Posts

By Russ Fischer/Feb. 5, 2010 3:32 pm EST

From The Guy Who Wrote Tropic Thunder Comes… Candy Land: The Movie? By Peter Sciretta/Feb. 4, 2009 11:06 pm EST Yes, Universal Pictures is moving forward with their big screen adaptation of the Milton Bradley board game Candy Land. You remember the game right? I think everyone must have owned or played it as a kid, or at least the people of the 70’s-80’s generation. And it would be easy to poo-poo the idea of a big screen movie entirely....

Germany Bans Bryan Singer Film Shoot Due To Tom Cruise’s Scientology By Peter Sciretta/June 25, 2007 4:38 pm EST Germany has barred Bryan Singer and company from shooting at a German military site because the film’s star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist. The German government does not recognize as a church. According to THR, Berlin says Scientology masquerades as a religion to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject. The movie, Valkyrie is based on true events, and tells the story of a scheme hatched by German Generals to assassinate Adolph Hitler at the height of World War II....

JJ Abrams Says Shatner And Khan Are Possible In Star Trek Sequel By Peter Sciretta/May 16, 2009 1:26 pm EST MTV got a chance to grill Star Trek director JJ Abrams about what we could expect in the inevitable sequel. Of course, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have not yet started on the announced sequel, so anything at this point is just speculation. But Abrams admits that the alternative universe timeline allows them to deviate from Trek canon....

LOL: The Crapening By Peter Sciretta/June 6, 2008 12:26 pm EST A couple days ago we featured a New York City subway billboard advertisement for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening which had been defaced by a group of street critics. It looks like the critics have struck again! I know it’s basic toilet humor, and not even technically spelt right, but it made me laugh… via: copyranter LOL: The Crapening...

Netflix Brings Streaming Service To The Nintendo Wii By Russ Fischer/Jan. 13, 2010 11:12 am EST If you need any further proof that Netflix is just going to keep pushing the streaming ‘Watch Instantly’ service as a primary offering, look no further than the fact that all three major video game consoles will soon be able to deliver movies to Netflix subscribers. Within months, Nintendo Wii owners will be able to stream movies via the console....

Pierre Morel’s Approach To Dune: “Faster, More Modern,” Compared To The ‘84 Version By Russ Fischer/Jan. 13, 2010 11:05 pm EST When Pierre Morel was announced as director for the new version of Dune, Brendon wondered, “is it reasonable to assume we’re on for a rather ballistic version of the story?” Yesterday the director spoke about his love of the book, and it seemed like he was trying to be right on the same page as ol’ Frank Herbert....

Robert Rodriguez To Direct The Clash Of The Titans Remake? By Peter Sciretta/Nov. 5, 2007 1:07 am EST In the story of big budget remake of Barbarella, Universal and Robert Rodriguez split over budget issues or his refusal to cast anyone other than his girlfriend Rose McGowan in the lead role (depending on what story you read). The director’s attempts to lower the budget from $80 million to $60 million have thus far been unsuccessful....

Shocker! Roland Emmerich Will Film Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy As 3D Mo-Cap Epic By Russ Fischer/Feb. 11, 2010 1:28 pm EST This is a story with details so obvious and so easily expected that there is barely any reason to report them. Really, I’m just doing this to bum out the hardcore Isaac Asimov purists who are already despondent at the idea of Roland Emmerich getting his hands on the Foundation Trilogy....

Stuart Townsend Leaves Thor, Joshua Dallas Replaces As Fandral By Devindra Hardawar/Jan. 10, 2010 11:58 pm EST The big news today involves some last minute casting changes for Kenneth Branagh’s Thor. Stuart Townsend, who was cast as Fandral, has left the film over “creative differences”. In his stead will be Joshua Dallas, a young actor with not much of a profile. Dallas has previously been cast in the sequel to the UK horror classic The Descent, and will also be seen in the upcoming George Lucas-produced Red Tails....

Sundance Interview: Daniel Grou, Director Of 7 Days By David Chen/Jan. 31, 2010 7:26 am EST The annual success of the Saw films has proven that there’s a huge market out there for torture-porn films, or films whose primary function is to allow viewers to revel in the physical destruction of the human body. But what would happen if you took a torture-porn film, made it using classical filmmaking techniques, populated it with talented actors, used a well-written script, and injected a healthy dose of moral ambiguity into it for good measure?...

Sundance Video Blog: Why Everything We’ve Ever Tried For Amounts To Nothing By David Chen/Jan. 21, 2010 8:58 am EST There’s a movie called Howl debuting at the Sundance Film Festival. It’s the opening night film of the festival and it’s attracting a good amount of buzz. Typically, an opening night movie is shown to the press at the same time as its public premiere. That was not the case this year, so this morning, our entire condo full of bloggers roused ourselves, bright and early, to try to obtain tickets....

Superman Screenwriters Not Returning For Sequel By Peter Sciretta/Oct. 21, 2007 8:54 pm EST Superman Returns screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris have opted not to come back and pen a sequel, according to Variety. What does this mean about the future of Superman? Will Bryan Singer soon depart from the project? The duo also worked with Singer on X2: X-Men United, and Trick ‘r Treat (which Brian produced). I wouldn’t be surprised to hear later this week/month that Singer has also left the project....

The Karate Kid Remake Officially Retitled The Kung-Fu Kid, Begins Filming By Peter Sciretta/July 13, 2009 9:53 am EST The Associated Press has confirmed that the Will Smith-produced remake/re-imagining of The Karate Kid has officially been retitled The Kung-Fu Kid. The new title should qualm upset fans of the original, and actually makes a whole load more of sense considering the story is based around Kung Fu and not Karate.Jaden Smith plays Dre, a skateboarding video game buff who is forced to move to China after his single mother (Taraji P....

This Week In DVD: Punisher: War Zone, Twilight, And More By Adam Quigley/March 17, 2009 7:00 am EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. This is a movie in which a man literally punches through someone’s head. Another scene has a man being exploded mid-air by a rocket launcher. Moments like these are littered throughout Punisher: War Zone, which is a sequel/reboot that clearly has no intention of taking itself seriously....

Three Spocks In JJ Abrams’ Star Trek By Peter Sciretta/Jan. 4, 2008 9:37 pm EST Star Trek legend Leonard Nimoy has confirmed a story-point for the story of the upcoming JJ Abrams prequel/reboot. The actor revealed to CBS 2 in Los Angeles that the film actually features not one, not two, but THREE Spocks. “I am Spock, and there is another Spock and there is another Spock. There are a total of three Spocks in the movie and that is all I will say about it”...

Transformers: Two And A Half Hours Long, 20 Set Pieces By Peter Sciretta/March 31, 2007 9:08 pm EST Our friends over at Collider spoke to Shia LaBeouf at the Disturbia press junket and were able to pry a few interesting Transformers tidbits out of him. According to Shia, the movie is going to run two and a half hours: “It’s going to be long. He’s going to give you a lot....

Two New Iron Man Movie Posters By Peter Sciretta/March 6, 2008 11:30 pm EST The final theatrical one-sheet for Jon Favreau’s Iron Man has hit the web. I’m not a big fan of the floating head aesthetic, and this is kind of an off-shoot of that overused marketing style. But at the same time I also understand that you can’t just sell the movie with a bad ass photo of Iron Man....

UPDATED: Avatar Box Office Opening: $77 Million Domestic, $242 Million Worldwide, Biggest Debut Ever For An Original Film By David Chen/Dec. 21, 2009 6:53 am EST On this week’s episode of the /Filmcast: After Dark, veteran film journalist Anne Thompson stopped by to discuss Avatar and its box office prospects. While our full podcast review of Avatar won’t happen until Tuesday night, Anne made two points/predictions that I found particularly interesting: 1) She predicted a $1 billion worldwide box office take for the film when all is said and done – a remarkable achievement for any movie, but not as high as the $1....

By Peter Sciretta/April 1, 2010 3:18 pm EST