Movies With Butter

By every measure, The Hunger Games is a runaway success at the box office ($397 million worldwide and still going) and the sequel, Catching Fire, is scheduled to shoot this fall. There's just one problem. The director Gary Ross doesn't have a contract with Lionsgate for the sequel. According to reports, the negotiations are contentious, and Gary Ross may or may not have dropped out of the sequel. Stay tuned!

If the Dumb and Dumber prequel, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, left you feeling, well, dumb, it may make you feel better knowing that the Farrelly Brothers are reuniting with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels to make a true sequel to the 1994 comedy. Dumb and Dumber 2 is expected to shoot this fall.

Now that The Avengers is done, work can begin for Captain America 2. Marvel is zeroing in on a director for the movie and the candidates are down to three: George Nolfi, F. Gary Gray, and the Russo brothers. The sequel is dated for release on April 4, 2014.

There is a Raging Bull sequel in the works. Based on a book by Chris Anderson and his wife Sharon McGehee, Raging Bull II is described as a companion piece to the first movie. William Forsythe will play Jake LaMotta, a role that was made famous by Robert De Niro in the 1980 Martin Scorsese movie. Beneath the Darkness' Martin Guigui is directing.

After a couple of false starts, Kiefer Sutherland is certain the 24 movie will start production in about eight months. There were reports that the project was delayed due to budget issues, but Sutherland seemed to have downplayed that by saying script and scheduling problems were the causes of the delays.

Other News & Notes:

Nicole Kidman will place Grace Kelly in Grace of Monaco.

X-Men: First Class 2 shooting in January 2013 to avoid conflicts with Catching Fire.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt drops out of Django Unchained.

Vincent D'Onofrio, Vinnie Jones, 50 Cent, and Amy Ryan enter The Tomb.

Pam Grier is getting a biopic.

Paranormal Activity producers are planning a Latino-themed horror offshoot.

Steven Seagal offered a role in The Expendables 3.

Jaume Collet-Serra in talks to direct WB's Here There Be Monsters, with Bradley Cooper possibly starring.

Sebastian Koch and Yulia Snigir will play villains in Die Hard 5.

Four more join Stallone and Schwarzenegger in The Tomb.

Taylor Lautner joins Adam Sandler in Grown Ups 2.

Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin is getting a documentary.

Universal unwraps another Mummy reboot.

Roland Emmerich returning to the White House in Sony's action-thriller White House Down.

Jorma Taccone is set to direct New Line's action-comedy The Great Unknown.

Trailer for Woody Allen's To Rome With Love is out.

Liam Neeson in talks to play an air marshal in Non-Stop.

Abigail Breslin will play a ghost in Haunter.

Ashton Kutcher plays Steve Jobs in indie biopic, Jobs.

Total Recall trailer is here.

Michael Bay's production company wants to take over the Halloween franchise.

Angry Birds movie won't come before 2015, if at all.

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