New Star Trek Movie Trailer, in one word AWESOME

Okay I’m really getting excited about this film

Check out the latest trailer at Apple.com

New Punisher Warzone Posters Revealed

Two new Punisher: Warzone Posters are making the rounds on the Internet today. They were seen at a get together held by one of the producers of the film. This new Punisher film is being brought to theaters this December by Lionsgate Entertainment. A trailer is also viewable at http://www.punishermovie.com/ . Honestly I’ve always enjoyed reading Punisher comics. He’s a character that usually attracts talented writers and artist, but seeing this character brought to the big screen hasn’t held any appeal to me. I haven’t watched either of the two previous attempts to adapt the Punisher to the big screen, not even on cable at night when there is nothing on.  Looking at the trailer, I’m not motivated to watch this one either.  Maybe upcoming trailers will amp me up on this one.

On another topic, I’m finding this trend of stylized single character posing posters to be really tiresome. They do nothing to get me excited about a film. GI Joe and The Spirit have been using this method as well.

Stan Winston, Effects Wizard and Creature Creation Genius, dead at 62

Stan Winston was a true wizard of special effects. On all levels of make-up, creature creation, and visual effects this guy was amazing. Without him movies such as Aliens, Batman Returns, Juraissic Park, Terminator 2, and many more wouldn’t have been even half as incredible. This was a man of true talent and who possessed a fertile imagination, something that Hollywood and movie fans will be really missing now that he has passed. The last movie I saw that benefited from Stan Winstons’ talents was Iron Man. His effects studio built the suits of armor used in the film.

His traditional effects and creations kept up and blended well with the computer generated effect used in modern film-making. The look of the CG Iron Man armor and the actual suit are seamless in the film. I’ve always been a big fan of the Winston Studios creation, and I hope they continue on for a long time carrying on the tradition of quality effects and imaginative creature creation set by Stan.

Stan Winston Studio Website

New Highlander Movie & Other News

This is kinda my “Hollywood Minute” since I’ve come across some cool movie news. Here are the snippets

Highlander Remake to be penned by Iron Man writers – Art Marcum and Matt Holloway are onboard to remake the mid-eighties classic. Pretty cool news, I loved Iron Man as any reader of this blog knows. I’m also a fan of the Highlander concept even though I haven’t been a huge fan of all the movies and spin-offs in other media. Awesome news! Source: Comingsoon.net

Three New Incredible Hulk TV Spots – Marvel.com has these new 30 second videos available to view. I’m increasingly more excited for this film, still with trepidation. I want it to do well and and I want it to be good.
Check out the videos here: http://www.marvel.com/news/movies.3647.Three_New_Incredible_Hulk_TV_Spots

Jake Gyllenhaal to be Prince of Persia – According to the Hollywood Report Jake Gyllenhaal will be taking the lead role in the film based off of the Ubisoft classic video game. This will be a Walt Disney Pictures/Jerry Brukheimer Film, so I’m guessing the sets and effects will be top shelf. It should be good. Prince of Persia was one of the first games I enjoyed looking at as much as I enjoyed playing it. Seeing this made into a movie could be a really cool experience. Gemma Arterton will also be staring in the film. Source: Hollywood Reporter

Iron Man Dominates & More Hulk Photos

For the second week in a row, Iron Man stood defiant on the top of the box office sales figures. The flick raked in an additional $50.5 million domestically, for an accumulative domestic gross of approx $177 million so far. Speed Racer didn’t fare to well on its opening weekend, suffering from negative buzz online and less than favorable reviews it only brought in $20.2 million narrowly locking in a 2nd place position box office sales.

I don’t think the studio plugged Speed Racer hard enough as a kids movie, with a better marketing effort Speed Racer could have done a little better in sales. But honestly, there was only so much they could do to counter all the positive chatter that has surrounded Iron Man. Even though a feature length Speed Racer film doesn’t interest me in the least, the effects and atmosphere look awesome. It looks like it’ll make a good DVD to pop into an HD set up.

More Hulk images were released, Cinematical has them available to view : http://www.cinematical.com/photos/the-incredible-hulk-1/ A few look like stills from the trailers that have been released, which is fine. Since Iron Man was so well executed, I have some new hope for the Hulk as a movie. As a shareholder, I have some concern about its performance. A lot of fans didn’t like the previous Hulk flick, and since that didn’t come out too long ago it might negatively impact sales for this movie at the box office.

Positive Reviews are Rolling in for Iron Man

The reviews are starting to come in for Iron Man. So far they look great, beyond what I’d hoped and expected. It’s looking very promising, I can’t wait to see this movie. Here is a list of the reviews I’ve found so far:

Iron Man Review: Joe Tirella – Newsarama.com : “Favreau … has managed to turn in one of the most memorable film adaptations of a comic book hero that Hollywood has ever made…”

Downey Flies High in Iron Man: Kirk Honeycutt – Reuters: “Iron Man … may be the cinema superhero for the rest of us.”

Iron Man Rocks: Roger Friedman – Fox News

Iron Man a Blockbuster with a Brain: Christy Lemire – San Francisco Chronicle

Review: Iron Man: Shaun Manning – Comic Book Resources “Favreau … has created in “Iron Man” a successful blend of indie wit and blockbuster action.”

Technorati Tags: Iron Man Jon Favearu Robert Downey Jr. Gwyneth Paltrow film Marvel Comics superhero blockbuster film reviews

Watchmen revealed

Last night on the official Warner Bros. Watchmen film site photos of the characters from the film that is due to come out on March 6th, 2009. We’ve got the Comedian, Nite Owl,  Ozymandias, Rorschach, and the Silk Spectre. Overall the costumes look pretty good. Nite Owl looks a little overdone, in the tradition of the Batman costume changes that are done with the character is brought to the big screen. But overall everyone else looks decent. We don’t have a Dr. Manhattan yet, I wonder if he’s going to be a computer generated creation. Tops on my list, I’m loving the Comedian and Rorschach both of them look spot on in my opinion.

But as any fan of comic based movies knows, having the characters look good doesn’t equal a good movie. I’ll wait until I see a trailer before I get my expectations up too high. The script and acting could be awful in this thing for all I know. But the attention given to the sets and costumes does give me some hope for the level of respect the director had for the source materials.

Check out the film blog for the images: http://rss.warnerbros.com/watchmen/ 

New Photos for Hulk, Wolverine Movies

The new Empire magazine has a cool pic of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark on the cover and some great new photos of Ed Norton hulking out, first photo of Gen. Thunderbolt Ross as played by William Hurt.

The also give us new photos of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, which is cool and all… not as cool as the Hulk sneak peeks. Come on, we’ve seen Jackman as Wolverine in three X-Men movies already how amped are we supposed to get for those photos?

Slashfilm has all the photos grouped on one page.

Technorati Tags:Marvel superheroes Wolverine Hugh Jackman Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. William Hurt Ed Norton Hulk X-Men

Jon Favreau, man don’t let me down

Everytime I see stills from the upcoming Iron Man film I get pumped up for this movie. I was totally geeking out at San Diego Comicon when we got to see footage from the film. As good as it all looks I so afraid that for some reason something will go wrong and the story will suck or something like that. I’m hoping beyond hope that this is unfounded worrying. After the steaming pile of crap that was the Hulk movie, it’s hard not to be a little gun shy when a new film comes out based on a Marvel property.

Director named for Green Lantern movie

Things are starting to move forward for a Green Lantern live-action motion picture. According to the Hollywood Report, the creator of the ‘Everwood’ television series, Greg Berlanti, is going to direct and c0-write the film. I haven’t seen one episode of Everwood, so I have no idea whether is a good thing or a bad thing. I love the idea of a Green Lantern movie, especially with the level of computer graphics now possible. It seem like technology has gotten to the point where a Green Lantern movie could be done very well. If only special effects alone could carry a movie, unfortunately they can’t. So I’m only cautiously excited until I hear more about the story and direction they are taking this.

Green Lantern to light up the big screen (Reuters)