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We’ve heard that Chris Pratt is the frontrunner to play a new version of Indiana Jones. Now, despite the fact that Pratt is not actually signed for the film, there’s word that Steven Spielberg wants to direct him in the Indiana Jones reboot, so long as the script turns out well.

Deadline has the first report. It’s a good headline, but there’s really not much to the story because there’s no script, and there isn’t likely to be much of a dealmaking process until something is written. We don’t know who will write that script (or who is working on it right now) and until a draft is in there probably won’t be a commitment from Spielberg. We’ve also heard that Disney was looking into the idea of other directors taking on the franchise, though we don’t have names to report. Clearly, however, interest from Spielberg could trump anyone else.

Deadline does note that Chris Pratt’s gig in Jurassic World (pictured above) was directly due to Spielberg’s influence. How much effect that has on Indiana Jones remains to be seen.

Pratt certainly looks the part, and based on his work in Guardians of the Galaxy we can see him playing a new version of Jones, no problem. And hopefully the push to balance practical and CG effects that we’ve seen in films like The Force Awakens and Jurassic World will also be reflected in a new Indiana Jones movie. Actually, we can pretty much point to the last Indy film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which was heavy with overt CG effects, as an example of everything we don’t want to see in the reboot.

And while Indy co-creator George Lucas seems to be basically retired from working on big films, we don’t know for certain that he’ll stay on the sidelines for a new Indiana Jones movie. His involvement or lack thereof could have a lot to do with how this project proceeds.

Given Steven Spielberg’s schedule, if he does end up signing to direct, the earliest he could have time to shoot the film is late 2016, with an early 2017 shoot more likely.

The post Steven Spielberg May Direct Chris Pratt in ‘Indiana Jones’ Reboot appeared first on /Film.

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The year in movies for 2014 comes to (more or less) and official close this Sunday, when the 87th annual Academy Awards are given out in Hollywood. We’ve seen films rise and fall in the assumed lists of winners, with Birdman and Boyhood seeming to vie most heatedly in speculation for the top trophy. In truth, decisions about the best films from 2014 will be made as years go by and films rise and fall to find their true audience and place in culture. But for now we can only wait to see what the Academy’s voting block has chosen. Our Oscar 2015 predictions are below, with each category capped by the film we assume will win, and the pick we hope will take the prize.

The four of us — Peter, Germain, Angie and Russ — voted on these choices. We’ll begin with some of the technical awards and move towards Best Director and Best Picture.

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Best Visual Effects

• Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl,Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist
• Guardians of the Galaxy – Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi,Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould
• Interstellar – Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher
• X-Men: Days of Future Past – Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer

Our Prediction: Despite a vote for Interstellar, the numbers say Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

We’d Like the Winner to Be: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. These films are all technical marvels, but Apes is on another level — one which is easy to recognize, and deserves to be celebrated.

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Best Film Editing

• American Sniper – Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach
• Boyhood – Sandra Adair
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Barney Pilling
• The Imitation Game – William Goldenberg
• Whiplash – Tom Cross

Our Prediction: Boyhood, which is going to be the movie people think of as well-edited, if only for the sake of the way in which it was created.

We’d Like the Winner to Be: Here we’re split between Boyhood, which is certainly deserving, and Whiplash. In the case of the latter, musical performance and energy is incredibly difficult to capture on screen, and Whiplash nails it, in large part due to editing.

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Best Costume Design

• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Milena Canonero
• Inherent Vice – Mark Bridges
• Into the Woods – Colleen Atwood
• Maleficent – Anna B. Sheppard
• Mr. Turner – Jacqueline Durran

Our Prediction: There’s an outlier vote for Maleficent, but our prediction goes to Grand Budapest Hotel.

We’d Like the Winner to Be: Here’s there’s a vote for Grand Budapest Hotel, but the winner by number of votes is Inherent Vice. Indeed, the costuming in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film indicates character thanks to some very smart choices, and also recreates the time period without going overboard.

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Best Makeup and Hairstyling

• Foxcatcher – Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier
• Guardians of the Galaxy – Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White

Our Prediction: Foxcatcher, because historical precedent suggests it possesses exactly the quality the Academy loves. (OK, we’ll just say it. Oscar loves a fake nose.)

We’d Like the Winner to Be: Guardians of the Galaxy. As Peter says, “I was on set of this film and I can’t express how detailed and incredible the make-up effects were in this film. Unfortunately some of it doesn’t read as spectacular on the screen, but the work is deserving of recognition.”

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Best Cinematography

• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Emmanuel Lubezki
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Robert Yeoman
• Ida – Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski
• Mr. Turner – Dick Pope
• Unbroken – Roger Deakins

Our Prediction: Birdman, which owes so much of its success to a brilliant collaboration between the camera and editing departments.

We’d Like the Winner to Be: Birdman.

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Best Production Design

• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Adam Stockhausen (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)
• The Imitation Game – Maria Djurkovic (Production Design); Tatiana Macdonald (Set Decoration)
• Interstellar – Nathan Crowley (Production Design); Gary Fettis (Set Decoration)
• Into the Woods – Dennis Gassner (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)
• Mr. Turner – Suzie Davies (Production Design); Charlotte Watts (Set Decoration)

Our Prediction: There’s a vote for Mr. Turner, based on the simple concept of the staid period piece catching the Academy’s eye, but our official nod goes to The Grand Budapest Hotel.

We’d Like the Winner to Be: The Grand Budapest Hotel, which benefits enormously from the meticulously curated design for which Wes Anderson’s films are known.

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Best Sound Mixing

• American Sniper – John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Jon Taylor,Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga
• Interstellar – Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten
• Unbroken – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and David Lee
• Whiplash – Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley

Our Prediction: American Sniper, for the role sound plays in developing much of the film’s power.

We’d Like the Winner to Be: We’ve got a vote for Birdman, but the majority “hopeful” vote goes to Whiplash. And Interstellar, as ambitious as it may have been, gets the “anything but Interstellar” vote.

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Continue Reading Oscar 2015 Predictions: What We Hope Will Win, and What Probably Will >>

The post Oscar 2015 Predictions: What Hope Will Win, and What Probably Will appeared first on /Film.

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In the comic books, Ultron is all but unbeatable. He’s artificially intelligent and, in addition to being super strong, fast and all that good stuff, he can transfer his consciousness and recreate himself. (He’s also changed powers over the years too.) So just when you think he’s dead, bang, he’s back in another form. That’s a big problem for a superhero movie where the good guys kind of have to win, according to Joss Whedon.

In an interview from the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the writer/director of the superhero sequel talked about the fact Ultron is so powerful in the comics, he was forced to dial back his abilities for the movie world. He also discussed how introducing Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch into the film helped the title character. Read the Joss Whedon Avengers Age of Ultron quotes below.

Whedon talked to Empire Magazine about the main villain of his film:

“The powers in comic books – they’re always like, ‘And then I can reverse the polarity of your ions!’ – well, we have to ground things a lot more. With Ultron, we have to make him slightly less omnipotent because he’d win. Bottom line. Also, having weaknesses and needs and foibles and alliances and actually caring what people think of him, all these things, are what make him a character and not just a tidal wave. A movie about a tidal wave can be great, but it’s different than a conflict between one side and the other. When Ultron speaks, he has a point. He is really not on top of the fact that the point he’s making has nothing to do with the fact that he’s banoonoos. And that he hates the Avengers for bringing him into this world, and he can’t really articulate that or even understand how much he hates humanity. He thinks he’s all that. That guy is very fun to write. He combines all the iconic stuff. The powers he has are slightly different – he can control certain things, he’s not just firing repulsors.

Sounds like Whedon really has a handle on the character. Plus, considering Ultron isn’t the villain in Captain America: Civil War it’s pretty obvious he’s going to get destroyed. As for the lingering effect on the character? That’s another issue all together.

Whedon also talks about introducing Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch and the reason why he did that, at least at the start:

[Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch] have an origin but it’s largely described. They’re already good to go by the time we’re up and running. You don’t want to fall into Spider-Man 3 territory – and I say that as a guy who actually thinks pretty well of that movie, there’s some great stuff in that movie – but there comes a point where you’re overloaded with frontstory, backstory, origin story and it becomes very hard to juggle. My instinct is always, ‘Don’t put in more, work with what you have.’ But I insisted on putting in more in this movie because I felt I needed more villains. I needed someone for Ultron to talk to, and I need more trouble for the Avengers. As powerful as Ultron is, if he builds more Ultrons, they’re Ultrons. There’s no reason for him to ever to talk to them because they’re him. ‘I need you to – I KNOW! I AM TOTALLY YOU! I DID IT EARLIER! I know that because I am also me.’ That’s not a good conversation. Actually, it sounded pretty good there. I think I’m onto something.

Avengers: Age of Ultron opens May 1.

The post Why Did Joss Whedon Dial Down Ultron’s Powers for ‘Avengers Age of Ultron?’ appeared first on /Film.

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How did Jared Leto refer to The Joker in Suicide Squad? Want to see an awesome poster of Tony Stark‘s workstation? What do Patton Oswalt and Thanos have in common? Would Donald Glover like to play Spider-Man? How is Aquaman going to fit into Batman v Superman? Can you recap the whole of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D in three minutes? Which iconic X-Men location did Bryan Singer post an image from? Read about all this and more in today’s Superhero Bits.

Awesome poster of Tony Stark‘s desk by Fringe Focus.

Comixology is having an awesome buy one, get one free sale on Marvel Comics.

A fan on Twitter pointed out that this fan image of Jason Momoa as Aquaman ended up being pretty close to final.

Speaking of that new Aquaman image, Badass Digest‘s discussion of it has some spoiler of how the character fits into Batman v Superman.

Be careful of the Murdock boys. They got the devil in them. #Daredevil pic.twitter.com/ycGOg5sQnz

— Daredevil (@Daredevil) February 20, 2015

Awesome new image from Daredevil.

Nashville actress Laura Benanti has been cast as Alura Zor-El, the mother of Supergirl, in Supergirl.

This is Steven Holliday‘s Gallery 1988 tribute to Patton Oswalt.

Speaking to Billboard, Jared Leto said this about playing the Joker in Suicide Squad:

The opportunity to take on this nearly Shakespearean character — that’s what graphic novels and comic books are becoming, right? [He’s] this beautiful disaster of a character — what a big challenge.

Continue Reading Superhero Bits >>

Due to the amount of graphics and images included in Superhero Bits, we have to split this post over THREE pages. Click the link above to continue to the second page of Superhero Bits.

The post Superhero Bits: Daredevil, Suicide Squad, Aquaman, Spider-Man, X-Men: Apocalypse appeared first on /Film.

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Page 2 is a compilation of stories and news tidbits, which for whatever reason, didn’t make the front page of /Film. After the jump we’ve included 36 different items, fun images, videos, casting tidbits, articles of interest and more. It’s like a mystery grab bag of movie web related goodness.

Header Photo: Ghost Wars t-shirt

The trailer is not the movie

‘Blood Simple’ to Albert Brooks: Why Spring of 1985 was something special

GALLERY 1988 ANNOUNCES IS THIS THING ON? # 4 OPENING ON FEBRUARY 20, 2015

35 Spinoffs We’d See Next If TV Executives Had Balls

Why Neill Blomkamp Shouldn’t Resurrect ‘Alien‘ After All

New Ghostbusters tee at Last Exit to Nowhere

Favorite Movie Easter Eggs: Amazing Spider-Man, Indiana Jones and more Read more at

The 9 Biggest Pilot Trends of 2015: Diversity, Movie Adaptations, Generation Gaps

“Awakening the Darkside” Wax Pack – Series 2 T-shirt

Kentucky Police Issue Arrest Warrant for Elsa from Disney’s ‘Frozen’

100% Soft – Snowpiercer

Top 10 Movies That Should Have Sucked But Are Actually Good

Sk8letor t-shirt

12 Spinoffs That Were Nothing Like The Original Shows

Hey Academy, I’m a Woman.

How Movie Theaters Used Alcohol, Comfy Chairs to Weather Box Office Downturn

Continue Reading Page 2 >>

The post Page 2: Ghostbusters, Pee-Wee, Star Wars, Snowpiercer, He-Man, Harry Potter, Frozen, Jurassic Park appeared first on /Film.

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