I have an adorable set of geek pop culture art to share with you today created by 100% Soft. They feature tributes to some of our favorite movie and TV scenes including The Avengers, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Big Trouble in Little China, Kill Bill, OldBoy, Lost, and even Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
The collection is part of his Mass Hysteria! solo art show, which opened this weekend at Gallery1988.
A&E has released a great promo poster for Bates Motel season three that really taps into the show’s Psycho roots. Freddie Highmore looks insanely sinister as Norman Bates in this image, and the fact that he’s nestled onto his mother’s (Vera Farmiga) bosom is even more unsettling.
The third season will debut on Monday, March 9th at 9pm, and it will focus on “the evolution of the Bates family and dives head first into Norman’s waning ability to stay in denial about what’s happening to him and the lengths he will go to gain control of his fragile psyche.”
You can watch the first teaser for the series here.
AMC has released a new behind-the-scenes featurette for Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould’s Breaking Bad prequel/spin-off series, Better Call Saul. The video includes the cast and crew of the series discussing the characters that will be included in it. Those characters include Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill, Michael McKean’s Chuck McGill, Patrick Fabian’s Howard Hamlin, Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler, and of course, Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut.
The series is set six years before Saul Goodman meets Walter White. “When we meet him, the man who will become Saul Goodman is known as Jimmy McGill, a small-time lawyer searching for his destiny, and, more immediately, hustling to make ends meet. Working alongside, and, often, against Jimmy, is Mike Erhmantraut. The series will track Jimmy’s transformation into Saul Goodman, the man who puts “criminal” in ‘criminal lawyer.’ The series’ tone is dramatic, woven through with dark humor.”
Gilligan directed the first of ten episodes for the first season. The series has already been greenlit for a second season with 13 episodes. it’s set to premiere on February 9th, 2015.
It looks like Mel Brooks is going to cash in on the return Star Wars by making a sequel to his classic 1987 sci-fi spoof, Spaceballs. The news was confirmed by Brooks himself on a recent appearance on Adam Carolla’s podcast, Take a Knee.
The movie is tentatively titled Spaceballs: The Search for More Money. He’s currently in the early phases of development, he wants to bring most of the original cast back, and he hopes to start shooting in early 2016, after the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December.
This isn’t the first time Brooks has talked about making a sequel. Back in 2014 he told Parade Magazine that the writer of the original film, Thomas Meehan, had “some great ideas” for a followup movie.
I’m really curious to find out what is being planned. I don’t think they could do it without Rick Moranis. I would love to see Moranis reprise his role, but he retired from acting years ago, and it doesn’t seem like he’s interested in jumping back into that world. It would also be kind of sad not to see John Candy in the sequel, who passed away several years ago.
As a big fan of Spaceballs, though, I’m really excited to hear that a sequel might actually happen. If Brooks really wants to push this project through, I have no doubt that he will do it. It wouldd definitely be fun to see these characters again.
Hopefully it happens, and may the Schwartz be with us all.
Artist Patrick Brown created this lively illustration inspired by the upcoming video game Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. This franchise is one of the main reasons why I wanted to get a PS4, and even though this is just a cool piece of fan art, it just reminded me how excited I am for the game. Here's what the artist had to say about the piece:
"And here's one to start the new year, staring Nathan Drake in Uncharted 4. I created this based mainly off of the 15-minute gameplay trailer, it helped a lot in terms of knowing what was in the game and how Drake actually looks.
“My New Years resolution is to spend more time on details, so I'm trying to add a lot more to my characters overall look, I've seen a lot of extremely talented people here on DA and noticed the best images all focus on great detail, so I'm very inspired to aim for that level.
“I cannot wait for this game, Uncharted is one of my most favorite games series yet, so I really wanted to do something special for it."
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is set to be released later this year.
Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt are up for lead roles in an upcoming sci-fi movie called Passengers, which is set in the future. According to Variety, the story takes place on a spacecraft with thousands of people making a journey to a new planet. One passenger awakens up 90 years before he’s originally supposed to and decides to wake up one of the female passengers, which sets a love story in motion.
Morten Tyldum, who recently directed The Imitation Game, will direct the space drama, and screenwriter John Spaihts (Doctor Strange) is currently writing the script for Sony. This project has been in development for awhile. Focus was going to acquire the U.S rights with Keanu Reeves earlier in 2014, and previously the Weinstein Company dropped the project after acquiring the rights. Reese Witherspoon and Rachel McAdams also both had ties to the project at one point.
Lawrence is best known for her roles in The Hunger Games, X-Men: First Class, and Days of Future past and will be returning in X-Men: Apocalypse in 2016.
Pratt is best known for his role in the epic Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy. His newest movie, Jurassic World, will be in theaters later this year.
Passengers seems like it’s in good hands, and with the sci-fi genre becoming more popular, hopefully this movie becomes one to remember.
