Wed, September 15, 2010 All right, Disney. You've finally won me over. The new UK trailer for Tangled, their animated take on Rapunzel, has hit the web, and it's looking pretty good:
Tangled, featuring the voices of Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, opens in US theaters on November 24th, but it doesn't open in the UK until January 28, 2011.
Wed, September 15, 2010 
One of the more recent transitions from television to film success is Kevin James. Something about the guy I can't put my finger on. But he's just so damned likeable.
Sony's already hit the jackpot on the actor/comedian with Paul Blart: Mall Cop (It still amazes me how that scored $150 million stateside!) and Grown Ups, and The Zookeeper is expected to be a big hit next summer too. Wisely they want to stay in the Kevin James business.
"TOLDJA" says the studio and actor have agreed on their next endeavor – a currently untitled mixed martial arts comedy. The former King of Queens star will play a teacher moonlighting as a mixed martial arts fighter in order to save his school. We can immediately visualize the trailer. He falls on his ass (a lot), screams and some form of farting.
Sony is fast-tracking the comedy with their goal to get production up and running by next year. Translation: this will go along with the Spider-Man reboot and Men in Black 3D as their summer 2012 lineup.
Wed, September 15, 2010 This one has hit written all over it, a remake of the French film "Anthony Zimmer" starring two of Hollywood's biggest stars and directed by the Oscar winning Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, "The Tourist" has went through a few casting and directorial changes but finally a trailer is here.
The tone is a little lighter than I was initially expecting but this looks like great fun, an old fashioned chase movie in the vein of "North by North West" with beautiful locations, two stars who seem to have chemistry and some action and intrigue thrown in.
"The Tourist" Opens on December 10th and you can check out the trailer below or go to Yahoo! Movies for the HD version.
Wed, September 15, 2010 
Andrew Garfield, out promoting both Never Let Me Go and The Social Network, has talked a bit more about his anticipated role of Spider-Man in Sony and Marc Webb's reboot. In an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, Garfield talked about his passion for the character growing up and what training he's doing to get in "Spidey" shape:
"His youth, his relatability, his struggle. He was just this skinny boy. He was a skinny boy who felt stronger on the inside than he looked on the outside, and I related to it immediately, and it stayed with me as I grew up.
"Every single generation of the comic, the cartoons and the movies, it all means a great deal to me. It was always something that gave me hope as a skinny little kid whose sense of injustice about the world didn't match his sense of strength about his body. I found it so inspiring and uplifting and reassuring. To be a part of that mythology and that legacy is a true honor."
"We're just talking about where we want to go with it and what kind of body shape it should be. What the skill set should be," Garfield said. "I know I'm going to be doing a lot of flexibility training and a lot of strength training, because I have to swing and stuff. I'm just guessing, but it's all kind of early stages."
"I'm not doing it for any of the peripheral stuff. We could be making a short film, a short Spider-Man film with an unknown director, with no money, and I'd do it just to be able to play as Spider-Man," the actor explained. "That's like a childhood fantasy come to life. It's an adult fantasy, as well. I'm still climbing up the door frames in my house. It's just a bigger space I'm going to be climbing in now, with a bit more money behind it, and the cameras filming it."
Interesting to note, Garfield's Never Let Me Go co-star, Carey Mulligan, also gives her take on what Garfield will bring to the role, comparing his acting style to what Heath Ledger brought to the Joker:
"I think it'll be like what Heath Ledger did with the Joker. Andrew, he has no other way of working other than doing things with complete truth."
We'll see if she's right come Summer 2012.
Tue, September 14, 2010 
The trades report Al Capone is getting a new biopic.
Courtesy of Warner Brothers and Walon Green (no stranger to the crime genre serving as a longtime writer/producer on the Law & Order franchise), Cicero will chronicles the Chicago gangster's rise to power during Prohibition. Green's script is said to be in the vein of classic '30s era gangster pictures like Little Caesar.
Details are early so a director or lead actor (Paging every white fat guy in showbiz!) is too soon to secure. Why not Brian De Palma? He was working on that Untouchables prequel for years and it basically dealt with the same subject matter - the rise of Capone with Nicolas Cage attached. Just drop trying to link it to Brian's '87 classic and you're good to go!
The big question on everyone's mind, of course, is who will play Geraldo Rivera.
Tue, September 14, 2010 
Just when you thought Joel Schumacher couldn’t get any lower in the director food-chain. Kids, we swear he used to make good movies - before you were born.
Pajiba reports he's signed on for The Barry White Story. Before you utter a word, this isn't an Oscar-baiting biopic on the late soul singer. Such a move wouldn't be surprising coming from Schumacher whose career never recovered after camping up Batman thirteen years back.
Instead this centers on Barry White (after having crossed the stream and returning as a ghost) to help some poor schmuck score with his dream girl. Schumacher has already started pre-production on the comedy. He reportedly dropped trou and shit all over old Barry White records. Said it helped him get in the mood.
Tue, September 14, 2010 
For every Harry Potter and Twilight successfully transitioning from page to screen, you're always going to get more Percy Jacksons and Lemony Snickets, and then there's Golden Compass – ouch! Lionsgate is hoping they reach for the former with their planned film version of Hunger Games.
Via "TOLDJA" and Heat Vision after a number of directors in the running, it appears the front-runner is Garry Ross, helmer behind Pleasantville and Seabiscuit and Oscar-nominated for co-authoring Big. No contracts have been inked or any handshake agreements gone down.
Hunger Games (the first in a trilogy followed by Catching Fire and concluding with Mockingjay) centers on teenager Katniss Everdeen forced to participate in a "fight to the death" reality competition in a bleak future society.
Tue, September 14, 2010 
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro have been quietly working on their first collaboration since Casino way back from 1995 in The Irishman. Adapted by Steve Zaillian, it's based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses and chronicles real life mob hitman Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran.
Here's the description of the book from Amazon:
"'I heard you paint houses' are the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank 'the Irishman' Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. Sheeran learned to kill in the U.S. Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually he would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani would name him as one of only two non-Italians on a list of 26 top mob figures. When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, he did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself. Sheeran's important and fascinating story includes new information on other famous murders, and provides rare insight to a chapter in American history. Charles Brandt has written a page-turner that is destined to become a true crime classic."
It'd be great to see one of the all-time great director/actor duos together again – especially if they have something new to say about a genre they’re both simpatico with.
"TOLDJA" reports in a big kick in the pants to get Irishman more interest from us nerds, if there wasn't enough already. Word has reached their ears Al Pacino (who surprisingly has never worked with Scorsese) and Joe Pesci are both said to be circling the project.
No telling if this indeed will be Scorsese's next though. He's in the middle of filming Hugo Cabret for next Christmas and he's attached to plenty of other projects. But shit would I love to see this happen. If for no other reason than see De Niro not phoning it in, Pacino dialing it back acting-wise and just seeing more of Pesci in general. God only knows how much longer we have to enjoy Scorsese's work to boot.
Mon, September 13, 2010 I'm not even slightly embarrassed to admit that this just scared the shit out of me. Apparently, the trailer for Paranormal Activity 2 - the same one I made fun of Twilight fans about a few months ago for being so scared of it that it was pulled from a few theaters - has a hidden easter egg that happens to be freaky as all hell.
The trailer is embedded below, but you need to go their website to unleash this thing they did do it. The trailer will play as soon as you get to the site, and when the video passes the "12:31:14" mark on bottom right of the screen, drag the video progress bar back a bit to the left. You'll see sort of a creepy image, and if you stop it just right...hell will briefly break loose on your computer.
It might take a few tries to get it going (I've gotten it twice, and I ain't doing it again), but it's pretty damn clever. According to a few posts on a Wired article about the hidden footage, there are a few other tricks within the trailer as well. If you can find them, good luck!
Paranormal Activity 2 opens in theaters on October 22.
Mon, September 13, 2010 Our long, still-just-so-unfair lack of Conan O'Brien from the airwaves is almost over, and not a moment too soon. With the new show, Conan, set to begin on TBS starting on November 8, the promotion blitz has officially begun.
The folks over at Team Coco have given us our first look at the new print ad, which will appear in magazines everywhere starting in mid-October:
Welcome back, Coco. We've missed you!