Damn You, Inception!

Matthew Vaughn tells the Los Angeles Times he like totally had an idea for X-Men: First Class not unlike Inception:

"I saw 'Inception,' which I loved. But my heart sank when I saw that a few of the ideas we had were up [on the screen]. So it's either leave it in and look as if you're copying or change things. We completely ripped out about 12 pages of the script and the storyboards."

The scene in question involved a "dream-space combat" harkening back to the comics with the young Professor X (here played by James McAvoy) and others with "spinning rooms and other physics-bending imagery."

Why even come clean about this prior to filming commencing? Maybe because you're trying to add even more nerd-cred to your prequel/reboot/whatever? Buddy, you don't need that at this point. The more we hear about it, the better it sounds.

Olivia Wilde Goes Nude For "Cowboys & Aliens"

Adam Beach and Olivia Widle of  the Jon Favreau helmed "Cowboys & Aliens" discussed shooting a very revealing scene with The Toronto Sun via SuperHeroHype.

Here is what Adam Beach had to say:

"We just finished shooting Olivia Wilde naked in front of a bonfire in front of 500 Apache warriors. That was beautiful. You won't get to see what I saw, but you'll get a glimpse."

Olivia Wilde's response:

"Did Adam Beach talk to you? Adam Beach is the best. Last night, we did a scene where I'm naked in front of a group of couple hundred Apache. Pretty amazing, pretty interesting."

"I kick-ass in this. I love doing action movies ... This movie is so much fun for me."

What red, white, and blue-blooded American male doesn't want to see Olivia Wilde stark naked under the pale moonlight? I'm not sure that alone is going to sell the movie, but it makes for some good headlines on a slow news day and gives me an excuse to look up pictures of Olivia Wilde. I'm sure Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Sam Rockwell will all have something to contribute before "Cowboys & Aliens" drops on July 29th, 2011.

Shoot em up.

Official poster for "Night Catches Us"

The official poster for NIGHT CATCHES US is now live on Movieline

Marcus (Anthony Mackie, “The Hurt Locker,” “Brother to Brother”) returns to the Philadelphia neighborhood where he came of age during the Black Power movement, protecting a dangerous secret in a struggle against the revolution he once embraced and rediscovering a forbidden love (Kerry Washington, “Ray,” “Lift”).

 NIGHT CATCHES US premieres on VOD, Playstation, Xbox Live, Amazon and Vudu on October 29, and opens in theaters on December 3, 2010.

For more information please visit:

http://www.nightcatchesus.com/

Reitman, Cody and Theron team on Young Adult

Juno was one of my favourite movies of 2007, it saw Diablo Cody go from hot stripper to hot Hollywood screenwriter and saw Jason Reitman break out as a director to watch after his excellent debut "Thank You for Smoking." Now TOLDJA! brings news that the two are reuniting for Cody's new script "Young Adult" and the stunning Charlize Theron is coming along with them.

The Juno team of director Jason Reitman, screenwriter Diablo Cody, Mandate Pictures and the production company Mr. Mudd are teaming again on Young Adult. Charlize Theron is aboard to play a ghostwriter of young adult novels who realizes she has no identity with her pseudonym and plots to reclaim her identity. Her campaign involves going back and rekindling a relationship with her high school boyfriend--who's freshly married, is a new father, and wants no part of her.

While she works on her plan, the ghostwriter reengages with high school acquaintances and their experiences in trying to carry out all those high school hopes and dreams that often get crushed by the realities of life. The film's being produced by Cody, Mason Novick, Lianne Halfon and Russell Smith of John Malkovich's Mr. Mudd banner. Mandate's Nathan Kahane and Malkovich are exec producers. I'm told that Reitman has brought in Indian Paintbrush's Steven Rales to possibly co-finance with Mandate and he will be an exec producer as well. Several studios are interested in making the picture, but it hasn't crystallized yet. The plan is to get the film into production in New York on November 10 if all works out, with Reitman directing. Cody won an Oscar for her Juno script and Reitman was also nominated.

The outline for the movie is not exactly eye catchingly exciting but with Reitman at the helm my interest is piqued, I've enjoyed each of his three movies and for me each has represented a step up from him in his craft. For Cody after the misstep that was "Jennifers Body" this seems like a safe return for her, and it's easily the most intriguing role Theron has taken on in some time.

Jack Bender Directing Jack Ryan Reboot 2.0 Moscow

Paramount's latest crack at reviving the Jack Ryan franchise has landed itself a director.

Vulture reports Jack Bender (an alum of Paramount certified Golden Boy J.J. Abrams, having directed episodes of Felicity, Alias and Lost) will step behind the camera for the first time on a feature since oddly enough Child's Play 3. Not an unwise move, get a director who works well with the material, obviously has skill/talent and will be controllable against executives and a producer like Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

Moscow is the second attempt at rebooting Tom Clancy's CIA do-gooder since the Ben Affleck headlining Sum of All Fears. This time around, Chris Pine will star.

Actresses Varma & Montgomery Joining Cast Of "Human Target"

Actresses Indira Varma and Janet Montgomery are joining the cast of HUMAN TARGET when the series begins its second season Friday, Sept. 24 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.

Varma will play ILSA PUCCI, a beautiful, sophisticated and recently widowed billionaire who seeks the help of CHRISTOPHER CHANCE (Mark Valley) after the mysterious murder of her philanthropist husband. Impressed with Chance's expertise, Ilsa offers to become his benefactor and a silent owner of his protection agency, allowing him and his partners, WINSTON (Chi McBride) and GUERRERO (Jackie Earle Haley), access to her unlimited resources, including her trust's vast bankroll, private planes, computer technology and connections to the world's most powerful and influential citizens.

Montgomery will recur as AMES, a gorgeous thief whose chameleon-like abilities allow her to blend into any situation. Winston, familiar with Ames from his days on the police force, offers her a job in an effort to help her get her life on the right track.

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art graduate Indira Varma is most familiar to American audiences as "Inspector Cate Pritchard" on BONES and as "Niobe" from the critically acclaimed historical drama series "Rome." She has also appeared on "Little Britain," "Torchwood," "3 lbs.," "The Whistleblowers," "Moses Jones" and "Luther." Her film credits include "Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love," "Canterbury Tales" and "Bride and Prejudice."

British-born actress Janet Montgomery can currently be seen in a recurring role as "Jennie" on the cable comedy series "Entourage." She will next be seen opposite Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in director Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan," and she recently wrapped production on the feature comedy "My Idiot Brother" starring Paul Rudd and Zooey Deschanel.

HUMAN TARGET is an action-adventure series based on the DC Comics comic book and graphic novel, centering on Christopher Chance, a unique private security expert who is hired when a threat can't be eliminated through "normal" means of protection.

HUMAN TARGET is a production of Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Wonderland Sound and Vision, DC Comics and Warner Bros. Television. McG, Matthew Miller, Jonathan E. Steinberg, Brad Kern and Peter Johnson serve as executive producers.

An Invention From The 60's To Change The Face Of TV

It looks like an invention from early 60's is now going going to even further it's surge in the marketplace. In 1962 Corning Inc. invented a type of glass that was very hard to break, dent, or scratch. Problem being,  what is now known as "Gorilla Glass", served no known purpose at the time.

The almost invincible glass finally found that purpose in 2008, protecting the cell phones that our fingers abuse on a daily basis. With just cell phones alone, Corning Inc. has created a 170 million per year operation and Gorilla Glass can be found on over 40 million cell phones and other such devices all over the globe.

Now the company is set to make an even bigger mark on the technology market as television manufactures attempt to make sets even more thin and stylish. Companies are hoping that Gorilla Glass will prove marketable on more than just the look. The glass is lighter, which also means saving on shipping the product among other advantages.

See below for the history of "Gorilla Glass" and head over to Yahoo Finance to further educate yourself.

Corning set out in the late 1950s to find a glass as strong as steel. Dubbed Project Muscle, the effort combined heating and layering experiments and produced a robust yet bendable material called Chemcor.

Then in 1964, Corning devised an ingenious method called "fusion draw" to make super-thin, unvaryingly flat glass. It pumped hot glass into a suspended trough and allowed it to overflow and run down either side. The glass flows then meet under the trough and fuse seamlessly into a smooth, hanging sheet of glass.

To make Chemcor, Corning ran the sheets through a "tempering" process that set up internal stresses in the material. The same principle is behind the toughness of Pyrex glass, but Chemcor was tempered in a chemical bath, not by heat treatment.

Corning thought Chemcor sheets created this way would be the material of choice in car windshields, but British rival Pilkington Bros. intervened with a far cheaper mass-production approach. And another Chemcor adaptation in photochromic sunglasses also fizzled in the retail market.

Fusion draw finally proved its commercial value when Japanese electronics companies, looking for slim sheets free of alkalis that contaminate liquid crystals, turned to Corning's soda-lime LCD glass in the 1980s. Corning rapidly turned into the world's biggest supplier of LCD glass for laptops and that business blossomed around 2003 when LCD technology migrated to TVs.

In 2006, when demand surfaced for a cell phone cover glass, Corning dug out Chemcor from its database, tweaked it for manufacturing in LCD tanks, and renamed it Gorilla.

Guillermo del Toro Gave Up Van Helsing for Mountains of Madness

The short-version, this confirms what Pajiba first reported a few weeks back.

When Guillermo del Toro got the go-ahead to direct At the Mountains of Madness, that meant whatever he was working on at the moment (and boy does he have plenty of things in development) was thrown to the waste-side. In this case, the Mexican director was hard at work on a new Van Helsing for Universal.

Here's the twist (i.e. the new info) courtesy of Vulture. Tom Cruise was (still is, actually) wearing the Producer hat and could very well star as the vampire-hunter. This isn't related to the 2004 Stephen Sommers/Hugh Jackman stinker. But it's odd considering Cruise and Jackman are physically similar – minus the height.

Del Toro's involvement was about the only thing intriguing about this reboot (Is that the right term for it?) If he's gone, good luck at finding anyone near as equipped for this material and with the talent/skill. If this doesn’t crawl out of Development Hell, color me surprised.

Liam Neeson Resigns from the Lincoln Presidency

There goes Mr. Lincoln.

For a couple of years, Liam Neeson was attached to play our sixteenth president in a biopic to directed by Steven Spielberg, co-starring Sally Field as the First Lady and written by Tony Kushner. I even recall a press release announcing a February 2009 release. Obviously that came and went with no movie on screens.

Neeson tells Digital Spy he’s calling it a day on working with the Beard again (at least on this project):

"I'm not actually playing Lincoln now. I was attached to it for a while, but it's now I'm past my sell-by date."

Spielberg is about to begin production on his latest Warhorse for release next August. There's no indication just where (and when) Lincoln fits into his current schedule.

Lethal Weapon 5 Suddenly Looks Real Good for Mel Gibson!

What is the road of salvation for Mel Gibson and his crumbling career? Staying off the radar for awhile? Make another public apology – possibly donate to some special-needs group? Gluing his mouth shut? Directing another great epic showcasing his story-telling abilities?

Or better yet, how about finally starring in Lethal Weapon 5!? Hey, that'll make everyone forget the bullshit you've pulled, Mel.

As per What's Playing, word is talks have sprung forth once again between Gibson and producer Joel Silver - even after he killed the project five years ago.

If memory serves me correct, Gibson balked at how series-director Richard Donner was not asked to participate and he basically said, "Donner directs or I don't it!" This was despite a script having been penned by Shane Black and Danny Glover seemingly back on board too. Of course, that was back when he could afford to be that picky. Nowadays, you'd be hard-pressed to hear someone say Gibson couldn't benefit from doing Lethal Weapon 5.

We're still in the midst of the 80s nostalgia fest and what better way to bring it back than seeing an AARP card-carrying Riggs and Murtaugh fighting South African terrorists. Boy, does that movie play different these days, huh? But does anyone think Warner Brothers would want to make it now or any of Gibson's co-stars (like Glover) want to be anywhere near him?