Posted Dec 2nd 2008 10:45AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Images, War
I know you're probably groaning at seeing yet another
X-Men Origins: Wolverine post, but I can't help it! There's new pictures! And the photos are always
so cool -- and yes, I am easily pleased when it comes to the admantium one ... and yes, at this point the movie could be Wolverine reading a phone book for 2 hours and I would probably count my money well spent.
Anyway, 20th Century Fox has released five new images from
Wolverine -- if you saw the bootleg ComicCon trailer, you'll recognize the image above. I like that Wolverine and Sabretooth appear to be bickering moments before being "executed." Hate runs deep. My favorite of the bunch, though, is the Weapon X photo ...
not because it shows off a lot of Hugh Jackman, but because I'm hoping its an indication we see the whole nasty bonding procedure. If it's another blink-and-you-miss it sequence, well, they just missed the point of doing a Wolverine origin story!
Check out all the photos in the gallery below, accompanied by the two that hit the web last week -- and don't be surprised if there's more before the trailer hits on December 12th because, come on ... where the heck is Deadpool?! Where's Beak? We want to see them, too! Even
I need a break from Jackman sometimes.
[via
Superhero Hype]
Posted Dec 2nd 2008 10:03AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Box Office, Fandom, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
Silly us
X-Files fans trying to rationalize why
The X-Files: I Want to Believe crashed and burned so badly this summer. It was too thoughtful! Too character-driven! Too focused on giving fans emotional closure, and not enough on slam-bang summer excitement! Long-time franchise producer
Frank Spotnitz has a much easier and quicker answer: It was
The Dark Knight's fault.
His
theory goes thus:
The X-Files opened a week after
The Dark Knight broke all sorts of records and began its domination of the summer box office. What's more, the dark and brooding film was similar in tone to the caped juggernaut, and not the sort of counterprogramming that might nonetheless have had a chance in its wake. And so you get $21 million domestic.
Look, I'm probably as big a fan of
I Want to Believe as you'll find around these parts; for fans of the show it was a lovely, moving conclusion.
For fans of the show. The commercial problem with the film wasn't that it was too dark or that it followed
The Dark Knight, but that it was too
small, and its appeal too narrow. A bigger, flashier
X-Files, with more explosions and flying saucers, would have done better, Batman notwithstanding. As it stood, people who didn't grow up on Mulder and Scully didn't see a reason to go. And -- speaking, again, as someone who loves the film -- they probably made the right choice. There wasn't much there for them.
Oh, and as to the possibility of another film that Spotnitz vaguely suggests: no thank you. This was a graceful, satisfying finale.
[via
Movie City News]
Posted Dec 1st 2008 9:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
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You'd think there wouldn't be a ton of stuff to catch you post-Turkey blokes up with, but it's the exact opposite. So here's some stuff(ing) and things to skim over today:
-- Folks are going bonkers today over news in
Production Weekly that the much-anticipated (and kinda secretive)
Tron sequel has changed its title to
TRZ in order to trick young kids into thinking MTV has adapted their now-retired TRL for the big screen. Okay, that's not the real reason ... but do we really need to know the real reason?
TRZ? Here's the snippet of plot synopsis they provided: "After being transported into the surreal landscape of a mainframe computer to destroy an intruder, a programmer finds himself allied with the leader of a rebellion against a corrupt cyber-entity." According to Disney, an official title for the
Tron sequel is not set yet.
-- George Miller finally went on the record and told a talk show in Sydney that he's officially off Justice League. He's done. That's it. Over.
Dark Horizons says Miller thinks the film will be recast when (and if) it happens because "the studios seem to want bigger stars in their superhero movies now." We wonder why?
-- According to
Shock, a source tells them
Rob Zombie will indeed return to direct
Halloween 2, the follow-up to his successful (at the box office) reboot of the franchise, titled
Halloween. Additionally, the site claims
Halloween 2 will begin shooting as early as this March.
-- Why do all the Nazi flicks come out during the holidays? And
how do you sell them?
-- Jennifer Hudson's estranged brother-in-law has been arrested for the deaths of the actress/singer's mother, brother and nephew, according to CBS News.
After the jump: First looks at Whip It and Youth in Revolt, more on Chef and a very cool short film contest.Continue reading Stuff and Things: Some Post-Turkey 'Tron' Sequel Hatin'
Posted Dec 1st 2008 8:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Drama, Horror, Thrillers, Deals, Mystery & Suspense, Newsstand
Michael Marshall is one lucky writer -- he published a well-received trilogy, which was adapted into a comic series by Zenescope, and now
The Straw Men are coming to the big screen. According to
Variety, Benderspink has snatched the rights to the to the novels and the comic books, presumably in order to adapt some combination of them.
Unfortunately, I can't rustle up a preview of the comic -- but you can check out the gorgeously creepy covers on
Zenoscope. I'm not sure I could have these laying beside my bed, they're pretty nightmarish.
It sounds like the book is, too. The story begins with two men calmly opening fire at a McDonald's in Palmerston, Pennsylvania before jumping ahead ten years to meet up with Ward Hopkins, who is convinced the death of his parents was no accident. Elsewhere, a 14 year old girl is kidnapped by a serial killer, and two FBI Agents are on the manhunt to find him. These events are no coincidence, they're the first clues to the nightmarish individuals known as The Straw Men. Marshall's thriller has received nothing but praise -- Publisher's Weekly squeamishly noted its "dismemberment scenes," Stephen King praised it, and
Newsarama is calling it "one of the best horror thrillers ever written."
There's no director or screenwriter attached yet -- and Benderspink is adapting every other graphic novel known to man, so this could sit in pre-production for awhile, which gives us all time to read the book. Has anyone out there read it or the comic? Tell us everything (well, not
everything, but give us a good review) in the comments below.
Posted Dec 1st 2008 4:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Fandom, Newsstand, Lists, Trailers and Clips
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Now that we've entered the final month of the year, look for our site (and several others) to spend some time looking back at 2008. We here at
Cinematical will kick off our year-end festivities real soon, but in the meantime
Yahoo Movies was first out of the gate with a list of the most popular movie trailers of 2008. Keep in mind this is only according to Yahoo's numbers and represents the most watched, not necessarily the best (we'll have that list later this month).
As expected, a good majority of this list is made up of big summer blockbuster-type stuff, and guess which flick leads the pack? Yup, the one with that damn bat. The top two (
Dark Knight and
Indiana Jones) don't surprise me in the least, but the next two are ...
Twilight (3)
and
The Incredible Hulk (4)? Really? Those vampires even beat everyone's favorite boy wizard, Harry Potter, who came in at a disappointing sixth on the list, behind
Iron Man. Check out the titles below -- anything surprise you? Did you expect
Twilight to take the third spot behind whoppers like
Dark Knight and
Indy? Sound off ...
1. The Dark Knight
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3. Twilight
4. The Incredible Hulk
5. Iron Man
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
7. Wanted
8. Hancock
9. Sex and the City
10. Kung Fu PandaPosted Dec 1st 2008 12:40PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Drama, Deals, RumorMonger, Scripts, Newsstand, Religious, War
Maybe all roads
do lead to Rome. According to
The Hollywood Reporter and creator
Bruno Heller, there's actually talk of continuing the brilliant HBO series on the big screen to wrap up all the historical loose ends caused by the series' abrupt cancellation. (Something which HBO now thinks was a big mistake. Between that and
passing over Preacher, they're rather low in my esteem right now.)
Heller admits the talk is, at the moment, just talk. "It's moving along. It's not there until it is there. I would love to round that show off." Heller wouldn't discuss movie plot plans, but the next step for
Rome was Augustus Caesar having to deal with a certain carpenter from Judea -- with a twist typical of the series.
Fans of the show will probably weep a little at Heller's unrealized plans -- Lucius Vorenus' off-camera fate wasn't as definite as we might have thought, and we would have gotten a whole season of Egyptian debauchery. "I discovered halfway through writing the second season the show was going to end," Heller said. "The second was going to end with death of Brutus. Third and fourth season would be set in Egypt. Fifth was going to be the rise of the messiah in Palestine. But because we got the heads-up that the second season would be it, I telescoped the third and fourth season into the second one, which accounts for the blazing speed we go through history near the end. There's certainly more than enough history to go around."
A
Rome movie is probably nothing but a dream -- anything more than a whisper, and it will vanish, it is so fragile. But cancellation is no longer a death knell, and while they can't give me back the lost season of Antony and Cleopatra, I'm
always up for more bread and circuses.
Posted Nov 29th 2008 11:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Images
The first photo of
Taylor Kitsch as the card-charging mutant Gambit has leaked online, scanned from the pages of
Empire's upcoming
Wolverine themed issue. He's quite dapper, isn't he? You can get away with wearing silky purple shirts and velvet vests when you're a mutant who can charge everyday objects with lethal kinetic energy. Anyone who mocks your taste in colors and fabrics is going to end up fried by a card, a bowl of pretzels, whatever he can grab first.
Cheesy clothing aside, I think Kitsch embodies Gambit quite well. He's got the right amount of scruff, the right hair, and he flings his cards with a casual machismo. This character is one of my biggest stumbling blocks for the movie, because I just don't get where he fits into a Wolverine origin story. He was a buddy to Wolverine in many of the comics, but was usually relegated to being a French Captain Obvious. "Mon ami, you are going to use them adamantium claws, no?" Fans love him though, and after being left out of three
X-Men movies, I suspect they've used any excuse they can to work him in. But I know Gambit fans are psyched -- and the fact that he's probably being groomed for a spin-off should make up for his lack of
X-Men screentime.
Posted Nov 28th 2008 12:03PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Poor Hulk! Batman, Iron Man, even Wolverine get more sequel press than he does. But late last week,
Tim Blake Nelson revealed to
MTV that he had signed for Hulk sequels, with every intention of taking the villainous center stage as The Leader. But like the rest of us, he has no idea whether or not they'll come to be, or whether or not
Edward Norton will return. "It's all good, and I really do hope [the sequel] happens, for all sorts of reasons. But yeah, we did, we had a great time on
Hulk together. I'm eager to do
Hulk 2 if they make it ... I'm signed on to do
Hulk 2 and 3 whether Edward's there or not, so it's not even up to me ... I certainly hope Edward is on the sequel - but that's up to Marvel and Edward."
Meanwhile, over in Avengers land, Robert Downey Jr.
mentioned again that Hulk is going to show up in that crown jewel of superhero flicks. It's a strange place for the green giant to be in, because he's going forward, yet lost in a land of sequel rumor and leading man drama.
It's a question
we've thrown out to
Cinematical readers before, but with all this additional info, where do you want Hulk to go from here? Do you think that he should get his planned trilogy, then land with a thunderclap in
The Avengers? Should they just leave well enough alone with
The Incredible Hulk? And how do you feel about yet another Hulk recast?
My personal take is that if Marvel can't make up with Norton, they should just give up franchising Hulk, and just leave him off the big screen until
The Avengers. Theoretically, you
could have an all-CGI Hulk in that, thereby sidestepping the need to replace Norton. It would be clunky, though, and might "really really suck." Sigh. Why does there have to be so much drama in the world of Marvel? Earth's mightiest heroes should have a much easier time uniting than this.
Posted Nov 28th 2008 10:10AM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, RumorMonger, Fandom, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
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Just the other day I was chatting with a friend about movie franchises, and for some reason
Police Academy came up. (Now I remember -- the Arizona Cardinals' running back is named Hightower!) I was of the opinion that we were totally due for a reboot of the entire
Police Academy franchise -- with maybe a passing of the torch sort of thing between some old cast members and new ones. They could update it, modernize it -- maybe throw in a few young, fresh names (I could totally see Jay Baruchel starring in a role) and have some fun.
Cut to today:
The Sun had a chat with
Steve Guttenberg recently, and it looks like a new
Police Academy flick is totally in the works. He says, "We are doing a new movie and it is going to be great fun. A script is being written and so far it is really great, everyone from the original movies who is still around will return." Guttenberg also said that both
Kim Cattrall (
Police Academy) and
Sharon Stone (
Police Academy 4) have been asked to return, but neither has "said yes yet." I'm a big fan of the series (or most of it, at least), and so hopefully they've got something tasty cookin' in the oven.
