Posted Oct 10th 2008 1:03PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Comedy, Independent, Casting, Deals, Scripts, Newsstand
I predict that the news you are about to read will result in many people shocked,
shocked! that someone would make a
comedy about
cancer. Even
The Hollywood Reporter sounds a little uncertain about the news. But once you read the film's plot, I think you're going to see exactly what kind of movie this is.
Mandate Pictures has bought
I'm With Cancer, an autobiographical comedy by
Will Reiser.
Seth Rogen, the busiest man in Hollywood, is set to costar and produce the film alongside his writing-producing partner
Evan Goldberg and
The Daily Show's Ben Karlin.
Reiser's script is based on his own battle with cancer, and is centered around an up-and-coming 25-year-old who discovers he has the disease. I think you know where this is going. This isn't going to be some spoof of serious illness, or run with the idea that coming down with cancer is funny.
Cancer is going to be about a young man trying to deal with something that could kill him, finding the humor in hospital situations, and using it to stay sane. Laughter is the best medicine, and all that. Given that Reiser obviously conquered his disease to co-produce this movie, I bet it will even have a happy ending. You know what I'm also willing to bet on? Medicinal marijuana jokes. If there isn't at least one, I will eat this post.
Posted Oct 9th 2008 1:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Drama, Independent, Thrillers, Casting, Scripts, Newsstand
Gerard Butler's RocknRolla week has gone rather sour, poor lad. (And I do mean that.) But maybe he can keep cheerful at the idea that
Law Abiding Citizen is finally moving forward again. If you remember, this is the first film Butler will be producing under his
Evil Twins shingle, and he snagged
Frank Darabont for the director's chair.
Now, according to
The Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Butler has snagged himself a pretty big costar:
Jamie Foxx. Butler will play a successful assistant D.A., who finds himself in the middle of a vigilante plot hatched by Foxx, who has been screwed over by the legal system and discovers that one of the men responsible for killing his wife and daughter is about to be set free. All who participated in the deal and the killings are fair game for his revenge. It's going to be a lot of fun watching Butler and Foxx square off.
Possibly better than Foxx's casting is that they seem to be keeping the original plot. When Darabont became attached to the film, the press release suggested that the story was revamped to center around a criminal mastermind rather than vigilante justice. Who wants to see a Hannibal Lecter knockoff over a Harvey Dent clone? Not I, I like my moral ambiguity and Batman style justice. No word on when this starts shooting, but let's hope it's soon. I think Butler could use some good news -- and a safer outlet for his own vigilante justice.
Posted Oct 9th 2008 9:03AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Lionsgate Films, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand
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Oliver Stone's
W. has screened for the more important among us, and I am pleasantly surprised to report that people are not openly laughing at it. Some seem downright impressed. Here, for example is David Poland on
The Hot Blog:
"[Josh] Brolin should be nominated for the Oscar. We'll see whether the crowd around Best Actor is too big for him to crack, but it is a letter perfect performance that looks much, much easier than most critics and audiences, I think, will understand . . . . The only downside is that the movie doesn't offer the massive supporting cast a lot of big awards-style moments. They are just really, really good. And that really should be enough."
Variety's
Todd McCarthy is a bit more mixed than Poland, but concedes that
W. "offers a clear and plausible take on the current chief executive's psychological makeup and, considering Stone's reputation and Bush's vast unpopularity, a relatively even-handed, restrained treatment of recent politics." And
Kirk Honeycutt over at
The Hollywood Reporter says that though the film is more bold than it is good, "Stone goes out of his way to give Bush a fair hearing."
Over the summer, I
guffawed at the notion that Stone was going to be fair and sympathetic to Bush in
W., but it looks like I may be eating those words before too long. Apparently the problem people are having with the film isn't its politics but its lack of formal audacity, which is the opposite what I expected to hear. But it's certainly good to learn that Stone at least attempts a serious treatment of the subject -- those
script pages that
Slate "leaked" a while back could have fooled me.
Posted Oct 8th 2008 7:32PM by Eric D. Snider
Filed under: Awards, Newsstand, Oscar Watch
For years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has had a rule against showing TV commercials for movies during the Oscar show itself. This was an attempt to keep the ceremony as pure as possible. It was also to avoid problems -- people might smell conspiracy if, for example, the studio that bought the most ad time during the show also happened to win the most Oscars.
