Updated: Thor 2 coming 26th of July 2013.

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According to Deadline Marvel and distributor Disney have yet to pick a date; however Marvel Studios’ release pattern whenever they have ad 2 films in oone year has been one at the beginning of May (Iron Man in 2008 and Tor in 2011) followed by another tat same summer (13/6/08 for The Incredible Hulk and 22/7/11 for Captain America) It seems likely that the same will happen here.

According to the Deadline exclusive the new film comes too soon for the return of Kenneth Branagh (It doesn’t state that as a reason he can’t return but the director has several options ahead of him) It does state that Branagh is likely to remain as a producer. Marvel Studios had been saying they wouldn't announce any new films until AFTER the Avengers was out, but with the film proving so popular (especially outside of North America) $436m & counting, it seems they felt able to break that ruling. It is also likely that Marvel Studios took steps to secure Hemsworth before his ever growing slate of films meant a sequel to Thor would take another 2 or 3 years to get going. As well as a high profile role as The Huntsman in next May’s Snow White & The Huntsman, Hemsworth has the starring role in Sony’s Black Ops thriller Shadow Runner; also from one of the writers of Snow White. With Red Dawn & Joss Whedon’s Cabin In The Woods also featuring in between his two #guaranteed’ hits The Avengers & Thor, it seems Chris Hemsworth is here to stay.

Iron Man, Agent Coulson, Black Widow, Thor, Captain America, Nick Fury, Hawkeye, The Hulk & Director Joss Whedon

Of course with Hemsworth currently filming Marvel Studios’ The Avengers, this will mean the god of Thunder will be smiting evildoers for three summers in a row. Add in Snow White & The Huntsman and we’ll be seeing a lot of Mr Hemsworth. 

So who would you like to replace Shakespeare’s reincarnation as director? Guillermo del Toro all the way for me.

Transformers continues 2011 trend for better business outside of North America with $32.5m in one day.

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Ok, for those of you thinking my  maths is seriously off, because Transformers: Dark of The Moon scored the biggest opening day of 2011 in North America $37.3m here’s why less is more. The opening day gross in N. America, which includes $8m in midnight preview takings, but not the $5.5m from 3D only showings on Tuesday night (which adds up to a running total of $42.8m) is behind the opening day gross of the previous film (which made $62m on its opening day, also including previews but further ahead on the calendar meaning comparisons aren’t truly like for like). The international takings are 38% AHEAD of Revenge of The Fallen from two years ago. Indications are that the audience for the films is continuing to grow from film to film and perhaps that even if the proportion of moviegoers that didn’t love the second film is the same as it is in the North American market, perhaps international audiences are more willing to take a chance on the sequel. In total the film has already grossed $79.4m worldwide in one day & a few evening previews.

The 3D takings in the domestic market are back to the levels they were at for Thor, 60% reversing a decline specific to that market that had seen 3D takings drop to as low as 40% for Cars 2. The IMAX portion of those takings came to $3.3m.

In other markets TF3 has been doing amazing business. It has the biggest opening day of the year so far i France ($3m) and the biggest opening day of all time in South Korea , where it made $5m. Not to be left out Honk Kong moviegoers to the film to the biggest, non holiday, opening ever with $780k. So far the film has made $4.2m in Russia, where the film had its premier. It will have opened pretty much everywhere by the weekend, although what could be the two biggest markets, China & Japan, will get the film later.

So the question is can TF3 become a massive hit around the world or is it destined to follow Thor, Pirates 4 and Kung Fu Panda as films that are hits in North America, but much bigger everywhere else? If so will Hollywood be making its biggest movies with North American box office merely the icing on the global cake?

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

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This is the first teaser trailer for what will be a highly anticipated film in the UK at the very least. Based on the very famous novel be John Le Carre and is pleasingly set in period (Cold War). The cast is beyond Impressive with multiple award nominees and award winners, Gary Oldman, & Colin Firth joined by almost as impressive actors John Hurt, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds and Benedict Cumberbatch.

For those that don’t know the plot involves the search for a Soviet mole inside MI6.The trailer was an exclusive for The Guardian and you can read more details there. I’m looking forward to this one and it’s due in the UK on the 16^th of September and rolls out around the rest of the world thereafter. (US release is set for 18/11-11) Older readers may recall the BBC adaptation from the 70s starring Alec Guiness.

Captain America: New TV spot.

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The comic book guy in me just did a whole bunch of screeching out Hell Yes when he saw this. Seriously, the rest of the mythological concepts in the room were seriously embarrassed for me. It’s just so cool to see in live action, things you never thought you’d see either at all or with any kind of care and attention; and it is a MASSIVE, MASSIVE insight into next year’s The Avengers! In fact if you didn’t know it was a Captain America trailer you’d think it was a teaser from the beginning of that film.

