Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures just announced that they’ve closed deals with Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma), Travis Fimmel (Vikings), Paula Patton (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol), Toby Kebbell (The Counselor), and Rob Kazinsky (Pacific Rim) for writer-director Duncan Jones’ Warcraft.  Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The First Avenger) is also in final negotiations to star.  Production is scheduled to begin in Vancouver this coming January.  Warcraft will open March 11, 2016.  Hit the jump for more.

We recently brought you some new images from Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, but now we can pair them with some commentary from the director himself.  Bay talked about the level of “goofiness” from his last foray into the Transformers universe and how the fourth film will depart from that in a more cinematic direction.  Stars Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz also talk about their experience working with Bay from the set of the fourth film in the franchise.  Hit the jump to see what they all had to say.

The film also stars Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, T.J. Miller, Titus Welliver, Han Geng, Sophia Myles, and Li Bingbing.  Transformers: Age of Extinction opens in theaters on June 27, 2014. 

We’ve got a pair of new clips from Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug to share with you today.  They’re a bit Elf-centric and are highly conversational, but they give a nice introduction to both Evangeline Lilly and Lee Pace’s characters, while giving Lord of the Rings fans lots of Legolas (Orlando Bloom) to take a gander at.

Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Richard Armitage, Sylvester McCoy, John Bell, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Graham McTavish, Michael Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean O’Gorman, Mikael Persbrandt, Ken Stott, Aidan Turner and the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opens in 2D, 3D, IMAX 3D, and HFR 3D on December 13th.  Hit the jump to watch the clips.

Just last week we reported that Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues would be opening on Wednesday, December 18th, two days earlier than planned.  Now, you can watch the comedy sequel two days earlier than that with the purchase of a SuperTicket Premiere pack for participating AMC theaters.  In addition to the early screening on Monday, December 16th, SuperTicket purchasers will also receive a digital copy of the movie before it comes out on Blu-ray/DVD, an instant digital copy of Anchorman: Wake Up, Ron Burgundy – The Lost Movie, and more!

Adam McKay’s Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues stars Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Christina Applegate, Kristen Wiig, James Marsden, Dylan Baker, Greg Kinnear, and Harrison Ford.  Hit the jump for more on how to purchase a SuperTicket.

While the Paranormal Activity franchise did not field a film in 2013, the Latino-oriented spin-off Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones will make up for the deficit by being the first of two installments in the horror series playing next year.  A new viral teaser has launched with the goal of reminding you that the film is opening in a month and that you can answer the question “Will You Be First?” starting this Friday, December 6th.

The movie stars Richard Cabral, Carlos Pratts, Eddie J. Fernandez, Jorge Diaz, David Fernandez Jr., Kimberly Ables Jindra, Tonja Kahlens, and Frank Salinas.  Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones opens January 3, 2014.  Hit the jump to watch the teaser.

While director Stephen Frears’ Lance Armstrong biopic is churning along with Ben Foster in the lead, Paramount and Bad Robot have reportedly set a screenwriter for their own take on the cyclist’s life.  D.V. DeVincentis (Grosse Point Blank, High Fidelity) will pen an adaptation of Juliet Macur’s book, “Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong”.  Macur, a reporter at The New York Times, covered Armstrong’s career for a period that covered his bout with testicular cancer, to his seven Tour de France titles, to the stripping of those honors after admitting to engaging in illegal doping.  Hit the jump for more.

The first teaser spot for Guillermo del Toro’s FX horror series The Strain is now online, but you’ve probably already seen it.  The spot premiered during the mid-season finale of AMC’s The Walking Dead, but its content was intentionally vague in the hopes of sparking up a conversation.  Remember the “found footage” video of hordes of rats crowded the city sidewalks? Yep, that’s for The Strain.

The Strain stars Corey Stoll, David Bradley, Mia Maestro, Sean Astin, and Kevin Durand. Carlton Cuse will step in as showrunner while del Toro remains onboard as an executive producer.  Hit the jump to watch the teaser.

While television’s original programming may arguably the best it’s ever been, the small screen is rapidly attracting re-imaginings of some big screen properties.  Production has already started on Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn series, which is only the tip of the iceberg for Movie-to-TV adaptations.  Plans are in the works to bring such properties as Sin City, Stephen King’s The Mist, and a series based on the 2010 film The Wolfman to the small screen.  As money gets tighter, budgets get smaller and in-home viewing becomes the preferred manner of entertainment consumption, television is poised to welcome its big screen brethren with open arms.  Hit the jump for more.

It’s been a tale of two camps so far on this season of AMC’s The Walking Dead, but tonight’s mid-season finale put a definitive end to one of them.  Fans of the series may have felt that the last few episodes have been a bit of a retread of previously explored plot territory.  While that may have been the case, the events of tonight’s episode will force the survivors out of their comfort zones and into some tough decisions in the second half of the season.  We also lost some characters along the way, one who was beloved by fans, and one of whom viewers simply loved to hate.  Hit the jump for my recap and review of tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead, “Too Far Gone”. 

This year, legions of Star Wars fans have lots to be thankful for, with Star Wars: Episode VII officially on the way.  An ambitious group of Australian fans and filmmakers decided that the wait for the December 18, 2015 release was too long (and far, far away), so they opted to make their own fan film instead.  Dubbed Star Wars Downunder, this short gives you an idea of what the original 1977 film would have looked like had George Lucas been born in Australia.  While the plot doesn’t focus on a rebellion bent on throwing off the shackles of imperialism or balancing the light and dark sides of the force, the characters fight for something even more important: beer.  Hit the jump to take a look.

We’ve yet to receive any official plot description for director Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World, but we’re slowly piecing together some evidence from his own Twitter account.  He hasn’t posted any Earth-shattering news of late, but rather bits and pieces which we can use to support other unverified rumors that have been floating around.  What we do know at the moment is that Bryce Dallas Howard, Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins star in the 3D sequel due out June 12, 2015.  For more on the film’s timeline and possible characters, hit the jump.

Doctor Who is well known for traveling across space and time, but how about appearing across different media?  We just celebrated Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary with a simulcast special last weekend.  Now, some intrepid gamers have scoured some 30 years worth of video games to tease out Doctor Who Easter eggs that range from the obvious to the obscure.  The only thing more foreign to me than this collection of video games is the history and mythology of the good doctor himself, but fans of the long-running show should enjoy the trip down memory lane regardless.  Hit the jump to check it out.

We recently had a scare with the terrible news that a sequel to Frank Capra’s classic 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life was in the works; thankfully, that report was quashed when it was revealed that Paramount still held the rights to the film’s source material.  While we’re breathing a collective sigh of relief over that fact, let’s enjoy this new trailer for It’s a Wonderful Life cut in the style of Martin Scorsese’s upcoming film, The Wolf of Wall Street.  Scorsese’s picture stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in the real life story of the stockbroker’s rise to unfathomable riches and fall due to corruption and criminal behavior.  Hit the jump to see how this mash-up measures up.

This year saw two films attempt to take down the White House, with the most recent being disaster master Roland Emmerich’s White House Down.  Although he famously destroyed the entire Presidential residence in one blow in 1996′s Independence Day, Emmerich treats the title structure with much more reverence and care this time around.  (Don’t worry, he still beats the hell out of it.)  Equally bloodied and bruised are White House Down‘s heroic duo, played by Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, who must take down the threat inside the Oval Office while rescuing the hostages trapped inside.  It’s one of Emmerich’s most entertaining films to date, and now that it’s available on Blu-ray, you can check it out for yourself in your very own home.  Hit the jump for my review.

As of this writing, we know that Johnny Depp is set to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, written by Jeff Nathanson and directed by Kon-Tiki‘s Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, who are aiming for a 2016 release.  Everything else that follows can be filed squarely under “rumor”.  We’ve got a few new possible plot details for the fifth installment of the high-seas fanchise, along with a pair of actors who could be starring alongside Depp, plus a host of character descriptions.  It’ll be interesting to say the least if it all turns out to be true, but there’s a good chance it’s nothing but bilge.  Hit the jump for more.