It's rumored to be the next great comedy. This summer's The 40-Year Old Virgin or Wedding Crashers.
So we figured the earlier we could post photos of Knocked Up for readers to enjoy, the more excited you'll get for the movie to hit theaters on June 1.
With that in mind, try not to at least smile at these pictures of the film's stars, Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen:
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"I've never been more athletic in my life," Shia LaBeouf told MTV News, referring to his early training for Indiana Jones 4, and not, as one might have guessed, his nimbleness at dodging questions regarding the eagerly anticipated flick.
"We haven't gotten to any rehearsals [yet]," he said, indicating that the film will start shooting in June. "It's just been a lot of stunt rehearsals and weapons training."
Wearing a t-shirt and shorts, Shia looked buffer than usual, sporting greased back hair more reminiscent of Gordon Gekko than Harrison Ford. This would seem to jibe with leaked news posted earlier this morning that said Shia will play a biker in the upcoming sequel. The actor was mum on the topic, announcing of his wardrobe only that his character won't "be wearing a fedora [in the film]."
It's a veil of secrecy that starts at the top, he affirmed, and one he aims to uphold without any objection.
"You don't make any demands to Steven Spielberg. You say âOh yeah, alright great, that sounds like a good thing to me'," he proclaimed. "Of course, you have to find your voice as the artist. You're the tool, and you gotta have some say. [But] I don't imagine I'll be questioning anything he says. It's [not] very easy to say, âYou know Steven, I don't think that's correct. I think I should do it this way.'"
Either way, the 20-year-old star knows he'll be a focal point of fan criticism. "Nobody expects anything from that film," he joked, eyes rolling.
It's one of the more talked about parts in recent memory: Heath Ledger will be reprising the role made so famous by Jack Nicholson in the original Batman movie.
Now, we're uncovered the first photo of Ledger as The Joker in the upcoming movie, The Dark Knight:
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are teaming to play New York police investigators hunting a serial killer in Jon Avnet's $60 million thriller Righteous Kill for Avi Lerner's Millennium Films and Emmett/Furla Films.
The independently financed feature written by Russell Gewirtz (Inside Man, the upcoming Labyrinth) unites the longtime friends on screen for some 90% of the film -- unlike their one shared scene in Michael Mann's Heat and no shared scenes in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II.
"You see those two icons onscreen together for virtually the whole film," Lerner said at his Festival de Cannes offices.
"(Something) never seen before in the history of cinema. It's one of the hardest deals we've ever done to put these two actors together."
Lerner and Randall Emmett closed negotiations on the CAA-packaged project late Thursday morning during the festival.
Emmett said the actors had long been seeking a project on which to work together and that he acted as a catalyst to get the duo together. Lerner talked to producer Art Linson and De Niro, now filming the Warner Bros. Hollywood comedy What Just Happened? to help move the new project along.
Righteous Kill begins a two-month shoot in Connecticut and New York on Aug. 6, taking advantage of each state's tax incentive programs.
First he battled Ra's Al Ghul and The Scarecrow - and then we saw him heading off to take down The Joker. Now, what kind of Gamble is coming the way of Batman?
MTV News has learned that rapper/actor David Banner auditioned this week for a role in The Dark Knight, the super-secretive sequel to 2005's Batman Begins. According to the beefy Black Snake Moan supporting actor, he would play a villain named "Gamble," another criminal to help fill out the rogue ranks alongside Heath Ledger's Joker.
Banner, a long-time comic book fan who named himself after the main character in the TV version of "The Incredible Hulk," could barely contain his excitement when MTV caught up with him in South Central Los Angeles on Wednesday.
The star was in town to film a cameo for the music video to "International Players Anthem," a track by UGK featuring OutKast.
After several years of making his Hollywood aspirations known, the role of Gamble could mark a big step in Banner's career in front of the camera. The Southern-born "Play" star told us that he was so excited to read for the filmmakers, in fact, that he even shaved off his trademark beard to look more appropriate for the part.
Marvel Comics living legend Stan Lee has chimed in with his opinion regarding the next installment of the Spider-Man franchise.
In an interview with Gerrad Hall of ReelzChannel's Dailies, Lee suggested that The Lizard would be the logical choice as the next villain to take on the webslinger in Spider-Man 4.
According to Marvel lore, The Lizard was once a highly skilled Army surgeon named Curt Connors.
Connors, who had lost an arm to a grenade blast while attending to an injured soldier, inadvertently transformed into a reptilian beast after ingesting a formula designed to regenerate his missing limb.
The movie doesn't hit theaters until July 2008. But it's never too early to get excited about The Dark Knight.
Christian Bale, we're glad to report, is back as Bruce Wayne/Batman. And this next installment of the Batman franchise will focus on two key villains in the story:
1. The Joker (played by Heath Ledger)
2. Two-Face (played by Aaron Eckhart)
We can't wait. Here's a promotional image from the upcoming blockbuster:Â
After being a major force behind just about every successful Marvel comic brought to the big screen, what's left for mega producer Avi Arad to get excited about?
"Magneto," he insisted. "I love it!"
He's referring, of course, to the diabolical anti-hero (played by Ian McKellen) in X-Men. His actions were followed through two sequels, but it's in Magneto that the character will finally get the origin story he so richly deserves, Arad said.
"Think of meeting him in [the first X-Men movie] as a young boy in a concentration camp. What happens to his life after the war?" he teased of the film's plot. Arad quickly answered his own question, telling MTV News that the flick will follow Magneto discovering "if [his powers are] real or not and the whole journey of [his] survival as a young man."
Directed and co-written by Batman Begins scribe David Goyer, the prequel has all sorts "of opportunities for the kind of things that [will] make [it] interesting," Arad contended, including a look at his early friendship with and ultimate rift from Charles Xavier, the mutant who would later become the leader of the X-Men.
Because Magneto is already the head of the militant mutant organization known as The Brotherhood in the first film, will the prequel detail the steps he takes to form that alliance, perhaps highlighting such mutants as Sabertooth and Rebecca Romijn's Mystique?
"[Some] amazing surprises that happen in his life [are in store]," Arad said.
While Arad searches for an actor to play the young Magneto, he can only hope the casting will match that of Robert Downey Jr., who Arad says is a perfect fit to play Tony Stark/Iron Man.
"I think he is Tony. He is cool, he is quick, he is sexy," Arad said in praise of his lead actor. "Tony Stark was this guy who could get away with anything. He had this dual life and you need an amazing actor to play this dual character without superpowers. You have to be two men with one heart."
Iron Man arrives in theaters next May, while Magneto aims for a 2009 release.
28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later, was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.
As MTV reports, he somehow managed the difficult task of living up to - and standing apart from - the influential first film in the budding franchise. The music channel's movie blog interviewed him and we've recapped it below:
MTV: How did [original director] Danny Boyle come to select you to make this?
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo: Danny watched my first feature, "Intacto," and he liked it a lot. He thought, this is the perfect director to make the movie. When I received the invitation to do it, I was honored, but at the same time I was concerned. English is not my first language and I didn't even know London too much. And in this movie London is a big character. I was questioning myself if I was the proper filmmaker to do it, but they insisted. They wanted something new and freshâ¦and that was my approach. I'm really thankful of the freedom I got from the beginning. It's so rare when it comes to these kinds of movies.
MTV: Can you make a genre film like this especially personal to you?
Fresnadillo: To be honest, I feel like this movie is very personal. The concept of an infection and these people trying to survive being surrounded by this terrible menace is a concept I love. I love the idea of the family as a kind of heart to the story, but they are a heart in trouble. From the beginning you see this man abandoning his wife and you realize that this man is going to suffer with that. Sometimes guilt is another infection, another disease.
MTV: I understand Danny shot some second-unit on the opening sequence?
Fresnadillo: Yes. He came for two days to help us. It was such an honor. I'm so pleased that Danny did that because when I was showing him the shots and storyboards he was so passionate about it and told me, "Please, let me help you with this." He showed his generosity with that.
MTV: It's an especially dramatic and harrowing sequence that really sets the tone for the rest of the film.
Fresnadillo: To me, it's kind of a statement for the rest of the movie. You can find all the elements that the story is going to develop later on. It's a kind of a map to me.
MTV: How important do you think realism is to genre stories like this?
Fresnadillo: This kind of apocalyptic thriller has to feel real and that was my approach, to try to bring realism to the movie. I think the more real the better the horror. I think these days when you're dealing with these apocalyptic visions it makes sense to show something real. We're living in a difficult time now and in these kinds of movies it's a good thing to think about it and the danger we're surrounded by.
MTV: The ending of the film certainly leaves room for a sequel.
Fresnadillo: I don't know if somebody is going to make it. When I did that ending, to me it made sense to the plot of the story. It's the curse of the family and the lost war with the infection. Everybody tries to survive including the virus. It's an ending that opens a door which is something that I love.
MTV: Would you want to direct another chapter?
Fresnadillo: I think it's good when there are fresh ideas in the same way that Danny selected me. I would be so happy if someone did another chapter because it means this one worked.
Nicolas Cage is set to play Chicago crime boss Al Capone in The Untouchables: Capone Rising.
Cage will reteam with Snake Eyes director Brian DePalma for the project, playing a younger version of the character made famous by Robert DeNiro. Capone Rising is a prequel to DePalma's 1987 classic The Untouchables, and will revolve around the early dealings between Capone and Irish cop Jimmy Malone, a role that earned an Oscar for Sean Connery.
Principal photography on the high-profile flick will begin in October, 21 years after its predecessor was filmed. No word yet on whether the temporary Capone Rising title will be scrapped, following the chilly reponse audiences gave to February's Hannibal Rising prequel.
Based on the classic 50's/60's TV drama, The Untouchables was a box office and critical smash that announced Kevin Costner as a leading man, re-launched the career of Connery, and showed the world that you should never turn your back on DeNiro when he's holding a baseball bat.
