White House Down - Movie Review

Starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, James Woods, Richard Jenkins, Joey King, Nicolas Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Michael Murphy, Rachelle Lefevre, Lance Reddick, Matt Craven and Jake Weber.
Directed by Roland Emmerich.

★★½

Emmerich movies always have the tongue implanted in cheek, and this movie's no exception. Think of the big-budget disaster flicks like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow or the more action-oriented flicks like The Patriot or Independence Day.  Now comes a ridiculous buddy-action-comedy between a Secret Service wannabe and POTUS fleeing terrorists in Die Hard in the White House.

Jamie Foxx is the Obama-esque President, and I'm not saying that because he's black.  He even adopts the way Obama speaks, at least in the beginning of the movie. His character's name however is President Sawyer.  Sawyer has announced he's withdrawing all US troops from the Middle East, which makes some never-seen CEOs of defense-contractor companies upset.  Needless to say, eventually some mercenary types start blowing stuff up around the White House. I wonder who could be backing them...

Tatum's character is John Cale.  Not quite John McClane, but come on, he even winds up wearing just the wife-beater by the end of the movie.  It's never bold enough to have him declare "Yippy-ki-yay!"  That'd just be too much.

The movie's fun the whole time.  Even when it gets stupid, and it does, it never forgets it's just a moooovie.  Tons of explosions, gunfire, but with the cameras angled just right to help keep that PG-13.

Tatum and Foxx have infectious chemistry.  Joey King (Beezus & Ramona) has her own moments as Cale's daughter.  MVP is Nicolas Wright as the tour guide. It seems like a throwaway part that just keeps getting better.  Anyone left of center should love that all the bad guys' motives hit on every Evil Republican cliche. Some are in for white supremacy, some are in it for money, some are in it to create more war, etc. We just needed one terrorist to say he's pro-life.

It's not the best movie of the summer, but it's worth seeing if you take it on its own level.

Monsters U is still #1, The Heat is #2

For the weekend of June 28-30.

1. Monsters University - $46.18 million ($171) - 2 wks (BV) -44%
 . . . 4004 screens / $11,533 per screen
2. The Heat - $40 - 1 wk (Fox)
 . . . 3181 / $12,575
3. World War Z - $29.8 ($123.72) - 2 wks (Par) -55.1%
 . . . 3607 / $8262
4. White House Down - $25.7 - 1 wk (Sony)
 . . . 3222 / $7976
5. Man of Steel - $20.82 ($248.66) - 3 wks (WB) -49.6%
 . . . 4131 / $5040
6. This Is the End - $8.7 ($74.68) - 3 wks (Sony) -34.5%
 . . . 2710 / $3210
7. Now You See Me - $5.5 ($104.68) - 5 wks (LG) -30.2%
 . . . 2564 / $2145
8. Fast & Furious 6 - $2.41 ($233.31) - 6 wks (U) -51.1%
 . . . 1550 / $1555
9. Star Trek Into Darkness - $2.04 ($220.5) - 7 wks (Par) -35.6%
 . . . 1035 / $1971
10. The Internship - $1.43 ($41.71) - 4 wks (Fox) -58.1%
 . . . 1008 / $1414
11. Iron Man 3 - $1.4 ($405.44) - 9 wks (BV) -36.6%
 . . . 540 / $2598
12. The Purge - $1.23 ($62.79) - 4 wks (U) -65.7%
 . . . 1122 / $1095

The Heat is Sandra Bullock's best opening of her already impressive career.

White House Down was not able to get the $30 million that Olympus Has Fallen got with the same plot.  The two films might have opened too close together.

Monsters University has grossed $300 million worldwide so far.

Despsicable Me 2 and The Lone Ranger open later this week.

Box Office Tracking - 6/25/13

Looking ahead at how upcoming movies are tracking.

