Today’s Movie Morsels has plenty for both the young and the young at heart. With new trailers for Columbia’s Annie remake and Dreamworks’ Madagascar spin-off The Penguins of Madagascar (in which master thespians Benedict Cumberbatch and John Malkovich go mano a mano as a goodly wolf and dastardly octopus, respectively), as well as test footage for a proposed Sock Monkey movie. Of course if adult drama is more to your liking, we’ve got word on Christian Bale’s potential replacement in the untitled Steve Jobs biopic. Oh, and we also have the latest on a little film called Ant-Man and Universal’s plans for its rebooted shared-universe monster franchise!

Ant-Man

Marvel has just released a new synopsis for next summer’s Ant-Man, currently filming near Atlanta. It’s identical to the film’s original synopsis with two noteworthy exceptions — mention is made of the character’s status as a “founding member of the Avengers” and Paul Rudd’s character Scott Lang is no longer described as a “con-man” but rather a master thief. Does this indicate a change in the production that occurred once Peyton Reed replaced Edgar Wright as director? We’ll know more after Ant-Man is released on July 17th, 2015. Here’s the synopsis:

“The next evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings a founding member of The Avengers to the big screen for the first time Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man. Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, master thief Scott Lang must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.”

[Screenrant]

Untitled Universal Monster Franchise Film

Universal Studios has announced the release date for the second film in the shared universe reboot of its classic monster movies — Friday, April 27th, 2017. The first such film in the series, director Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy, is due out on June 24th, 2016; with Kurtzman serving as producer on the entire project along with Fast & Furious‘ Chris Morgan. The questions that immediately come to mind are which monster will be number 2 and can the Universal Monsters be the action movie stars that Kurtzman and Morgan have apparently reimagined them to be?

From Universal: “A new epic action-adventure in a series produced and overseen by the creative team of Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek series) and Chris Morgan (Fast & Furious series), the UNTITLED UNIVERSAL MONSTER FRANCHISE FILM will follow The Mummy in their new initiative to revive and reimagine Universal’s classic monsters for a modern audience.”

[Collider]

Annie

Though it’s not the first film that comes to mind when one thinks “comic adaptation,” it’s important to remember that Annie is indeed inspired by the classic newspaper comic strip by cartoonist Harold Gray (via the 1977 Broadway musical and 1982 film). This latest take on America’s spunkiest orphan — starring Jamie Foxx as William Stacks (Daddy Warbucks 2.0) and Quvenzhané Wallis — hits theaters on December 19th. Here’s the film’s final trailer…

[Variety]

Untitled Steve Jobs Biopic

The Lord taketh and the Lord giveth… Yesterday we reported that Christian Bale has left director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s untitled film about Steve Jobs. Today we learn that Michael Fassbender (pictured above in X-Men: Days of Future Past) is in talks to star as the late Apple founder, opposite Seth Rogen’s Steve Wozniak. “Aaron Sorkin’s script is said to be divided into three acts that detail Jobs preparing for three presentations that came to define his life and the life of the company he co-founded, lost and came back to.” Boyle is in Los Angeles this week to meet with actors and actresses about the film.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

The Penguins of Madagascar

At Comic-Con, we got excited for the Madagascar spinoff after chatting with the creators of Dreamworks’ The Penguins of Madagascar about their Benedict Cumberbatch-starring epic. Now we’ve got a brand-new trailer for the film, featuring undercover waterfowl Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private; their buddy Classified (voiced by Cumberbatch); and their foe Dr. Octavius Brine (voiced by John Malkovich). It hits theaters on November 26th. Look, listen, and love.

[Coming Soon]

Sock Monkey

You will believe a monkey can be made of socks… That’s the takeaway from some test animation footage shot by filmmaker Matt Danner for a proposed film based on cartoonist Tony Millionaire’s Sock Monkey books. The next volume, Sock Monkey: Into The Deep Woods, is due out on November 16th.

“Story follows stuffed hero Uncle Gabby as he and his doll pals venture across sea, land, and air to save their human, Ann-Louise, whom they fear has been kidnapped by a vicious monster. The Sock Monkey project was initially envisioned as a film, but when Danner wrote the treatment as a children’s book, Millionaire’s publisher Fantagraphics caught wind of it and agreed to publish it in print form first. Danner and Millionaire are going out to studios and financiers with the script and teaser, which Danner shot on his own over the course of one day with a small crew. Using five different “digi-nette” puppets on a practical set, they shot live-action footage which was later blended with CG to create a surreal look and feel.” Check out the footage below.

[Deadline]

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Images: Marvel, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox