We got the brilliant news just last month that the Mitch Hurwitz-created TV show, Arrested Development, will be making its long-awaited return with not just the planned movie, long in development, but also a fourth season prior to its big screen debut, which would take us from the time between the end of the third season and the start of the film.

Variety are now reporting that Netflix have secured the rights for the fourth season, with an eye to air the new episodes early in 2013, which is excellent news in my books. Given that last month we also heard that Netflix, one of the US’ biggest TV/movie streaming companies, is coming to the UK and Ireland early next year, this means that by the time the new episodes of Arrested Development are airing, we’ll have the company who has the licence available to us here too!

Life is good.

Of course, this is just conjecture on my part, given that I know nothing about licensing rights. And this is also assuming that Netflix will take off on this side of the Atlantic. Personally, I’m hoping it will be received really well over here, because that would give us at least the chance to see the new season of Arrested Development without having to wait for it to come out on DVD.

As I’m sure you can tell, I’m a big fan of the show, and cannot wait to see more of it in both the new TV season and the film. With its terrific cast that includes Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, David Cross, Alia Shawkat, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Tony Hale, and Portia de Rossi, with the genius Ron Howard narrating, along with literally dozens and dozens of fantastic cameos, Arrested Development was by far the smartest and funniest comedy shows on TV, in my opinion, and its return couldn’t be more highly anticipated. It is going to be one of the best things to happen to TV in a very long time. As always, more news as and when we get it.

This is quite possibly the best news I’ve read all year.

This time last week, we brought you the great news that the entire cast of Arrested Development would be coming together with the show’s creator, Mitchell Hurwitz, for a panel in New York at the New Yorker Festival.

News, we hoped, was imminent, and now I’m so happy to say that I have some incredible news for all the fans of the original TV show. EW reports, via Collider, that not only is the long-awaited Arrested Development movie still very much alive, but we’re going to get a fourth season of the show before then!

I’m like a kid at Christmas as I write this. Notoriously cancelled by Fox back in 2006, and having since developed an ever-increasingly large fan base, Arrested Development is by far one of my favourite TV shows, one that I would say had some of the smartest writing of any show or film I’ve ever seen.

So you can imagine my delight this morning to wake up and find that Hurwitz and the cast – including Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, David Cross, Alia Shawkat, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Tony Hale, and Portia de Rossi, with Ron Howard being the wonderful narrator – had announced at the panel that they would be bringing the show back to life. And not just for a film, but a whole(ish) season.

The plan is to have a nine- or ten-episode season, with NetFlix and Showtime in talks to air the season at the moment, and then release the film on the back of that. Hurwitz said at the festival, and I’m going to quote as much text as I can because I’m sure a lot of people will be interested to read it all,

“I have been working on the screenplay for a long time and found that as time went by there was so much more to the story… In fact, where everyone’s been for five years became a big part of the story. So, in working on the screenplay I found that even if I just gave five minutes per character to that backstory, we were halfway through the movie before the characters got together. And that kinda gave birth to this thing we’ve not been pursuing for a while and we’re kinda going public with a little bit. We’re trying to do kind of limited run series into the movie.

“We’re basically hoping to do nine or 10 episodes with almost one character per episode, where like the first episode will just be Buster. We’re kinda picturing it like, um, well the latest joke we have is that, you know, it’s Cambridge, Massachusetts and there’s all these scientists in lab coats and they’re waiting for somebody and Buster comes through the door wearing a lab quote and says `let’s begin,’ and they say, `you don’t get to wear the lab coat, we’re experimenting on you. [garbled] And then we go through his life and we meet the people in his life and maybe he goes to see his therapist who he’s getting a good rate on because it’s Tobias and he’s lost his license. We can do cross overs and things like that. But it’s an unusual style of show I think and we get him to a certain point of peril in his life and then maybe we jump over to like Maeby and she’s living with Cornel West… We’ll do this kind of thing that builds the peril in their lives until they all come together, really, in the first scene of the movie. It requires, and Ron [Howard] has been working on this too, it just requires studios to work together, they don’t normal work together in film and TV. It’s a really ambitious project but it’s also a very simple project in a way because it kind of gives the fans a level of detail for `granularity,’ which is a big word on the East Coast.