But now, according to
Variety, the Academy has voted to change the rule and start allowing movie ads during the show, effective with next February's telecast. This could be huge in terms of building excitement for new films. The Oscars' massive worldwide audience is obviously the right crowd to show movie ads to, and the studios will undoubtedly roll out their best stuff to capitalize on it. The Oscar show doesn't draw as many viewers as the Super Bowl (currently the most sought-after place to debut a highly anticipated new trailer), but at least the studios can count on everyone in the Oscar audience being a movie fan. That's not necessarily the case with the Super Bowl.
Another reason to be excited about this is a stipulation the Academy has made: They're allowing brand-new, not-yet-aired commercials only. What's more, each distributor is only allowed one. It's not clear whether that's one commercial that can air multiple times during the show, or one shot, period. But either way, it means the studios will have to carefully select the ONE upcoming film that they most want to promote, and then produce the best possible commercial for it. And that's good news for the movie fans watching the show.
Continue reading Coming Soon to the Oscar Telecast: Movie Commercials
Posted Oct 8th 2008 11:20AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Lionsgate Films, Warner Brothers, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Images, Trailers and Clips, Posters
There's actually a lot of noteworthy geek news today -- but alas, none of it is amazing enough to really warrant an entire post. Believe me, it makes me a sad panda not getting to devote an entire post to Wolverine. So, let's just get right down to it:
- Producer Lauren Shuler Donner talked up X-Men Origins: Wolverine over on Superhero Hype: "It's closer to the first X-Men in tone because it's a little darker, but there's a lot of action. It's his origin story. It's really good. I've been in the editing room the last couple of weeks and I think that it's good and that audiences are going to like it. But it's a little darker ... You haven't seen this side of him. It's darker and sadder and it's kick-ass. There's a ton of action. It's really kick-ass." She also suggested the film borrows from Wolverine's Victorian youth in one of my least favorite series, Wolverine: Origins.
- The troubled Punisher: War Zone has launched its official site, and it's got all kinds of things to click on. The multiplayer game jammed up my computer so I don't know what that's all about. And IGN has the new poster, which will arrive in your local theaters framed in "real" guns. I must say, that is a pretty impressive piece of marketing.
- David S. Goyer, scribe of The Dark Knight, tried his best to end all these Batman 3 rumors. "It's all B.S.," he told MTV News. "ALL of it. Chris and I haven't even talked about it. He quite understandably is taking a long, long vacation and wants to purge himself." This will dampen the "Guess who's playing Catwoman" rumors for approximately 3.5 days.
- Superhero Hype has 5 videos of Kick-Ass filming in Toronto. Mostly people standing around, and cars being driven on platform trucks. And /film has photos up of Dave "Kick Ass" Lizewski's costume, filled out nicely by his stunt double.
Posted Oct 8th 2008 9:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Classics, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, MGM, New Line, Fandom, Scripts, Newsstand, Peter Jackson, Remakes and Sequels
Middle Earth fanatics have long debated what the heck this whole "second
Hobbit movie" would entail. Arguably, there's enough material for a
prequel, with Gandalf leading battles into Mirkwood to fight Sauron, who was slowly rebuilding his dark kingdom. But recent news has suggested it is more of a
Hobbit sequel, where Tolkien's material is scarcer.
Well,
MTV News caught up with director
Guillermo del Toro, who attempted to shed a little light on the topic. "The reality is that we stopped talking the first movie and second movie, and we just started taking about the movie - the two episodes, or two parts, as if they were a single piece of narrative. We don't even call it the bridge movie, we just call it 'The Movie.' And this is great. When we found what reverberated, and we found it in one of our virtual meetings -- we understood. It's a movie. We all agree that if we do our job right, it should all feel like a continuous journey. That's what we're striving for."
Is that any clearer? No, I didn't think so. But actually, del Toro dropped one hint, one riddle in the dark that might just solve everything -- he let slip where the first movie would end. "We are finding out. I think Smaug dies in the first movie. So draw your own conclusions."
And
my conclusion would be that with Smaug's death concluding the first movie, the second would deal with the Battle of the Five Armies, where everyone from elves to the men of Esgaroth have an eye on claiming Smaug's gold. It's pretty epic and vicious, and could
easily take up an entire movie. In fact, I'm not sure how they could get all of that into one
Hobbit film. I think this is going to turn out to be a sensible move that does the book justice -- not the cash grab we all took it for.
Posted Oct 6th 2008 9:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Classics, Horror, Thrillers, Deals, Scripts, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
Call me crazy, but Bram Stoker's
Dracula (the book, not the movie) ends pretty definitively. Dracula gets a bowie knife in the heart, and crumbles into dust in the red sun of the Transylvanian dawn. The wiggle room has been taken care of in a score of movies, books, and television shows -- and we have plenty of
new vampire stories, so must we really dig up Dracula again? Well, according to
ShockTillYouDrop, yes.
They say a sequel
is coming -- and this time it's getting a literary
and big screen outing. For the first time, the Stoker estate has authorized an official
Dracula sequel titled
Dracula: The Undead. Written by Dacre Stoker, Bram's great-grandnephew, and
Dracula historian Ian Holt, the story uses characters and plot threads that were edited out of Stoker's original novel in 1897. It hits store shelves in October 2009, just in time for Halloween. And don't think it's the only sequel you'll be getting -- publishing house Penguin-Canada (who describes the book as having done a"fantastic job melding the old with the new"), has already signed up for two more.
But you won't get to read it before film production starts -- Holt and Alexander Galant have already completed and sold the script, and production is slated to begin in June 2009.
Jan DeBont is one of the producers and I'm sure he's debating whether or not to direct as well.
I might be interested in this if estate authorized sequels were ever good -- I can't think of one that was, but there's always a chance this could be it. Besides, I think the definitive
Dracula sequel has already been made --
Dracula 2000, starring a baby-faced Gerard Butler. I just know you've all forgotten about it, like Butler and Christopher Plummer probably want you to, but why wait until 2009 for sexy vampire times? Just rent this one.
Posted Oct 6th 2008 5:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Classics, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, Scripts, Newsstand, Peter Jackson, Remakes and Sequels
The reason everyone loves
Guillermo del Toro can, I think, be summed up in this new
Hobbit related quote. "Believe me, I am jumping up-and-down inside this fat body!"
Yes, del Toro teased us all with
Hobbit talk when he appeared at the Director's Guild of America recently and spilled all kinds of information regarding Middle Earth and his adaptation of
Frankenstein.
ComingSoon has the whole delicious thing, but I'll post my favorite bit -- his research into the mind of J.R.R. Tolkien: "I find you have to discipline yourself to write in the morning, and then watch and read in the afternoons stuff that seems relevant, even in a tangential way. For example, reading or watching World War I documentaries or books that I think inform
The Hobbit, strangely enough, because I believe it is a book born out of Tolkien's generation's experience with World War I and the disappointment of being in that field and seeing all those values kind of collapse. I think it's a turning point that you need to familiarize yourself with."
And naturally, he sounds most excited about tackling Smaug. "Essentially, Smaug represents so many things: greed, pride ... he's 'the Magnificent,' after all. The way his shadow is cast in the narrative you cannot then show it and have it be one thing, he has to be the embodiment of all those things. He's one of the few dragons that will have enormous scenes with lines. He has some of the most beautiful dialogues in those scenes! The design, I'm pretty sure that will be the last design we will sign off on, and the first design we have attempted. It is certainly a matter of turning every stone before figuring out what he looks like, because what he looks like will tell you what he is."
Continue reading Guillermo del Toro Talks About 'Hobbit', 'Frankenstein'
Posted Oct 6th 2008 12:40PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Newsstand, Home Entertainment, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
When
The Dark Knight hits DVD on December 9th, it will cause hysteria not seen since ... well, it hit theaters on July 18th. Part of it will be due to those devoted fans who
were buying tickets on eBay, but also be due to it receiving one heck of a release.
DVD Active gives us a few details on the DVD, and you can scope out some photos of this year's hottest stocking stuffer below.
First comes the standard 1-disc edition, for those buyers who just don't care about flashy extras or DVD art. There will be no bonus features on the one-disc, so buy carefully. True fans will be opting for the 2-disc set, which includes these delightful extras:
- Gotham Uncovered documentary
- Featurettes (Batman Tech: The Incredible Gadgets and Tools, Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of The Dark Knight)
- 6 episodes of Gotham Cable's Premier News Program
- Galleries (The Joker Cards, Concept Art, Poster Art, Production Stills)
- Trailers and TV spots
And if that wasn't enough, the 2-disc DVD art will feature alternate art under its cardboard sleeve -- it seems the Joker savaged each and every one of them with markers and crayons (see gallery below).
There's also a third edition the
really hardcore among you will be standing in line for, and that's the limited edition pictured above. It doesn't come with additional features, but is secured in a steel DVD case and accompanied by a replica Batpod. As it's not actually big enough to ride or pivot on walls, it's useless to me. But it's ideal for those of you with lots of desk space!
In related news: The brand new edition of
Production Weekly lists
Batman 3 as going into pre-production this February, with Christopher Nolan directing.
PW is a pretty reliable trade source, though it's odd to see news like that hit there before arriving in, say,
Variety. As always, more info when it develops ...
Posted Oct 6th 2008 10:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Classics, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Disney, Fandom, Tech Stuff, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
The geek cred of
Jeff Bridges has skyrocketed this year. I can't really think of a time when he
wasn't adored by film fans, but he's got a special place with the fanboys these days thanks to his turn as Obadiah Stane in
Iron Man. I was present for the
Tron 2/Tr2n (do I
really have to spell it that way?) footage at ComicCon this year -- and it was one of those moments that will forever hold a place in nerd legend; the first glimpse of Bridges' face caused the walls of Hall H to shake with howls of glee. And that was just a teaser filmed purely for the convention -- heaven knows what emotions the actual trailer will prompt.
The Guardian had the chance to sit down with Bridges, who happily chatted about revisiting his
Tron role -- and the uncertain possibility of having to don a "neon mankini" again. ("Ah, the G-string. You've got to love it. I'm wearing one now!") But despite the potential for skimpy underthings, Bridges felt the chance of doing a new
Tron movie was too good to pass up. "[It's] another unique, wild experience that was too good to turn down. Engaging in that world again feels just like it did all that time ago. Basically, I'm still a child, I love being childlike, and here was another chance to play with these crazy toys. And the cutting-edge technology makes it exciting. Doing the teaser trailer for Comic-Con, I had my first experience of motion capture. And that's turning the industry on its head. It's amazing being part of that."
Continue reading Jeff Bridges Talks About the Cutting Edge of 'Tron 2'
Posted Oct 4th 2008 3:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Drama, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Lists, Images, Trailers and Clips
Continue reading Cinematical's Stuff That Happened This Week
Posted Oct 3rd 2008 5:45PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, RumorMonger, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Early last month,
Variety published a rather scathing look at 20th Century Fox's summer receipts and mentioned the studio was
digging through its collection of superheroes with an eye on getting some of that blockbuster mojo back. It wasn't surprising to see more X-Men spin-offs and sequels being talked about -- but what
did raise a few eyebrows was the inclusion of
Daredevil. The Man with No Fear had a pretty disastrous debut in 2003, and his girlfriend/nemesis Elektra fared even worse.
IESB caught up with Fox's co-chairman, Tom Rothman, and pressed him on the subject of revisiting
Daredevil. It's more than a passing fancy in the trades -- Fox is thinking "very seriously" of a reboot. Says Rothman: "I think that the thing the
Hulk showed, although it did what it did, is that it is possible that if you really do it right the audience will give you a second chance. That it is possible. And I think that you see that when they did
Batman Begins, the first Nolan movie, that you can have made some mistakes along the way or movies that the audience wasn't that crazy about and then given the proper amount of time and the right creative vision behind it, you can, to use your word, reboot."
Continue reading Tom Rothman Talks 'Daredevil' Reboot
Posted Oct 2nd 2008 7:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Comedy, Romance, Casting, Universal, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Trailers and Clips
I'm finally writing a post here that my sister will read. You see, she adores
Russell Brand almost as much as Brand adores
Cinematical and
Scott Weinberg (see image above as proof of this fact). Maybe even more, because unlike most Americans, she was avidly following his British career via his podcast and BBC America. There have been many humbling moments in my
Cinematical salad days, but none quite so humiliating as when I told her Brand was in
Forgetting Sarah Marshall. "I
know. I followed the filming on his podcast." At least Weinberg promptly humiliated her by getting all cozy with her favorite Englishman.
