the most anticipated...

[Kastor]

Slabo sam pratio poslednjih nedelja pa ne znam da li je pominjan negde (nisam ništa iskopao pomoću searcha), ali ovo bi moglo biti interesantno:

http://www.behindthemaskthemovie.com/

http://imdb.com/title/tt0437857/

[crippled_avenger]

You think you know how different "Speed Racer" will be from the other Wachowski brothers movies? Think again.

At the junket on Friday for "The Reaping", producer Joel Silver revealed that the upcoming anime adaptation was going to be rated 'G'. This is a far cry from the R-rated territory they've stuck to so far.

Silver tells magazine Collider that "They love [Frank] Capra movies, they wanted to make a movie that could have real sentiment. And they feel that a lot of the adult films they see or are aware of are very cynical. But they feel that when they come to the family movies, some of the animated movies that we see are, have a great sense of - they feel they return to a kind of filmmaking that they love, so they feel like they can do that in this movie."

He adds "It doesn't have to be a cynical story, it can be a movie that is as human and as accessible, and is sentimental. So you're going to see a kind of real story, and then technologically, you're going to see things that you've never even dreamed of, or you've seen before".

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. has sent Dark Horizons the following video interview with Emile Hirsch in which he talks about being cast in the film:

[crippled_avenger]

"House of Wax" & "The Reaping" screenwriters Chad and Carey Hayes have been given the job of writing the script for a remake of "The Blob".

The 1958 original starred a young Steve McQueen, and was remade in 1988 with Kevin Dillon. Twenty years on comes this version which changes the backstory of the sentient amorphous substance.

"It's a B.L.O.B: Biological Lethal Organic Bomb. It was created by our own government in the 50s, they beta tested it, it almost got out of control, but they confined it. Now it's back. But it's a fast blob, there's nothing slow, it's got major attitude. It's like Shaun of the Dead or Tremors" said the Hayes brothersto Bloody-Disgusting.

The brothers also say that the story features an ensemble cast with a female lead.

[crippled_avenger]

Anonto Corbijn's Ian Curtis biopic "Control" has been filming for some time now, and The Newcastle Sentinel uncovered some small bits of new information whilst speaking with extras on the set.

New Order, the band Joy Division became after Ian's death, have recorded the film's soundtrack, and the score is also expected to include music by the Sex Pistols, David Bowie and Roxy Music.

The band made of actors are actually going to perform in the film as well in several scenes. Members of the Black Cobra kick-boxing club were enlisted to act as bouncers during a riot at a Joy Division gig.

Producer Orlan Williams adds "Even the decision to film in black and white is important. When people read about the band the first time, everything was in black and white - the photographs, the NME".

The project hits UK cinemas in September.

[crippled_avenger]

Focus Features is developing "Hanna," a reverse spin on "The Professional" from tyro scribe Seth Lochhead.
In this version, a 14-year-old raised by her father to be a cold-hearted killing machine must learn how to be a girl. In Luc Besson's 1994 bigscreen version, an orphaned girl played by Natalie Portman befriended her neighbor, a hitman.

Marty Adelstein and Scott Nemes are producing "Hanna."

Adelstein Prods. recently set up "Hurricane Season," an adaptation of the Neal Thompson book about a football team's unlikely triumph in post-Katrina New Orleans, at HBO.

They are also producing "The Experiment," the English-language remake of "Das Experiment" that Paul Scheuring will write and direct for Inferno Entertainment. They previously produced "Black Christmas."

Lochhead is repped by Circle of Confusion and William Morris.

[crippled_avenger]

Martin Scorsese is looking to direct Leonardo DiCaprio in the film adaptation of Jordan Belfort's upcoming tell-all autobiography "The Wolf of Wall Street" for Warner Bros. Pictures.

"The Sopranos" scribe Terence Winter is onboard to write the project which DiCaprio and Scorsese will produce though their Appian Way and Sikelia Productions reports Variety.

In "Wolf of Wall Street" DiCaprio would play Belfort, a Long Island penny stockbroker who served 20 months in prison for refusing to cooperate in a massive 1990s securities fraud case that involved widespread corruption on Wall Street and in the corporate banking world, including mob infiltration.

The question now is where "Wolf" stands on the list of Scorsese's multiple potential directing projects which include rock & roll epic "The Long Play", historical drama "Lost Duel" and an adaptation of the kiddie novel "The Invention of Hugo Cabret".

[crippled_avenger]

The IESB has gossip from a scooper claiming that New Line is trying to get a new "Freddy" film up for a late 2007 start of production. Here's a sample:

"It probably won't be the much-rumored "prequel" film, but either a new "Freddy Vs..." movie or another 'solo' adventure for Freddy - with one treatment in particular, floating around, getting quite a lot of buzz; its simply about the new young couple (hence, young CW-esque stars get to headline) who buy into their first home together... yep, you guessed it... THAT house.

The other option is a new "Freddy Vs. Michael" movie. There's a lot of red-tape to get through there. John Carpenter is trying to help sort it out. This film seems to be the most popular option on the table at the moment, so if they can get it up, they will. My money is on this one, too."

The comments match words from actor Robert Englund who heard the studio was in talks with Carpenter about this kind of possibility.

[crippled_avenger]

Antibody Films and Corbin Bernsen's Public Media Works are teaming on "Dead Air," a horror film starring Bill Moseley ("Grindhouse") and Pat Tallman.
Bernsen will direct from a script by newcomer Kenneth Yakkel and play a small role. Story revolves around a radioshow team attempting to warn its listeners after a huge explosion turns zombies on the loose in L.A.

Shooting's scheduled to commence in April in Los Angeles.

Bernsen just completed starring in and directing "Donna on Demand," produced by Antibody and Public Media Works. Bernsen produced along with Antibody's Jesse Lawler and Chris Aronoff.

That film noir thriller stars Susan Ruttan ("L.A. Law"); Dan Lauria; Bernsen's real-life mother, Jeanne Cooper ("The Young and the Restless"); and soap vet Adrienne Frantz.

[WARLOCK]

prve slike Ramba sa seta dobro se drzi
http://www.flynetonline.com/2007/03/rambos-last-mission-in-thailand.html

[DušMan]

Koliko god da me je zgrozio Slajov danasnji izgled, toliko me je nasmejao komentar:

At 3/23/2007 03:49:00 PM, !¨#¨Stallone_gIrL¨#¨! said...

Sly is the best!!!I have 25 of his movies!!!!He is the man!!!He need to come to Croatia because I am crazy about him!!!I am from Croatia!!!That is right acros the Italy!!!Sly will know!!!My name is Josipa and I am 12!!!!!Sly please come to Croatia!!!

Inace, cura ima i blog na kom se, izmedju ostalog, mogu naci  Slajov scenario za Rokija i uputi za steroide i hormone kojima se Slajmaster sluzi.

[WARLOCK]

haha! puko sam od smeha!

[crippled_avenger]

Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Bastards" looks to "probably be the very next thing I do" said the "Grindhouse" director to Slash Film at a junket earlier this week.

"Robert will probably be doing Sin City 2 coming up fairly shortly. I am going to kind of go on the road with this, around the earth here. I haven't really done it in a big way in a long time where you spend six months doing it. But I also like writing on the road, it's a really good time to do that so I will probably finish up 'Inglorious Bastards' while I am promoting 'Grindhouse'" says Tarantino.

Set in World War II, the story revolves around a group of soldiers on their way to be executed, when they get the chance of a reprieve. Tarantino's 600-page script will likely be released as two to three parts of a single movie.

The likes of Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Paul Walker, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Johnny Depp, John Travolta, Harvey Keitel, Fred Williamson, John Jarratt, Mickey Rourke and Christopher Walken have all been rumoured for the project.

[crippled_avenger]

The official site is open for this supernatural thriller with Laura Harring, John Hannah and Pete Postlethwaite, directed by Lamberto Bava, son of Italian horror master Mario Bava.


http://www.ghostson.it/splash.html

[Death Wish]

Blood Meridian (2009)

Directed by
Ridley Scott

Writing credits
Cormac McCarthy (novel)
William Monahan (screenplay)

Release Date:
2009 (USA)  

Genre:
Western

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
"The men as they rode turned black in the sun from the blood on their clothes and their faces and then paled slowly in the rising dust until they assumed once more the color of the land through which they passed." If what we call "horror" can be seen as including any literature that has dark, horrific subject matter, then Blood Meridian is, in this reviewer's estimation, the best horror novel ever written. It's a perverse, picaresque Western about bounty hunters for Indian scalps near the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s--a ragged caravan of indiscriminate killers led by an unforgettable human monster called "The Judge." Imagine the imagery of Sam Peckinpah and Heironymus Bosch as written by William Faulkner, and you'll have just an inkling of this novel's power. From the opening scenes about a 14-year-old Tennessee boy who joins the band of hunters to the extraordinary, mythic ending, this is an American classic about extreme violence.

[crippled_avenger]

Following its successful adaptation of John Le Carre's "The Constant Gardener", Potboiler Productions is preparing a new film based on Le Carre's latest book, "The Mission Song" reports UK Teletext.

Set against the background of the chaotic East Congo, the story involves the planning of a Western-backed coup in the province of Kivu, told from the worms-eye view of the hapless translator.

Like 'Gardener' it will deal with asssorted political and racial issues including the greed and amorality of local bureaucrats and Western interests, and the apathy of the British press concerning the ongoing humanitarian crisis of the Congo War.

Joe Fisher, writer of TV drama "Soundproof" and 1998's "The Tichborne Claimant," is writing the adaptation.

No director has been set yet. "We're at least a year away from filming," producer Simon Channing Williams said.

[crippled_avenger]

Paula Patton ("Deja Vu," "Idlewild") has signed on to star opposite Kiefer Sutherland in 20th Century Fox's "Mirrors," which Alexandre Aja ("The Hills Have Eyes," "High Tension") is directing.

The story centers on a cop-turned-department store security guard who discovers that there is something evil living inside the store's old mirrors.

He traces haunted occurrences back to the building being a hospital and a schizophrenic patient's evil spirit trapped in a mirrored room.

Patton will play Sutherland's soon-to-be ex-wife, a coroner with the New York Medical Examiner's Office who has a hard time believing her husband's claims.

Shooting begins in early May.

[crippled_avenger]

I've often heard fights between men over who has got the biggest penis, but now one such fight is literally becoming headline news.

A casting battle in ensuing over DJ Caruso's upcoming John Holmes biopic over at New Line Cinema. Various actors are throwing their hats in to play the man who remains arguably the 20th century's most famous porn star.

At present Edward Norton remains tipped to take the role, but none other than Justin Timberlake is campaigning hard to slip on the fake dong (although rumours say he may not need one) and perform the role says Contact Film.

The film will take a darkly comic, but ultimately tragic look at Holmes' life including the drug abuse and waning years as he succumbed to AIDS. More importantly though it's said to be featuring real sex scenes ala "Shortbus," so whichever star takes it will certainly have to measure up.

Talks are also apparently underway for other roles in the film which include Ron Jeremy, Tracy Lords and Harry Reems. The film will also be displayed using the Real 3D technology (sadly no IMAX co-release planned). A Summer 2008 theatrical rollout is expected.

[crippled_avenger]

Warner Bros. Pictures has hired Mark Burton ("Madagascar," "Chicken Run") to pen the big screen adaptation of James Turner's comedic action adventure comic "Rex Libris" reports Variety.

The story follows an everyday guy who becomes part of a secret sect of librarians who protect the world's knowledge and most dangerous secrets from falling into the wrong hands.

In their global exploits, Rex and the other librarians are aided by an ancient god living beneath the library.

[crippled_avenger]

Acclaimed Irish director Neil Jordan will rewrite and helm "Heart-Shaped Box," an adaptation of the horror novel by Stephen King's son Joe Hill, for Warner Bros. Pictures.

The story centers on a rock star obsessed with the occult who buys a suit on eBay that is claimed to be haunted the ghost of its former owner.

He's soon forced to confront the ghost and the demons of his own past - before the ghost kills him. Tom Pabst wrote the original draft and Akiva Goldsman is producing.

[crippled_avenger]

D'Works Ani is master of 'Mind' spec
By Tatiana Siegel

April 3, 2007

DreamWorks Animation has acquired Alan Schoolcraft & Brent Simons' superhero sendup spec "Master Mind," with Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld producing through their Red Hour Films banner.

DreamWorks Animation veterans Cameron Hood and Kyle Jefferson are attached to make their feature film directorial debut with "Master Mind," a satirical take on the superhero genre centering on a supervillain who loses his joie de vivre after accidentally killing his archrival, Uberman, in the opening scene of the movie.

"They have put the film on the fast track, which in animation terms means it will be coming out in the next 15-20 years," Stiller joked.

The project marks the first time Stiller has collaborated with DWA in a production capacity. He voiced Alex the lion in DWA's "Madagascar" and in the upcoming "Madagascar: The Crate Escape."

Chris Kuser will shepherd the project for DWA.
Advertisement
 

Red Hour's Lara Breay, who brought the project into the shingle, will oversee development.

"(Stiller's) creativity and signature sense of humor will lend itself perfectly to this project," DWA CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said. "As for Cameron Hood and Kyle Jefferson, they are two valued members of our DreamWorks Animation family. Their short 'First Flight' was such a beautiful, original piece, and we believe the promise it showed will be on full display in 'Master Mind.' "

Hood and Jefferson made their animation helming debut in 2006 with "First Flight." Before that, the Toronto natives worked on DreamWorks' "The Prince of Egypt," "The Road to El Dorado," "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron," "Shrek," "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas" and "Shark Tale." They are handled by WMA and Management 360.

Schoolcraft & Simons also are busy penning a sequel to "Small Soldiers" for DreamWorks Pictures. They are repped by ICM and manager Brian Lutz.

[crippled_avenger]

Susan Sarandon and John Goodman are in negotiations to play the parents of Emile Hirsch in the Wachowski brothers directed live-action version of "Speed Racer" says The Hollywood Reporter.

Based on the classic 1960s anime series, "Speed" follows the adventures of young race car driver,and his quest for glory.

The show revolved around Speed's family, and the Wachowskis are being selective about who they pick for those roles.

Goodman is playing Pops, a race car owner and builder. Sarandon's character is the backbone of the family as well as the Mach 5 Go Racing Team.

Casting is under way for the characters of Speed's girlfriend, Trixie, and his mysterious archrival, Racer X.

Shooting begins in Germany this summer for a Summer 2008 release.

[crippled_avenger]

Jim Caviezel is in negotiations to star in "Only in New York," an indie crime thriller that French helmer Pitof ("Vidocq," "Catwoman") will direct says Reuters.

The script, written by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld and Geebee Dajani, follows a recently paroled street hustler looking for a new life and seeking redemption only to find his path blocked by the combustible melange of New York elements that once did him in.

"New York" will begin production in June in Toronto.

[crippled_avenger]

Pogledao sam trejler za četvrti DIE HARD i mogu reći da se nadam da će biti prijatno iznenađenje kao što je bio T3.

Iako mi je Len Wiseman potpuno pogrešno rešenje za reditelja, ipak je negde razumno uzeti nekog gladnog young guna, kao što je Renny bio kad je radio dvojku da odradi parni sequel.

Trejler mi je malo nekoherentan, počinje jedno tri puta ali i dalje se nadam najboljem.

[crippled_avenger]

Comicbook author to write 'Area 51'
Paramount taps Morrison to work on film
By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK, DAVE MCNARY
Morrison

Paramount Pictures has hired comicbook author Grant Morrison to pen the feature adaptation of vidgame franchise "Area 51."
Christine Peters will produce through her Par-based CFP Prods. with Penn Station's Dean Georgaris and Michael Aguilar, along with Stan Winston.

Par picked up to the film rights to "Area 51" from Midway Games in 2004. Game was released in April 2005.

Set in the U.S. government's most top-secret military facility, storyline revolves around a hazardous materials specialist who is called in to investigate a viral outbreak that could be extra-terrestrial in nature.

Georgaris penned an earlier draft of "Area 51."

Morrison is a bestselling comicbook and graphic novel author who has written runs for popular series including DC Comics' "Justice League of America," "Doom Patrol" and "Animal Man." He's also written for Marvel Comics' "New X-Men" and "Fantastic Four."

His revisionist Batman book, "Arkham Asylum" has sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide, while his most recent screenplay, "WE3," is being developed at New Line.

Viacom topper Sumner Redstone owns a majority of shares in Midway Games.

A spinoff vidgame, "Blacksite: Area 51" will be released by Midway this summer.

Morrison is repped by Creative Artists Agency.

(Ben Fritz contributed to this report.)

[Meho Krljic]

O, Alahu, zašto nas ovako kušaš... Area 51 je bio u najboljem slučaju mediokritetski šuter. Morrison će, ne sumnjam, da se strastveno iživljava, ali ovo će biti monumentalno sranje...

[crippled_avenger]

FROM FLASH TO GREEN ARROW
'Super Max' film to focus on DCU villains
By Mike Cotton

Posted April 7, 2007  10:25 AM

Maybe it was giving up the gig writing and directing "The Flash" for Warner Bros., but it seems like David Goyer's a little bit more into villains these days.
 
Just weeks after he and Warners envisioned very different takes on the Flash, Goyer sold the studio on an idea that focused on the more villainous side of the DC Universe.

"Super Max" is Goyer's take on supervillain incarceration in the DCU. Revolving around a wrongly convicted Green Arrow being whisked away to the super max prison for out-of-control heroes and villains (where he's forced to face a number of inmates he put there), Goyer says the flick—which he's developing with writer Justin Marx—isn't just a Green Arrow film.

"He's Green Arrow for the first 10 minutes of the movie, and then he's arrested and his secret identity is revealed," says Goyer, who also has plans to do a graphic novel or miniseries that would tie in to the possible film. "They shave his goatee and they take his costume and send him to prison for life, and he has to escape. It's like 'Alcatraz,' and he has to team up with, in some cases, some of the very same villains he is responsible for incarcerating in order to get out and clear his name. Of course, tons of people try to kill him while he's in there. We've populated the prison with all sorts of B and C villains from the DC Universe. For the fans, there will be all sorts of characters the hardcore comic book junkies will know, but they're all going to be there under their human names and no one is wearing a costume, but there will be a lot of characters with powers and things like that."

[crippled_avenger]

Crime Insiders
Truands (France)
By LISA NESSELSONA Mars Distribution release of an Eric Neve presentation of a Carcharodon, La Chauve Souris, StudioCanal production, with participation of Canal Plus, CineCinema. (International sales: TF1 Intl., Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.) Produced by Eric Neve, Frederic Schoendoerffer. Directed by Frederic Schoendoerffer. Screenplay, Schoendoerffer, Yann Brion.

With: Benoit Magimel, Philippe Caubere, Beatrice Dalle, Olivier Marchal, Mehdi Nebbou, Tomer Sisley, Ludovic Schoendoerffer, Anne Marivin, Alain Figlarz, Andre Peron, Cyril Lecomte, Ichem Saibi, Christophe Maratier.

Very bad men do very bad things on a daily and/or nightly basis in "Crime Insiders," an extremely violent gangster pic awash in brutal guys, guns, dope, prostitutes, night clubs and foul language. Portrait of career criminals going about their menacing business is visceral without being interesting. Pic's major distinction is displaying far more murders than most Gallic fare (outside the horror genre). Venture got the rare 16-and-over rating in Gaul, while "Apocalypto" was approved for 12 and up. While almost certainly marketable offshore, soulless shoot-'em-up is a step backward for Frederic Schoendoerffer ("Secret Agents").
Although pic's high body-count is achieved mostly with large, noisy weapons on Paris streets, law enforcement types figure in only one scene. Nearly an hour in, when cops bust crime lord and racketeer Claude Corti (Philippe Caubere) -- whom we've seen apply a power drill to a man's knees and a knife to his eyeballs, in addition to ramming a large metal rod up an underling's rectum -- it's for possession of counterfeit vehicle registration forms.

Claude goes to prison and his associates have to decide whether to run things faithfully in his stead or try to take his place. Restless widescreen camera and lots of brooding closeups give a you-are-there feeling to the sordid proceedings.

Caubere, a legit dynamo last seen on screen in hits "My Father's Glory" and "My Mother's Castle" some 15 years ago, chews the scenery with textbook malice, injecting a micron of humor with his loving mistress, Beatrice (Beatrice Dalle).

A seemingly endless supply of nubile, compliant young women runs the gamut from pole dancers to prostitutes and from sluts to whores, with rapes and beatings so standard as to be banal. Matter-of-fact male and female full-frontal nudity is capped by a few very rough sex acts.

Impeccably groomed, semi-scowling Benoit Magimel is inscrutable as Franck, an ultra-professional contract killer Claude holds in high regard. Grizzled Olivier Marchal (the ex-cop who helmed "36") is OK as Franck's older, reliable partner-in-crime. A gallery of tough lugs and a few handsome young crooks are on the endangered species list from frame one.

Protags feel at home in top-tier restaurants and luxurious hotels, and live in elegant digs with classy views. But to its credit, pic makes shaking people down and/or killing them thoroughly unglamorous.

At one point, Franck is shown watching a scene from the helmer's father Pierre's classic, "317th Platoon," on TV. Comment seems to be that administering expedient brutality -- for self or for country -- is just part of what some men are obliged to do.

Camera (color, widescreen), Jean-Pierre Sauvaire; editor, Irene Blecua; music, Bruno Coulais; production designer, Jean-Marc Kerdelhue; costume designer, Nathalie Raoul; sound (Dolby), Jean-Pierre Laforce; assistant director, Ivan Fegyveres. Reviewed at UGC Danton, Paris, Jan. 18, 2007. Running time: 105 MIN.

[crippled_avenger]

Script Review: Grant Morrison's We3  Grant Morrison has adapted his comicbook miniseries We3 into a feature script for New Line, and I've been lucky enough to read a copy. Luckier still, it's amazing. It's even better than the source material. In fact, this is the single best unproduced script I have ever read. Yep. And I really mean it.

What's so great? The answer to that, if I'm really going to cover it, is very long. I'll do my best, though, and I'll share whatever I think is fair to share from the script - so expect some minor spoilers, certainly as regards the first two thirds of the plot.

This is going to take more than one installment to do justice, so to start off with, tonight, I'm going to tell you the basics of what's going on, introduce the characters and some of the big ideas and give you a general overview of the story. Then, in further installments, we'll look at some of the scenes, set-pieces and sequences in more detail, and cover some of the really good stuff that I won't be able to boil down to just a few lines.

In a nutshell, We3 is the story of a cruel and inhumane military weapons research project and it's victims. It just so happens that the three characters at the forefront of this story, those who suffer the most, are a trinity of household pets. Well, at least, they used to be household pets but now Bandit the dog, Tinker the cat and Pirate the rabbit have been transformed into the flesh components of an incredible team of cyborg weapons.

In armoured shells and equipped with an array of very powerful weapons, these animals, the We3 are being used by the US military in the kinds of covert operations where no witnesses remain.

From the first page of the script:

A squadron of US troops, together with insurgent guerrilla soldiers, is making an attempt to retreat across the grounds through a hail of crossfire which comes from the shabby Presidential palace.

It's a sweltering Central American night and bullets zip through the air. This night raid on Guerrera's stronghold is going badly for the rebel forces.

Zip, spang of tracer fire. Men drop. US troops and insurgent forces crouch behind statuary and parked trucks.

It is amidst this carnage that we first meet the We3, the animal weapons. In heavy armour and under the remote influence of a joystick-wielding control team, they enter the palace and assassinate the dictator. It's a stunning opening, plunging the reader (and eventually the viewer) into a brilliantly orchestrated action and suspense sequence. Obviously, it's utterly unique as the We3 are nothing like anything we've seen before. Armoured animals, loaded with weapons, agile and able to navigate the palace like no soldier ever could.

It's also in this sequence that Morrison first starts to impress a political viewpoint - but more on that in a future installment.

Also very important at this stage, however, is establishing the nature of the We3 project - defining what the armoured animals look like, how they move, what they do in the heat of action. All of these details will be recalled, or counterpointed later.

With no dry, spoken exposition but a whole truckload of action, much of the essential information we need to garner in act one is related to us.

After the military mission, and the titles, we're off to someplace completely different: the kitchen of Roseanne Berry, a recently bereaved animal communication scientest. Morrison notes that she 'tends to emphasise the plain, studious aspect of her appearance and carries a weight of sorrow and guilt'. I have imagined Anglea Bettis in the role, or Maggie Gyllenhaal - though Bryce Dallas Howard would perhaps be more likely. Either way, it's a truly plum part - ladies, call your agents now.

After a short series of clean, clear and unobtrusive character-setting scenes, Roseanne is on her way to work. En route, she stops and purchases a newspaper - headlines SENATOR DAN WASHINGTON AHEAD IN THE POLLS' and 'GUERRERA REGIME COLLAPSES IN NIGHT OF VIOLENCE...', the secondly more obviously relevant now - and crosses paths with a homeless beggar. This beggar is Frank. He's going to return later.

And then, Roseanne arrives at her workplace and, surprise surprise, she's a key part of the We3 project. The animals arrive too - still in their armoured shells, and wheeled on gurneys, back from the wars.

Today's an important day for the project. Senator Dan Washington is visiting, and being shown around by Major Samson, with whom he has a history (Samson is described as 'a tall man, uncomfortable in his skin who stands stiffly and formally at all times and lives haunted with the memory of whatever mistake he made years ago that saw him wind up here at the head of this no-hope project') and Dr. Senjei Honda ('a dishevelled, stout Japanese man in a lab coat').

Washington is given a stunning demonstration of the animal control technology:

...a group of rats are running around in an unnaturally purposeful way. In fact, stranger still, many of the rats are carrying TOOLS in their nimble little fingers.

Let's follow a rat carrying a screw. It hands the screw to a second rat who lines it up with a hole in a piece of metal.

Then a new and more grotesque creature lumbers into view - a surgically-altered rat whose entire head has been replaced by a spinning drill bit. As one rat carefully holds the screw in place, the drill-head aggressively screws it in with a series of devastating headbutts.

The rats are bulding an engine.

Now, while Washington is still stunned, he's taken to meet the Weapon 3, or We3. Roseanne unlocks the animal's helmets and we see what's inside for the first time...

...a scared dog, an angry cat and a confused rabbit. These are Bandit, Tinker and Pirate and they used to be pets. Now, they're hardwired into weapons systems and sent to kill or be killed.

Each animal has a device attached to it's head - into it's head - that enables them to communicate verbally though electronic voiceboxes. As Roseanne explains "Humans have a part of the brain known as Wernicke's Area, which allows us to process our feelings into language. This apparatus works as an artificial Wernicke's, augmenting the animals' natural abilities. Feelings are assigned to words, which are then processed through speakers in the armor." This is a brilliant conceit that really makes the script fly. The exchanges between the animals, or between the animals and humans, are limited to a very small vocabulary of little more than a dozen different words between the three creatures. The range of expression, however is huge.

Like most good drama, the emotions in play during the We3 script are big and... well.. dramatic. A small vocabulary, when applied directly to the emotional subtext, is a powerful way of stripping the drama down and hitting it home hard.

So, onwards. The Senator continues his tour, off to meet Weapon 4, a newer and more brutal 'biorg' that is being developed, while Roseanne receives bad news: the We3 are to be decommissioned. It seems that Weapon 4 is to supercede them immediately.

A key scene:

HONDA
These animals are test specimens. Laboratory rats. As scientists, you and I both understand the protocols.

ROSEANNE
I'd like to take a memento.

HONDA
I remember a rather long discussion about the dangers of sentimentality when you came to work for me.

She gives him a hard stare,

ROSEANNE
I remember too.

He relents a little, becomes softer.

HONDA
But please, there's absolutely no need for you to be here when it happens. Say the necessary good-byes to the animals today. I'll instruct the Euthanasia Team to wait until you've cleared your locker.

He thinks he's being kind, she can't believe he's so cold.

HONDA
We are about to become politically fashionable, Roseanne. Your contribution will not be neglected.

He makes a tense tiny nod.

HONDA
Please. Take anything you like as a keepsake.

Something in Roseanne snaps. Her eyes burn.

So, guess what? Now you've got the set-up, I won't need to spell it out. Roseanne releases the animals and they flee the compound. Bandit has a longing for 'home' and leads the others off looking for it. But what is 'home'? As they understand it, home is somewhere they won't have to run anymore. I can understand that.

Much of the film is a long chase, a blend between one of Disney's Fantastic Journey films and, perhaps, The Iron Giant by way of Robocop or another hard, gristle-strewn actionaer. It is also a brilliant and incisive exploration of freedom, instinct, will the universe's natural orders... and the desire to identify yourself as an individual.

There is an absolutely incredible series of action sequences - which we will look at individually, and in more detail, at a later time. They are brutal, harsh, imaginative and, most importantly, always relevant.

Roseanne would appear, from this set-up, to be the film's human heroine though this isn't truthfully the case. Things aren't so simple. As noted, she is recently bereaved, and she feels immense guilt about her relationship with her deceased father as well as with the We3 animals. Remember the phenomenon of 'suicide-by-cop' that got talked about a lot a few years ago? The idea was that depressed people would do ridiculous things - hold up liquor stores, go on shooting sprees - so that they might be executed by the police. Roseanne's release of the We3 animals back at the beginning of their journey has an undercurrent of this kind of tragic feeling. She certainly expects to die, at least for a moment, in the melee that ensues. She even say "Kill me", as though under her breath and to herself but seemingly meaning that the animals should kill her, plough right through her, as they escape the labs in a blaze of violence.

The possibility of Roseanne's redemption is a key part of the story; the animal's perspective on her need for redemption, or possibly lack thereof, makes it even more interesting.

Throughout We3 the animals are just what they are. Bandit is a dog, Tinker is a cat and Pirate is a rabbit. I've spent plenty of time with each of these species and was absolutely convinced by their portrayal here. They haven't in anyway been subject to daft anthropomorphism. It's crucial, really, that they are real animals with real animal attitudes, personalities and psychology. I also believe it is essential that they are rendered as realistically as possible in the film, also. Where possible, a real dog, cat and rabbit could be used - no doubt adorned in mo-cap ping-pong balls so that their armour might be CG-created from the neck down.

Having said that... Weta's King Kong was so convincing that while I know exactly how they faked him I still can't see anything but a real animal.

It is on page 43 that the animals are clear of the compound; there is a total of 114 pages in the script. It's as soon as page 44 that the We3 having their first conversation. Bear in mind as you read this excerpt that the voices are synthesized, the language a product of their surrogate Wernicke's.

Bandit ignores the cat as she gnaws halfheartedly at her prey. He's thinking, considering his next move very carefully. He inclines his head, sniffs. Sniffs. Stops. Faces east, into the light wind.

BANDIT
HOME.

He addresses the others, clearly their leader.

BANDIT
DANGER HERE. We3 HOME NOW.

He starts down the hill, purposefully.

PIRATE
?HOME? EAT. ?HOME? EAT.

Pirate looks to Tinker, chomping at her bird.

PIRATE
2! COME 2!

Tinker looks around.

TINKER
2 WHERE?

Pirate bounds down the hill after Bandit.
PIRATE
2 HOME! 2 HOME!

Tinker sneers. Tightens her claw around the dead bird.

TINKER
2 STAY.

She lifts the bird to her mouth but her eyes are following the others.

TINKER
EAT.

The others vanish into the trees.

Tinker drops the bird and it falls to the forest floor, uneaten. Her stealthy hiss of a voice gives her words the weight of prophecy.

TINKER
We3 NO HOME WHERE.

Then she calculates her best chances...and runs after the others, disappearing down into the dappled shadows, descending into a valley.

That will be the largest extract I'm going to take from the script at any time, but I really wanted to indicate the relationship between the animals. I think that page pretty much speaks for itself (if you pardon the expression).

So, we're ve just got started. I wanted to impress upon you the premise of the script, the approach to the animals' interrelationships and some idea of who Roseanne Berry is. These are all important things if you are to understand just what this film is trying to do.

If you've read the comics you'll know a lot about the plot that I haven't shared. But there's plenty you won't know too.

Next time, we'll talk about Weapon 4, about what becomes of all of those rats, about some elements of the visual style implied on the page and, maybe, unless I can resist it, I'll talk you through a big pile of notes I made while reading the script.

You see, reading We3 it was obvious to me how to approach this film, what I would do if I were the director. It all leaped out at me: details of sound, of design, of approach to character, concepts that determined how camera would be used, how the film would be lit. And on and on. I chewed it all over, like I do when preparing for a shoot that I'm actually going to get to do. I began the very beginning of the preproduction process, perversely for a film I haven't a hope in hell of ever being any more involved in than I am now. But I think my thoughts will be interesting, and will reveal even more about the ideas in We3.

[crippled_avenger]

Add to: My AOL, MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines

Interview: Smokin' Joe Carnahan Talks to Cinematical About Ramping Up 'White Jazz,' Pablo Escobar and Why 'Bunny' Went Missing
Posted Apr 6th 2007 10:01AM by Ryan Stewart
Filed under: Action & Adventure, Drama, Casting, Deals, Fandom, Scripts & Screenwriting, Interviews, George Clooney





This fall, writer/director Joe Carnahan will start production on one of the most talked-about properties in Hollywood -- the closing chapter of James Ellroy's famed 'L.A. Quartet,' White Jazz. Following The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and L.A. Confidential, Jazz is a work that's been described as 'unfilmable,' because of its frequent dips into stream-of-consciousness, its almost total lack of good-guy characters and its endless perversions, not to mention the Byzantine narrative, typical of Ellroy. But Carnahan is confident that he's going to crack it, and could hardly contain his enthusiasm for the project when I recently spoke with him -- the director is making himself available this week to promote the April 17 release of the Widescreen DVD Edition of Smokin' Aces. Among other things, we talked about the architectural and musical influences he's drawing on, how it will stand apart from L.A. Confidential, and who he's envisioning alongside George Clooney in the film's major roles.

Also on the agenda was his other major passion of the moment, a full-throated telling of the Pablo Escobar story, which he hopes to jump onto after Jazz is completed. His enthusiasm for that one is already so high and his knowledge of the main character so deep that when hearing him talk, it seems like he's ready to start shooting the picture next week. Throughout the course of the interview, we also talked about the recent media furor over Reese Witherspoon's departure from Bunny Lake is Missing, the current Hollywood rush to remake Sam Peckinpah, the spec script he's currently working on, and whether or not we could see more of the Smokin' Aces characters sometime in the future. My list of things to bring up also included MI:3 and how he managed to coax a decent performance out of acting novice Alicia Keys in Aces, but we didn't even have time to get into that stuff. If you're a Carnahan fan, as I am, it's a fun read, so enjoy.


Do you see the ending of Smokin' Aces as an ending or a beginning? It seems to me like Ryan Reynolds' character could go to jail and become a villain -- he'd just be swimming in a different pool of corruption.

JC: I saw it as the end of that particular bit of hypocrisy that he was kind of revolting against, I guess -- the idea that it's just better to just bring both of these situations into the ground than it is to kind of allow them to continue. I can never kind of fathom a character's journey beyond the moment when you go to black, any more than when people ask me what Jason Patric did with the tape recorder at the end of Narc, you know what I mean? Even in Blood, Guts, like, what happens down the road with these characters? I love the ambiguous kind of endings. I think often times, that's what life really is -- there's no concrete path for you to take. It's always kind of a jumble of variables. Behind this door could be a beautiful woman, and behind the same door could be a tiger, you know? You don't know. So I always look at it as the end of that particular journey, that particular story, but I certainly wouldn't preclude revisiting that.


It seems like a lot of your stories are about the establishment having to go the extra mile to deal with someone they can't really control -- it's certainly the case with characters in your upcoming projects. Dave Klein, Pablo.

JC: You're absolutely right. That's absolutely dead on-the-money.

I don't see Pablo as a Robin Hood figure, by the way -- you don't either, do you?

JC: I don't, but I think its interesting because Javier Bardem and I have been in, like, this four year courtship and we just met, like, last week. I think Pablo saw himself as like this great benefactor and this guy who was ultimately in charge of the protection of Colombia's underclass, which I find patently, laughably absurd. He really kind of cast himself in that role. But think about it, listen -- if some guy runs out and cheats on his wife, there's always a rationalization. 'Well, I was drunk, well I was this, well I was away from home.' You know? We do that. We create this, and this guy just created that rationalization on this grand scale, you know? And could basically lay off the murders of thousands of innocent people to some kind of bullshit kind of self-styled, larger goal that he was indeed this great, historic figure and had a responsibility to ... it's nonsense. Any rational person looks at that and says its nonsense, and yet look at what this guy was able to do. Look at what he wrought in the time that he was rampaging across that country.

I heard that his jail cell, after they caught him, was like a palace.

JC: It was Club Med, man. It was in a place called La Catredal, which is a hillside overlooking Envigado, which is where he grew up. He was as imprisoned, dude, as you and I are if we want to go out on a Friday night and go to a club or go have dinner. It's like, the guy was literally leaving the prison grounds. You know when, in a situation where their version of the Attorney General -- Colombia's version of the Attorney General, a guy named Eduardo Mendoza, goes to remove Pablo from this prison and the prison guards turn their guns on him ... when people read that script they can't believe it was that bad, and it was that bad. So it's really one of those stories that I kind of feel fated to tell, you know what I mean?

I imagine the action scenes will be daunting -- U.S. squads, Colombian Army people, Pablo's people, all clashing.

JC: Well, it's funny because a lot of those things were very sub rosa. It was very kind of 'black-op,' we were only supposed to be consulting and even at the end of the film, there's a very ... I made it very deliberately kind of convoluted, like 'what happened?' I 'suggest,' because obviously, making friendships and having these people who had intimate knowledge participating on some level in the whole Pablo Escobar hunt ... I used what they told me. There's a supposition that a Delta sniper had wounded Pablo as he's running across the roof but not killed him; basically immobilized him until the search bloc of the Colombia National Police could get to him and kind of give him the coup de grace, the shot to the head, double-tap from three feet out. So there's all these interesting kind of theories and stories, and there's stuff that I didn't put in, that I put in the epilogue, that's them shaving Pablo's beard down to just a Hitler-like mustache that they left, his morgue photos. Their desire was to show the world what Pablo was to Colombia -- Hitler. That's heavy-duty, man. That goes a long way toward undoing the popular myth that he was, like you say, this Robin Hood figure.

So is Javier on board? What's the story there?

JC: He and I are constantly battling, but I'll get him if it's my last ... I'm gonna get him. He knows. He's a marked man, so we're gonna firm it up here soon.

So tell me about Los Angeles, 1958. What's your vision of White Jazz? Is it going to be stardust-heavy, 'Oh, look, there's Lana Turner' kind of vibe like L.A. Confidential had?

JC: I really wanna go, and I said this ... someone asked me to give a baseline description and I said 'imagine an episode of Cops shot in 1958.' That'll be the vibe on White Jazz. I think we've kind of done the glamour-puss angle, and I think L.A. Confidential certainly did it beautifully, it was very, very kind of stylized. Which is not to say that there's not going to be, you know, a great kind of style in it, but I'm really interested more in grounding it so that it doesn't feel necessarily like this period film. Even the visual presentation we put together -- you're seeing this kind of great, modernist architecture, you know, like what John Lautner was doing at the time, and the art scene with Frank Stella or Miro or all these great kind of ... the West Coast jazz scene, Brubeck, that's kind of the vibe that I'm going for. Miles Davis. Really making this more of, again, that kind of mid-century explosion of art and music, and really letting that be the kind of guiding force behind it, as opposed to making it like this ... all 'period suits'. I really want to try to make it as accurate a reflection of L.A. at that moment in time as I can, and it was very exceedingly hip and Bohemian and forward-thinking and all that stuff. I want to try to incorporate that into the film.

Okay, here's one thing that's been kind of stuck in my head. Clooney played a spree-killer in From Dusk Till Dawn, and he was the nicest spree-killer of all time. In Out of Sight, he was the nicest bank robber ever. How is this guy going to hurl Sanderline Johnson out of a window?

JC: Yeah, listen. Clooney wants ... you're obviously familiar with the book, there's the scene where he has the nightmare that he's chopping up the Japanese colonel with a samurai sword and winds up being Junior Stemmons, so ... actually, I just gave you a plot point. Oh, Jesus. Who was it in the book ... it was Johnny Duhamel in the book, and my brother and I changed it. So there are scenes that are kind of unbelievably grotesque and unfathomable and despicable and I think George's willingness to go there ... you make a very good point, a very salient point. I don't think there's anything nice about Klein. You're right, the spree-killer in From Dusk Till Dawn, George never has a moment like with Sanderline Johnson where he just kills an innocent guy. I think that, in and of itself, will set the pace and the tempo for what's to follow, and listen, George wants that. He's made that very clear to me: "I have no other desire than to play what's in that script." And what's in that script is a pretty despicable guy at times, and pretty nefarious and nasty and selfish.

You'll probably dial down the racism and stuff, just so you don't jolt people out of the movie, right?

JC: Yeah, there are certain things that are kind of running themes in there that I don't want, that I'm not interested in, the racism of that time in particular; that's kind of Chief Parker's LAPD. Their legacy is not one of kind of multi-ethnic support and acceptance, and certainly not where African-American, where black Los Angeles -- 'Darktown', as Ellroy refers to it in the book. You have to be very, very conscious of that and at the same time, I'm not going to shy away from it. I don't want to make a film where it's like 'wait a minute, there's no racism? I can't believe that.' Then it becomes this kind of gentrified, kind of lame ... you know what I mean?

You gotta find a balance.