The gang over at How it Should Have Ended has released a fun animated short inspired by the upcoming Colin Trevorrow-directed movie, Jurassic World. It puts the focus on Chris Pratt’s character and the raptors that he has trained. Turns out what the raptors really want to do is just eat him. Here's a note that came along with the video:
After Jurassic World's Super Bowl Trailer we got to talking about raptors and motorcycles, and then this video happened.
We’ve seen a lot of promo art for Avengers: Age of Ultron recently, and now we have even more to share with you! The art features new images of Vision, Ultron, and the rest of the Avengers team.
On of my favorites is the one above featuring Ultron standing triumphantly in a completely destroyed city with Captain America's shield and Thor's hammer Mjolnir in the foreground. He also has one foot on Iron Man's helmet. There's also a really cool comic book cover style image of Vision in the collection.
Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure.
The movie comes out on May 1st, 2015.
The illustrations come from Tony Stark Sincero, CBM and Comingsoon
About a year ago we posted a collection of extremely cool illustrations paying tribute to a few classic cars from movies and TV. Over the last year, artist Nicolas Bannister has added a lot more art to his series, and they’re all pretty damn radical! We’ve got vehicles from Star Wars, Knight Rider, Back to the Future, The A-Team, Scooby Doo, Batman, Doctor Who, Transformers, Toy Story, Akira, and more.
There’s a new report that Marvel Studios wants Angelina Jolie to direct Captain Marvel. The rumor originated from a gossip magazine called OK! Magazine, and they say the studio wants her to direct the movie so badly that they are willing to pay her $20 million. This is what the report gives us:
"Having a female director is a priority for them. She never thought she'd be in such huge demand as a director, and to be courted by Marvel after the Sony fiasco is a huge pat on the back."
Their sources also apparently told them that one of the reasons Marvel wants Jolie so bad is because they liked what she did with Unbroken. I didn’t think Unbroken was really that great of a film, and I think Jolie is a mediocre director.
It makes sense that Marvel would want a female director to take on Captain Marvel, but I seriously doubt they would spend anywhere near $20 million on ANY director to direct one of their films. Most A-list actors don't even make that much money for a movie. Marvel seems to go after more up-and-coming directors, not the established directors that would cost them a ridiculous amount of money.
I personally believe that the report is crap, but for conversation's sake, what female directors do you think would be a good choice to take on Captain Marvel?
Via: Bleeding Cool
We’ve got another amazing mashup trailer to show you created by Alex Luthor. It’s called Star Wars vs. Star Trek, and it’s as awesome as you would hope it would be! Fans have been debating over Star Wars and Star Trek for years, but now we have a mashup trailer that shows us what it might look like as a movie, and it’s epically spectacular! The trailer doesn’t give us a clear indication of which franchise is better, it’s just an exciting array action-packed glory. So enjoy the ride!
Ice Cube and Dr. Dre introduce the red-band trailer for a new film called Straight Outta Compton. The movie dramatizes the rise of the rap group N.W.A., which, as you may or may not know, was founded by Cube and Dre. Here's what the film is about:
In the mid-1980s, the streets of Compton, California, were some of the most dangerous in the country. When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music that rebelled against abusive authority, they gave an explosive voice to a silenced generation. Following the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton tells the astonishing story of how these youngsters revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war.
This looks like a well made movie that is going to be great. I remember when all of this stuff went down, and it was pretty insane. I think it's cool that they actually made a movie about it. The film was directed by F. Gary Gray (Friday, Set It Off, The Italian Job) and it stars Cube's son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., as Ice Cube, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E ,and Paul Giamatti as manager Jerry Heller,
Straight Outta Compton opens on August 14th, 2015. The trailer is NSFW due to nudity and language.
A new season of Game of Thrones will debut on HBO on April 12th, 2015, but in the meantime, the network has just released the full video of its new behind-the-scenes special called A Day in the Life that aired last night. I'm still reading the books and I'm pretty spoiler-phobic, so I'm not going to watch this until after this new season is over (especially since I've seen headlines like "Did The New Game of Thrones Special Spoil A Major Character Death?" being used this morning), but for those of you who are a little more adventurous - or who are already caught up on all of the books - feel free to check it out below. And don't forget to read about George R.R. Martin's original plan for the books here. I'll be sitting in the corner with my hands over my ears until this season wraps up.
The Walking Dead Season 5 returned to AMC with a vengeance last night! I won't spoil anything for you in case you haven't watched it, but I will say that I knew THAT was going to happen. I swear, this series is going to end when everyone is dead, and at this rate, it's going to end pretty damn fast. Rick Grimes and the rest of survivors are basically just waiting to die. It was a great episode though, and it will be really interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out.
The next episode is called "Them," and here's a description and promo trailer:
The group feels beaten after living life on the road, but must continue to trudge along in spite of the changes they have incurred.
