A few months ago we reported that Sony Pictures wanted Ang Lee (Hulk, Life of Pi) to direct Angelina Jolie's Cleopatra epic. The director has now confirmed that he wants to direct it, and is taking the steps to make it happen. Here's what he told THR in a recent interview.

I'm about to read the script. It just feels right to me after all the other types of films I've done. What does it have in common with any of them? They’re all totally different! That’s what makes this perfect.

Since 2010 the film has passed through the hands of directors Paul Greengrass, James Cameron, and David Fincher. Obviously all of them ended up dropping out for one reason or another. Lee seems like a perfect fit for the material, he could use another good big movie. I love what he did with his most recent movie Life of Pi, and I think he's a great choice.

There's no word if he's been officially offered the directors chair yet, but there's definitely interest from both parties. The film is an adaptation of Stacy Schiff's bestselling book Cleopatra: A Life, and the film will tell "Cleopatra's story from a woman's perspective, depicting her as a master strategist when it comes to both politics and war."

Universal Pictures has released our first look at Liam Neeson in his new film action-thriller Non-Stop. He looks like the same character we've seen him play in his last few films, but this sounds like an intense film and it has a twisted plot.

The actor plays a federal air marshal who is trying to track down a terrorist who is threatening to kill a passenger every 20 minutes unless Neeson's character kills himself. Sound like a good time? If Neeson is fighting back he obviously isn't going to kill himself. 

The movie was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra who previously worked with Neeson in the 2011 movie Unknown. It also stars Julianne Moore, Nate Parker, Michelle Dockery and Scoot McNairy. 

Here is some cool poster art by Dan Norris for some great movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Hobbit, 48 Hours, and Black Swan. You can check out more of Dan's work on his Tumblr.

Follow Jim on Twitter and Tumblr

A few months ago we got the awesome news that Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn was most likely going to be directing Denzel Washington in a big screen adaptation of the '80s crime series The Equalizer. Now today thanks to Collider we bring you the sad news that he's not going to direct it, and that Sony Pictures is on the hunt for a new director. My interest in this film has just dropped, he was the only thing holding my interest together for this movie. Refn’s still got some cool movies coming up though! Only God Forgives with Ryan Gosling opens on May 23rd, and the director is still attached to the remake of Logan’s Run and an adaptation of the graphic novel, Button Man.

Washington will play Robert McCall in the story, a former spy turned private detective. Here's a brief synopsis of the series:

Robert McCall is a tough-as-nails, no-BS private eye who went into business for himself after leaving the shadowy agency he once worked for. McCall works on behalf of those whose problems the police cannot - or will not - get involved in. His card reads, 'Got a problem? Odds against you? Need help? Call - The Equalizer'. Through 4 seasons, Robert McCall went up against some of the worst elements that New York City had - including gangs, mobsters, crooked cops, vigilantes, stalkers and even psychopathic stockbrokers. 

I've enjoyed watching the Academy Awards for as long as I can remember. Even though I don't always agree with their decisions, it's still a fun experience for me. This year Emma Stone and Seth MacFarlane woke up at the buttcrack of dawn to give us the nominations for the 85th Academy Awards, I however didn't wake up to watch because I was just too damn tired. 

There's a lot of great movies that were nominated this year and Lincoln leads the pack with 12 nominations which isn't surprising at all. Life of Pi ended up getting 11 noms, Les Miserables got 8, Silver Linings Playbook got 8 as well, Argo ended up with 7, Zero Dark Thirty has 5, Skyfall got 5, Django Unchained got 5 and The Avengers got 1.

There aren't many surprises this year, some might think that Beasts of the Southern Wild was a surprise, but there's been so much ridiculous hype for the movie since it's premiere at Sundance last year. The hype never really seemed to die down, and it ended up getting a few nominations. It was cool to see the little girl in the film, Quvenzhané Wallis, get nominated for Best Actress. 

I'm pretty happy with all of the nominations this year, and it will be interesting to see who ends up winning! Look over the list of nominations and let us know who you'd like to see win! I've bolded who I would like to see win...

