News in Film

Second Alice in Wonderland Poster

Jeff Leins — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:52:30 +0000

Walt Disney has release the second poster in a series of three one sheets promoting Tim Burton’s re-imagination of Alice in Wonderland. The first debuted earlier this week and featured the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), and the Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry).

The second is equally vibrant, layering the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen) in front of Alice (Mia Wasikowska) and the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

You can subscribe to the Mad Hatter’s Facebook page for the third and any other updates before the released on March 5, 2010. Of course, the entire banner already leaked to the Internet, so we know the next will feature Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter and the first glimpse of the Alan Rickman-voiced Caterpillar.

J.J. Abrams No Longer Adapting Dark Tower

Jeff Leins — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:34:22 +0000

J.J. Abrams is unfortunately not adapting Stephen King’s sprawling Dark Tower series. The director/producer had expressed interest in May along with “Lost” executive producer Damon Lindelof, but it seems the possibility was too good to be true. The two even went as far as purchasing the option from King for $19.

In an interview with MTV this week, Abrams said, “The Dark Tower thing is tricky. It’s such an important piece of writing. The truth is that Damon and I are not looking at that right now.”

Abrams continues by saying after six years of working on “Lost,” the last thing he wants to do is dive into the seven-novel series. The challenge of staying faithful to the material is the sticking point for the producer, who referenced Zack Snyder’s difficulty in bringing Watchmen to the screen.

UPDATE: At a Walmart in Dundalk, Maryland, Stephen King took part in a Q&A with fans. When asked about Dark Tower, King said he wanted to write one more book that will come between “Wizard and Glass”and “Wolves of the Calla.” (via DreadCentral)

I haven’t read the books myself (though I’ve been meaning to) but News in Film contributor Jeremy, who admittedly is a bit of a bookworm, wrote, “It was easily one of the best series of books I have ever read.” Now that there’s no movie version on the horizon, I guess I’ll just have to read them. (Kidding.)

Abrams concludes by saying, “I’d do anything to see those movies written by someone else. My guess is they will get made because they’re so incredible. But not by me.”

The Monopoly Movie is Worse Than We Thought

Jeff Leins — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:46:08 +0000

Can we get one thing out of the way? Monopoly is boring. The entire game is rolling the dice, passing money around the table and occasionally, when the excitement is at its riveting peak, drawing a card.

It’s an educational game for kids learning to count money or a welcome diversion when a severe thunderstorm sends you back to the stone age, but in this modern, fast-paced world of instant entertainment, sitting down for a 12-hour traditional board game just becomes tedious.

Sure, everyone has played it before, but how recently and how many times have you truly finished a game? Monopoly games usually end when everyone gets bored and surrenders, or a player flips the board in a fit of rage, sending tiny green houses flying.

Universal purchased the movie rights to Monopoly from Hasbro in early 2008 as part of a six-year partnership to bring more toy properties to the big screen. Transformers was a certified success and G.I. Joe was poised for it’s own franchise, so the studio started attaching top talent to movies based on the Battleship, Candy Land, Stretch Armstrong, and Clue.

At the time, Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator) had signed to make Monopoly a reality, effectively surprising everyone, including the writer making the original pitch. In an interview with Frank Beddor, the LA Times’ Geoff Boucher uncovered more details about what got Scott involved.

Beddor told him, “I created a comedic, lovable loser who lives in Manhattan and works at a real estate company and he’s not very good at his job but he’s great at playing Monopoly. And the world record for playing is 70 straight days – over 1,600 hours – and he wanted to try to convince his friends to help him break that world record. They think he is crazy. They kid him about this girl and they’re playing the game and there’s this big fight. And he’s holding a Chance card and after they’ve left he says, ‘Damn, I wanted to use that Chance card,’ and he throws it down. He falls asleep and then he wakes up in the morning and he’s holding the Chance card, and he thinks, ‘That’s odd.’”

“He’s all groggy and he goes down to buy some coffee and he reaches into his pocket and all he has is Monopoly money. All this Monopoly money pours out. He’s confused and embarrassed and the girl reaches across the counter and says, ‘That’s OK.’ And she gives him change in Monopoly money. He walks outside and he’s in this very vibrant place, Monopoly City, and he’s just come out of a Chance Shop. As it goes on, he takes on the evil Parker Brothers in the game of Monolopy. He has to defeat them. It tries to incorporate all the iconic imageries — a sports car pulls up, there’s someone on a horse, someone pushing a wheelbarrow — and rich Uncle Pennybags, you’re going to see him as the maître d’ at the restaurant and he’s the buggy driver and the local eccentric and the doorman at the opera. There’s all these sight gags.”

Exactly what you might expect from Monopoly: The Movie. Sight gags and cute little references. Nothing says crackling dialogue like “You owe me $12 for the rent on Virginia Avenue.” Plus the Parker Brothers are evil, the two men who made the game a success?

What made Ridley Scott decide this was a worthy concept escapes me. At no point since experiencing Alien did I ever think the same man would remake Jumanji. Pamela Pettler (Monster House, Corpse Bride, 9) is the screenwriter on board (get it?). I guess they’re both “rolling the dice.” (Look, I’m referencing the game! Isn’t that clever!)

I acknowledge that Beddor’s idea was just the original concept, and it will likely (hopefully) be re-written as the script continues through development, but if the final product is anything like this Alice in Wonderland rip-off, it will be a disaster. No amount of a “beautiful visual component” can cover up a story where the protagonist is winking every time a shoe or a thimble are on screen.

Info on Paranormal Activity Director’s Area 51

Jeff Leins — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:15:36 +0000

Writer/director Oren Peli is currently shooting his follow-up to the super successful Paranormal Activity. It’s a science-fiction slanted story about three teenagers (another cast of unknowns) who try to uncover more about the secretive military facility Area 51.

Up to this point Peli has been trying to keep things under wraps for his next low-budget “found footage” film, which might have been possible if he made it before PA became the most profitable movie ever. Now he’ll have to contend with a little thing called the Internet, which gets their hands on everything worth having (and some things that aren’t).

Latino Review acquired a copy of Peli’s short script/outline for the movie and reveals a bit about where this thing is headed, though the dialogue will be improvised by the small crew. What’s the consensus though? It’s basically “Paranormal Activity with aliens.”

Spoilers: A guy tests his brand new hand-held camera. He’s fascinated with a subject (in this case extra terrestrials), and his friends are skeptical. An expert meets and discusses the phenomenon with them. (Sounds like PA so far…) After a stereotypical setup, the three travel to Nevada where they hope to get video evidence that aliens exist. However, the military base is an impenetrable system of motion detectors, thermal imaging, ammonia detectors, armed guards, and even ray guns.

In the end, the reviewer gives it a “solid B” rating and says he hopes “lightning can strike twice for Peli.” I would have liked more actual details, especially from the second half of the script, but it sounds like he has his work cut out for him though. Fickle fans are not going to want more of the same, especially if a Paranormal Activity 2 ever happens at Paramount.

Note: I used the image from the game, but the film is unrelated to the video game of the same name.

Note 2: I did not intend for the above sentence to rhyme.

Clash of the Titans Teaser Trailer

Jeff Leins — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:41:28 +0000

Warner Bros has released the trailer for Clash of the Titans, a remake under the direction of Louis Leterrier. Full of guitar riffs (The Used’s “Bird and the Worm”) and quick cuts, the studio is making it clear this won’t be anything like the stop-motion original. There’s also a Medusa that doesn’t turn a man to stone, high-flying Perseus (sans winged horse), and a Texas-sized scorpion none too happy with the swords and sandal humans.

There’s hardly a mention of it’s cast, which includes Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Gemma Arterton, Ralph Fiennes, Danny Huston, and more. The CGI scorpion gets top billing, I guess.

Last gripe, what’s with the tag line? “Titans will clash.” That’s the best they could come up with? “Well, the movie is called Clash of the Titans, so we need something catchy and… Oh, Mad Men is on! Just rearrange the words or something.”

Who knows, maybe you’ll like it. I’ve been wrong once or twice before.

Clash of the Titans will be in theaters March 26, 2010.

Kick-Ass Teaser Trailer and Poster

Jeff Leins — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:17:54 +0000

Lionsgate has officially release the teaser trailer for Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass, an adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic book series.

This is the first footage from the comic comedy outside of Comic-Con’s Hall H and it looks great. Most of the clips come from the very beginning of the film, aside from the various introductions.

I love that they didn’t even bother introducing Nicolas Cage’s superhero character, Big Daddy. Perhaps that’s for a later date and probably in a red band trailer if they want to do his best scene justice.

