Posts

Chris Evans Offered Lead Role In Albert Hughes’ ‘Motor City;’ Russell Brand Offered Co-Lead Role In Diablo Cody’s ‘Lamb Of God’ By Germain Lussier/Aug. 2, 2011 7:00 pm EST Two movies that have been batted around for some time have just made significant moves forward. First there’s Motor City, a film that was on the 2009 Black List, has only one line of dialogue in the entire thing, and is about a crook who is framed and dead set on revenge when he gets out....

David Gordon Green’s Animated Show ‘Good Vibes’ Lands At MTV By Russ Fischer/April 30, 2010 11:44 am EST When that pilot was put together it had quite a voice cast: Adam Brody, Alan Tudyk, Danny McBride, Debi Mazar, Jake Busey, Josh Gad and Olivia Thirlby. Now that significant time has passed and the profiles of some of those actors have changed considerably, we don’t know who, if any, will be back for this incarnation....

Eye-Catching First Image From RZA’s ‘The Man With The Iron Fists’ By Russ Fischer/June 27, 2012 10:00 am EST Briefly: RZA has released the first official still from his directorial effort, The Man With the Iron Fists, and it is a killer. The film was co-written by RZA and Eli Roth (who also produced) and stars RZA, Russell Crowe, David Batista, Byron Mann, Rick Yune, Pam Grier, and Lucy Liu....

First Look: ‘Ernest And Celestine,’ The New Film From The Directors Of ‘A Town Called Panic’ [Updated With Video] By Russ Fischer/June 9, 2011 7:00 am EST Just today I was recommending the incomparably wonderful animated film A Town Called Panic to a friend, which it occurred to me to wonder: what progress has been made on the project the makers of that film (Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar) are cooking up now?...

First Still From ‘Jack Ryan’ Features Chris Pine And A Motorcycle By Germain Lussier/Aug. 31, 2012 7:30 am EST Don’t get your hopes up for something crazy, but Paramount has released the first official still from the Tom Clancy adaptation, Jack Ryan. Starring Chris Pine and directed by Kenneth Branagh, the film is the latest addition into the political thriller series that began in 1990 with The Hunt for Red October starring Alec Baldwin, continued with Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger and, most recently, featured Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears....

Hear The First Song From Julie Taymor’s Spider-Man Broadway Musical; New Info And Costumes Revealed By Russ Fischer/Sept. 10, 2010 11:38 am EST OK, it’s not film news, but this is definitely entertainment. Julie Taymor and her producers have been working for over a year to mount a Spider-Man musical on Broadway. Subtitled Turn Off the Dark, the show features music by Bono and The Edge of U2, and stars Reeve Carney (Peter Parker), Jennifer Damiano (Mary Jane Watson) and Patrick Page (Norman Osborn/Green Goblin)....

Kurt Russell May Replace Kevin Costner In Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’; ‘Kill Bill’ Actress Laura Cayouette Joins Cast By Angie Han/Sept. 30, 2011 5:09 pm EST A couple weeks back, we reported that Kevin Costner had pulled out of talks for a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained due to scheduling conflicts. While it wasn’t a huge blow for the project, it was disappointing news nonetheless. But the project is moving forward quickly, and it seems Kurt Russell could be stepping into the part that would’ve been Costner’s....

Lionsgate Doing National Sneak Preview Of ‘Warrior’ September 4 By Germain Lussier/Aug. 30, 2011 1:30 pm EST Warrior is one of my favorite films of the year. Much more than just a movie about mixed martial arts, director Gavin O’Connor’s film earns its stripes by spending time developing complex characters and familiar relationships that pay off in spades once the fighting begins.Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton play estranged brothers who simultaneously, and unbeknownst to each other, begin training for a massive MMA tournament....

Neill Blomkamp’s New Sci-Fi Film Is Called Elysium; Reps Say He Won’t Direct The Hobbit By Russ Fischer/June 23, 2010 9:06 am EST OK, first up, no great surprise that when Neill Blomkamp’s representatives finally spoke up about the rumor that he would direct The Hobbit, their response was, “uh, no.” At the end of last week a report from The One Ring, firmly characterized even there as rumor, suggested that Blomkamp was the choice to direct The Hobbit....

Now Jeremy Renner Has Been Offered Albert Hughes’ ‘Motor City’ By Angie Han/March 15, 2012 7:00 am EST Albert Hughes departed Warner Bros.’ Akira and headed to Motor City last year, but his new project seems to be having almost as much trouble as his old one once did getting a leading man to stick. Chris Evans was the first to get the offer for the Chad St. John-scripted picture back in August, before Dominic Cooper entered talks not two months later....

