Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher arrives on digital platforms today. To celebrate, Sony has put up no fewer than FIVE clips (and some interviews) from the new Marvel animated film (which also features Captain Marvel, Iron Man, War Machine, Thor, and others). If you weren't sure what to make of this latest Marvel animated project before, these might just help you make up your mind.

After interfering with a top secret mission, The Punisher is taken into custody by S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and Avenger Black Widow. At the orders of Director Nick Fury, Punisher and Black Widow are sent on a mission to stop Leviathan, a global terrorist organization that plans to sell stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. technology to the highest bidder. Now, the vigilante and spy must work together to prevent this technology from falling into the wrong hands. The fate of the world, and of the Avengers, hangs in the balance.

Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher is available today via Amazon and iTunes, and will arrive on Blu-ray and DVD on March 25th.

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After eleven novels, two films, and an innumerable amount of rumors, people still want more Fletch. What does it say about a character so beloved that he has that kind of durability? What does it say about a franchise so feared that it can shake off some of the biggest names in the industry? Hopefully, Jason Sudeikis is game to find out. Yesterday, we all discovered that Jason Sudeikis has been cast as the new Fletch. Even if this Fletch reboot finally makes it to the screen (and it isn't the first time Hollywood has tried), he’s still going to have to tussle with Chevy Chase’s long shadow.

Of all the iconic roles that defined the career of Chevy Chase - Clark W. Griswold, Ty Webb, asshole - Irwin M. Fletcher may reign supreme. Not because Fletch is his best work, but because it seemed to perfectly collect the best traits from all of his other characters and condense them into one. Goofy, driven, charming, insanely confident, and a massive tool...Chevy Chase is all of those things in the chameleon skin of Irwin Fletcher, a reporter who falls ass backwards into a criminal conspiracy and a great story.

In the sequel, Fletch Lives, Chase is still in command, tossing barbs like grenades at the feet of all who come near as he saunters through the morass of the deep south while investigating a toxic waste dumping operation. Sadly, Fletch Lives fails to keep up with the original, but it isn’t the bankrupt exercise in big screen comedy that some make it out to be. While funny in places, the story is scattered (original Fletchscreenwriter Andrew Bergman didn’t come along for the ride) and Fletch is both out of his element and too vested in the outcome from the outset.

A fading sense of detachment and that seamy LA vibe - those are two essential elements that made Fletchsuperior to its successor and two things it shares with another great hat-tip to the noir genre, Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. If you're familiar with both films, you might think I'm insane, but Fletchand The Long Goodbye feel linked in my mind. Absent a gag here and a character trait there, you almost could swap Chevy Chase with Elliot Gould (and vice versa) without losing a beat in either film. There's something indescribable that those two comedic actors share that has been sadly lacking in every potential replacement for Chase amid all the rumors and false starts that have plagued the Fletchfranchise over the last twenty years. Jason Sudeikis might just have that same indescribable something. Maybe it's those sad eyes or his cool yet easy on-screen demeanor, but I believe Sudeikis can pull off the more serious moments that Gregory McDonald’s Fletchnovels demand and which may be required in this “gritty” reboot.

People get distracted by the Laker dream sequence and the persistent abuse of the Underhills’ credit account. They forget that Chase wasn’t all smiles and sarcasm in Fletch, which pulled away from the source material quite a bit. Look at Fletch’s curt exchange with Tim Matheson’s Alan Stanwyk when they first meet (“Don’t talk to me like that assface, I don’t work for you yet”) or his tense jail cell stand-off with Joe Don Baker’s crooked police chief. Chase is unheralded for dramatic moments like these in this film. It's a shame because he shows more range in Fletchthan he did anywhere else...with the exception of the rare occurrences on Communitywhen he wasn’t being used like a racist or infirm cartoon. People always assume that the sad tragedy of Chevy Chase’s career is that his winning streak came to a brisk end in the late 1980s, but I’d propose that it might actually be that Chevy Chase never really got the chance to stretch as an actor beyond his stock persona. Maybe the two are linked.

Like Chase (who started off with pratfalls and then honed his trademark dry delivery at the Weekend Update desk before moving on to film) Sudeikis first made a splash on Saturday Night Live, where he stood out with political impressions of Joe Biden and Mitt Romney, and oversized characters like DJ Supersoaker and Marshall T. Boudreaux. But his desk-pieces as The Devil and his more grounded one-off characters were probably his best work on the show. On film, Sudeikis has hit another level since evolving past best friend roles and tired premises like the ones on display in Hall Pass and A Good Old Fashioned Orgy.

Sudeikis did a lot of heavy lifting in Horrible Bosses and We’re the Millers, particularly in the latter where he played a reluctant drug smuggler trekking from Mexico to Colorado with his culled together “family” to evade detection. The film plays like the darkest timeline version of National Lampoon’s Vacation, but Sudeikis keeps his edge, occasionally rattling off talon sharp blink-and-you’ll-miss-them one liners throughout. Choosing Sudeikis would seem to indicate that this version of Irwin Fletcher will, like his cinematic predecessor, still use his lacerative wit to disarm and disorient. After all, that trait is one of Sudeikis’ best tools as a performer.

Finding the right man (or woman) to take over for Chevy Chase has only been half the problem, though, as the Fletch franchise has bounced between three studios  (Universal, Miramax, and Warner Bros.) over the last two decades. As is often the case with Hollywood’s hoarding overseers, their logic dictates that doing nothing feels safer than doing something bad or even middling, lest they damn the future prospects of these films and reset the clock. In that respect, the new Fletchhas been in the same boat as the Wonder Woman movie for years. However, even the original film had its own hills to climb before finally getting a green light.

Thanks to Lee Goldberg's interview with Fletch creator Gregory McDonald, we know that the film rights to McDonald’s character once belonged to comedian Alan King and Columbia Pictures, and that at one point, Mick Jagger and David Bowie’s names had been thrown around for the lead role. Thankfully, Universal eventually got the rights and developed it for Chase. The rest is history: released in 1985, Fletchmade about $50 million dollars (a solid hit) and in 1989, Fletch Livesmade only $35 million. At this point, the franchise had effectively died, and to read Kevin Smith’s account of events, Universal didn’t even know that it still had the rights to the Fletchproperty when he asked about directing an update.

Smith would make two attempts at reviving Fletch. Once with Chase returning beside Joey Lauren Adams (as Fletch’s and Goldie Hawn’s daughter) with Jason Lee as her boyfriend for Son of Fletch, and once with Lee taking on the role of I. M. Fletcher in an adaptation of Fletch Won (the working title for this latest project). As time marched on, though, Smith fell away from the project after unsuccessfully campaigning to cast Jason Lee as Fletch, almost making the movie with Ben Affleck in the role, and clashing with producer David List, Gregory McDonald’s book agent.

In the years since Smith moved on from Fletch it seems like a new candidate has leaked out every year or so. The internet being what it is, some were more likely or credible than others. Here’s a list (by way of Entertainment Weekly's voluminous article on the history of the franchise and Splitsider) of just some of the talents that were, at one point, mentioned in some respect: Ellen Degeneres, Dave Chappelle, John Krasinski, Ryan Reynolds, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Long, and Chris Tucker (with Brett Ratner directing). Even Chevy Chase made a reappearance on the carousel of rumors back in 2009, although obviously that didn’t come to pass.

Aside from Smith, the most persistent names attached to the creative side of the Fletchreboot in recent years have been Scrubscreator Bill Lawrence, Hot Tub Time Machine director and High Fidelity writer Steve Pink, and Curb Your Enthusiasmproducer David Mandel. With the exception of Mandel, these men have each brought their own star selections to the rumor mill, either legitimately (Zach Braff and Joshua Jackson) or based solely on the fact that they were once in the same room as them (John Cusack, Pink’s frequent collaborator).