In case you missed it, last week we showed you a few character poster and now the movie’s official website is also live, though there’s not much to it yet. Plus I added a brand new poster below from MySpace.

There’s a lot of excitement about this movie, which Vaughn made independently and started a bidding war once studios got a glimpse of it. A test screening review at AICN from an excited audience member called it one of the “best comic films I’ve ever seen” and other hyperbolic phrases.

Kick-Ass is out April 16, 2010.

Will Smith Wants Flowers for Algernon, Oscar

Jeff Leins — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:23:45 +0000

Will Smith may be the world’s biggest movie star, but he’s still chasing that elusive Oscar. Nominated twice and coming up empty-handed, Smith has set his sights on the next awards-grabber and it isn’t the dreaded Oldboy remake (more on that at the bottom).

Smith is attached to star in Flowers for Algernon, a science fiction story that tugs at your heart strings based on the beloved 1959 novel by Daniel Keyes. According to Pajiba, the movie is being set up at Sony Pictures and Smith will produce under his Overbrook Entertainment banner.

Gabriele Muccino, director of Smith’s latest two Oscar bids (Seven Pounds and The Pursuit of Happyness), may direct.

In the story I was forced to read in school, Algernon is a lab mouse subjected to experimental surgery to increase its intelligence. The protagonist is Charlie, a mentally disabled man and the first human test subject for the same procedure.

I say this is an obvious Oscar grab because Will Smith is playing a mentally-challenged character, the oldest trick in the “I need respect in the business” book. But if we learned anything from Tropic Thunder (other than to watch where you step in the jungle), it’s that you never go full retard. Of course, Charlie’s IQ eventually triples, so Smith has the opportunity to play the full spectrum.

Now for the great news. Smith and Steven Spielberg’s remake of Oldboy is officially dead. Latino Review learned Mandate and Spielberg’s DreamWorks “didn’t see eye to eye” on the concept and eventually parted ways. Both top talents have walked. Whew, we dodged that bullet.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon Script Review

Jeff Leins — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:53:39 +0000

It doesn’t matter what anyone writes about New Moon at this point. Fans of the Twilight saga made up their minds to see the sequel long before Robert Pattinson was dodging taxis trying to escape hordes of those same impressionable Twilighters. I confess to having read the Stephenie Meyer novels, but I was baffled by the appeal of the cheaply made original by Catherine Hardwicke.

Though now the franchise is an established hit, so Summit Entertainment is throwing more money around. The small studio replaced Hardwicke with a director more experienced with effects (Chris Weitz), but kept screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg for the faithful follow-ups. With the Twilight frenzy mounting, I perused a draft and compiled my thoughts.

The script begins with Bella (Kristen Stewart) quoting a line from “Romeo and Juliet” that reads “these violent delights have violent ends…” which might have been clever foreshadowing if she didn’t awaken from her disturbing dream with a copy of the Shakespearean tragedy resting on her bed, or if they weren’t watching the film version later in class. Then Edward (Pattinson) describes exactly how he would have commit suicide at the hands of the powerful Volturi coven if Bella was dead, which may as well accompany a neon sign for plot emphasis.

It’s all a bit cheesy, I suppose, but subtlety was never the novel’s strong suit. This is evidenced by Jacob (Taylor Lautner) sweetly presenting Bella with a hand-made dreamcatcher for her birthday and bluntly reminding Bella “it catches bad dreams.” You know, because she’s having nightmares… Smooth, Jacob (and Rosenberg).

Then there are a few quick scenes to remind everyone that the Cullens are, in fact, vampires with special powers. Reading minds, seeing the future, and controlling moods are all checked off in a few quick exchanges of dialogue. But a paper cut at her party causes a violent stir and soon the family reckons it’s time to leave. Edward gives his “It’s not you, it’s me” speech, which sounds more like “We can’t be together because I might kill you” and the vampires are gone.

Don’t worry Pattinson fans, Rosenberg has found a way to keep your precious crush a part of the plot. Edward consistently pops up in flashbacks to the original movie and makes a habit of appearing as apparition to Bella even after she recovers from a nearly catatonic depression. Team Jacob, however, will be happy to know he’s in just about every scene instead, offering his platonic shoulder to cry on.

