We may not know who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing — but we may at least know one important character who'll be appearing in Star Trek Into Darkness. Michael Bay may have found his latest crop of pretty young humans to distract from the punching robots in Transformers 4. Bryan Singer might borrow The Hobbit's technical innovations for X-Men: Days of Future Past. Plus a Walking Dead preview!
Spoilers from here on out!
Top image from The Hobbit.
Star Trek Into Darkness
It's now confirmed from director J.J. Abrams himself that a Wrath of Khan character will indeed appear in Star Trek Into Darkness — just not necessarily that character. Abrams reportedly confirmed at a recent press event that new cast member Alice Eve is playing Dr. Carol Marcus, who in Wrath of the Khan was the mother of David, Kirk's illegitimate son (well, one of them, anyway — I think we all know Kirk Prime left behind a small armada of bastards), and the inventor of the Genesis Device. It's hard to tell how much overlap between Star Trek Into Darkness and Wrath of Khan we can infer from this news — indeed, the events in this film would presumably line up more with the original Kirk and Marcus's unseen first meeting, namely the one that produced David. So make of all that what you will. [IGN]
Meanwhile, this officially released image shows Benedict Cumberbatch's character in what certainly appears to be the brig. More intriguingly, the official caption says his character is named John Harrison. And while there's something rather wonderfully appropriate about naming a Star Trek character after the man who invented the chronometer that allowed ships to calculated longitude, it seems reasonably likely that that's some sort of decoy name. Whether it's for Gary Mitchell, Khan, or someone else — hell, maybe this is the John Harrison, returned from the 18th century and righteously pissed off about Starfleet's substandard calculation of space longitude, or something — well, that remains as always anybody's guess. [Coming Soon]
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Ian McKellen reaffirms that he and Patrick Stewart should indeed be back as Magneto and Professor Charles Xavier — though he says he still hasn't seen the script, so he can't speak in definite terms just yet — but he also drops an interesting hint about how director Bryan Singer might shoot the film:
"I know [Singer is] a big fan of The Hobbit... he went to the opening with James Cameron in New Zealand. And he was very enthusiastic about the new technology, so whether we'll be filming X-Men in 3D and 48 frames per second, we'll find out..."
Here's the full interview with McKellen. [First Showing]
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Motion-capture star Andy Serkis drops another hint about what's next for Caesar in the Rise of the Planet of the Apes followup:
The interesting thing will be now how Caesar operates in a world which is, now because of the virus that hits at the end of the first movie, how Caesar kind of brings an accord between apes and the surviving humans. That's going to be kind of, it'll just be interesting where we take that.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Here's the latest TV spot.
Andy Serkis discusses his return to the iconic role of Gollum:
For me, playing the part, I suppose one of the difficulties I faced was that Gollum had been sort of absorbed into public consciousness in such a big way and I had heard lots of impersonations of him in the meantime, loads. So regaining him, re-owning him was quite a challenge, rather than me feeling like I was doing an impersonation of lots of other people's impersonations of a character I played 12 years ago.
It's amazing how people embraced Gollum. I don't know if he's like that dog you find by the side of the street who might bite you or something. Everyone literally loves Gollum.
He's so flawed. He's so human in so many ways. His emotional range is very wide and he can flash and turn and you can feel sympathy for him and then hate him the next second. I think that's the appeal of the character. There is a sense of a pity for this lonely creature that has no friends and is addicted to this thing that tortures him. In the film, we meet him and all throughout the scene, he doesn't know that he's lost the ring. The Smeagol part of his personality is really excited about finally having some company after being in the Misty Mountains by himself for 540 years. In the book, it's not so defined, the Gollum-Smeagol split personality thing, but because we'd established that in "The Rings," we thought it was important to do that as a signature part of his character, that we kept that. It's also a little more interesting to have Bilbo confront not one, but two crazy sort of personalities in that cave.
There's a ton more at the link. [Coming Soon]
Transformers 4
Michael Bay's latest Transformers opus — which somehow still hasn't been renamed Trans4mers, though that's surely just a matter of time — has reportedly found the two young leads to share the screen with already confirmed star Mark Wahlberg. Nicola Peltz, who I'm sure would be perfectly happy if you all just forgot she played Katara in M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, will reportedly play the daughter of Wahlberg's character, while Brenton Thwaites, who for those somehow unfamiliar with the Australian soap opera Home and Away will next be seen in Angelina Jolie's Maleficent, will play Peltz's boyfriend. This character was described as a race car driver initially, but the latest report suggests he's a biker, which sounds slightly more sane, so I wouldn't believe a word of it. Anyway, assuming these reports are accurate, these are likely going to be the real stars of the next stage of the Transformers franchise, as all indications are that Mark Wahlberg is just here for Michael Bay's swansong as a bankable star who can get the series restarted on the right foot before making his own hasty departure. [Twitch Film]
Oz the Great and Powerful
Here's an international poster for Sam Raimi and James Franco's Wizard of Oz prequel.
Storage 24
Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming sci-fi horror film about one seriously crazy storage facility.
Fringe
Here are two promos for this Friday's episode, "Black Blotter."
The Walking Dead
Here's a preview from the cast and production team about what to expect from the second half of season three.
True Blood
Terminator 2: Judgment Day and The X-Files actor Robert Patrick, who played Alcide's werewolf father Jackson Herveaux in a bunch of season five episodes, has reportedly been promoted to a regular for the upcoming sixth season. [Deadline]
Person of Interest
Here's a promo for the upcoming tenth episode, "Shadow Box", which airs this Thursday.
And here are some promo photos for the episode. [SpoilerTV]
American Horror Story: Asylum
Here's a short description for the tenth episode, "The Name Game", which airs January 2:
The Monsignor confronts the Devil. Dr. Arden's experiments reach a shocking conclusion. Dr. Thredson facilitates a surprising reunion for Kit. Written by Jessica Sharzer; directed by Michael Lehmann.
Being Human (UK)
The Mighty Boosh star Julian Barratt will reportedly guest star in one fifth series episode, playing a heavily armed character named Larry. [Den of Geek]
Additional reporting by Rob H. Dawson and Charlie Jane Anders.