Movies
9 CommentsTheory of Everything actor takes lead role in new Harry Potter franchise
By Susana Polo at 11:30a 06.02.15
Oscar Award-winning veteran of The Theory of Everything, Les Misérables and Jupiter Ascending Eddie Redmayne will play the lead in the new film trilogy based in the setting of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, Warner Bros. has announced.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which marks Rowling's screenwriting debut, will follow the character of Newt Scamander, a famous researcher of the animals of the wizarding world, or "magizoologist." Scamander is known in Harry Potter canon as the author of a required Hogwarts textbook for which the film is named. Rowling also wrote a "real" version of the Fantastic Beasts textbook in 2001, with the majority of proceeds from its sale going to the Comic Relief charity.
The first film, at least, is confirmed...
Movies
43 CommentsBig Trouble in Little China remake with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in the works
By Michael McWhertor on Jun 01, 2015 06.01.15
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is in talks to star in and produce a remake of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China, according to reports from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.
Screenwriters Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz, who have worked on Thor, X-Men: First Class and the upcoming Power Rangers movie, are attached to write. Twentieth Century Fox is reportedly developing the remake of the 1986 film.
Big Trouble in Little China starred Kurt Russell — who appeared alongside Johnson in Furious 7 — as Jack Burton, a trucker who finds himself caught in a battle between supernatural forces in San Francisco's Chinatown and manages to just barely thwart evil sorcerer David Lo Pan. Big Trouble in Little China was reportedly a dud at the box office in 1986, but has amassed a cult following,...
Movies
19 CommentsWatch how Mad Max used center framing to keep the action scenes coherent
By Ben Kuchera on Jun 01, 2015 06.01.15
Mad Max: Fury Road is an amazing film, and one of the best things about the editing is how easy it is to follow the action. All of those crazy visuals would be lost if the viewer can't follow the action but, unlike other recent action films, Mad Max is easy to watch. You can follow the action, and you always know what's going on.
"The most popular editing tendency for action scenes and films over the last 10 years has been the 'Chaos Cinema' approach," editor Vashi Nedomansky wrote in a blog post. "A barrage of non-congruent and seemingly random shots that overwhelm the viewer with a false sense of kinetic energy and power. It can be effective in smaller doses, but exhausting and confusing when absorbed for two hours. If the story is incomprehensible due to editing … you are doing...
Movies
9 CommentsStunning before-and-after shots of Mad Max and its computer-generated special effects
By Brian Crecente on Jun 01, 2015 06.01.15
Mad Max is a spectacular movie, mostly because of its over-the-top depiction of vehicle-to-vehicle combat. That and the fact that most of those vehicles and explosions weren't the products of computer graphics, but rather real things of metal and fire.
FX Guide has a fantastic, in-depth write up of the special effects used in the movie, mostly to create not those incredible combat scenes, but the backdrops for them.
We've tossed a number of the pre-production and post-production images into our magic slider so you can slide back and forth to compare the shots. Make sure you head over to FX Guide to see the rest of the images, some videos and of course read the story.
In the first comparison, seen above, we get a look at one of the only major things created entirely of CGI...
Movies
39 CommentsSuicide Squad spoilers: First clear images and video of [REDACTED] in action
By Ben Kuchera on May 29, 2015 05.29.15
We had our first hints, but the clear images and video have arrived. This is the big man himself in Suicide Squad.
OMFGGGGGGGGGGOTHAM #batman #darkknight #bunsofsteel #suicidesquad #toronto #bestvideoever #onset #nanana #hahaha #joker #thejoker #jokermobile #lamborghini #lambo #allnighter #worthit #harleyquinn #harley #batmobile #benaffleck @margotrobbie @jaredleto
A video posted by Naomi Lir (@punxie89) on May 28, 2015 at 12:53am PDT
There are more images at Just Jared as well, but here's what looks to be a stuntman in the cape and cowl.
This seems to be a pretty open set, to put it lightly. Follow the links below for more images and video.
Batman Arkham Knight: 'Officer Down' gameplay
Movies
50 CommentsWatch Kung Fury, since you need laser dinosaurs and 80s-style kung fu in your life
By Ben Kuchera on May 28, 2015 05.28.15
If you don't know anything about Kung Fury, my suggestion would be to just watch the 30 minute film. It's quite the ride.
The film debuted at Cannes after a successful Kickstarter, and it's already blowing up the internet. "[Director and star David] Sandberg doesn’t actually know kung fu, but that wasn’t a problem," Variety reported.
"Originally, the idea was to do all the fighting virtually, digitally replacing his legs in post-production. When that looked silly, he decided to hire a body double, who does all the fighting in the short’s centerpiece scene: a two-minute showdown against dozens of Nazi stormtroopers (technically, one guy, digitally repeated as many times as needed)."
It's as crazy as it sounds, keeping as many details from 80s action films as possible. You'll see...
Movies
29 CommentsAndy Serkis’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens character revealed, and he looks angry
By Dave Tach on May 28, 2015 05.28.15
Andy Serkis will play a character called Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, according to a post on the official Star Wars website today.
You can see Serkis, as photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair, in motion capture gear above. Lupita Nyong’o will also play a motion-captured character in The Force Awakens, and you can learn more about her in the Must Read section below.
Must Read
Star Wars: The Force Awakens bad guy, characters, locations, story and snowtroopers revealed
Serkis was among the movie's cast announced in April 2014. Known more for his motion capture work than his real-life appearance, Serkis is a veteran of movies like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, where he played Gollum. More recently, he played...
Movies
5 CommentsWatch Jaws in theaters this summer in honor of its 40th anniversary
By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 28, 2015 05.28.15
Steven Spielberg's iconic ocean thriller, Jaws, will return to the big screen on June 21 and June 24 in honor of its 40th anniversary. Fathom Events, Turner Classic Movies and Universal Pictures will play the film nationwide in almost 500 theaters.
Tickets for the film will be available tomorrow, May 29, on Fathom's website. You can watch one of the original trailers for Jaws below.
Movies
20 CommentsTilda Swinton in negotiations to play mentor in Doctor Strange
By Susana Polo on May 28, 2015 05.28.15
Actress Tilda Swinton, no stranger to genre film or superheroes, is reportedly in negotiations to play the Ancient One in Marvel's upcoming Doctor Strange.
Indeed, if everything goes swimmingly, Swinton would technically be jumping comic book universes: She played the androgynous role of the angel Gabriel in 2005's Constantine, based on the paranormal detective character from DC Comics' Vertigo imprint. The Hollywood Reporter expects that once the deal-doing dust settles, she'll have the role of the Ancient One, the hermetical expert in magic who teaches the self-oriented Stephen Strange the ways of the Sorcerer Supreme. THR describes the character thusly:
Strange's mentor is a Tibetan mystic known as the Ancient One, who is training pupils to be the next sorcerer supreme. In the...
Movies
11 CommentsFox announces reboot plans for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
By Susana Polo on May 27, 2015 05.27.15
20th Century Fox has announced plans to attempt another adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, under I, Robot and Predator producer John Davis, because apparently the studio didn't learn its lesson the first time.
Well, that's not entirely fair. The rebooting of lackluster franchises always raises two questions: If the first was so horrible, why are they doing it again? and If the first was so horrible, why not try again? Perhaps with the success of shows like Penny Dreadful and the buzz around Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak, Hollywood executives are prepared to refrain from micromanaging Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's original graphic novel into a gray paste of predictable reveals, inexplicable car chases and literary references so terrified of flying over the heads...
Movies
32 CommentsSuicide Squad set photos and videos spoil huge plot points
By Ben Kuchera on May 27, 2015 05.27.15
This post is silly with spoilers.
Fans had split reactions to the full reveal of Jared Leto's Joker makeup, and now it looks like some more major plot points of the upcoming Suicide Squad movie have been spoiled due to fans taking video and images during the shooting of the film in Toronto.
For instance, we know a plane crash will play into the story in some way.
Nice to come home to a quick plane crash. #SuicideSquad pic.twitter.com/VvzF90kODL
— ashley poitevin (@ashleypoitevin) May 18, 2015
But more importantly, it's all but certain that Batman will be in the film in some capacity, as footage of scenes being filmed with the Batmobile have flooded social media.
Must be tough to parallel park this bad boy #Batmobile #Batman #Toronto #SuicideSquad #DC
A video...
Movies
111 CommentsThey remade Point Break. This is the trailer. God help us all
By Ben Kuchera on May 26, 2015 05.26.15
Imagine Point Break if it were remade with "extreme athletes" and a cast of generically attractive individuals.
You don't have to imagine anymore, because it's a reality and you can watch the trailer and despair. It doesn't look bad, it doesn't look good, it just looks completely unnecessary.
In theaters December 25!
Movies
15 CommentsRobert Rodriguez is going to direct a Jonny Quest movie
By Susana Polo on May 26, 2015 05.26.15
Heads up, everybody with fond memories of Spy Kids, Robert Rodriguez is returning to the realm of family action film, and he's doing it with the original animated boy adventurer: Jonny Quest.
Deadline reports that Rodriguez has signed on to direct Warner Bros.' latest attempt to bring a live action Jonny Quest adaptation to the big screen. Currently, he and Terry Rossio (of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) are working on rewriting a Black List script from Dan Mazeau to serve as the film's backbone.
Jonny Quest premiered in 1964 and ran for only one season before being cancelled due to the animated show's high production costs for parent studio Hanna-Barbera, rather than because of a lack of audience interest. A modern 1996 animated reboot suffered from much the same fate after...
Movies
4 CommentsDocumentary to give us a peek inside Fury Road director's failed Justice League movie
By Susana Polo on May 26, 2015 05.26.15
Before Mad Max: Fury Road, before The Dark Knight, director George Miller had very nearly put together a complete cast for a Justice League film for release in 2009. And while it never saw the light of day, documentary filmmakers Ryan Unicomb, Aaron Carter and Steve Caldwell have announced plans to give the failed production the documentary treatment.
Despite the enduring legacy of Mad Max and its sequels, it's been a long time since George Miller directed an action film. It's not surprising that in the wake of Fury Road's success, there would be renewed interest in the story of a highly anticipated superhero adaptation that never made it to screens. At the point at which it was abandoned, Miller's Justice League had already gathered an extensive cast, including Common as the Green...
Good Game
10 CommentsHappy 38th birthday, Star Wars, you changed my life
By Brian Crecente on May 26, 2015 05.26.15
It has been 38 years since the release of the original Star Wars.Let that sink in for a second.
Back on May 25, 1977, I clearly remember standing in the oppressive heat of a closed garage in El Paso, Texas, waiting for my cousins, brother, aunt and mom to come outside so we could load up and drive to the local movie theater.
I was 6 (or nearly 7, as I used to tell everyone) at the time and had never heard of the movie we were going to see. One of my cousins told me it was called "Star Wars."
I remember trying to imagine what that meant. The concept of massive wars being fought out in the dark reaches of space among those millions of stars I would look up at each night. It was almost too strange for my young brain to comprehend.
"Star wars?" I thought. "What a stupid name."
It...
Movies
8 CommentsLego Ant-Man pack includes big flying ant, maybe bigger spoiler
By Brian Crecente on May 22, 2015 05.22.15
Images for the official LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Ant-Man Final Battle pack just hit and the included toys may have a bit of a spoiler for the upcoming movie.
Don't read on if you don't want to hear about it.
The pack, which will sell for $19.99, contains 183 pieces used to build a pretty sweet ride for the Ant-Man: A huge flying ant.
Look too closely at the bundle, though, and you'll notice a potential spoiler. Among the three minifigs included is the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym, in the costume of the new Ant-Man, Scott Lang.
The Ant-Man movie hits July 17. The Lego set hits June 1.
