Two of next year’s most anticipated blockbusters are getting their release dates shifted. Gore Verbinski‘s big screen adaptation of The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer has moved from May 31st to July 3rd, pitting it against Despicable Me 2 and 20th Century Fox’s 3D re-release of Independence Day. Meanwhile, the Marvel Studios sequel Thor 2 being directed by Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones) will now open on November 8th instead of November 15th, giving it a much-needed two-week head start before the release of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

The Thor 2 release date move is a canny one as it will need all the time it can get before Catching Fire is released. While there’s no doubt that the original Thor was a successful film and has seen its following grow substantially in the wake of The Avengers, the first Hunger Games has the greatest appeal to younger moviegoers, particularly since both movies will be competing for those all-important holiday season dollars.

With every sequel comes new character roles that need to be filled, such as that with the upcoming sequel to the adaptation of the Suzanne Collins novel Catching Fire, the second book in the successful Hunger Games trilogy. Among the top roles in the sequel, officially titled The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, is that of Finnick Odair. I’ll try to describe the character with the least amount of spoilers possible: He is a highly capable athlete brought in to take part in a newly designed game.

Since Gary Ross has decided not to come back to direct Catching Fire, Lionsgate has hired Francis Lawrence to direct the sequel, and now he is tasked with recruiting an actor to play the role of Finnick. According to E! Online, the top three names are Armie Hammer, Taylor Kitsch, and Garrett Hedlund.

The release last month of the first image of Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer in character from next summer’s big-budget western adventure The Lone Ranger didn’t particularly set the world on fire. One of the major question marks surrounding the troubled production was how Depp would look as the Ranger’s faithful Indian companion Tonto. In the months before the release of the first Pirates of the Caribbean, images of Depp in character as Captain Jack Sparrow led skeptics to believe the eclectic actor had gone off the deep end and the movie would be an epic bomb for Disney.

Instead Pirates was a blockbuster smash that finally made Depp a bona fide movie star and spawned a billion-dollar franchise for the Mouse House. It also established the quirky and roguish Captain Jack as the first iconic movie hero of the 21st century. Pretty soon the stylish swashbuckler would become a popular Halloween costume as well. Depp had taken an unusual approach in his ideas for the character’s look, much to the consternation of studio executives already sweating over the movie’s gargantuan (for 2002/3) budget and the nagging uncertainty of a pirate movie, much less one based on one of their famous theme park rides, but the gamble paid off handsomely.

The first official image from next summer’s The Lone Ranger has been released, featuring stars Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp as the classic re-imagined western heroes the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

You can check out the image here below.

The Lone Ranger reunites Depp with the Pirates of the Caribbean team of director Gore Verbinski, writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

J. Edgar
Blu-ray l DVD
DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood
WRITER: Dustin Lance Black
STARRING: Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer, Judi Dench
Warner Brothers
RELEASE DATE: February 21, 2012

When a historical drama directed by the one and only Clint Eastwood (who also produced and created the original score) starring Leonardo DiCaprio comes along, it fits quite perfectly into what has come to be known as “Oscar Bait”: a movie that looks made specifically for awards season.

But when the Academy Award nominees were announced back in January, not only did J. Edgar get passed over for the biggest category, Best Picture, but it was passed over for all categories. No nod for DiCaprio’s performance. Nothing for Eastwood’s directing or music. Not even a nomination for makeup.

So why was it that J. Edgar went with few award nominations and no Oscar nods whatsoever? Was it that the movie was just not so great, or was it snubbed? Well…that’s simply a matter of opinion, friends, and I shall give you mine.