Aardman Animations has released the first significant information about its next claymation feature film, now titled The Pirates! Band of Misfits. The movie is based on The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists, the novel by Gideon Defoe. Aardman co-founder Peter Lord (Chicken Run) serves as the director while Jeff Newitt is the co-director. Defoe adapted his own work for the screenplay. The voice cast includes: Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, Ashley Jensen, Jeremy Piven, Salma Hayek, Imelda Staunton, David Tennant and Brian Blessed.

Hugh Grant, starring in his first animated role, is the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas. With a rag-tag crew at his side (Freeman, Gleeson, Tovey, and Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award. It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London. Along the way they battle a diabolical queen (Staunton) and team up with a haplessly smitten young scientist (Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

Based on what I’ve read about the novel, I think this is right up Aardman’s alley. The material seems silly and funny, but also depends strongly on playing with irony and genre conventions. Effectively, kids can enjoy the content on one level while adults can enjoy that and a higher level, much like most of Aardman’s productions, like all the Wallace and Gromit films.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits will arrive in theaters courtesy of Sony on March 20th, 2012. Aardman also has its second CGI film Arthur Christmas, which is being produced with Sony Pictures Imageworks for a release date of November 23rd, 2011. You can read more about that one over here. That’ll be a nice couple months for animation fans.

I had a number of problems with Steve Carell’s final episode on The Office, “Goodbye, Michael”. There was the comedy void that is Will Ferrell’s guest starring role and everything revolving around that character. There’s also the lesser problem of the logistics behind Pam getting through security to say goodbye to Michael in the airport. That was a bit too much artistic license for me to embrace in 2011, but that’s minor. Still, I found myself more deeply troubled by that scene and I believe I’ve pinned it down to the characterization of Pam over the last couple seasons.

There was a time on The Office when Pam had some ambition. Initially this was in the form of her artistic pursuits, and Michael Scott was one of her big supporters here. When Pam had her first art show, Michael was the one to genuinely praise her work and give her a boost. Jim would of course also support her dreams, but Michael’s was more pure without the romantic angle coming into play. Pam’s artistic talents would pop up here and there, and overall she seemed to actually want to better herself. Eventually she would give art school a valiant shot only to come up short. No matter, she’ll soon be given the opportunity to try new things as a founding member of the Michael Scott Paper Company, where she found some small success in sales. After that short-lived side adventure, Michael would go to bat in order to bring Pam back to Dunder Mifflin as a full-fledged salesperson. This lasted for about a season until the writers figured out that having so many main characters have the same job didn’t lend itself to much story variety, so Pam determines that she’s largely failed at sales. She had apparently been making minimal commissions during this time and wanted more money. Side question: are we to assume she was a worse salesperson than Andy, who is consistently written as the most incompetent of the bunch?

Anyway, Pam needed a new job that keeps her in the office but she was all out of genuine ambition. She fabricated a bullshit job as the office administrator, which the office had gotten by without for years, and conned Gabe and other department heads into signing off on it, even to the point of giving her unearned wages. With that, she effectively returned to doing what she did as a secretary, minus answering the phone. She plans office games, procures odd pieces of equipment for the office, and negotiates new lease terms with the office park. But mostly, she finagled herself a job that the office never required before, all during a financial crisis to boot. Somehow she maintains a job that pays more and contributes less to the company. “Goodbye, Michael” features Pam supposedly going on a run to price out paper shredders, and perhaps she did indeed do that although I’m not sure why anyone has to leave their computer and phone to do that in this day and age. But the only thing the audience sees her do is skip work and go see The King’s Speech. Side note: at least she turns her phone off while in a movie theater. Seriously however, this might just be the last straw I have with her character. She’s not only settled into a farce of a job and zero interest in bettering her life in any way, but she’s also actively not contributing to her company. Granted, the employees of Dunder Mifflin waste a lot of time while on the clock, but it’s usually standard office environment distractions or under Michael’s misguided direction. Pam checking out and seeing a movie while claiming to be working is way too egregious for me. This is far, far from the Pam we fell in love with during the early seasons.

All this brings me back to the end of Steve Carell’s exit from the show. I wish Pam didn’t get to say goodbye to Michael. I don’t think she deserved it. Her con over her colleagues would finally not work out for her. She wouldn’t get to express her gratitude for a boss who gave her so many breaks and so much support that she ultimately squandered. What if she had missed this opportunity to say goodbye? It could serve as a wakeup call for how she’s wasting her life, wallowing in a meaningless and entirely expendable job without dreams of any kind. It might even motivate an actual story arc for the character. It can’t be worse than having her do the next-to-nothing that has occupied her time for the last year or so. Not having that goodbye would be sad from Michael’s perspective, and perhaps that’s not at all what this show – now or even in its early years – would do, but I think it would have been significantly more interesting. I just think the Pam and Michael relationship has lost its meaning in recent seasons and that wasn’t reflected here. Quite frankly, I’m not sure I buy that the current version of Pam truly appreciates who Michael Scott was to her. She’s affectionately supported him in his troubles with Holly, but I’m not sure that’s enough. I think Pam deserved to miss out on that sweet goodbye. She was asking for it with her downward spiral of indifference and apathy. Maybe that’s what she needed in order to remember his unconditional belief in her talent and potential. Maybe that would have lit something within herself, because the desires she once had have long since burned out.

Now this is spectacular news. Creator Jackson Publick has revealed the news that Adult Swim has ordered up a ton more of The Venture Bros. There’s seasons five and six coming up, a 60-90 minute special at some point and a special little 11 minute special scheduled to air this summer. That’s a whole lot of awesome!

Publick and Doc Hammer, the creative duo who have written some 98% of the series, officially returned to writing this week although Publick says they had a head start after coming up with a lot of great ideas back when they were wrapping up season four. They’re hoping to be in pre-production in June. Based on past schedules, we’re probably looking at a summer 2012 premiere for season five.

The short special due out this summer is said to be on the lighter side and something of a one-off, so I’d expect it to be similar to “A Very Venture Christmas”. It’s being produced and animated entirely in the US, between Astro Base Go! and Titmouse Studios (G.I. Joe: Resolute, among other things), unlike the regular series which is animated overseas. And since we know there are often writing and production delays with this show, Publick is upfront about having absolutely no idea when the long-form special might arrive or whether it’ll be a TV or direct-to-video project.

The news comes just as season four hits Blu-ray and the second half of the season reaches DVD.

Sony, which distributed District 9, is putting up a reported – but unconfirmed – $120 million to also distribute writer/director Neill Blomkamp’s sophomore film Elysium. That’s pretty cool since Sony did a swell job selling District 9 and were successful with it, plus it’s just a damned big vote of confidence. Media Rights Capital is the group providing the direct financing for the project.

I haven’t written about this one yet, because I’m lazy, but it’s been quickly gearing up for production to begin this summer in Vancouver and then in Mexico in the fall. The cast so far includes District 9 lead Sharlto Copley plus the star power of Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. Syd Mead, the man famously credited as a visual futurist on Blade Runner, has signed on to do set design work. He’s a really picky man when it comes to film projects, so this is a big coup for Blomkamp. Mead has also done noteworthy design work on the likes of Tron, Aliens, Strange Days and Mission to Mars. There’s virtually nothing none about the movie’s story except that it takes place approximately 100 years in the future and will include some form of social commentary in the same vein, if not subject, as District 9. It’s also apparently going to be R-rated, again like District 9.

Bonus news: As part of an overall deal with Blomkamp, MRC has also given the go-ahead for his third film, titled Chappie. That’s another original film that he’ll tackle as soon as he’s finished Elysium. No other details were revealed but given Blomkamp’s interests, I’d hazard a guess that it’s another science fiction project of some sort. Chappie is not included in Sony’s distribution deal for Elysium and will be offered to buyers at a later date.

To sum up, this is all fantastic news. I loved District 9 and Neill Blomkamp’s style and approach to story, so I’m thrilled to see him successfully find funding for not only Elysium but also Chappie. He’s my favorite, and I’d argue best, of a new crop of sci-fi storytellers that have been hopping into the Hollywood talent pool, alongside the likes of Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) and Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, potentially forthcoming projects Oblivion, The Black Hole). I’m very excited to see what he delivers next.

Elysium is currently expected to be released during the 2012 holiday season.

Warner Bros. must be tired of various Marvel movies getting all the attention over the last couple weeks, so they’ve announced two bits of meaningful casting for The Dark Knight Rises. Firstly, Anne Hathaway will be playing Selina Kyle a.k.a. Catwoman. Secondly, we now know that Tom Hardy’s role will be the villain once responsible for breaking Batman’s back, Bane. The press release makes sure to quote returning director Christopher Nolan as saying there’s a “new interpretation” of the Bane character. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what that means. It seems like all those Hugo Strange rumors were indeed based on the Batman: Arkham City video game’s story rather than this movie. I have no immediate problem with either bit of casting, I’m just really curious to see how these characters fit into the story. Will Catwoman have a villainous side? What is Nolan’s interpretation of Bane? Is he working on his own or has he been hired by mobsters or perhaps even the Gotham Police Department? It’ll be very interesting to see how this Batman trilogy is wrapped up. Like half the world, I can’t wait.

The script was written by Jonathan Nolan from a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer. Look for the return of all the regulars (Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman) and lots more smaller roles that we’ll surely be hearing about over the next few months.

The Dark Knight Rises is set to begin filming this May with a release on July 20th, 2012.

The new film is being directed by Marc Webb, previously of (500) Days of Summer, a movie I didn’t love but for reasons that had to do entirely on the script and Zooey Deschanel, not Webb’s direction. Script is by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, yes!) and Alvin Sargent (the last two Spider-Man movies, meh). Andrew Garfield (The Social Network, Never Let Me Go) stars as Peter Parker and Spider-Man, with Emma Stone (Easy A) as the female lead Gwen Stacy. Rhys Ifans is playing Dr. Curt Connors aka The Lizard. Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire) plays Van Adder, another villainous role, who in the comics is a test subject of Norman Osborn’s and becomes Proto-Goblin but that may not be . Sally Fields is Aunt May while Martin Sheen will be Uncle Ben. Denis Leary plays police captain George Stacy, Gwen’s father. Annie Parisse plays Van Adder’s wife. Chris Zylka has the role of Flash Thompson. Campbell Scott and Julianne Nicholson will appear as Peter’s parents, presumably in flashback.

I was reluctant about getting excited for this new run of movies since the last one disappointed me so much, but here I go again. The simply titled Spider-Man is set for release on July 3, 2012.

There you have it. Come March 22nd everyone can find the complete fourth season of The Venture Bros on home video. That should help the time go by until the eventual fifth season, which to my knowledge hasn’t been confirmed but is basically certain. Of course, it probably won’t appear until 2012, but that’s how it is.

• The Venture Bros: Season 4 Vol. 1 (DVD, available now)
• The Venture Bros: Season 4 Vol. 2 (DVD, March 22, 2011)
• The Venture Bros: The Complete Season 4 (Blu-ray, March 22, 2011)

James McAvoy will voice the lead character, Arthur, who is Santa’s youngest son. He’s good-natured and clumsy, and the one member of the family still truly excited by the magic of Christmas. Hugh Laurie plays Steve, the elder son, who has made the holiday a high-tech and military-esque operation. Jim Broadbent will voice Santa Claus. Bill Nighy plays Santa’s father, Grandsanta, who longs for the days of his own reign over the holiday, and when things were simpler. Imelda Staunton voices Mrs. Claus and Ashley Jensen plays an elf in the Giftwrap Battalion named Bryony.

I’m not terribly impressed with this teaser, but it’s just that, a teaser. I can’t imagine this footage having a part in the movie, it’s just designed to get some attention and quickly lay out some of the premise, so I’m not too concerned. It is somewhat disappointing that Aardman’s trademark style doesn’t seem present. Even Flushed Away worked that in, going so far as adding fake fingerprint marks to mimic those occurrences in claymation. I still think one of the bigger questions about this movie is whether it can sufficiently differentiate itself from Disney’s Prep & Landing TV special from last year, which is getting follow-up shorts, since both involve really high-tech Christmas operations.

Arthur Christmas will be released by Sony on November 23rd, 2011.

Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, Speed Racer) are sticking with Warner Bros. for their next film, which THR reports is a modern and urban take on the Robin Hood tale, simply titled Hood. The Wachowskis wrote the script and will direct the project, which doesn’t have any cast attached or a production timetable. Supposedly Will Smith has been approached about a role, which would presumably be the lead.

Considering the other film the Wachowskis have in the works as directors, Cobalt Neural 9, involves a future archaeological or historical project that reconstructs the Iraq war and occupation, a gay romance between soldiers and a plan to assassinate George W. Bush, I wonder if Hood won’t also reflect their views on current domestic politics. With the economic collapse, the bailouts and the ensuing record-breaking profits by the very banks that spearheaded the collapse, an urban Robin Hood would fit right in. Tackling the increasingly large divide between the rich and poor along with the erosion of the American middle class could certainly strike a populist chord with audiences.

That’s all there is, but for now I’m intrigued.

Word comes in via The Playlist that Paul Giamatti is in talks to join the cast of David Cronenberg’s next project, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis. If a deal is reached, he would join Colin Farrell and Marion Cotillard. It’s not clear what part Giamatti is up for, but possibly one of two people stalking Farrell’s character. Notably, the script for this movie is the first Cronenberg’s handled himself since 1999′s eXistenZ.

Cosmopolis follows a single day for a young billionaire (the novel places him at 28 years old) as he crosses New York City in his limo to get a haircut. Along the way he encounters numerous major traffic delays (from a riot to a presidential motorcade), several chance encounters with his new wife and two stalkers. He additionally loses incredible amounts of money over the course of the day by betting against the yen. In fact, he may actually be embracing his downfall. Colin Farrell would play the billionaire while Marion Cotillard takes the role of the wife. Most of the novel takes place in the confines of the limo, so it should be interesting to see how this translates to the screen.

It’s unclear when Cosmopolis might shoot since Colin Farrell recently committed to the Total Recall remake which is slated to begin filming around March. As of last May, Cosmopolis was going to shoot in New York City and Toronto from March to May. Chances are Total Recall would take priority, or maybe we’re in for a casting change.

Cronenberg is currently in post production on A Dangerous Method, which doesn’t currently have a US distributor. He also tentatively has an adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s As She Climbed Across the Table and a sequel to Eastern Promises in the works.

After being announced about 18 months ago, there’s movement on Jonathan Glazer’s return to cinema with Under the Skin, his adaptation of Michel Faber’s novel. Glazer previously directed Sexy Beast (2000) and Birth (2004). Glazer co-wrote Under the Skin with Walter Campbell.

Under the Skin features an alien disguised as a gorgeous human woman, to be played by Johansson, who seduces men in order to lure them back to a processing plant where they’re turned into gourmet food for aliens. Her dedication to that mission wavers as she sees more of humanity and its complexities. It’s pretty easy to see where some commentary on carnivorous eating habits might come into play.

Glazer’s interesting previous features and music videos have me intrigued for whatever he does in the future, so I’m looking forward to see where this goes.

This just needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Parks and Recreation returns with its third season on January 20th, now Thursdays at 9:30pm where it finally gets The Office as a lead-in. This show was rocky in its abbreviated first season but really found its characters season two and was always such a treat every week. I’d probably say it was my favorite of NBC’s shows last year. At the end of last season the show added Adam Scott (Party Down) and Rob Lowe to the cast while Paul Schneider’s Mark Brendanowicz left, who was probably the weak link in terms of the characters. He was stuck being too much of the straight man and love interest without much to do on his own. Adam Scott’s character comes in to sort of replace that position as a foil and potential romantic partner for Leslie while having a good reason to be part of the main stories. Plus, Adam Scott is hilarious, so I think the show is in good hands for another season.

Another aspect I particularly love about Parks and Recreation is that its created a real feel for the city of Pawnee and a sense that the main characters actually inhabit a place where things happen even when they’re not around. The writers have created a nice stable of secondary characters like the public access talk show host, the journalist, various other government officials, etc. that is really nice.

Parks and Recreation stars Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Nick Offerman, Aziz Ansari, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, Rob Lowe, Jim O’Heir and Retta, and again returns to television on January 20th. Watch it.

Summer Wars

Summer Wars is the new film from Madhouse  Mamoru Hosoda, who previously directed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which I quite liked. It didn’t have grand ambitions or anything, but everything it did was very well done and showed real potential, particularly in exploring the life of a teenage girl.

Here’s the plot synopsis:

Kenji is your typical teenage misfit. He’s good at math, bad with girls, and spends most of his time hanging out in the all-powerful, online community known as OZ. His second life is the only life he has — until the girl of his dreams, Natsuki, hijacks him for a starring role as a fake fiancé at her family reunion. Things only get stranger from there. A late-night email containing a cryptic mathematic riddle leads to the unleashing of a rogue AI intent on using the virtual word of OZ to destroy the real world, literally. As Armageddon looms on the horizon, Kenji and his new “family” set aside their differences and band together to save the worlds they inhabit

The domestic trailer (below) has dubs, which while still unconfirmed to my knowledge, leads me to believe that’s how it’ll be seen on the big screen.

Here’s the current theatrical schedule:

Dec 3-8: Chicago, IL –  Siskel Film Center
Dec 10-16: Los Angeles, CA – AMC Covina 30
Dec 24-30: San Francisco, CA – Landmark Bridge Theater
Dec 29-Jan 4: New York, NY- IFC Center
Jan 5-12: Boston, MA – Museum of Fine Arts
Jan 7-13: Denver, CO – Starz Film Center
Jan 7-13: Santa Fe, NM – CCA Cinematheque
Jan 14-20: Los Angeles, CA – Laemmle Sunset
Jan 21-27: Philadelphia, PA – Landmark Ritz at the Bourse
Jan 23-Feb 3: Honolulu, HI – Academy of Arts,
Jan 28-Feb 3 Seattle, WA- Landmark Varsity

And if your city isn’t included on that list, FUNimation is saying the movie will hit DVD and Blu-ray in the spring, specifically on February 15th if Right Stuf is correct. That’s good for me because I don’t watch dubs, so I might not have to wait too long to see it in my preferred manner.

The great anime writer/director Satoshi Kon passed away from pancreatic cancer back in August while in the midst of directing his fifth feature film, The Dreaming Machine. At the time we learned through Kon’s final posting to his site that Madhouse founder Masao Maruyama promised Kon that they would “do whatever it takes” to finish the movie without him. Via ANN, news came on Friday that Madhouse is ready to fulfill that promise and has resumed production on the film. Character designer and chief animation director Yoshimi Itazu has been promoted to acting director for the rest of production while Toshiyuki Inoue will be the joint animation director. Susumu Hirasawa (Millennium Actress, Paprika) is confirmed to be composing the movie’s score. There remains no word on when The Dreaming Machine might be finished and ready for release, but at this point I’d hope they take their time and do it right. Unfortunately, this will be the last work we see with Satoshi Kon’s touch and the world will be lesser for it.

Back in August 2008, Kon described the film with the following:

On the surface, it’s going to be a fantasy-adventure targeted at younger audiences. However, it will also be a film that people who have seen our films up to this point will be able to enjoy. So it will be an adventure that even older audiences can appreciate. There will be no human characters in the film; only robots. It’ll be like a “road movie” for robots.

Satoshi Kon directed (and wrote the latter three) the brilliant feature films Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika. He was also the creator of the anime series Paranoia Agent and the writer of the Magnetic Rose short included in the anthology film Memories.

Tron Legacy picks up a nearly three decades after the original with Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the digital world of Tron where his father has been living for 25 years. Bruce Boxleitner returns as his character, and is joined by Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, John Hurt, Beau Garrett and James Frain. Joseph Kosinksi is making his directorial debut on this one. Daft Punk has provided an original score, a fact that is almost overshadowing the movie itself.

TRON: Legacy will be in theaters on December 17th.

Warner Bros. has released a new trailer for Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, his first original film, over at Apple. Snyder previously directed Dawn of the Dead, 300 and Watchmen, and was recently tapped for the next Superman movie. Snyder co-wrote this one with Steve Shibuya.

Emily Browning stars as Babydoll, a young teen locked away in a mental asylum against her will who leads a band of other girls on an escape attempt, which involves diving into their imaginations ala so many other films, most recently like Pan’s Labyrinth. The other girls are played by Abbie Cornish, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung and Jen Malone. Their adult captors are played by Oscar Isaac, Carla Gugino and Jon Hamm, while Scott Glenn plays the Wise Man seen in the trailer telling the girls what to do.

See the trailer at Apple.

I think I liked the teaser better for the potential it showed, while the performances and dialogue here seem rather stilted and corny. But I’m not expecting greatness or anything from the premise, though hopefully it’s still fun. Not sure how I feel about the girls looking so damn young and hyper-sexualized, even in their own fantasies, no less! I’m hoping this doesn’t turn out to just be mindless wankery for fourteen year old males.

Sucker Punch will hit theaters on March 25th, 2011.

Per THR, James McAvoy will voice the lead character, Arthur, who is Santa’s youngest son. He’s good-natured and clumsy, and the one member of the family still truly excited by the magic of Christmas. Hugh Laurie plays Steve, the elder son, who has made the holiday a high-tech and military-esque operation. Jim Broadbent will voice Santa Claus. Bill Nighy plays Santa’s father, Grandsanta, who longs for the days of his own reign over the holiday, and when things were simpler. Imelda Staunton voices Mrs. Claus and Ashley Jensen plays an elf in the Giftwrap Battalion named Bryony.

Arthur Christmas is scheduled for release by Sony on November 23rd, 2011. Aardman is also prepping The Pirates! for an April 2012 debut. You can read more about that one here.

Magnet, Magnolia Pictures’ genre label, has announced that it has acquired Vanishing on 7th Street, for distribution and plans to have it in theaters come February 2011. This is Brad Anderson’s seventh feature film as director, though he’s most known for his last three: Session 9, The Machinist and Transsiberian. Between films he also directs a good amount of television, including episodes of The Wire, The Shield, Treme, Boardwalk Empire and Rubicon. His biggest television presence is on Fringe, where he’s done great work on a total of seven episodes.

Vanishing on 7th Street was written by Anthony Jaswinski and stars Hayden Christensen, John Leguizamo, Thandie Newton and Jacob Latimore. Here’s the official synopsis:

An unexplained blackout descends on the city of Detroit and by the time the sun rises, only a few people remain – surrounded by heaps of empty clothing, abandoned cars and lengthening shadows. Luke, a television reporter (Christensen) finds the streets outside his apartment building eerily empty. Paul, a film projectionist (Leguizamo) is alone in a once crowded theater. Physical therapist Rosemary (Newton) steps out for a smoke and returns to a deserted hospital, and James, a frightened boy (Latimore), waits patiently for his mother to return. They each find their way to a rundown bar, whose gasoline-powered generator and stockpile of food and drink make it the last refuge in a deserted city.

With daylight beginning to disappear completely and whispering shadows surrounding the survivors, Luke discovers that another pocket of people may be holed up as nearby as Chicago. He combs the city for a working vehicle that will get them all there, but Rosemary is engulfed in grief for her lost infant, James won’t leave without his mother and Paul may be too injured to travel. As time begins to run out for them, darkness closes in and they must face the ultimate terror.

I’m a big fan of Brad Anderson, especially his low-key and psychological approach to horror and suspense. I’ve been really looking forward to his latest foray in that direction, especially since it seems to have some echoes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse, one of my absolute favorite horror movies. Hell, it’s likely Vanishing on 7th Street ends up sharing more in common with that film than its own American remake. I’ll concede that I’m not pumped for a Hayden Christensen performance, but we’ll see what Anderson gets out of him, and the rest of the film overcomes him to keep me excited.

Lastly, here’s the trailer, since it’s relevant and I never posted it:

Three official set photos have been released from director David Cronenberg’s next film, A Dangerous Method, which shot last summer in Germany and Austria. Christopher Hampton adapted the script from his own play, “The Talking Cure.” Hampton has scripted a good number of films, but probably most notably writing Dangerous Liaisons, again based on his own play, for Stephen Frears and won the Academy Award for his efforts, along with another nomination more recently for scripting Atonement.

A Dangerous Method takes place on the eve of World War I as Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and student-turned-rival Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) give birth to psychoanalysis while a woman named Sabina (Keira Knightley) finds herself the battleground of their theories and emotions. Vincent Cassel also stars.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t have a release date at this time, and for that matter lacks a distributor in the United States. I’m dying for a new Cronenberg film, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that it manages to get out in the earlier half of the year, rather than being held back for festivals and the awards season.

Follow the jump for two more photos.

The rebooted Spider-Man franchise is well on its way towards production with a lot of the big casting wrapping up. We’ve known Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer) is directing and Andrew Garfield will be playing Peter Parker. A short while ago we learned that Emma Stone has the role of Gwen Stacy; supposedly Mary Jane Watson is a smaller role in this first film. Now there’s word from The Wrap that the villain that Rhys Ifans is playing will be Dr. Curt Connors, as in the man who turns into the Lizard. That’s the role Dylan Baker held in Sam Raimi’s trilogy, though he never got to make the villainous turn.

I’m fairly outspoken in hating the Spider-Man films we’ve gotten so far (and I never even watched Spider-Man 3) so I’m excited for the reboot if only because I can be optimistic. The project is rife with potential at this stage. As opposed to the previous movies, I think the leads are actually appropriately and well cast here. I didn’t particularly like (500) Days of Summer, but that was mostly to do with the script and my personal reaction to Zooey Deschanel. Marc Webb’s direction was a bright spot I think. The new Spider-Man script is by James Vanderbilt who’s given us great serious works like Zodiac and the damned fun The Rundown. So for now, I’m excited. That could all go wrong when it comes time to see it on the big screen, but I’d sure love to like a Spider-Man film. Despite being so frequently and massively let down by summer blockbusters, I don’t think I’ll ever cease hoping for good ones.

The new Spider-Man is due out on July 3rd, 2012.

Good news, Adult Swim has picked up more Childrens Hospital, the live-action parody of medical dramas conceived by Rob Corddry. Outside of The Venture Bros, it’s the best thing Adult Swim has going. The show began life as a web series and stars the likes of Corddry, Rob Huebel, Ken Marino, Lake Bell, Megan Mullaly, Malin Akerman, Henry Winkler and Errin Hayes. Each episode traditionally has a couple significant guest spots and there are many recurring parts, too. It’s basically a who’s-who of Los Angeles’ comic actors. It’s also really damned funny, even with just a cursory knowledge of the tropes of medical dramas: rampant sexual affairs, constant crises in and around the hospital, super rare diseases, etc.

The second season, consisting of fourteen episodes, begins filming later this year for air sometime in 2011.

Have a listen below:

AMC’s unveiled a four minute trailer for The Walking Dead, it’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s comics series of the same name. On top of that, we’ve got a firm premiere date of October 31st at 10pm. That’s right, Halloween night. Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist) is the man spearheading the long-form tale of the zombie apocalypse. The show stars Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Jon Bernthal (Shane), Emma Bell (Amy),  Steven Yeun (Glenn), Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes), Chandler Riggs (Carl Grimes), Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale) and Laurie Holden (Andrea).

The premiere will be an extended 90 minute episode written and directed by Frank Darabont with five additional episodes making up the first season. Episode 2 is written by Darabont and directed by Michelle Maxwell MacLaren. Episode 3 is written by Darabont, Chic Eglee and Jack LoGuidice and directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton. Episode 4 is written by comics creator Robert Kirkman and directed by Johan Renck. Episode 5 is written by Glenn Mazzara and directed by Ernest Dickerson while the sixth episode is written by Adam Fierro and directed by Guy Ferland. If the initial season is successful we should expect to see season two expanded to a full thirteen episodes.

Given what we’ve seen in this trailer, Frank Darabont’s involvement, the cool plotting of the comics and the great casting, I think we’re in for a treat come Halloween.

The date is somewhat weird since it’s just one week before Pixar’s Brave (formerly known as The Bear and the Bow). Glancing at the known release dates for that summer, a lot of the weekends are already taken by big sequels and better known licensed properties, but there are still a couple weekends in May and June yet to be staked out. I suppose the two movies have significant enough different demos to support the move, but it leaves Disney doing heavy promotion for two big films at the same time. At the same time, I don’t really care when they come out, as long as they’re great and I have faith on that count.

The original novel, A Princess of Mars, began its serialization in 1912 and spawned eight other novels and several shorter tales over the following thirty years. A Civil War veteran of the Confederate side, John Carter finds himself taking refuge in a cave after an Indian attack when he is mysteriously transported to Mars. Due to the lower gravity, Carter has superhuman strength on the planet, which helps win him favor among the Tharks, a tribe of Green Martians made up of four-armed warriors twice the height of humans. When these people capture Dejah Thoris, princess of the humanlike Red Martians, Carter plots to save her and her people from their oppressors while winning her love along the way.

The film’s quite excellent cast is made up of the following:

• Taylor Kitsch (John Carter) – Confederate veteran of the Civil War.
• Lynn Collins (Dejah Thoris) – A Red Martian princess.
• Willem Dafoe (Tars Tarkas) – High ranking warrior member of the Tharks, one of the Green Martian tribes, who ultimately allies with Carter.
• Samantha Morton (Sola) – The daughter of Tars Takas, who has an unusually soft side for her species and must hide it.
• Dominic West (Sab Than) – The prince of the Zodangans, which is a tribe of the Red Martians.
• Polly Walker (Sarkoja) – A tyrannical Green Martian who delights in having Dejah as a prisoner.
• Thomas Haden Church (Tal Hajus) – An ambitious Thark, one of the tall four-armed Martians, waiting for his chance to be ruler.
• James Purefoy (Kantos Kan) – A Red Martian captain of a floating warship.
• Mark Strong (Matai Shang) – Ruler of the Therns (descendants of the White Martians) with godlike status.
• Ciarin Hinds (Tardos Mors) – Grandfather of Dejah Thoris and leader of their tribe.
• Bryan Cranston – A fellow veteran of the Civil War accompanying John Carter at the story’s beginning.
• Daryl Sabara (Edgar Rice Burroughs) – Fictionalized nephew of John Carter.

So, in a general sense I love the setting and atmosphere of the show. I love stories that let us see passionate people at their jobs, and while Rubicon hasn’t gotten too involved in any specific assignment given to Will and his team, we do get Will obsessing over the crosswords pattern and what it might have to do with David’s death. We also get a glimpse at another analyst, Miles, and his inability to deal with the apparent ignoring of work he did foreseeing bloody conflict in Nigeria. Prior to the series opening, we get the sense that Will enjoyed the puzzles and patterns for their own sake, as a challenge and a distraction from his grieving over his late wife and child, but then a pattern emerges that affects his mentor and father-in-law. Suddenly the work means something. Meanwhile, Miles is too obsessed with the aftermath and results of his work to function properly on current assignments. He actually cares about the analysis he’s doing. The fairly abstract problem solving at the heart of the job proves compelling when the characters (and performances) are so passionate and involved in it.

On top of the crosswords puzzle, Will sees indications that he’s being followed after his first day on the job. As an audience, we know he’s being followed and watched so his paranoia and caution is completely justified for us. We also know that there is some sort of conspiratorial group of men with some sort of controlling agenda. We also see that the analysts have limited control over what data they receive for their assignments and again, what their analysis is or is not used for. As the personalized note on David’s chessboard said, these people are pawns. They’re small players in the grand scheme of things. Important perhaps, but also expendable and replaceable (as we see in David’s apparent death and even Tom’s). I’m extrapolating a bit, but we see that David has a host of superstitions that he acknowledges are silly but he still obeys them fully. This is David finding a way of exerting a sense of control over his life. The second episode provides a glimpse that Will might unconsciously see value in the same path, gripping the rabbit’s foot while being tailed through the streets and demanding that David’s broom (purchased to help avoid a curse) is returned to the office. A key theme of the show, it would seem, is the stifling and dehumanizing nature of an analyst’s job. They live secret lives far away from the levels of government with actionable power. Their purpose is to solve puzzles, find patterns, analyze the data and pass the conclusions on up the hierarchy. What happens before and after that, and even during to a certain extent, is beyond their control. Miles sees that sometimes this is all a fruitless exercise with the Nigeria situation, but cannot unconcern himself with it. Tanya takes to drinking after just two weeks on the job. Ed Bancroft’s mind was allegedly broken by the work. David took to controlling minute elements of his life through superstitious beliefs. Will has taken to a potentially dangerous investment in the crosswords puzzle and perhaps to a little superstition himself. What are these people doing to themselves, and for what?

At this point I have to highlight a recurring visual motif that I particularly appreciate. A couple times we see individuals dwarfed by highly geometric pieces of architecture. When Will first leaves the office before finding himself being followed, he walks passed a large building front with cross-cutting steel beams. The shots are composed with Will as a smaller figure at the bottom of the frame with the large metal pattern everywhere above him. At the end of the episode, even the men spying on Will are shown to be tiny figures compared to the large repeating window panes hiding the empty floor in which they’ve set up their stakeout. We get the sense that the conspiracy is vast and pervasive and pawns can be found on every side. To get ahead of the game, these pieces of architecture could also withstand the removal of one its elements without catastrophe. The same seems to be the case for the conspiracy.

Previous to this video we knew a few details about what’s coming up, including King Gorilla’s release from jail, another appearance from Professor Impossible and a Fantastic Voyage scenario. Of course, there’s certain to be tons of new SPHINX stuff seeing as that’s the current drive of the mythology. The trailer shows off a few new enticing tidbits, like the return of Hank and Dean’s past selves (read: clones). Oh, and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch will gargle and spit.

It all looks insane and ridiculous and hilarious as usual, so I can’t wait.

Meanwhile, The Venture Bros: Season 4 Vol. 1 will be hitting DVD on October 26th. There won’t be a Blu-ray until around March when the full season is released on disc.

The 5th season won’t have a ‘big bad’ like John Lithgow or Jimmy Smits but that doesn’t mean there aren’t new guest stars. The big two are Peter Weller (Robocop, Fringe‘s “White Tulip”) and Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You, The Bourne Ultimatum), along with Johnny Lee Miller, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Shawn Hatosy and April Lee Hernandez.

Dexter returns to Showtime on September 26th.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia will return to FX on September 16th at 10pm EST for its sixth season. I can’t say I’ve seen any details on any specific things the new season will feature, but I’d expect Charlie, Mac, Dennis, Dee and Frank to terrorize Philadelphia with more offensive antics.

Tron Legacy picks up a nearly three decades after the original with Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the digital world of Tron where his father has been living for 25 years. Bruce Boxleitner returns as his character, and is joined by Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, John Hurt, Beau Garrett and James Frain. Joseph Kosinksi is making his directorial debut on this one. Daft Punk is notably composing the film’s score.

TRON: Legacy will be in theaters on December 17th.

Here’s the blurb for Chew: Vol. 1:

Tony Chu is a detective with a secret. A weird secret. Tony Chu is Cibopathic, which means he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. It also means he’s a hell of a detective, as long as he doesn’t mind nibbling on the corpse of a murder victim to figure out whodunit, and why. He’s been brought on by the Special Crimes Division of the FDA, the most powerful law enforcement agency on the planet, to investigate their strangest, sickest, and most bizarre cases.

If you’re wondering how the FDA became so powerful, Chew takes place in a universe where the avian flu killed millions of people, which leads to the FDA having to enforce a prohibition on chicken. Of course, there might be more to this than meets the eye.

I’ll also join in with many others and ask for Ken Leung (Miles from Lost) to be cast as Tony Chu. It’s just so perfect.

Here’s a spiffy new photo for The Walking Dead featuring the whole main cast that debuts on AMC in October. The series follows a group of people struggling to survive in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse over the course of weeks, months and years. From left to right the characters and actors in the publicity photo are Emma Bell (presumably Amy), Jon Bernthal (Shane), Steven Yeun (Glenn), Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes), Chandler Riggs (Carl Grimes), Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale) and Laurie Holden (Andrea).

Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist) is spearheading the project. He’s directing the first episode and writing the first three. Per AICN the other directors are Michelle Maxwell MacLaren, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Johan Renck, Ernest Dickerson and Guy Ferland. The other contributing writers are Chic Eglee, Jack LoGuidice, Robert Kirkman (creator of the comics), Glen Mazzara and Adam Fierro.

The Walking Dead is based on the comics series. The first season will consist of six episodes and premieres in October. Everything about this looks and sounds fantastic, and the comics are quite good in their own right (though Kirkman’s dialogue is a definite weakness), so zombie fans should be in for a real treat in a couple months.

Here’s a look at the Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from Marvel’s upcoming live-action film Thor. It’s like Batman and Robin meets the new Clash of the Titans. Marvel and Paramount are going to have their work cut out for them in selling this to the masses, between the costumes and the whole Norse gods thing. I’m pretty sour on Marvel’s movies thus far, especially with the obnoxious drive towards The Avengers, but I’ll wait for a trailer before writing this off. The talent involved is pretty solid after all.

Kenneth Branagh is directing Thor with a cast that also includes Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgård, Rene Russo, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Idris Elba, Colm Feore, Jaime Alexander and Clark Gregg.

At the center of the story is the mighty Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth by his father Odin and is forced to live among humans. A beautiful, young scientist, Jane Foster (Portman), has a profound effect on Thor, as she ultimately becomes his first love. It’s while here on Earth that Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

Thor will hit screens on May 6th, 2011. In select theaters it will feature post-conversion 3D, for those who care about that one way or another.

The story begins with popular investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) being convicted of libel against a large corporation. It’s insinuated that he was set up, but that’s not very important. In six months’ time he’ll go to jail for a short while. This has little to do with the film except for forcing the character to resign from his magazine and suddenly find himself with six months of free time. That’s the perfect opportunity for an old business mogul, Henrik Vanger, to hire Blomkvist to investigate the apparent murder of his niece, Harriet, some 40 years ago. For various reasons, the likely culprit is a member of the Vanger family, which includes some former (?) Nazis. Coincidentally, Blomkvist had been babysat by Harriet as a child, which serves as a fairly obnoxious excuse for bad flashback glimpses of the two of them (in fact, all of the flashbacks are strangely but consistently poorly acted and blocked). Presumably these are meant to add some stakes to the investigation and humanize the victim, but they accomplish little on that front. They do contribute to a major clue late in the film, but this feels cheap as it’s so revealing but also so removed from 90% of the investigative work Blomkvist and the film put in.

Parallel to Blomkvist’s story is that of Lisbeth Salandan’s (Noomi Rapace). She’s an introverted hacker with a gothic asthetic who begins her strained involvement in the plot by checking out Blomkvist’s background for Henrik Vanger. She clears him as a reliable investigator who was probably set up, but for inexplicable reasons she continues to keep tabs on him even after the job is over. There is never any logical reason behind this besides being a necessary plot point to get the two characters together. Eventually her personal story and the main mystery will share thematic similarities, but the impetus for her getting involved doesn’t make a lick of sense. For that matter, I’m not sure she belongs in the movie at all. She’s often just a walking plot point with her set of skills turning up copious amounts of evidence and relative material whenever needed or to otherwise bail out Blomkvist from any challenge sent his way.

Lisbeth, despite being 24 years old, is required to have a legal guardian as a result of some previous issues. As the movie begins, her guardian has croaked and she’s assigned to another, who turns out to be a twisted sexual predator. He leverages his control over her limited freedom and finances in order to gain sexual favors, and later force violent sexual acts. This plot ends up resembling a much more graphic and disturbing version of Hard Candy, where the victim ultimately gains control of the situation and has her own form of revenge, in this case violent sodomy and blackmail. I’ll take this moment to point out that an earlier scene involved her being assaulted by a group of young men in a subway station and that the main murder mystery also involves sexual violence. We also learn that Lisbeth’s family was abusive to her mother. The Swedish title for the novel and movie  Men Who Hate Women. It’s not clear, however, what this all adds up to. Is the movie trying to say something about males in Sweden? Hard to say considering the film has no shortage of positive male characters. There’s a pattern of Lisbeth punishing the story’s predators with sexual violence and/or death, but there’s no attempt to really justify this policy. In one case it’s somewhat understandable and in another it’s obscenely over-the-top and sick. To a certain extent, all of this sexual violence comes off superficially edgy, controversial and titillating instead of helping construct an interesting character. It feels quite exploitative. Lisbeth is pretty impenetrable, an almost immaturely quiet and closed off presence to both the other characters and to the audience. Maybe the two sequels are needed to give her substance, but here there’s little to define her outside of the sexual violence enacted upon and enacted by her. This results in a whole lot of wasted screentime.

Anyway, Lisbeth keeps remotely looking at Blomkvisk’s computer to check his status on the investigation, and eventually can’t resist piecing some clues together for him. Soon enough, they’ve met and are working together for the second half of the film. The basic murder mystery elements get a little clumsy here, with Blomkvist becoming thick and slow-witted in order to allow certain plot points to happen. For a supposed nationally famous investigative journalist, it’s disappointing when he’s often slower than the audience. At the same time, some important clues found in Harriet’s belongings lead to a much bigger mystery, but it never really makes any sense how or why Harriet figured any of it out in the first place. A couple brief action scenes are really awkwardly edited, for reasons that I believe to involve the gaps in diegetic time between shots and what the editing and shot types are telling us. The latter indicates to me that I’m watching an unbroken progression of time, but the former produces a weird effect of these scenes being rushed through. That was my impression anyhow. It’s difficult to keep track of the large extended Vanger family that the investigation involves, along with a variety of other small undeveloped plot tidbits thrown in, which is possibly a cause of the adaptation process.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fails because it has no apparent philosophy. It’s not saying anything, at least not cohesively. There are several abusive, sexually violent men in this film, but there’s nothing concretely stated about these circumstances, nothing linking these predilections to a larger point. Lisbeth’s own personal story has real impact on the primary mystery, nor does Blomkvisk’s libel case, which comes back into play for an extended epilogue. The mystery of Harriet’s disappearance, which is the meat of the plot, is just a diversion from other poorly and shortly developed subplots for Blomkvisk and Lisbeth. They have no stakes in what they’re doing, and thus I don’t particularly care beyond a love of mysteries and puzzles. Unfortunately, even that element proves a mess with pieces that don’t completely fit together. It’s a mess of a mystery thriller spiced up with disturbing yet meaningless violence.

* Buy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from Amazon.com

The core Sin & Punishment: Star Successor gameplay is akin to Star Fox where the player, in this case one of two characters who can fly, progresses forward through the environment automatically, while the player shoots everything that moves and avoids obstacles and enemy fire. One of the unique aspects to the Sin & Punishment series (it’s officially a series now!) is the sword attack. When enemies are close you can slash at them instead of shooting. There will also be enemy attacks that can be deflected or even reflected back if you time the attack properly. This adds some nice variety and often strategy during more chaotic moments or boss fights. Sometimes it’s better to let an enemy missile survive until it’s close to you so it can be knocked back at a target of your choosing for more damage than your laser delivers. There’s also a dodge function (keeping with the Star Fox comparisons, think of the barrel roll) that lets you slip through enemy attacks without taking hits. Dodging and jumping (when/if you are running on the ground instead of flying) are controlled with the nunchuk’s buttons while aiming, shooting, slashing (quick tap of the shoot button) and charging shots are done with the Wii remote. Outside of the pointer function, the game doesn’t use any other motion controls.

Killing enemies in succession without getting hit yourself increases your score multiplier, giving you more points each time you destroy something. Get hit, and the multiplier drops a point or two, but it’s nice that it doesn’t reset completely if you screw up once. After beating the game, this will prove to be the most important mechanic as beating your own high scores, and other people’s on the online leaderboards, will be what gives the game longevity. Even without actual scores, it’s fun to replay stages and master the enemy patterns and get into a zone of blowing up everything in your path while dodging bullets, which at times will easily number in the hundreds. That last point leads to the game’s significant degree of difficulty. It’s been a long time since I’ve played a game so challenging on its easiest setting. You will face swarms of dozens of enemies that might all be firing upon you. Bosses can have some complicated attack patterns that aren’t always easy to figure out how to exploit. Levels are also pretty long, so even on easy your health can be a concern. Game overs won’t be a rare sight even on the easy setting, but it’s never too discouraging. There’s even an optimistic little chime that occurs upon death that helps ease any frustration.

Beyond the difficulty, which – as in all rail shooters – decreases as you replay the game and learn its patterns, perhaps the other possible problem is the game’s length. This is an odd complaint, but it’s perhaps too long, at least to play through in one sitting. For most games, that would be a good thing, but with a rail shooter that ultimately finds value in encouraging replays for beating high scores, it’s a little more complicated. Doing a score attack on individual stages is simple enough, but if you’re trying for a high score for the whole game, it’s just physically tough to do. Halfway through, my hands are cramped and my brain is getting loopy. There’s a save feature, but there’s something unsatisfying about taking a break while going for a high score. It doesn’t quite let you get the bliss of getting into a zone and ripping through a game you’ve learned inside and out. Not like, say, Star Fox 64 or even Sin & Punishment: Successor of the Earth. The likely result is that doing score attacks on individual stages will be the preference for most gamers. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bit different to the genre’s history.

It also needs to be said that there’s a lot of variety within this game. Each stage has a radically different environment and its own set of enemies which have their own unique attacks. The second stage throws you into an inexplicable tube of air flowing through the ocean letting you fight all kinds of marine life, submarines and giant eels. There’s even two scripted moments where your velocity throws you outside of the tube on turns for a few moments before swinging back in. It’s just a pretty cool view and a moment’s respite from the action, that is, if you don’t choose to keep shooting at the enemies still inside the tunnel. Stage four features a haunted forest that’s largely pitch black except for the area around where you’re aiming. Some stages progress to the right instead of into the screen, further shaking things up. Another stage puts your character in a vehicle, and so on. There’s also a huge score of bosses, several per stage that all present unique challenges and patterns. It’s really quite amazing for a rail shooter to have so much fresh material spread across a couple of hours of gameplay.

If you enjoy blistering rail shooters and find satisfaction in achieving high scores, you can’t go wrong with Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Treasure specializes in making intense and challenging action games, and they haven’t failed here. I doubt the game has very significant commercial appeal in the modern market, but for gamers who can still enjoy an old school approach to design, or willing to take the plunge anyway, this game is a real gift. I quite strongly recommend it.

* Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor from Amazon.com

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is scheduled for release on September 28th and will feature a Green Arrow short film. A preview will be included on Batman: Under the Red Hood, which hits on July 27th.

• Tales from the Future: new six-part retrospective documentary featuring interviews with Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Director Robert Zemeckis, Producers Bob Gale and Neil Canton, plus Executive Producer Steven Spielberg.
  • In the Beginning…: Delve into the genesis of the project, casting, re-casting, the DeLorean, sets and overall pre-production.
  • Time to Go: Production stories through the release of the first film.
  • Keeping Time: The score and the songs of the Back to the Future Trilogy.
  • Time Flies: Learn more about how the sequel came about, the futuristic look, the special and visual effects, recreating 1955 and more.
  • Third Time’s the Charm: Learn about building a western town, Doc Brown’s love story, the casting of Mary Steenburgen, the train sequence and completing the Trilogy.
  • The Test of Time: Back to the Future becomes a phenomenon! President Reagan quotes the film, the Back to the Future ride opens at Universal Studios theme park and fans rebuild the iconic DeLorean. The film’s cast and crew take a look back and discuss why these beloved movies live on.
• The Physics of Back to the Future: A discussion with celebrity best-selling author and physicist Dr. Michio Kaku about the overall appreciation of the science in the Back to the Future Trilogy.
• Nuclear test site ending storyboard sequence: Storyboard sequence of the original proposed ending of the film.

The storyboarded original ending sequence should be pretty interesting to behold. I never picked up the DVDs of these movies for a variety of reasons, beginning with the manufacturing errors on the first printing, so I’m definitely excited to own these in a high quality format. Now if we could just get the Star Wars trilogy in their original forms…

This isn’t exactly confirmed, but Pajiba has a source they trust that reports David Cronenberg is attached to direct an adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel As She Climbed Across the Table. Any and all Cronenberg news is of great interest to me, so I’m passing it along. The word is that Steven Zaillian (screenwriter of Schindler’s List and Moneyball) would serve as a producer.

Here’s the blurb for the novel from Amazon:

Particle physics, false vacuum bubbles, an alternate universe–this is the stuff of Jonathan Lethem’s novel As She Climbed Across the Table. The tale echoes Alice in Wonderland in its mad tumble through a rearranged reality. Narrator Phillip Engstrand is a university professor who has made a career out of studying academic environments. Engstrand is in love with Alice Coombs, a particle physicist engaged in a bold attempt to replicate the origins of the universe. The result of the experiment is Lack, a very selective black hole that sucks some things into its void–a cat, a pair of socks, a strawberry–and rejects others, namely, a love-struck Alice. As Alice’s unrequited obsession with Lack grows, Phillip becomes so desperate to save his beloved from this empty rival that he risks a journey down the metaphysical rabbit hole.

It sounds pretty interesting to me, and something Cronenberg could definitely work some magic with. Even if it doesn’t become a film, with or without Cronenberg, I think I’d like to read the novel.

There’s no indication when this production might happen, but Cronenberg is currently in production on A Dangerous Method, starring Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Vincent Cassel. That film is based on the play “The Talking Cure” and explores the relationships between Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and a female patient who comes between them. After that, Cronenberg is scheduled to shoot Cosmopolis next spring, an adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel. That project is set to star Colin Farrell and Marion Cotillard. As of last September, the director was attached to remake his film The Fly, itself a remake. However, nothing has been heard of that since. There are additionally plans for a sequel to Eastern Promises, with star Viggo Mortensen and screenwriter Steven Knight returning.

Note: I can’t help but think of the Maya Deren film At Land when I read the novel’s title. I wonder if it holds any relevance? It could certainly be considered a “mad tumble through a rearranged reality,” though on a different level than Alice in Wonderland.

While I have faith that Cars 2 and Monsters, Inc 2 will have perfectly good stories and won’t reek of cash-ins like the sequels certain other animated studios dish out every couple of years, it’d be nice to at least see original characters in short form before those features. I don’t want to be too negative, nor too cynical about the ratio of sequels to new movies we’re known to be getting from Pixar in the future (3:1) but it does concern me if we have to lose an original short film to get a Toy Story one in front of Cars 2. It just seems like the Toy Story shorts can stand on their own elsewhere, or help support other movies (like say, July 2011′s Winnie the Pooh).

Cars 2, and the unnamed Toy Story short, will be in theaters on June 24th, 2011.

Okay, so it barely qualifies as news, but Breaking Bad was renewed for a fourth season by AMC as its third ended with an incredibly suspenseful finale. I have no idea why the order is just being made now for the show, but it’s very welcome all the same. Breaking Bad is the best thing going for television right now, in my opinion at least.

If you’ve finished up season three, there’s a couple good interviews with creator Vince Gilligan about the last season and the future over at The Live Feed and AV Club.

Presumably we’ll be seeing season four on the air beginning March 2011.

Cooperative play seems likely given most of the trailer involves both Rayman and Globox running around, but nothing is confirmed on that front.

Look for the first episode of Rayman Origins later this year, presumably on PSN and XBLA.

The new game features a pretty spiffy visual style based around yarn and other cloth textures, and even turns the aesthetic into a gameplay element. Kirby seems to have lost his ability to inhale enemies and assimilate their powers, but he makes some automatic transformations when performing certain actions, like turning into a car when dashing or a submarine when swimming. The game will also enable cooperative play between two players. Perhaps the best news is that the game is being developed by Good Feel, the crew behind Wario Land: Shake It!, so we already know they can pull off a great Wii sidescroller. It looks great to me, and it’s fantastic to that we’re getting a 2D sidescrolling rendition. The art style is also really cool and special, something that can really give a game some great character (see: Yoshi’s Island).

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is set for release this fall on the Nintendo Wii.

If you look above, you can see the first production still of Andrew Lincoln as The Walking Dead‘s lead character Rick Grimes. In other news, Chandler Riggs has been cast in one of the most important roles, Rick’s son Carl. Hopefully the production has a strategy in place to deal with the inevitable growing Riggs will do between seasons, unlike Lost and Walt for instance.

Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist) is the writer and director of the pilot and will continue to be the main creative driver of the series, which is based on Robert Kirkman’s comics series. The story begins with police officer Rick Grimes waking up in a hospital to find the world around him devastated by a zombie apocalypse. He sets off to find his wife and son, with events spiraling from there. Unlike most zombie stories that take place over the course of just a few days, The Walking Dead comics follows a group of survivors over the course of months, dealing with the long-term issues of a ruined civilization. So it’s not just about finding a safe house for a short time, but finding permanent residences, sustainable food sources, creating a working community, etc.

The series stars Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes), Chandler Riggs (Carl Grimes), Jon Bernthal (Shane), Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale), Steven Yeun (Glenn), Laurie Holden (Andrea) and more yet to be announced cast members.

The Walking Dead will begin its six episode first season on AMC in October.

The first trailer is up at Apple for Never Let Me Go, Mark Romanek’s (One Hour Photo) sophomore film based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. The film stars Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, Sally Hawkins, Charlotte Rampling, Andrea Riseborough, Nathalie Richard, Ella Purnell, Isobel Meikle-Small and Charlie Rowe. Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine) wrote the screenplay.

I quite liked the novel and I’m a fan of Romanek’s directing, so this is a majorly anticipated film for me. Hopefully everything translates to the screen well enough. Romanek certainly scored some great actors for the lead roles, that’s for sure.

I’ll leave you with the novel’s book jacket description:

From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly re-imagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.

As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.

And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed–even comforted–by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now.

A tale of deceptive simplicity, Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance–and takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro’s finest work.

Fox Searchlight will release Never Let Me Go on October 1st.

Comics Continuum also says that the previously confirmed Green Arrow short film, expected on the release of Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, is written by Greg Weisman (producer of the upcoming Young Justice show). That release is expected in September.

Back in late April, DC Comics animation producer Bruce Timm told Think McFly Think that a sequel to the direct-to-video animated movie Green Lantern: First Flight wasn’t on their schedule because sales had been only been slow but steady, and even though it was profitable it wasn’t up to what Warner Bros wanted. Now, a little over a month later, Warner Bros told investors that a “made-for-video” Green Lantern product would arrive in June 2011 as part of the character’s big yearlong push, spearheaded around the live-action film. So which is it? Do plans change that quickly over there or is this not an original product and it’s just some sort of repackaging? The latter would seem like an odd thing to single out to investors as a significant merchandising element alongside the games, summer blockbuster movie and TV series, so it seems like we’ll be getting a new DC Comics animated movie for Green Lantern next June. This isn’t overly surprising given the obvious marketing possibilities and that Warner Bros previously had Batman: Gotham Knight ready to go around the release of The Dark Knight, but it’s weird given the recent comments Bruce Timm made. One way or another, it looks like one way or another we’ll be seeing an animated Green Lantern next June.

Before then, the other DC Comics DTV movies include Batman: Under the Red Hood, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and presumably a February/March release next year.

Here’s a variety of news bits about Disney and Pixar’s future slates that I’ve neglected to comment on in the last couple months that I’ve still wanted to point out. So here we go.

• Pixar’s The Bear and the Bow was renamed Brave, which was apparently the film’s early codename. The film is written and directed by Brenda Chapman (The Prince of Egypt). The movie’s logline: “In rugged and mythic Scotland, the impetuous, tangle-haired Merida (Reese Witherspoon), though a daughter of royalty, would rather make her mark as an archer. A clash of wills with her mother compels Merida to make a reckless choice, which unleashes unintended peril on her father’s kingdom and her mother’s life. Merida struggles with the unpredictable forces of nature, magic and a dark ancient curse.” Brave will be released on June 15th, 2012.
• Pixar’s newt has reportedly been canceled, or at least shelved for the time being. That project was being directed by Gary Rydstrom (Lifted).
• Monsters, Inc 2 is officially happening, and targeted for a November 16th, 2012 release date. Absolutely no details have been revealed, but my bet is on Bob Peterson being the director.
• Cars 2 has returned to its June 24th, 2011 release date after a brief delay to that December.
• Disney has seemingly revived Joe Jump as Reboot Ralph. This project has been in various stages of development for about a decade. It was originally shepherded by Sam Levine, but has undergone major changes as Rich Moore (The Simpsons, Futurama) stepped in with his own take on the material, hence the new title. Reboot Ralph is set for March 22nd, 2013.
• Disney’s King of the Elves, based on one of Philip K. Dick’s forays into fantasy, has been pulled from the release schedule for retooling. Like a lot of projects at Disney, we’ll probably see this one again, sooner or later.
• Discovery Channel will be premiering a special called Reign of the Dinosaurs that involves “top creative talent” from Disney and Pixar to bring to life the most recent paleontological discoveries while involving some kind of “Hollywood storytelling.” It’s not very clear what kind of special this is or what roles Disney and Pixar are playing. This is set for the 2010-11 season at some point.

With all that said, here’s the known schedule for animated films from Disney and Pixar:

• Toy Story 3 (June 18th, 2010)
• Tangled (limited – November 12, 2010, wide – November 24th, 2010)
• Cars 2 (June 24th, 2011)
• Winnie the Pooh (July 15th, 2011)
• Frankenweenie (November 2011)
• Brave (June 15th, 2012)
• Monsters, Inc 2 (November 16th, 2012)
• Reboot Ralph (March 22nd, 2013)

Disney revealed to Reuters that the company plans to produce and release up to four Toy Story short films a year. Naturally, this is at least in part to keep the franchise in public view because of the massive amount of money Toy Story merchandising brings in. Andy Mooney, head of Disney’s consumer products division, says the shorts will remain thematically similar to the movies, unlike the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command Disney TV series that followed Buzz’s exploits as a fictional space hero. He added that “the strength of the property rests on the relationship between the core characters,” so it seems likely we’ll see lots of the core characters. Each short would be less than seven minutes long, similar to the Cars short films. It’s unclear whether the films’ voice actors will be contributing to these shorts. Hopefully that can be worked out, because it’s hard to imagine other people bringing life to Woody and Buzz.

While not confirmed here, I would assume these short films will be produced at the freshly opened Vancouver expansion to Pixar’s operations. That branch was created to handle the offshoots to Pixar’s properties, like short films and video content for Disney’s amusement park attractions. Meanwhile the main Pixar offices in Emeryville will be focused on the feature films and the major theatrical short films.

It’s not clear when the first of these shorts would be finished or released, nor exactly what distribution methods would be used. The obvious possibilities would be simple web releases or appearances on the Disney Channel, but it’s also conceivable that Disney could leverage them by pairing ‘em up with other theatrical feature releases. It’ll likely be combination of those, as previously seen with the Cars Toons series of shorts.

Until then, Toy Story 3 arrives in just a short while on June 18th.

Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist) is the writer and director of the pilot and will continue to be the main creative driver of the series, which is based on Robert Kirkman’s comics series. The story begins with police officer Rick Grimes waking up in a hospital to find the world around him devastated by a zombie apocalypse. He sets off to find his wife and son, with events spiraling from there. Unlike most zombie stories that take place over the course of just a few days, The Walking Dead comics follows a group of survivors over the course of months, dealing with the long-term issues of a ruined civilization. So it’s not just about finding a safe house for a short time, but finding permanent residences, sustainable food sources, creating a working community, etc.

The series stars Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes), Jon Bernthal (Shane), Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale), Steven Yeun (Glenn), Laurie Holden (Andrea) and more yet to be announced cast members.

The Walking Dead will begin its six episode first season on AMC in October.