Katie Holmes is a Sweet and Brutal Vigilante in Trailer for 'Miss Meadows'

"It's the life of an actor. We don't really have a lot of choice in the matter. You have dry spells, and then you have times when there is a lot of opportunity."

That was Katie Holmes in a recent interview with E! Online discussing the "dry spell" she went through while held captive married to Tom Cruise for seven years. She doesn't blame him or their relationship for it, but it's hard to ignore how busy Holmes has been since they split two years ago. One of four completed projects she has on the way is the indie comedy Miss Meadows, which has her as the world's sweetest vigilante killer ever.

A new trailer for the film has been released, and it stars Holmes as grade school teacher Miss Meadows. She nourishes young minds by day but at night she loads up her gun and takes to the streets as a vigilante, eliminating the neighborhood scum and drawing the attention of the local police, led by Iron Man 3's James Badge Dale. Karen Leigh Hopkins (writer on the abysmal Because I Said So) makes her directorial debut and the film was greeted with mixed reviews at Tribeca earlier this year.

Also starring Jean Smart and Mary Kay Place, Miss Meadows opens November 14th.


Miss Meadows Official Trailer #1 (2014) - Katie Holmes Movie HD by MovieTrailerz

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Ben Kingsley and James Badge Dale Join Robert Zemckis' 'To Reach the Clouds'

The story of high-wire walker Philippe Petit has been told before in James Marsh's incredible documentary, Man on Wire. That film was based on Petit's own book, To Reach the Clouds, and now that novel is being adapted into a narrative feature with Robert Zemeckis at the helm. Joseph Gordon-Levitt came aboard to play Petit a couple of months ago, and now the cast expands with three big additions.

Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon (Mood Indigo), and outstanding character actor James Badge Dale (Iron Man 3, Flight) have come aboard the film, which will chronicle Petit's amazing 1974 high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers. The always-busy Kingsley will play Petit's mentor, Dale his best friend, and Le Bon his street musician girlfriend.

Filming is set to begin this summer. [THR]

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James Badge Dale Joins 'Spectral'; 'Gods of Egypt' Adds Elodie Yung

* James Badge Dale, scene-stealer in Shame, The Lone Ranger, and World War Z, has come aboard to star in Spectral, which has been described in the past as a sci-fi Black Hawk Down. Nic Mathieu is directing from a script by George Nolfi and John Gatins, and it follows a special ops force trained in hunting the supernatural, who are put into battle against ghosts that have taken over Manhattan. This one has been in the works since 2011 when Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg were to helm it before leaving to direct Pirates of the Caribbean 5. [THR]

* Elodi Yung sliced up a bunch of ninja as Jinx in GI Joe: Retaliation, and now she'll go from that that to playing Hathor, the goddess of motherhood and joy in Gods of Egypt. Yung has joined the divine action flick directed by Alex Proyas, which stars Gerard Butler, Geoffrey Rush, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Chadwick Boseman, and Courtney Eaton. The story has humans and gods banding together to stop the evil god Set from plunging Egypt into darkness. Gods of Egypt opens February 12th 2016. [Deadline]

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Review: 'The Lone Ranger', Starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer

Disney doesn't put the Pirates of the Caribbean think tank on just any ol' thing. When the combination of Johnny Depp, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Gore Verbinski get together it’s with the intention of crafting another $1B franchise, and that's exactly what the hopes for The Lone Ranger are. And hey, maybe Disney will get what they want, because there's very little difference to be found between either. Depp does good quirk, Verbinski does big action, the jokes are plentiful but not necessarily funny, the running time is 40 minutes too long, and despite being an origin story on the iconic Western hero you'll still be asking "Who was that masked man?" when all is said and done.

The chief problem makes itself known immediately, as the film opens in 1933 San Francisco, a precocious young boy dressed as the titular ranger makes his way through a traveling circus, coming upon an old Native American exhibit. The Indian mannequin turns out to be very much alive, an aged Tonto (Depp) as it turns out, and who takes the opportunity to recount his very first meetings with The Lone Ranger and their earliest adventures. Bouncing back and forth to this older Tonto does to the film's pacing what a broken hoof would do to the Ranger's horse, Silver. Already saddling us with a bloated 2 1/2 runtime, the non-linear approach makes it feel like 3 1/2, without adding anything of worth.

Not that it would have mattered much because the meat of the story...well, there isn't much meat to it and what little is there is painfully dull. Justin Haythe is credited with the script but it's really 'Pirates' scribes Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott whose fingerprints are all over it, and storytelling really isn't their bag. Depp was able to cover up the emptiness of their writing when Jack Sparrow was still a totally unique character, but his Tonto is so familiar that it's not going to hide anything. In his leading man bid, Armie Hammer is naive lawman John Reid, who returns to his southwest hometown where his brother Dan (a ruggedly charismatic James Badge Dale) is the baddest Texas Ranger in town. After he's killed by the heart-munching Butch Cavendish (a filthy and gross William Fichtner), John teams up with the eccentric and clearly insane Tonto to get justice. But what does justice mean for someone like John? His brother had a "shoot first" approach to the legal process, and Tonto certainly has his own ideas, but John's journey will have him changing his thoughts on due process in a major way.

You can feel the strains of franchise building in the relationship between The Lone Ranger and Tonto. It's the latter who we learn the most about, delving into his past in a way that has never been done before. It's mildly interesting to discover why he wears a dead bird on his head, which he constantly is feeding for some goofy reason, and why he's such a proponent for vigilante justice. But the further they go back, the more Tonto looks like a psycho rather than a guy with an off brand sense of humor. The distinction matters, and there are far too many moments where Tonto is more disturbing than funny. He still gets better treatment than the Ranger, who we learn almost nothing about other than that he once had a thing for his dead brother's widow (Ruth Wilson), and she still has one for him.  Wait, isn't this movie called The Lone Ranger? Shouldn't it maybe be about him? Just a little? Mostly we get the Ranger and Tonto jumping from one sticky situation to another, with lots of stuff happening but little of it engaging. There's some good comedic mileage out of Tonto's utter lack of respect for the Ranger, who he feels should have died and his brother Dan resurrected.

Hammer plays the straight man beautifully opposite Depp, most of the film walking a line between professorial pantywaist and the dashing hero we know he'll turn out to be. Depp's deadpan interpretation of Tonto sounds like it was ripped from old episodes of Daniel Boone, and those who openly complained about his being cast in the role (Depp claims Native American heritage that hasn't been proven) will probably find reason to take issue. Fortunately there are better portrayals that emerge later in the film, at least for a few minutes before white man greed interferes with their simple way of life. Women are basically a non-factor in this masculine Old West world, with Wilson having little to do but be a potential target for the Ranger's enemies. Most egregiously, Helena Bonham Carter is completely wasted as a brothel owner who gives new meaning to the phrase "killer legs".

Tonally a nightmare, broad comedy clashes with a subplot involving the white man's slaughter of the Native American population. There's a great deal of violence, more gruesome than one would expect from a Disney film, and sometimes it's played up for laughs when other times we're expected to find it sobering. A lot of this can be forgiven because everything looks so damn good, easily the best work Verbinski has done, and it's clear he took his experience directing the brilliant animated western Rango and put it to good use. Everything looks authentic and gorgeous, from the saddlebags to the tumbleweeds, captured beautifully with an incredible level of attention. Verbinski pushed the budget well past its limit, and it shows in two amazing bookend train sequences. The opening scene promises adventure on a massive scale that we never truly get. The final one, a dizzying dual-track battle set to The Lone Ranger's iconic William Tell Overture, ends the film on an exquisitely energetic note.

What it boils down to is that this is meant to be the first chapter in a bigger story, and unfortunately it was written like one. Overlong and needlessly convoluted, The Lone Ranger lacks the adventure needed to make the 1930s radio and TV hero a modern day action star.

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James Badge Dale Joins 'Stretch'; 'Veronica Mars' Adds Martin Starr and Ken Marino; Brad Copeland To Pen 'Knight Rider'

* James Badge Dale has had a pretty good run of flashy supporting roles of late, appearing in World War Z, Iron Man 3, and Flight. Now his The Grey director, Joe Carnahan, has taken to Twitter to reveal Dale's role in the indie action comedy, Stretch. While his role is unknown, he'll join Patrick Wilson, Chris Pine, Ed Helms, and Brooklyn Decker in the story of a hard-luck chauffeur who seeks to pay off his debt by driving around a mysterious billionaire, only to have the trip turn into a nightmare.

* It's not going to be a total Veronica Mars reunion for Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell. They're adding some new faces as well, and one of those is fellow Party Down alum, Martin Starr. After rumors began surfacing last week, Thomas revealed to fans that Starr had joined in the new role of Lou "Cobb" Cobbler. Thomas also confirmed that Ken Marino would be back as fellow P.I., Vinnie Van Lowe. With all of these Party Down castmembers, maybe they can shoot that movie while they're at it?

* So how do you make silly 1980s TV series Knight Rider modern and cool when today's cars are more advances than K.I.T.T. ever was? We could be about to find out as The Weinstein Company are keen on bringing it to the big screen, hiring Brad Copeland (Arrested Development) to begin work on a script. The original show was largely responsible for the David Hasselhoff problem we're still dealing with, as he played crime fighter Michael Knight, an ex-detective now working with his talking car, K.I.T.T. A 2008 TV relaunch didn't last very long, but with so many movie franchises centered around high-powered vehicles now may be a good time to take a fresh approach. Which may be why they hired Copeland, a writer known mostly for his comedic work. We could be looking at an oddball car/human buddy comedy. Copeland's directorial debut, Coffee Town, is due to open next month.

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James Badge Dale to play Eric "Coldblood" Savin in 'Iron Man 3'

Marvel continues to aim high when it comes to casting up Iron Man 3, and while there was that momentary blip when Jessica Chastain was replaced by Rebecca Hall, everything seems to be in working order. With Ben Kingsley already slated to play one villain, another is being added to the list with the addition of James Badge Dale as Eric Savin.

Now, in the Marvel comics continuity, Eric Savin is a Lieutenant Colonel put in charge of Project Ultra-Tech. While there, he stepped on a land mine which blew him apart and was declared legally dead for a few minutes. The love of his life pieced him back together as a cyborg code-named Coldblood, and he became a mercenary fighting mostly for the side of good. So he's not necessarily a traditional bad guy, which means there may be some character tweaking in the works. He may end up a bad guy powered by the nano-technology that is at the core of the story. Variety has him pegged solely as a villain, but I'm not totally convinced of that as the trade writers....well, they don't know jack sh*t about comics. Plus, Dale is a rising star that Marvel may want to keep around as part of the franchise.

It's been a string of hits for Dale over the last year, really catching the attention of many as Michael Fassbender's skeevy boss in Shame. He also was one of the survivors looking to Liam Neeson for guidance in The Grey. And that's really just a small part of it as he's got a role opposite Denzel Washington in Flight; he'll play The Lone Ranger's brother opposite Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer; and finally we'll see him with Brad Pitt in World War Z. That's quite a run.

Iron Man 3 is set to open on May 3rd 2013.

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James Badge Dale to play The Lone Ranger's older brother?

Back before The Lone Ranger hit the skids due to Disney's waffling on the enormous budget, Jerry Bruckheimer and Co. had put together a hell of a supporting cast. Part of that was James Badge Dale, who some will recognize as Michael Fassbender's co-worker and only friend in Shame. Now that the problems have been ironed out, most of the cast is back in the saddle, with Dale returning for a role that should put him front and center alongside Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer.

Deadline reports that Dale could be playing Dan Reid, a character there have been many versions of in the history of The Lone Ranger. He is mostly considered to be his older brother, a former captain of the Texas Rangers considered to be a war hero. But there are other versions of Dan Reid, one being the Lone Ranger's young nephew and the father of Britt Reid, who will be familiar to many as The Green Hornet. With Armie Hammer in the title role, Dale would obviously be playing the former, but I've always been fascinated by the connections between The Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet.

Dale will be seen next opposite Brad Pitt in World War Z, but unfortunately he'll have to drop out of contention to play Bruce Willis' son in A Good Day to Die Hard as The Lone Ranger schedule will be keeping him busy for awhile. Still, he'll be working with Fassbender, Pitt, and Depp all within a year. That's damn impressive. 

Tom Wilkinson, Helena Bonham Carter, Barry Pepper, Ruth Wilson, and Dwight Yoakem are all back as production is set to kick off next month. The Lone Ranger rides into theaters on May 31st 2013.

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