Movie Info Roundup: New MUPPET Image, GHOSTBUSTERS 3 Update, Poster Galore And More..

Ok, I’ve been away far far too long, so let’s get these bulletpoints started shall we. They’re mostly filmmakers talking about how things are coming along with their projects so far, but there are also some first look images and new posters…

• The Stitchkingdom has the new image of THE MUPPETS above, plus the official synopsis..

“On vacation in Los Angeles, Walter, the world’s biggest Muppet fan, and his friends Gary (Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams) from Smalltown, USA, discover the nefarious plan of oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to raze the Muppet Theater and drill for the oil recently discovered beneath the Muppets’ former stomping grounds. To stage The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever and raise the $10 million needed to save the theater, Walter, Mary and Gary help Kermit reunite the Muppets, who have all gone their separate ways: Fozzie now performs with a Reno casino house band called the Moopets, Miss Piggy is a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, Animal is in a Santa Barbara clinic for anger management, and Gonzo is a high-powered plumbing magnate.”

• Heat Vision reported that Summit Entertainment has bought the screen rights to a manuscript for a young adult novel, NIGHT CIRCUS by author Erin Morgenstern. The story is about “two young magicians, pawns in an age-old rivalry between their mercurial, illusionist fathers, and the enchanted circus where their competition (and romances) play out. Fates of everyone involved – from creators and performers to patrons hang in the duo’s balance.

• Director Ron Howard who narrated one of my favorite comedy series of all time, Arrested Development, told comingsoon.net that he won’t be directing the big screen version but show’s creator Mitch Hurwitz is still determined to make the project happen soon.

• Imagine the biblical story DAVID VS. GOLIATH but in the modern vibe of 300 meets The Bourne Identity. That’s what director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism Of Emily Rose) will be trying to envision according to Heat Vision. The project is housed at Relativity Media and it will be a period action movie “made with contemporary sensibilities” whatever the hell that mean. Scripted by John D. Payne and Patrick McKay “the story is set in motion when the fierce warrior Goliath is sent to track down a foretold king of the Israelites. A young shepherd David is thrust into an epic chase and adventure fighting for his own life, the lives of his loved ones and eventually the lives of his people. The story climaxes in a battle of literal Biblical proportions between the young man and the giant sent to destroy him.”

• BloodyDisgusting has these 3 first look photos of Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya (Talk To Her, Sex And Lucia, Room In Rome) in Pedro Almodovar’s upcoming horror/thriller THE SKIN I LIVE IN about “a plastic surgeon who exacts terrible revenge on the man who raped his daughter”

• Ivan Reitman told comingsoon.net, that GHOSTBUSTERS 3 script is ‘really good’, all the original characters will have roles in this installment and they’ll join new characters and he said for the fans not to believe everything they read on the internet..

We have a really good script, but Bill (Murray) has to read it. He hasn’t read it. There has been all kinds of chatter online about him reading it and not liking it. He has not read a thing. He’s never read anything. And I just sent it to him. So we’ll see. God knows how long that will take. But we’ll see.
There is almost nothing that is accurate online about that film.
There is nothing… I mean, all these stories… there has been a ton of stuff about casting, about who’s in… none of it is true.

• Armie Hammer will play Clyde Toulson in Clint Eastwood-directed J. EDGAR starring Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover. Hammer told Vulture that Judi Dench will play Hoover’s mom. The story will focus on Hoover and Toulson as young men and there are flashforwards with them in their 70s..

“I’m playing Toulson up to his elderly age! Makeup stuff comes within the next couple weeks. We’re definitely doing a lot of wardrobe stuff right now, but the makeup stuff we haven’t done yet.”

• a Slashfilm reader made this infograph that takes a look at the many bodies of Christian Bale..

• Peter Farrelly told EW that latest rumor about Knoxville, Samberg being considered as part of THE THREE STOOGES movie is not true, at least not at this point because Farrelly insists that the roles are “wide open to everybody”. He also said THE THREE STOOGES in this movie will be pretty much just the same as the ones you remember from those classic shorts, Moe, Larry, and Curly will “look the same, dress the same, sound the same, act the same, with the same sound effects.”

