Sneer's to you, Joel Silver for having the foresight to re-boot John Carpenter's wickedly fun Escape from New York and expand it, Peter Jackson-style, into a trilogy. Now you and Studio Canal just have to find a young-ish Snake Plissken who can carry three three films with the same sardonic charisma that made Kurt Russell such a joy to behold on the big screen. According to Deadline, the first of the three movies will be an origin story — perhaps one that shows how Snake got the eyepatch and how New York City became a maximum-security prison, or whatever plot twists Silver wants to throw our way since, according to the report, The Matrix producer is planning an "entirely new take" on the story. more »
Also in Friday afternoon's round-up of news. Warner Bros. has not seen any indication that the tragic shooting earlier today in Colorado at a Dark Knight Rises showing has had any influence on the pic's ticket sales. In other news, Taylor Kitsch may lead a racing movie franchise and Kevin Costner to play inspiring real-life coach.
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For the first three hours and 20 minutes, I was totally with Savages. During the middle two hours and 25 minutes, I was reasonably intrigued to see how it would all turn out. But through the final six hours and 48 minutes, I kept sneaking glances at my watch, just wishing that Oliver Stone would hurry up and cap off this wiggly-waggly tale of two marijuana-entrepreneur buddies, their shared girlfriend, and a host of Mexican drug baddies led by Salma Hayek wearing a black bobbed wig that’s half Cleopatra, half Bettie Page.
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Some days you just need to see, as SCTV’s Farm Film Report guys Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok used to put it, stuff blowed up real good. If you’re having one of those days, Peter Berg’s Battleship is as good a choice as any. Beyond that, you should know a few things going in: Battleship is allegedly based on the Hasbro game of the same name, but never in the film is the line “You sunk my battleship!” uttered, so don’t expect a refund. Also, one of the invading aliens – spoiler, sorry! – looks a little like the guy from that ’90s Swedish band Stakka Bo.
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I never thought I'd say this after such dubious product partnerships and horrid early reviews, but: I think I've found some marketing that might actually make me want to see Battleship! It's not from Universal or Hasbro, alas, but it's not too late for either party to maybe pick it up for the last push ahead of May 18.
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Scan the latest from a busy Monday news day in Movieline's newly minted Biz Break. Following this morning's edition of the new column is a slew of casting news from Iron Man 3 to Woody Allen's next project, while the folks at CAA caught a surprise break from the office today thanks to a power outage.
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Why would a Berkeley grad weed dealer and his ex-Navy SEAL partner take on a Mexican cartel who wants in on their business? To get their kidnapped shared girlfriend back, of course! Since said shared girlfriend is Blake Lively, I can understand why Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch would risk life and limb to fight off Salma Hayek's gun-wielding goons. I'm not quite as sold on why Oliver Stone would make a movie like this, but after watching the trailer for Savages, hell -- I'm in.
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"'I’m very proud of John Carter. Box office doesn’t validate me as a person, or as an actor. [...] I’d love to go do John Carter 2. I really would. It’s just shitty I don’t get to work with the [John Carter] family. It really was a special thing." [EW]
Some years from now, after the dust around the megabudget John Carter debacle settles, and the heads that do wind up rolling in its aftermath come to rest, some expert arbiter of Hollywood travails will survey the carnage and write the definitive tale of what went wrong with Disney and director Andrew Stanton's sci-fi gamble. And you know what? I'd bet $10 right here and now that the real story won't deviate much from the one depicted in this no-budget animated retelling.
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"Yes, because everybody's giving me a ration about it. I wish they would have named it something else because I have a weird background and now people keep accusing me of being reincarnated." I see. How about John Carter of Oklahoma? "Why are you calling? Oh. Well, he's been dead for over 10 years." [Moviefone]
I had fun at John Carter. Just not $250 million worth of fun, which leads us to the central and vexing problem: Moviegoing pleasure can no longer be casual. We’re now acutely aware of how much every movie cost, how much every studio – in this case, Disney – has riding on every given project. “What does Disney need to make its money back?” becomes the overriding question, when what we really should be asking is, “Did you see how John Carter slashed his way out of that big, blubbery whatsis and came out all blue and shit?”
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Taylor Kitsch is about to have a very big 2012. In addition to carrying Disney’s ambitious sci-fi adaptation John Carter as the titular Edgar Rice Burroughs hero, a Civil War veteran transported to Mars, he’s also fronting Peter Berg’s alien invasion actioner Battleship and starring in Oliver Stone’s Savages later this year. But as Kitsch revealed to Movieline, the John Carter job wasn’t easy to get — and the toll it took on him during production was a challenge in itself. So who better to offer pro tips on nabbing the spotlight and handling the pressure of becoming an action hero than Kitsch, on the eve of a new chapter in his career?
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Negative speculation and prognostication has been brewing for months for Disney's sci-fi actioner John Carter thanks to dismal tracking and rumors of bloated budgets, but Disney's finally released their review embargo for the March 9 would-be blockbuster. So what's the early buzz from the first critiques of Andrew Stanton's take on the Edgar Rice Burroughs saga, about a Civil War veteran named John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) who lands in the middle of a civil war on Mars?
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It's no secret that Disney's been scrambling to counteract bad tracking and mixed word of mouth on their mega-budgeted March actioner John Carter, so it's worth a look to see what they've done with the latest (and "final") trailer for the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation. And behold! A trailer filled with nearly everything that makes John Carter worth going to see: Alien creatures, political intrigue, Taylor Kitsch in a loincloth, Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris, and lots of inventive, fantastical action.
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On a June visit to the Film 44 offices in Santa Monica, Battleship director Peter Berg laid out his vision for the May 18, 2012 epic actioner. "Battleship is intended to be a piece of big, fun escapism," he explained, playing snippets of footage in the cozy darkness of his editing suite. "It's not to say we don't take ourselves seriously; we do aspire for a certain level of emotion and reality, but this is not a film that's meant to traumatize."
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