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Brad Pitt & Ryan Reynolds Circle 'Gunsmoke' Remake
Filed under: Casting, RumorMonger, Remakes and Sequels, Western
The folks in Dodge City don't let things slack. A Gunsmoke reboot kicked off just last August, and now the star wagons are circling. According to the LA Times, a number of actors are interested in playing the lead role Marshal Matt Dillon (originally played by James Arness on the TV series), but a few big names already lead the pack.Ryan Reynolds is said to be interested in the role as he continues to make a name for himself as an action star, moving from romances and comedies to the world of Deadpool and the Green Lantern. But there's also the allure of a man who's already seen the grit of the Old West. Brad Pitt is CBS Films' top man, being one of the few stars to actually have a Western under their belt -- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Between star power and experience, it's no surprise that the role could easily be his. However, the studio hasn't nabbed a director yet, which could affect casting.
The new Gunsmoke is being positioned as a new action tentpole eager to cash in on name recognition, so expect a star-filled ensemble. But personally, I hope there's a little room for Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Guy Pearce, and Danny Huston in the mix. If it wasn't for these recent gunslingers, I'm not sure that the Western world would be making such a comeback.
But what about you? Who do you want to see cast in the big-screen Gunsmoke?
Olivia Wilde Saddles Up For 'Cowboys & Aliens'
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Newsstand, Dreamworks, Steven Spielberg, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Western, Daniel Craig
I don't know if the image of Daniel Craig in chaps left too many speechless, or if it was that no one was interested in Cowboys & Aliens once Robert Downey Jr. rode off the range, but few had much to say when the rumor mill put Craig in the saddle. Well, what do you say to the news that Craig is officially in, and that he'll be joined by Olivia Wilde? According to THR's Heat Vision, Wilde will play Ella, a woman who joins Craig's mysterious gunslinger to fight off the aliens. (Is the gunslinger now mysterious and no longer named Zeke Jackson? Curious.) I'm not sure if Ella appeared in the original graphic novel / web-comic. There was a female gunfighter named Verity who traded bullets with the Apache right alongside Zeke. Perhaps she'll be a variation on that character, or she'll be a pioneer woman with a rifle, or she'll be one of the West's soiled doves like Megan Fox in Jonah Hex. (Cue the fervent wishing of many male readers for Wilde in similar attire.)
Jon Favreau is directing, and Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci of every-script-under-the-sun-fame have penned the screenplay with Damon Lindelof. Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer are producing alongside Scott Michael Rosenberg, the author of the graphic novel. Shooting is expected to begin this summer. Between this and Tron: Legacy, I think Wilde may be destined to be summer's geek goddess.
Paramount Gives 'True Grit' for Christmas & Pulls 'Footloose'
Filed under: Music & Musicals, Paramount, Distribution, Exhibition, Remakes and Sequels, Western
Paramount is going to be giving all the good girls and boys a Christmas (or whatever) present this year, with True Grit getting a December 25 release date. It is a strange choice for the holidays -- a John Wayne Western remake? -- but a little blood and guts could cheer up those tense family outings. Paramount is probably counting on good will towards the Dude, who will be taking over John Wayne's part as Marshall Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn, since his amazing performance in Crazy Heart is winning him accolades right and left. True Grit also stars Matt Damon and Josh Brolin. Paramount held open casting for one part in the film, fourteen-year-old Mattie, who was originally played by Kim Darby. However, today's your last day to enter if you want to see yourself on the screen come Christmas. http://www.truegritcasting.com/
Paramount's also offering an early Christmas prezzie: No one will be getting Footloose this summer, the Kenny Ortega remake which was due for release this June. Ortega -- whose most recent gig was directing This is It, and is also famous for his High School Musical films -- apparently dropped out due to "creative differences." Guess he had to cut loose...
Daniel Craig Might Saddle Up For 'Cowboys & Aliens'
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, RumorMonger, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Dreamworks, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Western, Daniel Craig
Losing Robert Downey Jr. didn't slow down Cowboys & Aliens for very long, and it didn't even get to jump into the rumor pool. According to Collider, Daniel Craig might just be the man who fills Downey's boots. He's still in negotiations and has not been officially cast, so don't start dreaming of leather chaps just yet.I certainly hope Craig is the man who takes the part. As James Bond, he's one of the undisputed action leaders right now, but he still hasn't gotten to make a name for himself outside of 007. I think it would be wonderful to see him cut loose in something lighter, and to pair him up with Jon Favreau would be ideal. I don't think this is going to be a Wild Wild West by any means, so I don't think it'll hurt Craig's upward climb at all.
The only reason I could see Craig unable to take the part would be a conflict with Bond. Craig and Judi Dench have hinted Bond 23 would film late this year, and aim for a 2011 release. Cowboys & Aliens is aiming for a summer 2011 release date as well. So schedule conflicts could derail Cowboys & Aliens a little longer, or it could find another brawny fellow riding the range altogether. Hollywood is certainly chock full of guys I'd like to see in a ten gallon hat ...
Robert Downey Jr. Won't Play 'Cowboys & Aliens'
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Dreamworks, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Western
DreamWorks' Wild West adventure Cowboys & Aliens will have to find someone else to wield a six-shooter, because Robert Downey Jr. has dismounted from his horse. According to The LA Times, Downey Jr. has has to drop out of the DreamWorks film due to schedule conflicts. While he hasn't officially signed onto anything, it's rumored to be a conflict with a Sherlock Holmes sequel. Or maybe he just needs a break -- I mean, two franchises plus The Avenger and its spin-offs? Maybe he drew the line at a third. Too bad. He looks so good in hats!
Cowboys & Aliens still boasts one half of the Iron Man duo, as Jon Favreau remains in the director's chair. The hunt is currently on the hunt for a manly actor who can replace Downey Jr. The film is a potential franchise for any one brave enough to grab the reins and play Zeke Jackson, leader of the anti-alien revolt. All those who failed to get in The Green Lantern or Thor might want to call up Favreau and DreamWorks, because once you're in a Favreau comic adaptation, you're untouchably awesome.
Production is tentatively set to begin this year for a release in summer 2011. In the meantime, you can still read Cowboys & Aliens online and cast your vote for Zeke Jackson in the comments. DreamWorks could use the help.
'Jonah Hex' Reshoots Mean More Megan Fox
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Western
Last month it was rumored that Jonah Hex was reloading its ammunition to undergo reshoots. The news has been re-confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter, and it doesn't appear to be an automatically bad prognosis for the movie, as many seemed to feel it was.According to THR, the reshoots will only last ten days and not the full two weeks that was initially reported. Twelve pages of additional script are being added, along with a little more action. They've called Megan Fox, Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, and Michael Fassbender back to do some shooting in Los Angeles. So while the new scenes may include President Andrew Johnson as hinted by the casting call, what really matters for 50% of the world population is that Fox may have a few extra scenes in that tiny, tiny corset. Maybe it'll take 5 of the 10 days just to shoot her scenes because she'll need to be let loose between gunfights.
Hex was originally scheduled to be released on August 6, 2010 but it was moved up to June 18. There's two stories circulating as to why Hex needs a bit more work. Some are saying the additional scenes and extra money are to fix "certain problems with the movie." Others say it was to really polish up the moderately-budgeted film and make it look more like a summer tentpole. I'd like to believe the latter, particularly since I thought moving up the release date was a mark of confidence in what Jonah Hex already was. Come on, any movie (especially one aiming to be a summer blockbuster) can use a little more Malkovich, Brolin, and Fassbender, right?
'Ghost Rider 2' Has a Title, A Location, But No Director
Filed under: Action, Horror, Sony, RumorMonger, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Religious, Western
Now that Nicolas Cage is enjoying some kind of pop-cult-popularity (witness his Colorforms and his Everyman website), Ghost Rider 2 may actually be better received than its predecessor. It may be seen as some kind of art, and not a film no one was asking for. It's still coming, by the way. Collider caught up with producer Mike De Luca, who confirmed that they were still working with David S. Goyer's script, and that the film had a working title of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. "We have an outline that David wrote that kind of adapts his 2001 script into today's times with incorporating kind of an original idea of Nic's that Goyer thought added to the mix in good way --that we all thought added to the mix in a good way --that gets Ghost Rider into a bigger arena to kind of apply our story in." The outline has just been delivered, so it's all still in a holding pattern. De Luca then confirmed that original idea of Cage's was to take the movie to Europe. "The idea was because Ghost Rider is a unique blend of theology and action, and the character deals with the kind of battle of good vs. evil in a theological sense, that Europe you could avail yourself of a lot of religious sites ... and a history of theology as a setting that isn't available in the U.S. We wanted to kind of signal that we're as different from the first movie just because we want to be fresh and new as you can get in terms of getting away from southwestern kind of pseudo-western thing."
