Aardman Animations has released the first significant information about its next claymation feature film, now titled The Pirates! Band of Misfits. The movie is based on The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists, the novel by Gideon Defoe. Aardman co-founder Peter Lord (Chicken Run) serves as the director while Jeff Newitt is the co-director. Defoe adapted his own work for the screenplay. The voice cast includes: Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, Ashley Jensen, Jeremy Piven, Salma Hayek, Imelda Staunton, David Tennant and Brian Blessed.

Hugh Grant, starring in his first animated role, is the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas. With a rag-tag crew at his side (Freeman, Gleeson, Tovey, and Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award. It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London. Along the way they battle a diabolical queen (Staunton) and team up with a haplessly smitten young scientist (Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

Based on what I’ve read about the novel, I think this is right up Aardman’s alley. The material seems silly and funny, but also depends strongly on playing with irony and genre conventions. Effectively, kids can enjoy the content on one level while adults can enjoy that and a higher level, much like most of Aardman’s productions, like all the Wallace and Gromit films.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits will arrive in theaters courtesy of Sony on March 20th, 2012. Aardman also has its second CGI film Arthur Christmas, which is being produced with Sony Pictures Imageworks for a release date of November 23rd, 2011. You can read more about that one over here. That’ll be a nice couple months for animation fans.

Sony, which distributed District 9, is putting up a reported – but unconfirmed – $120 million to also distribute writer/director Neill Blomkamp’s sophomore film Elysium. That’s pretty cool since Sony did a swell job selling District 9 and were successful with it, plus it’s just a damned big vote of confidence. Media Rights Capital is the group providing the direct financing for the project.

I haven’t written about this one yet, because I’m lazy, but it’s been quickly gearing up for production to begin this summer in Vancouver and then in Mexico in the fall. The cast so far includes District 9 lead Sharlto Copley plus the star power of Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. Syd Mead, the man famously credited as a visual futurist on Blade Runner, has signed on to do set design work. He’s a really picky man when it comes to film projects, so this is a big coup for Blomkamp. Mead has also done noteworthy design work on the likes of Tron, Aliens, Strange Days and Mission to Mars. There’s virtually nothing none about the movie’s story except that it takes place approximately 100 years in the future and will include some form of social commentary in the same vein, if not subject, as District 9. It’s also apparently going to be R-rated, again like District 9.

Bonus news: As part of an overall deal with Blomkamp, MRC has also given the go-ahead for his third film, titled Chappie. That’s another original film that he’ll tackle as soon as he’s finished Elysium. No other details were revealed but given Blomkamp’s interests, I’d hazard a guess that it’s another science fiction project of some sort. Chappie is not included in Sony’s distribution deal for Elysium and will be offered to buyers at a later date.

To sum up, this is all fantastic news. I loved District 9 and Neill Blomkamp’s style and approach to story, so I’m thrilled to see him successfully find funding for not only Elysium but also Chappie. He’s my favorite, and I’d argue best, of a new crop of sci-fi storytellers that have been hopping into the Hollywood talent pool, alongside the likes of Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) and Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, potentially forthcoming projects Oblivion, The Black Hole). I’m very excited to see what he delivers next.

Elysium is currently expected to be released during the 2012 holiday season.

Warner Bros. must be tired of various Marvel movies getting all the attention over the last couple weeks, so they’ve announced two bits of meaningful casting for The Dark Knight Rises. Firstly, Anne Hathaway will be playing Selina Kyle a.k.a. Catwoman. Secondly, we now know that Tom Hardy’s role will be the villain once responsible for breaking Batman’s back, Bane. The press release makes sure to quote returning director Christopher Nolan as saying there’s a “new interpretation” of the Bane character. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what that means. It seems like all those Hugo Strange rumors were indeed based on the Batman: Arkham City video game’s story rather than this movie. I have no immediate problem with either bit of casting, I’m just really curious to see how these characters fit into the story. Will Catwoman have a villainous side? What is Nolan’s interpretation of Bane? Is he working on his own or has he been hired by mobsters or perhaps even the Gotham Police Department? It’ll be very interesting to see how this Batman trilogy is wrapped up. Like half the world, I can’t wait.

The script was written by Jonathan Nolan from a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer. Look for the return of all the regulars (Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman) and lots more smaller roles that we’ll surely be hearing about over the next few months.

The Dark Knight Rises is set to begin filming this May with a release on July 20th, 2012.

The new film is being directed by Marc Webb, previously of (500) Days of Summer, a movie I didn’t love but for reasons that had to do entirely on the script and Zooey Deschanel, not Webb’s direction. Script is by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, yes!) and Alvin Sargent (the last two Spider-Man movies, meh). Andrew Garfield (The Social Network, Never Let Me Go) stars as Peter Parker and Spider-Man, with Emma Stone (Easy A) as the female lead Gwen Stacy. Rhys Ifans is playing Dr. Curt Connors aka The Lizard. Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire) plays Van Adder, another villainous role, who in the comics is a test subject of Norman Osborn’s and becomes Proto-Goblin but that may not be . Sally Fields is Aunt May while Martin Sheen will be Uncle Ben. Denis Leary plays police captain George Stacy, Gwen’s father. Annie Parisse plays Van Adder’s wife. Chris Zylka has the role of Flash Thompson. Campbell Scott and Julianne Nicholson will appear as Peter’s parents, presumably in flashback.

I was reluctant about getting excited for this new run of movies since the last one disappointed me so much, but here I go again. The simply titled Spider-Man is set for release on July 3, 2012.

James McAvoy will voice the lead character, Arthur, who is Santa’s youngest son. He’s good-natured and clumsy, and the one member of the family still truly excited by the magic of Christmas. Hugh Laurie plays Steve, the elder son, who has made the holiday a high-tech and military-esque operation. Jim Broadbent will voice Santa Claus. Bill Nighy plays Santa’s father, Grandsanta, who longs for the days of his own reign over the holiday, and when things were simpler. Imelda Staunton voices Mrs. Claus and Ashley Jensen plays an elf in the Giftwrap Battalion named Bryony.

I’m not terribly impressed with this teaser, but it’s just that, a teaser. I can’t imagine this footage having a part in the movie, it’s just designed to get some attention and quickly lay out some of the premise, so I’m not too concerned. It is somewhat disappointing that Aardman’s trademark style doesn’t seem present. Even Flushed Away worked that in, going so far as adding fake fingerprint marks to mimic those occurrences in claymation. I still think one of the bigger questions about this movie is whether it can sufficiently differentiate itself from Disney’s Prep & Landing TV special from last year, which is getting follow-up shorts, since both involve really high-tech Christmas operations.

Arthur Christmas will be released by Sony on November 23rd, 2011.

Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, Speed Racer) are sticking with Warner Bros. for their next film, which THR reports is a modern and urban take on the Robin Hood tale, simply titled Hood. The Wachowskis wrote the script and will direct the project, which doesn’t have any cast attached or a production timetable. Supposedly Will Smith has been approached about a role, which would presumably be the lead.

