“I found something in the goblin tunnels.”

“What did you find?”

...

“My courage”

“Good, you’ll need it.”

The Hobbit trilogy is, I think, perhaps the ultimate fan fiction for the universe surrounding Middle Earth — that is to say, for The Lord of the Rings. Consider: why would one take a book less than 300 pages and make a trilogy out of it where with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 3 books of about ~400 pages each were made into 3 films? If the same logic was applied to The Lord of the Rings filmmaking as we’re seeing here with The Hobbit, we’d have 9 films, 3 for each book.

So what has…

ABC’s cliffhanger-filled Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this Tuesday slipped to a new series low, drawing 6.1 million total viewers and a 2.1 demo rating, per finals — down 12 percent opposite a fresh episode of NCIS.

Oh come on! Why must every show I like wind up getting canceled? I don’t think it’s something wrong with me, I think it’s something wrong with you guys! Now, I mean we’re still a ways from a cancelation, but this is not good news. If ratings keep trending down like this then us fans of the show are going to be in for some bitter medicine. And we can complain about the ratings system…

Remember how I posted earlier this week that Fast & Furious 7 would be moving forward? Well, not so fast apparently:

The death of Paul Walker — an obviously key figure in the mega-sequel (and franchise) “Fast & Furious 7” — makes the future of the movie and series completely unclear. Production on the James Wan directed movie was supposed to continue this week in Atlanta following the Thanksgiving holiday, and additional filming with the entire cast in Abu Dhabi in January. Clearly, things are in flux and while this past weekend a conference call between suits and director tried to figure…

Can you believe it? Yet another franchise sequel has been set for the summer of 2015. This time it’s the as-yet-untitled fifth Bourne film, directed by Justin Lin and starring Jeremy Renner. Universal also dated Luc Besson‘s thriller, Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson as a trained killer; read more about both below.

At this point it seems like completely suicide to schedule pretty much any film, much less a completely questionable one any time in 2015. I mean it’s getting pretty crowded over there. And I’ll tell you what too, I can’t wait to not see this film. The first installment in the…

After setting a Thanksgiving Weekend record with Jennifer Lawrence’s female protagonist Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Lionsgate is eyeing another film with a strong female heroine. The mini-major is in early talks to back Rodham, a feature about the formative years of former First Lady and Secretary State and potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. No actress has yet been set to play Clinton, but several prominent ones are circling, I’m told.

I think I’m going to be sick…

Actor Paul Walker — a self-styled adrenaline junkie best known for his role in “The Fast and the Furious” movies — was killed Saturday in a fiery single-car wreck in Southern California.

The 40-year-old Walker was riding in a red Porsche GT about 3:30 p.m. when the sports car flew off the road and slammed into a tree in Santa Clarita, authorities and witnesses said. The car burst into flames.

...

“I ran over afterwards, I was trying to find Roger’s son,” Torp said. “I found out his son had jumped the fence and gone over, he was trying to get his dad out. Paul Walker’s best friend was…

Why, why, why? Quick, can you name a franchise that has been driven into the ground worse than the “Die Hard”/John McClane series? You can’t say “Alien” because a mediocre as “Prometheus” was, it’s still a zillion times better than any of the “AVP” series movies. Jack Ryan sure wasn’t looking healthy last time anyone checked, but that’s why there’s a reboot (scheduled for dumping ground season in January). The “Indiana Jones” series only has one outright disaster (‘Kingdom of Crystal Skulls’) and while there was two terrible “Terminator” films in a row, there were two great ones and a reboot…

There’s a shortage of perfect films in this world. It would be a pity to damage this one. If you ask anyone with a beating heart, they’ll tell you that Rob Reiner’s 1987 confection, The Princess Bride, is without blemish. (Well, except for that Knopfler song.) The film, of course, is based on William Goldman’s outstanding novel of the same name but I think this is a rare instance where the movie surpasses book. The film strikes the perfect balance of silly, snarky, sappy and utterly charming. It achieves such a rare harmony and though many subsequent films have tried to recapture it, all…

By all accounts, The Fifth Estate — Bill Condon’s movie about WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch — was a box office disaster. After a lukewarm reception at Toronto and opening to mixed reviews last month, the film has only made a little over $3 million since its Oct. 18 release. Director Condon told EW he blames the lackluster response on Assange.

“We were all so excited [around the release date] because it was just in the news recently, but the opposite might be true, that it simply wore out its welcome and that there is something about Assange. I do think…