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Dan Owen reviews
I s s u e # 1 92 2 N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 2
FINAL DESTINATIONSome screenshots of the sequel to “Final Destination” have been releasedhere DUMB & DUMBER 2Eric Christian Olsen [the blonde cocky guy from “Not Another TeenMovie”) and Derek Richardson will play the young Harry and Lloyd in the”Dumb & Dumber” prequel. Rachel Nichols, Eugene Levy (“American Pie”),Mimi Rogers and Luis Guzman are also starring. HOUSE OF THE DEADCo-executive producer Michael Roesch told ‘Coming Soon’ that the firstofficial trailer for the video-game adaptation is due in the next fewweeks.
The trailer will be released on the official website and will contain afirst look at the computer effects for the movie. The visual effectscrew at ‘Elektrofilm’ have been working on the several hundred digitaleffects for the movie since mid-2002 and will continue working on ittill early-2003.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN’Universal Pictures’ and Brian Grazer’s ‘Imagine Entertainment’ havehired two writing teams to rewrite the franchise property “TheIncredible Shrinking Man”.
Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant will rewrite the movie, with KeenenIvory Wayans attached to direct and Eddie Murphy to star.
FREDDY vs JASON’MTV’ have reported from the set of “Freddy Vs Jason” and spoke to starRobert Englund about the plot. He said that buried in the plot of thefilm is some social commentary – with the Elm Street residents havingescaped Freddy by stuffing their teens with pills to prevent them fromdreaming. Freddy uses Jason to get around all that, and get back to thekilling.
Englund elaborated: “[It’s] a metaphor about how easy it is to medicatesociety these days. And it’s discovered that people need to dream…Freddy’s at loose ends to get people afraid of him anymore, [because] ifyou don’t dream, Freddy can’t hurt you.”
“Freddy’s trying to regenerate himself and he’s using Jason to instilfear in the relatives of the offspring of the original Elm Streetvigilantes. Freddy needs to manipulate Jason, and when he’s in thedreams he can. What happens is that Freddy creates a Frankenstein…Freddy kind of spoils him, gives him a little too much dog food and hekind of turns on his master. And that’s the gist of the plot.”
INDIANA JONES 4Frank Darabont was at the ‘2002 Creative Screenwriting Expo’ in L.Arecently and confirmed the following facts with the “Indiana Jones 4″screenplay he’s writing.
Currently he’s going through the Act I and has weekly/twice weekly storymeetings with Steven Spielberg. They are both still working on Act III,but George Lucas has basically handed full responsibility to Spielberg.Darabont said that he’s trying to be very true to the character, butwithout being repetitive – and not just give us a rehash of the previousmovies.
JURASSIC PARKAn inside mole has revealed that the current script to “Jurassic Park 4″involves the United Nations and the extermination of the dinosaurs.
In relates news, Jeff Goldblum spoke with the ‘Hollywood Reporter’recently and hinted at his involvement in the fourth film saying he has”a very good chance to be returning in JP4″ alongside Sam Neill andpossibly Vince Vaughn.
He said the film is only at the “drawing board stage and Steven and Mr.Moehan are busy writing the script prepping it to make sure it isperfect”. But what he’s read so far “takes a more sci-fi approach withsome science thrown in to make it more enjoyable”.
Jeff Goldblum also added: “Steven has told me that my old nemesis, the T-Rexwill be back, possibly along with the Dilophosaur, that venom spittingone and get this, maybe even a water dino – a Mososaur, or somethinglike that.”
HELLBOY’Variety’ reports that ‘Partnership Films’ has landed productionservices for “Hellboy” – due to start filming in Prague from March toAugust 2003.
Patrick Palmer, who produced “Blade II” in Prague in 2001, is reunitingmany from that film’s team, including Prague-based independent producerMichelle Weller.
Meanwhile, “Hellboy” casting continues. Professor Broom will be playedby John Hurt, Grigori Rasputin will be played by Karel Roden, the smallpart of Dr. Manning has gone to Larry Miller, Doug Jones will be takingthe part of the non-CGI Abe Sapien, and three different actors will beplaying the part of Kronen.
Director Guillermo Del Toro also spoke recently about the creatures inthe movie, saying: “I think that the great thing about the creatures in’Hellboy’ is that they will not be like any creatures in any horror filmthat you have seen in many, many years. They will be going back to moreinventive creature creation not in a funny way not in a whimsical way.”
“This is a monster movie. That is very interesting for me to say becausemost people just pile up all the horror movies into one category. Ithink there are atmospheric horror, which is moody like ‘The Haunting’,like ‘The Uninvited’, like ‘Don’t Look Now’, which is the type of horrormovie that feeds mostly on atmosphere and absence. Which is what is notthere, what is only heard what is only glimpsed. That is one style ofhorror. The other style of horror is the horror of presence of somethingweird, and it’s essentially a chase movie.”
“You can put there John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’, or ‘The Thing’, orRomero’s ‘Day Of The Dead’ or ‘Dawn Of The Dead’. Where the creaturesare ‘on your face’.”
“Thirdly there is a type of movie that is not that frequent, that is theMonster Movie. And I think ‘Hellboy’ is a monster movie. ‘Hellboy’ islike ‘Creature From the Black Lagoon’. The more you see the monster themore you like the movie. A lot of people just go by the rule: ‘What youdon’t see is more scary than what you do.’ Yes, but that is not the onlytype of horror movie that could be affective. ‘King Kong’ is a monstermovie. ‘Creature…’ is a monster movie, ‘Frankenstein’ is ultimately agreat monster movie. But it’s the type of sub genre in which you aresupposed to fall in love with the creature not be just scared by it.”
THE LAST SAMURAIThe Tom Cruise kung-fu action flick due out late-2003 currently shootingscenes on the ‘Warner Brothers’ studio lot. Apparently the scene willfeature 100 women in antique kimonos who’ll wander by making so muchnoise in their Japanese clogs it sounds like a herd of horsemen! THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMENAccording to ‘Entertainment Weekly’ the mood on the set of “The Leagueof Extraordinary Gentlemen” is so bad crew members in Prague aregrumbling they want to go home.
Star Sean Connery and director Stephen Norrington (“Blade”) can’t standeach other, says the report. After Norrington stopped filming for a daybecause he “didn’t like the way an elephant gun looked” Connerythreatened to have him fired. Stephen Norrington apparently screamed: “I’m sickof it! Come on! Punch me in the face!”
Sean Connery later admitted that: “there have been differences of opinion oneverything. I just want to complete the picture.”
In related news, producer Don Murphy said: “Sean [Connery] wrapped hisrole entirely this past Monday. He has given a brilliant and excitingperformance that film fans will love. He has completed the picture andis happily on the way to the Bahamas.”
“His last act was to shoot a special teaser trailer for the film that isawesome. It will be released in December. Shooting in Prague continuesto progress with the rest of the cast. ‘LXG’ is on its way to being ahugely successful franchise starting July 11, 2003.”
Franchise? This word supposedly pertains to films with expected sequels- such as comic-book adaptations, Bond films, etc. Will there be moreadventures for the LXG gang to follow? If so, I wouldn’t count onConnery returning if Norrington’s at the helm…
LEGALLY BLONDE 2’The Hollywood Reporter’ indicates THAT Sally Field is in talks to staras Congresswoman Rudd, a woman who serves as the “mentor” character toElle [Reese Witherspoon] as she enters the political world in theupcoming sequel.
STAR WARS – THE ANIMATED SERIESSources inside ‘Cartoon Network’ say that ‘Lucasfilm’ will create ananimated series based on the “Star Wars” prequels entitled “Clone Wars”.George Lucas is apparently hopeful a 50-60 episode run can be secured,with the show premiering mid-2003 or mid-2004. Genndy Tartakovsky(“Samurai Jack”) will produce the 30-minute episodes. STAR WARS EPISODE IIIPeter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in the original “Star Wars” trilogy,has apparently indicated that’s he’ll be working for George Lucas nextyear. Does Mayhew have a cameo-role in “Episode III”? If so, will he beplaying a younger Chewbacca? LETHAL WEAPON 5Danny Glover has apparently suggested he may be ready to star in afourth sequel to 80’s hit “Lethal Weapon”, despite claims Mel Gibsonwon’t star. The rumoured story finds Glover’s character coming out ofretirement to avenge Gibson’s screen death. LOONEY TUNES – BACK IN ACTIONDirector Joe Dante has talked about the aesthetic concerns of blendingthe classic animated figures with a live-action environment.
He said: “I’m just trying to marry movie icons. These guys are olderthan any of us. We’ve all grown up with them and they have thismultigenerational appeal. Even though they’ve had some hard times andperiods where they were less active than others, the old cartoons werealways in circulation, so there’s always been a fan base for thesecharacter.”
To preserve the Looney Tunes’ look, Dante has been careful to maintainthe two dimensional look of the cartoons and not make them threedimensional CGI.
He said: “You can’t be entirely two dimensional when you’re putting theminto situations where they’re lit and where there are shadows. You’llsee us sometimes sticking a white ball into the shot at the end. Itshows the animators where the light’s coming from and which side of thecharacter’s going to have modelling or shadowing.”
“You can go overboard on it and make them look kind of squishy, which wedon’t want to do, but there has to be an attempt to try to put them intothe environment. So, it’s essentially flat animation. It’s certainlynothing like CGI.”
“But, we do try to give them a certain shape with shadows and stuff andthat’s basically the difference I think between the way this cartoonlooks and the way the actual original cartoons look.”
The sets themselves also had to be designed to accommodate theircartoony look. Dante: “Our art director is a guy named Bill Brzeski whodid the ‘Stuart Little’ movies and the trick here is to try to make amovie that feels like a Looney Tune movie.”
“When I did the ‘Gremlins’ movies, we discovered that you couldn’t justtake these weird characters and stick them out on the corner of Fifthand Main and expect them to look like they belong there. So, the moviehas been stylized around what I would call the Looney Tune look.”
“The colours that we use in some of the backgrounds, the desert locationsthat we chose, were all chosen to specifically replicate certain kind ofcartoon looks. So, it’s a normal movie. It’s shot like a regular moviebut we hope that we stylized the backgrounds to the point where Bugs andDaffy look a little more at home.”
Dante thinks the protagonist of Bugs Bunny will still be valid to modernaudiences, saying: “it’s the same reason why the Marx Brothers are stillpopular. It’s totally anarchic. He’s got a certain code of honour. Hedoesn’t heckle anybody unless they’ve done something bad to him andthen, look out. And he’s always the coolest guy in the room.”
However, Dante is sticking to the classic Looney Tunes characters andnot incorporating their modern spin-offs into “Back in Action.” Dante:“There’s a scene where the water tower falls over and somebody said,’Oh, the Animaniacs live in there.’ But I think we decided that wewanted to keep it pure.”
“There was some talk. ‘Warner Brothers’ now owns almost every cartooncharacter known to man because they’ve got ‘MGM’, they’ve got HannaBarbara. They’ve got everybody and so there was some talk about puttingin Tom and Jerry or putting in Droopy or putting in a couple ofcharacters and we realized that although we have the ability to do that,it was sort of taking away from the special-ness of the Looney Tunesgang.”
“And God knows there’s plenty of them. So, our efforts to shoehorn inall of these characters in various places of the movie, there’s stillsome we don’t even know where we’re going to put them.”
PAYCHECKBen Affleck is in talks with ‘Paramount’ to take the lead in “Paycheck”,the sci-fi thriller to be directed by John Woo. The film is a futuristictale of an amnesiac trying to piece together his past.
“Paycheck” was originally written as a short story by Philip K. Dick andfirst published in 1953. The plot involves an electrician who wakes upto discover his employer has erased his memory of the past two years asa security measure. When he tries to collect his paycheck, he finds hehad previously signed a release replacing the money with a bag of randomobjects.
The script has been adapted by Dean Georgaris.
RETURN TO THE BATCAVEThe ‘Chicago Sun-Times’ talked to actor Jason Marsden (“X-Men”) aboutthe upcoming “Return To The Batcave: The Misadventures Of Adam And Burt”TV-movie. He said: “The film is based on [Ward’s and Adam West’s] booksand is pretty insightful as to what went on behind the scenes and howthe series impacted on their careers and lives. It’s also a hilariousadventure comedy. [The plot is that] the Batmobile gets stolen from amuseum, and the real Adam and Burt have to find it.” VAN HELSING’Screen Daily’ has said that Stephen Sommers’ “Van Helsing” movie withHugh Jackman has entered pre-production in Prague with combinationinterior and exterior shooting to begin in January 2003. Half of the6-month shoot looks set to take place in Los Angeles.
US TOP 10 (CINEMA) 
** OBITUARY ** James Coburn: 1928-2002James Coburn (Our Man Flint, The Magnificent Seven) and winner of anAcademt Award for his portrayal of a dissolute father in Affliction,has died at the age of 74.Coburn died of a heart attack at home while listening to music with hiswife. He won his best supporting actor Oscar for the 1998 film afterovercoming a 10-year struggle with arthritis that left one hand severelycrippled.
Coburn was born in Laurel, Nebraska, on 31 August 1928. To view hisentire filmography, visitthis link
** IN THE PIPELINE **
Email Dan Owen
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.