The director of A Little Princess, and the stars of Love Potion No. 9 and Return of the Killer Tomatoes join forces for one of the year’s most anticipated films. Strap yourself in, and take a look at the first teaser for Alfonso Cuarón‘s Gravity.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s your nightly gateway to all that is interesting, lively and sometimes sad about the world of entertainment. If it bumps in the night, we’re the ones laying down the beat. We being this evening with the saddest story of the day. Yes, it’s May the Fourth (Star Wars Day) and the day many of you will finally realize the giddy kid dream that is Joss Whedon’s Avengers, but it’s also a day upon which the world of entertainment has lost a true pioneer. Adam “MCA” Yauch passed away today at age 47 following a long battle with cancer. You undoubtedly know him as 1/3rd of the Beastie Boys, but he’s also impacted the world of film, co-founding Oscilloscope Labs, the distributor of such films as We Need to Talk About Kevin and Bellflower. To read the best of those remembering him, I’d suggest you spend some time with AV Club’s Nathan Rabin’s obit. There’s also a story about Oscilloscope’s plans going forward in the wake of its co-founder’s passing. He will be missed, but more importantly, he will be remembered fondly as the multi-hyphenated pioneer that he was.

It’s already the second day of 2012, which means we’ll all be sober within the next day or two. It also means that we can officially start looking (through blurry eyes) ahead to the future. A future of promise and potential. A future of hope. A future of tingling anticipation that the road stretched out in front of us that leads to the cinema will be paved with gold. Will there be piles of excrement along the way? Of course, but we don’t know how many or how badly they’ll tarnish our yellow-bricked roller coaster ride. All we can see from this far out is the shimmering wonder of movies to come – the vast unknown that looks wonderful (and might just live up to the hype). In past years (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), we’ve gone with a fairly arbitrary count of 20-30 movies. This year, we decided to prove that there were 52 movies worth prematurely celebrating (even though what we found were many more). That’s one for every week (even if there are some weeks with a few and some weeks with none at all). Regardless of the number, Rob Hunter, Neil Miller, Kate Erbland, Allison Loring, Landon Palmer, Brian Salisbury and Cole Abaius have joined forces to remind us all that there are a lot of great movies to hope for this year. Go grab a calendar and pencil in everything that gets your blood pressure up toward unsafe levels. It’s going to be a busy, flick-filled

Acclaimed visual auteur Guillermo Del Toro recently sat down with MTV cameras to have a chat about a number of topics, and during the discussion talk turned to Children of Men director Alfonso Cuaron’s upcoming astronaut thriller Gravity. Whatever Cuaron is doing while filming this one seems to be the talk of the town, as he couldn’t help but gush at how blown away both he and big-time director and technophile James Cameron are with the technical aspects of Cuaron’s production. Keeping up with the stuttered sentence structure and charming accent is a little rough when trying for a transcript, but I think I’ve pulled most of the money quotes out of the interview. Del Toro starts by saying, “I think what is incredible about what they did is, they talked to David Fincher, they talked to Jim Cameron… I connected Jim and Alfonso for that… And what Alfonso is trying, is so insane. And Jim said, ‘Well look, what you’re trying is about five years into the future.’ When James said that it’s too early to try anything that crazy… they did it.”

Somehow this one slipped by us this week – Robert Downey Jr. officially jumped ship on Alfonso Cuaron’s outer space survival thriller Gravity, and has moved on to producing and possibly starring in How to Talk to Girls, a film based on a book by 9-year old Alec Greven. No ink has been committed to paper just yet, but sources say that Downey is circling the project with great interest. Shawn Levy, who is also slated to produce, has said that the script (written by Ben Karlin and Stu Zicherman) is in the tone of Big. And anything “in the tone of Big” is worth paying attention to, even if it was written by a 9-year old. [THR]

Editor’s Note: Normally it’s Landon Palmer hustling your brain through the mental gymnastics of popular culture and film theory, but he’s grading papers or something, so Cole Abaius is taking the reigns to drop kick your mind (instead of completely blowing it). Check back next week for the brilliance if you survive the completely adequate. It’s dark. Not the kind of dark where you strain to make out figures in the near distance or the kind of dark that sends a thrill through you in a movie theater. It’s the kind of darkness that your eyes never adjust to because there’s no light, and there never will be. I’m at the bottom of a cave near the small town of Bustamante, Mexico, and after passing graffiti from the 19th century, my friends and I have all decided to turn off our headlamps before heading into the grand hall. With the lights gone, the cool of the room becomes more tangible, and the walls begin to creep inward. Fortunately, this seems to be the latest trend in movie-making: shoving someone into the solitary confinement of life threatening danger, and seeing if they can work their way out.

Sandra Bullock might be returning to sci-fi. It’s been 17 years since Demolition Man, but the actress may need to brush up on her three shell method for Alfonso Cuaron. An offer to star in Gravity is currently still out to Natalie Portman, but if she passes, Bullock is next on the list for a call from Warners. It’s a natural choice after earlier concerns about Angelina Jolie passing. After all, if Jolie won’t do it, who do you hire? How about an actress that made more money for studios in 2009 and won an Oscar? [Cinema Blend]

Last week, we mocked the idea that Angelina Jolie’s absence could sink a movie (let alone any actress’s), and shockingly Gravity is still on its feet. The sky didn’t fall. Plus, it’s looking at a great talent to fill the main role that would be age-appropriate and be able to, you know, act. The offer is out to Natalie Portman who now finds herself surrounded with Oscar buzz the same way Jake Sully found himself surrounded by those floating ghost tree seed things in Avatar. That’s not a simile – Oscar buzz looks exactly like those things. It’s a nuisance, really. Natalie Portman playing a greenhorn astronaut with Alfonso Cuaron at the helm? Hopefully she’ll hop on board. [Risky Business]

With this week, Summer 2010 has officially gone. We are into September and here in Austin at Reject HQ, the temperature is back down into the 90s and we’re looking forward to seeing all of our genre-loving friends at the end of the month for Fantastic Fest. As you’ll begin to notice, we will soon become very preoccupied with what’s happening in the war room over at the Alamo Drafthouse, where the final slate for Fantastic Fest 2010 seems to be coming together quickly. But for now, there are still films in theaters and news from around the globe that have caught our interest. That interest was quickly turned into articles filled with biting commentary. Those articles are assembled here, in a weekly column we like to call The Week That Was…

The Chicken Little sentiment of the day is that Angelina Jolie’s passing on Gravity – the incredibly cool-sounding sci-fi flick from Alfonso Cuaron – could possibly sink the ship. After all, Warners is sending $80 million up into orbit, and the film rests almost solely on the shoulders of the female lead. Who could be worth that kind of money? That question and the concept that any actor’s refusal could possibly sink a production would have mattered five years ago, but we’re past the point where actors matter all that much anymore. I’ll grant that Salt made over $100 million domestic, and it was done on Jolie’s shoulders. Yes, she has the capability of creating large numbers. But to think that the sky is falling just because she declined is foolish, and here’s why.

After Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron has the unique position in the art form of commanding audiences to see anything he makes ever. If I caught wind of a youtube video of him fly fishing, I’d drop everything I was doing to go see it. And it would probably be a fifteen minute, single take shot of incredible fly fishing action. It appears as if he’ll be heading back in that direction (to science fiction. I have no idea what his vacation plans are.) with Gravity, a thriller set in outer space which sees an astronaut trying to get back home after a catastrophe on board a space station. While Robert Downey Jr is already attached to the script, and Warners is producing, there are two young acting talents that are vying for the lead role as the astronaut lost in space. Blake Lively, who looks to be launching her film career brilliantly with a hard-hitting drama (The Town) and a big budget superhero movie (The Green Lantern), and Scarlet Johansson, who basically did that to get to the level she’s at now, are both in contention as the top two choices.

Because there’s no gravity in space, and Johansson’s next role may be in a science-fiction film set in outer space. See? It’s science, not smut. The NY Daily News’ Gatecrasher blog is reporting that Johansson has “verbally agreed” to take on the primary lead role in Alfonso Cuaron’s upcoming film, Gravity. (Verbal agreements mean very little in Hollywood, but we’ll roll with it for now.) The second lead has already been cast with Johansson’s Iron Man 2 co-star, Robert Downey Jr. Angelina Jolie was originally attached but dropped out for unknown reasons, although Gatecrasher states she left “when she learned she’d have to share screen time with a leading man.” Not sure why that would have been a problem necessarily as Jolie is currently filming The Tourist alongside Johnny Depp and has shared the screen previously with several leading men. So we’ll call bull on that one. Which probably means the entire story is bull. But damnit, it was still worth reporting for the headline alone.