After surprising more than a few by turning a $40m. budget into $360m. at the international box office, it was no surprise that the successful 2010 remake of The Karate Kid, led by Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith, would be getting a remake.

Frequent collaborators Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, whose credits include working on Kung Fu Panda and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, were hired a few weeks after the film’s release to start scripting the sequel, and now Variety report that Sony have hired Zak Penn for a rewrite.

Though no official deals are in place, both Chan and Smith are expected to return to reprise their roles, with plot details currently being kept under wraps.

Penn’s credits include an impressive array of action films, including The Incredible Hulk, Behind Enemy Lines, and X-Men: The Last Stand, so needless to say he’s a talented writer and sounds like a great choice by Sony to work on the script.

Smith is currently on the set of M. Night Shyamalan’s film, After Earth, starring opposite his father, Will Smith, the first photos from the set of which we caught just a few days ago. Chan’s latest film, 1911, sadly didn’t get a UK theatrical release, but will soon be released on DVD/Blu-Ray next month, on 19^th March, which I can’t wait to see, even if it’s not on the big screen.

In case you missed the first film, which brought the younger Smith to the foreground as his breakthrough leading role, you can enjoy the trailer for it below:

Previously titled One Thousand A.E., the return from renowned director M. Night Shyamalan behind the camera on After Earth has a lot of potential going for it. Real-life father and son Will Smith and Jaden Smith will star as father and son in the film, with a script coming from Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli), with a rewrite done by Shyamalan, and a final polish by the Academy Award-winning Stephen Gaghan (Traffic).

We’ve now got the first few great photos from the set to share with you, courtesy of Will Smith’s Facebook and Shyamalan’s WhoSay, via Collider. And though they don’t show filming itself, we get to see some of the locations over in Costa Rica, as well as a great shot of Will on the first day of filming this week.

“A father and son crash land on Earth, one thousand years after it has been abandoned by mankind. The father is injured in the crash, and it is up to his son to find aid.”

And for anyone interested, the director had this to say with the latest of his images, dated 6th February:

“Day 1. Two firsts. This is the first time I am shooting on a digital camera. The camera I am using is a Sony F65, and I am the first filmmaker to use it.”

Having got his career off to a fantastic start, rising to fame with The Sixth Sense and Signs, the director’s last few films haven’t been quite so well received critically. But nonetheless, they’ve always done well at the box office, with his last film, his adaptation of Avatar (the animated series) with The Last Airbender in 2010, taking $320m. from a $150m. budget.

I think a lot of people are expecting this to be a return to better critical reception with Will Smith on board as one of the leads, and it’s great to see that production’s now kicked off. Along with the two Smiths, After Earth will also star Zoe Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo, and Isabelle Fuhrman, and is currently set for a 7th June, 2013 release, perfectly primed to set the summer box office alight next year. Without further ado, here are the great first photos from the set. As usual with the first three from Will, you can click to see them full size. Does anyone else think Will’s beard is looking awesome?

We’re three and a half months away from the third instalment in the Men in Black series, and things couldn’t be looking better! The first trailer for Men In Black III landed towards the end of last year, and if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend you rectify that, because it looks so good. Every bit as good as the first two films, with the addition of a decade’s progression in special effects.

We’ve now got an absolutely fantastic new image from the film, courtesy of IMDb, in which we see Will Smith riding what has to be one of the coolest and most futuristic vehicles I’ve ever seen. We can also see Josh Brolin in the background as the Young Agent K, which means that this ridiculously cool futuristic vehicle is presumably actually from the 1960s in the film, so I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us in the present day!

“In Men in Black III, Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) are back… in time. J has seen some inexplicable things in his 15 years with the Men in Black, but nothing, not even aliens, perplexes him as much as his wry, reticent partner. But when K’s life and the fate of the planet are put at stake, Agent J will have to travel back in time to put things right. J discovers that there are secrets to the universe that K never told him — secrets that will reveal themselves as he teams up with the young Agent K (Josh Brolin) to save his partner, the agency, and the future of humankind.”

