Plot Synopsis for the Sci-Fi Comedy Paul Starring Pegg and Frost

by Kasper at Film Junk

Working Title Films has released the official plot synopsis for the upcoming sci-fi comedy Paul, which re-unites the comedy team of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead fame. The movie, which is being directed by Superbad director Greg Mottola, centers around the two sci-fi geeks Willy and Collings (played by Pegg and Frost) who accidentally come across the alien Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) when he jumps aboard their truck. Chased by the government, they embark on a road trip with Paul which changes their lives forever.

“For the past 60 years, an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) has been hanging out at a top-secret military base. For reasons unknown, the space-travelling smart ass decides to escape the compound and hop on the first vehicle out of town—a rented RV containing Earthlings Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Collings (Frost).”

Read More here

Teresa Palmer Talks The Sorcerer’s Apprentice!

via Movie Web

Australian actress Teresa Palmer has been generating a lot of buzz in Hollywood for sometime now due in large part to her attachment to two high profile projects that she ended up not participating in. She first gained the attention of fan-boys everywhere when director George Miller cast her as the evil Talia al Ghul, daughter of Batman villain Ra’s al Ghul, in the unmade film, Justice League Of America based on the popular DC Comics’ book. While ultimately that film did not get made, it did put the actress on the map and she next gained attention when rumors began to fly that Miller had cast her in his upcoming forth chapter of the popular Mad Max series, entitled Fury Road. But in an interview that we conducted last month, the actress confessed that she had to back out of that project due to scheduling conflicts with the Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg produced film I Am Number Four, which she will appear in early next year. Now, fans finally have a chance to see the actress shine on the silver screen in the new live-action Disney film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, opening on July 14th staring Nicolas Cage.

To begin with, you mentioned in an earlier interview that you feel like your character, Becky, is the key to David (Jay Baruchel) unleashing his potential as a sorcerer, can you talk about that idea and how it helped you in the course of making the film?

Teresa Palmer: I really believe that Becky’s the trigger for Dave in terms of him finding his confidence and embracing the sorcerer within.

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Two New Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Featurettes

By Krystal Clark at Screen Crave

Over the weekend, ABC Family premiered two new featurettes that take us inside the latest and final adventure in the Potter series. It features interviews from its stars including Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson who talk about the challenges they faced filming the biggest Potter ever!

In the first video we discover that the 3 magical musketeers spend a good chunk of the movie on the run. This might be where we get to see Hermione and Ron get up close and personal if you know what I mean.

See More here

Harry Potter, Scott Pilgrim, Green Hornet, Thor Among Films Invading Comic Con

by Rebecca Murray at About.com

The schedule for the 2010 Comic Con has been released and once again San Diego will be invaded by Hollywood. Kicking off the annual gathering of comic book lovers and TV/movie fans on Thursday, July 22nd, is DreamWorks Animation with Megamind and voice actors Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, and Jonah Hill. Disney follows with much-anticipated new footage from Tron: Legacy and appearances by cast members Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, and Bruce Boxleitner. Lionsgate’s represented with the action pic The Expendables and will have writer/director Sylvester Stallone and actors Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin, Rand Couture, and Terry Crews on hand to answer questions. And finally, Thursday finishes up with a star-studded panel promoting Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

I wouldn’t say they’re saving the best for last because Thursday and Friday’s offerings are pretty incredible, but Saturday will see Harry Potter finally making an appearance at the Con! This is big news for Muggles who happen to have already bought tickets to the sold-out event. And Warner Bros is bringing cast members from two of their other big releases: Green Lantern and Sucker Punch. Overture will be trying to sink their teeth into vampire fans with footage from Let Me In starring Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Screen Gems is bringing Resident Evil: Afterlife and its always popular stars Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter to the Con along with what they promise will be ‘stunning’ 3-D scenes from the film.

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Amanda Seyfried To Star In Sci-Fi Thriller ‘I’m.mortal’

By Adam Rosenberg at MTV News

Amanda Seyfried has accomplished a lot so far in her short career, and now she’s angling to stay young forever.

Variety reports that the Variety reports that the “Letters to Juliet” star will lead the cast of Andrew Niccol’s “I’m.mortal,” a sci-fi action thriller set in a world where people stop aging at 25. As was first reported back in April, people in this society treat time as currency; the more of your life’s time you “spend,” the more access you have to various necessities and luxuries.

Today’s Seyfried news is joined by a few more details about the story. A rebellious young man — not yet cast — is fingered for the murder of a member of society’s elite. He ends up on the run with a beautiful rich girl (Seyfried) in tow as his hostage. Regardless of the circumstances that initially bring them together, they end up taking on the system and finding love in the process.

Read More here

I am so excited for Paul. Pegg and Frost have been blogging about it since filming, and the two of them together are always funny so you just know it’ll be good. I really wish I was going to Comic Con this year. I had planned to, but I just didn’t have the money for tickets and the flight. But there’s next year to look forward to. And the new Harry Potter.

Is anyone going to San Diego Comic Con this year? Which upcoming movie are you looking forward to the most?

Source: scifiwire

EXPECT A BOURNE-STYLE FANTASTIC VOYAGE

Producer Jon Landau told us that director Paul Greengrass will bring some of his Bourne moves to the upcoming remake of Fantastic Voyage, written by Avatar‘s James Cameron, should he sign on.

We had a very good conversation with Paul yesterday,” Landau said in a group interview on Earth Day Thursday in Los Angeles, where he was promoting the DVD and Blu-ray release of Avatar. “We’re still progressing along that.”

The 1966 original Fantastic Voyage depicted the journey of a miniaturized medical team that is inserted into the bloodstream of an ailing patient in a teeny white submarine.

Read more here…

Source: slashfilm

RIDLEY SCOTT’S ALIEN PREQUEL DETAILS

Last year it was announced that 20th Century Fox had hired Ridley Scott to direct a prequel to the classic sci-fi film Alien. At the time I believed that would never happen. Why would Scott return to film a prequel of one of the most popular sci-fi film franchises of all time? Why compete with yourself? Producing the film seems like a much safer bet. Who knows why, but Ridley Scott signed on to direct a prequel to Alien. We haven’t heard much about the project until now.

MTV spoke to the filmmaker about his new film Robin Hood and was able to uncover some details about this upcoming project. Scott says that the story has been decided, they are in their fourth draft, and that designers are already “working graphically on designs for the various requirements of the film.”

Read more here…

Source: collider

THE LAST AIRBENDER HAS TWO MONTHS TO AFFIX 3D TO ITS TITLE

It turns out that The Green Hornet isn’t the only tentpole in town getting the 3D conversion treatment; a “senior official” at Paramount talked to Harry from AICN about adding a third dimension to this summer’s The Last Airbender, the adaptation of a Nickelodeon cartoon of a similar name.  And while Hornet has nine months (with a new January 2011 release date) to get its act together,Airbender has just over two months to bend its projection toward the audience if it intends to keep its July 2nd release date (Deadline confirms it does).

In terms of filming in 2D, then converting to 3D, there are two major reference points of recent note: Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans.

Read more here…

Source: scifisquad

MARVEL MOVIE UNIVERSE EXPANDING WITH SMALLER FILMS

Sure, everyone and their mother is going to go see Iron Man 2 and Thor and Captain America and The Avengers. It’s not even a matter of personal taste or whether or not they like that particular superhero. These movies have budgets that eclipse the GDP of some Eastern European nations. They’re so big that people are going to see them no matter what. What about some of the lesser-known properties in the Marvel Universe, though? Characters and concepts that are too unknown and too risky to be worth $150 million in production costs?

Read more here…

What are your thoughts on today’s Movie News?

Director Name: Ridley Scott

Director:
- The Duellists (1977)
- Alien (1979)
- Blade Runner (1982)
- Legend (1985)
- Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
- Black Rain (1989)
- Thelma & Louise (1991)
- 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
- White Squall (1996)
- G.I. Jane (1997)
- Gladiator (2000)
- Black Hawk Down (2001)
- Hannibal (2001)
- Matchstick Men (2003)
- Cinema16: British Short Films (2003)
- All the Invisible Children (2005)
- Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
- A Good Year (2006)
- American Gangster (2007)
- Body of Lies (2008)
- The Kind One (2010)
- Robin Hood (2010)
- Untitled Alien Prequel (2011)

Future Projects:
- Red Riding
- Untitled Reagan/Gorbachev Project
- The Killing Sea
- Untitled Tony Scott Project
- Brave New World
- In Vitro
- The Forever War
- Town House
- Untitled Monopoly Project
- Untitled Gucci Biopic
- The Passage
- Stones
- Child 44
- Factor X
- Purefold

Awards:
- 1991: Oscar for Best Director – Thelma & Louise
- 2000: Oscar for Best Director – Gladiator
- 2000: BAFTA Award for Best Direction – Gladiator
- 2001: Oscar for Best Director – Black Hawk Down
- 2008: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries – The Andromeda Strain

Short Bio:
Born in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, Scott grew up in an Army family, meaning that for most of his early life his father — an officer in the Royal Engineers — was absent. Ridley’s older brother, Frank, joined the Merchant Navy when he was still young and the pair had little contact. During this time the family moved around, living in (amongst other areas) Cumbria, Wales and Germany. After the Second World War the Scott family moved back to their native north-east England, eventually settling in Teesside (whose industrial landscape would later inspire similar scenes in Blade Runner). He enjoyed watching films, and his favourites include Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane and Seven Samurai. Scott studied in Teesside from 1954 to 1958, at Grangefield Grammar School, Stockton and later in West Hartlepool College of Art, graduating with a Diploma in Design. He progressed to an M.A. in graphic design at the Royal College of Art from 1960 to 1962.

He was assigned to design the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks, which would have entailed realising the famous alien creatures. However, shortly before he was due to start work a schedule conflict meant that he was replaced on the serial by Raymond Cusick. At the BBC, Scott was placed into a director training programme and, before he left the corporation, had directed episodes of Z-Cars, its spin-off, Softly, Softly, and adventure series Adam Adamant Lives!.
In 1968 Ridley Scott and his brother Tony Scott founded Ridley Scott Associates (RSA), a film and commercial production company. Five members of the Scott family are directors, all working for RSA. Brother Tony has been a successful film director for more than two decades; sons, Jake and Luke are both acclaimed commercials directors as is his daughter, Jordan Scott. Jake and Jordan both work from Los Angeles and Luke is based in London.

Read more on Ridley Scott brought to us by OBS staff-member Chris here.

thanks to scifiwire.com!

What Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel will be and won’t be

What do you think of the Alien prequel? Is Anthony Hopkins good for the role of the Asgard King? What do you think of Charlize Theron in Mad Max4? Are you a fan of The Last Airbender?

From movies.ign.com

With James Cameron’s long-awaited return to genre film-making, Avatar, hitting screens just two months from now, we’re starting to get a sense of what the top-secret film is going to look like. And one thing that seems certain is that the alien world depicted in the film, Pandora, is poised to join the ranks of sci-fi’s best designed and most epically memorable planets.

That’s got us thinking lately about the coolest worlds of genre cinema. We’ve seen a lot of alien landscapes and futuristic planets over the years, but which ones are the major worlds that have been most influential in sci-fi film?

Avatar‘s Pandora

Filled with fearsome creatures and hot, blue, alien cat-women, Pandora is the kind of place where you can fly on a pterodactyl, inhabit your own personal Thundercat avatar, and lead the charge to save an entire race of honorable and noble creatures. And then there’s Cameron’s reportedly groundbreaking technology which he developed to create this world and its inhabitants… suffice to say, we’re there in December.

Alien‘s LV-426

The galaxy’s largest graveyard (second to New New Jersey) is where the Space Jockey’s ship kinda sorta crashed, carrying hundreds of Alien eggs waiting to facehugger John Hurt’s character. It’s also the site for Weyland-Yutani’s “Building Better Worlds” terraforming project to go all sorts of eff’d up when colonists become human incubators for the Alien Queen’s kiddies.

Read the rest HERE

ETHAN GILSDLORF FINDS INNER GEEK AND WRITES BOOK!

From boston.com

Ethan Gilsdorf’s life looked pretty sweet: He was a freelance travel journalist based in Paris. But when he found himself obsessed with “Lord of the Rings” figurines, he wondered.

When he moved to Somerville, unearthed his old Dungeons & Dragons maps and started hunting orcs in the parking lot, he worried that his teenage fandom would swallow him back up.

Rather than hide from the questions, Gilsdorf decided to face them head-on. It would be a quest! The result is the frequent Globe contributor’s first book, “Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks.”

Outwardly, Gilsdorf explored a range of popular sci-fi diversions. Inwardly, “[I’m] trying to make peace with this part of me,” Gilsdorf said recently at the anything-but-nerdy Diva Lounge, wearing a T-shirt from the band Harry and the Potters. (You’vegot to give the guy credit for including ‘70s-era photos in the book.)

He went to a D&D convention honoring the game’s recently deceased creator, Gary Gygax. He donned medieval garb for Pennsic, the Society for Creative Anachronism’s summer camp out. He LARPed, he WoWed. Eventually he tromped around New Zealand to see the LOTR movies’ gorgeous scenery.

Read more HERE

I love all the worlds of Sci-fi! Especially Star Wars, but Avatar’s world looks amazing, so beautiful it’s scary.  I lovethe idea of this new book, because a lot of people go through what Ethan did,  and help everyone realize it’s ok to have a little geek in ya

What do you think of Sci-fi worlds, which are your favorites? Will you read ‘Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks’? Is your inner geek waiting to be busted out?

The second artist I want to introduce to you is H. R. Giger. I guess we all know his works – but maybe not him.

Artist Name: Hans Rüdiger Giger

Date of Birth: 1940

Where From: Chur, Switzerland

Short Bio:
He is recognized as one of the world’s most well known artists of Fantastic Realism and he achieved international fame with his work on Ridley Scott’s movie ‘Alien’. For his designs of the film’s title creature and its otherworldly environment H. R. Giger received the 1980 Academy Award for ‘Best Achievement for Visual Effects’.

He studied architecture and industrial design at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich and by 1964 he was producing his first artworks. By discovering airbrush he also found his own unique freehand painting style. That was the beginning of the creations of many of his most well known works – the surrealistic Biomechanical dreamscapes.

Work in Movies:
- Dune
- Alien
- Alien 3
- Poltergeist II: The Other Side
- Kondom des Grauens
- Species
- Batman Forever
- Future-Kill
- Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis

Giger’s Bar

LP-/CD-Cover, Videos:
- The Shiver – Walpurgis
- Emerson, Lake and Palmer – Brain Salad Surgery
– Magma – Attahk
- Island – Pictures
– Debbie Harry – KooKoo
– Celtic Frost – To Mega Therion
– Dead Kennedys – Frankenchrist
– Pankow – Freiheit für die Sklaven
– Steve Stevens – Atomic Playboys
– Atrocity – Hallucinations
– Sacrosanct – Recesses for the Depraved
– Danzig – Danzig III: How The Gods Kill
– Carcass – Heartwork
– Hide – Hide Your Face
– Dr. Death – Somewhere in nowhere (Birthmachine)
– Böhse Onkelz – Dunkler Ort

PC/Games:
- Dark Seed
- Dark Seed 2

Read more about H.R. Giger and his work HERE.