STAR WARSCarrie Fisher is back as Princess Leia in the new "Star Wars" movie. The actress confirmed her involvement in an interview with Palm Beach Illustrated, answering a question about her return with a simple, "Yes."

IRON MAN 3Get ready for a veritable deluge of "Iron Man 3" interviews. First up, Collider spoke with Shane Black and Kevin Feige about the movie, where Feige confirmed that Tony Stark doesn't know Agent Coulson is alive. The Marvel Studios head also spoke briefly about the connectivity with "The Avengers."

"The only real connective tissue we wanted from 'Avengers' in this movie was Avengers' effect on Tony's psyche," Feige told Collider. "This man who comes from this grounded universe -- I always say it's grounded enough although he builds an iron suit and flies around -- the notion that Tony Stark, who is the shit and always thought of himself as top dog, now has been to outer space, nearly got killed by freaking aliens, has encountered a god that can smash him across the forest with a hammer, has encountered a guy that his father used to talk about from 1945. It's no mistake that we meet Tony at the beginning of this movie and he's just building suits, putting himself in the suit, and he's much more comfortable when he's in the suit. And a lot of this movie is about Tony learning to become Tony Stark again outside the armor, and he has a little help in that his house is completely destroyed."

Collider also spoke with Robert Downey Jr, who discussed the standalone nature of "Iron Man 3," despite it being the first film in Marvel's Phase Two movies.

"It seems to be very uninhibited. I'm just not used to working this way," Downey Jr. told Collider. "Fortunately, Shane and all the other creatives and myself banged out a story that, quote unquote 'earned' it. We had 'The Avengers' and had something where we all loved how it turned out. We thought, 'Let's not get indulgent now, but let's go back to Tony and Pepper.' It was also really, really great to have Happy come back. Jon [Favreau] was just so great. He was standing on the set and we had designed this workshop. He says, 'All I have to do is put on a suit and crack jokes. This is going to be great.' He's actually very integral to the story and all that stuff. But it is true, this one is Tony's journey from A to Z, chasing the bad guy. It's a bad guy who draws him out to places that he's never been before and I think that that was what was attractive to Shane. He said, 'I'd like to see him crashing in mid-America. I'd like to see him interacting with some kid who kind of doesn't really relate to him as anything but Iron Man.'"

IGN has a report on a block of footage that was shown to press and a follow-up interview with Kevin Feige, Shane Black and Robert Downey Jr with some words about Ben Kingsley's Mandarin.

"Yeah, [Mandarin] has an intelligence background," Black told IGN. "His nationality is not even clear because he's shrouded in secrecy, but at some point this field officer went nuts and became a student of warfare and ancient Chinese symbology and drew from South American insurgency tactics and has created around himself this little world of warfare. The only unifying principal of which seems to be a hatred of the United States. So he represents every terrorist, in a way. But specifically, he's crafted himself in the manner of the Mandarin, of a warlord. I think that's great, because you get to do the comic book, but you don't have to deal with the specifics of Fu Manchu stereotyping. We're not saying he's Chinese, we're saying that he in fact draws a cloak around him of Chinese symbols and dragons because it represents his obsession with Sun Tzu and various ancient arts of warfare that he has studied. So that's what we like about it."

To break things up, here's a new international poster for the film.

Fandango also spoke with Feige and Black, and Feige gave a quick quote about the possibility of more end-credits scenes.

"It's sort of case-by-case," Feige told Fandango. "I mean, I don't want to be in that theater when even two people stay behind and nothing happens. I like that we've trained at least some people to stay behind and get a little reward. But it serves a different purpose. It was part of the 'Hey, surprise, look. These are all connected. We're building toward something here.' [Like the] shawarma [joke], which everybody knows was an idea that we came up with much, much later and shot after the premiere, just because we thought it would be fun. So it's a little faster and looser now because people know, and frankly the whole purpose of 'Iron Man 3' is to say these characters can exist successfully on their own again. But, as I said, I don't want to be there when nothing happens."

Finally, Ain't It Cool News spoke with Black and Feige about the relationship between Tony and Pepper.

"I think it's that kind of irreverent kind of relationship that I love, where things are not stated explicitly," Black told AICN. "Obviously, he has a great deal of affection for the kid, and when you see the movie you'll see the kid is a powerful presence in the film. But Tony never says things like that. I kind of love that he treats the kid with the respect of not having to treat him like a kid. That's fun. Also it's fun because this kid represents a lot of Tony himself; he recognizes himself in this little boy who is similarly alienated in the way I assume Tony was growing up -- not having a good family unit. But the kid is off by himself in a little workshop devising these little toys, so Tony takes to him. It's cool. I don't know why it's cool. It just is."

Opens May 3

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PASTBryan Singer continues to post behind-the-scenes photos on Twitter of "Days of Future Past," this time giving his followers a look at set construction.

Back to work. #XMen #DaysofFuturePast twitter.com/BryanSinger/st...— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) March 5, 2013

Spinoff Online has also posted a round-up of everything we know about the "X-Men: First Class" follow-up so far. Check it out.

Opens July 18, 2014

THE AVENGERS 2In the latest issue of SFX Magazine, Kevin Feige spoke briefly about the excitement of "The Avengers" franchise, and stating that when the Marvel Cinematic Universe starts to explore magic, it will be through Doctor Strange.

"The most exciting thing to us about the Avengers franchise is the interaction amongst those characters," Feige told SFX. "It's putting them in situations that you wouldn't expect to see them in. It's that kind of fun; and the relationships between the characters in the Avengers, which I loved. Almost whatever the heck else is happening is gravy in that franchise, because all I care about is Bruce and Tony, Tony and Steve, Widow and Bruce -- and how Thor fits into it, because he's always the outsider amongst outsiders. So I think that's where the value lies. And going deeper amongst those characters in those relationships."

Thanks to Comic Book Movie for the heads up.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIERScreenInvasion spoke with Dominic Cooper, who played Howard Stark in "Captain America: The First Avenger," about whether he might return for an appearance in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier."

"I don't know how... I'm too busy. I'm trying to film, I'm filming at the moment, everyday, and I'm really trying to make it work but I think I'm stuck in Budapest, so at the moment its really, really tough, like I don't know how I'm going to achieve it," Cooper told ScreenInvasion. "I don't know how I'm going to get to... yeah, there was talk of it, and now I don't know whether I can, which will be really annoying because I loved being part of those. You know, I think it was such an incredible time, and I think -- you know the first one -- they did such an incredible job of it. So, I will try my hardest to get Stark back into a flashback sequence or some description, but its proving rather difficult in terms of scheduling at the moment."

Opens April 4, 2014

G.I. JOE: RETALIATIONFor all Storm Shadow fans, Paramount has released a new featurette focusing on the character from "G.I. Joe: Retaliation."

Opens March 28

NINJA TURTLES"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" co-creator Peter Laird commented on the decision to cast Megan Fox as April O'Neil in Michael Bay's upcoming reboot of the film franchise.

"My only exposure to Megan Fox as an actress is through her role in two 'Transformers' movies and the wretched (but happily forgettable) 'Jennifer's Body,'" Laird said via his personal blog. "It may not be fair to judge her range of acting skills just from those three movies, but I think it is safe to say that there are probably hundreds of better choices for the role of April O'Neil. Of course, her name has promotional value, and maybe that's what they want. Who knows? I can't get myself too worked up about it."

Opens June 6, 2014

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