May 12 2008
Dailies
News Dailies: Happy Fourth!
Seeing as it’s the Fourth of July and all, I’m celebrating by doing as little work as possible. So I’ll take the easy way out for a Friday and sum up this weekend’s big releases.
First up is Hancock. As far as I understand, Hancock is one of the best cases of false advertisement this summer. It looks like a post-modern, hilarious take on the superhero genre. What I’ve read is that it’s actually about a fallen god who doesn’t remember his past and acts like a crappy superhero, until he meets a PR agent who tries to turn around his reputation, right around the god has sex with an underage girl and goes to jail. Strange? Yup, made even stranger by the fact that the PR agents wife is also a fallen god and is also Hancock’s true soul mate, or something along those lines. I haven’t seen the movie and I won’t this weekend based on everything I’ve heard so far: the movie is supposed to be uneven and bland. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, it got just a 38% Tomatometer ranking, not very good for recent Will Smith movies.
The other movie, which I also won’t see because I’m not a 12-year-old girl, is Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, which is based on the American Girl series. It has a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes and the general critical consensus says “Refreshingly sweet and sincere, Kit’s doll-and-book-inspired do-good mystery may be geared towards the tween girl but will please audiences of all ages.” May be a good choice if your kids haven’t already seen Wall-E.
Anyways, that’s all from me for today. Enjoy your BBQs and fireworks and happy 232nd birthday to the U.S.A.
News Dailies: More on Metropolis; Hip to be high?; Potter first looks
Yesterday I posted a link to an article about a long-lost print of Metropolis being discovered in its entirety. Apparently, the new print was shown at a press event today in Buenos Aires and images from the film have hit the ‘net. You can see one to the left, but for an article that’s already been updated a few times with new photos, click here .
I wonder what long-lost films will be found in the future. Richard Donner’s version of Superman 2 was restored not too long ago using reshot footage and old material that never screened. There’s always the famous missing nine-hour long Greed, which has long been thought gone forever. This all reminds me of this funny Scorsese movie/commercial.
I usually try to save all the trailers till Trailer Park Saturdays so I have something to post over the weekend, but this teaser for the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still is available here (it’s already been taken down from two other places, so it might not be around for long). Other than Jon Hamm’s involvement (I’m rewatching season 1 of Mad Men on On Demand and as much as I love him in that show, he deserves some big-screen success), nothing in it looks all that exciting — certainly not anything worth remaking the original for, at least.
Mike Judge is getting back behind the camera behind his ignored Idiocracy. Unlike his last film and the cult-classic Office Space before it, he’s getting some big name comedy actors this time around. Jason Bateman is attached to star in Extract, a comedy about a flower-extract plant owner with bad luck, and now SNL’s current MVP Kristen Wiig is in talks to join the cast. Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Mila Kunis is also in negotiations.
Here’s some news on Huey Lewis (ha-ha — “news” — get it?). The ’80s icon has recorded the title track/theme song for the new Seth Rogen comedy The Pineapple Express. You can listen to it here.
If you’re jonesing for some Harry Potter and can’t wait till it comes out, USA Today and Empire Magazine both have news about the latest flick in which Team Potter talks about the challenges with making a new Potter film after the book series ended and the darker direction in which the movies are heading. Find those pieces here and here.
Finally, Will Smith will be even more rich than he already is this weekend. Hancock made $24.2 million Wednesday, just the start of a $100+ million weekend.
News Dailies for July 2: More 3-D screens; Ferrell and Cohen are detectives; Lost ‘Metropolis’ found
Two weeks ago, NPR’s Fresh Air ran a few interviews from their archives to celebrate the newest AFI list of the top 10 films from 10 different genres. Now they’ve followed that show with another half-dozen interviews with Martin Scorsese, Michael Imperioli, Mario Puzo, John Lassetter and film history Rudy Behlmer. You can find it here.
If you’ve ever watched Metropolis on DVD, some versions included title cards explaining missing scenes. Back when the film debuted to a poor response, Ufa recut the film and released one of the most celebrated — and somewhat odd thanks to the missing sections — science fiction films in history. Now, the missing parts have shown up in Argentine museum. You can read all about it here.
Thanks to RealD and Dolby you’ll always be able to find a 3-D screen somewhere near you before too long. RealD and Cinemark struck a deal to outfit 1,500 screens with 3-D technology. The change won’t be instantaneous, unfortunately; screens have to be converted and “financial arrangements” must be arranged.
I posted a link the other day to a story on the Latino Review about the potential rating of Beverly Hills Cop 4. Now, Eddie Murphy apparently wants to retire from filmmaking and only a lot of money may bring him back. Because all of the related articles would be too time consuming, I’ll cheat and send you here, where Aint It Cool News already did it for me.
What is destined to become one of strangest versions of Sherlock Holmes, Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell will star as the famous detective and his sidekick Watson, respectively. Tropic Thunder scribe Etan Cohen is writing the script.
Werner Herzog has cast two more actors in his Bad Lieutenant remake. Xzibit and Val Kilmer (the strangest actor ever — I mean, did you see him in Comanche Moon?) will appear alongside Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes in the film.
Hancock took in $6.8 million last night, besting Iron Man’s $5.5 million pull during it’s midnight preview showings. Industry estimates have the film making more than $100 million by Sunday.
News Dailies for June 30: Strike deadline upon us; 301; Entertainment getting older and richer
Due to a busy day, I’ll have to keep today’s update short. Here’s some quick bullets of today’s news.
To strike, or not to strike. That is the question. At 12:01 tomorrow morning (Tuesday at midnight), the SAG contract with AMPTP will expire. As of yet, no strike has been authorized. SAG’s president doesn’t want it, others do. Read all about it here and here.
After he’s done with Watchmen, director Zak Snyder already has an animated feature lined up, as well as an adventure/drama set in Afghanistan, but it looks like he could
be sticking around in the Middle East after that and leading the Spartans against the Persians again in a sequel to 300. Frank Miller, the author of the original graphic novel, is writing a new one upon which the film sequel will be based.
Terminator 4 (I know I never refer to it by its real name, but that name is just too stupid to type out) has gotten itself a new actress. Helena Bonham Carter will join Christian Bale in a “small but pivotal” role.
Brett Ratner has tried to dispel the rumors online that Beverly Hills Cop 4 will be PG or PG-13 so that younger audiences can rediscover the franchise. He told Latino Review: “Dont believe everything you read on the internet. Believe me, this is going to be a hard core ‘R’ Beverly Hills Cop. I start shooting next year.”
News Dailies for June 27: Re-’Clash of the Titans’; ‘WALL-E’ to make MON-E
Since George Clooney already has enough gravitas, he decided to loan some to both SAG and AFTRA . In a two-page letter, the grey-haired actor declared neutrality in the AFTRA-SAG spat and laid down some “fundamental facts,” which include the importance of supporting other actors and following the models set by other unions. Read the article and letter here.
Because we want more remakes in our movie theaters, the Greek gods are coming from Mount Olympus and clashing in the cineplexes. Not so much the gods, but Perseus will be battling Medusa again in a Clash of the Titans remake helmed by Louis Leterrier. And if that weren’t enough, USA Today released this article today (try to pronounce the author’s name, I don’t even know where to start) announcing Robert Rodriguez’s next project — Red Sonja. Rose McGowan will step into Brigitte Nelson’s shoes.
A little while back, Regal announced they’d be adding a large number of 3-D screens and now Dolby Labs has set up another 350 screens in Europe, Asia and the Americas. The first movie to really have to tackle the 3-D hurdle will be Journey to the Center of the Earth. 
To me, it looks nostalgic but incapable of competing with other family films, like Wall-E, or the abundant comic/adventure films of the summer. On that note, Variety has an interesting article dissecting the possible success of Journey and the future of 3-D.
Industry estimates put WALL-E on top of the box office this weekend, making around $50-$60 million. That would put it’s gross Ratatouille, but below most other recent Pixar films. The obvious runner-up for this weekend will be Wanted, which is expected to take in around $30 million. That would make them both relatively successful and not just commercially. Both are getting positive reviews (97% Rotten Tomatoes rating for WALL-E and 74% for Wanted); I guess that makes them critical successes as well.
News Dailies for June 26: Wall-E, meet Oscar; Polanski casts a few ‘Ghosts’
Could Oscar come early this year? Heath Ledger’s turn as The Joker has generated Academy Award buzz when the first trailers hit earlier this year. That movie doesn’t come out for three weeks, but Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers already put up his review — the first professional review of the film — here . In short: It’s the stuff dreams are made of.
The Hollywood Reporter has an article claiming Wall-E (for which there plenty of positive reviews online) the start of Oscar season. In the past, Brad Bird has tried unsuccessfully to lobby for his film to be a nominated for Best Picture rather than Best Animated Feature. Could Andrew Stanton and Wall-E be the first of the PIXAR films to break that barrier?
Now that she has Sex and the City behind her, Sarah Jessica Parker is going to play a single woman living in New York in The Ivy Chronicles. It’s not SATC 2.0, but a flick about a divorce who loses her job, downgrades apartments, and starts her own business.
Everyone’s favorite deportee — OK, deportee isn’t exactly fair, but I couldn’t think of what you call someone who isn’t allowed into a country for fear of being arrested for a crime committed decades ago. Anyways, Roman Polanksi has cast Nicolas Cage, Tilda Swinton and Pierce Brosnan in The Ghost, a remake of the Patrick Swayze classic. That’s a lie, it’s actually an adaptation of Robert Harris’ novel about a ghostwriter who finds his life in danger after filling in for a dead writer who was writing the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister.
News Dailies for June 25: Wall-E, meet Burn-E
The SAG-AFTRA debacle continues. A few days ago, Tom Hanks and Kevin Spacey spoke up and backed the AMPTP-AFTRA tentative agreement and now Jack Nicholson, Ben Stiller, Sandra Oh, Martin Sheen and 64 others openly protested it. Aside from ruining movies and polite conversation at dinner parties, the impending strike could change the face of San Diego Comic-Con. It turns out no actors could be there to promote their movies.
Pixar already announced the short that will appear before Wall-E this weekend a while back and now they’ve announced that a Wall-E-related short will appear on the DVD, a la Jack Jack Attack on The Incredibles DVD, called Burn-E, about a robot of the same name.
Steven Spielberg has been involved in video games before , but never quite like he will be with his new project, The 39 Clues. Spielberg’s production house DreamWorks acquired the screen rights for the title, which is billed as a “multiplatform adventure series.” It will include 10 books, collectible cards, an online game, and, of course, a movie.
News Dailies for June 24: Strike two; Sly and the Governer, together at last
Actors are the talk of Tinsel Town, and will continue to be until next Tuesday. This is a strange case of history repeating itself — two Hollywood guilds striking within months — made stranger by the potential strike by a third guild that already said it wouldn’t strike. Sound weird? Here’s the Cliff Notes on what’s happening.
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) are rival guilds that represent actors in Hollywood. Like the Writers Guild before them, the current deal that both guilds have with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television producers is about to expire and both are negotiating new terms with the AMPTP. AFTRA and the AMPTP have negotiated a tentative agreement, which could be signed in the near future. SAG, on the other hand, will strike next Tuesday if they don’t find an acceptable middle ground with the AMPTP and is now calling for AFTRA members to reject the deal that union negotiated with the AMPTP.
It sounds like something out of a bad sitcom, but it’s true and a strike more devastating than the WGA stoppage could be a reality a week from today. You can read more detail about the strike and SAG and AFTRA here and here.
Two actors look to be getting work outside of Hollywood though. Seems Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger will finally team up on screen, but rather than being in a Hollywood blockbuster, it’ll be in Bollywood’s most expensive film ever.
While we’re on the subject of actors, NPR’s Fresh Air ran a series of interesting interviews last week with actors from movies that appear on the AFI’s new Top 100/ 10 Top 10 List. Faye Dunaway, Eva Marie Saint, Kirk Douglass, Tony Curtiss, Peter O’Toole and Robert Towne are all featured.
If you were intrigued by Nick Fury’s appearance at the end of Iron Man and Tony Stark’s cameo at the end of The Incredible Hulk, you can find out who all of the Avengers will be, from gods to ants, in 2010 here.
George Carlin: 1937 - 2008
Every year since I was in high school, my mother has bought me a page-a-day calendar. They’ve ranged from sports trivia to recommended reading, but most often, they’ve been An Orgy of George. They were a collection of 300-or-so (Saturdays and Sundays are put together on one page) mostly random musings from the brain of George Carlin.
Sometimes they were dark: ALL SUICIDE ALL THE TIME: I’m convinced in this depraved culture that so devalues human life and dignity, and where reality television has convinced everyone they belong on national TV, I’m convinced that if you added in the excitement of a brand-new All-Suicide Channel debuting with maximum publicity, you could get five hundred of these hopeless people to hold hands and jump into the Grand Canyon.
Other times, random, as in this example, in which he expounds on language, one of Carlin’s favorite subjects: There is a tendency these days to complicate speech by adding unnecessary words. The following phrases all contain at least one word too many.
belief system
seating area
facial area
daily basis
No matter how wide the range of Carlin’s comedy, it was always pointed, critical, most often true, and above all hilarious.
The first time I saw Carlin was on one of his 14 HBO stand-up specials when I was in middle school. I didn’t know his history, the Seven Dirty Words, other than that I wasn’t supposed to say them, or his influence on pop culture. I caught every one of his comedy specials since then, and Carlin has influenced me both politically and personally. His constant diatribes on euphemisms, redundancies and political correctness fueled my own affinity for language and the way society shapes it rather than the way it shapes society. Seeing this old guy on TV speak so passionately about the idiotic idiosyncrasies of American culture during my formative years taught me to question and challenge much of what I saw around me (especially since I forcibly attended Catholic Sunday School once a week), but to always do it intelligently with a sharp tongue and quick wit, not loud and brash like Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh.
I don’t want to pepper this too much with my own memories of Carlin; I have no real connection to him other than being part of his massive fandom, so making this about me would rather than him would be a bit narcissistic. In reality, his influence is far spread and incalculable. When I look over all the obituaries of Carlin in various publications, I can’t even begin to fathom how much Carlin changed U.S. culture. Of course, he inadvertently created “family hour” on TV and the much-maligned FCC indecency rules. He’s inspired countless comics and, along with other counter-culture comedians like Lenny Bruce, forever changed stand-up comedy.
I feel like Carlin would probably have (or did have) something hilariously critical about the way people and publications flock to celebrity deaths and report on it as much as they can to “pay respects” to the person, but actually profit off his or her death as quickly as possible. With that in mind, I’ll stop here, but leave you with a few articles about and interviews with him.
An article from Time, explaining the importance of George Carlin.
An interview and remembrance of Carlin from NPR.
A photo slide show of Carlin from Variey.
Spending Saturday at the Trailer Park
This week brought a slew of new trailers to the Web. I posted earlier this week that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button trailer was finally available in high quality on
Apple (available here ). If you’re jonesing for some more Brad Pitt after that and you dug the first Burn After Reading trailer, there’s a fun international trailer available here on MSN. It focuses less on the story, but gives you more of an idea of the tone of the movie.
There’s already been a handful of X-Files: I Want to Believe trailers online and in the theaters, but Apple debuted an “Online Exclusive Trailer.” It doesn’t show much new footage and it’s not all that different from earlier stuff, but here ’s the link anyways.
In the new movie Taken (unrelated to the Steven Spielberg mini-series), Liam Neeson plays the father of a kidnapped daughter who is on the phone with her when she’s nabbed from her apartment. When her captors pick up the phone, he just stops short of giving them his resume, revealing he’s some bad-ass CIA type who vows to get his daughter back and give her captors hell. The trailer’s tone and its editing are reminiscent of the Bourne films and it looks like it could be a genuinely exciting ride. You can catch it here.
Matthew Broderick became famous for playing Ferris Beuller and then made a career out of playing characters very unlike Ferris Beuller. In the trailer for Diminished Capacity, he looks to be continuing the trend of playing stuck up, stuffy characters. This time, he visits his uncle (Alan Alda), who reveals he owns a priceless baseball card. Together they set out to sell it, fall in love, learn important life lessons, blah blah blah. It’s in the vein of Sideways and the trailer puts it in the same quirky/indie world that Little Miss Sunshine was in. You can find the trailer here .
Now, this is what Red Band trailers were made for. Often, there’s the kind of movie you can’t fairly advertize because of its subject matter, so, naturally, a period comedy about a teenage drug dealer and the old guy (Ben Kingsley) he works for probably needs a red bander so you can get a true sense of what the film is like. Take a hit of The Wackness here.
While the teaser for Terminator 4 won’t debut until The Dark Knight hits theaters, AICN has a pretty detailed description as to what the trailer will be like. Check it out here.
News Dailies for June 20: Lee travels in time, returns to New Orleans; ‘Porno’ rated NC-17
A-list directors are traveling in time. James Mangold, director of 3:10 to Yuma, will helm The Archive. Other than that it’s about time travel, not many other details are known. Earlier this week, Spike Lee signed on to co-write and direct Time Traveler. The film is about Ron Mallett, one of the first African-Americans to get a doctorate in theoretical physics, who also laid out technical specs on how to build a time machine, as well as detailed his rags-to-recognition in his book Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality.
In other Spike Lee news, the director announced at the Silverdocs festival that he could return to the New Orleans and the surrounding Mississippi Gulf region to do a follow up to his HBO miniseries When the Levees Broke. He also talked about the possibility of doing a scripted project on Hurricane Katrina, potentially with The Wire-creator David Simon.
Kevin Smith set out to make a movie about making a porno with Zack and Miri Make a Porno, but he may have actually made a porno. OK, that might be overstating the truth, but Seth Rogen told MTV the film is having trouble getting an R rating, but that it’s been deemed NC-17 by the MPAA. You can read the whole article here.
Some changes are in store for the Academy Awards next year. In the Best Original Song category, now only two songs can be nominated from a movie, which prevents repeats of what happened last year when Enchanted dominated the category. When it comes to foreign-language films, the voting process will change so that fewer films are left off the ballot, like Persepolis was last year.
And, since I haven’t had enough links to lists here on Movies Daily, here’s another one. This time, Entertainment Weekly has named the Top 100 movies since 1983. You can check out the complete list here.
News Dailies for June 19: ‘Inglourious’; ‘Bastards’; More on ‘Strays’; Perry gets dark on Showtime
It was a quiet day in Hollywood again today, but Quentin Tarantino fans will rejoice nonetheless. If his long-anticipated Inglorious Bastards is actually finally going into production, the end result won’t be one new QT film, but two, a la Kill Bill. The news comes from an interview QT did on the DVD for the original Inglorious Bastards. You can find Aint It Cool News’ story on the matter here .
And, also from AICN, more information on Louis Leterrier’s follow-up to The Incredible Hulk, Strays. It seems AICN may have sorted out the confusion over what the film is actually about (it’s a combination of what the two previous stories about the film stated) and, I’ve realized, if you announce a mid-profile project, if you release a shit load of confusing news about it, you’ll quickly turn it into a high profile project. Anyways, here’s what AICN says the movie is actually about.
Variety has a special section out today to commemorate the Dodgers’ 50th anniversary in L.A. In it, they give another list to compliment the AFI’s Ten Top 10 Genre Films: the best baseball movies. It’s a very solid list, but judge for yourself here .
News Dailies for June 18: Swank flies; Miller is Marion; AFI has ten new lists
I’ll never understand how Hillary Swank and her agent decide which projects Swank will work on, but I’m pretty sure it goes something like, “Let’s win an Oscar, then make a bunch of crappy movies, then win another Oscar and make some more crappy movies…” and it continues like that until the Swankster retires. Well, fresh off the terrible trifecta of Freedom Writers, The Reaping and P.S. I Love You, Swank is jumping back into Oscar waters with Amelia, the biopic about Amelia Earheart. The first pics from the movie hit the net today here.
Sienna Miller (who is apparently 26, which puts her well within my age range) will star in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood update, Nottingham. Miller will play Maid Marian to Russell Crowe’s Sherriff of the titular city.
Steven Spielberg is getting closer to breaking away from parent company Paramount. The Bearded One is in talks with Reliance ADA, an Indian conglomerate, for around $500 million, half of what he wants to relaunch DreamWorks SKG as a private company. Spielberg is reportedly also looking for a new distribution deal, which would further cut ties with Paramount.
Last Thursday, the New York Times ran an intriguing story about an architect who was asked to hide a poem written by a family patriarch about his family within the walls of their new apartment. What they got was a series of creative enigmas conceived by the architect and his team that took months to solve. You can find that NY Times article here. Yesterday, Paramount purchased the rights to the article and hired J.J. Abrams to produce it. Judging by Abrams infatuation with “The Mystery Box,” this could turn out to be a very fun and interesting project.
Usually, I detest lists. They’re subjective and arbitrary, even if they claim not to be, and the list makers rarely get it totally “right.” Now, that being said, the AFI has put out one of its annual lists. This time it’s the Top 100 Genre films — the top ten films of ten different genres. Nothing on these lists makes for a bad movie, but I wouldn’t say all of these deserve to be top ten (Titanic as a Top Ten Epic comes to mind, or, as my cousin Juan Carlos pointed out, leaving Metropolis off the Sci-Fi list seems wrong). Judge for yourself here.
Burn News Dailies After Reading: Raimi gets out of the web; Toy Story in 4D
Sam Raimi has chosen his first post-Spider-man project. Raimi will develop and direct Dennis Lehane’s upcoming novel The Given Day. Set in during 1919, it deals with WWI soldiers returning to a tumultuous Boston carrying Spanish Influenza, while at the same time, police try to unionize amidst a strike.
Kevin Spacey will shrink your head in the indie ensemble drama Shrink. Spacey joins Robin Williams, Saffron Burrows, Gore Vidal and others as a psychiatrist to the stars who suffers a personal tragedy and lets himself go.
Those Toy Story fans going on a vacation this summer to Orlando or L.A. might want to stop by Disney World/Land. The parks are boasting a 4-D Toy Story attraction. I don’t understand where the fourth dimension comes in, so just read about it here .
Yesterday, I wrote about Louis Leterrier’s Hulk follow-up, Strays. The Hollywood Reporter’s story on the film said that it was an eco thriller about a team of scientists attempting to escape a Russian city. Aint It Cool News is reporting that Leterrier is only writing and developing, but not directing the movie, and that this may not be the plot of the movie, but that it’s about this:
The Russians have been having problems in and around Moscowwith hyper-intelligent feral dogs that the police believe are responsible for missing homeless people.
These dogs are intelligent enough to catch rides on trolleys and subway trains to go to specific destinations.
More would be known about them, but they are aware that they are being studied and they go out of their way to conceal their activities.
Aint It Cool admits their source is untested and the synopsis sounds similar to another flick called Wolfen, but I figured I’d cover my bases just in case.
Since a little Brad Pitt never did anyone harm, Cinematical scored a fun poster for the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading, which reminds me a bit of the poster for Otto Preminger’s The Man with A Golden Arm.
And, after about a month of a Spanish-language trailer and a crappy YouTube version of the English trailer, the beautiful trailer for The Curios Case of Benjamin Button is finally available on Apple. You can download it here .
News Dailies for June 16: Comic book casting; Angels and Demons keep Howard out of chuch; R.I.P Stan Winston
Some news out of the comic book world today. Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier is in talks to develop and direct the eco action thriller Strays. The film is about a group of young consultants on a business trip to Russia who find themselves in a radioactive city and encounter many obstacles on the road to safety.
Last Thursday, a rather dull trailer for The Punisher 2 hit the nets. (You can see it here ). Director Lexi Alexander explains why the trailer is not very indicative of the actual film here . Short answer: It was a bit hard to find anything that would be allowed to go into the trailer.
The good folks over at IGN.com got a few words from Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige about Jon Favreau’s return to Iron Man 2 and the short turn around between the original and the sequel. In so many words, he says, “Trust us.” The article is available here .
And Robert Downey Jr. is jumping out of the Mark III and into a pair of cowboy boots in Cowboys & Aliens. Based on a graphic novel of the same name, it revolves around a battle in the Old West between the settlers and Indians who find themselves fighting together when aliens crash nearby in the prairie.
In other casting news, Eva Mendes will join Nicolas Cage in the Werner Herzog remake of Bad Lieutenant. In all honesty, this isn’t really news that interests me that much personally (I don’t care much for Mendes), but it gives me an excuse to link this awesome interview with Herzog that ran on Defamer.com in which the director wonderfully explains his reasons for remaking the film and dismisses/insults the original’s director in just five questions.
The Vatican has said no to Angels and Demons director Ron Howard’s request to film inside two churches in Rome. Months ago Howard put in a request to shoot inside Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria, where important parts of the Da Vinci Code sequel take place. The Vatican said “no,” claiming that “the film pursues a type of fantasy that damages common religious sentiment.”
Lawrence Kasdan, the writer of classics such as The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Big Chill and Body Heat, the latter two he also directed, will script a big-screen adaptation of the anime Robotech. Hopefully, he can get back to the fantasy epics he’s good at and make up for Dreamcatcher.
Finally, another great has passed away. Last night Stan Winston, the legendary make up artist who won Oscars for Jurassic Park, Aliens and Terminator 2, died. He was 62. The Variety obit can be found here . Aint It Cool News has posted up a touching tribute to him from James Cameron, and hopes to update with some words from Jon Favreau and Spielberg in the near future. Here’s the piece here.
News Dailies for June 13: Jason’s mask unmasked; Captain DiCaprio?
No doubt capitalizing on today’s date, MTV debuted a behind-the-scenes feature on the new Friday the 13th movie. The big reveal: Jason’s mask, which, for better or worse, looks exactly the same. The video is available here.
Battlestar Galactica fans, rejoice! It seems the show’s finale next year will be an extra hour longer than before, giving 2009 a full 11 hours of BSG goodness. You can read a Chicago Tribue article about the extension here , and a E! News article about it here , which also has info about the Caprica spin off and the future of the series.
Amanda Peet is the female lead in Roland Emmerich’s apocalyptic epic 2012. Not to be confused with the Seth Rogen end-of-the-world flick, Seth and Jay vs. The Apocalypse, 2012 also stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Olive Platt and John Cusack as they try to survive the Mayan-predicted end of days.
Rumor has it Leonardo DiCaprio is being eyed for Captain America, along with Brad Pitt. You can also find an explanation about the whole Captain-America-in-The-Incredible-Hulk misunderstanding here.
And speaking of The Incredible Hulk, which I’ll review for you tomorrow, industry estimates have it taking in between $40 and $60 million this weekend and topping the box office. M Night Shyamalan’s The Happening is predicted to make about $25 million.
News Dailies for June 12: Clooney is a tourist; Bana, Hill and Schwartzman are funny people
A script review for the Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) version of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has leaked online here . It has since been removed, but you can find a review for the draft here .
It seems all the hoopla about Jon Favreau and Iron Man may not be true at all, but that he’s actually been offered a fat raise.
George Clooney will be a wanted man for Warner Bros. The grey-haired actor will star in the film The Tourist, based on Olen Steinhauer’s novel, about a spy who attempts to reveal a conspiracy after being falsely accused of murder.
Judd Apatow’s next directorial outing, Funny People, has added three more to its cast. Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill (of course) and Eric Bana, who was already rumored to be attached, will join Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann. The film “takes place in the world of standup comedy and the focus is on a comedian who has a near-death experience.”
And finally, all you who had a crush on Major Nelson back in the ’60s can rejoice: Mulan writer Rita Hsiao has been hired to rewrite a script for the big-screen version of I Dream of Jeannie.
News Dailies for June 11: Rogen laughs at the end of the world; HBO gets ‘Funny’; Disney, Comedy Central go online
There’s more news today of old media and new media coming together and forming a happy union. Seth Rogen signed with Mandate pictures to turn his faux trailer for Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse into a real movie. The film will star Rogen and Jay Baruchel as two guys who drive each other crazy while trying to avoid the monsters that have invaded earth.
Following what their TV arm, already does on ABC.com, Disney now streams full-length, free movies on Disney.com. Pixar flicks, like Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc., as well as Mouse House live-action features, like Freaky Friday and The Princess Diaries 2. More films will become available this summer after they’re broadcast on Wonderful World of Disney.
There’s been a lot of talk over the last few months about what’s been cut out of the final version of 
The Incredible Hulk and what made it in. Well, now director Louis Letterier has announced that there will be 70 additional minutes on the DVD, including a scene with Captain America.
And, finally, James Bond now only has nine full fingers. Daniel Craig lopped off the tip of his finger while filming an action sequence at London’s Pinewood Studios. The production of Quantum of Solace has been plagued by accidents over the last few months, including two car crashes and a collision that cut an actor’s face.
News Dailies for Jun 10: PBS goes to WWW; Smurfs make a movie; Iron Man losing its pilot?
With all its recent success, you’d think Marvel would be able to generate a little more good press. First, Edward Norton was allegedly so peeved at Marvel, or at Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier, or both, he refused to do publicity for the film. Looks like things are better or that was entirely false, because here he is doing just that here.
The buzz this weekend around Terrence Howard’s “announcement” to Military.com that Iron Man 2 is scheduled for release April 2010 has raised a bit of controversy. Jon Favreau posted on his MySpace blog today that he’s not exactly too keen on that and now IESB.net is reporting that Marvel is considering not bring him back because of a disagreement over pay for the next film. Please, Marvel, dish out for Favreau. The last thing Iron Man fans want is to get stuck with Brett Ratner.
