It’s not just the stakes that are higher as Katniss Everdeen returns to the arena for The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire. The budget is escalating as well. For its follow-up to last year’s hit The Hunger Games, which opens Nov. 22, Lionsgate upped the film’s budget from $78 million to north of $130 million.

Wow. That does not inspire confidence in me. That may be counter intuitive, but I often find that films with expanded and ballooned budgets are not better off for it. We’ll see, it does look pretty good. 

With “Thor: The Dark World” headed to theaters around the world, Marvel has already tagged on the mandatory credits stinger and probably other little nerdtacular bits to teaser other things in the ever growing Marvel-verse. But there will be one more thing for dudes dressed up as Loki to cheer about: five minutes of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” Whoa! Right? Well, hold up there, because it will also be shown during 3D screenings for the movie. Well done, Marvel, well done.

Ugh! I didn’t plan on seeing the film in 3D. I don’t want to see the film in 3D. Curse you, Marvel!

Leading up to the release of Thor: The Dark World, the Internet was abuzz with rumors that Joss Whedon was airlifted to the set of the Marvel sequel and dropped in like some kind of supersoldier in order to help fix scenes that weren’t working.

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When we spoke to Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige prior to Thor’s November 8 release, we asked him about those Whedon rumors in an effort to find out exactly what the Avengersdirector added to the movie.

“Some of Alan’s comments were taken out of context a bit,” Feige said. “Joss [Whedon] is focused one hundred percent—and has been for the…

Gerard Butler! That’s right, the man who led “Olympus Has Fallen” this spring to a rather surprising $161 million worldwide (not bad for something on a $70 million budget, and a better ROI than the $204 million haul versus $150 million budget of “White House Down”) is back for “London Has Fallen.” LOL, OMG. Even better (worse?), Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett and Radha Mitchell will return too, with everyone reprising their respective roles. So what, pray tell, is the plot? Well, it won’t be the president in danger this time.

Instead, the story will find the president…

EW has confirmed that Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit has dropped off the Christmas release schedule and will now open Jan. 17, 2014.

The Paramount Pictures’ action movie is based on characters from late author Tom Clancy and stars Chris Pine (Star Trek) as a young CIA analysis who uncovers a Russian plot to crash the U.S. economy with a terrorist attack. Kenneth Branagh (Valkyrie), Kevin Costner (Man of Steel), and Kiera Knightly (Anna Karenina) will also star alongside Pine in the upcoming action thriller directed by Kenneth Branagh.

That’s not a good sign. When’s the last time we saw a…

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos raised some eyebrows this weekend when he claimed that movie theater owners are the ones threatening to kill the movie business. Their refusal to innovate with day and date releases for big movies in theaters and on digital is stifling the industry.

Oh come on. You all know that I’m a huge proponent of Netflix and video on demand but that’s just ridiculous. And I am not a proponent of killing the movie theater in general. I am a proponent of on-demand TV because that content is already on the small screen. But there’s something special (to me at…

Celebrated Pixar scribe Michael Arndt (“Toy Story 3,” “Brave,” “Little Miss Sunshine”), who is known for a persuavsive screenwriting talk he made about the storytelling power of the “Star Wars” series is no longer writing the screenplay. According to breaking news by StarWars.com, Arndt has been replaced by Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams himself. Kasdan (who wrote “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return Of The Jedi”) of course, was hired to help out with ideas on “Episode VII” and also pen some of the “Star Wars” spin-off films (along with “X-Men” scribe Simon Kinberg).

Stink! I don’t like…

In addition to helming the next team-up event, Whedon is helping oversee all of the Phase Two movies leading up to it and crafting a live-action TV series (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), all of which are building up to The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

By design, Whedon’s therefore also laying the groundwork for Phase Three and beyond which begins with new superhero franchise Ant-Man in 2015 – but will he be involved with the lead-up to The Avengers 3?

At the press junket for Thor: The Dark World, our own Kofi Outlaw asked Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige about the future…

It seems your letters and petitions have paid off as Constantin has revealed that ‘City Of Ashes’ will go into production in 2014. “The fan response, from the blogosphere and the thousands of mails we have received, has encouraged us to keep going,”  head of the company’s film and TV Martin Moszkowicz told THR, before adding the zinger:  “It’s been overwhelmingly positive, in contrast to some other YA titles.” But that doesn’t mean that he’s completely blind to the fact that ‘Bones’ failed to find a wide audience.

 “My” letters? Definitely not my letters. That first film was terrible.…