Immutantable Time.


The second trailer for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past is now online, starring both the original and First Class crew of mutants.

Hrm…I could still see this one going either way. Next to the Dark Phoenix saga, Days of Future Past is probably the quintessential X-Men tale, but this seems overstuffed, and screenwriter Simon Kinberg’s work on X3 does not inspire confidence.

Update: The third trailer has now dropped as well, along with this spiffy “25 Moments” sites chronicling the recent milestones in mutant history, a la Watchmen.

Frattastic Four.

Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot staffs up with Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Miles Teller, and Jamie Bell. Eh…I get that they’re skewing for a younger crowd than fanboys-approaching-40, and Bell, Jordan, and Mara are all quality actors, I suppose. (Hopefully, this proves to be a more auspicious quartet for Jordan than Wallace, Bodie, Poot, and D’Angelo.) But, while I haven’t seen The Spectacular Now, I’m not feeling the guy playing Mr. Fantastic at all. Where’s the gravitas? This looks like something on the CW.

A Raccoon Will Rise.

“What a bunch of A-holes.” James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy get their long-awaited trailer debut, with Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Batista, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, John C. Reilly, Peter Serafinowicz, Glenn Close, Benicio del Toro, and the voices of Vin Diesel (Groot) and Bradley Cooper (Rocket).

The Luthor Network.

“What’s great about Lex is that he exists beyond the confines of the stereotypical nefarious villain. He’s a complicated and sophisticated character whose intellect, wealth and prominence position him as one of the few mortals able to challenge the incredible might of Superman. Having Jesse in the role allows us to explore that interesting dynamic, and also take the character in some new and unexpected directions.”

In a surprising twist, Zack Snyder announces Jesse Eisenberg as Batman v. Superman‘s Lex Luthor (and, in more conventional casting, Jeremy Irons as Alfred.) Hrm. Well, I like the outside-the-box risk taken here, provided Eisenberg isn’t just reprising his role from The Social Network. (Image above via AICN talkbacker JayEskimo.)

Know Your Mutants.

Also in comic news, I forgot to post this last update: Empire issues 25(!) different character covers for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, including, above, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, Peter Dinklage’s Bolivar Trask, and an admirably creepy Sentinel from the future. Some of these are better than others, and in all honesty I’d rather see Matthew Vaughn helming this project, but here’s hoping this is close to Singer’s X2.

I Love You, Ants.

Continuing Marvel’s trend of outside-the-box, tone-perfect casting, Paul Rudd will play Ant-Man for Edgar Wright, presumably as Scott Lang and not Henry Pym. “Wright’s original plans for the film called for both Pym and the later Ant-Man of the comics, Scott Lang, to appear in the feature…'[We] see Pym as Ant-Man in action in the 60’s, in sort of “Tales to Astonish” mode basically, and then the contemporary, sort of flash-forward, is Scott Lang’s story, and how he comes to acquire the suit, how he crosses paths with Henry Pym, and then, in an interesting sort of Machiavellian way, teams up with him.'”

Important to note, the casting of Paul Rudd means we now also have a teaser for Edgar Wright’s ANT-MAN. (If that didn’t make any sense to you, see this.) Also, word is Ant-Man’s insectophile colleague, the Wasp, might well be played by Rashida Jones, Rudd’s I Love You, Man co-star (and a college acquaintance of mine). Good choice!

Update: “I’ve been dying to do a Marvel picture for so long. The script is really fun, the director is really good.” Ant-Man gets its Henry Pym in Michael Douglas.

Into the Dreaming.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m incredibly honored to be working with David Goyer, Warner Bros, and @neilhimself on SANDMAN. #Prelude” Joseph Gordon-Levitt tweets out that he’s working on a film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, or at the very least the first book, Preludes & Nocturnes.

Thus far, Levitt’s only signed on as a producer, though he’s not a terrible choice for the title role. Benedict Cumberbatch is getting close to over-exposed these days, but his aloof otherworldliness is a pretty perfect match for Morpheus.

Flying, Spidering, Roaring, Zerging.


As a follow-up to the ambitious and underrated Cloud Atlas, the siblings Wachowski return to their manga-centric sci-fi roots in this first trailer for Jupiter Ascending, with Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, and James D’Arcy. Hrm…looks a bit like The Fifth Element, art direction wise, and Kunis sure does seem to fall off things a lot. Anyway, I’m in.


Also in the trailer bin of late, Spiderman (Andrew Garfield) makes at least three more enemies — we’ll get to a Sinister Six soon, no doubt — in Rhino (Paul Giamatti), Electro (Jamie Foxx) and the Green Goblin (Dane De Haan) in the first teaser for Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spiderman 2, also with Emma Stone, Sally Field, and Campbell Scott. After Chronicle, The Place Beyond the Pines, and Kill Your Darlings, I’m a mite tired of DeHaan, to be honest, but I’ll grant that his schtick does work well for Harry Osborne.

Update: And another I missed on the first sweep: David Strathairn gamely rallies the paratroopers in the atmospheric trailer for Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla reboot, also with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins and Ken Watanabe. I prefer the leaked one with the Oppenheimer voiceover (“I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds,” bringing the thunder lizard back to its Hiroshima roots), but I can see how that might’ve been too edgy for a summer blockbuster.

Update 2: Tom Cruise cosplays Starcraft, and gets some mechanized infantry pro-tips from Emily Blunt, in the first trailer for Doug Liman’s The Edge of Tomorrow, a badly-named adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s All You Need is Kill. Eh, maybe.

Update 3: Matthew McConaughey and Christopher Nolan celebrate the dream of flight in a brief and relatively vague teaser for Interstellar, also with Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine, Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, John Lithgow, David Gyasi, Wes Bentley, and David Oyelowo. As it says, one year from now.

Update 4: Speaking of gamely rallying folks, Gary Oldman tries to get San Francisco’s few remaining humans to chin up against those damn dirty apes in the first teaser for Matt Reeves’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, also with Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Judy Greer, and, of course, Andy Serkis. The first one was surprisingly ok, and this can’t be worse than Oldman’s last dystopian epic, The Book of Eli, so I’ll likely matinee it.

Update 5: A few more come down the pike for the holiday film season: First up, computer genius Johnny Depp goes the way of the The Lawnmower Man in this short teaser for Wally Pfister’s Transcendence, also with Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Morgan Freeman, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Clifton Collins Jr., and Cole Hauser. The Matrix-style binary is a bit of a cliché at this point, but Pfister has done memorable work as Nolan’s cinematographer, so I’m optimistic.

And, following up on the first trailer of a few months ago, Wes Anderson introduces us to the cast of characters of The Grand Budapest Hotel, among them Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Almaric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saiorse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, and Tony Revolori.