Today we have a few small updates on when filming will get underway on two big 2012 films: Star Trek 2 and The Avengers.

Simon Pegg, who plays Scotty in Star Trek, recently spoke to Empire and when asked when filming would begin on the sequel, said “I saw Zoe Saldana recently and she reckons that it’s going to be soon. I would imagine it’ll be toward the end of the year, but I can’t guarantee it.”

TrekMovie contacted their sources to see if this was true and they said that while pre-production will begin this year the “sequel is not expected to start shooting until next year, probably in early Summer or late Spring”.

They also say the script is still being written and J.J Abrams (who hasn’t officially signed on to direct yet) will be focusing on producing Mission Impossible 4 this summer.

Next up we have quotes from Chris Hemsworth, who is currently filming Thor and will also play the God of Thunder in The Avengers. On the recent casting of Chris Evans as Captain America he said:

“Fantastic,” Hemsworth told MTV News “I just found out the other day.” “He’s great,” he continued. “He’s got a ton of charisma, and he’s a bloke, and I think he has all the points to pull that off.”

He also spoke about potential directors and mentioned when filming would begin:

“I’ve heard a lot of names bounced around, and then we all gather together next January/February to shoot the thing,” he said. “So, look — any of the people I’ve heard I’d be impressed by. I have no idea who it’s going to be.”

You can watch the video interview below:

Read similar posts to Star Trek 2 and The Avengers filming update at Filmonic

In 1996 there was a Star Trek/X-Men crossover comic published by Marvel, and then another in 1998. Due to rights, copyright and a whole bunch of legal stuff we will never get a movie version of these two worlds colliding on the big screen, but that hasn’t stopped a guy called silverlightsaber with video editing software and free time from making a cool Star Trek vs. X-Men trailer.

I’m not sure a movie featuring the two worlds would actually work on-screen, but this trailer makes me want one nonetheless.

Here’s the creators story behind the trailer:

After an accidental time warp causes the Enterprise to travel to an alternate reality, the crew must somehow find a way back. If not, the universe will collapse from two conflicting realities. Aware of this, Professor Xavier and his X-Men are forced to destroy this threat before everything is wiped out. Honoring one of my favorite comic mini-series ever, this is my version of these two universes colliding.

Click here to check out more of his fan trailers!

Read similar posts to Star Trek vs. X-Men trailer at Filmonic

BEST PICTURE
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

BEST DIRECTOR
Winner: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
James Cameron (Avatar)
Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
Lee Daniels (Precious)
Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)

BEST ACTOR
Winner: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
George Clooney (Up in the Air)
Colin Firth (A Single Man)
Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)

BEST ACTRESS
Winner: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
Helen Mirren (The Last Station)
Carey Mulligan (An Education)
Gabourey Sidibe (Precious)
Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Winner: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Matt Damon (Invictus)
Woody Harrelson (The Messenger)
Christopher Plummer (The Last Station)
Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Winner: Mo’Nique (Precious)
Penelope Cruz (Nine)
Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air)
Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart)
Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Winner: El Secreto de Sus Ojos – The Secret of Their Eyes (Argentina)
Ajami (Israel)
The Milk of Sorrow (Peru)
Un Prophete – A Prophet (France)
The White Ribbon (Germany)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Winner: Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker)
Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
Alessandro Camon, Oren Moverman (The Messenger)
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen (A Serious Man)
Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Tom McCarthy (Up)

BEST ANIMATION
Winner: Up
Coraline
Fantastic Mr Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Winner: Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire)
Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell (District 9)
Nick Hornby (An Education)
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche (In the Loop)
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air)

BEST ART DIRECTION
Winner: Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Winner: Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

BEST SOUND MIXING
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Avatar
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

BEST SOUND EDITING
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Avatar
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Winner: The Weary Kind (theme from Crazy Heart) from Crazy Heart by Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett
Almost There from The Princess and the Frog by Randy Newman
Down in New Orleans from The Princess and the Frog by Randy Newman
Loin de Paname from Paris 36 by Reinhardt Wagner, Frank Thomas
Take It All from Nine by Maury Yeston

