Raptor Pope added for scale. Scale of awesomeness.

When they let Paul WS Anderson (aka Sh*tty Paul Anderson, not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson) direct a Three Musketeers movie, you knew two things: Milla Jovovich would be in it, and it would have ‘Splosions.  I guess there’s no surprising you, eh, Professor Smart Guy?  Well did you know it would have BUNJEE JUMPING in it? And ZEPPELINS? And did you know that those ZEPPELINS would be carrying FLOATING PIRATES SHIPS that CANNON FIGHT EACH OTHER WHILE DROPPING ANCHORS ON NAMELESS GAY FRENCH MUSTACHE DUDES!? 19th century French literature just pissed its pantsuit! Or whatever they wore back then! To be honest I don’t really read “books.”  But it don’t take no fancy book larnin’ to know that THIS. LOOKS. AWESOME. (*swings through room on chandelier, kicks cat off coffee table*)

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This summer is packed to the tits with superhero movies, and I haven’t been all that excited about many of them, mainly because Captain America has Chris Evans running around in Old Navy baby tees and khakis, and everything we’ve seen from Green Lantern has been like watching paint dry on a Kenny G record.  My great white hope is and has been Thor (opens next weekend — already out overseas — directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, and Anthony Hopkins, trailer here). With Viking Gods, odd comedy, and a Shakespeare guy directing, it seems so weird that it just might work.  Our latest clip comes courtesy Jaimie Alexander’s appearance on Kimmel last night, in which her character, Sif, stabs Destroyer, the shiny, fire-breathing robot thing, right in the throat.  IN! THE! THROOOOAT!  It’s a pretty short clip, but still worth a watch, especially for our favorite press tour cliché, which comes right afterwards.

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The studio has released the first trailer for Resident Evil director Paul WS Anderson’s 3D take on The Three Musketeers, starring Logan Lerman, Ray Stevenson, Matthew McFayden, Christoph Waltz, and… uh… Orlando Bloom.  It opens with the semi-period appropriate steampunk gimp dude you see above and progresses from there.  I think this was my favorite shot:

The Matrix just got rapier!  Some other things to watch for:

• SPARKS, MOTHERF*CKER!

• Orlando Bloom twirling what appears to be a butterfly knife at the 55-second mark. Which makes whooshy sword sounds
• A hand-cranked flamethrower
• Flying pirate ship
• And of course, EXPLOSIONS AND FRENCH SLUTS, OOOOOOOH WHA-AH AH-AH!

This summer… from the director of Death Race… YOUR MUSKET BALLS ARE GONNA DROP! HOOGH!

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Ray Stevenson, Val Kilmer, and Christopher Walken have all signed on for The Irishman, based on the story of Danny Greene.

Greene was a violent Irish-American gangster who competed with the Italian mob in 1970s Cleveland and ended up provoking a countrywide turf war that crippled the Mafia. Stevenson will play Greene. Walken will play the loan shark and nightclub owner Shondor Birns, and Kilmer is cast as a Cleveland police detective who befriends Greene. Jonathan Hensleigh, who co-wrote and directed “The Punisher,” will direct the action film. He and Jeremy Walters (“Dali”) wrote the screenplay, which is inspired by the book “To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia” by Rick Porrello. [Reuters]

Seems like every mob movie since The Departed has been about the Irish mob, and how they tricked the Italian mob, or killed someone in the Italian mob, or got drunker than the Italian mob, or were more Bawston than the Italian mob.  And it’s all a big excuse for the 12th generation Irish douchebags in the audience to celebrate like a Boondock Saints marathon on St. Paddy’s Day.  Please.  The Irish are just jealous of our bigger penises and better jewelry.

Director Lexi Alexander was conspicuously absent from the Comic-Con panel for Punisher: War Zone, with producer Gale Ann Hurd explaining her absence as “she’s on her honeymoon”.  This left many to wonder if she’d been kicked off the project. Harry from AICN claims Alexander has been “kicked to the curb”, and that the rap metal soundtrack in the red-band trailer was actually the studio’s idea. 

Lionsgate isn’t necessarily known for calming down. They’ve decided to market it HARD CORE – and they’ve decided to jettison the composer for the film in lieu of loud thrashing metal, because nothing says PUNISHER like raspy amps. 

Meanwhile, FilmSchoolRejects has an inside source of their own: 

* Lexi Alexander is not officially off the project, but she has been pulled away from it at this point.
* The problems began after Lexi turned in a cut for the first trailer that was not to the studio’s liking. When confronted about it, Lexi’s reaction was “childish” and unpredictably erratic. Apparently she has been making negative comments on her own personal blog about the production, even going as far as to compare working with the studio to an episode of Hell’s Kitchen. Now, when you go to LexiAlexander.com there is just a picture of the “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys,” her blog entries have been removed. So take that for what it’s worth.
* Currently, producer Gale Ann Hurd is spearheading an effort to get the film re-cut and make it more presentable for its release on December 5.
* Reportedly Hurd has brought in the editing team of The Incredible Hulk (which includes Rick Shaine, Vincent Tabaillon and John Wright).
* While it is clear that Marvel is gung-ho about delivering a quality product to the big screen in December, if the production cannot be salvaged it could lead to a limited release and a bigger DVD release.

I don’t have an inside source, because who really gives a shit.  If they really wanted to salvage this movie, they’d bring Dolph Lundgren back.  He and Tony Jaa could be partners… and they could work with a monkey… who can… smell… vampires.  Yeah. Dolph Lundgren and Tony Jaa battle evil with the help of their vampire-sniffing monkey.  Who knows sign language.  Come on, you know that would be better than this.