Considering the other film the Wachowskis have in the works as directors, Cobalt Neural 9, involves a future archaeological or historical project that reconstructs the Iraq war and occupation, a gay romance between soldiers and a plan to assassinate George W. Bush, I wonder if Hood won’t also reflect their views on current domestic politics. With the economic collapse, the bailouts and the ensuing record-breaking profits by the very banks that spearheaded the collapse, an urban Robin Hood would fit right in. Tackling the increasingly large divide between the rich and poor along with the erosion of the American middle class could certainly strike a populist chord with audiences.

That’s all there is, but for now I’m intrigued.

Word comes in via The Playlist that Paul Giamatti is in talks to join the cast of David Cronenberg’s next project, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis. If a deal is reached, he would join Colin Farrell and Marion Cotillard. It’s not clear what part Giamatti is up for, but possibly one of two people stalking Farrell’s character. Notably, the script for this movie is the first Cronenberg’s handled himself since 1999′s eXistenZ.

Cosmopolis follows a single day for a young billionaire (the novel places him at 28 years old) as he crosses New York City in his limo to get a haircut. Along the way he encounters numerous major traffic delays (from a riot to a presidential motorcade), several chance encounters with his new wife and two stalkers. He additionally loses incredible amounts of money over the course of the day by betting against the yen. In fact, he may actually be embracing his downfall. Colin Farrell would play the billionaire while Marion Cotillard takes the role of the wife. Most of the novel takes place in the confines of the limo, so it should be interesting to see how this translates to the screen.

It’s unclear when Cosmopolis might shoot since Colin Farrell recently committed to the Total Recall remake which is slated to begin filming around March. As of last May, Cosmopolis was going to shoot in New York City and Toronto from March to May. Chances are Total Recall would take priority, or maybe we’re in for a casting change.

Cronenberg is currently in post production on A Dangerous Method, which doesn’t currently have a US distributor. He also tentatively has an adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s As She Climbed Across the Table and a sequel to Eastern Promises in the works.

After being announced about 18 months ago, there’s movement on Jonathan Glazer’s return to cinema with Under the Skin, his adaptation of Michel Faber’s novel. Glazer previously directed Sexy Beast (2000) and Birth (2004). Glazer co-wrote Under the Skin with Walter Campbell.

Under the Skin features an alien disguised as a gorgeous human woman, to be played by Johansson, who seduces men in order to lure them back to a processing plant where they’re turned into gourmet food for aliens. Her dedication to that mission wavers as she sees more of humanity and its complexities. It’s pretty easy to see where some commentary on carnivorous eating habits might come into play.

Glazer’s interesting previous features and music videos have me intrigued for whatever he does in the future, so I’m looking forward to see where this goes.

Summer Wars

Summer Wars is the new film from Madhouse  Mamoru Hosoda, who previously directed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which I quite liked. It didn’t have grand ambitions or anything, but everything it did was very well done and showed real potential, particularly in exploring the life of a teenage girl.

Here’s the plot synopsis:

Kenji is your typical teenage misfit. He’s good at math, bad with girls, and spends most of his time hanging out in the all-powerful, online community known as OZ. His second life is the only life he has — until the girl of his dreams, Natsuki, hijacks him for a starring role as a fake fiancé at her family reunion. Things only get stranger from there. A late-night email containing a cryptic mathematic riddle leads to the unleashing of a rogue AI intent on using the virtual word of OZ to destroy the real world, literally. As Armageddon looms on the horizon, Kenji and his new “family” set aside their differences and band together to save the worlds they inhabit

The domestic trailer (below) has dubs, which while still unconfirmed to my knowledge, leads me to believe that’s how it’ll be seen on the big screen.

Here’s the current theatrical schedule:

Dec 3-8: Chicago, IL –  Siskel Film Center
Dec 10-16: Los Angeles, CA – AMC Covina 30
Dec 24-30: San Francisco, CA – Landmark Bridge Theater
Dec 29-Jan 4: New York, NY- IFC Center
Jan 5-12: Boston, MA – Museum of Fine Arts
Jan 7-13: Denver, CO – Starz Film Center
Jan 7-13: Santa Fe, NM – CCA Cinematheque
Jan 14-20: Los Angeles, CA – Laemmle Sunset
Jan 21-27: Philadelphia, PA – Landmark Ritz at the Bourse
Jan 23-Feb 3: Honolulu, HI – Academy of Arts,
Jan 28-Feb 3 Seattle, WA- Landmark Varsity

And if your city isn’t included on that list, FUNimation is saying the movie will hit DVD and Blu-ray in the spring, specifically on February 15th if Right Stuf is correct. That’s good for me because I don’t watch dubs, so I might not have to wait too long to see it in my preferred manner.

The great anime writer/director Satoshi Kon passed away from pancreatic cancer back in August while in the midst of directing his fifth feature film, The Dreaming Machine. At the time we learned through Kon’s final posting to his site that Madhouse founder Masao Maruyama promised Kon that they would “do whatever it takes” to finish the movie without him. Via ANN, news came on Friday that Madhouse is ready to fulfill that promise and has resumed production on the film. Character designer and chief animation director Yoshimi Itazu has been promoted to acting director for the rest of production while Toshiyuki Inoue will be the joint animation director. Susumu Hirasawa (Millennium Actress, Paprika) is confirmed to be composing the movie’s score. There remains no word on when The Dreaming Machine might be finished and ready for release, but at this point I’d hope they take their time and do it right. Unfortunately, this will be the last work we see with Satoshi Kon’s touch and the world will be lesser for it.

Back in August 2008, Kon described the film with the following:

On the surface, it’s going to be a fantasy-adventure targeted at younger audiences. However, it will also be a film that people who have seen our films up to this point will be able to enjoy. So it will be an adventure that even older audiences can appreciate. There will be no human characters in the film; only robots. It’ll be like a “road movie” for robots.

Satoshi Kon directed (and wrote the latter three) the brilliant feature films Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika. He was also the creator of the anime series Paranoia Agent and the writer of the Magnetic Rose short included in the anthology film Memories.

Tron Legacy picks up a nearly three decades after the original with Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the digital world of Tron where his father has been living for 25 years. Bruce Boxleitner returns as his character, and is joined by Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, John Hurt, Beau Garrett and James Frain. Joseph Kosinksi is making his directorial debut on this one. Daft Punk has provided an original score, a fact that is almost overshadowing the movie itself.

TRON: Legacy will be in theaters on December 17th.

Warner Bros. has released a new trailer for Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, his first original film, over at Apple. Snyder previously directed Dawn of the Dead, 300 and Watchmen, and was recently tapped for the next Superman movie. Snyder co-wrote this one with Steve Shibuya.

Emily Browning stars as Babydoll, a young teen locked away in a mental asylum against her will who leads a band of other girls on an escape attempt, which involves diving into their imaginations ala so many other films, most recently like Pan’s Labyrinth. The other girls are played by Abbie Cornish, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung and Jen Malone. Their adult captors are played by Oscar Isaac, Carla Gugino and Jon Hamm, while Scott Glenn plays the Wise Man seen in the trailer telling the girls what to do.

See the trailer at Apple.