For Guttenberg, however, one sequel just ain't enough. He notes, "Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and I are looking to make another
Three Men And A Baby movie. It's called
Three Men and A Bride. The script is pretty much written and we are really keen to get that made. We're very hopeful." Hey, more power to them ... although, in 2009 (or 2010, 2011), I'm not sure how well a film starring Ted Danson, Tom Selleck and Steve Guttenberg would do at the box office? Iffy on that one. You?
[Thanks Jim]
Posted Nov 28th 2008 9:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Every bit of
X-Men Origins: Wolverine news erodes my dignity a little bit more. Okay, I don't actually have any dignity ... but I really should be more patient before posting. Just a few days ago, I wound myself up over Jeff Katz's "last time I talked to
Hugh Jackman, this is
the Wolverine sequel he wanted" quote.
And now, Jackman himself sat down with
MTV and confirmed that he really would love to take Wolverine to Japan. "The most intriguing thing to me was the Japan story. I love the Japan story. I wanted to do the Japan story from around
X-Men 2. Can you just picture Wolverine in Japan with the triads and the samurai? It's just genius."
Now, I used to mock Wolverine's Japan adventures as being a way to cash in on
Karate Kid fever (mostly to annoy other comic devotees), but Frank Miller's vision of him as a ronin
is genius. With a single book (which you need to read if you haven't already), Miller and Chris Claremont deepened Wolverine from a beer guzzling thug to the poetic badass we all know and love today. Of course, now every
Wolverine comic writer gives him a doomed Japanese bride, but there
was a time when it was novel, romantic, and tragic.
So, why didn't Jackman & Co. do that story instead of the mutant extravaganza that
Origin is rumored to be? "How can you do that before you explain his origins? If we tried to mix the origin and Japan together, it wouldn't do justice to either. So you can tell by the answer where I'd like it to go." Darn you, Jackman. You're right, of course, but this just means I have to wait
that much longer, and hope that
Wolverine is good enough for it to happen.
Oh, and check out yet another new
Empire photo after the jump. Looks like he fills out his jeans as nicely as his tanktops.
Continue reading Hugh Jackman DOES Want Wolverine in Japan!
Posted Nov 26th 2008 11:45AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Images
Well, Happy (Almost) Thanksgiving
indeed. Between
Australia and the flood of
X-Men Origins: Wolverine news, you can't turn around without seeing
Hugh Jackman's biceps somewhere this week ... not that I'm complaining. How did it take so long for him to be dubbed Sexiest Man Alive, anyway? The physique should have earned it twice over.
Anyway, get a peek of
Empire's new Wolverine cover, which will be on shelves in December. Click on him to get the whole thing, and tidbits like this from the magazine's tell-all set visit: "There's a scene in the first
X-Men movie," says Jackman, "where Wolverine's introduced in a bar, fighting in a cage, and you felt that he did this every night of his life. If this movie is successful, you should feel that this guy can walk straight off the end of this film and into that bar. "
And in other
Origins news,
ComingSoon has confirmed that the film's trailer will be seen on December 12th, attached to
The Day the Earth Stood Still. Some say that means the sci-fi remake isn't very good, and Fox is counting on the trailer to bolster ticket sales. But do people really do that, particularly in these tough economic times, and with bootlegs providing instant gratification? I doubt it. We'll post it as soon as it appears online, though, count on that.
Posted Nov 26th 2008 10:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Fandom, Scripts, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Robert Downey Jr. is, quite simply, a god of geekdom. If there's a holy trinity, he shares it only with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman because it is so rare that actors just
get it, and even rarer that they'll say it. Witness Downey's thoughts on
The Avengers to
MTV: "If we don't get it right it's really, really going to suck. It has to be the crowning blow of Marvel's best and brightest because it's the hardest thing to get right. It's tough to spin all the plates for one of these characters."
He also may have let slip who The Avengers might be battling in his concerns that Iron Man remain in a real-world setting: "The danger you run with colliding all these worlds is that Jon was very certain that
Iron Man should be set in a very realistic way. Nothing that happened in
Iron Man is really outside the realm of possibility. Once you start talking about Valhalla and supersized super soldiers and jolly green giants, it warrants much further discussion." This could mean
Giant Man, or Captain America could be looming big in Downey's thoughts.
