Aaron Paul's 'Need for Speed' and More Exclusive First Looks!

For his first post-Breaking Bad big-screen vehicle, Aaron Paul is trading high-grade meth for high-octane cars. Based on the long-running videogame series, Need for Speed (out March 14) stars Paul as a street racer out for revenge after being linked to the death of a friend. ''This set was different than anything I've been on,'' he says. ''You're walking through a very thick cloud of testosterone.'' Still, Paul says Need for Speed shouldn't be mistaken for a Fast & Furious knockoff: ''It's really a throwback to the Steve McQueen era of car movies. I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised.'' — Josh Rottenberg

Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The First Avenger) and Dakota Johnson (who recently landed the role of Anastasia in Fifty Shades of Grey) co-star opposite Paul in Need for Speed. ''Dominic is kind of the antagonist of the film,'' Paul says. ''Dakota is my character's ex, and now Dominic's character is the new guy she's seeing.'' — Josh Rottenberg

Richard Madden is changing pelts. The Scottish actor, who last played the dearly departed King in the North on HBO's Game of Thrones, will be an explorer of the Great White North in the Discovery miniseries Klondike (set to air in early 2014). Madden stars as an 1897 gold prospector in the harsh Yukon Territory and says he's ''never been more excited'' about a role — despite having to brave fires, brutally cold mountains, and icy river rapids. ''It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life,'' says Madden of Klondike, which was shot in Alberta, Canada. ''But the script reveals so much about human nature when we're in extreme situations, where it's life and death every day. Things are out of your control, and how you react is what defines you as a person.—James Hibberd

Read the full story in James's Inside TV post.

Fans of the 1999 film The Best Man are finally getting a sequel. The Best Man Holiday (out Nov. 15) reunites the original cast (including Terrence Howard, left, and Nia Long, center) and adds newcomers like Eddie Cibrian (right). Says writer-director Malcolm D. Lee of the Christmastime-set comedy, ''I always wanted to revisit these characters when they'd lived some life.'' —Adam Carlson

When The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug hits theaters Dec. 13, moviegoers will see a fresh face among the residents of Middle-earth: the elf warrior Tauriel, played by Lost's Evangeline Lilly. ''She's slightly reckless and totally ruthless,'' Lilly says. She's also not found in J.R.R. Tolkien's book. Lilly knows some purists will see the new character as ''a betrayal of Tolkien,'' but she insists, ''Tauriel fits perfectly in that world.'' —Josh Rottenberg

Read more in Josh's Inside Movies post.

The bank robbers most famously embodied by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the 1967 classic are the focus of a miniseries being simulcast later this year on History, Lifetime, and A&E. (The production stars The Borgias' Holliday Grainger and Into the Wild's Emile Hirsch.) Exec producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Chicago) say the true-crime saga is still relevant. ''Bonnie clearly is the first reality star,'' says Zadan. ''She became a star by becoming a bandit, and that was fascinating to us.'' —Tim Stack

Watch out, scrubs: TLC are back. This November the beloved R&B group will get the movie treatment in VH1's Crazy, Sexy, Cool: The TLC Story, which stars (from left) Drew Sidora as Tionne ''T-Boz'' Watkins, Keke Palmer as Rozonda ''Chilli'' Thomas, and rapper Lil Mama as the late Lisa ''Left Eye'' Lopes. To help the actors nail the look and attitude, Watkins and Thomas served as consulting producers on the project — which at times got a bit too real. ''Some days it was just freaky,'' Thomas says of the experience. Watkins agrees: ''The cast did such a great job, and it makes you see yourself differently.'' They were particularly wowed by Lil Mama's uncanny likeness to Lopes, who died in a car crash in 2002. ?People who knew us back then, like L.A. Reid, would visit [the set] and go, Whoa,'' says Thomas. Of course, it helps when you have the right outfits. The biopic stays true to TLC's questionable wardrobe choices, re-creating those fly '90s relics. Watkins, though, has no regrets: ''Those clothes are still the bomb!'' —Ray Rahman

Transformers director Michael Bay is setting a new course with Black Sails, a Treasure Island prequel series for Starz (debuting in 2014), starring Toby Stephens (Die Another Day) as the charismatic but ruthless Captain Flint. ''There's a very clichéd image of pirates,'' says Stephens (above). ''This is much more gritty, real, dirty.'' —Nuzhat Naoreen

Black Sails — which takes place both on a ship and on the island of Nassau — finds Flint facing off against a rival pirate captain and his cronies, including the fearsome and historically inspired Anne (played by Clara Paget). —Nuzhat Naoreen

Though he's technically steering the ship (like this behind-the-scenes beaut, one of several vessels Bay had built for the series' eight-episode first season), Flint also finds himself at odds with his own crew. ''He hasn't been delivering for the men, [and] they're ready ? to throw him off,'' says Stephens, who adds that his character is an antihero on a greater ­mission. ''You're constantly searching for what drives him. What is his engine?'' Here's a hint: It's not just treasure. —Nuzhat Naoreen

Sporting a voluminous late-'70s hairdo, edgy makeup, a ''badass'' attitude, and no bra, Castle's Stana Katic says she was excited to channel her inner punk rocker for her role as musician-producer Genya Ravan in CBGB, a movie (out next year) about the legendary New York City club of the same name. (Alan Rickman stars as club owner Hilly Kristal.) The gritty role was a welcome departure from Det. Kate Beckett, Katic says. ''[Genya] doesn't care about laws. She doesn't care about anything but rock & roll.'' —Sandra Gonzalez

The visionary filmmaker, currently at work on his ­sci-fi monster epic Pacific Rim, is already heading into preproduction on his next directing gig: a 3-D stop-motion version of Pinocchio, which he plans to start shooting in the summer of 2013. Judging by the project's concept art — which shows Pinocchio heading for a dip in the sea with one of puppet-theater owner Mangiafoco's monkeys — the Jim Henson Company-produced movie will have a very different look from the Disney interpretation. ''If I thought it would be similar I would be very afraid,'' says del Toro, who is co-directing the film with Fantastic Mr. Fox animation director Mark ­Gustafson. ''You cannot top Disney.'' —Clark Collis

In the indie 3 Nights in the Desert (release date to be determined), Bentley (right) plays an unhinged musician named Travis. ''He's a very brash, in-your-face rock guy,'' says Bentley, whose character was inspired by Jack White. Tensions flare when Travis reunites for a weekend with his former bandmates, played by Amber Tamblyn and Vincent Piazza (left). ''At times it feels like they're rebonding. At times you think they're going to kill each other.'' Sounds like a Van Halen reunion tour. —Darren Franich

If scientists distilled ''geek'' into reels of film, the result might be Knights of Badassdom, an indie comedy-fantasy film about Dungeons & Dragons-style role-play aficionados who accidentally awaken a real hell-demon. ''This was completely made with the Comic-Con crowd in mind,'' says director Joe Lynch. The cast is sure to get the fanboy seal of approval, thanks to starring turns by (from left) Summer Glau (Firefly), Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Steve Zahn (Joy Ride), and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones). Lynch adds, ''You can't embrace something like [Comic-Con] without being a little satirical.'' —Anthony Breznican

Check out EW's Inside Movies blog for even more on Knights of Badassdom.

Peter Dinklage gets all medieval on Ryan Kwanten in Knights of Badassdom.

Check out EW's Inside Movies blog for even more on Knights of Badassdom.