DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST 49

VAN HELSINGThe first photo of Hugh Jackman as the titular vampire slayer has beenreleased (see right) BAD BOYS IIILooks like Bad Boys 3 may be gearing up already, with producer JerryBruckheimer commenting recently that “when we had about two weeks ofshooting left to go on Bad Boys II, Will [Smith] and Martin [Lawrence]were having such a good time, they phoned [Columbia studio honcho] AmyPascal and said, ‘We want to sign up for another one.’ So, hopefullywe’ll get them all back together again in a year or two.” BATMAN 5’E! Online’ have commented that Ashton Kutchner is the only candidatefor the role of Batman in Christopher Nolan’s new film. Apparentlydirector Christopher Nolan wants Guy Pearce (Memento), but the studiowould prefer Kutchner. THE BOURNE SUPREMACYBritish director Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday) is in talks to directThe Bourne Supremacy, the sequel to the Matt Damon hit The BourneIdentity.

Production is expected to begin in late-2003 with screenwriter TonyGilroy again adapting from Robert Ludlum’s second novel.

Matt Damon will reprise his role as Jason Bourne, a man on a search tofind out his real identity as he evades the CIA and assassins. Thistime, the story focuses on a Chinese vice premier supposedlyassassinated by Bourne…

CATWOMAN’Filmjerk’ reported that Catwoman is preparing for principlephotographer to begin this September.

Screenwriter Ed Solomon (Men In Black) has replaced John Rogers on theproject. A source stated that Solomon’s draft is a”tear-down-and-build-again-from-the-ground-up” effort that willincorporate several key aspects of the film’s previous drafts.

GREASE 3’Moviehole’ reported that John Travolta has turned down the chance toreturn as Danny Zuko for Grease 3. According to a source, Travolta wasadvised against the sequel will be concentrating on more lucrativeprojects like the Get Shorty sequel Be Coiol. HULK 2Producer Avi Arad has confirmed that The Hulk’s screenwriter/producerJames Schamus is already working on Hulk 2.

Schamus says his sequel script further delves into Bruce Banner’sstruggle with his inner demons, resulting in the emergence of an evil,grey-hued Hulk. Shamus says he’s toying with the idea of incorporatingtwo possible villains: The Leader (described by Lee as “a giant-headbrainiac”) and The Abomination (“a big ugly guy the same size as theHulk”).

JURASSIC PARK 4’Hotdog’ magazine reports that Steven Spielberg is trying to snare KeiraKnightley (Bend It Like Beckham, left in picture) to play an older version of JohnHammond’s granddaughter Lex for Jurassic Park 4. ROCKY VISylvester Stallone gave a brief interview to ESPN’s ‘Sportcenter’program this week and commented on Rocky VI, saying: “Actually,[referring to his movie opponent], he’s kind of in the same situationthat Rocky was.”

“Even though he’s the champion, it’s the same situation that Rocky wasin in Rocky 1. You know, it’s kind of like, an uncertain point in hislife and even though he has all the skills, we don’t know if he has thereal heart for it”.

SPY KIDS 3DSylvester Stallone also recently spoke to ‘USA Today’ about hisvillainous role as The Toymaker in Spy Kids 3D: Game Over.

Stallone: “This is a man who’s having all these struggles in his ownbrain. I’m stretching the emotional rubber band. Part of him is TheDictator, this hell-bent, military, crush-them-all guy. I do a littletakeoff of George C. Scott, but perhaps under the influence of a gallonof espresso.”

“One of them is The Scientist. And one of them is The Hippie, thepeace-and-love andwhy-can’t-we-get-along-and-let’s-join-hands-and-we-are-the-world kind ofguy. He’s definitely a throwback to Haight Ashbury.”

SUPERMAN’Birdchasm’ reports that Jonathan Frakes, currently shootingThunderbirds, is now the top contender to direct Superman. The studiohave apparently screen-tested actor Jason Behr for Superman and ColinHanks (son of Tom) as Jimmy Olsen.

TERMINATOR 4A source has commented on the possibility of Terminator 4: “[Director]Jonathan [Mostow] cracked the script and established the right balanceof action, storytelling and comedic balance. The picture needs legs – asecond and third weekend – and Jonathan has given us that chance.”

“A fourth film will be more difficult, but the story opens the door foranother and we’ll do one as soon as is feasible. We’d like Jonathan back- if he hasn’t gotten too expensive.”

In related news, effects wizard Stan Winston also commented on hiscontinued behind-the-scenes role on the Terminator movies: “When we didT1, what we did was far advanced from anything that anybody had seen inmovies then. We took technologies that were there, performancetechnologies that were created by Jim Henson and the Muppets, andcreated The Terminator as a full sized organic puppet.”

“It was the first time that anybody had seen something that life size,using animatronics for the head and neck, to be able to operate it. Webroke ground with Terminator 1.”

“Terminator 2, we broke ground. It was the first time in motion picturehistory that a character was created by seamlessly blending CGItechnology, and robots, and animatronics the way they were developed inT2.”

“T3 is far advanced. We didn’t have the robotic technology that we havetoday because of the Jurassic Park series when we were doing T2. Now wehave advanced our robotic technology, our computer technology,everything. The reason we were able to design the TX as a more advancedrobot is we used more advanced tools to design her.”

“When the fist terminator was built, which was designed by Jim Cameron,you’re talking about pencil and paper, you’re talking about claysculpture, you’re talking about carving, you’re talking about makingmoulds.”

“TX is developed and designed in a computer. We were the same artists.Same drawing skills, same painting skills, same sculpting skills but thetool is a more advanced tool, so she can be designed to be a moreperfect character. Completely symmetrical, we can spin her around tomake sure that she’s designed from every angle perfectly.”

“We can make sure that every joint is going to work in the computerbecause we know that in fact once we’ve finished designing her, we’regoing to be shipping that design off to ILM. They’re going to have tobring her to life using CG, and a lot of it. Therefore, the design hasto function.”

“In the case of Terminator 3, I had a very important job. It was to dosomething with Arnold, the character that we have brought to life, theendo part of him, the robotic part of him in the first two movies,beyond what we have seen before. It was to create and design a newterminator, the TX, which was going to be female, had to be morepowerful than Arnold, had to be more advanced than Arnold, had to beable to kick his butt and had to fit inside the body of KristannaLoken.”

“And you had to believe, looking at that design, that it was that faradvanced. We also had to create the first terminator, the T1’s, whichwere actually, when after reading the script and realizing that theywere not bi-peds, that they were going to roll on tank treads, inreading it, I could say to the director, ‘We can build these robots.We’ll create these robots, these characters.’ Because of these advancesin technology. Whereas in Terminator 1, we pretended to build robots, inTerminator 2 we pretended to build robots, in Terminator 3, we builtrobots. The T1’s are robots.”

“At the end of this film, we designed a look of [Arnie] that is beyondanything that you’ve seen in the previous Terminator movies. Weliterally took half his body off. We exposed the entire endo-skeleton.We designed to see a whole arm, a whole leg, part of its body, knowingthe technique we would use would be a combination of Arnold, prostheticeffects, CGI and puppeted animatronics.”

“And in fact the moment Arnold steps out of that helicopter, thatcharacter is a combination of Arnold, prosthetic effects, CGI andanimatronics. We also built a full puppet of him that is actually seenin some shots.”

Director Jonathan Mostow has also recently spoken about the difficultiesin creating T3: “It goes back to why I was interested in doing the moviein the first place, because of the psychological change [in JohnConnor].”

“Biologically, yes, John Connor is the same person technically, but froma character point of view, he’s a very different character now. So Ifelt I wanted to throw out all assumptions and start from scratch andsay okay, who’s the best actor to play this part.”

“Here I have a character, who at the age of 22 is literally carrying theweight on his shoulders. I needed an actor who had a tremendous amountof soulfulness and is also a hell of an actor.”

