NEW YORK (AP) ― On a weekend in January of 2010, Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios pivoted faster than even Spider-Man would dare.A fourth installment of the hugely popular Spider-man franchise was planned, with director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire returning to their trilogy of films that had earned more than $2.5 billion at the global box office and generally been hailed as a standard-bearer in big-screen comic book adaptations.But by that Monday, Raimi’s dissatisfaction with the script and

PARIS (AFP) ― Approaching 80 with a handful of Oscars under his belt, American film veteran Woody Allen says what drives him still is the desire to make a great movie.“I’m 76 now so I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I keep trying,” he told journalists on Monday in Paris in his typical self-deprecating fashion.“I would like to make a movie that I could ... show unashamedly at a film festival” alongside the likes of “Rashomon,” “The Seventh Seal,” or “8 1/2” ― movies he considers masterpie

Newly revealed childhood photos of actress Angelina Jolie are causing a stir among fans around the world.The pictures of the star show similar features at age 14, with her characteristic pouty lips and deep-set eyes.Angelina, then known as Angie Voight, flashes a wide smile in a photo with her friend at her eighth grade graduation.The daughter of actor Jon Voight, Angie started out her modeling career at a young age. She had a wild and rebellious youth, at one point dropping out of acting classe

Korean actors Lee Byung-hun and Ahn Sung-ki became the first Korean actors to leave handprints and footprints in the forecourt of an iconic Hollywood theater.The two stars left imprints of their hands and feet outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California, on Saturday as part of events held during the “Looking East 2012 Korean Movie Festival” from Saturday to Sunday. Ten Korean films including “Unbowed,” “Poetry,” and “Thirst,” were screened during the two-day festival. “I can’t bel

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― For modern movie princesses, looking pretty and marrying a prince isn’t enough.Take “Mirror Mirror,’’ where Snow White rescues her prince from an evil spell, or “Snow White and the Huntsman,’’ where she becomes the hunter who avenges her father, marries none of her suitors and confidently runs her kingdom alone.  Further upending the Cinderella syndrome at a theater near you is Pixar’s first ever female protagonist, the feisty Scottish Princess Merida of “Brave,’’ who demands

I AM (Korea)Opened June 21Documentary. Directed by Choi Jin-seong. K-pop and talent agency S.M. Entertainment has created a documentary film to once again glorify their New York concert at Madison Square Garden. The movie is a cinematically edited version of SM’s 16 years of archived video footage -- from its 32 idols’ younger days as aspiring stars and SM-trainees to the day of the Madison Garden triumph last year. Featured stars include the legendary boy band H.O.T member Kang Ta, pop singer B

Hollywood has a long, rich tradition of historical abominations, but never has there been a history done more abominably than “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.”If only they’d made this insane conceit more fun. If only they’d taken it all a bit less seriously. But this film, adapted by the same fellow who wrote the inexplicably popular novel of the same title, isn’t even bad enough to be camp.Seth Grahame-Smith’s silly script re-imagines the Rail Splitter as a vampire vanquisher, a man seeking ve

KOFIC’s new book explores Korea’s foray into Chinese movie marketWhile K-pop and Korean TV shows have been exerting a significant influence in Asia’s entertainment industry in the last decade, Korean cinema has been often excluded from the so-called “hallyu glory.”One of the major reasons behind the phenomenon is the ever-booming movie industry of neighboring country China. In 2010, China became the world’s third-largest maker of movies after the U.S. and India. It rolled out 558 feature-length

 ‘Architecture 101’ and ‘Fashion King’ actor shares his thoughts on movies, and taking on different challengesNo one on Korea’s film scene has been busier than actor Lee Je-hoon in the last few months.The 28-year-old actor has been involved with two movies and one drama since last year. One of the movies, “Architecture 101,” in which Lee played a shy university student who suffers heartbreak over

“The Amazing Spider-Man,” the latest addition to the Spider-Man franchise, is not just about an action hero and large-scale computer graphics on 3-D screen, according to its director Mark Webb.Speaking at a press conference last Thursday at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Seoul joined by Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield, Garfield’s on- and off-screen love interest Emma Stone, actor Riys Ifans who plays the villain The Lizard, and producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach, Webb said the action film is also a

Deranged (Yeongasi) (Korea)Opening July 5Thriller. Directed by Park Jeong-woo. Jae-hyuk (Kim Myeong-min) is an ordinary man in his 40s who works for a medical supplies company. One day, a number of dead bodies are found floating on the Han River. The public is even more shocked when they find out the men and women jumped into the water as if they were on drugs, as seen on CCTV footage. Experts discover there is an outbreak of fatal virus-infected horsehair worms. Once infected by the deadly para

“Lola Versus” is a conventionally unconventional romance in the modern mode, a comedy alternating between cute and crude and packing a heaping helping of self-affirmation into its 84 minutes.It’s got that “Where have I seen this before?” familiarity even as it updates an old formula with snappy and saucy one-liners.But best of all, it has Greta Gerwig, indie-film’s blonde-next-door. Gerwig (“Greenberg,” “No Strings Attached”) brings that hapless and unhappy neediness thing she does so well to Lo

 Ko Hyun-jung’s first commercial film lacks laughs, focusIt all seemed promising in the beginning. After all, the movie was going to be actress Ko Hyun-jung’s first commercial flick. The popular actress, who has been dominating the local TV drama scene by playing nothing but powerful women, was going to be a social recluse in this highly anticipated comedy. She had heavyweight actors including Yoo Hae-jin and Park Shin-yang as her co-stars.But “Miss GO,” or “Miss Conspirator,” turned out to be a