Looking to stay savvy on Disney’s upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean sequel On Stranger Tides? If so, grab yourself a bottle of rum, kick off your boots, and prick up your ears as Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) spills on what the series has got up its puffy shirt sleeve next:
The mermaids Sparrow mentions are played by French actress Astrid Berges-Frisbey and Australian model-turned-actress Gemma Ward. The film also costars Ian McShane as the pirate Blackbeard, Penelope Cruz as Blackbeard’s daughter, and Geoffry Rush as Captain Barbossa.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is directed by Rob Marshall, the man behind such lavish productions as Memoirs of a Geisha, Nine, and the Oscar-winning musical Chicago.
After its plans to showcase nine minutes of Piranha 3-D carnage at last week’s Comic-Con was sunk by event organizers, Dimension Films and director Alexandre Aja opted to instead premiere the gruesome footage at the Regal Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego.
A bootleg video of the teaser-trailer was smuggled out in the folds of a Comic-Con attendee’s gut and has now been leaked online. Now, be warned, the clip features numerous spoilers. But, it also provides a glimpse of Wild Wild Girls Kelly Brook and Riley Steele making out under water … nude. As Jigsaw would say, make your choice.
Check it out:
When the trailer screening was over, Aja was joined on stage for a Q&A session by stars Elisabeth Shue, Jerry O’Connell, Kelly Brook, Adam Scott, Hostel director-turned-actor Eli Roth, “Vampire Diaries” player Steven R. McQueen, Paul Scheer, and porn star Riley Steele.
Piranha 3-D centers on a spring break town terrorized by schools of prehistoric piranha set free by an underwater earthquake. Aja describes the film as a technically updated throwback to to the sensationalistic 3-D films many of us grew up with, promising a gratuitous amount of blood and boobs.
Bait
The film costars Ving Rhames (Day of the Dead), Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future), Richard Dreyfus (Jaws), Dina Meyer (Saw IV), and Jessica Szohr (House at the End of the Drive).
Rogue Pictures have released the first official trailer for their Facebook-age thriller Catfish. But, is it really a thriller? Critics and bloggers who were blown away by the film at Sundance don’t seem to think so and have taken issue with Rogue’s decision to market the film as such.
Take a look:
From what I’ve read, Catfish tells the story of Nev Schulman, a goofy-looking aspiring filmmaker who befriends an eight-year-old girl named Abby on Facebook (someone call Chris Hansen!). Through their ongoing exchanges, he eventually gets to know the girl’s mother and older sister, Angela and Megan respectively.
Soon, Nev and Megan are talking on the phone and doing all those cute—most likely perverted—internet-y type of things you’ve been doing with some fat guy calling himself ThongChick69 for years. Nev’s brother Ari and their friend Henry Joost decide to film his blossoming relationship with Megan, and convince him to drop in on her Michigan home by surprise.
At that point, crazy shit supposedly happens. But, if you believe the folks who caught early screenings of the flick, the big reveal has nothing to do with ghosts, killers, or even that ThongChick 69 guy I previously mentioned you knowing (turd-stealer!).
Personally, I’m betting Megan turns out to be Angela the mother. Megan and Abby are dead and their mother is using their photos on Facebook and assuming their lives to establish relationships with strangers.
Anchor Bay Films held a special screening in New York on Wednesday for it’s abduction-thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed, aka: The-British-Movie-Where-Gemma-Arterton-Gets-Naked. Joining Arterton at the event were Tara Subkoff (The Cell), Jennifer Esposito (Don’t Say a Word), fashion model Molly Sims, and “Fat Ugly Betty” star America Ferrara.
Arterton plays kidnap victim Alice Creed in the film. The 24-year-old actress reportedly goes nude for the role.
Arterton first caught moviegoers attention as James Bond’s doomed love interest Strawberry Fields in 2008’s Quantum of Solace. Since then she’s scored lead roles in Warner Bros. blockbuster remake of Clash of the Titans and in Michael Bay’s epic video game adaptation Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.
The Disappearance of Alice Creed will begin its limited theatrical run in Los Angeles and New York on Aug. 6. The film has already premiered in the U.K (see pics here).
Marvel’s 5-minute Comic-Con trailer for Thor has leaked online. But, don’t worry. I rubbed its nose in it—bad trailer!
Directed by Kenneth Branagh, the film stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Rene Russo as some old chick and Natalie Portman as love interest Jane Foster.
If you were in charge of promoting the Syfy network’s upcoming creature-feature Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, you’d probably release a clip or trailer that showcases the combating monsters in action. You might even make available BTS footage of the film’s stars, former ’80s pop singers Debbie Gibson (Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus) and Tiffany (Mega Piranha), against a green screen pretending to do battle with the giant beasts.
What you wouldn’t do is release a sneak peek vid that completely overlooks Mega Python and Gatoroid in favor of a catfight between Tiffany and Gibson that culminates with both girls smearing whipped cream all over their ample bosoms. And, that is why you still live a home.
Now, take a look at how the pros at Syfy promote a flick:
Gibson plays a animal rights activist who frees an illegally imported snake in the Florida everglades only to see it grow to mega proportions. Tiffany, meanwhile, takes on the role of a park ranger determine to protect endangered alligators. The two don’t see eye-to-eye until they realize that working together may be the only way to save their town.
Mega Python vs. Gatoroid is directed by Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary), the first woman to helm a Syfy creature-feature.
Guillermo del Toro is bringing Disney’s Haunted Mansion attraction to the big screen. But, don’t expect the man behind Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy to produce just another family franchise. After announcing the project—which he will write and produce—at Comic-Con last week, del Toro revealed that his vision for The Haunted Mansion film is terrifying and completely different than Disney’s 2003 effort starring Eddie Murphy.
“We are not returning Eddie Murphy’s calls,” del Toro quipped to convention attendees.
del Toro further explains to MTV:
The movie I see in my head of ‘Haunted Mansion’ is not what I believe anyone is imagining it would be. It’s not just a regular world with a haunted mansion plopped in the middle.
I’m really thinking of a movie with a heightened reality, which is super designed, incredibly innovative, narratively and visually.
We are taking sort of the core mythology that you can tap into and saying that there are many mansions around the world and they’re all part of a sort of web. The spider sitting at the center of the web is what the fans of ‘The Haunted Mansion’ would know by the nickname the Hatbox Ghost.
It’s more or less where the bride is in the attic on the way out of the mansion, but it’s such a great character that there is literally a cult for the Hatbox Ghost amongst hardcore ‘Haunted Mansion’ fanatics, and I’m one of them.
When people think of ‘The Haunted Mansion,’ they think they know [what it’s about]. But I really want to push a lot of stuff that they have not seen ever.
Hmm. I’ll believe it when I see the R-rating.
Also on the horizon for del Toro is his and director Troy Nixey’s remake of the 1973 made-for-TV creature-feature Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, starring Katie Holmes, and Guy Pearce. The film arrives in theaters on Jan. 21.
Elisabeth Shue is set to join Jennifer Lawrence in director Mark Tonderai’s (Hush) new thriller House at the End of the Street. The film marks Shue’s quick return to horror after starring in Alexandre Aja’s fish-&-chicks frightener Piranha 3-D, in theaters Aug. 20.
House at the End of the Street revolves around a teen girl (Lawrence) who discovers that the house across from her new home was the scene of a double homicide. Things complicate further when she befriends the murdered family’s surviving son (Thieriot).
Shue will play mother to Lawrence’s character. Production on the film begins next month in Ottawa.
Shue’s horror creds include Paul Verhoeven’s Hollow Man, the Robert De Niro/ Dakota Fanning thriller Hide and Seek, and the indie-release First Born.
Lawrence, hot off her critically acclaimed performance in the award-winning indie-drama Winter’s Bone, has been cast as a young Mystique in director Mathew Vaughn’s X-Men origins reboot X-Men: First Class.
Hammer Films have released a red-band trailer for their upcoming remake of the 2008 Swedish vampire drama Let the Right One In. Directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield), the film has been renamed Let Me In and stars 14-year-old Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) as the story’s bullied loner and 13-year-old Chloe Moretz (Kick Ass) as his vampire girlfriend and guardian.
Take a look:
Let Me In costars Richard Jenkins (Cabin in the Woods), Cara Buono (“Stephen King’s Dead Zone”), Elias Koteas (The Killer Inside Me), Sasha Barrese (Hellraiser: Inferno), and Chris Browning (Cowboys & Aliens).
The Swedish film Let the Right One In is directed by Tomas Alfredson and based on the best selling novel Lat den Ratte Komma by author John Ajvide Lindqvist. The film is included in Clatto’s prestigious list of 15 Vampire Movies That Won’t Make You Gay.
Sony Screen Gems has released the first official trailer for director Scott Stewart’s post-apocalyptic-vampire-frightener Priest. British actor Paul Bettany (Legion) headlines the film as a man of the cloth out to slay the bloodsuckers that have abducted his 18-year-old niece.
Say two Hail Marys and take a look:
The official synopsis reads:
Priest is set in a world ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampires. Paul Bettany is Priest, a legendary warrior priest during the last Vampire War, who now lives in obscurity among the other human inhabitants in walled-in dystopian cities controlled by the Church.
But when his 18-year-old niece is abducted by a murderous pack of vampires in the desolate wastelands outside, Priest breaks his sacred vows and ventures out to find her and seek vengeance upon those responsible, especially their brutal leader (Karl Urban).
Priest is joined on his crusade by his niece’s boyfriend, Hicks (Cam Gigandet), a local outpost sheriff, and Priestess (Maggie Q), a member of his former legion of vampire-killers who has otherworldly fighting skills.
As a Catholic school survivor, I curled up into the fetal position and clenched my ass cheeks tightly when I first heard Sony Screen Gems was developing a horror film entitled Priest. Some topics are just too personal. But, now that I see it’s just another vampire movie, I can go back to living my normal life again. Hmm. I wonder if the the local altar boys want to come over to see porn and take E. I should call them.