“Nick Stahl to me seemed, based on the work I’d seen of his prior andmeeting with him and him reading some scenes for me, to be unique inthat at 22, it’s very hard to find actors that have that kind ofsoulfulness to them. And he does, he’s been a working actor since theage of 13 and he’s lived by himself since the age of 15. And, he’smissed out on high school and college and he carries that with him intohis work.”

“[The decision to excise the character of Sarah Connor from the movie]was interesting because I didn’t originate this, Jim Cameron createdthis thing, so it was about a two month curve for me, as I had to sortof really get my head into it and figure out what is the story I reallywanted to tell.”

“When I initially signed on to the movie, I said, ‘Ok, here’s a coupleof conditions. I have to have Linda Hamilton.’ Absolutely had to haveher. But then as I began to think about the movie and the characters whoare developing, I realized that while John Connor had had this veryinteresting psychological evolution since T2, Linda Hamilton’spsychological evolution had happened between T1 and T2.”

“In T1 she’s sort of this naïve innocent and we meet her in T2, she’sthis hardened, frustrated, angry woman who’s battle hardened. And Ithought, what would have happened to her over the last ten years? And Irealized, not too much. She’d still be pretty much on guard, a hardenedkind of person.”

“So I realized that the story, emotionally, had to focus on John Connor.Sarah Connor would become kind of a third wheel in that and LindaHamilton is too important to the franchise to stick her in as the thirdwheel. So then I realized it’s actually better if she’s not in themovie.”

“Then I had to figure a way to sort of still acknowledge her presenceand deal with that so that we felt whatever impact she should have onJohn Connor. That’s how we wound up with the scene in the cemetery.”

The new character of Kate Brewster had a difficult evolution too. Mostoworiginally cast Sophia Bush in the role, but after a week, had toreplace her with Claire Danes. “It was heartbreaking because initially Iwanted Claire Danes and then sort of like Hollywood deal makingsilliness, it didn’t work out. So then I started casting for the partand I found this actress, Sophia Bush, who I thought was fabulous, andstill do. And I cast her in it.”

“I was more excited about casting her than I was anyone else in themovie. I thought I’d made a real find. And after a week of filming itbecame clear she was too young. She was 19 and the other actors were 22.And there’s just a difference. Three years at that age is a bigdifference. And I tried everything I could to make her look older, butultimately the camera doesn’t lie.”

“So I had to replace her and it was heart breaking because it was a hugebreak for her. And all I can think of is to recall The Big Chill.Remember The Big Chill when Kevin Costner got cut and everyone thought,’Oh, that’s the end of that guy’s career.’ And he did OK. So I have nodoubt in a couple of years from now, hopefully she’ll be sitting at oneof these tables with some movie, dissing me of course. But I think she’sunbelievably talented.”

And is Mostow thinking about a Terminator 4? “It’s something thatcertainly under consideration. But I think it’s presumptuous to come outand talk about T4 before people decide whether they like T3.”

• 1. The Hulk ($62.1m)
• 2. Finding Nemo ($21.1m)
• 3. 2 Fast 2 Furious ($11.0m)
• 4. Bruce Almighty ($9.8m)
• 5. The Italian Job (2003) ($7.1m)
• 6. Rugrats Go Wild! ($6.9m)
• 7. Alex and Emma ($6.1m)
• 8. Hollywood Homicide ($5.9m)
• 9. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd ($4.3m)
• 10. The Matrix Reloaded ($3.9m)

UK TOP 10 (CINEMA)

The latest figures were not available at the time this issue went online.

• 1. 2 Fast 2 Furious (£2.74m)
• 2. The Matrix Reloaded (£0.64m)
• 3. Identity (£0.51m)
• 4. Anger Management (£0.45m)
• 5. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (£0.29m)
• 6. Basic (£0.24m)
• 7. Chalte Chalte (£0.14m)
• 8. Bringing Down The House (£0.13m)
• 9. Kangaroo Jack (£0.08m)
• 10. Igby Goes Down (£0.05m)

Note that these are US release dates.