Posts

VOTD: ‘Redux Riding Hood,’ The Oscar-Nominated Short Film Disney Shelved In 1998 By Russ Fischer/May 23, 2012 5:00 am EST The beauty of animation is that is a medium where anything can happen. Anything, that is, so long as all the creative and business impulses that make a project happen align in the proper way. Sadly, that translates to “anything can happen, but it often doesn’t.” Take Redux Riding Hood, a short produced by Disney’s television division in 1997....

VOTD: Superheroes Strike Back By Peter Sciretta/Oct. 22, 2010 8:00 am EST These costumed characters have always been one of my favorite parts of the touristy part of Hollywood Boulevard. I always loved watching the ridiculous and strange costumed superheroes pose for photos with tourists near the Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Jimmy Kimmel regularly featured these performers on his show, and a documentary was even made about the characters called Confessions of a Superhero (watch it on Hulu for free)....

VOTD: Werner Herzog Explains His Documentary Approach To Stephen Colbert By Russ Fischer/June 7, 2011 9:48 am EST Last night, Stephen Colbert hosted Werner Herzog in an interview segment on The Colbert Report intended to promote the new film Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Mr. Herzog did that, certainly, explaining among other things, the artistry of the early humans who created the art that is still to be found in the caves....

Walton Goggins Cast In Steven Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln’ By Russ Fischer/July 11, 2011 2:11 pm EST It’s “cool projects for former The Shield actors” day! We just heard that Michael Chiklis will be the bad guy in Taylor Hackford’s Parker, and now Walton Goggins has been cast in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. He’s the latest addition to a monster of a cast that begins with Daniel Day Lewis as the sixteenth President of the US and includes many more....

Warner Bros. Will Release Steven Soderbergh’s Male Stripper Movie ‘Magic Mike’ In June 2012 By Russ Fischer/Oct. 27, 2011 3:30 pm EST Briefly: Steven Soderbergh has already wrapped his movie Magic Mike, which stars Channing Tatum and is based on Tatum’s own youthful experience as a male exotic dancer. Because Soderbergh works fast he’s already got a cut of the film, and Warner Bros. has picked up the movie for distribution next summer....

Watch Danny Boyle Talk About 127 Hours: “We Want It To Be A Challenge For You” By Russ Fischer/Aug. 16, 2010 1:20 pm EST Danny Boyle showed up at Movie Con in London this past weekend, where he premiered the trailer for his new film 127 Hours. The trailer isn’t yet online, but there is a video clip of Boyle on stage talking about the film, and quite a bit of additional transcription from the event....

Watch Todd Phillips’ Unaired NSFW HBO Documentary ‘Frat House’ By Germain Lussier/March 6, 2012 4:30 pm EST Before Todd Phillips took audiences on a Road Trip, brought it back to the Old School or gave everyone The Hangover, he immersed himself in the college fraternity experience for the whole world to see. However, the results were so shocking that few people actually did. In the late Nineties, following his first documentary Hated, Phillips and fellow director Andrew Gurland filmed an HBO America Undercover episode called Frat House....

X-Men: First Class Adds Zoe Kravitz And January Jones, Plus Child Actors To Play Young Versions Of Mystique And Magneto By Russ Fischer/Aug. 18, 2010 5:00 am EST Deadline offers up a whole plate of news. The big notes are that January Jones and Zoe Kravitz will play Emma Frost and Angel, respectively. (Queue up your questions now: I’ll get to them all in a moment.) And 10-year old Morgan Lily will play the young version of ‘Raven’....

‘Amazing Spider-Man’ Director Marc Webb Joins Twitter, Tweets New Image By Germain Lussier/May 11, 2012 12:30 pm EST Whenever people ask me why I prefer Twitter to Facebook as my primary social media connection, I’m happy to run off a laundry list of reasons. One of the biggest ones is it gives us direct access to formerly unreachable people, be it politicians, athletes, musicians or, in today’s case, filmmakers. Where else can we directly pose a question to these people and actually get a response?...

‘Crank’ Co-Director Brian Taylor To Make ‘Twisted Metal’ Video Game Adaptation By Russ Fischer/Feb. 14, 2012 4:30 pm EST Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have worked for years as a directing duo, making features such as the two Crank films, Gamer and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Now, just days before that last film is released, Brian Taylor has been announced to direct his first solo feature. Appropriately given that Sony has just released the latest installment of the Twisted Metal game franchise, Taylor will make the long-rumored film version of Twisted Metal....