BEST PICTURE
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Les Misérables 
Life of Pi
Amour
Django Unchained
Argo

BEST DIRECTOR
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Michael Haneke, Amour
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

BEST ACTRESS
Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

BEST ACTOR
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Denzel Washington, Flight
Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Frankenweenie
Pirates: Band of Misfits
Wreck-It-Ralph
Paranorman
Brave

BEST FOREIGN FILM
Amour (Austria)
No, (Chile)
War Witch, Canada
A Royal Affair, Denmark
Kon Tiki, Norway

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Amy Adams, The Master

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Robert de Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Alan Arkin, Argo
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Argo
Written by Chris Terrio
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Screenplay by Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
Life of Pi
Written by David Magee
Lincoln
Written by Tony Kushner
Silver Linings Playbook
Written by David O. Russell

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Amour
Written by Michael Haneke
Django Unchained
Written by Quentin Tarantino
Flight
Written by John Gatins
Moonrise Kingdom
Written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
Zero Dark Thirty
Written by Mark Boal

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
‘Before My Time,’ Chasing Ice
‘Pi’s Lullaby,’ Life of Pi
‘Suddenly,’ Les Misérables
‘Everybody Needs a Best Friend,’ Ted
‘Skyfall,’ Skyfall

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Seamus McGarvey, Anna Karenina
Robert Richardson, Django Unchained
Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi
Janusz Kaminski, Lincoln
Roger Deakins, Skyfall

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Jacqueline Durran, Anna Karenina
Paco Delgado, Les Misérables
Joanna Johnston, Lincoln
Eiko Ishioka, Mirror Mirror
Colleen Atwood, Snow White and the Huntsman

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Inocente, Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
Kings Point, Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider
Mondays at Racine, Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan
Open Heart, Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern
Redemption, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill

BEST FILM EDITING
William Goldenberg, Argo
Tim Squyres, Life of Pi
Michael Kahn, Lincoln
Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers, Silver Linings Playbook
Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg, Zero Dark Thirty

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Dario Marianelli, Anna Karenina
Alexandre Desplat, Argo
Mychael Danna, Life of Pi
John Williams, Lincoln
Thomas Newman, Skyfall

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel, Hitchcock
Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell, Les Misérables

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Anna Karenina
Sarah Greenwood (Production Design); Katie Spencer (Set Decoration)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Dan Hennah (Production Design); Ra Vincent and Simon Bright (Set Decoration)
Les Misérables
Eve Stewart (Production Design); Anna Lynch-Robinson (Set Decoration)
Life of Pi
David Gropman (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)
Lincoln
Rick Carter (Production Design); Jim Erickson (Set Decoration)

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Adam and Dog, Minkyu Lee
Fresh Guacamole, PES
Head over Heels, Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly
Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”, David Silverman
Paperman, John Kahrs

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
Asad, Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura
Buzkashi Boys, Sam French and Ariel Nasr
Curfew, Shawn Christensen
Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw), Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele
Henry, Yan England

BEST SOUND EDITING
Argo, Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn
Django Unchained, Wylie Stateman
Life of Pi, Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton
Skyfall, Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers
Zero Dark Thirty, Paul N.J. Ottosson

BEST SOUND MIXING
Argo, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia
Les Misérables, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes
Life of Pi, Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin
Lincoln, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins
Skyfall, Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White
Life of Pi
Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott
Marvel’s The Avengers
Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick
Prometheus
Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill
Snow White and the Huntsman
Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson

The first great trailer has been released for Danny Boyle's next film Trance. The film is an art heist thriller that has a great cast of actors that includes James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel, and Rosario Dawson.

It's a heist movie where the heist goes wrong. McAvoy plays an auctioneer, who is in league with a gang of thieves led by Vincent Cassel. Dawson plays a hypnotherapist who is brought in to help recover a lost painting. The film has been described as having the same dark, sexy, hard-edged tone of Boyle's other films like Shallow Grave and Trainspotting.

I've enjoyed the films that Boyle has made, and this one looks like it's going to be awesome! Fox Searchlight will release the film in March of 2013, and I'm looking forward to watching it. Check out the trailer and let us know what you think!

Hey, you want to be that individual at the party who wears pins? You know, the person with the jacket with all those "down with corporations" and Sex Pistols pins? Well, do you really want to be that person? I have the perfect pin to add to your starter collection. Not only is it game related but it features one of the more iconic side characters in geek history. Navi is also one of the more annoying things ever to enter the discourse of video games.

The Etsy shop, Vickinator, were kind enough to craft these cute little Navi pins and they are rather inexpensive. Here is a snippet from the page:

This listing is for ONE 1.25 inch (in diameter) pinback button.

Also available as a MAGNET for an additional 50 cents each!
Contact me if interested.

Orders are eligible for shipping discounts if you order MULTIPLE pinback button listings or custom pinback button sets! Please contact me for more information.

Please feel free to message me through Etsy if you have any questions :)

So, if you want to be the pin-jacket person, this is a good way to start.

Here's our first hilariously crazy look at Michael Fassbender in a comedy called Frank. We also get a look at Domhnall Gleeson and Maggie Gyllenhaal in the film. The movie was directed by Lenny Abrahamson from a script written by The Men Who Stare at Goats author Jon Ronson and Peter Straughn. Here's the synopsis...

Frank is a comedy about a young wannabe musician, Jon (Gleeson), who discovers he's bitten off more than he can chew when he joins a band of eccentric pop musicians led by the mysterious and enigmatic Frank (Fassbender) and his terrifying sidekick Clara (Gyllenhaal).

Frank is based on the memoir by Jon Ronson and is a fictional story loosely inspired by Frank Sidebottom, the persona of cult musician and comedy legend Chris Sievey, as well as outsider musicians like Daniel Johnston and Captain Beefheart. 

It's going to be fun watching Fassbender take on a quirky comedy role like this, he's always so damn serious. I'll be looking forward to checking this one out!

Marvel & Gazillion Entertainment (developers of Marvel Heroes) announced a few tidbits of interesting information on the upcoming Marvel MMORPG. The game is slated to release sometime in Spring of this year (2013), and is currently in the early stages of its closed beta. 

Secondly they announced and showed the various tiers of their founders program. Players can opt into three different tiers, which include 16 starter packs, 7 premium packs, and finally one ultimate pack. Here are some additional details.

Starter Packs

The starter packs ($19.99) will get you one additional character (including Captain America, Cyclops, Hulk, Thor, Spidey, Black Widow, among others), 2 costumes, and some additional money, xp, and days of early access.

Premium Packs

The premium packs ($59.99) focus on teams, and include 4 characters (featuring the movie versions of the Avengers, Xforce, Deadpool's various guises, etc), 8 costumes, and more of the other extras from the starter.

Ultimate Pack

Finally we have the ultimate pack ($199.99), which gets you all characters, all costumes, and some of the other characters and extras that were promised initially but will not come out at launch (such as Squirrel Girl, White Queen, extra costumes, etc). 

While the main game is still free to play, these founder programs seem to be good ways to get some initial cash flow in the beginning for developers. I really have no problem with it, and to be honest I'm considering going in on one of these. Maybe not the $199.99 option (that's my internet, electric, and utility for a month), but I could totally see myself popping down $20 or so to get a character I want (i.e. Cyclops or Cap). Does the founder program sound good to you? Let us know!

Warner Bros. has released another trailer for the amazing looking baseball film 42, which is based on the life and career of the legendary Jackie Robinson. The movie was directed by Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential screenwriter Brian Helgeland, and it has a great cast of actors that includes Harrison Ford, Chadwick Boseman, Christopher Meloni, Ryan Merriman, Brad Beyer, Judy Tylor, Jon Bernthal, Nicole Beharie, and T.R. Knight. 

Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures are teaming up with director Brian Helgeland for “42,” the powerful story of Jackie Robinson, the legendary baseball player who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he joined the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. “42″ will star Academy Award(R) nominee Harrison Ford (“Witness”) as the innovative Dodger’s general manager Branch Rickey, the MLB executive who first signed Robinson to the minors and then helped to bring him up to the show, and Chadwick Boseman (“The Express”) as Robinson, the heroic African American who was the first man to break the color line in the big leagues.

42 opens on April 12th, 2013, and it looks like it's going to be a great film. Check out the latest trailer, and let us know what you think! I can't wait to see it! 

