Jon Favreau Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The title may be generic, but the cast is not. Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, and Faizon Love accompany their significant others -- Malin Akerman, Kristen Davis, Kristen Bell, and Tasha Smith -- on a vacation to paradise in Couples Retreat. There is a catch, however: intensive sessions of relationship therapy are mandatory and counselor Jean Reno doesn't take "no" for an answer. The first trailer is up at the Fruit Factory (AKA Apple.)

While there's a degree of over-familiarity with the basic premise, the trailer is very promising, edging into the naughty side of PG-13. (According to Erik Davis' post on the movie last year, that's the rating they're aiming for.) Bateman and Bell make for a good, edgy couple of Type A-personalities on the brink on break-up who ask three other couples to come along on their retreat to save money. Old friends Vaughn and Favreau have great chemistry, of course, and have worked with Bateman before. I'm not a huge fan of Akerman or Davis -- they're both lovely and have bright personalities but not a lot of comic snap. Seeing Reno as a buff instructor makes me giggle. Favreau wrote the script, based on an idea by Vaughn, and another old pal, Peter Billingsley, makes his directorial debut.

Couples Retreat is heading for release on October 9, a crowded date on the release schedule: The Informant (drama), Night of the Demons (horror), Whip It (comedy), and Zombieland (horror comedy) are also due out that day. Does the concept or the cast -- or the trailer -- grab you?

In February, Kevin James signed on to play The Zookeeper in MGM's upcoming live action comedy. At the time, the plot was described as the story of a zookeeper who decides to leave the zoo because he's having trouble meeting a girl ... but the animals intervene. Now we know what that intervention is. The guy wants to win back the woman of his dreams, so the animals teach him their methods of dating and mating. I hate to say it, but this sounds cute.

The instructors of ze love, according to Variety, will be Adam Sandler as a capuchin monkey, Cher as a giraffe, Jon Favreau as a bear, Sylvester Stallone as a lion, and Judd Apatow as an elephant. I think they missed an opportunity by not making Sly a stallion, but otherwise, those voices could make for an interesting set of mating rituals.

Jim Breuer, Faizon Love, and Bas Rutten are rounding out the voice cast, but there's also one other name on the roster -- Rosario Dawson. Yes, she will play the woman of his dreams. Oh, men must love the fantasies that Hollywood provides.

The idea of anthropomorphized animals teaching a lonely sap mating rituals could make for a lot of comedy -- if they're allowed to really dip into the mating rituals. Do you think this James laffer will live up to the promise, or pale in comparison to projects like Green Porno?

Two more have been added to the ever large Iron Man 2 roster, according to The Hollywood Reporter and with production all nice, quiet and secret save for Jon Favreau's Tweets, we can speculate endlessly on what their additions might mean.

The first is a no-brainer, as Clark Gregg is returning as Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. Having hammered out the acronym, he gets to come back and try to keep Tony on the straight, narrow, and heroic. I think that's nice. You could just have any old agent, but they're keeping Gregg.

The female addition is what's really interesting. Kate Mara has joined the cast in an unspecified role. I'm going to just throw out a random guess (based largely on her looks) that she's playing Bethany Cabe. I can't believe they'd throw another love interest or action chick into the mix, but Cabe helps to defend Tony against Whiplash and Justin Hammer. She also suits up in some old Iron Man armor alongside Rhodes' War Machine to battle the giant robot Ultimo. The groundwork is there, but it's an awful lot of action and romance for one film. Perhaps Cabe will simply show up as Stark Industries' Head of Security, ready to do her part later on? Maybe she's just a love interest for Hammer? We'll know soon enough.

But wow, three redheads in one Marvel film? I thought it was Wolverine who had that particular fetish. Go Tony!

Iron Man 2 has been filming all of three days, and no move by the cast or crew has gone undocumented by paparazzi or Jon Favreau. But that doesn't stop the rumor machine from flying. The latest is that Commissioner Gordon has jumped the DC- Warner Bros ship to make a visit to the Marvel Universe. (That's one hell of a crossover.)

IESB.net is reporting that Gary Oldman was seen on set today, though no one knows if he's actually playing a role or if he was just visiting. Oldman is currently filming Book of Eli in New Mexico so if it is a role, it can't be anything much more than a cameo.

Rumors abound that he's playing Howard Stark, Tony's father, which Tim Robbins denied all connection to a few weeks ago. But IESB has also heard that John Slattery of Mad Men fame is playing the Stark patriarch, which would honestly make a lot more sense.

So, stay tuned -- between Favreau and Just Jared, nothing is staying secret on the Iron Man 2 set for very long. Then again, not even the cast is privy to some of the mysteries. According to Favreau, Garry Shandling declared: "I can't wait to see the movie to see who I actually play." If he doesn't know, then we can't pretend to!

UPDATE: Oldman's long-time manager, Douglas Urbanski (or someone claiming to be Urbanski) has left a comment below stating the following: "I am Gary Oldman's manager. He did not visit the set for Iron Man and there are currently no plans for him to appear in the film."

As Jon Favreau Tweeted last week, Iron Man 2 begins filming today -- and while we still don't know what storylines the new film will tackle, we do know one that it won't: Demon in a Bottle.

Robert Downey Jr. brushed off the rumors with a "Not Really" to the MTV Splash Page. "As a matter of fact, I think that's probably best saved because it's such its own storyline. We're going for the interim space [between the origin and Demon] which is more a look behind the mask of someone who says he's Iron Man and what it really is to become a superhero."

That teaches us all not to read too much into a scene that involves Tony Stark puking into a toliet. But I bet we'll still see Stark knocking back a few, especially since Don Cheadle is supposed to don the War Machine armor.

In the meantime, the man who was supposed to be War Machine is still upset. Terrence Howard sat down with Sci-Fi Wire to complain about Marvel, who he insists didn't honor the cast contracts, but that the cast should have stuck together. All those rumors of diva behavior sound a little more truthful now, even as he wishes the best for Cheadle. "Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to it. I want to see what happens with that. I want to see Don Cheadle become me. I want him to do better than me. That's what I really want to see. I think he can."