Director Jonathan Liebesman is currently in the midst of the press tour for Wrath of the Titans.  It just happens to be during the same week that fans are in a mouth-foaming uproar over changes to the origin story of the titular quartet in his next project, the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot.  He's doubtless had to answer many a question regarding whether or not the turtles will be extraterrestrials, and Liebesman has responded in a most political fashion.

Outrage is a funny thing.  For the last year, Syrian President Bashar al Assad has been killing his own people, but the world at large hasn't gotten stroppy enough to do too much about it.  Yet on over the weekend, producer Michael Bay revealed that the new live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would feature a rebooted origin story making the titular turtles into extraterrestrials, and the shit sort of hit the the fan.  With fans in an uproar, Bay has assured everyone that it's all going to be okay.

It's been almost twenty years since live-action shelled, anthropomorphized, martial arts-trained heroes graced cinema screens in 1993's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, but as we learned last week, Paramount Pictures has set a December 25th, 2013 release date for a rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles feature.  The film, which will be accompanied by a CGI television series on Nickelodeon, is evidently going to be a major overhaul of the titular Turtles' origin story.

This April will involve a lot of people crowding around giant televisions to watch Tom Cruise crawling around on the Burj Khalifa.  After Mission: Impossible III proved to be the franchise's least commercially successful installment back in 2006, there seemed to be assumption that both the series and Cruise were running on fumes. 

Then Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol closed out 2011 to a whole lot of acclaim.  The fourth film proved, amongst other things, that Cruise is still a movie star, Brad Bird can direct live-action with blockbuster aplomb and nimble wit, Paula Patton is a force to be reckoned with, and Simon Pegg can steal damn near any show.  You'll be able to experience the Kremlin exploding all over again, as Paramount has announced that Ghost Protocol is set to debut on Blu-ray, DVD, VOD, and digital download this April 17th.

The titular quartet of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles haven't starred in a live-action feature film in just a hair under twenty years.  Though Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michaelango still form a recognizable property, it's been awhile since their early 1990's heyday, when the characters were an inescapable cultural presence.  As is the case with any movie property that carries a whiff of bankable nostalgia, there's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theatrical reboot in the works, and it might just have found an appropriately action-savvy director.

The teaser trailer for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol made it abundantly clear that Brandt, the new character played by Jeremy Renner, is not necessarily who he appears to be, while also showing that the series' hero Ethan Hunt does not trust Brandt very much, and perhaps rightly so.  A new official image from the fourth Mission: Impossible installment shows Tom Cruise communicating that distrust, while Paula Patton and Simon Pegg look on like children watching their parents on the verge of a blowout argument.

While Tom Cruise's prominence in the next Mission: Impossible film may still be up in the air, it looks like Simon Pegg's job status as lab geek Benji Dunn is secure. The Hollywood Reporter yesterday confirmed that the Shaun of the Dead actor is in negotiations to reprise his M:I 3 character, even as Paramount eyes the box office progress of Cruise' Knight and Day in order to gauge the actor's current commercial fortitude (for the record, it has grossed about $132 million worldwide thus far).

Brad Bird (The Incredibles) is in line to make his live-action feature debut on the sequel, which is being produced by J.J. Abrams from a script by Andre Nemec and Josh Applebaum (former "Alias" writers for Abrams). Of course, Abrams directed Pegg in M:I 3, as well as Star Trek, so the duo are well into a nice working relationship.