Three new clips have gone online for Dan Bradley’s directorial debut, Red Dawn.  The veteran stunt actor and coordinator helms the remake of the 1984 film which centered on a group of American kids who defend their home against invading foreign soldiers.  This time around, Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki and Josh Peck are up against those no-good Soviets Chinese North Koreans. The new clips show off a bit of flirtatious fun before the invasion, an alternate version of the invasion itself and an action scene that pays homage to the original film.  Red Dawn opens November 21st.  Hit the jump to check out the clips.

Filming is underway on The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, so the inevitable set photos have begun to leak out.  The first leaked images don’t show anything revelatory except that Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Sam Claflin hit the gym a lot, and it’s really paying dividends.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  The film also stars Liam Hemsworth, Jeffrey Wright, Tony Shalhoub, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jena Malone, Amanda Plummer, Lynn Cohen, Bruno Gunn, Alan Ritchson, E. Roger Mitchell, Meta Golding, Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland, and Woody Harrelson.  The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opens November 22, 2013.

Rejoice, The Hunger Games fans!  Production has officially started on the Francis Lawrence-directed follow-up, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.  According to their press release, the film “will shoot primarily in existing locations in and near Atlanta, Georgia.  The film will subsequently be shot on location in the beaches and jungles of Hawaii before wrapping in late December, 2012.”  Perhaps more importantly, the director has recorded a video message for fans, announcing a worldwide sweepstakes that will win some lucky fans a chance to visit the set and participate in a cast and crew Q&A!

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire stars Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson, in addition to Sam Claflin, Jeffrey Wright, Tony Shalhoub, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jena Malone, Amanda Plummer, Lynn Cohen, Bruno Gunn, Alan Ritchson, E. Roger Mitchell, Meta Golding, Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland and Woody Harrelson.  Hit the jump for the video from Francis Lawrence and details on the fan set visit contest. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opens November 22, 2013.

With Venice and Telluride coming to a close and Toronto set to kick off this weekend, film festival season is officially in full swing.  Later this month, genre festival Fantastic Fest will get underway in Austin, and it has just been announced that the Red Dawn remake will act as the closing film.  The redo—which was shot in 2009—stars Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Josh Peck and Adrianne Palicki as a ragtag group of young ‘uns who must work together to repel invading North Korean forces.  The world premiere on September 27th will be followed by a Red Dawn-themed party in which “prisoners will experience mandatory enjoyment from delousing stations as well as free prison tattoos and head-shaves.”  Deer blood shots will also apparently be handed out while the band Future Folk takes the stage.

Hit the jump to read the full press release and to check out a new image from the film featuring Palicki and Hutcherson.  Fantastic Fest runs from September 20 – 27th, while Red Dawn opens in theaters nationwide on November 21st.

The first trailer for the long-delayed Red Dawnremake has been released.  Watching this trailer, I’m reminded of why we now use aliens for all of our invasion movies.  Being a superpower, it’s tougher to imagine the U.S. getting invaded by almost any other country.  The original worked in 1984 because it preyed on Cold War fears, and those fears no longer exist.  Even when China was the foe for the remake (a post-production change was made so that we wouldn’t lose money from their bustling economy; now the baddie is North Korea, which is laughable since they can’t even get a working rocket let alone an invasion force), there wasn’t too much fear, although that would at least provide a credible war.  I will say that the rah-rah freedom on display is kind of cute, and it’s interesting that the remake focuses on the characters going on a mission rather than simply trying to survive like in the original.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Josh Peck, Isabel Lucas, Edwin Hodge, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.  Red Dawn opens on November 21st.

That Red Dawn remake that everyone nearly forgot about is finally hitting theaters this November, and a revamped poster for the film has been released.  The pic was actually filmed in 2009, but sat on the shelf for years due to MGM’s financial troubles.  Moreover, in a fairly disturbing move, the filmmakers decided to digitally change the film’s villains from the Chinese to the North Koreans once they realized the film’s box office chances in China would be severely crippled if the country was painted as villainous.  Nevertheless, the pic is finally set for release this year and due to the delay, it now boasts the stars of two major franchises: Chris Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson.  This new poster plays up the “Go America!” aspect and makes damn sure audiences know that Thor and Peeta are here to save the U.S. of A.

Hit the jump to check out the poster.  The film also stars Adrianne Palicki, Josh Peck, Isabel Lucas, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Connor Cruise.  Red Dawn opens on November 21st.

A sneak peek at the upcoming trailer for the remake of Red Dawn has gone online.  For those unfamiliar with the film, it’s about a group of teenagers who decide to take up arms and fight against a foreign invasion.  In the original 1984 version, it was the Russians, and the remake wanted to update the invaders to the Chinese.  However, after they finished shooting, the producers discovered that this might hurt distribution in China, so they decided to do some CGI change-ups to the flags and turn the invaders into North Koreans (in the hopes that you don’t notice that Chinese people and Korean people don’t look the same).

If you forgot that there was a remake of Red Dawn, you’re not alone.  The film was completed years ago, but had to sit on the shelf while MGM went through a financial meltdown (a fate shared by The Cabin in the Woods).  The movie was picked up for distribution by Film District in September 2011, and it will finally hit theaters on November 21st.  The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, Josh Peck, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Connor Cruise.  Hit the jump to check out a sneak peek at the trailer.

With debut director Dan Bradley’s Red Dawn remake finally being released later this year, two new images have cropped up online.  The 1984 original, starring Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Gray and C. Thomas Howell, became a cult classic, thanks in part to a group of American teenagers defending their town from invading forces from the Soviet Union.  Look for the remake to cast the villains as North Koreans this time around.  The surprisingly strong cast features Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, Josh Peck, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Connor Cruise.  Red Dawn should finally be in theaters on November 21st of this year.  Hit the jump to see the newly released images and to read up on some choice quotes from the cast. Wolverines!

Looks like the upcoming Blu-Ray release for The Hunger Games will be chock full of goodies, according to some new trailers released by Lionsgate this week.  In them, star Jennifer Lawrence talks in great detail about the story and her training, and quite a bit about that 20 foot wall of fire (“I just knew I was going to run into a tree, and it’s going to explode, and this is how I’m going to die”).

According to the trailers, there will be 3 hours of behind-the-scenes footage, including interviews with director Gary Ross, the film’s stunt team, as well as some of the other stars (such as Josh Hutcherson).  There is an art, we learn, to running through the woods at high-speed and not crashing and burning … quite literally.  Hit the jump for the clips.

Production isn’t yet underway on the second film entry in the adaptation of author Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy, but that’s not stopping Lionsgate from setting release dates for two further installments.  Though there are only three books, the studio previously announced that they would split the trilogy up into four movies.  At the time we assumed this meant that they were following the recent trend of splitting the final book in a series into two movies regardless of whether or not it’s entirely necessary.  In the case of Mockingjay, the third and final book in The Hunger Games series, the merit of splitting it into two films is bit of a toss-up.  Nevertheless, we’ll be getting The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 on November 21st, 2014 and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 on November 20th, 2015.

Hit the jump for more, including where I think the last book will be split.

A little bit of late night casting news for you to send you off with pleasant dreams:

• Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) is set to join Mysterious Skin director Gregg Araki’s next film, White Bird.
• Zoe Aggeliki (R.I.P.D.) is in contention for a role in Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games starring Jennifer Lawrence.

Hit the jump for more on both projects.

The first trailer for the animated feature Epic, from 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios, has landed online.  The story tells of a hidden land deep in the forest where the battle between the forces of good and evil continues under our very noses.  A teenage girl is magically transported into their secret universe where she must combine forces with an assortment of colorful characters in order to save both worlds.  In this first trailer at least, the film comes off as a more serious version of Ferngully.  The visuals are pretty great, but the juxtaposition of the super important-sounding Snow Patrol song seemed a bit off.  That said, I’m interested to see how the makers of Ice Age and Rio tackle this fantastical story, especially in the shadow of this year’s Rise of the Guardians.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  Directed by Chris Wedge (Ice Age), the film features the voices of Beyonce Knowles, Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried and Johnny Knoxville.  Epic opens in 3D on May 24th, 2013.

One of the oddest franchises of the last couple of years is the Journey series. The first film, Journey to the Center of the Earth (which starred Brendan Fraser) managed to make $100 Million domestic, and inspired a sequel with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson stepping if for Fraser. It too made over $100 Domestic and much, much more internationally. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island stars Johnson, Josh Hutcherson, Michael Caine and Vanessa Hudgens in an adventure on an island that reveals itself to be Atlantis. Our review of Journey 2 The Mysterious Island on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

While The Hunger Games and Bridesmaids picked up the most nominations for this year’s MTV Movie Awards, the Twilight fanbase continued to show they would vote online until their fingers bled.  At last night’s ceremony, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 took home “Movie of the Year” as well as Best Kiss for Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.  However, The Hunger Games and Bridesmaids didn’t go home empty-handed.  Melissa McCarthy won Best Comedic Performance for Bridesmaids (the cast also won “Best Gut-Wrenching Performance”), and The Hunger Games won golden popcorn buckets for Best Male Performance (Josh Hutcherson), Best Female Performance (Jennifer Lawrence), Best On-Screen Transformation (Elizabeth Banks), and Best Fight.

Hit the jump for a full list of winners, and click here to check out the footage from The Dark Knight Rises that played during the ceremony.

Twentieth Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios have announced the all-star voice cast for their new 3D CG action-adventure comedy, Epic.  The film, from the creators of Ice Age and Rio, will feature Beyonce, Aziz Ansari, Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried and Johnny Knoxville.  The story tells of a hidden land deep in the forest where the battle between the forces of good and evil continues under our very noses.  A teenage girl is magically transported into their secret universe where she must combine forces with an assortment of colorful characters in order to save both worlds.  In addition to the stellar voices behind the characters, Epic will be directed by Chris Wedge who won an Academy Award for his 1999 short, Bunny and co-director of 2002′s Oscar-nominated  Ice Age.  Epic will transport into theaters May 24, 2013.  Hit the jump for more.