Barry Sonnenfeld returns behind the camera once more, with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones of course reprising their roles and a host of new faces, including Brolin, Emma Thompson, Alice Eve, Bill Hader, Nicole Scherzinger, and Jemaine Clement as the main villain, who we got a good look at last month.

Men in Black III will be with us in 3D on 25^th May, which should be a fantastic way to end the spring and get the summer box office off to a good start. For now, here’s the excellent new image of Smith and Brolin. It surfaced last month in small scanned form, but now we’re getting it in brilliant hi-res, and it looks so cool. And as usual, you can click to enlarge. This is going to be good.

2008’s Hancock is by far one of my favourite superhero films of all time, making this news one of the best things I’ve heard in some time. Rumours of a sequel have been circling pretty much since the film was released, especially when you take into account a) the immense potential it has for a sequel, like most superhero films, and b) the fact it took in $620m. from a $150m. budget. (The second part is naturally less a consideration for us than it is for the studios.)

Director Peter Berg has been speaking to ComicBookMovie, and gave a brief update on the sequel, which is definitely good news for us fans of the first film.

“We’ve been talking about the sequel between us, Will Smith, [producers] Michael Mann and Akiva Goldman and myself. We’re all interested, but we literally just have trouble getting into the same room at the same time. We did have a series of meetings last year and started to hash out an idea for sequel – and Will Smith actually had the idea – so I think it will happen, it’s just a question of timing.”

Ridiculously brilliant news. I’m completely fine with being patient if I know that something should be coming. And if it’s Will Smith with the idea, and everyone else is on board, let’s hope that can only mean good things.

When news of the sequel first started circling, Charlize Theron said that she’d gladly reprise her role, which is excellent news. And I’d imagine that Jason Bateman would be happy to return as well; he and Theron had such great chemistry on screen. The real question mark is of course the villain – who it will be in the world of the film, and who it will be playing them – and there’s a good chance that that’s the idea Smith has had for the sequel.

As you can imagine, Smith is generally a very busy man, and having wrapped Men in Black 3, his next film, After Earth, will see him working with M. Night Shyamalan, and the scale of that project means it will no doubt take some time to get done. Beyond that, there’s been talk of a Bad Boys 3 as well as an Independence 2 (and 3), so if those sequels do happen after After Earth, then he may not have time for Hancock in the next few years. But fear not, because it’s already been quite a few years since the film came out and clearly they’re all still talking about it and Smith’s just come up with the idea for the sequel. So we can all be patient, because you just know this is going to be awesome. And I’m really hoping that they can get John Powell to return to score the film, because the music from the first is genuinely incredible. More news as we get it.

Agents J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) are back taking charge of the aliens running loose in New York City and wiping the memories of those they run into in a new image for Men In Black 3 this week.

For this latest instalment, released a whole decade later than its predecessor, Agent J must travel back in time to the 1960s to change history and stop an alien from assassinating a much younger version of his partner.

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, Men In Black 3 also stars Josh Brolin, Alice Eve, Jemaine Clement, Emma Thompson and Bill Hader, and is set to be released on 25th May.

You can view a list of 100 more films of 2012 at LA Times online.

Just a few days ago, we got our first look at Jemaine Clement, the main villain in the upcoming sci-fi action comedy, Men in Black III, which revealed the nasty-looking alien we can look forward to seeing on the big screen this year. If the first trailer is anything to go by, it’s going to be so much fun.

The first film was released way back in 1997, and was followed five years later by the sequel in 2002. This time around, a decade has passed since the last film, but the excitement and anticipation for it hasn’t diminished whatsoever.

A new image for the film has now surfaced, courtesy of USA Today via Collider, showing Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith looking as awesome and as suited and booted as ever.

