While I’m not wild about Francis Lawrence directing Water for Elephants, some of the cast additions have me more and more interested. We already knew that Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon would be the primary leads for the picture, which takes place in a low-rent traveling circus. Sean Penn was in the mix as one supporting role, but now Christoph Waltz is replacing him as the antagonist, according to Deadline Hollywood. (I’d originally reported that Waltz and Penn were both in the film; that seems to be incorrect.)
Waltz and Witherspoon are a married couple working in the circus; Pattinson is the young vet who signs on to care for the outfit’s menagerie after the death of his parents. He falls in love with Witherspoon’s character and has to deal with her paranoid schizophrenic animal trainer husband. With Penn gone, we still need to know who plays Uncle Al, the impresario who runs the show.
After the break, Hugh Jackman sells cosmetics for director Kevin Lima, and Ben Stiller plans a heist. Read More »
Yes, Universal Pictures is moving forward with their big screen adaptation of the Milton Bradley board game Candy Land. You remember the game right? I think everyone must have owned or played it as a kid, or at least the people of the 70’s-80’s generation. And it would be easy to poo-poo the idea of a big screen movie entirely. I could write a blog post about how Hollywood has run out of ideas in my sleep. Problem is, Universal actually hired some talented people to develop this project. It’s kinda like how Ridley Scott is attached to direct a Monopoly movie. You want to slam the idea entirely, but the people involved make you take a step back.
Read More »
How does a big screen adaptation of Tom Thumb sound to you? Yeah, not too exciting.
What if I told you that Kevin Lima, the guy who directed Disney’s Enchanted is attached? Still not sold?
What if I told you that Saving Private Ryan scribe Robert Rodat has been hired to write the script? Sounding a little better?
Tom Thumb is a traditional hero in 16th century English folklore, who would get into almost fatal situations in his parents home (such as almost being cooked to death in a bowl of pudding) before somehow ending up in King Arthur’s castle. Rodat’s version will stray from the traditional tale, and is said to be a completely fresh take on the character’s origin story:
“An arrogant knight who’s shrunk to 6 inches while assigned to protect a princess and then discovers what it means to be a real hero.”
Warner Bros is setting the film up as a tentpole. This whole announcement is very curious as Lima probably had a choice of many promising projects after Enchanted. I’m not saying that Tom Thumb couldn’t translate into a fun tentpole film, but it seems like an odd choice at face value. Lima is planning on filming the movie as a live-action/cg hybrid (ala Alvin and the Chipmunks), with Tom Thumb as the sole computer generated character.
source: THR, Variety
Earlier this month we published the first photos from Kevin Lima’s (Tarzan) half animated / live-action crossover Enchanted. Thanks to AICN, we have the first batch of promotional poster art.
The one to the left is my favorite. It’s the best mixture of Disney fairy tale and live action. Lets hope they don’t use the “Still Waiting for a Prince? Girl-Get Real” tagline. Check out all five designs over at AICN.
In an animated fairy tale world, a young girl meets and falls in love with the handsome prince of her dreams. News of this romance upsets the prince’s mother, the evil queen, who uses her black magic to send the girl hurtling out of the animated world into the one place in the universe where there is no true love: modern day Manhattan. The now-real girl has to survive in New York City and find her way home again to her true love. Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden and Susan Sarandon star.
Enchanted hits theaters on November 21st 2007.
Thanks to the recent Disney Investor Relations release, we have new logo and production art for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Toy Story 3, Wall-E, and Ratatouille. Check it out below. As always, left click for a higher res version.
Read More »
