This 3 and a half minute trailer should give you a better idea of the plot and some of the supporting characters. The CGI still doesn’t look “game-changing”, but its still impressive and the film definitely looks like a fun ride… Not sure about that dialog though… oh well, check out the brand new trailer from Yahoo!:
Finally… get your first look at AVATAR, the first movie from James Cameron since the record shattering Titanic:
This sequel to the 1980’s original seems like a pretty slick upgrade in the effects department… Add Daft Punk as soundtrack contributors and you’ve got something very interesting! Check out the teaser:
This is an interesting article on the state of Hollywood today. Check it out from LATimes.com:
The stars are not twinkling bright this summer.
Hollywood’s movie studios, hopeful that marquee-name actors would push their summer box-office receipts to record levels, are finding that the heavyweights aren’t winning over audiences like they used to. With all but a couple of big-budget films already opened, the summer of 2009 is shaping up to be one of the worst on record for Hollywood’s A-list talent.
The studios stocked this summer’s release schedule with so-called star vehicles, including “Land of the Lost” with Will Ferrell, “Year One” featuring Jack Black, the comedy “Imagine That” with Eddie Murphy, and Denzel Washington and John Travolta in a remake of “The Taking of Pelham 123.” But rather than igniting ticket sales, the star-studded movies have dramatically underperformed.
The brightest stars of the lucrative popcorn season — which typically accounts for about 40% of annual ticket sales — instead have turned out to be mostly movies with no-name actors — or no actors at all on screen.
So far, the summer’s most profitable film has been Warner Bros.’ surprise hit “The Hangover,” a $35-million-budget R-rated comedy about a bachelor party in Las Vegas that boasts not a single household-name actor but has reached $183 million in U.S. ticket sales since its June 5 opening and is expected to exceed $200 million. Other summer hits like J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” and Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” showcase eye-popping visual effects along with up-and-coming talent.
And, the highest-grossing summer movie so far? Walt Disney’s Co.’s “Up,” the Pixar-animated movie starring the voice of . . . Ed Asner.
The studios, which for years have banked on richly paid stars to open their movies, are now witnessing a new reality: even the most reliable actors can be trumped by what Hollywood executives like to call “high concepts” (a bachelor party gone awry), movies based on brand-name products (Hasbro’s Transformers toys), and reinvented franchises (not your father’s “Star Trek”).
“I think we’re seeing a transformation in what the value of the star system represents,” said Marc Shmuger, chairman of Universal Pictures, which will take a significant loss on Ferrell’s “Land of the Lost,” which cost $100 million to make and tens of millions more to market and distribute. There’s also an “incredible hunger among audiences for something new and different,” he said.
Indeed, that was the appeal of the buddy comedy “The Hangover.”
“Movie stars still hold an incredible value both creatively and financially,” said “Hangover” director Todd Phillips. “But it’s getting to be more about the movie and whether it delivers on the promise of its trailers and commercials.”
Internet plays a role
Moreover, in the Internet age, word of mouth about movies spreads instantly.
“There used to be a free weekend where marketing departments could open a movie and if it didn’t work, word didn’t get out until Monday, but that’s evaporated with Facebook and Twitter,” Phillips said. “The water-cooler effect is much more immediate.”
Even before a major movie hits the big screen, Twitter users and bloggers are weighing in — which can help or hinder a studio opening a movie.
“The world has changed, throwing conventional wisdom out the window,” said former studio marketing executive Peter Sealey. “The star-power opening is fading in importance and the marketing and releasing of movies is going into new territory where the masses are molding the opinion of a movie. People no longer say, ‘It’s a Tom Cruise movie, let’s go see it!’ With social networking, you know everything about a movie before it comes out.”
Doug Belgrad, production president of Sony Pictures Entertainment, whose studio is behind “Year One” and “Pelham,” said stars alone no longer can compete against the draw of franchise movies and sequels like “Transformers” and “Harry Potter” that come with a high degree of public awareness.
