WATCHING THE WATCHMEN
Our first really decent looks at Watchmen characters (besides Rorschach who has been leaked a little previously) came this week as the official site revealed AWESOME promotional shots of The Comedian, Ozymandias, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre and Rorschach in costumes that I’m going to guess are from their younger “glory days” (the movie’s story spans quite a few years in our heroes’ lives).
X-MEN ORIGINS: LUNCH
Not quite as impressive are the dozens of pictures of Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber standing around in military-style costumes at the crafts services table. We already know what Jackman looks like as Wolverine, so this is not that big of a deal in that respect, but it is interesting to see Liev Schreiber with long sideburns and claws as Sabretooth. Schreiber doesn’t look that much like many renditions of Sabretooth (for one thing, he’s not blonde), but I think this is obviously a sign that they are emphasizing acting chops over Sabretooth just being a slobbering beast (AKA the Tyler Mane version in the first X-Men).
ANIMALS VS HUMANS
Columbia Pictures (Sony) and producer Neil Moritz (I Am Legend, XXX, The Fast and the Furious) announced plans this week for a high concept horror thriller project that sounds to me like if it is done right, could have HUGE potential. Like Jaws 30+ years ago, it has a simple title: Animals, and a similar, but much larger concept: what if all of the animals of the world collectively decided to rebel against mankind’s control of the world by wiping us out violently? We take it for granted that we don’t have to come in contact with other species very often, I think, but if the bugs, bears and such of the world decided to get all up in our grills, we’d be toast.
JAMES CAMERON’S AVATAR HAS TITULAR COMPETITION
I’ve received a tip that M. Night Shyamalan‘s live action adaption of the popular anime series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, is preparing to start production in Pennsylvania (where he makes all of his movies) this June, 2008, which could conceivably put it in a position to come out around the time that James Cameron‘s Avatar (no subtitle) is scheduled next summer. I honestly know nothing about the anime series, but from what I can tell, it is set in a magical world divided into lands devoted to the four elements (air, earth, fire, water), and monks who devote themselves to the powers of each (as well as martial arts) are involved in a war amongst each other. If I’m horribly off in that description, I’m sure someone will tell us!
WELCOME TO THE HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA… SUCH A SCARY PLACE
Sony Animation announced new plans this week for a project they’ve been working on for years: Hotel Transylvania, which will be a CGI animated project from the same company that did Open Season. The horror-themed romantic comedy will tell the Romeo & Juliet-esque tale that evolves between one of the heirs of the Van Helsing monster hunting family, and a daughter of Count Dracula. Plenty of other monsters will also be featured as well.
DISNEY SEQUELS
A scooper writing in to Ain’t it Cool News revealed what might be Walt Disney Pictures’ big plans for 2011, and they include four high profile sequels: Pirates of the Caribbean 4, National Treasure 3, Cars 2 and a new TRON that would be 3-D.
ROSEMARY’S BABY: THE REBIRTH
Continuing their ravagi… err, “reimaginings” of classic horror properties, ShockTilYouDrop.com reported this week that Michael Bay‘s Platinum Dunes production company is now targeting Roman Polanski‘s very disturbing Rosemary’s Baby. Although it probably seems quite quaint now, that doesn’t mean it needs to be “modernized”, but no doubt we’ll see Polaski’s nuance replaced with gore and monstrosities by late 2010 or so.
4 FAST, 4 FURIOUS
The second and third movies seemed to focus on newer characters being introduced, but for the 4th Fast and the Furious movie, it’s more of a family reunion, with Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Michelle Rodriguez, all of whom were in the first movie, now signed on, with unconfirmed rumors that Jordana Brewster may also return. Whatever clever title they might eventually come up, the release date is scheduled for June 5th, 2009. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fast_and_the_furious_4/news/1680385/
That’s it for this week. Write me via my MySpace page with any hot news or whatever you want to share: http://www.myspace.com/gregdean88.
Greg Dean Schmitz
