San Diego. Han Solo made his official comeback to “Star Wars” on Friday as actor Harrison Ford was the star guest at Comic-Con, and fans were given a glimpse of some behind-the-scenes footage of the new film “The Force Awakens.”

Ford made his first public appearance since a March crash of a vintage aircraft he was piloting that left him with non-threatening injuries, for which he had surgery on his leg.

The actor, 72, bounded onto the stage at the San Diego convention for film and pop culture. He said he was doing “fine,” and reflected on returning to the films that launched his career.

“It should have felt ridiculous. It was 30 years ago and I sort of grew up and yet I was doing something I did so long ago, and I will tell you that it felt great,” Ford said about his return to playing rogue smuggler-turned-rebel fighter Han Solo.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” due in theaters in December, is the first of a new trilogy rebooting George Lucas’ “Star Wars” franchise.

Ford was accompanied by “Star Wars” veterans Carrie Fisher, who plays Princess Leia, and Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker. Fisher said the three of them picked up where they left off during filming, and also enjoyed watching the newcomers to the franchise.

They were joined by actors John Boyega (Finn), Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), the three leads who will fight the dark side, of which actors Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), Domhnall Gleeson (General Hux), Gwendoline Christie (Captain Phasma) represented on Friday.

Driver didn’t reveal anything about Kylo Ren, but Gleeson said his General Hux will be in charge of people on the Starkiller base, part of the dark side.

Christie said it was “exciting” to explore playing a female Stormtrooper, soldiers of the dark side.

While “The Force Awakens” will feature a large amount of special effects, fans were treated to a clip of behind-the-scenes footage which showed real explosions, robotic creatures and intricate sets that director JJ Abrams said were essential for authenticity and for actors to interact with.

The surprises didn’t end with Ford’s appearance, as fans were ‘escorted’ by Stormtroopers to a live concert of composer John Williams’ “Star Wars” score at a nearby venue.

Reuters

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Los Angeles. Han Solo, the “Star Wars” space hero who always has a fast ship and a good blaster, will get his own stand-alone film, the Walt Disney said on Tuesday, directed by the “Lego Movie” film makers.

The untitled Han Solo project, slated for release on May 25, 2018, will be the second stand-alone “Star Wars” anthology film, following the release of “Rogue One” next year.

These films will explore a separate part of George Lucas’ intricate intergalactic universe and will intersperse the new trilogy of “Star Wars” movies kicking off with December’s highly anticipated “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

The new Han Solo film will focus on the origin story of the character made famous in the “Star Wars” films by actor Harrison Ford, who will reprise that role in “The Force Awakens.”

Solo was introduced in the original “Star Wars” film as a former smuggler who takes Luke Skywalker aboard his ship, the Millennium Falcon, and helps him escape Darth Vader.

Solo becomes the lovable scoundrel of the Rebel Alliance, fighting against the oppressive Galactic Empire along with his friend and co-pilot Chewbacca, a bear-like “wookie.”

“The story focuses on how young Han Solo became the smuggler, thief and scoundrel whom Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley,” Disney said in a statement.

Filmmakers Chris Miller and Phil Lord, best known for “Lego Movie,” the reboot of “21 Jump Street” and also Fox TV’s hit comedy series “The Last Man on Earth,” will direct the movie, which has yet to announce a cast.

“We promise to take risks, to give the audience a fresh experience, and we pledge ourselves to be faithful stewards of these characters who mean so much to us,” Miller and Lord said in a statement.

Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, best known for co-writing “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Return of the Jedi” and “The Force Awakens,” will pen the screenplay with his son Jon Kasdan.

“The Force Awakens” is the first of three new “Star Wars” films being produced by Walt Disney Co since it purchased the franchise from Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4.05 billion.

The six previously released “Star Wars” films have grossed more than $4.4 billion at the worldwide box office since 1977 and spawned a legion of devoted fans.

Reuters

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California. Actress Amy Poehler often plays upbeat characters, but the comedian brims with pep in Pixar’s animated film “Inside Out” as Joy, an emotion living inside an 11-year-old girl named Riley.

