Stop-motion LEGO videos are nothing new. The reason this one is so special is because of the sheer speed at which it was completed: the team at A+C Studios shot, edited, rendered, and uploaded this video of a guy traveling through all of this year's Super Bowl commercials less than two days after the Super Bowl itself. Congrats to the animators for what putting in what must have been a tremendous amount of work over the past two days. It turned out great!
H/T: LaughingSquid
We've been talking about Lost City of Z for at least five years, with Brad Pitt once being lined up to star in the adaptation of David Grann's true story. Pitt eventually moved into a producer role on the film, and Benedict Cumberbatch was cast in the lead role of Percy Fawcett, who headed into the depths of the Amazon jungles in Brazil in 1925. Intending to map the jungle, he contracted malaria and discovered a mythical city he called The Lost City Of Z. His peers claimed that this ancient kingdom was a fraud, but Fawcett traveled back into the jungle with his son and another man in an effort to prove his discovery. None of them were ever seen again.
Now, Pacific Rim and Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam has been cast as Fawcett because Cumberbatch has other commitments on his plate (namely, Marvel's Doctor Strange). Hunnam has done some solid work (seek out Green Street Hooligans if you haven't seen it), but I think we can all agree that he's a bit of a downgrade from Cumberbatch. I'm glad he dodged the bullet of starring in Fifty Shades of Gray, but now it appears he'll have his own Mr. Gray to work for: writer/director James Gray (We Own The Night, The Immigrant). Sienna Miller and Robert Pattinson will co-star. No word yet on when filming begins, but I'd expect this one to be in theaters sometime in 2016.
Marvel has released the trailer for their new Netflix series, Daredevil, and it looks incredible! This intense action series stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer by day and Daredevil by night. He relies on his other heightened senses to fight crime and kick ass. The show also stars Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk.
Marvel’s Daredevil follows the journey of Matt Murdock, who was blinded as a young boy but imbued with extraordinary senses, now fighting against injustice by day as a lawyer, and by night as the super hero Daredevil in modern day Hell’s Kitchen, New York City.
Steven S. DeKnight (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is an executive producer and showrunner on the series. Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) and Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb are also producers on Daredevil. Goddard actually wrote the first two episodes.
All 13 episodes of Daredevil will be released simultaneously on Netflix Friday, April 10th at 12:01 AM Pacific time. Daredevil is the first of four Marvel shows coming to Netflix. The next one that we'll see is AKA Jessica Jones starring Krysten Ritter, then Luke Cage starring Mike Colter, and Iron Fist. All four heroes will then team for The Defenders.
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon released another edition of its popular “Brian Williams Raps” segments earlier this week. This time it features the news anchor spitting out Snoop Dogg’s “Who Am I (What’s My Name)?” The video was made by cutting together video clips of Williams saying the words that make up the song. It's really quite amusing.
Fallon also recreated the iconic opening credits of Will Smith’s Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for his cold open, which features cameos from Fresh Prince stars DJ Jazzy Jeff and Alfonso Ribeiro. You can check them both out below.
Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment have released a great new trailer for the upcoming spin-off film, Minions. It features Kevin, Stuart, and Bob in 1968 as they hit the road for Orlando, which is the location of Villain-Con. Villain-Con is basically an evil version of Comic-Con, with the biggest gathering of criminals in the world. It’s a place where fans gather to see all kinds of villainous things and celebrities, including Scarlet Overkill, played by Sandra Bullock.
This is the best thing I’ve seen from the movie so far, and there’s no doubt that it’s going to give the fans a fun story, and some hilarity. Here’s the synopsis:
The story of Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment’s Minions begins at the dawn of time. Starting as single-celled yellow organisms, Minions evolve through the ages, perpetually serving the most despicable of masters. Continuously unsuccessful at keeping these masters—from T. rex to Napoleon—the Minions find themselves without someone to serve and fall into a deep depression.
But one Minion named Kevin has a plan, and he—alongside teenage rebel Stuart and lovable little Bob—ventures out into the world to find a new evil boss for his brethren to follow.
The trio embarks upon a thrilling journey that ultimately leads them to their next potential master, Scarlet Overkill (Academy Award® winner Sandra Bullock), the world’s first-ever female super-villain. They travel from frigid Antarctica to 1960s New York City, ending in mod London, where they must face their biggest challenge to date: saving all of Minionkind…from annihilation.
The movie comes out on July 10th, 2015.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games, and The LEGO Group have debuted the first teaser trailer for their upcoming LEGO Jurassic World video game. It doesn't show off much of the game, but it delivers some some amusing LEGO humor.
Following the epic storylines of Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III, as well as the highly-anticipated Jurassic World, LEGO Jurassic World is the first videogame where players will be able to relive and experience all four Jurassic films.
The game will be available in June and released on all major game systems, including Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and Windows PC.
Deadpool is finally being developed as a feature film. Fans have been waiting for this for a very long time, and thanks to the awesome test footage that leaked online, Fox finally has the balls to move forward with it and has admitted to themselves that they might have a successful franchise on their hands.
I’m seriously surprised that it took them so long to figure that out. During an interview with Yahoo UK, Ryan Reynolds talked about the Deadpool movie and the leaked footage which he credits with getting the film greenlit. When asked how the project finally got pushed through, he said,
"Exclusively the leaked test footage, 100 percent."
Who leaked the footage is still a mystery, and Reynolds claims that he doesn’t know. Asked who he thought it was, he replied,
“I would have, if I had known it would have caused that! Honestly, we all thought Tim Miller, the director, had leaked it. But I have since investigated that enough, in quiet moments when he was beyond the point of being penalized by anybody, and he said that he really didn’t do it. The initial [leak] came from Fox they think — someone recorded the footage on their iPhone and then released it. And then once that happened, somebody hacked into Blurred Studios and got the original footage in high-res and put it online.”
It’s hard to believe that it wasn't someone within the production team. They had to have done it knowing that it would light a fire under Fox’s ass. As for whether Reynolds was nervous or excited when he saw the footage online, he explained,
"I was excited, because you can look back at an email chain from all of us, the core group involved in Deadpool, saying 'We should leak this, f***er,' like three years ago. Saying, 'Hey, if this thing is going to stagnate, one of us should just say 'Whoops, I slipped it online by accident.' And nobody seemed to want to nut up and do that, myself included. Someone did it for us, years later, when we all completely assumed it was dead in the water.
“Now, we get to make the movie. We don’t get to make it with the budget of most superhero movies, but we get to make it the way we want to make it, so that’s even more exciting than having a catered lunch.”
Well, a big thank you to whoever did leak it when all was thought to be lost. Reynolds is perfect for this role, and he’s going to absolutely kill it as the insane Marvel character. He was fantastic for the short amount of time he was Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
The conversation then moved on to Green Lantern and what he learned from that superhero movie production that he could bring to Deadpool.
“Well, script. When we shot Green Lantern, nobody auditioning for the role of Green Lantern was given the opportunity to read the script, because the script didn’t exist. I’m not complaining about it — it was an opportunity of a lifetime, and if I were to go back and retrace my steps, I would probably do everything the exact same way. But script, that’s what’s different on this one.
“We’ve had a script for three years. The script got leaked, and people even loved that. That says a lot — if you can create a script around a comic-book character that is directly within the canon of the character and be embraced. That’s a huge step in the right direction. I’ve since learned that a lot of superhero movies don’t really have a fully functioning draft of the screenplay ready until they’re already well into shooting.”
I think we can all agree that Green Lantern wasn’t Reynolds' fault. He did the best he could with the material he had to work with. That was a studio film that was made by a committee, and films like that tend to turn out like crap. It’s a good thing they have full control of Deadpool, and they get to make it the way they want.
Deadpool hits theaters on February 12th, 2016.
Chris Love and Kara Kyser are a couple of hardcore geeks who got engaged at a Comic-Con last fall. Now they have some awesome post-apocalyptic engagement photos inspired by the video game Fallout.
The photos were taken by Joshua Hoffine at Missouri’s Belvoir Winery, which is the site of an old orphanage and nursing home. It's also rumored to be haunted. This is what Love told BuzzFeed about the photos:
“We’re both geeks. Kara is a gamer and cosplayer. I’m more a movie geek, I guess, and dabble in the realm of cosplay too. Between the two of us we hatched the idea of this post-apocalyptic theme — nukes, not zombies — from our mutual interests.”
Kyser added:
“The video game series Fallout is one of my favorites. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of a post-nuclear fallout and the resourcefulness of people surviving it. We thought it would be fun to kind of tell this story where we got married, but then the fallout happened, but it’s OK because we managed to survive and are still rocking our wedding day attire.”
These two people were obviously meant to be together. I love how these photos turned out.
Marvel recently released a digital comic called Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude - This Scepter'd Isle. In it, we learn the origin of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch and how they ended up being held captive by Hydra scientist Baron Von Strucker.
Even though this is an official prequel comic to Avengers: Age of Ultron, I’m still going to throw out a SPOILER warning so I don’t get yelled at later.
The comic shows us how Loki’s scepter went from being in the possession of Earth's Mightiest Heroes in The Avengers to Baron Von Strucker in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
It also reveals that Von Strucker uses the scepter on test subjects in the fictional European city of Sokovia to "unlock" any powers those people might have.
Two of those test subjects are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. It makes me wonder how this all ties together the Infinity Stones to the Inhumans and the Terrigen Mists, which is a natural mutagen in the form of a vapor that comes from the Terrigen Crystals. It is able to alter Inhuman biology.
There is also a little twist that there are willing test subjects involved with the experiments who were not captured Hydra, who want to be a part of the program. Check out one of the comic panels below.
Via: Newsarama
I’ve been a huge fan of horror movies for as long as I can remember. I love the art of these films, and I relish in the experience of being scared. FilmmakerIQ.com has released an extremely cool an informative video essay called "The History of Horror," and it dissects the history of horror, “from it's roots deep in Gothic literature, through B-movie status and director's proving grounds to ultimate respectability as an important filmmaking genre.”
If you aren't in a place where you can watch the video, they have the whole thing written up in an article here for you to read. It’s broken up into segments that include “Roots of Horror,” “Horror in the Silent Era,” “German Expressionism,” “Horror Films Learn to Scream,” “Mutated Monster Mash,” “Psychology, Sex and Gore,” “Independent Horror and the Slasher,” and “The 90s and Modern Horror.” This is definitely worth your time.
"There’s something about horror films that can transcend national and cultural boundaries. As the digital democratization of filmmaking continues horror will be a genre that can delight or terrify people no matter where they are from or what language they speak. This is because horror works on us differently than other genres- a topic I’ll explore in the next video on the psychology of horror. But as we’ve seen in this detailed but no way exhaustive survey of the history horror, the next big scary movie can come from anywhere, no matter the budget, stars, or the country of origin. Horror is very much a director’s genre – All that matters is if can you make an audience shiver with fright? Go out there and make something scary."
I hope you check this out because it does a fantastic job taking us on a journey through the evolution of fear in film.
"They're here." Today we have our first look at the Sam Raimi-produced Poltergeist remake that was directed by Gil Kenan (Monster House). The images show off some familiar visuals in the film such as the iconic haunted TV scenes, the creepy-ass clown, and a little girl being pulled away from her parents while she is being sucked into another dimension.
Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt star in the film as a parents who move into a new home that is haunted by a supernatural force that threatens their family, more specifically, their little girl Madison, who is played by 8-year-old Kennedi Clements.
I was really worried when I first heard that one of my all-time favorite horror movies was going to be remade, but with the people involved, and the fact that it is also kind of a sequel eases my mind. The photos come from USA Today, and this is what Kenan told them about the movie:
"Whenever someone approaches material that's so beloved, there's a reflexive reaction to be worried. It's a responsibility we take very seriously. We're working to make a Poltergeist film that lives up to the original's legacy.
"Unlike the traditional horror film, I wanted to put together a cast to give weight and reality to these characters. It's the way to anchor the family. It's such an emotional story at the core. Parents fighting to get their child back from the beyond."
Raimi also spoke about the inspiration behind the movie, and how it has been updated to fit the world that we now live in:
"The original film commented on how we've let television get out of control, babysitting our kids. It's only gotten worse with the handheld portable devices. Screens are everywhere."
The family finds themselves in a paranormal world of hurt, and it gets so bad that they bring in a respected supernatural researcher and clairvoyant payed by Jared Harris for help. The director explained,
"The thing that keeps them a family is what they have to draw on, to stay sane, and also to win Madison back. The film is super-scary. And it's scary on its own terms. I am excited to finally be able to share that with the world."
The movie comes out on July 24th, and I suspect that we'll see a trailer soon, so stay tuned!
