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‘Hunger Games’ Fans ‘Freaking Out’ Over New Trailer

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

‘There were lots of tears,’ one superfan tells MTV News. By Kara Warner Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games” Photo: Lionsgate Another week, another trailer debut! Last week, we got excited about Kristen Stewart’s intensity in “Snow White and the Huntsman” ; this week, it’s all about the first full-length “Hunger Games” trailer . MTV News contacted a few of the book and film adaptation’s biggest fans for their instant reactions to seeing Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) in all their first-trailer glory. “It’s pretty incredible,” said Sara Gundell of Examiner.com . “This is probably the most excited I’ve been about this movie since I don’t know when.” “We had a little treat. We got to go down to Lionsgate a few days early and we got to see the trailer there,” revealed TheHob.org ‘s Megan Scott. “So we’ve been freaking out for three days now,” added Hob colleague Amanda Belcher. “We’ve been absolutely freaking out,” Scott agreed. “The first time I got to see it, I was crying — and I’ve never cried before with a trailer,” admitted Arianna Ruiz of HungerGamesDWTC.net . “It’s just so emotional and it’s so wonderful to see my favorite book brought to life, and I’m sure it’s the same for everybody else as well.” “There were lots of tears,” Scott said. “Yes, lots of tears, [during] the reaping scene especially,” Belcher added. “We all teared up. How could you not with Katniss screaming and you see Primm being carried away? But I think we were tearing up over the excitement of finally seeing this and how good it really is.” While Gundell is still skeptical of how faithfully director Gary Ross and company will adapt Suzanne Collins’ best-seller for the big screen, the trailer has helped alleviate a few pre-conceived fears. “I’m still cautious going into ‘The Hunger Games,’ but after seeing the trailer, I’m about 10 times more optimistic than I was beforehand,” she said. “It definitely has raised my hopes.” Check out everything we’ve got on “The Hunger Games.” For young Hollywood news, fashion and “Twilight” updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com . Related Videos Reactions To The First ‘Hunger Games’ Trailer Related Photos ‘Hunger Games’ Character Posters The Hunger Games

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Jonas Brothers ‘Want To Take Time’ On Next Album

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

‘We promised the band’s not over,’ Joe Jonas tells MTV News. By Jocelyn Vena, with additional reporting by Kara Warner Nick Jonas Photo: MTV News All three Jonas Brothers have spent some time apart, working on their individual projects: Nick Jonas has been producing other artists and will appear in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” on Broadway, while Joe Jonas has been busy pimping his solo album, Fastlife , all over the globe. The guys admit it’s time to get the old band back together. “We had been focusing this past year and a half on our individual projects and what we’re doing on our own, and I think that with ‘How to Succeed’ and with Joe still promoting his album and doing all that, that’s still a bit part of the future,” Nick told MTV News when he stopped by our New York office last week. “However, we have started thinking about the next step and what that means for the brothers, and the tone overall is just that we want it to be the right time, and we want to take our time.” In fact, there’s even a timeframe for when the guys intend to really start thinking more about their next album. “I’m gonna be going to New York probably when Nick’s going to be doing some Broadway stuff, so maybe some more Jonas Brothers stuff soon,” Joe added on the set of “Hot in Cleveland” a day later. “Kevin, he lives in New York, so we’ll all be there together. We’ll see what happens. Nick’s gonna be working on his project, and we’re always writing together, and we promised the band’s not over. So, I’m definitely looking forward to be able to get back with them.” And, JoBros fans, there even seems to some chatter that in addition to new music, there might also be some new tour plans. “We’re excited to make music for our fans again and to be able to tour one day together again,” Nick explained. “I don’t know necessarily when that will be, but it will happen, and when it does, we’re gonna be really excited, and hopefully our fans and others will be excited as well.” Are you awaiting the next Jonas Brothers album and tour? Tell us below! Related Artists Jonas Brothers

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‘Twilight’ Fans Bond Over Vampire Love In ‘Tent City’

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

‘I would have come two weeks ago if they would have let me,’ one camper tells MTV News outside ‘Breaking Dawn’ premiere. By Kara Warner A fan attends the “Breaking Dawn” premiere in Los Angeles Photo: Getty Images LOS ANGELES — Here at MTV News, we’ve been celebrating the highly anticipated release of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1” with a flurry of “Twilight”-related activity. Now it’s time to spotlight the very dedicated, passionate fanbase. On Saturday, we headed out to “Twilight” fan central, fondly referred to as “tent city,” where more than 900 people had already set up camp ahead of tonight’s Los Angeles premiere. (Join MTV.com live from the red carpet at 8 p.m. ET!) “I got here at 12 a.m. Wednesday night,” Megan Lambert told us in front of her “Team Jacob”-themed tent. Lambert holds the #2 spot in line and is hoping for a hug from Taylor Lautner at the premiere. Campers Lisa Paulosky, Emily Chadduck and Christy Brolezi bonded over their love for “Twilight” and formed a Facebook group ahead of the premiere for fellow fans who wanted to camp out. Several members traveled a considerable distance to be there. “I came from Chicago,” Paulosky said. “I came from New Mexico,” Chadduck admitted. They all want one thing on Monday: a Robert Pattinson encounter. “I need to take a picture with Rob,” Brolezi said. “My heart will break if I don’t.” The most creative fan group award goes to the ladies behind the Facebook group Kristen Stewart’s Hot Bodyguard, a.k.a. Team HBG. Unsurprisingly, the ladies are hoping for a photo opp with Kristen and their main man, HBG. “We have a special present for HBG that we’ve been holding onto for a year,” founding member Lynsey Jacob told us. We also happened upon a young male fan, who wasn’t at all shy about his love for the lady vampires, particularly Nikki Reed. “I’m Team Vampires,” Cody Huddleston said with a smile. The dedication among these fans is a marvel, and they would have camped out sooner if they could have. “I would have come two weeks ago if they would have let me,” Shannon Berry said. “I would have come a month ago.” Tonight, join MTV.com live from the “Breaking Dawn – Part 1” red-carpet premiere as we talk to your favorite stars about all things “Twilight”! Check out everything we’ve got on “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1.” For young Hollywood news, fashion and “Twilight” updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com . Related Photos Twilighters Set Up Camp For ‘Breaking Dawn’ Premiere ‘Breaking Dawn’ Premieres Around The World

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Lady Gaga And Laurieann Gibson Split: Experts React

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

‘It’s shocking and it’s not,’ one music writer tells MTV News. By Jocelyn Vena Lady Gaga Photo: WireImage After spending nearly her entire career working with Laurieann Gibson , Lady Gaga confirmed Monday (November 14) that she and her creative director had decided to part ways. It was a move that may have been surprising to Gaga’s Little Monsters, considering how closely the two have created some of the Mother Monster’s most memorable visuals, but did the split surprise music-industry observers? “On the one hand, I get why [they split], because it seems like Laurieann’s been doing a lot outside of the Gaga universe,” Entertainment Weekly ‘s Kyle Anderson told MTV News, referring to Gibson’s starring roles on the BET dance competition show “Born to Dance” and another dance reality series, E!’s “The Dance Scene.” “On the other hand, it’s a little bit strange, because Gaga’s circle of people is so small, and all those people have been with her since pretty much the duration. She’s really, really loyal, so it’s a little bit strange to me, because I think she has this circle of people she trusts with her work.” Who should be Gaga’s next choreographer? Let us know in the Newsroom! As a key member of the Haus of Gaga, Gibson was never afraid to share her honest opinion about Gaga’s work. Most notably, she spoke out publicly against Gaga’s Jo Calderone performance at the VMAs , as well as her Nick Knight-directed “Born This Way” clip . That unbridled honesty could be behind the Gaga/Gibson split, according to Us Weekly senior music editor Ian Drew. “It’s shocking and it’s not,” Drew told MTV News. “They were extremely close, and she let Laurieann have an unprecedented amount of control in her camp. Let’s face it: Laurieann is very headstrong, never holds back what she thinks, and that tends to rub people the wrong way. I’m not totally surprised; it was only a matter of time. “Look, I love Laurieann, and as a journalist, she’s an interviewer’s dream, because you’d catch her and she’d always just say what was going on,” he added. “Laurieann would just say it. She would give you that perfect sound bite. She tended to be a little bit loose-lipped. But on the other hand, I can see why that maybe ruffled Gaga’s feathers, because Gaga’s all about the performance piece and not giving away too much. Laurieann really liked to take credit — not that that was bad, [and] maybe it was due, but maybe Gaga didn’t want everyone knowing that. In the end, I do tend to think it was something to do with creative differences.” The big question is how the duo’s severed partnership will impact Gaga’s future endeavors. Will Little Monsters notice Gibson’s absence? “It always puts a really, really heavy focus on whatever the next project is,” Anderson explained. “With stars like these, people become curious to know: ‘Well how much do these individual cogs play into what we see in front of us?’ These two have been together [for years], so we don’t yet know what Gaga is like without her. So we don’t know exactly what part of that personality plays into her projects.” What do you think about Gaga and Laurieann’s split? Let us know on Facebook. Related Videos MTV News Extended Play: Lady Gaga Creative Director Laurieann Gibson Related Artists Lady Gaga

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Red Hot Chili Peppers Debut ‘Monarchy Of Roses’ Video

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

New clip is a tribute to artist Raymond Pettibon, who helped shape the L.A. punk scene the band grew up in. By James Montgomery Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis Photo: Sean Gardner/ Getty Images When I first interviewed the Red Hot Chili Peppers back in June, frontman Anthony Kiedis made it a point to wear his now-ubiquitous OFF! cap (the same one he’d wear in their “Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie” video ), a tribute to the punk supergroup made up of members of Black Flag, Red Kross and Rocket From the Crypt, to name just a few. The reason I mention that now is because the Peppers just premiered the video for “Monarchy of Roses,” the second single from their I’m With You album, a stark, surging, (mostly) black-and-white thing very much indebted to the work of artist Raymond Pettibon, who made his mark designing album covers, logos and flyers for Black Flag, SST Records and just about anyone else associated with the L.A. punk scene of the late ’70s/early ’80s. So, in a way, months before “Roses,” Kiedis was already tipping his, uh, cap to Pettibon. Shoot, he even mentions the artist in the lyrics to the song, which makes the clip — directed by Marc Klasfeld — even more fitting. And when you consider the fact that the Peppers basically grew up in the scene Pettibon helped shape (they caught an early break thanks to impresario Brendan Mullen , who booked them at his infamous Club Lingerie), you realize that this video has actually been a in the works for a very long time indeed. While it might not be as flashy or instantly memorable as some of the band’s other clips, it fits both the grit of the song — and the Peppers’ entire legacy — perfectly. Pettibon’s bludgeoning black-and-white images, which he often matches with harrowing texts taken from popular culture, art criticism and commercials, are a true combination of the sacred and the profane, and you could reasonably argue by that logic alone that they’ve been inspiring Kiedis’ lyrics for years now. The argument could also be made that, by sheer will alone, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have finally earned the right to be considered right alongside bands like Black Flag (and artists like Pettibon) in the pantheons of Left Coast rock, punk or otherwise. Which adds a whole new wrinkle to the “Roses” video, really: It may be their coronation, though I am reasonably sure they did not intend it to be. They’re too humble. And always paying tribute, to Mullen (on the I’m With You track “Brendan’s Death Song”), to their punk forefathers (Kiedis’ OFF! cap) and, really, to the artist who managed to inject iconography into the whole thing. That he did it in such a stark, shocking way was a testament to the music and the ethos of the era, and as “Roses” proves, it’s a solid fit for the Peppers too. After all, like Petibon’s work, they know a thing or two about bleak times. And they’ve never been afraid to get a little bloody, either. What do you think of the video? Let us know in the comments! Related Artists Red Hot Chili Peppers

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‘The Dark Knight Rises’: Spoiling The Spoilers

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

How knowing everything about everything is ruining everything, in this week’s The Weekly Rising. By Kevin P. Sullivan Christian Bale and Tom Hardy on the set of “Dark Knight Rises” Photo: Getty Images Guys, I think we’re doing it wrong. We have eight months until the July 20, 2012, release date of “The Dark Knight Rises,” and none of this feels right. I mean, yeah, a new Christopher Nolan -directed Batman movie is coming out this summer. Yeah, it’s great that he’s picked up some of his “Inception” alums to join the cast. And granted, what we’ve seen from the set does look pretty cool. (Just whose panties is Matthew Modine holding?!?!) That’s all well and good, but do you ever get the feeling something is missing? Think back to the lead-up to the release of “The Dark Knight” back in 2007 and 2008. If you were one of the 10 million people who participated in the “Why So Serious?” and “I Believe in Harvey Dent” marketing campaigns, I’m sure you vividly remember what you were doing. That’s because you were most likely running around to bakeries and digging through cakes for hidden cell phones or opening lockers in bowling alleys to look for more clues. At the very least, you followed along at home and watched as people from around the world cooperated just for the chance to get your first glimpse at Heath Ledger ‘s take on the Joker or a vandalized version of the first trailer. When the film finally arrived in theaters, it wasn’t just another movie. It was something bigger. “The Dark Knight” became a phenomenon and an experience that you had a part in. The immersive, alternate reality game that led up to the release of “The Dark Knight” was all the work of one company, 42 Entertainment. The reason we haven’t had a similar campaign for “The Dark Knight Rises” is because 42 Entertainment is in no way involved with the project. In the company’s absence, a new viral campaign in the vein of “Why So Serious?” exists, but it is nowhere near “Why So Serious?” in terms of quality and quantity. “The Fire Rises” began as a chant on the film’s official website back on May 20. Fans eventually figured out that the visual spectrum of the noise pointed to a Twitter hashtag, #TheFireRises. For each subsequent re-tweet of the tag, Warner Bros. revealed another pixel of what ended up being the first photo of Tom Hardy as Bane . An impressive and intricate start for the campaign that looked to follow in 42 Entertainment’s footsteps, but the clues soon stopped. The Twitter account lay idle until last week, when it told followers to add their voice to Hans Zimmer’s score via UJAM, several days after that news originally broke. But even removing the added layer of complexity that comes with an alternate reality game or a simple viral marketing campaign isn’t enough to explain the bungled anticipation for “The Dark Knight Rises.” Instead of simply looking forward to a film without having any elaborate task to complete, which is how fans of all other films spend their pre-releases, those who follow “The Dark Knight Rises” have been subjected to a deluge of spy photos and videos from the set. The main reason for Warner Bros.’s hurried release of an official Catwoman photo was the existence of amateur pictures. Avoiding pictures of Bane or the Batwing or Batman leading the charge with the police in tow is not an option anymore. Since the information is so widely available, it’s all simply part of the conversation now. We cover it here simply because the information is out there, and people want to know — all of which begs the question, “Why are we doing this?” Why is there a drive to find out everything about a film before you see it in its proper form? I can’t help but believe that there is at least some subconscious battle of egos among Batman fans here, where the one who knows the most information that they’re not supposed to know is somehow superior. Here I was thinking that the whole point of all of this was that we are looking forward to seeing a movie, one that is meticulously structured with surprises and turns that are created to be enjoyed only within the context of the film and not a video some extra recorded on her iPhone. No one was scrambling to find out everything about “Inception” before its release. It had the benefit of a normal ad campaign and launch. Even if “The Dark Knight Rises” isn’t going to get the full 42 Entertainment treatment, it at least deserves a normal release along the lines of “Inception.” Now is a good time to remember that when it comes to Christopher Nolan movies, the one who goes in knowing the least is the one who has the most fun. What have you thought of the lead-up to “The Dark Knight Rises”? Let me know via @KPSull on Twitter, and we’ll discuss next week. Here’s a rundown of this past week’s “The Dark Knight Rises” news. The MPAA granted “The Dark Knight Rises” prologue a PG-13 rating. College Humor examined just how Batman found his voice . We visited the New York set for a look at

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Kelly Clarkson Announces Stronger Tour Dates

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Singer will hit the road with opener Matt Nathanson in January. By Gil Kaufman Kelly Clarkson Photo: MTV News Kelly Clarkson won’t have much time to nurse her New Year’s Eve hangover, as she’s slated to hit the road in early January for the first North American leg of her world tour in support of Stronger. The trek will kick off on January 13 with a show in Mashantucket, Connecticut, and is currently slated to run through an April 10 date at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, California. Clarkson — whose fifth album recently landed a #2 debut on the Billboard 200 albums chart — will be joined by singer/songwriter Matt Nathanson on the outing. Though she came in behind Coldplay during her first week in stores, Clarkson was more than happy to square off against the British group for chart supremacy. “My album came out this week, Coldplay came out at the same time, and people were like, ‘Oh my God, are you kidding? Coldplay is going to kill you!’ I don’t care if they kill me,” Clarkson told MTV News of the rock band, whose Mylo Xyloto topped the charts with 447,000 copies sold. “It’s more like, how many people are going to buy their album, and then my album is right there, ’cause it’s out too,” she said. “I always think competition is healthy.” She’s not sweating it, since Clarkson has already said that she feels Stronger is her best album to date. She’s now getting ready to drop the second single off the LP, “What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger).” “I think we might be going with ‘Stronger,’ the title track,” Clarkson said. “It’s just a great song, so I think we might go with that one.” As a bonus, Clarkson also expects that the song will be a blast to play in concert. ” ‘What Doesn’t Kill You,’ I can’t wait to perform that live,” said the singer. “We’ve already rehearsed it, and it’s so much fun. It’s like this big dance anthem.” Tickets for the tour will go on sale November 18. Dates for Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger tour:

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‘Breaking Dawn’ Vampire Contacts ‘Kill’ Kristen Stewart

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

‘That is one thing I can’t wait to say goodbye to,’ she tells MTV News. By Kara Warner, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in “Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1” Photo: Summit Entertainment The dedicated Kristen Stewart fans out there are likely very well aware that she wears colored contact lenses for her role as Bella Swan in the “Twilight” movies. And in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” Stewart dons the amber lenses her co-stars Robert Pattinson, Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Jackson Rathbone and Kellan Lutz have been wearing for years as part of their official Cullen vampire clan costuming. When MTV News caught up with Stewart recently, we asked about that experience and she revealed that, although she’s experienced with contacts, her new vampire ones weren’t much fun to wear. “They are worse. The yellow ones sort of limit your vision even more, and so you feel a little bit more closed off,” she said. “That is one thing I can’t wait to say goodbye to, is the contacts. They just kill you. [They give you] dead face.” Pattinson recently told us he was delighted that his co-star had to suffer with the rest of them. “She’s like, ‘I wear contact lenses. Why do you always complain about yours?’ ” Pattinson said. “When she finally wore them and then was complaining about them every second of the day, it was kind of satisfying.” Stewart said the yellow lenses were totally worth the trouble, because she was so excited to play the vampire version of Bella. “I’ve been waiting. To see her thrive anytime, it’s — she’s always so full of something that she knows, and it’s like, at this point, you finally go, ‘Oh, she was right,’ and she can also go, ‘OK, great, I’m not crazy, this was supposed to happen.’ ” Stewart said Bella’s previous feelings that she was different from others are validated in the final film. “The whole vampire thing, I wasn’t excited to be white and all that; I was really more excited to finally get her there, because she wants it so bad.” Tonight, join MTV.com live from the “Breaking Dawn – Part 1” red-carpet premiere as we talk to your favorite stars about all things “Twilight”! Check out everything we’ve got on “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1.” For young Hollywood news, fashion and “Twilight” updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: Robert Pattinson MTV Rough Cut: Kristen Stewart MTV Rough Cut: ‘Breaking Dawn – Part 1’

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‘Walking Dead’ Star Norman Reedus Talks Daryl Dixon

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

‘He needs a hug, but if you hug him, he’ll try to stab you,’ Reedus tells MTV News of his character. By Josh Wigler Norman Reedus Photo: MTV News Given its comic book basis, some “Walking Dead” characters seem safer than others. Main hero Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), for instance, isn’t likely to go anywhere anytime soon. But then there are folks like Rick’s former partner Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal) who are already long gone in the comics at this point in the TV series, proving the AMC survival horror show’s willingness to veer off the paneled path that’s come before. Another example of a man who could exit the scene early is Daryl Dixon, “Boondock Saints” actor Norman Reedus’ hillbilly hunter who does not appear in the comics at all. In fact, for a while there, it looked like Daryl was about to meet his maker in this past Sunday’s episode, titled “Chupacabra,” after sustaining injuries from a fall and nearly becoming fresh meat for two very hungry walkers. But thanks to an unexpected visit (or hallucinated appearance, rather) from his hateful brother Merle — Michael Rooker’s one-handed character who’s been missing for several episodes now — Daryl was able to channel his inner Dixon, kill the two walkers through some very rudimentary means, and return himself to Hershel’s farm in one piece. (Well, almost — thanks for that almost-lethal head shot, Andrea!) Daryl Dixon has quickly become a fan-favorite character on “Walking Dead,” not just for the folks at home, but even for creator Robert Kirkman . It should come as no surprise that Reedus himself is a huge Daryl fan. The actor has had a lot to explore over the course of one and a half seasons of “Dead,” and given the character’s continued journey toward redemption and harmony with his fellow survivors, it seems safe to say that Daryl will hang around for a bit longer — even if he doesn’t need to, in Reedus’ point of view. “Daryl’s interesting,” the actor told MTV News about his character. “While the rest of the group is fighting zombies to survive and make this world work, Daryl can handle himself. He can hunt, he can track, he can protect himself. His turmoil is emotional: how to deal with other people. There are these moments when these other characters you wouldn’t expect keep telling him, ‘You’re worth a damn. You’re better than you think you are.’ There are certain things that happen when you realize how hard his upbringing is. He needs a hug, but if you hug him, he’ll try to stab you. “I’m trying to play him like a wet cat in an alley,” Reedus continued. “You try to take care of it, but it hisses at you and rips your hands up. But he wants you to take him home. That’s what this group represents to Daryl, I think.” Tell us what you thought of this week’s “Walking Dead” in the comments!

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‘Immortals’: Five Secrets Revealed

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Stunt coordinator pulls back the curtain for MTV News on stunning fight sequences and more from Tarsem Singh’s 3-D odyssey. By Eric Ditzian Henry Cavill in “Immortals” Photo: Relativity Media We’ve seen a zillion big-screen takes on Greek mythology, a zillion slo-mo fight scenes, a zillion eye-popping 3-D sequences. But what’s crazy about Tarsem Singh’s “Immortals” is that while we’ve seen this type of thing so many times before, we’ve never seen any of it quite like this. “Immortals” is, in a word, beautiful. How did Singh and his team take the story of King Hyperion’s (Mickey Rourke) attempt to conquer the world and humiliate the Gods — and Theseus’ (Henry Cavill) against-all-odds quest to stop him — and make it fresh, make it unique, make it beautiful? For answers to those questions, MTV News turned to stunt coordinator Artie Malesci, who revealed five secrets about “Immortals.” The Titans Fight “Immortals” begins with the mythical Titans, those precursors to Zeus and his Olympian clan, in prison. You just know they’re going to escape at some point. And when they finally do, their fight against the Olympians is not just amazing to watch, it also proved to be the most challenging fight scene in the entire movie. “The Titans’ fight was the hardest — figuring out the choreography and the sets and the motion-capture work,” Malesci said. “It wasn’t until way late in the process that we got the idea about how to do it. Were we going to go with motion-capture or was it going to be animated? We spent a lot of time coming up with ideas and showing them to the director and getting his input. We ended up doing it motion-capture, but within this very challenging environment. That was very, very hard.” Battling in Three Dimensions As Malesci explained it, coordinating stunts and fights for the big screen is never easy, but it’s particularly complicated when the movie is being shot in 3-D. “It’s difficult because it’s two cameras. You’ve got to move them around,” Malesci said of the dynamic, time-dilating fights. “We shot the fights at 60 frames, and they can slow it down in [post-production] to 24 frames, which makes the impact look harder.” He added, “If I wanted to smash your head into a wall, we wouldn’t do it in real time. We’d do it fairly slowly. But we film it at a higher speed and ramp it down, so it looks like I really smashed your head into the wall. This way, you don’t hurt people.” The Minotaur Head The film is filled with cool weapons and gadgets — from the CG Epirus Bow that drives much of the plot to a gruesome metal bull that stands over a fire and whose hollow belly provides a deathly chamber for some unfortunate prisoners. One of the most creative contraptions is a barbed-wire Minotaur head worn by one of Hyperion’s warriors. Sure, it looks cool, but it was demanding for actor Robert Maillet to wear and then to do anything other than stand around looking badass. “We thought it was a great idea,” Malesci said. “But we really had to stay within the limitations of what the actor could do. He couldn’t see well but the mask still had to be used as a weapon, so we made two versions: There was one made of metal for non-fighting scenes. And for the fights, there was one made of rubber. That was a challenge trying to make rubber barbed wire that could hold its shape when we were going [into] the fight.” Gods in Heaven The single hardest sequence to capture in the entire film, Malesci told us, is one that appears in trailers — gods floating and fighting against one another in heaven. How Tarsem and his team pulled it off has to be heard to be believed. “It took a month to figure out how to do that,” he said. “I thought we’d do it with wires. But instead, we built a glass floor 30 feet in the air. We made an actual elevator system using these giant computer-controlled winches to move the camera, starting right below the actors’ feet and then dropping it as fast as we could without getting any kind of camera shake.” Give the Dog an Oscar Malesci also pointed out one unexpected scene that left him, a veteran stunt coordinator with decades of experience under his belt, utterly impressed: a sequence in which a dog has to pick up the Epirus Bow on cue in the midst of a battle scene. “The dog was incredible!” Malesci laughed. “This dog, his name is Crash. The dog was able to deal with anything we threw at it — fire, fighting, rocks. Amazing!” Check out everything we’ve got on “Immortals.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Photos ‘Immortals’ Key Scenes

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