Lincoln took the spotlight at a rainy premiere Thursday night, closing out AFI Fest 2012. But whispers of Star Wars made their way to the red carpet. Steve Spielberg, however, took the speculation head-on, saying he won’t direct any future Star Wars installments.
The long-time colleague and friend of George Lucas gave an emphatic negative about possibly taking on directing the planned Episode 7, set for 2015.
“No, no!” he told Access Hollywood at the Lincoln event. “It’s not my genre. It’s my best friend George’s genre.”
Furthermore, he said he’s no longer interested in action-pics (though he has signed on for Sci-Fi thriller Robopocalypse post-Lincoln).
“I knew I could do the action in my sleep at this point in my career,” he said. “In my life, the action doesn’t hold any … it doesn’t attract me any more,” he said recently on 60 Minutes.
Star Wars will return courtesy of the sale of Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company for $4.05 billion, which promptly said it will launch a new installment in the huge franchise in 2015 and that a Star Wars 8 and 9 are also on tap.
But just how much Lucas will oversee the next Star Wars movies is still a matter of speculation. He said in the official statement about Lucasfilms’ sale that it’s “…Now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime.”
He also said recently at a post-sale event that he’d like to do “little personal films” going forward and that he’s turning the ship over…
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Also in Monday morning’s round-up of news briefs, Daniel Radcliffe is set to return to fantasy playing a rape suspect. A trio of titles lead the specialty box office’s newcomers over the weekend. And Roger Ebert breaks down the stats on upcoming dueling The Hobbit and Avatar blockbusters and theaters’ ability to show them.
The Absence Wins Top Prize at Comic-Con
The sci-fi thriller by writer/director Alex DeMille won the judges’ choice award at Comic-Con. It also won Best Film in the science fiction/fantasy film category.Natural 20 centered on the interactions between four people playing a Dungeons & Dragons-esque game won Best Humor. Glow: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling won Best Documentary and Lost Rites took “best cosmic-oriented film,” THR reports.
Seth MacFarlane: “I’d be open to making Ted 2“
MacFarlane told fans at the American Dad panel during Comic-Con over the weekend that he’d be open to making a Ted 2, but didn’t elaborate on any possible reunion with co-star Mark Wahlberg. It has become one of the biggest R-rated comedies at the box office, Deadline reports.
Daniel Radcliffe to Grow Horns for Next Role
The British-born actor will return to fantasy for his next project, starring in Horns, a supernatural thriller directed by Alexandre Aja (Piranha 3-D). He will play the lead suspect in the rape and murder of his girlfriend, The Guardian reports.
Imposter, Farewell My Queen, Easy Money Lead New Releases: Specialty Box Office
A slew of new specialty rollouts hit theaters over the weekend with mixed results. Indomina’s Sundance documentary The Imposter came in as the per-theatre-average winner, with a single location in New York. Other strong specialty openers include Farewell My Queen and Easy Money, Deadline
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The Ridley Scott-directed Sci-Fi thriller awaits its U.S. bow this weekend and momentum appears to be on its side. Across the Atlantic where audiences have already flocked to see the movie, Twentieth Century Fox is already cashing in, with a £6.24M gross last weekend, which translates to just over $9.7M. That figure outshines any of the Alien movies, according to The Guardian which reported the figures.
Of course anyone with a television in the English-speaking world and beyond knew last weekend was Britain’s Diamond Jubilee extravaganza and the government tacked on two bank holidays Monday and Tuesday so crowds could join in on the festivities. And while they did, some clearly took a break for some big screen good times because Prometheus tacked on an additional £3.68M ($5.73M) those days, making the pic bigger than the total gross across the pond than any of the Alien movies, according to The Guardian.
The longer term impact is challenging to determine since prequels and sequels tend to muster fans to head to the theaters in bigger droves than a film first out of the gate. But for comparisons sake, Gladiator opened in May 2000 with £3.56M ($5.54M) and eventually tallied £31.2M ($48.56M), though Robin Hood opened with £5.75M ($8.95M) but it eventually totaled only £15.6M ($24.28M).
The first American trailer for the sci-fi thriller Lockout makes eminently clear what the hard-boiled European original elided a bit: This is as close to an Escape From New York remake as any of us are likely to get.
Snake Plissken in space! Except now he’s called Snow. And he has two eyes, both belonging to Guy Pearce in full wisecracking action-hero mode. He’s the best! But a loose cannon. And Maggie Grace is the president’s daughter. Held hostage in a prison riot. In a prison orbiting Earth. Before it plunges to Earth. Naturally. Whatever! It looks all right.
Looks like Spike Lee got his rumored dream star for the Oldboy film he’s helming: Deadline reports that Josh Brolin will lead the English-language remake of Park Chan-wook’s 2003 thriller about a man held prisoner for 15 years who sets out for revenge upon release. With Brolin onboard, will Christian Bale sign on next as his mysterious foil? (And how faithful will Lee’s remake be to the brutality of the original?)
Lee’s Oldboy is scripted by Mark Protosevich, who most recently earned a co-writing credit on Thor and previously adapted studio flicks Poseidon and I Am Legend. (His first film was The Cell, Tarsem’s twisted sci-fi thriller.) It remains to be seen how much he’ll keep Oldboy as sick and viciously violent as the cult hit original, which stars Choi Min-sik as the hammer-wielding vengeance-seeker Oh Dae-su, since the remake is said to draw from both the film and the source manga it was based on as a re-envisioning of the material.
The casting of Brolin, however, should bring some comfort to fans; No Country for Old Men went a long way in establishing Brolin’s interest in edgier fare and his ability to play hardened, adaptable men capable of violence. Lee’s a bit more of a mystery here; will his Americanized Oldboy include the kind of gory, visceral moments that make Chan-wook’s version iconic to genre fans? Or will it find a sort of Departed-level happy medium between the gore-inclined sensibilities of Asian cinema and the threshold of American audiences?
Personally, I’d prefer the former but I’m expecting the latter. Chime in below: How much deference to the original film should Lee’s Oldboy have?
· Josh Brolin To Star In Spike Lee’s ‘Oldboy’ Redo For Mandate [Deadline]
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Olivia Wilde has two very different movies coming out in the next two weeks: one is a high-concept sci-fi thriller (Cowboys & Aliens) and the other is a lighthearted comedy that begins with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman drunkenly urinating into a park fountain and later switching bodies (The Change-Up). There is a common thread that pulls these two projects together, though: Olivia Wilde appears nude (“nude”) in both, even though the adventurous actress had no idea that was the case.
Although Wilde understood that she would be nude (from behind) for her role in Cowboys & Aliens, the actress wasn’t clear on how much she was baring for the The Change-Up… until a few people who had seen the movie filled her in.
As told to Access Hollywood:
“With The Change-Up I didn’t really realize that’s what was happening, as if I didn’t really know where the camera was. So then people saw the movie and they’re like, ‘You know your butt’s in the movie?’ and I was like, ‘What?’” she explained. “I had no idea! But you know, I think when you agree to do a movie, like that you have to go 100 percent for it!”
So if you didn’t have any desire to see The Change-Up, there is your incentive.
· Olivia Wilde Talks Going Nude For Cowboys & Aliens & The Change-Up [Access Hollywood]
Full Story »By now you’ve seen the awesome trailer for Cowboys & Aliens, you’ve enjoyed director Jon Favreau’s lively interviews with the film’s executive producer Steven Spielberg and star Harrison Ford, and you’ve listened to possible love interest Olivia Wilde describe the time she was nearly trampled to death by a horse on the sci-fi thriller’s set. Now, in anticipation of the film’s upcoming release, it’s time to see a new clip featuring a surprising act of violence between two of our favorite action stars.
Manly! Also: alien footprints! And Harrison Ford’s gruff mumbling. Cowboys & Aliens beams into theaters on July 29.
[via Yahoo!]
Full Story »If you’ve been finding the trailers for Rise of the Planet of the Apes as delightfully cheesy — with James Franco’s super-serious scientist speak and apes in bootleg jeans defending John Lithgow’s honor on suburban street corners — as I have, you are going to love the UK trailer for Rupert Wyatt’s sci-fi thriller. Trust me. James Franco teaches an ape how to sign, takes him hiking, and then assigns him a time out when he acts up.
Awesome. As is that hero shot of Caesar and his revolution-happy apes. Rise of the Planet of the Apes opens in theaters on Aug. 5.
[via SlashFilm]
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Even if you haven’t seen Super 8, you probably know something about the third act creature thanks to spoilers from Paramount, Bruce Greenwood, and moviegoers who have loudly contested that the sci-fi thriller’s monster looks a lot like the one in the Abrams-produced film Cloverfield. Finally, J.J. Abrams has responded to this allegation, but — beware — his explanation includes, of course, more creature spoilers.
While visiting MTV this week, Abrams addressed the monsters’ alleged similarities.
“The only connection between the creature in Super 8 and the creature in Cloverfield is that they were both designed by the same guy, Neville Page,” Abrams explained. “They actually look very different, but they both have two eyes, a nose and a mouth. So, in that regard, it also looks a lot like Laurence Olivier!”
Rather than just recycling aliens, Abrams and his production team put a lot of thought into the creature that came to be known as “Cooper” on set.
“The creature in Super 8 needed to be scary and it also needed to have the ability to have a performance and be a little bit less scary too,” he said. “We didn’t want a creature that was just running around thumping his chest and screaming. It needed to be something that was able to have a plan, have an experience. Smart enough to create something, build something. […] Basically this could be someone who for some would be very scary, could be full of rage and also could be emotional and nuanced.”
There you have it! Movie magic nullified by excruciating details about behind-the-scenes monster development. I think I’m good on the Super 8 Creature Explained At Length front. How about you guys?
· ‘Super 8’ Creature’s ‘Cloverfield’ Connection: J.J. Abrams Explains [MTV]
Full Story »The premise for the upcoming sci-fi thriller Looper is a juicy one: Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as a hitman who kills hooded victims sent to him via time travel from 30 years in future (where time travel exists, and is frowned upon). Things are great until his futuristic self (played by Bruce Willis) shows up to be executed, sans hood. Cue: plot-thickening music! The first image of Willis-as-older-Levitt has arrived online, and it looks just like Bruce Willis. With a machine gun. Click ahead for your first look at Looper.
[via Empire]
Looper comes from the fertile mind of Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom). Expect to see it in theaters sometime during 2012.
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