Blame Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps for this one, as interest in the Olympic games, and specifically the US-dominated swimming competitions, is likely a big factor in kick-starting a film that has been in development since 1997. Beached is the story of “a chubby 4-year-old child who falls overboard during a family outing, is raised by whales and goes on to become an Olympic swimmer.”
Yeah, you read that correctly. THR says that Jon Turteltaub, director of the two National Treasure movies, is now signed to direct the film for Fox 2000. Ted Griffin originally sold the script back in the late ’90s, and for a while Betty Thomas (Doctor Doolittle) was set to direct. Turteltaub will oversee a new draft, based on the last script turned in by Jordan Roberts.
We complain when another reboot, remake, or needless sequel is added to the parade of films in development, and this one is at least original. Very original, at that, if also very ridiculous. But done well, it could end up in live-action fairy tale territory, and not in the same way that, say, Snow White and the Huntsman wants to do.
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Nike is well-known for doing beautiful commercials directed by some of the biggest filmmakers of yesterday, today and tomorrow. (See examples one, two, three.) The company’s latest spot is right up there with the great ones. Directed by talented filmmaker Patrick Boivin, it stars Spanish soccer star Andrés Iniesta as a marionette. The whole thing is done in stop-motion and is produced by legendary stop-motion studio Aardman Animation, the creators of Wallace & Gromit. Check it out below. Read More »
In 1980, Martin Scorsese set the bar for the best film of that decade with his black and white boxing masterpiece, Raging Bull. Starring Robert De Niro as legendary boxer Jake LaMotta, Scorsese’s technique was dwarfed only by the performances he got out of his cast in the tale of a boxer’s rise to the top and subsequent mental breakdown. In recent months, fans of the movie have been a bit up in arms as an unneeded, unauthorized sequel went into production putting the film’s legacy on the line. That’s since been settled and now fans have another reason to celebrate.
Spoke Art has commissioned Grzegorz Domaradzki, aka Gabz, to do a very limited edition screenprint for the classic film. It’s available in both English and Polish, on both regular and metallic paper, and as you can see above, the image rules. You can check the posters out exclusively after the jump. Read More »
Speed and accuracy are generally considered to be the two most important skills while pitching. If a guy can clock in the 90s on the radar gun or paint the corner of the strike zone, he’s likely to be a millionaire. However, in Major League Baseball, two pitchers remain mostly unaware of where their pitches will end up and somewhat disinterested at their speed. They are Tim Wakefield, formerly of the Boston Red Sox and R.A. Dickey, currently of the New York Mets. These two men throw the knuckelball, a pitch that slowly floats around in the air, dropping down for a strike. Its lack of speed and unpredictable accuracy have made the pitch a dying art form, regularly mocked, but in a new documentary by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work) they telling the inspiring story of two pitchers who have made the knuckleball their pitch of choice.
After the jump, check out the brand new trailer for Knuckleball!, which opens in select theaters and on demand September 18. Read More »
The next two statements are totally true. World Wrestling Entertainment is producing an animated Scooby-Doo film centering on a murder mystery at Wrestlemania, and a man shot himself in the ass while sitting down in a screening of The Bourne Legacy. After the jump, read the details on the crazy but true stories. Read More »
Rush reunites director Ron Howard with his Frost/Nixon screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen), to tell the story of real-life racing rivals James Hunt and Niki Lauda, whose competition came to a head during Formula 1 series in the mid-’70s. Chris Hemsworth (Thor, The Cabin in the Woods) plays Hunt and Daniel Brühl (Inglourious Basterds) is Lauda, who nearly died in a terrible crash in 1976, but strapped himself back into the driver’s seat only weeks later to challenge Hunt. Also appearing in the movie are Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara, Christian McKay, and Natalie Dormer.
We’ve seen on-set pics from the production, but the still above is one of four images that recently hit the film’s official site. Given the fact that the opening date is more than a year away we’re not likely to see much footage any time soon, but the official stills give us a fairly good idea of how things look, at the very least. Read More »
Clint Eastwood came out of semi-retirement as an actor to star in Trouble With the Curve, the directorial debut of his long-time production partner Robert Lorenz. Eastwood plays an aging baseball scout who is on a trip to check out a new player. But his eyesight is going — cue some drama right there — and his slightly estranged daughter (Amy Adams) joins him on the scout.
The basic premise sounds like a familiar, relatively safe one, and this first trailer for the film doesn’t challenge that idea. Eastwood’s persona here looks just a bit softer than his “git off my lawn!” attitude from Gran Torino, but this is still the sort of character we expect to see the star play at this point. Adams is more than strong enough to take him on, and Justin Timberlake looks gently appealing as another scout who has romantic intentions towards Adams. Read More »
When it was revealed a movie called Raging Bull II was actually being made, most of us were just waiting for the lawsuit to happen. Then it did. The producers and owners of Martin Scorsese’s 1980 masterpiece Raging Bull sued the Martin Guigui-directed, William Forsythe-starring picture, which was endorsed by the film’s subject, boxer Jake LaMotta, and virtually no one else. The lawsuit ordered them to put a halt to production and never release any of the footage.
Now MGM, which owns the original film, has agreed to drop the lawsuit on the grounds that the film no longer be called Raging Bull II and that the film completely disassociates itself from the Scorsese picture. The new title is The Bronx Bull, and though it’s still the story of Jake LaMotta after the events in Raging Bull, it will not play up that angle. Read more after the jump. Read More »
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