Film News Roundup – June 2009 – Week 2
46 movie remakes and reboots currently in the works
A round up of the latest batch of remakes and reboots currently in various states of production. It’s astounding.
Kurt Wimmer to pen ‘Total Recall’ update
Neal H. Moritz producing
Kurt Wimmer has been tapped to write Columbia’s new version of “Total Recall”. The original, based on the Philip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” follows a man haunted by a recurring dream of journeying to Mars who buys a literal dream vacation from a company called Rekall Inc., which sells implanted memories. The man comes to believe he is a secret agent and ends up on a Martian colony, where he fights to overthrow a despotic ruler controlling the production of air. The studio is keeping mum on the new take, simply calling a “contemporized adaptation.”
‘Barbarella’: ‘Legally Blonde’ director Robert Luketic to helm remake?
Hopes for a remake of the 1968 erotic sci-fi classic seemed to vanish when Robert Rodriguez turned down the project. It seems that director Robert Luketic (Monster-in-Law, Legally Blonde) is working with Dino De Laurentiis’ company (which owns the rights to the original property) to develop the picture with a different studio.
Jean Claude Van Damme is Going Horror in The Breed?
Jean Claude Van Damme is joining a horror project called The Breed. He revealed that after shooting a movie called Weapon in the summer, he’d shoot The Breed next. “It’s a great story, great script with true emotion. I want to show the fans I am transferable. I wanted to make a horror movie a few years back, but the script was weak and had no direction.” All that JCVD said about it is that “it’s set in a village where strange things happen,” but he wouldn’t say anymore, “you know, let the movie speak for itself!”
Weaver drawn to comedy pair
Actress set for ‘You Again,’ in talks for ”Paul’
Sigourney Weaver is in talks to join the Greg Mottola-directed comedy “Paul,” a comedy about two sci-fi fans (Simon Pegg, Nick Frost) who come across an escaped alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) near Area 51 and try to help it escape. Weaver, who toplined four “Alien” films, is keeping the role she plays under wraps.
How David Bowie’s son wound up making an indie movie about the Moon
For the exteriors, we built this chunk of lunar terrain, about 30 foot by 40 foot, and were pulling around model miniatures. So we went with a very retro technique for doing those effects… we tried to capture as much as possible in-camera in order to save ourselves money and to give the film a different, hybrid look that just felt more real.
Why Gore Verbinski is developing video games — and likely not directing ‘Bioshock’
“The bottom line is it has to shoot out of the States for budget reasons and my schedule may be prohibitive. There’s a great script and a really interesting cast. It really comes down to the financial model now. Big movies are just not being shot in the States. I’m weighing whether I can physically go the U.K. or Australia or one of those other places with a tax rebate for a year-and-a-half.”
Masi Oka project set at DreamWorks
Gary Whitta to pen script; D.J. Caruso in talks to direct
DreamWorks has picked up “The Defenders,” a family adventure project conceived by “Heroes” actor Masi Oka to be produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. D.J. Caruso is in negotiations to direct, and Gary Whitta is on board to write the script. The story centers on a group of mostly teenagers from around the world who are involved in a multiplayer video game, each unaware of who they really are behind the cover of their consoles and avatars. They are forced to come together for a real adventure, becoming inadvertent heroes in the process.
The Bubonic Plague Hits Sean Bean in ‘Black Death’
Director Christopher Smith ["Creep" and "Severance"] is already hard at work filming his fourth horror feature, Black Death, which stars Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Carice Van Houten, Rupert Friend and Kimberley Nixon. Set in an apocalyptic medieval world, “Death” details the story of a band of brothers whose quest is to hunt down a necromancer against the backdrop of the first outbreak of bubonic plague in England.
EXCLUSIVE: Wes Craven dishes on ‘Scream 4′
“I don’t think it’s a reboot and Kevin, when he talked to me, said, ‘Remember, it’s not just Scream 4, it’s Scream 5 and 6.’ So I guess he has a trilogy in mind.”
‘Short Circuit’ gets ‘Robot’ touch
Dan Milano to write remake of 1986 comedy
Dimension Films has tapped Dan Milano to script “Short Circuit,” the remake of the 1986 pic. Milano, who aside from writing and providing voices for the Adult Swim cartoon “Robot Chicken” and co-creating and playing the title character in “Greg the Bunny,” figures to bring a subversive edge to the original film. “We’re bringing Number 5 into the 21st Century and taking advantage of the improvements in robotics that are so massive that robots are now performing heart surgeries in hospitals,” Foster said.
Universal Pictures and Hasbro Inc. Announce Stretch Armstrong Set for Release in 2011
“Stretch Armstrong is a character I have wanted to see on screen for a long time,” said Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer. “He’s an unconventional kind of super hero with a power that no one would want. It’s a story about a guy stretching – if you will – the limits of what is possible to become all that he can be.”
Bradley Cooper on a roll with ‘A-Team’
Actor in talks to play Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck
Fresh off “The Hangover’s” $45 million weekend boxoffice blowout, star Bradley Cooper is in official talks to step into the role of Face for Fox’s feature adaptation of “The A-Team.” Cooper had been rumored for some time to play the dashing Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck, part of a group of framed, on-the-run war vets who get into adventures while evading the military.
‘Heavy Metal’ Adds Cameron, Verbinksi, Snyder as Directors
“I’ve got breaking news that Fincher and James Cameron are going to be Co-Executive Producers on the film. Fincher will direct one. Cameron will direct one. Zack Snyder is going to direct one and Gore Verbinski is going to. Mark Osborne and Jack Black from Tenacious D are going to do a comedy segment for the film. Three other directors have agreed but we haven’t signed them, but they’re equally as jaw-dropping. So we’re on cloud nine to be working with such an amazing amount of talent.”
Director Ivan Reitman on why the time is finally right for Ghostbusters 3
“It’s something that’s been sort of dormant in our minds, really, for the last 10 years or so, and there have been two things that sort of told us, “Wow, people still seem to be really interested in this story, and the characters in this story.” More importantly, it sort of reawakened the joy of working on this film in both iterations.”
The Fine Print
This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive roundup of the entire weeks’ news. All stories are chosen by me for no other reason than that they got my attention and might capture yours. If something you think is more important chime in on the feedback; we’d love to hear comments and have a conversation about it.
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