In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, we'll see Peter Quill reunite with his father who happens to be Ego the Living Planet. The human form of the character is played by Kurt Russell, and we got our first look at him in the last trailer that was released.  

We don't really know much about this cinematic version of the character, but in a recent interview with Complex, director James Gunn opened up about him a bit, talked about what he's like, and even revealed what his powers are, explaining: 

"Ego is a living planet who is able to manifest himself in different ways. He’s been alone for millions of years and he’s learned how to control the molecules around him in such a way as to create avatars of themselves, such as Kurt Russell. I think Ego was a very lonely character out there by himself and went off in search of love and perhaps found it in Quill’s mother."

This is a fascinating take on the character and I'm really curious to see how Ego's story arc is going to play out in the film. He definitely going to make things interesting! I hope Gunn includes a bit of a background story for Ego in the film as a flashback or something. 

Last night, Darth Vader came down from Planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn't tell you all about these Back to the Future trilogy posters from artist Ian Glaubinger, that he'd melt my brain. So take a look at what Glaubinger has done here: each poster serves not only as a stylized tribute to the movies themselves, but also provides a nice recap of some of the trilogy's biggest and most important moments. There are a bunch of little details in here that stand out, like the silhouette of Lorraine and George in the bottom of the first image, the Jaws 19 shark popping up in the second one, and Marty's makeshift bulletproof vest from the third film. Pretty cool, right?

Via: XombieDirge

Mass Effect: Andromeda is taking a beating across the web today. Players are hopping on Twitch and other platforms to see streaming footage of the game and are saddened/delighted to find the games facial expressions are robotic and emotionless...read more on GameTyrant

Permalink

With the onslaught of political updates we have to deal with every day in America, wouldn't it be nice to go to Italy right about now? Aziz Ansari is here to whisk us away to that far-off land with the first (brief) teaser trailer for Master of None season two, which drops on Netflix on May 12, 2017.

I adored the first season of this show, which — spoiler alert — ended with his character heading off to Italy alone after his relationship with his girlfriend goes south. I'm very excited to spend time with Aziz's character as he travels and eats his way across that gorgeous-looking country while learning to make pasta. Check out the new teaser below:

Some more concept art for James Mangold's Logan has surfaced, and this time it features some of the early character designs that were created for the film. The art was created by Christian Cordella and highlights the mutant characters in the film including Wolverine, X-23, Professor X, and Caliban. As you'll see, some of these designs actually ended up in the film. 

If you haven't seen Logan yet, you need to get yourself to the theater and watch it! It's my favorite film of the year. Mangold and his team did such an amazing job with this movie, and I'm curious if we'll see them return for an X-23 film. The character definitely deserves a solo movie, but the story has to at least be as good as Logan.

The creator of X-23, Craig Kyle, recently shared his thoughts on what an X-23 movie should focus on, and I think it's a solid way to proceed. 

Via: ScreenRant

The CG animated Yoda that George Lucas opted to go with in the Star Wars prequel trilogy was the least of the film's problems. I actually never really had a problem with the CG version of Yoda, but when those movies came out there was a lot of discouragement among the fans due to George Lucas ditching the practical effects for lots and lots of green screen and CGI work.

During an interview with ScreeRant, Frank Oz, the voice and puppeteer of Yoda, was asked what he thought about Lucas giving the iconic character a CG makeover for the prequel films. He actually came to Lucas' defense saying:

"As a filmmaker, George needed to tell a particular story. And this story that he needed to tell was a big fight with Yoda. And he could not do that with a puppet. It was impossible. To he had the choice to either dump the story or stay with the story–which he felt strongly about–or change Yoda. So he did what any storyteller would do."

He makes a good point here, and I've gotta say, I really enjoyed watching Yoda fight! When I first saw the character in The Empire Strikes Back, I always wondered what it would have been like to see him in his heyday fighting the evil Empire, and the prequel films gave me that. 

I should also remind you that Lucas originally used a Yoda puppet in The Phantom Menace and it was so awful looking that he replaced it with a CG version of the character. The CG character was definitely easier on the eyes. You can see a side-by-side comparison below:

The site also talked to puppeteer Dave Goelz, who is best known for his work with Gonzo The Great, and he weighed in on the matter and talked about the pros and cons of real puppets versus CG-created characters:

“They’re all just valid forms. There all just ways to get something onscreen that doesn’t exist in real life. And they have their pros and cons. CG can mean total freedom of the camera, total freedom of the subject, the lighting, everything can be manipulated anyway you want. And that’s a great strength. It’s hard to animate characters with realistic movement. You’ve probably noticed that. That’s why motion-capture came along. It helps to improve on what you can do as an animator to get realistic motion. But then on the other side of the coin, what we do is very crude and primitive. What the Muppets are very simple figures; they’re not sophisticated. They’re not complex, but they’re really there. It really happens. You can touch ’em. You can interview them. And you can talk to them. You can shake hands, and it’s really happening, whereas anything that’s done digitally with animation never happened. It’s not that one is better than the other. They’re equal. For a given project, you might choose one medium over another…I don’t see them as competitive. They’re just tools, different tools to do the same kind of thing."

I'm a huge fan of practical effects, and it's great when we see movies using them these days, but I have no issues with CG work either when it needs to be used because it's just getting better and better. One day we won't even be able to tell the difference. 

In case you don't remember, Aardman Animations is the production company behind stop-motion films such as Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Wallace and Gromit. They always make charming, enjoyable, and funny films. Their latest project is called Early Man, and it's set in the stone age. Today we have a teaser trailer to share with you and it's really quite delightful. 

Set at the dawn of time, when prehistoric creatures roamed the earth, EARLY MAN tells the story of courageous caveman hero Dug (Eddie Redmayne) and his best friend Hognob as they unite his tribe against a mighty enemy Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) and his Bronze Age City to save their home. 

The movie also stars Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones. The director of the film, Nick Park, revealed more of the cast in an official announcement, which also offers us details on some of the other characters:

Today we get to meet Dug’s tribe, a loveable bunch of misfits voiced by some exceptional British talent. They’re essentially a group of inept cavemen and women including Treebor, played by Richard Ayoade, a gentle giant scared of his own shadow; Magma, Treebor’s no nonsense mother voiced by Selena Griffiths and Mark Williams as Barry, whose best friend is a rock. Chief Bobnar, voiced by the brilliant Timothy Spall, leads the pack as their long-suffering leader, and father figure to his tribe of idiotic brutes.

Early Man is set to be released in U.K. theaters on January 26, 2018. There's no word yet on when it will hit the U.S. but it'll be sometime next year. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun! I love these Aardman films.

You know who would fit perfectly in the world of John Wick? Samuel L. Jackson! The guy is just a badass actor who has been a part of some badass films, and John Wick is one of those badass franchises that he needs to be a part of.

Jackson himself is even reportedly looking to get in on the franchise and apparently wants a role in John Wick 3. The franchise has already lured in actors such as Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, John Leguizamo, and Willem Dafoe. It only seems logical to get Jackson in there as well!

On the latest episode of Meet The Movie Press, Simon Thompson talked about multiple conversations he's had with Jackson about the franchise. He even told him that he'd rather have a part in John Wick 3 than star in a Nick Fury solo film, and that's saying something. This is what Thompson had to say:

"He actually was less interested in that than he was in an idea he floated with me, and he’s floated it with me twice now. He wants to do, over a Nick Fury movie, John Wick 3 with Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves. He absolutely loves the John Wick movies. He wants in. He doesn’t want in, he wants in with a capital IN. Seriously, I think he will do whatever he needs to do to get in on John Wick 3."

I have no idea what the story for John Wick 3 will entail, but Reeves has a pretty awesome idea that you can read here. I would love to see Jackson face off against Reeves in the movie, though! Hopefully, it happens because it seems like it would make a perfect fit.

Would you want to see Jackson take on a role in John Wick 3? If so would you want to see him fight against John Wick or with him?

Slashfilm editor Cory Tucker has made a pretty cool Supercut of cinema's most iconic villains, and it's definitely worth your time! There were some points watching "The Death Squad" where I did feel some of the villains were out of place and you could've trimmed the list for a darker effect, but it's his video, not mine. The music is from Perturbator, and you can see more of their music here.  

The new Sword Art Online film with an incredibly long name has netted over 1 billion yen in Japan in a month according to Crunchyroll. Sword Art Online The Movie: The Ordinal Scale is currently showing in other markets Asian markets as well as Mexico, and talk is already beginning as to whether the film can crack the top ten all-time highest grossing films in Japan. That list was recently cracked last year when the anime sensation film Your Name ended up securing the number four spot on the list, and it's possible Sword Art Online could be doing the same. That said, the film has only netted 1.7 billion in a month and the 10th highest grossing film is Avatar at 15.6 billion, so there's still quite a ways to go if the film wants to crack that list. Check out a trailer for the film (which doesn't currently have a timetable for American release) below. 

Harmonix, the creators of Rock Band and Dance Central, has teamed up with Hasbro for a new music game called DropMix. The good news is that you won’t need an expensive console or instrument peripherals; you only need a phone or tablet with Bluetooth capability...read more on GameTyrant

Permalink

My first exposure to what Genndy Tartakovsky was planning for Samurai Jack Season 5 was at Comic-Con last year. While there, he shared an unfinished animatic for the opening scene in the series filled with just storyboard art. To make things a little more interesting and exciting, he narrated the whole sequence himself and did all of the crazy sound effects and everything. It was incredibly entertaining!

Well, YouTube user Alex Bennington took the audio from that Samurai Jack panel at Comic-Con and added it to the actual completed scene of the series, and the result is freakin' awesome! I love that Tartakosky just gets totally into it and is exploding with energy as he does it! 

You've got to watch this thing all the way through. If you're a Samurai Jack fan, I promise it's worth it. It's a pretty fun five minute ride. 

Via: Polygon

By the time I was watching cartoons, I was on the tail end of the '80s and '90s cartoon wave. That said, I've heard more than a few rants from old heads about how awesome this time was for cartoons, and I saw many of them many years later on Toonami and in the AM on Cartoon Network. Maybe you're someone like me who was more of a mid '90s Fox Kids viewer or you're someone just the right age for this video...either way there's something for everyone in this video as Arch City delves into the history of this iconic era in cartoons. 

Star Trek Beyond and Fast and Furious franchise director Justin Lin is set to direct a police drama for Netflix called The Stand Off. The script for the film is being written by Mark Heyman, who write Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. As far as what the film is about, it's based on the true story of how the LAPD raided the Los Angeles headquarters of the Black Panther Party in 1969. We have the following information from Variety:

The story is set in 1969 when the Los Angeles Police Department’s newly formed Special Weapons and Tactics team attempted to raid the Los Angeles Headquarters of the Black Panther Party. The raid, conducted by several hundred officers, resulted in a shoot-out that lasted several hours along with the arrests of six members of the party on charges of conspiracy to murder police officers, as well as possession of illegal weapons.

The Panthers’ lawyers, including a young Johnnie Cochran, argued successfully at trial that the group had merely exercised its right to self-defense.

I remember reading about this story back in the day, and it's pretty crazy. This is the kind of story that has all the elements of a crazy, intense, and powerful film. 

Specially themed Monopoly games are getting more and more popular. It seems like every movie or TV show that is currently a hit is getting their very own specially themed Monopoly game. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the most recent one to get in on the Monopoly action. If you find joy in playing or collecting themed Monopoly games and you're a fan of Guardians of the Galaxy, this is for you.

The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Monopoly Game offers fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe a unique game play adventure as they recruit characters from both Guardians of the Galaxy films, collecting bounties and double crossing their opponents while enjoying the classic table top experience of one of America’s favorite board games. The 6 player tokens resemble Star-Lord’s Mask, Young Groot, Rocket’s Blaster, Gamora’s Sword, Mantis, and a Cassette Player. This monopoly is a must have for fans of Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

If you want to pre-order it now, head on over to Entertainment Earth. It only costs you $44.99.

We've got another full trailer to share with you for Transformers: The Last Knight that puts the focus on the film's young star, Isabela Moner, and how much of a badass she is. This is all about girl power, and my two littlest girls have never been so excited about watching a Transformers movie. This new film seems to mostly revolve around kids, and Moner comes off as a feisty, likable character. They definitely cast the right young actress to pull it out. 

The new trailer also includes some new footage of the Transformers characters fighting each other and it offers some more new details about the story. 

Transformers: The Last Knight shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise, and redefines what it means to be a hero. Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).

There comes a moment in everyone’s life when we are called upon to make a difference. In Transformers: The Last Knight, the hunted will become heroes. Heroes will become villains. Only one world will survive: theirs, or ours.

Transformers: The Last Knight will be director Michael Bay's final Transformers film, and it's set to hit theaters on June 23.

Now that James Cameron's Avatar 2 won't be heading back to Pandora in December of 2018, Variety reports that Warner Bros. and DC Films has swooped in and will now release James Wan's Aquaman on Avatar 2's previous date: December 21, 2018. That means the studio is delaying Aquaman for two months, because it was initially set to come out on October 5th of that year.

While a delay might be a bummer to hardcore DC fans looking forward to Wan's new film, this is probably good news. Aquaman is obviously going to be a CG-heavy film, and allowing the production a couple of extra months to fine-tune those special effects seems like a wise move. Additionally, bumping it to a mega-popular release period like the end of December means that the studio has a lot of confidence in the movie. (Otherwise, they might have kicked it to a dump month like January or February.) In fact, this will now be going head to head against Marvel's animated Spider-Man film, so it should be interesting to see which heroic option the general public chooses to support that weekend.

It's no secret that I haven't been a big fan of DC's recent slate, but I really like Wan as a director and Jason Momoa has a ton of potential to be the studio's breakout superhero. Here's hoping the extra time means the movie will be that much better than its in-studio counterparts.

If you've been paying any attention to blockbuster movies over the past few years, then you're fully aware that Tom Cruise loves doing his stunts for real. That includes the zero G plane crash sequence in the upcoming reboot (remake? reimagining?) of The Mummy, Universal's upcoming movie that serves as the first big budget directorial effort for screenwriter Alex Kurtzman.

This behind the scenes clip shows off how the filmmaking team (including the camera operators, who I tend to forget about in these situations) constructed a set inside a real plane, entered orbit, and actually went weightless to capture the sequence on film. I can't quite tell how the movie will turn out overall, but this scene should at least be pretty cool.

The Mummy hits theaters on June 9, 2017.

Remember when Daenerys Targaryen's dragons were just little hatchlings in the first season finale of Game of Thrones? My, how they've grown.

EW spoke with director Matt Shakman, one of four directors helming episodes of the HBO show's upcoming seventh season, and the director revealed that Drogon and the gang will have experienced quite the growth spurt since we last saw them at the tail end of season six.

“The dragons this year are the size of 747s. Drogon is the biggest of the bunch — his flame is 30-feet in diameter!”

He was probably being at least somewhat approximate when comparing the dragons to the venerable Boeing airliner. But for reference, a 747 is about 230 feet long with a 210 feet wingspan. So, really big.

That's more in line with this concept art from artist Jordi Gonzalez that depicts Aegon the Conqueror on the back of his dragon Balerion:

Dany's been seated on Drogon's back in previous episodes; will she be standing on it this season? Tune in and find out when Game of Thrones returns to HBO on July 16, 2017.

Man of Steel and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. star Henry Cavill will be teaming up with Tom Cruise in Paramount Pictures' Mission: Impossible 6. The film is being directed by Rogue Nation director Christopher McQuarrie, and Cavill will also join Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, and Jeremy Renner, who are all expected to return. 

According to Variety, "Cavill would play some sort of a right hand to the head of Cruise’s unit." Cavill seems like a great fit for the franchise as he's got that suave 007 spy vibe to him. I enjoyed the character he played in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

There are no details about the story for the next installment of the franchise, but McQuarrie previously said that he wants to focus on the character Ethan Hunt and who he is, promising a very different version of the character than what we've seen. He explains:

"I’ve seen five of these movies and I don’t know who Ethan Hunt is. One movie sort of dealt with his personal life; the other movies are about people speculating what’s really going on in Ethan’s head. I want to know who Ethan is in this movie, I want an emotional journey for this character, and Tom really embraced it. I don’t want to string together a bunch of action scenes, I want to actually deal with character. So I put Ethan in a bunch of complicated moral quandaries, and I’m trying to find ways to connect them – and then, ironically, the way to connect them was through giant action scenes."

It's cool to see that Cavill is joining this franchise, and I'm excited to see what kind of role he plays in the story. Cavill recently completed shooting Justice League, and he'll next appear in the Iraq war drama Sand Castle. 

Mission: Impossible 6 starts production in April and will hit theaters on July 27, 2018.