Director Robert Rodriguez’s sequel Machete Kills now has a release date, as the continued adventures of the titular Machete will commence on September 13th of this year.  The pic is the second in a planned trilogy (the third film supposedly takes place in space) and centers on Machete’s (Danny Trejo) quest to stop an eccentric billionaire arms dealer who has plans to spread war and anarchy across the planet.  On the September release date, the pic will open opposite the dancing film Battle of the Year and the Aaron Eckhart-led action horror adaptation I, Frankenstein.

Hit the jump to read the full press release.  The colorful cast includes Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Charlie Sheen, Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Jessica Alba, Demian Bichir, Alex Vega, Vanessa Hudgens, Cuba Gooding Jr., William Sadler, Marko Zaror, and of course Mel Gibson.

Director McG has found his leading lady for the upcoming action thriller Three Days to Kill.  Variety reports that Amber Heard (The Rum Diary) is set to star opposite Kevin Costner in the pic for Relativity Media.  The script was written by Luc Besson and Adi Hasak and centers on a dying Secret Service agent (Costner) who decides to retire in order to spend time with his estranged family.  Heard has been set in the lead female role of “a woman who offers him access to an experimental drug that could save his life in exchange for one last assignment, which Costner must complete while coping with the drug’s hallucinatory side effects.”  One imagines McG will try to bring the very visual premise to life with some innovative camera work, so here’s hoping for the best.

Heard most recently wrapped roles in Robert Rodriguez’s sequel Machete Kills and the corporate thriller Paranoia opposite Liam Hemsworth.

A double-barrel of good news on the Machete Kills front, as the Robert Rodriguez-directed and Danny Trejo-starring sequel has been picked up for North American distribution in 2013 by Open Road Films and has released its first official image!  The second installment in a planned trilogy features Trejo as the former Mexican federale out to stop a madman and a billionaire arms dealer from unleashing war across the globe.

The crazy cast which crowds Trejo out of his screen time features Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Charlie Sheen, Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Jessica Alba, Demian Bichir, Alexa Vega, Vanessa Hudgens, Cuba Gooding, Jr., William Sadler, Marko Zaror and Mel Gibson.  Hit the jump to check out the first image of Machete Kills.  Mr. Machete, what are you doing to Miss San Antonio?

Here’s a new batch of posters to complement the ones we posted earlier today:

• A look at a Chilean martial artist, Marko Zaror, trading in his fists for a shotgun in Robert Rodriguez’s Machete Kills.  The sequel, starring Danny Trejo in the title role, drops sometime next year.
• Two new Spanish posters from Rich Moore’s animated feature, Wreck-It Ralph.  Featuring the voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer and Jane Lynch, Wreck-It Ralph comes out on November 2nd of this year.
• An official poster for The Sessions from writer/director Ben Lewin.  The Sundance 2012 Audience Award Winner stars John Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy.  Look for it in theaters starting October 26th.

Hit the jump for the new posters and synopses.

Filming has begun on Robert Luketic‘s thriller Paranoia.  The film stars Liam Hemsworth as a telecom employee who is blackmailed by his boss into spying on a rival company.  I don’t know if Hemsworth can lead a film, but he’s got a strong supporting cast backing him up on Paranoia.  The film also stars Gary Oldman, Harrison Ford, Lucas Till, Amber Heard, Embeth Davidtz, Julian McMahon, Josh Holloway, and Richard Dreyfuss.  While I think Hemsworth has leading man potential, I have far less faith in Luketic, whose previous films include 21, The Ugly Truth, and Killers.  However, the corporate-espionage world of Paranoia is a far cry from anything else Luketic has done, so maybe he’ll have his first good film since his feature debut, 2001′s Legally Blonde.

Hit the jump for the press release, which includes the official synopsis.  Paranoia is due out September 27, 2013.

Director Robert Luketic (21) has finally found his female lead for the thriller Paranoia.  Liam Hemsworth stars as a blue collar guy whose costly and legal mistake at his entry-level job at Wyatt Telecom leads to a deal between him and his ruthless boss.  The CEO promises not to turn Hemsworth’s character in as long as he agrees to infiltrate the competition as a corporate spy.  Things escalate and the young man soon discovers that his boss will stop at nothing to demolish the competition.

Variety reports that Amber Heard (The Rum Diary) has been set as the female lead, an intended one night stand who becomes an asset to Hemsworth when he learns that she works at the rival company.  The impressive cast also includes Gary Oldman, Harrison Ford, and Lucas Till.  Production on Paranoia begins next month ahead of a September 2013 release date.  Heard recently landed a role as an assassin in the sequel Machete Kills.

We’ve got a couple of casting stories to report this afternoon.  First up, director Robert Rodriguez continues to fill out the cast for his sequel Machete Kills, and it appears that Amber Herd (The Rum Diary) will be taking on a femme fatale role.  Variety reports that Herd will play “a manipulative assassin code-named Miss San Antonio,” which I can only assume refers to her jaw-dropping beauty.  Dangerous beauty, apparently.  Danny Trejo is returning as the titular murderous Mexican, with Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez reprising their roles from the first film as well.  As for newcomers, Mel Gibson and Demian Bichir are poised to join the franchise’s second outing.

Hit the jump for casting news regarding the drag-racing biopic Snake & Mongoose.

Director Albert Hughes (The Book of Eli) has found his female lead for the thriller Motor City. Deadline reports that Amber Heard (The Rum Diary) has landed the female lead in the pic opposite Dominic Cooper. The film centers on a man who gets released from prison and sets out on a revenge mission to hunt down the people who framed him. There are currently no details on Heard’s role, but the actress has been gaining traction as of late starring in Drive Angry, NBC’s now-cancelled The Playboy Club, and most recently The Rum Diary with Johnny Depp.

Cooper recently starred in Captain America: The First Avenger and drew positive remarks for his performance in this year’s The Devil’s Double. He’ll next be seen in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Motor City was scripted by Chad St. John. The film will be Hughes’ first solo directorial effort, as he helmed his previous pics alongside brother Allen. Joel Silver is producing, and with the two leads set expect to hear more casting news soon.

Today is a good day. The Cardinals are World Series champions, trick r’ treaters will soon be out in full force, and I’ve got a night of horror films to look forward to. Once a year, my fiancée agrees to watch a few pics of the scary variety (or at least Halloween themed ones, i.e. Ernest Scared Stupid) with me in the hopes that I won’t ask her to partake in them again until the following Halloween weekend. Last year’s highlights included Drag Me to Hell and Trick r’ Treat. This year is shaping up to be Tobe Hooper-heavy with Poltergeist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre possibly making the cut. Like I said, today is a good day.

Before you dive into whatever Halloween festivities may await you, I hope you’ll take a few minutes and check out what this week’s “Top 5″ has to offer. In this installment you’ll find the first trailer for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 3D, a new trailer for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and interviews for this weekend’s openers In Time, Anonymous and The Rum Diary. Hit the jump for a brief recap and link to each.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is widely considered to be the best adaptation of a Hunter S. Thompson book, but there can be no bigger love letter to the late author than The Rum Diary.  Written and directed by Bruce Robinson, The Rum Diary draws in Thompson’s language, ideology, and attitude. The film meanders through episodic misadventures and provides mere snapshots of supporting characters, but these weaknesses become strengths because they stay true to the subtext and tone of the story.  The only misstep is the lack of chemistry in the relationship between the two lead characters, but for the most part, the movie always knows where to stumble.

In The Rum Diary, adapted from the novel by Hunter S. Thompson, actress Amber Heard plays Chenault, the beautiful Connecticut-born fiancée of a shady businessman named Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart). When journalist Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) travels to Puerto Rico in 1960, to writer for a local newspaper, he meets and soon becomes obsessed with the sultry temptress, leaving her torn between financial stability and love.

At the film’s press day, Amber Heard spoke to Collider for this exclusive interview about the torturous auditioning process they put her through for the role, why her interest in Hunter S. Thompson’s work was piqued when she was in ninth grade, what a dream it was to work with Johnny Depp, and how the stylized wardrobe really helped her get into character. She also talked about being able to relate to the indignation that can come with the expectations of looking a certain way, her desire to make the sexy girl roles into something more, and how excited she is to promote her next film, Syrup. Check out what she had to say after the jump:

FilmDistrict has released 19 new images and clips from The Rum Diary.  The film is based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson and centers on a journalist who makes his way down to Puerto Rico for a life of rum-soaked leisure but ends up with a moral conflict when he encounters a beautiful woman, and her shady businessman fiancée.  As you’ll see from the clip, it’s easy to get the words “astrologer” and “astronomer” confused when you’ve been drinking and see Amber Heard skinny-dipping.

Hit the jump to check out the clips and the images.  The film also stars Johnny Depp, Richard Jenkins, and Aaron Eckhart.  The Rum Diary opens October 28th.

The first trailer from writer/director Bruce Robinson’s The Rum Diary is now available online. Starring Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart, Richard Jenkins, and Giovanni Ribisi, the film is based on Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name and centers on journalist Paul Kemp (Depp) who moves to Puerto Rico where he eventually finds both his voice as a writer and his integrity. I know people have been waiting for this film to finally make it before their eyes for some time and, as far as first impressions go, the trailer doesn’t disappoint. Moviegoers may pay to see Depp revisit the mind of Thompson, but they’ll stay for Jenkins’ wig.

Check out the trailer after the jump. The Rum Diary opens later this year on October 28th.

The provocative new NBC drama The Playboy Club (premiering on September 19^th) takes place in Chicago in the early 1960′s, at a time and place that challenged the existing social mores and transformed American culture forever. The legendary and seductive club is filled with beautiful Bunnies, striving for their own independence and careers. When innocent new Bunny Maureen (Amber Heard) accidentally kills the patriarch of the Bianchi crime family, Nick Dalton (Eddie Cibrian) – the ultimate playboy and one of the city’s top attorneys – comes to her aid. At the Playboy Club, everyone has their own ambitions and agendas, and they are all hiding secrets.

During a recent interview to promote the show’s upcoming Fall premiere, actress Amber Heard talked about wearing her Bunny costume, that her character has her own share of secrets and skeletons in her closet, how the women that worked at the Playboy Club were empowered by their sexuality rather than being victimized by it, and how this was a time when there were different opportunities and expectations for women. She also talked about how she still hopes to be putting on a costume of a different kind for Red Sonja. Check out what she had to say after the jump:

New images have gone online for Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of Hunter Thompson’s The Rum Diary and the rom-com anthology New Year’s Eve.  I want to see one of these movies and it isn’t the one with the bloated cast.

Hit the jump to check out the images and a synopsis for each film.  The Rum Diary opens October 28th and stars Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, and Richard Jenkins.  New Year’s Eve opens December 9th and stars Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Hector Elizondo, Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Seth Meyers, Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Til Schweiger, Hilary Swank, and Sofia Vergara.  Click here for all of the image articles we’ve posted today so far.