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Friday, September 26, 2003
The FoyWonder's Schlock Report for 9-26-2003
Good morning, Mr. & Mrs. Fanboy and all the geeks at sea…let’s go to press!
After years of rumors and potential deals that fell through, MAGNUM P.I. is finally coming to the big screen courtesy of Brian Grazer, Ron Howard’s partner in crime. However, it looks like Tom Selleck won’t be reprising his signature role despite having spent years trying to get a movie produced. For those that don’t know or don’t remember, the series was about Thomas Magnum, "a former Naval intelligence officer hired to head security at the estate of wealthy absentee owner Robin Masters. Magnum used the mansion as a base to work his own detective cases, employing the resources of the estate owner that included the signature red 308 GTS Ferrari". According to Variety, AUSTIN POWERS’ scribe Michael McCullers has been hired to pen the screenplay so don’t be surprised if it’s done in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion along the lines of the CHARLIE’S ANGELS movies and the upcoming ultra campy STARSKEY & HUTCH movie. Hooray, yet another campy version of late 70’s/early 80’s TV series! This trend is getting really old really fast. E! News Live contacted Tom Selleck’s rep to ask them about the movie and received a “no comment” in response so he must be thrilled to death about all this.
The Hollywood Reporter brings frightening news of a new musical version of ROMEO & JULIET to star pint-sized rapper Lil’ Romeo. Supposedly the title will be (GAG!) LIL’ ROMEO & LIL’ JULIET and will be a hip-hop take on the classic Shakespearean tale but with “with the violence in the original tale expressed through music and dance". Umm…okay. How the hell is that going to work? Will Tybalt accidentally out rap Mercutio while trying to out rap Lil’ Romeo prompting Lil’ Romeo to seek revenge by trying to out dance Tybalt?
According to Variety, two sequels, actually a sequel and a prequel to UNDERWORLD are going to come to pass. No word on whether Kate Beckinsale will return or if director Len Wiseman will be back either but once again Hollywood foolishly assumes that just because a movie made money it’s opening weekend that means the audience wants more. Just wait until you see how huge the drop-off is this weekend what with THE RUNDOWN opening.
Looks likes Wesley Snipes is going to battling an odd assortment of villains in the forthcoming BLADE: TRINITY. In addition to WWE wrestler HHH playing a huge roided up vampire, now the Hollywood Reporter informs us that indie flick queen Parker Posey has also signed on to play a villainous vamp. Oh boy, a whiny, self absorbed vampiress!
Nothing definitive to report on here but Creature Corner reports that Dimension Films has approached both Clive Barker and John Carpenter about the possibility of the two working together to bring the HELLRAISER/HALLOWEEN crossover movie to life. I’ll believe it when it happens and even then I’ll be skeptical as hell.
According to Creature Corner, a company called Simon Tse Productions has purchased the rights to create an anime based on, get this, HALLOWEEN. Yep, an anime version of Michael Myers is coming. My only hope is that he’ll drive that knife deep into the heart of Yu-Gi-Oh and keep on stabbing.
In other animated news, Sci-Fi Wire reports that master animator Don Bluth says he's pitching his idea for a $30 million traditional/computer-animated movie based on the classic DRAGON’S LAIR arcade video game. Doesn’t an animated movie based on a video game that was designed to look like an animated movie seem just a bit redundant? Oh well, as long as it turns out better than the ABC Saturday morning cartoon of the eighties.
In what hopefully won’t prove to be future bad movie news, Variety reports that Peter Jackson has offered Naomi Watts the famous Fay Wray role in his upcoming remake of KING KONG. Personally, I think Kate Winslet would have been a better choice but Naomi Watts certainly fits the part.
Strange but true: Sylvester Stallone is writing, directing, and producing a movie called THUGZ LIVES about the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. that is said to be something of a hip-hop vesion of JFK dealing with the alleged conspiracies behind the murders. I’m not sure where the Italian Stallion fits into the East Coast/West Coast rap wars but let’s just hope this doesn’t end with Stallone experiencing the same fate as his subject matter.
Halle Berry will begin work on JINX, a James Bond spin-off movie based on her DIE ANOTHER DAY character, as soon as she finishes making the almost guaranteed to be wretched CATWOMAN movie. According to two different British movie sites, a November 2004 date has been set for it’s release. Expect to close about a week or two later.
Creature Corner has the first review of the upcoming TREMORS prequel and it sounds promising. You can read all about it here.
If bombing at the box office wasn’t bad enough news for the producers of THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, now they’re getting sued too! According to CHUD, 20th Century Fox is being sued for ripping off the idea from producer Martin “NIGHTHAWKS” Poll and screenwriter Larry “Q, THE WINGED SERPENT” Cohen. How’s that? Well, here’s the press release they sent out explaining the lawsuit:
As early as 1993, Poll had been communicating with high-level Fox executives about a feature titled “Cast of Characters” (“COC”), whose characters, plot, dialogue and mood are suspiciously mirrored in the Fox feature film production...
According to the plaintiffs, Fox “flagrantly and unlawfully stole ‘Cast of Characters’ in violation of the copyright and repackaged it to make ‘…Extraordinary Gentlemen’.” COC recounts a fictional struggle revolving around Alan Quatermain and Sherlock Holmes battling James Moriarty and Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray. COC creatively selects and develops 19th century English literary figures in a manner that differs from their public persona and prior uses. Not coincidentally, LXG, like the plot in COC which it copied, depicts a league of Victorian era superheroes that, comparable to the overlapping superheroes featured in COC, battle the evil Moriarty and Dorian Gray. Both films even feature the same literary characters: Alan Quatermain, James Moriarty, Jekyll & Hyde, Tom Sawyer, Dorian Gray and the Phantom.
The lawsuit, which was filed Friday morning, also claims that John Landis had already been signed to direct CAST OF CHARACTERS and that Fox made changes in Moore’s original story to make it more like theirs. If all this is true then CAST OF CHARACTERS predated the Alan Moore comic on which the movie is based by a good 6 or 7 years meaning Mr. Moore may have some explaining to do as well.
Finally today, those massive updates at the Schlocktoberfest site are up. In addition to my new Foyeurism article paying tribute to the now defunct "TBS Originals," you'll also find my long overdue follow-up to my Summer Movie Quiz. Plus the "easter egg" has been updated and, for those who will be attending the fest, the Fest Info page has new information about the fest itself. And...you can now download (we're working on a streaming ram file) and listen to the 60 second Schlocktoberfest radio spot. Less than a month to go and it's all falling into place. With our luck a hurricane will come barrelling through that weekend. :)
- Scott Foy
posted by Scott 7:39 AM | Comments
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
The Marvellous Movie Report
Hello, some juicy Hong Kong news has cropped up, not to mention I made a glaring omission from my last report and found some other fun titbits.
Asiamedia has an interesting article which suggests the demands made upon Hong Kong filmmakers by Mainland China could now be having the effect that many feared it would when Hong Kong was handed back in 1997. Much like the wave of Hong Kong films shot in English and embracing a more western style that were attempts to make more money in overseas markets, concessions are now being made in order for Hong Kong films to greater penetrate the Chinese mainland. However due to the more conservative views and sensibilities of the Chinese film industry, changes are to be made. One obvious example is the proposed sequel to the successful vampire movie The Twins Effect which in order to be shown in China will probably not have any vampires in it because mainland officials will not acknowledge superstition. According to the piece ghosts, nudity, homosexuality and extramarital affairs will have no place in any Hong Kong film which is intended to be seen by a mainstream Chinese audience. The article can be seen here but be warned as there is a mild spoiler for the ending to Infernal Affairs near the end of the piece.
MonkeyPeaches have some very interesting news in continued Hong Kong/Hollywood crossovers. First off, a film project that has been in development for two years is finally starting to go places. Sophie and the Rising Sun was developed from a novel of the same name by Augusta Trobaugh and tells of the story of the romance between the titular character, a spinster in a small American town, and her romance with her Japanese gardener Oto before and after the Pearl Harbor attack. Chow Yun Fat has been attached to the project for a while in the Oto role, and now it seems that Diane Lane has been cast as Sophie. Planned as a major vehicle for Chow Yun Fat’s considerable acting talents, it would be a joy to see this get off the ground as Chow Yun Fat is an actor of some renown back in Hong Kong and casting him in crap like Bullet Proof Monk is akin to putting Peter Jackson in charge of an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
The second proposed crossover comes from the news that Nicole Kidman has put six months aside in order to work with the successful and arty Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai. This must be an intriguing prospect for Kidman, as Wong Kar Wai has made a name for himself as a director keen on character study, beautiful visuals and strong performances from his cast to match. Of concern however is that Wong Kar Wai works extremely slowly, as his latest project 2046 has been in and out of production for the last four years.
Wong Kar Wai is also overseeing new special edition releases of five of his films due for next year, according to Kung Fu Cult Cinema. The films are Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, Ashes of Time, and In the Mood For Love and it is not known whether these will go straight to DVD or get any sort of theatrical re-release. Presumably these new special editions will be primarily for release in Hong Kong, but the chance to see any of these on the big screen would be absolutely fantastic.
Also, my glaring omission was that Jackie Chan has begun filming on a brand new Police Story film. To be called New Police Story, Jackie returns in the lead role, along with young heartthrob Nicholas Tse as another cop with Charlene Choi (one half of insanely popular Cantopop duo The Twins) as his girlfriend. Other cast members include the popular Daniel Wu (Naked Weapon) and Andy On (who replaced Jet Li in Black Mask 2) as villains with Benny Chan (Who Am I?, Gen-X Cops) to direct. Unfortunately Maggie Cheung declined the offer to return as Jackie’s girlfriend for the new film and will be replaced by Charlie Yeung. I can’t really blame her, as Maggie’s character was repeatedly terrified, beaten up and humiliated in the other three movies. Excuse me while I sit in the corner and sulk.
Running on Karma is the latest film from Johnny To, one of the very best Hong Kong film directors of the last ten years. Andy Lau plays an extremely muscular martial artist and former Buddhist monk, complete with extremely impressive fake muscle suit, and stars with Cecilia Cheung as a cop who he helps in the investigation into her father’s death. The official site, linked above, is all in Chinese but good old trusty Monkey Peaches have direct links to trailers for the film on their main page. Johnnie To’s latest DVD release, PTU is also well worth checking out and is available from DDDHouse.
AICN have a couple of stills and the movie poster from the upcoming British horror comedy Shaun of the Dead. From Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg wrote of the excellent comedy series Spaced as well as directing and starring respectively, comes this extremely quirky-looking zombie movie due for release next year. If you haven’t seen Spaced, chances are if you’re a regular reader here you’d love it, its chock full of movie, video game, and pop culture references and is amazingly funny. This is definitely worth keeping an eye out for and those pics can be found here and here.
Underworld was the unsurprising #1 at the US box office this weekend, no doubt in part thanks to the extremely slick-looking trailers and Kate Beckinsale’s extremely tight outfit. Pity the film is so pants. In the UK it came in third behind Calendar Girls in second (apparently extremely good British comedy about old chicks posing naked) and The Italian Job first. Nope, no Cuba Gooding Jr. flushing his career down the toilet for us Brits!
Rob Brooks sent me the link to the official site for the 17th annual Leeds Film Festival and bleedin’ good it looks too, including showings of Ryuhei Kitamura’s (Versus) Aragami, Kill Bill, Beyond Re-Animator, Bubba Ho Tep, and many, many more representing numerous different genres and countries. Its times like this I wish I could drive.
Creature Corner has reported that Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla company has come to a deal with Kismet Entertainment. The deal regards the numerous Mario Bava films Kismet has the rights too, and they intend on remaking thirteen of them. They have the full list, and that sure is bad luck for those who hate this current trend amongst film companies. Heh, bad luck, geddit?
JoBlo.com have reported that quite curiously Warner have pushed back the release date for the Dark Castle Halle Berry vehicle Gothika from October 24th to November 21st. Speculation abounds that this has something to do with Fox and their re-release of Alien due for the 29th of October. Which reminds me, there’s a chance those who see it could be treated to a Alien vs. Predator teaser trailer.
Thanks for reading. Helloween RULE!
Martin Leggett
posted by Martin 4:30 PM | Comments
Monday, September 22, 2003
News bytes
Reader Joe Littrell favors us again with a few links from the field: first up is this Westword article about actor/martial-artist Matthew Helms, who appears in a "small but pivotal role" in the recent horror sleeper hit Cabin Fever. Also on Joe's radar is this interview from the San Francisco bay area paper Metroactive with a Santa Cruz movie house programming director who specializes in cult movies.
Thanks, Joe.
posted by Christopher 7:39 AM | Comments
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