The Three Musketeers have a new trailer.

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I have say I’m looking forward to this film more and more. I love the cast and the story is of course an absolute classic, and not just because it’s old. OF course it does seem to be trotted out every 5 – 8 years but this time it does look as though a genuine effort has been made to make something different.

Airship cannonball battles in the style of sea battles is such a Miyazaki like visual that it’s hard not to smile at it.

The film stars Mila Jovovich (Resident Evil, Fifth Element) as M’Lady De Winter, Orlando Bloom (Lord Of The Rings, Pirates of The Caribbean) as a more #evil’ Buckingham, Chritoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds, Green Hornet) as Cardinal Richeliue, Ray Stevenson (Thor, Rome) as Porthos, Matthew Macfadyen (Robin Hood) as Athos, Luke Evans (Robin Hood) as Aremis and Juno Temple (Little Birds) as Queen Anne. Logan Lerman (3:10 Yuma, Percy Jackson & The Lightening Thief – but we shan’t hold that against him)

It’s written and directed by Paul W S Anderson, who has slowl been building a reputation for himself outside of North America where his Resident Evil films, he’s written all 4 and directed 1 & 4, have grown into a very potent action series,  each film substantially out grossing the one before. The last film, Resident Evil: Afterlife, made $236m outside internationally; you will be unsurprised to read that a fifth Resident Evil film is due out next year.

Enjoy...

Cowboys & Aliens rustles up a third full trailer.

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It’s starting to feel like we’ll soon be done with all of the Summer movies and we’re still a couple of days from July.  But with the summer movies effectively kicking off with Fast Five it’s already been two months. So in about 4 weeks time the world will start to get some Cowboys & Aliens fun, as that film attempts to see of Captain America and his alien tech using bad guys, with Daniel Craig’s alien tech wielding good guy (or bad guy, he can’t remember)

You should be pretty familiar with this by now, but here we get a bit more of Jake Lonergan’s (Daniel Craig) memory loss, a bit more of Woodrow Dolarhyde’s (Harrison Ford) leadership. The Dreamworks' synopsis follows:-

1875.  New Mexico Territory.  A stranger (Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution.  The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist.  What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford).  It’s a town that lives in fear.

But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky.  Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation.  As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force.  With the help of the elusive traveller Ella (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents—townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors—all in danger of annihilation.  United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.

As well as being directed by John Favreau (Iron Man I & II, Elf) and staring the current Bond and Indiana Jones, the film also stars one of my favourite actors of the past 12 years or so, Sam Rockwell (Moon, Galaxy Quest, Iron Man 2). It also has a role for one Noah Ringer, doubtless hoping to wash the stench of The Last Airbender out of his fledgling career. (How you can make a film that bad out of a story that good still escapes me, not that much blame goes to young master Ringer).

Yeee Hawww it’s alien lynching time!

Spielberg’s adaptation of War Horse ‘leaks’ online.

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It’s not available in HD yet but here’s the teaser for Steven Spielberg’s film of the Michael Morpurgo’s book; which has previously been adapted into a successful stage play.

The official Dreamworks’ suynopsis:-

From director Steven Spielberg comes “War Horse,” an epic adventure for audiences of all ages. Set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War, “War Horse” begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him. When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meets—British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughter—before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man’s Land.

The First World War is experienced through the journey of this horse—an odyssey of joy and sorrow, passionate friendship and high adventure. “War Horse” is one of the great stories of friendship and war— a successful book, it was turned into a hugely successful international theatrical hit that is arriving on Broadway next year. It now comes to screen in an epic adaptation by one of the great directors in film history.

The cast includes Jeremy Irvine as Albert, Emily Watson as Mum, David Thewlis as Lyons and Tom Hiddleston (Thor) as Captain Nichols. The film is due out around Christmas 2011.

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol trailer is finally here,

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The latest, Tom Cruise starring, Mission Impossible film is due out at the end of the year. It is being produced by JJ Abrams (Star Trek, Super 8, Alias) , who directed Mission Impossible III;  which is considered by many (myself included) to be the best of the 3 and certainly the closest the series has come to actually resembling the team based nature of the TV show the films are based on.

It marks the live action directing debut of Brad Bird, extremely well respected writer /director of The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The film co-stars Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, The Avengers), Paula Patton (DeJa Vu, Jumping The Broom) and Josh Holloway (Lost) and sees the return of Simon Pegg (Star Trek, Paul) from MI:3. No I do not know why there’s now a colon between the words Mission & Impossible, but I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, maybe.

