Now employed by a small defense company, he is part of a crash effort by U.S. Special Operations Command to produce a radically new protective suit for elite soldiers to wear into battle — one with bionic limbs, head-to-toe armor, a built-in power supply and live data feeds projected on a see-through display inside the helmet.

They call it — what else? — the “Iron Man suit.”

“We’re taking the Iron Man concept and bringing it closer to reality,” said Dowling, referring to the Marvel Comics character Tony Stark, an industrialist and master engineer who builds a rocket-powered exoskeleton,…

There’s still no title, and it seems even J.J. Abrams is a bit punchy about delivering the movie in time, but mark your calendars as Disney has gone ahead and slated “Star Wars: Episode 7” for a late 2015 release.

As rumors have been suggesting for the past few weeks, say goodbye to the summer tradition of lining up in your Han Solo costume as “Star Wars: Episode 7—Title To Be Determined” arrives on December 18, 2015. The only other movie slated on that day right now is Universal’s videogame adaptation “Warcraft,” which we presume will be getting the **** out of the way of what will surely…

During an interview with Hypable today, Ender’s Game co-star Aramis Knight revealed a script centered on his character Bean based on the book Ender’s Shadow exists.

Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card is a novel that parallels the story line of Ender’s Game but follows Bean. The character has a supporting role in Game which hit theaters last week.

“There’s actually a script already written for [Shadow] which I got to read a few pages of,” Knight told Hypable. “[Director Gavin Hood] wanted to film right beside Ender’s Game,” he added, but the script needed to be revised and the budget…

Blockbuster Video killed the mom and pop video store, and now technology has finally killed Blockbuster Video. After slowly but steadily closing down locations for the better part of a decade, the company announced Wednesday it is finally going to close the final 300 locations by early 2014, and discontinue its rental-by-mail system by the end of 2013. The brand will remain, however, offering movies digitally.

While a few indie stores will always endure, this more or less marks the official end of the video store era.

And progress marches ever on. But this is certainly making me feel kind…

I’m on a Star Wars roll today…

Of course, with “Brooklyn” now on her schedule, what does that mean for J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars: Episode VII,” which she auditioned for, and is expected to be in front cameras next year? Sadly, it seems like she doesn’t have the gig. “I don’t have ‘Star Wars.’ I don’t have the role,” Ronan said, sounding kind of defeated. “I just shouldn’t have said anything. I just auditioned for it, like everyone else did.” When we asked about the audition process, she said, “To pretend that you have a lightsaber in a scene is always very exciting. It would be great. But…

If true, the latest Star Wars Episode VII rumor blows the lid off everything we expected the sequels to be. Though co-writer and producer Lawrence Kasdan has long said the new films won’t follow any stories from the Extended Universe, almost everyone assumed the main characters — all believed to be young adults — would somehow be related to the Skywalker and Solo families. They’d have to be, considering Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, who finished the series dating Han Solo, were the last two Jedi in the universe. Any future Jedi would surely be directly related.

That might not be the…

Jon Favreau is in talks to finally make that big budget Disney family movie we’re been waiting for. No, not Magic Kingdom. Instead, the director of Iron Man and Iron Man 2 is in negotiations to direct a new version of Rudyard Kipling‘s classic tale The Jungle Book.

Deadline broke the news of the film, which will be based on a new adaptation written by Justin Marks (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li). Here’s what Favreau said to Deadline:

I can’t say that much, but there is an interesting take that could be very cool and the hope is to relaunch a family brand with certain mythic…

When he took the “Star Wars” job a year ago, J.J. Abrams soon confirmed that he wouldn’t be returning to direct a third ‘Star Trek’ movie, which Paramount has been keen to move forward with sooner rather than later. Names likeRupert Wyatt and Jon M. Chu have been mentioned as potential directors, but according to Deadline, the frontrunner appears to be someone who Latino Review actually mentioned as being on a shortlist a little while ago:Joe Cornish, helmer of the excellent “Attack the Block.” 

In the three years since that film landed, Cornish has flirted with projects—comic-book…

More details continue to leak out about the behind the scenes tension at Lucasfilm that led to J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan taking over the script for Star Wars Episode VII. More and more, it’s sounding like decisions made by execs and money people back at the inception of the Lucasfilm purchase were way too ambitious, with the locked in 2015 release date causing a rushed process on the creative side, and forcing Disney execs to demand the film be completed in a time frame that seems unreasonable to those making the film.

THR reports on the situation, saying that “producer Kathleen…