It seems Steven Yeun can't stay away from Image Comics properties. Known for playing Glenn on the Walking Dead, Yeun is set to star as Tony Chu, the almost-kind-of-sort-of title character from the comic series Chewin an animated feature adaptation. Also announced is Felicia Day as Amelia Mintz, Chu's food critic love interest.

Chew tells the story of a by-the-book cop with a unique ability. Whatever he ingests, he gains the memories of. If he eats a hamburger, he remembers being a cow at the slaughterhouse. If he eats an apple, he remembers being picked and doused with pesticides. If he eats a murderer's face, he remembers the identities of the victims. It's a helpful curse and the only thing immune to it is beets, which is the only thing Chu regularly eats for that very reason.

As if the rules of his world weren't strange enough, the Food and Drug Administration is one of the top-ranking agencies in the country and is focused on enforcing "chicken prohibition" in the aftermath of the bird flu epidemic. Once Chu's abilities are discovered, he's put to task by having to devour countless gross pieces of evidence – such as old, dismembered fingers – just to crack the case. Also, his partner is a cyborg.

Felicia Day's Amelia is a food critic with her own special power. Whenever she talks or writes about food, those who listen or read are able to actually taste the food in question. That's all well and good unless she's giving you a horrible review and you find yourself puking all over the place. Chu is infatuated with her even before realizing that experiencing her reviews is the closest thing he can do to eat and not go all Dead Zone.

The comic series is written by John Layman and drawn by Rob Guillory. Originally, Chewwas going to be adapted into a half-hour comedy series on Showtime. That deal fell through, leading to this announcement. Layman will be handling the script duties, meaning the film is in as good a hands as you can get. Jeff Krelitz will be directing.

The reveal that Chewwill be animated is something of a surprise to me, but probably for the better in terms of making certain scenes easier to stomach.

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Jurassic Worldmay be Jurassic Park 4 in all but name, but there might be more dinosaur heavy sequels coming. In fact, Colin Trevorrow has ambitions that could launch an entirely new iteration of the Jurassic Park franchise. This is exciting because, well...dinosaurs.

“We definitely talked about [sequels] a lot,” Mr. Trevorrow told Empire. “We wanted to create something that would be a little bit less arbitrary and episodic, and something that could potentially arc into a series that would feel like a complete story.”

As for the other themes that might be explored in Jurassic World: “It’s about alpha dominance and the fact that humans have been the alpha species for a very long time and so now we’ve brought back another that happened to be the alpha species during its time, and we have to co-exist, so what is that relationship?”

To add to the fun, Entertainment Weekly have released the first official photos from Jurassic World, including our first look at Bryce Dallas Howard as Beth.

Jurassic World opens on July 12th, 2015.

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Like a gallant streak of white coming around the bend, Judah Ben-Hur and his chariot are riding high into Hollywood again.

As broken by Variety, studios MGM and Paramount are teaming to remake the legendary American (if you can believe it) story once more, providing more evidence that the Biblical Epic is back.

The studios, who have also united to produce this summer’s Hercules reimagining from Brett Ratner and starring Dwayne Johnson, have agreed to produce a new take on the Ben-Hur character with director Timur Bekmambetov (Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter) at the helm. John Ridley, who scripted 12 Years a Slave, is also set to write this new version of the tale.

We have conflicted feelings about this. While it continues to vindicate the Resurrection of the Biblical Epic, a predicted feat that is no longer too surprising since this spring’s Noah has gone on to gross $300 million worldwide in only three weeks of release. Nonetheless, Ben-Hur (1959) is a personal favorite of mine and is arguably the best movie ever based around a biblical story.

Granted, the 1959 picture, which was directed by William Wyler and starred cinema’s closest approximation of a marble statue in one Charlton Heston, is also a remake of the iconic 1925 movie of the same name. And both are adaptations of American Civil War Union veteran General Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. However, Ben-Hur is obviously one of those rare instances where the film adaptation’s cultural impact, at least in the 20^th century-onwards, transcends its literary source. Also, it is hard to imagine CGI or digital video surpassing the stunning use of 70 millimeters and in-camera stunts for the chariot race.

But like the titular hebrew, perhaps we should stop fighting with our own self-doubts and embrace the future to come?

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After nine years, fans are so ready to see the long-gestating Sin City: A Dame to Kill For that they probably don’t even mind that the second trailer is mostly a re-cut of the first!

In the new 60-second trailer, we get a little bit more focus on the plot of the Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller directed sequel based (at least in part) on the graphic novel of the same subtitle. Enter Ray Liotta’s bit of nastiness towards Ava Lord (Eva Green), setting up the central conflict of the movie when she asks Dwight (the newly recast Josh Brolin) to intervene.

Other stories include the return of Nancy (Jessica Alba) who is dealing with the pieces of Hartigan (Bruce Willis) killing himself at the end of the 2005 Sin City. Also, the new protagonists include Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Johnny Miller.

The full cast includes Bruce Willis, Josh Brolin, Rosario Dawson, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Eva Green, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jamie King, Ray Liotta, and Jeremy Piven.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For opens August 22, 2014.

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Despite having a supporting role in Iron Man 2, Scarlett Johansson has stayed a close collaborator with director Jon Favreau. After all, she appears in Favreau’s infinitely charming Chef next month. And now she has been approached alongside 12 Years a Slave’s Lupita Nyong’o to appear in Favreau’s next directorial effort, The Jungle Book.

As reported in The Hollywood Reporter, Johansson is in talks to voice the role of Kaa, a python that eats other animals by hypnotizing them. She is a major villain for boy hero Mogwgli, behind only the dastardly tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba), himself. Nyong’o meanwhile is in talks to star as the voice of Rakcha, the mother wolf that adopts and raises ther heroic child.

Kipling’s The Jungle Book was a collection of stories first published in magazines during 1893 and 1894. In 1895, a The Second Jungle Book was produced chronicling the later adventures of an older Mowgli. These stories served as the inspiration for the Walt Disney Animation Classic The Jungle Book in 1967. Disney also distributed a moderately successful adaptation of the books in 1994 directed by Stephen Sommers (yes that Stephen Sommers) starring Carey Elwes and Lena Headey.

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Every group of friends in any generation has its “big chill moment,” a point where the immortality of youth proves to be anything but that. And for Millennials, those first icy fingers can be especially cold with an adulthood that never came. Thus enter Jesse Zwick’s writing and directorial debut, About Alex. As a candidly funny, insightful, and low-pressure film about six college friends who are brought back together because of the (attempted) suicide of an old buddy, this charming ensemble showcase more than justifies its reappropriation of that Baby Boomer classic.

Jason Ritter plays Alex, the titular troubled case who claims to be an actor, yet seems to rarely leave the spaciously rustic upstate New York home that his father left him. Despite participating in all his friends’ lives via Twitter and Facebook, the roughly 30-year-old man seems infinitely alone when he puts on a suit a size too big and crawls into a bathtub with his smartphone in hand, tweeting his final thoughts to the world. He then proceeds to open his wrists.

Fortunately, the self-destruction diverges from previous reunion movies when Alex ends up in the hospital still breathing. The attempt causes his disparate NYU pals, now in their early 30s, to scramble to his home for the weekend, starting with Ben (Nate Parker), his best friend since freshman year who, despite living only a few hours away in Brooklyn with his long-time college girlfriend Siri (Maggie Grace), has not been up to see his mate in ages. There’s also frustrated academic Josh (Max Greenfield), a conversational malcontent that claims to be working on his PhD, but seems happiest when taking shots at Alex’s selfish and short-sighted tendencies. This brings Josh into direct conflict with old dorm drama flame Sarah (Aubrey Plaza), the perpetually indebted corporate lawyer wondering about the road not taken when in the company of Isaac (Max Minghella), the group’s former nerdy Omega that’s made it rich as a San Francisco businessman, allowing him to bring his intern-girlfriend (Jane Levy) along for this auspiciously awkward holiday.

What is meant to be an affirmation of life for Alex turns into a makeshift reunion for everyone with all the expected romances, rivalries, and grudges exhumed in this Millennial state of the union.

About Alex is a meditation on friends growing apart that adds the timely wrinkle of the drift occurring in the supposedly binding social media age. In an era where every action is a potential meme, and no statement isn’t a reflexively postmodern arrogation of pop culture, intent matters more than originality. After all, Alex couldn’t even be bothered to write his own last words for a suicide tweet that consisted of “ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.” Zwick’s cast of witty revelers make knowing acknowledgement of this when they chat about Jeff Goldblum and their favorite 1980s movies. This will likely be too on-the-nose for some critics breathing in The Big Chill, but don’t blame Alex and company; they grew up seeing it all before in their parents’ movies—or at least the best bits via YouTube clips on a friend’s wall post.

Still, unlike that Lawrence Kasdan movie, this sudden reflection of death comes slightly earlier for a generation that did not inherit the keys to the post-war kingdom, but instead is witnessing a diminished generational net worth, a fact that’s astutely addressed by Greenfield’s Josh. Not that Josh is any more mature than the rest of this personality assortment. As a pompous intellectual who still treats life like it’s the first semester of a freshman seminar in sociology, he’s as big a man-child as Ritter’s amiable loner. It is a standout performance for Greenfield that’s equal parts comedic ninjutsu and poignant boorishness. He’s long stolen scenes in New Girl, but here he is equally giving in this wounded portrait of the aged spoiled brat.

Greenfield plays best off of Plaza who likewise sheds her sitcom sheen of bone-dry deadpan to embody the authoritatively friendly den mother of the group. Plaza’s Sarah is a cookaholic and unsurprisingly wants to treat Alex with oven mitts, but her warmth can still be scalding. She was the one whose entire romantic life was messed up at genesis while in college with her first boyfriend, Josh, back when he was pining for beautifully blonde Siri. So, clearly she has many mixed feelings about her “dorm family,” including its most envied member, Isaac, the one who moved the furthest away to the West Coast and who came back in a suit. To some, he is not to be trusted since he now wears Italian loafers and, worse, he might have become a Republican. He also brought a plus-one to this suicide-get-together in the form of his 22-year-old girlfriend.

Levy’s Kate is an interesting inclusion because of the intriguing contrast she makes with the youngin’ of the friend circle in The Big Chill. In that older movie, Meg Tilly plays the wayward girlfriend of the permanently absent party who was going through a mid (or final) life crisis. The Jane Levy character is similarly coddled and treated as a kid in About Alex because she cannot handle her booze or weed like the rest of them. Yet, it is worth noting that she is not a child of Josh’s aforementioned economic downturn graduation bubble. She grew up with social media as a fact of life and reminds the characters and audiences alike, possibly for the first time, that Millennials are no longer the youngest ones in any given gathering. Indeed, she is the most grown-up of anyone in the movie, treating her job as a suicide hotline counselor with more seriousness and poise than any other character’s behavior.

Which brings us back to Alex, and his actions that ultimately boil down to being a cry for help at Ben and Siri. These three characters, played with great appeal, emerge as the central triangle of the narrative, though not necessarily a romantic one. Ben is the writer of the group who stayed in New York to craft his first theatrical masterpiece, yet nearly a decade later still drags his long writer-blocked feet when Siri gets a job offer in LA. It’s the quintessential quarter-life crisis that occurs in these movies, but Parker and Grace will invest audiences into its conclusion. These were the two who were supposed to be there most for Alex, yet despite noticing “erratic tweets,” they never made the drive or even answered the phone until Alex ruined his downstairs bathtub.

About Alex invites audiences into a group of wonderfully realized friends played with sincere affability and endearment by seven actors rejoicing at chance to dig into such winsome roles. Set almost entirely in a rundown house in the woods, the movie has nowhere to go but inside their performances, which lay these quirky and all-too-familiar personalities bare. Jesse Zwick, son of filmmaker Edward Zwick, said at the Tribeca Film Festival that they were primarily based on his own connections from college days more than any filmic influence. Still, it is easy to see that the inciting incident and theme, which drives these types together, is a well-known one amongst filmgoers. If you can overlook the obvious déjà vu, this is one that also finds a remarkable new context with its cultural snapshot.

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Speaking via his official Facebook page, Hobbitand Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson has revealed that the third installment of his Hobbit trilogy will have a new title. So, we can forget about The Hobbit: There and Back Again, and welcome The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. It's definitely more exciting, isn't it?

In a way, this makes perfect sense. When news first broke that Jackson would be splitting The Hobbit into multiple films, many readers speculated that the war between the five armies at the end of the book would take up more screentime than its rather modest page count might have initially indicated. Clearly, the filmmakers are doubling down on that prospect. If nothing else, this should fend off some complaints that not enough happens in each movie.

Here's Jackson's complete statement:

Our journey to make The Hobbit Trilogy has been in some ways like Bilbo's own, with hidden paths revealing their secrets to us as we've gone along. “There and Back Again” felt like the right name for the second of a two film telling of the quest to reclaim Erebor, when Bilbo’s arrival there, and departure, were both contained within the second film. But with three movies, it suddenly felt misplaced—after all, Bilbo has already arrived “there” in the "Desolation of Smaug".

When we did the premiere trip late last year, I had a quiet conversation with the studio about the idea of revisiting the title. We decided to keep an open mind until a cut of the film was ready to look at. We reached that point last week, and after viewing the movie, we all agreed there is now one title that feels completely appropriate.

And so: "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" it is.

As Professor Tolkien intended, “There and Back Again” encompasses Bilbo’s entire adventure, so don’t be surprised if you see it used on a future box-set of all three movies.

Before then however, we have a film to finish, and much to share with you. It’s been a nice quiet time for us—Jabez and I happily editing away in a dark cave in Wellington—but those halcyon days are quickly coming to an end. It will soon be time to step into the light. Expect to see and hear much about The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in the coming months.

And there’s also The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Extended Cut, which we’re in the process of finishing, with over 25 mins of new scenes, all scored with original music composed by Howard Shore.

It’ll be a fun year!

The Hobbit: There and Back Again The Battle of the Five Armies will hit theaters on December 17th, 2014.

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In what may be the biggest upheaval to blockbuster franchises this side of the word “reboot,” Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have announced an amicable split as writing partners on features going forward.

As reported in Variety, the writers of (deep breath) The Island, Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Cowboys & Aliens, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, have ended their big screen collaborations.

The two scribes, who began professional collaboration on Hercules: The Legendary Journies in the 1990s say that it was a friendly split that will allow both to pursue separate careers as directors. For example, Bob Orci is currently writing Star Trek 3 for Paramount alongside Patrick McKay and John D. Payne. Orci also is lobbying to direct the picture, which Producer J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot are reportedly keen on, but is still being held with reservations by Paramount, as according to Variety.

Kurtzman on the other hand has been hired to direct Venom, a spin-off to The Amazing Spider-Man franchise that will be released sometime between The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 4.

No plans have been announced yet as to a shift of their production company K/O Paper Products. They also remain executive producers on Fox’s Sleepy Hollow, for which they wrote the pilot, as well as Hawaii Five-O on CBS.

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As Avengers: Age of Ultron is now properly filming, with the entire cast in place and actual news starting to develop, things may get a bit frantic as we try and separate what is worth reporting from what isn't. But it's refreshing when the film's honcho, in this case, Joss Whedon, actually has something substantial to say about the film's main villain.

"I'm having a blast with Ultron," Whedon told Empire. "He's not a creature of logic - he's a robot who's genuinely disturbed. We're finding out what makes him menacing and at the same time endearing and funny and strange and unexpected, and everything a robot never is."

That's a relief. It's good to see that James Spader will have something to sink his teeth into as Ultron, especially since he's following up the impossibly popular Tom Hiddleston as Loki. I do have to wonder just how much of Ultron's actual evolution we'll see. Loki had the benefit of arriving in Avengersmore fully-formed.

There are some more tidbits about Avengers: Age of Ultron over at Empire Online.

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And now for something, well, quite similar, really. Monty Python reunited recently for some shows in England and, although they invited us all, a lot of us couldn’t make the trip across the pond to watch them drop their pants and sing “Sit on My Face (And Tell Me That You Love Me).”

While we may not be getting the full Monty from the Pythons, the much beloved comedy troupe found a way to bring their show on the road without having to leave their homes and British gardens.

I’ll let them tell you. In a statement, the Pythons said “Thanks to the wonderful invention of moving pictures, The Last Night of Monty Python is coming to a cinema near you. Get your knotted handkerchiefs out and warm your brains one last time at any one of 450 cinemas across the UK, and 1500 across the world. Join the crowd live from London’s O2 in a final weepy, hilarious, uproarious, outrageous, farewell to the five remaining Pythons as they head for The Old Jokes Home .... On the big screen, in HD.”

The upcoming Monty Python Live (mostly) will be broadcast by Picturehouse Entertainment on July 20 2014. The broadcast will capture what promises to be “the historic Last Night of the Pythons live from London’s O2.”

Monty Python exploded on the telly like a penguin on pirate radio many, many years ago. They were a big hit that got huge laughs and important musical friends. Their movies were produced by George Harrison, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. It’s been forty years since Monty Python did their last show on stage in the UK at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Monty Python’s John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin have a combined age of 361 years and they still haven’t found the meaning of life.

UK cinema tickets will go on sale from April 25, with further information available on www.montypythonlive.com.

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The cast for the Joe Wright helmed reboot of Neverland mythology, Pan, appears to be almost complete as Warner Brothers announces the addition of Amanda Seyfried to the ensemble.

Cast in the role of Mary, Seyfried joins a cast for the 2015 tent pole that already includes Hugh Jackman as the villainous Blackbeard, Garrett Hedlund as a young James Hook, Rooney Mara as Indian Princess Tiger Lily, and newcomer Levi Miller as the boy who will become the legendary Peter Pan.

Pan is being directed by Wright (Atonement, Hanna) and is scripted by Jason Fuchs and Greg 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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Jon M. Chu's surprise Jem movie has cast the title role AND her band. Nashville's Aubrey Peeples will play Jem, while her band, The Holograms will consist of Stefanie Scott (Kimber, Jem's sister), Aurora Perrineau (Shana), Hayley Kiyoko (Aja). There is, at least as of now, no word on whether or not the young ladies will be providing original musical performances for the film, although Peeples can certainly sing.

The producers wasted no time, as within hours of the announcement came the poster featuring the newly cast Holograms in appropriate looking hair and makeup.

When the Jemmovie was first announced it was described as follows:

Mixing music, art, technology, and fairytale, Jem And The Holograms reimagines Jem for a whole new generation with themes of being true to who you are in a multitasking, hyperlinked social-media age. When an orphaned teenage girl becomes an online recording sensation, she and her sisters embark on a music-driven scavenger hunt – one that sends them on an adventure across Los Angeles in an attempt to unlock a final message left by her father.

We'll let you know when they cast The Misfits...presumably it won't involve Glenn Danzig.

Info courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter.

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The only thing scarier than the return of Jason Voorhees and his apparently indestructible machete is the realization that he will be coming for you weekly through your living room.

It has been revealed to Deadline that the hockey-masked killer is about to get the serial (television) treatment thanks to a new deal slashed by Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films and Crystal Lake Entertainment that will produce the new TV show. Sean S. Cunningham, who directed the original 1980 movie with mommy dearest, will executive produce the series.

“Jason Voorhees is synonymous with the genre and we plan to build on this legacy with a provocative and compelling take that expands upon the storylines that have already thrilled millions worldwide,” Cunningham said.

Bill Basso and Jordu Schnell are set to write and develop the script which will reimagine the masked killer, who actually didn’t begin his slaughter until Friday the 13^th Part 2, across multiple time periods. Whether this means a new origin or an anthology of Voorhees based horror around Crystal Lake is hard to gauge at this point.

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Ray Fisher has reportedly been cast as Vic Stone, better known to DC Comics fans as former Teen Titan and current Justice League member, Cyborg in Warner Bros. Batman vs. Superman movie. Fisher is best known for portraying Muhammad Ali on Broadway in Fetch Clay, Make Man, and while Warner Bros. has not yet commented on the story, there seems to be legitimate heat behind this one.

Of particular interest is this quote from The Hollywood Reporter:

Warners quietly added the character to its casting call several months ago, when it began looking for a physically fit black actor. The part at the time called for only one scene but promised more in terms of future movies.

This isn't the first time Cyborg's name has come up in connection with the still emerging DC movie universe, but it should put the stop to speculation that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson would be playing Cyborg in a future DC Entertainment movie, although he is definitely working with Warner Bros. in some capacity. It does raise the question of just how many heroes will appear in the still untitled Batman vs. Superman film, which already includes Wonder Woman in addition to its titular superheroes, and with persistent rumors that Nightwing is also slated to appear.

In the comics, Vic Stone is a high school football hero who is caught in an accident that leaves him unable to survive without a powerful cyborg body designed by his scientist father. Recent DC Comics have tied that accident to the planet Apokolips, home of Darkseid, the intergalactic despot who has long been floated as the logical heavy for a Justice Leaguemovie. Cyborg is a high-powered character who could certainly keep pace in a movie that also features powerhouses like Superman and Wonder Woman, and in the animated Justice League: Waranimated film (as well as the comics it was based on) is a founding member of the Justice League. 

Here's an image of Ray Fisher as Muhammad Ali from Fetch Clay, Make Man (photo courtesy of gaycitynews.com).

Varietyfirst reported the news.

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“What is the supernatural?” asks Jared Harris’ plummy Oxford university professor Joseph Coupland. Armed with the theory that ghosts and demons are the manifestations of negative energy in the human body, he plans to conjure a spook from the frail body of 19-year-old test subject Jane Harper (Olivia Cooke).