As part of their celebration of the 100th anniversary of the revolution that would ultimately create the People’s Republic Of China, the Chinese government has commissioned a sweeping epic film of those events entitled 1911.

The film is touting Jackie Chan as its star and “general director,” at least according to the website for its Japanese release (as found by Bleeding Cool). John Woo’s Red Cliff cinematographer Zhang Li is listed as the film’s other director. Also in the cast are Jackie’s son, Jaycee and Twin Peaks‘ Joan Chen.

1911 is also being promoted as Jackie’s 100th film, but I’m not sure at how they arrived at that number.According to his IMDb page, Jackie has 109 acting credits. I thought perhaps that maybe they weren’t counting some of his early, uncredited stunt work or even his Hollywood films, but those each number over nine so that can’t be it.

The film is scheduled for release on October 10, which is the date of the start of the Wuchang Uprising, a military uprising that was the spark for the Xinhai Revolution which overthrew that Qing Dynasty and lead to the formation of the Republic of China with Sun Yat-Sen as President. The country would go through a long period of instability, with Yat-Sen allying himself with the Communist Party of China in 1920, which would ultimately lead to the foundation of the communist People’s Republic Of China post-World War Two.

Putting aside the project’s politics, patriotism and/or propaganda, it looks like Jackie will be playing a straight up dramatic role with none of his trademark martial arts. For that, it should be interesting to see this film.

Say what you will about Sean Young’s long history of public kookiness, she did some amazing work in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.And through her website, she’s giving us a peek backstage at the production of the science-fiction classic via a series of photographs she took on-set with an old school Polaroid camera. Many of them are her mugging with her co-stars and the crew, but there’s also some that look like costume and hair tests. And if you’re a fan, it’s just one of many photo galleries the actress has posted.

Via Badass Digest.

Peter Jackson’s two-part adaption of J R R Tolkien’s The Hobbit now has subtitles and release dates.And if you’ve even a passing familiarity with the book, the two titles should come as no surprise.

Part one is now known as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and will be hitting theaters on December 14, 2012. The second half will be in theaters a year later on December 13, 2013 under the title The Hobbit: There And Back Again.

Production continues on the film which will feature a cast that includes Martin Freeman, Ian Holm, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, Richard Armitage, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Sylvester McCoy, Bret McKenzie, Graham McTavish, Mike Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean O’Gorman, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt, Conan Stevens, Ken Stott, Jeffrey Thomas, and Aidan Turner.

Production on Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy finale The Dark Knight Rises continues with shooting scheduled on both sides of the Atlantic. While a majority of the location work seems schedule for Pittsburgh, there appears to be several other locales set to appear in the film.

For Bruce Wayne’s stately home, Wayne Manor, Movieweb is reporting that Osterly Park an 18th century country estate in Middlesex, England has been selected. In an email to the site, an anonymous employee stated “Osterley Park is the inside of the Wayne Manor. That’s right 3 rooms – dining room, and study – we forgot to ask what the 3rd room was – it was mentioned the study has a secret exit that will lead to the Batcave.”

Corroborating the story is a note on the Osterly Park website stating that “The House will be completely closed to public for filming from 15 June to 22 June.” Three guesses as to when filming is going to be there then?

Meanwhile, back on this side of the Atlantic, Pittsburgh might not be the only city to double for Gotham. Newark, New Jersey mayor Cory Booker tweeted late last week that he had met with producers about the possibility of some location work being done in his city.

Props to Booker for knowing who Nightwing is.

As the production continues over the summer, there is sure to more locations announced.

On his Facebook page, Peter Jackson will be answering 20 questions about his adaptation of The Hobbit over the next couple of weeks. He posted the first question and answer yesterday, and it is one that strikes right to the heart of him fleshing out J R R Tolkien’s book into a two-part film with material found in the appendices to The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King.

OFFICIAL QUESTION #1

VALERIA KEMENTARI asked, “Are we going to see the White Council attacking Dol Guldor?”

This was quite a popular topic, with JOHN LIDDLE, TOBY PHILLIPS and SETH DONALD, along with many others, asking variations of this same question.

I’m not going to say just what and when, but I will confirm that both the White Council and Dol Guldur will feature in the movies. And not just in one scene either. Just how to visualise it has been a challenge, but fortunately Alan Lee and John Howe went crazy with ideas, and it should look pretty cool.

For those of you not versed in Middle Earth lore beyond what you saw already in The Lord Of The Rings films, Dol Guldor is a fortress at the southern edge of the Mirkwood forest where Sauron hid while regaining his strength through most of the Third Age. When the Wizards of the White Council, which included Gandalf and Sauruman, became concerned over rumors of a powerful being residing there who was being called the Necromancer, they attacked the fortress and drove him out. Of course, Sauron fled back to his old digs in Mordor, setting in motion the events of The Lord Of The Rings. None of this is really mentioned in the text of The Hobbit, though Tolkien forwarded this as an explanation for Gandalf’s periodic disappearances in the book.

Jackson has long talked about using material found in the appendices to help flesh out his Hobbit films and to better connect them to the Lord Of The Rings films. Outside of what we can infer he’s doing with the casting of several actors from the Rings trilogy whose characters don’t actually appear in The Hobbit, this is the first concrete corroboration of at least part of the material he is adding in. This was pretty much expected, especially with the casting of Sylvester McCoy as another council wizard Radagast The Brown, but it is still exciting to get confirmed.

At this point, the Men In Black III seems to have been in production longer than a Stanley Kubrick film. We’ve been through the problems before and we continue to hope that the wait will be worth it.

While we wait though, Movieweb has managed to score a half-dozen on-location set photos of stars Will Smith and Josh Brolin as the two MIB agents trying to save Earth in 1969 from… something. We also get a glimpse of a couple of mysterious, high-tech shinny things. We’ve picked out two photos from the set below, but head over to see all six.

So what are those shiny pod things? Who knows. We’ll, find out next summer when the film is released.

Have you been wondering what’s going on with Twentieth Century Fox’s planned do-over on their Daredevil franchise? Truth be told, I really haven’t. While the first attempt at bringing the Marvel Comics character to the screen in 2003 was met with average reviews, and the subsequent Director’s Cut on DVD garnering only slightly better ones, I honestly haven’t been that interested in seeing a return of the Hell’s Kitchen hero.

That lack of interest may change this week, though. David Slade, the director hired by the studio to oversee their new Daredevil film tweeted this weekend that there will be some news about the project coming in the next seven days or so.

What could it be? A casting announcement perhaps seems most likely. Who would you like to see in a new Daredevil movie?

Orlando Bloom has become the latest cast member from Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings to officially be confirmed as reprising their role in The Hobbit.

The news comes from the film’s official Facebook page, but you can read it below.

But really, is this news a surprise to anyone? We already knew that Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Christopher Lee and Cate Blanchett are back to reprise their Rings characters despite them not actually appearing in J R R Tolkien’s original The Hobbit novel. Considering that the character’s father Thranduil does appear in the books, and will be played by Lee Pace, it does make sense that Legolas could at least pop up in a cameo. I suspect, though, that he will be playing a part in the material that Jackson has added into the story from the Lord Of The Rings appendices that chart out the other goings on in Middle Earth while Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves were journeying to the Lonely Mountain.

When Latino Review told us that the enemies for The Avengers would be Loki and an alien race believed to be the Skrulls, we thought that the two could be a challenge worthy of the Avengers coming together to combat–a for to big to handle on their own.

Of course, after seeing Thor, we see that Loki can be easily handled by the Thunder God all by his lonesome. And aliens, even if they are shape shifting ones, aren’t really much of a threat. Heck, Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum were able to take out a fleet all by themselves.

Well, Latino Review is back and it appears the threat level has been upped. A new bad guy has apparently been added to the roster, and the first clue as to his identity was given us back in the last Sunday of the 2010 San Diego Comic Con.

The glove on the right, as any Marvel Zombie can tell you, is the Infinity Gauntlet. It is encrusted with what are called Infinity Gems, jewels of extraordinary power. These gems brought together in this gauntlet can give its wearer unlimited power, from time travel to teleportation, from mind control to re-altering the very fabric of reality itself. Whoever wears the Infinity Gauntlet is a major threat. And who is the comic book baddie most famous for wearing the gauntlet and who Latino Review says will be wearing it in The Avengers?

That would be a character named Thanos, one of the biggest bad guys in the whole Marvel Universe.

The comic book Thanos is from a super powered race called the Eternals. He has an unnecessary amorous fixation on the personification of Death, and is willing to do anything to prove his love to her, even killing half the universe.

Thanos is a villain of great stature and importance in the Marvel Universe, and has fought the Avengers a number of times. Depending on how he is portrayed, he is most definitely a threat that Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man and Captain America would need to team up to face.

But that is an important point–how he will be portrayed. The gauntlet seems to be of Asgardian design. And there is also another object in the same power scale, the reality warping Cosmic Cube/Tesseract, which is set to be introduced in Captain America: The First Avenger. How these facts will play off one another will be interesting to see.  And what role Thanos plays in the whole thing is another reason to keep watching.

No. Just stop it Warner Brothers.

Sure, last summer’s live action/CG animated feature Yogi Bear may have made a bit over $200 million at the worldwide box office, but I’m sure some of that was inflated by 3D surcharges. The movie got horrible reviews (13 % at Rotten Tomatoes), so why, if you’re interested in making a sequel, have you hired two of the first film’s three writers – Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia – to start work on the follow up?

Look, I know this is kind of a pointless question to ask anyone in Hollywood, but have you no decency or self-respect?

I really don’t think that anyone is asking for or demanding a sequel. So please just stop it.

For the love of God and the sake of the children, just stop.

Please.

Via Collider.