Last month, we heard Ouija was getting a big-screen treatment, then we learned Leonardo DiCaprio will star in a biopic about the creator of Atari and now the Smurfs are headed to Hollywood thanks to Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation. In completely unrelated news, and I’m not entirely sure why I just thought of this, but I heard this weekend that the man who invented the vacuum-sealed Pringles can wanted his ashes stored in a Pringles can and on the way to his funeral, his sons actually bought a Pringles can at a convenience store and put part of him in there. How awesome is that?
News Dailies for June 7: Saturday in the Trailer Park
Apple debuted a handful of exclusive trailers this week. There are two documentaries and one Brit import. The first is Bill Maher’s Religulous (that’s Religious + Ridiculous), a doc about religion in the U.S. Directed by Larry Charles (Borat), the film was intended to be this summer’s hot-button documentary to capture the Michael Moore audience, but was pushed back to October in order to gain a little buzz on the festival circuit. You can find that here .
The other documentary is about one of the most eccentric political writers in American history, Hunter S. Thompson. Narrated by his friend Johnny Depp, Gonzo features interviews with Jimmy Carter, Pat Buchanan, George McGovern, Rolling Stone-founder Jann Wenner and many more. It looks OK, but not particularly stellar. You can find it here .
Boy A, on the other hand, looks very interesting. It’s about a young man who saves a woman’s life, but when his picture ends up in the paper, people discover he committed a violent murder when he was a child and his life turns upside down. You can find that one here .
Over on Yahoo, they’ve got themselves an exclusive teaser for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Thankfully, there are plenty of lemurs and penguins. It’s available here .
News Dailies for June 6: Shut your face, Spike Lee, and other Hollywood News
Keira Knightley is my fair lady. Yeah, right. Actually, she’s starring in a remake of My Fair Lady from her Love Actually producer Duncan Kenworthy. Knightley will play Eliza Doolittle in the remake, which will use the original score and 1912 setting. Between this, Atonement, Pride and Prejudice and, if you count ‘em, the Pirates films, it seems Knightley is setting herself up as a go-to actress for period pieces.
Marvin, A second movie based on the life and times of Marvin Gaye is in the works , with Italian Job helmer F. Gary Gray directing. While no actor is yet attached, Sexual Healing, the James Gandolfini-produced Gaye biopic that focuses on his later years, stars the Marvin Gaye-look-a-like Jesse L. Martin as the legendary Motown crooner.
Sam Raimi has been talking about his potential upcoming projects lately, including Spider-Man 4 and an Evil Dead remake. You can find interviews with him here and here .
In other linkable interviews, Clint Eastwood says Spike Lee should shut his face, and talks about everything from politics to assisted suicide here .
New Dailies for June 5: Revenge of the Fallen in Whom I’d Like to Believe
Transformers 2 has a new title. The sequel is now the blah Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. In other semi-colon sequel news, you can find a new trailer for X-Files: I Want to Believe here .
Despite a handful of bad roles and rumors that people refuse to work with her, Lindsay Lohan has landed a role in the upcoming comedy Labor Pains. Friday Night Lights actress Connie Britton and SNL alum Chris Parnell are also attached. The film is about a woman who tells her boss she is pregnant when she is worried about getting fired and finds the indiscretion leads to other opportunities for her.
Jason Segel, the star of How I Met Your Mother and writer/star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, talked to Latino Review about his new movie, I Love You, Man, and the upcoming Muppet project he is developing. You can read the interview here .
Wayne McClammy, the director of the now-infamous “I’m Fucking Matt Damon ” and its revenge sequel, “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck ,” is attached to direct Cool School. His feature debut, the comedy is about ad execs who return to high school in order to discover what is “cool”.
Jesse Bradford (Flags of our Fathers, The West Wing) has joined the cast of Oliver Stone’s W. Bradford will play one of Dubya’s college drinking buddies. The movie’s teaser sheet from Cannes is here .
News Dailies for June 4: Damon plays rugby; Morgan visits Shangai
Matt Damon is set to star as Nelson Mandella in Clint Eastwood’s new South African rugby flick, Human Factor. No no, I’m just kidding. Morgan Freeman is already attached to star as Mandella, but Damon has signed on to play Francois Pienaar, the star of South Africa’s Springboks. In 1985, the team won the Rugby World Cup and the white star and black president were able to create something that South Africans of both races could unite behind and root for. The film, based on John Carlin’s book The Human Factor: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Changed the World, goes into production next year.
In other casting news, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is meeting John Cusack and Ken Watanabe in Shanghai. The grisly Morgan will play an American murdered in Japan and his death spurns an investigation by Cusack’s character, who eventually uncovers a government secret.
And, finally, (sorry, there’s not too much today, folks, unless you want to uncover some possible Terminator 4 spoilers , a denial of those Terminator 4 spoilers, and some potentially bad news about Beverly Hills Cop 4), there’s an interesting video on The Hollywood Reporter’s Web site with the showrunners of Lost, Mad Men, House and Pushing Daisies (the guy from How I Met Your Mother is apparently there too, but doesn’t speak) doing a roundtable and talking about how the strike affected their ratings. You can find it here , under Exclusive Interviews. You can find a full article about it here . It’s worth checking out, if only because Lost and Mad Men, along with Battlestar Galactica, are the best shows on TV.
News Dailies for June 3: Workers started the fire! It’s been burning since the Universal globe’s been turning!
The fire that damaged Universal’s backlot this weekend was “accidentally started by workers using a blowtorch to heat asphalt shingles being applied to a structure. ” Thankfully, the 40,000 titles that were stored in the torched video vault were backed up elsewhere on negatives and masters.
Sony is creating it’s own original gaming news program for it’s PlayStation. Qore will launch on June 5 in HD and will cover PlayStation releases and feature interviews with industry folks. Veronica Belmont of Tekzilla will host.
Prince of Persia has recruited two more non-Persian actors to join Jake Gyllenhaal and Bond-girl Gemma Arterton. Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina are the newest additions to the cast. Molina plays Sheik Amar, the mentor to Gyllenhaal’s titular prince.
And the award for Silliest Award Show goes to…
Each summer, the MTV Movie Awards or, The Award Show That Should Be Less Boring Than the Oscars But Aren’t, takes over Music Television for one night a thousand repeats, and is quickly forgotten. Honestly, I haven’t watched the MTV Movie Awards in years. They’re usually too slow with weak jokes and the only redeeming part of the whole thing is the hilarious spoofs. Originally, I was going to fill this post with the nominees, but I realized that was a bad idea because a) you can just find them here and b) I don’t think anyone really cares. While I was looking over the list, however, I noticed a category I hadn’t seen before: Best Summer Movie So Far.
Best Summer Movie So Far? Seriously? First, let’s define a summer movie.
Summer Movie: (n) – Typically a Hollywood film that comes out during the summer movie season. Usually has a large budget and grosses boat loads of money. If it doesn’t make boat loads of money, it is considered a “disappointment.”
And, just to clear up any confusion, lets define the summer movie season:
Summer Movie Season: (n) – The period from about the first weekend in May till Labor Day in which summer movies come out.
What was the first movie of this year’s summer movie season? Iron Man. When did Iron Man come out? May 2. That means when the MTV Movie Awards airs tomorrow, June 1, it will be less than a month into this year’s summer movie season.
So what are the nominees for Best Summer Movie So Far? The only five summer movies that have come out. Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones, Iron Man, Sex and the City and Speed Racer. I don’t know what MTV was thinking creating such a category. It might be to ride in the jet stream of a hit, or to give that hit some more press. Iron Man, Indy and SATC are the only true films in contention here and Iron Man will probably win, but the demographic that watches the MTV Movie Awards probably already saw all three of these films, so it won’t give them much of a boost, especially something like Iron Man, which, despite the legs it had in the box office, is now buried beneath Indy and SATC.
In the end, what’s the point? The award won’t really give much of a boost to any film nominated and people won’t tune in just to see which of the five big movies to come out in the last few weeks is going to win the category. I supposed this is a rather pointless topic to write 500-words on, but it kind of encapsulates the MTV Movie Awards as what they are: pointless.
News Dailies for May 30: Spending Friday at the trailer park
A handful of new red band trailers hit the net in the last few days and they’re worth checking out (if you’re over 18, of course). Well, actually, it’s only two red band trailer and one internet only teaser, but you get the idea.
The first two are available only through Apple and iTunes. I’m tired of the Apatow formula of putting adults with arrested development at the center of a movie and having them grow up by the end and I think the mini-genre he’s created around himself has pretty much run dry. Granted, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, his last producural effort was pretty funny. So, at first I thought the new Apatow-McKay-Ferrell-Reilly comedy Step Brothers would be same old same old, but the more I see of it, the funnier it looks. You can find the trailer here . Is it just me, or is John C. Reilly better than Will Ferrell in the doofus role and half as annoying to watch?
Next is the Coen Brothers’ follow up to No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading. Tonally,
it’s completely different from NCFOM and seems more along the lines of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? It’s about a dimwitted gym employee (Brad Pitt) who finds a disk filled with CIA secrets. He and his wife/girlfriend/not sure (Francis McDormand) try to blackmail the agent who lost it (John Malkovich), and a handful of other people get involved in what seems like a espionage adventure gone way, way wrong. George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, J.K. Simmons and Richard Jenkins also appear. Find that one here .
Then there’s the first teaser for Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which is about, well, two people who make a porno. The clip is short and doesn’t reveal much by way of story or plot, because I think the title pretty much sums everything up nicely. It does, however, give an idea of the chemistry between Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks and the comedy that will populate the film. It oddly reminds me of a Christopher Guest movie, just very, very dirty.
This weekend sees Sex and the City make a triumphant (?) return to pop culture. Over at Rotten Tomatoes, the film only has a 58% Tomatometer rating, and the general consensus reads, “Sex and the City loses steam in the transition to the big screen, but will still thrill fans of the show.” That pretty much captures the vibe the trailers had and, besides, with a run time of 2.5 hours, fans can’t complain too much; they’re getting a new half of the season of the show. Trying to nab all the guys who promise take their girlfriends to go see Sex and the City, but then get a ticket to their own movie down the hall is the creepy looking The Strangers. It ranks lower than SATC (44%), but poor quality doesn’t really affect the success of horror movies these days. (See: Saw, Hostel, The Grudge). Still industry estimates put one man, not four women, or three strangers, back on the top of the box office list this weekend: Indy.
Bad News Dailies for May 29
While there wasn’t a whole lot of interesting news out of Hollywood today, there was a few piece of bad news. Here’s a trio of items that range from unnecessary to just plain stupid.
Brett Ratner is back to run sequel havoc on the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. As if the third one wasn’t bad enough, Ratner, the director of such sequel classics as X-Men 3: The Last Stand and Red Dragon, will work his magic on Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop 4.
Elizabeth Berkley and Briana Evigan are going to be visited by a time-traveling bunny in Samantha D, the sequel to Donnie Darko. The new Darko takes place seven years after the first and centers around the visions Donnie’s sister has after running away from her family.
Speaking of magic, Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes label are putting together a film version of — this is not a joke — Ouija. Yes, Ouija, the board game. The movie is being billed as a supernatural thriller, but plot details are being kept under wraps. While transferring pre-existing things that shouldn’t be movies into movies worked for Pirates of the Caribbean, I can’t see it working at all here. If the film industry keeps coming up with any more ideas like this, it’s all going to topple down like a game of Jenga.
News Dailies for May 28: Strike, again?; TV critics in your TiVo; Almost Spider-man; Corn=lots of dough
Sharon Stone is no longer welcome in China. Last week at Cannes she pondered if the earthquake in China that’s left 65,000 dead was karma for the Chinese government’s treatment of Tibetans. China’s UME Cineplex chain now will not show the actress’ films, calling her comments “inappropriate.”
Even though they’re disappearing from newsrooms, TV critics are appearing on your TiVo. TiVo has struck a deal with the Chicago Tribune and their critic Maureen Ryan to offer her daily TV picks. As it stands now, the service is only available to Chicago-area subscribers, but TiVo is trying to make deals with other publications.
Hollywood has almost avoided another strike, this time one that would be even more debilitating than the writer strike. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers reached a deal with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and will now return to talks with the Screen Actor’s Guild. Talks between AMPTP and SAG fell through earlier this month and the AFTRA deal puts increased pressure on SAG to make their own deal before the June 30 deadline. Unlike the WGA strike, an actor’s strike would end production immediately on almost anything currently being filmed.
Rumor has it Tobey Maguire will be replaced by one of two William Millers. Fans of Almost Famous will recognize Patrick Fugit as the writer at the heart of Cameron Crowe’s autobiographical tale, but those with a close eye will also recognize Michael Angarano as the kid who played the young William Miller who learns he’s a year younger than he thinks he is. Sony apparently is eyeing potential replacement for Maguire should they recast and go forward with Spider-man 4 and 5. Fugit and Anganaro are at the top of their list, but no offers have been made to anyone yet.
Perhaps as a preview of what’s to come this weekend, Sex and the City is already making a few million overseas. Carrie Bradshaw and company have pulled in $4.8 million in the United Kingdom and France. But if you do head to the movies this weekend, beware the price of popcorn. Rising food prices are making the concessions stand and the box office more expensive. Read all about the matter here .
News Dailies for May 27: Hulk smash, Hulk market; Watching the Watchmen on DVD; Sydney Pollack dies
In an effort to boost its DVD sales, Warner Bros. is going to release supplements to Watchmen on DVD five days after the initial release. The DVD will feature the Tales of the Black Freighter and Under the Hood portions of the graphic novel. Four months later, Watchmen will come out on DVD, and then another DVD will come out with Tales of the Black Freighter and Watchmen edited together.
The marketing for The Incredible Hulk is getting into full swing and Marvel is trying everything short of erasing the memory of Ang Lee’s 2003 version. Last week a handful of clips from the flick hit the web. You can find them here, here and here . A handful of movie sites have also recently talked with the director and sat in on the editing. You can read those articles here , here , here and here .
James Cameron promises his next film, Avatar, will be unlike anything ever experience before and that all of his future films will be in 3-D. Some details on the plot and the technology behind the film can be found here.
And, finally, not to finish on a sad note, but director/actor/producer Sydney Pollack has died at 73 from cancer. He directed such classic films as Tootsie and Out of Africa, produced everything from Sliding Doors to HBO’s Recount, and even acted (and excellently at that) in Michael Clayton, The Sopranos, Will and Grace and Tootsie, just to name a few. While I haven’t seen enough of his work to write a formal celebrity-style obit, you can read the one that ran in the New York Times here.
News Dailies for May 24: Together at last!
Apple has the first two trailers for the much-anticipated De Niro-Pacino flick Righteous Kill. The two play partners on the NYPD who investigate a series of murders of notorious criminals. Because that’s too simple, or too similar to TV’s Dexter, the killer also leaves four-line poems that justify the killings. The trailers indicate that the killer could be a cop, while the synopsis on Apple hints that it’s all connected to a case from years ago and the partners may have put the wrong man behind bars way back when. GASP!
The film looks interesting, if not a little formulaic, like the kind of film that you’d catch on USA a few years after it’s initial release, but wouldn’t really rush to see in theaters. Judge for yourself and watch it here .
An interesting note: Pacino has said he took the role because he wanted to work with De Niro and the two look like they have good chemistry together. It might be worth seeing just for their team-up; they share more screen time together in just one of these trailers than they did in all of Heat and Godfather: Part II combined.
News Dailies for May 22: Terminator details; Boll gets serious; VP Dreyfus; Downey is a playboy
Oliver Stone has found his Cheney. The semi-retired Richard Dreyfus, likely trying to keep anyone from remember his last film as Poseidon, will play the Vice President for the upcoming Bush biopic W.
Warner Bros. issued a press release today to announce the beginning of production on Terminator 4. It provides a little news about the plot:
In the highly anticipated new installment of The Terminator film franchise, set in post-apocalyptic 2018, Christian Bale stars as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.
The Chicago Sun Times is reporting that Hugh Hefner has deemed Robert Downey Jr. his choice to play himself in the
biopic about the Playboy founder. The brilliant (that’s sarcasm) Brett Ratner is attached to direct.
If Uwe Boll isn’t forced to stop directing because of the online petition against him, he will take a break from genre films and make some serious movies. True story. Seems the director wants to prove his critics wrong and he will helm “two improvised films aimed at the arthouse crowd.” The first, Stoic, is about the true rape, torture and assisted suicide/murder of a prisoner in Germany. The second, Janjaweed, will focus on the Sudan genocide.
Those who’ve already caught Indiana Jones this weekend have probably already seen the trailer for David Fincher and Brad Pitt’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but for those who haven’t here is the Spanish trailer for the film. The footage is the same, though the introductory narration is obviously in a different language. The movie doesn’t look much like anything Fincher has done before – it reminds me of a darker, more interesting Big Fish – but it still looks mighty cool.
News Dailies for May 21: Netflix thinks inside the box; Demme does Marley; MyNetwork shows YouTube
A busy news days yesterday gave way to a slow news day today. First up, Netflix is coming to a TV near you. Well, duh, it already does that, but the online rental house now offers a set-top thing-a-majig through which you can download movies directly to your TV for $99. It’s sort of like Apple TV (which lets you to play movies you’d downloaded from iTunes on your TV), just $130 cheaper but offers lower quality. The Netflix box comes HDMI compatible, however, as Netflix says they’ll offer HD movies for download in the future.
Not to be outdone by fellow New York-director Spike Lee, Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) announced today that he will direct a documentary about Bob Marley. Martin Scorsese was originally supposed to direct, but had to bow out due to scheduling conflicts, aka the other five films he may be directing in the next two years (that count includes the rumored Frank Sinatra flick, for those checking his IMDb page).
And, finally, the big news for today: Indiana Jones comes out in just 2.5 hours on the east coast. My brother and I already purchased our tickets; we’re catching it tonight. Will it be good? Bad? I’m the guy with the blog. I’ll have a full review up tomorrow.
New Dailies for May 20: MJ and Spike make a movie; Gyllenhaal is a ‘Prince’; Indiana Jones and the Box Office Champion
They are immortal. After a handful of lackluster sequels and a TV series, Highlander is getting its very own remake . Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (who co-wrote Iron Man) will write the script.
Despite a battle with cancer, rumor has it that Patrick Swayze will reprise his role as Bodhi from Point Break for the upcoming sequel Point Break Indo. There’s no word on how sizeable the role is or if Keanu Reeves will return as well.
The BBC reports that Christian Bale has signed on to play John Connor in three Terminator films, according to the producers. Common and Sam Worthington will also appear with McG directing.
Spike Lee announced at Cannes that he will direct a feature-length doc about Michael Jordan. The NBA will finance the flick.
“3-D is here to stay,” that’s RealD chair-CEO Michael Lewis talking about his company’s deal with Regal Entertainment to outfit 1,500 screens with digital 3-D projectors. The move will more than double the number of digital 3-D screens in the U.S. and will put 3-D Digital in most major markets (including my native Miami, which currently has none).
The 1993 stand-off in Waco, Texas between the ATF, FBI and cult-leader David Koresh that left 80 dead will get a big-screen movie made about it called Waco. Rupert Wainwright (The Fog) will direct and he co-wrote the script with James Hibberd
Jake Gyllenhaal has signed on to star in the video game adaptation Prince of Persia. New Bond Girl Gemme Arterton will appear alongside him.
A little Spielberg news for this Tuesday afternoon. The Beard announced that he will co-direct the third Tin-tin film in the trilogy he and Peter Jackson are doing together. Each director will do one separately and then split duties for the last film. Also, The Hollywood Reporter reports that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull could make upwards of $150 million and beat Spider-man 3’s record.
Finally, here is the first image of the Cormac McCarthy-adaptation The Road. The hirsute fellow is Viggo Mortenson.
News Dailies for May 19: Blackbeard’s biopic; 3-D zombies; The movie of Dorian Gray (again)
Now it’s time for the real pirates of the Caribbean. DreamWorks will make a biopic about the legendary pirate Blackbeard. The guy who wrote Gladiator is scripting.
When there is no more room in hell, the dead will be in 3-D!!!!!! George Romero’s masterpiece Dawn of the Dead will be re-released in 3-D. In-Three, the company that is giving Star Wars the same treatment, will dimensionalize the flick.
Dorian Gray has found another way to be eternal: make movies. Ben Barnes, the British thespian who plays the titular monarch in Prince Caspian, will star as Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s hedonistic protagonist who never ages. The character has recently appeared on screen in the terrible League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and two movies titled The Picture of Dorian Gray.
If you’ll be in Manhattan, Parsippany, N.J. or Long Island this Wednesday, you can catch the Mets-Braves game in HD in cineplexes. T-shirts will be thrown into the stands and Mr. Met will make an appearance to help mimic the feel of a baseball game.
John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor will star in Roland Emmerich’s 2012. It should surprise no one that this is an apocalyptic thriller; Emmerich doesn’t really make anything else. His last film, 10,000 B.C., was a critical and commercial failure. 2012 will revolve around a series of natural disasters that correspond with the end of the Mayan calendar and the heroes that fight to survive them.
News Dailies for May 16: Caspian to conquer the box office; Cameron makes 3-D drama, Wall-E found in L.A.
Money, money, money … MONEY!!!! Prince Caspian looks will both save Narnia and rake in the dough this weekend. Industry estimates have the film making upwards of $85 million dollars. Critics have accepted the film moderately well; the film has a 69% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, with an average rating of 6.5/10. Their “Top Critics,” meaning critics that don’t include silly Web folks like me, give average 6.3/10.
James Cameron will continue to make his films in not one, not two, but three dimensions. Cameron is reportedly keen on doing the story of Pipin Ferreras and Audrey Mestre. The two were world-champion free divers and were romantically involved until Mestre’s death during a competition in 2002. Cameron hopes that their romance and tragedy, combined with 3-D underwater photography, will prove that 3-D movies can work for dramas and just not cartoons and action spectacles.
Tobey Maguire’s Spider Sense may be tingling. It seems Zodiac scribe James Vanderbilt turned in a draft of a new Spider-Man that would actually be a two-film arc. There’s not much word by way of plot or story, but apparently, Sony liked it .
Now that iTunes offers HBO shows for a flexible price (that is, Apple is changing it’s pricing plans to accommodate HBO), it seems the remaining studios that held out on selling movies on iTunes now will . Apple will sell new releases on iTunes so that they will be as profitable to studios as DVDs.
