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Film News Roundup – May 2010 – Week 4

Film News Roundup – May 2010 – Week 4

Inferno burns for Brad Pitt’s Lost City Of Z
Brad is set to play former decorated British soldier, turned spy, turned explorer Percy Fawcett. In the early twentieth century Percy Fawcett became obsessed with finding the lost city of El Dorado.  Convinced he could find it, he led many expeditions into the Amazon to try to quench his insatiable thirst to find the city.  Many times he tried and many times he failed, but he never gave up. The book The Lost City of Zis an account of Percy Fawcett’s adventures into the Amazon, and author David Grann’s search for the truth. David Grann apparently traced the footsteps of Fawcett’s last journey into the jungle to try to find what ultimately happened to the famed explorer.

Producer Joel Silver on SPLICE, LOGAN’S RUN, SWAMP THING, THE APPARATION, PROJECT-X, UNKNOWN WHITE MALE
I’m told they’re going to make Commando again. That was one that I felt was not an effective picture. Maybe they can do a better job. I liked the movie, but it was very simplistic when we made it, and kind of silly. I’m always interested in seeing these pictures and seeing what they do with them. I hear they’re doing an Exorcist  type movie being made again. They’ve always been remaking movies, since the beginning of time. They’ve always made sequels. Someone once said to me, “Didn’t you invent sequels?,” and I said, “No, Francis the talking mule invented sequels.” There’s always been things happening, and sometimes movies come out better than others. People want to see them, and they keep making them. We’ll see what happens. How many times have they made Sherlock Holmes? And, we did a good movie.

And The Replacement For Megan Fox in TRANSFORMERS 3 Is….
GeekWeek has learned from an inside source that Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley will soon be cast to replace Megan Fox in TRANSFORMERS 3. Details surrounding her character are still pending. Another interesting tidbit for you: she’s currently Jason Statham’s girlfriend.

Hollywood whitewash? ‘Airbender’ and ‘Prince of Persia’ anger fans with ethnic casting
[Airbender’s] detractors have spoken against the film at six college campuses, including MIT.,New York University and  UCLA, also setting up booths at events such as San Francisco’s WonderCon pop culture expo to publicize their discontent. At last count, the group’s Facebook group had 7,125 supporters and attracted petitioners against the movie’s casting in 55 countries. The stated goal: to prevent “Airbender” from blooming into a lucrative three-part franchise via negative word of mouth. “It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this,” said Racebending.com spokesman Michael Le. “They’ve constructed a film that is contrary not only to what fans expected to see but is also contrary to what America expects to see in a film released in 2010 featuring Asian culture and Asian and Native American characters as heroes…We want to raise awareness of the discriminatory practices of Hollywood,” Le continued. “We want to tell people this is important. It really matters.”

Sony Moves Battle: Los Angeles Into the Coveted “300″ Slot
Apparently Sony Pictures also think they might have a winner on their hands. They have moved the sci-fi war movie from it’s original February release (one of the worst months to release a big action movie) to the coveted “300” slot on March 11th 2011. The intense real-time war movie stars Aaron Eckhart as a Marine staff sergeant who must lead his new platoon through an alien attack on Los Angeles. The film has been described by some as “Blackhawk Down” meets “Independence Day”.

James Franco In Talks To Star In Fox Prequel ‘Rise Of The Apes’
20th Century Fox has set James Franco to star in Rise of the Apes, the Rupert Wyatt-directed prequel that the studio has dated for a June 24, 2011 release. The film is set in contemporary San Francisco, where a genetic engineering experiment leads to the creation of intelligence in apes, causing an inevitable conflict between species. Fox has already partnered with Peter Jackson’s WETA Digital for the cutting edge visual effects. Franco plays a young scientist who becomes a crucial figure in the war between humans and apes.

J.J. Abrams heist project catches ‘Field of Dreams’ writer
Phil Alden Robinson, who wrote and directed “Field of Dreams,” has been given the keys to J.J. Abrams’ untitled heist project set up at Paramount. Robinson will write the script for the project, which is based on a Wired magazine article titled “The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist,” by Joshua Davis. The article, the rights to which Paramount acquired in March 2009, described the true story of an unprecedented diamond heist in Antwerp, Belgium, and the crew that pulled it off. In early 2003, a small group of Italian thieves circumvented 10 layers of security to access a vault beneath the Antwerp Diamond Center and make off with a purported $100 million in diamonds, gold and jewelry (the actual value remains a mystery).

Magnet Releasing Burns Some RUBBER
This odd film Rubber just finished showing at Cannes and has already been picked up by Magnet Releasing. Synopsis: Directed by Quentin Dupieux (Steak, Nonfilm), Rubber is the story of Robert, an inanimate tire that has been abandoned in the desert, and suddenly and inexplicably comes to life. As Robert roams the bleak landscape, he discovers that he possesses telepathic powers that give him the ability to destroy anything he wishes without having to move. At first content to wreak havoc on small desert creatures and various lost items, his attention soon turns to humans, resulting in the most gory vehicular-related mayhem inflicted on screen by an “inanimate” object since Christine. To watch the Teaser Trailer for this film.

GET READY FOR FIRE AND ICE, ROBERT RODRIGUEZ STYLE
Decades ago Frank Frazetta, Ralph Bakshi, Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas got together and made Fire and Ice, a fantasy adventure featuring buxom women and musclebound swordsmen and monsters and wizards. Robert Rodriguez has been hunting down the rights to remake that film for years, and now he’s finally got them. Says Rodriguez, ‘The awesome Ralph Bakshi and I have been working it out for a while, and it’s now a TROUBLEMAKER STUDIOS PICTURE. What’s cool is, unlike past projects that I’d get involved with that would get stalled for various reasons, I control the rights to this one. So it’s actually in my power to set it up and get it made, which wasn’t the case on other projects.’

Movie Deal In Forecast For PlayStation 3 Serial Killer Game ‘Heavy Rain’
An auction of screen rights for the PlayStation3 game Heavy Rain  is coming to a close. A deal is near with Unique Features, the film shingle started by Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne after they exited New Line. Using their own money, Shaye and Lynne posted top bid in an auction held by CAA on behalf of game developers Quantic Dream. The game’s combination of murder, rain and an inherent atmospheric gloom evokes memories of the David Fincher-directed Seven, one of the formative blockbusters at New Line when Shaye and Lynne grew that company into a rival to the majors. Players hunt the “Origami Killer,” a serial murderer who drowns his victims four days after they are abducted, leaving only a small origami figure and an orchid on the corpse. The game becomes a procedural in which four characters try to solve the crime after another potential victim is kidnapped.

Nick Stoller on Stretch Armstrong and The Muppets!
“We just had a table read on Saturday and the puppeteers, they’ve been working with those characters forever, so they’re giving notes, and we have a muppet expert who gave notes. We also have ‘The Muppet Bible’ that Jim Henson and Frank Oz wrote, which has all the rules of the muppets. The three of us are kind of Muppet freaks. I love Muppets. I’m a fan, Segel is a fanatic, and James Bobin knows so many Muppets. He knows Muppets that I never heard of and that even Jason hadn’t heard of. He’d say, ‘I think this scene calls for Uncle Deadly’ and we’d be like, ‘Who is Uncle Deadly?’ and he’d go on YouTube and show me this strange vulture creature. That’s kind of amazing.”

THE CHUD INTERVIEW: GEORGE ROMERO (SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD)
I’d love to use prosthetic effects – there are a few in here, when [Dread Central's Uncle] Creepy pulls that guy apart at the end, which is a completely practical gag. But we had to say “OK, you guys go over there, set it up, we’re going to be shooting over here, let us know when you’re ready.” That’s the big thing, obviously – time is money, that old saw, and you have to get off the set. Where we save the most time is just gunfire and squib work. No reset, no cleaning the walls if it doesn’t work. That saves a tremendous amount of time. But the other thing with CG, and where I’ve been enjoying it the most, is being able to do things that [Tom] Savini could never do. The acid head guy in Diary, and the fire extinguisher guy in this one. And the fire gag even though, you know, some of it don’t look wonderful. Again, it’s budgetary. We’re not working with Industrial Light and Magic. But it’s still great fun to be able to do that.

RIDDICK Concept Art Plus Presentation to Potential Buyers! Watch Vin Diesel and Writer-Director David Twohy talk About RIDDICK
In the upcoming third installment of the popular sci-fi franchise, Riddick get’s betrayed by the Necromonger army and is left for dead on a desolate planet. He has to fight for survival against alien predators and must deal with two squads of bounty hunters, who are coming after him to collect the bounty for the most wanted man in the galaxy.

Fox hires director, writer for ‘Hitman 2′
20th Century Fox has targeted director Daniel Benmayor and writer Daniel Casey to work on “Hitman 2,” the sequel to the studio’s 2007 video game adaptation. The original movie centered on a genetically engineered, elite assassin known only as Agent 47. Timothy Olyphant portrayed Agent 47, but whether he will return for a sequel is up in the air.

‘Mass Effect’ video game on way to movie screen
Legendary Pictures has picked up rights to “Mass Effect,” the Electronic Arts-BioWare video game. Mark Protosevich, the scribe who wrote “I Am Legend” and worked on “Thor,” is in talks to pen the movie, which will be produced by Avi and Ari Arad as well as Legendary’s Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni.

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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About The Author

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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 27th, 2010
  • Author: Scott From LA
  • Filed Under: Movie News,News
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