Posts

How Gareth Edwards Shot ‘Monsters’ On An Incredibly Low Budget By Peter Sciretta/June 3, 2010 11:00 am EST The best film I screened at the Cannes Film Festival this year was a sci-fi monster movie titled Monsters, which had originally premiered at SXSW. The film and director have been the talk of Hollywood ever since. Is he the next Neill Blomkamp? The movie is set six years after a NASA probe crashed over Central America, causing the quarantine of half of Mexico....

Is ‘The Master’ Headed To Fantastic Fest? By Angie Han/July 23, 2012 2:30 pm EST Now that we’ve all watched (and rewatched, and re-rewatched, if you’re me) the stunning first trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, the big question is when we’ll actually get to see the damn thing. A theatrical release date of October 12 has already been set, but it’s bound to hit the festival circuit first....

Jesse Eisenberg Joins Cast Of ‘Free Samples’ By Russ Fischer/Dec. 10, 2010 2:00 pm EST Briefly: You’ve got to appreciate a move like this. Jesse Eisenberg is enjoying justified praise for his work in The Social Network, and will very likely score an Oscar nomination in the deal. So what does he do to follow up the film? He signs on to a small-ish indie dramedy called Free Samples. The film features Jess Weixler (Teeth) as “a law school drop-out who fills in as a server as a friend’s food truck, where she doles out free samples of ice cream....

Kenny Ortega To Direct ‘Dirty Dancing’ Remake By Russ Fischer/Aug. 8, 2011 2:22 pm EST Briefly: Choreographer-turned-director Kenny Ortega directed the first two High School Musical films, the Michael Jackson performance film This Is It, and was set to direct the remake of Footloose before dropping out and leaving room for Craig Brewer to take that project. But Kenny Ortega is now set to remake another well-liked ’80s dance film. Lionsgate has just hired him to direct a new version of Dirty Dancing....

Literal Viral Billboard For ‘Contagion’ By Germain Lussier/Sept. 15, 2011 10:00 am EST Audiences were a little more aware of sneezing and coughing last weekend as Steven Soderbergh’s virus-spreading, star-studded drama Contagion took the number one spot at the box office pulling in $22.4 million, destroying its nearest competition by about $13 million. While most analysts chalked up the win to a lack of competition, strong reviews and the A-list cast, viral marketing like Warner Bros did in Canada couldn’t have hurt either....

Movie Posters: Red State, Black Swan, The Beaver And Arthur Christmas By Peter Sciretta/Dec. 7, 2010 5:45 pm EST A few new movie posters were released online today, including a new character poster for Kevin Smith’s horror film Red State, an international one-sheet for Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, Aardman Animation’s Arthur Christmas, and the first poster for the Jodie Foster-directed film The Beaver starring Mel Gibson. Hit the jump to check out the new one sheets now....

Movie Trailer: Skateland By Peter Sciretta/May 27, 2010 11:00 am EST Anthony Burns makes his feature film directorial debut with Skateland premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival as one of the 16 films which were selected from 1,058 submissions for the U.S. Dramatic competition. Skateland is a coming-of-age story which takes place in the early 1980s in small-town East Texas. Dramatic events force a 19-year-old skating rink manager named Ritchie (played by Deadgirl’s Shiloh Fernandez) to look at his life in a very new way....

Netflix Streaming Comes To The iPhone And iPod Touch By Russ Fischer/Aug. 26, 2010 9:53 am EST Briefly: This one is pretty easy — the Netflix blog announced today that an official Netflix app is finally available for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The app is free, but you’ll have to have at least the basic Netflix $8.99 per month membership to use it. The focus of the app is streaming films, not managing your queue....

New ‘Premium Rush’ Trailer Emphasizes Action By Russ Fischer/June 1, 2012 1:00 pm EST Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a plucky, intense bike messenger in David Koepp’s Premium Rush, and Columbia has released a new trailer for the film in advance of its August opening. The studio dropped a fairly middling trailer last year that opened with a dodgy voice-over, and this version thankfully eliminates most of that. This is also a more fast-paced look at the movie, with an emphasis on action....

New ‘X-Men: First Class’ Character Trailers Introduce Banshee, Havok And Beast By Russ Fischer/May 5, 2011 11:25 am EST We’re long past the point where we didn’t know much at all about Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class, as a parade of trailers has shown more and more footage from the film in the runup to the June 3 release date. The only problem now, for those who are really devoted to the property, is that there has been a stark contrast between the smartly-cut trailers and some of the terrible posters and bad early stills....

Page 2: Predator, Simon Pegg, Smurfs, Indiana Jones, Monty Python, Community, Ingmar Bergman, Oscars, Hunger Games, Randy Newman, Frankenweenie, Game Of Thrones, Downton Abbey By Peter Sciretta/March 1, 2012 8:00 am EST Header Photo: Awesome Predator Vs. T-Rex Sculpture Disney is making a 3-D ‘Pac-Man’ TV show The Smurfs cake. Simon & Schuster Shifts Publishing Date Of ‘Savages’ Prequel To Coincide With Film Release Indiana Jones CupcakeChronicle Producer John Davis Picks Up Rights to Hot Sci-Fi Short ‘Archetype’...

Rose Byrne To Join X-Men: First Class By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 16, 2010 12:31 am EST According to Wikipedia: Byrne is probably best known for playing Ellen Parsons in the television series Damages. You may also know her from the following movies: Dorme in Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Troy, Marie Antoinette, The Dead Girl, Sunshine, 28 Weeks Later, Adam, Knowing and Get Him to the Greek. Moira MacTaggert was created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, in Uncanny X-Men #96 (December 1975)....

Sequel Bits: ‘Thor 2’, ‘Iron Man 3’, ‘X-Men: First Class 2’, ‘A Good Day To Die Hard’ By Angie Han/April 30, 2012 10:00 am EST Hiddleston added Asgard would factor into the sequel, and that Thor’s budding romance with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) would also be “extended and expanded and developed in an interesting new way.” But what he really wants to see at some point is a redemption for his character and a reconciliation for the family, as he told Collider in a separate interview:...

Toy Story 3 Becomes The Highest Grossing Pixar Film By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 11, 2010 1:00 pm EST Pixar’s Toy Story 3 has grossed over $895 million worldwide, surpassing Finding Nemo’s $867.8 million to become the highest grossing film in Pixar history. Of course, the movie got the bump in 3D price increases that wasn’t available for many of the earlier Pixar films (aside from last year’s Up). It should also be mentioned that Toy Story 3 has only been in theaters for 7 weeks....

‘Cockneys Vs Zombies’ Red-Band Trailer: Give That Old Geezer An Uzi By Russ Fischer/Aug. 3, 2012 3:30 pm EST At some point, the zombie revival that has been shambling through cinemas for the last decade has to run out of steam. But it isn’t done yet, and the trailer for Cockneys vs Zombies suggests that there is still some good fun to be had with the walking dead. The film was written by James Moran, who wrote the very entertaining film Severance, which had some smart and funny jokes based on well-known horror film tropes....

‘Elysium’ Video Blog: Neill Blomkamp’s Matt Damon Sci-Fi Action Film Impresses [Comic-Con 2012] By Germain Lussier/July 14, 2012 10:30 am EST If you were a fan of Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, your expectations for his follow-up, Elysium, might be particularly high. Those expectations are going to be shattered. The film stars Matt Damon as a blue-collar worker in a post apocalyptic future who is given five days to live. His only option to stay alive is get to Elysium, a space station utopia for the super-rich, run by Jodie Foster....

Boardwalk Empire VFX Breakdown By Peter Sciretta/Dec. 31, 2010 11:14 am EST You might be watching Martin Scorsese’s HBO series Boardwalk Empire every week, but did you realize just how many of the shots require computer generated effects? Brainstorm Digital have released an awesome video which breaks-down the VFX they created for the series. You might be surprised. (of course, if you havent seen the series or missed some episodes, please be aware of possible spoilers) via: uniquedaily...

Casting Bits: Ambyr Childers In ‘Gangster Squad’, Jaimie Alexander In ‘The Last Stand’, Jeremy Irvine In ‘Great Expectations’ By Angie Han/Oct. 5, 2011 2:00 pm EST The theme of this Casting Bits seems to be “rising stars,” as All My Children’s Ambyr Childers stakes out a spot in an all-star cast, War Horse star Jeremy Irvine leads a movie starring Britain’s finest, and Thor actress Jaimie Alexander signs on to co-star with the Governator himself....

Casting Bits: Nicole Kidman In Talks For ‘Paperboy’, Jeremy Irons To Star In ‘Night Train To Lisbon’, Rosario Dawson Joins ‘Fire With Fire’ By Angie Han/June 28, 2011 7:00 am EST Normally, when a star drops out of a project just before it’s set to begin shooting, it’s a big setback. In Lee Daniels’ case, Tobey Maguire’s exit from The Paperboy could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Maguire recently dropped out of the film, which was originally scheduled to begin this summer....

China Is Sick Of US Studios Gaming Co-Production System To Access Chinese Audiences By Russ Fischer/Aug. 28, 2012 7:13 am EST Briefly: Over the last couple years we’ve started to hear about a lot of films (such as Looper, The Expendables 2, Cloud Atlas and the in-progress Iron Man 3) that add a Chinese actor or two and shoot at a few locations in China in order to access both local funding, and the ever-expanding Chinese film audience....