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Winner: Up (Michael Giacchino)
Avatar (James Horner)
Fantastic Mr Fox (Alexandre Desplat)
The Hurt Locker (Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders)
Sherlock Holmes (Hans Zimmer)

BEST COSTUMES
Winner: The Young Victoria
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Winner: The Cove
Burma VJ
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Winner: Music by Prudence
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Rabbit a la Berlin

BEST FILM EDITING
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Avatar
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

BEST MAKE-UP
Winner: Star Trek
Il Divo
The Young Victoria

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Winner: Logorama
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
A Matter of Loaf and Death

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Winner: The New Tenants
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Winner: Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

….and there we have it. The 2010 Oscars belonged to The Hurt Locker which picked up 6 Oscars, including an historic win for Kathryn Bigelow who is the first female to win the best director Oscar.

What did you think of the results? Should Avatar have picked up more technical awards? Should Sandra Bullock have won the Best Actress award? Sound off in the comments section below!

Read similar posts to And the 2010 Oscar winners are… at Filmonic

2009 is long gone by now since we’re already in March but we still had a few old releases lurking around (I’m looking at you Sherlock, Alvin, Avatar and The Blind Side), making a lot of money and changing the order of things. So I said to myself, I won’t do this top 10 in January like everyone else, I’ll do it in March when everything will be said and done and all movies in there will stop swapping spots between each other.

The top 10 of 2009 in NA basically looks like this:

1. Avatar (Fox) $706.5M (Still in Theaters)
2. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Paramount/Dreamworks) $402.1M
3. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (WarnerBros) $301.9M
4. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Summit) $296M (SiT)
5. Up (BuenaVista) $293M
6. The Hangover (WarnerBros) $277.3M
7. Star Trek (Paramount) $257.7M
8. The Blind Side (WarnerBros) $248.7M (SiT)
9. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (Fox) $216.5M (SiT)
10. Sherlock Holmes (WarnerBros) $206.4M (SiT)

Half of the movies on that list are still running in theaters but at this point their spots are set in stone.

By now you probably figured out that 2009 was a very good year at the box office, but here’s the thing, I’m not going to bother ranting about how this movie did that or this other movie become a huge surprise, nope, I’ll just let the facts and numbers speak for themself.

General:

• the average ticket price was $7.5 from $7.18 the year before;
• over 1.412 billion tickets were sold (5.3% up from 2008);
• over 10.595 billion were grossed (+10% from 2008), the biggest year ever for Hollywood unadjusted for inflation;
• 518 movies came out in 2009 compared to 605 in 2008;
• The Twilight Saga: New Moon had the biggest opening of the year with $142.8 million;
• The Twilight Saga: New Moon had the biggest single day of the year with $72.7 million on November 20th;
• no movie managed to stay in first place for more then 2 weekends during 2009, Avatar managed 7 weekends but 5 of those were in 2010;
• 4 of the top 10 movies are direct sequels, 2 others come from established franchises and the remaining 4 are original properties;
• the weakest weekend of the year was September 11-13 with $76.2 million;
• the strongest weekend of the year was December 25-27 with $259.9 million (record);
• 44 were first at least a weekend, two of those came from 2008;
• 8 movies were first for 2 weekends;
• 32 movies made more then $100 million (record), 18 more then $150 million (record), 10 more then $200 million (2007 had 11), 7 more then $250 million (record), 3 more then $300 million, 2 more then $400 million (record) and 1 over $700 million (record);
• 16 3D movies were released or re-released in 2009, another record;
• 7 3D movies made more then $100 million and the top 5 biggest 3D hits ever all came out last year;
• Paranormal Activity opened in 12 theaters with $77,873 and went on to make $107.9 million in 2712 theaters (widest weekend) on a budget of $15,000;
• the widest release was Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in 4455 theaters on July 24-26, the biggest ever(The Dark Knight had 4366);

Studios:

• Warner Bros has 4 of the top 10 movies of the year, 5 of the top 25 and 9 in the top 50;
• 12 out of 52 weekends a Warner Bros movie was first;
• 6 WB movies made more then $100 million, 4 more then $200 million and 1 more then $300 million;
• Fox has 2 movies in the top 10 and 6 in the top 25;
• 6 out of 52 weekends a Fox movie was first;
• 6 Fox films have made more then $100 million, 2 more then $200 million and 1 more then $700 million;
• Paramount/DreamWorks has 2 movies in the top 10, 4 in the top 25 and 8 in the top 50;
• 6 out of 52 weekends a Paramount/DreamWorks movie was first;
• 5 Par/DW movies made more then $100 million, 2 more then $200 million and 1 more then $400 million
• Buena Vista (Walt Disney Pictures) has 1 movie in the top 10, 3 in the top 25 and 7 in the top 50;
• 7 weekends a Buena Vista movie was first;
• 5 BV movies made more then $100 million and 1 more then 200 million;
• Sony has no movies in the top 10 for the first time since 2005;
• what it does have is 4 movies in the top 25 and 10 in the top 50;
• 10 weekends a Sony movie was first;
• 5 Sony movies made more then $100 million;
• Summit Entertainment has 1 movie in the top 10 and 2 movies in the top 50;
• one Summit movie made more then $100 million in 2009 (guess that movie);
• Summit had 3 weekends in first place last year;
• Weinstein Company has 1 movie in the top 25, 1 weekend in first place and 1 movie that made more then $100 million;
• Lionsgate, Focus Feature and Overture each have one movie in the top 50;
• Lionsgate also has 3 weekends in first place thanks exclusively to Tyler Perry;

Read similar posts to 2009 at the Box Office: North America edition at Filmonic

Today the nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards were announced, and as expected Avatar picked up quite a few in a number of categories. Sandra Bullock, Christoph Waltz, Jeremy Renner, Morgan Freeman, Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep also recieved nominations for their acting.

You can see the full list of nominations below:

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up in the Air

Actor in a Leading Role
Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
George Clooney – Up in the Air
Colin Firth – A Single Man
Morgan Freeman – Invictus
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker

Actor in a Supporting Role
Matt Damon – Invictus
Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

Actress in a Leading Role
Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
Helen Mirren – The Last Station
Carey mulligan – An Education
Gabourey Sidibe – Precious
Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia

Actress in a Supporting Role
Penelope Cruz – Nine
Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air
Mo’Nique – Precious

Animated Feature
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

Art Direction
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Cinematography
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

Directing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
Up in the Air

Music (Original Score)
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
Up

Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
District 9
An Education
In The Loop
Precious
Up in the Air

Writing (Original Screenplay)
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Up

The winners will be revealed on March 7th in a ceremony presented by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.

Read similar posts to 2010 Oscar nominations announced at Filmonic

The Academy released a list of 15 films in contention for the 2010 Visual Effects Oscar last month, and now they’ve narrowed the list down to 7 films. Here they are:

Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Star Trek
Terminator Salvation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2012

Later this month members of the visual effects branch will watch excerpts from the movies, and the list will then be narrowed down to 3. Earlier this year it was a showdown between Iron Man, The Dark Knight and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with Button’s ageing effects coming out on top.

If I were a betting man i’d put my money on Avatar. It’ll be interesting to see which 3 make it through to the next round.

Which film do you think should win the Visual Effects Oscar?

Read similar posts to 7 films in Visual Effects Oscar race at Filmonic

As we near the end of a year there comes a time when sites and blogs across the net look back at the year and turn it into a list. There are hundreds of ‘best’ and ‘worst’ movie lists already out there, and more will be coming. Because of this I’ve decided to do something a bit different. Every day between now and 2010 I will be posting some of the best trailers that were released this year, regardless of whether the eventual film sucked or not.

I’ll begin with one of my personal favourites: the third trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek.

The first teaser was released way back at the beginning of 2008 alongside Cloverfield, and it showed welders constructing the Enterprise with space sound bites echoing in the background. Fans must have got bored of watching that teaser as Paramount decided to push the film back from December 2008 to May 2009, and the first official trailer with footage wasn’t released until November 08.

However, the fans patience was rewarded with the release of the third trailer for the film in March. The trailer was so epic that it made non-trekkies, such as myself, want a ticket for it’s opening weekend. It also won 2 Golden Trailer Awards.

