Despite the fact that the movie doesn’t open for over a month, Sony is nowhere near done with it’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 marketing blitz.  Today’s batch of new images offer a behind-the-scenes look at the practical version of Green Goblin’s (Dane DeHaan) glider, another look at Paul Giamatti’s Rhino, and then a couple of other images that might cross the line into possible spoiler territory.  It’s been said to death, but given the amount of footage and such that we’ve seen from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it feels like we have enough to plot out the entire story.  Despite feeling overwhelmed by it, the footage actually looks quite good, so hopefully director Marc Webb still has plenty of surprises waiting for moviegoers on opening weekend.

Hit the jump to check out the new images.  The film also stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Sally Field, Jamie Foxx, Felicity Jones, B.J. Novak, and Chris Cooper.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D on May 2nd.

DreamWorks Animation has released the first clip from the highly anticipated sequel How to Train Your Dragon 2, and it’ll make you want to revisit the first movie ASAP.  The follow-up takes place five years after the first installment, as Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and Toothless are exploring new territories while the rest of their friends are enjoying dragon races.  During one of Hiccup and Toothless’ journeys, they discover a secret ice cave, hundreds of new wild dragons, and the mysterious Dragon Rider.  This debut clip is brief, but the gorgeous animation coupled with the character humor and reprisal of composer John Powell’s theme is a wonderful reminder of just how lovely the first film is, and I cannot wait to see what the sequel has in store for us.

Hit the jump to watch the clip. The film also features the voices of Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Kit Harington, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller, Djimon Hounsou, and Kristen Wiig.  How to Train Your Dragon 2 opens in 3D on June 13th.

The first trailer and poster for The Weinstein Company’s The Players are now online.  The comedic picture is a series of short films that center around the theme of infidelity.  Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche star as the ladies men in question.  This trailer gives a good sense of the comedic tone and personality of the leads, along with a hint of where the plot is going.  However, there’s not yet any indication that each of them will be playing six different parts, but I’m sure that tidbit of information is on its way.

The Players opens in the U.S. on April 4th.  Hit the jump to watch the trailer and check out the poster.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not only a great film, in general, but it is also a bad-ass superhero movie.  Picking up after the events in New York with The Avengers, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is living in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world.  When a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague comes under attack, Captain America teams up with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and new ally the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to take on an enemy that just might take them down first.  The film also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Sebastian Stan, Cobie Smulders, Robert Redford, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp and Hayley Atwell.

At a conference during the film’s press day, actors Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson talked about concerns over being typecast, how the Black Widow has evolved, the great camaraderie between Cap and Falcon, getting to work with Robert Redford, and how much they enjoy returning to these characters, while Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige talked about the possibility of a solo Black Widow movie, how they decide when to bend or break things in the Marvel canon, and his minimal involvement with the Marvel films coming out of studios other than Disney.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

Warner Bros. has released seven new images from Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Knight.  The game will be the conclusion to the Arkham trilogy, and while details are still scarce, the overall plot has Scarecrow trying to unite Gotham’s villains now that there’s a power vacuum in the city.  But despite familiar rogues such as Harley Quinn, Two-Face, and The Penguin, the main villain is the titular “Arkham Knight”.  These images provide our first look at the character, and he looks like a robot Batman, although it could be a highly-advanced suit.  In any case, he clearly doesn’t share the Dark Knight’s values since the Arkham Knight uses a gun.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  Batman: Arkham Knight will be released later this year on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

If you’re not all turtled out yet from the teaser, teaser trailer, and images from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, then you’ll want to check out this interview with screenwriter André Nemec.  The universe-building method has worked pretty well for other comic book-based properties so far, and TMNT should be no exception.  Nemec talks about the franchise’s more outlandish elements, such as Krang and Dimension X, alongside the slightly less ridiculous characters we can expect to see in the new live-action outing.  Hit the jump to see what he has to say.

Starring Megan Fox, Alan Ritchson, Pete Ploszek, Jeremy Howard, Noel Fisher, Danny Woodburn, and William Fichtner, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles opens on August 8th.

Director Kevin Tancharoen (Mortal Kombat: Legacy and Mortal Kombat: Legacy II) has teamed up again with Machinima to deliver an intriguing, exciting and action-packed short sci-fi film called Gable V.  The story follows government funded scientist Professor Gable (James Morrison), who unearths five people that seem to have special gifts that make them the next evolutionary step for mankind.  If Professor Gable can harness the source of their gifts, he can use them to change mankind, for good or for evil.  The short film also stars Eliza Dushku and Steve Harris and you can watch it after the jump.

During this recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, actress Eliza Dushku talked about how she got involved with this project, being a big fan of Machinima, what appealed to her about the story and the ideas being explored, the parallels to what they were exploring in her last TV series Dollhouse, why she loves doing such physical roles, the natural evolution from no longer working in strictly traditional mediums, and that she’d like to keep doing more experimental projects to maintain scheduling flexibility, especially now that she’s getting ready to go back to school to get her degree.  Check out what she had to say after the jump.

Darren Aronofsky is one of my favorite filmmakers.  It’s been rewarding to watch him develop over the course of his five feature films (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, and Black Swan) and how he’s matured in approach to certain themes—namely, obsession and death.  His latest feature, Noah, should be dripping with these two themes as it’s the story of a man directed by God and willing to let the rest of the world die.  While it does provide some intriguing departure from those themes, Noah feels like a series of compromises that soften the impact of the themes as Aronofsky gets bogged down in explanations that feel like excuses, and then struggles to return to the fascinating and complex moral drama at the center of the story.  Although he has his frequent collaborators providing the picture with grandeur and majesty, and the filmmaker’s trademark earnestness remains, his style begins to work against him as Noah veers between gritty reality and difficult humanism.

I have no problem with machismo in movies.  Machismo can be a lot of fun.  Arnold Schwarzenegger is machismo personified.  He’s macho to the point where he becomes an easy caricature.  He’s the violent badass we can all enjoy guilt-free.  But not everyone can handle that attitude, and as his co-stars demonstrate in David Ayer‘s Sabotage, the line between machismo and outright misogyny is a thin one.  The movie puts a lot of effort into its action and professional tactics, but the supporting characters aren’t just an afterthought.  They’re completely misguided weapons who earn our disdain rather than our sympathy.

Warner Bros. has released a new featurette for director Wally Pfister’s sci-fi film Transcendence.  The pic deals with the issues surrounding the reality of artificial intelligence, as Johnny Depp plays a scientist who becomes the subject of his work when his consciousness is uploaded into a supercomputer.  Instead of offering a look behind the scenes, this featurette mainly focuses on clearly explaining the plot to those that might still be confused regarding the nature of Transcendence.  The film continues to look interesting, but I’m starting to worry that the amount of footage that’s been released has given away the entire main arc of the story.  Regardless, it’s nice to see Depp in a role that doesn’t hide him behind elaborate makeup effects, and there are certainly some big ideas to be explored with the central premise.

Hit the jump to watch the featurette, and click here for 35 high-resolution images.  The film also stars Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Kate Mara, Morgan Freeman, Cole Hauser, and Clifton Collins Jr.  Transcendence opens in traditional theaters and IMAX on April 18th.

TV ratings for Wednesday, March 26th are in.  Here’s a brief rundown:

• The CW’s Arrow rose a tenth from last week to a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demo and scored 2.57 million viewers, while The 100 dropped two tenths to a 0.7 rating and scored 2.26 million viewers.  Read Dave’s Arrow recap here.
• ABC’s The Middle dipped one tenth to a 1.9 rating and 7.07 million viewers, Suburgatory dropped two tenths to a series low-tying 1.4 rating and 4.87 million viewers, Modern Family ticked up a tenth to a 3.5 rating and 9.69 million viewers, Mixology rose half a ratings point to a 1.7 rating and scored 4.90 million viewers, and Nashville dropped one tenth to a 1.3 rating and scored 5.06 million viewers.

There are no turtles or tornadoes in this first look at Kelly Reichardt’s thriller Night Moves, but it’s a taut trailer nonetheless.  Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard star as three radical environmentalists who plan to put their ideologies to the test by conspiring to blow up a hydroelectric dam.  The trailer gives a great sense of the inherent danger in perpetrating such an act, not just for the renegades who fear being caught, but for the sense of mistrust that grows among them.

Night Moves is due out on May 30th.  Hit the jump to watch the trailer.

Now that all of the first-look images of the characters that will populate Fox’s Gotham series have rolled out, we have some hi-res versions available along with their character descriptions.  The pilot, which was written by Bruno Heller and directed by Danny Cannon, who are also both executive producers, will hit the small screens some time this fall.  The project also has a series commitment at Fox, so you can look forward to seeing the story of a pre-Batman Gotham play out for a few episodes at least.

Gotham stars Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, Robin Lord Taylor, Sean Pertwee, and Camren Bicondova.  Hit the jump to take a look at the hi-res character images and their descriptions.

The teaser trailer for the tornadic thriller Into the Storm dropped yesterday, and now the first full trailer for the picture is available.  New Line Cinema and Village Roadshow bring this contemporary look at the dangerous business of storm chasers and the powerful force of mother nature to screens later this summer.  Much like yesterday’s teaser trailer, this new cut does a great job of employing sound to get the effect across.  So if you’ve got a good sound system (and you’re not at work), crank it up before pushing play.

The film stars Richard Armitage, Sarah Wayne Callies, Matt Walsh, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Arlen Escarpeta, Max Deacon, Nathan Kress, Jeremy Sumpter, Kyle Davis, Jon Reep, and Scott Lawrence.  Into the Storm opens August 8th.  Hit the jump to watch the trailer.

Just the other day, we brought you word that a new Phantasm movie was all but ready for screens and that a new trailer would be on its way shortly.  As promised, the first teaser trailer for Phantasm: Ravager is now online.  Contrary to our previous report, franchise creator Don Coscarelli wasn’t at the helm for the fifth installment, but rather produced it.  Director David Hartman took the honors this time around.  Phantasm: Ravager features the return of Angus Scrimm, Reggie Bannister, and Michael Baldwin.  Plot details are under wraps, but word has it that this film will feature an extended sequence on the Tall Man’s home world.  Hit the jump to take a look at the new teaser trailer and for more from Coscarelli and Hartman.