‘Showrunners’ Trailer: A Documentary About Running A Television Show By Germain Lussier/May 20, 2011 6:00 am EST As movie fans, we’re constantly amazed at the creativity and talents of our favorite filmmakers, actors and actresses. For months, sometimes years, they painstakingly work on a singular story until they feel it’s ready for public consumption. But imagine those same people had to make a mini-movie every single week and keep it entertaining and interesting over the course of several months or years....

‘Star Tours: The Adventures Continue’ Destinations Revealed By Germain Lussier/April 4, 2011 10:30 am EST The first departure date for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is rapidly approaching at both Disneyland in Anaheim, California and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. But where will the adventures take us? We already know that the totally revamped 3D thrill ride will take its riders on upwards of 50 different adventures each time they get on and now we’ve got the full list of planets and destinations that riders will be traveling to....

‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ Gets 2014 Release Date By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 5, 2011 11:06 am EST Columbia Pictures is serious about their new Spider-man franchise. The Amazing Spider-Man won’t hit theaters until July 2012, and a sequel is already planned. In March, Sony hired screenwriter James Vanderbilt to pen the follow-up. It looks like they are happy with the drafts he handed in, because today they are setting a May 2nd 2014 release date for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (I’m sure this title will change to something more clever later on)....

“Weird Al” Yankovic May Deliver Another Feature Film By Russ Fischer/July 7, 2010 5:58 pm EST There are quite a few fans out there to support UHF, the oddball movie from 1989 written by and starring “Weird Al” Yankovic. The singer has been working on a film for Cartoon Network, but recently found that the network abruptly reversed plans to create feature-length live-action content for TV. (Cartoon Network…no live-action…go figure. Though CN is still doing short live-action stuff....

Ben Stiller Teaming With ‘Reality Bites’ Writer For Edith Wharton-Inspired Horror ‘The Mountain’ By Angie Han/Oct. 21, 2011 10:15 am EST Ben Stiller is set to reunite with Reality Bites writer Helen Childress for a new picture that couldn’t be more different from their last collaboration. The new project, titled The Mountain, will be a period horror story based on characters from Edith Wharton’s novel Summer. The movie marks a sharp change of pace for Stiller, whose past projects have been mostly comedies....

Brad Pitt Confirmed To Narrate Terrence Malick’s ‘Voyage Of Time,’ More Details Revealed By Russ Fischer/May 26, 2011 4:00 pm EST The past couple of weeks have been like Christmas for Terrence Malick fans. A new film (The Tree of Life, opening limited tomorrow) and information about two more films: the IMAX documentary Voyage of Time and a new drama possibly to be called The Burial. We just got confirmation that Voyage of Time would still be happening, after most talk of the project seemed to dissipate in the past six months....

Chris Columbus Producing The ‘Troll Hunter’ Remake By Russ Fischer/June 10, 2011 10:11 am EST This week is the 27th anniversary of the opening of the Chris Columbus-scripted film Gremlins (June 8, 1984 was the big day) so perhaps we can blame this one on an aging impish green guy. 1492 Pictures, the company owned by Chris Columbus, has taken the remake rights to the André Øvredal film Troll Hunter, and hired Marc Haimes to script an English-language remake....

Crazy Promotional Stunt: James Cameron Hosts Live Q&A While Underwater By Peter Sciretta/Feb. 4, 2011 3:30 pm EST In a crazy promotional stunt to promote the movie Sanctum, Virgin Mobile Live conducted a live Question and Answer session with producer James Cameron, while he was underwater. iJustine interviewed Cameron at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, CA. Cameron was mic’d underwater with a diving suit. You can watch three promos for the Q&A session here: one, two, three....

Directing Bits: David O. Russell Helming ‘American Bullsh*t’?, Jake Kasdan Making ‘Sex Tape’ By Angie Han/March 21, 2012 3:45 pm EST I can hardly keep track of all the projects David O. Russell has been attached to or rumored for since his Oscar nomination for The Fighter, but here’s another one to add to the list. Recent reports claim that he’s signed on for Sony’s American Bullshit, a 2010 Black List script by Eric Warren Singer that Ben Affleck was eyeing earlier this year....

Disney Imagineers Developing ‘Tron Legacy’ Theme Park Ride By Peter Sciretta/Nov. 5, 2010 1:00 pm EST We’ve been hearing rumblings of a possible Tron: Legacy theme park ride for a while now. In fact, the day before I visited the Vancouver Canada set of the film, Disney Imagineers were on set taking a look at the concept art, sound-stages, weapons, props and who knows what else. At the time we only knew that the imagineers were very excited about the possibilities....