J.J. Abrams confirms that he wants Benicio del Toro to play the villain in the Star Trek sequel!

For old time's sake, we've got one last absolutely insane The Dark Knight Rises casting rumor... and it's a doozy. The Prometheus cast seems to disagree about whether this is an Alien movie. Tom Hiddleston reveals his Hulk-related Avengers injuries.

All that plus Kenneth Branagh says Patty Jenkins is the right choice to direct Thor 2, a synopsis of the next The Walking Dead reveals a major twist, Viggo Mortensen doesn't think he'll be back for The Hobbit, a World War Z cast member explains her character, and still more from the Doctor Who Christmas special!

Stuff yourself with some Turkey Day spoilers starting... NOW!

Top image from The Dark Knight Rises.

The Dark Knight Rises

Here's a silly and probably false but admittedly still intriguing rumor - someone claims to have taken a photo of an actor's trailer from the movie set that reads "E. PAGE - 'B. GORDON'", which conceivably means Ellen Page is playing Barbara Gordon. About all you can say in favor of this is that this Page did work with Christopher Nolan on Inception, and he does like working with alumni of his previous films, and this is maybe a brief cameo that could otherwise be kept secret.

Of course, this all falls apart if you think about it for more than a second. Even if we haven't learned everything about what goes on in this movie — it still isn't confirmed that Marion Cotillard is actually playing Talia al Ghul, although nearly everyone assumes that's the case at this point — we do know pretty much everyone who is in the cast, and any later major casting additions like Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Cotillard were rumored for months before they actually became official. Plus, you can check out the photo at the link, and it's the sort of thing that could be faked by someone with even basic PhotoShop experience. Add in that Ellen Page has been shooting another movie for the past month, and according to at least one commenter at the link, the New York set doesn't even have actor's trailers... well, I'd say there's almost certainly nothing to this. Although if we are casting random alums of previous Christopher Nolan projects, I have some fun cameos in mind for Guy Pearce and David Bowie. [Dark Knight Rises Rumors]

Gary Oldman explains the peculiarities of working with the IMAX cameras:

Well we shot, obviously Wally Pfister [the director of photography] and Chris [Nolan] shoot film. The IMAX camera, it's a strange thing. There's only so much film that you can put through the gate, you get two takes from a roll I guess. The thing is, it's very loud. It's a very noisy piece of equipment and it's quite cumbersome, it's quite a large — you don't hold an IMAX camera, I mean you can steadicam it. But of course you have to loop, you have to dub everything you do on the IMAX because you can't hear the dialogue."

He revealed a large portion of the film was shot in IMAX, far more so than in The Dark Knight, though presumably it's still mostly the action scenes that were shot this way. [Collider]

The Avengers

While describing various injuries from the shoot, Tom Hiddleston hints at the details of a fight between the Hulk and Loki:

"It's like being in a rugby team. We used to pull up our shirts with me saying ‘Look at the size of this bruise on my hip' and then Chris Evans pulling down his trousers going, ‘Dude, you think that's bad – look at my ass.' The worst was I smashed my elbow during a tête-à-tête with Mark Ruffalo's Incredible Hulk. It really hurt."


Thor 2

Thor director Kenneth Branagh praises his successor, Monster director Patty Jenkins:

I think it's a great choice and I'm really excited about that, and I think Marvel have always been so imaginative about the way they match these projects with directors who may have very particular things to bring to them but may not be superficially a natural kind of fit. But my gut tells me this is a tremendous choice, so I'm very excited. I'm also thrilled that the second movie is being made, and I just think her in combination with those actors is such a terrific thing. And I think she'll get on in the way that I did with the Marvel guys, which was a very happy, creative collaboration.


Star Trek 2

Director J.J. Abrams confirmed that he's talking to Benicio del Toro about playing a villain, but that's about all he was willing to reveal:

"Well, we're just in negotiations, we're in discussions. "It's not even negotiations - just in discussion. But I would love to work with him. I've wanted to work with him for years, and this felt like a good opportunity. It's too early to talk about what the role is, but he's such an amazing actor. He's so versatile. He could sort of do anything. Except play Uhura. I wouldn't buy that."

He did however say that the character in question would be revealed just as soon as an actor is cast, and Abrams is hopeful that del Toro will indeed play the part. [MTV Movies Blog]

The movie is reportedly set to film in 3D for a release date of May 17, 2013. [Deadline]

First movie composer Michael Giacchino has confirmed that he will be back to score the sequel, though he doesn't know much of anything about what direction the sequel will head in. [ComingSoon.net]


We've already seen the photos from the Entertainment Weekly article on Ridley Scott's return to hard science fiction, now it's time for some key quotes. Just to make everything clear as mud, Michael Fassbender says "There's definitely a link to Alien... There's creatures in it that you'll recognize," while Charlize Theron says, "I think people should really let go of the idea that it's an Alien film." Of course, Fassbender may be referring to some other creatures we might recognize, while Theron might mean that more in a philosophical sense that this will depart from the style of previous Alien movies, even if the Xenomorphs themselves do put in some manner of appearance. Your guess is as good as mine at this point. [EW]


Despite recent reports that Gary Oldman had passed on the part of the Colonel and the studio had moved on to Ken Watanabe, Oldman continues to say in interviews that he hasn't made any decisions yet:

"Rumor. They've approached me, we've talked about it, nothing has been confirmed."


World War Z

Young actress Abigail Hargrove describes her character, Rachel Lane:

"I did read the book first, but my character isn't in the book. There's now me, my little sister and my mom in the movie... I play Rachel Lane in this movie. She's kind of like a good kid, but she's sort of acting a little bit mean in it. She doesn't talk that much because she's shock because of the zombies and all that stuff everywhere."


The Hobbit

Viggo Mortensen says the possibility of appearing as Aragorn was discussed, particularly for the bridging sequences with Frodo and Gandalf that take place around the time of Lord of the Rings, but at this point he doubts he will be involved:

At one point, the producers asked if I would do it and I said sure if Aragorn is supposed to be in the bridge story because he's not in The Hobbit. I would rather do it than see someone else do it, but I've never been asked and they're shooting the movie. I'm not in it unless it there is some last-minute plan they have, but I thought I would have heard of it by now. Orlando Bloom and Cate Blanchett shot something, but they're elves and don't change as rapidly. As you know, Aragorn is half elf and also lives a couple hundred years or more and he could be in a bridge, but I have to assume it isn't going to happen.


Evil Dead Reboot

The Walking Dead makeup specialist Greg Nicotero says he would love to work on the project, in the process revealing the film's potential shooting location:

"We would love to do [that project]. I believe they might be shooting in New Zealand, so that might be prohibitive. I know they would love to have us and I know we'd love to do it, I just don't know where it's going to go. I spoke to [producer] Rob [Tapert] and said, with the stuff we're doing on The Walking Dead, I can only imagine how cool it would be to do something with the make-up would be so much fun."


Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Fright Night writer Marti Noxon gives her take why this project — which has already gone through three directors and is looking for a fourth, all without formally casting a single person — is having so much trouble:

That's a really good question and I really can't say because my experience with Lionsgate was always great. They are committed to doing it and really smart and my experience with Craig [Gillespie] was, again, great. Everybody seemed very pleased with where the script ended up, so it's really a little baffling. I would say it probably, in my suspicions, has to do with the marketplace. It's very hard to sell a comedy-horror concept. As much as it's already pre-sold and popular much in the same way Fright Night was, it's still a little risky. At the same time, you get a success like Zombieland, but then something will come along that makes people nervous again, so I feel like there's a little bit of that problem, particularly on the casting side. It's hard to find an actress who is super hot because they might not be inclined to take a risk on something that has a 70/30% chance of working, you know? I think it's more to do with the marketplace than the logistics of the actual project.