When Riley moves to a new city, Joy teams up with Sadness to boost Riley’s well-being.

Ahead of the film’s Friday debut, Poehler, 43, said “Inside Out” let her cultivate her comedic talent. Below are interview excerpts.

Q: How did you develop a character out of an abstract idea?

A: When you’re doing any kind of comedic performance, you have to figure out what are the rules of this character? Joy has very specific rules: Keep going, stay positive, stay in the moment, don’t overthink it. She does that because she has fear that things are going to turn sad. It was fun to play a character that had an arc. Suddenly Joy’s crying halfway through the movie.

Pixar does a great job in always not condescending to their audience. They don’t make “kids movies.” I love their brave attempt to go in, when a lot of movies these days are about external disasters and fabricated bad guys. Pixar decided … we’re going to make the setting an 11-year-old girl.

What did you enjoy from the experience?

Pixar is the gold standard. It’s like any project, though … Does the project come from an authentic place? Is there a person with a really specific voice at the helm? Are you working with talented people who like to collaborate? All those boxes were checked.

What’s the connection to Smart Girls, your website and video series that emphasize women’s empowerment?

Smart Girls is a sneaky attempt to be an antidote to some of the other stuff kids are watching. It’s just funny, original content … that celebrates that great age in a young girl’s life right before she’s been confused by all the wonderful things puberty has to offer. It’s celebrating this person who’s just learning to be herself. As an adult, Smart Girls, for me, is an attempt to get back to that. “Inside Out” is trying to do that too.

Is there anything you wish you had been asked?

I don’t think enough people have asked me if they think I might be up for a Grammy for the “Bing Bong” song! I’m hoping that I’ll be submitted for Best Live Vocal Performance in an Animated Film about Personified Emotions.

Reuters

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Los Angeles. Dinosaurs stomped to a box office record over the weekend as “Jurassic World” notched the biggest movie debut in history, with a global total of $524.1 million, Universal Pictures said on Monday.

“Jurassic World,” which reboots the dormant “Jurassic Park” franchise nearly 15 years after the first trilogy ended, grossed $208.8 million at the North American box office, topping the $207.4 million record set by “Avengers” in 2012.

At the international box office, “Jurassic World” opened to $315.3 million, exceeding the previous $314 million record set by “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2″ in 2011.

“Jurassic World,” starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, was made for $150 million by Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures and Legendary Pictures. It adds a capitalist twist to a world where dinosaurs still roam among humans within an island theme park.

The film easily surpassed early projections for a $121 million opening, drawing both fans of the original trilogy and a new generation of moviegoers.

“Jurassic World” becomes yet another box office hit this year for Universal Pictures, following February’s erotic “Fifty Shades of Grey,” April’s “Furious 7″ action release and May’s “Pitch Perfect 2.”

The studio notched two more records this weekend, becoming the fastest to reach $1 billion within a calendar year at the North American box office and $3 billion worldwide.

Shares of Comcast were up 4 cents at $58.30 in afternoon trading.

Reuters

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Los Angeles. From Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” to “The Lego Movie” and now “Jurassic World,” Chris Pratt is fast becoming Hollywood’s go-to franchise leading man.

Sitting on a sunny bench at Universal Studios, Pratt, 35, reflected on his whirlwind two-year rise to stardom and his transformation from TV comedy actor to movie stud.

Below are excerpts of his interview with Reuters:

Q: You played goofball Andy Dwyer on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” for seven seasons, shot to movie stardom as Peter Quill in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and now you’re playing Owen Grady in “Jurassic World.” Which is most like you?

All three of those characters are me. I think we were all born the same person, but there’s just a different set of circumstances that led them to the moment that you meet them.

I think I am exactly who Owen is if I were to be a combat veteran who had a love for animals growing up, and joins the Navy and trained dolphins and saw people get killed, saw his animals get killed, then ran off to this island.

I’m probably the least like Andy Dwyer. Andy’s really the most cartoonish of them, but he’s certainly a collection of the clown I’ve been working on my whole life.

What’s the advantage of you hitting your career stride in your thirties rather than your twenties?

I gained certain perspectives that are going to allow me to stay sane through this that I might not have had if I was in my early twenties. There are some people who get stardom in their late teens or early twenties, and they do fine with it. I don’t think I would have been one of those people. I think there are a lot of lessons I needed to learn and a lot of mistakes I needed to make outside of the public eye in order for me to survive in this.

How do you feel about being objectified for your physicality?

I love that a man is being asked this question. It needs to be asked. Who would have thought this is what equality would look like? [laughs]

[Women] have had to deal with it for a very long time. I know that I have to be very careful and measured in my answer to this because it’s part of a great conversation that’s happening right now. I don’t want to be an asshole in my part of it, but I feel fine with it.

I’m happy to be working. I’ve lived a life where I’ve struggled, rode around in my car on empty, I’ve starved, so just getting work and having access to great material and filmmakers now is a great thing. If it’s due in part to physical transformation, I think that’s just a great reality check for the world that we live in, and rather than do anything to try and change it, I’m just trying to do what I can to take advantage of it.

Reuters

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Los Angeles. When director George Miller returned to his dystopian “Mad Max” franchise after 30 years for “Fury Road,” he wanted to find a visceral way to immerse the audience in his surreal, saturated post-apocalyptic world.

“It felt like going back to something we had done in the past,” Miller told Reuters. “I wanted to make a movie almost like visual rock and roll or opera that just sweeps you up into the screen.”

The 70-year-old director also wanted to put a powerful woman on the Mad Max map, with Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa.

“Mad Max: Fury Road,” out in U.S. theaters on Friday, follows Furiosa on a mission to rescue a group of beautiful women imprisoned by warlord Immortan Joe.

Lone warrior Max Rockatansky, played by Tom Hardy, is captured by Immortan Joe’s War Boys and finds himself thrown into Furiosa’s plan.

Furiosa provides the biggest progression in Miller’s world: a hardened female counterpart to Max in a society that reduces women to being “breeders” to the warlord.

“I don’t think a lot of filmmakers really truly have an interest to want to understand what women represent not only in the post apocalyptic world, but the world today,” said Theron, who shaved her hair off to play the warrior.

The director said “Fury Road” is “uniquely familiar” to his first “Mad Max” film trilogy released between 1979 and 1985. Those movies, which starred Mel Gibson, were also set in a world fueled by fire, rage and war.

The new film plays out mostly through a constantly moving car chase across the Australian wastelands. Advances in movie-making technology allow Miller to place cameras in positions that give viewers an adrenaline rush by immersing them in the action.

Time Warner Inc-owned Warner Bros’ “Mad Max” has already won praise from critics, with a 98 percent rating on review aggregator RottenTomatoes.com. It is poised for a $40 million U.S. opening, according to box office monitor Rentrak’s senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

Hardy said he did not try to fill Gibson’s “Mad Max” shoes. Instead, he sought to further Miller’s vision of the tormented Max, who spends half the film muzzled by his captors and is haunted throughout by visions of his dead family.

“This is George’s world and he’s pushing the boundaries and endeavoring to grow it and develop more the world of the post apocalyptic landscape that it’s set in,” he said.

Reuters

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Los Angeles. Superheroes Thor and Captain America might be serious about saving the world in Marvel’s ensemble “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” but actors Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans found themselves unable to keep a straight face while discussing the film.

Amid laughs and irreverence in an interview with Reuters, Hemsworth, the 31-year-old who plays Thor, and Evans, 33, who stars in the role of Captain America, talked about the Marvel franchise and female characters. Here are excerpts.

Q: The Avengers are looking inwards at their own fears and responsibilities in “Age of Ultron.” Why was that important?

Hemsworth: They’re a little more mature than the first time around. The first time was them trying to come together as a team, and now they’re trying to operate as a larger scale, as a team, or have been for some time.

But I think all the worlds that they’ve been a part of are beginning to collide, and the pieces of the puzzle that they’ve moved around are coming together and causing this chaotic event.

There has been a lot of commentary that there needs to be more female representation in these films.

Evans: Who says that? Great, use that. Nailed it. Man, I saved this one.

Hemsworth: I didn’t say that, by the way.

Evans: No, I did.

Hemsworth: I agree, there should be more female representation … [laughing] Before he [Evans]ruins this interview and my career, what’s the question? I’m actually interested, what was the question?

How does this movie address criticism that there aren’t enough female characters in superhero movies?

Hemsworth: [If I] have it my way, I’d get rid of all of us, have an all female cast — women are smarter than men. My mum’s smarter, so is my wife, so women [turns to Evans] you should leave this interview and women should lead the world. You sexist human being.

Evans: This interview is my favorite one. This is my favorite one. My favorite.

Hemsworth: I’m with you though, I’m just not sure we’ve really nailed down the question.

Evans: But they’re going to do it though. They’re doing “Captain Marvel,” people are going nuts over Captain Marvel.

Scarlett [Johansson] was playing Black Widow in “Iron Man 2,” it wasn’t like she had a long-picture deal, but fans wanted it and she keeps coming back. Now we’ve got [Elizabeth] Olsen and even Cobie [Smulders], they keep bringing Cobie back.

There’s no denying that people want to see female superheroes and there’s plenty of them, and I think [with] Marvel, these aren’t getting old. I think a lot of people think there’s superhero exhaustion. I tend to disagree because Marvel can’t stop making good movies, and they absolutely will bring more females to the screen. Nailed it.

You answered two of our questions in one go.

Evans: I don’t even have a wife!

Reuters

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Los Angeles. The caped crusaders are back in force in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” but this time, the evil they battle is bringing them face to face with the darker consequences of being a super hero.

“Age of Ultron,” the sequel to Walt Disney’s 2012 Marvel blockbuster “Avengers” and out in US theaters on Friday, will see its star-studded super hero ensemble — Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Captain America, The Hulk and Hawkeye — tackle their own fears.

Writer-director Joss Whedon said he wanted to “perform a little open heart surgery” on the Avengers, and “let the audience experience them on a more personal level than they ever have before.”

In “Age of Ultron,” Marvel’s super hero worlds come crashing together as the super heroes tackle a complex villain in Ultron (James Spader), spawned out of artificial intelligence and evolving into a megalomaniac.

With help from twins Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), known as Quicksilver for his super speed, and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), the Scarlet Witch with thought-altering magic powers, Ultron makes the Avengers at times turn on themselves.

Robert Downey Jr., Marvel’s Iron Man and patriarch of the franchise, said given the present day “world stage,” now is the time for the Avengers to get real.

“This is where you have to actually start dealing with the ramifications of saving the world,” he said.

Business of going dark

The trend toward sombre super heroes has already proved to be a winner at the box office for other studios. The 2013 Superman film “Man of Steel,” from Time Warner’s Warner Bros, made more than $660 million worldwide. The studio’s “Dark Knight” Batman trilogy grossed more than $2 billion globally between 2005 and 2012.

Olsen said “Age of Ultron” allows audiences to see the “most human versions” of the seemingly invincible Avengers.

“It’s darker, more emotional and more based on the characters as people, as opposed to super heroes,” she said.

“Avengers” became the third-highest grossing film of all-time, and “Age of Ultron,” made for $250 million, is expected to match, and possibly surpass, its predecessor’s $1.5 billion take at the global box office.

The strategy to tackle more serious themes may aid the film’s box office, said entertainment industry analyst Hal Vogel, “because it seems to reflect a change in the social mood.”

Ahead of its US debut on Friday, “Age of Ultron” amassed $201.2 million across 44 countries, outpacing its predecessor’s opening weekend take.

Unlike the first film in which the Avengers’ battle wreaked destruction without consequences on Manhattan, “Age of Ultron” shows the super heroes very conscious of the human cost of their war against evil.

In one scene where Iron Man and The Hulk obliterate a skyscraper, the aftermath drew comparisons to the very real destruction in Manhattan during the 9/11 attacks.

“It’s a very fine line, and that may be a place we crossed it — we were all worried about that,” Whedon said. “At the same time we felt it would be disingenuous to say these guys trashed a city and there’s no consequences.”

Reuters

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