Ben Foster to Play a Mage in Warcraft

Actor Ben Foster (Lone Survivor) has confirmed that his role in the upcoming Warcraft film, based on the extremely popular videogame, is a mage who is coming out of retirement for this movie. The official statement from Foster is:

“The character in ‘Warcraft’ that I play is named Medivh. He’s a mage, which is essentially a sorcerer. He came up in a time protecting an area, and the way he protected this area was through magic. As peace returned to this land he took a break. He hung up his staff, so to speak, or let his guns get dusty. We meet him as his friends are returning asking for his help in a battle.”

While the pronunciation of the name may be difficult, the concept fits right in with the fantasy realm this film will definitely be diving into. It is interesting, however, that this 33 year old actor would be playing a seemingly ancient magical being. It’s exciting to see new details about the film come out though. It is sometimes easy to forget films like Warcraft come out in 2016 when such heavy hitters like Batman v Superman have been commanding headlines from even before production began.

Foster also went on to praise the visual effects company’s work so far, as they begin a very long journey of bringing certain characters to life through CGI and fully rendering the effects. Warcraft has the gaming community very excited as it could be one of the first movie adaptations of a video game to be successful with its stellar cast and visionary sci-fi/ fantasy director Duncan Jones. The film is slated for a March 11th, 2016 release date.

Adam McKay to Direct Ant-Man

The Wrap and Hollywood Reporter are now confirming that Adam McKay (The Other Guys, Anchorman) is now in final talks with Marvel to direct Ant-Man. Past rumors have named Rawson Marshall and Ruben Fleisher as choices for the Marvel film, but it seems Marvel has zeroed in on McKay. McKay certainly has the backgroud necessary to make a successful Marvel film with his mixture of action and comedy. He has also worked with Ant-Man leading man Paul Rudd before in Anchorman. This seems to be the ideal choice for the production, bringing both the experience and comfort that it would have had with Edgar Wright. Marvel has not commented on these rumors, but with production looming, they have to make up their mind quickly.

Sex Tape Changes Release Date

Yes another release date change following the Scarlett Johansson film Lucy’s shift. This time it’s the raunchy comedy Sex Tape starring Cameron Diaz and Jason Segal. They move from the July 25th date to July 18th, leaving Lucy and Hercules for Jupiter Ascending and The Purge: Anarchy. We now ask the same question as we did with Lucy: Is this choice of date better for the movie, or will it face the same over-crowdedness in this new date?

It’s pretty obvious that Jupiter Ascending and The Purge:Anarchy are not going to be winning over the same sized crowds as Hercules and Lucy. They may not even take the top spot at the box office on their opening weekend. This spot does give Sex Tape a good deal more breathing room and a fighting chance to grab a respectable amount of money on its debut weekend. Let Lucy and Hercules duke it out for the top spot, Sex Tape knows that it won’t beat them and would most likely have been trampled on that date. At least now it’ll be placed on a slower weekend for people to potentially see and then tell their friends about.

Sex Tape and Lucy’s date changes come as a bit of a surprise this late into the season. Why couldn’t the studios have seen this competition sooner and changed the release date months ago as opose to practically a month before they are released? Either way, fans who were waiting for these films to come out now get to see them a week or two before when they would have. Good for you Sex Tape.

Josh Brolin is Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy

It has been cofirmed by The Wrap, Variety and Latino Review that actor Josh Brolin (The Goonies, Labor Day, Men in Black 3) will be the voice of Thanos in the upcoming Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy and continue to play the role in future Marvel movies including Avengers: Age of Ultron. Audiences will know Thanos as the menacing purple alien featured in the post-credit scene from The Avengers. It is believed that the villain will act as the puppet master for the next few films in the Marvel Universe before becoming a direct threat to the Avengers in the third installment. Brolin definitely has the experience necessary for a role of this high caliber and I have no doubt that he will be fantastic in the role of Thanos. Looking forward to seeing Guardians of the Galaxy now more than ever.

