"Come at me, bro."

A lot of people talk about media coverage of movies, but few of them understand it first-hand as well as Brad Bird. Bird got his start directing Iron Giant, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles for Pixar, then moved onto 3D animation, CGI-ing “Tom Cruise” in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Plus, he’s Larry Bird’s brother. Now, Bird has taken to Twitter to defend John Carter, from fellow Pixartisan Andrew Stanton, which Bird says is being treated unfairly by the media.

“The showbiz press complains about big-budget sequels & remakes, but when a big NEW film like JOHN CARTER arrives, support is nonexistent,” he tweeted. Clarifying, he added, “I dont mean the ‘press’ press…I mean the industry prognosticators who bagged on ‘Ratatouille,’ ‘Wall-E‘ & ‘Up‘ before they came out.” He also said, “The loudest complainers about JC haven’t seen it!” [Twitter via ThePlaylist]

Woof, don’t call it ‘JC’, please, it gives me bad Matrix sequel flashbacks. You have to tell me if this is another Christ metaphor so I can avoid it, it’s the law. Anyway, what Bird is probably talking about is an article in The Daily Beast recently that claimed John Carter would have to make $400 million to break even, which Disney of course denies.

I’m not going to argue financial figures, because I don’t have access to Disney’s records, and I’m not an expert on economics. As a blogger, I go into town once a month and get confused when vendors refuse to barter for  sweatpants. But I will say that Disney have only themselves to blame for their awful marketing campaign. It’s like they’ve spent the last three months between November (when the first trailer was released) and now trying their best to convince us that the lead character’s name was indeed John Carter. As if they assumed they’d be like, “Here’s our movie, it’s called John Carter!” And people would be like, “John Carter? No way, dude, I call bullshit.”

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Tom Cruise vs. The World’s Tallest Phallus

All my life I’d wanted to see Officially Not-Gay Parkour Master Tom Cruise swinging from a giant phallus, and now, thanks to Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, I have! And in glorious IMAX! The plot could’ve used a little more, well… girth, to fully satisfy this lady (*pointing to myself*), but I admit with these wide hips I can be a bit of a size queen. Which is to say, it’s not the kind of story you’re going to remember anything about three seconds after you leave the theater, but as a framework to include every kind of shot you’d see on one of those vivid HD channels that electronic stores use to pimp the latest plasma screens, it’s brilliant. Russian cities! Shiny supercars (all BMW)! Towering skyscrapers! Bollywood parties! …Smooshed together mixed-race titties! If IMAX screens had a demo reel, this would be it. And Tom Cruise is a perfect fit. His blandly competent line readings just scream “movie actor!”

We catch up to Tom Cruise in a Russian prison, where his plucky gang of spy pals, including computer expert Simon Pegg and voluptuous Paula Patton (“Agent Honeypot,” I like to call her) is busting him out. They need his help to catch a terrorist! There’s a former Russian general who’s gone rogue, escaping his pen, goring three of his handlers and stealing the nuclear launch codes. He wants to launch Russian missiles at the United States in order to start World War III, so that, uh… the Earth can, uh… have a fresh start or some shit? You know, it wasn’t super clear on that point. But basically, it’s like War Games or Crimson Tide. If you’ve ever seen that South Park where the characters say stuff like “A secret government program… or maybe it was aliens… Who cares, f*ck you!” to move the plot past the exposition we’re all going to forgive anyway, it’s a lot like that. And rightly so.

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Paramount released this new publicity still from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, starring Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, and Jeremy Renner, from director Brad Bird (Ratatouille), opening December 21st. Here we see Cruise’s Ethan Hunt grilling Renner’s Brandt on whether there are indeed gays in there.

This Christmas… Justice wears white pants.

The trailer for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (one colon, one dash, no number) just hit the web, and it has all the thrills, chills, and Eminem rapping about Tom Cruise one could possibly hope for. Directed by Brad Bird of the awesome The Incredibles and Ratatouille, this one stars Cruise (you may remember him doing his own stunts on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai) alongside Jeremy Renner, with Josh Holloway, Tom Wilkinson, and Simon Pegg in supporting roles. The actress attached to the boobs below is Paula Patton.  She looks nice, but frankly I think this could’ve used a spicy Latina or two.  I bet when Michael Bay saw Tom Cruise rappelling down the tallest building in the world on the same day his movie about Josh Duhamel wingsuiting off the Sears Tower hits theaters, he crushed the Monster Energy Drink he’d been sipping, stroked the purring snow leopard in his lap, and silently swore revenge.

In a desperate hope that people might starting giving a sh*t about the franchise, Paramount has cast The Hurt Locker‘s Jeremy Renner in Mission Impossible IV.  It shoots in the fall with Brad Bird (Ratatouille, The Incredibles) directing and JJ Abrams producing.  Jeez, imagine if we could get this level of talent working on something that wasn’t a fourth sequel to an adaptation of a 60s TV show, huh?

Renner will star alongside Tom Cruise in the fourth installment of a franchise that will begin production in the fall. It is the second major role for Renner coming out of his  turn as the reckless explosives specialist in the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker. Renner also will star in Marvel Studios’ The Avengers, playing the role of Hawkeye. Renner will next be seen in the Ben Affleck-directed The Town, the GK Films-produced drama that Warner Bros opens September 17.

Paramount has struggled to find the right co-star to play an operative opposite Cruise, and one factor was to selecting an actor who could potentially carry the series down the line, should Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character not continue to be the emphasis. [Deadline]

“Down the line”?  Jesus christ, you’ve already got four of them.  How many franchises produced good movies after the fourth?  The only one I can think of is Phattys Rhymes and Dimes, and as good as Jeremy Renner is, he’s no Brian Pumper.  For his part, Cruise is said to be delighted by the casting of Renner (who was “outed” by the National Enquirer earlier this year), inviting his new co-star out to watch the latest matches of American football at the local tavern, as long as there aren’t any gays in there.