Movies: Transformers 3 Has A Date!!

Dreamworks and Paramount are jumping on the money train or should I say money autobot a little early this year.

Three months from the release of the second film the two studios announced that "Transformers 3" will hit theaters on July 1st 2011. This move continues the trend of Transformers marking out the July 4th holiday weekend.

Megatron joins Thor, Captain America, and Spider-man who were allready in habiting the dog days of 2011. Variety reports that: " No deals have been inked with director Michael Bay or franchise stars Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. Nor has a writer been hired for the third installment."

I could feign anger at Hollywood's consistent relase date before script trend but honestly it's a story about huge robots who change into cars. How much does the script really matter.

Movies: Marvel Release Date Shake Up!

Only one more bit of Marvel news today I promise! Today Marvel Studios announced a lot of new release dates for their upcoming films.  Including the announcement of their first co-produced Spider-man picture.  I'm kind of excited about this delay.  I thought all these films were coming too fast anyway.  Now they will at least have the appropriate time to gestate and be the awesome movies we know they can be.  Below is an excerpt from Nikki Finke's column....

“This new schedule strongly sequences Marvel’s movie debut dates, big screen character introductions and momentum. It maximizes the visibility of our single character-focused films, leading to the highly anticipated release of the multi-character THE AVENGERS film in 2012,” said David Maisel, Chairman, Marvel Studios.

Sony Pictures’ and Marvel Studios’ SPIDER-MAN 4 is slated for May 6, 2011. To date, all three motion pictures in the phenomenally successful SPIDER-MAN franchise have generated nearly $2.5 billion worldwide theatrically.

Below is Marvel Studios’ 2010-2012 updated release schedule for its slate of self-produced and financed feature films:

Marvel Studios Feature Film Pipeline
IRON MAN 2: formerly May 7, 2010, now May 7, 2010
THOR: formerly July 16, 2010, now June 17, 2011
CAPTAIN AMERICA: formerly May 6, 2011, now July 22, 2011
THE AVENGERS: formerly July 15, 2011, now May 4, 2012

The release date for IRON MAN 2 remains unchanged.

Movies: Loki Might be Joshin!

This story comes to us courtesy of IESB and JoBl and tells tale of a Thor casting rumor. Apparently Josh Hartnett is in the running to play the god of mischief himself Loki.

For those of you unaware Thor is the story of, well, Thor who is the Norse god of thunder. He is sent to earth by his father Odin to learn humanity and humility. Loki is his brother and constant fly in his ointment. Kenneth Branaugh is set to direct for a July 2010 release. Thoughts on Hartnett as Loki?