HBO reveals a season three set photo for Game of Thrones — and hints at its massive importance. Check out a brand new Robocop poster and some Hobbit photos! Jon Favreau wants to do some swordfighting on Revolution. Plus tons of Walking Dead photos and the latest Once Upon a Time hints!
Spoilers from here on out!
Top image from The Hobbit.
Justice League
Last we heard, Warner Bros. was rumored to be using its Justice League movie as a sort of reverse Avengers — starting with a big team-up movie, and then splitting the characters off into their own solo movies. Notably, the rebooted Batman was supposed to be introduced in Justice League before launching his own post-Nolan franchise. The latest rumor, however, suggests that Warner Bros. doesn't want any crossover between Justice League and its other superhero movies, only one of which — Zack Snyder's Man of Steel — is still a going concern. So the idea would seem to be that this movie would feature its own Superman, its own Batman, its own Green Lantern, and all the others who haven't managed to get their own movie yet, and then Warner Bros. would independently develop new franchises for Batman and its other characters.
This idea has some precedent, as Mad Max director George Miller's Justice League movie, which almost got made a few years back before the Writer's Strike torpedoed it (probably for the best), was going to feature a Batman who wasn't Christian Bale. Of course, that division of franchises made logical sense, insofar as there was no way in hell Christopher Nolan's Batman could exist alongside the rest of the Justice League, but it seems a somewhat stranger decision to attempt launching a Batman-starring Justice League movie and a whole new Batman franchise at the same time, especially since both are inevitably going to be compared to Nolan and Bale's trilogy.
The point is, Warner Bros. still doesn't seem to have any idea what the hell it's doing with its superhero properties now that Nolan is done. Oh, and take all this with a grain of salt, except for the previous sentence — I'm feeling pretty comfortable with that being accurate. [Batman On Film]
Robocop
Here's a teaser banner for Jose Padilha's reboot. [Coming Soon]
The Hobbit
Ezekiel Moss
Because he's Philip Seymour Hoffman and he can pretty much do whatever the hell he wants at this point, Philip Seymour Hoffman has decided his follow-up to The Master and his supporting role in Catching Fire will be to direct a 1930s ghost movie. Here's the description:
A mysterious stranger who possibly has the power to channel the souls of the dead changes the lives of everyone in a small Nebraska town, especially a young widow and her 11-year-old son.
Having seen The Master last weekend, I feel quite confident in saying Hoffman should just go ahead and play the mysterious stranger and the 11-year-old son. Possibly the young widow as well, though I'm inclined to give that one to Joaquin Phoenix. [Variety and Coming Soon]
Citadel
Here's a trailer for an Irish horror movie about a man being terrorized by feral children. I feel like that sentence pretty much sells the movie all by itself, but the complete synopsis is below, just to be sure.
The dilapidated suburbia of Edenstown casts a shadow over Tommy Cowley's life. Trapped there by his agoraphobia since his wife was fatally attacked by twisted feral children, he now finds himself terrorized by the same mysterious hooded gang, who seem intent on taking his baby daughter. Torn between the help of an understanding nurse and a vigilante priest, he discovers that to be free of his fears, he must finally face the demons of his past and enter the one place that he fears the most... the abandoned tower block known as the Citadel.
Game of Thrones
Here's a set photo from the filming of season three. HBO helpfully included this description of what's going on, albeit in supremely vague terms:
In the forests of Clandeboye, on a Wednesday afternoon in August, a man and his wife were walking their dog and heard the sound of a fight. It was an important rehearsal, and the two main protagonists are two of my season favorites: an unexpected pairing, whose war of words is almost as full-on as the fight. This struggle has been choreographed and rehearsed for weeks, with each move carefully placed to match the terrain. The fighters wore pads and fell on crash matts, though for the close-ups later in the week, during the first night shoot of the season, the landing would not be quite so comfortable. It will be a character-defining scene, for more than one who is involved, so it has to be done well.
More departments began to arrive for a full run-through. VFX was involved in creating the final moments of the scene, and special effects had a lot to do to make it all work. Armoury had designed a special weapon for this scene alone, and there was a nervous moment when it was first tested against the wood of a massive tree stump and the body of one of our brave stunt guys. The couple asked what was happening, and looked on for a while, but were gently guided toward the path. What happens next is too big a secret for anyone to know, and it certainly can't be told by me.
The Walking Dead
Haven
Additional reporting by Rob H. Dawson and Charlie Jane Anders.