Once we were looking at next summer for the long in the works third sequel to Jurassic Park, but like many aspects of the production of Jurassic Park IV, it was not meant to be. For fans looking for solid dinosaur action/adventure, it seemed like it might be another long wait for the film, this time under the supervision of Safety Not Guaranteed director Colin Trevorrow, who, according to sources, was planning some impressive set pieces for the film thus resulting in a new round of delays. But as it turns out, the wait won’t be too long after all.

Exhibit A: a picture of a banner from the 2013 Licensing Expo taken by ComingSoon. You’ll notice the banner has the date 2015 underneath the Jurassic Park logo, which strongly implies that the film is now looking at a 2015 release date. In addition, materials at the Expo seemed to indicate that the film will indeed bye shooting in 3-D, which I don’t think is a surprise, but may be a confirmation nonetheless.

Still, interesting about Jurassic Park IV coming out in 2015. That will place the new film directly in the flight path (potentially) of The Avengers 2, Assassin’s Creed, Pirates of the Caribbean 5, Prometheus 2 and Justice League. Sounds like another nerd-friendly summer slate that’s primed to disappoint.

What do you Bastards think? Still anxious to see JP4?

Source: Collider

If Dan Harmon bears some resentment towards the studio that fired him after three seasons producing the acclaimed comedy he created, it’s understandable, even if he’s in the rare position of being hired back in a quasi-mea culpa after that same studio studio realized that Community needed Harmon more than Harmon needed Community. So I guess in the same spirit of you can’t burn the same bridge twice, Harmon recently discussed the state of his creation on his podcast Harmontown Sunday.

Of the previous season of Community that he had nothing to do with, Harmon said that the season was “unflattering” and that watching episodes of season 4 was like, “flipping through Instagram watching your girlfriend **** a million [people].”

David Guarascio and Moses Port were brought in to be showrunners after season 3 and Harmon’s termination. Sony’s thought was that they might broaden the niche appeal of Community to a bigger audience, but fans and critics more or less agreed that the pair was merely riffing on what Harmon had done, and since the ratings held steady from the Harmon era of the show, neither going up nor down, NBC and Sony decided that if they couldn’t do better without Harmon, they might as well do the same with him.

Harmon continued to talk specifically about what he thinks Sony hoped to accomplish with his expulsion from Community:

“There’s a system in place that’s winning because I would have had too much leverage, too much power, too much salary, as would have a lot of writers coming into Season 4. So they just flushed us and replaced us with two guys who didn’t know what they were getting into…

“Writers fighting other writers is the American Dream in the eyes of Sony. That is what they want. They want creative people rewriting each other. They want creative people replacing each other. They want us interchangeable. They want to think about writing the way they think about the guy on assembly line 24 that puts the final screw in the f****** Playstation… I shouldn’t even say ‘they’ because it’s an ‘it,’ it’s a f****** machine. There isn’t a single person that works at that corporation that isn’t also thought of like that by the f****** SkyNet… The system just wants us all to not be human.”

Well, all I have to say is ‘ouch’ for Sony. But I will add that while Harmon has every right to be ticked about his treatment, maybe he could take the high road and just sit back and enjoy the fact that the studio thought they knew best and they ended up coming crawling back to him in the end. That’s got to be the best kind of revenge, right?

Source: Screen Rant

Perhaps it was inevitable after Man of Steel‘s record-breaking haul over the weekend, but if the latest rumor mongering courtesy of The Wall Street Journal is to be believed, it seems that Warner Bros is fast-tracking a Man of Steel sequel to be released in 2014, with the long in the works Justice League film to bow the following summer in 2015.

Perfectly sensible, and that does look and sound like typical Hollywood thinking, but there are a lot of reasons to take this rumor with the usual grain of salt.

First of all, that turnaround is a little fast. Consider that in order to meet a 2014 release date that Man of Steel 2 would basically have to start shooting tomorrow. Literally tomorrow. There’s also the small matter of star Henry Cavill and director Zack Snyder still being on the road doing PR for the first Man of Steel and its kind of dubious that anyone right now is in sequel mode.

