While I certainly don't subscribe to the recent fan theory that's been going around claiming Tom Hardy's Max from Mad Max: Fury Road is a grown-up version of the Feral Kid from The Road Warrior, here's a fan-created take on Fury Road I can get behind. YouTuber sundbergkr (via Kotaku) blends the worlds of Mad Max and Mario Kart into an apocalyptic racetrack, complete with mystery boxes, blue shells, and invincibility stars. Wario's whining (at least, it sounds to me like Wario) as "his" car gets ripped apart in a giant sandstorm hurricane is pretty perfect.

Wolf Creek director Greg McLean is directing The Belko Experiment, an action/horror thriller written by Guardians of the Galaxy writer/director James Gunn. Gunn, who is a vocal presence on social media, has been announcing the cast members for the movie on Facebook, including John Gallagher, Jr. (The Newsroom, Short Term 12), Melonie Diaz (Fruitvale Station), John C. McGinley (Scrubs), and Tony Goldwyn (Scandal).

Today, Gunn announced that his frequent collaborator Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Walking Dead, Slither, Cliffhanger) has joined the cast of the film, which revolves around an American company called Belko in South America that's mysteriously sealed off at the beginning of a work day, and its employees are ordered to kill each other or be killed themselves. As the violence escalates, the audience discovers the true nature of every Belko employee. Sounds pretty intense. Filming begins next month, so we'll keep our eyes peeled for more info in between now and then.

We've done three movies, two reality shows, a video game and a web series together, been on a bromantic trip to Paris...

Posted by James Gunn on Friday, May 22, 2015

Artist Tom Whalen has a show called Pulp Menagerie that begins today at the Mondo Gallery in Austin, Texas. Two of the pieces that will be on display are these cool-looking Daredevil screen prints, which are 24'' x 36''. I'm a big fan of Whalen's art and wish I was in Austin to see these pieces in person, but I guess I'll have to be content with looking at them from afar. I haven't had a chance to watch the Netflix Daredevil series yet, but hopefully I'll be able to catch up with some of it over the long weekend. We hope you all have a great Memorial Day.

Via: Xombiedirge

Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain had a fantastic first season that I enjoyed watching. FX has announced that vampire series will return with its second season on July 12th. From then on out you’ll be able to watch the show on Sundays at 10pm. 

The series is based on the horror thriller from del Toro and Chuck Hogan, and it was apparently the most-watched new cable drama of 2014. That's not really surprising, because of how good the show was.

As the second season unfolds, the transformation has begun. It can no longer be denied — New York City is rapidly falling to an evil epidemic, and no one is coming to its rescue. Its citizens must fight or die. Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) and his unlikely allies tried to take down the embodiment of this evil — the Master — and failed. Now Eph and Dr. Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro) concentrate on creating a biological weapon to wipe out the creatures, while Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley) searches for an ancient book he hopes will reveal the strigoi’s entire history…and possibly a way to kill them. Meanwhile, the Master is out for revenge, unleashing new and even more terrifying breeds of bloodthirsty creatures after our team. Our team must find a way to defeat him before the infection spreads too far and becomes irreparable … before they become monsters themselves.

I'm sure this season is going to be even better than the first.

A clip has been released for Blue Ruin director Jeremy Saulnier’s upcoming thriller called Green Room. I don’t know if you’ve seen Blue Ruin yet, but it was a great movie, and you should watch it on Netflix when you get a chance. Saulnier is a talented director, and this looks and sounds like a great follow-up film project.

The film stars Patrick Stewart as "the unflinching and industrial leader of a ferocious white supremacist fiefdom based in the Pacific Northwest." The story follows a group of down-on-their-luck punk rockers who “agree to a last-minute gig in a backwoods Oregon roadhouse only to find themselves caught in the crosshairs of a violent white-supremacist gang. After finishing their set in the no-name skinhead club, the band members stumble on a grisly murder scene and are targeted by a ruthless club owner and his henchmen, determined to eliminate all witnesses. Hopelessly outmanned and outgunned, the terrified musicians barricade themselves backstage to buy time for an escape attempt. As a heavily armed militia mounts a deadly assault, the survivors pull together in a last-ditch effort, surprising their opponents with unexpected ingenuity and courage.”

The film also stars a great cast that includes Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner, Mark Webber, and Macon Blair. There’s no U.S. release date yet, but it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last week, and it was met by several positive reviews. It seems like a movie that’s definitely worth checking out. 

Here’s a crazy, cool-looking Jack Skellington cosplay from Nightmare Before Christmas that turned out to be pretty damn terrifying. The costume was brought to life by Redditor platnumcy, and he’ll be sporting the costume at Denver Comic Con this weekend. If you’re going to attend the event, make sure to keep a look out for this guy!

Via: Geeks Are Sexy

Disney has released a couple new clips for Pixar’s incredible-looking animated feature Inside Out. The movie has been getting nothing but rave reviews by people who have seen it. Pixar sure does have a knack for telling great stories.

The first clip introduces us to the emotion characters Anger and Disgust. The other clip centers on long term memory functions.

Growing up can be a bumpy road, and it’s no exception for Riley, who is uprooted from her Midwest life when her father starts a new job in San Francisco. Like all of us, Riley is guided by her emotions –Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). The emotions live in Headquarters, the control center inside Riley’s mind, where they help advise her through everyday life. As Riley and her emotions struggle to adjust to a new life in San Francisco, turmoil ensues in Headquarters. Although Joy, Riley’s main and most important emotion, tries to keep things positive, the emotions conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.

The movie was directed by Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc., Up) and it hits theaters on June 19th.

The Empire has evolved in the Star Wars universe with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. They are now known as The First Order, and as you've seen in the trailers, the Stormtroopers have been given a sleek, cool new look. 

During an interview with Vanity Fair, costume designer Michael Kaplan spoke about coming up with the new Stormtrooper look, and revealed that when creating them, he was inspired by Apple and the Nazis. When asked if J.J. Abrams used any of the original costumes from the original trilogy, Kaplan said:

"We didn’t use anything, but I went up to George Lucas’s archives—huge building—and just spent a day going through sketches and looking just to get the tone of the movie, you know, in my guts and veins so that when I went to London I felt equipped and inspired, which I certainly did.

"But the old stormtroopers uniforms would not be usable. Audiences of today have become so sophisticated that a lot of things you could get away with in the past, you can’t anymore. So the new uniforms are much heavier. Also, the action in the film required them to not be “VacuFormed” [like the old uniforms] as those all broke and cracked. These new ones are much more heavy-duty, but they are redesigned, too, they’re not the same stormtroopers."

He then went on to reveal how he came up with the new designs:

"Maybe subconsciously, but with the stormtroopers it was more of a simplification, almost like, 'What would Apple do?' J.J. wanted them to look like stormtroopers at a glance but also be different enough to kind of wow people and get them excited about the new design."

As for the Nazi inspiration, he explained the look saying it gave the Stormtroopers a "slicked back and very hard-lined" look. He went on to say that Nazi thing was "always there with the Empire." He then talks about what Abrams was looking for in the new look: 

"Everything was a conversation with J.J., of course. He wanted to hold on to the uniqueness and not get too far away from the stormtroopers, keep that iconic look, but still have 30 years of difference. I mean, it would be a little odd to have the same stormtroopers this much later when Leia and Han are so much older."

I love the new Stormtrooper design! They are extremely cool, and it's good to get a little background on how the look came about. 

Artist Dan Mora created this cool piece of Batman fan art. It shows us what Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy would have looked like in the style of Bruce Timm, who gave us Batman: The Animated Series. 

Paramount Pictures has released a new TV spot for Terminator Genisys, which gives us even more footage from the film that involves Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator and Emilia Clarke's Sarah Connor being interrogated by the police.

Terminator Genisys is the first of a new planned trilogy from Paramount. The movie is set in 2029, "when the Future War is raging and a group of human rebels has the evil artificial-intelligence system Skynet on the ropes. John Connor (Clarke) is the leader of the resistance, and Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is his loyal soldier, raised in the ruins of post apocalyptic California. As in the original film, Connor sends Reese back to 1984 to save Connor’s mother, Sarah (Clarke), from a Terminator programmed to kill her so that she won’t ever give birth to John. But what Reese finds on the other side is nothing like he expected."

The film also stars J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi, Matthew Smith, Courtney B. Vance, and Byung-Hun Lee. It's being directed by Alan Taylor, and the movie will hit theaters on July 1st, 2015.

So there seems to have been a bashing of Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof’s Disney sci-fi film Tomorrowland on Twitter. I actually really enjoyed the movie, and you can read my review for it here. In an interview with Vulture, Lindelof talks about the reactions that he’s seen for the film, and says that fanboys won’t admit to liking the movie because they want to appear cynical and cool. He explains:

"There's this great thing in all of us where we want to hope, we want to believe. But then what happens? We saw that hope with Obama's first election … and then, with the second election, the cynicism sets in. We all want to be activated, but... it's so easy to default back to cynicism. 

"Which isn't to say that you have to love everything. Obviously, we have to open ourselves up to some level of criticism. But when we all took this on, people were saying, 'You can't make an original movie anymore, and you certainly can't make an interesting Disney movie. If you make a Disney movie named Tomorrowland, it's gotta have Space Mountain, and you basically have to sell tickets to the amusement park.'"

"Now, I don't want to start a war, but as a self-identified fanboy, I think that with this movie, it's gonna be really hard for fanboys to say, 'I really enjoyed this movie. It made me feel good.' God forbid you tweeted something like that! What would happen to you? You'd lose your readership! 'You sold out!'"

When I attended the press conference for the film, I noticed a lot of cynicism while I was listening to people of the press talk about the movie. I didn't know what in the hell they were talking about! The movie was actually incredibly fun.

I got into this business because I love movies so much. If I ever stop liking movies, and can’t enjoy a fun film like Tomorrowland for what it is, where’s the fun in doing what I do? I like a lot of movies because this is the attitude I have when I watch movies. Of course there are some movies that I don’t like that I can’t help but go off on. I didn’t see anything like that in Tomorrowland. I guess some people just have fun bashing on movies. To each their own. 

Artist Jeff Victor started up his “Evolution” art series again, and in this illustration we get the evolution of legendary actor John Hurt. The guy has starred in some amazing films over the years that many of us love. Here’s a note from Victor regarding the piece and his thoughts on the actor:

One of the most versatile and talented thespians of his generation, John Hurt has been turning out one amazing performance after another for decades. Probably best known as Kane, the first victim of the xenomorph in Alien, he’s well known to a whole new generation of younger viewers from his roles in movies like Harry Potter, Hellboy, and Indiana Jones 4. This is my tribute to a brilliant actor. 

UPDATE: Got an email this morning from John Hurt’s personal assistant. Apparently he saw the illustration and wants a print. Ok, that just completely made my day! O_O

In celebration of the 35th anniversary of Pac-Man, a clip has been released from the upcoming film Pixels, which is about an army of classic video game characters attacking the world. The clip itself is an extended version of the scene we saw in the trailer, in which Pac-Man’s creator walks up to ghost-eating character to try and reason with it. As you know, Pac-Man ends up biting his arm. The clip basically shows us more of what leads up to that scene. 

When intergalactic aliens misinterpret video-feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war against them, they attack the Earth, using the games as models for their various assaults. President Will Cooper (Kevin James) has to call on his childhood best friend, '80s video game champion Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler), now a home theater installer, to lead a team of old-school arcaders (Peter Dinklage & Josh Gad) to defeat the aliens and save the planet. Michelle Monaghan plays the team's unique weapons specialist.

Below the clip, you will find a whole press release involving events that will take place on Pac-Man's 35th birthday. Pixels will be released on July 24th.

On May 22, 2015, Pac-Man – one of the most iconic videogame characters in history – will celebrate his 35th birthday. With the character coming to the big screen this summer in Sony Pictures’ Pixels, the studio is joining in to celebrate with a global birthday party of epic proportions. In cities around the world and online, film talent will join with moviegoers and special guests to celebrate with birthday cakes, free play of the Pac-Man arcade game, and special events localized to each city. The studio has also released a new clip from the film, which you can watch below!

Moviegoers around the world can join in Pac-Man’s birthday fun at Facebook.com/PixelsMovie to watch and share the latest Pixels trailer and to receive updates on the launch of the Pixels Defense mobile game from Bandai Namco Entertainment America that will feature Pac-Man and other video game characters from the movie.

In Tokyo – the city of Pac-Man’s birth – audiences will join in the fun by attempting to break the Guinness World Records title for the Largest Human Image of Pac-Man on May 21, 2015. At the event at Tokyo Tower, actor Shingo Yanagisawa and popular comedian and social media sensation Naomi Watanabe will join hundreds of moviegoers to create the largest Pac-Man ever created by human beings.

In Chicago, Professor Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, and Bandai Namco Entertainment will be at Level 257, a brand-new dining and entertainment facility created by Namco USA inspired by Pac-Man. A special 1980s-style event on Friday evening from 7pm-midnight will include gaming industry VIPs, free game play including a chance to play the fabled 255th and 256th levels of Pac-Man, Pac-Man’s official 35th birthday cake, live performances of the 1982 hit song “Pac-Man Fever” by the original artist, Jerry Buckner of Buckner & Garcia and a personal appearance by Pac-Man himself. The celebration continues the next day with celebrity discussion panels, photo opportunities, prizes and game play contests including opportunities to play against the legendary gamer Billy Mitchell, the first person to ever achieve a “perfect score” on Pac-Man.

In partnership with Dave & Buster’s, all 75 locations across North America will celebrate the big man’s birthday by offering a free play on the over-sized, multi-player Pac-Man Battle Royale arcade game to all guests with a Power Card. In addition, fans nationwide will have the chance to enter to win thousands of D&B Dollars to celebrate all summer long.

In the UK, Pac-Man will celebrate his birthday with a special thrill – he’ll be launched into space. Pac-Man’s journey will be captured by a special GoPro camera unit and shared on his birthday.

And in Spain, four of that country’s biggest YouTube stars will face off on the game for the ultimate bragging rights. As they engage their followers to look on, both online and in person, there could be as many as 21 million watching the videogame competition.

Finally, from Paris at the French Open, Serena Williams, who has a cameo role in Pixels, is planning a special greeting for her co-star.

Commenting on the announcement, Josh Greenstein, president, Worldwide Marketing and Distribution for Sony Pictures, said, “Pac-Man is one of the most recognizable videogame characters in history, so we wanted to be there for him as he bites into the big 35. Before he makes his big-screen appearance in ‘Pixels,’ we’re celebrating with birthday parties all around the world. We’re excited that Pac-Man is a part of the movie and can’t wait to share his performance with the world this summer.”

Professor Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, added, “It is hard to believe that 35 years has passed since we created Pac-Man. It has been very exciting to see the world accept him as their own. Like any creator, I wanted to make something lasting, but this has surpassed everything I hoped for. I also feel very proud that Pac-Man is playing an important role in ‘Pixels’ – the visual effects of the giant Pac-Man in New York will be extraordinary, and something that you’ve never seen on film before. My birthday wish is that Pac-Man can continue to make people happy.”

Mimi Rogers (Mad Men, NCIS) is the latest addition to the cast of Starz’s upcoming Ash vs. Evil Dead series. Rogers will play a character named Suzy Maxwell, “a woman who is reunited with her family and several uninvited guests after a freak accident.” 

Bruce Campbell will be reprising his role as Ash, the stock boy, aging lothario and chainsaw-handed monster hunter who has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead.  When a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind, Ash is finally forced to face his demons –personal and literal.  Destiny, it turns out, has no plans to release the unlikely hero from its 'Evil' grip.

Rogers joins a cast that also includes Lucy Lawless (Salem, Spartacus) as Ruby, a mysterious figure who believes Ash is the cause of the Evil outbreaks; Ray Santiago (Touch, Meet the Fockers) as Pablo Simon Bolivar, an idealistic immigrant who becomes Ash’s loyal sidekick; Dana DeLorenzo (A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas) as Kelly Maxwell, a moody wild child trying to outrun her past; and Jill Marie Jones (Sleepy Hollow) as Amanda Fisher, a disgraced Michigan State Trooper set to find our anti-hero Ash and prove his responsibility in the grisly murder of her partner.

Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Campbell are producing the long-awaited follow-up to the classic Evil Dead franchise. Raimi is directing the first episode of the series, which he also wrote with his brother, Ivan Raimi (Darkman, Army of Darkness, Drag Me to Hell), Craig DiGregorio (Workaholics, Chuck), and Tom Spezialy (Chuck, Reaper, Desperate Housewives). Ivan Raimi will co-executive produce the show as well.

