This Week’s Ketchup includes casting news for both Man of Steel and The Dark Knight Rises, as well as the reboot of The Crow and two movies featuring the character of Pip from Great Expectations. Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern and Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles also had some big movie news this week.
A few months ago, the hot maybe-not-a-rumor among comic book fans was that Viggo Mortensen was the frontrunner to play General Zod in the new Superman movie, which is now being called just Man of Steel (much like The Dark Knight). A few weeks ago, however, Zack Snyder confirmed that Viggo Mortensen would not be in Man of Steel, which opened up speculation again as to who might play Zod. This week, we got the answer in the form of Michael Shannon, who was Oscar nominated for his role in
Revolutionary Road, and is also in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. As an aside, Michael Shannon also has powerful, often menacing eyes; it’s arguably what he’s known for. The actor also took the opportunity this week to talk about how he landed the role of Zod, who was memorably played by Terence Stamp in Superman II. The Man of Steel news this week didn’t end with Michael Shannon, however, as the site Latino Review landed a scoop from an inside source that gave us more information about the movie. Kal-El’s parents Jor-El and Lara will both be seen in Man of Steel (and Daniel Day-Lewis was once considered to play the role made famous by Marlon Brando). There will be scenes set on Krypton, which will more resemble Coruscant from the Star Wars franchise than the crystal-heavy world seen in the original 1978 movie. Finally, there is the villainess, who is still being cast, which fans had speculated would be Ursa from Superman II. Instead, that character will be Faora, who was the inspiration for Ursa, and who, like Ursa, is a Kryptonian warrior, with the added element of Faora being a master of Horo-Kanu, the ancient Kryptonian martial art of focusing on pressure points on the Kryptonian body. This change amps up the threat to Superman, obviously.
As the start of filming nears, director Christopher Nolan has added four new cast members to The Dark Knight Rises, including one new face that was actually obscured in his most famous film. Josh Pence played the twin brother Tayler Winklevoss in last year’s The Social Network, but CGI was used to put the face of Armie Hammer over his. Now, Josh Pence will be playing another character previously played by another more famous actor (Liam Neeson), as the younger (30 years previous) version of Ra’s Al Ghul, the villain to whom Bruce Wayne has an old and close connection. This news is close to confirmation of fan speculation that Marion Cotillard was cast as Talia Al Ghul, Ra’s’ daughter (and in the comics, the mother of Bruce Wayne’s son, who is now the current and fifth Robin). Josh Pence was then quickly followed by the news that Daniel Sunjata (TV’s Rescue Me), Diego Klattenhoff (Lucky Number Slevin) and British actor Burn Gorman (Layer Cake) are all in talks for supporting roles. Sunjata would play “a courageous special forces operative,” Klattenhoff would play “a rookie cop who is looking to make a difference” and the nature of Gorman’s role is not yet known. The other (mostly) better known actors already cast are the returning Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman, as well as new cast members Anne Hathaway (Selina Kyle, AKA Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Juno Temple (unknown roles). Filming of The Dark Knight Rises starts this summer in Pittsburgh, and is scheduled by Warner Bros for release on July 20, 2012.
Long before Harry Potter and Twilight, one of the most popular fantasy book series for kids and teenagers of a certain age (and plenty of adults as well) was Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series. Starting with Dragonflight in 1968, Anne McCaffrey imagined a fantasy world where humans team up with dragons, which they ride as flying mounts, to battle the Thread, a destructive spore-like threat that comes down from outer space and destroys any organic matter it touches. Dragons with their fiery breath are able to destroy the Thread before it lands on Pern and makes the ground permanently unfarmable. Now, screenwriter David Hayter (X-Men; cowriter of X2, Watchmen) has been hired by producer Don Murphy (Transformers, From Hell, Natural Born Killers) and the other producers who hold the rights to adapt the first novel Dragonflight as a feature film. There have been attempts in the past to adapt Dragonriders of Pern as a TV series, but they were never actually produced. Anne McCaffrey’s son Todd continued the series in 2003, and there are now 21 novels in the Dragonriders of Pern series. No director has been hired for Dragonflight yet, but Don Murphy expects filming to start as soon as 2012.
Charles Dickens’ literary classic novel Great Expecations and the central character, the orphan Pip, are set to return to the big screen in not just one but two new movies. First, there is a new adaptation of Great Expectations itself, to be directed by Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). This week, the news of who might play the lead and one of the most memorable characters came out in the form of Jeremy Irvine and Helena Bonham Carter as being in talks to play Pip and the elderly shut-in Miss Havisham, respectively (of course). Jeremy Irvine is almost completely a newcomer right now, but he is also the star of Steven Spielberg’s next film War Horse, so by 2012, Irvine should have a much higher profile. Filming is expected to start in late 2011, aiming for a 2012 release date, which is the year of Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday on February 7, 2012. The Pip news didn’t stop there, however, as Hugh Laurie (TV’s House) has signed to star in an adaptation of the Lloyd Jones novel Mr. Pip. Laurie will play a teacher and the last white man on a war-torn island in Papua New Guinea who reopens the school and reads Great Expectations to his students. This inspires a 14-year-old girl named Matilda to have an imaginary friend modeled after the orphan Pip from the novel. Mr. Pip will be directed by Andrew Adamson, the director of the first two movies in both the Shrek (actually the codirector) and Chronicles of Narnia franchises. Finally, going back briefly to Steven Spielberg, Sally Field, who has been loosely connected to his Lincoln biopic since 2007, was officially confirmed this week to be playing Mary Todd Lincoln opposite Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president of the United States.
The 2003 publication of The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks (who went on to write World War Z, which is in development as a movie) was a big part of a revitalization of the zombie invasion as part of pop culture. It was itself a spoof on similar “survival guides” published previously that gave advice on how to handle more realistic real life dangers. Last fall, a similar book by Chuck Sambuchino called How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack was published, taking imaginary threat preparation to another level. Now, Sony Pictures Animation has picked up the rights to that book, with Robert Zemeckis attached to produce. This is a fairly important next step for Zemeckis, who is coming off producing the huge box office bomb that was Mars Needs Moms, as well as the recent shelving by Disney of his motion capture Yellow Submarine remake. Robert Zemeckis is not expected to direct How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack, but his name will still be prominently attached to the movie, and could be important in helping him recover his “street cred.” How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack is being seen as a low budget ($20-$30 million) R-rated horror/comedy that combines live action and CGI (for the scary attacking garden gnomes). There’s also the obvious connection to Disney’s recent CGI animated movie Gnomeo & Juliet, which was a moderate-sized box office hit (unlike the much more expensive Mars Needs Moms). There’s also no screenwriter attached to the project yet. Before Robert Zemeckis spent the last ten years obsessed with motion capture animation (The Polar Express, Beowulf, etc), he also produced horror/thriller movies like The Frighteners, House on Haunted Hill and What Lies Beneath, and as director gave the world the Back to the Future trilogy. How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack feels to this writer like a potentially fun return to form for Zemeckis as producer.
Back in late 2008, the Weekly Ketchup covered the story about Universal starting development on a remake of the cult classic 1988 John Carpenter thriller They Live, starring Rowdy Roddy Piper as a working class guy who finds glasses that allow him to see the evil aliens secretly controlling the world. Anyone who has ever uttered the phrase “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum” was quoting that movie (even if in some cases, they did so unknowingly). In the two years since that story broke, it seemed like maybe Universal had given up on their They Live remake plans, but this week, we found out that they hadn’t. That statement however deserves an asterisk, as the remake is now being framed as something other than a direct remake. Director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield), whose latest film Let Me In was a remake of Let the Right One In, has signed with Universal to direct and adapt the short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning” by Ray Nelson, which was the basis for They Live. To be clear, this is what Deadline said about this project: “In that film, aliens were discovered through the use of special glasses. None of that is being used here, and the film is not considered a remake.” Universal is also saying that, but the stigma of the roots being tied to a They Live remake might be harder to shake. Even besides that, this movie is yet another “alien invasion” project being announced in the middle of the current wave of movies in that sub-genre. Matt Reeves’ RT Tomatometer track record is indeed mostly fresh for both of his last two movies Cloverfield (77%) and Let Me In (90%). So, this should be considered a borderline Rotten Idea that might end up being Fresh. Or not. In other Universal/science fiction news, the studio is reportedly considering taking over Oblivion from director Joseph Kosinski (TRON: Legacy) after Disney ditched it, with Tom Cruise in early talks to star.
Last June, the Weekly Ketchup covered the news that producer John Davis (Garfield, Marmaduke, Doctor Dolittle) had picked up the rights to adapt Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles anthology into a feature film. The story was included as a “Rotten Idea” because of concerns that the filmography of Davis suggested that he might be eyeing The Martian Chronicles as being more family-friendly than the original dark and challenging stories about man’s attempts to colonize Mars might otherwise suggest. This week, we learned that Davis’ plans for The Martian Chronicles are picking up steam, as Paramount Pictures picked up the project. There really isn’t any other news to this story, however, except to perhaps note that this development comes just a few weeks after Paramount officially dumped their plans to adapt Frank Herbert’s Dune, which is also set on an arid alien planet and involves battles between different races over resources and the planet itself. Since not much else is new, I’ll end this article with another link back to the original 2010 story which has more background material on The Martian Chronicles (as Rotten Idea #2).
Comic book fans of Deadpool are very loyal to their favorite wise-crackin’ mercenary, and for good reason. With literary styles that include breaking the fourth wall and a metafictional knowledge that he is a comic book character, Deadpool has long been a must read for anyone looking to see Marvel Comics get spoofed, all within actual Marvel continuity. The appeal of a Deadpool movie, therefore, is for it potentially to be a comedy in which Ryan Reynolds (as Deadpool) lays waste to the last 10+ years of comic book movies, while at the same time actually starring in a movie based on a real Marvel character. Fans have debated back and forth about which directors they think can handle such a challenge, but their enthusiasm may have been taken down a notch this week when 20th Century Fox hired Tim Miller to direct Deadpool. Tim Miller has worked as a visual effects artist on over a dozen movies, and recently has stepped up to being a visual effects supervisor on movies like Night at the Museum and The Wolfman. Miller’s Blur Studio is also working on pre-visualization for The Dark Tower, and was involved in the recent attempt (which may have been shelved) to reboot Heavy Metal. X-Men Origins: Deadpool is still being adapted by Zombieland writing team Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (who also was part of the Monsters, Inc writing staff). Another bit of news that emerged in this story is that Fox is now using the title X-Men Origins: Deadpool, which only reminds us that our first introduction to Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine… sort of sucked.
Studios like Universal, Paramount and Sony continue with their plans for a new wave of movies based on toys and board games, with next year’s Battleship being the tip of the impending iceberg. DreamWorks meanwhile greenlit a movie last year called Real Steel, which seems like a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots movie. Real Steel is about a retired boxer (Hugh Jackman) who starts training robot boxers, based upon a short story by Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come). Admittedly, the trailer is not as ridiculous as one might expect, even if it invites use of the phrase “Transformers meets Rocky V.” The movie doesn’t come out until October 7, 2011, but DreamWorks thinks it has enough of a winner six months before release to hire the film’s screenwriter John Gatins to start working on a sequel. John Gatins specializes in sports movies, which make up his entire filmography, including Hardball and cowriting Coach Carter and Summer Catch. The reason that Real Steel 2 is one of the week’s Rotten Ideas is that it’s an example of a studio making a sequel for a movie before there’s any evidence that anyone will want to see one. Planning ahead on sequels is not unheard of (one could argue that was done with Lord of the Rings, after all), but the track record is mixed. Of course, sometimes the studio is right, and the first movie is a hit, such as The Hangover, which was another recent movie that was released with the sequel already being written. And when the movie’s not a hit, all that sequel talk is eventually forgotten (Kick-Ass 2, for example, has a good chance of not happening).
Late last week, it was announced by Relativity Media (Battle: Los Angeles, Cowboys & Aliens) that the director for their long-planned reboot of The Crow will be Spanish horror/thriller director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Impacto, 28 Weeks Later). This week, Relativity again showed that the movie is a top priority by starting early negotiations with Bradley Cooper (The A-Team, The Hangover), who is credited with the moderate success of their recent film Limitless. The Crow started as a independent comic book by artist James O’Barr, and was then adapted as a series of films (of descending quality) that started with the 1994 hit film starring Brandon Lee, who died during filming. The reboot was adapted by director Stephen Norrington (Blade, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), who at one time was attached to direct as well. The reboot is expected to start filming in the fall of 2011, and is expected to possibly be released in early 2013. There are a couple of reasons why this is the week’s Most Rotten Idea. First, there is the notion of rebooting The Crow at all. Brandon Lee’s performance was remarkable, and his death should have arguably led to there not being any sequels. It’s the same idea as why The Joker isn’t expected to be in The Dark Knight Rises. And then there’s the choice to cast Bradley Cooper, who is an amicable actor with a strong screen presence, but seems wildly miscast as the gothic avenging anti-hero The Crow. But, of course, going back to The Joker, that’s what people used to say about Heath Ledger.
For more Weekly Ketchup columns by Greg Dean Schmitz, check out the WK archive, and you can contact GDS via Facebook or a RT forum message.
