Do you hear that? That's the sound of hundreds of action cinephiles softly weeping around the world. In one of the more dismaying news items of the month (and that's including the widely contested casting of Ben Affleck as Batman), the American remake of Indonesian martial arts flick The Raid: Redemption, which just clocked in at #21 on We Got This Covered's list of the Top 100 Action Movies, has just landed in the hands of Battleship writers Erich and Jon Hoeber.
Great news, fans of the terrific British crime drama Luther! Though the show's third and final series (that's season for us Yanks) has finished airing over in the UK and is set to air on BBC America early next month, show creator Neil Cross is actively in the process of putting together a jump to the big screen for DCI John Luther (Idris Elba), the tormented detective at the show's center.
Only a few dramas releasing this fall have a more stacked cast than Prisoners, a searingly intense hostage drama about how the families of two missing girls respond when the case against their suspected abductor hits a dead end. The film stars a group of hugely respected actors and actresses including (deep breath) Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo and Paul Dano.
If you aren't too furious with Ben Affleck for, you know, still being Batman after the internet frenzy that followed his casting as the Caped Crusader for Batman vs. Superman, a follow-up to this summer's hugely successful Man of Steel, you'll definitely want to check him out in the upcoming gambling thriller Runner, Runner alongside Justin Timberlake and Gemma Arterton.
The Korean revenge thriller is a tried-and-true subgenre of modern action cinema. Movies like Oldboy and The Man from Nowhere aim to entertain and appall at the same time, with a mix of brutal fight sequences and clever narrative tricks designed to keep audiences on their toes. While A Company Man, the most recent entry in the subgenre, never reaches the same emotional heights as those instant classics, its set-up and action sequences are just about intriguing and inventive enough to make it worth watching.
With the release of Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, Hollywood's endless quest for the heir to the Harry Potter throne continues. Luckily for fans of the series, this installment, though far from original, is fun, light and fast-paced enough to both entertain its young target audience and keep parents in tow from falling asleep.
Though Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe just began this past summer with Iron Man 3, the busy guys over at Marvel are already planning out Phase Three, and who can blame them? The series has been both a critical success and a box-office juggernaut; it currently stands as the third highest-grossing franchise of all time, behind only Harry Potter and James Bond.
Fans of The Expendables can get ready for more guns, explosions and cheesy one-liners; the third installment in the action franchise, to be directed by Red Hill's Patrick Hughes, is set for release in late 2014. The film is currently shooting in the Bulgarian city of Varna, east of capital Sofia, and we have some set photos for you.
If Pacific Rim didn't feature enough giant robot action to fill the hole in your heart left by the absence of a Michael Bay special-effects extravaganza this summer, you'll be gratified to know that the next entry in Bay's massively successful Transformers franchise is on the way.
