Weekend round-up: Rock, Block and a Zookeeping cock

It's Sunday, which means time for your weekly treat of movie news previously unreported by , and almost definitely reported elsewhere days ago. We're still experimenting with multi-page content, so be sure to click through to page 3 for the best stuff! Only kidding, it's all shit...

First up; the wonderfully named Benedict Cumberbatch - star of BBC TV's Sherlock Holmes series - will be voicing not one, but two characters in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: Smaug and Necromancer. I was going to attempt the LotR books once upon a time, but then the films came out and the Internet happened, and suddenly all the cool kids were saying "tl;dr" - I just wanted to fit in! By which I mean I have no idea who those characters are.
The first image of Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages has seeped out from Cruise's official blog, showing his character - Stacee Jaxx - in full-on rock mode. Cruise is nearly 50, by the way.


Channing Tatum is to star and produce in Blood Brothers - a thriller set in Russia (like any other genre is set there - prove me wrong, kids). Aww, this is like when the office teaboy gets promoted to copier duty.
We had a look at the poster for John Carter (Pixar's first live-action feature, remember) earlier this week, and now some concept art has surfaced, via Hero Complex.




Hot on the heels of Battleship, and all those other board games and toys we were crying out for inexplicable movie adaptations of, comes Hot Wheels! No word on writers, directors, stars, plot or anything else yet, but... Hot Wheels! Say it.
Aussie beefloaf Russell Crowe is allegedly in talks to play Superman's Dad - Jor-El - in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel. Not a bad fit looks-wise (when compared to Marlon Brando, who is best known in the role), but that accent... can't they just say Superbaby kicked him in the throat when he was changing his Supernappy?
The Expendables 2 has a director, and it's Simon West. You know what West's debut feature was? Con freakin' Air. He also directed the first Tomb Raider movie, The Mechanic (in which Jason Statham fucks shit up as an elite hitman), and executive produced Black Hawk Down - a movie where the violence was somehow more horrific than Ewan McGregor's accent. So what does this Destroyer of Men - this Demigod of Awesome - look like? Do we dare gaze upon the pyres burning deep within his eyes, lest our minds and souls turn to liquid pain?

Ben Affleck will direct Tell No One - a twisty-turny mystery based on a novel, which already has a big screen adaptation in French. Isn't it funny how B-Lo is known these days for directing, and not acting, in films like, say, Gigli. My dream still remains to quietly mutter "gobble gobble" when walking past Benny from the Block in the street. He'd probably kick my face off, but it'd be worth it.
It's no secret that Ra's Al Ghul is to appear in Christopher Nolan's final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. So it's hardly a spoiler to reveal that Liam Neeson has been spotted lurking about on set. Not literally, that would be really sinister - no, he's probably acting and getting up to japes with the cast and crew. But wait! Josh Pence has already been cast as the young Ra's, which means flashbacks, or time-travel. Who really knows - all bets are off when a magic vat of life-rejuvinating gunk is thrown into the mix.
Following Darren Aronofsky's departure, The Wolverine will now be directed by James Mangold. Mangold is no sloppy second, however, having previously directed Girl, Interupted, 3:10 To Yuma, Knight & Day and the powerful Johnny Cash biopic, Walk The Line.
Hugh Jackman is rumoured to be up for the role of Jean Valjean in Tom 'The King's Speech' Hooper's big screen adaptation of Les Miserables. Which serves as a neat excuse to post this clip:

Click through to the next page for this week's trailers!