Oh yeah, did we mention that The Avengers 2 has been confirmed? Surprise!

I’d be the first to admit that I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan, so as far as I’m concerned he could create Piranha 3DDD and I’d watch it, just because his name was attached. That said I, like everyone else, would prefer he took charge of The Avengers again.

The Los Angeles Times managed to squeeze some time from him two weeks ago at the premiere of the Marvel blockbuster. However they only just released this little titbit about possibly returning.

“You know, I’m very torn. It’s an enormous amount of work telling what is ultimately somebody else’s story, even though I feel like I did get to put myself into it.”

It’s an understandable point. From Buffy to Firefly to Dollhouse, Whedon has paved a career helming his own creations, so he’s forgiven for being sceptical. Then again he did add:

“But at the same time, I have a bunch of ideas, and they all seem really cool.”

Ideas, eh? Do tell?… Sadly he doesn’t elaborate. Although he did mention his plan to add more women into the fray to Entertainment Weekly.

“Studios will tell you: ‘A woman cannot headline an action movie.’ After The Hunger Games they might stop telling you that a little bit. Whatever you think of the movie, it’s done a great service. And after The Avengers, I think it’s changing.”

First he gives us more female action TV, and now the movies. Joss we salute you. And on that note, a small plea to end:

Please, please, please direct The Avengers 2! Pretty please with a cherry and sprinkles on top!

The Avengers is in cinemas right now.

The film is quite clearly still within the development stages, but that hasn’t stopped Paramount from starting the marketing campaign early. The new trailer, which has been filmed before a script has even been completed, is to air ahead of Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator in cinemas. And according to director Adam McKay, the experience of making the trailer has inspired the script.

“Paramount came to us with the idea of the teaser, and since we’re writing the script it was a good chance to see the characters and hang out with the actors to inspire writing.”

It was a reunion of sorts for the actors and writers, who apparently slipped right back into the roles, like they’d never left them. “Paul Rudd has a beard and we’re thinking of keeping it. Kind of an Eddie Rabbit meets Serpico look,” McKay added.

Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell: in case you’re not in the know) has put his two cents in by taking to his Twitter account. The tweet says:

“Dont get Twirter. Anchorman2 teaser w Dictator tom night. Dont know what a teaser is. World is crazy? Having a scotch.”

Eloquently put, Mr Burgundy. He was also the one to break the news on Conan O’Brien a couple of months ago.

The Dictator opened in the UK today, so if reports are true, you should see the teaser during the previews. Until you go though, feast your eyes on the brand new poster, that is just as teasing as the trailer surely will be. Complete with the tag-line: “The Legend Continues”.

Anchorman 2 will be released sometime in 2013.

Find the original Anchorman – The Legend Of Ron Burgundy on Amazon now!

Check out the poster below:

In this independent thriller, Elijah Wood will play a concert pianist who is paralysed with stage fright in later life. When his character plucks up the courage to make his comeback after five years away, he finds a threatening note written on his music sheets. Basically, if he doesn’t give his best performance to date, he and his wife will lose their lives. Dun dun dun!

Okay, it sounds a little bit implausible when you write it down, but what thriller isn’t?

The film is to be helmed by Spanish director Eugenio Mira, who was behind the 2004 comedic horror The Birthday. Meanwhile Damien Chazelle will supply the screenplay, which if we are to believe reports, will harken back to the 1994 action-thriller Speed.

Perhaps without the bus though. Or Sandra Bullock.

The film is set to shoot in Chicago and Spain this year, after Elijah has finished with his cameo in the two The Hobbit movies. The first is released at the end of the year, followed by part two next year.

In the mean time you can next see him starring in Maniac, which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival at the end of this month.

The Sherlock star was in his friends kitchen when he filmed the audition, and was apparently so agitated and tired it aided his performance.

“I was pretty strung out, so that went into the performance,” Benedict told The New York Times.

The British actor is playing the villain in the movie, whose identity has finally been revealed. When Benecio Del Toro was attached to play the villain, it was assumed to be the role of exiled war-monger, Khan. However Cumberbatch’s casting threw that thought for a loop.

