“Yeah, I think it’d be fun!” Thurman enthusiastically replied when asked if she’d be up for playing Beatrix once again. In terms of actual progress on the script, Uma revealed that, “[Tarantino and I] did chat, we did chat. He has not yet finished the script. I don’t even really know if he’s really started it, although I got a taste of some of his ideas and they are really good.”
Variety reports that the larger Disney studio will now handle certain, “marketing, distribution, operations and administrative support functions from its Burbank headquarters.” That amounts to an almost 75% reduction in their staff down to just 20 remaining executives. Although Disney isn’t naming names for now, a series of meetings next week will say who stays and who goes. Word is that some of the people let go will be from the production and development side of things, with such rumored names floating around as production prexy, Keri Putnam, and acquisitions veep, Peter Lawson.
Fans of the X-MEN franchise were weary when first hearing about Ratner directing the third film for the installment. Well if you saw LAST STAND, then it’s possible your in the huge crowd of people who thought it was garbage. This is how Ratner feels about the response, “You can’t make these people happy. I’m kind of the anti-Christ to these comic book geeks. Every single person that wrote shit went to see that movie multiple times because a movie doesn’t gross $200 something million unless people go to see it more than once.”
Of course, he continued, “Every single person who said, ‘I’m never seeing that movie’, they were the first ones there. What are they concerned about? It’s out of the filmmaker’s hands. A film is a collaborative effort. How’s a person sitting at home going to worry about how a movie is going to turn out to be?” I did go see it, once. I love X-MEN regardless of who directs it, but after seeing it, I didn’t need to see it again.
It gets worse. Ratner claims that he made the franchise more popular than ever, “The most ridiculous statement I’ve read is – and of course I looked at the internet after the movie came out – that I buried the franchise. “If I buried the franchise how the fuck did they make a Wolverine? I mean, that’s ridiculous. And they’re making three other fucking X-Men movies. Mine kept the franchise alive!”
“We’re hoping that it’s the first week in March,” said Raimi.
At the moment, pre-production is in full swing, even as screenwriter Gary Ross (”great director and a very fine writer,” said Raimi) continues to work on the script.
“He’s working on a draft,” he continued. “I just gave him some notes and he’s doing a rewrite right now.”
On other fronts, “Spider-Man 4″ continues to chug along. “The production is starting to come together,” Raimi told us. “I’ve got a production designer who is starting to design the sets and the environments that the picture will take place in. We just brought aboard Scott Stokdyk as one of the two visual effects supervisors, and I worked with him on all three ‘Spider-man’ pictures.”
With Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst set to reprise their roles, Raimi and his team will soon turn their attention to filling out the rest of the cast. “None of the casting has really taken place, but we’re starting to think about that now,” the director said.
MGM Studios has decided to push Joss Whedon’s anticipated The Cabin in the Woods, directed and co-written by Cloverfield’s Drew Goddard, back nearly a year, from its original release date of February 5, 2010 to the new date of January 14, 2011.
MGM reps tell ShockTillYouDrop.com the reason they’re doing this is because the early response to the film has been phenomenal and they’re going to spend six months or so converting the picture to 3-D.
There is nothing else scheduled for that 2011 date, which is the four-day weekend to celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr, although the fourth Underworld movie is currently scheduled to open one week later.
Chuck Viane, in Disney’s domestic distribution department, called the extension “open-ended”, but it likely won’t run past November 2nd. That’s the day when the studio debuts its 3-D holiday flick, A Christmas Carol. The solid showing has Disney up in arms, and we’ll likely see more classics rendered for today’s 3-D-manding (get it?) audiences. Beauty and the Beast, an obvious test balloon, is set to have a 3-D release in 2011.
CanalPlus.fr has published a brand new behind the scenes report from the set of Iron Man 2, complete with interviews with director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey Jr.
The report features a bunch of new footage, including a look at Tony Stark’s at-home particle accelerator project. There is also a series of shots with Scarlett Johansson, who plays Black Widow, and some shots of Mickey Rourke as Whiplash. It’s interesting to hear that things are getting “a bit darker,” while keeping with the tone of the first film.
All signs still pointing to Iron Man 2 being awesome. Have your own look at the new stuff below.
MTV talked to Favreau about The Avengers while he was promoting Couples Retreat, and his statement about directing the film was quite clear:
They’ll have to [find a different director], because I’m not going to be available. It’s something I’m being the executive producer on, so I’ll definitely have input and a say. It’s going to be hard, because I was so involved in creating the world of Iron Man and Iron Man is very much a tech-based hero, and then with ‘Avengers’ you’re going to be introducing some supernatural aspects because of Thor. How you mix the two of those works very well in the comic books, but it’s going to take a lot of thoughtfulness to make that all work and not blow the reality that we’ve created.”
While the theatrical version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine doesn’t contains 10 minutes of footage not seen in the leaked workprint as Tom Rothman claimed, it does contain some added “Easter eggs”. Gavin Hood appeared at a press screening in Hollywood tonight, and the director revealed that the theatrical cut would feature multiple “Easter egg endings” (or what some call “a button”) following the credits.
FirstShowing was in attendance and saw one of the endings, which Alex tells me ran 25-30 seconds in length and featured the character of Deadpool. It’s not clear how many different endings will be released, but the director said more than one.
Before we even get to see what Josh Brolin looks like as titular character Jonah Hex, and before we even get to see what John Malkovich or Michael Shannon look like, our very first photo from Warner Brothers’ Jonah Hex is, of course, of Megan Fox. Thanks to the site Movie Gab (which I don’t suggest visiting because of their rather inappropriate ads), we’ve finally got a good photo of Megan Fox in her old west outfit. This isn’t the first time any photos of Fox on the set of Jonah Hex have popped up, but this is the first time we’ve seen her fully in costume. Once you take a look at this, you’ll know why we just had to post it.
In Jonah Hex, Megan Fox plays Leila, a gun-wielding beauty and the love interest of Hex, a disfigured bounty hunter who is tracking down a voodoo practitioner that wants to raise an army of undead to liberate the South. Former Pixar animator Jimmy Hayward is directing this for a August 6th, 2010 release date. Shooting started earlier this month in both Sylmar, California as well as St. Francisville, Louisiana. I’m not sure when we’ll get our first real look at Josh Brolin, who I also can’t wait to see considering his disfigured face is so integral to the character, but you can be sure we’ll be on the lookout for more.
▪ Portman the webmaster?
There might be a new face on the webmasters panel at the Comic-Con this year. Natalie Portman? The actress we all love to love has started up her own movie website called MakingOf.com. Portman has been making the rounds at Tribeca promoting the site, which describes itself as providing “an intimate, fresh look into the process of making a movie by the insiders themselves.” It also posts movie news, posters, clips, trailers and pretty much everything we do here except I look nothing like Natalie Portman (well almost nothing).
I trolled around the site for a while and it’s still in beta so navigation wasn’t the easiest task and it was difficult to figure out what their exclusive content was and what was just EPK type stuff. Also, it seems to me a little difficult to just sit and watch actors talking about acting. I like actors talking about film but it just seems a little flat in certain circumstances here. Though the stuff with the behind-the-scenes people like directors (Michel Gondry and Ron Howard) was a little more interesting. Check it out at MakingOf.com.
▪ Robert Rodriguez rebooting Predator
Sin City director Robert Rodriguez will be directing and producing a reboot of the Predator franchise for 20th Century Fox according to IESB. The reboot will revolve around a “team of commandoes [who] face down a mysterious race of vicious monsters.”
Rodriguez talked to the audience of press members and revealed his upcoming film slate.
“I’m going to be able to shoot my upcoming Machete here, a sci-fi action film called Nervewrackers, a re-boot of the Predator series called Predators, and a couple of smaller movies called Sin City 2 and The Jetsons.”
It seems Rodriguez will be busy for the foreseeable future so we may not be seeing the reboot anytime soon. I didn’t see the AVP stuff, but I did see the original Predator and enjoyed it. If it is as good as that (or better) i’ll be happy.
Update from ERC: Apparently Robert Rodriguez is not directing, but still producing. The release date is set for July 7, 2010, however no writer or director has been hired as of yet.
▪ New Harry Potter Trailer on Thursday
A new domestic trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be attached to 17 Again, which comes out this Friday. But you can watch it online sometime around 6pm pst on Thursday.
▪ Upgrade your Criterion DVD’s
Did you know: Criterion actually has a DVD to Blu-Ray upgrade program? They will upgrade any available disc by mailing a $20 check along with the original dvd.
▪ Wolverine Still Tracking High Despite Early Internet Leak?
The internet leak of X-Men Origins: Wolverine might not be as detrimental as 20th Century Fox first feared. An early print of the film has now been downloaded over 1,000,000 times (TorrentFreak, thanks to downbeat), and who knows how many people have watched those downloads or copies of those downloads distributed to friends/family.
