The original trilogy reportedly cost $281 million to make. The Hobbit trilogy has cost $561 million… so far. That’s not including post-production on the third film or reshoots this past summer to extend the series into a trilogy.

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And while the massive budgets for these movies might sound excessive, the first movie alone more than covered the cost. (Maybe not when you factor in marketing, but it’s surely close.) And there’re still two more movies to come. The Hobbit will turn a profit. So even if The Hobbit films don’t reach the critical heights of the original trilogy, Jackson’s new…

Remember how Jack Ryan is a CIA analyst who sometimes accidentally gets thrust into action-y situations? Yeah, well, throw that concept away and put it out of your mind. In this version, it looks like Jack Ryan is being turned into some sort of secret agent. Also, the modest action that Jack Ryan gets into, where the plot and external influences provide the action and the drama… yeah… kiss that good bye as well. It looks like we’re turning Jack Ryan into a full blown action star. I was afraid of this. Looks like I am not going to enjoy this all that much.

Sigh.

I posted about this on Tuesday, but now I’ve got a video to go along with it. I love how sheepish JJ gets talking about it. He knows how stupid it can get and he’s embarrassed about it.

The other reason to watch this video is to be disappointed about the possibilities of Star Trek coming back to TV in some shape or form. JJ says that they have talked about it and thrown some ideas out, and CBS is just not interested right now. That’s a shame.

Check out the video.

A few years back, it seemed like audiences might get a new Chronicles of Narnia movie ever few years. 2005 brought The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which grossed almost $300 million domestic, but when Prince Caspian was released in 2008, that box-office take was cut nearly in half. It got to a point where, if you polled 100 people on the street, I doubt 10 of them would even know The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was released in 2010. It only grossed $100 million domestic.

Yet all three films have been much bigger successes overseas. So, after a few years of uncertainty, it seems…

After making a movie centered on Maleficent, the villainess from Sleeping Beauty, Disney is setting its sights on another bad lady: Cruella de Vil.

Aline Brosh McKenna has been hired to pen Cruella, which will bring the dog-fur-loving fashionista from 101 Dalmatians into a live-action feature to be produced by Andrew Gunn, who produced Sky High and Bedtime Stories for the studio. McKenna will also produce.

NO. Just no. No, no, no, no, no. Do not want. 

It may be heavy on the effects, but Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice as Smaug is absolutely perfect! And, in spite of my irritations with the first installment to The Hobbit trilogy, I can’t help but be excited for this.

Of course the whole indication of the love interest for Legolas in the person/elf named Tauriel (remember, she’s the addition to the cast by Peter Jackson and is not in the books — because we needed MORE CHARACTERS in this series!!!1!!!1!) is a bit odd — even irritating, but that’s par for the course with Peter Jackson I think (certainly it is these days). But, as I said, I am…

In an interview conducted just a few weeks ago (likely for the Blu-ray release of Into Darkness), Abrams finally manned up and admitted he has a problem: he’s addicted to lens flares. “I think admitting you’re an addict is the first step towards recovery,” he said. J.J. explains it was his wife, of all people, who finally got him to realize just how much he went overboard with lens flares.

I liked Into Darkness far better than the first installment in the reboot-verse, but man those Lens flare were still a problem. It did feel like they were toned down just a tiny bit from the first film,…

Four months ago, Star Trek Into Darkness hit theaters. By any objective concrete metric, it was a perfectly respectable Hollywood product. The critics generally liked it. It cost around $200 million and made $465 million worldwide, a financial showing that is neither impressive nor unimpressive. (It wasn’t Man of Steel, but it also wasn’t The Lone Ranger.) It had some funny jokes and it had things exploding in interesting ways. The title was dumb and it had third-act problems and nobody can really explain why they kept the Khan reveal a secret, but if you asked the average person in mid-June…

“The Last Vampire” chronicles the life of Sita as a character prone not only to great spiritual beliefs and human-like compassion, but also brutal acts of retribution. “She is at once captivating and beguiling, due in part to her personification as a beautiful, intelligent, innocent appearing, contemporary girl — who is in reality a 5000-year-old predator,” Preger said.

You know, because we don’t have enough vampire films in the world right now…