An anonymous source has sent in pictures from the latest film shoot at the Long Beach docks in California to Seibertron. Once again, the set and deco match those seen in the Bethlehem shoot – implying that these scenes will all be merged together somehow.

The images show us Optimus Prime in action, the new Audi R8 and what looks like the rumored Chevy Stingray. Military trucks and the ice cream truck are also on-hand and it all ends with a tasty explosion amongst some barrels – cue CG.

In an interview with MTV concerning the Transformers 2 prequel comic, publisher IDW confirmed that they would be providing a wealth of background information on the new main villain, The Fallen.

“[We're going to] explore the background of The Fallen — the main villain of the movie — as well as expand on the ‘Reign of Starscream’ story that we’re doing and tie everything in to what this next movie is going to be,” explained writer Chris Mowry, who partners on the book with artist Alex Milne. “The next movie starts out with just tons of action and there’s obviously going to be a lot of questions, so we’re hoping to answer some of those beforehand.”

[...]

“Destiny” will establish much of the second before fans are introduced to an increasingly complex storyline with multiple new robots. “We’re definitely taking every character that we can from the sequel,” said Mowry. “So you’ll see some Sector 7 involvement and how they developed into a new group that will be introduced. The same thing with some of the new characters, we’ll explain how they get to Earth. Because like I said, [the sequel] starts out with this giant battle so people will be wondering ‘Hey, where did that guy come from?’”

This is reiterated in an interview with Simon Furman at CBR,

“I’ve never really had the chance to lay down the definitive story around [the 13] and what role they played in what came after them. Over the years for various publishers in various publications, I’ve laid seeds of this group called The 13 and hinted about who some of them might be and how they play into the bigger mythos. I think this is where we’re finding answers to all the big questions. We’re working very closely with Hasbro in this series so that whatever we do in ‘The 13′ is very much tied in to the whole Transformers Universe. They want to get all of their irons in the fire ready and in the right order for 2009, which is the 25th anniversary. We’re all working hopefully to get a definitive, cohesive Transformers Universe in terms of the back story.”

The writer added that the threads introduced in “The 13″ will eventually payoff in current series and plots and possibly elsewhere within the Transformers family of media. “It’s interesting that the second movie is using this character called the Fallen, which is a character that we created back in the Dreamwave days for this big series called ‘The Dark Ages’ which tapped into what had gone before. So these names and institutions like The 13 are rolling on into different incarnations.”

For those not in the know, from Wikipedia:

Although the Fallen’s origins are only suggested in his comic book appearance, they would be fully explained in Dorling Kindersley’s Transformers: The Ultimate Guide. One of the original thirteen Transformers created by Primus, the robot who would become the Fallen betrayed his creator by siding with Primus’s dark twin, the malevolent planet-eater, Unicron. In the final battle between Primus and Unicron, the Fallen fell victim to the same fate as his master, sucked through a black hole into another dimension. However, while Unicron emerged into another universe, the Fallen was not so fortunate, finding himself trapped in the “underspace” between dimensions.

The Fallen made his only appearance in the second volume of Transformers: The War Within – the Dark Ages. Around 6.5 million years ago, a test of the experimental “space bridge” matter-transport system on Cybertron liberated the Fallen from his prison, and he materialised on Cybertron, where he quickly recruited the Chaos Trinity, three mystically-inclined Decepticons – Bludgeon, Mindwipe and Bugly – into his employ. Abducting Transformers that he identified as possessing “genetic potential” within their sparks – Grimlock, Blitzwing, Jetfire and Hot Spot – the Fallen planned to use their energies to awaken Primus from his self-imposed slumber, thereby alerting Unicron to his location, allowing the world-eater to renew hostilities with his old enemy. An attack from combined Autobot and Decepticon forces led by Shockwave and Prowl disrupted his plans, and Primus himself reached out and promptly destroyed the Fallen.

Optimus Prime, Ironhide, the NEST vehicles and the Ice Cream truck have been spotted filming in San Pedro CA. The set very much resembles the Bethlehem Steel locale whilst Chinese symbols can also been seen dotted about the place – strongly suggesting that these scenes will link up somehow with the Bethlehem Steel shoot.

Source: TLAMB

Shia LaBoeuf is an idiot. Anyone that drives drunk deserves to be called an idiot and made a public mockery of. Below is the best television report I can find on YouTube that covers the incident – well, the least sensationalist and the most informative. It concludes that Shia expects to return to work within the month. Shia managed to flip his green Ford when he made a left-turn too fast, crushing his left hand in the process and requiring extensive surgery. CelebrityFix reports that the female passenger involved in the accident was none other than Isabel Lucas, uninjured she has returned to the set for filming.

This weekend looked like it would bring in more big numbers for The Dark Knight, and that it certainly did. After very strong mid-week sales of $18.4m and $16.5m on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, the caped crusader added another $23.2m on Friday, making the $300m target reachable by the end of the week.

In its second weekend The Dark Knight grossed an estimated $75.6m in 4366 theaters, the record for biggest second weekend ever (set by Shrek 2 – $72.2m), putting Batman at a whopping $314.2m after only 10 days – smashing the previous $300m record set by Dead Man’s Chest by 6 days.

The movie is now up to #23 on the domestic blockbuster chart. Internationally The Dark Knight added $65.6m in 7,143 theaters across 43 locations – reaching a foreign total of $126.3m. In 12 days the worldwide gross has reached $440.5m, despite key Asian and European markets getting a delayed release in August.

Sources: Variety, Box Office Mojo

Variety are reporting that movie studio Legendary Pictures will be co-financing and co-producing the Gears of War movie adaptation, to be directed by Len Wiseman.

It’s the first New Line project that Legendary has signed onto since the mini-major was folded into Warner Bros. earlier this year. Legendary has a deal to co-finance and co-produce at WB.

“Gears of War” has been set up at New Line since early last year with Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey producing through their Temple Hill banner. “Gears” lead designer Cliff Bleszinski is exec producing and consulting for developer Epic, which owns the rights.

Len Wiseman is directing with Chris Morgan writing the script. First draft was penned by Stuart Beattie.

During the viral marketing campaign we were given this image of The Joker being chauffeured:

Chris has pointed out that this was not in the movie – maybe there are some more Joker scenes waiting for us on the DVD release, or a director’s cut? We can only hope. Where do you thing this would have fit into the movie?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Dark Knight has utterly smashed the record for reaching $200m the fastest, the previous record was eight days – by three films – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Spider-Man 2 and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith; all big name contenders. The Dark Knight has achieved this in five days, knocking a whole 3 days off the record. That’s phenomenal.

On Monday the movie took $24.5 million (a best ever non-holiday Monday) and Tuesday it added a further $20.87 million (second best ever to Transformers).

SSH has a nice summary of The Dark Knight’s major accomplishments so far:

Widest release (4,366 theaters), biggest midnight opening ($18.5M), biggest opening weekend ($158.4M), biggest July opener ($158.4M), biggest PG-13 rated opening ($158.4M), biggest single day ($67.2M), biggest opening day ($67.2M), biggest Friday ($67.2M), biggest Sunday ($43.6M), biggest IMAX opening ($6.3M) and fastest to $200M in five days ($203.8M).

Source: Media by Numbers, Thanks Keith