Continue reading Robert Downey Jr. Warns 'The Avengers', Talks 'Iron Man 2'
Posted Nov 25th 2008 3:25PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Casting, Deals, RumorMonger, Fandom, Newsstand
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It's always fun when some tasty bit of news gets tossed out online, especially when there's only a few tiny little pieces -- like a director, an actor and a title. That seems to be the case with this piece of news, via
Production Weekly, who tell us that Sony has picked up the rights for a film called
Chef, which will be directed by
David Fincher and star
Keanu Reeves. That's it. That's all we have to go by. No genre, no premise, no additional cast -- nada.
As far as Fincher and Reeves go, each appears to be available as the former is finished with
Benjamin Button and is attached to only direct an animated segment of
Heavy Metal, and Reeves just finished
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. The only flick that comes to my mind is the remake of
Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe, but the titles are different and it doesn't seem like the kind of project Fincher would direct. So who is this chef? Where does he come from? Tell us more about this movie! If anyone out there has more info on it, definitely let us know.
Posted Nov 24th 2008 10:32AM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Box Office, Fandom, Newsstand
It's being mentioned in a few of the box office reports showing up online, but we here at
Cinematical felt it deserved its own post. In case you haven't noticed,
Twilight's $70.5 million amounts to the best opening weekend for a female director ever. Not only did she break Mimi Leder's (
Deep Impact) record of $41.1 million, but
Twilight director
Catherine Hardwicke destroyed it -- bringing her all the way up to the 29th best opening weekend in history (according to
Box Office Mojo), slightly beating -- wait for it -- Michael Bay's
Transformers by roughly $50 thousand on 600 less screens. I think this proved giant f**king robots are no match for millions of screaming girls.
But this isn't the only record Catherine Hardwicke could break. Our friends over at
Over Thinking It pointed out that should
Twilight gross more than $187 million domestic, the film will crack the top 100 grossing movies of all time (domestic) list. And if that happens, Hardwicke will become the first female live action American director to crack the holy top 100. I'm sure there's a bunch of other weird little records in there, but I failed math back in the day and I'm probably not the guy you want adding things up.
While this is a great achievement for Hardwicke and women filmmakers, however, there's this quote from a recent study conducted by Dr. Martha Lauzen of San Diego State University (via OTI): "Women accounted for 6% of directors in 2007, a decline of one percentage point since 2006. This figure is almost half the percentage of women directors working in 2000 when women accounted for 11% of all directors." Not good. Hopefully Hardwicke's fantastic opening will help open some eyes ...
Check out our interview with
Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke over here.
Continue reading Why 'Twilight' is Historic for Women Filmmakers
Posted Nov 24th 2008 9:45AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Celebrities and Controversy, Scripts, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Seeing as it's a slow news day, let's check in with
Justin Theroux, who's hard at work penning
Iron Man 2. The cool people of
UGO did a nice interview with him, where he talks all about
Tropic Thunder,
Iron Man 2, and even a little bit about
The Avengers.
Theroux says the script is around "the first draft" and is chugging right along with input and notes from Robert Downey Jr. The writer was quick to dismiss rumors that he was involved in the Terrence Howard/Don Cheadle change-up, that his script will reflect it in any way, or that the role of War Machine will be scaled down. "No, that's all nonsense. Whatever their reason is, I'll leave that up to Marvel. We're writing the thing, virtually the same for Rhodey that we would for any actor. We're really taking what's going to be the most interesting story for the fans, and what are they going to enjoy watching. And who ever's in that part is going to have to play that part and make it work ... I haven't met Don, and I think I'm going to in a little bit and I think once I get a better sense of his voice and also hear what he has to say about what he likes about the character and just pick his brain a little bit, then we'll obviously start to tailor it to him."
Theroux is also unsure what Gwyneth Paltrow's status in the sequel is -- he's "planning like she is there" but has no confirmation as to whether she will return. Will we end up with a
new Pepper Potts? Will Tony Stark look around and see strangers replacing those he knew and loved in the first film? Because that would send any man to the bottle!
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