The 2012 SXSW Film Festival has announced some exciting additions to their already-stellar line-up.  The Sundance flicks Searching for Sugar Man, Chasing Ice, Monsieur Lazhar (my review), Safety Not Guaranteed (my review), Shut Up and Play the Hits, and Sleepwalk with Me will all be showing up at this year’s SXSW.  I heard nothing but good things about Chasing Ice and Sleepwalk with Me, and I’m glad I’ll have a second chance to see them.  SXSW 2012 will also have the world premiere of Steve Taylor‘s Blue Like Jazz, and Todd Rohal‘s Nature Calls starring Patton Oswalt, Johnny Knoxville, and Rob Riggle.  

Hit the jump for more on all of the new additions.  The 2012 SXSW Film Festival runs from March 9 – 17th.

Following the abysmal opening of Disney’s Robert Zemeckis-produced 3D motion-capture-animated Mars Needs Moms this past weekend, the studio has killed Zemeckis’ planned 3D motion-capture remake of Yellow Submarine. The Beatles-themed film was set to star Cary Elwes, Dean Lennox Kelly, Peter Serafinowicz and Adam Campbell as the Fab Four. Heat Vision reports that the disastrous box office returns for Mars Needs Moms was the final nail in the coffin for Disney, as the studio was already concerned following the lackluster reception to Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol and the overall creepiness of the human characters created by Zemeckis’ team for 3D motion capture.

While Zemeckis is now free to shop the project around at other studios, the director has apparently retreated to Montana to regroup, where he may also be mulling over a live-action flick for his next directorial outing (his last live-action film was 2000’s Cast Away). I think I speak for most everyone when I say it’s about time that Zemeckis returned to live-action films. Enough already with the rubber people movies. He’s a fine director and his talents are missed back here in the land of non-creepy-looking films.

Very few actors find a project that connects so strongly with fans that it becomes an obsession.  Cary Elwes is among a smaller group that’s done it twice.  The unassuming British actor burst onto film screens as Westley in The Princess Bride in 1987 and still gets fan letters from a generation that was born after its release.  In 2004, Elwes tapped into a very different fan base with the smash hit Saw.  It scared up more than $103 million worldwide.  Not bad for a film that barely cost $1 million to make.  Additionally, more than a few industry observers have said it helped to save Lionsgate, the studio that bought it just prior to its world premiere at Sundance.  Five intervening films and $633 million in global box office later, the British actor returned to help bookend the series in Saw 3D.

Elwes filled Collider in on the film recently.  Hit the jump for the interview’s full audio and transcript along with his take on the R rating, why no one with a heart condition or a baby on the way should see the film, the Yellow Submarine remake, twisting Steven Spielberg’s arm into a part in Tintin, and the lasting impact of The Princess Bride.

To those hoping Robert Zemeckis had finally gotten the motion capture thing out of his system… think again.  That’s because Zemeckis has just cast Cary Elwes, Dean Lennox Kelly, Peter Serafinowicz and Adam Campbell as The Beatles in his 3D performance-capture movie Yellow Submarine.

While I was very disappointed with A Christmas Carol as the story was stale and I thought the motion capture was better in Beowulf, I think Yellow Submarine is a perfect fit with the technology.  Also, he has the rights to The Beatles music.  That alone will get me into a theater.  More after the jump:

I really, really love this Beatlemania 2.0 craze that is happening right now. We have the newly remastered Beatles albums along with the highly anticipated (and so awesome looking) Rock Band game coming out in September. If that wasn’t enough to satisfy our Beatles fanboy needs, we now we have a new Beatles film in the works based off of the Yellow Submarine album and eponymous animated 1968 film. The film will be brought to the big screen in 2012  by Disney and Robert Zemeckis (“Forrest Gump”, “Beowolf”). To find out what Zemeckis has planned for the film and what other two Beatles projects are in the works hit the jump.