by Deljhp – 24framespersecond.com

A new version of the trailer has appeared online for Mark McQueen’s “infected” Zombie apocalypse movie Devils Playground. Thankfully it’s a far slicker affair than the earlier “unofficial” promo that appeared a couple of months back. Production values don’t look too bad at all, but after watching the clip and reading the plotline, we’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions as to which other Zombie horror it seems to hold more than a passing resemblance to. On the plus side it boasts an excellent British cast including Danny Dyer, MyAnna Buring, Shaun Pertwee, Craig Fairbrass, Jamie Murray, Craig Conway, Colin Salmon and Shane Taylor. DP opens in the UK in September.

Synopsis: London, the not too distant future. Newgen Industries, a leading pharmaceutical company, is trying to placate a media uproar. It’s new “legal performance enhancer”, RAK-295, has met with spectacular failure during testing, causing severe physical and allergic reactions in all 30,000 of its test subjects…. Allergic reactions in all but one user… Angela Mills. Angela is pregnant and is making arrangements for own leave of absence from a city full of woe and bad memories for her. With Angela being the only person not to report any type of reaction to Newgen, Dr. Brooke (Head of Newgen) understands that Angela may hold the key to solving this disaster and enlists Cole, the head of security to find her and bring her in for examination. But Cole, a hardened ex-mercenary, has just handed in his resignation to Peter White, the CEO of the company. Why? He wants out – the undercover violent and murderous job of solving problems ‘off the record’ has started to weigh heavy on his conscience. The outbreak claims Brooke and Peter White and during the struggle Cole is bitten – his fate sealed….Or is it?

Daniel Craig

by Nicole Sperling – EntertainmentWeekly.com

Though Sony says there is no offer on the table, an insider confirmed that the studio has begun talks with Daniel Craig (Quantum of Solace) to star in the Hollywood adaptation in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Craig, who is about to start shooting the sci-fi western Cowboys & Aliens for Dreamworks, would play journalist Mikael Blomkvist. The news was first reported by The Wrap.

Craig’s schedule is clear now that the next James Bond movie has been postponed indefinitely due to MGM’s financial woes. Tattoo is an adaptation of the first book in the best-selling Millennium trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson. David Fincher is set to direct to film and is said to be high on Craig. The two are expected to meet in Los Angeles in the next few days.

Ray Harryhausen

Wendy Ide –  Times Online

Cinematic pioneer who created monsters and inspired many of our greatest film-makers

In the sitting room of the West London home of Ray Harryhausen, the special-effects pioneer and stop-motion animation legend, there is a shelf that bristles with awards, including the lifetime-achievement Oscar that he was presented in 1991. There are exquisitely crafted bronze figures of some of the most iconic creatures (he prefers the more empathetic term “creature” to “monster”) from 20th-century cinema. And on the coffee table are two mugs of tea, a plate of ginger biscuits and Medusa, one of the stars of the original 1981 version of Clash of the Titans, which was recently remade as a 3-D, CGI extravaganza. “I haven’t seen it. It’s somebody else’s interpretation. They wanted me to get involved [in the remake] but I just couldn’t.” This didn’t stop the film-makers borrowing heavily from Harryhausen’s distinctive vision.

Medusa is 20in tall and has fixed me with a disdainful glare from her icy blue eyes. Her headful of writhing snakes are poised to attack. From this intimate distance, it’s clear that her scaled torso has been rendered in painstaking detail, and even the musculature beneath her reptilian skin is visible with unnerving clarity.

For someone who devoured Harryhausen’s miraculous fantasies as a child, who grew up on Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and One Million Years BC, meeting this diminutive but formidable model is almost as exciting as meeting her creator. Harryhausen, distinguished, snowy-haired and forthright, regards Medusa with obvious affection.

Read the rest of Wendy Ides’ great article HERE!

More Great Interviews with Special Effects Artists HERE!

Patrick Stewart

From UPI

Actor Patrick Stewart was knighted Wednesday by the Queen of England at London’s Buckingham Palace, officials said.

Stewart, 69, is best known for his work in the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” film and TV franchises, as well as three “X-Men” movies. He is also a noted stage actor.

Patrick Stewart as Jean luc Picard

Upon receiving the knighthood, Stewart credited “literally everything” he has accomplished to English teacher Cecil Dormand, who first encouraged him to perform, the BBC reported.

“Although many people in my life have had great influence on me, without this man none of it would have happened,” Stewart said. “He was the one that put a copy of Shakespeare in my hand (and) said, ‘Now get up on your feet and perform.’”

The actor also described his investiture as “an unlooked-for honor,” the BBC said.

“But as I grew up as a child, falling in love with the theater and Shakespeare, my heroes were Sir Laurence Olivier (and) Sir John Gielgud,” he said. “The knights of the theater represented to me not only the pinnacle of the profession but the esteem in which the profession was held. To find myself, to my astonishment, in that company is the grandest thing that has professionally happened to me.”

From ScreenRush.co.uk

It’s all about Jack Black, apparently…

The official poster for Fox’s upcoming comedy Gulliver’s Travels has been released, and while most of the actors down to star in the film – Emily Blunt, Jason Segel, Amanda Peet and The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd – have been severely sidelined, Jack Black is front and centre as the big draw.

Monsters Vs. Aliens’ director Rob Letterman will be in the hot seat for this 3D extravanganza, which is loosely based on the first section of Jonathan Swift’s classic novel and sees Black as Lemuel Gulliver, a travel writer who gets tangled up in the Bermuda Triangle and winds up on the mysterious, undiscovered island of Lilliput.

Gulliver’s Travels is due for release in the US on December 22.

Emily Blunt

Adam Beach

From ComingSoon.net    Source: Variety

Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers, “Big Love”) has signed on to star in Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens.

He’ll be joining a cast that includes Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Noah Ringer, Paul Dano, Keith Carradine, Clancy Brown and Ana de la Reguera.

Olivia Wilde

Favreau is set to begin shooting the DreamWorks release this summer from a script by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof. The graphic novel adaptation is scheduled to open on July 29, 2011.

Beach will play the role of Nat Colorado, a half-Apache who works for Ford’s character (Woodrow Dollarhyde).

Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are producing with Steven Spielberg and Platinum Studios CEO Scott Mitchell Rosenberg. Orci and Kurtzman also are producers.

"Willatuk: The Legend of Seattle's Sea Serpent"

By Sandi Doughton – Seattle Times

Of the 150 films and shorts in Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival (STIFF), only one features a creature from the depths of Lake Washington.

Which is not to imply that “Willatuk: The Legend of Seattle’s Sea Serpent,” hasn’t earned its STIFFY award for “best movie monster.”

After all, the wily Willatuk is able to cruise between the lake and Puget Sound via a secret tunnel. Match that, Godzilla.

And Willatuk is a hometown boy which gives him an edge at STIFF. Conceived in 2005 by local filmmakers, the festival is an alternative to the behemoth Seattle International Film Festival, which it audaciously overlaps. “We tend to show stuff that’s a little edgier, maybe a little more rough around the edges,” said managing director Clint Berquist. The festival runs at multiple venues from June 4-13. A third of this year’s offerings are from local directors.

They include “The Lobster and the Liver: The Unique World of Jim Woodring,” about the surrealistic Seattle cartoonist. Berquist’s own “Seattle Komedy Dokumentary” chronicles the city’s thriving stand-up scene in 2007.

The story of Willatuk grew out of Seattle director Oliver Tuthill Jr.‘s twin fascinations with the Loch Ness monster and its ilk, and Native American culture and history. The Northwest has its own sea-monster legends, with supposed sightings from the coast of British Columbia to the San Juan Islands.

Details on Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival HERE

Read the rest of Sandi Doughtons’ great article HERE!

Nina Dobrev

by Ian Spelling – TVStar.com

Nina Dobrev is ready to take a bite out of the big screen.  Dobrev, who stars on the CW hit The Vampire Diaries with Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley, will use her summer hiatus from the show to shoot the indie action movie Deathgames.

According to the trade paper the Hollywood Reporter, Dobrev will join a cast that already includes Kellan Lutz of Twilight fame, Samuel L. Jackson, Daniel Dae Kim, James Remar, and Derek Mears.

Kim, of course, just wrapped his run on Lost, while Remar plays the title character’s dad on Dexter and Mears most recently played Jason Voorhees in the Friday The 13th remake.

The story — previously entitled The Killing Game — follows the plight of David Lord (Lutz), a young man who is abducted and immersed in a brutal life as a fighter in a contemporary gladiator arena.  Lord and others are pawns, essentially, in an online gaming enterprise led by Jackson’s vilainous character.  Mears will co-star as a fighter, while Remar plays a mystery figure called Tall Man, and Dobrev — who’s also got the thriller The Roommate, with Leighton Meester, on the way — is on board as Lord’s wife.

Production on Deathgames is underway now in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  The director is Jonah Loop, who makes his debut after having served as a visual effects supervisor on films including Brothers, A Perfect Getaway, and Collateral.  Expect to see Deathgames in theaters sometime in 2011.