Emma Stefansky
Benedict Cumberbatch’s ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ Gets Sly First Official Promo Art
Just in case you forgot, we’re getting another movie based on Dr. Seuss’s immortal holiday classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas pretty soon. And also just in case you forgot, said title character is going to be voiced by none other than Benedict Cumberbatch. And said Grinch movie, now has its first official, extremely fuzzy promo art.
James Gunn Reveals Nathan Fillion’s Cut ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ Role
One of the big Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 rumors that never came to fruition was that Nathan Fillion, longtime James Gunn collaborator, would make a cameo. He did film a scene, which ended up deleted, but according to a new post by Gunn today, he was almost in another scene, though he didn’t have lines. Unfortunately, it had to be cut in favor of not slowing the movie down. As it turns out, Fillion was never on set, but appeared in a few fake movie posters that would have been on the side of a theater in the cut scene.
Simon Pegg, Nick Frost Launch Production Company to Produce Comedy-Horror ‘Slaughterhouse Rulez’
Our favorite horror-comedy duo is back and better than ever. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have given themselves an upgrade and formed a joint film and TV production banner called Stolen Picture, and it’s about time. The Cornetto Trilogy and Paul stars have been working together for decades, infusing all of their projects with their own blend of personal style and pop culture homage. Now that Edgar Wright has moved on to deeper waters, it’s good to see Pegg and Frost back at it again together. And that’s not all — Stolen Picture’s first movie has already been announced, and it’s a horror-comedy titled Slaughterhouse Rulez.
‘Pirates of the Caribbean 5’ Is Being Held Hostage by Actual Online Pirates
Since online pirates tend to view “don’t steal stuff” as more of a guideline than an actual rule, it’s no surprise that eventually they’d start taking aim at Hollywood. And, hey, why not start big, with, say, Disney, the biggest studio in the business? And instead of pilfering something like Coco, how about going after, I dunno, maybe Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth installment in one of the most recognizable brands worldwide? Well, that’s exactly what a group of hackers apparently did.
One ‘Last Jedi’ Poster Seems to Claim It’ll Have The Biggest Reveal in ‘Star Wars’ History
Because Disney and Lucasfilm are, by now, experts at releasing only as scant an amount of information as they want to, we know next to nothing about Star Wars: The Last Jedi. We know who’s in it, and who most of them will be playing, and that Mark Hamill finally has lines this time, but aside from that, it’s all a big mystery. There are a few big questions raised in The Force Awakens that Last Jedi will have to answer, one way or another, but a new Japanese poster suggests that the movie is going to drop a pretty huge bombshell — the hugest in Star Wars history, no less.
M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Glass’ Will Have a ‘More Traditional’ (Read: Bigger) Budget
M. Night Shyamalan’s Split was a welcome surprise at the movie theater this year for two reasons: the first being (spoiler alert) it’s actually set in the same universe as Shyamalan’s fantastic superhero movie Unbreakable, and the second being that it was made on a crazy-low budget. $9 million became $275 million at the box office, paving the road to a sequel, titled Glass, which was announced by Universal last month. M. Night Shyamalan is back, baby!
Amazon Prime Video App Finally Coming to Apple TV This Summer
Amazon’s feud with Apple might have suddenly ended. The streaming service has been loath to give Apple TV access to its Prime video app, or even sell Apple products, for the past two years, but it looks like Amazon Prime is coming to an Apple TV near you, and it could be very soon.
‘Infinity War’ Set Photo Suggests a Connection to a Mysterious ‘Age of Ultron’ Scene
Avengers: Infinity War has a lot of ground to cover in terms of bringing together all the threads of the Infinity Gauntlet storyline that have been seeded throughout Marvel’s films since we caught a glimpse of the Gauntlet in the first Thor movie. Every movie since then has in some way been leading up to it, so it makes sense that there would be a few callbacks to previous films that only the sharpest eye could catch.
Dave Chappelle Joins Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in ‘A Star Is Born’
Hot off his success with three standup specials on Netflix, Dave Chappelle is coming back to film, and is set to star, alongside Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, in the remake of A Star is Born.
‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Will Be Set After the Events of ‘Avengers 4’
The Guardians of the Galaxy movies throw a bit of a wrench into what has so far been a pretty linear cinematic franchise. It’s understood that all of the MCU movies, except for the ones that are period productions and as such are set in the past, are set in the year in which they come out. Iron Man was set in 2008, The Avengers is set in 2012, and so on. But the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are a little different. Guardians 1 takes place in the Earth-year 2014 (although you’d never know it, given the extraterrestrial setting and retro feel), but Guardians Vol. 2 is set only a few months after the first one, so, still in 2014. That sets them a teeny bit apart from the rest of the movies, as, by Infinity War, the Avengers have been cruising through to the year 2018. But it appears that the Guardians will finally be catching up, as James Gunn revealed Vol. 3 will take place after Avengers 4.
This Year’s ‘Harry Potter’ Death Apology From Rowling Was Pretty Controversial
J.K. Rowling, otherwise known as the lady who wrote those books about the wizard school, has an annual tradition, started in 2015, where she apologizes for a particularly unjust death that has saddened die-hard Harry Potter fans. 2015’s apology was for Fred Weasley, one half of the Weasley twins duo that throughout the series had seemed to be inseparable. Last year’s apology was for Remus Lupin, the werewolf and one-time Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who’d ended up a close ally and friend of Harry’s. Both deaths were tragic, and yet fit with Potter’s theme of victory through self-sacrifice. The apologies both garnered mournful tweets from fans who talked about what great characters they were, and how they miss them. This year’s apology, however, split the fandom right down the middle.
Watch George R. R. Martin Read the Fan Letter That Started His Writing Career
Even though he should have been hard at work on The Winds of Winter, George R. R. Martin took some time out of his week to appear on History Channel’s new documentary series Superheroes Decoded, all about how today’s culture became so dominated by the creations of Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and the like. Martin shared a fan letter he wrote to Marvel Comics, praising one of the issues of Fantastic Four, and the entire magazine.