For the past week, Harry Potter fans have been anxiously waiting to find out what author J.K. Rowling planned to unveil with the mysterious new website Pottermore. Would it be something as disappointing as a Harry Potter encyclopedia, or something as brain-melting as a new Potter adventure. Well, good news and bad news: Rowling revealed on Thursday that Pottermore will include some new content! (Brain melts.) Unfortunately, that content will be of the additional notes variety. (Brain doesn't melt.) At least you can get e-book versions of all seven Potter novels?
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Also in this Thursday edition of The Broadsheet: The FBI finally catches the inspiration for The Departed... a tragedy strikes How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying... Viggo Mortensen lends his face to January... and more ahead.
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Not even yesterday's first look photo of Robert De Niro and his great big bushy beard could prepare us for the non-stop macho action in the trailer for the Jason Statham-Clive Owen starrer Killer Elite, which hit the web today. After the jump, watch the wealth of punches, power kicks, explosions, gunshots, inventive action moves, and unabashed man love on display in the span of a minute and forty seconds. Then mark your calendars for September 23.
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That surprise Warren Beatty project has finally come into focus: Deadline reports the Hollywood legend will play Howard Hughes in the untitled Paramount film, though it won't be a straight-ahead biopic. Instead, at least part of the script will focus on a relationship Hughes had with a much younger woman when he was older. Beatty will apparently meet who's who of acting talent for roles, among them: Andrew Garfield, Alec Baldwin, Annette Bening, Shia LaBeouf, Jack Nicholson, Evan Rachel Wood and Rooney Mara. Huh. Wonder how Bening got a meeting. [Deadline]
Well, if we weren't going to get Natalie Portman in Lionsgate's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies adaptation, Emma Stone makes for a feisty replacement. Stone has reportedly been offered the role of heroine Elizabeth Bennet in the Craig Gillespie-directed pic, based on Seth Grahame-Smith's popular parody spin, which introduces an undead epidemic to Jane Austen's classic novel.
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In a new interview, Cameron Diaz confesses that she and her Bad Teacher co-star Justin Timberlake set out to "create the least sexiest love scene in the history of film" in this weekend's comedy from Jake Kasdan. Before viewing the scene that Diaz calls "the creepiest thing ever" in theaters Friday, let's review some other horrible sex scenes that made audiences squirm in spite of the filmmakers' best intentions.
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Hollywood may already have two Frankenstein projects in development (one with Summit and the other through Sam Raimi's Ghost House Productions) but that doesn't mean there isn't room for a third. Fox has just hired Chronicle scribe Max Landis (John's son) to write a screenplay based on Mary Shelley's classic novel. The studio is reportedly considering Paul Greengrass and David Yates (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) to direct. [Variety]
Awards season isn't completely over for some of your favorite films from last year: The 12th annual Golden Trailer Awards pit the best marketing campaigns, trailer, and posters from films in 2010 and 2011 against one another, which means the Tree of Life trailer is up against that of The Social Network, the vampire remake Let Me In competes with the spooky remake Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and Cars 2 battles Rango. Never mind that half of these films haven't come out yet!
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The Mad Magazine comic strip Spy Vs. Spy -- where two identical creeps in hats and trenches outdo each other's sneaky antics -- is coming to life thanks to director Ron Howard, screenwriter John Kamps (who wrote Sony's upcoming Premium Rush), and producer and script overseer David Koepp (who directed Rush and co-wrote the new Jack Ryan movie for Paramount). Shouldn't be long until the Goofus & Gallant movie washes ashore. More details follow.
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After Idris Elba signed up for Pacific Rim earlier on Wednesday, it seemed that Jamie Foxx would be the last man standing for Quentin Tarantino in his quest to find a lead for Django Unchained. And he apparently is. Deadline reports that Tarantino wants Foxx to play the titular, revenge-seeking slave, and that talks will begin soon. Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson have all been discussed as co-stars. Developing... [Deadline]
Twitter thinks it's funny again, offering up a new hashtag topic called #TameHorrorMovies where users pun on horror titles and come up with silly new ones. We'll compile the five best from Twitter and add a few of our own. You use the comments to be funnier than us.
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Perhaps Aaron Sorkin never got that Facebook poke. While speaking at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France earlier Wednesday, the Oscar winner reportedly said he was through using the social networking site. "I have a lot of opinions on social media that make me sound like a grumpy old man sitting on the porch yelling at kids." And how! [Telegraph]
Just two days before unveiling the teaser trailer for Brave -- which audiences will get to check out during the moments before Cars 2 this weekend -- Pixar has debuted the first poster for the company's inaugural fairy tale. Check out the artwork for the film that director Mark Andrews is describing as "dark" ahead.
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Former NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal hasn't made much noise since announcing his retirement via Twitter at the beginning of June, but perhaps a clandestine meeting with Ari Emanuel, Lance Klein and Doug Lucterhand at WME could change all that. Is this the beginning of Kazaam 2?
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Provided all negotiations go according to plan, the burly Ray Winstone is in talks to potentially join Ian McShane, Eddie Izzard, Eddie Marsan, Bob Hoskins, Toby Jones and Stephen Graham as the seven dwarves in Snow White and The Huntsman. Don't worry, Jim Broadbent and other British character actors not hired for this film -- there might be room for you to play a dwarf in the Relativity Media version of Snow White, which is out next March. Heigh-ho, etc. [THR/Heat Vision]
