r rated Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Just a few days ago I shared a report from Twitchfilm, and in that report it was stated that Fox was planning to "tame" their video game adaptation Hitman. Further, we also heard that director Xavier Gens had been removed from the editing process. Well, either the earlier reports were false or there's been a change of mind over at Fox, because the Hollywood Reporter blog has an update for us...

"A source close to the project and a Fox rep both confirmed that director Xavier Gens is still on board, and the movie will absolutely come out with an R rating. Sources say it will most likely be a "hard R," in fact," is what we're being told. Twitchfilm responds with much skepticism: "If Gens is still in control why was an outside 'consultant' brought in to go over the edit of the film at all, and which of the two actually has more power considering that Gens is currently not even on this continent while [ film editor Nicholas] De Toth is working away?"

So here's what I'm guessing, not that any of this matters one whit: The R rating was always a certainty, but Fox probably had other "creative differences" with their young director. All I care about is this: Does Hitman kick ass? The early marketing push is certainly slick enough, but I've been burned on enough video game movies by now. Guess we'll find out what's up when the flick hits on November 21.

Not only is M. Night Shyamalan moving from (Disney to) Warner Bros. to Fox for his next project ... but it''ll be the guy's first R-rated movie, too! After shopping around a screenplay called The Green Effect, M. Night took some tips from colleagues, re-jiggered the script, re-named it The Happening, and landed himself a sweet deal at Fox. According to Variety, The Happening will be apocalyptic in nature, perhaps on scale with the studio's Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. Expect the movie to hit theaters in June of 2008.

Mr. Shyamalan will head back to Philadelphia (yay!) in August to start shooting his new movie, and we're promised a "big name" for the lead role. The trade paper also states that the Happening budget will be $57 million, and also that the plot will be "a paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity." One of the selling points on this particular project is that both Shyamalan and Fox chief Tom Rothman wanted to really "up" the scariness, thus resulting in a project that'll be M. Night's first R-rated effort. The controversial thriller-maker made reference to both Silence of the Lambs and Pan's Labyrinth while describing his vision of The Happening ... which makes me both skeptical and curious. Either way, I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer for Night's Avatar and He-Man projects, which is just fine by me.