Ben Stiller wrote, directed, produced and starred in Tropic Thunder. Did the star mind all the work?

He was recently asked about it by MoviesOnline. Here's Stiller's reply:

The hardest scene for me in the movie was the scene after the action sequence in the beginning. Strangely, like the scene in the movie, it doesn’t really stand out as looking that complicated, but just shooting the movie crew and shooting the reveal of the movie set.

I think it was the combination of having these fake arms on and my hands were tied behind my back and I was playing an actor who was trying to tell the director to cut and the director was saying “Don’t cut” but I was the director in real life.

It was very confusing and there was a lot going on and there were so many people in the scene. The action stuff was so specific and we’d spent so many months prepping it with storyboards and pre-viz and all that stuff gets broken down because it has to.

Ben Stiller takes on the role of Tugg Speedman in Tropic Thunder.

But then when we got to this scene where we had to shoot a movie set itself, that was really the most complicated, strangely, and most frustrating. I was really surprised at how hard that was. In general, the action stuff to me was really fun to do because you can actually take time with it and it’s very painstaking, but you get to prep every single shot and you do it one shot at a time. While the other stuff that’s more free form, you kind of have to figure it out as you go along.

When you’ve got five or six actors in every scene too, there’s a lot of coverage with the camera. You’ve got to shoot everybody. We had a really good time though and we had really good time to prepare the movie. I had six months or so.

And then I got out there for a couple of weeks with the actors rehearsing with the cameraman and we shot angles and did a lot of pre-work on those scenes so that when we got out to shooting them we knew basically how we were approaching it, because I felt like I needed to do that if I was going to be acting in the scenes.

Tom Cruise is rumored to be joining the comedy Food Fight.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the controversial actor would portray the pary of a snooty New York chef who is forced to cook meals at a school cafeteria.

Cruise's decision to enter into the comedy genre follows his much buzzed-about performance in Tropic Thunder. In the movie, opening this week, he plays a fat, bald, over-the-top studio exec. The role is receiving rave reviews.

Scarlett Johansson has a pair of movies coming out. Look for her in Vicky Cristina Barcelona later this week and The Spirit on Christmas.

The gorgeous actress spoke to Moviehole.net about both films:

Do you identify with your character in Vicky Cristina Barcelona?
Johansson: I think that I can identify with certain aspects of her philosophy, her sort of 'Seize The Day' attitude and her willingness to let life kind of happen in front of her, and just take a chance and live, live, live, that kind of attitude/ I think that's, I do, I can certainly appreciate that part of her philosophy but we're different, we have our differences as well.

Can you talk about how it was working with such a steamy scene with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem?
Johansson: It's funny because people are so conservative I mean it's amazing, they really are and when you see the film these characters fall in love and people that fall in love are intimate, and also when you're shooting there's like sixty grown men eating salami sandwiches, kind of waiting for when they can get ready.

You just think 'God are we rolling', because there's like trays of food being passed, oh we are rolling, okay (laughter) you know, nobody cares when you're doing it, of course, it's like your day at work and this is part of the story and then of course you know people get wind and they get excited because they associate like two women who wear gowns at an award show and like gosh, the possibilities, you know? (laughter). But it's ridiculous, of course I go home at the end of the day and I prepare for the next day, it's not like I sat at home.

What was it like working with Frank Miller on The Spirit and also dealing with all of the green screens that you obviously had to do on that?
Johansson: Frank, I loved working with Frank, he's wonderful, he's such a visionary, and so, he's just fantastic, he would come on set and almost lead the whole crew into some kind of presentation. He would draw the storyboard and kind of lead us, he's a visionary, he really is, and it was exciting, I mean it's very exciting to do that, cause everybody disperses, we all know what we're going to do, and he's so excited about the characters, that's his thing, right?

He like creates these fantastic characters and some of them are just so rotten you know, and none of his characters are like so gray, it's like none of us are heroes, they're all kind of gray and I love that.

As previously announced, Robert Downey Jr. will take a break from the iconic role of Tony Stark to take on another iconic part in his next movie: Sherlock Holmes.

The actor spoke to MoviesOnline about the project:

It’s set in 1891. The original dossier of Sherlock Holmes, in additional to everything we know, was also that he was a bare knuckle boxer and a master of Baritsu which is a very nebulous martial art which I love and so we’re going to punch up what was missing from all the Sherlock Holmes we’d seen which is the fact there were these huge chase and action sequences that occurred and were probably just a little too expensive to do with Basil Rathbone for TV.

So we’re going to really bring up the scale of it and make it fun and accessible. I’ve seen a lot of kid-friendly movies and a lot of super dark movies all come out and do well this summer and I think we need less darkness and more entertainment. So I’m hoping we can do a very entertaining and accessible movie.

Can you envision Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes?

The animated, upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars opens this week, providing audiences another opportunity to pal around with old friends such as Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and R2-D2.

However, those that voices those characters in past Star Wars films won't be part of the project. How come? MTV went to director George Lucas for the answer.

When we decided to do the feature, we went back to the actors and said, ‘Look, we’re doing a feature. Would you like to do the voice? Could you come in a month?’ Some of them were all over the world. It was hard to get all the actors that would be off on set.

You need people available every week. [Also] you can’t really afford multi-million dollar actors to do a television series. Those guys make more during their coffee break.

Here's a preview of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Not the official trailer, that's not out yet.

But take an inside look at Channing Tatum and other cast members below:

Want more speculation on who the next Batman villain might be in the inevitable follow-up to The Dark Knight?

A trio of comic book experts have weighed in with their opinions. To wit:

David Goyer (Batman Begins co-writer): "There's no reason why we necessarily have to use the same three or four that are still around. I mean, Batman's got a wide variety, [a] rogues' gallery. Certainly we used two in the first movie that hadn't been in the films before."

Dan DiDio (DC Comics Executive Editor): "Characters like Catwoman, Riddler, and Hugo Strange make sense, because they're counterpoints to Batman's psychosis and fears. The Joker creates chaos. Two-Face shows the duality of the Batman-Bruce Wayne relationship, and how Batman's found peace with that duality. Batman searches for answers, and the Riddler has questions. Batman is driven, and Catwoman is sexual. They play well against each other and challenge aspects of what makes a hero."

Steve Niles (30 Days of Night creator): "I'd like to see Catwoman over the Penguin. Not as a prostitute, and not as the Tim Burton version — what, cats sniffed her back to life? — but perhaps the Adam Hughes design, with the goggles. That's very realistic. I can imagine her in street clothes that are designed just right. I also like the idea of them creating villains just for the movies."

Whoever is the next Batman villain, he or she will have a difficult role to follow.

We already announced that the Iron Man DVD would hit stores on September 30.

Now, The Hollywood Reporter is supplying us with more information about the a two-disc "Ultimate Edition" of the movie on DVD and Blu-ray. Each includes a seven-part making-of documentary, along with a six-part feature on the origins of the classic comic book hero.

Other extras included are:

• A documentary on the film's visual effects;
  
• Robert Downey Jr.'s original screen test;
  
• Deleted and extended scenes;
• A photo gallery of concept art;
  
• Behind-the-scenes images on the set.

Moreover, the Blu-ray ediiton offers additional featurues, including a "Hall of Armor" that lets viewers zoom in on any of the three Iron Man suits, or Iron Monger, and then activate digital 3-D schematics to check out every weapon.

Sounds pretty darn cool.

Screenwriter Justin Marks recently talked about the upcoming video game adaptation of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.

Here's an excerpt of what he had to say:

Well the guy who wrote it, Steven E. de Souza was the writer on Die Hard, and directed it [the 1994 Street Fighter movie] too, I think it was just a function of what you see with movies like Batman and Robin opposed to Batman Begins, the creators of the former had a different Batman experience when they were young the 60’s TV show, and now in the Nolen era, the influence are things like Millar’s The Dark Knight Returns, and so that example is taken into the stratosphere.

While I'm definitely not comparing Street Fighter to Batman Begins, I grew up with the Street Fighter games, and I don't see them as cheesy or funny, but as serious characters that deserve to be explored in their own right.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li comes out on February 27, 2009.

Our thanks to TrekMovie.com for revealing the latest Star Trek movie poster.

This new promotional image combines photos of of John Cho (Sulu), Simon Pegg (Scotty), Karl Urban (McCoy) and Anton Yelchin (Cheko). It's a must-see for all Trekkies...