Recent Movie News

Evans in three-way fight for Captain America?

He's just about the last remaining comic book hero without an owner. He may well have a Mighty Shield but Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, is still, seemingly, unloved by those Hollywood types. Seen as an integral part of the upcoming Avengers pic, director Joe Johnston (The Wolfman) is desperate to nail the casting in the coming weeks so production can start in earnest on First Avenger: Captain America.

Wild speculation had John Krasinski (Away We Go, the US version of The Office) heavily linked to the role to the universal chagrin of fans everywhere. Marvel, apparently, were putting Krasinski through his paces alongside several actresses in a round of screen tests.

News breaks this morning however, courtesy of Deadline Hollywood, that Marvel have gone back to the drawing board and will plunder their original shortlist of candidates to find their Steve Rogers. Currently still in the frame are Mike Vogel (Cloverfield), Garret Hedlund (Tron Legacy) and Chris Evans (Sunshine, The Losers). The latter may find the going tough as he's already appeared in the Marvel-verse as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in the so-so Fantastic Four filcks.

Who will it be? The safe money looks like going on the young Hedlund who has been subject to no small amount of 'buzz' thanks to his lead in Tron Legacy.

Guy Ritchie to Direct King Arthur Film

The Clive Owen-starring King Arthur. The less said the better. So let's move on. Lessons, apparently, have gone unheeded though as Variety are claiming that Atlas Entertainment and Warner Bros. have commissioned another take on the age-old legend. Guy Ritchie has been tapped up to direct (he's flavour of the month in the Warner halls after the success of Sherlock Holmes) with John Hodge (Trainspotting) the man penning the script.

This new one will be...wait for it...a 're-imagining' of the legend of Arthur, believed to have been a 6th century king who defended Britain against Saxon invaders. The key source material for the film will be Thomas Mallory's "Le Morte d'Arthur," published in 1485 as a compilation of French and English tales.

Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, Jude Law has been banging the drum for any potential sequel whilst touring his new film Repo Men around New York. When asked by Comingsoon.net, Law gushed; "We had such a blast making that film...we got on very well, and we were also very aware that we had a hell of a lot more material to use. Conan Doyle wrote over 15 books, and there was so much to take from. Because of our enthusiasm for the project, once we knew it was doing well financially, we all started throwing in our ideas of where it could go and what should happen next. Mine of course involved Sherlock Holmes being locked in a box and Dr. Watson..." (He holds his arms up victoriously at getting the spotlight being put on his character.)

"I think we are probably going to make another one," he finally said, "I haven't been given the absolute...it's not like next week but I think it's sometime this year is what I get."

Alice throws a tea party atop the UK Box Office Chart

Having smashed the opening day record for a March release across the pond, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland has repeated the trick on these shores having scooped £10.5 million on its debut. That's, officially, the biggest March bow ever in the UK (topping the previous record by none other than Mr. Bean no less) and the biggest opening gross of Tim Burton's career in Blighty. On the way to this particular milestone the Johnny Depp-starring spectacular found time to be crowned the biggest 3D opening of all time in the UK - beating Avatar's previous record of £8.5 million. Needless to say then that Burton's quirky adaptation takes its rightful place at the summit of the Chart forcing Avatar, in its twelfth week on general release, down to number 2.

It's been a remarkable showing from the George Romero-inspired The Crazies. Still going relatively strong, the zombie-fest has dug its heels in and stays at number 3 with Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones falling two places down to 4. The hand-drawn charms of Disney's The Princess and The Frog are still winning over the little ones at 5 as John Travolta's all-out actioner, From Paris With Love, actually climbs two places to 6 this week.

Greek mash-up Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief is finding it tough going at 7 this week and is forced to duke it out with the Amy Adams-starring rom com Leap Year at 8. Speaking of insipid love-ins, Valentine's Day continues to fall down the Chart at 9 with Colin Firth's Oscar-nominated performance all that's keeping A Single Man from falling from our graces at 10.

Liv Tyler and Patrick Wilson near The Ledge

Liv Tyler, whose elfin-like charms were last seen in home invasion thriller The Strangers, will be lighting up our screens once more in the suspense-a-thon The Ledge. First-time writer/director Matthew Chapman is doing his damndest to fill this slow-boiler with some A-list talent including the likes of Terence Howard (Iron Man) and Patrick Wilson (The Watchmen).

The Hollywood Reporter has the full scoop with The Ledge revolving around one man precariously standing on a high-rise ledge. Apparently, he must jump by noon for reasons unknown forcing the policeman below (Howard) from preventing the stranger buying the farm in spectacular fashion whilst solving the suicide-inducing riddle.

The film is already in gear and shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Bigelow puts the Hurt Locker on Avatar at the 82nd Academy Awards!

Very much unlike the continuing travails of Cheryl and Ashley, the 82nd Academy Awards was an affair purely between two people. In the red corner stood the self-proclaimed King of The World with his sci-fi game-changer Avatar whilst in the blue corner was his ex-wife and a woman with an eye on the record books. The result of this titanic tussle? Well, Oscar does like to throw one or two surprises our way and last night was no different. Kathryn Bigelow bested her former beau by nabbing the Best Director gong AND Best Picture accolade for incendiary Iraq war pic The Hurt Locker. Bigelow became the first woman to have ever won the director's prize. Scooping up six awards in total, The Hurt Locker was the night's big winner. That left James Cameron and his Na'vi kinsmen with their tails between their legs as Avatar could only muster three technical award nods - on this night, at least, Avatar was consigned to the annals of history with the Academy neglecting its record-breaking Box Office haul.

True to form the acting awards offered no surprises whatsoever. It was fifth time lucky for Jeff Bridges as he took home the Best Actor prize for his turn in Crazy Heart whilst Sandra Bullock impressed with her acceptance speech for Best Actress in The Blind Side. Christoph Waltz, in perhaps the most one-sided category of the evening, danced off with Best Supporting Actor for his barnstorming work in Inglourious Basterds. Meanwhile Mo'Nique quite rightly won her Best Supporting Actress gong for Precious.

Pixar's phenomenal Up, in a clear formality, got its hands on the Best Animated Feature Oscar with Argentina's entry El Secreto de sus Ojos (The Secret of Her Eyes) taking home gold in the Best Foreign Language Film stakes - a real surprise considering it was up against A Prophet and The White Ribbon.

A full list of winners can be found below;

BEST PICTURE:

**Winner** The Hurt Locker

Avatar

The Blind Side

District 9

An Education

Inglourious Basterds

Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

A Serious Man

Up

Up in the Air

DIRECTING:

**Winner** Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker

James Cameron - Avatar

Jason Reitman - Up in the Air

Lee Daniels - Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE:

**Winner** Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart

George Clooney - Up in the Air

Colin Firth - A Single Man

Morgan Freeman - Invictus

Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE:

**Winner** Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side

Helen Mirren - The Last Station

Carey Mulligan - An Education

Gabourey Sidibe - Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:

**Winner** Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds

Matt Damon - Invictus

Woody Harrelson - The Messenger

Christopher Plummer - The Last Station

Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:

**Winner** Mo'Nique - Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

Penelope Cruz - Nine

Vera Farmiga - Up in the Air

Maggie Gyllenhaal - Crazy Heart

Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

**Winner** Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher

District 9, Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

An Education, Screenplay by Nick Hornby

In the Loop, Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche

Up in the Air, Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

**Winner** The Hurt Locker, Written by Mark Boal

Inglourious Basterds, Written by Quentin Tarantino

The Messenger, Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman

A Serious Man, Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

Up, Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:

**Winner** El Secreto de sus Ojos, Argentina

Ajami, Israel

The Milk of Sorrow, Peru

Une Prophete, France

The White Ribbon, Germany

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM:

**Winner** Up

Coraline

Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Princess and the Frog

The Secret of Kells

ART DIRECTION:

**Winner** Avatar

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Nine

Sherlock Holmes

The Young Victoria

CINEMATOGRAPHY:

**Winner** Avatar, Mauro Fiore

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bruno Delbonnel

The Hurt Locker, Barry Ackroyd

Inglourious Basterds, Robert Richardson

The White Ribbon, Christian Berger

COSTUME DESIGN:

**Winner** The Young Victoria, Sandy Powell

Bright Star, Janet Patterson

Coco Before Chanel, Catherine Leterrier

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Monique Prudhomme

Nine, Colleen Atwood

FILM EDITING:

**Winner** The Hurt Locker, Bob Murawski and Chris Innis

Avatar, Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron

District 9, Julian Clarke

Inglourious Basterds, Sally Menke

Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, Joe Klotz

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:

**Winner** The Cove

Burma VJ

Food, Inc.

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

Which Way Home

MAKEUP:

**Winner** Star Trek

Il Divo

The Young Victoria

ORIGINAL SCORE:

**Winner** Up, Michael Giacchino

Avatar, James Horner

Fantastic Mr. Fox, Alexandre Desplat

The Hurt Locker, Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders

Sherlock Holmes, Hans Zimmer

ORIGINAL SONG:

**Winner** "The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" from Crazy Heart, Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

"Almost There" from The Princess and the Frog, Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

"Down in New Orleans" from The Princess and the Frog, Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

"Loin de Paname" from Paris 36, Music by Reinhardt Wagner, Lyric by Frank Thomas

"Take It All" from Nine, Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston

SOUND MIXING:

**Winner** The Hurt Locker

Avatar

Inglourious Basterds

Star Trek

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

SOUND EDITING:

**Winner** The Hurt Locker

Avatar

Inglourious Basterds

Star Trek

Up

VISUAL EFFECTS:

**Winner** Avatar

District 9

Star Trek

DOCUMENTARY SHORT:

**Winner** Music by Prudence

China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner

The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant

Rabbit a la Berlin

ANIMATED SHORT FILM:

**Winner** Logorama

French Roast

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

The Lady and the Reaper

A Matter of Loaf and Death

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM:

**Winner** The New Tenants

The Door

Instead of Abracadabra

Kavi

Miracle Fish

Alice in a Box Office Wonderland!

