John Carpenter's The Ward moving forward

Been a while since there has been any news on any of John Carpenter's new projects. There is nothing new about the prison one called Riot starring Nicholas Cage or the gangster film called The Prince.

However, there is some movement on his next film called The Ward (last mentioned back in February).

Carpenter has signed up Danielle Panabaker (Sky High, Friday the 13th) to star opposite Amber Heard (The Rum Diary).

It is a psychological horror thriller written by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen (Long Distance). The story follows a girl (Heard) who is admitted to a psychiatric ward where she meets other girls there with distinct personalities and discovers a mysterious girl haunting the halls at night. Panabaker plays another patient in the institution, a snobbish girl who flirts with orderlies and faces electroshock therapy.

In addition to Panabaker, Taking Woodstock star Mamie Gummer has also joined the cast as a patient in the ward. Principal photography is scheduled to begin next month in Spokane, Washington.

John Carpenter is one of my favourite directors, but his last film, Ghosts of Mars, in 2001 was not so good. The Ward does sound like it could be back to the brilliant John Carpenter we all want to see again.

Source: First Showing

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Photos of Depp, Nolasco, Eckhart and Heard on the set of The Rum Diary

The Rum Diary is slated to finish shooting on June 9. Yes, Johnny Depp will have to work through his birthday to make up for rain delays. Pam sent me these photos of Depp, Amaury Nolasco, Aaron Eckhart and Amber Heard on the set. I can't wait to see some footage from this film.



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Amber Heard, Giovanni Ribisi and Johnny Depp on the set of The Rum Diary

Some cool photos from the set of The Rum Diary. Below is Amber Heard and the bloke in the rain is Giovanni. Thanks to Pam for sending them my way.



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First look at Amber Heard in The Rum Diary. It's carnival time.

From what I can gather this is our very first look at Amber Heard on the set of The Rum Diary in Puerto Rico. Like Megan Fox did recently, Amber's costume is hidden beneath a rather fetching dressing gown, but still she is on set.
According to my always excellent source, Pam (thanks for the pics Pam), the make believe plaza in Vega Baja is substituting for a carnival in St. Thomas which is a major part of the story. There are meant to be hundreds of extras but not clear how many they actually got. The film's budget is $45 million so Depp may be taking a big cut in front end pay to do this one. $18 million has been set aside for the Puerto Rico shoot.

Shooting concludes in Puerto Rico on or around 5th June.

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Bill Murray is a zombie in Zombieland

Shocktilyoudrop have it from a reliable source that the always excellent Bill Murray has donned full zombie makeup for a cameo in Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland.

He's joins Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and Amber Heard in this horror comedy where a band of survivors team to fight the living dead in the post-apocalyptic Southwest after a zombie plague ravages America.

This is the film that made Woody Harrelson punch a cameraman in the face because he thought he was a zombie! (see below)

Now the involvement of Bill Murray (although only in a cameo) suggests to me that it has a little bit more about it than other such zombie films.

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Johnny Depp going to or from the set of The Rum Diary

"Private source. Depp with, I believe, Buck Holland..his longtime security man."

Based on Hunter S. Thompson's novel of the same name, The Rum Diary follows Depp as Paul Kemp, a divorced alcoholic and struggling novelist who decides to kick around in San Juan until his ship comes in, working as a journalist for a newspaper that's on its last legs, drinking gallons of rum and experimenting with LSD. With his new friend Bob Sala by his side, Kemp becomes entangled in a corrupt hotel development scheme with a slick PR consultant named Sanderson. Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart, Richard Jenkins, Michael Rispoli, and Giovani Ribisi also star in this.

The photo below is similar to the previous one I posted, but you get to see a camera in this one and gives a cool little peak into the film making world. Thanks to Pam for sending me these.

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Amaury Nolasco joins The Rum Diary

Actor Amaury Nolasco, featured in the Fox Television series Prison Break, arrived in his native Puerto Rico on Wednesday to join the cast of The Rum Diary, a film starring Johnny Depp.

Nolasco said in a press release that he felt “doubly happy” about the chance to combine business with pleasure.

“The Rum Diary” is based on the book of the same name by late “gonzo” journalist Hunter S. Thompson, recounting his experiences living in Puerto Rico in the 1950s.

Shooting on the movie is set to begin next Monday on the Caribbean island.

Depp also portrayed Thompson in the 1998 film “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” with Puerto Rico’s Benicio del Toro as his co-star.

Nolasco joins a cast that includes Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart, Richard Jenkins, Giovanni Ribisi and Gavin Houston.

“None of them will leave Puerto Rico without a little piece of our flavor,” Nolasco said of his colleagues.

Directed by Bruce Robinson, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “The Killing Fields,” the new film is being produced by Depp, Christi Dembrowski and Graham King, whose credits include “The Departed,” “The Aviator” and “Gangs of New York.”

Cheers to Pam for letting me know.

Source: LAHT

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Exterminators - Men of Texas watch out

The SXSW 2009 trailer for Exterminators, a black comedy centering on Alex (Graham), a lonely accountant whose one act of rage results in her being sentenced to court ordered therapy. There she meets Stella (Coolidge), the owner of a small extermination business who uses her car as a weapon; and Nikki (Heard), a dental technician with the face of an angel and the mind of a sociopath. Together these women will form their own 'silent revolution', wrecking havoc on the men of Texas.

Director: John Inwood
Writer: Suzanne Weinert
Cast: Heather Graham, Jennifer Coolidge, Amber Heard, Joey Lauren Adams

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The Informers - New trailer

In such works as Less Than Zero and American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis brilliantly dissects contemporary American society, a culture in which too much is never enough. Now, adapting his own acclaimed novel for the screen, he returns to the Los Angeles of the early 1980's with a multi-strand narrative that deftly balances a vast array of characters who represent both the top of the heap (a Hollywood dream merchant, a dissolute rock star, an aging newscaster) and the bottom (a voyeuristic doorman, an amoral ex-con).

Connecting all his intertwining strands are the quintessential Ellis protagonists—a group of beautiful, blonde young men and women who sleep all day and party all night, doing drugs—and one another—with abandon, never realizing that they are dancing on the edge of a volcano.

Filmed with uncommon glamour and grit by acclaimed Australian director Gregor Jordan, The Informers is an alternately blistering and chilling portrait of hedonism run amuck.

Director: Gregor Jordan
Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke, Austin Nichols, Amber Heard, Brad Renfro.

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John Carpenter is checking into The Ward

I was watching John Carpenter's The Thing on Sunday night and wishing we would get another film by the big guy that was worthy of his great period of filmmaking - something that would fit alongside Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, They Live, Escape From New York, and Big Trouble in Little China. There have been rumours and news snippets of John Carpenter making new films - a prison one called Riot starring Nicholas Cage and a gangster film called The Prince. However, it looks like neither of them will be his next one. No, according to First Showing, it appears that he will be going back to what he does best. Creepy horror. After 8 years John Carpenter is going to direct again with a film called The Ward. All we know about it is this - The psychological thriller will star Amber Heard as a young woman in a mental institution who is terrorized by a ghost. Shooting is scheduled to begin in May, with Echo Lake Entertainment and Saw series' Peter Block producing and financing.

"The Ward is the kind of script that I've been looking for: a complex, visceral story, full of suspense and scares," Carpenter told Hollywood Reporter. The script was written by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen.

Fingers crossed that it is a return to greatness. I can't wait. What is your favourite John Carpenter film? What is his worst?

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