I tease, of course. The Avengers is almost guaranteed to be a gigantic hit this summer and probably one of the year’s highest grossers. The film has a built-in audience by virtue of its characters, history and the intentionally structured universe that Marvel has created with the earlier films. It’s going to be huge thanks to the presence of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo/CGI) and others. And it’s going to be fun thanks to Joss Whedon in the director’s chair. But will it be any good? All signs point to yes, and that’s including the new TV spot below.

South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho‘s English-language debut was always going to be a hotly anticipated feature, but as the cast for Snow Piercer rounds out, it’s become obvious that The Host director is really going all out for this one. The next star to join the sci-fi indie film is Octavia Spencer, who just won a SAG Award for Best Supporting Actress and is viewed as the frontrunner for the Oscar in the same category for her work in The Help. She joins an already impressive (both in terms of talent and how wonderfully varied it is) cast that includes Chris Evans, The Host star Kang Ho Song, and veteran talents John Hurt and Tilda Swinton. The film, which has been adapted from the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige has been co-scripted by Bong (with the most recent draft coming from Kelly Masterson), and is set in a future world ruined by a failed attempt to finally stop the fallout from global warming. The experiment to end global warming has led to an Ice Age that has destroyed all living creatures, except for those who live on the Snow Piercer, ” a train that travels around the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine.” The film will center on a revolution that stirs up between the train’s inhabitants, who had previously settled into an uneasy class system. Spencer’s role will be that as a mother who takes up with the revolution ” in order to save her son” [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]

South Korean director Joon-ho Bong is set to make his English language directorial debut with a train thriller set in an ice covered world called Snow Piercer. Normally if you told me there was a movie about train travel on an ice covered world called Snow Piercer, I would assume that we were talking about a Syfy channel original with a B-list cast and some hilarious attempts at digital effects; but that’s certainly not the case here. Joon-ho is pretty much the man when it comes to moviemaking skills, so despite its outlandish premise, Snow Piercer is very rapidly amassing an impressive cast. I mean, duh, Hollywood actors have probably been lining up around the block to audition once it was announced they could work with this guy.

Now that his stoic role as Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger and the upcoming The Avengers has successfully washed the taste of Chris Evans’ failed early career attempts at being the wise-cracking comedic actor out of my mouth, it’s time to start figuring out what he’s going to do next. And according to a report from Variety, it sounds like he’s being pretty wise in taking his next step. Apparently the handsome young fella is negotiating to star in a movie called Snow Piercer, which is going to be the first English language feature from The Host and Mother director Joon-ho Bong. For those of you who don’t usually watch foreign films, Joon-ho Bong makes some awesome movies, so this is a project that should be taken seriously; even if the title and premise, that of a group of people trying to travel by train on an ice-covered world, sound a little lame.

James Franco isn’t just known as the greatest Oscars host of all-time, he’s also an actor. An actor who up until now was the most recent man to portray legendary beat poet Allen Ginsberg on screen. Franco played Ginsberg in the movie Howl, which didn’t shy away from the perceived obscenity of Ginsberg’s works, the fact that there was a lot of drug use going on in the man’s life, or the fact that he was pretty openly homosexual. You have to be comfortable dealing with some pretty risqué stuff if you’re going to accurately portray Ginsberg on film, so it makes sense that an actor as concerned with being artsy and progressive as James Franco would take the poet on. But what’s a little more shocking is the newest actor who is going to be stepping into Ginsberg’s shoes. In the upcoming film Kill Your Darlings the poet is going to be played by none other than… Harry Potter?!

When the first public trailer dropped for Joss Whedon’s upcoming Avengers film, it was met with a collective sigh from many, including yours truly. It wasn’t very exciting and the only thing it had going for it was some pedestrian banter that relied solely on the charm of Robert Downey Jr. Even on a visual level, the trailer failed to deliver the scale expected from an Avengers movie. It’s with that attitude that I entered the IGN theater at the New York Comic Con this past Saturday. When the panel started, moderator Chris Hardwick walked out to a crowd that was already coming down from the high of The Walking Dead panel and introduced the film’s producer Kevin Feige. Feige commented on how the teaser just recently dropped, but that it was on the computer and then proceeded to ask the audience if they would like to see it played on the three giant screens in the theater. This was met with great enthusiasm.

It’s not quite hyperbole to say the The Avengers is the most eagerly anticipated film of 2012. The ensemble superhero film features several characters who have already proven themselves in their own movies (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor) as well as a few who haven’t (Hawkeye, Black Widow), but the idea of bringing them all together into one adventure has been a dream of Marvel’s and the fans for quite some time. And now it’s almost here. We’ve seen some images and a very brief teaser, but Marvel and Paramount have released the first real trailer this morning. It’s still teaserish at only two minutes, but it offers up a good idea of what we can expect from director Joss Whedon’s upcoming blockbuster. Check it out below.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr is all giddy because apparently Joseph Gordon-Levitt has decided to copy his signature hairstyle. Undeterred by folks telling him Gordon-Levitt shaved his head to play the role in 50/50, Kevin tries to lobby other Hollywood actors to copy his image. Unfortunately, What’s Your Number? star Chris Evans refuses to grow a huge belly and Dream House star Daniel Craig just won’t latch onto Kevin’s charming American accent.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Source Code…and, for that matter, Avatar. Recently in Hollywood, the physiological capabilities of our heroic protagonists have owed a great deal to modern medicine and technology, specifically from the military. Whether it be the unique opportunity provided for the paraplegic Jake Sully in Avatar, the incredible and unwanted responsibility of the nearly-dead Colter Stevens in Source Code, or the intravenous hyper-bulking of Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger, Hollywood has given us a spate of unlikely protagonists connected specifically by the fact that their initial disabilities provide for them a unique opportunity to become exceptionally enabled.

Chris Evans played a wealth of very different roles before he was cast as Captain America. He was Johnny Storm, he was a Harvard Hottie, he was a plucky cop, he was an Evil Ex, he was even a Loser. He was also, apparently, a functioning drug addict/lawyer, thanks to Adam and Mark Kassen’s Puncture. The Kassens’s film follows Evans’s Mike Weiss in a story that sounds a bit like Erin Brockovich mixed with Michael Clayton, but sexier, because it involves a tattooed Evans who does a mountain of drugs in his off-time. Based on a true story (aren’t they all), Evans stars as a hotshot Houston lawyer who also happens to be a drug addict (but a high-functioning one, natch). Mike has his own practice, along with his high-functioning-sans-drugs partner, Paul Danzinger (played by Mark Kassen). Mike and Paul get caught up in a little case that quickly turns into a big one, as they fight for an ER nurse pricked by a nasty needle on the job. The trailer shows how rapidly that case turns into something unexpectedly huge – senators! jolty camera angles! big boardroom tables! a lot of yelling!

Here’s something cool for your Monday morning. Or afternoon, depending on your time zone and commitment to sleeping in. Marvel.com has revealed a full promotional banner for The Avengers, which is now the next big Marvel film event. In short, it’s going to be the Marvel event now that Captain America is out in the wild. Prepare yourself for months of inundation in Avengers, Avengers, Avengers. Anyone have objections to that? I didn’t think so. Moving on…

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr goes retro this week and injects himself with strange chemicals in an attempt to become a World War II era super soldier. Hop over to the Fat Guys at the Movies page to see if his physique has reached the pinnacle of that of Chris Evans from Captain America. After recovering from the procedure, Kevin randomly wandering the streets, looking for hot ladies like Mila Kunis who just want to have sex but with no emotional baggage of a relationship. Sadly, this will probably end up as empty and worthless as his similar attempt last January when No Strings Attached came out.

The films of Marvel Studios have come full circle, and not a moment too soon. What began with a flurry of excitement over Iron Man, their opening salvo into the world of being an independent studio, has lately been listless in its Avenger-assembling agenda. In their last two outings — Iron Man 2 and Thor — they’ve spent more time focused on the future of the heroes than the heroes themselves. With Captain America: The First Avenger, they take full advantage of the ability to leave all the distractions out of it, allowing them to deliver their most confidently crafted, complete film yet. Sure, the story of Captain America feels bookended by his role in Marvel’s forthcoming team-up movie, and from what we’ve been told, The Avengers is your reason for sticking around after the credits. But in between all that, director Joe Johnston has set out to tell the simple story of a hero named Steve Rogers. The year is 1942, and after five unsuccessful attempts to join the fight against Adolf Hitler, a scrawny Rogers isn’t ready to give up. Luckily his heart and determination catches the eye of a government scientist whose work includes making a Super Soldier serum that will turn an ordinary man into a super-human fighting machine. Desperate to get in on the action, the young patriot from Brooklyn signs on the dotted line. A few doses of steroids later and this scrawny little dude, created with brilliant CG-enhanced, Benjamin Button style effect that [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]

If you’ve  followed our coverage of Marvel Junkets in the past (Iron Man 2, Thor) then you know that those press events and I have a long and useless history. Generally speaking, everyone spends a lot of time learning very little, and sometimes things break and fall down. It seems as though Marvel may be on the upswing in terms of getting these junkets really pumping out information – or maybe we journalists are asking better questions – who the heck really knows why it happened, but somehow the Captain America junket was interesting and had stuff to learn you might actually care about. So much so, in fact, that I’ve got 15 cool tidbits right here.

Director Joe Johnston loves good old fashioned fun. The Rocketeer, Hidalgo, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and Captain America: The First Avenger don’t contain a dark or cynical bone in their bodies. While some superhero films try to go to darker places nowadays — usually by just having their hero mope around — Johnston has no interest in a sulky hero. Captain America is all about adventure, charms, and simply being a kid from Brooklyn. While many people question if Cap can reach an audience outside of the States, Johnston thinks differently. The Boba Fett and Iron Giant creator didn’t want to make a commercial about America’s awesomeness; he wanted to explore themes that nearly everyone can relate to. Like his previous films, the idea of finding one’s identity and coming of age is present in Captain America: The First Avenger. Despite being a super solider who looks the way that he does, Captain America is like any other kid trying to become the man he’s meant to be. Here’s what Joe Johnston had to say about Raiders of the Lost Ark, fully embracing the color palette of comics, the ego of Red Skull, staying sincere without being cheesy, and why he’s a true film school reject:

We’re not usually ones for publishing every last clip from an upcoming movie. We believe that obsessing over every last millisecond of marketing material, in many instances, ruins the final experience. But Captain America is special and you’re all grown-ups, so you can make your own decisions. This week, Paramount Pictures revealed five new clips from Captain America: The First Avenger, including one “Meet Captain America” featurette that provides a little insight into who this hero really is, deep down. You know, right below those massive pecs. They’ve also unleashed one killer clip of Cap using his “vibranium” shield to beat some bad guy ass. Spend a few moments with Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, his lovely dame Peggy Carter (Hayley Hatwell) and his buddy Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper). It’s all worth a look, if you’re into being excited about things.

With the release of the full theatrical trailer, which you’re about to watch after the jump, the marketing for Captain America: The First Avenger continues its preoccupation with how many broads Steve Rogers is going to get while simultaneously embracing a celebration of the “America” part of his fighting name they seem to have been ignoring up to this point. Heroes are made in America. That’s a fact, Jack. And our heroes have big muscles, guts by the truck loads, and as many chicks as they damn-well please. With one hand full of apple pie and the other holding that star-spangled shield, this new Captain America trailer is ready to whoop your ass with the might of the American war machine. If it fails to tickle your spine, well then there’s something wrong with you, my terrorist friend.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s here! And it is completely creeped out by the image above. It still loves Eugene Levy, and will continue to deliver all the best movie news and tidbits from around the web, but know that it is now uncomfortable. We begin tonight with a first look at Eugene Levy and Jason Biggs on the set of American Reunion. Over at the ad-riddled site Collider, there are a number of photos of the cast as they get back together for yet more Pie. I suppose we should be excited about this.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that refuses to turn its back on Michael Bay and Doctor Who, but also wants to keep you interested. With that in mind, tonight is only half text. The rest if videos and pictures, sights and sounds. Only the best for your ADD-afflicted minds. The news is out, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is now being closely linked to another episode in the Terminator franchise. He and director Justin Lin are attached to a project that, for all intents and purposes, has studios like Universal, Sony and Lionsgate pulling out their big daddy checkbooks. In unrelated news, we aren’t sure that movie studios still use checkbooks. They may have moved on to direct deposit for price tags over $25 million.

In a way, it’s sort of sad to see the director of Ali G Indahouse and The Big White (that frozen corpse comedy) make a romantic comedy that’s so by the book they might as well have looped print pages through the projector. Anna Faris plays a woman scared to death of having sex with one more man because, gasp, a poll shows that 96% of women who sleep with 20+ people end up as old spinsters. But she wants true love! So let’s all play a game. See how many cliches you can spot while watching the trailer for What’s Your Number?: