Yesterday at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Walt Disney unveiled about twenty minutes of director Gore Verbinski‘s The Lone Ranger.  Since I was on the red carpet waiting for the cast and filmmakers, I missed the screening.  But talking to a few people that did see the footage, the consensus I heard was that it looked great and it was a lot better than all of them expected.  If you want to judge some of the movie for yourself…watch the brand new trailer that was released yesterday.

Shortly after walking off the stage, I landed a red carpet interview with Verbinski.  We talked about how he decided which footage to show the CinemaCon audience, how long his first cut ran, he reveals that he still doesn’t have a finished cut of the film and doesn’t know how long it’ll be, whether he will ever make another animated film, how much he loved doing Rango, and more.  In addition, I asked if his adaptation of the graphic novel Pyongyang is his next film.  Hit the jump to watch.

We all knew The Lorax was going to be number one, and a big number one at that.  But most box office watchers were expecting the animated film to land somewhere between $49 and $59 million on its first weekend – making it easily the biggest debut of 2012.  Instead, the adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ classic has earned an estimated $70.7 million from 3,927 locations.  Not only is that the third-highest March debut ever, it also stands as the biggest animated feature debut since Toy Story 3.  In other words, this is huge.

The Oscars are finally over.  The front-runner, The Artist, won the awards race by picking up Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Hazanavicius), Best Actor (Jean Dujardin), Best Costume Design, and Best Score.  There were also some big upsets as “locks” like The Tree of Life for Best Cinematography and Rise of the Planet of the Apes for Best Visual Effects were no match for Hugo, which ended up taking those categories and three more (Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Art Direction).  As for nice surprises…not really (unless you loved Hugo).

It was a forgettable year for the Oscars, and Billy Crystal, turning in his safe, predictable, and family-friendly routine was the perfect fit for a year that screamed “Don’t rock the boat!”  Last year’s Oscars took a chance on pairing Anne Hathaway and James Franco, and the show was a mess.  This year, they played it safe and the ceremony was still dull.  Quite simply, there was no films to root for and the “upsets” were for the establishment.  It was also funny to have the show and actors celebrate the theater when audiences are moving to OnDemand services, and studios are trying to make the theatrical release window even shorter.   Hit the jump for a full list of the winners, click here for mine and Adam Chitwood’s Oscar predictions (he did way better than me), and click here for my live-blog of the ceremony.

After a strong debut on Friday, Act of Valor went on to win the weekend with an estimated $24.7 million from 3,039 locations.  Considering that this is an R-rated feature without any major stars, that’s a pretty remarkable start. Then again, with the fistfuls of cash Relativity devoted to marketing this Navy SEALs drama, anything less than first place would have felt un-American.

We cover Mondo quite a bit here at Collider, the reason being that they create really, really, really cool posters, and today the collectible boutique arm of the Alamo Drafthouse announced a series of posters to coincide with this year’s Academy Awards. Mondo will be releasing limited prints of four of their favorite nominated films from 2011, and they’re kicking things off with Martin Scorsese’s lovely ode to cinema, Hugo and Gore Verbinski’s stellar and quirky Rango. I’m a huge fan of both movies, and these Mondo posters capture the essence of each film perfectly. The two other posters in the series will be announced next week, but today you can take a look at Hugo by artist Kevin Tong and Rango by artist Tom Whalen.

Hit the jump to check out the posters for Best Picture Nominee Hugo and Best Animated Feature nominee Rango. All four posters will go on sale during the Academy Awards on Sunday, February 26th. As always, follow @MondoNews for on sale announcements.

I’m really hoping for some surprises on Oscar night if only to make things interesting, but it’s looking less likely every day. Last night The Artist nearly swept the British Academy Film Awards (essentially the British Oscars), taking home the prizes for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Music, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design. Meryl Streep was named Best Actress for The Iron Lady, while Octavia Spencer and Christopher Plummer won Best Supporting Actress and Actor. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy wasn’t sent home empty-handed, as the spy thriller won Best British Film and Best Adapted Screenplay. I was happy to see Senna get some well-deserved recognition, as the Formula 1 doc chronicling the life of driver Ayrton Senna was named Best Documentary.

While George Clooney seemed the favorite in the Best Actor Oscar race for his magnificent turn in The Descendants, The Artist’s Jean Dujardin could easily prove the spoiler. With the SAG Award in hand and now the BAFTA, the French comedian may very well step up to the podium come Oscar night. Hit the jump to see the full list of BAFTA winners. The Academy Awards will be handed out on February 26th.

The 2012 Annie Awards were held last night, and critical favorite Rango ended up deservedly taking home the Best Animated Feature award. Gore Verbinski’s quirky western also took home the award for Best Writing in a Feature Production, Best Editing, and the Members Favorite Award, but lost Best Directing to Kung Fu Panda 2’s Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Bill Nighy won Best Voice Acting for Arthur Christmas, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes took home the Character Animation in a Live Action Feature Production award.

On the television side of things, The Simpsons was awarded the top prize as well as Best Directing and Best Writing. Heading into the Academy Awards, Rango is our clear frontrunner. The Adventures of Tintin was pegged as the film’s biggest competition at the Oscar ceremony, but the Steven Spielberg film was ultimately left out of the nominations. Hit the jump to see the full list of Annie Awards Winners.

The nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards have finally been unveiled. Many of the categories have fallen in line just as most have predicted (I fared alright with my predictions, but not great), with Hugo scoring 11 nods, followed closely by The Artist with 10. The biggest surprises are War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close getting in for Best Picture, the exclusion of The Adventures of Tintin from Best Animated Feature, and The Tree of Life nabbing Best Picture and Best Director nods (hooray!). On the snub side of things, despite landing the most precursor critics awards of any other actor in the race thus far, Albert Brooks was denied a Best Supporting Actor nod for his stellar work in Drive (boo). Additionally, Tilda Swinton was overlooked for giving the best performance of the year in We Need to Talk About Kevin, and AMPAS has no love for Michael Fassbender‘s haunting work in Shame.

There’s still plenty to be happy about, as Gary Oldman has his first ever Oscar Nomination (yes, that’s right) and Melissa McCarthy is a Best Supporting Actress nominee. Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees. The 84th Academy Awards will be presented by Billy Crystal on February 26th.

The American Cinema Editors have announced their list of nominees for the 62nd Annual Eddie Awards. Before you brush editing off as an insignificant category, take note that no film has won the Best Picture Oscar without at least a Best Editing Eddie nomination in 20 years. Martin Scorsese’s longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker was nominated for her work on Hugo, as were last year’s Oscar winners Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Other films singled out include The Artist, The Descendants, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, and Young Adult.

On the television side of things, Breaking Bad, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Friday Night Lights, and Game of Thrones all landed nods. Hit the jump to see the full list of nominees. ACE’s 62nd awards ceremony, hosted by Patton Oswalt, will be held February 18th.

With each passing awards ceremony, it’s looking more and more likely that we’re in for a fairly boring/predictable Oscars this year. The Artist continues to dominate the precursor ceremonies as it took home the Best Picture and Best Director prize at the Critics Choice Awards. On the acting side of things, George Clooney was named Best Actor for his work in The Descendants, and Viola Davis won Best Actress for The Help. The Artist is our clear frontrunner headed towards Oscar night, and I don’t really think anything else will be able to take it down. I can’t really complain about any of the acting wins, though for what it’s worth I think Brad Pitt gave the best performance of the year in Moneyball.

Elsewhere, Drive won Best Action Movie (though it’s really a drama) Bridesmaids won Best Comedy, and Rango was named Best Animated Feature. Hit the jump to see the full list of winners.

Continuing on with our look at the 2012 Oscar race, today we delve into Best Animated Feature and the technical categories. As Pixar’s Cars 2 was the studio’s worst-received feature to date (it currently sits at 38% on Rotten Tomatoes), we’ve got ourselves an actual competition in the Animated Feature category. Not only that, but if all 18 films that were submitted to the Academy are deemed eligible, we’ll have a total of five nominated films. This leaves us to debate the merits of Rango and The Adventures of Tintin against the likes of Puss in Boots and Arthur Christmas.

Additionally, we’ve taken a stab at Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, and the technical categories. As these are incredibly tricky to predict this far out (and my picks would be doomed to haunt me come February), I’ve simply listed a couple of frontrunners in each category instead of going in depth. Though it’s still early, we’ve got an overall picture of how things look like they’ll stack up; so hit the jump to check out the state of the race so far. If you missed our previous preview articles, be sure to take a look at our picks for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, and Best Actor and Best Actress.

Under consideration for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature will be 18 contenders, some of which have yet to have their qualifying runs on screen. Major features include The Adventures of Tintin, Rango and Cars 2. Disney/Pixar has won 6 out of 10 years, while winning the last four in a row, but with DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots in the running, it could very well be their turn. Though there are some dark horses in the mix.

Submitted films must satisfy the category’s qualifying rules, including their theatrical release, in order to continue the submission process. In order to activate the award category at all, no fewer than 8 animated features must be released in theaters in Los Angeles County within the calendar year. If these films meet requirements for other categories, including Best Picture, they may be eligible for those awards as well. Hit the jump to see the full list.

Rango may be the most original film to be released this year… and if that doesn’t hold some significance, you haven’t been paying attention. We’re inundated with remakes, reboots, adaptations and regurgitations, driven by a psychotic fear of anything new (and hence unknown). In their relentless search for reliable moneymakers, the studios have seemingly forgotten how to tell their own stories… unless they’re trolling for Oscars, in which case a simple “based on the amazing true story” will do just fine. And yet in the middle of it all, there sits this strange and wonderful flight of imagination: from a director best known for bringing a theme park ride to the screen, no less. Miracles still happen… even in Hollywood. Hit the jump for my full review.

OK, so we all know that “summer” started early this year with the $86.2 million launch of Fast Five.  The only question was how last weekend’s massive debut would impact Thor – the superhero flick that, according to the calendar, should have been this year’s first blockbuster.  Thor earned an estimated $25.7 million from its 3,995 locations on Friday including the $3.25 million he took in from midnight screenings.  That puts the Marvel hero on track for a $60 million first weekend or, right about where the big guy was expected to land after Vin Diesel’s crew drove off with his start-of-summer thunder seven days ago.  That same crew came in second on Friday, falling off by 70% for an estimated $10.5 million.  With its new domestic total of $117.8 million, Fast Five should be passing Rango to become the highest-grossing release of 2011 right about… now!  This week’s two romantic-comedy counter-programmers – Something Borrowed and Jumping the Broom – brought in $4.8 and $4.1 million respectively.  Full details and analysis tomorrow.

On Easter weekend the animated hit Rio managed to hold on to its number one perch for a second weekend in a row with an estimated $26.8 million.  The padding between Fox’s birds and the Tyler Perry’s bawd was pretty slim, however.  In second place Madea’s Big Happy Family was right behind Rio with an estimated $25.8 million.