Famous comic creator Stan Lee sent out some tweets today claiming that he has met with director Edgar Wright regarding an Ant-Man movie, which Marvel is “prepping”, according to Lee. We know that Wright has been developing the project for a couple years now, and put the comic book adaptation on the backburner once he went into production on Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. But now that Pilgrim is cut, and in the special effects phase of post production, might Wright be back at work at the Ant-Man? Who knows.
Lee might be completely out of the loop (this is very likely) and might only be repeating what he last heard about the project. However, Wright did retweet Lee’s comments and added “Sometimes you shouldn’t meet your heroes in case they disappoint. @ does not disappoint,” confirming the meeting. Last night Wright tweeted about a dinner meeting he had with Iron Man director Jon Favreau in the UK, but Wright was clear to point out that “Amazingly, we talked neither Avengers nor Antman.”
Lee also mentioned that Marvel is developing movie projects featuring Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, Black Panther and many others. None of this information hasn’t been included in previous internet rumors/reports however. Check out his tweets on the subject, after the jump.
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I’m sure quite a few people have called for something like this in discussions about what Warner Bros. should do to make Superman work on the big screen: the studio is reportedly turning to Christopher Nolan to act as a “godfather” to help shepherd development of a new Superman film. Before we go further, at this point Nolan is not writing, and is not directing. Rather, Nolan would play more of a mentor’s role to help the film get moving. In other words, WB wants him to communicate some of the methods he used to reinvent Batman on film to help Superman get off the ground in time for Warners to exploit the character before the rights go back to the Siegel and Shuster families. Read More »
Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption, Mystic River, The Player) has been cast in Martin Campbell’s big screen adaptation of the DC Comics superhero Green Lantern.
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You’re going to be seeing this one everywhere today, so let’s get it out of the way quick. In a report about David Goyer leaving FlashForward, Nikki Finke pegs script duties on the third Batman movie as one of the primary reasons he walked away. The direct quote from Goyer was pretty vague (”As my feature projects have started ramping up again, I felt I was being pulled in too many directions”) and Finke spins that directly into a statement about Goyer and Jonathan Nolan writing Batman 3. (”Goyer’s feature career is really heating up, since he co-wrote Batman Begins, and penned the story for The Dark Knight, and is now writing the third Batman installment with Chris Nolan’s brother Jonah.”)
Without any further confirmation, don’t get too excited about that yet. Goyer has a lot of feature projects in the fire, and while Finke has had a lot of good info lately, this one sounds like she’s spinning a broad statement into something too specific. There may be work of some sort going on, but read this one as unsubstantiated for now.
As is to be expected, director Joe Johnston was bombarded with questions about The First Avenger: Captain America, as he appeared on the junket scene to promote his new film, The Wolfman. Collider, The LA Times, Shock and AICN collectively learned a bunch of bits about the next Marvel comic adaptation. I’ve included the highlights below, but click the links to read the full interviews on the respective sites.
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Superhero films are big. Many, many MANY actors audition for the lead role. To give you an idea of just how many, sometimes it will come down to a dozen actors at the screentest phase, where the candidates actually suit up and read before a film camera. I mention this to give you some context. A lot of actors try out for roles all the time and don’t get a call back — this is Hollywood.
So why would I be reporting a story about a television actor who auditioned for the lead in Marvel’s next comic book adaptation? Because it does mean something. It might give you an idea of what the casting director/filmmaker is searching for. It might even give you an idea of the level of talent they might be checking out. So on to the story…
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It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, excluding The Tooth Fairy starring The Rock, that offer proof. /Film’s Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review, or an interview.
It’s rare when the marketing campaign for an indie movie has a celebratory feel, clearly organized by a team as psyched on the feature as they hope the recipient will be. Soon after learning of Black Dynamite last year, several packages arrived at my home/office in correlation with its theatrical release. They contained quality tees—one read “Fight Smack In The Orphanage” in bold-ass white-on-black CAPS—along with a high concept soundtrack and a media kit ribboned and accented with a syringe pen. For months thereafter, director and co-writer Scott Sanders seemed to personally and tirelessly push Dynamite to every white sucka on Internet Geek Street. It was admirable, considering that his second feature film was indeed a pretty fun, meticulously designed hat tip to the Afro-Fu era of Dolemite.
The film is also a stable showcase for Sanders’s pal Michael Jai White (Spawn, The Dark Knight) to launch a renewed case for chiseled action stardom, and a welcome invite for underseen talents like Tommy Davidson and Arsenio Hall to get retarded. Oh, and if you ever wondered about the true origin of chicken and waffles? That’s in there too. During an absurd week that saw oversensitive Twitterers erupt over the existence of soul food, what better film and DVD to welcome Black History Month? Slashfilm’s Weekend Weirdness asked Sanders a few questions about Dynamite’s future as a CIA agent-cum-VietNam veteran-cum-inner city exterminator of “jive ass” dummies. (Note: NSFW movie stills after the jump.)
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We’ve known that this would be happening, but a last-minute Friday report from Mike Fleming at Deadline Hollywood confirms Daredevil as the latest superhero reboot. David Scarpa, writer of The Last Castle and Fox’s The Day the Earth Stood Still remake, is scripting. No other talent is announced at this point. Peter Chernin, who is also working on that new Planet of the Apes movie, is producing.
Just in case you have any doubt about how things will go with other Marvel character movies lodged at studios like Fox, Fleming notes that this reboot is going forward for one simple reason: unless Fox moves forward with Daredevil the studio risks losing the character to Marvel/Disney. Yeah, that means we’ll still be hearing about Fantastic Four and likely Silver Surfer movies at some point, too. (The LA Times followed up with a report about the reboot, but doesn’t offer any other new info)
Given the fact that Marvel and DC Comics characters have proved to be the new mainstays for summer moviegoing, I’m surprised that we haven’t seen a new documentary that reaches deep into the history of either company. That might be about to change as Jeffrey Blitz and Sean Welch (who directed and produced Spellbound, Rocket Science and Lucky) are producing a doc about DC. Mac Carter, who worked on Spellbound, is directing the film, which we may see at Comic Con. Read More »
It’s difficult at this point for me to reconcile the directorial work of Luc Besson with his endless string of writing and producing projects. I’m still trying to wash the taste of From Paris with Love out of my mouth, and then a new teaser trailer for The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec drops in my lap. Looking at this, I wonder if Besson still has it, at least when he’s fully committed to a film as a director.
Watch the new clip after the break, and try to make some prediction as to whether the film will be a grand continental adventure in the Indiana Jones mold, or just another exercise in style over substance. Read More »
