Archive for the ‘DIY/Filmmaking’ Category
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Horror, Awards, SXSW, DIY/Filmmaking, George Clooney
Technically this is the kind of headline you might have expected to see in the midst of our best of the year/decade lists. But let’s not get too hung up on the timing, because it’s going to make perfect sense in a minute. This year at SXSW, the festival has launched the first Excellence in Title Design award, honoring the best opening title sequences in film and television over the past year (judges include Susan Bradley from Pixar and Ian Albinson and Alexander Ulloa from Art of the Title Sequence.) For those in the know, there’s a grand tradition in the art of a credit sequence, but sometimes in the rush of blockbusters and big names we forget about all the work and talent that goes into even the most functional of movie arts: the opening credits.
Of course, one of the most talked about title sequences in recent memory was yU+Co’s contribution to Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (which will go down in history as one of my all time favorites) and it was also one that was notably absent from the list of nominees. Unfortunately, the nominees weren’t selected by the good folks at SXSW, and instead, they were chosen from submissions from designers, so I guess yU+Co figured they had gotten enough press for their work on the Watchmen, and went with their contribution to the fantasy adaptation, Cirque du Freak, instead. But it looks like their work on the superhero flick had a lasting effect on other designers, because one of the other nominees, Zombieland, was subtly influenced by yU+Co’s creation. Some of the other notable nominees for the grand prize include Gaspar Noe for Enter the Void and Geoff McFetridge’s titles for Where the Wild Things Are — you can see the full list of nominees on the SXSW website.
After the jump: a prediction for the winner’s circle and my nominee for best title sequence of 2009…
Continue reading What Were Your Favorite Title Sequences of 2009?
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Filed under: Drama, Deals, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand
The indefatigable Clint Eastwood is already in post-production on his supernatural film, Hereafter, so naturally he’s lining up ten more projects to finish by December 2010. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Eastwood will tackle the lawman who looms above all others: J. Edgar Hoover.
Eastwood, Brian Grazer, and and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment are teaming up for a Hoover biopic, which isn’t yet set up at a studio, but will probably find home at Warner Bros. The script has been penned by Dustin Lance Black, who won the screenwriting Oscar last year for Milk. I can’t say that Milk really broke new ground as far as the biopic style, but it was solid enough, and it allowed for some great performances from Sean Penn and Josh Brolin. We can hope for a similar case with J. Edgar Hoover.
As just about everyone knows, Hoover was instrumental in forming the FBI in 1935, and was its formidable director until his death in 1972. The FBI has certainly done its share of good and honest crime-fighting, but Hoover also liked using illegal methods, and often used the FBI as own personal task force. He harassed activists, dissenters, politicians, and even little old ladies at the beauty shop with his black-suited boys. (I heard a story once about idle salon gossip about Hoover’s sexuality resulting in a crackdown. True? Probably.) He could also be incredibly capricious, and would punish agents for being too successful (Melvin Purvis of recent Public Enemies fame came under his hatred) or wearing the wrong ties or socks. He may also have been a deeply closeted homosexual and cross-dresser, and was rarely seen apart from Clyde Tolson, who took over the FBI after Hoover’s death. He was complex to say the least.
Continue reading Clint Eastwood Tackles The Ultimate Lawman: J. Edgar Hoover
Filed under: Horror, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Interviews, Remakes and Sequels, Coming Distractions, From Page to Screen
Film producer Simon Oakes knows the challenges he faces in remaking the cult film Let the Right One In, the 2008 vampire tale about two lonely kids who turn to each other in 1980s Sweden. Fan skepticism aside, his English language remake (titled Let Me In) isn’t just aiming to become a successful mainstream genre film – intended, as he says, to make the core story by author John Ajvide Lindqvist more accessible to a wider audience – it will also effectively relaunch the renowned Hammer Films, the iconic British studio once known for ’50s Gothic horror classics like The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Mummy that all but disappeared during the ’80s.
Speaking with journalists in Los Angeles, Oakes spoke at length about Let Me In, the lead-off film that will inaugurate this new reboot of the genre-focused studio. While he suspects that Let Me In will probably garner an R-rating (“I think this will be an R-rated picture,” he said, but also noted that he’d like it to reach the widest possible audience), Oakes emphasized that story, rather than gore, is what’s truly key to the Hammer philosophy. Despite Let Me In’s mature content and boosted effects and scares, don’t expect director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) to go overboard like many modern horror flicks do. “The only thing on my watch that we won’t do,” Oakes promised, “is we won’t make slasher pictures.”
So why was Reeves the right director for the job? Which story elements have changed, and which remain the same? What made young actors Chloë Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee right to portray Owen and Abby, the Americanized versions of Let the Right One In’s Oskar and Eli? Most importantly for fans of the original, why did anyone need to remake Let the Right One In at all?
Continue reading Hammer Film’s Simon Oakes Promises Scary, Accessible ‘Let Me In’
Filed under: Classics, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Deals, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, War
Just two days ago, I brought you the rundown of what filmmakers were dusting off their Tennyson, Le Morte d’Arthur, T.H. White and John Boorman and heading back to that spot that was once known as Camelot. One of them is now officially official, as Variety reports that Guy Ritchie is attached to direct a new King Arthur film for Warner Bros. But instead of the Warren Ellis script that was being bandied around, Variety says it’ll be scripted by Ritchie and John Hodge.
Beyond that, there’s as little to go on as there was in the scraps of my previous Arthurian article. Variety notes that it will be a “re-imagining” of the Arthur myth, but that it’s drawing on Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’ Arthur. This 15th century collection of tales has been the basis of just about every Arthur story to date, including John Boorman’s Excalibur. You can get a little rundown of all the tales on good old Wikipedia, although I recommend buying a copy sometime if you really dig going to the source. They’ve survived from the 15th century for a reason.
So, the big question will be how this version will re-imagine Malory, and how it’s going to contrast with Bryan Singer’s Excalibur remake that’s also at Warner Bros. I like Ritchie for the job, though. He loves England, and I thought Sherlock Holmes really showed a knowledge of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a love of London extended beyond Ritchie gangsters and into a fantasy Victoriana. If he could bring that to the Middle Ages, keep the magic and bromance, and make it look like the sweeping, Pre-Raphaelite vision that many of us cherish, it would be the perfect King Arthur movie.
What do you think?
Filed under: Action, Documentary, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, RumorMonger, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, War
Last year, Slashfilm reported that blogger extraordinaire Ariana Huffington was claiming she was shooting scenes for a secret sci-fi film directed by the Wachowskis. (We’re not calling them brothers here!) Huffington said it was a movie about the Iraq War but filmed from the perspective of the future. She had photos of herself with Andy and Lana, backed by green screen, and it was all very odd. At the time, our Erik Davis speculated it could be Tom Tykwer’s adaptation of Cloud Atlas, which the Wachowskis are producing. But Slashfilm is now reporting that Jesse Ventura has also filmed a role in the secret movie, and what he says just adds to the mystery.
Ventura appeared on the Howard Stern show yesterday, and when asked if he’d ever return to the big screen, he revealed he had filmed some sci-fi weirdness with the Wachowskis. He doesn’t know what the film is, he was shown no script, and he was merely told to improv.
“They brought me [in], and they brought Arianna Huffington in after me. Arianna was there, and they had her looking like Cleopatra … Do you remember what John Travolta looked like in that horrible film Battlefield Earth? They put multicolored dreadlocks on me all the way to here. They gave me this crazy beard that was hanging down pointed, looked like Travolta, right? And they put a third eye in the middle of my forehead. Because what this is, is this is a hundred years in the future, and they wanted me to talk about the current war in Iraq and how I felt about it. And so I got to vent, looking like this maniac in this whole outfit.”
Continue reading Jesse Ventura Also Involved In Secret Wachowski Project
Filed under: Warner Brothers, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking
As Eugene Novikov reported earlier today, Warner Bros is looking at making the actual Leonardo DaVinci into the star of his own DaVinci Code type of movie. Last week, Variety reported that they’ve also hired Francis Lawrence to develop an action movie starring 13th century adventurer Marco Polo. Most people only know Polo as a cheesy pool game, but he was an extensive traveler who was one of the first Europeans to travel throughout Asia. He wasn’t the first, but his journals exposed many Europeans to the Far East, and really kicked off the obsession with finding trade routes there. A straight-up adaptation of his journal would be enough for a movie, but Warner Bros wants to make it a fantasy adventure. “We see this as something that takes place in the Orient of our imagination amid the cultural clash of the East and the West,” says Adam Cooper, one half of Marco Polo’s screenwriting team.
Last March, Summit began lining up its post-Twilight ducks, and decided one of them could be Harry Houdini. As Monika reported last year, they purchased rights to William Kalush and Larry Sloman’s controversial The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero. Kalush and Sloman concocted a theory that Houdini was a spy for England, was asked to advise Tsar Nicholas II, and may have been murdered by a cult. I believe most of the book was debunked, but Summit has the idea of running with its sheer, crazy fiction and creating a Houdini action franchise.
Continue reading Leonardo DaVinci, Marco Polo, and Other Historical Action Heroes
Filed under: Classics, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New Line, Universal, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
With re-imaginings and reboots being the keyword for every movie being churned around Hollywood’s grist mill, it’s no surprise that they’re turning to L. Frank Baum and The Wizard of Oz for some fresh content to churn around. According to The LA Times, Warner Bros and New Line (blood brothers) are both looking at remakes of The Wizard of Oz in the hopes of grabbing some of that sweet cash that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is raking in.
Warner Bros’ Oz is very much taking the Alice route. Written by Josh Olson, and produced by Basil Iwanyk, it centers on a granddaughter of Dorothy returning to Oz to vanquish evil. Todd McFarlane is involved somehow, either as producer or consultant which suggests they’re really inspired by his Twisted Land of Oz series. (That link is a bit NSFW.) Who wants to see S&M Dorothy and a monster, flesh-hooked Toto? Hollywood might! Wheee!
New Line’s project is a lot more mysterious. It has a script by Darren Lemke, but no title and it doesn’t come up on his IMDB credits at the moment. It’s also being produced by Temple Hill who has made a killing with Twilight. Could it be something focusing on the later books of Baum’s Oz series? Could they be attempting a more faithful adaptation of Baum’s book? There’s a difference between doing that and a straight-up remake of MGM’s iconic film. For now, at least, no one is looking at doing that.
In the meantime, those who favor Broadway’s re-imaginings over Hollywood’s still have Wicked to look forward to. It’s still in the works at Universal with producer Marc Platt, and all this fervent interest in all things Oz might just give it the fuel injection it needs to make it to the big screen.
Filed under: Action, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand
I feel incredibly old and slow all of a sudden. As everyone has whispered about the unknown Chris Hemsworth who is currently wielding Mjolnir, I have failed to realize there’s more than one Hemsworth. There’s three. One of them is named Liam Hemsworth, he’s in an upcoming Nicholas Sparks adaptation The Last Song, and he dates Miley Cyrus. My world is blown in some small way. Even so, that’s a small kindness in comparison to the one created by his latest starring role. According to THR’s Heat Vision, Hemsworth the Younger will be taking the lead in Chuck Russell’s Arabian Nights.
I protested this Arabian Nights re-imagining back in November, because the plot centered around a young commander who joins forces with Sinbad, Ali Baba, and the Genie to rescue Scheherazade from evil forces. Scheherazade, who was quite capable of thinking her way out of tight spots, now needs to be rescued. Now, the plot is tempered a little bit by the fact that her husband (who was so initially eager to execute her) has been assassinated, and she’s been kidnapped. I still don’t like it, but if they could at least have her go down fighting and outnumbered, I could stomach it somewhat.
But if Scheherazade is a disappointment, how about the casting of an Australian as a Middle Eastern warrior? I mean no disrespect to Mr. Hemsworth, but how is that appropriate at all? Does no one in Hollywood have Naveen Andrews’ number?
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Romance, Casting, DIY/Filmmaking
When an actor wins an Oscar, all bets are off, including the ones he’s made with David Cronenberg. Last December, Cronenberg revived The Talking Cure and had recruited Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, and Christoph Waltz to psychoanalyze one another in the name of love and medicine. But Waltz has been buried in offers, and Deadline Hollywood Daily reports that he’s dropped out of the project in favor of Water For Elephants. Luckily, Cronenberg has a very good actor and friend in his contacts, and he just called him up. The result is that Viggo Mortensen has now joined The Talking Cure as Sigmund Freud.
Cure centers on a young Carl Jung who uses Sigmund Freud’s “talking cure” on a young and troubled Russian woman. In the process of psychoanalyzing her, he falls in love with her. Freud comes along, marvels at his success, and anoints him his psychiatric successor. When Jung starts to develop his own ideas about therapy, Freud isn’t too happy, and their professional relationship sours. DHD says that the producers have promised “lots of spirited sex” which Cronenberg has always filmed rather well, so no surprise there.
Mortensen and Cronenberg have two excellent films under their belt, and there’s no reason to sneer at a third. (Or a fourth if they ever make that Eastern Promises sequel.) I’m eager to see Mortensen work with Fassbender and Knightley (who both rank among my favorites) and the two method men should really fire up the screen. It’s going to be good.
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Time probably stopped for Superman and DC fans when news broke that Christopher Nolan was going to oversee Warner Bros’ Superman reboot, and that David S. Goyer would be penning a new Man of Steel story. (Possibly even titled Man of Steel.) As Nolan is one of those quiet chaps, there’s been little word on what he and Goyer plan to do, but he’s broken his silence and given an interview with Hero Complex.
Nolan remains tight-lipped on Goyer’s idea, but revealed that it came about as they hit an impasse on Batman 3. “He basically told me, ‘I have this thought about how you would approach Superman.’ I immediately got it, loved it and thought: That is a way of approaching the story I’ve never seen before that makes it incredibly exciting. I wanted to get Emma [Thomas] and I involved in shepherding the project right away and getting it to the studio and getting it going in an exciting way.” He wasn’t willing to discuss villains (though he said Mr. Freeze won’t be in it) or what time period it’ll be set in, though he denied all the Man of Steel rumors currently circulating. There’s a Superman reboot, and Goyer is writing the script. That’s all he’ll say, the tease.
Ok, not quite. Nolan quickly quashed any idea that a new Superman movie will lead to a Justice League spinoff. Superman will exist in his own world of Metropolis, and have no conception of a world where other superheroes exists. “A lot of people have approached Superman in a lot of different ways. I only know the way that has worked for us that’s what I know how to do …. Each [hero] serves to the internal logic of the story. They have nothing to do with each other.”
Continue reading Christopher Nolan Talks ‘Superman’ and ‘Batman 3′
