Sequel Bits: ‘Mission: Impossible 5,’ ‘The Host 2,’ ‘Fast And Furious 6,’ And Posters For ‘Riddick’ And ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation’

WithJack Reacherreleasing in just a couple of weeks, that film’s writer/directorChristopher McQuarrieis finally back on screens with a directing credit to follow his debutThe Way of the Gun, which hit in 2000. McQuarrie is the lead choice to directTom Cruise(and presumablyJeremy Renner) inMission: Impossible 5, and talked about the job recently toGraffiti Without Punctuation:

We’ve just started talking about it. He [Tom Cruise] is very busy with ‘All You Need is Kill’, JJ [Abrams] is very busy with ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’, I’m busy promoting this movie. Obviously, I love working with him [Cruise] and would love to do it, it’s daunting in that I would have to follow Brad Bird… you know, the biggest movie of the genre. At the same time that’s kinda what I like about it, I like to come from a place of lowered expectation and I have to imagine that when they find out a filmmaker like me who feels, as someone put it earlier today ‘street level’… between ‘Way of the Gun’ and ‘Reacher’ and movies like that, I have to imagine that when it becomes real that people’s expectations could not be any lower.

After the break:

Fast and Furious 6has been shooting in the UK for the last few months, but this week it moved back to the States and has been shooting scenes in LA.OnLocationVacationshas the news, but no photos or video of the shoot at this point. The sixth movie in the series bringsVin Diesel,Paul Walker,Michelle Rodriguez, andDwayne Johnsonback to driver’s seats, withJustin Linonce again directing. The film will also presumably continue the heist/adventure movie angle of the last chapter.

We’ve started to see little bits ofThe Host 2, which follows Bong Joon-ho’s excellent 2006 film. The short video below highlights the work of Macrograph, an effects company which has also done work forA Chinese Ghost Storyand Stephen Chow’s next filmJourney to the West,and is also doing the work forThe Host 2.

There are two bits of footage here, at 0:27, and at about 3:00. It’s not a lot, but it’s nice stuff:

Here’s the original effects taste, too, just in case you missed it. Both are thanks toTwitch.

Because300made buckets and buckets of dollars, Warner Bros. is still working hard on the prequel/sequel300: Rise of an Empire, based largely onFrank Miller’s300follow-up graphic novelXerxes.Noam Murrois directing the new film, withSullivan Stapleton,Eva Green,Lena Headey,Hans Matheson,Igal Naor,Callan Mulvey,Jack O’ConnellandAndrew Tiernan.

Another actor taking part isRodrigo Santoro, who will again play Xerxes. The actor recently talked toComingSoonabout going back to the role:

I had to shave, I had to work out again, I had to go back to Xerxes. It’s the same character. There’s little new things—a little before, a little after—but most of the movie, it’s during… kind of the same time where the first movie takes place. There’s a lot going on. It’s hard, the green screen, it’s a different way of working. It’s really challenging to work that way and the character wears a lot and Xerxes is a giant. He’s almost not human, which is a poetic license. It comes from a graphic novel so it’s not based in real history, so that character is very very tall and his voice is like thunder and that’s the description of this character. So there’s a couple special FX and tricks that have to be done to accomplish that figure so I do scenes by myself. It’s interesting, it’s a lot of work.

300: Rise of an Empireis scheduled for June 05, 2025.

Finally, in the gallery above are two new posters, one forG.I. Joe: Retaliation, which opens on March 29th, 2013. The one-sheet putsChanning Tatuminto the mix; we presume that, while Tatum’s character was originally killed early in the Joe sequel, part of the reason for the film’s delay was to shoot more scenes with the actor to take advantage of the big leap in popularity he got this year thanks to21 Jump StreetandMagic Mike. The sequel also starsDwayne Johnson,Bruce Willis,Adrianne Palicki,D.J. Cotrona,Ray Stevenson,Byung-hun LeeandRay Park.

The other is the international poster forRiddick, which starsVin Diesel,Karl Urban,Jordi Molla,Matt Nable,Katee Sackhoff,Bokeem WoodbineandDave Bautista, The R-ratedRiddickis due 2013, and the poster could just as easily be promoting another Riddick video game (which doesn’t exist, as far as I know — don’t get exicted) as a new movie.

The infamous Riddick has been left for dead on a sun-scorched planet that appears to be lifeless. Soon, however, he finds himself fighting for survival against alien predators more lethal than any human he’s encountered. The only way off is for Riddick to activate an emergency beacon and alert mercenaries who rapidly descend to the planet in search of their bounty. The first ship to arrive carries a new breed of merc, more lethal and violent, while the second is captained by a man whose pursuit of Riddick is more personal. With time running out and a storm on the horizon that no one could survive, his hunters won’t leave the planet without Riddick’s head as their trophy.