A vast interest has recently flourished in relation to photos from Tim Burton's unique take on Alice in Wonderland, revealed by USA Today. The pictures are captivating, striking and intriguing. Tim Burton has definitely provided his visionary on how he interprets the classic story. These few pictures have left people wanting to see the other characters images and most importantly the film, which is released in 2010. Here are pictures of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, and three concept art images.

Just had the pleasure of meeting Megan Fox. I was hoping to kick this off with a photo to prove that I’m not lying. But the moment I produced my camera a large security man instructed me that there are no photos allowed…. so you’ll just have to believe me.

Anyway – this is how the beginning of the interview went…

Me: So you’re pretty famous now. How are you dealing with all the attention?

Her: I get bored with it. Like, if I were to tell you how good that shirt looks on you every day, wouldn’t you get bored?

Me: [deep breath] No I could probably get used to it actually.

*Her: Do you have a girlfriend?*

* Lie

But, seriously that first bit was true, which was pretty surprising to say the least! Junket interviews are often fairly dull…

Any7way there’ll be a video later this week to prove I’m not fibbing!

Pixar animation UP has opened with a massive $21.4 million weekend box-office take. And it fully deserves it! Bravo, Pixar…

The problem is, those of us over here in the UK won’t be able to watch it until October. The desire you are feeling to go and see it, right now, will have to be quelled. I just hope you’re still excited in five months time. I’m afraid I’m not allowed to review it myself, per se.

But I can give you an estimation of the look on my face when I saw it…

…and by that I don’t mean that I wet myself. I was happy. THAT’S MY HAPPY FACE OKAY!? It’s ace…

Also, I can now announce that we do have a review in from our intrepid reporter - Jonathan Crocker - in Cannes. Read it now!

INTERESTING THING I READ TODAY…

“Why Terminator Salvation Isn’t a Terminator Film” over at ScreenCrave. They make a good point – it just didn’t have that feeling.

This is the year of 3D. I was lucky enough to get an early look at Pixar’s UP in 3D yesterday and, though I can’t really talk about it too much, it blew my mind!

This is perhaps the second major turning point in the tranformation of animations. The first was the moment the Pixar ball bounced onto our screens at the beginning of Toy Story in 1995 – the dawn of CGI animation.

With all the 3D excitement caused by screen-bending features such as Coraline and Monsters Vs Aliens, both of which had vast audiences donning their 3D goggles this year, it’s easy to forget the classics made us love animation in the first place.

In recognition of this, Disney is releasing a "classic" 2D movie this year - The Princess & The Frog. It’s amazing to me that the trailer almost pitches the film as a “retro” release, using the phrase, “In the tradition of Walt Disney’s beloved classics.” Perhaps I’m getting old.

I agree with the sentiment from Disney. There are things that can be done in 2D that the new tech can’t touch.

Dumbo 3D anyone? No thanks. It’s perfect as it is.

The news came in today that Dreamworks has bought the rights to the life story of Martin Luther King. However you swing it, this will be a huge and historic release.

The big question, of course, is who gets the part. I asked the team and here are our suggestions…

Colleen Last, MSN Entertainment Editor - Denzel Washington

“One of the few actors with the gravitas to play Martin Luther King. Washington has successfully played real-life figures before, such as Malcolm X, and has years of experience playing weighty roles in films including American Gangster and Training Day.”

James Hurley, MSN Music Editor – Ice Cube

“Ice Cube is a highly underrated actor who hasn’t always helped his own cause by playing gangsta types. This would be a risk for all involved but might just be the making of him. Also, the physical resemblance is closer than that of Will Smith, Denzel Washington, or any of the more predictable candidates.”

Ian Jones, MSN Homepage Editor – Idris Elba

“The bloke who plays Stringer Bell in The Wire. Idris Elba is his name. I’d no idea he was British until I read it in the paper. He’s a brilliant actor: he’d play MLK with just the right mix of anger and humility.“

Paul Carmichael, MSN Homepage Editor – Laurence Fishburne

“Laurence Fishburne. 30 years after he seemed set for superstardom when he boogied to the Stones in Apocalypse Now, Larry’s career has rarely hit the heights. He is though hugely underrated and could I reckon deliver a cracking performance as MLK.”

Mike Lok, MSN Content Manager – Avery Brooks

“Avery Brooks, a much underrated actor that will probably be forever known as Captain Sisko from Star Trek Deep Space 9, he beat 100 other actors to become the first African-American to lead the series. While Trek never asks for Oscar winning performances from its cast, Avery punched way above what was ever required of him, showing depth, emotion and passion that is waiting to be showcased on the silver screen.”

Lorna Cooper, MSN TV Editor – Jamie Foxx?

“If one is looking at the relatively small pool of A-list black movie actors, it’s difficult to see an obvious choice. Maybe Jamie Foxx? However, I personally think they should cast an unknown, or relative unknown, in the main role of Doctor King – that would be a story in itself. Supporting character roles can be filled by names if need be. Besides, curiosity and word-of-mouth have been proven to get bums on seats in the past.”

My Choice? – Cuba Gooding Jr

Gooding hasn’t done anything anyone’s heard of since Pearl Harbour. And everyone knows that was rubbish! But he’s a formidable talent with a voice to match the highs of those historic King speeches. He’s due a big role like this.

Anyway – those are our thoughts. How awful are our selections? Click “Comments” below and tell us. Please feel free to stick your own casting ideas in there.

Further to sponsoring an F1 car (see previous entry), the Terminator people are pushing back the boundaries of urrr… pushing their movie. They’ve released a four-minute super-trailer for Terminator Salvation.

This adds weight to my prediction that one day films will die out and we’ll all just watch endless trailers: cinema for the ADD generation.

Hey! This reminds me of that “Good Trailer: Shame About The Film" piece we ran last week. Not that I think Terminator will be rubbish! I mean, I’ve seen a thirtieth of it already and that was awesome!

Inventive marketing ploys are always interesting around this time of year. As the big movies gear up for the big push towards what they hope will be a bank-bulging box-office swoop, a million ideas are put forward as to how.

The Simpsons Movie set the standard for marketing stunts a couple of years ago with a blimp flying over London and a giant Homer on a hillside in West England. Things can only get more crazy from here on in.

Terminator Salvation went for a far more traditional root this weekend by sponsoring an F1 car. But this is the first movie to have taken such a sponsorship spot – formerly the domain of booze and tobacco companies before they were regulated out of the game.

They certainly seem to have picked the right team. Jenson Button’s from my hometown (go Frome!) so I’m completely on board with the Button run at the F1 title. And here he is along with teammate Rubens Barrichello and one of Skynet’s nasties.

They do need some bigger lettering, however. Who on earth is going to be able to read that tail-piece at 200mph?!

Online drama was a new, exciting and ever-so-slightly intimidating field for us at MSN. We took the plunge in 2008, producing a 10-episode sci-fi series entitled Kirill with the help of renowned reality TV producers Endemol.

And would you believe it, we just won a Webby award for best individual episode in an online drama.

Peter Bale, Executive Producer at MSN UK said, “The Webbys have become a significant celebration of talent across the web and I could not be more pleased that MSN and Endemol have been recognised in this way.”

Chris Lunn, MSN Video channel manager commented, “With Kirill, we aimed to create something unique, exciting and completely different to other made-for-web series. It was a risk as we didn’t know how our users would react, but we were pleased that it turned out to be one of genuine delight and enjoyment.

“To then receive a Webby for the project – a reward renowned for recognising innovation and execution at a global level - is extremely humbling, especially when you consider the excellent competition who were also nominated.”

Evidently, we’re proud of Kirill – it’s an immersive sci-fi series utilising more than just than great video but blogging and audio as well. Go ahead and dive into the (ahem…) award- winning Kirill experience.

Angels & Demons might just be the sleeper hit of 2009. The momentum is building and the sequel to The Da Vinci Code seems to be escaping the shadow of its critically distained forebear.

In the books, this is actually the prequel (and by far the better of the two in my opinion). I had a chance to look into all these details when I was invited to chat to director Ron Howard and Tom Hanks at CERN in Geneva – the European super-lab designed to recreate the beginning of the universe by smashing particles (hadrons) together in a gigantic underground tunnel.

It’s a key set in the film – lending a near-supernatural element to the action. And I was fine with that. But teaching a film journo particle physics was always going to be tough. I was keeping an open mind and looking to learn.

Obviously, The Da Vinci Code was littered with dubious readings of history – just one of the reasons it didn’t go down so well. Angels & Demons continues to make historical assumptions, centred around an ancient anti-religious sect called “The Illuminati” (I actually have the T-shirt now). But Dan Brown has also tinkled with the science in this one, imagining that the brain boxes at CERN are capable of producing a briefcase of “anti-matter” that could blow up Rome.

Needless to say – this is all pretty much impossible. Physicist Markus Nordburg is explaining just how unlikely much of the material in the book is here as some Japanese journalists and I dive past the eye-scanner and into the gigantic CERN tunnel (excuse my shoddy camerawork).

