Ed Helms Joins Naked Gun Remake

The Hangover & We Are The Millers star Ed Helms has reportedly signed on to be part of Paramount’s unlikely and unwelcome remake of The Naked Gun. Presumably Helms will be playing the lead role of bungling Detective Frank Drebin, memorably played by Leslie Neilsen in the original series.

The reboot of the spoof franchise won’t feature any involvement from the original team of Zucker and Abrahams, with writing duties instead hastily handed to Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant. The duos previous efforts worryingly include the Night at the Museum series, Herbie Fully Loaded and The Pacifier.

Many critics are already pointing to this news as a worrying sign that studios greedy over-reliance on remakes and reboots is only worsening. Now even the parody genre, so often already guilty of merely regurgitating familiar material for lazy laughs and quick cash, is getting its own unnecessary remakes.

Sony Plans Venom & Spider-Man Spin-Offs

Sony is openly seeking to emulate the success of Marvel’s Avengers series by turning their Spider-Man franchise into an expanded universe of new characters and films.

The studio has already assembled the collected writing talents of Alex, Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon and Drew Goddard to mastermind The Amazing Spider-Man 3 script. The hope being director Marc Webb will be able to deliver a finished film for a summer 2016 release date.

Assuming all goes well Kurtzman & Orci will then partner with Now You See Me writer Ed Solomon to finally give Spider-Man’s anti-hero nemesis Venom his own film. This news implicitly confirming that Venom will be at least one of the popular villains re-introduced in the third film.

Hastily introduced and disappointingly played by Topher Grace in the last of Sam Rami’s Spider-Man series, Venom remains a firm favourite among comicbook fans. The character is the result of a fusion between musclebound vigilante Eddie Brock and an alien symbiote, united by a shared hatred of Peter Parker. Whilst frequently doing battle against Spider-Man, Venom often served as a morally ambiguous hero in his own right and even reluctantly teamed up with Spidey to face more deadly foes on occasion.

The piece in Sony’s master plan for expanding the franchise is a Sinister Six film to be written and directed by Drew Goddard.  The film will feature six of Spider-Man’s most deadly and recognizable villains, without necessarily being just another Spider-Man film.

Golden Globes 2014 Nominations

12 Years A Slave and American Hustle led the way in the 2014 Golden Globes nominees list, with each of the two dramas securing seven nominations that includes Best Picture, Director and Acting categories. Captain Phillips, Rush, Philomena, Gravity, Labor Day and Blue Jasmine also featured prominently across a competitive field.

Idris Elba and Chiwetel Ejiofor also made minor history by becoming the first actors to compete in both the Best Actor in a Motion Picture and Best Actor in a Mini-Series categories.

Full list of nominees awaits below.

Best Motion Picture, Drama
12 Years a Slave
Captain Phillips
Gravity
Philomena
Rush

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
American Hustle
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska
The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
Cate Blanchett Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock - Gravity
Judi Dench - Philomena
Emma Thompson - Saving Mr. Banks
Kate Winslet - Labor Day

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years a Slave
Idris Elba - Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom
Tom Hanks - Captain Phillips
Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club
Robert Redford - All Is Lost

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Amy Adams - American Hustle
Julie Delpy - Before Midnight
Greta Gerwig - Frances Ha
Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Enough Said
Meryl Streep - August: Osage County

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Christian Bale - American Hustle
Bruce Dern - Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio - The Wolf Of Wall Street
Oscar Isaac - Inside Llewyn Davis
Joaquin Phoenix - Her

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Sally Hawkins - Blue Jasmine
Jennifer Lawrence - American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o - 12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts - August: Osage County
June Squibb - Nebraska

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Barkhad Abdi - Captain Phillips
Daniel Brühl - Rush
Bradley Cooper - American Hustle
Michael Fassbender - 12 Years a Slave
Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club

Best Director – Motion Picture
Alfonso Cuarón - Gravity
Paul Greengrass - Captain Phillips
Steve McQueen - 12 Years a Slave
Alexander Payne - Nebraska
David O. Russell - American Hustle

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture
Spike Jonze - Her
Bob Nelson - Nebraska
Jeff Pope and Steve Coogan - Philomena
John Ridley - 12 Years a Slave
Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell - American Hustle

Best Foreign Language Film
Blue is the Warmest Color
The Great Beauty
The Hunt
The Past
The Wind Rises

Best Animated Feature Film
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Frozen

Best TV Series, Drama
Breaking Bad
Downton Abbey
The Good Wife
House of Cards
Masters of Sex

Best TV Series, Comedy
The Big Bang Theory
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Girls
Modern Family
Parks and Recreation

Best TV Movie or Mini-Series
American Horror Story: Coven
Behind the Candelabra
Dancing on the Edge
Top of the Lake
The White Queen

Best Actress in a TV Series, Drama
Julianna Margulies - The Good Wife
Tatiana Maslany - Orphan Black
Taylor Schilling - Orange is the New Black
Kerry Washington - Scandal
Robin Wright - House of Cards

Best Actor in a TV Series, Drama
Bryan Cranston - Breaking Bad
Liev Schreiber - Ray Donovan
Michael Sheen - Masters of Sex
Kevin Spacey - House of Cards
James Spader - The Blacklist

Best Actress in a TV Series, Comedy
Zooey Deschanel - New Girl
Lena Dunham - Girls
Edie Falco - Nurse Jackie
Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Veep
Amy Poehler - Parks and Recreation

Best Actor, TV Series Comedy
Jason Bateman - Arrested Development
Don Cheadle - House of Lies
Michael J. Fox - The Michael J. Fox Show
Jim Parsons - The Big Bang Theory
Andy Samberg - Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Best Actress in a Mini-Series or TV movie
Helena Bonham Carter - Burton and Taylor
Rebecca Ferguson - White Queen
Jessica Lange - American Horror Story: Coven
Helen Mirren - Phil Spector
Elisabeth Moss - Top of the Lake

Best Actor in a Mini-Series or TV movie
Matt Damon - Behind the Candelabra
Michael Douglas - Behind the Candelabra
Chiwetel Ejiofor - Dancing on the Edge
Idris Elba - Luther
Al Pacino - Phil Spector

Amazing Spider-Man 2 Extended Trailer

Sony recently released the first trailer for Amazing Spider-Man 2, the sequel to Marc Webb’s successful franchise reboot. The new film sees Andrew Garfield reprise his role as web slinging hero Peter Parker alongside a beautifully blonde Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey. Predictably the trailer literally promises Spider-Man facing his ‘greatest battle yet’ and introduces a trio of new adversaries in the shape of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and the Green Goblin (Chris Cooper).

Check out the new international version of the trailer below which features a little extra footage designed to make your spidey senses tingle, with a bit more action and a lot more quips.

British Comedy Awards 2013 Winners Announced

This year’s British Comedy Awards, sponsored by Foster’s, were hosted live tonight by Jonathan Ross, celebrating an amazing year in British comedy.

This evening’s awards saw Fresh Meat’s Jack Whitehall win Best TV Comedy Actor and Miranda Hart reclaim the title of Best TV Comedy Actress which she last won in 2011. Chat show supremos Alan Carr and Graham Norton shared the spoils with Best New Comedy Entertainment Programme won by Norton while Chatty Man Carr won Best Comedy Entertainment Personality , an accolade which comes hot on the heels of the channel 4 show’s BAFTA win earlier this year.

Lee Mack celebrated a double win, taking home Best Male TV Comic for the second year running and seeing BBC One’s Would I Lie To You, which he co-hosts with David Mitchell, win Best Comedy Panel Show. Meanwhile, Nina Conti won her first British Comedy Award, taking home Best Female TV Comic for her performance on Live At The Apollo.

The Last Leg’s host Adam Hills won Best Comedy Breakthrough Artist while BBC Four’s Getting On, created by Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan won Best Sitcom. Paul Whitehouse also had a good night – not only awarded The Writer’s Guild of Great Britain Award but he and long-time collaborator Harry Enfield once again took home the prize for Best Sketch Show for Harry & Paul (an award they last won in 2009).

As previously announced, Will Ferrell was honoured with the British Comedy International Award as was Steve Coogan for the Outstanding Achievement award. As revealed at the Nominations show last week, ITV2’s Plebs won Best New Comedy Programme .