Jon M. Chu’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation is now playing in theaters.  The sequel’s story finds the Joes disbanded and outnumbered as they must square off against not only the Cobras, but also threats within their own government.  G.I. Joe: Retaliation stars Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum,  D.J. Cotrona, Elodie Yung, Ray Park, Byung-hun Lee, Ray Stevenson, Walton Goggins, RZA and Adrianne Palicki.  For more on the film, here’s clips, images, on set interviews, and all our previous coverage.

Last weekend, I sat down with screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick for an extended interview.  Over the past few days we’ve posted what they said about their Zombieland pilot, the Deadpool movie, and their take on Venom.  However, that was just the tip of the iceberg because during the interview we also talked about making G.I. Joe, the nine-minute dialogue-free action sequence featuring Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, the 3D post conversion, changes from the original G.I. Joe, landing the job, and other future projects like an HBO series, a sci-fi tent-pole for Sony, Universal’s Cowboy Ninja Vikings, and Bad Robot’s Micronauts.  Hit the jump to watch.

I want to see the Deadpool movie.  Ryan Reynolds is perfect casting, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland) are the perfect writers for it, and it’s just a fun character whose tendency to break the fourth-wall could be a welcome spin on the superhero genre.  Reynolds is still on board, and he recently said that Deadpool would address X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which would help avoid getting bogged down in continuity, and give the character a fresh start.  He also noted that it’s a hard sell to 20th Century Fox because the film would be hard-R (therefore cutting into the profits pulled from the wallets of teenage boys), and not fit the mold of other superhero movies.  Reese and Wernick are also somewhat frustrated with the lack of progress, and they recently spoke with Steve about the project.

Hit the jump for what they had to say including the hurdles in getting it made, taking a chance on an unconventional superhero, and how you can find the script.

Though the sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past is gearing up to begin production next month, another long-promised X-Men spinoff film continues to linger in development hell.  Fox has been working on a Deadpool movie for what feels like an eternity now, and the last thing we heard about the project was a rumor that the studio had shot 8-minutes of test footage for the proposed pic.  That was over a year ago and we haven’t had any significant updates in the interim.  Ryan Reynolds remains attached to star, but the hurdle for the studio is greenlighting a hard-R superhero movie in which the protagonist frequently breaks the fourth wall.

Reynolds recently gave a bit of an update on the project, saying that “it’s sitting there” and discussing the difficulty of getting the go-ahead from Fox for such a unique film.  The actor also addressed how the Deadpool spinoff would handle the character’s appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

While it seems like we’re hit with an ever-increasing barrage of superhero movies each year, Deadpool is surely one of the most anticipated that’s yet to see the light of day. The film has been in the works for years now, and finally got some movement when visual effects guru Tim Miller was set as director last April. It’s a hard sell, as star Ryan Reynolds and those creatively involved are adamant that the feature be true to the comic and therefore rated R. Word on the project has been quiet for some time, but comic writer/illustrator Rob Liefeld recently let slip that he may or may not have seen eight minutes of test footage from the film. Details after the jump.

With the critically acclaimed X-Men: First Class available on DVD and Blu-ray this Friday (dubbed “First Class Friday”), Collider was invited to the 20^th Century Fox lot for a media event celebrating that release and previewing some of the bonus features. Along with extended and deleted scenes, this ultimate collection has a Cerebro Mutant Tracker Portal that allows fans to access videos and information of their favorite mutants from the X-Men universe, along with 10 Marvel X-Men digital comics, an eight-part behind-the-scenes featurette, and an interactive feature that allows viewers to learn more about specific scenes.

Following the presentation, we got a few brief minutes to sit down with Lauren Shuler Donner, producer of the X-Men franchise. During the interview, we talked about the fact that all of the deleted scenes from the film can be found on the Blu-ray, what her favorite deleted scene is, how the success of the film has helped move along other films in the X-Men universe, and that she is currently prepping the next Wolverine film, but is also talking about a sequel for First Class and hoping that the Deadpool film will have a life, at some point. Check out what she had to say after the jump:

While at the 37^th annual Saturn Awards, we were able to speak with Marvel Studios VP of Production Tom Cohen. He spoke about X-Men: First Class, possible sequels, The Wolverine, Deadpool, Ant Man, Marvel’s strategy for introducing comic book characters that may be unfamiliar to mainstream audiences, teased a bit about the studio’s presence at Comic-Con this year, and more.

Hit the jump to watch the interview. If you missed our previous coverage from the Saturn Awards, don’t forget to check out our interviews with Let Me In director Matt Reeves, makeup artists Rick Baker and Dave Elsey, Brandon Routh, Fringe’s Lance Reddick, producer Dean Devlin, Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd from The Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan.

The long-gestating film version of the comic-book Deadpool finally has a director in place. Deadline reports that visual effects guru Tim Miller has been tapped by 20^th Century Fox to direct X-Men Origins: Deadpool. Miller will make his directorial debut on the film, having previously done visual-effects work on films like X-Men, X2 and Daredevil.

Ryan Reynolds has long been set to play the lead in the film, having portrayed the “Merc with a Mouth” in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. However, producer Lauren Shuler Donner recently stated that the Deadpool film will be a reboot and won’t acknowledge the events that took place in Wolverine. Hit the jump for more on Deadpool.

Producer Lauren Shuler Donner has been with the X-Men franchise from the beginning and she knows all of the ins and outs of its various sequels, prequels, and spin-offs.  In the latest issue of Empire, she provides updates on future X-Men films, Deadpool, and The Wolverine.  Speaking about the core franchise, Donner explains that the upcoming prequel X-Men: First Class doesn’t mean we’re done with X-Men films set in the present day:

“We took the treatment to Fox and they love it… And X4 leads into X5,”

Of course, a treatement is a long way from anything substantive happening on the sequels and it will be interesting to see how Fox proceeds based on the box office for First Class. Hit the jump for what Donner had to say about Deadpool and Wolverine.  X-Men: First Class opens June 3rd.

In an online chat on the L.A. Times website HeroComplex, Kevin Feige, the President of Marvel Studios, answered a ton of fan submitted questions.  While he didn’t reveal any major Marvel secrets, he did give updates on numerous Marvel projects that are in development.  Some of the projects he talked about were Ant-Man, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Luke Cage, The Runaways, The Punisher, Deadpool, Thor, Captain America, Power Pack, and a few others.  Here’s some of the bullet point highlights:

• Iron Man will have new armor in The Avengers
• The upcoming Marvel movies will continue hiding hidden Easter Eggs
• Says the next 3 years he’s working on Iron Man 3, The Runaways, Ant-Man and The Avengers
• Don Blake is somehow referenced in Thor
• Edgar Wright is still working on the screenplay for Ant-Man
  
• Mentions his love of Dr. Strange, Black Panther, and Luke Cage
• We should be seeing the Captain America trailer early next year
• They are working on The Punisher. No word if it’s TV or live-action
• Wants to bring female heroes to the big screen
• A very talented writer is currently working on a draft of Iron Fist right now
• Claims Natalie and Chris have amazing chemistry in Thor
• Open to an R-Rated Marvel movie
• Says some of the upcoming Marvel movies will have after the credit scenes
• The ten-minute shorts before the features was just a rumor.
• Says Fox is still working on a Deadpool movie
• Nick Fury will stay in the modern era
• No Invaders in Captain America but there will be Howling Commandoes

Hit the jump for everything he said:

Christmas is the season of giving, but it looks like Fox is looking to get a little back this holiday. The studio is suing P.J. McIlvaine, along with ten unnamed defendants, for allegedly sharing some seventy-nine Fox scripts. McIlvaine, who has two screenwriting credits to her name, assembled the scripts as .pdf files in a MediaFire cache, purportedly for the purpose of educating other screenwriters. While the vast majority of these films are older, the sore point for Fox appears to be the script for Deadpool, which is still in production and not scheduled to be released until 2012. More after the jump:

In the midst of Robert Rodriguez’s scheduling conflicts, a new name is now being discussed as potentially filling Deadpool‘s director’s chair – Swedish commercial/video director Adam Berg.  Although he has yet to helm a feature film, Berg is believed to have landed on 20th Century Fox’s radar as a result of his work on Carousel, a commercial he directed which took home the Cannes Lions International Advertising prize.  Per 24 Frames, the freeze-frame short earned him the respect of both the studio as well as Deadpool himself, the seemingly infallible Ryan Reynolds, making him a “top contender” to take over the film.

To check out Berg’s highly-stylized commercial as well as my thoughts on his potential involvement, hit the jump.

…And the ongoing question of “will he / won’t he?” continues.  While doing press for his upcoming film Buried, Ryan Reynolds was asked (depending on the time of day, for the 5th-15th time) whether or not he is still planning on portraying America’s favorite Canadian mercenary in the Deadpool film.  In his response, Reynolds claimed that, with a Green Lantern sequel now on the books, his potential turn as Deadpool would almost certainly interfere with his inclusion in the film adaptation of the Dark Horse Comic R.I.P.D.

To check out the full quotes from the interview with Reynolds, hit the jump. 

Remember a month ago we ran an article about Rob Liefeld, one of the creators of Deadpool, openly questioning whether Ryan Reynolds would be on board for the big screen adaptation? Well, scratch that, as we have some of the first big news out of the “Merc with a Mouth” camp in a while, and it’s good. Reynolds spoke with Hero Complex recently and had quite a bit of praise to heap upon the script, saying that it is vastly different than the current slate of super hero films. He even goes as far as to assume that the opening of the film will lose viewers right off the bat, and that it is a daring showcase of exactly what the character is all about. For full quotes from the Hero Complex article and more information on the film, hit the jump.

Robert Rodriguez may not be telling the tale of the “Merc’ with the Mouth”.  Deadline reports that Fox wants Rodriguez to helm the X-Men Origins: Wolverine spinoff Deadpool starring Ryan Reynolds, but scheduling is the major issue.  Both Reynolds and Rodriguez are busy gents and there’s difficult finding a window when they’re both available.  Reynolds is attached to numerous projects (just last night we reported that he had signed on to co-star with Bradley Cooper in buddy-cop action-comedy) and is planning to shoot Safe House with Denzel Washington early next year.  As for Rodriguez, he’s got Spy Kids 4 on his plate.  He tells Deadline, “If they push it back, it would be a lot better for me.”  Of course, then the question becomes whether pushing it back would be a lot better for Reynolds.

Rodriguez’ new film, Machete, opens Friday and stars Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, and Robert De Niro.

Audiences first got a glimpse of Machete as a fake trailer that was part of the Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino double-feature tribute to B-movies, Grindhouse. Now, it’s a full-length feature film, starring Danny Trejo as the first bad-ass Mexican superhero.

A legendary ex-Federale with a deadly attitude and skills to match, Machete attempts to start his life over as a day laborer on the streets of Texas. But, instead of disappearing into the mundane life that he desires, he becomes the perfect fall guy for a crooked politician and has to set out to clear his name and expose a deep conspiracy.

At the film’s press day, director/co-writer/producer/editor Robert Rodriguez and actor Danny Trejo talked about developing the character for a full-length feature, the timing of a film about immigration, assembling such an eclectic cast, all of the extra scenes that will be on the DVD and the possibility of sequels. Rodriguez also gave an update on Spy Kids 4 and the Deadpool film. Check out what they had to say after the jump: