The Green Hornet - Michel Gondry talks about the film while his son does the beatbox thing

Source: Topless Robot

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Ridley Scott is directing the new Alien prequel

This is excellent news. The original Alien wrangler going back to the source and with todays technology. Should be something special methinks.

Variety are reporting that Twentieth Century Fox has hired Jon Spaihts to write a prequel that has Ridley Scott attached to return as director.

Spaihts got the job after pitching the studio and Scott Free (Isn't that the name of DC Comics Mr Miracle?), which will produce the film.

The film is set up to be a prequel to the groundbreaking 1979 film that Scott directed. It will precede that film, in which the crew of a commercial towing ship returning to Earth is awakened and sent to respond to a distress signal from a nearby planetoid. The crew discovers too late that the signal generated by an empty ship was meant to warn them.

The deal gives Fox another chance to keep the "Alien" franchise alive. There were three sequels to Scott's original, but it is the first time the director has set his mind on directing one.

Spaihts has become a go-to-guy for space thrillers. After Keanu Reeves became attached to his Warner Bros. sci-fi script "Shadow 19," Reeves hired Spaihts to write the space journey epic "Passengers," which is berthed at Morgan Creek. That script got Spaihts the meeting with Fox and Scott Free, and he won the job with an "Alien" reboot take that the studio and Scott loved.

How to you feel about the news?

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Jon Favreau sees Iron Man 3 and The Avengers in 3D

"I really love the 3-D," director Jon Favreau told MTV at the San Diego Comic-Con. "I think 'Up' was probably my favorite movie I've seen this year."

Marvel has plans to make at least one more "Iron Man" film, as well as an "Avengers" film in 2012 that will feature Tony Stark. If Favreau has his way, he'd like at least one of those films to be three-dimensional.

"I like all the new technologies, 3-D being one of them. James Cameron had brought me around a few months back to see what he was doing with 'Avatar'; that's what's been seen now by many of the fans," he said of the 3-D footage shown last week. "It was exciting to go in there and see what he's doing with cutting-edge technology. He's just a great storyteller as well, and to see a great filmmaker working with the cutting-edge of this technology is amazing."

"I talked to Marvel after I'd seen [Cameron's footage] about doing 'Iron Man 2' in 3-D," he said. "I was hoping to get a shot at doing it this time around, but it didn't work out that way. ... There are a few drawbacks to it at this point — there's more cost involved, and it also forces you to shoot digitally. My cinematographer [Matthew Libatique] really likes film, and 'Iron Man' had a certain look because it was film."

As of right now, Favreau isn't certain he'll direct "Iron Man 3" or "The Avengers." But Feige is on record as saying that he'd like to see Marvel films jumping off the screen soon, and Favreau is convinced that the technology will be there for whichever film he makes next.

"We haven't had any talks about [me directing 'Avengers'], although we do have talks about what the content of 'Avengers' will be," Favreau said of the film expected to feature Iron Man, Nick Fury, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow and others. "I'm going to be involved in some capacity with it, but as far as directing goes, we're still working on this one. ... I'm happy they brought me back to do 'Iron Man 2.'

"But I think that, as the digital technology gets better, 3-D is going to be a lot easier," the filmmaker continued. "Certainly for 'Iron Man,' I think it would work out well."

Would you like to see the Marvel superheroes go 3D?

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Joe Dante is in The Hole

Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling) was at the San Diego Comic Con where he debuted a trailer for his latest feature The Hole in 3-D. It's his first film since Looney Tunes: Back in Action although he has done a couple of Masters of Horror episodes and a zombie-themed CSI:NY.

The Hole stars Teri Polo, Haley Bennett, Nathan Gamble and Quinn Lord. Written by Mark L. Smith (Vacancy), it concerns a family that moves into a new home. There they discover a hole in the basement that feeds off of their darkest fears and manifests them. It sounds a bit like a cross between The Gate, Sphere and Poltergeist. STYD managed to speak to the director about his new film.

"I read a lot of scripts, seldom do they strike me on a character level," says Dante. "This is not a big movie, it's a modest picture. I managed to convince them to do it in 3-D because I thought of the visuals and also the drama. It's not a gore-fest. It's more in the line of The Others or The Devil's Backbone. It's creepy and sneaks up on you, and it's not filled with eyeballs on sticks poking out at you in the third row. Not that there's anything wrong with that, that's just not what this is, there are plenty of those movies out there. So the idea was to try and make the kind of movie they stopped making in the '80s when you can take your family to a scary picture and they were not traumatized, they were scared."

I like the sound of the creepiness rather than all out gore.

Regarding the 3D technology Dante had this to say. "We found a way to do it that only added a modest amount to the budget an we went ahead and did it. I think it was a great idea. It's an unusual 3-D movie in the sense that it's not what you expect from a 3-D movie. It's still got all of the stuff - breaking the frame - but to me it's immersive. You feel a little more like you're in the room with the people and what their problems are. I think you find that in some of the current 3-D movie, the animated ones at least."

He also said shooting went smoothly and that his fans will "find this to be a Joe Dante movie. It has its silly aspects, of course, as I do. But it's pretty straight-forward, a character picture. The kids are very good. I have Bruce Dern. It's a small cast and not a lot of locations, but people who are movie fans will get a lot of the references."

The Hole is still in post-production and doesn't have a release date yet.

"The trick is to not repeat yourself, but then again, what is Small Soldiers but Gremlins 3, so you can't escape that stuff."

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Captain Jack as Captain America

The Avengers film draws ever closer and we have our Iron Man, Thor, Nick Fury, and a few others. However, there is still no news on who will play Captain America.

Worryingly Will Smith's name keeps getting bandied about. Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of Big Willy stylee (hmm a dodgy sentence if ever there was one!) but they should stick with the Steve Rogers set out in the comic. However, another actor, who would agree with the sentiments of my previous sentence but in a whole different way, has said they'd like to give it a go.

During the BBC "Torchwood: Children of Earth" mini-series panel at Comic-Con last weekend, actor John Barrowman revealed that he would like the chance play Captain America in The First Avenger: Captain America and The Avengers films.

"You know what I want to play? Captain America," he said to the wildly receptive crowd, before adding that it "so won't happen."

Barrowman plays the fixed point in time, Captain Jack Harkness and is pretty good at it.

The question is would he make a good Cap? To be honest I think he would. He's got the looks (my wife and mother love him as do many other men and women), he's a bit of an unknown for the mainstream audience (only fans of TV sci-fi, musical theatre and 1980's Saturday Morning Kids TV would know him) which would make them buy into him as the character rather than as a big name playing a part. Although Kevin Feige has said they are looking for a star with international appeal.

Of course, there would be none of the shenanigans that Captain Jack gets up to if he took on the role of Steve Rogers.

I seriously doubt that this will come to pass or that he will even make it to an audition, just one of those things that the Comic Con throws up once in a while. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are people working away on making vids and pics of Barrowman as Captain America right now.

Would Barrowman be a good Captain America?

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TRON Legacy - Could Michael Sheen be the big bad

A good few months back Michael Sheen twittered that he was heading to Vancouver to play a role and that he couldn't say what it was. At the time he said that the role he was playing wasn't a person, and other such clues. There was lots of guessing by various people, but the majority vote was that it was going to be Tron 2 (now called Tron Legacy).

Turns out the majority was right as today Disney have confirmed that he will star in it.

The question now is what role will he be playing? As he has already said it won't be human then it looks as if it will be a Computer program. I am guessing it will be the villain of the peace as he is a British actor and that's what usually happens. Plus in the original David Warner played the main bad guy.

Check out the Tron Legacy trailer for a whole dose of awesomness.

What do you think of the casting?

Source: Filmstalker

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Megan Fox talks Fathom and Wonder Woman

"They just wrote the first draft of the script, and everybody's really happy with it," Fox told MTV News when asked about the adaption of Michael Turner's Fathom. "I haven't read it yet, but the studio's really happy with it and there's growing excitement around the project."

While Fox already made a case for her geek cred during Comic-Con, she admitted that there isn't any other comic book roles she's really looking to take on right now -- and that includes Wonder Woman, a character she famously shot down a while back.

"I feel like that's a hard adaptation to make into a live-action film," said Fox. "She flies around in an invisible jet and she has a lasso of truth... It's going to be a hard movie to make live action."

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A Serious Man - Trailer for The Coen Brothers new film

A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry's unemployable brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny (Aaron Wolf) is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man?

Source: First Showing

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Bryce Dallas Howard joins The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Summit Entertainment announced today that Bryce Dallas Howard will take over the role of "Victoria" in the studio's upcoming production of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Actress, Rachelle Lefevre, who portrayed the character in Twilight as well as the upcoming release of The Twilight Saga's New Moon, will not continue in the role due to scheduling conflicts with another commitment the actor has made. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse will start filming in Vancouver this coming August.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, the third film in the studio's Twilight film franchise based on Stephenie Meyer's blockbuster book series, will be directed by David Slade from a screenplay written by Melissa Rosenberg. The film will be released theatrically in North America on Wednesday, June 30, 2010.

"We are incredibly happy that Bryce has agreed to come into the franchise," said Erik Feig, Summit's President of Worldwide Production and Acquisitions. "Rachelle brought "Victoria" to great screen life and Bryce will bring a new dimension to the character. The franchise is lucky to have such a talented actress as Bryce coming in to fill the role."

Howard most recently starred in Terminator Salvation as Kate Connor and has been seen in Spider-Man 3, Lady In the Water, and The Village. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her leading performance as an actress in the HBO film As You Like It.

In The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob - knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life.

Source: MovieWeb

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Paul W S Anderson takes on The Warded Man

Paul W. S. Anderson and longtime producing partner Jeremy Bolt have acquired film rights to Peter V. Brett's debut fantasy novel The Warded Man, according to MovieWeb.

Anderson is attached to direct and will produce with Bolt. Stephanie Johnson, who brought the title to the pair, will executive produce.

The book is set in an undetermined future where mankind is beset by nightly attacks from demonkind and has been thrown back into a feudal state. Three young people emerge with the potential power to turn the tide, including the title character, a man who has wards (spells) tattooed on his body.

"It was an occasion where it paid to be British," Anderson said. "It launched in the U.K. six months earlier than in the U.S., and we got wind of it when it was in galley form before the U.K. release. We think it has the potential to be a new 'Lord of the Rings'-style epic, and the book has all this great imagery."

Novelist Brett was an ad man with a two-hour commute to Manhattan; he wrote the book on his BlackBerry.

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The Avengers and Captain America - Could the Skrulls and The Invaders feature in them?

Some interesting facts have been hinted at by Kevin Feige, over on CHUD, regarding various things that may feature in their forthcoming Marvel films.

'Will the Skrulls be the villain in The Avengers?' I asked.

Feige gave me one of those looks he's good at giving and just said, 'We do own them.'

More digging turned up the fact that Marvel Studios owns the Skrull race, while Fox own the Super Skrull.

The Skrull are a shape changing alien race who have had a hard-on for Earth for quite some time. They would make a pretty great big bad for the film for a number of reasons: first of all, there's a bunch of them, so the film wouldn't have to contain just one or two fight scenes with the main threat, and each of the team members could have their own battles at their own power level. For another, they allow Marvel Studios to do something really cool - what if it's revealed that certain characters from the previous Marvel movies have been Skrulls all along? And Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch proved in the first Ultimates series that the Skrull (called the Chitauri there) make a convincingly cinematic threat.

Of course the other possibility is that The Avengers will battle Hydra. As I mentioned in this story about The Invaders possibly appearing in The First Avenger: Captain America, Feige name-dropped Hydra as being something with which Steve Rogers had to contend. Might the truth be that Steve Rogers would just meet some of the Nazi supervillains who go on to head Hydra? And with The Avengers being a SHIELD group in the movies, it might make sense to make the villain a SHIELD villain. On top of that, like the Skrull, the sheer number of Hydra agents mean the film could contain lots of battles and that each of the Avengers could get something to do during the course of the film.

Having the Skrulls in the Avengers films throws up some interesting possibilities - the Hulk may feature but turn out to be a Skrull, other characters in Iron Man, Thor etc may turn out to have been replaced by Skrulls at some point.

What do you think of the news?
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Bart Got a Room - Time to get laid

William H. Macy and Kate Micucci do a ukulele duet for the DVD release of Bart Got a Room.

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Villains to be Fight Club of the comic book film world?

This sounds like if could be interesting if done right.

Viper Comics miniseries Villains, follows a main character who decides he wants to learn the dark art of villainy after discovering the old guy living next door is actually a retired baddie. Sounds a bit like Apt Pupil but with super powers.

Universal is giving the series the big-screen adaptation treatment and producers are conceiving the film as a big-budget, super-dark adventure directed by someone with a sensibility similar to the men who’ve helmed “Fight Club” and “Collateral.”

“I think we want to go big with it,” producer Sean Bailey told MTV News. “My personal ambition is to have it be operatic and epic. If Michael Mann or David Fincher were ever to go make one of these movies, what would that look like? That’s my hope for it. To be in that kind of world.”

“If you look at any war movie or any crime movie, who the hero is, is solely a question of the point of view,” Bailey continued. “So we wanted to look at the rise of a villain—why and how it happened. It’s got a different slant than you’ve seen.”

The project was announced last year and “Wonder Woman” screenwriters Matt Jennison and Brent Strickland recently handed in a first draft of “Villains.” The studio and producers handed back notes, and now the writers are at work on a second draft.

With the script not yet nailed down, Bailey hasn’t yet begun the search for a director, nor thought deeply about casting choices.

“We’re still in the script stage,” Bailey laughed.

Have a look at a preview of the first issue.

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Iron Man 2 footage from Comic Con

Well almost. Some people who saw it did a "sweded" version of it. Excellent stuff.

