Marvel has indeed been in the news heavily in the last 24 hours, so it’s not a shock that the “fallout” on the big acquisition yesterday continues.  While director Louis Leterrier and star Ed Norton of the original/re-boot on The Incredible Hulk have both hinted that they would be willing to return to do more with the character, in light of recent Marvel news Leterrier is on record as stating the following now about both his star Norton and a possible sequel:

“Yeah, he’s a great actor and a great Hulk… Sure. I’d return to it. I have some ideas. So many ideas for so many things.”

Kind of a vague statement that in and of itself would not normally qualify as news, but rather more on the innuendo or rumor tip.  However, due to what is happening with Marvel properties with Disney taking over, it seems that the current owners of the properties are more likely to be interested in extending their hold on the characters for as long as possible.  The Incredible Hulk was a re-boot of the iconic character, Bruce Banner’s alter-ego, and new spin to Ang Lee’s 2003 Hulk with Eric Bana in the lead, a film that for the most part got it right I thought.  The interesting thing about the re-boot was that despite great actors like Tim Roth and Norton in the lead roles, the film really failed to make a major splash at the box office, grossing $134m domestically versus a budget estimated at $150m.  Most pointed to there not being enough time in between films, yet based on what I know (I admittedly have not seen the re-boot) the tone of the re-boot was lighter than the original, more poetic version from Lee, which runs a little contradictory in my mind to what made The Dark Knight such a hit.  It seems moviegoers would want something with a little more weight to it, but it wasn’t really borne out in the performance of these films.

Hulk's pectoral workouts include 2 Ton chest flys.

Despite generally positive praise regarding the merger, there is fear that with Disney taking over, they might interfere with Marvel’s successful formula, making the films a bit more on the gimmicky side, thus alienating the fanboys that have made movies like Iron Man such a success.  The there is the matter of The Avengers and whether or not Norton will be a part of that.  It is rumored that he will have a cameo in Iron Man 2, so there is a lot up in the air right now.  Screenrant has more on the topic if you are interested.  What do you think of a Hulk sequel and Leterrier or Norton’s involvement?  Good, bad, indifferent?  I was turned off by the poor critical response to last year’s The Incredible Hulk and therefore have yet to see it, despite Norton and Roth’s involvement, two of my more respected actors today, so I am a little hesitant about the thought of yet another sequel.  It seems like sequel madness is upon us.  If you need any proof, just look at the news of the last few days.

There has been a lot of talk about Marvel the last 24 hours; that’s probably because, as I’m sure you are aware, Disney just dropped $4 billion acquiring them. Now comes some more Marvel news for you. 20^th Century Fox is planning a re-boot of the Marvel property “The Fantastic Four.”  The comic about four friends who get exposed to radiation and gain super powers, has already spawned two feature films, one in 2005 and a sequel in 2007. Those two releases grossed $620 million worldwide. The new Fantastic Four film will be produced by Akiva Goldsman. The script for the film will be written by “Green Lantern” scribe, Michael Green, who is also a co-executive producer on TV’s “Heroes.”

It comes as a surprise that Fox is rebooting the franchise after only two films, as the last film was better than the first. Maybe they have a new direction they want to take the series, or maybe the actors contracts were getting too expensive to renew. Whatever Fox’s reasons, it could have something to do with the Disney merger.  The deal seems to be that Fox has the rights to a particular franchise, in this case “Fantastic Four” as long as they keep producing films based on the property. Disney has also said that they will not intercede in any deals that are in place prior to them acquiring Marvel. Maybe it’s Fox’s way of ensuring that the rights won’t revert to Disney. That is purely speculation on my part. What do you make of this news?  Source: Variety.

The Mouse House got in bed with the company that saved Private Ryan today, according to The Hollywood Reporter. After fleeing parent company Paramount in October, DreamWorks entered negotiations with Universal for distribution of their films. All seemed evident, but was revealed to not be as sure-fire as expected on Friday, when word rumbled that DreamWorks was now speaking to Disney. Today the team-up was made official.

“We’re both thrilled and honored to be marketing and distributing all of DreamWorks’ signature upcoming live-action motion pictures, and to begin a new relationship with such respected colleagues as Steven, Stacey and their creative team at DreamWorks,” Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook said. “Steven has made some of the biggest and most loved films of all-time, and continues to be one of the great icons of our industry. Stacey has an impeccable reputation and a phenomenal track record for making a wide variety of quality films.”

Disney CEO hailed Spielberg’s “artistic vision and commitment to quality filmmaking.”

DreamWorks co-founder Steven Spielberg called Disney “the birthplace of imagination.”

The DreamWorks films will be released under Disney’s Touchstone label.

There was definitely a time when I thought DreamWorks could do no wrong. They were the live-action equivalent of Pixar, in my mind. Saving Private Ryan, American Beauty, Gladiator, Almost Famous, Cast Away, A Beautiful Mind. Seeing a DreamWorks production was equivalent of seeing a quality film in my eyes. That all instantly changed and I realized they were a production company like any other once I saw their logo over this:

Looking through their list of films on IMDb, I realized DreamWorks wasn’t necessarily the powerhouse I thought it was. Their first production to be released was the George Clooney-led The Peacemaker, when Hollywood still didn’t know if he could be a captivating leading man.

What’s your favorite DreamWorks production?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek, Up, Land of the Lost, The Year One, Fast & Furious, G.I. Joe, Race to Witch Mountain, Angels & Demons, Monsters vs Aliens. All of their Super Bowl TV spots are here in this megalist. We’ve combined all the individual Super Bowl spot posts into this one, with full text included.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

There’s been a lot of hype about the Transformers sequel over the past few weeks. We were given the teaser poster, we put the movie up as one of our Top 20 Anticipated of the year, we’ve learned there wouldn’t be any Dinobots and now we have the first official footage from the film. Below is the Super Bowl spot for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It’s short. Only 30 seconds, but for anybody planning to check out the re-boot of Friday the 13th in a couple of weeks, you can expect to see a longer teaser attached to that. Behold the TV spot:

I LOVE that huge robot bursting through the freeway and emerging right at the end. That’s just beautiful. I’m also very happy to see a quick glimpse of a robot transforming into a car. It’s a magnificent sight.

You can indulge your nostalgia for the first film here and go back even further and pick up the 1986 animated film. All will help bide time until June 26th.

Star Trek

I’ve never seen an episode of “Star Trek” in my life. I’ve actually worked hard to avoid it. It’s always been around me in its several incarnations on TV, but I’ve managed to make myself sparse during those times. It’s the Klingons that I can’t look at. Like Worf. I could hardly stand to look at that guy through a commercial. Look at that thing. The stuff nightmares are made of. For the same reason, I’ve never seen any Planet of the Apes films. The faces are too difficult to look at for me.

There aren’t any Worf-like creatures in any of the Star Trek spots so far and I’m thankful for it. Here’s your chance to check out the Star Trek Super Bowl spot, below:

Is anybody excited for this who’s NOT a “Star Trek” fan already? I can kind of see the appeal. I think the involvement of J.J. Abrams was a good decision. It might help crossover into non-”Star Trek” fandom. What did you think of the TV spot? Did it really entice? Are you more into it, less into it or just the same?

Up

Certainly one of my most anticipated movies of the year, Pixar’s Up, has its Super Bowl TV spot online. It’s very similar to the teaser trailer that’s already out. There’s a short tag joke at the end, which is knew. A whetting of the appetite for sure. Of course not much needs to be revealed to get people on board for a Pixar film. They just need to know it exists. Check out the spot, below.

We’ve already previewed the film here. And as the TV spot suggest, you can see an exclusive clip from ‘Up’ at Disney.com. Unfortunately I can’t embed it for you, so here’s a direct link to that clip. I won’t spoil anything about it for you.

Meanwhile, I’ve been catching up on my “Empire” magazine reading lately and there’s a couple new pics from Up I hadn’t seen before. Here they are for you:

What did you think of the TV spot? Did you check out the clip? I look forward to any comment from a devout Pixar fan, like myself.

Land of the Lost

Here we are with another Super Bowl spot before the game has been played. This one is for the filmic adaptation of the TV series “Land of the Lost.” Land of the Lost stars Will Ferrell and Danny McBride (second billing!) and they go back in time and face dinosaurs, amongst other creatures. I guess after not having Dinobots in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, we’ll still be able to get our dino fix this summer.

I don’t know. Never seeing the show, I don’t have any connection to the material. It could be good. I think this spot will do well in terms of selling the movie to viewers tomorrow, and that’s its main goal. I’m happy Will Ferrell isn’t in some crazy sports comedy and it looks pretty epic. Brad Silberling directs his first big movie since the unfortunate Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. That one is obviously off the “franchise” train.

What do you think of this spot? Do you want to see the movie?

The Year One

This one is more of a scene from the film than just a TV spot. Kind of hard to believe you’ll see this one in it’s entirely during tomorrow’s game. That’d be $12 million! Whatever gets people excited about the film and makes them buy tickets, I guess.

The Year One is directed by Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day) from a script he wrote with “The Office” scribes, Gene Stupnitsky & Less Eisenberg. Michael Cera and Jack Black star as Oh and Zed, respectively, two caveman trying to survive before civilization. In the clip/TV spot below, you’ll also meet Kane and Abel, played by Paul Rudd and David Cross.

It looks pretty decent to me. I’d love it to be good and funny. I recall the buzz being not particularly strong from some test screening reviews I’ve read. I wish I was able to tell you myself if it was worthy or not.

UPDATE: It turns out that was just a clip. Here’s the actual Super Bowl spot.

This scene reminded me of a clip from the 1981 film, Caveman, starring Ringo Starr, that I’ve seen numerous types playing “Scene It” on the 360. Sadly, I couldn’t find the exact one. Here’s a clip of music being invented.

Fast & Furious

I wonder if the Super Bowl will be holding any more surprises tomorrow. We now bring you the Super Bowl spot for the third sequel (that’s number four) to The Fast and the Furious, the creatively titled Fast & Furious! This is the first Super Bowl spot we’ve posted for a film that’s already had a trailer released, so only slightly new footage. Of course, this is going out to the few people that watch the Super Bowl, too. Behold!

Vin Diesel used to be my boy when he was coming up. For those that know his first major film role was Saving Private Ryan, an even more in-depth education will lead you to knowing Spielberg had that role written into the film specifically for Diesel after seeing Vinny’s short film Multi-Facial, at Sundance. I bought the DVD and have always enjoyed the 20-minute short. It definitely displays Diesel’s acting chops and saddens me to know he’s been pigeon-holed into this crappy action stuff. Hopefully one day, he’ll break out like I know he’s capable of.

The complete short is below, but if you find it in your heart to buy the DVD, check it out here: Short 5 – Diversity.

G.I. Joe

I was never allowed to play with G.I. Joe’s as a kid, so I never got into them. I have no idea what any character’s name is. I know “Cobra” has something to do with that universe. So, my excitement for this film is less than zero. It wasn’t really increased by this TV spot. If you want to see what G.I. Joe has in store for you tomorrow during the Super Bowl, just check it out below.

Did you like it? Are you excited for this?

I don’t hold director, Stephen Sommers, in high regard. Remember Van Helsing? It is nice that it’s trying to find a spot in August though, which over the past 10 years or so (ever since The Sixth Sense) has extended the blockbuster season. I’m all for better movies spread around. I hope this is good for anybody that has an interest. Be sure to let me know.

About a year ago, a friend and I were recalling this old G.I. Joe commercial. For the heck of it, here it is below.

I hate nose bleeds.

Thanks to Superhero Hype for the heads-up.

Race to Witch Mountain

The first film-related TV spot set to air during the Super Bowl was made available today via MTV Movies Blog. The spot is for the Dwayne Johnson-starring Disney film, The Race to Witch Mountain.

The film is a remake of the 1975 film, Escape to Witch Mountain. Johnson plays, Jack Bruno, a modern-day Travis Bickle (only in that he drives a taxi), who is sought by a paranormal expert, Dr. Alex Friendman (Carla Gugino), to help protect two extraterrestrials from a dastardly organization who only want to use them for evil. Sounds dastardly.

With 30-seconds of airtime costing $3 million this year, this ad is costing Disney $6 million. Do you think it’s worth it? We’ll find out March 13th, I guess.

For comparison’s sake, here’s the first trailer.

As promised earlier here, we’ll bring you all the movie-related Super Bowl ads as they’re released on the net. There could be more coming before the game itself, and we’ll keep you updated.

Angels & Demons

As mentioned in my preview of the film, I’m actually looking forward to Angels & Demons, even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Da Vinci Code film. I just have some wishful thinking, hoping Ron Howard and Co. will have learned from their mistakes. I did think the book was pretty cool and would like it to be done justice on the big screen. Tom Hanks is my boy.

The following clip doesn’t really show off a hell of a lot. It’s 30 seconds long and essentially just shows a few flashes. We’ll apparently have to wait for the theatrical trailer to even get a remote sense of what to expect. I would imagine we’ll get that pretty soon, as the film’s slated for release May 15th.

What did you guys think of this spot? Was they’re really much of anything to help you get hyped? Are you looking forward to this at all?

Monsters vs. Aliens

I certainly never bothered to make my way to a Sobe booth to pick up 3-D glasses, so I can’t tell you about the dazzling things I witnessed in the additional dimension. For those of you that saw the ad, here’s your chance to relive it, and for those that missed it, here’s you chance to see it.

I think this has a chance to be good, actually. I’m not much for any other studios computer animated films, but Pixar’s, and this certainly has a vague resemblance to Monsters, Inc. (as these studios are apt to do), but I do like the eye/tongue/elbow/butt scanner joke.

For those that saw the TV spot in 3-D did it really enhance your enjoyment at all? For anybody not as ready and willing to outright reject the animated product of non-Pixar, what’s your level of interest in the movie?

For some extreme trivia, former “The Simpsons” writer and longtime friend of Wes Anderson (he played the wrestling ref in Rushmore), Wally Wolodarsky had a hand in writing the script.

You may have heard the news that there is strong speculation going on of late that The Narnia film series might be ending up on the scrap heap.  It turns out to not entirely be true.  But the would be franchise whose two films so far combined to make more than $1.2 billion (with a b, billion!) worldwide is no longer going to be handled by Disney.  The LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein has great coverage on the topic of why this is taking place.  It’s an interesting read for fans of the franchise or people that care to know more about the business of filmmaking/entertainment.  The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe did a bang up job at the box office and this series was thought to be one that could compete with or even exceed the success that the Lord of The Rings Trilogy had.  But Prince Caspian was a money drain and now the wheels have begun to fall off.  It doesn’t mean that it is dead by any stretch though:

It doesn’t have a lack of suitors. The studio with the inside track is 20th Century Fox, which has first dibs on the project, since it already markets and distributes Walden projects under its Fox-Walden banner. Fox has plenty of interest, having seriously considered acquiring the movie rights to the C.S. Lewis books even before Walden originally landed the franchise.

I read a couple of these books as a kid, even though I had them all, I dont think I made it through more than 2 of them or so.  I saw the first film and was underwhelmed, but that has more to do with my tastes changing than anything.  It seemed a reasonably reliable adaptation.  What do you think?  Is the franchise leaving Disney a huge blow?   Do you care to see the franchise get backs on its feet and release more of the movies into theaters?  Are you happy that it might be dying a tragic death? Let us know.

Disney has released the following video in anticipation of Pixar’s upcoming animated film Up.  This includes some footage not to be found in the teaser trailer.  Stay tuned for our full Preview on Up from my compadre Machinegunrap, as he is the one to get you all excited about all things Pixar. Thanks to /film for the heads up.

In the department of another film I didn’t want to see happen, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the live action re-make of the Disney classic, adds another star to help round out the cast.  The Hollywood Reporter tells us:

Teresa Palmer has nabbed the female lead in Disney’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” starring Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel…Palmer is playing Baruchel’s love interest…The move brings Palmer back into Disney’s arms; she is onscreen in the company’s holiday film “Bedtime Stories.”

This is good news for Palmer as she appears to be an actress on the rise.  After her turn opposite Sandler in the afore-mentioned Bedtime Stories that dropped on Christmas, she can be seen opposite Topher Grace in Kids In America.  I mean, getting to star opposite Grace and Baruchel?  Any leading ladies dream come true!  I am sure Angie Jolie is pissed that she couldn’t find time in her schedule to beat her to the punch on these.  I guess they “went with somebody with more theme park experience.”  She would have “killed for that job.”  Out.