-
Tuesday, February 9
Whether you love his movies or despise them, it's hard to deny that writer-producer Akiva Goldsman is a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood.
Sure, Goldsman is responsible for writing the disastrous Batman & Robin, which was recently named the "Worst Movie Ever" by Empire, but he also wrote the screenplay for the multiple Academy Award-winning movie A Beautiful Mind.
Goldsman continues to write (2009's Angels & Demons), but is far more active as a producer. He currently has The Losers in the can, is in post-production on Jonah Hex after a series of reshoots, and has more than a dozen other movies in various stages of development, including several high-profile comic book movie adaptations.
The latest Goldsman news has the prolific producer revisiting his 2005 movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which scored big at home and abroad, as well as had the highest domestic grossing of any Brad Pitt orAngelina Jolie movie. So a sequel seems like a given. Only, there's a catch: According to Empire, Goldsman will not be bringing back "Brangelina" to star in the new movie. Rather, it will have completely different characters and a new title, Mr. & Mrs. Jones. This time the movie's lead actors will play spies who must find a way to get along while pretending to be married to one another.
The Empire article is short on details and the writer does concede that the news comes from "Rumour Mountain." However, a complete reboot does make sense from a practical standpoint, considering the entire "hook" of the original plot (and all of the comedy) stemmed from Mr. and Mrs. Smith pretending to be a typical married couple, all the while hiding from each other the fact that they are both hired assassins. Now that the secret is out, a sequel with Pitt and Jolie wouldn't be much more than an edgier version of Hart to Hart. Another obvious reason to reboot the franchise rather than move forward with a sequel is to avoid the high fees that go with hiring the power couple to reprise their roles. Still, rumor or not, it seems like a hard sell without Jolie and Pitt involved.
Posted 2/9/2010 by BrentJS
Related: Akiva Goldsman | Brad Pitt | Angelina Jolie | Mr. & Mrs. Smith
-
Despite its meager box-office take, John Carpenter's The Thing began to develop a strong cult following after its release on home video. The popularity of the movie eventually spawned a novelization, several comic book miniseries, and a video game "sequel." With a pop culture presence spanning nearly 30 years, it's no wonder that Universal Pictures finally decided to bring the property back to the big screen.
Universal first announced the news that a new The Thing movie was in development in January of last year, with Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. directing from a script by Ronald D. Moore. It was later revealed by Moore that his draft of The Thing was "not a remake" of Carpenter's movie, but a "companion piece" that takes place before the events in the 1982 movie. The prequel will focus on the Norwegian expedition team that first finds the buried spaceship in Antarctica and unwittingly unleashes the shape-shifting alien that R.J. MacReady (played by Kurt Russell) and company encounter in Carpenter's movie.
It was announced last month that The Thing prequel would go into production in Toronto in March and continue through June. Now, two of the stars have finally been revealed. According to THR, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Live Free or Die Hard) will portray a Ph.D. candidate assigned to the Norwegian team after the discovery of the ship, and Joel Edgarton (Acolytes) will star as a rough-and-tumble helicopter pilot, reminiscent of Russell's MacReady. No other cast announcements have been made and there is no release date set at this time.
The Thing prequel will be the third movie based on the short story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, Jr., originally published in August 1938. The first adaptation, The Thing From Another World, was directed by Howard Hawks and debuted in theaters in 1951. While it was a less faithful adaptation of the source material than The Thing, Carpenter is a self-avowed fan of the movie and used scenes from it in Halloween. Carpenter even adopted the Norwegian expedition team that will be featured in the new prequel from Hawks' movie. In 1973, "Who Goes There?" was voted one of the finest science fiction novellas ever written by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Posted 2/9/2010 by BrentJS
Related: Joel Edgerton | John Carpenter | The Thing | Matthijs van Heijningen | Ronald D. Moore | The Thing From Another World | The Thing Prequel | Mary Winstead
-
The Wolfman has gone through several delays, and both Emily Blunt and producer Scott Stuber have tried to explain them. Blunt said the movie "needed to cook a little bit more" while Stuber said the delays were caused by the "complex" visual effects work. In an interview with ShockTillYouDrop, director Joe Johnston shed some light on the visual effects issues that caused The Wolfman delays.
What happened — and this has happened to me many times before — in pre-production you try to make the film affordable. There's a certain amount of money you can spend and there was a sequence in the original script where [Benicio Del Toro] rampages through London, very similar to what we ended up with, and it ended at this conservatory. We couldn't afford a London chase, but we [could] afford the conservatory part. So we shot that. After we cut the film, we recognized — everyone recognized — that, "Gee, we want this action sequence of him rampaging through London." We went back to shoot it, along with another sequence. We added about 200 more visual FX shots, which meant not only did we have to push the release date, we had to come up with more FX money. Also, once we cut it together, the conservatory scene played at a different pace. It didn't fit anymore. You didn't want to see the Wolfman stop at this conservatory where a ball is happening and everyone thinks he's in a costume — which is what the gag was. So, it's in the deleted scenes. [laughs] If you really want to see it, there it is.
Johnston also admitted that there was a bit of a struggle between himself and Universal over what kind of movie The Wolfman was going to be, but that Johnston was still able to make The Wolfman unique amongst typical horror movie fare.
There's always a battle with the studio about what the movie is. I think I was fairly successful in convincing the studio that mine was the right version or with, at least, postponing the battles until it was too late. I don't think it's the movie they thought they were going to get and they're pleasantly surprised with what it is and how it turned out. With a movie this size you can't turn to them and say, "Hey, leave me alone to make a movie and I'll show you what I have in ten months." It doesn't work that way. It takes a lot of energy just todeal with that side of it. You've got the guys in the studio and it's like, "Okay, I'll listen to your ideas, but you have to listen to mine." It's definitely a power struggle.
Visually I wanted the film to look like it belonged in 1890. That's important, I didn't want it to look like a film that was shot in 1890, but when you watch the film, you recognize you're in a different place. And you reset the constructs in your mind. You're not expecting Saw VI, or something. This is different. Something like that is tough for a studio to recognize. I understand why. Selfishly, it's not my money and I want to put my version of the movie on the screen.
Next Showing: The Wolfman opens February 12
Posted 2/9/2010 by Ryan
Related: Joe Johnston | The Wolfman
-
Leonardo DiCaprio's upcoming thriller Shutter Island looks like a strange movie, but even DiCaprio knows that when it comes to puzzling flicks, Inception beats all. Neither trailer so far has been able to shed light on director Christopher Nolan's "architecture of the mind" movie. In an interview with Inquirer, DiCaprio admitted that the movie's complex storyline was confusing even to the cast and crew.
I don't know what I'm allowed to say about Inception. I don't even know what I'm allowed to say about Shutter Island, to be quite honest. Both Chris and Martin [Scorses, director of Shutter Island] are great directors. The material and its complexity are what I'm attracted to. I'm not happy if I don't have a lot to do. I've been lucky to work with people who want to tell stories that hit on different cylinders simultaneously. Shutter Island is definitely that. Inception is the same. It is Chris delving into dream psychoanalysis and, at the same time, making a high-octane, surreal film that came from his mind. He wrote the entire thing, and it all made sense to him. It didn't make sense to many of us when we were doing it. We had to do a lot of detective work (laughing) to figure out what the movie was about.
At least the cast isn't a mystery. DiCaprio plays Jacob, while Marion Cotillard plays his wife. Ellen Page plays Ariadne, a grad student and DiCaprio's sidekick, Michael Caine plays a science professor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays DiCaprio's associate, and Ken Watanabe plays Saito, the villain of the movie.
Inception opens July 16, while Shutter Island releases February 19.
Posted 2/9/2010 by Ryan
Related: Leonardo DiCaprio | Shutter Island | Inception
-
If rumors are to be believed, Disney is in love with Tron: Legacy. According to a report from AintItCoolNews, Disney is so pleased with the sequel to their 1982 original that they are looking to explore more of Tron universe.
...apparently (Disney) the top brass is so psyched about Tron: Legacy that they'e planning a TV show for 2011 & 2012 (probably for Disney XD). No news on whether it will be animated or live action. They're also already planning another Tron film for 2013.
If Tron: Legacy bombs, however, these plans will all disappear. The next trailer for the movie is rumored to be shown before Alice in Wonderland screenings, starting March 5. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, Tron: Legacy stars Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, and Garrett Hedlund.
Posted 2/9/2010 by Ryan
Related: Tron: Legacy
-
Monday, February 8
We just recently got an augmented reality map of the rising Harry Potter theme park at Universal Orlando. And just yesterday a commercial for the park got its official debut at the Super Bowl. Now (via The Leaky Cauldron) we have a less scripted peek at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in the form of a set of more than sixty photos taken during a recent helicopter tour over the Islands of Adventure.
The point of view in the pictures is a bit higher up than in the earlier broom's-eye views, and the ongoing construction activity isn't edited out, so you can get a better idea how far along the project is. Pretty close to done from the look of things. A good look at Hogwarts castle from various points of view, along with some shots of the roller coasters, store fronts, Hogsmeade, and Hagrid's Hut. Some of the wider angle shots also give a better sense of how Harry Potter's world is going to fit into the rest of the park, and the Florida landscape.
Posted 2/8/2010 by Bill
Related: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
-
A new series of candid photos from the set of director Jimmy Hayward's Jonah Hex reshoots have surfaced online. While the photos don't reveal anything new about the movie's plot or characters, they do provide a complete 360°-view of Megan Fox's leather-and-lace ensemble, and there are a couple nice shots of title star Josh Brolin in full costume and makeup.
Jonah Hex went into production back in April 2009 and principal photography had been wrapped for months when it was announced that additional casting was needed to complete a series of reshoots. Warner Bros. brought in Francis Lawrence, director of Constantine, another Warner Bros. property based on a DC Comics title, as a consultant to Hayward during the reshoots.
Next Showing: Jonah Hex opens June 18
Posted 2/8/2010 by BrentJS
Related: Megan Fox | Josh Brolin | Jonah Hex | Jimmy Hayward | Francis Lawrence