If you didn’t gather this from Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln biopic, then Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan are back from the 1980s to tell us that the 16th President of the United States is most excellent, as is Socrates and Sigmund Freud. Ghengis Khan and Joan of Arc, on the other hand, are Bogus.
Those are the verdicts rendered in this infographic, which revisits Bill and Ted’s journey through time and space, in commemoration of the Blu-Ray release of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
This should whet Bill & Ted fans’ appetites for the new sequel that, back in August, Vulture reported is in the works — with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter reprising their roles, and Galaxy Quest director, Dean Parisot, helming. Bill & Ted creators, Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, have written the script.
Keanu Reeves Talks ‘Bill & Ted 3′ Plot
In August, Reeves talked to GQ about the weighty-sounding plot of Bill & Ted 3 — explaining that the main characters “have been crushed by the responsibility of having to write the greatest song ever written and to change the world. And they haven’t done it. So everybody is kind of like: ‘Where is the song?’”
The Matrix actor added, “The guys have just drifted off into esoterica and lost their rock. And we go on this expedition, go into the future to find out if we wrote the song, and one future ‘us’ refuses to tell us, and another future ‘us’ blames us for their lives because we didn’t write the song, so they’re living this terrible life. In one version we’re in jail; in another we’re at some kind of highway motel and they hate us.”
Heavy, dude.
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Whether you love or hate the idea of Disney acquiring and expanding the Star Wars franchise, you can’t say the House of Mouse isn’t treating Episode VII like the prestige project is deserves to be. Vulture reports that screenwriter Michael Arndt, who won an Oscar for his Little Miss Sunshine script, and was nominated for another with Toy Story 3, is the leading candidate to write the new Star Wars script
The website cites insiders who say that Arndt, who’s also the screenwriter for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, has written a 40- to 50-page treatment, and will probably be one of the screenwriters on board when shooting begins in 2014. In addition to being a successful screenwriter who’s worked successfully with Pixar, Vulture notes that Arndt has lectured extensively on “why the original Star Wars ending is so creatively satisfying.” Turns out it’s not because there’s a big explosion at the end.
Although the plot of Episode VII remains the subject of much speculation, Vulture indicates that Disney wants to bring back the three main characters from the original Star Wars: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo. Reportedly, Harrison Ford is “open” to reprising that last role, despite his apparently conflicted feelings about the character that made him a bankable actor.
More ‘Star Wars 7′ News:
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Actress, former Italian princess by marriage, truthsayer: Olivia Wilde dropped TMI last night in a monologue about her “marathon” sex sessions with boyfriend Jason Sudeikis and how to tell when your vagina’s not that into a relationship anymore. “Sometimes your vagina dies… then you know it’s time to go.” Preach.
Vulture was on the scene at Joe’s Pub in New York, where Wilde’s monologue was part of a series hosted by Glamour. But who knows what the other speakers talked about in their pieces because OLIVIA WILDE OVERSHARED ABOUT HER VAGINA.
“I felt like my vagina died,” she said of her eight-year marriage to an Italian prince. “Turned off. Lights out…and you can lie to your relatives at Christmas dinner and tell them everything on the home front is just peachy. But you cannot lie to your vagina.”
Above: Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde, marathon runners
It turns out Wilde, who was not only married to a freaking Italian prince but is gorgeous and talented and a smarty-pants who was babysat by Christopher Hitchens as a child, IS just like us: Terrified of the ol’ monogamy sex slump.
Her cheeky solution to those relationship rough patches: Olivia Land (via Vulture):
In Olivia Land, relationships can legally only last seven years, without an option to renew. That way it never goes stale. Can you imagine, if we only had seven years? We’d be so nice to each other, so kind, and appreciative and enthusiastic, like we were eating a really expensive bowl of pasta! And in Olivia Land people wouldn’t cheat nearly as much because there wouldn’t be the threat of spending forever with one bedfellow. It just wouldn’t be legal. There’s the
…
Full Story »I suppose it makes sense: According to Vulture rumor-slinger Claude Brodesser-Akner, Disney’s new regime under Alan Horn is developing a remake of 1991’s The Rocketeer — a box office disappointment that nevertheless built a cult following owing to its retro-futuristic vibe, Billy Campbell’s irresistible hair, and Jennifer Connelly’s Jennifer Connelly-ness.
The Rocketeer told the story of Cliff Secord, a square-jawed airplane pilot who battles Nazis with the help of a rocket jetpack in 1930s California. Audiences rejected it upon release, but the film won dedicated fans (myself included) in subsequent years.
The report, based on studio spy whispers, points out that such a reboot might be successful thanks to its similarities with Marvel’s Iron Man properties — both were adapted from comics, both involve a hero in a supercool metal suit flying into action against baddies, etc. One way of updating the Rocketeer property could be to make it slick and high-tech and even more Iron Man-esque… though the idea of Disney courting such obvious parallels to Marvel’s best-loved new Avengers superhero doesn’t make much sense.
If Disney reboots The Rocketeer, I can’t imagine fans of the original comics and the Joe Johnston-directed film would accept anything less than a faithful period setting, in keeping with the original story’s spirit and sense for nostalgic idealism; good luck finding a Cliff Secord with hair as phenomenally perfect as 90s-era Campbell.
I mean – JUST…
LOOK…
AT THIS HAIR! YOU GUYS.
On second thought, let me put this out there: Armie Hammer as Cliff. Jennifer Lawrence as Jenny. Michael Fassbender as Neville Sinclair. Discuss.
[Vulture]
In what could be one of the unlikeliest director-project pairings to come down the pike in some time, Vulture is reporting that Fast & Furious franchise director Justin Lin is talking to Universal Pictures about directing L.A. Riots — a cinematic re-telling of the 1991 uprising that was sparked by four Los Angeles Police Department officers’ brutal beatdown of Rodney King.
According to the website, the project was first set up at Universal six years ago, with Spike Lee set to direct a script by Red Tails screenwriter John Ridley, but the studio wouldn’t give the Do The Right Thing filmmaker the $35 million he required to make the movie he wanted.
If Lin gets the green light, he’ll be making the picture for Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment, but it’s unclear whether he’ll still be using Ridley’s script.
Video of King’s vicious beating during a March 3, 1991 traffic stop became one of the most horrific and indelible images of that decade, and during the riots, the construction worker appeared on TV to utter his now-famous line: “Can we all get along?”
In June, King became news again when he was found dead at the bottom of the swimming pool at his California home. The February shooting of unarmed Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch coordinator for a gated community in Sanford, Fla., also recalled the incident.
Lin is currently shooting the sixth film in the Fast and Furious franchise, which is slated for a May 24, 2013 release date. According to Vulture, Universal is seeking to keep the director happy “by allowing him to tackle a topic that’s quite a bit more serious”, though budget remains a question. One talent agent told the website: “They didn’t want to make…
Full Story »If you thought you were getting any work done during the second part of the day, think again. The good people at Vulture have apparently teamed up with the RAND Corporation and NASA to devise a series of charts with endless permutations that rank today’s most valuable movie stars. But, we ask: Who are today’s Most Valuable Indie Stars?
How does one determine who is most valuable? Vulture is more than willing to pull back the curtain on their methodology. (Oh, if only the folks at Diebold could learn a thing or two from celeb-obsessed journalists!) They may have their nifty algorithms, but we’ve got our gut instincts. Using those and those only, we’d like to devise a highly unscientific list of the most valuable indie actors working today.
6. Michael Shannon
He’s got many more credits than you might think (Kangaroo Jack!) but he first came to our attention as an unusual leading man in Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories. His turn in Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? secured him a lifetime of indie cred, and this was before Boardwalk Empire and Take Shelter. By my algorithm, he can appear in Man of Steel and two sequels and still be considered an indie star.
5. Mathieu Amalric
It isn’t crazy to call this French import a next gen Steve Buscemi. Amalric’s worked with a number of top level international directors like Julian Schnabel, Alain Resnais and Arnaud Desplechin. When he works in Hollywood it’s in top tier material like Munich and Quantum of Solace, which, you must remember, looked like it was going to be good on paper.
4. Michelle Williams
From Dawson’s Creek to Synechdoche, NY, Michelle Williams is such a beloved indie star we’ll…
Harold Ramis and John Belushi. Scott Rudin, Steven Soderbergh, David Gordon Green and Will Ferrell. John Waters and Divine. John Candy. Chris Farley. Stephen Fry. Buck Henry. John Goodman. Throughout three decades, these men and others of various power and influence have applied (or at least attached) themselves to what was proven the most unadaptable literary property of the last half-century: John Kennedy Toole’s searing comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces. And now, Zach Galifianakis, director James Bobin and screenwriter Phil Johnston reportedly have formed the triumvirate that will help make Dunces the most unadaptable literary property of the next half-century.
Vulture passes along word that Bobin (The Muppets, Flight of the Conchords) and Johnston (Cedar Rapids) are developing the adaptation with Rudin and Paramount, the latter of whom have seen more talent come and go through the project’s revolving door than virtually any other unproduced film in a generation. Galifianakis would play Ignatius J. Reilly, the corpulent antihero of Toole’s posthumous, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, whose exploits around New Orleans and in his home life with his mother (and the ongoing internal dialogue and wild local character tying it all together) have made for canonical reading over the years — even while succumbing to what many of its Hollywood pursuers have written off as a curse. Suicide, murder, overdoses, hurricanes and general studio ennui are among the obstacles to have faced Confederacy’s leap to the big screen over the years — not least because Paramount execs likely hear the title and argue, “Didn’t we make three of those with Michael Bay?”
Anyway, it bears repeating that despite everyone’s best intentions and all those Louisiana tax incentives and the cautious optimism of Toole’s devoted fan base, not only will this…
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Ain’t no party like a Bill Murray dance party? Vulture had a front row seat at Cannes: “At the request of [Moonrise Kingdom co-star Jared] Gilman, who just had his bar mitzvah and has a taste for dub-step, Bill Murray led the troop onto the dance floor, where the four kids and their accompanying man-child wiggled and jumped around with abandon. It was a scene of such next-level adorability that nearly everyone in the immediate vicinity pulled out a camera phone. ‘We’re just chilling! We’re just chilling!’ Murray shouted out as he put the kibosh on each video in turn. Then he’d go back to more happy wriggling to songs like ‘I’m So Excited.’” [Vulture]
· Universal may have knocked down Ron Howard’s planned adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Howard’s Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer apparently told Page Six that the men are still looking for outside financing for the ambitious project, which would then be distributed through a major studio. Great! Just don’t expect this to come together anytime soon. “[T]he soonest we could do it would be June next year,” Grazer said. Mark that on your calendar in pencil, then stick around for more Buzz Break.
[via NYP]
· The Help writer and director Tate Taylor is in talks to take on another literary adaptation, Peace Like a River. The film would follow an 11-year-old boy and his “eccentric” family in Minnesota. [THR]
· Now that Jennifer Lopez has gotten her movie career back on track, she’s free to return to American Idol. She’ll judge next season with Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson, while Ryan Seacrest will return as host. [TVLine]
· Vulture reports Jonah Hill may co-star in Neighborhood Watch opposite Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, but that he “wants to get paid considerably more than his usual quote” because the trailer for Moneyball has tested better than any in the history of Columbia Pictures. OK, then. [Vulture]
· Here are four reasons why The Carrie Diaries — the Sex and the City prequel — works better as a television series than a feature film. [BuzzSugar]
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