Currently wrapping up its first season and already given a second, the A&E drama series Bates Motel gives viewers an intimate portrayal of how Norman Bates’ (Freddie Highmore) psyche unravels through his teenage years.  This contemporary prequel to the genre-defining film Psycho reveals the dark, twisted backstory and shows first-hand just how deep the relationship with his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga), truly goes, as she helps forge the most famous serial killer of them all.

During this exclusive interview with Collider, co-stars Nicola Peltz (who plays Bradley, the beautiful teenager who Norman is in love with) and Olivia Cooke (who plays Emma, the quirky friend with a crush on Norman) talked about how they each came to the show, how familiar they’d been with Psycho, what they enjoy about their characters, how much input they have with their characters, and what made them each want to become actors.  Check out what they had to say after the jump, and be aware that there are some spoilers.

Mark Wahlberg was recently confirmed as the lead in Transformers 4.  We first heard Wahlberg was in talks from Twitch, so now that the site has a new Transformers 4 casting update, we’re ready to listen.  Twitch hears that Michael Bay has cast Nicola Peltz (The Last Airbender) as Wahlberg’s daughter and Brenton Thwaites as Peltz’s biker boyfriend.  Both Peltz and Thwaites were on the shortlist that was reported a few weeks ago.

We don’t have many concrete details on the plot—just these character descriptions and the hints that Transformers 4 will be set in China four years after the events of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  If this casting pans out, then Ehren Krueger (writer on the last two Transformers movies) should have everything he needs to lock in the script, at which point you won’t be able to escape Transformers updates.  The still-untitled Transformers sequel is scheduled for release on June 27, 2014.

In a perfect storm of movie casting for ambitious young acting talent, some major movies that could make (or break) the next rising star are all in a simultaneous casting process. Here’s a look at the latest developments:

• Michael Bay is set to start screen testing actors for leads in Transformers 4, which centers on Mark Wahlberg’s character, his daughter and her boyfriend, a race car driver.
• Divergent, which carries heavy Hunger Games or Twilight-sized franchise hopes, is narrowing its scope for the male lead opposite Shailene Woodley.
• DreamWorks’ Need for Speed adaptation is looking for other racers to fill in the cast alongside leads Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots and possibly Dominic Cooper.

Hit the jump for much more on each picture.

Oh, M. Night Shyamalan. You made The Sixth Sense, and the world was ready to declare you the new Spielberg, the new Hitchcock. And your follow ups had fans. Unbreakable, Signs. People liked these movies, but they didn’t have that Barton Fink feeling. But the next three films (The Village, The Lady in the Water and The Happening) kept getting worse and worse, with star Mark Wahlberg recently decrying The Happening as terrible. But with The Last Airbender writer/director M. Night was finally adapting material, which (one hoped) might get his head back in the game. Based on the Nickelodeon cartoon, there was a great story there and there was hope he might rebound. Noah Ringer stars as Aang, a mythical trained “bender” who can fight using air, water, fire and earth, and is called the last Avatar. He’s joined by water bender Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) in protecting him from an evil Fire Lord army (which features Dev Patel, Cliss Curtis and Aasif Mandvi) that are bent on world domination. And my review of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

I hate everything about M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender.  I hate that it’s racist.  I hate that it takes a great, easy-to-adapt show and completely disrespects the material.  I hate the performances.  I hate the special effects.  I hate the borderline non-existent 3D that serves only to jack up ticket prices.  I hate the lack of imagination.  I hate the embarrassingly bad script that would be laughed out of a Screenwriting 101 class. I hate the consequences if this movie is a success at the box office.  I hate the consequences if it fails at the box office.  I hate that this movie exists.  And “hate” isn’t a strong enough word.

Paramount has released the full press kit for director M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender which includes are over 30 images and 11 movie posters (domestic and international).  While some of the images have been previously released over the past six months, there are a lot of new ones.  So if you’ve been counting the days till The Last Airbender gets released, hit the jump to check out the images.  The film stars Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Dev Patel, Jackson Rathbone, Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi and Cliff Curtis.

