The cast of Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave has grown substantially, with Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson, Scoot McNairy, Ruth Negga, and Garret Dillahunt all signing on to star in the period drama, according to Variety.

The movie is based on the true story of Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a New York free black man who was kidnapped in Washington D.C. in 1841, and sold to a Louisiana plantation. He was a slave for 12 years before being rescued. Paul Giamatti is playing Freeman, who takes possession of the slaves after they arrive in New Orleans. Sarah Paulson the jealous wife of Michael Fassbender’s character. It isn’t clear who Scoot McNairy, Ruth Negga, and Garret Dillahunt will play. Brad Pitt and Benedict Cumberbatch also star.

Steve McQueen is directing from a screenplay he co-wrote with John Ridley, which is adapted from Northrup’s 1853 non-fiction book.

While Marvel was taking massive risks building its interconnected universe, Warner/DC seemed a lot more timid and unsure what to do with its major properties. Batman has been a major success, and while we’re getting a new Superman film, the impression is it’s only coming now to beat a deadline where Warner could have lost the screen rights.

A few years ago DC got to the point of casting a Justice League film with George Miller directing, before getting cold feet and backing off. Now the success of The Avengers has prompted them to bring the idea back to life, with Variety reporting that Will Beall has been hired to write it.

Beall is one of Warner’s favourite writers at the moment, having penned Gangster Squad and is currently working on a Lethal Weapon reboot and a Logan’s Run remake. There’s no news on what direction the Justice League film may take, or which characters may be involved, although it’s likely they try to get Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern and possibly more in there.

The idea with Miller’s film was to have a Batman and Superman in the movie which would run in parallel to Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight and (at the time) Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns. However with Nolan’s films coming to an end and Superman getting rebooted, it’s an opportunity for DC to try its own interconnected universe. Whether that will happen in yet to be seen.

Wreck-It-Ralph is a risky but potentially brilliant idea from Walt Disney Animation, with John C. Reilly voicing the title character, an old-fashioned 8-bit videogame villain who wants to be the good guy.

The plot gives plenty of scope for cameos from various videogame characters (Roger Rabbit style), and a new batch of images show us Ralph with Q*Bert and his former enemies Coily, Slick, and Ugg, while Street Fighter characters Chun-Li and Zangief can be seen in the background. It also shows the different animation styles the film will use, mimicking the different eras of videogames.

If you’re wondering why there’s a picture of a lot of plugs, it’s because this acts as a king of Grand Central Station for the videogame characters, allowing then to move from one to another. Take a look at the pics above and below, and a synopsis of the film is at the bottom of the post. (Images via USA Today)

Here’s the synopsis: Here’s the synopsis: ‘Wreck-It Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) longs to be as beloved as his video game’s perfect Good Guy, Fix-It Felix (voice of Jack McBrayer). Problem is, nobody loves a Bad Guy. But they do love heroes… so when a modern, first-person shooter game arrives featuring tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun (voice of Jane Lynch), Ralph sees it as his ticket to heroism and happiness. He sneaks into the game with a simple plan—win a medal—but soon wrecks everything, and accidentally unleashes a deadly enemy that threatens every game in the arcade. Ralph’s only hope? Vanellope von Schweetz (voice of Sarah Silverman), a young troublemaking “glitch” from a candy-coated cart racing game who might just be the one to teach Ralph what it means to be a Good Guy. But will he realize he is good enough to become a hero before it’s “Game Over” for the entire arcade?’

Although it’s only rumour at the moment, AICN reports that they’ve had a tip that Fox plans to based the sequel to X-Men: First Class on the classic Uncanny X-Men story Days of Future Past. It appears that name has been registered as a title with the MPAA, giving a good hint that’s where the movie is headed.

What’s particularly interested many about this, is that the time-travel aspect of the Days story means that it could be used to unite the casts of First Class and the X-Men movies.The story arc sees Kitty Pryde getting warned by a future version of herself from an alternate timeline that if they don’t prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly, the mutants will all be incarcerated in internment camps. The X-Men team together to stop Magneto’s Brotherhood from carrying out this plan. That helps bring back a lot of the main cast, those who split off with Magneto at the end of the last film and those who stuck with Professor X, as well as highlighting the conflict between Professor X and Magneto that has been a focus of the X-Men films.

The story alternates between the past and the future, allowing both the First Class and X-Men casts to make an appearance, if Fox can pull that off. However even if they do use this plot as the basis, there’s no guarantee any of the original X-Men will make an appearance. All we have now is that the title has been registered.

With Hollwod’s fascination with 3D at the moment, it’s almost surprising it’s taken until now for someone to come forward with the idea of making an earthquake based disaster epic in three-dimensions (if you ignore Brad Bird’s long stalled film about the 1908 San Francisco quake). However now New Line is developing San Andreas 3D, which will rip apart the famous California fault line and cause some major mayhem.

THR reports that Journey 2 helmer Brad Peyton has just been hired to direct the movie, adding it to a slate that already includes a third Journey movie (which is likely to take a trip to the moon) and a live-action film based on the DC Comics character Lobo. Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore wrote the San Andreas script, with Allan Loeb (Rock of Ages, The Dilemma, Just Go With It) brought in to do a re-write. The film will have a budget of approximately $100 million.

Earthquake films always have the potential to be fun, but Warner and New Line seem to be betting big on Peyton being a major new talent. While Journey 2 hit is big, it’s still early to say whether Peyton can follow that up with more successes.