Weinstein Tagged Articles at Cinematical

By: Scott Weinberg

Good news and bad news, horror freaks ... although of course your mileage may vary on both. Despite the fact that Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 opened in third place this weekend, its $17 million haul was obviously enough to keep the Weinstein brothers happy. In a (very) recent article in the L.A. Times movie section, it was announced that Bob Weinstein and Dimension are planning to move forward with a Halloween 3-D, which will arrive in theaters almost precisely a year from today.

I call that the bad news, but really, not all that bad, since I've spent most of my life sifting through horror sequels, and I call that fun. The good news? "Weinstein said Rob Zombie, who directed "Halloween II" and 2007's reboot of the 31-year-old horror series, won't return for "Halloween 3-D." He said the studio is in negotiations with a new director, whom he declined to name, who has experience in horror and has a "different take" on the franchise." (Again, full article here.)

Read the rest over at Horror Squad

If they got some sort of financial bonus for every year they kept an unreleased movie on the shelves, I could understand it -- but this is getting a little ridiculous. According to a rather interesting L.A. Times piece, the Weinsteins are taking all their movies (save for Zack and Miri, The Reader, and perhaps the inevitably brilliant Extreme Movie) and bumping them back to next year. That includes some oft-delayed titles like Killshot and Fanboys, as well as higher-profile stuff like Crossing Over (with Harrison Ford and Sean Penn) and Shanghai (with John Cusack). Ah yes, and the highly-anticipated adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Cormac McCarthy novel The Road.

Despite the fact that The Weinstein Co. is losing employees by the fistful, Harvey W. insists that the reasons for the delays are legit: Killshot he wants to hold for Mickey Rourke's The Wrestler; Fanboys is waiting for a Comcast promotion in January; Crossing Over deserves to enter a non-crowded marketplace; and Shanghai isn't even finished yet. Regarding The Road ... hmph, it never came up.

In news that is equally rumored and dreaded, it looks like the Weinsteins' haste to get The Reader in the running for this year's awards season might be a matter of John Hillcoat's anticipated adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's acclaimed novel, The Road, not being ready for its limited release a month from now, let alone year's end.

It's bad enough that neither film was ready for any of the big fall film festivals, but a good friend told me something similar three days ago, and now, Kristopher Tapley at In Contention and Dave Karger's EW Oscar Watch are talking along the same lines. I can't say that I'm the same William who posted the following reaction on Karger's page -- and I quote: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" -- but my own sentiments on the (possible) move aren't all that far off.

For that matter, my feelings on the novel and film themselves are akin to those of our own Eugene Novikov: that the book is merely Damn Good, but could make for a Great movie. We may not have a poster, or a trailer, or a fully functioning website just yet, but for all the Weinsteins' release date shell games, I can't help but think they have more to lose holding off on this than The Reader, which producer Scott Rudin took his name off after it was bumped up to contend with star Kate Winslet's other awards prospect, Revolutionary Road (itself based on an acclaimed novel).

I mean, I'm not exactly wishing that The Reader is Winslet's next All the King's Men or anything, but is this studio not big enough for the both of them? Or is this year merely not long enough?

Considering how much Kevin Smith hates having his surprises spoiled online, he got really lucky with the new on-set photos from his latest comedy, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Slashfilm is now hosting a couple photos taken on set at a local mall, as well as some shaky camera footage of the man at work. Nothing groundbreaking, but hey, Smith always brings a smile to my face, so I'm not complaining.

Zack and Miri is the story of two childhood friends who are brought together again at their high school reunion. The two then come up with the idea of making a porn flick together. Seth Rogen stars as Zack and Elizabeth Banks plays Miri. Originally the role had been written for Rosario Dawson, but she backed out to work on Eagle Eye with Shia LaBeouf.

Rehearsals for the film started back in January, and judging by Smith's posting on his personal blog, things seem to be going well. Smith wrote that, "I've got a guy whose inflections I wrote for/to reading the scenes and sounding like he's not acting at all, as much as being the character. I've got a chick who could read the Bible aloud and make it seem charming. They're naturals. They're excellent". OK, so Smith has never been known to be less than totally committed to his films for better or for worse. Luckily, it looks like this one is going to be one of the better ones. Zack and Miri Make a Porno is scheduled for release later this year.

Lame because: Big budget B-flicks are a contradiction in terms. Not to mention that making excuses for bad box-office is never cool. Who releases two straight-up horror flicks on Easter weekend anyway? How to turn it around: Maybe leave it to the midnight madness crowd boys, because no one should ever take bad movies that seriously. Tarantino and Rodriguez are so in love with themselves, they've kind of forgotten what we used to love about them.

Next up: Um ... time for a new agent!

Where did they rank?

Well, since it is Halloween after all, it makes perfect sense to get a little horror-related news. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Artfire Films and Romero-Grunwald Prods. have already given the go-ahead to a follow-up of George Romero's Diary of the Dead. This means they must be pretty eager considering the first film is not expected to be released until next year. Diary of the Dead centers on a group of young filmmakers in the middle of making a low-budget zombie flick who have the unfortunate luck of running into the real thing. According to THR, the sequel will focus on survivors from the first film, "Fighting their way out of a mansion through a horde of ravenous zombies, the survivors of "Diary" escape to a remote island only to be plunged into another battle with the dead".

So if you are not a fan of zombie movies (and I know there is at least one of you out there), it's going to be a rough year at the box-office . Only yesterday, Zack and Deborah Snyder confirmed that the follow-up to Dawn of the Dead now has a completed script and that they are on the hunt for a director. So we can add Diary of the Dead 2 to a growing list of films about the 'living-challenged' slated for 2008 (with my personal votes going to Brad Pitt's take on World War Z and the Vampire-Zombie hybrid, Virulents). Diary of the Dead is slated to begin principal photography this coming Spring.

I can't be the only one who saw this title of the film and thought of the old joke about "master debaters," but that is probably not the best association to make when you are talking about a family film. Variety reports that Kimberly Elise has signed on to the period flick The Great Debaters. The movie is the second directorial effort from Denzel Washington and centers on a small East Texas debate team that challenged Harvard's famed team to a debate. The film is set in the 30's, which will probably add an extra "feel-good" element to it, as its sure to be not only a story of triumph over adversity, but some deep-seated discrimination. The cast also includes Nate Parker (Pride), Forest Whitaker and Washington who will play the coach of the debate team. Elise is set to play Whitaker's wife and the mother to the team's star debater.

Elise must have had an inside track on the role since one of the film's producers is media queen Oprah Winfrey, who gave Elise one of her first big-screen roles in the adaptation of Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Elise has already worked with Washington on The Manchurian Candidate. After shooting has finished in Louisiana, Elise will return to work on the international drama Red Soil. The Great Debaters is set for release in 2008.

Hey, remember last winter when you and your kids ran out to see Arthur and the Invisibles and nobody liked it? Oh wait, that wasn't you. You're American. Nobody in this country went to see it. And director Luc Besson is not only well aware of that fact, but he also places the blame squarely on the Weinstein boys. (The numbers don't lie: Arthur barely broke $15 million in North America, yet it pulled in over $90 million outside of North America.)

In a recent interview with Dan Epstein over at SuicideGirls.com, Mr. Besson had precisely this to say: "I've worked in the movie business for 30 years now and for each film I work 40 different distributors around the world. The American distributor on Arthur [The Weinstein Company] was the worst I have worked with in my entire life, in any country. I think this is the essence of all the problems. Why the critics didn't like Arthur was because they changed so much of the film and tried to pretend the film was American. The critics aren't stupid. They watched the film, they vaguely smell American but they can feel the film is forced for an American audience. The film is European. It's made by a Frenchman. This was the only country where the film was changed. The rest of the world has the same film as France."

Yowch. Besson got one thing right: The critics were pretty unkind. According to Rotten Tomatoes, only 17 out of 83 polled critics gave the flick a positive review. (That's a 20% approval rate.) I saw the American version -- and I thought it was a really sloppy mess for the most part. Guess I'll be renting that French version as soon as possible.

So yes, you've probably heard more about Michael Moore in the last two days than you ever needed to hear in, say, a month: First there was the announcement of the June 29 release date for Moore's health-care documentary Sicko, then the news that Moore is under federal investigation for taking Sept. 11 workers to Cuba, and let's not forget the Weinstein Company's hiring of a political strategist to run interference when Moore inevitably gets sued.

But finally we have something actually related to the movie itself -- yup, we've snagged key art from the poster for Sicko. We're told that the tagline for the poster, when it's finished, will be "This might hurt a little," and while I can't wait to see what sort of treatment the title is going to get, I have to say the sight of Michael Moore pulling on the rubber gloves is already creeping me out enough. (Click on the art for a larger image.)

Want Moore? (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Check out three exclusive photos from Sicko, after the jump.

Eli Roth's extremely twisted faux trailer for Thanksgiving was one of the many highlights of Grindhouse. It uncannily captured the scuzzed-out look of most 1980's horror films. For those of you who thought you'd like to see that premise expanded to a feature for real, you may be in luck. Roth thinks the expanded Thanksgiving would make a perfect double bill with an expanded version of Edgar Wright's trailer for Don't. The combination would make for something akin to Grindhouse 2. Roth has already talked to Wright about the proposition and says, "We're talking to Dimension about it. I think they're still trying to figure out Grindhouse 1 before we think about Grindhouse 2, but I've already been working on the outline for it and I would do it in a heartbeat." Roth wants to do the movie without much of a script and with people in their 30's portraying the "teenagers" - 90210-style.

The Weinstein Company has publicly expressed unhappiness with the box office return for the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse, are they going to take a chance on similar material? Box office/schmox office, says Roth: "My feeling is that three and a half hours, it was a long time at the movies for people. The movie itself was three hours and 15 minutes and then there's 20 minutes of trailers and then parking and everything, it suddenly became a four hour evening for people. So there's only so many times you can show it in a day and a lot of people getting off work, it was tough for people to find the time to see it. The people that saw it loved it. People were going crazy for it and I think that 25 years from now, everyone will talk about the classic movie Grindhouse and no one will talk about -- the words "box office disappointment" won't even apply. I think the guys made a brilliant film and they should be commended for it and they took a risk." I loved Grindhouse, love Roth, love Wright...I say bring it on! Now! To see the Thanksgiving trailer in all its perverted glory, head here (obviously NSFW). The trailer for Don't is here.