For a movie about a man who championed innovation, Joshua Michael Stern‘s Steve Jobs biopic, jOBS, is awfully safe and conventional.  By the end of the movie, most viewers will know as much as they previously did about the tech innovator or possibly even less.  Stern and screenwriter Matt Whiteley‘s depiction of Jobs makes one of the most influential figures in American business seem like nothing more like a savvy salesman who bullied people into following his vision.  Ashton Kutcher‘s lead performance veers between convincing and distracting, and while Josh Gad impresses as Steve “Woz” Wozniak, jOBS is a bland biopic that never provides any insight into the man behind the Apple.

We’ve got a pair of first clips from the following movies to share today:

• jOBS – Starring Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs and Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak, this first clip shows off the passionate vision and understated genius of the respective Apple co-creators.  jOBS opens this April.
• Bullet to the Head – Starring Sylvester Stallone as hitman Jimmy Bobo, this first action-packed clip reveals Bobo’s bathroom brawl with Keegan (Jason Momoa), a precursor to the eventual ax fight.  Walter Hill’s Bullet to the Head opens February 1st.

Hit the jump to watch both clips.

We’ve got another round of Sundance-bound biopic images today:

• jOBS – Starring Ashton Kutcher as the late Steve Jobs with Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak, jOBS chronicles the rise of the titular co-founder of Apple Computers.  Look for this picture to open sometime in April.
• Lovelace – A biopic of porn star Linda Lovelace (Amanda Seyfried) reveals the darker side of her rise to infamy.  Lovelace debuts at Sundance on January 22nd.  The report also tells us that Sarah Jessica Parker’s role as feminist Gloria Steinem has been cut.

Hit the jump to see the new images.

I’ll admit I was biased against the NBC’s new White House sitcom 1600 Penn, about a “dysfunctional First Family,” after I saw the terrible, terrible, parody-esque bump the network made for it (seriously, isn’t that the same style/music 30 Rock uses to make fun of terrible fictional NBC shows like “Queen of Jordan”?).  But a series shouldn’t be punished because of an inept promo editor, and some early positive buzz from a few trusted sources had me watching the first three episodes with cautious optimism.  Unfortunately, that feeling didn’t last through even one segment.

The pilot, which aired as a sneak peak in December, is (confusingly) not the episode that will (from my understanding) be kicking off the series this month.  It’s a shame, too, because the pilot at least explains the set up, which the second episode sorely needs.  Hit the jump for the Who’s Who of 1600 Penn, and whether it’s worth tuning in for.

The new NBC comedy series 1600 Penn follows the lives of the Gilchrists, who are just the average American family dealing with everyday issues, all while living in the White House.  The President (Bill Pullman) is finding it more difficult to be the head of his family than the head of the country, the First Lady (Jenna Elfman) is trying to win over her step-kids and the First Son (Josh Gad) just keeps sticking his foot in it, especially when it comes to his pregnant sister (Martha MacIsaac).

While on a set visit, where Collider and a few outlets were invited to tour the Oval Office and then conduct interviews in the Situation Room, co-creators/executive producers Josh Gad and Jason Winer (who also directed the pilot) talked about what led to them creating a family comedy set in the White House, why the Skip character was such a natural starting point to introduce the First Family, how the perception of the other characters will change as viewers get to know them better, balancing the lovable idiot aspect of Skip so that he never gets grating and annoying, the amount of improvisation done during filming, and Skip’s love interest.  Josh Gad also talked about how perplexed and pleasantly surprised he is about the success that he’s gotten from being in the original Broadway cast of The Book of Mormon.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.  

It looks as if that Twins sequel is moving forward.  Deadline reports that The Book of Mormon star Josh Gad and Ryan Dixon have been tapped to pen the treatment for Triplets, with Dixon handling the script.  The follow-up has Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito reprising their roles from the 1988 comedy as mismatched siblings.  As previously reported, the follow-up will find them getting in touch with a third brother played by Eddie Murphy.  Hit the jump to see what Schwarzenegger told us about the sequel when we spoke to him on the set of the upcoming actioner The Last Stand.

If you’re going to center your movie’s plot around a cutting-edge technology firm, take a lesson from director Shawn Levy and choose Google.  Levy’s The Internship stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as two out of touch salesmen who reinvent themselves at a tech company through a highly contentious internship. Today on Twitter, Levy revealed that the company would be the very real, and very progressive, Google.  The director has also accompanied his Tweets of late with set photos.  Hit the jump to check them out.

Here are some casting updates at a glance:

• Selena Gomez (Monte Carlo) has joined Parental Guidance Suggested, a rock-and-roll odyssey from writer/director Tim Garrick.
• Josh Gad (Love and Other Drugs) is the latest to join Shawn Levy’s The Internship, a comedic reunion of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
• Miles Teller (Project X) and Analeigh Tipton (Crazy, Stupid, Love) will star in Two Night Stand, a romantic comedy from Black List scribe Mark Hammer that will be the directorial debut of Max Nichols.
• Josh Hamilton (J. Edgar) is set to join Keri Russell in Dark Skies, a sci-fi horror picture from Priest director, Scott Charles Stewart.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

The second full trailer for Ice Age: Continental Drift has been released.  The fourth installment in the Ice Age franchise finds the kooky characters attempting to survive the breakup of Pangea, when Earth’s supercontinent begins to rift.  Though I’m not the biggest fan of the series, there are more than a few laughs to be found in this latest trailer.  The MVP of the franchise has always been John Leguizamo’s Sid the Sloth, and he shines in this latest clip.  We also get a glimpse of the film’s antagonists, a gang of pirates led by a prehistoric orangutan voiced by Peter Dinklage.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The voice-cast includes Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Wedge, John Leguizamo, Aziz Ansari, Nick Frost, Joy Behar, JB Smoove, Alan Tudyk, Heather Morris, Josh Gad, Kunal Nayyar, Alain Chabat, and hip/hop artist Nicki Minaj. Ice Age: Continental Drift opens in 3D on July 13th.

The first images from the sex addict dramedy Thanks for Sharing have gone online.  The film marks the directorial debut of The Kids Are All Right co-writer Stuart Blumberg and features an all-star cast in this story of three sex addicts struggling to function in normal society.  Mark Ruffalo plays an addict who’s trying to strike up a relationship with a woman who has sworn off dating other addicts (Gwyneth Paltrow), Tim Robbins plays a man married to his high school sweetheart who actually becomes addicted to his 12-step recovery program, and Book of Mormon star Josh Gad plays a young man whose addiction is so bad that he hides a camera in his shoe in order to film up women’s skirts.

The film certainly looks much lighter than that other sex addict movie from last year, Shame, and I’m a big fan of the ensemble cast.  Hopefully we see a trailer soon.  The film also stars Joely Richardson, Patrick Fugit, and Alecia Moore aka Pink.  [Update: Apparently these images were not approved for release and we've been asked to take them down.  We'll have official stills from the film up once they're available.]

We’ve got a smattering of casting news to throw your way this morning.  First up, Stellan Skarsgard and Hiroyuki Sanada (the upcoming action flick 47 Ronin) have joined the Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, and Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) in Jonathan Teplitzy‘s drama The Railway Man.  Firth plays real-life World War II British officer Eric Lomax, who was captured and tortured by the Japanese.  Decades later, he’s persuaded by his wife (Kidman) to find and confront one of his captors in order to repair the psychological damage.  Irvine plays the younger Lomax who was in the war.  According to Variety, “Skarsgard will play the best friend who accompanies the older Lomax (Firth) back to the scene of his torture. Sanada plays a Japanese officer from the prison camp whom Lomax tracks down.”  This is turning out to be a terrific cast, and judging by the synopsis, this could be a big role for Sanada, whose previous credits include Speed Racer, Sunshine, and Lost.

Hit the jump for more casting news on the indie flicks Jobs, Kilimanjaro, and You Are Here.

Fans of Party Down will be happy to see Ken Marino once again returning to the small screen in ABC’s comedy pilot American Judy by Judy Greer (Archer). The project follows Greer’s character, a newly married suburban housewife who struggles to raise her step-kids, deal with her mother-in-law and stay out of the line of fire of her husband’s ex-wife, who happens to be the town sheriff. Marino will star as Greer’s husband. Based on Greer’s real-life events, American Judy will be written and executive produced by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont.

In other casting news, The Descendants’ Amara Miller will be moving to 1600 Penn in the NBC presidential family comedy pilot. Starring as Marigold, the youngest daughter of the President (Bill Pullman), Miller will play one half of the family’s twins. Hit the jump for more on each project.

A new trailer for the fourth installment in the Ice Age franchise, Ice Age: Continental Drift, has gone online. In this adventure, Scrat accidentally triggers the breakup of Pangea and thus the splitting of the continents while pursuing that ever-elusive acorn (seriously, there are other acorns in the world, Scrat). This trailer highlights this entry’s newest inhabitants: the Gigantopithecus (an extinct genus of ape). I’m not the biggest fan of the series, but kids seem to love it and the movies make a great deal of money at the box office so I guess there’s an audience for the fourth entry.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer. The voice-cast includes Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Wedge, John Leguizamo, Aziz Ansari, Nick Frost, Joy Behar, JB Smoove, Alan Tudyk, Heather Morris, Josh Gad, Kunal Nayyar, Alain Chabat, and hip/hop artist Nicki Minaj. Ice Age: Continental Drift opens in 3D on July 13th.

Now this movie makes much more sense. While I was initially skeptical of a douche-infused adaptation of Neil Strauss’s pickup artist memoir The Game, it appears the project is being developed with a comedy bent. Book of Mormon star Josh Gad is in negotiations to star as the lead in the pic, a Rolling Stone journalist who struggles with picking up women. James Franco is onboard as Gad’s mentor in the art of tailchasing. Gad has gained notoriety thanks to his hilarious performance in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, and in addition to The Game it appears he might be poised to land his own TV show. Hit the jump for more, including a synopsis of The Game.

Bill Hader, Kate Hudson, and Josh Gad will lend their voices to the upcoming DreamWorks Animation film Me & My Shadow.  Per THR, the fantasy film stars as a bored shadow (Hader) who is tethered to a timid human (Gad), but gets the excitement he yearns for when a crime in the shadow community propels them into adventure to stop a shadowy villain from taking over the human world.  Hudson will voice Grubb’s love interest in the real-world.

When we reported on the film back in December 2010, Mark Dindal (The Emperor’s New Groove) was set to direct, but he’s been replaced by How to Train Your Dragon‘s head of story, Alessandro Carloni, who will make his directing debut on Shadow.  The film will blend CGI animation (the human world) with hand-drawn animation (the shadow world), and I’m excited to see the result.  Me & My Shadow is due out November 13, 2013.