Ash vs. Evil Dead will premiere this fall, and it’s currently shooting in New Zealand. You can watch a promo teaser for it here. 

One of the movies I’m really looking forward to seeing this year is Straight Outta Compton. Universal Pictures and Legendary Pictures have released a new TV spot for it, which you can watch below. 

In the mid-1980s, the streets of Compton, California, were some of the most dangerous in the country. When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music that rebelled against abusive authority, they gave an explosive voice to a silenced generation. Following the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton tells the astonishing story of how these youngsters revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war.

The movie was directed by F. Gary Gray (Friday, Set It Off, The Italian Job), and it stars Ice Cube's son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., as Ice Cube, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, and Paul Giamatti as manager Jerry Heller.

The biopic opens in theaters on August 14th. To watch the Red-Band trailer, click here. 

I know some of you probably haven’t seen Tomorrowland yet, but screenwriter Damon Lindelof revealed an idea he had for an amusing post-credits scene that never made it passed the pitch phase.

The scene has nothing to do with the movie’s story so there’s absolutely nothing here that will spoil it for you. The scene is completely random, it involved Samuel L. Jackson, and I can see why they didn’t roll with it. Here’s the pitch:

“My pitch was that there was going to be a post-credits scene in Tomorrowland and at the very end of the movie, if you watch the credits, there's a pin and you see someone picking it up. And the reveal would be that Sam Jackson, wearing an eye patch and holding a lightsaber and he looks sort of befuddled - maybe a Frozone uniform - and he goes 'I'm in this one too?' And bam, cut to black.”

The creative team got a good laugh at it, but in the end there was really no point in doing it. It would have been fun to see Jackson wearing a Frozone uniform while rocking his Nick Fury eye patch and holding a purple lightsaber. 

It may not work for the film, but I can see a cosplayer taking on the challenge. 

Source: CinemaBlend

The latest TV spot for Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World is an extended version that includes a voiceover by John Hammond, who was played by Richard Attenborough in the original Jurassic Park. The new spot really plays up the connection between the first movie and the one about to be released in theaters. It’s a great trailer that perfectly captures the nostalgia of the original movie. The other TV spot offers us a look at the birth of the Indominus Rex.

I also included a new clip from the movie featuring Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) discussing the Indominus Rex in which they say, "The kids? This will give the parents nightmares."

Jurassic World will be released on June 12th.

We have a trailer here for you to watch for an Eli Roth-produced supernatural thriller called The Stranger. The film was directed by Uruguayan filmmaker Guillermo Amoedo, and it tells the story of a mysterious man who arrives in a small town looking for his wife, “but his unwelcome presence and what he finds instead soon plunges the community into a bloodbath.”

It looks like a decent horror thriller, and it’s set to be released in select theaters and on VOD starting this summer on June 12th.

A cappella vocalist Peter Hollens has released a music video in which he covers The Lord of the Rings song “In Dreams.” It’s a beautiful rendition of the song, but still not as good as the original, which is a favorite song of mine. 

I’ve got an intense trailer here for you to watch for a great-looking heist film called 7 Minutes. The movie focuses on three desperate young men who are forced into a situation where the only option they have is to rob a bank. The job is only supposed to last 7 minutes, but things don’t go as planned, and they find themselves in a fight for their lives.

The movie stars Luke Mitchell (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D), Jason Ritter (Girls), Leven Rambin (True Detective), Kris Kristofferson (Watchmen), Zane Holtz (From Dusk Till Dawn), and Joel Murray (God Bless America). Here’s the synopsis:

After becoming indebted to a psychopathic drug lord, three desperate young men are forced to commit a brazen robbery. What begins as a simple plan - 'in and out in seven minutes' - quickly escalates into a dangerous game of life-or-death.  As each minute of the heist ticks by, true motives are revealed and unexpected twists ratchet up the stakes to a thrilling crescendo. The feature film debut from celebrated music video director Jay Martin, this stylish and fast-paced crime thriller stars

The movie will be released in theaters and VOD June 26th. I'll definitely be checking it out.