The first official look at the Oliver Stone directed thriller ‘Savages’ has made its way online. Seen in the new image is Gossip Girls’ actress Blake Lively of ‘The Town’ fame looking frantic and disheveled as longtime actor Benicio Del Toro taunts her, blowing smoke in her face. In the film Del Toro plays the head of a drug cartel who has nabbed Lively’s character, the girlfriend of both pot dealers Ben, played by Aaron Johnson of ‘Kick Ass’, and Chon, portrayed by Taylor Kitsch of ‘Friday Night Lights’. Together Kitsch and Johnson will get caught up in a game of ransom after ignoring warnings from the local Mexican mafia….

Weeds star Damian Bichir, who plays Esteban Reyes, (the shady husband of Nancy Botwin) is the latest actor to join director Oliver Stone’s upcoming ‘Savages’, a big screen production from the novel of writer Don Winslow.  According to reports Bichir, whose great at playing the bad guy, is the latest addition to a cast full of stars such as Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson, Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro and more. For the unknown, Savages takes place in Laguna Beach, California where two nefarious marijuana dealers, Ben and Chon (played by FNL actor Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson of Kick Ass) are making quite a…

Back in the day, Bill Cosby’s “Leonard Part 6″ didn’t have much luck introducing itself to audiences as an original product with a higher integer in its title, and the teen-lilting sci-fi action adventure “I Am Number Four” perhaps elicited similar confusion when it bowed in theaters earlier this February. Unimpressive domestic returns ($55 million), however, might not have sullied the chances of survival for this adaptation of the first in a proposed six-book series cowritten by James Frey (yes, the lying author emasculated by Oprah Winfrey) and Jobie Hughes. If it returns, one will have both international markets (where it grossed $90 million) and the presence of Teresa Palmer,…

Happy Sunday Shockya readers! We’ve got another installment of the Movie News Cheat Sheet for you and this one comes packed with some casting goodies as well as some big trailer news, too. We’ve also got a mini rundown of the best of the best at the Tribeca Film Festival as well as the latest in Hunger Games casting news. Ready for your weekly dose of the must-knows in the world of movie news? Dive into this week’s Movie News Cheat Sheet … 1. The Hunger Games Casting Update: This was a big week for the film casting four tributes, Katniss’ little sister and potentially an escort and mentor, too….

Taylor Kitsch, Olivia Wilde and Salma Hayek are all in talks to appear in Oliver Stone’s upcoming movie adaptation of the book ‘Savages’, Collider.com is reporting. The ‘Friday Night Lights’ star is now in talks to portray Chon, who grows marijuana in Laguna Beach with Ben, who will be portrayed by Aaron Johnson. The novel follows the two men’s struggles with a Mexican drug cartel who not only tries to take over their business, but also kidnaps their accomplice Ophelia. Academy Award-nominee Jennifer Lawrence was originally in talks to play Orphelia, but had to leave the movie due to her commitment to ‘The Hunger Games.’ Stone is now looking at…

Techie or not, there was something for everyone at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, even for movie lovers. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment was on hand to bring the issue of the future of technology in entertainment to the forefront, particularly the Blu-ray format, during “The Director’s Vision” panel. The Los Angeles Time’s Geoff Boucher spoke with directors Michael Mann, Oliver Stone and Baz Luhrmann to get their perspectives on the topic. Mann took the reigns to start and explained that thanks to Blu-ray’s higher bit rate, “it’s the premiere format to reproduce all the work we do.” In terms of on-set decisions concerning depth of…

2010 is over. No more. Done. Finito. Some are more than happy to kiss that year goodbye, while others wish it would have never ended. In the realm of movies, 2010 looked great in terms of box office receipts. However, even with the second highest grossing domestic box office of all-time ($10.5 billion) in the books, let’s just say the quality of the product put out, is far from what the numbers suggest in terms of stellar entertainment all year around. Yet 2010 did have a few exceptional moments. With all that said, here’s 20 topics, accompanied by my candid/stripped-down thoughts, on what caught my critical eyes in cinema for…

Oliver Stone has expressed interest in reuniting with his ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ star Shia LaBeouf (Transformers 3) for his long-awaited Vietnam War movie ‘Pinkville,’ Slashfilm.com is reporting. On the commentary track for the ‘Wall Street’ sequel, the director confirmed that he’s talked to the actor about appearing in his film about the Mai Lai Massacre of 1968. ‘Pinkville,’ which first drew attention in 2007 for including such stars as Bruce Willis, Woody Harrelson and Channing Tatum in its cast, had to stop its production because of the 2008 writer’s strike. But ‘Pinkville’ is now back on track, as Stone reportedly wants LaBeouf to take over Tatum’s role of…

IMDb’s 20th Anniversary Celebration Features Kevin Spacey, Will Ferrell, Josh Brolin, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth, Oliver Stone and many more. SEATTLE – September 28, 2010-IMDb.com, Inc. (www.imdb.com), the authoritative source of information on movies, TV and celebrities, and part of the Amazon.com, Inc. group of companies, today announced and launched IMDb20, the company’s 20-year anniversary campaign. Beginning today, IMDb will treat fans to an original video interview with a different A-list artist each day, culminating on Oct. 17, 2010, (the date of IMDb’s 20th anniversary). The goal of the online countdown and companion editorial section is to celebrate the films of the past 20 years. “We are humbled by the…

Actor Carey Mulligan was recently interviewed on the upcoming film “Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps” by director Oliver Stone (World Trade Center, South of the Border) and starring Shia LaBeouf (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Susan Sarandon, Michael Douglas, Josh Brolin and Charlie Sheen (Two and a Half Men). Synopsis: As the global economy teeters on the brink of disaster, a young Wall Street trader partners with disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko on a two-tiered mission: To alert the financial community to the coming doom, and to find out who was responsible for the death of the young trader’s mentor. Stay tuned to Shockya.com for the…