Public Enemies - What Did You Think?
In March it was announced that McG had signed on to develop and possibly direct Medieval, a spec script by Mike Finch & Alex Litvak sold for $800,000 against $1.6 million. But McG has too many other projects on his plate, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo at Disney, a big screen adaptation of the musical Spring Awakening for Warner Bros and possibly fifth Terminator film.
So who is going to take over for McG? Super duper hack director Rob Cohen. You know, the guy who directed The Fast and the Furious, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Stealth and xXx.
Knowing well the sources that Bleeding Cool have up their sleeve, I can promise you that their straight-outta-leftfield rumors will always have some kind of foundation. Very interesting, then, that today they’re dishing on a plan to set the fifth Terminator film in contemporary London. I suppose the ultimate accuracy of this story hinges, as much as anything else as there being another Terminator film. To an extent, it will also depend on the same creative team having their way with the next movie, and some might suggest that is now rather unlikely. Nonetheless, the London plan meshes with a previous McG hint quite nicely. That quote, and more, coming after the break.
Earlier this year, Michael Bay commented that he would like to see a war between Transformers and Terminators (somehow this led to McG challenging Bay to a penis measuring contest, before later admitting that he has been born with the irish curse). Of course, we’ll never see a movie where Autobots fight T800s or even those huge Harvester bots. But Black20 did the next best thing, and created a movie trailer mash-up titled Transforminators. Watch the trailer after the jump.
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The first official reviews of McG’s Terminator Salvation have hit over the weekend in the Hollywood trade newspapers and a college website. Variety and College Times say it’s a fun summer action film (not transcendent of the first two films, obviously), but The Hollywood Reporter borderline HATED it. I’ve included spoiler free excerpts from the three reviews after the jump.
With the release of Terminator Salvation on the immediate horizon the future of the franchise hangs in the balance, sorta. Terminator is in a rare position, being a big franchise that isn’t owned by any one distributor. The Halcyon Company, which owns the Terminator rights, will likely have a fourth successful film and the first of a potential new trilogy, come month’s end. If the film is the success that it is expected to be, Hollywood will be gearing up for a good old fashioned bidding war.
Terminator Salvation director McG and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen director Michael Bay have been going back and fourth, in a friendly feud about big summer blockbusters with big giant robots. In April, things were taken to the next level when McG challenged Bay to a dick measuring contest.
McG Explains Terminator Salvation Alternative Ending, Claims 30+ Minutes of Deleted Scenes
Posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
McG tells our friends at Collider that the Terminator Salvation DVD will likely have 30 to 40 minutes of deleted scenes. We know about the now infamous Moon Bloodgood topless scene, and after the jump, we’ll talk about the alternative ending, but McG also says “There are great long takes of Connor giving speeches, evoking Sarah Connor that we ultimately lifted because I didn’t want it to feel that he was dependent on the voice of his mother to find his leadership.”
Remember how McG said a few months back that the ending of the film would polarize fans? Well apparently that ending is no longer in the film.
Terminator Salvation in 4 Minutes, McG Explains PG-13 Rating
Posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
Director McG tells SciFi that he only cut one shot in Terminator Salvation to earn the PG-13 rating. The quick cut involved featuring Sam Worthington’s character Marcus “stabbing a screwdriver through the shoulder” of a thug. You might be wondering, what about that much talked about topless scene featuring Moon Bloodgood? McG claims that in the end “it felt more like a gratuitous moment of a girl taking her top off in an action picture, and I didn’t want that to convolute the story or the characters.” Sure… sure…
Also, Warner Bros has released a final movie trailer for Terminator Salvation on Apple. The extended trailer is pretty cool, but basically squeezes the entire film into 4 minutes. Those of you who want to go in fresh might want to skip this one. I’ve embedded the clip after the jump.
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Rumor Killer: The Rock NOT Cast in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
Update: McG has denied reports of Johnson’s casting to SciFi: “I’ve never spoken to Dwayne Johnson about this. I like him. He’s great. He’s a wonderful human being and an excellent screen presence, but we have not spoken about 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Not a word.”
After it was first announced that McG would be developing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo for Disney, the filmmaker went on to tell everyone that he wanted to cast Will Smith as the film’s title character. Production Weekly reported over the weekend a rumor that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been cast in the project instead of Smith. Johnson has a great relationship with the mouse house, and possibly even a multi-picture deal, so if the rumor were true, it completely makes sense.
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McG Plans To Bring The Future War Back in Time in Terminator 5
Posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
We’ve known since the beginning that Terminator Salvation was being set-up to be the first film in a new trilogy of Terminator movies. We’ve been told that the ending of this new film might divide audiences, as McG admitted that its “not a happy little bow of an ending at all. The ending is tough and requires reflection.” McG has even shared his idea of how he might bring T2 star Robert Patrick back for a cameo in the next film. But aside from that concept-in-progress, we’ve been told nothing about the story for the next film… until now.
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LOL: McG Challenges Michael Bay to a Dick Measuring Contest!
Posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
I understand that this story might sound like it is some big goof. It sounds like a parody news story, like something you would read in The Onion. But trust me, it is real.
Jonathan Nolan NOT Credited as Screenwriter in Terminator Salvation Marketing
Posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
I was looking at the official website for Terminator Salvation, and found myself looking at the credit list on the bottom of the site. Yeah, the PG-13 MPAA logo is there, but we already confirmed the rating to be true. What I noticed was that the official “written by” credits for the film have been awarded to John Brancato and Michael Ferris.
This is interesting because McG has been touting substantial rewrites by The Dark Knight screenwriter Jonathan Nolan and Crash scribe Paul Haggis in interviews and convention appearances. We know that Haggis did a rewrite and that Jonah was brought on to do an overhaul of the script in an effort to convince Christian Bale to come on board the project. Nolan was also supposedly on set for most of the production, doing rewrites scene by scene. At a press conference at Comic Con 2008, McG even referred to Jonathan as “the lead writer of the film.” When asked if Nolan would receive screenwriting credit for his work, McG responded “I don’t know how the WGA rules work but honest to goodness, we did the heaviest lifting with Jonah.”
