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Win a Brick Mansions Prize Pack

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NewsDen Of Geek4/21/2014 at 10:52AM

We have a stack of killer Brick Mansions swag for you, all you have to do is enter to win. How do you do that? Read on...

What you need is a parkour kit. You need to get out more. Hell, WE need to get out more. But we want you to have this. For the active Den of Geek reader, we're offering a Brick Mansions prize pack, with everything you need to get motivated and get out and run around a little. We do not, however, endorse risky behavior like jumping off a roof.

What's in it? How do you win? Keep reading...

Check out what you get:

- a $25 Fandango Gift Card 
- Brick Mansions branded Ear Buds
- a Brick Mansions Hoodie 
- a Brick Mansions Water Bottle 
- And coolest of all, a Take Flight Parkour T-Shirt (color and style may vary) from Take Flight

So how do you win? First, you have to like our Facebook page, and/or follow us on Twitter or Google+. Then, tell us in our comments section (right down here at the bottom of the page) about your craziest active adventure. Do you ski? Snowboard? Bungee jump? Do parkour? The most impressive or daring--while stil appearing reasonably sane...and assuming you aren't lying to us--is the winner!

The contest ends on Sunday, April 27th at 11:59 pm EST. We'll announce a winner via social media on Monday, April 28th.

* Take Flight is the Official Clothing Line of Parkour. Learn more about them here:

More about Take Flight:

Our mission is to produce the highest quality athletic and urban apparel for customers worldwide, while providing people the inspiration to discover their own potential through movement. Our company slogan is Jump. Fly. Dream. We designed this slogan because inherent in this phrase is a perspective Take Flight represents and an inspiration we strive to pass on to others. Jump. Fly. Dream. isn’t just a call to action, it is an appeal to the specific goals and aspirations everyone has to achieve. For all your aspirations, no matter what they are, Jump. Fly. Dream. doesn’t just say “do it,” it says dream big, and pursue those dreams until you reach them.

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Disqus - noscript

There's a canyon in Southern Utah known to the locals as hidden haven. In the winter there are four waterfalls that freeze up and make for some great ice climbing/winter canyoneering. On New Years Day 2012, me and a friend of mine decided to climb around the canyon to the top and rappel down the waterfalls in below 0 temps and it was fantastic. We started before sunrise and just as we were coming to the top of the canyon wall the sun peaked up above the mountains and lit up the 3 feet of fresh, untouched powder that blanketed the hillside. By the time we reached the bottom of the 90ft first waterfall my beard was frozen from the condensation of my breath and made for a fantastic picture. It took us about 2 hours to do the whole canyon.


Joss Whedon Loads Up In Your Eyes for Digital Distribution

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NewsTony Sokol4/21/2014 at 1:01PM

Joss Whedon made his new movie In Your Eyes available for digital distribution

Joss Whedon is getting in all our eyes. Whedon debuted his new movie, In Your Eyes, this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival and appeared in a video clip to say the new movie would be launched digitally as soon as his video clip ended.

In Your Eyes stars Zoe Kazan from Ruby Sparks, and Michael Stahl-David from Cloverfield. It is a supernatural love story of a sort. Zoe plays Rebecca, an East Coast doctor’s wife and Stahl-David plays an newly ex-con in in New Mexico named Dylan.  The film also features Nikki Reed and Jennifer Grey.

Yesterday, Joss Whedon told the audience at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere that In Your Eyes was available directly to consumers as a $5 digital rental through Vimeo on Demand platform.

In Your Eyes was written by Whedon who produced it along with Bellwether, a microstudio that makes and distributes independent films through new media. Louis C.K. put his concert film “Live at the Beacon Theater” out by on his own like this in 2011 and he kept all the sales for himself.

Whedon is probably best known for creating the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and making The AvengersDoll HouseAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Firefly, but he also created the cult musical series Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Whedon started out as a writer on the sitcom Roseanne.

 

SOURCE: VARIETY

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Steven Spielberg is Writing Goonies 2

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NewsMike Cecchini4/21/2014 at 2:50PM
The Goonies

Richard Donner just loves to talk about Goonies 2, but this time, he's got a bigger piece of news for you.

Well, the folks at TMZjust can't seem to stay away from Richard Donner lately. And who can blame them? Mr. Donner just loves to drop impromptu scoops on them. First, it was the news that Goonies 2 is going to be a reality. But now? Now it's something even bigger, and that might make fans breathe a little easier:

Steven Spielberg is working on Goonies 2. Watch Richard Donner's latest statement on the matter here:

Richard Donner seems like a good natured sort, doesn't he? "You'll have to ask Steven," he jokes. When asked whether Mr. Spielberg is involved, he replies "Of course...hopefully we're gonna get this done. Steven came up with the idea of doing a sequel after thirty years. We've been trying for a long time, and then he came up with another storyline."

Now, Mr. Donner...can you promise us that there will be pirates involved?

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Preview Footage Description

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PreviewDon Kaye4/21/2014 at 2:57PM

20th Century Fox screens 20 minutes of footage from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Last Wednesday evening (April 16), Den of Geek was among the media outlets invited to a special screening of around 20 minutes of footage from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the upcoming sequel to 2011’s surprise hit, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The screening – the first time this footage had been shown anywhere – was hosted by Andy Serkis, who reprises his role as Caesar, the ape whose intelligence was enhanced by a new drug in the first film and who eventually led his people in rebellion against the humans who mistreated them.

As Serkis explained (and as has been documented already), the new film takes place 10 years later. The same drug that transformed Caesar also accidentally created a virus that has wiped out 99 percent of humanity and led to the collapse of human civilization. Caesar has led his people into the forests outside San Francisco, where they’ve created a peaceful, almost bucolic egalitarian society and village. The lights in the Bay Area have slowly gone out over the previous decade, leading the simians to believe that there are no longer humans living there.

Introducing the footage, Serkis said that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes utilized “the greatest amount of performance capture ever seen onscreen” to bring the apes to life, adding that it was doubly challenging because most of the movie was shot in outdoor locations. But he also said that director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In) “always sought to find the heart and the drama of the story,” which he added was about “family, tribalism, empathy and prejudice.”


The first scene set up the conflict immediately, showing two apes enjoying some fishing before walking back through the woods, playing and chatting (in subtitles) as they go – and suddenly confronted by a human (Kirk Acevedo). Both sides are surprised and frightened, but it’s the human who pulls out a gun and shoots one of the apes. The sound reaches the ape village and brings Caesar and his people on the run – just as the rest of the humans, led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke), arrive as well. There’s a tense standoff until Malcolm persuades his small band to lower their weapons and Caesar holds back his own people, but then sends the humans fleeing by roaring “Go!” at them.

The second clip brought us back to the ape village, where Caesar and a council of advisors discussed the appearance of the humans and its ramifications. This scene showed the brilliant way in which the evolution of the apes’ language is being handled in the film, as Caesar, his trusted friend Koba (Toby Kebbell) and others communicate through a combination of grunts, sign language and a few words of English, most of which come from Caesar. His priority, he says, is “home, family, future,” and he’s hesitant to attack the humans – but as he tells Koba privately after the meeting, the apes will show their strength as well.


Scene three introduced us to where the humans are living – and we use the term loosely. Unlike the apes, who are thriving, the remnants of humankind are struggling in some sort of fortified building (it looks like it could be a former armory or something like that) with no power, scarce supplies of food and almost none of the resources that humans need to prosper. We also meet their leader, Dreyfuss (Gary Oldman), who harbors a deep resentment for the apes, and other humans who blame the simians for the virus even though it was created in a human lab, as Malcolm’s wife Ellie (Keri Russell) points out.

But the humans face an even greater threat as Caesar and hundreds – if not thousands – of apes show up at their enclosure, some on horseback and carrying primitive weapons. As a sign of possible peace, however, the apes return a bag dropped by Malcolm’s son, and it’s Malcolm who steps out to retrieve it and face Caesar directly. The ape leader’s message? “Apes don’t want war but will fight if we must,” adding that the city is the human home and the forest is the apes’ home. His advice: “Don’t come back.”


In scene four, we’ve been told by Andy Serkis that Caesar has agreed to help the humans with a project to restore a hydro-electric power station to operational mode. While Keri Russell’s Ellie is treating an injured human -- Carver, the same one from the opening scene – Caesar’s infant son scrambles over and climbs playfully around Ellie and her son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). It’s a sweet moment that shows perhaps one possible future for the two races, although Carver expresses his doubts.

The fifth and final scene carried the same theme. The massive orangutan Maurice (played by Karin Konoval) visits the humans’ campsite in the woods, where he bonds with Malcolm’s son, who gives him a book (it looked like Charles Burns’ graphic novel Black Hole from where we were sitting). As the boy reads to the ape, Malcolm and Ellie wake up and watch quietly, perhaps hopeful that there is an optimistic future ahead for all.

Since we know, however, that the new movies will eventually lead to the world of the original Planet of the Apes, that’s not likely to happen. And after being shown the current trailer for the film, Serkis introduced one final clip: an ape walking playfully up to two humans, taking a drink or two from their bottle of whiskey and horsing around with them to gain their trust, until he seizes one of their machine guns and blows one of the men away in cold blood.


Some final thoughts: the complexity, characterizations, world-building and tension in each of the scenes we saw made it clear that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes might be one of the most thought-provoking and emotionally resonant blockbusters of this summer, not to mention possibly one of the best of the Apes franchise itself. While some of the effects were not finished, the ones that were displayed the incredible progress made with the apes themselves in just the three years since the first film came out. As a lifelong Apes and sci-fi fan, this is clearly one of my most anticipated films of the summer.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes arrives in theaters July 11.


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Resident Evil 6 cast and title latest

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NewsSimon Brew4/22/2014 at 8:52AM
Resident Evil 6 movie

Resident Evil 6 may be called Resident Evil Rising. And Bingbing Li is set to return, says director Paul W S Anderson.

With his latest film, Pompeii, struggling to make much a dent at the US box office earlier in the year, writer-director Paul W S Anderson is turning his attention to the sixth and apparently final film in the Resident Evil movie franchise.

It's already known and expected that Milla Jovovich will be reprising the role of Alice once again, but Anderson has also now said that he hopes Bingbing Li will also be back. She will be playing Ada Wong again, with the narrative following the venture to The Hive, "where The Red Queen plots total destruction over the human race".

The Tracking Board has revealed that the title for the new film is apparently Resident Evil Rising (although this isn't confirmed). Production hasn't yet started on the movie, and the expectation now is that it will be in cinemas around September 2015. That's yet to be confirmed, though.

More on the Resident Evil 6 movie as we get it.

The Tracking Board.

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Quentin Tarantino still working on The Hateful Eight

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NewsSimon Brew4/22/2014 at 9:06AM

The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino's apparently aborted western, may yet happen...

Over the weekend, Quentin Tarantino staged his promised live reading of the screenplay for his aborted western The Hateful Eight. But as it turns out, it may not be aborted after all.

The story on this one was that Tarantino had planned to make The Hateful Eight his next movie, yet when the screenplay leaked, he put the project into turnaround. As such, the Film Independent charity staged live reading of the script - with the help of the likes of Samuel L Jackson and Kurt Russell - was set to be all we were going to get.

That may still be the case, but as Variety reports, Tarantino made clear that "this is the first draft", admitting that he was working on a second draft, with a third still to come. To our knowledge, he's still engaged in a lawsuit with Gawker over the original screenplay, and it may be that needs to be cleared up before there's any formal move forward. But if Tarantino is still working on the script, it does still suggest that The Hateful Eight is a more active project than it appeared just a few weeks ago...

Variety.

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Danny Boyle targeted for Steve Jobs biopic

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NewsSimon Brew4/22/2014 at 9:10AM

It looks like David Fincher is out, and Danny Boyle - perhaps with Leonardo DiCaprio - is in, where the Steve Jobs biopic is concerned...

Whilst he never officially signed on to make the film, director David Fincher had been widely expected to direct the biopic of Apple founder Steve Jobs. It would have seen a reunion of The Social Network team too, given that Scott Rudin is producing, and Aaron Sorkin is on screenplay duties.

However, Fincher opted not to sign up to direct the Steve Jobs movie, and Sony has apparently acted quickly in securing a director. The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Danny Boyle is now been linked with directing the film. Furthermore, Leonardo DiCaprio is now being targeted as the man to play Steve Jobs in the film. Christian Bale had been the leading candidate when Fincher was still involved, but - as with Fincher - never signed on the dotted line.

Neither Boyle nor DiCaprio - who last worked together on The Beach - have thus far officially committed to the project. Were DiCaprio to sign up, then his immediate priority would be the thriller The Revenant, which he agreed to make a week or two ago, and is due to shoot in September. It's feasible now that the Steve Jobs biopic won't shoot until next year at the earliest.

The Hollywood Reporter.

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Watchmen's long journey from page to screen

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FeatureMark Harrison4/22/2014 at 9:14AM

Alan Moore always said his graphic novel was unfilmable, and for a while, that almost looked true. Mark looks at attempts to adapt Watchmen

It's now been just over five years since Zack Snyder brought Watchmen, the acclaimed comic series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, to the big screen. Whatever you think of the final film, you could hardly say that the source material was easy to adapt.

Moore's thought-provoking script and Gibbons' detailed artwork came together to make one of the most acclaimed comic series ever created- frequently referred to as comics' answer to The Godfather. Some argue that the comic book movie genre got its Godfather with The Dark Knight in 2008, but studios were trying to adapt Watchmen long before that.

In fact, Hollywood's flirtations with the material date all the way back to the period when Tim Burton's Batman became a huge hit, and continued through the 1990s, and on through the superhero movie renaissance that started with Bryan Singer's X-Men and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man at the start of the 2000s.

But the likes of Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl and Rorschach are not so easily transferrable as those banner superheroes. Although the story’s influence was clear in other revisionist superhero tales, (such as The Incredibles and TV’s Heroes) Watchmen was truly a one-off, in narrative terms as well as acclaim and literary density. It has morally reprehensible characters, with rich back-stories that prove integral to the main plot, and a legendarily difficult ending.

You'll have heard a bit about aborted Watchmen adaptations in recent months, because some of the main movers in the production's long history have all been talking about it while promoting their new movies. Joel Silver sparked things off while promoting Non-Stop, putting down the finished film in an interview with ComingSoon.net, and saying that his version would have been more successful than the eventual 2009 film.

Silver said: “It was a much, much better movie... I mean, Zack came at it the right way but was too much of a slave to the material. I was trying to get it back from the studio at that point.” He then went on to explain how Gilliam's ending had differed from the comics, and was generally “less silly”.

Snyder then retaliated, while promoting 300: Rise Of An Empire, by saying that he made his 2009 version “to save it from the Terry Gilliams of the world”, and called Watchmen his favourite film that he has made.

The difficulty of adapting the densely layered tale flummoxed filmmakers and producers alike for years and years, before Snyder finally made the leap. As Dr. Manhattan says, “all we see of stars are their old photographs”, and in this article, we'll explore Watchmen's long journey from page to screen, as well as looking at some of the films that might have been.

“Christ almighty, it's the goddamn Watchmen!”

It all started when Silver and 20th Century Fox president Lawrence Gordon optioned the comic back in 1986. After the success of Batman in 1989, development began in earnest, and accordingly, it was screenwriter Sam Hamm who took the first run at paring down the epic 12-issue story into a reasonably paced movie.

Hamm told Entertainment Weekly that while he admired the comic's story-led architecture, “trying to replicate it was impossible”, and in an era when Batman's parents were gunned down by the Joker, you can probably guess how faithful his Watchmen was to Moore's work. He pared down the story and trimmed central motifs like the eminently cuttable Tales Of The Black Freighter companion comic, the more crucial device of Rorschach's journal, and several aspects of the characters’ development and backstories. More infamously, he changed the ending.

The moral conundrum at the end of Watchmen finds the characters stymied by the ruthless logic of fellow costumed-hero Ozymandias' master plan to unite the opposing sides of the Cold War against an extra-terrestrial enemy, in a take-off of the Outer Limits episode, The Architects Of Fear.

Hamm's ending had Ozymandias, aka Adrian Veidt, persuading Dr. Manhattan that his existence had escalated the Cold War to the point where nuclear apocalypse was all but certain, and that the only way to put things right was to go back in time and negate his own existence. In the process, this somehow shunted all of the other characters except Veidt (who is dispatched in an obligatory villain death, in vast contrast to the source) into a universe where they were all fictional.

Like many of the various iterations of the script, his take on the material eventually became available online, and is perhaps most notorious for corny lines like the one quoted above, which is hollered as the team try to foil a terrorist attack on the Statue of Liberty in the film's revised opening.

Just as Hamm's Batman was only the darkest screen version of the character up to that point, looking decidedly grimmer than the 1960s TV series, but retrospectively sillier in comparison to the Dark Knight trilogy, Hamm's Watchmen is a more studio-friendly, less complicated affair than later versions of the project, or the version that we eventually saw in cinemas. Even so, 20th Century Fox didn’t fancy sinking $120 million on the film, and put the project into turnaround.

The Gordian knot

Production problems are almost a running joke throughout Terry Gilliam’s filmography, but Watchmen would have completely stumped less hardy filmmakers than he.

In Gilliam’s view, Hamm’s script reduced everything special about Watchmen into a film about “a bunch of superheroes”, so he enlisted his Brazil and Adventures Of Baron Munchausen co-writer, Charles McKeown, to help him rewrite the script. Their draft has never leaked online, but it reportedly kept Hamm’s alternate ending, and re-integrated Rorschach’s journal as a narrative device.

Meanwhile, Silver reportedly had some ideas about his dream cast for the film. He wanted to cast Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dr. Manhattan, a choice that would’ve preceded that other big, blue comic book character that Arnie wound up playing. Silver also had his eye on Kevin Costner for Nite Owl, a post-Fisher King Robin Williams for Rorschach, and Jamie Lee Curtis for Laurie/Silk Spectre II.

During development, Gilliam met with Alan Moore, (who has since become more openly pernickety about film adaptations of his work, and not without reason) to ask for advice about how to film the book. Moore told him that he felt it was neither cinematic, nor filmable. His line has always been that the comic was “designed to show off the things that comics could do that films and literature couldn't.”

Gilliam's final conclusion was that the book would be better as a five-hour miniseries, than as a two-and-a-half hour film, and he left the project after the second attempt to get it rolling, in 1996, to make Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas instead.

When he was asked about Snyder “saving” the story from him during his recent Reddit AMA to promote The Zero Theorem, Gilliam gave a much more classy and magnanimous rebuttal to the recent muck-flinging. He said: “I thought Zack’s film worked well, but it suffered from the very problem that I was happy to avoid by not making the film.”

“A clock without a craftsman.”

After Gilliam disembarked, the project languished in turnaround for some time, producer Lawrence Gordon teamed up with Lloyd Levin at Universal Pictures in a bid to get the film made. Off the back of 2000’s X-Men, the producers roped in screenwriter David Hayter to write Watchmen from scratch, and potentially direct it too.

Hayter wrote a 324 page first draft, and then wrestled it down to the 129 page draft that has since made it online. While thematically true to the source material, he moved the action from the 1980s to the early 21st century, with a post-9/11 Middle East standing in for Russia in the nuclear stand-off, and supplemented Veidt’s alien squid with a number of targeted nuclear attacks all over the world.

Although the script was well received, Hayter was still an untested director, which is said to be part of the creative differences cited when he, Gordon and Levin took the project into turnaround once again. Levin was interested in setting up the project at Revolution Studios, the company that co-produced Hellboy, but nothing came of it.

The project landed at Paramount in 2004, where Darren Aronofsky was enlisted to direct Hayter’s script after The Fountain, which at that point starred Brad Pitt, fell through. When Hugh Jackman climbed aboard that film, Aronofsky jumped back onto his passion project. The Noah director would have further near-misses with comic book projects such as Batman: Year One, and his departure from The Wolverine in 2011.

After a decade and a half of development, the film had spent quite enough time in turnaround, and the next could-have-been Watchmen director to take over the project brought it closer to fruition than anyone.

Five minutes to midnight…

In mid-2004, The Bourne Supremacy was getting some exciting hype, and docu-drama-turned-action director Paul Greengrass was tipped as one to watch. Paramount duly snapped him up to replace the departed Aronofsky, and Greengrass got to work on concept art and casting.

The casting of Jude Law as Adrian Veidt might be one of the more well-known decisions that arose from this incarnation of the project, because the Ozymandias concept art on Snyder’s film reportedly still used him as a reference, even though he eventually declined to sign on. Joaquin Phoenix, Hilary Swank and Ron Perlman were also tipped for roles, as Dan/Nite Owl, Laurie, and The Comedian respectively.

A little research links several different actors to the role of Rorschach, including Paddy Considine, Daniel Craig and Simon Pegg, and rumours of Sigourney Weaver’s involvement persisted throughout, (we’d have put our money on her playing Sally, the original Silk Spectre) but there’s far more concrete evidence of the concept art that went into the production.

Empire Magazine visited the pre-production office for a tantalising feature published in 2005- “Think of this as Ken Loach meets X-Men and you might only be halfway there,” they teased.

As the project continued in development, it was still skirting the edge of a green light from the studio. In every incarnation, it would have required an enormous budget, and the producers actually devised alternate budgets for the film, depending on whether the powers that be wanted them to shoot in London, Los Angeles or Montreal.

But a changing of the guard at the top of Paramount left the project’s future at the studio in doubt, and sure enough, it went into turnaround once again in 2005, months before shooting was due to start, leaving Greengrass free to direct the eventually Oscar-nominated United 93.

He is still yet to have a bash at anything more fantastical than his Bourne sequels, which managed to set a grounded and oft-imitated house-style for their entire genre, and fans of the director are still left wondering what might have been if his Watchmen had been the one to break out of development hell.

“Everything is pre-ordained.”

Warner Bros. Pictures picked up the project in 2005, with Paramount managing to hold on to international distribution rights. “I think there's a benefit, ultimately, to it being at Warner Bros,” Levin said, optimistically. “Studios in the past wanted to turn Watchmen into something it's not. Not Warners. They're embracing it for what it is.”

That certainly came through in their choice of director - Zack Snyder had used Frank Miller’s 300 as a straight-up storyboard in his 2007 adaptation of the graphic novel. Warners already knew they had a hit on their hands after the trailer became an online phenomenon, and offered the reins on Watchmen over to Snyder before the film even came out.

Outside of his more recent and somewhat unfair comments about Gilliam, Snyder has previously spoken of how he took on the project because though he thought the comic shouldn't be a film, he didn't want the studio to give it to someone else to make it either.

Working from elements of the David Hayter script, Snyder drafted in Alex Tse to restore the period setting of the comics, and assembled a version of the opening credits sequence to pitch to the studio. The alt-history montage, set to Bob Dylan’s “The Times, They Are A-Changing”, is reportedly what clinched the director’s chair for him, and some would argue it’s also the most effective part of the finished film too.

Once he had the greenlight, Snyder cast a solid line-up of character actors such as Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson and Billy Crudup. He also cast Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Carla Gugino as the Comedian and Silk Spectre, reasoning that it was easier to make them up to look older for the 1980s scenes, than to de-age them for the flashbacks.

Snyder has cited Taxi Driver as a visual influence, an effect that is amplified by the use of Rorschach’s Bickle-esque narration, but repeated his process of using the comic as a storyboard, with reverence that many (including Joel Silver) have since criticised as slavish. He even got Dave Gibbons to draw a comic book version of his new ending, in which the original intention remains intact and the means is adjusted to make Dr. Manhattan a scapegoat.

The first trailer for Watchmen premièred in US theaters before The Dark Knight in July 2008 - a sequence of shots showcasing the characters, soundtracked by a Rorschach monologue and the strains of The Smashing Pumpkins'“The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning.” The interest in the comic that was provoked by this trailer prompted DC Comics to print 900,000 more copies of the trade paperback to satisfy demand.

The project was finally on its way to the big screen when one of the more notable and dramatic industry dick moves of recent years arose, when Fox sued to try and block the release of the film three months before release. They successfully litigated their way into a share of the box office of a film that they had not contributed to producing, and had failed to fully develop when they did have a stake.

Despite that dramatic final act twist, the story of Watchmen’s journey to the big screen was completed on March 6th 2009. The film eventually made $185m worldwide, off the back of a $130m budget- hardly a romping success, but it at least made its budget back, and put paid to the notion that the story was un-filmable.

“Nothing ever ends.”

No matter how you feel about Snyder’s Watchmen, it’s tough to shake that instinct that it might have been better as a TV mini-series. Gilliam realised that, even if he spent a fair bit of time being told ‘no’ by Fox before he got there, and the story seems more suited to television now than ever before, with its improved production values and freedom of storytelling.

AMC is making in-roads to comic book shows, with their hugely successful adaptation of The Walking Dead and the upcoming Preacher series. By the same token, DC is increasingly interested in spinning off their comics for TV, in Arrow and The Flash. If those two movements intercede, after enough time has passed, maybe a Watchmen series could still happen.

And let’s not forget, since the movie came out, we’ve had a whole series of spin-off comics, Before Watchmen, an exercise that initially seemed to be a deplorable cash-grab, which actually did have some neat moments and character beats. While a movie sequel looks unlikely, all of that material is there for someone else to work into a new adaptation somewhere down the line.

We might see Watchmen on-screen again, in a different form, in the next ten or twenty years. On the other hand, Alan Moore definitely won’t. Although he once conceded that David Hayter's (present day) script was as close to the book as he could imagine a film would be, he remained adamant from that point forth that he would never see the completed film.

It’s not to say that Moore’s disownment of any adaptations gives Hollywood carte blanche, but it’s clear that Watchmen has had enough different interpretations over the years to keep us interested in what the future might hold, and it remains that the journey could well start all over again.

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I love the Watchmen movie. It hit all the right character beats for me and the visual style is fantastic. I thought it was a much better adaptation than V for Vendetta turned out to be. Although I really enjoy that film as well. It's interesting to me that the people who didn't get to make the movie criticize it for being too dependant on the graphic novel and yet Alan Moore thinks it takes too many liberties. Proof that you can't please everyone and in some cases anyone.


Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Katie Nehra, and Derek Luke Interview

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InterviewDavid Crow4/22/2014 at 9:17AM

We chat with the cast of Alex of Venice, including Mary Elizabeth Winstead, about scripts, sisters, and the perils of ice cream.

It is rare when a leading actress has near unlimited access to one of her film’s screenwriters while on set. But in the case of star Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Katie Nehra, they were practically sisters during the making Alex of Venice, cameras rolling or not.

As appearing in Chris Messina’s directorial debut, which just had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, Winstead and Nehra respectively play Alex and Lily of Venice Beach, two adult siblings who are drawn back together when Alex’s husband George (Messina) leaves her to balance raising their 10-year-old son and the sisters’ ailing father (a fantastic Don Johnson). In the film, which you can read my full review of here, their characters and performances have an instant rapport that helps give the movie its quizzical charm and grace, in spite of the potentially ponderous crises at hand.

And when meeting them in person, it is easy to see they also have that same easy-going connection and shorthand off-screen, turning a roundtable interview into a lively chat about sisterhood, acting with the writer standing next to you, and that one time where ice cream sandwiches proved lethal on-set. We were also graciously joined by Derek Luke, the terrific character actor from Antwone Fisher and Friday Night Lights, who memorably plays Frank in Alex of Venice, a professional and legal foe for crusading Alex by day, and her one source of escape by night.

Was this the first time you got to see the movie?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: The finished film? Yeah. We all saw a rough cut a while ago, which was still the essence of the movie.

Katie Nehra: Yeah, this is our first time with everyone seeing the color-corrected version with the music and the sound. I’m like “Wow, this is like a real movie!” [Laughs]

MEW: It makes a real difference.

KN: It really does! Sometimes while I was watching it, I’m like, “I don’t know. Why is there a boom in this shot?” [Laughs].

How does it feel to watch it, particularly with your words being said?

KN: It was pretty wild, especially with Justin [Shilton], who I started writing the script with six and a half years ago. Just seeing him last night is pretty cool. It feels kind of surreal because it’s like, “Wow, this wouldn’t have happened without us coming together and wanting to share a story.” It was really cool.

Usually the screenwriter isn’t on the set. They don’t want them on the set. Was that daunting at all?

MEW: To be around the writer?

KN: I was like “don’t fuck upyour lines.” [Laughs]

MEW: She really would say that like everyday! It was kind of the most collaborative set I’ve ever been on. It just felt like everybody was involved with coming up with ideas, and of course it all started with the original screenplay, which is great and what got me onboard along with Chris [Messina] and everything. But we were all able to come together. Nobody was too precious about anything. We all just threw out ideas and threw out whatever came to mind in the middle of the scene….Chris would walk up to a crewmember and be like, “Do you have an idea? Should we do it another way?”

KN: It was such a loving atmosphere. Chris wanted me to totally put on the actor hat. So, when they would rewrite a scene—I remember there was one scene and I thought, “They rewrote this really bad.” [Laughs] Let’s just do our own version of this! Chris would say, “Okay, so do it like this.” So, it was very collaborative, and we did a lot of improv, which I love. It was great, and that is all a testament to Chris, really.

When you started writing the script six years ago, did you always know the part of Lily was tailor-made for you?

KN: Yeah, probably. I feel like no one is going to write as great a part for you as you can write for yourself. They’re just not. I’m writing a thing right now where I’m playing the female version of Eminem and I’m a bounty hunter. Who the hell is going to cast me as that? [Laughs] I’ve got cornrows and tats. Everyone wants to cast women in these boring roles. I think that’s why Mary was drawn to this film, because it’s like actually watching a woman fall apart and not just be in a kitchen shouting, You’re late!

MEW: Where have you been?

KN: Where have you been all day?!

Were Derek and Mary your ideas for the roles? Or did your idea change after they got cast?

KN: Alex was always written a little older and then when Chris is like “oh my God, you have to meet Mary,” her audition just blew everyone away. We were like “we’ll just make Alex younger.”

MEW: It was really nice that you guys kind of took a risk on that, because we [knew people would notice] that I’m a little bit younger than Chris. We’re just kind of like, “You know what? He was older, and they got together, and whatever.” It happens. And I am old enough to have a 10-year-old son.

KN: Definitely. I think the reason the movie came out so well is because everything kind of happened organically. And I’ve always been a fan of both of their work. I remember Derek had just been on The Americans, and I sent Chris a screenshot photo of you with your fro, and I’m like “what about him playing Frank?” That would be hot. [Laughs]

Derek Luke: Really? I didn’t know that!

KN: I will show you. I think I still have the photo on my phone. I’m not kidding. And Chris is like “he’s really good!” I’m like, “Yeah, hello?”

MEW: No, I remember you telling me that.

KN: You’re here because of me, basically. [Laughs]

DL: Thank you! I’m just happy to be in the movie.


And what drew you to the role?

DL: Chris was interested in Frank being multi-dimensional; it was written that way. And a lot of times, my experience was I showed up on set where some directors would have a law that you could only walk down this path. And I’ve had a great journey with actor-directors [like] Peter Berg and Denzel Washington. I just love their language. So, when I met with Chris, he was like, “We’re going to find [him.]” When you hear someone say that, it means you’re not the only one searching for gems and jewels. We’re all searching for it, so it made it very comfortable. Especially in the independent world, and in movies in general, you can sign up and it can be a week in advance. That’s not normally your prep space. So, you just want someone not to hire you based on the past, but the now.

How was Chris as a director for all of you guys?

MEW: He’s wonderful. Like Derek was saying, just getting to work with an actor-director was so great. I’ve worked with a lot of directors who have great communication, but there are those times where the communication is really not there, because they don’t know how actors approach what they do, and they don’t know how to get you to do what they want by using the right language; they don’t know how to use it. He knows exactly how to express that, because he’s an actor. So, it cuts out any sort of communication issues. And he knows what actors like to do, which is to get to play and go every direction possible. He’s like now do it this way, now do it this way, now do it this way.

KN: He was like an actor’s playground. Most directors are like “can you just do this scene faster?

MEW: Yeah, louder, faster, quiet.

KN: Or you missed your mark. He would be like “what if we did it like this?” And he just let the camera roll. It’s very old school, probably how people when they made films like this—we have the luxury where we’re not doing a film with special effects where you have to get all this crazy stuff. It’s like an actor’s gym where we get to work out every muscle you want to use, and you probably don’t a lot of the time.

MEW: It was really fun. I loved when he’d shoot from behind the camera. After a while he’d just start to shout, “Say this! Give her a hug!” [Laughs]

KN: Or he’d be like, “What are you doing Kate?!” in a funny voice. And it would like work!

Mary, Chris said at the premiere that you did the ecstasy scene so much that you threw up. Could you talk about the process of that scene?

MEW: Well—it was a mix of things that happened. The first thing that happened was that was the day they had an ice cream truck on set. Ice cream sandwiches literally this big [gestures large sandwich]. And I had two of them. I don’t know why, but that night I decided to have two giant ice cream sandwiches. And then—

KN: I had tequila on set.

MEW: Katie was drinking tequila.

KN: I was making mixed drinks.

MEW: I literally had only two sips of the tequila, but it was just enough, I think, with the ice cream. And then I didn’t really realize, the way that Chris shoots, that it was going to be crazy. I mean it looks so mellow with the music and the slow-mo, but we were jumping to really fast-paced music, and Chris kept going, “Jump! Keep jumping! Keep jumping everybody!” It was just half an hour of jumping.

KN: We shot that night until like 7am, and I remember when I saw you, it was like you jumped in the pool. Your body was dripping with sweat.

MEW: I was so sweaty and disgusting. [Laughs]

KN: Just like every ounce of you had been taken.

MEW: At the end of the take, I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to go sit down inside. And to Courtney [Hoffman], who’s our lovely costume designer, I said, “I think I’m going to throw up.” And she took me to the bathroom and held my hair back, and we had a great bonding moment that night.

You have a great a quality of mixing comedic elements with dramatic moments. I saw it in Smashed and I see it in this film. Is that hard to balance or does it come out naturally?

MEW: Thank you so much. Well, I think that’s the kind of thing I’ve grown into as I’ve gotten older and further into my career: bringing myself as much as I can, and knowing that that’s a good thing. I think when I was younger, I thought that wasn’t really acting. “No, I have to create like this mysterious person who is totally different from me! That’s the only way I’ll be a real actor!” As I’ve gotten older, I realized that it’s the opposite. That’s what people want to see. They want to see you. They want to see your personality, and your heart, and your soul, and that’s what actually makes me people relate to you. So, I finally kind of realized that and I just try to bring myself to it.

I’m just thankful people like Chris—when I watch it, I’m like “I do so many weird things!” But thankfully, someone appreciates it. There are so many faces I make where I’m like “I have no idea why I’m doing that.”

This movie is about upheaval and transitions, and reflecting on that. Why do you think Alex began her affair with Frank? Was it because she was looking to bring the upheaval of her personal life to her professional one and to reevaluate it?

MEW: When [Alex] asks the Ouija board whether “I’ll ever have sex again,” I think it’s this really nice moment of showing her insecurity that she’s never really showed before, because she’s just trying to keep it all together and be the mom. So, it shows she is insecure about who she is and where she’s going, and where she’ll end up. I think Frank is a sort of exciting person who came into her life, and I think she and George hadn’t really been in love in a long time, even though she hadn’t admitted that to herself.

KN: Different flavor. [Laughs] Back to the ice cream!

MEW: So, I don’t think she sees it as messing up her work life. I think she’s just allowing herself to feel something she hasn’t felt in a long time, and be kind enough to give herself a little bit of freedom to explore something.

I was wondering if you guys could talk about the sister dynamic, because it is unexpected in the movie, but it’s very real. Do you [both] have sisters?

KN: We both have sisters, yeah. And I think sisters is such a unique relationship—depending on also how close you are in age, you can be competitive, and women are emotional and can be crazy—but Mary and I, when we met, we instantly had a bond, just us. We hung out a lot before we started filming, and I think that help for being in the moment. But I think having a sister, obviously you know what that’s like, what you guys talk about and laugh about. You can be real with your sister. No one knows you like family, scarily enough.

MEW: I love the scene with the Ouija board, because the mood we got felt so real to me of when I’m with my sisters, and we have wine, and our parents have gone to sleep, and we’re at our parents’ house. I mean my sisters don’t talk about double penetration necessarily—[Laughs]

KN: Actually, nor do my sisters, but apparently Lily does!

MEW: But that sort of feeling and mood was so spot on. After we finished it, I was just so happy, I felt like we were really drinking wine. It was fake wine, but we’re both like “is this real wine?” because we felt drunk and giddy.

KN: [Producer Jaime Patricof] said, “I’ve never seen Mary look so embarrassed,” when I said that line. It’s funny, when we were going to film that scene, I was like “I don’t know about this. A Ouija board? It seems kind of dated.” And Chris was like “it’s my favorite scene in the movie.” So, it was fun.

MEW: I loved it.

KN: Yeah, it was worth it.

Did you envision Don Johnson in that role?

KN: That was all Chris, really. He asked, “What do you guys think about Don Johnson for the dad?” I thought “Oh, that’s brilliant.” We never see him falling apart. He always plays the slick, pulled together, handsome guy. I think he really rose to the occasion. It’s really a heartbreaking performance. And he was so great to work with. You never know what to expect from someone who’s an icon, and he was just really great.

MEW: He was so brilliant in the movie…and he’s also such an actor’s actor, which I didn’t really know about him until this. He really focuses and does the work. And even when he’s not working, he’s in acting classes and workshops. He’s a really committed actor.

Thank you so much for doing this.

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Honeymoon Review

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ReviewDavid Crow4/22/2014 at 9:20AM

Rose Leslie plays a distant spouse in Honeymoon, a groom's take on the primal Rosemary's Baby terror.

It can be an old cliché that men never quite know what is going on inside a woman’s head. Yet, leave it to a female director to spend her first feature actualizing that phobia into an imprecise terror that, through sheer strength of creativity and writing, crawls under the skin, and worse, pops back out again.

A genuine marriage of budgetary restraints and malevolent ingenuity, Leigh Janiak’s Honeymoon is a seedy throwback to the psychological-cum-body horrors that interested David Cronenberg at a time when he wanted to see the heads of his characters explode just as much as the audience’s. A slow boiling menace of marital bliss turned Jack Finney nightmare, Honeymoon wallows in that uneasy sensation hidden somewhere in the small spaces between every couple: do I really know my partner?

In Janiak’s story, the problem may be he knows her a little too well.

The star-crossed romance of Bea (Rose Leslie) and Paul (Harry Treadaway) begins like an idyllic one. As a couple of New Yorkers who can’t handle their Indian food any better than wedding planning, the two might have doom stamped on their foreheads when they travel to Bea’s childhood summer home for their honeymoon. It has everything a rustic cabin (or large house) in the woods needs for these kinds of films. There’s no cell phone service, no wi-fi, and not even a DVD player. Of course, this is going to end well for the lovebirds.

However, the beauty of Honeymoon is how much of its brisk running time is spent developing this quixotic existence for the couple, who are very much in newlywed mode. Whether it’s sharing an equal fear of jumping into the ice-cold lake or canoodling in a steamier bathtub’s waters, these two behave entirely as freshly minted spouses, which makes the inevitable shoe drop that much more eerie. Despite featuring several red herrings early in the picture, involving the movie’s only other onscreen characters, Honeymoon primarily boils down to why she is acting so strangely, particularly ever since Paul found her “sleepwalking” nude in the woods during the pre-dawn hours…

To discuss the amusing invention of the film’s second half would be to give the game away, however it can be said that Janiak finally provided the groom his version of Rosemary’s Baby. Just as Roman Polanski inspired brides for generations to come to keep a weary eye on their husbands-to-be, especially if they ever get job opportunities in Paris, Janiak in a more modest, but ever satisfying fashion, forces audiences to ruminate with Paul about what exactly is wrong with Bea. Starting with going to her ancestral, girlhood home, Paul is invited to peek at another side of the woman he loves, including her past crushes like Will (Ben Huber). She may have chosen to spend the rest of her life with him, but that does not mean he knows everything that life can entail.

As Bea’s peculiarities begin to ratchet up after that fateful night and Paul’s city-boy neuroses come bubbling to the surface, the movie turns into a ticking time bomb of dread, crescendoing into a third act reveal that that Freud could fill a manuscript analyzing.

The cleverness of the screenplay, written by Janiak and Phil Graziadel, helps overcome some of the movie’s visual limitations. Savvy workarounds—such as depicting Bea and Paul’s wedding via a post-reception video interview—still appear to be mostly that in a movie that has only four actors and a handful of locations. While the effect obviously adds to the claustrophobia and insidious exasperation of Paul’s cracking psyche, it nonetheless causes one to wish a story like this could receive a little more care in its presentation if production circumstances had been different.

The movie is also aided immensely by Rose Leslie’s performance as Bea. Already a genre actress with a healthy geek following from Game of Thrones, Leslie is allowed to ditch the parka and the glower for a character who actually smiles and enjoys life. It’s also effective because it becomes so much more telling about her state of mind when the smiles stop. Leslie’s Bea must remain an abstract entity that mystifies more than connects with audiences, but Leslie’s frenzied mood swings and gesticulations add the smallest hint of tragedy to this auburn haired albatross.

Treadaway, who is about to have his own premium cable spotlight next month in Penny Dreadful, also grounds the sadness and madness surging through Paul with sincere empathy. However, the actual chemistry between both talents prior to the point of narrative divergence never mixes as well when compared to their moonlight strolls into the mouth of matrimonial hell.

Honeymoon is a strikingly smart horror movie that relies on characterization, plotting, and performances long before they care to show you what is going bump inside Bea’s mind. And when that moment finally comes, many a man may wish it remained a mystery all along. Such a stimulating approach to several tired genres crossed over in the picture makes this honeymoon a destination spot for any coupling genre enthusiasts looking to get away from it all in the 2014 horror doldrums.

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7

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Reboot Coming?

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NewsMike Cecchini4/22/2014 at 10:41AM

With all of the love surrounding the MST3K 25th anniversary, there might be a second life for the show in the not too distant future.

Today, Wiredposted a wonderful oral history of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is, without question, essential reading for any MST3K fan. But buried...really, really buried...in the depths of the piece is a little piece of information that goes almost unheralded. It's a big deal. 

Here's a bit from the piece...

But this year Mystery Science Theater may finally get a long-­rumored, heavily anticipated reboot. This spring Hodgson is hoping to start a new online incarnation of the show, one that will feature a fresh (and as-yet-unannounced) host and cameos from many MST3Kalumni.

Joel Hodgson goes on to elaborate: 

Even avid viewers sometimes don’t realize that every major role in the show had been swapped out over time. So in my mind, the show is built to be refreshed with new people and new ideas. It’s like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle as it applies to MST3K: If it doesn’t change, it’s not the same show. And fortunately for us, as long as there are movies, there are always going to be cheesy movies. 

There have been signs of life in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 universe over the last year. From the return of MST3Ktradition, Turkey Day, to aRiffTraxshow on, of all places, the National Geographic Channel. But actual, new content bearing the Mystery Science Theater 3000 brand would be something else entirely. While there are no shortage of bad genre flicks throughout history that the show never touched, not to mention all the fun that can be had with b-movies and Syfy originals of the last twenty years.

You had better believe we'll keep you updated on this!

In the meantime, go read that entire Wired article. It's terrific.

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Could Star Wars: Episode VII Move to May 2016?

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NewsMike Cecchini4/22/2014 at 1:55PM

Disney's Alan Horn is talking about the new Star Wars trilogy, and when future films might be released. But what about Episode VII?

Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn dropped a whole bunch of Star Wars: Episode VII knowledge in an interview with Bloombergtoday. And while much of it falls in the rather "safe" category of things we already knew and/or expected (second unit filming is underway in Abu Dhabi, and yes, casting is "almost complete" and we can expect an official announcement "very shortly") there's one quote in particular that bears further examination.

When asked about potential release dates for Star Wars: Episode VIII and Star Wars: Episode IX, Mr. Horn said "We're not sure yet. We may revert -- the Star Wars dates have been May -- and we may revert to that at some point. But it depends on the readiness of the screenplays and where we are. But this first one will be December 18th of 2015. So we'll start with that and then we'll see."

So, the studio is still set on releasing this one in December of 2015, despite the fact that every other Star Wars film has been released in May. Fair enough. But then there's this, from Variety's Brent Lang:

If Alan Horn says Disney is "still struggling" with putting Captain America 3 up against Batman vs. Superman, what could that mean? Is Disney wary of overloading the summer 2016 superhero market, which in addition to those two films, includes X-Men: Apocalypse and an as-yet-unnamed Marvel film for July of 2016? If that's the case, there's only one move that makes sense:

Put Star Wars: Episode VII up against Batman vs. Supermanon May 6th. Better yet, open it on unofficial Star Wars holiday May the Fourth. This allows Captain America 3to move into the more patriotic release slot (that Disney currently has reserved for a Marvel film anyway) of July 8th, 2016.  

This is pure speculation, the kind we generally don't love to engage in on a news item like this. But, search your feelings, fans...you know it to be true.

You can watch more of Alan Horn's interview here:

 

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Flash Gordon Reboot Going Ahead at Fox

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NewsMike Cecchini4/22/2014 at 10:06PM
Flash Gordon

The writers of Star Trek 3 are making a new Flash Gordon movie happen at 20th Century Fox.

There are many mysteries in the world, but there are two that we find particularly vexing. One is how the endlessly entertaining and Mike Hodges directed Flash Gordon film never got a sequel in the '80s. The other is how we have gone well over thirty years without a proper live-action Flash Gordon movie (the Syfy series from a few years ago doesn't count). That is all going to change, as 20th Century Fox have made a deal with Star Trek 3 writers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay to make a new Flash Gordon movie, with John Davis (Chronicle) producing.

There had been rumors about Payne and McKay's involvement swirling for a bit, and it's not like there had been any lack of trying to get Flash Gordon back to the big-screen in the last decade or two. Notably, Die Hard scribe Steven E. de Souza wrote a Flash Gordon draft back around 1997 while Breck Eisner (Sahara) was set to direct at one point. This is the first (and loudest) announcement about Flash Gordon we've heard in quite some time, though.

Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon comic strip was the visual godfather of Superman and many other Golden Age superheroes. The three Flash Gordon movie serials are incredible influences on virtually every space opera of the next 50 years or more, most notably and importantly a little franchise known as Star Wars. The 1980 Mike Hodges film, while often dismissed as a piece of indulgent camp with a spectacular Queen soundtrack, was a nice counterpoint to the more lived-in (but still recognizably Raymond-esque) Star Wars. Just as surely as a character like Superman has been omnipresent in various media since his creation, so should a character like Flash Gordon flourish.

There are no details out there about the tone or story. In an interview with Den of Geek, former Flash Gordon writer Steven E. de Souza joked that the failure of John Carter probably killed Flash Gordon's prospects "for ten years" because of the similarities of an earthman going to fight a war on an alien world. While this is no longer the case, hopefully the new filmmakers don't shy away from what makes Flash Gordon great, and embrace at least a little of the visual spectacle that made the character endure.

Source:The Hollywood Reporter 

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9 potentially great geek sequels hinted at but never made

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The ListsRyan Lambie4/23/2014 at 8:20AM

We take a look back at the geek movies that have hinted at sequels that were never made, and we'd really like to see...

NB: The following contains inevitable spoilers. If you haven't seen a film in a particular entry, feel free to skip to the next one.

In some cases, it comes as a relief when a threatened sequel fails to materialise. The end of the infamous Mac And Me, for example, sees its family of cretinous aliens drive off in a pink Cadillac, a speech bubble chillingly telling us, "We'll be back!" Thankfully, Mac And Me 2 has yet to materialise, despite the original film's near-legendary status.

Every so often, though, we'll come across a movie that strongly hints at more adventures to come, but for a variety of reasons - usually financial ones - the sequel never got made. To illustrate this, here are nine such movies, which have hinted at sequels, but have failed to spawn one so far. In one or two instances, it's possible we'll see a remake or even sequel within the next few years, but others are unlikely to materialise at all - more's the pity.

Flash Gordon (1980)

Backed by Queen's bombastic rock soundtrack, director Mike Hodges' Flash Gordon was a raucous and knowingly camp action fantasy. Still regularly quoted by fans and referenced in other movies (Sam J Jones even reprised his role as Flash in 2012's Ted), Flash Gordon has acquired a cult following, and could, theoretically, have served as the first instalment in a popular franchise. This was certainly hinted at in the film's final shot, where we see Ming The Merciless (Max von Sydow) pluck his power ring from the ground. We hear him cackle as the teasing words, "The End?" fade up on the screen.

Unfortunately, two events conspired against a Flash Gordon sequel. First, the film failed to make as much money as its producers had hoped. Second, and perhaps even more devastatingly, leading Man Sam J Jones fell out with the filmmakers late on in Flash Gordon's production.

"I had to shoot a bunch of other stuff with a stunt double for Sam," director Mark Hodges later explained, "and I had to re-voice the occasional line of dialogue, too [...] I got somebody to impersonate Sam's voice."

This irked Jones, and apparently led to an ongoing antipathy between he and producer DIno De Laurentiis. "When you lose your main star," Hodges lamented, "there can't really be a sequel."

The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai (1984)

The cast alone ensures Buckaroo Banzai's cult status: Peter Weller is joined by Ellen Barkin, John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Lloyd in one of the most eccentric American films of the 1980s. Weller stars as the title hero, a scientist who also happens to be, among other things, a rock star and  an enthusiastic racing car driver who accidentally sparks off a war between two alien species.

Feverishly entertaining though Buckaroo Banzai was, it was perhaps a bit too off-the-wall to attract mainstream audiences; it only succeeded in making back around a third of its $17m budget on its original release. This meant that, despite the end credits suggesting that Buckaroo Banzai Vs The Crime League would be the next adventure in the series, a sequel never happened.

Attempts to get a Buckaroo Banzai TV series off the ground in the 90s never amounted to much, either, and while the characters live on in comic books and even a role-playing game, some knotty rights issues have ensured that a belated sequel is unlikely to appear any time soon. "The big insanity for Buckaroo is that the paper trail for the rights is almost impossible to follow," director WD Richter said back in 2011.

Our lookback at the original film is here.

Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)

Only a moderate success on its theatrical release, Young Sherlock Holmes deservedly earned itself a cult following in later years. A fanciful origin story before such a thing became fashionable, director Barry Levinson's adventure mystery offered up a wonderfully soft-edged 19th century London full of cobbles, gaslight, tweed and underground Egyptian cults. Nicholas Rowe and Alex Cox were great value as the teenage Holmes and Watson, and if there were any justice, the pair would have reunited for at least one sequel.

It could be just wishful thinking on our part, but Young Sherlock Holmes' post-credits sequence set things up perfectly for a follow-up movie. In it, we discover that the villain Professor Rathe (a glowering Anthony Higgins) survived what appeared to be a terminal fall into the Thames. As he books into an Alpine hotel, Rathe signs in under a new name: Professor Moriarty.

Sadly, Young Sherlock Holmes' tepid performance in cinemas dashed any possibility of a sequel. Talk of a Disney-led remake surfaced a couple of years ago, though little more has emerged from the project since.

Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

Not long after he directed Buckaroo Banzai, WD Richter was contracted to turn in an extensive rewrite on Gary Goldman and David Weinstein's early draft of Big Trouble In Little China - then a kung-fu western set in the 1800s. The result was a gloriously entertaining modern-day fantasy directed by John Carpenter, and featuring a winningly oafish turn from Kurt Russell as the hapless truck driving hero, Jack Burton.

Had Big Trouble In Little China been marketed correctly, it could well have been a sizeable hit, but the film sank in a summer season dominated by the likes of James Cameron's Aliens. This meant that, despite Big Trouble's assured cult status, the possibility for a sequel hinted at in the film's final scene - where we see a monster from earlier on in the film stowing away on Jack Burton's truck - was never capitalised on. Weirdly, there were rumours floating around that Big Trouble In Little China was in fact WD Richter's repurposed script for Buckaroo Banzai Vs The Crime League. Richter's summary of this theory? "Absurd."

Masters Of The Universe (1987)

Made at a time when Cannon Films was having all sorts of cash flow problems - partly thanks to its habit of making so many movies at once - Masters Of The Universe emerged as a somewhat blundering and ungainly action fantasy in the summer of 1987. But while its rushed production told in the finished movie, there was and remains much to recommend Masters Of The Universe, not least a brilliantly enthusiastic performance from Frank Langella as Skeletor.

Fittingly, it's Skeletor who gets the last word in Masters Of The Universe's post-credits sequence, where the evil villain's bony head bobs up to the surface of a moat and exclaims, "I'll be back."

Cannon Films really did have a sequel to Masters Of The Universe planned, which would have been even more penny pinching than the original (estimated budget: $4.5m), and shot back-to-back with the studio's proposed Spider-Man movie. Sets were built and costumes sewn, yet Cannon's inability to pay Mattel's fees for the repeat use of the He-Man rights led to Masters Of The Universe 2's abandonment. Refusing to let some perfectly good sets and outfits go to waste, director Alfred Pyun famously repurposed them for what would become the 1989 action flick, Cyborg.

Spaceballs (1987)

"God willing, we'll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money". So said the diminutive sage Yogurt in Mel Brooks' entertaining if somewhat scattershot Star Wars parody, Spaceballs. Given that those words were spoken by Brooks himself (who played the Yoda-inspired mentor, Yogurt, as well as serving as director, producer and co-writer), you might think that a sequel would have been fairly likely, particularly when Spaceballs' cult status continued to grow in the years after its release.

Disappointingly, the sequel never happened, even though Spaceballs' success on VHS made a follow-up an attractive proposition for its studio, MGM. Star Rick Moranis (who played the Dark Vader analogue, Dark Helmet) even had his own idea for the film: Spaceballs III: The Search For Spaceballs II. "I was unable to make a deal with Mel," Moranis said last year. "That ship has sailed."

Spaceballs: The Animated Series did appear in 2008, but so far, no further talk of a live-action sequel has emerged. With Star Wars: Episode VII on the horizon, maybe interest in a new Spaceballs film will surface, too.

Slither (2006)

Long before he took on Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy, screenwriter James Gunn began his directing career with Slither, an anarchic comedy horror about a small town infested by parasitic aliens. An amalgam of David Cronenberg's Shivers, Night Of The Creeps and Robert A Heinlein's 1951 novel The Puppet Masters, Slither starred Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks, and featured the edifying sight of Michael Rooker shape-shifting into an oozing slug monster. In true B-movie style, the Rooker-creature refuses to die, despite the best efforts of Fillion's police chief hero; after the end credits, we see a cat lick the monster's pulsating remains, before the unsuspecting feline cries out in pain as the screen fades to black.

Whether this final sting was intended to hint at a sequel or not, Slither's disappointing performance at the box office probably ruled out the possibility of a follow-up. Nevertheless, we're hoping that Gunn can find a way to bring back Nathan Fillion for another Slither encounter - particularly if the monster takes the form of a giant, alien-infected cat this time.

District 9 (2009)

The conclusion of Neill Blomkamp's wildly successful sci-fi film was satisfyingly complete, while still leaving several substantial hints at a coming sequel. Sharlto Copley's antihero Wikus van der Merwe has mutated beyond all recognition, but it's strongly suggested that he's still alive, while escaping alien Christopher (and his young son) has promised that he'll return in three years with a cure for Wikus' mutation.

District 9's box-office success makes a sequel a viable option from a financial perspective, while Neill Blomkamp has said himself that he'd like to make one. The problem, however, lies in Blomkamp's schedule; after completing Elysium, he went into making Chappie, and has another movie called Mild Oats to make after that. Last year, Blomkamp revealed that he and co-writer Terri Tatchell have a treatment lined up for the sequel, but he's not prepared to commit to when he's going to make it. If Blomkamp does get around to making a sequel to District 9, it's not likely to be for a good few years yet.

Crank 2: High Voltage (2009)

In our recent interview with Gareth Evans, the Welsh director of The Raid and The Raid 2 revealed that his favourite Jason Statham movie was Crank 2: High Voltage, Neveldine/Taylor's demented sequel to their own 2006 action comedy. It's not hard to see why, either; Crank 2 took the first film's premise - about a hero who has to stay alive by keeping his heart rate pounding - and threw it into surreal, absurd new territory.

Ending in a crescendo of violence and fire, you might be forgiven for thinking, as a burning Statham extends his middle finger to the audience, that the stir-crazy hero's adventures have come to an end. Yet during the end credits, we discover that Chev Chelios is scorched, bandage-clad, but still alive.

Unlike some of the other films on this list, Crank 2 actually did reasonable business, having earned more than double its $15m budget back in theatres alone. At the time of writing, however, Neveldine/Taylor have yet to officially confirm their plans for one, even though actress Amy Smart has suggested that a follow-up as being discussed. If it happens, Crank 3 - once again starring Statham as a now bandage-clad Chelios - could be one of the most bizarre sequels ever made.

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Nice parody article

Buckaroo Banzai sequel?...no pleaseee :Q

Crank 3 please. Another Slither would really hit the spot as well. As for the rest, they'd have to be remade with a new cast.

Roberto Orci wants to direct the next Star Trek film

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NewsSimon Brew4/23/2014 at 8:23AM

With Alex Kurtzman set to direct Venom, Roberto Orci apparently has his eyes on succeeding JJ Abrams as Star Trek director...

News broke late yesterday that long-time writing partners Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are going their separate ways. The pair have been a creative partnership for some time, writing across projects such as JJ Abrams'Star Trek reboots, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Transformers, the Sleepy Hollow TV show, and Cowboys & Aliens.

Towards the end of last year, it was revealed that Alex Kurtzman is the man that Sony wants to direct one of its Spider-Man spin-off movies, Venom. Kurtzman is also writing the script for the film, which will be his second feature directorial effort after People Like Us.

Whilst Kurtzman and Orci will continue to work together on their television projects, Variety reports that their split on feature films is amicable. And one of the reasons for the split is to allow the pair to pursue their individual feature film directing ambitions. Furthermore, Orci is said to be "lobbying heavily" to direct the next Star Trek movie as his feature debut.

Orci reportedly has the support of JJ Abrams and his Bad Robot production company. The current stumbling block is Paramount Pictures, which has to decide if it wants to hand over the controls of one of its biggest franchises to a first time director.

Star Trek 3 or Star Trek 13 (delete as you prefer) is being prepared for a 2016 release, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Star Trek series. Paramount will thus need to make its decision soon...

Variety.

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My vote is still for Edgar Wright. (Though they'd have to watch how much screen time he'd give to Scotty.)

More screen time for McCoy I say!

More lensflare please

Please, God, no. Nobody from the old Lost/Abrams/Prometheus crews should ever be again let near these.
All they bring to the table is incoherent plots, anti-science/pseudo-religion, and tons of characters with "daddy-issues."

No. No. No. Please. No.

Since the last one was basically a bad remake of Wrath of Khan I wonder if this one will be Search For Spock but this time it being Kirk who gets lost.

I'd have guessed this is an April Fool's prank article, were it not already the end of the month. I think it's fair to say that Orci is pretty much everyone's LAST choice... outside Bad Robot/Paramount, of course.


Avengers: Age Of Ultron news round up

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NewsSimon Brew4/23/2014 at 8:36AM

The UK to get Avengers 2 early, Robert Downey Jr's set photo, Lou Ferrigno's return and more news from Joss Whedon's Avengers sequel...

Production is underway on 2015's eagerly-awaited Avengers sequel, Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Joss Whedon is directing again, and more news on the film is beginning to filter through.

Let's start with an on-set photo then, which has come from the freshly-minted Twitter account of Robert Downey Jr. He posted a picture from the set of The Avengers 2, alongside the film's executive producer Jeremy Latcham. The pair look very fetching in their safety jackets...

Next up? That's the unsurprising news that Lou Ferrigno will be back to help out with the movie. He provided the grunts and growls for the Hulk in The Avengers, and he's confirmed that he'll be doing so again. Mark Ruffalo will play the role on-screen, of course, but the original screen Incredible Hulk will be doing his bit too.

Then, Elizabeth Olsen, who plays Scarlet Witch in the new movie, has been briefly chatting about the film. In particular, she's highlighting the heavy veil of secrecy over it. "Any time they give us a call sheet or any time there's a new draft, they have to shred our own papers", she told Flaunt. Admitting she was terrified of spilling secrets, she said that "I really just feel like I’m doing something that’s top secret and somehow has a lot more importance than anything else I’ve been around, so that alone is hilarious. I want to take a photo and send to my friends, not that I want to tweet or Instagram it, just for personal reasons - and I feel like I’m going to get in trouble if I take a photo on set".

Bet you a pound Robert Downey Jr wouldn't get in trouble, though.

One last thing: as has been commonplace with Marvel films, the UK is set to get Avengers: Age Of Ultron first. The UK release date has been brought forward to Friday April 24th 2016. The US still gets the film on May 1st 2016.

Nuke The Fridge.
Twitter.
Flaunt.

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You mean 2015, right??? Don't give me a heart attack like that. Beyond excited for this.

Marc Webb: J Jonah Jameson returning to Spider-Man movies

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NewsGlen Chapman4/23/2014 at 8:57AM

Director Marc Webb admits that J Jonah Jameson may finally show his face in The Amazing Spider-Man 3...

With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 set for its US bow this week - off the back of a strong UK opening - the publicity tour for the movie continues. And director Marc Webb has been chatting about future plans for the series, and specifically when we can expect the new J Jonah Jameson to finally appear on screen.

Webb admitted that "I like the idea very much of him coming up in the next film. It was more easy to accept a new Spider-Man than someone who could out do J K Simmons in that role, he is so iconic". This is true, of course. Simmons stole every scene that Sam Raimi allowed him near in the original Spider-Man trilogy. Webb continued, adding "that’s something we’ve really talked about. Obviously I love that character because he poses such an interesting dilemma for Spider-Man. The answer is I don’t know, but I think you can expect to see him in the future". Given that Webb has one more Spider-Man film to make, that suggests (but far from confirms) it may be that one.

Nothing definitive then, but it's nice to see J K Simmons get some acknowledgement for his tremendous work. His Spider-Man work has to be one of the finest pieces of casting seen to date in a comic book movie.

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yes they should put JK Simmons back in there, but they will probably go with someone else to put their "stamp" on it for the same reason they changed Spidey's costume so much for the first film, for no other reason.

Extraterrestrial Review

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ReviewDavid Crow4/23/2014 at 9:04AM
Extraterrestrial review

The new alien slasher Extraterrestrial has some clever visuals to occasionally distract from its mediocrity.

Those pesky kids and their cabins in the woods. If it is not a chainsaw-wielding murderer or demon from the fruit cellar, then it’s a gun-toting nut down the lake or little green men from another world. In Extraterrestrial, it’s both. Sadly, this tired joke is all that this indie alien horror has to go on beyond some admittedly impressive visual wizardry when it comes to a new kind of E.T. and his decidedly less friendly glowing finger.

To be sure, Extraterrestrial is an achievement in a technical sense, proving that relying on mostly in-camera effects and practical scares has more jumps per capita than a CGI invasion quadruple its budgetary size. So, when those bright lights beam down on these haplessly dim protagonists with a shade of crimson, and the ominous horns screech across the sound mix like the herald of an apocalypse, there is something approximating genuine creep-out suspense in this intergalactic slasher. But it’s all for inevitable frustration with these adolescent cattle, who gawk wide-eyed at their own doom like the probe-victims in waiting that they are. The movie’s half-hearted reach for a comedic underpinning ultimately undermines everything else on screen.

Directed and written by Colin Minihan and Stu Ortiz, also known as the Vicious Brothers, Extraterrestrial recounts what happens when five college-ish friends go to a cabin on the outskirts of society, and where many a strange disappearances have occurred. Unfortunately, despite its nearly two-hour running time, I couldn’t tell you a lick about any of them other than they are played by Brittany Allen of Defiance, Freddie Stroma, Melanie Papalia, Jesse Moss, and Anja Savcic. Sure, Allen’s April is in a relationship with Stroma’s Kyle, and they’re arguing over whether they’re going to get married, but when the movie treats them as meat for the grinder, why should we get invested in naming the damned?

This is not to say that a horror movie that knows and revels in its B-conventions is something to sneer at. In fact, many of the best slashers and gross out gorefests makes no bones about trivializing Ashley Williams’ hopes and dreams prior to him earning a chainsaw hand, nor do they bother explaining why these five kids were picked for ritualized sacrifice to horror movie gods. The thing is that those subversions were either funny, scary, or both. Extraterrestrial is none of these things while we wait for the aliens to come down and make flank steak out of them.

The one exception to this critique is Michael Ironside who has a delirious cameo as the aforementioned gun-toting nut that knows all about the U.S. government’s hackneyed deal with aliens—they abduct as many citizens as they want as long as the Feds can still pretend they’re running the planet—and he would love nothing more than to break it by putting one of those gray fellows in the earthbound dirt, permanently. It is also unlikely that the screenplay is to thank for this humor; as opposed to the rest of the movie’s blank slate performers, Ironside’s ability to satirize whatever surroundings is providing his latest paycheck this week is legendary, and he leaves no cardboard wall unchewed here. The result is a meager subplot that could have been the whole film. Imagine Alex Jones versus these H.G. Wells bad guys! That would be something to see instead of this passing punch line that is thrown away in favor of “teens” being sucked into the air one at a time.

There is still likely an audience for Extraterrestrial that will appreciate the visual cues and campy tone toward the whole proceedings. However, this is still one horror movie that truly belongs out of this world…and as far away from any movie screen as possible.

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Ehehehe 'probe victims in waiting'!

Disney Making It’s A Small World, After All

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NewsDavid Crow4/23/2014 at 1:23PM
Walt Disney Pictures

Disney taps National Treasure director John Turtleltaub to helm the It's a Small World movie.

Despite recently adding the burgeoning stables of Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars to its brand, The Walt Disney Company nonetheless has its own legacy of beloved characters, stories, and even rides. Consider that only 12 years ago, “Pirates of the Caribbean” meant that charmingly old school theme park ride at Disneyland.

Well, we can now add “It’s a Small World” to the list of rides being adapted to the big screen, because Disney has hired John Turtleltaub to oversee the production of the It’s a Small World movie. Turtleltaub, the filmmaker behind Disney/Touchstone’s popular National Treasure movies, seems like a strong fit for this ride of multicultural unity. Turtetaub’s most recent film, Last Vegas, proved to be a sleeper hit in November 2013.

Jared Stern, who pitched the movie, will be writing the screenplay while The Lego Movie’s Dan Lin will produce.

Deadline

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Sony And Mattel Accessorizing Barbie With Movie

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NewsDavid Crow4/23/2014 at 1:57PM

Sony Pictures is developing a Barbie movie that will embrace the toyline as an image of female empowerment.

Holy Malibu Dream House, Ken, stop the convertible…because Barbie is getting a movie!

As reported in Deadline, Sony Pictures has inked a deal with Mattel to adapt the Barbie toyline and her whole treasure trove worth of universe-building and fashion-adoring characters to the big screen. Apparently expected to be a new “global franchise,” Barbie will be imagined as a live-action comedy.

No writers or director are yet attached, but the picture will obviously be a priority for Sony considering that studio chief Amy Pascal apparently oversaw the deal herself alongside production president Hannah Minghella. The movie is also being produced by Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, who are overseeing the Men in Black reboot for Sony.

For Barbie, Deadline reports that Parkes and MacDonald won Mattel’s interest when they pitched the film as a story of empowerment for women, basing this off of Barbie’s 150-plus career clothes that she has been accessorized as for decades. This will allow a skilled protagonist who helps people over what is envisioned to be multiple movies in a franchise deal.

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