MGM unveiled a harrowing first trailer for Operation Finale, the historical thriller starring Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) and Ben Kingsley (Iron Man 3). The drama is about the hunt and capture of the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, in Argentina in the 1960s. Oscar Isaac stars as Peter Malkin, the Mossad member and head of a group of Israeli spies who took him down. Eichmann had murdered Malkin’s sister and her children and was the organizer of the transport of Jews to concentration camps in Europe. He escaped to Austria and then to Argentina after WWII.
Walt Disney Pictures has released a new TV spot showing off the photo-realistic elements of Jon Favreau’s live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic adventure tale The Jungle Book, as well as a series of images featuring the film’s cast posing next to their CGI counterparts.
The minute-long spot also brings out the immensely realistic recreation of the jungle and it’s residents, showing us effects of the state-of-the-art technology used for the movie. It certainly delivers on spectacle and is a return for Favreau to tent-pole films since his departure into mid-budget filmmaking with Chef. Take a look at the new TV spot for yourself:
Gavin Hood’s (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) has not been without its media attention, and not always for the best reasons, but following on from the promotion we saw at SDCC, there has been a new set of poster released ahead of the November 1st opening. These new promotional posters use the tried and tested propaganda style that the likes of X-MEN: Days of Future Pasthave also adopted.
There have also been some new stills released from the movie detailing what looks to be some great visual effects. The posters and the stills do not reveal much that we don’t already know about the movie, which has been adapted from the award winning novel by Orson Scott Card.
Ender’s Game, starring Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, with Abigail Breslin and Harrison Ford, is set in the near future when a hostile alien race called the Formics have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of International Fleet Commander Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and the International Military are training only the best young minds to find the future Mazer.
With the central characters of the movie being young heroes, distributors Lionsgate will be hoping to build another successful tween franchise to rival the likes of Twilight and Harry Potter, much like they did with the successfulHunger Games. Hopefully Hood will keep some of the tone and focus of the novel to keep adults on board and get them buying tickets too. The novel has also become suggested reading for many military organizations, including the United States Marine Corps.
[box_dark]Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy but strategically brilliant boy, is recruited to join the elite. Arriving at Battle School, Ender quickly and easily masters increasingly difficult challenges and simulations, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers. Ender is soon ordained by Graff as the military’s next great hope, resulting in his promotion to Command School. Once there, he’s trained by Mazer Rackham himself to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and save the human race.[/box_dark]
I have a confession to make: I’ve never read Ender’s Game. I know, a part of me should have my nerd credentials ripped off, torn into pieces, spat upon and then skinned and turned into some kind of floppy ruck sack. The issue was while in middle school and high school I was too busy reading Heinlein and Douglas Adams, and the contrast between those two types of SF left me a bit frazzled and unable to try anything else for a while, until I found Philip K. Dick and boy did that open a whole new can of worms. Enough my waxing poetic about books I’ve read in the past though, and more about Ender’s Game itself. Sadly, all I have to go on now is how it’s supposedly a great story, written by a man who now unfortunately has tainted his own name pretty horribly. There’s been a pretty large, and justified row about Orson Scott Card due to his incredibly awful personal beliefs, and I’m fairly certain that will affect the perception the public at large has of the film. Especially for folks like me, who haven’t read the novel itself, and only know about OSC’s reputation. Regardless of that stigma however, the trailer is certainly interesting enough.
The problem I have with that trailer is it doesn’t really explain what the story is at all, and relies on the fact that you already know the story to be pumped for it. It makes me think what most non-SF loving people must think of the genre as, because all I see are weird swarm/alien bee-ships, and a little kid using an Mega-Xbox-Kinect (Oh I get it, a GAME okay) to control giant laser beams that are blowing up a planet maybe? And somehow that’s a heroic thing, I think? Plus there’s someone in it named Asa Butterfield, which I swear to god I’ve named an old Dungeons & Dragons character of mine before. Along with Jakk Hornsblood and Magnus Graverock, but that’s neither here nor there. Plus did you see Ben Kingsley’s weird face tattoo? If I didn’t inherently love SF and everything about the genre, I would assume this was a bunch of weird nonsense of The Last Airbender proportions. Then again, Avatar was the biggest hit movie of all time, so what do I know? All I have to go off of is the synopsis give to the film from press releases anyway.
