People like to badmouth the choice of Zack Snyder to direct Warner’s Superman reboot, Man of Steel, but if you throw out Sucker Punch, which was indeed terrible, he did a decent job with The Watchmen, and if you can handle Dr. Manhattan, it seems to follow that you should be able to handle Superman, who’s just Dr. Manhattan with underpants. Anyway, here’s the latest trailer for Man of Steel, screenplay by David S. Goyer and Christpher Nolan, starring Henry Cavill as Superman, Dianne Lane as Martha Kent (way too attractive to be named “Martha”), and cameos from Kevin Costner as Pa Kent, Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Michael Shannon as General Zod, and Amy Adams as Lois Lane. There don’t seem to be any Justice League hints, thank God, but neither does Zod flog himself or drown any Jews a la Boardwalk Empire. Call it a wash.

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I don't remember why I made this picture. Just go with it.

Enjoy some bite-sized trade news:

McG directing Kevin Costner in a Luc Besson-scripted Secret Service movie. Against all odds, McG continues to get work. Sounds like this one’s in the vein of similarly Besson-written titles Taken/Lockout/Colombiana. But even though it’s about a Secret Service agent, it sounds like it won’t tread on C-Tates’ White House Down or its Gerard Butler knockoff. Here’s the synopsis:

The project, according to the companies, “explores a story about Secret Service agent Ethan Runner, who discovers he’s dying and decides to retire in order to reconnect with his estranged family. But when the Secret Service offers him access to an experimental drug that could save his life in exchange for one last assignment, he soon finds himself trying to juggle his family, his mission and the drug’s hallucinatory side effects.” [THR]

Is Maggie Grace going to be in it? Maggie Grace is always inexplicably present in Luc Besson films. Anyway I hope to God “Ethan Runner” is a parkour expert. “My name is Ethan F. Runner, and if it’s money you’re after, I can tell you that I have none. What I do have, is a particular set of skills gained over a lifetime of free running.”

Our buddy Jay Chandrasekhar of Broken Lizard is directing Yogi Bear 2. Is it because he’s Indian? Come on, Yogi isn’t even a real Yogi. That’s racist. Anyway, Warner Bros hired Chandrasekhar to rewrite and direct the sequel to Eric Brevig’s 2010 3D classic about a hungry bear that wears ties. Said a WB spokesperson: “In making a sequel to Yogi Bear, we really wanted to make sure to crush as many souls as possible, the more once-promising the better.” Okay, not really. Whatever, hopefully this was a compromise that brings us one step closer to that Super Troopers sequel. As my grandpa once said, “Errybody gotta make dat papa stack.” [Deadline]

Here’s a new clip from Red Dawn!

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What with all the Bourne movies flying around and parkouring down rails on their motorcycles, you might not have noticed that it’s been 10 years since a Tom Clancy novel made it to the big screen. At some point, Paramount apparently decided that Clancy didn’t write enough books, and bought an original script from Adam Cozad called Moscow, based on the Clancy character Jack Ryan. Then they paid David Koepp seven figures to rewrite it. They hired Chris Pine to star alongside Kevin Costner, and Kenneth Branagh to direct and play the villain, and somewhere along the line they renamed it “Jack Ryan” and set it for a Christmas 2013 release.

After various starts and stops, bad luck and good fortune, the release date for Jack Ryan now is Christmas Day of 2013. It goes up against Universal’s martial arts movie 41 Ronin with Keanu Reeves as well as Fox’s comedy remake of The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty directed by and starring Ben Stiller. Jack Ryan resurrects the popular Tom Clancy character of CIA analyst Jack Ryan last seen on film in 2002 and now played by Chris Pine in the role already made famous by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck.  This contemporized original prequel story picks up Ryan before he joined the CIA. [Deadline]

Jack Ryan now joins Bucky Larson, Jack Reacher, John Carter, Ruby Sparks, Charlie Bartlett, Alex Cross, and others in a long line of films un-intriguingly named after characters no one has heard of or gives a sh*t about yet, that already have, or probably will bomb. In case you’re keeping track:

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan titles: The Hunt for Red October, The Sum of All Fears, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger.

Paramount’s Jack Ryan title: Jack Ryan.

Which one sounds f*cking boring to you?

After the jump, I’ve got the first two teasers from Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, starring handsome Brit Henry Cavill, with Russell Crowe, and Amy Adams. All our superheroes are played by British and Australian guys now, because young American actors can’t reach adulthood without the Disney Channel turning them into lesbians anymore. Anyway, the teaser is mostly b-roll-type footage, where Superman, sporting a mountain man beard, starts out working on a crab boat. At some point he’ll have to master his own destiny and shave off his beard and become the hero we know he can be, because Jesus Christ, that happens in every action movie. Just once I’d like to see a hero whose destiny involved a sick Fu Manchu. Anyway, it’s hard to tell whether it will be a good movie just yet, but it already looks like an awesome jeans commercial.

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After being awarded millions in his daydream, Stephen rides off on an invisible Harley, a beautiful supermodel's arms around his waist.

Hey, remember “Stephen Baldwin is suing Kevin Costner?” That was a neat headline, huh? Baldwin, known amongst his famous brothers as “bible-thumping talent vacuum,” had sued Kevin Costner, claiming Costner had cheating him out of millions by buying Baldwin out of their business venture without disclosing important information. Shortly after buying Baldwin out for $1.4 million, Costner got a $52 million order from BP for his oil-separating centerfuges. You’d think Stephen Baldwin would be used to earning table scraps while riding someone more famous’s coattails by now, but he promptly sued.

After a two-week trial, eight jurors deliberated for less than two hours before giving their decision in the lawsuit brought by Baldwin and his friend, Spyridon Contogouris.

“Spyridon Contogouris” is my favorite Misfits song. I think it’s the Halloween II b-side.

Contogouris and Baldwin sold their shares in Ocean Therapy Solutions for $1.4 million and $500,000, respectively. The company was marketing the oil-separating centrifuges.
Baldwin testified he would have held out for much more if he had known BP had committed to ordering 32 of them. Soon after they sold their shares, the oil giant made an $18 million deposit on a $52 million order.
Attorneys for Costner and Smith said Baldwin and Contogouris knew BP was preparing to order the machines when they walked away from the company rather than gamble for a more lucrative payout if BP signed a binding contract. At the time they sold their shares, BP only had signed a non-binding letter of intent, the defendants’ attorneys said.
[Baldwin's lawyer] Cobb questioned whether celebrity was a factor in the outcome “because I believe we proved our case and because the bigger celebrity won.”
Earlier Thursday, during the trial’s closing arguments, Cobb told jurors they probably see the case as a “bunch of rich people fighting over money I’ll never, ever see.” Cobb, however, said his clients deserved to be compensated for being lied to by Costner and business partner Patrick Smith and defrauded out of their fair share of the BP money.
“I had no idea the spider’s web of deception could be so pervasive and so hard to unravel,” Cobb said.

As if being Stephen Baldwin wasn’t already enough of a hurdle, he also hired a lawyer who uses terrible metaphors. “I had no idea a train wreck like this would be so hard to wear as a badge of honor,” he said later.

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