Friday, January 15th, 2010

I'm be damned if Avatar hasn't popped up as the big thing in entertainment this past week, with The Tonight Show debacle and celebrities for Haiti and all. Yet, somehow, James Cameron still keeps creeping to the top of this blog. Yahoo! Movies reports that Cameron is finally going to start pre-production on Battle Angel, an adaptation of a manga series, Battle Angel Alita, by Yukito Kishiro, with a projected release date of 2011. The news is big because, adding Cameron and the built in manga audience, a sure blockbuster/nerd following combination will result in big bucks at the box office, but it also points towards the earlier speculations of Cameron adapting the nonfiction book The Last Train from Hiroshima to be much later in his plans than originally slated, or that the director is possibly looking at only a producing job on that flick while he focuses most of his attention towards Battle Angel. As an added note, not knowing anything about the manga, the image I stole from /Film's coverage of the story already has me more sold for that film than all the onslaught of positive Avatar press that is being shoved down our throats.

I haven't heard much of Mitch Glazer's upcoming film Passion Play, starring Megan Fox, Mickey Rourke and formerly Toby Kebbell. Don't know who Kebbell is? Me either, but look him up, and decide from the dicey male model-esque pics Google Image will return if Bill Murray would be the first name in your head to replace him. But that is who /Film reports is stepping aboard the project to fill the void, much to the delight of, well, I'm sure everybody. Murray will play a mobster, whom calls on an angel, played by Fox. Other than that, I don't know much, but as soon as I find out more, it will be passed along.

From one good replacement to one of the worst I've ever heard. Nerd Bastards has an article on the possible new director for the reboot of the Spider-Man franchise, Nimrod Antal. Although the virtually unknown Antal's possible hiring would be a big story on a normal day, the same article also says that stepping into Tobey Maguire's old red and blue tights will be the sparkling, brooding vampire face of Robert Pattinson. It's one thing to rip this project away from Sam Raimi, but to bring a connection between Twilight and Marvel? Jesus, is NBC behind this shit!?

I just re-subscribed to Netflix, and unfortunately for myself, for the second time in the past two weeks, the DVD-by-mail rental service is seeing negative press. This time, according to Bloomberg, within a legal dispute between The Walt Disney Company and Starz. Apparently, most of the films with the ability to stream on Netflix comes from a deal made with Starz, but Disney wants their contract with Starz updated so the films cannot be streamed. Despite Netflix's best efforts to give us more streamable material, companies like Disney and Warner Brothers are ruining it for us all to save approximately half a penny per employee. I mean, for Walt Disney to have been an anti-Semite, this is an awfully Jew move. Wow, that must be the harsh schedule of school catching up to my brain for the hate speech to spill out on this blog. That's for another one that I plan on starting up soon, stay tuned kiddos.

Finally, to end on a more depressing note than Robert Pattinson as Peter Parker or the conglomerate war against accessible film, here is the trailer for the adaptation of Tekken. If this doesn't win a Razzie next year, I may castrate myself.