They eventually made a fourth Indiana Jones. That’s what I tell myself each time Dan Aykroyd comes out and speaks, with the utmost confidence, that a third Ghostbusters will eventually be made. Like the Jones sequel, Ghostbusters 3 is a movie that has been long rumored and discussed ad nauseum. So I figure if Spielberg, Lucas and Ford can find a common ground after years of conjecture, the same will probably happen for the Ghostbusters crew.
Of course, we all know the main hold out has been Bill Murray but in the latest twist, Aykroyd suggests they could “Jack Ryan” that role and just make it with someone else. I wonder what Sony has to say about that. Read more after the jump. Read More »
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After seven years away from theaters, Star Wars comes back to the big screen this weekend. Of course, it’s not a new movie or even an original re-release. Instead it’s what’s generally considered one of the worst of the bunch, converted into an experience many people hate. I refer, of course, to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D and if one good thing comes of this re-release, it means George Lucas has to come out and answer questions. (Of course, he did this for Red Tails too but focused more on his upcoming career and Hollywood controversy.)
In an interview Lucas did with The Hollywood Reporter he offers what I think is the most plausible and straightforward answer he’s ever given as to why he changed the Greedo/Han Solo scene in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Read the quotes and agree or disagree after the break. Read More »
Posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 by Angie Han
You wouldn’t think that a playful family comedy like Aardman Animation’s The Pirates! Band of Misfits would court much controversy, especially seeing as it won’t even be released for another two months. But one joke shown in the trailer, released last year, has already drawn enough criticism to prompt the studio to take action.
Aardman has agreed to change a scene showing a leper boat after objections from leprosy groups like Lepra Health in Action and the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations (ILEP), who were concerned that it could increase the stigma associated with the disease. Read more after the jump.
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50/50: A great 2011 movie and also the odds George Lucas gives that a person would survive if they were in a lead refrigerator during a nuclear blast.
We refer, of course, to the now infamous scene early in Steven Spielberg‘s 2008 film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull where Jones shields himself from a nuclear blast inside a refrigerator. The scene is so outrageous (or enraging, depending on who you talk to) the phrase “nuke the fridge” replaced Happy Days’ “jump the shark” as the way to describe a moment where a story finally goes from being good to bad.
In a New York Times article, one you’re going to be reading a lot about in the coming days, Lucas takes responsiblity for the scene and says, nay, insists there’s a 50/50 chance, if nuking the fridge was real, Indiana Jones could have survived. But is that what’s really important, George? Read more below. Read More »
Tomorrow the main pages of Google, Wikipedia, Reddit and other sites will go dark to protest support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a piece of legislation in the House of Representatives which is so wide-ranging in effect that it threatens to curb not only piracy and illegal activity, but the method of information use which characterizes the internet. (There is also the associated Protect IP act in the Senate.)
One big target of SOPA is any site that operates like The Pirate Bay. That is, sites outside the US that host or point to intellectual property copyrighted in the US. Others are foreign sites that scrape and steal content — sites such as a few that take /Film-written content on a daily basis, for example.
If SOPA passes, however, the power to shut down web sites in the US will be unprecedented. The US attorney general could shut down websites by asking courts to order ISPs to block access to them from within the US. And the fine print creates power to block sites — even legitimate sites — suspected or accused of copyright infringement, or those that link to sites that infringe copyright. That block could go into action very quickly, with little if any warning to the website.
Under SOPA, sites like /Film could well end up not being able to exist. Any one complaint about how we have used a video clip or song could shut us down. Potentially, even a scoop about an upcoming film could result in destructive action. The indiscriminate power created by SOPA is the reason for the protests by many internet giants.
One of the big supporters of SOPA, however, is the Motion Picture Association of America (MPA), which likes to blame piracy for a wide variety of industry ills. Today, in what seems like a hot-headed move, MPAA chairman and CEO Senator Chris Dodd issued a statement blasting companies planning SOPA protests. Read it after the break. Read More »
Playing in over 2,600 theaters nationwide, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast 3D had a very solid opening weekend gross of almost $18.5 million, placing it in second place behind Contraband. For a re-release of a movie that came out over twenty years ago, that would seem like a fantastic number. The truth is it’s way behind last year’s 3D re-release of The Lion King which made over $30 million on its opening weekend, and ultimately ended up grossing almost $95 million.
Why the disparity? Is it because Beauty and the Beast is less popular than The Lion King? A general 3D backlash? According to angry exhibitors, it might be because consumers can purchase a Blu-ray of Beauty and the Beast 3D right now, as it’s in theaters. Read more after the jump.
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As we all patiently wait for July and The Dark Knight Rises, odds are many of us will dust off that Blu-ray of The Dark Knight and give it a spin. Or seven. Christopher Nolan‘s second Batman film is so dense, there are new things to discover on each and every viewing. One example could be the intricacies of the score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. Where did they get all that wonderful noise? One /Film reader thinks he found out.
After the jump, watch a video that believes to have found a hidden inspiration for Zimmer and Newton Howard’s score to The Dark Knight. Read More »
There have been two basic reactions to the first few minutes of The Dark Knight Rises. The first is “holy crap, that was awesome!” and the second is “…but what the hell was Bane saying?” Christopher Nolan decided to use a mouth-covering mask for Tom Hardy‘s villain character, whose strength comes from an inhalable drug, and while the mask looks ominous it has the effect of really muffling the character’s speech.
The trailer drop for the film showed that this might not be as big a problem as some people feared, as Bane’s one big line in the trailer was affected by the mask, but still intelligible. Fans are still calling for some adjustment to be made to the film, however, seemingly out of fear that Bane’s garbled dialogue will ruin the experience.
Christopher Nolan’s reaction seems to be essentially “chill out. I got this,” and one report says that he plans to make only minor changes to the film’s sound mix. Read More »