Dexter is just getting insanely intense! I was shocked by how season 7 ended, and for those of you who saw you know that there's going to be major consequences for those actions. Two new characters have been revealed for season 8, and the addition of these characters reveal where the story might be heading.

I guess you could say the following info is a little spoiler filled for those that haven't watched the end of season 7 yet. TV Line gives us the character names, and descriptions of the roles they will play.

Dr. Evelyn Vogel, a formidable and whip smart neuro-psychiatrist in her late 50s who assists the law in profiling criminals (like, perhaps, the one who murdered LaGuerta?).

Jacob Elroy, a handsome and straightforward former cop in his 40s who now owns his own private eye business. Our guess: Angel (or maybe Tom?) hires him to find out who killed his ex-wife.

I just don't see how in the end Dexter and Deb aren't going to go down for what they've done. Whatever ends up happening though is going to be shocking. This next season could be the beginning of the end for Dexter. What do you think is going to happen next season? Do you think it should be its last? 

We've already seen a couple great Back to the Future and Doctor Who mashup illustrations that you can check out here and here. But, James Farr took it to the next level of awesomeness and made an incredible animated short called Blink to the Future. I'd love to see this as an actual series! It's just a really fun concept that was executed well. It's even got a badass TARDIS locomotive! Check it out!

Yesterday we learned that Gareth Edwards' Godzilla remake would include more than one giant monster, and that the story would revolve around a soldier. Today we've learned that Kick-Ass star Aaron Johnson might end up in the role of that soldier. According to Deadline he's now the top choice for the studio. We previously heard that Henry Cavill (Man of Steel), Scoot McNairy (Argo), and Caleb Landry Jones (X-Men: First Class) were also being considered for the gig, guess now they're the studio's runners up unless they've already turned them down.

Johnson won't commit to the project until after he's seen the script which is currently being re-writen by Frank Darabont. Like I said before, I don't really care who's cast in the film, Godzilla in the main character in the movie, and the only reason I want to see it, so I just hope the people working on the film get it right. 

The movie is apparently going to be very different from any other Godzilla movies that's been made. All I know is the teaser footage shown at Comic-Con was enough to get me amped up for the film. It gave me the chills. What do you think about the possibility of Kick-Ass taking on Godzilla?

Here's an incredibly well made short film called 1588 that's part of a series of shorts called The Underwater Realm. The short was produced by Realm Pictures and directed by David M Reynolds. The project was also completely funded through Kickstarter.

This truly is an impressively made short with amazing production value. Each short is set in a different time period, and they take the viewer and characters into the mysterious underwater world of the Atlanteans. Here's a description to get you started...

1588 - A great armada sails from Spain. Seeking to place a catholic monarch on the English thrown. In the fierce naval battles that follow over twenty thousand souls are lost to sea.

Hope you enjoy this one! There's more to come! 

The Underwater Realm - Part III - 1588 (HD) from Realm Pictures on Vimeo.

Josh Brolin has been making the press rounds for his upcoming film Gangster Squad, and one of his next films will be Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy. I'm curious to see this new vision of this insane story. We've heard that it's going to be different from the original film, and that the ending is going to be even more hardcore than the original's. In a recent interview with Collider Brolin talked more about the film, the action scenes that we'll see in it, and reveals that when getting director Chan-wook Park's blessing to make the film he told him not to make the same movie...

With Oldboy, look, it’s Spike Lee, it's myself, the DP Sean Bobbitt, who’s a [frick]ing amazing man and me talking, like I said, to Chan-wook Park and saying, “Do you mind if we do this?” and his only request was just don’t do the same movie and it’s like no we're not interested in that. Structurally, as a scaffolding, it’s the same movie, but what we do with is very different. It looks very different. Spike, about two and a half weeks into the movie cut together this four minute compilation just for me to look at. Not that I needed it, not that I felt like I’m lost, I don’t know what I’m doing. He just gave it to me and said, “Don’t look at this until you get home.” And I watched this four minute compilation and it looked fantastic. It was a massive, massive inspiration. We were out of the motel room at that point, so I didn’t have to do that anymore. But we spent more time in the motel room. We did eight minute to eleven minute long takes where he would just let me go and do whatever. I’d be sitting there naked in the room and he would say, “You’ve been in the room thirteen years; go.” And I would do eight minutes on that and whatever would come up. Some of it was really stupid and unusable. Some of it was really fun and interesting.

