Goosebumps Trailer Unleashed Online

The monsters are loose...

R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps have long been a publishing phenomenon both in the US and here. And while it first became a TV series way back in 1995, it’s almost surprising a movie version has been wading through development limbo until now. But it’s finally ready to greet the world and has put out its first trailer. 

Goosebumps finds Jack Black as a reclusive, nervy version of the author, who lives with his daughter, Hannah (Odeya Rush). She’s intrigued by the arrival of a new neighbour, Zach (Dylan Minnette), and the two slowly start to bond. But then Zach and his pal (Ryan Lee) accidentally open one of the original manuscripts Stine keeps locked away… and that leads to a whole heap of chaos when all the weird creatures, monsters and other beasties are suddenly loosed upon their town. Cue a mad rush to get them all back before they can do too much damage. 

So far, the film –­ which showed off clips at last year’s Comic-Con, but won’t be represented again – is looking like it could a lot of fun for the fans of the books (both those who read them now and grown-ups who remember them).

Goosebumps will haunt screens on October 16 in the States and the slightly less Halloween-y February 5 next year in the UK.

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Jonathan Rhys Meyers Is Joe Strummer In London Town

A Clash film is now shooting

Though the punk group has been featured on film before, it has either been in documentaries or in fiction/rockumentary blend Rude Boy, which they distanced themselves from before its release. Now comes another blend of fact and fiction, London Town, which boasts Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Daniel Huttlestone, Dougray Scott and Natascha McElhone.  

Derick Borte is busy directing the film now in London, working from a script by Kirsten Sheridan, Sonya Gildea and Matthew Brown. It’ll follow the story of a 14-year-old (Huttlestone) in 1970s London whose life is changed forever when his estranged mother (McElhone) introduces him to the music of the Clash.

Whether Strummer – played here by Rhys Meyers – and co. will embrace this one is not yet clear, though Screen International reports that producer Christine Vachon has secured the rights to a number of their hits, so the music should be authentic at least. The cameras will be rolling until the end of the month, but there’s no sign of a release date yet.  

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New Trailer For Steven Spielberg's Bridge Of Spies

Tom Hanks is on the defensive...

It has been exactly a month since the first trailer arrived for Steven Spielberg’s latest, Bridge Of Spies. So you know what that means… Prepare to meet the second, this time aimed squarely at UK cinemagoers.

Tom Hanks stars in the film as James Donovan, an insurance lawyer who was pushed headfirst into the frosty depths of the Cold War when he had to negotiate for the release of downed U2 spy plane pilot Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) after the airman was shot down over Russia. Mark Rylance co-stars as Rudolf Abel, a suspected KGB spy who was defended by Donovan in a US courtroom in 1957, and is, thanks to back-channel negotiation, the likely swap for Powers in a deal with the Soviets. It’s an agreement that doesn’t exactly sit well for America at large, and Donovan, along with his family including wife Mary, (Amy Ryan) feel the brunt of the protests.

Bridge Of Spies boasts a screenplay begun by Matt Charman and overhauled by the Coen brothers. The cast also includes a typically impressive Spielberg-gathered line-up featuring Eve Hewson, Alan Alda and Sebastian Koch. It’ll be out here on November 6. 

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Lord And Miller Directing Han Solo Anthology Film

The Lego Movie/Jump St duo is off to the galaxy far, far away...

They run the ever-expanding Lego Movie universe. They’re developing The Flash for Warner Bros. and DC. Sony has them at work on an animated Spider-Man film. And there are the continued efforts towards another Jump Street movie. So surely Phil Lord and Christopher Miller don’t have time to tackle a long-awaited entry in another massive film franchise, right? Wrong! They’ve signed on to direct a Star Wars Anthology movie about Han Solo.

First hinted at by a report from Entertainment Weekly’s Anthony Breznican back in 2013, Lucasfilm has today confirmed that the Han stand-alone film is in the works, looking to tell the story of how a young Solo became the scoundrel the world first met in Star Wars back in 1977.

“This is the first film we’ve worked on that seems like a good idea to begin with. We promise to take risks, to give the audience a fresh experience, and we pledge ourselves to be faithful stewards of these characters who mean so much to us,” the pair said in a statement. “This is a dream come true for us. And not the kind of dream where you’re late for work and all your clothes are made of pudding, but the kind of dream where you get to make a film with some of the greatest characters ever, in a film franchise you’ve loved since before you can remember having dreams at all.”

Unusually for Lord and Miller (though perhaps because of their busy schedule and the need to get the film made for its release slot), they’re not writing this one, as Lawrence Kasdan (who has been involved in the new movies for a while, co-writing The Force Awakens) and son Jon have script duty. Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy, the current head shepherd and producer of the Star Wars films, also seems happy with the choices. “It’s not just any filmmaker who can tell the story of such a beloved icon like Han Solo, and I’m excited to say we’ve found the perfect team to handle the task,” she says. “Larry and Jon know all there is to know about the character, and Chris and Phil will bring their wit, style, energy and heart to tell Han’s story.”

Of course, now the talk will turn to who could pull off the feat of playing a young Harrison Ford. Anthony Ingruber, who managed it in The Age Of Adaline, is an early fan candidate, but we have a long road ahead of us. The Lego Movie pair seems like the perfect duo to work on a Solo film, but we’re just waiting for them to punk us with a trailer featuring a two-year-old Han. After all, they don’t say how young he actually will be in the movie… 

Star Wars Anthology: Han Solo (or whatever it ends up being called) is scheduled for release on May 25, 2018.

In related Star Wars news – and we’re putting this behind a Spoiler Alert force field just in case – Devin Faraci of Birth. Movies. Death. has heard that Darth Vader will make an appearance in Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One as a behind-the-scenes, potentially holographic presence. He would seem like a logical addition to a film that takes place when the first Death Star is ready to start threatening the galaxy. There has been, of course, no official confirmation yet, so this lives under the spectre of the Rumour Klaxon. We’ll find out for sure when Gareth Edwards’ film launches on December 16 next year. 

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Trailer For Acclaimed Doc The Wolfpack Arrives Online

Quentin Tarantino-homaging teens step into the sunlight

Oldboy spent years cooped up in an apartment prison stewing over the bloody vengeance he had in store for his foes. Given a camcorder, he (and the local octopuses) may just have had a mellower time taking a leaf out The Wolfpack’s book and recreating a few of his favourite movies instead. The documentary's six New York siblings – five brothers and a sister – are the subject of a quirky new true-life tale, the trailer for which has just landed. Click below to get a flavour of the film.

Nothing whatsoever to do with Das Boot, The Wolfpack are the offspring of a man whose idea of parenting crossed over to a worrying degree with other people’s concept of incarceration. The six siblings - Mukunda, Narayana, Govinda, Bhagavan, Krisna, Jagadesh and sister Visnu - were mostly confined to their Lower East Side apartment by their father and homeschooled by their mother. Aside from the odd, very rare outing, their only real conduit to the outside world came through the movies they loving recreated inside their four walls.

It was newbie filmmaker Crystal Moselle who spotted the Reservoir Dog-clad teens on First Avenue in Manhattan in 2010 and decided to add another camera to the mix. The result is a fascinating doc celebrating the power of movies that you can catch on August 21.

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Ellen Page Prepares To Become Lioness

Starring in the Afghanistan drama

Currently filming the comedy drama Tallulah with her fellow Juno alumnus Allison Janney, Ellen Page already has her next project lined up. She'll play real-life US Marine Lance Corporal Leslie Martz, in producer James Dahl's developing war drama Lioness.

Martz was stationed in Iraq for a time, but Lioness is concerned with her stint in Afghanistan, leading a 'Female Engagement Team'. Her agenda was ostensibly to gain the trust of Afghan women and prepare them for independence, but Martz was also tasked with surreptitiously extracting intelligence from those same women about their Taliban husbands.

Torn between her duty to her country and her sympathy with the women she was secretly betraying, she began to question where her allegiance really lay: a situation not helped by the fact that she was already hiding her identity as a gay woman in the military.

Lioness doesn't have a director yet, but newcomer Rosalind Ross has written the screenplay and will join Dahl on the producers list. Dahl is also behind the Rolling Stones movie The End Of The Tour, starring Page's To Rome With Love co-star Jesse Eisenberg.

We should next see Page in the sci-fi drama Into The Forest and the biohraphical romance Freeheld, although neither currently has a UK release date.

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The Happytime Murders Gets New Lease Of Life

Brian Henson's puppet noir back in the frame

It's a couple of years since we last heard anything about the Jim Henson Company's dark puppet-noir comedy The Happytime Murders. Back in 2012 there was talk of Cameron Diaz and /or Katherine Heigl being involved, but the rest was silence... until this morning. Deadline reports that distributor/financiers STX Entertainment have come abord to get the project moving again.

Happytime was cooked up back in 2008 by Brian (son of Jim) Henson as a strictly-for-adults take on puppet life. It’s set in a world where humans and their felt friends live side by side, but the puppets are treated as second-class citizens. Murder strikes as the seedy former stars of once-popular kids’ show The Happytime Gang turn up dead one by one, and the only 'man' who can investigate is a washed-up private eye puppet, who ropes in his former partner at the LAPD. The picture at the top of this page is some 2012 concept art.

Henson is still directing from a script now credited to Todd Berger, Dee Robertson, and Red writers Erich and Jon Hoeber.

The Happytime Murders (interestingly no longer named as such - or at all - in Deadline's story) will "take puppets to a place where we have never gone before on the big screen," says Henson. "We are thrilled that Adam Fogelson and his folks at STX showed the daring confidence to get behind this project.”

"This is as unique a screenplay as we have seen in a long time," says STX chairman Fogelson, "with relatable characters and a fantastic story. This project is a daring and original R-rated comedy with a distinctive voice that is completely unconventional and fun.”

We'll continue to keep you posted as this develops. In the meantime, make all your Meet The Feebles comparisons in the comments below.

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