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Film News Roundup – May 2010 – Week 3

Film News Roundup – May 2010 – Week 3

The zombie king has a new movie, and more where that came from
The production company, Artfire Films, wants Romero to make two more zombie films, and Romero told us that he already has ideas for the sequels. “Well, I don’t want to give away secrets, but basically they both spin out of Diary,” Romero said in an exclusive interview last week in Hollywood. “One of them, there’s a group of African-American looters, a band of looters, that they run into in that film. That would be one. Then there’s the blonde, she’s actually one of the principals, but she gets away in the end. She would be sort of my clean-up hitter.”

Gilliam’s Don Quixote Bags Ewan McGregor
He’ll star alongside Robert Duvall
Ewan McGregor has joined the cast of his long-delayed film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. McGregor will take on the role that Johnny Depp had been set to play in the original, aborted version back in 2000. Depp had still been attached to the role for this version, but with Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 eating into his schedule, and a September start date looming for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Gilliam has clearly decided to go with McGregor instead.

Shia LaBeouf: We botched the last Indiana Jones
LaBeouf said that he could have kept quiet, especially given the movie’s blockbuster status, but didn’t think the film had fooled anyone. “I think the audience is pretty intelligent. I think they know when you’ve made … . And I think if you don’t acknowledge it, then why do they trust you the next time you’re promoting a movie.” LaBeouf went on to say he wasn’t the only star on the film who felt that way. “We [Harrison Ford and LaBeouf] had major discussions. He wasn’t happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn’t universally accepted.”

LaBeouf promises better ‘Transformers’ next time
“When I saw the second movie, I wasn’t impressed with what we did,” LaBeouf said. “There were some really wild stunts in it, but the heart was gone… we got lost. We tried to get bigger. It’s what happens to sequels. It’s like, how do you top the first one? You’ve got to go bigger,” LaBeouf said. “Mike went so big that it became too big, and I think you lost the anchor of the movie. … You lost a bit of the relationships. Unless you have those relationships, then the movie doesn’t matter. Then it’s just a bunch of robots fighting each other.”

Bruce Willis Plays Mature Joseph Gordon-Levitt In Time Travel Pic ‘Looper’
Bruce Willis is joining the cast of Looper, a science fiction time travel tale that reunites the Brick team of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and writer/director Rian Johnson. The Terminator-esque action film has a clever premise. Loopers are hit men whose victims are sent back in time from the future to be executed. The Loopers bump them off in the present, so there is no trace of a crime in the future.

‘Final Destination’ creator remaking J-horror pic
Will write and direct new version of ‘Rinjin 13-go’
James Wong, director and creator of “Final Destination,” is set to write and direct a remake of Yasuo Inoue’s “The Neighbor Number 13″ for Distant Horizon, the production and finance giant headed by Anant Singh. The original Japanese film, “Rinjin 13-go,” tells the story of a young boy who witnesses an extreme case of schoolyard bullying. The psychological effects are so disturbingly profound that 10 years later, as a young man, he is still obsessed with righting the wrong — even if doing so takes him onto questionable moral ground.

Sam Worthington attached to play a sci-fi Allan Quatermain
Sam Worth­ington is attached to star in “Quatermain,” DreamWorks’ sci-fi take on the literary hero, and he also will make his debut as a producer on the feature project. Allan Quatermain was the hero of “King’s Solomon’s Mines,” a Victorian adventure novel by H. Rider Haggard, and its sequel, “Allan Quatermain.” DreamWorks’ version is set in a time in which humans have left Earth and sees Quatermain return to the planet from a sojourn in space, embarking on another “King Solomon’s Mines”-style adventure but on a planetwide scale.

Floodgates finally open for Kapur’s ‘Water’
VIDEO: Director secures $30 mil for film about end of water
Shekhar Kapur will direct “Paani” (Water) from a script by David Farr, having secured the $30 million budget from Swarovski Entertainment and Adlabs founder-turned-producer Manmohan Shetty. A.R. Rahman has written two original songs for the project, Kapur said. The project is a love story set in a mega city in a future where precious H2O has all but run out and corporations go to war over its control. The city is divided into two conflicting halves, in which the upper city hoards all the water and drip feeds the slums of the lower city. A girl from the upper tier meets a water rat boy and falls in love against this backdrop.

Kurt Russell Is UNDYING!
This new project formerly titled as “Reaper” will star Kurt Russell  and is being produced by Media 8 Entertainment and Circle of Confusion. Filming is scheduled to begin this Fall. Virgil (Russell), is a private investigator who finds himself recruited by the darkly beautiful and mysterious Delia. As he begins to work for Delia, he finds himself suddenly immersed in a surreal underworld, one where the boundaries of life and death ‘as well as right and wrong’ are completely blurred. This unlikely journey also reveals the harrowing answers to the fate of Virgil’s own daughter.

Summit picks up ‘Three Musketeers’ for U.S.
Paul W.S. Anderson’s 3D film plans to bow next summer
Summit Entertainment has picked up U.S. distribution on Paul W.S. Anderson’s upcoming 3D swashbuckler “The Three Musketeers.” Anderson is in a race to get his Musketeers on the screen ahead of Warner Bros.’ rival project, which Doug Liman is on board to direct. The Warner take on the classic Alexandre Dumas tale is looking to begin shooting in the fall. Ray Stevenson (“The Book of Eli”), Luke Evans (“Clash of the Titans”) and Matthew Macfadyen (“Robin Hood”) are attached to star as Musketeers Porthos, Aramis and Athos, respectively. The film’s baddies include Oscar winner Christoph Waltz as Cardinal Richelieu and Mads Mikkelsen as Rochefort. Anderson’s wife, Milla Jovovich, has been cast as Athos’ old flame Milady de Winter.

Charlie Kaufman polishing ‘Kung Fu Panda’ sequel
Charlie Kaufman, the Oscar-winning writer, is coming off of less than two weeks worth of work on DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom,” the sequel to the fun 2008 movie that had the voice talent of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and Dustin Hoffman. His work on “Kaboom” falls under the polish category, and animated movies tend to be worked on by multiple writers, so it’s not fair to say this will be a Kaufman cartoon.

‘Transformers 3′ Adds Alan Tudyk
“Firefly” star Alan Tudyk has been cast in “Transformers 3,” Paramount Pictures confirmed. The studio is currently keeping Tudyk’s role in the sequel under wraps, as well as the film’s general plot.

Splice’s director says his creepy movie … is a COMEDY?
To give a definition, the “uncanny valley” was coined by a Japanese roboticist [Masahiro Mori] who was referring to the effect that a robot has on humans when it’s very, very similar to a human being, but not quite. It creates a disquieting feeling in people. And actually, we did seek that out. Because I felt that small changes to the human form would be more shocking than gross changes. And generally when you see creature films, the tendency is to be very baroque with the design. In the case of Dren, we decided to be quite subtle and subtractive. And I think, and hope, that that creates exactly what you’re referring to—that uncanny valley. That discomfort.

Adam Sandler taking ‘Pixels’ to big-screen
The much-buzzed-about short featuring 1980s video game characters attacking New York City, is heading for the big-screen. The French filmmaker behind “Pixels,” Patrick Jean, has teamed up with Adam Sandler’s production banner Happy Madison to develop a big-screen take. The team is in talks with Columbia, where Happy Madison has its first-look deal, to set up the project at the studio. The project is still in the early stages and no writer is on board but the plan is to make a “Ghostbusters”-style action comedy in which characters come out of a video game to wreak havoc in the real world.

‘Gaiking’ movie update
“Voltron” really took off because of the great cartoon. “Gaiking” never had that and neither did “Shogun Warriors” as a whole. The only thing we had was “Four Spies” here in the U.S. And that was only shown on the East coast for a little bit. I can only imagine how this property would have been perceived if we had a normal cartoon. Our goal was to figure out a way that would be appealing to an American audience. And while there’s a lot of people who played with the toys, we are not counting on any of that. For most people, this will be completely new.

The Cutting Room Floor

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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Scott is an art director, writer and comics creator living in Los Angeles. He has been a pop culture maven from a very young age. His very first job was as a manager of a comic book store. He spent several years working in a video store, and yes, we are talking VHS tapes. A student of literature and Writing, he brings his obsessive love of comic book trivia, movie history and science fiction/fantasy writing to bear on the work he does for CoolShite.

Article Information

  • Posted: Thursday, May 20th, 2010
  • Author: Scott From LA
  • Filed Under: Movie News,News
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