Tag Archives: trailer

Michael Fassbender embodies ‘Steve Jobs’ in full-length trailer; plus, Michael B. Jordan reignites ‘Rocky’ franchise in ‘Creed’ spinoff

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Apple aficionados, brace yourselves, because this extended look at the upcoming Steve Jobs film from screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Danny Boyle is completely engaging and pedal-to-the-metal from start to finish. It builds on the previously released teaser trailer and gives an even broader glimpse into the pursuit for perfection that Steve embodied during his tenure as the head and face of Apple. Michael Fassbender fully embraces the late CEO’s eccentricities and ultimate passion for advancing society with technological sensations. His supporting cast including Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniack, Jeff Daniels as John Sculley, and Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman are also in it to win it; with such a stellar cast and high-ranking auspices behind the script and lens, I’ll say it again: this isn’t your Ashton Kutcher’s Steve Jobs. Opens October 9.

Jump after the break to see Michael B. Jordan in Rocky boxing spinoff Creed. Continue reading Michael Fassbender embodies ‘Steve Jobs’ in full-length trailer; plus, Michael B. Jordan reignites ‘Rocky’ franchise in ‘Creed’ spinoff →

‘Paranormal Activity’ revealed in sixth and final film in the franchise

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Four films and one spinoff later, the Paranormal Activity franchise is ready to reach its climax and conclusion. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension is prepared to guide the supernatural horror flicks that came before it into the light by addressing the many unanswered questions and riddles left lingering over the years. Producer Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions confirmed to USA Today that Ghost Dimension is indeed the final installment and that answers are coming.

“It’s coming to an end. This is it, the finale,” says Blum. “We’re saying it before the movie opens. We’re not going to grind this horror franchise into the ground. This will keep Paranormal Activity as part of this culture and this particular time in a really fantastic way. We couldn’t go just teasing. All the questions that everyone has asked from the past Paranormal Activity films: What does Toby look like? What’s the backstory to the families? These questions have been teased out. Now they will be answered.”

That’s a big one. Ever since the first Paranormal Activity released in 2007, audiences have been forced to use their powerful imaginations to put a face on the invisible, angry entity that has been terrorizing the families featured in all the movies. In Ghost Dimensions, a special video recording device enables the latest family to actually see the paranormal activity going on around them. PA producer and director of the original Oren Peli commented on this major reveal: “We’ve done well without showing Toby, being able to create tensions and scares based on audiences’ imagination,” he said. “But people are very curious.”

Curious, indeed! And by the looks of it, Ghost Dimension may just be the most haunting Paranormal Activity of all. Watch the debut trailer hanging above to see what I mean. Though the many sequels failed to capture the same kind of awe and suspense of the original, this final chapter aims to bring it all home by tying everything that came before it together in a neat bow. Hopefully plot satisfaction and fun scares will have made the journey worth it.

Eight years after the micro-budget original spent $15,000 and made $193 million at the box office worldwide, there’s no denying the powerful effect the Paranormal Activity franchise has had on the horror genre and the box office in general. It spurred the proliferation of scary micro-budget movies including other Blumhouse works like Insidious, Sinister, and The Purge. And perhaps we haven’t seen the last of PA after all?

“At some point, might there be a reboot? You never know. We’ve never discussed it,” says Blum. “[But] we made this movie like it’s the end of this Paranormal line for sure.”

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension hits theatres October 23, and it’s the first PA movie to be released in 3D. Just in time for Halloween! Continue reading ‘Paranormal Activity’ revealed in sixth and final film in the franchise →

Movie trailer round-up: Animated entries ‘Secret Life of Pets’ & ‘Peanuts’ pack humor, heart & fun

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Illumination Entertainment, the maker of Despicable Me and the upcoming Minions movie, has a new animated comedy in the works about the lives our pets lead after we leave for work or school each day. The first teaser trailer, embedded above, does a fantastic job of setting the scene featuring Illumination’s slick animation style and signature humor. An overarching plot isn’t being divulged just yet, but that doesn’t even matter–The Secret Life of Pets is sure to draw audiences of all ages to its adorable collection of cats and dogs and video game savvy birds. The stacked voice cast includes Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, Jenny Slate, Bobby Moynihan, Hannibal Buress, and Albert Brooks.