“In Men in Black III, Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) are back… in time. J has seen some inexplicable things in his 15 years with the Men in Black, but nothing, not even aliens, perplexes him as much as his wry, reticent partner. But when K’s life and the fate of the planet are put at stake, Agent J will have to travel back in time to put things right. J discovers that there are secrets to the universe that K never told him — secrets that will reveal themselves as he teams up with the young Agent K (Josh Brolin) to save his partner, the agency, and the future of humankind.”

Along with Smith, Jones, Brolin, and Clement, the film has a fantastic cast that includes Emma Thompson, Alice Eve, Bill Hader, and Nicole Scherzinger, with Barry Sonnenfeld returning to direct. The first film took more than $500m. and the sequel took in more than $400m. Here’s to hoping that the third in the trilogy will outperform its predecessors and do even better business for the franchise.

Men in Black III will be released here in the UK in 3D on 25^th May this year. For now, here’s the great new image to enjoy. It’s a little grainy, but hopefully we’ll have a nice hi-res image to replace it with for you soon.

We got a brilliant look at this year’s upcoming Men in Black III just under a month ago when the film’s first trailer hit, and it was every bit as awesome as you’d expect, taking us right back to the genius that we loved so much from the first two films.

One of the most unexpected things about the production is that the lead villain’s role is being played by Jemaine Clement, one half of the Flight of the Conchords duo. If you’ve seen the show, or listened to any of their stuff, you’ll know that he’s not really the first person you think of when you say ‘alien villain’. I can’t wait to see it happen though.

Clement was noticeably absent from the trailer, and we’ve now got our first look at him looking all evil as a bearded biker, courtesy of the New Zealand Herald, via The Playlist. The image in fact seems to reveal that whilst we thought Clement wasn’t in the trailer, we did actually get a look at him transformed by visual effects in it last month. If you go back and watch (I’ve embedded it for you below), I dare you to try and tell me that that isn’t him at the 0:18/0:19-mark; the beard is too damn similar. I think that’s the alien villain we can look forward to seeing on screen, and man, are those teeth and eyes are creepy! They really do know how to make their aliens look interesting.

The film is directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, who brought us the first two films, and of course sees the return of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the leads. Josh Brolin will be playing the Young Agent K, with the rest of the cast including Emma Thompson, Alice Eve, Bill Hader, Nicole Scherzinger, and Rip Torn reprising his role as Zed.

Men in Black III will be hitting the big screen in 3D on 25^th May this year, and it looks like it’s going to be an awesome affair. Until then, enjoy this great first image of Clement without make-up/special effects, rockin’ the bearded look, and compare it with the alien in the trailer beneath it. Let us know if you think it’s the same guy; I feel like I need someone else to confirm my suspicions, just to be sure. This is going to be so much fun.

Will Smith was once rumoured to be circling the role of protagonist in Spike Lee’s Oldboy remake, but that part seems to now be with Josh Brolin. Colin Firth had been much-mooted to take on the role of the villain of the piece (though it would be disheartening in the extreme to see the shades of grey of the imperious Korean original reduced by Hollywood to such conventional character delineations), however he is now quite literally out of the picture.

Although the quality of the end product is more important than any one casting decision, this is something of a shame. Setting Firth’s more refined characteristics against Brolin’s more rugged qualities would have been fascinating, but we are only left now with what might have been.

There is no news yet of who might replace Firth, though Spike will have to get his skates on if that rumoured early-2012 shooting window is to be maintained. It is far too early to describe this hiccup as in any way indicative of production troubles, since every production has its hurdles to overcome on its way to the screen. A new antagonist will need to be found and no doubt a suitable one can and will be. As soon as we hear who it is, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, feel free to let us know below who your hot favourite would be.

Source: Twitch.

]]> http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/12/14/colin-firth-opts-out-of-spike-lees-oldboy/feed/ 0 http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/12/12/the-trailer-for-men-in-black-3/ http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/12/12/the-trailer-for-men-in-black-3/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:27:53 +0000 David Sztypuljak http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/?p=119107

As if by magic, Sony have released the first trailer for the third installment of Men in Black and I have to admit, I am very much looking forward to seeing it. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are both back and this time are joined by Josh Brolin, Emma Thompson, Rip Torn, Nicole Scherzinger and Bill Hader and is directed by Barry Sonnenfeld.

It’ll be with us 25th May 2012 and in 3d.

Here it is people! The trailer for Men in Black 3! See all our Men in Black coverage right here.

Let us know what you think of the trailer in the comments section below.

Thanks to Digital Spy for the heads up.

You know the drill by now. We have loads of great stuff on the latest Men In Black film and you can get yourself bang up to speed right here.

Today’s addition to the wealth of material out there is this poster, which takes the MIBIII logo (or MIB³ as now seems to be Sony’s wont) and makes your head ache by making it look a bit like Tommy Lee Jones’ / Josh Brolin’s Agent K. If you’re susceptible to migraines, this poster may not suit you, though if nothing else you can say it is a vaguely interesting concept.

The long litany of production problems for MIB³ have been well documented already and are not worth reiterating here. Whether Sony can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, either critically or commercially, will be decided in a few months time. But going up against a massive swell of big hitters next summer (Spiderman, Avengers, Dark Knight, Battleship) makes it all the more likely that at least one big production is going to struggle in a crowded market place.

Enjoy the poster below, if that’s the right word and watch this space for more as Sony’s marketing machinery works up through the gears over the next few months.

Source: Collider.

UPDATE – another poster has been spotted over at Filmofilia, though there’s no source for where this new one came from. It’s Will Smith making this thing look good.

]]> http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/11/29/first-mib3-posters-make-your-eyes-go-funny/feed/ 2 http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/10/28/more-on-those-back-to-back-independence-day-sequels/ http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/10/28/more-on-those-back-to-back-independence-day-sequels/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:00:16 +0000 Kenji Lloyd http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/?p=113334

Over the past two years or so, there’s been talk of not one but two sequels to Roland Emmerich’s awesome 1996 sci-fi blockbuster, Independence Day, all of which you can catch up on here.

Details about the plot specifics have been kept pretty tightly under wraps, but some interesting details about the project itself have now arisen.

Emmerich spoke to The Lantern this week and it sounds like things are moving forward with the project, and even that we could start to see some concrete traction being made sooner rather than later.

“I’d say hold tight… It’s happening soon.”

Emmerich and his old frequent writing collaborator, Dean Devlin (Independence Day, Godzilla, Stargate), have been working on the scripts and Emmerich is working on rounding up the original cast, which included Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum, all brilliant actors and brilliant in their roles in the first film.

In their report, Collider say that the scripts for both the second and third films in what will become the Independence Day trilogy have been written, but whether or not they’re entirely finished or just semi-fleshed skeletons is unclear in light of Emmerich’s interview earlier this week.

Interestingly, however, they note that Will Smith is asking for somewhere in the range of $50m. to star in both films, which is a pretty high asking price. However, given that the first film made north of $800m., and that was fifteen years ago, unadjusted for inflation, it wouldn’t be too hard a stretch to believe that the two films together would make over a billion dollars between them. And when you consider the plan is to shoot them back-to-back, thus bringing down the budget, Smith’s price tag is probably not an unreasonable percentage of the profits the films will likely go on to make, even if that initial $50m. figure does sound very high.

Though plot details are being kept hush hush, it is thought that despite being filmed back-to-back, the two films will work as standalone films in their own right, linked through a cliffhanger and an overarching plot between them. So whilst the details aren’t especially informative right now, it sounds like the project to bring a second and third film to the big screen is still very much alive.

I love the first film so much, and I’m hoping that if these two do get made, then by the time the third one rolls around, cinemas will offer a six-/seven-hour epic showing of all three films, start-to-finish. Until then, I’ll leave you with this inspirational speech from the first film by Bill Pullman. It’s one of my all-time favourite film speeches that just raises the hairs down my spine no matter how many times I hear it.

“We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We’re going to live on. We’re going to survive. Today, we celebrate our Independence Day.”

Cue ridiculously incredible triumphant film score. Enjoy. Be inspired.

If you haven’t already seen it, it is hard to over-emphasise how important it is that you catch up with Park Chan-Wook’s imperious revenge film. That the good old USofA would remake it was nigh-on inevitable, whether it will be any good or not, we can only speculate.

Spike Lee is in the director’s chair for the remake, which tells of a man who is incarcerated for 15 years by an unknown captor, before being unexpectedly released and tasked with finding out who kidnapped him and why. Will Smith had been rumoured to be circling the project, but it will now be Josh Brolin. Brolin is all done now with his shooting duties for Men In Black III (alongside Will Smith, natch) and is expected to shoot Gangster Squad before squeezing Oldboy in before Jason Reitman’s Labor Day, which should kick off filming next June. Wowsers, that’s a lot of work in a short space of time, but you know what they say, make hay while the sun shines. Or something like that.

There are rumours circulating that long-serving Batman but occasional American Psycho Christian Bale might sign on as Brolin’s captor, which would certainly make for interesting viewing, but this is all going to stand or fall on Lee’s direction and Mark Protosevich’s screenplay.

What do you think? Is Brolin a good fit for this? Would Bale work well alongside him? Answers below.

Source: Deadline.

If you haven’t seen it, remedy that situation at the earliest opportunity. Oldboy is an incredible, visceral experience, weaving a revenge tale and a mystery together to hugely impactful effect. It can be pretty harrowing at times, but the stand-out virtuoso scene, as star Min-sik Choi works his way down a corridor of goons armed only with a claw hammer, has to be seen to be believed.

Rumours have been going around for a while that Will Smith wanted to appear in a US remake of the Korean original, which frankly would present a significant challenge to the considerable talent of the once Fresh Prince. Dialling back his trademark wise-cracking to something  a lot more measured and restrained (a la I Am Legend or The Pursuit of Happyness) would be absolutely essential, for a start.

Will Smith may still be on board, considering that he has just passed on the lead in Tarantino’s Django Unchained, but today’s news is all about the potential director, one Spike Lee. This is certainly an interesting direction for the remake to take, given Lee’s unquestionable ability as a director. Consider his CV – Do The Right Thing, Malcolm X, Inside Man, Summer of Sam, 25th Hour – it’s not hard to imagine him doing an excellent job with this sort of material, although that of course represents a massive assumption as to how any remake might be pitched tonally. Hopefully it will be just like the original; black as pitch.

Mark Protosevich (Poseidon, Thor, I Am Legend) is working on the script, which gives another Will Smith connection, but we will have to wait and see on that front. With any luck we’ll get a respectful remake in the Let The Right One In/Let Me In or Infernal Affairs/The Departed mould, rather than a pillaging of the source material.

Source: Twitch Film.

Originally attached to lead the film himself, Will Smith is now looking to offer the lead role in the Hurricane Katrina drama, The American Can, to the two-time Academy Award-winning actor, Denzel Washington, Vulture report.

The film has been written and will be directed by John Lee Hancock, the writer-director of The Blind Side, which won Sandra Bullock her Oscar for Best Actress two years ago.

The American Can is based on the real-life events in a New Orleans apartment building during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the most costly natural disaster in recorded history in the United States at more than $80bn. The film will tell the story of,

the real-life harrowing ordeal suffered by the residents of the American Can apartment complex when the levees broke. Trapped by eleven feet of fetid water for two days, a six-foot-seven ex-Marine named John Keller stayed behind to ward off looters and help care for the dozens of aged or infirm residents who couldn’t evacuate. After spending two futile days trying to flag down help, Keller ultimately succeeded in getting desperately needed food, water, and medical supplies air-dropped onto the complex only after finally moving dozens of aged and infirm residents onto the rooftop of American Can to catch rescuers’ attention.

In an interesting interview Keller gave with The Times-Picayune about the whole experience, he said,

““I could have got in that boat and paddled my ass out of here,” Keller says.

But he didn’t. He stayed.

“It sure wasn’t for money,” he says. “It wasn’t for recognition. It wasn’t to be no damn hero. What made me stay was the old people. I just realized that nobody else in here could have gotten those people out. They would have sat in here for five more days. And they didn’t have five more days. When I looked at all those old people, I thought about my grandmother and I wondered: Would I entrust my grandmother to be stuck out here at the mercy of these thugs?””

The project is one that Smith has been working on for two years, trying to get made. But after deciding to sign on to lead M. Night Shyamalan’s next project, One Thousand A.E., he chose to step aside and is now offering the role to Washington. He’s now reading the script and giving notes, and if it feels right for all parties involved, then the role will be his. It certainly has the makings for an incredible and moving film, and Washington is a man I love to watch playing the hero.

Emma Thompson – who has spent the last couple of years flitting between magicians Nanny McPhee and Sybil Trelawney – is apparently being sought after by Will Smith to pen a new vehicle for his daughter, Willow.

I say a new vehicle, Annie has been around for decades. 30 years on from the John Huston adaptation of the hit Broadway musical and it appears Smith is looking to finally put paid to a partnership struck with Jay-Z announced back in January.

Thompson is currently filming opposite Smith in the latest installment of the Men in Black franchise, and was responsible for the actor’s predicament in I Am Legend . Should she sign on, it will be interesting to see if she chooses to write herself into a role for the finished film.

Vulture had it first.

The rumours about who’s going to lead Quentin Tarantino’s next project, Django Unchained, have been going around for a few months now, and Deadline are reporting that the role has now all but been finalised with Jamie Foxx set to play Django.

Both Will Smith and Idris Elba had been rumoured to be circling the lead in Tarantino’s upcoming Spaghetti Western-esque film, but negotiations are now going to be getting underway to have Foxx fill the role in a film everyone should be looking forward to.

Tarantino has long since carved a niche for himself in the market, which he took to another level with the release of Inglourious Basterds in 2009, a film that had a rapturous reception, earned Christoph Waltz an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and took $320m. at the box office from a $70m. budget.

When he gets to work on a new project, fans and press alike get excited about it, and Django Unchained is no exception, garnering a lot of attention in the past few months. Tarantino is a director who seems to love working with the same actors and actresses across his films, and for that too, his next project is set to do the same, with Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson both set to star in Django Unchained.

Working with Tarantino for the first time will be Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie, the lead antagonist in the film, a plantation and club owner, who allows the female slaves to be exploited for sex and pits the men to fight each other to the death. Whilst DiCaprio’s casting has been talked about as an unexpected choice, he has the potential to excel in the role. It’s something completely different to what we’re used to seeing him in, and I think we’re going to love to hate him in the film.

Like DiCaprio, Foxx will be working here with Tarantino for the first time. As much as I would have loved to see Will Smith take the lead on this film, Foxx is definitely an excellent choice too, and he’s shown in recent years that he’s capable of acting beyond what we might expect of most comedians, earning his Academy Award in the 2004 biopic, Ray. In the same year, he was also nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar for his role in Collateral opposite Tom Cruise; it’s not at all often we see an actor on both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor nominations lists at the Oscars, but Foxx managed it.

In Django Unchained, he’ll be playing Django,

“a slave who’s liberated by a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter and taught the tricks of the trade by his mentor. Django’s major goal in life is to recover his wife, and to do it he needs to get past the villainous ranch owner Calvin Candie (DiCaprio), who runs Candyland, a despicable club and plantation in Mississippi where female slaves are exploited as sex objects and males are pitted against each other in “mandingo”-style death matches. Candie is a slave’s worst nightmare, and that is where Django’s wife Broomhilda is an abused slave.”

