BY BOB FISHER
“You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger” is a rendezvous you can count on. The new Woody Allen film is coming to a cinema screen in your neighborhood. Mark it on your calendar so you don’t forget, because it isn’t scheduled for release until early Fall.
The film marks the third collaboration for [...]

At Showest: Sony Pictures Studio head, Michael Lynton, citing childhood obesity epidemic, says it’s “the right thing to do for your industry, our audiences and the country.” Polls shows two-thirds of moviegoers likely to buy healthier snacks if offered
The nation’s theater owners were asked today by the head of a major Hollywood studio to [...]

George Clooney, Judy Greer, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard, Robert Forster, Shailene Woodley, Mary Birdsong, Nick Krause and Amara Miller Lead Cast. Fox Searchlight Pictures’ Presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley announced today that principal photography for THE DESCENDANTS will begin March 15 on the islands of Oahu and Kauai in Hawaii.
The film stars [...]

“Alice” buries Matt Damon thriller at box office. “Alice in Wonderland” has climbed to a $208.6 million total domestically to become the top-grossing of Depp and Burton’s seven films together, which include “Edward Scissorhands,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Corpse Bride.
“I believe it’s literally the magical, if you would, pairing of Tim and Johnny,” said Chuck [...]

BY TODD GILCHRIST
On Friday, March 5, producer Simon Oakes invited a small group of reporters to the Beverly Hills offices of Hammer Films, the newly-resuscitated imprint of the studio that brought genre fans horror films for more than five decades. Largely defunct since the 1980s, Hammer was revived last year when Oakes and his partners [...]

BY KEVIN CRUST
A rundown of this week’s four wide releases — none of which pose a threat to reigning box-office champ “Alice in Wonderland.” Likewise, worldwide juggernaut and best-picture also-ran “Avatar” remains the best-reviewed film in general release.
GREEN ZONE
The politically-minded action-thriller reunites Matt Damon, star of the “Bourne” films, with “Supremacy”/”Ultimatum” director Paul Greengrass. Oscar-winner [...]

BY SEAN O’CONNELL
“The First Avenger: Captain America” reportedly is circling its main villain. Now it needs to cast its hero!
Hugo Weaving (“The Matrix”) is in negotiations to play the Red Skull in Joe Johnston’s anticipated big-screen adventure, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The two collaborated on “The Wolfman” for Universal earlier this year.
In the [...]

BY SEAN O’CONNELL
While promoting last year’s “The Soloist,” director Joe Wright (“Pride & Prejudice”) told reporters he planned to adapt the novel “Indian Summer,” about the final days of Britain’s colonial rule in India. Apparently that summer vacation is on hold.
Focus Features announced that Wright’s next project will be the adventure thriller “Hanna.” Filming [...]

BY TODD GILCHRIST
Although not quite a household name in the U.S., Olivia Williams has steadily worked over the last decade to establish herself as one of the movies’ most versatile and interesting actresses. Early roles in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense earned her both visibility and indie cred, and since [...]

BY SEAN O’CONNELL
She’s Out of My League (** out of 4)
There’s sentimental work being done by geeky Jay Baruchel (“Tropic Thunder”) and gorgeous Alice Eve in Jim Field Smith’s “She’s Out of My League.” Too bad the lewd, rude, R-rated comedy’s too hellbent on becoming the next “There’s Something About Mary” or Judd Apatow offshoot [...]

BY STAFF
The new Oliver Stone film, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” has been pushed back from April 23 to September 24 to try to make an attempt to have it show at the Cannes Film Festival. Variety reported that “Insiders say the film has a strong shot at being included in the fest, which runs [...]

BY STAFF
Get ready Twilight fans! The first trailer for “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” movie is going to premiere tomorrow at 6:00 am PST via satellite. The trailer that runs 90 seconds is being kept under secrecy until its debut, but we’ve found a 10 second clip of it. The full trailer can also be seen [...]

Can we all catch our collective breath now?
As if the world of film criticism isn’t in enough turmoil (Variety fired its veteran film critic Todd McCarthy this week), now comes word that New York-based critic Armond White was banned–and then reinstated–from attending an early press screening of director Noah Baumbach’s new Focus Features’ film, [...]

“The Runaways” starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart has officially unveiled the official poster for the movie when it hits the theaters March 19. The flick directed by Floria Sigismondi got many people talking at its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. The official poster features a still of the movie that [...]

News that Variety is laying off its longtime film critic Todd McCarthy is another sign of the rapid decline of print journalism.
In the last couple of years, dozens of film critics at magazines and newspapers both big and small have been given pink slips as the economy soured and publications began shedding salaried employees [...]

ABC has picked up the first broadcast rights to Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” set to hit tv’s beginning in 2012. The film just finished a record-setting $210 worldwide three-day opening and it is certainly the talk of the town. ABC Cable Network’s Grou’s executive vice president of program acquisitions & scheduling said, “Alice’s” “captivating [...]

BY TODD GILCHRIST
On March 26, Disney is releasing one of their unlikeliest films in the history of the studio: Waking Sleeping Beauty, a tell-all about the fall, rise and eventual fracturing of Disney animation between 1984 and 1994. Director Don Hanh, who produced several of Disney’s biggest hits, including Beauty and the Beast and The [...]

By Sean O’Connell
‘Alice In Wonderland’ (*** out of 4)
Tim Burton might be running out of noteworthy things to say – five of his last seven pictures are remakes or adaptations of familiar materials, after all – yet to his credit, he’s still finding creative ways to converse with his loyal audience.
Take Burton’s latest, [...]

Selena Gomez is set to replace Nicole Kidman in the upcoming film “Monte Carlo.” Producers have stated that they wanted to make the film have a younger film, which is why they went with Gomez over Kidman. Gomez will be playing a student who ditches a boat trip to Paris with her two friends as [...]

BY KEVIN CRUST
Variety reported that Warner Bros. and Alliance are working on a big screen version of the 1960s TV series “Gilligan’s Island.” The Los Angeles Times weighs in by nominating the “Big Bang Theory’s” Johnny Galecki as Gilligan and Lindsay Lohan as Ginger, while the New York Times reports that producers are eyeing Michael [...]

Industry insiders say Disney has again performed brilliantly in marketing a movie – this time director Tim Burton’s visual feast “Alice in Wonderland” starring Johnny Depp.
But while the film is expected to open way above $60 million in North America this weekend, the critics haven’t been too kind.
The Rotten Tomatoes website notes that [...]

Yesterday, we reported that Sony Pictures Classics picked up Woody Allen’s new drama, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.” Today, we have more news about Allen’s next comedy.
The auteur is eyeing Rachel McAdams to star opposite Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard in an untitled movie scheduled to shoot in the summer, the Hollywood [...]

According to The Hollywood Reporter’s Hollywood 411 Blog, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is ready to start shooting in January. Hugh Jackman has stated that he will be focusing his time in Japan, which leaves it unclear whether he will be back for this. The only problem is the only thing that is finished is Christopher McQuarrie’s [...]

BY KEVIN CRUST
Undeterred by the performance of “Whatever Works,” Sony Pictures Classics is taking another chance on Woody Allen by picking up his latest drama, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” for a fall release. Shot and set in London, the film stars Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Freida Pinto and Naomi Watts. [...]

Robert Rodriguez will bring “Predators” to the SXSW Film Festival.
He and director Nimród Antal will present a “First Look” at their upcoming picture on March 12 at the Alamo Ritz Theater in downtown Austin. The movie stars Adrien Brody as a mercenary whose team is being hunted by the title characters. Predators opens wide on [...]

BY KEVIN CRUST
New York magazine’s Vulture is reporting that music-journalist-turned-filmmaker Cameron Crowe may be directing “We Bought a Zoo” in the near future. It’s an adaptation of a memoir by British writer Benjamin Mee and “The Devil Wears Prada” screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna has penned a script, but Crowe is likely to do some rewriting. [...]

Justin Timberlake has joined the cast of Columbia Pictures’ comedy Bad Teacher starring along with Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, and Lucy Punch, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, presidents of Columbia Pictures. Eric Stonestreet from “Modern Family” and Molly Shannon have also joined the cast of the comedy, which [...]

Universal Pictures announced today that “MacGruber,” the comedy based on Will Forte’s recurring “Saturday Night Live” character, will open one month later than planned: Friday, May 21, as opposed to Friday, April 23. This pits “MacGruber” against Paramount’s “Shrek Forever After,” which already had claimed that weekend. 
 
In “MacGruber,” Forte plays a clueless soldier of fortune [...]

Given the weird and wonderful worlds that director Tim Burton regularly builds within his films, one might expect that Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, one of the books upon which Burton’s new film is based, would have been a favorite text for years. But the director told reporters that he was actually largely unfamiliar with [...]

History was made when Christian Berger, AAC, Alar Kivilo, ASC, CSC and Eagle Egilsson claimed top honors in the three competitive categories during the 24th Annual American Society of Cinematographers Outstanding Achievement Awards celebration in Los Angeles last Saturday. It was the first time that none of the winners in the feature film, [...]