This adorable Predator will just melt your heart. This is one of the coolest Predator cosplay outfits that I've seen, and the fact that it's for a cute kid makes it even more badass. I want my kids dressing up as the Predator! The photos come from Albert Lien, and I also included a video. You can see more photos of the costume and the little girl behind the mask here. Thanks to Nerdsandgamersftw for the tip!

The Amazing Spider-Man villain Rhys Ifans has been cast in Disney's Alice in Wonderland sequel, Through the Looking Glass. 

He will take on the role of a character named Zanik Hightopp, who happens to be the Mad Hatter's dad. What's interesting about this is that Ifans is actually four years younger than Johnny Depp. He just didn't age as well. I guess it doesn't really matter though as they will both be covered in make-up, and they seem like they would make a great on-screen duo.

James Bobin (The Muppets) is directing the movie, and Mia Wasikowska and Helena Bonham Carter are reprising their roles as Alice and the Red Queen. Sacha Baron Cohen has been cast as the villain in the story named Time.

Disney will release the movie on May 27th, 2016.

Source: The Wrap

Yesterday it was reported that Marvel was looking at Rawson Thurber (We're the Millers), Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Other Guys), and Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) to replace Edgar Wright as the director on Ant-Man.

According to AICN, Marvel has extended an offer to McKay, and he is now in talks with the studio trying to work out a deal. The site also says that Marvel did not meet with Fleischer or Thurber.

As I said in my initial article on the directors, McKay probably has the edge because he's already worked with Paul Rudd on the Anchorman films. I'm also pretty sure that Rudd lobbied for McKay to get the job.

I've enjoyed the movies that McKay has made over the years, and if he really does take on Ant-Man I hope he is able to deliver the best movie possible. Do you think McKay is the right man for the job?

Dave Rapoza is a very talented artist who always delivers the goods. Here's an amazing set of Avengers character portraits featuring Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America. Apparently these are warm-up pieces he did before he started doing real work. 

A couple weeks ago I interviewed Maleficent’s Sharlto Copley. I posted his Chappie news here, but we talked about way more than that. Here are his thoughts on playing villains, creating his own projects, and whether Stefan is a typical man.

Mily Dunbar: So, I liked the movie…
Sharlto Copley: Were you sitting there going, oh, typical man, like a lot of the women apparently were? I heard this from a lot of reporters.

No. I wasn’t… 
Okay.

In my experience you’re kind of an atypical man in this movie. I didn’t have many experiences with men like you in my dating life.
Okay. Okay, good.

Which was good. Fortunately for me… When I was doing my research for this interview, I read that you don’t like to play villains. So what drew you to this role?
I think this was one that I felt there was a sort of potential moral of the story. Like something actually… because the film is very kind of female-centric, if you will, that it was sort of a cautionary tale for men in terms of what can happen when your drive and ambition and desire to be, you know, literally the king of the castle in this case runs away with itself. And I think there’s a lot of men that are like that. Just look around in Hollywood how many successful men have very broken families. And this is obviously in fairy tale form the worst case of that where someone is prepared to sacrifice their true love for power. And where once you’ve done that, you know, in this case, for him there’s just no, there’s no coming back. His conscience is still there and that’s eating him and he starts to really almost, you know, in a Shakespearean fashion, go crazy. And I think it’s a valuable lesson. It’s something… I found my way into the character with a certain level of ambition and alpha male-ness and whatever else that I’ve had in my life. So I could do that, and then it’s just about, oh well, really take that to its crazy extreme, what would it look like?

Ok. You go through such a transformation. When you show up in the story, you’re ambitious and you’ve kind of chosen that path, but you get crazier and crazier and worse and worse, and I was contrasting that with your District 9 transformation where you kind of become more heroic.
That’s interesting, yeah.

And I was wondering, which was more fun or more interesting for you to play?
Definitely the more heroic version, yeah. (Laughs) It’s really difficult when you... I never thought about it that way, but it’s interesting. That’s the reverse, you know, where somebody’s really going the other way... I like these layered characters that are going through real kind of transformations. I like playing, but definitely I’ve had more fun playing the heroes than the villains.

You have a production company in South Africa…
I do, yeah.

And you worked on that for a long time, how does that change your approach how does that, does that make your approach to your characters or your projects different than someone who didn’t have that experience?
I suppose it’s more that really I was a behind the scenes guy in the sense that I really wanted to direct, write, produce, you know? I wanted to be making my stuff as it were, not in front of the camera, so I think that mindset does definitely inform my understanding of the function of a character within the story. For example coming from writing or looking at the structure of a screenplay, and it’s amazing to me how few screenplays are really properly structured in terms of normal, you know, what professional instructors in screenplay writing would tell you — how very few people use any of that stuff. And so it informs me in being able to, for example in District 9, being able to improv all my dialogue in that film. I really feel I only could have done that based on the experience I’d had behind the camera and understanding you’ve got to improv on certain things that otherwise there’s no chance of it being in the film. “The function of the scene within the greater story is what?” and then improv around those issues. So it does, it sometimes makes it frustrating for me because I have to really, but I have to very much focus on just being doing the acting part, just going, “that is your job here. There’s nothing you can do about the rest of the film.” (Laughs)

Are you working on developing any of your own projects currently?
I am. I am. I’ve reached a point where I just really really feel a massive desire to go back there, so I literally have four or five things going now.

Maleficent is in theaters now.

Paramount Pictures has released a new TV spot for Transformers: Age of Extinction, and it features a good amount of fresh footage that includes some new Transformer characters. The movie comes out on June 27th, and it's sure to make for a fun time at the movies. 

Badass Digest

There's a lot of Ken Taylor art floating around on the Internet this week because of the solo art show that Mondo is holding for him. This beautiful tribute to Julie Newmar's 1960's version of Catwoman is going to be a part of the show. I used to watch the original Batman TV series all the time groiwng up thanks to reruns. I haven't watched the show in years, though. I might have to remedy that soon.

Wow! I didn't see this one coming! Earlier today we reported that Adam McKay was in talks with Marvel to replace Edgar Wright as the director of Ant-Man. It looks like that's not the case anymore.

THR is now reporting that the Anchorman director has pulled out of negotiations. I thought for sure he would take the gig, so this is surprising to me. All the report says is that the director "abruptly decided against taking the job on the film." They also mention that the decision is said to be his alone.

Well, it looks like the hunt for a new Ant-Man director is back on. There's no word on whether Rawson Thurber (We're the Millers) or Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) are still in the running. I bet Marvel didn't expect to find themselves in this situation. They really screwed up with Wright. 

The studio says that they still plan to release the movie on July 17th, 2015. I wonder what director will meet with Marvel next.

DreamWorks Animation has released a new featurette for How To Train Your Dragon 2 called "Dragons and Riders." It focuses on the human and dragon characters in the story. The featurette also includes new footage from the film along with interviews with the cast and crew. It's worth checking out if you're excited for the movie.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 is set five years after the events of the original movie changed everything on the isolated island of Berk. With humans and dragons successfully united, everyone has their own ride, a dragon they’ve connected to. While Astrid (America Ferrera), Snoutlout (Jonah Hill) and the rest of the gang are challenging each other to dragon races (the island's new favorite contact sport), the now inseparable Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his own reptile pal Toothless journey through the skies, charting unmapped territories and exploring new worlds.

When one of their adventures leads to the discovery of a secret ice cave that is home to hundreds of new wild dragons and the mysterious Dragon Rider, the two friends find themselves at the centre of a battle to protect the peace. Now, they must unite to stand up for what they believe while recognizing that only together do they have the power to change the future of both men and dragons…

The movie comes out on June 24th.

I know a lot of people think that Aquaman is kind of a joke of a superhero, and I can understand why because there is a bit of silliness to him. But I also think there's a badassness about him as well that some people are missing. This piece of art created by Eric W. Meador portrays that.

Director James Cameron has teamed up with Cirque du Soleil to develop a live arena-touring show that will be created around Cameron's Avatar movies. The "live experience" is expected to debut in late 2015 and will travel all over the world.

I've never been a Cirque du Soleil show, but I've seen videos of it, and the acrobatics that they pull off in these shows is mind-bendingly incredible. I can easily see Avatar being a great setting for a show like this.

The announcement was made in Montreal during the international business C2MTL– Commerce + Creativity Conference, and here are the details:

The live production will feature the creative signature drive of Cirque du Soleil in association with Cameron's and Jon Landau's Lightstorm Entertainment. The show is expected to debut before the first of three upcoming Avatar sequels, for which Cameron is currently in pre-production. Twentieth Century Fox, which financed and distributedAvatar, will bring the new films to theaters around the world and is also a partner on the live show.

"Our relationship with Jim Cameron began with my visit at his 'Avatar' cutting room", explained Daniel Lamarre. "I am thrilled that almost 5 years later, Cirque du Soleil will be able to explore the very inspirational 'Avatar' realm for the live stage. This will mark our second creative project with Jim and I believe it will be as stimulating for both our creative forces."

"Over the years, I have discovered the extraordinary talents and imaginations of both the artists and the creative forces behind Cirque du Soleil," said James Cameron. "I know we share the common goal of bringing audiences to another level of entertainment experiences. I look forward to doing just that on this project."

"Audiences around the globe have embraced 'Avatar' and we believe they will want to experience this amazing world in an entirely new way," commented Kathy Franklin, President of Franchise Development at Lightstorm Entertainment.

"'Avatar' remains a phenomenon that continues to inspire people around the globe, and combining it with the live event ingenuity of Cirque de Soleil is a perfect synthesis of imagination and talent," said Jim Gianopulos, Chairman and CEO, 20th Century Fox. "As Jim Cameron prepares to take us to even greater heights with three new 'Avatar' films, we're thrilled with the innovative experience he's developing in this groundbreaking agreement with Cirque de Soleil."

Creative forces from Cirque du Soleil and Lightstorm Entertainment will meet and put in place a dedicated creative team, which will be announced at a later date.

Who doesn't love a cool robot in a movie or TV show? Robots are awesome… when they aren't trying to rise up and take over the world. “Science Bob” Pflugfelder created a fun visual aid that points out all of the famous pop-culture robots from movies, television shows, and comics. Here's what he had to say about his reference guide:

"There’s something about robots that people connect to. I knew as soon as I left the theater after watching Star Wars that I would someday have my own R2-D2, (which I now do!) So I decided to ask the followers of my Facebook Page to tell me their favorite robot, and I got a huge response. Below are some of the favorites, and the approximate time that they made their first appearance. I included cyborgs (robotically modified humans) as well as some real robots that were mentioned."

You can view a poster-sized version of Bob’s guide on his science experiment blog. Who is your favorite robot? 

In anticipation of its recently announced Kingdom Hearts 3, Square Enix has announced that its second ReMIX collection is coming to the PS3 later this year to give gamers a chance to catch up on the storyline. The qualifications in the title show the main thing wrong with the Kingdom Hearts series as of late, as too many offshoots have bogged the franchise down and confused the storyline, so I'm glad that they are packaging them together and bringing them to console. The HD 2.5 ReMIX includes the Final Mix version of Kingdom Hearts 2 which includes additional boss battles, weapons, and extra cutscenes designed to flesh out and hopefully clear up the story. 

The bundle also includes the Final Mix version of Birth by Sleep, which was previously released on PSP. In addition, it also includes the cinematics from Re:coded, just like the 1.5 ReMix included scenes from 358/2 days. I'm actually quite stoked to play both of these games, as I haven't played the original KH2 for quite some time now, and Birth by Sleep slipped past my radar completely. Plus, gummy ships!

Yes, I was THAT one guy who liked the gummi ships, but I still maintain they were awesome.

Enjoy some new screens from the remaster below.

The full trailer for Eli Roth's cannibal horror film The Green Inferno has been released, and this movie looks insane! What starts out as a feel-good, save the rain forest, environmental kind of movie quickly turns into watching a group of young activists try to survive a tribe full of cannibalists who want to eat them. The movie is being billed as "The Most Terrifying Film Ever." That's a bold statement, and one I find hard to believe, but we'll just have to wait and see until the movie comes out on September 15th.

Warner Bros. has released an extended TV spot for director Doug Liman's sci-fi film Edge of Tomorrow, and it give us even more footage! The movie comes out on June 5th, and I've gushed over how excited I am about for some time now. I've also done my best to get the rest of you excited to see it as well. It's going to be really interesting to see how this movie does at the box office, but I hope that it surpasses expectations on all levels. 

Freddy Krueger was one of the coolest, most monstrous villains ever. I was never really scared of him, he was just such a great character that was comically nightmarish. DeviantArt artist Nelson Daniel created this great piece of Nightmare on Elm Street tribute art that I thought that some of you other fans would enjoy.

Buried in an Ant-Man director report from The Wrap is a little bit of Ghostbusters 3 information that I hadn't heard yet. A couple of days ago Zombieland's Ruben Fleischer was on a short list of directors to replace Edgar Wright in Ant-Man. It looks like that's not the only movie he's up for.

The report mentions he's also being considered to direct Ghostbusters 3 for Sony Pictures. Yes, that movie is still slowly moving toward production, and one day it will eventually happen. It's not really that surprising that he would be up for the gig. After all, he has already directed Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less for the studio. If they've enjoyed working with him in the past, why wouldn't they want to work with him again on such big profile project?

Fleisher may not have made the best film with Gangster Squad, but the guy has proven that he can make a visually interesting comedy, so Ghostbusters seems like it would be a great fit for him. If he ends up taking on Ghostbusters 3 I might actually be a little more excited about it. 

Last month Star Wars: Episode VII officially went into production in the Abu Dhabi desert and director J.J. Abrams has been hard at work bringing to life the next chapter in the Star Wars Saga. The production has since moved to Pinewood Studios in London where it will finish up the rest of the filming. 

TMZ managed to get over 40 photos from the Abu Dhabi set which includes some close-up shots of some extras, costumes, props, sets, and even new creatures. They definitely contain SPOILERS.

The source for the site says that the photos show off the "junkyards and shanty towns of Tatooine," which as you know is Luke Skywalker's home world. The TMZ source also reports that one of the crazy looking practical creatures built, which is shown in one of the photos, required five individuals inside of its belly to operate it.

We won't post the photos here, because posting set photos like this is a tricky thing on the Internet these days. I don't think that Abrams is very happy about them leaking out either. So if you want to see the photos click here. 

Star Wars: Episode VII opens December 18, 2015.

About a year ago artist Dan LuVisi introduced us to a dark and gritty thug version of Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie. Well, he created a new piece of art for these characters and came up with a new gloomy story to tell. It's called "The Streets," and you can read it here.

Warner Bros. has been trying to make a live-action Akire movie made for years. Back in 2009 Ruairi Robinson was attached to direct the movie, but it never went into production. He had several pieces of concept art done for the film along with some storyboards, and some of that art has been posted on the director's official website. The illustrations that were done for the movie are absolutely stunning. I think you're going to like what you see in these. There are a couple of character designs for Keneda and Tetsuo that look a lot like Chris Evans and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

This actually looks like it woulds have been a visually spectacular film. After seeing this concept art, it's kind of a shame that it never got made. I would have liked to see these brought to life. Thanks to Firstshowing for the heads up on this!