Posted on Friday, April 20th, 2012 by Angie Han
If Safety Not Guaranteed and Battleship seem like opposites in every way, it’s probably because they are. One is an offbeat indie that’s drawn glowing reviews on the film festival circuit; the other is a big, splashy blockbuster that’s been likened to Michael Bay’s Transformers. But both have just released new clips in preparation for their summer bows, so I’ve decided to arbitrarily lump them together. Watch the scenes after the jump.
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Posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 by Angie Han
On the one hand, Universal’s Battleship looks, frankly, kinda stupid. It’s an adaptation of a Hasbro toy, along the same lines as Michael Bay’s dumb (but occasionally fun) Transformers franchise, and early spots and footage did nothing to suggest it’d be anything more than an uninspired, cynical cash grab.
On the other, there’s some promising talent both in front of and behind the camera: Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg at the helm and his Friday Night Lights stars Taylor Kitsch and Jesse Plemons in the cast, plus Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard, Hamish Linklater, and Liam Neeson. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to say the film looked smart, I respected that it seemed perfectly aware of what it was — mindless popcorn entertainment, no more and no less.
But all of that ambivalence was based more on the marketing team’s efforts than on the film itself. Now that the first early reviews are rolling out, however, we’re getting a much better sense of what, exactly, Berg is offering us next month. Read all about Battleship‘s early buzz after the jump.
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Posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 by Angie Han
Earlier this week at WonderCon, director Peter Berg revealed that he’d taken inspiration for his new movie Battleship from an unlikely source: Stephen Hawking. Berg had been watching a documentary in which the iconic scientist discussed Goldilocks planets, so called because their distance from the sun is “just right” for sustaining life. NASA has been trying to send signals to those planets in an attempt to discover extra-terrestial intelligence, but according to Berg, Hawking believes this to be a terrible idea because aliens knowing of our existence can do just as much damage as good. Berg then spun that idea into the plot of the film.
Which sounds pretty interesting, but unfortunately, most of the trailers we’ve seen so far haven’t gone into much detail about the sci-fi storyline. So far, they’ve shown us who the characters are and what it looks like when Berg tries his best to be Michael Bay, but we’ve had no sense of what exactly the aliens are doing here. Now a new featurette focuses on just that, explaining what exactly a Goldilocks planet is and how the crew of the USS John Paul Jones find themselves to be defending our planet from vicious otherworldly visitors. Watch it after the jump.
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I’ll be completely up front with you — I really have had no interest in the movie Battleship since it was announced. Even the recent action-packed Michael Bay-lite trailers didn’t win me over. I just didn’t see the point of making a big screen adaptation of the Battleship board game. And I also didn’t understand why an adaptation of that board game would involve an alien attack. It just didn’t make sense to me. Despite loving director Peter Berg‘s previous films and recently discovering the awesomeness of Friday Night Lights (the tv series), I just didn’t care.
When Peter Berg stepped onto the WonderCon stage in Anaheim, you could tell he was on a mission. Why a movie based on a board game? Why aliens? Berg made his pitch and somehow was able to change my mind — I now am excited to see this film.
Peter Berg never wanted to make a movie based on a board game. He wanted to make a naval movie but Hollywood wouldn’t let him.
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Posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2012 by Angie Han
Taylor Kitsch‘s John Carter may not quite have been the blockbuster hit that he and Disney were hoping for, but the star will take a second stab at leading a major action franchise when Peter Berg‘s Battleship hits this summer. Inspired by the Hasbro game, the film stars Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Rihanna, and Liam Neeson as naval officers dealing with an otherwordly force that threatens to destroy our planet. The new trailer downplays the plotlines and character moments we glimpsed in earlier trailers, choosing instead to dive right in to expensive, explosive Transformers-style action. Watch it after the jump.
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In the wake of this weekend’s successful opening of the ‘real Navy SEALs’ movie Act of Valor, expect to see other similar movies go into action. While we wait to hear that Kathryn Bigelow is actually rolling on her movie about the SEAL Team 6 hunt for Osama Bin Laden, we’ve got word of another Naval special-ops adventure.
Over the past couple years Universal has developed Lone Survivor, based on the memoir of the same name by Marcus Luttrell. The author was one member of a SEAL team ambushed in Afghanistan, and the book tells of the team’s struggle to survive.
Peter Berg has been part of the project since the beginning, and now it looks like Berg will direct the film this fall as his follow-up to Battleship. He’s got Mark Wahlberg in talks to play Marcus Luttrell, and Ben Foster in talks to join Taylor Kitsch as other men on Luttrell’s team. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2012 by Angie Han
Whatever your genre of choice — action, comedy, or horror — we’ve got sequel news for you today. After the jump:
- Peter Berg teases one of “40 different storylines” he’s considering for Hancock 2
- Seth Rogen doesn’t know if Pineapple Express 2 will happen, but hey, it still might
- Steve Coogan offers up a bit of info on the upcoming second season (and possible sequel?) to The Trip
- Comic book artist and Altitude helmer Kaare Andrews is tapped for a Cabin Fever prequel
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This may or may not be good news, depending on whether or not you think the Friday Night Lights television series finale was the best possible end to the show’s story. Just as the finale was about to air, we heard that the show could find new life on the big screen, and a short time later producer Peter Berg confirmed the development of a film featuring the series’ characters.
During a recent event for Battleship, the film he directed for a summer release this year, Berg gave a fairly substantial status update on the FNL film project. The script is coming together, he says, and one plotline will be based in part on former Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach. Read More »
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