'Southpaw' - Starring Jake Gyllenhaal - Hits Theaters July 31st

One of the films I'm most interested in seeing this year is the boxing drama Southpaw.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and written by Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy), the film tells the story of a left-handed boxer who wins a title bout but then suffers many personal tragedies which sideline his life.  To win back both his career and the love of his daughter, he must fight his way back to the top.

As you can see, that left-handed boxer (Billy Hope is the character's name) is played by none other than a absolutely ripped Jake Gyllenhaal.  I had read an interview with Fuqua where he discussed how he had Gyllenhaal in the boxing gym everyday for months, really putting the guy through hell.  It looks like it all seemingly paid off.

The Weinstein Company has now set a prime summer release date of July 31st for the flick, possibly hoping to build some early Oscar buzz just as Boyhood did last summer.

The film also stars Rachel McAdams, Forest Whitaker, Naomie Harris and professional boxer Victor Ortiz.

Source: The Weinstein Company

RESIDENT EVIL: THE FINAL CHAPTER Eyes August Start Date

 

It's always a sad moment in Hollywood when a mega franchise comes to a close. In recent years such lucrative properties as Harry Potter, Taken, The Hobbit, and soon The Hunger Games have or are going to come to a close. 
Another one is about to be added to the ranks, as  Fifth Element and Ultraviolet star Milla Jovovich has confirmed that August will see the start date for Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.  

Jovovich, always keeping in touch with her fans on social media, posted this to her Facebook earlier today:

“I’m really proud of myself for not gaining the same amount of weight that I did with our first child (75 lbs.) because I have to be ready to start filming ‘Resident Evil- The Final Chapter’ in August of this year and I will also be nursing an infant simultaneously.”

The climactic film was set to start shooting this past September; but Jovovich's surprise second pregnancy with husband (and franchise director) Paul W.S. Anderson delayed it for a then unknown amount of time. 
Several sites reporting the news have also mentioned that Wentworth Miller would be reprising his role of Chris Redfield for the film; but this has yet to be confirmed by an official source.

The sci-fi/horror/action series, based on the wildly popular Capcom video-game series, began in 2002 with Resident Evil and spawned 4 more sequels, and has amassed over $915 million world-wide, with the most recent installment, Resident Evil: Retribution collecting over $240 million in 2012.  

The Final Chapter is expected to bring everything "full circle" and see a return to the infamous HIVE that gave birth to the T-virus which started it all. 

Expect to see Alice and friends kick ass in September 2016. 

First Images of Viking-Esque Leonardo DiCaprio in THE REVENANT

 

Teaming up with hot-commodity director Alejandro González Iñárritu, fresh off the overwhelming critical praise of BIRDMAN and praise of Iñárritu's own unique way of filming the drama as "one continuous shot", Not-Oscar Winner Leonardo DiCaprio is turning into a grizzly man for the upcoming The Revenant which Entertainment Weekly has shared the details on. 

Shooting with only natural light in remote locations left untouched by mankind, the arduous production extends until April since Iñárritu and his cinematographer, Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity) can only shoot a few hours each day. “It’s a fun ride,” says the director, who has also reunited with his Birdman studio New Regency to make the film. 

It's always good to see film-makers trying new things instead of whatever safe Studio-approved quirky comedy David O. Russel will release as The Revenant opens against that and Mission Impossible 5. 

Iñárritu then went onto kind of praise/diss Leonardo DiCaprio (who has never won an Oscar):

“He’s a brave, incredible actor. I’m so surprised about how good he is,” Iñárritu says of DiCaprio. “I think there’s a profound understanding of humanity that I can see through his eyes.”

Leonardo DiCaprio(who was last seen losing the Oscar for Best Actor to Alright-Alright-Alright from True Detective) will be joining Tom Hardy, Domnhall Gleeson, and Will Poulter.  

 

The Revenant tells the true story of Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), an American fur trapper and frontiersman in the early 1800s. After being mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead, Glass made a heroic 200-mile trek back to civilization to find the men who abandoned him in his time of need. 

Tom Cruise to Re-team with Doug Liman for Drug Trafficking Film 'Mena'

Last year's Edge of Tomorrow kicked ass, period.

For anyone who hasn't seen it or won't see it because of Tom Cruise, listen, just give the film a chance.  It is a GREAT action movie and might even change your thoughts on Tom Cruise too.

Likely having enjoyed working together so much on the aforementioned film, Cruise and director Doug Liman are said to be re-teaming for Mena, a  true fact, drug trafficking drama that Universal bought the spec script for last year for $1 million by writer Gary Spinelli.

The film tells the story of Barry Seal, a pilot in the 1980s who served as both a gun runner and drug trafficker for the CIA and Medellin cartel.  Seal was eventually shot to death in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The title refers to Mena, Arkansas, a location where a lot of the illegal activity took place under the noses of both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton.

If all works out, the plan is to shoot the film this year.

Cruise can next been seen in Mission: Impossible 5, due out this Christmas.

Source: Deadline

John Krasinski To Lead Michael Bay's Benghazi Film '13 Hours'

Well here's a surprise.

Last year, news came out the director Michael Bay (Transformers franchise) would be helming a film about the true accounts of what happened in Benghazi, Libya on September 11th, 2012.  This was a story that gained national news and criticism due to the 'unclear facts' of how and what caused terrorists to attack a U.S. Special Mission Compound near a CIA Annex that left a handful of Americans dead.

Now word has come out that none other than Jim from The Office - John Krasinksi - will be headlining the film, likely to shoot sometime this year.  The actor apparently - no pun intended - blew Bay away with his reading (Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt was originally eyed for the part).

However, the role Krasinski will be playing isn't clearly known.

Variety reports Kransinksi will be playing a NAVY Seal in the flick (which would certainly be an against type for the often thought of 'comedic' actor), while The Hollywood Reporter states he'll be playing a security operator named Jack Silva.

Whatever the case may be, this certainly marks as a breakthrough role for the actor who has been venturing towards more dramatic work recently with roles in both 2012's Promised Land and Nobody Walks.

As for Michael Bay, well, let's just see if the man can direct a straight up dramatic thriller and avoid his usual flare for explosions and teenage, comedic undertones.  A film about terrorism certainly calls for a more 'serious approach'.

Chuck Hogan - an American author who wrote Prince of Thieves: A Novel which the 2010 film The Town was based - wrote the script, an adaptation of Mitchell Zuckoff's book Thirteen Hours: A Firsthand Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi.  Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to the book last February, before it was even published.

We'll keep you posted on more developments with this project.

Source: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter

Fox Will Bring You ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

 

Moviegoers who are fans of any of the following: 1980s Movie remakes, John Carpenter, 20th Century Fox, or Presidential Rescues will be happy to know that 20th Century Fox has aquired the rights for Escape From New York which has been talked about it seems like since the 1980s. 

Deadline reports:

Fox has emerged from competitive bidding and closed a deal to remake the 1981 John Carptenter-directed cult classic Escape From New York. Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman’s The Picture Company will produce.

[...] There have been remake overtures before, but not with Carpenter involved. New Line tried it with Neal Moritz. It’s the second producing project set up by The Picture Company, after they set Nottingham And Hood at Disney. TPC has a deal with Studiocanal.

Carpenter will Executive Produce with the hopes of turning it into a franchise- the original had a 1996 sequel, Escape From L.A. which was a Box office disaster.

They were also quick to point out that rumors of Pacific Rim and Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam as Snake Plissken were just that- rumor. 
As we enter the last few years of the Neo-80s, it would make sense to have a film like Escape come around.

In 1997, a major war between the United States and the Soviet Union is concluding, and the entire island of Manhattan has been converted into a giant maximum security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked and crashes into the island, the president (Donald Pleasence) is taken hostage by a group of inmates. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a former Special Forces soldier turned criminal, is recruited to retrieve the president in exchange for his own freedom.

AVATAR 2 Delayed Until 2017; Oscar Winner, Billion Dollar Gross Expected

 

In the world of film, no name is as revered and praised as the man, the myth, and the legend: James Cameron. So when James "Box Office Gold" Cameron decides to hold off on his films for quality control then one better respect that so that the world may see the next Terminator 2 or ALIENS. 

AP Caught up with James "Pandora on the Floor-a" Cameron who was in New Zealand (probably rewriting the Hobbit trilogy for a 2027 release) where he revealed that AVATAR 2, which would kick off a 3 year release of his super films, has been pushed to Christmas 2017 instead of it's late 2016 release.

"There's a layer of complexity in getting the story to work as a saga across three films that you don't get when you're making a stand-alone film," he said in Wellington, New Zealand, where he was helping promote the local film industry with other directors including Peter Jackson.

The last real bit of news to come out of Camp Neytiri was that Stephen Lang (Col. Quaritch) would be returning for the AVATAR 2-4 films; along with probably Sigourney Weaver.

Cameron said that the current plan is to have all three scripts finished by the end of the month:

 "We're writing three simultaneously. And we've done that so that everything tracks throughout the three films. We're not just going to do one and then make up another one and another one after that," he said. "And parallel with that, we're doing all the design. So we've designed all the creatures and the environments."

No plot details as of yet, obviously, but Cameron will continue to direct with different writers set for each of the upcoming installments, with Josh Friedman (War of the Worlds), Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (Jurassic World, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), and Shane Salerno (SAVAGES, Shaft) splitting up sequel-duties. 

AVATAR, released in 2009, became the highest grossing film in history- coming close to $3 bilion by the end of it's nearly 3 month box office reign.  

AVATAR 2 will take you back to Pandora in 2017. 

Ansel Elgort Eyeing Lead Role in Edgar Wright's 'Baby Driver'

Hot off 2014 where he became a household name (and face) for The Fault in Our Stars, Ansel Elgort is in 'early talks' to star in Edgar Wright's Baby Driver.

The plot centers on a young, talented getaway driver (Elgort) who aims to be the best in the game by relying on the beat of his personal soundtrack.  But when he gets coerced into working for a crime boss and a heist goes wrong, he must face the music to save his life, love and freedom.

Wright is obviously coming off his exit from Marvel's Ant Man last year and has been looking to get his next project together.  He will both write and direct the film which will be distributed by Sony and co-financed by Tom Rothman's TriStar and MRC Productions.

Rothman - who fought hard to land the project - has a long-standing relationship with Wright and had this to say regarding the film:

“We’re delighted to be riding shotgun as Edgar Wright takes the wheel of his next film.  TriStar is in the business of backing original voices, and he is all that.”

Elgort can next be seen in The Divergent Series: Insurgent coming out this spring.

Source:  Variety

Selena Gomez Joins Ant-Man in Road-Trip Drama

 

If your dream has always been to see "Justin Bieber's girlfriend" join "the funny guy who's gonna be in that Marvel movie", you're in luck as Selena Gomez and Paul Rudd will be appearing together in The Revized Fundamentals of Caregiving. 

The film, which follows Paul Rudd  as "Ben, a caregiver looking after a frustrated teenager named Trevor who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy", is being written and directed Rob Burnett based on the 2013 novel by Jonathan Evison. 

Gomez will play the role of Dot, a sassy 17-year-old who hitches a ride with the pair during a road trip, and whose forwardness and lack of embarrassment about Trevor’s condition causes him to develop a crush on her.

Gomez is no stranger to indies, as she had just wrapped William H. Macey's Oklahoma-set Rudderless and stared in Harmony Korine's trippy crime-drama Springbreakers in 2013. 

The film begins shooting at the end of this month.  

Disney Gives GHOST IN THE SHELL A Release Date; Jungle Book'd

 

Mark your calendars if you're a fan of Scarlett Johansson pretending to be a cartoon character, as Disney has dated it's anime adaptation under it's Miramax banner, Ghost in the Shell, to April 14, 2017 which shockingly doesn't have a single Fast/Furious or comic book film opening that weekend.

The film follows a Section 9, a high-tech security division led by a beautiful and deadly cyborg commander (Johansson), as they track down a cyber-terrorist known as The Puppet Master, which draws them into a web of political corruption and intrigue.

If you're a fan of CGI animals though, John Favreau's The Jungle Book has been kicked from it's October 2015 slot, and will now open in April of 2015, Deadline reported earlier this evening. 

The film, which chronicles a young boy raised in the wilds of the Amazon with the help of a pack of wolves, a bear, and a black panther and stars  Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba and Johansson (she's really busy).

Pete's Dragon, a remake of the 1970 film, will also open in August of 2016, and details the story of Pete, an orphan, and his best friend Elliot, an invisible green dragon in a whimsical journey through a small sea-side town.

All of these films will likely allow for billions of dollars to flow into the Disney money tank to fund at least 30 more years of Avengers and Star Wars.