Chris Hemsworth is currently throwing down with Mjolnir as Thor in The Avengers, but next month he'll be kicking ass and presumably taking names with a hatchet as the titular woodsman in Snow White and the Huntsman.  He's neither kicking ass nor taking names in a new clip from the fairy tale movie, now available to view online.

Jason Statham has driven excessively fast in many, many films, so it was not unreasonable to expect that he might do so in the next sequel or two in The Fast and the Furious franchise.  After Fast Five proved last year that this is the rare franchise that only gets bigger on its fourth sequel, Universal was guaranteed to move forward on the not really-titled Fast Six, with a Fast Seven in the pipeline.  Statham, an action movie fixture, has reportedly turned down a role in the next sequel.

Summer movie season gets closer every day, and the big May movies are all getting their promotional swagger going.  The first official clip from Universal and Hasbro's Battleship has debuted online in order to tickle your hype bone with the promise of properly huge summer movie action.

When Universal first announced Battleship, an event movie based on the durable Hasbro board game of the same name, most assumed the film would have two earthbound naval forces engaged in an earthbound battle of wills and guesswork.  When it eventually leaked that U.S. Naval forces would, in fact, be up against aliens, the response was largely befuddlement.  A new two-minute featurette from Battleship has arrived online to explain just what the extraterrestrials are doing in the Pacific Ocean.

Peter Berg (The Kingdom) brought his upcoming summer blockbuster Battleship, based on the popular Hasbro board game to WonderCon 2012 on Saturday and the director had a lot to answer for as the film has been surrounded by criticism practically since it went into production. In addition to the somewhat ridiculous idea of basing a movie on a board game, it has also received criticism for its cast, which includes non-actors Rihanna, and Brooklyn Decker, as well as the alien invasion aspect of the film that has nothing to do with the original source material it is based on.

After a successful WonderCon presentation and panel, which included co-stars Alexander Skarsgard (HBO’s True Blood), and Brooklyn Decker (Just Go with It), director Peter Berg took some time out of his busy schedule to speak with IAR and several other members of the press about the upcoming film, its controversial cast, the origins of the project, and of course … aliens.

Synopsis:  In the epic action-adventure Snow White and the Huntsman, Kristen Stewart (Twilight) plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Oscar® winner Charlize Theron) out to destroy her.  But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, Thor) dispatched to kill her.  Sam Claflin (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) joins the cast as the prince long enchanted by Snow White’s beauty and power.

Universal Pictures held court for an hour at WonderCon to present footage and host a panel for the movies Snow White and the Huntsman and Battleship.

First on tap was Snow White and the Huntsman, starring Kristin Stewart (Twilight), Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Charlize Theron (Young Adult). A movie that comes out later this year, it was directed by Rupert Sanders (a relative directorial newcomer), who stepped on-stage to speak with the panel moderator about filming his own raw medieval take on a story that is traditionally known as a rosy-cheeked fairy tale.

"If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us," said fictitious chaotician Ian Malcolm just about two decades years ago, "It's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, ah, well, there it is."  So it is with Jurassic Park, the film in which Malcolm was played by Jeff Goldblum.  Twenty years after it became a massive blockbuster in the summer of 1993, Jurassic Park is set for 3D theatrical re-release in July 2013.

In 2011, major studios experienced a new found reticence to finance huge and ambitious genre projects, no matter how sure a thing they may have seemed.  One of the most frequently-cited examples of this economic sensibility was The Dark Tower, a cinematic trilogy and two season television series adapting the novel series by Stephen King.  Universal Pictures abandoned the project last summer, though director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer seemed confident that The Dark Tower would find a new studio home.

As an absurdly wealthy eighty-five year old man constantly flanked by generically gorgeous women less than a quarter of his age, Hugh Hefner is obviously the sort of American success story that deserves a biographical movie.  Not only can the guy rock a smoking jacket and a pipe anywhere without being mocked, but he's been a huge part of popular culture, publishing, and changing attitudes about sexuality.  All of those elements would no doubt be included in biopic Playboy, which may now be a bit closer to actually becoming a movie.  Also, lots of mammaries; you can't have a Hefner biopic without boobs.