A new Between Two Ferns is always cause for celebration, and this latest installment is among the best.  It begins like most Between Two Ferns: Zach Galifianakis makes deadpan insults towards his guest (in this case James Franco), but then it turns into the music video for the new Lonely Island single, “Spring Break Anthem”, which is appropriately in the style of Spring Breakers but also supports gay marriage.  And because The Lonely Island–which is comprised of Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Andy Samberg–likes to embrace the random, Edward Norton co-stars in this excellent sketch/music video.

Hit the jump to check out the music video.  The Lonely Island’s new album, The Wack Album, will be released on June 11th.

Filming is underway on Alejandro González Iñárritu’s black comedy Birdman.  Fox Searchlight and New Regency announced today that principal photography has begun in New York City on Birdman, which centers on an actor who once played an iconic superhero, and now faces troubles with his ego and family as he prepares to mount a Broadway play in a bid to reclaim past glory.  Michael Keaton stars as the struggling actor, and he’s surrounded by a fantastic ensemble cast that includes Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Ryan, and Andrea Riseborough.

Iñárritu co-wrote the original script alongside Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo, and is also producing the film with John Lesher.  Hit the jump to read the full press release.

The first set photos and video from Wes Anderson‘s Grand Budapest Hotel have leaked online.  Details about the film are scarce, but we know it takes place in 1927 in a Hungarian hotel and has Ralph Fiennes and Saoirse Ronan in the lead roles. Plot details are scarce, but the movie is reportedly in the vein of the films of Billy Wilder (The Apartment) and Ernest Lubitsch (The Shop Around the Corner).  The impressive cast also includes Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, and Mathieu Amalric.  In addition to showing off the setting, the images also show us the colorful costumes (I like the purple coats) and Goldblum’s commanding facial hair.

Hit the jump to check out the set photos.  Grand Budapest Hotel should arrive some time next year.

Another very talented actor has been added to the impressive lineup for director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s dark comedy Birdman.  The film centers on an actor who once played an iconic superhero, and now faces troubles with his ego and family as he prepares to mount a Broadway play in a bid to reclaim past glory.  Yesterday we learned that Michael Keaton has been set in the lead role alongside a supporting cast that includes Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, and Naomi Watts, and now Deadline reports that Edward Norton has signed on as well.

Norton will be playing the lead stage actor in Keaton’s play whose ego threatens the former superhero actor’s comeback.  The plan is to start production in New York in mid-April, where filming will take place in a Broadway theater.  The prospect of Iñárritu tackling a comedy initially put this on my radar, but the great cast and intriguing premise are making this one of my most anticipated films currently in development.

How do you make a Jason Bourne film without Matt Damon? There are a couple of options: you can remake the first film, or you can spin-off in a new direction.  What’s most frustrating about The Bourne Legacy is that it takes a third option, which is to pretend that Damon is actually a character in this world, but he’s just not on screen.  Perhaps Universal was stuck between a rock and a hard place. They couldn’t kill Damon off-camera, and they probably hope he’ll come back for more, so instead they brought in Jeremy Renner for a story that runs in parallel to the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, but doesn’t do anything to move the franchise forward.  It is also pretty bad. Our review of the Blu-ray of The Bourne Legacy follows after the jump.

Wes Anderson has never had much problem lining-up impressive ensembles for his movies.  Even his earlier movies have great casts albeit less famous ones.  In a recent interview with THR, Anderson revealed his next film, Grand Budapest Hotel, will have one of his best casts to date.  First, Anderson confirmed Ralph Fiennes, Bill Murray, and Saoirse Ronan were in the flick (Fiennes and Ronan are the leads).  But they’re only a small part of the large cast.  Anderson will reunite with Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton, and Jason Schwartzman. Owen Wilson might also have a small role.  The movie will also include Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, and Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace).

Hit the jump for more.

Wes Anderson is a very specific filmmaker.  Flip on a couple seconds of any of his seven feature films and you’ll instantly recognize it as distinctively “Wes Anderson-y.”  Not everyone loves his peculiar style and controlled aesthetic choices, but fans of Anderson relish being enveloped by a wholly new world with each subsequent feature.  The filmmaker’s output has been met with varying degrees of success over the years, but his latest film is a prime example of the bliss that results from the perfect marriage of director and material.  Hit the jump for our review of Moonrise Kingdom on Blu-ray.

Considering the 2012 election cycle is currently in full swing, I feel compelled to lend my endorsement to a truly worthy candidate: The Campaign. As someone who unashamedly enjoys a majority of Will Ferrell‘s manchild cinematic escapades, I expected to like the pic. That said, I’m now putting The Campaign just behind Anchorman, Step Brothers, and Elf in my personal “Ferrell Top 4″: something I didn’t expect to be writing the day after seeing it. Sure, the film borrows a ton from Talladega Nights and Ferrell’s take on President Bush. It also manages to combine relevance, irreverence, and humor in a way many mainstream comedies can only promise and ultimately fail to deliver on.

Political endorsements aside, this week’s Top 5 contains a considerable share of The Bourne Legacy coverage, Joss Whedon returning to write/direct The Avengers 2, The Campaign interviews with Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, and more, the first trailer and new poster for the Red Dawn remake, and the news that some of Bane’s backstory was left on The Dark Knight Rises‘ cutting room floor. A brief recap and link to each awaits after the jump.