Here it is:

Music: Freedom Fighters by Two Steps from Hell

While looking for the trailer I came across this video which contains all the Star Trek trailers in one. The first two may not have been released in 2009, but they’re still cool!

I’ll be posting another trailer tomorrow, and if you have any suggestions feel free to send it over in an email or leave it in the comments section below.

Read similar posts to Best Trailers of 2009: Star Trek at Filmonic

Twitter grew tremendously in 2009, mainly because it has become a people search engine. News, events, and movies become trending topics and you can see what people are saying about them in real-time. As we will soon be heading into 2010 Twitter has complied a list of the top trending topics (ie. most talked about) of 2009 for different categories, and below is the list of movies that took over the Twitter-sphere this year:

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. G.I. Joe

I have no idea what True Blood is doing there. Harry Potter and New Moon were expected, however the movie that takes the #3 spot is interesting. I can remember around the time District 9 was released Twitter was full of positive buzz for the film, and that buzz most likely encouraged people to see it. I have no way of proving it but I’m pretty sure the Twitter buzz contributed to the film making over $200 million worldwide. Twitter probably contributed to the success of Paranormal Activity too.

What can we expect for next year? Well we have Eclipse and Deathly Hallows being released so they will probably hit the top spots again. I can imagine Iron Man 2 becoming a trending topic for a while, and maybe Kick-Ass will be the ‘District 9′ of 2010?

(You can follow Filmonic on Twitter here)

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Before the cast of Star Trek was announced there was a rumor floating around that Matt Damon had been approached to play James T. Kirk, the role Chris Pine eventually played. At the time Damon told IGN that it was “just an internet rumor” and that “the Kirk in [the] movie is much younger. These are the early years… I think [Abrams is] hiring a twenty year old actor”.

Now, 2 years on, we finally get the truth as Star Trek director J.J Abrams recently spoke to MTV about the rumors and Damon.

MTV: There was all this talk in terms of when you guys were starting to nail down casting. Everyone from Matt Damon to people we haven’t heard of were in the running. How much of that was true? Did you ever consider going with a big name like Mr. Damon?

Abrams: I did, but not for the role of James Kirk. I went to Damon for the role of Kirk’s father, and he declined in the most gracious and understandable and logical of reasons. We lucked out with Chris Hemsworth, and he did a great job. Maybe it would have been distracting to have someone as massively famous as Matt Damon in that role. … The decision was made very early on to have actors who were not necessarily the most famous but the most right for the role.

I’m quite glad Damon turned it down. I was always conscious of the fact that Spock’s mother was Winona Rider whenever she was on-screen, and it would have been the same with Damon. Chris Hemsworth did a great job, and he’s now preparing for Thor, so Matt Damon actually did him a favour.

Read similar posts to So which role in Star Trek did Matt Damon turn down? at Filmonic

Before Chris Hemsworth landed the lead in Thor (and a part in The Avengers) he had a small role in J.J Abram’s Star Trek as George Kirk. He was the heroic guy who sacrificed himself to save the crew members and his pregnant wife at the beginning of the movie. Director J.J Abrams recently spoke to MTV and commented on Hemsworth’s ‘leading man look’, and he always hoped that Star Trek would give the actor more opportunities.

“He’s so crazy handsome and he’s so strapping with the classic leading man look. I sort of wish I had dirtied him up a little bit, messed his hair up a little bit.”

“The guy’s hair up until the last moment is sort of perfect. In retrospect I look at that and am like a little smudge or a hair out of place would have been a good thing,” he said. “The guy is a sweetheart and terrific actor.”

According to Abrams, the last time he had a chance to chat with Hemsworth was prior to his “Thor” announcement, but he knew the actor was destined for big things.

“[Hemsworth] was in a moment where he was trying to figure out what his next thing was going to be and he stayed strong in terms of what his commitments were to various projects. I knew that he was going to be given a lot of opportunities sooner or later and I was hoping it would be off of Trek,” said Abrams.

Chris Hemsworth will be picking up the hammer in a few months as Thor is expected to start filming early next year.

Read similar posts to J.J Abrams on Thor’s Chris Hemsworth at Filmonic