TrekMovie claim to have confirmation we were right all along though. Cumberbatch will indeed by playing Khan, the role that was originated by Ricardo Montalban.

J.J. Abrams has called Cumberbatch’s audition, “One of the most compelling audition readings I’d ever seen,” so we’ll withhold judgement on the casting until we have seen it for ourselves.

Khan first appeared in the Star Trek episode Space Seed, but TrekMovie insist the plot will not be a rehash of this episode. Cumberbatch is due to be working alongside the cast of the 2009 blockbuster hit, including Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Simon Pegg as Scotty and Zoe Saldana as Uhura.

We still don’t have official confirmation from Abrams or Cumberbatch, who are both keeping tight lipped on the subject. Although Cumberbatch did joke that fans should “Pull the hair on my head the wrong way” if they want details out of him. “I would be on my knees begging for mercy. I have very sensitive follicles.”

So what do you think? Is Khan a good character for him or are you disappointed?

Star Trek 2 will be released in the UK, 17 May 2013.

You can buy Star Trek XI (1-Disc Edition) on Amazon now.

According to the BBC, a sequel to last year’s Oscar-winning musical is set to be made with all the Muppet cast regulars.

However, the 2011 film’s star and writer, Jason Segel, will not be involved in the second film. The American actor, who is known for his comedy roles in  Forgetting Sarah Marshall  and Get Him to the Greek, said he wanted to persue more ‘human-related’ projects.

Unlike Segel, who said he needed ‘a little puppet break’, director James Bobin and co-writer Nicholas Stoller are set to return for the next film. Segel believes he has left the sequel in ‘very good hands’.

The 2011 comedy, which also starred Disney’s Enchanted princess, Amy Adams, brought in $150m worldwide, as well as wining an Oscar for the Man or Muppet song.

However, this wasn’t the only news to be announced at the LA CinemaCon convention. Disney also confirmed that they will be bringing three new animated films to our screens in the near future. The films are thought to explore themes as diverse as dinosaurs and the Mexican Day of the Dead festival. Lee Unkrich, who directed Toy Story 3, tweeted that he was ‘ so excited to finally reveal my next movie at Pixar’.

The Good Dinosaur – which is set for a 2014 release – takes a look at what could have happened if an asteroid didn’t wipe out the dinosaurs. The other is the Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside the Mind, which is thought to be released in 2015.

We don’t know if Segel is a Muppet or a Man for opting out of this sequel, but we will next see him in The Five Year Engagement alongside Emily Blunt.

Yep, whether you like it or not, Ms Lohan has bagged her first major leading role for a while. She is to portray the iconic actress herself in an account of Liz’s relationship with Richard Burton. Megan Fox was thought to be in the running too, before the confirmation came this week.

Lindsay hasn’t been seen a lot lately. Her last major role was in 2009′s TV comedy Labor Pains, made after a turbulent few years in the spotlight had given her a bad reputation.

She’s a long way away from the girl we first fell in love with in the remake of The Parent Trap, that’s for sure. And as for her star-making role in Tina Fey’s Mean Girls … well, the only way was down apparently. Even as her fellow co-stars Amanda Seyfried and Rachel McAdams rose to the top.

Still, she looks like she’s on the right track to kick-start her career again. Speaking about the casting, Lindsay said:

“I am very honoured to have been asked to play this role.”

It’s a shame the film will most likely not hit the big screen. It has been commissioned by the Lifetime network, one whose speciality is female-oriented TV dramas.

There isn’t a director on board yet, but the script has been written by Brit Chris Monger.

We cannot deny she looks the part. What do you think? Will Lindsay make a good Liz Taylor?

Best known as a singer/songwriter, 22-year-old Swift has ventured into acting in the past, with an appearance in US drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, as well as a role in last year’s critically panned rom-com Valentine’s Day.

Now it seems that Swift’s set her sights on a lead role, and is in talks to play Joni Mitchell in an upcoming adaptation of Sheila Weller’s book, Girls Like Us. The biographical tale follows the life of three of the most influential female musicians of the 1960s and 1970s: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon.

While there’s no word yet as to who will play Simon, Alison Pill (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Midnight in Paris) has reportedly auditioned for the role of King. The project will be directed by House executive producer, Katie Jacobs, with a script from John Sayles (the legendary indie director who also penned the original Piranha film back in the 1970s).

Although country pop star Swift is yet to officially sign on to appear in the the film, rumour has it that she has been linked to the role of Mitchell for some time. It is true that the pair might look vaguely similar and Swift has got an Grammy award-winning voice, but will she have the acting talent to pull it off?

We’ll keep you posted!

According to our source, Bloody Disgusting, the studio are in the process of talking her into the role of Carrie’s mother. For anyone who hasn’t seen the original (shame on you!), Carrie’s mother is a fundamentalist Christian with some … bizarre parenting techniques.

Basically she’s a bit twisted, and her presence at home does nothing to give Carrie a respite from the bullying that’s inflicted on her at school. No wonder her telekinetic powers get out of control after a particularly cruel prank. You’ve never seen a more captivating prom in your life.

We have no doubt the remake will attempt to emulate the magic that Brian De Palma‘s classic managed so effortlessly. There is no telling how the final product will come out though. Still, despite our scepticism towards the project, if they keep casting at such high calibre, there is hope yet.

Carrie is based on the novel by Stephen King, and originally starred Sissy Spacek in the title role. Moore’s potential role was portrayed with effortless creepiness by Piper Laurie back in 1976.

We’ll keep you posted on Julianne Moore‘s casting status.

The remake is set for release in the US on 15 March 2013. A UK release date is yet to be confirmed.

The third instalment of The Hangover is thought to be the last according to director Todd Phillips.

According to the Guardian, the comedy director said: “We’re going to surprise a lot of people with the final chapter we have planned. It will be a fitting conclusion to our three-part opera of mayhem, despair and bad decisions.”

Phillips (Due Date , Old School) also revealed that the new film is set to be released next Spring and will feature the original four characters: Phil Wenneck, Stu Price, Alan Garner and Doug Billings.

The first Hangover film was a huge hit and became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time in America. However, the 2011 sequel – which took the bachelor quartet to Bangkok – was criticized for being very similar to its predecessor. However, despite the criticism, The Hangover Part II was still a huge hit and broke box-office records.

Film-makers have hinted that the drunken men’s antics could take place in Los Angeles, and will offer something very different from the first two films. However, seeing as the first two parts made $467.5m and $581.5m worldwide, it seems unlikely that Phillips and screenwriter, Craig Mazin, will venture too far from the film’s signature memory-loss-meets-carnage structure.

There is no word whether legendary boxer, Mike Tyson, will return for the third film with his tiger, or if we’ll be seeing any more from Ken Jeong who portrayed flamboyant gangster Leslie Chow. We’ll keep you posted!

Filming for 24: The Movie was set to begin next month but according to Deadline it has been postponed after a dispute between 20th Century Fox and the film producers regarding the movie’s budget.

Not even invincible Jack Bauer could do anything about it. For the first time, the clock ran out on Jack.

The production was set to begin in just a few weeks when Kiefer Sutherland had a break from filming his current TV show, Touch.

Deadline reported that the film’s producers hoped to make the movie between $45m and $60m, but Fox were far more cautious, hoping to get by on a $30m budget.
Sutherland was only briefly available for filming during his break, which meant that in the absence of an agreement, time was too short to fully prepare.

The political action thriller is set to star Sutherland as CTU agent Jack Bauer, with Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) directing the film. The script  - which thankfully isn’t thought to feature the celebrated “real time” narrative device - is set to be penned by Billy Ray (State Of Play).

Sutherland however seemed rather pleased by this edited 24-hour format and told Entertainment Weekly in 2010, “In a two-hour movie representation of the 24 world, you are not required to go scene-by-scene in real time. That’s something I can say I am very excited about.”

Deadline also suggested that 24: The Movie could potentially be made into a trilogy rather than a one off. We’ll keep you updated.