Marvel is launching a new comic called Secret Wars 2099 this May. It comes from writer Peter David and artist Will Sliney. We've got our first look at the comic thanks to some art and sketches released by the publisher, and I've gotta say: Captain America looks absolutely frightening with those muscles, especially in the sketch directly below. While talking to Marvel, David had this to say about the comic and Captain America:
“I can do whatever the hell I want. Since this is a new 2099, I don’t feel any need to adhere to the previous 2099 continuity. For instance, there was already a Captain America 2099 and I felt no need to use that one in crafting the Avengers. My Cap is wholly original. And I have to admit, I love seeing fans going nuts because she’s built up like an actual weight lifter. No one thinks anything of the Super Soldier serum giving huge muscles to a man, but do it with a woman and suddenly many fans are howling in protest. She looks like a big woman, guys. Deal with it.”
And that explains that. Here's the comic description:
When everything ends, it’s time to go back to the future. Revisit the world of 2099 and see it a whole new light, as characters who have never been seen before make their first appearances – including the AVENGERS 2099. Can the ideal of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes survive in a world where megacorporations rule with an iron fist?
Check out the art and let us know what you think about the designs.
Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to the 2012 hit loosely based on Channing Tatum's real life as a stripper before he became a movie star. This trailer is exactly what you'd expect (and exactly what you likely want), and early word indicates that XXL will be the movie that a lot of fans wanted the first time around: more dancing and partying, less introspection and reflection than the original. I enjoyed the first one — though it was much darker than I anticipated — and I'm interested to see how Tatum and Co. build on that story with this new adventure, which sees the guys reuniting for one last blow-out performance.
Greg Jacobs directed, Steven Soderbergh was the DP, and Tatum, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodriguez, Gabriel Iglesias, Donald Glover, and more star. Magic Mike XXL arrives on July 1st.
The only thing that we know about Warner Bros.' Shazam movie is that Dwayne Johnson will be playing the villain Black Adam. He's going to fit in this role perfectly, and we've got some cool art from Boss Logic that offers us an imagining of what Johnson might look like as Black Adam. Shazam will be released in 2019, and I'm really curious to see what the studio plans on doing with it.
Via: CBM
Stuntmen-turned-directors Chad Stehelski and David Leitch made a big splash last year with their directorial debut, John Wick. The Keanu Reeves action film was a lean exercise in efficient storytelling, intriguing world-building, and balls-to-the-wall actions (how many headshots are in that film? I'm guessing a supercut is going to tell us very soon), and the directors made such a big impression that they're now lined up to make Cowboy Ninja Viking with Chris Pratt. But in a new interview with Movies.com, the duo also says what John Wick fans have been wanting to hear since the second the credits began to roll on the original: they're developing a sequel.
“We’re in development right now,” Stahelski says, although he doesn't mention any story details or if Reeves would come back to reprise his title role.
“We have ideas for days and without blinking twice we know we can outdo the action from the original. It’s the matter of story and how much you like the character. That’s always the most important. If there’s great action but you have a character that no one likes and doesn’t have charisma you’re not going to watch it. Look at any great action star, whether it’s Harrison Ford or Liam Neeson or Robert Downey Jr., pick a name, you love the guy first. Good action, bad action, you just love them in action. So we want to make sure we have a story and a character that everybody loves and then we’ll dress it with action that we promise will be awesome.”
I'm all about seeing a sequel to John Wick, and it's good to hear that they're concentrating on story since they clearly have the action stuff mastered already. This all sounds very preliminary so don't get your hopes all the way up quite yet, but I'm guessing if the film does well on Blu-ray and DVD (it just came out yesterday), then the studio will be able to justify tossing these guys a few million for a sequel and letting them loose.
Do you want to see a sequel to John Wick?
Here’s a striking and intriguing photo of director Zack Snyder on the set of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It comes from photographer Clay Enos, who is also responsible for the first official images of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman that have been released. This might just be the coolest photo of Snyder I've seen.
It doesn't really give us any additional information about the film, but it’s an atmospheric-looking part of the Gotham City set. Sometime in the near future we will actually get to see some more footage from this movie, and I can’t wait.
Via: Batman-News
Last year we learned that Warner Bros. and MGM were going to develop a Stargate trilogy with director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin. They've been working on developing a new Stargate film for years, and it's continuing to move forward.
Nicolas Wright and James A. Woods are in final negotiations to write the script for the first film of the trilogy. The two writers recently worked together with Emmerich on Independence Day 2. They obviously all had a good experience working with each other since they are teaming back up.
I've enjoyed the Stargate franchise over the years, from the first film to the several SyFy Channel series' that followed. The original plan for the first film was to turn it into a trilogy but they never got to make the other two films. I imagine this new set of movies will start from scratch and reinvent the franchise. It's definitely a fun universe to play with, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out.
Emmerich is working on a drama called Stonewall, which is set during the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York. He is also in pre-production on his Independence Day sequel.
Source: THR
The Screen Junkies take things to a new level in their Honest Trailer for almost everyone's favorite animated movie of 2014, The LEGO Movie. They brought in Nice Peter and EpicLLOYD from "Epic Rap Battles of History" to help get their point across. They don't necessarily tear the movie apart as much as they point out that the movie was one big LEGO product advertisement.
Everything is awesome when you’re the #1 toy in the world! We take on the much-beloved LEGO Movie – with some help from Epic Rap Battles of History’s Nice Peter and EpicLLOYD!!!
Move over Robert Downey Jr., Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jonny Lee Miller: there's a new Sherlock Holmes in town. Sir Ian McKellen is playing an older version of the character in a new movie called Mr. Holmes, in which a retired Holmes dives back into an unsolved case. It's directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls), and watching McKellen play the iconic detective sounds like a delightful way to spend two hours. The film will be released sometime this year, and McKellen has shared the first clip from the movie on Twitter. Check it out below, and take a look at two photos from the film here and here:
Exclusive first clip from my new film MR HOLMES. I’m Holmes, age 93, working my final case with a young confidante. https://t.co/UmlbDP25to
— Ian McKellen (@IanMcKellen) February 4, 2015
MR. HOLMES is a new twist on the world’s most famous detective. In 1947, an aging Sherlock Holmes returns from a journey to Japan, where, in search of a rare plant with powerful restorative qualities, he has witnessed the devastation of nuclear warfare. Now, in his remote seaside farmhouse, Holmes faces the end of his days tending to his bees, with only the company of his housekeeper and her young son, Roger. Grappling with the diminishing powers of his mind, Holmes comes to rely upon the boy as he revisits the circumstances of the unsolved case that forced him into retirement, and searches for answers to the mysteries of life and love – before it's too late.
The first trailer for Magic Mike XXL dropped earlier this morning, and it immediately reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy. No, you didn't miss a scene in Guardians in which Star-Lord, Groot, Rocket, and Drax ripped off their shirts and danced to Ginuwine's "Pony" - though that would admittedly have been ridiculous and kind of awesome. The thing they have in common (well, at least that their marketing has in common) is the use of the phrase "You're Welcome." In MMXXL, it comes up in huge text during the trailer itself. In Guardians, it's the tagline on the poster.
It takes some balls to say "you're welcome" to fans that early, because you're essentially implying that we're all screaming "Thank you!" when we see the first glimpse of whatever it is you're selling. But in the case of both these movies, that confidence seems to fit really well with the attitude and tone they're trying to convey in these stories. Peter Quill is egotistical (he really expects everyone to know that he goes by "Star-Lord"?) and Magic Mike is...well, he's freakin' Magic Mike. These guys have swagger for days, and it looks like the marketing departments for both films capitalized on that and tried to translate it in our early looks at the movies.
But is that "You're Welcome" actually earned? In Magic Mike XXL's case, it seems that the answer is "yes" just from the footage presented in the trailer. Female fans especially are going nuts for it already, and you'd likely lose count if you tried to track down all of the .gifs that have been made since its debut this morning. Will the movie actually be any good? I think for many people, it probably doesn't matter - as long as it has those scenes from the trailer, they'll be happy with it.
In the case of Guardians, it was probably a riskier move to slap that phrase on the poster when practically no one had ever heard of any of those characters before. That's the equivalent of an unknown rookie baseball player pulling a Babe Ruth and pointing to center field, "calling his shot" before trying to hit a home run. Luckily, Guardians actually did end up hitting a home run - it became one of Marvel's most successful movies, and everyone loved it. Will Magic Mike XXL recapture the success of the original? If this trailer is any indication, it'll make even more money than the first, so it looks like that "You're Welcome" is just an early indicator of how confident the studio is in the final product.