You can see some screenshots from the actual footage here.
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Alice Jacobs is Dead - Trailer for short zombie related film

John La Zar and Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog, Escape from New York, The Cannonball Run) star in the thrilling short film Alice Jacobs Is Dead, which was written and directed by Alex Horwitz. The story revolves around Dr. Ben Jacobs (La Zar), who is out to save the world. The drug he has created allows mankind to fight back against the Z-virus, which nearly destroyed civilization entirely. Now, in the aftermath of the crisis, he's trying to cure the last victims of the disease. But what will happen when he brings his mysterious work home to help his ailing wife?

This looks superb and has had some cracking reviews by people who have seen it.

Source: MovieWeb
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The Secret of NIMH gets another go

Paramount is developing a feature version of the award-winning children's tale Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, director Neil Burger (The Illusionist) is in talks to write the screenplay, and former Walden exec Cary Granat is on board to produce.

This film would be the second theatrical go-round for the book, which MGM brought to the screen in 1982 as the animated The Secret of NIMH, directed by Don Bluth.

Robert C. O'Brien's "Rats of NIMH" won the Newbery Medal in 1972 and has been a staple in children's bookstores and libraries since. The story centers on a mouse -- the titular Mrs. Frisby, re-named Mrs. Brisby in the MGM movie -- faced with a crisis when her son falls ill and she must move her family to escape a farmer's plow.

Mrs. Frisby enlists a group of former lab rats, whom she soon discovers run a highly evolved society, who possess advanced technologies and divide labor in the manner of a human community.

It's likely the new "NIMH" would combine live-action and animation in the manner of Alvin and the Chipmunks and other kiddie hybrids, but should hopefully be a little better!

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Prince of Persia - Some action shots

We are starting to see more and more of Mike Newell's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Luckily, they are getting more exciting as time goes.

These photos actually show the Prince in action. Jake Gyllenhall and Gemma Arterton jumping over walls. Empire debuted the pics. What do you think of them?

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Holy Excalibur - Warren Ellis writing King Arthur movie

Interesting news indeed from the blog of a certain Warren Ellis - writer of Planetary, Transmetropolitan, Crooked Little Vein and so much more.

I was actually cleared to talk about this at San Diego, but all the press I
did there was Japanese-oriented for the Marvel Anime deal… so I’m going to
mention it here, to say I did, and to maybe make up for that by giving the
comics news sites something to post post-SDCC.

I’m writing a film treatment for Hollywood Gang, who co-produced Frank Miller’s 300. Hollywood Gang have previously optioned my graphic novel (with Chris Sprouse) OCEAN.

On my desk, the treatment is called Untitled Arthurian Project.

On their desk, the project is called EXCALIBUR.

I’m working directly with Gianni Nunnari, Oliver Kramer and Craig Flores (whom I was delighted to bump into on the Warner’s lot the other day) and having a great time.

So… yeah. Movie stuff. Other things to talk about soon. I’ve been sitting on that one for months

What do you reckon to that? Will it feature hints of the bleed or a certain snowflake existing in 196,883-dimensional space?

What do you want to see in a King Arthur film by Ellis?


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King Kong Prequel in the works

Spirit Pictures is looking to breathe new life into King Kong and a project initially developed by effects legend Ray Harryhausen according to Variety.

Producers at the shingle have picked up the rights to the book "Kong: King of Skull Island," a prequel to the well-known tale of the big ape.

Penned by Joe DeVito and Brad Strickland, book focuses on the backstory of Skull Island and how the giant gorilla became king there. It introduces other giant gorillas and dinosaurs only hinted at in the previous films.

The book was published at the same time Peter Jackson was producing his remake of "King Kong."

Rights to make the movie were brokered with the Merian C. Cooper family, who own the Kong property. Cooper co-directed the original "Kong," released in 1933.

"We're very concerned with honoring Merian C. Cooper's legacy in Hollywood. We want to make sure that whatever we deliver will honor his memory," said Spirit's Steve Iles, who worked on videogames for the "Star Wars" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchises through his Pocket Studios game company.

The plan is to produce the film using motion-capture technology such as Robert Zemeckis used to make "The Polar Express," "Beowulf" and the upcoming "A Christmas Carol." Spirit's own facility would produce the CG work.

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Machete - Lindsay Lohan may be in it?

Who would have seen this one coming for the cool looking Machete.

"I can't say too much about it except we start shooting in a couple weeks," Rodriguez told MTV News. "These things come together very quickly and we're casting right now. The script just came out great."

Along with addressing the uncommon need for the film to live up to its trailer, the director said the only official casting thus far has been Trejo and Michelle Rodriguez. While he wouldn't confirm rumors that Robert DeNiro might have a role in the film, he did say that Lindsay Lohan has a part waiting for... if she wants it.

"Lindsay's cool," said Rodriguez. "There's actually cool part in the movie for her if she takes it."

So she is not signed up but has a possible cool role in the movie. Do you think Lohan should be in it? What role do you think she would be playing?

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