Who isn’t already excited for the fifth season of Lost? ABC has released a two minute sneak peak at the season premiere “Because You Left”, which airs on Wednesday, January 21st 2009. Thanks to /Film reader Kyle for the tip.

Discuss: Who are the lawyers working for? Another question! Damn you JJ Abrams!!!!

Update: Apparently Dark Horizon’s scooper was inaccurate. George Miller is still officially attached to a Justice League movie (which doesn’t necessarily mean that Warner Bros is going to make one any time soon) and did not appear on a Sydney morning show earlier this week.

While making an appearance on a Sydney morning show, director George Miller has confirmed that he is no longer involved with Warner Bros’ Justice League movie in any capacity. If you remember, Warners had been trying to retool the concept with Miller still at the helm. Well, not anymore. According to Dark Horizons, the Aussie filmmaker said that the studio wants “bigger stars in their superhero movies now.”

Yeah, and I’m sure the online backlash to their Justice League 90210 concept had nothing to do with this big realization? Or maybe it was the success of Marvel’s recent films? Either way, I’m kinda glad that Miller is no longer involved. He’s a great director but I never saw him as the right guy to tackle superhero material.

Discuss: Who should direct a big screen Justice League movie?

In this episode of the /Filmcast, Dave, Peter, Devindra, and Adam weigh in on the Planet of the Apes prequel, discuss their lack of enthusiasm for Milk, and praise the latent talent of Keanu Reeves. Chris and Jimmy from the enormously popular Scene Unseen podcast join us to deliver their movie review stylings for Australia.

Make sure to tune in next week for our special Wire-themed episode! You can reach the /Filmcast by e-mail or by phone (781-583-1993) with questions, comments, suggestions, praise, and complaints.

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It’s impossible to pay attention to all the movie awards announcements each year, because there are just so many of them. But the Independent Spirit Awards is one of the second tier (read: non-Academy/Globe) Awards shows that I actually respect and pa attention to. Today the 2009 Indie Spirit nominations were announced. Frozen River and Ballast lead with six nominations each, followed by Rachel Getting Married with five nominations, The Wrestler, Milk, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and The Visitor with three each. Take a look at the full list below:

Best Feature
Ballast
Frozen River
Rachel Getting Married
Wendy and Lucy
The Wrestler

Best First Feature
Afterschool
Medicine for Melancholy
Sangre De Mi Sangre
Sleep Dealer
Synecdoche, New York

Best Director
Ramin Bahrani - Chop Shop
Jonathan Demme - Rachel Getting Married
Lance Hammer - Ballast
Courtney Hunt - Frozen River
Tom McCarthy - The Visitor

Best Male Lead
Javier Bardem - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Sean Penn - Milk
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Best Female Lead
Summer Bishil - Towelhead
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Tarra Riggs - Ballast
Michelle Williams - Wendy and Lucy

Best Supporting Male
James Franco - Milk
Anthony Mackie - The Hurt Locker
Charlie McDermott - Frozen River
JimMyron Ross - Ballast
Haaz Sleiman - The Visitor

Best Supporting Female
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Rosemarie DeWitt - Rachel Getting Married
Rosie Perez - The Take
Misty Upham - Frozen River
Debra Winger - Rachel Getting Married

Best Screenplay
Woody Allen - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck - Sugar
Charlie Kaufman - Synecdoche, New York
Howard A. Rodman - Savage Grace
Christopher Zalla - Sangre De Mi Sangre

Best Cinematography
Maryse Alberti - The Wrestler
Lol Crawley - Ballast
James Laxton - Medicine for Melancholy
Harris Savides - Milk
Michael Simmonds - Chop Shop

Best Documentary
The Betrayal
Encounters at the End of the World
Man on Wire
The Order of Myths
Up the Yangtze

Best Foreign Film
The Class (France)
Gomorra (Italy)
Hunger (U.K./Ireland)
Secret of the Grain (France)
Silent Light (Mexico/France/Netherlands/Germany)

The Spirit Awards Nominating Committee applies the following guidelines in making its selections. Final interpretation of all rules and regulations and eligibility of submissions shall be made by the Spirit Awards Nominating Committee:
1. Uniqueness of vision
2. Original, provocative subject matter
3. Economy of means
4. Percentage of financing from independent sources

via: FSR

A couple hours ago I posted a story about Mark Romanek’s return to feature film with an adaptation of Never Let Me Go. Some of you might be wondering what the music video turned feature film director (One Hour Photo) has been up to. /Film reader Craig A sent me a link to Romanek’s latest Nike commercial “The Chalk”. For those of you interested, I have included it below. Apparently Romanek was also responsible for the recent Coldplay iTunes ad.. It will be good to see him return to film.

Mark Romanek has signed on to direct a big screen adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go. According to Production Weekly, Beach author and 28 Days Later/Sunshine screenwriter Alex Garland penned the adaptation.

Romanek is probably best known for his music video work. He directed the video for Michael and Janet Jackson’s “Scream” in 1995, a sci-fi themed video which won the 1996 Grammy for Best Music Video, and to date, is still the most expensive music video ever produced ($7 million). His other videos include Closer for Nine Inch Nails, Criminal for Fiona Apple, Devil’s Haircut for Beck, and Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”.

In 2002, he made a wonderful indie thriller called One Hour Photo, which starred Robin Williams as an photo lab employee who becomes obsessed with a young suburban family (if you haven’t seen it, netflix it!). Romanek was originally attached to dieect The Wolf Man for Universal but dropped out for undisclosed reasons. The official book description follows:

“From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love. As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory. And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed–even comforted–by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now. A tale of deceptive simplicity, Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance–and takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro’s finest work.”

The book was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Novels (from 1923 to the Present), featured on many top ten books of 2005 lists, and a finalist in the National Book Critic Circle Award. For those interested, you can buy the softcover for only $11.20 on Amazon.

This Week in DVD is a column that compiles all the latest info regarding new DVD releases, sales, and exclusive deals from stores including Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Fry’s.

Please don’t take the commentary on the movies and TV shows too seriously, as they’re meant not to be reviews but rather previews that include the general thoughts and ramblings of a twice-committed DVD addict. The categories represent solely the author’s intentions towards the DVDs at hand, and are in no way meant to be a reflection on what he thinks other people should rent or buy. So if he ends up putting a movie you like in the “Skip it” section without having seen it, please keep in mind that the time you could spend leaving a spiteful but ultimately futile comment could instead be used for more pleasant things in life. Like buying DVDs.

STEP BROTHERS
(Available as single-disc and 2-Disc Unrated Edition)
Not a movie to be looked at as anything other than random hilarity, Step Brothers proves that Will Ferrell isn’t out of the game just yet. It also provides John C. Reilly another opportunity to show off what a terrific talent he is, despite repeatedly being rejected by audiences when it comes to box office earnings. If you’re in the mood to laugh and don’t feel like paying attention to pesky annoyances like “plot” and “character development,” then check this one out. Unlike most comedies, it only gets funnier on repeat viewings.
Blu-ray? Yes.
Notable Extras: The single-disc includes extended scenes, a gag reel, a Line-O-Rama, a making of featurette, and a Boats ‘N Hoes music video. The 2-disc additionally includes Job Interviews, a Music of Step Brothers featurette, and more deleted and extended scenes.

*Does not include 2-Disc Edition, which costs $22.99 at each of the listed stores (including Amazon).

WANTED
(Available as single-disc and 2-Disc Special Edition)
Wanted is great fun, but it’s not a film that needs to be watched more than once. It’s held together solely by the badass action sequences; once the thrill of those are lost, all you’re left with is an incredibly stupid screenplay and one goofy sequence after another. Rent it, enjoy it, forget it.
Blu-ray? Yes.
Notable Extras: The 2-disc will include 8 featurettes (’Cast and Characters’, ‘Stunts on the L Train’, ‘Special Effects: The Art of the Impossible’, ‘Groundbreaking Visual Effects: From Imagination to Execution’, ‘The Origins of Wanted: Bringing the Graphic Novel to Life’, ‘Through the Eyes of Visionary Director Timur Bekmambetov’), a feature on the making of the video game, Wanted: Motion Comics, a “killer” extended scene, and a digital copy of the film.

*Does not include 2-Disc Edition, which costs $22.99 at each of the listed stores (including Amazon).

EXCLUSIVE DEAL:
What? Exclusive production notes with 2-Disc set ($22.99).
Where? Target.

EXCLUSIVE DEAL:
What? Exclusive Lithograph.
Where? Best Buy.

