For fans of The Fast and the Furious franchise, there were still a few pretty big questions hanging over the movie. Mainly, just what exactly was this movie going to be about ... other than fast cars that look real cool when they go real fast? Well, wonder no longer because Universal has announced the official title and the final plot synopsis for the latest installment of the racing franchise. Now titled Fast and Furious (yo, they left out the 'the!'), the story centers on reuniting Dom Torretto (Vin Diesel) and agent Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) along with vets from the first film (Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez).
According to Universal's description, "When a crime brings them back to L.A., fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto (Diesel) reignites his feud with agent Brian O'Conner (Walker). But as they are forced to confront a shared enemy, Dom and Brian must give in to an uncertain new trust if they hope to outmanuever him."
So far there have been a few on-set photos, and don't forget there was an early script review from Latino Review back in November. It would seem that it might have been legit since it got some of the details right (including some spoilerific details regarding the fate of Rodrgiuez's character, Letty). Director Justin Lin is already talking about making one more film before retiring the series, but we'll have to wait to see how high gas prices climb first. Fast and Furious will arrive in theaters on June 5, 2009.
Is it just me, or does it seem like Vin Diesel can't catch a break when it comes to sci-fi movies? Twitch is reporting that Diesel's latest, Babylon A.D., has undergone a serious edit and the film has been reduced from a running time of 160 minutes to a mere 90. Just so we have this straight, it looks like Fox has cut the film pretty much in half. It had been reported that two distinct versions of the film (one for European audiences and one for the US) were going to hit theaters, but now we'll all be getting the same version since a 90-minute cut was submitted to the UK's BBFC for certification.
Babylon A.D. was directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, and it centers on a young woman who has been infected with a virus that could wipe out humanity. Diesel plays a mercenary who's been charged with escorting this walking time bomb from Russia to New York City. Joining Diesel is Michelle Yeoh as a butt-kicking nun and Mélanie Thierry as Aurora, the futuristic 'Typhoid Mary'. Originally the film was expected to be a dark action flick (what else could it be with Kassovitz at the helm?) but according to Twitch, the film is now aiming for a PG-13 rating.
OK, I'll admit it: I have watched all of the Fast and the Furious movies. IThough I know next to nothing about cars, that never really mattered to me. I mean, who doesn't like watching shiny things driving at the speed of light? Car Domain is now posting images of some of the cars from the set of Fast and Furious 4 (although Car Domain's scooper says most of them are background for a nightclub scene). We've already seen stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker hard at work, so it's about time we got to see some of the real stars of these films -- the cars (you can see the full set and some bonus camera phone footage over at Car Domain).
The fourth film in the series reunites the original cast (Diesel, Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Michelle Rodriguez) along with some new faces, including Ms. Israel, Gal Gadot. Chris Morgan (Wanted) wrote the script and Justin Lin is back behind the camera (he also directed the third installment, Tokyo Drift). The story centers on Walker and Diesel who are out to stop a heroin importer known as Braga. Of course, the only way to do that is to join his underground racing team (I know, it doesn't make that much sense, but what can you do?).
Before I even start, I just want to say that at no point am I going to take any cheap shots at Michelle Rodriguez about her driving habits -- and believe me, it isn't easy. Instead, lets just focus on what she does best, playing bad a** chicks. Coming Soon.net reports (via Rodriguez's web site) that she will be returning for the latest installment of The Fast and The Furious franchise.
For those of you out there who don't know your cheesy car flicks, Rodriguez starred in the first film back in 2001as Letty, the girlfriend to street racer Vin Diesel. Like most of the original cast, she was nowhere to be seen in the later sequels. But this time around, it looks like director Justin Lin is going back to the beginning and reuniting Diesel, Paul Walker, and Rodriguez.
The story will focus on Brian (Walker) and Dominic (Diesel) teaming up to stop a drug kingpin known as Braga. So where do the cars come in, you might ask? I mean, this is a Fast and Furious movie after all. Well, our two heroes vie for a spot on the criminal's team, in a snazzy Nissan, with a plan to catch the man red-handed. (Just a couple of weeks ago, we got our first look at Diesel and Walker on set.) Rodriguez is also still doing some post-production work on James Cameron's Avatar, so I would guess that it won't take long to wrap up her part as Letty before she heads back to finish up the sci-fi blockbuster. The Fast and the Furious 4 is scheduled for release summer, 2009.
You know smooth-headed, cool-as-ice Vin Diesel likes to come across as a sort of tough-as-nails bad guy, right? You saw him acting tough in Pitch Black, The Fast and the Furious, and ... The Pacifier. But did you know that he made an instructional breakdancing video?
It's true, and thanks to the modern glory of the 5Min Life Videopedia, it is here for your viewing pleasure. He also has a full head of hair in it, which looks completely different than the crazy locks he had in Find Me Guilty. So take some time out from your Halloween to enjoy Vinnie in full breakdancing gear doing some synchronized breakdancing in the video below. You might learn a thing or two.
To be honest, after watching some of that teaser footage for Vin Diesel's latest foray into science fiction, Babylon A.D., I kind of got the impression that the actor's career could be on a downward trajectory. Now, First Showing.net has gotten a first look at the poster for the film during ShowEast ... and in my opinion? Let's just say it's not helping -- to me there is nothing less futuristic-looking than "futuristic sunglasses." I know it's a small thing, but there isn't much else going on in the poster so it's not like I can ignore it. This probably won't be the final poster for the film, and there have also been rumblings about a teaser making an appearance some time in December.
Directed by Gothika's Mathieu Kassovitz, the story centers on Diesel as a veteran-turned-mercenary who signs up to transport a young woman from Russia to China. Of course, in a dystopia nothing is ever that simple, and it turns out that the woman is "host to an organism that a cult wants to harvest in order to produce a genetically modified Messiah." Joining Diesel are Michelle Yeoh, Charlotte Rampling, and RocknRolla's Mark Strong.
Even though Babylon hasn't been getting much press, fans are still holding out for the "return of Diesel." Of course, there is still the possibility that Diesel will be taking over in Terminator 4 -- lord knows he has the emotional range for it. Plus, Fast and The Furious 4 is still on track with Diesel back in the driver's seat. So at least he is going to have a couple more chances at redeeming himself for The Pacifier. Babylon A.D is set for release on February 9th, 2008.
Well it's not like there have been a shortageofrumors surrounding the return of everyone's favorite cyborg. But it's a nice change to finally get some concrete information. Varietyreports that Warner Bros. have purchased the distribution rights to the latest installment in the Terminator franchise. Now for the big news: we've finally gotten a title -- drum roll please -- Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. Not bad, and it definitely gives me the impression that WB is in this for the long haul. According to Variety, WB are planning to, "reinvent the cyborg saga with a storyline to be told over a three-pic span". Executive producer Moritz Bowman told The Guardian UK, "The third film was really the conclusion of what happened in the 'now.' You will find the most-loved characters, but the intention here is to present a fresh new world and have this be the first of a trilogy". The project has been struggling through legal battles with MGM over distribution rights. But all of that is behind them, and WB is anxious to get the project moving.
More importantly, this means that the film has been kicked into high-gear and now has a start date set for 2008. John Brancato and Michael Ferris (the writers behind Terminator 3) have already handed in a completed script, but there has still been no official announcement regarding a director (the bad news is that McG seems to be the front runner for the job). Already WB is promising one heck of a spectacle for the film, with what was described as "an event-size" budget. Hopefully, they will be able to keep it under T3's $200 million price tag. Now if they can only figure out who will be playing The Terminator, we might have something. Sure, there was that wacky story about Vin Diesel taking over but nothing has been made official. Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins is scheduled for release in the summer of 2009.
Another macho man has made the obligatory leap into the kiddie pool. This time it's Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson who has gone and starred opposite a child in this weekend's new release The Game Plan. Could it damage his potential for further tough guy roles? Does he care? He's already signed on to another kid friendly part in Witch Mountain, so perhaps he's no longer worried about audiences accepting him as a muscle man with attitude.
The Rock, like Vin Diesel before him, may have jumped the gun on doing a Disney family film before securing an iconic place next to Schwarzenegger, Stallone and other action hero types. His movie may therefore lack that necessary extreme between the character we associate with The Rock and the character he must take on for the movie -- like the type of contrast that made Kindergarten Copso funny.
But there are worse things he could do. Other action stars and macho actors have made some pretty terrible mistakes that had nothing to do with working with kids, and many of these mistakes were career altering. Let's just hope Dwayne Johnson never has to suffer such ideas as these:
For a macho guy, finding out you have a kid is domesticating, but finding out you're pregnant is emasculating. Nothing says an action hero has gone soft like giving him a bun in the oven, and it's no wonder that Arnold Schwarzenegger had difficulty maintaining his image in action movies for the next decade -- until Terminator 3. I'm certain that if The Rock tried doing a movie in which he's with child rather than with a child, he'd cause far more problems for his career. At least Schwarzenegger had just a few months earlier released True Lies, and fans likely held onto the hope he would be back on top one day.
Even though The Fast and the Furious films are not exactly classics of American cinema, apparently there's still some money to be made from the series -- so we probably should have seen this coming. Edmunds, a car enthusiast web site, is reporting that pre-production has begun on what could be the fourth film in the Furious franchise. Sources that have worked on the first three films told Edmunds that the fourth installment is "in development at Universal." So far there has yet to be any mention of a writer or director for the project, (previous directors in the series include Justin Lin and John Singleton) but it's not like it really matters. These films have never been about plot development and character study; all you really need is a crack team of stunt drivers.
Another film seemed inevitable after the not-so-subtle cameo by Vin Diesel at the end of Tokyo Drift (the third film in the series). According to Edmunds sources, the script will be reuniting characters from the first three films, including Paul Walker and Tyrese Gibson. But it's not about the actors, it's all about the cars. Edmunds reports that there could be a reappearance of the 1970 Dodge Charger from the first film, as well as mention of a 1987 Buick GNX being included in the fun. Since my car knowledge is limited to what I've picked up from video games, I'll take their word for it that watching a Buick in action is something to look forward to. According to Edmunds, Universal is planning on a Summer 2008 release, but there has been no official word from the studio on the project. So stay tuned for any updates that come our way.
So it looks like Vin Diesel is headed back to science fiction after his attempts at drama and family friendly comedy met with middling success. Teaser footage from Diesel's new sci-fi flick Babylon AD has hit the net with behind-the-scenes video and a glance at some "money shots" -- i.e., stuff blowing up. The footage was shown on the French TV station Channel Four when director Mathieu Kassovitz (whose last directorial attempt was the slightly limp supernatural thriller Gothika, so here's hoping that he can do better with sci-fi than what he did with horror) and co-star Michelle Yeoh were in Cannes to promote the film. The script, written by Eric Besnard, centers on a mercenary for hire (Diesel) who is hired to escort a woman carrying the genetic material for a new messiah. Yeoh also stars as an ass-kicking nun who is along for the ride.
There are a few more behind the scene looks at the film on Vin Diesel Video, but it seems that we are going to get a full trailer sometime soon, since the film is already trying to drum up a little business. Diesel had been spotted filming in the Dominican Republic last year, and while the smart bet was that Diesel was finally getting to work on his long promised film about Hannibal, in retrospect, it was probably for Babylon. The last we heard out of the Hannibal project was the promise that it was about to made "very, very, soon" -- albeit in a slightly different form, but that was almost a year ago, maybe Diesel's definition of "soon" is a little different from the rest of us.
Since there seems to be no shortage of video game adaptations, it's kind of a surprise that Hitman has been wallowing in development with no end in sight. It's a pretty good game that makes you feel more than a little guilty at taking pride in your ability to shoot a Russian General in the head at 100 yards. Originally, Vin Diesel was attached to star, but then dropped out (or was canned). Internet chatter then had Die Hard baddie Timothy Olyphant stepping into the suit for the story of a hitman for a shadowy organization filled with exotic locales and a mounting body count. Well, it looks like we all might have spoken a bit too soon.
While talking up his latest film, Catch and Release (starring Jennifer Garner and, yes, Kevin Smith) the actor finally set the record straight. Olyphant dispelled any rumors that he had signed on to star in Hitman, and said that while he's engaged in some talks about the job, "I don't think I've ever been officially attached to it contrary to the internet. It sounds fun. It sounds pretty cool. I've seen the pictures. I've never played the game but it looks cool. Lord knows what I'd look like when this hair comes off. It's a major concern." Forget the hair, I'm thinking it might be more of a concern that he's willing to star in a film that was originally a Vin Diesel vehicle.
I won't keep it a secret from anyone: I couldn't care less about James Bond. Maybe I'm not a man's man. Maybe I'm not a proper film critic. Maybe I just don't have the time to watch all the 007 movies in order to convince myself that they're not all the same. Whatever the reason for my disinterest in the series, the painful truth is that I'm completely lost when it comes to discussing Bond. This could be why I don't hang out with a lot of movie geeks. Or, more likely, why they don't hang out with me.
It would make sense for my disinterest in Bond to extend to the films that parody the character and the series. Sure, I appreciate a good spoof, but there's not much enjoyment for me in a joke I don't get. So, just as I don't have a desire to watch the Scary Movie franchise because I don't watch the horror movies it makes fun of, I probably wouldn't like a concentrated spoof of the Bond franchise. Luckily for me, most Bond parodies aren't strictly a series of specific jokes and gags that I don't understand. They typically have something more to offer. And those that I can appreciate and enjoy are due to my having a general, pop-cultural knowledge of Bond films, a taste for simple satire and a preference for liberal, anarchic and random humor.
So, I've made a list of ways in which Bond has been spoofed that are accessible to the non-Bond-fan. There are others out there, from pornographic parodies to obscure foreign takes on the character, but I'll let the real 007 aficionados seek out every spoof out there. ...
