Avengers: Age Of Ultron Conquers The US Box Office

But opens with less than expected

As had been expected, Avengers: Age Of Ultron used its combined superhero might and generous hype to hammer the competition, arriving top of the US box office after a successful launch overseas. Yet despite lots of chatter about potential record-breaking numbers, the film opened a little lower than the original Avengers, kicking off with a still-impressive $187.6 million.

Though it couldn’t quite match the $207.4 million start for the parent film, Ultron still showed that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have what it takes to dominate the charts. And with more than $627 million globally after 12 days of release outside the States, the film should cross a billion in a relatively short time, especially with a few big markets such as China yet to see the movie.

The Avengers’ arrival meant no wide-release competition and slim pickings for others in the chart. The Age Of Adaline managed to climb one place, adding $6.2 million in second, while Fast & Furious 7, its own momentum slightly impacted by the Marvel movie, added $6.1 million for a current US total of $190 million and more than 1.42 billion worldwide.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 suffered in comparison, sliding to fourth with $5.5 million. DreamWorks Animation’s ‘toon Home fell to fifth with $3.3 million.

It was a very good weekend for Disney between its superhero triumph and an unexpected bounce back from Cinderella. The fantasy had left the top 10, but sprang back into sixth place with $2.3 million in what could be seen as a fairy tale story of box office success. Ex Machina added screens but slipped one place to seventh with $2.23 million. Horror pic Unfriended dropped to eighth and $1.9 million, while The Longest Ride was down to ninth with $1.7 million. Woman In Gold stayed in place at 10th, earning $1.6 million.

To see Iron Man and the rest take on the entire chart and win in the full listings, head to Box Office Mojo.

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Tim Blake Nelson Joins Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

For director Ang Lee

Ang Lee has quite the ensemble for his latest, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk already, and he’s not finished constructing the roster. With Steve Martin, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Joe Alwyn, Vin Diesel and Chris Tucker all aboard, Tim Blake Nelson is the latest addition.

Adapted by Slumdog Millionaire writer Simon Beaufoy from Ben Fountain's novel, Billy Lynn follows the titular 19-year-old soldier (Alwyn), who along with his squad has survived a tough battle in Iraq that made headlines and turned the troops into instant celebrities.

Shipped home for a promotional tour by the army, they’re scheduled to return to combat after the final engagement of the trip, a halftime show of a Thanksgiving Day American football game in Texas. As the game progresses, we see flashbacks to what Billy and his platoon endured in the heat of battle. 

Nelson is filling the role of Wayne Foster for the film, which Lee is busy shooting now in 3D, high resolution and ultra-high frame rate. As for Nelson, he’s also signed on to a role in James Franco’s The Long Home, more of which you can read here.

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Josh Hutcherson Heads For The Long Home

Reuniting with James Franco for his latest drama

Committed to his crusade to adapt every novel ever written for the screen – all right, just the ones that peak his interest – James Franco is setting up yet another film. He’s planning to star in and direct The Long Home and has Josh Hutcherson lined up to co-star.

Adapted from William Gay’s book, the story is set in rural 1940s Tennessee, where a young man (Hutcherson) scores a job building a honky tonk bar for a charismatic, scheming bootlegger. But trouble finds him when he falls for a young woman that the criminal is grooming to become a prostitute, and that’s before he discovers that the man murdered his father 10 years previously.

This isn’t the first time Hutcherson and Franco will have worked together – Franco also cast the Hunger Games actor in another of his projects, the John Steinbeck adaptation In Dubious Battle, which has yet to set a release date.

As for Hutcherson’s big franchise duty, he’ll next be seen in the final Hunger Games film, Mockingjay – Part 2, which is out here on November 20. 

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Bill Skarsgard In Negotiations For Allegiant

He'll join the latest Divergent film

Normally found amping up the creepiness as Roman Godfrey on Netflix’s horror series Hemlock Grove, Bill Skarsgard is headed back to the big screen. He’s making a deal to play an unspecified role in the third Divergent film, Allegiant.

We’ll offer the requisite Spoiler Warning here for anyone who hasn’t read the books and isn’t already au fait with the plot. Allegiant finds Tris (Shailene Woodley) getting to the heart of the mystery surrounding the future society she’s been standing up against and the factions at its core. Jeff Daniels signed recently to play David, the leader of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, which originally created the various factions.

As Tris starts to learn – more towards the end of the book – David and his team’s (which apparently includes Skarsgard’s character, possibly Matthew from the book) actions might not exactly have everyone’s best interests at heart.

With Noah Oppenheim writing the screenplay, Robert Schwentke will start the cameras rolling this month. Unusually, it appears he won’t be making both of the final entries at once, and Lionsgate may go with someone else to direct the second half. The film should be with us on March 18 next year.

Skarsgard has worked on Emperor and is Alison Eastwood’s latest, Battlecreek. 

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First Image Of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2's Casey Jones

Stephen Amell suits up

Michael Bay continues to play a dual role as producer and unofficial Social Media cheerleader for the Teenage Mutant Turtles sequel, which recently and unexpectedly added Laura Linney to its cast. He was back this weekend with a new look at the film, the first image of Stephen Amell as Casey Jones. 

Stephen Amell as Casey Jones https://t.co/3EszI6nT26 #TMNT2 http://pic.twitter.com/IQmHR7s5j8

— Michael Bay (@michaelbay) May 1, 2015

The man better known for running round small screens as DC Comics hero Arrow is playing a different type of vigilante in the new Turtles outing. The hockey mask wearing, sports gear-wielding wise cracker has long been an ally of the central foursome and an occasional love interest for April O’Neil. He didn’t show up in the first film, but that might have been because it was overstuffed with plot and characters getting the origin story out of the way. Amell here certainly looks the part, minus perhaps Jones’ trademark long hair (he has a buzz cut on Arrow and the show’s attempts to portray him in flashbacks with a wig are not usually all that convincing, which might explain the character’s short cropped style here.)

Although the plot is still mostly unknown, the sequel will see the turtles – performance captured and voiced by Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek and Jeremy Howard – tackling threats new and old in New York City. Megan Fox and Will Arnett are back as April O’Neil and scuzzy cameraman Vernon Fenwick respectively, with Danny Woodburn once more providing the performance work for mutant rat mentor Splinter. Tyler Perry is playing Baxter Stockman while Brian Tee was recently announced as the new Shredder.

Earth To Echo’s David Green has taken over directorial duties this time, but writers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec are back to provide the script for the movie, which is scheduled to arrive here on June 3, 2016.

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New Jurassic World Featurette Roars With Nostalgia

The cast and crew on their memories of Jurassic Park

While much of Jurassic World looks to the future of the franchise, there are plenty of nods to Jurassic Park, the film that kicked everything off back in 1993. Now the team behind the new movie are using a featurette to explain how the original affected them and how it ties into this year’s dino-laden adventure.  

Also included in the piece is some new footage from Jurassic World, including a better look at the central atrium that is the base point for the monorail linking various areas of the working, vastly expanded park, some of the attractions available and what happens when the people running the place decide to boost attendance by creating a new hybrid dinosaur in the powerful Indominus Rex. Not the best idea in the world… 

Among those contributing are Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and director Colin Trevorrow, who have memories of seeing the original, plus Steven Spielberg and producer Frank Marshall, who were among the people bringing Jurassic Park to life back then. And we also hear from younger stars Tye Sheridan and Nick Robinson, who weren’t even born when that movie’s terrible lizards were first stomping across screens.

Jurassic World is out on June 11, and you can learn much more about it from the latest issue of Empire, which boasts an exclusive set visit report. 

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Simon Pegg Has The Power In The First Absolutely Anything Trailer

Terry Jones' new comedy

There have been images and a clip, but now the first trailer for sci-fi comedy Absolutely Anything has arrived online for your viewing needs. Take a look below.

Simon Pegg stars in the film as Neil Clarke, a teacher at a failing secondary school who is unexpectedly given great power by a group of aliens – voiced by director Terry Jones and Monty Python pals John Cleese, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin – who are deciding whether the planet Earth lives or dies based on his actions. Unfortunately, Neill goes ahead and does what we suspect many of us would, and shamelessly uses them to improve his life. And even when he does try to make things better (such as re-animating the dead), it all goes comically wrong.

Through all of that, he’s also got to try to win the heart of Catherine, the woman he loves (Kate Beckinsale) while dealing with his best friend, Dennis the dog, who can now talk (via a performance by the late Robin Williams). Will Neill succeed? Or are we all doomed?

With Rob Riggle, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Eddie Izzard, Joanna Lumley and Robert Bathurst in the cast, Absolutely Anything lands in our cinemas on August 14.

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