Revisit The Trailer For Late Sundance 2012 Entry ‘Oslo, August 31st’ By Russ Fischer/Dec. 21, 2011 6:00 am EST About a month ago, Christopher Stipp featured the trailer for Oslo, August 31st in his The Week in Trailers column. But now that the film has been added to the Sundance 2012 slate I expect that a few more people will want to give it a look. So here’s a better quality version of the trailer Christopher posted; it outlines the story of Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), an addict who has one day away from his rehab clinic to complete a job interview in Oslo and patch things up with friends in the city....

Ridley Scott Could Follow ‘Prometheus’ With Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Counselor’ By Germain Lussier/Jan. 31, 2012 7:20 pm EST That Ridley Scott Blade Runner-sequel might be even further off than fans had hoped. (Or feared, depending on your thoughts on that project.) Deadline reports the director is now in talks to direct Cormac McCarthy’s The Counselor and is keen on shooting it after he’s done with Prometheus. McCarthy, the writer of No Country For Old Men, The Road and All The Pretty Horses, just recently sold the surprise spec script which is about a southern lawyer who attempts to make money as a drug dealer before things go horribly wrong....

Screen Gems To Distribute ‘Attack The Block’ By Russ Fischer/April 6, 2011 12:15 pm EST The ‘aliens invade a South London housing project’ movie Attack the Block has been playing like gangbusters in screenings at SXSW and in LA. The film is scheduled to open in the UK next month, but was without a US distributor. That has changed as Screen Gems just sent out a press release announcing that the company will release the film in the States....

Screenwriters Hired For Third ‘Clash Of The Titans’ By Russ Fischer/Nov. 3, 2011 10:00 am EST Warner Bros. is hedging its bets with the Clash of the Titans series. The first film — well, the first film in this current incarnation of the series — was directed by Louis Leterrier and earned nearly half a billion dollars worldwide despite becoming a poster child for terrible post-converted 3D. That was enough to put another movie into production right quick....

Sequel Bits: ‘Dumb And Dumber 2’, ‘American Reunion’, ‘Scary Movie 5’, ‘Kick-Ass 2’ By Angie Han/Aug. 6, 2012 4:00 pm EST Happy Monday! In today’s comedy-heavy edition of Sequel Bits: Dumb and Dumber 2 could shoot as early as next spring American Reunion directors will return for the sequel Charlie Sheen joins Lindsay Lohan in Scary Movie 5 Kick-Ass 2’s marketing campaign kicks off with a new logo Daniels told press at a recent TCA panel that he was still very eager to do the film:...

Sharlto Copley In Talks For ‘Maleficent’ By Angie Han/May 3, 2012 3:30 pm EST Forget Demián Bichir – this week belongs to Sharlto Copley. Just a couple of days ago, the District 9 star was confirmed as the villain in Spike Lee’s Oldboy remake, even as he was packing his bags to shoot Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego’s dark thriller Open Grave in Hungary. Today, Copley’s has entered talks for Disney’s live-action Sleeping Beauty retelling Maleficent, which stars Angelina Jolie in the title role....

Urban Dictionary: Ineption By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 10, 2010 6:00 am EST /Film reader Gary W sent me an e-mail to alert me of a new new movie related term which has been added to the Urban Dictionary — Ineption, meaning: the lack of understanding or misunderstanding about Christopher Nolan’s Inception. I’m note sure there is much use for this word in my day to day vocabulary. Actually, I think you can only use it ine one or two ways....

By David Chen/Sept. 9, 2011 4:28 pm EST The great Stephen Tobolowsky was recently in Maine for a much-deserved break. On his way back, he decided to stop by my neck of the woods in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We hung out and talked about the future of The Tobolowsky Files. But I also couldn’t resist the opportunity to use one of my new DSLRs to film Stephen telling a story. After the jump, see the result of our video experiment, in which Stephen tells a poignant story about his grandfather’s watch, and about how we all remember our grandparents....

Warner Bros. Wins Legal Decision Over Control Of ‘Wizard Of Oz’ Film Characters; What Does This Mean For ‘Oz: The Great And Powerful’? By Russ Fischer/July 6, 2011 6:26 pm EST The small news for Sam Raimi’s new Wizard of Oz film Oz: The Great and Powerful is that Abigail Spencer has been cast as “a young woman who is a willing subject of Oz’s magic tricks which the erstwhile magician is performing in Kansas....

‘Alpha And Omega’ Movie Trailer By Russ Fischer/May 25, 2010 8:36 am EST LionsGate isn’t really the studio most people think of for cutting edge 3D CGI animation. In fact, despite having a film or two in release, I don’t ever think of LionsGate with respect to animation, at all. But they’re trying. The latest attempt to capture the hearts and minds of audiences is Alpha and Omega, a story of two wolves trying to rejoin their pack....