Looney Tunes animation appears to be in a period of rebirth. Not only does the beloved stable of animated characters have a new show called The Looney Tunes Show on the cartoon network, but they’ve also been invading theaters with a series of short films. Last year saw three original, CG Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote shorts get put in front of big family releases, and now Warner Bros. has sent out a press release saying that they have three more upcoming shorts that will not only be presented in 3D, but will also use the voice of legendary voice actor Mel Blanc, who passed away in 1989. Despite Blanc no longer being with us, archivists have resurrected some of his old recordings from the 50s, including original songs, to act as the vocal tracks for these new short films.

The future of J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek sequel has been a mystery for a while now. The movie industry has turned into a brand name driven environment where as soon as a film makes ten bucks over its budget, a release date gets set for the sequel. And it’s usually a date that’s closer than the filmmakers would like. So what’s been going on with Star Trek? Are we going to get a sequel? And if not, why not? Who does J.J. Abrams think he is? Recently a clue surfaced in the ongoing mystery when co-writer/producer Roberto Orci said that while a script wasn’t finished, they had a big ol’ outline done, and they were just waiting for Abrams to get done with his current projects before they pushed production into high gear. And now a second clue has come to light. While talking to Cinema Blend, Abrams himself confirmed that Star Trek 2 would in fact be his next project; and he even talked a bit about its release date and whether or not he’s looking to make it in 3D. He started off by saying, “The next thing we’re working on, and hopefully we’ll be able to pass information out sooner or later, is the next Star Trek.” When asked about the too close for comfort release date that Paramount has the film penciled in for, June 29th 2012, Abrams was less than committal. “I care much more that it be good than it be ready,” he said, “I’m, obviously [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly thing about movie stuff. Tonight’s edition features mini-ninjas, talk about naked pictures of Blake Lively, Sly Stallone set to music, an explanation of who Jane Lynch is, a joke about Michael Bay, an even less funny joke about Blake Lively and a profile of Richard Ayoade. That and more, we assure you. Above you will see something I never thought we’d lead with in a Movie News After Dark entry: someone’s grave stone. But there it is, the resting place of actor Leslie Nielsen. Modest, simple and complete with one last fart joke for the road. Nielsen may not have lasted forever, but his penchant for the fart joke will forever stay in our hearts.

Coming off the heels of box office news that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides made more money in its standard showings than in its 3D showings, and a weekend in which the big 3D family release Kung-Fu Panda 2 opened softer than analysts were predicting, comes comments from Tim Burton regarding his upcoming films, and whether they will use 3D. As you might remember, Burton’s last film, Alice in Wonderland, used the oft derided 3D post conversion method and became one of the poster children for film’s that didn’t present well crafted 3D effects at all, but still charged the extra money for the ticket. When asked about 3D plans for his upcoming big screen adaptation of the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows, Burton said, “I have no plans for that.”

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news round-up that, for the time being, is keeping things brief. Memorial Day weekend is one that Hollywood generally takes off, so news is light. That said, there was plenty of discussion and artful expression happening all weekend that didn’t require us to sift through the virtual pages of The Hollywood Reporter. Read: there’s some cool stuff in tonight’s edition. The Times has a report that, for some of you, can’t come soon enough. 3D is fizzling and Hollywood is scared. The report focuses on the lopsided box office of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which took in far more dollars in 2D despite a major push in the other direction from Disney. Even Kung Fu Panda 2, an animated 3D family adventure, opened soft in the additional dimension. Perhaps this will prompt some changes to be made. It probably won’t, but a guy can dream.

This week, the Nicolas Cage 3D grindhouse flick Drive Angry hits video store shelves. And while it’s not be a good idea to drink and drive, it can be quite fun to drink while watching Drive Angry. In the tradition of Planet Terror, Death Proof and Machete, Drive Angry features plenty of violence, fast cars and boobs. Surely, it will be on the short list come Oscar season next year. Get a jump on your awards ballot by checking this movie out, knowing it will just get better the more you play this game.

Once upon a time, about twenty years ago or so, Disney didn’t have to rely on Pixar to keep their legacy as King of children’s entertainment going.  A new generation of hand drawn Disney classics like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast were breaking box office records, earning critical acclaim, and winning awards. Then came The Lion King in 1994, a film that to this day holds the record as being the highest grossing hand drawn animated feature of all time. The Lion King was perhaps the crowning achievement of Disney’s second golden age, and in order to remind you of their past accomplishments, Disney is going to celebrate by selling it to you all over again.

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we talk with The Hangover Part II screenwriter Craig Mazin and continue the screenwriting/sequel theme with Kung Fu Panda 2 writers Jon Aibel and Glenn Berger. Plus, Katey Rich from Cinema Blend battles Jordan Raup of The Film Stage in the Movie News Pop Quiz Arena of Death. The result? You’ll have to listen to find out, but we end up talking about the bad week that 3D has been having. Reject Radio brings it on home this week, so kick off you shoes and stay awhile. Listen Here: Download This Episode

It hasn’t been a great start to the year for movie theater owners. There was the bizarre dust-up between the National Association of Theater Owners and the studios which advocated a shortened window of exclusivity before launching their films in homes On-Demand, but more so than one event, there’s a general feeling of outrage at higher ticket prices (which, as John Gholson explained on Reject Radio, have almost nothing to do with theater profits now) and higher-priced hotdogs. Plus, there’s the overall miserable experience that most theaters deliver. Now Boston.com has a truly disheartening story about theater managers not even bothering to switch out lenses between 3D and 2D films. The result? That 2D movie you saved money on by refusing the 3D up-charge is 50% darker than it should be. Read the entire article for the full take (and definitely listen to that Reject Radio episode for more illumination), but this seems indicative of a larger problem going on in movie theaters – a lack of incentive to make anything enjoyable. Audiences are coming for the movie, and theaters are delivering little else in the way of enticement. It’s no wonder that ticket sales are dropping. With the transition from reels to digital projectors, gone is the knowledge that came with understanding how the projection process really works. It took serious understanding to be behind the glass, but now it requires pushing a few buttons and reading an Archie comic.

News came over the last couple of days that former visionary director/current enviro-geek James Cameron was going to, instead of directing a new film (wouldn’t want to accidentally make two in a decade), spend millions of dollars and millions of seconds painstakingly bringing 1997s short film Titanic back to the screens, this time in three dimensions. In case you weren’t alive between 1997 and 1999, where Titanic stayed in theaters for a full year, the story has something to do with a boat, a gem, and freezing to death. I’m sure that if you’re reading this site you’ve either seen Titanic or know enough about it to know that you didn’t want to watch it. I have seen it and have no desire to see it again. It’s not a bad film, but it is long as hell and a bit on the melodramatic side. Aside from being responsible for turning Leonardo DiCaprio into a household name and making all my ex-girlfriends put posters of him on their walls, what could be wrong with Titanic coming back to the big screen? Simply put, Titanic 3D is everything wrong with Hollywood in a tight 194 minute package.

Michael Bay and James Cameron aren’t two directors who make little movies. Even when they try to make little movies, they become big events. And love them or hate them, they are two men who make films that we love to talk about. More importantly, they are two directors who are always looking to push the boundaries of what is possible in the technical world of making movies. It helps that each of them is responsible for more than a few films that have grossed unfathomable amounts of money. When you make money like that, you can certainly buy nice toys. A toy is exactly what they call their latest money-making technological boundary-pushing venture, the world of 3D. In a new video taken from a presentation put on by Paramount Pictures in support of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the two titans of CGI adventure talk about moving into the third dimension, playing with their new toy and making something truly spectacular. It’s the kind of video that might just have you excited about a Transformers movie again. It’s also a video that, in a rare moment, shows Michael Bay to be nothing but a giddy child sitting next to one of his heroes.

Now that Darren Aronofsky has cold heartedly put the future of The Wolverine in question by dropping out of the project, Hugh Jackman is going to need to find something to do with himself. Luckily, there are a lot of movies out there just dying to get made. One of them is a James Cameron produced, Shawn Levy directed remake of the 1966 shrinking scientists movie Fantastic Voyage. The film has a script that has been written by Shane Salerno and Laeta Kalogridis, and is set to be a big budget, 3D take on the material. While nothing is confirmed, Deadline Wolcott is reporting that Jackman is Levy’s first choice to take a starring role in the film. Seeing as the actor and director just worked together on the giant robots boxing each other movie Real Steel, the idea that Jackman might agree to sign on doesn’t seem so far fetched. I’ve never seen any of Levy’s work other than his family films, however, and I thought that most of those were pretty terrible; so I don’t know how to react to this news. I guess if Real Steel comes out and is good, then the idea of Hugh Jackman doing 3D Fantastic Voyage could be pretty fun. Until then all I can do is wait. Wait, and seethe, and curse the name of Darren Aronofsky.

I am not a fan of 3D. Even in the most technologically adept cases where the 3D landscape has layers of depth, even in those most “Cameronesque” of instances, I am unable to get past the gimmickry in the mode of viewing. As a human being, I’m already trained to perceive two-dimensional images in three dimensions, why would I need to attach cumbersome glasses to my face to show me a pronounced version of what I already perceive? I had never encountered a situation in which the forced depth of 3D actually added to any depth in content of the film itself. That is, until I saw Werner Herzog’s The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

Thanks to companies like MasterImage, we will soon be able to watch 3D movies without having to put on those bulky, pesky glasses. They’ve come up with something called “cell-matrix parallax barrier” technology, which sounds like some sort of Lawnmower Man or Johnny Mnemonic-esque immersive Internet world, but is actually just a display screen that projects 3D images. They’ve already started licensing out their work, as Hitashi has used it to create the Wooo, the first ever glasses-free 3D mobile phone, and if VP and GM of 3D display Roy Taylor has anything to say about it, we could be seeing MasterImages’ 3D displays all over the place in coming years, including in cars and airplanes. “We weren’t looking at (airlines and car makers) initially,” says Taylor, “We were focusing on smartphones and tablets, but there turned out to be strong interest.” While cycles of production on cars aren’t quite as fast as cell phones and tablets, and production on new airplanes is even slower, it could be a year or so before we start seeing these 3D screens showing up in luxury automobiles, and a couple years before they’re installed by full service airlines.

When I caught the video pitching 2D glasses – which take a 3D movie and only allow in the right visual particles (I made that part up) to give you a headache-free 2D image – all I could think about was that I had a completely free way of turning a 3D movie into a 2D movie: Buy a (cheaper) ticket for the 2D showing. In fact, that’s better than free. It’s money-saving. It’s not rocket surgery. Why pay for a 3D price only to wear image-dimming glasses that turn it into 2D when there’s a 2D screening down the hall that doesn’t have an upcharge? Now, these 2D glasses (being sold by Hank Green) might be a huge joke that I’m not getting, but they seem about as useful as a battery-powered egg cracker. However, they might be the product of the future. In that future, James Cameron has gotten his wish, and every single movie is made in glorious, eye-straining 3D. Those of the population that are physically injured by 3D will have to have these glasses in order to see movies at all without knocking back a handful of Excedrin. But for now, you’re spending $8 to have your upcharge rendered meaningless. Who knows. In a decade, when the price has quadrupled, doctors might be prescribing them.

During their keynote speech at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas today, James Cameron and Vincent Pace (the guys who brought you the 3D system that made Avatar possible) announced the formation of the Cameron-Pace Group. If you think that sounds like the name of some sort of powerful, yet secretive cabal of rich men bent on dominating the globe… well then you’re actually pretty spot-on. The C-PG, “seeks to accelerate worldwide growth of 3D across all entertainment platforms including features, episodic and live television, sports, advertising and consumer products.” Cameron adds that, “Our goal is to banish all the perceived and actual barriers to entry that are currently holding back producers, studios, and networks from embracing their 3D future.” Wow, “their 3D future,” isn’t that a bit strongly worded? I for one embrace our new computer overlords.

It’s dark, and it’s about to get darker. You slide ten cents worth of plastic onto your face because it’s supposed to make you see an extra dimension, and you’re paying more for it. There’s no need to do a full intro on 3D. We all know it. We all have opinions about it. Some movies that utilize it are heart-stopping while others are migraine makers without the chance of a refund. Yesterday, after coming late to the game on this one, I discovered the 3D world of sound, and it created an experience more immersive than any 3D I’ve ever seen. Strap on your headphones, take a few minutes of your day off from studying Greek Literature (you won’t use it) or ordering lunch for your boss (he can skip it), and check it out:

When you grab Mike Tyson to be in your comedy about drunk guys, it’s stunt casting. So what do you call it when you hire a former actor/former Governor to play an animated, superhero version of himself for a film? What do you call it when the entire movie is stunt cast? When The Governator was going to be an animated series, it sounded sort of silly, but having him come out in comic books, a television series, a web-series and a 3D movie just seems like culture being shoved down the throats of consumers who didn’t ask for it. The last time an idea was this bewildering was then Jerry Seinfeld chose to come out of retirement for Bee Movie. There’s a place for average children’s films, but as a return to glory from a long hiatus? Not a chance. That’s what’s going on here. Schwarzenegger is returning in a major way to movies, and his first definite “Yes” is to the cartoonification of himself that seeks to solidify a joke nickname he gave himself during his campaign. On the other hand, if this works, we can expect to see Dubya animated and up on screen alongside Tippecanoe and Tyler Too. According to Deadline Cannes, The Governator may or may not take on Muammar Qaddafi, which is absolutely reassuring. This whole thing sounds like senility has started to creep in.

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we do what Hollywood finds impossible by creating a successful reboot. The show is getting an upgrade (which is why you can hear both drilling and confetti being tossed constantly in the background), and the new format promises to make everyone who listens to the show three inches taller and wildly, wildly wealthy. As in, so wealthy you’ll have to figure out how to buy off politicians. You can check out the show guide below, but the quick and dirt version involves two beloved Rejects battling it out in a game of wits, a teenage director seeing her first SXSW premiere, a visual effects artist arguing on behalf of post-conversion 3D, and 5 myths about production that ensure movies will be crappy. Loosen up your tie and stay a while. Listen Here: Download This Episode

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr snubs his nose at all the films up for the Oscar in order to enjoy the R-rated smorgasbord that is available in the theaters. He kisses his wife and takes six days off from marriage, just like Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis in Hall Pass. He takes those six days to find a fast car so he can Drive Angry, following Amber Heard and her short shorts in 3D. Apparently no one told him she’s a lesbian now.