With Sundance in full swing, we'll have plenty of news surrounding distribution deals next week, but this week belonged to more casting news and new projects starting to come together. Warner Brothers' "The Dark Knight Rises" continues to fill out its cast, with Anne Hathaway joining as Catwoman, while the movie distributor makes plans to reboot old franchises.
Meanwhile, with Robert Downey Jr. no longer playing Oz for "Oz, the Great and Powerful," Disney is leaning on Johnny Depp to fill in as the replacement, while a record setting year for Hollywood in terms of Super Bowl advertisements is also making news.
One thing that we know about Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" is that it's going to be huge. "The Dark Knight" was one of the biggest hits in recent memory and Nolan has already announced that "The Dark Knight Rises" will end his trilogy. With the usual suspects back, including Christian Bale as Batman, Nolan has now cast Anne Hathaway as famous Gotham character Catwoman. The role has previously been played by Michelle Pfeiffer in "Batman Returns" in 1992 and by Halle Berry in spin-off "Catwoman," which was one of the biggest bombs of 2004.
Also joining the cast will be Tom Hardy, who previously teamed with Nolan for smash hit "Inception." Hardy will join "The Dark Knight Rises" to play Bane, who is the main villain for the third installment in the series. "The Dark Knight" is the only Warner Brothers release ever to cross $1 billion in worldwide revenue and "Rises" is expected to put up similar numbers when its hits theaters in 2012.
Warner Brothers isn't just continuing the Batman series, however, as they are also going through with plans to reboot/remake a few popular titles. According to The Hollywood Reporter, one of the most noteworthy will be the potential reboot of "Lethal Weapon," which is one of the more profitable action franchises in their history. Also included in their new plan will be to remake famous western "The Wild Bunch" as well as "The Dirty Dozen," "Westworld" and "Oh, God!" Though no further details are available at this time, it seems that Warner Brothers is looking to capitalize on the enormous profits that recent remakes like "The Karate Kid" and "Alice in Wonderland" hauled in.
While remakes of classic older films like "The Wild Bunch" will have a large built-in audience to appeal to, Hollywood as a whole is looking to push its biggest summer films at an unprecedented rate at this year's Super Bowl. 13 Hollywood ads in total will be appearing this year during the game, which has an average price tag of $3 million for 30 seconds of air time.
According to Variety, films to be included in this year's advertisements will be potential blockbusters like "Thor," "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" and "Captain America: The First Avenger." Ever since the trailer of "Independence Day" launched during the Super Bowl in 1996, helping it secure tremendous overseas revenues the following summer, Hollywood has picked up the pace in terms of Super Bowl advertisements due to the global audience it attracts.
Another attribute that can help bring in big foreign revenues seems to be the presence of Johnny Depp in a movie's cast. With Robert Downey Jr. dropping out of Sam Raimi's "Oz, the Great and Powerful," Disney is working to bring in Depp to plug the gaping hole. Disney recently had a tremendous amount of success with Depp starring in "Alice in Wonderland," which became Disney/Buena Vista's first ever $1 billion release. "Oz, the Great and Powerful" is one of two reimaginings of "The Wizard of Oz" that are headed for production, with Disney's version slated to hit theaters in 2013.
While Disney starts to put together its release schedule as far in advance as 2013, director/producer Clint Eastwood is also starting to fill out his own busy schedule. With biopic "J. Edgar" headed to pre-production, Deadline is reporting that Eastwood has signed on to do a musical remake of "A Star is Born." Eastwood's version is expected to star popular singer/actress Beyonce Knowles in the lead.
"A Star is Born" has already been made three times, with the last one getting released in the 1970s with Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson leading the cast. Before Eastwood can get to "A Star is Born," however, he'll be shooting "J. Edgar," which will tell the story of infamous FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover will be played by Leonardo DiCaprio, while Judi Dench, Armie Hammer ("The Social Network") and Josh Lucas will round out the cast.
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May 22, 2026 14:46 ET Minutes of the latest Fed policy session was the highlight of the week along with survey data on the U.S. housing market. In Europe, survey data signaled the trends in the euro area private sector. Further, consumer price inflation data from the U.K. was in focus. In Asia, various economic indicators from China drew attention to the health of the economy.