I think I liked the teaser better for the potential it showed, while the performances and dialogue here seem rather stilted and corny. But I’m not expecting greatness or anything from the premise, though hopefully it’s still fun. Not sure how I feel about the girls looking so damn young and hyper-sexualized, even in their own fantasies, no less! I’m hoping this doesn’t turn out to just be mindless wankery for fourteen year old males.

Sucker Punch will hit theaters on March 25th, 2011.

Per THR, James McAvoy will voice the lead character, Arthur, who is Santa’s youngest son. He’s good-natured and clumsy, and the one member of the family still truly excited by the magic of Christmas. Hugh Laurie plays Steve, the elder son, who has made the holiday a high-tech and military-esque operation. Jim Broadbent will voice Santa Claus. Bill Nighy plays Santa’s father, Grandsanta, who longs for the days of his own reign over the holiday, and when things were simpler. Imelda Staunton voices Mrs. Claus and Ashley Jensen plays an elf in the Giftwrap Battalion named Bryony.

Arthur Christmas is scheduled for release by Sony on November 23rd, 2011. Aardman is also prepping The Pirates! for an April 2012 debut. You can read more about that one here.

Magnet, Magnolia Pictures’ genre label, has announced that it has acquired Vanishing on 7th Street, for distribution and plans to have it in theaters come February 2011. This is Brad Anderson’s seventh feature film as director, though he’s most known for his last three: Session 9, The Machinist and Transsiberian. Between films he also directs a good amount of television, including episodes of The Wire, The Shield, Treme, Boardwalk Empire and Rubicon. His biggest television presence is on Fringe, where he’s done great work on a total of seven episodes.

Vanishing on 7th Street was written by Anthony Jaswinski and stars Hayden Christensen, John Leguizamo, Thandie Newton and Jacob Latimore. Here’s the official synopsis:

An unexplained blackout descends on the city of Detroit and by the time the sun rises, only a few people remain – surrounded by heaps of empty clothing, abandoned cars and lengthening shadows. Luke, a television reporter (Christensen) finds the streets outside his apartment building eerily empty. Paul, a film projectionist (Leguizamo) is alone in a once crowded theater. Physical therapist Rosemary (Newton) steps out for a smoke and returns to a deserted hospital, and James, a frightened boy (Latimore), waits patiently for his mother to return. They each find their way to a rundown bar, whose gasoline-powered generator and stockpile of food and drink make it the last refuge in a deserted city.

With daylight beginning to disappear completely and whispering shadows surrounding the survivors, Luke discovers that another pocket of people may be holed up as nearby as Chicago. He combs the city for a working vehicle that will get them all there, but Rosemary is engulfed in grief for her lost infant, James won’t leave without his mother and Paul may be too injured to travel. As time begins to run out for them, darkness closes in and they must face the ultimate terror.

I’m a big fan of Brad Anderson, especially his low-key and psychological approach to horror and suspense. I’ve been really looking forward to his latest foray in that direction, especially since it seems to have some echoes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse, one of my absolute favorite horror movies. Hell, it’s likely Vanishing on 7th Street ends up sharing more in common with that film than its own American remake. I’ll concede that I’m not pumped for a Hayden Christensen performance, but we’ll see what Anderson gets out of him, and the rest of the film overcomes him to keep me excited.

Lastly, here’s the trailer, since it’s relevant and I never posted it:

Three official set photos have been released from director David Cronenberg’s next film, A Dangerous Method, which shot last summer in Germany and Austria. Christopher Hampton adapted the script from his own play, “The Talking Cure.” Hampton has scripted a good number of films, but probably most notably writing Dangerous Liaisons, again based on his own play, for Stephen Frears and won the Academy Award for his efforts, along with another nomination more recently for scripting Atonement.

A Dangerous Method takes place on the eve of World War I as Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and student-turned-rival Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) give birth to psychoanalysis while a woman named Sabina (Keira Knightley) finds herself the battleground of their theories and emotions. Vincent Cassel also stars.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t have a release date at this time, and for that matter lacks a distributor in the United States. I’m dying for a new Cronenberg film, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that it manages to get out in the earlier half of the year, rather than being held back for festivals and the awards season.

Follow the jump for two more photos.

The rebooted Spider-Man franchise is well on its way towards production with a lot of the big casting wrapping up. We’ve known Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer) is directing and Andrew Garfield will be playing Peter Parker. A short while ago we learned that Emma Stone has the role of Gwen Stacy; supposedly Mary Jane Watson is a smaller role in this first film. Now there’s word from The Wrap that the villain that Rhys Ifans is playing will be Dr. Curt Connors, as in the man who turns into the Lizard. That’s the role Dylan Baker held in Sam Raimi’s trilogy, though he never got to make the villainous turn.

I’m fairly outspoken in hating the Spider-Man films we’ve gotten so far (and I never even watched Spider-Man 3) so I’m excited for the reboot if only because I can be optimistic. The project is rife with potential at this stage. As opposed to the previous movies, I think the leads are actually appropriately and well cast here. I didn’t particularly like (500) Days of Summer, but that was mostly to do with the script and my personal reaction to Zooey Deschanel. Marc Webb’s direction was a bright spot I think. The new Spider-Man script is by James Vanderbilt who’s given us great serious works like Zodiac and the damned fun The Rundown. So for now, I’m excited. That could all go wrong when it comes time to see it on the big screen, but I’d sure love to like a Spider-Man film. Despite being so frequently and massively let down by summer blockbusters, I don’t think I’ll ever cease hoping for good ones.

The new Spider-Man is due out on July 3rd, 2012.

The date is somewhat weird since it’s just one week before Pixar’s Brave (formerly known as The Bear and the Bow). Glancing at the known release dates for that summer, a lot of the weekends are already taken by big sequels and better known licensed properties, but there are still a couple weekends in May and June yet to be staked out. I suppose the two movies have significant enough different demos to support the move, but it leaves Disney doing heavy promotion for two big films at the same time. At the same time, I don’t really care when they come out, as long as they’re great and I have faith on that count.

The original novel, A Princess of Mars, began its serialization in 1912 and spawned eight other novels and several shorter tales over the following thirty years. A Civil War veteran of the Confederate side, John Carter finds himself taking refuge in a cave after an Indian attack when he is mysteriously transported to Mars. Due to the lower gravity, Carter has superhuman strength on the planet, which helps win him favor among the Tharks, a tribe of Green Martians made up of four-armed warriors twice the height of humans. When these people capture Dejah Thoris, princess of the humanlike Red Martians, Carter plots to save her and her people from their oppressors while winning her love along the way.

The film’s quite excellent cast is made up of the following:

• Taylor Kitsch (John Carter) – Confederate veteran of the Civil War.
• Lynn Collins (Dejah Thoris) – A Red Martian princess.
• Willem Dafoe (Tars Tarkas) – High ranking warrior member of the Tharks, one of the Green Martian tribes, who ultimately allies with Carter.
• Samantha Morton (Sola) – The daughter of Tars Takas, who has an unusually soft side for her species and must hide it.
• Dominic West (Sab Than) – The prince of the Zodangans, which is a tribe of the Red Martians.
• Polly Walker (Sarkoja) – A tyrannical Green Martian who delights in having Dejah as a prisoner.
• Thomas Haden Church (Tal Hajus) – An ambitious Thark, one of the tall four-armed Martians, waiting for his chance to be ruler.
• James Purefoy (Kantos Kan) – A Red Martian captain of a floating warship.
• Mark Strong (Matai Shang) – Ruler of the Therns (descendants of the White Martians) with godlike status.
• Ciarin Hinds (Tardos Mors) – Grandfather of Dejah Thoris and leader of their tribe.
• Bryan Cranston – A fellow veteran of the Civil War accompanying John Carter at the story’s beginning.
• Daryl Sabara (Edgar Rice Burroughs) – Fictionalized nephew of John Carter.

Tron Legacy picks up a nearly three decades after the original with Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the digital world of Tron where his father has been living for 25 years. Bruce Boxleitner returns as his character, and is joined by Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, John Hurt, Beau Garrett and James Frain. Joseph Kosinksi is making his directorial debut on this one. Daft Punk is notably composing the film’s score.

TRON: Legacy will be in theaters on December 17th.

Here’s a look at the Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from Marvel’s upcoming live-action film Thor. It’s like Batman and Robin meets the new Clash of the Titans. Marvel and Paramount are going to have their work cut out for them in selling this to the masses, between the costumes and the whole Norse gods thing. I’m pretty sour on Marvel’s movies thus far, especially with the obnoxious drive towards The Avengers, but I’ll wait for a trailer before writing this off. The talent involved is pretty solid after all.

Kenneth Branagh is directing Thor with a cast that also includes Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgård, Rene Russo, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Idris Elba, Colm Feore, Jaime Alexander and Clark Gregg.

At the center of the story is the mighty Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth by his father Odin and is forced to live among humans. A beautiful, young scientist, Jane Foster (Portman), has a profound effect on Thor, as she ultimately becomes his first love. It’s while here on Earth that Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

Thor will hit screens on May 6th, 2011. In select theaters it will feature post-conversion 3D, for those who care about that one way or another.

The story begins with popular investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) being convicted of libel against a large corporation. It’s insinuated that he was set up, but that’s not very important. In six months’ time he’ll go to jail for a short while. This has little to do with the film except for forcing the character to resign from his magazine and suddenly find himself with six months of free time. That’s the perfect opportunity for an old business mogul, Henrik Vanger, to hire Blomkvist to investigate the apparent murder of his niece, Harriet, some 40 years ago. For various reasons, the likely culprit is a member of the Vanger family, which includes some former (?) Nazis. Coincidentally, Blomkvist had been babysat by Harriet as a child, which serves as a fairly obnoxious excuse for bad flashback glimpses of the two of them (in fact, all of the flashbacks are strangely but consistently poorly acted and blocked). Presumably these are meant to add some stakes to the investigation and humanize the victim, but they accomplish little on that front. They do contribute to a major clue late in the film, but this feels cheap as it’s so revealing but also so removed from 90% of the investigative work Blomkvist and the film put in.

Parallel to Blomkvist’s story is that of Lisbeth Salandan’s (Noomi Rapace). She’s an introverted hacker with a gothic asthetic who begins her strained involvement in the plot by checking out Blomkvist’s background for Henrik Vanger. She clears him as a reliable investigator who was probably set up, but for inexplicable reasons she continues to keep tabs on him even after the job is over. There is never any logical reason behind this besides being a necessary plot point to get the two characters together. Eventually her personal story and the main mystery will share thematic similarities, but the impetus for her getting involved doesn’t make a lick of sense. For that matter, I’m not sure she belongs in the movie at all. She’s often just a walking plot point with her set of skills turning up copious amounts of evidence and relative material whenever needed or to otherwise bail out Blomkvist from any challenge sent his way.

Lisbeth, despite being 24 years old, is required to have a legal guardian as a result of some previous issues. As the movie begins, her guardian has croaked and she’s assigned to another, who turns out to be a twisted sexual predator. He leverages his control over her limited freedom and finances in order to gain sexual favors, and later force violent sexual acts. This plot ends up resembling a much more graphic and disturbing version of Hard Candy, where the victim ultimately gains control of the situation and has her own form of revenge, in this case violent sodomy and blackmail. I’ll take this moment to point out that an earlier scene involved her being assaulted by a group of young men in a subway station and that the main murder mystery also involves sexual violence. We also learn that Lisbeth’s family was abusive to her mother. The Swedish title for the novel and movie  Men Who Hate Women. It’s not clear, however, what this all adds up to. Is the movie trying to say something about males in Sweden? Hard to say considering the film has no shortage of positive male characters. There’s a pattern of Lisbeth punishing the story’s predators with sexual violence and/or death, but there’s no attempt to really justify this policy. In one case it’s somewhat understandable and in another it’s obscenely over-the-top and sick. To a certain extent, all of this sexual violence comes off superficially edgy, controversial and titillating instead of helping construct an interesting character. It feels quite exploitative. Lisbeth is pretty impenetrable, an almost immaturely quiet and closed off presence to both the other characters and to the audience. Maybe the two sequels are needed to give her substance, but here there’s little to define her outside of the sexual violence enacted upon and enacted by her. This results in a whole lot of wasted screentime.

Anyway, Lisbeth keeps remotely looking at Blomkvisk’s computer to check his status on the investigation, and eventually can’t resist piecing some clues together for him. Soon enough, they’ve met and are working together for the second half of the film. The basic murder mystery elements get a little clumsy here, with Blomkvist becoming thick and slow-witted in order to allow certain plot points to happen. For a supposed nationally famous investigative journalist, it’s disappointing when he’s often slower than the audience. At the same time, some important clues found in Harriet’s belongings lead to a much bigger mystery, but it never really makes any sense how or why Harriet figured any of it out in the first place. A couple brief action scenes are really awkwardly edited, for reasons that I believe to involve the gaps in diegetic time between shots and what the editing and shot types are telling us. The latter indicates to me that I’m watching an unbroken progression of time, but the former produces a weird effect of these scenes being rushed through. That was my impression anyhow. It’s difficult to keep track of the large extended Vanger family that the investigation involves, along with a variety of other small undeveloped plot tidbits thrown in, which is possibly a cause of the adaptation process.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fails because it has no apparent philosophy. It’s not saying anything, at least not cohesively. There are several abusive, sexually violent men in this film, but there’s nothing concretely stated about these circumstances, nothing linking these predilections to a larger point. Lisbeth’s own personal story has real impact on the primary mystery, nor does Blomkvisk’s libel case, which comes back into play for an extended epilogue. The mystery of Harriet’s disappearance, which is the meat of the plot, is just a diversion from other poorly and shortly developed subplots for Blomkvisk and Lisbeth. They have no stakes in what they’re doing, and thus I don’t particularly care beyond a love of mysteries and puzzles. Unfortunately, even that element proves a mess with pieces that don’t completely fit together. It’s a mess of a mystery thriller spiced up with disturbing yet meaningless violence.

* Buy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from Amazon.com

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is scheduled for release on September 28th and will feature a Green Arrow short film. A preview will be included on Batman: Under the Red Hood, which hits on July 27th.