After their friendship progresses, Jacob reveals that he can shape shift into a werewolf like the other members of his tribe. He then slowly explains they also have the capabilities to heal quickly and read each other’s minds. I think we all remember the giant, mind-reading wolves in Romeo and Juliet.

Bella’s thrill-seeking new lifestyle takes her to the edge of a cliff (alluded to twice already) before she throws herself off into the ocean where Victoria (the angry redhead vampire from the first) just happens to be waiting. Of all the cliffs, what’re the odds?

Edward finds out about her little swan dive and thinks she’s dead, so naturally he wants to go to Italy and have a coven of vampire police rip him apart. Just like he said he would! The Volturi are given a bit more to do in the movie than the book, which is good because aside from phantom whispering and incessant voiceover there’s not much else going on in this sequel.

The script feebly attempts to answer obvious questions like why Bella flies to Italy to stop Edward instead of just sending the super-speedy Alice (he won’t believe her!), why Edward doesn’t confirm Bella’s death (it’s all a misunderstanding!), or how a room full of the deadliest vampires is safer than a town with just one vengeful bloodsucker (the wolves can’t catch Victoria!). The book didn’t bother filling the plot holes, and Rosenberg doesn’t either.

Overall, the New Moon adaptation rarely deviates from the Meyer novel, which should delight anyone who has read it more than once. Thankfully the characters share a few less intense gazes this time (on paper any way). There’s only slightly more action this time for the guys (though mostly given away in the trailer), and plenty of teenage topless male nudity sexual tension for the ladies. It’s a simple, younger-skewing story spelled out explicitly at every step. Fans will have to rely on Weitz to inject some nuance with his direction.

Emmerich Planning ‘2012′ TV Spin-Off

Jeff Leins — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:48:28 +0000

Roland Emmerich is already planning his next disaster. The director of Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and the upcoming 2012 has publicly said he is done making destruction movies, calling this one the “mother of all disaster films.”

However, Emmerich is not ruling out a post-apocalyptic continuation on the small screen. According to Entertainment Weekly, Roland Emmerich is working on “2013″ with the movie’s executive producer Mark Gordon. “It’s about what happens after the disaster,” Emmerich said last week. “It is about the resettling of Earth.”

The team has already entered into discussions with ABC to develop the drama, which may focus on survivors on a small island building a new world. Obviously someone lives through the “end of the world,” otherwise there wouldn’t be a need for a sequel of any kind. Way to spoil your own movie, Emmerich.

It will likely depend on how the public perceives the movie this weekend. Press have already seen the movie, but most are under embargo until this Friday. One short review called it gaudy and “disaster porn.”

McAdams Rumored as Spider-Man 4 Villain

Jeff Leins — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:03:11 +0000

Another week and another weak comic book movie rumor. If it’s not Eddie Murphy as the Riddler or Cher as Catwoman, it’s some secondhand whisper about Spider-Man 4.

The script for the Spidey sequel has been completed after several re-writes, so it’s about that time for returning director Sam Raimi to start casting. Tobey Maguire has already agreed to play Peter Parker again and Kirsten Dunst is back as Mary Jane Watson. The big question is who is the villain, or should I say… are the villains?

Mania.com thinks they have the answer. According to their “reliable sources,” Rachel McAdams has met with producers to play Felicia Hardy, better known as the Black Cat, in Spider-Man 4.

In the comics, Hardy is a “cat” burglar and a love interest to Spider-Man, transforming from an enemy to an ally in the story. She’s a flirtatious, catty little minx too. (Okay, enough feline jokes.) The Black Cat, like most comic book heroines, is a chesty gal with a skin-tight leather suit (naturally), platinum blonde hair (well, white), and no super powers (at first).

The website says this will be a “two-villain movie” and Sony is in the midst of casting another (male) villain. Whether or not this is Dylan Baker reprising his role as Dr. Connors, a.k.a. the Lizard, is uncertain. He’s also confirmed he’ll be back in some capacity and of course earlier rumors have been circulating that he’s the foe this time.

At this time consider this all speculation. McAdams taking meetings doesn’t mean she’s accepting the role, if the Black Cat is even in the fourth movie. The Lizard may not appear yet either, potentially saving his emergence for the planned fifth and sixth films. All we know for sure is we’d love to see McAdams in that costume. Hopefully confirmation coming soon.