Extras! Neil Blomkamp talks District 10, Kevin Costner is a mule, New Line conjures up a sequel, A bear gets a shield, Ron Howard & Tom Hanks take on an inferno, and How Man of Steel should have ended! 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!

By the gods, I was freezing this morning! In the world of Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters – as can be seen in this new featurette exploring how creatures/entities from the mythological world have come to live in the real world – this would have been the fault of the Greek god Anemoi, the bringer of Winter. In our real world, this is probably the fault of Derek Van Dam, the bringer of annoying American accents.

It seems that people sure do like to poop their pants. James Wan’s latest fright-fest, The Conjuring, only opens internationally this upcoming weekend, but with test screenings audiences going gaga for the flick and early review buzz exceedingly positive, New Line has decided to greenlight some more cinematic laxative in the form of a sequel, as New Line president Toby Emmerich explains.

“Horror is very much a part of the DNA of New Line — ‘Nightmare on Elm Street,’ ‘Friday the 13th,’ ‘The Rite,’ and the ‘Final Destination’ films. This is as good a horror movie as we’ve ever made…. We think it will have great playability.”

So a Kryptonian, a Night’s Watchman and an emancipated slave walk into a bar…. Crap. I’ve forgotten the punchline, but while you wait check out these three new character posters for upcoming fantasy epic Seventh Son, featuring Antje Traue, Kit Harrington and Djimon Hounsou.

There are still plenty of unanswered questions about Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. How is Agent Coulson alive? Who is J. August Richards playing? And will it actually make it to the end of the season before the studios realize that this is a Joss Whedon production and cancel it despite it being great? One thing we do know though, is that it will probably sound great as acclaimed composer Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead) will be providing the series’ score.

“Readers of my blog know that superhero stories and their scores have had a tremendous impact on my life ever since I was a kid. I grew up with ‘Batman: The Animated Series,’ ‘Superman,’ ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,’ ‘Spiderman’ and ‘X-Men.’ In my daydreams, their adventures rumbled with bombastic and soaring orchestral melodies. I always wanted to write music of my own for this genre.

Now, I have the opportunity to contribute original music to the ever-expanding Marvel universe? And I have a full symphonic orchestra at my disposal every week to do it? And I get to work with the visionary Joss Whedon and his remarkable creative team? Well, suddenly I’m worried that my entire life might actually be a dream, that I might suddenly wake up back in third grade, having dozed off while reading ‘X-Men.’ If this life is a dream, I’m going to love every minute of it until I wake up.”

Look, when you’ve managed to raise an alien sun god as your son and he turns out to be a good guy, then I think you can claim the title of “Great Dad”. Kevin Costner seems to feel the need to prove his paternal skills one more time though, as he is apparently in negotiations to star in the Guillermo Del Toro produced Midnight Delivery, which will see him play “a father who becomes a drug mule to save his son’s life.”

Awwwwww… Nothing says “I love you, son” quite like a condom of heroin up your rectum.

While lying in your bed, do you imagine yourself on the bridge of the Nostromo from Alien, or maybe you’re just holding out in your safe house waiting for the bad guys to arrive. Whatever your imaginative fancy, I’m sure these super cool bedroom door sticker decals will help to make it reality. Until your mom scolds you for shouting out “Get away from her, you bitch!” at the top of your lungs.

Some people smoke cigarettes knowing full well that it’s harmful for their health, I read Dan Brown novels. But while Ron Howard’s film adaptations of Brown’s first two Robert Langdon novels, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons (done in opposite chronological order, by the way) may not be quite the same guilty pleasure, they both did fairly good business at the box office, which of course means a sequel is on the way. The next adaptation was supposed to be the 3rd Langdon novel, The Lost Symbol, which Howard was just going to produce and not direct, but now it’s revealed that that’s been put on the back burner. Instead Howard will be back to direct an adaptation of Brown’s latest and fourth Langdon novel, Inferno, with Tom Hanks once again reprising his role as the puzzle solving professor. David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Carlito’s Way) will adapt the screenplay for a December 18, 2015 release.

So for those of you keeping score at home, a recap: The fourth book is going to be turned into the third movie, after the second book was turned into the first movie and vice versa.

According to the folks over at Pajiba, 29 Years Ago This Past Weekend Was the Best Weekend To See a Movie of All Time. Based on this list of the Top 14 movies at the box office on the weekend of July 15, I’m inclined to agree with them.

1. Ghostbusters
2. Gremlins
3. The Last Starfighter
4. The Karate Kid
5. The Muppets Take Manhattan
6. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
7. Bachelor Party
8. Cannonball Run II
9. Conan the Destroyer
10. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
11. Rhinestone
12. Top Secret!
13. The Natural
14. Romancing the Stone

I always try my best to avoid giving you guys any spoilers for any upcoming movies, but I’m going to waiver that rule now. Spoiler for any movie/TV series coming up starring Sean Bean: He dies. Every single bloody time. Don’t believe me? Then check out this “death reel” that Pajiba put together, showing all the actor’s most famous on-screen deaths.

I’m a firm believer that not every movie, no matter how much sexual tingling it makes you feel in your nethers, deserves a sequel. Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 is one such movie. I loved it immensely, but that story is done and dusted. Not everybody agrees with me though, and folks have been clamoring for District 10 from almost the very second the credits rolled on the first film. Well, to you people here’s some good news. While chatting to Wired about his next film, Elysium, Blomkamp revealed that he has written an 18-page draft for a proposed sequel. He won’t spill any further details, other than it’s “really fucking cool”.

But for those of you like me who don’t necessarily want to see a District 10, here’s some good news: Blomkamp went to state that that he has no plans to commit to the sequel anytime soon, or even at all.

I really enjoyed Man of Steel. You can tell by the amount of words I used in my review. My geekish glee toward the film aside though, I’d be the first to admit that there are some really dumb moments in the film’s second and third act, added purely to buff the drama. Which is why the folks over at How It Should Have Ended have decided to show what a much smarter resolution to the whole mess would have looked like.

Last Updated: July 17, 2013