Three weeks ago, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling conjured an Internet frenzy when she and Warner Bros. announced that a new adaptation of her book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a popular supplement to her Potter series was in the works. The announcement revealed that the film will be set in the same wizarding world as Harry Potter ? but follow magizoologist Newt Scamander, a professor of magical creatures, and take place 70 years before Harry's journey began.
How do you make a movie that tackles pornography not just as an ''issue'' or a product but in terms of its psychological effects?
The 1980 cult-classic film "The Shining" could very well get a sequel now that Stephen King has published his long-awaited followup to the 1977 novel.
You don't need a detective to figure out the biggest winner at the box office this weekend.
In movies like 1974's "Death Wish," where Charles Bronson played a walking statue of stoic wrath, vigilante justice is mean, nasty and also good, clean fun.
Back in 1977, Ron Howard made his directorial debut with a low-budget, high-octane car-crash comedy called "Grand Theft Auto."
At this point, Robert De Niro has built an entire subgenre of movies in which he sticks his tongue out at his cinematic legacy.
Spiraling into oblivion really helps you see things from a different perspective.
At a time when the budgets for sci-fi films are, like the universe itself, expanding at an astronomical rate, Riddick decides to go small.
Tyler Perry has joined the cast of "Gone Girl," EW has confirmed.
Not everyone's pleased with Dakota Johnson and Charlie Hunnam in the starring roles in "Fifty Shades of Grey," but the bigger-name stars fans have been clamoring for reportedly weren't all that interested.
With summer coming to a close, Oscar season is officially in full swing.
"Fifty Shades of Grey" fans are hot -- and not for the reason you might think.
It may have been one of the most eagerly anticipated casting choices of the year, and we now know the leads in the film adaptation of "Fifty Shades of Grey."
Good luck scoring concert tickets to the latest teen-steam sensation to trundle off the boy-band assembly line, One Direction. They're as hard to come by as a rainbow-colored unicorn.
What did Leonard Maltin think of the 2013 summer movie season?
The next time the Avengers assemble, it'll be to face off with James Spader.
Michiganders looking for work might want to keep their eyes peeled for Superman.
Mitch Hurwitz has good news for "Arrested Development" fans.
Gilbert Taylor, who gave the "Star Wars" films their sharp look as the cinematographer of 1977's "Star Wars," has died, according to Lucasfilm. He was 99.
Back in 2004, Edgar Wright's brilliantly subversive zombie comedy, "Shaun of the Dead," introduced American audiences to Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
The last time Ben Affleck played a superhero, the world cried.
The guessing game of who will star in the adaptation of "Fifty Shades of Grey" ? the erotic novel by E L James that has sold over 70 million copies worldwide ? continues!
Her name was Alice Guy-Blache, and you've probably never heard of her.
It's been a summer where you could not escape the matter of race if you tried.
While "The Wolverine" is currently in theaters, rumors popped up online this week that star Hugh Jackman was being courted to sign a deal worth $100 million for four more movies featuring the clawed mutant.
Two years ago, Steve Jobs' death was followed by a tidal wave of commentary (the tributes, the Walter Isaacson biography, the why-the-iPod-is-as-major-an-invention-as-the-lightbulb analysis).
Lee Daniels' "The Butler" is an ambitious, sweeping period drama that manages to be incredibly affecting and feel as if the words ''For Your Consideration'' are stamped across every frame.
Extra! Extra!! Christian Bale offered $50 million to play Batman again!
Matthew McConaughey lost 40 pounds for December's "Dallas Buyers Club," and Matt Damon worked out for four hours a day to get ripped for "Elysium."
Thirteen years after putting on the adamantium claws, Hugh Jackman is still carving up the box office as the most iconic super-mutant, Wolverine.
In "Elysium," Neill Blomkamp's shrewdly revved-up and exciting dystopian thriller, Matt Damon's character, Max, spends most of the movie with a spidery black-metal exoskeleton implanted in his skull and spine.
It's bizarre to think that 2 Guns and The Smurfs 2 are competitors in any regard, but the pics happened to open in theaters on the same weekend. While the R-rated, buddy thriller and the PG-rated CG and live action sequel about some mystical blue creatures probably aren't drawing the same audience, in the wold of box office returns, only the winner matters. And it turns out that more people turned out for the male-dominated violent comedy than for another kid-friendly sequel.
August has come to be regarded as a celluloid dumping ground.
Ellen DeGeneres was so nice as an Oscars host the first time, the Academy has asked her to do it twice.
Jim Carrey's "Kick-Ass 2" co-stars may accept his decision not to support their film because of its intense violence, but that's not to say they agree with him.
Sometimes even earning the No. 1 spot can be seen as a modest disappointment, or at least that's what the new narrative around The Wolverine (CinemaScore: A-) would have you believe.
This weekend was always going to belong to The Wolverine.
Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza), the prim yet irresistibly outrageous valedictorian at the center of "The To Do List," is the latest in what has become a big-screen tradition of rambunctious, headstrong Girls With a Plan.
When Hugh Jackman first called his director for "The Wolverine," James Mangold told him that he had had an inspiration after reading the script. Mangold wanted to make the set-in-Japan film similar to "The Outlaw Josey Wales" by making the mutant a Josey Wales with healing powers. Jackman hadn't seen the classic Clint Eastwood film, so Mangold sent him a copy.
There's a reason Marvel conceived the X-Men as a team: The menagerie of mutants are more interesting when they come in a pack. When the posse of super-powered outcasts was first brought to the screen by Bryan Singer in 2000, Hugh Jackman's mutton-chopped, adamantium-clawed Wolverine emerged as the stand-out super-freak. And Hollywood accounting being what it is, he was naturally granted his own solo encore in 2009's underwhelming X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a silly spin-off that never quite came together.
Comedian/actor Bill Hader has departed "Saturday Night Live" after eight seasons, but it's not like he's strapped for work.
Animated movies have topped the box office for the past four weekends, but this time around, audiences were ready to embrace something a bit edgier. As such, Warner Bros.' horror film "The Conjuring" easily topped a crowded weekend with an eye-popping $41.5 million.
In the wee hours of January 1, 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant III was detained by transit police on a train platform in Oakland.
No one can question Guillermo del Toro's passion for Japanese monster movies. The fanboy-friendly director, who earned his Comic-Con bona fides by crafting oddball fantasias including Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy films, has spoken at length about being weaned on creature double features as a kid in Mexico. And it wasn't just the granddaddy of all man-in-a-rubber-suit behemoths, Godzilla, who cracked open his mind. He also swooned over the more esoteric beasties in Toho Studios' kaiju (i.e., giant monster) stable ? titanic brutes like Mothra, Megalon, and Mechagodzilla. It goes without saying that the man's geek credentials run deep.
It was one of the hottest films out of Sundance, but "Blackfish" will leave you with chills.
Sam Mendes is taking a page from J.J. Abrams's book.
In the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009, a gunshot rang out that resonated around the country.
It was once considered "the worst musical extravaganza in Hollywood history."
As long as there have been movies, there have been bad movies. For a long time, they were forgotten -- or wished to be.
Over the extended 4th of July weekend, a lot of Americans lit up the grill and spent time with family. A lot unfolded lawn chairs and watched a fireworks show. And a whole lot bought tickets to see Despicable Me 2.
Thanks to Man of Steel, Fast & Furious 6, Monsters University, and the surprising success of Now You See Me, the box office climbed to record levels in June, earning $1.25 billion ? a 19 percent increase over June 2012. This week, Despicable Me 2 and The Lone Ranger, which both begin showing tonight to take advantage of the July 4th holiday weekend, will try to keep the box office firing on all cylinders. The former is poised to dominate the field, but the latter seems unlikely to lasso a big enough audience to justify its gargantuan budget. Here's how I think the box office might shake out over the Wednesday-to-Sunday period:
It's been a great June at the domestic box office ? and thanks to a jam-packed slate of robust earners, the month finished strong this weekend. In fact, the top five films all earned over $20 million.
Roland Emmerich may never win an Oscar (I'm going out on a limb here), but he gets my vote as the greatest practitioner of good bad movies working in Hollywood today.
On Thursday, friends, family, and hundreds of fans gathered to pay their respects to James Gandolfini at Manhattan's Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.
Gru, the bald and beetle-browed rascal hero of "Despicable Me 2," is an infectious imp ? as voiced by Steve Carell, he's like Uncle Fester with the personality of Nikita Khrushchev.
No surprise, but now it's official: "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" will have a panel at Comic-Con next month, Lionsgate announced today.
Pixar earned its 14th No. 1 at the box office this weekend ? out of 14 releases. Yep, the animation studio, now owned by Disney, has never not opened a film in first place. Its latest release, Monsters University, was no exception. It finished at the top of its class.
Imagine James Gandolfini as a man weary of the world -- resigned to the fact that his remaining days will be filled with regret and longing. And yet he still has hopes. He is not passive. He is trying to make things right until the very end.
In the comic-book world, he is sometimes derided as "the big blue Boy Scout."
You could sit through a year's worth of Hollywood comedies and still not see anything that's genuinely knock-your-socks-off audacious. But "This Is the End" (opening today) truly is.
The studio behind the female buddy flick "The Heat" is probably hoping the movie will be huge. But there is some controversy overseas about something connected to the film that doesn't appear to be as big.
Open Road Films will release its Steve Jobs biopic "Jobs" on August 16.
The sequel to "Dumb and Dumber" has hit a road block. The in-development follow-up to the hit 1994 comedy was in the works at New Line Cinema, but New Line's parent company, Warner Bros., has dropped the project, EW confirmed Tuesday. THR first reported the news.
In the rude, antic, and brazenly funny "Wedding Crashers" (2005), Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn played overgrown arrested-development cases who won us over from their very first whopping lie onward. At the time, the two actors were already in their mid-30s, but they were still able to mount a bad-boy generational assault against all things civil and decent. "The Internship" reunites Wilson, with his smarm-that-looks-like-sweetness (or is it the other way around?), and Vaughn, with his disaffected fast patter. The audience is still rooting for them ? only this time the two are playing the older, stodgy guys.
How's your year going? Probably not as well as the Rock's.
This fast and airy thriller about a team of four magicians is an engagingly preposterous high-wire act.
I've lost count, but "After Earth" seems like it must be the fourth post-apocalyptic thriller this month. The movie teams Will Smith and his son, Jaden Smith, and it was directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the former maestro-huckster of the twist ending. But Shyamalan's star has fallen, and he has become a glorified gun for hire. The movie takes off from a concept as basic as a videogame, and it sticks to that concept, without surprise.
Over the past few years, Zachary Quinto has established his acting rep by playing Sylar in "Heroes," a couple of memorable roles on "American Horror Story," and, of course, Spock in the last two "Star Trek" movies. So you could describe his transition into producing as, well, "logical." Certainly it has gotten off to an encouraging start. Quinto produced director J.C. Chandor's financial crisis movie Margin Call through the actor's Before the Door company ? the production outfit he runs with partners Corey Moosa and Neal Dodson ? and exec produced Chandor's Robert Redford-starring "All Is Lost," which just screened at Cannes.
Here's what the Memorial Day weekend taught us: America really likes the "Fast & Furious" franchise, but America loves movies.
Drawing level with the "Star Wars" saga and pulling well ahead of "Shrek," "Ice Age" and "Spider-Man" in the sequel stakes, "The Fast and the Furious" could yet challenge Rocky Balboa, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger for longevity.
As the director of "Pirates of the Caribbean" Nos. 1, 2 and 3, filmmaker Gore Verbinski is intimately familiar with the massive needs of a potential summer blockbuster.
If only what happened in Vegas had stayed in Vegas.
When we think of the perfect summer blockbuster, we think of action -- and July's "The Wolverine" will have more than enough, star Hugh Jackman says.
The USS Enterprise picked up steam throughout the weekend, despite a somewhat unimpressive start.
"Star Trek Into Darkness" opens on a primitive planet, where the natives are restless and a volcano, in mid-eruption, traps First Officer Spock (Zachary Quinto) over a boiling ocean of lava.
If second place is the first loser, then this week that's a pretty great place to be.
"Great Gatsby" director Baz Luhrmann isn't the type to be cowed by literary pedigree, not even that of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
On paper, the 1974 version of "The Great Gatsby" had everything.
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