louis leterrier Tagged Articles at Cinematical

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."

Fans of the Transporter films aren't usually looking for a lot of subtlety and nuance, not unless those are codewords for "butt-kicking" and "car crashes." But Louis Leterrier, the whimsical Frenchman who directed the second film and co-directed the first one, said in 2005 that he had a subtext in mind for Jason Statham's title character: He was gay.

Chris Lee writes at the Los Angeles Times' fanboy blog that three years ago, when Transporter 2 came out, well, so did Frank Martin. According to Lee, Leterrier pointed to the scene where Frank turns down a romantic advance from Amber Valletta by saying, "It's because of who I am." Leterrier said, "That's him coming out!"

"If you watch the movie and you know he's gay, it becomes so much more fun," Lee quotes Leterrier as saying in 2005. "It's so great -- the first gay action movie hero! ... Action fans in general are pretty homophobic. You see these tough guys who say, 'The Transporter, that's such a great movie!' If they only knew they're really cheering for a new kind of action hero."

Statham didn't pay much attention to his director's comments, telling Lee in 2005, "It's just Lou-Lou trying to be funny. Although he did say, 'In Part 2, you will become the gay icon.'" That part might have come true, as Statham's many shirtless scenes made him popular in certain quarters, even if the character himself wasn't overtly gay.

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.

Back when The Incredible Hulk hit movie theaters -- and because of Nick Fury's appearance in Iron Man -- folks were itching for more Avengers references with their summer movie watching. Thus, fans went bat-sh*t (excuse the DC reference) over a rumor that Captain America popped up in a scene during Incredible Hulk, which was fueled by a sorta confirmation from director Louis Leterrier ... but then the flick hit theaters and nada. Now, with the DVD due out on October 21st, it seems there's a little easter egg awaiting fans. A number of different sites have reported that a shot of Captain America frozen in ice exists within the alternate opening scene -- one that follows Bruce Banner to the arctic circle in search of a very random way to kill himself (see photo above, courtesy of Slashfilm). So there ya go. And seeing as the upcoming Captain America film will be set during WWII, we now know how they'll make that work for the Avengers movie. He was frozen in ice! Hopefully we won't get any corny lines like "What's an iPod" when the good old Captain shows up in theaters in 2011.

Oh, and speaking of Hulk, the Iron Man writers would love to see him play villain in the aforementioned Avengers movie. Mark Fergus tells MTV: "You don't want like 10 super-badass good guys fighting together. Where's the fun in that? Let's break it off a little. Friends or colleagues who become enemies is always an interesting thing because you know it's based on love and friendship and that's always the worst thing to have turn bad - is someone you actually care about and someone you actually believe in."

What do you think? Should Hulk become the villain in Avengers? If not him, then who?

There was an interview with Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier over at AlloCiné (via AICN) in which someone threw out a number of different sequels (Spider-Man, Superman, Indiana Jones), and (I think) asked if he'd be interested in directing any of them. Now, according to someone who wrote in to AICN, Leterrier stopped at Superman and said something like ... "maybe they have already asked me." We here at Cinematical have watched the video in question (you can too over here), and he definitely does look at the camera, smile and say something regarding the Superman sequel. I don't speak French, though, but it appears as if that's the correct translation.

So, has Warners already talked to Leterrier about possibly directing the next Superman movie? And is Leterrier the big-name action director Wanted's Mark Millar mentioned when he recently talked up his own Superman project? As AICN points out, Leterrier is currently working on the Clash of the Titans remake for Warners, so it seems reasonable for them to also talk to him about Superman. Is DC trying to steal a Marvel guy? Interesting development ...

What say you? Would Leterrier do a better job than Singer on Superman?

UPDATE: Leterrier contacted AICN and said the following: "What I meant was that I had been told about a possible reinvention of Superman. Not that I was offered the job." Take that as you will ...