Movie Minesweeper - The Plant A Flag In Hollywoodland Edition

- JoBlo appear to have the first image of an 'alien' from James Cameron's Avatar.

- James McTeigue is attached to direct an adaptation of John Burdett's novel Bangkok 8. The synopsis at Variety makes it sound like a cross between Taxi Driver and The General's Daughter gone Thai. Maybe. The piece also states that McTeigue was an uncredited director on The Invasion - as well as or instead of the Wachowski Bros. I wonder?

- William Wisher is to script the World War II drama Escape of the Pacific Clipper. I see a formation of Second World War aerial actioners coming over the horizon. Will they bomb? (Pun intended).

- Spike Lee is directing Stalag 17 on Broadway.

- More WWII shenanigans with The Lost Squad. The big screen adaptation of the Chris Kirby comic book is to be written and directed by Saint and Mather - or, to give them their full names, Stephen St. Leger and James Mather. You can download a trailer for their short film Prey Alone or check out storyboards and more at the Saint and Mather site. Personally, I'm not impressed. At all.

- David Ondaatje's remake of Hitchcock's The Lodger is set up to go at Sony. Apparently using the same source material as Hitch - Marie Belloc Lownde's novel - this version will, all the same, be updated to a present day LA setting. If you know the passwords (sorry - can't help you, but help me if you can) you can watch some of Ondaatje's shorts online, including the documentary Undressing Hitchcock and Hitch pastiche Waiting for Dr. Maguffin.

- Nostradamus nonsense ahoy in the comic book adaptation The Foundation. Paramount have snapped up the rights and assigned two of the publisher production duties on the film.

- The Fantasia Fest line-up has been unveiled.

- Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. have renewed their pact, with a fresh 1 billion dollar cash injection. Some of this seems set to be wasted on a World of Warcraft movie.

- Djimon Honsou has signed to star in Jeff Wadlow's Get Some. I dare say he won't be taking the lead role of a 'rebellious teen' who joins an underground fight club.

- Rialto Pictures are the leading lights in US theatrical reissues. The Museum of Modern Art in New York is to celebrate the distributor's tenth anniversary by screening a retrospective of their releases. Seventeen films are on the program - I don't know which seventeen, but the full catalogue is online. Some of the greatest films I've ever seen are in that line-up (plus a few heaps of Godard).

- Envoys of the Weinstein company are phoning up members of the public and telling them to go and see Sicko.

- John Turturro has based his performance in Transformers on Michael Bay.

- Charles Hyer is directing the first Eloise film in a proposed series adapted from the beloved kids' books. This one will come from Eloise in Paris with Eloise Goes to Hollywood lined up as the first sequel.

- I'm sure I already told you that Laurence Fishburne is writing and will direct a movie of The Alchemist.

- Paul Giamatti and Emily Mortimer are set to star in Pretty Bird.

- Download the script for No Country For Old Men and marvel.

- Capone at AintItCool has interviewed Steve Zahn. I love Steve Zahn.

- IGN have penned an update on the progress of the JLA film. Personally, I think we'll see a Superman Returns sequel first - easier to cast, for one thing - but, well, nobody knows for certain.

- Paramount are sneaking in some screenings of Transformers next Monday, screenings that are seemingly entwined with an alleged attempt to cook the books.

- Disney are launching a Ratatouille wine.

- According to Jeffrey Wells, Russell Crowe is to star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Ridley Scott's Penetration.

- The DVD specs for Eaten Alive are out.

- Nintendo are expected to unveil WiiWare today - a shopping channel for original, downloadable games. Indie developers will be welcome.

- There are 11 Harry Potter 5 clips online now.

- Warners are to make a series of tween-centric direct-to-DVD films from the Clique books.

- For one day only: Palm Pictures will be streaming The Method online on June 29th. That's tomorrow, as I write. The film is, apparently, really rather good indeed.

- Richard LaGravanese and Hanif Kureishi have tied for the feature film award at the Humanitas awards this year.

James Cameron's Heart Shaped Glasses?

A 34-second preview of what may be the latest directorial project from James Cameron is online now. It's full of gore, goth make-up and snog action - it just so happens to be a clip from Marilyn Manson's Heart Shaped Glasses video. If I'm not very much mistaken, the lyrics are referring to one Rose McGowan.

Apparently this clip, and indeed the whole video, are just part of a bigger project, a long form clip of some kind, that Manson and Cameron are reportedly making together. Better still, the project is apparently being shot in 3D and will premiere some of the technology developed for Avatar.

As yet, however, none of this is official. Can you see the hand of Cameron in this brief clip? I certainly couldn't - though it gave me almost nothing to go on and I really can't rule out his involvement either.

