How do you make a Jason Bourne film without Matt Damon? There are a couple of options: you can remake the first film, or you can spin-off in a new direction.  What’s most frustrating about The Bourne Legacy is that it takes a third option, which is to pretend that Damon is actually a character in this world, but he’s just not on screen.  Perhaps Universal was stuck between a rock and a hard place. They couldn’t kill Damon off-camera, and they probably hope he’ll come back for more, so instead they brought in Jeremy Renner for a story that runs in parallel to the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, but doesn’t do anything to move the franchise forward.  It is also pretty bad. Our review of the Blu-ray of The Bourne Legacy follows after the jump.

The New York Film Critics Circle has kicked the awards race off in earnest, and the love was spread primarily between Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln.  The drama about the hunt for Osama bin Laden took home Best Picture, Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow, and Best Cinematographer, while Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln was awarded Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress.  The group also had a couple of left field choices with the Best Supporting Actor award going to Matthew McConaughey for Magic Mike (alright, alright, alright) and Best Actress going to Rachel Weisz for The Deep Blue Sea.  McConaughey winning the trophy was a pleasant surprise, but Weisz’s win is a tad baffling.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of winners, and click here to peruse our recent Oscar Preview features.

A new trailer for director Sam Raimi‘s Oz the Great and Powerful has been released.  Watching this trailer, I can’t help but be confused as to why three witches (Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams) need the help of the Wizard (James Franco) simply because we’re going to the lame plot device of “the prophecy”.  Theadora comments that she doesn’t have a broom, but–and correct me if I’m wrong–a witch is a woman who can do magic.  So why does the entire kingdom of Oz depend on one guy showing up when there are three ladies who already have magical powers?  As for the look of the movie, I’m seeing lots of special effects but almost none of Raimi’s personality.  Billed as “From the Director of the Spider-Man  Trilogy” and “The Producer of Alice in Wonderland“, Oz looks like it’s more from the latter.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.  The film also stars Zach Braff, and Abigail Spencer.  Oz the Great and Powerful opens on March 8, 2013.

The marketing campaign for director Sam Raimi’s fantasy adventure Oz the Great and Powerful has been curiously ramping up as of late, as we’ve recently seen two new posters and a batch of new images.  We knew that the one-sheets made up two-thirds of a triptych poster, and now that full banner has been revealed in addition to a couple more new images.  The pic is a prequel to the classic The Wizard of Oz, and centers on a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics (James Franco) who finds himself transported to Oz and drawn into a battle between the three witches Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams).  The full banner and images show off even more of Raimi’s colorful world (though the photoshop on the poster is still a tad spotty), and I’m eager to see more footage from the film.  Hopefully a new trailer drops soon.

Hit the jump to check out the poster and images.  The film also stars Zach Braff and Abigail Spencer.  Oz the Great and Powerful opens on March 8, 2013.

Disney has released six new images from Sam Raimi‘s upcoming fantasy-adventure film Oz the Great and Powerful.  The pic is a prequel to the classic The Wizard of Oz, and centers on Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, who finds himself transported to Oz and drawn into a battle between the three witches Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams).  One of these new images shows Diggs making his way through “Chinatown”, where everything is made of china and has been broken by the Wicked Witch and her army.  Diggs puts some of the pieces together and makes the China Girl (voiced by Joey King) who decides to come with him on his journey.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  Oz the Great and Powerful opens in 3D on March 8, 2013.

A new poster for director Sam Raimi’s fantasy film Oz the Great and Powerful has been released.  The pic is a prequel to the classic The Wizard of Oz, and centers on a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics (James Franco) who finds himself transported to Oz and drawn into a battle between the three witches Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams).  Appropriately, today’s new poster reveals the film’s green-skinned Wicked Witch, played by Weisz.  I’m absolutely loving the whimsical imagery that Raimi has cooked up so far, and this poster is a great tease of the film’s darker side.

Hit the jump to check out the poster.  The film also stars Zach Braff and Abigail Spencer.  Oz the Great and Powerful opens on March 8th, 2013.

If you’ve got a recognizable name like the folks pictured above, you’d think that once you sign onto a project, you can expect to see your face on the big screen.  That’s not the case when Terrence Malick is the director.  Although Rachel Weisz, Barry Pepper, Amanda Peet and Michael Sheen all filmed scenes for the Badlands director’s film, To the Wonder, all of them were left on the cutting room floor. The film screens this coming Sunday at the Venice Film Festival before moving on to TIFF next week.  Hit the jump for why the actors’ scenes were cut and who is left in the finished film.

Considering the 2012 election cycle is currently in full swing, I feel compelled to lend my endorsement to a truly worthy candidate: The Campaign. As someone who unashamedly enjoys a majority of Will Ferrell‘s manchild cinematic escapades, I expected to like the pic. That said, I’m now putting The Campaign just behind Anchorman, Step Brothers, and Elf in my personal “Ferrell Top 4″: something I didn’t expect to be writing the day after seeing it. Sure, the film borrows a ton from Talladega Nights and Ferrell’s take on President Bush. It also manages to combine relevance, irreverence, and humor in a way many mainstream comedies can only promise and ultimately fail to deliver on.

Political endorsements aside, this week’s Top 5 contains a considerable share of The Bourne Legacy coverage, Joss Whedon returning to write/direct The Avengers 2, The Campaign interviews with Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, and more, the first trailer and new poster for the Red Dawn remake, and the news that some of Bane’s backstory was left on The Dark Knight Rises‘ cutting room floor. A brief recap and link to each awaits after the jump.

Opening tomorrow is writer/director Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy.  For those unfamiliar with the franchise reboot, this time around, a government task force led by Edward Norton‘s character is assassinating all their genetically-modified assets to prevent another Bourne situation.  However, one member of the program, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), manages to escape with a scientist (Rachel Weisz), and the two go on the run for their lives.  The film also stars Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Corey Stoll, and Donna Murphy.  For more on the film, here are five clips.

During the recent Los Angeles press day, I did an exclusive interview with producer Patrick Crowley.  If you’re a fan of the Bourne films and want to hear some great behind the scenes stories about all four movies, you’re in the right place.  During our extended conversation we talked about the making of Bourne Legacy, did they ever consider 3D, Easter Eggs, test screenings, will future Bourne movies have Bourne in the title, coming up with new and exciting action scenes, deleted scenes, reshoots,  and so much more.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

Director Paul Greengrass created what it meant to be a “Bourne” movie with The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.  If the James Bond movies are girls, gadgets, cars, and supervillains, then Bourne was going to be about intense action scenes, desperate chases, paranoia, and political commentary.  Sadly, Greengrass did not return to the Bourne franchise, and co-writer and director Tony Gilroy has set the series back with the flabby and forgettable The Bourne Legacy.  Gilroy attempts to write his own set of rules by playing against a traditional three-act structure, which is fine in theory, but in practice it creates a film that’s constantly losing momentum, and never sure where to focus its energy.  The movie’s saving grace is Jeremy Renner, who gets to be in the mold of Jason Bourne but find new strengths and weaknesses that set him apart from the eponymous spy.  Sadly, the rest of The Bourne Legacy never follows Renner’s lead to find a fresh direction while still retaining what worked about the past two movies.

The Bourne Legacy is the next chapter of the hugely popular espionage franchise, that this time exposes a darker layer of intrigue and a deeper mythology than anyone ever suspected. This time around, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is in a fight for his life, when his program because as much of a liability as Treadstone, after Jason Bourne’s public exposure threatens decades of research and development into the building of better soldiers.

During a press conference to promote the film’s August 10^th release, co-stars Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz (who plays top-security research scientist Dr. Marta Shearing) and Edward Norton (who plays Ret. Col. Eric Byer, the man who built these programs) talked about where the franchise could be headed in the future, the challenges of this type of physical action, riding a motorcycle through the very crowded streets of Manila, shooting in the freezing cold, and staying focused on the work without thinking about how daunting the entire process is. Check out what they had to say after the jump.

Five clips and over 15 new images from writer/director Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy have been released.  For those unfamiliar with the franchise reboot, this time around, a government task force led by Edward Norton‘s character is assassinating all their genetically-modified assets to prevent another Bourne situation.  However, one member of the program, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), manages to escape with a scientist (Rachel Weisz), and the two go on the run for their lives.  It’s clear that there’s some timeline overlap between Legacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, so I’m eager to see how everything fits together in the finished film.

Hit the jump to check out the clips and images.  The film also stars Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Corey Stoll, and Donna Murphy.  The Bourne Legacy opens on August 10th.

Yesteday, Universal released the first clip from The Bourne Legacy, and they’ve released another one today.  For those unfamiliar with the franchise reboot, this time around, a government task force led by Edward Norton‘s character is assassinating all their genetically-modified assets to prevent another Bourne situation.  However, one member of the program, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), manages to escape with a scientist (Rachel Weisz), and the two go on the run for their lives.  The previous clip showed the two running away, and this clip shows them motorcycling away.  Writer-director Tony Gilroy looks like he’s done a good job of carrying over previous director Paul Greengrass‘ handheld kinetic style while still retaining the clarity of the set pieces.  The stunts look like they’ll be a lot of fun, but now I want to see how the great cast performs outside of chase scenes.

Hit the jump to check out the clip.  The film also stars Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Corey Stoll, and Donna Murphy.  The Bourne Legacy opens August 10th.

Even though it’s less than a month away, I keep forgetting The Bourne Legacy exists.  It’s not because I’m uninterested in the film.  It’s just positioned near the end of the summer, and has been overshadowed by some movie involving a crime fighter dressed as a rodent.  But with The Dark Knight Rises finally set to open on Friday, Universal is now beginning to remind audiences that there’s a new Jason Bourne aka “Aaron Cross” (Jeremy Renner) on the block.  The studio has released the first clip from the film, and it features a lot of running and screaming before finishing up with an awesome take down of a couple hapless cops.

Hit the jump to check out the clip.  The film also stars Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Corey Stoll and Donna Murphy.  The Bourne Legacy opens August 10th.

The first trailer for director Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful has been released.  The pic serves as a prequel to the classic fantasy The Wizard of Oz and stars James Franco as the eponymous wizard.  The story centers on Franco’s small-time circus magician with dubious ethics who finds himself transported to Oz and drawn into a battle between the three witches Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams).  I love how the trailer begins in Academy ratio and black-and-white before expanding to widescreen and color once Fracno’s whisked away to Oz.  The visuals are gorgeous and it’s obvious that this is one big movie, I’m just hoping that Raimi’s quirkiness and signature style isn’t pushed to the side in order to make “the next Alice in Wonderland.”

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Zach Braff and Abigail Spencer.  Oz the Great and Powerful opens on March 8th, 2013.