• Tales from the Future: new six-part retrospective documentary featuring interviews with Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Director Robert Zemeckis, Producers Bob Gale and Neil Canton, plus Executive Producer Steven Spielberg.
  • In the Beginning…: Delve into the genesis of the project, casting, re-casting, the DeLorean, sets and overall pre-production.
  • Time to Go: Production stories through the release of the first film.
  • Keeping Time: The score and the songs of the Back to the Future Trilogy.
  • Time Flies: Learn more about how the sequel came about, the futuristic look, the special and visual effects, recreating 1955 and more.
  • Third Time’s the Charm: Learn about building a western town, Doc Brown’s love story, the casting of Mary Steenburgen, the train sequence and completing the Trilogy.
  • The Test of Time: Back to the Future becomes a phenomenon! President Reagan quotes the film, the Back to the Future ride opens at Universal Studios theme park and fans rebuild the iconic DeLorean. The film’s cast and crew take a look back and discuss why these beloved movies live on.
• The Physics of Back to the Future: A discussion with celebrity best-selling author and physicist Dr. Michio Kaku about the overall appreciation of the science in the Back to the Future Trilogy.
• Nuclear test site ending storyboard sequence: Storyboard sequence of the original proposed ending of the film.

The storyboarded original ending sequence should be pretty interesting to behold. I never picked up the DVDs of these movies for a variety of reasons, beginning with the manufacturing errors on the first printing, so I’m definitely excited to own these in a high quality format. Now if we could just get the Star Wars trilogy in their original forms…

This isn’t exactly confirmed, but Pajiba has a source they trust that reports David Cronenberg is attached to direct an adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel As She Climbed Across the Table. Any and all Cronenberg news is of great interest to me, so I’m passing it along. The word is that Steven Zaillian (screenwriter of Schindler’s List and Moneyball) would serve as a producer.

Here’s the blurb for the novel from Amazon:

Particle physics, false vacuum bubbles, an alternate universe–this is the stuff of Jonathan Lethem’s novel As She Climbed Across the Table. The tale echoes Alice in Wonderland in its mad tumble through a rearranged reality. Narrator Phillip Engstrand is a university professor who has made a career out of studying academic environments. Engstrand is in love with Alice Coombs, a particle physicist engaged in a bold attempt to replicate the origins of the universe. The result of the experiment is Lack, a very selective black hole that sucks some things into its void–a cat, a pair of socks, a strawberry–and rejects others, namely, a love-struck Alice. As Alice’s unrequited obsession with Lack grows, Phillip becomes so desperate to save his beloved from this empty rival that he risks a journey down the metaphysical rabbit hole.

It sounds pretty interesting to me, and something Cronenberg could definitely work some magic with. Even if it doesn’t become a film, with or without Cronenberg, I think I’d like to read the novel.

There’s no indication when this production might happen, but Cronenberg is currently in production on A Dangerous Method, starring Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Vincent Cassel. That film is based on the play “The Talking Cure” and explores the relationships between Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and a female patient who comes between them. After that, Cronenberg is scheduled to shoot Cosmopolis next spring, an adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel. That project is set to star Colin Farrell and Marion Cotillard. As of last September, the director was attached to remake his film The Fly, itself a remake. However, nothing has been heard of that since. There are additionally plans for a sequel to Eastern Promises, with star Viggo Mortensen and screenwriter Steven Knight returning.

Note: I can’t help but think of the Maya Deren film At Land when I read the novel’s title. I wonder if it holds any relevance? It could certainly be considered a “mad tumble through a rearranged reality,” though on a different level than Alice in Wonderland.

While I have faith that Cars 2 and Monsters, Inc 2 will have perfectly good stories and won’t reek of cash-ins like the sequels certain other animated studios dish out every couple of years, it’d be nice to at least see original characters in short form before those features. I don’t want to be too negative, nor too cynical about the ratio of sequels to new movies we’re known to be getting from Pixar in the future (3:1) but it does concern me if we have to lose an original short film to get a Toy Story one in front of Cars 2. It just seems like the Toy Story shorts can stand on their own elsewhere, or help support other movies (like say, July 2011′s Winnie the Pooh).

Cars 2, and the unnamed Toy Story short, will be in theaters on June 24th, 2011.

The first trailer is up at Apple for Never Let Me Go, Mark Romanek’s (One Hour Photo) sophomore film based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. The film stars Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, Sally Hawkins, Charlotte Rampling, Andrea Riseborough, Nathalie Richard, Ella Purnell, Isobel Meikle-Small and Charlie Rowe. Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine) wrote the screenplay.

I quite liked the novel and I’m a fan of Romanek’s directing, so this is a majorly anticipated film for me. Hopefully everything translates to the screen well enough. Romanek certainly scored some great actors for the lead roles, that’s for sure.

I’ll leave you with the novel’s book jacket description:

From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly re-imagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.

As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.

And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed–even comforted–by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now.

A tale of deceptive simplicity, Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance–and takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro’s finest work.

Fox Searchlight will release Never Let Me Go on October 1st.

Comics Continuum also says that the previously confirmed Green Arrow short film, expected on the release of Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, is written by Greg Weisman (producer of the upcoming Young Justice show). That release is expected in September.

Back in late April, DC Comics animation producer Bruce Timm told Think McFly Think that a sequel to the direct-to-video animated movie Green Lantern: First Flight wasn’t on their schedule because sales had been only been slow but steady, and even though it was profitable it wasn’t up to what Warner Bros wanted. Now, a little over a month later, Warner Bros told investors that a “made-for-video” Green Lantern product would arrive in June 2011 as part of the character’s big yearlong push, spearheaded around the live-action film. So which is it? Do plans change that quickly over there or is this not an original product and it’s just some sort of repackaging? The latter would seem like an odd thing to single out to investors as a significant merchandising element alongside the games, summer blockbuster movie and TV series, so it seems like we’ll be getting a new DC Comics animated movie for Green Lantern next June. This isn’t overly surprising given the obvious marketing possibilities and that Warner Bros previously had Batman: Gotham Knight ready to go around the release of The Dark Knight, but it’s weird given the recent comments Bruce Timm made. One way or another, it looks like one way or another we’ll be seeing an animated Green Lantern next June.

Before then, the other DC Comics DTV movies include Batman: Under the Red Hood, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and presumably a February/March release next year.

Here’s a variety of news bits about Disney and Pixar’s future slates that I’ve neglected to comment on in the last couple months that I’ve still wanted to point out. So here we go.

