Rumours have been abound, and Variety has now confirmed that producer Joel Silver has struck an accord with Mattel to bring He-Man and the Masters of the Universe back to the big screen.

He-Man was created as a Mattel action figure and the toymaker created an animated series to sell the dolls. A first live-action incarnation starring Dolph Lundgren proved a flop when it was released in 1987. Ever since then, Mattel has been wary of turning to Hollywood again - a bid by Fox 2000 for John Woo to direct a new film was turned down when the toymaker didn’t spark to the plans.

But Silver’s pitch for a classic good vs. evil battle, using the same kind of visual effects strategy employed in 300, has convinced Mattel to relaunch the product on the big screen. The script for the film will be provided by Justin Marks (who’s also working on script adaptations for Voltron, Street Fighter and The Green Arrow).

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Posted in Movies •

New Line Cinema released even more new film stills and pictures from The Golden Compass to the press at Cannes.

Thirteen such images of Lyra, Lord Asriel, Lee Scoresby, Fra Pavel, Lord Faa, Tartar soldiers and director Chris Weitz made their way onto the internet via His Dark Materials fansites like BridgeToTheStars.net and HisDarkMaterials.org. The pictures are now also available in the X-Realms movie gallery.

The film opens in cinemas December 7.

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Posted in His Dark Materials, Movies •

The New Haven Independent has learned details of the scenes that will be shot next month for Indiana Jones IV in New Haven, Connecticut.

According to the report, officials in charge of closing down various streets for the shoot were treated to a preview of the the film’s plot. The scenes in the New Haven will apparently see Indy, on a motorbike, being pursued through the Yale campus by bad guys in black sedans.

The article, which includes more details, confirms that the movie takes place in 1957.

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Posted in Indiana Jones, Movies •

A new international poster for Michael Bay’s Transformers film has popped up on Taiwanese site Sina.

The Taiwanese version expands on the design of previous posters for the film, adding the faces of Bumblee, Optimus Prime and Megatron into the mix, as well as having Captain Lennox standing next to Sam and Mikaela.

Click here to view the poster in our movie gallery.

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Posted in Movies, Transformers •

Jeff Bridges told MTV News that Iron Man director Jon Favreau encouraged his cast to ad-lib while being filmed.

The actor divulged: ‘We’re doing a lot of improvisation in ‘Iron Man’ to discover scenes and get off the written page and doing a lot of work like that. I know Jon is very interested in grounding it as much in reality as he possibly can. The suit for instance, the first suit, it looks like, ‘Oh yeah, maybe that could happen.’ It’s all possible.’

Asked whether his character Obadadiah (who in the comics dons the armour to turn into to the villanous Iron Monger) would get to wear it, Bridges said: ‘I might, I might. But, on the other hand, I don’t want to spoil it for the viewers.’

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Posted in Iron Man, Movies •

A report in the Los Angeles Times mentions that Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning director of Crash and co-writer of Casino Royale, will return to the James Bond franchise for the next film in the series, temporarily titled Bond 22.

Haggis will polish the screenplay turned in by regular writers Neil Purvis and Robert Wade. The combined efforts of Haggis, Purvis and Wade on Casino Royale had helped revitalize the franchise and secure the series’ largest revenue to date - $588 million worldwide.

The 22nd installment of the James Bond series is currently scheduled for a November 7, 2008 release. A director has yet to be named.

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Posted in James Bond, Movies •