We have casting news for two holidays, a mountain, and a last name—or at least four movies that are titled as such.

• Susan Sarandon and daughter Eva Amurri Martino will star in Mother’s Day, a drama about the mother/daughter relationship.
• Clark Gregg will follow up The Avengers with a role in Jason Reitman‘s Labor Day
• Alexia Rasmussen signed on to star opposite Brian Geraghty in Kilimanjaro
• Revenge star Gabriel Mann will spend his summer hiatus filming the Cesar Chavez biopic Chavez

Hit the jump for details on each project.

When a big geek project goes into development, fans are eager for any scrap of information they can find.  Inevitably, rumors begin to pop up in the film’s early days, and we report them on the off-chance that they could be true.  Some information may have been true at the time, but then the script changed.  Perhaps wishful geeking was misinterpreted as real information.  And then there’s always good, old-fashioned subterfuge on behalf of the production.

The Avengers was a blockbuster over four years in the planning, and plenty of rumors had time to surface over the course of its production.  The film has finally been released (to a record-breaking $200 million opening weekend), and now we know which rumors turned to be true, false, or somewhere in between.  Hit the jump for the rumor recap.

With this weekend’s domestic release of some little flick called The Avengers, the summer movie season is officially off and running. Although it’s easy for the comic book fan in me to rank The Avengers, The Amazing-Spider Man, and The Dark Knight Rises as my top three most anticipated summer pics, I thought it might be a nice exercise to quickly list what else the Summer of 2012 is offering that will likely tickle my moviegoing fancy. That said, because absolutely no one asked my opinion, here are five of my other most anticipated summer films (listed in chronological order by release date): Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus, Steven Soderbergh‘s Magic Mike, Seth MacFarlane‘s feature debut Ted, Fernando Meirelles‘ 360, and John Hillcoat‘s Lawless. As always, I’d love to hear from you, the reader, about what you’re looking forward to seeing on the big screen in the coming months. By all means, use the comments section liberally.

In this week’s Top 5 you’ll find a ton of interviews, Matt’s review, and other ancillary bits for the aforementioned The Avengers, Steve’s coverage from his visit to the Istanbul set of Skyfall, the third trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, a new trailer, images, and posters for The Amazing Spider-Man, and the first full-length trailer for The Expendables 2. A quick recap and link to each ensues after the jump.

Hulk smash records, indeed.  After a long, long, long wait for many fans, The Avengers has finally been unleashed on screens across the world.  As with most highly anticipated properties, a considerable number of fans took the opportunity to catch the film at midnight last night—some brave souls even sat through the 13-hour Marvel Movie Marathon leading up to the midnight screening.  I don’t think my body could withstand the latter, but I did catch a midnight showing and I wholeheartedly loved nearly every second of writer/director Joss Whedon‘s “mother of all superhero movies.”  The film raked in an impressive $18.7 million in midnight tickets, making it the highest grossing midnight showing for a superhero title thus far, besting The Dark Knight’s $18.5 million take in 2008 (your move, The Dark Knight Rises).  Hit the jump for more.

With The Avengers now playing, Marvel/Disney recently held a massive press junket in Los Angeles and I was able to interview most of the cast, director Joss Whedon, and Kevin Feige (Marvel Studios President).   Every day this week I’ve been posting a new video interview from the junket.  The past few days have featured Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/Hulk), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Chris Hemsworth with Chris Evans (Thor/Captain America) Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Scarlett Johansson with Jeremy Renner ((Black Widow/Hawkeye), and today I’ve got Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) and Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill).

During the interview they talked about their reactions to reading The Avengers script for the first time and what it’s like when little kids see them.  Hit the jump to watch.

Over the past couple of weeks, Mondo (the collectible boutique arm of the Alamo Drafthouse) has been unveiling posters from their Avengers series.  Things kicked off with two great posters for Black Widow and Hawkeye, followed by a batch of individual posters for Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor.  Today, on the eve of the release of Joss Whedon’s all-star superhero pic, Mondo has unveiled the final poster in all its glory.  Tyler Stout created the design, and it’s pretty damn nifty.  All of the cast members are featured prominently inside the Avengers logo, assembled and ready to go.  Word on the film is extremely positive (you can read Matt’s rave review here), and this seems like the perfect way to cap off years of anticipation.

Hit the jump to check out the poster, including a variant design.  The poster will go on sale at a random time on Friday, May 4th.  As always, follow @MondoNews for the on sale announcement.

Remember way back when we told you The Avengers cast and crew were shooting an additional scene?  Well, it looks like that additional scene will be tacked on to the credit sequence.  It’s being reported as a second credits sequence, meaning there was already one in place for the initial screenings and another one has been filmed for the very end of the credits.  In other words, don’t leave your theater until the screen goes dark and the ushers threaten to call the police.  We’ll keep this post spoiler-free (for you and for me), but we’ve got links to where you can find more information if you simply cannot wait until Thursday at midnight.

The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon and starring Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cobie Smulders and Clark Gregg opens May 4th.  Hit the jump for details and a bonus new TV spot.

I don’t know if there’s any footage left to squeeze out of The Avengers, but the Marvel Marketing Machine (which could be the villain in a presumed sequel) is still cranking out propaganda, which you can get caught up on here.  We posted a new TV spot for the heroic assembly movie earlier today, but a new featurette has debuted as well.  Luckily, Dark Shadows has decided to release their own featurette which focuses on the Collins’ family.  The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon and starring Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg and Cobie Smulders opens May 4th.  Dark Shadows, directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfieffer, Eva Green, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jackie Earle Haley, Johnny Lee Miller and Helena Bonham Carter opens a week later on May 11th.  Hit the jumps to check out the new featurettes.

As we come within mere days of the North American premiere of The Avengers, the anticipated marketing A-bomb has officially detonated and is in the process of spewing tiny chunks of promotional material across the globe for all to see. We’ve got special edition cola cans, fancy micro-sites, and even pint-sized LARPing…and, of course, your standard behind-the-scenes TV specials. While this one, from CBS News, is mainly a rehash of stuff we already know/have seen before, it would still be worth watching, if only for the chance to have director/geek god Joss Whedon utterly disarm you with his affable wit, as he discusses his career to date.

But here’s another reason to take a look: it features our first glimpse of Much Ado About Nothing, the self-financed, sub-independent Shakespeare adaptation Whedon shot entirely at his Santa Monica home over a period of 12 days just after The Avengers wrapped. Hit the jump to check it out.

By now, the tech savvy among you can surely have clipped and edited the entire feature length of The Avengers together from all of the footage we’ve brought you so far.   Well, just in case you have a few gaps left in your film, we have two new TV spots for you tonight.  “Together” has a nice montage of our heroes getting ready to kick ass while “Balance” brings us some  nice scenes of destruction with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) telling us what it means to be an Avenger.  The Avengers opens May 4th in IMAX 3D. Hit the jump to check out the new TV spots.

There’s only one week left until The Avengers opens in theaters, but in case you haven’t heard about it, listen up.  Marvel has managed to unite its greatest cinematic superheros (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, Black Widow and, of course, Agent Coulson) onto one screen to battle the villainous Loki.  We’ve posted so much material for you to enjoy that it’s easier to just click on this link right here to check out anything and everything at your leisure (or hit the jump to see where I’ve laid it all out for you, nice and neat).  The Avengers stars Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders and Clark Gregg all united against poor old Tom Hiddleston (and his Leviathan).  Hit the jump to check out the new images.

With no question, Marvel’s The Avengers is one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year, bringing together such iconic superheroes as Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), all under the auspices of S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), in order to defeat an unexpected enemy (Tom Hiddleston) threatening to destroy the universe.

At the film’s press day, co-stars Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Clark Gregg (Agent Phil Coulson) and Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill) were joined by director/screenwriter Joss Whedon to talk about good comic book adaptations vs. bad ones, their most memorable moments in making the movie, the approach to spectacle, finding the balance between action and characters, how the interactions between the characters is just “booze and candy,” and costume envy.  Whedon also clarifies which alien race Loki is working with in the film, and even gave some advice as to what it would take for Warner Bros. to get their Justice League movie off the ground.  Check out what they had to say after the jump, and if you missed our interview with Downey, Evans, Hemsworth, Ruffalo, Jackson and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, click here.

How many more The Avengers clips can go online before Marvel and Disney have basically pirated their own movie?  I would say eight is enough because that was the name of a TV series and therefore qualifies as wisdom.  In the 8th clip to go online, Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), who has kept his cool around Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth), finally gets star-struck when he meets Captain America (Chris Evans).  And where did this clip premiere?  On the Tavis Smiley show on PBS.  The Avengers have now assembled on public broadcasting.  At this rate, we can look for the next clip to premiere on C-SPAN, or maybe even C-SPAN 2.

Hit the jump to check out the clip (which plays before the beginning of Smiley’s interview with Gregg), click here for yesterday’s clip, and click here for a round-up of more clips.  The film also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Ruffalo, Cobie Smulders, and Tom Hiddleston.  The Avengers opens in 3D on May 4th.

Given the amount of The Avengers material thrown at us over the past week, it wouldn’t have been hard to miss one or more of the all-star superhero related materials.  Luckily, we’ve compiled a nifty round-up of all the clips and featurettes that have been released thus far, as well as links to all of our extensive coverage over the past week including interviews, images, and rumors of a recently-filmed extra scene.

Hit the jump to check out the goods, which includes four movie clips and two official featurettes.  The film stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, and Clark Gregg.  The Avengers opens in 3D on May 4th.

Yet another clip from The Avengers has landed online.  Following the action-packed clip from last week featuring Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Chris Evans’ Captain America going to battle, this bit from the film focuses on a tense dialogue-driven scene between Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Tom Hiddleston’s Loki.  Watching the clip, I’m reminded that Hiddleston was easily the best thing about Thor and I’m eager to see him reprise his complex villain role in The Avengers.  Every word rolls off his tongue with such power, but Hiddleston’s performance infers a great deal of personal anguish behind Loki’s nefarious façade.  Whedon recently revealed to Steve that the Blu-ray/DVD of the film will include 30 minutes of deleted scenes, so I’m sure there’s no lack of great Hiddleston material to be found.

In addition to the clip, we’ve also got a bevy of new images from the film to share with you, so hit the jump to check out the goods.  If you’ve missed any of our bountiful coverage of the film from last week (including clips, interviews, tidbits on upcoming Marvel films, reactions to the movie itself, and more) click here.  The Avengers opens in 3D on May 4th.