Also consider that Man of Steel was in development before The Dark Knight Rises even began production, a fact owing to producer Christopher Nolan, screenwriter David S. Goyer and the rest of the production team wanting to get the tone of the film just right. Nolan himself isn’t someone that likes to be rushed either, and given his clout on the Warner lot, it’s doubtful he’s going to let anyone paint him into a release date corner. If the studio is going to fast track a Man of Steel sequel at all they’ll be looking at a 2015 release date, which brings us to…

Justice League. The long-awaited team-up of DC Comics’ superest super-team still supposedly has a release date of Summer 2015, opportune timing in order to follow in the wake of The Avengers 2, but is the JL movie still on target to make that release date? When last we heard, the script had be thrown out for a page one re-write, and all through the press junkets for Man of Steel Cavill, Goyer and Snyder were asked about the Justice League film, and the information they each gave seemed to indicate that such a film was still in the “discussion” phase.

But if there’s a singular hole in this plan it’s that Warner will burn out their leading “Man of Steel” in short order. Shooting three action heavy superhero films in as many years is bound to have a not-so-great effect on Henry Cavill. Basically, his life will be a gym from now till 2016, and I’m sure he’d to take some time to enjoy the benefits of being the world’s most beloved hero, if only for a couple of weeks.

I can understand Warner Bros. excitement, but they need to keep their $#!% together and do this right. Cavill’s in it for the long-haul, and they seem to have a winner in Man Of Steel, take the time and do this right. The people will show up for Justice League anytime, but do it wrong, and it will be hard to win back the public’s trust.

Let’s stick this in the “rumor: improbable” file where it belongs.

Source: Screen Rant

It’s been a standard of modern times that there’s a constant allegory between Superman and Jesus Christ. Of course, the Biblical metaphor works better with Moses, but hey, I’m not a religious scholar. Of course, the marketing team at Warner Bros. aren’t religious scholars either, but that apparently hasn’t stopped them from calling on church leaders to help them sell Man of Steel.

A story on CNN’s religous blog recently discussed Warner’s unique marketing approach to Man of Steel: “Jesus: The Original Superhero.” Several pastors from local parishes were invited to advanced screenings of Man of Steel, and were given notes and materials to help them formulate potential sermon material. “How might the story of Superman awaken our passion for the greatest hero who ever lived and died and rose again?” the sermon notes ask for instance.

“There was an actual push to say `We’re putting out something that speaks to your group,’” said Quentin Scott, a Baltimore pastor at the Shiloh Christian Community Church. “When I sat and listened to the movie I actually saw it was the story of Christ, and the love of God was weaved into the story. It was something I was very excited about that with the consultation of our senior pastor, we could use in our congregation.”

This isn’t the first time Hollywood’s pitched their blockbusters to regular church-goers, Les Miserables, The Book of Eli and The Blind Side were also pitched to the faithful, and some who are more on the critical side of Hollywood are actually okay with that.

“I think it’s a very good thing that Hollywood is paying attention to the Christian marketplace,” according to Ted Baehr, who runs a Christian-friendly movie review website called. Movieguide. “Where it gets sticky is when they try to manipulate the market and when Christians try to manipulate Hollywood. But here I think we have the right balance.”

Still, not everyone’s impressed.

“Any pastor who thinks using `Man of Steel Ministry Resources’ is a good Sunday morning strategy must have no concept of how high the stakes are, or very little confidence in the power of God’s word and God’s spirit,” writes P.J. Wenzel, a deacon and Sunday School teacher at Dublin Baptist Church in Ohio. “As they entertain their congregants with material pumped out from Hollywood’s sewers, lives are kept in bondage, and people’s souls are neglected.”

Well seems a little extreme, but I guess were all entitled to our opinion. And isn’t that what The Bible is all about?

I guess not.

Any of you Christian Bastards see Man of Steel this weekend, and was it Jesus-y enough for you? Sounds off below.