Finally, here ’s a cute little video of Wall-E in Los Angeles.
News Dailies for May 15: Fleming, Ian Fleming; Corddry an A-lister; not-so-lonely EQAL; Turner hires police forces
While Daniel Craig is all over the world playing James Bond, Leonardo DiCaprio is in talks to play
the man who created the character in the film Fleming. Ian Fleming published his first Bond novel Casino Royale in 1953 after working in the British Navy as an intelligence Commander. The film will explore the real-life people behind M and Miss Moneypenney . Personally, I think Geoffrey Rush would be a dead ringer for Fleming (right) with a little bit of make up.
Rob Corddry has signed on for his first lead role in Project A. The Daily Show alum, who recently appeared in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantamo Bay, will play a government-experiment from the Cold War who turns into “the world’s biggest jerk.” Ben Stiller will produce the script from his Tropic Thunder scribe Etan Cohen.
Little kids are bound to be the newest horror stars. R.L. Stine’s children’s series Goosebumps, the second-most successful children’s series behind Harry Potter, will come to cineplexes by way of Sony and Scholastic . Over at Camp Crystal Lake, the Friday the 13th remake has found its second actor to play Jason. Caleb Guss will play a young Jason. All this per the director’s blog , which reveals production of the movie is about as bloody as the movie itself.
News Dailies for May 14: Hemingway, 21 Jump Street, Day-Lewis musical
Tommy Lee Jones is putting multiple slashes in front of his name as the writer/producer/director/star of Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream. Jones will shoot the film in Puerto Rico and Tommy Lee Jones and Morgan Freeman (who apparently is trying to distance himself from the prescient roles he’s played so much lately) are in talks to star. This is Jones’ second directorial effort after the south-of-the-border Western, The Three Burials of Malquiades Estrada.
The latest — and youngest — film to get an official remake is the 1992 film Bad Lieutenant. Nicolas Cage, who will act in anything, will star and Werner Herzog, who doesn’t direct very much, will helm. Herzog’s most recent film was the excellent Vietnam POW flick Rescue Dawn, while Cage’s last movie was National Treasure: Book of Secrets (National Treasure: BS, for short), so hopefully the two can find a happy medium between those two extremes.
Also getting a big-screen version is 21 Jump Street, the late-’80s series that started Johnny Depp’s career. Strangely, Jonah Hill of Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall will help write and executive produce the film. Entertainment Weekly says there isn’t any word on the tone of the film, but with Hill attached, expect a farcical take with plenty of dick jokes.
Oscar -winner Daniel Day-Lewis possibly will follow up There Will Be Blood with a musical. 
Variety reports that the actor is in talks to step in and replace Javier Bardem (who dropped out of the production due to exhaustion) in Nine. It’s based on Frederico Fellini’s 8½, and Day-Lewis’ role would be that of a famous film directly that can’t sort out all the women in his life and suffers a personal and creative breakdown.
Juno-director Jason Reitman will make his next film , Home, for his dad Ivan’s Montecito Picture Company. Currently, he is only writing the script, which he is adapting from the the Walter Kirn novel Up In the Air.
Finally, those looking for more info on the Point Break sequel, Point Break Indo, you can find that here .
News Dailies for May 13: Donald Rumsfeld, Frank Sinatra, HBO and Fraggle Rock
Starting out with some political movie news today, Oliver Stone has cast Scott Glenn to play Donald
Rumsfeld in his much-publicized George W. Bush biopic, W. Glenn joins an already solid stock of players: James Cromwell as Bush 41; Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush; Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice; Toby Jones as Carl “Turdblossom” Rove; Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush; and Josh Brolin as W himself. Still uncast: Dick Cheney.
According to Jam Showbiz and Nancy Sinatra, Martin Scorsese will helm a Frank Sinatra biopic. It doesn’t seem the deal is official yet, but Sinatra promises “you’ll be reading about it very soon.”
Michael Moore announced that he is going ahead with his Fahrenheit 9/11 sequel. Word from Cannes is that he’s not going through The Weinstein Company, as he did with the first Fahrenheit, but Overture Films and Paramount Vantage will split producing, financing and distribution duties. Moore recently started production and will release the film mid-2009.
Also getting a sequel is the 1991 surfer flick Point Break. Based on a screenplay from the original’s screenwriter, W. Peter Iliff, and directed by Jan de Bont (Speed, Twister), the film will take place in Asia some 20 years after the end of the original.
And whilst The Weinstein Company lost Michael Moore’s business, they’re gaining some from The Jim Henson Co. Fraggle Rock will make its big screen debut with a part-puppet, part human cast at the center of a musical directed by Corey Edwards (Hoodwinked).
News Dailies for May 12: TV Pickups, Porno, Abraham Lincoln
With upfronts just around the corner, Hollywood is abuzz with TV news. Like American Gladiators
and Knight Rider before it, Beverly Hills 90210 is returning to the tube on The CW this fall. It’s rumored that ABC finally greenlit Life On Mars, the remake of the BBC shows of the same name about a cop unstuck in time. The network also picked up a new Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill) animated series, as well as renewed Eli Stone for a second season.
FOX recently announced they were bringing back some of the Arrested Development crew (likely so they can cancel them again). AD’s creator, Mitch Hurwitz, is at the head of an animated show about a high-school faculty called Sit Down, Shut Up, while Michael Bluth himself, Jason Bateman, directed the also-picked-up pilot for The Inn, which was created by AD scribe Abraham Higginbotham. J.J. Abrams, of Alias and Lost fame, and his Bad Robot team will produce the sci-fi drama Fringe for FOX as well. It’s Abrams first series off ABC since Felicity.
Probably the biggest, if not entirely new news out of Burbank comes from NBC, which is expected to announce that Jimmy Fallon will officially take over for Conan O’Brien when O’Brien moves to L.A. next year to host The Tonight Show. The network seems to think that Fallon has proven himself for the job, but really, he’s a so-so comic filling in for another comic long past his prime. With Craig Ferguson slowly overtaking Conan in the ratings and Leno still on top of his time slot, things aren’t looking good for NBC’s late-night lineup.
NBC is in a catch-22 because if they keep Leno for The Tonight Show, they’d owe Conan $40 million. If they let him go, word is that Leno might follow in Dan Rather’s footsteps and head to cable or satellite, or he might jump over to ABC, push Jimmy Kimmel back an hour and compete directly with Conan. It’s just another problem Ben Silverman will have to fix quickly if he wants to get off to a good start as the head of NBC.
Somewhat transitioning to movies, IGN.com scored an exclusive trailer for The X-Files: I Want to Believe, which is short on plot, but will probably pique some of that cult interest that made the show such a huge success. Also from the TV world, Alvin and the Chipmunks will be returning to cinemas in 2010 with a sequel to last year’s family hit.
Kevin Smith’s new comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno is apparently complete and will get its first test screening tomorrow. The trailer should hit the ‘net this week.
Steven Spielberg announced today that he will produce his Tintin and Abraham Lincoln movies back-to-back starting this fall. Spielberg fans will remember he’s done this before when he released Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List and War of the World’s and Munich in the same years after shooting them consecutively.
Finally, it seems not only is Robert Downey Jr. an Iron Man, he’s also a money machine. His superhero flick topped the box office and raked in $50 million this weekend, not only nearly outgrossing the second, third, fourth and fifth movies combined, but it had less than a 50% drop off from last weekend. That’s not only big business for Downey and Co., but for Marvel as well. Iron Man was their freshman effort as an independent studio and it’s proving to be golden.
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