Thu, April 12, 2012 "The New Film By Quentin Tarantino."
Teaser as it is (The whole point is to be vague after all), bold move to not even slap Django Unchained on this obviously Mondo-influenced one-sheet, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies. Truth is a Spanish-language version leaked first via Screen Crush, and being one to react ASAP for us lazy Americans, here is the English one.
Wed, April 11, 2012 Nothing gets divulged plot-wise, though everyone and their mother saw this headlined-spoiler from The Sun coming miles away, from these new Skyfall photos. Simply setting a mood (Thank you very much, Director of Photography Roger Deakins), our first good look at Ralph Fiennes' M and getting yours truly ready for our first Bond installment with Academy-Award winning pedigree sitting in the director's chair.
Wed, April 11, 2012 Some complained of the lack of The Dark Knight Rises marketing in recent weeks (What, the web hasn't talked it up since the day after The Dark Knight opened?) as its release date approaches, a third trailer is expected in the coming month and rumblings of it already being finished.
Bats and Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, whose ass you can also drool over at Super Hero Hype!, are front and center on this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly. Right in time for their big summer movie splash edition. As noted by our pal Renn Brown at CHUD it continues the tradition of Meh-to-terrible poses.
There are quotes about from Christopher Nolan about how evil Bane is, how tough Hathaway trained and so on. But that's puff-piece bullshit and what you're in for till July 20th.
Mon, April 9, 2012 
Ben Kingsley's baddie-duties in Iron Man 3 as scooped by Variety, doesn't imply a quality script by Drew Pearce and helmer Shane Black. Nor does it suggest we're in for an upgrade after the sighs heard run the world walking out of Iron Man 2 two years ago. Not at face value, it doesn't - though we're confident in the long overdue Kiss Kiss Bang Bang reunion of Black and Robert Downey Jr.
I only say this because of Kingsley himself. Great an actor he is, if you look at his filmography, there's the Schindler's Lists, Gandhis, Bugsys, Daves and it wasn't even a year ago he was wonderful in Hugo. He has plenty of accolades taking up space in his mansions too. But the stinkers, the "Take the money and run" gigs, outweigh the good. By a lot. So much so you wonder the last time, he sat down and took a good look at whatever script his agent told him he was doing next.
The real intrigue here is who he'll play. The trades say it ain't the Mandarin. All we know for sure is the threequel is based on Warren Ellis' Extremis story-arc, an item Latino Review broke last month, involving a virus originating from an ill-attempt to recreate Captain America's Super Solider Serum.
Don't know where that puts Kingsley though. Is he another Justin Hammer (a suit)? Or maybe another wacky-eccentric wearing armor twice the size at Tony's Mark VII? Both are plausible and Kingsley could play either well. Hoping it's all misdirection and he is in fact the Mandarin. At least that would offer us something different this time out. Even if it is "politically incorrect."
Fri, April 6, 2012 
Everyone was optimistic a deal between director Gary Ross and Lionsgate would transpire amid issues of salary disputes, as THR leaked earlier this week. This morning as news broke the studio settled their differences with Fox over star Jennifer Lawrence is word on where things stand for Ross.
Namely he won't be back for Catching Fire, reports The Playlist.
The reasoning, their spies say, had less to do with money but focused on his affinity for not repeating himself and a lack of desire nailed down to that franchise for so many years with no side projects in between. Not to play the "NU-UH!" card on their sources, but come on, it's always about money. Throw enough cash up-front and back-end points, and we'd have never heard of Ross and studio-heads clashing.
The shaky-cam flaws notwithstanding (and even that can be excused as his way of getting The Hunger Games to its lucrative PG-13 rating), Ross performed the thankless task of creating that world, setting up the characters and their dynamics, all the while telling a compelling three-act story. And he did a great job. We all would have liked to see Ross get his hands dirty, letting the story loose with Catching Fire with all the traditional "First Movie" constraints gone. An unfortunate turn of events indeed.
Fri, April 6, 2012 
I was worried Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox would stop being friends.
Heat Vision reports that despite squabbling the two studios agreed to share the wealth on Jennifer Lawrence. Both had options of the actress and, for a moment, neither appeared willing to play ball so both could utilize her new found status as a household name post-Hunger Games. The thoughts of both making money flashing her name across billboards made them BFFs, I'm sure.
As initially planned, she'll return as Katniss Everdeen for Catching Fire this fall (Gary Ross' participation, as you may know, remains in question though everyone expects his return – knock on wood) and then segue into another long round of blue body-painting sessions as Mystique for the untitled X-Men: First Class sequel, which starts lensing next January.
I guess Fox's option on her was that rock-solid since the normal route after achieving the success she's had is to get the best lawyer in the world and buy out of her X-Men contract. Not like she's getting paid a fool's ransom in gold or her role will stretch out since she was essentially the third lead in First Class.
Thu, April 5, 2012 
Disney/Marvel has set an April 4, 2014 release for Captain America 2, the studio announced this morning. Nothing further in terms of information on the sequel (Zeroing in on a director as we speak) besides it picking up after The Avengers, and this new production still of Chris Evans' Sentinel of Liberty.
Studios are starting up their salad-days of explosion-ridden, summer blockbusters sooner and sooner. Kicking off at Easter was a natural progression.
Mon, April 2, 2012 Cross promotional tie-ins have their little rewards. Case in point: Kellogg is starting up a new deal pimping The Amazing Spider-Man.
Long story short, get some special codes off select Kellogg products and your smart-phone to see early clips. This being the Internet, someone has already done the deed and posted said (brief) scenes online, courtesy of Super Hero Hype:
Spidey, the wise-ass (Not a new concept onscreen if you look back at the 2002 originating film) and whatever that Subway scene is. Again echoing memories of Sam Raimi (The "He's just a kid!" scene in Spider-Man 2 comes to mind).
Heard very troubling things on Marc Webb's reboot but I can't judge it based on these clips, especially the first since Garfield looks like he will be superior to Tobey Maguire in the one-liners department.
Mon, April 2, 2012 
Money is why the world didn't get Dumb & Dumber 2. Until now. They'll never admit that, of course.
Not so much an issue of payment. None of these guys are hurting but a case where neither Jim Carrey nor the Farrellys are making the kind of coin their names once guaranteed commercially. That doesn't matter to Jeff Daniels since he gets steady work as the always-reliable character actor. If either parties were still hitting em outta the ballpark, confident to say the prospects of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne's return would be nil. But here we are.
Peter Farrelly confirms to Coming Soon cameras roll this fall on Dumb & Dumber 2:
"We're getting set to shoot 'Dumb and Dumber 2' in September. It’s the first sequel we’ve ever done and we’ve got Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels back."
Can't say the thought of those characters return sends any excitement. We've seen others capitalizing on Dumb & Dumber only to fail (A Saturday morning cartoon and the prequel When Harry Met Lloyd). The near 20 year gap doesn't help.
Mon, April 2, 2012 Seth MacFarlane.
Uttering his name, one has already split people 50/50. The first half who finds his politically-incorrect (Read: easy stereotypes) raunchy, rapid-fire pop culture raddled humor God's gift to comedy. The other half who views that same affinity for referencing movies or TV shows from the last 30 years as comedy writing at its laziest and his using Family Guy as a platform to shove his left-wing views down our collective throats to the point of stopping episodes cold just to get across how much he hates George W. Bush and loves Barack Obama.
No matter your ideology on the man, he's made Fox a lot of money and doesn't show any signs of stopping his signature show or its spin-offs. Since dominating the field of TV animation as much as anyone can (We're all waiting to see how his Flintstones revival series), he's turned his attention to a foreign concept: directing.
Funny or Die has the red-band trailer for Ted, his directorial debut in the live-action comedy arena about a man (Mark Wahlberg) and his relationship with his best friend, his fouled-mouth, among other things, teddy-bear voiced by MacFarlane, and yes he does sound just like Peter Griffin. If you're among that crowd of devout MacFarlane fans, you'll like what you see. For the rest, well, at least you know what you won’t be watching on July 13th: