Predictably, at the L.A. junket for the “Wolf Man,” bloggers spent their entire time grilling director Joe Johnston about his upcoming “The First Avenger: Captain America” film (and sometimes asking about some real inane details of total nerd minutia).
The director of timeless cinema classics like “Jumanji’ and “Jurassic Park 3” revealed that he’ll likely cast an unknown American as his lead and surround him with name actors, that the movie will be set in Europe, will be filmed in the U.K., Red Skull will be the villain and the picture will shoot in 2D HD with aesthetics different to any other Marvel film. Expect more news before March 1 when his casting has to be finalized.
True to Johnston’s word, Ryan McPartlin — an unknown television actor from “Chuck” — has revealed that he’s been involved in the casting process for the film. With delicious unself-aware irony, the actor revealed that “the one thing I can’t stand are these actors that are twittering about auditioning for Captain America. It’s really tacky. With that said, it is in the casting process and like many other actors, I read for it.”
Here is a new Kraken-centric new poster for Louis Letterier’s “Clash Of The Titans.” “Titans will clash” on April 2nd. UGO has a few more posters, but we gotta say this one looks like pretty generic/lame fantasy sci-fi artwork that’s one step away from being on the side of some dude’s van. It’s release, bumped one week after the decision to release the film in 3D, has caused some havoc at the box-office for other films that are now scattering about their release dates. Seeing the vacancy, the comedy, “Hot Tub Time Machine,” has now moved from March 19 to a March 26 date. “Repo Men” has also hightailed it out of the April 2nd spot and is now hitting March 19. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” has done the exact same thing and has also moved to the 19th.
Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys & Aliens,” starring Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde, will now hit theaters on July 29th, 2011. The date was recently vacated by Peter Berg’s “Battleship,” which was moved to 2012 because it’s scope is apparently so big, it needs an extra year of work. Surely, this is going to be “Pearl Harbor” meets “Independence Day.” The aliens revelation sounds retarded. Wonder what Hasbro thinks.
Brace yourselves, “Twilight” hottie, Taylor Lautner will lead the 3D film adaptation (of course) of ’70s action figure “Stretch Armstrong.” Universal co-chairman Donna Langley was surely holding back laughter as she announced with a would-be straight face that, “[Lautner] brings the perfect balance of energy and athleticism to the role of an unlikely super hero with a fantastic super power. We couldn’t be more pleased that he has agreed to be our Stretch.”