Most of it will be set in the present day, except for the first act, which begins 40 years ago. “A car whips by an orphanage, throws a duffel bag out its window and keeps going,” Farrelly says. “A nun sees the duffel and opens it up, and a little baby hand comes out and — Boink! — hits her in the eye. So that first episode is them growing up in the orphanage.”
The second act picks up with them as adults, in their early 40s, leaving the orphanage and heading out on the road together. After various misadventures, the trio splits up and the third act starts with them alone — and finding that all the slapping, eye-gouging, and head-bonking isn’t a useful way of dealing with the outside world.
“Suddenly, when Moe hits somebody he doesn’t know, that’s assault and battery,”

Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) who’ll get to direct the adaptation of THE HUNGER GAMES told EW that the movie will be PG-13 because he wants the 12- and 13- and 14-year-old-fans to be able to go see it.

Do you remember that David E. Kelley‘s (The Practice, Ally McBeal) plan to bring WONDER WOMAN back to TV? Well, according to EW, the project at this point is NOT moving forward. WB TV has been shopping the script but no major broadcasters wanted it because 1). it’s too costly, the studio requires a rich license fee.. and 2). They don’t want this to be another failure like the previous Bionic Woman series

• The Playlist reported that Michael Fassbender is circling GENIUS that has Sean Penn attached to star as Maxwell Perkins but both actors haven’t officially signed on yet. The same website also said Elle Fanning (Somewhere) and Vera Farmiga will star in indie drama PURE LIFE, scripted by Melora Donoghue, about a 13-year-old named “Maya Donovan (Fanning), who desperately wants a romance like the kind in the Brat Pack movies. Mired in poverty with her brutally hard-working and short-tempered mother Trisch (Farmiga), Maya goes looking for a teen romance and finds a bad boy she deems worthy of taking her virginity.”

• According to What’s Playing, Lukas Haas (Inception) and Diego Luna (Milk) have joined the cast of director Baltasar Kormákur’s CONTRABAND starring Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster and Kate Beckinsale

Via slashfilm, Trent Reznor who scored David Fincher‘s The Social Network revealed, during a New York Times livestream interview that he is scoring Fincher’s take on THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

• Latinoreview has these 4 character posters for RIO. Click on them to enlarge..

• Director Joe Johnston gave CBM, a lengthy description of his feeling, looking back at the overall production of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER..

CAPTAIN AMERICA was a lot of things. Every picture has its highs and lows, its dreads and excited anticipations. To fully understand the CAPTAIN AMERICA experience, I have to keep reminding myself that I had just come off another film I shot in the UK, THE WOLFMAN. The two experiences could not have been more different, in fact in many ways (certainly not all) they were polar opposites. I had three weeks of prep on WOLFMAN, a ridiculously inadequate amount of time to try to bring together the fractured and scattered pieces of the production. I had taken the job mostly because I had a cash flow problem, the only time in my career I’ve ever let finances enter into the decision process. Money is always the wrong reason for doing something that requires passionate devotion. The production was a leaky, rudderless ship in a perfect storm suffering from bad decisions, infighting, reluctance of the powers-that-be to take responsibility, and too many under-qualified cooks in the kitchen. The good news and bad news about directing is that when the picture works you’re showered with all the credit and when it doesn’t work you’re dumped on with all the blame. Both scenarios are undeserved. I take full responsibility for THE WOLFMAN not working because it goes with the territory. There were wonderful aspects of THE WOLFMAN experience. I inherited a crew that was the best of my experience, including a first assistant director without whom I could not have made it through the first two weeks. I had the immense pleasure of working with a cast that was as diverse and multifaceted as it could be. I rediscovered all that I love about London and its environs and I made some lifelong friends, on and off the crew.

• HeyUGuys got their hands on the first featurette for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost‘s sci-fi comedy PAUL..

• EW is on a roll! They got The Coen Bros. (True Grit) to spill their top 5 favorite westerns of all time. If you haven’t seen any of these films, then it means you’ve got some renting to do.

1. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, PG-13)
2. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976, PG)
3. Greaser’s Palace (1972, R)
4. Doc (1971, PG).
5. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972, PG)

• And finally, we end the Movie Info Roundup segment this evening with poster galore, via our good friends at IMP: The poster for THE WARD, the Spanish poster for KUNG FU PANDA 2, the UK Quad for HENRY’S CRIME, the Italian poster for SHELTER, the Japanese poster for BLACK SWAN, and the latest new domestic poster for CARS 2. Don’t forget to click on these images to enlarge..