Tarantino finished work on the script back in April, and production is now set to begin in November. Whilst it’s still very early to talk about possible awards for Tarantino’s next film, I think a lot of people would agree there’s a fair chance that it will be highly tipped for the Oscars when it’s released, and Foxx could well be earning at least another Best Actor nomination for the lead.

MIB3 seems to be increasingly resembling a troubled shoot. Taking a months-long hiatus during principal photography so that the kinks in the script can be ironed out never sounds encouraging, nor does leaving it a decade after the last instalment, especially when the five year gap between the first two engendered such a startling drop in quality.

But, as William Goldman once said, nobody knows anything, so maybe it will turn out to be a spectacular return to form for all concerned. Until summer 2012 rolls around and we can all decide for ourselves, we will have to content ourselves with these on-set photos, which show Will Smith’s Agent J meeting with Josh Brolin’s younger Agent K back in the 1960′s, along with a shot of a diner and a perhaps a prototype of the Tron Light Cycle.

Barry Sonnenfeld is going to have to bring his ‘A’ game to this film. Next summer he is up against the Spiderman reboot, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, a congested market-place at the best of times and likely to be unforgiving of any film not thoroughly up to scratch. Hopefully, with shooting back underway Sonnenfeld can put something great together, there’s certainly enough potential in the MIB universe. Enjoy the pics below and then let us have your comments on what your hopes are for this film.

Source: The Brooklyn Paper via Collider.

The last time we glimpsed the shenanigans on the set of the third Men in Black film we saw newcomer Emma Thompson donning the last suit she’ll ever wear, now we have a look at one of the main stars of the film – Josh Brolin as the younger incarnation of Tommy Lee Jones.

We know that the plot surrounds Will Smith’s Agent J going back in time to visit his counterpart Agent K (Brolin) for some very important reason, and Alice Eve’s Agent Oh, who is played in the present by Emma Thompson.

Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger are also joining in the fun and were hoping that Barry Sonnenfeld has managed to end up with a decent script this time – I’d like it to involve going back in time to prevent the second Men in Black film from being made. Which probably won’t happen.

Here are the pics, which came via The Playlist from The Daily ‘Mail’.

This Thursday, Sony Pictures Television will be launching Sony Entertainment Television, a new channel on Sky in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Aimed at women aged between 25 and 54, the station will broadcast a range of dramas and comedies, including new show HawthoRNe, award-winning psychiatric drama Huff and marital comedy ‘Til Death. Sony Pictures’ back catalogue are also due to get an airing on Thursday to Monday evenings at 9pm, and Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola’s underrated follow-up to Lost In Translation) will launch this part of the channel.

Jada Pinkett Smith, star of the hospital-based HawthoRNe (receiving its UK premiere on the channel’s opening night) was in town recently to talk about the programme (which has recently been commissioned for a third series in the States). The show itself is the kind of unashamedly populist primetime drama that the US seem to do so well, and it should prove popular over here with the intended demographic.

Smith was a fun and willing participate, open about the demands of a hectic TV schedule and the challenges it throws up, particularly in trying to balance a high-pressured career with motherhood (a similar situation faced by her character in the show).

She talked first about what drew her to the series:

“One of the main reasons why I decided to participate in Hawthorne was because I really wanted the opportunity to portray ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things. Even when they come into work with their own problems and obstacles to deal with, at the end of the day, when we see people in need, we all come together and try to do the best for them.”

Both Smith’s young children now have profession careers in showbiz (son Jaden starred in last year’s Karate Kid reboot, while daughter Willow is now a fully-fledged pop star). She was asked what kind of relationship she had with her kids:

“I really look at children as being little people and not necessarily things or people to control. I think it’s important that proper parenting is helping kids develop to become individuals, because it’s not our job to make them think how we think or do the things that we would do. It’s about finding out who they are and enhancing their individuality but at the same token creating boundaries that keep them safe.”

