Tom Hardy: Lonely Bartender Who Rescues Dogs From the Mob

The Dark Knight Rises' Tom Hardy may star in the crime drama Animal Rescue, based on a short story by Shutter Island and Mystic River author Dennis Lehane.

Variety reports that Michael Roskam (Bullhead) will direct the Fox Searchlight and Chernin Entertainment project.

The film reportedly "follows a lonely Boston bartender who rescues a puppy from a garbage can and becomes the target of the dog's abusive and mentally unstable former owner, while simultaneously getting caught in the middle of a criminal conspiracy playing out in his mob-controlled bar."

Source : ign[dot]com

Elementary to Follow Super Bowl XLVII

CBS announced today that its freshman drama Elementary has landed the coveted post-Super Bowl slot this year.

Starring Jonny Lee Miller as a modernized Sherlock Holmes along with his partner in crime (solving), Lucy Liu as Joan Watson, Elementary has performed exceedingly well, averaging 14.2 million viewers.

A special episode of Elementary will air following CBS Sports' coverage of Super Bowl XLVII, Sunday, February 3, at 10pm ET/7pm PT.

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter, or MaxNicholson on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

NYCC: Soul Sacrifice -- Spells and Specialization

Magic makes the drama of battle much more interesting. Wielding a sword has its own exhilarating charms, but wielding the elements, even the dead, dazzles in a way that wood and iron fail to do. The battles waged in Soul Sacrifice are driven entirely by magic. And you define the magic you sling and summon, which in turn defines you as a sorcerer and your subsequent style of play.

But why is all this magic crackling at your fingertips? As it turns out, you've been imprisoned by a rival sorcerer at the start of Soul Sacrifice. During your imprisonment, you find a strange (talking) journal that once belonged to a powerful spellcaster. You live out this sorcerer's memories in Soul Sacrifice by completing quests, which in turn unleashes new magic into your catalogue and inches you closer to freedom.

Before embarking on a quest you select which spells you bring into battle. These aren't your ordinary, everyday spells, mind you. These are dangerous, unstable, and often grotesque techniques that torment your body and unleash destruction on the creatures that snarl and bark before you. You can distort your hand into a seething hammer, or wield a sword wreathed in fire. Perhaps you'll coat your arm in ice and spew a frigid wind at the opposition, or summon a golem from beneath the dirt to do your bidding.

There are hundreds of spells to unlock as you journey through the dark. And by playing with up to three other friends you are encouraged -- and in some cases required -- to select spells that complement each other. Questing with an aggressive lover of blades? Select supportive magic to heal his wounds or hold his enemies in place while he whittles their flesh away.

With each monster vanquished, a choice must be made: do you save the soul of the defeated, or sacrifice it? Saving souls restores health and graces you with icy light, while sacrificing an enemy enhances your strength and bathes you in a glow as red as blood. These choices alter the appearance of your sorcerer, and purify or twist their physical form over time.

All these choices mold each sorcerer into a different conduit of mystical devastation, including the option to sacrifice your avatar's body to unleash a terrible attack onto enemies of immense power. But once this spell fizzles to a halt, you're forced to wander the battlefield as a ghost while your allies finish the quest alone. You can only heal them or hamper their foes, but you have little direct control over what's left of the battle.

The spells of Soul Sacrifice power its charm and hum with potential. While an English-version build has yet to be shown, the diversity and unique quality of the magic vouch strongly for the whole experience, which will arrive this coming spring.

Ryan Clements writes for IGN and gravitates towards ice magic. It's always so cool. Get it? Cool.

Source : ign[dot]com

Silver Linings Playbook Posters and Pics

Check out the latest images from Silver Linings Playbook, the upcoming drama from director David O. Russell starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Chris Tucker, and Julia Stiles.

Silver Linings Playbook opens November 21.

Source : ign[dot]com

Anna Kendrick on End of Watch

It’s emotional, gritty, and very realistic. The action-drama End of Watch chronicles two beat cops (Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena) working in the heart of south central L.A. They deal with gang bangers, drug dealers, and the worst criminals the city has to offer. The film tells a story about men trying to control their world, fighting the good fight.

The emotional core of director David Ayer’s are the relationships. This is a movie as much about family, and what it means to rely on someone, as it is about day to day police work. Anna Kendrick plays Janet, girlfriend and eventual wife to Officer Brian Taylor (Gyllenhaal). She becomes a focal point as their relationship develops, and she learns what it means to enter this world.

IGN recently had a chance to sit down with Kendrick to talk about End of Watch and what the movie means to her.

IGN: What can you tell us generally your role in the film?

