Is Frank Darabont going to be three for three in Stepen King adaptations? It certainly looks like it. Rob Reiner: the gauntlet has been thrown down.
Check out the very encouraging trailer for The Mist in middling, biggish and large sizes, as well as 480p, 720p and 1080p.
Right click and rename the file something like themajesticisunderrated.mov or (.wmv for the smaller ones) or similar to ensure it works.
This is going to take me most of the morning, most likely. I must really love you - all of you.
- SuperHeroHype have a cast line-up photo from Iron Man, weird, posed thing that it is.
- Is there to be a woman president on the 2008 season of 24?
- Uwe Boll's Bloodrayne 2 has been denied an R rating by the MPAA. So, whatever it is, it is also more 'adult' than, say, Hostel 2.
- Thor Freudenthal is to direct family film of Lois Duncan's Hotel For Dogs from an adaptation by Jeff Lowell.
- Wes Craven is suing Pauly Shore. That's one dream team we'll never see work together then. I hope Alexander Payne and Carrot Top get to collaborate before some kind of legal entanglement wrecks my dreams there too.
- Stephen King doesn't like the idea of Captivity. Neither does he like Kubrick's The Shining. At least he gives some idea of what upset him about The Shining, whereas Captivity apparently just 'goes too far'. Oh - and he's wrong. Kubricks' film is leaps and bounds ahead of the original book.
- Len Wiseman wants to direct Wolverine. The only thing keeping pen from paper must be the wait for Die Hard 4's opening numbers.
- MTV have some Shaw Bros. clips that are probably very worth watching, including one with commentary by Quentin Tarantino - but I don't know for sure as I'm in the UK, so they won't work for me. Sigh.
- The transfer of Criterion's Berlin Alexanderplatz set has met criticism, but has been easily, and conclusively defended.
- The Princess and the Frog's story reels run to 90 minutes and have been well received. Apparently, the film has a twist ending... place your bets now.
- Mamoru Oshii's next film is to be The Sky Crawlers, adapted from Hiroshi Mori's books. The anti-war fantasy features hothoused teen soldiers sent to die in wars that exist only to entertain. Oshii promises a love story in the midst of the satire and action.
- Enchanted is being seen as the starting point for a new franchise.
- Alex Cox has turned his unprodcued Repo Man sequel script, Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday into a comic book. I saw the link at TheBeat.
- Michael Bay wasn't a Transformers fan before taking the job. Of course not - but I wonder if this has rankled some fanboys?
- Daniel Benmayor's PSP commerical is like Peter Pan meets Parkour. I foudn the link at Feed.
- Openin casting calls are being held for two youthful roles in Harry Potter 6.
- Angela Bassett will star as Brenda, a Chicago single mother, in the next Tyler Perry film, Meet the Browns.
- Amy Adams is in negotiations to take the key role in John Patrick Shanley's film of his own play, Doubt. Her character is to get caught up in a tense, angry confrontation between those played by Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
- CAA mailboy Ben Dey pitched the comedy Coma Boy to Brian Grazer, and now it's to be a film.
- Lee Hall is adapting the Children of the Lamp books for Dreamworks. They're fantastical family sagas revolving around a dynasty of genies.
- Howard Deutch is to direct Bachelor No. 2, with Kate Hudson and Dane Cook in the lead roles.
- Suzie Templeton's Peter and the Wolf nabbed the big prizes at Annecy. See her previous film, Stanley and Dog for a (reputedly far less impressive, but impressive nonetheless) taste of her stop-motion skills.
- IESB have noted that John Carter of Mars is to be live action but feature animation. That's like almost every genre film these days, surely? Shot in live action, augmented with CG?
- The Scarecrow has been snapped on the Dark Knight set. So that settles that. Apparently.
- Just to be clear: Frank Miller isn't necessarily directing Trouble is My Middle Name. TheBeat wanted to make that absolutely clear.
- The NC17 rating for Hatchet has been overturned.