As my sister wasn't one of the casting directors for
Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Brand had to make an audition tape to convince them of his weirdly-coiffed worthiness. In honor of
its DVD release,
MTV has the exclusive, and I've embedded it below for your viewing pleasure. And if you're like my sibling and can't get enough, I've also included the karaoke version of his in-film music video,
Infant Sorrow.
5-1 my sister writes "I've already
seen both of those videos" in the comments. Hopefully, you'll be more appreciative.
Continue reading Even Russell Brand Has to Make Audition Tapes
Posted Oct 2nd 2008 11:35AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Drama, Thrillers, Deals, Paramount, Scripts, Newsstand
I already smell Oscar nominations for this one. According to
Variety,
Martin Scorsese and
Robert De Niro are re-teaming for
I Heard You Paint Houses, based on Charles Brandt's book. And another Scorsese alumni is writing the script --
Steve Zaillian, who not only scripted
Gangs of New York, but won an Oscar for
Schindler's List. See what I mean? A contender for Best Picture, and it isn't even filmed yet.
The topic is familiar stomping ground for Scorsese and De Niro -- organized crime. De Niro will play the main man of
Houses, Frank 'the Irishman' Sheeran, who reportedly committed more than 25 mob murders. One of these was supposedly Jimmy Hoffa, who he confessed to killing and dismembering on the orders of mob boss Russell Bufalino. And if you're wondering about the title, it has a wonderfully gruesome origin: it's mob slang for a contract killing, due to the mess left behind on walls and floors when you carry one out.
Sheeran confessed all to Brandt, who befriended him before his death in 2003. While this seemed to clear up the mystery surrounding Hoffa's disappearance, controversy still reigns.
Other hitman have confessed to the crime since Sheeran, and lacking conclusive DNA evidence or a body, nothing can be proved or denied. The FBI stopped looking for Hoffa's body in 2006. But Hoffa's fate is like the identity of Jack the Ripper -- no one will ever stop confessing, wondering, or looking.
As I said at the start, this movie has a perfect pedigree. But for the sake of argument, do you think it's just
too safe? We all realize Scorsese knows a mob thriller like the back of his hand, and we know De Niro can play a guy who, well, paints houses to chilling perfection. I'd love to see Scorsese court some of that
Last Temptation of Christ controversy again, but perhaps that's just too cocky of me to question.
Posted Oct 2nd 2008 8:32AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, War
I know, I know -- "sequelized" isn't a word, but it's the most fitting label I can come up with. Ever since
300 hit theaters in March 2007, there has been talk of creating some kind of spin off. Would it be a prequel? Would it be a sequel? Would it be some
demented fever dream invented by one
Cinematical blogger on a late Colorado night?
Well, someone finally asked a
300 alumni
other than poor Gerard Butler.
IESB.net caught up with director
Zack Snyder, who revealed that
300 would receive the sequel treatment. Snyder did the impossible, and actually spoke to
Frank Miller about it, and learned he's writing a graphic novel that takes place between Thermopylae and the Battle of Plataea which is seen at the end of the film. There's a mere year in between waiting to be populated with new Spartan heroes (though David Wenham's lone survivor, Dilios, could return) by way of Miller's pen. Snyder promises to direct the adaptation when Miller finishes the book.
There's certainly historical material to draw from -- the time between Thermopylae and Plataea was marked by several battles -- the naval Battle of Artemisium, which occurred alongside Thermopylae, and the Battle of Salamis. Both were victories for the Greek states (although Artemisium could be argued to be a draw), but not without cost. Several Greek cities, including Athens, suffered severe Persian attacks.
But while the Greco-Persian Wars are ripe for many stories and movies, I don't see any of them fitting the hyper-stylized mold of the original graphic novel or the film. The insanity of it all worked because it had a legendary story and king to anchor it down, and shine through the blood-splatters and giant rhinos. Why water that down? As fond as I am of Snyder, Miller and violent boys in leather pants, I wish they would just let the Spartans lie.
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