Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg have landed the directing duties on Pirates of the Caribbean 5.

Ronning and Sandberg may not be household names as of yet, but they did receive a Best Foreign Film Oscar nod recently for Kon-Tiki, another story that happened to be set on the water. For those of you unfamiliar with the rigors of directing stories involving a lot of water, it can quickly reduce a directo to tears, so having experience definitely helps.

No word yet on what the plot of the fifth film will be, but Johnny Depp is set to reprise the roll of Capt. Jack Sparrow, so it’s sure to be… something? Who knows. The fourth film was panned pretty harshly, but it still went on to earn $1.043 billion globally off of a $250 million dollar budget.

Pirates of the Caribbean 5 will hit theaters on July 10, 2015.

Hot on the footsteps of two Autobot cars making their Transformers 4 debut comes the completely redesigned Optimus Prime alt mode.

Someone shoot me now.

MichaelBay.com has debuted the redesigned Optimus Prime for the fourth Transformers film, Western Star (a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks North America) has built this custom truck to be the new body of the leader of the Autobots. You can click on it for a slightly larger view.

As much as this design annoys the hell out of me, it somewhat follows suit with what Hasbro has done with the toy in the past when they needed to do a redesign. Does it make it any less silly? No. But, this is a Michael Bay film… what do you expect?

Transformers 4 will be released June 27, 2014.

Transformers movies have turned into a bit of a car show, and it seems that won’t change with Transformers 4.

Michael Bay has begun principal photography on the fourth installment in his Transformers film series in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Arizona, and what better way to kick things off than with some hero shots of two of the new cars that the Autobots will transform into? Plot be damned.

Yahoo Movies unveiled the first two pictures on Tuesday night, but don’t think you’ll learn which characters are which cars. Up top you have the C7 Corvette Stingray, which if I was to bet, this will be Sideswipe as he was a Singray variant in the last two films.

The second car (below) is a Bugatti Grand Sport Vitesse, because nothing says hiding amongst the vehicles of Earth quite like taking on the shape of a $2.4 million dollar sports car.

Transformers 4 will be released June 27, 2014. Expect a lot more vehicle pics between now and then.

No matter how of a laugh people had at the idea of a movie based on the Troll dolls, the project is moving forward with the announcement today of a director, plot and a release date.

Mike Mitchell (Sky High, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked) will be sitting in the director’s chair, while Erica Rivinoja (South Park, Up All Night) will take up the writing duties. ”Mike and Erica are the perfect team to reimagine this film,” said Chief Creative Officer Bill Damaschke.  ”Mike’s pedigree in shaping stories with already beloved characters is second to none, and Erica’s amazing sense of comedy will introduce the Trolls to a new generation of fans while keeping the spirit and appeal audiences have loved for years.”

As for the plot? Well, it will “be a grand scale musical comedy centering around how the Trolls came into their vibrant and colorful hair.”

I’m not kidding. That somehow passes for a plot these days.

I normally don’t like to cheer for failure, but this movie needs to fail. It needs to be a lesson to Hollywood about licensing any old project.

Trolls will hit theaters on Nov. 4, 2016.

On an overly crowded holiday weekend, some very fast cars were able to weave their way to the top of the box office.

With two franchises launching new installments this weekend, it was anyone’s guess as to which would come out on top, by Fast & Furious 6 show to number one easily for the biggest opening weekend yet for the franchise. The sixth installment in this fast-car-turned-heist-films series opened with $98.5 million, coming in with $12 million more than 2011′s Fast Five. Globally the film has already taken in over $275 million and looks set to become the top grossing film in the franchise, beating out the previous installment’s $626.1 million global take. Guess it’s a good thing the seventh film is already in pre-production.

As for some contrast, The Hangover III had the worst opening weekend yet in the franchise, which probably makes it a good thing this has already been announced to be the last film in “the trilogy.” Following some dismal reviews, the third film took in $42.4 million this weekend, and now stands at $54.2 million when you count in its Thursday opening. It  sounds like a decent amount, but seeing as The Hangover II took in $117 million in its first four days, you start to see the issue.

Star Trek Into Darkness came in third with $38 million, representing a healthy 45.8 percent slide from its opening weekend. It now stands at $146.8 million after 11 days, only $6 million behind the 2009 film at the same point, so it’s holding well.

Fox’s new animated film Epic opened in fourth place $34.2 million. Not great, but not horrible either. It should also do well today with the holiday.

Rounding out the top five was Iron Man 3 with $19.4 million. That brings its domestic total to $367.5 million, making it the highest grossing film in the series by $49 million. Globally it now stands at $1.1 billion and is the fifth highest grossing film of all time.

Overall it was a good weekend at the box office with it being the best Memorial Day weekend ever. That has to be making some execs smile as last year it looked like the summer was doomed with Men in Black 3 disappointing as the lead film.

Next weekend sees the releases of After Earth and Now You See Me.

Curious how I think these new films will do? Check out my second quarter films of 2013 predictions.

Appearing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last week, Joss Whedon gave some insight into why he chose to include the sibling pair of Scarlet With and Quicksilver in The Avengers 2.

Whedon had already confirmed the inclusion of the the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, but he got into why he thought they were good ones to include in the follow-up to the third highest grossing film of all time.

Well, besides the fact that I grew up reading them, their powers are very visually interesting. One of the problems I had on the first one was, everybody basically had punchy powers. ‘I can hit,’ ‘I can also hit.’ Hopefully it didn’t get too boring. But coming into the second one, he’s got super speed. She can weave spells and a little telekinesis, get inside your head. There’s good stuff that they can do that will help sort of keep it fresh.

He raises a good point about the “punchy powers,” and both those characters will definitely add some new excitement to the franchise with their visually impressive powers. Will they add a good enough story element, though? Well, if they play them as they are in the books, they should as both of them – Quicksilver in particular – always added tension to the team.

We’ll find out when The Avengers 2 hits theaters on  May 1, 2015.

The 2012-2013 television season has drawn to a close, and it’s time to sort out the numbers. Some will surprise you, because they certainly did me.

One key thing you need to remember, if you are not between the ages of 18 to 49, no one really cares if you’re watching TV. It may sting to know this, but it’s the truth. So this first table deals with how each show did in the demographic.

Due to the length of these lists, you’ll find them after the jump.

Continue Reading ->

What happens when two film companies own the right to the same character? Competitive casting!

Joss Whedon recently confirmed that the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver would be appearing in The Avengers 2. And oddly enough it was announced on Thursday that Evan Peters had been cast as Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Say what?

For those unfamiliar with the quagmire that is the rights to the X-Men films, Marvel sold the rights years before it started making its own movies. So long as Fox continues to keep the characters active, the rights will not revert back to Marvel, so you have two competing film universes right now: The Marvel Cinematic Universe – Iron, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers – and the 20th Century Fox X-Men films. So while you see characters crossing films, they are only crossing films inside of their own universes.

As I explained when the rumor of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver showing up in The Avengers 2, these two particular characters have their film rights co-owned due to how they reside in the Marvel comic universe. Whedon teased and then confirmed his intentions to use them in the follow-up to The Avengers.

Now enter Bryan Singer. The director of the upcoming X-Men film has been making numerous casting announcements on his Twitter account, and on Thursday he announced the inclusion of Quicksilver… and then by Thursday night changed things up a bit.

Singer’s original tweet read:

Before he was an #Avenger, he was just a REALLY fast kid. Thrilled to say #EvanPeters is joining #XMen #DaysOfFuturePast as #Quicksilver

See what he did there? Nice little dig, but later in the day that tweet disappeared.

The original message was later deleted and replaced with:

Thrilled to say #EvanPeters is joining #XMen #DaysOfFuturePast as #Quicksilver.

Oops, did someone get in trouble?

Honestly, and this is just me spitballing here, I think this is a lousy move on Fox’s part. The only way I can keep from thinking this was a spiteful move was if Quicksilver plays a huge role in the plot that makes it obvious he wasn’t an afterthought. If he’s just kind of “there,” then it will be obvious they just wanted to thumb their nose at Marvel. Remember, Days of Future Past is due for release next summer while The Avengers 2 isn’t due until May 2015. They had a film in production where they could legally use him, they could beat Marvel to the screen, and I think they just wanted to be spiteful.

I could be wrong, but something tells me I’m not. You’re now going to have confused audiences, and they will be the only actual losers in this.

The ever growing cast of Days of Future Past is listed below.

X-Men: Days of Future Past Cast

• James McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier (young)
• Michael Fassbender as Magneto (young)
• Sir Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier (old)
• Sir Ian McKellen as Magneto (old)
• Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine
• Anna Paquin as Rogue
• Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe/Storm
• Daniel Cudmore as Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin/Colossus
• Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme/Mystique
• Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat
• Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake/Iceman
• Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast
• Evan Peters as Quicksilver
• Fan Bingbing as Blink
• Peter Dinklage as ?
• Omar Sy as ?
• Booboo Stewart as ?

It’s time to up the ante on the action aspects of the new Man of Steel film promotions.

While previous trailers have focused on the story of how Kal-El will make a home on Earth, this new one is all about the challenge he will face in the form of General Zod. Can he take on some of the most vile criminals to ever exist on Krypton? I guess we’ll find out.

I go back and forth on how exited I am for this film, but I have to say the trailers sell it much better than any of the still photos they release.

Man of Steel hits theaters on June 14.

I’m always a sucker for when films dig into their own technology and mythology. Leave it to Guillermo del Toro to dive deep into how his giant robots will work in Pacific Rim.

How do the two pilots per robot coordinate? Learn all about the neural handshake and what it means to “drift.” Yep, I’m a sucker for fake technology… and a movie about giant robots and monsters.

Pacific Rim hits theaters on July 12.

The latest trailer for The Wolverine goes a bit deeper into the emotional arc of the film while also, finally, showing us a quick shot of the Silver Samurai.

While X-Men Origins: Wolverine was, well, really bad, this second solo film is showing some promise. While it’s clear some changes have been made to the source material of the Japan saga, it’s still looking pretty darn good.  Lets just hope it really is.

The Wolverine open July 26.

Just because you take the top spot at the box office doesn’t mean everyone will be celebrating.

Star Trek Into Darkness took the top spot at the box office this weekend with $70.5 million, and a four day cume of $84 million, well under the projected $100 million. The film is doing well overseas, up an amazing 80 percent overseas from the 2009 original, but domestically something was definitely off, Most of the speculation surrounds the revelation of a major spoiler that tainted the excitement of die-hard fans of the franchise. We’ll have to see how this pans out.

Second place went to Iron Man 3 with $35.1 million, which brings its domestic total to $337 million. It passed $1 billion globally this week, making it the sixth Disney film to do so out of the 14 total that have reached those loft heights.

The Great Gatsby landed in third with $23.4 million, a 53.2 percent slide from last weekend, and its domestic total now stands at $90.1 million.

Pain and Gain found itself in fourth place with $3.1 million, which brings its domestic total to $46.5 million off of a $26 million dollar budget.

Round out the top five was The Croods with another $2.75 million.

Next week sees three major releases with The Hangover Part III, Epic and Fast & Furious 6. Expect an all out fight for the top spot.

Curious how I think these new films will do? Check out my second quarter films of 2013 predictions.