First Look At Rango Played By Johnny Depp

I have to say, I had no idea what "Rango" was until I saw the poster for the upcoming animated film over on ComingSoon.net. How could I have missed a film coming out directed by Gore Verbinksi with Johnny Depp as the lead? My skills might be fading as I get older or I just might have forgotten I knew. At any rate, the film is being released March 4th, 2011 and also features the vocal stylings of Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Ray Winstone, Beth Grant, Ned Beatty, Harry Dean Stanton, and everybody's favorite gentleman Alfred Molina.

Check out the poster below, which features Johhny Depp's character of Rango in all his lizard-like glory. Head over to the Coming Soon link above for a bigger version. If you'd like, venture to the Official Website for a continuous animated clip of the film. I kept watching the clip wondering if there would be some kind of easter egg included, but nothing so far.

Lego The Movie

Heat Vision is reporting that Warner Bros has hired Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller to write and direct the Lego movie. Yes you read that right, the Lego movie.

The plot apparently is being kept secret. Although what's known is it will be an adventure in the Lego world involving live action and animation. I would have figured they would they would go full on CGI like Toy Story, but apparently the directors came up with an idea where they were able in incorporate both.

I actually like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, but this sounds ridiculous. This is as a good an idea as stretch arm strong or battleship.

Hollyweird truly is fresh out of original ideas. Sure this is an original story, but it's about fucking Lego!

Doug Liman Offered to Direct The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Warner Brothers has been keeping a watchful eye on Doug Liman as of late.

The director (responsible for launching the popular Jason Bourne franchise with 2002s The Bourne Identity) was supposed to readying his Three Musketeers project for the studio. But with Paul W.S. Anderson's 3D version moving forward (it has a cast, distributor and release date lined up), the writing was on the wall that WB's version wasn't going to happen anytime in the near-future.

Meanwhile, the studio has already met with Liman over the prospects of helming All You Need Is Kill and according to the Los Angeles Times, they’re also keen to get him in the director's chair for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Last we heard on that one, David Dobkin (helmer of WBs crazy-profitable Wedding Crashers and the ass-tastic Fred Claus) was on-board. That doesn't appear to be the case and he'll instead remain in a producing capacity.

But before anyone gets excited, Liman is apparently leaning against taking the gig. So your guess is as good as mine as to who will direct U.N.C.L.E. (WB badly wants this puppy going after the latest script was turned in) or what Liman himself will ultimately do next.

Banshee to Appear in X-Men: First Class?

Hot off the heels of Alice Eve being cast as Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class, Latino Review has their very own casting scoop from the forthcoming Matthew Vaughn-helmed prequel.

Word is another of the early students of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr will be an Irish kid with a loud voice named Sean Cassidy aka Banshee. According to El Mayimbe, the favorite to nab the role is Caleb Landry Jones.

Given his name doesn't immediately brighten your light-bulbs (its okay - didn't for me either). The kid doesn’t have much on his resume with his highest-profile gigs being a guest-stint on NBCs Friday Nights Lights and as "the Boy on Bike" from No Country for Old Men. Remember him? I've in the past jokingly referred to him as the smartest character in the role. He’s the kid at the end who gives Chigurh the shirt off his back (Javier Bardem), takes his bloodied cash and doesn't ask any questions. Basically the only character that psycho-path doesn’t off.

With production expected to commence in August, we'll without a doubt hear more names to the roster.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Trailer!

Here it is!  The official trailer for Parts 1 & 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

It looks like they did an amazing job with this, and at this point it seems that the only bad part about the decision to split this into two films is that we'll have to wait an endless eight months between movies.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 opens in theaters November 19, with Part 2 arriving on July 15, 2011.

Back to the Future Gets The Blu-ray Treatment

The Back to the Future trilogy is making its way to the Blu-Ray format. Big news really is Eric Stoltz is going to be seen as Marty Mcfly in some of the extra features. This is sure to be a hot item on the pre-order list with a strong following of fans. I can't wait to see how this transfers over to the Blu-ray format.

IESB has a look at all the special features making it onto this classic.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Screenshots

As I write this, the Deathly Hallows trailer is already premiering at Yahoo! Movies. I am eager to finish up and see what is in store in this final installment of the hugely popular series. USAToday.com has some screenshots from the trailer that debuted earlier. From the first official trailer and the look of these screenshots, it looks as though all the stops will be pulled out from this one and old Voldy and Harry will get to duke it out in an ultimate climatic battle.

Alice Eve Joining X-Men First Class?

According to Deadline Alice Eve is now in negotiations to play Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class, the prequel being directed my Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) and Produced by the first X-men director Bryan Singer. She was last seen along with her shit eating grin in She's Out of My League opposite Jay Baruchel, where she smiled here way through the movie as opposed to acting.

This is Megan Fox all over again, and didn't we just get rid of her? Sure she's fun to look at, but she's an awful actress. Hopefully she'll be able to prove me wrong with X-Men, I doubt it though.

Frost formed her own school for mutants, and her own team called the Hellions, before finally being brought into the X-Men fold by Charles Xavier (and writer Grant Morrison) and becoming a key member of the group. The character appeared briefly in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, played by Tahyna Tozzi as a younger version.

She'll join James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, as lead mutants Xavier and Magneto respectively.

Weekend Box Office: June 25-27

      

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Toy Story 3 - $59 million

2.  Grown Ups - $41 million

3.  Knight and Day - $20.5 million

4.  The Karate Kid - $15.4 million

5.  The A-Team - $6 million

6.  Get Him to the Greek - $3 million

7.  Shrek Forever After - $2.87 million

8.  Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - $2.80 million

9.  Killers - $2 million

10.  Jonah Hex - $1.6 million

It's been a great week to be a toy (and not such a great week to be Tom Cruise).

Toy Story 3 dominated the box office in its second weekend, staying put in the #1 spot with $59 million, a drop of only 46% from it's opening weekend.  Strong business during the week also helped push it over the $200 million mark by the end of the weekend, putting its domestic total so far at $226 million.  At this rate it should easily top Finding Nemo's $340 million as Pixar's highest grossing film to date by the end of the summer.

It's been a pretty good weekend for Adam Sandler too.  His comedy Grown Ups opened with an impressive $41 million this weekend.   That marks Sandler's fourth biggest opening weekend after Big Daddy, Anger Management, and The Longest Yard.  Grownup or not, he still seems to have plenty of fans out there.

The Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz action comedy Knight & Day disappointed this weekend, coming in with just $20.5 million.  Signs were looking ominous when the film opened on Wednesday to a mere $3.8 million (compared to Toy Story 3, which made $13.4 million on the same day).  At this rate, it doesn't seem like it will pick up enough traction to hold up against the Twilight rush next week.

Karate Kid continues to play well, reaching a domestic total of $135 million.  With a reported $40 million production budget, it stands to be the most profitable movie of the summer so far.  Meanwhile hopes are fading for any A-Team fans who were hoping strong word-of-mouth would drive up enough business for a sequel.  The A-Team underwhelmed again this weekend with just $6 million, and it's still barely halfway back to earning back it's reported budget of $110 million.

Anyone remember Jonah Hex?  Yeah, no one else does either.  It bombed even worse in it's second weekend, dropping 70% to barely stay in 10th place with $1.6 million. 

Expect records to fall next week as The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, already this year's top advance ticket seller, begins its reign of terror in theaters everywhere.

Fassbender Confirmed for X-Men: First Class

Heat Vision is reporting that Michael Fassbender has officially signed on to play Magneto in X-Men: First Class.  The Inglorious Basterds star, who was also rumored to be up for a role as a villian in the upcoming Spiderman reboot, will join James McAvoy (as Charles Xavier) and Benjamin Walker (as Hank McCoy) in the X-Men prequel, which will be directed by Matthew Vaughn.

With the movie scheduled to start filming in September, casting rumors have been running wild for several weeks now, and we should be getting some more official confirmations shortly.  The official synopsis of the film is here:

“Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.”

Well, that doesn't seem like anything we didn't already know about the movie...but it does sound like everything is coming together nicely so far. 

X-Men: First Class is scheduled to open in theaters June 3, 2011.