Will Smith is setting his sights on a reboot of a classic Western in the near future.  Warner Bros. has been developing a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s classic 1969 film The Wild Bunch for a couple of years now, with Tony Scott most recently attached to take the helm.  Scott sadly passed away before his iteration of the film could make it to the screen, but Warner Bros. is still keen on getting this thing going and they’re roping in some major star power to move it forward as Will Smith is currently in negotiations to star in and produce the Wild Bunch remake.  Hit the jump for more.

Sony Pictures has released the first clip from director M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming sci-fi film After Earth.  The pic stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.  This debut clip shows how all of the action is put into motion, as we see Will Smith’s Cypher Raige (I still can’t get over that character name) explaining to his son that in order to get to the plane’s distress beacon, he will have to travel a very long distance over an incredibly harsh terrain.

Hit the jump to watch the clip.  The film also stars Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz.  After Earth opens on May 31st.

To this point, all of the marketing for After Earth have highlighted Will and Jaden Smith, which is understandable.  They’re the lead actors, and Will Smith is a movie star.  But there are other actors in the movie, and we now have the first images of co-stars Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda) and Zoe Kravitz (X-Men: First Class).  The film centers Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his father Cypher (Will Smith), who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to Kitai to fight for survival when Cypher is seriously injured.  Okonedo plays Cypher’s wife, and Kravitz plays their eldest daughter.  I don’t know the size of their roles, but I appreciate the film for having a primarily black cast since that never happens when it comes to blockbuster action films.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  After Earth opens May 31st.

Sony Pictures has released a couple of new high-resolution images and a new TV spot for director M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming sci-fi film After Earth.  The pic stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.  The images don’t really reveal much by way of the film’s environment, but the Earth Day-centric TV spot does feature some new footage that gives us a look at the evacuation of Earth that occurs in the film.

Hit the jump to check out the images and TV spot.  The film also stars Zoe Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo, and Isabelle Fuhrman.  After Earth opens on May 31st.

Just two days after signing on to topline Focus, Will Smith seems intent on keeping himself busy, with two films possibly lined up after the grifter pic.  The action star is reportedly considering two projects he’s had on his radar for quite a while, the first of which is the drama American Can, where he’d be taking the role of a “reluctant hero” during the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina for director Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai).  On top of that, there is the possibility that Smith would also star in the thriller The Accountant.  Hit the jump for more.

Sony is making a last-minute release date change for director M. Night Shyamalan’s sci-fi film After Earth.  The film will now open a week earlier, on May 31st, instead of its original June 7th date.  The pic only faced the comedy The Internship on its original release date, but Man of Steel is poised to open a week later on June 14th.  It’s safe to assume that Sony is trying to give After Earth a bit more time in theaters before Superman comes in and dominates the box office for who knows how long.  Buzz on Man of Steel is incredibly positive, and if the Warner Bros. film turns out to be as good as everyone’s saying, it will most definitely have very long legs.

After Earth, which stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father/son team stranded on a deadly, apocalyptic future Earth, will now open opposite the magician action/adventure pic Now You See Me and Universal’s horror film The Purge starring Ethan Hawke.  Hit the jump for the film’s poster and synopsis.

Will Smith is reportedly in final talks to join Focus, a con artist picture set up at Warner Bros.  The story follows a young woman who’s just getting into the con game and teams up with a seasoned veteran to gain experience.  Ben Affleck was previously attached to star, but dropped out in order to work on his next project.  Recent reports also have Kristen Stewart, who had previously been attached, departing the picture.  Glenn Ficarra and John Requa of Crazy, Stupid, Love wrote the film and will direct.  Hit the jump for more.

Will Smith was Quentin Tarantino‘s first choice to play Django in Django Unchained.  It was a great opportunity for the actor to finally take a chance in his safe career, but he decided to pass on the role.  In November, Tarantino said that while he met with Smith, “It just wasn’t 100 percent right, and we didn’t have time to try to make it that way.”  Smith is slightly notorious for coming in and rewriting scripts, but no one gets to rewrite Tarantino.

Smith has now commented on his side of the story, and why he chose to pass on the Oscar-winning picture.  Hit the jump for more.

The long-gestating remake of the 1970 sci-fi film Colossus: The Forbin Project is now seeing new life with a new screenwriter.  Reports have Ed Solomon (Men in Black) set to rewrite the script of Colossus, which is expected to star Will Smith.  Blake Masters and Jason Rothenberg previously turned in drafts of the sci-fi screenplay, which centers on Smith in the role of Dr. Charles Forbin, the creator of a computer that has taken over the world and the only scientist who can stop it.  THR reported that Solomon will once again team on a Smith-starrer with the rewrite.

I realize that it’s a little too March to be discussing my favorite holiday gifts, but I only recently had the opportunity to dive into one of mine and, as a result, I feel the need to share it’s greatness with our readers. The ESPN 30 for 30 Collector’s Set Blu-ray is an outstanding collection of sports documentaries that is rife with social commentary and almost sure to have something for sports and/or documentary fans alike. Before I get accused of paid programming, I’ll disclaim that all thirty of its films aren’t home runs (that’s right, a sports pun). Moreover, I’m fairly sure that all of the series’ entries are available to watch instantly on Netflix right now making the physical collection redundant for some. Regardless of how you partake, I encourage you to sift through the series, find a topic that interests you, and give it a shot.

All recommendations aside, this week’s Top 5 features a healthy portion of Iron Man 3 coverage (including the new trailer), Oz the Great and Powerful interviews with Sam Raimi, James Franco, Mila Kunis, and more, the first trailer for The Hangover Part III, a sizable Justice League movie rumor, and the new trailer and poster for Will Smith and Jaden Smith‘s After Earth. As you may be expecting, a brief recap and link for each of the above waits after the jump.

Sony Pictures has released a new trailer and poster for director M. Night Shyamalan’s sci-fi film After Earth.  The film stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.  This trailer reveals a ton of new footage as well as the reason behind the duo’s crash landing.  It’s a bildungsroman for not only Jaden Smith’s character, Kitai, but for the actor himself.  Will Smith takes a back seat in this actioner and guides his on-screen and off-screen son through its paces, allowing him to take metaphorical (and literal) leaps on his own.  Will we accept the younger Smith as an up-and-coming action star?  Will we allow Shyamalan back into our good graces?  We’ll find out this summer.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.  The film also stars Zoe Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo, and Isabelle Fuhrman.  After Earth opens June 7, 2013.

Columbia has released a couple of new images from director M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming sci-fi film After Earth.  The film stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash land on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to the son to fight for survival when the father is seriously injured.  These images advertise the fact that a new trailer for the film will be arriving tomorrow, and I’m hoping that it’s markedly more exciting than the film’s first trailer.

Hit the jump to take a look at the images.  The film also stars Zoe Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo, and Isabelle Fuhrman.  After Earth opens June 7, 2013.

Development on Sony’s musical remake of Annie continues, and the project has both gained and lost a player.  The project was first announced in early 2011 with Will Smith and Jay-Z producing the redo as a starring vehicle for Smith’s daughter Willow Smith.  Willow is now 12 years old and has since outgrown the lead role, so she is no longer attached to star.  However, movement on the project continues as Easy A and Friends with Benefits helmer Will Gluck is now in negotiations to direct.  Hit the jump for more.

Before the world presumably ends tonight (or is it tomorrow?), we have some new images and information to share with you from M. Night Shyamalan’s dystopian sci-fi epic, After Earth. While they might not be much help in the way of surviving the coming apocalypse, they should provide some interesting background on the picture should the world continue to spin on. After Earth stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as a father and son team of explorers who crash land on a hostile Earth and attempt to survive. The new images flesh out details of Earth before the fall as well as how things stand in the film’s contemporary time. After Earth opens June 7, 2013. Hit the jump to check out the new images. 

Back in 2010, Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal were coming off their Oscar wins for The Hurt Locker, and turning their attention to the crime drama Triple Frontier (also known as Sleeping Dogs).  The details of the plot were unknown, but the film was billed as an action-adventure set in a border zone of South America known as “la triple frontera”, a haven for organized crime.  Tom Hanks was attached to play one of the leads, and other stars were rumored for the picture including Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Denzel Washington, and Javier Bardem.  The plan was to start filming in March 2011.  But then Bigelow and Boal decided to hit pause, and do an indie thriller before Triple Frontier.  It’s worth noting that Variety shot down a rumor that “the plot concerns the hunt for Osama Bin Laden,” even though that rumor ultimately turned out to be true.  However, at that time the indie thriller was about losing Bin Laden in the Tora Bora Mountains; once he was killed, the script had to be updated.

So what happened with Triple Frontier?  Hit the jump for more.