“Movie stars in the right films provide a certain amount of value from a marketing point of view,” he said. “But there is no star power that you can throw at a movie that gives you the kind of brand awareness you get from pre-sold titles.”
This summer’s woes come at a time when studios are already battling the climbing cost of making and marketing movies as well as a decline in DVD sales, which have long supported the economics of the film business.
A telling test case will come this week when Johnny Depp, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, appears as 1930s gangster John Dillinger in Universal’s crime saga “Public Enemies, which cost $100 million to produce.”
Given the poor performances this year of dramas targeted to adults, the prospects of the Michael Mann-directed film gaining mass audience appeal appear dim.
WatchMojo.com has a new feature on the Terminator movie franchise, in today’s clips we get an introduction to the Franchise and a look at the developing technology that is seen throughout the 4 movies. Check them out:
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Check out this badass clip from Terminator: Salvation that features the gigantic “Harvester” machine. Can’t wait for this to hit theaters!
This movie looks more than a bit ridiculous, but it does have a few decent actors in it… still ridiculous though:
Check out the new widget for AMD Fusion, which is AMD’s new across-the-board initiative for gaming and entertainment on your computer. There’s even a free optimizer, a Fusion for Gaming utility if your computer runs on AMD hardware. AMD unveiled a plan for a new supercomputer at CES this year and hopes to revolutionize the way high definition content is streamed and viewed.
Take a look at the AMD Fusion Widget here!
The Future is Fusion site: fusion.amd.com
A little more about Fusion:
“Fusion is how AMD marries innovation with collaboration. Far more than just the convergence of the CPU and graphics processing, Fusion is how AMD and its partners enable next-generation technologies that change our lives. Fusion is the process where customer needs, dreams, and desires bond with AMD’s own passion for engineering. It is Fusion that fuels this collaborative process and unleashes innovation on an exponential scale. Looking back, Fusion has enabled AMD to lead the industry with a legacy of breakthroughs. We were the first to achieve speeds of one billion clock cycles per second. The first to integrate standard 32- and 64-bit computing architectures. And the first to shatter the teraflop-in-a-box performance ceiling. And more. Today, Fusion is the catalyst for AMD’s accelerated computing model, harnessing the power of specialized hardware to help boost performance and enhance energy and cost efficiencies. It is a force that’s already changing the way we work, live, and play.
At work, Fusion is changing the data center forever. Setting new performance records on benchmarks for key workloads such as web services, database, and virtualization. Setting the standard in high-performance with low power requirements. And deploying specialized cores to bring parallel processing performance to mainstream business applications.
At home, Fusion is bringing Hollywood to your family. Harnessing the same AMD multi-core technology that enabled special effects wizards to render complex animation in minutes instead of days. Enabling innovations like AMD LIVE! TM to help people share movies, videos, photos, and music on all the screens of their lives. Allowing you to bring true HD computing capability to your home and on the go.
At play, Fusion is the energy behind many of today’s most stunning PC gaming experiences. Applying our years of graphics processing experience as the originators of the first 3D GPU. Partnering to enable platforms like Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii. Delivering big-screen imagery and photorealism to the real-time interactivity of your favorite video game. Pushing the limits of performance in real-time, 3D game play on our quest for human-eye realism.
Fusion. It’s the energy of innovation. It’s what’s fueled our past, and what will drive our people and partners in the future. To learn more about innovation, the next generation of breakthroughs, and how they’re made possible by Fusion, visit fusion.amd.com .The future is Fusion. And it’s only from AMD.”
After the Matrix popularized this special effect it seemed that it was friggin everywhere and it quickly lost its impressiveness. But that’s not to say there has not been some badass moments in certain movies. Here are 7 of them compiled by the people at Maxim
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Heres a look at Disney/Pixar’s slate of upcoming movies, via Cinematical.com:
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