We’ve got a couple of set photos to share this morning.  First up is Scarlett Johansson in Hitchcock. Last month we got our first look at Anthony Hopkins in his full, uncanny makeup as legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock for the film.  Directed by Sacha Gervasi, the pic follows Hitchcock through the troubled production of Psycho, and we now have our first look at Johansson as the film’s “star” Janet Leigh.  It’s not the best image, but Johansson does certainly look the part.  This project is incredibly high on my most anticipated list, especially with a stacked cast that includes Helen Mirren, Jessica Biel, Toni Collette, Danny Huston and more.

Additionally, we’ve got our first images of Ben Stiller and a fake beareded-Adam Scott fighting over a Stretch Armstrong doll for some reason in the remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  Stiller is directing the project, which also stars Kristin Wiig, Shirley MacLaine, and Patton Oswalt.  Hit the jump to check out the images.

In case anyone was worried that Disney and Marvel wouldn’t make a sequel to the film with the highest opening weekend gross of all-time (by far, I might add), Disney CEO Bob Iger is here to alleviate your concerns.  Per Deadline, Iger announced that the studio is developing a sequel to The Avengers, adding that the film’s success “is a great illustration of why we like Marvel so much.”  Anyone who sat through the film’s credits should have a good idea of where The Avengers 2 could go villain-wise, but I think the key to a follow-up will be the return of Joss Whedon as writer/director.  He is the reason The Avengers is a good film as opposed to simply an expensive film, and his recipe of humor, character development, and pure entertainment made for one of the most enjoyable moviegoing experiences in a long time.  Hit the jump for more.

[Update: It appears Iger's quote was taken out of context, and he actually said that there will "hopefully" be another Avengers.  Nevertheless, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point.  More after the jump.]

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 opening tomorrow in North America, 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), and today I’ve got Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye)

During the interview they talked about their reactions to reading The Avengers script for the first time, what it’s like when little kids see them, and they tell a great story about watching Thor while filming.  Johansson also talks about the differences between filming Iron Man 2 and Avengers.  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.

Nothing like The Avengers has ever been attempted in Hollywood history.  No major motion picture has ever been the culmination of four different blockbuster franchises, each with its own protagonist, and crossing them over into one gigantic film.  It’s bigger than a sequel or even a planned trilogy.  Marvel had to take pieces from their previous superhero films to assemble The Avengers.  The studio wedged set-up into Iron Man 2, wove the covert government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. into Thor, and tacked bookends to Captain America: The First Avenger.  The plan for The Avengers was audacious to the point of near-hubris, but writer-director Joss Whedon has managed to deliver an absolute powerhouse of a payoff that’s truly worthy of Marvel’s astonishing ambition.

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.

Two new TV spots have cropped up: one for The Avengers to remind you that it opens this weekend and one for Snow White and the Huntsman that reminds us it still opens on June 1st. The Avengers stars Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg and Cobie Smulders.  Check out all of our previous coverage here.

Snow White and the Huntsman stars Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth.  You can also get caught up on all of our coverage here.  Hit the jump to see the new TV spots, including a behind-the-scenes video featuring Hemsworth as the Drunken Huntsman.

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.

This is the true story of seven superheroes, picked to live in a Helicarrier, to work together and have their actions monitored, to find out what happens when supervillains stop being polite, and heroes start avenging…The Avengers!  If you haven’t heard about this movie by now, there’s not much more we can do for you.  In addition to all of the TV spots, trailers, clips, images, posters and interviews we’ve posted, Marvel has been building to this point since the release of the original Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) in 2008.  Since then, agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have also recruited Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to accompany their own Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) against the villainy of Loki (Tom Hiddleston).  This new making-of-The-Avengers featurette will provide a retrospective look at how we got to where we are today.  Also, a new IMAX TV spot does its best to convince you to see the epic assemblage in IMAX 3D.  Hit the jump to check them out.  The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon and also starring Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders and Clark Gregg, debuts May 4th.

A new day, a new clip from Joss Whedon‘s The Avengers.  The latest clip features Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) telling Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) why S.H.I.E.L.D. needs him on the team (and it’s not for his dazzling green, angry muscles).

Hit the jump to check out the clip along with a featurette for Black Widow [note: featurette auto-plays], click here for our round-up of the other clips, and click here for the first positive reviews of the film.  The Avengers opens in 3D on May 4th, and also stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Cobie Smulders, Clark Gregg, and Samuel L. Jackson.