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Ellen Wong Is Knives Chau In Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World Another bit ofScott Pilgrim vs The Worldcasting was hidden away at the bottom of an Empire magazinearticleI didn’t read fully enough the first time (and let that be a lesson to me – so excited by my new /Film engagement am I, that I’m still all spiky with adrenalin). If only I’d slowed down a bit and used the scroll bar more casually, I’d have seen their announcement that Ellen Wong has signed on to play Knives Chau....

First Look: Benedict Cumberbatch As Julian Assange In ‘The Fifth Estate’; Release Date And Additional Casting Revealed Julian Assangehas been hailed as a hero by some and decried as a villain by others, so it seems just about perfect thatBill Condon’s WikiLeaks movie stars an actor who can play both. As principal photography on the film, now titledThe Fifth Estate, gets underway, the first photo ofBenedict Cumberbatchas the WikiLeaks founder andDanielBrühlas his former right-hand manDaniel Domscheit-Berghas been revealed....

Friday Box Office: Jumper $8.2M; Step-Up 2 $6.2M; Spiderwick $4.7M Jumper has leapt to an excellent $8.21M on Friday, and it should bound to a solid $34.47M for the Valentine’s Day through President’s Day 5-day box office frame. After finishing in a virtual dead heat with Disney’s Step Up to the Streets on Thursday, Doug Liman’s sci-fi adventure pic overwhelmed the competition on Friday. Meanwhile, Step Up 2 received a slight Thursday-to-Friday bump dancing to a $6....

FX Will No Longer Air ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’ Before The 2020 Election [TCA 2020] During their summer 2019 Television Critics Association sessions, FX announced the seriesImpeachment: American Crime Storyabout the Bill Clinton impeachment, with Monica Lewinski serving as a producer. As soon as FX announced plans to air it before the 2020 election, the networkfaced backlashfor the timing.Today, FX CEO John Landgraf revealed the series will not air until after the election....

Guy Ritchie Offered ‘Xerxes,’ The Sequel To ‘300’? Here’s something that looks like one simple story — a director offered a movie — but in reality it might be something a lot more complex.Zack Snyderbroke into the big leagues with300, based onFrank Miller’s graphic novel, and has been developing the sequel,Xerxes, for some time. He had planned to script and direct, andas of last summerwas writing the script. Now there’s word that, viaVulture, that Legendary and Warner Bros....

HBO Max’s Harry Potter Quiz Show Will Be Hosted By Helen Mirren That’s kind of weird, right? However, if you think about it, everything about HBO’s upcoming “Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses” feels more than a little off. When the quiz show was announced back in May 2021,we questioned its very existence, and things have only become stranger since then. There are, of course, the obvious issues, like the fact that it’s hard to be a Harry Potter fan in a world where J....

HBO Orders ‘Westworld’ Series, Offers Tantalizing Vine Video The last time we talked aboutWestworld, the proposed HBO series that revamps the idea of a theme park for adults in which the automaton attractions run wild, it seemed like a series order wasall but assured. Now HBO has issued that series order, which comes complete with a teasing image and Vine video. The cast of the show is great (Anthony Hopkins,Ed Harris,Evan Rachel Wood,James Marsden,Thandie Newton,Miranda OttoandJeffrey Wright), the creators number among themJonathan NolanandLisa Joy, and plans for the show suggest that it will explore the intersection between technology and morality....

Interview: ‘Timeless’ Producers On Casting Historical Figures And Bringing Back Spielberg-Style Optimism This month, NBC is going back in time with the premiere of their new seriesTimeless. From producersEric Kripke(Supernatural,Revolution) andShawn Ryan(The Shield, of course),Timelessis about a trio of heroes with a time machine who have to chase a terrorist with another time machine through history. Lucy Preston (Abigail Spencer) is a historian recruited to lead Wyatt Logan (Matt Lanter) and Rufus Carlin (Malcolm Barrett) in pursuit of Garcia Flynn (Goran Višnji?...

John Lasseter Taking Leave Of Absence From Disney/Pixar After Sexual Harassment Allegations John Lasseter, current Chief Creative Officer of Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios and DisneyToon Studios, has announced a sudden leave of absence following “missteps.” In a new statement, theToy Storydirector acknowledged “difficult conversations” and acknowledged possibly crossing lines and making people uncomfortable. Lasseter’s leave of absence news was soon followed by allegations of sexual misconduct involving the filmmaker....

Jon Stewart’s ‘Irresistible’ Starring Steve Carell Skipping Theaters And Heading Straight To VOD While a lot of big blockbuster movies intended for release this summer have been pushed back to a new release date, some of the smaller movies are heading straight to VOD.Jon Stewart’s political comedyIrresistiblefalls into the latter category as Focus Features has announced the movie will premiere on VOD in June. And there’s a new featurette about the film, too....

Lightyear Trailer: Buzz Is A Man Out Of Time Pixar has released a brand new trailer for “Lightyear,” the movie-within-a-movie pseudo prequel to “Toy Story” that is set to tell the “definitive origin story” of Buzz Lightyear. And before you ask, no, this is not meant to be the story of an in-universe real person, but the fictional sci-fi blockbuster that inspired the toy line Buzz Lightyear. This is an important distinction because it means “Lightyear” is not necessarily erasing the vastly underrated and virtually unaccessible cartoon “Buzz Lightyear of Star Command,” which already told the story of Buzz Lightyear in space....

Matthew McConaughey Raises Expectations For Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ Matthew McConaugheyneeds to give his management team a raise. The actor had a huge 2013, appearing in three Oscar-caliber films includingDallas Buyers Club, for which he was given his first Oscar-nomination. He also did the buzzy TV drama,True Detective, which could garner the actor an Emmy-nomination. McConaughey has never been hotter and yet he’s following up a huge 2013 with something even bigger....

Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’ Planned As Six-Season HBO Arc Plans made by HBO and Tom Hanks' Playtone Productions to adaptNeil Gaiman’s novelAmerican Godsto television are even more elaborate than we expected. In April we learned that cinematographerRobert Richardsonhad brought the novel to Playtone, which in turnmade a deal with HBO. But we didn’t know any details of how the adaptation would go, other than that Neil Gaiman would work on the pilot script with Mr....