Walt Disney Pictures presents the 3D epic, action‐adventure “John Carter,” based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic, “A Princess of Mars,” the first novel in Burroughs’ Barsoom series.

Directed by Academy Award®–winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton, “John Carter” is set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars). The film tells the story of war‐weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Burroughs’ character John Carter, the original space hero featured in the series, who has thrilled generations with his adventures on Mars.

Over generations, John Carter has become a heroic paradigm across all forms of pop culture. From novels to comic books, artwork to animation, TV and now cinema, the character has inspired some of the most creative minds of the last century.

A fan of the Barsoom series of books since childhood, director/writer Andrew Stanton explains what inspired him to bring “John Carter” to the big screen in his first foray into live action: “I stumbled across these books at the perfect age, I was about ten, and I just fell in love with the concept of a human finding himself on Mars, among amazing creatures in a strange new world. A stranger in a strange land. It was a very romantic aspect of adventure and science fiction. I always thought it would be cool to see this realized on the big screen.

“‘John Carter’ is a big epic adventure with romance and action and political intrigue,” continues Stanton. “Because the subject matter was written so long ago, it was also a bit of an origin of those kinds of stories—a comic book before there were comic books, an adventure story before that became a genre of its own.”

Andrew Stanton directed and co‐wrote the screenplay for Disney/Pixar’s “WALL‐E,” which earned the Academy Award® and Golden Globe® for Best Animated Feature (2008). Stanton was nominated for an Oscar® for the screenplay. He made his directorial debut with Disney/Pixar’s “Finding Nemo,” garnering an Academy Award–nomination for Best Original Screenplay and winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (2003). Stanton has worked as a screenwriter and/or executive producer on Disney/Pixar’s “Toy Story,” “A Bug’s Life” (which he also co‐directed), “Toy Story 2,” “Monsters, Inc.,” “Ratatouille” and “Up.”

Willem Dafoe, who plays Tars Tarkas in the film, comments on working with Stanton, “I worked with Andrew on ‘Finding Nemo.’ And even though you’re doing a voice, he’s incredibly well researched and knows every shot, every process—he’s an incredible multitasker. So when he told me about this project and how it was going to be approached, I was very excited. Because he’s the kind of guy that can handle that. Without any cynicism about the process. He loves this stuff. He loves the story.”

The stellar ensemble cast is led by Taylor Kitsch (NBC’S “Friday Night Lights”, “X‐Men Origins: Wolverine”) in the title role, Lynn Collins (“X‐Men Origins: Wolverine”) as the warrior princess Dejah Thoris and Oscar® nominee Willem Dafoe (“Spider‐Man”) as Martian inhabitant Tars Tarkas.

The cast also includes Thomas Haden Church (“Spider‐Man 3”), Polly Walker (“Clash of the Titans”), Samantha Morton (“Elizabeth: The Golden Age”), Mark Strong (“Sherlock Holmes”), Ciaran Hinds (“There Will Be Blood”), Dominic West (“300”), James Purefoy (“Resident Evil”) and Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”). Daryl Sabara (Disney’s “A Christmas Carol,” “Spy Kids”) takes the role of John Carter’s teenaged nephew, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Opening across the Philippines in March 2012, “John Carter” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…Twenty-two years ago, these words first flashed across movie theater screens around the world, and a modern legend was born.  Hundreds of millions of people would be introduced to a saga that would touch their lives in ways then unimaginable.  Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and the Special Editions of all three films, became defining events for two generations.  The fast-paced action adventures, set in a new and exciting universe, featured grand design and boundless fun. The films inspired countless of viewers with themes that are universal and timeless: the conflict between good and evil and between technology and humanity, the celebration of heroism, and the limitless potential of the individual.

The Star Wars saga is a modern-day fairy tale reflecting the vision of George Lucas.  Lucas imbued this new myth with pieces of American pop culture, including movie westerns, swashbucklers and – for seasoning – Japanese samurai epics.  Star Wars was also a reaction against Watergate, Vietnam and other periods of domestic turmoil that seemed to undermine the concept of the hero for disillusioned Americans.

With the Star Wars saga, Lucas decided to bring together these recognizable, modern-day threads under the umbrella of the basic mythic structure – the journey of the hero – that has been in place for thousands of years, in hundreds of civilizations. With its mix of the traditional and the modern, Star Wars’ new mythology thrilled young and old alike.

Now, with “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace” converted into 3D, Lucas takes us back to the beginning, in which Darth Vader is a hopeful nine-year-old boy named Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi is a determined young Jedi knight.  This first chapter, which is rich in art, design, costumes, architecture and technology, follows Anakin’s journey as he pursues his dreams and confronts his fears in the midst of a galaxy in turmoil.

George Lucas, the pioneering and brilliant filmmaker behind STAR WARS, has overseen the process with his renowned attention to detail. John Knoll, the visual effects supervisor for Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) was responsible for the actual conversion. He served as Visual Effects  Supervisor on all three of the Star Wars prequels. The remaining five STAR WARS films will be converted to 3D over the coming years.

“I’m really excited about the new big screen release of the film.  We’ve worked very hard to get the best quality 3D we could. The big screen experience is so much better than watching it on television. It was designed to put you in the environment and surround you with the sound and the picture. There is   nothing like it. I’m so glad that we were able to bring this whole experience to the next generation. This will be the third generation that will be able to see it on the big screen and when you’re young, it’s an overwhelming and powerful event,” Lucas shares on converting Episode 1 into 3D.

Lucas further shares on challenges faced on converting the movie to 3D – “Originally, I was not a big fan of 3D. I really thought 3D was a gimmick. Then later on I was trying to get digital projectors into the theaters. I was doing a presentation in Las Vegas. Bob Zemeckis and Jim Cameron came up to me  and said: ‘We want to get 3D into the theaters. Would you join us in showing the theater owners that you can do 3D?’   And I said: ‘That’d be good because in order to do 3D you have to have digital theaters. So it would promote my idea of digital theaters.’ Then when I saw the test that we did of STAR WARS in 3D, I realized how great it was and how great it looked.  I became  fascinated with the idea of converting STAR WARS into 3D, which was  easier said than done.  It took us a long time to develop a structure in which we could actually do a really good conversion of a 2D film into a 3D film.”

“I don’t like things coming out into the audience.  I like everything to be behind the proscenium. I think 3D is an art. You need artists who have a sensibility about where things fit in the frame.   It’s very  subtle but it’s very, very important.  We had an advantage because we had experts in visual effects like John Knoll. We had the skill set of ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) and people who had  worked in 3D  on films, including “Avatar.” So we could get a group of people together that could actually do this,” concludes Lucas.

“Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace” in 3D comes to theaters on February 9 from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

When casting Safe House, producer Scott Stuber and  director Daniel Espinosa placed importance on avoiding tired tropes.  Stuber explains the rationale: “Action without character is boring.  The script read well because everything moves at a quick pace.  Then, when you sit and get to know these people, there’s a real depth to them.  We went after actors who could be in those moments and have the audience feel what these characters are feeling.”

As the producer and the director discussed their dream cast, Denzel Washington was brought up as their ideal Tobin Frost, the CIA’s most notorious traitor.  The two invited Washington (then starring on Broadway in the play Fences) to discuss the proposition.  Stuber recalls the meal: “At the end of lunch, Denzel stood up and said, ‘All right, we’re going to do this,’ and walked out.  I thought, ‘What?  Is he going to call his agent?  Is it a done deal?’  I wanted to make sure, so I called Denzel’s agent and he said, ‘I just got off the phone with him.  He’s doing the movie with you and Daniel.’  It was one of those rare, great moments in this business.”

Washington, who had a window in his schedule coinciding with preproduction, labored with the filmmakers to hone the project and the character of an operative who has spent the past nine years selling out the United States.  The actor offers what attracted him to the role of a man wanted for espionage on four continents: “I got the chance to see Daniel’s film Snabba Cash, and it had a unique style and was a very different film.  That made me very interested in him as a filmmaker. Scott, Daniel, David and I worked on developing the character.  Safe House was an opportunity to revisit ways of working what I used to do.  I invested heavily in the character and the story.”

As he prepared for the role, the performer went into full immersion mode.  Washington says: “I didn’t want to do a lot of CIA research because Tobin Frost wasn’t CIA anymore.  He hated everything about the CIA, and I wanted to discover his dark side.  Scott gave me some great books to read, one of which was ‘The Sociopath Next Door,’ which became my bible that I would refer to in developing the character.  I felt Tobin was a sociopath.  When you think ‘sociopath,’ you think violence, and the majority of sociopaths aren’t violent but they want to win and manipulate.  I thought he was a great liar, a great manipulator and perfect for the CIA.”

The filmmakers valued the actor’s work ethic on the project.  Offers Espinosa: “Denzel is a master.  He works harder than any actor I’ve ever met.  When he decided to do the movie, he thoroughly researched and spent about a half a year studying his character before we even shot.  When he got on set, no matter what the situation in front of him was, he reacted as the character that he was playing.”

With Washington attached, the team began the search to find Matt Weston played by Ryan Reynolds, the man responsible for his house guest.  For Espinosa, it is the contrast between and the evolution of Frost and Weston that distinguish the story.  Notes the director: “Matt is a guy who has a lot of dreams.  He believes that he can maintain a relationship with his girlfriend and have a somewhat normal life, while at the same time, coming closer to his goal of becoming a full-blown CIA case officer.  He clings to the notion that you can be a strong, ethical, moral person while working in his chosen field.  There is no gray area.  Frost, however, is well beyond any such notion.”

What attracted you to this film?

My late agent, Ed Limato, passed away last July and this was the last project that he wanted me to take a look at it.  I just felt I should do it because I knew it was the last thing he wanted me to do.

Did you have a hand in developing the story?

Daniel Espinosa (director), Scott Stuber (producer), three different writers and I worked on the story for months.  We wanted to keep going deeper, making more sense out it.  I’m a logic monster.  I always want to know why things happen the way they do.

How is it working with director Daniel Espinosa?

Daniel is a fine filmmaker. He did SNABBA CASH and it’s a really interesting film. I’m sure Hollywood is looking at Daniel as the new hot guy.  He’s very passionate and very talented.

What’s been the most difficult aspect of filming on SAFE HOUSE?

I’ve got a bad knee and there’s been a lot of running, jumping and fighting. And I was water-boarded. Having somebody poor water up your nose when you’re upside down is kind of tough.

Do you see your character as a villain?

I see him as a sociopath. I’ve been researching and learned that 80% of sociopaths aren’t violent, they just want to dominate.  Tobin doesn’t think he’s a villain.  He thinks he’s right and everybody else is wrong.

“SAFEHOUSE”  Showing on February 10, nationwide.

Released and distributed by United International Pictures through

Solar Entertainment Corp.

Finding huge box-office success with such blockbusters as “Underworld” and “Underworld: Evolution” where he originated the central character of the hybrid Vampire/Lycan Michael Corvinus, Scott Speedman now explores his romantic side in Columbia Pictures’ endearing love story, “The Vow.” He joins an impressive ensemble led by Channing Tatum, Rachel McAdams, Jessica Lange and Sam Neill.

“The Vow” is the real-life story of a young couple who were struck by tragedy shortly after their wedding. A car crash puts the wife (McAdams) in a coma, where she is cared for by her devoted husband (Tatum). When she comes to, without any memory of her husband or their marriage, the husband must woo her and ultimately win her heart once again.

Paige has reverted mentally to the young law student she was five years earlier, before she met Leo and became an artist. In seemingly an instant, she is no longer the wife Leo knew, and on top of that, she no longer recognizes her current life. Making matters worse, Paige thinks she’s still engaged to charming businessman Jeremy (Speedman), who still wants her, and remains reluctant to embrace Leo, with his less conventional lifestyle making music, as anyone she might have ever loved.

As for the role of Jeremy, it was important to cast an actor who had the charisma to be a formidable foe for Leo and someone that the audience would believe Paige had loved, and may still love. Jeremy shows the other path that Paige could have taken and could choose again. Scott Speedman was cast in this role and did not disappoint.
“The great thing about Scott is that he plays a leading man,” explains director Michael Sucsy. “A lot of times with Hollywood casting, you’ve got the big movie star in one role, and then some supporting guy in the other role. Well, guess who she’s going to end up with? It telegraphs it. So the great thing about casting Scott is that it really puts into question who she’s going to end up with. He has to be a contender, and I love that about Scott and his performance.”

An added bonus was that Scott and Rachel had worked together previously and therefore evoked a natural chemistry on set. ““Scott really nailed the role. We’re lucky to have had him,” adds McAdams.

Scott Speedman most recently starred in “Barney’s Version” opposite Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman for director Richard Lewis, “Good Neighbours” opposite Jay Baruchel for director Jacob Tierney and “Adoration” for director Atom Egoyan. Prior to that he starred opposite Liv Tyler in the box-office smash “The Strangers.”
His other film credits include Ron Shelton’s “Dark Blue,” opposite Kurt Russell; Isabel Coixet’s “My Life Without Me,” opposite Sarah Polley, for which he won Best Actor at the Bordeaux International Film Festival; Bruce Paltrow’s “Duets,” co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Maria Bello; and Lee Tamahori’s “xXx: State of the Union.”

In television, Speedman landed the role of Ben Covington in the popular WB Network drama “Felicity,” which had a successful four-season run.

Opening across the Philippines this February, “The Vow” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit www.columbiapictures.com.ph to see the latest trailers, get free downloads and play free movie games.

Though the directors’ focus for Warner Bros.’ “Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance” was to capture as much of the action in camera as possible, it was clear from the beginning that the film would have to employ CG effects as well. After all, the title character has a flaming skull.

In the film, Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) — still struggling with his curse as the devil’s bounty hunter – is hiding out in a remote part of Eastern Europe when he is recruited by a secret sect of the church to save a young boy from the devil. At first, Johnny is reluctant to embrace the power of the Ghost Rider, but it is the only way to protect the boy – and possibly rid himself of his curse forever.

Overseeing the VFX is Visual Effects Supervisor Eric Durst, who says, like all of the departments, the new Ghost Rider film would have a very different look from its predecessor. “[Directors] Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor really wanted a new look for `Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.’ It’s a darker film, so we created a look that integrated with that. The look of the character isn’t stylized at all – it is as if Ghost Rider really existed, really had a flaming head. The skull is dark and charred – just as it would be if you really had a skull that was on fire. Another touch like that is the shoulders of the jacket – they would be bubbling up from the heat inside the body.”

The primary challenge in creating the VFX, says Durst, is that the character is “interactive. The light that comes off the flames on his head – it interacts with his shoulders and anything else nearby. But interactive light is very difficult to recreate in the computer. It’s so subtle, and it interacts in different ways with different fabrics and objects. So to achieve that, we took a hood with LED lights on it that flickered on and off. That had two great benefits for us: first, the LED lights served as tracking markers in the computer, so when Nick moved his head from left to right, we could make the skull match those movements. But the LEDs also cast a light on anything that was in proximity, so it would give us the light that would occur if the flame really was on his head.”

Durst also notes that since the release of the first “Ghost Rider” film, there have been tremendous advances in CG animation. “The foundation of getting flames in CG is fluid dynamics, and so much has happened technologically in just the last five or six years,” he says. “For the original film, Sony Pictures Imageworks created their own code and worked within the software systems that existed at the time. It was very labor intensive. For the new film, with six years’ worth of development of the technology in the field, we had a big head start. You can make things look stunningly real now.”

The effects were completed by Iloura, an Australian company. “We canvassed the world to see who had the best fire,” says Durst. “Their first test had everything – the right, dark look for the skull, the flames, the right vibe. Everyone fell in love with it right there, and Iloura did a great job on the movie.”

Opening across the Philippines on Friday, Feb. 17, “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

The highly intense edgy teen thriller “Chronicle” tags 10-minutes of “This Means War” footage when it opens in theaters nationwide on February 2 (Thursday).

“This Means War” stars Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy in a love war triangle when CIA agents and childhood best buddies find out they are dating the same woman.  Hilarity and hard-core action ensue as the trio try to work on the situation the best way possible brought by Hollywood’s ensemble of hit filmmakers.  “This Means War” is helmed by director McG whose worldwide hits include “Charlie’s Angels,” “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” and “Terminator Salvation,” written by scribe Simon Kinberg who penned the incredibly thrilling films “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “”X-Men: The Last Stand,” “Jumper” and “Sherlock Holmes,” and produced by Will Smith to create  2012’s most enjoyable adult romantic-action-comedy.

Consecutively opening this February  - “Chronicle” (February 2) and “This Means War” (February 22) are from 20^thCentury Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros. in theaters nationwide.­

Believe the impossible, discover the incredible as New Line Cinema’s “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” embarks on an adventure of a lifetime in IMAX 3D!  The film will be shown in local IMAX 3D cinemas, as well as digital 3D and regular theatres starting Thursday, Feb. 2.

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Vanessa Hudgens, Josh Hutcherson and Michael Caine, “Journey 2” takes moviegoers on a fun and fantastic new adventure to parts unknown, a place so remote it has lain hidden for centuries … and, when found, is almost impossible to escape.

Upon seeing the script for “Journey 2,” director Brad Peyton says, “I never imagined doing it small.  Right away, I knew it had to involve land, sea and air, with creatures, caves, storms, underwater battles and aerial chases, and all of it set against the most incredible, breathtaking terrain.  That meant utilizing the latest and best technology, to deliver something special in the 3D realm that the prequel ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ helped to establish.”

In 2008 that film broke ground as the first narrative feature to employ the Fusion System, a sophisticated digital 3D camera rig developed by James Cameron and cinematographer Vince Pace, and subsequently used on “Avatar.”  Not surprisingly, the “Journey 2” filmmakers returned to the Cameron Pace Group for state-of-the-art strategies and equipment to capture the depth and scope Peyton wanted to achieve in a range of real-world environments.

“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” is a New Line Cinema presentation, will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks stars as Thomas Schell, a devoted husband and father who was at the wrong place, at the wrong time during the fateful day of 9/11, in Warner Bros.’ life-affirming drama, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

The film is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears.

As a screen character, Thomas Schell was a challenge because he is seen entirely through Oskar’s eyes, to the extent that much about his history and inner life remain mysterious — except for the parts that have made an impression on Oskar and especially Oskar’s memories of their very best times together, which remain indelibly immediate to him.

To embody the essence of a father as captured in time by his young son, director Stephen Daldry thought early on of Tom Hanks. “We thought that in terms of Oskar’s memories of Thomas as the perfect dad…well, who else could that be but Tom Hanks?” recalls Daldry. “Tom took that responsibility to heart and created a real bond with child actor Thomas Horn that was evident to everybody on the set. They were absolutely charming together, which was great for me as a filmmaker, because they created this dynamic relationship and all I had to do was shoot it. It was an act of real dedication by an extraordinary actor and collaborator.”

Hanks was drawn to the way the script gets inside Oskar’s mind at a time when the power of logical facts to keep him grounded seems to have evaporated. “In the blink of an eye, the course of Oskar’s whole world changes, and he loses his only anchor,” Hanks says. “His father used to tell him that there are always clues and treasures to be found in the world. So when he finds his father’s key, it’s very interesting that Oskar devises his own elaborate hunt for what the key might mean, convinced it will somehow explain the unexplained to him. It becomes a very personal, intimate story of a kid trying to make sense in his own way of a nonsensical world.”

He adds: “It was easiest thing in the world for me to want to do this – as soon as I read it, there was not even any question.”

The actor says he gave a lot of consideration to the kind of father Thomas was to Oskar prior to his death. He also kept in mind that Thomas was himself a child of immigrants who took up the trade of jewelry as his only clear opportunity to support his family, even though he dreamed of being a scientist. “I think Thomas was someone who felt the real task in his life was to make sure that his very bright son became a well-rounded, content human being who might make the world a better place,” Hanks says. “Since Thomas himself grew up without a father, fathering Oskar was the most important thing to him. I think he loved inventing wild stories for Oskar, like the one he makes up about New York’s lost Sixth Borough, but he also very clearly designed these stories to get Oskar out in the world and help him feel safe there.”

In part, Hanks drew on his own experiences as a father. “The emotional part of it for me was going back and remembering what it’s like to have an 11-year-old kid who is bubbling over with life,” he says.

While Hanks believes Thomas was well aware that Oskar often showed signs of behavior akin to Asperger’s Syndrome, he also says Thomas readily accepted and even related to many of his son’s oddities and phobias, which made the two of them even closer. “I think Thomas wasn’t bothered at all by his son’s behaviors,” he says. “Instead, he looked for ways to build bridges over Oskar’s turbulence, over his constant questions, his flights of fancy and his fears. Yet because of that, when he’s gone, it magnifies the incredible loss for Oskar even more.”

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.