Just in time for its World Premiere at the New York Film Festival this Friday, a new and more sweeping trailer for Ang Lee's Life of Pi has hit the web, setting up the 3-D adventure based on the 2001 novel by Yann Martel. The fantasy-adventure follows "Pi," an Indian boy who survives a shipwreck and is stranded on a boat in the ocean with a Bengal tiger along with some other charming critters.
more »
Man, tip your cap to the marketing crew at 20th Century Fox, which redirected one of 2012's most unfortunate current-events overlaps into a completely revised angle that it probably should have pursued in the first place. Behold: the new and improved teaser for The Watch, complete with introduction by star Vince Vaughn.
more »
Speculation has swirled for a while now about whether or not Fox and Ridley Scott would pursue a PG-13 rating for its blockbuster hopeful Prometheus, which, if previews and disgusting animated GIFs are any indication, has plenty of raw sci-fi terrors to back up an R. But one fan who locked up an advance ticket to the film might have unintentionally solved the ratings puzzle.
more »
What's Catholic League president Bill Donohue upset about today? Oh, the usual: "In the 1950s, Hollywood generally avoided crude fare and was respectful of religion. Today it specializes in crudity and trashes Christianity, especially Catholicism. Enter The Three Stooges. The movie is not just another remake: It is a cultural marker of sociological significance, and what it says about the way we've changed is not encouraging." A Fox spokesman responds: "I think we did the audience a favor by letting Kate Upton wear the nun-kini rather than Larry David — it could have gone either way." [THR]
High five to Fox for pulling their bullet-ridden Neighborhood Watch marketing materials from Florida theaters this week following the February killing of Trayvon Martin. Trying to get as much distance as possible from the teaser's emphasis on grown men Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and Richard Ayoade stalking and finger-shooting suburban kids is a good idea and a sensitive move -- not to mention a no-brainer necessity, PR-wise -- so the studio's forthcoming campaign will likely focus on the film's "broad alien-invasion comedy" elements. But even four months from now, will it be too soon for Neighborhood Watch to make fun escapism out of vigilante violence?
more »
Quick quiz: If you were made to wait two months in order to rent say, Final Destination 5, are you going to be more likely to purchase the DVD, or is it more likely you will forget it was on the saturated home-video market? An easy enough answer, maybe, but not for some of Hollywood's major studios. They continue banking on the former scenario, despite your continued insistence on renting movies at affordable rates. As it turns out, a number of Hollywood’s companies are trying to revitalize their revenues and expand their scope -- but those plans are getting screwed up by your viewing and spending habits.
more »
Fox seems to think so: "Sean Hayes, Chris Diamantopoulos, and Will Sasso -- starring as Larry, Moe & Curly -- in the all new The Three Stooges movie from Twentieth Century Fox, will start the action by delivering the green flag at the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s most prestigious race, on Sunday, February 26th." [Press release]
Maybe the apocalypse is nigh: News Corporation kingpin Rupert Murdoch rang in 2012 on Twitter, dashing off his appreciation for in-house treats ("Great oped inWSJ [sic] today on Ron Paul. Huge appeal of libertarian message"), urban atmospherics ("NY cold and empty, even central park. Nice!") and, naturally, the movies of Fox and its subsidiaries. Good news: The Descendants scored some much-needed awards love! Bad news: Said love came from a man who extolled equivalent appreciation for We Bought a Zoo.
more »
Ten years after working as a director and consulting producer on Freaks and Geeks, the heartwarming television series about a few misunderstood high school troublemakers (and their more wholesome peers), Jake Kasdan found his biggest box office success this summer with Bad Teacher, another project profiling a misunderstood hallway troublemaker. Starring Cameron Diaz as an English teacher more interested in smoking pot and procuring breast implants than molding the the minds of her middle school students, Bad Teacher earned over $200 million worldwide, establishing Kasdan -- son of The Big Chill and Accidental Tourist filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan -- as a heavyweight comedic director and rounding out a summer known for it's R-rated, female-led comedies.
more »
Spoiler alert: James Franco's character wasn't always supposed to survive the Rise of the Planet of the Apes chaos. According to an early script, Franco's Will Rodman was supposed to die in the arms of his primate pal Caesar after being hit with a bullet during the dramatic forest showdown. At the last minute, the filmmakers decided to change the ending and flew the actor cross-country to film an alternative goodbye scene with Caesar (Andy Serkis). The casualty-free climax made the final cut, Rise of the Planet of the Apes grossed over $400 million worldwide and Will Rodman lives to film a potential sequel. [THR]
Yabba-dabba-reboot! Seth McFarlane -- the mad genius behind Family Guy -- has been given the go ahead to bring Hanna-Barbera's The Flintstones back to television in 2013. Deadline reports the deal as having future possible film components as well, so let's just clear the air right now and promise to never forget the abomination that was the 1994 live-action Flintstones movie. After the jump, a sneak peek at what it'll be like when McFarlane gets his hands on Fred and Barney, Family Guy-style.
more »