Someone commented that it felt a lot like visiting the set of moonraker…

Angels & Demons is evidently not afraid to take liberties with the truth. But Ron Howard sees it as fiction in both senses: “The movie doesn’t go to great lengths to explain the science or the history. In fact the rhythm of this movie doesn’t allow for that. It’s a ticking bomb story.” In fact, during my interview, he referred to Angels & Demons as “science fiction”.

Ron Howard: MSN Interview

So what we are seeing in Angels & Demons is an alternate reality. The rewards will be there if we’re able to overlook the occasional scientific and historical liberty. As Tom Hanks said to me, “Don’t discount how cool a movie can make something mundane look.” And he’s quite right – though perhaps the particle physicists among you should watch something else…

Tom Hanks: MSN Interview

Came in this morning to find an exciting package on my desk. Was it the Wolverine people finally sending me my own claws?! No! It was this metal desk-name thing from the people who brought out state of Play. They say it made them think of me!!

Harsh to say the least. Have you seen it yet? It is rather good. Here’s our review.

…by Hayley Kaplan, MSN Entertainmen

World Premiere State of Play blog entry

Hi! I’m an intern for Entertainment at MSN. Thanks to my wonderful colleagues here, I was lucky enough to get two tickets to the world premiere of State of Play in Leicester Square.

I am just a university student here for a few months from the States, so this opportunity is basically a movie-goers dream come true. I was very excited. I was even more excited when the tickets were delivered right to my desk because I never get mail at MSN, never mind getting mail from Universal Studios.

I decided to take my friend Linda to the premiere as my date because she is equally as obsessed with movies as I am, and was possibly more excited about the premiere than I was. The invite said that doors open at 6:00 and that everyone must be seated (in big bold letters) at 6:45.

Advised by my colleagues not to go to the premiere too early, Linda and I strolled down the red carpet at 6:30 proudly clutching our tickets because they were the reason we got passed the numerous security to get in. We were the envy of every face on the other end of the barricades.

We walked in with all the other guests who were not famous. The red carpet was rather long for this premiere, so strutting down it was a dream within itself. Once we got passed the red carpet, everything was not as exciting as one would think. There were queues for popcorn and a crowd moving anxiously into the theatre. It was like seeing any other movie.

Linda and I took our seats and immediately opened our complimentary water bottle and chocolate bar. We then waited for the film to start. And waited. And waited. It was not until 7:30 that the real action actually started.

Ed, the movies editor who usually blogs here, told me the next morning that the whole “doors close at 6:45” thing was just a rouse, but I am naturally a prompt person and this was my first premiere (and possibly only), so how was I supposed to know?

And then...Kevin Macdonald, the director, walks in and introduces the film. I was in awe to be sitting in the fourth row just feet away from him. And then...he introduces Helen Mirren and Russell Crowe.

Linda and I are huge fans of Helen Mirren and were thrilled to hear her speak. I honestly was so stunned I don’t remember much of her little speech, besides her saying how grateful she was to Russell Crowe for taking over the lead role in the film at the last minute because Brad Pitt dropped out (although she didn’t mention Brad Pitt).

Then it was Russell Crowe’s turn to speak. I’m not a huge fan of his considering all he’s done to journalists and his less than stellar reputation, but I was excited to see him nonetheless. However, he got handed the microphone said that what he was about to say was per tradition and recited a brief poem about how much he loved Australia. Or at least that was what I got out of it. Anyway, he didn’t make the best impression.

The lights dimmed and the curtains opened and from there on out it was like any other film-going experience. The film itself was pretty good. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to any movie fan.

That was my first premiere experience. It was very exciting to be in Leicester Square in the thick of it all, but I do have to say that the whole process is a little overrated. I guess I can be arrogant enough to say that now that I’ve been to a premiere, but it is really just watching a free movie with some famous people speaking before it. The whole red carpet event outside was a much bigger deal than what actually happens when stars go through the theatre doors. Helen Mirren actually stayed through the whole film because I’m pretty sure I saw her leave afterwards, but for the most part stars do not stay through the film at all.

Anyway, it was a great opportunity to go the premiere, and one that I enjoyed very much. Everyone go and see State of Play in theatres on Friday.

Walt Disney was a clever old cat in more ways than one. I was fascinated by the YouTube phenomenon that reveals later Disney movies copying frames from earlier ones. London’s Metro newspaper put it well yesterday – there’s truth in their assertion that this might have something to do with the “reassuring familiarity” of Disney flicks.

Transformers 1 had an incredibly slick marketing machine that had us all nostalgic and biting our nails in anticipation of the forthcoming flick at the same time. Now some new images from Transformers 2 have “emerged” online – and they’re pretty exciting!

Further to these, there’s a line-up of transformers from both sides, which reads like the team sheets for some kind of futuristic sports event. I can’t wait to meet “demolisher”.

In contrast to this exciting stuff, it appears that X-Men Origins: Wolverine has been leaked onto the internet in near-complete form which is really regrettable for the producers. Clearly this is an example of a positive leak and a negative leak. In the future, as we start to consume more and more digitally, I wonder if the lines will be blurred between intentional leaks and unintended.

There’s no need to clap. Please, stay in your seats. MSN UK has been nominated for an award – an International Digital Emmy no less!

Kirill - our 2008 sci-fi drama series - represented our first steps into narrative online video. We were impressed with the results as, it seems, were the people over at the International Academy.

Fronted by Pirates Of The Caribbean star David Schofield, Kirill is the story of a renegade scientist secluded in a filthy lab. He knows that a sinister organisation is preying on young science students. But he can’t reach them – it’s all very mysterious.

There are 8 mini-episodes here at the Kirill homepage, but there’s a lot more to it than that. What really distinguishes Kirill are the character blogs that remain integral to the story throughout. Our characters, particularly the young scientist Vivian (Vee Vimolmal), blog their experiences and communicate with each other in text as well as video. This makes the series a unique online experience that wouldn’t work in any other medium.

We’re proud of it and chuffed to bits with the recognition. Fingers are crossed for the awards on March 30. Go Kirill!

Tick… tick… tick… the 24 movie is happening!!

The folks over at Digital Spy took a brief diversion from the subject of Monsters vs. Aliens, which Kiefer was out promoting recently, and this is what he said when pressed about the possibility of some cinematic 24 action – sounds like a Europe-bound 24 adventure is on the cards…

“It’s something that we’ve always talked about because I think the fantastic thing about Europe, for something like 24, is that it’s very feasible to get from Prague to London in the course of a day,”

“It’s just a question of when we’re actually going to make the movie,” he said.

BTW - I was there for that Monsters v Aliens press junket. And may I just say what a thoroughly, THOROUGHLY nice chap Mr Sutherland is. If I ever thought that this was a bad idea and that 24 belongs on TV, I don’t any more. I’m with him whatever he does. Go Jack!! Sorry… go Kiefer!!

In times like these, when the 80s’ and 90s’ every hero is being resurrected whether good or bad, it’s fantastically refreshing to encounter a brand with the guts to call it a day and admit defeat. I never thought I’d say this, but we can all learn a little from the Power Rangers.

According to the New Zealand Herald, the long-running series, which spawned two movies in ‘95 and ‘97, has finally bitten the dust.

This news comes in the same week that we hear further word of Beverley Hills Cop 4, Zoolander 2, Twilight 3 (!), Free Willy 4, Fantastic Four 3 and Mad Max 4. The world has gone sequel-crazy!

In this credit crunchy environment, every established brand is being wrung for every $ it’s worth. So it’s nice to see that Power Rangers are biting the dust. I’d love to say that this is entirely due to an ethical decision that the world has had enough Power Rangin’, but the reality is almost certainly that the barrel is dry oin this one.

One franchise calling it a day with its dignity intact is Lethal Weapon (yes, Lethal Weapon 4 WAS good!), despite calls for a last hurrah from Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Apparently, Mel won’t wear the mullet again. Bravo, Mel!

One piece of good news on the sequels front is the announcement of Tron 2, with Jeff Bridges starring and Daft Punk on the soundtrack! I’ll have a write-up of this along with a collection of other sequels that would actually be welcome on the site tomorrow.

One of the more interesting segments of the Oscars is the part where they look forward at the movies likely to by vying for awards next year.

Of course it’s far too early to make any accurate predictions. But, public enemies looks like a beast of a crime thriller. The Boat That Rocked may also find itself in contention if it carries sufficient indie charm.

However, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I don’t think Night At The Museum 2 will be nominated for anything.

The world came out with two wonderful things that made me smile today.

One - Chewbacca in a cupboard (I don't care if it's fake!).

Two - The Sun's clever, clever front page headline (on the subject of the bankers who were questioned yesterday.

I twitter now everyone. Follow my musings (not entirely movie-related) here.

http://twitter.com/Ed_Holden