Movie news round-up: from After Earth to Zorro (A-Z, get it?)

Look, it's another weekend news round-up, arriving just as the weekend ends! I'll let you in on a site secret: I always write this bit last, which is why it's always so scintillating and experlty writen.
Apparently RED 2 is a thing, and Dean Parisot (Fun With Dick And Jane) will direct the OAP action movie sequel starring Bruce Willis that isn't The Expendables 2. Thought I'd get this week's most mind-numbingly dull story out of the way first.
It's a universal fact that the Oscar ceremony is almost always a letdown on the night, but the Academy are starting the suck early by refusing to allow the nominees for Best Song to perform live. In short: that means no Muppets and no Bret McKenzie. Kermit and Piggy will present an award, which I'm sure will be the sole reason to tune in, but there will be no 'Man Or Muppet' on the night. You've done it again, Academy! (*slow clap*)

X-Men: First Class screenwriter Simon Kinberg has been talking to the press in his own superhero guise of Captain Obvious, telling MTV that Michael Fassbender's Magneto will feature heavily in the sequel.

For the record, Captain Obvious's superpowers would be be derived from the ancient power ring of No'Duh.
One of the future projects I'm most interested in is Kathryn Bigelow's still-untitled movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, even though Navy SEALs performed the mother of all spoilers by killing him last year. Kyle Chandler - the dad in Super 8 and that one guy from that show about the dude with the daily newspaper that told the future - just joined the cast.
In news that will no doubt be tremendously exciting to this man and possibly a few others, Hugh Grant has revealed he'll be playing six "incredibly evil characters" in the Wachowski's adaptation of Cloud Atlas, including a cannibal. Says Grant: "I do a lot of killing and raping." Didn't mention anything about the film though, sadly.


STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING EVERYONE (oh right, you're reading this already) because it's the first clip from The Amazing Spider-Man. The action-packed clip shows Andrew Garfield in full Spider-Man costume battling The Lizard at the top of the... actually fuck it, that sounds too expensive, here's a clip of Peter Parker talking to a doorman. Enjoy!



Akiva 'I wrote Batman & Robin' Goldsman has been talking up a follow-up to I Am Legend starring Will Smith, despite the small fact that Smith's character, Robert Neville, died at the end of the last movie. There is a (far-superior) alternate ending, below, in which Neville survives, which is way more like the ending of the book. But, you know, explosions are cool too.


Great news for Steve Coogan fans: not only has he revealed in this rather excellent Vanity Fair interview that he's shooting the Alan Partridge movie this summer for release in 2013, but he and Rob Brydon are filming a follow-up to The Trip, set in Italy. Technically that's TV news, but what are you going to do, call the police?

Jennifer Aniston and Dennis Quaid have joined the cast of Switch, the prequel-but-not-really to Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, based on the book by Elmore Leonard. There are no confirmed reports as of yet, but rumours suggest the script may feature shady gangsters of some sort.

In between chewing on tiger steaks and punching dolphins out of the sea, manly man Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has been telling anyone who'll listen how awesome Fast Six is going to be. Johnson revealed that it won't shoot back to back with Fast & Furious 7 as expected, blaming "weather issues" for some bizarre reason, although he did say it'd shoot partially in London. Surely that shouldn't be a problem for The Rock, who could easily kick every droplet of rain back into the sky if he wished.
Finally, here are literally six clips from Wanderlust, courtesy of Collider.com. I'm not even joking when I say I could listen to Paul Rudd play 'Two Princes' on guitar for all eternity.