clash of the titans Tagged Articles at Cinematical

While some folks were partaking in Avatar Day across the country, a very dusty Sam Worthington was chatting up a group of journalists across the pond on the set of Clash of the Titans. (Who, uh, missed seeing Avatar on the big screen.) The Aussie actor has been reading our reactions to the trailer and the IMAX/3D experience, and he wants you to know that Avatar is built for the theater and not your laptop. But will James Cameron's plan to get people back into theaters work?

And it's a lot of pressure for the hot young star, whose done five blockbuster projects in a row and is ready to "take four months off and just do f*ckin' nothing... hang out with my mates."

Worthington said, "Man, it's got a hell of a lot of hype to it. I read all what was said yesterday about the trailer and I can see their point. As I said, it's not meant to be [seen] on an Apple Mac. It's built for IMAX. It's built for 3D. That's what [James Cameron] designed it for. He's designed it to bring people back to the cinema. It's interesting that he's released that trailer, that Jim's gone and done that, and then the next day shows it in IMAX. One extreme to the other. We get the criticism and then we get the rave reviews of what it looks like in its own formula. That's obviously going to get people to think and go, "Damn right! I'm going to go and see this at the cinema!" Jim has always said to me he wants to bring people back to the movies, and he's a smart enough man for that to be tactical."

As I've watched Harry Potter mania spread around the world like something out of The Stand, I've been feeling a little left out of the phenomenon (having never been a huge fan of the fantasy series). But as the kids line up around the block in their 'Snape capes' and plastic spectacles, I've been thinking back to my own days as a 'rugrat' and the fantasy flicks I used to love. So without getting too specific (remember, nobody ever asks a lady her age), the movies I loved as a child were made in a wild and crazy time better known as the 80's, and what a decade it was for fantasy.

The 80's brought us some of the most iconic fantasy flicks ever made, like Conan, John Boorman's Excalibur, and Highlander. But today isn't about ranking the best and the worst -- it's about my favorite fantasy flicks of the 'me generation' and, who knows, you might just find some recommendations for the little ones in your life once that boy wizard finally exits stage left.

After the jump: my fantasy favorites, and a glimpse into the world of prime 80's cheese...

Fie Louis Leterrier, and all of the people behind the Clash of the Titans remake! I have to admit, Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades tempted my curiosity, and now I can't help but see it. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Danny Huston is the next man of the Titans, and he will play Poseidon -- God of the Sea. Leterrier only knows how much this will mean for the actor, since this so-called remake is switching up the story left, right, and center. Maybe this time around, we'll see the old guy get sexy with Medusa. Whatever the case, this is one more big flick for Huston, and maybe one day we'll get some solid starring work, and a North American release for Fade to Black while we're at it. (What's Fade to Black? Why, it's the film where he stars as Orson Welles. A project that also boasts Paz Vega, Christopher Walken, and Diego Luna.)

Meanwhile, Mr. Big isn't ready to say no to more Sex. Variety reports that Chris Noth has finally committed to Sex and the City 2. He might have taken a while to agree, but this news isn't exactly surprising. You might, however, be surprised by this little nibblet: The deal was for SEVEN figures. Talk about being a lucrative co-star. The sequel starts production in September, and is set for a May 28, 2010 release.

The only thing worse than remaking an adaptation rather than tackling the source material is getting two actors you'd love to see go head-to-head. When this project bubbled up in 2007, I mentioned greats in the original Clash of the Titans cast like Laurence Olivier and Burgess Meredith. While this new concoction has been grabbing fresh names like Arterton, Worthington, Mads Mikkelsen (Le Chiffre in Casino Royale), and Alexa Davalos (the electric Gwen from Angel), it's also getting some critical heavyweights.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Liam Neeson has signed on, and Ralph Fiennes is in final negotiations, to play warring gods in the Louis Leterrier remake. Oh, yes -- Neeson will play the ill-tempered Zeus, king of the gods and father of Perseus (Olivier's part), while Fiennes plays Hades, ruler of the underworld who wants to bring down Zeus and become supreme ruler. Even if the rest is terrible, I'd pay to see them go head to head.

Fans of the original will note that Hades wasn't in the first film, and that's because while this has been touted as a remake, they're going in a different direction with this story -- Perseus is on a mission to save the lady once again, but this time he has to defeat Hades. Yeah, that makes it pretty much a totally different project, but maybe they loved the name too much to not call it a remake...

Everyone wants to go Greek these days -- we're due to get a double dose with Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans and Tarsem Singh's War of the Gods, though both have fallen off the radar as of late.

But if there's really a race, Leterrier's moved into into the lead with a grand total of two cast members. EmpireOnline caught up with Bond girl Gemma Arterton, who revealed that she's signed on to costar with Sam Worthington in Clash of the Titans -- and it's a whole new role for the remake. "My part is ... the coolest part," she laughed. "Io's not in the original film. Perseus falls in love with her and then [CENSORED FOR TINY SPOILER]. It's a really great part."

If you're mad about the spoiler, e-mail Empire, as they put it in. So rusty is my Greek mythology that I thought I'd outsmart them by looking up Io on Wikipedia, but I'm at a loss as. I can only guess that the spoiler involves Zeus lusting for her, and that she might be turned into a white heifer? Does Io replace Andromeda, Perseus' original love interest? Does he lose one, and win the other? Darn that Empire censor!

Arterton gave a hint as to how this Clash will differ from the 1981 original, and Greek mythology in general. "The script is very different. Obviously the story is the story, but it's much more about Perseus' mission, and how he deals with being the son of Zeus, and things like that, so it feels a little more about him, and about the issues around that."

If there was ever a director perfectly suited to tackle a tale about warring Gods, it's Tarsem Singh (The Fall). Say what you will about the man's ability to tell a story, but there is no director working today who has more of a flair for the visually dramatic than Mr. Singh. He recently spoke with Empire magazine about his current film, The Fall, when the subject changed to Singh's upcoming fantasy tale for Relativity Media, War of the Gods. Singh tells Empire, "It's turning into, basically, Caravaggio meets Fight Club, it's a really hardcore action film done in Renaissance painting style. I want to see how that goes; it's turned into something really cool" -- I don't know about you, but he had me at "Caravaggio meets Fight Club".

Back in November, Elisabeth brought us the news that Singh had his eye on Henry Cavill from The Tudors as the Greek warrior Theseus battling against imprisoned titans. Of course, there is still the small matter of a competing flick in the form of Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans remake. But I have to say, I'm intrigued by Tarsem's description of War, saying, "I'm going for a very contemporary look on top of that so I'm kind of going with, you know, Renaissance time with electricity. So it's a bit like Baz Luhrman doing Romeo + Juliet in Mexico; it's just talking a particular Greek tale and half contemporising it and telling it."

There's two Greek epics racing to production as we speak -- Relativity Media's War of the Gods, directed by Tarsem Singh, and Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans for Warner Bros. Both are looking to fill the muscle-and-sandal void left by 300, and plan to employ the stylish green-screen effects that made 300 so darn pretty to look at, and cheap to make.

And it looks like they'll be borrowing something else from 300 -- manly eye candy. According to Variety, both films are in negotiations for their lead actors. War of the Gods is looking to cast Henry Cavill as Theseus, legendary king of Athens. Cavill is best known as the rakish Charles Brandon on Showtime's The Tudors, and as Albert Mondego in The Count of Monte Cristo. That's him on the right. He's ridiculously handsome, and thus an ideal candidate for a mythic Greek.

Meanwhile, the increasingly in-demand Sam Worthington is in talks to play Perseus in Clash of the Titans. By now, Warner Bros has undoubtedly seen him in action in Terminator: Salvation so they'll know if he's the right man to take on Medusa. Again, he's not a bad looking fellow, and should look good in bronze and leather. Incidentally, both he and Cavill were once in the running to play James Bond.

Both films are expected to start production in late winter or early spring, so this will be the first of many casting announcements. I wonder if both films are doomed to move in sync, lumped together in the trades until the day they hit theaters.

I love when stuff like this happens: Armageddon vs. Deep Impact. 1492: Conquest of Paradise vs. Christopher Columbus: The Discovery. Umm, Vice Versa vs. Like Father Like Son. You know what I mean: When two very similar movies from two very different movie studios hit the theaters at just about the same time. And according to Variety, it looks to be happening again, this time with a pair of Greek Mythology-type movies. Of all things. We get none of 'em for two decades and then all of a sudden everyone wants to bang one out. It's good news for me, though. I love this stuff.

In one corner we have WB's Clash of the Titans remake, which will be directed by Louis Leterrier and written by Lawrence Kasdan. We all know a bit about Clash of the Titans, or at least I hope we do, so let's focus on the other corner: Here we have the very intriguing War of Gods, which Relativity Media is prepping for Tarsem Singh to direct. According to Variety, it's "a mythological tale set in war-torn Ancient Greece, as the young warrior prince Theseus leads his men in a battle against evil that will see the gods fighting with soldiers against demons and titans." Whoa. Yes, please.

Both flicks are looking to use the 300-style approach to bring their ancient worlds and creatures to life, both aim to start production before the end of the year, and both will probably make a whole lot of money. I mean seriously: We need more epics about Greek Mythology. Call me a nerd, but those stories are freaking cool!

Despite a resume full of fantasy and action flicks, Lawrence Kasdan will forever be synonymous with 'Boomer' movies like The Big Chill and Grand Canyon. But, this is the man who wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi, so it's not like a script about giant robots and alien invasions is that big of a stretch. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Kasdan has signed to write the script for a live-action adaptation of the Japanese anime, Robotech, for Warner Bros.

The story of Robotech centered on a not-too-distant future where mankind has discovered alien technology called 'protoculture' on a deserted South Pacific island. Using the tech to build giant robots (well, what else would you do with it?), humanity is forced to fend off alien invasions looking to steal a little of that 'protoculture' for their very own.

Robotech marks Kasdan's second big fantasy project this year, after being tapped to write a remake of the 80's fantasy flop, Clash of the Titans. It's still early days for Robotech, but WB seems eager to fill up their fantasy slate for the coming year, so stay tuned to Cinematical for any updates that come our way.