Jenkins is Wonder Woman director, Gosling in Blade Runner and Cannes lineup revealed: Woody Allen! Pixar! Mad Max?

Warner Bros suffered a major setback on their highly anticipated fantasy reboot of the DC hero Winder Woman. Director Michelle MacLaren, behind some of the best episodes of Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, pulled out of the film leaving a gap to fill but the replacement has been announced as Patty Jenkins (Monster) is hired. Jenkins was in fact connected to Marvel’s superhero sequel Thor: The Dark World, long before the Edgar Wright/Ant–Man split, and left based on creative differences. Gal Gadot (Fast & Furious) is the Israeli star who’ll bring the new Wonder Woman to the screen.

Gladiator’s Ridley Scott sadly passed on the new Blade Runner sequel but BAFTA nominated director Denis Villeneuve (Enemy, Incendies, Prisoners) is taking his place. Harrison Ford (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, The Fugitive) is confirmed to be reprising his role as the futuristic detective Rick Deckard but some new castings are now poised to be made. The latest report shows that Ryan Gosling (Drive, The Ides of March, Crazy Stupid Love, Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) is in talks for a a so far unspecified role but you can’t deny some likeness to the original’s Rutger Hauer.

Festivals like Cannes are now major platforms for indie films to get the platform they need to campaign their way to the Oscars and the following list might show some early awards favourites, considering last year the films included Foxcatcher, Mr Turner, Two Days One Night, Maps to the Stars, Leviathan, The Homesman, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Force Majeure but also included the massive flop Grace of Monaco. Here’s this years selection, which’ll each be scrutinised by the jury (led by Fargo and No Country For Old Men directors Joel and Ethan Cohen) for the prestigious prize of Palme D’Or.

Film: Dheepan
Director: Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone)
Starring: Vincent Rottiers, Marc Zinga
Premise: The story of a Sri Lankan Tamil warrior who flees to France and ends up working as a caretaker outside Paris.
Nation: France

Film: Marguerite et Julien
Director: Valerie Donzelli (Declaration of War)
Starring: Anais Demoustier, Frederic Pierrot
Nation: France

Film: The Tale of Tales
Director: Matteo Garrone (Gamorra)
Starring: Salma Hayek (Frida), Vincent Cassel (Black Swan), John C Reilly (The Aviator), Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
Nation: Italy

Film: Carol
Director: Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, I’m Not There)
Starring: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Rooney Mara (The Social Network), Kyle Chandler (Super 8), Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story), Cory Michael Smith (Gotham)
Premise: Set in 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.
Nation: United States

Film: Nie yin niang (The Assassin)
Director: Hsiao Hsien Hou (Three Times)
Starring: Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Satoshi Tsumbuki
Nation: Taiwan

Film: Shan He Gu Ren (Mountains May Depart
Director: Zhangke Jia (Still Life, A Touch of Sin)
Starring: Tao Zhao
Nation: China

Film: Out Little Sister
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda (Nobody Knows, Still Walking)
Starring: Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa
Nation: Japan

Film: Macbeth
Director: Justin Kurzel (Snowtown)
Starring: Michael Fassbender (12 Years A Slave), Marion Cotillard (Inception), David Thewlis (The Theory of Everything), Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby), Sean Harris (Prometheus), Jack Reynor (What Richard Did), Paddy Considine (The World’s End)
Premise: Macbeth, a duke of Scotland, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.
Nation: United Kingdom, France, United States

Film: The Lobster
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth)
Starring: Colin Farrell (Minority Report), Lea Seydoux (Blue is the Warmest Colour), Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener), Ben Whishaw (Cloud Atlas), John C Reilly (The Aviator), Olivia Colman (Tyranasour)
Premise: In a dystopian near future, single people are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days or are transformed into animals and released into the woods.
Nation: Greece

Film: Mon Roi
Director: Maiwenn (Polisse)
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Louis Garrel
Nation: France

Film: Mia Madre
Director: Nanni Moretti (The Son’s Room)
Starring: Margherita Buy (The Caiman), John Turturro (Barton Fink)
Nation: Italy

Film: La giovinezza (The Early Years)
Director: Paolo Sorrentino (This Must Be the Place)
Starring: Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener), Michael Caine (Batman Begins), Jane Fonda (Coming Home), Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs)
Premise: Fred and Mick, two old friends, are on vacation in an elegant hotel at the foot of the Alps.
Nation: Italy

Film: Louder Than Bombs
Director: Joaquim Trier (Oslo August 31st)
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Amy Ryan (Birdman), Rachel Brosnahan (House of Cards), David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck)
Nation: Norway, France, Denmark, United States

Film: The Sea of Trees
Director: Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting)
Starring: Matthew MacConaughey (Interstellar), Naomi Watts (King Kong), Ken Watanabe (Letters Form Iwo Jima)
Premise: A suicidal American befriends a Japanese man lost in a forest near Mt. Fuji and the two search for a way out.
Nation: United States

Film: Sicario
Director: Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies)
Starring: Emily Blunt (Looper), Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men), Jon Beranthal (Fury), Benicio Del Toro (Traffic)
Premise: A young female FBI agent joins a secret CIA operation to take down a Mexican cartel boss, a job that ends up pushing her ethical and moral values to the limit.
Nation: United States

Films not competing:

Film: Mad Max: Fury Road
Director: George Miller (The Road Warrior)
Starring: Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises), Charlize Theron (Prometheus), Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: First Class)
Premise: In a post-apocalyptic world, in which people fight to the death, Max teams up with a mysterious woman, Furiousa, to try and survive.
Nation: Australian, United States

Film: Irrational Man
Director: Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Midnight in Paris, Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Starring: Emma Stone (The Help), Joaquin Phoenix (Her)
Premise: On a small town college campus, a philosophy professor in existential crisis gives his life new purpose when he enters into a relationship with his student.
Nation: United States

Film: The Little Prince
Director: Mark Osborne (Kung Fu Panda)
Starring: Rachel McAdams (Sherlock Holmes), Mackenzie Foy (Interstellar), Paul Giamatti (Saving Mr Banks), James Franco (127 Hours), Marion Cotillard (Inception), Jeff Bridges (True Grit), Benicio Del Toro (Traffic), Albert Brooks (Finding Nemo), Ricky Gervais (The Office)
Premise: A pilot crashes in the desert and meets a little boy from a distant planet.
Nation: France

Amazing Spider-Man 2 trailer, four more join Warcraft and David Magee writing a new Narnia

Sadly, Duncan Jones’ video game adaptation of World of Warcraft has been postponed into 2016. Colin Farrel, Paula Patton, Anton Yelchin, Anson Mount and Paul Dano are the key stars who are at least in negotiation. Others are now being drafted in as possibly new characters or replacements for those above who are no longer in the project and they are some truly major names. Dominic Cooper is best known for Captain America:The First Avenger and The Devil’s Double and he could be joining X-Men: The Last Stand, 3:10 to Yuma and The Mechanic’s Ben Foster as well as Eastenders and then Pacific Rim’s Robert Kazinsky and Rock ‘n’ Rolla’s Toby Kebbell. Vancouver filming starts next month.

A couple of months ago, we reported that a new instalment could be on the way from the CS Lewis created world of Narnia. Producer Mark Gordon is still the man responsible for adapting The Silver Chair but now David Magee, writer of Life of Pi and Finding Neverland, is working on a screenplay. The Silver Chair’s plot sees Voyage of the Dawn Trader’s Eustace assigned by Aslan to find for an elderly Prince Caspian his long lost son but Eustace’s unsuspecting school friend Jill complicates things a little. Will Poulter, Liam Neeson and Ben Barnes have played some of the above roles in the past but it’s unknown if any of them are returning. Neeson’s voice role as Aslan has often defined the series and Will Poulter and Ben Barnes’ careers have/are set to take off over the next couple of years with their roles in We’re the Millers, The Maze Runner and The Seventh Son.

Finally, the very first trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has swung into action. Check it out here. It’s quite a spectacle and we only have to wait till April. The only villains we new of so far for this Marvel instalment were Electro (Jamie Foxx), Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and the Osbornes (Dane DeHaan and Chris Cooper replacing James Franco and Willem Dafoe from Sam Raimi’s franchise) with hints at building up the Sinister Six but we didn’t realise it’d happen so quick. It’s safe to say that Harry Osborne will be the Green Goblin and we’ve got surprising cameos, ish, from Vulture and Dr Octopus, one of whom hasn’t been seen since 2004 and the other hasn’t been on our screens once, do correct me if I’m wrong as I don’t care for some of the poor, cheesy and failed adaptations of Spider-Man from the 20th century. Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Sally Field also star while Marc Webb directs.

The Amazing Spider-Man – April 18th 2014

Warcraft – March 11th 2016

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair – 2016

(World of) Warcraft delayed to 2016 and eight new pics from Transformers 4

Duncan Jones, as well as being son of pop royalty David Bowie, is one of the most accomplished science fiction directors of this century after calling the shots on the brilliant Moon and Source Code. He’s been signed on for a video game adaptation titled Warcraft for a long while now with stars such as Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, Paula Patton, Anton Yelchin, Anson Mount and Travis Fimmel in contention for roles in the fantasy. It was scheduled for December 18th 2015 but, as you may know, a minor sci-fi instalment called Star Wars: Episode VII moved, from Lost, Super 8 and Into Darkness’ JJ Abrams, into that date so Jones has had to pull out into March 2016. It couldn’t go a week earlier thanks to Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible 5 filling in the Christmas spot. The only release close to it now is Mama director Andres Muschietti’s reboot of Stephen Sommers’ Mummy franchise which arrives in April 2016.

Next in this shorter than usual post, we’re going to show some new pics from behind the production as well as some stills from Michael Bay’s new sci-fi sequel Transformers: Age of Extinction. If you’re screaming “but where’s Sam ?” you’ve missed some production details such as the fact that previously key stars like Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington Whitley, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Kevin Dunn and Julie White won’t feature and move over for a new cast featuring Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci and Jack Reynor. We won’t get to see any fully animated pics of Optimus Prime or the new villainous Dinobots as they’ll take a long time to digitally paint these detailed characters in post production.

Transformers: Age of Extinction – July 10th 2014

Warcraft – March 2016

Tuorhoth’s first predictions for the 2014 Academy Awards

October and November are seeing the releases of some of the huge contenders for the Oscars next year well before award season has begun. We’ve no idea how well any of these films are going to do critically seeing as none of them have actually been released to mainstream audiences. This isn’t an award by award breakdown but we’re giving you a brief guide as to what could be nominated in “the big six” awards at world’s biggest annual movie event. I’m also ranking the potential nominees by their likelihood of winning by colour: red means most likely to win, blue means second most likely and green means I’ve ranked them third.

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett – The Monuments Men

Cameron Diaz – The Counsellor

Julianne Moore – Carrie

Michelle Pfeiffer – The Family

Kristen Wiig – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Best Supporting Actor

Barkhad Abdi – Captain Phillips

Benedict Cumberbatch – 12 Years A Slave

Jean Dujardin – The Monuments Men

Jonah Hill – The Wolf of Wall Street

Tommy Lee Jones – The Family

Best Leading Actress

Sandra Bullock – Gravity

Nicole Kidman – Grace of Monaco

Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Chloe Grace Moretz – Carrie

Emma Thompson – Saving Mr. Banks

Best Leading Actor

George Clooney – Gravity

Steve Coogan – Philomena

Leonardo di Caprio – The Wolf of Wall Street

Tom Hanks – Captain Phillips or Saving Mr. Banks (undecided)

Ben Stiller – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Best Director

Alfonso Cauron – Gravity

George Clooney – The Monuments Men

Paul Greengrass – Captain Phillips

Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street

Ben Stiller – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Best Picture

12 Years A Slave

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

The Counsellor

Gravity

The Monuments Men

Out of the Furnace

Saving Mr. Banks

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Wolf of Wall Street

So, these are my beginning of season suggestions for who will be nominated at this prestigious event. We’re now going to talk through those films and actors that I haven’t included but could be major contenders. There’s a huge cast for The Monuments Men which I haven’t fully gone over. I’ve put George Clooney, who I’ve already selected for Best Director for this film, in for Best Leading Actor for Gravity not The MM but he could easily win for both. Stars of The Monuments Men like Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Hugh Bonneville and Bob Balaban could squeeze into the supporting actor position that I placed Dujardin in. Dujardin is already popular with the academy after his Lead Actor win in 2012 for The Artist and as likely could get a nomination for The Wolf of Wall Street instead of The Monuments Men.

Wolf of Wall Street could do very well. Jonah Hill may seem like a surprise nominee but remember that he got similar recognition at the 2012 Oscars for Moneyball. I’ve only put Nicole Kidman forward for this film but Grace of Monaco is a noteworthy contender for a Best Pic nomination. American Hustle is only in one award on my list but the stellar cast of Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence (whose already in for Hunger Games 2), Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale. I think it will win Best Original Screenplay however.

Other potential nominees are the aforementioned Bale for Out of the Furnace, for which Casey Affleck and Zoe Saldana could also be in contention. Dame Judi Dench could get into the actress categories for Philomena. Robert De Niro stars in both American Hustle and The Family and could crack into the shortlists. Colin Farrel and Paul Giamatti came close to my lists for Saving Mr. Banks. 12 Years A Slave could through in Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano and Quvenzhane Wallis back into the award scene while The Counsellor could do the same for Fassbender, Pitt, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem as well as it’s director Sir Ridley Scott. We can’t rule out other entries like All is Lost with Robert Redford, The Book Thief with Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson or Inside Llewyn Davis (the Coen brothers’ folk tale with Oscar Isaac, Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan). Spike Lee’s mysterious action remake Oldboy could creep in with it’s stars Josh Brolin, Samuel L Jackson, Elizabeth Olsen, Hannah Simone and Sharlto Copley.

It’s not too late to remove this year’s earlier hits like The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann directing Leonardo di Caprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan and Joel Edgerton), Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen directing Cate Blanchett and Alec Baldwin), Prisoners (Hugh Jackman, Paul Dano, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, Terrence Howard and Jake Gyllenhaal in the directing of Denis Villeneuve) and Rush (Ron Howard’s biopic with Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl). Blockbuster action films like the upcoming The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Ender’s Game or 47 Ronin have been known to do well as the Oscars (see The Dark Knight, Inception and a few others) and there’s usually a surprise foreign language film in the mix (like Amour). There’s a whole variety of films that could be next year’s nominees but I think the leaders are: Gravity, Captain Phillips, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Monuments Men and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Find out more about these films at our Future Films pages for 2013 and 2014.

The 86th Academy Awards will be hosted by Ellen De Generes and will be on ABC on March 2nd 2014

Tell us in the comments who YOU think will win big at the 2014 Oscars.

Divergent posters, first Cinderella pic, more Warcraft casting and Radcliffe denies Mercury rumours

Kenneth Branagh (Harry Potter’s Lockhart, Shakespeare regular and director of Marvel blockbuster hit Thor) directs Cinderella, Disney’s live-action adaptation of their animated classic of the same name. The production started recently and the first picture was unveiled.

Lily James (Downton Abbey, Wrath of the Titans, Fast Girls) will play the titular character, whose name is now shortened to Ella. Cate Blanchett (The Lord of the Rings, Blue Jasmine), Helena Bonham Carter (Harry Potter, The King’s Speech), Stellan Skarsgard (Thor, Good Will Hunting), Derek Jacobi (Gladiator, Doctor Who), Holliday Grainger (The Borgias, Jane Eyre), Sophie McShera (Waterloo Road, Downton Abbey), Hayley Atwell (Marvel’s Agent Carter from Captain America) and Nonso Anozie (The Grey, Conan the Barbarian) are all also going to The Ball. Richard Madden (BBC’s Birdsong and Robb Stark in Game of Thrones) will be giving a very different tone to the often generic Prince Charming.

“It is impossible to think of Cinderella without thinking of Disney and the timeless images we’ve all grown up watching. And those classic moments are irresistible to a filmmaker. “With Lily James we have found our perfect Cinderella. She combines knockout beauty with intelligence, wit, fun and physical grace. Her Prince is being played by Richard Madden, a young actor with incredible power and charisma.” If you can’t wait until 2015 to see Branagh’s work, you’ll be excited about Jack Ryan: Shadow One – a kind of prequel to The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger and various other Jack Ryan films which Branagh directs and plays the villain in, alongside Chris Pine, Kiera Knightley and Kevin Costner.

It was announced yesterday by Duncan Jones (Source Code, Moon and son of David Bowie) that Paula Patton (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) and Colin Farrell (Total Recall, In Bruges) where potential stars of his World of Warcraft film. The new possible stars are Anton Yelchin and Paul Dano. Yelchin starred in Like Crazy, Terminator Salvation and Fright Night as well as playing Chekov in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Dano has just finished promoting new thriller hit Prisoners and 12 Years a Slave and will be known for his roles in Looper, Little Miss Sunshine and There Will Be Blood. They amongst a few names that Jones has put into consideration for Warcraft. The others were Travis Fimmel (lead of hit TV series Vikings) and Anson Mount (Jason Statham’s Safe).

Ever since Sacha Baron Cohen’s (Borat, Ali G, The Dictator, Les Miserables, Madagascar, Hugo) leaving of the project, the internet has had much speculation on who will take up his position in the now troubled Freddie Mercury biopic. Daniel Radcliffe was the favourite but he’s been quick to gun down the rumours of him playing the Tanzanian born, glam star and Queen frontman.

“There is no truth to it at all,” he tells Empire, half laughing, “Everyone on the internet who I presume is saying I’m totally wrong for that part is correct. I am completely wrong for that part!”

Finally, we’ve got some new Divergent posters. Neil Burger’s sci-fi follow in the footsteps of other young-adult adaptations hits like Twilight and The Hunger Games as well as this year’s flops The Host, Beautiful Creatures and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. Hopefully, Neil Burger’s previous experience, with Limitless, The Asset, The Lucky Ones and The Illusionist on his CV, as well as successful stars like Kate Winslet joining rising stars like Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Zoe Kravitz means he could could it balance right. Here’s the trailer. I do hope this sparks some interest in you for the upcoming big projects.

Cinderella – March 13th 2015

Jack Ryan: Shadow One – December 26th

Warcraft – 2015

Divergent – March 21st 2014