DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST 134

The story centres on an average guy in his 20’s whose life is turnedupside-down when an old flame gives him a list with three names on it andsuggests she’ll be his if he will snuff out one of them.

British writer Bowker has also penned The Death Prayer, The Butcher OfGlastonbury, Rawhead, The Secret Sexist and I Love My Smith & Wesson.

SIN CITY 2Robert Rodriguez’s acclaimed movie adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphicnovel series has, quite deservedly, been awarded a sequel.

Rodriguez hopes to adapt Miller’s tale “A Dame To Kill For”, as one of thenew story-threads for Sin City 2, to be written by creator Frank Miller.

SPIDER-MAN 3Topher Grace (In Good Company) has joined the cast of Spider-Man 3, it wasannounced by director Sam Raimi and producers Laura Ziskin and Avi Arad.

Grace will join Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, and Thomas HadenChurch (Sideways) in the blockbuster franchise.

Sam Raimi: “I couldn’t be more excited about the direction we are taking thecontinuing adventures of Peter Parker. Topher Grace is an extraordinarilytalented actor and will be perfect for the complexities of the role we aredeveloping.”

INTERVIEW:’ComingSoon.net’ and ‘SuperheroHype.com’ talked to ‘Marvel’ CEO Avi Aradabout various movies coming from ‘Marvel’ soon.

ON X-MEN 3:

“It’s about to go. In my opinion, X3, from a story and script perspective,it’s bigger than one and two. It’s the concept behind the movie that’sbigger than one and two. It’s building on our world, building on the worldof mutants. In movie one you got to know what a mutant is and had to dealwith it vis-à-vis humanity and the brotherhood. The second one was actuallysort of a continuation but we were able to have more fun with it.”

ON NEW CHARACTERS:

“And movie three features Angel, Beast, Kitty Pryde and Juggernaut. Rightthere you have worth the price of admission. And there are more, those arejust the ones we can talk about. Juggernaut you had it already on your site,that is [Vinnie] Jones. That was accurate.”

“Angel is not done yet, we’re looking at a few guys, but it’s a big role,so… we are very close, a few more days. Angel is a great emotional story.It’s a very big role in this movie and so is Kitty Pryde, where we have somehigh choices that are great but it’s just not locked up yet.”

ON BEAST:

“[Beast will be played by] the best man for the job. The name is… KelseyGrammer! If you would have seen him read. It is kinda weird when you thinkabout it for a second, and the key was with the X-Men movies is get the bestman for the job. He blew us out of the park. Yeah, yeah, and he’s also myneighbour… when you look at it you see how again we are continuing withinspired choices.”

“[Beast will be] super intelligent. A pacifist Ph.D as he should be. Icannot tell you what he does in the movie because it’s an amazing… it’s avery big role in this movie. The subject matter of this movie, we don’t takeBeast lightly. It was someone that we didn’t take into one and two becausewe were busy with other characters and Beast needs to be a centrepiece…and so is Angel, they had to be centrepieces. Too much going on within thestory, the origin.”

“You will see Beast like you’ve never seen him before. It’s going to be verytrue to the comic. Of course we’re building a suit and hair, you name it.Without going into detail, he’s a very central character here in the movieand very much within what Hank McCoy is, Dr. McCoy.”

ON DIRECTOR MATTHEW VAUGHN:

“I’m glad that Layer Cake came out to help people understand who this guyis. We’ve known him for a long time, but once we saw Layer Cake… you knowhe produces movies and he does understand the role, the sets and writing.There’s a lot of functions. Some producers are lucky enough to take theplunge, to say ‘that’s it, I’m going to go for it’.

ON DARK PHOENIX AND GAMBIT:

“Well, just saying that Famke [Janssen] is coming back, we’ll leave it topeople’s imagination to figure it out. And no comment on Gambit. We’ve beenin active pre-production, costuming and all these things for quite a while.It’s not starting at ground zero.”

ON A WOLVERINE SPIN-OFF MOVIE:

“[It is] being written, you know David Benioff is writing it. We’ll look atit and at the end of the day, if the script gets everybody excited… ifDavid just knocks it out of the park, we want to make it. The when will beanswered when we read it.”

ON X-MEN 4:

“You have to look at it. You say, ‘Yeah I want to make X-Men 4’, but let’ssee what we can make fresh and exciting that warrants making another one”.

All figures are weekend box-office gross.

• 1. Star Wars Episode III: Return of the Sith ($108m) (total to date: $158m)
• 2. Monster in Law ($14.4m)
• 3. Kicking & Screaming ($10.7m)
• 4. Crash (2004) ($5.55m)
• 5. Unleashed ($4.12m)
• 6. Kingdom of Heaven ($3.54m)
• 7. House of Wax (2005) ($3.29m)
• 8. The Interpreter ($2.91m)
• 9. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005) ($2.05m)
• 10. Mindhunters ($1.01m)

UK TOP 10 (CINEMA)

• 1. Star Wars Episode III: Return of the Sith (£14.3m)
• 2. Monster-in-Law (£1.13m)
• 3. Kingdom of Heaven (£0.64m)
• 4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (£0.51m)
• 5. The Interpreter (£0.19m)
• 6. The Wedding Date (£0.13m)
• 7. The Jacket (£0.12m)
• 8. xXx2: The Next Level (£0.10m)
• 9. The Amityville Horror (2005) (£0.096m)
• 10. A Good Woman (£0.096m)

All the following are U.K. release dates, and are subject to change.

• 27th May 2005: House of Wax, The Pacifier, Slander, Strings
• 3rd June 2005: Adam & Paul, The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, Sin City, Brotherhood
• 10th June 2005: Silver City, Danny the Dog, Kung Fu Hustle, Insidde Deep Throat
• 17th June 2005: Mr and Mrs Smith, Mindhunters
• 24th June 2005: Wonderful Days, Torremolinos 73, Evil, Batman Begins
• 1st July 2005: Stray Dogs, Madagascar, DiG!
• 8th July 2005: War of the Worlds (2005), Sisterhood of Traveling Pants, Overnight
• 15th July 2005: A Lot Like Love, The Debutantes, Clean, The Wedding Crashers, One Love
• 22nd July 2005: Whisky, Fantastic Four (2005), The Devil’s Rejects
• 29th July 2005: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), The Descent
• 5th August 2005: Stealth, Because of Winn-Dixie, Nanny McPhee, The Skeleton Key, Dear Wendy
• 12th August 2005: The Island, Herbie: Fully Loaded, Fever Pitch (2005)
• 19th August 2005: Doom, Bewitched (2005), Dark Water, The Cave, The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D, Domino
• 26th August 2005: The Dukes of Hazzard (2005), Goal!, Bad News Bears
• 2nd September 2005: Cinderella Man, The Last Days, The Business, The Honeymooners
• 9th September 2005: The Man, Everthing is Illuminated, The 40-Year-Old Virgin
• 16th September 2005: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Four Brothers, Must Love Dogs
• 23rd September 2005: Pride and Prejudice (2005)
• 30th September 2005: The Perfect Man, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, The History of Violence
• 7th October 2005: Red-Eye, Night Watch, Oliver Twice (2005)
• 14th October 2005: Wallace & Gromit Movie: Curse of the Wererabbit, The Longest Yard
• 21st October 2005: Aeon Flux, Sky High, Corpse Bride, The Pink Panther (2005)
• 28th October 2005: Noel, Flightplan, Halloween 9 (31st), The Dark, Final Destination 3D, Tickets
• 4th November 2005: Serenity, Legend of Zorro
• 11th November 2005: The Tiger and the Snow, In Her Shoes, The Moguls
• 18th November 2005: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The New World
• 9th December 2005: Underworld: Evolution, The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Shopgirl
• 14th December 2005: King Kong (2005)
• 16th December 2005: The Hawk is Dying, Walk the Line
• 23rd December 2005: Brokeback Mountain

All the following are U.S. release dates, and are subject to change.

• JUNE: Mr & Mrs Smith (10), Batman Begins (17), War Of The Worlds (29)
• JULY: Fantastic Four (1), Bewitched (8), Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (15), The Island (22), The Dukes Of Hazzard (29)
• AUGUST: 3001 (5), Doom (5), Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo (12),
• SEPTEMBER: Birth Of The Pink Panther (23), Legend Of Zorro (23), Serenity (30), Spy Hunter (30)
• OCTOBER: Wallace & Gromit (7), The Fog (14), Land Of The Dead (21)
• NOVEMBER: Cars (4), Harry Potter 4 (18), Brother Grimm (23)
• DECEMBER: Chronicles Of Narnia (9), Underworld 2 (9), King Kong (14), The Producers (24), Zathura (21), Mad Max Fury Road (31), Die Hard 4 (31)

Page Content copyright © Dan Owen, 2005.