Last night at the red carpet for the MTV Movie Awards, I was able to catch up with Jake Abel (Percy Jackson, D.J. Caruso’s upcoming sci-fi film I Am Number Four) and Nicola Peltz (The Last Airbender). Abel provided us with some info about his part in I Am Number Four and said he was “one of the main antagonists”. Peltz talked about her role as Katara in M. Night Shymalan’s The Last Airbender and her next project, Unbound Captives, which co-stars Robert Pattinson, Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. She also mentioned that she has seen Airbender (but only in 2D) and it’s “amazing”.

Hit the jump for the full interviews and make sure to check out my red carpet interviews with Jackass director Jeff Tremaine and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World director Edgar Wright.

It turns out that The Green Hornet isn’t the only tentpole in town getting the 3D conversion treatment; a “senior official” at Paramount talked to Harry from AICN about adding a third dimension to this summer’s The Last Airbender, the adaptation of a Nickelodeon cartoon of a similar name.  And while Hornet has nine months (with a new January 2011 release date) to get its act together, Airbender has just over two months to bend its projection toward the audience if it intends to keep its July 2nd release date (Deadline confirms it does).  More after the jump:

A new TV Spot for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender debuted during last night’s Olympic games.  The commercial has some new footage from the movie…but not more than 4 or 5 seconds.  Saying that, I’m starting to get excited for the movie as the footage has looked very cool and I’m a huge fan of Shyamalan’s early work.  I’d love for Airbender to be a return to form.  We’ll all know July 2.  Hit the jump to check out the new ad:

While I wasn’t too impressed with the Super Bowl spot for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, Yahoo! Movies has now debuted a full trailer for the film and it serves as a good reminder that while Shyamalan has seemingly lost all his talent for writing, he’s quite talented with his visuals.  Rather than crumble under the weight of a his first blockbuster feature, it looks like Shyamalan has created a rather impressive world in both the visual effects, the costuming, and set design.  Whether there’s a good script underneath all of this remains to be seen, although he has at least some guidance with this being his first adaptation rather than a new story from his dried-up mind grapes.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer along with the official synopsis.  The Last Airbender hits theaters on July 2nd.

M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming and slightly racist-looking, The Last Airbender, has two new character banners with one featuring the hero, Aang (Noah Ringer) and the other with the (apparent) villain Zuko (Dev Patel).  As you’ll see Aang is white as the driven snow and Zuko, not so much.  And if you’re wondering if all of my Last Airbender stories will harp on the racial aspect, the answer is, “Yeah, probably.”  Shyamalan has taken an acclaimed animated show featuring characters of various East Asian descent and made all the heroes white while the villain gets to be played by a (great) Indian actor.  This is particularly bizarre since Shyamalan is, you know, Indian.  So unless he’s planning a twist where it turns out all the good guys were villains and all the villains are good guys, he’s making a movie that may not be as dumb as The Happening (that’s a really tough bar to clear), but could be a much bigger middle finger to fans of the show, fans who are mostly kids.  Maybe those kids won’t care about the whitewashing, and hey, is it really so important that kids who aren’t white have heroes they can identify with?  Who doesn’t like white people?

Hit the jump to check out both character banners along with the official synopsis.  Presumably, we’ll eventually be getting two more featuring the other major characters, Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone).  The Last Airbender hits theaters on July 2nd.  I hope it’s not as racist as it looks.

In the latest issue of Empire Magazine, there is a story on the upcoming family-friendly, martial arts epic The Last Airbender, and we now have scans of a few images from behind the scenes of the film. The Last Airbender, based on a Nickelodeon animated series similarly titled Avatar: The Last Airbender, is written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and stars newcomer Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Dev Patel, and Jackson Rathbone. The television series had three seasons, and ideally the film will launch a successful franchise for Paramount Pictures.  More after the jump: