31/01/08 - Indiana Jones trailer released in Feb

Another publicity image from Steven Spielberg's fourth Indiana Jones movie has been released by the studio, which has also confirmed when the first trailer will be released.

The eagerly anticipated first real look at the movie will come in the form of a teaser trailer which will premiere in US cinemas from the 14 February.

Spielberg is currently involved in post-production, working on the film's score with composer John Williams.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will star Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent and Shia LaBeouf. The film is scheduled to open in US cinemas on 22 May.

 

30/01/08 - Hellboy's latest recruit revealed

Universal Pictures has updated its official Hellboy II: The Golden Army website with artwork of the final member of the BPRD team - the mysterious Johann [pictured right].

Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) will direct the movie, which begins after an ancient truce existing between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken. The result is that Hell on Earth is preparing to erupt.

A ruthless leader, who walks on the Earth as well as in the bowels of Hell, defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures. Now, it's up to the planet's toughest superhero to battle the merciless dictator and his marauders.

Hellboy is forced to choose between the life he knows and an unknown destiny that beckons him.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens in US cinemas on 11 July.

 

29/01/08 - Is this the T-shirt you're looking for?

Here's the perfect gift for the Star Wars fan who has everything - the R2-D2 costume shirt from Junk Food.

The T-shirt features R2's chest plate on the front and his back plate on the reverse side.

This Star Wars shirt is available to buy from 80stees.com along with a load of other cool retro clothing.

Other Star Wars related costume T-shirts include Darth Vader, Chewbacca and Stormtrooper designs. The company also has a couple of cool illuminating Transformers T-shirts, which have either a flashing Autobot or Decepticon logo on the front.

 

28/01/08 - Captain Jack will keep coming back

In a recent interview with Sci-Fi Wire, John Barrowman, who stars in the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood, revealed that he's keen to play Captain Jack Harkness for years to come.

"If I was asked to do Jack for the next five or six years I would do it with a big smile on my face, because I absolutely love playing him," said Barrowman. "When the time comes for us to close the page on Torchwood and Jack Harkness, I'm also then happy to do that when that decision is made. But I think it's got a bit of a life out there. Let's hope we get [series] three, [series] four and, hopefully, [series] five."

When asked about the show's second series, Barrowman said: "You're going to learn an awful lot more about Toshiko, Owen, Ianto and Gwen. You're going to also see much more of Jack's history. Our time travel in Torchwood is different. In Doctor Who, the Doctor gets in a TARDIS and travels. Our time travel is done through memory. So you're going to go back in time with Jack through his memory. You're going to see the future through what he's seen in his memory."

 

25/01/08 - Bond fans take solace in latest news

The title of the 22nd James Bond film has officially been announced as Quantum of Solace.

The title stems from a short story that Bond creator Ian Fleming published in 1960.

Quantum of Solace is currently shooting at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire in the United Kingdom. The film is scheduled to open in cinemas on 07 November.

 

24/01/08 - Writer of Fanboys goes on the record

Writing on his official blog, Ernest Cline, co-writer of the much delayed Star Wars-themed movie Fanboys, has revealed that the film may be released this coming March.

"Filming began in February of 2006 and principal photography wrapped the following April," said Cline. "Fans got their first sneak preview of Fanboys in May of 2007, at the 30th Anniversary Star Wars Celebration in Los Angeles. We showed about 45 minutes of the movie (still a work-in-progress) and it brought the house down.

"This past July, an entire rough cut of Fanboys was screened at Celebration Europe in London, and the fans gave it multiple standing ovations.

"But the production of Fanboys has also run into its share of hiccups. We originally hoped to release the movie in early 2007. Then late 2007. Then the release date was bumped once again, to Friday, January 18th, 2008. Now we’re hearing that the current plan is to release Fanboys this coming March. But that could change again. To quote Master Yoda, 'Always in motion is the future.' I promise to keep you posted."

 

23/01/08 - Dark day for Dark Knight fans

Heath Ledger [pictured left], who plays the Joker in the upcoming Batman film The Dark Knight, has been found dead in his Manhattan residence in unknown circumstances, police told the Associated Press.

The 28 year old star of Brokeback Mountain was discovered by his housekeeper. The actor was found face down at the foot of his bed with prescription sleeping pills nearby. The police said they do not suspect foul play.

Ledger recently completed shooting his scenes as the role of the villainous Joker in the upcoming Batman Begins sequel, directed by Christopher Nolan, which opens in July.

His current project was Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but it is unclear as to whether he'd already begun filming on this movie.

A crowd of around three hundred gathered outside Ledger's apartment to watch the body being removed. Medical examiner's office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said that an autopsy was planned for today (23 January) to confirm the cause of death.

 

22/01/08 - First Trek teaser trailer goes live

The Movieweb website has posted the first teaser trailer for the currently in production Star Trek movie.

From director J.J. Abrams (Mission: Impossible III, Lost, Alias) and screenwriters Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci (Transformers, MI: III) comes a new vision of Star Trek, featuring a young, new crew venturing boldly where no man has gone before.

The trailer was attached to prints of Cloverfield, which opened in America last week, and can be seen in cinemas in the UK from 01 February. Or, for those who don't want to wait that long, simply click on the image below to watch the trailer.

 

21/01/08 - Tekken to fight its way to big screen

Dwight H. Little [pictured right], director of TV shows including The X-Files, 24 and Bones, is preparing to bring Namco's Tekken console game franchise to the big screen.

The movie will follow Jin Kazama as he enters a secret martial arts tournament with villains and allies. Tekken, which was the first PlayStation game to sell over a million units, pits fighters with different skills against one another, although the plot to the film is yet to be publicly announced.

The movie is set to star Jon Foo, Andy Serkis, Susie Amy and Sienna Guillory, and will begin filming on 05 February.

 

18/01/08 - First look at Trek's new Enterprise

Paramount has provided Moviefone with an exclusive sneak peek of the new U.S.S. Enterprise [pictured above].

This is the first photo of the ship to be released from the eagerly anticipated Star Trek film, directed by J.J. Abrams and due in cinemas in December.

 

17/01/08 - X-Files 2 to drop alien conspiracy

The first official images from the set of the new X-Files movie have been released.

Ten years after the first film and six years after the show was cancelled, The X-Files returns to theaters with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson returning to play Fox Mulder and Dana Scully - and the studio keeping its fingers crossed that fans want more of the FBI's paranormal-investigating agents.

The film, which has yet to be given an official title, looks set to drop the TV show's original plot line that aliens live among us and are part of a colonising effort.

Chris Carter, creator of the series and director of the new movie, said: "We spent a lot of time on [the original alien mythology] and wrapped up a lot of threads. We want a stand-alone movie, not a mythology conspiracy one."

The X-Files 2 will open in US cinemas on 25 July 2008.

 

16/01/08 - Fanboys movie - still no release date

The Ain't It Cool News website, has recently posted further rumours on the latest developments on Kyle Newman's much-delayed Star Wars-themed Fanboys movie.

Quoting various anonymous sources, the site revealed that producer Judd Apatow (Superbad, Knocked Up) will not be, as previously reported, involved in recutting the movie. However, Apatow's producer, Shauna Robertson, will indeed be employed to "reshape" the film.

Originally the plot of Fanboys followed a group of Star Wars fans as they plotted to break into Skywalker Ranch in the early 1990s to screen a preview version of Episode I for their friend, who had been diagnosed with cancer.

However, the cancer angle is to be dropped after producers felt that it would be too much of a downer. Whether or not this happens will depend in part on test screenings which are due in the coming weeks, according to Ain't it Cool News.

There is still no official release date set for Fanboys.

 

15/01/08 - Up, Up and a... wait a minute!

Trade paper, Variety, has reported that the sequel to Bryan Singer's Superman Returns will be delayed by at least a year because of the ongoing writers' strike.

Apparently, Warner Bros is pushing back the release of the sequel (which has a working title of Superman: Man of Steel) to 2010 from 2009.

According to Variety the movie has no screenwriters signed up to the project at present. Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, who wrote Superman Returns, opted out of writing the sequel, and the strike began at the same time as other writers were set to pitch ideas for the film.

 

14/01/08 - Conan to battle writers' strike

According to trade paper Variety, Robert E. Howard's [pictured right] Conan the Barbarian character is to appear in another series of Hollywood movies.

Nu Image/Millennium Films has made a North American distribution rights deal with Lionsgate for the new film series.

The movie should begin production later this year, with the start date depending on the resolution of the ongoing writers' strike.

The character was last turned into a film series in 1982, when Conan the Barbarian kick started Arnold Schwarzenegger's action movie career. A follow up, Conan the Destroyer was released in 1984.

 

11/01/08 - Bioshock to make big screen splash?

According to a news report at gaming website joystiq.com, Hollywood is currently looking at the possibility of turning Bioshock, last year's surprise gaming hit, into a movie.

Apparently a major film production company is already examining the possibility of transferring 2K Games's hit first-person shooter to the big screen, and is currently exploring the feasibility of bringing the fallen aquatic utopia of Rapture [the name of the underwater world in the game] to life through extensive use of green screen technology.

 

10/01/08 - End in sight for Blu-ray / HD DVD war

The two remaining studios backing HD DVD could switch to Blu-ray in the near future, ending the high-def format war instantly.

Trade paper Variety has confirmed that Universal's commitment to backing HD DVD exclusively has ended. And Paramount has an escape clause in its HD DVD contract allowing it to release movies on Blu-ray after Warner Bros.' decision to back that format exclusively.

Neither studio is ready to throw in the towel immediately, however. Universal is committed to a series of promotions for the high-def format in coming months, and Paramount has said its current plans are to keep supporting HD DVD, which it backed exclusively in August.

But retailers may force the HD DVD camp's hand: They're unlikely to keep devoting premium shelf space to a dying format, and at this point, the odds are not in HD DVD's favour.

While Paramount and Universal are the only studios still backing HD DVD, Warner will continue to release HD DVD discs for the next few months to honour its previous commitment.

 

09/01/08 - Future is not so super for JLA movie

According to a rumour at the movie website IESB.net, Warner Brothers may delay the start of George Miller's live action Justice League movie.

A source close to the movie revealed that: "Justice League is indeed in danger of not starting production on time and maybe even getting scrapped altogether. The cast for Justice League is mediocre, the execs know it's mediocre, it's going to go down to wire on this one, this movie could be huge but right now it's plagued with a couple of big issues and the WGA [Writers Guild of America] strike isn’t making things easier.”

Apparently the studio is concerned about the cast of unknowns, as well being worried that the movie might conflict with the upcoming The Dark Knight movie.

 

08/01/08 - Moving from schoolgirl to Bond girl

Gemma Arterton [pictured right], who recently starred in the movie St Trinian's, will appear as a Bond girl in the latest 007 movie, according to trade paper The Hollywood Reporter.

The 21-year-old actress will play a character called Fields - "a nice-sized role", according to a spokesman from the film's production company, Danjaq Productions.

It is thought the new film will take up where Casino Royale left off and will be loosely based on the Ian Fleming short story Risico, where Bond is dispatched to infiltrate a drug ring flooding Britain with heroin.

 

07/01/08 - Big Arnie says: "I won't be back"

James Middleton, one of the associate producers on the fourth Terminator film, has quashed rumours that California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, will make an appearance in the movie.

In an interview with Sci-fi Wire, Middleton also disputed rumours about the role of John Connor, saying that the character will be central to the film, titled Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.

Middleton also revealed that the movie will introduce a key new character: "We introduce a new character, who becomes very important to the resistance and to John Connor, a new hero. It's really about the birth of a new hero."

Contrary to some speculation, the new character won't be Kyle Reese, the character from the first film who was played by Michael Biehn and who goes on to father John Connor.

Terminator Salvation will be released in US cinemas in 2009.

 

04/01/08 - Bond actors confirmed

French actor Mathieu Amalric [pictured right] is to play a villain in the new James Bond movie. Amalric starred as a stroke victim in the drama The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Jeffrey Wright will also reprise his role as CIA agent Felix Leiter.

Filming on the 22nd Bond film recently started at Pinewood Studios in London. The film is due to be released this November.

 

03/01/08 - Is a new Potter book on the horizon?

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling [pictured left] has strongly hinted that she may well write another Potter book in the near future.

This will come as little surprise to critics who believed that Rowling's much hyped retirement from the Harry Potter franchise was merely a publicity stunt to sell more copies of her last novel.

Rowling, 42, admitted in an interview with Time magazine that she has "weak moments" when she feels she will pen another novel about the boy wizard.

"There have been times since finishing, weak moments, when I've said 'Yeah, all right' to the eighth novel," Rowling said.

Rowling said that if she were to pen another novel in the series, it is unlikely that Harry would be the central character.

 

02/01/08 - James Bond stamps to be issued

The centenary of the birth of James Bond creator Ian Fleming is to be marked in February with six special edition, extra-long UK stamps from Royal Mail.

Each stamp has been lengthened to show a number of different Bond novel covers, with first-class stamps featuring Casino Royale and Dr No [pictured above]. The 54p stamps reveal the covers of Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever. And the final 78p stamps will feature For Your Eyes Only and From Russia With Love.

Royal Mail has also revealed that in 2008 it will also release special edition collections to celebrate the classic Carry On and Hammer horror films, both of which will be available in June.

 

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