Imagine an art show that focuses on “prominent characters of fiction and their often creative ways of getting around.”  If that sounds cool, then I recommend checking out the new Hero Complex Gallery show called “Righteous Rides…And the Dudes Who Drive Them” that opened in Los Angeles tonight.  The show is located at 2020 South Robertson Blvd., Studio D (90034) and it’s filled with artwork based on the rides from Blade Runner, Akira, Bullitt, Back to the Future, Star Wars, James Bond, Ferris Bueller, Prometheus, Transformers, Up, Star Trek, and so many others it’s too many to list here.  The most important thing to know is that the artwork is really well done and it’s definitely worth the drive.

However, since most of you live outside of Los Angeles, I took pictures of everything on display and after the jump you can check out about 70 images from the show.

Quite a hubbub occurred earlier today over 20th Century Fox’s supposed difficulty in developing a sequel to Prometheus, and now screenwriter Damon Lindelof has provided a statement on the matter.  Talk of a follow-up to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi film has been around ever since Scott and Co. were doing press for the first film, with both Scott and Lindelof offering up plenty of details regarding where Prometheus 2 might lead.  The first film was developed with an eye towards possibly moving forward with a full trilogy should audiences spark to Prometheus, and with a global box office haul of $403 million, Fox is understandably keen on getting a sequel going soon.

Lindelof opted not to come back and pen the script for the follow-up due to scheduling issues, and a new report today claims that Fox and Scott are “freaking out” over trying to figure out the story for Prometheus 2 after Lindelof “abandoned” the project.  Hit the jump for much more, including Lindelof’s comment on the matter.

While I was ultimately disappointed with Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, it certainly did conjure up an awful lot of discussion and interest in Scott’s planned sequel.  Star Noomi Rapace recently spoke with the director about the second film and revealed that work on the script is still underway.  We don’t know who the writer is at the moment, but we do know that Damon Lindelof won’t return to the franchise.  Hit the jump to see what Rapace  did manage to talk about.

For our final Toy Fair image article, we’re doing a huge roundup of NECA toy images.  While they’re making figures/toys for all the regular movies and TV shows you’d expect, the highlight of NECA’s 2013 lineup is the 60′s Batman featuring Adam West!  The reason it’s taken so long to get an Adam West Batman is lawyers.  From what I’ve been told, Warner Bros. owns Batman, while 20th Century Fox owns the show.  For years the two companies have been trying to work out an agreement to release DVDs/Blu-rays and new merchandise with little success.  However, late last year, the two companies finally worked out a deal and 2013 should see a lot of new toys and hopefully a home video release.  Which is great news for the fans.

In addition to checking out the first 60′s Batman toy in quite some time, you can also see new toys for Aliens, A Christmas Story, Captain America, Michael Keaton’s Batman, Carrie, Gremlins, E.T., Harry Potter, Hulk, Iron Man, Pacific Rim, Predator, Prometheus, Scarface, Rambo, The Hobbit, The Hunger Games, Thor, and a lot more.

As you’ve probably noticed, over the past 48 hours, we’ve posted a ton of toy articles.  The reason is every February in New York City, the toy industry holds its yearly convention (Toy Fair) and it’s where every toy manufacturer shows off their upcoming products.  If you’re a fan of movie related toys, Lego, or just cool stuff, Toy Fair is basically a huge preview of what you’ll be spending your money on this year.

Anyway, while walking around the show yesterday, Samantha Cheirif took a number of pictures and this batch covers Mezco Toyz Breaking Bad and NECA’s Carrie, Kick-Ass 2, Pacific Rim, Prometheus, Aliens, Rambo, The Lone Ranger, The Hobbit, Gremlins and more.  Hit the jump to check out the images.

While some had issues with Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (I thought it was great), I’ve never heard a bad word about the visual effects.  At last night’s VES Awards (visual effects), I got to speak with Prometheus Visual Effects Supervisor Richard Stammers.  We talked about collaborating with Ridley Scott, which shot was the hardest to get right, the mixed reaction to the movie, and more.  In addition, Stammers talked about what visual effects work he’s doing on Scott’s next film The Counselor, and revealed he’s working on Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past.  Of course, I asked if he’s started developing Sentinels.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards have been announced, and it’s quite a whirlwind of nominees.  As expected, Lincoln landed the most nominations with 12, followed with Ang Lee’s Life of Pi which nabbed 11.  The big story here, though, is the Best Director category.  Shockingly, only two (two!) of the DGA nominees for Best Director made the Oscar cut: Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg.  The rest of the category was filled out by Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild, David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, and Michael Haneke for Amour.  It was almost guaranteed that Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow would be landing nominations for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, respectively, but shockingly neither made the cut.  Apparently those films just directed themselves.  Based off today’s nominations, it now looks like it’s (surprisingly) down to Lincoln vs. Silver Linings Playbook for the big win.

Hit the jump to check out the list of nominees, and click here to check them against my predictions (somehow I predicted the Best Picture and Supporting Actor categories perfectly).  The 85th Academy Awards will take place on February 24th.

The Visual Effects Society has announced the nominees for the upcoming 11th Annual VES Awards.  This year’s major players include Life of Pi, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Prometheus, The Avengers, and Battleship, all of which landed nominations for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture.  The VES Awards also recognize visual effects work in more dramatic fare, singling out the impressive effects of films like Flight and The Impossible.  Duking it out for Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature will be the ridiculously impressive Richard Parker in Life of Pi, Hulk in The Avengers, and Gollum and Goblin King in The Hobbit.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees.  The 11th Annual VES Awards will take place on February 5th.

It’s January 1, 2013, which means that 2012 is now officially in the rear-view mirror.  Quality-wise, it was a stellar year in film, and with over a month to go before the Oscars there’s still an exciting air of unpredictability surrounding the awards contenders.  2012 wasn’t so shabby box office-wise either, and we thought today would be a nice time to take a look back at the year’s highest grossing films, lowest grossing films, and everything in between.  This year saw a few comedy surprises, the highest grossing Steven Spielberg drama in a long time, a couple of superhero megahits, and the glorious disaster that was Oogieloves.  Hit the jump to take a look at 2012’s Box Office in Review.

To try something new with our top 10 lists this year, we opened up a readers poll where you could vote for your 10 favorite movies of 2012.  The tallies are in: 3,760 of you from over 100 different countries racked up 28,375 total votes.  Your top ten of the year are The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, Skyfall, Looper, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Django Unchained, Argo, The Cabin in the Woods, Moonrise Kingdom, and Prometheus.

The two superhero giants were always a lock for the top spots, but I was surprised to find that a true majority of our readers voted for The Dark Knight Rises (59.9%) and The Avengers (55.4%).  It’s nice to see that not everything on the list is a blockbuster, as so many of you found room for the likes of The Cabin in the Woods (25.7%) and Moonrise Kingdom (21.9%).  Hit the jump for the full breakdown of the votes, including a comparison of American votes and international votes.

Looking back on 2012, a ridiculous amount of highly anticipated films came out this year and with them came a comparable barrage of quality trailers. Since this year was heavy on the comic book-derived features, you can expect that to be appropriately reflected in this top ten list. Along with those juggernauts you’ve come to know and love over the last year, we’ve also included some trailers that got the blood pumping and the synapses firing in anticipation for 2013. Fair warning: there were so many fan-favorite movies this year that our top ten list is guaranteed to include AND exclude some of your favorites. Hit the jump to check out our top ten movie trailers of 2012.

In past years for my “Best of” list, I’ve been able to provide fun categories like “Best Kill” and “Best Quotes”, but sadly, that won’t be happening this year.  I keep notes throughout the year, but in July, my hard drive crashed, and because I am a foolish person, I didn’t back up the notes to a separate drive.  However, I do have enough information to do the traditional categories as well as Breakthrough Performance, “A Very Good Year”, Best Villain, Best Surprises, Biggest Disappointments, and a new category, “Best Movie You Probably Missed This Year.”  One final note: unlike previous years, the film had to come out in 2012; festival-only flicks don’t count, so that’s why there’s no love for The Place Beyond the Pines on this year’s list.

Hit the jump to check out my miscellaneous “Best of 2012″ picks.  Be sure to keep checking back this week as we’ll be running Top 10 lists from Adam, Dave, and me.

I’ll be honest, I did very little preparation for this week’s Top 5. With the all-encompassing destruction of the Mayan Apocalypse staring us in the face, I kind of figured what’s the point? No one’s going to care about movie news when Smoke from Mortal Kombat III’s fatality proves prophetic and Earth explodes, right? Alas, as is so often the case, the Mayans failed us and I was forced to pull things together at the last minute.

In this, our first post-Mayan calendar installment, we have This Is 40 interviews with Judd Apatow, Leslie Mann, and Paul Rudd, a new teaser trailer and images for Star Trek Into Darkness, the first trailer for Michael Bay‘s Pain and Gain, the scoop on Damon Lindelof‘s lack of involvement in the Prometheus sequel and new info on 1952, and the first red-band clip and poster from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg‘s This Is the End. Brief recaps and links to each are waiting after the jump.

A few months ago we reported screenwriter Damon Lindelof might not have the time to pen the Prometheus sequel for director Ridley Scott.  I can now confirm the news.  When I spoke to Lindelof last week at a Bad Robot event for the Star Trek sequel (more on that soon), he told me he wasn’t doing it.  He explained that after Prometheus got released, (Scott and Lindelof) had a meeting “where we started talking again about where this journey would go.”  Before Scott could ask him to write the script, he said he couldn’t do it due to other commitments.

For more on why Lindelof said no, hit the jump.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has unveiled its shortlist of 10 films that will contend for the Best Visual Effects Oscar.  The films that have made the cut include The Dark Knight Rises, Cloud Atlas, Skyfall, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and Disney’s John Carter.  The list is full of impressive blockbuster fare from 2012, but as we were reminded last year (Hugo over Rise of the Planet of the Apes) the winner of the category tends to favor a Best Picture nominee.  As Ang Lee’s adaptation of Life of Pi includes stunning visual effects and is an early favorite to land a Best Picture nomination, prognosticators would do well to keep their eye on that film as the race moves forward.  That said, there’s not exactly a lack of great work to thumb through, so this should be an interesting category.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of contenders, and leave your thoughts on the shortlist in the comments.  The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards will be announced on January 10th, followed by the ceremony on February 24th.