Paramount Pictures has released a new clip from director Adam McKay’s comedy sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.  The film finds the news team of Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), and Champion Kind (David Koechner) struggling to cope with the multitude of changes that come with the dawn of the 24-hour news era, particularly the evolving social norms.  This new clip highlights Ron’s first encounter with the idea of a 24-hour news network, and his reaction is in no way disappointing.

Hit the jump to watch the clip, and if you missed Steve’s recap of visiting McKay in the editing room, click here.  The film also stars Christina Applegate, Kristen Wiig, James Marsden, Dylan Baker, Greg Kinnear, and Harrison Ford.  Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues opens December 18th.

The Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences has announced its short list for the films that will vie for the Best Visual Effects Oscar.  A total of 10 films will compete in a vfx “bakeoff” in January, where select scenes from each movie are shown to the voting members.  Among the short listed titles are Pacific Rim, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Iron Man 3, World War Z, The Lone Ranger, Star Trek Into Darkness, and of course Gravity.  Curiously, Warner Bros.’ Man of Steel failed to make the cut, as did Ender’s Game and The Wolverine.  Though critics were mixed on Man of Steel and Ender’s Game, both films showcased some seriously excellent visual effects—especially Ender’s Game—so it’s surprising to see them left off this Oscar short list.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of films that made the cut, and sound off in the comments with which one you think featured the best visual effects of the year. The 86th Academy Awards will be held on March 1st, 2014. 

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival is in the midst of unveiling its lineup, and today the festival announced the films that will be screening as part of the Park City at Midnight series.  We now have first-look images and synopses for a collection of said films:

• The Guest – Directed by Adam Wingard; starring Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Leland Orser, Lance Reddick, Chase Williamson, and Brendan Meyer.
• Cooties – Directed by Jonathan Millott; starring Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Alison Pill, Jack McBrayer, Leigh Whannell, and Nasim Pedrad.
• Dead Snow; Red vs. Dead – Directed by Tomm Wirkola; starring Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen, Martin Starr, Ørjan Gamst, Monica Haas, and Jocelyn DeBoer.
• The Babadook – Directed by Jennifer Kent; starring Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall, Hayley McElhinney, Barbara West, and Ben Winspear.

Hit the jump to check out images and synopses for the aforementioned films.  The 2014 Sundance Film Festival runs January 16 – 26th.

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival has announced its “Spotlight” category, which they describe as “Regardless of where these films have played throughout the world, the Spotlight program is a tribute to the cinema we love.”  They’ve released new images and brief synopses for the following Spotlight selections:

• Blue Ruin – Written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier; starring Macon Blair, Amy Hargreaves, Sidné Anderson, Devin Ratray, and Kevin Kolack.
• The Double – Directed by Richard Ayoade; starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn, Noah Taylor, Cathy Moriarty, and James Fox.
• Locke – Written and directed by Steven Knight; starring Tom Hardy, Ruth Wilson, Olivia Colman, Andrew Scott, Tom Holland, and Bill Milner.
• R100 – Written and directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto; starring Nao Ohmori, Lindsay Kay Hayward, and Hairi Katagiri.

Hit the jump to check out the images and synopses.  The 2014 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 16 – 26th.

While you were distracted by a certain web-slinger dropping a new trailer this morning, another X-Men movie was creeping up on you all along.  Director Bryan Singer tweeted earlier today that X-Men: Apocalypse would be coming, with a follow-up tweet from another account saying that the X-Men: Days of Future Past sequel would be opening on May 27, 2016.  That’s all the details we have at the moment, but there is so much possibility in that one word.  Hit the jump for more.

Yesterday, the Sundance Film Festival announced the lineup for the 2014 in-competition films.  Today, the fest has unveiled the list of films that will screen as part of the Park City and Midnight, Spotlight, New Frontier, and the new Sundance Kids categories.  The films include You’re Next director Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett’s new film The Guest, director Tommy Wirkola’s Dead Snow; Red vs. Dead, director Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, director Richard Ayoade’s The Double, the Tom Hardy film Locke, and more.  Hit the jump to take a look at the full lineup.  The 2014 Sundance Film Festival runs January 16 – 26th.

Following the unveiling of the lineup for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival competition categories, the fest has released first look images and synopses for some of the aforementioned films.  Briefly:

• Song One – Written and directed by Kate Barker-Froyland; starring Anne Hathaway, Johnny Flynn, Mary Steenburgen, and Ben Rosenfield.
• Whiplash – Written and directed by Damien Chazelle; starring Miles Teller and JK Simmons.
• Dear White People – Written and directed by Justin Simien; starring Tyler Williams, Tessa Thompson, Teyonah Parris, and Brandon Bell.
• Fishing Without Nets – Directed by Cutter Hodierne; starring Abdikani Muktar, Abdi Siad, Abduwhali Faarah, Abdikhadir Hassan, Reda Kateb, and Idil Ibrahim.

Hit the jump to check out the images and synopses.  The 2014 Sundance Film Festival runs January 16 – 26th.

Wednesday evening’s TV ratings are in.  Here’s a brief rundown:

• The CW’s Arrow garnered a 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demo and scored 3.2 million viewers, which is up one tenth from its last original episode’s 1.0 rating.  The Tomorrow People also ticked up one tenth to a 0.7 rating and 1.8 million viewers.  Read Dave’s recap of Arrow here.
• Over on ABC, The Middle hit a season low 1.9 rating and 7.51 million viewers, dropping four tenths from its last original’s 2.3 rating.  Back in the Game was down two tenths to a series low 1.4 rating and 5.21 million viewers, Modern Family dropped three tenths to a season low 3.1 rating and 9.42 million viewers, Super Fun Night dipped one tenth to a series low 1.7 rating and 4.92 million viewers, and Nashville matched its last original episode’s 1.6 rating and scored 5.71 million viewers.

On Friday, December 13th, thirteen cities will get to see Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones early and free by way of advanced screenings across the country.  We here at Collider are happy to announce that Orlando, Florida is one such city, and we’ll be giving away VIP tickets to some lucky readers in the Orlando area to attend the event.  Hit the jump to find out how you can win tickets to this Orlando screening of the film, and visit ParanormalActivity.com for more information on how to attend an early screening if you live outside Orlando.  Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones opens in theaters on January 3, 2014.

While Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch will be sharing the screen (kind of) in next weekend’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, we don’t have much longer to wait for their proper reunion on season three of the excellent BBC series Sherlock.  The show returns to UK airwaves on New Years Day and begins airing here in the US just a couple of weeks later, and now a batch of first-look images have landed online that give us a peek at Sherlock’s return and Watson’s very impressive mustache.

Hit the jump to take a look at the images, and if you missed the first teaser trailer click here.  Sherlock season three returns to PBS January 19th.

Fresh off being named the Best Film of 2013 by the New York Film Critics Circle, a new clip from director David O. Russell’s American Hustle has been released online.  The film takes place in the 1970s and revolves around a con artist duo (Christian Bale and Amy Adams) working with an FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) to root out corruption.  The movie is really, really funny, and this clip comes from a scene in the first half of the pic that nicely showcases the big-dreaming characters played by Bale, Adams, and Cooper.  Their performances are all great, but it’s Jennifer Lawrence and Louis C.K. who really steal the film.

Hit the jump to watch the clip.  The film also stars Jeremy Renner, Michael Pena, and Jack Huston.  American Hustle opens in limited release on December 13th before going wide on December 20th.

When a large poster for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released earlier this week, many were surprised to see that Sony had seemingly spoiled the appearance of one more villain in addition to Jamie Foxx’s Electro and Paul Giamatti’s Rhino.  Granted, there is every indication that the new Spidey franchise is building to a Sinister Six movie, but some fans were dismayed at possibly being spoiled on what could have been a very cool surprise—that is until the first trailer was released earlier today.  The new trailer is incredibly revealing when it comes to the growing number of baddies that Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker will seemingly face off against in the sequel, and now a report claims that said trailer also spoils the film’s post-credits sequence.

Hit the jump for more, but beware of possible spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

In case you haven’t gotten enough of your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man today with the new trailer, our screengrabs, and the possibility of the post-credits scene being spoiled in the trailer, Sony has released more images from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on the official website.  The website also features background music that’s probably some of Hans Zimmer‘s score for the film.  Finally, we’ve been wondering who Colm Feore would be playing in the movie, and had speculated that it would be Spider-Slayer inventor Spencer Smythe.  However, the website says he’s playing “Donald Menken”, who was the personal assistant to Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper) in the comics.  There’s still no official word on who Felicity Jones and B.J. Novak are playing.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  The film also stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Paul Giamatti, and Sally Field.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in 3D on May 2, 2014.

With a little over a week to go before the release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, director Peter Jackson has unveiled one last production blog to take fans behind the scenes of the second installment of his The Hobbit trilogy (though Jackson notes there will be one more blog before the end of the year).  The beginning of the video gives a peek into the filming of the scenes featuring the titular dragon, and it’s interesting to see that during principal photography, Jackson still hadn’t settled on a final design for Smaug.  Nevertheless, we get to see Martin Freeman reacting to the intimidating voice of Benedict Cumberbatch, who makes a cameo in the video.  We also get a look at the goings-on in Lake-Town featuring Stephen Fry, and the process by which Jackson “shot” many of the digitally enhanced Smaug sequences.

Hit the jump to take a look at the production blog, and click here to peruse a large batch of high-resolution images from the film.  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opens in 2D, 3D, HFR 3D, and IMAX 3D on December 13th.

Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United, now out on Blu-ray combo pack, is one of the greatest heroic team-ups in the universe.  With The Hulk’s brute strength and Tony Stark’s high-tech intellect, the two come together to create a powerful duo necessary to face off against one of the most dangerous enemies – a seemingly invincible, energy devouring monster known as Zzzax.  Featuring the voice talent of Adrian Pasdar and Fred Tatasciore, the story is packed with explosive action and loaded with bonus features.

During this recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, actor Adrian Pasdar talked about how his involvement with the TV show Heroes helped him land the gig voicing Tony Stark/Iron Man, how much it adds to their performances to be able to record their voice work together, the different approach to bringing the character to life in animated form versus the live-action movies, and how much he enjoyed recording Iron Man & Hulk with Fred Tatasciore.  He also talked about his latest role, in the Chris Carter series for Amazon called The After, what he thinks about the platform branching out into original content, and how he thinks it’s about time that people get a real say in the type of content they’re viewing.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.