All this Summer, Movies We Love is transforming itself (by getting into a bikini) to celebrate the movies we love that came out in the hottest months. This week, we fall in love all over again with X2. “Have you ever tried…not being a mutant?” Synopsis After a solitary mutant who can teleport attacks the President, a secret military squad led by a man named Stryker (Brian Cox) is given carte blanche to find and capture the students and teachers at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. But the mutants, especially Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), recently returned from his trip to the North, aren’t going to go quietly. Instead, the team made up of Storm (Halle Berry), Jean Gray (Famke Janssen), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), and Pyro (Aaron Stanford) work to seek out the squad’s base where they are holding the captured Professor X (Patrick Stewart). But the X-Men aren’t alone. Joining in the hunt is the telaporting assassin, Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), Magneto (Ian McKellan) and Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), who have called a truce with the team in what may be an inevitable war with the human race.

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.

Snow White and the Huntsman is one of those eleventy Snow White projects that are currently in development. It’s the one Universal is doing, and it tells the story of Snow White teaming up with a (you guessed it) huntsman to go off and kill the evil queen. Charlize Theron has been set to play the queen, and Kristen Stewart Snow White, for quite some time; but we keep getting the run around about who is going to fill the role of the huntsman. At first everybody was told that Viggo Mortenson was close to playing the role, but then negotiations fell through with him. That wasn’t really a big deal though, because soon after Hugh Jackman was said to be stepping in. That was a fine replacement, until he decided to pass. So then, after striking out with top tier talent, Universal looked toward more of an up and comer in Joel Edgerton. I haven’t even heard about what happened to him in relation to this project, but now Variety is reporting that he’s out and the new lead choice is Thor’s Chris Hemsworth.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly column about movie news. It will not try to sew your face to someone else’s butt. It will, however, make your hind quarters sore. So give yourself over to it — it will be gentle, at first. Fox’s upcoming Planet of the Apes prequel, previously titled Rise of the Apes, has been retitled to give it that ole’ familiar ring. It will now be called Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which should hold until they can figure out a less concise way to title it. Either way, it’s got James Franco, so I’m seeing it.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s your definitive source of Pixar pandering, at least for tonight. But hey, at least we get it out of the way in a single article. Try reading other sites — it’s Pixar this, Pixar that, even the new Batman reboot will be done by Pixar. Good grief. That said, we watched The Incredibles on Blu-ray this evening and it was INCR… you get the idea. Now on with the news. We begin tonight with news that excites me. It’s no secret that Max Brooks’ book “World War Z” is a personal favorite of mine. It’s exceptional in every possible way and one of the great zombie apocalypse stories ever written. So to see it come to life as a movie is risky, but worth it. When the project was reportedly in danger a few weeks ago, I was sad. But now I’m happy(ish) again, as a new report says that World War Z could get financing and even begin shooting this summer. If I could, I would will this project to happen. It may be impossible, but I’m going to try.

I know what you’re thinking: they’re making a sequel to Legend of the Guardians? There. I proved I’m psychic. James Randi owes me a million dollars. The answer, though, is no. They aren’t. Rise of the Guardians is simply a confusingly-titled also-animated also-children’s movie that Dreamworks is prepping for 2012. Apparently the book’s title “The Guardians of Childhood,” was too good for the movie version. Fortunately, the story is a contemporary slant on Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy and Jack Frost as a heroic foursome. According to Variety, Alec Baldwin will be voicing Claus, Hugh Jackman will be voicing The Bunny, Isla Fisher will be voicing the Fairy, and Chris Pine will be voicing Jack Frost as played by Captain Kirk. The heroes will be battling the demon Pitch (voiced by Jude Law) in what is most likely a plot to destroy the magic of childhood. I came up with that using ESP as well. The strong cast  is complimented by screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole) delivering the script for an expected release at the end of November 2012. It sounds like a huge adventure and a continuation of Dreamworks’ continued growth in the quality department (even if they pushed the release date to avoid sparring directly with Monsters Inc 2…). The most important thing? Alec Baldwin as Santa. You’ve been daydreaming about it already, haven’t you?

Quite a fuss has been made of Sunday night’s Golden Globes ceremony. Not the actual awards mind you – everything was safe and predictable in that arena. Not even the obvious drunkenness or awkward attempts at humor with varying degrees of success by the night’s celebrity award winners and presenters are the primary subject of the conversation (De Niro’s bizarre acceptance speech, Robert Downey Jr’s creepy framing of the Best Actress category). All discourse has been centered on the performance by the show’s host, Ricky Gervais. Gervais’s acerbic monologue was met with audible surprise and even aghast by his elite audience. His introductions to awards presenters ranged from tongue-in-cheek playfulness to blatant comic criticism. He later disappeared for more than an hour, prompting speculation on Twitter (the only place where aside observations can immediately morph into conspiracy theory) that he was taken off the show, only to emerge later, without his jacket and appearing vexed, to give quite the backhanded introduction to Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, which all-in-all does suggest at least a firm backstage talking-to. With strangely perfect timing, Gervais ended the show with the line, “And thank you to God for making me an atheist” before the generic end credits music surged. The Buñuelean echo of these final words was a rather appropriate summation of Gervais’s brilliant absurdity and anarchic irreverence peppered throughout this masturbatory rich-ual (get it?). It was, in short, hilarious and the best thing about the show. Here’s his monologue:

Even with 1/3 of the energy that director Shawn Levy displays in person, the trailer for Real Steel that’s smashing its way through the internet is still enough to get the blood pressure rising. The film focuses on Hugh Jackman as a former boxer who turned to Robot Boxing when the sport replaced MMA as the world’s most popular sport that involves punching. Now, he’s washed up twice over and trying to make a come back while reconnecting with his son. That last element is nowhere to be found in this trailer, but the hype sure is. Watch the trailer below:

When you pour hot water into a bucket of cold water, the temperature tends to be somewhere in the middle. Does the hot water raise the temperature of the cold or does the cold bring down the temperature of the hot? I don’t know. Nobody does. It’s science, and it’s unexplainable. However, that’s the best possible analogy for the news that Aronofsky is close to signing on with Fox as the director of Wolverine 2, a project that would see him back with his Fountain co-star Hugh Jackman. This time, with sideburns. The franchise is at a low point, and Fox man-handles their directors, but even if Aronofsky doesn’t have a perfect batting average (and what director does?) he’s still a man that takes risks and builds in challenges to overcome. So will the hot water cool, will the cold water heat up, or will the result be something in the middle? [Deadline Muncie]

Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because, of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t want to work it out. You want to be fooled. In the late 19th century, the magician Alfred Borden, “The Professor,” is on trial for the murder of rival magician, Robert Angier, “The Great Danton.” What the prosecution is trying to prove and what the consensus seems to say is that Borden, furious that Angier had stolen Borden’s “The Transported Man” trick, drowned Angier in a Chinese water torture cell on the evening of his final performance.

No matter who it is that finds his way into the director’s seat for Wolverine 2, we’ll have our fingers crossed that Wolverine doesn’t get too angered by the noticeable lack of chocolate scones in crafts services and go all Snickety-Snick on everyone, leaving the entire crew in a bloodbath of Fox-funded terror. You didn’t know they were using the real Wolverine instead of an actor? It’s going to surprise everyone, we think. The real challenge for anyone in the director’s seat is pulling the franchise out of the quality gutter that it finds itself in. Rumors are circulating that the production may have found just that – a talent that took another series from appallingly bad to mildly annoying in one fell swoop.

With news that Hugh Jackman will be leaving the Avon Man project (which showed at least a bit of comedic promise for the star) in order to grow his mutton chops again as Wolverine, the question must be asked: Are you excited about the prospect of a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine? I imagine like all good questions, the answers are varied, but for those of you who have absolutely no interest (a group that I can sympathize with), what would it take for you to get excited about the film? A particular writer? A particular director? A particular Wolverine storyline from the comics? Say, Hawk Ostby, Alfonso Cuaron, and “Wolverine” by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller? What will get your butt into that theater seat?

With all the invention, intriguing plot webs, and overall solid cinematic storytelling that Christopher Nolan’s films are credited for, yet another innovative characteristic of his signature narrative approach is often looked over: his own special brand of antihero. A thread that has connected Nolan’s films (scripted often in collaboration with his brother Jonathan) is the presence of a central male character who possesses some combination of destructive egotism, desperate selfishness at the risk of others, aggressive self-righteousness, willful delusion, or even the first signs of a messiah complex (“asshole” is used in the title of this post simply as an umbrella term for all the negative traits connecting these protagonists). I credit this aspect of storytelling and character development to the brothers Nolan, for filmmakers who work so successfully in Hollywood aren’t often able to bring to the screen characters who contain so many obvious flaws, and further credit goes to them for actually immersing us in their characters’ subconscious (figuratively in the case of all their films not titled Inception), making us give a damn about these characters to the point that sometimes these otherwise obvious personality flaws are only visible upon reflection after the film has been experienced. Nolan’s characters are often complex and intelligent, but beneath any confident exterior resides a deeply troubled psychology – some more obvious than others.

Spend enough time with horror-loving fankind, and you will undoubtedly hear a lot of conversation about visual effects — and the great debate between computer generated and practical. In the world of horror, this is a daily discussion. Why? Because practical effects are an art form that is being phased out. But in the rare case that they are done, and done right, it makes all the difference. Such is the case with non-horror movies. For example, Shawn Levy’s upcoming robot boxing film Real Steel. On concept, it’s a cool idea. But when you see this first look images, you might just be a believer.

He’s not exactly the world of movie geekdom’s first choice to direct any film, but Date Night and Night at the Museum helmer Shawn Levy continues to get work. And he continues to fill his movies with solid talent.

Precious director Lee Daniels is confirming that he’s cast Hugh Jackman in his Civil Rights film Selma. Robert DeNiro was rumored to be taking on the role of Alabama Governor George Wallace, but Daniels says the only actor confirmed is Jackman.

Dreamworks and Touchstone Pictures have set a release date for the first movie of the new Dreamworks era, Shawn Levy’s futuristic robot boxing flick Real Steel.

Hugh Jackman has played a man with a harder-than-steel skeleton, but he has never really taken on anyone made of steel. Now, he will be standing in the corner of a boxing robot.

That guy with the big silver claws is back — and this time, we get to see his origin story. And whether or not you were all about X-Men Origins: Wolverine when it hit theaters at the beginning of the summer, I think we all know that everyone likes stuff that’s free.

Remember that Wolverine movie, all those months ago? It did well enough, and by well enough I mean that it made enough money for the studio to want a second serving.