Note: Until it’s announced on StarWars.com, the news of Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg writing Star Wars Episodes VIII and IX can’t be considered official, but when two Hollywood trades report on it, that’s pretty close, so this article is assuming that it’s true.
For decades, film has been considered a directors medium. (Before the ’60s, it was usually thought of as a producer’s game.) Ask anyone now to name titans of the industry, and they’re going to list directors: Ford, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg. And so, when the news of a new set of Star Wars movies was announced, the conversation immediately turned to directors. Who could possibly shepherd our unrealistic expectations of a sequel to Return of the Jedi?
At the only place that counts, LucasFilm, it seems they feel writers are more important than the director. While hiring Michael Arndt to write Star Wars Episode VII before hiring a director made complete sense (most directors would never commit to a project without a script), hiring Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg to write Star Wars Episodes VIII and XI before any directors are attached at all speaks volumes to how this trilogy is being handled. It seems to suggest that story is king and that’s a good thing. Read More »
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When Disney bought LucasFilm and announced Star Wars Episode VII for 2015, with at least two more films to follow, there was a big flurry of excitement. But in the wake of that announcement there has been a Biblical flood of rumors and speculation about the films, most of which are patently ridiculous. Even the better rumors are mostly just hopeful conversations about the movie.
What we do know is that Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) has been hired to script Star Wars Episode VII, based on a treatment he worked up for George Lucas.
With that in the works, do you think LucasFilm and Disney are just going to hang out and wait to plan the next two films? Seems unlikely, and a current report says that Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg are possible writers for those sequels. Kasdan, of course, has great experience with the series, having scripted the best installment and its follow-up, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Kinberg wrote X-Men: First Class, and the upcoming Days of Future Past. Read More »
Friday is the second ‘official’ day of each San Diego Comic Con, and it’s the day where things start to kick into gear. The SDCC organization and various film studios announced their Friday plans today, and there are some great things happening.
The best are at Sony’s panel in Hall H, where the studio will show off Rian Johnson‘s Looper (with Johnson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Emily Blunt in attendance) and debut the first footage from Neill Blomkamp‘s Elysium (with Blomkamp, producer Simon Kinberg, Matt Damon and Jodie Foster showing up). Comic Con could be said to be Blomkamp’s first home, as that’s where his debut feature District 9 first got loads of attention, back in 2008.
This schedule also shows that television is taking a pole position this year, as Hall H has big presentations for The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, and there are big events for Firefly, Community, Breaking Bad, and many more shows.
There’s a lot more going on during the day, but hit the jump to get some highlights. Read More »
They’re not major sequel updates, that’s why they’re called “Bits.” After the jump, you can enjoy expanding your knowledge on the following:
- Michael Fassbender reveals he’s been chatting with writer Simon Kinberg about X-Men First Class 2.
- Jay Baruchel confirms he’s been doing the voices for How To Train Your Dragon 2.
- Mark Strong comments on whether or not he thinks a sequel to John Carter will see the light of day.
- James Cameron geeks out about Prometheus and offers a non-update on Avatar 2 and 3.
- Sir Ridley Scott spoke a bit about the use of 3D in Prometheus.
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The other way to write the headline for this story would be “Game of Thrones Director to Remake Sam Peckinpah Film.” But even the most ardent Peckinpah fan — and I’m pretty damn ardent — isn’t going to yell very loud to claim Peckinpah’s adaptation of the novel by Robert Ludlum as one of the director’s fairer works.
In fact, if there’s a Peckinpah film that begs for a remake it might be this one. The director was unhealthy and nearly outcast from the film industry when he was hired to give the original production some action cred. But he hated the script (so did the screenwriter, supposedly) and wanted to rewrite it. After the producers forbade that, Peckinpah made the movie but delivered a cut that test audiences and the producers detested. He was fired, the movie was re-cut without him, and the result is nothing that anyone is too eager to highlight on their resume.
So now Brian Kirk, the Game of Thrones director who was originally tapped to direct Thor 2 for Marvel, is in talks to direct a new version of the story about a guy who is told that his friends are actually enemy spies. Read More »
Posted on Friday, February 17th, 2012 by Angie Han
Talk of an X-Men: First Class sequel has been swirling around since before the first film even opened, and we’ve even heard a few intriguing story ideas from star James McAvoy and director Matthew Vaughn. But actual, confirmed details on the true plotline of the film are still few and far in between, which is why I was interested to hear screenwriter Simon Kinberg drop a few hints about what we could expect to see. In two words: More Magneto. Read his comments and watch the video interview after the jump.
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There seems to be one go-to actor for ass-kicking action these days and his name is Dwayne Johnson. Johnson has had quite the year, starting with the massive success of Fast Five, shooting G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation and coming up he’s got Journey 2 on deck as well as a Fast and Furious sequel, Snitch and more. He’s also returning to the WWE part time as his alter-ego The Rock. You can now add a comic book adaptation to the list as Johnson will star in The Monster Hunter’s Survival Guide produced by Simon Kinberg. Read more about the property after the jump. Read More »
Since before the first film was released, everyone involved with X-Men: First Class has been talking about a sequel. The actors are contractually obligated to do it. Director Matthew Vaughn and producer Bryan Singer have discussed ideas for it. Still, nothing had been made official.
Now, mere hours after 20th Century Fox basically announced a sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, they’ve reportedly hired a writer to pen a follow up to their other summer hit, X-Men: First Class. Simon Kinberg, a producer on the first film and writer of X-Men: The Last Stand (as well as the upcoming This Means War and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) has reportedly been hired to write the sequel. Read More »
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