Yup. That’s Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. And they will be the two newest additions to the super-team known as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes… according to the writer/director himself.

Today, IGN scooped some major news when they got confirmation from Whedon that the mutant brother-sister pair will be appearing in “The Avengers 2″. In the interview, he spoke about their involvement in the film: “You know, they had a rough beginning. They’re interesting to me because they sort of represent the part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily agree with The Avengers. So they’re not there to make things easier. I’m not putting any characters in the movie that will make things easier.”

In case you’re not familiar with them, here’s a quick 101: Scarlet Witch has the power to manipulate probability by casting “hexes”, which basically causes bad shit to happen to the target. If I’m not mistaken, Marvel comics writers have tweaked her powers. She now has the ability to alter reality, making her one of the most powerful mutants around.

Quicksilver is like the Marvel version of The Flash, with the power to move (and even think) at superhuman speeds. Newer iterations of this power involve being able to teleport and time-jump into the future at will. That’s how fast the guy can move. It’s unsure at this stage what way his powers will be expressed in the upcoming movie, but my guess is that it won’t be too ridiculous to maintain the suspension of disbelief. This duo has been portrayed in the comics as both heroes and villains throughout Marvel history. Oh, and they’re the children of big bad mutie Magneto. It’s interesting to see how Marvel Studios deals with their background, since Magneto as an intellectual rights property is currently owned by Twentieth Century Fox, who’ve used him extensively in their “X-Men” flicks.

Another small but cool reveal has come from SuperheroHype, who found out that Irish actress Saoirse Ronan is supposedly the “prototype” for the studio’s version of the Scarlet Witch. However, no casting has taken place yet. More details as we get em…

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Antonio Banderas in anything worthwhile. The guy’s got oodles of charisma and though his best work was with Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar, he’s done well in Hollywood too.

Today, Variety reported that Banderas is set to headline a big screen dramatisation of the 2010 mining accident in Copiapó, Chile that left 33 miners trapped undergound for 69 hours. That kind of true life drama is just begging to be turned into a movie, and that’s exactly what producer Mike Medavoy has done. The uber-producer of films like “Black Swan” announced at the Cannes Film Festival that Banderas will be playing the role of Mario Sepulveda, the charismatic miner known as “Super Mario.” The film has an official title: “The 33″. The Spaniard joins the previously confirmed cast members Martin Sheen (“The Departed”) and Rodrigo Santoro (“300″). Patricia Riggen (“La Misma Luna”) is attached to direct

The screenplay, written by Mikko Alanne and Jose Rivera, was developed in collaboration with the miners, their rescuers and families. Variety says that Medavoy has lived in Chile for a decade, so he has the inside track on the events. The international efforts to rescue the miners was watched worldwide by a billion people making it one of the defining news moments of that year.

Production is set to begin in Chile this fall with Ed McGurn producing.

Here’s the official description: “Inside a darkened house looms a column of TVs littered with VHS tapes, a pagan shrine to forgotten analog gods. The screens crackle and pop endlessly with monochrome vistas of static—white noise permeating the brain and fogging concentration. But you must fight the urge to relax: this is no mere movie night. Those obsolete spools contain more than just magnetic tape. They are imprinted with the very soul of evil.

From the demented minds that brought you last year’s V/H/S comes V/H/S/2, an all-new anthology of dread, madness, and gore. This follow-up ventures even further down the demented path blazed by its predecessor, discovering new and terrifying territory in the genre. This is modern horror at its most inventive, shrewdly subverting our expectations about viral videos in ways that are just as satisfying as they are sadistic. The result is the rarest of all tapes—a second generation with no loss of quality.”

“V/H/S/2″ premieres 12th July in the US. Let’s hope this time it makes it to our cinemas.

(Click the image to view a larger version)

Nothing much has been heard about the film’s plot, until now, with this official release. And it goes like this: “Co-written by Batmanglij and Marling, the film stars Marling as former FBI agent Sarah Moss. Moss is starting a new career at Hiller Brood, an elite private intelligence firm that ruthlessly protects the interests of its A-list corporate clientele. Handpicked for a plum assignment by the company’s head honcho, Sharon (Clarkson), Sarah goes deep undercover to infiltrate The East, an elusive anarchist collective seeking revenge against major corporations guilty of covering up criminal activity. Determined, highly-trained and resourceful, Sarah soon ingratiates herself with the group, overcoming their initial suspicions and joining them on their next action or “jam.” But living closely with the intensely committed members of The East, Sarah finds herself torn between her two worlds as she starts to connect with anarchist Benji (Skarsgård) and the rest of the collective, and awakens to the moral contradictions of her personal life.”

Sounds promising enough. We also have our first glimpse of stills from the film, via Comingsoon. Check it out…

“The East” stars Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, Ellen Page, Toby Kebbell, Shiloh Fernandez and Patricia Clarkson. It premieres 31st May in limited release in the US.

Back in January, Electroshadow reported that we’d be getting a sequel to the Ang Lee martial arts film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. Since then, there’s been quite a bit of movement on the project.

The Weinstein Company, who’re handling this film, today announced that production on the sequel will commence in March 2014 in Asia. The film has an official title: “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II – The Green Destiny”. Acclaimed martial arts choreographer and filmmaker Yuen Wo Ping is set to direct, and he’s got his two lead actors in Donnie Yen (“Ip Man”) and Michelle Yeoh (“The Lady”).

Yen will play a character called Silent Wolf, while Michelle Yeoh will reprise her role as Yu Shu Lien. The screenplay by John Fusco is based on “Iron Knight, Silver Vase” by Wang Du Lu, book 5 in the “Crane-Iron Pentalogy” series, on which the original “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was based. Harvey Weinstein and David Thwaites will serve as producers.

Weinstein issued an official statement, saying: “I loved Ang Lee’s film. I thought it was a master class in directing, but I know we are in fantastic hands with Yuen Wo Ping directing the second installment of ‘Crouching Tiger.’ Master Yuen worked with me on ‘Iron Monkey,’ ‘Kill Bill’ and now ‘Grandmaster.’ He is a first-class director and choreographer, and I am thrilled to be teaming up with him once more. With John Fusco’s incredible script and the dream team of Donnie Yen and Michelle Yeoh we are in great shape.”

Wang Hong, son of late author Wang Du Lu, added: “My sister and I and our families sincerely appreciate that Harvey and TWC stayed committed to bringing my father’s works to the screen for the enjoyment of audiences around the world. My father created timeless characters and stories of universal appeal. They remain no less relevant today. Through great filmmaking, another generation will get to experience them.”

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“Iron Man” is the foundation upon which the almighty House of Marvel Studios was built. As the spearhead of their ambitious new development approach in 2008, a lot was riding on it. When the film became a success, it paved the way for a whole slew of superhero flicks, culminating in US$1.5 billion Box Office titan “The Avengers”.

Looking at where they are now, it all seems predestined. But Marvel’s path to glory wasn’t an easy one. It took foresight, careful planning… and some serious gambling, for which the studio is now renowned. In a business that is notoriously risk-averse, Marvel has consistently displayed real balls in the choices they make. The trend of hiring lead actors and directors considered unproven risks started with the first “Iron Man”, and continues here. Commercially their gamble has paid off, to the tune of US$1 billion worldwide (and counting). Creatively however, the results are mixed.

For “Iron Man 3″, Marvel put writer-director Shane Black at the helm. And when you get a guy like Shane Black, you can bet your bottom dollar you’re not going to get a conventional, straight-up telling of a story. At practically every turn, Black toys with then subverts expectation. Usually for the sake of laughs, occasionally for the sake of the plot. More often than not, it works. But there are times when he either takes it a tad too far or makes changes that are actually worse than the conventional. I’ll get into that in a bit.

There’s a scene early in the film that kind of stands as a metaphor for what Black has done with the Iron Man property. When our billionaire protagonist Tony Stark taunts the bad guys, they respond by blowing up his lavish seaside mansion. On a subtextual level, I see this as Black making a statement that he intends to tear down superhero genre conventions. Not in a disrespectful way, but enough to allow a rebuilding of things to suit his vision. The best Marvel superhero films — and any great film for that matter — bear the unmistakable fingerprints of their creators. And there is no mistaking this as anything other than a Shane Black picture.

In some ways, this film is a spiritual sequel to Black’s last effort “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”, a criminally underseen little gem. That indie flick was chock-full of quirks like messing with the rules of storytelling, and breaking the Fourth Wall by talking directly to the audience. Similarly in “Iron Man 3″, Black has a lot of fun catching the audience off-guard. We’re so spoonfed on genre clichés that we never see his gags coming. Nothing is sacred in Black’s book; everything is fodder for jokes. Take the Classic Hero Moment for example. You just don’t mess with that. But Black does, several times. And it’s frickin’ funny.

Humour has always been Black’s strongest suit. The guy writes dialogue that crackles on the page and zings in the hands of a capable cast. Even the bit-parters get to shine. Some of the best one-liners here come from the henchmen. Confronted with the prospect of a Repulsor Beam to the face, one goon confesses: “Honestly, I hate working here. They are SO weird!” Cracks me up every time.

Black’s trademark is being playful and irreverent, something that’s evident as far back as his scripts for the “Lethal Weapon” series (as is his penchant for setting all his films during Christmas). Of course, irreverence suits the snarky Stark to a tee. Ironically, this time his snarkiness has been toned down. To be honest, I felt Stark was starting to become a bit of a douchebag in “Iron Man 2″ and “The Avengers”. It’s good to see him back to being a likable guy again. Every instalment, they give Stark some personal crisis to deal with in order to make him a sympathetic figure. In the first film it was his conscience over his legacy as an arms dealer (worked well). In the second it was Daddy issues and a fear of his own mortality (fell flat).

Here, they’ve used the events of “The Avengers” to render him a nervous wreck. As a setup it works, but only to an extent. There’s a vulnerability to him that plays nicely into the relationship element with girlfriend Pepper Potts. I don’t think Black and his co-writer Drew Pearce really knew where to take the character after that, though. As the story wears on, his anxiety attacks feel more like needless baggage rather than a crucial part of his journey. I say this because his so-called personal crisis gets resolved in an almost by-the-way manner about halfway through. Besides, how much gravitas can you have when half the time the director is taking the piss?

Ah. Let’s get into that. Yes, humour and irreverence may be Black’s strongest suit. But it can also lead to some highly questionable decisions, and what he’s done with main villain The Mandarin is both incredibly inspired and a terrible cop-out at the same time. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know that they build The Mandarin up as the ultimate evildoer — a terrorist zealot… only to reveal that he’s merely an actor playing a role as a smokescreen for the real behind-the-scenes bad guy. Longtime fans of the comics will be the ones who will feel this betrayal of the character the most. After all, The Mandarin isn’t just the main villain, he is THE villain in the Iron Man universe. Like what The Joker is to Batman, or Lex Luthor to Superman. His presence has been hinted at since the first film. In the comics, The Mandarin wears 10 rings imbued with incredible powers, and the film version had this re-imagined as a terrorist setup called the Ten Rings Organisation, presumably headed by The Mandarin. I always liked this direction, and was looking forward to it being given its due in the third film.

Black & co still have the “real” Mandarin exist in a different form, but it is a wasted opportunity in my book. The initial depiction of The Mandarin makes a lot of sense in our current socio-political climate. He is a carefully-selected amalgamation of terrorist/militant imagery, ranging from Islamic extremists to South American guerillas to ancient Oriental warlords, all put together to evoke a singular response: fear. That’s exactly what terrorism is about. His video broadcasts (peppered throughout the first act) are chilling, effective because they feel like messages from a real-life madman with a cause. If they’d stuck to that, conventional as it is, Stark would’ve had a very relatable threat on his hands. But Black had other ideas. A number of those were taken from the famous “Extremis” comic book storyline, and even then he did some extensive tweaking.

The only reason I’m not mad at the filmmakers is because, well, the fake Mandarin is just so bloody hilarious! Once you’ve gotten over the initial shock — and I’m pretty sure this twist blindsided absolutely everybody — you’re left with one of the year’s best comedic creations. Seriously, he is a laugh riot. Like I said earlier, Black’s dialogue is great. But what will make it endlessly quoted and mimicked is Ben Kingsley’s performance. The Brit actor’s history of playing serious, weighty roles like his Oscar-winning “Gandhi” makes his buffoonish turn here all the more delightful. Based on this, Kingsley should be cast in way more comedies.

Moving on to the real Mandarin, it’s a partial save for the character since they at least keep the essence of him as a mastermind. Unlike total fumbles like say, Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises”. To that end, they got the right actor for the job. Guy Pearce gets to chew the scenery in various modes ranging from socially awkward nerd to suave megalomaniac. He’s got some solid action chops too, with his impressive physicality giving him the edge over Robert Downey, Jr in their climatic fight scene. Who’s no slouch to begin with. This is Downey, Jr’s fifth appearance as Tony Stark (including his cameo in “The Incredible Hulk”), and he shows no signs of fatigue. If anything, he comes off more invested in the role than ever before. It helps that Black’s written some engaging pair-offs for him, be it with Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, or child actor Ty Simpkins who plays a kid Stark is stuck with after losing all his armour. I especially like the buddy-cop vibe of his scenes with Cheadle, who finally gets to show what a badass his Col. James Rhodes (aka Iron Patriot) can be.

While this instalment features the most action of the three movies, a good majority of it is outside the suit. I appreciate Black trying something new, like Stark remote-piloting his armour, or wearing only parts of it in battle, or having nothing except his wits to rely on, but somehow it isn’t as satisfying as having the man actually inside an Iron Man suit. We do get a tonne of new suits during the end showdown, and it’s cool to see Stark hopping around from one into another. For a while. Then it gets tedious and confusing to follow. Black also subverts the notion of the damsel in distress, though it’s done at our hero’s expense. Put all these minor quibbles together and it kind of diminishes the overall impact of the action.

Don’t get me wrong. With all the elements that Black misjudged, the film is still quite entertaining. It sure is a heck of a lot better than the messy, unfocused Part 2. And it raises some interesting themes, albeit subtly, about the binary relation between terrorism and capitalism, and the manipulation of the media through manufactured iconography.

It’s just that “Iron Man 3″ works better as a Shane Black film than it does as an “Iron Man” film. If you’re a fan of the man’s work, you’ll be able to appreciate what he’s done here significantly more than the average filmgoer, or the hardcore comic fan. And even that’s subjective. If this is to be the capper in a trilogy, it’s a somewhat strange place to leave it. By the end of this particular story, Stark’s journey is complete. Yet it feels like there are more stories to be told, and other ways to tell them, perhaps in embellishments less idiosyncratic or more organic to the property as well as the character. Marvel being Marvel, they’ve assured us in the end credits that “Tony Stark will return”.

Maybe next time they won’t feel the need to rebuild Iron Man so extensively.

Olivier Dahan is directing, and that’s good news to me. I loved his last biopic, “La Vie En Rose” which won Marion Cotillard her Acting Oscar asFrench songstress Edith Piaf. Let’s see if he can direct Kidman to another awards-worthy performance. Looks-wise, I don’t think she resembles Kelly too closely. The Hollywood Reporter today scooped an exclusive first look at the Oscar-winning actress in character. She has the hair and the wardrobe, but it still just looks like regular ol’ Nicole Kidman.

There isn’t much information about the film, but the description we have so far goes: “Grace Kelly, age 33 and having given up her acting career to focus on being a full time princess, uses her political maneuvering behind the scenes to save Monaco while French Leader Charles de Gaulle and Monaco’s Prince Rainier III are at odds over the principality’s standing as a tax haven.”

“Grace Of Monaco” also stars Paz Vega, Tim Roth, Frank Langella, Parker Posey, Milo Ventimiglia, and Derek Jacobi. It premieres 27th December in limited release in the US. It probably won’t get a theatrical release here.

Sky Movies did manage to speak to the director and Simon Pegg, who stars in “Star Trek Into Darkness”, about their thoughts on that galaxy far, far away. Pegg is a known “Star Wars” geek, and it’s interesting to hear these guys talk about their hopes for the sequel, even though they’re actually revealing nothing. They also talk about the property in general. Check it out.

“Star Wars Episode VII” premieres Summer 2015.

Here’s the full synopsis: “The latest chapter of the groundbreaking saga that began with 2000′s hit sci-fi film Pitch Black and 2004′s The Chronicles of Riddick reunites writer/director David Twohy (A Perfect Getaway, The Fugitive) and star Vin Diesel (the Fast and Furious franchise, xXx). Diesel reprises his role as the antihero Riddick, a dangerous, escaped convict wanted by every bounty hunter in the known galaxy.

The infamous Riddick has been left for dead on a sun-scorched planet that appears to be lifeless. Soon, however, he finds himself fighting for survival against alien predators more lethal than any human he’s encountered. The only way off is for Riddick to activate an emergency beacon and alert mercenaries who rapidly descend to the planet in search of their bounty.

The first ship to arrive carries a new breed of merc, more lethal and violent, while the second is captained by a man whose pursuit of Riddick is more personal. With time running out and a storm on the horizon that no one could survive, his hunters won’t leave the planet without Riddick’s head as their trophy.”

“Riddick” also stars Karl Urban, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Bokeem Woodbine, Dave Bautista, Conrad Pla, Raoul Trujillo, Nolan Funk, and Keri Hilson. It premieres 6th September.