But back to Mirren, can we get her to star in a straight-up action vehicle without any winks? She’d be great as Jason Bourne.

Bay jacked on to the

No offense to John McClane but if he were my dad, we wouldn’t hang out much. Just safer that way.

This new trailer reveals more of the plot as well as the loggerheads that the present and future individuals find themselves at. It also reveals more of what the Bruce Willification of Gordon-Levitt’s face looks like. It’s. Just. Plain. Weird. I’d never thought that the offspring of those two would look like some kind of Billy Zane monster. Then again, this is a work of science fiction.

As seeming proof of this project’s inevitability, Dean Parisot has been attached as director. He’s best known for the cult comedy Galaxy Quest, but he’s done a few other movies in addition to some stellar recent work in TV. His flair for action-comedy would seemingly make him a good fit for Red 2, which is as action-comedyish as you’re likely to get without Chris Tucker shouting at you. There’s no word yet on who of the cast of Red will be back for the sequel, but hopefully they’ll all be able to make it if they don’t die of old age first, yuk yuk yuk. (The Playlist)

This movie is going to do gangbusters in Germany.

(via Jo Blo)

Rather than tread well-worn territory or lower ourselves to the standards of some puerile magazine, we thought we’d address the elephant in the room: the sexiest men not alive. As best we can tell, this hasn’t been done before, and if it has, we’re gonna do it better.

These guys are so hot it makes me want to take Bradley Cooper and kill him just so he can join this list.

Bernie

This corpse has a quiet confidence that really resonates with people. That, coupled with his sharp, island casual attire makes him a shoo-in for this shortlist. Granted, mustaches were not at the height of fashion when Weekend at Bernie’s came out, but he owned that look in a way that no one had since Tom Selleck. I wonder what Bernie’s up to now?

Probably still dead and rotting is my guess.

Eric Northman

I don’t know if vampires are technically “undead,” and I don’t want to get into a whole big thing about it with the nerd police, so let’s just say that vampires are “not alive,” shall we? Yeah, we shall.

For someone who’s hundreds of years old, True Blood’s Eric Northman looks uh-mazing. To put it in perspective, Michael Douglas is 67 and alive. Have you seen Michael Douglas with his shirt off recently? He looks like shit. Northman is like ten times as old and he looks great. Always taking time to comb his hair and do jackknife sit-ups has really paid off for this vampire.

The Well Zombie from The Walking Dead

http://www.screenjunkies.com/?p=232199 Ok. The puns are reaching a James Bondian-level in the Die Hard franchise, so it’s really hard to criticize their title for the fifth installment, A Good Day to Die Hard. It’s not bad, but it’s kind of middle-of-the-road – not so bad it’s awesome, and not so good it’s clever. Since I’m not clever, I’m going to take the former approach and suggest some titles that make Snakes on a Plane seem like The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

I am aware there is a Twitter hastag (#betterdiehardtitles), but I didn’t examine it (besides my editor’s Tweets) in hopes of maintaining the integrity of my list. One look at some of the entries below and it will be immediately clear that I had no help with this piece.

The real question is, is it worth the upgrade to Blu-ray? Absolutely. The sound is crisp and engaging (listen to all the nearby chatter during the diner climax), and the picture is clearer than I can ever remember (including poor Marvin’s brains). In fact, the picture is so crisp that you can clearly see Bruce Willis‘ penis when he gets out of the shower. I’d much rather have seen what was in the briefcase.

The extras include most of what was featured on the Collector’s Edition DVD, but with two notable additions. There is a new retrospective featuring the films cast, including John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth and more. They offer some trivia about working with Tarantino before he was a major player, and other neat tid-bits. The other new feature is a film-critic round table discussion of the film, featuring Elvis Mitchell and others. It’s a fun bull session to listen to if you’re a fan of the film.

Pulp Fiction is released on Blu-Ray Tuesday October 4th, with a SRP of $19.99. Highly recommended for the picture and sound upgrades alone, as well as a great catalog of extras.

Originally, Noam Murro was hired to film a 75-year old John McClan fighting bad guys in Russia. However, he jumped ship to direct the much more shirtless 300: Battle Of Artemisia. Then, the studio made the offer to Moore (Max Payne, The Omen) but Bruce Willis wasn’t completely sold. A few directors were brought into consideration, including Attack the Block’s Joe Cornish, Drive’s Nicolas Winding Refn, and Fast Five’s Justin Lin. Ultimately, Moore won over Willis with his ability to stage and shoot practical, non CGI-heavy action scenes without crashing the budget by vaulting a flaming car into it. (Deadline)

6 photosAdrianne Palicki

Jon M. Chu is directing from a script by it doesn’t matter as long as the action is cool, that will star Channing Tatum, The Rock, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Stevenson and RZA. There’s no word yet how this sequel will eschew the original cast to make room for the new recruits but let’s hope to hear one soon. Don’t G.I. Joe fans deserve continuity? (THR)

John McClane is having a bad day. Not so much a having-to-kill-terrorists-with-little-to-no-weapons bad day, but a bad day just the same. Noam Murro, who was attached to direct Bruce Willis in Die Hard 5, has had to leave the project. It’s reported that a scheduling conflict with 300: Battle of Artemisia will prevent Murro from taking the project, but I prefer to think his unfavorable Amazon customer review of “The Return of Bruno” was the actual reason.

But that won’t slow down Die Hard 5. Behind Enemy Lines and Max Payne director John Moore has already been offered the project. Should he choose to direct, he’ll be working from a script by Skip Woods (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), that sees McClan fighting terrorists in Russia with his two sons. We’re not exactly sure of the plot details, so as of right now let’s assume a McClane family reunion in Nizhny Novgorod in taken under siege. (via The Playlist)

I’m in the mood for some hot Willis on Willis action.

Vaughn has joined the cast of Lay The Favorite, starring alongside Bruce Willis and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Based on a book by Beth Raymer, it’s the story of a married gambling legend (Willis) who gets involved with a younger woman and figures out a system for getting an edge on Las Vegas. Sounds like he’s gambling with his money… and his marriage. That’d be twice the stakes, according to movie math. Vaughn will play the role of Rosie, a bookie from Long Island. Hopefully the role is at least somewhat money.

Stephen Frears is directing from an adaptation by writer/producer D.V. De Vincentis. (Deadline)

Akerman, she of the universally-beloved Watchmen, is the latest cowgirl to get lassooed into the musical Rock of Ages, with fellow cowpokes Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, and literally 8 million others. Will Akerman be able to stand out in a cast filled with such heavyweights? No, she won’t.  (Deadline)

Best pals Bruce Willis and 50 Cent, meanwhile, are lending their famous faces and heads to Fire With Fire, an indie thriller about a fireman in witness protection. Giddiyap, Bruce Willis and 50 Cent! (Variety)

Ziering, who has a cool Bond villain name, has been cast in I Hate You Dad, an Adam Sandler/Andy Samberg comedy. Ziering will be playing Adam Sandler’s character in a TV show-within-the-movie, which is way too confusing to even think about right now, so instead I’m a gonna ride all the way to Texas. C’mon Whiplash, we’re off! (Variety)

Focus Features has acquired the rights to put Anderson’s latest film, Moonlight Kingdom, into US and foreign theaters. Anderson co-wrote the screenplay with Roman Coppola and will direct. Moonlight Kingdom stars Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand and Anderson’s super turbo BFF Bill Murray. The film’s about a young, small town couple who everyone thinks has disappeared, but really they just ran away together.

I hear rumors that the film will feature a preciously cool soundtrack and purposefully off-center framing, though I seriously doubt either rumor is true. (Hollywood Reporter)

The new movie, with the totally not hipster-y title Moonrise Kingdom, stars Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, and we’ve now learned, Schwartzman. Moonrise Kingdom takes place in the 60s, where two young people decide to run away together. This causes everyone in their town to panic and form a rescue party to find them. Hopefully there will be more than one scene in which Willis and Murray team-up to do awesome stuff.

Moonrise Kingdom begins shooting this Spring in Rhode Island. (Examiner)

Lay the Favorite

Focus Features dropped out after the project’s budget hit $20mm, but Pathe, undaunted, decided to step in so that the project doesn’t miss a beat. $20mm doesn’t sound that high for a Bruce Willis movie. Maybe Focus should stop being such babies and sack up to make some money.

Not sure if CZJ has the draw she once did in her Entrapment days, but it’s nice to see her up against (literally and figuratively) Willis in this project, as seeing Willis with a 25 year-old starlet kind of grosses me out. It’s fine for his ex-wife, though. (Deadline)

However, I’ve still got high hopes for Looper. The cast includes Bruce Willis, Paul Dano and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the plot is about future criminals who send their victims back in time to be killed. Hopefully, the future criminals are either hovering or have lasers. (ComingSoon, More Photos At OnLocationVacations)

I watched the whole thing, and other than an insatiable desire to buy Nike sneakers, I think it’s a pretty cool little movie. Kobe Bryant is pretty funny in his scenes with Robert Rodriguez and he does a good job pretending to be a basketball player. My one complaint would be that Kanye West is far too babyfaced to play a super-villain. Look at him, he’s adorable! (via io9)

The chosen director Die Hard 5 is Noam Murro, the director of Smart People, a 2008 dramedy that featured Dennis Quaid, Lowell from “Wings,” and Sarah Jessica Parker. I said I admired Willis’ proactivity, not his judgment. Maybe this Murro guy was the last guy Willis interviewed before he had to catch a flight or something. That said, it’s refreshing that the producers (Willis included) looked outside the usual group of one-note action directors. This director may not be a big name, but in the twilight of a franchise’s life, that could be a big blessing.

And the script 20th Century Fox has chosen a script by Skip Woods, about which no details have been divulged, but expect John McClaine to have a bad day and an unnecessarily stylish villain. (Deadline)

In Bruce Willis, Stephen Frears has found his Dink Heimowitz. Willis is in negotiations to join Lay The Favorite, Take The Dog. Based on Beth Raymer’s best-seller, Lay The Favorite: A Memoir Of Gambling, the film is about a cocktail waitress who becomes one of Vegas’s top bookies.

Willis’ Heimowitz character is a former New York bookmaker who coaches Rebecca Hall‘s Raymer. It’s unlikely he will use a car to kill a helicopter in this film. However, he may have  that opportunity soon enough…

While 20th Century Fox continues to look for a Die Hard 5 script that doesn’t suck, Willis has been interviewing directors to helm the project. At the top of his list is Daniel Espinosa of Snabba Cash and the upcoming Safe House. At this rate, we may see John McClane take on terrorists before his 60th birthday. (Vulture)

Cop Out

We’ve heard grumblings from Smith before regarding Cop Out. Early on, he denied rumors of their not getting along, but later the Clerks director admitted Willis was “very much the author of his own performance.” Today, on Marc Maron’s “WTF Podcast” — in which celebrities are known for being more candid than canned — Kevin Smith had this to say:

“It was difficult. I’ve never been involved in a situation like that where, one component [referring to Willis] is not in the box at all. It was f__kin soul crushing. I mean, a lot of people are gonna be like, ‘Oh, you’re just trying to blame the movie on him.’ No, but I had no f__king help from this dude whatsoever.”

So there you have it. According to Smith, Bruce Willis acted like a dick to him on set, and crashed a metaphorical car into the helicopter that was Kevin Smith’s spirit. To hear Smith pour his whole heart out to Marc Maron, check out the full interview at WTFpod.com. (/Film + FilmDrunk)

The Expendables

I was going to make a humorous plea for unforeseen circumstances, but then I remembered that Bruce Willis is the only thing worth seeing in a sequel to The Expendables. Still, it would be cool if the “unforeseen circumstance” were him doing a better movie instead (CinemaBlend).

First, he’ll appear with Bruce Willis, 50 Cent, and Ryan Phillippe in Set Up. The movie follows four friends who get caught up in a diamond heist gone awry. Couture will play an enforcer overseeing 50′s character. I’m not quite sure what that means but I’ll bet good money they end up in some situation that requires them to wrestle. So, if you’ve ever wanted to see 50 Cent get body slammed, this is your chance.

Couture has also signed on for The Expendables 2. We’ll keep you posted as more over-the-hill action stars sign on. (The Playlist)

Bruce Willis is set to begin filming Die Hard 5 next year, if you trust Puerto Rico’s second-largest newspaper “Primera Hora.” I personally only trust their first largest. Latino Review (ooooh how convenient) reports:

According to the newspaper, (which is in Spanish) it quotes Gustavo Rivera Aparicio, who’s credited as general manager of 20th Century Fox offices in PR, as confirming that “Die Hard 5″ will film in Puerto Rico in 2011. The announcement was made jointly with the Puerto Rico Film Commission.

Aparicio says the decision was spurred by the succesful [sic] filming of Fast Five in early 2010, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides a few months ago.

These is big news, you guys. I just learned that 20th Century Fox has general manager in Puerto Rico. That guy must party so hard in between film shoots. Anyway, I hope this news is true. Live Free or Die Hard wasn’t fantastic, but it was definitely a helluva lot of fun. I say keep on making Die Hards until Willis has to remove his breathing apparatus to sputter out, “Yippee ki yay, motherfucker.”

A little privacy please, Dano.

Looks like Rian Johnson has found the perfect actor to fill the role of creepy, skinny guy in Looper. Milkshake enthusiastPaul Dano is in talks to join the sci-fi  film in an unspecified role.

The cast already includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt. As a refresher, the film is centered around killers who dispose of their victim’s bodies by sending them back in time. Because that is apparently less complex than clearing out their bank accounts and then setting them on fire beneath the old train bridge on the outskirts of town. Not that I’ve ever done that. Congratulations Paul. (Variety)