Posts

Could Diablo Cody’s Sweet Valley High Be A 1980s-Set Clueless? By Peter Sciretta/Sept. 23, 2009 10:23 pm EST Earlier today I re-watched Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, which has to be one of the best Hollywood-produced teen movies of all time. While I was watching Alicia Silverstone spout off created phrases and slang words, it occurred to me that Cody’s Sweet Valley High might be the perfect setting for her stylistic dialogue. Unfortunately, Cody has said on Twitter that she is “Thinking I might play it straight” instead of using made up slang....

Dark Horse And Universal By Peter Sciretta/March 14, 2008 1:32 pm EST Universal Pictures and Dark Horse Entertainment have signed a three-year production and distribution agreement which would give Universal creative access to all Dark Horse characters and properties. I’m not quite sure which Dark Horse properties would be available. Dark Horse’s catalogue contains a lot of creator owned books/characters, and licensed material like Star Wars, Buffy, and Alien vs. Predator which likely would not be part of this new pact....

Filmmaker Tribute Videos By Peter Sciretta/March 27, 2008 12:45 pm EST Cinematical pointed me towards these really cool videos on YouTube by a 25-Year-Old freelance editor nicknamed barringer82, who has edited together a few compilation music videoes of his favorite directors. The Paul Thomas Anderson one is definitely worth a watch, especially if you’re a dan of his films. Check them out after the jump. The Films of Paul Thomas Anderson The Films of Quentin Tarantino The Films of Joel and Ethan Cohen The Films of the 1970’s The Films of the 1990’s The Film’s of Martin Scorsese The Film’s of Michael Mann Halloween Tribute Nightmare on Elm Street Tribute...

Geek Deals: The Wire: The Complete Series (23 Discs) For $90; The Swell Season For $3 By David Chen/Dec. 21, 2008 11:00 pm EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Trivia: The appearance of “Falling Slowly” on “The Swell Season” and another album (“The Cost”) contributed to the the AMPAS’ decision to examine the song’s eligilibity for an Academy Award nomination. “Falling Slowly” ended up winning the award for Best Original Song, beating out three songs from “Enchanted....

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince Trailer #2 By Peter Sciretta/March 5, 2009 1:59 pm EST Warner Bros has released the second full trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. If you thought the next Potter film would be all colorful and cheery, think again. The trailer goes out of it’s way to paint a darker picture, showing a much more dramatic story. Watch the trailer after the jump and leave your comments (video comments?...

High Res: Kick-Ass Set Photos - Red Mist’s Car By Peter Sciretta/Sept. 25, 2008 10:08 pm EST Janetliz got a much better photo of the taxi cab that gets crushed in the opening sequence of Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass. As you can see, the license plate also acts as the film’s title card. Read our original report here.Pigpen333 took a couple photos of the Red Mist’s car. Built by Galpin Auto Sports in Los Angeles, the Red Mist has a supercharged Saleen motor that puts out 630 horse power, and includes “WAY too many other mods than can be discussed....

Jon Favreau Wants To Direct Avengers Movie By Hunter Stephenson/Jan. 4, 2008 5:17 pm EST Politically Correct University keg-hunter turned director Jon Favreau is all over our monitors today picking a fight with George Miller’s un-geeky, tween-appealin’ Justice League. Who’s got his back you ask (Vince Vaughn’s passed out)? Why, it’s Marvel’s brawny Avengers! Yes, Fav told MTV that he wants to throw a movie party with Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Ant Man, Captain America, and a way deep bench, and unlike Miller’s flick, his will star Christian Bale and Brandon Routh throwing blows dammit!...

Lionsgate Buys Movie Rights To Unpublished Video Game By Peter Sciretta/Feb. 13, 2007 5:44 am EST Usually the bad video game movie adaptations happen after the video game becomes a popular franchise/brand. Well Lionsgate has decided to bypass that necessary step and go strait to the bad movie. Lionsgate has bought the big screen rights to the Eidos Interactive video game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, which hasn’t even been released yet....

Movie Review: Transformers By Peter Sciretta/July 1, 2007 11:17 pm EST But you must enter into such a movie knowing that story will not take precedent. It’s probably the last thing on the list. Alien creatures have come to earth in search for a cube that could help create a new world for their near-extinct race. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is the grandson of an explorer who discovered Megatron frozen in the Arctic Ocean....

New Beowulf Movie Trailer By Peter Sciretta/Sept. 20, 2007 1:16 am EST I just got home from a screening of Transformers in IMAX (more on that later), where they premiered another new trailer for Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf. Aside from the 3D coolness, I really have no interest in seeing this flick. The animation or motion capture looks as the story, which I’m sad to say was a collaboration between Comic book legend Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary (Rules of Attraction, Killing Zoe, Pulp Fiction)....

New Photos: Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes By Peter Sciretta/Dec. 14, 2008 6:53 pm EST In the last couple months we’ve brought you on set paparazzi photos of the cast, but now Warner Bros has released the first two official photos from Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. The photo above features Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock, alongside Holmes’ trusted colleague Dr. Watson, played by Jude Law. The photo below features a bloodied, shirtless Holmes in some king of fighting arena....

New Tron: Legacy Trailer In Wonderland, Disney Developing Tron Television Series? By Peter Sciretta/Feb. 5, 2010 1:30 pm EST I’ve heard that the folks over at Walt Disney Pictures are going nuts for Tron: Legacy, and think it will be huge. A new report coming from AICN claims that Disney might also developing some spin-off television series spin-off for 2011/2012 (probably for Disney XD). No word on if it would be animated or live action, although I’m not sure how they could do live-action and compete with the million dollar effects in Tron: Legacy....

Paramount Releasing Talhotblond Straight To Download, Setting Paradigm For Their Microbudget Releases - Trailer Included By Brendon Connelly/Dec. 13, 2009 8:15 am EST From what I’ve seen about the movie, including this trailer, talhotblond hits some of the same hot buttons as, say, Hard Candy. If people are one half as seduced by this as they were by that, we’ve got a hit on our hands. Screen Daily quote PDE’s Keith Quinn as saying:...

Pixar Developing A Cars Sequel? By Peter Sciretta/July 13, 2007 2:11 pm EST Could a Cars sequel be in the works at Pixar? JVPixarNews is reporting this rumor, citing an anonymous source who claims that Cars 2 is being developed in the Mouse owned computer animation studio. Earlier this year, Cars voice actor Paul Newman slipped that Pixar was making Cars 2. Newman has since announced he is retiring from acting, and no official announcement has been made from the Pixar group (although we have heard unofficial denials from within the company) ....

Pixar’s Up Featurette: Unlikely Heroes By Peter Sciretta/April 16, 2009 9:07 pm EST Disney has released a new featurette for Pixar’s Up titled “Unlikely Heroes.” Director Pete Docter, co-director/co-writer Bob Peterson, and producer Jonas Rivera talk about the unlikely pairing of Carl Fredrickson and Russell, the young wilderness explorer. John Lasseter says that he believes that the comedy which results makes this “the funniest Pixar film we’ve ever made.” Very strong praise from the guy who made Toy Story....

Scant New Details Emerge On Tom Tykwer’s New Feature, Drei By Russ Fischer/Dec. 2, 2009 12:38 pm EST In the months since The International opened to generally dismissive reviews, there have been a few really intriguing hints about future projects from director Tom Tykwer. He’s been linked to films based on Cloud Atlas, the postmodern novel by David Mitchell, and What is the What, the Dave Eggers book about the Lost Boys of Sudan....

Sequel To Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon Taking Shape By Brendon Connelly/May 15, 2009 3:47 pm EST An Icons of Fright interview with David J. Stieve, co-writer of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon has revealed that there has recently been some renewed interest in, and therefore some hard work done on, a potential sequel. The first film was a fun, snappy mockumentary about a movie-style slasher letting slip some of the secrets of his trade that definitely deserves its ongoing long tail of DVD revenue....

The Hollywood Studios Want To Control Your Television Set-Up By Brendon Connelly/Nov. 5, 2009 12:30 pm EST In a rather desperate and intrusive attempt to quell piracy, the collective forces of Hollywood have been revving themselves up to put their weight behind a new anti-bootlegging solution. So far, that sounds okay, I would hope you’d agree. It’s what the solution entails that turns the stomach. Nicknamed the Kill Switch, the Selectable Output Control device is a system by which certain outputs on your cable box or DVR – or, frankly, whatever player of any kind that they could force the specification onto – would be turned off when films or programming with a risk of piracy are being played....

The Princess And The Frog Featurette: “Conjuring The Villain” By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 24, 2009 9:00 pm EST Walt Disney Animation Studios has provided CartoonBrew with an exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette for The Princess and the Frog titled “Conjuring the Villain”. In the video, supervising animator Bruce Smith (Bebe’s Kids, The Proud Family) discusses the character of Dr. Facilier, the villain of the film, and how voice actor Keith David influences the animators work and the character’s performance....

This American Life Getting Into Movies, Plan Spy Romance For Starters By Brendon Connelly/March 12, 2009 3:40 am EST After several years of the best radio show ever produced, a none-too-shabby TV variant and a good handful of live engagements, Ira Glass and This American Life are finally getting into the movie business. Inevitable, perhaps. Somewhat surprisingly, though, the screenwriters lined up for their first picture are the guys behind the script for Joe Johnston’s upcoming Captain America as well as the first two Narnia movies; yet perhaps less surprisingly for This Life collaborators, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely also wrote The Life and Death of Peter Sellers and collaborated with Cameron Crowe on a proposed, yet stalled, remake of the Ernst Lubitsch masterpiece Trouble in Paradise....