Monday, July 1, 2013

Could Hellboy III Eventually Find A Home At Legendary Pictures?

There’s a lot riding on the box office earnings of Guillermo Del Toro’s $200 million “robots vs. monsters” tentpole flick Pacific Rim, both for the filmmakers and for Legendary Pictures, the production company that footed the majority of the inflated budget. Legendary’s eight-year partnership with Warner Bros. is coming to an end soon – even with non-guaranteed hits like Godzilla and 300: Rise of an Empire coming next year – so the company would be wise to quickly latch itself onto a franchise it can call its own, should any of these films fail to match expectations.

Could that potential franchise Del Toro’s Hellboy series?

Call us cautiously optimistic about this one. ShockTilYouDrop shared some interview tidbits shared by both Del Toro and Hellboy/Pacific Rim star Ron Perlman. Del Toro was understandably less inclined to be overly positive about the prospects.

5 Character Posters for ENDER’S GAME Starring Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, and Harrison Ford

Five character posters have been released for Gavin Hood‘s adaptation of Ender’s Game.  The film tells the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a young boy sent away to Battle School to hone his military skills and, hopefully, save the world from an impending alien invasion.  We previously saw some propaganda-style posters, and we also found out that the movie would have a major presence at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.  These five character posters are kind of bland unless you need a new poster of Harrison Ford glowering at you.  Nothing gets people in the seats like a good Ford glower.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.  The film also stars Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Viola Davis, Khylin Rhambo, Moises Arias, and Ben Kingsley.  Ender’s Game opens November 1st.

'Enter the Dragon' Actor Jim Kelly Dies at 67

The martial artist appeared in films such as "Black Belt Jones" and "Three the Hard Way" in the 1970s.

Jim Kelly, a martial artist famous for his role in the 1973 Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon, died on Saturday of cancer, his ex-wife Marilyn Dishman told the Associated Press.
"Yesterday, June 29, 2013, James Milton Kelly, better known as Jim Kelly, the Karate expert, actor, my first husband and Sabrena Kelly-Lewis's biological father died," Dishman wrote in a Facebook note about his passing. "Sabrena needs all of your good thoughts and prayers. This is a difficult situation to process. Even I am having trouble processing it. Like his mother, there will be no service!"

Kelly starred in numerous martial arts films in the 1970's, including Black Belt Jones, Three the Hard Way and Black Samurai. He later left acting and became a professional tennis player. He appeared in a commercial with NBA star LeBron James in 2004.

Weekend Box Office Wrap Up: June 30, 2013

The heat was on in this weekend’s box office, but nothing could top last week’s number 1.

Monsters University repeats at number 1 this weekend with $46 million. Pixar’s latest was the easy favorite to win the weekend, and only dipped 44% from last weekend. Although the film should stay strong through the July 4th holiday, it has some stiff competition on the horizon in the form of Despicable Me 2.

Not far behind at number 2 is The Heat (read our review) with $40 million. The Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock buddy cop comedy did very well thanks, in part, to the Bridesmaids connection. For those that might not know, The Heat reteams Bridesmaids director Paul Feig with breakout star McCarthy. In fact, The Heat opened with a higher total than Bridesmaids ($26.2 million).

'White House Down': Sony's Second Summer Flop Arrives Amid Call for Spin Off

"This is a negative for what is generally a well-run studio," says one analyst as shareholder Daniel Loeb pushes for a partial spin off of the firm's entertainment businesses.

Over the weekend, Sony Corp.'s film studio was dealt its second box-office disappointment of the summer in the form of action film White House Down as it continues to face a call from activist shareholder Daniel Loeb for a partial spin-off of its entertainment businesses.
The movie, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, opened to a dismal $25.7 million domestically after costing at least $150 million to produce, excluding a $150 million-plus marketing spend.

Meanwhile, Will and Jaden Smith's sci-fi epic After Earth has all but ended its North American theatrical run after four weekends, topping out at only $58 million. Overseas, the Sony film, which was critically panned, has earned only $130.9 million, with its release in China still coming up.

Taylor Kitsch Goes Blonde with Mark Ruffalo and Jonathan Groff in Images from the Set of THE NORMAL HEART

The first images from the set of Glee, American Horror Story, Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy’s upcoming HBO film The Normal Heart have landed online.  Murphy directs the feature film adaptation of the Tony-winning Larry Kramer play of the same name, which chronicles the rise of HIV/AIDS among New York’s gay community in the 1980s.  Kramer wrote the screenplay for the pic, which boasts an impressive ensemble cast that includes Julia Roberts, Mark Ruffalo, Taylor Kitsch, Matt Bomer (White Collar), Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory), and Jonathan Groff (Glee).  In these NYC set photos, we see Ruffalo and a blonde Kitsch sharing a scene together, as well as some possibly spoilery images featuring Kitsch and Groff on the street.

Hit the jump to take a look at the images.  The Normal Heart will premiere on HBO sometime in 2014.

Joss Whedon Wasn’t Initially Sold on ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

Moviegoers around the world are familiarized Iron Man and The Avengers, now that the last two Marvel films featuring them both sit among the top five grossing movies of all-time. With Marvel Studios releasing two films per year theatrically, this fall will see the return of Thor and next spring will bring back Captain America.

After that, the Disney-owned studio heads into uncharted territory with the ambitious Guardians of the Galaxy. While the original Iron Man was considered a risk because – at the time – Tony Stark was a B-list character from the comics, Guardians of the Galaxy up until recently sat several levels deeper into obscurity which makes it the riskiest project from the studio yet.

Darren Aronofsky's Noah Reveals Emma Watson In Dreadlocks

Director Darren Aronofsky is known for making movies with characters whose difficult situations end up warping viewers’ emotions. (I have a hard time believing he’ll ever create anything that comes close to rattling the nerves quite as jaggedly as Ellen Burstyn’s arc in Requiem for a Dream.) Until now, he hasn't been a filmmaker synonymous with secretive productions or tentpole event films. Yet Aronofsky’s Noah, which has a budget somewhere over $130 million, has a plotline that has largely been kept under wraps, which means we’ve gotten very few peeks into the film’s creative process. (This ark skeleton gives a sense of the film's massive scope but not much else.)

Luckily, the Spanish website Fotogramas recently posted not just one new image from the film, but six character stills (Paramount has told us these aren't official, but they look pretty strong to us, so... use your judgment). And I don’t know if the impending disaster or whatever is killing everybody’s moods, but they need not worry about the flood taking their lives, because they’re all already drowning in moroseness. I like the aesthetic of the makeshift burlap clothing though, and how “dirty” everyone seems to look without anyone in this good-looking cast actually having any dirt covering their flawless features.

Fire in the Night: Edinburgh Review

Anthony Wonke's British documentary on the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-rig disaster in the North Sea won the Scottish festival's Audience Award.

A soberly moving account of 1988's 'Piper Alpha' North Sea oil-rig catastrophe that claimed 167 lives, Fire in the Night has the makings of a career breakthrough for veteran documentarian Anthony Wonke. A notable critical and popular success when world-premiering at Edinburgh, it scooped the festival's revived Audience Award just as it was appearing on a small handful of UK screens.
Partly-funded by BBC Scotland, it could obtain further domestic cinema showings in conjunction after television airings on the disaster's anniversary, July 6. Overseas, this straightforward but sensitive account of a man-made nightmare will be of interest to festivals majoring in non-fiction fare, especially in the wake of 2010's well-chronicled Deepwater Horizon horrors in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Quicksilver & Scarlet Witch A ‘Huge Part’ of ‘The Avengers 2′

Disney raised a whole new set of questions over the last few weeks by confirming three release dates for unannounced Marvel Studios films coming in 2016-17, but one of the more interesting mysteries fans still have is regarding two new characters joining Earth’s Mightest in The Avengers 2. It was at the world premiere of Iron Man 3 where Joss Whedon first made public his intentions of including Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, aka Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Within weeks though, X-Men: Days of Future Past director Bryan Singer unveiled over Twitter that he was also introducing Quicksilver (to be played by Even Peters) in Fox’s own cinematic universe. What does that mean for The Avengers 2 and is there any chance that previous interviews with Fox execs expressing interest in working with Marvel are hinting at something more?
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