hey will begin a 14-month production schedule in June in New Zealand.
Last month, producer Peter Jackson indicated that he and his co-writers were working on scripts for two Hobbit films, based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien.
"We're still working on the script, and of course it's going to be directed by Guillermo [del Toro]," Jackson said. "That's going really well, and in fact we've already delivered the first script to the studio, and they really liked it, so now we're working hard on the second script, and that's going to keep us pretty busy until the end of this year [2009]."
The first film is slated to come out sometime in 2011 if all things stay on schedule.

LEGION
A clip from Screen Gems' LEGION was posted at Yahoo! Movies and ShockTillYouDrop.com has posted a TV spot for the supernatural action thriller.
In the film, opening January 22nd, an out-of-the-way diner becomes the unlikely battleground for the survival of the human race. When God loses faith in Mankind, he sends his legion of angels to bring on the Apocalypse. Humanity's only hope lies in a group of strangers trapped in a desert diner and the Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany).

Sam Mendes BOND 23 DIRECTOR NAMED
According to the Hollywood Reporter, British helmer Sam Mendes is in negotiations to direct the 23rd installment of the James Bond franchise. Production is being fast-tracked and could begin as early as June with an eye toward a 2011 release. Plans for the film are moving forward despite a possible sale of MGM. Sony co-produced and distributed the most recent installment of the 007 series with MGM.
Bond regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are writing, along with "Frost/Nixon" scribe Peter Morgan. Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli are producing. Daniel Craig will reprise his role as 007.
The film will be Mendes' first action-heavy project, though his 2005 effort JARHEAD was set amid U.S. war in Kuwait. Mendes' most recent directorial effort, the road-trip dramedy AWAY WE GO, grossed $10 million domestically last summer. Marc Forster directed the previous Bond film, 2008's QUANTUM OF SOLACE, which grossed $586 million worldwide.

Thor THOR
Marvel Entertainment President Kevin Feige recently posted some memories from working on comic book movies for over 10 years on Marvel.com and, understandably, Feige concluded his thoughts by telling about his excitement over a screen test of THOR, which is heading into production in mid-January.
To be honest the thing that I'm most excited about right now, though, is the screen test we just finished for Thor. We've done some costume tests and watching the Asgardians walk onto the sound stage takes me back to that first time I saw the X-Men on the set all together in Toronto. Only it was unlike anything we've ever put on film before! It's great to be starting the next decade in such an exciting way just as we did last decade. We're really redefining the comic book genre and what a Marvel movie can be. It's going to be great.

LEGEND OF THE SEEKER
STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE's Jolene Blalock has been cast in a recurring role in the upcoming second season of the syndicated fantasy TV series LEGEND OF THE SEEKER. Blalock will play a mysterious Sister of the Dark who possesses a very powerful magic.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2010

24
When 24 returns to Fox on January 27, you will find not only Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, but BATTLEDSTAR GALACTICA's Katee Sackhoff as a new regular cast member.
The promo for the upcoming eighth season features Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye's "Run This Town." It expires at midnight this Thursday, so catch it while you can! (There's not much more than a glimpse of Katee, so we'll just have to tune in to see what she does.)
The two-night, four-hour season premiere of 24 kicks off Jan. 17 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

DUNE DIRECTOR NAMED
According to Entertainment Weekly, Paramount has hired TAKEN director Pierre Morel to take over DUNE. Peter Berg was set to direct but dropped out last year.
EW adds that the studio "is currently looking for a new writer to incorporate Morel's vision of the project into the original draft by QUANTUM OF SOLACE scribe Josh Zetumer. Morel plans to make a very faithful adaptation of the 1965 book by Frank Herbert."

Daybreakers DAYBREAKERS COMING FRIDAY
Ethan Hawke's latest, DAYBREAKERS, will be released by Lionsgate in theaters this Friday, January 8th.
In the film, written and directed by Peter and Michael Spierig, Hawke plays Edward Dalton, a researcher in the year 2019, in which an unknown plague has transformed the world's population into vampires. As the human population nears extinction, vampires must capture and farm every remaining human, or find a blood substitute before time runs out. However, a covert group of vampires makes a remarkable discovery, one which has the power to save the human race.
For more information, clips, photos, go to http://www.daybreakersmovie.com/.

Orphanage THE ORPHANAGE
Variety reports that Mark Pellington ("The Mothman Prophecies," "Arlington Road") is set to direct the remake of supernatural thriller THE ORPHANAGE for New Line Cinema.
2007's "Spanish-language El Orfanato" followed a woman (Belen Rueda) who takes over the orphanage where she was raised, to open a home for disabled children.
Then her young son begins to play with the same imaginary friend who terrorized her when she was a child.
Like the Spanish version, Guillermo del Toro is set to produce and co-write the script with Larry Fessenden. Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson will also produce.

MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 2010

Avatar AVATAR
AVATAR, James Cameron's 3-D sci-fi epic, again topped the box office, breaking another record over the New Year's weekend and is closing in on Cameron's TITANIC as the top-grossing movie of all time.
The movie took in an estimated $68.3 million domestically in the three days beginning Friday, setting a record for a film in its third weekend of release, distributor 20th Century Fox told The Hollywood Reporter, beating the record of $45 million that was set by SPIDER-MAN in 2002.
After 17 days, AVATAR has grossed $352.1 million in the U.S. and Canada, placing it at number 15 among all movies in terms of ticket sales.
Worldwide, AVATAR has now taken in more than $1 billion, joining only four other films: TITANIC, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST and THE DARK KNIGHT.
SHERLOCK HOLMES, meanwhile, placed second on New Year's weekend with an estimated $38.4 million domestically, for a 10-day total of $140.7 million.

Kevin Alejandro TRUE BLOOD/SOUTHLAND
According to the Hollywood Reporter, SOUTHLAND co-star Kevin Alejandro is joining Alan Ball's vampire drama TRUE BLOOD. Alejandro, expected to appear in almost every episode of the HBO series' upcoming third season, will play Jesus, a Latino orderly who is taking care of Ruby Jean Reynolds (Alfre Woodard) at her care facility and becomes involved with her son, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis).
Alejandro continues to be attached as a regular to SOUTHLAND, which recently moved from NBC to TNT. Because of the cable network's plan to air the 13 produced episodes of the cop drama, starting Jan. 12, before making a decision whether to order a second season, Alejandro can accommodate BLOOD while keeping his obligation to SOUTHLAND.
On BLOOD, he joins such other new additions as Denis O'Hare, Marshall Allman, Theo Alexander, Grant Bowler, Joe Manganiello and Lindsay Pulsipher.

Malek-Morris 24
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Rami Malek, Julian Morris and Hrach Titizian have landed multiepisode arcs on Fox's 24. On the action drama's upcoming Season 8, Malek ("Night at the Museum") will play Marcos, a would- be suicide bomber who is Arab American with sympathies toward radical Islam.
Morris ("ER") will play a CTU SWAT agent. Titizian will play Nabeel, the second-in-command of security for President Hassan (Anil Kapoor).

THE THING PREQUEL
According to Production Weekly, the prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 remake of THE THING will begin filming in March and continue to June in Toronto.
Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. from a screenplay by BATTLESTAR GALACTICA exec. producer Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer (The Nightmare on Elm Street remake), the prequel is supposed to be an earlier story about the mutation that attacks the Norwegian base from Carpenter's movie. Casting announcements are expected in the next few weeks.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2010

NEW DOCTOR WHO
With the departure of David Tennant as the 10th Doctor in last night's episode of DOCTOR WHO on BBC America, a preview has surfaced featuring a better look at the upcoming 11th Doctor, to be played by Matt Smith.
Here's the BBC's description:
The new series of DOCTOR WHO starts later this year. It stars Matt Smith as the Doctor and Karen Gillan as his new companion, Amy Pond. This stunning preview offers a first glimpse of their adventures.

FOX/TIME WARNER CABLE REACH DEAL
Fox and Time Warner Cable execs came to terms on the contentious retransmission consent agreement that threatened to knock numerous Fox channels off Time Warner Cable systems. The deal came together after an all-night New Year's Eve stint at the bargaining table that extended into lunchtime the next day for top execs at both companies. Both sides refused to comment on financial terms of the multiyear pact.
"We're pleased that, after months of negotiations, we were able to reach a fair agreement with Time Warner Cable -- one that recognizes the value of our programming," said Chase Carey, News Corp. chief operating officer, in a statement.
Time Warner Cable chief said he was gratified to have "reached a reasonable deal with no disruption in programming for our customers."
Broadcasters, especially Big Four network affils, are focused on charging more to cable operators for the right to carry their stations signals, which remain among the most-watched channels on the cable dial and serve up exclusive programming and sports franchises. Cable operators, not surprisingly, are alarmed by the prospect of a triple-digit increase in programming costs and have every incentive to play hardball with station owners. The Fox-Time Warner deal is seen as setting an important benchmark for what the cable market will bear for retrans deals in the coming year or so.

Meanwhile, overshadowed by the Fox-Time Warner headlines was another cable contract fight that went down to the wire on New Year's Eve. Scripps Networks has pulled Food Network and HGTV from Cablevision systems serving areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in a contract renewal battle.
Scripps said that Cablevision pays less than 25 cents a month per subscriber for both channels, and that it was asking for less than $1 per sub for Food and less than 73 per sub for HGTV. Scripps has launched websites iloveFoodNetwork.com and iloveHGTV in an effort to ramp up viewer pressure on Cablevision, which has more than 3 million subs.
Cablevision said flatly that the company had "no expectation of carrying (Scripps) programming again," and it pulled no punches in offering its perspective on the source of the fee dispute.
"We are sorry that Scripps' current financial difficulties are making it impossible for them to continue our relationship on terms that are reasonable for Cablevision and our customers," the statement said.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 2010

Stan Lee STAN LEE AND DISNEY
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Disney has not only closed a deal Marvel Entertainment, but it is also expanding its ties with POW! Entertainment, the company led by the man who once ran Marvel and co-created many of its signature characters, Stan Lee.
Disney is acquiring a 10% stake of POW! for $2.5 million. It is also acquiring "enhanced rights" to the company's creative side as well as exclusive consulting services. It was not clear what the rights and services entailed or the reason for expanding its relationship with POW!
Disney signed a first-look arrangement with POW! in 2007. Although no projects have come to fruition on the feature side, several are in development, including lighthearted mystery tale "Nick Ratchett," action-adventure project "Blaze" and one called "Tigress." POW! is also working on several projects for the home entertainment sector.
On Thursday, Marvel stockholders approved the company's plan to merge Marvel Entertainment with Disney, paving the way for Marvel to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Disney. Marvel estimates the merger's value at $4.3 billion. (The completed merger is still subject to conditions in the definitive proxy statement/prospectus filed by Disney with the SEC on Dec. 2.)
As we all know, Stan Lee has a creative side to create concepts and stories that will work across several platforms, from gaming to the company's young male-skewing Disney XD channel. Disney may also hope to tap into his knowledge of the Marvel Universe, though Lee hasn't been involved with Marvel's comic books since the early 1990s.

TOY STORY 3
Disney•Pixar has debuted a new sneak peek of TOY STORY 3 that gives you a first look at Mr. Pricklepants, who is voiced by Timothy Dalton. The video, featuring director Lee Unkrich, gives you a glimpse of what's ahead for Woody, Buz Lightyear and your other favorite characters.
Opening in 3D theaters and IMAX 3D on June 18, the anticipated sequel is voiced by Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Estelle Harris, John Morris, Laurie Metcalf, R. Lee Ermey, Jodi Benson, Ned Beatty, Michael Keaton, Dalton, Jeff Garlin, Bonnie Hunt, Whoopi Goldberg, Kristen Schaal and Blake Clark.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2010

MARVEL JOINS DISNEY
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Marvel stockholders approved the company's plan to merge Marvel Entertainment with the Walt Disney Co. The deal, which will see Marvel become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mouse House, was approved at a special meeting in New York Thursday morning. Marvel estimates the merger’s value at $4.3 billion.
The completed merger is still subject to conditions in the definitive proxy statement/prospectus filed by Disney with the SEC December 2.

Avatar AVATAR $700M
20th Century Fox reports that James Cameron's AVATAR grossed another $18.29 million on Tuesday to push its domestic total to an impressive $250.4 million after just 12 days.
The $18.29 million is an increase over last Tuesday's $16.1 million and both numbers trail only THE DARK KNIGHT'S $20.9 million on the all-time non-opening Tuesday list.
Internationally, the blockbuster has reached $476.2 million as of the 29th for a combined worldwide total of $726.6 million! Percentage-wise, the domestic take is 34.5% and the international take is 65.6% of that massive total.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
If you are looking for a movie your kids will like, be sure to watch this trailer for DreamWorks Animation's HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. Opening in conventional 3D theaters and IMAX 3D, the animated film features the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrara, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig and T.J. Miller.
Set in the mythical world of burly Vikings and wild dragons, and based on the book by Cressida Cowell, the action comedy tells the story of Hiccup, a Viking teenager who doesn't exactly fit in with his tribe's longstanding tradition of heroic dragon slayers. Hiccup's world is turned upside down when he encounters a dragon that challenges he and his fellow Vikings to see the world from an entirely different point of view.

Back to front page.