Sci-Fi & Fantasy »
Pitch of the Day: 'Superman Returns 2'
Filed under: Classics, Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Today's pitch is sort of a last chance grab at any possibility of Warner Bros. not rebooting the Superman franchise yet again and instead letting Bryan Singer, or someone else, simply move forward from the underrated Superman Returns. I'm sure to be in my own boat here, especially since all the geeks are celebrating Christopher Nolan's reported involvement with version 3.0 of the superhero on film (if we're talking theatrical releases, isn't this version 5.0? And if we're talking all adaptations it's like version 10.6.2). Still, I'm going to once again make the case for...Superman Returns 2
Of course it wouldn't be titled that. What an awkward title. But my point is that I'd like to see Singer's installment get a follow-up rather than another reboot. As I noted in my take on the pseudo Mr. & Mrs. Smith reboot yesterday, and as some commenters agreed, sequels are usually more desirable than reboots. I know, go on about Nolan's Batman franchise reboot. Well, a sequel can go in a new direction, too, without the lame connotations of a reboot. Or, it can be a combo like Singer's movie was. Superman Returns continued the original Superman series while also rebooting it. I'll admit I'm a wee bit torn on the idea, as I'd like to see Brandon Routh return but I could certainly do without Kate Bosworth -- though, if Nolan can switch it up with the female lead in his Batman films, they can do it with this, as well.
Tim Robbins Joins 'The Green Lantern'
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Warner Brothers, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek
As you may have realized by now, the main villain of The Green Lantern isn't going to be Sinestro, but will be Peter Sarsgaard's Dr. Hector Hammond. Sinestro will be there, lurking in the wings, but it's all about Hammond and his big, bad, psychic powers this time around. But like all bad boys, Hammond has turned to the dark side because of deep seated issues in his childhood. So, you need a father figure to menace our poor doctor, and THR's Heat Vision reports that Tim Robbins has volunteered for the job.Robbins will play Senator Hammond, the disapproving father of Hector. Despite that Hector has become a brilliant pathologist, the Senator remains unimpressed. Presumably, the senator would rather his son follow him into politics, and reap the benefits of wealth, power, money, and women. When Hector stumbles upon a meteor that gives him overwhelming psychic powers, I'm guessing Daddy Dearest becomes enemy #1. The Senator's going to live to regret never playing catch with his son.
Sarsgaard and Robbins should play very well off each other. Both of them excel at playing despicable people. It might be more fun watching them go at each other than seeing the eventual showdown between Hal Jordan and Dr. Hammond. Therein lies the danger of a great cast filling out those supporting roles!
'Terminator' Rights Sell, But Not To A Studio
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Deals, Lionsgate Films, Sony, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
Everyone has been mildly interested to see who would win the Terminator franchise rights after Halcyon Holding Corp. went into bankruptcy. (Come on, we all wanted Joss Whedon to get it.) Last we knew, Lionsgate was the leading contender to win the rights to making more chronicles of John Connor. But according to Deadline Hollywood Daily, the bidding has ended, and the winner? Pacificor, the Santa Barbara hedge fund that had loaned Halcyon the money to buy Terminator in the first place. Halcyon failed in their loan payments, forcing Pacificor to come after them, which they tried to head off by filing their own lawsuit. But now the slate has apparently been wiped clean to the tune of $29 million dollars.Sony and Lionsgate did place bids, and even united to bid together once the first round was over. But both dropped out at $29.5 million when it became clear that Pacificor was willing to pay any amount necessary to win the Terminator rights. Reportedly, Sony's Peter Schlessel was "furious" at how the auction went down and stormed out of the building. Was that because he really, really wanted Sony to have Terminator? Was he just mad that he wasted his evening? Or is everyone as weirded out by the shadowy business practices as we on the outside are?
The sale must be approved by bankruptcy court, so there could still be another chapter to the sad saga. What Pacificor plans to do with the franchise is anyone's guess, but I suspect that Terminator will be something so tied up in legal red tape and rights that we won't see another film for a long, long time.
'Ghostbusters 3' News: Murray Confirms Rumors, Possible Villain Revealed?
Filed under: Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Remakes and Sequels
As the writers slave over another draft of the Ghostbusters 3 script -- with production hopefully beginning later this year -- some more news regarding the film's storyline has slipped out across these internets, with one aspect being an exclusive to Cinematical.
Possible spoilers for Ghostbusters 3 to follow ...
First up is the news that Bill Murray has confirmed his other-worldly role in the film. A few months back, Sigourney Weaver had let slip that Murray was going to be playing a ghost in the film -- a rumor that was later squashed by folks who claimed that particular storyline was featured in a very old draft. However, Murray has now gone on record as not only disliking the second Ghostbusters movie (something he's said before) and thinking that Groundhog Day should've been a bigger hit, but also noting that he would only return to the Ghostbusters franchise if they made his character a ghost. He says, "I said to them, 'I'll do it if you kill me off in the first reel.' So now they are going to have me as a ghost in the film." Murray as a ghost? I hope it works. What do you think?
Meanwhile, as most talk revolves around the returning actors and the identity of the new recruits, little has been said about the film's mythology and who (or what) the Ghostbusters will be battling this time around. Well, Cinematical has it on very good authority that as recent as this past summer, the central mythology of the sequel was being based on Zoroastrianism, which is one of the earliest religions on record. Like with most religions, the war between good and evil is at its central core, and in terms of evil there's Ahriman: the god of darkness, the eternal destroyer of good, personification and creator of evil, bringer of death and disease.
Is Ahriman the film's villain?
When Good Directors Happen to Crappy Franchises
Filed under: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Remakes and Sequels
Since damn near everything that opens in wide release these is either a sequel or a remake, and since I feel some obligation to at least sample anything that qualifies as a "cultural phenomenon," whether or not I like it, I usually find myself hoping for the best from franchises that haven't much impressed me in the past. One reason for optimism – or at least for less existential dread – about the 2010 release schedule is that a number of thus far middling-to-terrible franchises appear to have been taken over by obviously talented filmmakers who stand a chance of making this year's installments of their respective series at least tolerable. Certainly any doubts I had about whether I was going to watch these latest franchise entries disappeared once I found out who was directing them.
The franchise: Twilight. So far, Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown) and Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass) have delivered two dull-as-nails installments of this wuss-vampire franchise, though Weitz's New Moon did at least appear to pick up some steam as a teen soap opera, if not (at all) as a thriller or a horror flick.
'The Thing' Remake Casts Joel Edgerton and Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Filed under: Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Universal, Remakes and Sequels
Some call it a remake, some call it a prequel, I call it a really slippery slope: Universal is planning another film in the (sorta) series that began in 1951 with The Thing (from Another World) and continued in 1982 with John Carpenter's The Thing. JC's remake was not exactly adored upon its theatrical release, but it has since gone on to become a true classic of the genre ... for those who have the guts to make it through the exceedingly intense and icky film. (Me, I freaking love it.) As noted by Heat Vision, our source for this story, all of the films were based on a 1938 John Campbell short story called Who Goes There? (I haven't read it.)We already know that first-timer Matthijs Van Heijningen Jr. will be directing the new version of The Thing, and that Eric Heisserer (A Nightmare on Elm Street '10) and Ronald D. Moore (lots of Star Trek, but even more Battlestar Galactica) are providing the adaptation ... but who will star? HV says it will be Joel Edgerton (King Arthur, Smokin' Aces) as a blue-collar (and no doubt heroic) helicopter pilot (that sounds familiar) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Live Free or Die Hard, Death Proof) as "a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship in the ice." Aha. So it is a prequel.
Production begins next month in Toronto.
Pitch of the Day: 'Fast and the Furious' in Space
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Bond, Remakes and Sequels
It's day-old if not month-old news that there's another Fast and the Furious sequel on the way. It's called Fast Five, which cuts out the "furious" this time so as not to get sued by Grandmaster Flash or Kung Fu Panda. But I'd like for Friday installments of the Pitch of the Day to be unofficially "Franchise Fridays." This means that all pitches on Fridays will be suggestions on what to do with a franchise. This is different from "Part Two Tuesdays," which will only be pitches for a first sequel -- a part two -- of a film. So with that clarified, let me present my preference for the next F2F film to be...Fast and Furious in Space
Guess what it's about. I'll give you one hint: there are no cars this time. Give up? Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are racing space ships! How'd their characters get into outer space and the future? Maybe they're cryogenically frozen? Maybe Paul Walker is really an immortal android? It doesn't really matter. It's science fiction, after all. And whatever method of explanation used won't be any more ridiculous than the rest of the series anyway. And the audience won't care as long as they get to watch some awesome space ship-racing action.
Cue The Naughty Jokes -- Taylor Lautner Is 'Stretch Armstrong'
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Universal, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand
We can now officially call Taylor Lautner A Boy Toy. In addition to becoming the action figure-turned-cartoon Max Steel, Heat Vision reports that Lautner has nabbed the lead in another toy driven franchise: Stretch Armstrong.Stretch Armstrong will be based on the Hasbro toy that was born in the 1970s and relaunched in the 1980s. Unlike Max Steel, Stretch never even got a cartoon or comic book to call his own. He was just stretchy. Naturally, this won't do for a live action adaptation, so Universal and screenwriter Steve Oedekerk have given him a goofy origin story. Stretch is now an "uptight spy who stumbles on a stretching formula." For whatever reason, he drinks it, and develops a power that rivals Mister Fantastic's. He decides the power to stretch must be used for good, and becomes a crimefighter. To make it even more appealing, Universal plans to make the film in 3D. This will undoubtedly be every member of Team Jacob's dream come true, though I find the idea of 3D extended extremities absolutely terrifying.
There's no doubt about it.. Hollywood has declared Lautner the new action star. I don't think Sam Worthington is going to take kindly to the news that he's already in danger of losing his crown. Can we get a movie where the two of them face off in single combat? In 3D? I think that's the only way to figure out who's the bigger man.
Release Date Shuffle: 'Titans' Clash Cusses Everything Up
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Disney, Universal, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Distribution, 20th Century Fox, Family Films, Remakes and Sequels
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Damn the Gods"? Nah, more like "Damn the Suits" who opted to give Clash of the Titans a 3-D upgrade in the wake of Avatar's popularity, unaware or unfazed by the fact that A) that film was actually shot for 3-D, not just given layers in post-production, and B) that film didn't succeed massively because of star Sam Worthington (no offense, fella).
So Warner Bros. has bought themselves a week, moving Clash back from March 26th to April 2nd in order to capitalize on Easter weekend and give How to Train Your Dragon a whopping week before squeezing in on its 3-D screens. This move has left other studios to scramble to avoid competition (or fill the gap left behind), and so far as B.O.M. is concerned, here's how things have settled at the moment:
Damn the Gods"? Nah, more like "Damn the Suits" who opted to give Clash of the Titans a 3-D upgrade in the wake of Avatar's popularity, unaware or unfazed by the fact that A) that film was actually shot for 3-D, not just given layers in post-production, and B) that film didn't succeed massively because of star Sam Worthington (no offense, fella).So Warner Bros. has bought themselves a week, moving Clash back from March 26th to April 2nd in order to capitalize on Easter weekend and give How to Train Your Dragon a whopping week before squeezing in on its 3-D screens. This move has left other studios to scramble to avoid competition (or fill the gap left behind), and so far as B.O.M. is concerned, here's how things have settled at the moment:
- Fox's family-friendly Diary of a Wimpy Kid has moved to March 19th from 4/2
- Universal's sci-fi actioner, Repo Men, has moved to March 19th from 4/2
- MGM's raunchy romp, Hot Tub Time Machine, has moved to March 26th from 3/19
- Disney's Nicholas Sparks/Miley Cyrus vehicle, The Last Song, opens on March 31 instead of 4/2
- Summit's kiddie comedy, Furry Vengeance, has moved to April 30th from 4/2
TOLDJA! Hollywood Looks to Blogs for TV and Film Projects
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Mystery & Suspense, Dreamworks, Home Entertainment
"It's only a matter of time before the 2010s do for blogging what the 1930s did for newspapers." That's what I wrote yesterday in a Pitch of the Day post, and I didn't realize how immediately prophetic it was. Only hours later The Hollywood Reporter announced a new HBO series in the works centered on a character who is ... a blogger. Specifically the show, titled Tilda, will be about a "no-holds-barred" entertainment journalist who works online. And she's female, so she's being compared to real-life Hollywood bloggers Nikki Finke, Sharon Waxman and Anne Thompson.Given the clear Finke connection, I just had to use her signature "TOLDJA!" in the headline, but in all honesty I had no idea anything like this was on the way, nor did I truly want it to be. It might be interesting, though, given that I can't imagine it resembling my own bloggery life at all. Coming from wrier/director Bill Condon (Dreamgirls; Gods and Monsters -- which would be a fitting title for a show about bloggers, IMHO) and writer/producer Cynthia Mort (The Brave One; HBO series Tell Me You Love Me), I expect something a little more glamorous than is the reality for most entertainment bloggers.
Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams Reunite for 'Mission Impossible 4'
'Big Top Pee-Wee': The Original Benicio Del Toro Wolfman
Spin-ematical: New on DVD and Blu-ray for 2/9
Watch This: Brilliant Oscar-Nominated Short 'Logorama'
Chris Nolan to Lead 'Superman' Reboot!?
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