Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man is set to open in a couple of months and surprisingly they have been fairly secretive with the look of the film’s villain, The Lizard. That changes today, though, as the studio has offered up two views of the tragic transformed scientist who will bedevil Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield). They’re not super clear shots, I expect we may see a bit better in the trailer that is scheduled to be released tomorrow, but they are the first that we’ve officially seen of the character. Click on each photo for a much larger view.

When we think of the Lone Ranger and Tonto, the image our mind creates is inspired by the Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels versions of the character, portrayals that are 60 years old. You think buckskin. You think square jaws. You think the 1950′s version of what a cowboy would look like.

The reason why this image sticks with us is that every interpretation of the character since then, be it in movies, television, cartoons or comic books, haven’t strayed from this look. That’s what make the picture tweeted by Jerry Buckheimer, producer of Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger, all that more shocking:

Since it’s such a break from the norm, the natural knee jerk reaction would be to snark about the picture. “So, this time the Lone Ranger and Tonto are united by their mutual love of the works of Edgar Allan Poe!” “Here we see a scene where the duo heads out to the desert to catch a Bauhaus/Cure double bill!”

Of course, this is just one image and it might not be indicative of the direction the whole film will go into. The Lone Ranger is ripe for reinterpretation. But does it really need to go so “goth”?

A bunch of images hit the web today from J.J. Abrams Star Trek 2, and speculation has begun as to what they all mean.

First, MTV has two set photos featuring new bad guy (and BBC’s Sherlock Holmes) Benedict Cumberbatch. The first, which you see to the left, features his character facing off against Zachary Quinto’s Spock. While it looks like Spock is getting the upper hand, MTV claims that Cumberbatch quickly get out of the Vulcan Neck Pinch. I did not know that was possible.

MTV sees the outfit Cumberbatch is wearing, and theorizes that his character is a member of the Starfleet Academy who has turned evil. Well, the other picture taken from that set visit might tell another story.

Here, Cumberbatch faces off against Zoe Saldana’ Uhura. As we recall, a hint of a romance was beginning to form between Spock and Uhura during the last film. Could this be a romantic triangle of some sort? Hmm? Hmm?

Okay, maybe not. But still, there is bound to be more than just a coincidence in the two quasi-lovebirds facing off against the villain at the same time.

/Film runs with the story, but adds another potential plot element. They have taken a screen cap, seen to the left, from Simon Pegg’s Twitter video wishing British comic book magazine 2000 A.D. a happy anniversary. The video is taken on the set and Pegg is in costume.

/Film thinks Pegg’s costume in the shot is that of a member of the Starfleet Academy and not the red tunic Pegg wore at the end of the first film. I don’t know about you, but I can barely make out anything on that uniform. But just because Pegg is wearing a uniform that appears to be a cadets uniform, doesn’t mean Scotty has been busted down through the ranks. I’ll need more information before I speculate on that.

More answers should become apparent as we get closer to the sequel’s May 17, 2013 release date.

A new photo from Marvel Studio’s upcoming The Avengers has popped up. It spotlights Captain America (Chris Evans) and SHIELD Agents Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) doing a hero’s walk through what I am guessing is either a SHIELD base or the spy organization’s Heli-Carrier. I know that some folks aren’t really thrilled with the look of Captain America’s modern day uniform, I think it looks pretty darn good here.

The picture comes courtesy of Empire magazine, though so far it has only appeared in their print edition so we only have scans so far.

The Avengers opens May 4.

Sony pictures has released the first official photo of the latest James Bond adventure, Skyfall. Not much to see outside of star Daniel Craig looking bad ass in what looks like a dimly lit computer server room. How does it fit into the plot? Who knows as we know so little about the film’s story outside of the fact that it involves something from M’s (Dame Judi Dench) past.

Click on the picture for a high-res version.

Skyfall is set for a November 9th release and also stars Dame Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Berenice Marlohe, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw and Albert Finney.

I have to admit that I wasn’t that impressed with the first photos we got of Johnny Depp in makeup as Barnabus Collins in Tim Burton’s big screen adaption of the 1970s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, but I was willing to set aside my reservations until we got something a bit more official. Well, today French film site CineHeroes posted a much more polished picture of Depp and I have to say… I’m still not entirely convinced that the look is right for the part. Check it out below.

I’m sure I’m not the only one here finds that this picture makes Depp look like a 12-year-old, more Pugsley Addams than 200-year-old vampire. Personally, I prefer the picture of Depp and co-star Michelle Pfeiffer that showed up on an Italian site earlier this week. You can’t even tell that it is Depp.

Click each photo for a bigger version.

Dark Shadows hits theaters May 11.

Via Coming Soon.

When director Tim Burton was slaving away as an animator at Disney back in the 1980s, he created Frankenweenie, a short film that the studio decreed was too dark for kids and promptly stuck it on a shelf. Of course, once Tim Burton ceased being an just some guy in their animation department and became Tim Burton, director of popular film’s like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice and Batman, the studio suddenly had second thoughts about the film and promptly put it out on home video.

And while Burton was a little annoyed at the way he and the film were treated by Disney at the time, he’s apparently put that behind him as he has been working on turning the live action short into a feature length stop motion animiated film for the studio. And we’ll get to see the results in about nine months when the film opens in October. Until then, here are two new pictures from the upcoming production to tide you over. (Click on each for a better, bigger view.) And as a bonus, below the pictures is the original short film.

With its release about four months away, it appears that Disney is starting to ramp up promotion for their big Edgar Rice Burroughs adaption John Carter. Earlier this week we saw one new photo featuring the titular hero as being played by Taylor Kitsch in a gladiatorial arena against a great martian white ape. Now we have six new pictures giving us a better idea of the epic scope of the story. (As always, click on each photo for a slightly larger view.)

John Carter also stars Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church, and Willem Dafoe.

Edgar Rice Burrough’s pulp hero John Carter of Mars might not be as well known by the general public as the author’s other great creation Tarzan, but Disney is going to do their best to correct that over the next several months leading up to the release of John Carter next March. As the publicity blitz starts to gear up, we see the studio releasing a photo to Entertainment Tonight that shows us some of the great pulpy adventure the film has in store. Granted, some people will look at this and jump to the conclusion that this scene of Carter squaring off against a martian Great White Ape is ripping off the Star Wars films. But let’s face it, Lucas and a host of others have been lifting from Burroughs for decades now.

John Carter stars Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church, and Willem Dafoe and opens on March 9th.

You can count on Entertainment Weekly for two things regarding comic book films. One, at least once or twice a year they’ll take a pot shot at the film genre, either through an opinion column, a snide throw-away comment in a news article, or in the text of an interview. Second, they will shamelessly promote each and every comic book movie that comes out with a big cover story, sometimes even a year before the comic book film comes out.

This love/hate relationship is exemplified by the cover of this week’s issue, which focuses on next year’s The Avengers.

I’m no expert at Photoshop, but then again, neither is the person who composed this cover. it’s blatantly obvious that these are six publicity stills stitched together. Did they have an intern work on the cover? Because they should have been told to work at trying to get the light sources to match up. I mean, really, there is a shine on the left side of Scarlett Johansson’s hair and on the right side of Chris Hemsworth’s head and that defies the laws of physics. Yeah, I know it might have been tough to get a picture of all six together, but you got to do better than this. This is the cover of the magazine for goodness sakes.

The rest of the pictures are of a better quality, and show Black Widow (Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) in action, a good look at Captain America’s (Chris Evans) new costume, and a behind the scenes of the cast and director Joss Whedon during a break.

Subscribers should be getting this issue tomorrow, and it should be on most newsstands by Monday.