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Dan Owen reviews
I s s u e # 2 97 F e b r u a r y 2 0 0 3
THE HOBBIT’The Sydney Morning Herald’ published an article about Lord Of The Ringsdirector Peter Jackson who says he has six or seven ideas for movies“all of them small.”
He again denied rumours that he has flatly refused to direct a prologueto his Lord Of The Rings trilogy (i.e., The Hobbit). Jackson said: “Partof me would love to have somebody else make The Hobbit, so I could watchit as an audience member. On the other hand, it would feel odd. Nobodyhas asked me to do it, but if they did, I would give it seriousconsideration.”
DVDfever Dom adds: Meanwhile, in related news when asked aboutthe planned film, Thorin sat down and started singing about gold, while Gandalftook the curious map and went east through the round green door.
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN’NW Magazine’ talked with Spiderman star James Franco (Harry Osbourne)about returning in the sequel: “Well, in the comics Harry vowsvengeance. He eventually finds his father’s suit and becomes the secondGreen Goblin. He also eventually finds out that Spider-Man is PeterParker and so is then torn between his friendship with Peter and hisanger towards Peter.”
“So, I’m sure it’s a possibility but I don’t think we want to seeanother Green Goblin in the second one. My guess is that Harry will gothrough some angst and Spider-Man will fight Dr Doom or Sandman orsomebody else”.
“Harry Osborne doesn’t become… I don’t know, evil so much as troubled.The Green Goblin has a madness to him and is taken over by this andHarry, I think, goes in the same direction. His father was his wholelife and it was the goal towards which he was striving. And his dad’staken away from him just when he gets acceptance, so he never has that.It spins him off into a sort of madness. So yeah, I guess that’s whereHarry goes. It’s always more enjoyable to do that.”
THE BOURNE IDENTITY 2Matt Damon talked with ‘MTV’ about the possibility of a sequel to TheBourne Identity, saying: “I never signed up for the second one when Isigned up for the first one. But I’d do it if they had a good script. Iwant to make [a sequel] if we all set out thinking we can definitelymake it better than the first. I’d say that’s the only reason to makeit. I wouldn’t do it just to kind of milk the cash cow. If we couldreally pull it off and make it good, I’d do it, definitely.” THE COREIn the wake of the Shuttle Columbia disaster, the theatrical trailer forThe Core has been pulled from cinemas due to the fact it contains asequence where a shuttle explodes. At time of writing the trailer isavailable online, but will certainly be removed very soon.
This isn’t the first time marketing trailers have been influenced byreal events. Back in 2001, the post-September 11th Spider-Man trailerwas hastily cut due to the inclusion of the World Trade Centre towers.
CRUSADEGood news for fans of the Crusade screenplay that was leaked across the’net a few years back, with a view for Arnold Schwarzenegger to star. A’Fox’ insider claims that Arnie and James Cameron (Titanic) have agreedto make the movie at some point in the future. DIE HARD 4In more bizarre casting news from Bruce Willis’ Die Hard sequel, reggaestar Beanie Man has apparently been approached to cameo as a villain.
HITMAN’Screen Daily’ reports that Hitman, the popular Danish computer game, islikely to be adapted into a movie. Software company EIDOS, who also makethe Tomb Raider series, are currently negotiating with unnamed Hollywoodstudios for the property.
Hitman and its sequel Hitman 2 have already sold over 2 million copieswith a $43 million-budget third installment on the way early next year.
Click on the picture for a review of the game.
DVDfever Dom adds: Given his current status, I’d predict thatVin Diesel would appear as the hitman, Codename 47.
THE EXORCIST – THE BEGINNING’Morgan Creek’ representative Greg Mielcarz has talked about the prequelto The Exorcist, currently being filmed. He confirmed that: “Most of theaction is set in 1947 in the Turkana region of Kenya. There’s also asignificant flashback to an even earlier period: 1944 in Holland…”
“Since this is a prequel that takes place in 1947, the characters thatappeared in the other Exorcist films would not have been alive. Also,don’t expect any cameo appearances from Linda Blair or Ellen Burstyn,Lee J Cobb, Jason Miller or any other actors who appeared in any of theprevious Exorcist movies”.
The demon apparently “has lost the name ‘Pazuzu’ in our script. Just theDevil Himself… We do know who will be doing the voice but, no – itwill not sound the same. This demon will have its own unique voice”.
The new movie will contain some CGI elements, but the horror is mostlypsychological. A composer has yet to be chosen and the film is likely toattain an R certificate in the States (18 in the UK).
FLICKER’Variety’ reports that Arnon Milchan’s ’20th Century Fox’-based ‘RegencyEnterprises’ has signed a 3-year, first-look deal with DarrenAronofsky’s ‘Protozoa Pictures’.
The arrangement covers the writing, producing and directing services ofAronofsky (Requiem For A Dream), and partner Eric Watson, for films atall budget levels.
The first project under development will be the Dr Theodore Roszak novelFlicker, with screenwriter Jim Uhls (Fight Club) now in negotiations toadapt. The book is about a Las Angeles film student who becomes obsessedwith the work of a hack filmmaker and becomes convinced that B-moviesare actually part of a plot to destroy life on Earth…
Interestingly, Aronofsky is still attached to write and direct Batman:Year One for ‘Warner Brothers’, according to ‘Variety’ anyway.
THE HULKThe ‘New York Times’ printed an article about why ‘Universal’ decided toreveal so much of the CGI design for the Hulk in the Super Bowl trailer.
Adam Fogelson, president of marketing for ‘Universal’ said that “We hadalways set the Super Bowl as an event opportunity to reward people fortheir patience and give them a sense of the character that Ang [Lee] isdeveloping. And we have asked the hard-core fans to be patient while AngLee is going through the process of creating this film.”
“Until you give people some sense of what the character is and how thecharacter functions, it’s impossible to see the rest of the film. Thatgiant question will always be lingering. And it was time to take thatquestion off the table. There’s so much more to this movie than just howthe character looks.”
Indeed, the Hulk will be an entirely CGI creation, following theincredible success of WETA’s Gollum design for The Two Towers lastChristmas.
“The Hulk really performs in the film. [He] really has attitude andemotion. I can only tell you that [the director] Ang [Lee] and everyoneelse at ‘Industrial Light & Magic’ are spending 24-hours a day refiningand perfecting everything. To simply reduce it only to ‘What is he goingto look like?’ is doing a disservice to the scale and scope and theaspirations of the film.”
We shall see if ILM can out-pixel WETA this summer…
JURASSIC PARK 4Some plot details have emerged about Jurassic Park 4. Apparently themovie will begin 12-years after the original movie, with John Hammond’sdinosaurs apparently now an urban legend. Believing the whole thing tohave been a great hoax, the public no longer believe they ever existed.
In the new film scientists discover a previously unidentifiedlizard-like animal on mainland Costa Rica. To determine what the animalis, a team of experts lead an expedition to one of the off-shoreislands.
Dinosaurs are seen to be thriving on said island and breeding at anuncontrollable rate, so much so that they pose a threat of theinhabitants of the nearby continent. So the scientists must find a wayto restrict the spread of the dinosaurs or face an ecological disaster.
A sub-lot will involve a top-secret aspect Steven Spielberg is”delighted” with it. In Michael Crichton’s novel The Lost World it wasdiscovered that the dinosaurs have been accidentally infected by adisease – code-named DX by InGen. This concept to be carried used inJurassic Park 4.
Spielberg is apparently keen to reunite Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum forthe fourth (and likely final) Jurassic Park movie. There is no word onthe likelihood of Richard Attenborough reprising his role as JohnHammond.
KING CONAN’TheArnoldFans’ website has received word that The Matrix creators Andyand Larry Wachowski are back on board to produce King Conan: Crown ofIron.
Apparently The Wachowskis had a long talk with writer-director JohnMilius and the Wachowskis acknowledged a petition to get the film madeby ‘TheArnoldFans.com’ websute.
John Milius is currently scouting Turkey and Rome for locations to filmmajor battle sequences! It is also said that the Wachowskis are bigadmirers of Peter Jackson’s work in The Lord Of The Rings movies, butenvisage even more epic battle sequences for King Conan.
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN’Wizbang’ talked with actor Shane West (Tom Sawyer) about the changesbetween the graphic novel mini-series and the movie adaptation.
West said: “The script is really very different, but it’s great. Thecharacters are the same, and the graphic novel gives you a good point ofreference. [It’s] a shame we could not shoot the film as written [in thecomics]. But if we did, I don’t think we would make any money at all.But it would be a cool movie.”
“Part of me would like to see the comic book as a movie – a literalversion of it. I’m sure many people would, and yet in this climate andtime, you have to find some middle ground.”
He also revealed how his character of Tom Sawyer will fit into theaction: “Mina Harker [Peta Wilson], Dorian Gray [Stuart Townsend] and Ihave this romantic triangle going on. You don’t know which guy is goingto end up with her or if anyone’s going to in the end. Or even should…I think [Steven Norrington’s] intending to do an untraditional vampire.”
“[Mina’s disease] kind of takes her over when she actually goes into thevampire [state]. It’s furious. Really animal. I mean, it’s PG-13, butit’s really furious. So Steve’s doing many different things to createthat. There are all kinds of visual effects. I also have this amazingcostume, which has all these wires coming out of it, with these longtendrils of black silk. When the Cirque du Soleil performer or I move init, there’s this flurry effect. It looks like a bat.”
LORD OF THE RINGS – THE RETURN OF THE KINGAn employee of WETA, who handle the special-effects for Peter Jackson’sepic trilogy, spoke about the behind-the-scenes wranglings over Gollumand Shelob (a giant spider in the upcoming Return Of The King).
“This time around [my colleague] worked on Gollum. He explained all ofthe difficulty and the basic problems that they had to work around. Tomake a long story short, I asked him if he was to continue working onGollum or if he would get to work on Shelob.”
“He told me that he didn’t know and that they had not even started towork on Shelob at all. The rumour that the upcoming trailer would haveimages of Shelob are most likely incorrect from what I have been told.Although the principal shooting had been done, the special effects won’tbe finished until the release.”
THE MATRIX RELOADED’Studio’ talked with beautiful Euro-actress Monica Bellucci about herrole as Persephone in The Matrix sequels. She said: “I’m among the newcharacters who appear in the second movie and I have a very small rolein the third one. I’ve got no action scene, well only one in fact, butone very special…”
“I’ve known him [Keanu Reeves] on Dracula when I started my career. Ihad only a small role in a sublime erotic scene… almost ten yearslater I have to make something very big with him – which I can’t spoil,but it’s not bad either! I’m sure there’s plenty of fans out there who’dlike to make something of Keanu big too.”
OCEAN’S TWELVEDirector Steven Soderbergh has said that the returning cast for hissequel to Ocean’s Eleven will have to take big pay-cuts.
“When we were coming back from doing press in December 2001, I askedeverybody if the idea of a sequel appealed and they were cool. But theyhad to make a promise: that is, we’re gonna be the first sequel inhistory that costs exactly the same as the first one.”
“And since the scale of the sequel’s gonna be even bigger, they’re allgonna have to take an even bigger pay cut than last time. I thinksomebody needs to do this – stop the idea that the second one has to bemore expensive.”
STUCK ON YOU’The Hollywood Reporter’ has revealed that singing legend Cher will staropposite Greg Kinnear (As Good As It Gets) and Matt Damon (The BourneIdentity) in Stuck On You – the new badtaste comedy by The FarrellyBrothers about conjoined twins.
Damon and Kinnear are to play the conjoined twins, one of whom aspiresto become a famous actor. Upon their arrival in Hollywood, they are caston a TV show starring Cher, whose recently movie was a hit, and is nottoo keen to be working on television. But the show becomes a massivehit, catapulting the twins to superstardom.
SHREK 2Antonio Banderas (Spy Kids 2), Ruper Everett (Inspector Gadget) andJennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous) have joined the CGI sequel asvoice-artists. SUPERMANDirector Brett Ratner talked with ‘Variety’ and debunked many of theSuperman rumours filling the Internet right now.
He said: “This [his being replaced by Michael Bay] is the mostridiculous rumour I’ve ever heard… they would not jeopardize pissingme off by negotiating behind my back. I’d know.”
Michael Bay himself stated that: “This [Superman rumour] is 100% false.I haven’t spoken to anybody at Warner Brothers about Superman.”
Ratner also said that the quoted $200+ million budget talk “is a lie, wewon’t have a budget for three weeks”, and that so far “the whole hiccuphere has been our search for Superman… no star wants to sign [such along-term pact], but as much as I’ve told Jude [Law] and Josh [Hartnett]my vision for the movie, I’ve warned them of the consequences of beingSuperman.”
“They’ll live this character for 10-years because I’m telling one storyover three movies and plan to direct all three if the first is assuccessful as everyone suspects.” Ratner also spoke to ‘E! Online’ andtold them that Ashton Kutcher’s screen test for the role of Superman was“very, very good.”
