Thursday, August 13th, 2009

To say that Gavin Hood's X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a disappointment, even compared to the lackluster X-Men: The Last Stand, would be a vast understatement. It was nonetheless, met with a decent box office return, and right after the release, star Hugh Jackman talked openly on how he wanted a sequel that would cover Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's classic Wolverine story arc. With Jackman claiming that the plot was being actively pursued, it comes as a great surprise for all us comic-to-movie fans that Christopher McQuarrie has been signed on to direct the yet untitled sequel, via The Hollywood Reporter. McQuarrie is best known as the Academy Award winning writer of Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects. I mean, how could the man who created the brilliance of Keyser Soze go on to make something on the level of the last two films in the X-Men franchise? Also, it is to be noted that McQuarrie done some work on the original X-Men, directed by Singer in 2000, until David Hayter took over. With Hayter doing a decent amount of re-writes, he gained sole credit from the Writers Guild of America, with Singer and Tom DeSanto gaining credit for "story". So, he was associated with the franchise when it was still very much enjoyable.

One upcoming film that has yet to grab me, Legion, debuted a red band trailer today. The Paul Bettany-starring "Christian-themed fantasy-thriller" as Wikipedia puts it seems rather creepy. I love the old woman saying that the unborn child will "fucking burn" in a sweet voice. Anyhow, the loading for this thing was miserable, so I'm just going to link to IWatchStuff's page with the trailer. See what you think.

Neatorama has posted a video of a man who created the Batmobile tumbler from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight out of a go-kart.

Avatar's official site has updated to give information on what it is calling "Avatar Day", when the preview that supposedly wowed all the critics and spectators at the San Diego Comic Con will be available for the general public via a few select 3-D IMAX Theaters. Of course, this means for people like myself that live in a town that is getting Funny People as a new attraction tomorrow, seeing this is a little out of question unless I want to drive the distance of a short vacation.

Finally, I will end with promoting the John Hughes documentary Don't You Forget About Me... again. I recently found the trailer for the flick, and for the first time realized that Kevin Smith is in this thing. So, take a look and see if you are as impressed as I am with the story of a few fans going on a road trip to satisfy a cinephiliac urge. Enjoy.