Colour Blind Avatar Fake

Logan sent me the attached Avatar teaser poster. It's a fake. For sure. How do I know? Click on it to make it bigger. Look down in the bottom right hand corner. See the 3D logo? Those are anaglyph glasses. The blue and red kind.

That's Flintstones technology in comparison to the process Cameron is employing. This poster was not only faked, it was faked by somebody who hasn't realised yet that Real-D has taken the old anaglyphic version of stereo cinema and poked both of it's eyes out.

Forget the red-blue specs. Forever. They're dead - and I say good riddance.

Camera Chat

There's a nice video on Google that explains why the new generation of 3D cameras is much better than the old ones. James Cameron is name dropped every few seconds.

Avatar Comes Crawling From The Wreckage

Here's the Avatar picture that you can't see on Aint it Cool anymore - apparently as their server has melted down and killed 48 hours worth of stories and talkbacks.

What can you see in this pic? Does it look like a fake-up to you? Get your magnifying glass out...


[EDIT: I think the consensus is, this is a clever-ish fake. Certainly a time-consuming one]

James Cameron's Avatar The MMORPG

This comes from Business Week:

Cameron is in the midst of his latest film project, Avatar, which is his most technologically innovative film to date. The futuristic movie about an ex-Marine will be released in 2009 simultaneously with a massive, multiplayer, video game based on the film.

The revealed more of the plan in a previous article.

3D Wars

The Real D process works, and works well.

In just a couple of weeks, Meet the Robinsons will bow in both flat ol' 2D and, at upwards of 600 locations, gorgeous new 3D; Beowulf is to come in both 2 and 3 dimensions this Autumn; next year, Brendan Fraser will go on Journey 3D; James Cameron's Avatar is to be released only in 3D, using the Real D process for every screening outside of Imax; Dreamworks animation have now announced that they will be entirely Real D compliant from 2009 onwards.

The first Dreamworks film to launch exclusively in this format will be Monsters vs Aliens - pre-production art from which you can see up top. The Dreamworks trumping geniuses at Pixar are bound to begin releasing in Real D sooner rather than later, I feel - though they've expressed some doubt about how suitable the format is for the films they already have in development.

If you ask me, it's looking pretty rosy for Real D - which makes Dolby's new system announcement seem perhaps too much like too little, too late.

Dolby 3D Digital Cinema has one asset over Real D, which is that it should be a touch cheaper to install. For the Dolby process a simple white screen will suffice, whereas Real D requires a very shiny, silvered surface. Of course, without looking at the new system in action, I won't know myself for sure, but this does also indicate a likelihood of lower picture quality for the Dolby set-up.

If it comes to a fight, I'm pretty sure Real D will come out on top. They have a very long lead, and commitments stretching some years into the future.

Sigourney Weaver In Avatar

Just a quick update, touching on a rapidly well-covered subject, but one I do care about... and it does give me a chance to put this darn Hot Fuzz review off for a while longer, the better to word it as nicely as possible (I mean, it was very good and all but... well... talk about a disappointment... Edgar and Simon can do so much better than this one)

Sigourney Weaver is on the cast of James Cameron's Avatar. Aint it Cool have mentioned this, and Weaver herself talked about it - in French, on French TV. That's very interesting, don't you think? Weaver in Avatar?

Now... back to this Hot Fuzz review...

Shyamalan Bending Air Toon Style

M. Night Shyamalan is off to a fantastical pseudo-asian world of elemental conjuring and mystical beasts - and I don't mean he's signed a deal with Sony.

Set up at Paramount, Shyamalan's next project looks set to be a live action adaptation of a cartoon action adventure series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. I didn't spot this twist coming, I have to admit. He's going to producer, write and direct the film, with two potential sequels lined up if the first is a sufficiently sized hit. His source material is, I'm told, something quite special - so now, I suppose, I'm going to have to check it out as soon as possible.

Of course, James Cameron's new movie is to be called Avatar too, and already Paramount and Fox - the films' respective studios - are amping up the fighting talk. Quoted in Variety, Paramount claim to have registed Avatar: The Last Airbender for Shyamalan, while Fox say, quite clearly, "We own the movie title Avatar. There won't be another film called Avatar coming from anyplace."

Shyamalan lost his title battle last time, having to opt for The Village while Lucky McKee was given use of it's original moniker, The Woods.

We might not be sure what they're called yet, but I think we're looking at two of 2009's better studio movies here. Excellent.

James Cameron On Avatar

Thanks to Chud, I found a new interview with James Cameron in The Independent. He talks up Avatar, his approach to film directing, and the exodus. You know - the biblical one, let my people go, etc.

Apparently, performance capture work has been underway for 14 months already - although Avatar won't be released until 2009. That's going to be one expensive film.