In addition to dumping the Western angle, Johnny Blaze will also lose his cinematic love interest, as De Luca confirmed that Eva Mendes won't return. While they hope to begin shooting this year, they're still looking for a director and hoping Goyer might be able to make room to take the job. If that falls through, may I suggest Werner Herzog? It would feel so right.
Cinematical Seven: Worst Genre-Swapping Remakes
Filed under: Action, Classics, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Music & Musicals, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Cinematical Seven, Remakes and Sequels, Lists, Western, Nicole Kidman
It's hard to believe anyone thought it was a good idea to turn 8½ into a musical, let alone Federico Fellini. But apparently the filmmaker was happy to see his best work adapted for the stage back in 1982. I guess it had worked well enough for Nights of Cabiria, though the film version of that musical, Sweet Charity, was a tremendous box office flop. I imagine the new film of Nine will have a similar fate. Yet even if it's somehow a hit, that won't excuse the fact that it's a choppy, stagy, soulless simplification of one of the most personal and expressionistic pieces of cinematic art ever produced.
Not all drama-turned-musical remakes are so awful, though the concept of redoing a movie in another genre is pretty funny ever since people started playing with the idea on YouTube. With Zhang Yimou's action-comedy take on the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple reportedly getting negative reviews in China and Nine suffering a similar critical response here, I thought I'd take a look at some of the other terrible genre-swapping remakes out there.
Most of these are unofficial adaptations, which slightly excuses them if only because they don't directly dishonor the originals. However, taking into consideration inspired and worthwhile genre-swap remakes like The Magnificent Seven, High Society, Outland and A Fistful of Dollars, I can't help but think some of the titles below could have been a lot better.
'The Road' Scribe Heads to the West ... Maybe with Sam Mendes
Filed under: Drama, Deals, Scripts, Western
After having skillfully penned The Road, a film that inspired Eugene Novikov to write: "John Hillcoat's faithful, near-perfect adaptation beautifully captures McCarthy's synthesis of all-encompassing darkness and enduring hope," scribe Joe Penhall is heading for an entirely different world of grit, drama, and danger. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the writer will adapt John Williams' 1960 novel Butcher's Crossing for Focus Features. If all works out, Sam Mendes will direct.Instead of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Butcher's Crossing is set in the 1870s and follows a man who drops out of Harvard to find "an original relation to nature" in the west. He ends up in the small Kansas town of Butcher's Crossing, and joins a hunt for a buffalo herd. But it's a little more than just a man escaping life and hunting the big buffalo. The quest leads him to madness before heading back to the Crossing where the world has changed just as much as he and his party have.
My only reservation is Mendes, and wondering how the director would handle a world of rough, historical madness. We know Hillcoat can do it -- he's hit the theme out of the park with both Proposition and The Road. So what do you think? Can Mendes whip up a suitable take at madness in the 19th century west?
'Jonah Hex' Loads Up For Reshoots with New Director?
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, DIY/Filmmaking, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Western
There's a mistaken assumption among fans and readers that online outlets find some kind of glory in reporting bad movie news. You couldn't be further than the truth. We hate it, especially if it's a film you're really, really looking forward to. The only reason I'm reporting on possible Jonah Hex troubles is because I'm hoping it'll be swiftly debunked. SpoilerTV is reporting that Jonah Hex will be undergoing two weeks of reshoots beginning in January 2010. The casting call that has gone out would suggest that it's pretty extensive stuff -- scenes will include more of Jonah's pre-scarred life with his Native American wife, Cassie, and his son Travis. Jeb Turnbull, son of John Malkovich's Quentin Turnbull, will also be added in, as well as President Andrew Johnson himself. (If you're an Andrew Johnson lookalike, get to L.A. They need you!)
A far more troubling rumor has popped up on Bloody-Disgusting, which they claim to have since confirmed. A source there is saying that director Francis Lawrence (I am Legend) will consult with Jimmy Hayward for the reshoots. What that means exactly is beyond us, but our fingers are crossed that Hayward is still involved in a large capacity. He had a lot of enthusiasm for the film and the character, and you hate to see that go sour. Here's hoping that Hayward is still on, and that the reshoots aren't signs of trouble, but just a finishing touch.
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