Extras! SA to get movies sooner, That interstellar show, Justice League go to war, Expendables 3 shows championship form, Explore the cosmos with a family guy and Captain America is a bridge?! 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!

Among the many geek hats I wear, you’ll find that space geek is one of those I doff with the most pride. I just love space. Which is why I thoroughly geeked out at this first trailer for Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, the new Seth MacFarlane (yes, that one) produced, Neil deGrasse Tyson narrated “reboot” of Carl Sagan’s highly acclaimed 1980 TV series Cosmos: A Personal Journey.

Playing out like Terence Mallick made an episode of Doctor Who, this is just gorgeous stuff and if your screen and bandwidth allows it, you need to watch this with all the p’s at your disposal, preferably 1080 of them.

When it comes to the The Expendables, muscles is the name of the game. So it’s no surprise that meatheaded Twilight star Kellan Lutz has joined the cast for Sylvester Stallone’s 3rd go-round with his motley crew of action heroes. However, the Expendables 3 casting news doesn’t stop there as Stallone has also revealed the addition of two more cast members who normally put their muscles on display for sporting purposes: UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey and ex-WBC Welterweight Champion Victor Ortiz.

Ronda Rousey will show championship form in Expendables 3! So will multi champion Victor Ortiz!

— Sylvester Stallone (@TheSlyStallone) July 24, 2013

Following on from the mech-tastic first image, we have a brace of new Edge of Tomorrow posters, with stars Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise modelling the latest in futuristic battlefield fashion.

Remember that whole debate we recently had about delayed movie release dates? Well it seems that Ster Kinekor is doing something about it. In a recently issued press release, the cinema chain revealed that they have begun upgrading all 438 of the cinemas to the latest digital technology. Due to no longer needing to ship film reels from across the world, this means that more movies can be released on the same day locally as across the world. There will also be the additional improvements to quality.

“With these latest technological advancements, the entire cinema experience is set to undergo a profound change. The picture quality is heightened while the state-of-the-art surround sound greatly enhances the overall viewing experience, as each cinema now comes standard with the very latest digital technology and superior equipment.”

Unfortunately, what isn’t mentioned here, is that with the proliferation of digital projectors, expect even fewer venues offering films in 2D.

There have been so many stories over the last couple of years about the long mired Ghostbusters 3, that its hard to know what’s true and what’s not. What we do know for certain, is that Bill Murray is not playing along, as original director Ivan Reitman clarified to Slashfilm.

“Bill Murray has never actually read anything. He may have read ten pages at some point, but he’s never read a script. But he’s never been interested, either. That part is true. It wasn’t Ghostbusters in particular, it’s just, he’s been carrying on his life in a different way, in terms of the kind of parts that he’s wanted to pursue. I mean, he’s a really brilliant actor, comedian, personality. I’ve worked with him now five times, and I would love to work with him again. I’d hope that he could be in this film. He could be, he might not be, I really don’t know.”

“[I]f we can find a way to make a film that’s somewhat as magical as [Ghostbusters] finally turned out to be, then it’s worth making. If we can’t, then we probably won’t do it. And I think that’s really what’s been taking so damn long. We had a couple of scripts that were quite good, that we just didn’t think quite had it. And one of them was particularly centric to Bill, and we just couldn’t get him to read it. And so that one didn’t get made, even though it was pretty damn good. So we’ve been thinking of alternatives, and we’re actually making some real progress, and we’ll see what happens. That’s the most honest answer I can think of.”

And now the news that you’ve all been waiting for all day: Here’s the first look at Lindsey Gort as Samantha Jones (originally played by a maneating Kim Cattrall) in the upcoming Sex and the City prequel TV series, The Carrie Diaries. Your life is now complete. You may now die as happy men/women.

Timur Bekmambetov, fresh from turning Abraham Lincoln into vampire hunter, is now looking to work his re-imaginations on L. Frank Baum’s classic Wizard of Oz. The Wanted and Night Watch director is developing a rebooted sci-fi/fantasy TV series based on the beloved tale for SyFy, titled Warriors of Oz, which will see “a warrior from present day Earth transported to a post-apocalyptic future Oz where he must team up with three other warriors: Heartless, Brainless, and Coward, in order to defeat the evil Wizard who has enslaved the land.”

The new animated offering from DC\Warner, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, is out now – we’ll have a review up as soon as Darryn takes some time out from making his Wonder Woman costume for RAGE (he fills out that star-spangled bustiere quite well, I must say). Featured on the Blu Ray release of the film is actually a sneak peek for the next animated feature film, Justice League: War, but since I know that you’re a bunch of cheapos who don’t spend money on anything unless they really need to, here’s that preview totally for free, gratis, vir niks.

Looks like there’s a pretty good reason to watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Okay, three good reasons if you include Scarlett Johansson’s cleavage. Much like this seems to be the most direct follow-up to The Avengers, it looks like it would also be setting up The Avengers: Age of Ultron, at least according to co-director Joe Russo.

“There’s a very strong connection in the narrative between the events of the end of “Avengers” that drive this film — and there’s a very strong hand off to “Avengers 2″ at the end of this movie. And Kevin Feige’s whole thing is that this is the biggest bridge of all of Phase 2 movies; it really is. It does involve the most amount of Avengers of any of the films in Phase 2, and it has sort of a, you know, there’s a very big shift in the universe at the end of this movie.”

Here’s what we know about Chris Nolan’s Interstellar: Something about wormholes… I think. Here’s what we know about the cast of Chris Nolan’s Interstellar: It’s bloody impressive. And it may just have gotten a bit groovier. Joining Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck and more, That 70’s Show star Topher Grace has also joined the upcoming sci-fi thriller in a supporting role. As is par for the course on a Nolan production, we have no idea who/what that role is.

If you’ve read my review for The Wolverine, you’ll know that there’s a lot that I love about it. One little moment occurs during a fight when a yakuza thug tries to punch Logan in the face, and instead of the usual meaty thud you hear a metallic clang followed by Yakuza In Pain #2 writhing in agony as he holds his hand. I had never thought about it before, but the moment immediately made me ask “Yeah, how the hell have people been punching Wolverine with his adamantium bones all these years?!”

Now I don’t know whether this revelation was also the catalyst for CinemaSins’ latest hilarious video, Everything wrong with X-Men in 5 Minutes or Less, but they’ve clearly noticed this as well.

Last Updated: July 24, 2013