The Secret Life of Pets releases July 8, 2016.

Jump after the break to see the latest trailer for Blue Sky Studios’ Peanuts adaptation. Continue reading Movie trailer round-up: Animated entries ‘Secret Life of Pets’ & ‘Peanuts’ pack humor, heart & fun →

Ridley Scott’s next journey to space stars Matt Damon as ‘The Martian’ stuck on Mars

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Ridley Scott, the director behind Alien and Prometheus, is going back to space with The Martian. Matt Damon stars as an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars when an expedition to the red planets goes sideways. The film’s official synopsis includes additional detail:

During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian” home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible rescue mission. As these stories of incredible bravery unfold, the world comes together to root for Watney’s safe return.

Damon’s Interstellar co-star Jessica Chastain joins him on this new mission and the rest of the star-studded cast includes Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The Martian is based on the best-selling book of the same named written by Andy Weir.

Are you excited to watch Damon survive on Mars? As NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX continue their collective efforts to make a trip to Mars a reality, movies like Interstellar and now The Martian make for some good entertainment that also shines a light on our not-so-distant future.

The Martian releases November 25.

Steve Jobs returns to the big screen with award-winning team at the helm

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This isn’t your Ashton Kutcher’s Steve Jobs. Danny Boyle (127 Hours, Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) directs the third major biographical drama showcasing the life and times of the Apple co-founder (yes, I am absolutely counting 1999’s unforgettable Pirates of Silicon Valley). Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (Moneyball, The Social Network) adapts Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography Steve Jobs. Michael Fassbender slips into the iconic innovator’s black turtleneck this time around. Also starring is Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, former marketing chief of Macintosh; Seth Rogen as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniack; Jeff Daniels as John Sculley, former Apple CEO; Katherine Waterston as Jobs’ ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan, and Michael Stuhlbarg as Andy Hertzfeld, one of the original members of the Apple Macintosh development team. The logline reads as follows:

Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.

The debut trailer, hanging above, showcases a decidedly more elegant take on Jobs’ rise to influential immortality. With award-winning talent working hard to bring Isaacson’s esteemed book to life, there’s much to anticipate when Steve Jobs hits theatres October 9.

Ed Helms leads a new generation of Griswalds in ‘Vacation’

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National Lampoon’s classic 1983 comedy Vacation is making a comeback. Instead of a reboot, the new Vacation stars Ed Helms as the now grown up Russell “Rusty” Griswold. In the original, Rusty was played by a young Anthony Michael Hall. Co-starring with Helms is Christina Applegate, who plays his wife, and Leslie Mann has a supporting role. Reprising their roles from the origial Vacation are Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo. The film, written by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Horrible Bosses), sees a new generation of Griswolds take a bumpy trip to the Walley World theme park before it closes for good. This red-band trailer is a ton of fun packs some solid laughs. Are you excited for a Vacation set in 2015?

Vacation opens July 29.

M. Night Shyamalan goes “found-footage” for latest supernatural horror pic ‘The Visit’

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What happens when director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, Lady in the Water) teams up with producer Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Sinister, The Purge)?

The Visit, that’s what. Shyamalan’s next original supernatural film goes a little something like this:

Shyamalan returns to his roots with the terrifying story of a brother and sister who are sent to their grandparents’ remote Pennsylvania farm for a weeklong trip. Once the children discover that the elderly couple is involved in something deeply disturbing, they see their chances of getting back home are growing smaller every day.

Let’s just say these aren’t your typical grandparents–unless your Grandma and Grandpa are seemingly possessed by otherworldly, decidedly demonic creatures.

With The Visit, Shyamalan is embracing Blum’s tried-and-true “found footage” shooting technique; Paranormal Activity and its many sequels have proven that even dirt-cheap horror flicks can be thrilling and quite lucrative. Though the acclaimed director has shot some duds as of late (read: The Happening, After Earth), this inevitable collaboration between Shyamalan and Blum is just tantalizing enough to warrant a look-see. Shyamalan is known for his twist endings that turn all of the events proceeding it on its head, and I can only imagine what he’s cooked up in Blumhouse Productions’ latest.

The Visit opens September 11.

Star Wars stand-alone pic ‘Rogue One’ details surface; ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’ game trailer inside

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The Star Wars Celebration convention continues. Mere days after unveiling the universally enjoyable second teaser for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a second panel packed with franchise fans would parcel fresh intel regarding one of the two upcoming Star Wars stand-alone films. Today’s panel was originally supposed to feature Gareth Edwards and Josh Trank, but the latter director was a no-show due to an illness. So, only Edwards’ Rogue One spinoff film was discussed, and Trank’s still untitled Star Wars pic wasn’t brought up. Moving on!

Godzilla director Edwards was joined on stage by Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy and Kiri Hart. First and foremost, we’ve got a description for Rogue One: “A band of resistance fighters unite for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans,” spills Star Wars’ official Twitter feed. At the panel, it was confirmed that The Theory of Everything‘s Felicity Jones will star as a Rebel soldier.

A brief teaser was screened at the panel; Lucasfilms has yet to post a clean copy of it online, but that never stopped the Internet before. You can search YouTube for cell phone recordings but be quick about it–they’ll be pulled before long. In case you can’t find it, here’s a quick description of the action. It opens with narration from Alec Guinness who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars film. The dialogue pulled from A New Hope went like this: “For more than a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.” The visuals start on a planet teeming with lush forestry. As the camera starts panning towards a bright sky, a TIE Fighter zooms by heading for what appears to be the planet’s nearby moon. As we follow it fly away, we realize that’s no moon–it’s the original Death Star hanging beyond the clouds. The teaser goes black, and just as solider radio coms chatter starts to get hectic, the Star Wars Rogue One title card appears.

Be mindful that this footage was made in collaboration with the folks at Industrial Light & Magic specially for this reveal. Edwards and his team are currently in pre-production with shooting set to begin this summer. The clip is a mere taste of what’s to come. In addition to the footage, concept art was also displayed for the rabid crowd; it depicts soldiers storming onto a rainy, muddy planet.

Edwards briefly expanded on Rogue One. “It’s the reality of war. Good guys are bad. Bad guys are good. It’s complicated, layered; a very rich scenario in which to set a movie,” he said. Don’t expect the film’s main set of characters to bring down their enemies with The Force or other mythological powers, because they won’t. Edwards says, “It comes down to a group of individuals who don’t have magical powers that have to somehow bring hope to the galaxy.” Sounds like a much more grounded, realistic approach to the franchise, one we haven’t yet seen. Edwards’ spinoff is very much a war movie; the director cited Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down as inspirations. “It’s called Star … Wars,” he reminded the crowd. In terms of where it fits in the Star Wars timeline: Edwards confirmed Rogue One takes place after Revenge of the Sith and before A New Hope.

Expanding Star Wars‘ inherently sci-fi tendencies and pushing the franchise’s genre in new directions is, in fact, the point here. “The idea behind these movies is that Star Wars, as much as it is a set of stories and characters we know, it’s also a place–a place we can explore in terms of character and time,” said Hart. Edwards’ Rogue One will showcase a heist story set in a gritty, war-torn environment with relatable soldiers who wield no magic. Though we don’t have information to go on yet about Trank’s spinoff, his film is also set to play with the genre and inject new storytelling elements into the franchise.

We should stop using the term “spinoff films” at this point, since Kennedy and Hart introduced a new branding term for all non-trilogy franchise films. All spinoff/standalone movies set in the Star Wars universe are to be referred to as films in the “Star Wars Anthology Series.”

Star Wars Rogue One, the first Star Wars Anthology Series film, is slated to hit theatres December 16, 2016.

An incredible look at Electronic Arts’ video game Star Wars: Battlefront waits after the break. Continue reading Star Wars stand-alone pic ‘Rogue One’ details surface; ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’ game trailer inside →

‘Fantastic Four’ trailer elevates excitement for the franchise reboot

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Following a decidedly lackluster debut teaser that dropped on January, the first official full-length trailer for the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot picks up the pace and excitement with some pretty slick looking action sequences and a closer look at the heroes’ superpowers. Also, we get a blink-and-you-miss-it first look at the face of the superhero team’s nemesis, Dr. Doom.

Fantastic Four, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

Miles Teller (Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm / Human Torch), Kate Mara (Susan Storm / Invisible Woman), Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm / The Thing), and Toby Kebbell (Victor Domashev / Doom) star in the reboot directed by Josh Trank (Chronicle) and written by Simon Kinberg and Jeremy Slater.

Fantastic Four hits theatres August 7.

Rock on: ‘Guitar Hero’ returns with all new ways to play

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Guitar Hero is dead. Long live Guitar Hero! More, long live the rhythm-based video game genre!

In March, Harmonix–the developers behind Guitar Hero (2005), its 2006 sequel, and spinoff Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s (2007)–announced the revival of Rock Band with the fourth iteration in that long-running game franchise. Today, Activision followed suit by unveiling an unapologetically bold take on Rock Band‘s competitor, Guitar Hero. That’s right–the title that started the rhythm-based revolution is coming to current-gen consoles and it’s packed with fresh songs, a retooled guitar peripheral, and most exciting, new forms of gameplay.

Jump after the break for all the juicy details. Continue reading Rock on: ‘Guitar Hero’ returns with all new ways to play →

‘Ant-Man’ flexes superpowers in new trailer, plus latest look at ‘Terminator: Genisys’ inside

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If the original Ant-Man teaser left you feeling twinges of excitement for Marvel’s next superhero movie, the first official trailer will have you beaming in adrenaline. This is our first major look at Paul Rudd as the poorly (?) named hero who can shrink down to the size of an insect at will. The clip features extended scenes showing Rudd’s Scott Lang utilizing the power of his suit, as well as the introduction to Corey Stoll’s villainous Yellowjacket. The special effects look breathtaking, and the thrilling adventure laid out here–sprinkled with Marvel’s signature humor, of course–comes off as more than promising.

Ant-Man hits theatres July 17.

Jump after the break to watch the latest trailer for Terminator: Genisys. Continue reading ‘Ant-Man’ flexes superpowers in new trailer, plus latest look at ‘Terminator: Genisys’ inside →

‘True Detective’ season 2 gets teaser, description & premiere date [Update: New posters & trailer]

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Can creator Nic Pizzolatto top the dramatic darkness and cinematic captivation that was True Detective season 1? The jury is still out on that, but today we proceed one step closer to finding out if such a feat is possible.

HBO released the first teaser trailer for True Detective season 2, which features a brand new cast and story set in an entirely different location, Los Angeles. Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams, and Taylor Kitsch are the leads and you explore their character descriptions in the just-released synopsis below. Jump into the gallery to view character portraits.

A bizarre murder brings together three law-enforcement officers and a career criminal, each of whom must navigate a web of conspiracy and betrayal in the scorched landscapes of California. Colin Farrell is Ray Velcoro, a compromised detective in the all-industrial City of Vinci, LA County. Vince Vaughn plays Frank Semyon, a criminal and entrepreneur in danger of losing his life’s work, while his wife and closest ally (Kelly Reilly), struggles with his choices and her own. Rachel McAdams is Ani Bezzerides, a Ventura County Sheriff’s detective often at odds with the system she serves, while Taylor Kitsch plays Paul Woodrugh, a war veteran and motorcycle cop for the California Highway Patrol who discovers a crime scene which triggers an investigation involving three law enforcement groups, multiple criminal collusions, and billions of dollars.

The 60-second teaser works even without any dialogue; empowering it are moody shots of the all-star cast in top form, as well as an original tune performed by Lera Lynn, co-written by Roseanne Cash, and produced by T. Bone Burnett (he’s the music man behind the powerful score that backed season 1). So far, so great.

True Detective premieres Sunday, June 21 on HBO.

Update: Eye the official key art below, and jump after the break to watch a new trailer–this time with dialogue!

Continue reading ‘True Detective’ season 2 gets teaser, description & premiere date [Update: New posters & trailer] →