A new trailer for director Harald Zwart’s The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones has gone online.  I got to check out this particular trailer at the WonderCon panel and I was impressed by the caliber and amount of action on display.  I’m sure that fans of the source material will pick up on a lot more of the mythology than a novice like myself, but it’s got a cool aesthetic that actually looks rather inviting.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, based on the Cassandra Clare novel, stars Lily Collins, Lena Headey, Robert Sheehan, Jamie Campbell Bower, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kevin Zegers, Kevin Durand, Jared Harris and CCH Pounder. The film opens on August 23rd, 2013.  Hit the jump to view the trailer. 

Screen Gems has released the first trailer for the adaptation of Cassandra Clare‘s young adult novel The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.  The story follows Clary Fray (Lily Collins), a teenage girl who discovers that she’s descended from a sect of half-angel warriors who protect the world from demons.  As a teen drama with ties to the occult, The Mortal Instruments will draw comparisons to Twilight.  But the trailer—specifically the sword fights and flamethrowers within— suggest more ass-kicking.  There is a big world and dense mythology here to explore, and the visuals help sell it better than the synopsis ever could.  It helps when you have Mad Men‘s eloquent Jared Harris to deliver the exposition in what sure looks like the “Giles” role.

Jamie Campbell Bower, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Lena Headey, Kevin Durand, CCH Pounder, and Kevin Zegers also star.  Directed by Harald Zwart (The Karate Kid), The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones opens August 23, 2013.  Watch the trailer after the jump.

Although the release date for The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is still about a year away, we have a production update to share with you.  Along with a new promotional image, we have a fully updated cast listing for the Harald Zwart-directed adaptation of the best-selling Cassandra Clare novel. The fantasy series follows a teenage girl who discovers that she’s descended from a sect of half-angel warriors who protect the world from demons.  Hit the jump for the most up-to-date casting info and a new promotional image.

Avatar is the most successful film of all time. So it should be no surprise that people went crazy for it. Like really crazy, like becoming suicidal over Pandora not existing crazy. The story of how Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) went to Pandora as a crippled marine, and became a Na’vi (a twelve-foot tall blue catlike creature), then a leader and warrior got to the core of some people, possibly because of how director James Cameron approached his 3-D world. Unfortunately, the home viewing experience has yet to be able to replicate that, and they didn’t bother with a red-blue 3-D home version (supposedly 3-D TV will be on the marketplace by the end of the year), nor did they offer a special edition version. Essentially the current release is a stop-gap until the special extended edition hits theaters, and then a bells and whistles version is likely. My review of the Avatar Blu-ray comes after the jump.

Opening this Friday is Warner Bros. new thriller “Orphan”. The film was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (“House of Wax”) and it stars Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, CCH Pounder and Jimmy Bennett. If you aren’t familiar with the film, it’s about an evil orphan that comes to live with Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard’s family….

So to help promote the film, we’ve been provided with six clips and they’re after the jump – along with the full synopsis. Take a look. Also, in the next day or so expect interviews with Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard, director Jaume Collet-Serra, and producers Joel Silver and Susan Downey.

If The Shield made any mistakes in its seven season run, it’s that as it headed into the final stretch (really Seasons five, six and seven, which fits as five and six were really one season split apart), is that it put Vic Mackie (Michael Chiklis) and Shane Vandrell (Walton Goggins) front and center, and the supporting cast from the Barn – the show’s station for the Los Angeles cops who made up most of the cast – were put into the margins. Sure “Dutch” Wagenbach (Jay Karnes) gets to break a case or two, and Claudette Wimms (CCH Pounder) gets some moments, but they are the lucky ones compared to Michael Jace’s officer Julien, or Catherine Dent’s Danni Sofer. There wasn’t much to do, and they were sacrificed for momentum. Who did benefit? David Rees Snell, as his Detective Ronnie Gardocki went from a feature player who maybe got a line or two, to one of the show’s aces in the hole.

More after the jump: