New TV Spot for Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams’ Super 8 Debuts

A lot of curiosity surrounds Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams’ forthcoming film Super 8. It’s understandable. Story details remains scarce, yet at the same time it’s been revealed that the story is a pastiche of several of the movies that made Spielberg so successful in the 1970s…with the additional benefit of JJ Abrams’ directorial signature.
Today Paramount Pictures has debuted a new TV spot for the film, which you can check out using the embedded player below.
Story synopsis: In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness a catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local Deputy tries to uncover the truth — something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined.
Super 8 stars Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, Gabriel Basso, Noah Emmerich, Ron Eldard, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee and Zach Mills.

New Writers Hired to Penn Author Marie Lu’s Futuristic Novel, Legend

CBS Films has hired up-and-coming writers Andrew Barrer and Gabe Ferrari to adapt Marie Lu’s forthcoming novel “Legend”, a futuristic Robin Hood-like tale set against two warring nations that inhabit what is now the United States.
According to Heat Vision, the company hopes to develop the project as a major young adult franchise, not unlike ‘The Twilight Saga’.
CBS has already hired Jonathan Levine to direct the adaptation, which is being produced by Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey of ‘The Twilight Saga’ fame.
The novel, which has received positive early reviews, is being published by Putnam and is due out on November 29.
Story synopsis: Legend takes place in Los Angeles over a hundred years in the future, when North America is split into two warring nations. Legend focuses on Day, a fifteen-year old Robin Hood figure who happens to be the nation’s most wanted criminal, and June, a teenage prodigy who is hired to hunt him down. The pair are caught in a game of cat and mouse until an impossible truth about their totalitarian leaders forces them to work together.
Barrer and Ferrari wrote Die in a Gunfight, a Romeo and Juliet-like action project that made the 2010 Blacklist.

Come Back Green Lantern, All Might be Forgiven

DC Comics’ Green Lantern character may come back in a sequel to the summer superhero flick despite that film’s underwhelming performance.
Speaking at New York Comic Con, DC Entertainment’s Geoff Johns told his audience that Warner Brothers was hopeful of seeing the man with the lamp light up again despite the poor box office performance of The Green Lantern.
“[O]bviously, you want it to be as big asTitanic,” he is quoted as saying by The Hollywood Reporter. “I hope that the character gets another film, and it will be live-action again – I guarantee.”
The promise of a live-action film may be intended to allay fears that a straight-to-DVD ‘sequel’ might be spun off from the upcoming animated series on TW’s Cartoon Network.
The Green Lantern stars Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, who is recruited by the Green Lantern Corps to help defeat an enemy called Parallax. An extended cut with footage not seen in theaters was released on Blu-ray and DVD by Warner Home Video today.

Warner Announces TWO Complete Harry Potter Film Sets for Blu-ray/DVD

Warner Home Video has announced that it is going to release two sets of all eight Harry Potter movies on Blu-ray and DVD. One will be on shelves in time for Christmas and another will be out next year.
Harry Potter: The Complete 8-Film Collection will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 11. Unsurprisingly it includes all eight movies from the film franchise: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. The press announcement didn’t say whether the 3D movies will be released on Blu-ray 3D in this set.
Presumably each film will be on its own disc and there will be no extra discs of special features in this set because the release will have 8-discs. It sounds like there will be at least one new extra, though. WHV will also release the first six films individually as Ultimate Editions and each will include a new chapter of the documentary series ‘Creating the World of Harry Potter.’ Hence, if you bought these films already, Warner is hoping you’ll give in to your consumerist urges and buy them all over again.
Be warned, though, those Ultimate Editions might not be so ultimate after all. According to WHV, hard-core fans will be “pleased” to known that they might want to get in line again for a third copy of each film in 2012. The distributor plans to release a “comprehensive Harry Potter film collection, with even more extras and collectible premiums” sometime next year.

Tim Burton Seeks Ethereal Tone for Dark Shadows

One of the projects yours truly is chomping at the bit to see when it’s released in theaters is Tim Burton’s remake of Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins. While I can take Burton or leave him, his work on films like Sleepy Hollow, I believe, could lend a contemporary Dark Shadows the sort of quality that renders it timeless.
Here’s hoping, anyway.
Meanwhile, TheWrap caught up to Burton at the LACMA, which has begun hosting a Tim Burton exhibit in Los Angeles — showcasing props, early writings and artwork from the filmmaker — and had an opportunity to ask him about how filming on Dark Shadows was progressing.
Here’s what Burton said:
“I’m just starting, and it’s a weird tone and it’s a lot of actors and, you know, we’re not starting with the simple stuff; we’re sort of getting right in there. You like to kind of sneak up on it a little bit, but this one we just kind of slammed right into it. [asked if it will have a soap opera quality] Yes, I don’t know. I’m early into it because it’s a funny tone, and that’s part of what the vibe of the show is, and there’s something about it that we want to get. But when you look at it, it’s pretty bad. I’m hoping that it will be — it’s early days, let’s put it — I’m very intrigued by the tone. It’s a real ethereal tone we’re trying to go for and I don’t know yet.”
The filmmaker mentioned that he’s not shooting the film in 3D. So right away, there’s that to take away as a positive.
Dark Shadows also stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Bella Heathcote, Chloe Moretz and Gulliver McGrath. It’s a cast that certainly fills one with anticipation at the possibilities.

