Posted Aug 7th 2008 9:02PM by Eric Kohn
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, Casting, Deals, New Releases, Celebrities and Controversy, Scripts, Home Entertainment, Politics, Columns, Fan Rant
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When
Stephen Frears'
The Queen came out in 2006, all the buzz emphasized
Helen Mirren's icy performance as London's reclusive royal highness. The ubiquitous praise lead to her Oscar win, but it overwhelmed recognition of the movie's secret weapon:
Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, quietly pressuring his Majesty to face the public in the wake of Princess Diana's untimely demise. There's a reason why Sheen conveyed the nuances of Blair's role in the event, which transpired a mere three months after the Prime Minister rose to power -- he had practice.
The Deal, a fantastic made-for-TV movie Frears directed in 2003, tracked Blair's cunning (and morally questionable) instincts in the years leading up to his position at the top of the Labor Party.
Sheen played Blair in
The Deal first, and it's both a superior performance and a superior film. Whereas
The Queen had a tabloid hook and only tangentially explored the deeper political ramifications of a reclusive national leader,
The Deal delves into precisely how Blair managed to emerge at the top of British politics with a series of calculated maneuvers. Political drama at its finest,
The Deal hit DVD in the United States last month, where it has been touted as "the prequel to
The Queen." That's not quite fair;
The Queen is the sequel to
The Deal, and the two movies ought to be seen as a single, wholly fascinating package depicting British politics in the 1990s.
Continue reading Fan Rant: 'The Deal' is Better Than 'The Queen'
Posted Aug 7th 2008 8:03PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Action, Thrillers, Deals, Scripts
The man who brought us the videos for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Bullet with Butterfly Wings," and who was
at one point turning Scarlett Johansson into a diamond thief, is getting ready for a different feature.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that
Sam Bayer is teaming up with Michael Bay for the action thriller called
Fiasco Heights.
Said to have shades of film noir, the film focuses on a gunman who heads to the crime-filled city of Fiasco Heights. There, he "teams with a degenerate gambler/private eye on the run from a syndicate to look for a beautiful femme fatale and a mysterious briefcase." Oh, those pesky briefcases and sexy women.
THR says that there has been a few drafts of the script, but the most recent was penned by
Kyle Ward. This is actually his spec, that was picked up last year
in April, so I guess he got to bring his pen back to it after some rewrites.
So far, the project is moving along slowly, and time will tell if this Bayer feature fares any better than
Brilliance, the ScarJo piece, which seems to have faded into the oblivion.
Posted Aug 7th 2008 7:02PM by Jessica Barnes
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Fandom, Scripts, Remakes and Sequels
If you came of age in the '80s then chances are you remember
V. Back in April,
news began to spread that a feature film version was in the works, and creator Kenneth Johnson later confirmed that he was eying a big-screen debut for the legendary sci-fi title. Now, Latino Review claims to have gotten an
early look at the script -- but I warn you there are plenty of spoilers in the review, so tread lightly.
According to LR, the script is an update of the original miniseries that aired back in 1983.
V: The Original Miniseries centered on the arrival of aliens (or as they're better known, Visitors) and when an uneasy truce is struck between humanity and the new arrivals, it begins to become clear that our alien friends are not what they seem -- and, as it turns out, the only place for humans to turn is to another alien race who can bail out the planet earth from the 'lizard' invasion.
The original story was seen as a commentary on the rise of Fascism in the U.S as well an allegory for the rise of Nazis. But it looks like the script will be modernizing the story with allusions to Iraq and the War on Terror. According to the early review, the flick is a hybrid of
V for Vendetta and
Independence Day. But more importantly (at least from the point of view of Hollywood studios), is that the script has set the story up for two more sequels.
It is always a dangerous proposition to try and update something so beloved by fans, but at least this time the original creator is going to have something to do with it. Sound off below and tell me whether or not you want to see
V on the big screen?
Posted Aug 7th 2008 4:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Drama, Thrillers, Deals, Noir, Mystery & Suspense, Scripts, Newsstand
If there's one movie descriptive that can actually get my jaded heart racing, it's "in the style of
L.A. Confidential." Sure, it's glib, and probably sells the potential film and its source material short, but I can't help it, it's a magical phrase. And
The Hollywood Reporter (by way of Lakeshore Entertainment) used it to describe
Barry Levinson's latest movie.
Levinson is set to direct an adaptation of Peter Dexter's novel
Train, a story set in 1950's Southern California. It centers around Miller Packard, a white sergeant in the San Diego Police Department, who has little time for the hypocrisy and racism of his age. An avid golfer, he befriends a troubled young African-American caddy named Lionel "Train" Walk, who harbors knowledge of an unreported murder that haunts his past. The city politics and racism of the 50's surround the murder investigation, and threaten their friendship.
Dexter's books have been popular in Hollywood recently -- he was the pen behind
Mulholland Falls and
The Paperboy is currently in production with Paul Verhoven and Jan de Bont. Unlike with Falls, he won't be penning the script this time around. That job falls to
Allison Burnett, who's a pretty popular writer at Lakeshore, adapting
Fame and penning
Untraceable for them.
Hopefully, a
Cinematical reader or two can chime in on the book. From its reviews, the source material sounds pretty enticing. Here's hoping this can not only be a comeback for Levinson, but a noir rival for
L.A. Confidential. Posted Aug 7th 2008 9:03AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Classics, Comedy, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Scripts, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
The franchise reboots may never end. According to
ComingSoon.net (who spotted it on TrackingB.com),
Shane Black has written a spec script for
Lethal Weapon 5 without really telling anyone but Joel Silver.
The story would center around Riggs' impending retirement (and his, undoubtedly, being too old for ... well, you know). But before he leaves the force, he has to tackle one last case, and as there are no other police officers in Los Angeles, he hauls Murtaugh out of retirement to help him. Allegedly, both
Mel Gibson and
Danny Glover are interested, though no deals have been signed.
Now, I name drop
Lethal Weapon enough that you undoubtedly know that the series ranks much higher in my life than it probably should. Watching it in my pre-teens not only taught me a choice vocabulary, it rocked my world with glimpses at a naked Mel Gibson. My problems with men probably stem from the pedestal I have placed Martin Riggs upon.
But, that doesn't mean I want a fifth movie -- I already sat through the fourth installment, and it wasn't that good. Black has penned some fantastic scripts in his time -- and I firmly believe
A Long Kiss Goodnight is insanely underrated -- and I'd love to see him churning out action-comedies again. But not ones with Riggs and Murtaugh. Let
Lethal Weapon lie, and write a franchise that can give us a new badass or two. Check out the video below of Seth Rogen and James Franco discussing Shane Black's movies from Moviefone's latest
Unscripted chat...
Posted Aug 6th 2008 9:32PM by Jessica Barnes
Filed under: Action, Scripts, Games and Game Movies
You know the old saying "You can't keep a good man down"? Well, it would appear that the same applies to big-budget video game flicks. Eurogamer recently
spoke with id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead, and according to him the big-screen version of the popular first-person shooter
Return to Castle Wolfenstein is still on and in development. It has been a year since Oscar winner
Roger Avary was
signed to write and direct, but in spite of the delays it looks like the project is back on the front burner.
Wolfenstein takes place in Nazi-occupied Europe and revolves around Army Ranger William "B.J." Blazkowicz. Along with another agent, Blazkowicz is sent to discover the truth about the SS Paranormal Division. Taking the role of Blazkowicz, the player must escape the Nazi stronghold while investigating the activities of the SS Paranormal Division, which include research on resurrecting corpses, and various secret weapons -- providing players with hours of gruesome fun.
A feature film version of the game has been a long time coming, with rumblings of a feature going back almost three years. According to Hollenshead, "With the writer's strike it took so long to get underway and Roger Avary, the writer, had a commitment that was in line before working the Wolfenstein stuff, but I've recently been in contact with Roger and he's actually working on the script right now." Avary hasn't had the best of luck lately,
personal or
professional, so for his sake I hope
Wolfenstein manages to pull itself out of development limbo.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein is tentatively scheduled for release in 2010.
Posted Aug 6th 2008 6:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Deals, Scripts
It's amazing what two goofy songs can do for one's career.
Wayne McClammy was one of the names behind that Jimmy Kimmel song phenomenon earlier this year, when love was still in the air for Jimmy and Sarah and music could flow freely.
In June, the songs helped McClammy score a movie deal, and now he's already got another one gearing up.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that McClammy is going to direct a new revenge comedy called
Beat Kip. Just like
Cool School, which will have some 30-something men going back to high school to regain their cool, this pic will have some guys being juvenile.
Kip centers on three friends "who travel across the country to confront an Icy League nemesis who stole one of the guys' girlfriends," and was written by
Todd Waldman and
Rob Kerkovich.
This is one of those simple classic plots that could be an insanely huge comedy if done right, or one to scowl and run away from if done poorly. It's too soon to tell, but if he can do another awesome "We Are the World" spoof, I'm so there.
Posted Aug 5th 2008 8:02AM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Casting, Deals, Scripts
Just over a year ago,
Christopher Campbell blogged about
Flash of Genius heading towards production with Greg Kinnear. It's the story of Robert Kearns, the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper and had to battle automakers all the way to the Supreme Court to get payment for his patent. Campbell noted: "The problem with waiting so long to get the film into production is that now Kearns has passed away and won't get to see how well Kinnear portrays him."
But Kearns isn't the only one who's missing the chance to see the film come to fruition -- screenwriter
Philip Railsback died a few years ago. But that's not stopping his unfinished work.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that the late writer's brother, Steve Railsback, is planning to bring one of Philip's final scripts to the screen -- a dark comedy called
Barstow. Starring
Keith Carradine and
Scott Wilson, the film focuses on "three desperate characters, one of whom finds hope in a small, depressed town." The screenwriter had penned the script a decade ago, "after living among poor residents of the eponymous California town."
These are just two of a handful of Railsback's scripts that are in development. It's too bad he can't see them come together.
Posted Aug 4th 2008 9:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Deals, Scripts
I'm a sucker for slightly alternate realities. I'm not talking about strange lives on other planets, or sci-fi wackiness in space. Instead, I'm talking about the worlds where things are just like they are now, except, different. Think Mark Leyner's forays into tetherballs, gastroenterologists, and tattooed internal organs. While his work probably won't hit the screen for a while, if ever (thanks to
War Inc.), we're getting another writer's stab at alternate realities.
Variety reports that Oren Segal (who has also nabbed
Downers Grove) has picked up the rights to Lisa Lerner's first novel,
Just Like Beauty, for
Nick Pustay to adapt. If you thought
Little Miss Sunshine was weird, you ain't seen nothing yet.
A dark comedy set in a dystopic near-future where things are just a wee bit different, the book focuses on a 14-year-old girl named Edie Stein, who is preparing for a beauty pageant to please her mother. But these aren't the pageants of yesterday -- "girls must not only display 'Better Person Skills' and their knowledge of chemical substances but also simulate sex with the Electric Polyrubber Man and sacrifice trained rabbits and sew them into muffs." In case that wasn't strange enough, she also faces a local gang called the Blow Torchers and "chemically amped-up grasshoppers." What more could you want?
Posted Aug 1st 2008 6:03PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Deals, Scripts
Over the last few years,
Aline Brosh McKenna has become the IT writer girl for rom-coms -- which is a large improvement on her cinematic start,
Three to Tango. She's the pen behind the adaptation of
The Devil Wears Prada. She just brought us
27 Dresses. She's got a bunch of future projects on her plate. And is now adding another one.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that she's going to adapt Karen Quinn's
The Ivy Chronicles.This might sound familiar, because it's the Sarah Jessica Parker-headed project that Eugene blogged about
in June. Said to be in the vein on
The Devil Wears Prada (which makes Aline's inclusion pretty darned appropriate), the project focuses on a rich New Yorker who loses her job and starts a business helping other rich people get their kids into elite kindergartens. Oh, rich woes.
The material certainly isn't a stretch for the
Sex and the City star, or McKenna, so we can imagine how it will turn out as SJP shows us yet another angle of her rich Manhattanite side.
Posted Aug 1st 2008 2:37PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Thrillers, Deals, Paramount, Scripts
Remember that preemptive purchase Paramount
made last year for Christopher Reich's
The Rules of Deception? Well, it seems that they were on the right track, because the book has now come out and seems to be doing quite well. And with that success,
Variety reports that Adam Cozad has been hired to direct the screenplay. Cozad is just hitting the scene, having written the thriller
Dubai, and currently penning an adaptation of
The Brotherhood of the Rose, which he will finish before getting into
Deception.
If you're not one of the readers grabbing the book off the shelves, the thriller centers on a doctor who loses his wife when she falls into a ravine in the Swiss Alps during a hike. While grieving over the loss, he gets a letter addressed to her, learning that "she wasn't who he thought she was and soon finds himself in the center of a mess that could result in nuclear war in the Middle East."
If this is your cup of tea, rejoice, because the studio and author want to make this a franchise -- Reich is currently penning the next installment.
Posted Aug 1st 2008 10:03AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Classics, Deals, Sony, Scripts, Newsstand, War
It's rather eerie when your private wishes suddenly appear in the trades. I'm in the middle of reading Steven Pressfield's
Gates of Fire, which made me long for another Greek epic. Now, Columbia is giving me one. According to
Variety, the studio has optioned the Greek classic
Anabasis, Xenophon's firsthand account of the journey of the Ten Thousand.
The tale of the Ten Thousand is, perhaps, lesser known to popular culture as the 300 Spartans (even if it did inspire
The Warriors), but it's no less compelling. They were an army of Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger to aid him in seizing the Persian throne from his brother, Artaxerxes II. His expedition proved to be a failure, and the Greeks found themselves stranded deep into enemy territory. Their Spartan general was killed, as were other senior officers, and it was up to Xenophon to try to encourage the ten thousand to make the journey home to Greece. If you're into history at all, read it, and marvel at the toughness of the ancients.
No director has been named, but the script is being penned by
Robert Schenkkan, who was responsible for HBO's
The Pacific. Production duties will be split by
Jimmy Miller (known more for Will Ferrell comedies) and
Robbie and
Jonathan Stamp, who both know their historical epics. They were consultants on the outstanding
Rome, that HBO series I'm constantly going on about. Apparently, just about everyone involved in this project is an ancient history nut, and is hoping this will be the first of many historical epics. Given its pedigree and primary source material, my expectations are high. Don't disappoint me, Columbia!
Posted Jul 31st 2008 4:32PM by Eric Kohn
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Casting, Deals, New Releases, Executive shifts, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Box Office, Scripts, Comic/Superhero/Geek
Love him or hate him, you've got to hand it to
Brett Ratner for keeping his career in motion.
Variety brings word that the hustling filmmaker plans to take his
Rat Entertainment company from New Line, where it first settled in 1996, to a first-look deal with Paramount Pictures. Ratner says the departure of New Line execs Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne in February convinced him it was time to move on. At Paramount, Ratner will probably get bigger budgets and executives more receptive to his blockbuster-ready concepts. Stating the obvious, Ratner told
Variety he "will not be pitching art films. I want to make major tentpole movies." You don't say?
Unless
you're Scott Foundas, you probably balk at the idea of more Ratner movies populating the mainstream film scene, but the guy does fit the proper archetype of the classic Hollywood powerhouse. A modern day Sammy Glick, he knows how to make movies that bring out the audiences, whether or not they're any good. But maybe that determination means that, one day, Ratner will make a lot of great movies. His
planned Hugh Hefner biopic sounds promising -- or at least, appropriate.
Still, that's a little ways off. Encouraged by his experience with
X-Men: The Last Stand, Ratner decided he wanted to work on a new superhero franchise, so he's adapting Valiant Comics'
Harbinger. Also in his queue:
Beverly Hills Cop 4,
The Incredible Shrinking Man and
The Boys From Brazil. Do these projects get anyone excited? Anyone at all?
Posted Jul 31st 2008 12:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Deals, Disney, Scripts, Family Films, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek
Did you ever think you would see the day when
Sam Raimi would team up with Disney? Well, that day has come no matter what you did or did not predict, and it looks to be another sign that Disney is favoring some edgier fare in these post-Jack Sparrow years.
According to
The Hollywood Reporter, Raimi and Disney are developing
The Transplants, a project that's being kept under tight wraps, but is described as a superhero story with a comedic bent. It was penned by
Adam Jay Epstein and
Andrew Jacobson (two writers who helped pen
Not Another Teen Movie, but we'll try not to hold it against them) and was originally intended to be a comic book. Disney executive Kristen Burr liked it so much, she optioned it for the big screen for a large sum of money.
The whole deal is raising some eyebrows because of Raimi's bent towards gore and geekdom, but I think the man who directed three
Spider-Man films can handle Disney. I would even venture to say that the
Pirates of the Caribbean franchise was a lot "edgier" than Peter Parker, if only for the copious amount of rum and wenches. I think this creative match-up could produce something very interesting. At the very least, it will introduce some original superheroes into the wider world, which I wish would happen more often. And in the best case scenario, we could end up with another
The Incredibles! Let's hope some details leak out soon.
Posted Jul 30th 2008 10:02PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Comedy, RumorMonger, Scripts
What do you do when your new movie turns into one of the biggest bombs of the summer? You go back to what you know. Take
this rumor for what it's worth -- probably not much given its "anonymous insider" source -- but the word is that
Mike Myers has shaken off (or maybe learned from) the disaster that was
The Love Guru, and has set to writing a fourth
Austin Powers flick. According to the same rumor, he'll be collaborating on the screenplay with
Michael McCullers, the
SNL vet who wrote and made his directing debut with this year's considerably more successful
Baby Mama. The plot will have a "father and son theme loosely based on his own life" (??!!) which suggests a prominent place in the cast for
Seth Green.
I didn't think
The Love Guru was very funny -- and neither did anyone else, I don't think -- but I did appreciate how giddy Myers got about fart jokes and lame double entendres. Genuine enthusiasm can go a long way in comedy, and Myers has never lacked for
that, which is largely the reason why I'm not ready to give up on him just yet. Well, and also the fact that I thought all three of the
Powers movies were pretty good.
And I'll say this: I laughed at the Guru Pitka's use of "
Mariska Hargitay" as a patented mantra. Sue me.
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