Reel News at a Glance - Movie and Industry News

We'd like to congratulate Reel Reviews film critic, Loron Hays on the recent publication of his book, Only When I Breathe.

Paul Reubens (otherwise known as Pee Wee Herman) might have just spilled some big ol' beans about Tim Burton's upcoming holiday plans in the near future. Despite being busy with Dark Shadows, The Addams Family, Frankenweenie, and Monsterpocalypse, Reubens says that Burton is developing a sequel to The Nighmare Before Christmas.

Thanks to comicbookmovie.com we have a shiny new large shot of Green Lantern Corps member Tomar-Re from the upcoming film, The Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.

Ebert Productions recently announced that Mubi.com critic and essayist, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky has joined the team at Ebert Presents At the Movies.

It's not a shot of him in red tights, but following are the first character stills of Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker in Marc Webb's 2012 Spider-man reboot.

We announced a month ago that Steven Spielberg's dark sci-fi thriller Artificial Intelligence would finally get its long-awaited blu-ray release on February 15, 2011.

Well, now it looks like Paramount has changed the street date to April 12, 2011. No word on the reason for the delay.

Six of Hollywood’s largest studios including Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. today announced at CES their support for the UltraViolet service and format.

Another longtime blu-ray holdout came over to the blu side today when, as expected, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment announced they'll release the complete Star Wars saga on spectacular blu-ray on September 2011.

Several sources are reporting that Elijah Wood will return as Frodo Baggins in the forthcoming The Hobbit.

Some Transformers: Dark of the Moon pics were recently leaked onto the interwebs.

NASA recently named Roland Emmerich's epic end-of-the-world thriller, 2012,  the most absurd scionce-fiction film ever made.

On his blog, Sir Ian McKellen has confirmed what he teased back in September: that he will indeed be back in Middle Earth as Gandalf in Peter Jackson's forthcoming adventure saga, The Hobbit.

Following the report that Gandalf the Grey will be played, once again, by Sir Ian McKellen, Deadline is also reporting that Andy Serkis has signed on to reprise the role of Gollum.

Bond 23 is back on, folks. Daniel Craig will be returning as the legendary British secret agent, with Sam Mendes directing a screenplay written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan.

The Hobbit news just keeps on coming. In addition to the recent announcements over the last few days of the returns of Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, and Sir Ian McKellen, we now get word that Christopher Lee can be added to the growing list.

Do we really need this? As if it weren't scraping the bottom of the creativity barrel enough when it was previously announced that once-ago-popular games, Battleship and Asteroids were being adapted to the big screen, we now get word that the classic '80s arcade game, Missile Commmand (yes, with the 8-bit graphics) will get the big screen treatment.

Thanks to Yahoo! and W Magazine, we have some delicious pics of Rooney Mara in full getup as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's Lisbeth Salander. (click to enlarge pic)

A Universal Marketing Director recently revealed during an interview some of the movie company's catalog titles that will find a Blu-ray release later this year.

Updated: with a new close-up pic of a running Spidey.

The first official pic of Andrew Garfield in full spidey-wear has hit the internet.

And guess what? We have it for your viewing pleasure (below). Do anything for you? Wanting Tobey back? Looks like we should at least give it a sporting chance.

What a week for movie geeks! First there was the official pic of Andrew Garfield as Spider-man. Now, thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we get to ogle the first, shiny, crisp photo of Chris Evans in full Captain America gear.

Why is there a monkey in a scene from The Hangover Part 2? We seem to remember asking a similar question about a chicken in the first installment.

Pop on over to the LA Times to read the details of why Michael Bay now realizes what many of us knew about the second film in the Transformers franchise, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009.

During an interview with Collider, Jason Statham said he doubts Crank 3 will ever see the light of day.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association held its 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony last night. Besides the observation that it's beginning to more and more closely resemble the Academy Awards presentation in all aspects (including a red carpet and nearly identical video graphics), there were few surprise winners - unless you want to count host Ricky Gervais who kept the censors (and audience) on edge with his awkward but biting shenanigans.

Now that he's no longer the Governator of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger is apparently eyeing a return to the big screen.

Have you been holding off on buying that cool (but expensive) Alien Anthology Blu-ray box set because of fear of a bigger box set coming out when Ridley Scott's Alien prequel finally hits blu-ray?

Updated: to include image of teaser poster

Earlier today, The Daily Blam ran with a pretty cool cast shot from Matthew Vaughn's upcoming X-Men: First Class movie. Not to be outdone, MSN Movies published the photo on their site as well.

Love the convenience of renting DVDs from Netflix? Well, most have already caught on by now that the DVD-by-mail rental outfit has been slowly moving its business model over to Instant streaming, which allows subscribers to watch a movie on a number of electronic devices without having to wait for that pesky DVD or blu-ray disc to arrive in the mail. Love it or hate it, that's where the company is going.

Looks like the blu-ray release of yet another highly-anticipated catalog title has met the "cancelled" monster. Warner Home Video says that the scheduled blu-ray release of the Spike Lee biopic, Malcolm X, has been cancelled because of issues involving music rights for certain of the film's songs.

Spanish site ZonaDVD.com is reporting a sneak peek that says Warner Home Video are working on the launch of a Superman - Ultimate Blu-ray Collector's Set.

The original slate of sixty-six films that had initially qualified in the Academy's foreign language film category has now been pared down to nine.

Updated: to include new pic of Ian McShane as Blackbeard.

Walt Disney Pictures recently released two new photos from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides which will open in 3D, 2D, and IMAX 3D theaters on May 20. Check 'em out below.

It appears Robert Downey, Jr. has dropped out of Sam Raimi's upcoming Wizard of Oz reimagining, Oz: Great and Powerful. According to The Hollywood Reporter, studio heads are reportedly now in talks with Johnny Depp to take his place in the Emerald City.

And other related remake/reboot news

...or the reboot, that is. Warner Bros is FULL STEAM AHEAD on a reboot to the Lethal Weapon series. None of the original performers will return, so don't ask. The movie is being written by Will Beall.  It is being produced by Joel Silver. No word on who is to direct and who is to star.

Paramount pictures announced today that Sacha Baron Cohen's next film will be based on a book by Saddam Hussein. Yes, that Saddam Hussein

Some spy footage from the downtown Los Angeles set of Sony Pictures' Spider-man has made its way to the web. The footage was filmed by a fan from the 16th floor of a downtown Los Angeles office tower.

Max Miller, a longtime member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group that awards the Golden Globes, has died in an apparent suicide. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Coroner said Max B. Miller, 73, died from a gunshot wound to the head on January 17.

Ok, not so sure we really needed it, but get a load of this one. Seemingly yearning for a bit of a respite from his weighty dramas of late, Clint Eastwood, he of recent Hereafter and Gran Torino fame, will co-produce and direct another version of A Star is Born.

In what may classify as the most over-hyped release of movie marketing non-sense ever, we now present you with the official title treatment for Part I of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.

Sir Anthony Hopkins is in talks to play horror filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock in a new biopic by Anvil: The Story of Anvil director, Sacha Gervasi.

We'd like to congratulate author and Reel Reviews film critic Loron Hays on the publication of his next book, Either Side of the Same Street.

Warner Bros. today announced the development of a live-action digital short series based on the best-selling Mortal Kombat videogame franchise.

Kevin Smith made it official yesterday that he will retire from directing.

Updated: We don't like to broker in rumors because we've had our little movie hearts broken too many times and don't want to send you down that same path of gloom and despair (the wrist scars are quite embarrassing), but this one seems to have a little bit of meat on its realm-of-possibility bones.

The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation have sifted through the cinematic rubble of last year and selected nominees for The 31st Annual RAZZIE® Awards.

Leading the pack among this year's Razzie contenders - with 9 nominations each are M. Night Shyamalan and his “re-imagined” the faux-anime TV series, last year’s 4th biggest money-maker, Twilight Saga: Eclipse, the aptly titled Twilight “parody” Vampires Suck, the bling-obsessed superslick chick flick Sex & The City 2, and the decidedly un-romantic rom-com/revenge fantasy The Bounty Hunter.

The Academy has nodded. Their favorites anointed.

The 83rd annual Academy Award nominations were announced this morning at 7:30 am CST and The King's Speech is now running around the room holding up a giant number 1 foam finger. The British monarchy saga leads all comers with 12 nominations including best picture and actor honors for Colin Firth, Helen Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush.

A small paragraph from an article that ran on freep.com has apparently re-opened the necronomicon and is causing quite a stir across the interwebz. In the article, Sam Raimi's long-time producer, Robert Tapert mentions that it's possible that he and Raimi will revisit their roots with the oft-rumored Evil Dead reboot. *Sigh* Here we go again.

Filmmaker David Lynch recently revealed in a radio interview that his team is prepping the trippy 1986 mystery film, Blue Velvet for an upcoming blu-ray treatment.

The 1970s classic (and this author's fave film), Papillon, starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman will get a blu-ray release on May 24 of this year, says Warner Home Video.

The news surrounding Clint Eastwood's forthcoming biopic on J. Edgar Hoover continues to swirl with word that Naomi Watts will portray Helen Gandy, Hoover's loyal secretary of 54 years.