It’s difficult to find anyone unimpressed with the Batman universe director Christopher Nolan created. Although his last endeavor into Gotham City, The Dark Knight, is held in high esteem, his first venture into the psyche of Bruce Wayne is typically overlooked. Batman Begins, which was released in 2005, served as a monumental step in mature filmmaking with a comic book franchise. Rarely had we seen any hero be taken seriously, set in the context of a real world. Since Batman Begins, we’ve seen a shift in superhero movies. There’s been a lot of news hitting the web concerning the final Nolan-directed Batman film, so I decided to take a look back at the film that started it all. Despite being a critically-acclaimed franchise reboot, there’s a few things you might not know about Batman Begins. Check out some interesting trivia about Christopher Nolan‘s first Batman film below.

That homeless guy Bruce gives his coat to is pretty famous

Remember that scene where Bruce leaves Gotham to venture into the criminal underworld? He trades coats with a homeless guy, later seeing him still wearing it after all those years he was gone. The actor, Rade Serbedzija, has been in a ton of movies and TV shows, including 24, The Saint, Snatch and Mission: Impossible II. I knew I had recognized him from somewhere, and then it dawned on me: he played Gregorovitch in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

Christian Bale put on 100 lbs. for the role

You read that right, Christian Bale bulked up 100 pounds for the movie. It’s sort of misleading, but it has to do with his previous film, The Machinist. For that role, Bale went down to 120 pounds. It’s disgusting to see him in the film, he literally looks starved to death. He was told to bulk up as much possible. However, he ended up getting a bit pudgy at 220 lbs., so he dropped 20 more pounds to give himself a fit and healthy look to be Bruce Wayne. 

Mr. Zsasz has a tiny part in the movie

In the scene where we are introduced to Dr. Crane/ Scarecrow, the defendant who is being examined in court is Zsasz, the serial killer from the Batman universe who keeps tally marks on his body for each of his victims. Rachel Dawes talks about him being a butcher for the mob. In fact, when the League of Shadows releases the inmates of Arkham and they are shown hesitantly walking out of their cells, he turns his head and you can see murder scars on his neck.

Morgan Freeman must have felt like the only American on set

Christian Bale – Welsh

Michael Caine – English

Tom Wilkinson – English

Gary Oldman – English

Cillian Murphy – Irish

Rutger Hauer – Dutch

Linus Roache – English

Ra’s Al Ghul is pronounced “RAYSH AL GHOOL”

When Bruce Wayne is at his birthday party at Wayne Manor, a woman takes him by the arm and introduces him to someone. “Now, am I pronouncing this right: RAZ al Ghul?” Sorry ma’am, you’re wrong. There’s been a lot of fan chatter about the exact pronunciation of his name, but we’re going to set the record straight. According to Arabic translation, which Ra’s al Ghul means “The Demon’s Head”, the correct pronunciation is “RAYSH AL GHOOL.” So, considering we are going to be getting flashbacks about the character Ra’s in The Dark Knight Rises, I suppose we won’t get a corrected pronouncing, but then again, there is continuity to consider.

Ever since it was announced that 3oo and WATCHMEN director Zack Snyder would be the man behind the lens for the Superman reboot, the next question to be answered was who would be Superman? For months fans and bloggers have speculated with many fine choices. Now, it seems that Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have found the last son of Krypton. Deadline is reporting that British actor Henry Cavill will play Clark Kent/ Superman in the much anticipated SUPERMAN: MAN OF STEEL. I have not seen much of Cavill’s work in the past, but The Tudors star definitely has the the chiseled looks to play Kal-El.

It is a bit strange to have an American icon like Superman be played by a British actor, but the world we live in now transcends nationalities when it comes to an actors worth. And hey, Christian Bale is from Wales and that worked out pretty well. In the past Cavill has been on the track to play an iconic character, but has just fell short. He had also auditioned for the roles of Batman and James Bond, but lost out to Bale and Daniel Craig respectively. However, life has a way of rewarding those of us whom have the drive to succeed and the chance to play Superman could be the opportunity of a lifetime.

Story line details and villains are sure to follow in coming months with this news and most will be waiting on the edge of their seats. With Christopher Nolan producing and Zack Snyder directing, this reboot has the makings to send this franchise up, up and away.

What do you think of this casting chioce? Post comments below.

With two big box office competitors this weekend only one could come out on top. In one corner was Ben Stiller who was returning with his family friendly sequel to 2006′s Night at the Museum. In the other corner was Christian Bale, who coming off a stint of bad press, is leading the Terminator reboot, Terminator Salvation. Both films were highly buzzed about. Both actors have big followings. But you have to leave it to the kids to dominate the weekend box office. Especially when it is a holiday weekend, families were hitting their local multiplex, and while some were checking out Terminator, most were waiting in line for Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

When the first Night at the Museum opened in December of 2006 it grossed $42.2 million over a four day holiday weekend. The sequel starring Ben Stiller easily topped the gross of it’s predecessor hitting $70 million over the Memorial Day Weekend. This is the highest opening weekend of Ben Stiller’s career and this pretty much guarantees us a third film in this very lucrative franchise. Like I said before, kids dominate the box office. Even if the film isn’t very good (Museum has an average 43% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) it still can make a killing. Another thing to note is the lack of kids movies currently out. The last high profile kid’s flick was Monsters VS. Aliens which was released back in March and currently stands as the highest grossing film so far this year.

On the other end of the box office spectrum was Terminator Salvation. Directed by McG, the Christian Bale, Sam Worthington action film is the first Terminator movie to hit theaters since Arnold brought us Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines back in 2003. T3 opened with a strong $44 million six years ago, and the fourth installment in the franchise opened with $53.8 million over the four day weekend. Since the movie opened on Thursday you can add an additional $13. 3 million to that tally bringing its’ total thus far to $67.2 million. The film has had mediocre reviews. It’s Rotten Tomatoes score is a weak 34%, and from what I hear the word of mouth has not been very positive.

The other wide release this weekend was Dance Flick which bombed with $13 million over the four day weekend. That’s all there really is to say about that…

So, how did my predictions hold up? Not too bad if I do say so myself. I was a little over the estimated totals which are being released but it was a tough weekend to predict because either Terminator or Museum could have easily taken the top spot. I originally predicted $78 million for Night at the Museum 2 ( it made $70 million) and my Terminator prediction was $72 million (it hit $67.2 million.)

The rest of the weekend box office looked like this:

Star Trek came in at number three with another small decline in it’s third week of release. J.J Abrams’ movie made another $29 million bringing its’ total to $191 million. The Star Trek reboot is days away from crossing Monsters VS. Aliens as the highest grossing movie of the year. Number four this weekend was last weekends champ Angels & Demons which fell only 40% with another $27.7 million this weekend. Number five went to Dance Flick and like I said earlier, nobody really cares.

This weekends box office was actually up 2% this weekend compared to last year when Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull made $126 million over Memorial Day weekend.

Next weekend we see the arrival of Pixar’s newest film Up. Check with us on Friday as we predict the weekend winner.

Source: Box Office Mojo

I have always loved the Terminator movies. I even enjoyed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, a movie most fans consider to be the weakest installment. I went into Terminator Salvation with both excitement and nervous anticipation. It succeeds as a Terminator movie, but comes up a bit short as a film in general. In the not-too-distant future, Skynet will launch a worldwide, nuclear attack against the human race. John Connor, the leader of the human resistance, lived with this knowledge growing up. However, it seems to John that the future is different than he was told. As humanity is pushed farther towards extinction, it seems their fate may lie with one person, Marcus Wright.

The movie tells a great segment in the franchise. I loved all the scenes in the future in the Terminator movies, so seeing how things play out was exciting. I’m glad humanity is not shown living in caves and impossible to stand up to the machines; the machines sometimes go on the offensive, and other times the resistance attacks. Humanity has to be smart about their moves, but the machines are relentless. Then Marcus appears, and everything changes.Marcus is probably the best aspect of the movie. Since his last memory was his execution, and he wakes up in a future where machines are in control, the audience is able to feel how he feels, that is, the audience feels out of place like him. Marcus is an experiment to combine human tissue and organs with Skynet terminator systems. His journey begs the question, “What does it mean to be human?”, and the film brilliantly leaves it up to the audience to decide where the line is drawn.

However, one of the problems I could not overlook was the script. At times, the dialogue fits the scene. Other times, it sounds Sci-fi channel bad. Michael Ironside plays his typical military role, not willing to send in rescue to retrieve captured humans from the San Francisco Skynet Facility. The graphics look stunning during the actions sequences, but some of the landscape views look less then stellar.

With a new breath, Terminator Salvation got the franchise off to a good jump start. What do you think, did Terminator live up to the hype?

Fanboyz Grade: B

Three new character posters have been released from Universal for the new Michael Mann crime epic Public Enemies. The movie stars Johnny Depp as notorious depression era bank robber John Dillinger. Christian Bale, Billy Crudup, Mario Cotillard, Channing Tatum, and Giovanni Ribisi also star in the film due in theaters on July 1st. The posters have a classic feel to them which fits the theme and time period of the movie. It’s fun to see Depp with a tommy gun and I look forward to what Michael Mann can do with this talented cast. Mann’s previous work has included Heat, Collateral, Miami Vice, and Ali. Check out these three new posters after the jump and tell us what you think.

By Jeff Olson
April 21, 2009
Source: Variety

Actor Christian Bale is set to star along Mark Wahlberg in the upcoming movie The Fighter. The film is about an Irish boxer named Mickey Ward (Wahlberg) and his unlikely path to become world lightweight champion. Bale stars as Dicky Eklund, Mickey’s half-brother and a fighter who once fought Sugar Ray Leonard in a title fight, but then turned to crime and landed in prison. After he prison he turned his life around and helped his under performing brother find the spark for a remarkable run that led to the world title. The film is being released by Paramount with director David O. Russell (Three Kings) attached to direct.

By Jeff Olson
April 15, 2009
Source: SlashFilm

After weeks of rumors circulating that the newest installment in the Terminator franchise would be rated PG-13, we can now confirm that those rumors are indeed true. Slashfilm is reporting that Fox will air a behind the scenes look at the new movie and the promo ads for this segment are advertising the movie as PG-13. For some time now there has been question as to what the film would be rated. All three predecessors in the Terminator franchise have been rated R for violence. The news that this movie will take a softer rating is disappointing to fans of the series who look forward to see a big budget action film that is ultra violent. Director McG had been pushing for a R rating but the studio clearly wanted to expand its’ audience by offering a “everyone is welcome” PG-13 rating.

A couple weeks ago news broke that the film was definitely slapped with a PG-13 rating after the rating was discovered on a promotional site for Pizza Hut. And as ridiculous as that source sounds it turned out to be correct as we are reporting today that the film will indeed be rated PG-13.

20th Century Fox, the studio behind the film, has a history of taking movies which are made as R films and cutting them down to increase both their audience and their opening weekend box office. Liam Neeson’s Taken was originally filmed as a R rated movie. Fox decided it wasn’t as marketable so they toned down the violence and language and the MPAA gave it a PG-13 rating. This clearly worked as intended as the film was a huge success grossing over $130 million to date.

So can the same method work for Terminator Salvation? Sure, because this movie has name recognition, a popular director, a huge star, and a bad-ass movie trailer. The elements are all there for a hit blockbuster. The rating may alienate fans of the franchise, but they will without a doubt flock the theaters to see the movie. Terminator Salvation is seeing the same action taken against it that Live Free or Die Hard endured in 2007. The fourth Die Hard movie saw a PG-13 rating, and while it still was a box office success, the movie lacked that “Die Hard” feel that fans of the original three remembered. There is something about John Mclaine (Bruce Willis) smoking, swearing, and killing terrorists that is just so damn appealing. Live Free or Die Hard suffered from being “soft,” and this is the same problem that I fear Terminator Salvation will face. How violent can you be with a PG-13 rating? That is for the MPAA to decide, but on May 21st, the film will face “judgement day” from Terminator fans around the world.

By Roman Chavez

April 9, 2009

Source: FirstShowing

A brand new Public Enemies trailer has just been released. The story is about notorious bank robber John Dillinger and the men assigned to catch him. Continue reading to check out this latest trailer for Michael Mann’s Public Enemies.

I am really excited for this one. Some people may get tired of Johnny Depp, but I can not understand why. I think that he is such a great character actor and brings a lot to a project. You can give him some crap for the last two Pirates movies, but pretty much everything else is gold. Let’s not forget that Christian Bale is here too. For an actor from Wales, with a lisp, the man can do some great American accents. The scene where they are talking to each other through the cell bars looks like it’s going to be great.

Watch Public Enemies July 1, 2009.

What did you think of the trailer? Let us know.

By Jeff Olson
April 9, 2009
Source: ComingSoon

I am surprised by the number of posters which have been released for Terminator Salvation. There have been several posters for the upcoming action film, and today we have one more for you. My first thoughts on this are that the other posters are cooler than this one. I liked the color scheme and theme that we saw in the first few posters. This new poster breaks that theme by featuring the two lead actors, Christian Bale and Sam Worthington. I wish they would have stuck with the theme of the other posters. I enjoyed the set that featured the actors, but the best sets were those which featured the robots. Check out the first poster and the second poster which I thought were the best for this series. Then check out the new poster for Terminator Salvation.

Do you think this poster is as good, not as good, or better than the others in the series? Leave us your thoughts below. Terminator Salvation arrives in theaters May 21st.

By Jeff Olson
March 20, 2009
Source: IGN

IGN has debuted, yet another, badass poster for Terminator Salvation. This is the second poster this week, and by the looks of it, they just keep getting better. Once again, this poster has the same theme and color scheme of the previous posters. What i enjoy so much about these posters is the focus on the robots – not the characters. We all know what Christian Bale looks like, but seeing the robots, and especially in this poster, is very exciting. These posters have been a great set and would be a good collection to own. Continue reading to see the full version of the poster.

This poster, courtesy of IGN, is the second poster to be released this week. If you have not see the last poster released click here to check that out. Terminator Salvation arrives in theaters on May 21, 2009!