Though we have an official cast for Star Wars: Episode VII, and we know that the Millenium Falcon will play a role in the J.J. Abrams-helmed franchise update, actual information about the blockbuster's storyline has been hard to come by. Now, the occasionally reliable Latino Review has emerged with some information about Star Wars: Episode VII that they claim will be confirmed within the next few weeks.
It has been almost ten years since the release of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, a feature-length adaptation of the beloved Nickelodeon cartoon that grossed an impressive $140 million at the box office and received strong reviews. In some ways, it's surprising that this long has passed without a cinematic follow-up, seeing as the show is still going strong and is now in fact gearing up for its tenth season. Regardless, at last, fans of the franchise can look forward to The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which is set for release next February.
We previously reported that Oliver Stone (JFK, Natural Born Killers) had gotten the ball rolling on an untitled adaptation of Luke Harding's The Snowden Files, which tells the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as he's hunted by the U.S. government after leaking information about the organization's invasive spying techniques. Now that Stone, also directing, has sat down and began to write the screenplay, however, he's turned to another popular book that will help him in plotting out the story: Anatoly Kucherena's novel Time of the Octopus.
Normally, Nicholas Sparks adaptations are nothing to get excited about, but the cast that is coming together for The Longest Ride, Fox's latest attempt to find Notebook-style success with a tearjerker from the prolific author, is unusually interesting. We previously reported that Scott Eastwood (yes, son of Clint), Boardwalk Empire actor Jack Huston and acting veteran Alan Alda had boarded the project in leading roles, joining Game of Thrones actress Oona Chaplin and Under the Dome star Britt Robertson, and now we've learned that Lolita Davidovich has also signed on.
It's been a little while since we heard anything about Sacha Baron Cohen's spy comedy Grimsby, which Now You See Me director Louis Letterier is set to direct for Sony. As it turns out, the film was still working on pulling together a cast, and now we've learned that it has just enlisted the diverse talents of four great actors. Signing on for Grimsby are Hercules actor Ian McShane, Homeland's David Harewood, Precious star Gabourey Sidibe and English comedian Johnny Vegas.
In science-fiction, no one ever stays dead for long. Sigourney Weaver, who played Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise, can certainly attest to that fact. So, when her scientist Grace Augustine perished after a gun battle in James Cameron's sci-fi effects extravaganza Avatar, we took her demise with a grain of salt. And now that three sequels are in the works, director James Cameron has made no secret of his intention to involve Weaver, one of his long-time collaborators. Now, however, comments by the King of the World himself have shed some more light on Weaver's part in Avatar 2, 3 and 4.
As fantastic as it was, David Fincher's jet-black adaptation of the Stieg Larsson bestseller The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which earned star Rooney Mara an Oscar nomination for her role as hacker Lisbeth Salander, doesn't appear to be getting a sequel anytime soon. Andrew Kevin Walker is still writing the script (so far as we know) and Fincher has reportedly killed talks that he'll direct, which might mean that we'll all be better off if The Girl Who Played With Fire never ends up hitting theaters anyway.
With names like Michael Bay and Jonathan Liebesman attached to it, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may just be the summer tentpole I'm most worried about. Though the optimist in me would like to believe it's possible to create a great movie about the classic comic-book crimefighters, the guys behind Transformers and Battle: Los Angeles don't strike me as the people who are going to succeed in that endeavor. But, even if the movie doesn't turn out to be everything fans are hoping for, at least we're getting some pretty cool posters out of it.
Finally, Universal's N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton is moving forward, with news from The Wrap that Ice Cube and director F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job) have cast Cube's son O'Shea Jackson Jr. to play the rapper. The film, which was originally at New Line, has been in development for some time, but if Jackson has officially come aboard, that would suggest that Straight Outta Compton is at last getting close to rolling cameras.
With all the attention paid to Netflix's political drama House of Cards and prison dramedy Orange is the New Black, it's easy to forget that the streaming giant has other original series as well. One of its more niche ones is definitely the Eli Roth-produced Hemlock Grove, a horror series about a seemingly normal town populated by strange and frightening supernatural creatures.
