Kenneth Branagh acted out the whole Thor film

In his latest Cup O’ Joe column, Joe Quesada spoke about his time with Thor director Kenneth Branagh and head of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige. He mentioned one specific meeting as “one of the highlights of my time here at Marvel”.

“It was performance art,” Quesada recalled. “Kevin would give us the establishment of the shot and the situation: ‘Here we are. We’re in (take your pick of location). And here’s Odin and he’s coming up to (pick a character.)’ And then Kenneth would come in and give you the color commentary. ‘Odin has an air of majesty to him’ and he’d act out the Odin part or the Thor part. So we sat there and literally got a three-hour one-man show from Kenneth Branagh. It was fantastic.”

Quesada said that the “very Shakespearean” Kenneth Branagh had a phenomenal grasp on the characters of Thor, Loki, Odin and the rest of the film’s cast.

“He’s definitely about character, which is the quintessential trait you have to have to understand the Marvel characters,” he said. “It’s not just big hammers and capes and things like that. It’s about what makes the character tick. There’s definitely a reason for Thor, a reason for him being and a very deep family relationship and story in the movie that I think is going to be very cool.”

“I think it’s going to be [a tougher sell] on the surface,” he said when asked if it was going to be harder to market the film compared to Iron Man. “[But we've] got plans already to get Thor’s name out within a younger group of kids. I think the upcoming ‘Super Hero Squad’ and ‘Avengers Animated’ shows are going to do wonders to get that across, and then we’re working on a couple of ancillary things here and there to boost the desire for kids in particular to know more about Thor and the general public as well.”

I would love to see some video of Branagh acting out the Thor film. It would be amazing to watch. I wonder if he will have a cameo in the film as Jon Favreau did (although it was a bit more than a cameo) in Iron Man.

The more I hear about the Thor film the more excited I get.

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Hamlet as an action horror film?

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke talked with Movieline about her plans for the Emile Hirsch-led contemporary update of Hamlet at the recent Young Hollywood Awards.

Tone wise, Hardwicke says "It's really like a thriller. From the day Hamlet's father dies, three days later eight people are dead and a ghost is telling him to murder for revenge so we're doing it as a suspense thriller".

There'll be some additions as well - "All the action that often is off camera, we're showing it in great vivid detail. It's scary...you're going to see a lot of crazy stuff."

Asked about comparisons with another contemporary set Hamlet, Michael Almereyda's 2000 drama starring Ethan Hawke, Hardwicke says her film will be a lot "shorter and tighter".

Anyone else hear alarm bells after reading that?

Source: Dark Horizons

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Anthony Stewart Head in a futuristic Macbeth

The always excellent Anthony Stewart Head (Buffy, Merlin) has starred as Duncan in a futuristic version of Macbeth according to io9.

Director Nicholas Paton, who adapted the play with Fergus March (who also plays the title role), provided a tantalizing description of Head's role way back in 2006:

"Tony plays Duncan as a spitting, cigar-chomping criminal leader, with a soft Glaswegian accent that can turn in an instant from warm and affectionate to fatally menacing. As Duncan he plays a pivotal role in the film - he is both Macbeth's boss and paternal figure, whom Macbeth is driven to murder by his own uncontrollable ambition. The murder of Duncan reflects the loss of the last of the old-school gangsters as a new generation rise to power, a generation without the same moral sensibilities and rules of conduct as Duncan's - much as Brando's Don Corleone is ousted by a younger more reckless generation in The Godfather."

However, it appears that there have been some problems during the editing process and reshoots have been needed. Unfortunately, it looks as if Anthony won't be able to do them.

"That last I heard of it, somebody called me who was editing it and said, 'We've got a few issues with various things that might need re-shooting. And I thought, 'Well, you kind of had me when you had me. I'm shooting in France. I can't really do it.' So I don't know what's going on with that, but there were just a few issues of things differing from one scene to another. What I saw and what I was in was great, and I sincerely hope it will get some kind of release."

Set in the future but using Shakespeare's original dialogue? Sounds bizarre yet cool. I'll keep you posted as and when I find anything new on this.

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Emile Hirsch to play Hamlet

Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild, Milk, Speed Racer) has signed on to play Hamlet in a new feature adaptation of William Shakespeare’s renowned tragedy. Catherine Hardwicke, fresh off directing Twilight, is set to direct the film with a script by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia).

Hamlet tells the story of a young man faced with the dilemma of whether he should exact revenge on his father’s killer. In true Shakespearean form, the murderer happens to be his uncle. This version, similar to the 2000 adaptation staring Ethan Hawke, will be set in present day America.

Catherine Hardwicke on her vision of Hamlet:

“I had a great time working with Emile on ‘Lords of Dogtown’, so when he suggested ‘Hamlet’, I was intrigued. We read the play aloud and when I heard Emile speaking Shakespeare’s amazing words, I was flooded with images. We edited the play tightly, making the words extremely accessible. In our version, we’re working hard to make ‘Hamlet’ a thrilling cinematic experience — the violent, intense, and romantic scenes that happen ‘off-stage’ in the play will be shown in vivid detail.”

Oscar winning producer’s Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen (MILK) on their different take on Hamlet:

“This project was the brainchild of Emile Hirsch, who we had the pleasure of working with on ‘Milk’. Hamlet was in college when the story takes place, yet there hasn’t been a movie version with an appropriately-aged actor playing the role. Our goal is to present the story as a suspense thriller. We want to make it exciting and accessible for an audience today,” Jinks and Cohen said in a joint statement.

I do like Emile Hirsch as an actor. I thought he was stunning in Sean Penn's Into the Wild. How do you feel about another version of Hamlet?

Source: Gordon and the Whale

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Romeo & Juliet vs The Living Dead to premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival

My good friend Ryan Denmark, director of Romeo & Juliet vs the Living Dead has been in touch with some exciting news.

The film will have its world premiere at the 63rd International Edinburgh Film Festival

They join 22 other feature films making their world premiere. As Ryan says they "couldn't be happier that such a storied and high profile festival has honored us with inclusion in their competitive international lineup."

The film is booked for a Friday night time slot in Filmhouse 1 (their main venue) on 26th June. For more info check out their page at the festival site.

Tickets available 8 May £8.50/£7.50.

Let me know what you think of the film if you are heading up for the Film Festival.

I will be interviewing Ryan again after the Premiere to see how it all went. In the meantime you can check out my previous interview with him and watch the trailer below.

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Terrence Howard to star in a sunny version of the Scottish Play

Terrence Howard, who is producing an updated film version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, told a group of reporters that he takes on the title role in the classic play of ambition and treachery, the leading role he's been waiting for. After the buzz from his Oscar nomination for Hustle & Flow, Howard has only played one lead, in the film Pride.

"I had to wait for a minute to trust where I was going," Howard said in a group interview on Saturday in Beverly Hills, Calif., where he was promoting the action drama Fighting. "I'm about to do Macbeth, which we are producing. We're going to do that this summer."

After playing supporting roles in Iron Man, August Rush and The Brave One, Howard felt that the Shakespeare play fit his criteria for a leading vehicle. "I'm playing Hamlet," he joked, confirming that he would play the title role of Macbeth.

Howard will also work behind the scenes on the film. "My production company is producing that," he said. "We'll shoot it in Puerto Rico starting in June."

Macbeth tells the story of a Scottish warrior whose interpretation of three witches' prophecies leads him to murder the king and usurp the throne. This Macbeth adaptation will be set in the modern day, with an exotic island setting.

"Yes, it's updated present time, Caribbean," Howard said. "It'll be a nice thing to see Shakespeare under a Caribbean sun."

What do you think about a Caribbean set Macbeth?

Source: Sci Fi Wire

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Al Pacino is King Lear

Michael Radford is writing and directing a new adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear and has set Al Pacino to play the lead role.

Radford and Pacino worked together on Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in 2004, where Pacino played Shylock.

"Al has been offered this role many times over the years, but didn't feel ready," producer Barry Navidi told Variety. "He's ready now. The film will be true to its period, very similar to the classical look of Merchant of Venice. Michael came up with the most brilliant adaptation and Al and I flipped for it."

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Forbidden Planet to be remade. ID better be good (See what I did there?)

Following the recent Hollywood trend to take a classic and remake it for today's audience (The Day the Earth Stood Still) it looks as if Forbidden Planet is next.
Warner Bros have hired J. Michael Straczynski to write the remake of Forbidden Planet. The original saw a group of Earth scientists who are sent some 17 light years away to investigate what happened to a colony of settlers on Altair-4. They find a man with a secret and his daughter who somehow survived a hideous monster attack on their planet.

Loosely based on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the movie was nominated for best special effects Oscar, and was noted for its groundbreaking use of an all-electronic score, and the first appearances of Robby the Robot and the C-57D starship. The movie’s poster was listed as the fifth best Movie Poster ever created by Premiere Magazine.

Forbidden Planet is one of my all time favourite films. It just works so well for so many reasons - great effects, brilliant story, Robby the Robot, Leslie Nielson with brown hair, Walter Pidgeon being all frosty and mad scientist as Dr Morbius, Anne Francis playing with tigers, Creatures from the ID, the vast underground city of the Krells, and the bit where you see the invisible beastie's footsteps in the sand as it approaches the ship while the electro theromin music works its magic. It is just excellent. Go watch it. Go now. Do it.

When I watched it with my son (he was 8 at the time) he explained to me how, because the spacemen were travelling at the speed of light, time would move slower for them than it would for the people on Earth. Quite a big concept for an 8 year old and it made me proud. He also loved the film and thought Robby was cool.

However, I'm not sure if this film should be remade. There is just no need and I'm not sure if a remake could add anything new to the mix. Although if you look at it as a work based on Shakespeare then a remake is not that unusual as the Bard's tales have been doing the rounds in all forms forever. What do you think of the news?

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