A few years back, Jon Spaihts became popular in Hollywood thanks in part to his still-unproduced sci-fi screenplay Passengers. That led to a gig writing what became Prometheus. Most of us don’t know precisely how Prometheus would have played if Spaihts had been the lone writer on the project; his draft has never been read by many fans. (We can, however, get some idea about Spaihts from The Darkest Hour, which he wrote.)
Now Spaihts has been tapped to write another modern take on a well-known piece of filmed sci-fi. He’ll rewrite the Travis Beacham script for Joseph Kosinski‘s remake of The Black Hole. Read More »
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The end of Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus is just the beginning of a new story. As Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) flies up into space it’s obvious that the prequel (of sorts) to Alien has more ground to cover. Some of the film’s questions were answered by the time the credits rolled, but many were not. The unresolved story points became a topic in criticisms levied at the film.
Further answers seem likely to come in the form of a sequel. While Prometheus wasn’t the gargantuan blockbuster many thought it would be, the director, screenwriter, and star all confirmed a follow-up has long been discussed and is currently in-development. That’s where things have sat for the past few months.
Now a report says Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox are “freaking out” trying to figure out how to continue the franchise. They’re reportedly ”taking pitches from basically anyone who can crack the story,” and blame for the problems is placed squarely on the shoulders of screenwriter Damon Lindelof. The report says Lindelof came on board, altered Jon Spaihts‘ original script from a one-shot to a trilogy and then abandoned the franchise to work on Star Trek Into Darkness and Tomorrowland.
I asked Lindelof about this accusation on Twitter, and he responded with a long e-mail. You can read that below, along with a few other thoughts. Read More »
The multi-hyphenate David Lowery is going to be someone that many more people are talking about within the next few years. He’s got three films doing the festival circuit this year: the indie drama Pit Stop, which he co-wrote; the exceptional ’60s-set western Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which he wrote and directed; and Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color, which Lowery edited. I haven’t seen Pit Stop at this point, but his other two 2013 efforts are two of the best films of the year so far.
Given that resume for this year alone, I wouldn’t have been surprised by anything Lowery did next. Except for this: he’ll write a reboot of Disney’s ’70s live-action/animation hybrid Pete’s Dragon, in which a young orphaned boy flees his abusive adoptive family, with the help of his dragon friend Elliott. Read More »
Friday morning, Kevin Smith got out of bed and started writing Clerks III. We know this because he posted the cover page on Facebook and Twitter. The Facebook post is particularaly enlightening because Smith reveals today is the 20th anniversary of the first day of shooting on Clerks. He also vows that Clerks III will be “the best film I’ve ever made.” Read more and see the cover page below. Read More »
One of 2012′s most bickered about films was Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus. We started the year debating whether or not it was an Alien film. By the time we saw the movie we debated if it was good or not. Now that it’s on Blu-ray, we’re debating if it’s worth revisiting. Two people who certainly think it is are director Ridley Scott and star Noomi Rapace.
Doing interviews for her latest film, Dead Man Down, Rapace confirmed she recently met with Scott to discuss a sequel and that ideas are being formed. She would not say who would be writing it (not Damon Lindelof, we know) but had some strong thoughts on where she’d like it to go thematically. Read her quotes below. Read More »
Seth Grahame-Smith, the writer behind Dark Shadows and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, has been hired by 20th Century Fox to do a polish on Josh Trank‘s reboot of Fantastic Four. Matthew Vaughn recently came on as a producer and the studio has set a release date of March 6, 2015. Jeremy Slater wrote the original draft. Read More »
How is director Francis Lawrence possibly going to go from directing The Hunger Games: Catching Fire this year right into The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2 in 2014 and 2015 respectively? Might not be easy, but having his screenplays completed nice and early will help.
Emmy-award winning screenwriter Danny Strong, recently in the news due to the success of HBO’s Game Change, was hired to write The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 back in October. His deal had an option for him to write the second part if Lionsgate liked his first script. Well he’s done, they like it, and he’s now working on Part 2. Read More »
The following story and excerpt come from Jeff Goldsmith:
After winning BAFTAs for Best Director and Best Picture, Argo continues to enjoy its festive awards season glow.
For all the things going right for Argo, it’s interesting to learn more about the history behind the real script’s difficult past (the movie/script inside the movie). The digital iPad magazine Backstory just published issue 04, their awards season issue, and in it they did a profile about a script called Lord of Light by screenwriter Barry Ira Geller — the writer of the script that went on to become known as Argo.
Not only did Backstory track down and interview Geller, who in real life had his script supposedly stolen by the C.I.A., Backstory was also given permission to run original Jack Kirby storyboards and even the first 20 pages of the script that fooled the Iranian government! Now, Backstory gave /Film the exclusive permission to reprint the first four pages of their article, which you can see after the jump as screenshots.
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