World War Z, by Max Brooks, has been gestating in Hollywood pre-production limbo for years now. It is a tough nut to crack with most of it’s narrative being told in one-on-one interviews between Brooks and his fictional characters. Despite the academic structure, Brooks still managed to craft an apocalyptic world that is engrossing and terrifying in it’s realism.

According to Bleeding Cool, production on the feature film version is finally making serious forward momentum as Director of Photography has begun preparations for the shoot, and it is a good one:

Robert Richardson, who recently wrapped Martin Scorsese’s Hugo Cabret down at Shepperton. This time he will be working out of another one of our big production bases, over at Elstree. Amongst Richardson’s other credits are Kill Bill, Natural Born Killers and Eight Men Out.

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Normally we would spend some time setting up a trailer or otherwise telling you what the relevant parts of it are. Or, we might tell you that the trailer helps you understand the film and provides insight into its story or characters.

Sometimes, however, you get a trailer for a film that just makes you stop and say “Wow.” This new trailer for Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is one of those.

It’s almost impossible to describe it so really, I won’t even bother to try. It’s better if you just take a look. You can do so after the jump.

The Tree of Life, featuring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Joanna Going and Fiona Shaw, is written and Directed by Terrence Malick. His previous films include The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven and Badlands — which are all worth checking out.

It hits theaters next May. See this movie, you won’t be sorry.

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Megamind is the latest animated 3D offering from DreamWorks Animation studios. It  is cute and  clever, but it has the disadvantage of coming out after Despicable Me, another animated film that was released earlier this year. Ultimately, that leaves Megamind feeling a bit stale and not particularly original, but it should provide for a fine family night out at the movies.

Will Ferrell is well cast as the voice of Megamind, a villain who has gone toe to toe with his nemesis “Metro Man” (voiced by Brad Pitt) for decades. They have been vying for bragging rights over Metro City, the place they both call home.

A charming opening sequence shows a flashback of  the two characters as infants, when they were sent to earth (separately) from other planets. Metro Man is embraced as a gift from the gods by his surrogate parents, and is blessed with the chiseled good looks of a movie star.  He grows up  adored and admired by all who come in contact with him.

In stark contrast, Megamind grows up misunderstood and under-appreciated in a prison, saddled with a bulbous head and blue coloring.  His only friend is a minion (David Cross) who is sent to earth with him. Megamind was not always a villain; it is only after getting beat down time after time by his peers that he embraces his inner evil. It becomes his coping mechanism of sorts.

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Yesterday, we brought you 3 awesomely hilarious clips from next weekend’s big animated release, Megamind, and if you didn’t think that was enough, we have 3 more for you.

We have more than enough faith in most things super hero these days, but when the film is opening against Skyline and Due Date, expect it to either blow everything out of the water, or get left behind in a race between Hangover fans and sci-fi fans.

Megamind has enough name credit behind itself to make a big enough splash, but fighting names like Robert Downey Jr. and a bunch of explosions, it may be a tough sell for November.

If you’re still teetering on which movie to spend your $10 on, check out some great new clips for the film after the jump, and be sure to make your decision by November 5th.

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Feel like the superhero hasn’t gotten enough play this year? Neither have we. Sure, Iron Man 2, Kick-Ass, and countless other genre films hit theaters this year, but those were all months ago, so let’s look to the now. And there’s nothing more “now” than Dreamwork’s Megamind.

Starring an gigantic voice cast of Will Ferrell, David Cross, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, and Brad Pitt, the film takes the classic “good vs. evil” idea to a whole new place as the villain actually becomes the hero in this zany sci fi animated film.

We’ve got a bunch of new clips that we’ll be bringing you over the next week, starting with three pretty funny ones today. Be sure to check them out after the jump, and catch Megamind in theaters on November 5th.

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Every good super hero tale needs an even better origin story. Well, the same goes for super villain tales, and that’s quite clear as the release date for Dreamworks’ twist on the classic “Good vs. Evil” battle in Megamind starring Will Ferrell and Brad Pitt.

With Madagascar director Tom McGrath taking the helm and a very impressive voice cast including Ferrell, Pitt, Tina Fey, David Cross, and Jonah Hill, there is very little stopping this film from becoming the next Incredibles, which is exactly what Dreamworks is hoping for.

Nickelodeon also has faith in the film, as they’ve released the first five minutes of the film online, which gives us an inside look at the origin of both Metro Man and Megamind. Of course there are allusions to other great comic tales, just done with that Will Ferrell style of humor.

Check out the first five minutes after the jump and catch Megamind in theaters and 3D on November 5th.

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There has been a lot of talk about Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life film of late, and Fox Searchlight has announced that it has acquired the U.S. rights to the highly anticipated film. Tree of Life is written and directed by Malick, who’s past credits include Badlands with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek back in 1973.

That film went on to become a respected and iconic film about the true life Starkweather-Fugate killing spree in the 1950′s. More recently, Malick directed such films as The Thin Red Line (1998) and The New World (2005.)

Tree of Life stars Brad Pitt and Sean Penn and has been finished for a while (it was first announced back in 2005.) It was originally supposed to appear at the Cannes film festival earlier this year, but was not ready.  Some people were hoping it would debut at Telluride last week since Brad Pitt attended the festival, but it did not.

Now there are some hopes/rumors (unsubstantiated) that it could sneak into Fantastic Fest. Guess we’ll find out in a few weeks.

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Every year, it’s fun to see the new and original concepts cranked out by major studios. Some of them are sleeper ideas that turn out to be huge, such as District 9 or Hot Tub Time Machine, but then there is an idea that two separate studios end up tackling at the same time. Back in 2006, The Illusionist and The Prestige, two different films about classic magicians and prestidigitator, came out within months of one another and it looks like we’ll be seeing the same thing happen this year.

Hitting theaters in July, Universal is releasing their next major animated film about two super villains duking it out for world supremacy in Despicable Me, starring Jason Segel and Steve Carell. Now, animation giant Dreamworks is throwing their hat into the same ring with their super villain flick, Megamind.

The latter stars Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, and Jonah Hill, with Madagascar director Tom McGrath behind the wheel. The first trailer just got it’s release, and we’ve got it to show you. Who will be the victor between Universal’s Despicable Me and Dreamworks’ Megamind? We’ll have to wait to find out.

Check out the first trailer for Megamind, hitting theaters on November 5th, after the jump.

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One would think that the overwhelming success of Summit Entertainment’s Twilight series would spark a resurgence of the classic Universal monsters, but in the end it took Universal itself to get things back into the public eye, with this weekend’s release of The Wolfman.

First, news comes that a new Frankenstein project is in the works. Now Summit has decided to drop their their hat into the vampire ring again with a new Dracula project.

The studio has been planning this remake of the Dracula story for some time, but they’ve now made things serious by hiring The Machinist writer Scott Kosar to clean up the script. The original screenplay comes from Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam, who had never written a feature script until now.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story takes an “action-oriented look at Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler, as a young prince.” With music video director Anthony Mandler signed on to direct, Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B producing, and Summit taking the helm, expect to see this film make plenty of waves when the time comes.

Hollywood has been remaking old television shows into big screen adventures for years now. It’s been a trend with limited success, and every time you think it’ll die off with something like The Mod Squad,  we get news of another Charlie’s Angels or a big screen McCloud.

Lately, there’s been a weird interest in reviving tv westerns.  Last August, CBS Films announced they were developing a feature film based on Gunsmoke, the legendary series that ran for an exhausting 20 seasons.   Prior to television, it ran for nearly ten years as a radio serial.  No one could get enough of Marshall Matt Dillon back in the day, and apparently he’s due for a modern makeover.

Despite having its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, Gunsmoke was quite edgy for its time. Long before John Ford or Sergio Leone,  Norman MacDonald and John Meston sought to dismantle the cutesy, archtypical Old West that had been seen up until then. They wanted a harder, cruder hero and a more realistic and brutal West. Their Marshall Matt Dillon was no hero in a white hat, and the Dodge City he patrolled was full of shady and violent characters.

It was aimed at adults, and was one of the first radio shows to depict scalping, prostitution, opium addiction, and massacres. Dillon killed a heck of a lot of people, and his creators proudly said that he was as scarred and dangerous as the villains of Dodge City.

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In news that seemed “too good to be true”, Guy Ritchie, who directed such action-comedies as Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, would be directing an adaptation of the DC character Lobo for Warner Bros. Since then, Ritchie’s stock has gone up in a huge way with his Sherlock Holmes bringing in over $350 worldwide since it’s Christmas Day release.

With that in mind, both Warner and super-producer Joel Silver have decided to fast-track a Holmes sequel, which would put Lobo on ice, possibly permanently. When the LA Times sat down with Silver, he didn’t seem too convinced either way.

“I don’t think he’s going to do it now,” Silver said of Ritchie directing “Lobo.” “The studio wants us and Guy to focus on making another ‘Sherlock Holmes.’ So I think we’re going to be doing that. But we’re seeing what happens with this.

Everybody is analyzing everything. It’s all kind of happening right now as we talk. ‘Sherlock’ is sitting at just about $400 million in worldwide gross and showing itself to be pretty effective and pretty strong. So we’re trying to see if we can do something quickly with another ‘Sherlock Holmes’ movie. We have some ideas and some good story points.”

It was also rumored that Brad Pitt, a Guy Ritchie favorite, would be stepping in on the Holmes sequel to play the evil Professor Moriarty, but Silver didn’t seem to think that the plan would move on past the “wouldn’t it be cool?” stage.

Downey Jr. also just recently picked up his second Golden Globe for his performance in Sherlock Holmes, which you can still catch in some theaters.

Hot Toys, a company that makes life-like renditions of famous movie and pop culture figures, has released images of their newest creation. Brad Pitt’s Lieutenant Aldo Raine, from Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds can (hopefully) soon by yours.

The 1/6th scale recreation covers the smallest detail from the Nazi scalping knife to the unexplained noose scars around his neck. The resemblance to the actual Brad Pitt (of which, this is his first officially licensed figure), is uncanny.

Check out some neat images and the specifications for the figure, courtesy of our pals at SlashFilm, after the jump.

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