The box office showdown between The Hangover Part III and Fast & Furious 6 has been altered slightly.  While many were wondering if either Warner Bros. or Universal would move off the May 24th release date to prevent a split opening weekend between two major franchises, it appears that WB has blinked—but just barely.  The studio has moved up the release of director Todd Phillips’ trilogy-closer one day, to May 23rd, giving The Hangover Part III a day in theaters alone before Justin Lin’s Fast & Furious 6 swoops in.

If we compare the opening weekends of the film franchise’s two previous installments, Fast Five just barely has the edge with $86 million vs. The Hangover Part II’s $85 million.  However, the last Hangover film suffered mixed reviews and a tepid response from audiences, while Fast Five was greeted with open arms, going on to rake in over $600 million worldwide.  It would appear that Fast & Furious 6 has the jump on winning the weekend, but it will definitely be close.  What about you, dear readers?  Which film will you be seeing the weekend of May 24th?  Hit the jump to watch the latest trailers for both films.

While Warner Bros. will be taking another stab at Superman on the big screen with this summer’s Zack Snyder-directed Man of Steel, it’s no secret that the studio worked for years on a new iteration of the character before both Man of Steel and Bryan Singer’s 2006 film Superman Returns came to fruition.  A number of screenwriters and directors tried to crack Superman, and one of the better-known versions that never made it to the screen is the J.J. Abrams-scripted Superman: Flyby.  Abrams’ take was an origin story that saw Krypton besieged by a civil war that spills over onto Earth, but it was eventually passed over in favor of Singer’s Returns story.

Steve recently landed an exclusive interview with DC Comics Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, and during the course of their conversation Steve asked Johns if DC would ever consider turning one of the many Warner Bros.-owned unproduced screenplays for a superhero movie into a direct-to-video animated feature.  Johns revealed that, in fact, that notion has come up before.  Hit the jump for more.

Director Baz Luhrmann promises an ambitious adaptation of the classic F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby, and we’ve been provided with some impressive Gatsby-related swag to give away to a few lucky readers.  For those unfamiliar, the story centers on a would-be writer (Tobey Maguire) chasing the American dream who moves to New York City in the spring of 1922 and encounters a mysterious millionaire named Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio).  Included in our giveaway is an iPhone case, a double v-neck T-shirt, a metal bookmark, a perfume bottle, a crystal decanter, a $100 gift card to Brooks Brothers, the soundtrack, and more.

Hit the jump to find out how you can win.  Special 10pm screenings of The Great Gatsby will be held on Thursday, May 9th, and it opens everywhere on May 10th.

A Tropic Thunder reunion may be in the cards.  Robert Downey Jr. has been trying to mount a new feature film version of Pinocchio for some time now, and most recently he had discussions with Tim Burton to possibly direct.  The film is based on an idea by Downey himself, and the actor would tackle the role of Geppetto as well as produce the pic alongside wife Susan Downey.  While on the Iron Man 3 press circuit, the actor recently hinted that his Tropic Thunder director Ben Stiller would be a great fit for the Pinocchio director’s chair, and now it appears that discussions between the two have materialized into something a bit more concrete.  Hit the jump for more.

As we previously reported, filming on Paul Thomas Anderson‘s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon‘s Inherent Vice will begin soon.  Today we’ve learned that Warner Bros., not the previously rumored Annapurna Pictures, who financed The Master, will be coming on board to finance the picture.  That’s a big step up in terms of visibility and ultimately promotion of the picture.  If Warner Bros. had come on as a distributor after the film successfully showed at a festival, that would be less surprising, but apparently the studio has enough faith in what is admittedly a lower-budget picture than their usual fare.  It also signals that the movie may be more mainstream than The Master, and perhaps a return to Anderson’s previous pictures Boogie Nights and Magnolia, which were released through Warner subsidiary, New Line Pictures. Cigarettes and Red Vines reports that the parting from Annapurna was “amicable” and that the two hope to work together in the future.

Hit the jump for more on Inherent Vice including the involvement of director of photography, Robert Elswit.

Much is riding on the success of this summer’s Man of Steel.  Not only is Warner Bros. hoping the film launches a new Superman franchise, but it is also the key to moving forward with other DC properties in the wake of Marvel’s immense success (ie. The Avengers grossing $1.5 billion).  The early buzz on Man of Steel is incredibly positive and the film’s latest trailer was rather remarkable, so expectations are quite high.  We know that Warner Bros. is developing a Justice League film with a potential 2015 release date, but further details about the pic have been rather unclear.

In a new interview with director Zack Snyder, though, it was revealed that the current plan is to ask Snyder to helm Justice League should Man of Steel take off.  Hit the jump for more.

It appears that Tom Cruise is becoming quite fond of the science-fiction genre.  The actor stars in director Joseph Kosinski’s sci-fi pic Oblivion, which opens this weekend, and he recently wrapped the starring role in Doug Liman’s sci-fi thriller All You Need Is Kill.  Now Cruise has become attached to star in an adaptation of author Chōhei Kambayashi’s sci-fi novel series Yukikaze for Warner Bros.  The book series takes place on an Earth ravaged by war, where a hyper-dimensional passageway opened up over Antarctica thirty years previously, setting into motion events that would find the human race uniting to fight off the mysterious alien force known as JAM.

Cruise would play a second lieutenant who is tasked with heading into enemy territory—the alien home planet Fairy—and gathering information that can bring an end to the war once and for all.  Hit the jump for more.

It appears that Stephen King’s beloved novel The Shining is all the rage at the moment.  King is set to release his sequel novel Doctor Sleep later this fall and the Shining-centric documentary Room 237 recently hit theaters, but now it appears that the story is headed to the big screen once again by way of a prequel.  Glen Mazzara—who previously took over for Frank Darabont as showrunner on AMC’s The Walking Dead before being forced out of the position halfway through the most recent season—has been tapped to write the screenplay for the Warner Bros. prequel film The Overlook Hotel. Hit the jump for more.

Warner Bros. has a potential goldmine with the DC Comics license, but their attempts at moving forward on superhero projects have stalled.  Films featuring The Flash and Wonder Woman are stuck in development hell, and the recent script for Justice League had to be scrapped.  So it’s all going to fall on the broad shoulders of Superman.  In a recent interview, Warner Bros. president Jeff Robinov says that Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel is “setting the tone for what the movies are going to be like going forward. In that, it’s definitely a first step.”

Hit the jump for more including a dismissal of a recent rumor regarding Christopher Nolan and Justice League.

Director Jose Padilha is heading back into the crime thriller world.  The filmmaker first broke onto the scene with his Brazilian crime pics Elite Squad and Elite Squad: The Enemy Within before landing the directing gig on MGM’s RoboCop remake, and now Heat Vision reports that he is next set to direct the true crime thriller The Brotherhood for Warner Bros.  The pic is an adaptation of Guy Lawson and William Oldham’s book The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia and centers on two corrupt detectives who secretly worked for two crime families for years while throwing cases, scrapping evidence, and even killing for the mob.  Oldham—another detective—eventually brought the two to justice after tracking them for nearly a decade.

The story most definitely has a Departed feel to it, and should make for a rather intriguing crime drama.  Dan Lin (Gangster Squad) is producing and Bill Dubuque (The Judge) wrote the script.  Padilha’s RoboCop remake hits theaters next February.  Hit the jump to read a synopsis for The Brotherhoods.

Director David Yates—who helmed the final four Harry Potter films—is having a bit of trouble getting a post-Potter project off the ground.  He was initially attached to direct the small-scale drama Your Voice in My Head with Emma Watson and Stanley Tucci attached to star, but was subsequently forced to drop out of the director’s chair for personal reasons.  After briefly flirting with a large-scale adaptation of The Stand, Yates then moved on to a reimagining of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan as his next project.

The filmmaker has been developing Tarzan since last summer and recently set True Blood star Alexander Skarsgard as his lead.  We learned last month that Jessica Chastain was circling the Jane role, but now Warner Bros. is putting the brakes on the project due to budget concerns.  Hit the jump for much more.

Opening next Friday is Warner Bros.’ upcoming biopic of Jackie Robinson, 42.  Directed by Brian Helgeland, the film chronicles how Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boesman) and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) worked together to eradicate segregation in baseball in 1947.  We’ve been provided with some 42-related swag to give away to a few lucky readers, including a baseball cap, a Henley Raglan tee, a thermal cooler, a water bottle, a gym bag, and an imprinted baseball.  Hit the jump to find out how you can win.

It appears that Clint Eastwood has caught the musical bug.  Though the filmmaker has been trying to get his remake of A Star Is Born off the ground for the past couple of years, he’s run into quite a few stumbling blocks along the way.  First production was pushed back when star Beyonce became pregnant, then the multi-talented artist dropped out of the project altogether.  Esperanza Spalding is the latest choice for the female lead, but Eastwood keeps striking out when it comes to filling the male role.  Tom Cruise was courted to star last year, and the project has already seen Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn pass on the gig.

Now it appears that Eastwood has set his sights on another musical film to direct as his next project instead of A Star Is Born, opting to push that long-in-development project back in lieu of the prospect of taking over for Jon Favreau on the Broadway adaptation Jersey Boys.  Hit the jump for more.

Warner Bros. has released a batch of new high-resolution images from some upcoming summer films.  Briefly:

• The Hangover Part III – A new image from Todd Phillips’ trilogy-closer teases a familiar scene as Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, and Ed Helms ride an elevator.  The film opens on May 24th.
• The Great Gatsby – A couple of new images from director Baz Luhrmann’s colorful adaptation highlight Leonardo DiCaprio’s titular character flanked by his new friends.  The film also stars Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, and Joel Edgerton and opens in 3D on May 10th.
• The Conjuring – Director James Wan’s new horror film debuted a ridiculously creepy teaser trailer earlier last month, and these new images feature Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga’s psychic investigator characters.  The film also stars Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston and opens on July 19th.
• Getaway – A new image from this car-set thriller gives us a canted look at Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez’s lead characters.  The film opens on August 30th.

Hit the jump to check out the images and synopses.

Undoubtedly one of my most anticipated films of 2014 is The Lego Movie.  The animated film comes from writers/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street) and features a fantastic ensemble voice cast that includes Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Neeson, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, and Morgan Freeman.  Today, Warner Bros. has unveiled the first logo for the film along with the announcement of a neat-sounding contest that gives fans the opportunity to have some of their own work appear in the film.  Hit the jump for more and to get a good look at the logo.