As promised on Monday, the first trailer for Oliver Stone's Savages has arrived online, following up the nicely executed poster that debuted at the beginning of this week.  Narrated by Blake Lively, the trailer lays out the basic story, which starts with a pair of Orange County entrepreneurs whose with a thriving marijuana concern that ends up bringing them to the attention of the Mexican Baja Cartel.

After a reportedly wondrous test-screening earlier this year, Universal Pictures rescheduled Savages from September to smack dab in the middle of summer.  Accordingly, marketing for the action-thriller directed by Oliver Stone should be getting underway in earnest shortly.  A trailer is set to arrive this Thursday, April 5th.  The first one-sheet for Savages has arrived online today, and it gives a feel for the story, but mostly highlights the ensemble cast with a nifty vertical design.

Just last week the first image from Savages arrived online, showing Benicio Del Toro rather menacingly blowing smoke into Blake Lively's face.  It was probably an appropriate introduction to the new film from Oliver Stone, one which follows a battle of wills and probably over the top violence between a trio of California pot-dealers and a vicious drug cartel.  Now there's a visual representation of the movie, and it looks like Universal is pretty confident in Savages, as the studio has moved the release date into prime summer territory.

Most any avid user of one of America's favorite illicit substances knows that it is a good and charitable thing to be euphemistically smoked out, but the first image from Savages makes the term look altogether threatening.  The film is co-written and directed by Oliver Stone, a filmmaker comfortable with violence, but even if you didn't know that, you'd know something unsavory is going on between Blake Lively and Benicio Del Toro, with the latter blowing smoke into the former's face in an entirely uncharitable manner.

In the last week, the twelfth theatrical installment of Star Trek, which we're all referring to as Star Trek 2 since its the first sequel in the newly rebooted timeline, gained two new additions to its cast with Alice Eve and Peter Weller.  They'll both appear in mysterious roles, but the project lost the actor who would've played the villain, as Benicio Del Toro dropped out of negotiations for the role.  Now, director J.J. Abrams and Paramount have to find a thespian who can commit to a shoot that starts in January.  A new report by Variety lists two potential replacements: Edgar Ramirez, said to be the front-runner, and Jordi Molla.  Who would they play?  Probably Khan.  And while we're at it, we may have an idea about Weller's character, too.

Everybody loves a good "What if?" casting story about how a recognizable actor almost played a familiar role, only to not have it happen for whatever reason.  In our fabulous modern age of instantaneous communication and informational insatiability, we're often spectators to these scenarios as they happen, or, more accurately, fail to happen.  Today, we've got a new one, as Benicio Del Toro has dropped out of talks with J.J. Abrams and Paramount Pictures to join the rebooted Star Trek sequel.  This means that Abrams and company must now find an actor to play the villain in time for the early 2012 production start on the 3D follow up.

Casting-wise, JJ Abrams already did the heaviest lifting involved in rebooting Star Trek several years back when he rounded up a bunch of young actors who could capably play the familiar crew of the original USS Enterprise.  No mean feat, finding someone with the raw sexual magnetism and peerless line delivery of a William Shatner.  With the sequel, which we're just referring to as Star Trek 2, deep in preproduction before filming starts early next year, Abrams is casting up new roles, though.  The latest actor to sign on for a space-based adventure in the universe created by Gene Roddenberry is none other than Peter Weller.

After 2009's Star Trek successfully hit the reset button the cinematic franchise, a direct sequel, which will actually be the twelfth Trek movie, has been hugely anticipated.  Now, it's actually coming together in preproduction, with returning director JJ Abrams preparing for another voyage on the Starship Enterprise.  The core cast will be back, so that's one big part of the process taken care of, but there are new characters to pair with actors, and apparently British actress Alice Eve has been selected to play a substantial role in Star Trek 2.

A decade of ubiquitous superhero movies have made the following sentence possible: Captain America has replaced Harry Osborn in a hitman movie starring the new General Zod.  Following the departure of James Franco, Chris Evans has joined the cast of The Iceman, which stars Michael Shannon as the title character, real life professional murderer Richard Kuklinski.  To clarify, Evans plays Captain America in Captain America: The First Avenger and the upcoming The Avengers, while Franco played Harry Osborn in all three Spider-Man films, and Shannon is currently filming his role as the villain in the Superman reboot Man of Steel.  Moving on.*

Much has been made of J.J. Abrams' predilection towards secrecy with upcoming projects, and in a commercial environment that usually puts release dates first, an apparent lack of progress on Star Trek 2 had many fans frustrated and worried that the project wouldn't come together.  Abrams has said publicly, though, that he and his creative team are intent on making a quality sequel, not meeting a release date.  Well, today there's a substantial update that should thrill worried fans, as production on the sequel to 2009's backdoor reboot is scheduled to begin in January, with location scouting underway and a script at the third draft.