Ron Perlman has been speaking to the LA Daily News about reprising the lead role in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, the demonic superhero sequel from white hot Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro.

While del Toro has flown to Budapest to zero in on the beginning of principal photography, Perlman has been whipping himself into physical shape for a May start. ‘I’m already in the gym six days a week,’ said the 57-year-old star, adding that the sequel will have ‘an epic quality’ as it ‘continues to explore all the things that are great about this character - a superhero who is such an underachiever and such an adolescent.’

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AICN reports that David Tattersall will be cinematographer on the Wachowski Brother’s Speed Racer.

Tattersall is a noted British cinematographer who has worked on all of the Star Wars prequels. This news seems to tie up nicely with an earlier tip that suggested much of Speed Racer will be computer-generated and shot against blue/green screen.

The movie is scheduled for a May 23rd 2008 release.

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Posted in Movies •

Tom Cruise didn’t pan out for Zack Snyder, but it looks like the director’s lead actor from his upcoming 300 may be in line for a role in his Watchmen film adaptation, which is set to begin production this summer.

According to the SCI-FI Wire, Snyder revealed in an interview at WonderCon this weekend that Butler ‘may play a part’. Which one? ‘I don’t know yet, but he’s fun, so I’m sure we can figure something out for him.’ Apparently Butler mentioned in a separate interview that he hadn’t held talks about Watchmen with Snyder yet, but would eagerly sign up if asked.

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Tobey Maguire has echoed sentiments from director Sam Raimi and co-star Kirsten Dunst in confirming that Spiderman 3 will be his final affiliation with the franchise.

While promoting his new film The Good German in Australia, the Spiderman actor told The Courier Mail: ‘To me it seems like this is a natural point for the team to break up because we have a lot of story conclusions that were going along for the main characters for the first two movies and we kind of tie almost everything up for the third movie [...] It feels like a trilogy to me and it feels like the end.’

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Vincent Newman is set to produce a $100m film adaptation of John Milton’s epic 17th-century poem Paradise Lost, which deals with Satan’s exile from heaven and the temptation of Adam and Eve. According to the New York Times, Newman is eyeing Daniel Craig and Heath Ledger for the title role of the infernal anti-hero.

The film will likely be directed by Scott Derickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose). Apparently, the script will neglect the Adam and Eve aspects of the story in favour of the heavenly war of the archangles - the battle between God’s forces and the army of Satan. The writers will try to flesh out the Satan character to be a bit along the lines of Henry Hill in the film Goodfellas.

Incidentally, Daniel Craig is already playing a character very much inspired by Milton’s Satan figure in the upcoming His Dark Materials film trilogy.

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Warner Bros. has done some test screenings of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (released July 13) for random audiences, and someone who attended one sent his review to Aint-it-cool-news.

The reviewer thought the (still unfinished) film worked in most respects. While he disliked Umbridge’s character and the scenes with Grawp, he conceded that some editing and the finished CG effects would definitely improve these elements. What stood out for him positively was how Harry finally goes from slightly whimpy to ‘badass’, Evanna Lynch’s very strong interpretation of the oddball Luna Lovegood, and the big showdown at the end. Click here to read the review on AICN.

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Posted in Harry Potter, Movies •

300 director Zack Snyder has made plans for a new project called Sucker Punch at his new Cruel and Unusual Films production company, says The Hollywood Reporter. Snyder will develop an original short story by Steve Shibuya into a script, and might even direct what is intended to be a visually arresting action fantasy film.

In a plot reminiscent of that of Pan’s Labyrinth, Sucker Punch ‘follows a girl who is confined to a mental institution by her evil stepfather, who intends to have her lobotomized in five days. While there, she imagines an alternative reality to hide her from the pain, and in that world, she begins planning her escape, needing to steal five objects to help get her out before she is deflowered by a vile man.’

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Posted in Movies •

George Lucas gave even more insight into the upcoming Star Wars television shows at the Wiliam S. Paley Festival this weekend, and Aint-it-cool-news has the details.

Speaking about the animated Clone Wars 3D series, Lucas mentioned he would produce 100 episodes that would ‘create the ambiance of the movies in cartoon form’. He thinks there’s nothing on TV currently that’s quite like it. While work on that is ongoing, the live-action series is still ‘years away’. He did apparently reveal that ‘it’s one show that splits up into four shows and each show will deal with a different character’. Also of note is that Lucas suggested that a second animated series could be produced, even before the live-action show is realized! Read the full details at AICN.

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