Welcome to another Weekend Movie News Wrap Up. It’s almost St Patrick’s Day, which is great for everyone, but as I’m Irish it means that I can drink Guinness all day long and no one will look down on me. Well, no more than usual.

That’s enough about me though, I know that you don’t read this item to discover my social calender so I’ll cut to the chase and give you your movie news fix from the past week.

This week we have news on : Mad Max: Fury Road, George Lucas’ Red Tails, The Punisher : War Zone, Wolfgan Petersen’s Uprising and a new version of Heavy Metal.

1. Newsweek spoke with George Miller about the fourth Mad Max film: Fury Road. He is quoted as saying:

Well, the first one will be a Mad Max game. Because what happened was, we were all ready to go, within eleven weeks of shooting the next Mad Max movie, Fury Road. This was way back when the war in Iraq started, and that really threw this out for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which was that the American dollar crashed against the Australian dollar. And apart from that, just insurances, getting vehicles and stuff there on container ships–all that slowed down around the world. So we had to move on to Happy Feet, because that was going to take a long time.

He also says that Mel Gibson was all but signed to the film six years ago, but that when he makes the film it will be without Gibson, as he is too old.

Now Miller wants to make a Mad Max video game before he puts the film into production. Miller says:

The movie was in a very highly advanced stage of preproduction when we stopped it. It’s all prepared, but now I want to stop and do the game and get those schedules in sync.. In other words, I’m delaying the movie in order to do a really good game. Normally what happens everyone’s scrambling to finish a game so it can coincide with the release of the movie.

My interest in this thing has just nose dived if Mel Gibson isn’t involved. Mad Mel is Mad Max!

2. George Lucas has said that the long in gestating Red Tails could be released by the end of the year and that he will then go on to ” do a Coppola” and direct art house style films. Lucas says:

We’re getting towards a script, and probably start shooting before the end of the year, and it should come out next year, maybe. That’s probably going to be the last movie I do, apart from my own movies, but my own movies are going to be more esoteric and probably will come and go in a week and be in one or two arthouses. It’s basically the same as what Francis is doing.

I don’t see Lucas getting behind a camera again to direct, but would have said that fifteen years ago about the chances of another Star Wars film. We will see.

3. The Punisher: War Zone website is now live. There’s not a great deal to see, but you can have a peek at a couple of stills. I’m looking forward to this.

4. Wolfgang Petersen will direct Uprising, a Sci-Fi thriller penned by Charles Leavitt. According to Variety :

(The) story revolves around the resistance efforts of some citizens after Earth has been occupied by a powerful alien race.

Sounds like it could be good. Sounds like it could be crap. Time will tell, but I’m quite a fan of Petersen’s work so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

5. Paramount Pictures will produce an animated film based on the magazine Heavy Metal. The film will be made up of different stories, each directed by a different director. David Fincher will direct one segment, while Tim Miller and Kevin Eastman will direct also. More directors will be added soon.

That’s it for now, see you next week!

Sources: Newsweek , Comingsoon , PunisherMovie.com , Variety

• Mel Gibson Talks Mad Max 4
• Confirmed: Tom Hardy & Charlize Theron in Mad Max 4 Negotiations
• Is Jeremy Renner The New Mad Max?
• Charlize Theron & Tom Hardy In Mad Max 4?
• Mad Max Minus Mel Gibson
• Could Mel Gibson Be Involved In Mad Max 4 After-all?