Over the last several months, we’ve been getting glimpses of Bong Joon-ho‘s upcoming sci-fi film, Snowpiercer.  Today, the first footage has been released via an international behind-the-scenes featurette.  The story is set in a new ice age caused by a failed experiment to stop global warming that killed virtually all life on the planet.  The sole survivors live on a train called Snowpiercer—powered by a perpetual machine—who struggle with the class system implemented on the train.  The featurette is dubbed in Korean (or at least I assume it’s Korean since Joon-ho is South Korean), but you can still see that there’s going to be some action involved, especially on the part of an axe-wielding Chris Evans.

Hit the jump to check out the footage.  The film also stars John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Alison Pill, Ed Harris, Ewen Bremner, Octavia Spencer, Kang-ho Song, and Ko Asung.

Nine international character posters have been released for Snowpiercer, the English-language debut of Korean director Bong Joon-ho (The Host).  The story is set in a new ice age caused by a failed experiment to stop global warming that killed virtually all life on the planet.  The sole survivors live on a train called Snowpiercer—powered by a perpetual machine—who struggle with the class system implemented on the train.  The posters all provide the first hint of a release date by listing “Summer 2013″.  However, since these are international posters, we don’t know if that’s summer for the U.S., other countries, or both.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.  The film stars Chris Evans, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Ed Harris, Ewen Bremner, Octavia Spencer, Kang-ho Song, and Ko Asung.

Lionsgate has released a red-band trailer for director Jon S. Baird‘s Filth, the adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s popular crime novel about a crooked and devious police officer who goes on cocaine binges and has rampant sex ventures as part of his annual vacation to Amsterdam.  The film stars James McAvoy as Bruce Robertson, the chauvinist cop who is enlisted to solve a murder while also trying to stop his colleagues from taking his much-coveted promotion in the force.  The trailer lives up to its red-band classification.  With an abundance of profanity from a visibly coked-out Robertson, plenty of coercive sex scenes and brief nudity, the film is sure to live up to its name.  Just watching this trailer made me feel filthy.  Personally, I haven’t read the novel, but I hear a tapeworm is used as a narrative device and now I’m highly intrigued.

Filth will open in September in the UK, a US release date is yet to be announced.  The film also stars Jamie Bell, Imogen Poots, and Jim Broadbent. Hit the jump to watch the red-band trailer and to view the newly-released poster.

New images have been released from Snowpiercer, the English-language debut of Korean director Bong Joon-ho (The Host).  The story is set in a new ice age caused by a failed experiment to stop global warming that killed virtually all life on the planet.  The sole survivors live on a train called Snowpiercer—powered by a perpetual machine—who struggle with the class system implemented on the train.  Appropriately, these images are in the form of Korean passports for the cast and Joon-ho.

Hit the jump to check out the passport images.  The film stars Chris Evans, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Alison Pill, Ed Harris, Ewen Bremner, Octavia Spencer, Kang-ho Song, and Ko Asung.  Snowpiercer currently doesn’t have a release date, so it should really get on that.

Director Bong Joon-ho’s (The Host) English-language debut Snow Piercer has secured distribution.  Per Deadline, The Weinstein Company has acquired U.S. rights to Joon-ho’s sci-fi thriller.  The film boasts an excellent ensemble cast that includes Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, and Octavia Spencer and centers on a group of train passengers learning to co-exist in a new ice age.  The ice age is a result of a failed experiment to stop global warming that killed off all life on the planet except for the inhabitants of a train called Snow Piercer, which travels the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine” The conflict in the story comes from a revolution that brews as a result of the class system that forms on the train.

Though nothing has been set in stone, Deadline adds that a wide summer release in 2013 is likely.  It would be a smart move for TWC, and the intriguing concept, heady social issues, and stacked cast definitely make this one to look forward to.  Click here to see what Evans had to say about the film during his recent interview with Steve.

Ex-cop Nick Cassidy gambles with his life in order to prove his innocence in Man on a Ledge, an action mind bender from director Asger Leth. Though it stars a fairly good ensemble and flirts with a daring concept, the film, much like Nick’s threats of ending his own life, is nothing more than talk that doesn’t go anywhere.  Hit the jump for a review of the Blu-ray.

Jamie Bell and Connie Nielsen have boarded Lars Von Trier‘s upcoming two-part feature, Nymphomaniac.  Per THR, “Charlotte Gainsbourg will star as Joe, a self-diagnosed nymphomaniac. Stellan Skarsgard will play Seligman, an old, charming bachelor who finds Joe beaten up in an alley. He takes her home to care for her and Joe recounts to him the story of her erotic life, from birth to the age of 50.”  The movie also stars Shia LaBeouf and Danish actors Nicolas Bro (Warhorse), Jesper Christensen (Quantum of Solice) and Jens Albinus (Idiots), Sweden’s Shanti Roney (Together) and German actor Severin von Hoensbroech (Ruhm).  Nicole Kidman and Willem Dafoe have been rumored for supporting roles.  THR currently doesn’t have any details on who Bell or Nielsen’s will be playing.

LaBeouf has said that all of the sex scenes will be for real, but the producers explain they “will be performed with the help of body doubles and visual effects.”  According to THR, Von Trier plans to release the films in both hard-core and soft-core versions with an eye towards a 2013 release.  The 11-week shoot in Gemany begins tomorrow.

Jamie Bell and Kate Mara (American Horror Story) have been tapped to star in the romantic comedy Fighting Jacob.  Variety reports that Bell will play, “Jacob ‘The Manic Maniac’ Rosenthal, an up-and-coming boxer whose extreme OCD is the key to his success in the ring.”  Bell suffers a devastating breakup with Mara’s character, after which he must reevaluate his life and find a medium between his happiness and success as a fighter.  Justin Lader wrote the script, and Charlie McDowell (Bye Bye Benjamin) will direct.

Bell is currently filming the promising thriller Snow Piercer with director Bong Joon-ho, while Mara is busy shooting David Fincher’s Netflix series House of Cards with Kevin Spacey.  Mara’s sister, Rooney, nabbed an Oscar nomination for her work with Fincher in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Production on Fighting Jacob is slated to begin this summer in Los Angeles.

We have some more casting additions to report to you today. Here are the basics:

• John Boyega (Attack the Block) will join Thandie Newton and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Half of a Yellow Sun from director Biyi Bandele. Boyega is also in negotiations to topline Creeping Zero, an indie sci-fi flick from Billy O’Brien, the writer/director of Invasion.
• The post-apocalyptic train-thriller, Snow Piercer, has added Kenny Doughty (Titus) to the cast. He’s also set to make his directorial debut with the British revenge thriller, Vengeance Waits.

Hit the jump for more information on each project.

When The Adventures of Tintin came to America, there was a sense that it was almost an obligatory release. Even though it came from director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson – and from writers Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish – Herge’s Tintin has long been an international phenomenon that never made much of an impression on Americans. The film did okay in a busy season, but it feels like that should be way more celebrated. Tintin is Spielberg doing Indiana Jones in a way he never could before, and in doing so makes Crystal Skull look that much worse. This is Spielberg – one of the finest action directors in cinema history – unbridled. This is Spielberg not having to worry about cranes, or stuntman’s lives, or even editing. And for that The Adventures of Tintin is massively entertaining. Starring Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, Tintin is one of 2011’s most undervalued movies, and our review of the Blu-ray follows after the jump.

So, after two weeks of talking about it, I finally caught Steven Soderbergh‘s Haywire. My thoughts? I was satisfied. Not blown away. Not shaking my head in disappointment. Satisfied. Soderbergh’s fight scenes were as beautifully executed as can be reasonably expected. In my opinion, though, there just weren’t enough of them. David Holmes’ score was fantastic when set behind said fight/chase/action sequences so, by default, there just wasn’t enough of it. The same could be said for much of the ensemble cast. In large part, their screen time was time well served. There just wasn’t enough of it to go around. So, do I recommend Haywire? Sure. As long as you go in with the expectation of seeing a slick action/thriller that is somewhat light on action and thrills. Now, onto business…

…After the jump, you’ll find that this week’s “Top 5″ is comprised of the 2012 Oscar nominations, interviews from our Chuck series finale set visit, a number of interviews for both The Grey and Man on a Ledge, and an ode to all of our 2012 Sundance coverage. A quick recap and link to each follows.

Man on a Ledge will have a long and prosperous life playing on TNT for the next 134 years.  That’s not an insult.  Not every thriller needs to pump up our adrenaline, not every heist film has to dizzy our minds, and not every drama has to make us reconsider men and the ledges they stand on.  Sometimes it’s enough to simply be a fun little movie that can play in the background while you’re working on something else.  For the most part, Man on a Ledge manages to clear its modest bar but some key miscasting and wasted performances keep it from reaching the levels of The Negotiator or In the Line of Fire.

With director Asger Leth’s (Ghosts of Cité Soleil) Man on a Ledge opening this weekend, I recently got to speak with most of the cast about making the movie.  The film centers on an ex-cop (Sam Worthington) convicted of a crime he didn’t commit who stands on the ledge of a Manhattan building, threatening to kill himself.  However, what appears to be a suicide attempt is something else altogether.  The film also stars Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie, Elizabeth Banks, Ed Burns, Titus Welliver, Genesis Rodriguez, Kyra Sedgwick, and Ed Harris.

During my interview with Bell and Rodriguez they talked about how they got involved in the project, the audition process, and karaoke.  In addition, Bell talked about the Tintin sequel and Rodriguez talked about Casa de mi Padre.  Hit the jump to watch.

In this edition of “Photos from the Set,” we have:

• Neighborhood Watch – Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and Richard Ayoade star as a group of neighbors who form a local watch group and end up stumbling onto an alien plot to destroy the world.
• Lovelace – Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgard star as Linda Lovelace and her abusive husband Chuck Traynor in the biopic about the star at the center of the porn phenomenon Deep Throat.
• Dog Fight – Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis star as rival politicians running for a congressional seat in a small North Carolina district.
• Filth – James McAvoy, Jamie Bell and Alan Cumming star in the adaptation of the Irvine Welsh novel about a malicious Scottish police officer.

Hit the jump for the set photos and more info on each movie.

Just yesterday we brought you the news that Chris Evans (Captain America) was in talks to star in Snow Piercer, an indie drama by writer/director Bong Joon-ho (The Host) and producer Park Chan-wook (Oldboy). Now it looks like Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) and Jamie Bell (The Adventures of Tintin) are also poised to star alongside the first avenger. While we don’t yet know much about the roles they are in talks for, we do know the basic plot of Snow Piercer, which follows a group of train travelers learning to co-exist in a new ice age. Production is scheduled to start in March though a distributor is not yet in place. Snow Piercer will mark the domestic directorial debut for Bong Joon-ho, whose film The Host was South Korea’s highest grossing film of all time. Hit the jump for more on Swinton and Bell.