Thursday, May 23, 2013

The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones Moves Up A Couple Days

When a movie is moved to a Wednesday release date, it typically means one of two things: either it's trying to get a head start on a holiday weekend, or it's trying to catch people's attention during a weekend where there are many competing films vying for the audiences' attention. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is coming out in late August, so you know that there isn't a holiday issue. This story is all about jumping the gun.

Box Office Mojo has learned that Screen Gems has pushed up the release of the young adult novel adaptation, moving it from August 23rd to August 21st. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday it will still be going head-to-head against four other major releases, including Edgar Wright's horror comedy The World's End (which just released a set of posters earlier today) and Adam Wingard's home invasion thriller You're Next and War Kar Wai's martial arts film Grandmasters.

Ken Jeong on Preparing Twitter For The End of ‘Community’

If you tuned in for the recent season 4 finale of NBC and Sony’s quirky further education sitcom Community and found yourself eager to see more of the show, then you’re in luck, because there’s more on the way. Given that Community has been on unsure ground ever since the mid-season 3 hiatus and the departure of showrunner Dan Harmon at the end of that season, quite a few people were surprised at the announcement that the show would return for a fifth season with at least 13 new episodes.

Among the people who were expecting to hear that the show would be dropped – along with The New Normal, Up All Night and several other NBC shows – was star Ken Jeong, who plays former Spanish “professor” Ben Chang.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Sam Neill Talks ‘Jurassic Park 4′; Not Likely to Return as Dr. Alan Grant

Director Michael Bay’s untitled Transformers 3 sequel (a.k.a. Transformers 4) will be one of those movies that blurs the line between what is considered a full-blown reboot and franchise re-tooling. It will not break narrative continuity with the previous Transformers films; yet, it features an entirely new cast of human players and will introduce multiple robots-in-disguise that haven’t made the jump to live-action form before now.

The most-recently developed version of Jurassic Park IV has been described as a similar continuation of the over-arching story set in motion by director Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster - based on the late Michael Crichton’s novel – and its sequels, The Lost World and Jurassic Park III. However, JP4 is expected to stray away from all the previous films’ narrative formula (i.e. humans travel to an island that is populated by dinosaurs, wind up on the dinos’ dinner menu).

Strand Releasing Grabs 'Stranger at the Lake' for North America

The psychological thriller premiered in the Un Certain Regard section.

North American rights to Alain Guiraudie's Stranger at the Lake (L’Inconnu du lac) have been picked up by Los Angeles-based Strand Releasing.
The psychological thriller, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the fest, stars Pierre Deladonchamps as Frank, a young man who find himself attracted to a man (Christophe Paou) who may be a killer.

Zac Efron to Star in NARC As a College Student Turned Police Informant

Fox has picked up the life rights for true crime project, Narc, with Zac Efron (The Paperboy) set to star.  Efron will change it up from his run of rom-coms and play a college kid busted for cocaine who turns rat for the authorities.  He manages to continue his life as a student, fraternity president and lacrosse team captain, all while helping cops bust the bad guys on the downlow.  Deadline reports that Narc is being described as a college version of Donnie Brasco and that Fox will tap a screenwriter from the studio’s writers program.

Hit the jump for the latest news on the crime picture, Travis McGee, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Endless Love Remake Sets Perfectly Fitting Release Date

“And love, oh, love. I’ll be a fool for you, I’m sure. You know I don’t mind. Oh, you know I don’t mind. Cause you, you mean the world to me. Oh, I know. I know I’ve found in you my endless love.” It’s hard to believe that simplistic lyrics like that - from what has turned out to be a pretty timeless love song – weren’t as insipid as the film that inspired it. I’m speaking of course about Franco Zeffirelli’s 1981 film Endless Love, adapted from the more highly regarded 1979 novel by Scott Spencer.

And with the remake coming from Shana Feste (Country Strong), one has to wonder just how dripping-with-romance this film is going to be.I’m pretty sure its new release date is good indication. Deadline reports Universal has set February 14, 2014 for the film’s theatrical release (which is Valentine’s Day for the loveless, soulless skeletons reading). Just how dedicated are they to the that special holiday weekend? It's the same date that is already occupied by two young adult novel adaptations - Wes Ball’s The Maze Runner and Mark Waters’ Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters. All will definitely split the female crowd that the movies are likely shooting to bring in. Sure, some guys will be interested, and others will use the movie date to their advantage, but these all appeal to the same demographic.

New ‘Transformers 4′ Robots & Story Details Revealed

For months, we’ve been hearing that Transformers 4 will be taking Michael Bay’s blockbuster franchise in a new direction – and likely serve as the first installment in a new set of films. So what exactly does this fresh franchise direction entail? A leaked (albeit unconfirmed) plot synopsis suggested that human scientists had successfully reverse engineered the Transformers – opening the door for wild alterations to the robots-in-disguise format.

