“They can dredge up old cadavers in my closet. I’m not running for president. I’m a f—ing filmmaker!”

-Guillermo Del Toro on the resurfacing of a 2006 interview where he said he was not a fan of heroic fantasy

It seems the casting for Transformers 2 is well underway. Earlier today we heard that Superbad actor Jonah Hill was in negotiations for a part, and now IESB say that Australian actress Teresa Palmer has landed a role. Aussie newspaper Courier Mail reported today:

She was up, up and away as part of the cast of the beleaguered Justice League of America, but Teresa Palmer’s film fortunes have transformed again.

While her Justice role as baddie Talia al Ghul is seemingly in a permanent holding pattern, the talented Aussie actress, pictured, has apparently landed a role in the Transformers sequel, Transformers 2.

Her casting follows an Aussie theme for director Michael Bay. The blockbuster auteur cast another Aussie, Rachael Taylor, in the first live-action Transformers feature and the Tassie actress has been busy ever since, appearing in the Alan Rickman drama Bottle Shock and more recently Deception with Michelle Williams.

Palmer, too, has been busy of late, moving swiftly from the postponed George Miller-directed Justice League to star opposite Adam Sandler in Bedtime Stories.

IESB think that Palmer will be playing Sam’s (Shia LaBeouf) ex-girlfriend - late teens to early 20s, cute and cerebral– a total arty girl that leads her own punk band…

I’m hoping Michael Bay is seeing the obvious here. Teresa Plamers is Shia’s ex, Megan Fox is his new girl. This will no doubt cause friction and will result in a catfight in robot lube!

…maybe?

I’ve got so used to The Dark Knight’s recent viral campaign that I forgot that trailers can just appear online. Just like that…online. No running around cities in the dark looking for clues. It’s just here!

Below you will see a new trailer for The Incredible Hulk, which is much better than the first one. We get to see more of the story, more action, more effects. I am actually looking forward to this movie now!

A new French poster for the Vin Diesel’s sci-fi action-thriller Babylon A.D. has been revealed by Allocine and the movie’s official French site will soon be launched at BAD-lefilm.com with a teaser trailer.

So Sir Ian McKellen will be putting on the robe yet again in The Hobbit. However, it has been more than 5 years since he last played the wizard. Will be be able to get back into the ‘Gandalf zone’?

Luckily, Ian McKellen gave some vital information on TV about how to prepare for the role. All he has to do is watch this back and he is sorted!

This summer is shaping up to be the BIGGEST comic book showdown in history.

I don’t know if any of you have thought about it, but there are SIX movies releasing this summer based on comic books. That’s more than any other summer, EVER!

It’s a wonder they’re all going to make money (because they will!)…!

“It’s not a fad,” Marvel Studios president of production Kevin Feige said. “It’s the new archetype for the summer blockbuster. Everybody loves special effects, everybody loves epic entertainment, and that’s what comics have been delivering for decades and decades.”

“If they were all about a guy who runs into an alley and changed into a costume or into a phone booth to put on a mask,” he continues, “they would have come and gone in a year or two.”

Interesting!

Which do YOU think is going to make the most money?

IRON MAN - May 2
THE INCREDIBLE HULK - June 13
WANTED - June 27
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY - July 11
THE DARK KNIGHT - July 18
PUNISHER: WAR ZONE - September 12

My money’s on The Dark Knight… Batman Begins scored with $205 million, and TDK is expected to make upwards of $280 million. I’d wager that it’ll hit $300 mil. Don’t underestimate the power of Heath’s last completed performance!

Great news for Lord of The Rings fans! Although it was assumed Ian McKellen would be picking up his staff once again for The Hobbit, it has now been confirmed by the good man himself. The same mouth that bellowed the words ‘You shall not pass!’, spoke to Empire at the Speed Racer premiere in London. (Imagine that, Gandalf watching Speed Racer)

“Yes, it’s true,” he said. “I spoke to Guillermo in the very room that Peter Jackson offered me the part and he confirmed that I would be reprising the role. Obviously, it’s not a part that you turn down, I loved playing Gandalf.”

So he’s happy to be back in the robes again?

“We talk occasionally and he’s looking forward to coming out of retirement, yes,” he said. “Guillermo will be getting around to starting the script in about six weeks when he’s finished filming Hellboy 2.”

The major question on everybody’s lips is what are they going to do with the second film, which takes place directly after The Hobbit and before Fellowship of the Ring?

“Well I’ve read The Hobbit so I’ve got a good idea of what the story would be,” said McKellen. “But as to how it’s going to work over two films and what going to happen on screen, well Guillermo has not got down to working out the major details yet – I can tell you it’s going to be amazing though.”

McKellen also spoke about the Magneto movie which may be on the cards.

“They are making a Magneto spin-off but I don’t think it will involve me because it’s about the younger Magneto, it’s a back-story.”

But surely with the anti-aging special effects employed in the third X-Men film he could well reprise the role, at least for a cameo?

“Would I be willing to return to play a young Magneto? A cameo in my own movie? I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think I could get away with playing a 19-year-old.”

The Joker is up to his old tricks again! A new Dark Knight trailer was recently shown to 300 die hard Batman fans in 12 cities across the country. One person from each event was given a special 35mm version of the trailer as a special treat. However, when they finally got the trailers up and running, they realized that the videos had been tampered with…

Video is a little bad, but make it fullscreen if you need to!

Why so serious?!

There’s some legal shiz going on over at TechCrunch.com! Yesterday the site wrote the following:

CrunchGear and TechCrunch are hosting a special event tomorrow, April 30 (Wednesday) in San Francisco - a special screening of the movie Iron Man, two days before the official May 2 release.

We’ve rented out the largest theater we could find in the area - The AMC Metreon in San Francisco, which will hold 600 people. Everyone is welcome to attend, and the movie starts at 7:15 pm (you can arrive as early as 6:30).

That’s cool right? Well not according to Marvel and their legal team:

Marvel has sent us a cease and desist letter demanding that we cancel the Iron Man event tomorrow at the AMC Metreon in San Francisco. We are not canceling the event yet - stay tuned as our lawyers work this out.

Just to be clear, we paid the full ticket price for every seat and are fully authorized to do this. This is unbelievable and stupid in so many ways, and goes right to the top of the list of moronic legal moves against us. And he even ends the note with a “please don’t print” message.

Update: Just spoke to Althoff. He’s serious. And threatening lots of further action. He mentioned “public safety.”

Update 2: Just for the record, we began the whole process by calling the group sales phone number on the official Iron Man movie site, and worked directly with Paramount on the screening.

Update 3: As of right now, AMC is telling Marvel where to stick it, and the show is still on. More in the morning.

I can see where Marvel are coming from, I mean the site is called TechCrunch, there are lots of tech savvy people who will be going to the screening. Hollywood fears technology, because technology means that someone from the other side of the world can see a movie within hours of it being released. The last thing Marvel wants are 600 bootleg versions of Iron Man appearing online for thousands of people to watch days before the movie is actually released. I am pretty sure Marvel would have no problem at all if The Priests and Nuns Association were holding the same event.

Another reason Marvel may be concerned is down to the fact that TechCrunch gets well over 1 million visitors a month. TechCrunch are basically inviting thousands of people to an event that can only hold 600. If there are 300 people who get turned away it will obviously cause chaos, protests, carnage and death.

There could be other reasons, and I am sure there are. Paramount did not have a problem with it, however Marvel do. I am sure we will find out the outcome of all of this soon.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Superbad actor Jonah Hill is in talks to play the sidekick of Shia LaBeouf’s character Sam Witwicky.

Jonah Hill is in early negotiations to costar opposite Shia LaBeouf in Transformers 2 for DreamWorks and Paramount. Hill (Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) will provide the comic relief as a sidekick to Shia’s Sam Witwicky. (A source tells EW.com that he’ll play Sam’s college roommate, but DreamWorks won’t confirm.) The sequel is set to begin shooting this summer.

I was hoping Transformers 2 would be going down the more serious route, and it still may do. However, it always annoys me when actors like Jonah Hill are put in movies like Transformers. It keeps reminding you that what are watching is still a movie, and that actor you see in front of you was in Superbad. I had the same feeling when Shia LaBeouf popped up in Charlies Angels: Full Throttle (yes I saw that). It’s just typical Hollywood. No doubt Jonah will be playing a slightly more scared version of his character Seth in Superbad, but it will probably make everyone laugh. So yay for fun!