If someone were to actually make a fictionalized action movie based on the MPA's war on piracy, then the sequel might be a good, old-fashioned court drama. Or, maybe it could just be more of the same, considering piracy will never actually go away. Here are some updates from the MPA's ongoing campaign:
Lawsuits were filed by the MPAA last week against six people accused of selling counterfeit DVDs on eBay. The individuals, who don't seem to be related, as they are all based out of different states, were likely producing decent copies of legitimate discs and selling them cheap to poor suckers. Damages could as high as $150,000 per movie title, per person. This press release is fun because the MPAA has included a little "Buyer Beware" tip list for idiots. For the movie version of these trials, we'd look to last year's The Best of Youthand include a similar courtroom full of innocent, yet mentally unstable victims attempting to communicate the pain felt by being duped. Bootlegs aren't the same as electric shocks, but we'd have to make the audience think it's the same, because that is how importantly the MPAA treats them. Caution: this sequel might be six hours long.
This past weekend, 14 online auctioneers settled with the New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft, on behalf of the MPA, for an undisclosed sum. They also had to agree to stop selling pirated discs. All together, the 14 individuals sold more than 10,000 bootleg DVDs over the past year via New Zealand auction sites. I picture a bit of an anti-climactic ending to the movie version.
If we wanted to go in sort of the Empire Strikes Back, enemy-wins-this-time direction, we'd follow the trial of Shawn Hogan, a millionaire who is willing to spend as much as it takes to defend himself against the MPAA and their allegations that he shared Meet the Fockers online. He denies this act of piracy and is more interested in clearing his name and fighting the bullying system rather than pay a settlement, which would likely be cheaper for him. We'll have to wait and see what happens, but we could start production without a finished script. Hollywood does it all the time.
The big news in the world of Marvel comic movies this summer is undoubtedly the inclusion of fan favorite Silver Surfer in the upcoming Fantastic Foursequel. Within seconds of the announcement, speculation began on who would play the cosmos-traveling Herald of Galactus, and leading the charge was action star Vin Diesel. After all, people reasoned, he's already got the hair for the part. Last week, Diesel announced his departure from the film he was supposed to be working on -- Black Water Transit-- for "undisclosed reasons." Weeee, the rumor mill went wild with that one, because it perfectly coincided with the expectation of Diesel taking on the Surfer role. Moviehole just talked with director Tim Story to get the scoop, and he laughed it off. No truth to the rumor at all, said Story. Instead, "The Surfer will be a new CGI design being developed especially for the movie. It's going to be incredible."
That sounds very promising, doesn't it? A CGI Surfer will probably look far more like the Surfer of the comic books than anything they could do with a dude in a costume. Presuming, of course, the CGI is as fantastic as Story indicates and not a half-hearted quickie job; and given the expected high budget of the sequel, it is unlikely they'd go the cheap route. I guess we'll find out soon enough.
Odds and ends from I can't believe it's not Friday yet (a/k/a Thursday)
After watching him sign on for role after role, I was waiting for the day when all of this pimping would catch up to Vin Diesel. Well folks, it appears that day has come. It's now being reported Diesel has dropped out of the film Black Water Transit, forcing filmmakers to hurriedly replace the actor with filming set to begin at the end of July. No word yet on why he skipped out on the pic (perhaps he hates black water and/or the transit system), but if a replacement isn't found soon, look for this one to get pushed back. Also starring in the film are Kevin Bacon, James Franco and Sophie Okonedo.
While I'm not so sure what's funny about being a grieving widower, apparently NALA films felt there was something comedic behind the idea for Only Ever You. Griffin Dunne has been attached to direct the romantic comedy which will follow a guy who's having a hard time getting over the death of his wife. The description becomes a bit confusing after that, but I'm guessing he eventually moves on from the sadness and finds a new lease on life. Once again, what's funny about that?
Looks like the Sundance Channel wants to get in on this whole internet thing. It appears the cable channel has struck a deal with two media companies to begin streaming some of its films online. We're not sure what, when and how this will all go down but they did note that all revenues will be shared with the filmmakers. Ain't that special. I'd be curious to see if they somehow work the Sundance Film Festival into this streaming as a way for folks stuck at home to catch a glimpse of the action playing in Park City. For those of us too poor to fly out to Utah, something like that would be very enticing.
For fans of The Fast and the Furious franchise, there were still a few pretty big questions hanging over the movie. Mainly, just what exactly was this movie going to be about ... other than fast cars that look real cool when they go real fast? Well, wonder no longer because Universal has announced the official title and the final plot synopsis for the latest installment of the racing franchise. Now titled Fast and Furious (yo, they left out the 'the!'), the story centers on reuniting Dom Torretto (Vin Diesel) and agent Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) along with vets from the first film (Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez).
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Odds and ends from I can't believe it's not Friday yet (a/k/a Thursday)
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SCOOP: Spider-Man 4 and 5 Might be Shot at the Same Time!
Cinematical Seven: Disney's Awesome Live-Action Kid Adventures