Opens June 28
THE HEAT - $35 million, $140 total
WHITE HOUSE DOWN - $34 million, $110 total

Opens July 4
DESPICABLE ME 2 - $76 million, $353 total
THE LONE RANGER - $35 million, $135 total

Opens July 12
PACIFIC RIM - $55 million, $185 total
GROWN UPS 2 - $40 million, $128 million

Opens July 19
THE CONJURING - $23 million, $65 total
RED 2 - $22 million, $71 total
TURBO - $21 million, $80 total
R.I.P.D. - $12 million, $30 total

Opens July 26
THE WOLVERINE - $65 million, $160 total

Opens August 2
2 GUNS - $43 million, $127 total
THE SMURFS 2 - $26 million, $100 total

Opens August 9
ELYSIUM - $30 million, $90 total
WE'RE THE MILLERS - $22 million, $83 total
PERCY JACKSON 2 - $20 million, $77 total
PLANES - $17 million, $70 total

Opens August 16
KICK-ASS 2 - $25 million, $58 total
THE BUTLER - $17 million, $68 total
PARANOIA - $11 million, $32 total
JOBS - $10 million, $28 total

At one point, The Heat and White House Down were both flirting with a $40 million opener, but with the giant success of Monster U and World War Z, they've both settled into the mid-30's.

Disney has to be happy with The Lone Ranger numbers.  Domestically, no, that's not great, but Depp translates great overseas, and it will wind up being a profitable venture after all.  Despicable Me 2 already has its spinoff movie Minions in the works.

R.I.P.D. still has a lot of work to do to prove it's not a Men in Black ripoff (even if that's what it essentially is.)

The Wolverine anticipation is increasing.  It benefits greatly from being the only movie opening that week.

Monsters University is #1

For the weekend of June 21-23.

1. Monsters University - $82 million - 1 wk (BV)
 . . . 4004 screens / $20,480 per screen
2. World War Z - $66 - 1 wk (Par)
 . . . 3607 / $18,298
3. Man of Steel - $41.22 ($210) - 2 wks (WB) -64.7%
 . . . 4207 / $9797
4. This Is the End - $13 ($57.79) - 2 wks (Sony) -37.3%
 . . . 3055 / $4255
5. Now You See Me - $7.87 ($94.45) - 4 wks (LG) -28.6%
 . . . 2823 / $2788
6. Fast & Furious 6 - $4.73 ($228.41) - 5 wks (U) -50.7%
 . . . 2417 / $1955
7. The Internship - $3.43 ($38.37) - 3 wks (Fox) -52.1%
 . . . 1916 / $1788
8. The Purge - $3.41 ($59.43) - 3 wks (U) -59%
 . . . 2201 / $1550
9. Star Trek Into Darkness - $3 ($216.61) - 6 wks (Par) -52%
 . . . 1565 / $1917
10. Iron Man 3 - $2.18 ($403.12) - 8 wks (BV) -26.4%
 . . . 924 / $2354
11. The Bling Ring - $2 ($2.34) - 2 wks (A24) +832.9%
 . . . 650 / $3077
12. Epic - $1.73 ($100.99) - 5 wks (Fox) -72.5%
 . . . 1994 / $868
13. Before Midnight - $.93 ($4.65) - 5 wks (SPC) -32.9%
 . . . 441 / $2104
14. After Earth - $.85 ($57.3) - 4 wks (Sony) -79%
 . . . 1166 / $729
15. The Hangover Part III - $.71 ($110) - 5 wks (WB) -74.7%
 . . . 530 / $1330
16. Much Ado About Nothing - $.68 ($1.1) - 3 wks (RA) +320%
 . . . 206 / $3300
17. The Great Gatsby - $.57 ($141.57) - 7 wks (WB) -65.8%
 . . . 362 / $1580

Monsters University is indeed the 2nd-highest opening in Pixar history.  World War Z is also the 2nd-highest opening for a movie not debuting #1.

World War Z - Movie Review

Starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Ludi Boeken, David Morse, Fana Mokoena, Peter Capaldi, Pierfrancesco Favino, Sterling Jerins, Abigail Hargrove, David Andrews and Matthew Fox.  Directed by Marc Forster.

★★★½

I haven't read the source material, but what I see in front of me works.  It's a globetrotting view of the zombie apocalypse.  We've seen zombie-outbreak movies that focus on one area and they only vaguely hear of it happening in the rest of the world.  This time we follow a protagonist, Gerry Lane, (Brad Pitt) who starts in Philadelphia but goes to South Korea and to Israel and to Wales trying to find out what's going on and how to stop it.

It starts small, with Gerry and family stuck in traffic, but then like a wave it hits, and these are the fast-running kind of zombies.  They cooperate like army ants and wash through the streets like a flash-flood.  There's big emphasis on Gerry getting his family to a safe place.  Once that happens, he takes back his old job as a UN special-ops guy to fly with a scientist to see if they can trace the origins of the zombie outbreak.  If they can find the origin, maybe they can find a cure.

The PG-13 rating means we don't get a lot of gore.  Stabs to the head are off-camera.  We do still get a well-paced procedural, surprising considering all the production turmoils it went through.  I also liked how just as the scale was getting larger and larger, Act III narrows its focus and zooms in on a WHO building in Wales.

I'd like to know why Matthew Fox was all but edited out of this movie. If I didn't know he was in it, I don't know if I would have recognized him.

Friday's Box Office

For June 21.

1. Monsters University - $30.51 million - 1 day
2. World War Z - $25 - 1 day
3. Man of Steel - $12.7 ($181.49) - 8 days
4. This Is the End - $4.1 ($48.89) - 10 days
5. Now You See Me - $2.45 ($89.03) - 22 days
6. Fast & Furious 6 - $1.45 ($225.14) - 29 days
7. The Purge - $1.17 ($57.19) - 15 days
8. The Internship - $1.08 ($36.02) - 15 days

Pixar rules, as does Brad Pitt.  MU should get around $80 million for the weekend, and WWZ should get around $55 million.

Man of Steel is having a big dropoff for its second weekend.  It'll pass $200 million its second weekend, but it'll be scraping and crawling to get to $300 million domestic.  Still, overall, MoS has to be considered a successful reboot.

This Is the End and Now You See Me can be considered successful as well, relative to their budgets and expectations.

Man of Steel - Movie Review

Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff.
Directed by Zack Snyder.

★★½

This Christopher Nolan reboot adds some gravity to the Superman story. Maybe a little too much.  There's a lot of brooding, and it could have used some more fun.  Overall I liked it but it had its issues.

First, we'll start with Krypton. (Ever notice how all other planets have one government running the entire planet?  Earth has something like 180 countries, but how come other planets...?) Anyway, Krypton is about to be destroyed by a people too stupid to stop mining its core for energy.  Now to demonstrate how Krypton is run by the folks from Idiocracy, they have sent out scouting ships to other planets to test sustainability, but all of the projects were abandoned. Not really clear why.  But Jor-El (Russell Crowe) manages to sneak his baby boy on a capsule before the whole thing blows up.

Oh, but before that happens, General Zod (Michael Shannon) tries to overthrow the government and fails.  He and his followers are sentenced to 300 years in the Phantom Zone, a safe place that isn't about to blow up.  So Kal-El isn't the only surviving Kryptonian.  Those resourceful Phantom Zone dwellers survive as well.

Kal-El grows up to be Clark Kent, a drifter who goes from town to town trying to find himself, but as soon as he uses his powers to save lives, he moves on.  He just has to find the right time to go public.  Well, the right time is when Zod shows up and lets the whole world know an alien lives among them.

I just wish it hadn't been so brood-tastic.  This is Superman!  He's an alien!  We started out on another planet that looked like Dune meets Attack of the Clones.  I like that it actually digs into how alienating it must've been for Clark to just pretend he doesn't have powers.  Thing is, Clark's still trying to find himself at age 33.  C'mon, Clark.  Be a man already.

Zod is the villain, and Michael Shannon had no chance of outshining Terence Stamp's "Kneel Before Zod."  This Zod doesn't make the smartest decisions and he doesn't seem to understand anything about diplomacy or leadership, but he thinks he does.  He's like the Santa Anna of space generals.

The rest of the cast does the best they can with what they're given as well.  I liked Cavill; I think in the next movie he'll be allowed to have a little more fun.  Amy Adams wasn't right as Lois Lane, but this Lois wasn't anything like what Lois should be.  This Lois was a device to advance the plot.  She didn't really seem like a reporter.

Couple other points:
- Pa Kent's death was stupid. They should have left it as a heart attack.
- The final battle must have killed a lot of people.  You'd think Superman would have tried to get the fight into a more rural area.
- I did get a kick out of a couple Easter eggs in there.

The Purge - Movie Review

Starring Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Rhys Wakefield and Tony Oller.  
Directed by James DeMonaco.

★★

This is a terrific Twilight Zone premise that raises some interesting questions, but it never really explores them as it devolves into a choppy house-under-siege movie.

It's America 2022.  In 2017, the "new Founding Fathers" voted on The Purge, a 12-hour period where once a year, all crime is legal, including murder (with exceptions for high government officials).  Hawke is the dad here with the job of selling security systems to rich people who want to protect their homes from the Purge each year.

Hawke's family chooses not to participate, rather they stay in their home and watch the news, but when the son lets a homeless man inside, it attracts the crowd of murderous youth who'd been in pursuit.

Now there's plenty of subtext going on, with class warfare, the haves and have-nots, human nature.  The movie hints that the reason the law passed was so rich people would have an excuse to kill poor people, because most rich people secretly just want to kill.  What we actually get is a house with the power killed, so there's a lot of movement lit by nothing but flashlights, as psychotic rich kids dance and laugh while they wait to get their bloodlust satiated.

I don't mind that a sequel was greenlit, because there's so much more filmmakers could do with this premise.  The reality of what the movie is is a letdown from what the movie could have been.

Man of Steel is #1

1. Man of Steel - $113.08 million ($125.08) - 1 wk (WB)
 . . . 4207 screens / $26,879 per screen
2. This Is the End - $20.5 ($32.8) - 1 wk (Sony)
 . . . 3055 / $6710
3. Now You See Me - $10.32 ($80) - 3 wks (LG) -45.8%
 . . . 3082 / $3348
4. Fast & Furious 6 - $9.43 ($219.57) - 4 wks (U) -51.9%
 . . . 3375 / $2795
5. The Purge - $8.2 ($51.85) - 2 wks (U) -75.9%
 . . . 2591 / $3165
6. The Internship - $7 ($30.95) - 2 wks (Fox) -59.6%
 . . . 3399 / $2059
7. Epic - $6 ($95.43) - 4 wks (Fox) -49.5%
 . . . 3151 / $1904
8. Star Trek Into Darkness - $5.66 ($210.49) - 5 wks (Par) -50.5%
 . . . 2331 / $2428
9. After Earth - $3.75 ($54.2) - 3 wks (Sony) -65%
 . . . 2432 / $1542
10. Iron Man 3 - $2.91 ($399.61) - 7 wks (BV) -49.5%
 . . . 1649 / $1763
11. The Hangover Part III - $2.74 ($107.99) - 4 wks (WB) -62.8%
 . . . 1901 / $1439
12. The Great Gatsby - $1.61 ($139.91) - 6 wks (WB) -62%
 . . . 1175 / $1366

Man of Steel had the fourth-highest non-sequel opening in history.  The "Christopher Nolan" name had to help.

Random TV Stuff - 6/15/13

HBO's GAME OF THRONES - I watched Season 3 all within a week and a half. Love that series. Love its faithfulness to the books, and yet it has its own surprises.  Really liked the chemistry between Jon Snow and Ygritte, between Jaime and Brienne, between Margery and Joffrey, between Tyrion and Sansa, between Arya and the Hound, between Dany and her dragons. Obviously it's not all romantic chemistry, but the actors and characters are well-matched.

Season 1 was Book 1, Season 2 was Book 2, and Season 3 has been about the first 60% of Book 3.  Now as to the next few seasons, I think they're going to take the events of the rest of Book 3, and then Books 4 & 5, and tell the events chronologically.  I think we'll see elements from Books 3, 4 and 5 all in Season 4, just due to the nature of the way they were written.  It also means that some seasons are going to see shorter shrift from certain characters.  For instance, I don't know what the producers think they're going to do with Theon, but after watching him get tortured for all of Season 3, I don't want a whole other season or two of it, and based on future events I'm aware of, it's a while before his situation improves. (In the books, I don't think he's even in Books 3 or 4).

Now I feel like I want to reread them.

AMC's THE KILLING - I'm really enjoying the setup this season.  It's already better than the first two seasons.  Linden (Mireille Enos) and Holder (Joel Kinnaman) are back on a case tracking a serial killer exhibiting an M.O. of a killer (Peter Sarsgaard) already on death row.  It still has that patented moroseness, but this time they've promised the case will be solved this season, and so far so good.

NBC's THE GOODWIN GAMES - Wealthy patriarch (Beau Bridges) dies and leaves a series of challenges to his three adult children in order to determine who gets his inheritance.  The three of them aren't really mean or self-absorbed, but since this has already been cancelled, no need to see just what hoops they have to jump through.

NBC's SAVE ME - Anne Heche stars in this comedy about a woman who has a near-death experience and decides to change her ways, but she also has episodes where she can read others' thoughts.  It was hammy and I couldn't make it through a full episode.

FOX's DOES SOMEONE NEED TO GO? - One of those sadistic reality shows where employees at a company are asked to vote on who they think should get fired.  It's worse than the "emperor hanging out with the peasants" aspect of Undercover Boss.  It's amazing to see all these companies where they're all Americans, in the same building, working side-by-side. (I'm used to my co-workers being all over the world.)

Star Trek Into Darkness - Movie Review

Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bruce Greenwood, Alice Eve and Peter Weller.
Directed by JJ Abrams.

★★★

This is a movie that is determined to have fun.  It plays with old Trek tropes (maybe a little too much this time around) while blazing a trail for the new.

It starts out with characters on the run.  Maybe if this had been an episode of the TV show it would have started with Kirk and McCoy landing on the planet, observing the sentient beings there. But we're in a movie, so let's skip to the action.  Kirk and McCoy banter as they run, until they get to a cliff where they don't even slow down; they just jump 60 feet and fortunately don't hit any rocks when they land in its ocean.

Turns out Kirk violated the Prime Directive while there.  (You remember the Prime Directive. That plot device that was violated every third episode.)  He gets demoted, and Admiral Pike gets the Enterprise back.  This can't end well for Pike, no matter what timeline we're in.  Hopefully this time he won't wind up as a quadriplegic who can only communicate with a "Yes/No" light, as he did on the series.  (Spoiler: he doesn't.)

Benedict Cumberbatch, an actor blessed with a name out of the Douglas Adams universe, plays the far-less-adventurously-nomenclatured "John Harrison", a domestic terrorist who is apparently plotting to start an intergalactic war.  Cumberbatch has a deep, symphonious voice, one where every syllable carries weight.

I caught the 3D version, and it was fine.  There were some set pieces where it worked well, but usually I forgot it was in 3D.  Which can be a compliment too.

My main criticism would be those "this is my JJ Abrams signature" lens flares on the bridge of the Enterprise.  I really hope he doesn't fill Star Wars Episode VII up with those.  Meanwhile I also hope they find a good director for Star Trek: Bring on the Klingons.

The Purge is #1

For the weekend of June 7-9.

1. The Purge - $36.38 million - 1 wk (U)
 . . . 2536 screens / $14,345 per screen
2. Fast & Furious 6 - $19.76 ($202.95) - 3 wks (U) -43.8%
 . . . 3771 / $5240
3. Now You See Me - $19.5 ($61.37) - 2 wks (LG) -33.6%
 . . . 3020 / $6457
4. The Internship - $18.1 - 1 wk (Fox)
 . . . 3366 / $5377
5. Epic - $12.1 ($84.16) - 3 wks (Fox) -27.2%
 . . . 3594 / $3367
6. Star Trek into Darkness - $11.7 ($200.14) - 4 wks (Par) -30.3%
 . . . 3152 / $3712
7. After Earth - $11.2 ($46.59) - 2 wks (Sony) -59.3%
 . . . 3401 / $3293
8. The Hangover Part III - $7.38 ($102.37) - 3 wks (WB) -55%
 . . . 3242 / $2276
9. Iron Man 3 - $5.79 ($394.32) - 6 wks (BV) -31.5%
 . . . 2351 / $2462
10. The Great Gatsby - $4.23 ($136.18) - 5 wks (WB) -35.1%
 . . . 2160 / $1958
11. Mud - $1.21 ($18.6) - 7 wks (RA) -.7%
 . . . 582 / $2077

As bad as the ramp-up was for The Internship, Fox has to be happy they managed $18 million.  Meanwhile Universal has to be delirious for the numbers on The Purge, which had a $3 million production budget.

Random TV Stuff - 6/5/13

AMC's MAD MEN - This season's been nicknamed "Sad Men." It's 1968, and the SCDP folks are living their lives while Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy get assassinated, drugs are on the rise, and Don Draper looks like a man getting passed by.  Only three episodes left, and next season is the last, and I picture that's the one where we see Don gone to full seed.  I'm still enjoying it, but I've enjoyed previous seasons more.  I do like Harry Hamlin's dapper partner as a different ingredient to the management mix.

A&E's BATES MOTEL - Watched the season finale the other day, and I think this show is great.  It ended with a cliffhanger that showed Norman apparently having killed his teacher, but I think we're going to learn in Season 2 he didn't actually do it.  Very interested to see where the show goes from here.

TNT's THE AMERICANS - Still have a couple episodes to watch, but I really enjoy the chemistry between Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys.

Iron Man 3 - Movie Review

Can never seem to actually write a review so here's episode #1 of J.E.R.M.M.O.T.
John English's Random Movie Minute or Two

Weekend Box Office - 6/2/13

For the weekend of May 31-Jun 2.

1.  Fast & Furious 6 - $34.54 million ($170.38) - 2 wks (U) -64.5%
 . . . 3686 screens / $9370 per screen
2.  Now You See Me - $28.05 - 1 wk (LG)
 . . . 2925 / $9590
3.  After Earth - $27 - 1 wk (Sony)
 . . . 3401 / $7939
4.  Star Trek Into Darkness - $16.4 ($181.16) - 3 wks (Par) -56%
 . . . 3585 / $4575
5.  Epic - $16.4 ($65.16) - 2 wks (Fox) -51.1%
 . . . 3894 / $4212
6.  The Hangover Part III - $15.93 ($88.09) - 2 wks (WB) -61.8%
 . . . 3565 / $4468
7.  Iron Man 3 - $8 ($384.75) - 5 wks (BV) -58.6%
 . . . 2895 / $2765
8.  The Great Gatsby - $6.27 ($128.26) - 4 wks (WB) -53.7%
 . . . 2635 / $2378
9.  Yei Jawaani Hai Deewani - $1.65 - 1 wk (Eros)
 . . . 161 / $10,255
10. Mud - $1.23 ($16.87) - 6 wks (RA) -36.8%
 . . . 581 / $2110

After Earth was expecting to open to $40+ million a couple weeks ago, but the closer it got, the worse it looked.  Word of the stench broke out.  It was M. Night Shyamalan's biggest budget to date, but it won't do the numbers of The Last Airbender.

So the magic caper Now You See Me was able to capitalize with a likable ensemble.  Critics aren't in love with it either, but that didn't hurt it.

Random Movie Stuff - 6/1/13

=======
Friday Box Office Estimates
=======

1. Fast & Furious 6 - $10.5 million ($146.34) - 8 days
2. Now You See Me - $10.05 - 1 day
3. After Earth - $9.8 - 1 day
4. The Hangover Part III - $5.23 ($77.39) - 9 days
5. Star Trek into Darkness - $4.44 ($169.19) - 16 days
6. Epic - $4.15 ($52.91) - 8 days
7. Iron Man 3 - $2.2 ($378.95) - 29 days
8. The Great Gatsby - $1.94 ($123.93) - 22 days

After Earth is going to be the infamous bomb of the summer.  Its Scientology-based theology and general hokeyness is drawing comparisons to Battlefield Earth, and it's another stinker for M. Night Shyamalan, who should probably try to direct something low-budget and written by the guys behind Insidious or Sinister.

Now You See Me improved in tracking as it got closer, but just last week it was expected to get $22 million compared to $37 million for After Earth.  Now it looks like it'll actually beat it.  It will probably wind up with $27-28 million, and AE more of a $25-26 million range.

In other news:

- Tom Cruise has dropped out of Guy Ritchie's big-screen take on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. due to scheduling conflicts with his upcoming Mission Impossible 5.  Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) has been mentioned as a replacement.

- Glenn Close will play top cop in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy movie. She'll play the head of Nova Corp, the intergalactic space patrol.  The film co-stars Zoe Saldana, Chris Pratt, John C. Reilly, Dave Bautista and Michael Rooker.

- Eric Roberts has joined the cast of The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence.