This week’s Ketchup sees Hollywood returning to “work” after the Memorial Day weekend, resulting in lots of news stories concerning high profile properties. Included in the mix are the next two James Bond movies, Alice in Wonderland 2, The Expendables 3, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean 5, and… a Grumpy Cat movie?
Earlier this week, one of the big movie development stories could have been about the various directors that were in the running for the technically untitled movie commonly referred to as James Bond 24. That shortlist included Shane Black (Iron Man 3), Ang Lee (Life of Pi), and Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive). The reason for that search was that earlier this month, there was a new story about how director Sam Mendes (Skyfall, American Beauty) was absolutely, no way, going to ever return to director the next James Bond movie. Except, that is, in the near future, as Mendes is now in negotiations with Sony, MGM and Eon Productions to direct not only James Bond 24, but also possibly James Bond 25 as well, which are rumored to be two halves of a single story. This was only the biggest director announcement in a week of over a handful of big director announcements, so we will now squeeze in two more here. And for funsies, this writer will try to find a theme for each transition: Like there have been a lot of James Bond movies, there’s also been a lot of Leprechaun movies. Lionsgate and WWE Studios have hired aspiring director (and On the Lot contestant) Zach Lipovsky to direct the reboot of Leprechaun which will feature professional wrestler Hornswoggle in the lead role. Leprechaun leads us to Trolls, the DreamWorks Animation adaptation of the sometimes disturbing little dolls that were a big thing in the 1970s. DreamWorks has hired director Mike Mitchell, whose previous films include Sky High and Shrek Forever After. Continue on to the Pirates of the Caribbean 5 story down below for more director chain reactions.
In 2006, Forest Whitaker starred as Idi Amin Dada in The Last King of Scotland, earning him the most nominations and accolades of his career. This week, Whitaker started negotiations to portray another important 20th century historical figure, Martin Luther King Jr, in the long-in-development movie Memphis. Memphis is a dream project for director Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum), who hopes to start filming soon after the release of his next based-on-a-true-story film Captain Phillips. Originally set up at Universal Pictures, Memphis is now an independent production financed by companies from France and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The story of Memphis “follows Dr. King’s final days as he struggles to balance his personal life and the civil rights movement while he organizes what ends up being his last protest march in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was assassinated by James Earl Ray. Simultaneously, the FBI, which had been wiretapping King before his death, leads an intense manhunt for his killer.” It’s a little perplexing, obviously, how the FBI could be “simultaneously” pursuing James Earl Ray in the days leading up to the assassination (or that part might just be a typo).
And now we continue on from the crazy week of director news that started up above with James Bond 24. One of this year’s more successful arthouse theater movies has been Kon Tiki, about a bunch of guys on a boat. You know who else are a bunch of guys on a boat? The cast of Pirates of the Caribbean 5, who will star in a movie to be directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, the team behind Kon Tiki. That’s also a Disney movie about a bunch of guys on boats, as is The Finest Hours, which will tell the true story of the 1952 disaster at sea involving two stranded oil tankers off the coast of Cape Cod. And that movie will be directed by Robert Schwentke of Red and the upcoming R.I.P.D. And that’s not the only Disney directing news this week, because director James Bobin, who directed The Muppets and is currently working on The Muppets… Again! is also talking to Disney about another sequel. If deals go through, that sequel will be the follow up to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, which may have the full title of Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass. And finally, no talk about guys on a boat would be complete without mentioning the voyages of Christopher Columbus, who gave most of his name to Chris Columbus, the director of the first two movies each in the Home Alone and Harry Potter film franchises. Chris Columbus made the news this week, too, as he is now in talks with Columbia Pictures and Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison to direct their adaptation of the YouTube video Pixels. Thematically similar to Wreck-It Ralph, Pixels will be about various characters from 1980s arcade video games invading our live action world today. And… scene.
Marvel Studios and Guardians of the Galaxy continue to attract impressive talent as the ensemble cast grows. This was also the week that we learned (via these announcements) for sure that the Nova Corps will be an important part of the movie. Basically, think of them as Marvel’s version of the Green Lantern Corps (because they basically are, and fans still love them, blatant as the inspiration might be). There are three different stories this week, but the most surprising (and therefore, biggest) news was that Glenn Close has been cast in an (unspecified) leadership role in the Nova Corps which some are describing as the “head of the Nova Corps.” The use of that phrase “head” might be quite precisely correct, as many are speculating Glenn Close will be portraying the Xandarian Worldmind, a sort of disembodied presence inside Nova’s helmet which is sometimes depicted as a shimmering, floating, female head. The other big Nova-related casting news is that John C. Reilly is in talks to play Rhomann Dey, the Nova Corps member who recruits Earther Richard Rider to join the Corps. And finally, there’s the news (in the same story) that there’s another role that might go to either Hugh Laurie, Alan Rickman, or Ken Watanabe. Walt Disney Pictures and Marvel Studios have scheduled the big cosmic adventure that will be Guardians of the Galaxy for August 1st, 2014.
Things learned in the preparation for this article: a rising action star is shorter than you might imagine (5′ 9″) and an icon of 1970s pop music is taller than you might think (5′ 8″), so the idea of one playing the other, is not as “off” as, say, that movie Jack Reacher. Even so, the idea of Tom “Bane” Hardy playing flamboyantly gay glam rocker Elton John in the off-kilter biopic Rocketman is still pretty wild and bizarre. Of course, this news comes just days after HBO subscribers saw Matt Damon and Michael Douglas as lovers in Liberace, so Tom Hardy as Elton John? Sure, why not? Now, it’s important to note that Hardy has not actually signed yet, just that the offer is in his camp for him to consider or reject. Rocketman will be the feature film debut of commercials director Michael Gracey.
Just last week, the news broke that Tom Cruise had dropped out of playing superspy Napoleon Solo in the TV show adaptation The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It didn’t take long for Warner Bros to start negotiations with the star of their biggest summer 2013 movie as Cruise’s replacement. Henry Cavill, who plays beardy fisherman Clark Kent in next month’s Man of Steel, is now in talks to costar in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. opposite Armie Hammer, who has already been cast as Russian spy Illya Kuryakin. It’s also worth noting that back when that role was being cast, one of the actors besides Armie Hammer that WB was considering was… Henry Cavill. Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes) will be directing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. when filming starts this fall.
Seth Rogen and his frequent writer/producer collaborator Evan Goldberg have acquired the feature rights to the novella Sell Out by former Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich. The novella tells the story of a fictionalized Simon Rich who meets his great-great-grandfather who has spent the last 100 years preserved in brine after a freak pickling accident. The now revived oldster is confounded by the lifestyles of the PBR-drinking, fixed-gear-bike-riding, elaborately-mustachioed hipsters now living in Brooklyn. Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen cowrote The Green Hornet (with other writers), Pineapple Express, and Superbad, and also codirected the upcoming apocalyptic comedy This is the End.
Exactly how much money does one really need? Is $10 million not enough when you usually get $20 million? You can fill an Olympic sized pool with $50 bills, but wouldn’t it be so much better if those were $100 bills? It’s arguably ironic that one of the professions that movies and TV shows typically portray as greedy are mobsters. But even a mobster like Whitey Bulger likely never got his hands on the kind of money we’re talking about (Bulger’s reputation has more to do with mob killings than huge amounts of wealth). Which brings us to this week’s news, which is that Johnny Depp has dropped out of starring in the Whitey Bulger biopic Black Mass. No official reason was given, but “speculation” is that, yeah, it’s because the independent production couldn’t match Johnny Depp’s normal $20 million asking price. Depp’s departure now leaves the status of Black Mass in question, but director Barry Levinson and costar Joel Edgerton are still technically attached. And now, for some trivia. Johnny Depp’s “fairy castle” above the Sunset Strip is right next door to the home of Morrissey, who with the Smiths, recorded the song “Money Changes Everything.”
Sometimes, news sites use a big headline to lead the reader to a story that is otherwise unrelated (or only tangentially related) to what you’re looking for. Such was the case with this story about Lionsgate which opened with a single sentence about The Expendables 3 before going into a longer story about TV shows like Anger Management and Orange is the New Black. So, the real news here is that Sylvester Stallone has successfully recruited four new cast members for The Expendables 3, and although three of them have been rumored or mentioned in the past, one of them is a fairly big surprise. The reason for that is that Milla Jovovich was surely being pursued for that “female version of The Expendables” (which may or may not still be in development at this point). The other three less surprising male stars are Nicolas Cage, Jackie Chan, and Wesley Snipes. In a way, those three actors represent a move towards action stars of the 1990s in the same way that actors that were in the first two movie more represented action hits of the 1980s. As for why this is one of the Rotten Ideas of the week, just take a look at the predominantly “Rotten” RT Tomatometer pages for Nicolas Cage, Milla Jovovich and Wesley Snipes. Jackie Chan fares much better, but he’s still just 1 of 4.
After Hollywood started development on movies based on the Viewmaster and What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the bar for adaptation material basically disappeared. There is no standard in today’s Hollywood, at least not for movie development. Movie production, thankfully, may still have a slightly higher set of criteria (but not by much). Which brings us to this week’s news (which came close to beating James Bond as the top story), which is that Broken Road Productions has signed a development deal with the “representatives” of the Internet meme feline known most famous as Grumpy Cat (AKA “Tardar Sauce” or just “Tard”). Basically, the Grumpy Cat meme involves people putting captions over photos of a cat whose downturned mouth and other facial traits make her look as if she is “frowning” or “angry.” Quotes are required there because humans are applying anthropomorphic traits to a non-hominid animal that doesn’t use its face to communicate emotions the way we do. Anyway, the plan is to turn Grumpy Cat into a family “comedy” in the style of Garfield, which basically means it will probably be exactly like Garfield. There’s no writer or director attached to the Grumpy Cat project yet. Other movies that Broken Road Productions has given the world include Here Comes the Boom, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Zookeeper, and Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill. Broken Road also made the news earlier this month for coproducing the Medieval Times movie.
For more Weekly Ketchup columns by Greg Dean Schmitz, check out the WK archive, and you can contact GDS via Facebook.
