It’s almost time for The Dark Knight. We’ve almost made it. Not long now. However, in the meantime here’s a new Weekend Movie News Wrap Up to keep you preoccupied.
This week:
We try and figure out Where the Wild Things Are, David Duchovny blogs, Robert Downey Jr goes Holmes, John Cusack sues and Darren Aronofsky may be giving us some Prime Directives.
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1. Warner Brothers’ Where the Wild Things Are isn’t out of the woods yet. The $80 million Spike Jones film has been pulled from the WB release schedule. The film was originally supposed to open this October, but after a test screening went haywire (kids crying and terrified at children’s film is never a good thing) the release was then shifted to October 2009, but now it’s appears to be going under some major retooling.
Warner Brothers Big Cheese Alan Horn (that is his official title) said this about the current state of the film:
“We’ve given him more money and, even more importantly, more time for him to work on the film. We’d like to find a common ground that represents Spike’s vision but still offers a film that really delivers for a broad-based audience. We obviously still have a challenge on our hands. But I wouldn’t call it a problem, simply a challenge. No one wants to turn this into a bland, sanitized studio movie. This is a very special piece of material and we’re just trying to get it right. We try to take a few shots, sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. The jury is still out on this one. But we remain confident that Spike is going to figure things out and at the end of the day we’ll have an artistically compelling movie.”
It’s good to see that the studio is still behind Jonze, but I just wonder how long that will last. This is starting to sound an awful lot like the troubles that The Exorcist: Dominion had a few years back.
At the very least - expect a few interesting versions of the DVD in 2020.
Source: LA Times
2. David Duchovny has begun blogging about his X-Files: I Want To Believe experiences. The star will be answering fans questions and sharing stories about the franchise.
Come on - who wants to go online and read what some idiot has to say about movies? …. um I just realized - that’s what I do. Do’h!
Seriously though, it’s a fun blog (fitting in nicely with Duchovny’s dry sense of humor) so I recommend that you check it out here.
Source: Chud and The Duchovny Files
3. Robert Downey Jr will star as Sherlock Holmes in the Guy Ritchie directed film about the legendary detective which is to be titled..err.. Sherlock Holmes.
The film is being pitched as a more action oriented version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic creation, but it will have to compete with the Judd Apatow produced comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell that also plans to put a modern spin on the literary character. Wait a minute - wasn’t that comedy version already made with Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley as Without A Clue ?
Source: Variety
4. John Cusack seems like a pretty nice guy - but be warned - make sure that you pay him!
Last year Cusack signed on to the Jan De Bont film Stopping Power, an action thriller with a supposed 51 minute car chase. However, the film was never made (the company didn’t have enough money) and now Cusack is suing to get his $4.5 million salary that was promised in his “pay or play” contract, and an extra $1.1 million for costs and other payments for relocating to Germany for the shoot.
If you don’t know “pay or play” is a contract that stipulates that you get paid whether or not the film is made - hence the reason Nicolas Cage was paid $17 million for not playing Superman!
Source: TMZ
5. We screamed and cried when we heard that MGM were planning a RoboCop remake, but it would seem that the film has taken a very interesting turn. Requiem For A Dream and The Fountain helmer Darren Aronofsky is now in discussions to direct the remake of the 1987 Paul Verhoven original.
Interesting, if there’s a director who won’t play safe it’s Aronofsky. He is after all the man who Warner’s originally brought in to reboot the Batman franchise, but when he delivered a script that was dark, serious and nothing like Batman, he left the project.
Side note - although I own Requiem For A Dream on DVD I’ve never watched it because I haven’t got over the experience of seeing the film in the cinema. Never has a film left me so shell shocked.
Source: Chud
That’s it for another week.
See you at the movies!
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42 Comments
‘Judd Apatow produced comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell’
Never have I been put off a movie so quickly!
But yeah, has been done before, and Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother was very good fun too.
Aronofsky isnt a bad choice for Robocop.
Spike joneZ better not mess up the adaptation of my favorite childrens story.
and I just wanted to say I have always LOVED Without a Clue!
Yeah, Requiem For A Dream is pretty grim. I loved Pi though. Can’t see him doing Robocop somehow.
Fair play to Alan Horn if that’s the case… and when the time and money’s up you know they’ll get ruthless on it. Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman on The Very Hungry Caterpillar would be worth seeing as well.
And talking of terrified kids, when I saw The Incredible Hulk there were at least three families with children under five. That’s just wrong. I felt like going up to the parents and being a member of the certificate police. Tossers.
“the release was then shifted to October 20009″
(chuckles) Yeah, I’d say 18,000 years should give them plenty of time to sort things out.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
As for Sherlock Holmes, I don’t know how well this new version will go over. From what I’ve seen, the definitive version has already been done with Jeremy Brett in the role. I guess we’ll see when this one’s finished.
I never liked the story, but it was one of my wives favorites growing up so I’ve been following it. I have questioned handing the job off to Spike. I not exactly the first guy I would choose for this project.
As far as I am concerned, Spike Jones is a horrible director and should have NEVER been given the reigns of a CHILD’S film.
I don’t think he’s horrible I just don’t think he should be given a child’s film.
Tom Cruise where are you?
Stuck in an elevator with Robert Downey Jr and Woody Harrelson hopefully.
I never new Nic Cage got 17 MILLION FREAKIN’ DOLLARS to play Superman and never actually did it…GEEZ and they blame Brian Singer’s version of Superman for not recouping it’s production budget..How about pulling 17 Million out of the executives @$$#$ at WB who signed that deal..Morons..and we wonder why it costs a days pay to take the family to a movie and get eats too… SHEESH!!!
Maybe I shouldn’t tell you that Tim Burton was paid $6million not to direct it!
Fact - not fiction.
Niall
I have never seen Requiem For A Dream but EVERYONE who has told me they have seen it have been reaaly affected by it…WHY? Vic…little help here Buddy? I don’t know anything about it actually but the few people I know that have seen did not even want to discuss it..What gives?
Niall..starting to turn green…not with envy either….HULK SMASH!!!!
Greenknight, it’s heroin + GRIMness!
Big D..huh? are you talking about RFAD or Hollywood paying people for work they never do?
Greenknight, try searching the movie on wikipedia. The themes and style sections might give you some insight into the movie. Those alone had a big impact on me, and I have yet to actually see the movie.
Nice one! No, just RFAD. No happy endings there, to put it mildly.
Thanks FLamestrike and Big D..will indeed check it out…Heroin bad bad bad
After the Hollywood dream ticket that is Spike Jonze on a kid’s movie, what about a remake of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang directed by David Cronenberg? Think what he could do with the Childcatcher…
Yikes….Wikipedia had a great synopsis FlameStrike…Doesn’t put in quite the same light as Trainspotting huh?
Haven’t seen Trainspotting yet either, so I can’t actually compare.
How about David Fincher directing One FIsh, Two FIsh?
With Ed Norton narrating! And battling the studio.
GK, you planning to keep citing movie until you hit one I have seen?
Sherlock Holmes even as a Comedy with Tony Stark bores me….
Personally I’m not going to watch anything Downeys in (except Tropic Thunder) til Iron Man2., won’t be hard with the Hefner and Sherlock films inbetween… ;-p
ARFAD, never seen that… Anyone seen “where the Day takes you”? That’s a pretty grim film about heroin and the streets.
Funny nobodys commented on David Duchovny blog.
I always knew he was screwing himself when he left X-Files.
Hey guys, one reason actors have the Pay or Play clause is because once they sign to a film they usually have to turn down other films. So if the film can’t get off the ground and the actor dosnt have a role anymore he recoops his scheduling loss with that P/P clause. Sometimes actors loose even more then they recoop dependeing on the film they turned down.
It’s a crock 790 and it’s why it’s so freakin expensive to see a movie with the family…Five tickets with food..YEESH!! It will soon be cheaper to have a kidney transplant….I don’t feel bad for anyone in Hollywood…Get a real job if you can’t get by acting..