UPDATE: Ant-Man Directors

The Hollywood reporter is now reporting that Marvel has three directors in talks to direct Ant-Man (all of which are more qualified than D’Esposito): Rawson Thurber (We’re the Millers), Adam McKay (Anchorman) and Ruben Fleisher (Zombieland, Gangstersquad). It seems as if Marvel is still going to go in the direction of comedy for this new addition of the Marvel Universe. All of these guys would make great choices as directors for Ant-Man. Here’s to hoping this is NOT just another rumor.

RUMOR: Louis D’Esposito to Direct Ant-Man?

Latino Review’s Umberto Gonzalez is reporting that Marvel has found a director for Ant-Man in Co-President Louis D’Esposito. There’s no doubt that Marvel NEEDS a director for this movie to start production soon, but was picking the co-president of the studio the best choice? It sounds like a bit of a “yes man” choice. More of the same Marvel. D’Esposito directed the Agent Carter Marvel One-Shot, which was good, but it is a big step to move from only having done short films to now directing a big budget Marvel film. Could he pull it off?

Certainly D’Esposito would have the guiding hand of producer and architect of the Marvel Universe Kevin Feige, but is that enough? Past directors for Marvel films have all had some kind of credit to them. The Russo Brothers, Joss Whedon and Jon Favreau are just a few directors who have taken on these projects. All of them had some precedent for getting the position that they did, but this guy really isn’t giving fans a lot to expect. What Marvel has basically said is “This is going to be THE cookie cutter Marvel film.”

Maybe Louis D’Esposito will surprise fans… Maybe this IS just a rumor and he won’t be the director at all. Time will tell. Marvel needs to announce a director soon though as production is supposed to begin pretty soon. Fingers crossed.

Kevin Smith on Future of DC Movies

Screenwriter and podcaster Kevin Smith has pretty much been to go to guy when you want want to know something exclusive about an upcoming DC film. He saw the batsuit before anyone else and was able to reveal its color scheme and now he is making predictions of the future of the DC Cinematic Universe. With Smith getting a lot of exclusive content before anyone else, could he be giving fans a wink as to the actual plans?

Kevin Smith said in an interview that he believes that from this point forward, DC and Warner Bros. will exclusively be focusing on ensemble pieces, i.e Justice League. The exact quote is:

“But look, they’re obviously beginning something, and there’s a stretch of these flick… From what I understand now, it’s no longer like, ‘This is Superman 2.’ They’re not doing these things. They’re doing like, ‘Here’s Man of Steel. Here’s Batman/Superman: Dawn of Justice.’ The next one is not like a sequel to one of the characters. They’re just going to keep building their universe for about five or six movies,” Smith said. “But all of them…it’s supposed to tell one massive story, which is all Justice League oriented.”

Definitely interesting. This would differentiate DC from Marvel in a big way and put them more in line with what Fox is doing with the X-Men. Could this be cool? Absolutely. One of the flaws in the Marvel universe is that on the solo adventures you ask “Where’s Iron Man? Or Thor?” This eliminates that. Hopefully we see this going in a more Justice League animated series kind of place where there are missions and they are challenging but ultimately the big bad shows up at the end of a stretch of a couple of movies and tears up the screen. I’m definitely excited to know if this is true of not. God speed DC.

Lucy Changes Release Date

The highly anticipated Scarlett Johansson film has suddenly changed its release date. The movie was previously going to be released on August 8th but is now moved up to July 25th. The movie was directed by Luc Besson (Taken 2, Nikita). One has to wonder, with a lot of buzz about the film, why would it move? Was this the right move? The movie almost definitely moved due to the other competition of the August 8th date. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comes out that weekend and Guardians of the Galaxy will only be in its second week in theatres. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for this non-franchise film in a market where franchises are able to dominate (at least) their opening weekends. BUT was this the smartest date to move to? July 25th holds some heavy hitters of its own with Dwayne Johnson’s Hercules and Cameron Diaz and Jason Segal’s Sex Tape. Lucy made the best move that it could. If it had stayed in its original weekend it would have gotten trampled on by TMNT and Guardians. If it had gone even earlier to July 18th, it would have had to compete with Jupiter Ascending and The Purge: Anarchy. At least in this date the film has a chance to get number 1 at the box office. It really will come down to the critical reception of all of the films around it. If (by some miracle) Hercules turns out to be a cinematic masterpiece and is praised by critics, Lucy does not have a chance. The Rock is too big of a box office draw, but if Lucy gets the good reviews and Hercules does not, then we have a fight for that number 1 spot. I am looking forward to Lucy. I think Scarlett Johansson has gotten very good lately with her appearences as Black Widow in the Marvel Universe and I’m excited to see her take on an original character from a director famous for strong female characters. This movie could potentially lead to big things later on in her career and I really do hope that it is a good film. Best of luck Lucy.