Based on TF’s numbers, a conservative estimate would be that 2 million people have watched the illegally downloaded film, which is the box office equivalent of $15-$20 million. Download numbers aside, the big concern was that the unfinished workprint might cause a wave of bad word of mouth that would detour the usual suspects from showing up opening weekend.
But Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the consumer research tracking statistics show “a high ‘wanna see’ rating for the film, which is said to be the No. 1 choice for young men and guys aged 31 and older,” the key demographics required for a monster opening weekend. But EW also claims that the film has only been downloaded “by more than 100,000 users”, so who knows the accuracy of these tracking numbers.
Did you know: Criterion actually has a DVD to Blu-Ray upgrade program? They will upgrade any available disc by mailing a $20 check along with the original dvd.
▪ Venom moving forward
Apparently, ZOMBIELAND writers, Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese have been hired to write the VENOM spin-off for Sony. They are already working on the script and took a little time to say the following:
“We had a really great relationship with Sony on [Zombieland], and so that was a nice in for us there… It gave us a leg up… We’re under strict orders on Venom… We can’t talk about it. It’s just super secret… We read [Venom] growing up, but we were not experts… We certainly know the mythology of Venom, but went back and learned more when it became clear that we could actually get this job.”
When Fox News gossip columnist Roger Friedman caused a mini-scandal the other day by casually mentioning he’d illegally downloaded X-Men Origins: Wolverine from the Internet — and then proceeding to review it! — a lot of us assumed he’d get away with it. Yeah, 20th Century Fox was talking a big game about chasing pirates and punishing downloaders, but we didn’t think they’d go after a high-profile writer who works for their same parent company.
Well. Seldom have I been so pleased to be wrong. As first reported by Nikke Finke on Saturday and confirmed by a statement from Fox parent company News Corporation late Saturday night, Roger Friedman has been fired. News Corp.’s statement was blunt: “We, along with 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, have been a consistent leader in the fight against piracy and have zero tolerance for any action that encourages and promotes piracy. When we advised Fox News of the facts they took immediate action, removed the post, and promptly terminated Mr. Friedman.”
…when I read that Robert Downey Jr. told ET Online this week that the sequel will have “twice as much action as we did last time, so it’s going to be nuts,” I’m instantly sold. He also mentioned that the film will be focused more on character, especially the one behind the mask. “Essentially Iron Man 2 is about looking behind the armor, or the armature, of a superhero,” Downey explained while doing press for The Soloist. “It’s one thing to say you’re Iron Man, it’s another thing to be fully ready to do that.”
He was also asked by the folks at MTV about the famous “demon in a bottle” storyline. For non-fans, this is the storyline in which Tony Stark’s alcoholism and deviant behavior begin to affect his role as Iron Man, creating a situation in which he alone becomes his own worst enemy. According to Downey, this is best left for future films: “I think that’s probably best saved,” Downey tells MTV, “because it’s such its own storyline. We’re going for the interim space [between the origin and "Demon"], which is more a look behind the mask of someone who says he’s Iron Man and what it really is to become a superhero.”
Finally, Downey also gave us an update on the physical shape of Scarlett Johansson, who has been tapped to play Natalia Romanoff a.k.a Black Widow, a sexy leather-wearing super-spy with questionable intentions and even more intriguing methods. The nature of her storyline and how it fits in with the storylines of characters such as Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) and Whiplash (Mickey Rourke). According to Downey’s interview with ET, she will be fitting into some tight clothes for our viewing pleasure: “We’ve been rehearsing and she’s in insane shape. She’s getting lean and mean.” And as much as I love to talk about how great Emily Blunt would be as Black Widow, I’m certainly not opposed to seeing Scarlett in that particular costume. As for the rest – as in, her performance – I’m sticking to my guns and trusting that Jon Favreau guy. I know he has my fanback.
Last month we posted a segment of Lee Stanhan’s interview with Kevin Smith, where the filmmaker talked about the dark side of the internet. But what about the other side of the internet? You know, the side where fans can form a community, everyone is happy and angry talkbackers don’t exist… Smith talks about how he found and learned to love the internet in the latest segment of Stanhan’s interview, embedded after the jump.
The only place to see the World Premiere of the trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine is by going to theaters and seeing The Day The Earth Stood Still, starring Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly, in theaters starting Friday, December 12th. (or wait a few hours for it to show up on the internet)
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