Briefly: Fox liked the way that Chronicle turned out — the low-budget ‘teens with powers’ film has made over $100m worldwide so far, and even when promotional costs other sundry expenses are factored in, that’s pretty damn good for a film that cost $12m to make.
Director Josh Trank has said he is unsure about directing a sequel, and was just linked to Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff Venom. But Fox is going ahead with the first stage of sequel production anyway, and has hired original screenwriter Max Landis to write Chronicle 2. Read More »
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Chronicle, the ‘teens with powers’ movie that hit two weeks ago, almost instantly established director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis as talents to watch. Trank has a deal with Fox, and is in the midst of developing new projects, even as rumors fly that the studio has an eye on him to reboot the Fantastic Four. Trank has denied that he knows anything about that, and continues to hold that position, which leads to the obvious question: what’s next?
According to the most commonly-used map that charts a path for this particular scenario, Chronicle 2 would be next. But Trank doesn’t seem to be very interested in a sequel to his debut feature. Instead, he’s developing other original projects at Fox. Read More »
Want to see the best look yet at Hulk from The Avengers? How about some fan made concept art from The Incredibles 2? Did Gary Oldman actually lose his script to The Dark Knight Rises? To which director did Michael Shannon compare his Man of Steel helmer Zack Snyder? Which actor might already be cast in a new Mark Millar movie? Would you like to read the first few pages of Avengers vs. X-Men or the entire Avengers prequel comic? Read about all of this and much more in today’s Superhero Bits. Read More »
It’s a big weekend for Max Landis. Sure, the son of legendary director John Landis has a few screenplays in various stages of production but this weekend marks his first to finally make it to the big screen, Chronicle (read a review here). He’s also picked this weekend to release his much ballyhooed short film The Death and Return of Superman.
The Death and Return of Superman, described as “an educational parody,” tells the hilarious, literal, insider version what happened in 1992 when DC Comics decided to kill, then resurrect, Superman. It’s a story many of us remember, but have long since forgotten.
Starring Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Ron Howard, Chris Hardwick, Simon Pegg and more, you can check it out after the break. Read More »
Chronicle is not a superhero movie. It is a film about three young guys who, after exposure to a mysterious energy source, develop strong telekinetic powers. More to the point, Chronicle is about how having that empowerment in common forges a strong friendship between them, and the ways they deal with the unexpected power surge.
In the sort of telling which has become so familiar thanks to comic books and the TV shows and movies that follow them, those kids should quickly learn that their powers come with an obligation to help society. Then they foil some small-time crime and forge identities through which they can become virtuous examples of humanity, evolved.
That’s not how Chronicle works. I’m not sure these characters would know how to help humanity if they wanted to. There is nothing truly ‘realistic’ in this film, but there is something intimately recognizable in the ways in which these guys deal with their new powers. They’re kids. They play around with pranks and fun. They realize they can fly, and talk about destination vacations for the telekinetically-enhanced. Then — and this is what makes Chronicle stand out, and what really makes it worth seeing — their powers become lenses that magnify their true natures, to destructive and tragic effect. Read More »
The low-budget ‘teens with powers’ movie Chronicle opens this week, I’m finding that a lot of people still don’t know too much about it. That’s too bad, because Chronicle is a lot of fun. It is a film that explores its premise well, while also proving that it doesn’t take $150m to make a successful movie along these lines.
In short, I hope people see the picture. Chronicle deserves an audience.
Here is one last teaser for the movie, but I have to say that it might not be the best one to watch. Just by the nature of having to advertise the film, some of Chronicle‘s secrets and better scenes have been glimpsed in the full trailer and other teasers that follow. But this one, to me, seems to give up just a bit more of the last act than I’d like. Read More »
Yesterday, 20th Century Fox invited a group of journalists on to the studio lot to preview footage from the found footage superpowers film Chronicle. The film was co written by Max Landis (son of filmmaker John Landis) and Josh Trank, who makes his feature directorial debut (you may have seen Trank’s viral short film Stabbing at Leia’s 22nd Birthday). The story follows three high school kids who gain super powers — the power of telekinesis. The movie stars a couple young up-and-coming television stars — Michael B. Jordan (Vince from Friday Night Lights, Alex from Parenthood) and Dane DeHaan (Jesse from In Treatment). After the footage screening, I recorded my first impressions with Alex from FirstShowing. You can watch our short video blog embedded after the jump, alongside two clips from the film and a 60-second trailer.
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We’ve seen a lot of superhero origin stories and we’ve seen a lot of low-fi ‘found footage’ films. But we haven’t seen many project combine those two approaches. And of the projects that have come close to that idea, none have looked quite as promising as Chronicle. This is a movie about three high-school friends who end up with hero-like powers. Rather than becoming heroes, however, these kids play around — as you probably would — and depicts the way things go wrong when one of the kids makes a rash decision.
We’ve covered Chronicle a bit as Fox started making the film, but we haven’t known much about it until now. A trailer hit today, and it looks solid — check out the footage below. Read More »
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