He then goes on to describe the awesomeness of main action sequence in the film saying that it's different than the original,

Ours are amazing. We don’t match anything. The only matching is that we do it in one take. That’s the only matching. That’s the only similarity. Well, no, there’s one more similarity, but it’s basically the only similarity within that sequence and I think I can be safe to say that it’s not anything like the original other than it is one take and I’ve never experienced or seen anything like it. And I think what J.J. Perry did as the fight coordinator is something phenomenal. I will say this, I thought there is no way I could possibly pull it off until about a week before we did it after rehearsing it for quite a while.

As much as I enjoyed the original film, this movie could actually turn out pretty badass. I've heard nothing but great things about it so far, and it sounds like there's a good chance it will be an entertaining and crazy movie to watch on the big screen. The actor is then asked about Warner Bros. Justice League movie and if it would be something he'd do, and this was his reply...

We’ve got other conversations and if that conversation comes up I’ll have a conversation with anybody about anything. There’s nothing that I don’t like. Somebody said recently that I’m not a big-budget guy. Gangster Squad has money, I don’t care if it has money or not. All I want to do is keep switching it up, that’s all I care about. So whether I do a big movie or a smaller movie, there are bigger movies that I’ve turned down just because I didn’t feel like - I said, “Look, I’ll be the first person to see this movie I just don’t want to be in it. I don’t want to spend the next six, eight months doing something that I get to show up and have the biggest trailer and do green screen do that.” Whereas Men in Black I was totally willing to do that because it’s a great character, and it’s a very difficult character.

Of course Brolin also made the film Jonah Hex, which really wasn't very good at all. It was also announced earlier this week that he will be starring in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. So of course he's open to making comic book films. If he was going to be cast in Justice League, what character would you like to see him play? 

Check out this cool set of three Avengers style dresses created by Vincent Tam featuring Lady Thor and Lady Loki, and Lady Iron Man. The dresses were inspired by the designs done by robinade, which I've also included below. What's your favorite dress design in the set? 

Last night news hit that the director of the awesome Portal short film, Dan Trachtenenberg, was hired to direct the big screen adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan’s comic book series Y: The Last Man. He may not have any feature film experience under his belt, but he is a talented individual who's a huge fan of the material. In a tweet he sent out last night he said, "I didn't just land a dream job, I landed MY dream job." How freakin' cool is that?! This is the start of an awesome filmmaking career for the the former "Totally Rad Show" host. 

Seven years ago, back in 2006 Trachtenberg talked about the comic on his podcast Geekdrome. Youtuber SlapDash uploaded the audio on Youtube, and you can listen to it below! It will be fun to see this movie come together.

Here's a couple of awesome Doctor Who knitted projects that fans of the series are sure to get a kick out of. Above you'll find a really cool set TARDIS socks, and below you'll find a cute baby Dalek dress.

Yesterday a bunch of first look photos were released for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Today we've got a couple more of them featuring different characters from the sequel. They give us our first look at Philip Seymour Hoffman as Plutarch Heavensbee, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, Donald Sutherland as President Snow, and Paula Malcomson as Katniss' mom. To see the previously released photos click here and here.

In the thrilling sequel THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE, Katniss Everdeen and fellow tribute Peeta Mellark have barely returned home after winning the 74th Annual Hunger Games when they are whisked away once again by the Capitol. Forced to leave her family and best friend Gale, Katniss is dispatched on a victory tour of Panem with Peeta, where rebellion is seething in all 12 districts.

The Capitol is enraged and ready to strike back . . . as President Snow prepares the most diabolical edition of the Hunger Games yet. THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE will be directed by Francis Lawrence, and produced by Nina Jacobson’s Color Force in tandem with producer Jon Kilik. The novel on which the film is based is the second in a trilogy that has over 36 million copies in print in the U.S. alone.

It opens up in conventional theaters and IMAX on November 22nd.