intrepid pictures Tagged Articles at Cinematical

These days, it doesn't take much for someone to accuse someone else of being a terrorist. Frankly, I'm surprised no one has flagged Santa yet, what with that long beard and huge bulky bag. No one personally knows the guy, he claims to live in "the North Pole" and already admits to breaking into your house in order to "leave gifts under your tree." Suuure. I want Homeland Security tailing that dude STAT! In schools across the country, the problem is even worse -- if a kid looks a bit off and doesn't have a lot of friends, students immediately fear the guy (or girl) is planning to shoot up their class or, even worse, blow up the school.

Enter: Dave Kalstein's screenplay, The Prince. Intrepid Pictures has just picked up the teen thriller, with plans to co-finance it through a five-year first-look deal they have with Universal and Rogue Pictures. Story revolves around a kid who's falsely accused of planning a Columbine-like attack on one of those pricey rich schools where, if you're not part of the cool clique, then you're automatically a target. After he's sent to prison, the dude re-enters society with a new identity hell-bent on exacting revenge upon those who sent him away. Yeah, so the guy gets back at these kids by doing exactly what he was falsely accused of doing. Says Kalstein, "Part of what's enjoyable about the film is watching Paris Hilton and her type of crowd get what they deserve."

Wow, this could be the first (and only) time in my entire life that I actually want to see Paris Hilton cast in a film. Seriously. And no, those aren't the drugs talking.

Apparently someone has told all of Hollywood that the apocalypse is coming, and we can all be saved only be making MORE MOVIES ABOUT URBAN LEGENDS. And, because they have our best interest at heart, our friends in the movie industry have leaped to humanity's defense: On Monday, Universal bought a super-secret spec script about an urban legend on a college campus, and today comes the news that Intrepid Pictures (which, by the way, has a first-look deal with Universal) just picked up ... exactly the same thing. Yippee, we're saved!

Universal's pic is called Agony; Intrepid's is Mercy. And that's pretty much the only difference. Seriously. Though Universal is being coy for some reason about the details of Agony's plot, it's set on a college campus, and deals with an urban legend that -- shocker! -- turns out to be true. Mercy, meanwhile, is about "a college student who sets out to debunk the urban legend of the Mercy Killer ... only to discover that he is all too real and has chosen her as his next victim."

So basically, if you snuck in under cover of darkness and switched the scripts, no one would notice. Ain't Hollywood great?

Odds and ends from Thursday:

• After finally admitting the only way he can bring in box office numbers is if everyone except him in the film is dead, Wesley Snipes signed on to play the lead role in Gallowalker, to be directed by Andrew Goth. Pic follows the mysterious gunman (and son of a nun) Kaos. After a curse is placed on him making it so his victims rise from the dead, Kaos must fend off a ton of these creatures if he wants to survive. Shooting is scheduled to begin In South Africa ... after people finally stop slipping in Blade references. Like me.
• Intrepid Pictures have picked up Dave Kalstein's novel Prodigy, with plans to have the author adapt it for the big screen. The sci-fi thriller, which will have a budget of around $20 million, tells of a prep school in the near future which trains its students to be geniuses by giving them drugs. Um, sweet! However, things take a turn for the worse when a bunch of the school's alumni turn up dead, thus forcing an impoverished valedictorian to solve this mystery.
• Landmark Theaters plan to open the largest independent film multiplex in the country next June in Los Angeles. The Landmark Film Center, to be located at Westside Pavillion, will be three-stories tall and feature 12 auditoriums, all with stadium seating and the latest in film and digital technology. There's also plans being discussed to use the theater to help train film students, as well as to screen works from emerging artists. Damn you Los Angeles! I want me one of those! Well, seeing as I live only a few blocks away from Landmark's Sunshine Theater here in NYC, I can't really complain. It rocks. However, I do feel like more of these should crop up throughout the country. We need it. They need it. Independent filmmakers need it. Lets get something going here, shall we?