Red Dawn

The long-delayed, not particularly long-awaited remake that is mainly notable for featuring Chinese soldiers digitally transformed into North Korean soldiers and a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth has finally set a release date: November 2, 2012. Probably still only about even odds that it actually comes out then, but still. [ComingSoon.net]

Doctor Who

Here's a more complete synopsis for this year's Christmas special, "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe", the first part of which probably reveals just why the Doctor was walking around in a huge silver spacesuit and being helped into his TARDIS in some recent set photos:

It's Christmas Eve, 1938, when Madge Arwell comes to the aid of an injured Spaceman Angel as she cycles home, in this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special, starring Matt Smith as the Doctor.




[Life, Doctor Who, and Combom]

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The BBC has released still more promo photos for the special. [Life, Doctor Who, and Combom]

Game of Thrones


Here's a behind-the-scenes photo from the current filming of season two, which shows Emilia Clarke in costume in front of what appears to be the city of Qarth. [James_Hibberd on yfrog]

The Walking Dead

There's an extremely detailed summary of the midseason finale, "Pretty Much Dead Already", supposedly leaked by an employee of FX UK, which airs the show in Britain. You can read the whole thing at the link, but here's the second half, which features a major revelation about one of the season's big mysteries in the final paragraph:


Shane sees the snared walkers and goes berserk. He yells at Rick and Hershel as they guide the walkers towards the barn, with the rest of the group and people in the farm looking on. He pulls his sidearm and unloads it in the chest of one of the walkers, demanding to know "Could someone who's alive just take that? Why is it still coming?" Hershel has no answer.


The link also includes a screencap, supposedly from episode seven, that seemingly bears out the big reveal. [Dancing Silhouettes]

Many members of the cast reportedly wanted to leave the show in the wake of showrunner Frank Darabont being fired, and one cast member reportedly got her wish and was released from her contract... except, so this rumors goes, the person then changed his her mind, and it's unclear whether he or she will stay or leave. So... not much to go on here, and nothing may ultimately come of it, but I suppose this increases the odds that a main character will die or otherwise leave the show before season's end. [TV Line]

Terra Nova

Here's a sneak peek at episode nine, "Now You See Me", which airs next Monday.


Executive producer Chris Fedak discusses the fallout of Casey's incarceration:

"You're going to get that prison episode you always knew you wanted. It's a big deal. One of the things that we've always thought about is when our characters do stuff like shoot a bunch of bad guys, they're killing people. That is, they are breaking the law. So we wanted to see, in the nature of making Carmichael Industries about the CIA and not giving our guys a Get Out of Jail Free card, we wanted to deal with that. You'll see next week, they're going to have to pay the piper."

And he also talks ups the Christmas episode:

"The Christmas episode works almost as a finale in its own right for the first half of the season. For all the characters, there's a lot."


Here's a short synopsis for episode six, "Chuck vs. the Curse":

Chuck and Sarah race to take down a computer virus; Ellie and Awesome's date takes a dark turn; Morgan must recover Chuck's P.A.N.T.S.


Once Upon a Time

Here's a sneak peek at this Sunday's episode, "That Still Small Voice."

Raphael Sbarge discusses his two characters, Jiminy Cricket and his real-world alter ego Archie:

The writers use [Storybrook] as a springboard into the story of how Jiminy Cricket came to be, which is so delightful because it gives us such imaginative ways of re-examining who these people are... You'll have to see how it affects you, but it knocked me out. Frankly, it made me weep because what they came up with is so lovely and magical and delightful. There's something about what our writers wrote, which is essentially that. Archie didn't become a conscience by, essentially, being right out of the box a good guy. He was tested and is tested terrible on what doing the right thing means. That's what's so interesting about it.



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Here are some promo photos for episode five, "Danse Macabre," airing December 9. [SpoilerTV]

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And here are some for another upcoming episode, "The Three Bad Wolves." There's some uncertainty whether this is the sixth or seventh episode. [SpoilerTV]

American Horror Story

Episode eleven will reportedly be called "Afterbirth." [SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Gordon Jackson and Charlie Jane Anders.