Eric Bana joins Star Trek XI

Eric Bana

As the search continues to find the cast for Star Trek XI the newest casting announcement is that Eric Bana (The Hulk, Munich) is set to play the villain Nero.

Set for a November start date the studio still needs to cast a young James T. Kirk and Scotty for the J.J. Abrams (Lost) directed project.

While adding the first bankable big name actor to the roster will work in Paramount’s favor as far as box office numbers are concerned we will have to wait until the films release on Christmas Day 2008 to see if Bana is a right fit for the Star Trek universe.

Bana joins the already announced cast members Anton Yelchin, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto (Heroes) and Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek: TOS).

Youtube Ads

After much debate, Youtube ads are now here for good. It appears that Google is trying to listen to all sides on how exactly it should include ads around the players. Anyone can create a ad based player if they have a Google Adsense. We’ve embedded the Youtube ad player in our Forum. We’re actually having issues including it in this post.

It’s great to know that content publishers can finally start making money off of their creations. Of course not all are welcomed. At this time only certain videos will be shown. Most of these videos are the highest viewed and rated, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But if you’re a content publisher like StuffWeLike and haven’t had that break out video hit, you’re videos won’t be featured in other’s players. But if you have a website, you can still profit off of other people’s work.

Hopefully this will encourage users to improve the quality of their videos. Most likely it won’t, but again I did say hopefully.

McG and Vin Diesel in Terminator 4?

Vin Diesel posing

Some of the latest news tells us that McG, famous for directing Charlie’s Angels and Stay Alive is in talks for directing Terminator 4. Doesn’t sound like a bad choice to me, at least if you consider the likes of well, Boll. Production on T4 has certainly sped up, though – the script arrived last week and since the movie is pre-strike, we should expect production to start ASAP.

Another piece of news says that Vin Diesel is rumoured to be in talks to play the terminator this time around. At least no one will complain about his acting, that way. Come to think of it – he’d make a fantastic Terminator!

As for the story itself, it has been confirmed that Terminator 4 will carry on from the story of Terminator 3 – the apocalypse has taken place and now John Connor has to form an army of rebels against the evil Skynet. I like the way the Terminator movies take place in two time frames, heh.

Who’ll make the cut? How will the movie fare? You can only discuss and comment right now. We’ll wait for the movie, though.

[Via Snarkerati]

My Red Camera Experience

Red Camera

If you’re not in the film industry, you may not have heard about the most advanced video camera in the world. Thanks to the Digital Cinema Society, I had the privilege of getting an in-depth look at what makes the Red camera tick.

First off, what makes this camera special is that it records in 4K. This is the same resolution that 35mm records on – a resolution higher than High Definition. Currently there are only 50 Red cameras in the world. At the event we were looking at #30.

Continue reading “My Red Camera Experience”

Lucas: Indy 4 will be as good as Indy 1 (“Phantom Menace” fears heightened)

George Lucas!

VH1 managed to get close to George Lucas, who decided to spill some beans about his upcoming movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Now, expectations for this movie are big, not only because Indiana Jones is returning after a long hiatus, but because fans saw what happens to a successful franchise when it is “continued” some 20 years later. Yeah, Jar Jar Binks happens.

Like before, Indy will be chasing an important historical/legendary artifact – which, if you haven’t guessed already, will be the Crystal Skull this time around. Lucas promises that crystal skulls are mighty powerful, more so than the puny Sankara Stones or the Holy Grail (pfft, who wants immortality?). “I think this is actually better, it’s up there with the Ark of the Covenant.” says Lucas. We sure hope so.

The crystal skulls are an actually existing phenomena, however. Unlike the Ark of the Covenant, though – the Crystal skulls have been ascribed all sorts of powers (including the overthrow of Microsoft), but which one will make it to the film?

“There’s several different kinds of skulls, several different kinds of theories, several myths that are surrounding them,” Lucas said, clearly delighted by his secret knowledge. “So, you just have to put all the pieces together, look it up and figure out which one it is. Or just wait until the movie comes out, which is so much easier.”

Now, getting from the movie’s content, will go to the movie itself. It’s shaping up for a release on May 22nd next year and damn, is that a classic Lucasfilms date! The movie is tonally most similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and will be just as good, if Lucas is to be trusted. Let’s hope he is. And for God’s sake, let’s hope Jar Jar Binks isn’t in it.

[Via Firstshowing.net]

WHOA! More Cloverfield info!

[Update]Check out more of our Cloverfield Coverage!

 

It’s been months since the original teaser came out, indeed we’re just a week away from the Transformers movie DVD release. Since the original trailer the stream of hype has begun to slow to a slight trickle. The biggest development about the secret monster movie isn’t that important, and barely worth mentioning.

The official website, 1-18-08.com, has recently added a new picture. The picture? A curiously angry (happy? excited? constipated even?) Japanese chef holding a platter with what looks like an omelet on it. Itself, not at all helpful, but upon flipping the picture over we are given a Japanese recipe for a fictional meal. Translated the recipe features many items not too out of the ordinary, except for one very important item, a pinch of Deep sea nectar. Why is this important? Well anyone whose looked through slusho.jp knows that one of the big ingredients in their slurpee like product is an ingredient that comes from the bottom of the ocean floor.

So what does this mean? Well obviously that the monster is a giant culinary monstrosity out to destroy all of the fast food chains in the world…. or perhaps not much. What else has been found is a company that goes by the name of Tagruato Corp. This website does seem to be tied with Slusho, making it a part of the viral marketing campaign. The subsidiary page talks about Slusho amongst 3 other companies, most of which seem to be tied with, in someway, deep sea venturing. All of this points more to the point that the monster has some significant connection with this deep sea nectar.

Other than that, there’s nothing really going on in J.J. Abrams land. Keep your eyes and ears open for another trailer though, there are only 3 more months until the movie’s release.

[Via: First Showing and 1-18-08 live journal]