The first Marvel Studios movie to follow The Avengers is now shooting, as Iron Man 3 has begun production in Wilmington, North Carolina.  With the start of principal photography this week comes some new casting information on the film, one for a new character who will presumably be fighting Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark and one who will once again drive Tony around and provide a bit of comedic relief.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer – who has spent three decades pumping out cinematic product that captures the zeitgeist – has demonstrated his promotional flare by unveiling the first official image from The Lone Ranger, his new project with Gore Verbinski, the director the first three films in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.  The image introduces Armie Hammer as the titular western avenger and Johnny Depp as his Native American sidekick, Tonto.

After some ballyhoo last year, Disney's big budget western actioner The Lone Ranger is currently in production on location in New Mexico under the direction of Gore Verbinski.  Armie Hammer is starring as the title character alongside Johnny Depp as Tonto in the Jerry Bruckheimer mega-project, but who will the heroic duo face off against?  In a last-minute addition to the cast, consistently great character actor William Fichtner has been cast as the villain.

Opening in theaters on January 27th is the new action-packed, wilderness-survival thriller from director Joe Carnahan (The A-Team) called The Grey. The movie features an exceptional cast of veteran actors including Liam Neeson (Taken), Dermot Mulroney (Abduction), Frank Grillo (Warrior), James Badge Dale (Shame), Dallas Roberts (3:10 to Yuma), Joe Anderson (The Crazies), and Nonso Anozie (Conan the Barbarian).

IAR's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick recently had an opportunity to sit down with actors Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, James Badge Dale, and Dallas Roberts to discuss their work on The Grey. The exceptional group of actors talked about the new film, their characters' arcs, working with director Joe Carnahan, the movie's physically taxing demands, and why Frank Grillo actually got himself arrested to research his role.

Opening in theaters on January 27th is the new action-packed, wilderness-survival thriller from director Joe Carnahan (The A-Team) called The Grey. The movie features an exceptional cast of veteran actors including Liam Neeson (Taken), Dermot Mulroney (Abduction), Frank Grillo (Warrior), James Badge Dale (Shame), Dallas Roberts (3:10 to Yuma), Joe Anderson (The Crazies), and Nonso Anozie (Conan the Barbarian).

IAR's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick recently had an opportunity to sit down with director Joe Carnahan to discuss his work on The Grey. Carnahan talked about the new film, why he chose to depict the wolves as abnormally large, human nature's willingness to adapt and survive, reuniting with Neeson after The A-Team, and the production's extremely difficult weather conditions. 

With just a few days until the film actually hits theaters, a new trailer for The Grey has made its way online.  This trailer is notable for two things, being an age-restricted red band deal, and also being thoroughly badass.  It quite effectively exploits several very basic fears both modern and instinctual, from the fear of being in a place crash to the fear of freezing to death to the altogether more immediate fear of getting eaten by f*cking wolves. 

Opening in theaters on January 27th is the new action-packed, wilderness-survival thriller from director Joe Carnahan (The A-Team) called The Grey. The movie features an exceptional cast of veteran actors including Liam Neeson (Taken), Dermot Mulroney (Abduction), Frank Grillo (Warrior), James Badge Dale (Shame), Dallas Roberts (3:10 to Yuma), Joe Anderson (The Crazies), and Nonso Anozie (Conan the Barbarian).

IAR's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick recently had an opportunity to sit down with Academy Award-nominated actor Liam Neeson to discuss his work on The Grey. Neeson talked candidly about the new film, human nature's willingness to survive, his character's own sudden desire to live; the mantra that kept him going, what Neeson learned about himself from making the movie, and why in his opinion Joe Carnahan was the only man capable of directing the film. 

A year ago, it looked unlikely that World War Z would get made.  The adaptation of author Max Brooks's fictitious oral history of a nearly-apocalyptic global zombie infestation was stuck in development with a price tag big enough that Paramount Picture wasn't willing to roll the dice, even with bestselling source material, Brad Pitt attached to star and produce, and Marc Forster set to direct.  Now, with the film in post-production for a release in December of this year, it looks like Paramount is keen on turning the film it almost didn't make into a franchise, with the World War Z story spanning three films.

With the gritty, harsh reality of New York City as the backdrop, Fox Searchlight Pictures' film Shame follows Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a handsome and successful New Yorker, as he navigates recklessly through a life of which he attempts to keep private as he succumbs to his many sexual addictions and obsessions. His inevitably self-destructive path in life is disrupted when his wayward sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), unexpectedly comes into town for an indefinite stay. An emotionally schizophrenic film about a subject rarely discussed, Shame doesn’t leave you even after you’ve left the theatre. His Manhattan apartment, once a haven for him to quench his lusts and desires, is suddenly much too crowded for him to successfully hide his lifestyle. Sex addiction, in its ugliest form, is realistically depicted as the film serves as a voyeuristic metaphor capturing what it is to be a human being in today’s world. The message is quite clear – it isn’t easy, not for any of us.

What is clear is that we all have our demons, some of which seem to have a much crueler grip than others. Though never actually discussed in the film, the unspoken words speak volumes in this case as Brandon and Sissy never talk about their parents. With sparser dialogue than many films, the message is clearly delivered with two of the bravest, raw performances in recent film history by Mulligan and Fassbender. Both excavate the most deeply buried of human truths and the audience is privy to their urges and impulses as well as their failed attempts at normalcy.

Alluded to through the duration of the film, the audience is aware of the fact that these two were not brought up in a home in which anyone would wish. With only one another left in this world to call family, they share a closeness which is at times extremely uncomfortable to watch. Brandon struggles to find human connection, but must fight off his crippling needs for excess. His quest for the numbness only found in random sexual acts is an attempt, which fails, to aid him in an escape from his past as well as his present life.

An original screenplay written by the acclaimed Steve McQueen (Hunger) and Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, The Hour) and directed by McQueen, this provocative and daring drama follows Fassbender as he is forced to navigate through his character’s private world as well as the one he now shares with his sister. McQueen’s vision was to make a film about a subject that few films have explored before. Shame serves as an exploration into the purgatories of both addiction and secrecy. We watch as Brandon suffers feeling trapped by his sister’s neediness and is forced to show his darker side to the one person who knows him best, the only person who knows him well.

In one particular scene, Sissy leaves Brandon a voicemail message in which she says to him that they are not bad people, they just come from a bad place. One can only infer what this bad place entailed for each, but you know instinctively that whatever it was, and one can make a few assumptions, it was very bad.

IAR recently attended a press conference at The Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, CA, for the film where Fassbender and McQueen spoke to the many dark aspects of sexual addictions and childhood abuse.

Three new images from The Grey have popped up online today, and if you're wondering what The Grey is exactly, it's the movie where Liam Neeson fights a feral wolf, using only a little knife and some jagged mine booze bottles affixed to his fist.  Sadly, these images do not contain Neeson engaging in fisticuffs with a wild animal, but they do remind us that The Grey is also a tense survival thriller about a group of oil-drilling roughnecks who find themselves stranded in the remote Alaskan wilderness following a plane crash.  And because that situation isn't quite horrific enough, they're being picked off by a pack of rogue wolves who presumably love the taste of roughnecks.  So check out the pictures below, knowing in your heart that once The Grey will include an  Oscar caliber actor wrasslin' with a wolf.*