timur bekmambetov Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's safe to say that every film starts out small, and that many of them then end up staying small for any number of reasons. Beyond that, only a lucky few make the leap to feature-length, and even then, it doesn't always turn out for the best. Saw was once a mere fraction of itself, a grimy and gritty little morality play unlikely to spawn a seriously successful franchise that just won't die. The minds behind Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow dedicated themselves for years to creating a low-budget trailer for the film, only to then be granted the chance to flesh out their pulpy serial throwback with millions more. Wouldn't you know it, District 9 just became the summer's least expected blockbuster to the tune of $100 million, and even that was born of a like-minded showcase reel.

And then there's Shane Acker, whose original short for 9 was a wordless little post-apocalyptic breath-taker that rightfully earned itself an Academy Award nomination in 2005. Once an expanded take garnered the support of a recognizable voice cast and producers like Tim Burton, his vision was well on its way to the big screen, and all things considered, it's a small wonder that this small wonder made it through the Hollywood machine with most (though not all) of its mystique intact...

At Comic-Con, legends come a dime a dozen, and those are just the ones on the printed pages of the comics on the exhibition hall floor. But in Hall H, the epicenter of the convention's surprises, revelations and exclusives, true groundbreakers and history-makers are in comparatively short supply. This year, however, there were several, including James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Hayao Miyazaki, and Terry Gilliam; but even in such rarified company, Tim Burton stands head and shoulder above in terms of providing memorable, specific, and ongoing inspiration to the folks who like to look up at these filmmakers' latest projects.

Suffice it to say that a checklist of his most iconic films would be redundant, since virtually all of them qualify, either because of their source material, or his interpretation of it. But the filmmaker has two high-profile projects coming out in the next year or so, each of which applies his inventive style in different ways: first, there's 9, Shane Acker's computer-generated post-apocalyptic odyssey, which Burton is producing; and in 2010, there's Alice in Wonderland, his adaptation of the classic novel by Lewis Carroll.

In between Hall H panels, Cinematical caught up with Burton to discuss his work on 9 and Alice in Wonderland. In addition to talking about the technological opportunities and challenges presented on both films, he offered a few secrets about the forthcoming spectacle of Alice, and reflected on the filmmaking style – and substance – that has made his idiosyncratic body of work a happy home for outsiders and mainstream audiences alike.

Friday afternoon Hall H attendees were treated to their second chance to speak to Tim Burton (following his appearance Thursday for Alice in Wonderland), and their first look at the new film 9. Directed by Shane Acker, the film is produced by Burton and Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov, both of whom offered a few insights about their own work as they showcased the results of the first-time filmmaker's adaptation of his own animated short film.

Among the details revealed during the 9 panel:

Oh, the obvious jokes you can make about Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci being involved with a project called License to Steal. Considering they penned both of Michael Bay's robot-gasm installments, and Star Trek, plus produced The Proposal, one could say that this was their Hollywood life story.

But it's not. According to Variety, License to Steal is actually based on Marc Weingarten's Salon.com article The Learjeat Repo Man, which examines world of repo men. Not just any repo men that come after your flatscreen or your Prius, but the "big game" hunter who steal / repossess private jets, yachts, helicopters, and whatever else it is rich, corrupt people own. For the dangers they face (and oh, do they face dangers) they receive a cut of the overall value.

The script is being penned by Shane Salerno, Kurtzman and Orci are its executive producers. The project was shopped around by WME to three major studios, all with directors lined up to bid, and Salerno pitching it each and every time. McG took the project to Warner Bros., Timur Bekmambetov took it to Universal, and Bryan Singer took it to Sony. But Paramount snapped it up before anyone else had a chance to bid, and without a director attached. But Paramount has the dynamic duo pulling the strings, so they'll undoubtedly pull some major name in to tell the story they describe as "a smart, lighthearted action movie ... with a lot of unexpected plot twists." As you wait for the talent to hook themselves up, you can read the Salon piece, and dream of success and adventure ... either those enjoyed by Weingarten's repo men, or that of Kurtzman and Orci.

(Oversight! Thanks to ScreenRant for the photo up there! -- Weinberg)

You know, it's not that I think Angelina Jolie can't handle action, it's just that she's never really been given the chance to do it in a film that was...well, good. The bullet-bending comic book flick, Wanted is a perfect example. Granted, Jolie was livelier than I have seen her in a long time, but I still walked out of the theater wondering why she has never blossomed into the bad-a** heroine I desperately want her to be. Well, maybe she is going to get another chance, because Universal has been making ground with a Wanted sequel. So while most of us were pretty sure that we wouldn't be seeing Ms. Jolie again, Wanted's director Timur Bekmambetov seems to think otherwise. During an interview with the Russian news site, RIA Novosti, Bekmambetov told them that Wanted 2 will start prepping in July, and that Jolie would be returning for the sequel.

Warning: Wanted spoilers ahead...

So think back to the half-baked mess that was Wanted, and you'll remember that Jolie's assassin commits 'suicide' -- on-screen, front and center. It was even rumored to be a condition of Jolie's participation in the film that she would die at the end (I guess to avoid committing to a sequel). But maybe Bekmambetov is engaging in some wishful thinking about Jolie's return, or he knows something we don't because he seemed positive that Jolie would be back. Last April, Evan Spiliotopoulos was hired to write the script, and it's a strange choice, but one thing is for sure, he is going to have to get awfully creative if they plan on bringing Jolie back from the great beyond.

After the jump; Who else could return for Wanted 2 and Jolie is still saving the world (without a gun) in her PSA for World Refugee Day...

This may be the oddest mix of director and material that you might read all year. According to Variety, Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) will be directing an adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick for Universal, who made a big pre-emptive buy of this revisionist take. Not surprisingly, it won't be the "Call me Ishmael" version that you remember from school. In fact, Ishmael probably won't even be in it.

Adam Cooper and Ben Collage are penning the screenplay, and taking what they call "a graphic novel approach" to a book considered to be one of the best in the English language. (In Hollywood talk nowadays, this means "It will look like 300.") Moby Dick becomes a kind of Jaws in this version, where we will see him wreaking havoc on the seas long before he encounters Captain Ahab and the Pequod. Ahab won't become the obsessive and destructive captain, but a brave and charismatic leader. (Yeah, there was a moral there, but who needs that nowadays?) Bekmambetov is looking to apply his frenetic visual flair to the story of the great white whale. I think we all know what the style is, and what this will look like. Moby's white body will look terrific splattered with blood as he drags ships down to the depths at high speed.

Honestly, Moby Dick is not one of my favorite books, and it's only an academic snarkiness that balks at a Bekmambetov version. Besides, it's going to be pretty funny when audience members rush to Borders to buy a copy of the book, imagining it to be packed with gore and brawny heroes, not "to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!"

After the record-breaking success of Night Watch and Day Watch (and an early film for B-movie maven Roger Corman, Arena), Khazakstan-born, Russia-based director Timur Bekmambetov makes his English-language big-studio debut with Wanted, a bruising, brawny action film starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie. Bekmambetov spoke with Cinematical in Los Angeles about making the jump to big-money moviemaking, the hidden world of secrets behind Wanted's look, the action-film apprenticeship of James McAvoy, working with Angelina Jolie and how " .... we (film makers) are all vampires. ..."

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In Wanted, rapper-actor Common plays The Gunsmith -- a cool, deadly expert marksman who mostly lets his bullets do the talking. But meeting with Cinematical in Los Angeles, the veteran of films like Smokin' Aces and Street Kings is warm and obviously enthusiastic about his experiences, talking about everything from his preparation process for playing what he calls "a Samurai warrior" in Wanted to the challenges facing African-American actors -- plus what's good to drink in Prague and how holding a real gun to James McAvoy's head can get you in the moment for your scenes.

Cinematical's podcast content is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

The flashy advertisements, the curving of bullets and Angelina Jolie make it pretty difficult to remember that Wanted was originally based on a series of graphic novels by Mark Millar. From early reports (including a review from Cinematical), the adaptation is a loose one, so you might be surprised to hear that Millar actually felt it was an improvement on his work.

He posted his enthusiastic response on his official message board. (If you choose to click, be warned, the place abounds with spoilers.) "Even the biggest change -- the loom stuff in the middle Timur wrote -- works really well. I think the fate thing really made the character more empathetic as the 'killing for fun' stuff would have made him a little hateful. They kept all the best bits and junked my over-indulgences. So I feel very happy as it was a kind of perfected version that made it to the screen. Could not be happier."

Millar also added that he's been approached by Universal about concocting a sequel. "They've asked me how I can develop some of the other stuff from the book into the sequel. We'll see what box office is like at the weekend, but everyone knows this is going to make a LOT of dough. Wall·E permitting." (He actually has a few choice words for the hapless robot, who really shouldn't be held accountable for his release date.)

When Wanted was announced as the opening night film for the Los Angeles Film Festival, there was a mild outbreak of head-scratching over the choice; why start a film festival loaded with independent and foreign film with a big-studio action movie? The fact is that the opening-night LAFF premiere of Wanted -- directed by a Kazakh director who made his name in Russia, loosely based on a series of comics by a Glasgwegian Scot, starring America's most notable movie starlet opposite a Glasgow-born lead actor and shot with Prague standing in for Chicago -- doesn't say much about the LAFF as a film festival and doesn't say a single thing about L.A. as a real city, but it says plenty about L.A. as a company town with a global span. Wanted's a corporate product, but, thankfully, it's an excellent one -- the two-fisted, double-barreled high-octane guilty pleasure summer action movie you've been waiting for. Wanted is speedy and spiffy and shiny as a bullet, and it's got about as much actual weight when it stops moving.