The Grey
Blu-ray l DVD
DIRECTOR: Joe Carnahan
WRITER: Joe Carnahan, Ian Mackenzie Jeffers
STARRING: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, James Badge Dale, Ben Bray
Open Road Films
RELEASE DATE: May 15, 2012

Desolate wilderness. A dire situation. Liam Neeson. A pack of hungry wolves. Clearly, The Grey is no slapstick comedy.

The premise is simple: a group of oil workers in the great white North and the man who protects them from wolves as they work are involved in a horrific plane crash. Out of many, only eight of them survive. But the plane crash was just the start. Led by the man who normally protects them, a survivalist named Ottway (Neeson), the group of men try to figure out their best chance for survival while also having to fend off an angry pack of wolves whose den is nearby.

As each minute passes, the group loses more and more hope. But Neeson pushes them to keep fighting…even as he himself battles his own will to push on and survive.

It’s not like we didn’t see this coming, but its still nice to get a confirmation at least. When it was announced that Ben Kingsley was cast as a villain in the Shane Black-directed Iron Man 3, many had speculated that he would be playing the villainous Mandarin. Of course Disney and Marvel denied these rumors and said that the villain would be behind a nefarious plot of releasing a nanobot technology-based virus.

Latino Review has confirmed that Kingsley will actually be the Mandarin, and that there is a power structure that will make the Iron Man 3 story the most complex in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Again Disney and Marvel continue to deny these rumors, but as cameras start to roll today, the site said that can confirm that the Mandarin is indeed in the movie.

Iron Man 3 is scheduled to begin production within a few weeks, but the casting process isn’t quite yet complete. The third installment of the Iron Man franchise as already added Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, and Rebecca Hall to the cast, and now comes word that The Pacific star James Badge Dale will be joining them as Eric Savin.

According to Variety, Savin is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army who accidentally steps on a landmine while on a mission. In order to save his life, cybernetic surgery is performed and he becomes Coldblood. Think of it as Marvel’s version of RoboCop. This could mean that Iron Man 3 could be cluttered with three villains instead of two. Pearce would be playing as Aldrich Killain, a man who sells a dangerous technology to villains, and Kingsley would play as the main villain (rumored to be The Mandarin).

You just can’t keep a good franchise starter down.

With the film seemingly on the outs just a matter of months ago, Disney appears hellbent on getting their take on The Lone Ranger into theaters, and now, they have yet another cast member.

Deadline is reporting that James Badge Dale has joined the cast, which at this point includes Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson, Dwight Yoakam, Helena Bonham Carter, and Johnny Depp, with Gore Verbinski aboard as director.