You loved the show watching it on Toonami growing up, and now the celebrated live-action Rurouni Kenshin films are coming to American theaters this fall! Typically I'm leery about recommending Japanese live-action film adaptations — more often than not, they are poorly done and low budget — but this one looks pretty solid! Here are the dates of when you should be looking out for the film to hit a theater near you:

Movie 1: Rurouni Kenshin: Origins, August 8 – 10
Movie 2: Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno, September 12 – 14
Movie 3: Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends, Oct 3 – 5

That's a while to wait! The good news is that the anime is available for you to binge on Netflix! Go do that and remember why you from 10 years ago would've been super psyched about this news!

Matthew McConaughey's most iconic role over the past few years wasn't from Dallas Buyers Club (for which he won an Oscar), it was that of the wonderfully nihilistic Rust Cohle from the first season of HBO's True Detective. That was back in the good old days when the show was beloved by critics and audiences, before it crapped the bed in its comparatively terrible second season. The reception was so bad, there have been hints that we may have already seen the last of the show, but there's one thing I bet HBO's new President of Programming Casey Bloys would love to hear: McConaughey says he's had conversations with True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto about bringing Rust back.

Fair warning: this seems incredibly premature at this stage, and McConaughey even couches the statement by saying that the context and the situation would have to be perfect for them to make it happen, but there's still a tiny sliver of hope it could happen. The whole interview (on The Rich Eisen Show) is worth a watch, but this talk in particular starts around the 3:15 mark.

Via: The AV Club

I love Fall Out Boy. I love Missy Elliott. I never thought of combining the two, and now that it's been done, I feel dirty and like the haters have yet another reason to trash the new Ghostbusters film:

I'm just at a loss for words here. The music is bad, and the lyrics don't help. Truth be told, Fall Out Boy isn't the band they once were and Missy Elliott just doesn't bring that fire when she's rated G. This is so bad, I feel like I have to post other videos in defense of both artists!

First to prove Fall Out Boy can make a good cover:

And I shouldn't have to tell you Missy Elliott is a rap queen, but here you go:

Ultimately, I think once again this song plays into the fan complaint that the franchise is "doing a fresh remake," but once again calling back to the classical theme just enough to attempt to elicit nostalgia.

Do you remember the Riddler's ridiculous riddles from the 1966 Batman TV series and movie? Batman and Robin were always capable of almost instantaneously making the most insane logical leaps to find the answers. My favorite example is from Batman: The Movie:

Batman: [reading a skywritten message] "What goes up white and comes down yellow and white?"

Robin: An egg!

Batman: [reading another skywritten message] "How do you divide seventeen apples among sixteen people?"

Robin: Make applesauce!

Batman: [thinking out loud] Apples into applesauce - A unification into one smooth mixture. An egg - nature's perfect container. The container of all our hopes for the future.

Robin: A unification and a container of hope? United World Organization!

Batman: Precisely, Robin!

In the opening minute of this new trailer for Ron Howard's Inferno, the third in his trilogy of films about professor Robert Langdon that began with The Da Vinci Code, Tom Hanks' character makes a similar logical jump that had me cracking up. This time, Langdon is the only man who can stop an "extinction-level event" that's incredibly preposterous, but somehow fits perfectly in the cinematic world they've created over the years. Inferno hits theaters on October 28, 2016.

Everyone always argues this with me when I bring it up, but Iceman is one of the strongest mutants in the X-Men universe! He's right up there with Professor X, Magneto, and Emma Frost! You can dispute that if you want, but I have canonical facts supporting me on that one! Anyway, that's not what we're here to discuss today.

We're here to talk about how, once again, Colin Furze has shocked and amazed us with his ingenuity. He has created what he calls "the closest a human will ever get to Ice Man." Watch him freeze a fake face, make ice cream, and more below!

When word came out that Jason Statham would be reprising his role from The Mechanic in a sequel called Mechanic: Resurrection that would co-star Jessica Alba, I thought it sounded like an awful idea. The Mechanic wasn't even very good, and Alba hasn't been in anything good in years. But I'm surprised to say the film's newly-released first trailer contains exactly the kind of absurd action moments I hope for in Statham movies, so I'll end up giving this a shot (no pun intended) when it comes out on August 26. What do you think?

