Screen Rant » Shane

Bale Not In League With New JLA Movie

Shane — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:54:11 +0000

According to reports at IESB.net, Christian Bale is not too keen on the idea of Batman being recast in the proposed JLA movie at Warners. Bale indicates that he was never approached and that he wouldn’t welcome someone else wearing the cowl. In the interview over at IESB, Bale’s comments seem to indicate this.

Q: Are you doing Justice League after TDK?

Bale: No

IESB: Have you been approached for Justice League?

Bale: No

IESB: How would you feel about the studio recasting Batman for Justice League?

Bale: It’d be better if it doesn’t tread on the toes of what we’re doing, though I feel that it would be better if it comes out after Batman 3.

I like the idea of a Justice League movie. I also like the idea of throwing as much money as possible at Bale to get him to appear as Batman in the film. Bale has made the character his own and I’m not sure anyone else could do it justice (sorry about the pun). A JLA movie is almost guaranteed bank for WB, so they need to pony up the cash to both Bale and Brandon Routh and make the movie an event. It is also being reported that Ryan Reynolds wants to put on the red tights and play Flash… the potential cast for this movie gives it the possibility of being awesome.

Regardless of what happens with the JLA movie, Warner Bros. would be absolutely insane to upset the people who are currently in charge of the Batman franchise. Christopher Nolan and crew knocked it out of the park with the original and appear to be making all the right decisions on the sequel.

Source: IESB

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Len Wiseman Confirmed As Escape From New York Director

Shane — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:49:11 +0000

It is being reported over at The Hollywood Reporter that Len Wiseman has been confirmed to be in the director’s chair for the remake of the cult favorite Escape from New York. I like this choice. I enjoyed his Underworld films (that may have had a lot to do with Kate Beckinsale and her wardrobe choices) and Vic gave Die Hard 4.0 a favorable review here.

As a fan, I am of two minds on the idea of one of my favorite movies getting redone.

In my heart, Kurt Russell forever wears an eye-patch, mullet, and multiple days growth of a beard. I have always hoped they would do the rumored Escape from Earth storyline with Kurt in his signature role. That being said, if they have to recast the role of Snake Plissken, Gerard Butler is a pretty good choice. He was awesome as Leonidas in 300 and I enjoyed him as the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera. I think he is a rising star right now and his name attached to any project creates some interest for me.

John Carpenter has directed some of my favorite cult movies, The Thing (itself a remake), Big Trouble in Little China, Escape from New York, and They Live. Unfortunately, he has also directed some real stinkers. I don’t think he is a director whose movies shouldn’t be remade, he isn’t exactly Hitchcock or Spielberg. Len Wiseman, although fairly new to the director scene, has shown that he can put out a good action flick. Plus, John Carpenter will be involved and is said to be producing the remake. This sounds like it could be really good if handled right.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Scarlett Johansson Not In Jameson Biopic

Shane — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:38:51 +0000

I am sure everyone will be surprised by this but apparently Scarlett Johansson has no interest in playing porn-star Jenna Jameson in the big screen adaptation of her autobiography, How to Make Love Like a Porn-star. I personally am quite shocked by this. The movie is to be titled Heartbreaker and will detail Jenna’s rise to fame in the adult film industry.

Jameson says, after having seen Lost in Translation:

“I remember thinking to myself, this girl has such a sexuality without even really trying to be sexy. I was like, ‘This girl could play me.’”

Correct me if I am wrong, but who would want to play her? And why is a movie even being made about her?

Has the creative well in Hollywood dried up that much that we are now reduced to making biopics of porn-stars? To be perfectly honest, I am impressed by Johansson’s response given through her representative:

“Scarlett has never seen a script nor been approached about this project. She also has no interest in playing this role.”

Good for Scarlett. I am sure that her taking the role would bring instant media attention and loads of free publicity. I am also betting that there are plenty of actresses out there who would expound on what a great person Jenna is and how much of a role model she is for the modern successful woman. Kudos to Scarlett for not showing any interest in the role.

Source: People

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Spider-Man 4 With Sam Raimi Involved?

