Monday, June 27, 2016

'Legends of Tomorrow' Star Caity Lotz Teases New Girlfriend for Sara in Season 2

The CW Network 2016 Upfront PresentationIs there a softer side to on "Legends of Tomorrow's" martial artist extraordinaire, the White Canary? Caity Lotz would love to find out.

The actress, who currently stars as Sara Lance on "Legends," reveals that, with four different series set in the DC TV Universe now airing on The CW, she can't wait to see how characters are mixed and matched across her show, "Arrow," "The Flash," and "Supergirl" when they all return in the fall. She's especially stoked to encounter the devilish Earth Two incarnations of a couple of familiar faces -- and wouldn't mind playing a sweeter take on her butt-kicking heroine.

She also hints that that there may be a new love interest ahead for Sara, and reveals how she stays in super-heroic shape ... even when the show's between seasons.

Moviefone: What's got you most excited about the new season of "Legends of Tomorrow"? You've got four great shows on one network now. Everybody can crisscross. You can bring in anybody to your crew.

Caity Lotz: Yes, crossovers are what I'm most excited for, just because the potential of that! I want to go on "The Flash." I want everybody to come on to our show. I want to see, like, especially with Earth Two on "Flash," I think it'd be really cool to kind of see the Black Siren, which is Katie Cassidy. I want to see Katie Cassidy and Danielle Panabaker's evil alter egos. I want to go head-to-head with them.

How much fun would it be for you to get an evil alter ego?

Ooh, I'd love that. I would love that. Or I think my alter ego should just be, like, something really lame. Or not lame, but chill and simple. I'd be, like, a librarian, or I knit scarves. That's what Sara does in Earth Two.

Have they given you any hints for next season, about what you're going to get to do?

I think Sara might get a new girlfriend!

Any old girlfriends going to show up in the picture at any point?

You know, I sure hope so. Katrina Law is one of my favorite humans. She's got a new show, "Training Day," so hopefully we can steal her away. She worked it in her deal so that she could come and see us!

When you get done shooting a season, do you let all the stuff you've got to do to stay in shape for the role go, or do you keep it up?

No, I keep it up. I know some people, they don't do that. I don't know. Maybe in 10 years ask me and it'll be different. I love movement and physicality, so my body just kind of stays. But there is a next level, and I just started retraining again. You can check out my Instagram, there's some cool training videos on there.

Since you got the role, what's the coolest thing you can do that you couldn't do before you were Sara, physically?

Gosh. I don't know. I did all this stuff before. I was a martial artist before I was an actress, so all that stuff I've kind of always done. But I've never done that stuff in a superhero costume before, so that's a new thing!

What lured you to martial arts? What was the thing that made you say, "Yeah, this is my sport"?

Well, I started with dance. And I used to go to this gym to go flip around and breakdance. There were martial artists at the same gym, and I started teaching them to dance, and then they started teaching me martial arts. And I was like, "Ooh, this is fun." Then I thought maybe I'd want to be a stunt girl.

Have you surprised any of your costars with how badass you can actually be?

They're so sweet. They'll always give me a nice pat on the back. They're amazing, too. I mean, everybody on the show is like ... they're awesome.

And you're helpful to walk with down a dark alley.

Yeah, I don't know what I'd actually do. I don't want to find out. So nobody mug me in an alley, please!

"DC's Legends of Tomorrow" Season 2 premieres October 13, 2016.



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The 'Minecraft' Movie Lands 2019 Release Date

minecraft, minecraft movie, mojang, release date, script, rob mcelhenneyFans whose excitement has been building for the upcoming "Minecraft" movie will have to wait a while longer for the flick: Studio Warner Bros. and game developer Mojang revealed on Monday that the film won't be hitting theaters until 2019.

In an announcement posted on the Mojang website, company COO Vu Bui said that the movie would make its debut on May 24, 2019.

"Yes, that might seem like a long time away," Bui wrote, "but it just so happens to be the right amount of time to make it completely awesome. And we all want an awesome Minecraft movie, right?"

There's been no word yet on just what the plot of the flick will be (and Mojang's announcement coyly blocked out the screenwriter's name on a photo of the script, seen above), though it's secured a quirky director: Rob McElhenney, the co-creator and star of long-running FX sitcom "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." McElhenney has already promised that the film will be "strange and wonderful," a combination that should be familiar to "It's Always Sunny" fans.

The "Minecraft" movie is being modeled on the success of "The LEGO Movie," another kid-friendly property that had no previous narrative structure, but found box office success -- and critical love -- anyway. There are already a bunch of "LEGO" spinoff and sequel projects in the works, and the folks behind "Minecraft"'s foray onto the big screen no doubt hope their massively popular game translates into a similarly popular movie franchise, too.

We'll have to wait until 2019 to find out if their plan pans out. Stay tuned for more intel about the film as it becomes available.

[via: Mojang]

Photo credit: Mojang



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Blake Lively Says 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 3' Could Happen

Premiere Of "The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2" - Inside ArrivalsBlake Lively is making waves for her most recent movie, "The Shallows," but it's her first-ever big screen role that's got our attention today: Lively says that a third installment in the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series may be in the works.

During an interview with People and Entertainment Weekly editorial director Jess Cagle, the actress discussed a potential "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 3" -- and based on her comments, it seems like all but a sure thing that the flick will happen someday.

"There's a strong chance there might be a third," Lively told Cagle. "The four of us are still best friends. To be able to create something together again has always been a dream of ours."

Those four, of course, include Lively, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera, and Amber Tamblyn, who worked together on the original 2005 film and its 2008 follow-up. Though there's been a long gap between the last film and now, Lively said a threequel could still happen, so long as it "really made sense" and "honor[s] the story and the legacy."

There are five books in the Ann Brashares series on which the films are based, with the last one, "Sisterhood Everlasting," focusing on the main foursome as they prepare to turn 30 while juggling adult relationships. That plot could fit in nicely with the actress's own lives, since all of them are married now, and two of them have children. According to Lively, those real-life experiences would inform any continued onscreen adventures.

"You deal with different things [at this age]," the actress explained to Cagle. "So we wouldn't be making a movie for 16-year-olds again. We'd be making a movie trusting that our audience grew up with us, and I think that would be really interesting to explore."

We totally agree. Our fingers are crossed we'll see more from our favorite sisterhood soon.

[via: People]

Photo credit: Getty Images



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​What Happened to 'Independence Day: Resurgence' at the Box Office?

We're in a weird place where a summer blockbuster can open with the huge numbers that "Independence Day: Resurgence" did and still be considered a box office flop.

The alien-invasion sequel premiered with an estimated $41.6 million; opening wide on 4,068 screens, that's an average of $10,226 per screen. Those are the kind of numbers most movies would kill for.

But remember, the first "Independence Day," a movie not based on a previously-existing property, and with no big stars, debuted with $50.3 million, and that was in 1996 dollars. Today, that would be the equivalent of a $97.5 million debut.

The sequel's distributor, Fox, had expected the new film to open around $50 million as well, but adjusting for inflation, that means the new film did only about half as well as the 20-year-old original. Predictions by outside analysts ran from $40 to $55 million; that the movie opened on the low end of those expectations, and well below Fox's own modest prediction, is not good news.

Plus, the movie cost at least $165 million to make. (Some sources say as much as $200 million; compare that to $75 million to make "ID4" two decades ago.) Given its likely promotional costs and the splitting of revenue with theater owners, "Resurgence" will have to gross about $660 million worldwide for Fox just to break even. That's going to be nearly impossible given the movie's slow domestic start.

What went wrong? Here are a few of "Resurgence's" missteps.

1. The Wait
Two decades is an awfully long time to wait between installments. It's not insurmountable; the "Mad Max" franchise waited 30 years, but "Mad Max: Fury Road" was still a hit last year. In part that was because it offered the kind of spectacle and in-camera effects that you couldn't see anywhere else.

But the kind of modern-day disaster-film blockbuster that Roland Emmerich pioneered with the first "Independence Day" became commonplace by the time he made the second one. In a multiplex dominated by "Avengers" and "Transformers" movies, it's easy to forget how novel "Independence Day" was -- if, indeed, you're old enough to remember it at all.

2. No Star Power
The original "ID4" made Will Smith into a bankable box office star and the king of July movies. His luster has dimmed in recent years, but if he'd been aboard this installment, he'd still have been the biggest box office draw in the cast. (Sorry, but Liam Hemsworth is not a big box office draw, and neither are returning "ID4" stars Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum.) Smith's presence could have been worth tens of millions of dollars, especially overseas, where he remains a bigger star than he is here.

3. The Reviews
They've been pretty terrible, just 33 percent fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. Not that Emmerich's destruct-o-thons are ever the critics' cup of popcorn (though they did give "ID4" a 62 percent fresh rating in 1996). Still, the movie needed to attract older, nostalgia-minded viewers, the ones who still read reviews. Of course, these summer action blockbusters are usually critic-proof, but audiences didn't think much of "Resurgence" either, judging by the tepid B grade they gave it at CinemaScore. Which means that viewer word-of-mouth seems to back up the critical complaints, that "Resurgence" doesn't really deliver.

It also didn't help that Fox knew they had a turd on their hands, which is why they did not screen the film for press -- or junket it -- in an attempt to control their losses.

4. Sequel Fatigue
A handful of exceptions aside -- notably, "Finding Dory," "Captain America: Civil War," and "The Conjuring 2" -- this hasn't been a good year for sequels at the box office. The 2016 release slate has been pockmarked with such cratering sequels as "Alice Through the Looking Glass," "Now You See Me 2," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows," "The Divergent Series: Allegiant," "The Huntsman: Winter's War," "London Has Fallen," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2," "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising," and "Zoolander 2."

Many of these were plagued by some of the same problems as "Resurgence:" poor execution, long delays between installments, and the loss of major players from the franchise. That doesn't necessarily mean audiences are rejecting retreads and craving originality; in fact, "Zootopia" is the only movie among the top 10 earners so far in 2016 that's based on an original screenplay. But viewers do want sequels that deliver the goods the franchise has promised in the past, and as this year's sequels that have fallen short of that promise are proving, having a familiar title alone without the content to back it up isn't enough to ensure a hit anymore.

5. Bad Timing
"Resurgence" opened during the most crowded weekend of the summer so far. It's competing against two other new wide release movies, one a prestige drama ("Free State of Jones") aiming at the same older adults that "Resurgence" hoped would be drawn by nostalgia for "ID4," and "The Shallows," the Blake Lively-vs.-a-shark action movie that does seem to deliver the summer movie thrills, at a fraction of the scale and budget.

"Shallows" did very well, opening at No. 4 with an estimated $16.7 million, about as much as the film cost to make, while "Jones" opened one spot below with an estimated $7.8 million, an underwhelming number, though at least the Civil War drama cost just $50 million to produce.

More important, the Fox film was opening against several established hits. "Finding Dory," going after the same broad, all-ages audience as "Resurgence," remained at No. 1 in its second week, with an estimated $73.2 million. Also in its second weekend, "Central Intelligence" held its share of the action crowd and continued to appeal to men and women alike to earn an estimated $18.4 million, good for third place. And "The Conjuring 2," out now for three weeks, came in a hair behind "Jones" with an estimated $7.7 million.
Next weekend, everyone's calendar will offer its own built-in advertisement for the "Independence Day" sequel, along with a four-day weekend. And aside from next week's "The Legend of Tarzan" and the "Ghostbusters" reboot two weeks later, there's not another galactic-scale action spectacle until "Star Trek Beyond" (pictured above) a month from now.

And there's also the foreign audience. To date, "Resurgence" has taken in an estimated $101.5 million abroad, for a global total of $143.1 million. That's not bad, but even if "Resurgence" continues to earn 71 percent of its grosses outside of North America, it'll still have to take in about $468 million overseas and $192 million here to break even.

That's about as likely as the government admitting it's holding captured aliens at Area 51.


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Final 'Star Trek Beyond' Trailer Goes Dark With Haunting Rihanna Song

"Star Trek Beyond" will be released in theaters on July 22, including the late Anton Yelchin (Pavel Chekov) in one of his final film appearances. Paramount Pictures released one last trailer, and the tone is much darker than the comedic first trailer you may recall watching back in December, set to the Beastie Boys's "Sabotage." This one focuses on Chris Pine's Captain James T. Kirk having a kind of existential crisis while also losing his ship and, potentially, his crew. The soundtrack is Rihanna's haunting new song, "Sledgehammer," which would've actually made a decent Bond theme, too.

Watch the trailer:

Here's the official synopsis:

"'Star Trek Beyond,' the highly anticipated next installment in the globally popular Star Trek franchise, created by Gene Roddenberry and reintroduced by J.J. Abrams in 2009, returns with director Justin Lin ("The Fast and the Furious" franchise) at the helm of this epic voyage of the U.S.S. Enterprise and her intrepid crew. In "Beyond," the Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a mysterious new enemy who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test."


This sequel to "Star Trek Into Darkness" comes with a script co-written by Simon Pegg, aka Scotty. "Beyond" co-stars Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, and Idris Elba. It opens July 22.

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8 Things You Should Know Before You See Disney's 'The BFG'

In "The BFG," a young orphan named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) spends a sleepless night wandering (as she does quite a bit) and catches a glimpse of a big friendly giant (Mark Rylance) roaming the town. Terrified, Ruby runs to her bed and pretends to go back to sleep, but the giant -- knowing that she's seen him -- takes her away to giant country for fear that his kind would be discovered by humans. Together, the pair form an unlikely friendship and a giant adventure ensues.

Curious yet?

Well, in anticipation of Steven Spielberg and Disney's adaptation of Roald Dahl's "The BFG," we've collected a few details about the movie and how the beloved story was brought to big-screen life.1. 'The BFG' Is Steven Spielberg's First Disney Film

This is the first time audiences will be seeing the Disney Castle logo alongside another iconic production house, Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. The director has always been drawn to working with Disney as a fan of Walt himself. "It was very brave of him to introduce that combination of darkness and light, which was so much Walt Disney's original signature in a lot of his earlier works like "Dumbo,' "Fantasia," "Snow White," and "Cinderella." Being able to be scary and redemptive at the same time, and teach a lesson, an enduring lesson, to everyone," Spielberg said of his inspiration, which stemmed from the first time he saw "Snow White."

2. There's a Magical 1982 Connection
While "The BFG" is released alongside the celebration of Roald Dahl's 100th birthday, the author shares another very important year with director Steven Spielberg. The same year "The BFG" was published, Spielberg released his own tale of transformative friendship, "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial." Melissa Mathison, who passed away during production, penned the scripts for both "E.T." and "The BFG." "Melissa was the first and only writer we thought of," said "BFG" producer Kathleen Kennedy. "Her gifts as a writer and her particular sensibility were essential to bringing Dahl's visionary tale to life."

3. It's All About Family
As Kennedy put it: "Steven has always gravitated towards stories about families, which is one of the reasons his films have resonated with so many people." This is key to how writer Mathison and Spielberg connected on their work. "Melissa took Dahl's book and did the most extraordinary but faithful translation, with a magic only Melissa possesses," Spielberg asserted, on reuniting with his friend. Before her death, Mathison shared her inspiration behind the heart of the film: "It is a very sweet relationship," she said of the BFG and the little girl, "but they actually start off a little combative and are suspicious of one another and even have their own little power struggles. But from the moment they have a plan and move forward as partners, there's just so much love between them. It's a wonderful little love story."4. The BFG Was Meant to Be
Playing the Big Friendly Giant is Spielberg's recent collaborator Mark Rylance ("Bridge of Spies," "Ready Player One"). Spielberg was confident in his choice, "Mark would go into complete character transformation when the camera was rolling," he said, "and while he is one of the greatest stage actors ever, it was the Mark in-between takes that really touched my heart. It was then that I knew he could do anything." This includes bringing the warmth and heart of the kindest giant. Not to mention the smallest. His brothers and the film's antagonists range in size from 39 to 52 feet tall. "The BFG is a vegetable-eating, peaceful giant," said Mathison. "Even though he detests Snozzcumber (Veggies, ew!), he eats it, almost as if contrition for the fact that his fellow giants eat children."

5. The Search for Sophie Was Intense
The search for the film's lead took six months. The production team looked at thousands of girls, but it was Ruby Barnhill, a school girl from Knutsford in Cheshire, England, who captured Spielberg's attention. "She is one of the strongest female characters I think I have ever had in one of my films," Spielberg said about working with Barnhill to bring Sophie to life.

The young actress also formed a deep bond with Rylance. "Ruby is a very imaginative young woman and just a complete natural actress," the actor said. "I learned from her really, as you do from all the young people. Her ability to take very complicated technical notes from Steven and make them natural is just miraculous, just remarkable."6. Combining Fantastical Worlds With the Real One Was the Real Magic
"I could have made 'The BFG' with actors on oversized sets using a digital blend, but I wanted the giants to look beyond human," Spielberg revealed while talking about using the Simulcam. "The only way I could capture magic with the giants was to animate them based on the performances of the actors I was casting and have the animation be super-photorealistic." To do this, he enlisted the help of Weta Digital's Joe Letteri to create a new process that could bring them as close to live-action shooting as possible. Combining live-action, performance capture, and real-life sets with Simulcam allowed them to use real actors working alongside each other in both a natural and digital landscape.

7. It's All About Eye Contact
To root the relationships in truth, Spielberg took painstaking lengths to ensure his performers could maintain eye contact during each performance. While working with Barnhill on a two-story scaffold, Rylance would stand with a performance capture camera in front of his face so that he was actually in the moment with his young costar. The same was true of the performance capture work with the BFG and his bullying brothers, played by Jemaine Clement ("What We Do In the Shadows") and Bill Hader ("Inside Out").

8. Dahl's Language Was Very Important
In order to keep the whimsy of Dahl's work intact, writer Melissa Mathison researched the author to get his voice right in the film's narrative, including his language of the giants: Gobblefunk. Created to give the BFG a unique voice, Dahl mashed the ordinary with the silly. After hearing Rylance take to the language quickly, the production realized how essential to the BFG the language truly was. "He wasn't just pulling things out of his hat," said Rylance. "The BFG has words that he uses for certain things and he repeats them in his life." Listen for gems like chidlers (children), frobscottle (carbonated soft drink where bubbles float downwards rather than upwards) and phizzwizards (happy dreams that are the BFG's favorite to collect and share with children). Aw.

Disney's "The BFG" opens July 1st.


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Watch Jesse Williams's Powerful Speech at 2016 BET Awards

2016 BET Awards - Show"Grey's Anatomy" star Jesse Williams (Dr. Jackson Avery) brought the house down Sunday night at the BET Awards. Williams was given with Humanitarian Award for his work in the black community, and after thanking his family, teachers, and wife, he offered an insightful, impassioned, scathing look at racism in modern society.

Watch the full speech video:

Here's a transcript of the speech:

"Now, this award, this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country, the activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do. All right? It's kind of basic mathematics. The more we learn about who we are and how we got here, the more we will mobilize.

Now, this is also in particular for the black women, in particular, who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can, and will, do better for you.

Now, what we've been doing is looking at the data. And we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day. So what's gonna happen is we're going to have equal rights and justice in our country, or we will restructure their function, and ours.

Yesterday would have been young Tamir Rice's 14th birthday. So I don't want to hear any more about how far we've come when paid public servants can pull a drive by on a 12-year-old playing alone in a park in broad daylight, killing him on television and going home to make a sandwich. Tell Rekia Boyd how it's so much better to live in 2012 than it is to live in 1612 or 1712. Tell that to Eric Garner. Tell that Sandra Bland. Tell that to Dorian Hunt.

Now, the thing is, though. All of us in here getting money? That alone isn't gonna stop this. Dedicating our lives—dedicating our lives to getting money just to give it right back, for someone's brand on our body. When we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies. And now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies.

There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of. There has been no job we haven't done. There's no tax they haven't levied against us. And we've paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here. You're free, they keep telling us. But she would have been alive if she hadn't acted so ... free. Freedom is always coming in the hereafter. But you know what, though? The hereafter is a hustle. We want it now.

And let's get a couple of things straight, just a little side note: The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That's not our job, all right? Stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance — for our resistance — then you'd better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for black people, then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.

We've been floating this country on credit for centuries. And we're done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment, like oil, black gold. Ghettoizing and demeaning our creations, then stealing them, gentrifying our genius, and then trying us on like costumes, before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit.

The thing is though, the thing is, that just because we're magic doesn't mean we're not real. Thank you."


Justin Timberlake ended up facing backlash for his response to the speech; he first tweeted that he was inspired by it, then responded to someone who challenged him on appropriating African-American culture and disrespecting Janet Jackson. JT apologized for his (pretty patronizing) response, realizing he probably shouldn't have replied at all.

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