Extras! Luke Skywalker gets fit, Colin Firth goes bear with Nicole Kidman, Insidious-er-er, Fox does the unthinkable, Jack Nicholson just wants to move people, and Thai people make you cry?! Plus much more!

Welcome to The Extras! A daily dose of all the smaller movie related news, clips and just plain cool stuff that you might have missed!

Last week was actually Friday the 13th, the worst day of the year for two groups of people: Friggatriskaidekaphobics, because then they have to write/pronounce that word when they tell people about their irrational fear of the day, and people who are afraid of guys in hockey masks packing chainsaws (sorry, I don’t know what that phobia is called, though I’m sure it exists) thanks to a certain horror movie franchise. And if you fall in that second group, you might want to avert your eyes from this hilarious Friday the 13th prank.

Those folks at the Double-You-Bee sure love their comics. Warner Bros CEO Kevin Tsujihara, has revealed that the studio plans on releasing 12-14 movies a year, and a lot of that will be coming from their DC Comics properties.

“The other places where we think we can have growth is DC Comics…  I think the basis, foundation of those 12 to 14 pictures are going to be coming from DC Entertainment.”

“We have Batman Vs. Superman coming out in 2015, but there are going to be in the coming months a lot of announcements regarding the future movie, television, games and consumer product pieces that are going to be coming from DC.”

“DC really does touch a lot of parts of our business and is an important part of the strategy in how we are going to grow going forward.”

Speaking of comics, Fox will be adapting BOOM! Studios’ Unthinkable as a new TV series. Former 24 showrunner Howard Gordon will be scripting the show about an FBI agent and washed up screenwriter who have to team up to stop an US terrorist attack they previously predicted in a government thinktank program. Here’s the comic book’s official blurb, which is slightly different:

 “They’ve been hired to think the UNTHINKABLE. But what happens when the unthinkable actually happens? After 9-11, best-selling author Alan Ripley joins a government think tank consisting of the most imaginative minds in diverse fields. Their job? Think of nightmare scenarios and crippling terrorist attacks so the government can safeguard against them. But what happens when the think tank folds, and the attacks start to happen?”

There are a couple new Ender’s Game propaganda posters out, getting all propaganda-ish.

“Luke, use the gym!” is what Obi-Wan should have been saying, since using space-magic doesn’t exactly burn calories, you know. The now 61-year old Mark Hamill, who first played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars when he was just a svelte 25-year old, lately hasn’t looked like he could squeeze into the cockpit of an X-Wing starfighter, much less save the galaxy, but that’s apparently all going to change according to his longtime friend Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund. According to the Nightmare on Elm Street star, in preparation for Hamill’s all-but-officially confirmed reprisal of his most famous role in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII, the actor has been tasked with getting back into shape.

“They’ve got Mark in the gym, because Mark’s coming back as Luke Skywalker. They’ve got him doing his sit-ups.”

Original trilogy co-star Carrie Fisher – who went from killing Jabba the Hutt to looking like she ate Jabba the Hutt – has apparently also been asked to start feeling that body beat, boy, beat boy, beat boy!

This should be self explanatory but when you sign up to do a movie called Mission: Impossible, you shouldn’t expect it to be Mission: Walk In The Park. Just ask Iron Man 3 scribe Drew Pearce, who along with director Chris McQuarrie has been tasked with bringing Tom Cruise’s super-agent Ethan Hunt’s fifth cinematic adventure to life.

“Well, the challenge is pretty clear, which is that you have to be better than the four which came before you and they’ve already used a bunch of ideas that are probably really good for a Mission Impossible movie. I think that’s also kind of exciting because you learn from those four. Definitely, as far as I’m concerned and Chris McQuarrie who’s directing it and Tom who’s very involved as is J.J. Abrams (there’s a big brain trust on this), and I think elements of the first Mission, we loved the actual gang in first Mission. If you look back now, it’s an incredible array of actors and the way it refreshed was really good, and I think Ghost Protocol just nailed tone. Brad [Bird]’s a kind of genius of action, and I think the Bhurja sequence is a modern classic.”

If you somehow don’t know how the story of Carrie goes (either from Stephen King’s original book, or Brian De Palma’s 1976 film), then I highly suggest you don’t watch this new featurette, titled “Don’t go to prom”, unless you want to find yourself in Spoilerville, population: you.

And here’s something to make our resident Paddington Bear fangirl, Noelle, squee with glee. Colin Firth has been set to voice the famous anorak wearing bear in a new animated feature that will also see Nicole Kidman voicing the film’s villain, a taxidermist. Hugh Bonneville, Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent also co-star.

So first there was the report that Jack Nicholson was retiring. Then it was said that he wasn’t. And now we hear from the man himself, who says that he’s not retiring, he just doesn’t want to do most movies, or act forever.

“I have a mathematician’s brain… I’m not going to work until the day I die, that’s not why I started this. I mean, I’m not driven. I was driven – but I’m not, I don’t have to be out there any more. In fact, there’s part of me that never really liked being out there… You get older, you change. The movie business is the greatest business but I only want to do films that move people, films about emotions and people. I had the most chilling thought that maybe people in their twenties and thirties don’t actually want to be moved anymore. They may want just to see more bombs, more explosions, because that is what they have grown up with. And I’ll never do that type of movie.”

Ben Affleck may have been a good sport about it, but all in all, the INTERNET HULK SMASH! rage that got directed his way for being cast as Batman was rather silly. And if people responded to his casting like that, I wonder how they would have reacted had, say, Magnum P.I.’s Tom Selleck got the role. Because that actually almost happened once. For realz. You can read all about that and the other 10 Actors Almost Cast as Batman Who Would Have Sucked More Than Affleck over at WhatCulture.

Due to the mountain of hayfever medication I’m almost always on, my memory is sometimes about as sharp as a bowling ball, so I have this sneaky suspicion that I may have previously posted this utterly hilarious clip of what it would have sounded like if Darth Vader was voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. But who cares? It’s funny!

Speaking of Arnie… That rumour from yesterday about the Governator perhaps reteaming with James Cameron for Avatar 2? Yeah, there’s “no truth in it” according to the people from Fox. Aw, phooey. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO CRUSH MY DREAMS, FOX? WHY?!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the cinema, it’s been confirmed that there will be a third Insidious film, because clearly the world needs more creepy children. James Wan, who directed the first two scary films, may have moved on to trying to scare a good performance out of Vin Diesel in Fast & Furious 7, but original co-creator and writer Leigh Whannell has been confirmed to be scripting the third installment in the hit franchise.

We’re not in the habit of posting commercials around here, but this latest ad from Thai Telecommunications company True, titled “Giving”, has been racking up the praise from just about everybody who’s seen it, with many publications proclaiming that it does in 3-minutes and with a tiny budget what most blockbusters fail to do in 2-hours with a mountain of cash. And I’ll be damned if they’re not right. So get your “I’m not crying, I’m just….” excuses ready, because this one hits you right in the feels.

*sniff* Damn it, Darryn! STOP CUTTING ONIONS RIGHT IN MY FACE! *sniff*

Last Updated: September 18, 2013