German ‘Avengers,’ Alternate Kubrick, More ‘Bling,’ More Chemical Bros. and a 1979 Tom Waits Joker Impression

Fast forward this 1979 interview with Tom Waits to the 2:22 mark and hear an uncanny similarity to Heath Ledger‘s Joker from The Dark Knight.

Sofia Coppola has added several names to her upcoming feature film The Bling Ring including Leslie Mann, Taissa Farmiga, Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Claire Pfister and Georgia Rock. Mann will play a mom of two of the girls from the Bling Ring, Broussard is the male lead of the movie. The six join previously cast Emma Watson with shooting expected to begin this spring in Los Angeles. [source]

Andrew Stanton‘s TED Talk, “The clues to a great story” from February 2012 can now be viewed online. [source]

The Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard spoke about the possibility of a Cloverfield 2 after writing the first one and he said, “I’m in, I’m ready to do it…Someone call J.J. and tell him to get moving, but because [J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves] and I have been fortunate enough to be busy, it’s hard syncing our schedules up. We’re all very passionate about returning to that world.”

However, as to whether they are any closer to a story he responded, “If you asked each of us what we wanted to do, you’ll get three different answers, which is how the first film was. The aesthetic of Cloverfield benefits from that. Three voices pulling it. Look, nothing would make me happier than to get the three of us in the room to get started.” [source]

Here’s a rare UK TV spot for Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining featuring different takes of several scenes from the final film.

Speaking of Kubrick, 15 rare and previously unpublished photos from behind the scenes of Spartacus were published on LIFE.com today. Click the source link for the full gallery. [source]

Woody Allen was last credited as an actor in a film he didn’t direct in Alfonso Arau’s Picking Up the Pieces, but he has now agreed to star opposite John Turturro in Fading Gigolo, which Turturro is writing and directing. Turturro and Allen will play cash-strapped best friends who decide to go into the gigolo business together and subsequently attract the suspicion of the Hasidic Jewish community in which they live. Duo take on the pseudonyms Virgil and Bongo, with Allen pimping out Turturro’s character until he falls for a Jewish widow, who has not yet been cast. [source]

Michael Pena is set to play 1960s and ’70s labor organizer Cesar E. Chavez in the indie drama Chavez alongside America Ferrera (“Ugly Betty”) as his wife, Helen Chavez, and Rosario Dawson as his right-hand aide, Dolores Huerta. Diego Luna will direct from a script by Keir Pearson that depicts Chavez organizing the largest non-violent protest in U.S. history to accomplish his ultimate goal of obtaining basic human rights for over 50,000 farm workers in California. [source]

The Chemical Brothers‘ score is one of the big reason I love Joe Wright’s Hanna and it now gives me good reason to look forward to Louis Leterrier‘s upcoming heist picture Now You See Me as the electronic duo will be scoring that film as well. Now You See Me is set to hit theaters January 18, 2013 and it follows FBI agents as they track a team of illusionists who pull off bank heists during their performances and reward their audiences with the money. Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, Morgan Freeman, Isla Fisher, Melanie Laurent, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Common make up the cast. [source]

You can spoil a little more of The Avengers than you probably want to by checking out some scanned pages from “The Avengers: The Movie Storybook“. [source]

Finally, one last bit from The Avengers as a new German trailer has arrived that apparently has a different ending than the latest domestic trailer. Whether that makes it worth watching is the kind of decision making I leave up to you.

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