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Tom Felton interview

Caroline White meets Draco Malfoy, and lives...

There's a YouTube clip of you at a shopping Mall in New Jersey, promoting the Half-Blood Prince earlier this year. There are hundreds of screaming fans – do you remember that? Is it a regular occurrence?

I’m not going to get that out of my head, it’s pretty rare. Without sounding too British, it was a sort of beautiful Americanness, they love to let go. I don’t think you’d ever get that sort of enthusiasm on our shores. My girlfriend was standing at the side of the stage, so I was just looking at her thinking, “My God, this is amazing.”

Sherlock Holmes Competition: Win premiere tickets

There’s nothing quite like attending a proper film premiere. Even nowadays, with the red carpet dominated by Reality TV wannabes wearing temperature-inappropriate clothing it’s still a thrill to mill around in the foyer of a really big opening spotting the stars.

The Times is pleased to offer you the opportunity to hobnob with the great and the good at the world premiere of Sherlock Holmes in Leicester Square on Monday 14th December. Click here to enter the competition. If you have yet to register for Times Online, you will be asked to do so. You must be over 18 or over to enter. Good luck!

Ice Age 3: The DVD, The Blu-ray, the street painting

Everyone loved Ice Age, with its jolly anthropomorphic Pliocene creatures and pleasingly daft plotline. Ice Age 2 really pushed the charm of the extinct squirrel and nut romance to lure us into taking our younger relatives to the cinema. But what cunning publicity tricks can Fox cook up to get us interested in Ice Age 3?

Jurassic Park 4: More dinosaurs, less island

Joe Johnston, who is set to direct the next installment of the modern-day dino saga, has revealed a little of the movies' overall direction. And the direction is most definitely not towards any kind of genetically engineered theme park.

i09 pulls the salient quote from an interview that Johnston originally gave to Ain't it Cool News:

"Why would anybody go back to that island? It was hard enough to figure out the second and third reason for them to go, but it would take it off in a whole other trilogy basically, but when it gets to that level it's sort of about studios and Steven [Spielberg's] thing and who knows. I think we are at that point where we are due for another one if we are going to do it"

Johnston's own contribution toto the series, Jurassic Park 3, featured alarmingly clever velociraptors communicating with one another between healthy human-flavoured snacks. Rumours emanating from the JP4 camp have included intelligent dinosaurs working for the military.

There is no word at this time as to whether said dinosaurs would have fricken lasers on their heads.

See Bruno for free

You may recall my review of this very funny, very rude film earlier in the year. Now here's a chance to make up your own mind:

Bruno is the must-see movie of the year, and now with new, previously unseen exclusive features, theres even more reason to give your DVD collection a makeover this season.

Universal Pictures (UK) are laying on a special treat to celebrate the release of Bruno out to own and rent on DVD and Blu-ray DVD from November 9th.

On Sunday 8th November from 19:30pm (doors open at 19:00pm) there will be a free screening of Bruno at the Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Square in London.

But not only this, it will be a special version of the film with exclusive video commentary from Sacha Baron Cohen and the films director Larry Charles.

Entry is free of charge and each audience member will be given 2 free drinks at the bar. If that wasnt enough there will be some Bruno goodies being given away to lucky audience members on the night.

To recap. You see a movie for free. And there are free drinks. You'd have to have a pretty pressing prior engagement to miss this.

Downey and Favreau to shoot Cowboys and Aliens

Iron Man dream team Robert Downey Jnr and Jon Favreau are set to bring another comic book to life next year when they start filming Cowboys and Aliens for a 2011 release.

Wagon Train meets Independence Day in a story of white settlers and Apaches putting their differences aside to fight a menace from another world. Sounds a bit daft? It is. read the beginning of the comics series here.

Played for laughs, maybe with Will Smith lassoed in for good measure, I can see this working. I can't help thinking though, with Iron Man 2 already on the way and given Favreaus's reported desire (see the video below) to work on the planned Avengers movie, that these two talented gentlemen might have better things to do with their time.

Stallone leaks Rambo 5 details in voicemail

Harry Knowles over on Ain’t It Cool News is such a superstar blogger that Sylvester Stallone rings him up to talk through planned movie plots.

In this case, the movie that Sly’s talking about is a mooted fifth Rambo feature – working title Rambo V: The Savage Hunt.

Having fought with escalating body counts the US National Guard, the Vietnamese Army, the Soviet army and it appears the entire population of Burma, where can the character of ex Green Beret killing machine John Rambo go?

Back to his roots it seems: Jettisoning a previous plan to have Rambo address the very real problem of human trafficking across the Mexican border Stallone is now apparently planning to set his military superman on the trail of a younger version of himself.

A Government experiment has gone wrong (don’t they always?) and a man trained as the ultimate warrior is loose somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Rambo leads a squad of special forces experts to take the maverick down.

Some people are reading a science fiction angle into the idea - seeing it as a hybrid of Universal Soldier and Predator. From the little information I can see so far, the quarry is more in the Jason Bourne / Captain America mould rather than being an out-and-out sci fi character.

Still, it’s early days: All we have to go on is a hasily mocked-up poster and a voicemail message. What do you think? Should Rambo be chasing after his younger self or should he just retire to the country and watch Cash In The Attic?

Kick Ass gets a distributor. And (nearly) a release date

Mark Miller's sexy, violent and unequivocally adult superhero story Kick Ass (can you call a guy with no powers a superhero?) has been heading for the big screen for quite some little while.

The movie, directed by Matthew Vaughn and co-scripted by Jane Goldman has been developed independently without a distributor but following a triumphant showing at Comic-Con in San Diego and a similar response at Movie-Con the contest to handle the uncompromising comic book action flick has been won by Lionsgate.

The movie is likely to hit cinema screens in the early part of 2010. It's a production with influential friends. Expect to hear a lot about Kick Ass as winter draws on.

UFO movie a go?

The next classic TV show to get a big screen reboot is Gerry Anderson's first (unless you count peculiar hybrid misfire Secret Service) live action series UFO.

The series followed the exploits of a secret government organisation who fought off alien incursions using a variety of cool vehicles and saucy costumes.

Unusually for the time, episodes often ended on an inconclusive or downbeat note.

It was Anderson's first attempt to make an adult-oriented TV show and although it wasn't a huge success at the time it retains a strong cult following.

Highly rated effects wizard Matthew Gratzner will helm the project with Robert Evans producing. As part of the update the film will be set in 2020. The original date for alien invasion was set as 1980.

Superman: No more movies? No more comics?

Owen Vaughan reports on some complex copyright issues that could spell the end of the man of steel

It seems that copyright law is more powerful than Kryptonite or Lex Luthor. A bitter legal row over Superman could result in the character leaving DC Comics, the comic book company that has published his adventures since his first appearance in 1938.
 
In only four years, the entire copyright to the original Superman story will revert to the families and estates of the superhero's creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. According to their lawyer, this means that from 2013 neither DC Comics nor its parent company, Warner Bros, will be able to produce any new Superman story without the permission of the Siegels and the Shusters.
 
The Siegels and the Shuster estate is currently fighting Warner Bros over licence fees the studio paid to DC Comics for use of Superman in films and television. This week a court ruled against them but in a surprise twist the judge in the case told Warner Bros that if it did not start production on another Superman film by 2011, the Siegels would be able to sue to recover damages.
 
Despite internet rumours that the studio is in a panic, Warners says that its still has no plans to put another Superman film into production. In fact it is planning for possibility of a life without Superman - painful though that may be.