Every time I think the whole back-and-forth about Bill Murray and Ghostbusters 3 is finally drawing to a close, somehow it comes roaring back again. This time, Murray is the one who’s not ruling out the possibility, however small, of his involvement. Also after the jump:
Posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2012 by Russ Fischer
When Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho opened in 1960 it was carried into theaters on a wave of advertising that commanded audiences to keep mum about the story’s surprising elements. Thanks in part to that ad campaign, Psycho became a hit that changed horror films even as it legitimized them. The mainstream horror genre quickly developed around a codified set of tropes, character archetypes and specific rules that, fifty years later, are tiresome in their predictability.
Marketing for The Cabin in the Woods, from director Drew Goddard and his co-writer Joss Whedon, exploits some of that same “don’t tell friends how it ends!” PR mode. But that’s just a smokescreen. Goddard and Whedon aim to demolish the archetypes born in the wake of that early popularization of horror, and in doing so bring a sense of spontaneous fun back to the genre.
The pair succeeds spectacularly. The Cabin in the Woods is a blast. It’s a film for anyone who feels the spark has gone out of horror. This movie is clever and quite self-aware, and it has very specific ideas about what caused horror to fall into rote patterns. As they get around to explaining just how horror turned into what it is today, Goddard and Whedon give the audience a chum bucket full of the thrills it wants, but also argues that playing by the rules is the wrong way to go. Read More »
Posted on Friday, April 13th, 2012 by Angie Han
Now that Joel Kinnaman is locked for the lead role in José Padilha‘s Robocop reboot, MGM has started looking to fill out the rest of its cast — which of course means the rumor mill has begun churning in earnest. A new story has surfaced claiming that Edward Norton, Gael García Bernal, and Rebecca Hall are circling the project, and that producers are looking to get Sean Penn on board as well. If it’s true, Robocop could be pulling together a very promising cast. More after the jump.
Posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 by Russ Fischer
Over the past few days I’ve been in London, and west of the city in Iver Heath. In that small village is the renowned Pinewood Studios, home of the 007 Stage. The occasion was a visit to that massive stage to see a bit of the twenty-third James Bond film, Skyfall, in action, and to spend time talking to Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Berenice Marlohe, and some of the producers and crew.
Information about the film’s characters and story remains tightly controlled, but we did see a few notable things: preparations for and the beginning of the execution of a setpiece involving a confrontation between James Bond (Craig) and the villain Silva (Bardem) that is partially resolved through the intervention of a crashing London Tube train. We saw the construction of a stunning Shanghai casino set, and the remnants of an impressive deserted town meant to be on an island off the coast of Japan.
After the break, see three more new images from Skyfall, and be on the lookout for our full set report next week. Read More »
Posted on Friday, March 30th, 2012 by Russ Fischer
James Vanderbilt hit the screenwriter big time when he wrote Zodiac for David Fincher, and he was eventually tapped to work on the Spider-Man series for Sony. Now he’s one of a few people credited on The Amazing Spider-Man. He has developed a working relationship with the studio, doing work on the Total Recall remake as well.
Now has sold an original script to Sony: White House Down is an action film Vanderbilt wrote on spec that the studio just paid three million bucks to acquire. Details on that follow, as well as a bit of news on Vanderbilt’s contribution to the new RoboCop. Read More »
Posted on Monday, March 26th, 2012 by Russ Fischer
I’m tempted to put this down in the “actors are usually the last to know” column, but there is probably something to this, given that costume tests and so forth have evidently commenced: Joel Kinnaman, recently chosen to be the new RoboCop for director José Padilha, is talking about the new suit designs. We’ve heard suggestions from Padilha that his take on the film will be a little bit less exaggerated sci-fi cop movie than Paul Verhoeven’s original satire was. Now we’ve got one more detail: Kinnaman says this new version of the character “is going to be a lot more human.” Read More »
Posted on Friday, March 23rd, 2012 by Russ Fischer
John Carter isn’t the only write-down being talked about right now. While Disney’s recent release is a much bigger financial albatross, with the company being forced to call it a $200m loss, MGM now saying that David Fincher‘s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which it co-financed, hit below studio expectations and is “a modest loss.”
The studio wanted about 10% better returns on the picture, but the real takeaway here is what this effect this might have on further adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium novels. MGM has the option to co-finance the next two films and is interested in doing, so. But it wants “better economics,” which means cheaper films. And that could mean that David Fincher will not direct. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 by Germain Lussier
Say what you want about the James Bond movies but one of the staples both male and female fans look forward with each installment is the new Bond girl. Who doesn’t love seeing a gorgeous woman who can not only kick ass but has a personality that makes a man like Bond melt in his Armani? And while history has given us both good and bad when it comes to Bond girls, their iconography is undeniable.
Artist Michael Gillette created a series of Bond girl images for the covers of Ian Fleming‘s James Bond novels back in 2008 and now they’re finally available as limited edition art prints. Check out a bunch of the images and find out how to buy them after the jump. Read More »