X-Men First Class Touted as Marvel’s Casino Royale

Watching all the early teasers, trailers and clips for X-Men: First Class, we’ve often remarked that the film feels different; special in some way. It takes a period of history from which much of today’s culture, fashion, art and architecture has begun to borrow — the 1960s — and sets its story in that era. Even more interestingly, at the most politically-charged moment in that era’s history: the Cuban Missile Crisis.
So what happens when you mix X-Men with a little of Gerry Anderson’s Fab Future, a bit of Carnaby Street…and throw in some crazy Khrushchev for good measure? According to an increasing number of critics: a helluva film.
According to THR critic Todd McCarthy:“roughly the first half of this massive and very well-cast origins extravaganza is arguably the best hour of Marvel Comics-derived filmmaking among the torrent of it that’s cascaded across screens in recent years.” McCarthy even goes as far as to draw a comparison to Casino Royale, suggesting that X-Men: First Class has done for the Marvel franchise what the reborn Bond film did for the 007 franchise back in 2006.
He’s not the only one. Garth over at Dark Horizons calls the film “not just the best of the series but the best adaptation of a Marvel title yet.”
Variety, meanwhile, says the movie reclaims “much of the pop-operatic grandeur and insouciant wit so evident in the series’ first two installments”, extolling director Matthew Vaughn’s skills at blending style and substance into a ‘mainstream movie’: “…[Vaughn] manages to invest this unabashedly commercial product with a unique stylistic identity…”
CinemaSpy’s review of X-Men: First Class will appear on Thursday. Meanwhile, if you missed it — and even if you didn’t — give the official international trailer below a viewing.

Al Pacino’s New Fascination with Aging Rock Stars

Al Pacino seems to be gravitating towards playing rock stars these days. The actor is set to star as Phil Spector in an upcoming film for HBO directed by David Mamet. But that’s not all. According to Variety, he’s also close to toplining a new dramedy from writer Dan Fogelman (Cars) entitledImagine.
According to the trade, the story sees Pacino’s character discovering that he has an adult son after reading a never-opened letter from John Lennon. Steve Carrell was originally set to play the son, but he has since dropped out of the project as an actor, though he remains onboard as a producer.
The film marks the directorial debut of Fogelman.
Pacino will next be seen in the John Gotti biopic, Gotti: Three Generations.
Can you picture Al Pacino playing an aging rock star in a dramedy? Oddly enough, it seems to us like the sort of role to which the actor might just be well-suited, given his historical penchant for traditionally playing larger-than-life characters. Besides, he needs a new trademark line with which we can lampoon him moving forward. “Hoo-ah” is so 20th century.

Lauren Shuler Donner Reveals Hints About Future of X-Men Movie Universe

If you’re curious about what producer Lauren Shuler Donner has up her sleeve with respect to future big screen Marvel fare, then you’ll want to read on…
With X-Men: First Class (arguably the best of this past summer’s big-screen superhero releases) arriving on DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow, Donner has been talking to the press and revealing a few hints here and there about a potential sequel to First Class, along with the status of The Wolverine andDeadpool.
Beginning with a sequel to First Class, Donner told Hitfix that discussions have begun and the plan is to see Matthew Vaughn return as director. Asked by Home Media magazine if fan-favorites like Cyclops or Jean might appear in the film, Donner would only say, “Maybe. Let’s just say, I hope so.”
Regarding The Wolverine, Donner told HitFix that the film isn’t planned as a sequel to 2009′s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. “It’s much more of a standalone [movie],” she said. “…[We want] to distinguish it from the other one… I’m not sure when we’ll start. Maybe summer 2012 we’ll start shooting. It’s based on Hugh [Jackman]‘s schedule, frankly. When he’s available, we’ll film. … He’s doing ‘Les Miserables’, and then he has to come and train for us. So it’s all dependent on him.”
At the same time, Deadpool is being planned simultaneously, she told HitFix.
“We’re working on getting it ready,” she continued, “and presenting some things to the studio, cause we’re gonna give it a little bit of a different look. It’s a different kind of movie. If you know ‘Deadpool’ …it’s true to ‘Deadpool’. So you know, it’ll be violent, and outrageous, and funny, and all that.”
Donner also confirmed to I Am Rogue that Ryan Reynolds would reprise the title character. “With Ryan absolutely,” she said.
Meanwhile, Total Film has confirmed that director Tim Miller is still attached and that audiences can expect to see a film in which the character departs significantly from the way in which he was portrayed inX-Men Origins.
“[H]e was treated totally wrong in the Wolverine film and yes we will redeem him,” Donner said, “…We have a few more things to do and then it’s up to the studio to decide whether we’re going to go forward or not.”