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The 20 films in contention for the vfx Oscar have been announced.

The post Academy Reveals Contenders in VFX Category, Including ‘Rogue: One,’ ‘Jungle Book,’ and ‘Kubo’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Who are the likely contenders for a visual effects Oscar? And which films might surprise this year?

The post 2017 VFX Oscar Contenders: From Most-Likely To The Outliers appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Adelaide, Australia-based Rising Sun Pictures made the vfx for the most talked-about shot in the new "X-Men" film.

The post How They Made That ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Scene Everyone Is Talking About appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The verdict is in from audiences and X-Men: Apocalypse has found itself garnering an estimated $65 million over its opening weekend, with its total racking up to $76-80 million for the 4-day holiday. Two years ago, X-Men: Days of Future Past opened in the same slot and grossed $110.5 million. While 80 is nothing to […]

The latest X-Men trailer is here

We’ve gotten trailers or spots of some kind from each of the superhero movies that are rolling out over the next few months. Here is the new ad for X-Men: Apocalypse, giving us some quick looks at a few of the younger members of the team that are being re-introduced:

Your first look at Bryan Singer's latest go-round with the Children of the Atom.

As per usual, Entertainment Weekly has the first concrete details and images for another upcoming superhero blockbuster, this time the newest Bryan Singer-directed X-Men adventure: X-Men: Apocalypse.

In the above cover, you can see how screen-accurate to 90’s era comics Singer and team are aiming for in regard to Olivia Munn‘s Psylocke, and Oscar Isaac is practically unrecognizable as the title villain.

The latter spoke to his new role in the same report:

 “He’s believed to be the first mutant, whatever that means,” says star Oscar Isaac. “He is the ­creative-slash-destructive force of this earth. When things start to go awry, or when things seem like they’re not moving towards evolution, he destroys those civilizations.”

EW also elaborates a bit on just what Apocalypse is up to in the film and the shape of his Four Horsemen:

As the new film opens, 10 years have passed and Raven (Lawrence), Charles (McAvoy), and Erik (Michael Fassbender) are still estranged, but not for much longer. The Big A awakens from his Egyptian tomb, sizes up the global ’80s vibe, and decides he’s not down with the Reagan era. “It’s a chaotic world of conflict and war and destruction,” Singer says. “It’s one giant civilization that now requires one giant culling. That’s why he needs ­special assistants in this process.” He finds teenage Storm living on the streets in Cairo, Angel (Ben Hardy) duking it out in a fight club in Berlin, and Psylocke (Olivia Munn) working behind the Iron Curtain for the mutant-broker Caliban. But his big get is Erik, who has been attempting to live a “normal” life in Poland. “He’s fallen in love and he’s basically left his metal ways behind,” Fassbender says. Pretty quickly, though, his world is shattered and “normal” is no longer an option. Says Fassbender, “Apocalypse finds Erik at a low ebb and recruits him.”

An interesting new take on this era of the team, and this might prove to be a good way to keep Fassbender around for another film. Or perhaps not, as I found the leaked footage out of SDCC to be pretty underwhelming (and I thought the same for the Deadpool trailer). Either way, we’ll find out next May.

It’s the start of another week, here are the headlines that are making waves this morning!

– Bryan Singer is keeping the teases rolling for X-Men: Apocalypse, this time around, he shared some concept art for Kodi Smit-McPhee’s younger version of Nightcrawler:

This new Nightcrawler isn’t too terribly far afield from Alan Cumming‘s appearance in X2: X-Men United, which is surely the point. I do wonder though if we’ll get any explicit connection between Kurt and Mystique (and/or Azazel), perhaps that’s a road best not taken.

– Even though we pretty much knew this already, Daniel Brühl recently confirmed in an interview with The Independent that he will indeed by playing Baron Helmut Zemo in Captain America: Civil War, as he responded in the affirmative to a question about his upcoming role:

“I think I can tell you that without being thrown into Marvel prison… For the first few days I’ll walk around like a little boy, just amazed by the megalomania of it. It’s such a huge project. We could do 20 films with the budget.”

So there you have it folks, along with whatever is happening between Iron Man and Captain America, the appearances of Spider-Man and Black Panther, and whatever angle the Winter Soldier story takes, we’re also getting Baron Zemo. This movie is looking more stuffed than Age of Ultron.

– Over the weekend, and somewhat lost in the hoopla over Jared Leto’s Joker, TheWrap reported that Green Lantern and Blade Runner sequel screenwriter Michael Green will be penning the upcoming sequel to James Mangold‘s The Wolverine.

I’m not sure how much blame Green should take for what ended up on screen in Green Lantern, but given his recent high profile gigs (that also includes work on Prometheus 2), we’ll keep our fingers crossed that it was just an aberration on his resume.

Hugh Jackman has stated that this will be his final outing as Logan, so perhaps the time is right to adapt Old Man Logan, especially since it’ll be a while before the Wolverine films and the X-Men films catch up to each other on the timeline, most likely. The new film is scheduled to release on March 3, 2017.

– For those interested, Fox has updated the Fantastic Four movie website to now include bios of the team, with some interesting descriptions of their powers; for example Reed now has abilities that “can warp the space around him, and appear to stretch his body into impossible forms and to incredible lengths.”

Check out further details at the site.

Bryan Singer keeps on popping out new mutants for his latest X-Men opus, after roping in a new Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Nightcrawler, Jubilee and Archangel; he’s now found another one to add to the ranks as Olivia Munn (The Newsroom) will be playing Psylocke.

Excited to welcome @oliviamunn as Betsy Braddock! #Psylocke#XmenApocalypse#XMENhttps://t.co/5f42gazret

— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) April 13, 2015

This is sure to be a pick to get a number of folks excited as Munn was often a fan casting choice for superhero roles (I always thought she would make a great Wonder Woman). She’d technically be the second Psylocke to appear on the big screen, as the character appeared as a minor villain in X-Men: The Last Stand for some inexplicable reason (played by Meiling Melançon).

One has to assume that all of the more complicated elements of her character will likely be tossed aside. The important stuff: she was created by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe in Captain Britain and eventually became a 90’s X-Men icon (along with Gambit, Jubilee, and the like) after she was redesigned by Claremont and Jim Lee (and also took over the body of a ninja).

X-Men: Apocalypse opens on May 27, 2016, in a year that is looking like *THE* big one for superhero films given that it comes on the heels of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in March, and Captain America: Civil War that same month.

Happy Day Before Daredevil Day! Here’s a round-up of things worth paying attention to on the Entertainment-front.

– Paul Bettany just unleashed the first full-blown Vision poster on Twitter. We’ve seen concept art, and a few other promotional pieces for the character’s upcoming appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but this is Bettany in android mode up-close:

– Bryan Singer added another update for X-Men: Apocalypse, this time sharing some concept art of another mutant that will be joining the cast:

Yes indeed, Archangel will be a part of the film, and according to Singer he will be played by previously announced cast member Ben Hardy.

Other than Iceman, who can’t make an appearance, it looks like we’ll be getting something pretty close to the original X-Men line-up, along with a few Giant Size X-Men additions (Storm, Nightcrawler).

– For you fans of The Incredibles, Brad Bird just confirmed that he is currently working on the script for the sequel, now that his work on his about to be released Tomorrowland is completed. In a spate of sequels from Pixar, this might be the one that may stir up the most excitement.

– And in somewhat related news, given that Nic Pizzalatto pulled a good deal of influence for his True Detective series from the comics of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, here’s the first teaser for True Detective Season 2. Given that I loved the first season, I can’t wait for this new one:

While Jesse Eisenberg‘s shaved head is grabbing most of the attention today, here’s a few other headlines of note in the Entertainment world:

– An intrepid Instagrammer snapped this photo of the international banner for Fantastic Four, giving us our first look at Jamie Bell as The Thing along with the rest of the cast similarly powered up. Here it is via Spencer over at ComingSoon. On the whole, it’s hard not to be an improvement over how Ben Grimm was presented in the last two films, but how it works on screen will tell the tale.

#Me #LastNight #Cine #Cinepolis #Multiplaza #Poster #Fantasticfour #Comingsoon #SoExcited

A photo posted by Sir. Alberto (@albertoheineken26) on Mar 24, 2015 at 7:14pm PDT

– Bryan Singer has added another mutant to X-Men: Apocalypse, this time breaking with the 80’s set canon and bringing Lana Condor on as Jubilee. He announced the newest X-Men teammate on his Instagram:

I’d officially like to welcome our newest mutant #JubilationLee, #Jubilee @LanaCondor to #XMEN #Apocalypse

A photo posted by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on Mar 25, 2015 at 11:57am PDT

– Star Trek 3 is still slowly plugging along and Variety reports that Paramount may have its eyes on fan-casting favorite Idris Elba to play the yet to be revealed villain in the 2016 release. Simon Pegg and Doug Jung are co-writing this third entry in the rebooted series for director Justin Lin. Variety also states that The Klingons are rumored to be the main adversary of the film.

Bryan Singer continues to add young mutants to his ensemble cast for X-Men: Apocalypse, which currently consists of teenage versions of Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee); along with the adult-aged Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence).

Now The Wrap reports that Ben Hardy (EastEnders) is in talks to join in a “key, as-yet-undisclosed role” in the 1980’s set sequel to X-Men: Days of Future Past. At one point, Hardy was one of the actors in contention for Cyclops, so the fact that he would stay on Singer’s radar is a good sign.

One look at Hardy and it’s hard to imagine him playing anyone but Angel, especially given that Oscar Isaac‘s Apocalypse is the film’s antagonist. The report’s sources say that he’s been cast in an altogether different role though, so it remains to be seen.

Didn’t I tell you to follow Bryan Singer‘s Instagram?

Late last night, the X-Men: Apocalypse director announced another piece of news regarding the production: the casting of Kodi Smit-McPhee (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Let Me In) as Nightcrawler.

It was really only a matter of time before one of Singer’s favorite mutants re-appeared, as the director almost included a Nightcrawler scene in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but scrapped it at the last minute.

Smit-McPhee joins new cast additions Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, and Alexandra Shipp in playing a younger version of a role previously cast by Singer. In this instance, he will be taking over for Alan Cumming, who was one of the stand-outs of X2: X-Men United.

This isn’t Smit-McPhee’s first shot at the X-Men Universe, as he was originally cast as Young Logan in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but dropped out to instead film The Road. He clearly dodged a bullet, hopefully his good senses have remained and it’s a good omen for Apocalypse.

X-Men: Apocalypse opens on May 27, 2016.

If you had the day off yesterday, we hope you had a lovely Presidents Day! Here are a few of the big headlines of interest making the rounds this morning…

– There’s a Deadpool Casting Call that appeared on Casting247, under the fake-title of “WHAM!”, and has led to speculation as to which roles these place-holder names represent. As I’ve said before, my X-Men knowledge is awful, but people better in the know think that “Ridge” is at least Garrison Kane, the villain of the film.

– The Dark Knight trilogy director Christopher Nolan sat down with Looper and Star Wars Episode VIII director Rian Johnson for a 30 minute interview regarding last year’s Interstellar at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. It’s a pretty great, lengthy chat for anyone interested in the art of filmmaking. (recording made available via SoundCloud user TheBigKahoona)

– Robert Downey Jr. was interviewed by Empire regarding Captain America: Civil War, and states that the lead-up to the new Captain America sequel is in Avengers: Age of Ultron:

The clues are in Ultron about where we might find [Stark] next, but what would it take for Tony to completely turn around everything he’s stood for, quote-unquote, because he was the right-wing guy who could still do his own thing. The idea of Tony being able to march into Washington and say, ‘I’ll sign up’, wouldn’t have made sense if the political climate in the real world hadn’t shifted the way it has. It’s a little bit of things following a real world continuum in, ‘What would you do?’ You have to figure, ‘Were you to ask the question, what would the American government do if this were real? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Tony doing something you wouldn’t imagine?’

– Bryan Singer has posted another tease for the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, this time a piece of production art that shows…something. If you’re on Instagram, it’s worth following Singer’s posts, as he shares a ton of info via his account.

Some production art. #XmenApocalypse #GrantMajor I was a little busy but will continue to snap more.

A photo posted by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on Feb 16, 2015 at 11:52am PST

Happy Monday everyone! Hannah and I took today off from our regular gigs, but I didn’t want a few of the more interesting headlines to pass us by…so, let’s take a look at what’s causing a buzz in the entertainment side of things.

– According to TVInsider, Jamie Alexander is returning to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reprising her role as Lady Sif from the Thor films and her guest appearance in the first season of the ABC series. Alexander will guest star in the second episode of the midseason, where Lady Sif will be struck by amnesia after a massive battle with a yet to be revealed villain. Though executive producer Jeffrey Bell states that the memories that she hangs onto will prove very important in the on-going Inhuman-based subplots of the series.

– Over the weekend, OK! Magazine (via SpoilerTV) reported a rumor that Angelina Jolie (Unbroken, In the Land of Blood and Honey) was offered $20 million dollars by Marvel Studios to direct their upcoming Captain Marvel feature. This rumor caused a bit of a stir online, but let’s face facts, Marvel has yet to offer any director that kind of payday and it’s hard to imagine they’d start doing that now ($20 million dollars was Christopher Nolan‘s take for Interstellar for example). Most sources I’ve spoken with in trying to follow up on this report state that the rumor is fiction. The one thing it gets right is that Marvel is likely looking to hire a female filmmaker for the property, and that is a very exciting prospect.

– Another unsourced story (from Cinelinx) floated around yesterday that NBC/Universal, in the wake of not renewing Constantine for a second season, would be moving it to SyFy and renaming the series Hellblazer. It’s a great idea, yet I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Sadly, barring a sudden surprise renewal announcement, the upcoming finale is likely the last you’ll seen of John and company.

– Production on X-Men: Apocalypse continues, and Bryan Singer, ever the busy tweeter/Instagrammer, has posted a photo of interest:

I know. Old door. But there’ll be something new behind it. #XmenApocalypse

A photo posted by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on Feb 9, 2015 at 9:59am PST

It sounds like the Danger Room is returning if I were to hazard a guess.

We reported on this topic just a few weeks back, but now according to Variety, Bryan Singer has settled on his three younger versions of Cyclops, Jean Grey and Storm for the 1980’s set X-Men: Apocalypse.

Playing Cyclops will be Tye Sheridan, who blew my socks off in Mud and the recent David Gordon Green film Joe.

Taking on the role of Jean Grey is Sophie Turner, who you’ll probably know as Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones.

And finally, Alexandra Shipp will be the new Storm. She’s the name that’s probably the least familiar to audiences, but she recently played the late singer Aaliyah in a Lifetime biopic.

They’ll be joining a cast that includes Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, and Oscar Isaac. There’s still no word on whether or not Hugh Jackman will return as Wolverine for this film, though the next James Mangold-directed Wolverine sequel is still set for 2017. If he does return, I’ll be curious to see how they handle the Wolverine-Jean relationship, given the big age gap presented now.

All the same, this is an exciting development. X-Men: Apocalypse hits theaters on May 27, 2016.

Sophie Turner, Photo: Tatler UK

A couple of months back, The Wrap had reported a list of young actors and actresses that were in contention to take over the roles of Young Jean Grey and Scott Summers in the forthcoming X-Men: Apocalypse. While movement on these roles had slowed a bit due the holidays, it looks like some more contenders have joined the fray, along with an additional shortlist of actresses that are testing for the role of Storm.

According to Latino Review, Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service), Jamie Blackley (If I Stay), and Tye Sheridan (Mud) are in line for the role of Cyclops. Jeff Sneider over at The Wrap states that Sheridan is the leading contender for the role. He’s a phenomenal talent, so its hard not to get excited about that possibility, especially if Bryan Singer might finally give Cyclops his due for once.

Also, in that same tweet, Sneider states that Chloe Grace Moretz passed on the role of Jean Grey, opening up the possibility of Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) or Saoirse Ronan (Hanna, The Grand Budapest Hotel). We’ve yet to see Turner put on an American accent as far as I know, but she seems the more ideal choice. Though truthfully, if you dye Ronan’s hair red, I’d probably say the same for her. She’s the performer with the most diverse resume of anyone on this list.

Alexandra Shipp, publicity photo

As for Ororo, its being reported that Alexandra Shipp (Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B) and Zendaya Coleman (Shake It Up) are testing for the role. Given that Apocalypse takes place in the 1980’s, the chances of getting a Mohawked Storm are pretty high.

Whoever is cast, they’ll be joining the already returning Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, and the recently cast as the title villain Oscar Isaac. X-Men: Apocalypse will release on May 27. 2016.