However, Paramount Pictures was quick to “debunk” the leaked plot – which, as anyone that follows pre-release rumors is aware, doesn’t necessarily mean the details were inaccurate (the studio could simply be spreading misinformation to distract from a later reveal). The only official information available focuses on the various human characters (their actors and backstories) -  without addressing the Transformers 4 storyline or its cybernetic organism cast members. Now, a new rumor could confirm long-running speculation about the upcoming sequel – including the addition of several fan-favorite characters from the G1 series.

Richard Linklater Reveals Criterion Is Releasing SLACKER on Blu-ray; Hopes to Eventually Release a BEFORE Trilogy Blu-ray Box Set

Richard Linklater is one of the more versatile filmmakers working today.  He very much marches to the beat of his own drummer, and his filmography is littered with varied and fascinating projects like Waking Life, School of Rock, Dazed and Confused, and last year’s terrific Bernie.  Now, as Before Midnight—the wonderful and moving sequel to Before Sunrise and Before Sunset—is poised to open in limited release this weekend, Linklater has revealed that the Criterion Collection version of his breakthrough 1991 film Slacker will be released on Blu-ray.

Linklater broke the news while talking to Steve in anticipation of the release of Before Midnight, and the filmmaker also discussed his desire to do a Blu-ray box set of all three Before movies at some point with some new extras.  Hit the jump to read on.

Peter Webber to Direct Rose Tremain's 'The Colour'

The U.K.-New Zealand co-production has been developed by Ray Marshall's Festival Films.

Peter Webber (Emperor, The Girl With The Pearl Earring) will  direct an adaptation of English author Rose Tremain's epic novel, The Colour, which is to be made as a U.K.-New Zealand co-production, the New Zealand Film Commission said Wednesday.
The Colour has been developed by producer Ray Marshall's Festival Films, with support form the New Zealand Film Commission and will be co-produced with New Zealand producer Tim Coddington's Nukuhau Films, reuniting Coddington and Webber who worked together on Emperor.

‘Halo’ Live-Action TV Series From Steven Spielberg Announced

We may have thought that Halo had already missed its chance at moving from the realm of video game into that of live-action storytelling. But at today’s announcement of Microsoft’s next console, the Xbox One, that all changed.

In addition to the games and cross-media integration detailed, Microsoft took the opportunity to capitalize on the success of the live-action – and completely free – Web series Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn by announcing a new live-action Halo television series, created in partnership with developer 343 Industries and Steven Spielberg himself.

Hunger Games' Josh Hutcherson To Star In Psychological Thriller Ape

Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games) has a pretty long and varied resume, bouncing from one genre of movie to the next and regardless of the final product he serves his purpose and usually goes unscathed in criticism. I’m not sure we’ve seen him channel anything that would make him a good lead in a thriller though. But that may soon change.

He’ll have a chance to prove himself in the dark psychological drama Ape, which The Wrap reports he will produce through his JetLag Productions banner along with Bree Herzog’s Atomic Owl Pictures. The script was written by newcomer Jon Johnston, and the film will be directed by Miguel Sapochnik, whose only directorial film credit is 2010’s perfectly average Repo Men. Beyond that, Sapochnik has directed a bunch of TV episodes on series such as House M.D., Fringe and most recently Revolution, and he also helmed the pilot for the upcoming Fox series Mind Games.

Weinstein's Radius Picks Up Keanu Reeves' 'Man Of Tai Chi'

The Weinstein Company's boutique label schedules a fourth quarter release 2013.
Radius-TWC, the Weinstein Company''s self-styled boutique label, has inked a deal for North American rights to Keanu Reeves' directorial debut Man Of Tai Chi.

No financial details were revealed.
Set in modern Beijing, the story follows the spiritual journey of a young martial artist (Tiger Hu Chen) whose unparalleled Tai Chi skills land him in a highly lucrative underworld fight club.  As the fights grow tougher, he must compromise his own beliefs in order to survive.

‘Poltergeist’ Remake Plot Details Revealed; Will Begin Shooting Fall 2013

Apparently there are only so many ways that you can throw a chair across the room before the routine starts to get old, which is perhaps why Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper’s 1982 haunted house movie Poltergeist is the latest piece of classic horror to have a modern remake slated for imminent release.

This project has been kicking around for a long time now, but was recently put back on track by MGM with Nathan Kahane and Roy Lee (two of the producers of Spike Lee’s Oldboy remake) and attached to produce, along with Sam Raimi. Gil Kenan, who is best known for animated family spook movie Monster House, is the latest director to be hired for the project. Barring any more delays, he will be behind the camera when filming gets underway.
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)