The plot involves Cruise and his entire IMF team being disavowed and having to prove their innocence (they are about to be hung out to dry for blowing up the Kremlin, which we assume they didn’t) and on the run from Jeremy Renner and the authorities. There some cool Eminem as well as the iconic ‘dum dum, dum dum, dum dum, dum dum’ music to go with some pretty impressive visuals and enough shots not involving Tom Cruise to let us hope that the JJ Abrams’ story, scripted by Josh Appelbaum (Alias), follows on from MI:3’s team based antics.

M:I:IV hits IMAX and cinemas around the world this December. Your Mission, should you choose to accept it is to click here for your county's release date...

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon. Is The 3D worth paying for?

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It’s a question that pops up on lot from readers and info searches, so I now put these up independent of reviews and even if I don’t write3 a review. (As with Green Lantern) It has nothing to do with the quality of the film (or my opinion on the quality of the film) The assumption being that if you’re asking the question you’re already going, you just need to know what ticket to buy.

Here the answer simply has to be yes. To illustrate just how much so I’ll say that I got to see the film early this evening (I got home about 20 minutes ago) and it was a free preview. So I’ve seen the film in 3D for free, but when I got to see it again I’m not going for the cheaper 2D option, if I want to see everything that goes on in this film then I want to see it in 3D; no better than that we’re going to go see it in IMAX.

Even as we were watching the film I was aware that I couldn’t see everything that was going on, there was so much happening and whilst your focus was often given to the central action, the peripheries were often furnished with interesting events too.

I enjoyed the film itself and I should think anyone who enjoyed the first movie should enjoy this one too and all the better for being in 3D. The technical skills behind this film are tremendous and the 3D aspect has been seized with relish by the planners and director Bay. Whilst it was thrilling to see the transformations in the first film in this it is as if they were aware that the novelty may have worn off and that simply showing the same transformations in 3D wasn’t going to be enough. (I think it may have been) So here we have hapless humans plucked out of vehicles at high speed, or thrown out so the car can transform and plucked out of midair again and somehow placed into a transformer mid change back into a car; all in stunning 3D.

The wing suit scenes are almost enough for the 3D price alone. Even if I had hated the film I think I still would have been impressed with that scene. Knowing that they actually filmed real people flying around in those marvellous suits and then added the absolute carnage going on around them later, just made it all the more impressive.

So if you’re going to see it, go see it in 3D...

“The Decepticons have been planning this for 50 years” Latest Transformers trailer hits.

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Well I was thinking if you haven’t already decided you’re going to see Transformers: Dark of The Moon, then you’re not going to see it. (Amazing word of mouth from trusted friends aside) Paramount however are doing their level best to convince anyone on the fence that this is the film to see. Including writing to cinema chains and urging them to, essentially, stop being cheap and turn the projection lights up so people aren’t annoyed by 3D films being so dark.

Is it worth paying extra for 3D or IMAX? click here.

Transformers is a very important for the North American Market. Whilst Pirates 4, Hangover 2, Fast Five, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Thor have all blockbuster status overseas, in North America no film has yet to reach the $300m + mega Blockbuster mark. Add to that the fact that since Thor’s 60% 3D take the percentage of 3D revenue has tumbled to the mid 40s for Kung Fu Panda, Pirates 4 and Green Lantern and the lowest of the recent 3D wave, 37% for Cars 2. It is noticeable that, Kung Fu Panda 2 excepted, the films on that list have all received pretty terrible reviews. So there’s an  argument that says Americans and Canadians are no longer willing or able to risk paying higher prices for films they may not love. Now this is a problem very specific to the North American market as (like Thor) Pirates 4, Panda 2 and Cars 2 have done very well in 3D around the rest of the world. The industry is counting on Transformers 3, which was filmed in 3D, to show that people will pay the extra if they feel a film warrants it and that the North American market isn’t sliding into a position, not of irrelevance, but subservience to the requirements of the international market. Cars 2 may be an example of that already happening, with its globetrotting seen as a deliberate attempt to address the first movie’s, relatively low, international takings. The Resident Evil sequels (films 4 & 5 especially) are made almost exclusively because of the money they generate outside of North America and a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie will definitely be down to the $760m + that number 4 has made around the world and not the sub $250 gross in North America.

So will you be going to see Transformers?

PIXAR’s Brave teaser trailer.

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Here’s that first trailer for next year’s Brave. It promises to help get PIXAR back into the critics’ good books, after they took an atypical battering for Cars 2.

There's a seriously exciting animation style being used here and it looks like it is going to be visually quite different from any previous PIXAR movies.

The film is due next summer...