If there's any Wallace & Gromit fans out there saddened by the breakup of Dreamworks and Aardman, cheer up. I told you there was plenty more in store for the animation studio's most popular characters, and I wasn't just being hopeful. According to a spokesman from Aardman, Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park is working on a new project for the claymation duo. It isn't certain, though, whether the project will be for the big screen or for television. But whatever the medium, it is scheduled to begin shooting as soon as Park is finished writing the script.
Considering the fact that Aardman is without a major film distributor for the time being, it might make sense that the new Wallace & Gromit is made for TV. Aardman already has one series (Creature Comforts) put out to CBS and if it goes well (air it already!), there could potentially be interest in more from the animation studio. Most of us W&G fans would definitely love to see another feature, like Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, but we can't be choosy when it comes to these guys. We waited years between half-hour shorts, and we will take anything we're given -- except for a CGI or live-action version, of course.
When I heard that director Doug Liman and screenwriter Simon Kinberg were planning to bring their Mr. & Mrs. Smith to network television, my brain spit out a pair of automatic responses: 1. Hmm, guess that means no sequel any time soon, and 2. I wonder who they'll get to play the roles made famous by the stunningly photogenic pair known as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Well, based on the news that Moviehole.net just dished out, the female half of the equation has been set ... and it's a lovely one indeed.
Panamanian mega-cutie Jordana Brewster has been cast as Mrs. Smith. And if the name and this pic aren't enough to jog your memory, I'm hoping you'll remember the beautiful Ms. Brewster from her work in movies like The Faculty, The Fast and the Furious, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and (ugh) Annapolis. For those looking for some evidence as to Jordana's skills with quips and/or guns, feel free to give the sunny little indie flick D.E.B.S. a rental. (Not a great film, but a colorfully fun one.)
No word yet on who'll be playing Mrs. Smith's other half when the duo hits the small screen, but I'd be expecting an announcement sooner than later: ABC wants to have the Smith series ready for broadcast this autumn.
J.J. Lask's first feature film sounds like Charlie Kaufman from another universe. Lask adapted his own book, 'On The Road With Judas' into a feature film, but he changes the story in major ways, and makes the movie -- about the making of the book -- into a movie, almost like Adaptation. Still with me? Okay, in this movie an actor (Aaron Ruell, better known as Kip in Napoleon Dynamite) portrays the "real" Judas, and another actor (Eddie Kaye Thomas) plays the actor playing Judas in the movie. This is the same for all of the characters in the film, and to confuse things even more, the whole story is told in a talk-show format, with Lask himself playing the host of the show and interviewing everyone involved in On The Road With Judas. Of course, he doesn't play himself in the film, so the part of J.J. Lask is played by Kevin Corrigan.
The dedicated folks over at spielbergfilms.com have translated an interview with Janusz Kaminiski in a Polish publication, and they have a couple of things to report. First, what we already know, that the long-time Steven Spielberg collaborator will indeed be lensing the forthcomingIndiana Jones film. Second, Kaminski apparently told the publication that he is gearing up to film the movie in "jungle locales" in addition to Los Angeles and other places around the world. What exactly is Indiana Jones going to be doing in the jungle? Could be pretty much anything, I guess.
In other Indiana Jones news, normally I wouldn't bother posting unsubstantiated gossip that circulates in the British rags, but this little item going around really caught my eye, because it stinks of George Lucas. According to the source, Harrison Ford had to resist his bosses' idea to have him 'wield' a computer-generated whip in the new film. Ford supposedly branded the idea "ridiculous," which is a comfort if this story has a grain of truth. Filming on the fourth Indiana Jones adventure is set to begin in June.
When was the last time a film won the Nobel Prize? More plausible, when was the last time a film led to someone's nomination for the Nobel Prize? The answer to the second question is ... today. Thanks to the documentary An Inconvenient Truth(and all his work to raise awareness of global warming), Al Goreis a contender for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, the winner of which is announced in October. Sure, he probably could have been nominated without the film, but it is obvious that the film did help. In fact, Boerge Brende, one of the two Norwegian Parliament members who nominated Gore, mentioned the movie in his statement to Reuters.
This is great news for Gore, who has just increased his post-Presidential-loss status another huge notch. It was good enough that An Inconvenient Truth did so well in theaters and then was nominated for an Academy Award. But who cares about winning an Oscar when there's a chance to get a million bucks and the prestige of being a Nobel Laureate? Well, Davis Guggenheim probably cares, as he is the one who directed the film, despite so many people referring to it as Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Guggenheim isn't nominated for the Nobel Prize, only the Oscar, and worst case scenario is that because of the film's elevated acclaim in its association with the Nobel nomination, Academy voters will see no need to give the doc award to Truth.
We knew we were asking it for it. We posted a photo of midgets, for Christ's sake. What did we expect you to caption about, the plight of Kal Penn as an Indian-American working in Hollywood? The 23 different laugh-free trailers you saw per night in the days leading up to the release of box office champ(!) Epic Movie? The film's 03% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes? Of course not. Congrats to winner Mark M, who, if we're not mistaken, took a break from avoiding the public eye surrounding his rejection from Baseball's Hall of Fame to give us the week's best caption. See his entry below.
And now onto the BIG news. After weeks of half-empty promises (though I'd say they were half-full), we finally have prizes for the winners of this next contest. Writers of our favorite three captions will earn themselves a spiffy, never-worn-before tee-shirt from the featured film, Pan's Labyrinth. Though it's not required that you've seen the movie to enter, I strongly recommend checking out this brilliant film at some point over the course of your lifetime. And the better news: we'll be prizing every week from here on in, so go ahead and bookmark this here link and join the fun every weekend for your chance to win tickets, posters, DVDs and more. Have fun, and check out the official contest rules below. (Winners selected must respond to our email notice next Thursday, February 8).
"Dude, Burning Man just keeps getting weirder and weirder every year."
Everyone's a critic, so the old saying goes. And now filmmaker Kevin Smith -- after a 2006 appearance on the "Roeper" show -- has decided to add his name to the hat by drawing up his own version of the ten best films of 2006. Although Smith gave Ryan Fleck's Half Nelson a breathless review on television, calling it the best movie he'd seen in a decade, it only placed at #3 on his list. (I guess this must have been a pretty good year for Kevin.)
Coming it at number two was Todd Field's Little Children. His pick for the year's best film was Martin Scorsese's The Departed ("The one everybody else liked too.") Already Smith seems to understand the way that critics put themselves on the line over certain movies, certain to arouse the ire of readers who are not tuned into the same wavelength. For some of his listings, he includes the caveat: "the one I'll take shit for." One of these picks was his own film, Clerks II, which ranked at #4. You've gotta give the guy a hand for making films that he actually likes to watch, which is more than you can say for 75% of Hollywood directors.
Smith's #5 film was Spike Lee's Inside Man, which he dubs: "the one nobody else seems to remember." Smith admits to seeing only 85 movies of the potential 500 released during the year (most critics see upwards of 300). The rest of Smith's picks aren't all that surprising, representing a cross-section of films that more or less placed on most other critics' lists. It'll be interesting to see if Catch and Release makes his 2007 list.
What do you do when you take a Christian children's book, adapt it for the big screen, and it does really well? You put out its sequels, of course. And, what do you do once you've started putting together the sequels? You look for other work from the same novelist. Because, of course, any popular theme should be milked for all it's worth. After Walden media had a hit with the $744 million-grossing The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, they've picked up the rights to The Screwtape Letters -- with C. S. Lewis' stepson, Douglas Gresham, once again signed on to co-produce.
Another piece of Christian fiction, the novel is a collection of letters from higher-up devil Screwtape to his subordinate nephew, Wormwood, about how he should damn a man known as the Patient. This involves mentoring the younger devil on "methods of undermining faith and promoting sin" while commenting on Christianity and human nature. Obviously, this won't be a family film, like the latter, but give some religious morsels to older folks. According to Variety, the film will be a "midbudget, primarily live-action pic" that they hope to release in 2008. Hopefully the non-live action pieces will not be some sort of cheesy, Hulk-esque CG'd devils.
20th Century Fox has a short memory ... or a lot of nerve. Despite the studio's very recent battle with German exhibitors on the issue of release windows -- which it lost -- Fox continues to see how far it can go with shrinking the time between its films' theatrical debut and video debut. This time Fox has upset the British market, announcing a UK DVD release date for Night at the Museum that is barely three months after the comedy's bow in UK cinemas. Like in Germany, there will be a boycott of the movie by most theater chains. Beginning tomorrow, Night at the Museum will not be shown in cinemas run by Cineworld, Odeon, Vue and Showcase.
People in the UK can still see the movie this weekend, but only at Empire, Apollo and some independent theaters, all of which claim a stronger obligation to the customers than to the goodness of a united national position (even though they apparently agree with that position). Despite the absence of real support from the little guys -- some of which, it is probable, need that Museum business this weekend -- Fox is likely to be hurt by the boycott. Museum is the second biggest movie of the season in the UK, and without the theatrical hiatus, it would continue to make the studio millions over the weekend. It is interesting to point out that Eragon, which is one of the films involved in the German boycott, is not part of the threat/action, possibly because it isn't performing nearly as well.
Hopefully, for customers, exhibitors and the image of Fox, there will be the announcement of a postponement of the Museum DVD before tomorrow morning. Otherwise, you'll hear of other effects come Monday.
A film version of the hit '60s and '70s TV series Underdog flies into theaters Aug. 3, but you don't have to wait until then to get your first glimpse of the canine superhero. We have an exclusive look at two very iconic photos from an upcoming calendar being used to promote the film (click on the photos below to see larger versions). Jason Lee (Chasing Amy, TV's My Name Is Earl) stars as the voice of an average dog named Shoeshine who develops some pretty nifty super powers after a laboratory accident. But while he gains the ability to talk and fly, unfortunately he does not develop the capacity to scoop his own poop.
The works of snarky author Evelyn Waugh are no stranger to cinematic adaptation, although his writing rarely gets big-screen love like William Shakespeare or Jane Austen. Perhaps it is because his novels are rife with dark humor, rather than heart-wrenching drama or light romance. The last to hit the screen was Vile Bodies in 2003, which became Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things. However, beyond the satire, Waugh also had controversial words to spare on religion. In fact, his novel Brideshead Revisited was considered by George Orwell to be untenable.
Even without the defense of his fellow English writer, Brideshead gets its share of attention. It was made into a television miniseries in 1981, and director Julian Jarrold is now trying to get a big-screen version off the ground. The project, which has been in development for years, is set to start shooting this spring, although the cast has not yet been confirmed. (Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly were previously attached.) Although Jarrold is best known for his recent film, Kinky Boots, he's no stranger to literary adaptations. For television, he's directed classics ranging from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.
The screenplay comes from Bridget Jones screenwriter Andrew Davies and Last King of Scotland scribe, Jeremy Brock, which bodes doubly well for the film. Brideshead tells the story of Charles Ryder. At Oxford, he strikes up a close friendship with Lord Sebastian Flyte and joins him on the family estate. There, he falls for Sebastian's sister while experiencing the collide of families, politics and religion. It'll be a particularly relevant film to today's society ... if things continue as planned.
I'm a little disappointed with this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar nominees, which usually fall into the 400 screen or less category, but I'm also a little excited. When the category was established back in the 1950s (it was an "honorary" award from 1947 to 1955), the statue very often went to great works of art by great filmmakers. Winners included Federico Fellini (La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, 8 1/2, Amarcord), Jacques Tati (Mon Oncle), Ingmar Bergman (The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Fanny and Alexander), Vittorio De Sica (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow; The Garden of the Finzi-Continis), Jirí Menzel (Closely Watched Trains), Luis Buñuel (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), François Truffaut (Day for Night) and Akira Kurosawa (Dersu Uzala) -- and that's not even taking into account all the great films that were nominated and lost.
Then, sometime in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Academy started picking other types of films, usually movies with a kind of social conscience rather than artistic excellence that were also lightweight and easy to understand. This resulted in forgettable winners like Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, The Official Story and Burnt by the Sun. The award has not gone to an honest-to-goodness masterpiece since Fanny and Alexander in 1983. The closest we've come was in 1999, with Pedro Almdovar's All About My Mother.
Damn, Warner Bros. sure is busy today -- Variety reports the studio has tapped Jennifer Garner to star in a remake of the 1945 comedy Christmas in Connecticut, reuniting the actress with her 13 Going on 30 producers Susan Arnold and Donna Ruth. The original film, which was directed by Peter Godfrey and starred Barbara Stanwyck in the lead role, revolved around a Martha Stewart-type cooking writer who convinces the world that she lives this perfect little life on a farm in Connecticut with her husband and child, when in reality she's single, living in New York and cannot cook a damn thing (a good friend provides her with all the fantastic recipes). Hilarity ensues when the owner of her magazine invites a heroic sailor to spend Christmas on her fake farm. Oops.
Technically, this will be the second Christmas in Connecticut remake, as none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger directed an updated version for TV back in 1992 -- that one starred Dyan Cannon and, along with being a writer, she also hosted her own cooking show. My guess is Warners will probably go that route as well, especially with folks like Rachael Ray turning into something of a phenomenon as of late. (Personally, if I hear her say "Let's just throw a little S&P on that and top it off with some EVOO," one more time, I might have to throw something hard and sharp at my television.) Also, look for the "heroic sailor" to be replaced by a handsome veteran of the Iraq war. Any guesses as to who they'll get for the male lead?
If you're a fan of British television, chances are you've heard of Alan Partridge. If not, he's a fictional creation from actor Steve Coogan, who has appeared in a ton of television shows and specials. Unlike some fictional newsman stateside, like Jiminy Glick, Partridge has been around for years, although his media appearances have been slowing down. As time passes, Coogan has been reported to be reluctant to keep reprising the character, and has been quoted as saying that Partridge is "cryogenically preserved next to Walt Disney for the time being."
Nevertheless, there's been a film in talks for the past few years. In 2005, it was said to be on hold due to the London bombings (the film planned to involve an al-Qaeda siege). Now Empire has had a brief chat with Patrick Marber, who is said to be co-penning the movie with Coogan. According to the writer, "There's no script ... Steve has had a very good idea of how to do an Alan Partridge film. Whether it will happen, or get written -- or get written by me, I don't know." Well how's that for ambiguity? I can't imagine them not putting something together, especially in the wake of Borat's success. The possibilities for a faux journalist are pretty much endless.
If you can't wait for some more Coogan, you can catch him in Simon Pegg's upcoming action comedy, Hot Fuzz.
It seems like by the time Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman actually gets made, people will have learned how to build and fly invisible jets on their own. (That's because it'll be so far in the future ... oh, never mind.) And now comes the news that Warner Bros. has bought a second Wonder Woman script, different from the one Whedon's penning -- either so they can shove the competing script in a drawer, or light a fire under Whedon's ass. (Read our thoughts on the two screenplays here.) Oh, it makes the head spin.
Enough with the drama. All we really want to know is, who's going to play Wonder Woman? Little Internet birds have told us that the latest contender might be Sophia Bush, fresh off her leading role in the there-and-gone horror remake The Hitcher. But them's just rumors. We've put forth 15 other great and horrible casting suggestions for Joss Whedon and the folks at Warner Bros. What are yours?
If there's any Wallace & Gromit fans out there saddened by the breakup of Dreamworks and Aardman, cheer up. I told you there was plenty more in store for the animation studio's most popular characters, and I wasn't just being hopeful. According to a spokesman from Aardman, Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park is working on a new project for the claymation duo. It isn't certain, though, whether the project will be for the big screen or for television. But whatever the medium, it is scheduled to begin shooting as soon as Park is finished writing the script.
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