Christian Bale and Michael Fassbender have previously been linked to the lead role in Darren Aronofsky’s next project Noah, which will be a big screen adaptation of the Noah’s Ark story. Now Deadline reports that the Black Swan director wants Russell Crowe as his lead.

No deal has been reached, but apparently “signs are pointing that way”. The site also mentions Aronofsky is eyeing Liam Neeson for another role, but no further details are given. If Crowe ends up play Noah it’ll be another iconic role to add to his list, which already includes Maximus in Gladiator, Robin Hood, and Jor-El in Man of Steel which will be out next year.

Below is a French trailer for the graphic novel released last year which gives us an idea of what to expect:

Last year Aronofsky said:

“Since I was a kid, I have been moved and inspired by the story of Noah and his family’s journey. The imaginations of countless generations have sparked to this epic story of faith. It’s my hope that I can present a window into Noah’s passion and perseverance for the silver screen”.

Academy Award nominated screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator) is re-writing the script and the aim is to begin production this summer.

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William John Neeson was born June 7th, 1952 in Northern Ireland. In 1981 he made his debut in Excalibur with a very small part, and 12 years later he won the role of Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List which put him firmly on the map.

He’s had important roles in many of his films but very rarely played the lead. That changed in 2009 with Taken, a movie that turned him from a mentor that often died (*SPOILERS* Batman Begins, Gangs of New York, Kingdom of Heaven, Star Wars) to a bonafide badass in subsequent films such Unknown, The A-Team, and now in The Grey and the upcoming Taken sequel, although he is going back to mentor mode in Battleship this year.

Today we take a look at Liam Neeson’s top 10 biggest box office hits in North America, unadjusted.

I’ll start with a bit of a disclaimer first, after a long debate between me and myself, I’ve decided to include the first film in the Chronicles of Narnia series where Liam Neeson voices the lion Aslan (even though Box Office Mojo won’t). The subsequent movies won’t be featured here because his part in them became much shorter.

10. Unknown (2011) $63.6 million – An engaging thriller about a man that loses his identity after a car accident. So what do you do when not even your wife recognizes you? Well, to find out you have to watch Unknown and trust me, it’s not a waste of time.

9. The A-Team (2010) $77.2 million – A fun action flick based on the popular 80′s hit TV series. It’s a bit light on brain cells but definitely makes up for that with great action set pieces. Don’t listen to the haters out there, give it a try, there’s nothing wrong with some brainless fun now and again.

8. Gangs of New York (2002) $77.8 million – Martin Scorsese’s epic about the gang wars in 19th century New York. Liam Neeson plays Leonardo DiCaprio’s dad in the film, a short yet pivotal part. I said it before, I’ll say it again, Gangs of New York is a must see.

7. The Haunting (1999) $91.4 million – I remember being so hyped for this back in 1999, although I can’t remember exactly why. Probably a combination of the previews and the general premise of the film. If The Grey is Liam Neeson against wolves, The Haunting was him against ghosts, with a twist thrown for good measure.

6. Schindler’s List (1993) $96 million – The story of a true superhero for over 1100 people and winner of 7 Oscars in 1994 including Best Picture and Best Director for Steven Spielberg. Liam Neeson had to settle for a nomination only. Schindler’s List is not an easy film to watch but if you can (and you should), it’s definitely worth every second of those 3 hours and 15 minutes.

5. Taken (2009) $145 million – One of the great action flicks of the last few years, for me at least, up there with the likes of Casino Royale and The Bourne Ultimatum. After grossing little over $80 million internationally over the course of 2008, the film finally opened in the US in January 2009. By that time it was already available on Blu-ray and DVD in many countries around the world yet Taken opened with $24.7 million during the Super Bowl Weekend and went on to gross $145 million, becoming one of the biggest surprise hits of that year. In October Fox will release a completely unnecessary sequel that I’ll probably end up watching opening night.

4. Clash of the Titans (2010) $163.2 million – Liam Neeson makes for a great Zeus here but everything else is just average at best. Suffice to say, in March I won’t be catching Wrath of the Titans on opening night.

3. Batman Begins (2005) $2005.3 million – How awesome was Liam Neeson here, right? Now this is obviously a fantastic movie, my favorite of the Nolan Batman flicks actually and having Liam Neeson return in The Dark Knight Rises makes me scream like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert.

2. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) $291.7 million – So Aslan being a metaphor for God here, there’s no surprise that Liam Neeson’s deep gravelly voice was a perfect fit. Based on C. S. Lewis’ famous children novel, the movie became a massive success for Disney but none of the sequels that followed managed to recreate the same magic or box office numbers. It’s a great family movie, a must have in any DVD or Blu-ray collection.

1. Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace (1999) $431 million – The film Star Wars fans love to hate. I was 12 when I saw this in theaters and at the time I can say that I enjoyed myself, it was a good time at the movies. Today I can see why some hate The Phantom Menace so much (Jar Jar, you devil you) but I personally still can’t join their ranks. I can’t help myself, it might not be a great movie but it’s certainly not a bad one either, for me at least.

Finally a movie that didn’t make this top 10 but certainly would make my personal one, Kingdom of Heaven. A great movie even thought Liam Neeson had a rather short part. Then there’s also Love Actually, great date movie, definitely one his best. Also he was rather badass in Sam Raimi’s Darkman way back in 1990. So what’s your favorite Liam Neeson film?

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I’ve been trying to stay as spoiler-free as possible for The Dark Knight Rises, but when The Social Network actor Josh Pence was cast as a young Ra’s Al Ghul last year it suggested Liam Neeson’s character from Batman Begins may have an influence on the story.

At the time it was mentioned Pence would be playing Ra’s Al Ghul in flashbacks, and now it appears the villain will be in another set of flashbacks with Neeson reprising the role.

Neeson confirmed he’d shot some scenes while talking to ShowBizSpy:

“I can tell you nothing about Dark Knight Rises, seriously,” says Liam. “I was on set for maybe an hour-and-a-half and the director didn’t tell me anything of what it’s about.

“So, I’m being very honest when I say I have no idea what’s going to happen.”

Christopher Nolan likes to keep audiences in the dark until the film hits, but some fans may have already figured out how Ra’s Al Ghul is connected to the third film, and Bane. I’m going to remain willingly oblivious.

The Dark Knight Rises is set for release on July 20th, 2012. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman will reprise their roles alongside Anne Hathaway (Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

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The Grey is a hell of a way to kick off 2012. It’s part horror film and part survival flick, with all of the Liam Neeson badassery you’ve come to expect from his on-screen personas over the past few years. Joe Carnahan (Neeson’s director on the under-appreciated 2010 film, The A-Team) shows he’s a filmmaker capable of far more than gritty crime dramas – this is one of the best survival films I’ve ever seen. 

I will warn you, though – if you’re going to see the movie exclusively for the wolf-boxing scene shown in the trailer, there’s a chance you’ll be a bit disappointed. But to be completely honest, that was the sole reason I was interested in this movie, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that The Grey has much more to offer than one gimmicky sequence.

John Ottman (Neeson) is a sharpshooter working at an oil refinery in Alaska. Their base camp is filled with “men unfit for mankind”: fugitives, ex-cons, the works. Ottman’s job is to protect the men working outside from wild animals, and he’s pretty damn good at it. But when their plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness, the few surviving men must battle more than just the freezing temperatures and barren landscape to stay alive: a pack of wolves stalks their every move, killing them off one by one. Through harsh, unforgiving terrain and relentless pursuit by the wolves, the men must put their differences aside if they plan to make it out alive.

Though other films in the survival genre often touch on themes like fate and faith, The Grey overtly addresses these issues and, most importantly, does so in an interesting way. It wisely steers clear of using its characters as ciphers. (Example: it doesn’t feature one survivor as a preacher and another a doctor – GRRR, faith vs. science!) Instead, Carnahan chooses to depict his world in a startlingly bleak fashion, taking an existential approach to the survivor’s plight. Characters die in terrible and sometimes heartbreaking ways, lorded over by the pitiless whims of nature. It’s not the easiest thing to stomach, and the director goes out of his way to make us feel the hopelessness of his characters’ situation. Even the cinematography – beautiful as it is in some instances – soaks in a dreary palette, consuming the audience with the melancholy of the snow-swept mountains.

As one would expect from a Joe Carnahan film, the action is just as monumental as the picturesque backdrops. The plane crash is frantic and fierce, the most impressive I’ve seen since the one depicted in “LOST.” There is a chasm crossing reminiscent of the one in Cliffhanger, and at one point a character crashes into a tree in what is surely the most brutal and bone crunching depiction of such an act on film. I won’t go over each setpiece, but they’re all realistic and effective; Carnahan knows what looks good on screen, and he goes the extra mile to get it.

Neeson’s performance anchors the entire picture. There’s a subplot involving his character’s wife, and the actor adds an emotional heft that, if it were anyone else in this role, may not have translated well. Neeson seems to pull directly from his own life experience to reach this part of the performance (see his tragic family history regarding his own wife if you’re unfamiliar), and he effortlessly makes the quiet moments ring true. Conversely, he snarls his way through smoldering wreckage and dense forest alike as the self-imposed alpha male of the survivors, his perseverance alternately inspiring and angering his cohorts. At one point, he punctures the plane’s fuel tank and fills a thermos with gas; while he actually uses it to make torches later in the film, his character is such a hardass that it wouldn’t have been out of place if he growled and chugged that gas like a beer.

The supporting cast is full of mostly unrecognizable faces. Dermot Mulroney is the only name that I recall having seen before, and though he’s most best known for having a name oftentimes confused with actor Dylan McDermot, Mulroney was great in this movie. But the standout – aside from Neeson, of course – comes in actor Frank Grillo, who plays memorable psychopath John Diaz. (Grillo actually had a small role in Warrior, one of my favorite films of 2011.) It’s an unhinged performance full of bravado, and watching him react to his hubris was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the film for me. Maybe it was the fact that they were essentially trapped in snow, but the supporting cast of The Grey seemed to hearken back to John Carpenter’s The Thing - a bunch of guys with different philosophies forced to band together due to an outrageous circumstance, battling paranoia and the elements at the same time.

The horror elements are also on display in the form of the wolves, terrifying creatures that serve as the Monsters of the film, capable of brutal attacks from any angle at any second. Thanks to some grisly kills early in the film – many of which involve loud jump scares – Carnahan puts the audience on edge for the entire movie. Since we’ve seen what the wolves are capable of, we never fully relax as the characters move through the forest, pausing to take shelter, sit around a fire, and occasionally chat about their personal ideologies. What once would have been a fairly normal campfire conversation becomes a ticking time bomb of tension and trepidation; like this entire movie, it’s very well-executed. (Imagine the bar scene from Inglourious Basterds, but with wolves instead of Nazis.)

At its core, The Grey is a simple genre exercise about man versus nature. Thanks to some excellent filmmaking, compelling character work, and dynamic action, it rises above convention and emerges as an entertaining and accomplished movie that stands among the best survival films ever made. Until next time…

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Another big trailer debut today, this time for Wrath of the Titans. With the sequel set for release in just over three months on March 30, 2012 i’ve been wondering when Warner Bros. would start the promotional run, but it starts now.

While technically a teaser this trailer is big on special effects and money-shots, and with The Kraken being a challenge for Perseus in Clash of the Titans they’ve gone all out with the Titans in this one. Also, Sam Worthington has hair.

Watch below:

A decade after defeating the Kraken, Perseus (Sam Worthington) cannot ignore his true calling when Hades (Ralph Fiennes), along with Zeus’ godly son, Ares (Edgar Ramírez), switch loyalty and make a deal with Kronos to capture Zeus (Liam Neeson). The Titans’ strength grows stronger as Zeus’ remaining godly powers are siphoned, and hell is unleashed on earth.

Enlisting the help of the warrior Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), Poseidon’s demigod son, Argenor (Toby Kebbell), and fallen god Hephaestus (Bill Nighy), Perseus bravely embarks on a treacherous quest into the underworld to rescue Zeus, overthrow the Titans and save mankind.

Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: Los Angeles) directs. What do you think? Could it be better than the first one?

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Universal Pictures today released the second official trailer for Battleship, the movie based on Hasbro’s naval combat board game starring Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Alexander Skarsgård, Rihanna and Liam Neeson.

From the trailer it’s clear director Peter Berg, Universal, and the marketing team have been very much influenced by Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise. It sounds, feels, and looks just like the first Transformers movie, which was probably Universal’s aim as that ended up spawning a billion dollar franchise.

You can watch the trailer below:

Peter Berg (Hancock) produces and directs Battleship, an epic action-adventure that unfolds across the seas, in the skies and over land as our planet fights for survival against a superior force. Based on Hasbro’s classic naval combat game, Battleship stars Taylor Kitsch as Lt. Alex Hopper, a Naval officer assigned to the USS John Paul Jones; Brooklyn Decker as Sam Shane, a physical therapist and Hopper’s fiancée; Alexander SkarsgÃ¥rd as Hopper’s older brother, Stone, Commanding Officer of the USS Sampson; Rihanna as Petty Officer Raikes, Hopper’s crewmate and a weapons specialist on the USS John Paul Jones; and international superstar Liam Neeson as Hopper and Stone’s superior (and Sam’s father), Admiral Shane.

Battleship opens fire on May 18th, 2012. Will you be buying a ticket?

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Open Road Films has released the second trailer for Joe Carnahan’s thriller The Grey, which stars Liam Neeson as a survivor of a plane crash in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, with the increasingly relentless environment as his only enemy. That is, until wolves appear.

Watch the trailer below, from Moviefone:

In Alaska, an oil drilling team struggle to survive after a plane crash strands them in the wild. Hunting the humans are a pack of wolves who see them as intruders.

We don’t see much of the wolves, which is probably intentional. Bad CGI (like in Twilight) has the potential to turn people off, so only giving us a brief glimpse here and there serves to increase the fear and threat, and keeps people interested. Even if the CGI of the wolves is sub-par in the film i’m sure everyone will still enjoy Liam Neeson brawling with them.

The Grey will be released January 27, 2012.

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Anarchy ensues on the streets of Gotham City, at least that’s what we get out of the recent batch of videos coming from the set of The Dark Knight Rises, now filming in New York. Three videos showing different takes from what looks like an important scene in the movie found their way onto YouTube and thanks to IGN, we have them here for you. As always, if you want to go into The Dark Knight Rises spoiler-free, I recommend you skip this.

In the last video we see Batman going up against Bane in the middle of the street, surrounded by people beating the crap out of each other. SPOILER, if you ask me, it doesn’t seem like he’s winning that fight. Also, with so many extras on the set, this looks really expensive, not to mention they are filming on Wall Street no less. This could end up costing easily $250 million when done. But considering The Dark Knight made over $1 billion in box office receipts worldwide, Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. spared no expenses on this one.

There’s also a video showing some photos of Batman and Bane from the set:

Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine and Liam Neeson. Set to open July 20th 2012, The Dark Knight Rises is easily one of the most highly anticipated movies of next year and videos like this only serve to send the hype meter into overdrive.

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Open Road Films has released a teaser for Joe Carnahan’s man-vs-the elements thriller, The Grey. The film stars Liam Neeson as a survivor of a plane crash in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, with the increasingly relentless environment as his only enemy.

Watch the teaser below:

In Alaska, an oil drilling team struggle to survive after a plane crash strands them in the wild. Hunting the humans are a pack of wolves who see them as intruders.

From the brief looks of the teaser, The Grey paints a horrifyingly vivid, and obviously frigid, story of survival and a refreshingly new setting for a plane crash as opposed to the usual tropical ambiance that the media loves so well, most notably in the TV series Lost. Neeson has been recently proving his potential in the action/thriller category with films such as Taken and Unknown, and his role in The Grey seems to be no exception, giving us something that we never knew we even wanted until now: Liam Neeson fist fighting a wolf!

The Grey releases January 27, 2012.

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Liam Neeson closed his deal in March to return as the highly skilled CIA officer in Taken 2, and his on-screen daughter Maggie Grace also signed on for the sequel.

In a recent interview producer Luc Besson revealed Famke Janssen would also be back, and said filming is scheduled to begin in October.

From Coming Soon:

Besson told us that Colombiana director Olivier Megaton has been using his time in Los Angeles to scout locations for the sequel to Taken, which will shoot there for a little bit, and the film itself will start production in October. He said that everyone is back for the sequel including Famke Janssen, who had a small role as Liam Neeson’s ex-wife in the first movie.

No story details have been revealed so we don’t know who gets ‘taken’ this time round, but earlier this year it was mentioned part of the movie would be shot in Istanbul, so some of the action will likely be set there.

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