Del Toro’s Crimson Peak releases trailer, SNL 40 lineup, Cotillard joins Assassin’s Creed and castings and images fro Deadpool

Until fairly recently, the gaming adaptation Assassin’s Creed was still set for a ridiculous August 2015 release date, before production and most of the casting, but there was then a eighteen month delay. Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Prometheus, 300, Shame, 12 Years a Slave) will star as a modern day man who’s forced to relive the memories of his ancestors, who are members of an ancient order while Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) directs.

A new addition is Marion Cotillard, the French-born Oscar winning star of Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Big Fish, Two Days One Night, Rust and Bone, Contagion, La Vie en Rose, Midnight in Paris and Public Enemies. She teams with her future Macbeth co-star Fassbender in a undisclosed role.

Safe House star Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Miller have been lobbying for a greenlight for so long on mutant spinoff Deadpool and it’s finally on its way. On on set image reveals Wade Wilson’s iconic mask, pleasingly not tampered with from the comic book depiction, while some strides are being made in the casting department. Gina Carano (Fast and Furious 6, Haywire) has joined while three time X-Men star Daniel Cudmore will reprise his rule as Colossus.

It came close to topping our most anticipated list for 2015 and we can now reveal the very first look at Crimson Peak. Pan’s Labyrinth’s Guillermo Del Toro brings us this bold new horror entry which sees a young author lured into a reclusive house by her secretive new husband. It stars Mia Wasikowska (Stoker, Maps to the Stars), Tom Hiddleston (Thor, War Horse), Jessica Chastain (Interstellar, Zero Dark Thirty), Charlie Hunnam (Pacific Rim, Sons of Anarchy) and Doug Jones (Hellboy).

Many Americans will know that this weekend heralds the fortieth anniversary of the sketch show Saturday Night Live and we’ll give a special mention to the phenomenal ensemble of their new special including:

Adam Sandler (actor – Happy Gilmore)
Alec Baldwin (actor – 30 Rock, The Departed, Beetlejuice, The Hunt for Red October)
Amy Poehler (actress – Parks and Recreation)
Andy Samberg (actor – Brooklyn Nine Nine)
Bill Hader (actor – The Skeleton Twins)
Bill Murray (actor – Ghost Busters, Lost in Translation, Groundhog Day)
Billy Crystal (actor – Monsters Inc, When Harry Met Sally)
Bradley Cooper (actor – Guardians of the Galaxy, American Sniper, The Hangover)
Catherine Zeta Jones (actress – The Terminal, Chicago)
Charlie Day (actor – Horrible Bosses, The Lego Movie)
Chris Rock (actor – Madagascar, Top Five)
Christopher Walken (actor – Catch Me if You Can, Pulp Fiction)
Dan Aykroyd (actor – Ghostbusters, The Blues Brothers)
Eddie Murphy (actor – Shrek, Beverly Hills Cop)
Edward Norton (actor – Fight Club, The Bourne Legacy, Birdman)
Emma Stone (actress – Easy A, The Amazing Spider-Man)
George Lucas (director – Star Wars, American Graffiti)
Glenn Close (actress – Guardians of the Galaxy, Mars Attacks)
JK Simmons (actor – Whiplash, Spider-Man)
Jack Nicholson (actor – The Shining, The Departed, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Batman)
James Franco (actor – 127 Hours, Spider-Man, The Interview)
Jim Carrey (actor – The Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dumb and Dumber)
John Goodman (actor – The Artist, Argo, Monsters Inc, The Big Lebowski)
Kristen Wiig (actress – Bridesmaids, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)
Martin Short (actor – Innerspace, !Three Amigos!)
Maya Rudolph (actress – Bridesmaids, Away We Go)
Melissa McCarthy (actress – Bridesmaids, The Heat, St Vincent)
Michael Douglas (actor – The Game, Wall Street, Ant-Man)
Mike Myers (actor – Wayne’s World, Shrek, Austin Powers)
Paul Rudd (actor – Anchorman, Knocked Up)
Robert De Niro (actor – The Godfather Part II, Goodfellas, Heat, Casino)
Sarah Silverman (actress – School of Rock, Wreck It Ralph)
Sigourney Weaver (actress – Avatar, Aliens)
Steve Martin (actor – Cheaper by the Dozen)
Steven Spielberg (director – ET, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Jaws, Raiders)
Tina Fey (actress/writer – 30 Rock, Mean Girls)
Tom Hanks (actor – Toy Story, Cast Away, Forrest Gump, Captain Phillips, Saving Private Ryan, Big)
Will Ferrell (actor – Anchorman, The Lego Movie, Elf, Step Brothers)
Zach Galifianakis (actor – The Hangover, The Campaign, Into the Wild, Birdman)

Crimson Peak – October

Deadpool – February 2016

Assassin’s Creed – December 2016

Weekend box-office – 22nd to 28th of November 2014 – will Interstellar outsmart Dumb and Dumber To?

Christopher Nolan’s intended Zeitgeist event movie Interstellar arrive to a hefty but muted $50 million debut last week having lost out to Disney’s animation Big Hero 6. The mammoth runtime and complex science may have alienated audiences, the same ones who’ll enjoy the light relief of comedy sequel Dumb and Dumber To. We did predict last week that Dumber would succeed but the twenty year gap between this and the original is going to be a strain.

US:

1. Dumb and Dumber To – Directors: Bob and Peter Farrelly – $36.1 million
2. Big Hero 6 – Don Hall, Chris Williams – $34.7 million
3. Interstellar – Christopher Nolan – $28.3 million
4. Beyond the Lights – Gina Prince Bythewood – $6.2 million
5. Gone Girl – David Fincher – $4.6 million

UK:

1. Interstellar – Christopher Nolan – £3.8 million
2. The Imitation Game – Morten Tyldum – £2.7 million
3. Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey – Debbie Isitt – £1.8 million
4. Mr Turner – Mike Leigh – £0.7 million
5. The Drop – Michael R Roskam – £6.3 million

Dumber To has won out in a fairly quiet week at the American box-office while Interstellar is well on its way to $100+ million domestically. New drama Beyond the lights makes a surprise entry at four. Nolan’s sci-fi has also held its ground impressively in the UK, against Benedict Cumberbatch’s wartime biopic The Imitation Game, maligned festive sequel Nativity 3 and well performing Tom Hardy thriller The Drop. This week I score 4/10.

US:

1. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 – Francis Lawrence
2. Interstellar – Christopher Nolan
3. Dumb and Dumber To – Bob and Peter Farrelly
4. Big Hero 6 – Don Hall, Chris Williams
5. The Imitation Game – Morten Tyldum

UK:

1. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 – Francis Lawrence
2. Interstellar – Christopher Nolan
3. Get on Up – Tate Taylor
4. The Imitation Game – Morten Tyldum
5. What We Do in the Shadows – Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi

Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber To, this week’s US number one.

Matthew MacConaughey in Interstellar, this week’s UK number one.

Avengers: Age of Ultron teaser, Goyer speaks about Batman vs. Superman, Lawrence to cameo in Dumb and Transformers 4 pic

You’re likely to have been following the recent movie studio war between Marvel and DC. The latter had a major victory with Christopher Nolan’s brilliant Dark Knight trilogy. The Dark Knight and TDK Rises both made over a billion dollars and were critical successes but things turned around in the last 12 months or so. The last two Marvel films (Joss Whedon’s Avengers Assemble in 2012 and Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 this year) both reached the $1 billion mark and are the 3rd and 5th highest grossing films of all time while DC and Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel reached a largely impressive but not record breaking $662 million. Both of the cinematic franchises are lining up a film for 2015 that’ll most likely be the biggest yet for both of them. Today’s two major news stories are investigating those two films: The Avengers: Age of Ultron and Batman vs. Superman.

First, it’s off to the stellar cast of Age of Ultron: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), Aaron Taylor Johnson (Quicksilver), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill), Samuel L Jackson (Nick Fury), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and James Spader (Ultron) plus rumoured stars that could reprise their roles Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts), Clark Gregg (Agent Phil Coulson) and Anthony Mackie (Falcon). We’ve finally been allowed to get the trailer for Joss Whedon’s superhero sequel. It was first aired at this summer’s 2013 San Diego Comic-Con but the deal with promoting a project at SDCC is that it’s exclusive to the fans that go and not, until months after, available to those who didn’t attend. Our Avengers 2 preview is a little spoilerific on the front of Iron Man 3 so don’t read on in case you haven’t caught up with the latest Marvel/Disney adventure.

Filming for Ultron doesn’t begin until February next year so this trailer is more of a mood piece than anything else but it does give us more of a glimpse at the plot. In the comics, Ultron is the accidental creation of Ant-Man/Hank Pym but Joss Whedon and Marvel Films president Kevin Feige have stepped out to say that Pym doesn’t feature in their story and we won’t see him until Edgar Wright releases his action sci-fi Ant-Man (July 31st 2015). We could expect a big reveal moment for Pym in one of Marvel’s trademark post-credit sequences but their going to have to adjust Ultron’s sinister origin. The trailer shows an Iron Man helmet being dented, smashed and scorched until it forms the head of Ultron. It’s probably metaphorical but, after Tony’s retirement in Iron Man 3, Stark may still be tinkering in secret with his many contraptions. I’m guessing that one becomes the megalomaniac and robotic Ultron. This inspires Stark to build a new suit and reunite with the rest of the Avengers in order to destroy Ultron before he does the same to the world.

David S. Goyer is the genius behind the scripts and stories of The Dark Knight trilogy, Man of Steel and Blade and his hoping to transfer all that superhero goodness into Zack Snyder’s DC mash-ups: Batman vs. Superman and Justice League. We don’t know anything about the latter but the former is something a bit closer on our radar. Ben Affleck (Batman), Henry Cavill (Superman), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Laurence Fishburne (Perry White) and Diane Lane (Martha Kent) are all set to star and Goyer has spoken out.

“One of the things that’s been fun for us is we’re a bit further along than I think people realise.” So, a story of sorts must be in place and he could be referring to that they’re far enough along to be thinking about Justice League. On the subject of fan pressure from the millions of Bat-fan’s out there, he says “We’re conscious of the fan point of view when we’re working on these things but you can’t let yourself be paralysed by that. At the end of the day you still have to create something, and if you try to think about what the fans would like, you stop being creative. It’s sort of like, where does it end? You have to write the story that you want to write and hope that people want to see it.”

We’ve got a couple of news snippets just to finish off. We’ve got confirmation that Oscar winning The Hunger Games, Winter’s Bone and Silver Linings Playbook star Jennifer Lawrence will cameo in Dumb and Dumber To. Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne will be returning with their original stars (Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels) and original directors (the Farrelly brothers) for the sequel that’s now got some surprise guests. Jennifer Lawrence will be in a fairly limited supporting role, the younger version of Kathleen Turner’s character. Rob Riggle (The Hangover, 21 Jump Street) will also appear as a pair of twins.

Finally, Transformers: Age of Extinction has unveiled a still from the film. Mark Wahlberg, Jack Reynor and Nicola Peltz all star in this first new shot from the fourth instalment in Michael Bay’s mega-franchise. Find out more in our 2014 Future Films preview page. By for now!

The Avengers: Age of Ultron – May 1st 2015

Batman vs. Superman – July 17th 2015

Ant-Man – July 31st 2015

Dumb and Dumber To – late 2014

Transformers: Age of Extinction – July 10th 2014

Jim Carrey shows Dumb and Dumber To pic, Pitt on World War z sequels and Josh Brolin came close to Batman

First there was Dumb and Dumber, an above average comedy with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in roles that, originally, were to be played by Nick Cage and Gary Oldman. Harry and Lloyd returned in the ill fated sequel Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd which completely dumped the original actors resulting in a mess of a film. Now a third attempt and appeared to win back fans of the series. Dumb and Dumber To seems to be forgetting that Dumberer ever happened in a plot that involves both Christmas and Dunne travelling the country looking for someone that they can get a new kidney from.

Jim Carrey has posted up a first pic of preparation for a film we can only now confirm is greenlighted. Shooting will begin in 15 days from now and here’s the toothy pic.

Brad Pitt’s zombie epic World War Z was predicted to be a flop. The press attempted to confirm as the biggest flop of the summer before it was even released. Indeed it was doomed to fail after so many writers were brought in to find a suitable ending, multiple endings were shot and only one chosen in the editing room and the budget eventually ballooned up to $190 million with even more spent on marketing. Suddenly, things turned around. The decent reviews prompted excellent takings reaching $536 million. A sequel is most likely on the cards.

“We’re certainly talking about it, yes,” Brad Pitt tells Variety. “We have so many ideas on the table from the time we spent developing this thing and figuring out how the zombie worlds work. We gotta get the script right first to determine if we go further.”

Ben Affleck’s Batman casting didn’t spark as love for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel sequel as much as either would of wanted. Josh Brolin was the favourite for the former half of Batman vs. Superman and it’s now confirmed that Brolin was approached by Snyder for the role of The Dark Knight.

On the subject of the controversy of “Batfleck” who we now know wasn’t Snyder and team’s first choice, he said “I’ve never seen such a global reaction in my life. I feel for him, truly. I would not want to be him right now. The reaction becomes so personal. It’s like “I wish he was dead.” And you’re like, ‘What? Dude, seriously? This guy is just working like you are. He’s doing the same thing you are. He’s trying to make the best choices he can.”

Please comment your opinions on Batfleck and Dumb and Dumber To. What should the next World War Z by called? Current favourites are World War O (followed by the sequels O, M, B, I, E)

Dumb and Dumber To has no announced release date but will most likely come out for the 20th anniversary in 2014

World War Z 2 could be out 2016

Batman vs. Superman is out July 17th 2015