Top 4 Blockbusters Left This Summer

With studios like Marvel and Sony placing their big budget films earlier and earlier, it feels like we as movie fans have a longer and longer summer movie season. So far audiences have Captain America 2, Amazing Spiderman 2, Gozillla and X-Men Days of Future Past, but what else is left this summer? Here are my top 4 most anticipated summer movies.

4.Maleficent

Angelina Jolie looks like she was born to play this wicked witch. Disney tries again to bring one of their classic stories to live action, but this time with a new, villainous twist. Robert Stromberg, a former special effects artist, steps into the director’s chair and ensures some fantastic visuals for this film. Early reviews have said while the story may be a bit lackluster, Jolie carrys this film and the visuals are magnificent. I’m curious…

3. Jupiter Ascending

I’m a fan of Mila Kunis. I haven’t really seen Channing Tatum in a hardcore action role before, but I think that he can pull it off. The directors are the same people who directed The Matrix and while the story looks recycled, the visuals look nice. I can expect a good time at this one simply because I know these directors will not fail to deliver a few really nice action sequences.

2. Transformers: Age of Extinction

When I heard that they were continuing the Transformers franchise I was skeptical, but the previews for this movie hold promise. Mark Wahlberg is taking over as the leading man which is nice because he obviously has experience in these huge action movies. Not sure how I feel about the story of the Dinobots because didn’t they do that before with these robots being here the entire time? Who knows. I have hope that this will deliver more of the action seen in the past Transformer films with a better narative.

1. Guardians of the Galaxy

James Gunn directs the newest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautissta), Rocket Racoon (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) explore the depths of space in search of an infinity gem. This movie has MASSIVE potential to be amazing. It is the first new franchise for Marvel since Captain America back in 2011. The visuals look great, the cast is loaded with talent and it’s Marvel, I doubt they will even allow for a bad movie to be made.

EDGAR WRIGHT LEAVES ANT-MAN

Last week it was revealed that director Edgar Wright had dropped out of the upcoming Marvel movie Ant-Man, a project which he has worked on for eight years! The studio has only stated that there were “creative differences”, but as more and more details emerge one begins to wonder; who drove who away? Script rewrites and a change in tone seem to be what drove Wright to leave the project and on the surface it seems that Marvel is at fault, but are they right in changing the presumed comical tone of Ant-Man to something more mainstream, an area where Wright has not ventured before?

Wright is famous for his cult-classic action comedies like Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, but none of those films have amounted to high box office numbers, despite getting good critical reviews. Maybe Marvel tried to push Wright’s script into a more mainstream medium in an attempt to potentially drive up those box office numbers. However, changing a script just before going into production is a dangerous thing for any studio to do. It shows indeciciveness and a lack of faith in the script and writer. Marvel seems to be at fault, but with good intentions.

Also, a change in the tone seems to be another prevailing factor in all of this. Wright is known for his cooky films. Maybe Marvel saw the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film and thought that could be their out of the box comedy and then wanted to push Ant-Man to a more serious side. After all, while people love the underlying humor in all of Marvel’s movies, it might be pushing their luck to release two extremely comical films within a year of eachother.

Wright is gone and that’s all we can really say. We will never know if his take Ant-Man would have been better than the Ant-Man that we are going to get and we just have to accept that. Marvel does have to take this as a lesson though. They cannot lose another director like this and face this bad publicity without tarnishing their good reputation with fans. Wright is hopefully moving on to do bigger and better things within his own world and his own films while Marvel will continue to chug along with their so far successful shared universe.