This weekend marks the release of the first new Studio Ghibli film on U.S. screens since 2009. It’s called The Secret World of Arriety and besides being a very sweet, enjoyable film, the title is also a great way to describe the world of Ghibli itself. Everything about their productions is shrouded in secrecy. Then, one day, as if by magic, a lovely movie appears, beautifully animated for the world to see.
Due to that level of secrecy, it’s rare that any worthwhile information on a Ghibli project pops up before it’s good and ready. But today it has. After the jump, read some information about a Ghibli project involving a samurai and another potentially by the director of Evangelion. Read More »
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One of the major obstacles Disney is currently facing with their massive blockbuster John Carter is explaining how and why this movie, which looks so similar to so many others, was made at all. It’s based on an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, first published in 1917, that has become so engrained in the popular conscious it has almost lost its identity. Burroughs’ vision was so ahead of its time and influenced so many things that came after, those properties have long since taken ownership. But the fact of the matter is, without John Carter, there’s no Star Wars, no Avatar, no Blade Runner, almost no sci-fi in general.
Aiming to fix some of that, Disney has released a 90-second featurette reintroducing the world to John Carter. They’ve also thrown in a bunch of new footage to sweeten the pot. But not too much. The Andrew Stanton-directed film starring Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe, Mark Strong and others will be released March 9. Check it out after the jump. Read More »
Disney’s Maleficent may have lost Tim Burton as director last year but Angelina Jolie, long attached to star as the wicked witch introduced in Snow White, isn’t going anywhere. In fact, the actress says the film is next after her promo run ends for her directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey. Read More »
In spoiler hunting, two things rarely lie: domain registration and upcoming toys. The domains come first and can reveal anything from the existence of a project to a rumored title. Toys, on the other hand, are less visible, more easily kept under wraps. They’re made by private companies that put them into development way in advance of a film’s release because they need to be mass produced. Unfortunately, toy security isn’t like movie security. Release a catalog here, attend a major toy convention there, and new products are revealed long before studios are ready to show their hand.
Recently, this happened with the reveal of The Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man and it’s happened again with the villains of The Avengers. After the jump, check out a bunch of images that – if true – would be considered major spoilers for the film. Read More »
For quite some time, Disney has been developing a new live-action version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in which the old story would get a fairly modern makeover. Michael Chabon wrote the initial version, but the film has been tweaked a few times over the past decade with directors as disparate as Yuen Wo-ping and Francis Lawrence attached at different times.
Then something happened. Or, really, two somethings happened, as Universal and Relativity Media beat Disney to the punch with Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror, both of which are set to open this year. Two live-action Snow White re-tellings is goofy enough, and adding a third would strain audience interest like crazy.
So the Disney movie, which has had various titles over the years (most commonly Snow and the Seven) has been reworked again to eliminate all overt Snow White ties. What’s left is The Order of the Seven, a martial arts action film centered around a young heroine. Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Hanna) is in talks to take that lead role. Read More »
If you walked out of The Muppets feeling like you were on top of the world, Bret McKenzie was a big reason. The actor/singer/songwriter, best known for his HBO series Flight of the Conchords, was hired by director James Bobin to write many of the brand new songs for characters like Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo and others to sing in the Muppets triumphant return to the screen. And to that aim, McKenzie was a success. He was rewarded for his work with an Oscar-nomination for Best Original Song for “Man or Muppet,” which features Jason Segel’s character Gary and his brother, Walter the Muppet, signing about their true identities. It’s funny, clever, catchy and has a 50/50 shot at gold since only two songs are nominated.
We sat down to talk to McKenzie about the honor, his process integrating songs in the film, the song not being performed at the Oscars, as well as his upcoming role in a tiny film called The Hobbit and more. Watch the video interview after the jump. Read More »
While on the Utah set of John Carter, a group of journalists (including myself) has the opportunity to interview to the cast and crew. On the following pages, you can read the interviews we conducted on set, transcribed in full:
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I visited Mars almost two years ago. It was April 2010 and the film set was in the middle of nowhere. Finding Nemo/WALL-E director Andrew Stanton was making his live-action debut John Carter, a big screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs‘s novel A Princess of Mars. There had been many failed attempts to bring the material to the big screen, but somehow Stanton was able to convince the studio heads to let him be the one to make the adaptation at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Disney flew a group of journalists into the Las Vegas airport, where we boarded a shuttle bus to a location five hours away. A location so far away that we were no longer in Nevada. Located at the center of the Grand Circle, Big Water Utah has a population of only 417 people (which probably explains why you didn’t see many John Carter set photos). The set was located out in the middle of a desert.
You wouldn’t have any idea a big Hollywood production was being shot in town, aside from small yellow signs that read “BARSOOM” which help crew members find the small dirt road which leads to the set. And by set, I mean a few structures which have been constructed on the grey dirt in the middle of these large brown hills made of sandstone. Barsoom, of course, is what the Martians in the books call their home planet.
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