This Weekly Ketchup comes to you on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and as such, it’s more of a “Semi Weekly Ketchup.” Most of Hollywood just took the week off, but we did get some stories, like Quentin Tarantino talking about his next movie. There’s also release dates for Alice in Wonderland 2 and Friday the 13th, and a remake of… Road House?
Quentin Tarantino appeared on The Tonight Show this week to promote a new Django Unchained graphic novel, and gave a scoop to the late night host who gave QT an early taste of fame, pre-Reservoir Dogs. Although he didn’t get into specifics, Tarantino revealed that his next film will be another Western. Whatever the Western is, it won’t be a sequel to Django Unchained, which eventually earned over $425 million in worldwide box office grosses (making it the #17 film of 2012, in between The Intouchables and Prometheus). There are hints out there about what Tarantino’s next Western could be, including the true story of abolitionist John Brown and the Harpers Ferry revolt of 1859 (which was arguably an inspiration for Django Unchained). If the project is truly old school Tarantino, it could be his really-really-long-in-development adaptation of 40 Lashes Less One by Elmore Leonard, although that story also seems like QT may have already done it as Django Unchained. In 40 Lashes Less One, two prisoners (one black, one Apache) are given a chance at freedom if they can hunt down the five most dangerous outlaws of the Wild West.
Just two weeks after making a producing deal with Universal Pictures (the Key & Peele movie), Judd Apatow has made another deal concerning one of Comedy Central’s current crops of sketch show stars. It was only two years ago that Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer) was eliciting “who’s that?” responses during the Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen, and now she’s lined up to be a movie star. Schumer will star in Train Wreck as “as a basket case who tries to rebuild her life, but still to be found are her boyfriend, a best friend/co-worker and a parent.” Train Wreck is expected to be Judd Apatow’s first film as director since last year’s This is 40 broke his streak of “Fresh” movies which included The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Funny People. Judd Apatow also produced Bridesmaids, the 2011 hit movie that launched the career of Melissa McCarthy.
Walt Disney Pictures is continuing their live action adaptations of titles that were previous among their animated classics. Two of those movies (previously covered in this column, but it’s a slow week) received release dates this week. The update of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (to be directed by Jon Favreau of Iron Man) will be released on October 9, 2015. The sequel to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (to be directed by James Bobin of The Muppets and The Muppets Most Wanted) will be release on May 27, 2016. The only other movie currently scheduled for May, 2016 is another Disney movie (on May 6), an untitled Marvel movie (which might be Doctor Strange). This news is Rotten this week because a) Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was “Rotten” with 51%, and b) do we really need another live action Jungle Book? It’s been done before. Both of these movies will be released in 2D and 3D.
As Blu-ray and DVD rentals continue to plummet, can there still be such a thing as “direct-to-DVD” movies? (Answer: they will probably just become “direct-to-streaming” movies.) One production company that has been in this game for a really long time is Emmett/Furla, and one of their directors is one Brian A. Miller. You can see his RT Tomatometer page here, but it’s without the benefit of Fresh/Rotten tags, because, you know… critics often skip direct-to-DVD titles. We don’t yet know if Miller’s next project will receive a theatrical release, but the cast includes a few big names (most of which have in the past have also appeared in direct-to-DVD movies). John Cusack, Jason Patric, Korean pop star Rain, and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson have joined the previously cast Bruce Willis in The Prince. Patric will star as “a retired Las Vegas mob enforcer who is forced to return to the city and face his former enemies when his teenage daughter goes missing.” This will be 50 Cent’s third film with director Brian A. Miller. Hey, it’s a slow (and short) week.
Earlier this year, there was a movie development story about an odd deal of movie rights being traded in exchange for just one movie. In exchange for getting 100% of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Warner Bros gave Paramount Pictures a few different things, including half of a future South Park movie, another untitled “A list” movie, and the full rights to the Friday the 13th horror franchise. This week, we received confirmation that Paramount doesn’t plan on letting that last trade go unused for long, because they have set a release date of March 13, 2015 for a new Friday the 13th movie. That is, of course, a “Friday the 13th”, one of three in 2015 (the other two are in February and November). What we don’t know is whether this will be a sequel to the 2009 reboot, another new reboot, a prequel, a remake, or what. This is one of the week’s Rotten Ideas because, regardless of the fan love for the franchise, the Friday the 13th movies almost never get glowing reviews. It was also probably a bad deal for Paramount over all, if Interstellar does anything close to the box office business achieved by Gravity (also a Warner Bros outer space movie from an acclaimed director). In other release date news, the troubled western production Jane Got a Gun, featuring Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor, will be released by Relativity Media in the pre-Labor-Day dead zone of August 29, 2014.
When Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer on September 14, 2009, for some reason, it set Hollywood on track to basically remake the actor’s greatest cinematic hits. The Red Dawn remake came out last year, the remake of Point Break is expected to start soon, and the remake of Dirty Dancing might start production in 2014. Now, MGM has announced plans to remake the 1989 Patrick Swayze movie Road House, which has in recent years become a popular “midnight movie” selection at theaters that specialize in such things. Swayze starred in Road House as a mysterious drifter with a mysterious past who was mysteriously hired to mysteriously work as a mysterious cooler at a Missouri bar, mysteriously. The movie also had some great quotes. Anyway, MGM will have to find the 21st century version of Patrick Swayze to star in the movie, whoever that is (Charlie Hunnam, maybe?). The Road House remake will be directed by Rob Cohen, whose filmography includes The Skulls, xXx, Stealth, Alex Cross, and the 2001 version of The Fast and the Furious which launched the franchise. There’s no word yet about remakes of Uncommon Valor, The Outsiders, Ghost, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, but those are pretty much all that’s missing now. Rob Cohen has previously worked twice with Vin Diesel, who made dubious headlines this week with a Facebook comment about Ang Lee possibly directing him in the (previously announced) movie version of Kojak. As far as we know, Ang Lee’s next movie will be the 3D project about great boxing matches.
For more Weekly Ketchup columns by Greg Dean Schmitz, check out the WK archive, and you can contact GDS via Facebook.