JC: Yeah, you do. So that's always a tricky equation, but I think it's something we address in the script without making it ... I think it's really interesting, where my brother and I deviate from the book is the kind of the 'slayer of the evil' at the end is not the character that was used in the book. I always thought that as much as I love White Jazz, it became almost unfilmable at some point, because there are so many strands, so much, and it became so psychotic ... that's what made it such a great book, but those things would not carry over into the filmic realm, I thought, with ease. We couldn't figure out a way to translate em,' so there's a paring down that I think is really essential, that we did, that I'm really happy with.

Are you beefing up the role of Glenda Bledsoe into a big, leading lady part?

JC: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's definitely a much bigger role than it was in the book.

Who do you like?

JC: I'm a huge Charlize fan. I would love her for that. I was taunting her at an Oscar party that I was gonna come chasin' her, so I really like Charlize. But there are so many wonderful, amazing actresses that could blow that thing out of the water, that you never want to limit yourself ... but she would be, like, an early favorite.

Are you keen to work with Liotta again any time soon?

JC: Yeah, I'd love to put Ray in White Jazz. I'm a huge, huge Ray supporter. I have a great ease of use with him, that I think is pretty great.

Junior Stemmons? Welles Noonan?

JC: It's funny, because we're casting about for ... it's interesting, because the Pete Bondurant role is a tough one to fill. Ray was probably 6'3, 6'4 in Narc and all bulked up and he could certainly pull that off. But I don't know. I don't know where I'd put him. Welles Noonan is interesting, because Ray is so non-patrician New England.

He pulled it off in Hannibal.

JC: He did, he pulled it off in Blow, too. But yeah, you're right, in Hannibal he kind of pulled off the kind of effete bureaucrat.

When I heard they were re-doing Straw Dogs, I thought of you for some reason -- do you have any interest in a full-on Peckinpah remake?

JC: You know what, if I was ever gonna remake a Peckinpah film, it would be Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia. That's my favorite Peckinpah film. I'm surprised they haven't remade The Killer Elite -- that's something I would have thought they'd try to remake. But they're doing so much of that shit. Even what I was gonna do with Bunny Lake, I had reservations about trying to follow Preminger. But there are certainly films that are worthy of a remake. Listen -- if Rod Lurie is going to do Straw Dogs, I'll go see that movie. You know what I mean? And certainly a movie that not a lot of people remember. It still has to be probably the single most disturbing rape scene in a movie.

I don't think I remember that scene clearly, actually. It's been a while.

JC: Oh God, who's the actress. Susan ... what the hell is her name? It's her basically with her old English boyfriend, and what starts out as this kind of flirtation becomes this rape, and you're cross-cutting to Dustin Hoffman, completely ineptly trying to hunt quail and he can't figure out the shotgun and the gun's going off. Meanwhile, his old lady's bein' railed by these English blokes. It's really deeply disturbing. And that movie's 1972.

Speaking of Bunny Lake, that whole situation was, what? The blogosphere getting hold of routine business and blowing it up into something?

JC: As they're wont to do. It's always, like, 'let's try to make something.' Honest to God, man, it was something of nothing. I had a window before I really had to get aggressive about White Jazz, and we thought we could pull it off, and as we got closer, and as Reese was kind of ... you know, Reese was going through her own kind of personal travails and so on, and it just became untenable. There was no great, dramatic arc where there was some big blowout or anything -- it was just like, 'damn, I don't think we can do this.' And I don't think she was really keen to spend a bunch of time away from her kids, so I think at the end of the day, it was for the best for everybody. We didn't wind up doing something that would have felt rushed and forced and, like, 'how the fuck are we gonna do this?' And I got my summer off, which I want, because I'm really kind of going to ground on White Jazz, to make this thing spectacular.

Do you have a start date?

JC: I start prepping in late July, early August, for a November start.

What's this spec you're finishing? Ghost Walkers? Is that a quick one you might want to fit in, like Bunny Lake?

JC: No, no, no, it's actually funny because as we're handling these calls all day I'm trying to ... it's a spec that my friend, I purchased [it] from him, the idea. He wrote a short story, and it's actually called The Grey. It's this really great kind of man against nature story that I own 100 percent, so I'm really excited about it. I'm almost done, I've written it as a spec. It's got some pretty incredible stuff in it, but a very simple story. These guys go to down into the Alaskan -- it's like the Yukon -- and they start getting basically hunted by this pack of rogue wolves. It's just really exciting and cool. That's something that, I don't know, listen, anytime I write something I always say 'I'll write it for someone else,' and then I really get into it and it becomes like this inseparable process, and I'm like 'I gotta do it!' So I don't think so. I think if I do anything, I'll do some TV, but I just can't afford to do any kind of a feature right now, with White Jazz looming.

[crippled_avenger]

At a press conference for "Perfect Strangers", actor Giovanni Ribisi revealed that he has been cast as a young Albert Einstein in an upcoming biopic to be helmed by Italian director Liliana Cavani.

"It's great and the script is really great, and I'm really excited about it" says Ribisi, who says that shooting will begn "in July, I think, and there's another movie called The Stanford Prison Experiment after that."

The story starts with the blossoming of his relationship with his first wife, Mileva Maric through to his death. The role of Mileva has yet to be cast. Italy, Barcelona and Princeton will be used for filming.

[crippled_avenger]

Bryan Singer and Gus Van Sant get in a slap-fight over Harvey Milk!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a story that's the talk of the trades this morning.

Bryan Singer and Gus Van Sant have competing Harvey Milk projects. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official in America, the supervisor of San Francisco. He was assassinated, along with Mayor George Moscone, by another supervisor, Daniel White.

Singer is collaborating with Chris McQuarrie once more on his project. McQuarrie has a WW2 script that Singer is going to direct with Tom Cruise in the lead, the first time they've worked closely on a project since THE USUAL SUSPECTS.

Van Sant had been toying with this project for years, having even gone so far as to write a script a few years back. Now he's hired Dustin Lance Black (BIG LOVE) to script this one.

Singer's is called THE MAYOR OF CASTRO STREET and is at Warner Independent. Van Sant's is untitled.

The plan is for Singer to squeeze the drama in between the WW2 flick and the SUPERMAN RETURNS sequel.

Obviously, both men have a passion for this particular story, which is incredibly dramatic, tragic and, sadly, still not too far removed from modern politics. I guess it's a good thing that the bullets aren't really flying anymore, but the thoughts haven't progressed much.

[crippled_avenger]

Christina Ricci is joining Larry and Andy Wachowski's live-action adaptation of the 1960s cartoon "Speed Racer" for Warner Bros. Pictures and producer Joel Silver.

Emile Hirsch, Susan Sarandon and John Goodman already have boarded the high-octane project, which is based on the anime series created by Tatsuo Yoshida for Japanese audiences and later imported to the U.S.

"Speed" centers on a young race car driver, Speed (Hirsch), and his quest for glory in his thundering, gadget-laden vehicle Mach 5. Ricci will star as Speed's girlfriend Trixie, his formidable ally on and off the track.

The show revolved around Speed's family. In the big-screen adaptation, Goodman will play Pops, a race car owner and builder. Sarandon is on board as Pops' wife, the backbone of the family as well as the Mach 5 Go Racing Team.

The Wachowskis, who are writing and directing, are eyeing a summer shoot in Berlin with a summer 2008 release.
Advertisement


The film will be a Warners presentation in association with Village Roadshow Pictures of a Silver Pictures production.

The casting is a change in direction for Ricci, who has tended to star in such indie-oriented fare as "Monster," "Penelope" and the recent "Black Snake Moan." She also appeared on ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," a turn that earned her an Emmy nomination last year. Ricci is repped by ICM, Brillstein-Grey and attorney Melanie Cook.

[crippled_avenger]

E ovo sam citao, ovo je ludilo prica!
Tony Scott is setting his sights to bring the story of Hollywood agent-turned-pro-war documentary filmmaker Pat Dollard to the big screen.

Scott, via his production banner Scott Free Prods., has dipped into its discretionary fund to option the Vanity Fair article "Pat Dollard's War on Hollywood" as well as to option Dollard's life rights. Dollard and the article's author, Evan Wright, will write the screenplay.

The article portrayed Dollard, who nurtured the career of a then-unknown Steven Soderbergh, as the stereotypical Hollywood agent with a drug-fueled lifestyle and a collection of ex-wives. Dollard chucked the "Entourage"-esque world, embedding himself with Marines in Iraq, where he joined patrols and survived several bombings. Dollard went from wearing Armani suits to combat gear, hair styled in a Mohawk and the word "die" shaved into his chest hair.

The article described his attempt to sell the documentary, titled "Young Americans," as well as his making a concurrent docu, an incoherent porn filmed by a rehab sidekick, which echoed "Auto Focus," a film that Dollard produced.

The material fits into Scott's oeuvre, as he often focuses on off-kilter characters like Hollywood model-turned-bounty hunter Domino Harvey, whose life was depicted in his film "Domino." He most recently directed "Deja Vu." Scott is repped by CAA.
Advertisement
 

Wright wrote the book "Generation Kill," also about the Iraq War, which is being adapted into a miniseries for HBO. He is repped by ICM and attorney Alex Kohner of Barnes Morris Klein.

Dollard is repped by

Scott Free has a first-look deal with 20th Century Fox, where the project might land.

[crippled_avenger]

New Line has picked up comedy pitch "The Latin Lover" from Spanish movie star Santiago Segura ("Torrente"). The story revolves around two seasoned lotharios who place a wager on whether they can transform their country club janitor into a debonair playboy in an attempt to determine whether the art of seduction is an innate talent or something that can be taught...

[crippled_avenger]

Bruce Campbell To Take A Vacation  Preview screenings for My Name Is Bruce have been going on - both privately, and also to the public at one special event in Oregon. Reaction has been fairly positive, though hardly ecstatic.

Campbell's The Man With the Screaming Brain was really quite an awful film, unfortunately, so any signs this one will be better at all are gratefully welcomed. Mark Verheiden's script isn't half bad, by all accounts, and the premise is certainly a belter. And when hasn't Campbell come across as the most charismatic screen presence you can imagine?

Okay, apart from Screaming Brain?

Word is creeping out from these Bruce screenings, however, that Campbell is close to an agreement to star in Richard Stanley's next film, Vacation. Apparently budgeted at just a little over a million dollars, the film tells the tale of some Americans abroad. Not quite your typical fish-out-of-water yarn, however - in this case, the Americans have upped sticks after an apocalyptic cataclysm has pretty much wiped out the west and are trying to start new lives in the Middle East, whether the Middle East likes it or not.

Campbell is to play a US businessman who, with his stripper girlfriend, tries to climb the power structure in this new order. Sounds like you can take this couple out of America, but you can't take America out of this couple.

Stanley's Dust Devil is a bonafide winner and the fully-loaded recent DVD from Severin is well worth anybody's money. Apparently, his first film Hardware is soon to be bonafide winner too - a director's cut is on the cards for DVD release later this year. This edit reportedly fixes all of the niggles that dampened the original version - principally the unrealistic character interactions and some key moments of thematic and subtextual relevance that were snipped for being 'redundant'.

[crippled_avenger]

Red to direct, write '100 Feet'
Janssen attached to star with Cannavale
By STEVEN ZEITCHIKEric Red, the writer behind cult-horror classic "The Hitcher," has signed on to write and direct thriller "100 Feet" with Jonathan Sanger's Grand Illusions Entertainment.
Pic, which is set to go into production shortly, centers on a woman who murders her abusive husband and is then haunted by his ghost. Famke Janssen ("X-Men") is attached to star with Bobby Cannavale.

Sanger was exec in charge of production on Par's "Mission: Impossible II" and served as producer on pics such as "The Elephant Man" and "The Producers."

He will produce "100 Feet" with fellow Grand Illusions principals Ed Elbert and Sarah Ryan Black, as well as Gotham real-estate and soundstage magnate David Steiner of Steiner Studios.

A remake of Red's "The Hitcher" earned $16 million at the box office for Focus genre label Rogue earlier this year.

In 2000, Red found himself in the headlines after a vehicle he was driving crashed into a pool hall on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles and killed two people.

After a six-month investigation, Red, who said he blacked out before the incident, was never brought up on criminal charges; he was found liable for damages in civil court. This is his first major film gig since the event.

Production also will mark the first collaboration between Steiner and Grand Illusions since Steiner entered a production and financing agreement with the shingle in the fall. Steiner, who is now a partner in Grand Illusions, will partly finance "100 Feet."

Movie also will be partially shot at Steiner Studios.

Grand Illusions also is set to go into production on WWII pic "Beast of Bataan," which is being helmed by Fred Schepisi.

Inace BEAST OF BATAAN je svojevremeno trebalo da rezira Verhoeven...

[crippled_avenger]

genijalna vest!

I'd heard various names bandied about for the upcoming second attempt at the Hulk, but the winner has turned out to be a delightful surprise.

Edward Norton has been set by Marvel Studios to play Bruce Banner in Universal Pictures "The Incredible Hulk", which is set for a June 13th 2008 release reports The BBC.

The new film begins with Banner on the run, trying to avoid capture long enough to cure the condition that turns him into a misunderstood green menace.

The choice marks a return to more mainstream fare for the acclaimed young actor after two indie films and last year's sleeper hit "The Illusionist."

Filming begins this summer in Toronto under the helm of Louis Leterrier ("Transporter 2," "Unleashed") and is said to have a less self-serious take on the material than Ang Lee's 2003 effort.

[crippled_avenger]

Anthony Hopkins has revealed that he may well be playiing the father of Benecio Del Toro in Universal's upcoming redux of "The Wolfman".

He tells Rotten Tomatoes - "There's also a chance I may play the Wolfman in London in a movie with Benicio Del Toro...He said he just wants to make sure that the deal is all in but I play the Wolfman's father in Paris. A wonderful part."

He adds that his agent has the script and is very keen for him to play the role, although he hasn't yet read the script for himself.

The Wolfman is a remake of the 1941 classic The Wolf Man starring Claude Rains and Bela Lugosi. It tells the story of a man who is bitten by a werewolf and turns into one himself.

[crippled_avenger]

Things are getting hot on Roman Polanski's $130 million historical epic "Pompeii" about the fall of the ancient city when nearby Mt. Vesuvius underwent a volcanic eruption.

Italy's RAI Cinema has acquired all Italian rights, Spain's Ciudad de la Luz studios will be used for most of the film's production, and Pathe Distribution is in negotiations to take French rights reports Variety.

Set designer Allan Starski scouted the real Pompeii archeological site in Italy last month and pre-production is already underway.

90% of the shoot is expected to be done on Spanish soundstages, backlots and locations. A projected August start has been set for the five-month shoot.

[---]

tako mu i treba kad nije proučav'o propas' italijanskog pepluma.  

[crippled_avenger]

Fox 2000 has optioned screenwriter Tom Rob Smith's debut novel "Child 44" for Ridley Scott to direct and his Scott Free company to produce reports Variety.

Set in Stalinist Russia, storyline revolves around an officer in the secret police who is framed by a colleague for treason.

On the run with his emotionally estranged wife, he stumbles upon a series of child killings and launches his own rogue investigation, even though it means risking his own capture.

Smith made a two-book deal that gives the option of a sequel. Scott's next project is the DiCaprio-led political drama "Body of Lies" which begins filming in August.

[crippled_avenger]

Clive Owen and Tom Tykwer are INTERNATIONAL!!!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I love me my Tom Tykwer. PERFUME was vastly, vastly overlooked. His next flick is THE INTERNATIONAL and he nabbed Clive Owen to star, a team-up that has me pretty excited.

Owen will play an INTERPOL agent that goes after the world's largest and most powerful banks, who he believes are involved in arms brokering and murder. Of course, the corruption runs deeper than he could imagine.

The director and star make this one a big project for me. It starts shooting in September and is produced by John Woo... let's hope Owen doesn't drop out. heh.

[crippled_avenger]

Warner Bros. Pictures has hired scribe Mark Poirier ("Smart People") to pen the untitled Russian bride project set up with Todd Phillips. Based on David Benioff's 2002 article "Goodbye to Romance," storyline revolves around a group of American men who travel through Russia searching for brides. E. Max Frye penned an early script.

[crippled_avenger]

Statham in 'Death Race' driver's seat

By Borys Kit

April 23, 2007

Jason Statham is in talks to topline "Death Race," a remake of Roger Corman's cult classic being made by Universal Pictures. Paul W.S. Anderson is writing the script and directing the futuristic actioner, which is being produced by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner via their C/W Prods. as well as Anderson and his Impact Pictures partner Jeremy Bolt.

Released in 1975 as "Death Race 2000" and starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone, the movie told of a dystopian future America in which the president presides over an ultraviolent road race from New York to Los Angeles. One of the ways that drivers score points is by mowing down innocent bystanders using their heavily armed cars.

"Race" originally was set up at Paramount as a Cruise vehicle. The project was among those put into turnaround after the Sumner Redstone-Cruise imbroglio. Sources said that when it heard "Race" was free, Universal, spearheaded by David Linde, moved quickly to secure it.

Roger Corman is exec producing. Scott Bernstein is overseeing for Universal.

A late summer/early fall start is being eyed.

Anderson, repped by UTA and Ken Kamins, has made his name making movies in the sci-fi mold. He most recently directed "AVP: Alien vs. Predator" and counts "Resident Evil" and "Soldier" among his credits. Impact is producing the upcoming adaptation of "Castlevania" for Rogue/Crystal Sky.

Statham, repped by CAA, most recently starred in the action movie "Crank."

[crippled_avenger]

EXCL: David Goyer on Scanners Remake
Source: Edward DouglasApril 20, 2007


Likely to be forever dubbed the "man of many projects", David Goyer has ably jumped from screenwriter to producer to director, his latest project in the latter role being the thriller The Invisible, about a teen who discovers that no one can see him then has to discover why that is.

Having finished that up, Goyer has put his screenwriting cap back on to adapt and update David Cronenberg's classic 1981 horror film Scanners for The Weinstein Company, and when ComingSoon.net/ShockTillYouDrop.com spoke to the multi-hyphenated filmmaker, he let us know how that was going and what his take will be.

"That's going really well, it's been a lot of fun," he told us. "I'm not producing it, just writing it. That's the thing, if it's the right project, I'll certainly write for people again. They came to me and I love that movie so much, and I'm such a Cronenberg fan. It seemed possibly rife for remake only because it's been so long since the original had come out"

Cronenberg himself directed a remake of a classic horror film when he made The Fly in 1986, but he has been vocally adverse about people remaking his movies. "I haven't talked to him," Goyer admitted. "I hope to when I finish the script, but if it were me, and someone were remaking one of my films, I wouldn't want to be involved. It would be too weird. I would just go say, 'Go with God and hopefully it will be good.' I've heard that way back when he'd prefer that they not remake his movies, but he remade 'The Fly.' I liked the original 'Fly' and I liked his movie, so I think that as long as they're not just slavish duplicates of one another or if you can take the spirit of the original and do something different. That's what I'm hoping to do here. I'm hoping to analyze what it was that Cronenberg did in the first 'Scanners' film. His films are always very political in their own ways, very subversive. So I'll analyze what he was doing at the time—there's a lot of subtext in his movies—and then say, 'What's going on now?' and apply the same rules. Necessarily, you're gonna get a slightly different film, because that film was made as we were moving into the Reagan area and we're living in a very different world now. That's going to reflect a different kind of movie."

Although most people would hope that by the time this remake comes out, things might be different in our country, Goyer's not so optimistic. "No, no, we're still going to be in a post-9/11 Iraq quagmire world. That's the world I'm drawing from right now and I'm sure we'll be stuck in that world for another decade."

Since exploding heads aren't nearly as impressive or shocking as they were 25 years ago, he added that they'll definitely have to "top themselves."

Check ComingSoon.net next week for our exclusive, extensive interview with David Goyer, talking about his upcoming thriller The Invisible, which opens on April 27.

[crippled_avenger]

Principal photography begins today on Twentieth Century Fox and EuropaCorp's action thriller "Hitman" directed by Xavier Gens (Frontières). Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood; Live Free Or Die Hard) stars in the title role with co-stars including Dougray Scott (Mission Impossible II; Desperate Housewives), Olga Kurylenko (Paris je t'aime), Robert Knepper (Prison Break), Ulrich Thomsen (Festen) and Michael Offei (Casino Royale). The screenplay was adapted by Skip Woods (Swordfish) from the hugely successful video game franchise.

EuropaCorp's Pierre-Ange LePogam is producing for Twentieth Century Fox with the main unit shooting in and around the Bulgarian capital of Sofia for a total of 12 weeks. A second unit will shoot in locations including South Africa, Istanbul, St. Petersburg and London.

Agent 47 (Olyphant) has been educated to become a professional assassin for hire, whose most powerful weapons are his nerve and a resolute pride in his work. 47 is both the last two digits of the barcode tattooed on the nape of his neck, and his only name.

The hunter becomes the hunted when 47 gets caught up in a political takeover. Both Interpol and the Russian military chase the HITMAN across Eastern Europe as he tries to find out who set him up and why they're trying to take him out of the game. But the greatest threat to 47's survival may be the stirrings of his conscience and the unfamiliar emotions aroused in him by a beautiful, damaged girl...

Director Xavier Gens cut his teeth as a trainee AD on a variety of big-budget films (Maximum Risk; Ronin; Le Bossu) and directed some 40 music videos as well as an award-winning short before making his impressive feature debut with EuropaCorp's Frontières (Borders). HITMAN's behind-the-scenes team includes Frontières' cinematographer, Laurent Barès.

The film will be released in France through EuropaCorp Distribution and in the rest of the world through Twentieth Century Fox. Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a segment of the Fox Entertainment Group.

[crippled_avenger]

If financing can be put in place, Terry Gilliam confirms to The Sydney Morning Herald that next up for him is "The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus Gilliam", a film set in a travelling show which has an attraction that allows patrons to go inside a man's mind.

He also brought up his famed disaster - "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" which fell apart during production. Gilliam says "I've spent the last five years trying to get the rights to the script back. We're very close to getting them and then we'll make the film again."

Johnny Depp would again play an advertising executive who travels back in time and is mistaken by Don Quixote for Sancho Panza - "We can't make it without him and we can certainly make it a lot more easily now with him. It's quite extraordinary because at the time, Johnny meant nothing to the studios. Now they'll kill to have him there."

Finally adaptations of both "The Defective Detective" and "Good Omens" remain on the cards.

[crippled_avenger]

Picturehouse and New Line have landed all international rights to the comedy performance documentary "Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights -- Hollywood to the Heartland."

Ari Sandel's film follows the actor as he leads a team of unknown comics on a monthlong tour across 30 cities in the US. In addition to showcasing stage performances with such guests as Justin Long and Dwight Yoakam, the film takes a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of Vaughn and comedians Bret Ernst, Ahmed Ahmed, Sebastian Maniscalco and John Caparulo.

The move renders void a deal announced by the Weinstein Co. at September's Toronto Film Festival. A minimum of $7-$8 million is expected to be spent on the film's marketing and a Spring 2008 release is planned.

[crippled_avenger]

Fox attracts Goyer for 'Magneto'By Borys Kit

April 27, 2007

David Goyer has been drawn in by the power of "Magneto."

The multihyphenate, whose thriller "The Invisible" opens today, has come aboard to develop with an eye to direct the "X-Men" spin-off for Twentieth Century Fox.

The project, which is in the early stages of development, focuses on a young Magneto, the villain of the "X-Men" movies, and his friendship with a young Professor X, and how the two eventually became mortal enemies. The characters would not be played by Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart, who originated them in the series, but by actors in their 20s.

Goyer will be working off a script by Sheldon Turner.

Lauren Shuler Donner and Avi Arad are producing.
Advertisement


Fox and Marvel are already hard at work on another "X-Men" spin-off, "Wolverine." That project, which already has a working screenplay, is on the fast-track hunt for a director and will likely be made before "Magneto."

CAA-repped Goyer wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Regency sci-fi movie "Jumper." He also directed 2004's "Blade: Trinity," the New Line movie based on the Marvel Comics vampire hero, and exec produced the Marvel/Sony superhero flick "Ghost Rider."

[crippled_avenger]

Jodie Foster is set to play Leni Riefenstahl in a controversial project about Adolf Hitler's favourite film director reports The Guardian.

Riefenstahl, a dancer and silent film star, moved into directing and captured the attention of Hitler at a 1932 Nazi rally. Riefenstahl's films becoming a part of the Nazi war propaganda, most notably 1934's documentary "Triumph of the Will" glorifying Hitler and the Nuremberg rallies.

Despite being banned in certain places, 'Will' used ground-breaking photographic techniques and innovative editing to result in what's considered one of the "most brilliant pieces of propaganda ever made" which gave the regime a mythic quality.

Riefenstahl was said to have used slave labour from concentration camps on her films, a claim she denied until her death in 2003. Producers on the new film claim they will "not whitewash any aspect of Riefenstahl's past."

This film project has been in development for years and finally seems to be back on track with British writer Rupert Walters currently penning the script, a director to be locked by Summer's end and shooting to begin late next year.

Riefenstahl commented once on the idea of Foster playing her, an idea she disliked as "Foster would not allow her to refuse any of the film". Her choice to play her? Sharon Stone.