I kind of lost interest in The X-Files after the movie, and the season 9 finale was a disgrace. Gillian Anderson remains (ahem) “eminently watchable” though.
Don’t know WTDTY - worth a look?
Well sure its a crock we live in a world with Prince’s, Kings and Queens too.
A-List actors are like sport stars they bring in a lot of money, if you agree or not it dosnt make any difference.
Exxon Oil execs get 15 billion in bonus’s every quarter is that a crock , sure is.
Its not my world I’m just visiting.
Really Big Dentist, I thought Robert Patrick did a great job after David left, if you watch the episodes in season 9, they close the show up real well. I liked the ending. ?
This new film looks kinda boring though.
Also Greenknight, I can’t stress more if you think the film prices are high then simply don’t go to the movies. I do this alot.
I liked seasons 7.
Now him I didn’t mind, I just thought they kept flogging it into the ground until the show had nothing more to say. Maybe I was expecting too much of the end.
Yeah I hear that BD, alot of people wanted the conspiracy to be solved.
I figured that C,Carter wanted to leave that open for a huge film, but then we get the new small scale stand alone film. ???
Smells like a conspiracy ! Boooo
Do we know if the smoking bloke is in the film, or is he dead and gone for good? I seem to remember him getting blown up, or if not his lungs must be rough as old boots by now.
Haha maybe as a clone. He was taken out by the attack copter in the season finale.
I love the idea of RDJ as Superman, but not so much the idea of the movie itself. We’ll see.
I’m looking forward to checking out David’s blog. He was very funny on Celebrity Millionaire.
Some more Scoopies for you.
First Trailer (Red Band) for Tarentino’s next grindhouse themed film, Hell Ride. And wow, it looks really entertaining. Alot of the usual boys are back including Carradine and Madsen and some other cool stars like Vinnie Jones!
–Link:
http://www.comingsoon.net/hellrideredband.php
Also, for those who know about Fanboys and its attached controversy with director changes leading to terrible plotchanges, which lead to a rebellion from fan groups, etc. etc. blah blah. Anyways, GREAT NEWS, they have finally succumb to the light side and brought back the original director and more importantly: the PLOT! So the movie will again be about a group of friends travelling to get into skywalker ranch and see Ep1. The Phantom Menace before it comes out because of of the buds has terminal cancer and won’t be around for the actual release. The film features a plethora of awesome young actors and even better cameos from lots of our fav star wars characters, including Ray Park as a security Guard. The issue was that other directors took over and tried to change the storyline just to some kids going to break in and watch it…thats it…not cancer storyline and no heart and emotion.
Anyways, this post is over. That’s my scoops for today.
Terminal cancer AND The Phantom Menace. Poor kid.
Liz, RDJ as Superman would definitely have to mean Woody Harrelson as Brainiac!
Some scoopies for today:
Wachowski brothers may team with Keanu (woah!) for the Plastic Man movie which they had written before even doing the first Matrix.
http://www.latinoreview.com/news/updated-keanu-reeves-as-plastic-man-whoa-5001
Anyone remember that old cartoon?
In bigger news, a trailer for Frank Miller’s the Spirit was leaked today, taken down everywhere….THEN officially released (what?). So here’s an HD version
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/new-disappointing-trailer-for-the-spirit-gets-leaked.php
Well, the first half of the trailer, i was like “wow, just as awful as the first trailer.” BUT then I got to see Scarlet Johansson AND Samuel L. Nick Fury Mace Windo M-Fing Snake Jackson! and I got just a wee bit excited to the point where the film MAY, just may be watchable.
whadya all think?
Meh as much as I loved Sin City I am really not that excited about Spirit despite it looking almost identical to Sin City. I really would of liked to have seen it done differently. I think general audiences may think it’s a Sin City Sequal or something.
@Rob I’ve posted up the trailer for The Spirit, check the home page. I think it looks like a trailer for soft core porn.
Vic
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