Anna Kendrick: I play Jake Gyllenhaal’s girlfriend, and fiancee, and eventual wife who is kind of taking the journey from thinking that dating a cop is like dating a teacher or an accountant, and realizing what it is that he risks everyday, and realizing how strong she has to be to accept that risk.

IGN: The film’s form is fascinating, how did the ‘day in the life’ aspect inform how you took on the film?

Anna Kendrick: It certainly created one of the most interesting atmospheres on set that I’ve ever experienced. One in which you were never really sure if you were being filmed or not, so it was weirdly liberating and challenging at the same time, in this wonderful way where you were in character for 12 hours a day. The only time we weren’t holding hands, snuggling or whatever the scene called for was at lunch. If there was ever a point that we realized that every other camera was re-loading then Jake or Michael would grab the handheld and we would just film something. Jake would pull me aside and he would grab the handheld camera and start doing something, and then David would notice that we were in the corner and come over and start filming, and we wouldn’t have noticed for a solid 5 minutes that they’d been filming us, until Dave yells out ‘kiss her!’

IGN: So it sounds like there was a lot of improv on set.

Anna Kendrick: Exactly. Two things happen when you’re allowed to improv that much. You do find these little magic moments that really add to the film, but also it creates such a natural environment that improv can bleed really naturally into scripted dialogue. Dave wrote a great screenplay, and he knew the story that he wanted to tell, so a lot of what’s in the film is paired back down to his original screenplay. There are certainly magical little moments that are peppered in there, and that’s definitely worth all the footage that we sacrificed, it’s certainly worth those tiny little moments that did make it into the film, and I think it aided our performances all around.

IGN: How do you get into the mindset of a police officer's wife?

Anna Kendrick: It was interesting for me because it was one of those weird life imitating art situations where all of my rehearsals were with just Jake. So I’ve met Mike (Peña) and I’ve met Natalie (Martinez), but I didn’t know them well at all, so when I came to set it really felt like my new boyfriend introducing me to his good friends. And the three of them were already really close so I really had that feeling of wanting to prove that I was strong enough to be a part of this family, but then also being overwhelmed by the bond that they had. In a healthy way, I was a little envious of the relationship Jake had with Mike, and the relationship that he has with everybody on the police force. Realizing again and again, and again through every scene just what it means to be a police officer, what it means to be a police officers wife.

In the wedding scene when Mike is giving a toast he gave such a beautiful performance I really felt like I was just listening and taking it in and then I was looking around the room at all these people and being told that they were my family now that all felt really real for me. It was really great to go on this journey with this character. I was a little nervous coming in without doing a ton of prep work because the guys had done so much, but I think actually it would have been detrimental to the entire experience and the performance.

IGN: How did you achieve such believable intimacy with Jake?

Anna Kendrick: I really followed his lead on that. I’m really glad that he was so open and giving on that end, just like somebody who wants to reach inside you and rip you open in this really incredible way. He was so deep in the shit by the time that I got there that he was completely mentally there all day every day. So when I showed up and he was holding my hand the entire time I was like ‘this is weird right?’; but I think that’s exactly why that relationship is believable in such a short amount of screen time.

IGN: What draws you to this kind of a character?

Anna Kendrick: I don’t have a thing for really likable characters. Even in this, Janet is likable and she has her heart in the right place but I think weirdly the scene that really puts the audience on her side is the scene when she goes through Brian’s wallet. Because it’s not a respectable thing to do, and I think the audience wants to be on a character’s side and they want to forgive them, but when you just say ‘here’s this character isn’t she great, this is why we love her’ I think people really resist that.

This is a really silly example but I think that on Community you know how at first people didn’t like Britta, because she was supposed to be the cool one, the moral one; and once they started breaking her down and making her like the worst, and making fun of her, people started to really come around on her. Little things like that is what makes you connect with characters and gets you on their side. Even the police officers, people talk about finally showing the story of two good cops, but they make some morally questionable decisions. I think those are the places where you’re rooting for them., because they’re human, and you think ‘if I met them they wouldn’t look down on me.’

IGN: What’s your take on some of the graphic violence in the film?

Anna Kendrick: That’s really David’s wheelhouse. I think this is a world that David understands and there are things in the film that I wish I could look at them and say ‘but I’m sure that kind of thing doesn’t really happen…’ but of course a lot of these are true stories or inspired by true stories so there’s a part of me that wants to block some of that out. I know that it’s a world that David understands so I’m glad he can put it across so beautifully, and in such a compelling way.

End of Watch is now playing.

Source : ign[dot]com

Ivan Reitman May Just Remake Ghostbusters

After all the "will they, won't they" drama surrounding a third Ghostbusters film, it sounds like Ivan Reitman may just call the whole thing off and start from scratch.

In a recent interview with Collider, Reitman was asked about the long-gestating Ghostbusters 3 and where the project was in development. In response, the filmmaker gave a rather unexpected answer: "I think Ghostbusters probably should be remade, if we can get it all right. We're working on it, so we'll see."

Brief as it is, this statement definitely seems to indicate that Reitman may be over trying to get a threequel off the ground, instead aiming for a complete do-over.

What do you think? Would you rather see a Ghostbusters reboot as this point as well? Or are you still rooting for the old team getting back together? Let us hear your thoughts in the Comments below!

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Ivan Reitman May Just Remake Ghostbusters

After all the "will they, won't they" drama surrounding a third Ghostbusters film, it sounds like Ivan Reitman may just call the whole thing off and start from scratch.

In a recent interview with Collider, Reitman was asked about the long-gestating Ghostbusters 3 and where the project was in development. In response, the filmmaker gave a rather unexpected answer: "I think Ghostbusters probably should be remade, if we can get it all right. We're working on it, so we'll see."

Brief as it is, this statement definitely seems to indicate that Reitman may be over trying to get a threequel off the ground, instead aiming for a complete do-over.

What do you think? Would you rather see a Ghostbusters reboot as this point as well? Or are you still rooting for the old team getting back together? Let us hear your thoughts in the Comments below!

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Jake Gyllenhaal Takes Prisoners With Hugh Jackman

With his cop drama End of Watch hot at the box office this weekend, Jake Gyllenhaal is poised to pick up a badge and gun again for the Alcon Entertainment thriller Prisoners. The Denis Villeneuve-directed pic already has Hugh Jackman and Melissa Leo set to star.

Although Gyllenhaal's deal isn't closed yet, Variety says he'll play a big city detective who comes up against a small town carpenter (Jackman) out for revenge after his young daughter and best friend are kidnapped. Aaron Guzikowski wrote the script.

Filming is slated to begin early next year for a fall 2013 release.

Gyllenhaal and Villeneuve previous worked together on the thriller An Enemy.

Source : ign[dot]com

Legion Lost #0 Review

Legion Lost #0 is a pretty standard origin story for the most interesting character in the title, supplying enough action and drama for the title to transition smoothly into its next issue. Timber Wolf receives a solid retelling of his backstory and motivation for his career as a vigilante/Legion member. In the end, Tom DeFalco’s story is enough to justify this issue’s existence, but it’s unlikely to be your favorite book this week.

Pete Woods is strong this month, driving the book’s action with some great perspectives and motion. The old pro effortlessly conveys the fury and tragedy of DeFalco’s story, as the plot swirls between past and present. In fact, the work is so good that it can almost tell the story without any text at all.

When so many #0 titles are falling short of spectacular, Legion Lost #0 actually gives readers a reason to tune in. The story’s skeleton is a bit familiar, but the Woods’ execution is worth the price of admission.

Poet is a freelance writer, mid-core gamer, and frequent IGN contributor. Follow Poet on Twitter, or post a message on his IGN profile.

Source : ign[dot]com

End of Watch Review

The police drama End of Watch is the hardest, most honest buddy cop movie you'll ever see. It’s grounded in the everyday relationships of and the very real feelings between cops. It is a film about family; we rely on the police and they in turn rely on each other.

As the story unfolds, we ride along with two beat cops in South Central L.A., Officers Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena). They are good cops doing a difficult job. They spend their shifts looking for drugs, guns, and money. They deal with gangs daily, encountering the absolute worst the job has to offer. As Zavala points out, they see more action in a given month than lots of cops do in their entire career. They are forced to make hard decisions regularly, and while their choices may sometimes be questionable we still know they are good men.

The plot revolves around escalating gang tension and a rising Mexican cartel in South Central. This is a character study, though, as filmmaker David Ayer (writer of Training Day) aims to get the story of L.A. cops “right.” He does this by following distinct episodes in these officers’ lives, both in the line of fire and during quieter moments on the job. The story moves in deliberate beats: action, reprieve, action, reprieve. The stakes here are life and death, but these heroes are seen as more than just a Shield. While their work may inform how they see themselves, they are truly defined by their relationships, most significantly to one another.

The cops deal with scumbags and gangsters in the action scenes, but it’s the quieter times with them in their patrol car that are the most fun to watch. These characters are utterly engrossing and their relationship is the film’s core driving force. Gyllenhaal and Pena give fantastic, wholly authentic performances, and the naturalness of their friendship is a joy to behold. Supporting players, notably Anna Kendrick as Officer Taylor's girlfriend Janet, play just as real. There is an intimacy and chemistry between this cast that shines throughout the entire film.

Ayer presents much of the movie in the rawest manner possible and from the points of view of the officers and gang members via shaky cam. We watch through dashboard and surveillance cameras as the action and quieter scenes reveal themselves. It’s not entirely a “found footage” film, but there is an immediacy and freedom in the scenes where this technique is employed. Unfortunately, some of these deeply emotional, camcorder-shot scenes jarringly cut to glossier, more traditionally filmed ones, causing stylistic inconsistencies that hurt the movie. It’s only thanks to the strength of the characters and the cast that the viewer isn’t totally pulled out of the film by these sudden stylistic shifts.

The movie’s insular story may take place over the course of a few months, but it still has a “one crazy day in the life” quality to it. The cops pay lip service to the fact that most of the calls they go on are simple domestic disputes or other mundane police work, but in fact every single action scene depicts insanely tense, life or death situations. You have to remind yourself of the passage of time between events otherwise the story’s believability will suffer.

This is a film propelled by the strength of its characters and how they relate to each other and their world. You can't help but care for them because the movie is so full of heart. End of Watch makes an impact, stressing the important need to recognize that there are real people out there who risk their personal safety for all of us each and every day.

Source : ign[dot]com

J.J. Abrams and Fringe's J.H. Wyman Developing New Futuristic Drama for FOX

With FOX's Fringe approaching its conclusion, J.J. Abrams, the network and one of the show's main creative forces are teaming up once again for a new futuristic drama series.

Deadline reports that FOX has picked up the Bad Robot project with a pilot production commitment. The show is described as "an action-packed buddy cop show, set in the near future, when all LAPD officers are partnered with highly evolved human-like androids." Fringe's executive producer and showrunner, J.H. Wyman, is penning the script, with Abrams, Wyman, Bryan Burk and Kathy Lingg executive producing.

This marks the second series pick-up this season to focus on robot/human coexistence; NBC recently picked up a script deal from Homeland executive producer Howard Gordon and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' EP Josh Friedman.

Source : ign[dot]com

FX Orders New Cold War-Era Spy Drama

FX announced today that they've ordered up 13 episodes of The Americans - a period drama about the complex marriage of two KGB spies posing as Americans in suburban Washington DC shortly after Ronald Reagan is elected President.

The Americans was created by Joe Weisberg and stars Keri Russell (Felicity), Matthew Rhys (Brothers & Sisters) and Noah Emmerich (Super 8). The series will revolve around the arranged marriage of Phillip (Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Russell), who have two children who know nothing about their parents true identity. As the marriage grows more passionate and genuine by the day, it is still constantly tested by the escalation of the Cold War and the intimate, dangerous and darkly funny relationships they must maintain with a network of spies and informants under their control. Complicating their relationship further is Phillip’s growing sense of affinity for America’s values and way of life. Tensions also heighten upon the arrival of a new neighbor, Stan (Emmerich), an FBI agent working in counter intelligence.

Keri Russell in FOX's Running Wilde.

“We’re proud to welcome The Americans, a taught series that crackles with incredible performances rooted in character perspectives never explored on a U.S. television series, to FX’s line up of quality dramas,” said John Landgraf, President and General Manager, FX Networks. “We’re equally excited to welcome Graham Yost’s talented young Padawan Joe Weisberg as Creator/Showrunner. He joins a long line of gifted writer/producers who have taken their first shot at greatness on FX.”

Weisberg is Executive Producer/Showrunner, alongside Executive Producer Graham Yost (Justified). The series begins production in October and is scheduled to premiere in early 2013.

Source : ign[dot]com

AMC Picks Up Area 51 Drama

With Mad Men and Breaking Bad reaching their final days, AMC has now picked up the Area 51 drama series based on the best-seller by Annie Jacobsen. The Walking Dead's Gale Anne Hurd will executive produce, confirmed The Hollywood Reporter.

The show centers on the top secret Area 51 installation in southwest Nevada, which has been the target of alien and supernatural conspiracy theories for decades now. Jacobsen interviewed 19 men close to the project as the basis for her book.

We heard back in November that this project was in development, but only now has it found a home on the popular cable network, which also just announced the cancellation of its Seattle-based crime drama The Killing. Area 51 joins AMC's other development properties including Robert Kirkman's Thief of Thieves, The Real All Americans, a potential Goodfellas series, among others.

Todd E. Kessler (The Good Wife) penned the script for the upcoming Area 51 pilot.

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com