UPDATED: Hello, musical theatrics! Director Adam Shankman‘s take on Broadway hit Rock of Ages will undoubtedly be slick, highly produced, loud, melodramatic, and positively crammed with toe-tapping song-and-dance numbers (did you see Hairspray?) – essentially, it’s a film that will likely upset fans of the stage musical while also becoming a big commercial hit with a bizarre kitsch sensibility. That’s not just me guessing – that’s information hardily reinforced by the film’s first trailer. The film stars Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Malin Ackerman, Mary J. Blige, Bryan Cranston (really?!), Alec Baldwin, and Tom Cruise as (very different) people who populate and influence Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip music scene in the 1980′s. Hough and Boneta are trying to make it, Cruise already has, Zeta-Jones scream-sings a lot, that old story. The film is set to a cadre of ’80s classic jams, including Def Leppard, Joan Jett, Journey, Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Night Ranger, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Poison, and Whitesnake. If you’ve yet to grow out of your big-haired, leather-clad rocker glory days, this is the film for you. Weirdly enough, despite Cruise (and his hair and his hips) being the marquee name on this film, we don’t get a whole lot of him until the last half of the trailer. And then we don’t get so much of him and his character, Stacee Jaxx, as we get some random groupie and her boobs. Bravo to everyone. Get your hairspray ready and check out [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]

Diablo Cody’s upcoming inaugural effort as a director has yet to get a title, but it now has an Oscar winner in its cast. The Julianne Hough-starring film about a religious young woman who loses her faith after surviving a plane crash has just picked up Holly Hunter. Hunter will play Hough’s character’s super-strict, super-religious mother, who I imagine will be none too happy that her now-faithless daughter decides to go out to Las Vegas to get a taste of the naughty side of life. I’m not a fan of Juno and I’m not a fan of dancers turned actors, so if you would have told me about this project a couple months ago, I would have probably dismissed it completely. But after seeing Hough in the Footloose remake and not being horrified by her acting abilities at all and after hearing all of the positive buzz about this week’s Cody-penned release Young Adult, I’m definitely willing to give this one a try. When you add in a top-tier actress like Holly Hunter and solid additions to the supporting cast like Russell Brand, who always pleasantly surprises me, and Octavia Spencer, who impressed in The Help, it’s starting to sound to me like Cody’s first effort is coming along rather nicely in its pre-production stages. I guess my final decision on whether I’ll see this one or not will come down to how quippy and clever the title ends up being. I demand puns and wordplay! [Deadline Lemont]

Once an actor reaches a certain level of success in the acting world, the next step up the ladder for them is usually to form a production company and start getting their name put on all of their films as producers. It’s kind of like how all of the biggest rappers have a clothing line. Not one to be outdone by rappers, British comedian/actor Russell Brand has his own company named Branded Films, and through it he will be co-producing his next starring vehicle, The President Stole My Girlfriend. Though this seems to be one of those movies with a fairly self-explanatory title, I’ll let Brand explain the film to you himself. When talking about the new movie to The Hollywood Reporter he said, “In this movie, the president steals the girlfriend of a sexy hippie—me, obviously. It was inspired by the night I naively invited [Warners president] Jeff Robinov for dinner.” Random zings to Jeff Robinov aside, The President Stole My Girlfriend was actually written by Matt Portenoy, who recently did a well liked re-write of the in-development Porky’s remake, and who is now making his first big sale with this script going to Brand and his new Warner Bros.-based company.

Even though the DVD and Blu-ray of Arthur came out at a weird time (last Friday, to be exact), we couldn’t let it go by without giving it a drinking game. After all, how many movies are released each year that portray alcoholism in such a charming and carefree fashion? (We were also really drunk last week, from all of the other drinking games on the site.) So whether you’re being forced to marry a beautiful woman like Jennifer Garner or if you live in the gutter like the rest of us, you might have some fun watching Arthur when you’re drinking as much as Arthur is.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news round-up that’s a little tired, a little wired and it thinks it deserves a little appreciation around here! Alright, so that’s the insomnia talking. For now, lets just do the news like we always do, shall we? The headline photo of the night is a shot of two morons Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin in Adam Shankman’s Rock of Ages, a film that will combine major Hollywood names with an infamously terrible director and a slew of over-the-top musical numbers. It’s so ridiculous that it just might work. But probably not.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a movie news column that brings down the Hammer of Thor upon you with a spectacle of lightning, news and think pieces from around the web. And not just once in a while, but every single night (except for Saturdays). Time to kick your week off right with news, news and Doctor Who… There is something curious about the timing of the first round of Thor reviews to hit the web. Knowing Paramount, their publicity team was very calculated in lifting the embargo on a select number of reviewers. They are good at massaging the buzz like that. That said, I trust Drew McWeeney at HitFix, and he seems rather positive on the film. That’s promising. There are also some balanced takes found via this Cinema Blend round-up, as well as an equally impressive and balanced reaction from Peter Sciretta at /Film. Take it one of two ways: the expectations bar is being set low for a big surprise, or it’s being set low to lessen the blow of the film being a lame duck. It could still go either way. We’ll let you know for sure when we review it.

It was really the battle of the two evils this weekend. Unfunny CG Russell Brand vs. Unfunny Russell Brand in a suit. The kids won out, and Hop was able to pull into the #1 spot for the second weekend in a row. Its drop wasn’t all that insignificant, about what was to be expected with there being no counter-programming for family entertainment. I guess kids just don’t have much interest in Helen Mirren these days. Hop was, however, able to pull ahead of its reported $63-million budget with its second weekend take and shed a glimmer of hope for those wanting more adventures starring the Easter Bunny. We can all pray for the best there.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr spends a long day in the multiplex, checking out a variety of films from alcoholic romantic comedies to nature documentaries with elephants and orangutans. He drinks himself silly and hits on Greta Gerwig in Arthur, narrowly escapes being killed by ass-kicking teen assassin Hanna, narrowly escapes getting his arm bitten off by a tiger shark in Soul Surfer and peeps in on Natalie Portman undressing for a swim in Your Highness. Too bad she’s pregnant now, ‘cause Kevin just ain’t into that scene.

Ah, remember Dudley Moore and how funny he was in Arthur with the top hat and the bubbles and slurred speech? What’s that? You know the name, but you’re both under 30 and can’t stand the classics? Warner Brothers is hoping for that, too, as they’ve now remade the film starring Russell Brand. Now they’re hopes rest on it returning an Arthur-sized fortune. That could be very well what happens here, and Brand will probably have his name splashed all over the #1 and #2 movies this weekend. He’ll have some competition from some pothead knights, a pair of adolescents. One is an assassin. The other is a surfer. The surfer might not be much competition, but that pairing would make one hell of a buddy movie.

Whether you’re trying to avoid the releases this week or augment them with even more movies, Your Alternate Box Office offers some options for movies that would play perfectly alongside of (or instead of) the stuff studios are shoving into the megaplex this weekend. This week features a young girl who could kick your ass, an old boy who could buy and sell your whole family, a pair of pothead fantasy role players, and a young girl who couldn’t kick a shark’s ass.

Cliches like the headline shouldn’t be taken lightly. They should be avoided at all cost, except when they are so accurate that it would make your nose bleed. In the case of Russell Brand slurping hooch and pitching woo in the remake of Arthur, we may need to recheck the records to see if Dudley Moore died in the same hospital on the same day Brand was born. The strength of Arthur rests solely on its actors. The sequences are more than interwoven sketch comedy, but they aren’t much more, and without the humor and absurdity inherent in the all-too-popular new character of the man child, this thing would have been as flat as if a giant magnet bed fell on it. Russell Brand is Arthur. And what Arthur is, is hilarious and heartfelt.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr recovers from a full day of watching Armageddon back-to-back to crawl back to the multiplex. He re-lived the last eight minutes of Source Code over and over, thoroughly confusing himself. Then he stumbled into the theater next door to learn about the true meaning of Easter from Russell Brand and James Marsden. Things take a decidedly creepy turn when he watches Insidious and wets himself more than once. This led to a very unfortunate scene while he watched the sexual-predator cautionary tale Trust. No one would believe him it was just wee wee.

As a 25-year-old Jewish man I’m about as far removed from the Hop target demographic as one could get. I’ve never celebrated Easter, I consequently have no strong emotional attachment to the Easter Bunny and I’m not overwhelmed by the notion of a drummer Easter Bunny that sounds an awful lot like Russell Brand and poops out jelly beans. Yet, here we are, faced with the strange phenomenon of an obsessively-tested, painstakingly-commercial, carefully-calibrated product that shouldn’t be any good at all somehow defying those odds. From director Tim Hill, this live action-animation hybrid is more than just a one-note marketing machine, despite those incessant ads on every conceivable NBC Universal platform and the salesman’s desperation that underwrites it. A blatant stab at surrounding the Easter Bunny with a mythology comparable to Santa’s, the picture unfolds in two settings. The first: Easter Island, home to the enormous factory that’s home base for Easter operations, filled with cascading waterfalls of chocolate and bursts of colorful candy dyes. There, teenage rabbit E.B. (Russell Brand) is being groomed by dad (Hugh Laurie) to take over the family business. The picture’s second main locale is the slightly less exotic Los Angeles, where slacker Fred (James Marsden) lives a tired, aimless existence. Our heroes’ destinies collide when E.B. flees his fate through a magical wormhole of sorts, lands in Hollywood and thanks to Fred nearly becomes the world’s most famous road kill. The tandem grows ever-closer from there, as Fred (quickly getting over any pretense of [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]

In the original Arthur, Dudley Moore was toasted near constantly. It was impressive. Now, Russell Brand has taken over the role, and instead of massive alcohol intake, he’s just an idiot. One is funny and sad. The other is just sort of sad. Check out the trailer for yourself:

When the teaser trailer for Hop first hit, it was an incredible moment of adorability and Blur’s “Song 2.” Now, with the first full trailer out, we’re getting a better idea of the Roger Rabbit nature of the flick. It turns out it’s a mixture of live-action and CGI. James Marsden stars as a guy who hits the Easter Bunny-elect (voiced by Russell Brand) with his car, and the two starts an unusual friendship that involves one of them pretending to be a stuffed animal in order to hit on the other’s girlfriend. I’ll let you figure out which one. Check out the trailer for yourself:

In the Bizarro-world version of Ghostbusters, where you call on ghosts instead of calling to exterminate them, Russell Brand has taken up shop as the ghostly ring leader. He’ll play Fred Mumford, a loser who happens to have lost his life, that decides to band together other dead losers to help the living. Rentaghost will be Warners’ film adaptation of the BBC Television show from the 1970s. The words “BBC” and “1970s” should clue you in that the show is campy and over the top, which just might be perfect for Brand, although the studio is likening the film to Beetlejuice. Having never seen the show, it’s difficult to speculate, but it does seem clear that there will be a lot of opportunities for other comedic actors to play eccentric characters (like an 18th century man afraid of technology). Plus, this seems like a much better option than seeing Brand remake Drop Dead Fred. Thankfully, Warners decided not to make DeLaRentaGhost, the film about a ghost who isn’t dead that will come design clothes for you, or Rent-a-Ghost, the film about a group of New York City bohemians who die of AIDS and come back to help their friends live in huge lofts without paying rent. [Cinema Blend]

Finally a movie studio has realized the intense power of putting up videos of adorable animals doing hilarious things. Granted, it’s got the production value on its side, but I’d take Bunny Rabbit Drumming over Sneezing Panda any day of the week except Thursday (for obvious reasons). HOP comes from the same creative team behind Despicable Me, which was clever enough and managed to make giant, talking tic-tacs into cultural icons. As for the plot, James Marsden voices a slacking rabbit who injures the Easter Bunny (Russell Brand) and brings him in as a house guest while he’s recuperating. Plot simplicity aside, this is one of the best teaser trailers around. Interesting, cute, Blur-ry. Hopefully the film will have the same qualities and warrant a sequel so that iHOP can see the light of day in 2014. [Apple]

“Candy, Chicks and Rock ‘n Roll.” That’s the tag-line for Hop, the upcoming animated feature starring the voice of British comedian turned American movie star Russell Brand. It comes from the creators of Despicable Me, telling the comic tale of Fred (James Marsden), a lovable slacker bunny who accidentally injures the Easter Bunny (Brand) and must take over for him. It finally fills that gap in holiday movies, in which the Easter Bunny is unfortunately mis-represented. This one takes the premise of The Santa Clause and every other mystical holiday movie ever and applies it to Easter. It will surely overtake The Passion of the Christ as the must-watch Easter movie for families. Check the poster after the jump…

Aside from seeing Kristen Bell in a bikini and Mila Kunis’s breasts in an arguably fake snapshot, we can all agree that Russell Brand was the best thing about Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Now you can see more of him in the Blu-ray and DVD release of Get Him to the Greek. And while you may not have Jonah Hill to keep you in line, you can have fun to rival an evening with Aldous Snow by enjoying this drinking game while watching the film.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr found himself awake on a distant planet being hunted by macho Rastafarian aliens. Then he realized he was still dreaming. Sucked back into reality, he dove into the 3D experience of Despicable Me and reached for a dunce cap for Predators.