Disney are gearing up to relaunch their beloved Tinkerbell in a live-action movie based around the famous fairy and Elizabeth Banks has landed the titular role.

Variety are reporting that Banks will also serve as producer on Tink along with McG, Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot who are all pitching in with their own production companies. Elizabeth Wright Shapiro will pen the script after being behind the project since the beginning.

The Tinkerbell character continues to have success in Disney’s straight-to-DVD series and it does beg the question, is Disney overworking the character just a bit?

In Disney’s original Peter Pan , Tinkerbell was glamorous but mischievous and her classic image has since become a symbol of Disney magic. She was reimagined as a tomboy who yearned to be a lady in Steven Spielberg’s Hook with Julia Roberts and as an impish trickster in 2003 with PJ Hogan’s Peter Pan.

Banks plays usually plays comedy with a sweeter edge than most so we may get just the right amount of sass and style to suit our fairy friend.

Although it wasn’t Pixar’s biggest money-spinner, Cars is getting a sequel of it’s very own. And not just that, it’s getting it’s own bloody spin-off!

Honestly, Cars isn’t the movie we’d base a franchise around but we trust the judgement of Pixar, after all, they did just give us a big present in the shape of Toy Story 3.

The spin-off will be based on more anthropomorphised vehicles called Planes and, according to Movie Line, will be a direct-to-DVD release. Looks like Pixar are taking a leaf out of Disney’s book with a DVD sequel but is this really the best use of Pixar’s talents? It takes a ruddy long time to make an animated film and instead of focusing on projects Monster’s Inc 2, they’re working on pointless side projects?

After the cancellation of Newt, a project that had been in pre-production for two years, we were more than a little disappointed and now we hear that they’re focusing on money-making DVDs? Not impressed. But according to the Playlist, Pixar have recently opened up a campus in Canada where they will be specializing in projects like these.

OK, so maybe split duties between the two branches might accommodate both features and DVD fodder but we just have to wait and see.

It seems that the third instalment of the Men In Black series is making some headway as a rough plot outline has been released. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will return for more alien adventures but this time they’re doing a little time-travelling.

JoBlo have the scoop on the project, stating that

“The general idea is that Yaz travels back in time to kill Kay, which sets off a chain of events that ends in the destruction of the world… The film has Agent Jay sent back in time to 1969 where he teams up with a young Kay to stop Yaz from destroying the world in the future.”

Hmmm. Sounds a bit Back To The Futurish but we’ll reserve judgement for now. As we previously reported, Jermaine Clement will play Yaz who is described as “a nightmare biker who looks like Dennis Hopper and Satan” and who is written as a serious part. This begs the question – why on Earth would you cast Jermaine Clement for that role?

Josh Brolin has been cast as the younger version of Tommy Lee Jones’ Kay but they’re really stretching the meaning of young here – Brolin is 42. This oversight might be played for laughs considering that Tommy Lee Jones has never looked young in his life.

There’ll also be some alien surprises as it is revealed that Yoko Ono, Jimi Hendrix, Castro, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Andy Warhol were all of the extra-terrestrial persuasion. It sounds like fun but will it just be more predictable time-travel gags like Hot Tub Time Machine? That movie used stupidity as its backbone which made it work, but will the alien influence keep MIB 3 alive? Perhaps the 3D will help but probably not.

Harry Potter’s Ginny Weasley AKA Bonnie Wright has described what it was like to effectively grow up on the set of Potter.

Wright was just nine years old when she starred in the first Potter movie and we remember well her cute little face wishing Harry good luck on Platform 9 3/4. Now she’s all grown up and at the ripe old age of 19 she’s bidding the franchise a fond fairwell as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II closed production recently.

Talking to MTV, Wright described her experiences.

“Being the person who sort of ends up with the hero of this franchise is never something I ever would have imagined. It’s just been so exciting, so lovely to have something that develops further, and you can make [Ginny] my own and take things from your own life growing up and put those things into it.”

Filming the epilogue scenes of the Deathly Hallows were apparently quite emotional and bizarre for Wright. “It wasn’t my last scene, but it was one of my last scenes.

That’s where I started the journey of ‘Harry Potter,’ on the platform, and then to see the girl who’s playing our daughter was just psychologically, it was very weird, because she’s the same age as me. It was literally having a whole cycle of the journey.”

Wright also spoke about what it was like to film the famous epilogue of which we’ve already seen some sneaky photos. Though not everyone loved the final scenes of the book, the production staff apparently spent a great deal of time making the scene perfect. For those who didn’t read the book, SPOILER ALERT, the epilogue sees the main characters many years in the future and sending their own children off to Hogwarts, leaving many wondering how the ageing effect would be achieved.

“I hope it’s well-received. In terms of the prosthetics and creativity of it, they took months and months — I must have done 100 tests and costume fittings. A lot of energy went into making that moment perfect.”

You can catch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I in cinemas this November, but for now you can watch the most awesome trailer we’ve seen this year.

Editing certain things out movies, be they violent or boobie-filled related scenes, in order acquire a certain rating is commonplace in Hollywood these days. Sometimes directors use tricks to get around the censors, like when Quentin Tarantino used black and white photography in order not to lose scenes drenched in blood for.

But it’s not always possible and we often end up having some really cool stuff cut out in order to appease the certain people’s delicate natures. Sylvester Stallone’s next film The Expendables is the latest victim. OK, the film is only losing two seconds of film, but stil, they sound like two pretty good seconds.

After viewing the finished copy of the film, the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) gave the distributors, Lionsgate, the choice between having an 18 rating or losing a scene or two.

Not wanting to alienate younger viewers, they’ve opted to remove a scene in which “a hero sadistically twisting a knife into a guard’s neck”. Personally, we’d rather have the 18 ratings and to hell with the little brats.

Who knows, maybe this footage will find its way onto Youtube in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, you can watch the trailer.

After flexing his geek muscles in Star Trek, Karl Urban is on the up and up after Bleeding Cool confirmed that the actor is in talks to play Judge Dredd in an upcoming remake.

Urban will don the helmet made famous by Sylvester Stallone in the 1995 action flick which was based on the comic book character of the same name. The thing is, Dredd was famous for not taking off his helmet so all we’re going to see of Urban’s pretty little face is his chin, but we’ll take what we can get.

British director Pete Travis will helm the project with Alex Garland will write the script. Garland seems to be the go-to guy when it comes to dystopian cinema as he recently signed on to pen the Logan’s Run reboot script.

We wouldn’t be surprised if an announcement is made at some point during the San Diego Comic Con which starts today. If Urban does get the gig then it’s a giant step forward for the actor who has been slowly proving himself in geek circles with Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Riddick as well as the upcoming Priest and Red.

Karl Urban straddling a lawmaster motorbike? Yes, please.