Valentine's Day is this Saturday, and you can celebrate it in the most geeky way possible with these amusing new Valentine's Day cards created by artist PJ McQuade. They feature the Lord of Darkness from Legend, Quint from Jaws, Khan from Star Trek, George McFly from Back to the Future, Hodor from Game of Thrones, and Brick from Anchorman. You can see some of McQuade's previous Valentines card art here. If you want to order any of these to give to your loved ones, click here.
I'm still sort of shocked at the fact that a Deadpool movie is finally on Fox's release schedule and that after all these years, Ryan Reynolds is still going to play the character. He's the perfect choice for the role, but I honestly didn't expect this to happen after the project fell apart a few years ago. Thankfully that test footage leaked and the studio realized there was enough of a clamor to make this happen, so now it's up to director Tim Miller to ignore the hype and concentrate on delivering a great Deadpool movie.
But Reynolds obviously isn't the only actor who will be appearing in the movie, and now Deadline has a list of actresses who are reportedly testing for the female lead role: Morena Baccarin (Homeland, Firefly), Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black), Crystal Reed (Teen Wolf, Crush), Rebecca Rittenhouse (The Red Band Society), Sarah Greene (Vikings), and Jessica De Gouw (Arrow). I'm not super familiar with Deadpool's supporting characters, but there are a handful of possibilities if the studio is looking for a "love interest" angle: Siryn, Copycat, and even the female embodiment of Death - though since this is a Fox movie and Death seems to be tied to Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I'm guessing that character won't appear here.
Who would you like to see star in Deadpool, and which character should they play?
Sometimes a script calls for a child to look like the spitting-image of their parent, and sometimes having an actor play a dual role has a deep, thematic significance. It takes careful planning to pull off the illusion that different characters performed by the same person are interacting with each other. Simple editing tricks, body doubles, or greenscreen can help sell the illusion. Over the years, more sophisticated techniques have also been developed. For example, special computer controlled dollies like the VistaGlide, which Robert Zemeckis and his team created for the Back to the Future sequels, allows actors to perform multiple passes in the same moving shot. In the world of motion capture, an actor can inhabit a limitless number of roles. However, more important than any trick or technical achievement is a fully committed actor who is willing to spend hours in the makeup chair, and capable of creating characters who feel different from each other. So we've put together a list of ten actors who have played their character’s child, grandchild, or ancestor in a live-action or motion-capture film.
The Back to the Future sequels didn’t just have Michael J. Fox suiting up to reprise his role as the time traveling teenager Marty McFly; Parts II and III also featured Fox playing an older version of his character and acting opposite himself as his children and ancestor. In the then future-set follow-up to the original, Fox wore subtle prosthetics to play his son, Marty, Jr., and looked surprisingly believable in makeup and a wig as his daughter, Marlene. In Part III, he rocked facial hair and an Irish accent to play Seamus McFly, Marty’s great-great-grandfather who lived in the old west and was married to a woman who looks quite illogically like Marty's mother.
Thomas F. Wilson played most of the branches of his character’s manure-covered family tree in the Back to the Future films. In addition to playing the young bully Biff Tannen in the first two films, Wilson played a middle-aged version of the character in at least three alternate timelines throughout the trilogy. He also played Biff's equally disgruntled grandson, Griff, in Part II. In Part III, Wilson portrayed the most dangerous and loathsome member of the Tannen family, Biff’s outlaw great-grandfather, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen.
The sequel to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was a Bogus Journey indeed. In addition to Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves playing their own evil robot twins who are sent back in time to kill and replace their characters, Winters also played Bill's grandmother, Granny S. Preston, Esq. The Preston family matriarch appears when Bill and Ted are sent to Hell, where they are tormented by Satan himself and are forced to face their fears — one of Bill’s fears being Granny Preston.
In the romantic comedy So I Married an Axe Murderer, Mike Myers' played both Charlie Mackenzie and his grumpy Scottish father, Stuart, whom he based on his own father. The part of Charlie was originally written for Myers' fellow Saturday Night Live alum Chevy Chase, then passed on by other SNL forebears Martin Short and Albert Brooks (Brooks wrote and directed shorts for the show). In yet another SNL connection, a version of Stuart appeared in an SNL sketch prior to the making of the film.
Ben Stiller played both Tony Perkis Jr. and Tony Perkis Sr. in Disney’s summer camp comedy Heavyweights, even though his real life father and mother, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, also starred in the film. His parents played the beloved owners of the fat camp who reluctantly hand over the reigns to Tony Perkis Jr. Prior to Heavyweights, Ben and his father co-starred in Hot Pursuit, and would go on to appear together in Zoolander and The Heartbreak Kid.
