It’s not too often you get to talk to someone that’s been in outer space, and also to the bottom of the ocean floor.  But at the press junket for Sony’s After Earth in New Mexico, I did just that.  During my interview with Garrett Reisman, we talked about his NASA training, what people would be surprised to learn about outer space, what it was like working deep underwater for two weeks, the future of space travel, his reaction to After Earth, and what does he say to people who think we’ve never been to the moon.  Hit the jump to watch.

Between the record-breaking grosses of May and next week’s Man of Steel launch, this was supposed to be a quiet weekend at the box office. Universal’s The Purge had other plans. The low-budget horror film took first place and more than doubled its pre-release projections with an estimated $36.4 million from 2,536 locations. The box office bonanza did not extend to The Internship, however. The comedy opened in fourth with an estimated $18.1 million – half of what The Purge realized in 800 fewer theatres.

With director M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth now playing in theaters, Sony Pictures recently invited us to the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in New Mexico for the press junket.  As you can imagine, it was an amazing place to talk about the movie.  If you’re not familiar with the plot, After Earth stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.   For more on the film, watch three clips and some behind-the-scenes footage, and here are my video interviews with Will Smith, Jaden Smith, and screenwriter Gary Whitta.

A few days before the movie got released, I spoke to Shyamalan on the phone.  He talked about how he got involved in the project, making a film aimed at 12-15 year olds, the length of his first cut and if any of the deleted scenes will end up on the Blu-ray, if there are deleted scenes from his early work that have never been released, why he used the Sony F65 to shoot the film, IMAX, and much more.  In addition, he also talked about his upcoming pilot Wayward Pines, Kickstarter, and his next movie.  Hit the jump for more.

After leading the biggest Memorial Day box office of all time, Fast & Furious 6 remained on top for a second weekend with an estimated $34.5 million. The film’s 65% drop left plenty of room for a new release to take over top honors – provided that new release wasn’t Sony’s After Earth. The sci-fi adventure was aiming for a $35-$40 million debut. Instead, the combined star-power of Will and Jaden Smith was only good enough for third place behind Now You See Me… a genuine upset for a film from the supposedly ‘cursed’ genre of magic.

All of the hooplah surrounding Arrested Development Season 4′s debut on Netflix last weekend got me waxing nostalgic for another beloved series that was all too short-lived: Paul Feig‘s Freaks and Geeks. When you consider its impressive shelf life, it’s hard to believe the series only aired on NBC for one season and consists of merely 18 episodes. For the sake of comparison, ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager will air its series finale this Monday and will finish with five seasons and 121 episodes in hand. Continuing down that path, Freaks and Geeks averaged just above 6.5 million weekly viewers during its run while Secret Life‘s most watched episode to date (the Season 2 premiere) garnered a little over 4.5 million viewers. In addition to the frustration I feel for having 103 more Secret Life episodes to never watch than Freaks and Geeks episodes to cherish, this also provides an interesting example of the ratings expectations/requirements of a network series in comparison to that of a cable series.

I could go on and on doing my best Brendan Bettinger: Stats Genius impersonation but the real reason I’m here is to present this week’s Top 5. In this installment you have at your disposal our visit to the set of Man of Steel, Allison watching the Indiana Jones movies for the first time, After Earth interviews with Will and Jaden Smith, another set visit for The Wolverine, and Matt’s review of the aforementioned fourth season of Arrested Development. As you’ve grown to expect, a brief recap and link to each of the above makes its home after the jump.

With director M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth opening this weekend, Sony Pictures invited us to the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in New Mexico for the press junket.  As you can imagine, it was an amazing place to talk about the movie.  If you’re not familiar with the plot, After Earth stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.   For more on the film, watch three clips and some behind-the-scenes footage.  After Earth also stars Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz.

During our interview with Will Smith, he talked about how After Earth is the first film on which he’s received a “Story By” credit, how the project changed along the way, getting to work with his son, how the project came together, doing press at the Virgin Spaceport, and more.  In addition, I’ve heard rumblings that Smith is done with the Men in Black franchise, so I asked him the status of a Men in Black 4.  The way he talked about the franchise, it sounds like he’s cool with the third film being the last installment.  Hit the jump to watch.

With director M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth opening this weekend, Sony Pictures invited us to the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in New Mexico for the press junket.  As you can imagine, it was an amazing place to talk about the movie.  If you’re not familiar with the plot, After Earth stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.   For more on the film, watch three clips and some behind-the-scenes footage.  After Earth also stars Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz.

During our exclusive interview with screenwriter Gary Whitta, he talked about how the project came together, how the story changed during production, the father-son dynamic, how Hollywood doesn’t make many films aimed at younger teenagers, his experiences working on the live-action Akira movie and what was his take on the story, future projects, and a lot more.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

The metaphor of a young bird leaving the nest is a lesson all children learn, and usually at a young age (it’s just not enforced until much later).  Someone looked at this lesson, must have thought, “I like it, but how can we make it cost over $100 million?”, and the result was After Earth.  It’s not a bad lesson, but it’s hardly enough to support an entire movie.  Resting almost entirely on lead actors Jaden and Will Smith, director and co-writer M. Night Shyamalan surrounds the picture with sub-par special effects and bland action scenes.  Jaden Smith provides a strong lead performance, but his character is undermined by the story’s laughably literal moments, and a journey that rarely enthralls and never surprises.

With director M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth opening this weekend, Sony Pictures invited us to the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in New Mexico for the press junket.  As you can imagine, it was an amazing place to talk about the movie.  If you’re not familiar with the plot, After Earth stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.   For more on the film, watch three clips and some behind-the-scenes footage.  After Earth also stars Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz.

During our interview with Jaden Smith, he talked about why he took such a long break since The Karate Kid, how he prepared for After Earth, the best part of filming in Costa Rica, his love of skateboarding and what tricks he can do, and his desire to be in the Men in Black franchise.  Hit the jump to watch.

With director M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming sci-fi film After Earth opening May 31st, Sony Pictures has provided us with three clips and over three minutes of behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the film.  The film stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.   While we’ve previously posted some of the clips, you can now watch them all in one place.  In addition, the behind-the-scenes footage is great if you’d like to see what it was like on set.  After Earth also stars Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz.

Hit the jump to watch the clips and look for exclusive video interviews with Will and Jaden Smith the week of release.

Sony Pictures has released the first clip from director M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming sci-fi film After Earth.  The pic stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.  This debut clip shows how all of the action is put into motion, as we see Will Smith’s Cypher Raige (I still can’t get over that character name) explaining to his son that in order to get to the plane’s distress beacon, he will have to travel a very long distance over an incredibly harsh terrain.

Hit the jump to watch the clip.  The film also stars Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz.  After Earth opens on May 31st.

To this point, all of the marketing for After Earth have highlighted Will and Jaden Smith, which is understandable.  They’re the lead actors, and Will Smith is a movie star.  But there are other actors in the movie, and we now have the first images of co-stars Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda) and Zoe Kravitz (X-Men: First Class).  The film centers Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his father Cypher (Will Smith), who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to Kitai to fight for survival when Cypher is seriously injured.  Okonedo plays Cypher’s wife, and Kravitz plays their eldest daughter.  I don’t know the size of their roles, but I appreciate the film for having a primarily black cast since that never happens when it comes to blockbuster action films.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  After Earth opens May 31st.

Sony Pictures has released a couple of new high-resolution images and a new TV spot for director M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming sci-fi film After Earth.  The pic stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.  The images don’t really reveal much by way of the film’s environment, but the Earth Day-centric TV spot does feature some new footage that gives us a look at the evacuation of Earth that occurs in the film.

Hit the jump to check out the images and TV spot.  The film also stars Zoe Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo, and Isabelle Fuhrman.  After Earth opens on May 31st.

Sony is making a last-minute release date change for director M. Night Shyamalan’s sci-fi film After Earth.  The film will now open a week earlier, on May 31st, instead of its original June 7th date.  The pic only faced the comedy The Internship on its original release date, but Man of Steel is poised to open a week later on June 14th.  It’s safe to assume that Sony is trying to give After Earth a bit more time in theaters before Superman comes in and dominates the box office for who knows how long.  Buzz on Man of Steel is incredibly positive, and if the Warner Bros. film turns out to be as good as everyone’s saying, it will most definitely have very long legs.

After Earth, which stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father/son team stranded on a deadly, apocalyptic future Earth, will now open opposite the magician action/adventure pic Now You See Me and Universal’s horror film The Purge starring Ethan Hawke.  Hit the jump for the film’s poster and synopsis.

A couple of debut TV spots have made their way online.  First up, Warner Bros. has released the first international TV spot for director Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming “robots vs. monsters” movie Pacific Rim.  The story is kicked off by the emergence of monsters (known as Kaiju) who start a war that devastates humanity.  To fight back, the humans build giant robots (known as Jaegers) that are controlled by two pilots.  This TV spot does a great job of selling the epic nature of the story, and I really can’t wait to see this thing on the biggest screen possible.  The film opens in 2D and 3D on July 12th.

Additionally, Sony has released a TV spot for director M. Night Shyamalan’s sci-fi film After Earth.  The film stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.  There are a couple of shots of new footage here, including a look at a rather ginormous creature.  The film opens on June 7th.  Hit the jump to check out both TV spots.