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‘Battle: Los Angeles’ Updates

Rob Keyes — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:21:45 +0000

While bathing in the success of The Dark Knight, Two-Face actor Aaron Eckhart was signed on to star as the lead in Battle: Los Angeles, a science-fiction war film to be directed by Jonathan Liebesman (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The Killing Room).

That was back in November of last year and in recent weeks we’ve seen some heavy movement on the project with some casting announcements made at the end of July, including the additions of Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar) and Michael Pena.

Today we have news of a new pair of additions to the Battle: LA cast as well as some hints from the star of the interesting project, Eckhart, as to what style of movie we can expect to see.

Joining the Fight

Joining the cast as fellow members of the anti-Alien military are Ramon Rodriguez and R&B singer–songwriter/record producer/actor, Ne-Yo.

Rodriguez you’ll recognize from his role as the annoyingly useless character in this year’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen where he played Shia LaBeouf’s over-the-top roommate.

According to Collider, Rodriguez is set to play a member of Aaron Eckhart’s platoon and Ne-Yo will play a Corporal in the Army.

As for the production status for Battle: Los Angeles, filming has just begun with its scheduled start of principal photography commencing today.

Fighting Style

Eckhart spoke with a group of reporters earlier this week in Beverly Hills, California to promote his upcoming film, Love Happens, and spoke a bit about Battle: Los Angeles, praising those involved and setting some high hopes with his comparisons.

“We’ve got a great shooter [Lukas Ettlin], and he’s going to do it like Black Hawk Down meets Alien. So it’s going to be real marine stuff. He’s going to film it in a very documentary style.”

Very documentary style? Somebody’s seen District 9! At least they’re keeping with the script comparisons we reported on last April which described the film as a mixture of Aliens, War of the Worlds, Black Hawk Down, Signs and Cloverfield.

Continue Reading ‘Battle: Los Angeles Updates’ for how the actors have been prepping for the movie & more!

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Rodriguez, Pena & Moynahan Recruited for Battle: Los Angeles

Niall Browne — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:46:19 +0000

Alien invasion action film Battle: Los Angeles is starting to fill out supporting roles around lead Dark Knight star, Aaron Eckhart.

Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Pena and Bridget Moynahan have all reportedly signed up for service in Jonathan Liebesman’s movie.

“[Battle: Los Angeles] revolves around a Marine staff sergeant (Eckhart) and his new platoon’s battle against an alien invasion on the streets of Los Angeles.”

The Hollywood Reporter says that Rodriguez will play Corporal Adriana Santos, who is a member of a radio battalion; Pena will portray the father of a boy the Marines find on their mission and Moynahan plays a veterinarian, who I presume has some insight into how the aliens exist.

Bridget Moynahan is one fine recruit.

Battle: Los Angeles is produced by Neil Moritz, the man behind The Fast and the Furious franchise (which incidentally stars Rodriguez) and Swat (which also stars Rodriguez). I’m definitely sensing a pattern here.

Moritz said:

“I’m thrilled to reunite with Michelle. Her intensity is just right for the platoon.”

He does know that he’s making a film and not really going to war? Good. Just checking.

Michelle Rodriguez will next be seen in James Cameron’s low-budget offering (sarcasm alert!), Avatar.

Battle: Los Angeles starts shooting this fall.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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Mid-Week Movie News Wrap Up – March 26, 2009

Niall Browne — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:13:54 +0000

In this week’s A-list packed Wrap Up:

Kevin Costner, Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones are Company Men; Costner is The One; Silver rewrites Battle: Los Angeles for Aaron Eckhart; Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are in love; Magnum Pi hangs out with Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl in Five Killers; Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore are Bill and Hilary Clinton in The Special Relationship and Moore is less for The Thing.

1. Kevin Costner, Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones will star in the independent drama Company Men. According to Variety:

“Affleck plays a corporate hotshot whose Porsche and six-figure salary vanish after he gets laid off. Costner plays his brother-in-law, a salt-of-the-earth drywall installer who gives him a construction job. Jones plays a senior partner in the firm, a principled man who struggles with the greedy actions of his partners.”

I sounds like it couldn’t be more suited to the current economic climate.

Affleck has been on the comeback trail lately and Costner is one of the best leading men around. As for Jones – he was never better than he was in No Country For Old Men.

The John Wells (ER) penned film starts shooting next month.

Source: Variety

2. Variety also has the scoop that Costner will be directing and starring in The One.
The film was written by Michael Blake the man behind Costner’s finest hour Dances With Wolves.

“Costner will star as a free-spirited man who inherits $3 billion, leading him on an adventure and an eventual collision with pirates in the Cayman Islands.”

I can’t wait.

Source: Variety

3. Scott Silver has been brought onboard to rewrite Battle: Los Angeles.
The film sees an alien invasion of Los Angeles and the battle to reclaim the city by a platoon of marines.

Chris Bertolini wrote the original script and Jonathan Liebesman is set to direct.

The Dark Knight’s Aaron Eckhart is attached to star.

Source: Variety

4. Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are mulling over reuniting on the big screen for a romantic comedy. The untitled film that has previously gone by the name of Wichita and Trouble Man.

According to Variety:

“Story revolves around a woman who has terrible luck with men but finds her path intertwined with that of a mysterious handsome man she meets on a blind date.”

The film was originally being tooled as a vehicle for Chris Tucker and Eva Mendes.

James Mangold the director behind Walk the Line and 3.10 To Yuma will call the shoots if the Vanilla Sky duo decide on starring.

It is one of many films that Cruise is pondering at this moment in time.

Source: Variety

5. Tom Selleck, Catherine O’Hara and Martin Mull will join Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl in Five Killers.

“The story follows a hitman (Kutcher) at the top of his game who falls for a computer tech (Heigl) and decides to hang up his guns. Years later, their suburban bliss is ruptured when he finds out there’s a hit out on him, forcing him and his spooked wife to go on the run.”

Magnum star Selleck and O’Hara will play Heigl’s parents.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

6. Dennis Quaid will play Bill Clinton in HBO’S The Special Relationship. The film charts the political relationship of Clinton and Britain’s Tony Blair. Michael Sheen seen recently as David Frost in Frost/ Nixon will star as Blair for the third time following The Queen and The Deal.

Julianne Moore will co-star as Hilary Clinton. Julianne Moore? Maybe they’ll cast Keira Knightly as Monica Lewinski…

Quaid will next be seen in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Source: Variety

7. It looks like Ronald D. Moore’s script for The Thing didn’t give Universal what they wanted because they’ve brought Eric Heisserer in to do a rewrite.

Heisserer has recently reworked the A Nightmare on Elm Street script by Wesley Strick.

What this means is unknown.

Are they now going for a straight up remake and ditching the idea that this remake/ prequel will be a companion piece to John Carpenter’s original?

Maybe Heisserer is doing nothing more than a polish on the dialogue. Time will tell.

But wouldn’t it be cool if the reason Kurt Russell didn’t do The Expendables was his commitment to this?

Just hoping.

Source: Bloody Disgusting

That’s it for now. See you at the movies.

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Aaron Eckhart To Star In ‘Battle: Los Angeles’

Rob Keyes — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Aaron Eckhart has been signed to play the lead in Battle: Los Angeles, a science-fiction action flick to be directed by Jonathan Liebesman (whose biggest project is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning).

The plot of this film revolves around a platoon of marines (commanded by Eckhart) fighting aliens in the middle of Los Angeles…

Awesome!

I’m sold on just the plot alone – adding Eckhart to the mix makes it that much better.

Eckhart is coming off a huge role in The Dark Knight which has grossed only about a billion dollars worldwide… and now he’s expected to take on high-profile A-list roles.

Apparently the script for Battle: LA didn’t get very high praise so some wonder why he took on this role. I however, do not. While the director certainly doesn’t have an impressive resume, I’m not going to hold that against him until I see what he can do with this project.

I’m very happy that Eckhart has received some massive spotlight attention by being a part of Nolan’s Batman franchise – he certainly deserves it. I’ve always been a big fan of his and while continually playing diverse roles, he never fails to deliver a solid performance. I voted for Harvey Dent.:-)

What do you think about this film?

Battle: Los Angeles does not have a start date yet but we’re looking at a probable 2010 release.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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Mid-Week Movie News Wrap Up – Oct. 2, 2008

Niall Browne — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:56:24 +0000

Welcome to the first October Screen Rant Mid-Week Movie News Wrap Up.

This week:

Battle: Los Angeles finds a director; Mickey Rourke’s Angel Heart gets remade; Jack Black is Bourne again, Punisher War Zone is rated while Sheen and Lucas joins Alice In Wonderland.

1. Battle: Los Angeles has finally landed a director. The Sci-Fi action pic will probably be helmed by Jonathan Liebesman, the man behind such frighteners (in more ways than one) as Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and Darkness Falls. The South African born director is currently in negotiations to direct the film which is being billed as Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day.

According to The Hollywood Reporter :

“In August, Liebesman went out to locations in Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles, shooting sequences and plates, and adding CGI aliens. He also created a pre-viz alien invasion sequence.”

It sounds like he really wanted that gig.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

2. Now that Mickey Rourke is currently on the comeback trail with The Wrestler it’s time for Hollywood to raid his filmography for remakes. Michael De Luca has partnered with Alison Rosenzweig have optioned rights to William Hjortsberg’s novel Falling Angel, on which Alan Parker’s Angel Heart was based.

The original is a fantastic low key thriller that co-stars Robert De Niro and I highly reccomend that you check it out on DVD – just don’t let anyone ruin the ending for you.

Source: Variety

3. Jack Black will star in an untitled live-action action comedy that is a pastiche of the Bourne movies. The Hollywood Reporter says that the film is:

“A sort of comedic The Bourne Identity, the story sees Black as an American who finds himself washed up the shores of Cuba with no idea of who he is and how he got there. He comes to the conclusion that he must be a superspy, though in reality he is far from one.”

The film was penned by Kung Fu Panda writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

4. Despite rumors to the contrary Punisher: War Zone is now locked and loaded with an R rating. The film was given the rating “For pervasive strong brutal violence, language and some drug use”.

It sounds just like one of my Friday nights. Just kidding – live free and well people!

Source: Rope of Silicon

5. Matt Lucas will star as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland. Lucas is huge here in the UK (but enough about his waste line) due to Little Britain. The US version aptly titled Little Britain USA is currently on HBO.

Meanwhile, another British actor Michael Sheen (Tony Blair in just about every political film) has also joined the cast.

Source: Joblo and Variety

That’s if for another week. See you at the movies!

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Does Battle: Los Angeles Have A Bad Script?

Niall Browne — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:41:12 +0000

I”m quite excited about Battle: Los Angeles – the script by Chris Bertolini was recently purchased by Columbia Pictures with Neal H. Moritz producing.

The film is supposed to be a mixture of Aliens, War of the Worlds, Black Hawk Down, Signs and Cloverfield.

However, unlike those films the script is supposed to be rubbish!

I’m willing to give this film a chance because it sounds like it could be a good silly action film, one without any sort of pretense other than that it is a fun ride. There isn’t a director or a cast attached to this yet, so the film could have some rewrites that may make it much better.

To find out more about the film, keep reading.

Be aware though there are some spoilers.

Latino Review got a look at the script for the film and although the site says that there are good elements to the screenplay, they also say that the latter portion of the film begins to defy logic. Here is the synopsis that they gave:

Some light shines down into the Pacific Ocean next to Los Angeles. At first, these streaks of light seem like a type of northern lights, but people realize they’re actually objects splashing down into the water – and they’re not just falling, they’re slowing down, essentially landing, before they hit the water.

Out of the water, figures emerge – human-like at a distance, but definitely not human. They walk on two feet at first, but on land suddenly crouch down on all fours and race forward, ripping apart whoever is in their way.

People freak out. City’s evacuated. Good guys sent in to blow them up. Sgt. Nantz is given a troop of Generic Military Types to lead to fight these guys.

It’s not as easy as they thought – aliens have super-powered, low-flying space ships and the aliens basically have guns in their hands.

Along the way to wherever, the military types find some civilians in a community center – a few parents, their kids, and the teacher. One kid is autistic or something and generally non-responsive to stuff but started acting weird when the aliens invaded.

Now, with all odds against them, Nantz and his men try to lead the civilians to safety.

It doesn’t sound too bad, but the script review states that the film becomes rather repetitive and that the aliens are defeated because the kid who is “autistic or something” can understand the aliens and due to the lucky fact that there is a hidden machine/device beneath the city of angels.

I still have faith in this film, the script was only purchased a few weeks ago, so it may be changed, and if we get a serious action director attached like Wolfgang Petersen, Tony Scott, Paul Verhoven or even Jonathan Mostow we could have a hell of a ride on our hands.

Casting would be a fun game too, but I’d bet that Gerard Butler and The Rock are at the top of the list.

Who would you like to see direct and star in this?

No news yet on a release date, but we’ll keep you posted on all developments.

Source: Latino Review

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