In recent months, Starz has introduced a slate of both scripted (Outlander) and reality series (The Chair) that should make viewers sit up and take notice.  The Missing, an 8-part miniseries collaboration with the BBC, seems poised to continue the trend.  Its opening hour, “Eden,” was hauntingly raw, and has set up an emotionally complex world to exist in compliment to its central mystery.  Hit the jump for “the ugly truth” of Oliver Hughes’ disappearance.

I want to make this as clear as possible: if you’ve yet to check out writer/director Dan Gilroy‘s thriller Nightcrawler, you need to as quickly as you can. In his directorial debut, the veteran writer has not only crafted one of the best films of the year but also one of the most captivating protagonists in recent memory with Jake Gyllenhaal‘s Louis Bloom. The film centers on Bloom, a sociopathic thief who learns he can make a living shooting video of horrific events and selling said video to a local television news station managed by industry veteran Nina Romina (in an excellent turn by Rene Russo). As Bloom hones his craft, his price goes up and the stakes build in direct proportion. Nightcrawler should be lauded for its absolute evisceration of the local television news industry and its astute look at an economy so barren that it leaves room for this type of work to seem like an honest way to make a buck. That said, Gyllenhaal’s performance is the centerpiece and will be what Gilroy’s debut is ultimately remembered for. And rightfully so. It’s a career defining role that the actor owns from beginning to end.

Recommendation aside, this week’s Top 5 features Margot Robbie landing the role of Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, interviews for and Matt’s review of Dumb and Dumber To, a few updates from Universal’s “Monster Movie Universe”, the first teaser trailer for Insurgent, and the revised origin of Toby Kebbell‘s Doctor Doom in Josh Trank‘s upcoming The Fantastic Four. Keep reading for a brief recap and link to each of the above.

Actress Shailene Woodley took her time in choosing her follow-up project after this summer’s one-two punch of Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars, but despite the fact that she already has her own franchise, it appears that she’s still very much game for more difficult subject matter.  THR reports that Woodley is in talks for the female lead role in director Oliver Stone’s untitled film about NSA leaker Edward Snowden, which has Joseph Gordon-Levitt set to play the controversial figure.  Woodley is poised to take on the role of Snowden’s girlfriend in the pic, which is based on two Snowden-centric books: Luke Harding’s The Snowden Files and Anatoly Kucherena’s upcoming Time of the Octopus.  More after the jump.

Twenty years after Dumb and Dumber introduced audiences to two guys named Harry and Lloyd – and the most annoying sound in the world – the long-awaited (?) sequel has finally hit theatres.  Dumb and Dumber To opened to an estimated $14.2 million on Friday, which puts the comedy on track for between $30 and $35 million through Sunday.  That’s in line with expectations for the Universal release, though the weekend is still too close to call in the comedy’s favor.  Both Big Hero 6 and Interstellar  saw strong holds on Friday, and the animated Disney pic is also tracking in the $30 million range for its sophomore frame.

Details and Friday’s top five after the jump.

Amazon’s gold box deal of the day is the X-Men: Days of Future Past and Wolverine Collection Blu-ray for $31.98 (which is 68% off).  The set includes X-Men, X-Men 2, X-Men 3: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men First Class and The Wolverine for $5 and some change per movie.  Like all gold box deals, it’s only good while supplies last or midnight tonight, so don’t wait too long to buy.  Click here to pick up the set.

When filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood imagined a love story set within the world of hip hop and R&B for her new film, Beyond the Lights, she found musical inspiration in Alicia Keys’ epic love song Diary and her favorite films — Purple Rain, Lady Sings the Blues, and The Rose.  Her romantic drama chronicles a young artist’s (Noni/Gugu Mbatha-Raw) struggle with sudden stardom and the man (Kaz/Nate Parker) who comes into her life at her worst moment and still sees the good in her.  Through his love, she finds the courage to shed the persona that’s been shaped for her and discover her own voice.  The movie also stars Minnie Driver and Danny Glover.

At the film’s recent press day, we sat down with actors Mbatha-Raw, Driver and Parker, writer-director Prince-Bythewood, and producers Stephanie Allain and Reggie Rock-Bythewood who talked about creating the music that is such a powerful thread throughout the film, Allain and Rock-Bythewood’s roles as producing partners, what appealed to the actors about their characters, the unusual date Prince-Bythewood set up between Mbatha-Raw and Parker to help develop their chemistry, her strong vision and directing style, the film’s most powerful scenes, and why the movie was fertile ground to explore what’s happening in the industry today. Check out our interview after the jump.

NBC’s Constantine gets stronger by the week, even as the rising darkness makes things just that much harder for the title antihero.  By all rights, tonight’s episode, “A Feast of Friends”, shouldn’t have worked quite as well as it did: the goofiness of dancing hypnotized security guards, the horror of possessions by third-world hunger demons, and a heightened portrayal of addiction and, ultimately, redeeming self-sacrifice all seem too disparate to work together.  Somehow, tonight’s hour came together by combining plenty of gross-outs with an engrossing story of a beleaguered friendship between two old mates.  While you might want to skip out on the late-night snack while watching this episode, this installment of Constantine should leave audiences hungry for more.

Hit the jump for our Constantine recap.

The Lionsgate marketing team really knows what they’re doing when it comes to interactive and immersive promotional techniques.  We got those two President Snow (Donald Sutherland) addresses at the beginning of the campaign, there’s also the District Heroes Collection posters, there’s that Our Leader the Mockingjay app that lets you (fake) spray-paint a Mockingjay or District 13 logo on buildings, walls or anything else you see, and now we’ve got a brand new TV spot that also aims to blur reality and fiction.

I’m not going to spoil the surprise, but check out a new The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 TV spot after the jump.  It’s a little jarring, but it’s definitely a clever double marketing strategy.  We’ve also got another Mockingjay – Part 1 poster from WK Interact to share as well.  The third installment of the Hunger Games film franchise arrives in theaters on November 21st and stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Jena Malone and Julianne Moore.

Just the other day we got word that both J.K. Simmons and Anna Kendrick could possibly join the cast of Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant and now The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal is up for a role, too.  Or perhaps I should say The Wolf of Wall Street, Snitch or Fury’s Jon Bernthal because ever since leaving the show, he’s been doing pretty well for himself on the big screen.

In addition, it’s also being reported that Richard Gere is locked to lead a film called Oppenheimer Strategies for director Joseph Cedar.  Hit the jump for more on that, The Accountant and Live By Night as well.

I haven’t read Kody Keplinger’s The Duff (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) yet, but I’ve heard good things, so the book’s been sitting on my iPad for quite some time now and with Ari Sandel’s film adaption due in theaters on April 10, 2015, I better get to it fast.  The movie stars Mae Whitman as Bianca, a high school senior widely known as The DUFF.  In an effort to reinvent herself, she turns to school jock Wesley (Robbie Amell) and tries to build the confidence to take down the resident “label maker,” Madison (Bella Thorne).

An official promo hasn’t hit the web just yet, but Thorne did share a little something on Instagram that she’s calling The Duff teaser trailer.  It’s really just a montage of pretty faces and high school stereotypes, but the film’s got a solid cast and apparently some stellar source material with an important message, so hopefully an official teaser will confirm it’s got a little more to offer than high school movie clichés, especially considering the script made the 2011 Black List.  Hit the jump to check out The Duff teaser trailer.

There’s a lot to love about James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, but when you wrap up your film with a baby version of one of the most lovable characters of the year dancing to the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” it’s bound to be one of the biggest takeaways.  In fact, dancing baby Groot became such a hit, an officially licensed toy version of the little guy is due in stores in December.

On top of that, come December 9th you can watch baby Groot dance it up all you want because that’s when the Guardians of the Galaxy Blu-ray arrives and it includes bonus material covering how Gunn went about designing the character.  Hit the jump for a brief preview of the Guardians of the Galaxy Blu-ray featurette.

In Dumb and Dumber To, Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) are back and as dumb as ever.  It’s been exactly 20 years and Lloyd has to get snapped out of the comatose state that he’s been in, so that the two best friends can go on a road trip to find a child Harry never knew he had, in order to help him with the kidney transplant that he desperately needs.  The zany sequel also stars Kathleen Turner, Laurie Holden, Rob Riggle, Rachel Melvin and Steve Tom.

At the film’s press day, filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly spoke to Collider for this exclusive interview about why Dumb and Dumber is thought of as a cult classic, why people feel so fondly about two lovable idiots, whether they ever got close to doing this sequel at any other point in time, over the 20 years since the first film, how much they’ve learned about filmmaking since their three hour and 40 minute first cut of the original film (and the disastrous screening they had of that cut), the deleted storylines that will probably be on the DVD, why they don’t like extended cuts, doing unconventional commentary, their experience shooting on digital, and their desire to direct films on their own next.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

The Weinstein Company has released a new The Imitation Game trailer for director Morten Tyldum’s (Headhunters) critically acclaimed Alan Turing biopic.  The World War II drama features an absolutely terrific lead performance by Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing, a genius mathematician who worked to crack the Enigma Code—the code the Nazis were using to transmit messages back and forth—and bring an end to the war.  The film is really more about Turing than it is the war (he was later convicted of the “crime” of homosexuality and sentenced to chemical castrastion), but Tyldum weaves the Enigma plot throughout the film as a sort of spy thriller.  It’s a really good movie that also features a swell Keira Knightley performance and one of the best scores of the year thanks to composer Alexandre Desplat.

Check out the new The Imitation Game trailer after the jump, click here to read Matt’s review, and click here to watch nine clips Matthew Goode, Charles Dance, Mark Strong, Rory Kinnear, Allen Leech, and Matthew Beard.  The Imitation Game opens in the U.K. today and in the U.S. on November 28th.

A couple of weeks ago a report surfaced claiming that MTV’s Scream TV series won’t be using the Ghostface mask from the film franchise leaving many to wonder, how can you possibly have a Scream TV show (or a Scream anything for that matter) without the iconic mask?  Mina Lefevre, MTV’s executive vice president and head of scripted development, finally offered up an answer, but it’s not particularly reassuring.

Instead of running with the mask from the four films, MTV’s show will go with a more “organic” look, so organic in fact that there’s talk of the mask being made of flesh.  Hit the jump for more on what MTV’s got planned.

One of the villain roles has officially been cast for Marvel’s upcoming Captain America: Civil War, and it’s not you who might expect.  No, not the Winter Soldier again.  And not Tony Stark either, despite what the Civil War subtitle might suggest.  It’s a different character entirely, and the studio has tapped Rush and Inglourious Basterds star Daniel Bruhl to bring a Captain America 3 villain to life in the highly anticipated Marvel follow-up.  Additionally, another report indicates that Bruhl will actually be playing the main villain in Doctor Strange, and a few other familiar Marvel Cinematic Universe faces are expected to return for Captain America 3.  More after the jump.