Source: CNN

Last night, Walt Disney Studios refreshed its release date calendar and added two new dates for future Marvel releases. Now, what projects are going in which slots, has not yet been revealed, but Marvel has a pretty full plate of potential prospects, one of which is Doctor Strange.

How certain are we?  Well, not very. We know that Doctor Strange has been high on Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige‘s to-do list, and every indication was that he’d try to find a way to fit it into Phase 3, but there are other considerations. For example, there’s the prospect of other long in the pipe Marvel projects like Black Panther, or maybe a newly reacquired hero like Daredevil, and let’s not forget further sequels to Thor, Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy…

Or maybe this isn’t even about a particular project, but rather it’s just Disney staking claim to the lead off weekend of the summer movie season for their Marvel movies for the next several years (seeing as how Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 snaked the May 2, 2014 slot). In Hollywood I would credit an equal chance of spit being the reason something was done as opposed to a specific project development.

Anyway, here’s the current calendar for Marvel releases:

*Thor: The Dark World – November 8, 2013

*Captain America: The Winter Soldier – April 4, 2014

*The Avengers 2 – May 1, 2015

*Ant-Man – November 6, 2015

*Unknown Project #1 – May 6, 2016

*Unknown Project #2 – May 5, 2017

Source: Cinema Blend

It appears that ages ain’t nothing but a number if you’re a cybernetic killing machine from the future because Arnold Schwarzenegger is spreading the news that we will indeed be back for the fifth entry in The Terminator franchise. Yes, despite the fact that Arnold officially became a senior citizen last summer, he’s apparently more than up to the task to try and kill John Connor, or protect him. Whatever.

The news was broke by The Arnold Fans, who quoted the former Governator from a speech he was making at the 21st Century Financial Education Summit (What?) in Australia. “I’m very happy that the studios want me to be in Terminator 5 and to star AS the Terminator, which we start shooting in January,” Schwarzenegger told the crowd. I assume there was polite applause once it occurred to everyone what it was they just heard.

So does this mean there’s forward momentum on the Terminator 5 front? Possibly. There was the announcement earlier this week that Paramount had picked up distribution rights. Combined with Justin Lin‘s open schedule, as he’s not directing the next installment of The Fast and the Furious and production on Terminator 5 may begin soon rather than later. Shutter Island‘s Laeta Kalogridis and Drive Angry‘s Patrick Lussier are currently in the process of penning the script.

Source: Cinema Blend

Oh yeah! It’s just over a month until San Diego Comic Con gets underway in, well, San Diego. So this is the first of many announcements by studios, networks and publishers about what it is they’re bring to the Con and what day they’ll be showing it on.

For their part, Twentieth Century Fox is bringing a motley crew of old favorites, new friends, and a few guests who we all know and love yet haven’t had a chance to stop by the show before. The full press release is below, so if you’re heading to San Diego next month, now’s the perfect time to start planning your Con experience…

Twentieth Century Fox Television will once again dominate the San Diego Comic-Con convention, with stars and creators of eleven of its highly-coveted, fan favorite shows at the world famous gathering next month. In addition to exclusive sneak peeks of its programs and panel discussions with the stars and creators of its shows, the studio will rotate an incredible line-up of talent through the newly expanded two-story Fox booth on the convention center floor, for star-studded autograph signings and exciting booth activities including distribution of exclusive 2013 Fox Fanfare Poster Tubes, collectible mini-posters, premium giveaways, DVD sales, as well as Fox iPad App demos available for fan interaction.

Descriptions of panel sessions and screenings follow:

THURSDAY, JULY 18:

MURDER POLICE: From David Goodman (Family Guy) and Jason Ruiz, this new animated FOX series follows a dedicated, but inept detective, Manuel Sanchez, and his colleagues – some perverted, some corrupt, some just plain lazy – in a twisted city precinct. Panelists David Goodman, Jason Ruiz, Will Sasso (The Three Stooges, MADtv), Chi McBride (Golden Boy, Hawthorne, Human Target), Peter Atencio (Key and Peele), and Justina Machado (Welcome to the Family, Private Practice, Six Feet Under) will unveil a sneak peek at footage, followed by a fan Q&A session.

FRIDAY, JULY 19:

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Executive Producers Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Fringe, Spider Man 2) and Len Wiseman (Underworld, Total Recall) will unveil their highly-anticipated project with an exclusive, not-to-be-missed world premiere screening of the Pilot followed by a Q&A with fans featuring series lead Tom Mison (Parade’s End) and Nicole Beharie (42, Shame).

BONES: Creator and Executive Producer Hart Hanson, executive producer Stephen Nathan and David Boreanaz return to Comic-Con to discuss what’s in store for Booth and Brennan and screen a reel of never-before-seen footage from the upcoming season, followed by a Q&A panel discussion.

BOB’S BURGERS: Creator and executive producer Loren Bouchard, executive producer Jim Dauterive and the always entertaining cast including H. Jon Benjamin, Dan Mintz, Eugene Mirman, John Roberts, Kristen Schaal and Larry Murphy will be serving up hilarious never-before-seen footage followed by a Q&A panel discussion

BRICKLEBERRY: Creators and executive producers Waco O’Guin and Roger Black, executive producer Zac Moncrief, along with David Herman (Office Space), Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants), Jerry Minor (Anchorman) and Natasha Leggero (Community, Burning Love) will abe on hand to premiere a hysterical episode from its second season followed by a Q&A panel discussion.

SATURDAY, JULY 20:

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: For the first time ever, the hit sitcom visits Comic-Con to kick off its final season with an exclusive look at the show and a panel featuring Josh Radnor (Happythankyoumoreplease), Jason Segel (The Muppets), Cobie Smulders (The Avengers), Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) and Alyson Hannigan (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and executive producers Carter Bays, Craig Thomas and Pamela Fryman.

FUTURAMA: We’re dooooooooomed! An epic panel for the ages will celebrate Futurama’s latest and greatest final season. On hand will be most or all of Futurama’s legendary voice cast, comprised of Billy West, John DiMaggio, Katey Sagal, Maurice LaMarche, Tress MacNeille, David Herman, Phil LaMarr, and Lauren Tom, performing never-before-heard scenes from the upcoming “Last Episode Ever”. Plus: Executive Producer David X. Cohen, Creator Matt Groening, and a cartooning showdown to the death! (Note: actual death not guaranteed.)

THE SIMPSONS: Celebrate The Simpsons’ 25th year on the air with Creator Matt Groening, Executive Producer Al Jean, Supervising Director Mike Anderson, Consulting Producer David Silverman, never-before seen footage from guest director Guillermo del Toro and musical guests “We Put The Spring In Springfield”!

FAMILY GUY: The Griffins are back at Comic-Con for another raucous panel and a sneak peek at season 12 featuring Seth Green (Robot Chicken), Alex Borstein (madTV, Shameless) and executive producer Rich Appel (The Simpsons, The Cleveland Show) plus other surprise guests.

AMERICAN DAD: Join us for an exclusive look at the new season, the world premiere of a song from the never-before-seen Christmas episode featuring the return of Krampus and a Q&A with fans featuring Wendy Schaal, Rachael MacFarlane, Scott Grimes (ER, Band of Brothers), Dee Bradley Baker (Phineas and Ferb, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and more.

SUNDAY, JULY 21:

SONS OF ANARCHY: Get an inside look into the world of FX’s highest-rated series ever, with creator Kurt Sutter (The Shield) and stars Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Ron Perlman, Maggie Siff, Kim Coates, Mark Boone Junior, Tommy Flanagan, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie and Jimmy Smits.

Source: Coming Soon

Michael Fassbender in Assassin’s Creed, Tom Hardy in Splinter Cell, and Michael Bay producing Ghost Recon… All sound like great movies based on Ubisoft Games, which the video game studio is producing in-house a la Marvel Studios and their film production slate. Too bad none of them have even been scheduled to start production yet, let alone have a release date set in stone. Still, despite the fact that none of these movies have hit theaters yet, that’s not stopping Ubisoft from developing more movies based on their video game properties.

The games in question are Far Cry, Rabbids and Watch Dogs, and Variety reports that all three are going into production under the supervision CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet, who “will hire screenwriters, directors, cast and choose the production shingles and studios it wants to work with. Ubisoft will finance the development of the scripts.” However, no one’s yet been assigned to fill any of those roles yet, on any of those projects.

So what’s the attraction with these projects? Well, Far Cry might make a good straight-up action picture with its exotic locales and mercenaries versus warlords set-up, plus there’s the awful after taste of a Uwe Boll adaptation to wipe from the collective memory of video gamers and moviegoers.

Rabbids, a Rayman spin-off about zombie rabbits, was once supposed to be turned into a TV series in a collaboration with Wallace & Gromit producers Aardman, but it appears that any TV series idea is on the backburner or has been traded in for a more ambitious film project.

As for Watch Dogs, the actual game it’s to be based on isn’t even out yet, but it does sound like some crazy Tom Clancy meets William Gibson kind of concept. Scheduled for release this November, read the game description below:

The storyline of Watch Dogs game is built around the concept of information warfare, data being interconnected, and the world’s increasing use of technology—questioning who exactly runs the computers they depend on. The game is set in an alternate reality version of Chicago, Illinois, which is one of many cities to feature a supercomputer known as a “CtOS” (Central Operating System). The system controls almost every piece of technology in the city, and contains information on all of the city’s residents and activities which can be used for various purposes. In the game’s universe, the Northeast blackout of 2003 was found to be caused by a hacker, prompting the development of CtOS. The game will follow an antihero named Aiden Pearce, a highly skilled hacker described as a person who uses both “fists and wits.

That’s certainly an ambitious slate. One hopes that Ubisoft isn’t biting off more than they can chew with some many projects in the pipe.

More news as it develops.

Source: /Film

A lot of pretty pictures of cars have been released so far in promoting Transformers 4, but what about the one thing we see every Transformers movie for: human characters.

Well get a load of the gallery below. Courtesy of Dee Dee Yelverton of the Taylor Daily Press, here are some set shots of new franchise star Mark Wahlberg on the Taylor, TX set of the film. Aside from just showing Marky Mark mill about on set, there are a couple of interesting pics including a shot of what looks like a rusting Optimus Prime and a billboard paying tribute to those who dies in the Decepticon siege of Chicago in Dark of the Moon.

What surprises does Michael Bay have in store for us? Maybe you can find some hints below…

Source: Comic Book Movie

My first though upon hearing about this story was, “somebody’s really fighting for the rights of Ghost Rider?” But I digress.

In nerd-related courtroom news this week, federal appellant court Judge Danny Chin overturned a 2011 ruling that stated Marvel Comics owns the rights to the Ghost Rider character, and not original Ghost Rider author Gary Friedrich. Friedrich brought the appeal and after reviewing the case Judge Chin determined that the original contract Friedrich signed was “ambiguous on its face,” and needed further investigation before a final ruling.

Basically, what needs further investigation was whether or not the language in the contract, which was signed in 1978, covered the creation of Ghost Rider in 1972 as Marvel believes. Chin said that what had to be determined was “whether [the contract] covered a work published six years earlier” and “whether it conveys renewal rights.”

Friedrich had argued that the rights to the character reverted back to him in 2001 and brought suit against Marvel in 2007, coincidentally, the same year that the first Ghost Rider movie starring Nicolas Cage was released in theaters. When the case was ruled on in 2011 though, the judge at the time held up Marvel’s argument that Friedrich’s creation of Ghost Rider was covered in the ’78 “work-for-agreement” the writer signed, and thus he was not entitled to any of that sweet Hollywood back-end on Ghost Rider  or its eventual sequel Spirits of Vengeance.

Joking aside though, this is an issue affecting many creators, up to and including Jack Kirby. Kirby’s estate has long fought for partial rights and/or royalties to certain characters he helped co-create for Marvel. So this case, which is now going back down the legal chain for a new trial, might have some pretty implications that go beyond Ghost Rider.

Source: /Film