Rama’s SCREEN

Damn, this is an old movie that I never visited again after watching once years ago and ya know what.. I can barely remember the scenes too. Maybe I was too caught up in other better less silly classic martial art movies. But since according Hollywood Reporter, Columbia Pictures is going do a remake of Berry Gordy’s 1985 cult hit THE LAST DRAGON, I’m sure as hell going to go out and rent the original again. The word goes that Samuel L. mothaF*in’ Jackson is set to play Sho ‘Nuff, originally played by the late Julius Carry, he’s the baddest mofo lowdown around town and everybody say “sho nuff”

The updated plot will be along the same lines of the original, centering on young martial arts student Leroy Green in his quest through the streets of New York to achieve the highest level of martial arts accomplishment, known as the Last Dragon. Those who achieve the high ranking possess the Glow, making them the greatest fighter alive.
Instead of the old skool 80s beat, The remake will have that hip hop juice running through its veins. Dallas Jackson, the head of the urban family label DJ Classicz, is writing the script. Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA is co-producing.

* Here is the trailer for the original THE LAST DRAGON

Remember the video of a bunch of celebrities asking us NOT to vote as part of the reverse psychology ad to get you to vote instead. The great director Steven Spielberg has done something similar featuring all his favorite stars but the only comic relief, in my opinion, in this one is Borat. How influential is star power in getting people to the voting booth?

Summit Entertainment has sent a batch of character posters and updated official posters and banner of TWILIGHT with the new release date which is November 21st, 2008. The night is drawing close and I’m supposed to remind you guys as well that the rating for this film is PG-13, and the run time is 120 minutes. Don’t forget to check out the final trailer

* Click on these images to enlarge

TWILIGHT is an action-packed, modern-day love story between a teenage girl and a vampire. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) has always been a little bit different, never caring about fitting in with the trendy girls at her Phoenix high school. When her mother re-marries and sends Bella to live with her father in the rainy little town of Forks, Washington, she doesn’t expect much of anything to change. Then she meets the mysterious and dazzlingly beautiful Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a boy unlike any she’s ever met. Edward is a vampire, but he doesn’t have fangs and his family is unique in that they choose not to drink human blood. Intelligent and witty, Edward sees straight into Bella’s soul. Soon, they are swept up in a passionate, thrilling and unorthodox romance. To Edward, Bella is what he has waited 90 years for – a soul mate. But the closer they get, the more Edward must struggle to resist the primal pull of her scent, which could send him into an uncontrollable frenzy. But what will Edward & Bella do when a clan of new vampires – James (Cam Gigandet), Laurent (Edi Gathegi) and Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre) – come to town and threaten to disrupt their way of life?

ABOUT TWILIGHT: Based on the #1 New York Times Best-Selling series with over 17 million books in print by Stephenie Meyer, TWILIGHT is a cultural phenomenon, with a dedicated fan base that eagerly awaits this movie. There are over 350 fan sites devoted to TWILIGHT, and it has been chosen as the New York Times Editor’s Choice, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, Amazon’s “Best Book of the Decade…So Far”, Teen People’s “Hot List” Pick, and The American Library Association’s “Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults” and “Top Ten Books for Reluctant Readers,” among others. Critically acclaimed director Catherine Hardwicke brings to life this modern, visual, and visceral Romeo & Juliet story of the ultimate forbidden love affair – between vampire and mortal.

Starring KRISTEN STEWART (PANIC ROOM), ROBERT PATTINSON (HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE), BILLY BURKE (UNTRACEABLE), PETER FACINELLI ( THE SCORPION KING), ELIZABETH REASER (THE FAMILY STONE), CAM GIGANDET (NEVER BACK DOWN), NIKKI REED (THIRTEEN), JACKSON RATHBONE (HURT), ASHLEY GREENE (SHARK)

Produced by GREG MOORADIAN, MARK MORGAN, and WYCK GODFREY

Written by MELISSA ROSENBERG (STEP UP, Fox’s THE O.C., Showtime’s DEXTER)

Directed by CATHERINE HARDWICKE (THIRTEEN, LORDS OF DOGTOWN)

Last month, it was announced that Vin Diesel will team up again with director Rob Cohen for the third installment of XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE, holy crap! Is there a lamer title than that?
and now, Collider, via Omelette had the confirmation from Rob Cohen about the project.

“Yes, they’re doing it with me and producer Joe Roth,” he confirmed. “We made the deal recently, it’s named ‘xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.’ We met the writers yesterday and we’re trying to get into production by late spring, to have it out for the summer of 2010.”

With the third installment of FAST AND FURIOUS opening next year, and then the next Riddick movie that Vin Diesel has always wanted to do, and then this crapola… he might as well go and do THE PACIFIER 2 while he’s at it.
Is that man short on cash?, cause I’m willing to give him some of my money if it would stop him from doing any unnecessary sequels.

Sacrilegious and Hollywood go hand in hand (read my article on Sacrilegious movies) and it’s not stopping any time soon. In fact, Hollywood is taking on what is considered to be a Sacrilegious horrorfest. PREACHER is a graphic novel series from Vertigo which ran from 1995 - 2000, created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon and I looked up Wikipedia and o man, the plot is pretty blasphemous, so if you’re quite sensitive, you might not wanna read this part…

it’s about Jesse Custer, a down-and-out preacher in the small Texas town of Annville. Custer was accidentally possessed by the supernatural creature named Genesis in an incident which killed his entire congregation and flattened his church.

Custer, driven by a strong sense of right and wrong, goes on a journey across the United States attempting to (literally) find God, who abandoned Heaven the moment Genesis was born, to hold him accountable for negligence. He also begins to discover the truth about his new powers, which allow him to command the obedience of those who hear his words. He is joined by his old girlfriend Tulip O’Hare, as well as a hard-drinking Irish vampire named Cassidy.

During the course of their journeys, the three encounter enemies and obstacles both sacred and profane, including: the Saint of Killers, an invincible, quick-drawing, perfect-aiming, come-lately Angel of Death answering only to the authority of God Himself; a serial-killer called the ‘Reaver-Cleaver’; The Grail, a secret organization controlling the governments of the world and protecting the bloodline of Jesus;

According to Hollywood Reporter, Columbia Pictures has bought the rights to this popular comic book series and will have Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) to direct the movie adaptation. No writer has been hired to do the script yet.

Apparently at one point, HBO wanted to make a series based on this, the lame director Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil, Ghost Rider) wrote the pilot but the project never took off.
And a previous movie version was actually produced by Kevin Smith’s View Askew with James Marsden attached to star as the lead character but alas, that didn’t happen either.
Hopefully, third time’s the charm. Once again, I’m a open-minded liberal, so this kinda thing makes me curious even more, as long as it doesn’t end up similar to Keanu Reeves’ Constantine.

MTV got some exclusive images from the movie LITTLE ASHES starring Robert Pattinson of the upcoming teen flick TWILIGHT. In this movie, he plays young Salvador Dali, the eccentric painter with the most ridiculous mustache. Will those crazy teen fans still think Robert Pattinson is hot after seeing him with this look? By the way, this movie is different than Al Pacino’s Salvador Dali biopic titled DALI & I: THE SURREAL STORY co-starring Cilian Murphy.

* Click on the image below to view more

According to IMDB, this is the plot of the movie..
In 1922, Madrid is wavering on the edge of change as traditional values are challenged by the dangerous new influences of Jazz, Freud and the avant-garde. Salvador Dali arrives at the university; 18 years old and determined to become a great artist. His bizarre blend of shyness and rampant exhibitionism attracts the attention of two of the university’s social elite - Federico Garcia Lorca and Luis Bunel. Salvador is absorbed into their decadent group and for a time Salvador, Luis and Federico become a formidable trio, the most ultra-modern group in Madrid. However as time passes, Salvador feels and increasingly strong pull towards the charismatic Federico - who is himself oblivious of the attentions he is getting from his beautiful writer friends, Margarita. Finaly, in the face of his friends’ preoccupations - and Federico’s growing renown as a poet - Luis sets off for Paris in search of his own artistic success. Federico and Salvador spend the holiday in the sea-side town of Cadaques. Both the idyllic surroundings and the warmth of the Dali family sweep Federico off his feet. Salvador and he draw closer, sharing their deepest beliefs, inspirations and secrets, convinced that they have found a kind of friendship undreamt of by others. It is more that a meeting of the minds; it is a fusion of souls. And then one night, in the phosphorescent water, it becomes something else.

What can suck blood and money out of you this fall season? The movie adaptation TWILIGHT is going to have teenage girls scream hysterically in euphoria all the way to the theaters, like a person with a full bladder looking for the first restroom around.
So if you’re a big fan, you’ll deem this particular info as manna from heaven. Via MTV, takes notes now, mark your calendar…because starting this Friday (October 31st, 2008), Fandango is making advance tickets for TWILIGHT available.
The advance tickets will be available starting at 12:01 a.m.
Wait, there’s more…On top of that…because it’s Halloween, a special trick-or-treat is available with every TWILIGHT ticket purchase: comes a free download of “Bella’s Lullaby (Remix).”
Fandango expects TWILIGHT showtimes to sell out quickly, since the movie was voted in a recent survey the most anticipated film of the season. So don’t wait up, better get ready when the times comes.

TWILIGHT opens nationwide everywhere November 21st, 2008

Yahoo has this new 5 minute trailer for THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, it’s more or less the same as the footage/clip we’ve seen last month but this one does contain some new brief scenes including a good look this new version of Gort, the freakishly large alien that makes X-Men’s Cyclops look like a joke.
I guess the assumption of this movie is,.. if human race dies and the earth survives,.. humans could exist again through the natural process of evolution.
Do you think this movie’s going to be the motherload of all pre-apocalyptic movies?

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL opens December 12th, 2009

Via TheBadandugly, here are some more photos taken from the set of SHERLOCK HOLMES starring Robert Downey Jr. with his British accent as the famous fictional detective and Jude Law with creepy mustache as the sidekick Dr. Watson. The photos also show director Guy Ritchie making sure everything goes okay for the filming which is currently being done in Manchester, England, home of my favorite Rock band ever, OASIS. It’s amazing how Guy Ritchie seems at ease, it’s as if his recent divorce with Madonna was nothing but a bump on the road. It baffles me how movie people could take marriage for granted,.. but this is not a gossip website so I’m not going to go into that matter.

* Click on the image below to see more

Robert Downey Jr. brings the legendary detective to life as he has never been portrayed before. Jude Law stars as Holmes’ trusted colleague, Watson, a doctor and war veteran who is a formidable ally for Sherlock Holmes. Rachel McAdams stars as Irene Adler, the only woman ever to have bested Holmes and who has maintained a tempestuous relationship with the detective. Mark Strong stars as their mysterious new adversary, Blackwood. Kelly Reilly will play Watson’s love interest, Mary.

SHERLOCK HOLMES opens November 20th, 2009

We’ve read the first part of the interview and now on the second part, Christopher Nolan told LA TIMES his favorite scene from The Dark Knight, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s ‘The Interrogation’ scene. Some say that it’s just as iconic as when Al Pacino confronted De Niro at the restaurant in the thriller Heat.
Christopher Nolan elaborated to the very detail about filming that whole scene and what it meant to him, I’ve always known The Dark Knight is such a great movie because of its depth but Nolan understood the characters like no one else. And I have much respect for Bale and the late great Ledger for successfully pulling the whole thing together.
Read the full article HERE, and I’ve posted some excerpts of what he said…

“Neither [Christian Bale nor Heath Ledger] wanted to go too far with it in rehearsal. They had to rehearse some of the fight choreography, but even with that, we tried to keep it loose and improvisational. They wanted to save it all. We were all pretty excited to get on with a big chunk of dialogue and this big intense scene between these two iconic characters. It was quite bizarre to see Batman across the table across from the Joker [laughs].”

For me creatively, that had been about inverting the expectation. We’ve all seen so many of these dark movie interrogation scenes where somebody is being given the third degree. We just wanted to completely flip that on its head. And have the bright, harsh, bleak light sort show you the Joker’s make-up and its decay. The Batsuit was redesigned for this film. And unlike the suit that we had in “Batman Begins,” it’s capable of really being shown in incredible detail and still hold up to that kind of scrutiny under that bright light. The suit looked much more real and more like a functional thing this time. The whole scene was about showing something real and brutal and getting this real harshness.

“By the end of the scene, when [Batman] is just pounding on the Joker, I think Heath managed to find the exact essence of the threat of the Joker and who he is: He’s being pounded in the face and he’s laughing and loving it. There’s nothing you can do. As he tells Batman, ‘You have nothing to do with all of your strength’…When he drops the Joker, he has realized the futility of what he’s done.” There’s this sort of impotence of the strong and the armored and the very muscular Batman; he’s very powerful, but there’s no useful way for this power to be exercised in this scene. He has to confront that.

Now that Director Christopher Nolan has revealed his favorite scene..

What’s your favorite scene from THE DARK KNIGHT??

I don’t know about you but I’m kinda gettin’ tired of comic writer Mark Millar (Wanted, Kick-Ass) ranting his mouth all this time about how he would like to revamp SUPERMAN because all he does is talk. Not too long ago, there was word that he’s been discussing his ideas with a quote end quote “Big Hollywood Action Director”. Nobody knows who the hell he’s talking bout… I sure hope it’s not John Woo..
Millar wants to make the next SUPERMAN movie to be an epic 8-hour screen trilogy in the likes of GODFATHER saga. He calls it the Magnum Opus of Super Stories. This is what he said to Empire Online about his plan…

“It’s gonna be like Michael Corleone in the Godfather films, the entire story from beginning to end, you see where he starts, how he becomes who he becomes, and where that takes him. The Dark Knight showed you can take a comic book property and make a serious film, and I think the studios are ready to listen to bigger ideas now.”

“The problem with Superman Returns was like releasing Star Wars in ’77, The Empire Strikes Back in ’80 and then waiting 28 years to release Return of the Jedi, it wasn’t relevant. I understand what Bryan Singer was trying to do, to pay homage to Richard Donner’s original vision, but I think you should pay homage by doing something completely different.”

“I want to start on Krypton, a thousand years ago, and end with Superman alone on Planet Earth, the last being left on the planet, as the yellow sun turns red and starts to supernova, and he loses his powers.”

I agree with his opinion on making it different instead of an homage. But here’s the thing…
Okay, so he mentioned wanting to make it to have the same essence as Godfather and The Dark Knight..How is that original or different?!
This dude just wants to copy everything! What the hell!
Once again, the problem that Bryan Singer had with Superman Returns, trying to make the Man of Steel to be all savior-like and lovy dubby…not to mention WB wanted to make him even ‘darker’
Here’s the answer….Leave SUPERMAN just the way he is, make a movie that’s true to the spirit of what he’s all about and it will pay off. Turning him into something he’s not will backfire.
Besides, Millar’s idea sounds like it’s going to be one helluva a long drama… People wants to see a movie about Superman kicking Bizarro in the neck.. reboots like THE INCREDIBLE HULK got it right.

Via comingsoon.net, here is the official theatrical poster of THE INTERNATIONAL and while other posters will have big head shots of the stars of the movie, this one shrunk the images of Clive Owen and Naomi Watts to tiny characters near the bottom right corner (click on the image to enlarge). I’m not sure why the marketing uses that approach instead of betting on drawing audiences using Owen’s charm and Watts’ cute looks. This political thriller opens on a day before Valentine’s day,.. what could be more romantic to celebrate your loved one by taking down a corrupt bank.

PLOT:
In “The International,” a gripping thriller, Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world’s most powerful banks. Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing – even murder – to continue financing terror and war.

THE INTERNATIONAL opens February 13th, 2009

Thanks to Patrick Sammon for the heads up, here are 4 New still images (click on them to enlarge) from United Artist upcoming thriller VALKYRIE starring Tom Cruise with an eye-patch, directed by Bryan Singer. By the way, the final trailer for VALKYRIE will premiere on Yahoo! Movies around 8pm PST on Thursday, October 30th. And you can bet your nazi-hating ass that I will have it here as soon as it hits the web.

Synopsis:
In a country in the grips of evil, in a police state where every move is being watched, in a world where justice and honor have been subverted, a group of men hidden inside the highest reaches of power decide to take action. Tom Cruise stars in the suspense film, VALKYRIE, based on the true story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (CRUISE) and the daring and ingenious plot to eliminate one of the most evil tyrants the world has ever known. Director Bryan Singer (THE USUAL SUSPECTS, X-MEN, SUPERMAN RETURNS) re-teams with Academy Award®-winning USUAL SUSPECTS screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie to bring to life the story of the men who led the operation to assassinate Hitler. The film also stars an acclaimed cast including Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Carice van Houten, Thomas Kretschmann, Eddie Izzard, Christian Berkel and Terence Stamp.

A proud military man, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is a loyal officer who serves his country all the while hoping that someone will find a way to stop Hitler before Europe and Germany are destroyed. Realizing that time is running out, he decides that he must take action himself and joins the German resistance. Armed with a cunning strategy to use Hitler’s own emergency plan – known as Operation Valkyrie – these men plot to assassinate the dictator and overthrow his Nazi government from the inside.

With everything in place, with the future of the world, the fate of millions and the lives of his wife and children hanging in the balance, von Stauffenberg is thrust from being one of many who oppose Hitler to the one who must kill Hitler himself.

VALKYRIE is produced by Bryan Singer, Christopher McQuarrie and Gilbert Adler. McQuarrie co-wrote the original screenplay with Nathan Alexander who also serves as co-producer. The executive producers are Chris Lee, Ken Kamins, Daniel M. Snyder, Dwight C. Schar and Mark Shapiro.

The film was shot in Germany at various locations where many of the actual events occurred, including the historic Bendlerblock. Recreating the atmosphere of urgency and paranoia inside the German resistance is a team that includes Singer’s frequent collaborators Newton Thomas Sigel (SUPERMAN RETURNS, X2, X-MEN) as director of photography and editor/composer John Ottman (SUPERMAN RETURNS, X2); as well as production designers Lilly Kilvert (two-time Oscar®-nominee for THE LAST SAMURAI and LEGENDS OF THE FALL) and Patrick Lumb (THE OMEN) and costume designer Joanna Johnston (MUNICH, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN).

Official Site: http://valkyrie.unitedartists.com/

VALKYRIE opens in theaters everywhere December 26th, 2008

Via Latinoreview, If you’re still as upset as I am about Terrence Howard replaced by Don Cheadle in IRON MAN 2, there’s a petition online at HowardNOTCheadle.com where you can sign and voice your discontent, but let’s face it, it’s not like Marvel’s going to take back the decision they’ve already officially made.

Special Thanks to Focus Features for sending me 26 awesome new images of Sean Penn, James Franco, Emile Hirsch and the rest of the cast and crew of Focus Features’ upcoming film MILK! These pics are not to be missed.
Check out the rest after the jump, plus synopsis and release date and please don’t forget to click on the images to enlarge.

CONTINUE TO SEE THE PHOTOS…
Read more

Yeah! a movie about bad guys. It was cool and all to have superhero movies this past summer (Iron Man, The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk) it was cool enough to have future movies about Supeheroes (Thor, Captain America, The Avengers)… but just like ying and yang.. in the words of Tony Montana from Scarface, “You need people like me so you can point your f*ing fingers, and say “that’s the bad guy”"

I’ve said once before that if I were an actor, the role that I’d be constantly searching for is the role of a villain. This past year has been good to Heath Ledger, Javier Bardem, and Daniel Day Lewis who each did awesome as the bad guy in their movies.
Another Villain is coming to town but this has a certain twist to it.

According to Hollywood Reporter, Universal has bought the rights to the comic book VILLAINS, written by Adam Cogan, illustrated by Ryan Cody.
The story is about a character named Nick Corrigan, who discovers that his aging neighbor used to be the notorious supervillain known as but now retired and living in hiding. Rather than turn him in to the authorities, Nick decides to blackmail him in exchange for lessons in the fine art of career super-crime.

Interesting plot and I’ll close this post with The Joker’s line from TDK, “I don’t wanna kill you, what would I do without you?!”

When you think of Vince Vaughn, the word ‘drama’ usually doesn’t come to mind. He’s more associated with the world of comedy because he’s considered one of the FRAT PACK. That’s what the media calls the group that includes Owen and Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn and Steve Carrell.
That doesn’t mean Vince Vaughn hasn’t done serious roles. He was in not-so-awesome thrillers like The Cell, Domestic Disturbance and Psycho the remake. And he did a cameo in last year’s true story drama Into the Wild, although… he was more of a comic relief too in that movie.

But director Gavin O’Connor who helmed the recent Pride & Glory had actually written a script with his pal Anthony Tambakis.. with Vince Vaughn in mind as the lead character. Well that must be flattering for Vaughn, huh?! Kinda like how the guys at Dreamworks wrote Kung Fu Panda with the intention of casting Jack Black only to voice their lead star.

This project is said to be a mix of drama and comedy, but reading the quick plot below, it sounds like a very heavy drama to me, one that might even test Vince Vaughn’s acting ability and put it to the limit.
The title is SUNNY AND 68 and according to Variety, this is basically what the story’s going to be about..

“Vaughn will play a superstar on the poker circuit whose alcoholism and recklessness cause him to flame out on national television. Wiped out and owing $500,000 to bookies, he heads home to upstate New York for the first time in 20 years, looking to take back cash he’d been sending his mother. Instead, he finds his mother dying of cancer and raising a 5-year-old girl who is actually his daughter. Mom has been positioning his former high school g.f. to become the girl’s eventual caretaker.”

O’Connor then said that it’s a story of how three generations of women teach this character to become a man and the title comes from the character’s mother, who, despite the cold weather, insists that “it’s sunny and 68.” Catchy stuff!

Could this be Vince Vaughn’s shot to Oscar nomination?
Do you think he’s got what it takes to pull a convincing dramatic performance?

I think we can all agree when I say that after the awful movie The Happening, writer/director/twist-ending gung-ho M. Night Shyamalan should take a brake from doing another gig. But just like Eagle Eye was based on the idea/concept by Steven Spielberg, lo and behold Shyamalan seems to be influential enough as well to get his idea/concept turned into a movie, but this time it will be done in the hands of another filmmaker.

According to Hollywood Reporter, John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle will direct and executive produce a script by Brian Nelson (30 Days of Night) based on an original Shyamalan story.

It’s actually a three-film pact where the goal is to generate one genre film per year over three years. The first one will be titled DEVIL which will go into production next year.
Shyamalan will oversee the whole project because ya know… once again, the movies are based on his original stories, he’ll be heavily involved in the casting process and the creative direction… hell, he is so hands on.. he might as well direct the damn thing… because so far it sounds like this would make director John Erick Dowdle more like his puppet.

So long as there’s no more scene of Mark Wahlberg talking to plants,.. I’m cool with all these three supernatural thriller projects.

Really quick now to catch up with what happened today, here are some pretty cool pics from the new STAR TREK movie, via Empire, from the cover to the screenshot images, they also got comparison of the one you see above (Zachary Quinto as young Spock and Chris Pine as young Cpt. Kirk) with the old version featuring Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner years ago doing the same pose. Let me just say that Zoe Saldana as young Uhura… perfect choice!

* Click on the images to enlarge

I am now in Florida and I kinda missed out on this info so without further adue, via joblo, Marvel has made a new announcement on THE AVENGERS Movie which includes the fact that Robert Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle have both signed on to be Tony Stark/IRON MAN and James “Rhodey” Rhodes/WAR MACHINE. Director Jon Favreau will helm IRON MAN 2 and be the executive producer of THE AVENGERS.
What do you think?

Here’s the complete word per word from Marvel..

As part of his four picture deal with Marvel Studios, Robert Downey Jr. is appearing as Tony Stark in THE AVENGERS motion picture, as well as reprising his starring role as the larger-than-life leading character in IRON MAN 2. Jon Favreau will return to direct the sequel to the blockbuster IRON MAN, which to date has grossed over $578 million worldwide, as well as executive produce THE AVENGERS.

Marvel Studios is pleased today to confirm that an agreement has been finalized with award-winning actor Don Cheadle to take on the role of Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes in Marvel’s IRON MAN 2 due in theaters on May 7, 2010. In casting Cheadle, Marvel replaces Terrence Howard who appeared in the role of Rhodey in IRON MAN. Cheadle is also signed on to perform the same role in THE AVENGERS and subsequent installments of the IRON MAN franchise.

In a movie event, THE AVENGERS will bring together the super hero team of Marvel Comics characters for the first time ever, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk and more, as they are forced to band together to battle the biggest foe they’ve ever faced.

The highly anticipated sequel to IRON MAN will be released in theatres on May 7, 2010 and THE AVENGERS will be released July 15, 2011. Both films will be distributed by Paramount Pictures.