Movie News, August 2012

Reboots, and remakes, and sequels, oh my. Movies being split for dubious reasons, villains taking shape, and interesting new titles. Welcome to this month's Movie News.

Fox is pushing forward with a sequel to the prequel/reboot Prometheus. They announced that some of the actors will be returning (that I won't name for spoiler reasons) as well as Ridley Scott. But it looks like Damon Lindelof won't be back as the writer. So they are looking for a new screen writer to take his place.

Iron Man 3 might have an unusual plot device, it has been hinted (by Robert Downey Jr., no less) that the story might revolve around some breakthrough technology involving cybernetics, which could be connected to the comic book series Iron Man: Extremis. Also, the Mandarin has been confirmed as the lead villain, and played by Ben Kingsley.

Speaking of lead villains, Benedict Cumberbatch's role in Star Trek 2 (the search for a villain) is still up in the air. The early reports that he was going to be Khan have been denied completely. But a slip-up by Karl Urban (Bones) made it sound as though Cumberbatch might be playing Gary Mitchell. It would make sense in a strange sort of way, since Where No Man Has Gone Before was the second pilot for the original series. But I wonder how they will take that story and blow it up into a feature film.

Nolan is officially done with Batman, and although involved with the upcoming Superman reboot, has no interest in the proposed Justice League project. It also looks like Christian Bale is officially done as well, since he was quoted as saying that he's looking forward to the next movie. Speaking of Christian Bale, he went without fanfare or press to Aurora where he spent time with the victims, and paid his respects to the dead.

In Hunger Games news, the final movie Mockingjay will be split in two, which will take up the next three years, ending in 2015. The new game master Plutarch Heavensbee has been cast, and although I've never been that fond of the actor, I think Philip Seymour Hoffman will do a fine job. Jena Malone also just got cast in a pivotal role as Johanna Mason.

In a obvious move to milk as much money from the Lord of the Rings legacy as possible, The Hobbit is going to be broken up into three films. The official reasoning is that instead of getting two huge movies, we'll get three good sized movies. Considering how massive the last trilogy was, I'm not sure it makes any difference how long they are. To me it kind of feels like excessive padding, but I can't really judge since I've never read the books (as I duck any incoming geek rage).

Robocop remake news is starting to trickle out. The highlight is the Omnicorp website, which has a fun commercial for Omnicorp (which is obviously replacing OCP) as well as some pictures of the new ED-209. As a fan of the original movie, I'm cautiously looking forward to this remake. But after all the attempts they've made over the years to do Robocop in various forms, I'm not quite sold on whether this is a project to get excited about... yet.

Bits:

Hellboy 3 has been officially announced as a work in progress. Which goes up as another unexpected sequel along with the new Riddick movie coming out next year.

Joss Whedon hasn't confirmed his return to the helm for The Avengers 2, but there's still some time.

The rumor mill has circulated the likelihood that The Amazing Spider-man is going to get a full trilogy. Like we didn't see that coming, I expect the next reboot to come in 2018.

The X-Men: First Class sequel, which will be helmed by Bryan Singer again, is going to be titled Days Of Future Past. This could be a cool reference to a two issue story arc in X-men comics that involves a character projecting her mind into the past from a dystopian future, to prevent that future from happening.

Christopher Eccleston is going to be the villain in the upcoming Thor 2.

Russell Crowe might be joining the Dark Tower movie, which is an adaptation of Stephen King's series of fantasy books of the same name. Let hope they can get this project out of development hell.

One final bit. Remember the Wachowski siblings (formerly brothers)? They did the Matrix trilogy. Well they're back with a movie called Cloud Atlas, which is based on a book so confusing that it took them a year to write the screenplay. In fact they couldn't quite figure out how to explain the concept either, so they put together a six minute trailer you can find here.

That's all, folks, and I promise it won't take so long next time. As always feel free to post comments, additional factoids, and any thoughts you might have about the stuff contained in this article. Until next month!
--- Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.