Believably transforming Eddie Murphy into the seven different characters he played in the remake of Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor earned the picture an Academy Award for Best Makeup. In addition to Professor Sherman Klump and Buddy Love — the thin but obnoxious person Sherman transforms into after taking a special weight loss chemical, Murphy also played Papa Cletus Klump (Sherman's father), Mama Anna Klump (Sherman's mother), Granny Klump (Sherman's Grandmother), Ernie Klump, Sr. (Sherman's brother), and Lance Perkins (a parody of Richard Simmons). While Murphy once again earned praise for his performance as the Klump clan in the sequel, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, the movie itself received mostly negative reviews.
In Bicentennial Man, the late Robin Williams played a robot who seeks to become fully human as he acquires emotions. Though it's Williams' character who undergoes the biggest transformation, it was actress Embeth Davidtz who acted took on the dual role of “Little Miss” Amanda Martin and her granddaughter Portia Charney. Portia’s striking resemblance to her grandmother prompts Williams’ character (unaware of genetic traits) to ask, “What right do you have to look like her? There is and can be only one Little Miss!”
The Polar Express marked Robert Zemeckis’ first foray into motion capture and his third film with Tom Hanks, whom he had previously directed in Forrest Gump and Castaway. Hanks played six characters in this holiday adventure, which was the first all motion capture feature film and the first feature released in IMAX 3D. Along with portraying classic Christmas figures like Santa Claus and Scrooge, Hanks played both the main character, Hero Boy (whose real name is never revealed in the movie), and his father.
While most of the actors in Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation of the epic poem Beowulf closely/eerily resembled their computer-generated counterparts, Ray Winstone, who was in his early 50s during production, bore little resemblance to any of his characters, who had only minor elements of the actor’s face incorporated into them. Along with playing the title character and a dwarf performer, Winstone also provided the voice and motion-capture performance for the Golden Man/Dragon, who is the son of Beowulf and Grendel's mother — the succubus portrayed by Angelina Jolie.
Tropic Thunder depicted a group of prima donna actors shooting a war movie who face real danger when their director drops them off in the jungles of Vietnam. Ben Stiller directed and co-wrote the film-within-in-a-film, which opened with faux trailers for motion pictures starring the fictional actors. Jack Black played Jeff Portnoy, a comedian known for playing multiple roles in films, much like Eddie Murphy. The fake trailer for Portnoy’s film, The Fatties: Fart 2 (which directly spoofs the flatulent dinner scene from The Nutty Professor), featured Black in heavy make-up and prosthetics portraying three generations of “America’s favorite obese family.”
Sony Pictures has released two new TV spots for Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie. They premiered last night during the midseason premiere of The Walking Dead. The futuristic sci-fi film centers around an intelligent robot named Chappie, the first robot with the ability to think and feel for itself. This movie looks awesome, and I hope that it does a lot better for Blomkamp than his last film, Elysium.
The film stars Sharlto Copley (District 9), Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), South African rappers Ninja and ¥o-Landi Vi$$er, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, and Hugh Jackman as the villain.
Every child comes into the world full of promise, and none more so than Chappie: he is gifted, special, a prodigy. Like any child, Chappie will come under the influence of his surroundings – some good, some bad – and he will rely on his heart and soul to find his way in the world and become his own man. But there’s one thing that makes Chappie different from anyone else: he is a robot. The first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself. His life, his story, will change the way the world looks at robots and humans forever.
The movie hits theaters on March 6th! Excited?
While House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Daredevil are currently getting most of the press when it comes to Netflix original series, I'm hopeful that the streaming service's upcoming show Bloodline will be good enough to earn its fair share of online chatter. The cast is outstanding, and this brand new trailer has a bit of a True Detective vibe to it, with the swampy, breezy setting seemingly playing a character as important as any of the actors. I have high hopes for this show, and we don't have to wait too much longer to find out if it measures up: all of the episodes of the first season will be released on March 20th, 2015.
When the black sheep son of a respected family threatens to expose dark secrets from their past, sibling loyalties are put to the test.
From the creators of DAMAGES comes BLOODLINE, a new Netflix original series starring Kyle Chandler, Ben Mendelsohn, Linda Cardellini, Norbert Leo Butz, Jacinda Barrett, Jamie McShane, Enrique Murciano, with Sam Shepard, and Sissy Spacek.
DC Comics celebrated the 75th anniversary of Batman last year, and The Dark Knight has certainly proven he has the ability to withstand the test of time, remaining one of America's most iconic pop culture figures. A new video from Jacob T. Swinney (via io9) tracks the cinematic evolution of the character from the 1940s serials all the way up to today. I love that Mask of the Phantasm is included since that's one of my personal favorites, and putting clips of all these films back-to-back, it's abundantly clear how much cheesier Schumacher's films are than Burton's or Nolan's. But that's part of the reason this character works so well - he can be reflective of the era in which his story is being told. What's your favorite cinematic depiction of The Dark Knight?
