chris morgan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Carl Rinsch is a name perhaps best known to those in the advertisement world, but the commercial director has been poised to break into the feature film world for some time now. His name had been attached to direct Fox's reboot/prequel to Ridley Scott's Alien, until it became apparent that Scott wanted to direct as well as produce. All is not lost, however, as now Rinsch has been tapped to turn Keanu Reeves into a Samurai in 47 Ronin.

The project is being set up at Universal with a script from Chris Morgan, who has been earning the studio hand over fist lately with his scripts for the last two Fast & Furious movies as well as Wanted. Currently the immortal Keanu Reeves is the only actor attached to the project, meaning he's most likely to command the presumably effects-heavy film, something Reeves hasn't really done since 2005's Constantine. It's unclear precisely who he'll be playing in the story, but The Hollywood Reporter explains the script "centers on a group of 18th century samurai who set out to avenge the death of their master."

Aside from the above, details are rather vague, as always, in these early stages, but in my experience, samurai make everything better, so news on 47 Ronin is worth keeping an eye out for on their focal inclusion alone. Plus, it's nice to see Rinsch have a firm project to be attached to. You may not recognize his name, but you've probably seen a few of his commercials. His most visible job was probably creating the robotic Heineken keg commercial, but his most impressive is a brilliant Evolution of Technology spot. Check them both out below (plus another of his); and believe me, you'll want to see the Evolution of Tech one, it's a stunner.

In the same way that higher-profile actors are jumping on the video game ship sans shame, so too are movie writers like Wanted's Chris Morgan. Morgan has signed up for a rather daunting task – working as the story director for the massive and practically holy sci-fi series The Wheel of Time by the late Robert Jordan.

Variety reports that this job entails "overseeing the writing on the titles, working with executive producers and writers to help develop story arcs and helping to digest the book series' 10,000 pages and over 1,700 characters."

(Of course, Morgan and the other two screenplay writers, Derek Haas and Michael Brandt, were taken to task by fans for not sticking to the original comic book story all that much. However, compared to comic book purists, the wrath of Robert Jordan fans can be deadly. Or so I hear.)

Morgan isn't the only screenwriter who has dipped his toes into the pixellated pool. Saw director James Wan is one of the writers for the Saw video game, which surprisingly got some good gamer feedback from its preview at SDCC. And David McKenna, who wrote American History X, Get Carter, Blow, and Bully, wrote Scarface: The World is Yours, which got generally mixed reviews.

Considering most of us have given up on the idea that you can make a great film from a video game, you have to hand it to someone who is still willing to try. Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) recently spoke with Bloody Disgusting about his upcoming feature based on the best selling game, Gears of War, and the big news is that he has already planned three installments of the 3rd person shooter. Wiseman tells Disgusting, "The hope is that were wanting [sic] to do a three movies and really cover the bases on everything. Basically a harder edged Lord of the Rings."

Gears of War centered on the elite military group known as the Delta Squad, and when the planet Sera is attacked by the vicious Locust Horde, it's down to the Delta to save the day. Wiseman seems to be less interested in the creatures in the story, and is going to focus instead on the bad-ass squad. When asked about the script, Wiseman told Disgusting, "It's going to be much more [on the] science fiction side of it than the creature side of it. I've always been much more of a sci-fi action fan than a horror fan,"

Wiseman will be sticking with green screen to bring the 'Hoarde' to life, saying, "the more and more I get involved with these movies and the bigger they are the more you rely on CG effects to help you out. And you can do it properly; I've been a big fan of practical work and still am, it's finding a way to incorporate them together." Unfortunately, I don't think relying on CG is the problem with most video game flicks. It might however have something to do with substandard storytelling, bad acting, and crappy dialogue; but that just might be me.

So even though Wiseman has the odds stacked against him, is there anyone out there who thinks that he has what it takes to pull off not one, but three films? Sound off below...

Do you want to see a visitor from another planet wielding a sword? Keanu Reeves, who plays the alien Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still (opening on Friday), will play a samurai swordsman in 47 Ronin, an epic action tale of 18th century vengeance, according to Variety.

Described as mixing elements of The Lord of the Rings (fantasy) and Gladiator ("gritty battle scenes"), the film aims to tell a stylized version of a true story that took place at the beginning of the 18th century in Japan. A group of samurai became ronin (samurai without lord or master) after their master was forced to commit ritual suicide because, after repeated insults to his honor, he assaulted a court official. The 47 ronin eventually avenged the death of their master, even though they knew that they, in turn, would be required to commit suicide. Traditionally, the tale of the 47 ronin has been held up as an example of honor and other noble qualities. The story itself has been told numerous times in movies and television, and it's also served as loose inspiration for many other projects, such as John Frankenheimer's terrific Ronin (1998), with Robert DeNiro.

Keanu's 47 Ronin is being scripted by Chris Morgan, who co-wrote Wanted. Morgan is also the writer of the upcoming Fast & Furious and previously did The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Sakura: Blue-Eyed Samurai, about a 19th century woman training to be a samurai, so he has a track record of projects set in Japan, for whatever that's worth. 47 Ronin intends to start production next year, but a director must be selected first. Whoever else comes on board, this is being pitched as a very, very loose interpretation of the classic tale.

A handful of geek news bits are the perfect way to end the week. There's all kinds of intriguing little quotes scattered all over the Internet tonight, and I've compiled them all below to give your mouse finger and Google toolbar a rest. Enjoy!

As always, the Old Canuckehead gets first grab -- X-MenFilms.Net was informed by Fox that the first X-Men Origins: Wolverine teaser is supposed to be attached to The Day the Earth Stood Still, which hits theaters on December 12th. Will we see the same footage that most of us glimpsed via YouTube bootleg from San Diego ComicCon? I bet we will!

Buried in that Ain't It Cool News scoop on J. Michael Stracynzki was the news that he had just finished his rewrite of Thor. I think the God of Thunder is moving faster than Captain America.

MTV's Splash Page caught up with Robert Downey Jr. and pressed him for word on the Terrance Howard/Don Cheadle swap. He stayed classy, of course: "I had nothing to do with that decision. I love Terrence very very much. That's all I'll say because I haven't talked to him yet ... I've always admired Don [Cheadle]. It's one of those situations where I still don't quite know what happened or why. Here's what happens too: things happen and you wind up commenting on them before you've actually talked to the people and it's in poor taste." He also stressed that the Iron Man franchise will be an "interactive" one, with he and Jon Favreau striving "to make sure we don't piss off the public that put us in the position we're in."

Continued after the jump.

After the third film in the franchise, Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, took in $158 million worldwide, Universal thought it might be best to hold onto screenwriter Chris Morgan for at least a little while. Not only have they tapped him to pen a fourth installment in the lucrative underground racing series, but the studio has also picked up an untitled adventure pitch from the scribe too -- making it his fifth straight project for Universal. Other pics Morgan has worked on for Uni include a rewrite on the Angelina Jolie pic Wanted (currently in pre-production) and an adaptation of the graphic novel The Psycho. (Next up, Chris plans on officially changing his name from Chris Morgan to Universal's Biotch.)

No word yet on where the fourth Fast and the Furious will be set, but chances are they will keep things overseas in order to fully take advantage of the worldwide audience. Perhaps the new flick will even take place in several different cities -- it could be called Fast and the Furious: Where in the World Did I Park My Damn Car? I like that. As far as this untitled adventure pic goes, no one is saying a thing; all we know is that the script was purchased for $700,000 against $1.35 million, and that Stuber/Parent Prods. are producing. Seeing as Morgan likes his characters to do a lot of driving (he also penned Cellular, which had its fare fair share of automobile-related excitement), I'd imagine this new script includes at least one dazzling car chase sequence. Which reminds me ... my lease is up; I need to look for a new ride.