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Saturday, April 10, 2004
THE FOYWONDER'S SCHLOCK REPORT FOR 4-10-04
No peppy opening statement today because I'm still reeling from this first bit of news and I strongly suspect you will be too!
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 2! No, this is not a cruel joke. God, I wish it was. Variety has reported that a sequel is indeed in the works. Joel Silver’s production company is co-producing and Warner Brothers has already picked up distribution rights. Gerry Lively has been tapped to direct. Mr. Lively has directed a couple of little known movies but is mostly known for being a cinematographer who worked on almost all of Anthony Hickox’s movies from the early 90’s so he’s more than qualified to helm this sequel nobody wants. I wouldn’t expect any of the original cast members to return to the sequel unless Jeremy Irons needs money to renovate his castle again.
Continuing with the subject of sequels nobody is clamoring for, Bubba “Hightower” Smith told About.com that a POLICE ACADEMY reunion movie may go before cameras before year’s end. If so, I can’t wait until they explain Tackleberry’s death since actor David Graf passed away a few years ago. About.com was also told by producers Gale Anne Hurd and Marvel honcho Avi Arad that a HULK 2 is definitely happening but this time we should expect “Hulk-lite”. Quoting Arad, “It’ll be the end of movie one, the beginning of movie two. Now he’s come to terms with his life and who he is and we can let him be now Hulk the hero. Movie one seemed to have been tough on some people, but some of us think it is one of the more courageous depictions of a comic book character.” It remains to be seen whether Eric Bana will return but he’s most likely contractually obligated. Suffice it to say Ang Lee will not be back. It also remains to be seen whether or not the audience will be back as THE HULK is about as well regarded as MATRIX RELOADED.
Moviehole reports of “rumblings” that yet another UNIVERSAL SOLDIER movie could be in the works although whether or not Jean Claude Van Damme will be involved remains unknown. Maybe they can make another one of those made-for-Showtime UNIVERSAL SOLDIER movies that had virtually no connection to the original movie? On second though... If any sequel does get made I hope they call it UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: THE NEXT RETURN or UNIVERSAL SOLDER RETURNS AGAIN. Gotta love those uber generic sequel sub-titles!
One sequel that may get made apparently won’t be done with its original star or writer/director. Both Brendan Fraser and Stephen Sommers have told Universal they’re not interested in doing THE MUMMY 3. Universal is said to high on making another sequel so they may go forward with it even without the duo and strangely enough that could actually have it turn out a better movie. Sommers may change his mind if VAN HELSING doesn’t deliver and unfortunately for him the word so far from those that have seen the movie is almost universally negative.
While not exactly sequel news I thought this particular bit of gossip was rather amusing. An Australian news site reports that the notoriously temperamental Julia Roberts was so upset over the baggy wardrobe her OCEAN’S TWELVE character was supposed to wear that she pitched a fit forcing the writers to change the fact that her character was supposed to be seven months pregnant. I guess we’ll be able to get some indication as to how truthful this tidbit is when we see Roberts and her wardrobe in the sequel.
Okay, enough with the sequels, let’s move on to the remakes. According to Dark Horizons, Blake Edwards’ remake of 10, which was originally to star the horribly miscast Colin Farrell, may not be dead after all. PacifiCap Entertainment Holdings, sounds like an investment firm to me, looks to produce 10 AGAIN with Robert Downey Jr. in the lead. Downey’s a better choice but he still seems a bit too young for the part. Meanwhile Paramount looks to remake TO CATCH A THIEF. The new version will be set in Miami but will otherwise follow the Hitchcock original’s plot of a reformed jewel thief scrambles to clear his reputation while being framed for a series of elaborate robberies from the super-rich. And Ain’t It Cool News reports that Erica Beeney, screenwriter of Project Greenlight’s latest dud THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS, has been hired to write an update of GIDGET. I can only imagine they want to update it for the tweener set. If it gets made my money is on Mandy Moore or Amanda Bynes getting the role.
John Woo is stepping into video game territory as the Hollywood Reporter tells us that the action director has picked up the rights to the Nintendo megahit METROID. Woo will produce the movie and has the option to direct and apparently METROID is being set up as a new movie franchise as the plan is to release “the first film” before 2006. That movie will center on the origins of the video game’s sexy female bounty hunter and her intergalactic battles with the evil Metroids and Mother Brain, the insidious force behind them. If Woo directs expect at least one Metroid battle to be interrupted by a slow motion shot of doves flying away.
From the director of BARBERSHOP and BARBERSHOP 2 comes…THE FANTASTIC FOUR? Seems like an odd choice to direct the superhero hero flick but apparently BARBERSHOP director Tim Story is going to be the man in the director’s chair. Rumor has it that The Shield star Michael Chiklis is up for the role of The Thing and Tim Robbins is wanted to play Doctor Doom.
Last week it was snakes on a plane. This week it’s zombies on a plane. Zombie movies are red hot right now and Lions Gate is ready and willing to jump on the bandwagon to ensure the genre gets run into the ground. The studio is preparing FLIGHT OF THE DEAD, the tale of two zombies being shipped back to their homeland after being captured only to come to life, wreaking havoc on board a passenger plane in mid-flight. That still doesn’t quite top the lunacy of another zombie movie hoping to begin production soon. ZOMBEAK is being billed as “the world’s first satanic killer zombie chicken movie”! A coven of devil worshippers kidnap a waitress with plans to sacrifice her but some of her redneck friends rescue her and in the process botching the ceremony causing Satan’s power to be transferred into a common barnyard fowl. Production is scheduled to begin until June, nobody has been cast yet, and they’re apparently still looking for investors so it may not even be a guarantee that the movie will actually get made. You can learn more about it here at the film’s official website.
Finally today, my advance (and mostly spoiler free) review of Roger Corman’s DINOCROC is now online at Creature Corner. A fun little monster movie if I say so myself. You can read the review plus check out a few images from the movie here.
- Scott Foy
posted by Scott 9:42 AM | Comments
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
MOVIES X NEWS: ALL OUT ATTACK
This news is l33t, as you trendy young people say these days, so lets get straight to it. D00d.
In what could potentially be huge news, Shaw Brothers’ executive producer Lawrence Wong Kar Hee announced that the company is building a huge new film production studio, according to Bejing News via Wu-Jing.org. Wong Kar Hee claims it will be "the biggest in Asia, in the world, and is the most advanced film city” and will provide the very best amenities possible to Hong Kong filmmakers, the studios might be used by Shaw Brothers themselves or loaned out to other companies. It is hoped that this will encourage more investment from Mainland China, a source of funds and a potential audience that Hong Kong has increasingly been going to in the last year or so. Shaw Brothers themselves plan on seriously getting back into the filmmaking game, the flawed Drunken Monkey was their first film since the mid-80s but didn’t make much of an impact last year. However proposed remakes of classic SB productions like One Armed Swordsman and 36th Chamber of Shaolin very well could, especially with Quentin Tarantino trying to do for old-school Asian cinema with Kill Bill what he did for Blaxploitation with Jackie Brown. Tarantino himself could be in line for the 36th Chamber remake, but we’ll have to wait until 2006 before we’ll see that.
Speaking of Kill Bill IMDb are reporting that Tarantino will write and produce an anime prequel to his films, telling the story of three men – pimp Estebian Vihaio and martial arts masters Hattori Hanzo and Pei Mai, and how they shaped Bill into the man he would become. When do the action figures come out? Thanks to Tigercage over on the Bullets n’ Babes forum for spotting this. Oh, and get yer Kill Bill Vol. 2 trailer here.
This is great. After everything that’s happened with Zhang Yimou’s long-awaited Hero, after numerous delays, a shortened theatrical edit, and some more delays, the film finally gets a summer release date. But seemingly not ones to miss a chance at infuriating movie fans, Miramax have allegedly decided to change the name of the martial arts epic to..... Jet Li’s Hero. HA! They should cash in that little bit further and call it Quentin Tarantino Presents Jet Li’s Hero, I can see the message boards exploding with expletives and thinly veiled death threats now. Monkeypeaches also says that a trailer for it is due to be shown before Kill Bill Vol. 2 so keep an eye open.
Artsmagic, a DVD company based in the UK are bringing some Japanese movies to the US market. Their first two titles will be Takashi Miike’s early work Full Metal Yakuza (also known as Full Metal Gokudo) and the pseudo Ringu sequel Spiral (also known as Rasen). Don’t get too excited though, Full Metal Yakuza isn’t terribly good unless you like cheesy gore and misogyny, and Spiral bombed so badly it was effectively kicked out of the Ringu franchise altogether. Nevertheless, FMY is released on May 25th and includes a 40 minute interview with Miike himself and a commentary by Miike film expert Tom Mes. They’re actually sending me a preview copy of it so I can tell you all about it if you like.
Italian power metal band Rhapsody has a new EP out in May and an album out in September. Why do I mention this? Well according to metalrules.com the band, who have always had rather epic theatrical pretensions, have enlisted the services of none other than horror icon Christopher Lee! He will provide narration for the album’s story, providing the voice for a king character while his daughter Christina also appears as a warrior princess. Could be fun!
The 23rd Hong Kong Film Awards took place last weekend and Monkeypeaches has all the winners listed here. One big winner was Johnny To and Wai Ka-Fai’s Running on Karma which won the Best Picture and Best Screenplay awards, with lead actor Andy Lau being named Best Actor. The most awards went to The Twins Effect, they won six in all including Best Visual Effects and Best Fight Choreography. The lovely Cecilia Cheung won Best Actress for Lost in Time, and Johnny To won Best Director for the excellent PTU. Pang Ho-Cheung won for Best Directorial Debut with his film Men Suddenly in Black, which was well deserved, except that it wasn’t his directorial debut! Yoji Yamada’s Twilight Samurai was named Best Asian Film and Arthur Wong’s cinematography for Floating Landscape came top in its category. Running on Karma clearly struck a chord in Hong Kong last year, it was a breath of fresh air in what was becoming a worryingly formulaic film industry, and one must also wonder if its themes of reincarnation and karma carried from past lives had a certain cultural resonance. There were some daylight robberies however, as Francis Ng should have won Best Actor for his excellent villainous turn in Infernal Affairs 2, and while The Twins Effect was a fun film, Chin Kar Lok’s fight choreography in fellow nominee Star Runner was vastly superior and should have taken the prize. Special awards were also given in memory of Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, Blackie Ko, and lyricist Lan Chun-Keung. More info on the awards can be found at hkentreview.com, and please check out my reviews for PTU, The Twins Effect and Star Runner.
For those who, like me, are desperate to forget that Johnny Mnemonic was ever made (no wonder Takeshi Kitano took his time coming back to the States!) could find solace that another William Gibson story is finally set to hit the big screen according to CHUD. Pattern Recognition is set in present day and concerns an market research consultant called Cayce Pollard, who can tell whether an advertisement will work or not merely from seeing the first draft. She is drawn into a rich man’s attempts to discover the meaning of a mysterious face that appears at random on the internet, and is so intriguing that a whole internet subculture has developed around attempting to discover what it represents. Gibson adaptations have been severely botched in the past, but as a big fan of his work my hopes are high here.
Fans of cult sci-fi favourite The Forbidden Zone are in for a treat, as writer/director Richard Elfman has commissioned new uncut prints of his 1980 work to be shown at Landmark theatres. Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles will present the first screening of the new print on April 30th at midnight. Elfman will be there in person to present his film and a raffle will be held afterwards to win various pieces of signed memorabilia. More info on the movie can be found at the official site and Horror Web has an interview with the director here as well as a competition to win tickets to the LA event. More info on Landmark Theatres can be found here.
News Askew tells us that Jet Li is currently being sought for the role of Kato in Kevin Smith’s upcoming Green Hornet. This will be a surprise to no one. More of a surprise is that Zhang Ziyi could also be up for the role, if they decide to make the edgy, shocking move of making Kato a girl. What will that crazy Kevin Smith think of next?
Well that’s enough zany, gender bending hilarity from me for now. Thanks for reading.
Martin Leggett
posted by Martin 9:35 AM | Comments
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