New posters have been released for the family holiday flick Arthur Christmas (click here for Steve’s recent footage recap/interview), the men-vs-wolves survival thriller The Grey, the crime drama Contraband, and the horror sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D.  Today’s a busy day so let me just break down the respective posters: bad puns, Neeson’s mug sells tickets, Wahlberg is fake scratching an itch so he can show off his sweet new moneybelt, and slightly better pun.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.  Arthur Christmas opens November 23rd, The Grey opens January 27th, Contraband opens January 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D opens October 5, 2012.

The trailer for Contraband has gone online and I have no idea what differentiates it from other Mark Wahlberg crime movies.  He’s either a cop or a good-guy criminal and in this movie he’s the latter.  He plays a former smuggler who’s called back into the game when his brother-in-law (X-Men: First Class‘ Caleb Landry Jones) steals from the wrong gangster (Giovanni Ribisi with a bizarre, distracting accent).  Wahlberg then puts together a team of crooks (including characters played by Ben Foster and Lukas Haas) and it looks a little like The Italian Job with smuggling and cool duct tape masks.  Hopefully, the film will have something to make it stand apart from other movies where Wahlberg plays a frantic, hard-nosed character.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer and a number of new images.  The film also stars Kate Beckinsale, J.K. Simmons, and Diego Luna.  Contraband opens January 13, 2012.

Empire Big Screen is a bit like Comic-Con in that studios come by the show off footage from their new movies and the filmmakers come to talk up those films.  The festival is run by the good folks at the world’s best movie mag, Empire Magazine, so I approve.  Since we don’t have anyone at the event, we’ll be running quotes from other sites who are attending.  The first piece of news comes from Empire who spoke with Sherlock creator/writer Mark Gatiss.  Gatiss says they’re only about a week and a half away from wrapping production and that this season will be “The Woman, The Hound and The Fall” trilogy.  To be more specific, this year’s episodes will adapt the Sherlock Holmes stories “A Scandal in Bohemia”, “The Hound Of The Baskervilles”, and “The Final Problem”.  The second season of BBC’s Sherlock will premiere in early 2012.

Hit the jump for reactions to footage from Titanic 3D, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and more.

We have synopses for Universal Pictures’ Q1-early Q2 2012 releases Contraband, Everybody Loves Whales, and American Reunion.  We already know that Contraband is a remake of the crime-thriller Reykjavik-Rotterdam; Everybody Loves Whales is about a reporter (John Krasinski) and a Greenpeace volunteer (Drew Barrymore) who try to save trapped gray whales under the arctic circle in 1988; and American Reunion is the fourth theatrical American Pie and it reunites the cast from the first movie.  Now we have more details on all of these films.

Hit the jump for the official synopses.  Contraband opens January 13, 2012.  Everybody Loves Whales opens February 3, 2012.  American Reunion opens April 6, 2012.

The Ward/Gatti trilogy of fights were the defining moments of boxer Micky Ward’s career.  So it is often questioned why the fights were left out of The Fighter, the movie based on Ward’s life.  To hear Mark Wahlberg tell it, they needed to save something for the sequel:

Now I’m trying to plant the idea in everyone’s head that we should do — not five or six Fighters like Rocky — but one more because the big thing that Micky Ward was famous for was his three epic battles with Arturo Gatti. So we’re talking about possibly taking one more run at it.

This is not the first time Wahlberg has expressed his desire for another Fighter, and he is hovering around his fighting weight in case the opportunity arises.  But we’ve been told that the studio has not yet commissioned a script, and any development talk is still in the very early stages.  Wahlberg admitted as much — read what he had to say after the jump.

The first set photos from the crime thriller Contraband have gone online.  The film is a remake of the acclaimed Icelandic picture Reykjavik-Rotterdam.  Mark Wahlberg stars as a struggling security guard who must return to his life as a drug smuggler for one last job.  So what exciting photos have onlookers snapped?  A gun fight?  A main character dying on the street?  Even better!  Mark Wahlberg and costar Lukas Haas sitting and standing in the back of a truck.  These are set photos that will blow your mind (provided your mind is easily impressed).

Hit the jump to check out the set photos.  Contraband is currently filming in New Orleans and also stars Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster, Diego Luna, and Giovanni Ribisi.  The film is currently set for release on March 16, 2012.

If you’re a fan of Jason Statham action films, you’ll be happy to know his latest movie, a remake of The Mechanic, opens this weekend.  Like the 1972 Charles Bronson film that it’s based on, Statham plays a ‘mechanic’, which is “an elite assassin with a strict code and unique talent for cleanly eliminating targets.”   Unlike some remakes that stray far from the original, Statham’s remake uses the same plot, but updates all the technology and kills.  Also, Simon West directed (Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) the film so the action is well done.  I actually thought the remake was a lot of fun and casting Ben Foster to play the apprentice was a smart move as he’s an awesome actor that brings a lot to the role.  For more on the film, watch 4 clips here.

Anyway, I recently got to participate in a roundtable interview with Foster and you can either read a transcript or listen to the audio after the jump.  During the interview, Foster talked about working alongside Statham and what it was like to make The Mechanic, the nasty injury he landed as a result of doing his own stunts, how he prepares for each role, why he tends to play tough guys, and he gave us updates on Contraband, Fernando Meirelles’ 360, and Oren Moverman’s Rampart.  If you’re a fan of this great actor, you definitely should check out the interview:

Following his interview with Jason Statham, Steve had a chance yesterday to speak with the other star of The Mechanic, Ben Foster.  It just so happened that Foster had been announced as a cast member of Fernando Meirelles’ 360 about an hour before the interview, which came as a surprise to the actor.

Foster has quite a few projects on the horizon in addition to Meirelles’ 360.  He stars opposite Mark Wahlberg in Contraband.  The romance Here is set to premiere at Sundance later this month.  And he’s reuniting with The Messenger director Oren Moverman and co-star Woody Harrelson for Rampart.  Hit the jump for his updates on these projects and more.

We’ve got casting news for a trio of films for you today. First up, Elle Fanning (Somewhere) and Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) are set to star in the indie drama Pure Life. Directed by Van Fischer (Neo Ned), the film a 13-year-old girl in search of romance. Living in poverty, she finds a “bad boy” she deems worthy of taking her virginity. The Playlist reports that Farmiga will play the girl’s “hard-working and short-tempered” mother.

Hit the jump for casting news regarding UFC fighter Randy Couture joining Bruce Willis and Ryan Phillippe in Set Up, and Lukas Haas and Diego Luna signing up for Contraband.

New Orleans is one of the major U.S. cities that offers enticing tax incentives to Hollywood productions.  Some of the biggest movies make their home, or at least part of their home, in the Louisiana city and 2011 is going to be no exception.  NOLA.com reports that production on Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is slated to begin on January 24th, although the length of the shoot and where exactly they’ll be filming is currently unknown.

Hit the jump for a list of films that are currently shooting in New Orleans and which movies are headed to the Big Easy.

With production in Hollywood getting ready to shut down for the holidays, agents all over town are scrambling to finalize last-minute deals for their clients. Hence, tons of casting news was released today.

Max Minghella, who played Divya (the Winklevoss twins’ third partner) in The Social Network, is set to star as Ben Harper in George Clooney’s The Ides of March. Clooney wrote, will direct, and stars in the political drama alongside Ryan Gosling, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood.

Hit the jump for many more casting announcements for The Door, The Hangover Part II, City of Bones, Contraband, and So Undercover.

Ben Foster (The Messenger) and Giovanni Ribisi (Avatar) are in talks to join Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale in Contraband, the American remake of Iceland’s Reykjavik-Rotterdam.  Wahlberg stars as a busted smuggler who becomes a security guard; in the face of financial troubles, he undertakes one last job.

According to Variety, Foster will play Wahlberg’s brother-in-law.  No details yet on who Ribisi might play.  (Any Icelanders have a guess?)  Baltasar Kormákur, who produced, co-wrote, and starred in the 2008 original, will produce and direct the remake.  Hit the jump for the official synopsis of Reykjavik-Rotterdam.

Universal Pictures has set release dates for some of its major upcoming films.  The studio has announced dates for Larry Crowne, Safe House, Contraband, The Bourne Legacy, Ouija, 47 Ronin, Snow White and the Huntsman, and The Dark Tower.  Hit the jump for the release dates for all of these films, other films that may share that weekend, and a brief refresher on each project.

Universal Pictures has stepped back in to finance Baltasar Kormakur’s Contraband starring Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale.  Deadline reports that Universal balked when the price tag on the film was $40 million.  Relativity Media stepped in, but encouraged the filmmakers to bring down the budget.  They got the cost down to $30 million and “when Relativity blinked, Universal swooped back in.”

Contraband is a remake of Óskar Jónasson’s 2008 Icelandic film Reykjavik-Rotterdam, which starred Kormakur as “a former smuggler trying to go straight as a night guard. When his wife’s brother (who got him the job) botches a smuggling run, his life threatened and the protagonist is dragged in for one more job.”  Reykjavik-Rotterdam won five Edda Awards (Iceland’s equivalent of the Oscar) including Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Every day that goes by without an announced film featuring Kate Beckinsale is a day wasted. Thankfully, today is no such day, as Latino Review reports that Beckinsale will co-star with Mark Wahlbergh in Baltasar Kormakur’s remake of Reykjavik-Rotterdam, freshly titled Contraband. Komakur starred in and produced the original Icelandic 2009 foreign-language Oscar submission, and Aaron Guzikowski is penning the script. The original won five awards from its home country. Here is the logline from Latino Review: The plot centers on a security guard and former alcohol smuggler on the Iceland-Netherlands route who is tempted back into illicit business by a dubious friend after encountering financial problems. Contraband is setup at Working Title.