Last night I uncovered a gem from 2011 for the first time and my only regret is that I didn’t take the time to seek it out sooner. Writer/director Thomas McCarthy‘s dramedy Win Win is not only consistently funny but also chock full of both heartwarming and heartbreaking moments. The performances are terrific all-around, the script is strong albeit somewhat easy to telegraph, and the wrestling scenes are even surprisingly intense at times (I mean, it was nominated for a prestigious ESPY for “Best Sports Film” after all). Matt gave the film his full endorsement when he reviewed it at Sundance 2011 and I’m doing the same here today.

Movie recommendations aside, in what was yet another busy week around these parts, the five standouts include our Skyfall interviews with Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, director Sam Mendes and more, a Beautiful Creatures set visit recap, the first trailer for Brad Pitt‘s World War Z, even more set visit goodness from Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s The Last Stand, and ongoing development news for the next Star Wars trilogy. Keep reading for brief recaps and links to all of the above.

The first trailer for director Marc Forster’s zombie apocalypse film World War Z has been released.  Things go to Hell rather quickly for the Lane family when the zombie apocalypse wreaks havoc on an otherwise mundane rush hour.  I get that Forster is accentuating the “world” aspect of the film and certainly establishes the pandemic as a global event, but the cut of the trailer paints the horde of the undead as more of an overwhelming flood observed from a bird’s eye view.  I’m hoping to see a little more of the immediate danger, but this glimpse certainly gets the heart pumping.  (I think we’ve all had enough of the Zimmer horns though…)

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film stars Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Matthew Fox, James Badge Dale, and David Morse.  World War Z opens on June 21st, 2013.

The first trailer for the zombie apocalypse drama World War Z is set to debut later today, but Paramount has gotten a jump on things and released the first official image of Brad Pitt from the film.  The adaptation of the Max Brooks zombie novel has gone through a few rough patches in production, with the release date pushed from this coming December to next summer and the third act having been rewritten by Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) and reshot after production had already wrapped.  We got a very brief preview of the trailer the other day that promised a terrifying shit ton of zombies, so hopefully the full film delivers when all is said and done.

Hit the jump to take a look at the image, and check back here on Collider later today to watch the first trailer.  Directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace), the film also stars Anthony Mackie, Matthew Fox, Mireille Enos, and James Badge Dale.  World War Z opens on June 21st, 2013.

Paramount faced a long, difficult road to adapt Max Brooks‘ book World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.  It will be hard for a quality film to emerge from the endless rewrites and extensive reshoots (not to mention crazy run-ins with the law), but when Brad Pitt stars is in a zombie action movie, you have our attention.  The trailer for World War Z premieres on Thursday, and ET released a sneak preview of the footage.  The quick clip gets across the message that World War Z is B-I-G.  There are hordes—heck, literal piles at points—of zombies that attack in such great mass that they seem to overwhelm even our most powerful military weaponry.  If nothing else, I think we can all get behind a film that shows us large-scale zombie carnage on some level.

Anthony Mackie, Matthew Fox, Mireille Enos, and James Badge Dale co-star in the adaptation directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace).  World War Z opens on June 21, 2013.  Watch the trailer preview after the jump. [Update: We added the first teaser poster after the jump.]

After the one-two punch of The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, director David Fincher has taken his time in choosing his next feature project.  He helmed the first couple of episodes of the new Netflix series House of Cards with Kevin Spacey, but with modest box office returns on Dragon Tattoo the follow-up adaptation has been slow-going.  Fincher has a number of options on his plate at the moment, but he’s been pretty passionate about getting his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea remake off the ground for the past couple of years.

Now it looks like there’s finally some movement on 20,000 Leagues, as Fincher is courting frequent collaborator Brad Pitt to lead the project as sailor Ned Land while Disney decides whether to greenlight the film.  Hit the jump for more details.

A new international trailer for Killing Them Softly has been released.  The film stars Brad Pitt as a mob enforcer called in to investigate the robbery of a high-stakes card game.  The domestic trailer showed us some of the other characters and plot points, but this international trailer is short, to the point, and it works.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy, and Ben Mendelsohn.  Killing Them Softly opens November 30th.

Some new posters for two movie star-fronted upcoming films have landed online.  It’s Tom Cruise vs. Brad Pitt in this week’s poster showdown, and Pitt looks to be taking this one by a mile.  Briefly:

• Jack Reacher – The first international poster for director Christopher McQuarrie’s adaptation of the popular Lee Child character features half of Tom Cruise’s face and not much else.  Cruise plays the eponymous ex-military investigator who’s tasked with tracking down a serial sniper.  The film opens on December 21st.
• Killing Them Softly – Six absolutely great new posters for director Andrew Dominik’s (The Assassination of Jesse James) crime drama play up the film’s political undertones while capturing the essence of the ballsy, controversial films of the 1970s.  The pic opens on November 30th.

Hit the jump to check out all the posters.

Brad Pitt is producing an adaptation of Edwin Black’s nonfiction bestseller IBM and the Holocaust.  The book examines how the company’s chief executive, Thomas Watson, formed an alliance with Nazi Germany in 1933 to help identify Jews for extermination.  It’s harrowing material, and Pitt previously set the project up at HBO where it was in development as late as this past January with a script by Marcus Hinchey (All Good Things).  The feature film has now left the cable channel, and Pitt is looking to find IBM and the Holocaust a new home through his Plan B production company either on cable TV or as a theatrically released film.

Vulture reports that Pitt has attached himself to star in order to attract directors, but it’s entirely possible that he might not take a role in front of the camera once the project gets going.  Hit the jump to read a synopsis for the book.

The Weinstein Company has pushed back the release of director Andrew Dominik’s (The Assassination of Jesse James) crime drama Killing Them Softly yet again.  After previously being moved from September to October in order to swap with TWC’s The Master, the film has now been pushed to November 30th so that it may be better positioned for awards season.  Harvey Weinstein noted the attractiveness of the spot given that the Brad Pitt-starrer could open as the only major wide release that weekend, with the iffy John Cusack/Nicolas Cage serial killer drama The Frozen Ground its only real competition.

The Weinstein Company has a number of major players in the awards race this year—including The Master, Silver Linings Playbook, and Django Unchained—and it’ll be interesting to see how they play their cards.  Killing Them Softly premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to an extremely positive response, with many noting the film’s strong political undertones and dialogue-driven narrative, so the film could be a major player in the Oscar race.  Hit the jump to watch the pic’s trailer. 

We’ve got quite a few new posters to share this afternoon.  Briefly:

• Anna Karenina – A trio of character posters for director Joe Wright’s (Hanna) adaptation of the classic romance novel feature stars Keira Knightley, Jude Law, and Aaron Johnson.  The film opens on November 16th.
• Killing Them Softly – This UK poster for Andrew Dominik’s (The Assassination of Jesse James) crime drama is magnificently patriotic, with a gun-wielding Brad Pitt front and center.  The film opens on October 19th.
• Taken 2 – The UK poster for the Liam Neeson-fronted sequel is fairly simple, but you don’t really need anything besides Neeson and the film’s title to sell tickets.  The pic opens on October 5th.
• Deadfall – The Brazilian poster for this thriller starring Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde.  The film opens on December 7th.
• Butter – A straightforward poster for this film about the world of competitive butter-carving, starring Jennifer Garner, Olivia Wilde, Rob Corddry, and Hugh Jackman.  The film opens on October 5th.

Hit the jump to check out all the posters.

We’ve got two new posters and a swell international poster to share with our readers today.  Briefly:

• Life of Pi – The new poster for Ang Lee’s gorgeous-looking adaptation of the classic Yann Martel novel is, well, gorgeous.  The story’s tiger looms large while we see Pi and his furry companion on the open sea.  The film hits theaters in 3D on November 21st.
• Trouble with the Curve – A new poster for the Robert Lorenz-directed baseball drama features the film’s three main leads—Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, and Justin Timberlake—dwarfed by an empty baseball stadium.  The film opens on September 28th.
• Killing Them Softly – Though we just debuted a new poster for this Brad Pitt-fronted crime drama yesterday, this international poster is a must-see if only for the film’s amazing Spanish title: Mátalos Suavemente.  The film opens on October 19th.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.

Academy Award-winner Stephen Gaghan hasn’t directed a feature film since 2005’s Syriana, but the Traffic scribe is now attached to a rather high profile thriller as his follow-up.  THR reports that Gaghan will next direct Candy Store, a thriller he wrote that’s attracting some major talent.  Brad Pitt and Denzel Washington are apparently in early talks for the two leads in what’s described as “a crime thriller with meaty roles for the two main characters.”  Further plot details are unknown, but Jamie Foxx was interested in one of the roles as well.

Late last year Gaghan set up an untitled cartel drama at Warner Bros. and an independent adaptation of Patrick Keefe’s novel The Snakehead, but neither of those projects have come to fruition.  He provided a script polish for M. Night Shyamalan’s sci-fi pic After Earth starring Will Smith and Jaden Smith, which opens next year.

The Weinstein Company has released the poster for Killing Them Softly.  While the teaser poster was memorable, this one is a misfire.  I can see what they were going for with the big font (is that Helvetica?  Help me graphic designers!) to give it a retro-feel, but it just comes off as lazy (Russ Fischer of /Film points out that it looks really similar to the game Cards Against Humanity).  Also, this film has a great cast, and while Brad Pitt is the A-lister, that doesn’t mean everyone else’s name should get stuffed down at the bottom in tiny-type.

Hit the jump to check out the poster.  The film also stars Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy, and Ben Mendelsohn.  Killing Them Softly opens October 19th.

The Tiger was pitched to us two years ago as the chance for Brad Pitt and Darren Aronofsky to reunite after they failed to get their version of The Fountain off the ground.  Pitt and Aronofsky are indeed producing—along with Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Mark Heyman, and Ari Handel—but that may be the limit of their involvement.  Deadline reports Michael R. Roskam (Bullhead) will direct The Tiger, an adaptation of the book by John Vaillant.  The script by Guillermo Arriaga (Babel) “takes place on the Siberian plain, where humans encroach on a tiger’s habitat with tragic results.”  The lead role is an animal activist who must figure out how to stop the tiger that is slaughtering the villagers.  Pitt initially eyed that role, but the new report only mentions him as a producer.

The Tiger will be the English-language debut for the Belgian director, who is riding a wave of buzz ever since his first feature, Bullhead, earned a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination last year.  Roskam reportedly turned down many offers before saying yes to Focus Features for The Tiger.  Hit the jump for the book synopsis.

We’ve got a few casting notes to share with you.  Here they are in brief:

• Terrence Howard (Iron Man) will join A Girl and a Gun, a modern LA thriller from writer/director Filip Jan Rymsza that also stars Juno Temple, Luis Guzman and Christopher Walken.  
• Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) has been cast in The Counselor alongside Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt.  Ridley Scott directs from a Cormac McCarthy script.  
• Dylan McDermott (American Horror Story) joins The Freezer as a kidnapping victim who is more than he appears.  The story, written by Tom Doganoglu and Shane Weisfeld, will be directed by Mikael Salomon.

Hit the jump for more details on each casting assignment.