Ruffalo the Hulk, New Pic from 3D 'Thor,' Pixar Helps 'Tron,' 'Hobbit' Casting and a 'Despicable' Sequel
Plus a bunch of production start dates
Photo: Paramount Pictures via the Los Angeles Times
Will the Hulk be played again by Edward Norton? No. Joaquin Phoenix? Nope
It now appears the role will likely go to Mark Ruffalo as Deadline reports Ruffalo is "now in late-stage discussions between Marvel and his brand-new agency United Talent" to play the Hulk in Marvel's The Avengers to be directed by Joss Whedon. The film is already set for a May 4, 2012 release with production expected to begin sometime early next year.
This isn't the end of the superhero news, however, as the same Deadline report adds both Thor (May 6, 2011) and The First Avenger: Captain America (July 22, 2011) will be in 3D with Captain America's visual effects to be rendered in 3D and Thor undergoing more of a traditional 2D-to-3D conversion a la Alice in Wonderland and The Last Airbender. And speaking of Thor, the Los Angeles Times offers the above look at Anthony Hopkins, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston from the film directed by Kenneth Branagh. Hemsworth plays the title character while Hopkins plays Odin, the father who exiles him, and Hiddleston plays the film's villain, Loki. The "Times" article has much more on the 3D story, so for more on that click here.
Moving on, the surprise success of Illumination Entertainment's inaugural effort, Despicable Me, already has Universal brass thinking sequel. Mike Fleming at Deadline writes that Illumination is also working on a pair of shorts focusing on the film's ever popular minions to expand upon the newfound franchise. At this point it is unclear how they will be seen, but going the Pixar route and showing them before their upcoming features surely seems to be the most logical option.
If Illumination indeed chooses that route, the studio's slew of upcoming releases would surely provide ample opportunity to exhibit the little yellow dudes. The studio's next outing will come on April 1, 2011 in the form of Hop, a live-action CG film starring Russell Brand as the Easter Bunny. Following Hop will be Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, with potential films based on the Ricky Gervais-created Flanimals, Where's Waldo and a Tim Burton fueled version of The Addams Family just over the horizon.
Will Illumination be able to join the ranks of Pixar and Dreamworks as an animation powerhouse? Only time will tell, but the future looks promising.
It's just another day, and another update on the Mission: Impossible: IV front, with the latest coming from Kim Masters at The Hollywood Reporter. Yesterday's news included word that Tom Cruise may serve as a mentor to a young operative this time out (please, anyone but Shia Labeouf), and today's news indicates that Paramount will be looking closely at the overseas performance of Knight and Day to gauge if Cruise still holds any weight with foreign audiences. Perhaps these figures will play some part in determining Cruise's exact role in MI: 4. Moreover, Paramount is going to shoot for a budget in the $140 million range for the film, which is slightly more conservative than the $165 million spent on the franchise's third installment.
Although The Hobbit has not yet been given the greenlight, that seems to be a foregone conclusion as Heat Vision picks up where Deadline previously left off and reports Peter Jackson has been meeting with actors in both New York and the U.K. for his two-part fantasy novel adaptation. While Jackson hasn't yet officially signed on to direct the films, this news makes his intentions pretty clear to me. The hangup on the film's development continues to be MGM's financial woes, since the studio owns half the rights to the film, and on that note word just arrived MGM was won a sixth debt extension.
While nothing new has been confirmed regarding the upcoming Christopher Nolan-produced Superman reboot, Geek Tyrant offers up a spicy rumor that none other than Jonathan Nolan is in line to direct. The younger Nolan, who worked with his brother on the scripts for The Dark Knight and The Prestige, has no previous directing experience but I'm confident the Man of Steel will be in good hands with Christopher overseeing the whole project. The report also notes that Zachary Levi has auditioned for a role in the film. Could TV's "Chuck" become Clark Kent? He certainly looks the part.
The next bit of information comes in the department of "good news or bad news?" as Pixar's Brad Bird (The Incredibles) and Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) have been summoned to beef up the script for Tron Legacy ahead of some planned re-shoots. I usually cringe at re-write news this late into a film's development (we all saw what happened with The Wolfman), but this actually makes a lot of sense as Hollywood Insider's Nicole Sperling reports that the Pixar duo is being looked to with the hopes of adding a greater element of "character, emotion and theme" to director Joe Kosinski's vision. Reshoots aren't necessarily bad things people, most every film has them.
Speaking if Kosinski, Heat Vision has the news that he has been attached to direct Archangels, which is being described as a "Bourne-style thriller crossed with alien elements." Tony and Ridley Scott will serve as producers under their "Scott Free" banner.
In case you couldn't possibly live without seeing Ratatouille in 3D, it looks like you might soon get your fix… and Brendon Connelly at Bleeding Cool suggests it might not be the only one either. He also offers this quote from Pixar technician Bob Whitehill on the idea:
Ratatouille is one that we're exploring doing [3D conversion on] and Brad Bird is very open to some changes, you know, some very subtle changes but slight reframings. If a character's reaching forward and a pinky goes off screen, we'll adjust the camera and the character a little bit to have the hand on. So that said, if the director's open to minor modifications on a library title then that's wonderful and we're really excited about doing that.
Lastly, Production Weekly has offered the production start dates for four movies via Twitter.
Clash of the Titans 2 is set to begin filming in February 2011. Sam Raimi's Oz, The Great and Powerful with Robert Downey Jr. is scheduled to start in June 2011. And Marvel's graphic novel adaptation The Runaways is aiming for a January 2011 start, but they might want to change that title first to avoid any confusion with the recent punk-rock biopic of the same name. Just a thought… And finally, The Scorpion King: Rise Of The Dead, the second sequel in the franchise, will begin filming in Thailand in October.
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'Chuck' cannot be The Man of Steel. That would be the worst mistake in movie history. Seriously. Maybe he can portray Jimmy Olsen sufficiently but arguably the greatest superhero of all time? No way. I would seriously consider boycotting this movie if my idol growing up as a child is portrayed by a member of the 'Best Buy Geek Squad'. No offense. The ‘Thor’ pic looks awesome and the news about Ruffalo portraying Bruce Banner is exciting. I really enjoyed watching him in The Brothers Bloom and Shutter Island.
Is it me or does Thor look like it's getting really gay?
i dunno about the movie, but that screenshot definitely is.
First Thor's cheesy costume, and now THIS. I hate to say it, but I am getting really nervous about this "Thor" movie.
And yeah Zachary Levi isn't a good choice.
Brandon Routh was perfect as Superman.
It is time to worry if "Tron Legacy" is going to be awful, why are they reshooting now? For what?
Hopefully most of "The Avengers" will feature The Hulk going wild or something, at this point it's time for less human hulk anyway, isn't it?
So now we live in the days where $300 million domestic is considered a disappointment. That's why Thor and Captain America are getting converted to 3D, to inflate their grosses because Iron Man "only" made $300 million and change. Not that I'm surprised, I fully expected this to happen. But if you want to make more money, here's a though: MAKE A GOOD MOVIE! I liked the first Iron Man but thought the second one was dumb and pointless and the only purpose it really served was as a commercial for The Avengers. Further proof, not that it was needed, of the complete and utter lack of creativity in mainstream Hollywood, that they to make remakes and sequels and endless adaptations whatever they can come up with and when those don't make enough money for them they show them in a cheap gimmick and charge up to $25 per ticket. And then a film like Inception comes along, that's apparently completely visionary in every sense, and it will probably be lucky to make $200 million at the domestic box office, which would assure nothing that ambitious ever gets greenlit again. The only real creativity any more is at the art houses. Now I've written this long rant and I don't even care about Thor or Captain America to begin with, just the continuing stupidization of American cinema.
hear… hear…
I second your opinion, Ian. Nicely put.
Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. Hmmmmm. You know, I'm strangely okay with that, even though he isn't exactly an "unknown." Ruffalo is a good actor.
And why can't they just keep Brandon Routh as Superman? He was great (But get rid of Kate Bosworth!).
Agreed on Ruffalo, Routh and Bosworth (nice actress, just not for that part).
no way ruffalo for hulk — i hate it already Haaate it !!!!!!!!!!
This role should have stayed with bana.I blame the actress he worked with.(so depressing)
i didnt like the other actor as norton either. ( even though he has done some standout work)
I do agree that routh was not a bad choice its just bosworth has no chemistry. superman was so depressing with her. We need a peppier charismatic leading lady like rachel weiz in the mummy.
Okay, this is a totally different Angel, the one who commented beforehand. I just wanted to mention that I agree with Winchester that Bosworth wasn't right for the role. I also think it had something to do with the story. I think Weiz is too old. I was thinking someone like Anne Hathaway. Spunky, beautiful, capable of looking reporterly, and terribly talented.
Thor looks incredibly awful!!!
Worse than those shiny-campy Clash of the Titans costumes.