- Timothy Olyphant and Xavier Gens have given a Hitman interview.
- John Krasinski seems to be up for the Fletch role. So, what about Joshua Jackson?
- Alicia Keys' Big Pita, Little Pita are to produce Catfish, the story of the woman behind the biggest strike in US history.
- Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl is now set up to be a film from the Montecito Production Co.
- The Weinsteins are coughing up for a series of English language, made-in-Hong-Kong action films. Apparently, wire work will be kept to a minimum - and I know somebody who will be pleased about that.
- Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby are adapting Cowboys and Aliens into a feature script.
- My Zinc Bed is to star Uma Thurman, Paddy Considine and Jonathan Pryce - three out of three, I'd say. Anthony Page is to direct while David Hare is writing from his own play.
- Satoshi Kon has spoken to The Washington Post. Read it.
- Indiana Jones is headed to Hawaii.
- Images of an Alien/Predator combo turned up online. Not from Aliens vs. Predator 2, as it happens, but just a fake.
- Eddie Murphy is the father of Mel Brown's baby after all. What a surprise.
- You can watch Robot Chicken's Star Wars special with video commentary now.
- The Young Ones is returning to DVD, with new bonus features.
- David Strathairn is to appear in the American Tale of Two Sisters.
And, yes, I was right, this took hours.
An anonymous tell-tale is promising us a whole lot over at their new blog. Excitingly, this is somebody contracted to be involved with the entire Dark Tower series of films, the first of which (they say) begins shooting on 22nd June under director JJ Abrams. If the blogger is good to their promise, they should be an incredibly good source for inside info on the film - and eventual sequels.
I'll give you a taster, but there's more on the blog, so do pop over - and tell them who sent you.
Recently, I was signed in a very secretive project after an obscure audition... this has turned out to be so immensely HUGE, I am absolutely floored by it.
Stephen King's Dark Tower series begins filming on June 22nd at Paramount studios in Hollywood. There are so many details that I do NOT know at this point, but I do know that I am contracted for all of the books/films and it is by far the largest budget film series ever to be produced by Hollywood.
I look forward to sharing the experience as well as tidbits of information with those who may read this.
It has slipped out in interview that the release version of 1408 features a different ending to the one originally filmed.
I know what each of the endings were - at least according to an e-mail I've received (which I think is supposed to remain anonymous). The remainder of this post is to be spoiler material, I'm afraid.
Cusack's Enslin character starts a fire in room 1408. In the originally filmed ending, he dies. After his funeral, Jackson's Olin finds the dictaphone recording of his experience. This was tested and reshot, apparently proving too much of a downer. Indeed, sveral endings were tried, before the release one was settled upon.
In this approved version, Enslin and his wife move into a beach house, having physically survived, but is tortured by his memories of what went on in the hotel room. This is similar to the short story as published, but whereas that plays as quite extreme - the man now as mad as the hotel room once was - this is likely to be toned down somewhat.
Even the rejected 'director's cut' version with the fire was created under heavy Weinstein control, and from what I've heard, Halfstrom has had a terrible time dealing with their insidious influence and grasping ways.
As expected.
The two versions are expected to play as full features, probably via branching, on the DVD release, though many, many more deleted scenes - both from the conclusion and elsewhere - are likely to be included as standalone items.
I'm a Scott Alexander and Larry Karazewski fan, not a Weinstein fan, so obviously, I'm not pleased to be hearing all of these details. None of this is much of a surprise, of course, but it is still very sad.
Michael Felsher has told Fangoria all about his plans for the UK R2 Creepshow DVD due before Halloween this year. Sorry, my American friends.
There's a commentary track from Romero and Savini; a deleted scene in which Ted Danson's severed hand comes after Leslie Nielsen; a retrospective documentary featuring many of the film's contributors.
Felsher also reveals his plans for a documentary on Faces of Death - the original, I assume - and his involvement in the Diary of the Dead DVD. All good stuff.