‘TV Guide’ talked to writer J.J. Abrams about the movie. Abrams jokedthat his new film is “very much like the fourth [Christopher Reevemovie]. It’s sort of a slightly different telling of a familiar story.It’s very much an origin story, and there are some great surprises init. I’m such a huge fan of the character, the comics of it. I think it’ssomething that if you love the character, you’ll love the story. [But] Ithink you will not have to have seen [the previous films] to invest init.”
Abrams’ own view on the difficult casting was simple: “I’m justconvinced that there is someone out there who was born to do it, andwhether his name is familiar or not remains to be seen.”
STAR TREK 11Executive Producer Rick Berman talked about the future of the Star Trekfilm franchise’s to ‘Sci-Fi Wire’ after the disappointing box-office ofStar Trek Nemesis.
Berman said: “There’s no way of telling what happened. I’m convincedthat we made a very good movie, and I’m also convinced that the moviewas promoted properly… I think that the competition of other films mayhave played some part in it, but I can’t be certain of that, either.”
“It’s very, very hard to tell. There’s a theory that there was too muchtime [between Insurrection and Nemesis]. There’s another theory thatthere wasn’t too much time. I, along with the people at Paramount, needa few months of perspective and thinking about it to then decide what’sthe best thing to do next. I don’t think this is like falling off ahorse, and you want to jump right back on it. But we’ll see.”
STAR WARS EPISODE III’MTV’ spoke to Samuel L. Jackson about his roles in Star Wars EpisodeIII and xXx2.
Jackson said: “I did get an e-mail from the stunt coordinator, who saidhe’d like for me to show up a little early because he has some things wewant to work out. So I guess that sounds like I’m gonna go out in ablaze of glory. I’m looking forward to it.”
He’s currently filming S.W.A.T – based on a 70’s cop show – with ColinFarrell (Minority Report). Jackson could also return as Agent Gibbons inthe xXx sequel, currently in development. “I would like to think thatthey are going to flesh out the story of Mr Gibbons in some way. Soyou’ll find out why I had that scar on my face.”
SWAMP THING’Film Jerk’ reports that producer Joel Silver (The Matrix) has hired LenWein to write an updated version of the famous comic-book – previouslyadapted as a Wes Craven vehicle of sub-50’s cheesiness in the 80’s. THUNDERBIRDSAccording to ‘The Hollywood Reporter’, Bill Paxton is in talks to starin the live-action film version of Thunderbirds.
The film is now known to be about a 12-year-old boy who must rescue hisfather (Paxton) and four brothers from imminent death and save the worldfrom the hands of the evil Aristotle Spode… with a little help fromLady Penelope (Sophia Myles).
Paxton’s character is a billionaire former astronaut who is thepatriarch of the family and leads the Thunderbirds during their missionsto save the world.
Ben Kingsley has also signed to star in the movie as villain The Hood.Other casting decisions are as follows: Philip Winchester (The Patriot)as Scott Tracy, Lex Shrapnel (K-19: The Widowmaker) as John Tracy,Dominic Colenso (The Lost Prince) as Virgil Tracy and Ben Torgenson asGordon Tracy.
- a) O.J Simpson was the second choice for the role of The Terminator inJames Cameron’s seminal 80s action hit. The first choice had been LanceHenriksen (Aliens) who helped get the film made by joining Cameron in ameeting with would-be producers dressed in the famous Terminatorleathers. Henriksen eventually lost the role to Arnold Schwarzenneger,but starred in the film anyway as a cop named Vukovic.
- b) In Minority Report, directors Cameron Crowe (Vanilla Sky) and PaulThomas Anderson (Magnolia) appear as commuters on a train. Star TomCruise worked with both those directors in said movies, and MinorityReport’s director (Steven Spielberg) also had a cameo role in Crowe’sVanilla Sky!
- c) Michael Jackson recorded a song for ET: The Extra-Terrestrial called’Someone In The Dark’, but it was never used.
- d) In Braveheart, William Wallace’s wife’s (Marion) had her name changedto Murron to avoid confusion with Maid Marian of Robin Hood legend!
- e) Just one of the legendary hardships making The Abyss with JamesCameron was the over-chlorination of the water – resulting in the castand crew’s hair turning green!
US TOP 10 (CINEMA) Note that these are US release dates.
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.