Movie news round-up: Hobbit haters, Bond baiters and bloody benders

This week's news round-up has more shit sequel stories than I'd care to include, but hey, don't blame me: I report the news, I don't make the news. (Expect the news that I make up because I'm bored).
No big deal: The Avengers has enjoyed an opening weekend of $178.4 million, which is pretty spanking when you consider it hasn't opened in America yet, and, y'know, it's still Sunday.


Peter Jackson has given Hobbit haters the verbal equivalent of the middle finger, after viewers of footage shot in 48fps complained the movie looked "cheap" and "like an episode of Acorn Antiques" (okay, that was me).

All of which is a desperate cover-up to hide the fact that Jackson is shooting on old VHS tapes because it's loads cheaper.

Don't all rush to the cinemas to see The Dictator when it's released on May 16th: the first scene is below, so you can take your time. Get some pick 'n' mix. Grab a Coke. Or, you know, a bottle of whiskey. You're going to need something to get you through it.


Screenwriter Ehren Kruger is writing Transformers 4, having penned Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen and Transformers: Dark Of The Moon. In other news, someone wrote Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen and Transformers: Dark Of The Moon.

If you liked Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes - and let's face it, you'd have to be monkey nuts to have found it anything but exhilirating - then you'll go bananas at the news that the sequel (or whatever the fuck you call a follow-up to a prequel reboot) will go into production in Summer with an eye on a 2014 release. Plenty of time to work on new monkey puns.

So taken are they with their own work, Universal are already planning on a sequel to Snow White And the Huntsman, with director Rupert Sanders expected to return. I bet they reckon their farts smell ace, too. David Koepp is in talks to write the follow-up, which will probably see Snow White fight a Mummy or a Godzilla or something, I dunno.

Though the idea is positively nightmarish, Top Gun 2 is set to be a horrific reality - and not just one of those direct-to-DVD sequels starring William Forsythe and that one guy who used to be the villain in all those Al Pacino movies. Says Paramount film group president Adam Goodman:


Guillermo Del Toro has optioned a spec script for a new horror movie mash-up called The Bloody Benders (*joke machine explodes*).
These 100 seconds of Prometheus are mostly regurgitated scenes interspersed with Ridley Scott giving away less than nothing, but hey, I wouldn't be a movie blog if I didn't say they were THE BEST THING EVER.


Finally, because I love leaving the best for last (screw you, first wife!), here are the first official stills from Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino's spaghetti western. Christoph Waltz's jacket is wearing a jacket, your argument is irrelevant.