Shane — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:24:51 +0000

Apparently Sam Raimi may be involved with the production on Spider-Man 4. Wow, that might be one of the worst ideas I have heard this year. Don’t get me wrong, up until Spider-Man 3, Raimi was one of my favorite directors. I love the majority of his movies. Darkman was fun, both Evil Dead films, Army of Darkness, A Simple Plan, the first two Spider-Man movies; he really has done some wonderful films. On top of his movies, he introduced the world to Bruce Campbell. I think his place in the annals of film history is secure for that fact alone.

Spider-Man 3 was a disaster though.

It was chock full of bad dance numbers (a must in super-hero movies, stay tuned for Heroes: The Musical), too many bad guys, and no clear idea as to what it meant to accomplish.

Being a comic book fan, I would think that a movie done by a former horror film director featuring Venom as a character would be both scary and a no-brainer. Instead, we received multiple half-hearted storylines that failed to deliver any emotional punch due to lack of screen time. The Sandman angle could have been good (I think it started well), but was left unfinished and with almost no resolution. The Venom storyline could have been scary and intense, but was never handled properly due to a bias from Raimi. Gwen Stacy had no business in the film and the Green Goblin story arc should have been dealt with in a later movie so as to give as all a break from the Norman/Harry Osborn/Green Goblin villain.

Now Raimi has hinted that he may be involved in writing and will see if the script is something he would like to direct. Come on Sony, use your heads. The response to Spider-Man 3 was poor at best. Bring in some new blood; give the franchise some new life. Maybe Sam will end up directing and it will be good, but other franchises have benefited from a new vision and a different direction (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was easily better then the first two movies). I think Sam would also do well with a change of scenery. Let him take his rumored stab at The Hobbit (only if Peter jackson is not interested) In my humble opinion, it is time for for someone else to direct everyone’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Source: Empire Online

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Watchmen News

Shane — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:45:50 +0000

Some of the big news this week is surrounding Zack Snyder’s adaptation of the graphic novel, Watchmen. Matthew Goode, who I have not seen in anything, has won the role of Ozymandias. So far this fits with Snyder’s off beat casting for the film. Already cast are Patrick Wilson as The Night Owl, Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, and Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, all of these actors being far from household names. An unknown cast is going to allow the story to shine without being overshadowed by big names.

I like it.

Watchmen tells the story of a group of superheroes and the events surrounding the murder of a superhero named The Comedian. The pretext to the story was based off the saying “Who watches the watchmen?” It presents the heroes as real people with all of the trappings of real life, most of them are not super-powered, all have personality issues, and they die. It was an attempt by the author, Alan Moore, to present the comics medium as a serious genre and not just for kids. The graphic novel did all of that and more, having been the only graphic novel to win the Hugo Award and making Time Magazine’s 2005 list of “the 100 best English speaking novels from 1923 to the present.”

Having said that…

Is it wise to take something that is revered like this and make it into a movie? Are there comics, books, or other media that should be put on a list of things not to be made into movies? I am of the opinion that there are, and if anything should be on that list, it should be comics that Alan Moore has written. Widely considered to be a genius in the comics field, much of his work contains underlying themes which would be difficult at best to transfer to the big screen. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was an excellent series of comics before the travesty starring Sean Connery. V for Vendetta was turned into a Matrix-style action movie. Will Watchmen succeed where the others have failed? Snyder did very well with 300 though (another comic), so it will be very interesting to see if he can pull this off.

Source: Dark Horizons

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Another Potentially Bad Casting Decision From Hollywood

Shane — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:03:11 +0000

It is being reported around the web that the person who who has been hired to produce and possibly star in the big screen adaption of The Green Hornet will be Seth Rogen. For those of you unfamiliar with The Green Hornet, Britt Reid was a debonair newspaper publisher by day and masked superhero by night. A precursor to Batman, grand nephew of The Lone Ranger, Britt and his trusted sidekick Kato fought to rid the world of crime. When we think of debonair newspaper publishers, don’t we all picture the gentleman above?

Way to go Hollywood.

This is right up there with the rumor a while back about Jack Black playing Green Lantern. Now I am not all that familiar with Seth Rogen. I vaguely remember him in The 40 Year Old Virgin, everyone I know who saw Knocked Up said it was pretty good. I am sure he is very talented and possibly even a comic genius, but this casting choice does not give me a lot of confidence in the movie. He just does not seem to fit the part. At one point, George Clooney was rumored to play the role, at another point Jake Gyllenhaal was attached as Britt Reid with Jet Li as Kato and Kevin Smith to direct. Those choices seem pretty sound, this one makes little to no sense. Why can’t Hollywood take these movies seriously?

I’m so tired of flavor of the moment casting.

Source: Dark Horizons

You Might Also Be Interested In:

M. Night Shyamalan’s Next Movie

Shane — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:14:43 +0000

M. Night’s next movie, The Happening, sounds like it has the potential to be pretty good. For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, it will star Mark Wahlberg as a father who takes his family on the run as a result of a global crisis. I really hope that this movie is well written and does well as I like Shyamalan and think he is pretty gifted. The Sixth Sense genuinely surprised me and I thought that Unbreakable was a neat concept and an interesting take on the superhero genre.

Having said that, I hope that Shyamalan decides against his usual trick ending. It worked in his first two movies because he was new to the scene and no one expected them. I spent all of my time watching Signs and The Village looking for the surprise. Based off the review posted here, I didn’t even bother with Lady in the Water.

Hopefully, Shyamalan will drop the trick ending and put out just a straight thriller which seems to be where his talents lie.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

New Beowulf Talent List Is Pretty Impressive

Shane — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 19:36:44 +0000

I’m not sure if anyone has seen anything on this but the new Beowulf movie coming out has quite a lot of talent attached to it. The cast includes Angelina Jolie, Brendan Gleeson , Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman, and Robin Wright Penn. This is quite an impressive cast for any movie, let alone a new version of one of the most famous fantasy stories ever.

It also has one of the best fantasy writers out there, Neil Gaiman. He wrote the story that was the basis for the upcoming movie Stardust. He also wrote the award winning comic series, Sandman, which is one of my personal favorites. It even has Robert Zemeckis directing, how can this movie go wrong?

Well, I have two reservations about this. The first is that Robert Zemeckis directed The Polar Express which used the same motion capture process as this movie is using. I thought the people in The Polar Express were creepy (which might actually work out here come to think of it). The second reservation I have is that sometimes it seems like you can have too much talent in a movie and that overshadows the movie itself, kind of too much of a good thing I guess.
Hopefully it all works out with this because I like all of the talent attached so far.

Check out the teaser site.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Next James Bond Funnier?

Shane — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 12:50:48 +0000

Daniel Craig said in a recent interview with the Daily Express that in the next Bond movie, the producers want to make it more funny, along the lines of the Roger Moore Bond movies.

Bad idea.

The last Bond movie, Casino Royale, was excellent having received stars on our very own Screen Rant. Good characterization, a strong sense of action, almost no stupid gadgets, a beautiful actress that could act, and almost none of the stupid throw away one-liners that made Roger Moore’s Bond movies so hokey. Do the people involved in the process of making these movies ever pay attention?

Overall, Casino Royale met with rave reviews once it was released. I don’t remember any negative reviews at all. Why change it?

Being a lifelong Bond fan, I’ve always enjoyed the Connery Bond movies. His films were always the benchmark for the other movies. George Lazenby, in his one performance, was okay but I always felt he was doing somewhat of a Connery imitation. Roger Moore’s movies were so completely different that they never appealed to me. I thought that the Timothy Dalton Bond was too serious and failed to be fun. Pierce Brosnan started strong but ended up in Roger Moore territory, too much humor and too many crazy gadgets.

On the other hand, Casino Royale was a fine reboot of the series. It lost all of that extra baggage and gave us a leaner, meaner Bond who wasn’t quite as polished as we all remember James Bond being. Lets all hope the next movie follows a formula similar to Casino Royale.

Source: Daily Express

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Indiana Jones 4: First Teaser Clip

Shane — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:19:26 +0000

As I was very excited to see the initial photo of Harrison Ford back in his trademaek Indiana Jones gear, you can imagine how excited I was to see a the first “teaser” video from the film that was just released by Paramount. The hat, the jacket (I actually own a replica), and the whip were all there… Heck, I have even already taken May 22, 2008 (the release date for the movie) off from work! The Indiana Jones movies and Raiders of the Lost Ark specifically are some of my favorite movies.

My Dad, God rest his soul, took me to see Raiders when I was six and it has been my favorite movie since 1981.

Check it out the video, it instantly put a smile on my face.

You Might Also Be Interested In: