Woo hoo! This weekend brings us plenty of shiny new things to see. Of course our favorite hammer wielding Norse “God” comes back to the big screen in Thor: The Dark World. About Time goes to wide release and while I think it might be a bit cheesy for me, I do think there’s something there for the right audience. The Book Thief looks really, really good. I almost wish we were talking about it next week on The MovieByte Podcast rather than Thor: The Dark World but it’s in limited release this weekend and not playing in my area, but we’ll get to it soon enough. And How I Live Now is also in…

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…

J.J. Abrams insists that he wants to maintain a strong sense of mystery regarding his Star Wars: Episode VII … proving he learned very little about the frustrations whipped up by the vagaries and misdirections that swirled around his Star Trek Into Darkness.

Oh please, people! “Learned very little”. What does that even mean? This is part of the game and part of the fun. He tries to keep it secret and we try to ferret out any little bits of information we can. It’s part of the fun. And from the filmmaker’s point of view I totally get the secrecy and trying to maintain surprise and mystery…

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…

I was looking forward to this film quite a lot. So the question before us now is this: did it live up to the hype and/or my expectations?  The answer to that question is somewhat complicated.

I was one of the very few in the world who had not read the book. Not only had I not read the book, I hadn’t even heard of the book — nor for that matter had I heard of Orson Scott Card, the book’s author. Given that, I had to make the decision as to whether I wanted to the film’s experience preserved by my having not read the book or known anything about the story walking into the theater or whether I…

I won’t go into full-on Ender’s Game spoilers here above the fold, but many have wondered whether or not the film would earn a sequel, and if so how the story would work out. See, the film Ender’s Game retains the basic ending of the original novel by Orson Scott Card, and that leads into a more complex and stranger sequel called Speaker for the Dead.

Trouble is, that novel takes place many years after Ender’s Game. The actors from this season’s film wouldn’t be able to make the jump without extensive reworking of the story.

But Card is penning another story, called Fleet School, which is…

This is quite obviously the best trailer we have seen for this film so far. In fact, I would say it’s the best trailer we’ve seen in The Hobbit series thus far. It almost makes me look forward to this film — almost.

As you all will know, I’m of two minds about this. The geek/nerd (or whatever) in me is looking forward to this film because I can’t help it. On the other hand, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first film in this franchise of 3 based off one book, was a bloated and tangled mess with way too much fat that needed trimming for my taste.

Still, Peter Jackson cuts together a…

So yeah, this week I’m still crying about Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, but at least it’s not number one again. Bleh. No, a far better film got the top spot, for which I can at least be thankful! Now, I don’t think we can kid ourselves that Ender’s Game can stay on top this coming weekend when Thor: The Dark World makes its debut, but maybe it can scrape number two?

#1 — Ender’s Game

Budget: $110 Million
Totals: $27 Million, Weekend and Current Domestic / $9.1 Million, Foreign / $36.1 Million, Worldwide
Weekend: 1

I am not sure what rock I have been living under, but I had never heard…

“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” is tracking for an opening weekend that could go as high as $185 million when it debuts on Nov. 22, based on box-office marketing data released Thursday.

The higher pre-release tracking goes, the less reliable it becomes, and we’re still three weeks away from the opening. But the Jennifer Lawrence sci-fi sequel looks like it will be a box-office monster for distributor Lionsgate Entertainment.

The distributor views the numbers more conservatively, and is at this point projecting an opening between $140 million and $150 million, citing the crowded…