Corona | Coming Attractions

Len Wiseman tagged to direct Mummy movie remake

Straight from the Total Recall remake, director Len Wiseman will make his next paycheck directing the reboot of Universal's The Mummy.

Back when this one was first announced, my first thought was "Why?" After all, it had been less than 15 years since the release of the modern reboot of The Mummy, which at that time was directed by Stephen Sommers. Two sequels followed, with the second one proving to be more profitable than the third.

Three new movies open well while Dredd splats

September has always been a slower month at the box office for the movie industry, and the second-to-last weekend of September 2012 has proved to be no exception to the rule.

Three new releases were the ones that almost had a three-way tie. End of Watch, the police thriller/drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena, and the thriller House at the End of the Street starring Jennifer Lawrence are currently tied for the first place with an estimated weekend gross of $13 million dollars each.

The new Clint Eastwood movie, Trouble with the Curve, just missed home plate too. Its estimated gross is $12.7 million.

Marvel's Kevin Feige on future Hulk stand-alone movies

It's funny how audiences seem to be more excited about seeing the Hulk in his own movie after watching The Avengers than they were after his earlier stand-alone films, 2003's Hulk and 2008's The Incredible Hulk. I guess that's what comes after approaching the character in a fun, "Hulk smash" way than the more somber and dramatic themes explored in the Hulk's two earlier movies.

Report: Thanos returning in Avengers 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy movies

Remember that big purple-skinned guy that you saw at the end of Marvel's The Avengers movie? That was Thanos, one of the heavyweight bad guys in the Marvel Comics universe. He's Clubber Lang to Rocky Balboa for the Avengers, a despotic alien who hails from the Saturian moon Titan. In addition to wanting to subjugate the Earth, Thanos is also in love with the physical embodiment of Death.

Yeah, Thanos has got issues.

Is Patrick Stewart returning to the X-Men movie universe?

20th Century Fox has already announced its intentions to release X-Men: Days of Future Past on July 18, 2014. With a hard deadline set, plans are rapidly proceeding for director Matthew Vaughn and most, if not all, of the cast from X-Men: First Class to assemble early next year on a soundstage, somewhere.

But will there be a cast member from the first trilogy of X-Men movies appearing in Days of Future Past? Will the time-bending storyline for the X-Men prequel sequel feature two different actors playing Professor X?

Hollywood wants to make a Manimal movie

This may be a sign that the apocalypse is upon us.

Sony Pictures Animation wants to mine the long-since forgotten vaults of NBC television for a possible new feature film based on the camp show Manimal.

Joss Whedon drops foreshadowing info about The Avengers 2

When you're a journalist and presented an opportunity to interview a celebrity out to promote their latest creative effort, but you know that there's a different future project they're working on that will get eyeballs to your story, you have to walk a fine line. Your primary mission is to talk about their latest effort, even if it's not of the same level of interest as the celebrity's Project B, but you also need to insert a question or two about that other thing that they've got going. I've been there myself a few times and it's always a weird problem to navigate.

Will Viggo Mortensen show up as Dr. Strange in Thor 2?

The latest rumor du jour concerning a Marvel movie has to do with their sorcerer supreme showing up in Thor: The Dark World. If you read between the lines of what someone on Twitter is saying, the magician known as Dr. Strange will appear in the next Thor movie.

If true, such a move would set the stage for Strange to get his own spinoff film at a future date.

Box Office Autopsy: The Summer of 2012 - June

Playing the role of a mortician for the summer 2012 movie season, I can’t help but get some red on myself. And maybe there’s more of it than usual, but that’s only because when you try and find out what why some movies were good and others terrible, you can’t help but get a little messy.

Box Office Autopsy: The Summer of 2012 - May

With the passing of Labor Day, I can say that the summer movie season of 2012 has come and gone. Now comes the time to examine what this summer season meant to us, the movie lovers, and to Hollywood, the ones that profited (or not) from the films.

For this endeavor I don’t want to look too closely at the creative stamp of a movie as judging whether a movie is good or bad for you is subjective and entirely personal. Instead, I want to cast a stronger eye towards the box office results and try to augur what it means for us. Will we see a sequel, or has a profitable movie made enough of a dent in the zeitgeist that we’ll get to see a bunch of copycats in two years time? That’s the sort of thing that I’m interested in with my analysis.

The Dark Knight Rises' box office surpasses The Dark Knight

Call it official: The Dark Knight Rises has now earned more money at theaters than its predecessor, The Dark Knight. This weekend TDKR netted enough to push its worldwide gross to $1.005 billion dollars, $3 million dollars over the 2008 gross of The Dark Knight's $1.003 billion.

Of course, ticket prices have gone up in the four years since the release of The Dark Knight, and more screens are playing the IMAX versions of The Dark Knight Rises, further raising ticket prices.

First photo of Chris Pine as Jack Ryan

Paramount Pictures decided to officially announced the start of filming on its Jack Ryan movie by releasing a photo of its star, Chris Pine, riding a motorcycle in the streets of New York.

The film is rolling under the work-in-progress title of the untitled Jack Ryan movie, but conceivably the studio could decide to roll with simply Jack Ryan as its name. It makes sense; this is a reboot of the franchise (the second after the Ben Affleck Sum of All Fears one.)

Also starring in the picture is Keira Knightly as Jack's love interest, Cathy; Kevin Costner as Ryan's mentor; and Branagh himself as the picture's villain.

Dragonology flies to the big screen with Star Trek writers

The mega-popular children's fantasy book Dragonology is now in development as a feature film. Universal Pictures is the cinematic home to the adaptation, with Star Trek screenwriters/producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci producing the movie.

First published in 2003, Dragonology postulates that the flying reptiles are real and subject to classification. The tome is part narrative, part zoological adventure as a team of "dragonologists" circle the globe classifying the beasts and their abilities, as well as gathering intelligence on an association that wants to harness the power of dragons to dominate the planet.

Lucasfilm moving ahead with Star Wars Episode II and III in 3D

When Lucasfilm released Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in post-converted 3D last winter, it only managed to earn $43 million dollars domestically. Perhaps audiences weren't all that interested in seeing a 13-year old movie in theaters again, or the foul reputation that Episode I has accumulated over time sullied the brand. In any case, that's now stopping the company from continuing to 3D-ize the remaining two movies in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and release then into theaters.

The Expendables 2 tops out a sluggish end of August

The Expendables 2 held on to the top position at the box office for a second straight weekend. With a new weekend haul of $13.5 million dollars, Sylvester Stallone's new action franchise has earned $52.3m domestically. Things look good for The Expendables 3 to happen a couple of years from now.