DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST 17

THE MATRIX RELOADEDAnother one-sheet poster has been released for the movie, due out nextyear. This one featuring Monica Belluci‘s character. (see right) “ALEXANDER”‘Aint It Cool News’ secured a good interview with director Baz Luhrmannabout his upcoming biopic of Alexander The Great. The most relevant partis below:

• AICN: Can you tell me anything about “Alexander”, like how you’re goingto visually realize the film?

  BAZ LUHRMANN: “These are the realities: I’m committing to it as thefirst of the epic film I’m going to do. I’m working with Dino [DeLaurentis], we’ve got the studio being built in Morocco while I’mfinishing up on La Boheme. In terms of casting, the rumours aboutLeonardo [DiCaprio] have validity.”

  “I can’t go into that because we’re doing our own construct at themoment, but I’m already clearly working on the story. We will invent acinematic style and language that is specific to that job at hand. Bythe very nature of it it’s not going to be the same language as we’veinvented for the musical works.”

• AICN: What drew you to doing a movie about Alexander The Great in thefirst place?

  BAZ LUHRMANN: “You know, I have many epic works that I really want toexplore, but I’ve been fascinated by his character. The thing aboutAlexander is that we, you and I, would not be sitting here but for himbecause essentially you got someone who was trained by the greatestmilitary mind of his time, his father… By the sort of Obi-Wan Kenobiof the Ancient World, which is Aristotle. It’s a freak situation. Hisparents are arguing over him, so he’s looking for the approval of hisfather, but his father dies before he can get that love.”

  “It’s really just a domestic situation and if they lived in a suburbanhouse it would really be no big deal, but they happened to possess theworld. So, in pursuit of that approval of his father, his terribleinternal complex becomes an external complex where he just goes beyondthe boundaries of the world.”

  “He invaded more of the lands better than any general before or after.More extraordinarily, you have to remember that before Alexander theGreat… In the same way that perhaps Western Culture is Americandominated to a certain degree, and that’s no judgment… It was Persiandominated (back then). That’s Iraq. The Battle of Gaugamela is exactlyin the middle of the No Fly Zone in Iraq.”

  “So, interestingly, the moment at which this thing called “westernthought” actually started having an influence on the globe was throughAlexander the Great. He had this idea… What if all cultures could liveunder the one banner? What if East and West could live together? For allthose reasons it has great potency.”

“ALIEN vs PREDATOR”As reported in an ealier Issue, actor Lance Henriksen (“Aliens”) willreprise his role as the android Bishop for the proposed “Alien VsPredator” film – currently being written by Paul W.S Anderson (“ResidentEvil”). “THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN”Director Sam Raimi (“The Evil Dead”) spoke about the planned sequel to”Spider-Man” that starts shooting next year.

He said: “I think my job, and what I’m eager to do, is really get insidethe head of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson and Aunt May.”

“I want to find out where we left them in the minds of the audience andfind out what journey the audience was on and accurately determine whatthey would now want to see and what conflicts there may be next in thecharacters’ lives and what the characters’ next evolution as humanbeings would be.”

“BATMAN: THE FRIGHTENING”‘ZEntertainment’ reports that screenwriters Rafael Yglesias and TerryHayes (“From Hell”) are writing a speculative Batman script involvingThe Scarecrow. “BLADE III”‘Comics2Films’ spoke to screenwriter David Goyer (“Blade”) about hisscript treatment for the third vampire flick.

Goyer said: “[It] looks like Hannibal King and Frank Drake (aka ‘TheNightstalkers’) from ‘The Tomb Of Dracula’ comic will be making anappearance in the third film.”

Could that mean Dracula himself will somehow feature in the new movie?We’ll find out in 2004…

“DIE ANOTHER DAY”Aahh! Sean Connery apparently filmed a cameo in the latest Bond movie”Die Another Day” (as Bond’s father) which has been cut!

The film’s producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson were advisedthat in the Ian Fleming novels which the successful franchise is basedupon, Bond is an orphan. The producers are still considering whether toleave the footage in or not. Fingers crossed.

In related news, Pierce Brosnan has agreed to star in another Bondmovie, saying “the invitation has been accepted [from producers BarbaraBroccoli and Michael Wilson].”

“EVIL DEAD 4″The female stars of the previous “Evil Dead” movies recently stated theyare involved in talks with director Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man”) and actorBruce Campbell about featuring in a further “Evil Dead” movie. “THE FANTASTIC FOUR”TV screenwriter Doug Petrie (“Buffy The Vampire Slayer”) spoke to’Dreamwatch’ magazine about his ideas for an adaptation of comic-book”The Fantastic Four”. Petrie’s musings would show the origin of theheroes and villain in a new light, breaking with the comic-booktradition.

He elaborated: “The change to the origin story, which came from theearlier drafts and I adopted, is that Doom was like the fifth Beatle. Hewas on the spaceship with them, and in my version he saw this particlewave coming – they didn’t want to say cosmic rays because they felt itsounded fake, but in fact cosmic rays are real.”

“I wanted to do ‘A Perfect Storm’ in space, where a giant wave is comingtowards them, and Victor blasts off in the escape pod, saving his ownskin. He crash lands to Earth and becomes Doom because his face is lostin the re-entry process, which is horrible and violent, while the fourof them get bombarded by these mysterious rays and become the FantasticFour”.

These proposed origin sequences will be part of flashbacks though, asPetrie’s actual beginning is “a giant action sequence where everyone inNew York City is watching The Fantastic Four kick the crap out of agiant monster on Fifth Avenue”.

“FREDDY vs JASON”The first image of Jason Vorhees from Ronny Yu’s “Freddy Vs Jason” moviehas been revealed by the ‘Creature Corner’ website. (see right) “GREASE 3″Original “Grease” star Olivia Newton-John has commented on growingrumours about a second sequel to the film that made her famous.

She said “If John [Travolta] did it, and the script was great, and themusic was great, I would consider doing it. You are following up aclassic and that’s a hard thing to do. But they should get all thepeople who were involved in the original movie to capture that energyand get that flavour”.

“HARRY POTTER 3”Christopher Lee has a statement and an explanation on his officialwebsite about the rumours he’ll replace Richard Harris as ProfessorDumbledore for “Harry Potter & The Prisoner Of Azkaban.”

The statement read: “Mr Lee has not received official confirmation fromWarner Brothers, and until then, we cannot confirm or comment anyfurther. Obviously, it would be wonderful news, and Mr Lee isoverwhelmed, but for the time being, nothing is certain.”

“At no time we have said that Mr Lee was cast in the film. Is he beingconsidered? Yes, he is. Has he been asked? That is a question that MrLee will not answer until there is a firm offer, there is such thing asconfidentiality between actors and producers.”

“Would he accept the role if asked? That would depend on Mr Lee’scurrent schedule and future career plans. Remember that he is alreadycast in five films for next year and he could not physically be in allof them.”

“HELLBOY”‘Darkworld’ have a report on the make-up effects for “Hellboy”, theupcoming movie from director Guillermo Del Toro (“Blade II”)

A person involved said: “[Ron] Perlman is getting a full torso makeup,which is really rare because it’s hard to hide all the seams. Typicallywhen we do a full torso, we’ll give them arms and a chest but we’llcover their shoulders with something to conceal where everything joinsup.”

“If you look at Darkness [actor Tim Curry] in [Ridley Scott’s] ‘Legend’,he had arms and a chest built up but he had a cape to hide the join. Andin ‘Fellowship Of The Ring’ they had a full makeup for the scene wherethe first Urah-Kai is being created, but that was just the one scene andhe was covered with muck and slime to conceal the seams.”

“For ‘Hellboy’ Perlman will have the full torso makeup, and it’s beencomplicated to do but it looks really good.”

“ICE AGE 2”John Leguizamo, who provided his voice for CGI-animation smash “IceAge”, has spoken about a sequel.

He said: “‘Ice Age 2’? It’s coming up. Yup, were in talks right now. Imean it was a huge hit; it was an unexpected hit for ‘Fox’ that itrevived their animation Department. Yeah they had nailed their windowshut, locked it and now they had to get a crowbar and open it up again”.

“JURASSIC PARK IV”Sam Neill has again spoken about the likelihood of a fourth “JurassicPark” movie, saying: “Yeah, Steven Spielberg and his people are quitebusy prepping another one. There is a chance you’ll see me in it. I’m assurprised as anyone, because I didn’t think there was any way they couldget Alan Grant involved again.”

“But they came up with a clever idea. Steven just blew me away with thestory… something frightening is happening concerning those dinosaursthat doesn’t necessarily bode well for us humans. Scientists never seemto learn”.

What sort of tone can we expect? Neill said: “You know that feeling whenyou first saw the original film and you were so in awe, and felt soswept away and mesmerised by the sheer majesty of it all? I believe thispremise has the potential to elicit that same kind of response. Out ofall the concepts that’ve been created for these movies, this is possiblymy favourite”.

“TRAINSPOTTING 2”Ewan MacGregor has commented on the possible sequel to “Trainspoitting”- the film that launched his career.

He said: “At first, I was quite sceptical about it. Quite some time agoI was asked if I wanted to play Renton again and I said no – it’s afunny thing to go back.”

“I’ve never done it before – except for the Star Wars character – and Ithought it was best left. What if you made a sequel to ‘Trainspotting’and it wasn’t good? It would be a terrible shame.”

“But then I read the book and went, ‘Ah, it’s fantastic!’ Cause it wasso nice to find what they’re all up to, you know. Sick Boy and wee Spudand Begbie – fucking hell… so we’ll see. The only thing to say is thatif the script is good enough you’d go for it. I’ve lost that immediatenegative feeling I won’t do it.”

“WONDER WOMAN”Producer Joel Silver spoke recently about the status of a proposed”Wonder Woman” movie. He said: “We’re going to make ‘Wonder Woman’ atsome point”.

Will Sandra Bullock star? “No, no, at one point we talked to her aboutit and she was intrigued with it. It’s come a long way since then.”