WonderCon Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Curious about what's been happening at WonderCon in San Francisco this weekend? Me too! Let's see what the Internet says.

Cloverfield Sequel? J.J. Abrams acknowledged that ideas for a sequel "or at least a follow-up" to last year's big-grossing, doc-style monster movie Cloverfield are being kicked around. Insisting that a sequel "better not be a business decision," Abrams said: "We have an idea for something that's pretty cool ... It's something that would be related to Cloverfield and hopefully we'll do something sooner than later, because the idea's pretty sweet." Abrams appeared at WonderCon to premiere a new trailer for some space movie thingy. [Daniel Fienberg at HitFix.]

Terminator for Teens? Director McG continued to play the guessing game about the rating for Terminator: Salvation. Are they aiming for PG-13 or R? At a panel, he teased the audience with the prospect of a topless scene by Moon Bloodgood. (Alas, the new trailer does not include that scene.) Later, McG claimed that T:S was made without giving a thought to rating, while also referencing the Kate Winslet posing scene in the PG-13 rated Titanic. For her part, Ms. Bloodgood said: "I'm a woman, I have boobs, it's a beautiful shot." [Edward Douglas at Coming Soon.]

Green Lantern Goes Russian? Anton Yelchin, the Russian-born actor who has prominent supporting roles in both Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation, denied a rumor that he was being considered to play Hal Jordan in Green Lantern. "No one has said anything to me. I imagine I'm just too young. I mean, it's a great character but I don't know anything about it." Yelchin will turn 20 next week. [IESB.net]

After the jump: News on Disney's hand-drawn The Princess and the Frog.

It's kind of a crummy version, but up above is the first official teaser trailer for X-Files 2. Said trailer debuted at Wondercon in San Francisco over the weekend during a panel on the film. While it starts out far away, the camera does zoom in for a fairly good look at the remainder of the first X-Files footage in years. AICN has a pretty good description of the trailer for those who miss some dialogue or what have you (though there's not much, except for Billy Connolly yelling "It's here" and Amanda Peet yelling "Give him room"), but from what I can tell it looks pretty cool.

The majority of the trailer takes place on a snowy field of ice, while a slew of people track something or someone underneath. Connolly races out to a certain spot and begins digging, while we then cut to a pretty quick montage of various shots from the film. The audience at WonderCon went absolutely nutty for this trailer (as you can tell from the screaming in the background), but I will say that it's nice to see Mulder and Scully back again. Look for this trailer to arrive online in a better format next week (we assume). In the meantime, feast your eyes on the preview above. X-Files 2 arrives in theaters on July 25.

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Above: New Iron Man poster from Wondercon, courtesy of ScreenRant.

We're at Wondercon in spirit ...

Our friends over at Film School Rejects claim they know who's been cast as The Blob in next summer's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I'm sorry, but how many friggin' characters will there be in this film? There's just too many. Now it sort of feels like an episode of A Different World -- ya know, you have Denise from The Cosby Show, but everyone around her is different; almost to a point where it takes away from having that familiar character because there's so many new characters to get to know. But anyway, FSR says Kevin Durand was "live-scanned" for the part of Blob, and will shoot his scenes in Canada. Since the actual film is shooting on the other side of the world, we're not sure if Durand will be shooting his scenes via satellite or what. Either way, chalk up the casting of another character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

ReelzChannel recently caught up with J.J. Abrams and managed to ask him a bit about Cloverfield 2, as well as his upcoming Star Trek flick. We've included the video interview after the jump, but essentially Abrams said they have an idea for a Cloverfield sequel that they're currently tossing around, but are not sure what's going to happen. (As if Abrams would ever be truthful about anything -- dude probably hides his real name from us as well.) Good news: Abrams admits the shaky cam that annoyed practically everyone who watched the first Cloverfield might not make it into the sequel. (Video after the jump.)

Finally, Wondercon 2008 is in full swing over in San Francisco this weekend. Cinematical is not there this year, but several other websites are -- so we'll let them do all the work. You've already seen the new Iron Man poster above, and AICN also has up a pretty long report from yesterday's Wanted and Forgetting Sarah Marshall panels, including a rundown on the scenes screened, as well as what the cast in attendance had to say about the film(s). Not the most exciting stuff you've ever read, but if you're itching for anything Wondercon-related, head over there to check it out.

Now that Joss Whedon has been booted off Wonder Woman, it's up to producer Joel Silver to save the possible franchise from taking a nosedive straight into development hell. Silver was at WonderCon promoting The Reaping, but it's practically impossible to get that guy into a room and not have him field a ton of questions regarding Wonder Woman and the upcoming Speed Racer flick, to be directed by the Wachowski Bothers. ("Yeah, so in The Reaping Hilary Swank battles biblical plagues -- that's great ... but, when do we get to see what the live-action Mach 5 from Speed Racer will look like?")

As far as Wonder Woman goes, Silver would still very much like to produce it, but admitted the project has been "a struggle." When asked whether Warners was focusing on the new WW spec script picked up (the one set during World War II), Silver sort of shoved it off, and acted as if that was not the direction they were going in. Then again, we're not even sure if there is a direction -- chances are, Wonder Woman will remain in limbo for the time being. On the Speed Racer front, Silver acknowledged Vince Vaughn's contribution as a producer early on, but quickly shot down rumors (kind of) that Vaughn would also star as Racer X. The Wachowski Brothers are currently hard at work on the pic, which begins production June 5 in Berlin.

Also on the agenda was the reason behind The Reaping's delay. Originally scheduled to come out last fall, Silver said the film "just wasn't done yet." He did, however, chuck a whole lot of praise toward the Hilary Swank flick, saying the visual effects are outstanding and that director Stephen Hopkins did a fantastic job with it. The Reaping hits theaters on April 6, while Speed Racer is due out on May 23, 2008.

During an appearance at San Francisco's WonderCon, Wes Craven announced a new project on his horizon- and it's not a film. Instead, the famed director is putting ink to paper in an attempt to pen a Las Vegas stage show, currently titled Wes Craven's Magick Macabre. As the title indicates, Wes plans to mix magic with horror, describing his stage production as "a bloody magic show for an 1,800-seat theater in Las Vegas." Apparently, Riverdance producer John McColgan bought the rights to a similar Dublin stage show, and subsequently hired Craven to write the script. The show will be aided by production designer Mark Fisher of Cirque du Soleil fame and David Mendoza, who designed the illusions for Siegfried and Roy. These gentlemen all got together for a brainstorming session, and the result was "really terrific, scary, bloody, crazy ideas that we're going to do for a big show to play in Vegas to scare the pants off of everybody."

Horror fans, is this awesome? It sounds like an interesting and clever concept, but my knowledge of what passes for awesome in the horror genre is limited, so I don't think my personal opinion carries much weight here. The project certainly has some big name talent attached to it, at any rate.

We reported a while back about the planned remake of Logan's Run, the best movie ever made about a world where no one is allowed to live beyond the age of 30. The film was expected to feature a reunion of The Usual Suspects team director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie, but Singer's work on Superman Returns sort of took the attention away from the Logan's Run conversation. During a WonderCon panel over the weekend, however, Singer talked about the remake, and confirmed that it is, in fact, in the works. He and McQuarrie are finishing the screenplay, but it sounds as if there's a lot of work left to do - Singer tentatively suggested that the movie would be ready in 2008.

Without offering many details about the film's plot or look, the director indicated his work won't be a straight remake. Instead, it will combine elements from the book and the 1976 film, as well as Singer's "own concepts." In addition, he told listeners that his Logan's Run would "[take] place in a unique environment, one we haven't seen in...a mainstream movie before," whatever that means.

So, depending on your perspective on this remake, this news is either reassuring or devastating. Personally, I can't decide - I adore the movie as it stands, and was initially horrified at the thought of anyone trying to make it again. But Singer and McQuarrie made a pretty fun flick the last time they worked together, and I suppose there's hope that they could bring the right attitude to Logan's Run, as well. Of course, we've got two years to mull it over, there's really no need to decide right now how good/bad it's going to be.