Briefly: The movie-and-TV adaptation of Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower that Ron Howard, Akiva Goldsman and Brian Grazer have been assembling has gone through a few revisions. At this point, it stands as a one-film deal financed by Media Rights Capital, with Russell Crowe starring as Roland the gunslinger. If that film does well, MRC could move forward on more movies.
But things have become a bit more complicated. Grazer now says that there’s a new financing offer on the table, which would allow the original plan of three movies and two limited TV series to be shot. Which deal will they take?
Grazer told Deadline that “a Silicon Valley investor” has come forward with a proposal to finance The Dark Tower as it was originally planned. If there are two funding possibilities out there, the situation probably also has factors we can’t guess. (For starters, MRC is well-established, while this new investor might not have much media experience.) So there’s no point to assuming that this will go one way or the other. Could MRC and the new investor work together? Regardless, for those who’ve hoped to see the bigger Dark Tower, there’s a glimmer of hope.
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Director Rob Marshall has just cast two princes for his Disney musical Into The Woods. Star Trek‘s Chris Pine and Brokeback Mountain‘s Jake Gyllenhaal are in talks to join an increasingly star-studded cast set for the fairy-tale blending musical. Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp are already attached as the film’s main witch and a sultry wolf, while Pine and Gyllenhall would be Cinderella and Rapunzel’s princes. It’ll mark the first time either has sung on screen. Read More »
Each of the few times I’ve watched this Sleepy Hollow trailer, a new obvious influence comes to mind: Captain America, The Terminator, The X-Files, Demolition Man, and National Treasure are all in here, just for starters.
Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are the “masterminds” behind this goofy Mad Libs in which Ichabod Crane was tasked by George Washington with killing one specific redcoat. This redcoat becomes the Headless Horseman — but not merely your run of the mill ghostly horseman. He’s one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This horseman is now running around modern America, and Ichabod Crane is reawakened to stop him.
Oh, and there’s a “there’s a Starbucks everywhere” joke. And Orlando Jones, and Clancy Brown. The whole thing is either going to be so ridiculous it transcends the total absurdity of the premise. Or, as the trailer below suggests, it might not. Read More »
With Johnny Depp‘s schedule quickly filling up and a Summer 2015 release date already locked in, Disney is feeling the pressure to hire a director for Pirates of the Caribbean 5. Rob Marshall, who directed the last film, was rumored to return but he’s already working on Into The Woods. That leaves the door open for someone new.
Deadline reports Disney will make a decision very soon and have narrowed it down to three choices, all of which are very pretty unconventional. They are Fredrik Bond (The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman), the team of Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki) and Rupert Sanders (Snow White And the Huntsman). Read More »
The King of the North will now be a Disney Prince. Richard Madden, who plays Rob Stark in HBO’s Game of Thrones, has been cast in Kenneth Branagh‘s live-action remake of Cinderella as the Prince. He was rumored to be up for the role in April and now officially joins a cast that includes Lily James (Downton Abbey) as Cinderella and Cate Blanchett as the wicked stepmother. Read More »
We knew this was in the works for a while now, it hasn’t exactly been a secret. But today Universal Studios has officially announced that they are building Diagon Alley in Universal Studios Orlando Resort. The new area will be built where the Jaws ride was formerly set, and will connect the two parks via a Hogwarts Express ride experience (I’m sure this ride experience will result in a lot of guests supersizing their passes to include both parks). Fans exploring Universal’s Islands of Adventure will experience Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, and the other theme park will feature the new areas that will represent the London and Diagon Alley sides to the Harry Potter world. Details are pretty thin right now, but Universal says the new area will feature “shops, a restaurant and an innovative, marquee attraction based on Gringotts bank.” See the full awesome concept image after the jump.
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After the success of the Lord of the Rings films, The Hobbit and now Game of Thrones, Warner Bros. is looking to kick off another major fantasy franchise. They’ve just purchased the rights to Dungeons & Dragons, the incredibly famous tabletop role playing game in which players create characters and go on adventures through mystical worlds.
Screenwriter David Leslie Johnson is writing the film based on his own script, Chainmail, which was itself based on a fantasy game that predated D&D. Now that Warner Bros. owns the rights to the more popular brand though, Leslie Johnson is retrofitting his script to fit that game. One of this film’s producers, Courtney Soloman, actually directed a D&D film released by New Line 13 years ago. (There have also been two direct-to-DVD sequels.) That 2000 release was a financial and critical disaster, but WB is going to try again. Read More »
Briefly: In the big GQ profile of Robert Downey, Jr. that ran a few weeks ago, the actor mentioned the version of Pinocchio that he had been working on with Tim Burton set to direct. Downey pitched the idea to Warner Bros. (his first pitch, he said!) and positioned it as a high priority for him. In another interview, Downey suggested that Burton had fallen away, and that Ben Stiller had become his choice to sit in the director’s chair.
Now Deadlne has confirmed that Stiller is in talks to direct the movie. Downey’s a pretty powerful guy right now, and with his career in a state of semi-free agency thanks to the end of his Marvel contract, one would guess that he can get just about whatever he wants, so it’s not surprising to hear that this is in motion. Stiller and Downey have a working history as well, thanks to Tropic Thunder. And with footage from Ben Stiller’s new film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty drawing raves and early Oscar predictions after debuting at CinemaCon, he’s in a good place as well.
Jane Goldman wrote one draft of Pinocchio; but now the film will go in a new direction with a new writer.
