Extras! Marion Cotillard gets her Mac on, Avatar gets booked, Some legendary old guys, Casey Affleck is going to be two, Dead pirates can't speak, and Lego of that Hobbit! Plus much more!

Welcome to The Extras! A daily dose of all the smaller movie related news, clips and just plain cool stuff that you might have missed!

You know what I thought when I saw the first trailer for The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug? That’s just not blocky enough. Clearly the folks over at The Brotherhood workshop have the same fetish for bricks (hey, everybody has a thing, ok?) which is why they went and painstakingly recreated that trailer using Lego.

Earlier this morning, in a story you may have seen making the rounds, I mentioned that Batman Vs Superman’s closest major box office competition would be the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We still don’t know much about this pirate tale except that it’s being directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, the guys behind the Oscar nominated aquatic adventure Kon-Tiki (they clearly know a thing about adventure on the high seas). Well the directors have now spilled the first beans, revealing that the new film will be titled Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which not only is a very astute observation on life and death, but apparently is also a line linked to the Disney amusement park ride that inspired the series of films.

Natalie Dormer, fresh from wasting opportunities to punch that ponce King Joffrey repeatedly in the face in Game of Thrones, has joined the cast of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 & 2. She will will playing the role of Cressida, which is not only an old Toyota commonly found in Brakpan, but also the name a film director in the Capitol, who along with her assistant, Messalla, and her cameramen, Castor and Pollux, joins Katniss Everdeen’s rebellion.

Oh hey there, new poster for Last Vegas! Just an FYI, you should probably expect a call from Barney Stinson’s lawyers shortly.

James Cameron says that eventually all forms of entertainment will be 3D. Somebody lock that man in a padded room, we all say right back to him.

“For me it’s absolutely inevitable that entertainment will be 3D, it’ll all be 3D eventually, because that’s how we see the world. When it’s correct and convenient for us, we pre-select for that as the premium experience.”

Er… Sorry, Mr Cameron, but we actually don’t prefer that as the premium experience. In fact 3D ticket sales in the US have declined by nearly 40% in the last year, so yeah, that’s just wrong.

Staying with Cameron, it seems he’s living up to his pledge of scratching all his artistic itches in the world he created in Avatar as he has commissioned Award-winning Jumper author Steven Charles Gould to pen four novels further exploring Cameron’s universe.

“Steven Gould is one of the shining lights in contemporary science fiction, and I’ve long admired the worlds and characters he’s created in his books and stories.  We’re very fortunate to have Steven bring his formidable talents to the Avataruniverse.  He is already working closely with me and the screenwriters to flesh out the expanding world of Avatar.”

Based on Cameron’s aforementioned love of 3D, I wouldn’t be surprised if these are pop-up books.

There’s a new extended TV spot out for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which you can check out below. Because we’re nice people.

We’d previously reported that human tripod Michael Fassbender will be going all Shakespearan as the anti-hero title character in a new feature film version of Macbeth directed by Justin “Snowtown” Kurzel. Natalie Portman was supposed to be the scheming lady at his side, but she’s had to drop out for reasons unknown. But have no fear, as Oscar winner and Leonardo DiCaprio’s dream girl, Marion Cotillard, will now be taking her place as Lady Macbeth. That’s an upgrade, if ask me.

Yo dawg, so I heard thru da grapvizzle dat you apparently don’t know what all dis Hobbit bidniss is all about, and just don have da time to read dat book. Well, then it’s a good fing we got dis here handy video from Thug Notes giving yo ignint behind the 411 on Tolkien’s shorty.

It’s not only big brother Ben that can get into the headlines today it seems, as younger sibling Casey Affleck will be reteaming with his Ain’t Them Bodies Saints director David Lowery for a new sci-fi titled To Be Two. The film is said to be in the same tone as Rian Johnson’s Looper, which is never ever a bad thing. Here’s the first unofficial synopsis.

To Be Two adapts the short story To Be Two or Not To Be and deals with identity and the self. It’s set in a world where teleportation exists and people are scanned, the digital self sent to Mars, reconstructed atom by atom, while the original is vaporized. The story then posits the idea of the teleportation machine malfunctioning and not vaporizing the original person. Who is now real? And how do experiences make them different? And what happens when the authorities want to erase the original person?

There are two reasons to watch Abe, the haunting robot serial killer short film from Rob McLellan: 1) MGM have just picked up the rights to adapt it to a full length feature film, with McLellan writing and directing; and 2) it’s a seriously good. short film. And if you need more reasons than that, then I don’t think that we can be friends any more.

Last Updated: August 23, 2013