“I really have to say, we’ve talked about this, we’re all game, we hated be coy, we’ve been trying to put together this more ambitious idea and I think we’re very close, the script is halfway done and we have to get the film companies on board… They’ve always been great to us but you know times are tough and money is tight but I’m very hopeful, there is business left to be done but creatively we have a very specific plan of how it would come out and what we would do and when we would shoot it. Our hope is that, perhaps the series is in the fall.”

Sounds beyond awesome to me. It looks like there’s still work to be done, both in terms of the script and getting the show and film made, but everyone on board sounds very optimistic, and if Hurwitz says that they’re close, that can only be good news. Bringing the cast all together for something like this – and Howard was even said to be present with his voice coming through the speakerphone in a really great touch for people at the festival – definitely suggests that they’re all committed to making it, and that the future isn’t as far off as we might think. 2012/2013 look to be great years for fans of the show.

The Huffington Post picked up this tweet from Bateman,

“It’s true. We will do 10 episodes and the movie. Probably shoot them all together next summer for a release in early ’13. VERY excited!”

And here’s another great tweet from Arnett,

“I’m peeing with @batemanjason at the moment..and we can confirm that we are going to make new AD eps and a movie”

It really sounds almost too good to be true. But I’m so glad that it’s not. The cast said that they’ll be keeping their schedules free for filming Arrested Development’s return, which just further goes to show their commitment to bringing the show back, and then heading straight for the big screen. This time last week, I was hoping for updates on the movie, and now it’s just turned into a whole different ball game. It’s going to be an awesome return for an entirely undeservedly cancelled show. I literally cannot wait.

Arrested Development is by far one of my favourite TV shows of all time. It’s one of the funniest, smartest, and best-cast programmes I’ve ever seen, and in my opinion, there’s really nothing else like it that’s on TV at the moment.

But, like Fox has a tendency of doing – Family Guy even opened their fourth season with a long list of some of Fox’s cancelled programmes – in spite of its greatness, the show was cancelled, with its final episodes airing back in 2006.

Since then, there’s been a lot of talk about the programme being turned into a movie. Sceptics out there might be critical of the possibility, but Joss Whedon made an utterly awesome film in Serenity after Fox cancelled Firefly, and I think Mitch Hurwitz would do exactly the same thing with Arrested Development. The two shows obviously fall under entirely different genres, but they’re both awesome, and a film version of Arrested Development has so much promise.

Sadly, since the years after its cancellation, all there has been is talk, without any real movement on the project whatsoever. Hurwitz does seem to be keeping in touch with the leading cast from the show, though, and it sounds like they’re all still talking about the film, with questions popping up in interviews from time to time about the show, and whilst no definitive answers ever seem to be given, they’ve often suggested that the cast at least has an idea of what the film will be about, which is something in itself.

The past four paragraphs are essentially all just a prelude to this somewhat unimportant, but nonetheless excellent, news. The Playlist are reporting that the entire cast of Arrested Development, including Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, David Cross, Alia Shawkat, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Tony Hale, and Portia de Rossi, will be joining Mitchell Hurwitz, the show’s absolutely genius creator and writer, to take the stage for a panel discussion this weekend on 2nd October in New York.

So you might think of this as a kind of pre-news; news telling you that news should be coming. As you can imagine, gathering the entire cast of Arrested Development with its creator undoubtedly means that they’ll be asked a number of questions about the show – past, present, and future – and hopefully those questions about the future will be given some specific answers about how the film is coming together.

Whilst it was on the air, Arrested Development had some of the best cameo roles I can remember on TV, including Henry Winkler, Charlize Theron, Zach Braff, Liza Minelli, Judy Greer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ben Stiller, Heather Graham, J.K. Simmons, to name just a few. Not to mention the fact that it was narrated by the brilliant Ron Howard, who isn’t mentioned as appearing alongside the cast, but would make for an amazing surprise guest if he’s free at the weekend. We shall see.

So sit tight, stay tuned, and with any luck, we’ll hopefully have something concrete to bring you about the Arrested Development movie by this time next week. I literally cannot wait. Until then, here are some great clips from the show to enjoy. (You may have need to have seen the show to really enjoy them – Arrested Development’s like that, it’s excellent.) If you’re yet to see it, now is the time to start.

Here’s another fun poster for Dreamworks’ latest movie, Kung Fu Panda 2:  which we can expect here in the UK 10th June. The movie has a voice cast which includes Jack Black, James Hong, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Angelina Jolie,Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Gary Oldman and is directed by Jennifer Yuh.

The movie follows on from the highly successful movie which was released back in 2008 about a no-hoper Panda, Po (Black) who trains in the art of Kung Fu, after realising that he ‘the chosen one’!

This new poster shows all our favourite characters back for the second movie. Click it to enlarge or click here to view the teaser trailer which was released last year.

Source: IMPA

A great new TV Spot for Kung Fu Panda 2 has started airing over in the States, and it’s getting me even more excited about the sequel coming out in a few months. Sadly for us in the UK, we’ll have to wait a little bit longer than the TV Spot says, as it’s out in America on 26th May, and not out in the UK until 10th June. But reading the synopsis, you just know it will be worth the wait.

“Po is now living his dream as The Dragon Warrior, protecting the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, The Furious Five – Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. But Po’s new life of awesomeness is threatened by the emergence of a formidable villain, who plans to use a secret, unstoppable weapon to conquer China and destroy kung fu. It is up to Po and The Furious Five to journey across China to face this threat and vanquish it. But how can Po stop a weapon that can stop kung fu? He must look to his past and uncover the secrets of his mysterious origins; only then will he be able to unlock the strength he needs to succeed.”

I’ve been looking forward to this ever since it got announced. The film will see almost all the original cast reprising their roles, so we’ll be treated to a second dosage of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Jackie Chan, and James Hong. Alongside them will be a fantastic new set of characters, voiced by the likes of Gary Oldman, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Michelle Yeoh, definitely an exciting line-up to look forward to. If the posters, trailers and TV Spots to date are anything to go by, this will be every bit as awesome as the first.

Without further ado, the new TV Spot:

And for those of you itching to see it in beautiful 720p HD, then you can see the original upload by TheMovieBox.net here.

The official Kung Fu Panda 2 Facebook Fanpage treated us last night to a set of brand new posters for the movie showing us some of the new characters. Over the course of the past week or so, they’ve been releasing them and eagle eyed /Film spotted them first.

They’ve also released posters of all the old cast members too and since they all come as a set, I thought it was only fair to post the lot so scroll down below and click the images to enlarge. Each character has a description which comes along with it.

Kung Fu Panda 2 sees Jack Black back to kick some more badie butt alongside a support cast which includes James Hong, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Gary Oldman and is directed by Jennifer Yuh.

Synopsis: In “Kung Fu Panda 2”, Po is now living his dream as The Dragon Warrior, protecting the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, The Furious Five.  But Po’s new life of awesomeness is threatened by the emergence of a formidable villain, who plans to use a secret, unstoppable weapon to conquer China and destroy kung fu.  Po must look to his past and uncover the secrets of his mysterious origins; only then will he be able to unlock the strength he needs to succeed.

This new trailer gives us a much better look at what Po must do…. save Kung Fu! Check out the rather comical new trailer using the link below.

The movie released in the UK June 17th 2011.

It’s all going off tonight! New Puss in Boots trailer, new Thor posters and now Apple have just released the second trailer for Kung Fu Panda 2!

Kung Fu Panda 2 sees Jack Black back to kick some more badie butt alongside a support cast which includes James Hong, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Gary Oldman and is directed by Jennifer Yuh.

Synopsis: In “Kung Fu Panda 2”, Po is now living his dream as The Dragon Warrior, protecting the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, The Furious Five.  But Po’s new life of awesomeness is threatened by the emergence of a formidable villain, who plans to use a secret, unstoppable weapon to conquer China and destroy kung fu.  Po must look to his past and uncover the secrets of his mysterious origins; only then will he be able to unlock the strength he needs to succeed.

This new trailer gives us a much better look at what Po must do…. save Kung Fu! Check out the rather comical new trailer using the link below.

The movie released in the UK June 17th 2011.

DreamWorks Animation has unveiled another TV spot for upcoming animated sequel Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom.

Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom is directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and boasts the voice talents of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, David Cross, Michelle Yeoh, Gary Oldman, Victor Garber and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Po (Black), now a kung fu master, is fighting alongside with Master Shifu (Hoffman) and The Furious Five—Monkey (Chan), Crane (Cross), Tigress (Jolie), Viper (Liu), and Mantis (Rogen). They have to join forces with another group of kung fu masters—Thundering Rhino (Garber), Soothsayer (Yeoh), and Croc (Van Damme)—in order to defeat Lord Shen (Oldman), an evil peacock who has emerged with a deadly new weapon which threatens the very existence of kung fu. Along the way, Po will uncover the secrets of his origins.

Dreamworks will release Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom on May 27.

Watch the Super Bowl TV spot below:

Source: ETOnline

Here’s a rather fun new Spanish poster for Kung Fu Panda 2 which we can expect here in the UK 17th June. The movie has a voice cast which includes Jack Black, James Hong, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Angelina Jolie,Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Gary Oldman and is directed by Jennifer Yuh.

The movie follows on from the highly sucessful movie which was released back in 2008 about a no-hoper Panda, Po (Black) who trains in the art of Kung Fu, after realising that he ‘the chosen one’!

This new poster shows all our favourite characters back for the second movie. Click it to enlarge or click here to view the teaser trailer which was released last year.

Source: IMPA

Today sees the release of Dreamworks’ new animation, Megamind. We’ve only heard good things about it and you can read our review of the movie here. We also got to chat with one of the founders of Dreamworks, Jeffrey Katzenberg who talked to us about the movie & 3D Cinema and about his Studio.

Megamind stars Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, David Cross, Ben Stiller, J.K. Simmons and is directed by Tom Mcgrath. Our friend James Kleinmann got to speak to the star himself, Will Ferrell about his character playing the title role of Megamind in the movie. If you missed it earlier, check out James’ interview with the Director and then head down to your local cinema (if you’re not snowed in) to watch the movie!

Today sees the release of Dreamworks’ new animation, Megamind. We’ve only heard good things about it and you can read our review of the movie here. We also got to chat with one of the founders of Dreamworks, Jeffrey Katzenberg who talked to us about the movie & 3D Cinema and about his Studio.

Megamind stars Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, David Cross, Ben Stiller, J.K. Simmons and is directed by Tom Mcgrath who our friend James Kleinmann got to interview for the movie.

I’ve placed the interview below and keep your eyes peeled later on this afternoon for an interview by the star of the movie, Will Ferrell.

IMP have posted another new poster for Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda 2: The Kaboom of Doom.

Kung Fu Panda 2: The Kaboom of Doom will be released in 3D on May 27, 2011 and was directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson.

Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Lui, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen and David Cross all reprise their roles, with new cast members, including Michelle Yeoh and Gary Oldman, joining the cast.

Check out the new poster below:

Last night while we were all fast asleep, Dreamworks were busy releasing their first teaser trailer for new movie, Kung Fu Panda 2 or more accurately: Kung Fu PandaThe Kaboom of Doom.

Kung Fu Panda 2 sees Jack Black back to kick some more badie butt alongside a support cast whcih includes James Hong, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Gary Oldman and is directed by Jennifer Yuh.

Synopsis: In “Kung Fu Panda 2”, Po is now living his dream as The Dragon Warrior, protecting the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, The Furious Five.  But Po’s new life of awesomeness is threatened by the emergence of a formidable villain, who plans to use a secret, unstoppable weapon to conquer China and destroy kung fu.  Po must look to his past and uncover the secrets of his mysterious origins; only then will he be able to unlock the strength he needs to succeed.

The poster, also embedded below comes from Filmofilia and we can expect to see the movie released in the UK June 17th 2011.

So, after all the other posters have had their day in the sun Dreamworks Animation have tweeted the final Megamind poster to the world.

The film features a voice cast which includes Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill and is directed by Tom McGrath.

Before enjoying the one why not kill a minute or two by reading the synopsis?

From the studio that brought you “Shrek,” “Madagascar” and “Kung Fu Panda.” “Megamind” is the most brilliant supervillain the world has ever known. And the least successful.

Over the years, he has tried to conquer Metro City in every imaginable way. Each attempt, a colossal failure thanks to the caped superhero known as “Metro Man,” an invincible hero until the day Megamind actually kills him in the throes of one of his botched evil plans. Suddenly, Megamind has no purpose. A supervillain without a superhero.

He realizes that achieving his life’s ambition is the worst thing that ever happened to him. Megamind decides that the only way out of his rut is to create a new hero opponent called “Titan”, who promises to be bigger, better and stronger than Metro Man ever was. Pretty quickly Titan starts to think it’s much more fun to be a villain than a good guy . Except Titan doesn’t just want to rule the world, he wants to destroy it. Now, Megamind must decide: can he defeat his own diabolical creation? Can the world’s smartest man make the smart decision for once? Can the evil genius become the unlikely hero of his own story?

Finished? Right then. Poster time.

Dreamworks Animation have unveiled four new UK posters for their upcoming animated film Megamind.

Directed by Tom McGrath, Megamind features an impressive voice-cast, including Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Tina Fey and David Cross.

Megamind centers on a super-villian (Ferrell) who, after killing his good-guy nemesis, Metro Man (Pitt), becomes bored since there is no one left to fight. He creates a new foe, Titan (Hill), who, instead of using his powers for good, sets out to destroy the world, positioning Megamind to save the day for the first time in his life.

Check out the new posters below, courtesy of Den of Geek:

Megamind will be released nationwide on December 3.

Just two years after the release of the very successful first film, “Alvin and the Chipmunks” are coming back to cinemas. This Christmas they are not alone and are joined by their female counterparts, The Chipettes in “˜Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel’ which is released 21st December.

You might remember from the first film – the trio of chipmunks: Alvin (voiced by Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Theodore (Jesse McCartney) became a famous musical band and won over a million hearts. After the Chipmunks’ concert and some fantastic pirouettes performed by Alvin, their producer and friend Dave Seville (Jason Lee, as funny as always) ends up in a hospital with severe injuries but before the sedatives starts working Dave makes arrangements for the Chipmunks to be taken care by Aunt Jackie (Kathryn Joosten from “Desperate Housewives”). However due to some more crazy action, Aunt Jackie also ends up in a hospital which leaves the trio in one house with Toby, Dave’s twenty-something immature nephew.

The central part of the film is about how Chipmunks get on at school and how they encounter difficulties studying together with the ‘evil’ human teenagers. If it weren’t for the perfectly computer-generated chipmunks ““ this would be another boring high-school romantic comedy, but here come the Chipettes ““ Brittany (Christina Applegate), Eleanor (Amy Poehler) and Jeanette (Anna Faris). Little girls want to become stars and wish to hang out with a cool trio of Chipmunks -  who wouldn’t!? To achieve this they send themselves in a FedEx package to producer Ian Hawk (David Cross). Little did they know that Hawk is an evil man and probably the only person in the world who hates these cute animals. Unfortunately the Chipettes can not hang out with Alvin and Co because they are matched against each other in a musical contest. School principal (wonderfully played by Wendie Malick) is on the Chipmunks’ side but only friendship can help them to win and overcome all challenges.

The director, Betty Thomas feels very comfortable with the story, as it is not her first time directing a high-school comedy (“John Tucker Must Die”). She does a good job with incorporating CGI characters into live action. It is a funny entertaining film whether you are going to watch it with kids or not. “˜Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel’ is not a film that will change your perspective on life (at least I hope not), but it will certainly boost your mood: on my way out of the cinema I overheard some men, who came to cinema with their kids, rocking “Single Ladies” in high squeaky voices.

The problem with writing a generic movie website is that we have to cover movies that wouldn’t necessarily be top of our list to watch. That said, I just watched the new theatrical trailer for Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and it actually made me laugh… so I thought I’d post it and give you all the chance to give it a go.

Alvin and the Chimpmunks isn’t a movie that I would rush out to see at my local cinema….. but it seems that I am one of the few as the first movie, released back in 2007 made a whopping $300 million worldwide. It’s no surprise then that a sequel or in this case, the ‘Squeakquel’ has been created. You’ll be able to see ‘Alvin and The Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel’ on Boxing Day in the UK and I’ve embedded the trailer after the jump and you can click the poster to enlarge.