In the UK, Sony / Aardman’s new movie is called The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists yet over the pond, it has the title, The Pirates! Band of Misfits and the US Sony marketing team have released this, the fourth poster for the film which is one of my most anticipated of 2012.

I got to visit the set of the movie late last year and if you missed my set report, you can have a watch here which includes a behind the scenes video. Aardman are renowned for making new, original and brilliant movies and this one is no exception. If you’ve not heard of it before, click here for all over coverage and watch this trailer which is by far my favourite. It’ll be with us 22nd March and is directed by the legendary Peter Lord who is the man behind Morph.

In The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Hugh Grantstars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas.  With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.  It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.  Along the way they do battle with the pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists features a voice cast which includes Hugh Grant, Brian Blessed, David Tennant, Martin Freeman, Jeremy Piven, Imelda Staunton, Salma Hayek, Brendan Gleeson and Ashley Jensen.

Source: Coming Soon / Sony

I always had the idea in my head that Aardman was the British version of the Disney owned Pixar Animation Studios; the main idea being that the place is a hive of activity and now, after having the privilege of visiting both studios, I can confirm that I was 100% right!

A couple of weeks ago, I headed off to Bristol in the West of England to visit a place oozing with creativity and a dedication to work in a way that has never been done before. As I’d been to Pixar previously, I was expecting the UK equivalent for Aardman; a purpose built building with all the trimmings but instead, I arrived and saw a rather drab looking 30 000 square foot warehouse! It was later explained to us that this building isn’t ‘Aardman’ but was acquired when they began making Chicken Run  back in 1997 and the moral of the story – don’t judge a book by its cover because inside is a place of magic!

Aardman is probably most famous for their work with clay stop motion animation, namely Wallace and Gromit and more recently Chicken Run,  but they now have departments responsible for all types of animation including CG, all of which are used in their latest film. The studio was started by Peter Lord (who became a legend when he invented Morph!!) and Nick Park who created the aforementioned comedy duo Wallace and Gromit. This latest venture by the world famous stop-motion specialists is called The Pirates: In an Adventure with Scientists (or The Pirates: Band of Misfits! if you’re in the US) and after visiting the studio, I am even more excited to see this movie that I was after watching the fabulous trailers.

The biggest production to date was Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit back in 2005 which has a total of 28 sets, but this new project dwarfs that with a total of 41 sets, many of which you’ll be able to see in the video embedded below or in the images attached to this post (all of which you can click to enlarge). On Were Rabbit, they had 200 people working on the movie and in Pirates! they’ve increased to just over 320 many of whom have been working on the project for it’s five year duration in which the script is developed to completion.

After being given an intro to Aardman and meeting the legendary Peter Lord (our interview with him will go up in a separate post nearer the film’s release), we were escorted around various section of the studio including model making, set design, poster design and then onto the huge sets themselves. I had no idea that the sets would be so big with each model being around 12 inches tall and worth a fortune! The first challenge with the models is getting the look right and after building multiple different versions, they ended up with what we now have today. As Production Desginer Anne King was talking us through the models, on the table were most of the cast of characters from the movie who all looked absolutely spectacular,  standing tall with a large pile of concept art and a huge box of 48 different types of faces for all the different syllables ready to go for when they’re needed.

Director Peter Lord started to work mainly with one artist, Johnny Duddle, who did most the character designs. The model makers then work with those designs and begin by making the character sculpt using clay. From that, they’ll make the Production Sculpt which can be taken apart to make all the different individual pieces breaking it all down into parts. Initially, the models may be made into a silicon mould (again, what you’ll see in my narration video below).Anne King tells us that parts such as hands are made with a silicon allowing durability but springy where as bodies may be created with foam latex which is a lot softer. Once the character has been designed, they’ll move onto create an ‘armature’ which consists of many ball and socket joints which are quite rigid allowing the puppets to be moved in way that will be precise but will be unable to move themselves by being loose. They can customise each puppet’s rigidity to be different depending on how they know that character will move.

They also have to do lots of work on the colours of the puppets as the colours on screen will look different to how they may look by the naked eye. There’ a lot of colour-test work to make sure it looks right. They’ll take a piece of foam, spray it and see how it looks. We learn that there was a lot of work done on the gems and the gold studding on the Pirate King. The Pirate King actually has  gold leaf to get the gold to look right on screen! He really is a King!

Moving onto their expressions in that box that I mentioned earlier, they break it down into different syllables. On Pirates, they used a new way of making the mouths. On this movie, they used a rapid prototyping 3D printing system, cleaned up and painted to create the mouth shapes where as in previous movies, there were be dozens of entire heads. This allows them to clip a different mouth to each puppet saving time and reducing cost. The characters have a magnet which hold the mouth onto the top part of the head.

These clever people will look at the script to see which characters need which words to say. So they’ll actually look to that before making the mouths and which words will need to be said to match the dialogue they’ll require! It’s astonishing how clever it is. Background characters will only have expressions for example where as main cast will have a full set of mouths. For the Pirate Captain’s beard alone, Aardman had to devise a unique way that his beard could attach to his face! There’s actually an allen key which you can inset into his face to adjust how high or low his beard sits on his face! Again, amazing!!

The build of a puppet from start to finish can take up to three months and then second one will take six to eight weeks which was still quite a long time. For the Pirate Captain , there are around 25 models for him alone for all the different shooting that they’re doing on the 40 different sets and each one has to be identical. We were told that a ‘simple puppet’ can cost around £6000 and something ‘more complex’ can cost £10-14k! EACH!

At any one time, 40 units could be shooting in the make-shift studios meaning that for the most used characters in the movie like The Pirate Captain played by Hugh Grant, there could be as many as 25 different models. Matt Perry (Supervising Art Director) gave us a little tour of his sets and showed us some insights into making a movie like this and it was absolutely fascinating! My eyes were immediately drawn to all the bespoke posters (many made by Gavin Lines) that were hanging on the walls and the Toby Jug of Peter Lord that will probably never be seen! Again, the attention to details was simply mind blowing. Matt’s role was overseeing the design and build from concept to finished articles and from what we’ve seen (and you’ll see in my video below), he’s done an amazing job with his team of people.

Matt describes Pirates! as a bit of a departure to what they’ve done before in sense of scale and also with the use of CG. Stylistically, it’s very different with a much more ‘hard edge’ than the likes of Wallace and Gromit had. Matt works in a team of four art directors working on the drawings and then passing them to the builders who then go away and build what they ask for.

You’ll also see in the video below, the way in which they have to design sets to get all the lights etc in and the animator and have to devise ways they can enter. An example is the theatre scene where the animator has to go up through the floor to be able to move the characters. Keep your eyes peeled in the video below and in the photos on this post for all the amazing set dressing that you’ll see. It really is blink and you’ll miss it type of film-making. There are cannon balls in walls, funny posters, odd names and so much more that you need to look out for.

One of my favourite sets has to be the Pirate ship which is absolutely massive! The whole thing doesn’t actually fit in the studio so they’ve had to build two thirds of it and then any wide show will be completed using CG. The ship actually sits on a gimble to give it the movement required to be on the sea. The rigging is all completely real and has aluminium wire running through each of the ropes to give it that sturdy feeling to it so they can be positioned as gravity would move in the real world. Literally every single aspect of this movie has been thought out to perfection. Even the lights are on trackers so that when the boat moves, the sense of the sun moving too is evident!

Blood Island

To put this amazing feat of film-making into perspective, one of the animators was working on Blood Island at the time we visited and he showed us 2.5 minutes worth of footage that he’d been working on. He then told us that those 2.5 minutes had taken seven months to achieve! The attention to detail and patience required to work on this amazing kind of film-making is simply amazing. There are so many hidden easter eggs. A tip from me, keep your eyes peeled for the Aliens in a jar in Darwin’s cabin to see a familar face from the Alien movies!

We’ve been provided some brilliant B-Roll footage which I wasn’t 100% sure what to do with so I decided to narrate the entire thing. It’s 17 minutes long but will give you an insight in the making of Pirates! that I could never explain in words without putting some imagery around it.

I’ve placed all the concept images below which you can click to enlarge. I hope you enjoyed my set visit report. Aardman really is an amazing place and thank you so much to Sony and Aardman for inviting us along for one of the best experiences ever!

We’ve already had a new trailer for Pixar’s Brave today and now the mighty Aardman have unveiled another look at their forthcoming film The Pirates! Band of Misfits (or The Pirates! In an adventure with Scientists if you’re hailing from the good old U of, um, K…) and it’s just wonderful.

Dave was lucky enough to visit Aardman yesterday and it was, in his words, better than stepping into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and everything we’ve seen so far for this film points to a grand adventure with a fantastic cast including Hugh Grant​, David Tennant​, Imelda Staunton​, Martin Freeman​, Jeremy Piven​.

Here’s a rollicking synopsis,

In The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Hugh Grant stars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas.  With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson​, Russell Tovey​, and Ashley Jensen​), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek​) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.  It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.  Along the way they do battle with the pirate-hating Queen Victoria​ (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a young Charles Darwin​ (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

Here’s your trailer, fresh from the bowels of Yahooville,

After two previous cracking trailers for Aarman’s (The creators of Wallace and Gromit) new animation, Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists, they’ve released another third new trailer this morning and it’s just as good as the previous couple.

The cast is rather awesome (includes Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Imelda Staunton, Martin Freeman, Jeremy Piven) while Peter Lord​ directs and as you’ll see from this fantastic trailer, it all rather fun! My favourite character has to be the one wearing the Blue Peter​ badge which readers in the US will have NO idea what I’m talking about.

In The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Hugh Grant stars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas.  With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.  It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.  Along the way they do battle with the pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

Yesterday I awoke to a press release telling me that the BT Tower was going to be turned into a Lightsaber (and last night it came true) and this morning I get news that one of my childhood heroes, Postman Pat is going to get his own feature film! There’s a full press release from a well respected PR firm so it has to be true doesn’t it?!

The film finds Pat, everyone’s favourite postman, coming face-to-face with the temptations of money, status and a shiny new suit when he enters a national TV talent show competition that threatens to tear him away from his hometown of Greendale and the friends he loves. What happens when kindness meets selfishness?  When local fame meets global notoriety?  A nice cup of tea is kicked aside by a frappacappucino?    Pat is set to find out as he falls for the age old temptation of the grass being greener…

The animated feature movie is going to be called ‘You Know You’re the One’ and will be with us spring 2013. The voice cast lined up to star include Stephen Mangan, Jim Broadbent, Rupert Grint and David Tennan. Just as long as Jess and Mrs Goggins makes an appearance, we’re happy!

More as we get it but this sounds like a lot of fun to me! Read the full press release below which tells you much much more.

SPECIAL 30^TH BIRTHDAY DELIVERY

POSTMAN PAT’s® FIRST FEATURE FILM

“YOU KNOW YOU’RE THE ONE”

COMING TO CINEMAS SPRING 2013

 

Episodes’ Stephen Mangan, Academy Award® Winner Jim Broadbent,

Harry Potter’s Rupert Grint and Doctor Who’s David Tennant

Lead Star-Studded Voice Cast

LONDON, UK (September 16, 2011) -  Classic Media, a media company with a portfolio of some of the world’s leading family entertainment brands, and RGH Entertainment, the animation development and production unit of Rubicon Group Holding (RGH), are proud to announce that Postman Pat will be making his big screen debut in ‘Postman Pat: The Movie – You Know You’re the One’.  The announcement of the film, which will be released in CG 3-D Stereoscopic, is timed to today’s celebration of Postman Pat’s 30^th birthday.

 The renowned voice cast will be led by actor Stephen Mangan (Episodes, Green Wing, Dirk Gently) as Postman Pat. Academy Award® and BAFTA® Award Winner Jim Broadbent (Iris, Moulin Rouge!), Rupert Grint, who achieved international fame as Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter film series, and David Tennant (Doctor Who, Harry Potter) will join Stephen in bringing the world of Postman Pat to life on the big screen.

The film finds Pat, everyone’s favourite postman, coming face-to-face with the temptations of money, status and a shiny new suit when he enters a national TV talent show competition that threatens to tear him away from his hometown of Greendale and the friends he loves. What happens when kindness meets selfishness?  When local fame meets global notoriety?  A nice cup of tea is kicked aside by a frappacappucino?    Pat is set to find out as he falls for the age old temptation of the grass being greener…

The voice cast, all true Postman Pat fans, commented on working on the film.  Stephen Mangan said, “I’m absolutely thrilled to be playing the world’s best-known postman in his big screen debut – he’s an iconic British hero and it’s a great script. However when I excitedly told my 3 year old son that I was going to be Postman Pat, he said, ‘No you’re not, dad, don’t be silly.’”  Jim Broadbent noted, “I’m delighted and very excited to be involved with such an iconic figure as Postman Pat.” Rupert Grint added, “I used to watch Postman Pat when I was a small boy. My brother and sisters all did at some stage. Postman Pat is one of those British symbols, I suppose – you are totally familiar with him and his cat, Jess even if you have never watched the series.  How exciting to be part of the Postman Pat heritage.”     

‘Postman Pat: The Movie – You Know You’re the One’ will be directed by Mike Disa (Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil) from a screenplay co-written by the award-winning Kim Fuller (Spice World, High Heels & Low Lifes) and Annika Bluhm, the long-time Producer of the Postman Pat television series.  The film is being produced by RGH’s Robert Anich and Miles Horst and Classic Media’s Ceri Barnes and Annika Bluhm, with Rubicon’s Randa Ayoubi and David Corbett and Classic Media’s Eric Ellenbogen and Doug Schwalbe serving as executive producers.

‘Postman Pat: The Movie – You Know You’re the One’ begins production this month and heads to cinemas Spring 2013.   Ralph Kamp’s Timeless Films is managing worldwide sales with Icon Film Distribution releasing the film in the UK and Eire.

Better late than never I suppose… Recently I had the chance to sit down with two of the stars of Fright Night, Gary Gillespie’s remake of the 1985 Tom Holland horror comedy in which a retired ghost hunter is recruited by two local teens to rid their town of the local vamp.

Anton Yelchin is rocketing to the top of his game with roles in sci-fi staples Terminator: Salvation and the latest Star Trek films as well as less standard fare such as Like Crazy and The Beaver, while his co-star Christopher Mintz-Plasse is known to many for his turn in Superbad and later suiting up for Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass and the two were in London recently to throw spotlights on their latest film.

The pair were good enough to sit down with me after what must have been an exhausitng press tour for the film, which is out now, to talk about making horror films in a post-Scream world and how much fun it was to be part of a good old-fashioned gory horror.

For the the first time in three days I find myself at my desk and not in the O2 flanked by my friends and colleagues waiting for the onslaught of dozen montages of future films to blind my senses while I liveblog events like a man possessed.

Instead we’re taking a moment to reflect on some of the panels we couldn’t report on live and give our reaction to what we saw. All of the liveblogs we posted during the events, which include the emotional return of The Muppets, Guy Ritchie introducing some new footage from Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, a closer look at Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus and Disney’s unveiling of two key scenes from John Carter, can be found in the posts here – just click on each panel and read the live blog we carried out.

Unfortunately security was a touch heavy handed and inconsistent and during some of the panels we were asked to close up laptops which brought a halt to our live blogging so here’s our reaction from the Sony panel in which we saw extended looks of Arthur Christmas and Aardman’s Pirates flick.

Writer Peter Baynham came on stage looking pleased as punch to finally be able to show some of the film off. What we saw of Arthur Christmas were certainly more enticing than the trailers and showed off what  Baynham had in mind when he told the assembled Big Screen audience that when the thought hit him to explain exactly how Father Christmas delivered all the presents in one night – how the elves and the Christmas family lineage works into the mythology. There’s a huge operation which goes on every Christmas featuring thousands of ninja like Elves  deliver presents with furious precision. Like a team of generous assassins who silently give presents instead of death – there’s even a child scanner to decipher the naughtiness/niceness percentage – think Christmas: Impossible and you’re there.

There were a dozen sight gags on offer as the clip played out and though a hole of logic so vast Santa’s girth could easily fit through appeared in the clip it looked like charming stuff – visually a little like The Incredibles but there’s plenty of talent behind the camera and the voices to give this one a distinctive flavour.

If the Arthur Christmas footage looked polished to Pixarian heights then Aardman’s traditional stop motion extravaganza The Pirates! In an adventure with Scientists looked even better. We got to see the trailer and a few clips already online but we were led through the cast of characters one by one with a very short clip introducing each beginning with Hugh Grant’s Pirate Captain and Martin Freeman as the first mate being almost completely outshone by Imelda Staunton’s roaring monarch in the shape of Queen Victoria and the legend that is Brian Blessed appearing as the Pirate King (dressed as Elvis naturally). So great was the response to Blessed’s name and subsequent short scene that played out prompted Peter Lord to tell us how the walls of the recording booth shook as the Pirate King boomed out his lines. Can’t wait to see him in action.

We were then treated to a sizzle reel which contained many behind the scenes elements which showed off the staggering set designs which leaves you with a new appreciation of the work which goes into a production on this scale and in this medium. Lord was very keen to point out the tangible nature of the film and this is evident in the new footage we saw. Huge set pieces with cannonballs splintering the sides of ships and golden rooms filled with coins – the character moments with Grant and Freeman give a good impression of Gideon Defoe’s adaptation of his own book.

Quite frankly, the UK version of The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists trailer is probably my favourite of the year so far. I love it! I must have watched it about 15 times now and I shall continue to watch it until I see the completed film. The title in the US is slightly different and is named The Pirates! Band of Misfits and Aardman have released this new US poster for the movie which is released in the UK 28th March 2012.

The cast includes Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Imelda Staunton, Martin Freeman, Jeremy Piven) while Peter Lord directs. Check out the trailer below and if you haven’t seen it, click here to view the other trailer.

In The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Hugh Grant stars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas.  With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.  It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.  Along the way they do battle with the pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

This new poster continues the silliness which is what we like to see! More please!

Here is another surprise from this week.  I love coming to con with no expectations from certain films and being turned into a believer.  Last year Megamind was one of the films changed my mind during its hour long comic-con panel. ”Fright Night” had a little bit of that wonder at today’s panel.  I don’t think I’ll spend money on it in the theaters but it sure as heck looked like a fun ride.  Most of the cast was on hand to discuss and screen footage from the film.

The first thing to note is that the film was filmed in 3D.  For me, that’s enough to get my seal of approval.  For the most part, I’ve stayed away from seeing movies in 3D that weren’t natively shot in 3D.  This film looks really great, albeit very dark, which bodes well for non-action directors who want to foray into the medium without having to blow shit up.  Sure there is some action in the film but the film is much more a tense thriller then balls to the wall action, which is what we’ve come to expect from 3D movies.

For me, the highlight of the panel was one of the pieces of footage we were able to see.  The sequence involves a mild car chase were Colin Farrell is chasing a car with Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots and Toni Collette.  Farrell has just been outed as a vampire and is determined to kill our main character.  The entire scene is a single take that lass what felt like 5 minutes.  It felt a lot like that car scene from Spielbergs “War of the Worlds” in which the camera knows no bounds.  The camera smoothly works its way outside, inside and through the car with a very slick ease.  The director said it took them about 3 months to get that shot right based purely on choreography and the fact that the camera weights 90lbs. I really feel like the 3D is on full beautiful display here.  I would really like to see more directors work with 3D this way.  Quick cuts and fast camera motion really mess up 3D.  The only downside I could see from seeing it in 3D is my common problem with all 3D films, it’s too damn dark.  Other then that, this flick seems like a fun time at the movies

There is a really nice blend of action, horror and comedy that I think a lot of people will really enjoy.

Comic Con has drawn to a close for the evening (at least it has for us as it’s now 2.45am!) and to end the night, here’s the extended clip from Fright Night whcih was shown during the panel introduced by former Dr. Who himself, David Tennant.

Fright Night stars Christopher Mintz-Plasse , Colin Farrell , Anton Yelchin , David Tennant , Toni Collette , Imogen Poots and is directed by Craig Gillespie . It gets it’s UK premiere August 14th and we cant wait to see it all finished.

Senior Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) finally has it all going on: he’s running with the popular crowd and dating the most coveted girl in his high school. In fact, he’s so cool he’s even dissing his best friend. But trouble arrives when Jerry (Colin Farrell) moves in next door. He seems like a great guy at first, but there’s something not quite right—but everyone, including Charlie’s mom (Toni Collette), doesn’t notice. After observing some very strange activity, Charlie comes to an unmistakable conclusion: Jerry is a vampire preying on the neighborhood. Unable to convince anyone, Charlie has to find a way to get rid of the monster himself in this Craig Gillespie-helmed revamp of the comedy-horror classic.

 Source: Yahoo

He’s something nice for the evening, it’s a nice new UK trailer for the remake of the 1985 classic, Fright Night although it comes courtesy of American website, Bloody Disgusting. It gives us another little look into the movie although if you want to go in knowing nothing about it, you might want to avoid this one as it gives rather a lot away. To me, it looks like a modern day Lost Boys so I’m game!

Fright Night stars Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin, David Tennant, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots and is directed by Craig Gillespie. It gets it’s UK premiere August 14th and we cant wait to see it all finished.

Senior Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) finally has it all going on: he’s running with the popular crowd and dating the most coveted girl in his high school. In fact, he’s so cool he’s even dissing his best friend. But trouble arrives when Jerry (Colin Farrell) moves in next door. He seems like a great guy at first, but there’s something not quite right—but everyone, including Charlie’s mom (Toni Collette), doesn’t notice. After observing some very strange activity, Charlie comes to an unmistakable conclusion: Jerry is a vampire preying on the neighborhood. Unable to convince anyone, Charlie has to find a way to get rid of the monster himself in this Craig Gillespie-helmed revamp of the comedy-horror classic.

Jon’s seen the movie and you’ll be able to read his review nearer the movie’s release date.

Man, what a crazy 60 minutes. I put up what I thought was the first trailer for Aardman’s new movie, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists only to discover that the US version is nowhere near as good as the UK one!

Sony / Aardman have released the UK trailer which even better than the US version as it features a song (the Blue Peter badge is still in there though you’ll be pleased to hear!). The cast includes Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Imelda Staunton, Martin Freeman, Jeremy Piven) while Peter Lord directs. Check out the trailer below and if you haven’t seen it, click here to view the other trailer.

In The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Hugh Grant stars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas.  With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.  It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.  Along the way they do battle with the pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

Get ready to sing!

Update: The trailer below is good but the UK one which came out 30 minutes after this one is even better! – Watch here

Last night I put up the first poster for Aardman’s new collaborative project with Sony Pictures, called (in the US) The Pirates! Band of Misfits and in the UK The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists. Now, Apple have released the first quite brilliant trailer for the movie which we can expect to see Spring next year. This is the second movie to get a trailer from both studios in the last 24 hours as their new movie, Arthur Christmas got it’s second trailer yesterday.

In The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Hugh Grant stars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas.  With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.  It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.  Along the way they do battle with the pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

The cast is rather awesome (includes Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Imelda Staunton, Martin Freeman, Jeremy Piven) while Peter Lord directs and as you’ll see from this fantastic trailer, it all rather fun! My favourite character has to be the one wearing the Blue Peter badge which readers in the US will have NO idea what I’m talking about.

I’m going to watch it a few more times now to see what else I can spot. Aardman is most definitely becoming the UK’s version of Pixar, the studio who can do no wrong and we here cannot wait to see this movie when it’s complete. All hail Aardman!

Sony Pictures / Aardman Animation Studios have just sent over the first poster for their new movie, with the most bizarre title ever, ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists’. The movie stars Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Imelda Staunton, Martin Freeman, Jeremy Piven and is based on the book ‘Pirates: in an Adventure with Scientists’ by Gideon Defoe who has also written the screenplay for the movie.

In The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Hugh Grant stars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas.  With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.  It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.  Along the way they do battle with the pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

Previously we’ve only seen an image for the movie, now that we get the poster, I wonder if a trailer is imminent. Peter Lord directs and it hits UK cinemas next Spring.

Click the poster to enlarge.

Dreamworks have remade the 1985 horror comedy Fright Night and this Wednesday, the 6th of July, there is a special screening being held in London’s West End and you could be coming along to see the film almost two months before it is released in UK cinemas.

If you’ve not caught up with the trailers and posters for this film then feel free to click here and immerse yourself in Craig Gillespie’s film, which stars David Tennant, Imogen Poots, Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell alongside Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Toni Collette.

It should be a very fun night and we’d love for you to join us there. 4 pairs of tickets are on offer and all you need to do is answer the following question in the form below.

Which UK TV role is David Tennant most famous for?

Competition now Closed

The small print:

• Open to UK residents only
• Only one entry per household will be counted
• The competition will close 5th July at 12.00 GMT
• The winner will be picked at random from entries received
• No cash alternative is available
• Entrants must be available to make the screening in a West End on Wednesday the 6th of July at 6pm
• Expenses to get to and from the the screening are not covered in the prize

The usual T&Cs can be found here. Good Luck!

Dreamworks have kindly sent through these lovely new character posters for Craig Gillespie’s updating of the horror comedy Fright Night and we get our best look yet at David Tennant as as a tooled up Peter Vincent.

Imogen Poots, Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell complete the set and they are part of an excellent cast which include Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Toni Collette. The film is due out in the UK on the 2nd of September and the clips and trailers so far point to a decent horror movie, with Farrell doing his best to creep us all out. Buffy’s Marti Noxon is on scripting duties, having been on the board of Mad Man recently.

Looks good (except that Imogen Poots’ head doesn’t sit quite well on her shoulders in this pic), we’re hoping Gillespie’s film will live up to its promise.

Here are your posters,

I’m sure many of you had one question after viewing the trailer for 80’s horror remake Fright Night when it debuted a couple of weeks back – where was David Tennant?

Having been offered a fun glimpse of the Doctor Who star in his full regalia as Vegas illusionist-cum-vampire hunter Peter Vincent in a couple of recent stills, he was noticeably absent from the first live-action look at the film.

This has now been rectified in the second trailer for the film (which also stars Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell as his vampire neighbour) which was screened last night during the 2011 MTV Movie Awards.

They’ve certainly sexed up the role this time around (in the original the character was an aging, campy TV host who introduced midnight screening of cheesy horrors) but it looks like Vincent’s trajectory remains the same, as he can be seen (heavily) tooling himself up to take on the bloodsucking foe, and uttered a somewhat clichéd (yet entirely welcoming) line, “let’s kill something”.

You can see if he makes good on his declaration when the film is released in the UK on 2nd September.

Thanks to Shock Till You Drop.

Hugh Grant joins the animation voice actor set with the announcement of his casting as a Pirate Captain in Aardman Animation’s next big screen adventure entitled The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.

Grant joins an impressive cast which has Martin Freeman, Jeremy Piven, Salma Hayek, Imelda Staunton and David Tennant amongst its merry band. There’s no doubt that a new animation from Aardman is always an intriguing prospect and this project joins the forthcoming Arthur Christmas on the animation studio’s slate.

Its been a couple of years since Did You Hear About the Morgans? (which very few people did) and arguably it’s been a far longer while since Grant had a decent script to work with. Here’s hoping…

The release date is the 30th of March 2012 and there’s a first look image below,

Here’s the full press release,

 

LONDON, UK, May 5, 2011 – Hugh Grant will voice the lead role alongside an all-star cast in The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, the new stop-motion, 3D, animated film produced by Aardman Animations for Sony Pictures Animation. The film, which will be distributed by Columbia Pictures, will be released March 30, 2012 in the UK.

Hugh Grant, starring in his first animated role, is the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas.  With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.  It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.  Along the way they do battle with the pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Aardman’s most ambitious stop-motion film to date, will be created with the same beautiful hand-crafted technique that the company brought to the Academy Award®-winning film Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Chicken Run.  The film is directed by Peter Lord, a founding partner of Aardman, director of Chicken Run (with Nick Park), and a two-time Academy Award® nominee for his short films at the company. The film is co-directed by Jeff Newitt. The screenplay is by Gideon Defoe, based upon his books.  Production Designer is Norman Garwood. Producers are Peter Lord, David Sproxton, and Julie Lockhart.  Executive Producer is Carla Shelley.

Commenting on the announcement, Lord said, “I’m so grateful to the entire cast for their talent and energy. The characters that they’ve created fill the screen with life and fun. As the Pirate Captain, Hugh Grant has given a stand-out performance – he combines an effortless on-screen warmth with brilliant comic timing. And as the leader of our motley pirate crew, he shows a real barnstorming, swashbuckling side of his character as well.  Only Hugh could anchor this story of love, loyalty, greed, and nautical high-jinks.”

Dreamworks Pictures have released three official Fright Night stills.

A remake of the 1985 Tom Holland film of the same title, Fright Night is directed by Craig Gillespie and stars Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots, David Tennant, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Sandra Vergara.

Senior Charlie Brewster (Yelchin) finally has it all going on: he’s running with the popular crowd and dating the most coveted girl in his high school. In fact, he’s so cool he’s even dissing his best friend. But trouble arrives when Jerry (Farrell) moves in next door. He seems like a great guy at first, but there’s something not quite right—but everyone, including Charlie’s mom (Collette), doesn’t notice. After observing some very strange activity, Charlie comes to an unmistakable conclusion: Jerry is a vampire preying on the neighborhood. Unable to convince anyone, Charlie has to find a way to get rid of the monster himself.

Fright Night will be released in the UK on September 2.

Check out the stills – featuring Charlie (Yelchin), Amy (Poots), Jerry (Farrell) and Ed (Mintz-Plasse) – below:

Now that we’ve got the news we’ve been waiting for and Peter Jackson is ready to forge ahead with The Hobbit, what concerns us are the names being bandied around in the casting whirligig about to ensue.

Martin Freeman, known to most as one of Ricky Gervais’ Office mates, was rumoured for the role of Bilbo Baggins but his work with the BBC’s Sherlock was a potential obstacle to him accepting the role. While no official announcement has been made Deadline have this to say,

Word is Martin Freeman will soon be set to play Bilbo Baggins, that Jimmy Nesbitt has been offered a role and that Michael Fassbender is being pursued for another as is David Tennant. Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis are expected to reprise Gandalf and Gollum

And our friends at Bleeding Cool dug a little deeper and have this update on James Nesbitt,

his part will be that of Bofur. His brother Bombur and cousin Bifur are also amongst the cast of characters.

It’s shaping up to be another sterling cast for Jackson’s return to Middle Earth, and I’m guessing we’ll hear more, with maybe an official confirmation or two, sooner rather than later.

Until then, here’s Leonard Nimoy.