Screen Rant » flash gordon

Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: August 10, 2008

Niall Browne — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:22:41 +0000

Welcome to another fun filled installment of Screen Rant’s Weekend Movie News Wrap Up.

This week:

We see who is penning Flash Gordon, we learn some details about Alex Proyas’ Dracula Year Zero, discover what David Goyer is working on, Channing Tatum lines up something for after GI Joe and The Conversation goes to television.

1. The Flash Gordon Remake/ adaptation has now grabbed Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless to pen the script. The Neil Moritiz produced, Breck Eisner (Sahara) directed film is in production at Columbia.

I just hope the film is more like the 1980’s movie and less like the Si-Fi channel show.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

2. Speaking of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, their script for Dracula Year Zero is to be directed by Robot and Dark City director Alex Proyas. Proyas recently gave some details about the Dracula prequel/origin story:

“You could see it as a prequel to Bram Stoker’s novel, in some ways. All the cool bits out of Francis Coppola’s “Dracula”. You can see it that way as well.”

It sounds like a cool idea. I hope that they change the title. It worked for Batman in a comic – that’s it!

Source: Moviehole

3. David Goyer spoke with MTV about his upcoming film slate, the writer-director appears to be a very busy man. He’s got a Magneto film in the works, an Invisible Man film in the pipeline as well as a slew of comic book adaptations on the way.

Goyer had this to say:

“I’m writing a new version of ‘The Invisible Man’ for Universal I’m in the process of (doing that) right now, and I’m working with some conceptual artists in tandem with writing the script. I’m actually working with one of the artists from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. So it could be ‘Magneto’, or it could be The Invisible Man next.”

“Well, ‘The Invisible Man’, the Universal film, is a great movie, a Claude Rains film. My take is kind of an extrapolation. It actually deals with a nephew of the first character. It’s got some of the characters from the H.G. Wells book, but it’s kind of a continuation. It involves Scotland Yard getting their hands on the current Invisible Man and basically saying, ‘Wow, you’d be a really good secret agent to send into Imperial Russia right now. It starts off from there.”

“It kind of crosses a lot of genres. It’s very steam punk. I don’t want to give too much away, but I took what being invisible could mean to the next logical extreme. We do a lot of crazy things in it that are sort of far beyond what anyone’s done with it yet.”

I always enjoy a good Invisible Man film, so I really hope that it gets cooking before Magneto, because who really wants a Magneto spin-off?

Not me.

Source: MTV

4. Forthcoming GI Joe star Channing Tatum is attached to a free running film at New Line Cinema. The script written by Kevin Lund and T.J. Scott involves a pair of Parkour experts who use their skills in order to carry out crimes. The film will be directed by Rychie Smith, and it is currently without a title.

Tatum’s character will be called Peter Parkour.

Just kidding.

Man – Parkour is so 2005

Source: Variety

5. I have a real soft spot for the Francis Ford Coppola directed film The Conversation, starring Gene Hackman. The film plays like a low key prequel to Hackman’s Enemy of The State (that co-starred Will Smith). Seriously, watch the two movies back to back in a double bill – it’s worth it!

Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and Erik Jenresen (Band of Brothers) are writing a television series based on the film for cable channel AMC.

The series will have the same 1970’s setting as the film.

I’m pretty interested in this, but as it’s a remake I won’t get too excited. The original is a masterpiece and it includes a beautiful performance from Gene Hackman and a strangely creepy turn from Harrison Ford.

Source: Variety

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

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Flash Gordon’s Alive… On The Big Screen!

Niall Browne — Wed, 21 May 2008 22:00:20 +0000

Flash Gordon is back where he belongs – at the cinema. I’m a big Flash Gordon fan. Well not that big (about 5′9″), but I am a fan of the character – be it the old serials or the Mike Hodges camp epic from 1980.

Let’s just skip over the recent Sci-Fi channel series that should have taken Flash back to his roots – I don’t even want to go there.

Neil Moritz, producer of XXX, The Fast and the Furious and Stealth has acquired the rights with the help of Sony – and Sahara director Breck Eisner will take the reins of this Sci-Fi film that could be a franchise starter.

Who would make a good Flash?

I’d call Matthew McConaughey.

After all he is an “All-American” actor and he has blond hair – a must for Flash.

Or Matt Damon or Thomas Jane.

After that I’m out of guesses!

The story of Flash Gordon follows the titular sports hero transported to the planet Mong along with friends Dale Arden and Doctor Zarkov. There they must fight Ming the Merciless, the evil ruler of Mongo.

Alex Raymond’s character was originally unleashed on the big screen to compete with Buck Rogers ( the rights were recently bought by Nu Image/Millennium Films), and he was first played by Buster Crabbe and then by Sam Jones in Hodges’ film.

George Lucas originally wanted to make Flash Gordon in the 1970’s, but when he couldn’t get the rights he created his own blond haired Sci-Fi character. That film was a minor success.

I’ll keep you posted on more Flash Gordon news as it becomes available.

Source: Variety

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Revisting Flash Gordon: Is There Hope For This Show?

Bruce Simmons — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:03:59 +0000

I’ve always been one to say I’ll try anything twice. Last Friday night, I revisited Sci-Fi channel’s Flash Gordon to give it another look see since this show gave the Sci-Fi Channel’s best ever series premiere.

I don’t know if they were trying too hard to cram a lot of development information into that first episode, or now there are different writers or editors for the regular episodes, but to my surprise, last nights episode was much better than the premiere.

I didn’t expect the transporting back and forth between Earth and Mongo to be handled well, but it flowed better than I thought. Have I been softened up by Stargate to accept teleport or wormhole windows as the standard for interplanetary travel? I’ll never say.

We have an alienated warrior, Baylin, trapped/exiled on Earth trying to adjust, and her alien bluntness to things earthly can be funny. A bit canned, old, but still funny. Flash and Baylin are reluctant, but developing partners and that is played out well.

There were interspersed tidbits of practical humor, ie: Flash gets tranquilized while he’s trying to infiltrate a village and falls over saying, “This isn’t good!”, thud!

I don’t retract my opinions about the premiere episode, but after watching this episode, I may need to watch a few more of the regular episodes.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Review: Flash Gordon On Sci Fi

Bruce Simmons — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:03:18 +0000

I just sat through 90 minutes of Sci Fi Channel’s new contribution to their line up, Flash Gordon, an original Sci Fi series. Their splash site says “The new Flash Gordon follows Flash (Eric Johnson) and his companions, Dale Arden (Gina Holden) and Dr. Hans Zarkov (Jody Racicot) through wild and momentous adventures.”

http://www.scifi.com/flashgordon/about/

Though the pilot episode was 90 minutes long, we were rushed through character development in the show. They threw the characters at us, and telling us so much about them rather than just letting a developing storyline do the job.

In this pilot episode, Flash discovers the truth about his fathers work and his “death”, meets and defeats an alien* on earth, teleports to Mongo, gets captured & tortured by Ming, escapes back to Earth, defeats Ming’s daughter on Earth and she escapes back to Mongo.

*After Flash defeated the alien, he found his fathers drivers license in the ensuing alien death goo puddle. (Gimme a break!)

Did I mention that early on, an alien zaps a bowling ball in a bowling alley? (I’m not sure the relevance. I wasn’t paying that much attention at this point in the show. I started to take up knitting.)

In case you were wondering if Flash Gordon used to take place on the planet Mongo, yea, the 1930’s based stories, but today, we are watching a prequel type series, as we follow Flash develop into an off world hero, while teleporting back and forth from Earth to Mongo.

Yep, teleporting. Flash and the aliens use a hand held remote to open a teleporting window to travel between planets. (Can we say Sliders?)

As the episode ends, we see the father in some sort of stasis, a prisoner!

The story developed too quick, the energy was flat, information for the characters was derived in quick, unsubstantiated scenes. My interest was not fixated by the events in the show because I’ve seen these themes time and time again.

I’m not sure I’ll be tuning in again, but I have been known to try anything twice to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

You Might Also Be Interested In: