Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass seems to be one of the projects of the moment -- either because it's a super slow news time or because Mark Millar has taken over the Internet. I suspect the latter.
When this movie was officially pushed into gear, much was made of the violence of Millar's book, and how Vaughn refused to tone it down for the film. Studios fled screaming from it. But according to Nicolas Cage, it's not going to be excessive. "When I said 'yes' to this movie, it was to a script," Cage told MTV. "Then I started seeing the comics which are pretty far out in terms of violence. But I think Matthew and the script have a different style to it. I'm not fond of gratuitous violence ... There will be some moments of action that will be violent, but there will be a sense of elegance to it. [Matthew Vaughn] doesn't want to get gratuitous with it. At least that's what Matthew has told me."
Now, perhaps this is all a matter of perspective -- what studios see as over-the-top and gratuitous, Vaughn and Cage don't. But on the snap judgment surface, it sounds as though Vaughn is watering down Millar's book, which is hard to believe when he was so dedicated to the blood and guts that he funded it himself. I want him to stick to his guns (no pun intended) and make the movie that shocked studio executives. My future katana-wielding daughter must be portrayed accurately, in all her foul-mouthed and blood drenched glory. (For the record, I trained her, not her father. As if I would trust such a delicate task to anyone else.)
No more speculation, no more talk of ret-con and false funerals -- Harvey Dent is officially 100% dead. It comes straight from the mouth of Aaron Eckhart, who revealed his character's fate in no uncertain terms to ComingSoon.net "He is dead as a door nail. He ain't coming back baby!"
And lest you doubt that he knows the mind of Christopher Nolan, well, Eckhart asked him whether Two-Face would ever be coming back. "I asked Chris [Nolan] that question and he goes, "You're dead" before I could even get the question out of my mouth. 'Hey Chris, am I?' 'You're dead!' 'Alright, cool.'" There's no chance it will be rewritten or retconned, as he was never even contracted for a third film. "No, I'm not coming back. I think unfortunately, Heath [Ledger] was supposed to go on and that didn't work out. I'm nobody. I'm a cog. I have no say over this sort of stuff. I'm sure that there's so many other characters that they could whip together. I heard Angelina Jolie was going to be Catwoman or something like that. I thought that was a great idea. I'd like to be in that one."
Dent's death has now been confirmed via the novelization, the script, the actor, and the director. Though I would say that's as definitive as it gets, fanboys and girls across this great Internet refuse to accept it -- they just believe in Harvey Dent too much. But since we do live in a world where no comic character stays dead, where 299 Spartans can rise again, and Chev Chelios survives a fall from a helicopter, I guess you can hardly blame them.
The Green Lantern movie seems to be creeping very slowly to the pre-production line, but at least it isn't dead. You probably remember that we had a tiny update back in June that it was happily shaping up into a proper origin movie, rather than a slapstick version starring Jack Black. Now, courtesy of illustrator Brian Murray, comes concept art he created for scriptwriter (and potential director) Greg Berlanti. This art helped seal the deal, and win the franchise for Berlanti Television. A glance through the gallery below tells you why -- it's exciting and cinematic, the kind of thing your mind starts filling in and speeding up. If this is what is floating around at Warner Bros, Green Lantern could be shaping up to be something on par with Iron Man. But my desperation to talk about another DC character other than Batman may be showing. The diehard Lantern fans may have a different take than I -- is this the look of Hal Jordan to you?
I might have been raised on the old maxim: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all -- but even I can't keep my mouth shut on this one. A new poster and some stills from the live-action Dragonball have hit the net (along with some official pics from Fox), and it is not looking any better for the anime update. If you are one of the few Dragonball fans left out there with hope for this movie, I'm afraid once you get a look at James Marsters as Lord Piccolo, the dream of a decent flick goes right out the window. Although to be fair, I have to give them credit for trying out a slightly more 'modern' look on the new poster art.
Dragonball stars Justin Chatwin as the mighty Goku (a casting decision that has yet to ever really make sense), a legendary warrior who is responsible for protecting the awesome powers of the mystical 'Dragonballs'. Jamie Chung also stars as Chi Chi (Goku's love interest), along with Marsters as the evil Lord Piccolo (oh Spike, where did it all go wrong?), Chow Yun Fat as Master Roshi, and Emmy Rossum as Bulma.
Just last week, the rumors were silenced that Fox would be scrapping the one hundred million dollar film. The current spin from Fox is that they are 100% behind the project -- but honestly, what else could they say? So whatever you may think about Dragonball, plenty of fans will probably be there on opening day. Who knows? Maybe I'll be one of them. I have been known to enjoy watching a train wreck on screen -- how about you?
Despite being seemingly obligated by demographic alone to enjoy it, I didn't particularly care for Michael Bay's Transformers, even after a recent second look on the small screen. Regardless, the people have spoken with their wallets, and Transformers 2: Revenge of the Ka-Ching is well underway for its release next summer.
Embedded above is the first of several behind-the-scenes videos that Wal-Mart will be providing in the coming months, and right from the get-go, the visionary Bay talks about not only making a sequel that'll make kids' dreams, but also sticking his custom-made Nikes up the collective ass of his crew. Watch as "Bay-os" and "Bay-hem" ensue in Bethlehem, PA, with fast bikes, nice cars, and big booms...
Heck, just about the only thing missing from this two-minute taste is some sweet hand-injury action.
It's so creepy when something you just found yourself chatting about with a fellow geek pops up in your newsfeed -- proof that Magdalena does answer to a higher power! If you were praying for an update, MTV has not one, but an entire week they're devoting to the spear-wielding superheroine.
MTV has a video interview up with the lovely Jenna Dewan, who's playing Patience, the most recent inheritor of the Magdalena powers. According to her, they're following the comic book pretty closely except for one touchy area -- while honoring Magdalena's heritage and bloodline, they're sidestepping the religious element of the book. "When I started this I said I didn't want it to be a religious movie - the Catholic Church versus everyone else. I wanted it to be somebody who knows she has something inside bigger [than herself], this spiritual want to help people," Dewan said. "That's really what we're focusing on - fighting the darkness for the light, rather than the Catholic Church and religion. There is that element of it but it's more about fighting people who are evil in this world."
Now, I always thought of the Magdalena as the girl version of Stephen Sommers' Gabriel Van Helsing and not particularly controversial, but we do live in touchier, Golden Compass censoring times. As Dewan points out, Patience is one of the only Magdalenas who questions the authority of the Church and decided she would work independent of its control. Wouldn't it have been cool to see that religious conflict onscreen? Ah well. My previous jokes about chastity and skimpy costumes aside, I'm happy to see Gale Anne Hurd bringing another tough chick (and one from the comics, no less) to the screen -- with or without the sacrilege.
The date has been set for Warner Bros and Fox to go head to head -- and it should soothe the fearful. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studios will be going before the judge on January 6th. There's plenty of time, even at a snail's pace, for the issue to be resolved before the March 6th opening. (It's like the court is going along with the movie marketing -- we'll get a video journal the same day. There really is no such thing as bad publicity in Tinseltown!)
Furthermore, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allan Feess says that Fox shouldn't attempt to file a preliminary injunction against Warners to stop the release of the film because the issues surrounding the case were too complex to be solved in an interim basis. Instead, both studios are being ordered to put their cases together, and start expedited discovery and depositions. This thing could get quite big -- as the New York Times pointed out, Paramount, Legendary Pictures, and even Universal could get hauled into it, alongside Lawrence Gordon, who's really the man in question in all this.
And remember, this is if it actually makes it to court. This could easily be settled before Christmas, with Warners handing over a nice chunk of The Dark Knight change just to be done with it. (How appropriate that Bruce Wayne help out other costumed vigilantes.) It depends how fierce the studio is feeling, and how certain they are of their case -- but all signs point to you keeping your March 6th moviegoing plans.
You really have to feel bad for the cast and crew on this one, though. All that happy buzz of ComicCon panels and promo posters squashed under a heap of legalese. Oh well, at least Fox can't take away what we've already been given. Check out our Watchmen gallery below.
While you suffer through those back to school blues ...
Guitar Hero: The Movie -- I have to start with this one. Have to! Because not only are we talking about a possible big-screen movie based on the popular video game, but we're also about to tell you who wants to direct the thing. Can you guess? Here's a hint: It's not Uwe Boll. And if it's not Boll, it has to be ... Ratner! YES! (I really do think I love this maniac in a totally platonic, yet sadistic way -- sorta how you love a great movie villain.) Anyway, Brett Ratner tells MTV that he'd love to make a Guitar Hero movie, possibly about "a kid from a small town who dreams of being a rock star and he wins the 'Guitar Hero' competition. One of these dreams-[come-true] kind of concepts." Ratner adds, "I would love to do a 'Guitar Hero' movie, if Activision would ever let me. I'm trying to convince them, but why would you have a movie screw up such a huge franchise? Not that I would make a bad movie. So that would be cool, to do a 'Guitar Hero' movie. " I'm leaving this one to you, folks -- have at it! Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time:In case you're interested in seeing what a standard Persian-esque set looks like, Korben.info has put up a few select shots (see one above) of the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time set. Based on the popular video game (hurray for themes in posts!), Prince of Persia stars Jake "I didn't know he was Persian" Gyllenhaal as a young prince who teams up with a hottie princess (Gemma Arterton) to stop an evil ruler from doing evil things.
A director has been chosen to remake Poltergeist and Cinematical says we likey him ... after the jump ...
It's definitely no secret that writer Mark Millar is a wanted man these days (or at least he wants you to believe he's a wanted man), what with his comic series Wanted doing very well in theaters and another series of his, Kick-Ass,about to start production -- not to mention all this talk of the guy possibly taking over the Superman franchise from a writing and creative standpoint. We'll get to the latter in just a second, but first up there's Wanted ... and Wanted 2 ... and, wait, Wanted 3, too?
In an interview with Newsarama, Millar spoke about how much he's participating in the Wanted follow-up ... and it would seem like he only gave the studio a "very small amount for a story, and that will be used as a basic story that they can build from." He adds, "It will be some of the stuff that we didn't utilize from the first book for the movie – like chapters three and four – there will be some stuff from that, so in the loosest sense it will be based on the book, but only very little." Millar also noted that both part two and part three are greenlit, and that James McAvoy is indeed signed on to reprise his role in both sequels.
Hear what Millar has to say about his proposed seven-hour, Lord of the Rings-like Superman trilogy after the jump ...
With the DNC (three cheers for my hosting hometown, by the way!), holiday weekends, and hurricanes, there's not much to spin a column out of this week. I spent my holiday overdosing on back issues of Wolverine and Warren Ellis' Astonishing X-Men because oh happy day, I have a comic slot again! My supply line has been cut off for the last year, and as I refuse to pay anyone (even independent publishers) $6.00 to ship a single issue, I've lived in a drought.
In the midst of all this overdosing, I stumbled across this charming article by Brad Meltzer about why he loves Superman. Immediately I thought about what I would answer if posed a similar question by USA Weekend, and realized to my horror that I lacked such a lifelong bond. Everyone knows my favorite hero is the one with the admantium skeleton, but I can't pretend that he's been a lifelong love affair. Why, I never really had a superhero in my childhood. Why not?
Last month, Elisabeth alerted you to the legal turmoil bubbling around Watchmen. Basically, 20th Century Fox used to have the rights, and claim they still have them, so they're trying to prevent Warner Brothers from releasing the eagerly awaited film. Warner Brothers, meanwhile, claims that Fox has sat silently until the film was set to go, knowing full well what was happening.
Now The New York Times says that Warner is pushing for a trial date of April, with Fox pushing for June. Assuming that the film can't be released until this is cleared up, we might not only not get Watchmen in March, but also not in the summer of 2009. Will we have to wait until 2010? I don't want to think about it. There's a whole swarm of moviegoers peeved about the Harry Potter delay. I can't imagine what a year-long delay would do to Watchmen fiends. Where's Doctor Manhattan when you need him? Or a jail-storming Nite Owl and Silk Spectre?
You might think Fantastic Fest announces their annual line-up in three big chunks so they can get a little extra press, right? (Hell, if that technique is good enough for Toronto, then it's good enough for Fantastic Fest!) That's a small part of it, but the main reason Tim League announces his slate in three big chunks -- is because he's busy trolling the planet up until the very last minute, looking for good movies. (In the past month he's been to Korea, Turkey, and PORTLAND!)
If you're looking for FF Batch One or Batch Two, you can find those here and here OR at the official FF website ... but if you want the final batch, well, you'll find that right here. As usual I'll include the full press release after the jump, but not before mentioning new Fanty* additions like Fanboys (my review here), JT Petty's The Burrowers, The Good, the Bad, and the Weird (which is so good it's playing Telluride, Toronto AND Fantastic Fest), Alien Raiders (aka Supermarket), and the long-awaited Repo! A Genetic Opera from Saw-lord Darren Lynn Bousman.
Woohoo! Not one holocaust documentary or 165-minute French political drama at this festival, folks! And of course you should expect a few last-minute surprises. This is, after all, the festival that scored (way) early screenings of Apocalypto, Persepolis, Southland Tales, Pan's Labyrinth, There Will Be Blood, and ... um ... Postal. FF begins on September 18, and you know who'll be covering for us? The ultra-mega-stellar awesome team of Goss, Martin, Kernion & Weinberg. And we take our genre stuff very seriously.
At last, the focus of at least one obsessive Batman 3 rumor has adressed. Johnny Depp was recently on a Florida radio show promoting the reunion show of his band, The Kids. (I know how the girls love Johnny, you can listen to the entire interview in two parts here.) A persistent fan called into the station to remind them to ask Depp about playing the Riddler for Christopher Nolan.
Depp's answer was essentially a denial and as enigmatic as well, the Riddler. "Oh yeah I heard about that. Not that I know of. It seems like it'd be a fun gig for a while, yeah."
A denial isn't surprising since we know Nolan isn't even signed, let alone writing or casting. But given that the rumor machine is going regardless of that fact, here's more fuel for the fire. There's no doubt Depp would do a fine job. He could probably play me to perfection. And he's open to taking just about any role that interests him. So, those of you keeping score can mark Depp as "interested" and various news agencies that don't read these things carefully can report it as "confirmed." For my part, I'm going to go ahead and tell my sister that Depp is "totally doing Batman 3" because that's one way to interest her in the franchise. Except then she'll start working on a Riddler costume for a certain lookalike. Never mind, then.
It's difficult (and a little silly) to try and judge an entire quarter-year's movies in one lump sum -- but that's what we seem to do at the end of every Summer Movie Season. That's when all our excitement, expectations, and final reactions come colliding together and we find ourselves thinking: "Was I actually looking forward to that piece of crap for four months?" But to me, each summer is like a walk through a carnival: Some of the attractions dazzle me, others simply don't interest me, and a few are just a waste of tickets. But once early May rolls around, I'm always ready for another trip to the Hollywood Movie Carnival. (It's where you find all the tentpoles!)
So while I'm elated to greet the upcoming season of "prestige movies," there's little denying that we've had one hell of a good summer, cinematical-ly speaking. I'm not talking about box office grosses, because frankly that stuff is so unimportant. What matters is that we got some good flicks, a few pieces of mindless (yet well-made) popcorn adventures, and even a few great films that will enjoy a very long shelf life. So while I'm not exactly sure that 2008 represents the finest Summer Movie Season of all time, I'd definitely say it was more good than bad. But if you can think of a summer that was better than this one, you know where to throw your comments. (In the comments section.)
Just one week after news surfaced that the big-screen Voltron was going into turnaround with Fox's Relativity Media, Latino Review is now reporting that Max Makowski has been signed to direct the live-action update. Now I know what you are thinking: 'Who the heck is Max Makowski?' Well, he might not be a household name, but according to Latino's sources "he's actually a great choice." Well, I guess we will have to take their word for it, because Makowski has a pretty scant list of credits to his name. The Brazilian born writer-director has been hired to direct an update of the 70's TV series Kung-Fu, along with penning the update to Hawaii Five-O.
Voltron has been languishing over at Fox since 2005, and other than a few rumblings about Justin Marks' script, the project seemed to have stalled. Marks' take is described as "a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico. Five ragtag survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth's invaders." But now that Relativity has finally secured the rights to the big-guy, I guess all the loose ends have been tied up. Besides, what's one more giant robot movie to add to the pile?
So if you are a hard-core Voltron fan with nothing but contempt for a live action version, at least you can take solace in the fact that nothing has been confirmed -- but you might want to get used to the idea of an 'MTV generation' Pidge now.
Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass seems to be one of the projects of the moment -- either because it's a super slow news time or because Mark Millar has taken over the Internet. I suspect the latter. 
Dark Knight Spoiler Warning ...
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