For those that don’t know, many successful films of past years are getting on this 3D wave Hollywood has been riding for the past three years. The Lion King 3D, Finding Nemo 3D, Titanic 3D, Top Gun 3D, and of course Star Wars 3D, are all being re-released to a theater near you in the third dimension. The first poster has just been released for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D, and I have to say it really struck me. Not for its boldness or resemblance to the classic Star Wars posters, but for how different it is than the rest. It’s also missing three central characters from the film. Hit the jump to see the full spread.

Notice anyone missing? Jar Jar! This is most likely due to the fact that everyone hated Jar Jar Binks, and not having his dopey annoying face on the poster is the best thing for everybody. Good PR move on the part of Lucas, hide one of the worst cinematic characters of all-time — try not to remind people of one of the reasons they hated the first film of your second trilogy.

Also take in the fact that Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn, mentor to both Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, is also absent from the poster. Why this happened, I do not know. This is the opposite of a good PR move. Neeson is not only a notable and bankable Hollywood leading man, but his portrayal of Jinn was one of the better parts of Phantom Menace.

Another facet that stood out to me was Darth Maul being front and center in this poster, where in the original he was merely a piece of the background. His role in the film is crucial, but he is far from the most important or compelling character. He barely even speaks a word the whole movie.

Looking at the original Phantom Menace poster, you can also see that young Anakin is the central figure. Notice him missing in the 3D poster too? Besides him in the little pod of course. Rather curious I would say to not have this main character actually featured in the poster, even though many have ridiculed his performance as the young soon-to-be-Jedi — I consider myself among them.

I hate bad child actors, and Jake Lloyd is definitely one of the worst I have ever seen. But I have gained respect for Lloyd recently when he publicly called out Phantom Menace for being less than brilliant. Could this be Lucas STRIKING BACK? While I am positive Lloyd could care less if he is on the poster, I could see Lucas wanting to keep him off the page for a little REVENGE. Lucas is kind of a douche like that.

While Phantom Menace is definitely not my favorite Star Wars movie, I didn’t hate it as much as some. I will definitely be contributing to Lucas’ pockets when I go to the theaters to see these films in 3D.

Will You Be Seeing Phantom Menace 3D In Theaters?

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @matthewdeery

‘Classic Nolan’ refers to the greatness of this poster. Christopher Nolan is a man who knows how to capture his audiences’ attention. The poster is subtle, yet overwhelming and powerful. It’s simple, yet something to think about. Is the city crumbling down, or building back up? The Dark Knight Rises.

This is usually Barrett’s department, a la Christopher Nolan news, but since he has turned in for the night, I had to jump on this new The Dark Knight Rises poster like Batman from a rooftop. While my obsession does not rival Barrett’s, I cannot begin to express how jacked I am to see this movie. I don’t think I have ever been this excited/antsy to know or see anything new from this blossoming production. This is my most anticipated movie ever. That’s right, I have never wanted to see a movie more than this one. After two stellar films, a fan like myself can only try to imagine what type of crescendo Nolan is cooking up for final film in his Batman Trilogy. To see the full poster, and more info about the teaser trailer, hit the jump.

The official website dropped this poster, so look at the ridiculous full version below. Inception-esque right? Devin over at BadAssDigest came across this nugget… is that the Joker’s face hidden in the poster?

This part is something Barrett knows much more about than I do, so he can add in thoughts or details when he gets a chance if he chooses. As some know, The Dark Knight Rises teaser trailer is set to be attached to the Deathly Hallows Part II when it hits theaters this weekend. Rumor has it, the teaser could be online by early Thursday evening. Both of us were hoping the teaser would be attached to the Potter finale when we saw it Monday night — but, we weren’t so lucky. At this point, I’m trying to decide what disappointed me more, not seeing the anticipated teaser, or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II?

The Dark Knight Rises storms into theaters July 20th, 2012.

What Do You Think Of The Poster?

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @matthewdeery

The title is self explanatory — Warner Bros. has released a slew of action posters for this series’ star characters. Voldemort, Harry, Neville, Draco, Bellatrix, even Fred and George — all these characters get a poster treatment. Hit the jump to check out the lineup.

Speaking of Harry Potter, the first Deathly Hallows film was the recipient of an award at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards. Tom Felton won Best Villain for his portrayal of Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. It really happened. My question is, who has seen that movie? I for one have, and the amount of time Tom Felton spends onscreen is mostly in the background. How can he win Best Villain in a movie he essentially acts as an extra? I would bet his time onscreen is less five  minutes — not to mention the fact Draco is scared stiff sitting at the table of Death Eaters — he attempts to swallow the fate of his innocent Muggle Studies Teacher who is hovering over him crying during the last moments of her life. Draco witnesses her murder, and then watches her get swallowed by Nagini.

Draco is lost in this dark world — he’s a bad guy in this movie? By this point, he isn’t bad anymore — he’s just misguided — his silly parents got messed up with Tom Riddle and he gets pulled in with them. He strove to be bad, but realized once he got there it wasn’t really him. This is the same realization Snape came to once Lilly was targeted for a green light treatment.

Draco is a Best Villain? Come on MTV, you suck. Obviously my contention is deeper than Draco only being in the movie for moments, it stems from his blind innocence in a dark situation. He really isn’t a villain, he’s barely in the movie, and have you heard of Volemort? Draco isn’t even the biggest “villain” in this series. And he wins Best Villain for this particular movie? I hate the people who nominated the candidates and anyone who voted for the MTV Awards.

Sorry, rant… pictures.

Harry:

Hermione:

Ron:

Fred and George:

Neville:

McGonagal:

Griphook:

Bellatrix:

Draco:

Snape:

Voldemort:

What Do You Think Of These Potter Posters? Pretty Sweet Right?

News on Marvel’s 2011 lineup has been pretty quiet as of late, but today we’ve got a few tidbits from Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming big screen adaption of Thor. First up, we have a glimpse of the first official teaser poster to be released from Marvel for the film, which is, well, pretty underwhelming. Considering the blockbuster status and Avengers hype, it could have been much more exciting and noteworthy. We also have a reaction from someone who has seen the upcoming official trailer  for Thor, slated to drop soon. The reaction? Not so good.

First on the docket is the teaser poster which, as stated above, is kind of bland and “meh.” It’s just Chris Hemsworth looking dramatically off camera holding the mighty hammer, featuring some attempted stylistic color contrasting. Check it out.

Pretty “meh,” right? Anyway, a trailer description/reaction from Slashfilm reader Ed, who works at a movie theater as a projectionist and who got to see the trailer before everyone else, has hit the web as well. Ed claims that the trailer is just a “trimmed down version of the five-minute trailer that was shown at Comic-Con.” But what was most interesting of his assessment of the trailer was the crappy-looking post-conversion 3D, which he says looks “not very impressive.” Check out the rest of what he had to say below:

Hey, just a tidbit of info about when we’ll see the Thor trailer. They’ve sent out the 2D & 3D trailers for digital prints this week. That said ,as a projectionist, they are not asking us to attach it to any films this weekend. My guess would be we’ll see it on Tron. I’ve already screened it and essentially it’s just a slimmed down version of the five minute Comic Con trailer. Not much new added at all. And sadly the 3D does not look very impressive. The picture doesn’t show much in terms of depth and the motion on screen creates a blur which is very hard for your eyes to focus in on. Hopefully this is only because the film is months away from release, but I would say it’s definitely one of the lower end 3D trailers I’ve seen of late.

Ouch. Can’t say I’m surprised. At the rapid pace Marvel/Disney is trying to spit out these superhero films is reckless at best, as they’re hurrying to get everything out the door before The Avengers hits theaters in 2012. I agree with Ed’s reservations of not jumping to negative conclusions too soon, as they still have a few months to sharpen the 3D conversion. But this is certainly not a great sign for the film at this point.

Thor hits theaters on May 6th, 2011 in both 2D and 3D.

[poster via Coming Soon ]

What Do You Think? Discuss.

I’m getting kind of a Rachel Getting Married meets Dan in Real Life vibe going on here. The first trailer for the ensemble romantic-drama, The Romantics, has popped up online and I think it looks pretty good. The film premiered at Sundance in January and features a unique, ecclectic cast, including: Katie Holmes, Josh Duhamel Anna Paquin, Elijah Wood, Malin Akerman, Adam Brody, Jeremy Strong, Rebecca Lawrence, Dianna Agron and Candice Bergen. The film centers around the weekend getaway wedding of Tom (Duhamel) and Lila (Paquin), that becomes complicated when Tom’s ex, Laura (Holmes), stirs up old emotions that makes him question who he really wants to be with. Check out the trailer after the jump.

Like I said, the cast is really interesting, and there is actually a lot of buzz surrounding Katie Holmes’ performance, with some early reviews calling it the best performance of her career. Which is good to see. Minus the Tom Cruise imprisonment and non-acting-related antics, she is a fine actress, so it’s good to see her in a dramatic role that will allow her to shine.  The film is written and directed by Galt Niederhoffer, who also wrote the novel of which the film is based on. Check out the official trailer and poster for The Romantics below. [via Collider]

The official plot synopsis for The Romantics goes like this:

Over the course of one raucous night at a seaside wedding seven close friends, all members of a tight, eclectic college clique, reconvene to watch two of their own tie the knot.  Laura (Katie Holmes) is maid of honor to Lila (Anna Paquin), her golden girl best friend.  The two have long rivaled over the groom, Tom (Josh Duhamel).  Friendships and alliances are tested and the love triangle comes to a head the night before the wedding, when the drunken friends frolic in the nearby surf and return to shore… without the groom. Based on the heralded novel by producer, novelist, director Galt Niederhoffer, THE ROMANTICS is a Zeitgeist love story and generational comedy that breathes new life into the genre and recaptures the camaraderie of youth.

The Romantics opens in theaters on September 10th.

What Do You Think? Discuss.

I absolutely adore this kind of parody. Thinking of ridiculous movie sequels and premises is not far from my mind on a daily basis, so these fake movie posters as apart of Scott Pilgrim vs The World‘s marketing put a big grin on my face today. Empire has the exclusive look (via Collider), featuring five posters from Chris Evan’s character, Lucas Lee’s, ecclectic career as a movie star. Lee is the second of  Ramona’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) ”seven evil exes” that Michael Cera’s Scott Pilgrim has to defeat in order to win her heart. Check out the posters after the break.

Everything about these posters is great, but the best part are the cheesy, ridiculous taglines. My favorite being from Action Doctor, featuring the epic tagline of, “The Good News Is, You Are Going To Live…The Bad News Is He Is Going To Kill You.”  LOL!

So f*cking good. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World opens everywhere Aug. 13th. And I can’t wait.

What Do You Think? Discuss.

Last week we debuted the epic full-length trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Today, Warner Bros. has debuted the first official teaser poster for the film and it’s pretty sweet. As you can see on the poster, that’s Hogwarts on fire and it’s a sad sight to see. It’s interesting that they are marketing these two movies in the epic conclusion together (as one). Although I know they’re just splitting the final book, I thought we’d see them focus all of their energy on the first movie start, but they’re definitely selling this as an epic “motion picture event.”

Check out the poster below.

The first movie hits November 19th and the second part (the real finale) arrives on July 15th next summer.

What Do You Think? Discuss.

Nothing mind-blowingly epic going on here, but a cool first poster for David Fincher’s The Social Network has just been released online (via FistShowing). As we reported back in December, the film is a semi-biopic of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and his rise from a lowly Harvard freshman, to one of the most powerful people on the planet. The story of the film is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich.

I’m actually really looking forward to this film, mainly because of the top-notch people involved. Oscar-nominated director David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) is directing the film, and heavyweight screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, Charlie Wilson’s War) penned the script. The film also boasts an impressive cast, including Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg, and Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, the co-creator of Napster and one of Zuckerberg’s web start-up rivals. Check out the poster below, with more to follow.

I really like Eisenberg, especially after his performances in Adventureland and Zombieland. Boy he likes to do “land” movies, doesn’t he? He has been mainly typecast as the intellectual nerd with a heart of gold, a character type that I think he does a much better job of portraying than say, Michael Cera. But Zuckerberg’s tale is such a fascinating one, that I bet Eisenberg had a lot of complex character nuances to work with creatively. I also think Timberlake is an extremely underrated actor. He’s been given a bad wrap because of his N’Sync days, but he can put out some impressive dramatic performances, when give the chance. See Black Snake Moan and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

It’ll also be interesting to see how David Fincher approached this project from a directing standpoint. Thus far, he’s mainly given us dark, gritty, stylistic thrillers, and The Social Network story is much more tamed concept. I no doubt think he’ll knock it out of the park, as he’s probably one of the top 10 directors working today.

The Social Network is currently in post-production and is set to be released on October 1st, so I’m sure they’ll unveil the first trailer for the film very soon. So stay tuned to The Movie Mash for that.

What Do You Think? Discuss.

With the stunning third trailer released a couple weeks ago and the slew of awesome TV spots playing during your favorite programs, Warner Bros.’ marketing blitz continues for Christopher Nolan’s Inception, in the form of seven badass new character posters (via Moviefone). This is how movie posters are done, ladies and gentlemen. Take note, Twilight. With such ambiguity and mystery regarding the exact plot of the film and the characters involved, these new posters give us the official title of each character’s role in Hollywood’s first existential heist movie.

We have: Ellen Page as The Architect, Leonardo DiCaprio as The Extractor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as The Point Man, Tom Hardy as The Forger, Marion Cotillard as The Shade, Cillian Murphy as The Mark and Ken Watanabe as The Tourist. Check out the posters below, with analysis to follow.

What do these position titles mean for each character? Well…here’s my take.

So Leo is a skilled and experienced Extractor, who goes into people’s dreams and “extracts” ideas and information from their mind through dreams. For the purposes of this one last job that the film focuses on, he assembles this team together, each with a special skill to achieve the opposite of the extraction, called Inception; where instead of taking out an idea from someone’s mind, they will be planting one; a feat that has never been attempted before.

Leo recruits Ellen Page’s character from a university to act as The Architect, the person who constructs the dream world. The Point Man and  The Forger appear to be the muscle of the group, as they are always strapped with huge gun (see the last scene of the third trailer). The Mark seems pretty straight forward, most likely the target of their Inception plan. The Tourist and The Shade are the wild cards of the bunch. Marion Cotillard plays Leo’s wife, the woman he is desperately trying to reunite with, but I have no idea what The Shade could mean. And The Tourist? Same thing.

Whatever the case may be, does this not sound like the coolest, most original action-heist movie ever?! I mean, if in a summer full of fluffy sequels, remakes and adaptations, if Inception isn’t at the top of your most-anticipated list, then well, I don’t know what to tell you.

What Do You Think? Discuss.

Today I’ve got a slew of new movie posters for you. One is for a comic-book action movie, the other is for an anticipated summer comedy, and the last one is for a secretive and mysterious upcoming thriller. The first comes from the bewilderingly quiet big summer release from Warner Bros., Jonah Hex. The film is of course the first big-screen adaptation of the popular DC Comics series, where Hex (Josh Brolin) is a scarred bounty hunter tracking down the voodoo practitioner Turnbull (John Malkovich), who wants to raise an army of undead to liberate the South. The film started production over a year ago and we haven’t heard ONE peep via viral marketing, trailers or posters until now. And the film is set to release in just over two months on June 18. Very perplexing, Warner Bros.

Anyway, the poster looks pretty cool. It features all the main characters, including Megan Fox (who plays the love interest). It also gives us a glimpse on just what the action may be like, featuring Brolin holding two badass exploding weapons. The first trailer for Jonah Hex will drop next week in front of a Nightmare on Elm Sreet. Check out the poster below (via Slashfilm).

Next up we have a pretty funny poster for Get Him to the Greek. The film is the unofficial sequel to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and reunites Jonah Hill and crazy British comedian Russell Brand, each reprising their former roles. This time, it’s several years later and Hill’s character is now an assistant to a mega record producer, played by none other than P. Diddy.

As I said, the poster made me chuckle, and I’m really looking forward to this comedy. Get Him to the Greek opens everywhere July 29. Check out the international poster (via Collider).

The last poster I have for you is from Buried. We reported on this mysterious thriller last summer and now we have the first official poster. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as Paul Conroy, a U.S. citizen working as a contract driver in Iraq. After a swift and sudden attack on his convoy, he awakens to find himself buried alive inside a coffin with nothing more than a lighter, a cell phone, and little memory of how he ended up there. Faced with limited oxygen and unlimited panic, Paul finds himself in a tension-filled race against time to escape this claustrophobic deathtrap before it’s too late.

It’s a pretty unprecedented concept as the entire film takes place inside the coffin with Reynolds. It sounds extremely intriguing and I’m really looking forward to seeing a film premise that I’ve never even thought of, let alone seen on screen. The poster is terrifying and makes me really claustrophobic (shivers). Buried is set to release in October. Check out the poster exclusively from FirstShowing.

What Do You Think? Discuss.