Congratulations, everyone! You’ve made it past Monday in the first official week of 2015. Your reward? A hearty helping of Movie Morsels with juicy nuggets about Gambit, Spectre, Mad Max: Fury Road, Doctor Strange, and much more.

Gambit

The X-Men universe is getting even larger because the Channing Tatum-starring Gambit film has an official release date. The news comes courtesy of Tatum himself:

How do you say October 7, 2016 in Cajun?

— Channing Tatum (@channingtatum) January 6, 2015

That’s plenty of time for Tatum to practice throwing cards and a Cajun accent. Or, you know, develop mutant powers — whichever is easier. In addition to the release date, we also know that the X-Men spinoff film was being worked on by RoboCop reboot writer Josh Zeteumer based on a treatment by X-Men writer and Gambit creator Chris Claremont.

[ScreenCrush]

Spectre

Can’t wait to see James Bond back in action? Neither can we. While details about Spectre, the currently filming James Bond adventure, are scare, the official Twitter account for Agent 007 tweeted out a picture of an icy location:

#firstdayback on set #SPECTRE pic.twitter.com/I2c87zySIu — James Bond (@007) January 5, 2015

Could this mean we’ll see James Bond showing off the snowboarding skills he first displayed in A View to a Kill? Here’s hoping.

[007 Twitter]

Doctor Strange

Although he’s currently making waves on the awards circuit for his turn in The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch is already preparing for his strangest role yet in Marvel’s Doctor Strange. Speaking with The Wall Street Journal, Cumberbatch talked about his excitement about joining the Marvel universe:

“Marvel is a stable of bringing out ordinary comic characters and turning them into screen-like gods. It’s very different, it’s an Astral Plane. There’s a huge new element to this Marvel universe that’s going to be employed in building this story and this character. But you know, I’m really excited about it, about working with Scott [Derrickson] whose imagination is endless, and all the boys and girls at Marvel who know what they’re doing. I’ve got a few things to get under my belt first. I’ve got to do that little stage production of Hamlet in the summer and the Christmas special of Sherlock, which we start shooting in about three days’ time – Whoops! Yeah, that’s there.”

In the meantime, Cumberbatch is preparing for the role by reading every Doctor Strange comic he can get his charming hands on:

“There weren’t many comics in my household — [in a self-mocking voice] “I’m so deprived.” We didn’t have Marvel so much. But you can bet your bottom dollar I’m reading them now, avidly.”

[Collider]

Mad Max: Fury Road

After a jaw-dropping trailer for George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, May 15, 2015 can’t come soon enough. New magazine scans featuring images from the hotly anticipated Warner Bros’ sequel have emerged and now I’m honestly considering building a time machine to skip over the intervening months. To see the full gallery, click through the link below.

[ComingSoon]

Big Game

While the billion-and-a-half superhero and sci-fi flicks coming out this year are all well and good, my most anticipated film of 2015 may well be Big Game. The Finnish flick from the makers of off-kilter Christmas classic Rare Exports stars Onni Tomla as a young survivalist who helps the President of the United States (played by Samuel L. Jackson) survive a terrorist attack deep in the Finnish wilderness. Sounds crazy? Wait ’til you see this trailer:

Hits

“Fame is proof that people are gullible” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

These are the words that play at the end of the trailer for Hits, David Cross’ upcoming directorial debut about what it means to be famous in the modern world. The film centers around Dave (Matt Walsh), a downtrodden average Joe who desperately wants his small town to fix the potholes on his street. However, when one of his impassioned invectives at a City Hall meeting gets recorded and uploaded to YouTube, Dave suddenly finds himself in the spotlight. What follows is utter madness as Dave, his fame-hungry daughter, and the entire town get swept up in the surge of stardom that takes over this small town.

[CinemaBlend]

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