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Warner Bros. Remaking ‘Captain Blood’…In Space

Paul Young — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:37:20 +0000

I’m going to throw out the name of a movie that most of our readers have never heard of, much less seen -- Captain Blood. It isn’t some indie flick or a PETA documentary on the killing of whales. No, the reason you probably haven’t heard of it is because unless you were a teenager in the 1930’s (which would put you in the late 80’s or early 90’s age range), went to film school or just really love old black and white movies, in all likelihood you’ve never come across the Warner Bros. classic film.

It looks like all that might change soon though as Warner Bros. studios have chosen brothers Michael and Peter Spierig to direct a remake of Captain Blood based on a John Brownlow script. After producer Bill Gerber (Gran Torino) and Warner Bros hired Brownlow to do a first draft of Captain Blood, they started interviewing directors to bring his script to life. What won the job for the Spierig brothers was their bold idea to move the entire story into space.

Read through to the end for a special treat!

Gerber said this of the meeting where the idea was pitched to him:

“At first, I felt like I was in that scene in ‘The Player,’ where Buck Henry pitches the sequel to ‘The Graduate’; but when I took a look at their animatic depiction of a pirate battle in space, it had such a distinctive visual look to it that I said, ‘Great, I get it.’”

At this point the only movie I’ve seen from the Spierig brothers is the ridiculously cool 2003 film, Undead. They also have a vampire action flick hitting theaters January 2010 called Daybreakers which looks to be quite interesting. I’m having good feelings about this particular remake. I’m not familiar with John Lobrown’s work as a writer but Gerber says the script is a faithful adaptation regardless of the obvious time shift and setting.

The original Captain Blood was a pirate movie in the classic high seas swashbuckling adventure genre. It followed a British doctor (Errol Flynn) who is wrongly imprisoned, escapes and becomes a pirate in the Caribbean. The movie also stars the incredible Basil Rathbone (who just may have the coolest sounding name ever) as Blood’s partner, the treacherous Captain Levasseur.

Said Gerber of the story line:

“There are some things you don’t mess with, and that is as classic a movie storyline as you will ever find.”

I’m happy to hear that coming from a big studio producer. I’ve been saying it for awhile now: If they want to remake something, make it something old. Something hardly anyone has heard of. Leave the story alone and just modify how you tell it. I’m a little disappointed to hear the new Captain Blood won’t be at sea like the original, but after the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and the announcement of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 -- add to that the possibility of Master and Commander sequel and (ugh!) a movie based on the board game Battleship -- maybe moving Captain Blood to space is the right way to go. Warner Bros. and Gerber seem to think so anyways.

Now for the goodies I promised:

I’ve got two videos for you to watch. The first is the original trailer for Captain Blood set to the score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. If you like the trailer, then check out the entire film for free in the second video. You’ll have to install the proprietary video software to watch it, but the entire 1935 classic Captain Blood can be watched on Veoh. Don’t worry, it’s completely legal: the site works just like Hulu and is sponsored by ads so there’s no fear of watching it on a haxz0r type site. You can even download the entire film to your computer to watch at a later time.

‘Captain Blood’ Original Trailer

‘Captain Blood’ Full Movie

So, who can you see playing the three main roles of Captain Blood, Captain Levasseur and the love interest Arabella Bishop? I know I’m a Nathan Fillion fan and maybe it’s because I loved Firefly but I can totally see him as Captain Blood in space. Tim Roth could make a great Captain Levasseur but I’m unsure of who I’d like to see play the love interest, Arabella Bishop.

What are your thoughts on remaking the classic film Captain Blood? Do you like that the new version is being set in space and if so who would you recommend in the three leading roles?

Captain Blood is tentatively slated for a 2011 release.

Source: Variety

Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: December 07, 2008

Niall Browne — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:39:47 +0000

It’s hard to believe that we are now into December. It seems like only yesterday I was talking about the big summer releases – and now we are looking forward to next years big movies.

This weeks Weekend Movie News Wrap Up features the obligatory box office wrap up as well as:

La Beouf is The Associate; Stiller talks Zoolander 2; who is Angelina Jolie? Zombie returns to Halloween and Brownlow Vs Captain Blood.

Box Office

America just loves Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. How do I know this? Simple: Four Christmases grossed another $18 million over the weekend, keeping it the top movie at the box office despite terrible reviews. That’s only a 41% drop from opening weekend, usually an indication of a movie being very popular.

Twilight should bag another $14 million keeping it in the No. 2 position. Man, it must suck being a Studio Executive who turned this vampire flick down.

Bolt should manage another $10 million, keeping Disney quite happy with its gross. $100 million is well on target.

Bond, James Bond should collect another $8 million or so giving Quantum of Solace a little over $150 million.

Australia should manage another $6 million giving the Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman film a weak $30 million gross. Not good. After Deception flopped earlier in the year and now this – Jackman must be praying that Wolverine does well.

Punisher: War Zone flopped HUGE on its opening, grossing just $4 (four!) million – about half of what Thomas Jane’s The Punisher grossed in 2004. It looks like the movie-going public just don’t dig Frank Castle. This is the third attempt to bring The Punisher to the screen and it will probably be the last. It looks like the Lexi Alexander directed film didn’t benefit from all of the pre-release rumor that was floating about over the summer. It should make a killing on DVD, so maybe a series of straight to DVD Punisher films is what is needed. Just a thought.

Movie News

1. Shia La Beouf goes where Tom Cruise, Matt Damon and Matthew McConaughey have gone before. Get your mind out of the gutter – it has nothing to do with Penelope Cruz. He will be top-lining a John Grisham adaptation. La Beouf will star in The Associate, a legal thriller based on an as yet unpublished novel by Grisham.

According to Variety:

“LaBeouf will play a student who’s about to graduate from Yale Law School when he’s manipulated into accepting a job at a prestige law firm and given privileged information about a multibillion-dollar lawsuit.”

Sounds like pure Grisham. Should be another $100 million hit under Shia’s belt.

La Beouf’s Transformer producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing.

Source: Variety

2. Ben Stiller must be in the sequel mood as he’s developing a follow-up to 2001’s cult favorite Zoolander.

Stiller currently in the UK promoting Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa told The Sun:

“I’ve been trying to get Zoolander 2 together and we’ve had a few scripts. I feel that is the sequel I really would like to do some day because I like the original and I would make sure it was something new and worthy of it first.”

He also reportedly threatened another Meet The Parents.

Take these rumors with a pinch of salt a British tabloids have a habit of being creative with the truth.

Source: The Sun

3. Speaking of Salt, there appears to be some confusion of Angelina Jolie’s forthcoming action-thriller Salt.

Salt is a thriller that Jolie inherited from Tom Cruise – originally titled Edwin A.Salt. Some believe that the film may be Erika Salt, while others are of the opinion that the film will be simply called Salt – with the character called Evelyn..

Apparently in the sequel she teams up with a soldier from the US Army called Sgt. Pepper. This follow-up will be called Salt and Pepper.

Sorry – I just made up the last bit.

Source: Joblo

4. It looks like shock-rocker Rob Zombie will helm the sequel to his re-imagining/remake/rehash of John Carpenter’s Halloween.

Originally Zombie had stated that he would not return, but I’m guessing that Dimension made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo were originally signed to make the film, but they left due to “creative differences.”

Apparently shooting is due to star in March, however there is no confirmation of a script being in place.

That’s never stopped a movie though!

Source: Shock Till You Drop

5. John Brownlow will write the script for Phillip Noyce’s remake of the legendary Captain Blood.

The original starred Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Basil Rathbone. The remake won’t have anyone half as cool.

Source: Dark Horizons

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

Remake Of The Week: Captain Blood

Niall Browne — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:12 +0000

Phillip Noyce has begun walking the plank of development on Warner Brothers’ remake of the classic 1935 Errol Flynn starrer Captain Blood.

Noyce who is currently developing Edwin A. Salt (which may or may not star Tom Cruise) hasn’t come aboard as director yet, but he is eye(patch)ing the director’s chair. The original film starred epic swash and buckler Flynn as a doctor who is sentenced to slavery in the Caribbean, where he befriends and leads a group of Pirates.

That version was Oscar nominated and it was captained by Casablanca’s Richard Curtiz. Curtiz is a director who racked up over 100 directing credits to his name – a large portion of them classics (just check out his IMDB page!). Noyce may have stormy seas ahead if he plans this remake, but Pirates have been plundering a lot of treasure recently so it isn’t that surprising.

No writer is beneath deck and no cast has been captured yet, but it’s only a matter of time if this film raises it’s flag.

Who would be a good replacement for old Flynn? Christian Bale? Orlando Bloom? I’d like to see Cruise hot off Edwin A. Salt pilot this ship to Box Office glory. Sorry, just trying to get ahead on my Weekend Wrap Ups!

Whoever ends up anchoring this film better be more nautical than nice. Only time will tell. In the meantime I’ll leave you with this: Why are Pirates called Pirates? Because they Arrrrrrrrrrrr……

Source: Variety