More "Pirates of the Caribbean" Posters.

New Jack and will character posters have been released for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End". Look for the first trailer for the film March 19! The film will be released May 25. Click images to make bigger.

"Prince Caspian" Teaser Image

First lame image from "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian". I don't think this is being used for publicity, but is rather an on-location flyer of some sort. I don't know the specifics; hell I could be wrong. Either way, there you go. Narnia freaks, go plaster this on your desktop.

Maggie Gyllenhall Joins Batman (Also, New Suit?)

Maggie Gyllenhall will be replacing Katie Holmes in "The Dark Knight" as character Rachel Dawes. Shooting starts this spring.
On other "Dark Knight" news, it seems that Bruce Wayne will switch suits some time in the middle of the film and the reason for it is very important to the storyline. (Unlike when George Clooney changed in to the ridiculous blue and silver suit at the end of "Batman & Robin" for no given reason.)
Anyway, good casting. She needs to be in more and she's a potentially better actress than Holmes. Good work Nolan.

VNRs - Mass Communications Assign.

For those of you who visit regularly, you don't HAVE to read this. I'm
doing it for a class that required me to create a blog. Lucky for me,
I already have one. It's interesting stuff though.
The ethics of VNR (Video New Release) is created by a PR firm. The
firm releases this video to many different news corporations in
support of whatever business, government, politician...etc... This
means the same video may be shown on different news channels with
their own logo slapped on it. Why would they just take news like that?
Hey! It's free news! Why NOT is the better question. One of the many
controversies about this is if it is ethical. To be ever so brief, I'm
going to throw a yes out there. PR firms created this to be given out
for free, thus there should not be any problem. But is it a form of
propaganda? Some think so, but how many people will catch on? Or is
disguising VNRs as regular news part of the danger? Maybe. I don't
like going overboard with conspiracies, but I won't say it's not
propaganda. But as far as, "Is it right for the news to take VNRs?"
Again, free news. I have to admit, these VNRs are a lot more
interesting than some of the lackluster stories that the 10:00 news
tries to make "important".
Cheers to Mass Comm!

Venom Make-Up and Production Art Pictures

Some pictures from the set of "Spider-Man 3" have poped up! Topher Grace in the Venom gear as well as some concept art. And for those of you stupid enough to think that's really going to be Venom's mouth on set, I assure you the true Venom mouth, complete with a large maw and enormous teeth, will be done in CGI. Click the pictures to make them bigger. (Some anyay, others might be bigger than they really are already.)


Concept Art.






Sam Raimi at work with Topher Grace.


Creepy...

M. Night Shymalan is "Happening"

20th Century Fox has greenlit M. Night Shymalan's thriller "The Happening". The script was originally called "The Green Effect" and was being turned down by every major studio due to conflicts in creativity. Shymalan went back to revise his script and apparently the revision was enough to sell it.

"The Happening" will be M. Night's first R rated film and involves a family on the run from a natural phenomenon that threatens all of mankind.

I don't have to say M. Night has been losing credibility as of late, but I am. "The Village" was nothing short of one of the most contrived, overhyped, melodramatic let downs of the decade. Normally when you are trying to make a movie about how our fears play tricks on our minds, it needs to be atleast...oh...maybe suspencful? A tiny bit? No? What about not wasting good talent on steriotypical characters with no development? Still no? Ok, then it did, infact, suck hard. "Lady in the Water" was better, but the fantasy element set in reality didn't hold up well with both critics and audiences-- And maybe it was a tad too sappy compared with everything else going on it. So here's hoping M. Night will pull one hell of a rabbit out of his ass and save his career... Is it possible to do this while he's writing the script for "Avatar: The Last Airbender" during pre-production of "The Happening"? We'll see.

"The Happening" is said to have a budget of $57 million and is aiming for a June 2008 release.

Dr. Doom Speaks

SuperHeroHype recently interviewed the "Nip/Tuck" star and "Fantastic 4" villian (atleast one of them), Julian McMahon, about his role as Victor Von Doom in the new "Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer".

Julian McMahon: The classic look of Doom, well, it's weird, man, because first of all, you start with Dr. Doom has been in a casket for a couple of years and wakes up a few years later, whatever. And he's pretty pissed off, kind of just rips off his mask and all that kind of stuff. He gets very ugly. And then he's got his lair set up in some castle in Latveria, right? We're talking comic book stuff so you have to kind of go with all this kind of stuff. With all these monitors and stuff, I don't know where he got 'em all from but they're pretty cool. He sees this kind of entity which is the Silver Surfer. Just knowing the comic books, Dr. Doom is Dr. Doom so what does he do? He goes and he tries to destroy everybody and get everybody's powers and all that kind of stuff. That's basically what the character's about. But then Dr. Doom becomes me for a certain period of time which I think is very strange but let's not get into that. And then the final costume is this pretty amazing costume. It's a similar kind of mask. It's kind of a larger type of fit and probably a little more sturdy kind of look to it. The chest plate, it's a very heavy outfit. It weighed about 45 -50 pounds whatever without the cape and stuff but its pretty extraordinary. It's a darker suit than the one he had last time its kind of more Batmanesque in a way, but with the mask its obviously very Dr. Doom, and it's a great looking outfit and he's got like a…..God, I can't remember. Look, I got so many outfits its ridiculous. [laughs]

Is it me, or does this guy have a sort of cocky attitude about him. I saw him in an interview on TV recently and he was kind of a jerk. Amussing, but in an akward way. He was mostly just a jerk. Hope he doesn't have too big of a role in this next film. He and his character sucked in the first one.

7 Minutes of "Spider-Man 3"

NBC's footage of "Spider-Man 3" has made it online. It looks fantastic! Rosemary Harris is such a fantastic actress. Her scene with Tobey Maguire is superb. By far her best work in the series.
And buckle for one hell of an action scene. The Spidey films seem to enjoy bumping the bar up. Lets hope the rest of the movie is as energetic as this:

Go Speed Racer!

Lots information on the upcoming "Speed Racer" film has come up recently. First AICN (not the most reliable source, but I'll throw it down here anyway) reported that the movie will be all green screen much like "Sin City" and "300". Ok, now that we've heard from the horse's ass, lets hear from the horse's mouth. Sci-Fi Wire interviewed Producer Joel Silver who went on to compare this new project to his previous productions.
"V for Vendetta and Matrix are both R-rated movies. This is a family picture. But it's going to look like something you've never seen before in your life." Silver then talked about the film's directors, The Wachowski Brothers (writers of "V for Vendetta" and directors of The Matrix Trilogy"), "I mean, they really want to make a movie for everybody, and they felt that now is the time that they could really do that. They can concentrate on making a film, you know? They have nieces and nephews that couldn't have seen [any] of their movies, and so they wanted to make one they could see. And they've always loved Speed Racer, and there's a chance to do something really incredible."
"Speed Racer" aims for a May 2008 release. I'm somewhat excited just because I like the Wachowskis. The Matrix sequels were underrated gems and "V for Vendetta" was quite good. "Speed Racer" just seems like some territory that would end up too cheesy to take seriously, but too action/violent packed for children-- Although Silver did state they were trying to do things right, I'm thinking all this movie is going be is one, big "try". We'll see next May.

Hellboy to Begin Production

According to Ron Perlman, star of "Hellboy", filming will begin on the Hellboy sequel, "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" at the end of May.
Perlman says that the sequel has,"an epic quality [as it] continues to explore all the things that are great about this character - a superhero who is such an underachiever and such an adolescent."
I loved the first film enough and del Toro is one director everyone should continue to pay attention to. Lets get this thing rolling so I can watch it.

Tim Story on "Fantastic 4" Sequel: Galactus News

Tim Story, director of "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer", gives an update on the film and the status of Galactus, the main villian of the sequel. Story updates on his MySpace:

"Hey guys,

There's a lot going on. I've been seeing the billboards going up and hopefully you have all seen the TV spot. I thought it turned out well. I've been checking the web to see what people think. Always good to check in. There are still those that can't give us a break but whadayagonnado?! Haters! Wow. And to the many that have been emailing in such support - Thank you. The emails do not go unread. Hopefully I can make YOU and MYSELF proud!

There continues to be much speculation about Galactus. Major speculation. We haven't finished the design of him/it so be careful about what you read and believe. Trust me...no one knows. One things for sure, you can expect to see him/it. It will be pretty powerful. I'm having a lot of fun with the concept and believe me - MOST will be satisfied.

Doom? Oh he's coming. Just wait. Classic look! And we definitely touch on his roots in the film. We're working long hours to make it right.

Sorry I've been so quiet! Talk to you soon."

Why am I getting mildly hyped about this? I hated the first film, but this looks rather enjoyable. I guess I'll give it a second chance. Lets see if there's any improvment in this next one.

Tobey Maguire: Done With Spider-Man?

In an interview with The Courier-Mail, the star of the Spider-Man films hinted this might be the end of his relationship with the Spider-Man franchise.
According to Tobey, ""To me it seems like this is a natural point for the team to break up because we have a lot of story conclusions that were going along for the main characters for the first two movies and we kind of tie almost everything up for the third movie. It feels like a trilogy to me and it feels like the end."
Despite plans for a fourth movie to be set in motion and Sam Raimi's enthusiasm for returning if he's still interested in the character, this is a huge dent in those tenative plans. Raimi said he wouldn't do another Spider-Man movie without Tobey Maguire and I can't see another [good] Spider-Man film without them. Time will tell.

Daniel Radcliffe Will Finish Harry Potter

It's official that Daniel Radcliffe has signed on to do the last two Harry Potter films. Dan's publicist said he will begin filming on "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" in September.
Not much of a shocker, he said three years ago he wanted to be Harry in all of the films and its great for continuity to have the same actor in the role-- So this is kind of a no-brainer. But those of you slightly afraid he wouldn't return, here you go. Now if they can reel Emma Watson back in...