She was sanguine when asked if she thought there was a danger of her children growing up too quickly:

“It’s very interesting because I don’t think of it as being an adult mentality. I think that’s one of the things we have to start being careful of – what is childlike thinking and what adult thinking is, especially when it comes to being creative. She’s just simply being creative.”

Willow will is also due to take the lead in an upcoming remake of Annie, a project formed along with Will Smith and American rapper Jay Z.

“We’re still putting the project together putting our feelers out there and figuring out what our team is going to be,” she said. “But what I will say is that we’re really excited about it and were working very hard.”

As executive producer of the series, Smith talked about the difficulties in tending to both roles:

“I don’t know that I’d ever do it again! I think I’d like to be just one or the other. As an executive producer you have to deal with a lot of the admin of the show… As an actor you really just get to focus on your role. So it’s very difficult in balancing it, juggling those two hats and staying creative. At the same time, sometimes you have to put the suit on and figure out what’s best for the show… I actually love them both… It’s just difficult doing them both at the same time.”

Having previously described husband Will as a ‘ghost producer’ in the show, she explained how he works:

“I had our head writer here just getting the first three episodes of HawthoRNe tight and [Will] just called me yesterday and he was like, ‘OK, I need the head writer to fly to New York by Thursday because I have some more notes on the upcoming episodes, I’ve got the outlines’. He is a master structuralist as far as story is concerned – there’s no-one better in the business than him in my opinion. He understands the pulse of what people want to see, how to create the maximum emotional impact. Starting last year he was very, very involved in HawthoRNe, so he’s been my knight in shining armour.”

Smith revealed how her own mother (a nurse ) reacted to the show:

“My mother wrote me a five-page email on all the things that she felt needed to be adjusted in the first year! So I actually got new medical advisers for the second year, so I knew we had at least done our job as far as all the details of being a nurse. I went to visit a few hospitals and we had a lot of nurses that were very happy because they felt like they were sexualised a lot in television programmes and they weren’t taken seriously and they felt like HawthoRNe represents them in a different way, so I was happy about that.”

Smith also talked about the political aspects of healthcare in the show:

“We’re taking it a little further in the third season because that is one of the primary issues in the States right now. I felt like it didn’t make sense to have a medical programme and not deal with those issues and have audience members who are watching it relating to what is happening with people in the medical industry every day. It’s really sad and this year we’re diving into it a bit more heavily.”

Further news today, from THR and others, on the story which rose its head way back in October and which placed Jaden Smith in front of M. Night Shyamalan’s camera for a sci-fi epic called One Thousand AE (note: AE was never explained, best guess was After Earth) with Dad Will Smith donning his producer’s trousers for the project.

Now it appears that the (now) untitled project, co-written by The Book of Eli’s Gary Whitta along with Shyamalan, will benefit from a leading role for Smith Snr.  Having the Power of the Smiths behind this film should blot out the critical spotlight held firmly in Shyamalan’s face after the woeful Airbender malarky. Should.

Here’s how Deadline describe it:

The story takes place far in the future where a young boy has to navigate an abandoned planet on a space ship that has crashed. On board is his estranged father.

So future-set family reunion shennigans set against a strange alien landscape? Could this be the Shyamalan-directed Lost in Space redux we’ve been clamouring for? The Pursuit of Happyness is the first logical touchstone for this proposal, and I am more than happy to admit that Jaden Smith did good things with The Karate Kid film last year, so the mood is cautiously hopeful if not exactly buoyant.

James Lassiter, Jada Pinkett Smith and Ken Stovitz are producing and while I like the idea of Whitta getting another huge gig I’d like to see him get his nicely esoteric adaptation of the 8-bit text adventure wonder A Mind Forever Voyaging off the ground*.

I’m not a Shyamalan apologist by any stretch but I’m keen to see his fancy tethered by The Smiths (not the band, although I would love to see that too), and with The Night Chronicles up and running perhaps we’ll see a more focused and less egotisical outing for Shyamalan. Perhaps.

* This will never happen, but Whitta has graciously put a draft of the script on his website. Bag it here.