Posted on Friday, September 23rd, 2011 by Angie Han
We’re just now getting to see the first new shows of the fall, but it seems there’s at least one reason to start looking forward to spring already. Fox has just given a thirteen-episode order to Touch, a drama created and written by Heroes‘ Tim Kring and starring 24′s Kiefer Sutherland.
The series revolves around dad Martin (Sutherland) who comes to the realization that his mute autistic son Jake (David Mazouz) has an extraordinary ability to pick up patterns between seemingly unrelated events. Using numbers, Martin must communicate with his son in order to uncover the true meaning behind the mysterious connections. More details after the jump.
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Briefly: Another story that is the subject of several different development projects is the life of Harry Houdini. One movie that hopes to exploit his story is the Columbia project simply called Houdini, which for the past few months has had Francis Lawrence (Water For Elephants, I Am Legend) attached to direct. Last time we checked in there was no screenwriter attached, but that all changes now. Scott Frank has been hired to write. (He penned Out of Sight and Minority Report, among other films.)
THR has this news, but doesn’t offer any more significant detail about the project other than the fact that it has been kicking around Columbia in different forms for some time, and that Francis Lawrence and producer Jimmy Miller helped push it forward with their own ‘fresh take.’ What is that take? We don’t know. I love Houdini, and think he is truly one of the most fascinating figures from the turn of the century, but the competition to make a new film based on his life arouses no particular excitement. Mostly because I assume that, in the race to get one project done first, the only thing that will really matter is going to end up being just that: being first.
He’s blown the “What If” doors off Tim Burton’s Superman Lives, Ang Lee’s Hulk and next up in Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend. Special Effects guru Steve Johnson has just released a video that shows an unused makeup test for the zombies in the 2007 Will Smith hit. Apparently Lawrence wasn’t entirely happy with how the actors looked in this makeup and eventually just went to full CG creations. After watching the videos below, though, it’s hard to imagine something grosser than the practical effects. It would have been a whole different movie. Check out the creepy video after the jump. Read More »
Briefly: Since it seems like everything in Hollywood comes in packs of three or more these days, Sony has revived plans to make a Harry Houdini film. Francis Lawrence (Water For Elephants, I Am Legend) is now in talks to direct the film that once had Paul Verhoeven set to direct. Read More »
Posted on Friday, March 4th, 2011 by Angie Han
20th Century Fox has released a new trailer for Francis Lawrence‘s Water for Elephants, and it’s a beautiful one. The film is based on Sara Gruen‘s bestselling novel of the same title, and centers around a veterinary school student named Jacob (Robert Pattinson) who takes up with a traveling circus during the Great Depression. Along the way, he falls in love with Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), a performer and the wife of head trainer August (Christoph Waltz). Watch the trailer after the jump.
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The Fighter is a great movie on many levels, and it is powered by a great screenplay by Scott Silver. He has worked with real life characters who are larger than life (he also wrote 8 Mile) and is now turning to a literal superhero. Or perhaps I should say mythic — even biblical — superhero, since his new project is based on the story of Samson and Delilah. (Painted above by Anthony van Dyck in 1630.)
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Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’ll be the first Snow White to the ball? Three separate studios are currently vying to get their competing Snow White movies to the big screen: Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman, Relativity’s The Brothers Grimm: Snow White and Disney’s Snow and the Seven. And while we’ve heard plenty about the first two, little has been revealed about the Disney project except that it’ll see Snow White in China and the Seven Dwarves as Shaolin Monks.
Now, fresh off an Oscar nomination for Toy Story 3, screenwriter Michael Arndt, who already won as Oscar for writing Little Miss Sunshine, is in negotiations to rewrite the screenplay for Snow and the Seven and Oscar-winning production designer John Myhre has also come aboard to begin working on a look for the film.
Read more about Snow and the Seven and recap all the Snow White projects after the jump. Read More »
Currently number two on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list, Laura Hillenbrand‘s Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption has been purchased by Universal Pictures as a potential directing gig for Francis Lawrence. The book centers on the true story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who endured terrible trials as a prisoner of war during World War II. They’re hoping that Scott Cooper, who wrote Crazy Heart, will adapt the script. Read more about Zamperini’s story, as well as the half-century tale of this film’s path to the big screen, after the jump. Read More »
