Stanley Tucci

by Alex Billington – FirstShowing.net

Marvel works in weird ways. While they haven’t confirmed much of the supporting cast (like Jeremy Renner or Neal McDonough), they have, out of nowhere, decided to officially announce (via ComingSoon) today that Stanley Tucci (last seen in The Lovely Bones) has joined the growing cast of Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger movie being directed by Joe Johnston. Tucci plays Dr. Abraham Erskine, the German scientist behind Project Rebirth, the secret experiment that created the Super Soldier we all know as Captain America. He joins a big cast that includes Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Hugo Weaving, and Hayley Atwell.

Captain America: The First Avenger will focus on the early days of the Marvel Universe when Steve Rogers volunteers to participate in an experimental program during WWII that turns him into the Super Soldier known as Captain America. Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige will produce Captain America: The First Avenger. Alan Fine, Stan Lee, David Maisel and Louis D’Esposito will executive produce. The movie will be released in theaters everywhere on July 22nd, 2011 next summer and will be distributed by Paramount.

Hayley Atwell

John Carpenter

Owen Williams – EmpireOnline.com     Source – Variety

Wherever he’s been, he seems to be back. Straight from finishing up post-production on The Ward, John Carpenter will jump into the vampire flick Fangland. It’s like he was never away.

To be fair, he’s not been entirely AWOL since Ghosts of Mars in 2001. There were a couple of solid entries in HBO’s Masters of Horror series along the way, and some producer credits on remakes of some of his finest moments. But two new proper features in two years is very welcome Big News from the director of Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York and The Thing.

Fangland itself is a modern-day reworking of Dracula, which involves US news producer Evangeline Harker heading off to Transylvania to interview arms dealing crime lord Ion Torgu. It doesn’t go well for her. Because, like, he’s Dracula. It’s been in development since at least 2007, and at one point had Hilary Swank set to star. There’s no word yet on whether that’s still the case, but the script is the same one as back then, written by Mark Wheaton (Friday 13th, The Messengers).

The film is based on the novel by John Marks, who used to produce the CBS news show 60 Minutes. Given that John Carpenter’s Vampires was also based on a novel (by John Steakley) and bore very little relation to it, that’s not necessarily significant intel. But Marks’ book, as well as being a clever and visceral horror, is a pretty sharp media satire, which might be why the project caught the wilfully anti-establishment Carpenter’s eye.

No hints yet of start dates or projected releases, or what’s happened to Carpenter’s The Riot (aka Scared Straight), which was set to star Nicolas Cage. But The Ward, featuring Mandy Lane’s Amber Heard, should be out in the autumn.

Hilary Swank

Jeremy Renner

By Borys Kit and Zorianna Kit – HollywoodReporter.com

Jeremy Renner is in final negotiations to join “The Avengers,” Marvel Studios’ big-screen take on its superhero team that’s being directed by Joss Whedon.

Renner will play the bow-and-arrow-carrying hero Hawkeye, who, while not one of the initial members of the team when it was created in the 1960s, became an integral member soon after when the misguided villain switched sides.

Renner will join Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man/Tony Stark, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America, Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Don Cheadle as War Machine.

The Hulk may also be a character in the movie, but at this stage, there is no deal that would bring back Ed Norton, who starred as the emerald giant in 2008′s “The Incredible Hulk.”

Renner’s involvement was initially rumored last fall, although the actor, who was in the middle of the awards derby with his war thriller “The Hurt Locker,” was at the time more taken with Paul Thomas Anderson’s untitled drama and was being heavily courted by Universal for “Battleship.”

Renner never joined “Battleship,” and while he still has definite interest in Anderson’s film, that project is still cobbling financing and has seen its start pushed back several times.

Renner saw a chance to take on work in a role that, while key, is not starring in nature and will allow him to slide into Anderson’s film if it should come together.

To keep costs manageable for the “Avengers,” Marvel is trying to keep a lid on the movie’s finances and the actors are taking salary cuts, according to insiders.

Renner, repped by CAA and Untitled Entertainment, next appears in Ben Affleck’s “The Town.”

Marvel did not confirm that Renner is in negotiations.

Maria in Metropolis

by Luke Field – CultureMob.com

Imagine you are a treasure seeker, looking for that long-lost artifact that may only exist in the myths of an ancient culture.  You’ve scoured the globe, pored over cryptic tomes, and funneled countless resources into your search with just the tiniest shred of hope that this fantastical relic is within your grasp.  Then one day, while digging deep into the archives in a musty, dungeon-like basement of an Argentinian museum, you trip over an old, rotting crate with undecipherable writing on it.  You pry open the top and you find yourself staring at that one object of your desire, your obsession for these long years.  Now you can present it to the rest of the world so that everyone can share in its wonderful glory!  This experience, this story, is the story of the film Metropolis.

Metropolis is the most influential science fiction film of all time.  Written and directed by German auteur Fritz Lang, the film has a history as epic as its plot.  At the time, the production was the largest and most expensive ever, boasting approximately 35,000 actors and nearly bankrupting the powerful German studio UFA.  The film takes place in the futuristic city of Metropolis where the rich live in the lap of luxury in towering, Art Deco skyscrapers while the poor toil in factories underground.  The workers are looking for the Great Mediator, someone who will help them rise up from the underground and gain equal footing with the ruling class. 

Read the rest of Luke Fields’ Great article HERE

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.

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.

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.

By Todd – BeyondHollywood.com

If you want to get me excited about a movie, all you have to do is mention the name Yoshihiro Nishimura. The man (read: genius) responsible for bringing “Mutant Girls Squad” and “Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl” to the masses is ready to give you another installment of his patented cinematic insanity with “Hell Driver”.

The plot: Japanese schoolgirls battle wave after wave of the undead in Tokyo. I know it doesn’t sound like much on virtual paper, but Nishimura is working with a considerably bigger budget this time around, which means the on-screen debauchery should reach spectacular new heights. Bloody Disgusting was nice enough to post several production photos from the upcoming gorefest, which we have carefully included. Not surprisingly, I’ll be following this project very closely.

Make-Up Special Effects Artist and Director Yoshihiro Nishimura

For more info about “Hell Driver”, check out Nishimura’s official blog.