You are browsing the archive for July 2012.
The story of a man named Brady and his irritatingly chipper blended family is as much a part of ’70s pop culture as shag rugs and free love, maybe more; neither of those dated phenomena lived on in the popular consciousness as tenaciously, and exhaustively, as The Brady Bunch. The series already enjoyed five seasons, an afterlife in syndication, many lesser spin-offs, and — the true marker of any Hollywood institution — an E! True Hollywood Story. So who really thinks we need another Brady Bunch reboot?
Vince Vaughn, that’s who!
THR confirms that executive producer Vaughn and CBS are developing a rebooted version of the series that continues the cycle of marriage, divorce, and re-marriage centered around Mike Brady’s youngest kid, Bobby Brady, who’s now grown and building his own modern family. “The CBS effort would include Bobby and his new bride’s exes and, like the original, feature their kids from previous marriages, along with the couple’s shared child,” THR reports.
Fine, fine. I can come to terms with a tenuously connected contemporary Brady Bunch spin-off made for the CBS primetime audience as long as nobody gets any funny ideas about making more movies. That said, I can’t say I don’t still chuckle at the sight of an airplane full of normal, sane people (read: AUDIENCE SURROGATES) telling the singing brood to STFU.
[THR]
Joined by series star Rupert Grint at the British Embassy’s Creative Content Summit, Harry Potter series producer David Heyman looked back on 2001’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first film in the lucrative J.K. Rowling boy wizard franchise, and revealed which parts now make him “want to cringe.”
“The visual effects industry developed substantially over the 11 to 12 years of making the films. I look at some of the first film [made in 2001] and want to cringe,” he said, adding that later films in the series marked vast improvements on the screen and in the franchise’s behind the scenes technical infrastructure.
Heyman also had issues with Warner Bros.’ merchandising campaign tied to the first film, reports Wired:
He went on to say that for the first film there was so much merchandising that it was “shocking.” He said that he knew that Warner Bros. had gone “too far” when he saw Harry Potter toilet paper. However, since then, Warner Bros. has reined it in and produced a “really elevated, high-range program.”
At least the studio didn’t go for Americanizing the very British tale — so British, Voldemort and Rowling made it into the Olympic Opening Ceremony — which Heyman says the suits wanted to do at one point: “Heyman was thankful that the movie franchise retained the Britishness of the books, after some movie execs initially considered moving the story to the United States with ‘cheerleaders and the likes’ but he said ‘that never rang true.’”
[Wired via Movie City News]
Also in Tuesday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs Miramax sells music rights to its film music; A thief in Mexico wearing a mask is holding up theaters playing TDKR; Remembering Irish writer/journalist/playwright Maeve Binchy; And DreamWorks animation posts lower second quarter profits.
Warner/Chappell Buys Miramax’s film music
The music publishing wing of Warner Music Group is acquiring the masters and publishing rights for all film music owned by Miramax. “The Miramax music library contains music from Academy Award winners The Cider House Rules, Chicago, Cold Mountain and Frida, as well as Gangs of New York, Finding Neverland, Good Will Hunting, Chocolat, Sin City, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and music from several hundred other Miramax films. Terms are not being disclosed.
Around the ‘net…
James Franco Boards Homefront
Franco will join the cast of the Millennium Films action-thriller. Jason Statham is also starring in the film, which Gary Fleder will direct from a script written by Sylvester Stallone, Variety reports.
The Dark Knight Rises Holds Solid in U.K.
The Olympics opening ceremonies did not seem to result in a sluggish turn out for the latest Batman movie in host country, the U.K. The Christopher Nolan superhero pic took in £7.28 million ($11.412 million) across the pond over the weekend, for a 10-day cume of £30.55 million ($47.889 million), The Guardian reports.
Masked Mexican Thief Hits Theaters Showing TDKR
Officials in northern Mexico say a man wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun robbed two theaters showing the latest Batman installment Prosecutors in the Mexican state of Chihuahua said that a man went to ticket booths demanding the ticket money. No injuries were reported and the shows went on, AP reports.
R.I.P. Maeve Binchy
The Irish journalist and…
Steven Soderbergh refuses to let up his breakneck pace of filming and is already at work on his Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, which stars Michael Douglas as the flamboyant sparkly-suited superstar pianist. Beside Douglas and his bouffant in the first pic from the set, we find co-star Matt Damon, who’s rocking quite the ’70s coif himself as Liberace’s companion and alleged gay lover Scott Thorson.
Ladies and gentleman, we may have found the only man in Hollywood who can indeed rock a blonde He-Man pageboy ‘do. Somebody call Jon M. Chu!
Behind the Candelabra boasts a script by Richard LaGravanesse and a supporting cast that includes Debbie Reynolds, Rob Lowe, Scott Bakula, Dan Aykroyd, and Nicky Katt. The film will be released by HBO and is based on Thorson’s autobiography Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace, which recounted the pair’s longstanding relationship and alleged romantic involvement.
[ABC News]
“I didn’t just want to come here and say I made a record in Jamaica and grew some dreadlocks,” insists rapper Snoop Dogg in the trailer for Reincarnated, announced today as an official selection of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. “Rastafari called me.” Watch the trailer for Reincarnated for your first glimpse of Snoop Dogg — or rather, Snoop Lion, his newly minted reggae identity — leaving hip-hop behind to sing and smoke up a storm in his new rasta life.
The doc, a co-production of Vice Films and Snoop’s own Snoopadelic Films, probably isn’t a terribly incisive or objective look at the musician’s musical shift, and it’s unclear how fleeting an alter ego “Snoop Lion” will be in the long run. But as the trailer speeds through a montage of Snoop’s past, it makes a case for why the erstwhile Calvin Broadus might have sought spiritual rebirth after a decades-long career in the rap game that has seen friends and collaborators pass on, sometimes violently.
Beyond the personal loss of figures like Tupac and Nate Dogg, Snoop’s musical career has seemed to plateau in the last decade; how did the slim (with the tilted brim) rapper behind 1993’s “Doggystyle” wind up phoning in verses on Katy Perry Top 40 hits, writing rap songs about True Blood and roasting Donald Trump?
Seizing the opportunity for Ali-esque cross-cultural/getting-in-touch-with-his-roots drama, Reincarnated came about when Snoop traveled to Jamaica to record with the producer Diplo. “While there,” explains the synopsis, “Snoop finds himself embraced by the Jamaican people, is positively impacted by Rastafarian culture, and becomes reincarnated as Snoop Lion.”
Verdict: It all sounds so perfectly calculated. And yet, compared to Snoop’s post-fame exploits, it might also be his most sincere artistic expression…
Heads up, fanboys and girls: Marvel has released a barrage of Avengers clips ahead of its September 25 Blu-ray/DVD street date, including the geek-baiting post-credits scene that had fans in a tizzy. No, not the one that boosted sales of shawarma around the nation; the other Easter Egg, which revealed a menacing glimpse of the real orchestrator behind Loki’s invasion of Earth.
The impending Blu-ray/DVD release has also given Marvel occasion to release a handful of additional clips from the film, reminding what life was like before The Dark Knight Rises came along and stole everyone’s thunder.
I’d include a spoiler warning here, but if you’re reading this now and haven’t seen Avengers yet… well, I can’t help you there.
The post-credits peek reveals Marvel baddie Thanos, who is believed to be the villain in the next Avengers pic. This might also be the closest we’ll come to another Hellboy sequel. (Kidding!)
[via Badass Digest]
He’s made dozens of films since his 2001 breakout Y Tu Mamá También charmed audiences not only at home in Mexico, but also north of the border. Since then he played a priest in The Crime of Father Amaro, acted with the likes of Brad Pitt and Cate Blachett in Babel, a footballer (soccer player) in Rudo Y Cursi and even the revolutionary Ernest “Ché” Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries. But now Gael García Bernal, the Mexican actor/director/producer and even festival founder (he and fellow actor Diego Luna co-founded Mexico’s Ambulante Documentary Festival), is playing a more conventional revolutionary of sorts in Pablo Larraín’s No, which debuted last May in Cannes and will screen at the Locarno Film Festival, which opens Wednesday.
In No, he plays an advertising executive who creates an ad campaign to defeat Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1988. The publicity campaign by ad bigwig Rene Saavedra helped topple the brutal dictator who is still reviled and praised at home. The TV campaign urged Chileans to vote “No” to another eight-year term for Pinochet. The campaign worked and Pinochet was ousted with 55 per cent voting against his return and paved the way for a resurgence of Chilean democracy. García Bernal told the A.P. that he often met Latin American exiles while growing up in Mexico, but didn’t understand their plight until he began shooting No.
“This made me realize the profound pain caused by the dictatorship and it hit me hard,” he told A.P. (http://news.yahoo.com/garcia-bernal-feels-chiles-pain-latest-film-033203261.html) before No’s premiere in the South American country’s capital Santiago on Monday. “The director wanted to make a movie about the history of what went on in 1988, as well as an introspection and…
