Talk about performing with a gun to your head. That appears to be exactly what Elijah Wood has to do in Grand Piano. It appears to be headed straight to VOD, but maybe that shouldn’t fool us because it looks like there might be something here worth watching. The story: Elijah wood plays a famous concert pianist who returns from a hiatus only to find his life threatened while on stage. And if he plays one wrong note, the assassin (John Cusack) will kill him and his wife.

The trouble is, even the best pianist in the world makes a mistake or two here or there. You may never know it, but they… Read The Rest

Remember Gilligan’s Island, the venerable 1960s TV series about seven castaways who wind up stranded on a tropical island after a torrential storm shipwrecks their yacht The S.S. Minnow? Warner Bros is charting a course for a feature film based on the series. It will be fashioned as a star vessel for Book Of Mormon‘s Josh Gad. Gad, Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez will write the script. Lloyd Schwartz, Ross Schwartz, Tracey Silvers and Cathy Silvers will be executive producers. They’re not saying what character Gad would play, but the title character seems a possibility, though he could…

The Disney Channel has announced it is making a live-action TV movie featuring the children of Cruella De Vil, Maleficent, the Evil Queen, and Jafar called Descendants.

The movie will be directed by Kenny Ortega of Newsies and High School Musical fame which makes me wonder if it will be a musical.

It’s almost as if we were talking about this very sort of thing on The MovieByte Podcast #73. The thing is, in this case it actually sounds sort of interesting. But at the same time I’m sure not holding my breath.

Also this:

The movie is slated for a Spring 2015 release on the Disney… Read The Rest

TJ and Chad are joined this week by special guests Mike Fissel and Clark Douglas to talk about ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’. But first, a Peter Pan origin story? Apparently so. No one on this podcast is quite sure they needed this, but whatever. And of course, your hosts must talk about A.V. Club’s 15 worse films of 2013. It seems everyone has something on this list to quibble with. But no one can agree on what that one film on this list is that shouldn’t be there. And of course be sure to find out all about the thoughts and opinions behind ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’. Is this just big-boy fan fiction or is there something more here? And what’s with Tauriel? Who’s she and why was a non-cannon character added to the cast? Is this film worth seeing, is it better than the first film? So many questions, and your intrepid hosts set out to find answers!

In Jon M. Chu’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the President of the United States (played by Jonathan Pryce), who is actually Zartan in disguise orders the United States military to kill the Joes. During the ambush Duke (played by Channing Tatum) is blown to smithereens while trying to get Flint (played D.J. Cotrona) to safety. So, that should be all for Duke, right? Maybe not. Jon M. Chu recently signed on to direct the next G.I. Joe film tells MTV News there is a shot Duke might rise from the grave.

Just when you thought this franchise couldn’t possibly get any stupider, the director makes a…

James Cameron has confirmed that his three Avatar sequels will be shot in New Zealand.

The director made the announcement in Wellington today (December 15) alongside New Zealand prime minister John Key and producer Jon Landau.

Cameron projected that the first 3D Avatar sequel will be in cinemas by Christmas 2016, with the ensuing movies to be released in 2017 and late 2018 respectively.

He added that all three films will be shot concurrently beginning in 2015.

One sequel is just not enough. More sequels,  MORE SEQUELS! MOAR I TELL YOU!

“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…

I think this is supposed to be a bit of a modern day E.T. mixed with a bit of Super 8 (which I still haven’t seen, drat, what’s wrong with me!). It’s interesting that we (I) haven’t heard anything about this film until now. There was a time when films were less well known about when audiences went into the theaters to see them — a time when one could go to the theater and watch E.T. and not know a thing about it. That appears to be a little of what director Dave Green wants for his film Earth to Echo.

Of course this film just has to have that “found footage” vibe that I hate so much,…

Joss Whedon has apparently decided he can’t fool audiences twice. While he neglected to even mention Don Cheadle‘s War Machine character in The Avengers, the character had a much expanded role in Iron Man 3. That means it’s now believed Cheadle’s Col. James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes, also known as War Machine and Iron Patriot, will play a role in Whedon’s 2015 sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron.

...

UPDATE: Hitfix confirms, saying “Col. Rhodes, aka War Machine, has a key role in the conflict with Ultron that is the main focus of the sequel.”

The question then becomes, what role will Rhodes have in…