• Pixar’s The Bear and the Bow was renamed Brave, which was apparently the film’s early codename. The film is written and directed by Brenda Chapman (The Prince of Egypt). The movie’s logline: “In rugged and mythic Scotland, the impetuous, tangle-haired Merida (Reese Witherspoon), though a daughter of royalty, would rather make her mark as an archer. A clash of wills with her mother compels Merida to make a reckless choice, which unleashes unintended peril on her father’s kingdom and her mother’s life. Merida struggles with the unpredictable forces of nature, magic and a dark ancient curse.” Brave will be released on June 15th, 2012.
• Pixar’s newt has reportedly been canceled, or at least shelved for the time being. That project was being directed by Gary Rydstrom (Lifted).
• Monsters, Inc 2 is officially happening, and targeted for a November 16th, 2012 release date. Absolutely no details have been revealed, but my bet is on Bob Peterson being the director.
• Cars 2 has returned to its June 24th, 2011 release date after a brief delay to that December.
• Disney has seemingly revived Joe Jump as Reboot Ralph. This project has been in various stages of development for about a decade. It was originally shepherded by Sam Levine, but has undergone major changes as Rich Moore (The Simpsons, Futurama) stepped in with his own take on the material, hence the new title. Reboot Ralph is set for March 22nd, 2013.
• Disney’s King of the Elves, based on one of Philip K. Dick’s forays into fantasy, has been pulled from the release schedule for retooling. Like a lot of projects at Disney, we’ll probably see this one again, sooner or later.
• Discovery Channel will be premiering a special called Reign of the Dinosaurs that involves “top creative talent” from Disney and Pixar to bring to life the most recent paleontological discoveries while involving some kind of “Hollywood storytelling.” It’s not very clear what kind of special this is or what roles Disney and Pixar are playing. This is set for the 2010-11 season at some point.

With all that said, here’s the known schedule for animated films from Disney and Pixar:

• Toy Story 3 (June 18th, 2010)
• Tangled (limited – November 12, 2010, wide – November 24th, 2010)
• Cars 2 (June 24th, 2011)
• Winnie the Pooh (July 15th, 2011)
• Frankenweenie (November 2011)
• Brave (June 15th, 2012)
• Monsters, Inc 2 (November 16th, 2012)
• Reboot Ralph (March 22nd, 2013)

Disney revealed to Reuters that the company plans to produce and release up to four Toy Story short films a year. Naturally, this is at least in part to keep the franchise in public view because of the massive amount of money Toy Story merchandising brings in. Andy Mooney, head of Disney’s consumer products division, says the shorts will remain thematically similar to the movies, unlike the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command Disney TV series that followed Buzz’s exploits as a fictional space hero. He added that “the strength of the property rests on the relationship between the core characters,” so it seems likely we’ll see lots of the core characters. Each short would be less than seven minutes long, similar to the Cars short films. It’s unclear whether the films’ voice actors will be contributing to these shorts. Hopefully that can be worked out, because it’s hard to imagine other people bringing life to Woody and Buzz.

While not confirmed here, I would assume these short films will be produced at the freshly opened Vancouver expansion to Pixar’s operations. That branch was created to handle the offshoots to Pixar’s properties, like short films and video content for Disney’s amusement park attractions. Meanwhile the main Pixar offices in Emeryville will be focused on the feature films and the major theatrical short films.

It’s not clear when the first of these shorts would be finished or released, nor exactly what distribution methods would be used. The obvious possibilities would be simple web releases or appearances on the Disney Channel, but it’s also conceivable that Disney could leverage them by pairing ‘em up with other theatrical feature releases. It’ll likely be combination of those, as previously seen with the Cars Toons series of shorts.

Until then, Toy Story 3 arrives in just a short while on June 18th.

Until then, Batman: Under the Red Hood arrives on July 27th.

Guillermo del Toro is among the film’s executive producers. Natali wrote the script with Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor.

Splice debuts in theaters on June 4th, a date which cannot come soon enough.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

Disney’s new Winnie the Pooh movie has been given a release date of July 15th, 2011. The film marks the second traditionally animated film made by Walt Disney Feature Animation since John Lasseter took over and brought the technique back into use, the first being The Princess and the Frog. They’ve gone back to A. A. Milne’s work and found five stories that have never been put to the screen and combined them into a single feature length script. In a nice nod to the past, Burny Mattinson is the project’s lead storyboard artist. He worked as an animator on the three Winnie the Pooh shorts made in the ’60s and ’70s before being compiled into The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. He would also go on to contribute to the stories for the likes of The Great Mouse Detective, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King, among others. Stephen Anderson (Meet the Robinsons) and Don Hall are directing.

The movie’s intended to not be as kiddy as other recent appearances by the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood. This is WDFA’s big 2011 release with much of the same crew as The Princess and the Frog, including animating heavyweights like Andreaa Dejas and Mark Henn. It’s also another musical, with those components being written by the team that did the Broadway play Avenue Q. The voice cast is known to include Jim Cummings (Pooh, Tigger), Tom Kenny (Rabbit) and Craig Ferguson (Owl).

I’m hoping to not only get a fun film but one that helps keep traditional animation alive on the big screen.

Now this is unexpected news. THR has the scoop that David Fincher is in negotiations to direct Disney’s new big budget version of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Perhaps even cooler, Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum, The Informant!, Contagion) is writing the script. Word is Fincher was looking to try a different kind of project, namely a big blockbuster aimed at all audiences. Hopefully now that he has an established career he’ll have more control over this big studio project than he did when he directed Alien 3.

I just hope this won’t be an attempted Captain Nemo origin story, as the now canned movie from McG was going to be. That didn’t sound appealing at all. The mystery from learning about Nemo and the Nautilus from an outside perspective is a significant part of what makes the story great. THR says that Burns and Fincher’s movie would be “visually dazzling” and in the vein of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, whatever that means. I’ve always been wary of this material being revisited since I’m a huge fan of the novel and of Disney’s 1954 film, but I’m intrigued and optimistic about what Fincher and Burns might do. We’ll see, if this goes forward it’ll probably be 2012 release.

David Fincher has The Social Network, the story of Facebook’s origins, ready to bow in October, and he’s readying an English adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

As you can see, the story involves a politician (Matt Damon) running up against a group of people who can stop the world and ‘adjust’ it to keep things going according to certain plans. Among the adjustments they deem necessary is preventing him from developing a relationship with a ballerina (Emily Blunt). There wasn’t a whole lot of meat to the short story, so I hope it’s developed more here, in more ways than just introducing the romance angle. Either way, it’s good to see a science fiction film coming that doesn’t involve big special effects or a teenaged target audience, though those things are fine when done well.

The Adjustment Bureau will hit theaters on September 17th.

Even as David Cronenberg prepares to start filming A Dangerous Method in a matter of days, he’s busy putting the cast together for his adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis. According to Variety, Colin Farrell and Marion Cotillard have joined the cast, with the project set to shoot in New York City and Toronto from March to May 2011. The report also includes word that Cronenberg himself is scripting the film, which he hasn’t done since 1999′s eXistenZ.

Cosmopolis the novel follows a single day for a young billionaire (the novel places him at 28 years old) as he crosses New York City in his limo to get a haircut. Along the way he encounters numerous major traffic delays (from a riot to a presidential motorcade), several chance encounters with his new wife and two stalkers. He additionally loses incredible amounts of money over the course of the day by betting against the yen. He may actually be embracing his downfall. Colin Farrell would play the billionaire while Marion Cotillard takes the role of the wife. Most of the novel takes place in the confines of the limo, so it should be interesting to see how this translates to the screen.

David Cronenberg is currently focused on A Dangerous Method, an adaptation of Christopher Hampton’s play “The Talking Cure”. That movie stars Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Kiera Knightley and Vincent Cassel. You can read more about that here. He’s also planning a sequel to Eastern Promises and he’s also attached to direct a remake of his earlier movie The Fly, itself a remake, for Fox.

That’s all a preface to my reaction to Iron Man 2, a movie which completely abandons all possibility of actually engaging with this character. Rather, Tony Stark and Robert Downey Jr. are simply unleashed without direction. There is no character arc here, not even a feigned one as in the first film. Stark, in all his self-absorption and narcissism, has become an even bigger dick in the six months since we last saw him. He’s fully embraced his role as a human weapon, arguing that he and the suit are one. Gone is even a minuscule amount of care about his business, of which he quickly hands away control. The first film at least had him say once or twice that he wanted his company to shift away from weapons to energy sources, but it’s not clear that that’s happened. Tony Stark has restarted his father’s Stark Expo – basically a World’s Fair – but the only tech we see shown off there are weaponized suits and robots. It’s more like a Tony Stark/Iron Man fan convention than an event meant to inspire and give back to the people.

Anyway, it’s not clear what Stark Enterprises is doing as business anymore, but we can be sure that it has not made any effort to mass produce the arc reactor technology to help solve the world’s energy problems. In fact, based upon the movie’s senate committee sequence and Ivan Vanko’s need to build his own arc reactor, it would seem Stark has no plans to let the technology into the hands of anyone else, neither the government nor the public. Tony is eventually forced to revisit the arc reactor tech, but only for his own health purposes. As he’s facing death, which never feels very credible, there’s some lip service about legacy and finals moments, but it culminates in some goofy shenanigans as he gets drunk and acts like dangerous asshole for what he’s calling his potentially last birthday. You’d think with the pieces in play – Tony facing his own mortality and the story returning to elements of his father’s career and legacy – that a decent story involving Tony struggling with defining a positive role for himself in the world would write itself, but instead the entire plot is even more insular than in the last one.

There’s a glimmer of hope for the movie when Stark visits Vanko in prison. The latter accuses the Stark family of being thieves and murderers, and I find myself hoping we’re going to actually delve into that legacy this time around. Unfortunately, just as quickly as Mickey Rourke’s line reading is done, so is the film’s interest in that topic. Stark doesn’t genuinely engage with his or his family’s demons, let alone conquer them. The script just trots them out once in a while, “look over here, doesn’t this element kinda give Tony Stark some depth? Now back to CGI robots clanging around the screen and glib quips by Downey Jr.” The problem with occasionally reminding us that there are interesting possibilities in Stark’s story is that it makes what we get all the more unsatisfying.

Vanko also opens up the possibility of the movie dealing with Stark’s reaction to inspiring copycats, including those who would use similar technology for evil purposes. This, like the rest of the film’s thematic opportunities, is avoided completely. There’s not even an acknowledgment that he’s in any way responsible for any part of what Vanko and Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer do in creating their own villainous machines. Stark never once even comments on the plot against him. There’s no “escalation” moment like in the finale of Batman Begins. Hell, for some inexplicable reason Congress gives Stark an award at the film’s end, even though the film’s plot proves the points senators made earlier. Suffice to say, some things in Iron Man 2 don’t even make sense on their own superficial plane of existence, let alone a deeper one. The movie simply refuses to break through the surface, instead it’s content with being a brainless popcorn flick. All flash, no bang.

I don’t believe I have read a single comic that Iron Man appears in, but it’s not very difficult to see that the character has dramatic potential. The first act of Iron Man did a fine job of revealing several intriguing opportunities with its lead character. It’s just a shame the people responsible for producing these films couldn’t care less.

Columbia Pictures gets to continue its Men in Black franchise as Will Smith and director Barry Sonnenfeld have signed on for a third installment according to Heat Vision. Tommy Lee Jones is in negotiations to return while Josh Brolin is in talks to join the cast as a younger version of Agent K. It seems most of the movie would take place in 1969. Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder) wrote the script while David Koepp (Ghost Town, Angels & Demons) is giving it a polish. The movie has been scheduled for release on May 25th, 2012.

It’s hard to be very excited about this when it’s another sequel born of a cash grab. Men in Black was a fun romp and remains so, but Men in Black II was a dreadful mess. No one put any effort into their performances and the humor was more outlandish and juvenile. There was an Entertainment Weekly article way back in the day that seemed to provide a lot of evidence that no one cared about making a good movie, they were just giddy about cashing massive paychecks. I rather expect the same thing here. We’ll see. Everyone involved burned me badly on Men in Black II so there isn’t a chance in hell I’m holding my breath on this one. Besides, time travel plots in blockbuster movies have a tendency towards the ridiculously stupid.

Tales from Earthsea was Studio Ghibli’s 2006 film, loosely based on the books by Ursula K. Le Guin. The US release had to be delayed because Syfy (then Sci-Fi Channel) had the rights to the books and made their own miniseries adaptation in 2004. Now that those rights have expired, Disney is free to bring the movie over. It might not have been the biggest loss though, as it was Gorō Miyazaki’s debut as a director, a move that even his father and Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki didn’t feel he was ready for. The film had a mixed reception, especially for a Studio Ghibli release, despite going on to be the fourth highest grossing film in Japan for 2006.

Still, it’ll be nice for non-importers to get a look at the film and Americans can fill in a gap of Ghibli’s history. At the very least you know the animation will be gorgeous.

Studio Ghibli is currently wrapping up another adaptation, The Borrower Arrietty based on Mary Norton’s The Borrowers. That will hit Japan on July 17th, and should be expected in North America during summer 2011.

There’s a new director attached to the long-in-development-hell adaptation of William Gibson’s groundbreaking and archetypal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. The most recent director in line for the project was Joseph Kahn of Torque infamy, so news of any change is pretty much good news. (The concept poster seen above was made by the production company for when Kahn was attached.) THR reveals that the new director is Vincenzo Natali, of Cube and the soon-to-be-released Splice, so the movie actually has some potential now. Of course, adapting the novel is a mighty challenge with all of the abstract imagery involved and the inevitable reliance on CGI, not to mention the complicated nature of the plot. The cyberspace scenes from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex are actually a pretty accurate depiction of the cyberspace scenes Gibson created here. Plus, given that the project is set up with some smaller Canadian companies, who knows if this will ever move forward.

Natali is also writing the script, according to this Astral Media press release.

Here’s a little blurb about the novel’s story:

Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway–jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way–and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance–and a cure–for a price…

Tom Cruise has confirmed to Empire that Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) has signed on to make his live-action directorial debut with Mission: Impossible IV. Yay?

I’ve been of two minds on this since word first came that Brad Bird was considering the job. On the one hand, Mission: Impossible is a tired franchise that in my opinion has only produced one good film thus far, that being the first. Brad Bird is a fantastic filmmaker and what I really want is to see him keep making original movies dear to his heart, like his three animated films and the the big live-action movie about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that he’s been trying to get produced. A franchise film, and one so important to Tom Cruise and Paramount, thus invoking control issues, seems beneath him. On the other hand, it’s true that he’s had a tough time getting Warner Bros to commit to the massive budget 1906 requires without making significant script concessions, so if proving himself on Mission: Impossible IV and having a profitable live-action blockbuster on his resume helps secure the funding for future endeavors, perhaps that’s for the best.

Since it doesn’t matter what I think and Brad Bird has made his decision, I hope he knocks this out of the park. I also hope he gets to put his own spin on the script that Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec having been writing based off a story by J.J. Abrams. I trust the man who wrote The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille a million times more than Abrams and his proteges. Abrams is also producing Mission: Impossible IV though, so his mark will surely be present. At the very least, Brad Bird’s proven he can direct some seriously good action sequences in animated form, so hopefully that translates to live-action. I still think the airplane sequence in The Incredibles is among the most intense sequences of the last ten years from all film.

Best of luck to Brad Bird with this endeavor, in making the switch to live-action, and in dealing with a studio franchise and all the baggage that comes with his lead actor.

Mission: Impossible IV has been given a release date of December 16th, 2011.

Acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan directs an international cast in an original sci-fi actioner that travels around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible–inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming. This summer, your mind is the scene of the crime.

Inception marks the seventh feature film Christopher Nolan has directed. He also wrote the script. Alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Inception stars Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Lukas Haas and Dileep Rao.

Inception will be in theaters on July 16th.

Steven Spielberg appears to have finally settled on his next project according to Variety, that being an adaptation of the novel War Horse by Michael Morpurgo. The novel will be adapted by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) and Richard Curtis (Love Actually, The Girl in the Cafe). The children’s novel is a World War I story told from the perspective of a horse.

Here’s the book’s product description from Amazon:

In 1914, Joey, a beautiful bay-red foal with a distinctive cross on his nose, is sold to the army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western Front. With his officer, he charges toward the enemy, witnessing the horror of the battles in France. But even in the desolation of the trenches, Joey’s courage touches the soldiers around him and he is able to find warmth and hope. But his heart aches for Albert, the farmer’s son he left behind. Will he ever see his true master again?

I can’t say this sparks much interest for me. As with most recent bits of Spielberg news (like the short-lived remake of Harvey), I wish he’d just crack down and make either the Civil War-era Lincoln biopic or Interstellar, the hard sci-fi script involving wormholes that Jonathon Nolan (The Prestige, The Dark Knight) wrote. War Horse just sounds too sentimental, romanticized and contrived for me. but we’ll see.

Spielberg is also in post-production with his performance capture film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, which will debut during the 2011 holiday season.

Disney will release the DreamWorks production on August 10th, 2011.

The film will be produced using a combination of puppets, animatronics, live-action elements and CGI. In the press release, Michael Spierig says “we feel a tremendous amount of responsibility in telling this story with the same meticulous care that Jim Henson and Frank Oz gave the 1982 original.” Peter Spierig follows up by explaining that “this is a chance to take the world of puppetry into the modern age by using modern techniques (like motion capture CGI) and the tried and true methods (like puppetry and animatronics) to create a one hundred percent real world that is unique to The Dark Crystal.” Hopefully this isn’t just lip service.

The official story premise is as follows:

Set hundreds of years after the events of the first movie when the world has once again fallen into darkness, “Power of the Dark Crystal” follows the adventures of a mysterious girl made of fire who, together with a Gelfling outcast, steals a shard of the legendary Crystal in an attempt to reignite the dying sun that exists at the center of the planet.

For those that care (read: not me), Power of the Dark Crystal will be produced in 3D. The movie does not currently have any distributors signed on.

There have been a lot of plot details coming out in various print features about the production, but I’m avoiding them ever since the LA Times seemingly spoiled something fairly major that hasn’t even been hinted at in any trailer or trade report. Outside of any further trailers, I’m on a blackout. If you want to know more, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

Along with DiCaprio, the movie stars Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Lukas Haas and Dileep Rao.

Meanwhile, a second full trailer is set to premiere in front of Iron Man 2 on Friday for North American viewers.

Inception will be released on July 16th.

Alone among assassins, Jack is a master craftsman. When a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, he vows to his contact Larry that his next assignment will be his last. Jack reports to the Italian countryside, where he holes up in a small town and relishes being away from death for a spell. The assignment, as specified by a Belgian woman, Mathilde, is in the offing as a weapon is constructed. Surprising himself, Jack seeks out the friendship of local priest Father Benedetto and pursues romance with local woman Clara. But by stepping out of the shadows, Jack may be tempting fate.

The American also stars Bruce Altman, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli and Violante Placido. The script was written by Rowan Joffe.

I’m pretty excited about this one for two reasons. First, George Clooney has pretty great taste in projects and is among the only stars making mid-budget dramas for adults. Second, Anton Corbijn has won me over both with his extensive history of gorgeous music videos and his feature debut Control, an incredibly engaging biopic about Ian Curtis, singer for Joy Division.

Focus Features will release The American on September 1st.

David Cronenberg had this to say about the project’s appeal:

I have long been drawn to the story of erotic daring between these two good doctors and the woman who both divided and defined them. History can only hint at the psychological and physical terrain they opened up, but a film can explore it.

Production is scheduled to kick off on May 17th for 10 weeks in Germany. I have my fingers crossed for an end of the year release.

Elsa and Clive, two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named “Dren”, the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators – only to have that bond turn deadly.

Guillermo del Toro is among the executive producers who helped get this long-gestating project the funding and support it needed. Alongside Natali, the script was co-written by Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor. Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley star.

Splice will receive a wide release by Warner Bros on June 4th.

Sony Pictures Classics has obtained the North American rights to release the new film from writer/director Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) according to Risky Business. The Illusionist is based on an unproduced script from 1956 by Jacques Tati and Henri Marquet. It is about an aging stage magician who is finding it harder and harder to stay in the limelight as his audiences flock to newer entertainment in the form of rock and roll. He’s forced into smaller and less glamorous venues until he meets a young female fan who believes he can truly perform magic. Their relationship forms the crux of the story.

Sony Pictures Classics plans to have the film in theaters at the end of the year. I love Chomet’s previous film, so I’ve been extremely excited about anything he followed that with, and working with an unproduced Jacque Tati script is the icing on the cake. I’m really looking forward to seeing this one.

It looks pretty sweet to me. It’ll be great to have another film centered around Batman, especially since the last two DC Comics animated films were team-up/team movies. A smaller main cast should let them deliver stronger development for the characters that are present. Plus, if you know anything about this story, you know it’s going to be dark and rife with some psychological challenges for Batman. Bruce Timm and the others involved have been bold enough to compare it to Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, so there you go. If it comes anywhere close to that one’s quality, we’re in for a treat.

Batman: Under the Red Hood is due on DVD and Blu-ray on July 27th. Along with other bonus features, it will include an original short film starring Jonah Hex.

Pre-order from Amazon:

• Batman: Under the Red Hood (Blu-ray)
• Batman: Under the Red Hood (Special Edition DVD)
• Batman: Under the Red Hood (Regular DVD)