Opening tomorrow is writer/director Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy.  For those unfamiliar with the franchise reboot, this time around, a government task force led by Edward Norton‘s character is assassinating all their genetically-modified assets to prevent another Bourne situation.  However, one member of the program, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), manages to escape with a scientist (Rachel Weisz), and the two go on the run for their lives.  The film also stars Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Corey Stoll, and Donna Murphy.  For more on the film, here are five clips.

During the recent Los Angeles press day, I did an exclusive interview with producer Patrick Crowley.  If you’re a fan of the Bourne films and want to hear some great behind the scenes stories about all four movies, you’re in the right place.  During our extended conversation we talked about the making of Bourne Legacy, did they ever consider 3D, Easter Eggs, test screenings, will future Bourne movies have Bourne in the title, coming up with new and exciting action scenes, deleted scenes, reshoots,  and so much more.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

Director Paul Greengrass created what it meant to be a “Bourne” movie with The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.  If the James Bond movies are girls, gadgets, cars, and supervillains, then Bourne was going to be about intense action scenes, desperate chases, paranoia, and political commentary.  Sadly, Greengrass did not return to the Bourne franchise, and co-writer and director Tony Gilroy has set the series back with the flabby and forgettable The Bourne Legacy.  Gilroy attempts to write his own set of rules by playing against a traditional three-act structure, which is fine in theory, but in practice it creates a film that’s constantly losing momentum, and never sure where to focus its energy.  The movie’s saving grace is Jeremy Renner, who gets to be in the mold of Jason Bourne but find new strengths and weaknesses that set him apart from the eponymous spy.  Sadly, the rest of The Bourne Legacy never follows Renner’s lead to find a fresh direction while still retaining what worked about the past two movies.

The Bourne Legacy is the next chapter of the hugely popular espionage franchise, that this time exposes a darker layer of intrigue and a deeper mythology than anyone ever suspected. This time around, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is in a fight for his life, when his program because as much of a liability as Treadstone, after Jason Bourne’s public exposure threatens decades of research and development into the building of better soldiers.

During a press conference to promote the film’s August 10^th release, co-stars Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz (who plays top-security research scientist Dr. Marta Shearing) and Edward Norton (who plays Ret. Col. Eric Byer, the man who built these programs) talked about where the franchise could be headed in the future, the challenges of this type of physical action, riding a motorcycle through the very crowded streets of Manila, shooting in the freezing cold, and staying focused on the work without thinking about how daunting the entire process is. Check out what they had to say after the jump.

Five clips and over 15 new images from writer/director Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy have been released.  For those unfamiliar with the franchise reboot, this time around, a government task force led by Edward Norton‘s character is assassinating all their genetically-modified assets to prevent another Bourne situation.  However, one member of the program, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), manages to escape with a scientist (Rachel Weisz), and the two go on the run for their lives.  It’s clear that there’s some timeline overlap between Legacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, so I’m eager to see how everything fits together in the finished film.

Hit the jump to check out the clips and images.  The film also stars Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Corey Stoll, and Donna Murphy.  The Bourne Legacy opens on August 10th.

With Moonrise Kingdom still in theaters, quirky director Wes Anderson is already putting together a dream cast for his next film.  The as-of-yet-untitled picture would feature an ensemble that could include Johnny Depp, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Edward Norton, Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe and Angela Lansbury. Murray and Norton currently star in Moonrise Kingdom, while Wilson is a regular in the director’s films.  Depp, Law and Lansbury would all be first time additions to an Anderson picture.  Brody starred in The Darjeeling Limited and Dafoe previously voiced a character in Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  Details, via Twitch, are short at the moment and it’s unclear as to what state any of these casting negotiations are currently in.  We will update as more news becomes available.

Three new TV spots for The Bourne Legacy have gone online.  Despite the constant need to remind audiences that this is still a Bourne movie in lieu of Matt Damon’s absence, the footage actually looks pretty good.  It’s reassuring to know that Tony Gilroy, who scripted the three previous Bourne movies, is taking over the franchise.  I’m a fan of his past directorial efforts (Michael Clayton, Duplicity), and hopefully he can maintain the character-centered tone of the other Bourne films while providing a fresh and engaging story that stands on its own.  This footage hammers home the idea that Jeremy Renner’s character is some kind of genetic supersoldier, and I’m eager to see how Legacy‘s story plays out within the universe of the first three films.

Hit the jump to watch the TV spots.  The film also stars Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Albert Finney, Joan Allen, Scott Glenn, Stacy Keach, and Oscar Isaac.  The Bourne Legacy opens on August 10th.

Here’s a look at the new schedule of release dates for some upcoming movies:

• The Bourne Legacy, starring Jeremy Renner, Edward Norton and Rachel Weisz, will be pushed back a week to August 10th.
• The Babymakers, starring Olivia Munn, Paul Schneider and Aisha Tyler, will open August 3rd.
• Alex Cross, starring Tyler Perry, Rachel Nichols and Matthew Fox, will open a week earlier on October 19th.
• The Big Wedding, starring Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton and Katherine Heigl, will take Alex Cross’s previous spot, opening October 26th.

Hit the jump for more on each movie, including why Universal is delaying the opening of their fourth Bourne movie, The Bourne Legacy.