TheBirds Tagged Articles at Cinematical

On a recent visit to the Chicago-based set of the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form gave us online types a good hour with which to poke and prod about that film and countless other projects in the works. The Elm St. stuff will have to wait until the time is right, but at the moment, you're just a hop, skip and jump away from finding out where Platinum Dunes currently stands with a Friday the 13th sequel, their present involvement in reported remakes of The Birds and Rosemary's Baby, and how exactly the little-seen Horsemen ended up slipping through the cracks last spring...

Read the full interview at Horror Squad!

You may not know the name Brenna Lee Roth, but you definitely know some of her movies. Let's see here ... Frat House Massacre, Fist of the Vampire, The Horror Convention Massacre. Nah, I'm kidding. You never saw those flicks. But if you saw movies like Spider-Man 3, Zack & Miri, and Adventureland, then you may have spotted Brenna if you didn't blink since she's "uncredited" in all three.

But there's certainly nothing wrong with working in the B-horror department, especially when it puts you in close proximity to producers Michael Bay and Brad Fuller. Meetings with those gentlemen can lead to big gigs and even more publicity, as evident by this interview at MarketSaw.com, and here's what Ms. Roth told the 3-D-addicted blogger Jim Dorey: "I am in talks with the producer of The Birds (remake) and he said he wanted to do it 3D ... Yes Clooney and Watts both attached so far."

So while the casting news isn't exactly brand-new, this might be the first time I've heard The Birds remake mentioned as a possible 3-D experience. Does this heighten or lessen your disdain for the project? Does it add a slight "camp" factor to a remake of a really excellent horror film? And most important of all: Will spilling these beans help or hurt Brenna Roth's chances of getting a speaking part in the movie?

We haven't yet featured a Holiday Movie Junk item specifically for girls, and so when Cinematical reader Peter H. pointed us in the direction of this fantastic little doll, we just had to write about it. Barbie has taken on more looks than Britney, Lindsay, Christina and Paris combined over the years, but this latest one -- inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds -- is easily one of the best I've ever seen.

Do you have a little girl at home who's into creepy Hitchcock flicks and likes to collect Barbie dolls? Something tells me those are a rare breed, but even if your little one isn't very familiar with The Hitch, the movie geek in you can still pick this sucker up -- if only to remind your children what good horror is supposed looks like (even though the website claims this is for the "adult collector"). From the Barbie collector website: "Dressed in a re-creation of the stylish green skirt-suit worn by the film's ill-fated heroine in an iconic scene, Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" Barbie® Doll celebrates the 45th anniversary of the acclaimed film. From the doll's classic ensemble to the perfectly painted expression to the accompanying black birds, every aspect captures the film's infamous appeal."

The doll retails at $40, and you can purchase her right over here.

They started off with Leatherface, which makes sense if you think about it: Horror flicks don't get much more "classic" than TCM. So when Platinum Dunes announced a do-over on Friday the 13th, nobody was all that much surprised. Plus the Dunes boys keep talking about remaking The Birds, so I guess that means all bets are off. So don't act all surprised when you learn that the production company is looking at a spring start date for, yep, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Producer Andrew Form spilled a few early details at Shock, but here's the part that should keep horror fans (at least partially) sated for the time being: "It's not Freddy cracking jokes. We want to make a horrifying movie. The concept is so scary, don't fall asleep or you'll die. This guy gets you when you're most vulnerable, in your sleep. We love that." Sounds good to me, Andrew.

So not only will the new* Freddy start shooting relatively soon ... it also looks like Platinum Dunes have found themselves a screenwriter in veteran word-maker Wesley Strick, whom the genre fans will remember from Arachnophobia, Cape Fear, Wolf, and Doom.

*And yes, it definitely looks like a NEW Freddy will hit the scene, although the producers seem open to having Robert Englund stop by in some capacity.

First came Naomi Watts as a possible replacement for Tippi Hedren in that long-brewing remake of The Birds. Now a rumor straight from Metro.co.uk claims that George Clooney might play Mitch Bremner. It seems that the original Mitch, Rod Taylor, told the Daily Express: "I often cringe when I hear mention of remakes but I'll hold judgment, especially since I've been told Clooney's the favorite." To add to the displeasure, Tippi herself said: "Can't we find new stories, new things to do? Must you be so insecure that you have to take a film that's a classic and try to do it over?"

Good question, Ms. Hedren. I've been doubly anxious nauseous about the long-rumored The Birds remake ever since word hit that this incarnation might have the birds fighting back against our treatment of the environment. It just brings to mind Jaws: The Revenge mixed with the terrible Psycho remake. But all the time that has passed -- it seemed like a fleeting dream that would wonderfully die in development hell.

And Clooney? I like the guy every which way, but attaching his name to this project would really make me reconsider that statement. Luckily it's still deep in the rumor seas.

I don't know how I never saw these, but some old Canadian Filmmakers Festival posters are sailing through the web, and they show what spoofing should be like. Think Jaws -vs- a fisherman, the little Poltergeist girl swayed by hockey, Superman ready for winter, and Dorothy in a pair of sensible boots rather than slippers. But my favorite is above, because it would make one hell of an awesome comedic remake of The Birds. Canadian geese -- they're the real birdly foe. They take over outdoor spaces, attack you to mark their territory, and they're scarier than Hitchcock's mean feathered fiends. If only these were the sort of spoofs hitting the big screen these days.

Check them out in the gallery below, and read more about the festival over here.



[via Slashfilm]

As Scott told you in April, the remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds is soaring forward. It no longer looks like the film will start production this year, but it does seem to be a definite "go." The studio claims that the remake will be based less on the classic Hitchcock film and more on the source material -- a Daphne du Maurier short story. Still, I have no doubt some of Hitchcock's classic visuals will re-appear. Naomi Watts has been circling the Tippi Hedren role for a while now, but she is waiting to see the script (which already has four writers listed) before she officially signs on. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that the film now has a very likely director -- Martin Campbell. Campbell recently won over a lot of critics with Casino Royale, and if his take on The Birds sticks with the same sleek, stylish, subdued style, it could be something worth watching.

Any mention of this project riles up fans of the original, and Michael Bay is listed as one of the producers, which only upsets purists more. Bay's involvement does suggest birds with mini-bazookas on their beaks, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm looking forward to The Birds 2.0: Bye Bye Birdie. Naomi Watts is one of my favorite actresses, and she's elevated genre material before (see The Ring). I don't have some great personal attachment to the original film -- it wouldn't even land on my list of Hitchcock's top ten. I'm not saying this new film would be an improvement, but it could be a scary, suspenseful good time. Yes, it's tempting to hate on the filmmakers for not being original, but how many bird attack movies do we get to see in the multiplexes? I'm all for another one. The new Birds is currently scheduled to fly into theaters on July 3, 2009. "Fly," get it? Cuz they're birds. Thank you.

The Birds are pissed off, and they're looking for revenge! We're coming up on the two year anniversary of the words "Michael Bay's company is going to tackle Hitchcock's 1963 thriller The Birds." Every time things slow down and you think that Hitchcock's classic might rest in peace, another bit of news comes up. First, Naomi Watts was rumored to take over Tippi Hedren's role, and then there's was a slight mention in Variety that the film would start shooting by the end of the year.

Now the mag has done it again. Slapped onto a story about Cathy Schulman's hires at Mandalay Pictures is a little bit for The Birds. Schulman says: "We think we have a very contemporary take. In the original, the birds just showed up, and it was kind of like, why are the birds here? This time, there's a reason why they're here and (people) have had something to do with it. There's an environmental slant to what could create nature fighting back." Oh yes, we've ruined their habitat and now we have to pay! Will they torpedo civilians with charred remains of the rain-forest? Are they only the first step in the animal apocalypse? Are killer badgers next?! Maybe this could work, but something about imbuing the birds with revenge and having them fight back makes me giggle.

At the tail-end of a Variety article about a spec script called Fiasco Heights and the way in which it was sold by a DreamWorks assistant to Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes shingle, there is one casual sentence that reads: "[The production company] aims to begin shooting a remake of "The Birds" for Universal by the end of the year," which is the first new information we've heard about the project since last October (when Naomi Watts was mentioned as a potential leading lady).

I guess I was hoping that this project would simply go away, but with Fiasco on the horizon (and something called The Horsemen in pre-production), it looks like producers Michael Bay and Andrew Form have got their attentions re-focused on the avian-centric remake thriller. Those who choose to follow such stories will no doubt remember the producers' claims that their Birds flick will hew closer to the original Daphne Du Maurier story and not the classic Alfred Hitchcock flick -- but I'm guessing if Du Maurier had written another book called Hippo Attack or Revenge of the Squirrels, it's The Birds that'd still be earmarked for a new adaptation. Why? Because, despite the protestations of the filmmakers, they know "The Birds" is a title that everyone already knows. And that's what the remake game is all about: Selling "name recognition" and little else.

Yeah, I'm a little salty about this particular project, and I freely admit it. But if The Birds is going to begin production some time this year, then we should definitely be getting reports on writers, actors and directors some time soon. Maybe my opinion of this remake will improve once some of those names hit the wire ... but I doubt it.

Why do you hate me so much Michael Bay? I just don't understand what I ever did to you. Why must you take exceptionally great and classic films of the past and then destroy them with remakes ... like you did with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and/or The Amityville Horror? Isn't it enough for you to make your own films which defy any semblance of logic, story or performance? Have you even watched Pearl Harbor? And now you're at it again.

What is Michael Bay's latest transgression? It's his planned remake of one of the best suspense thrillers of all time -- Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Universal Pictures and Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company have been developing a remake of the suspense classic for over a year now and only recently attached a scribe -- Leslie Dixon , writer of The Thomas Crown Affair remake and the Freaky Friday remake. Anyone see a pattern here?

At the moment, there is no casting news or start date for the film, but indications point to the role made famous by Tippi Hedren in the original being offered any day now to Naomi Watts. I think Naomi is a talented actress and she's proven her abilities in films such as The Ring and Mulholland Drive, but even though she would probably be great in the part, I still wonder why this film has to be made at all. Even Platinum Dunes producer Brad Fuller's assurances that this version will stay more faithful to the original novel by Daphne Du Maurier doesn't fill me with a great deal of confidence. In my perfect world, things like this would never happen at all. How about you?