With filming on Pacific Rim scheduled to begin during the first week of November director Guillermo del Toro is continuing to fill out the cast. Charlie Hunnam, Charlie Day, Rinko Kikuchi, Max Martini and Idris Elba are on-board so far, and they will now be joined by Willem Dafoe and Rob Kazinsky.

Willem Dafoe, best known for playing the Green Goblin in Spider-Man, “is being eyed as a rogue scientist with expertise on alien creatures” according to Variety.

British actor Rob Kazinsky was set to appear in The Hobbit as Fili the dwarf, but he had to pull out in April due to personal/health reasons. Luckily for the actor Guillermo del Toro may have remembered him from his time on The Hobbit, and has cast him as “a member of the team trying to defeat the invaders.”

Pacific Rim currently has a release date set for July 12th, 2013, and del Toro has said it will be “the biggest giant monster movie ever made”.

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Filming on Disney’s John Carter of Mars has been under-way since the beginning of the year, and now they have finally set a June 8, 2012 release date for their sci-fi epic.

John Carter of Mars will be director Andrew Stanton’s first big live-action movie after working on Finding Nemo and Wall-E. The cast includes Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins (Gambit and Kayla from X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Thomas Haden Church who played Sandman in Spider-Man 3, Mark Strong, Dominic West, James Purefoy and Samantha Morton. Willem Dafoe will also be playing a 10-foot alien with four arms called Tars Tarkas.

Here is the synopsis:

Carter is an American Civil War veteran who goes to sleep in a cave after being chased by Apache Indians and wakes up on Mars, here called Barsoom. Formerly an Earthlike world, it became less hospitable to life due to its advanced age: as the oceans evaporated, and the atmosphere thinned, the planet devolved into partial barbarism with the inhabitants hardened and warlike, fighting one another to survive. Barsoomians distribute scarce water supplies via a worldwide system of canals, controlled by quarreling city-states. The Martian atmosphere is maintained by a power plant. Carter rescues a humanoid Red Martian princess, Dejah Thoris, from the belligerent four-armed Green Martians, whose respect he gains for his superior strength and fighting ability. He enlists the Green Martians’ assistance in winning a civil war, and saves Mars from destruction when its atmosphere plant malfunctions.

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While on the rounds promoting Daybreakers Willem Dafoe revealed to io9 that he will be heading to London next week to begin work on John Carter of Mars. Dafoe will be playing a 10-foot alien with four arms called Tars Tarkas.

What was the appeal in doing John Carter of Mars?

Andrew Stanton, the material, the idea that I’m going to play a 10-foot Martian Warrior. I live very much in the independent cinema world, which is great and that’s where we find a lot of great filmmakers and sometimes more freedom to make personal films. But the flip side of that is, sometimes there isn’t a lot of protection or care. There may be an emotional rigor, but sometimes you don’t have the the technical stuff to work with. You can have lousy lighting [and] no time to prepare properly. You are very vulnerable.

When someone asks you to make a movie directed by Andrew Stanton, with Disney behind, a big tent-pole movie… I know from making Finding Nemo how these Pixar guys work. They’re very thorough , they’re very rigorous, they really get it. It’s a real pleasure because you get so protected because they are so well researched. And you get so much help trying to make something. I think I got excited about that. I like to go back and forth, but it was time to do a big movie again.

Are you going to have to wear two extra prosthetic arms?

I’m not telling. And you know what, I can’t talk that much about it, because I don’t know yet. We don’t even start shooting next week it’s part of prep, I go to London and we do the things that we need to do to know how to start this project… I think officially production starts the 18th.

John Carter of Mars will be director Andrew Stanton’s first big live-action movie after working on Finding Nemo and Wall-E. As well as Dafoe, the cast includes Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins (Gambit and Kayla from X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Thomas Haden Church who played Sandman in Spider-Man 3, Mark Strong who we recently saw in Sherlock Holmes, Dominic West, James Purefoy and Samantha Morton.

Carter is an American Civil War veteran who goes to sleep in a cave after being chased by Apache Indians and wakes up on Mars, here called Barsoom. Formerly an Earthlike world, it became less hospitable to life due to its advanced age: as the oceans evaporated, and the atmosphere thinned, the planet devolved into partial barbarism with the inhabitants hardened and warlike, fighting one another to survive. Barsoomians distribute scarce water supplies via a worldwide system of canals, controlled by quarreling city-states. The Martian atmosphere is maintained by a power plant. Carter rescues a humanoid Red Martian princess, Dejah Thoris, from the belligerent four-armed Green Martians, whose respect he gains for his superior strength and fighting ability. He enlists the Green Martians’ assistance in winning a civil war, and saves Mars from destruction when its atmosphere plant malfunctions.

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Vampires are currently the in thing at the moment with Twilight and True Blood dominating the big and small screen. So far I haven’t been ‘bitten’ as it were, and haven’t watched anything vampire related in years. Although that could change after seeing the trailer for Daybreakers.

The film is set in 2019 where a plague transforms the world’s population into vampires. With fewer humans to provide blood, the vampires seek to farm the remaining humans and to find a way to continue their existence. Meanwhile, a secret team of vampires uncover a way that would rescue the human race.

The trailer flew under my radar when it was released a few months ago, so here’s a new poster for the film along with the trailer.

Daybreakers stars Ethan Hawke, Isabel Lucas, Sam Neill, Willem Dafoe and will be released January 8th 2010.

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The trailer for Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox is now online. It’s actually quite refreshing to see a kids movie that isn’t all CGI’d with wide eyed animals. It’s got a retro feel to it. When I first watched the trailer it kinda freaked me out a little, especially the rat, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it gave a few kids nightmares. However, after I watched it a few more times it gradually grew on me.

As the trailer shows, the film has quite a lot of cool actors providing their voices, people such as George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Brian Cox and Adrien Brody. Fantastic Mr. Fox will be released on November 13th in the US and October 23rd in the UK

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French site Filmsactu got their hands on some new images from Fantastic Mr. Fox. The film has quite a lot of cool actors providing their voices, people such as George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Brian Cox and Adrien Brody.

Directed by Wes Anderson, the stop-motion film is based on Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story and centers on the clever Mr. Fox who must outwit three mean, dimwitted farmers who try their hardest to hurt him and his family.

Fantastic Mr. Fox will be released on November 13th in the US and October 23rd in the UK and we should be getting a trailer by the end of July.

Click here to see another image!

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Willem Dafoe, also known as the Green Goblin to the Spider-Man fans among us, has joined Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins in John Carter of Mars. According to The Hollywood Reporter Dafoe will play Tars Tarkas, a leader of the Thark race who knows that the only way his people can survive is if they turn away from war. John Carter of Mars centers on a civil war veteran (Kitsch) who finds himself mysteriously transported to Mars, where his involvement with warring races of the dying planet force him to rediscover his humanity.

It’s interesting to note that the cast so far consists of ex-superhero movie actors. We have Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins who we saw a few months ago in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and now we have two actors from the Spider-Man franchise. Willem Dafoe, and Thomas Haden Church who played Sandman in Spider-Man 3. Disney are looking to set this up as a new franchise, so hiring familiar faces from big superhero films is a good move.

Mars will be directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E) and filming will begin at the beginning of 2010, with the release date currently set for 2011.

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