Sequel Bits: 'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For', 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation', 'Men In Black 3', 'Snow White And The Huntsman 2', 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'
No, it wasn't just you — Men in Black 3, entertaining as it was, made no sense at all. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that starting the shoot without a completed sequel did not help. Also after the jump:
Though Monahan's tales may not come directly from Miller, the esteemed writer did have a hand in creating them. Miller reportedly came up with the ideas and took a first pass at them before handing off to Monahan. Details on the new plotlines haven't been revealed, though as of last summer we were hearing that one of them would be titled "The Long Bad Night." Whatever they are, Rodriguez promises they'll be intense. "The audience wants more and they'll definitely get what they want," he said. A Dame to Kill For is dated for October 4, 2013. [TOH via CBM]
Paramount's last-minute decision to move G.I. Joe: Retaliation from June 29 to March 29, 2013 is having effects beyond the movie world. Variety ShowBlitz reports that Retaliation action figures are now being pulled from shelves. Although retailers were supposed to wait until this week to sell the toys, a few Walmart, Toys R Us, and Target locations had decided to get an early start by making them available last week. Now, the stores are likely to fill up the shelf space previously designated for the 47-item line of Retaliation toys with new products tied in to The Amazing Spider-Man and The Avengers.
Mindless summer blockbusters dealing with time travel obviously aren't the best place to look for impeccable narrative logic, but even by those standards, Men in Black 3 seemed to suffer more — or at least more obvious — plot holes than most. EW has a rundown on the many ways that grand finale made no sense at all, while HuffPo has a lot of questions about the plotline from start to finish. Major spoilers follow at the links, in case that wasn't obvious.
Snow White and the Huntsman hasn't even hit theaters yet, but Universal's already eager to get started on a sequel. One big question, however, is what direction that follow-up will take. While the first one takes inspiration from the classic fairy tale, there's no obvious source material for Snow White 2. But actor Nick Frost, who plays one of the dwarfs, suggests that the dwarfs may play a more central role in the next film:
I think the dwarves first appear in the script on page 64. I don't think this is about us, not at this point. What did I sign up for? Two or three. I think the next one will be kind of Dwarf-heavy. It'll be "Dweavy". But this one isn't about us, it's about Snow White, her battle with the queen and the Huntsman's treachery. We do see a lot of action though. The whole final third of the film is a push on [the queen's] castle, and the dwarves play quite a big role there.
I think you meet the dwarves at a point where the story needs some comic magic, and that's our main job in this first one. We support and provide comedy relief. As much as the film is quite dark and gothic and is meant to be creepy, more Lord of the Rings-y than Mirror, Mirror, perhaps. I do think the dwarves are being prepped for film two.
The first Snow White and the Huntsman opens June 8. [via Bleeding Cool]
A recent rumor suggested that Robert Pattinson could be jumping from The Twilight Saga to The Hunger Games, in the role of fan favorite character Finnick Odair, who makes his first appearance in Catching Fire. For better or for worse, however, the actor himself confirms that there is no truth to the story. His agent told him so after Pattinson inquired about the reports.
"I was kind of curious for a second. So I called my agent," Pattinson says. "My agent was like, 'No one's going to offer you that part'... I was like, thanks for the reassurance."
So we can rule Pattinson out — but with shooting on the sequel scheduled to start in a few months, I'm sure casting rumors about other actors will be flying fast and heavy for weeks to come. Catching Fire will open November 23, 2013. [via THR]