Star Wars Closing In On Avatar, Firestorm, Godzilla Exposed and Star Trek Memories

'The Force Awakens' Barreling Toward 'Avatar' Record

Having vanquished Titanic and Jurassic World, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has set its sights on Avatar.

The space opera sequel is moving up the all-time domestic box office charts at a record clip and now is poised to overtake those pointy eared blue aliens as the top grossing film in history. Avatar earned $760.5 million during its stateside run and Star Wars: The Force Awakens has generated $740.4 million domestically after picking up $88.3 million over New Year’s weekend. It should take the crown from Avatar early next week.

Globally, Star Wars: The Force Awakens ranks as the sixth highest-grossing film in history, having earned $1.5 billion worldwide. It should pass Furious 7 and Marvel’s The Avengers to become the fourth biggest film in history in the coming days. The film will get a big shot in the arm next week when it premieres in China, the world’s second biggest market for film. Depending on how enthusiastically it is received in the People’s Republic, The Force Awakens could shoot past Avatar’s record $2.8 billion global haul.

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The Flash: Earth-2’s Firestorm Revealed

The highly anticipated return of The Flash season 2 will change the face of Central City and complicate the life of Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) even further than we’ve already seen. The introduction of Earth-2 has brought a fierce new enemy with the arrival of Zoom, and a recent promo gives us a look at Caitlin Snow’s (Danielle Panabaker) Killer Frost and a glimpse at the returning Reverse-Flash.

Season 1 ended with Firestorm — Ronnie Raymond (Robbie Amell) and Martin Stein (Victor Garber) — saving the city, with Ronnie sacrificing himself in the process. Since then, we’ve met the new half of Firestorm in Jefferson “Jax” Jackson (Franz Drameh), who had to dig deep to prove to himself that he had a hero inside him. Still, Robbie Amell has promised that we’d see him again.

Now we might have an idea of how we’ll be seeing Amell’s Ronnie Raymond as his superhero alter ego. Twitter user @canadagraphs (via CBM) shared an image of Robbie Amell in a notably different Firestorm costume.

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TOHO'S NEW "GODZILLA RESURGENCE" EXPOSED
Private Photos Taken at Toho Studios Leaked!
By AUGUST RAGONE

Earlier today, a number of low-res images began appearing on Twitter and Facebook featuring shots taken of the "monster suit" from Toho's upcoming production of GODZILLA RESURGENCE, directed by Hideaki Anno (Evangelion) and Shinji Higuchi (Attack on Titan), bowing this coming July 29th in Japan.

This will probably be the most divisive Godzilla design since Patrick Tatapolous' deviation for the 1998 Roland Emmerich debacle. Anno's conceit recalls the initial concept for Godzilla by Ishiro Honda, as a literal victim of the H-Bomb — his scales resembling keloid scars — and may not be his only form.

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GENE RODDENBERRY'S WAGON TRAIN TO 'STAR TREK'

The phones began ringing in Aurora, Colorado, Friday morning at Star Trek: The Official Fan Club—250 calls in the first few hours. “We’ve had people breaking down on the phone crying,” says president Dan Madsen. “Their lives are so influenced by him that they can’t imagine the world without him. But Gene’s creation will live long and prosper long after he’s gone.” If you need to be told that “Gene” is Gene Roddenberry, who died last week at 70, if the words “Live long and prosper” don’t evoke the image of his pointy-eared brainchild Spock giving that splay-fingered Vulcan valediction—and if you’re confusing Mr. Spock with Dr. Spock—you’re clearly no Trekker. Gene Roddenberry would’ve had hope for you anyway.

When he launched Star Trek in 1966, its high concept (no one called it that) was “Wagon Train to the Stars”: a Western in space. Roddenberry’s model, though, was Gulliver’s Travels: social, political, even philosophical commentary disguised as adventure. Yet instead of Swift’s savage indignation, Roddenberry had an unsentimental optimism. His earthlings of the future were the same old unstable compounds of good and evil, but they hadn’t destroyed themselves, and darned if they’d let ornery aliens push them or anybody else around. Good to hear, especially with Vietnam and the arms race going on. The Original Series only lasted three seasons: It aired opposite Bewitched and My Three Sons, then moved to Friday night, opposite teenage fans’ dates and parties. But those 79 episodes are still syndicated to some 200 stations, and they’ve sold more than a billion dollars’ worth of books, videos and paraphernalia. The five Star Trek movies have grossed $400 million; a sixth is due in December. And the hit series Star Trek: The Next Generation, now in its fifth season, beams down into 12 million households.

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Hideaki Anno Designs The Biggest Godzilla In History For 'Shin Godzilla'

Toho Opens Official Website for 2016 "Shin Godzilla" Film

From Crunchyroll by Mikikazu Komatsu

Toho today opens the official website for the upcoming new Godzilla film scheduled for Summer of 2016, announcing its official title Shin Godzilla and three main cast. It will be the first Japanese Godzilla film in 12 years since Ryuhei Kitamura's box office failure Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004.

See Also: Monster Zero - Godzilla, Rodan, King Ghidorah - Retro Style Lobby Card Print

The new film is co-directed by Hideaki Anno (Evangellion) as chief director and Shinji Higuchi (Heisei Gamera series, Attack on Titan) as director. Anno provides the screenplay and Higuchi also serves as special effects director. According to the executive producer Akihiro Yamaguchi, the "Shin" is named by Anno, and can stand for "新 (new)," "真 (true)," or "神 (god)." It is easy to point out the similarity with Anno's yet-released anime film Shin Evangelion, the final fourth chapter of the Rebuild film series.

While the details of its story is unknown, 38-year-old Hiromi Hasegawa and 44-year-old Yutaka Takenouchi are cast as government officials, and 28-year-old Satomi Ishihara plays an American agent. Both Hasegawa and Ishihara recently performed in Higuchi's two-part live-action film adaptation of the mega hit manga series Attack on Titan; Hasegawa portrayed an original character for the film, Shikishima, and Ishihara as Zoë Hange.

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The visual of the new Godzilla is designed by Anno, and its size is expected to be the largest in the 60-year-old franchise, much bigger than the recent one appeared in the Gareth Edwards-directed American film in 2014, which was 108 meter tall. The shooting has already begun in August, and is scheduled to be finished by the end of October.

Recomended: Production of Toho’s ‘Godzilla 2016’ Now Under Way - and - Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi to Direct ‘Godzilla 2016′

Production of Toho’s ‘Godzilla 2016’ Now Under Way

From Variety via Yahoo! Movies

Production has started on “Godzilla 2016,” the working title of Toho’s new film featuring the iconic fire-breathing monster, its first since 2004.

Toho has to yet to formally announce the start of shooting, though a growing accumulation of evidence points that way.

See Also: Monster Zero - Godzilla, Rodan, King Ghidorah - Retro Style Lobby Card Print

The film continues to be penciled in for a summer 2016 release through the Toho chain. And the company has launched a “Godzilla 2016” web page.

A video of “Godzilla 2016” extras running through the streets near Tokyo’s Kamata Station on Sept. 6 as well as photos of another extra stampede at Yokohama’s Yokodai Station posted on Facebook on Sept. 13 have been credited to Gomaru Island, a community of monster movie fans tracking the film’s production.

The movie was green-lighted by the company in December last year in response to the global success of the Gareth Evans directed Hollywood version, which has also gone into sequel for Warner Bros. At the time, Toho producer Taichi Ueda, told the press “the time has come for Japan to make a film that will not lose to Hollywood.”

Later, in April, Toho announced that Hideaki Anno, best known for his work on the “Evangelion” animation franchise, and Shinji Higuchi, an effects movie specialist responsible for this year’s “Attack on Titan” apocalyptic fantasy duology, would co-direct “Godzilla 2016,” with Anno writing the script.

Since then Toho has been tight-lipped with details, with the film’s PR rep currently unavailable for comment. But in an August interview with the AP news service, Higuchi said that for “Godzilla 2016” he would use the ‘hybrid’ techniques he developed for the two “Attack on Titan” films, in which ‘Titans’ — actors filmed with CGI enhancement as towering humanoid monsters — break through a gap in a huge wall enclosing a human settlement and begin devouring the inhabitants.

Unfortunately for Higuchi the first “Attack on Titan” film, released on Aug. 1, was savaged by critics, while performing below Toho’s sky-high expectations at the box office. It is now look likely to finish near the $25 million mark, compared to initial projections of $40 million or more. The second film will appear in theaters on Sept. 19.

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Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi to Direct ‘Godzilla 2016′

From Variety
Written By Patrick Frater

Top Japanese filmmakers Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi will team up to co-direct “Godzilla 2016”, the new Japanese version of the iconic Godzilla monster movie franchise.

The Toho studio, which licensed remake rights to Warner Bros. for the hit 2014 revival by director Gareth Edwards, produced the seemingly terminal “Godzilla: Final Wars” back in 2004.

But interest was revived by Edward’s 2014 “Godzilla,” which earned $525 million worldwide and JPY3.2 billion ($26 million) in Japan, with Toho and Warner Bros. Japan co-distributing.

“Ever since Hollywood announced that ‘Godzilla’ was to be resurrected, the expectation for another Japanese Godzilla grew. And if we were to newly produce, we looked into Japanese creators who were the most knowledgeable and who had the most passion for Godzilla” said Toho in a statement.

Anno will also be responsible for the screenplay while Higuchi will oversee the picture’s VFX.

The two directors previously collaborated on “God Warrior Appears in Tokyo.” “Their drive to take on such new challenges was exactly what we all had been inspired by,” said Toho.

Anno worked on the animation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli-produced “Nausicaa in the Valley of Wind.” He later directed anime series including “Gunbuster,” “Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water” and the “Neon Genesis Evangelion” series for which he is best most known. He also curated a touring exhibition Tokusatsu — Special Effects Museum.

Higuchi also worked on the “Evangelion” series, before debuting as a feature director with “Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean” in 2005 and scoring a major hit with “The Sinking of Japan.”

Meanwhile, Edwards has been signed to make “Godzilla 2,” which is set for a June 8, 2018, bow, with Legendary and Warner Bros. again co-producing.

In total Toho has produced 28 Godzilla movies since 1954 when Ishiro Honda directed the first. Ryuhei Kitamura’s “Godzilla: Final Wars” earned a disappointing $12 million.