In a weird way, this is big news. Sean McNamara - film ick's official Worst Professional Director In The World - is off of the the Legally Blonde sequel Legally Blondes, and Savage Steve Holland is on instead. Will the title get changed? Of course not. But is Holland the kind of creative spirit that McNamara could never dream of being? Yes.
I hope Holland gets back to directing films he's written himself soon.
- Speed Demon is coming up fast. The shoot will take place this summer, Stan Winston is producing and the plot involves an 'underworld enforcer' being chased in the dessert by the titular monster.
- MovieWeb are suggesting that John Cusack won't be reteaming with Savage Steve Holland, but his long-boiling Cosmic Banditos is still on the burner.
- Not only is Wings of the Honneamise coming to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, the Blu-Ray disc will come packaged with a standard DVD edition of the film too. Brilliant.
- Tim Story has been put in charge of the film adaptation of The Losers. According to Variety, the original comic was "was published by DC Comics imprint Vertigo in the 1970s. Strip was revived several years." Not only did Vertigo not exist in the 70s, that second sentence is frighteningly like something I'd write. But we got the general shape of things, right?
- Vadim Perelman is remaking Failan, a Korean mob drama.
- Tea Leoni has signed to join Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear in Ghost Town. Two ou of three 'aint bad (certainly better than the one out of two we were up to yesterday).
- Dreamworks have shelled out for Colin Trevorrow's spec script, Tester.
- There's to be a ficitonalised film based upon A J Jacobs' book The Year of Living Biblically, an account of how Jacobs spent one entire year following the bible absolutely literally - both Old Testament and New. Sounds like Dave Gorman going on a mission to rankle fundamentalists. TV director Julian Farino is to direct, possibly after sorting out What Happens in Vegas with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher.
- A month or so ago, I ran a poster for Major Movie Star, a Jessica Simpson vehicle. The film now has a director (that's right - a poster before pretty much anything else, possibly including a screenplay) and the rather amusing news is that this director will be Steve Miner. Sean McNamara, obviously, was too busy making a film about toys somewhere else and didn't have a spare lunch hour to put in his typical amount of 'effort'.
- Martin Campbell's Unstoppable could be very good - if he keeps his Bond second unit on board.
- Slamdance have put out the call for entries for their short film competition. They've got lots more going on too...
- Midway have coughed up their sponsorship money for the New York Asian Film Festival, after a little arm twisting.
- Wired have listed 10 reasons they believe free pornography doesn't threaten the adult industry. Does any of this apply to the non-porn movie world?
The director of Once Crazy Summer, Better of Dead and How I Got Into College is back from TV and revving up a new feature film - The Big One 3. This will be his first feature film in over 18 years - champagne must be in order, surely? I know I'm very happy about this.
The autobiographical script has been sitting about for a while, but now the money is in place and it's going to happen. According to the producer, Warren Zide, "This is based on a true events in Savage's life. When he was a kid, he had his 13th birthday party and the only one that showed up was a clown, and all that that guy did was hit on his sister."
I've been following Holland's work on TV the best I can (one morning BBC2 showed a Savage Steve episode of Lizzy McGuire followed by a Steve DeJarnatt one and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry) but it's his two self-written comedies, Dead and Summer that really count. This will be his third, making a loose kind of trilogy. I dare say this will have some animated sequences in it too. At least I hope so. And is he still in touch with Curtis Armstrong? Or Bobcat Goldthwait? John Cusack would be too much to expect though... surely?
Oh... and, no, this isn't a second sequel to The Big One. Hardy har.