EXCLUSIVE DEAL:
What? Free Wanted chrome keychain with 2-Disc set ($22.99).
Where? Circuit City.

Also available is this Limited Edition Collector’s Gift Set, which can be bought off Amazon for $39.99. You can read more about it HERE.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN
(Available as single-disc and 3-Disc Collector’s Edition)
Is it just me, or has the amount of interest in this latest entry of the Narnia series been shockingly minimal, at least in the US? Other than the occasional comment about how surprisingly violent the film is for a PG family adventure, I can’t recall any real discussion regarding it from fellow film geeks since its release. I was one of the few that was severely disappointed by The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, which made me feel a little left out when everyone kept discussing how great it was. But maybe people have gotten their fill of Narnia, since the sequel grossed less than half the amount of the first one (while costing $20 million more). Regardless, I’m willing to give the series a second chance now that Caspian has hit DVD.
Blu-ray? Yes.
Notable Extras: The single-disc includes a commentary with director Andrew Adamson and actors. The 3-disc includes that, along with deleted scenes, 7 featurettes, a blooper reel, deleted scenes, interactive games and a digital copy of the film.

*Does not include 3-Disc Edition, which costs $27.99 at Best Buy and Circuit City, $29.99 at Target, $34.99 at Fry’s, and $22.99 at Amazon.

THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE
(Available as single-disc and 3-Disc Ultimate X-Phile Edition)
What a stunningly godawful movie. With straight-to-cable production values, a surprisingly lackluster storyline and confusing character developments (Wait, why are Mulder and Scully sleeping in the same bed all of a sudden? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?), there is literally nothing worth praising here. I’m not an X-Files fan by any means, but I actually quite enjoyed the first film. Rest assured, I Want to Believe is a purely pedestrian affair in comparison. Not even recommended for diehard fans, unless they’re truly desperate for another helping of Mulder and Scully and don’t mind the film amounting to nothing more than a really weak episode of the show.
Blu-ray? Yes.
Notable Extras: The single-disc includes both the theatrical and Unrated Extended Cut of the film, an audio commentary by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, featurettes (’Body Parts: Special Make-up Effects’, ‘Chris Carter: Statements on Green Production’), deleted scenes and a gag reel. The 3-disc includes that, plus a feature-length documentary entitled ‘Trust No One: Can The X-Files Remain A Secret?’ and a digital copy of the film.

*Does not include 3-Disc Edition, which costs $22.99 at Target and Circuit City, $24.99 at Best Buy and Fry’s, and $23.99 at Amazon.

THE LONGSHOTS
This family-friendly sports comedy/drama is directed by Fred Durst, the lead singer of everyone’s favorite nu metal band Limp Bizkit. How anyone can hear that and think to themselves, “I should see that,” I have no idea. Even ignoring that aspect of the production though, the film looks terribly uninteresting, unoriginal and not the least bit funny. Pass.
Blu-ray? Yes.
Notable Extras: Deleted scenes, featurettes (’Jamine Plummer: The Real Longshot’, ‘Making The Longshots’) and interviews with Ice Cube and director Fred Durst.

FLY ME TO THE MOON 3-D
When a CGI family film looks worse than Space Chimps, you know you’re in trouble. The 3-D is obviously the selling point here, but when you’re forced to contend with cheap and ugly animation, cringe-worthy jokes involving burps and farts, and painfully lame characters, something as gimmicky as 3-D is hardly enough to warrant a viewing.
Blu-ray? No.
Notable Extras: A Planetarium Game.

EXCLUSIVE DEAL:
What? Exclusive Nightlight.
Where? Best Buy.

Other noteworthy DVDs available this week…
Casablanca (Ultimate Collector’s Edition) – The Day the Earth Stood Still (Two-Disc Special Edition) – Metalocalypse (Season 2) – Law and Order (Season 6) – Saturday Night Live (Season 4) – White Dog (Criterion Collection)

NOTE: Some deals may be in-store only.

Exclusive: DC Universe Collector’s Set ($49.99). Includes Special Editions of: Superman Doomsday, The Justice League: New Frontier, Batman: Gotham Knight and spots for 2009 releases of Wonder Woman and Green Lantern.

$13.99 – Kung Fu Panda, Futurama: Bender’s Game, Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Speed Racer, Jumper, The Happening, and more…

$6.99 – The Brave One, Unleashed, The Transporter (Collector’s Edition), The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (Extreme Unrated Remastered), Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Troy (Director’s Cut), King Kong, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Dawn of the Dead, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Rundown, Children of Men, Smokin’ Aces, and more…

For the Alamo Drafthouse’s upcoming Kid’s Club screenings of Labyrinth and TMNT, they commissioned a couple artists to create posters. First up is this Labyrinth scratch board-style print by Todd Slater. This poster measures approx 23×36, is printed on Black paper stock, and is signed and numbered by the artist. Available on Mondotees.com for $30. And they also have a Blue-colored variant (seen below) available for $50.

The mysterious Scrojo created the TMNT poster, which measures 24×36, 4 colors on colored paper, and is individually numbered. Available on MondoTees for $30.

Cool Stuff is a daily feature of slashfilm.com. Know of any geekarific creations or cool products which should be featured on Cool Stuff? E-Mail us at orfilms@gmail.com.

The American Akira

The Pitch: Harry Partridge has come across the initial animatics for Hollywood’s upcoming American remake of Akira. Thanks to /film reader Christopher M for the tip.

Watch More Cool Videos Here!

Video of the Day is a daily feature of /Film showcasing geekarific video creations. Have a video we should be feature on VOTD? E-Mail us at orfilms@gmail.com.

Fans of HBO’s historical epic series Rome may soon have a reason to give their DVDs a rest. It seems that creator Bruno Heller is interested in revisiting the series as a theatrical film. Heller, who is currently helming The Mentalist on CBS, told THR earlier today that he’d love to wrap up the storyline that was cut short due to the show’s cancellation.

Despite getting decent ratings and several awards, the show was cancelled in the middle of its second season of production. With some estimates putting the budget of the show’s first season at around $100 million, it’s not surprising that HBO couldn’t stomach a third season (honestly, I’m grateful we even got a second). Heller ended up squeezing several seasons worth of plot into the show’s second season. One storyline, involving a certain Jewish messiah, didn’t make it into the series at all and could easily be adapted to film.

TV-to-film adaptations are becoming all the more common these days, but thus far I believe Sex and the City has been the only truly successful one. Serenity, while popular among fans, was a failure financially—and let’s not even get into what happened with the latest X-Files film. Unlike Rome, however, Sex and the City was a pop-culture phenomenon that had legions of fans waiting to make the film a success. Rome was popular among critics, but I don’t believe a “Rome” branded film would really draw the same sort of crowds based on name alone.

I want to believe in this film, but given that it would need a budget massively beyond that of Sex and the City, I think Heller is ultimately setting himself up for failure. Still, I’d kill to see Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo getting into all sorts of mischief again. Hopefully, I’m not the only one.

Discuss: Do you think Rome could make the transition to the big screen? How do you feel about tv-to-film adaptations in general?

Source: THR via Cinematical

I thought that the chance for a Zoolander sequel died when the film failed to gross $46 million domestically. Sure, there is more to the story, the film was released just weeks after 9/11/2001. But that still doesn’t excuse the film’s low bottom line — $45 million isn’t a great take for a $30 million-budgeted PG-13 comedy. Well apparently either Ben Stiller is delusional or Paramount thinks that a sequel could perform better in an era where America turns out in droves for films like Four Christmases.

Ben Stiller tells WENN that he is currently looking at scripts and a deal for a sequel is finally close to being made. But the quote from Stiller included in the story doesn’t seem nearly as confident:

“I’ve been trying to get Zoolander 2 together and we’ve had a few scripts. I feel that is the sequel I really would like to do some day because I like the original and I would make sure it was something new and worthy of it first.”

So I’m not so sure that a sequel is “close to being made” as the story states. I remember being excited to see the 2001 film as it teamed Stiller, Will Farrell and Owen Wilson (who I had, at the time, just discovered in Wes Anderson’s debut film Bottle Rocket). But I don’t remember being terribly disappointed with Zoolander when I finally screened it at my local multiplex. And I’ve never felt that the film has gained a cult following on DVD like many the comedies my friends and I often quote. But maybe I’m wrong…

Discuss: So is there really an interest in a Zoolander sequel? Would you pay to see a Zoolander sequel?

SpoilerTV has five new photos from 20th Century Fox’s X-Men spin-off film Wolverine. I’m not sure where these originated. As always, click to enlarge. Wolverine hits theaters on May 1st 2009. Four more photos after the jump.
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Shia LaBeouf has signed on to star in Paramount’s big screen adaptation of John Grisham’s legal thriller The Associate. Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers, GI Joe) is producing. So what’s it about? Here is the official plot description:

“It’s a deadly game of blackmail. And they’re making him play. Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation: he’s good looking, has a brilliant mind and a glittering future ahead of him. But he has a secret from his past, a secret that threatens to destroy his fledgling career and, possibly, his entire life.

One night that secret catches up with him in the form of some bad men in a dark alley — they have a deeply compromising video of the incident that haunts him. The men make it clear to Kyle that he no longer owns his own future — that he must do as they tell him, or the video will be made public knowledge, with all the unpleasant consequences. What price do they demand for Kyle’s secret? Strangely, it is for Kyle to do exactly what any ambitious young lawyer would want to do: take a job in New York as an associate at the largest law firm in the world, a job that is incredibly well paid and, with mammoth hours and outrageous billing, could lead to partnership and a fortune.

But Kyle won’t be working for the company, but against it — passing on the secrets of the company’s biggest trial to date, a dispute between two defense contractors worth billions of dollars to the victor. Now Kyle is caught between the criminal forces manipulating him and the FBI, who would love to unmask the conspiracy. Will his intellect, cunning and bravery be enough to extricate him from an impossible dilemma? Full of twists and turns and reminiscent of The Firm, The Associate is vintage John Grisham.”

Previous Grisham novels to be adapted to the big screen include: The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury and Skipping Christmas (Christmas with the Kranks). The Associate sound like typical Grisham, complete with the normal Grisham title. Strangely, the international cover of the book (seen below in blue) actually looks like a scene from LaBeouf’s Eagle Eye.

The book is set to be released on January 27th 2009, and the 384-page hardcover is available for preorder on Amazon for $18.45.

source: Variety

In 2007, Dennis Hopper told The Guardian that he was set to reprise his role as Howard Payne in a third Speed film. Some people assumed it had to be a remake considering (spoiler warning) Hopper’s character died at the end of the first film. Well apparently now. A scooper on AICN has confirmed that a scriptment for Speed 3 is floating around Hollywood. Not only that, but the story features the return of Officer Jack Traven, the lead character played by Keanu Reeves in the original film.

But the real question is, will Fox be able to lure Keanu back? As many remember, Reeves decided not to return for the sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control. The actor has since starred in The Matrix trilogy which made him the highest paid actor of all time. And with his passion project in the horizon, an Untitled Chef Project helmed by David Fincher, I’m guessing Reeves might need some convincing to come back for a third film. It would have to be one hell of a script.

A lot of people don’t give the original Speed film enough credit. It was actually a pretty kick ass high concept (heck, its the definition of high concept) action flick. I wouldn’t mind seeing another if the idea were right. But what’s the chances? It seems to me that the executives at Fox are looking for ways to make some more money off of some of their established franchises, especially with talk of a Planet of the Apes prequel. Lets just hope they aren’t planning a Speed 3-D!

Discuss: Do you want to see another Speed movie with Keanu Reeves in the lead?

The New York Post’s Page Six today has an item on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button director David Fincher that claims that his “imperious ways”are getting on the nerves of Paramount employees:

We are working our asses off trying to get Oscar nominations, and he is so abusive that it’s crushing,” said an insider at Paramount. “Whatever we do, it’s not enough.” After an LA screening, Fincher was rude to John Goldwyn, who was running Paramount in the early ’90s when the movie … was first in development. After Goldwyn congratulated Fincher, “he hit Goldwyn in the chest with his hand and hurt him and said, ‘That’s for you, for not greenlighting the movie when you had a chance.’ ” … Our insider said, “If we never hear the name David Fincher again, it will be too soon.”

This isn’t exactly news as Fincher’s supposed “abrasive” behavior has been well documented in years past. But hey, strong artists sometimes rub others the wrong way. From what I understand, Fincher and Paramount have officially made up after feuding over the Ben Button running time, and last I heard, Heavy Metal is back on at the studio. Fincher’s Chef project starring Keanu Reeves was also just set up at the studio, so its interesting that a Paramount insider has picked this time to “speak up”.

via: Playlist