Seriously. Who saw this coming? Tim Burton's jaunty take on Alice in Wonderland opened this weekend to rapturous Box Office figures claiming $116.3 million on its debut weekend! That's a new, all-time record for a film that's not a sequel/remake (although you could argue the case for both in this instance). Smashing the previous record for a March opener (previously held by 2007's 300), Alice easily claimed the top spot thanks to the sixth biggest debut weekend ever! Another new entry at 2 this week is crime pic Brooklyn's Finest. From the guys who brought you Training Day, and starring notorious hard men Wesley Snipes and Richard Gere (??), Brooklyn's Finest took a mighty fine $13.5 million in its opening weekend.

Last week's champion, Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, has seemingly tired of setting its own records and falls down to 3 this week whilst managing to keep an arm's length away from Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in buddy comedy Cop Out at 4. Having missed out on Oscar glory last night, there's more bad news for Jimbo as his Avatar falls one place to 5 although I'm sure that domestic gross of $720 million lets him sleep easy tonight. Insanity might be infectious in The Crazies but punters are fleeing this George A. Romero redo as it falls to number 6.

Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief is down two places to 7 and keeping up its rivalry with mushy love fest Valentine's Day at 8. Thanks to The Dude's Oscar success, The Crazy Heart is still vying for a spot in our affections and climbs one place to 9 thus consigning Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried to the murky depths in Dear John at 10.

Scott's Alien Prequel in 3D!

It seems that nary a day goes by without one film or another declaring their intent to film in 3D a la James Cameron's blue alien saga (the name of which escapes me). Even Shutter Island's very own Martin Scorsese has revealed his fondness for the medium and went a step further by suggesting that your more highbrow, Oscar-nominated offerings should get the hi-fidelity treatment. Could you imagine Precious in 3D? Frying pans literally flying out of the screen - terrifying.

Today it would seem that Ridley Scott has thrown his hat into the ring after Alien art-director Roger Christian, chatting to the guys over at Shadowlocked, hinted that the Alien Prequel will be shot entirely in 3D. Xenomorphs coming out of the walls and out of the screen? Yes please.

"Ridley told me some of his ideas when we were here in Toronto [Film Festival]. He has a very clear understanding of where this should go," comments Christian. "They kind of stopped dead one of the greatest horror franchises there's ever been, and it had legs to go on. So I'm hoping he'll revive another three. The world certainly wants it, and the fans want it - everybody."

Scott has remained relatively tight-lipped about the prequel but did reveal his plans to take a closer look at the genesis of the space-faring killers. The film will be set some thirty years prior to Alien and may even feature the Space Jockies - the race of creatures that designed the Xenomorphs as a biological weapon.

Police Academy to open its doors once more??

Like Ashley Cole just before he hit 'send' on a text message, some ideas seem great at the time but invariably come back to bite us. One can only imagine the general sense of unease percolating through the offices of New Line who have, according to a recent press release, decided to revive cult (read 'faintly rubbish') comedy series, Police Academy.

The film series, birthed in 1984, and starring that inestimable 80s staple Steve Guttenberg, gave rise to six sequels and that's not even counting the animated series and live-action sitcom.

When asked about the prospect of a Police Academy 8 a couple of years back, Guttenberg replied: "So far it is really great, everyone from the original movies who is still around will return!"

Sucks to be Guttenberg as it seems he may not feature after all. According to Paul Maslansky, original producer, and the guy given the task of reviving the series' fortunes, this latest offering will be a complete redo. Maslansky hopes "to discover new talent and season it with great comedians...we'll most probably retain the wonderful musical theme." Good. That's a relief.

De Niro traipsing across the Dark Fields

There once was a time when, upon hearing the news that Robert De Niro has signed up to a new property, you could rest easy in the knowledge that said film would be one of quality. That time has long since passed. However, it's still 50/50 for Neil Burger's directorial stab at sci-fi project, Dark Fields.

Set to star Bradley Cooper in the lead role, as well an unconfirmed reports of Elizabeth Banks circling, Variety is claiming that De Niro has added his scrawl to this one. He'll play a corporate higher-up and board member who's pursuing Cooper's writer, not for his boyish good looks but for his smarts. For you see Cooper's down-on-his-luck writer comes into possession of a new super drug that bestows upon him boundless success and intelligence...if only De Niro could convince his agent to start popping these pills then we wouldn't have to endure the likes of Everybody's Fine again.

Wolverine 2 gets its claws into a January start date

Slow news day? You betcha. So allow me to point out that Wolverine 2 has now, officially, got a script behind it and will be going into production next January...I shall give you a moment to compose yourselves after digesting such momentous news. Showbiz 411 has this so-called 'scoop' and is getting all excited by the prospect of seeing Hugh Jackman do his angry mutant thing again.

Christopher McQuarrie (Valkyrie, The Usual Suspects) has finished putting ink to page and has submitted his draft for the sequel - one set in Japan and taken from the celebrated story cycle by Frank Miller and Chris Claremont.

There's no director on board yet but whoever does get the gig, after the disappointing X-Men Origins: Wolverine, will have their work cut out as this adventure has been dubbed 'part love story, part martial arts fantasy'. Interesting.