Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Yesterday, Deadline Hollywood supplied the movie blogsphere with the rumor that David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan, brother of The Dark Knight's visionary director Christopher Nolan, is currently working on a script for the third in Nolan's franchise. Today, DH's story followed up by announcing that Chris Nolan could very well be DC Comic's silver screen savior. Not only will the director be responsible for turning the Batman franchise around from Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin to his 2005 release, Batman Begins, but now the linked article is reporting that Warner Brothers has hired Nolan to mentor or "godfather" (an interesting term to be used in the Superman film universe, seeing that the first two films were written by The Godfather novelist Mario Puzo) a reboot of the Superman franchise, after the company decided to go another route than continuing with Bryan Singer's Superman Returns story arc. Still, Nolan will not be in the director's chair, the reason cited in the article, for working on Batman 3. There will surely be more rumors on this as the week continues, especially if anyone can actually get a statement from Nolan.

The other big news of the day comes from The Daily Mail's interview with Bill Murray. In it, the comedian discusses The Fantastic Mr. Fox, his thoughts on the underrated Groundhog Day script and his favorite performance, Broken Flowers. However, it is when the topic of Ghostbusters 3 comes up that the story sets the rumor mills running. Murray claims he will only return to the franchise if he gets to come back as a ghost, all but actually confirming Sigourney Weaver's slip-up in an interview during Avatar's press tour. Although I would prefer to not know that Dr. Peter Venkman will die within the first few minutes of the first movie, I can see this working, and don't really see it as a spoiler seeing that it is on every blog site, and if it happens in the manner that is being rumored, will probably be featured in the trailer of the possible film.

/Film posted an article featuring Stan Lee announcing via his Twitter that Marvel is prepping an Ant-Man movie. After the rumors of Edgar Wright taking the director's chair for the film and Pixar eyeing the project were both dispelled, the cinematic future of the Marvel character has been left unspoken about lately. I'm sure this little promise from Stan the Man will get the fans interested again.

In some actual confirmed news, The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog has announced that Tim Robbins has joined the cast of The Green Lantern as Senator Hammond, the father of the film's main villain, Dr. Hector Hammond (as played by Peter Sarsgaard). I know absolutely nothing on Robbins' character-to-be, but just looking at his acting ability, it's not a bad choice.

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

I find it difficult to blog today, because no matter what news I can dig up on the entertainment sites, it will ultimately pale in comparison to yesterday's earth-shattering announcement that The Walt Disney Company had purchased Marvel Comics. Still, the biggest news story of the day does come courtesy of the comic distributor, as 20th Century Fox announced, via Variety, that they will be starting production on a re-boot of the Fantastic Four franchise, with Akiva Goldsman being named as producer. The story apparently confirms that Disney is going to honor the deals that Marvel had made previous to yesterday's merger. Still, you almost have to wonder, as much as any of us like the comic book versions of the superhero team, if a great cinematic incarnation is even possible. Of course Tim Story's recent Fantastic Four films seems great in comparison to the Roger Corman-produced 1994 version, but it still didn't make the waves that such Marvel fare as Spider-Man, X-Men or Iron Man generated. It still gives us a reason to be excited, no matter how terrible it will be, and a reason to hope that it will turn around for the heroes. Oh, the reason for that particular picture accompanying the article today, coming from Marvel Zombies, I included because it went with the big story, but also because it brings up another question of Disney's acquisition, can the family friendly company really produce something as senselessly gory as Marvel Zombies? One of the many questions.

On to some more links of the huge Disney/Marvel story, my favorite Cinematical author, Elisabeth Rappe has attempted to calm some of our fears through her Geek Beat column, including some reassurance in the form of quotes from Joe Quesada's Twitter account comparing it to the relationship betwixt Disney and Pixar. Also, MSNBC has a story up giving us Stan Lee's first public thoughts on the deal, which he believes is great. The article also gives a decent link to Lee's other business with Disney, a motion comic he wrote entitled Time Jumper to be available on the iPod and debuted at this past San Diego Comic Con. So after a collective deep breath, maybe the scare is settling. Or maybe at 86 years of age, Lee was brainwashed by the enchanting anti-Semite conglomerate with promises of a trip to Space Mountain.

In further comic-to-film news, according to Variety a DC property I'm not very knowledgeable of, Deadman, will be brought to the screen courtesy of producer Guillermo del Toro and to be directed by Danish director Nikolaj Arcel, whom after looking over his IMDb isn't that known to me either. The character has always seemed fascinating to me, despite my lack of knowledge, added with the fact that anything del Toro touches turns to gold, will keep me looking out for this one.

Also, The Hollywood Reporter announces that Robert Downey, Jr. will star and Jon Favreau will direct a big screen adaptation of the graphic novel Cowboys and Aliens. Also, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, screenwriters on the other little Downey/Favreau collaboration Iron Man, wrote the initial screenplay, which was later given a script-tune up by producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman of Star Trek fame. Haven't heard of the comic? Well, no problem because Cinematical gave us the great link to DrunkDuck.com, a site for reading webcomics where you can read the entire thing online for free. I know what I'm doing for the rest of the night.

Finally, ComingSoon has the first look at Raja Gosnell's CGI The Smurfs with the teaser poster debut. Kind of bland, but enjoy.

Monday, August 31st, 2009

I have always said that sometimes The Walt Disney Company gets more bad press than they deserve. Sure, they are the most shrewd of all Hollywood businesspeople, as well as being known on the blogsphere for being wildly hypocritical in most of their judgments, not to mention being branded as racists from Dumbo to The Princess and the Frog. Yet, they continue to pump out great films such as WALL-E and this year's Up alongside Pixar, and no matter how overpriced, continues to generate the one place on earth that lives up to the affectionate term of "magical", the Walt Disney World Resort. However, when I turned on the ol' computer today, I read that the big conglomerate mouse had finally gone too far, they had bought Marvel Comics. We have a plethora of questions that arise from this $4 billion deal that occurred this morning, including what will happen to the movie properties and plans that Marvel Entertainment had lined up for the upcoming years, culminating in a collaborative Avengers adaptation? Does this spell the end for the chance to see a quality Wolverine film, based on the works of Frank Miller and Chris Claremont? When will we face an inevitable Disney/Marvel crossover? A better question, will Pixar dabble in the newly acquired 5,000 Marvel characters? Even away from the relevancy of this movie blog, what about the comics? Disney television deals? Universal Studios Islands of Adventure's fate has my inner traveler nervous. Will Disney destroy Marvel? Will characters like Frank Castle/The Punisher be re-worked to become family-friendly to fit the Disney brand? Will Stan Lee still be a huge influence in the Marvel offices? What will the folks affiliated with Marvel say about the merger?

I suppose most of these questions will be answered in the next few days that follow, but right now the media shit storm is in full swing, and MTV has posted an article about what we supposedly know about the deal thus far. You can also check out the official press release at Marvel's official site, and I have yet to find, but I've read that somewhere on there, you can actually listen to CEO Isaac Perlmutter's conference call. Also, a link to the first place I read the story, BBC News. And don't forget to check out what the non-movie crowd is saying, via the comment section on Geekologie. Also, not missing a beat, don't miss Cinematical's weekly article Girls on Film, where Monika Bartyzel compares the classic Disney princesses and Marvel's top heroines. There is also an article on the site by Jeffrey M. Anderson, featuring lots of rather cheesy jokes that in all actuality touches on the fears of all geeks the world over at the moment. And for one final link to the story, the picture comes courtesy of coverage at Kotaku.

So, with the future of comic books-to -silver screen in jeopardy for a cinephile, what could possibly make the news day worse? How about a franchise that doesn't know when to quit? How about three?

First, Variety reports that even after Halloween II was just able to climb to the number three spot at the box office this weekend, the franchise may be continuing, sans current director Rob Zombie. The Weinsteins have apparently got a yet-to-be-named filmmaker on tap to take the franchise in a different direction, and a different dimension... or what's becoming a very cliché gimmick in 3-D.

Also from Variety, it was announced today that Nu Image and Millennium Films greenlit a fifth film in the Rambo franchise. Sweet Jesus, that is just a terrible idea.

Finally, just when you thought you couldn't take anymore, The Hollywood Reporter declares that Peter Craig is writing a new screenplay for a third Bad Boys for Columbia Pictures. We are yet to find out if Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer, Will Smith or Martin Lawrence will return. Also, would it even really matter?

Finally, if you haven't lost all your hope in the wonderful world of cinema, The Final Destination took the top spot at the box office this weekend, topping the second week of Inglourious Basterds by a little over $8 million, not even to mention $27 million over Big Fan. Try not to kill yourselves before tomorrow.