Eventually, though, everything came apart. That is until this week, when it was reported that Jason Sudeikis would play Fletch in Fletch Won, off a script by David List. Yes, the same David List who has been in the middle of this fight from the beginning.

What’s the point of this history lesson? Unfortunately, it’s to demonstrate that this franchise has a way of breaking hearts. So while Sudeikis feels like a perfect choice for the role of Irwin M. Fletcher, clearly possessing the “smartest guy in the room” quality that Kevin Smith once sought, we might all be well served to hold our applause until someone yells action.

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There are two types of people in this world: the kind who watched True Detective hand-in-hand as brothers and sisters going into that final midnight every Sunday evening…and those who desperately need to start catching up on HBO Go. Right now.

True Detective is so hardboiled that its lead characters of Det. Rust Cohle and Det. Marty Hart should have cracked under the scalding water weeks ago. Maybe they have. Perhaps, time is a loop, and they have been forced to do this again and again for eternity, scrambling in that devil’s trap for one of the best finales in TV history. In which case, we have been discovering what an unlikely awesome pair Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson have made ad infinitum. That’s kind of nice, because now that we have seen McConaughey and Harrelson together, whose sole previous collaboration was the deservedly forgotten EdTV, it is hard to believe we’ll have to let them go for Season 2. But such is life. Still, in a series of random, fortuitous occurrences, we have been previously blessed with unlikely badass buddy team-ups, and like old Cohle and Hart, we are somewhere on that loop wishing to see them again. Here is a list of 10 of the most unlikely team-ups.

Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs. (1982)

In a list like this, relying on buddy cops, particularly funny ones, can feel a little bit too safe. But it is impossible to ignore the brilliance Walter Hill and company had in pairing Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy at the height of the latter’s Saturday Night Live fame in this ultimate union of bullets and laughs. As Reggie Hammond and Jack Cates, Murphy and Nolte developed the definitive cop-partner banter that so many would steal from in later years. Cates is a world-weary San Francisco copper who loses a friend in the line of duty the same day he has to give Reggie 48 hours leave from prison to hunt down the killer. The two fight, argue, and are so entertaining that there was no way that it could simply end with Reggie going back to prison. But that’s Another 48 Hrs.

Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction (1994)

Surely not cops, these are a couple of the most loquacious gangsters you’re likely to come across this side of Elmore Leonard. If it wasn’t for their masterful ability to small talk, so many millions of people would never know what a “Royale with Cheese” is or the etiquette required for a proper foot massage. This breezy ability to ramble almost makes getting “into character,” a shame, because it is all “My name is the Lord” this and “Did I break your concentration” that. Then again, that’s amazing too. This pairing is so ubiquitous with pop culture that it is hard to imagine that in 1994, Jackson was primarily known (if at all) as a great character actor who appeared most recently in Jurassic Park, and Travolta was a has-been who’d last been seen in Look Who’s Talking Now. Afterwards, nobody can think of the Book of Ezekiel without quoting Jackson’s liberal adaptation of it or take a bite of a hamburger without saying, “Hmmm, this is a tasty burger.” If only Vincent had noticed Jules’ miracle.

Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Based loosely on actual historical outlaws, The real Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are entirely defined by this endlessly brilliant anti-Western that saw the first meeting of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Butch (Newman) is a wise and seasoned outlaw whose relationship with the strangely cocky Sundance Kid (Redford) defined their Hole in the Wall Gang and movie bromances for at least a generation. Sundance’s relationship with the Katharine Ross teacher may not have been built to last, but his friendship with Butch went right to the bitter end of freeze framed glory in Bolivia. They may have never seen Australia, but we’d see Newman and Redford team again in the even more enjoyable The Sting a few years later.

Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains in Casablanca (1942)

While their purposes may have only been fully simpatico for the ending of this masterpiece in American cinema, there is still never one second onscreen where this pairing of American noir and English civility is anything short of captivating. Bogie is Rick Blaine, a bitter freedom fighter who is now fighting the urge not to drown at the bottom of a glass. Rains is Capt. Louis Renault, a bureaucrat so corrupt that he allows his anti-Nazi prisoners to have mysterious accidents while chiding Rick for his obvious sentimentality. An American and a French officer trapped in a Moroccan city not-so-secretly controlled by the Nazis? The only thing they should have in common is their unending ability to deliver one amazing quip after another. “I came to Casablanca for the waters;” “I’m shocked, shocked that there’s gambling going on here;” “I think this the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” The last of those cements their complete team-up to fight behind enemy lines in World War II with one of the best final scenes in movie history. The Nazis never stood a chance.

Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot (1959)

At first glance, there will undoubtedly be some disagreement about the badassery on display when Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dress up as women to hide from the mob. But think about it for a minute: this lowly pair of musicians witnessed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and lived to tell the tale. That takes guts, as well as brains to know when to regroup for a later date. Eventually, they face their Mafioso fears and come out on top while also, in Curtis’ case, being able to seduce Marilyn Monroe…in drag. If that isn’t badass, I don’t know what is.

Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear in The Matador (2005)

While on the subject of hilariously bizarre team-ups, none was more unlikely, or strangely cool, than when Pierce Brosnan’s crass hitman named Julian Noble crossed paths with Greg Kinnear, playing seemingly vanilla salesman Danny Wright. In other words, a hitman and a salesman walk into a Mexico City hotel bar…it sounds like the beginning of a long joke, which is the perfect description for this sweetly macabre comedy about people. Brosnan gives the performance of his career in this complete subversion and mockery of the James Bond persona while Kinnear finds surprising depth and pathos in his middle-of-the-road character, particularly when audiences really meet his wife Bean (Hope Davis) halfway through the picture. Proving that committing murder can be a good time, even therapeutic, this is a buddy film with high rewatchability, discovering something even better to be found in Mexico than the margaritas.

Sean Connery and Michael Caine in The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

But the best James Bond of all had an even more fitting team-up when he and Harry Palmer went to India in The Man Who Would Be King. As Danny and Peachy, Sean Connery and Michael Caine play Rudyard Kipling’s presumptuous imperialists who turn soldiers of fortune in India, and eventually become wayward gods for a brief time. It is hard to say who deification ended worse for, but the image of Connery and Caine onscreen together as two Brits literally lording it over one of the colonies perfectly captures and satirizes Kipling during a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era of cynicism. Plus, in another life, it is easy to imagine that all of Caine and Connery’s characters traded barbs in bright red uniforms while riding into battle!

Jeff Bridges and John Goodman in The Big Lebowski (1998)

They may not look like much, but Maude Lebowski and Walter Sobchak know a little something, and that’s you just don’t urinate on another man’s rug! When a case of mistaken identity costs the Dude (Jeff Bridges) a perfectly good rug, Lebowski enlists his bowling buddies, particularly big Walter (Goodman) into helping him seek restitution. This being a 1990s Coen Brothers movie, it inevitably turns into a kidnapping storyline where things get a little bit intense, but if you want to bowl in the game of life, you got to be ready to end up in the gutter. Luckily, this movie is a strike.

Jean Reno and Natalie Portman in Léon (1994)

This list is supposed to function as a collection of unlikely “buddy” pairings that left fans clamoring for another team-up. So put preconceptions aside for a team-up so awesome that to this day it still marks Luc Besson’s best film: Léon. When little 12-year-old Mathilda (Natalie Portman) comes home one day to see her entire family, and most tragically her four-year-old brother, slaughtered by corrupt DEA thugs led by a scene-devouring Gary Oldman, she makes the smart play by pretending she’s the daughter of her fastidious, Italian (yet French sounding?) neighbor, Léon. The fact that he turned out to be a hitman is only a bonus. For those who have seen the superior European version of this movie, they know Léon and Mathilda make a deadly combination as they cut a violent streak through the New York underworld where Mathilda sets them up and Léon knocks them down. It is such an odd, gallows humor scenario that to this day Portman is still asked if she will reprise the role of the precocious girl who chewed gum while watching Reno drop one scum bucket after another.

Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder in Blazing Saddles (1974)

Yet no pairing was more satisfying as when the Waco Kid woke up from his cell to discover that the new sheriff of Rock Ridge…was near. A story of redemption, friendship, and schnitzengruben, Cleavon Little’s Sheriff Bart brings justice to the West when he teams with the Waco Kid to bring down a corrupt railroad mogul named Hedy Lamarr Hedley Lamarr. It is a friendship that transcended small-minded barriers of the era, and even carried those prejudices kicking and screaming into the future, and also into “The French Mistake.” It’s still a timeless team-up that will have any viewer applauding all the way through that limo ride into the sunset.

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When Neil Gaiman actually sounds excited about the prospect of a Sandman movie, there's a good chance that this one might happen. While Gaiman did express a little skepticism ("I can't help thinking that I've been here before," Gaiman joked), the tone of his remarks at the San Jose Cinquest Film Festival was overwhelmingly positive. And in just a few days, he's having a face-to-face with a key player in the latest installment of the Sandman movie saga, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Here's what Mr. Gaiman had to say:

"Joseph Gordon-Levitt, of all people, is an enormous Sandman fan. He and David Goyer talked about it, they've come up, I believe, with a treatment of what they want the story of the first movie to be. They are talking to an incredible writer [Jack Thorne], who I coincidentally already knew. He did the movie script for The Ocean at the End of the Lane, so I've met him and loved his treatment of my work. And Wednesday afternoon I will be spending with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and talking Sandman! That's pretty much everything I know. Now you know as much as I know." 

I was unaware that Sandmanscreenwriter Jack Thorne had done a script for The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which was one of my favorite books of last year. If Neil approved of that, then that's definitely a good sign for the Sandmanscreenplay, as well! More on the Sandmanmovie as we get it...

There's more on this over at JoBlo. So, go!

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Barely a month old, The Lego Movie continues to ride high as one of the more irreverent and surprisingly touching comedies in recent memory, which is all the more impressive when the characters are CGI plastic toys. A real coup for the burgeoning return of Warner Brothers feature animation, the studio has been quick to move on a sequel, which already enjoys a prime real estate release datefor May 2017. WB has been just as rapid in finding a replacement for Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who directed the smash hit original.

According to Deadline, Chris McKay has won the coveted spot of directing the second Lego Movie after serving as an animation co-director on the original film. He also has had more than a little experience in fourth-wall shattering animated humor by having directed more than 40 episodes of Robot Chicken, which garnered him an Emmy. He also directed and produced Adult Swim’s Titan Maximum.

Lord and Miller will return as producers on the project, however writing duties have also passed on to Michelle Morgan and Jared Stern. It is currently unclear whether the next film will follow the character of Emmet and his fellow Lego friends or follow a new character.

The second Lego Movie arrives on May 26, 2017.

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Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy’s relationship was one of the most popular aspects of the 2012 Spidey movie, and it appears than in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s alter-egos are going to get even more time to shine. In a sequence that is as much His Girl Friday screwball as it is superhero adventure, we see Peter and Gwen play a webby fast one on Oscorp security.

Sony also revealed a new clip of Peter Parker and Harry Osborn rebuilding an old friendship on the foundation of having (seemingly) terrible parents.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 finds Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) fighting for his life against Oscorp’s newest freaks, including Electro (Jamie Foxx) and Rhino (Paul Giamatti), all while trying to balance a high school romance with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). Yet, when an old friend named Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) comes back into his life, the secrets of Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper) and its villainous past reach closer to home than even Spidey can realize. Worse still, they may expand into his future.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens May 2, 2014.

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Marvel Studios has been releasing a generous helping of footage from Captain America: The Winter Soldier as of late, however, this is the first clip where we get to be introduced to Robert Redford’s Alexander Pierce for an extended period of time. And if he is as all-American as he seems, Cap has a good friend on his side. Then again…

In the latest clip, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury travels up to shoot the breeze with SHIELD head honcho Pierce following a daring hostage rescue from pirates, compliments of Captain America and the Black Widow. However, things take a turn for the expository when Fury asks his boss for a favor…

Captain America: The Winter Soldier stars Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Robert Redford, and Samuel L. Jackson, and its own winter comes April 4, 2014 in the U.S.

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After 300: Rise of an Empire’s impressive box office run this weekend, when it opened to $45 million domestically and $136 million worldwide, it’s only inevitable that talk would immediately begin to swirl around the sequel’s open door for another franchise installment. After all, God-King Xerxes was still alive at the end, and Athenians and Greeks were just beginning to quench their thirst for warfare’s blood.

Well Australian star Sullivan Stapleton, who played the role of heroic Athenian general Themistocles in Empire, is more than eager to see it continue as well. Taking a break from shooting his series Strike Back for Cinemax, Stapleton talked with Deadline about his career prospects following the box office success.

“When the show’s done, I want to come over to the States, and meet some of those guys who might give me a job and have something else to talk about with guys like you,” Stapleton told Deadline, admitting that the movie has opened doors.

But more intriguingly for 300 fans is what Stapleton said about seeing Themistocles and the world of Frank Miller’s Greece again.

“As for the sequel, it’s a huge story, and those battles between the Greeks and Persians went on for years and years,” Stapleton said. “I hope to God we do another sequel. If we don’t, hopefully they put me in another film.”

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It's been awfully quiet on the Batman vs. Superman front lately. Filming should begin soon enough, but it sounds like one of the reasons that filming was pushed back was the script. Shortly before Christmas, Chris Terrio (Argo) was brought in to do some rewrites, and from what Jeremy Irons (who will be playing Alfred Pennyworth in the film) says here, he may not be done yet. The folks at Absolute Radio caught up to Mr. Irons, and this is what he had to say about the script, and Batman himself, Ben Affleck:

"The script isn't entirely finished...I've read a script. I think it's not finalized yet." he admitted to Absolute Radio when they asked him about his portrayal of Alfred. On the subject of Ben Affleck as Batman, Irons was unreserved. "I think it's a wonderful idea. He's a lovely man, an interesting actor, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to getting to know him."

We can't help but wonder just how much of this movie is going to resemble the Batman vs. Superman originally announced at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con. From the addition of Wonder Woman, the rewrites, the delay in both filming and release (originally scheduled for Summer 2015, it's now going to open in 2016), it sounds like Batman vs. Superman (which has always been a working title, at best) has been undergoing a fairly drastic metamorphosis. Now, let's not jump to any conclusions about it being a stealth Justice League movie, but...it's hard not to think that way, isn't it?

You can hear more below.

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Casting for Warner Brothers’ Pan continues to go in full swing with Rooney Mara being cast in the famous role of Tiger Lily in this Peter Pan reimagining.

As reported in Variety, Mara is joining a star-studded cast of familiar faces populating this Pan mythology “reboot,” including Hugh Jackman as the villainous Blackbeard (no word yet as to whether it’s really supposed to be a form of Edward Thatch) and Garrett Hedlund as a young, two-handed James Hook. The role of Peter Pan, which is said to be a boy of about 10 to 12 years old, has yet to be cast.

Mara, an actress best known for being the American version of Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (a role which netted her an Oscar nomination), as well as appearing in Side Effects and Her, won out on a part that was previously considering Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) and Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color). In the original J.M. Barrie play, Tiger Lily is an Indian Princess of the “Piccaninny Tribe,” who Pan saves from the dastardly hook and serves as something of a foil to Wendy Darling.

Pan is being directed by Joe Wright (Atonement, Hanna) and is scripted by Jason Fuchs and Reg Berlanti. In this version, the story is relocated to World War II where Pan is an orphan kidnapped by Blackbeard’s pirates and whisked off to Neverland. WB has slated the picture for release on July 17, 2015.

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Rumors have become almost a pastime for many movie geeks, and nothing tends to take up that time more than speculation on who will be joining that galaxy far, far away. Despite Star Wars: Episode 7 still being nearly two years away, hype continues to build about what new faces will stand next to Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and more in the J.J. Abrams directed Star Wars sequel.

Now, according to Variety’s sources, it appears that five performers are being circled by Disney and the Force. While the sources are unnamed, Variety writer Justin Kroll was the first to break the Adam Driver rumor for playing the villain in the 2015 sci-fi epic, a casting murmur that has persisted for several weeks.  Now there is a disturbance in the sources once again, which claim that Abrams and company have narrowed the casting down to John Boyega from Attack the Block, Ed Speleers from Downton Abbey, and Jesse Plemons who appeared in Battleship and Breaking Bad. Theater actors Matthew James Thomas and Ray Fisher are also being eyed for the lead role of a character that has been described as a Jedi apprentice, which would counter nicely with Driver’s supposed villainy. It is also unclear what relation this character would have with the original cast, though screenwriter Michael Arndt’s reported original draft focused on Han and Leia’s children (an approach that may have been discarded). However, if he is a Jedi apprentice, it’s a good bet that Luke Skywalker will play an important role.

Den of Geek recently learned that model-makers involved with Star Wars: Episode 7 are being locked up for as long as seven years, a period which is intended to cover the three "main" Star Wars flicks and three potential spin-offs. Perhaps they’re working on this uncast lead’s lightsaber right now?

Star Wars: Episode 7 is set to hit hyper-drive in December 2015.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger is in an R-rated action movie where he plays a DEA agent on a vendetta. Let me rephrase: Arnold Schwarzenegger is in an R-rated action movie! Watch the three-minute red band trailer for Sabotage below.

Sabotage follows an elite DEA task force that becomes the target of a deadly drug cartel after a successful raid. Being picked off one-by-one, the team must figure out who’s the trailer, and who’s next. Schwarzenegger stars alongside Sam Worthington, Olivia Williams, Terrence Howard, Joe Manganiello, and Mireille Enos in the shoot-em-up thriller.

Sabotage busts into theaters April 11, 2014.

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In an age where extinction (via Dinobots!) can return, Transformers: Age of Extinction trailer truly must deserve a poster for its own IMAX release, allowing fans to glimpse the machine-alien hybrids coming to destroy Earth this time. The poster even promises that like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (or a Chris Nolan Batman movie) some of it was shot with actual IMAX cameras. Mark Wahlberg and Optimus Prime better watch out.

Set for a June 27, 2014 release date, Transformers: Age of Extinction acts as a soft-reboot of the franchise, as the jittery hero Sam Witwicky has been replaced by Wahlberg in search of saving his daughter. However, Michael Bay has assuredly returned for the mayhem, and will be joined by Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Sophia Myles, Li Bingbing, TJ Miller, and Han Geng.

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Remember Golden Books? They were childhood staples that were easy to read and packed with charming illustrations. But what if these books were adaptations of adult-oriented films like Pulp Fiction and The Exorcist as opposed to kids stuff like The Pokey Little Puppy? The result would be Movies R Fun!, a hilarious look at young reader versions of books based on films that are packed with language, violence, sex and other stuff geared towards grown ups. Just released by Chronicle Books, Movies R Fun is the brilliant creation of writer/illustrator Josh Cooley. In this interview, Cooley discusses the origins of the book, his favorite illustrations in the work, his day job working for Pixar, and much more!

Tell me a little about how you became inspired to create Movies R Fun!

When my daughter was first born, I had a sudden realization that I was going to be able to share all the films I love with her. It would be like watching them for the first time but through her eyes. I got really excited about that. Then it hit me that a lot of the films I love wouldn't be appropriate to show her for 17 years! But I had some children's books from when I was a kid that took movies like E.T. and The Empire Strikes Back and made them readable for children. So I thought, purely as a joke, how funny it would be to see films that were clearly NOT for kids, made into digestable content for their age range. Of course, I never planned on actually showing this to my daughter, it is a joke for adults. 

I started to do individual illustrations based on this concept back in 2008. I'd show them to friends and they would suggest other movies that would be funny in that format. I never thought of making it into a book until I had drawn almost 20 of them. Making a book was just a natural direction for it. So I made a self-published version on thick cardstock like a children's board book. (Those kids' books that are thick enough to chew on.) I sold out of all 1000 copies relatively quickly. Then Chronicle Books expressed interest on putting it out, but with twice as many images. Which is what Movies R Fun! is.

I'm always fascinated by which ones people gravitate towards. It's all over the map. There's obviously a Big Lebowskifollowing, so that's a favorite. But I was happy that there are so many fans of Leon: The Professional out there. I enjoy the Psychoimage the most. It was a fun one to figure out how to draw since there is no image like that in the actual film. The shower scene is made up of 80 or so close up shots so I had to build a single image that encompassed all of them. I have a copy hanging in my bathroom.

A lot of the background images are from key moments or props in the film that play a key role. The hope was that the viewer would recognize the main image and what movie it's from, then put together what those images were.

I cut out the dentist scene from Marathon Man. Can you guess what scene it was? (Answer: "Is it safe?" asked the Nazi dentist.) The reason was because people who saw it didn't recognize the movie. Not because of my drawing, because they never saw the movie. If you haven't seen it, go see it now. You will think about it every time you go to the dentist.

Growing up I absolutely loved Shel Silverstein's ABZ book. It made me laugh so hard even as a kid. It was a kid's book (for adults) that had horrible suggestions in it for kids to do. Take candy from strangers, drink a bottle of ink, bury your siblings in the yard, etc. I guess Movies R Fun!is along that similar vein. In my opinion, the misguided merchandise hits two chords. The adult that can appreciate it, and that innocent inner child who likes brightly colored pictures and toys.

When Chronicle asked if I wanted to make a book trailer I immediately thought YES. I've been making short movies (and long ones) my entire life. I looked at old commercials for inspiration, like Sweet Pickles, which was an infomercial in the 80's that sold books to help kids learn to read. I knew an infomercial would be funny.  I called my collaborator and best friend Doug Cox to see if he had time to help out. He's a professional editor and he cut the trailer as well as helped direct it. Nick Mahar, was kind enough to film it on his RED camera. He films a lot of pro music videos including work for Macklemore. He brought out his crew and we filmed it at my house in a day. The people in the video are all friends of mine. Doug cut it, the magical effects were created by a friend Ivan Miller, and the music was written by Aaron Eckardt. I'm super happy with it. Everyone did a masterful job and it captures the feeling of the book. We even took it a step further with the phone number at the end of the commercial. If you call it, you will hear a message from an actual Movies R Fun!phone operator, where you can leave a message about how much you love the product.

For my day job, I'm a story supervisor at Pixar Animation. I've been there for going on 11 years. So my time working on the book was after hours and into the night. It was a juggling act, but that's how my brain works. I like to have multiple things juggling that I can bounce back and forth between. 

Can I join the Den? I passed the Kobayashi Maru test WITHOUT cheating.

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It’s only been a few days since The Last of Us movie was officially announced, but some new details have already begun to trickle out through the grapevine. Namely, Neil Druckmann, the creative director and writer on the game, has confirmed that the upcoming movie will be a straight adaptation of the story that we saw in the applauded PS3 exclusive, although the team is still deciding on how that story will exactly be told.

Druckmann’s confirmation on the adaptive nature of the film comes from a talk with IGN after the BAFTA Game Awards 2014, where The Last of Us screenwriter explained, “As far as where we go and how we make it fit into a film, how it takes into account the unique properties of film… We’re not sure yet. We’re only just scratching the surface.”

Druckmann went on to clarify that while his team at Naughty Dog has also begun to toy around with a few ideas for a possible Last of Us sequel, there is nothing set in stone right now, and the studio has no plans to rush into anything before it feels right.

While we won’t actually get to see The Last of Usmovie for quite a long time yet, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t hit the comments section right now and let us know if you’re excited to see Joel and Ellie come to the big screen!

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