Hong Kong action hero Jackie Chan is set to star in the remake of the 1980s cult classic, The Karate Kid.
Chan will portray a martial arts teacher, similar to the role made famous by Pat Morita.
The film will also star Jaden Smith, the son of Hollywood couple Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. The young actor, who appeared with his father in Pursuit of Happyness, will play the character of Dre in the new film titled Kung Fu Kid.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was too busy running California to save the world in the new “Terminator” movie.
The action hero turned California governor starred in the first three films in the blockbuster sci-fi trilogy, but top billing in “Terminator Salvation,” which opens in U.S. theaters
Given the inherent three-dimensional quality evident in Pixar’s cutting-edge output, the fact that the studio’s 10th animated film is the first to be presented in digital 3-D wouldn’t seem to be particularly groundbreaking in and of itself.
But what gives “Up” such a joyously buoyant lift is the refreshingly nongimmicky way in which the process has been incorporated into the big picture — and what a wonderful big picture it is.
Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar effort ever, the gorgeously rendered, high-flying adventure is a tidy 90-minute distillation of all the signature touches that came before it.
“Angels & Demons,” the film sequel to conspiracy thriller “The Da Vinci Code,” will likely fall short of box office totals for its more religiously controversial predecessor when it opens on Friday.
Director Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons,” starring Tom Hanks as symbology expert Robert Langdon, should make over $40 million this weekend while 2006’s Da Vinci Code made $77 million at U.S. and Canada box offices, industry watchers say.
Paul Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com Box Office said Angels lacks the buzz of its predecessor.
The new Star Trek film has rocketed to the top of the North American box office chart, early figures show.
Director JJ Abrams’ prequel to the sci-fi franchise took an estimated $76.5m (£50.3m) in its opening weekend, easily beating its nearest rival.
The figure far surpasses the opening totals of the previous 10 Trek films.
Star Trek’s impressive opening pushed previous chart-topper X-Men Origins: Wolverine down to second place, with takings of $27m (£17.7m).
Up is an upcoming computer-animated 3-D film being produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It will be distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, and is scheduled for release on May 29, 2009 in North America and October 16, 2009 in the United Kingdom. The film is directed by Monsters, Inc. director Pete Docter and features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai and John Ratzenberger. It is the first Pixar film to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D.
Plot
Carl Fredricksen (Edward Asner) is 78 years old. When Carl was a child, he met and eventually married a girl named Ellie who grew up in a small midwestern town. Ellie always dreamed of exploring the mountains, but she died before she got a chance. Now, when developers threaten to move him into an assisted living home, Carl decides to fulfill his promise to Ellie. To accomplish this, he befriends a chubby eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. The two opposites match up for thrilling adventures as they encounter wild terrain, unexpected villains, and all the terrifying creatures that wait in the jungle.
A former Miss Israel is ready to make her big-budget Hollywood debut.
Gal Gadot, the 2004 winner of Israel’s top beauty pageant, will appear on film screens around the world next month in the fourth installment of “Fast & Furious,” one of the decade’s highest-grossing action series. In the new film, which opens in the United States on April 3, the Rosh Ha’ayin native plays Gisele Harabo, the latest romantic interest of Vin Diesel’s explosion-loving, speed-junkie protagonist. The role should launch the beauty queen to a new level of international visibility: Although the “Fast” franchise has cooled somewhat, the series’s first three installments have averaged more than $200 million each at the worldwide box office.
Will “Watchmen” turn out to be a one-week wonder?
That could be a possibility following the film’s disappointing $55.2 million bow last weekend. This time around, Warner Bros.’ superhero picture won’t be helped by the emergence of three wide openers: Disney’s family adventure “Race to Witch Mountain,” Universal’s R-rated horror film “The Last House on the Left” and Fox Atomic’s R-rated youth comedy “Miss March.”
“Witch Mountain” seems strongest among the new pictures. Some industry observers believe it will outpace “Watchmen,” even though the R-rated comic-book adaptation should ring up $20 million or more this frame.
The creators of “Watchmen” call it a new, psychologically complex version of the superhero movie, but they are banking on it to conquer the box office the way conventional comic book movies have done.
To do that, “Watchmen”, which opens around the world this week, must attract those who have never heard of characters like Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre, and who want a thrilling joyride, box-office watchers said.
For years, filming a movie based on the sprawling 1980s “Watchmen” comic books by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons was considered impossible due to its multiple characters, violence, digressions and abundance of dialogue.
Frost/Nixon is a 2008 historical drama film based upon the play of the same name by Peter Morgan, writer of The Queen, which dramatises the 1977 televised Frost/Nixon interviews. The film version is directed by Ron Howard and produced by Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment and Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title Films for Universal Pictures. The film reunites its original two stars from the West End and Broadway productions of the play, Frank Langella as former President of the United States Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen as British television broadcaster David Frost. Filming began on August 27, 2007. Read more
