Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and David Koechner are all set to return for Anchorman: The Legend Continues.  Kristen Wiig was rumored to join the cast as Carell’s love interest, an item that just became fact as director Adam McKay confirmed the casting on Twitter:

Just found out Kristen Wiig officially on board for Anchorman 2.  Cannonball!

Anchorman: The Legend Continues, set for release on December 20, 2013, picks up with the San Diego news crew at the dawn of the 24-hour news cycle.

Hit the jump for a casting update for the adaptation of The Book Thief.

The first trailer and poster for director Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina has been unveiled.  The film is an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic tome about late 19th century Russian society and stars Keira Knightley an adulterer who questions her happiness.  We knew from Wright’s previous resume (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice, Hanna) that Anna Karenina wouldn’t be a straightforward, boring period piece, and this trailer speaks volumes to the director’s strength as a filmmaker.  The visuals are absolutely gorgeous and he appears to using some truly mesmerizing set design to change the film’s setting in one take.  Knightley, Jude Law and Aaron Johnson all look great, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how Wright’s adaptation plays out in full.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer and check out the poster.  The film also stars Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen, Domhnall Gleeson, Emily Watson, Alicia Vikander, Olivia Williams and Ruth Wilson.  Anna Karenina opens on November 9th.

Three lovely British actresses, Emily Watson, Anna Friel, and Lena Headey have signed on to star in The Poisoners.  THR describes The Poisoners as “a dark comedy about women left behind in an English farming community during World War I who become involved with several German prisoners-of-war.”  I am intrigued by the logline—or really anything that can be pitched as a dark war comedy—especially with such a winning cast.  Ken Duken, Hanno Koffler, and Alexander Scheer co-star, presumably as the German POWs.  Jon Amiel (Creation) will direct from a script by Paul Billing.  Jeanna Polley is producing through her aptly named company The Producers.  Filming begins this summer in Ireland in Germany.

With awards-season upon us, I’ve been doing my best to catch up with any potential contenders that I may have missed up to this point. Without a doubt, the standout of late has been writer/director Tate Taylor‘s The Help. I had heard from several friends that the pic was solid but nothing special. After finally getting a chance to sit down with it myself, I have to say that I disagree. I think it’s better than that. Not only is it filled with great performances, but it also finds a way to be more than a story of how a caring white person can help those otherwise hopeless black people. If only 2009′s The Blind Side could go back in time and take note.

But enough of my own cinematic experiences, in this week’s “Top 5″ you’ll find a recap of our visit to the Romanian set of Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance, Benedict Cumberbatch talking about his villainous role in J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek sequel, our interview with Mondo creative director Justin Ishmael, the possibility of a Bridesmaids world without Kristen Wiig, and video interviews with War Horse‘s Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Tom Hiddleston and more. Hit the jump for a brief recap and link to each.

Now playing in theaters is director Steven Spielberg‘s fantastic new movie, War Horse.  Based on the Award winning play (which is based on Michael Morpurgo’s book) and set during World War I, War Horse tells the story of “the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert (Jeremy Irvine), who tames and trains him.”  And don’t just take my word for it, early screenings have been very positive and the drama is heading into Oscar season with very positive buzz, especially after the National Board of review named War Horse one of the best 10 films of the year.  The film also stars Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Peter Mullan, Niels Arestrup, Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick Kennedy, and Toby Kebbell.  You can watch the trailer here and here’s seven clips.

To help promote the film, DreamWorks recently held a press junket in New York City and I was able to talk with Irvine and Watson on camera.  While I only had a few minutes, they each talked about how they got cast in War Horse, what it like to work for Spielberg, deleted scenes, and a lot more.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

“A Boy and His Pet” stories can be immensely charming.  Pets are sweet and they look up to the boy (or girl, but usually it’s a boy in these stories) and the boy loves his faithful friend.  The genre started out as a “A Boy and His Dog”, but has expanded to “A Boy and His Robot” (The Iron Giant) and “A Boy and His Dragon” (How to Train Your Dragon).  Steven Spielberg‘s War Horse pulls it back to terrestrial creatures and starts out trying to tell the story of a boy and his horse.  But then the movie changes gears, separates the two and rather than show the struggle of both to get back to the other, the story uses the horse to try and tell a series of vignettes about life during World War I.  However, those vignettes lose their honesty when Spielberg refuses to show the devastating horror of war.

We have 7 clips from War Horse, one of two Steven Spielberg films that will see release this holiday season.  Set during World War I, War Horse tells the story of “the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert (Jeremy Irvine), who tames and trains him.”  Based on early screenings, the drama is heading into Oscar season with very positive buzz, especially after the National Board of review named War Horse one of the best 10 films of the year.

Tom Hiddleston, Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Peter Mullan, Niels Arestrup, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Toby Kebbell also star.  War Horse opens on December 25.  Watch the clips after the jump.

Oranges and Sunshine is a true-life drama that tells the story of Margaret Humphreys (played by Emily Watson), a social worker from Nottingham, England who uncovered one of the most significant social scandals of recent times. Until the late 1960′s, successive UK governments had supported child migration, causing thousands of children to be deported from the UK to Australia. After learning that children as young as four had been told that their parents were dead before being sent to children’s homes on the other side of the world, where they were subjected to horrendous abuse, Margaret single-handedly set out to reunite thousands of families and bring worldwide attention to such an extraordinary miscarriage of justice, that only recently received formal apologies from both sides.

At the film’s press day, actress Emily Watson talked about her shock at learning that this all happened within living memory, her reasons for choosing not to meet her real-life counterpart before shooting the movie, and what it was like to lose her own mother during filming. She also talked about her experience playing the mother in the upcoming feature War Horse, and starting work on Anna Karenina at the end of November. Check out what she had to say after the jump:

A new trailer for Steven Spielberg’s War Horse has gone online.  After the somewhat-ineffectual teaser trailer struggled to explain the plot, the new trailer does a solid job of telling audiences that the movie is about a horse that is taken from his owner (Jeremy Irvine) to fight in World War I and the struggle between the two to reunite.  The new trailer is more encouraging, shows a grander scope of the drama, and strongly hints that the movie will tug at quite a few heartstrings.  The movie may have no big-name stars (although the great cast includes Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Peter Mullan, and Toby Kebbell) and have a horse for a protagonist, but with Spielberg’s attached, it’s already shaping up to be a major awards contender.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  War Horse opens in the US on December 25th and in the UK on January 13, 2012.

A new trailer for the drama Oranges and Sunshine has been released. The film is one of those “too disturbing to be true” tales that tells the real-life story of one social worker’s quest to uncover a hidden scandal on a massive scale, as she discovers that forced migration of children from the United Kingdom to Australia had occurred as recently as the 1950’s and 60’s. The trailer is quite intriguing, and I was wholeheartedly involved until the heavy-handed narration took over, making it seem more like a Lifetime or direct-to-DVD movie than an actual feature. Nevertheless, the story is crazy and I’m interested enough to check it out.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer. The film stars Emily Watson, Hugo Weaving, and David Wenham. Oranges and Sunshine opens in select theaters October 21st.

A trailer for writer/director Dennis Lee’s drama Fireflies in the Garden has landed online. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Julia Roberts, Emily Watson, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hayden Panettiere and Shannon Lucio, the film is a semi-autobiographical tale from Lee that focuses on the tumultuous relationships within the Taylor family that are confronted after a tragic car accident kills the matriarch (Roberts).

The film was actually completed back in 2008 and is just now making its way to theaters. Given the amount of star power it contains, I wouldn’t think that bodes well for the final product. That said, I think the cut on display here is plenty effective in setting up the tension between father (Dafoe) and son (Reynolds). Check out the trailer after the jump. Fireflies in the Garden will open to select markets on October 14th.

Mexican director Alejandro Monteverde (Bella) has set up the Little Boy, a small-town family drama set at the onset of World War II, at Metanoia Films.  Kevin James, Ben Chaplin, Emily Watson, and David Henrie form the supporting cast around Jakob Salvati, making his acting debut as the boy in question.  Variety provides the logline:

[Little Boy] revolves around an 8-year-old with developmental problems. His only friend is his father, and with his departure to war, the troubled boy is forced to confront the cruelty of schoolmates and others.

Monteverde co-wrote the script with Pepe Portillo.  Financing on the $24 million production is split between U.S. and Mexican investors.  Filming is scheduled for the end of August in Baja California — plus shoots in Rosarito beach, Ensenada, Tijuana and Tecate — with eyes to a 2012 release.  The cast is lily white, so I’m curious to see what role (if any) the Mexican setting will play in the story.

[Update: We have updated the article with the English-language version which is also higher-quality video, as well as a new set image]

A Spanish trailer for Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of War Horse has leaked online.  The movie charts the journey of a horse named Joey and his quest to reunite with a farmer’s son named Albert (Jeremy Irvine) against the backdrop of World War I.  Disney should release the official trailer soon, but the quality of this version is sufficient for now.  If you were hoping for a sweeping epic with a soaring John Williams score, the new clip promises just that.

Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberpatch, Patrick Kennedy, Emily Watson, Toby Kebbell, David Thewlis, Eddie Marsan, and Peter Mullan also star.  War Horse opens December 28th. Watch the trailer after the jump.

Things are heating up for Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated drama War Horse, starring Emily Watson, David Thewlis and Jeremy Irvine. After a few brief set photos a while back, and that release date fiasco – which bumped War Horse from its initial August 10, 2011 opening to a more awards-savy December 28, 2011 – we are now pleased to unveil the film’s official synopsis, courtesy of DreamWorks.

Okay, so maybe the news isn’t that ground breaking, but at least it’s something. We have long been privy to the film’s synopsis (it is based on a play that was, in turn, adapted from a children’s book after all), but even so, the Beard has seen fit to grant us an “official” rundown of his flick, which adds a few minute (even spoiler-ish) details. Hit the jump for the synopsis and more.

Forget the prior casting rumors for Steven Spielberg’s next film War Horse, because the full character lineup has been announced:

• Jeremy Irvine (Albert)
• Peter Mullan (Dad)
• Emily Watson (Mum)
• David Thewlis (Lyons)
• Benedict Cumberbatch (Major Stewart)
• Stephen Graham (Sgt. Sam Perkins)
• Tom Hiddleston (Captain Nichols)
• Niels Arestrup (Grandfather)
• Celine Buckens (Emilie)
• David Kross (Gunther)
• Patrick Kennedy (Lieutenant Waverly)
• Rainier Bock (Brandt)
• Nicolas Bro (Friedrich)
• Leonard Carow (Michael)
• Robert Emms (David Lyons)

No word yet on who will play Joey, the horse.  Details after the jump.