JoeCarnahan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Once the talks are done and the ink is dry, Joe Carnahan and Ridley Scott will have their The A-Team assembled. According to Variety*, Sharlto Copley (better known as Wikus Van De Merwe in District 9) and Jessica Biel have been enlisted into the cast, which already includes Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson.

If you know your A-Team, you can probably guess who Copley is playing: Howling Mad Murdock. He was the team's edgy and unpredictable helicopter pilot, always freshly escaped from the mental asylum just in time for an adventure. It was never clear if he was truly mentally unstable and friends with an invisible dog, or if it was all an act. (Somewhere, there is a student who did a paper comparing Murdock to Hamlet, and somewhere a teacher flunked him unfairly.) If you saw District 9, you know Copley is perfect for the part, so there's no need to say anything more other than "That's so cool! May he become a big star!"

Biel's character is actually quite interesting. While she's the "former love interest" of Cooper's Faceman, she's not just the obligatory girl who is only there to remind you that their love is just brotherly. She's actually a general in the U.S. Army bent on capturing our heart-of-gold mercenaries. Will her love for Cooper's blue eyes and just-so hair win her back, and see her actually join the A-Team for the inevitable sequel? Will she always be the villain of the series, finding them just when they think they're safe? We'll know soon, The A-Team begins shooting later this fall in Vancouver, and will hit theaters June 11, 2010.

[*We have to give a shoutout to Blackfilm, who first landed the Copley scoop. Good work, gang.]

The rumors of casting B.A. Baracus started months ago, but I'm honestly a bit confused as to why it has taken as long as it has for UFC champion Rampage Jackson to be crowned the official replacement of Mr. T in Joe Carnahan's relaunch of the '80s action series The A-Team. He already looks the part, he even acts the part both on and off stage, but most importantly, the man's handle is Rampage. I'm fairly certain fulfilling the role of a soldier of fortune who destroys everything around him and shouts dominating one-liners at anyone who gets in his way was always this man's destiny.

And yet the news of Rampage's casting as Baracus still hasn't come from an official source. Instead, the Vancouver Sun has done all kinds of sneaky detective work to put two and two together: On August 19th he was in Vancouver, where the A-Team is filming, to talk to Carnahan and his producers. Now Rampage Jackson is back in town and can be seen signing autographs for fans when not walking around the A-Team set. It's also been learned that he pulled out of an upcoming UFC fight to free up his schedule.

So really, it's not sneaky detective work at all, it's just common sense on the part of the Sun. Then again, it's common sense for the universe to have someone who goes by the name Rampage play a character whose initials stand for Bad Attitude. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of a casting department, who already nailed down Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson as the biggest tentpoles of Carnahan's elite A-Team, but I'm confident casting anyone but Rampage would have been a metaphysical impossibility.

Set the bar low enough, and it can only be exceeded. That's how I feel about the upcoming big-screen version of The A-Team, a 80s television series entirely beholden to the staid formula of the day and ripe for reinvention. I didn't hate the series so much as I found it routinely mediocre. My colleague Monika Bartyzel loved the series as a kid, yet still questioned the casting choices that were being entertained: Liam Neeson as Hannibal? Bradley Cooper as Face? Adding fuel to the fire, rapper The Game is being considered to play the role of B.A. Baracus, according to blackfilm.com, which quotes "a very highly reliable source in the entertainment industry."

For me, the only thing that made The A-Team watchable was the bantering between the characters, and the choices so far all indicate that director Joe Carnahan is aiming for a more straightforward action picture, based on a script by Wanted's Michael Brandt and Derek Haas. Which is crazy, like moving Miami Vice to Seattle or transforming the lead character in Get Smart into a fairly bland, somewhat competent secret agent. (Even though the latter still made money.)

The mistake would be in confusing brand recognition with brand loyalty. If you're promising fans of the TV show that you're going to deliver the same thing, only bigger and better, then you damn well better deliver something in the same spirit. I haven't seen The Game's work as an actor (Waist Deep, Street Kings) yet; is he any good? If this rumor is true, could he wear the mohawk of the immortal Mr. T?

There are times when shocking casting twists can work. If studios listened to fans and naysayers, we probably wouldn't have had the fortune of seeing Michael Keaton as Batman. But that doesn't mean that every shocker is a good idea.

According to MTV, our illustrious new Captain Kirk wants to fulfill his childhood fantasies and enter The A-Team fold. It seems that Chris Pine really loves the show, and is so keen on being a part of the big-screen adaptation that he's actually talked with his Smokin' Aces helmer Joe Carnahan about the possibility. Any A-Team fan would immediately think: Face -- Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck is the most obvious choice, Pine being a looker and all. But oh no. He wants someone else. He's not crazy enough to tackle a little BA, so that leaves two -- a cigar-chomping leader or a mad man. Pine's choice: "Howling Mad" Murdock: "Murdock is my man. I love Murdock."
I can't fault anyone for loving the show that much, but I don't think anyone would pick him for Murdock. (And wouldn't fandom make you prefer to have the best actor for each part rather than just selfish fantasy fulfillment?) Last time I wrote about the project, you guys had a number of great Murdock possibilities: Jim Carrey, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Jason Lee, Steve Carell, and Bruce Campbell.

Could Chris Pine fit into those ranks? I think not. Just take a look here. If we cute-boy up this feature, we'll get nothing more than a disappointing Dukes of Hazard.

Things didn't look good for that big-screen version of The A-Team back in October when even more rewrites were being planned and John Singleton had backed out as director due to casting issues. But now things are back on track, and maybe this time we'll get beyond the directorial phase as The Hollywood Reporter posts that Smokin' Joe Carnahan is in negotiations to helm the feature.

As THR notes, Carnahan's schedule lightened up a whole bunch after White Jazz ran into money and casting issues, and Reese Witherspoon dropped out of Bunny Lake is Missing. So either this is the break in his bad luck, or yet another example of how doomed this project is.

As director, I'm sure he'll do fine, but as always, this all comes down to the cast. As much as I love George Peppard, Dwight Schultz, and Dirk Benedict, their roles are fairly replaceable -- there are many actors in Hollywood who can look slick chewing a cigar while cooking up schemes, be wacky, or a slick and sexy con man. But Bad Attitude Baracus, Mr. T, he's pretty much impossible to replace. Go for someone who makes the character completely different, then it's simply not the A-Team. Get someone who channels Mr. T's pity-the-foo quirks, and they'll never live up to the icon.

I say: Let Mr. T continue to be B.A., and then look towards some new talent. Any ideas?

Anticipation for some films burns like a white hot ember, while others inspire a resounding "meh!". Empire Movie News has posted that the prequel to 2006's Smokin' Aces -- which was written and directed by Joe Carnahan -- is moving forward. As Carnahan posted on his official site, "Finally, some actual Smokin' Aces news. Universal has officially greenlit the prequel and we are underway. Cameos will abound. Trust me."

Smokin' Aces told the story of Buddy Israel, (Jeremy Piven) a coked up Vegas performer who is about to testify against the mob. Once the news of the one million dollar contract on Buddy's head hits the streets, pretty much everyone in the western hemisphere who knows how to use a gun is out to blow him away. Since the original film took an "everybody dies" approach, the prequel seems like the smart way to go, though it remains to be seen how many members of the original (and pretty damn impressive) cast will be coming back. The Empire article suggests that the prequel might go straight to DVD, but time will tell.

Personally I find myself in the "meh" category. The original was a staccato barrage of violence that tried to be Pulp Fiction for people with short attention spans. Given the facts that the original currently has a 27% rotten rating at Rottentomatoes.com and that it pulled in a mere $35 million during its theatrical run, I can't imagine too many folks are salivating in anticipation of the further adventures of Buddy Israel and the many people who want him dead. What do we think, people? Does the world need a Smokin' Aces prequel?

The tale of the battling Pablo Escobar flicks is still going strong, but despite the bad news that Javier Bardem has officially dropped out of Joe Carnahan's Killing Pablo, all is not lost for his true-life crime tale. CHUD recently received an email from the man himself, and Carnahan tells them, "I spent the last week in Colombia with Edgar Ramirez talking 'Pablo' and he has every intention of portraying Escobar and I couldn't be more fired up by the prospect. He's coming at it with boundless enthusiasm, conviction to the role and the understanding that he's going to have to pack on anywhere from 35 to 40lbs." Seems a shame to cover up all that 'handsome', but what can you do?

This is all quite a change from last February, when Collider had reported that Ramirez was the front-runner to star in Antoine Fuqua's version of the life of the drug baron. So, I can only assume that the casting switch won't be helping matters in the ongoing feud between the two projects. The only other cast that we were aware of was Christian Bale signing to play Major Steve Jacoby, but who knows what could happen between now and whenever Carnahan finally starts production.

Carnahan's film is based on Mark Bowden's book, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw. The story claims to be the true tale of how Escobar was assassinated and his Medellín cocaine cartel was dismantled by US special forces. Of course no good conspiracy theory is complete without a few extra players, so some of the blame was also placed on the Colombian military and a vigilante gang controlled by a competing cartel.

Stay tuned to Cinematical for the official word, and sound off below on Ramirez picking up where Bardem left off...

Now that Milla Jovovich might not be returning for another shot at the Resident Evil franchise, it's nice to see that she isn't still pining away for another chance at playing Alice. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Jovovich has signed to star in the real- life mystery, The 4th Kind. The film was written and directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, a first time writer/director, who started his career as an assistant to Joe Carnahan (once again proving that in this business it's who you know).

There aren't many details about the story so far, but what we do know is that the film is based on a series of mysterious disappearances that took place in Alaska. The unsolved mystery of what happened to these people over the last 40 years has often been blamed on a government cover-up, or worse. Judging from the title, I'm going to go with aliens on this one. Kind will most likely use some of the juicier conspiracy theories as a starting point for the story. Jovovich will play an investigator sent to the remote town to uncover the story behind these unexplained abductions.