MOVIE ROUNDUP (Chappie, Guardians of Galaxy, & Ronda Rousey)

MOVIE ROUNDUP

CHAPPIE

Elysium has hit theaters in the US recently and will soon becoming to cinemas right here in SA, but director Neil Blomkamp already has his eye on his next feature film, called Chappie.

Sony Pictures has announced Blomkamp will begin filming this October. As well as Directing, Blomkamp has written the screenplay with Terri Tatchell and will be producing alongside Simon Kinberg.

Chappie tells the story of a robot imbued with artificial intelligence who is stolen by two local gangsters who want to use him for their own nefarious purposes.

The film will star Sharlto Copley as the voice of Chappie, with Ninja and Yolandi Visser, rap-rave duo Die Antwoord, as the two gangsters.

VIN DIESEL ON MARVEL AND SCI-FI

Last Sunday Vin posted a pic of Groot, a member of Guardians of the Galaxy up on his Facebook page, since the film is already filming and the voice of Groot hasn’t been confirmed, many fans took this as confirmation that Vin Diesel would be the voice of Groot in the Guardians of the Galaxy film.

Diesel spoke with The L.A. Times about the role and his ongoing social media presence.

"I’m an actor," the Furious Six star tells the outlet. "Not everything has to be the most obvious choice. And sometimes, the best thing you can do — as far as Steven Spielberg and his advice — is to defy expectations. So if everybody thinks you’re going to go for this one thing and you flip it entirely and go for the strangest Marvel character, it’s interesting. And when something is interesting, it’s inspiring."

Diesel goes on to explain that, while fans speculated that Marvel Studios might not be happy with his social media teases, the reality is rather different.

"The last thing they are is mad," he says. "I’m pretty open, but I have been secretive about this. I went to Comic-Con and I got blasted while I was on the Hall H panel for 'Riddick.' Someone asked a Marvel question. I couldn’t say anything because of that secrecy."

Fans have been speculating for months, who Vin might be playing within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and even now many believe that he could in fact be voicing Rocket Raccoon! Thee most badass Raccoon who will ever see!

Guardians of the Galaxy, which also stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, Benicio del Toro, John C. Reilly and Glenn Close, is now shooting, targeting an August 1, 2014 release.

In other Vin Diesel news, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Vin is now set to lead Soldiers of the Sun, an original spec script from Arash Amel (Grace of Monaco) designed to become a potential series at Universal Pictures.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future, Soldiers of the Sun follows a group of soldiers who do battle with Orcs (said to be an alien race) as they search for a legendary city of gold in Mexico.

Universal is also home to Diesel's similarly ensemble-fueled The Fast & the Furious franchise. The seventh film in the record-breaking franchise is being directed by James Wan (The Conjuring) and will hit theaters July 11, 2014.

EXPENDABLES 3

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Mel Gibson and Antonio Banderas will appear in Expendables 3. Gibson will indeed be playing the villain of the film, as it was speculated for a couple of months, while Banderas role hasn’t been confirmed.

Glen Powell has also been confirmed for a role in the film. He'll play a military hacker and drone expert in the ensemble sequel.

The cast currently includes Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Kellan Lutz, Victor Ortiz and Ronda Rousey. Ronda by the way, has signed on Expendables 3 as well as Fast and Furious 7 both films will be filming soon, so it will be a hectic few months for the UFC champion.  

 The film set to shoot soon in Los Angeles, rumored additional cast members have been said to include Jackie Chan, Wesley Snipes, Nicolas Cage and Milla Jovovich, although none have been, as of yet, confirmed.

Ronda Rousey 

Both Banderas and Gibson will also appear in Machete Kills, which will be released on October 11.

The Expendables 3 will be directed by Patrick Hughes and is scheduled to arrive in theaters on August 15, 2014.

MOVIE ROUNDUP (Thor, DiCaprio and Expendables 3)

MOVIE ROUNDUP 

Here is some of the latest and hottest news to come out this week!

THE FUTURE OF MARVEL… THAT THOR TRAILER!

Since their beginning Marvel has always looked to the future to plan what comes next even before their present obligations have been fully realized.

We already know that there will be Two Marvel films in 2016 and one in 2017, yet there still no word on what those films might be. Nevertheless Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige says they've got things mapped out even further down the road.

"I could arguably say what we're planning for the year 2021," Feige told WIRED. "Will that happen? I don't know. But what we planned for 2015 in 2006 is happening." Marvel's 2015 plans include Avengers: Age of Ultron and the long awaited Ant-Man feature.

Feige also teased further expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with future films. "Five years ago, looking at our plan, we knew that if Avengers was going to work, the movies had to stand alone," he says. "Now we have to prove to the studio that we're more than just these five characters, these five franchises."

It has been hinted in the past that Marvel has plans for new characters in Phase Three like Doctor Strange and The Black Panther, while many fans have been eagerly waiting to hear Marvel announce a Captain Marvel and Heroes for Hire feature.

In other Marvel related news, a new Trailer for THOR: THE DARK WORLD released, and MAN! IT LOOKS GOOD!

Check it out below

Chris Hemsworth returns as Thor Natalie Portman, Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Kat Dennings, and Jaimie Alexander all return as their respective characters as well. New additions are Zachary Levi as Fandral and Christopher Eccleston as Malekith.

WHATS NEXT FOR LEONARDO DICAPRIO

Leonardo DiCaprio is set to produce and potentially star in King Harald, a historical biopic about Harald Hardrada, the 11th century Viking king.

DiCaprio, who recently appeared in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained and Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, reteamed with Martin Scorsese for The Wolf of Wall Street, which would be releasing a little later this year.

Leonardo DiCaprio has also been said to be in talks for a live-action, Hollywood adaptation of Robotech. Latino Review reports that Leo turned down a role in Star Wars: Episode 7 to potentially star in this Robotech adaption.

This certainly isn’t the first time that Leonardo has been linked to an anime adaption, as he has been in talks to produce Ninja Scroll as well as produce and potentially star in an Akira adaption, in the past.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

"Brightest set I've ever filmed on," Singer tweets, following with the hashtags, "#3600framespersecond #Quicksilver"

It appears that, to capture Evan Peters'  (aka Quicksilver) turn as the fast-moving son of Magneto, Singer is capturing footage in extreme slow motion. The end result of 3600 frames per second will appear 150 times slower than standard film and, as such, requires significantly more lighting to expose each frame. Although it's hard to see exactly what he's filming, you can check the basic setup in Singer's image below.

Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore, Peter Dinklage, Omar Sy, Halle Berry, Daniel Cudmore, Fan Bingbing and Boo Boo Stewart also star in the mutant ensemble, set for release July 18, 2014.

EXPENDABLES 3

Stallone tweeted recently that Harrison Ford would be making his debut in the latest Expendable film, with Bruce Willis exiting the franchise.

Stallone stated that he has “been waiting years for this” re: working with Ford 

Stallone followed the news up with a tweet that appears to be aimed squarely at Willis: “GREEDY AND LAZY... A SURE FORMULA FOR CAREER FAILURE.” 

Red Hill director Patrick Hughes is poised to direct the sequel with a cast that includes Jackie Chan, Nicolas Cage, Wesley Snipes, Kellan Lutz, and Milla Jovovich. There have been rumours that Mel Gibson will be playing the villain, but nothing has come of that as yet.

Production on Expendables 3 should begin later this year or early next year, as the film is slated for release on August 15, 2014.

THE WOLVERINE

Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) was originally supposed to helm the latest Wolverine adventure, alas he passed on the film and as a result James Mangold took the reigns.

Recently Aronosfky tweeted

With James Mangold replying,

Awww isn’t that lovely! The Wolverine got Aronofsky’s approval, as well as my own, CLICK HERE FOR MY REVIEW.

Definitely an awesome film, I suggest you check it out, and if you did already check it out again! 

MOVIE NEWS ROUNDUP 1 (AVENGERS, X-FORCE & MORE)

MOVIE NEWS

The latest roundup of the hottest news to come out over the last couple of Days!

AVENGERS

The Avengers Age of Ultron will be coming to us in 2015 which means 2015 will be one awesome year for movie, and comic book fans alike.

Joss Whedon recently confirmed that Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch would be in the $1.5Billion dollar sequel, but with another chick added to the mix what would happen to the red haired assassin Black Widow?

 Whedon recently spoke with Nerd HQ (via MTV) and revealed that Scarlett Johansson would have a lot to play with this time around:

“Natasha is a huge part of the sequel because you do want to concentrate on the people who don’t have their own franchises. Although she in Cap 2, [and] she’s great. She was the most fun for me because she’s not a hero, you know, and it’s something that I read—and I feel bad that I can’t remember who wrote the book—but it’s in one of the books explaining, ‘These guys are heroes, you are a spy. It’s a different thing—it’s a different skill set—and you don’t have their moral high ground or any of that good stuff.’ And that just makes her so interesting to me. So yeah, the stuff I’ve got going on with her in the second one is killer.”

 

Whedon also revealed that Jeremy Renner would be getting a lot more screen time as Hawkeye, as this time Whedon looks to have a lot more fun scripting the character.

In a different interview, this time with Total Film, Whedon spoke a little about ULTRON:

“I was pitching Ultron before I took the job on the first movie. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this, but for the second one, you should totally do Ultron.’ Because he’s been a thorn in their side as much as any other character over the years and particularly back in my history.

He was great. He’s somebody who can juice things up and he’s a real problem for the Avengers. That’s not always easy to find. It’s not like the Vulture is really going to give them a hard time for 20 minutes.”

So we all know that Quicksilver will be in Avengers 2,what we also know is that Aaron Johnson is being considered for the role, speaking with Collider, the Kick-Ass star confirmed that he'd been approached for the role and found it to be an "interesting" proposition.

"I feel really flattered and honoured that they came to me for that role," he said. "I think he’s an interesting character and we’re just going to keep going into that. I sat down with Joss, I think he’s awesome, I sat down with the guys at Marvel and they’re also great; I think it’d be interesting."

So there you have it! You got to wait a little while longer for more on Marvel!

BUTTERFLY EFFECT

In Dumbest news for the week, it looks like there will be a another Butterfly Effect film, and not its not a sequel, it’s a remake… I wish I were joking.

This is where it really gets depressing, Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber who wrote the original script, Variety is reporting that Bress is on board to script the reboot. So yes the original writer is writing a new version of the same story he got to put on the big screen 10 years ago. Talk about a one trick pony!

There’s no director attached at this point, and hopefully there will never be.

BEVERLY HILLS COP 4

Recently the Beverly Hills Cop TV series pilot was rejected, meaning the show would never be developed to play on TV for a full season unless some other network decided to pick it up! 

That unfortunately did not happen but what did happen is quite fortunate and really bizarre.

Deadline reports that Murphy’s performance “had people talking”, so naturally, Paramount is now developing a 4^th Beverly Hills Cop TV series with Josh Appelbaum & Andre Nemec (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) writing the script.

Guess it all worked out in the end!

X-FORCE

So just before the start of San Diego Comic Con news broke that an X-Force film is in development, my heart jumped out of my chest with pure excitement!

Since then we haven’t gotten much news about anything concerning the film really. Until recently, when Jeff Wadlow, director of KICK ASS 2, shared some of his thoughts:

"What ‘X-Force’ is – the way I talk about ‘X-Force’ is… ‘X-Men’ is about mutants, and not all the mutants get into the mansion. So I’m curious to tell a story about the mutants who don’t make it into the mansion."

He was then asked about who his favorite characters are in X-Force,

"Look, I’m a huge Deadpool fan, who doesn’t love Wolverine – but obviously Cable is an iconic character we haven’t seen onscreen yet. I love Psylocke, Domino is an amazing character – it’s a long list of characters that have appeared in ‘X-Force’ – Colossus is in the current lineup… There’s a lot of really exciting characters that you can use in ‘X-Force’ that have been in other movies, that haven’t shown up, or maybe there’s ways to re-imagine them, even though they might’ve shown up in other films."

My Personal line up includes CABLE, DOMINO, PSYLOCK, FANTOMEX and of course DEADPOOL! So far it looks like I’m 4/5, Colossus would be pretty cool if his in the film though, hopefully Daniel Cudmore gets to do a whole lot more then he ever did in the Original Trilogy!

But that’s all for today! Make sure to check back here for more!  

THE WORLDS FINEST (Comic Con 2013, Marvel, DC and Fox)

THE WORLDS FINEST 

 THE DREAM ITS REAL

When Avengers released we all shared the opinion that DC has fallen behind as Marvel was at full sprint building a shared universe of epic proportions.

This past weekend Marvel, Fox and DC had panels at Comic Con to showcase their latest projects and after 4, maybe 5 years of Marvel stealing the spotlight at Comic Con, DC and Fox Studios came flying out at full steam with their latest projects, Superman & Batman film, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, respectively.

Zoe Saldana at Guardians of the Galaxy Panel

Truthfully Marvel have nothing to fear, they have a SHIELD TV series that will be making its way to the small screen pretty soon, Thor: The Dark World will be releasing in November, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is constantly being touted as one of Marvel’s finest work, while Guardians of the Galaxy just looks like it will be some awesome crazy Sci-Fi fun.

The one big surprise that Marvel had was the announcement of the title for Avengers 2, now titled Avengers: Age of Ultron. Which was a pretty big deal confirming that the next story would feature Ultron as the main villain, with Vin Diesel possibly playing Ultron or Vision (if they decide to go that route). 

Tom Hiddleston as Loki at Comic Con

Ultron also hints at a possible appearance for Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, aka Ant-Man and Wasp, but we will have to wait and see if they will be in the film and if they will possibly suit up.

The other big surprise Marvel had was Tom Hiddleston coming to greet the Hall H crowd as Loki, in his full costume and character, which was pretty cool.

Fox on the other hand surprised the crowds by having a panel with the almost the entire cast of X-Men: Days of Future Past, which included……

Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore, Ellen Page, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Omar Sy, Evan Peters and Director Bryan Singer.

With an impressive cast like that, Days of Future Past could well be on its way to beating the Avengers and from the description that we read of the footage it could well be that Days of Future Past will be an instant classic! This was by the best Panel for fans and offered many surprises and was incredibly fun, you can catch footage of the panel on YouTube!

The Cast of First Class, Original Trilogy and the New X-men all in X-Men: Days of Future Past

Now onto the announcement that stole headlines all over the world, Zack Snyder announcing that the next Man of Steel film, will indeed feature Batman to finally put THE WORLDS FINEST on the big screen together!

This is an incredible decision by Snyder and Warner Bros. as they essentially just announced a Billion Dollar hit.

While this will not be the Batman from the Nolanverse, Nolan still keeping his name on the credits as an executive producer ensures us that Nolan has given Snyder his blessing for the most part!

This is an incredible move by Snyder will certainly have the world buzzing, for the simple reason that this is what people have been waiting since Superman made his way to the big screen in the 70’s. This is an event film by itself, with record breaking potential.

Henry Cavill as Man of Steel

Even though it wont be Nolan’s Batman, Batman is still a hot property, we have just witnessed one of the finest versions of Bruce that we will probably ever see, meaning that people could potentially be open to a new Batman as this time his first appearance will be with Superman instead of on his own. However, while The Dark Knight Trilogy was grounded in a pseudo reality that was made to mirror ours, this new Batman can take on some of those unwieldy aspects that wouldn’t work in Nolan’s films. We might get the detective, genius that we come to know Batman is in the comics.

We also know that Lex will probably be making an appearance, we also know that this film might bringing in Kryptonite and we also know that this film is drawing inspiration from The Dark Knight Returns, a comic written by Frank Miller. It tells the story of Bats coming out retirement to clean up the city, but his methods don’t go down well with Superman, and the two entire a battle of epic proportions.

We could see the film take a similar route, I for one think that we will see Lex publicly voice his concerns about Superman while Bruce publicly voices his approval of Superman, placing these two billionaires at each others throats, however as Batman, Bruce shares the same concerns that Lex brings up.

Who knows Batman might have been crusading in Gotham before Superman made his public appearance; Batman could even be the one investigating all these “Special” people from around the world. Batman might create profiles on all these heroes, who will eventually become the Justice League!  I’m just saying!! 

So while marvel resisting the urge to do team up films, as they want to prove that there characters are just as interesting on their own as when they are in a big ensemble film, DC looks like they may have a lot more fun building their Cinematic Universe, as THE WORLDS FINEST will prove.

Who knows maybe we get a Green Arrow & Green Lantern crossover film, The Trinity (Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman) and Teen Titans somewhere down the line. Who knows we will just have to wait and see.

All I know, DC is well on there way to make something that will be truly epic every step of the way, if Man of Steel is anything to go on by!

DC Starting to make fan wishes come true!

Let me know what you think and comment below