Weekly Ketchup

Weekly Ketchup: Matt Damon to Team with Clint (Again)

Plus casting news for Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Robert Downey Jr. and... LeBron James

by | September 18, 2009 | Comments

This week’s Ketchup features the usual required sequels (Silent Hill 2) and remakes (which is such a Rotten Idea, I won’t give it top promotion) as well a nice smattering of actual original concepts (thank you, Guillermo del Toro) and casting news for folks like Matt Damon, Zach Galifianakis, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Robert Downey Jr. and… LeBron James!

#1 MATT DAMON DEPARTING FOR CLINT EASTWOOD’S SWEET HEREAFTER

Matt Damon will star in Hereafter, a Warner Bros supernatural thriller “in the vein of The Sixth Sense” which will mark Clint Eastwood’s first foray into the genre as a director. Hereafter was written by screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), who is also working on a new Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy movie. The project got its start at DreamWorks, and Steven Spielberg is still aboard as one of the producers, along with Eastwood himself. Clint doesn’t often cast the same leads from movie to movie, but Matt Damon was also Clint’s most recent star in this December’s Invictus. That film tells the true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) worked with the captain (Damon) of a South African rugby team to unite the country (though obviously Morgan Freeman also costarred in Millionaire Dollar Baby). Filming of Hereafter is scheduled to start later this fall, 2009.

#2 THIS WEEK IN VIDEOGAME MOVIE NEWS: SILENT HILL 2 AND RETURN TO CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN

Davis Films, the production company behind the Robert E. Howard adaptation Solomon Kane and Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is working with screenwriter Roger Avary (The Rules of Attraction; cowriter of Beowulf) on two videogame-to-movie adaptations. First up is the sequel to 2006’s Silent Hill (which Avary also wrote), based upon the popular Konami survival horror franchise about a strange town where things phase in between our reality and a grotesque darker dimension. What Avary has in mind for the sequel isn’t yet known. Avary is also working on an adaptation of 2001’s Return to Castle Wolfenstein, part of a larger Wolfenstein franchise, in which a U.S. soldier is sent to 1943 Europe to investigate Heinrich Himmler’s SS Paranormal Division, which puts him up against a wide variety of Nazi monsters, including zombies and grotesque super soldiers enhanced by biotechnology. Nazis and zombies go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Davis Films aims to start production of Silent Hill 2 in 2010 after wrapping up Resident Evil 4, which it is currently starting to ready for filming.

#3 THE COMEDIAN JOINS RED DAWN AND REALLY WANTS TO BE LOBO

Jeffrey Dean Morgan went from being “that dead boyfriend from Grey’s Anatomy” (and also the dad on Supernatural) to being a bona fide movie star this spring after starring as The Comedian in Watchmen. Apparently he’s not going to let that be his only comic book movie, or to let his movie career stop anytime soon. The actor is currently filming the Vertigo adaptation The Losers in Puerto Rico and this week signed on to costar in the remake of Red Dawn, in what the actor describes as basically being the Powers Booth role. Red Dawn was a 1984 John Milius-directed action movie about a group of American teenagers forced to become militant rebels when the U.S.A. is invaded by communist armies from the U.S.S.R. and Cuba. Powers Booth played an American pilot who parachutes nearby the kids and helps give them guidance in their insurgency maneuvers against the commies, and that’s the role Morgan will be playing. This week, the actor also expressed interest in starring in another recently announced comic book movie; Lobo. Since that will be a Warner Bros movie produced by Joel Silver and Akiva Goldsman (who are also producing The Losers), Morgan might have an inside chance of landing the role. Morgan admits that he doesn’t have the obvious bulk or muscles of Lobo, but one might guess that could be something easily rectified by CGI animation, as really, few humans have exactly the muscles that Lobo has. Or ivory white skin. Based on Morgan’s performance as the Comedian, I think he might indeed be a great choice to play Lobo, who has the swagger of The Comedian but none of the gravitas. Lobo is just all bravado.

#4 LET’S MAKE UNIVERSAL SAY “YOU SANK MY BATTLESHIP!” IN 2011

Universal Pictures has set a July 1, 2011 release date for Battleship, their second movie under their deal with game company Hasbro, following the planned April 11, 2011 release of Stretch Armstrong. The release date follows a two movie deal with director Peter Berg (Hancock, The Kingdom) which makes Battleship his next movie, with Universal. That guarantees that his next movie will be Lone Survivor, a movie he wrote about an actual U.S. Navy SEAL team that was ambushed in Afghanistan. This news, however, also puts big question marks around two other movies on Berg’s slate, which is the Hancock sequel (that has been getting a big of press the last few weeks) and Berg’s planned remake of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic Dune. There’s a good chance another director will be sought for Hancock 2, but Dune might just have to wait a few more years now. Battleship was written by brothers Jon and Erich Hoeber, who cowrote last week’s comic book adaptation flop Whiteout. Peter Berg says he’s been wanting to make a naval battle movie for some time, having grown up fascinated by naval history. Berg describes Battleship as “a contemporary story of an international five-ship fleet engaged in a very dynamic, violent and intense battle.” In the game, two players try to guess where on a grid their opponents 5 ships are positioned, and if they score hits on all 2 to 5 spots, a boat gets sunk. Battleship the movie might be a bit more flashy with the special effects than giant red plastic push pins.

#5 GUILLERMO DEL TORO AND DISNEY TEAMING UP TO DOUBLE DARE YOU

At last weekend’s D23 event, Walt Disney Pictures and director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth) announced that they are teaming up for a new venture called Disney Double Dare You, which will produce movies, books and merchandise themed around family friendly horror stories. The first movie under this new umbrella will be something called Trollhunters, the details of which were not revealed. There will be something that ties all of the movies together, which del Toro teased as “one feature that shall remain secret, but that you shall soon be very familiar with.” Del Toro will produce each Disney Double Dare You title, and will also direct some of them, which is interesting considering that he already has enough movies on his plate as director to last him potentially until the year 2020 or so, starting with the two movies that will make up The Hobbit, scheduled for release in 2011 and 2012.

#6 LEBRON JAMES WANTS TO SEND US TO FANTASY BASKETBALL CAMP

Basketball star LeBron James, forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers, will make his movie starring debut playing himself in Fantasy Basketball Camp, a comedy for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment. Fantasy Basketball Camp, as the title suggests, will be about five adult friends who travel to Las Vegas to live out their fantasies by attending the LeBron James Adult Basketball Camp, where they also proceed to drag James into their own personal issues and problems. This movie project has come out of meetings between producer Brian Grazer, LeBron James and his business partner Maverick Carter that had their genesis in the desire by Grazer and his 8-year-old son to meet one of their favorite players. Filming of Fantasy Basketball Camp, which doesn’t yet have a director but is being written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (the writing team of City Slickers, A League of Their Own) is expected to start in the summer of 2010.

#7 ZACH GALIFIANAKIS SAYS IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY

Zach Galifianakis continues to nab roles following his breakout role in The Hangover. He’s now in negotiations with Focus Features to star in It’s Kind of a Funny Story, a coming-of-age dramedy from the writer-directors of 2006’s Half Nelson. The movie, which will also costar Emma Roberts (Nancy Drew), is based upon a young adults novel by Ned Vizzini about a teenage boy suffering from depression who is sent to an adult ward in a mental institution where he meets a number of “offbeat” adults (including one played by Galifianakis) as well as a “quirky” teenage girl played by Roberts. Just going on those two words, one has to imagine if the movie will feature any mental health patients who aren’t “quirky” or “offbeat.” Filming of It’s Kind of a Funny Story is expected to start later this year, before Galifianakis moves onto filming of The Hangover 2 next year.

#8 STEVEN SPIELBERG HOPES ROBERT DOWNEY, JR LIKES RABBITS

After initially hoping that he could get either Tom Hanks or Will Smith to star in his upcoming remake of the Jimmy Stewart classic Harvey, about a man whose best friend is an imaginary 6 foot tall rabbit, Steven Spielberg has picked the next star he is trying to get to sign on for the role. The actor in question is Robert Downey, Jr, who following the massive success of Iron Man continues to be one of Hollywood’s most sought after actors. Downey seems like a good match for the dramedy, as he seems like he could walk the thin line between seeming completely convinced about his rabbit friend, and seeming to those around him like a total nut case. Meanwhile, Spielberg is also still hoping to someday be able to finally direct his long planned Lincoln biopic, even as Robert Redford proceeds to move ahead with his own Lincoln-themed project, The Conspirator, about the aftermath of our 16th president’s assassination.

#9 GLADIATOR TEAM UP ENTERING THE VAMPIRE ARENA

Ridley Scott has directed eighteen movies, but he has nearly that many movies in development, and this week apparently added yet another possibility to his slate. Screenwriter John Logan (The Aviator, Star Trek: Nemesis), who cowrote Scott’s Gladiator, has signed with Fox 2000 to adapt The Passage, a vampire novel by Justin Cronin, which is being eyed as a potential directing project for Scott. The Passage concerns terminally ill patients who become healthy after being bitten by South American bats, leading to government tests that unleash an apocalyptic plague of bloodthirsty vampire test subjects that include death row inmates. Vampire movies are currently coming very much back into vogue (thanks, Twilight!), and so it’s perhaps not surprising that Ridley Scott would add one to his massive wish list of possible movies. Scott’s next movie to actually get made is next summer’s Robin Hood, with a prequel to Alien likely to be coming soon as well.

#10 UNIVERSAL PICTURES THINKS FAIRIES ARE BOTH WICKED AND LOVELY

Universal Pictures has acquired the movie rights to Wicked Lovely, the first novel in a bestselling series of fantasy novels by Melissa Marr, and which will have its fourth book published next year. Wicked Lovely is the story of a 17 year old girl who discovers that she can see fairies (the mythological creature), and in doing, must also avoid the romantic advances of the king of the fairies who wants to marry her in an effort to save the world from his mother. Frequent Tim Burton collaborator and screenwriter Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands, The Night Before Christmas) has been hired to adapt the screenplay. It’s worth noting that this project gets its start just a few weeks after the announcement of a similar project called Wings, which Miley Cyrus will star in for Walt Disney Pictures as a girl who discovers she herself is a fairy.

ROTTEN IDEA OF THE WEEK: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD TO GET REMADE… IN 3D

This week’s Rotten Idea combines two of the most annoying hot trends in Hollywood and applies them to one of the first great horror movies of the second half of the 20th century. Director George A. Romero is best known for his series of zombie movies, but the rights to the movie that got him started, Night of the Living Dead, are not owned by him, as the movie’s distributor allowed it to fall into the public domain. And so there have already been two remakes of the zombie movie that may not have been the first, but certainly got the zombie craze started. First there was Tom Savini’s (pretty good and quite gory) 1990 version, which Romero actually wrote the script for, and then in 2006 there was a low budget 3D (nearly) direct-to-dvd version. And now, yet another 3D movie is being prepared, with this one looking like it is more likely to receive a true wide release. Night of the Living Dead: Origins will attempt to retell the classic tale of a group of strangers stuck in a house surrounded by flesh eating zombies as an “American-style anime,” using new technology that the director is inventing for the project, and which he claims changes the way that actors can interact with CGI monsters. The filmmaker in question is one Zebediah De Soto. De Soto has no feature film credits yet, but he did direct a short film called War Pigs, which is described as being sort of like the “Vietnam War set in space.” This remake has Hollywood weight behind it, however, in the form of director Simon West (Con Air, The General’s Daughter), who is producing. There are lots of things wrong with Night of the Living Dead being remade without Romero’s involvement, but I think the biggest irony here is that CGI is bieng used on a remake of a movie that so fundamentally speaks of that era where all of the “special effects” worked so obviously because they were real. Can CGI ever reproduce how disturbing it is to see people munching on what looks like raw meat being plucked from someone’s corpse? I mean… seriously. I nearly threw up a little just typing that.

For more Weekly Ketchup columns by Greg Dean Schmitz, check out the WK archive, and you can contact GDS through his MySpace page or via a RT forum message.