Arthur Bishop [Jason Statham] returns as the Mechanic in the sequel to the 2011 action thriller. When the deceitful actions of a cunning but beautiful woman [Jessica Alba] force him to return to the life he left behind, Bishop's life is once again in danger as he has to complete an impossible list of assassinations of the most dangerous men in the world.

With stars like Tom Cruise in The Mummy and Johnny Depp in The Invisible Man, Universal Pictures is obviously trying to get the biggest stars possible to be a part of their upcoming slate of monster movies. 

In a recent article from Deadline regarding Dwayne Johnson producing a film project based on the graphic novel Son Of Shaolin, they mention that the actor is also wanted by Universal to take on the lead role in the revamp of The Wolf Man.

Nothing has been confirmed at this point, but it makes complete sense that they would want Johnson to take on the role of the Wolf Man in the movie. He has such a strong on-screen presence and he's extremely marketable. The actor is so busy with so many other projects, though, that there's a chance he might not be able to do it even if they asked him. It's not hard to believe that the studio has at least had a discussion with him about it.

As much as I enjoy watching Johnson do his thing in the movies he makes, I'm not sure if he is actually the right fit for the Wolf Man. Can he carry and portray a vulnerable man with the heavy weight of a tortured soul who is burdened with the nightmarish curse of turning into a werewolf that is destroying his soul? Johnson is like a freakin' super human and if he does take on this role, it might be one of the deepest and most intense roles he's ever had to play. 

At least, that's how the Wolf Man should be portrayed. Who knows, though — maybe the studio's plan is just to make the Wolf Man a superhero-type character that swoops in to save people. Maybe their version won't have that dark tortured soul aspect of the character. In that case, Johnson would be a fun choice. 

There's no director attached to the film yet, but it has a release date of April 13, 2018.

I missed the first Ouija movie, but Ouija: Origin of Evil (from Oculus and Before I Wake director Mike Flanagan) looks like a fun horror thriller. Personally, I don't really like watching horror films that are based on true stories, but I think ones that embrace the inherent craziness of their conceits like this are a lot more fun. The film stars Henry Thomas (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Gangs of New York), Elizabeth Reaser (Mad Men), Doug Jones, Parker Mack, Sam Anderson, Kate Siegel, Annalise Basso, and Lulu Wilson, and it hits theaters on October 21, just in time for Halloween.

It was never just a game. Inviting audiences again into the lore of the spirit board, Ouija: Origin of Evil tells a terrifying new tale as the follow-up to 2014’s sleeper hit that opened at number one. In 1965 Los Angeles, a widowed mother and her two daughters add a new stunt to bolster their séance scam business and unwittingly invite authentic evil into their home. When the youngest daughter is overtaken by the merciless spirit, this small family confronts unthinkable fears to save her and send her possessor back to the other side.

It looks like Disney has established a nice pattern for Star Wars fans that we can expect to continue for years to come. The Force Awakens was released in December of 2015, we dissected and talked about it for a few months, and then it was onto speculation about the next film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and talking about set photos for the one after that, Star Wars: Episode VIII. A trailer drops, we talk about that for a while, and now, in the summer, EW releases official photos and character details for fans as lead-up for Comic-Con and Star Wars Celebration, where more trailers will probably hit and take us all the way until the final marketing blitz begins, Rogue One comes out, and we do it all over again.

We wrote a lot about Gareth Edwards' new movie yesterday, and EW is stretching out the coverage by releasing 15 new images and elaborating with further character descriptions. Check them out below, and let us know which image is your favorite. Rogue One hits theaters on December 16, 2016.

"[Krennic] understands the system and he knows how things work, but he also is not above trying to bend it to get what he needs or what he thinks he wants," says Kiri Hart, Lucasfilm's head of story development. Krennic is intended to be a contrast to Imperial officers we’ve seen before, like Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin. “Tarkin is the model for these really cool, icy types, you know?” Hart says. “Krennic runs a little hotter than that, so that’s kind of fun and it’s a little bit different. … He is unpredictable and volatile.”

"[Baze and Chirrut are] inspired, again, by what inspired George in [Akira Kurosawa's] The Hidden Fortress," [Kathleen] Kennedy says. “You could even say to some extent it’s, you know, R2 and C-3PO, a little bit of that.”

One of the new planets (name still unknown) we'll visit in the movie is described as having a close proximity to the Death Star and the ecosystem of a seaside holiday destination. That's the one where we saw the new AT-ACTs stomping across the beach near the end of the first trailer.

“There’s this sort of South Pacific, tropical paradise planet that subconsciously leads into some of the imagery associated with World War II,” director Gareth Edwards says. “We went to lots of different places around the world, and one of them was the Maldives. When you're shooting Stormtroopers in paradise, you have the best job in the world, you know? You can't really deny it at that point.”

The filmmakers confirmed this Deathtrooper is holding a Stormtrooper doll, but wouldn't explain the context of it. Hmm...

Here's our best look yet at Alan Tudyk's droid character K-2SO (Kaytoo Esso), who Edwards describes as having "a very dry delivery. He doesn’t realize what he's saying is very funny."

Just how many villains will Spidey ultimately face off against in Spider-Man: Homecoming? Director Jon Watts' new film hasn't begun shooting yet, but he's already cast Michael Keaton as the Vulture, Logan Marshall-Green as a mysterious villain, and now THR reports that Bokeem Woodbine has also boarded the movie as yet another baddie. Geez, Spidey's going to have his hands full.

The outlet doesn't know which character Woodbine will play, but I'm guessing you all will have some guesses in the comments. (Shocker? Tombstone? Hammerhead?) Regardless, Woodbine delivered a terrific performance in season 2 of FX's Fargo series, so I'm excited that he's the latest talented name Marvel and Sony have added to this stellar cast. 

Spider-Man: Homecoming stars Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr., Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Martin Starr, Laura Harrier, Kenneth Choi, Michael Barbieri, Logan Marshall-Green, and Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel). The movie hits theaters on July 7, 2017.

It's a mod about nothing! I'm sure Doug Keener isn't at all sick of hearing that after his Doom 2 mod featuring the cast of Seinfeld went viral on the internet. It seems...read more on Gametyrant

Permalink

The magical opening notes of John Williams' Harry Potter theme song instantly transport us back to the wizarding world of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in this new featurette for the film. Author and screenwriter J.K. Rowling and star Eddie Redmayne offer some more information about the plot specifics in the video, which contains a bunch of new footage of Newt and his friends in 1926 New York City.

There's also a (relatively) new poster, which you can see above.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them arrives in theaters on November 18, 2016.

It’s time to throw on your top hat and take a stroll through Victorian England with Charlie and author David Butler! Daniel sits down with David to talk about his latest novel, The Kidnap Plot, Book One in The Extraordinary Journeys of Clockwork Charlie. Listen on PodTyrant

Permalink

I missed the whole Mr. Robot phenomenon last year, but I've at least seen creator/showrunner Sam Esmail's 2014 film Comet, so I'm familiar with his visual style. I've heard terrific things about the show's first season, and I know fans are dying to know what happens next. USA has released a new trailer for season 2 today (via Mashable), along with news that the season has been extended from ten episodes to twelve. On top of that, USA is following in AMC and HBO's footsteps and giving Mr. Robot an aftershow called Hacking Robot (which I don't believe has anything to do with Chris Hardwick).

“The first season of Mr. Robot was everything we hoped for – and then some,” said Chris McCumber, president of entertainment networks at NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, in a statement. “So it’s no surprise that Sam and team have raised the bar even more in season two. From the first moments of the new season, it’ll be clear that audiences are in for something incredibly special and wholly unexpected.”

Season two picks up with Rami Malek's Elliot, who's trying to figure out what happened to him during the three days of missing time he experienced after the night of last season's hack.

Mr. Robot returns to the USA Network on Wednesday, July 13. (You can watch the trailer here if the embed below gets taken down.)

I'm surprised it took this long for a Game of Thrones/How to Train Your Dragon mashup to pop up, but maybe Darth Blender was just waiting for some more clips of dragonriding, which we saw in last week's "Battle of The Bastards" episode of GoT. Aside from a few small vocal inconsistencies, this is pretty well done — especially considering there's no footage of Tyrion (who's "playing" Hiccup in this context) actually riding a dragon (...yet?).

Via: The AV Club

Fans and critics didn't receive Batman v Superman the way director Zack Snyder had hoped. The movie was met with a lot of hate in the fan community for a variety of reasons. However, the film does have its fair share of fans that will stick up for it and defend it against the hate.

Snyder wasn’t really expecting the kind of backlash that it got, especially with the critics. While doing an interview with Vulture, the director was asked about all the hate and in regards to that he admits that it’s the reason he changed the tone of the upcoming Justice League film:

"When Batman v Superman came out, I was like, ‘Wow, okay, oof.’ It did catch me off guard. I have had to, in my mind, make an adjustment. I do think that the tone of Justice League has changed because of what the fans have said." 

This past week we’ve seen a ton of information from the film because Warner Bros. invited a few blogs out to the set to show them how fun Justice League is going to be. They are obviously really trying to fix the dent that Batman v Superman made. Hopefully, they are able to do that and give fans a film that they will all love, and not be split on. 

Of course, Snyder still defends his darker vision for Batman v Superman, and explains how it plays a part in leading to the lighter side of things: 

"You really had to dig down on the darker parts of them to make them fight each other. I really do believe that with this movie, with Justice League, they’ve been freed of the responsibility to be in a place where they would fight each other. That’s liberating for us in making the movie, because now we have a single enemy with a single objective, and it’s really about uniting the team. That, to me, is a fun activity." 

Only time will tell if his new plan and direction for the franchise works. Justice League comes out on November 17th, 2017.

Couch Tomato has released another interesting comparison video that breaks down 24 reasons why Independence Day and Pacific Rim are the same film. The video essay offers us a side by side comparison of each movie as they drive the point home and they do a great job at it.

To check out their first video, which points out how Zootopia and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are similar, click here. This is a fun video series that I’ve enjoyed, so I hope they continue to make more. 

This past month there have been lots of rumors regarding the reshoots for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Some of the biggest rumors claimed that Disney was unhappy with the first cut and that over 40% of the film was being reshot! Well, in an interview with EW, director Gareth Edwards reassures fans that things aren’t as bad as they sound on the internet and everything is moving forward according to plan.

"It was always part of the plan to do reshoots. We always knew we were coming back somewhere to do stuff, we just didn't know what it would be until we started sculpting the film in the edit."

As I’ve said before, it’s not that uncommon for films to go through reshoots like this. It’s normal practice these days, and this doesn’t seem like it’s anything to be concerned about. The director explains that the new things being shot will be added to preexisting footage:

“There’s lots of little things that we have to get, but it’s all little things within the preexisting footage."

One of the things that makes the reshoots a bit more complicated and the reason why the reshoots will take so long to complete is because of the actors’ schedules. Edwards says:

“Obviously, you’ve got to work around everyone’s schedule, and everyone’s on different films all over the world, and so it’s a bit of a logistical nightmare. That’s why I think it’s been blown out of proportion a little bit. It’s funny, making a film stops you believing anything you’ve ever read on the Internet.”

Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy also chimed in on the matter and backed up Edwards saying:

“There’s nothing about the story that’s changing, with a few things that we’re picking up in additional photography. I think that’s the most important thing, to reassure fans that it’s the movie we intended to make.”

She goes on to talk about Edwards’ directing style and how it’s unlike anything we’ve seen in a Star Wars film before.

“One of the things we’re doing with these Star Wars stories is embracing the uniqueness of the different genres, and we’re very deliberately leaning into the various styles of directors that we’re approaching so that each of these movies will very intentionally have a very different tone and style from the saga films. Gareth has shown a stylistic preference that’s much more handheld, visceral, inside-the-action kind of feel.

“He does a lot of handheld, intimate, close-up work. That’s not something you’ve necessarily seen in a Star Wars movie before. And we brought in [cinematographer] Greig Fraser, to shoot it, who had done Zero Dark Thirty. So a combination of Greig and Gareth has been, I think, fantastic, and it just gives it a really unique style.”

On top of that unique style, the dark tone we’ve all heard about with this film will still be present, and the studio is supportive of it. Maybe they aren’t trying to lighten things up after all. The director reassures us:

“I’d definitely describe it as: It’s got dark tone. The studio has been very supportive of that. I mean, the sort of tone we were going for when we started was the tone you have in films like The Empire Strikes Back. And that’s not in any way been compromised.”

Edwards concludes the interview by talking about how retooling the film during the filmmaking process is an important part of retelling the story. 

“We have a lot of attention on this. I’d be [worried] the same if I wasn’t involved in it. So it’s just part of the privilege of making Star Wars. But hopefully, people will get to see it when it comes out, and everyone will feel the same way we do.

“A film is a very creative, organic process, and it evolves over time,” he says. “There’s no right or wrong. There’s just ‘better’ and ‘best,’ and with Star Wars, nothing but the best is going to do. So we’re just putting a lot of pressure on ourselves until the very end, making this the greatest film it can be.”

I was never really worried about how Rogue One would turn out, but it’s nice to get a first-hand account from the producer and director about what is really going on. Do their comments make you feel a little more at ease?

George R.R. Martin and Stephen King recently sat down together in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Kiva Auditorium to have a discussion about various topics. If you're a fan of either of these writers, the hour-long conversation is a must watch. Or you could just skip to the highlight where Martin asks King the question that we’ve all been wondering… “How the fuck to you write so many books so fast!?”

It seems like King releases a book every six months, and it seems crazy that he’s able to write so many of them so quick. Martin jokes, “I think, ‘Oh, I’ve had a really good six months – I’ve written three chapters!’ and you’ve finished three books in that time.”

King has just mastered the art of writing a discipline. He explains that he spends three to four hours a day writing six “fairly clean” pages. 

“So if the manuscript is, say, 360 pages long, that’s basically two months’ work – but that’s assuming it goes well.”

King seems to have figured the most productive way to write. As you know, Martin is slowly plugging away at his Game of Thrones books, and it seems like maybe it because he’s just not happy with some of the things he initially puts down on the page. Martin asks King:

“You don’t ever have a day when you sit down there and it’s like constipation – you write a sentence and you hate the sentence, and you check your email and you wonder if you had any talent after all and maybe you should have been a plumber? Don’t you have days like that?”

King said no. He must know exactly what he wants out of his stories when he writes them. You can watch the full conversation between the two authors below. 

Via: EW

Fan Art by Aspersio

Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures seem to be working really well together and enjoying each other’s company as they’ve been developing Spider-Man: Homecoming with director Jon Watts, and it sounds like they plan on taking their relationship to the next level.

These two companies are obviously in it for the long haul, and in a recent interview with THR, Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman indicated that the two companies  are looking to branch out into a whole Spider-Man universe together. Sony is definitely taking advantage of Marvel’s creativity. Here’s part of the interview that digs into the relationships between the two studios:

Since you teamed with Marvel, do you plan to make a whole Spider-Man universe? Do you have plans for more work with Marvel?

“Yes to both those questions. It’s been fantastic, our relationship with Marvel.”

Who has greenlight authority?

“Sony has the ultimate authority. But we have deferred the creative lead to Marvel, because they know what they’re doing. We start shooting the new Spider-Man in Atlanta [in mid-June].”

Do you want to trim the costs of that franchise?

“I don’t want to trim costs. I want to make money. And sometimes you make money by trimming costs and sometimes by investing in things that are profitable. A movie like Spider-Man by Marvel, that’s not inexpensive. But it’s a great investment. Knowing that Marvel has such a clear, creative vision, I sleep very well at night.”

Before Sony and Marvel teamed up on Spider-Man, Sony was looking at branching out into a universe that would focus on the villains of Spider-Man like the Sinister Six and Venom. There was also talk of an all-female spin-off film, including one for Aunt May. They really didn’t know what exactly they were doing, but with Marvel in control of the creative aspect of things, I think it’s safe to get excited about what the possibilities could be. Personally, I would love to see Spider-Gwen get her own film, which we speculated about last year. 

I’m sure Spider-Man: Homecoming is going to be a big success, and as long as the two companies are making lots of money together, their relationship will continue to thrive and blossom.