No but seriously. Look at his face. I can barely take that seriously.
“After an alien race called the Formics attacks Earth, the International Fleet prepare for the next invasion by training the best young children to find the future leader to lead the International Military. Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy but strategically brilliant boy, is pulled out of his school to join International Fleet and attend the legendary Battle School. After easily mastering the increasingly difficult war games, distinguishing himself and winning respect among his peers, Ender is soon ordained by Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) as the military’s next great hope, resulting in his promotion to Command School. Once there, he’s trained by Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley) himself to lead the military into a war that will determine the future of Earth and the human race.”
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There’s also this preview trailer, which I guess is a trailer for a trailer, which is a thing they do now. How incredibly redundant that is I suppose is up to your personal choice, but I find it utterly dumbfounding.
The only thing worth seeing in that preview was hearing how Asa Butterfield pronounces his name, which hilariously sounds like “Butts field”, which is now going to be a town in my next Dungeons & Dragons game. But enough about my Dungeons & Dragon’s games. This is about ENDER’S Game, (Ooooh segue master!), and if you like Ender’s Game and can ignore how much of a douche OSC is, I suppose you’ll be psyched for this. I’m reserving a cautious “Meh”, just in case it ends up being a weird, homophobic, terrible polemic.
The second trailer to the much-anticipated Iron Man 3 has hit the web, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. This trailer steps it up quite a bit from the first one, which was pretty decent on its own. We get to see a great deal more of the various characters of the film, and a clear change in direction after Iron Man 2. A step away from the character driven humor into a more serious but still action-packed film. Why am I still talking right now, let’s watch the trailer.
Over at Uproxx we saw the arrival of some new Iron Man 3 posters (via Empire Magazine). Marvel has recently put a lot of different ones out there leading up to the films release on May 3rd.
The poster that most people will get excited about is a full shot of Ben Kingsley as the most famous Iron Man villain, The Mandarin.
This poster is simply incredible. I love the elements of the Mandarin’s back drop, with the elephant statues and his robe. It pays homage to the comic design, but also modifying it and making it more up to date and taking out a lot of the racial overtones the original character had in the comic books. But with this is also the inclusion of camouflage trousers, showing the more militant side of his character, grounding him more in reality. The next poster is Gwyneth Paltrow as Peppers Potts cradling a destroyed Iron Man helmet.
The molten ash flying across this poster helps add to the atmosphere of this darker instalment, but also is a continuing factor throughout the other posters. Not an amazing poster by any means, but it does show that Pepper is going to have a very emotional journey throughout the new movie. Guy Pierce is next as Doctor Aldrich Killian.
For people unaware of Doctor Killian, in the comic he is one of two scientists who create The Extremis, a techno organic virus that rewrites genetic code. Though the poster is quite uneventful, Killian will no doubt have a big role to play in the new movie. Finally we have Don Cheadle in his new armor, doing the standard Hollywood action pose.
Overall the posters are pretty amazing. The only downside could be that the Mandarin poster is so good that it steals some of the other posters’ thunder. They also shared even more of Empire Magazine’s posters, with a few photos thrown in for good measure. The photos are slightly uneventful with Tony Stark looking a bit worse for wear and Pepper Potts and Doctor Killian having a moment. One interesting bit that is worth noting about one of the stills is that Tony is seen wearing an AIM T-Shirt. AIM stands for Advanced Idea Mechanics and is a group of super intelligent scientists who use their knowledge to gain power. They also created MODOK, an artificial mutated human killing machine. It will be interesting to see if any more information about this comes to light before the film’s release. The most promising piece out of all of this is the new poster (actually Empire magazines cover) which has Tony Stark in his wrecked Iron Man suit (again with ash flying everywhere). It is a great view of his new Iron Man armor. No doubt there will be more information coming out very soon so keep checking with Grizzly Bomb to find out more.
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