Exploring Stuff That Makes Life Great
The latest Batman blockbuster, The Dark Knight, is on its way to beating Titanic as the top-grossing movie of all time. But at what cost? Over the course of the production and after its premiere, it seems as if the main cast of The Dark Knight has some sort of curse on them. No, not some voodoo, Magic: The Gathering sort of curse, let’s just say a streak of bad luck.
Continue reading “Is “The Dark Knight” Cursed? Five Reasons to Ponder”
I pondered months ago as to what basis Hollywood takes when adapting games into movies. I am still wondering the same. News has it that Roger Avary, scriptwriter who has worked on the likes of Pulp Fiction and Silent Hill is working on a script for a movie on Return to Castle Wolfenstein, due for release in 2010.
Yes, that game about an American prisoner in a German prison castle and involving undead Nazi zombies and what-not. Seriously, that’s the game Hollywood wants. After games with exceptional storylines like Doom, Far Cry, Dungeon Siege and Mortal Kombat, we have this. Wonderful.
Still, with Avary on the project, perhaps the movie can be heavily twisted to make it actually good. Also, Uwe Boll is not attached to the project in any way, which can only mean good. Avary hasn’t disclosed anything about the project yet, so anything can happen.
Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id, says:
“There’s some contract provisions and if they don’t have certain things done within a certain period of time they can’t just sit on the rights forever and not use them.
But apart from that me kind of nagging on him ‘hey is it done yet, hey is it done yet?’ will probably just be annoying and then Rog won’t answer my emails any more. I would probably get the one-sentence email that says, ‘Do you realise I have an Academy Award?’
Heh.
StuffWeLike.com reviews the Director’s Cut of Dark City.
This film is fantastic. It’s a super hero esc story with a film noir feel.
The DVD contains a lot of making of documentaries, but they seem very low budget and poorly produced.
The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movie, which was slated for release next year has been delayed to the next, i.e. 2010. Expect it to come for you at Memorial Day weekend, 2010, the spot that Indiana Jones caught this year.
Disney explained the delay to extensive post-production work. Disney wants to make this a huge franchise, in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean. To do it, Disney is going to need a whole lot of special effects and what-not, and that’s what Disney is going to do in the extra year it gets.
How does to move affect the rest of the movies? Transformers 2, slated for next year will now go smooth sailing without any competition to its visual effects. The move to 2010 may upset a whole different batch of movies, though.
Marvel’s Thor will opening right next week. If Iron Man II ends up being awesome that year, it may affect Thor‘s success as well, putting the Prince in a tight spot. Still, it isn’t all that bad, and since it’s still almost two whole years away, we might see plenty of restructuring and what-not.
Looks like it’s weird-movie-announcement week. Sony has decided to go ahead with a spinoff of Venom, one of Spiderman’s better enemies. For those (especially those who hate the moviezation of Spiderman) who haven’t seen Spider-Man 3, Venom is a shape-shifting symbiote that requires a host DNA to perform, or some such stuff.
In any case, I like Venom better than Doc Ock or Green Goblin or the rest of that nonsense. Then again, Venom is Spiderman’s archenemy, which means that he is to Spiderman what The Joker is to Batman or what Lex Luthor is to Superman or Elmer Fudd is to Bugs Bunny and so on. And from the Spiderman rogue gallery, I’d say Venom is the only one who can make for a badass movie.
With a Spiderman sequel nowhere in sight, it seems that Sony is trying to use a spinoff to garner some extra attention to the franchise. Fox is doing something similar with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a prequel that will be the origin story for Wolverine. With a similar treatment on Magneto in the works, it looks like spinoffs are in fashion.
Back to the movie, Jacob Estes has been comissioned to create a script for the movie. Topher Grace, who played Venom in Spider-Man 3 will most likely not be back this time, as Sony is not sure if he can hold up an entire movie by himself. Fair enough.
What do you think of this move? Will spinoffs be good? Can you picture a whole movie on Venom? Is this superhero movie madness a good thing?
A live-action adaptation of the extraordinary anime series Cowboy Bebop is bad enough, but then it gets worse. Rumour has it that Keanu Reeves almost certainly has the role of lead protagonist Spike Spiegel. Now, Spike doesn’t really talk much, which is a good thing, but I still have every belief that Reeves will screw this up.
The movie is supposedly under development at Fox, but they haven’t announced anything officially yet. A source close to FirstShowing here says that the movie is still there, and will be headed for a 2010 release. No clear director yet, but Keanu has been attached to Spike Spiegel for some 8 months now. Disturbing.
I’m against a live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop, because it is best damn anime I’ve ever seen and one of my most favourite franchises. Now a CG movie or something, I can appreciate that. But why does Hollywood have to take it live action?
The awesome characters from the series will now be replaced by some crappy people like Keanu Reeves and what-not. I also doubt it the series will capture the original theme of the series, its mature Western feel, the importance of the soundtrack and its synchronization with the fight scenes. Instead, we’ll probably just be treated to some fancy special effects.
With the disaster that was Speed Racer, you must understand that it’s difficult to get your hopes up for this. I’m not saying that the anime was much better than what the Wachowkis made of it, but still.
